Songs of Innocence

Prologue: A Cautionary Tale

It was a lazy Summer day.

("Sleepy House Over Yonder" from No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle)

The clouds moved slowly through the sky, as if even it was relaxed on this boring, uneventful day. A young filly trotted along the path to Fluttershy's old cottage, and knocked on the door of the desolate house gently. The old pegasus opened the door, and saw her filly visitor. 

"Oh, why hello, there. Come in." she said, beckoning the filly inside. "Are you here for another story?" Fluttershy asked. The filly nodded a silent "Yes."

As the filly entered the house, she found that it was dark, dimly lit with only the daylight outside lighting up the inside slightly. "I'm not sure what stories I can tell you. I think you've heard them all by this point." Fluttershy lightly chuckled. 

She looked through her bookshelf, looking for a book she hadn't read to her filly guest yet, which she was starting to believe didn't exist. As she looked through her collection, she couldn't find one that she didn't remember reading to the filly before in the months since she started visiting the old mare. 

Then, while in the middle of her book browsing, a particularly beaten-looking book suddenly fell from the shelf, landing onto the ground. "Goodness!" Fluttershy exclaimed in surprise. "I should be more careful..." 

She picked up the book to place it back on the shelf, but when she saw the cover of it... her heart sank. On the old book's cover was a picture of herself in a field at sunset, alongside a yellow mare with a royal purple mane that was barely as tall as her. The picture flooded Fluttershy's mind with fuzzy memories, and it almost brought her to tears. 

She tried her best to snap out of it, and she thought she succeeded. But even with all her strength, she couldn't help but get a little teary-eyed when the filly silently asked her what it was that made her so emotional. "Oh, i-it's nothing..." She looked at the mare in the photo, contemplating something. Then, she looked back at the filly.

"How about I tell you a true story today?" she asked. The filly nodded another silent yes. "Do you see this pony here?" Fluttershy asked, pointing to the mare beside her in the photo. "Her name is Innocent Sun. I knew her back when she was younger. We were so close together. But... life was never very kind to her. She moved to Ponyville a long time ago thinking that she would live a normal, peaceful life, but all she found was..." The pegasus suddenly trailed off.

"Well, we'll get to that when we get to it. Uhm, I might not be able to finish telling you it without getting a little emotional... But I think her story is one you need to be told. This is the story... of how Innocent Sun died."