When the sun came up that morning, Inkie Pie knew that her time had come.

So she got her guitar and walked away from the castle, and Luna followed her without saying a word. When her hooves finally touched the street, they started to bleed immediately.

Inkie Pie had been feeling weaker and weaker lately. Her stomach wouldn’t allow her to eat as much as she used to when she was younger, her head would ache after an hour or so of music, her hooves would burn more than usual. At first, she dismissed those facts without an afterthought, but eventually she had to accept that she was growing old.

That particular morning, she thought about her childhood again, about that rock farm that she hadn’t seen in such a long time. The castle had made her homesick, but there was no way she could go there now. It was too far away, and she was too weak.

There was no use in thinking about it, then.

Inkie Pie met her Band outside Canterlot, and they followed her in silence too. She never looked back, choosing instead to walk in a straight line without stopping at any point. The crowd that was following her was bigger than usual. Maybe it was because Luna herself had joined them, maybe it was because everypony could feel that there was something strange in the way Inkie walked. It didn’t really matter.

There were no stops that day. Inkie kept on walking, always in a straight line, always looking forward. Luna was by her side, and sometimes she would use her wing to block the sun from Inkie’s eyes. Her Band was, for once, completely quiet.

With her walking so close, Inkie couldn’t help but think about Luna and what they have been talking about. Inkie had been a product of her own past; from the very moment of her birth, she’d been doomed to be herself. A pony with weak hooves, a filly that couldn’t work with her family.

How many traits, how many parts of her own nature were just a simple evolution of what had always surrounded her? After all, what was Inkie Pie? She was a musician now, if only because her father had seen that in her. What if she had been able to work the rocks? What if Igneous had seen a painter, or maybe a doctor in her? She was proud, because Igneous had been proud before her. She was a rebel, because Quartz had loved her to death. She was a leader, because ponies had chose to follow her.

Maybe if Inkie Pie had lived a normal life, things would have been different. She was nothing else than the accumulation of a series of random events. But if only one of those events had changed…

She smiled. Then she would be different. But that didn’t really matter.

After all, life wasn’t about being oneself: life was about being happy. Inkie Pie had found early that just being Inkie Pie, just being at peace with herself, she had accomplished happiness. But maybe that wasn’t the right way to do so. Or maybe there wasn’t a right way to be happy.

If she had been born healthier, chances were she would have never become a musician, but Inkie didn’t see that as a bad thing. She would have been something else. Maybe she would have been happier, maybe she wouldn’t. As it hadn’t happened, she could never know. And it didn’t matter.

Life had been what it had been, and she had lived it how she had lived it. If there was such a thing as luck, then Inkie Pie wasn’t sure if she had been lucky or unlucky. And that was it.

There was no revelation, no world-changing words. Inkie Pie thought about what it meant to be alive, and what it meant to be herself, and it meant nothing. She was what life had made of her, and she had made her life the way it was. If there were missed opportunities, then there was no reason to cry for them.

Eventually, the sun went down, and the moon was raised by Luna. Inkie felt tired, more tired than she had ever been, so she stopped and turned around, facing her Band.

She got her guitar one last time.

And she started playing.

Inkie played many songs that night. She used everything that she had learned along her way to do so: every chord that had made her hooves bleed, every thought that had inspired her, every memory that lived with her. The guitar answered to her commands as always: mechanically, without life, as a simple extension of her body.

The strings hurt her hooves, as cold and sharp as ever. Her throat was dry and her voice trembled. Her back ached. Her stomach was empty.

She sang about the sad times and the happy memories, about her childhood and her teenage years, about her adulthood, and about her death.

Even during her last moments, Inkie Pie was unable to sing about anything that didn’t relate to herself.

The concert went on for most of the night. And with every song, Inkie would feel weaker and her hooves would bleed more. The strings soon got stained, and the sound became almost unbearable.

But she didn’t mind. She kept on playing. Even when she could no longer feel her hooves, even when her voice broke down and she could barely whisper. She used every little bit of energy left in her, she forced her body to the very limit.

And finally, she passed away. She never stopped singing.

The moment she fell to the ground, the Band broke the silence with their screams. Some tried to help her, to bring her back to life, but it was useless. She was gone.

Inkie Pie was buried in that same spot, the one at the end of that trail of bloody hoofsteps she had created when she came out of the castle. As the years went by, many ponies would say that it was completely impossible for a mare as weak as Inkie to walk such a long way in twenty four hours, as she would have passed out due to blood loss after just a couple miles.

But nothing they could say changed the truth, and the ponies who had seen her swore that she was there.

Inkie’s tombstone was made of granite, courtesy of her parents. They used a rock stained with blood, but they never explained whose blood it was. It wasn’t hard to imagine it, though.

And after that day, life went on. Many cried for Inkie’s death, many didn’t. It didn’t really matter, anyway. Or at least, that’s what she would have said.

Inkie Pie’s legacy went on for many, many years. The musical world would never be the same after her appearance. In the sky, Princess Luna created a new star that same night, one that musicians all over the world would look at when they felt like they didn’t know what to do.

Granite turned back to be one of the most marketable stones in the kingdom, something that greatly benefited the Pie family, owner of the biggest granite fields in the world.

And in the middle of a field, many miles away from Canterlot, at the end of a bloody trail that came from the very doors of the royal castle, laid an elaborate tombstone, under which rested Inkie Pie, the most influential musician that ever lived.

Her guitar was buried with her.

Author's Notes:

Dedicated to Selbi, who lately it's suffering a writer's block. I hope this helped, if only a little.

Also, in case you want to know more about this story, follow this link!

Check the fan-written sidestory too!