Part 5
Hotel Room
Present Day
They’re gone. They’re all gone. None left. Not a single feather.
Now you understand why you felt so tired. So weak. You scan every pale, shaking inch of your wings, looking, hoping, praying that there’s a feather somewhere, anywhere, on either of them. No. No there aren’t. You’re out of time.
Your trembling knees buckle from the fear. Or is it from weakness? It’s not fair. You shouldn’t have lost so many so quickly! You should have had more time! You thought you had longer! Another day, another hour, anything!
Who are you kidding? All the time in the world couldn’t have prepared you for this. Your heart’s beating a mile a minute; the fear that’s caught in your chest just spurs it forward, pounding your pulse through your skull like there’s no tomorrow.
There IS no tomorrow. Not for you.
Why? Why are you so weak all of a sudden? Why is it after a whole day with Annabelle and not a hint of tiredness, does this accursed illness suddenly see fit to render you incapable of standing up? You were climbing stairs with no difficulty just moments ago!
You suppose that’s how the disease gets the last laugh; waiting until you’ve lost your very last feather before striking you with such force. Like a professional buck-boxer, toying with a novice opponent until the last ten seconds, then wiping away their confidence in one fell swoop and a speeding rear-hoof between the eyes.
The inner pounding only gets louder. In a brief sense of clarity through the pandemonium that is your mind, you pinpoint a second source of the thumping; the door to your room. Somepony’s on the other side, waiting for you to answer.
Your legs can hardly lift you anymore. You try to tell whoever’s on the other side that it’s open. Or to go away. Or… anything. It doesn’t matter to you anymore. Whatever it is, it just comes out as a pained, feeble groan. Your throat can’t handle much more than that.
The doorknob squeaks. Turns. The door itself swings open, and you’re greeted with the a smudge in the doorway. You can’t even see clearly anymore. Not that you need perfect eyesight to recognise that light green coat of hers. Annabelle Smith. Your dear friend Annie.
Not a moment is wasted when she sees you in this sorry, tragic state. Before you can choke “don’t look at me”, the elderly mare rushes over to you and tries to pick you up from the floor. You don’t fight back against the old hooves that try to hold you up. Eventually, they assist in helping you back to your feeble, unstable hooves. You can hear her talking. Short, fast, panicked words. Sadly, you can’t comprehend any of them. Too much of that rapid thumping sound in your ears. Surely they’re words of comfort?
Annie doesn’t mind you leaning against her for support. In fact, she’s welcome to help you across the floor, one small step at a time, until you reach the cheap hotel bed. Heck, any bed at all is welcome at this point. At least it’s comfortable enough to sprawl over, spreading the two naked, featherless limbs out from either side of you.
Facing the ceiling - ugh, what an ugly shade of brown to cloud your blurry vision - the blood rushing by your ears seems to pacify slightly, if only by a little. Everything’s still a mix of smudges and blurs, though.
“Should I call the staff?” Annie leans into view, speaking slow, clear words that break through the dreadful pulse in your head, “Should I call a nurse? The hospital?”
“-!”
Your first attempt to reply turns into a choke; your throat gives in the moment you try to speak. Instead, you fall back to a whisper.
“No,” you shake your head, just in case her old ears didn’t pick up your meagre words. “What could they do for me? Put me in an ambulance? Give me a different bed to die in? Nothing I haven’t already got right here. It’d be a waste of time. Waste of effort.”
“Is there anythin’ I can do? Anythin’ at all?”
“Yeah. Turn the light off.”
Annabelle doesn’t ask why. The last thing your aching eyes see is the green blur of her getting up and hitting the switch. Then just thankful blackness. You wouldn’t want Annie to see you like this, but you don’t want her to go either. The darkness is a nice compromise.
No ugly brown ceiling to die staring at either, which is, y’know, nice.
You can hear the sound of creaking floorboards as Annie returns to your bedside. The throbbing in your skull seems to have died down slightly. Considering that the throbbing was your heartbeat, that might be a bad thing.
A moment later the whole bed shifts. Annie climbs atop the bedcovers, taking care not to damage your wings - if you could call them that anymore - as she lies down next to you. Comforts you.
What else is there left to do? What else but lie there and wait for the inevitable? You feel Annie’s face buried in your shoulder. Though she’d never admit it, she’s crying right now; your shoulder’s damp.
“Just when I thought I finally had my old friend back,” her barely audible voice croaks, “and now you’re goin’ again.”
“Sorry,” you whisper. “I thought I had longer.”
“Don’t be sorry. You don’t have anythin’ to apologise for.”
You breathe a sigh of relief. You don’t want to be a burden to the poor girl… huh. Funny that you still think of her as the fresh-faced mare from so long ago.
Her voice breaks the silent ambience of thought. “We had fun, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” you think about holding her closer to you; your old flame being the one to give you comfort in your darkest hour. Shame you’re too weak to so much as lift a hoof. “The time of our lives, right Annie?”
“The time of our lives,” you feel her head brush against your shoulder as she nods.
Strange. You hadn’t realised that you were taking shallow breaths until now. It never seems to be quite enough to fill your lungs. It’s making you light-headed.
“Listen… you take care of yourself, okay?”
Annabelle coughs what could have been a chuckle. “I’ve been takin’ care of myself for years, raisin’ a family atop o’ that. You ain’t tellin’ me what to do.”
Despite the dying throbs of your feeble heart, the creeping coldness that spreads though your hooves by the second… you laugh. Something so small, like knowing that she’ll be happy with her family, is something that pleases you to no end.
With all of the strength you can muster, through the black silence that smothers your mind once and for all, you say one last thing before finally letting your weary eyelids down.
“Atta girl, Annie. Atta girl.”
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IT'S HERE!
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3062609
No, tears... remember tears, the foreshadowing made me promise not to cry...
Good story, though.
This looks really good
Will Read this one later and tell you what i think
At least he died with dignity and not in the hotel pool or bathtub or anything involving water.
It was nice to see Ditzy make a cameo. A very good story Crowley and as always worth the wait.
On a lighter side of things at least there wasn't any clop in this fic, old people are gross.
Just got done reading through this and this is all I got
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all aboard
What a beautiful story, man.
Thumbs up and a favorite.
Just asking. But how did this get featured... o-o
The likes to dislikes ratio, yeah no dislikes, but not much of a diff yet, and with so little views. I think the feature box got broken again. Not hating on the story, its prolly really good. ut just sayin, by how it works the ratios SHOULD be bigger
Right after Bathtime for Ponies added Granny Smith, too. Good timing!
Good story
,
Sad, but a over all good story/
At first I was this when I read that you had a new story.
While reading it.
After reading it.:
Interesting...
Dem feels though.
Yay! Another Crowley fic.
Time to get off my lazy ass and read.
I like how all the Crowley stories are loosely connected to each other.
Also, this song fits the fic so well it's almost uncanny.
And now is the time to start crying like a girl.
I hate you sometimes Crowley.
But it's a good hate. I mean, if you can make someone cry purely through words, then you're doing something right.
Atta boy Crowley, atta boy.
3065594
I did not even notice that...oh well, back to the chess game!
...that ending
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3062913 ....I've got a slug.
Odd, any reason it was changed to "Reconciling "Granny" Smith"? Did people not even want to read it if it was Annabelle?
3067232
I figured people would think "Annabelle" was the name of an OC rather than an actual MLP character. Therefore I changed it to "Granny" just an hour or so ago, to avoid confusion. She's still Annabelle in the fic, and honestly, the fic itself was called "Goodbyes" until I changed it seconds before it was sent for pre-reading.
Amazing story this is now one of my favorites.
3067335 I seem to have some sort of technical error. ._. My eyes are leaking all over the place...
What an awesome story.
you did it again crowley, good job!!
Another great Crowley fic.
I already got rid of all my tears on another fan-fiction, so all I can give you are some crying ponies
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.
SCREW IT, I NEED TISSUES.
A beautiful ending to a beautiful story.
Very touching. You have my vote.
>mfw ending
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Bravo sir. Yet another touching work.
THE FEELS MAN! The feels...................
Well, that's a tearful way to start the day.
This fic actually killed me...
That ending.
My feels. I cannot contain these feels.
I think the worst part, for me at least, is that we'll never know why Annie came back.
Why was she there? What could she have wanted to say?
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3075635
Annie came back because she saw that feather, didn't she? She knew what that meant, and wanted to check up on him, or at least offer comfort...
3077513
She never says. There's no mention of the feather. If there was, in was in that instance of words we couldn't recognize. Nothing tells us why she was there and now we'll never know.
3079178
An explaination is never really called for. All she'd do is describe what you read about last (present day) chapter regarding her noticing the last feather, and that'd just retract from the tone I was trying to set...
my gawd, I don't even know how to reply with that ending. If I have to say something though, I felt happy, being in bed with Granny Smith (minds out of the gutter please) reliving those memories, in a way, I think this is the much brighter side of death. That sounds weird as hell and maybe crazy, but Crowley I say well done sir. well done.
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3079553
Exactly. Sorry if you thought I meant it was a bad thing. By 'the worst part' I meant 'the most tragic'. The lack of explanation does add to it, having a question to remain forever unanswered, but not caring in the slightest because of the company.
3080715 ....Thank you....thank you for reminding me about that song, in doing so I ended up looking it up, in doing that I listened to and shed MANY MANLY TEARS
while re-reading this story. For that dear sir I thank you. *puts eyes drops in my eyes to get rid of the redness*
3081505come'ere man.
Hug it out *hug of TOTAL hetero broship*
Why do you think I posted that.
I mean, its so PERFECT.
DAMN YOU CROWLEY!
DAMN YOU AND YOUR ABILLITY TO CONTROL FEELINGS LIKE DOUGH AND PUTTY!!
AND MAKING EVERYING SOMEHOW WORK INTO THE SAME UNIVERSE/MOMENT OF THE DAY!
also one more wittle song that has nothing to do.
All around are familiar faces
Worn out places
Worn outt faces~
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere
Going nowhere~
3158667this is what I hate about the internet.
I cant twll if you're being sarcastic, or if you're being serious.
Or seriously sarcastic
I love the story you created between these two characters. Good job!
Well-placed kick to the feels.
Well done sir. 24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5wb4cMi0A1r9s8xbo1_250.gif
Are you planning a story about Granny Smith and her husband. Because it would be a great spin-off/ prequel to this story.
And on that day tears were shed.