The seething heat of the summer afternoon had cooled into a dark warmth. By the light of the moon and stars, a lone pegusus walked through an overgrown forest.
Her mane was tangled with an array of twigs and blackberry thorns. Her orange coat was dusted with dirt. But she didn’t mind, not in the slightest.
Her chest heaved with emotion, a ball of strange bitter sweetness sat in her gut, making her insides flutter with remembrance and excitement, but it also made her sick to her stomach. She had a lump in her throat, which made her resort to breathing through her nose, afraid that if she opened her muzzle, she would fall to sobs.
Occasionally, a silent tear would drizzle down her smiling face.
Soon she came into an open clearing. The moon shone brighter here than it had under the canopy of the summer trees. In the ghostly light of night she saw what could only be described as an image from the past.
A tree house. Her tree house. The windows were broken, the paint was peeled and the floor boards looked rickety. But the sad sight was tempered with the joy of nostalgia. Seemingly before her eyes, she could see the past.
Sweetie Belle singing her and Applebloom a song or two. The pegusus and her two friends spending long hours trying out every imaginable task to get their cutie marks. The grass was still dead in a small patch where Applebloom had spilled her growth potion. A wooden ramp held together only by Sweeties lingering magic was now nearly covered by a thorn bush. The mare could see the marks that her own scooter had left on the ramp. She remembered holding on to the bars of her scooter and flying over the thing, laughing as she did. She could still imagine the long gone scratch that had formed on her leg when she wiped out. And she remembered the look on her and Sweeties face when Applebloom offered to fix the scratch with a healing potion, priceless!
She found herself giving a choked laugh and pulling in a shaky breath. Next she turned to her old clubhouse.
With only herself and a half full saddlebag, she walked up the stairs of her childhood clubhouse. She paused on the treehouse’s porch and just looked at the door. The small heart window was still carved in the wood, but the door knob had fallen off long ago, and the door itself hung from the hinges.
The mare’s lips quivered, threatening to destroy her smile. She placed a hoof on the door, pushing it open and listening to the familiar ‘creak’ it made. She never realized how much she had missed that creek until now. She blinked away her tear stained vision. Still trying to smile. For them.
As the door opened, she gasped. That heavy feeling in her chest growing more painful now. But she kept going. She stepped in to the darkened tree house, and sobbed slightly as she looked around. Still keeping her old smile.
She sat on the rickety floor, beneath an old light bulb, and unloaded her saddle bag. Gently placing it next to her. With shaky hooves she grabbed out three pieces of cloth from her bag. The now small capes her old friend had made so many years ago. She hugged the capes, trying not to stain them with tears. Then she lied them out on the floor of the clubhouse. She looked at the capes, marveling in the fact that she was here. She was dusty, tired, and felt like she may cry, but she was here.
This trip was something that she wanted to do for a long time now. She was here to honor her friends. But what would she do now?
In the dark, the pegusus the pegusus drew her legs to her chest. She had only the dusty rug below her to keep her warm. Not knowing what else to do, she very slowly began to sing. Her voice shallow and alone. The ambiance of night her only sound track.
“W…we are the Cutie Mark Crusaders
On a quest to find out who we are
And we will never stop the journey
Not until we have our cutie marks
We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders
On a quest to find out who we are
And we will never stop the journey
Not until we have our cutie marks”
She smiled slightly and began to hum the old tune. She slumped against the wall and sang the soft song until she drifted off.
When she awoke, the morning sun was harsh on her face. She found that her hooves were wrapped around the capes. This made her smile.
She took the capes and began packing them up in her saddlebag, before deciding better of it and moving the capes away from her, standing and draping the cloths over an old chair in the corner. ‘They will be better here.’ She thought. ‘Surrounded by the memories of the past, by happy thoughts. Yes. Much, much, better.’ She walked to the door, noting how small everything was. The door was small. The club house was small. Everything there was made for fillies really.
She almost found it funny. This is what the past always seemed to amount to. Smallness.
Everything about every past was small. The biggest things were the memories from the past. Memories were the things that everypony could hold on to. The past was the thing that made a pony who they were in the present. This old tree house of bitter sweetness, love, joy, days spent and days lost, was the perfect metaphor for the past. So much emotion. Such a small portion of her life spent here. But the old mare treasured this place. Even though it was small. This thought made her smile, a lump once again sat in her throat. She wished she could just stay here forever.
She hadn’t been in this club house for 89 years. So much had changed since then. But if she could just stay a bit longer…she shook her head.
“Remember and move on.” The old mare chided herself. She pushed open the old door, saying softly as she did, “Goodbye Sweetie Belle. Goodbye Applebloom. I’ll see you around. Sometime soon maybe.”
Then she left the treehouse, leaving it as a memorial to the past as she made her way down the well-used, but overgrown path home.
After the story
Dear Princess Celestia
Last night on the 100th anniversary of forming the Cutie Mark Crusaders, I learned a very important lesson about friendship.
Under the light of the moon, I braved the edge of the Everfree forest to return to an old place. My old clubhouse.
There I sat in the place of my past, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. Equestria has changed so much in the last one hundred years, but that old place still stands. And so does all the memories my friends and I have made there.
Ever since Applebloom passed, I’ve been down on myself with loss and grief. But last night, I think I’ve finally moved on.
Now I know that no matter how much time passes, no matter how much we all grow and change, our friends will always be alive in the minds and hearts of those who loved them. So in a way, we’re all immortal. I think that’s the hardest lesson anypony could learn. Greif blinds us from this truth. But now, in my elder years, I finally understand.
Remember me fondly.
Your faithful subject, Scootaloo.
Author's Note
So, I wrote this tonight. Recently, I've realized that I've grown up. My own childhood clubhouse is run down. My friends are all gone. There's nothing I can do to get anything back. The memories are sweet...but the fact that I can't make new ones like them...well that's bitter. My realization inspired me to write this. It's unedited, like anything written at 2am, so I'll work on i more in the morning. Please tell me what you think.
