II. Loop

The first two weeks were the worst. 

They seemed so far away now, but their ghost remained here and there, in the aches in her chest. 

It hadn’t felt real, is one thing she remembered most. Swirling around in the depths of a pain she had never known could be so intense, she kept thinking it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. It had happened so fast, there was no earthly way it was real. 

Twilight will call me. 

Twilight, who had shut the door in no uncertain terms, literally so, would call again because it didn’t make sense that it was over. It didn’t make sense that something could end as fast as it had.

In just one discussion. 

But then it would hit her differently, and then she’d be plagued by thoughts of what could she have done, what could she have said differently, suffocating thoughts all starting with what-if’s that could no longer be undone. 

She remembered, even then, six months later, the hours she’d spent slumped against the black barrier, pleading and begging to somepony who wouldn’t and couldn’t hear. 

Then the anger came, burning her alive. Yelling to Sweetie that it wasn’t fair. That Twilight Sparkle had no right. What about Rarity? What about her? What about everything she’d done?

Shame soon followed, because she couldn’t think those things. She wasn’t angry at Twilight. She was angry at the world, at Discord, at all these enemies that had come in their way. 

Then acceptance, but only briefly. She remembered those moments well still because she felt them sometimes, looking out the window of the Dreamland. Acceptance at the situation. She would persevere! She would, because she was Rarity, and she had gone head to head with dragons, and spirits, and curses. She would be fine because she was Rarity and Rarity was stronger than any breaking heart, no matter the amount of blood spilled. 

But then she’d be back at the barrier, tears clouding her eyes. 

Back in denial, and anger, and bargaining, because not two weeks before she’d brought a radio to the library and watched Twilight dance like a ridiculous fool. Not two weeks before she’d thought to herself she could spend the rest of her life with Twilight. 

“When will this stop?” she asked the silence of the tunnel. 

She had done denial. 

She had done anger, and bargaining, and depression, and acceptance. 

So why was she back in denial? Why was she back in bargaining? Why was the world so cruel? Stories and books and novels? Why had they lied to her? 

Why had they all led her to believe the stages of grief were linear and final, when with each passing day, her bleeding heart realized they were actually a shuffled, endless loop?