The Rift

by Colors

Epilogue

Fluttershy sat alone next to the small sea on the outskirts of Ponyville, staring across the water. Next to work and sleep, this was now what she spent most of her time doing. A sadness rested inside of her, a sadness more persistent, and more deeply rooted than she could have ever imagined. Even now, over a year after it had all happened, it was still just as powerful and overwhelming as ever.

And yet...

There was a certain scene Fluttershy now replayed in her head almost every day. It was a scene that had taken place when she had already known Twilight for the better part of two years. Fluttershy could remember exactly what Twilight had said, and exactly how she had said it, even though it hadn’t meant as much to her then.

“Most ponies think the opposite of happiness is sadness, They are wrong, Fluttershy. Before I’ve come here, I’ve felt sadness almost every day of my life. If you took that away from me, what would I have left? What would I be?

We are here to feel, Fluttershy. That’s the only thing that gives meaning to life. Sadness is a way to feel connected to the world and to other ponies. When you feel sad, you remember something you once had, or something you wish to have. How could daydreaming of those things ever be the opposite of happiness?

Sadness is not laughter. It’s not what you should strive to feel. But if you feel sad, you still feel. It is better than nothing, so much better than nothing.”

“Then...” Fluttershy had responded. “Then what is...?”

And even though they hadn’t been a couple yet, Twilight had slid closer and hugged her.

“Boredom,” she had said, “boredom and pain.”

Fluttershy remembered those words as more tears dropped from her eyes, merging into the sea. She remembered them every day, when she woke up and when she went to sleep, when she fed her animals, and when she talked to her friends.

Pinkie Pie did not understand. It had been some of the worst weeks of her life when Pinkie had decided that Fluttershy had been sad for too long, and that she needed to cheer her up. At the first party she had thrown, Fluttershy had told her that she didn’t want it, that Pinkie couldn’t make her smile because she just wasn’t happy. She had asserted herself, just like everyone had always told her to. Had refused to participate. Had said no.

And Pinkie had been disappointed, had said she understood, and then she had tried again. And again. And again. And again. And Fluttershy had told her to stop, again and again and again. Told her that she would never manage to make her happy, and that it was okay. She had done everything she could, but Pinkie had not believed her, had kept on trying, until the other three of her friends, including Rainbow Dash, had taken her aside and given her a piece of their mind in a way that stuck. Afterwards, Pinkie had left her alone.

But even the others didn’t really believe her when she told them she was okay. At least Rainbow and Applejack didn’t. Rarity, perhaps. But none of them understood why. None of them understood that Fluttershy had chosen to embrace this sadness, to carry it with her, to relish it, breathe in it, live in it.

Sadness was now her life. Sadness and solitude. Sometimes, she thought of Discord. Most of the time, she thought of Twilight. Sometimes, she smiled. Most of the time, she cried. It wasn’t as good as her old life, when Twilight was still there, but it was so, so much better than nothing. Fluttershy did not pity herself. She pitied Pinkie Pie, who had been rejected and who was determined to keep pretending, and she pitied Rainbow Dash, who was conflicted and angry, and who now spent so much of her time far away from Ponyville.

Applejack and Rarity had done something else – they had moved on. Perhaps it was because they had no other choice – after all, each of them had a business to run. Applejack was the most cheerful out of them all, and Fluttershy could sense that it was real, that she had stomached this latest loss just like she had stomached the loss of her parents. And Fluttershy was sure that Twilight would appreciate that. Want that. She wouldn’t want anyone to be miserable for so long.

Once she’d come back, she’d tell them so herself.

Sigma was now living in Ponyville, had moved into a newly freed house along with Gold Star. Applejack, in her stubbornness, might not believe anypony could bring back the dead, but Fluttershy did. Sigma had already saved the universe, and besides, as Gold Star had rightfully pointed out, they already knew that it wasn’t impossible, because the sphere had demonstrated it five times over – with each of the angels. The only question remaining was whether it was possible to replicate the effect with far less power.

Whenever she saw her, Gold Star would tell her exactly how confident Sigma was at the moment, always at a precise percentage. At the beginning, it had been seventy. Only a week later, it had been eighty-five. Gold Star had said that no part of the problem had immediately turned out to be much harder than expected, which had been a potential outcome, therefore the chance of failure was no lower. A month later, it had gone up to ninety. Then, ninety-five.

And then, sixty. Fluttershy remembered that day vividly. Gold Star had said that a part which Sigma had thought to be trivial had turned out to be much harder, perhaps unsolvable. That it was hard to judge from here on out, and that the coming days would probably change a lot. To Fluttershy, it had not felt like sixty. It had felt like defeat. At that point, she had almost given up. Had almost stopped believing, stopped thinking of Twilight as “on a dangerous journey far away,” as Gold Star had suggested, and instead as kept inside of a dark little box, frozen and dead forever.

Two days later, it had been back to eighty, but the estimated duration had changed from half a year to two. Rainbow hadn’t taken those news very well, but all that Fluttershy had felt was relief. Who cared if it took her longer? All she wanted was to see her again. It could take two years, or even three. As long as it happened. Admittedly, there was a part of her which was afraid that she might one day see Gold Star, only for her to tell her that it would now take five years, but the much larger part was just afraid of failure.

From there, it had changed very slowly. Almost every time she saw Gold Star, she told her that it was a tiny bit more likely than before, because so far nothing else had gone wrong, but that they still couldn’t be sure. Eighty had slowly become eighty-five over the course of the year, and that’s where it still stood now. As Gold Star had pointed out, it was better than rolling a die and hoping for any number but one.

Autumn also still lived in Ponyville, her true form still a secret. Much unlike Fluttershy’s, her wish had been granted very quickly. From what Fluttershy had heard, it had taken Sigma only two days to invent a spell that would ensure Autumn wouldn’t fall over dead, a problem which had apparently been “a lot easier than expected,” although it wasn’t self-sustaining, so Autumn still had to visit Sigma once every one-and-a-half months for her to renew it. Fluttershy hadn’t even known that changelings didn’t age but died this way instead (and neither had any of her friends), although Gold Star had pointed out that it was actually public knowledge and could be looked up by anypony who was interested enough to bother.

But the pony Fluttershy spent the most time with – even more than with Rarity – was Gold Petals. Like almost all ponies in the sun’s kingdom, Fluttershy had lived most of her life in a state of blissful ignorance about the state of life outside of Equestria, but four out of the five angels had come from there, each one from a different place, none of them being nearly as prosperous or peaceful as Equestria was. They had all had hard lives compared to Equestrians, but even those of the other three paled in comparison to what Gold Petals had been through. Born into a family of four, she had lost her father, her mother, and her older sister to the war that slowly consumed her homeland. Out of sheer necessity, she had moved in with another family, only to be treated poorly and to work almost twenty hours a day, until her home was raided, everypony else killed and her being kept as a literal slave. She spent two more years that way, until one of her captors ended her life, by accident more than by will, in a drunken rage.

A moment later, she had stood in a wide, brown field that apparently lay somewhere a few miles to the south-west of Ponyville, with an unharmed body and a pair of silver wings. The second angel to come back after Corinne, and the one who deserved it the most. Fluttershy did not know what about her kept Gold Petals interested enough to visit her again and again, but she was thankful for it. Gold Petals was the only pony who truly understood her, who knew that sadness was far from the worst thing a pony could feel. Beside her, Fluttershy could only feel thankful for all the things she still had, including the much greater hope of seeing her friend again. Even though Featherfall’s body had been undamaged – apparently, even a fall of hundreds of yards wouldn’t hurt an angel – the odds of ever seeing her again remained slim.

“They are two separate problems,” Gold Star had explained her once. “Bringing a dead pony back is the first one. Dealing with the fact that she’s an angel with a now closed rift is the second one. Sigma needs to solve just the first to revive Twilight, but both to revive Featherfall, so there’s no use looking into the second before she solved the first. She says if the second is even possible, it’ll probably go much faster than the first, but there’s about a two third chance that it’s not.” In other words, while Fluttershy merely needed the die to fall on anything but the one, Gold Petals had to hit the six to see the pony again who, so she had told Fluttershy, was the closest friend she had ever made.

Sometimes, Fluttershy didn’t just dream of getting Twilight back, but also of the life she would lead. Once it happened, that much she was convinced of, everything would go back to normal. Rainbow Dash would come back to being a regular sight in Ponyville, Pinkie Pie would stop having to pretend, and she would leave her life of sadness behind and be happy with Twilight for... well...

Fluttershy knew that Sigma was now forty-nine years old, but her body merely twenty-four. She also knew that Gold Star was planing to wait until she was twenty-four as well, and then keep it there indefinitely, so that she and Sigma could remain together forever (Fluttershy wasn’t sure if even the old Pinkie Pie had been as genuinely happy as Gold Star appeared to be, ever since she and Sigma were living together). Halting the ageing process, so Gold Star, was very hard but something Sigma had already solved, and she extended an offer to each of the element bearers to freeze their age or even move it backwards, if they wanted.

Applejack had respectfully declined. Pinkie Pie must have also declined, though Fluttershy honestly didn’t know. Rainbow Dash had said sure, but that she wouldn’t let Sigma touch her until she finally fulfilled her promise and brought Twilight back, Celestia damn it. Similarly, Fluttershy had asked to put it off until they knew what would happen to Twilight. Only Rarity, surprising everyone, had accepted. It had only been a year so far, too early to notice a difference, but still...

Whatever would happen, Fluttershy just couldn’t bring herself to worry about things that lay so far in the future. Not yet. Not while all she wanted was just barely out of reach.

A sad smile on her face, Fluttershy kept watching the silent water, waiting for Twilight to return.