Long Time No See, Darling!

by B_25

Rating: everyone
Tags: Spike, Rarity, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 1414

You see a message sent ten minutes ago from someone who has not been online for the last ten months. You are Spike, and that message is from Rarity.

You see a message sent ten minutes ago from someone who has not been online for the last ten months.

You are Spike, and that message is from Rarity.

[Cover by NC Mares]

Published 2021-08-01 23:20:03 UTC
Last updated 2021-08-01 23:20:03 UTC

[OFFLINE] Last Seen: 10 Minutes Ago

Long Time No See, Darling!
B_25

[There is a message on the computer. Your eyes read the profile. Last active: ten minutes ago. Your heart pounds as all goes blurry. Blinking the haze away, you check your messages to see if there is anything new.]

[You read the latest entry]

Dear Spikey,

It's been a relatively long time since you and I have spoken last! I must confess to my terribleness of tardiness in keeping up our discourse! The lands here are cold as they are white, and though I rarely leave my home, I find that the temperature is always too cool for me to write.

I do mean to write back to you, darling, I really do! I've read your messages. Handy how Twilight was able to create a connective service through the power of her magic! It preys on the heart a little bit to see how high your friends have risen. Everyone around you is doing so well—while you are not doing too well yourself.

The doctors here aren't well equipped to work on ponies, but they do their best to assist in whatever my trouble is. They tell me that I am ill. Those pains in the chest are more than enough to assure me of that. There has always been the odd pain. The little jerk that I never thought to ask about or have checked.

But that pain with my heart. It's something new. It's something scary. I think what is scariest is not having my friends here. My mind wonders about Applejack. She was always so brave. I cannot be brave myself. But thinking of her braveness, well, it allows me to take a couple of more deep breaths.

They have me on a strange sort of medication.

It was explained that they are clueless about my illness, but that I should take these pills anyway, and only return should the condition worsen. Crisis has amok in these lands, and help is needed to more severe cases.

Even still, my heart hurts.

Is it a pain to be added to the rest? I hope so.

But all these pains reminded me that the clock is ticking. I can feel it within me. Brushes with death leave me jumping and crashing into walls. I beat my hooves into the glass and scream that all of this will someday come to an end. I can hardly breathe by the time the attack is done.

I do my best not to think about it. Not to dwell. Any bit of thinking will take me to the line of logic that I may sometime soon die. Once I start thinking about it, and the realization begins again, I lose myself in a frenzy. It's a primal fear. Something that strips away the body.

Thinking of my friends, and the time that we all shared, helps me through these cold, dull nights.

How are you, darling? I know I'm fairly late in reaching that question—but it's legitimate all the same.

Have you been keeping up with that quill of yours? I would rather hope so! I might not give you much of that impression anymore, but I do see all that you create, even if I do not have the energy to inform you of it. There are very few I talk to, and I'm afraid that someone has to reach out first before I'll respond.

I do wonder if we'll ever go back to the way we were before. Me being the sister that Twilight could never be to you. We had the pesky fight a long time ago, and although we recovered, life tore us in separate directions.

Those were giddy days, my little Spikey.

Will they ever return? Will our lives and our minds ever settle together once more? I want to go back out there. To make a design that will dazzle the world and remind it of my existence. How many in Canterlot know of my dresses? How many from the Gala from so long ago even remember me?

We are fleeting things, darling... but at least I'll always know you'll remember me.

Then, someday you will die too, and it will render this all moot. But if the future were always to be the judge, then we would do few things in the present. I hope that my memory helps you through your present—even though I may no longer be present within it.

I've always wondered what becomes of the connection between two friends. Fluttershy and I; Twilight Sparkle and you. Not Twilight Sparkle as she was, by herself, or as a princess, but of that connection between you and her.

Or even us.

What we were... what became of it? The connection that our friendship was funnelled through. It's only recalled by you and I and the others who might have happened a glance of it. You and I might change the world. But what of that connection? What does it do? Does it outlast us, or do we outlast it?

Maybe there is a testament to it. Something that carries on within ourselves and what we may do that carries its proof of concept. I like to think that I affected you in some way, darling. I want to believe that all this talk is hogwash as well.

We will meet again soon, will we not, and pick up where we left off? I would like to finish all those gifts I had planned for you. They were beyond me at the time, and I did not have the soul to compose them.

I've been away from art for far too long, and even now, I still feel burnt out.

I worry that, without my art, without my friends, I am just an old mare, in a foreign land, dying in a dark room. I don't wish for this to be the end. Rather just a setback, as you see in the middle of a story. I yearn to bounce back from this. To finally go on a proper course.

Everything will fall where it needs to in the end. A story must have its proper conclusion. I've been feeling that out all my life, and through my success and mistakes, it always felt as though I were one step closer to it.

Everything feels as though it's lost its meaning this last year.

I'm hoping, though, something rekindles that spark.

You were like that for me so long ago. The time you spent in my boutique allowed me to never be alone as I created. As you grew older, I wished to design for you. To dress you in so many outfits and various clothes.

You were always my little derp.

You were so awkward and strange, but I could see you developing, and I hope I helped you toward it. I showered you in as much love as I could—even if I was low on supply myself. You always gave back. But sometimes, one generous soul isn't enough.

I know you've stumbled. But I also know that you're a good little boy. I want you to keep being good even after I'm gone. At the very least—please try to do your best. If it helps, imagine that I am watching over you. That should keep you from being too naughty.

And don't forget that I love you. That I never stopped loving you. Even if I do not bear the will to show it—that I always do. You doubted it at times. That I know. But I hope that, at the end of it all, that you could be sure of my love for you.

Never stop being a little derp.

~Your Rarity

[You stop reading the message as it's one you've already read before. You go back to check her profile. Last online: ten months ago. Your eyes blink in recovery from their own trick. After your heart settles, it empties itself of life.]

Author's Note

https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/926119/the-room

https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/926147/a-story-in-three-parts