“Through here?” I ask.

“Yeah, Twi.”

My big brother’s staring at me with a look I’ve never seen on his face before. It’s disquieting to see him hurting like this. My vocabulary is larger than any pony in Equestria’s, short of maybe Celestia herself. I still don’t know the words to get rid of that look. I wish I did, but I’m certain I don’t. I’ve combined a thousand phrases, every consoling speech I’ve ever read in a slapdash mental experiment, but none of them seem to fit. There’s hardly anything from my own heart I could say.

It’s an unusual feeling, and I’m not sure there’s anypony I can say I share it with. To see someone you care about so dearly in a state of distress, and academically, factually understanding that pain. But you can’t, you don’t share it. There’s a disconnect, and your own feelings are different on a fundamental level that you’ll never be able to bridge to theirs.

He opens the door for me, and I step through. I’d been anticipating this moment since I’d heard the news. I wasn’t excited, nor was I fearful. It was something like dread, and yet not quite. A heavy trembling gripped my heart, and held it higher than where it should have rested in my chest. It’s still gripping it like that now, and I have a tremendous urge to swallow. Maybe the motion will force the muscle back down. It doesn’t.

I glance around the room. I’m not ready for why I’m here yet, I decide. It’s a very nice room, and I muse that they likely could not have chosen a better one. The walls are green, and mix quite nicely with the reds and magentas they chose to complement them. I think magenta was her favorite color… but I don’t really remember. There are a few tables against the back wall, and they’re holding up vases full of lilacs and tulips and happy flowers that don’t belong here. There’s a tacky painting of a cottage in the woods hanging over a fireplace. But between me and that tacky picture is the reason I’m here. I step closer to the little table they’ve set up, but I keep a fair distance. I’m not sure why. I look at the pony laying on it, eyes closed and face disturbingly serene.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. So I talk.

“Hi, Mom.”

Of course she doesn’t answer. Dead ponies don’t talk back if you get the bright idea to try and start a conversation. I examine her body coldly, and feel a retch building in my throat. I hold it down. The embalmers did… nice? Are you supposed to compliment them for this? It’s a horrible job, and I don’t envy their duties in the slightest. I suppose they did the best they could, but this doesn’t look like Mom. It’s missing… it’s missing Mom. I’d barely seen her outside of the occasional holiday. The last time I lived in a house with my parents was almost a decade ago, now. But I still remember her smile, and her warm eyes.

Her eyes are closed now. Maybe that’s what’s off? Or it’s her muzzle. Her lips are frozen in something revolting. Not a smile, but not a frown. A terrifying no-man’s-land between emotions that reeks of inequine nature.

She’s been dressed in her nicest gown. I suppose one must look their best on every important day in their life. Even the last. I can’t help but question it though. I come to the conclusion it’s for our benefit. The family’s, I mean; what does she care how she looks? My relatives just need that consolation, something as close to the original as makeup, embalming fluid, and pretty clothes can get. I think about them. My father, my brother, cousins and aunts that I’ve only seen in Hearth’s Warming Eve cards. This is all for them. A macabre parading of a corpse that will somehow assuage their grief. Celestia, that’s awful. Why would I think something like that? Am I angry? Sad?

I look at Mom’s face, and I realize that I’m neither. I’m not feeling… anything. That grip in my chest, I perceive it differently now. There’s no pressure, but an absence of it where emotion should be. I know the conventions, I’m supposed to come in here and have a tearful goodbye with a pony who has already moved on, and left us behind. And before I know it, my bitter words have returned. By the stars, I just don’t know what they expect from me. I was her daughter, her pride and joy they said. I may never have been home, but I was always close to her heart. I don’t know if that’s true. It’s what I’ve been told. In a way I hope that it’s true, but, if it is… I think I pity my own mother.

I can’t help but feel sorry for her. I’m thankful that she could have ever loved me so much, but she hardly ever saw me, or even received confirmation that I was still alive, wherever I was. What could her last years have been like, if I held such a place in her heart? Did she have so little to cling to that I became that sort of idol? Or, princesses forbid, worse, she pushed away the life she had for dreaming of mine?

Tartarus. Mom, what was wrong with you? Why waste your time on me? Whether I meant ill or not, when I was a filly I didn’t even think of you as my mother. That was Princess Celestia. You were a mare who I had known for eight years, and who gave me away so that I could live my life—my real life. I’d thought the life I’d earned was a dream come true, but now what I had before feels like the dream. Some wishy-washy, wobbling and not quite there reality that only sparsely connects with the life I lead now.

This is a horrible goodbye. I came in here to grieve, supposedly, and I go from pitying my own mother to scorning everything she did for me. I didn’t hate you, Mom, please don’t have been thinking that when you went. I loved you very much. But what am I supposed to do? I see everyone else out there crying, weeping, tossing waterfalls from their eyes. But I don’t feel that. That’s not what I’m experiencing. If that’s what I’m supposed to be doing… I just can’t. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m truly sorrier than I think you could ever believe. But I just can’t do it.

Shining Armor, my brother, he was the foal you raised. You were there for every injury to bandage, every talk to give and every crying word to lend an ear to. I had that from you for a few years, but that faded.

I can scarcely remember the last motherly thing you did for me. When I was a little filly, I would have nightmares. Strange, rending things I couldn’t comprehend in the shadows reaching out for me. And I came to you, whimpering and begging to share the bed, just for tonight, for the fifth night in a row. And you smiled, and scooted over, and I’d snuggle up to you and sleep soundly through the night. I knew I was safe.

But it’s an effort. I have to force myself to remember your face, and not my mentor, my second mother. I don’t mean anything by it Mom. I’m not trying to replace you. But… I stopped needing you a long time ago. Everyone out there, I see them crying and I’m not sure what to think. Maybe they still needed you a while longer?

I see a chair here in the corner, set out for me I suppose. I take it and scoot it up beside the table, so I can sit and look at my mother. It still brings that uneasy, nauseous feeling when I look at her. So wrong, so unnatural. Breathe, Mom. You have to breathe, I think, until I’m reminded that she’ll never breathe again. She is no longer a living pony. She’s a glorified porcelain doll, and even if you made it breathe again it would not be her. It’s Mom without Mom. I ponder a moment on the nature of this, clopping my forehooves against one another. What is the body? Water, flesh, bone, metals and minerals and little things you’d never expect. Was that all she was? Is that all I am? No. There was something more. It’s gone now, forever eluding my grip, but I wonder what it was. What were you, Mom?

I’d been standing outside of this room when your sisters came in to say goodbye, Mom. They were all crying together, saying whatever nice things they could think of about you. They all forgot what split them apart until that moment. You couldn’t hear them, but I had heard them. There had been yelling, screaming and fits thrown as they squabbled over your body. Were you to be buried, or cremated, or some other odd fate? They had settled on cremation, but not before this. A final showing, a bit of closure that truthfully wasn’t any closure at all.

I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking of the spite in their voices and the daggers in their eyes. You died, Mom. You’d think that would bring our family together. If nothing else, the respect you’d earned should set aside their differences for one day. But they couldn't do it. They couldn’t make peace for even a moment, not even for your sake. As the last favor you ever requested, by your demise: the mourning you had deserved. And instead of getting that, you got crocodile tears and hatred hidden behind black veils. How could they do this to you?

It feels like I knew you the least, and yet I’m the only one thinking of you in all this madness. Maybe that’s why you loved me? Why you were so fixated on the distant silhouette that never so much as glanced in your direction? Even if I’d never be able to tell you, to share that pain, you knew that if I had ever learned, I’d have understood your challenges. Living in a family of cutthroats disguised as civilized ponies, begging only for the love a family needed. The love you needed.

I’m sorry, Mom. I failed at so many things. I’m failing now, I can’t even cry for you. But I think, seeing all these ponies sobbing, that I understand why I feel this way. Why I… don’t feel that way, maybe that’s the better answer.

You weren't my teacher, my guide or my confidante. But in a way you were so much more. I’m standing here knowing that when I go home, the dearest friends I could ever ask for will be waiting for me. When I write to my Princess, my mentor and the wonderful pony you sent me to, and she comforts me, I’ll know: it’s all because of you. For all my failures, and your failures, we were there for each other in a different way. You gave me everything that I have, by making the greatest sacrifice a mother could ever make: giving up her child, knowing that she could live a better life than one with you. And even when I was gone, I gave you reprieve from the burdens you shouldered.

I’m sad that you’re gone, but I’m not like the others, gnashing their teeth and crying. They still needed you, still wanted you. They wanted eternity from you, more than you could ever give. But before I had even begun to grow, and understand your gifts, you had given me more than I could ever have asked for. Thank you, so much, Mom. You gave me life, and then you gave me my life. I’m sad that you’re gone, but I can accept it. I mean in this in the greatest, sincerest way, no matter how it sounds:

I don’t need you. Because of the wonderful mother you were to put yourself through that one act, I don’t need you, and I can move on.

I smile, and although I cannot bring myself to kiss the body’s cheek, I know she would understand my intentions.

“I love you, Mom.”

I turn away, and I step back outside. The others will be waiting for me, and they will cry yet more. And they’ll react differently. Some will hate me, that I do not weep for you. And some will call me strong, that I can move past this. But it’s not about strength. I know that, and you would have known that. They’ll never understand what we do.

Goodbye.

Your daughter, who always did and always will love you,

Twilight Sparkle.