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They Were Torn Wide Open2,397 words
[Bonus Content]1,183 words

[Bonus Content]

Author's Note:

Originally, this oneshot was going to be a bit longer. After the reveal, Twilight was going to struggle with this new truth until Spike, Luna and Celestia convinced her to give friendship another shot. However, while I was in the middle of writing this I just... didn't like where it was going? So I decided to cut it back and just end it at Princess Luna's confession, which I felt was a pretty good open ending. What follows is the unfinished bits I had written before deciding to do that. If you liked the story where it was then I encourage you to leave it there and ignore this, but it's here for anybody who wants a little bit extra.

They wanted to throw her and her friends a parade for saving Equestria, as they had the first time. Twilight didn't go.

She had tried to disprove it. Several times over she had tried different spells, but all of the ones she had supposedly learned during her time in Ponyville just... didn't work. Other spells, such as teleportation, did. She could light up her horn, teleport, use telekinesis, do other little spells she had learned in Celestia's school... but not anything else. She couldn't even -- she realized with a feeling of loss and emptiness on her back -- fly anymore.

Now, she was back at her library. Her old library. Golden Oaks, the great tree, stood as huge and beautiful as she remembered it before Tirek.

With hitched breath, Twilight nudged through the door-- and immediately she was hit by the smell. It was that smell, of books and wood, of the summer breeze wafting in through the window Spike left open, of old yellowed pages and the gentle scent of her bed linens.The shelves were lined so neatly, that small wooden statuette still stood dutifully in the corner, her loft was still opened up to look at the sky, and her telescope was perched to get the best view.

It was all too much. Twilight bowled over, and fell exhausted to the warm wood. The texture, the colors, the everything. It was all...

"Twilight!"

Twilight's ears perked, but she just... she just couldn't find it in herself to return Spike's hug.

"Twilight, I heard about how you guys beat Nightmare Moon, that's-- Twilight? Hey, Twilight, what's wrong? Did something happen to you?!"

After all, Spike was always there with her, during all of those years. What all had she imagined about him? How much had she changed him in her head? Could she have thought up so many lies about him that she wouldn't even remember Spike anymore either? And if she hadn't... what would Spike think of her now? Now, that she acted so much different from the filly he had grown up and traveled to Ponyville with? Would he like the new her at all?

Her eyes stung. She curled up into a ball on the floor, and tearfully looked up at Spike as he fretted over her.

"Oh, Spike," she whispered. Her voice was rocky. "I don't know what to think anymore."

And then she told him everything.

"Uh, Twilight?" Spike called. "Celestia sent you another letter."

"Thank you, Spike."

She threw it onto the pile, then turned back to the book held shakily in her grip. Daring Do seemed to be how she remembered, but now she was more than doubtful that Rainbow Dash would share her love for them. For that matter, A.K. Yearling was more than likely just another author.

With a sigh, Twilight closed the book and shelved it. She curled downwards, into herself, and tucked her chin to her chest with a frown that sat dead and still on her face. She should really read one of the letters, as they had accumulated and were spilling out over her work desk, but she just wasn't sure if she was ready yet. Surely, princess Celestia wanted to tell her to embrace friendship again, to give it all a chance...

But how could she?

Twilight, shaking and numb, buried her face in her hooves. Nearly everything she had ever known about her friends was nothing but a convoluted lie. She had made it all up herself. What if Rainbow Dash never really got into the Wonderbolt's Academy, or Fluttershy wasn't really bad with children like she thought, and Pinkie Pie wasn't scared of her friends not liking her, or Applejack's relationship with Apple Bloom was't like she thought it would be, or Rarity didn't even like Sapphire Shores, or-- or any of it?! Or- Or what if it was the same? What if everything was exactly the same, and she had to go on with her life pretending that she didn't know exactly what was going to happen before it did? But no- no that couldn't happen, because it changed already. Already, nothing made sense.

A breeze rippled through the window and toyed at her coat and mane. When she shifted on the floor, she didn't feel crystal, but the grainy scratch of wood. Below her, down in the main library, only a single set of footsteps echoed off the walls, reverberated dully through the creaky home. Starlight wasn't here. She never existed. Owlowiscious wasn't here, and neither was his perch. He never existed either.

Gilda, Trixie, Braeburn, Maud, Discord... none of them.

Twilight shrank in on herself.

Oh Celestia, what could she do? How could she do it all again?

Twilight waved. Around her, ponies shouted and chanted, their whistles filling the air. Her regalia shimmered bright and gold in the sunlight, the flowers around her wafted sweet scents, and the friends behind her shifted. She could hear every one of them as they walked forward, their hooves clacking by the railing.

She'd never been happier. Her new wings were fluffed up. In her chest, in her eyes, in her smile, she felt the traces of all of her friendships, of all the love and support that had gotten her to this point. She could feel the spark again, so very nostalgic in her chest, and despite the rush of nerves, she felt warm.

Twilight smiled out into the crowd until Celestia stepped forward, leaning down to her level. She smiled. Behind them, Princess Luna did the same.

"Say something, Princess," Celestia said.

Twilight started. Oh. Oh! Yes, it was a coronation. She had a speech!

She walked forward to the edge of the balcony, her head held high over all of her little ponies. One last time, she breathed deep through her nose. She opened her mouth, and--

Twilight couldn't remember the rest. She forgotten the rest of her speech! She couldn't remember the rest of that day at all!

Twilight shifted in bed. She picked herself up from a knot of blankets, and trailed the pattern on her ceiling up and down in the dark. She wrung her hooves together in the sheets, fidgeted, and laid back down with a tiny sigh. Panic bubbled in her chest, then confusion, then--

-- Then it made sense. After all, all of that was just a dream. Dreams usually faded whenever you woke up.

Something inside her was relieved at that. If the memories of her dream disappeared, then she wouldn't have to worry about herself and her friends living up to expectations anymore. She could just accept them as they were, and live her life as normal.

Something else inside of her didn't want to let those memories go.

Twilight pulled the covers up over her head.

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