//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: When The Snow Melts 
// by Bluespectre 
//------------------------------//


EPILOGUE


Rush snorted the grass from his nose and flailed his hooves in the air. This was more like it! It was a beautiful spring morning; the grass was deliciously lush this time of year, with the apple blossoms blooming on the trees in the woods and the river sparkling below him at the foot of the hill like liquid diamond.

Nearby, foals were playing tag, their parents lounging on picnic rugs, enjoying the freshness of the clear morning. He reached back and scratched his mane. Rolling wasn’t really done in ‘proper’ society, but who the hell cared? Rush was too old to be bothered by what other people, or rather, other ponies thought of him. For the first time in years, he was happy, the wind playing through his mane, tickling his ears and making him chuckle.

Rush looked up as Celestia lay down beside him and reached a foreleg across his shoulder. “Do you like it?”

He smiled. “It’s beautiful, Tia. Every sunrise you make surpasses the last.”

“Pfff! They’re all the same, you smoothie!”

Rush chuckled. “Not when I’m with you.”

She leaned down and kissed him tenderly. His chocolate-brown coat and cream mane he had inherited from Willow made him stand out from the crowd, but it was his eyes that caught at her heart. They were his father’s eyes, so piercingly blue. Celestia felt like she could melt every time she looked into them. His cutie mark had been a surprise as well, more to him than to her: three river reeds.

Rush snuggled into her, feeling her warmth against his coat and sighed. “Tia?”

“Hmmm?”

“Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”

“Yes, Rush,” she said teasingly, tousling his mane with her hoof. “Many times!”

Rush grinned like a foal. Closing his eyes, he felt himself beginning to drift off into the land of sleep as a pair of warm lips brushed his ear softly.

“And I love you too, my little one.”



THE END