DYING LIGHTS
THE PROLOGUE TO MISSED CALLS
By PandoraBoxable
The lights were beautiful tonight, Fluttershy thought, as she lay on the scorched ground of the Cloudsdale weather factory. She couldn’t feel her body, but that was okay. She had the lights to keep her company. And the voices, good Celestia the voices. They were muffled, yet… comforting. Fluttershy smiled and blinked slowly, the faces coming into focus but becoming blurry just as quickly. She frowned and tried to move her wings. Feeling something on her barrel, she decided to look down, but found she couldn’t move her neck. So she let her mind wander.
It just so happened that her brain wanted to remember the events leading up to her condition. She drifted back into her memories, letting the sweet embrace of their feelings come over her mind, setting her consciousness at ease.
She had been at Rainbow’s home, flying high over Ponyville, Tank buzzing quietly about the room. She had said something… something Rainbow didn’t like. Rainbow had said something Fluttershy didn’t like. She had stood up and walked to the kitchen with Rainbow following behind, animatedly talking to her. She couldn’t remember the words, but remembered it was something important.
Rainbow had pushed something off the counter, sending Tank spinning slightly, his eyes glazed over. Fluttershy had nearly yelled, yet Rainbow had stood in a quiet state of shock, unmoving. Fluttershy tried to comfort her, but her friend had brushed her off. Fluttershy had left, her wings flapping lightly in the breeze, tears streaming down her eyes. She flew, choosing a direction and following it lazily, not a single destination in mind.
She flew to Cloudsdale.
Her memories were interrupted by another force on her barrel, causing her mind to spasm and her breathing to increase. Something was shoved in her mouth and she closed her eyes, coughing. Something hit her in the face, her eyes shooting open, a face above hers yelling something. Something she couldn’t understand. So she drifted back into her memories.
She had arrived at the main street, all the shops closed down for Hearth’s Warming Eve. She was no longer crying, but her eyes were a deep, bloodshot red, the veins evident to the occasional passerby. A pony had flown up to her, a pony with a mint green coat and golden mane. They had gone and sat and talked together, about what Fluttershy couldn’t recollect.
The mare had brought her down to the weather factory to give her a tour… or something… she still couldn’t remember. They had trotted around on the squishy clouds, looking at all the machines. It had made her feel better. Much better. Happy to be around this other mare, who she knew she recognized from somewhere before.
Her thoughts were interrupted yet again by more faces crowding around hers, one of them pulling back and screaming for something else to be brought. Compressions were being performed on her legs, however Fluttershy was too comatose to reply to any of the questions that were being thrown her way, much less understand them. It must have been quite the accident.
She wandered through her thoughts again, looking back on her memories with Rainbow, all the fun times they had together, how they had taken care of her animals together, clearing the skies together, her friend’s face, her beautiful mane, the way she held herself when she walked, the way her voice slipped up at the end of sentences, the way she kissed her.
A tear pushed out of her eye, running down her cheek. Something was pressed against her face, wiping it off. A hushed voice spoke in her ear.
Fluttershy’s head was turned and she saw a green, gold, and red figure laying beside her with a couple blurs sitting on top. She wondered who it had been, even though it looked like the mare who had been with her just minutes earlier. She wondered if she was okay.
She closed her eyes and remembered again, the same mint green mare… somewhere. Once before, with all of her friends. She had been… unhappy. Scared, even.
But now, she only felt sorrow. Sorrow and regret. But mostly sorrow. The figure atop the mare was doing something repeatedly, sometimes leaning down to about her head level and coming back up, but she wouldn’t stir.
Fluttershy closed her eyes and remembered once again, remembering her friends. Twilight’s bookish tendencies, her adorable concentration face, her amazing amount of support for her friends. Rarity and her fashion parlor, making dresses and pushing those silly red spectacles back up to the bridge of her snout, all of their spa trips together. Pinkie Pie, with her silly randomness and her cutie hair. And that grin, the grin that could make the hardest stallion’s heart melt into pieces. Applejack, with her wagon strapped to her barrel, tugging a load of apples through the fields, her smile whenever Fluttershy visited, her determination to help her family to whatever end it may lead.
And Rainbow, with her incredible mane and incredible smile and incredible happiness and joy and loyalty and honor. Fluttershy focused on that picture she had painted, with all of her friends standing happily by her side on the empty streets of Ponyville, the shops closed for the day, the stars out for the night, the lightning bugs flashing away their mating calls. Fluttershy sighed and giggled slightly, feeling yet another force on her face. She opened her eyes to find the blur in much greater focus, a nurse uniform adorning her body. She mouthed two simple words, simple enough for even Fluttershy - in her degraded state - to understand.
“I’m sorry.”
The forces on her body weakened and stopped altogether. It became hard to breathe. But Fluttershy didn’t care. She had her friends by her side, even if they weren’t there in body, they were there for her in spirit. And she knew they loved her.
The lights were beautiful tonight, Fluttershy thought, those amazing, twinkly Hearth’s Warming Eve lights that shone like beacons in the dark, giving the pegasus one last grasp on reality as she slowly faded out of consciousness, the happy grin still adorning her countenance.
Author's Note
*sniff*
Read Missed Calls for the aftermath.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/153459/missed-calls
I'm so, so sorry.
