Paradise

On a road of grief, all directions are confused.

—Earth pony proverb

The weeks following Pinkie’s death, Applejack threw herself into her work. After every single last apple had been bucked, she shut herself off in her room and refused to move from her bed. Most of the time she slept and when she slept, she dreamt about Pinkie. Most of her dreams were dominated by images of Pinkie walking away, smiling invitingly and sometimes even calling out for her to follow. Applejack would try to follow, but found herself rooted to the spot. Pinkie would disappear from sight, and Applejack would wake up in tears.

Every night it was the same, and every night Applejack didn’t learn her lesson and tried to follow. Because she loved Pinkie, because she would follow Pinkie to the ends of the earth. But Pinkie was dead, gone to the only place Applejack couldn’t follow.

Or perhaps she could.

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t, could she?

Oh, but she could.

But they would miss her… and they would be in pain, the same pain she was in right now. She couldn’t do that to them.

But it would stop the hurting and she would be reunited with her love, forever together in eternal sleep.

But they would miss her… she couldn’t, could she? She couldn’t be so selfish.

These are the things Applejack contemplated during the weeks that followed Pinkie’s death, when she wasn’t sleeping. One could see why she slept often.

When she slept, she dreamt of Pinkie: gradually, the dreams shifted into nightmares of Pinkie taunting her and asking her why Applejack hadn’t gotten there in time, why Applejack hadn’t saved her, why she had to die at such a young age. Applejack would sob out answers, but it was like Pinkie couldn’t hear her, and kept asking ‘why’ like a mournful, wailing spirit from a book.

Then the dreams would shift again, and this time Applejack would be stuck in the greatest nightmare of all, the one where Pinkie sneered at her and blamed her for her death, and all Applejack could do was curl up in a ball and try to plug her ears, but hearing the voice exist inside her head. After she would wake up, it would still be there.

What a cruel trick of nature, that her blaming conscience had taken on Pinkie’s voice, as if to torture her more.

Her family left her alone for a while, but eventually they started knocking and pestering, in the gentle, annoying way loved ones did when they were worried, not understanding that all Applejack wanted to do was sleep forever.

But she couldn’t do that to them.

One day, “Sis?” Macintosh called. “We’ve got a letter from Pinkie’s parents. The funeral is in three days.”

He waited and heard the soft sobs quiet. This usually signified Applejack had exhausted herself to sleep. Just as he was about to head back down the stairs, the familiar creak of Applejack’s door opening stopped him. Applejack’s eyes were red, and fresh tears streamed silently down her face.

“Mac…” her voice shook so hard it felt like she would fall apart at any moment. And just like always he was her rock. He cradled her in his embrace. It had been a long time since they’d embraced like that.

“It’s okay, ‘Jack,” he whispered lies, because he had to.

“No. It’s not, Mac,” she breathed, and then thrashed in his hold, hitting him in the delirium of sorrow. “It’s not, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not.”

“AJ…”

“I loved her,” Applejack bellowed, and her whole body bucked with her sobs. She hadn’t even cried this hard when their parents died.

“I know, sis,” he whispered.

She pulled away. “I really loved her, Mac, is it a sin? Is that why she was taken from me?”

“No,” he reassured, pulling her back because he couldn’t look at her broken.

“But what if it was?” she sobbed.

“Happiness is never a sin, love is never a sin.”

“But… but…”

“Shhh,” he cooed, and together they sunk to the floor to cry.

The entire town attended the funeral, and then some. Celestia was there, as were some other ponies that had known Pinkie. There was not a single dry eye on the day that they buried laughter and happiness embodied, and there was not a single heart that was unbroken.

Applejack wasn’t there, she didn’t go, and her presence was a hollow, marked absence that bellowed.

“Where is she?” Rainbow whispered furiously as Celestia spoke, something about grave days and sunny beginnings.

Twilight mouthed, “I don’t know.”

It was ten at night when a figure walked through the cemetery. Applejack had a bouquet of yellow daisies, Pinkie’s favorite. She knelt in front of the grave and put them down next to the others.

“Hey Pinks,” she whispered and then broke down in sobs. After a while a wing draped over her and blindly Applejack threw herself at Rainbow Dash. Together, they wept.

The next morning Dash came over and they played horseshoes and talked about Pinkie.

“I was jealous of you, you know that?” Dash asked during some time in the conversation. She threw a shoe, not even caring where it hit, and not even looking. Cats mewed somewhere.

“Yeah, I know, Dash,” Applejack said, and maybe it was a stupid thing to be sorry for that, after all was said and done. “You haven’t forgotten who it was that listened to you swoon about her for weeks and weeks, have you?”

“Were you jealous, back then?”

“No. She and I hadn’t…” oh, there was no describing what it was Pinkie and her had ‘done’ over the summer. ‘Fallen in love’ seemed too timid and generalized. “We just hadn’t.”

A funny memory. She laughed, and then wanted to cry, because so much had changed, but the memory was only made about three months ago.

“The first time she and I had sex.” Applejack winced at the word, remembering another memory. Oh, there were so many. “A-after, the morning after, I freaked out. And I kept thinking, ‘why couldn’t it have been Rainbow? Dash adored Pinkie’”

“I did,” Rainbow said, like a confession of a misdeed, tears streamed down her face. “Oh, AJ, she was…” her voice disappeared then, leaving her to mouth “the love of my life” in silence.

Applejack nodded gravely. “Mine, too.”

They fell into each others’ embrace and wailed.

And so the days passed.

Summer faded, and slowly so did fall. Applejack’s nightmares subsided, and so did all the emotion from her heart. She visited the grave every day, even when the snow started to fall and blanket everything. Sometimes Dash would meet her there, sometimes Dash wouldn’t show up.

One night in January she lay staring at the ceiling blankly.

“What do you wanna do?”

“I’ll tell you what I wanna do.” Pinkie had said. “I wanna see the sunrise over the water.”

Applejack sat up and looked at the clock. Without thinking too much, she got up and grabbed her saddlebags, filling it with stuff that she didn’t look to identify.

In the freezing weather, she made her way to the train station, bought a ticket from the self-service machine, and then boarded a train.

Sitting there, it suddenly dawned on her that if the two of them hadn’t taken that trip, then maybe Pinkie wouldn’t have died. They’d never made love in that clearing, and Applejack wouldn’t have forgotten her stupid hat, and Pinkie would have gone to get it and…

Well, Applejack didn’t really know how it was that it happened, but it wouldn’t have, if they hadn’t gone on that trip and fallen in love.

If only. A million times if only.

“Pinks, Pinkie… I can’t do this without you,” she whispered. “I can’t live without you. Why would you ask that of me?”

She cried until she passed out. She slept until the conductor’s voice woke her up, and then she got off in Baltimare. The sun was barely rising, and Baltimare was same old Baltimare.

“It’s the most gorgeous thing, Pinkie,” she whispered. “It’s just like I remember it.”

She stood at that same wall, but looking the other way now, as the sun rose.

When it had risen, she wandered down into the merchants’ dock, and then over to the deserted beach area. It was January and it was freezing, the wind was cold, and kicked up sand which peppered Applejack and stung her pleasantly. She liked the pain.

“I’m coming, Pinks,” she whispered, and started walking towards to water.

It would be fitting, if she drowned herself. Fairly painless, too, since she knew the January water would put her in shock first. And then she could be with Pinkie. She’d contemplated suicide before but never had the energy. Now, however, with the sun at her back, illuminating everything and drawing shadows on the white sand, it never seemed like a better idea.

Maybe it was fitting, to end it where it had begun.

She walked towards the water and closed her eyes.

Just as the first wave hit her leg, she heard barking behind her.

“Applejack?”

She turned around. Scoria stood there, bundled in warm clothes. Her two Yorkies were similarly bundled and on leashes.

Her resemblance to Pinkie broke all the resolve in Applejack and she dropped to the sand, sobbing. Distantly there was a bark and then Scoria was cradling her close.

“I miss her. I miss her,” Applejack howled.

Scoria held her as if she was the only thing that was keeping her from falling apart completely. And she was.