2108, Present Day...
I stood in front of my mother's place of residence, a fancy mansion with little 'if any at all' maintenance. The grass was dry and few in number, 'lack of regular watering had most likely saw to that' I thought to myself as I turned my attention to the flowers and other floral decorations that littered the front courtyard 'it must have been beautiful; I should've come a few years back... damn military' I noted in regards to the now dead and gloomy gardens and bushes that must've once been full of life given the visible effort put into the arrangements. The mansion itself had it's paint mostly scrapped off revealing the brick underneath, the windows seemed out of place having been freshly cleaned fairly recently proving them to be the only signs of life in the poor building.
The double doors didn't look too bad, the paint had chipped off varies areas with no pattern to them revealing the wood underneath, and the door knobs had rusted and looked fragile making it hard for me to open them carefully, a loud creaking sound ensued as i pushed the door open. To my surprise I was immediately greeted by one of the staff, a white mare with a black mane and tail, unfortunately, her eyes were closed so I couldn't make them out. I looked at her then back at the courtyard.
"Hello I'm here to see my mother, I sent a letter days in advance. The house seems to be in need of repairs, what happened." I asked the other mare. Her eyes opened at the utterance of the question and she gaited over to the door and slammed it shut, the expression on her face one of sadness, like my question upset her some, she glanced back at me then to the floor, a sigh escaping her lips.
"Many of the staff begged our lady to get the surgery. We have all come to care for and respect her for the same reasons you do, some of us just couldn't bring ourselves to watch her die slowly." Her eyes trained on me as if to gauge my reaction and await my verbal response which i struggled to give as her explanation sparked a fond memory to come to mind.
"My mother has always been stubborn for as far back as i can remember. Getting her to consider an option like that as a possibility would take amazing charisma, people skills, or generally messing with people's heads. Sadly I lack any of that stuff, focused a lot on magic and sneaking around." I said as I glanced around the long hallway and to the nostalgia-loving part of my heart, many pictures hung over the walls, taken with a camera I had repaired years ago. A warm hearted smile fell across my face. Turning my attention to an open doorway that caught my eye ; I decided to peek my head through; to my surprise, a mass collection of books filled this particular room forming a library of sorts. Yet again I found myself smiling 'it's good to see mom still loves to read' I thought to myself as I removed my head from the doorway and proceeded down the rest of the hallway full of pictures. To my surprise and joy as I wandered about I saw a mass collection of books and items from our past adventures together. One item, in particular, caught my interest and even managed to bring me to tear up a little. A picture of my mother Sunnyside, myself and the rest of the old gang in front of a run-down building.
"hard to believe it's been ten years" A voice I recognized fondly if not a little worn and raspy chimed in. Turning around to greet the pony that the voice belonged to with a warm smile or at least as warm as the immediate tension allowed.To my surprise what I'd seen was less severe then what I had expected. Sitting there across the room writing in a hardback book was an elderly earth-pony mare, my mother Sunnyside. Her mane while still orange had lightened in viscosity, her coat a lighter yellow then once was; at least her eyes remained the same sky blue that I remembered. There was a distance between the door and the desk mom was sitting at. Why she had a desk in a lounge was beyond me, but I decided not to focus on it too much, she'd always been a nerd as far back as I could remember so it wasn't the farthest stretch to imagine. An awkward silence lasted a good minute before the elder ended it "Bee, where's my tea !?" She said, her question directed at the servant who had been standing in the doorway to the room and simply responded by walking off to a different room most like to fetch the requested tea. My mother's eyes then met mine; I took this as a sign to greet her.
I took a few hoof steps forward and forced a semi-coherent greeting "I, uh, you... it's Blitzkrieg's fault! He keeps me busy all the time with recon missions! I've been meaning to visit, truly I have but work like mine gets in the way of a lot of routine stuff." I attempted to plead with her. Her response came in the form of a nod. She pointed a hoof to a chair on the outside of a desk which meant for me to sit down as she did this I noted the rapid and constant shaking her hand was making. I didn't say anything but it did bother me that the doctor's reports I had read on my way over here were slightly accurate, albeit exaggerated. I'd sat down in the chair and began rummaging through my left saddle bag to find an item I meant to give to her as a gift. I looked at her "oh! I got you something from my last mission, your gonna love it!" I said with excitement in my voice. I removed a rectangular object for my saddlebag, presenting it to her with the utmost of care. I took the time between her taking the exchange to wipe my eyes clean of tears, never liked to cry for too long, always found it obnoxious.
Mom examined the mysterious gift thoroughly, it was thin yet tall and wrapped in a tan cloth a color I've come to know her fond of. It was a hell of a gift to find and acquire but I still could understand if she refused to accept it. After all, her library from what I'd seen seemed very large and I'd hate to add to what I assume is already a very exhausting mess to sort out. Yet a piece of me still wanted her to take the gift given the effort it took to steal it from a Pegasus Enclave hideout. "That can wait, just..." she began as she closed the book she was writing in "let me look at you" a pause followed as she looked me over "you've gotten big!" she said with a struggled smile. The smile sadly didn't last long when she made note of my hair. I dyed it annually out of respect and love for her both as a mother and my hero. Do to the fact that I haven't seen her for about fourteen years or so, within that time apart i joined the New Canterlot Republic or whatever it wanted to call itself now, went on a few missions, mostly recon which kept me quite busy and made it hard to visit frequently if at all.
A nervous laugh escaped my mouth as I felt I'd made thing super awkward by now "hehe... yeah and you got old on me." I commented in regards to her appearance, sadly not the best move 'stupid, quick think of something better to cover it up' "Something" 'damn it that was worse! Giving up, I awaited her response yet didn't receive the kind I'd expected given my terrible social skill and nervous attitude; she glanced at me then to her the book she'd been writing in since I'd arrived.
"As I'm sure you're aware I've been writing a journal throughout our adventure" she began before sighing in exhaustion, I decided to listen to what she had to say which was a trick I learned in our travels together "Well, it's coming to an end soon... all my careless actions over the years make are taking their tolls on me in my old age... I'm sure your not prepared to accept the possibility of my passing but i must ask you to do something for me when I'm gone, my journals have to be published" as she spoke her voice became harder to hear which may have had something to do with the reality of the situation finally hitting me, this was happening and I was powerless to save.
"You can't be serious, you're not going to do anything about this? It's not like you to just give up; What are you planning?" I asked with a puzzled stare to which she nodded.
"my body is tired Kid... my story, my adventure is over but yours is just beginning... if you need the motivation to move forward after I'm gone I implore you to read" she answered me cryptically as she removed a small, rectangular, brown book, it looked very worn like it had seen a lot. She slid the book over to me with a smile, accepting it without a tinge of sadness in my heart yet i flipped the book open to the first page to read regardless.
