Laughter Died

by Leafdoggy

12: Wrung-Out

Where was I?

Heavy pellets of rain slammed into me relentlessly. There was no sun. There was no moon. There were not stars. The only reason I could see the roiling clouds above was the lightning that perpetually danced on the horizon.

I tried shielding myself from the rain, but my magic sizzled out without effect. My mane stuck to my face. I could feel my hooves sinking into the mud.

I looked around. I was in a field. Wide and flat and dark, a sea of unkempt grass. Waves rolled through the greenery as the wind blew by. There were no trees, no buildings, no animals as far as I could see. Just rain and grass.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, movement. Something huge. I tried to spin towards it, but my hooves were stuck; I’d sunk too far into the earth. I craned my neck until it ached, trying to see what was there on the horizon. Was it…

A tornado? No, it couldn’t be. It was too narrow. Too visible. Too… Bright. The rain made it harder and harder to make it out. Drops of water had started to cloud my vision, and I couldn’t raise my legs to wipe my eyes clear. Everything around me was melting into water.

Water. That’s what it was. A massive water spout, a tower of wind whipping the rain together into a solid force.

Was it coming my way?

I had to leave. To get away. But my legs… The mud was nearly up to my knees now. I struggled against it, pulled with all my strength, but it was no use. I was completely and utterly trapped.

Another glance over my shoulder confirmed the worst. It was nearly here. Up close the spire was more imposing, more frightening than I ever could have imagined. I couldn’t even see all of it. It was too big.

And it was going to bowl straight over me.

A drop of water at the edge of the frenzy smacked me in the forehead. It felt like it just about took my head off. My head was spinning, and my neck ached. How could a single drop hurt that much?

Another drop hit my side. Then another, and another. They hit so hard it felt like they should have gone straight through me.

I felt my stomach hit the mud. Did I really sink that much?

The barrage started to pick up. I stopped being able to feel the individual blows as they melted together into a singular pain. Was this it? Was this the end? I couldn’t move, my magic didn’t work. I didn’t know what else I could do.

A drop hit my cheek and snapped my head to the side hard enough to give me whiplash.

I was powerless. The assault was never going to end.

At least I wasn’t going to drown.

I shut my eyes and resigned myself to my fate.

Then, strangely, the rain stopped. I could still hear it, I couldn’t hear anything else over the roaring winds, but it stopped hitting me. I opened my eyes cautiously, unsure of what to expect, and saw a blue bubble of magic surrounding me, keeping out the rain.

Standing over me, looking down with a warm smile, was Princess Luna.

She lifted me up out of the muck and set me down beside her. I was wobbly on my legs and nearly fell over, but managed to somehow stay upright.

I looked up at her, confused. “Princess?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry that it took so long to step in.”

“But how did you know…”

“Well, it’s only natural for me to sense my subjects’ nightmares.”

I looked at her blankly. “Nightmare?”

She chuckled. “Of course.” With a wave of her hoof, all the rain, all the wind, the entirety of the storm melted away and left us in a calm, picturesque sunset.

Looking around now, it felt obvious. Of course it was a nightmare. I suddenly felt very naive, and could feel my cheeks getting hot.

Luna looked off towards the horizon. “So. What is it that’s given you such a dreadful dream?”

“I don’t know.” I really didn’t want to explain everything to her.

“You don’t have any clue?”

I shook my head.

She turned towards me, gave me what I could only assume was a compassionate look. “Twilight, you know you can tell me anything.”

I looked at her blankly. I didn’t know that. That’s not something you can know.

“I know,” I told her.

“We don’t have nightmares for no reason,” she told me. “Especially not ones so… Grim.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

She frowned. “So there’s nothing on your mind that’s troubling you?”

“Not that I can think of.”

She sighed and turned back to the horizon. “Well… Would you mind if I shared my thoughts?”

“I can’t exactly stop you.”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“Then don’t.”

She was silent for a long time after that. She didn’t so much as glance at me as she stared off towards the sun that hung still on the horizon.

Eventually, I decided to break the silence. “Do you think you could just… Wake me up?”

She looked up into the sky for a moment, as if she were searching the stars for something, then shook her head. “It doesn’t seem like your body is capable of it at the moment.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re not just taking a nap,” Luna explained. “Did something happen? Are you in danger?”

I shrugged.

“Hmm…” She thought for a moment. “Perhaps I should go check on you. Where do you last remember being?”

“Ponyville, I guess.”

“Where in Ponyville?”

“Home.”

She nodded. “Alright. Well, the nightmare shouldn’t come back again. I’m going to go check on things.”

“Okay.”

She frowned again. “And, Twilight… Remember that you can always turn to your friends for help, alright?”

“Sure.”

Hesitantly, she turned, took a few steps, and vanished from my dream.

Left alone, I laid down on the damp grass and rested my chin on my hooves. I wasn’t sure what else to do; It seemed I was stuck until my body recovered.

Thinking back on Luna’s words, I scoffed. “Sure,” I repeated. “If I had any friends.”

Hours later, when the realm of sleep finally loosed its hold over me, I awoke to a world of pain.

Except, it wasn’t really pain. I just felt… Empty. It was the first thing that came to me, before I even opened my eyes. I felt terribly hollow. It was like I’d been carved out and turned into a puppet, and something else was pulling the strings.

It wasn’t pain. But it was agony.

I took a deep breath and pried my eyes open. The room was dark, mostly, but not so dark that I couldn’t see. How long had I been asleep? The dream felt like hours, but outside of it, it could’ve been any length of time.

As I blinked away the sleepiness from my eyes, the room around me slowly came into focus. It was clean. Sleek. Light blue walls and a tile floor. I was under a flimsy blanket and on top of a firm mattress. There was an end table beside me full of flowers and cards.

Then I started to register the equipment. The monitors, the sensors tied to me all over. The curtain hung around my bed. I started to piece it together.

The hospital.

So the cards were…

I reached over and picked one up. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw it. I was expecting a get well soon card. This one just said “Happy Birthday.”

I flipped it open. Pinkie’s messy signature sat at the bottom. Above it, she’d written me a note.

“Feel better so I can be mad at you.”

That got another chuckle out of me.

I spent a few minutes looking through all the cards. All my friends had written notes to me. The flowers were mostly from Rarity and Fluttershy; this timeline’s Fluttershy.

There was nothing from the Fluttershy who’d come back with me.

As I was putting one card back, trying to set it up on end like it had been before, I got hit by a wave of that empty feeling and the leg I’d been using to prop myself up gave out. I slipped, and in trying to catch myself knocked a vase to the floor. It shattered.

There was a commotion in the room past my curtain. Somepony got up, started shuffling around. “She’s awake,” I heard them whisper.

“Hello?” I called out.

The curtain whirled open. The room was emptier than I’d expected, but I suppose I couldn’t expect everypony to sit around waiting for me. Just seeing Starlight and Pinkie made me smile. It was always a pleasure to see my friends.

My… My friends?

Before I had time to think on that, Pinkie jumped onto the bed and wrapped me in a loose, overly-cautious hug. “You’re up!” she announced cheerfully. When she pulled away, I could clearly tell that she’d been doing quite a bit of crying.

I coughed and gently pushed her off of me. “Mm-hm,” I nodded. “What’s… How long have I been asleep?”

“Seventeen days,” Starlight said dryly.

I sputtered. “W-What?”

Now that Pinkie wasn’t all over me, Starlight gave me a stern look. I saw her horn light up, and a second later a book flew through the air and smacked me in the chest.

“What were you thinking?” She kept her voice down, but I got the impression that if we weren’t in a hospital, she wouldn’t have held back.

I looked down. It was the storybook, now drained of its magic. What I’d done had, evidently, worked.

“I had to,” I told her. “It was too dangerous to—”

“Talk to us before you do stuff like that!” She pointed an accusatory hoof at me, and I saw a slight tremble in her stance. “You’re lucky we were able to do as much as we did for you after that.”

I put a hoof over my chest. “So…”

“You got your connection to the elements back,” she told me. “That’s it. That’s all we could do.”

I felt a pang somewhere deep inside. “I…” I shut my eyes tight and swallowed hard. “I knew the risks.”

I took a deep, stuttering breath.

Then I forced myself to move on. “When you found me,” I asked, “was I… Alone?”

“I assume you’re asking about Fluttershy,” Starlight said. “We know about her.”

“Is she alright?”

“Well, like I said, we can’t exactly do anything about the pain. She’s hanging in there, though.”

“Alright…” I looked down, away from her. “Starlight, I’m… I’m sorry.”

Starlight sighed and shook her head. “Look, just… Get some rest, okay?”

Without waiting for my response, she walked off out of view. A few seconds later, I heard her leave the room.

I looked back to Pinkie. Tears were welling up in her eyes again. “I’m sorry for worrying you all,” I said.

She shook her head. “Later. Just feel better first.” She sniffed and prodded my chest. “You only hurt on the inside, right? I’m not gonna hurt you if I hug you?”

I tried to give her a warm smile. “Hugs are fine, Pinkie.”

She collapsed against me and buried her face in my chest. I patted her back as she squeezed me.

“Never again,” she muttered under her breath. “Never.”

I frowned. I’d probably hurt them all so much.

Yet again, I was a failure.

But… At least it was over. That book would never hurt anypony ever again.

Closing my eyes, I held Pinkie close and let her warmth wash over me, hoping it might fill the hole inside me, even a little.

It didn’t.

Author's Note:

The End.

Thanks for reading! I know this might seem like a sudden stop, but well, to me it feels done. Complete. And so it is.

I hope it was an enjoyable read! I've really loved all the kind and wonderful comments I've gotten on this story, they're always an incredible motivation.

If you'd like to read more stories by me, I have an au you could check out. It's largely romance/slice-of-life, but that doesn't mean there's no drama or intrigue. This story isn't a part of it, but most of my more recent stories are.

As for what's next... Honestly, I don't know. If it's more fanfiction, it'll pop up in the next few days, so hit me up with a follow if you wanna keep apprised of that. If I disappear for a bit, then I probably decided to write a book. We'll see.

💜

Comments

[TheAncientPolitzanian]

A peaceful, albeit melancholy, conclusion.

Truth be told, that was a far happier ending than what I was expecting. After the penultimate chapter, I kinda suspected that after she sucked the Elements out of herself, Twilight would ultimately use the magic to make everypony else feel as empty as she did (just like the character in the book), becoming the villain that caused the cataclysm in the first place. But, well, I was wrong, and I am perfectly okay with that.

Either way, this was a fun read from start to end. Kudos!

[Leafdoggy]

10126144
Thanks! ^w^
That's not a bad theory tbh. And hey, who knows what caused the initial scenario in the prologue. (Well, I knows. It's not written down, though, so that doesn't matter.)

[Cyonix]

Aw heck, Leaf, why do all your time shenanigans stories have such bittersweet endings?

Anyway, this was a great read. Keep it up!

[Leafdoggy]

10126663
Hey, Twilight hates it for a reason. Stuff's bad news.

Thanks, tho! ^w^ Glad you enjoyed it.

[Vulpine Dynamic]

[nioniosbbbb]

Holy fuck this was good and this is coming from a guy that hates time travel stories for a reason.

But come on they deserved a happy ending. They really did.

[TwilightSparkle484]

Twilight really had a hard time throughout all of this. Great story, though! Keep up the good work!

[Cyonix]

Have a review!

[Kichi]

Feels a little rushed the ending