Twilight sipped gingerly, steam rising from the cup, catching the late sun and casting whispers of light across her nose. Celestia smiled warmly, watching the young mare drink the aromatic tea she'd brewed for them from blossoms collected in her royal garden earlier that morning. The last blossoms before the seasons shifted.
“Thank you,” she hummed with an approving smile, “this tastes so wonderful, it's exactly what I needed.”
“Of course, Twilight,” she inclined her head softly; sharing a cup of tea with her dearest, former, student was always a blessing.
“I was happy to read that your friends helped you to feel settled into your new home—what a wonderful idea they had to transform the roots of the old tree into a beautiful sculpture.”
Twilight set her cup on its saucer, the soft chime of the porcelain sounding crisper in the high mountain air. She smiled, remembering the way her friends unveiled the root chandelier and all the beautiful things they'd said. It was true that the new castle felt a little more like home and slightly less imposing. She supposed it just had to be filled with more memories before she truly got used to the towering halls and cold crystalline floors.
“I feel very fortunate,” she said as she looked out over a landscape bathed in long indigo shadows cast by fading evening light. Celestia watched her eyes and how they seemed to focus on something beyond the western mountain range.
“What is on your mind, my dear?”
Twilight looked back to her briefly, slightly embarrassed to have her distraction addressed, but also relieved. The younger mare stared back out over the mountain range as she spoke.
“I guess, even though I'm grateful for everything that's happened, I still feel a little homesick… and maybe still a little anxious about this whole princess thing. I mean, getting wings was one thing, but now I have a castle too? It just feels like everything is moving faster and faster.”
Celestia studied the profile of the young alicorn, the way her horn caught the light in a graceful slice of gold, and she noted how much it had grown since Twilight first appeared before her as a bright young filly who worked hard to earn achievement and accolade. That seemed hardly long ago, as though she'd blinked and Twilight transformed before her very eyes into this shining young leader, still so timid and unsure about her short but rich experience.
“I agree. Time feels swifter with each sunset. With each equinox and solstice. With each precession and orbit. I see things come and go, cycles, patterns. Sometimes it seems to blur together like a great wind...”
Twilight looked back to her, drawn in by the graceful alicorn's gentle poetry. She wondered what time must feel like for Princess Celestia. What was it like to have thousands of years of memories? She swallowed a lump in her throat that grew when the back of her mind recalled tumultuous historical events from her library books, times of hardship and times of triumph. What was it like to live through so much life and death? How many friends had she lost? How much change has she seen?
“Does it… ever... get easier?” Twilight asked, her voice a little shaky.
Celestia felt Twilight's fear, and smiled serenely at her.
“No.”
She wouldn't lie to her faithful student.
Twilight swallowed and nodded quietly.
“You will learn how to cope, and you will understand things differently the further time stretches on,” she added to assuage the nervous young princess. Absently, she searched her mind, trying to remember what it was like to be as young as Twilight.
Celestia took a slow drink from her tea, savoring the perfume of the brew. Then, looking out over the landscape, she nudged the sun just beyond the horizon; tucking it to sleep until morning rise. Her long horn glowing with shimmering aether.
Twilight watched the older mare with amazement, for Celestia barely seemed to exert any effort. Every other time Twilight had witnessed her perform her solar magic, Celestia always took a stance of utter grace --as though performing a complex dance to concentrate the will of the spell. Wings outstretched and hair flowing, it always appeared to be a magnificent magical feat.
Presently, it appeared to be more of a magical breathing exercise than a dance. Celestia sat pensively, legs folded on a cushion across from Twilight at the small table, a teacup balanced in the air in front of her. Instead of a dance of flight she'd simply turned her head and inclined it, drawing a short invisible line with the tip of her horn, and the sun was set. Her mane swirled around her in glittering auroral curtains. Her meditative lack of movement conveyed the calm power with which she wielded her magic. Twilight shivered slightly.
She stared at the tea in her cup, silently wondering when her magic would be as evenly tempered and strong as Celestia's. Would her horn have to grow much? It certainly felt strange to possess the magical abilities of three alicorns, when the princesses had given her their magic to fight Tirek. That battle had been terrifyingly exhilarating, and she was glad to return their power to them because she felt as if the charged energy of the magic would've blown her apart had she kept it much longer.
“I also really miss my books,” she quipped suddenly, remembering their charred remains in the rubble. She still mourned their loss, the volumes burned to cinders along with all her research and the beautiful, knarled, oak branches. Decimated by Tirek's rampage.
“I had some rare editions I'd collected…” she sighed wistfully over her cup.
Celestia laughed, and the musical sound of it warmed Twilight's nerves so that she momentarily forgot the sadness about her lost library and her existential dread of experiencing time as a nearly immortal alicorn. What was so funny?
“Well, my dear Twilight, I believe I can help you with that. I'll have the scribes copy all of your favorite volumes from Canterlot's royal library and I will give you some of my favorites from my personal collection. We can't leave Ponyville's new royal library with any empty shelves, hmm?”
“Oh wow! Really? Oh my goodness that is so generous of you! Thank you!”
Twilight leapt to her hooves and rounded the table, embracing her old mentor excitedly with forelegs and wings. The soft waves of Celestia's long mane enveloped her and she smelled of garden sunshine. Ivory wings folded around her, hugging her close as they laughed together. As Twilight nuzzled her neck affectionately, Celestia began making a list in her head of all the essential volumes Twilight would absolutely adore.
"Thank you! Thankyou, thankyouthankyou!" Twilight delighted.
“Of course. I will also pass on Sunset Shimmer's journal to you.”
Twilight extracted herself from the hug and looked up at Celestia curiously.
“Sunset Shimmer's journal?”
“Yes. You and I correspond through Spike's magical dragonfire, but when Sunset Shimmer was my pupil we had matching diaries. I created them so her and I could communicate between lessons. She took her journal with her when she ran away through the mirror. I tried writing to her—to reach out to her… She only wrote back once and then I didn't hear from her again until she appeared from the mirror to steal your crown.”
The memory of chasing Sunset Shimmer down the hall of the Crystal palace flickered through Twilight's mind.
“Do you think she will ever come back to Equestria?”
“Perhaps that is something you should ask her,” Celestia mused, taking a thoughtful sip of her tea.
The lanterns flanking the arched balcony had ignited when the sun set, and their flickering light cast the room in warm violets and tall shadows. The old glass panes of the window and gilded rims of the teacups glinted with splashes of dancing gold.
“She wanted power for the sake of power, because she thought she deserved it,” Twilight opined, seeing Sunset Shimmer's face streaked with tears and shame as she pulled her from the crater blasted out of Canterlot high school's campus after their battle.
“Power without perception,” Celestia summed, her head shaking solemnly.
She remembered, during the battle with the demonic form, reaching out to Sunset Shimmer. The magic of friendship coursing through her spirit and giving her that gleaming power. The magic had enveloped them, a blinding light that burned through them until they hung together, suspended beyond space or time. Twilight shared her understanding, letting Sunset feel what it was like to have power without loneliness. To feel the true strength of being connected with others—the courage that friendship gifted one's heart.
It was like when she faced Nightmare Moon; except her power was new and it felt as though she was a conduit more than a true summoner. A conduit to direct the Elements of Harmony to free Princess Luna. Against Sunset Shimmer? She wielded the Elements of Harmony with a conscious horn, guiding them to connect and awaken Sunset's lost spirit.
She recalled what Sunset Shimmer felt, how afraid and confused she was. Her desire for power, her inability to connect with those around her, her fierce independence and longing for understanding. Lost, far from the home she knew in a world stranger than any known by pony kind. Twilight had reached out to her with a hand of shining light, and Sunset had looked at her with the eyes of a lost filly.
“Come back,” she had called to her, their fingers lacing together as the light enveloped them.
“My hope is that she will return,” said Celestia, looking out at the darkening sky, which now glittered with the early starlight.
Twilight Sparkle looked back to the distant mountain range, now a dark raw edge hemmed with a fading haze of crimson against the velvet dome of the sky.
"I hope so too."