This week’s feature bring us a heartwrenching look at what love truly means when you’re staring in the face of death.

Five Hundred Little Murders
[Sad] [Slice of Life] • 11,285 words

Flitter doesn’t like most ponies.  There’s hardly anything in the world Flitter likes, very few which she can even remotely tolerate, and only a couple which she truly loves.  Fluttershy is not in the last two categories.  Flitter sees Fluttershy as weak, and weakness disgusts her. 

But when you’re trying to help someone you love, you’ll look for help in a lot of places — including the cottage of the weakest pony in the world.  

And for those willing to listen past their pain, it might be the place where they start to learn what true strength is.

(Curator note: This story is part of a series set in the same continuity, but requires no knowledge of the series.)

FROM THE CURATORS: There’s so much that could be said about this story — the fantastic characterization of the appalling protagonist; the subtle use of unreliable narration; the haunting interpretation of Fluttershy — but we knew that this exemplar of sad fiction deserved inclusion when our collective reaction was simply stunned silence.  It passed with the shortest debate we’ve yet seen.

“This will punch you in the f*cking gut if you’ve ever lost a pet,” Horizon said, “but it will hit you 100% legitimately, and then give you a gentle hug and an apology for having done so.”

Present Perfect agreed. “Thank god I’m on a treadmill and can pretend these tears are just sweat.”

Read on for our interview, in which Estee discusses the implications of the Mane Six’s pet ownership, the tradeoffs of writing stories that share continuity, and creative character reinterpretation as an act of vengeance.
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