"Then Twilight looked up at me with this shattered look, and I realized....
Her foal is dead on account of I let him realize that we’re all just Winonas."

The first draft was a co-bronze-medalist in the the MLPChan /fic/ writeoff for December 2012.

The talented Ponychan /art/ denizen Spirit Shine provided us with a beautifully poignant portrait of Spike's First New Year's Alone as a picture prompt (also: was gracious enough to let me use the image as a cover). I ran with it and decided to have Applejack kill Spike.

It's not as bad as it sounds. Luna's there to keep him company.