"My epitaph?" Applejack's face wrinkled like she smelled something bad. "Why in the hay're you asking a question like that?"
Stirring her lemonade, Dash gave a shrug. "I was just thinking the other day." She glared around at her other friends gathered in Rarity's parlor. "And no cracks! I can think just like everypony else, y'know!"
Pinkie and Rarity were busy getting the Monopony board set up and Fluttershy was rubbing the belly of a stretched-out and purring Opalescence, so none of them seemed to be paying attention. That just left Applejack, and her confused look was already turning into a smirk. "You don’t want us making jokes, sugar cube, you shouldn't oughtta give us such perfect straight lines."
Dash focused her whole glare on Applejack. "I'm serious, AJ! I mean, we all gotta go sometime, and your headstone's, like, your last words carved in marble for the rest of whatever! You've only got that much space—" She held her front hooves out and moved them around to show how wide and tall she remembered a headstone being. "—and the letters can't be too small or nopony'll be able to read it. So I was thinking if you really had something you wanted to leave behind, you should probably figure it out early so it'll be ready if you ever, I dunno, crash the wrong way into a mountain or something."
Applejack nodded. "Seems powerful unlikely I'll be crashing into a mountain any time soon, but yeah." She leaned forward and patted a hoof between Dash's ears. "Could it be our little RD's growing up?"
"Will you—?" Dash batted Applejack's hoof away. "I'm being totally serious here!"
"I know y'are, Dash." Applejack took a sip of her own lemonade. "I weren't more'n a pup when my folks went, but I don't reckon they ever gave a bit's worth of thought to something like an epitaph. Granny's the one prob'bly put 'loving wife and mother' and 'loving husband and father' on the markers."
"Exactly!" Dash tapped a hoof on the table. "That's why I've gotta get mine all thought up now! I mean, imagine if you guys're still around when I go! How'll you ever even decide what awesome thing about me is so awesome, it deserves to go on my headstone?"
"Headstone?" Pinkie popped out of nowhere right beside Dash, wrapped her lips around the straw in Dash's lemonade, and sucked the glass dry. "Sounds like you two're having a grave conversation over here." She stretched her face into a toothy grimace, and her voice went all deep and croaking. "Get it? Grave?"
"Pinkie..." Rolling her eyes, Dash wanted to tell Pinkie to be serious, but that would be like telling the wind to stop: if it did, it wouldn't be the wind anymore.
Applejack's low, rough chuckle tickled Dash's ears. "Well, now, Pinkie, I reckon I know what yours'll say." Applejack swept a hoof in front of her. "'Pinkie Pie: she died laughing.'"
"Oooo…" Pinkie slumped forward onto the table, her chin resting on her hooves, her eyes half closed and focused on nothing. "That'd be the way to go, huh? Get that bony ol' Reaper dancing the 'Pale Pony Polka' with me till he was laughing right along, then wham!" She leaped up and slammed a banana peel smack dab in the middle of Rarity's fancy lace tablecloth. "We'd both step on it, see, then he'd grab me, I'd grab him, and we'd go sliding and squealing together right off into the netherworld!"
"Oh, now, really, Pinkie!" Rarity came up behind Applejack, her horn shimmering, and the banana peel drifted upward inside a flex of silvery magic. "You know that I much prefer such shenanigans outside."
"Sorry." The grin Pinkie gave her didn't look sorry at all. "We're talking about tombstones!"
Rarity flinched, her magic faltering and dropping the banana peel onto the carpet. "Why in the wide, wide world of Equestria would you be doing that?"
"Because." Pinkie's voice dropped again. "It's coming to get you, Rarity."
"Hmmph!" Rarity stuck her snout in the air. "Some of us have a dignified passing planned, thank you very much!"
"Planned?" Dash pricked up her ears: she should've guessed Rarity would have this stuff all figured out. "What're you gonna have for your epitaph, then?"
Rarity opened her mouth, but Pinkie spoke faster: "'Here lies Rarity. She wasn't fashionably late for this party.'"
Applejack coughed a laugh at that, and Dash couldn't help squirting out a little one herself. Rarity's lips curved into something that could've been a smile, and she nodded to Pinkie. "I'll certainly take that under advisement, but truly, I feel that my greatest accomplishments still lie ahead of me. Of course, one can never foresee how and where and when, but if I were to go in the near future, well, 'Element of Generosity' would sum things up nicely, wouldn't it?"
"'Be kind,'" came Fluttershy's breathy whisper. Dash turned and saw her blushing beside her. "I...I always liked the sound of that for mine."
"Nah." Pinkie blinked her eyes, and they suddenly became about five times their normal size. "'Here lies Fluttershy,'" she said all high-pitched and sugary. "'If you don't mind, that is.'" Another blink, and she swung her regular face back around to Dash. "And for you, Dashie? 'Here lies Rainbow Dash. And over there, and over there, and a little over there, too.'"
That got another laugh out of everypony, and Dash had to smile. "Y'know, I kinda like it. And your idea, too, Rares. I mean, I'd hate to write down an epitaph and then do something that was incredibly awesome and maybe not have time to change what I wrote down. Then it'd turn into a big thing with some ponies saying my headstone should say what I wrote and some ponies saying what I did later deserved it more." She shook her head. "It's just not worth the hassle." Flapping over to the sideboard, she grabbed a fresh glass of lemonade and took a swig. But a quick thought almost made her spray the stuff back out; she spun and glared again at Applejack. "Hey! You never answered, AJ! And I even asked you first! So c'mon! Spill!"
Pinkie blew air through her lips. "AJ's easy." She reached over, grabbed Applejack's hat in her teeth, and flipped it between her own ears. "'Here lies Applejack. Honest!'" She clapped her hooves. "Get it? 'Lies'? 'Honest'?"
Applejack snatched her hat back. "Ain't gonna be any tombstone for me," she said. "No way, no how."
"Uh-huh." Dash folded her front legs across her chest. "And how're you planning on arranging that?"
"Simple. They plant me at the edge of the orchard right by the road and scatter apple seeds over me." Applejack's voice got quiet. "That's a marker worth having, I'd say. Then any ponies, if'n they know you're down there or not, can get a little shade or a little snack when they're passing by."
Dash blinked, her throat feeling tight all of a sudden, and the door to Rarity's shop rattled. "Hi!" Twilight's voice called, and she came trotting in, tucking her wings to her sides. "Sorry I'm late: I thought the mayor was going to go on talking forever." She smiled, her face as bright and eager as always. "Hope I didn't miss anything."
Now Dash's throat was tight and dry. "Naw," she managed to say. "We were just, y'know, shooting the breeze."
Author's Note
If anyone's interested in reading the original, mini-fic version of "Epitaphs," I've put it into this blog post since I don't have anywhere else to put it!
