They Never Really Knew Them
The words were carved in stone.
Applejack
BLR 16 to ALR 105
Element of Honesty
Beloved daughter, sister, aunt, and friend
Twilight Sparkle sighed deeply as she read the word’s written on her friend’s tombstone. She had come down to the gravesides of her friends several times, but the pain just never went away. She was glad Applejack died peacefully in her sleep, and that she didn’t have to watch illness slowly consume another one of her friends.
Twilight tried to remember all of the happy times she had spent with Applejack and the rest of her friends, but the good recollections also came with the bad. She winced as the memories of that fateful day came back to her.
It was a cloudy day in Ponyville, but that was the only abnormal thing about that morning. Ponies played with their foals, went shopping, and shared meals with close friends. Pinkie Pie’s granddaughter, Bubblegum, was passing out invitations for her latest party. Sunny Day, Rainbow Dash’s son, was setting up a field for the Ponyville Youth Soccer Group to practice on. Nothing at all seemed to be wrong.
Twilight heard a knock at her castle door. She figured it would be Bubblegum handing her yet another invitation. However, when she opened the door, instead of seeing a hyperactive hot pink mare, she saw a tan pony with bright green eyes that were filled to the brink with tears.
“Apple Seed, are you okay?” Twilight asked worriedly.
“No,” Apple Seed answered quietly.
“Would you like to come inside and talk about it?’
“C-Can I p-please just have a h-hug?”
“Of course,” Twilight said as she pulled her weeping goddaughter into her hooves. Apple Seed wept into her shoulder for a little while. Twilight rubbed her back and whispered, ‘it’s okay,” into her ear many times until the younger mare ended the embrace.
“Follow me,” Apple Seed said, “you need to see this for yourself.”
Twilight nodded and let Apple Seed lead her to Sweet Apple Acres. There was a sign on the front that said ‘closed’. Twilight was very concerned at this point. Sweet Apple Acres was rarely ever closed. The last time the Apples closed down the farm was when Big Mac passed away.
Twilight walked into a room to see a circle of ponies surrounding Applejack’s bed and heavily weeping. Twilight looked a little closer and saw an unmoving Applejack laying in her bed with closed eyes.
“S-she died in her sleep,” Apple Bloom explained. “Mah big sis is gone!” She began to weep over her body.
“No. It can’t be true!” Twilight thought. “She was full of life yesterday! She was bucking apples with the same energy she had when I met her! SHE CAN’T BE GONE!” She held Applejack’s hoof and looked at her friend lying there, lifeless.
She started crying harder than she ever had in her whole life.
Twilight felt a few tears drip down her cheek as she recalled the painful memory. She remembered helping Applejack’s family plan the funeral, but on the day of the burial, Twilight locked herself in her castle as endless tears fell through her eyes. She knew Applejack would have wanted her to be there, but she couldn’t bring herself to face the world that day. She stayed locked in there for months, barely eating and sleeping. She would have stayed in there for the rest of her immortal life if Spike didn’t make her go out by threatening to tell Celestia how she’s really doing.
After that, Twilight learned how to fake a smile and pretend that everything was fine. She managed to fool everyone, even Celestia, that she was totally okay and wasn’t waiting for the right moment to end it all. This went on for months, until the day that Celestia finally found out.
Celestia was becoming skeptical of her former student’s behavior. She had expected Twilight to mourn the loss of her friends, but she had seemed a little off after Applejack’s funeral. Twilight always appeared tired and her smiles looked very forced. The thing that worried Celestia the most was that Twilight had lost her love of learning. Most of the spellbooks that she loved and treasured had been donated to the Canterlot library. When Celestia found out about this, she knew something was very wrong and decided to pay Twilight a visit.
Celestia knew that what she was about to do wasn’t right, and was an invasion of Twilight’s privacy, but it was for Twilight’s own good. She used her magic to unlock the sealed front door to Twilight’s castle and hesitantly walked through it.
There were countless cobwebs on the walls and dust on every table. All of the curtains were drawn and some of the crystal walls were cracked. Various papers and trinkets were scattered on the floor. The castle looked like it had been abandoned for months. Celestia was getting more and more worried with every step she took. It just wasn’t like Twilight to leave a mess sit. This only concerned her even more.
Celestia took a deep breath as she peeked through the door to Twilight’s room. She winced at the sight of a disheveled Twilight laying on the floor, weeping. She was holding a group picture of all her friends in her hooves. Her mane was overgrown and tangled, her eyes were bloodshot from hours spent crying, and she was quietly whimpering as she sobbed. Endless tears rolled down her cheeks. Celestia couldn’t help but shed a few tears herself. After looking a little closer, Celestia saw something by Twilight that horrified her.
A small, shiny knife with drops of blood on it was laying on the ground by the grieving mare.
Celestia had suspected something was wrong when she visited Twilight after Spike’s funeral, but she had never imagined that things had gotten so bad that Twilight resorted to self-harm. Celestia knew that alicorns, despite being viewed as immortal, could die by murder or suicide, and she feared that she would lose the closest thing she ever had to a daughter if she didn’t get help soon. All she wanted to do run through the door, break Twilight’s bedroom window, throw the bloody knife out of it, take her former student into her hooves, and never let her go.
And that’s exactly what she did.
Twilight grimaced as she remembered her days spent at the Ponyville Mental Rehabilitation Facility. Those days were filled with straight jackets, terrible food, and uncomfortable beds.
Not that she had slept that much anyway.
After a few months or so, Twilight managed to convince the doctors that she was better and she was allowed to go home. She had stopped cutting, but the urge was still there. She knew that if she went back to the hospital, her stay would be much longer. Plus, Celestia said that if she heard about Twilight having to be put back in care, Twilight would have to permanently move into the castle at Canterlot. Having guards constantly monitoring her would take away her freedom to grieve in peace, and that was the last thing that Twilight wanted.
“I tried to live without you guys for 500 years, and I just can’t take it anymore,” Twilight said as she faced the gravestones of her friends. “Today will be the last day I have to live without you guys.” Twilight walked away from the gravestones and cast a spell that she knew all too well. The ‘youthful memories’ spell that she used every time she had to make an appearance somewhere. It made it look like she hadn’t been crying and that she actually bothered to take care of herself. Trying to accomplish these things by herself had proven to be impossible, so she had started using magic anytime she had to leave the solitude of her castle.
She braced herself for what was to come.
The current mayor of Ponyville had decided to make a new town holiday a few years ago. It was celebrated each year on October 10th. Twilight always got a little offended since ‘Elements Appreciation Day’ was celebrated the day after Applejack’s death, but the mayor had made the decree without ever consulting her. She had thought about going down the Mayor’s office to complain, but she knew that the other ponies of Ponyville enjoyed the event, so she kept her mouth shut. She walked down the streets to see that ponies were already starting to sell brown hats, pink cupcakes, and even some ponies selling plastic versions of the Elements of Harmony! She could even see a few fillies wearing plastic versions of her original crown.
To Twilight, the worst thing about ‘Elements Appreciation Day’ wasn’t the cheap, plastic replicas of mementos that she and her friends had collected on her adventures, or even the fact that some ponies tried to profit off of the real properties of her friends. One time, she had to pay a stallion one-thousand bits for a dress that Rarity had given her as a birthday gift. She didn’t know how he had gotten his hooves on the dress, but she wasn’t about to let him keep it.
The worst part was the way that her friends were portrayed by the next generation of ponies. Half of the things written in storybooks and even her friends’ biographies were false.
“Did you know that Rarity was the most popular designer in Canterlot since she was a teenager?”
“I heard Rainbow Dash fought off the Headless Horse with her bare hooves!”
“Applejack never told a lie in her whole life!”
To Twilight's horror, some ponies, who seemed to be bigger fans of some of the elements than others, decided to go as far as to paint her friends’ lives in a negative light.
“Pinkie Pie moved away from home because she hated her family!
“Fluttershy pretended to have anxiety just to get attention!”
“Rainbow Dash would trade her friends for a Daring Do book in a heartbeat!”
There were some ponies who didn’t even believe her friends existed at all. They believed that the Elements of Harmony themselves were nothing but a myth and a cool story to tell to foals. These ponies, who thought they were being smart, were just telling lies to foals. Twilight was fearful that one day, there wouldn’t be anypony who knew wh the bearers of the Elements of Harmony even were. Her friends would be remembered as the elements of Loyalty, Generosity, Laughter, Kindness, and Honesty, not as Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Applejack. Knowing that her friends would one day only be remembered for their achievements, and not for their personalities, broke Twilight’s heart.
“Who are they to say what they were and weren’t like?” Twilight wondered. “They died before all of you were born. You guys have no right to spread around these rumors!”
Twilight arrived at her castle doorstep and saw countless gifts piled up the stairs to her door. Many foals had drawn pictures of her zapping villains with her magic, but there was one picture that caught her eye. It was a picture of her drawn with her friends, at least, that’s what she thought those ponies were supposed to be. Twilight noticed that her physical appearance was drawn perfectly, but her friends were unrecognizable.
Pinkie Pie had a pie for a Cutie Mark, had a mane and tail that were twice as long as they ever were when she was alive, and she was drawn accidentally dropping a pie she made. She had a big grin on her face as she dropped the pastry, almost as if she meant to drop it.
“Pinkie never would have dropped a desert, she would have protected it with her life.” Twilight thought.
Applejack had a bright red coat, her mane and tail were a shiny shade of green, and her Cutie Mark was an apple tree. She was drawn eating an Akane apple, the only type of apple that Applejack disliked. Twilight remembered her friend saying that it tasted too spicy for her.
“Of all the apples you could have drawn her eating, you pick the one apple that she doesn’t care for.
Rarity had a straight dark blue mane and tail. Her cutie mark was a single purple gem. She was holding a bedazzled mirror with her magic and staring at her reflection.
“Rarity was never this self-absorbed.” Twilight was starting to feel a little nauseous. She couldn’t believe the artist had portrayed her friends like this.
Fluttershy face wasn’t even visible in the picture. Her dark green mane was completely covering her face. Her coat was a pastel shade of green.
“Even Fluttershy wasn’t this timid,” Twilight thought.
Rainbow Dash wasn’t even in the picture. There was just an outline of a pegasus with the words ‘Not So Loyal’ written above the pony. Twilight used her magic to burn the paper to dust. The artist couldn’t even be BOTHERED to draw the 6th Element of Harmony. She didn’t even care enough to look at the other gifts that had been left at her door. Twilight just slammed the door to her house and started to sob. She was disgusted at the way that society looked at her friends. It just wasn’t fair.
“Just because I have a crown and wings, I get respected by everypony, yet ponies barely even care about my friends’ accomplishments. Why do I have to be the one who has to be alive to watch their memories be disrespected? Why can’t I just be like them and BE DEAD?!” She screamed and banged her head against the wall. “I WANT TO DIE!” Twilight yelled. She started to cry into her hooves. As she was crying, she heard a pony shouting something outside. She cast her ‘youthful memories’ spell and went outside to politely ask the pony to quiet down.
“Um, excuse me,” Twilight began.
“Oh! Princess Twilight! Would you like a copy of my book?”
“I guess?” Twilight answered.
The pony handed her the book. Twilight read the cover. “The L-Legend of The Elements of Harmony?” Tears started to well up in her eyes.
“I dedicated it to you! Please, take it. No charge. I hope you like it.”
Twilight wanted to fake a smile, thank the pony for the free book, and calmly walk back to her castle. But she just couldn’t. She couldn’t take it anymore. “THEY. WERE. NOT. LEGENDS!” Twilight screamed. She teleported herself back to her castle, cast a bubble of silence, and started wailing and screaming “They were real!” After a few hours, Twilight finally stopped crying. She grabbed a quill and scroll.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Do you remember that day when you found me laying on the ground with that knife? I do, and I’m grateful that you found me. You wrapped me in your arms and told me that everything would be alright. You were almost right. Everything was alright, except me. I’m sorry, but I can’t bear to live this life any longer. I can’t stand to watch the way that other ponies treat my friends. I’d rather die happy than live miserable. You tried so hard to save me Princess, but at this point, I am beyond saving. Please don’t mourn for me. I’ll be in a better place, and hopefully, I’ll be able to see my friends again.
Your former student,
Twilight Sparkle
Celestia flew to Ponyville as fast as she could, hoping that she wouldn't be too late. She searched all throughout Twilight’s castle, but Twilight wasn’t there. Finally, she looked out the fifth story window and saw Twilight laying on the ground, dead. She slowly flew out the window, picked up Twilight’s lifeless body, and hugged her former student for the final time.
Author's Note
Man, this was tough to write. I wanted to try writing something sad for once. If you or somebody you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please get help. You won’t regret reaching out.
Update: August 2020. Yeah, this is a piece of shit. This was a lazy attempt to write a story long enough to qualify for Equestria: Daily. Please, please don't let this thing deter you from reading other things I've written, there's a decent chance you'll like other things more. And if you do like it, that's absolutely fine. You're able to enjoy this more than the author herself. I'd view that as an achievement. :)
Have a nice day.
Update 2.0 March 2021. Here's the blog post with my apology and explanation, https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/941701/why-legends-v1-is-flawed
