Do you remember me ?
The needle handled by magic slowly sews back the mare's flank, while she's sitting. The gesture is precise, calculated, because of how much it had been repeated over the years. Too much to the mare's liking. This material is definitely not as efficient as it once was, with the years gone by... It should be said that she didn't particularly take care of it. At least, she thought she would always be able to repair it. But with repairs over repairs, the system ends up wearing out, ineluctably.
The skin is resewed, leaving in its place the white flank and the cutie mark which adorns it: a pin crossed with a wrench.
Fifteen years since she had it, when she perfectly repaired herself on her own, thanks to her magic, while her legs broke after a bad fall. It had been a day of celebration and to this day, that memory always got a little nostalgic smile out of her.
"Rear end, activation," then enunciates the mare with a neutral tone, showing a certain tiredness.
She stands with all her height. In twenty years, she grew quite a lot. A beautiful twenty nine years old mare, with a long both pink and purple mane. She kept her style with curled hair, as well as her old habits, like brushing them and taking care of her coat, for example.
Slightly taller than an average mare, her eyes widened to better make their magnificent green stand out. Her voice managed to stay soft, only changing a little bit just to add more clarity to it when she sings.
She likes to sing. She always knew it, but she really realised it shortly after losing everything. Singing had been the only thing left for her. She had incidentally thought it would be her cutie mark, something linked with it. But things didn't turn out like this.
The mare walks in the house, this old shabby house, which isn't getting any better with the years. Even if she helped repair it a little, and sometimes clumsily destroyed it, like that time where she plugged an air compressor on a water recycling unit, causing a bunch of damages.
She passes a hoof on the bed in which she spent her nights for twenty years. Seven thousand three hundred and five nights, precisely. Tch. This processor is only good for useless calculations, it seems!
She glances outside by the room window. The only window. One can see a little stone laying in front of a slightly domed part of the ground. Hm, maybe it wasn't a good idea to bury him right in front of the window. Every time she looks outside, she thinks about him. Her protector. The one who took care of her for nineteen long years, who taught her how to repair herself, manage her own body, so many things without which she would be wreck by now.
"Powering system malfunction," then enunciates an old robotic voice.
The mare rolls her eyes and pushes a groan as a sign of gloominess.
"I know! You don't have to say it all the time!"
A month since she's been having this malfunction, and the voice reminds her of it every day. She knows how to deactivate the system, but it can show itself to be pretty useful in detecting a problem evading the mare's own senses. So she leaves it on, even if it means hearing this constant daily reminder.
Concerning the problem itself, she can't do anything. It is linked to her very own power supply. If it was linked to her batteries, she could simply plug one in bypass for the duration of the operation. But here, it's simply the system distributing the energy in her body which has a problem. It is weaker, making the mare's movements a little slower, calmer. She can't really do much physical effort anymore. Old before her time, in some way.
She sits down on the bed. The same bed where she woke up twenty years ago.
She needs to do something. Her system won't hold for very long if things keep going this way. But what? The only one that could have helped her has been gone for nearly a year. She's alone now, and she's tired of it. If living nineteen years only seeing the same pony can be exhausting, spending a single year without seeing anypony is unbearable.
Seeing people... Maybe that's what she should do? After all... She doesn't have any news from the outside. Maybe go on a trip? And even... revisit some old acquaintances?
A flame lights up in the mare's mind. A desire. She wants to go home. She, who had yet come to terms with the idea of never seeing anyone again a long time ago, here she is suddenly wishing to see everypony again. Her friends, what did they become? Did Scootaloo and Applebloom get their cutie marks? What did Rarity become? Her heart is racing at this idea alone. Old memories come back to her. Ponyville, the town square, Sugarcube Corner, Sweet Apple Acres, Carrousel Boutique...
It's settled, she's going to Ponyville! Who cares about the consequences!
She prepares herself. As usual, for each of her rare trips outside, her old piece of fabric to cover her body. No need to pack something, Ponyville isn't that far away. And if she ever has a breakdown, she has everything she needs for repairs on her.
She gets out of the old house, in the middle of nowhere, behind a huge rock preventing it from being seen from afar. She passes by Puppet Care's grave, still giving it a last glance, then crosses the rudimentary fence that marks out the garden, and gets going, in a way that wants to be energetic, but ultimately limited by her faulty battery. The weather is nice, clear, without too many clouds, so she removes her piece of clothing to enjoy the sun. Her batteries run on solar power, might as well recharge them. No one uses this route anyway, she'll put back her hood once near Ponyville, which is still a bit of a walk away.
Taking in a deep breath of fresh outside air, the mare wonders who she's going to see. A surge of nostalgia gets to her and she starts to sing some old nursery rhymes she used to be taught in Ponyville. Ah, that town atmosphere.
She's disobeying what Puppet told her, but who's going to stop her? And why would she deprive herself of that, with her current state?
On her way, she inadvertently hits a rock that makes her trip, sprawling full length on the ground.
"Aouch!" she says when hitting the floor.
"Fragility in the left foreleg," enounces the robotic voice, getting a new exasperated groan out of the mare.
The latter stands up with difficulty and, slightly dusting herself from the earth on her fabric, is about to go back to her walk, but is suddenly called out:
"Hey, need some help?"
The mare's horn activates instinctively to put her hood back in place, before turning to the voice who just talked.
A young pegasus, twenty years old at most, beige with a dark mane, pulling on a heavily charged cart, is looking at her, his head tilted on the side, visibly worried.
"You're okay?" he asks.
"Yes yes," reassures the unicorn. "Just a bit of pain in the leg, but it's nothing."
As she speaks, she shows her leg scraped by the fall.
"Where are you going?" continues the pegasus.
"Ponyville."
"Well, get on then, that's where I'm going too, I'll bring you there," invites the pegasus, nodding towards his cart, smiling.
The mare smiles in return and accept. Climbing in the back, she sits down, back facing the front, letting her legs dangling over the ground.
The brave pegasus strains on his harness and gets the carriage moving again, walking with a tranquil step.
"What are you going to Ponyville for?" he asks to start the conversation.
"To see old acquaintances. You?"
The hooded unicorn looks at the cargo to learn about the delivery of her driver. Huge sacs of flour, crates containing, judging by the smell, chocolate and food colouring.
"You're doing a delivery to Sugarcube Corner, aren't you?" immediately follows the mare without leaving time for the pegasus to answer.
The latter smiles.
"Dead on. I'm helping my parents with their business."
"Your parents? The Cakes?"
"You know Ponyville and it shows," laughs the pegasus. "Yes, I'm their son. Pound Cake."
The mare smiles a little. This name isn't unknown to her, even if, when she was still at Ponyville, Pound Cake was only a baby.
"And your sister?"
"She's busy delivering orders," answers Pound, without even realising he never said he had a sister.
The rest of the journey unfolds in quietness on the road, the two ponies chatting a bit about Ponyville. However, the mare doesn't ask any questions about her own family or closest friends, as she wants to keep a bit of a surprise element once there.
"And here we are," announces son Cake, stopping his transport in front of Sugarcube Corner.
The store releases a sweet smell of bakery and sugar floating in the air, which fills the young mare's muzzle. It didn't change at all, despite the years.
"Thanks," says the unicorn getting off the cart. "It was very kind of you."
"It's only natural," smiles the pegasus. "By the way, I didn't ask: What's your name?"
The mare smiles once more under her hood.
"Sweetie Belle," she answers, before nodding a goodbye to the pony and going away, leaving the latter plunged into his thoughts. This name reminds him of something, it was mentioned when he was a child, but did anyone ever tell it to him directly?
"First, Carousel Boutique," thinks Sweetie Belle, walking, with her still slow steps, towards the house of her sister. Her old house. Where she spent a part of her childhood.
Ponyville. She glances all around her. The town didn't change that much, but now that she hasn't seen it for twenty years, she realises how much this place is an example of peacefulness, of calm and serenity. Ponies are smiling, warming. She feels alive once again. Here, the florist takes care of his bouquets, there, pegasi are clearing the sky. New young faces are trotting down the streets, some old classmates she seems to recognise. She adjusts her hood. They must not see her.
Finally. She sees it. Carrousel Boutique. Her sister's store seems a bit different. The colour is the same, the shape as well, but it looks less well maintained. Abandoned, even. A single glance allows Sweetie Belle to detect it, knowing how much her sister is a model of conduct and cleanliness.
Tilting her head a bit, intrigued, the unicorn hidden under her piece of fabric goes to the door and knocks on it. Nothing. She goes around the house and looks by the windows. Everything is off, there's dust on the furniture and a spider even comes to weave her web behind the pane Sweetie Belle is looking through, as if to confirm the total lack of care this place underwent.
Something is wrong. She turns back and calls out to a pony passing by. A red colt. This good old Big Macintosh.
"Excuse me," politely asks the mare. "Where did the unicorn that worked here as a dressmaker go? Did she leave?"
"Eyup. She's been livin' in Manehattan for a few years now."
Sweetie Belle looks disappointed, but that's covered by her hood. She thanks the farmer, who goes back to his business.
So Rarity doesn't live in Ponyville anymore. That was the risk, after all. It's a real shame, she would have very much liked to see her again.
"Oh well..." she internally sighs, turning around to leave.
In the end, there are still other old acquaintances to see, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo for example.
"Oh my Celestia, this place is in such a lamentable state," suddenly says a voice.
Sweetie stops in her tracks as she was already a few metres away from the boutique. This voice...
"No one has been maintaining it since you left," answers another voice, more smiling, that the unicorn knows as well.
Sweetie Belle turns her head towards the two voices. Two mares are turning their back to her, facing the store. One white and one purple.
"Mh..." thinks the white one, rubbing her chin. "Maybe I'm gonna use my passage in Ponyville as an occasion to do a bit of spring cleaning."
"I don't know if that's a good idea, Rarity," answers Twilight. "You don't have much time for your visit if I'm not mistaken. You don't come often, it would be better to spend time with everypony, don't you think?"
"Yes, you must be right," admits Rarity, even if she would like to give back this place a bit of its old glory, just to see it one more time in all its splendour. "And anyway, who would use it?"
Rarity watches Twilight with a nostalgic smile, the latter returning one to her before adding:
"Let's go to Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie prepared something for you."
"Even though it was a surprise visit," laughs Rarity. "She never changes."
The two mares then turn around to go to the place they previously mentioned, only to find themselves faced with a hooded figure, staring at them, a few steps away. Sweetie Belle is watching them under the shadow masking her face, while the two others raise an eyebrow.
They got old, indubitably. Twilight's mane is longer, her strands are more pronounced, more distinguished. Rarity changed haircut, everything is lifted by a tie giving more volume to the whole thing. Some wrinkles can be seen, even if Rarity seems like she's doing her best to hide them. Sweetie Belle can't help but look her sister in the eyes, and the latter feels her gaze.
Rarity briefly glances at Twilight, whispering:
"Do I have something on my muzzle?"
Twilight doesn't pay attention to it and tries to engage the conversation:
"Hello! I've never seen you in Ponyville before, did you just arrive?"
Instinctively, Sweetie Belle takes a step back. She didn't forget the risk she's taking by coming here again. Maybe it's not a good idea to see her after all. Especially with Twilight.
In the end, the fear and the sudden nature of this instant takes over the mare's fragile determination. Her horn glows and in the next moment, she disappears in a magical blue fash.
Rarity and Twilight look at each other, astonished by this weird stranger.
"Did we scare her, you think?" asks the purple unicorn.
"I don't know..." distractedly answers Rarity, plunged in her own thoughts. This silhouette reminds her of someone... But who?
Sweetie Belle is panting and holding her torso, leaning against a tree. That teleportation spell pulled on her already fragile powering circuit, and her other vital functions took a hit.
She didn't really pay attention to where she was going. The mare lifts her eyes once she has her mind back together, looking at her surroundings. A little wood. A small smile immediately draws itself on her face, she knows what's around here.
This place didn't change much either. Maybe it still exists? The mare hurries, despite her limited functions. She wants to know. To see if that thing resisted the passage of time.
Passing under the trees, whose branches have quite grown since then – or maybe it's just the fact that she's taller – Sweetie Belle finally arrives in sight of that old wood construction.
She slows down her pace, as she wants to enjoy the view of the shed slowly growing in her field of view. The edifice suffered, it's dilapidated. Sweet mercy, did it age. Some planks are lamentably hanging, steps are missing on the stairs, the window is broken, moss grew on the railing, planks darkened. Yet the mare can't help but smile. So much nostalgia is surging in her. Those moments with her friends.
"Emotional memories," says the robot.
Sweetie Belle doesn't pay any attention to it and gently covers her mouth with a hoof, sniffing her emotions and letting a tear appear at the edge of her eye. She's stirred to be able to come here one last time.
"Well Scootaloo, feeling nostalgic?" starts a joyful voice with a typical farmer accent right behind Sweetie Belle, making her jump.
A mare with a yellow coat and a long mane red like an apple is standing behind her. Sweetie Belle's hood caused her confusion, and the mare realises her mistake when seeing the white legs protruding under the cape.
"Oh, 'Am sorry, I thought you were my friend Scootaloo. It's her thing to always find weird costumes."
Sweetie Belle smiles. Even if she's back turned away from the mare, even if the voice matured, even if her accent only got more pronounced, she recognises her friend.
"It's okay, Apple Bloom," calmly says Sweetie Belle.
The farmer frowns a bit.
"Your voice sounds familiar. Do we know each other?"
The unicorn doesn't answer. Instead, she warms her voice a bit and hums:
"We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders, on a quest to find out who we are..."
Apple Bloom frowns even more. That voice, that way of singing, it can't be...
The unicorn triggers her magic and removes her hood, revealing the back of her head to the farmer behind, leaving her speechless.
Sweetie Belle turns her head toward her friends, smiling and eyes moistened by joy. Apple Bloom widens her eyes and opens her mouth, stammering:
"T-That's impossible..."
The unicorn watches her friend in detail. She grew up well. Is she as tall as Big Mcintosh? Her musculature also developed. She no-doubts works with her sister on the farm now. And a magnificent cutie mark in the shape of an apple tree now ornates her flank.
"S-Sweetie Belle? Is that you?"
"I'm happy you still recognise me despite the years," says Sweetie Belle, partly relieved.
"But you're dead!" screams Apple Bloom, incredulous and afraid by this vision of the past, like a ghost coming back to haunt her.
"Not exactly," nuances the unicorn, before correcting herself with a small laugh, "Well, yes. Technically I died, twice."
For an unknown reason, Sweetie Belle wants to laugh, to be joyful, to joke around. A side effect caused by the vision of her friend? The fact that she can talk to her again? She doesn't have the slightest idea, and she doesn't bother with it. Just... forget, in fact. Here's what she wants. Acts as if nothing had happened. As if those twenty years far from everything had only been a bad joke.
But Apple Bloom's terror is still present in her eyes. She moves back, still unable to bear the presence of her friend. She took so much time to accept the death of Sweetie Belle, here she is suddenly reappearing right under her nose.
"You can't be here!" maintains the farmer.
"Yet I am here, Apple Bloom. It's me, Sweetie Belle. Your friend."
The red manned mare moves back again with those words, while the unicorn sits.
"You grew up..." admires Sweetie Belle, a bit dreamy. "How's Scootaloo?"
Apple Bloom is completely stunned, staring at her friend. Finally, a word manages to come out of her stuttering mouth:
"H-How?"
"It's a long story," answers the unicorn, closing her eyes slowly. "But before that, tell me, what did they say about my death? What did they invent to hide the truth?"
The farming mare hesitates, shaking, a good distance away from the unicorn. She wants to understand and, more than anything, she wants to believe that it's truly Sweetie Belle standing in front of her.
"W-We were told that ya follow' Rarity to Canterlot without her permission, and ya fell from the edge..."
"It's in part what happened," notes Sweetie Belle. "But it's more complicated than that."
"Powering system malfunction," suddenly says an old voice, getting Sweetie Belle to roll her eyes, followed by a tired sigh.
Apple Bloom gets even more intrigued by this voice, and all the more scared. But Sweetie Belle reassures her:
"It's normal, don't worry. I'll explain everything."
"Hey Apple Bloom!" suddenly says a voice coming from the air. "Who are you..."
Sweetie Belle just turned her head toward the voice. An orange pegasus with a long purple mane decked out in a weird red headband, is descending right towards them and just froze mid sentence when recognising the unicorn.
"Watch out Scoot...!" starts the farmer, but the pegasus crashes down on the ground in a roly-poly ending against a tree, stunning her in the process.
"...taloo..." finishes Apple Bloom, sighing.
The still dazed pegasus rubs her head to try and ease the pain, forgetting for an instant the reason of her crash;
"Are you alright, Scootaloo?" asks Sweetie Belle with a smile, happy to see the pegasus.
The latter immediately spins around to look at the unicorn with big eyes, before rapidly turning her gaze towards the farmer.
"A-Apple Bloom," she flat out stammers, "I-It's Swee-Sweetie Belle!"
"Yeah, thanks Scoot', Ah had noticed."
The pegasus opens wide when going back to Sweetie Belle, who keeps her smile, amused and happy.
"Everything is alright Scootaloo?" kindly asks the unicorn. "You have a little scratch on the forehead."
"Who cares about my scratch!" exclaims Scootaloo, still not believing what she's seeing. "What are you doing here!? How can you be here!?"
"That's what I was about to explain to Apple Bloom before you came."
"Then go on, explain to us," invites Apple Bloom, who's waiting only for that now, convinced that it is really her friend who's back.
Sweetie Belle first invites them to sit down quietly, despite the astonishment still present in both her friends, even if Scootaloo manifests her own more than the farmer's.
She tells the whole story, her friends displaying different expressions during her tale, going from surprise to incomprehension. The funniest step, for the unicorn at least, is without a doubt the one where, under her friend's horrified stares, she deactivates her leg with a simple command and starts to remove the skin to show the mechanical parts and support her story.
Sweetie Belle also takes great care to precise that if her sister and her friends lied, it was for good and under Celestia's order. The unicorn herself estimates that it was probably the best thing to do... Or maybe let her live an almost normal life, but since Sweetie forgot what it means, she doesn't even think about that possibility.
Her long explanations coming to an end, she concludes the same way she would have done for a banal presentation:
"And that's why I had to leave Ponyville without telling you anything. I'm sorry I had to do that, but I wasn't really given a choice. Left foreleg, reactivation."
A slight static noise, followed by an unusual and unpleasant feeling. Sweetie Belle sighs, thinking:
"What now?"
Her leg doesn't move, she doesn't feel anything. Yet, she reactivated it. It's not logical, usually the reconnection is instantaneous.
While she's tapping her leg with a hoof to try and make it restart, Apple Bloom, whose eyes are hidden under her mane's shadow since the end of Sweetie Belle's story, murmurs:
"Sorry? That's all ya have to say...?"
"Hm?" says the unicorn, stopping what she's doing, looking up at her friend.
"You disappear like that, overnight..." continues the farmer in an undertone, as drops are falling from her cheeks. "Everypony says you're dead... We bury ya... And ya come back now...? Just being sorry?"
"What else do you want me to say?" asks Sweetie Belle, tilting her head, not understanding her friend's reaction.
Apple Bloom straightens her head, revealing her eyes reddened by the tears, a lump in her throat.
"Ya abandoned us," she says while clenching her hooves on the ground. "Do ya have the slightest idea as to what we went through with Scoot'?"
The pegasus nervously rubs her legs, looking away, embarrassed and not daring to cross eyes with one of them. Sweetie Belle widens her eyes, almost outraged.
"You think it was easy for me? To leave you without even being able to say goodbye?"
"At least ya knew we were still alive!" explodes Apple Bloom. "Ya didn't thought it was the last time you were seein' us! We weren't completely gone for ya!""
"Apple Bloom, I..." tries Sweetie Belle, but the farmer cuts her.
"We thought you were dead! We cried ya! And we tried to forget! And that's the same for everypony! And ya come back just sayin' ya're sorry!?"
"Calm down, Apple Bloom," says Scootaloo, unwilling to be too assertive.
"Ya can talk, Scoot!" replies the farmer, taking her as a target, causing her ears to flap down. "Ya too went to put flowers on her grave each year! And now we know it's empty! And the headband ya're always wearin'!"
"S-So what?" Scootaloo says, scared, nervously rubbing her red accessory.
"Ya cut that in the old costume she did for ya for the school spectacle!"
"It was just like that, because it looked cool..." tries to defend the pegasus, without really saying it with strength.
Apple Bloom has a sarcastic laugh entirely exaggerated by her anger. Turning her gaze to Sweetie Belle, the latter stopped fiddling with her leg. Their eyes meet. The furry inside the mare instantly falls down seeing the eyes fill with tears of her friend.
"I'm sorry..." repeats the unicorn. "I don't have anything else to say, because you're right... I have no idea what you lived through. I don't know what happened to you during those twenty years. And that's what I regret the most. I would have given everything to be by your side for all that time, rather than alone."
Sweetie Belle lowers her head, looking away, and Apple Bloom then understands what her friend felt.
"You were together all this time," continues the unicorn. "You helped each other, you grew, you kept on sharing your dreams... And during all this time, the only thing I did was envying you..."
She dries her tears with her functioning hoof.
"I only wanted to stay your friend!"
The next moment, Sweetie Belle finds herself stuck against a yellow coat. Her friend hugs her gently, whispering:
"Sorry ah got carried away... To be frank, Ah don't know what you went through eithe'..."
The words echo for a bit in the unicorn's head, then she holds the farmer in return, happy to the point of crying.
The pegasus looks at the scene with a little smile, and comes to join the reunion and reconciliation, taking them both in her legs and wings.
It's not just seeing them again that Sweetie Belle had wished for. It was to find them back. Find her friends back. Talk to them. Make sure that, after all this time, she was still their friend. That feeling of, despite everything, still be in their heart.
Deep in the three of them, it's a profound joy and an enormous relief which takes place. After the embrace, which lasted for many seconds, they let go of each other and sit down.
The conversation starts itself. They talk, like they did all those years ago. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo tell what happened to them to the unicorn, who listens attentively, smiling, even laughing.
Naturally, one of the first topics to be evoked is about Cutie Mark, and Apple Bloom explains that she got hers after successfully planting and growing a hundred apple trees.
Scootaloo shows her own, a cloud pushed by a gust of wind, relating the moment where she got it, right after a race against Rainbow Dash. The pegasus talks about it with that typical sparkle she has in her eyes, characteristic of those moments where she mentions her idol.
Then comes Sweetie Belle's turn, that monkey wrench crossed with a needle which intrigues her friends. She tells the details of that day, when she dumbly fell from a tree and broke two legs, while Puppet was absent for the day. She then repaired herself on her own, after crawling to the house. Said like this, it can seem like a horrible trial, but since she had deactivated the affected limbs, she hadn't even suffered. And now, she still laughs about it gladly.
After what, they chat for a bit. The conversation drifts when Sweetie Belle mentions that she saw Pound, the Cakes' son, while arriving. Scootaloo quickly adds that Apple Bloom has views on him, which the farmer instantly denies with great embarrassment, and the two others start to laugh, teasing her a bit.
The discussion prolongs itself greatly, without the three now reunited friends even noticing. As the sun is starting to set, and they finish laughing about Apple Bloom's last story, reporting on some of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon's actions, the three young mares slowly calm and let a little refreshing silence settle in, in the quietness of the woods.
"I frankly missed you, Sweetie Belle," confides Scootaloo with a kind smile.
The unicorn gives her one back, answering:
"You too. Both of you. All of Ponyville, but especially you two."
And someone else, but that, Sweetie Belle keeps it to herself.
"And what made you decide to come back today?" asks the farmer, intrigued, but with a radiant face.
"Oh, it's just that I have a few electrical problems," says Sweetie Belle with a light tone. "Since I don't know when my system is going to break, I thought that if I had to come back, it was now or never."
The two instantly lose their smile and, simultaneously, interrogates:
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing, nothing," jokes the unicorn. "Nothing too worrying, I assure you-ou-ou-ou-ou."
Apple Bloom raises an eyebrow, Scootaloo jumping when hearing her friend bug.
"Are you alright Sweetie Belle?"
"I'm fine," tells the unicorn, waiving a hoof to indicate it's nothing bad.
"Powering system malfunction," enounces the robotic voice, nearly making the pegasus faint.
"Yes, I know!" answers Sweetie Belle, exasperated by this program bothering her in the middle of her reunion with her friends.
Both her friends look at her, astonished. Then their expression suddenly shifts, going to some kind of terror, eyes fixed behind Sweetie Belle.
"I knew I recognised that silhouette," calmly says a voice.
Time suspends itself. That voice, of course the unicorn knows it. Oh she does. Slowly, with a bit of apprehension, and the heart suddenly pounding, she turns her head to see her. From up close. Way closer than earlier.
Rarity. Smiling and filled with emotions.
Time stops for a few instants. The two sisters are staring at each other's eyes. Close as they've never been those past twenty years, just a few metres apart.
Thankfully her vocal description isn't plugged on her emotions anymore, otherwise the program would be overwhelmed. Silence reigns, and yet the two mares are internally boiling with emotions.
And despite all of this, they don't know what to say.
"H-Hi Rarity," finally awkwardly attempts her sister, trying to display a smile deformed by the entirety of the feelings assaulting her.
The dressmaker shakes a bit when she hears her talk. That's the voice of her sister. That voice which didn't change too much.
It is Rarity that takes the first step. She walks, slowly. Sweetie Belle stands up. They both notice at the same time, and with a very subtle hint of fun, that now, it is the little sister who is the taller one.
In a few seconds, they will most likely fall into each other's legs. But in the meantime, it's a moment of quietness which sets, solely broken by Rarity's hooves treading on the grass.
Sweetie Belle moves a leg forward, and abruptly falls on the ground. Her leg has yet to be properly reactivated, she totally forgot about it. Rarity rushes over and helps her get back up, as the two other mares stay frozen.
"My Celestia, is everything alright?" worries the dressmaker.
"Yes yes, Rarity," reassures the unicorn while getting up. "A little problem, nothing too worrying."
Her sister slowly lets her go and she lifts her head, their eyes meeting. Their heads are just a few centimetres apart from each other. Blue eyes in green eyes.
"You grew so much..." says Rarity, emotional. "Look at you, a beautiful and tall mare..."
Sweetie Belle looks at her with a smile just as moved as she is. A tear forms at the edge of her eye.
"It's... It's been so long since I've been wanting to see you again... Rarity."
"And I hoped that this moment would come... Sweetie Belle."
The fateful instant arrives. They embrace each other with all their strength, the two sisters finally together again. They cry, but nothing is sad in this moment.
"I missed you," sobs Rarity. "All this time spent, thinking I would never see you again... Every day I wondered if you were okay, what you were doing..."
"Me too, Rarity," answers her sister with a great smile on her tearful face, holding on to her sister with her hoof.
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo look at the scene with moved smiles, and they are not the only ones. A little further away, behind a tree, Twilight also observes what's going on, discreetly, happy for her friend, with a pinch in the heart however.
That secret is old, the search for Sweetie Belle was abandoned a long time ago. But the truth won't erase the lie that's been persisting for the past twenty years. Revealing it would be too dangerous. No one else must know, and this moment might be the only one that Rarity and Sweetie Belle will be able to allow to themselves.
But she's not going to spoil that reunion. She hides a little bit more behind the tree, keeping a discreet eye laid on the two mares.
"Tell me," then asks Rarity. "I want you to recount everything you lived."
"Alright, but you'll have to explain to me why you moved out," accepts Sweetie Belle with a smile.
"Oh, that's very easy to explain," softly laughs her sister. "I just couldn't bear to live in this house anymore, without you and Opal. And well, I got an opportunity to launch a couture brand in Manehattan, I didn't really hesitate."
"But you didn't sell the boutique?"
"I couldn't bring myself to it..." confesses the dressmaker. "It's a part of my life, and even if it's in a deplorable state, I won't sell it. There's still some of your stuff there."
"Really?" says her little sister, surprised.
"Where you left them. In case you were to come back one day."
A touched smile appears on the face of the young mare, right before a violent spray of sparkles suddenly spurts out from the back of her neck, causing her head to tilt on the side.
The others move back as one, surprised and afraid. Scootaloo even lets out a yell of terror.
"It's fine! It's fine!" quickly explains the robotic mare, waving a leg in front of the other to try and calm them. "I have the situation under control!"
"Your mane is burning!" Rarity panics.
"Alright, that I don't have it under control," admits Sweetie Belle with a strange detachment. Well, not so strange considering a big part of her nervous system just tripped and, with it, her self preservation processor.
Sweetie Belle's hood frantticaly slams itself on her head, Rarity hurrying to choke the flames with her magic.
"Why did it do that!?" yells Scootaloo, holding on Apple Bloom a bit too much, the latter being way less scared but still worried.
"I'd say it's a short circuit," supposes Sweetie Belle with her head still tilted on the side. "I probably lost a few nerves as well."
"Why so?" asks Apple Bloom, slowly stepping closer as the flames have been extinguished by Rarity. "Is it serious?"
"Technically yes, if things get worse I could shut down."
"Shut down?"
"Die."
Sweetie Belle's eyes lay into those of her childhood friend, staring at her with an obvious lack of emotion. A glare that terrifies her.
"And it can be fixed?" continues Scootaloo who doesn't see the same things as the farmer.
Sweetie Belle stays silent for a moment. She seems to think about it.
"I need a unicorn's help," she ends up saying. "That knows a thing or two about threads and sewing."
All eyes turn to the big sister. She nods.
"I'll do everything I can. Give me the instructions."
"We need calm. Pegasi and earth ponies emit involuntary magical disturbances, it could be dangerous to do that wh-"
"Ya want us to go, 'ight?" cuts Apple Bloom with some rancour just at the thought.
"That would be pre-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-eferable," admits Sweetie Belle, whose voice is becoming more and more neutral.
"Tch."
After cursing in a low voice, without the pegasus understanding why, the farmer grabs her by the scarf and drags her along to both go away from the scene.
"We'll wait for you at the farm, understood?"
"We're coming, don't worry," reassures her friend.
Scootaloo, still clueless, lets herself get dragged away, turning to Apple Bloom. Once they are far away enough, she asks:
"What's upsetting you?"
"It's been twenty years since we saw her... We thought she was dead, and now that she comes back, we can't even help her! We're just like back then, useless."
Scootaloo meditates on those words. It's true that it's frustrating to find themselves in that situation, where they have to trust others to take care of Sweetie Belle.
"I'm sure everything will be fine."
"If ya say so," mumbles the farmer.
"Do you think they'll be mad at me...?"
Rarity turns her eyes to her little sister. Her dear little sister, now so tall.
"About what, darling?"
"The only person capable of repairing me died quite some time ago now... I can't operate on my own system, and I don't have time to give you a lesson on that subject, especially since I'm not sure of the problem myself."
She gives her a look which, despite being empty, appears infinitely sad. From her left eye, a tear is running, and from her right one, turned a dark green, a slim stream of black oil.
"I'm sorry, Rarity..."
"You're going to...?" slowly says her sister, afraid of pronouncing the word.
The only answer she gets is the head of her sister coming against her torso, seeking refuge. The unicorn hesitates a few moments, troubled, then slowly wraps her leg around her little sister.
"I wanted to see everyone again..." says Sweetie Belle, with a neutral voice that should be sad. "See how you grew, how things had changed... If you still remembered me..."
Rarity gently hugs her sister against her as the oil stains her coat, understanding what she feels.
"But in the end... I just hurt everypony..."
"How can you say that?" says Rarity, astonished.
"Everyone had grieved over me, and I come back, only to die a second time... I just gave a short-lived happiness to all the ponies I loved..."
"Oh, don't say that, Sweetie Belle. Everyone is happy to see you again. Especially me."
Rarity carefully takes her sister's face in between her hooves to look into her eyes, smiling with tenderness.
"Every day, I wondered if you were fine. What you were doing at that moment. How much you had grown. And I'm happy that you remembered us, and that you came to see us. Knowing that everything went well for you, during all those years, is important for me, as well as for the others. Because we still care for you."
The mare has a slight smile that comes up on her face. A moved smile. Those are just words. But they are the words that she wanted to hear. She didn't know it before, but now that her sister has pronounced them, she's sure of it. Now, she is at peace.
"Thanks... Rarity..." says Sweetie Belle, snuggling her head against her big sister's fur, a real tear flowing down from her eye. "I regret so much that I couldn't spend all that time with you all... But I'm happy that I came back to tell you goodbye...."
Rarity holds her sister delicately, closing her eyes while letting a bit of her makeup run. Joy, sadness, relief, all of this is mixing in her to form a weird feeling.
The head of her sister shakes against her. Circuits are not working properly, her functions shut down one by one.
"You will tell the others...?"
"Don't worry for that..." slowly answers Rarity, before sniffing. "I'm sorry I yelled at you that day, Sweetie Belle... If I hadn't been so stubborn, none of this would have happened..."
"I'm the only one to bla-a-a-a-a-a-a..."
Sweetie Belle closes her mouth, one of her eyes doing the same on its own. A little beep comes out of some places beneath her neck.
"To blame," she ends up saying with her mouth closed, which leads to a weird echo.
"You remember...?" asks Rarity.
"My memory was unlocked... I relieved that mo-"
No bugs this time. No other sound comes out of Sweetie Belle's mouth.
Her sister lowers her eyes. The unicorn doesn't move anymore. Rarity carefully takes her head and lifts it to look at her. Her only opened eye is staring at her. Behind the iris, she can clearly see the metallic pieces controlling the opening slowly folding in a circle.
She's going away. Her sister is going away. It's her ultimate stare. She can't do anything about it. She's plunging her eyes into hers. The sapphire reflection into the emerald green of Sweetie Belle's eyes comfort the latter. No expression shows on her face now, but the circles are closing, looking satisfied. Appease.
A slight mechanical sound can be heard, followed by what is clearly the noise of a battery shutting down.
The body collapses. The muscles and the gears relax against Rarity's coat. Sweetie Belle's head falls forward, hitting her sister's torso, without any noise.
The dressmaker's hooves shake as they tighten up on the mane of her youngest. Barely found, here she is now, lost forever. This time, nothing will change that.
"I hope you had a beautiful life... during all that time..."
An incongruous scene was going on in Ponyville. The story was so strange, and the tone so dramatic, that it made the front page of many gossip newspapers in the big cities of Equestria. Because indeed, during a sunny afternoon, took place the second burial of Sweetie Belle. Twenty years after her first one.
This time, the body of the unicorn was truly resting under her gravestone, her flesh as well as her mechanisms.
It was the second time that her relatives had gathered in front of her. Her parents had been warned, the truth had finally been exposed, and quarrels had ensued. Having lied to all those ponies, during all those years, wasn't well received.
But after some time, all made peace to at least say goodbye to Sweetie Belle. Their friend. Their daughter. Their sister.
For a burial, the atmosphere wasn't as sad as one would have thought. Many ponies had already mourned her and moved on. Of course, they weren't happy either, but cries were few.
Despite that, the scene was probably all that Sweetie Belle would have wanted. All her closed ones, gathered, for her. Remembering her after all those years. That's all she would have wanted, staying their friend. Staying her sister.
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She was mourned years ago, now she is simply... gone.
Not sure if this is a bad ending but I count it as a bad ending.
A good story though.
I’m not too sure how I feel about this story after everything. It’s just…empty. There were certainly things I enjoyed about it, but man, I’m struggling to really come to a definitive opinion on this.
I’m trying to ignore the grammar and speech patterns not really fitting the characters very well, which I want to give a pass since I know it isn’t the easiest to nail down (especially if English isn’t your first language).
The overall tone and ending is…more bitter than bittersweet, I think. It doesn’t sit as well as bittersweet in my opinion.
I think I’ll have to keep neutral on my rating of this story. I’m just too conflicted.
11806637
Thanks for the comment. While I won't touch the original story itself, I'll try to go back to it and correct the grammar mistakes and then some. I always thought of doing more with that story, when I was writting it. Maybe some chapters about Sweetie's life and all. To make it seem brighter. But I wrote it when I was at a low point in my writing carreer. Took years and at some point I just wanted to end it so I could call it a day. So, yeah, idk. I still like the end product.
Thank you for going to the end and giving me your feedback. It is very much appreciated.