If somepony was to ask me where the time had gone, I wouldn't be able to tell them. It seemed like everything leading up to Pip's death was slow, and memorable, but afterwards it was just a rush of lost memories. Sometimes I wish that I could remember it all, remember everything that happened in the years afterwards.

After I saw my parents smiling at me, I knew I was where I wanted to be. Doing what I loved in front of large groups of ponies, performing my magic. I always thought magic was a deep and mysterious thing, but I learned something from all the practice I did. Magic was just like anything else. At first it's hard to handle, but along the way it gets easier. Every single afternoon outside the library had the same driving force. I knew the only reason I was pushing myself so hard was because of guilt, but that turned into something. I realized something because of that, how much of an impact Pip had on me.

After a while, my show became popular within Manehattan, and I was making enough bits to uphold the family. My mother and father could start working less, and I saw them more often. Eventually, Flair told me that my show needed to expand. That I needed to leave Manehattan. Neither of my parents could come, but that was alright. With the collective money we made, we bought a new apartment. A bigger, warmer, more welcoming apartment that was still on the outside of town where it was peaceful. I wouldn't be living there, however. There were greater things I had to attend to.

Flair gave me an opportunity to travel around Equestria and perform. I didn't decline. Magic was something I loved, and if I loved it I was sure the crowds would, too. I was proud of my magic. I remember when I used to call my father's pride arrogance, but I knew what he meant now.

I had to leave Manehattan, leave my fillyhood for the show. After I had accepted the offer, I had three days to get ready for travel. The first two were spent packing and performing my last shows in Manehattan. The last day was spent saying goodbye.

I didn't know where to start, really. So I started with my apartment. The small, cold room where I had spent most of my life. Most of the apartment didn't really need a goodbye, but I did say goodbye to the couch. It was where I slept, read, and thought. I remembered the countless hours spent pondering on the couch, and the one night Pip came over to sleep. I think that's when we first became friends. I'm not sure.

I trotted down the apartment steps, saying one last goodbye before exiting. Now I had to say goodbye to The Park, the place where friendship came to grow. Pip had spent most of his time here before helping me practice, and it was where I first met him. The Park was a place where differences were set aside and only fun existed. There was no room for bickering or sadness, just the high-spirited play of fillies. Most of my afternoons were spent in this place. It may have just been a square of concrete in the middle of a few apartments, but it meant more. It was a meeting place, somewhere that we could call our own. To the side there was the patch of dirt. The small rectangle of dirt that we checked for grass every now and then.

I usually avoided looking there to avoid reliving past experiences, but today was a day to say goodbye, and it seemed necessary. When I turned to look at it, I noticed something. In the middle of the dirt there was a flower. Right where Pip had been buried. A pink flower that grew tall out of the soil, something that I had never seen as a filly. Usually when we had flowers, they would be small and dull. This one was different. It was brilliantly colored and sturdy. I hadn't cried at the funeral, but I could feel a teardrop roll off my cheek at this moment.

I whispered a final goodbye to Pip, and although I had said it many times before I knew that he deserved a goodbye at this time. I admired the flower for one last moment before continuing my journey. There was one last place I had to visit.

The library was the most important place of my days. It was where I practiced magic, the one thing that I loved. The library looked even worse than it had before. There were more cracks, more weeds growing in the front. The color of the bricks had faded and the windows were cracked. I heard from somepony that the library was going to be closed soon. I wished I could keep it open, but I knew I couldn't. All I could do was say goodbye.

First I had to say goodbye to the outside of the library, the street. The place that housed all my practice and provided the pebbles that I had first lifted. Where Pip and I spent most of our days laughing and playing while I learned about magic. I never really thought of it, but it was our own little area. We were the only ones that came there. I stood outside for a while, just reminiscing about all the practice I had done there. All the days I spent making sure that I never let my magic fail me again. It reminded me of Pip, and how he was the reason I was here.

I trotted into the library. The smell of musty old books entered my nostrils immediately. I missed that smell. All around me were the books that I had spent countless hours reading. The books that taught me the basis of everything I knew about magic. The librarian recognized me and said hello. It was a rare occasion when that happened, but I said hello, too. It seemed out of place. I was saying goodbye to everything, and there I was saying "hello" to the librarian. It was funny how things worked like that.

I walked through the aisles made by the bookcases, reading the titles of the books off the spine. I remembered every single one. At least, I thought I did. Eventually, while saying goodbye to all the books I loved, I came across a title I didn't know. I looked around, only to find that I was in the corner. The corner that I had vowed I would never enter, and now I was in it. Since I was saying goodbye, I decided to check out the books that I had never seen before. These books were the oldest in the library, and their subject matter interested me. They had to do with time spells. Magic that could bend time. I opened one of the books to a random page, and read the spell listed there, just to see what time spells were all about.

"Time spell, use this spell to go back in time and replace your past self with yourself for a few moments. After a few moments, you will be transported back to the present. Warning, changing past events could lead to a large rift in time and create a completely different present."

Time intrigued me, and it surprised me that I never studied the magic of time before, but now was a time to start. The spell seemed simple enough. My mind floated toward the idea. I can save Pip. I sat down, contemplating what seemed like a passing thought. It seemed like an easy decision, but it wasn't.

Now I laid on the library floor. I had the decision in my hooves to save Pip by going back in time, or stay in the present and go on to perform in front of crowds. Going back in time would threaten the existence of my show, maybe even affect my prowess in magic. The only reason I practiced magic so much was because of Pip. If I went back to save him, I would be risking all those hours spent learning the craft of magic. I would be risking my family's happiness. I would be risking the new apartment that my parents got to live in. If I didn't have the show, my family would be on the streets at the moment. On the other hoof, going back in time would mean that I could save Pip. I was completely confident I could do it all these years later, and Pip would still be alive today. My mind spun the consequences back and forth, Pip's life was obviously more valuable than the money or the fame. Why didn't I just do it?

I looked down at the words on the page. There it was, the spell that had so haphazardly introduced itself into my life at the moment I wished to leave. I thought about it for a couple minutes, a conclusion or decision slipping from my grasp.

Life seemed like such an elusive concept, but really it's simple. So simple that I seemed to miss the meaning most of the time. The way I see it, life is really about the concepts. The ideas. The beliefs and the fantasies and the stories that we can imagine. The unreal seems to outweigh what is real. Wood rots, stone crumbles, ponies die. It’s only ideas, concepts, stories, music, and beliefs that live forever. All we can do is hope to leave behind a part of us in the unreal, so we will live forever in the hearts of ponies.

My father always told me, “Life is full of paths. Be careful in which ones you choose.” I’ve always found meaning in that message, but looking back I came to my own conclusion. Instead of multiple paths, I figured that, maybe, life is just one path. One path that we ponies trot on through our entire life, and as we trot we leave behind good events and bad events. Good events lead to our happiness, and bad events lead away from our happiness.

Maybe we can’t see the road in front of us, and as we trot forward we’re experiencing new things. It seems like life would be constantly changing, but it doesn’t. We just change, and life stays the same. And as we change we find new things on this single path. We notice new things, and we leave behind more events. Behind us, we can see all the events we leave behind, and reflect on them. Maybe....maybe....when we come to the end of the road. The place where wealth, popularity, social status, and material goods mean nothing. The place where the only thing that holds any meaning is happiness. And maybe, looking back on our entire life, laid out on that single path, we could see all the events in our life. And hopefully, we don’t see any bad ones. Because at the end of life, nothing should take away from our happiness.

It’s not about the decisions we make, but rather what we do with what we are given. And even though it seems like a bad event when it happens, if we look back on it and find where it has led us, we’ll see it as a good event. It seems everypony tries their best to let go of the bad things that happen to them, but I think we should hold on to them. We should make the most of these events, and turn them into something good. Because if we learn to live life as it comes, and make the best of every situation, we’ll find that at the end of the road, we’ll be happy. And behind us, all the events that were once malevolent become beneficial. The past isn’t changeable, and it never was meant to be. We shouldn’t spend so much time dwelling on what we did wrong, but how we can fix it. How we can see all the bad things as reasons for good things. And ultimately, this leads to the end of the road, where we can look back. And hopefully, all we see are the good things.

I believe that there is just that one path. That single road that we journey down. We can’t avoid any parts of the road, and have to accept what life throws at us. The most successful ponies are the ones that walk down the road with their head up, not worrying about where this one path leads us and making the most of it. Because it’s not about what you did, but how you did. Life wasn’t meant to be infinite amounts of forks in the road. It was meant to be one path, that we could look back and be proud of. Our path. The single path we trot upon. Because in the end, we’re all headed towards the same place. We all have the same destination, but what we do differs. And we all get there on the same path. This single path.

It doesn't matter how long something last, but what happens while it is there. I believed that I made the most of my time with Pip, and that his death is what led me to where I am today. Although I would never see him again, he left an idea behind. That I had to be the best I could be. And that idea is what pushed me to pull my family out of poverty, to become something I knew I was but wasn't ready to achieve. Even though Pip didn't live very long, the impact he had on my was bigger than I could imagine. Although I wished he were still here, I couldn't change the path I was on. I could only look back and make the best of what life gave me.

I closed the book.

Maybe some things happened for a reason.