"Rarity. I will always and forever love you. It does not matter if we are separated by miles or feet. I will always be in your heart, my darling."

"AGH!!!" Rarity woke up with a start. She was breathing heavily and were broken in between how they came out. Every time her chest rose up she ache in stinging pain, rising from her lower back up to her shoulders. She clenched her eyes closed in the rising pain. She felt a feminine and gentle hand on her shoulder and gently guiding her to lay back down. Rarity opened her eyes and saw it was a familiar face.

It was the middle aged face of Zecora. She was wearing various rags and linen wraps around her body. Her face aged to perfection and her long jet black hair braided into dreadlocks. They were pulled and tied back revealing her face. She wore a necklace of good luck, she called it, it was a leather cord with porcelain ceramic arts pieces. They looked to be made in the shape of faces. A tradition of where she came from. Zecora held a damp cloth in her hand and she said gently dabbing it on Rarity's forehead, "Easy, dyaman timoun. You have suffered terrible wounds, you must take it easy. You are not capable of moving just yet. I still have a few things left to do."

Rarity controlled her breathing and felt her heartbeat calm down. She looked down and saw her shirt was gone and replaced by tightly woven linen bandages, stained with blood. Wrapped around her chest and back, to stop the bleeding. Rarity moved a hand over the bandages and said, "How bad are they?"

Zecora squeezed out the cloth over a dark wooden bowl and left it there. Zecora said wiping off her hands, "Your wounds run deep. You fought against Shadowcats, their claws are coated in a poison that rapidly heats meat. To make it easier to pick off the bones. You were its quarry young one. If it had taken you longer to get here then you probably wouldn't be living."

Rarity laid her hands across her stomach. Her back did not sting as much as it had when she had first been given them, but it was enough to know that she could barely move. Her mind flashed back to those recent scenes, hearing loudly in her ears the crashes of thunder that came from her weapon. her weapon of pure steel that now lied with the rest of her belongings.

Rarity looked around the very familiar hut. The hut itself only had one room and she was in the far corner of the room, laying on a bed with a comforter made of thick animal furs. The pelts were aged and somewhat hard to the touch as Rarity laid on them. She glanced over the various decorations of the house. The hanging masks, the black cauldron in the center of the hut, the various tables with alchemical supplies such as bowls, herbs, potions, mashers, and various other items. Rarity looked to her right and saw the sink and nearest to that was a large wooden tub, a wash tub that could fit up to six people. Rarity knew the wash tub well, she remembered the horror she had to suffer from the poison joke.

Rarity drew her attention back to Zecora as she stepped next to the bed ridden girl and leaned over with a bottle in her hand. She poured it into what looked to be a shot glass made of aged wood. She poured a mysterious green liquid into the wooden glass and held it out in front of her, as she did so she elevated Rarity's head a bit more. Rarity took the glass and held it in close. The wood was soft to the touch as she held it in her fingertips. She looked over at Zecora as she held a neutral face as she said, "This will help with the pain."

Rarity brought the wooden glass closer to her lips and said in her mind, Bottoms up.

She pulled back her head and let the green liquid wash down her throat. She half expected the liquid to burn as it ran down her gullet. But it soothed every muscle as it ran down her throat. But the taste was wretched. It tasted like spoiled lettuce that sat out for seven days straight. Her face had shown the conflict her gag reflex that showed great resistance. Zecora smiled at the reaction and said laying a hand on her shoulder, "I said it would help ease the pain. Not taste like aged wine."

"No kidding." Rarity said with a tug at the corners of her lips. They both shared a light chuckle. Rarity did not know what it was but there was a certain air that Zecora carried about her. Like she was willing to give a helping hand no matter what. Rarity let her stomach digest the awful liquid, so she laid there. She refocused back to Zecora and asked, "I have a question Zecora. How come you aren't talking in rhymes?"

Zecora cracked a smile and said with her all too familiar accent of a far away place, speaking with her throat and putting emphasis on the "h" sounds, "I have moved past that. It was getting tire some, not to mention that I now have a fully grasped the Equestrian language now."

Rarity knit her eyebrow and added, "You had trouble grasping Equestrian?"

"Yes indeed," Zecora said gathering up her supplies from the night stand and moved to the nearby sink, "When I first moved away from my home in Zebria, I did not know anything about Equestrian. It was a miracle that I actually made it here with only making symbols and shapes with my hands just at getting here. I however had no job to fulfill and there was no one who needed my talents. Until I stumbled upon the Pies. I was made into their family healer, the best in the business, Granite used to say. I eventually taught the young ones my language so I could actually say something, and in turn they taught me Equestrian.

"I left before the horrors happened that I dared not repeat out loud." Rarity saw the way she cleaned the bowls. She carried a weight that was very similar to Pinkie's when she first found her. She knew the weight Zecora carried and she continued, "I was a drifter again. I wandered the Everfree Forest for hours on end trying to find a way out. When it dawned on me that I could just live here. So I worked day in and day out on this hut. And then I searched for various herbs I needed for various recipes and even finding a few new ones. I spoke in rhymes because I was only around myself, I did just to be funny with myself. But it quickly turned into a habit. Just describing a normal thing, I would make it into a rhyme. But, once I met you girls Twilight offered me lessons in Equestrian and ever since I finished I got out of the habit of rhyming."

Rarity crossed her arms gently over her stomach as she felt unease from the silence. She felt compelled to ask, "Where is Pinkie Pie?"

Zecora pointed a finger to a bed on the opposite side of the hut and saw someone occupying the bed. All Rarity could see was the deep pink hair and the sheets rising and falling with her gentle and slowed breaths. It was a calm and peaceful sight to see. The person who carried the most strife within herself, can sleep so soundly. Rarity turned back to Zecora as she asked, "I take it you know about Miss Pinkamena?"

Zecora turned to Rarity who nodded her head gently and slowly and responded, "Yes. And the only one that knows out of our friends."

There was a pause in her next words, she cleaned her hands off and said as she let cold water run onto them, "Must be such a burden. Having to carry that much evil on her shoulders."

Rarity responded, "Pinkie is not evil...just misunderstood. I will fix her."

"And how does that make you feel?"

"I'm sorry?" Rarity asked lying back knitting an eyebrow.

Zecora replied quickly drying off her hands, "I mean what does it make you feel like, having to burden someone else's demons? It must have some sort of weight behind it?"

Rarity never really analyzed that. She had never taken her emotions in it, she just helped without even thinking the consequences of doing that. She had received many scars and lots of tears shed. It was more taxing on her than she realized. She had faced poverty because she wanted to help someone out. Rarity shifted her weight testing the wound, to see if she could move, it was more of a numb feeling now. She responded, "It...it has brought a lot to light...it opened the world to a place that I never thought existed...I helped her because I felt sympathy...I grew up in a bad household...But Pinkie...she had it much worse."

With her last words she drew her sympathetic and soft gaze to the sleeping girl on the other side of the hut. The rising and falling of her breathing. She turned back to Zecora as she asked, "And why are you doing this?"

Rarity had asked herself that question repeatedly in side herself for six years and to date had never answered that question. Rarity stood up and rested her elbows on her knees and replied, "I...I have not found that answer yet."

Zecora stepped next to Rarity and moved her hand up and said, "Come on."

Rarity stood up in replience to her motion. Zecora guided the seamstress to the other side of the hut and stopped at Pinkie's bed side. She stepped out of the way and faced Rarity. She motioned to the sleeping girl and said, "Look at her."

Rarity knelt at her bedside and stared at her sleeping face. She was so calm and peaceful, like she was floating on an endless sea of steady waves. No rogue waves to break her peacefulness. No storms to rock her away from her calmed state of mind. Nothing but complete and utter bliss. No strife of the real world, no worries to fill every pore of her body. Rarity stared at her young and beautiful face, showing no sign of true age over the six years that she had known Pinkie. It made Rarity's heart skip a beat, knowing that she helped this poor soul from a deprived state as a vagabond and a wanderer. Now she was a good friend.

They had shared so much together. They had a special friendship, one that is inseparable. Zecora said, "Now that you have gotten a good look at her. Tell her why you did what you did. Why you took her in when the world shut her out."

Rarity looked back at the sleeping form and almost instantly felt a knot tie in the back of her throat. She could not find the words to say. Not that she feared what Pinkie would say, but the fact that she would do anything to protect Pinkie and she would do the same for her. She could not find the words because she was so close to Pinkie. She has said almost everything to Pinkie, she had never kept anything from Pinkie. Rarity looked at the wooden floor for a second, drawing in her breath and gathering herself to let it all out.

Rarity looked back up and rested a warm and loving hand on the bed. She raised it to gently stroke the back of her fingers against her cheek. Rarity said shakily and in a serene voice, "I...It...A...all my life, I thought that I would never have a friend or family member to share my feelings...I always thought that I would spend my days alone...with no one special to talk to...I was living with a void...I...For so many years thought that my shadow I called a father would curse my family forever...but once I saw you walking down that path with that much blood dripping from your body...I just thought to myself that my pain was nothing compared to yours...my demons were not as bad as yours...You...you filled that void Pinkie...you filled the darkness I thought I would have for the rest of my life...you are special to me Pinkie...I know that I share my benevolence with everyone...but...when it's you...it...that void gets so much smaller."

Rarity let tears come out of her eyes and she shakenly finished, "I...I...I love you so much Pinkie...Now I promise you...that I will remain here....I...I'm still here..."

Rarity sunk her face in the bed letting it all out. She had finally found the reason why she saved Pinkie. She saved her to have someone that can help her from the bad times of her life and see the light of the world. And Pinkie had proven to do the impossible, she had proven that even the darkest person can help you see the light. Her tears stained the cloth mattress and she covered her head.

When she thought she would face these emotions alone, she felt a soft touch move in against her cheek lifting her head out of her arms. Rarity moved with the hand. She looked up and saw the groggy face of Pinkie look at her with sweet loving eyes. Pinkie said only a half foot away from Rarity, "I love you too Rarity."

Pinkie pulled Rarity in for a warm hug and said, "I never want to leave you Rarity. I will always be here."

Author's Notes:

This chapter named after possibly one of the most beautiful Disney songs I have ever listened to. The song is "I'm Still Here" by Johnny Rzeznik. It brings back so many memories of my early childhood. I remember going to the movie theatre and watching Treasure Planet for the first time. I never fully understood the message of the movie, but now that I'm older I can appreciate the movie. Truly from the Golden Age of Disney.

See you guys next chapter!
~Sylus~