Author's Notes:

For Ragga, who pushed me to even begin writing this story.

For the PoME Group, whose content encouraged me to try.

For MLP, to whom I thank for giving me a small place to grow.

And for Ink Quill. All stories end, as we both know, but the first place they go when they end is the heart of someone else. Hers has come to mine.

It is time to say goodbye.

It was a beautiful dress. It fit her perfectly, by far the finest one she had ever worn and would ever wear. Rarity had designed herself, even as her business could have done the calculations entirely separate from her. She had insisted. She had known her, too, and she felt she owed her friend that much.

It was also a beautiful occasion for the dress. The sky was all blue and cloudless, and the sun was a light warm glow amidst the early morning splendor. She would have liked it, she thought during the procession. She was not one to note the weather, as it went against her method, but she would have pointedly jotted down something about it and perhaps made it into an immortal soul much like all that she had done. It was part of who she was, turning such things that were unknowingly mortal and fading into immortal effigies that could stretch through the yawning length of time and defy its decaying properties like some sort of quantum particle that could transcend the boundaries of the universe. Such was art, such was creation. It was something the old man from the city—old now, but young when they had met, apparently—used to say of often, something she herself didn’t understand, but the one who now wore the perfect dress did, perhaps to degrees unbeknownst to even her closest kin.

Anyway. The dress. She tried to do as she did and immortalize it but this time only in her mind for usage later. It was a dark indigo that complimented her features. In her private thoughts she believed it was the best Rarity had ever done, and she had seen much of Rarity and her business’s designs over the past few years, so such a declaration came with no small amount of credibility. She would have to send her a personal gift, more than thank-you, when this was over.

When this was over.

Something the one wearing the dress used to say was that you never got used to these kinds of things. She had been to too many of these sorts of events to become comfortable with the knowledge that it was inevitable, but she had never let this beat her down. She had grown strong from them, appreciated they who wore their own dresses or suits that were perfect. You don’t necessarily like or grow accustomed to that time. You instead nurture a stronger memory from them. This was what she said after the first of their friends had left suddenly, taken by a sudden ailment not unlike the one that had nearly claimed someone else close to them but to whom the one who did not wear the dress but instead looked down at the person who did only knew briefly and never for long—a fact she regretted, if only out of fate’s machinations and unfortunate endeavors.

The point was things like this were never over. They always came on and on. One day it would be her time and then she would be wearing that dress and being thought about and remembered. It had been so with her and so it would be with her and whoever came after.

Such was life. But perhaps such was art, as she might have said. Life and art. Two sides of the same coin? Maybe.

She shook her head, minutely, so that they around her would not see. They were busy, anyway, busy listening to the man in the robes say some strange words that she recognized but did not consciously understand. There were sniffles. She wiped away a few of her own tears but did not openly cry. That had been for another time, a time she had spent a longer time yet ago.

The man finished talking. Then he stepped away from the pew and nodded to a few members in the audience there and they got up out of their seats and shuffled their way to she who wore that perfect dress. She herself got up, too.

The old man who lived in the city was the first to come to her. Perhaps he never expected to do this to her. Perhaps he believed it would be the opposite, that their positions would be reversed. He would not have minded if that were the case, for then he would have peace of mind and of heart. But still there he was, slate skin paled and clinging to his thin frame. Once upon a time he had been a great man but now only his art was great, and that was art he had stopped making for his body had protested loudly and now he had passed that art on and that greatness with them. Passed onto people like she in the perfect dress. Were that art and greatness gone? Did they pass, too, into the twilight of beyond?

Maybe he would make one more art piece concerning that. But that was for his secretive mind to know and the rest to guess.

But he came up to she, and in his hands was a white rose, and he placed it on her body, next to her head—which housed something unique and beautiful, he had said in the church—and he leaned into her left ear and whispered an archaic phrase and wished her well and then he was gone.

It was like that for the rest of the line. First it was the girl in pigtails and the aging blue-haired man. Then came the ten or so friends from that high school time spoken of in stories. Then came the white-haired, cane-holding man and his ex-villain wife and their child, and still more, some she knew and some she didn't. They would come up and place their rose somewhere near her body and then they would say something to her that only her ears would ever hear, that they needed to say, and then they were gone. It was short but meaningful. The best stories are, she had said a lot.

Then it was her turn, the one who was not wearing the pretty dress. She came up to her and looked down.

She looked as though she was a sleep. Just as she had been at the end. A peaceful way. The best road to take.

She placed her rose down and leaned in. She hesitated for a second. What more could be said? But then she knew. It was a simple phrase to say. Three words. But the ones that mattered.

She said them and then she, too, was gone, thinking about the dress and how she looked like she was sleeping and about to wake any moment now. But the moment was gone. All that was there was they, in grief, in passing, in solace.

In remembrance.

She was going through the old things that the one who wore that perfect dress had. It was some number of days after the event but she could not put a value to those days because for her it was just one long stretch of days that felt the same. It would be like that for a while.

She was going through the boxes that were in the attic and in the office area. There were many, more than she had expected. Predictably there were papers in there, and as she peered through them she saw that they were the scrawlings, etchings, rough sketches, and quick printouts of the art of her craft made into being. Crossed-out words were stitched alongside highlights, red notes in pen, comments to herself, and question marks that begged the viewer to piece together the larger picture. She had been meticulous in her work, she remembered, but that was something she loved about her. It was admirable, and she wanted to mimic the method.

It helped that their crafts were somewhat similar. Though, hers, she knew, was slightly different. There was always a difference even between those who used the same tools in their crafts. For what was writing prose compared to writing a medley? There they had found their commonality and that had been enough. She in the perfect dress had been supportive. She who was not in that dress had been working on something she thought she would love, right until the end…

She dug through some more boxes, thinking about that piece, still trying to come up with how to finish it, when she found the recording.

It was on, for some reason, a CD—an outdated piece of technology by her standards but still existent in some darker and dustier corners of the world, not morally speaking. She held it up to the light and saw that on its back side was a small envelope. The envelope was addressed to her, but it gave no sender.

“She made that.”

She turned and saw him standing in the doorway. Even now he was still a big man, taller than her, but the one in the dress had made him seem small and down to earth, approachable, loveable. He gave her a small smile. Seeing the smile broke her heart a little. For once that smile had been bigger, given to the one who had been his world entire. Now his world was gone. Gone before he had.

She got up and he walked over, slowly, for though he was big and tall, he was still old and greying, the blonde-hair in past years gone now to white, his red skin weathered with age and time. “For you,” he said, touching the CD. “She wasn’t much of a singer, but she wanted t’ write you somethin’ special.” His eyes twinkled. There was, surprisingly, not a touch of sadness there. There was acceptance, and… something purer. “Somehow she guessed you’d love music.”

“Dad?”

“Here.” He took the CD and they both went downstairs into his bedroom area where he and the woman in the perfect dress had shared. There was a CD player there, old and dusty. He placed the disk in the mouth and pushed it in, slowly, grunting a little.

“Your mother was a writer, through and through,” he said as the player began to read it, “but she had a hidden talent, too. She never sang much after we got married—wanted to focus on her writing, and she was always busy—but when you came into our lives, well…” And he nodded to the player, indicating for her to hit play. “Go on, Dahlia.”

She did.

And it was then the voice of the woman who wore that perfect dress, filled the air.

And Dahlia Quill, daughter of Ink Quill, heard her once more.

For this is what her mother sang.