Ponyville was an open casket.
Nopony else knew this, except for one.
It was a casket defiled, Princess Twilight had seen, as the once-cozy houses and rural greenery of the town she'd come to love had been damaged greatly during her battle with the centaur Lord Tirek just yesterday. She was certain the ponies of the town did not sleep well that night, but that wasn't the case now — it was very, very late, but she seldom saw a light from the windows of the in-tact residencies she passed as she made her way through the town with just a candle-lit lantern to guide her.
The casket flickered in and out of her vision with the sway of the candle, but that was no hindrance to her — she knew where she was going. The problem was with how long it took to get here, as the battle had left her with a million scars, cuts and bruises all across her body that made every step torture for the princess.
A small price to pay.
It was cold. She'd donned a black cloak for warmth when she stepped outside, but she lamented not going for something heavier as the wind bit into her and the chill stiffened her already-weary bones. Her new home had sprung up (quite literally) a bit outside the town proper, so she'd been walking in the elements for quite some time now. She could feel her teeth chatter from the chill every few seconds, and it was particularly noticeable when she was carrying something in her mouth as she was now — a single white carnation, bought from Lily Valley's stall at the Ponyville morning market at dawn today. Twilight was mindful to fight the cold a little harder during the trek, so as to avoid snapping the flower by the stem with her jaws.
She was almost there. Lord Tirek had taken a life, and the body lay in wait for her toward the middle of town. She'd been nervous about the journey all day, but she found her nerves strangely sound when she stepped out the massive double doors of her new home tonight. As she began to cross the town square that sat mere minutes away from the body, though, she could feel her heart begin to pound just a bit faster.
After walking among the towering Town Hall and taking one last corner, the outline of the body pierced through the gloom.
As she approached, she felt her steps getting slower. She had only gotten a glance of the freshly-felled corpse after Tirek had destroyed it yesterday, but even obscured in darkness, its ruined and broken body caused a breath to catch in her throat. Still, though, she trudged on, and it wasn't long before she stood right in front of the body as it lay still in the earth.
The front door had come off its hinges, the only evidence it ever existed a mess of speckled splinters. The balcony she'd stare at the stars from for nights on end was barely hanging stable and the ornate rails that surrounded it were twisted and splayed. Very little greenery remained on the half of the giant oak that still remained, and from the tree's left side sprouted its last remaining branches, pointing up to the night sky in a final act of defiance.
She closed her eyes. In life, the body had been vibrant, luscious and proud. At this time of night, when the rest of the town had long drifted into slumber, the glass windows would be a beacon where Ponyville was dark, and Twilight would be buried in a book or engrossed in her notes well after her friends and neighbors had retired. She could see it as clearly as she ever did in her head, and for a brief moment, she wondered if she could let the painting hang in her mind forever.
She did not wonder long. Her eyes opened, and the ruins before her assailed her view once more. She took a deep breath, letting the cold air infest her lungs, and she walked inside.
What was left of inside, at any rate. The floor made from the roots of the oak was mostly intact, but everything else had been disintegrated in the blast that butchered it. It now served as a semi-open platform of a sort, where the pieces of its trunk that still stood surrounded her just so and Luna's stars shone above it unobstructed.
Twilight moved around the perimeter, dragging a hoof along the remnants where they were. The wood felt as rough and unpolished as it always had, and she couldn't help but feel her lips curl upward as a thousand different memories of those very walls flooded her mind as she walked.
Once she was done, she headed to the center of the ruins and gently placed her lantern down, watching as the light washed the body with a warm ember glow. She rested the carnation right next to it, and with an audible effort, she lay down on her back. She pulled a part of her cloak to the side for the moment, just so she could feel the texture of the wood as she gazed at the sky above her.
For a good long while, she said nothing. And then, as the wind howled and the crickets sang, she spoke.
"I had a dream about you, a while ago," she started. "It was a bit strange, so it was one of the ones you remember, ya know? I dreamt that I was you. That I could feel the grass and dirt through my roots, and I saw every pony that came in to pick out a book or walk out on the balcony. I felt like I knew them. When I woke up the next morning, I laughed about how strange it was."
Twilight shifted her gaze to the moon. On the first night the two had met, when she'd lingered in her room as a party she wanted nothing to do with grew louder and louder downstairs, she'd looked out her window to see it hanging in the sky. If you'd squinted hard enough then, you could almost see a mare inside of it — Twilight knew she wouldn't find her this time.
"I took you for granted, all these years. I've been blessed with so many wonderful friends, but you... you were my very first one. Whenever I had a long day or a tense battle, I knew you'd always be there for me at the end of it. I never thought I'd ever live my life without you.
"And now I have this new home. It's massive and has so many hallways and rooms, and it has my cutie mark emblazoned all over it. When I first saw it, my friends were in awe, but I felt sick. It was like it was made for me. Like destiny had willed it so that I wouldn't be able to protect you and had discarded you without a thought. I-It was me, wasn't it? If we never met, you wouldn't—you w-wouldn't have—"
Tears began to well as she tried to push the words out, but it was no use. They came down heavy, and she twisted to her side as she held her hooves to her eyes in a futile effort to stop them. She lay there weeping for what seemed like an age, letting memories of their time together flood her mind as the tears flooded her face.
And then, suddenly, a violent gust of wind coursed over her.
The lantern shook and rocked, but stayed its place upright. The white carnation she'd left next to it was taken a few feet from where she'd placed it, and she could hear the branches above her sway ever slightly. She shot up from her prone position, and just as she was about to get up and rearrange the carnation back to where it had been, she felt a tickling sensation on her nose.
A single leaf had fallen right atop it and stayed balanced just so. She didn't dare move, pointing her eyes inward to better observe it, but she began to feel the same sensation across the parts of her coat the cloak didn't currently cover. Grabbing the leaf, she felt her back to find that a dozen more leaves had fallen on her as well, and more still adorned the wood right below her. She looked around as the lantern lit the entire floor, but no other leaves had fallen anywhere else — they'd covered only her, and the rest of the oak's base remained spotless.
They'd covered only her. As if to blanket her. As if to hug her.
The tears in her eyes began anew, but not from grief as they'd come moments prior. Twilight looked up to the branches that towered over her, and she let out a quick chuckle as she re-adjusted her cloak.
"...thank you," she croaked out after a pause. "I'm going to really miss you. And I know everypony that checked a book out from your shelves is going to miss you, too. I'm so glad you were my friend for so many years, and I'll never forget everything you've done for me. Everything you've done for us."
With a grunt, she got back on all fours. She took one last look around at the body, filling in the blanks where the missing pieces were as she scanned every inch of it. She felt more tears coming on, but she fought them off, and with a nod to herself, she began her final goodbyes.
"I thought that dream was weird for a while," she said. "But... I think I'd like to be you. To be there for everypony the way you were always there for me. To know so much, and to share it with the world. I hope I can be a friend like that."
Twilight trotted over and returned the carnation to its space by the lantern. Satisfied, she turned her back to the offerings and headed toward the doorframe.
When she got there, though, she paused.
She turned her head back toward the body, and she took one final look at the glow of the lantern and the mellow white of the flower pedals at its side before she addressed her old friend for the last time.
"We'll meet again," she told her friend. "When it's my turn."
And as she walked away into the black of the night once more, she saw the oak's little leaves in the corner of her eye dancing in the wind.
Author's Note
It's been a little bit! Hope you all like this one — I wasn't initially going to enter this contest, but inspiration struck me after I read some of the other wonderful entries. I hope you all like it!
