//------------------------------//
// Beyond the Silver Sky:  The End of the Road? 
// Story: Awkward Conversations And Other Stories 
// by No one is home 
//------------------------------//

It was late into the night and Twilight had dismissed their guests to their quarters as she sat across a massive table from the more massive form of Train Wreck Pastel.

“Can you restore them?” The monster bowed his head before the former princess.  “They said it was possible.”

“Don’t change the subject Train Wreck,” Twilight’s voice was grim.  “You smashed his statue, you tried to kill him.”

“And I failed.” The stallion's voice dripped bitterness.

“He was trapped in living crystal on the moon!  He wasn’t a threat anymore,”  the princess insisted.

“He was in a coma in a changeling pod when he abused my daughter.” Train Wreck nearly spat.  “He came back from the dead and drugged half of canterlot into a circus of rape, and I drained him of every ounce of magic and chased him back to hell, and he still came back!  He murdered hundreds of ponies, including my second wife in Baltimare, and pushed your own beloved mentor to the point of near genocide!”

“This isn’t about him, it’s about you,” Twilight insisted, “You’re not a murderer, Trainwreck.”

“You say that like your so sure.”  The beasts smile chilled the alicorn to her core.  “Can you wake them up? Or not?  Not my family, not just the changelings, what about all your friends outside?  You promised you wake them up when Celestia came back.”

“She’s not coming back!”  Twilight snapped, tears flowing freely from her eyes.  “It’s a lie, all of it!  Celestia didn’t go into exile, she committed suicide!  There is no cure for crystal petrification, if I had my guess, they awakened the Nopony as some kind of crystal golem.  He maintained his will because he was left awake as punishment for his crimes, but Luna sent all the other changelings, and all my friends into an endless sleep.  Even if we reanimated them, without her to awaken them, they would only be lifeless automatons.  I’m sorry, Train Wreck, but the only hope I can offer you is the wish I’ve made every night for the last thousand years, that maybe. Just maybe this is just all some alternate time loop left over from my dual with Starlight Glimmer, and maybe we’ll all just wake up.”

“I can’t believe that!”  The giant sulked helplessly.  “After all this time, after everything, this can’t be…”

The End?