Meaning

I was staring at Iron in her makeshift coffin. With the upper part of her head covered in an elegant red shawl, she almost looked peaceful. All I could see was the mare I’d fallen in love with, almost asleep. I knew it wasn’t true, but I refused to give that thought any attention. I knew she was gone, but I couldn’t get myself to acknowledge it. Because acknowledging it would make what happened irreversible.

But it already was, wasn’t it?

With her usual scowl gone, and her facial scars hidden, the unfairness of the situation really struck home, and the tears finally started flowing.

After she fell, everything felt so surreal. The alicorns up and left right after killing her, apparently immediately cutting their losses. Or at least that was the only reasonable explanation for what happened.

If it wasn’t for the four dead bodies, it was like nothing happened. In that moment, everything was so quiet.

That point in time would forever remain etched into my mind. Iron was down, everypony was screaming. I was screaming. And yet, everything was quiet. Nothing that happened registered with me. All I could see was Iron, so gruesomely disfigured.

The next few days passed in a blur. For all I knew, weeks could have passed, months maybe. Mentally, I was still in that instant. Even as we built her coffin, I still couldn’t accept any of this as real. Even when Candy and the others found us, I still didn’t wake up, stuck in my nightmare. Maybe because I knew that the truth would be worse.

In a way, my mind could comprehend that she was dead, that she wouldn’t come back. I’d been the one to suggest we make a coffin and give her a proper burial. And yet, something in me just refused to believe it. It was so easy to tell myself that she couldn’t be dead. That Iron simply couldn’t die so easily. That her freaky regeneration would kick in any minute now. That it might not even be her. That it was just somepony that looked like her.

But no, seeing her lying here like this made everything catch up to me. Before I knew it, I found myself sobbing. Next to me, I could hear Candy doing the same.

Candy pulled me into a hug. I barely knew her, but I knew she understood. I held onto her, drenching her coat in my tears as she did to mine. Could I have fixed this? If we’d just run away, everything would have been fine. Just why…

“It’s… it’s so unfair,” I muttered between sobs. “She never wanted any of this. All she ever wanted was to live a normal life.” I turned away from Candy and slammed my hooves. “So why?” I hit the ground again and again, before finally lying down on the muddy snow. “Just… why…”

I broke into another fit of sobs as Candy softly patted my back. After a moment, I lifted my head to face the clouds and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Luna, Celestia, what the fuck did Iron ever do to you?”

I wasn’t making sense, but I didn’t care. I wanted to understand, I wanted to find some meaning behind her death. I wanted to believe that understanding would make it all worthwhile, like it would justify her death or bring her back.

But no.

Iron was gone. Her death was meaningless.

She lay there, in a shoddy wooden coffin. Unmoving, but peaceful.

“Peaceful?” I spat in disgust. “What, am I trying to tell myself that her death is a good thing, because she’s finally at fucking peace?” With my hoof, I hit my forehead as hard as I could, but it still wasn’t anywhere near what I deserved for such a stupid, horrible thought.

When I lifted my hoof again, Candy stopped me. Slowly shaking her head, she just said, “She wouldn’t want this.”

“What else can I do‽ I just don’t understand!” Great, now I was shouting at somepony who didn’t deserve it. I started sobbing again, and Candy held me once more.

She said, “It’s not fair, it’s really not. I wish I could do anything. Turn back time and tell myself to hurry it up. Turn back time and make myself realise things sooner.” She gently patted my back. “But no. I lost her yet again, and this time I’m never getting her back.” She barely contained a sob, and didn’t manage to speak for a while.

Finally, she sighed. “It’s not fair, she was a good filly who was dealt some bad cards, and she lived like she could. She didn’t deserve any of this.”

Hearing somepony else say it hurt even more. This wasn’t just about me. I wasn’t the only one who’d lost somepony they loved. Lock’s eyes were puffy, but she remained quiet. Gloam stared towards the coffin, but her eyes were set far past it. Cotton had tears running down her cheeks, and Grace was crying as well. Even Moonwing had picked up on the mood and seemed a lot more solemn than usual.

If she was such a bad pony, then why were so many others sad to see her go? How was any of this fair?

Over the following weeks, we travelled together, heading west. The atmosphere was heavy, and nopony wanted to be the one to break it.

Once we reached the inhabited parts of western Equestria, Lock and Gloam left. Not a surprise, really. They didn’t really know anypony here outside of our ties to Iron. Apparently, the only place for Lock to return to was Fillydelphia.

I decided to stick around. I knew Grace from before, and had grown familiar with the others. After Snowfeather joined us—much to my displeasure—I managed to convince them to help me look for my family, no matter how cold the trail. In hindsight, it was really more of an excuse to keep my mind off of my grief and process what had happened at a slower pace.

Travelling together, weeks turned into months, months turned into years. At some point, we stopped looking. It wasn’t an active decision or anything, we simply realised one day that we’d stopped asking. It wasn’t an active decision or anything along those lines. After asking in the first few villages, it kind of became a background task, and grew ever less important with each passing month. Then, one day, we simply realised we hadn’t asked anypony about them in a long while.

Much later, after the downfall of Fillydelphia, we met Lock and Gloam once again. Apparently, the two of them had managed to live out a quiet life in that hell some ponies dared call a city. While I had very mixed feelings about Lock’s life as a slaver, I couldn’t help but be at least a little happy for Gloam, whose confidence made her barely recognisable. Best of all? Crow Call had been assassinated in a political plot.

Moonwing in particular had been curious about meeting a pony who’d known her dead aunt better than most of us. Growing up, she somehow ended up with Iron as her role model. Of course, she didn’t look up to the real Iron, just to the idealised version of her that most of us ended up remembering. In the end, she became a hard-working, capable young mare, contrasting starkly with her cousin. Bluestar—now known as Powder Snow—was always on the lazier side. Not that I blamed her; she understood she had a good life and merely wished to enjoy the little things.