What is lost

[_fredless]

Is it strange?

[There's a pause here, because for someone that is so friendly with words? For once the right ones seem hard to find]

To feel the loss of something you never even wanted in the first place?

[Yes, she's talking about Illyria here. Now that attacks and expeditions are over? The realization of what is gone is falling catching up with

Comments

[spongetastic]

No... I don't think so.

[_fredless]

I was so surprised when she showed up. It's like the one thing I counted on never happening, in a place where everything happens.

[Despite Lorne warning her otherwise]

[spongetastic]

It's hard to know how to feel when something like that happens, huh..?

[_fredless]

Pretty much. [An audible sigh] Yes.

Written

[historyrepeater]

Wanted or not, people or things have a way of growing on you. Or, the idea of them.

Written

[_fredless]

I don't know if growing on me is...exactly how I'd put it. She was there?

And then she wasn't.

[Maybe it's the loss of being able to understand that she misses. And now that opportunity is gone]

Written

[historyrepeater]

And you didn't want her here?

[ So, this is a person. ]

Written

[_fredless]

I didn't want people to know what she meant. So yes, I suppose I didn't want her here.

[Fred is reluctant to explain further, considering who this is. But it isn't like he couldn't scroll back through the journals himself and sort it out for himself]

[Fred]

[demonologist]

[Instinctively he knows what she's referring to here. Or at least her subsequent replies have made it rather obvious to him.]

I know what you mean. You'd think we would be relieved, or even glad that she's gone. Having her here was a constant reminder of...well, of a future we didn't want to happen.

And yet, I do feel as if I've lost something. Not nearly as much as with Spike or Lorne, of course, but still.

[Wesley]

[_fredless]

[Of course he would know. Fred's not certain why they haven't discussed this before now. Of course, there hasn't been a lack of things going on. But she also suspects that like a great many things between them? Some are simply easier to share over the journals]

I spent all this time trying to keep a secret that wasn't just mine to keep that I don't think I ever really had time to think about what she really meant. Who she really was. Because she wasn't me.

[And until she came, Fred had very much considered everything in the context of herself. And her friends]

Wesley said...[She catches herself. Like Fred and Illyria, Wesley and Wesley almost stand as different people in her mind now]. He said that everything I was, was burned up in...[And maybe that too, was the wrong choice of words] He said that there was nothing left. And after spending time with her, watching the choices she made I...

I guess I can almost agree with that.

[She's quiet for a moment]

...almost. It just didn't feel over yet.

[Fred]

[demonologist]

[Fred can't see it, but he's frowning. Frowning at her mention of the other versions of himself. He can't imagine what it must have been like to live through Fred's death and then see her here in Paradisa alive and well again.]

How could it feel over? She still had your body. And memories. Attachments to some of us.

She wasn't you. But she still was a part of our timeline. Whether it be past, present or future. And she was an entity with her own desires. Strange and incomprehensible as they may have been.

[Wesley]

[_fredless]

[It's not that she disagrees. In fact?]

She was especially attached to you.

[elementoflol]

Like what?

[_fredless]

[Fred hesitates here, uncertain how to make the situation fit the language that was especially Pinkie Pie. That said - or still unsaid -- she's long had a special affinity for the pony and doesn't want to do her the disservice of not telling her the truth either]

Like an itch, maybe? That you though you might've scratched but is still lingering.

[As first attempts go, it is not her best]

[elementoflol]

Sometimes when you scratch an itch it stays there forever, especially a flank itch.

They go on and on and on, and you have to get somepony else to scratch it for you.

[_fredless]

[That is so oddly appropriate Pinkie. How do you do it?]

I don't really know if this is an itch anyone else can scratch for me.