Remembering
The world was fading. The grass was turning darker each day, and the inhabitants of Equestria itself were fading. Many panicked, but just as many sat down and awaited whatever would happen. There were bright spots, each standing tall and distinct, but none stood as bright and tall as the former Bearers of Harmony. They travelled, sometimes apart and sometimes together, to the people of the land to show that not everything was lost. That not everything had faded. One of the Bearers stayed mostly silent through these friendship talks, but if moisture damped the orange mare’s eyes, no one saw, and when she talked to her friends, there was only a hint of melancholy. She saw that they were fading too, just in a slower manner, and she was starting to remember a similar fading of other friends, some that were almost the same and others that didn’t exist.
The world was fading, and Applejack could remember it doing so before. The bright colors of Equestria darkened, sometimes slowly, sometimes in a huge rush. But, on occasion, there were times when items exploded into brightness once again, and the ponies would rush forward and spread the news. The Bearers would go and talk, and then they would leave, and Applejack continued to remember. Sometime she was embarrassed at the memories, but mostly she felt her heart grow heavy because the fading never entirely took over, but it always left things changed when it receded. She said nothing when the others asked her about her opinion, because saying nothing was safer than telling them that she remembered knowing Twilight’s mother and knowing a mare very similar to Rainbow Dash whose colors had faded, just as Rainbow’s had started to.
They didn’t notice, really, because it was just so slight, but sometimes Applejack would catch Pinkie staring at colors and then she would look herself, and everything was just that bit greyer. It had taken them awhile to realize it wasn’t Discord’s fault, and it had taken Twilight even longer to accept that the Princesses of the Sun and the Moon couldn’t do anything to stop it. Applejack had started to remember fading early, very early, but she hadn’t said anything, because the Applejack she had been was nothing like the one she was now. And it hurt to think that anypony, especially herself, had just vanished into greyness one morning and woken up completely different the next. Except it hadn’t ever been that quick. She could recognize it now, the greying, and there wasn’t anything that was stopping the fading.
This time it was a lot slower than before. The fading had never really been quick, but this time it was just drawn out. Almost deliberately plodding. The extent of the fading just took longer to register, and the fading itself was hard to catch. Her friends still crowed the hope of renewal, and Applejack hoped that if renewal could happen, it would happen sometime before all of Equestria was again reduced to a featureless lump of clay. And that was what was happening, she’d found out. So many faces had been remolded, fitting personalities and looks to an old name that she could remember differently now. She could look at Twilight’s mother and find so many old adventures, old faces and names that no longer existed.
Some things, however, did not surface in her memory, and the orange mare found herself wondering about significant names and significant faces that didn’t have anything attached. A blue mare with a pink mane that carried a tie. Megan, Tirek… She couldn’t remember anything besides that, and she wondered if she would. There were also those she could remember, which is why she found herself sitting next to a purple baby dragon in a train car when all the rest of her friend was asleep, talking and trying to fill in holes of a memory that wasn’t entirely hers.
“Ah dunno Spike. Ah cain’t remember much about anypony named Megan. Jus’ the name.” Spike sat on a cushion, rocking back and forth a little bit. He seemed lost in thought for a long time, but he eventually snapped back to reality and nodded.
“She wasn’t a pony, that’s why. I think you would’ve liked her. Better than the other Applejack, anyways.”
“Shoot, what was she?” Applejack kicked at the other cushions spread about, feeling very much out of her element. She was a farmer, she was supposed to be at the farm helping with cider season right now. (there wasn’t any demand for cider, and half her head belonged to Applejacks who weren’t farmers) Spike shrugged.
“I don’t know. First Spike is just dodging around. He either doesn’t remember, or I don’t. Maybe a little bit of both.” Applejack nodded. There were holes everywhere, and she understood. The train reached its destination. The Bearers departed. Time passed, as it is wont to do, and fading continued to happen. Twilight Sparkle still worked into the night, reading any books she could get her hooves on (and some she legally couldn’t) to try and reverse it, and others started to remember. Rainbow Dash expressed an anger and sickness at always ‘dressing in style’, Rarity tried puzzling through things, and Pinkie Pie deflated a little bit. Applejack talked a little bit to Fluttershy, but there didn’t seem to be anything that she remembered. Rainbow Dash couldn’t remember anything about a pegasus named Firefly, though she did know remember a different Scootaloo and Cheerilee, and Rarity could hardly remember anything, which Applejack considered a blessing.
Pinkie Pie, however, seemed to know everything. In a way. She stopped one day, her mane deflated, and then the next day she was right as rain, though Applejack couldn’t figure out why. When she finally got around to talking to Pinkie, the greyish pink mare had given her a soft smile and a promise of ‘later’ which Applejack had never actually expected to come about. And then, one day, it did.
“Applejack?” Pinkie Pie nosed open the door, her blue eyes shining with either happiness or tears.
“Here, sugarcube.”
“Oh, that’s good! It’s later.” Applejack blinked, then sat down on the floor and pushed her hat back.
“You’re gonna tell me about what you remember?” Pinkie nodded in an almost cheerful manner.
“Yup! I’ve got an explanation too, which is both good and bad! What do you wanna hear first?”
“Bad, if you wouldn’t mind. Ah recon Ah’d like to hear the good more afterwards.” Pinkie sunk a little bit, her mane flattening out and darkening.
“We’re being reshaped, but also forgotten. It’s them out there, with their minds, that brought us to life, and they’re forgetting. So we’re being forgotten.” Applejack winced.
“Pinkie, Ah recon Ah coulda done with the memories first. That just… well, it just don’t seem right. An’ whose doin’ the forgettin’ again?”
“The humans! You know, the ones out there. They shaped the world, and then they reshaped it. Right now it’s being reshaped. And they’re forgetting Equestria, just like they forgot Megan and the Smooze. Even though they were part of Equestia too.” Applejack pulled her hat off her head and sat messing with it for several silent moments, though she opened and closed her mouth many times.
“You mean we’re gonna jus’ vanish? Poof, forgotten? Ah dunno what kinda good news you could follow that up with.” Pinkie smiled sadly.
“Nothing is ever truly forgotten. Sometimes AJ, it’s just pushed out of the way for something new. And do ya know what else?” She put a hoof on Applejack’s forehead, the sad smile fading into something a bit more ambiguous. “They aren’t forgotten either. The ponies in your head. That’s why they’re there! ‘Cause somewhere out there someone remembers something! We won’t ever fade away forever. We’ll be there, you know, when someone finds the songs and the stories and the pictures. And then we’ll be back to singing or playing or working again.” Pinkie set her hoof back on the ground and smiled, because they wouldn’t be gone forever, and some time in the future another Pinkie Pie would say something similar because even if she wasn’t the same, the fourth Pinkie Pie (who was really the second) was remembered, and so the next Pinkie would remember, until everything that could remember was gone and there was nothing left.
“Pinkie promise?” Applejack asked, an almost hopeful look on her face. Pinkie’s smile softened, and she started the motions.
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye…”
Author's Note
I wrote this on a whim and it's really not edited at all.
Hopefully it's a good read nonetheless.
