PAST


The day had started just the same as any other Council of Friendship meeting day. Rainbow and AJ had just arrived through the main doors, joining Twilight, Spike, Rarity and Pinkie when the usual interdimensional portal between Discord's dimension and their own opened. However, the first sign that something was amiss was when it wasn't Fluttershy who emerged, but her oldest son, Ripley.

Twilight was the first to speak up.

"Ripley? What's wrong? You don't normally come here."

"It's my mother. She's won't wake up."

No other words were needed as the entire Council dove into the portal, each forgetting just how disorientating it was in there. But that didn't matter if one of their friends was in trouble.

Discord's house had grown considerable over the years, to accommodate his growing family. It now resembled a large detached house, not all that dissimilar to Rainbow Dash's cloud home, except not made of clouds. Of course, being that it was designed by Discord, it didn't make all that much sense. The front door was upside down, and on the second storey, none of the windows matched, and every wall, both inside and out, was completely different in colour, texture, pattern, and so on, from any of the other walls.

Another thing that made Discord's house special was that, like the dimension it was within, it was affected by the chaotic god's mood. Therefore, the amount of worry it caused to see that the normally technicolour house had gone monochrome was immeasurable. The surroundings were equally dark and gloomy, so it didn't fill the friends with much hope.

The group followed Ripley, who wasted no time in leading them all to his mother's bedside, where his father and two younger siblings, Eris and Anansi, were waiting. His own wife and two foals had stayed back at the Sanctuary, to look after the animals. Every member of this family was well known to the ponies and dragon, and yet they looked like strangers to them here. The usually energetic and mischievous twins were wrapped tightly around each other, willing themselves not to cry, while the God of Chaos himself was just sitting there, staring at the pale, unmoving form of his wife.

"What happened?" Twilight immediately ran past Discord, but he knew she was asking him.

"No idea, Twilight. It's like she just shut down. I've tried everything to wake her up, but nothing seems to be working. She had started saying that she had headaches last week, and we had an appointment at Ponyville Hospital scheduled for immediately after today's Council meeting, but apparently it progressed much quicker than we thought, whatever it is."

Even though Twilight wasn't an expert on medical procedures, being imbued with the most powerful magic Equestria had to offer did have some advantages in times like this, so she was quick to get to work. The spell she cast was a rudimental heartrate monitor, with the dark magenta aura surrounding Fluttershy's torso pulsing brighter every time it felt a heartbeat. The quicker the pulses, the faster the heartrate; the brighter the pulses, the stronger the heartbeats. The results it showed were bittersweet. She was still alive, but only just. The pulses were slow and dim, the worst possible combination, and they were getting slower. She hated to even think it, but the Princess of Equestria would be surprised if her friend lasted beyond the next hour. She walked up to Discord, the tears stabbing at her own eyes.

"Discord, I'm really sorry, but I don't think she'll be making it through this. Her only hope would be in a hospital, but I doubt we'd get her there in time to make any real difference. The best we can do for her now is to make sure she's comfortable."

Surprisingly, Discord smiled slightly at this news, letting out a sad chuckle.

"I always knew this day would come, Twilight. I knew there would come a time where I'd have to say goodbye to her. I just didn't expect it to be so soon."

"Neither did I."

"You know something, Twilight. I envy you. I'm a god. I'm stuck with this immortality. That's a burden that not even Anansi and Eris share. They'll grow old and die just like Ripley and his wife and foals, eventually leaving just me. That is not a curse I would wish upon anycreature. You were wise to get out of it while you could. I mean, it is true that your life expectancy is still far beyond what an Earth pony, Pegasus or Unicorn could ever achieve, but at least you're no longer stuck in the endless loop that plagues me.

Twilight was silent. She had of course thought of all this herself. After all, it was her decision to strip herself of her immortality. But, it felt different, just hearing it from the mouth of one who had already lived a thousand lifetimes with no escape clause. Still remaining silent, she approached the saddened god, and embraced him in a tearful hug.

"I'm sorry, Discord."

They were interrupted by the sound of a shaky voice, which Twilight recognised as Anansi's. He only uttered one word, just one syllable in fact, but everycreature in the room knew what he meant.

"M-mom…?"

Twilight's magic had stopped pulsing, too.

She had gone. And so began the waterworks.


PRESENT


"Wow, Dad. That must have been awful." Barb had been listening to Spike's recounting of that day, and she was glad that she hadn't been there. She didn't know how she would have taken it. It also didn't help that she had become fairly close to Anansi and Eris over the years as well. They had always been their own unique blend of chaotic and caring with her, but she couldn't recall a single moment where she had ever seen them cry. She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost missed when her Dad continued.

"I mean, we all knew it was coming. She had been feeling sick for a while beforehand, and she was getting old. It was just her time. I think what made it most difficult for all of us was the fact that she was the first to go. When the others passed away, those who were left behind gradually became more and more used to it, as awful as that sounds. It still hurt when they died, but it wasn't as shocking as losing Fluttershy had been."

"What happened after that?"

"Well, pretty much what you'd expect. News of her death spread quickly throughout Ponyville, which then spread to the rest of Equestria. We held a small private funeral for her, but the amount of cards and flowers and donations the Sanctuary received from all corners of Equestria was rather immense. If she had been still alive, Flutters probably would have run away from all the attention, to hide in the silent solace of her cottage!" Spike chuckled to himself, before continuing once again.

"As for the rest of us, we all just had to keep living our own lives. Discord spent a lot more time in his chaos dimension, but he did make it to more Council meetings, while Ripley and his family took over the Sanctuary, with Anansi and Eris helping out when they could. I mean, we all helped when we could, but those two were basically always there. And, it would basically stay that way until we lost Rarity."


But, that'll have to wait until the next chapter, which won't be happening at least until after I've knocked out the rest of Ruin Our Friendship. I've been noticing that I've been having to go back and make quite a few edits to this story recently, which I'm not the biggest fan of, I admit. I'll let you all know when an edit happens, to avoid any confusion, but I'm gonna try to avoid it as much as possible from now on.

Although, there is also a small part of me that almost wants to just abandon this story, and rewrite it from scratch. It's just not exactly going the way that I had initially planned it to. As of this moment, I still have enough willpower to ignore that part of me, but one of those outcomes will happen: either I'll go back and edit chapters, or this story will stop so I can work on the numerous new projects that I have in mind instead, and I'll revisit this idea once I've got a more concrete plan in mind. I'll be mulling that over in my head for a while, but I'll let you know what I decide once I've decided.

Sorry for such a 'fun' Author's Note, but, in any case, I'll see you in the next one! Ciao for now!

OnTheSpectrum