“Fluttershy,” he said, staring down at his hooves. His voice was firm. “Fluttershy, come on.” Solid, unmoving, yet with no sense of comfort behind it…she wouldn’t respond. Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing her speak again. It’d been a long time already, what was a little longer going to matter to him?

“Fluttershy.” Softer this time—it reminded her of when she used to call small animals. That seemed so long ago now…too long, in fact. But still she wouldn’t answer. Whatever worry he had for her now, it couldn’t be genuine. Not after all that happened.

“You’re tiring me out, Fluttershy.” It wasn’t pleading, just a statement of fact. She was tiring him out, and that was all there was to it. “You’re going to give me a hemorrhage or something.” He chuckled. “Not that it would matter much at this point.”

Dry and sarcastic as ever. That was Blanche. Dry and sarcastic and, as long as Fluttershy had known him, little else.

“Would it help if I told you a story, Fluttershy? Do you need me to read to you?” Desperate now, finally letting his frustration seep in. “Is that what you’re after? Do you want me to divulge all the secrets I’ve been keeping back from you? Do you think that’s going to fix all this?” Anger, too.

She sighed—it didn’t matter, of course. She couldn’t understand why he kept trying to get under her skin like this. Wasn’t it enough that she’d finally resigned herself to being Death? Did she have to be happy about it, too?

“I know the last one was rough for you, Fluttershy. But you can’t just keep shutting down.” He was, of course, referring to Sawgrass. The young stallion fought and kicked, roared at the top of his lungs, even knocked over most of the furniture and, if she’d have been able to feel pain, he might have taken the breath out of her, or even done her in himself.

But it didn’t matter. It was just part of the job. A job that, with no end in sight, Fluttershy merely accepted. But Blanche kept trying to get her to do more than just go through the motions. He wanted her to live, in a sense. Ironic in that she was dead.

Being immortal had an odd way of skewing Fluttershy’s sense of time. Days, for her, passed like minutes, and it wasn’t long before she stopped keeping track. It could’ve been three months or three years since she’d laid down on that tree outside Ponyville, since the realization hit her that this wasn’t going to be over any time soon.

Blanche opened his mouth, but closed it again. She knew what he wanted to say, of course. He wanted to tell her to pull herself up, dust herself off, and learn to live with what she was. She knew that because, well…it was all he’d been telling for a long, long time.

“How about a story about me, Fluttershy?” he offered, the first of its kind. “Will that make you realize that you can’t lay around for the rest of your time as Death?”

Her answer was a simple sentence. “Can I choose my successor, yet?” She hated the thought, was disgusted by it, but it was only way out. It was also the only response she’d given Blanche for a long, long time.

“No,” came his usual response, “your cycle as Death is still in its infancy, to say the least. Four years isn’t long enough to gain an adequate understanding, to establish your perspective.” Ah yes, four years, that was how long it was. “Answer my question, Fluttershy.”

She didn’t.

After several moments of silence, Blanche sat down across from where Fluttershy lay on her bed, her eyes dull. She always felt cold, even when she knew it was warm.

“Fine then,” he said, tucking his front hooves between his flanks, “I’m telling one anyway. Your quota’s up for today—and good job on that, by the way—so I have the time to.”

Fluttershy didn’t turn away, so he continued. “I was young, at the time, but I already told you that.” He was smiling, but something in it seemed fragile. “Very young, as a matter of fact. The ‘me’ that you’re seeing…well…” he swallowed. “It’s me when I was seventeen. Freshly christened a stallion, and a very prime one, I might add.

“I never knew my parents. And before you manage to find a shred of pity down inside your heart, don’t. It’s never been a big thing, for me. Whoever my parents were, well…all bets say I killed them without ever knowing it.” He chuckled. “The irony there is that they brought me into the world, but I took them out of it, in the end.”

He paused. “But that’s not the focus of the story. I got off track. So anyway, I was a stallion, finally, and I was living with a group of other ponies in an orphanage in Hoofington. Before you ask, yes, that is where Ponyville’s worst tends to collect.”

A new expression flashed across his face, one directed inward. “I wasn’t a nice orphan, for the record. As impersonal, dry and blunt as I am now, in fact. When other colts would look up to me and ask me ‘Do you think my parents will find me here?’ I was the one who told them no.

“That’s the way it was. We didn’t end up there because of a mistake. You know, that’s basically how I’ve always seen things; cut and dry, without a lot of grey. We were orphans because our parents were gone, or they didn’t want us. Other colts in there sometimes didn’t make it because not all of us could make it. Some of them just weren’t built for it, and some of them couldn’t hang, emotionally.”

Fluttershy’s eyes opened slightly, but she gave no other reaction, and Blanche continued. “I liked to think I knew how things were, honestly I did. I had it all figured out—Equestria, for all the varnish and veneer to make it seem holy and untouchable, was a place where bad things happened all the time. Nopony was really safe, in the end.

“It’s like I told you, I was stupid back then.”
The white pony shifted his seat, evidently uncomfortable. “But you want more,” he said, “it’s never enough to just give a little, it always has to be everything or nothing. You want to know why I’m telling you this. Why I’m explaining it all; what all this means to you. Gimmie a little time, and I’ll get to that.”

He breathed in deeply, letting it out as a long sigh. “It wasn’t until a little later, when I became Death, that I started to realize how things really were.

“My predecessor’s name was Kiwi Swirl, believe it or not. He had this long, green hair that fell down past his hooves, and it scraped along the floor. No eyes, like I said before. Unfortunately, confronted with the prospect of being Death, he didn’t allow the Ever to just take his eyesight—he took it himself.”

Blanche chuckled softly. “I don’t know that because he told me, I know because I looked it up in his archives. I found a lot of odd things in his archives. He’d been a miller, long since past, and he had a couple of little ponies—both of them grew up, though, and were gone when he died. No dark past, either. Just a miller who loved his foals.”

The smile on Blanche’s lips died. “He was old, very old, and ready for the end. Happy, content, and satisfied with his life. And when Death showed up? All that went out the window. Back then, as I understand it, the Ever was still popular. Well, Kiwi was one of the ones who went along with the theory—he wanted his own piece of the Ever, wanted to archive his thoughts, wanted to spread his love across the pages. But that wasn’t what he got handed.

“Instead, Death told him that he wanted Kiwi to take his place.” Blanche shook his head ruefully. “He did whatever he figured would spite the Ever. All he could think about, even when he was taking the lives of other ponies in the worst and most rude fashion imaginable, was getting back at his predecessor, at the Ever.

“I can’t sit here and say I blame him for it, but, from what I understand, he chose his successor because he was forced out of the position, because the souls he was sending to the Ever were…well, they weren’t going happily. They weren’t creating harmony. And I don’t have to tell you about his kids…”

He sighed and ran a hoof along his hair. “But enough about him—I said more than enough. Kiwi went on being Death for two-hundred and sixty-seven years. Then he came to me.

“Kiwi showed up outside my window one night, when I was trying to sleep, and told me very little. What I got was that I was being chose to mess things up within the Ever, because I was heartless and vain, and because I could continue the hatefulness. I wasn’t especially understanding, but I wasn’t ready to die yet, either. So I took the job.”

Blanche stood, shifting uncomfortably. Fluttershy’s eyes were open fully now, and she’d uncurled a little bit.

“So, yeah, I became Death, obviously. Ended up pretty similarly to you—dumped into the job out of nowhere by somepony who couldn’t be bothered to ease me into everything. I won’t make excuses—I messed up with you, Fluttershy. Pretty badly. But that’s neither here nor there.

“Being Death, supposedly being the pony who was going to wreck things in the Ever, the one who was going to continue the meanness and general chaos of the moment, well…not the best feeling I’ve ever felt. I was projected to be another two-hundred years of grief.” He stopped a moment, looking Fluttershy dead in the eyes.

“So I decided not to be.

“Instead, I dedicated myself to being everything Kiwi couldn’t be—wouldn’t be. It’s a wonder he even completed his archives, to be honest with you, but somehow, having read through them, he didn’t do it to be nice. The thoughts he left in there are cohesive, but just barely, and not pleasant.”

The white pony stood, looking down at Fluttershy, still curled, but relaxing.

“Fluttershy,” he said, “I’ve read the records. I didn’t have this hindsight back then, but maybe I didn’t need it. I wanted to be the Ever’s first relatable Death, I guess. The ones who came before me were either cold, detached, or, like Kiwi, bitter. I’d been a snot-nosed jerk my entire life, but there was one thing I was good at, and that was making the best of a bad situation.

“Faced with no body and nowhere to go, nopony to be, I drifted for a while. Went here, there, but never really found a place I wanted to settle as Death. So…I kinda just didn’t settle in. I wandered everywhere for the first sixty years of my cycle. Did good things, did bad things. But sixty years is, obviously, a long time when you’re alone with yourself. I had a lot of time to think about the way things were, how everything was so unfair and that killing ponies like I was, well…that it was something I did to get back at Equestria for lying to me.

“I think I mentioned this before, but I was wrong. As I thought more and more, I realized something, besides the fact that I was wrong. Equestria…it’s exactly what it seems like.” He smiled, and let loose genuine laughter. It was an odd sound, like his laughing muscles were broken. “It is a land of sunshine and rainbows, Fluttershy. It’s exactly what it seems like.”

He stood, the smile on his face clear. “It’s not dark, like I thought. My situation was bad, but Fluttershy…even with Death, even with the Ever, even with the uncertainty we have to face more often than not…it is what it is. And ‘what it is’ happens to be a place where neighbors laugh at each other’s’ bad jokes, a place where dogs and cats mostly get along, and a place where you can stop at somepony’s house because you got cold, and be invited in.”

Blanche sighed and shook his head. “Cliché as it is, it took being Death to make me realize how much good there is in Equestria. I was isolated in Hoofington, couldn’t really see anything on the outside. Being Death gave me a lot of freedom, a lot of room to move around. Yeah, I was causing death around me, but I could see plenty now, see Equestria for what it was.”

Blanche chuckled. “I got to meet Little Mint, in case you were wondering. Her section of the Ever is…charming. Simple, but charming. She’s a really sweet little filly. Happy, too.” He sighed and looked upwards. “It’s easy to think of the Ever the wrong way. I did, too. Especially when my cycle first began. Some kind of evil entity, hanging over us Equestrians. But even back in the older times, when ponies really considered the Ever where we’d all end up…it wasn’t thought of like that.

“Everything you’ve felt, Fluttershy, is justifiable. Moreso than most of the things I felt. You, like me, had a lot of life left to live. The difference is that you had somewhere to live it and ponies to live it with.” He looked back down and out the window behind the bed. “There’s a lot to Equestria, Fluttershy. A lot that most ponies never get to see. You’re getting that opportunity, to see the good and the bad.”

Fluttershy was sitting up now.

The white pony turned to Fluttershy. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that, well…Equestria’s not immune to strife and terror, not immune to bad things and scary things. We ponies have our monsters in the closet, and our bogeymen. Even crazies and thieves and everything in between. But there’s something that separates us from the nations of the griffons and the dragons, and so on.” He heaved a huge sigh, as though he’d been waiting the entire time to say this.

“In Equestria, one way or another, things have a way of turning out for the better. Righting themselves.”

He looked away again, out the window. “I was the Ever’s longest running Death. I spent that time trying to make passing…bearable, I guess. It’s not fun, by any means, but it has to happen. I, as Death, well…I tried to make it that much better. No telling if it worked, now, but there it is.

“When Sawgrass fought you, Fluttershy, even socked you a few times, you didn’t yell. You didn’t cry, or tear out his soul or whatever. You just waited until it passed, until he was ready to go.”

Turning back to her, Blanche craned his neck slightly and looked into her eyes. “I’m not here to tell you what to do. Not here to tell you that everything will be alright when you wake up tomorrow, or the next day, or the next month. And I’m not going to tell you that your friends will make it. But I can tell you that you’ll make it, Fluttershy. I don’t want you to keep going like this. But it’s not my choice, and I’ve already broken the rules. I got swayed by emotion.”

He laughed, a loud, long sound that hung in the room for some time. “But I’m not Death anymore, am I? So I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway, does it?” His laughter died off into small chuckles. “You’ll make it, Fluttershy. Whether it seems ironic or whatever, you’ll make it. I think I’m almost out of time, so I’ll get to what you really want to know.”

“Why’d I pick you?” He smiled. “Because, pardon the pun, but I think with enough time, you’ll be in your element. Ponies need to see that Death isn’t entirely bad, again. You’re just the pony to do something like that…and like I said, you’ll grow into it. I promise. Just…give it a little time, okay? It worked for me.”

She still didn’t say anything, but Fluttershy’s eyes were a little brighter. She didn’t want to believe that Blanche knew what he talking about, but…he was centuries older than her. He’d seen a lot, especially if he was the oldest Death ever. And he was genuinely trying to reach out to her, albeit clumsily. She needed to think about all this, especially considering how things were, now…

Blanche sighed and turned, opening the door. “I can see I didn’t get through,” he said, “but that’s okay, I guess. I think, eventually, you’ll get it. It took time for me, too.” He was halfway out the door when Fluttershy spoke.

“Blanche…” she said, “…thank you.”

Blanche stared back at Fluttershy for a few moments, face hard, then smiled. “My pleasure,” he said, “as always.” His exit was silent, the door left open behind him.

‘As always’ wasn’t accurate in the least, but…something about it all made Fluttershy feel a little warmer. She needed to think—there was too much new information to process.

However, Fluttershy wanted to believe that he was right, that, regardless of the situation, there was hope out there, and that maybe she could change the way ponies thought about Death, as they knew it…

But that was for later, of course. For the moment, Fluttershy was feeling incredibly drained—even if it was light outside, and all of her friends were busily living their lives, Fluttershy felt like it was time to do something she hadn’t done for the last few years.

Flopping backwards onto her bed, Fluttershy let her hair splay out around her and shut her eyes. Sleep came easily for the first time in far too long…