Love Is Never a Mistake

by kudzuhaiku

Epilogue

Looking around Fluttershy’s cottage, Twilight Sparkle could see that her friend had been packing. A family of mice watched with solemn little faces as Fluttershy flitted about. Twilight, who had spent the past week piecing everything together, didn’t know what to say.

But that didn’t stop her from trying.

“Are you going to try and find him?” Twilight asked.

Fluttershy let out a soft sigh and nodded. “Yes.”

“Fluttershy?”

“What?”

“Do you love him?” Twilight looked at her friend and all she could see was Fluttershy’s back. She watched Fluttershy’s tail swish from side to side and then the pegasus dropped out of her hover. Twilight felt a catch in her throat and she fought back a shudder.

“I don’t know, Twilight. I’m not sure that it matters. I’m his friend. Perhaps his only real friend. He needs me. He’s hurting… he’s hurting real bad, please, don’t ask me how I know, I just do.” Fluttershy sank down to the floor, covered her face with her hooves, and then choked as she tried not to cry.

Twilight, who had been having a rough week in the aftermath of Adora’s appearance, went to her friend’s side, sat down beside her, and then threw herself over Fluttershy, wrapped her forelegs around the grief stricken pegasus, and pulled her close.

“If Princess Cadance can love the unloveable, perhaps I should do more to make friends with somepony that is very hard to make friends with,” Twilight said in a low voice as she stroked her friend and tried to console Fluttershy. “If I was to be totally honest about all of this, I haven’t done a very good job.”

“He’s very frustrating.” Fluttershy sniffled. “He does bad things. He’s very selfish. He can be very, very hard to be kind to… but I never stop trying.” Fluttershy rested her head against Twilight and closed her eyes.

“I’m coming with you. We’ll get Rainbow Dash to help us,” Twilight said.

“You would do that for me?” Fluttershy asked.

“Yes,” Twilight replied without hesitation. “In fact, I think we’ll all go. This is a friendship crisis. There is a lonely, heartbroken draconequus in need of friends. Perhaps this is a chance to break through to him and maybe make him better.” Twilight looked at the family of mice that were now watching her and could see them nodding their approval.

“Thank you, Twilight, this means a lot,” Fluttershy said in a low whisper.

Letting out a little sigh, Twilight realised that she was up for an adventure. There was more to life than books and study. There was a whole world that she wanted to see, and she wanted to see it with her friends. She patted Fluttershy and gave her friend a soft squeeze.

“I think that we should visit the Crystal Empire first and see if Adora knows any way of helping us find him.” Fluttershy opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and then sniffled her snotty nose.

Twilight found herself in agreement. “That would be a good place to start.”

Author's Note:

The end.

That's all folks. A short, simple story. Maybe not so simple, but I wanted to leave parts of it to the reader's imagination. I wasn't in the mood to write another million word epic.

Comments

[Scarheart]

The sequel will be written by Peter Benchley and will be called 'Hugs'.

Duh-nuh...

[Emtu]

He can very, very hard to be kind to…

can be

[ProjectRabbid]

phew

[ScrambledCrackers]

So open for more, yet closed on a note that could be left alone. With all the girls heading off on adventure to find Discord like that, perhaps the day will come where you find yourself dragged back to tell the tale in another story. If not, still good.

[MagicKnight55]

I like to think this is what the "bad future Twilight" was hoping for, since it was her obsession with understanding the magic of friendship that broke reality (rather than using the magic of friendship).

Now that she's being less about "defining" friendship and more about being a friend because it's right, she doesn't feel compelled to UNDERSTAND EXACTLY how it works.

As to why Adora can still be around if her reality is now gone; she's part-chaos, so it's well within her nature/capability to remain alive and existent even if her origin "never happened", which makes for a happy ending.

She has a pet smooze named Ble, it's periwinkle, and together they are...
Wait for it...
AdoraBle!

[Nachtschwalbe]

Okay. Wow. Love this story. I just finished reading it and gosh did it tug at my heartstrings. The sweetness and dread of that whole situation really took me on an emotional roller coaster ride. And despite the relatively open end it left me completely satisfied and with a smile on my face. (Though, should you ever feel up for a sequel, you'll definitely have my support)
I also greatly enjoyed your interpretation of the characters.

Thank you for this story.

~Nightjar

P.S.: [Chapter 8]

"Alle, Alle, auch sind frie!"

is supposed to be "Alle, Alle, auch sind frei!" and I think it lacks some context because I have no idea how it has anything to do with ending "Sneaky Time". Allerdings kann's natürlich auch sein, dass ich irgendwas übersehen habe und mich hiermit zum Affen mache, aber sicher ist sicher, ne?

P.P.S.: 6543584 Didn't the story make that joke with Twilight's nickname for her niece? Y'know, Adora Belle?
But w/e. I guess.

[Nachtschwalbe]

6549026 Oh? Didn't know that. Huh. Well now I can say I learned something.

We'd normally just shout "Ich komme!"(I'm comming!) when we played Verstecken.

~Nightjar

[Nachtschwalbe]

6549894 Well alle either means all, less often empty (mostly in case of dishes) or everyone/everybody. In this case the latter would probably be more appropriate. Auch can be translated to too, also, likewise, as well, etc. Sind would be translated with are for personal pronouns that either describe more than one or the formal-form-of-address-you (Sie in nominative or Ihr/Ihre/Ihrer/Ihres etc. in the genitive case in German). And frei just means free though depending on context other translations might be more appropriate.
So in the end we have:
Everybody, everybody is free, too.
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, now does it?
Well, I can only theorize, that it meant something different in archaic German or was even part of some rhyme or some such. Hide'n'Seek is an old game afterall.

Well, after that rather lengthy explenation let's google it... and here's the wiki-article:

Olly olly oxen free (and variants: ollie ollie umphrey, olly-olly-ee, outtie outtie lets be free, all-y all-y all set free,[1] Ollie Ollie in come free,[2] ally alley ocean free, etc.) is a catchphrase used in such children's games as hide and seek, capture the flag or kick the can to indicate that players who are hiding can come out into the open without losing the game, that the position of the sides in a game has changed[3] (as in which side is in the field or which side is at bat or "up" in baseball or kickball), or, alternatively, that the game is entirely over. Cassidy and Hall write that the phrase may be derived from "All ye, all ye 'outs' in free," "All the outs in free" or possibly "Calling all the 'outs' in free;" in other words: all who are "out" may come in without penalty.[4] Various calls used for such purposes have gone by the collective name of "ollyoxalls" in some places.[5] Turkey and Rowell state that the phrase may be a corruption of the German Alle, Alle, auch sind frei (English: Everyone everyone, is also free) [3]

In popular culture[edit]
A variant of the phrase "Ollie Ollie Outs in Free" (1941) was the title of one of Perry Como's novelty songs.[6]

The phrase was used as the title for a 1978 film starring Katharine Hepburn.[7]

The phrase or a variant appears in the songs "Oliolioxinfree" By Sworn In, "Ollie Ollie" by Flatfoot 56, "Olly Olly Oxen Free" by Amanda Palmer, "Ollie" by The Brobecks, "Ally, Ally, Oxen Free" by Rod McKuen, "Hide and Seek" by Schematic, "Olley Oxen Free" by Terry Scott Taylor, and "Olly Olly Oxen Free" by Hostage Calm. The phrase was reinvented for the song Ally Ally Oxen Free written by Rod McKuen and Sammy Yates in a critique of aluminium oxide pollution. The song was recorded by The Kingston Trio and featured on their 1963 album Time to Think.

In Seinfeld Season 7 Episode 8, "The Pool Guy", when Newman was running toward the pool to jump in he yelled the phrase, after which he lands on the pool boy.[8][non-primary source needed]

The phrase was used in Downtown (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis song) Released August 2015 in the third verse as spoken by Macklemore.

...
Now I remember why you're supposed to do that in the first place...

~Nightjar

P.S.: TL;DR?

[Shachza]

6552382

"TL;DR" is short for "Too long; didn't read." If posted in response to someone it's a snide way of saying that it wasn't worth the time/effort to read what the initial person said.

If posted by a person on their own response, it's a way of jokingly saying they might have gone too far/in-depth with their response, and/or segue into a short summary of what they posted.

[Nachtschwalbe]

6552382
6552542 <<what he said

[Swashbucklist]

I hope Twilight does indeed mean all six of her friends when she says all. Is Spike going to miss out on yet another epic excursion that will strengthen the friendships between everyone but him?

[Midnight Musashy]

*coughs*
*coughs more*
two million word epic.
*coughs*
*dies*

[ChibiChabot]

Damn! This was a fun read. Thanks for sharing!

[Karakorum]

Great read!

I feel very stupid, but what exactly did Adora do to Discord when they touched antlers? Based on Discord's anguish, I assume that Adora has shown him her future, making him realize that he never told Fluttershy that he loved her until it was too late. But I'm terrible at reading into subtle signs, so please help me.

[kudzuhaiku]

7277569

You got it, more or less.

[Blackbriar]

That was a nice, emotional tale. Pity we never find out what happens to Future-Twi.

[kudzuhaiku]

7893665

Well, if everything worked out as planned, Future-Twi vanished, blinking out of existence as the severed timeline passed away.

[Blackbriar]

7893667
Eh, that's fair. I always figured that when you have pony/monster versions of primal forces like love and chaos you might get one of Time. A very peeved god of time that has to clean up another mess. Or one step further, Future-Twi becoming the Goddess of Time, as time encompasses all elements.
And would explain why the "show" version of MLP is the best of all possible worlds. And who better to guard time than a mare that has lived through it all? The fact that she'd be a paradox influencing the world seems like a good requirement to be a God of Time. Which in turn reminds me of "The Incarnations of Immortality" by Piers Anthony.

[Lionblaze103]

No sequel?

[N4rwh41]

7893667
"If" being the opporative word, here.

[seeker9709]

This is honestly one of the sweetest stories I've read in quite some time. Simple premise, but deep enough to really draw me in, and all the characters were so wonderful. Adora was fantastic, I loved her every moment I got to read about her. Well done my friend!