Visiting for a Sad Occasion
Pinkie Pie stood at the back of the black-clad crowd of ponies, unable to see what they were all looking at. Her mane twitched.
"What? What's happening?" She asked.
"Shhh!" Hissed a mare next to her. Pinkie was suddenly very, very dizzy. After a moment or two, it passed.
"I think it's my Pinkie sense," she murmured. Pinkie stepped closer.
"Quiet, foal!" A nearby stallion grumbled as she inched her way into the crowd. Pinkie whispered a sorry before heading closer to the center.
What she saw shocked her. Pinkie was looking at the body of a white Pegasus with yellow hair. Her eyes were closed, and she had a small smile on her face.
"Why is Surprise sleeping?" She asked. A nearby pony started weeping at the comment. Her husband put a hoof around her and glared at Pinkie.
"Where are your parents?" He asked. Pinkie's mother rushed forward.
"I'm so sorry about my daughter," she apologized, pulling Pinkie away. "She doesn't realize what has happened."
"Pinkamena," she explained in a dull voice when they were at the back of the crowd. "Cousin Surprise has died. She is no longer with us."
"Oh," Pinkie looked down with sad eyes. "So we'll never be able to talk to her again?" Her mom shock her head.
"Death is a very sad thing for ponies left behind, Pinkamena. You cannot treat this like one of your parties."
"I understand. But, I had a new Pinkie Sense today. I guess it's when ponies die I have it." Pinkie's mother shook her head.
"Even if Pinkie Sense was real, ponies pass on almost every day. You would never stop twitching, or whatever you do. Now, come along, let's rejoin your sisters and father."
Pinkie snapped her eyes open. She hadn't thought of that memory for over fifty years. Why she would dream of it now, she had no idea. Especially when it was only a dull reminder the Pinkie Sense had left her.
"Vinyl!" She called, hopping out of her bed. "Is breakfast ready?"
"Nope!" Vinyl yelled back from downstairs. "Lyra went out to get some more berries!" Pinkie stifled a frown. Berries again? She was getting sick of staying in Hollow Shades, were the trio had been living for the past decade.
"When will she be back?" Pinkie asked, trotting down the stairs. Vinyl shrugged. Just then, the door opened.
"I'm home!" Lyra announced, tossing a sack of berries to Vinyl. "Berries for breakfast."
"Hey, Lyra, whaddaya say we go into town and buy something?" Pinkie asked. "It gets so boring when there's only berries for breakfast!" Lyra rolled her eyes.
"I guess we should be moving on soon. You know it's risky going into even a barely inhabited town like that."
"They're jealous of our good looks, Pinkie!" Vinyl joked as she washed berries. Pinkie laughed. Lyra giggled.
"I suppose they would be." Lyra looked at the bag on the floor. "They'd be even more jealous of my old clothes." She held up a pair of ragged, dirty pants from about a thousand years ago.
"How are they not crumbled?" Pinkie asked. "Why, if Rarity had ever seen those, she would've..." Pinkie trailed off into silence.
"What's wrong, Pinkie?" Lyra asked. "I thought you had, well, accepted you couldn't live with your Ponyville friends anymore."
"I know," Pinkie replied, giving a half hearted smile. "It's just that, what if none of them are alive anymore?" As soon as the words came out of her mouth, her mane twitched. Vinyl and Lyra gasped. Pinkie's eyes widened.
"My Pinkie Sense! It's back!" She exclaimed joyfully. Suddenly, she felt dizzy.
"Oh no." Pinkie gripped the side of the table until it faded away.
"What did that mean?" Vinyl asked, turning away from the berries.
"It means I'm about to attend somebody's funeral," Pinkie replied simply, closing her eyes. "I have a feeling it's in Ponyville..." Lyra put her hoof on Pinkie's shoulder.
"You don't know that, Pinkie," she said. "I'm sure all your friends are still alive."
"But I'm sure it's in Ponyville," Pinkie insisted, standing up. "It's just like when I thought you two were immortal. I had no proof, I just knew. And I was right, wasn't I?" Lyra closed her open mouth. The room was silent for a moment.
"Lyra, can you change my appearance?" Pinkie asked. Lyra closed her eyes.
"Is this the best idea, Pinkie?" She asked. "It might not even be a friend."
"I have to go," Pinkie insisted. "I could see my friends and daughter again." Lyra sighed.
"Alright, Pinkie. You have to be careful, though." She closed her eyes and raised her horn. Pinkie felt the spell wash over. When she looked over, she had yellow and blue streaks her pink mane, which was now straight. Her eyelashes were curled like Rarity's used to be.
"What about my Cutie Mark?" Pinkie asked, craning her neck to look at her flank. Her Cutie Mark of three balloons was still there.
"Just wear a skirt," Vinyl suggested. "Nopony will notice."
"Great idea, Vinyl!" Pinkie agreed. "I think I can get one in town."
"No, Pinkie. I think some of those ponies are suspicious already, though they rarely see us. I can just make you one." She grabbed Vinyl's apron.
"Hey!" Vinyl protested. Lyra used her magic to change the color of the apron, as well as the shape.
"You owe me an apron," Vinyl told Lyra indignantly. Lyra smiled and rolled her eyes.
"Pinkie, I can teleport you there, if you'd like," she offered.
"How can you teleport so far?" Pinkie asked. "I mean, Twilight was the best at magic, and even she couldn't teleport across hundreds of miles!"
"Twilight hasn't had hundreds of years to practice," Lyra pointed out. "Now, do you want me to teleport you?"
"Alright," Pinkie agreed.
"You two are gonna leave me alone?" Vinyl pouted. Pinkie patted her shoulder.
"We'll be back after the funeral," she promised. Lyra shook her head.
"I'm leaving you in Ponyville for a couple hours, Pinkie. This is your thing." Pinkie nodded.
"I get it. Now, can we go?" Lyra nodded.
In the next moment, Pinkie and Lyra were back in Ponyville.
"I'll return in three hours," Lyra told Pinkie, before disappearing again in a flash.
"Alright," Pinkie replied softly, turning to look at her hometown. Most of the ponies in the streets she did not recognize. Pinkie frowned.
"Excuse me." Pinkie stopped a yellow unicorn mare. "Is there a funeral today?" The mare nodded.
"It's for a friend of my old foalsitter. Fluttershy, I think." She turned and walked away. Pinkie stared at her flank, which showed a pumpkin Cutie Mark. The mare also had orange hair and blue eyes...
"Pumpkin Cake?" She murmured in surprise. The mare didn't turn around, because she hadn't heard Pinkie, but Pinkie knew it was true.
Pinkie tried not to feel nostalgic as she walked to the cemetery. Then Pumpkin Cake was pushed out of her mind when she realized that Fluttershy was dead.
"Oh, Fluttershy!" Pinkie felt tears welling up in her eyes. She broke into a gallop to get to the cemetery sooner.
When she arrived, there was a crowd of ponies. Pinkie quietly moved along the edges.
"How did she pass on?" Pinkie asked one mare in the front. She shook her head.
"Nopony knows. Someponies think it was the loneliness that got to her. She lasted the longest out of her friends." Pinkie wiped a tear out of her eye.
"So... Rainbow Dash? Applejack? Rarity? Twilight Sparkle? They're all, gone?" She asked in a small voice.
"Where were you? Rainbow Dash has been gone for over twenty years! She was in a flight accident. And Princess Twilight Sparkle, of course she isn't dead."
"Twilight, Twilight's a princess?" The mare turned away.
"I think we should be paying our respects to Fluttershy, not catching up with politics," she replied shortly. Pinkie left and approached the headstone in the ground.
"'Fluttershy,'" Pinkie read softly. "989 through 1067. Friend to Everypony, Element of Kindness.'" Pinkie let the tears dribble down her cheeks.
"Thank you for believing in me, for a little while," she whispered, before leaving the crowd.
Pinkie walked through Ponyville. The sky was bright and cheerful, but Pinkie felt it should have been dark and grey.
"Excuse me, do I know you?" Pinkie turned around to stare at a pink mare with poofy blonde hair and blue eyes. Buttercream...
"I don't think we do," Pinkie replied. "What's your name?"
"Buttercream Pie," Buttercream responded. Pinkie widened her eyes.
"Really? I, uh, the mare that lived next to me, she had a daughter named Buttercream Pie. What a coincidence!" Pinkie exclaimed. Buttercream's eyes widened.
"Was her name Pinkie Pie?" When Pinkie nodded, she continued, "She left me and my dad when I was a foal. Fluttershy, the pony who just... passed on, she was friends with my mom. She said my mom loved me, but had gotten obsessed with immortality." Buttercream's voice softened. "What did she say about me?" Pinkie paused.
"She said that she regretted leaving you and your father behind," Pinkie answered slowly. "She said that... that she hoped you didn't hate her. She left... this is going to sound crazy, but she told me that she was immortal. One day, she said, you would appear to be older than her. She said she loved you."
Buttercream was silent.
"I never really hated her," she murmured. "She sent a letter and explained. If she really was immortal... You look a lot like her, you know that?" Pinkie couldn't hold back tears. She began crying. She was 77 years old, she looked twenty, and she was crying like a foal. Buttercream put a hoof on Pinkie's shoulder.
"I'm sorry. What's wrong?"
"Buttercream," Pinkie choked out. "Pinkie Pie loves you very, very, much. She-" Pinkie almost said, She's me. I'm Pinkie Pie, your mother! But she didn't.
"She really loved you," Pinkie finished. Buttercream stared at her in shock.
"I- I have to go now." Pinkie took a step in the opposite direction. "Fluttershy was a dear friend of Pinkie. I came to her funeral because, because I felt like I knew her. Please keep Fluttershy's memory alive in Ponyville. And Applejack's, and Rainbow Dash's, and Rarity's. Thank you." Pinkie cantered away.
"Good bye!"
Pinkie was overwhelmed with nostalgia and regret. She silently sobbed in the alleyway, waiting for Lyra.
Author's Note
One shot in the timeline of Immortality. I hope I got the sad vibe across. (Twilight is a Unicorn Princess, Ruler of Equestria. Pinkie, Lyra, and Vinyl are really out of the loop.)
