The Rain, the Darkness, and Fluttershy
The front door of Fluttershy's cottage creeked slightly, as it tended to do. Having gingerly nudged it open, the yellow pegasus slowly traipsed in to the pitch black interior. Her pace was sluggish not out of fear or caution, but rather, exhaustion. It had been a particularly long day at the sanctuary. Unruly animals acting far from their typical mild-mannered selves meant that each chore took much longer than it usually would have.
"Angel? I'm home..." Fluttershy struggled to speak through a yawn.
Her eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the dark, but she knew her own home well enough to navigate it regardless of sight. She began to make her way to the kitchen for a relaxing cup of tea, and as she did so she tried to recall the last time she'd come home at such an unbearably late hour. It took her only a few steps to realize she couldn't , because she never had.
She thought about lighting a candle or two to purge the house of it's consuming blackness, but dismissed the idea. In a strange way, Fluttershy took comfort in the dark. The world was full of scary things which fueled her anxiety. But in that dark kitchen, all that existed was the gentle pattering of rain on the window and herself. There was no work, no social interactions and no obligations. There were no other ponies to judge her or laugh at her. There were no critters begging for her attention. Just the rain, the darkness, and her.
Fluttershy went about preparing her tea on autopilot. Her mind wandered to all sorts of places while her body poured the water on the kettle, put said kettle on the stove, and placed a tea bag in an empty cup. Soon, she was ripped from her thoughts by the high pitched scream of the boiling kettle. She poured the drink in to her cup and carefully found her way to the table through the darkness.
The first sip of tea hit her tongue, and she nearly shuddered from the wave of calm washing over her in that moment. She had decided that while a nice warm bed was admittedly appealing, this moment was pure bliss. She would sit at that table sipping her tea and gazing in to the void until her eyelids grew so heavy that they couldn't be fought for another second.
Her gaze casually swept across the room and briefly landed on the window just above the sink. She'd continued shifting her focus elsewhere for a moment before snapping her head back to the window, her mind registering on a slight delay that she may have seen something out of place.
Her heart nearly stopped when she realized she could just barely make out the outline of a pale face peering back at her. She engaged in an involuntary staring contest with the unknown entity, frozen with fear. Upon further investigation, it almost seemed translucent. Fluttershy shifted the position of her head ever so slightly, to see if the figure mirrored her movement. She hoped with every fiber of her being that it would, and then she could laugh at herself for being afraid of her own reflection. It did not follow her motion, however, no matter how much she willed it so. It remained still, and though she could barely see it, she could feel it's piercing eyes watching her.
She struggled to slow her frantic thoughts in to some which were more coherent, but then the thing which her eyes had been locked upon started to seemingly fade away. Were her eyes playing tricks on her in the dark? Had she really seen anything at all? Or, was there really something outside her cottage, and now she's lost track of it? Fluttershy's mind continued to race, the sound of the rain drowned out by the sound of her own heart beat thumping in her ears.
"Fluttershy? Darling? Is that you?" A familiar voice said in a weary tone behind her.
Fluttershy jumped from her seat, spinning in mid-air to face the unexpected intruder. She landed with a thud, propping her wings up over her face to shield herself. Through the feathers, she saw Rarity standing before her. However, this was not Rarity as Fluttershy knew her. Fluttershy's eyes had adjusted to the dark by now, and she could see plain as day that Rarity was see-through, and the border of her form flickered and pulsated like a radio-static. The look on her face was nothing short of ghoulish. Her eyes carried so much pain and sorrow, it looked like she'd been through a war zone or she had just lost a loved one.
"R... Rarity?" Fluttershy squeaked.
"That's right, darling." Rarity replied. Her voice echoed unnaturally, and tears were beginning to form in her eyes.
The sight of Rarity's tears were almost enough to disconnect Fluttershy from how extraordinary this whole affair had been so far.
"Rarity, why are you crying? Are you alright?"
The ghostly figure of rarity swiped a hoof across her cheeks and dispatched the emotions sliding down her face. She breathed deeply and smiled softly, trying to appear strong.
"Oh yes dear, I'm quite alright. I just... I wasn't sure I'd see any of my friends again. Not alive, at least. I'm really happy to see you is all."
Rarity's reply left more questions than answers for the pegasus, and she'd already had quite a few to begin with.
"Rarity, what happened to you? Why do you look like that? Is this some sort of magic, like a new spell?"
"I'll explain if you truly want me to, Darling. I promise. But for now, could I ask you a favor?"
Fluttershy lowered her impromptu wing-shield and relaxed slightly.
"Sure, Rarity. What is it?"
"I need you to relay a message to Twilight. I'm afraid I..." The Unicorn paused as her soft, smiling face fell in to a frown. "I'm afraid I won't have time."
Fluttershy scrunched her brow and cocked her head with concern.
"Um... Sure, Rarity. What do you want me to tell her?"
"Tell her... It isn't her fault." Rarity could barely speak, choking back sobs with great effort. "And let her know that it worked, ultimately. When you tell her we spoke, she will surely seek the answer that this whole experiment set out to find. When she asks, tell her... There is nothing. It's a void."
Fluttershy couldn't make head nor tail of what Rarity meant. Clearly there was something she was missing. Some greater context that she had not been privilege to.
"What do you mean? What isn't her fault? What is this void you're talking about?"
"Darling, I don't mean to sound rude, but it doesn't matter. You'll find out in time, once you speak with Twilight. Please, can't you just allow me to enjoy the company of a friend while I still have time?"
"Rarity, I'm sorry but none of this makes any sense. You show up in the middle of the night looking like... that." Fluttershy motioned towards the not-quite-opaque Rarity. "And you want me to relay a secret message that I don't even understand? Is... Is this some sort of nightmare?"
Rarity closed her eyes and sighed. She knew that ultimately, she did owe her friend an explanation. Besides that, she couldn't spare her from the truth even if she wanted to. She'd said enough in her message for Twilight that she would put the pieces together for herself soon enough anyway.
"I will tell you the truth, Fluttershy. But I must warn you, it isn't pleasant. It may upset you, darling."
Fluttershy didn't speak, nodding at her friend meekly. Rarity was disappointed at her persistence, but would abide by Fluttershy's wishes.
"I was helping Twilight with an experiment, as you may have gathered from my message for her. You see, the royal sisters made an incredible discovery recently. To make a long story short, a spell they had been working on unintentionally confirmed the existence of a soul. As it turns out, everypony really does have a soul."
"That's incredible." Fluttershy whispered in amazement. "Do... Do critters have them too?" Fluttershy asked with her head tilted inquisitively.
"I'm not sure, Darling. That's a question you'll have to ask the sisters. Anyway, they then crafted a spell which could track souls. What they found was that in..." Rarity paused, looking down at the ground nervously. "In deceased ponies, there was no soul. So naturally, they wanted to know where exactly the soul went."
Fluttershy was beginning to grasp the reality of this strange scenario, and began putting the puzzle pieces together in her mind.
"That's what Twilight is trying to figure out?"
Rarity nodded, then continued.
"The idea was to magically bond my soul with that of a dying pony. A terminally ill patient who didn't have long. With our souls bonded, mine would follow his wherever it went when he passed. Twilight said as long as my body, erm, 'Vessel' as she referred to it, wasn't harmed then my soul should snap back to it when she released the bond."
Fluttershy's eyes were wide, and she'd began to quiver in shock.
"You... You're dead?"
Rarity gave her friend a sad smile in reply.
"I'm not sure what I am to be quite frank, dear. I wasn't technically killed, so to speak. Rather, my soul was transported to the afterlife away from my still-living body. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the afterlife is a realm where no pony of this earth, not even Twilight, has any power. No matter what she does, she cannot return my soul to it's proper place.
"Then... How are you talking to me right now? If you're here, that means we can fix this, right?"
"For a soul to inhabit the realm of the living after going to the afterlife, it must use great power. Even then, the soul slowly withers the longer it spends here."
Fluttershy, through her horror and sadness, mustered one last question through shallow breath despite feeling confident she'd already been told the answer.
"What comes after? What is it like?"
"It's nothing, Fluttershy. It's an endless space darker than this room, full of lost souls meandering around. We understand what has happened to us, and we remember our past lives. Though, I've met a few souls who were entirely deranged. They knew not who they were, and they didn't seem to comprehend their circumstance in the slightest. I believe those are the ones who have been wandering for too long."
Rarity flickered out of existence upon finishing her sentence, leaving Fluttershy alone in that kitchen. She stood motionless, attempting, and mostly failing, to process what she'd just seen. She closed her eyes, hoping she'd wake up in her bed, and that this had all been a dream. But alas, when she opened her eyes, she was still in the kitchen with the gentle pattering of rain on the window, the darkness, and herself.
