Amazing Grace

by nightwolf

Rating: everyone
Tags: Tragedy, Slice of Life, Sad, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Fluttershy, Original Character
Length: 2463

When Grace dies in a tragic accident, Star turns to a certain yellow pegasus for help they discover that things aren't always as bad as they seem

When Star's best friend, Grace dies in a tragic accident, she has many unanswered questions, but when a certain yellow pegasus explains them, they both discover that nothing is better than getting things out in the open and cherishing special moments.

This is my first story, constructive critisism is very welcome :)
Please note that if some characters have the same names as other ones, it is by complete accident, i didn't copy anything in this story

Published 2013-04-02 14:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-04-02 14:10:02 UTC

Fun Times Together

"Hurry up Grace, we'll be late!" Star shouted over her shoulder. It was always the same for Star. Get up, eat, get Grace from her house, then go to school. And like always, Grace lagged behind, embarrased that she still didn't have her cutie mark. Star already had hers, three turquoise stars on her flank. Typical, yet Grace always thought there was a hidden meaning in them.
"Please Star, it'll be the same as always. No point in rushing, the teacher is always late" Grace replied. Even so, she sped up, not wanting to feel the wrath of her teacher if she wasn't late for once. School passed like high school always does. Slowly. Especially for Grace. She loved school, and was top of every class except for Phys.Ed. Thats where Star came top. Some ponies even spectulated that she could join the Wonder Bolts. Grace loved watching her zoom across the sky, something that she felt she could never achieve. But back to the main story. When school was finally over, the two best friends flew slowly to the park down in ponyville. They loved spending their time there because the fillies and colts that spent their lives teasing Grace never came down there.
"C'mon Grace! Let's get the ball out and muck around with it!" Star said. Grace sighed. she would have preferred to read, but she knew that Star meant well. Star was actually trying to get Grace to find a talent in something, something aerial, so of course it meant to throw the ball in the sky and do triple backflips between each throw or something like that. But as they threw the ball back and forth (Star was bucking it in mid air aswell), Grace noticed that Star didn't seem to be in the game much. She even missed some shots of Grace, the ones which weren't even that wild.
"What's wrong, Star?" Grace asked.
"Nothing. Just thinking" When Star gave an answer like that, Grace knew that something was definetly on her mind.
"Is it about my cutie mark?" Star did a double take. Grace had this uncanny ability to know what Star was thinking about. Sometimes it was annoying, but sometimes it was quite funny.
"Yeah. I just wish those stupid ponies at school wouldn't tease you" Star mused
"Don't be stupid. That's my worries, not yours!" Grace replied. "Let's just forget about them. Remember, it's finally summer holidays!"
"Yeah that's right!" Star said, excited again. They continued to play with the ball for another few hours, each time thrown higher and higher. Eventually, they had to go home.
"Cya Grace! Come around to Sugar Cube Corner tomorrow, I have a surprise!" Star shouted out the window. Grace flew off shaking her head but smiling. Star's "surprise" was probably a party thrown together by Pinkie Pie to "cheer her up". Well, she didn't need cheering up. She just wanted to have fun together, like they always did.

The next day, Star zoomed down to Sugar Cube Corner. A lot of ponies were there, including Fluttershy, which Star thought was odd since Fluttershy tended to stay at her house whenever there was a party. But never mind. Grace should be arriving soon. Suddenly, the doors flew open. On the threshold stood Grace's parents. Storm Chaser, Grace's father, was crying and Lightning Strike, her mother, was white and trembling.
"Everypony, stop the party please" Pinkie Pie shut off the music, with a shocked look on her face. Storm Chaser just looked at Star with a very sad look. Star's heart sunk.
"Star, p...please come with us" Lighting Strike said. Star just followed them numbly out the door. A milion questions flew around in her head, but she sensed that this was not the time to ask.
"S...star, this w...will be quite a...a shock..." stuttered Lightning Strike. It seemed that whatever was making her tremble was beyond tears. Or she was cried out, unlike Storm Chaser who was positively bawling.
"S...star...Grace...Grace was on...h...her way d...down when a...a storm cloud...fl...flew from nowhere...a...and it...it...hit her...and...she...she...got very...b...badly shocked...in...into...car...cardiac arrest...she...she...didn't....m...make...it!" Lightning Strike wailed the last word and collapsed on the street, sobbing next to her husband. Star stood there registering what she was told. Then it hit her, hardly. Grace was dead. Her friend was gone, forever. There would be no more fun times together.

Deal With It

Rain. It was pouring down Star's back, but she didn't notice. She was to busy crying to notice anything. Grace was gone. Killed by a rogue stormcloud. It seemed very unfair to Star, very much so because Grace hadn't even got her cutie mark yet. Ponies had cried many tears and Grace's parents even moved away because they couldn't bear to stay around the place where their daughter had died. As Star sat crying in front of her friends grave, she heard quiet hoofsteps coming up behind her. It was most likely her mother, coming to tell her to deal with it or some stupid thing like that. But as whoever it was came closer, Star heard faint sobbing. She turned around and there stood Fluttershy, with a bunch of lillies tucked under a wing.
"H...hello Star. I'd thought you'd be here" Fluttershy said quietly. To Star, it seemed that Fluttershy wanted to talk to her. Since Fluttershy had a bouque of flowers and had come to Grace's grave in particular, Star felt a strange connection with the yellow pegasus.
"I'll come to your house with you if you want" Star told Fluttershy, but she shook her head.
"No, the park will do" The pair of them walked slowly towards the park after depositing the lillies at the head of the grave. Nothing seemed happy. Even the ducks and frogs had stopped splashing about like they usually did.
"Let's sit here" Fluttershy sat down on a clump of grass, Star copying her movements.
"Where...where you close to Grace?" asked Star. Fluttershy's actions intrigued her. the party, the way she came to the grave, the funeral, everything.
"Well...as close as our parents allowed us" Fluttershy replied with a faint smile. Star just stared. Never had Grace told her this. Not once, not even the mention of a sibling. Star leaned in for more.
"ex...explain please" Fluttershy smiled faintly at Star's responce
"Well, when I made my desicion to live down here in Ponyville, our parents had just had Grace. They didn't want her coming down here so they said nothing of me to her, but like all things do, she found out and hated our parents for it. She, like me, loved living things and tried to spend as much time as possible down here. Thankfully, our parents soon caught the notion that she didn't particulaly want to live down here, she just liked to visit. So they let her go, but they inforced a strict curfew system, a system which barely let her see me, but let her spend time down here. They were so happy when you two became friends because they thought that you would get her to stay in the air more. But you didn't and they became angry again. They forbid her telling you about me incase you wanted to visit me. All the times coming to the park, she was slipping me notes about how she was going, and I was slipping her notes about the same thing. After Grace...died...my parents came to me and told me they wanted nothing to do with me anymore, for some unexplained reason. That's the other half of why they left." Star stared and tried to understand. eventually it clicked into her brain.
"So...your parents hate you? You're Grace's sister...this..this is so strange yet not!" Star exclaimed. Finally, an explanation to everything!
"Star!" The shout cut through the rain like a knife. Her mother came flying over. "Why aren't you home? I've been looking everywhere for you!" Fluttershy and Star both winced at her harsh tones.
"Sorry Mum, I've just been talking to Fluttershy" Star explained the whole situation to her mother.
"I don't believe it. And Fluttershy, stop telling lies to her, she doesn't need them." Fluttershy looked up at this domeniring figure, with Star standing slightly to the side with a devastated look on her face. She felt a boost of courage.
"No! It was not a pack of lies and you know it! It was the honest truth, every bit of it! Star has the right to know! Stop being such a control freak!" Fluttershy started a a full on rant. Eventually, she ran out of things to say. Star's mother stared for a bit, then zoomed into the sky, waiting for Star to follow.
"Sorry, I don't know why she's acting like this." Star apologised to Fluttershy.
"No need. I forgot to tell you. I saw Grace before she got hit. She had a butterfly cutie mark" By then, Star's mother flew back down and literally grabbed Star by the scruff of her neck and flew home like that. A giant question formed in Star's head. Why hadn't she seen the cutie mark? But just as she asked herself that, the answer came. It was because her parents didn't want their second daughter to have a butterfly cutie mark and covered it with flowers and silk. When they arrived home, Star realised that her father was still at work, so she would be home alone with her mother for awhile. Her mother set her down somewhat roughly on the ground and shoved her face into Star's
"Now listen. I know that Grace was your best friend, but she's dead now. She's not coming back"
"But Mum, she got her cutie mark! I need to get Twilight's and Fluttershy's help with it, but I'll be able to put her cutie mark on her grave! It's what all the other ponies do to their lost ones!" Star argued with the inevitable.
"No! I want you to have nothing to do with that silly filly! You are to stay here until you realise that What Fluttershy told you are a whole bunch of lies! So grow up and stop wasting your time about Grace and deal with the fact that she is dead and gone!" Star stared for a few seconds, then ran down the hall to her room, making sure to slam the door as hard has she could. Her mother's harsh words floated around in her head, forcing her to remember her mother's words for absoloutly everything. "Deal with it."

Amazing Grace

Star stared at the improved headstone of her best friend Grace. After a week of pleading with her mother and with many shouted discussions, her father finally clued on to what was going on and gave Star expressive permission to do what she was arguing constantly with her mother about. Put a picture of Grace's cutie mark on the headstone. With Twilight's magic skills and Fluttershy's description, Star felt happy with the end product. Fluttershy came up behind Star.
"That's beautiful. She would have loved it" Fluttershy mused. Star looked into her eyes.
"She loves it. Not would have loved it. Loves it"
"Sorry. She loves it" Star had held tight to the notion that Grace could hear and see everything,a ghost, until she had gotten an answer that she wanted. It was a feeling deep inside her that although her friend had effectvily disappeared from the Earth, she was still there, invisible to pony eyes. Something still confused Star though. Why had her mother snapped like that? She asked Fluttershy.
"Oh...my. I think that it's because of the fact that she's quite a superstituos pony and has held tight to the belief that if a pegasus spends to much time near the ground or around pegasie that spend a lot of their time on the ground, like me, they either lose their wings of their cutie marks change. That's most likely the reason Grace had such a tight curfew as well." Star dropped her eyes to loom at a butterfly passing by her hooves. The exact one that Grace had on her flank.
"It's not fair. Why did this stuff have to happen?" Star was about to start crying, so Fluttershy started talking before she could get her first wail in.
"Well, I hold firmly to the belief that everything happenes for a reason. The storm cloud...must...must have been...angry!" Fluttershy said cheerfully. Star could only stare. She'd be doing a lot of staring at things lately. But something happened. The odd feeling like Grace was always there disappeared. Star looked around. It seems that Grace got the answer that she wanted. A stormcloud was angry? That was odd but if Grace was happy with it, so was Star.
"You gave her the answer Fluttershy!" It was Fluttershy's turn to stare. She gave Grace an answer? but she just let it go and smiled.
"Yes, I guess I did." Together, they walked to the music store, where a CD was waiting for them, two copies.
"I really can't believe that they actually did this." Star said to Fluttershy. Vinyl Scratch and Octavia had made a CD especially for Grace, at Fluttershy's request. As the pair walked back to the graveyard, they passed a few of Star's classmates, the ones that teased Grace about her being a blank flank in highschool. They silently joined the pair, feeling guilty and wanting to make amends. As this mini prossecion winded it's way through town, ponies stopped what they were doing and joined in. By the time Star and Fluttershy got to Grace's grave site, basically all of Ponyville was there with them, wanting to listen to the music. As Star put the CD in a waiting music player, she got the feeling that Grace was with all of them, including the bullies. As the the soft music played over the countryside, Everypony shed a tear. Except Star shed a tear of happiness. she looked at the cover of the CD. It had a picture of her friends cutie mark and had the title, Amazing Grace. How appropriate it sounded. Star tried the words, and found them to fit her friend exactly. So as the music came to an end, Star finally let go of all sadness, worry, anger and let it make way for happiness. As she looked into Princess Luna's rising moon, she said to herself
"Grace was an amazing friend. I am very thankful for that I knew her. I will cherish her name forever. Amazing Grace."

The End

Author's Note

hope you all enjoyed it!

P.S. the song isn't the same as the church's amazing grace, i just really liked the title and thought that it fits the story quite well