"I'm sorry – Princess, Lord Discord, gentleladies—"

"I should have been with her! Why wouldn't you let me be with her? Maybe I could have saved her!"

"Discord – Discord, stop. We discussed this. We were worried that your chaos—"

"No. Forget it. Consider me gone. And don't visit."

---

Fluttershy looked around. She was on the bank of a river, in dim lighting, the sky so overcast she couldn't tell where the sun was. Many ponies, and other creatures, most of them sapients like griffons and yaks and whatnot, milled around on the bank of the river, confused. Many were crying, or screaming, or had a look of empty non-comprehension on their faces.

Baskets floated down the river, containing animals, babies, elderly creatures, and a handful of others. Most were sleeping serenely; others looked at the overcast sky with peaceful expressions, even smiles on their faces. They didn't seem to have any awareness of the people crowded by the riverbank.

Determinedly, Fluttershy began pushing her way through the crowd, offering gentle words of comfort, pats on backs or heads, to anguished ponies. Some stopped crying, or screaming, and followed her. She'd had time to prepare, and a husband who knew this place well; she knew exactly what she needed to do.

It hurt to leave her friends and her husband and the current batch of animals behind, but she knew who was waiting for her.

Angel Bunny.

Grandma Flit and Grandpa Simoon.

Dad.

Rainbow.

Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow. Oh, she would never have chosen this, never hurt her friends and especially not Discord by deliberately coming here, but now that she was here, she couldn't wait to see Rainbow.

By the riverbank, a skeletal pony stood in a very large boat. "Do you have the price for passage?" the skeleton demanded.

Fluttershy nodded, and took the circlet from around her neck, the one Discord had given her. "This should pay for my passage and everyone else's here who wants to come."

The skeleton inspected the shining ring of magic. "The price has gone up. Three-quarters of these may cross with your payment." It could not help but grin, being a skeleton, but its grin somehow turned cruel. "Choose."

"I won't. What do I need to add to the price to carry all the others over?"

"Bearer of Kindness? Advisor and confidante to the throne of Equestria? Wife of Chaos? An eventful life you've led." The skeleton smirked. "Drink of the waters and I will carry all across who want to come."

She knew what would happen if she drank of the waters, and she knew there would be more coming later, that even if everyone crossed now, others would continue to die. Few carried enough magic into death to pay the price without drinking the water. Once again there would be many more who needed passage, who couldn't bear to part with their memories.

But she would not leave anyone behind on the shore, not if they wanted to come. She trusted in the love she felt that she would find the ones she longed to see, even if she no longer remembered them. "Swear it," she said.

"I swear that if you drink of the waters and give me the circlet, I will take all across now who want to come, regardless of their own ability or willingness to pay."

"Then I'll drink," she said, and bent her head down to the river.

---

"Get up."

"No, I don't think so."

"Get up. You are getting out of bed, and you are going to her funeral."

"And if I don't?"

"Then all of the friends you have because she helped you become a person anypony would want to be friends with will be deeply disappointed in you, and also, I will get Celestia and Luna out of retirement and I will go get Flurry and maybe Cadance and we will all drag you out of this bed and make you go to the funeral."

"I don't need to go to a funeral to grieve, Princess. It's just a ritual – a pony ritual at that. You think Chaos needs to participate in rituals for comfort?"

"No, but Discord the spirit of Chaos is also a person who needs his friends, because part of the whole point to having friends is that you have someone to rely on to support you when you're half-blind with grief. I don't care about the ritual aspect of it. You don't even need to go to the service, no one cares about that. But you're coming to the wake and you're letting us help you and I will not take no for an answer."

"I'd tell a joke about how forceful and dominating you've become... but I don't think I want to tell any more jokes ever, right now."

"Don't worry, I can hear the joke in your voice even if you don't say it. Now come on."

---

The mare wandered through the brightly lit landscape of sunny meadows and low-floating puffy white clouds, flying aimlessly. It was very easy to fly. It seemed as if maybe it hadn't always been this easy, but it was now.

Another pegasus mare appeared before her, a blue one. "Hey there! You're new around here, I can tell!"

"I... think I know you," the mare said.

The blue one nodded, her multicolored mane falling into her eyes. "Yeah, I get the same feeling! Did you drink the water?"

"I must have..."

"I figure I must have too, because I don't remember anything about who I was, or what I did with my life... all I know is, whoever I was, I must have been awesome. But the moment I saw you, I thought, 'I know her.' We must have been really close, to remember after we both drank the water!"

The mare smiles softly. "Yes. I feel like maybe we were sisters or best friends."

"Or girlfriends, maybe?"

"Hmm, maybe, but I'm not sure I'm getting that feeling. I don't think it matters, anyway. Love is love, right? Now that we're dead, we don't even have bodies for that kind of love anymore."

"Yeah, you're right. Come on! I want to show you around, take you to all the best places in Paradise! This place is awesome!"

"Okay... as long as we keep our eyes out for any animals. I feel certain there were some animals I loved that I want to see again."

"Sure, there's some of those around here. Most of them go back in a new body, but some cross the river."

---

"Aunt Twilight, I haven't been able to make a dent in it! The magical storm has swallowed the entire Everfree!"

"Chaos magic?"

"I... think so, yeah. A lot of the natural magic of the Everfree, but that's pretty chaotic too."

"I'll go talk to him."

"How are you going to get into that storm?"

"You'll help me."

---

The mare sat on a cloud and cuddled a bunny in her lap. The bunny was at no risk of falling off the cloud; any creature in Paradise could fly and cloudwalk if they wanted to, though most of the beings that had spent their lives on the ground were still more comfortable there.

Her friend lay next to her, sprawled out on the cloud. "This is the life, isn't it."

"Or the death," the mare said with a smile.

Her friend laughed. "Yeah, true."

"I think I used to be scared of doing things that were exciting, like those thrill-flying stunts you were teaching me," the mare said. "But I'm not scared of anything anymore."

"What's to be scared of? We can't die any more dead than we already are, right?" Her friend stretched out on the cloud. "I think I used to be scared of... you know. This. Just being peaceful with another pony. Snuggling in public where everypony could see me and think I was uncool. But I'm not scared of anything anymore, either." She smiled broadly up at the diffuse light covering the sky.

They lay like that for a few moments before her friend said, "We'll be together forever over here, won't we?"

The mare nodded. "Forever."

---

"Give her back!"

"Discord, you have to stop this! You're destroying—"

"I don't care! Give me back my Fluttershy!"

"She wouldn't want you to be doing this. Think of the animal habitats you're destroying! Would Fluttershy want that?"

"I don't care..." He sobbed, crumpled on the ground. "I just want more time with her. It's not fair! It's not fair!"

"It's absolutely not fair. It's horrible, and – and I'm so angry at whatever fates or destiny was responsible for this. But you can't bring her back without sacrificing another life—"

"With enough magic I can! Chaos magic breaks the rules! If I can just—"

"But you're harming the Everfree—"

"Give her back!" he screamed at the heavens, pouring more and more of his magic into the earth where they'd buried her, in the forest full of the animals she'd loved so much. "Universe, you owe me! Chaos, I've given you my entire life, give me what I want for once! Bring her back!"

---

The mare heard the cry, so very far away. "...bring her back..."

She stiffened. "Someone's calling me," she said. So much pain in that voice. So much grief.

"So? Not like it matters. They'll be here eventually."

"This one... this one... might not?" So sad, and angry. Hurting so much. She knew that voice, and she knew, somehow, that the owner of the voice might not join her here anytime soon, or possibly even ever.

"Yeah, okay, but there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes the living call us, but it's not like we can go."

"I think... maybe... I should."

"Don't be nuts, it's a one-way trip. Old Charon won't carry you over the other way."

"Then I'll have to build a boat. Or steal a basket. Or swim."

Her friend saw the determination in her eyes. "Ugh, this is stupid, but all right. I'll help you. Hay, at least, trying to cheat death by leaving Paradise and returning to the living is a pretty awesome stunt to try even if we don't pull it off, right?"

"Yes." She smiled at her friend, and lifted her hoof to let the other mare hoof-bump her.

---

Discord lay mostly on the ground, half-curled around Twilight, his head lying in her lap as they both cried. The rain poured down, but most of the chaos storm had abated, and it was just a normal Everfree storm now.

"I want her back," he sobbed. "I wasn't ready for her to go. I want her back."

"Me too," Twilight said, finally letting go of the façade of strength she'd had to put up for Discord and all of their friends throughout Fluttershy's illness and death. "I miss her so much. Her and Rainbow, but Rainbow at least died doing what she loved, and being a hero. Fluttershy... it was so pointless."

"I'm so sorry I couldn't save her. I'm so, so sorry."

"Cancer is chaos. You said from the beginning, you couldn't possibly heal her without making it worse. She understood, you didn't have any power to save her, and she forgave you. More than that, she didn't even think there was anything to forgive. And I agree. If anyone should have saved her it should have been me... Harmony magic should have worked on cancer, but... not on stage 4. Even I didn't have the magic to do it."

"It's not fair," he said again, slurring slightly. He was drunk from the cider Applejack had brought to the wake, or he probably wouldn't have been out here pouring all of his power into a grave like he could break the rules of life and death through sheer force of will. Now he'd expended so much of his power that he was falling asleep. "I've had millennia. She had forty years. It wasn't enough, she shouldn't have died like that. It should have been me."

"She wouldn't have accepted that," Twilight said. "She didn't want you sacrificing yourself or anyone else to save her. But I should have found a way, somehow. I should have found a cure."

"I love her. I'll always love her."

"I know. I will, too." Twilight choked. "She was one of my best friends – and I'm going to have to see them all go, them and Starlight and the Cutie Mark Crusaders and – and I'm the lucky one, I get to keep you and Flurry and Cadance, and Celestia and Luna, and Spike will be around a long time, and maybe even my big brother – and I feel so sorry for you, because you didn't have anybody for so long and then you had Fluttershy and now you have other friends but you lost her, and there's no one who means so much to you and I'm so sorry, I wish we could have saved her, I'd give anything, anything except doing the thing she ordered us not to do."

He nodded weakly. "No sacrifices." That left all of necromancy off-limits. Not that it was legal anyway but Twilight didn't think that would have stopped Discord.

"It's not fair," Twilight said. "But we have to keep going, we have to live, and be kind, because that's what she would have wanted. Because she's not here to do it anymore."

---

Charon, as expected, would not take them back across. "This is a one-way trip," it said. "No exceptions."

Her friend looked as if she wanted to fight the skeleton, so the mare pulled her away. "Oh, okay," she said. "I'm sorry to bother you."

When they were by themselves her friend said, "What's wrong with you? You want to go back, you hear someone who loves you calling you, but you can't even stand up for yourself!"

"We can't fight Charon," the mare said. "Supposing we did, and we won, and knocked it apart. Then who would pilot the ferry to bring the lost souls to Paradise?"

"Uh. Good point."

"We'll find another way."

The current was swift and the drop-off was quick and sheer. They couldn't reasonably expect to wade into the river without getting any of the water in their mouths, and that would cause them to forget again, and maybe even forget each other. That wasn't acceptable. The baskets never drifted close enough to the shore that they could grab one.

They tried flying, but the power that gave them flight here died midway across the river. If the mare hadn't insisted that her friend fly close to her, so that, when her friend fell, her friend could do a stunt roll to get within the mare's grasping distance before she herself lost flight, and so the mare could pull her back toward where flight worked, and safety... her friend would have been lost.

They tried walking the shore, trying to find the end of the river, or a ford or a bridge, but didn't truly expect to find any such thing, and indeed they didn't.

But what they did find was a glowing rope, made of magic and reaching up into the sky, dangling down at an angle so it crossed the river and went up and up from the other side. It was purple and gold and crimson and deepest blue, and it twisted and writhed with all of the power of one who had been granted the duty of breaking the rules of reality, pouring all of his strength into a scream of grief at the reality of death.

"It's for you," her friend said, nervously. "I should stay here. The voice was calling to you."

"I'll be alone," the mare said. "It looks like a very long climb. Won't you come with me?"

"If you need me," her friend said, "I'll follow you anywhere."

---

"And don't forget to make the nobles feel important, even if you don't think they are—"

"Twilight," Rarity said, "We are perfectly capable of handling matters here. The Princesses will handle the sun and moon, and Princess Luna will step in if we need her assistance in Canterlot – which we will not." She looked around at the rest of the Council – Pinkie, Applejack, Starlight, Sunburst, and the others that Twilight had recruited over the course of the last ten years. "Go. Have fun."

"Take care of the big guy," Applejack said. "Harmony knows, he needs it."

"And take care of yourself! Because you need it too!" Pinkie said.

"Go on, Twilight," Starlight said. "Go with Discord. We've got this."

"You heard them." Discord was dressed for travel, with several suitcases that Twilight suspected were just for the sake of making a joke, because he didn't need them. He'd been weak and limited to basic telekinesis for a week or two after the funeral, after the energy he'd poured into the Everfree, but he was fully recovered now. "The multiverse awaits!"

"I guess it does," Twilight said. "Bye, everyone. I love you all. I'll bring back plenty of pictures and observations!"

Discord made a face. "There's no way I can persuade you not to do that, is there?"

"Afraid not."

"I'm looking forward to it," Sunburst said. "But get going, guys!"

"If you take too long, Spike will be back from the Dragon Lands, and he'll cry, and you don't want to see a teenage dragon crying," Pinkie Pie said ominously.

"All right, all right, we're going!" She turned to Discord. It had been her idea to get him to take her on a multiverse jaunt, but only because he'd been nagging her about it for over a decade. This was for him and his need for something to distract him from his grief as much as or more than it was for her. "Do you want me to do it, or--?"

Discord made another face. "Nothing elegant about harmony opening dimensional portals," he complained, and snapped his fingers.

---

Hoof over hoof. Their wings didn't work. If they slipped, they'd fall and... probably not die, considering they were already dead, but what happened to a spirit falling from the realm between the living and the dead? Would they be lost between worlds forever?

As they traveled, more and more of the energy from the rope soaked into the mare. Her forehooves became claws, because that made the travel easier. Her body elongated and became snake-like, the better to wind herself around the rope and protect herself from falling. Her tail grew long, the better to catch her friend with if her friend should fall.

And then everything inverted, suddenly, and she felt the need to breathe again, but she couldn't because there was dirt packed all around her. But dirt was part of nature. With a thought, she pushed the dirt off of her, and it flowed like water as she got to her feet.

Her body had changed. She wasn't a little pegasus anymore. Wasn't really even a pony at all. But it felt right.

There was no body here for her friend to come with her. Without memories, she had no way of knowing where her friend's bones lay. But it didn't matter. The magic that had soaked into her made her a part of this forest, a part of nature. She took an acorn, and changed it into the seed of a pony rather than the seed of an oak tree, and then grew it and grew it, and used her horn (when had she gotten a horn? Did it matter?) to tug on the cord that her friend was still holding onto, on the other side, and then pulled her friend through and put her in the body.

In the realm of the dead her friend had been bright blue, and small, like her, and a pegasus, like her. In this realm, her friend was tall, and navy blue, and her wide wings were tipped with gray and white like the color of stormclouds, and a horn rose from her forehead. The rainbow-colored mane was still the same. "Wow! This body is awesome!" her friend said, experimentally flapping her wings. "I feel like I can feel storm systems halfway across the world. This is great!" Her friend looked at her. "And you. You're gorgeous! You know that? I don't even know what species you are now but who cares? Those wings? Ultra-cool. And a horn!" She reached up to touch her own forehead. "And I have a horn! We're both princesses now! Except ick, I'm not going to do any of that stupid dressing up and having to have a court thing. I'm going to be an awesome princess!"

"You're going to be a queen," the mare-not-a-mare said. "You are my best friend, the Queen of Storms. And I – I'm the Spirit of Nature."

She felt all around herself. In this realm, in this forest, everything felt right. But outside, everything was too orderly, too rigid. Poor little animals, forced to rely on help from ponies for survival because ponies had taken away all the wildness they could have kept themselves alive with otherwise. She couldn't see or feel the voice that had been crying, demanding that the universe give her back. It must have been the animals, needing a place to be their own true homes back, where they could be themselves and not mere pets. The plants, begging to be able to grow where they willed, not where the earth ponies demanded. That must be who had called her back. That was who needed her.

"Come on, my Storm Queen," the Spirit of Nature said. "We need to fix the world."