Pony Pony Pony: The Thirty Minute Stories Collection

by -Jules

9: The Funeral

It was raining the day of the funeral, Rainbow Dash had made sure of it. The rain always made ponies sad, so now even the ones who didn’t know why they were supposed to be sad would be sad. She and her five closest friends in the world stood together, looking down at the hardwood coffin being lowered into the pit.

Someone was standing at a podium and giving a speech to the crowd of ponies sitting in the rows of folding chairs. Most of the town had turned out, and even more came from her family. A lot of ponies would miss Applejack. She looked over her shoulder at the crowd, a sea of ponies, all clad in black.

Rainbow turned back to the coffin, fighting back a sob and tried to focus on what the stallion behind the podium was saying. She couldn’t make out a word, it was as if he was too far away, but she could see him, not twenty feet from where she stood. She tried harder but all she could hear was the relentless pounding of the rain, and Fluttershy and Pinkie quietly crying.

Poor Fluttershy, she thought, I can’t even imagine what she’s going through. They’ve only been together for a few years now. It’s just not fair. It should have been me. Tears were streaming from her eyes as she tried to push the questions and memories out of her mind.

“I’ll be back right quick sugarcube. Ya just be careful ‘till we get back. I love ya.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head and blinked hard. I shouldn’t have even been there. I shouldn’t have heard that, and she shouldn’t have needed to rescue me. It’s not fair.

The stallion was still talking at the podium. She wanted to tell him to shut it, to move on. She wanted to tell them that AJ was mare of few words, that this ceremony isn’t what she would have wanted, she wanted to tell them she was sorry.

She wanted to run. She wanted to go and hide somewhere quiet and peaceful, somewhere away from all of this gray and black and crying where she could just pretend it hadn’t happened. She wanted to tell herself everything would be alright. She almost did. But she would never leave her friends here. Especially not here.

“But what if–”

“I’ll be fine, look, I’ve got Rainbow with me. If anything goes wrong out there we’ll look out for each other.”

“I know it’s just that–”

“I know Shy. I’ll be back right quick–”

“Ms. Dash?”

Rainbow was jolted back into the real world and away from the memories. She looked around, her friends were staring at her, the crowd was staring at her, the pony behind the podium was staring at her. She looked at her friends, now standing on the side of the grave instead of in front of it. Pinkie scooped up a hoofful of dirt and mimed throwing it in.

Dash quickly grabbed her hoofful and tossed it onto the coffin, and whispering a choked apology, though whether to the ponies there or Applejack she wasn’t sure anymore. She moved and stood next to her friends. They watched silently as pony after pony followed and tossed their hooffuls of dirt, saying farewells. For the most part they ignored the five mares and one dragon standing solemnly next to the grave, but many offered their condolences to Fluttershy.

When the ceremony was finally over and Big Macintosh had finished filling in the grave they still stood there. They watched the ponies who had come gather up their chairs and walk away, filing back through the rain to their homes. They stood around Applejack’s final resting place for a long time before someone finally broke the silence.

“I’m sorry Fluttershy,” Rainbow said quietly. “I shouldn’t have–”

“No,” came the surprisingly firm reply. “She knew what she was doing. It’s not your fault.”

Tears welled up in Rainbow’s eyes as she tried to say something. She tried to explain how she felt, what had happened. She couldn’t say a word. She hung her head and closed her eyes, letting the tears fall freely.

Eventually she felt a light wing spread across her shoulders, and looked to the side to find her yellow friend.

“Come on everyone,” Fluttershy said, “let’s go somewhere dry.”

The six friends walked back down the road towards the town, leaving the simple tombstone behind. Rainbow cast one last glance at it’s engraving, to try and memorize it. The stone bore her name, her cutie mark, and then below that “A friend in need is a friend indeed.”

Author's Note:

Prompt #9 “Such Sweet Sorrow:” “Write a Flutterjack fic which includes the last words Fluttershy and Applejack ever say to one another.”

Time Taken 29:59 (no joke)

Liked this one, but in starting to sense the people behind the blog either couldn't agree on ships or shipped for the sake of shipping. Oh well.

Comments

[ThunderTempest]

These are pretty good! Laughed at a couple of them.

With regards to the shippiness of the prompts, it was mostly shipping for the sake of shipping. (Wait until they really get going on the Omniship prompts). They all had different OTPs, so the prompts were ways to get shippy stories featuring their favoured pairings. Sometimes it even worked.

[-Jules]

5720142
Glad to see someone's enjoying these. I kinda figured that had to be the situation on all the ships, it was the only real explanation for the sheer variety I've seen so far.
Omniship prompts. That could mean a couple of things, I think writing any of them should be... interesting at least.

[GJT_Productions]

What happened to #8? Are you still going to do that one?

[-Jules]

5811726
Yes, it is still in production. It got bigger than I thought, so I'm taking more care with it than the others. In fact I hadn't realized how far behind I'd fallen on these because of number 8. I'll either wrap it up soon or temporarily shelve it to keep moving on. Since I'm now almost a month behind.