All the King's Horses

by Vanity

We'll Meet Again

"There. Feel better?"

The colt sniffed, examining his bandaged leg with a miserable look on his face.

"Y-yes. Thank you, Miss Blossom."

"It's no trouble at all. Just be careful when you go running around the quarry." She ruffled the colt's mane and made a shooing motion. "Go on, go and find your friends."

The colt nodded, giving Cherry Blossom one last grateful smile before his disappeared through the doorway to her office. The mare chuckled to herself before she closed up her first aid kid and stretched her wings with a yawn. As she approached a year's service as her village's doctor, she found more opportunities than ever to reflect on how much her life had changed since then.

Orchard Falls was a small, little-known village in the middle of nowhere, and it had quickly caught Fluttershy's eye as the perfect place to vanish into. Without Discord, she had no desire to remain in Ponyville, where everypony recognized her on sight. She wanted peace, and she had finally found it amongst these gentle trees and lazy river streams. Her mane, still the same shade of light pink now streaked with grey highlights had grown longer than ever, and nowadays it seemed permanently tied into a large bun above her head.

She had been forced to let many of her old animals go, a decision that had torn her apart, but she had quickly found many new critter friends amongst the local population. Though each of her lost animal friends had been irreplaceable in their own way, the new crowd of creatures gave her every bit as much joy as Ponyville Animal Sanctuary had once done.

Just as she had hoped, she had arrived in the village to find herself completely anonymous. There had been to occasional scratching of the head, narrowed eye and terrifying pause, but she had maintained her alibi for so long now, she no longer feared being recognized - except, perhaps, by an unusually perceptive outsider. But those were far and few between.

In between the scraped knees, bruises, cuts, hungry animals and sniffles, she contented herself with books, sewing and singing. Her life was slow and quiet, just how she liked it. The ravages of the war could not touch her here. To grow old under such tranquillity was a luxury few enjoyed now. She cherished it.

At the end of the day, as every day, she found herself underneath a great oak tree with a small pile of rocks beneath it, arranged in a pattern unknowable to any but her. The full moon was unusually bright tonight, illuminating her shrine in a perfect bath of lunar light.

Kneeling down in front of her tiny monument, she unfolded a yellowed, aged parchment that had begun to disintegrate in places. One day, she knew it would no longer be legible, but it didn't matter. She had already memorized the words by heart, written them into her own spirit so she would never forget them.

How does a stallion express his feelings?

Well, I'm no stallion, it should be said,

Yet there's a funny spell you cast over me,

That makes me giddy, dizzy and red.

Now they tell me that spell's called love,

The most powerful spell of them all,

A flower in bloom, or a poison so foul,

Makes a heart too big, a mind too small.

But what would they know? I must ask them,

Have they ever fell in love quite like this?

Ever laid with a mare with your beauty and care,

Held her, cradled her, shared a kiss?

There is nothing I would trade that feeling for,

No earthly prize or heavenly reward would do.

Take my life, my health, my power if you please,

I would give every last one of them up for you.

Now I'll take my leave quite kindly,

And hope I've not gone too far,

For it's to you I devote this poem,

To Fluttershy, My Shining Star.

A single silver tear ran down her cheek even as she smiled through the recitation. Her voice fell silent, and all that could be heard was the chirping of the crickets as they sung their song under the light of the full moon.

The End

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