That morning was cloudy and foggy, the sky was tinted in gray and dark blue in halves. It seemed the sun did not want to rise, as it was slow and lazily rising from the mountains. The fields were covered in a shiny tone of green that wasn’t natural of the station; usually it was darker when the rains of October flooded the fields.
A beautiful extension of grass, full of silver pearls dropped by the night, and polished by the day.
And , through it, like a wound, the rail road. The same one Equestrians had been using for ninety years, almost unchanged since its construction. The iron vein the people built to build the soul of the kingdom.
It was the first one to be built, the first one, to see if it would grow the heart, or make it bleed.
The first one, and, with honour, the biggest one.
Being born in the northern frontier, in the subtle west of the town of Appleloosa, slowly advances towards the plains of Canterlot, drives where the forests succeed each other, and flows to the south, almost where the dragons rest in their unknown eternal sleep.
It’s almost alive.
And, It can’t run eternally.
It rests in many places, the most noticeable one, the station under the capital walls, and, it’s loyal second, the station of Ponyville.
At the east of the town, It rests. There, a station was built to satisfy the needs of the Fillydelphian Merchants to trade with the capital and the growing number of travellers who were going to Appeloosa.
For the town, that station was a gem standing at the east, it had always brought happiness to It.
That day… It didn’t.
That day, the station was near emptiness. There were only four ponies in it.
The white unicorn was looking into the horizon. Exactly, into the spot where the sun would rise that morning. She always loved those mountains. They were the sign of a further land, the material frontier between her home and…
Equestria?
A milestone far away.
*mumble*
‘…Rar…’
*mumble*
‘Rarity! Are you listening to me?’ No, of course she wasn’t….
‘Raaaaaariiiiityyyyy’ The purple pony with a starred cutie mark was expecting for her friend to react. Time wasn’t something they could afford to lose right now…
Rarity slowly turned her head towards Twilight, still maintaining her eyes into the first rays of the sun with a slow, lazy and incorporeal ‘huh’, extended during an entire minute.
‘Ooh, I am so sorry, Twilight, I just… Want to remember how is everything...’ Her attitude was showing sadness, and her heart was battling with it. Be sad because she was leaving Ponyville, or rather smile because she had been awaiting that chance for an entire year?
‘I just… Don’t want to forget…’ Sadness won.
‘Sorry…’ Twilight felt as if it was her fault the fact that her friend was sad. Everyone felt like that’
‘Rarity, don’t be sad.’ Neither Twilight or Rarity noticed Fluttershy, the cream coloured pegasus, who, unlike other pegasi did not had an athletic and confident personality. ‘She will come’
Her…
The pegasus poked the wound that Rarity had forgotten about an hour ago. Applejack.
Everypony knew about Rarity’s departure. They had accorded to meet at the train station two hours before her departure. All of them.
Applejack… She wasn’t there. And that…
Sadness from Rarity.
‘How could she have done that?’
And Hope from Twillight.
‘It must have an explanation.’
Fluttershy noticed the effect it had on her friends. And, she started to sob. Almost crying. She felt as if it all was her fault.
‘Come on Fluttershy’ Rarity approached the Pegasus, an sat at her side. ‘You don’t have to feel guilty for me’ She was saying that, but looking into the distance, she was hoping for Applejack to appear there. At any possible moment.
A voice rushed through the entire station, breaking the fragile balance that had been roaming through it in the last hour. It awoke everypony’s silence.
‘Ten minutes until departure!’
Ten minutes. Ten minutes and she would be gone for a third of a year.
Ten minutes, and they would be left on their own to live a crude winter.
They awaited for another voice to shout. A voice that would give her hope for a last time that year.
They awaited, and it finally came.
Exactly thirty seven seconds after the countdown message, something happened. It was a rushing sound in the distance. Something was running, or rolling on the ground.
It was coming closer.
After a moment, the blurry sound became clearer. It was the sound of something galloping at a very high speed.
And, whatever it was. It entered into the station, hitting the entrance door, possibly breaking it.
Sudden silence, perforated by a shout.
‘Ah’m sorry! I will fix it later!’
Fluttershy rose her head. Was it? Was it Applejack? It could be.
And, after a moment, Applejack broke through the door. Almost ending on the rails.
She did not heard her name shouted by her three friends, and dashed to their side.
‘Applejack! What happened to you? You are made a mess!’ Rarity simply had to remark her look. It was clear that she did not have time that morning to tie her mane and tail. Her hooves were covered in mud, and her torso had several scratches.
By the look of her eyes, it was clear she was tired, maybe that night she did not had sleep.
‘Sorry I come late, I just saw Derpy, and she told me she had a letter for you, Rarity, I tried to convince her to give the letter to me, and she made me sign a something about letter bringing to other ponies’ She showed her friends a small pink envelope with a drawing of a blue balloon, and with a calligraphy half ponyville could recognize, the words ‘For: Rarity’ were written in a darker tone of pink ink.
Everypony knew who had written that letter: Pinkie Pie.
Two weeks ago, Pinkie Pie had to leave Ponyville because the cakes were heading to the bi-annual Pastry convention that was being held in Appeloosa. They needed Pinkie pie to help them, so, after a night of meditation, the pony decided to go.
‘Oh, my. Pinkie remembered that you are leaving today’ Fluttershy poked the wound again, but this time it did not hurt Rarity, her friend, at the other side of the country did not forgot about her. She dropped a tear that remained unnoticed by everyone.
‘Five minutes to depart!’
‘I’ll read it’ Twillight opened the letter and made it levitate towards her. And, with a clear, accurate entonation, read:
‘Hello guys!’
‘It’s been only two weeks and I am already booored. I miss you all so much! Gummy is acting weird all around and he won’t play with me…
There is no pony interesting in this booooring town.
And, the dust its so…’ Twilight couldn’t read the blurred word, maybe describing the dustiness and emptiness of the town ‘… Goodbyyye Rarity, I am already missing you two weeks, but thinking that we won’t see each other this winterr.
It was way funnier that time when we were here because of the apple orchard well, not, because we could have broken it. But it was fun.
I hope to get home…’ here, the letters faded into a gradient, until they were not readable, and after that point, they continued, this time written in a dark tone of blue.’… hehe, sorry, I think I will buy more of that one. I will write you all later!’
At the end, instead of presenting formally the author’s name, there was a drawing of a pony (possibly the same pinkie pie) near an extremely large and disproportioned pile of (what Twilight could recognize as) candy.
Everyone laughed, especially fluttershy, who started with a squee who no one noticed. Miles and miles far away, and she still made everyone laugh. Only pinkie pie knew how to make every moment happy.
‘Applejack, sorry’ Rarity, being honest had to say that. It wouldn’t be nice to not be sincere with a friend.
‘Sorry? For what?’ Many possibilities, the more things she thought, the more unreal they seemed to her.
For what, Rarity? What happened for you to be sorry for?
‘Sorry…’
‘… I thought you wouldn’t…’ Everyone knew what she would say. Certainly, the struggle was something they all felt.
It was wrong, but doubt prevailed sometimes.
‘Oh…’ A smile appeared in Applejack’s mouth. ‘Rarity… You are my friend, and I never…’ Carefully chosen words that come from the heart of the pony that bears honesty inside her. ‘…never…would forget about you. Especially this time. We are your friends. Never doubt…’
She did not finished. Twillight and Fluttershy thought she did, but Rarity knew It’s end.
‘…never doubt, as I am not about you…’
‘We are departing! Everypony on the train!’
That was it.
Words would be useless that time. They hugged. It meant many things, more than a thousand words. It meant goodbye. It meant return. It meant we’ll miss you.
And no one talked.
In a minute, the white-coated unicorn left her friends, and entered the train.
It all happened very quickly, but they could see every moment of it, the few seconds they saw extended to a slow eternity.
They saw how, in an instant, that iron beast growled. From several points of it, lines of steam emerged. Small pieces of it’s exterior machinery slowly moved. And with a screech, It slowly advanced into the horizon, becoming progressively smaller.
Then, the cloud of smoke covered them, and the last thing they saw, was an iron arrow in the horizon that flew a silver banner out of clouds. But they did not saw their friend waving her hoof through the window. They knew she did not wanted to worsen the moment. They knew she would miss them.
And… That was it.
She was gone.
Her friend was gone. For a time that seemed to them longer than eternity itself. It just… Didn’t seem real. It looked like a bad dream. Everything happening quickly enough for no one to notice it.
And, they stood there, watching the spot where the train left. Half an hour is what they had waited, but if you ask them, they would say that they spent the entire morning blindly hoping for the train to return.
Holding the same hope that the desperate houses in it’s heart.
‘Well… I guess it’s time to go to sleep…’ applejack yawned ‘… I barely had some tonight’
Her commentary was left in the air.
‘Well, ok… See you later’ The orange pony walked away slowly.
Slowly, as she wasn’t sure if her search for happiness in the life that was ahead was something Fluttershy and Twilight were also struggling with.
Honesty wasn’t sure what to do.
Was it right to feel that?
If only she knew that she wasn’t alone.
Applejack left a paralyzed fluttershy who was uncomfrortable both staying in the station and leaving it, and twilight, who was still lost in her thoughts, still looking at the horizon, where the sun was setting the start of the day, sometimes Twilight spoke a silent word, waved her hoof a bit or simply sighed, slow and lowly, to herself.
Fluttershy was there, standing, thinking of an excuse to leave Twilight in the station and go home. She hadn’t to do that, she knew that.
She simply needed to say something true, to have a clean consciousness, to leave twilight and that place without a lie.
She, somehow, was feeling sorry for her friend. She was sad. And suffering.
Something true… ‘Twilight… I should see how are the bears going… I don’t think Angel can help them all by his own’ A spark of guilt lit inside her , flooded by a heart warming feel of joy caused by her ‘good action’.
Twilight almost whispered something that Fluttershy understood as ‘Good bye Fluttershy’, but sounded ‘…ood F…hy’. And, the pegasus, left as quickly as possible to not feel the need of justifying her actions again.
With an elegant but slow race towards the side of the station, she set off towards her home. Shedding tears while flying through the air.
Of course angel needed help.
But she just wanted to be alone to cry.
The sun was bathing the station, where only one figure was standing. The figure was not there. It was in another place.
Somewhere further than anything conceived, somewhere inside It’s mind.
Taking it’s own travel, the longest one a living mind can aspire to, juggling with the path.
Twilight sparkle.
The element of magic, the one unicorn who was conscious of her actions and thoughts, the best spellcaster in all Ponyville.
Was in doubt.
How was choosing both options bad and wrong at the same time.
Missing rarity and wanting for her to return was the same as greed. Twilight just learned that love is greedy. And, feeling happiness for her just aggravated the fact that she was gone. It was not the perfect star she was waiting for to fall, and set another path in her life.
Everything was left was the big immensity of winter ahead.
Winter was coming.
And, that year they weren’t representing heart’s warming eve. Maybe they couldn’t even do winter wrap-up. Without her friends, winter was just what it has always been, a crude tundra that seals away the ponies inside their hearts and homes.
Past years were fun, sitting in front of the window, looking aimlessly at the falling snow. At that time of the year, Twilight used to travel aside the diaries and charts of adventurers to land further than the polar ring itself, castaway with the most evil of assassins, and see their heart soften under the realizations of their world being torn apart.
Now, there was nothing.
Twilight understood that you only know what you have until you lose it.
It was ridiculous to do that.
Only four months.
Finally reacting, the unicorn smiled.
How hard would it be to do the first step?
It wasn’t at all.
Slowly, she started moving her hooves towards the exit.
When she found the town’s panorama in front of her, monotony stroke. Again ,the same plaza she saw almost every day, populated by the same early morning buyers, or just the ones who delighted themselves in the air of the morning.
Slowly walking towards her home, she didn’t notice anything apart from the ground. When you are tired, the last thing you do is raise your head high. She did not noticed the small filly who was following her steps, not walking behind her, but sequentially jumping over every hoofstep.
After a moment, the filly realized that Twilight wouldn’t respond or advert her presence. After a last jump, she inspired, and, with a loud scream, she voiced:
‘Twiiiiiilight!’
A few things happened once the unicorn heard her name.
While turning around to know the source of the call, she fell to the ground, almost rolling to her right, and once in the ground, all she saw was a small figure jumping around her, repeatedly saying ‘Twi’ ‘Twi’ ‘Twi’ at the moment of landing each jump.
Everything she worded was an amorph ‘huh’ extended into a question.
‘Twitwitwitwitwi! You have to see this!’ She spoke as quickly as she could.
‘Little Hoof?’ Ah, It was just little hoof… But she never bothered her without a reason. ‘What are you doing here?’ There was no one in the street who to play with.
The filly showed her a newspaper ‘see?see?see?’
See what? She looked at the first page, It was the Manehattan Block, the main newspaper in the eastern city. Why would she have that?
But, something drew her attention, the words ‘Rainbow Dash’ as the main title of the first page, followed by a picture of the blue coated pegasus with a set of four medals hanging from her neck.
A smaller set of letters read ‘The podium dweller’. Aaaah. That title did it’s work: Draw her attention towards the following block of words. She needed to know what did that meant.
With the marked tempo of Little Hoof singing a tune, she started to read.
‘Rainbow dash, the next winged promise…
The ponyvillian pegasus has reached an outstanding title in almost every modality….
Never leaving the podium, not even once, she has set a new record these days….
After beating the best local flyers, she has confirmed her attendance to the fillydelphian contests.’
What?
She didn’t understand fully what that meant. But she guessed it. That somehow meant that the pegasus’ stay would be longer.
Mechanically and blindly, she stopped thinking about it. She convinced herself to forget it.
It wasn’t something of weight to her mind anymore.
‘Of course, that’s awesome, I hope she wins at fillydelphia’ I hope she wins… Everything she could see that moment was the perspective of the few days before the snow. Rainbow dash wasn’t in charge of the winter schedule, instead, Blossom Flake was the pegasus whose task was to schedule winter.
Everypony knew winter would come late, and leave with a snow excess.
No.
She stopped. Maybe being alone wasn’t the point of these remaining days. An idea ran through her mind, and, almost with an automatic response, she followed it.
Driving towards sweet apple acres, maybe there was something to help her with.
If not, Fluttershy, there was always some animal to take care of.
She did not know it, but the truth that was lying behind her acts was the fear of being alone. No one wants to be alone on winter.
She wanted to know the presence of her friends wouldn’t be a mere illusion. That she could count on them at any time.
To tell them. To speak with them.
Was she the only one whose sadness grew?
Grew each time something had some resemblance with the fact of her missing friends.
It was going to be a long winter.
