Fluttershy gazed up into the sky, straining her eyes to try and spot a certain pegasus against the infinite blue of the sky.
Her eyes were watering, and not from the blinding glare of the sun.
Rainbow Dash had promised she would fly down to Ponyville the moment flight camp was over, but she wouldn't have had time to get her last letter. She didn't know that...that...
A sob welled up in Fluttershy's throat, and something hot and wet spilled onto her cheeks.
Suddenly, something shot out of the sky.
A pegasus!
"Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy gurgled.
The mare circled above Fluttershy, and spread her wings, landing softly on the ground behind her.
"Learned that trick in flight camp!", she boasted.
Turning around, she saw Fluttershy's tearful face.
"Flutters! What's wrong?"
"It's...it's..."
"Is it the orphanage? I bet it's the orphanage! What happens in there? I won't let anything hurt you, Flutters!" Rainbow Dash shouted, giving a filthy glance at the cozy straw thatched building that was the Ponyville Orphanage.
"No, Rainbow Dash, it's not the orphanage. I like it. It's nothing like flight camp. It's about Fluffy."Fluttershy whispered quietly.
"Fluffy? That rabbit? Wow, Flutters, for a moment I was really worried there. If it's about a rabbit, it can't be that bad!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
"Rainbow..."
"So what happened to Fluffy? Sprained a paw?"
"Fluffy had baby bunnies..."
"More rabbits? Don't you need to stop somewhere, Flutters?"
"...And she died."
"Wait, what?! Fluffy...she...?"
Fluttershy gave a small, tight nod.
"Oh, Flutters...when did it happen?"
"Just today...I never even knew she going to have bunnies.I never even got to say goodbye."
"Where, um... is she?"
"Still in the rabbit hutch." Fluttershy mumbled.
Rainbow Dash wrapped herself around Fluttershy, giving her a warm, if slightly awkward hug.
"Take me to your bunny, Flutters."

---

Fluffy was only a soft heap of white against the straw of her hutch.
She didn't look dead. Just small and still.
Rainbow Dash tried to shield Fluttershy from the sight, spreading her wings in front of her.
It didn't make any difference. Fluttershy refused to be shielded.
She rushed to the hutch.
And promptly started crying again.
"Aw, Flutters..."
A squeak suddenly came from the hutch.
"Rainbow Dash? Did you hear that?"
"Um, yeah?"
Fluttershy leaped into action, slamming open the door of the hutch, and carefully digging through the straw.
"Flutters? What are you doing?!"
In response, Fluttershy pulled something out of the straw, something tiny and pink.
"What is that?"
"A bunny.It looks like one of Fluffy's babies lived."
"What'll you name it?"
Fluttershy thought for one moment.
"Angel."
"I guess that's a good name for a bunny."
"Rainbow?"
"Huh?"
"I think we can bury Fluffy."

---

While Fluttershy held the cardboard box filled with straw that would serve as Angel's nest, Rainbow dug the grave under a tree.
The warm summer sun shone down upon them all as Fluffy was placed deep in the ground.

---

The summer was as warm as the one so long ago.
The tree was much bigger, the orphanage gone, but the place felt the same.
Fluttershy wasn't crying now, though. She had seen dozens of animal's eyes dim, hundreds of creatures age, graying and withering until they were nothing but a little bundle of motionless fur.
It was painful. It made her numb, the kind of numb that ached inside.
But it was peaceful, too.
There was dirt on her hooves, and Angel was gone, and it was painfully peaceful.
He hadn't suffered.
And now he was deep inside the ground, close to Fluffy.
Closer than the grumpy, demanding, loyal, lovable little bunny had ever been to his mother.
It felt right.
Fluttershy knew that one day, when his little bunnies grew old, she'd lay them here, with their father.
And the bunnies after that, and the bunnies after all, and the bunnies after that...
A circle of life. A circle of bunnies.
All in this place.
All in the ground.