Irrelevant

by Undome Tinwe

And who the hell are you, for the hell you've put me through

There was a knock at Fiddlesticks' door the next morning, as expected.

"Come in," Fiddle said, trying to keep her voice light and causal despite the dread forming a pit in her stomach.

Lightning trotted in, her movements slow and precise, like she was trying not to startle Fiddle. "Hi," she said awkwardly. "I, uhh... we should probably talk, huh?"

"Yeah."

"I...I'm sorry," Lightning said, head still hung low. "I really wish you didn't have to see me like that."

"It's alright, darlin'." Fiddle tried to give her a smile. "I wanna see everything that makes you who you are."

"But I don't want that to be me," Lightning argued. "I don't like being mad all the time. It sucks, and it makes me hurt the ponies around me. That's how I lost Short Fuse and Rolling Thunder." She sighed. "I get it if you don't want to talk to me for a bit too. Or forever, I guess."

"I told ya that I'd stand by you, and that ain't gonna change," Fiddle assured her.

"Because you've got a crush on me." They both winced at the bluntness of Lightning's tone. "Sorry, I suck at being diplomatic and stuff."

"It's fine," Fiddle said. "It's fine. That's one of the things I lo— like about you."

"I don't get it." Lightning gestured towards her with a hoof. "You're like, some amazing immortal musician who's been around for thousands of years. You're patient and smart and funny and really, really pretty, and you could have so many better partners if you wanted. Why me? I'm not anypony special."

"Oh, darlin'." Fiddle had thought her heart broken before, but this was... She couldn't hold it back anymore. "I'm so, so sorry."

It had never been about Fate. It had always been about her own selfishness.

"Wait, why are you sorry?" Lightning asked, confused.

"I... You might wanna sit down, sugar." Fiddle could already feel the tears forming in her eyes, knew it would only get worse from here. "There's something I gotta tell ya."

"Alright?" Still looking confused, Lightning did as Fiddle asked, taking a seat opposite from her. "What's wrong, Fiddle?"

"Lotta things." Fiddle took a deep breath, steeling herself, before speaking further. "I told ya I was immortal, right?" She waited for Lightning to nod before continuing. "Well, what I didn't tell ya is that you are too, sorta."

Lightning blinked slowly. "Uhh, pretty sure I'd know if I was a thousand years old."

"Not you, exactly, but your soul," Fiddle explained. "You're the reincarnation of my first wife, Hurricane. After you died the first time, Clover helped me find a way to track you down every time you were born again."

"Oh, that's..." Lightning paused. "Gonna need a minute to process that."

Fiddle nodded. For several agonizingly long seconds, Lightning didn't say anything. Several times, she opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, simply staring at Fiddle as if expecting her to suddenly declare the whole thing a joke.

"Okay, so I'm the reincarnation of... wait a sec, you said Hurricane and Clover." Lightning's eyes narrowed. "You mean I was the Commander Hurricane in a past life?"

"Yup."

"That's... huh." Lightning chuckled bitterly. "Wow, how the mighty have fallen. It must suck to see the mare you fell in love with like this. I'm probably disappointing a whole line of heroes right now."

"That's just the thing," Fiddle said. "By the time Hurricane took me in, she'd already gotten exiled from Equestria."

"Wait, she got exiled?"

"It got buried in the histories, but yeah, the ponies didn't want her as their leader after a while." Another pause, as Fiddle cast her mind back to remember all their past lives. "After that, you got reborn as Storm Front, and you led the pegasi division of the EUP until you got in over your head and got a whole battalion killed. Then you were Wind Chill, who lost a wing trying to prove she could make it to Yakyakistan in the middle of a blizzard."

Lightning winced at that. "I'm starting to sense a pattern here."

Fiddle nodded. "Light Wing got dishonorably discharged from the Royal Guard, Gale Force was embezzling money from the Fillydelphia Weather Factory and got transferred to a backwater town in the middle o' nowhere, and Feather Zap was arrested for assault after she lost herself to her cups."

"Wow, okay. So I'm a loser in every life, good to know." Lightning seemed to be taking all these revelations in stride, but Fiddle assumed that it just hadn't sunk in for her yet. "I guess that gets me back to my first question: why me? Why date somepony who just keeps ruining her life?"

"Because yer an amazing mare, Lightning," Fiddle said. "You're passionate, and strong, and I love talkin' to ya in every life. No matter what, we end up clicking. But..."

This was it, Fiddle's last chance to back out and leave things like this. She was sure that Lightning would be much more open to being courted by Fiddle after learning all of this, and the cycle could continue to play out as Fate intended.

Except, it wasn't Fate's hoof behind Lightning's misery, and it was time for Fiddle to stop hiding behind it.

"'Cept for the first time, we only meet after you've gone done and screwed the pooch," Fiddle said, fully committed now. "And the first time, you wanted nothin' to do with me 'til after I got ya exiled. Clover told me that you'd do it over and over again, tryin' to reach for the stars and then fallin'. She also told me that it didn't have to be that way, not if I got there before you did whatever fool thing messed up yer life and knocked some sense into ya."

"So you're saying you could've saved me from all of this, but you didn't?" And there it was, the first sparks of anger in Lightning's eyes, which threatened to burn down everything Fiddle had built.

"I thought, if you had somethin' else going for ya, you wouldn't want me," Fiddle said quietly. "That's what happened the first time, and since then, you've always been so focused on being great, there wasn't any way you'd settle for me." She sighed. "I knew I wasn't good enough for ya, so I had to make sure you didn't have a better choice." With that, she waited for Lightning's rejection, the small peace in her heart eclipsed by overwhelming dread.

Once again, Lightning was silent. And then, she started laughing hysterically, a hacking, ugly sound that was filled with bitterness and regret.

"I can't believe this." She said when she could finally breathe again. "I don't even know what to say. Apparently, I'm such a shitty person that I'm doomed to fuck things up for all eternity, and I fucked up my soulmate so badly that she's too scared to save me." She waved her forelegs helplessly. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this information?"

"I don't know," Fiddle said honestly. "I'm sorry."

"Well, what did all the other versions of me say when you told them?" Lightning asked.

"I never did." The words came out in a near-whisper. "Always was too much of a darn coward to admit it."

"So why now?" Lightning pressed on. "What's different this time?"

"You are," Fiddle said. "I've never seen ya like this before. You're always so angry at the world, at the ponies holding you back. That's how I got ya to be with me, by tellin' you that I was the only pony who would stand with you. But this time, you were just sad. I didn't... I don't know what it means, but I think you've changed."

"Great, now I have depression instead of anger issues." Lightning snorted. "Guess that's an upgrade."

"You also..." Fiddle swallowed, finding it hard to say the words out loud. "You've never been this nice to me before."

Lightning stared at her. "You've gotta be kidding me." She shook her head. "If I was even more of an asshole before, why are you even here?"

"You weren't all bad." Fiddle felt a surge of anger herself at how Lighting was describing her past selves. "I loved listening to you talk about flying or whether or whatever else you were really into that life, and you always let me watch you perform, and you always came home to me in the end."

"Wow, I did the bare minimum and also let you fawn over me. I'm a real catch." Lightning rolled her eyes. "You need some standards, girl."

"It's more than that. It's—" Fiddle was finding it harder and harder to explain just what drew her to Lightning's past selves. It had never been something she'd questioned before, had followed her heart from the start, but with the knowledge and supposed wisdom of centuries finally turned inwards, she realized that she's fallen for an ideal of Hurricane in the beginning, and that obsession had carried her through all later relationships. "I'm an idiot."

"I wouldn't say that, exactly," Lightning said. "But you really need to learn to love yourself."

It was incredible. Lightning's attention seemed to be focused entirely on Fiddle. "Aren't ya mad at me for letting you fall over and over again?"

Lightning grimaced. "I mean, I'm not happy about it. Also, the whole picking me up when I have nothing left is like, super creepy. But,I still made all those decisions that got me where I was. It'd have been nice if I had someone there to call me an idiot, but that's not your job. I'm mare enough to own my highs and my lows, and I'm more than just your charity case."

"You're right." Fiddle sighed. "I've been a darn fool, and I still love ya more than anything."

"Yeah, that's a problem." Lightning stood up and trotted over to her, patting her lightly on the head. "I think you might wanna take this century or whatever to learn to love yourself," she said. "And I guess I'll spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make it so that I'm not as much of an asshole next time. Maybe I'll actually go say sorry to the Elements for trying to kill them."

As she made her way towards the door, Fiddle called out in desperation. "Wait, you're just gonna leave me for the rest of yer life?"

Lightning smiled, and there was a calm serenity in her eyes that had never been there before. "Nah, I still wanna be friends. But I've got a lot to think about, and I think you do too. I'll come back tomorrow and we'll talk more, okay?"

Fiddle nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.

"Alright, see ya later then." With a final wave, Lightning made her way out of Fiddle's house, leaving Fiddle to reflect on all the lives she had lived.

She wasn't going to marry Lighting this time. Fiddle finally understood that, and yet, as much as that knowledge hurt, she knew it was for the best. She needed this lifetime to work on herself, and maybe, without the fear of romantic rejection, she and Lightning could help each other become the ponies they were meant to be.

Fiddle smiled. Fate had no idea what was about to hit her.

---

"Ah, Cookie, it is good to see you again. You look good."

"Same to you," Smart Cookie replied. "Figured out how much longer you and me and Pansy've got left after the Harmony magic knocked us on our rumps?"

Clover the Clever shrugged. "If my theories are correct, we will live so long as there is harmony in Equestria. Hopefully, that means we will be as immortal as the alicorns. So, what brings you here today?"

"It's Hurricane," Cookie said somberly. "She... Fate finally got her, and I wanted to know if you could, ah, do anythin' about it."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Clover said. "For all our differences, I still respected her. Unfortunately, I cannot bring back the dead, but..." She trailed off, her gaze becoming distant. "Somepony like Hurricane won't pass easily into the next world. From winter's grasp, she will be reborn as a child of summer, and I may be able to help you find her when her soul returns to this world."

"You can do that?" Cookie asked, her voice filled with hope.

Clover nodded. "With how important she is to history, I have no doubts that Fate will demand she play her part over and over again, and I can use that to create an artifact to track her. With it, you can save her from falling the next time."

"I see." Cookie paused for a moment. "And our love?"

"She won't have her memories, but if your love was strong enough, that should repeat as well." Clover smiled. "You simply must have faith in the strength of your bond, old friend. Now, shall I begin?"

Cookie nodded, knowing what had to be done to ensure their love. "Thank ya kindly, Clover."

Comments

[Ri2]

Huh. So where are Clover and Pansy now?