I have feared this day. For so long I’ve dreaded its inevitability. We both knew it was coming, and over the years, the thought of it make my stomach drop, farther and farther the closer this day got.
And now it’s here.
Crystal Fire and Star Shine, our children, are to my right. Crystal Fire is our youngest daughter and a unicorn, like her father. Her mane in beautiful, clear colored and flowing, but messy at the moment. It was early morning, and she hasn’t brushed it yet. She was crying profusely, which only made me want to cry more; I hate to see her in pain.
Star Shine is comforting her, and like me, barely holding back tears. He’s our eldest son, and the first Alicorn prince in as long as even Celestia can remember. He was just as strong as his dad, and even has taken over his job as captain of the Royal Guard. It almost broke my heart when he told me he was dating somepony. I haven’t told him about the Alicorn’s curse yet, and the way he admires her, the captain of the Wonderbolts, he says, I couldn’t say no. Watching Shining Armor dying in his bed reminds me that I have to tell him eventually.
Across the bed stood Twilight Sparkle. Seeing her was just as painful as seeing Shining Armor or Crystal Fire. Time wore heavy on her as well, her mane was turning grey and her voice was getting hoarse. She was crying harder than I’ve ever seen her, and I was at both Pinkie Pie’s and Rarity’s funerals.
Shining Armor looked at me, “Cadence, thank you so much for all those wonderful years, I couldn’t have asked for a better life. And my time with you was the best time of it. But don’t let it be yours; we both know this was so short for you. Don’t mourn me forever; move on, if not for yourself, for our children.”
He turned to Twilight, “Twilly, thank you for being the best sister anypony could ask for. Growing up with you was such a wonderful time, and I wish I could do it a thousand times over. And remember that I love you so much.”
She took a deep breath and began to hum a slow, soft tune. After a minute she had added lyrics to the melody. As much as her voice has degraded, when she sings, it’s still as beautiful as the day of my wedding.
When I was just a filly I found it rather silly
To see how many other ponies I could meet
I had my books to read, didn't know that I would ever need
Other ponies to make my life complete
But there was one colt that I cared for
I knew he would be there for me
My big brother, best friend forever
Like two peas in a pod, we did everything together
He taught me how to fly a kite
We never had a single fight
We shared our hopes, we shared our dreams
I miss him more than I realized, it seems
And though he's oh so far away
I hoped that he would stay
My big brother best friend
Forever
Forever
I couldn’t stop the tears streaming down my face, but now I was crying for my brother, a gentle soul stolen too soon. I remember he’d always sing with a voice that made harps cry, but only to cheer me up. I loved him so much, but couldn’t help him; I couldn’t even stand by his side when he needed me the most. That was the day when I became alone, the day I learned of the curse, and the day I gained family that was just as alone as I.
And she always said she’d never love anypony quite like she’d like too, “They leave. Because they should or because they find somepony else,” she says, “I suppose in the end, they break my heart.”
I understand now the sad looks that she tried so hard to conceal the night of my wedding, she knew this was to come, even then, and perhaps she wished she could share in the bliss I was feeling. That ignorance was the last true bliss I can remember.
And she told me once that she even let her pupil get too close, now when she goes to the Canterlot Library, she always ends up in the Twilight Sparkle wing, and cries with every lesson about friendship she reads.
Shining Armor was talking to the kids, and I thought to how strict I’ve been to them since their dad became bed ridden. Their happy faces were too much for me to bear when I thought to this day. Why should they have been happy then if they were just going to be sad now…
But they’re old enough that it meant nothing to them.
“Cadence,” Shining Armor said, snapping me back to reality, “My dear it’s time for us to part.”
My head spun, but I managed to put one hoof in front of the other and stagger over to his side. With heavy, choked up breaths, I leaned down and hugged him for as long as I could. I didn’t want to let him go, not ever.
When he started to talk to Twilight I backed off, I watched as his mouth moved quickly right by her ear. To me it felt like hour they did this, but it must have been one line. She moved back a few inches, and he put his horn on her head.
With a great burst of magic he died.
Twilight said he told her he wanted to give her one last gift, and that was it, she didn’t know what he did. That is always the hardest to cope with, that I don’t know what his final act was. I always say he died showing Twilight all his memories, that’s what I would do, but I guess it’s better that I don’t know.
The day of his funeral, there was a last minute massive storm scheduled, and we learned about it in the middle of his burial. I looked around at the group of royal guards that were here to be the pallbearers, Twilight and her family, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash’s daughter, and captain of the Wonderbolts, and a large crowd of his and my friends with despair. We started to hurry the ceremony when Rainbow Dash interrupted, “Stop, let me take care of the weather so we can do this right.”
She flew up, and for five minutes she was gone. We began to worry, but her daughter assured that she would be alright, and reminded us that we were talking about the best flyer in Equestrian history.
And she was right, soon after she came down out of the sky. I would say clouds, but once she was out there wasn’t a cloud within ten miles of us. Her trademark rainbow streamed behind her, and around her was the most beautiful Sonic Rainboom I’ve ever seen. But I don’t think I can call it that, it was a growing and expanding corkscrew of rainbooms.
It ended up being a beautiful day.
A year later, well, almost, it was a year later from a few days before he died. Anyway, that day Twilight came to my house in Canterlot. The despair from the day of his passing was gone, and we talked for hours of our memories.
Two old mares telling their stories, only I wished there were two. The years gone by have left their mark on all but me. For me the years start coming, and they don’t stop coming, more, and more, and more…
The next day Twilight got up early to get flowers, flowers for Shining Armor. We didn’t make a big deal out of it, just us immediate family. After a short walk to the graveyard, the sea of grey whose waves batter the emotions of any unfortunate boat that sails into its stone waters, a subconscious stroll up to the glimmering white marble that marked the right grave, and a few words, we put the flowers down and stood over his grave remembering.
Since he passed, things have gotten little more stressful regarding his greatest accomplishment. Our spell might have expunged most of the changelings, not to mention shatter the hive mind, but the ones in buildings remained. With Twilight and her friends, the princesses, his fellow royal guards, and I, Shining Armor set up the CIA, or Changeling Integration Association. We worked tirelessly to make sure that ponies and changelings could live together harmoniously. Finding homes, food sources, everything. Though, as time went by, they all found out they could change into forms of unseen ponies, or better put, they could turn themselves into how they would have been if they were ponies. That satisfied most, but a few still replaced others if they were hungry enough. Which was a problem for some parents because a kid could hire a changeling to be them for the night so they could sneak out.
But it never hit off with some ponies, and after he passed, a group rebelled and took some changelings hostage to try and be rid of them all.
They were quickly imprisoned by Princess Luna.
And I remember when I almost lost him only years after our marriage, when Order tried to take back the throne. He make everypony into virtually robots, if you did something different and he found out, you were turned to stone. And, and, oh Shining Armor, how could I have almost lost you…
The princesses, the other two, were even too young to have heard of him, so our last resort was to free the oldest creature we knew, Discord. Turns out that Order was the reason Discord ever got the throne; after countless years of tyrannous rule under Order, Equestria searched for a hero that could overthrow him, and upon meeting Discord in the Everfree forest during one of the rebel meetings, the leaders knew he was the one who could rid the world of Order. He succeeded, and to thank him the rebels gave him the crown, and it went straight to his head. He kept all the power until the Princesses overthrew him.
So once Order returned, Twilight and her friends went after him with the elements, but he hid away, deep someplace he could never be found. From there he ruled, and slowly turn everypony to stone, until Shining Armor, three teenagers, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Applebloom, a strange one whose name was Screw Orb or something, a DJ, a cello player, and I set Discord free. It was months and the turning of most of the above to stone before Discord prevailed. That day we learned what Discord did to those who opposed his; banishment to one’s own subconscious.
Then he did something odd, free every stone ponies, including the Princesses, and asked to be set free, promising he would never attempt to take over again. Celestia agreed on one condition, that he swore it on the thing that mattered most to him, so on her wellbeing, Discord swore to never attempt to take the throne.
He did however, succeed in kicking Celestia off of it, by some means he convinced a large majority of ponies to want a senate, so one was made to replace Celestia.
Though rumor has it he only did that to take stress from Celestia and give her more free time.
Since then, and up until a year ago, nothing major has happened. Then Shining Armor died, the reason we’re at his grave at four in the morning. And the reason that for ten years, Twilight, Crystal Fire, Star Shine, and I brought flowers to this very spot on this very day, at that very hour.
Then Twilight’s time came too, and she was buried next to her brother, at the top of a small grassy green hill in the center of an old cemetery. Very few people came, only Rainbow Dash was still alive of her closest friends, and she didn’t have much time left, her daughter missed chairing the Senate on a meeting about a massive drought to be here, and I came with my kids.
I looked at Rainbow Dash, she always said she’d be there when her friends needed her most, and she was at their sides on their deathbeds. Loyal as one could be.
“One last time, for one last friend,” she said before taking off. She flew so high her cyan coat was invisible against the endless expanse of blue sky. I saw her next when she was close to the ground and surrounded by a Sonic Rainboom, then she spread her wings, propelled them down as fast as she could, and launched back through the ring, and making a second one, and Double Rainboom.
And thus the greatest of friends part as they first became connected, that beautiful rainbow ring.
Since Twilight rested next to her brother in Canterlot, Rainbow Dash made an addition to our flower ceremony for Shining Armor. She decided to come the same day and put flowers on Twilight’s grave the same day. And so we had a fourth again for years to come.
And it was many years until she died, all the flying she still did, she said, even after she retired from being the captain of the Wonderbolt, she still trained and flew with them, and once she retired from work entirely, she flew endlessly with her family. She always said the work was good for her heart, and she even remembers making a bet with Applejack over who’d live longer. Rainbow Dash says all the time it should have been her, but the accident got her…
Rainbow Dash was difficult to bury, normally ponies are buried where they were born, but Cloudsdale doesn’t have any ground for graves. The next thought would be Ponyville, but she did spend much more of her life in Canterlot with the Wonderbolts. In the end, since her family was in Canterlot, she was buried there. The day after her funeral, her daughter came to me to accompany her to place flowers on her grave. There were only four of us, Rainbow Dash’s daughter, her husband, my two children, and I. Well, I counted Star Shine twice, but what was odd was she didn’t invite her brothers, or any of the Wonderbolts, who all were at this grave yesterday.
Her eyes were releasing a deluge comparable to waterfalls, and the rest of us just stood and were silent. Crystal Fire said she was going to visit Dad, and she walked off. After regaining composure, Rainbow’s daughter turned to me, not her husband, my son, Star Shine, but me, Cadence, her mother in law.
“All those years, all those years since your husband died, and, and you look the same… Not a grey strand in your entire mane. You haven’t even aged a day. And Star Shine, he’s just like you. I, I just couldn’t stop crying yesterday, or when she passed, and Star Shine came to comfort me, but I told him to just go to bed, then, then I thought back to when I did this for him when his dad died, and then you came to mind, and how you’re still alive, and I thought how he took after you, an Alicorn and… and… and…”
“…I…” I started to say.
“Oh Cadence, how could you let him do this, you know I’m just going to break his heart…”
I looked over to my son, who now understood what she meant; the Alicorn’s curse.
“It’s true, it broke my heart when Shining Armor past, but what kept me going was all the memories we had over the years. And I wished for a moment that I had never married him, then I thought all those memories that made it so hard to see him go were all good times he never would have had if that wish was granted. I learned that his life was better with me in it, and even with the sorrow I felt I knew he was happy to have made so many memories. Parting is such sweet sorrow, remember that, and instead of thinking how sad your passing will be for him, think of ways that you can make the time until then magical.”
That was the last time she despaired over the future, but still it came.
Star Shine was devastated those days after Rainbow Dash’s death, he thought of the Royal Guard, with really is odd if you think about it, his chief job is to protect himself, anyway, he thought of his colleges and how they would all die, while he could lead the Royal Guard forever. He thought of his wife, and he thought of his younger sister, he thought so much over Crystal Fire.
Growing up with Shining Armor as a dad made him always fantasize about guarding the Princesses, not like we need protection. So his little sister became his princess whom he would protect from everything. But as he thought of her he realized he could not protect her from the most evil villain of all- time.
I told him about being a parent, and how the hardest part is watching your children go, as they all say. But I have to say the hardest part will be standing over my daughter as she died, not looking a second older then when she was born. I told him how happy I was when I saw he was like me, and that I wouldn’t have to watch him die.
That villain still worked his magic, destroying the world on moment at a time and killing all those who live.
Year after year we went to Shining Armor’s grave on that day, and to the graves of Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle on the days they died. Crystal Fire, and when she did marry, her husband came along as well, Star Shine and his family, and I always went, rain, or hail, or fire to those gravesites on that day, and as those in our group started to go, their graves were added to the trip.
In the end it was just Star Shine and I, delivering flowers to family long gone. Eventually I started to grow the flowers myself, without magic, not even to water them.
Then on one of the most tragic days in history, we realized that our curse could be broken. The day Princess Luna died of natural causes started by her thousand years on the moon. How Celestia cried that day…
But for the three hundred years that lead up to that, Star Shine had quit the Royal Guard. He volunteered to raise the moon every night in Luna’s absence. At first Celestia was in a crippling depression, so it fell on my son and I to take both their places. Once she recovered, she was originally opposed to the idea, but gave it because of how much work it was as she was still trying to recover.
The next year on the day we delivered the flowers, Celestia joined us with flowers she grew self, Moon Lilies she called them, and we added Luna’s grave to our path.
Even with Celestia raising the sun, Star Shine raising the moon and stars, and I wandering the world spreading love and ending wars and disputes; on that one special day we gather together in a graveyard in Canderlot and place flowers on the graves of those we loved, those we’ve lost, and none of us have ever missed it, the Placing of the Flowers, our tradition for eternity.