//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: Antonovka 
// by Soufriere 
//------------------------------//

Apple Bloom placed the leather-bound journal in which the message to her had been written onto her bed. As she sat, pondering what she had just read, the door to her room swung open. She grumbled that she was still not allowed a lock even at her age.

“Hey Apple Bloom,” Applejack, wearing a black hat and scarf, said with a heaping of melancholy in her voice. “Are ya feelin’ okay? I know it must be hard to be livin’ in this house now that Granny Smith’s gone. ‘Specially for you, since you’re the one she taught all her recipes and stuff. Y’know, she’s like one a’ them elephants, up an’ leaves to go find a secret place to meet her maker. Apparently it’s an Apple Family tradition? ‘Least she’ll get to see Mom an’ Dad again.”

“Uh-huh,” Apple Bloom replied noncommittally.

Applejack, always one to be in others’ business, did not take her little sister’s tone with its correct subtext of ‘Go away’. “Anywho,” she said, looking over at the journal, “Tell ya what, that courier was real insistent he give that strange cowhide book to you directly. So, what’s in it?”

Apple Bloom pondered this for a moment. Finally, she thought she had a worthy answer: “Peace o’ mind, just for me,” she said, before turning away.

“You never made much sense,” said Applejack as she shook her head. “Guess that’s why Granny always liked you best. She didn’t make much sense either.”

“Nope,” Apple Bloom said, not facing her older sister. “Big Sis, I hate to ask it, but, could ya please leave? I got a lot to process and I gotta do it on my own.”

Applejack sighed. “Fine. Guess I can’t expect you to react to loss the same way I do.” She sniffed back a teardrop. “You’re more like Big Mac in that respect. Fine. Just… don’t forget to eat. The other ponies from town were nice enough to leave us a good spread after the memorial.”

Apple Bloom nodded as Applejack left, shutting the door behind her.

After a moment, Apple Bloom approached her window and gazed out. The sun had set. Myriad stars twinkled in the dark sky, the featureless full moon providing a bright white beacon against the vast nothingness of space.

“We’ll see each other again real soon… Annie,” Apple Bloom said quietly as a meteor zipped across the sky.