Twilight was packing her research notes up in her saddlebags. She stood over the elements in their display case. With honesty inert and the others weakened, they were not of much use. Even her element had been completely drained protecting her from Luna’s wrath. She decided not to bother packing them, they were worthless now.
Twilight began to remember her friends as she stared at the broken set. They had been disabled once before, back when her friendship had been put to the ultimate test. She smiled, recalling how the letters she had written to Celestia had in turn reminded her of the joy of friendship. She had been so naive and innocent back then; every day was an adventure with her five friends. Twilight wiped a tear from her cheek. Every memory she had used to restore her friends memories and fix the elements surfaced.
Her memories of Dash, constantly joking around and laughing. They had the least in common, and yet had discovered a love of reading together.
Rarity, who had always been willing to give Twilight fashion advice. She often acted as though it was an inconvenience, but truth be told, it was nice to know Rarity cared enough to make sure Twilight always looked her best.
Some of her happiest memories were of Fluttershy. Whether it was a few comforting words, or a shoulder to cry on, she had always soothed Twilight when things went wrong. Fluttershy could see the good in any pony, even Twilight in the end.
Recalling the surprise parties that seemed to happen weekly brought a smile to her face. Somehow Pinkie always knew when Twilight could use some cheering up. Even near the end, when her parties over Cadance’s death had caused her to lose her temper with Pinkie, her friend told her to just drop by if Twilight ever changed her mind and wanted another party.
She stopped at the Apple family. Twilight shook the flashbacks from her head as soon as the memory of the first day sampling apple treats appeared. Applejack was dead now, just like all her friendships, and nothing could bring her back. All she could do now was hold on to the ponies she had left, rebuild the friendships, and maybe one day be happy again.
She continued to pack research notes on immortality into her saddlebags. Her journal fell off the shelf as she reached for a nearby book. It landed open and Twilight found herself lifting it up to read the entry.
Subject: Lyra
Day 1:
Told Lyra I was having trouble sleeping. She offered to play me a lullaby on her lyre. Gullible, but very sweet—a true friend.
Lyra arrived. Tea spiked with hemlock. Dosing adequate. Subject paralyzed quickly, transformation proceeded without incident.
Day 4:
Lyra has befriended me and often lets me discuss my. . . feelings with her. The other ponies have made her a pariah; they hate her. She is such a kind, gentle soul. Why don’t they like her too?
Day 6:
Lyra and Mac have been there for me every step of the way. They remind me of. . . of what the elements used to be. True friends, always there, always understanding. Not afraid to comfort me, not trying to force me into their mold of how they think I should act. I almost wish I could let them go, as a reward. But I need them. They are all I have now. I’ve ruined every other friendship.
Day 11:
It’s only a matter of time now. Luna coming, investigations. I’ve been getting sloppy. Not sure how much longer I can keep it up. Silver as an apprentice? Bad idea. Got to get rid of her. Falling apart. It’s all falling apart.Day 12:
Investigation over. Found body in kitchen. Luna knows. Luna knows.Luna knows.
Twilight wiped a tear from her cheek. Lyra was sitting patiently on the dresser, waiting for her turn to be packed. Mac had been sent with the others.
“Lyra,” Twilight said. She looked up with sorrow in her eyes.
“Yes, Twilight?” Lyra said.
“You were the only one who. . .” Twilight sniffled and wiped her nose. “You truly cared about me. You were my friend before, and after what I did and—well the only gift I can offer you is your freedom.”
Lyra stood up and smiled. “What?”
“I don’t know how I’ll go on without you, at least I still have Mac but—I mean, someone has to stay behind to tell my story. I don’t think Celestia will be in the mood for mercy when Luna reaches her. And—well nopony wants to die but you’d be happier as a pony again?”
Lyra bit her lip. She had originally set out as a spy, to find out how to turn everypony back to normal. She’d then gotten to know Twilight, to help carry her burden of grief. A part of her wanted to stay as Twilight’s doll—to keep trying to help her best friend. “Twilight I—”
“Twilight Veil Sparkle! Show yourself this instant!” The commanding voice of Celestia rang off every wall in the library.
She smiled, knowing it was time to face judgement for her actions. Twilight did not know if she could convince her teacher she was doing the right thing, but part of her felt compelled to try. They had not spoken directly since Cadance died, and if nothing else, Twilight wanted closure. She wanted to know why Celestia had abandoned her.
“Lyra, I—goodbye Lyra. Whatever happens, you are my best friend. Please, be happy and live the normal life I never could.”
Lyra felt something tingling in her mind, as if a switch had been flicked. “What did you do?” she asked.
“Celestia will know. I’m leaving you the journal; the other ponies don’t deserve it. I’ll still have to earn their friendship but you—Lyra you deserve better than a broken friend.” Twilight spun and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her before Lyra could see how hard she was crying.
Celestia was about to shout again when a battered alicorn stepped out of the library. Her mane and tail had been seared off to half their length. The burnt, frayed ends jutted out in every direction. The smooth furs of her coat had been singed and the larger coat hairs blackened.
Twilight looked like she’d been through hell, and for a brief moment Celestia felt pity. “Twilight Sparkle! What have you done?”
She could tell her teacher wanted a confession of guilt. Twilight was not guilty, it was Celestia who needed to answer for her actions. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Maybe if you’d asked me sooner instead of hiding in your throne room, judging and condemning others, I’d tell you. I did exactly what I had to do because you wouldn’t! I saved my friends!”
Twilight watched for the small signs she had come to know. Celestia blinked twice when she was holding back tears or made a subtle pull of a lip when she felt guilty. She saw none of it as her teacher spoke. “And you think you have a right to judge, after hiding away in your library? I have suffered the loss of friends—of family—and it doesn’t get any easier” Celestia explained. “Coping with your grief is an important lesson to learn when you live a thousand years, and you had friends here to help you!”
“Like you had friends to help you in Canterlot? What good did your grieving do you, that it took sending Luna back in pieces for you to leave the fucking castle for once?” Twilight took a few steps closer and felt anger boiling inside her. Even now Celestia had to keep that damnable facade up, to pretend she was above emotion. “I couldn’t stand the thought of being alone—of losing my friends. After I lost Shining and Cadance, even you abandoned me! One by one my friends left me too. Applejack only cared about her farm, Rarity her dresses. . .”
“Twilight, do you think me immune to sorrow and grief? I assure you what you felt for your foal sitter I felt ten times over for my niece. Her death shook me.” Celestia took a deep breath, doing her best to stay strong for her pupil, hoping she could still be talked down.
“Really? So shaken you had to send Luna to comfort me? You were a mother to me. I worshipped you! To make it worse, you wanted me to spend thousands of years ruling alongside you!” Twilight continued to stare at Celestia who held her ground now twenty yards away. She shifted between her hooves eagerly, waiting for her to show a single equine emotion for once in her life. Celestia had ignored her pleas for help just like her friends, and now she was pretending it was all Twilight’s fault. “Watching every single pony die. Every. Single. One. You call that a gift? You did this to me, ruined everything!”
“And you could not just tell me this? Send a letter? I cannot count the number of ponies I have watched die.” Celestia lowered her voice to express her sympathy. “It is part of being immortal. I feel sorrow for each loss, but I do not let it control me!”
Twilight continued to walk towards her mentor. “Then why suffer the loss? We have the power to grant immortality. You have the power to create alicorns. Why do my friends have to die? Why do I have to live forever?” Twilight asked. “I just want to be happy with the time I’m given, not happy for a little while and crying for eternity!”
Celestia softened her features and stepped closer to Twilight. “Come back with me to Canterlot. Luna will want me to punish you harshly, but I will not. I want to help you get through this, but you’ll have to talk to me. You can tell me where the other dolls are and we can fix them, together.”
Twilight chuckled. “Really? You expect me to believe you’ll pardon thirty foalnappings and twenty-two counts of first degree murder? Aggravated assault, involuntary manslaughter, poisoning ponies?” Twilight fought to stay on her hooves as she laughed.
“Please, we can fix it. You were not well when you made those choices, but I’m here, now. Talk to me.”
“No,” Twilight spat. “You can’t fix death. It is a constant. I can bend the rules, avoid it, cheat a bit, but we’ll all die. That’s why I can’t let you arrest me. I have to continue my research, continue building the dollhouse. We can live forever! Every single Equestrian: immortal, happy.”
Twilight walked up and jabbed a hoof against Celestia’s breastplate. “You don’t understand what it’s like to have your closest friends turn on you, and I hate you for that!”
A tear rolled down Celestia’s cheek as she stared down at her pupil. The mare standing here was no longer the sweet filly she had personally taught the ways of magic. “You’re wrong. You were my closest friend, the daughter I never had. You turned on me, and now—” Celestia took a step backwards and began to radiate heat. “I’m taking you in by force.”
“I’d rather die than spend eternity locked up! After I defeat you, I’ll be free to save everyone!” Twilight charged up her horn, firing as much energy as she could muster at Celestia.
Celestia was a blur as she conjured a flaming sword and intercepted the bolt of energy. Twilight stood stunned at the magical construct. “But. . . that is a lost magic. Unicorns haven’t fought with conjuration since the Nightmare wars!”
Celestia swung the sword towards Twilight’s horn. She ducked, then leapt into the air and rained green tendrils of energy down on Celestia. Twilight searched through her mind, finding every forbidden spell she could think of and casting it.
Celestia took to the air, batting aside some of the magical bolts and letting the rest bounce harmlessly off her armor.
Twilight felt her feathers begin to burn as her hair singed further and she furrowed her brow. The heat radiating from Celestia was uncomfortable, but had not been that hot. Looking upward toward the sun, she curled up and shielded herself as a column of fire descended on her from the sky. Twilight hit the ground hard, making a small impact crater.
“It’s over, Twilight, you can’t defeat me,” Celestia said.
Twilight uncurled, her horn already glowing. She shot Celestia right in the face, blinding her. “You’re wrong!” While she had the momentary advantage, she levitated a park bench off the ground. The bench came up, cement and all, leaving a crater. Twilight swung it, shattering the wood and cement over Celestia’s head.
Celestia took a step back as her vision recovered. She felt another blast catch her under the chin, and immediately recognized the magic. Twilight was casting black magics that had been banned—and assumed forgotten—after Nightmare Moon was banished.
Fury began to fuel Celestia again. If anypony could find a tome of banned spells, it was Twilight. Had she researched better, she’d know that such lethal spells did not work well on alicorns. The intent was the same, however, and her pupil had just tried to kill her.
“This is not how you should handle your grief. Give up,” Celestia said. She walked over with her blade raised.
Twilight stood, her legs shaking from exertion. “And this is? Killing the pony who needs you most, who is trying to save her friends? I just wanted to be happy, but you never wanted that!” She narrowed her eyes and flattened her ears, letting her anger dull the pain. “You just wanted a puppet to save your sister! A pawn to defeat Discord! An ace in your hoof in case the changelings got through your shield! I’m not a tool, I’m a pony!”
Celestia lowered her sword. “I never meant to put so much stress on you, but I needed to know you could handle ruling. I risked everything to send you to Ponyville in the hopes you’d discover true friends and be happy.”
Twilight recalled her friends, one of which was dead. She reached out and found a boulder down the street, and began to refocus her energy on it. Twilight prepared to reverse gravity around the rock and make an improvised cannon. “Did you ever truly love me?”
Celestia lowered her guard and her sword, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “Of cour—”
The boulder slammed into Celestia’s side, crumbling and flinging her into the library. Her armor remained unscratched, yet the momentum had still transferred into her body and broken a few ribs.
“Enough!” Celestia screamed. She took to the air and thrust the fiery sword down, stabbing through Twilight’s shoulder and pinning her to the ground.
Twilight’s mind felt as if it were on fire. She could tell the elements were calling out to her weakly, sensing she was in need of protection. Twilight could feel energy radiating from them inside the library, somehow sustaining her—if only barely—as the sword pinned her to the ground.
She continued to struggle, firing bolt after bolt at Celestia. When Celestia raised her sword to strike again, Twilight let her magic explode from her horn, blanketing Celestia in a torrent of arcane energy.
Celestia withdrew the sword and stepped backwards, shielding herself as Twilight’s desperate wave of energy poured over her. The magic rebounded off Celestia’s barrier and pulsed back towards Twilight. The resulting wave of energy caused Twilight to fly backward into some nearby rose bushes.
Twilight stood up, battered and bleeding. She could feel most of her feathers had been burnt off and her shoulder throbbed in pain, blood rapidly pooling beneath her. She coughed, watching the congealed black blood hit the ground.
“It’s over, Twilight!” Celestia shouted at her, not bothering to close the distance between them. “I’m taking you to Canterlot.”
Twilight stood up, looking like she had just lost a fight with several timberwolves. She began to cackle maniacally as the realization hit her. “You—you expect me to come with you? Then I’ll never see my friends again! They’re waiting for me!”
She heard Celestia take to the air, no doubt planning to land on her and finish the job. Twilight was certain Celestia aimed to kill her, it was the only logical explanation. Her connection to the elements severed as she pulled the last of their energy out. She spoke her last words to Celestia. “It is over.”
She didn’t even bother to take her eyes off the ground. She fired up her horn and teleported to the one place Celestia would never find her. With a loud pop, Twilight arrived in the Everfree and collapsed on the floor. The sword had done a decent job of cauterizing her shoulder, but she could still feel the cold fingers of death twisting around her.
The forest was a blur as she crawled to the nearest tree. It hurt to breath, to move, and her limbs were going numb from the cold. She didn’t know how much longer she had left to live.
A few sparks erupted from her cracked horn as she tried to heal herself. Twilight’s mind raced to her friends, her brother and sister-and-law, and to the dolls waiting for her. She looked up into the sky as the sun set to be replaced by the moon. Equestria’s natural order had been restored. Without the sun, the cold crept up on Twilight even faster. She was so tired. She couldn’t resist any longer.
Twilight smiled at the pleasant memories before passing out.
Celestia stood over a small scorched patch of dirt where Twilight had been seconds earlier. She had sensed her pupil teleport and had not reacted quickly enough to stop it. Her attempt to trace it and follow Twilight failed. Celestia did not think Twilight had the strength left in her to teleport. She walked away from the scorched soil and into the library, seeing the open door to a basement.
Proceeding down the stairs, she gasped at what she saw. A large room, at least fifty by fifty feet across, had turned into an empty cavern. The walls, floor, ceiling, and most of the nearby dirt looked like it had been carved out and teleported elsewhere.
The entire dollhouse was gone, and so was its maker.