Twilight was seated in front of her computer, but she wasn't looking at the screen. There wasn't anything on it to look at beyond a familiar picture of Sunset and a list of names on her video chat contact menu. Twilight knew one of them was about to light up with a call, but she wouldn't have minded if it took another minute to do so.
Or maybe another five.
Instead, Twilight was looking out the dorm window onto the CrysTech grounds. It was still dusk, about an hour away from being totally dark outside. She knew she'd have her room to herself most of the night; her roommate, Bright Blaze, had told her they'd be out working on a lab report with some classmates well into the evening. She'd planned to be out, too, with some new friends she'd made since coming back from winter break. But all that changed once she got Applejack's text.
She couldn't possibly let Applejack down at a moment like this. But she'd be lying if she said she was excited for the conversation to come.
She heard a noise from the monitor; Applejack was calling. She breathed and relaxed, then calmly swiveled her chair to face the screen. Situating herself for the camera, she moved the mouse and, with a hesitant click, accepted the chat request.
"Hey."
Applejack's connection took a moment to come into focus; even after it did, it was still a bit fuzzy. Still, Twilight could make out her friend's face and the dorm room behind it, which looked surprisingly less messy than usual. Applejack wasn't an especially disorganized person in general, but she did have a habit of leaving items casually strewn across her dorm bed during their weekly group chats, something which Rarity was generally quick to note and chastise her over. After a while, Twilight had started to get the impression it was Applejack's deliberate way of teasing her girlfriend.
There certainly wouldn't be anything so lighthearted tonight.
"Hey, Twi," Applejack's voice crackled in. "Sorry to keep ya waitin', I just... I had to clean myself up a bit. After class got out, I kinda just... needed to lie down for a while. Didn't do much of anythin', just lyin' down."
"Oh, um, that's okay!"
"Normally I always try to keep busy, y'know, especially when somethin' bad happens. Try to focus, keep my mind off the things I don't wanna think about. But... I'm sorry, maybe we shouldn't rush into that."
"Applejack... we can talk about whatever you want to talk about."
"I know, I know... but I can't help but feel a little bad for askin'. I ain't gonna ask you to share nothin' you don't wanna share, if you're worried. It's just, well... I guess it's that I trust you to know what not to say here. None of the others have ever gone through somethin' like this that they can remember—well, except Fluttershy, but you know how that conversation would probably go—and I feel like they'd maybe try a little too hard to make me feel better when maybe I shouldn't feel better yet. Y'know what I mean?"
"I think so..." It was a little hard to understand, especially with her words coming in slightly muffled, but Twilight was putting together the gist of it. "You're saying I'd know from experience when it's better to just... let you feel, instead of coming up with distractions."
"Yeah, that's it."
"Umm... I guess that might be true, but, well... I'm sure you know this, but there's no real right way to experience this."
"I know... but that doesn't mean there aren't wrong ways."
"That's true. And I definitely did it the wrong way."
"What do—no, no, I said I wouldn't pry. I should just... I should just talk about it already."
Twilight could see Applejack breathing out slowly and shifting in her chair as she steeled herself. "Whenever you're ready, I'm listening."
"Okay, well... it happened this morning. Or I guess sometime overnight. Apple Bloom said Winona was right as rain yesterday. All playful and chipper like she usually is. They went for a walk together after she got home from school and that night she curled up in her little doggy bed.
"In the morning, well, Granny Smith woke Apple Bloom up and told her Winona wasn't gettin' up from the bed at all. When they looked closer, they realized she... that she wasn't breathin'. They..." Twilight could see the words catch in Applejack's throat. "They took her over to the animal hospital, but..."
Applejack's voice crumbled into a shaken whisper. "But she was already dead."
Twilight shuddered. "Sometime during the night?"
Applejack nodded. "They think... she must have had some kind of medical condition we didn't know about. Somethin' quiet. They'll know more in a few days. She was due for checkup sometime next month, but we don't know if they'd have caught it even then or if there was anythin' we could've done. But she never showed any kind of bad health at all."
"Applejack, I... I'm so sorry. I only ever got to meet her a few times, but... she seemed like such a wonderful dog."
"She was. She really was." And Applejack broke down and cried.
Twilight didn't know how to react. She cursed the distance between them. If only she could have reached out and given a hug... maybe she should tell her that? Would it help?
"I-I really wish I could just... give you a hug right now."
"Th-thanks, Twilight, I just..." She choked, and another batch of tears coursed down her face as the wave of emotion crested. "I just never imagined, last month, that when I left to go back to school it'd be the last time I ever even saw her... that I wouldn't get to come home and play with her ever again... I told her goodbye, but I didn't for a second mean goodbye goodbye..."
"I'm so sorry."
"It just doesn't feel real..." She looked over at her phone. "All I know is what they told me. I didn't get to see her... I learned about it on a text message. Apple Bloom and Granny Smith called me a little later, but still, learnin' what happened like that... on a phone where Winona is my wallpaper..." She sniffled. ”It just feels so wrong. Like it can't be real."
Twilight sighed. "I know the feeling."
Applejack wiped away a tear and looked Twilight head-on through the screen. "Do you? I mean, you were probably there when... when it happened to you, right? Not when you were far away and couldn't... couldn't even see her..."
Twilight winced, then replied calmly and methodically. "Not exactly."
Applejack looked startled; Twilight could see that she wanted to take back what she said immediately. "Oh... oh gosh Twilight... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"
"It's okay, Applejack. I wouldn't have taken you up on this if I didn't think I was able to handle talking through my own experience."
"Would you—" Applejack sniffled. "Could you?"
Twilight smiled weakly. "Of course." She took a deep breath. "My first dog... I'm not sure where to start."
"Maybe just talk about what they were like?"
"Sure," Twilight replied. "Um... my first dog was actually nothing like Spike. We, uh... we got him from a shelter when I was about five years old. He was a big dog, red with this orange, um, streak down the back, and he'd been living on the street for at least a year before he was picked up by animal control. He had a very odd bark that sounded a little like... like a person grumbling or babbling. So he'd gotten the nickname Garble. And little me thought it was a funny name, so we kept it for him.
"He wasn't a very friendly dog, to most people. He'd gotten very distrustful of humans when he was living on his own, so he did have to stay outside a lot if we had people over, because he could be very aggressive and defensive. But, though it took some effort, he did grow to love us. Shining Armor was the one who'd really wanted a dog, so he and Dad worked hard to train him, get rid of some of his bad habits. And... at least for the four of us, it worked. By our first year with him... he really was part of our family."
Twilight smiled as the memories flooded her brain. "He was... a bit of a free spirit. He loved music, especially drums, so we would try to bang our hands on the table in a way that would make him excited. And he liked listening, I discovered. If something scared him, like fireworks, I could help keep him calm by reading to him. It didn't even have to make sense; a lot of the time I just read mathematical formulas from my classwork. He just liked hearing our voices."
"He sounds like he was lovely."
Twilight nodded, but her face went grim. "He started to get old, though. And the older he got, the less... there he was. Especially once Shining Armor went to college, and when I started living at Crystal Prep. I would come over to see him all the time, but each time it felt like I was seeing less and less of him. He never thought I was a stranger, but he was very confused, especially when his hearing started to go. And eventually..."
She felt something in her mind block the next few words from exiting her lips.
"Take whatever time you need," Applejack's voice crackled through the speakers.
"Thanks, um... one day I came over, and Mom let me in. We thought the door had closed, but there was something wrong with the handle we hadn't noticed and, after we walked away, it slid back open, just enough. And Garble got out. We didn't realize until a few minutes later, when I wondered why we hadn't seen him. It... it was no one's fault. But he ran off and... it was another day before we found him."
Twilight swallowed as a tear rolled down her cheek. "He was already gone. He'd wandered into the street, and..."
She may have been five years removed from that day, but now Twilight was crying like it was that very morning.
"Oh... oh Twilight... I'm so sorry..."
"So I know," Twilight choked out between some heavy sobs, "what it's like to not be there... to wish you could have done something, or at least given comfort in those last moments..." She rubbed her face and tried to straighten herself out, looking Applejack directly again. "I really... I hope it really was peaceful, for Winona. It wasn't for Garble. And it haunts me."
She looked down. "And... maybe you should be glad you didn't have to see the body."
Twilight snapped to attention when she heard Applejack's sharp reply. "Twi, I know that must hurt, but you don't know what you're sayin' when you tell me that. I can only imagine what it's like to see... to see something like that, but at least you got that reality of seein' it. I don't. I just... I have to just believe that Winona's gone. I can't bring myself to ask for a picture of her body, but I still wish I coulda had that closure."
"No! No you don't, Applejack! Seeing your dog like that... it doesn't go away! I can see him as clearly now as I did then, and... and it makes it harder to really remember the good things about him. Because no matter how hard I try, seeing him like that... it infects everything else. When you think of your dog, you shouldn't have to think of a dead body."
Twilight broke down again, and Applejack didn't respond. When Twilight eventually looked up, she was calmly watching and holding back her comments.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gotten ma—"
"It's alright. I... I shouldn't have let my feelins get the better of me like that. You got yours, too, and you have them for a reason. Maybe I'm too honest for my own good, sometimes. And you're right that I shouldn't want to see somethin' like that. But... I'm still havin' trouble with all that uncertainty, if you know what I'm sayin'."
After a moment, Twilight smiled weakly. "Of course I know what you mean. I'm a scientist, after all."
Applejack chuckled. "And a heck of one, too."
"And I know uncertainty isn’t enjoyable, in science or everyday life. Sometimes that finality helps. I just don't think it's really worth it, here. Not in that way. There's other ways to get closure, and... I think you'll find them."
"I hope so," Applejack replied with a nod. "What happened, afterwards?"
"Well, it definitely took some time to... move on probably isn't the right phrase, but at least move on enough to think about getting another dog. We went back to the shelter a few months later, during the summer between my two years at Crystal Prep, and we found Spike. I liked the idea of getting a very different kind of dog, so I wouldn't think of him so much as a replacement. And I thought, since Shining Armor had gone away and my parents were spending more and more time out of the house, maybe Spike could be more... my dog, and not just the family dog.
"So I spent the rest of that summer bonding with Spike, taking him out on walks and figuring out what made him tick. I actually met Pinkie Pie on one of our walks, months and months before the Friendship Games. But I still really missed Garble, and I got so protective of Spike after what happened that I started insisting on taking him to school with me as much as I could, so I could keep an eye on him, even though Principal Cinch was allergic. And, well, you know the rest."
"It's a shame he can't be with you over there," Applejack mused.
"If they'd let me keep him here, I would. But the dorms are way too strict about pets. I've already asked my parents if I can bring him when I go off-campus next semester, though." Twilight sighed again. "It's so sad, knowing that we'll outlive them. It's not fair. Garble, Winona, Spike... they deserve so much more than the time we can give them."
"Especially when Winona had so many years left... it's just so awful. I'm gonna miss her so much."
"Yeah."
After a moment of silence, Applejack's voice crackled in again. "Alright, well, I think maybe I should letcha be after all that, unless you don't want me to. But you did help. Knowin' maybe there's a silver linin' to not bein' there when it happened, knowin' it gets better and... just knowin' you understand. Thanks so much, Twilight."
"Wait!"
"Huh?"
"Just... just one more thing." Twilight stopped to collect her thoughts. "I'm... I'm not the most spiritual person in the world, really. But I do think, with everything that's happened to us, and all the things I could never have imagined just a few years ago... I have started to wonder, more, about if there really is a life beyond this. I never used to think there was, but, well, they say magic is just science people don't understand yet. And clearly there's a lot about this world, or any of the others out there like Equestria, that I don't understand. So what I'm trying to say is... well..."
"You think there's a place that we'll see our pets again?"
"I'm not gonna say I literally believe in the rainbow bridge, because I don't, but... maybe some way, somehow."
Applejack beamed. "I can't say I'd ever have expected that of you, Twi."
"Sometimes it feels like wishful thinking, I'll admit. After all, it's not like our powers are really divine in any way. But still... I like to think of the universe as having some form of order, even if it's not something we really understand. I don't think science would exist without there being some kind of order. Science to me is... the process of discovering what that order is. And maybe the end of life isn't the end of discovery."
"A little vague, but I gotcha."
"Like I said, I don't know, and I don't like speculating that broadly. But it helps me. And it makes it easier to remember Garble the way I want to remember him, who he was, what he was like, instead of just how he died. But the uncertainty also makes me appreciate the time I have with Spike all the more. How special he is, how wonderful he is. And while I'm not gonna suggest doing anything before you're ready... I hope you can find that bond again too."
There were visible tears on Applejack's face, but she was still smiling. "Me too. Thanks again."
"I'm glad I could be of help."
"Goodbye, Twilight."
Twilight smiled back. "Bye, Applejack." She closed the chat and leaned back in her chair.
After a moment, she picked up her phone and texted Sunset. Can you send me a picture of Ray?
Then she pulled up her contacts page and dialed Spike.
