I looked deep into the eyes of my lover, we'd been together for so long.
"Promise you'll always be there?" She asked me.
"I promise." I held her closer.
The image was sucked into a vortex as I felt myself falling back to reality.
My eyes shot open as the cold night sweat dripped off my brow. I reached an aching forehoof up to wipe it, the pain of the artheritis trobbed in my joints. More dreams of the past I'd lost to time, they were coming more often now. I trot over to the window and gaze out at the terrace and sighed. Tomorrow would have been six-hundred and twenty five years together, well... it wouldn't be nearly as long without her sacrifice. The memory of it haunted me to this day, she had given me the one thing I didn't want... freedom from her. Thinking about it made me feel so cold, though when it came down to it, she had no choice really. I would have rather suffer this lonliness than have her feel it.
I lay back in the bed but I don't sleep the rest of the night, my mind won't let me remember such pain of knowing I'll never see her alive again.
As day breaks, the sun brightens the room and crosses over my eyes I get up and begin my routine. One more year without her. I walk to the bathroom, look in the mirror and brush my teeth. Shower, put on a nice suite and head out for my day.
Out to the town for a short stroll, looking through the windows not bothering to go inside with any kind intention of buying anything. I don't have much money to my name anyway. What little I have will be left to my grandchildren's children, seeing as they've told me they have no use for it in their growing age. It was as difficult seeing Azure pass on as it was to see my own kids that I raised from foal hood grow up, old and pass on before their father. A father is not meant to watch his kids die before him...
I walk into the usual resturaunt and am greeted by the usual waitress.
"Hey Fret, how are you. That time of year again, huh?" She says to me.
"Yes," I say, my voice like sandpaper, "I would hope not many more like this."
She pats my shoulder, "Awww, don't talk like that, Azure was a wonderful mare she would have wanted you to have a long life. They say next to Celestia your one of the oldest ponies in Equestria."
I smile. "Yes...Azure would have wanted me to live a long... long life... more than you know." I look down.
"Ya need a minute?" She askes with a concerned tone.
Tears in my eyes, I nod as she leaves me.
The memories flood back to me.
I lay in a puddle of blood, with my vision blurred looking at the sky. I couldn't remember how I got this way or what had happened. I see a familiar pink coat-purple maned mare looking down at me.
"Oh my gosh Fret!" I hear the voice echo beyond me. "Don't worry I'll save you."
My eyes close as I watch the double visions of her each one of them their horns glowing with magic. And then... everything's black.
I woke up later with a pounding in my head and a hospital bed underneath me. Azure is at my side sleeping, I shake her a bit and she looks up and smiles as she wraps her arms around me.
"What happened?" I choke out of my dry throat.
"I told you I'd save you." She smiles at me, I smile back.
I found out later that she didn't really know medical magic, but she knew one spell in particular that could save a ponies life in exchange they would gain the years you lost. I've lived on without her for so many years, none of the waitresses that have come and gone have never met her, nor do they know the story of how she gave her life for me. They only know the story of a sad bright blue colt that swings by every year to have lunch by himself, and leaves a generous tip.
I get up, leave a sac of coins on the table and leave. I can hear the murmering of the waitresses as I leave. 'He didn't even order anything this time.' Truth was, this time I wasn't even hungry. There was something different about today rather than others, I... couldn't quite place it though.
I continue my stroll throughout town being greeted by many mares and colts that I've come to know throughout the years.I see a few old friends yet for me they are new, when you've lived as long as I have many of the ones you once knew had long since passed on. I didn't dare mention my own children, seeing as only one more remained. The memories of having to bury your own children even before your own passing was too much to bear in my heart.
Finally after what feels like hours of walkin– even though I know it's only a few blocks– I reach my destination.
The local cemetary.
I make the short trot over to the headstone that leans right up against the tree.
Azure Notehooves Although I already knew it by heart I read the inscription anyway, once more just to remind myself that it was still real.
Proud and beautiful she stood tall against those who doubted her. And when the time came she left us with a resonating beauty, a fine example of a life well lived.
For her family it was enough, for me... no amount of words could possibly capture Azure. She was the one shining light that guided me through the path of life. With that snuffed before it's time I was lost to wander alone in the dark. I closed my eyes and hummed a tune as I sat underneath the tree, nothing more than more memories and wind blowing in my face. I often times spoke to her, I like to belive that the sound of the wind and falling of the leaves were an example of her talking back.
"So how is it up there Azzy? Are you keeping a spot warm for me?"
A few leaves fall from the tree and land on my head.
"That's good. So how are you doing up there?"
A cool breeze blows by and ruffles my hair a little and blows the leaves off my head.
"That's always good to hear. Azure can you tell me something? Do you know when I get to leave?"
There is no response.
"It's ok, you don't have to tell me I know how you loved to surprise me."
I wait a while longer lounging underneath the tree humming to myself, a series of songs we used to sing together. Nopony would remember them, by now their long legends sung to young children of today. They probably don't even understand the hard work and loving feeling that went into them as they were being created. I closed my eyes and dozed off.
I sat there at the age of three hundred and eighty-eight, holding the hoof of my wife hooked up to machines and wires. I remembered the words she told me after just two days of it. 'This is no way to live Fret... please,' She looked at me, her catoraxed eyes gazing at me pleading, 'don't make me live like this.'
Two days later I signed a consent form to let them put an end to her suffering. I sat there listening to the heart monitor my head bowed in the covers her hoof on the back of my head, beep... beep... beep... beep...... beeeeeeep.
Her hoof slipped off my head and onto the bed. I looked up and saw her eyes looking at me, her last smile still emerging on her face as she faded.
I raised a hoof to her eye lids and shut them for her as she gazed up at the ceiling lifeless. I bowed my face down to hers and kissed her forehead, she was still warm.
I remembered watching as the prist read scriptures while her brothers threw the first hoof fulls of dirt onto her grave. It was a somber day, even though the sun was shining bright as it always was. A dreary time that I wish it would rain but... alas the pegasai cannot conform to the grief of every passing mare and colt can they?
Eventually the sun begins to make it's way across the sky, I get up slowly and place a hoof on the tombstone.
"Soon, my dear."
I walk away slowly, due to my aching joints. I never look back, I haven't since my first journey here because I know if I do I won't be able to bring myself to leave her. I know she understands, she knows the pain I bear from leaving her.
I make it home as the sun sets in it's usual place behind the mountains. Tired and aching I make my way to my room and sit there with the lights on. My chest is aching as I crawl painfully into bed. Six hundred years of life tends to make ones bones hurt. Eventually I settle in and blow out the candel. I stare at the ceiling waiting for sleep to take me.
As exhastion sets in I feel something different, something... like sleep but... not quite. It's a sudden feeling that relieves my pain, I feel light almost... giddy. My eyes feel heavy so I close them and breath in deeply, then let it out. It's strange most of the time even a single breath is painful. I open my eyes but everything is still black.
Where am I? I can feel my lips moving but the words don't come out. Suddenly theres a light far at the end of the blackness. Somehow a.. familiar light that resonates a beauty I would recognize anywhere.
"Come." It says.
I know that voice.
Standing beautifully as if almost levitaitng off the ground stands a youthful Azure, no aging just as beautiful as the day I first saw her.
"Don't be alarmed Fret," She hushes me, "just come with me."
I take a single look back through the bright white lights and the black tunnel down where I still remain in the bed. I look so calm and peaceful, I can see my face, eyes closed and a slight smile on my face. I smile back at myself knowing that my body has found it's freedom. Sleeping... no... no longer sleeping. Free at last of a prison once held over me. I close my eyes and enjoy the feeling of newfound freedom.