There was a crowd in the room. Ponies, griffins, hippogriffs, more than a few dragons, and several changelings all filled the room with their myriad colors, their smells, their heat, their voices. Especially their voices. The constant low murmur pressed on the eardrums. It was a mix of mostly conversation, a lot of reminiscing, and a smattering of quiet sobs.
Through the midst of all moved a white mare, alone in the crowd for the time being. She wore an elegant (though still tasteful for the occasion, she assured herself) black dress, with a sable veil to match. She blessed the veil for what concealment it could offer, because she knew her face looked a mess—she could feel that her mascara had run, and could only imagine how swollen her eyes were. Her mane was beautifully styled, even if it had taken her almost three hours that morning to get up the energy to do it. But none of the creatures in the crowd needed to know that.
None of them needed to know just how close she was to utterly collapsing.
Rarity shook herself and looked at her boutique. The cosmopolitan décor she favored had been swapped for a mournful palette, the better to suit the funeral to which the place was now playing host. A selection of food lay along one wall. This ranged from fancy hors d’oeuvres brought by her Canterlot acquaintances, to rustic and comforting country fare provided by Applejack and her relatives. Rarity noted with some detached amusement that Applejack’s cooking was disappearing at ten times the rate the hors d’oeuvres were.
And holding pride of place at the front of the room was a small—painfully, horrifically small—box made of polished wood. Its sides shone with the burnished metal of hinges and handles. Over part of the top lay a drape of red fabric, backed with gold, and bearing a blue-and-yellow insignia. With a pang that brought with it a fresh gout of tears, Rarity recalled how angry she was when this drape had been made. And over what? A few hours’ work? A few paltry bits’ worth of pilfered supplies?
Rarity would have given every bit she had ever made, or would ever make, to have the filly inside the draped box back. Rarity would have welcomed the filly stealing supplies, would have welcomed the constant noise and dirt she always seemed to bring with her. Rarity would have welcomed every little thing that had once seemed such an annoyance, and was now only a fleeting memory.
The lid of the draped box—
(casket Rarity it’s a casket always call things by their proper name)
—of the casket lay half-open, and inside, cradled in the pillowy satin lining, was a shape Rarity found her eyes alternately drawn to and repelled by. Each time she pulled her eyes away, something inside her clamored for another glance. Each time she returned her gaze to it, she felt her stomach knot up so that she thought she might be sick.
Because the shape inside the casket was unmistakably Sweetie Belle, but it also absolutely wasn’t. Rarity hadn’t yet dared to venture within ten feet of her sister’s body; she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to handle it. She imagined herself coming up to the casket and dropping into a dead faint—not one of her patented melodramatic swoons, but an honest-to-goodness faint—and everycreature paying attention to her, trying to revive her, getting her help. She would normally love to be the center of attention, but she had the good grace to know that this wasn’t her day, not at all. All attention was paid to Sweetie Belle, all conversation was about Sweetie Belle, and that was the way it was going to stay.
Her eyes wandered away from the casket, and there were their parents. They were surrounded by a throng of well-wishers, but she could still see their faces. Her mother’s makeup had been hastily applied, yet did nothing to hide her haggard and careworn appearance. Rarity thought the events of the past year had aged her mother ten years, and herself probably fifteen. Beside her mother, her father didn’t fare much better. His mustache now blended into several days’ scrub of stubble on his face, there were definitely new strands of gray in his mane, and the ever-present shadow of grief hung around his eyes.
Rarity knew, at least in an academic sense, that her parents’ loss was equal to, if not far surpassing her own. She knew this, but the knowledge did nothing to help her. She felt enveloped by her own pain. Her pain was a leaden mantle. Her pain was a dark cocoon. Her pain was like a deluge of water so polluted it was toxic, and she and her parents were drowning in the torrent. She hated to see them foundering as they were, but she had to save herself before she stood any chance of helping them.
“Rarity?” said a voice in her ear.
She jumped a little and looked around. On her left stood Applejack, and on her right, Rainbow Dash. It was only natural that they should be here, she mused. Her own little sister’s destiny had been inextricably linked to their sisters’ for years.
“Hello,” Rarity said to them, a bit impressed at her own ability to keep her voice so level. “You two rather startled me.”
“Sorry bout that,” said Applejack, “but, like I told Rainbow, I had a feelin you might try to duck us if you seen us comin.”
Rainbow Dash nodded her agreement.
“What made you think I would duck you?” Rarity hoped against hope that her feigned innocence would fly.
“Yer kiddin, right?”
“You’ve only been doing it ever since Swe—” Rainbow began.
“You been doin it for darn near a week now,” Applejack said, cutting across Rainbow.
Rarity cringed. “Have I been that obvious?”
“Well, yeah,” Rainbow Dash said.
“It’s like ya can’t even tell we’re worried about ya,” said Applejack, looking Rarity in the eye.
“No offense, Rarity, but you kinda look like crap.”
“Rainbow!” Applejack gave the pegasus a poke in the ribs.
“Jeez!” Rainbow rubbed her side. “I said ‘no offense.’”
Rarity laughed in spite of herself. She always found it hard not to, in the presence of Applejack and Rainbow’s little spats. “None taken,” she said. “I’m positive I don’t look quite like myself. Things have just been so hard.”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “I can’t even imagine.”
Applejack gave a harsh gulp. “I don’t wanna imagine.”
A little silence descended then, and in it, Rarity watched her friends’ faces. They were the same faces she’d always known, contorted with care and concern. She felt herself touched, struck anew by how fortunate she was to have such friends. Had she really spent all the time since Sweetie Belle’s death avoiding them? She didn’t want to believe it of herself, but there it was. Facts were facts, and the fact was, when Rarity’s emotions were in turmoil, Rarity often neglected others. She knew this of herself, and yet it did nothing to impede or remove the blindfold that so often drew down upon her when she found herself in times of trouble.
And speaking of which, weren’t there other losses she was forgetting? There were certainly two other capes to match the one draped over her sister’s casket.
“How are Apple Bloom and Scootaloo?” she asked, breaking the silence. “The poor things must be beside themselves.”
“Yep,” said Applejack, “and no.”
“Meaning?” said Rarity.
“Well, they are totally broken up,” said Rainbow Dash, “but...”
“But those little fillies’re so much tougher than any of us give em credit for,” said Applejack, picking up Rainbow’s tack.
“I believe that,” said Rarity. “They certainly seem tougher than I feel.”
The three of them broke off and found their eyes drawn to the fillies in question. They were just approaching the place where Sweetie Belle lay. Rarity saw tears shining in their eyes even at a distance, but their steps remained steady. Apple Bloom came up and laid a hoof to Sweetie Belle’s brow (how very cold it must be, Rarity’s thoughts came unbidden, terribly icy cold) while Scootaloo looked on. Rarity thought the image would break her heart, if she looked too long.
Fortunately, Applejack’s voice gave her an excuse to avert her gaze.
“Course,” she said, “I think it helped, us havin plenty of warnin the way we did.”
“They had time to get used to the idea,” Rainbow agreed.
Rarity remained silent, but this exchange set her thoughts spinning at a hundred miles an hour. Time to get used to the idea? Is that what they had? Well, she would have liked some of it. But she didn’t think there was enough time in eternity to get used to something like this.
Had she been given any time at all when Sweetie started having seemingly random fainting spells? Had anypony let her have an adjustment period when they finally got a diagnosis, and its attendant bleak outlook, from a specialist in Manehattan? Where had the time she needed been, when she was watching Sweetie Belle succumb to her disease? Was there any amount of time that could make it okay, being forced to bear witness as Sweetie Belle faded from a feisty filly in the bloom of health to little more than a walking skeleton, those once-vivacious green eyes playing host to a level of pain and fear Rarity would not even have wished on her worst enemy? Did time have any such power, to take the sting out of these things?
No. No, it didn’t. Rarity felt new tears slipping down to join those already drying on her cheeks. A harsh, gasping sob escaped her. Her chest heaved.
“It’s okay, Rarity.” Dash’s voice was soft.
“No, it isn’t,” Rarity answered, her voice sounding hoarse and shrill in her own ears.
“No, I don’t reckon it is,” Applejack echoed. She draped a hoof over Rarity’s back and left it there, its gentle weight a reminder that she was not alone. “It won’t be for a long time yet.”
“You mean it won’t ever be again,” Rarity said. “Ponies keep saying I’ll feel better in time... but time won’t make her less gone, Applejack.”
“I know.”
“If... if anything, it will make her more gone.” Rarity felt her throat hitching, trying to put the things that were choking her into words. “I don’t want to... to forget her.”
“How could you forget her?” said Rainbow Dash. “How could any of us forget her?”
“Because of time,” Rarity said. “Time steals all our memories, Dash. It fades them, blurs them, wears them out like cheap fabric.”
Another stunned little silence followed this pronouncement. Rarity looked back towards Sweetie Belle’s casket. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had moved on, and in their place stood a young gray griffin. Rarity didn’t recall ever meeting this griffin, but she knew the griffin’s name all the same: from the stories Sweetie Belle had told her, it could only be Gabby. Rarity looked on as Gabby gently took one of Sweetie’s front hooves in her claw. She held it for a little while, her beak moving slightly as if she were whispering. Rarity supposed she probably was whispering, saying her own private farewell to the filly who had, beyond anything Rarity could ever have hoped, touched so many lives.
After a time, Gabby let go of Sweetie Belle’s hoof and moved away. Rarity watched her go, and marveled inwardly. Gabby moved so effortlessly, as if this wasn’t the end of everything; as if life were just going to keep on ticking as it always had; as if, in another couple hours, Sweetie Belle wasn’t going to be lying deep under six feet of cold, heavy earth.
“Hey, Rarity.” Rainbow Dash’s voice floated into her thoughts.
“Mmm?”
“I think Scoots and Apple Bloom want us. We’ll be around if you need anything, though, okay?”
“Yes,” said Rarity. “Fine.” She dimly heard their hoofsteps retreating from her.
Her mind, however, remained fixed on Gabby. Gabby, who had gone up to Sweetie Belle’s casket, even touched Sweetie Belle’s dead little hoof, as though it were no big thing at all.
Rarity felt her insides squirm. Gabby could come up to Sweetie Belle to say a heartfelt goodbye, and her own sister couldn’t? Well, that was the shape of things, wasn’t it? Rarity hung her head. She didn’t think she could live with herself if she let Sweetie Belle go into the ground without at least touching her hoof one last time. But she equally didn’t think she could face being so close to the casket.
No, Rarity, an inner voice protested, and it was a voice made of stronger stuff than anything she dreamed she had left within her. You will make it through this and be just fine. Have you not made it through worse?
No, she argued with the voice. She really didn’t think she had made it through worse. Was there anything that could be worse than this? Even all those times that Equestria had been in peril... well, those had never been real losses, had they? Those situations had been fraught with the potential for loss, nothing more. Your sister lying cold and dead before you was about as far from potential as one could get.
Nevertheless, the voice insisted, this may be the worst that you have faced, but it is far from the worst that you can bear.
The voice had no possible way of knowing that. Rarity raised emotional hackles in defense. How did this voice know what she could and could not bear?
And yet part of her thoughts dissented, allowed the voice some credence. Even if this voice had no real authority, it had mastered the art of illusion. In the absence of real authority, could the appearance of authority not suffice?
Rarity shivered and wished for real knowledge. She didn’t know what the outcome of all these mental dialogues was going to be. So far, they had only succeeded in tiring her out.
Then trust me, the insistent voice returned. Trust me, and you will feel better. Trust me, and say goodbye to Sweetie Belle.
Rarity tried to summon her mental defenses (or denials) again. It was no good. Her frayed nerves threatened to snap under the effort, and she couldn’t allow that. The insistent voice was starting to win, and she didn’t know what the consequences of that would be, but she was powerless to stop it.
Haltingly, her hooves started to work. Sweetie Belle lay a bare twenty feet from where she stood, and now the distance was closing. The crowd turned to look at her, but that no longer mattered. What mattered was getting to Sweetie Belle. Rarity had a feeling that if she didn’t do this now, she would never get up the nerve to do it.
She had halved the distance. Now ten feet... now nine. She was close enough now to see the individual curls in Sweetie Belle’s mane. It alone looked much the same as it had done in life, lying upon her brow and about her ears in almost jarringly bright ringlets of pink and purple.
I told you, Rarity, the voice cheered. I told you you could do this, and now you have almost bested it, as you have so many challenges before.
She closed to within five feet, and that was when she began to smell Sweetie Belle. Her body had been cleaned and prepared with the utmost love and reverence, of course, but still there was a scent. Beneath the smell of food that hung in the room, beneath the mingled scents of the chattering crowd, beneath even the cloying floral aroma of the soap that had been used to prepare Sweetie Belle’s body, there lurked the unique and unmistakable tang of death. It settled in Rarity’s nostrils and set her heart to throbbing in her throat. The smell may have been coming from somepony she loved, but it was still dark, still ghoulish, and still setting off the old instinctual warning bells deep in her brain.
Her hooves faltered. Her vision swam. The thing she dreaded—a complete, dead faint—threatened. She stood where she was, her head feeling lighter every second.
“Miss Rarity, are you...?” a voice asked with some concern, but Rarity could not have said to whom it belonged. She hoped that whoever it was didn’t expect an answer. Answering was beyond her just now.
She drew a deep breath in through her mouth. It steadied her, but not quite as much as she would have liked. A drastic measure was needed. She poked her tongue between her teeth and bit down.
She tasted blood, but the bright sharp pain cut through her incipient faint just as she’d hoped. In another few seconds, she felt ready to move again. Smell or no smell.
And in what seemed no time at all, she was right beside the casket. She looked down at Sweetie Belle. Her eyes had been closed, and Rarity supposed the intended effect was one of peaceful rest. She could see it, but it was tarnished. It was tarnished by the memory of Sweetie Belle’s final few weeks, which had been anything but peaceful.
Rarity hoped Sweetie Belle was actually at peace. She supposed it must be so. Some ponies believed the spirit went to a paradise afterlife, and the whole purpose of such a thing was to be peaceful. And even if, as some ponies posited, there was absolutely nothing after death... that had to be peaceful in its way, did it not? Even total blankness was preferable to pain, at least in Rarity’s mind. Even total blankness had to be better than watching some horrid disease shutting down one’s body.
Rarity shook herself. Was this any way to be thinking?
She raised her hoof and laid it upon Sweetie Belle’s brow. Just as she had imagined, it was cold. Cold as... well, the grave. She shuddered, and for what seemed the millionth time, wished this wasn’t so. She wished for Sweetie Belle’s heart to resume beating; for warmth and vitality to return to her limbs; and for her to jump up, give her big sister a kiss, and proclaim that all the events of her illness had been nothing more than a terrible dream.
None of that happened, of course. This was no dream. This was life. This was her life. It felt as though it were crumbling down all about her, but still it was hers. It was her life, and her own responsibility to collect its shattered pieces, and to move on. Rarity didn’t have the slightest clue of how she would manage that, but she knew that she must.
She bent and placed a kiss on Sweetie Belle’s brow, warm soft lips meeting stiff dead flesh. More tears came then, and the sound of two ponies coming up behind her.
She straightened up, turned around. It was her parents, wearing identical expressions of heartache that she was sure were mirrored on her own face.
She didn’t wait for them to say a word, merely threw herself upon them. The bereft family stood there, holding one another and weeping quietly.