Another crumpled ball of paper was thrown to the top of the steadily rising pile at the end of the table. Exhaling a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding, Twilight’s face scrunched up in concentration quickly relaxed as she slouched against the wooden back of her chair. Her hooves fumbled on the table for a washcloth, which she used to dab away the beads of sweat around the base of her horn. Then, wearing the most adorable pout, she crossed her hooves and glowered at the pile. Her eyes narrowed in an intensity strong enough to set those failed attempts aflame if made manifest.
Unbidden, she let out a sigh.
“Here, try again,” Twilight Velvet prodded gently as she slid her daughter another piece of paper. “That time was much better, Twilight. The creases were much neater than before.”
“Do I have to?” she asked, her high voice nearly crossing into a whine. She looked down at her new challenger grumpily.
Velvet raised an eyebrow. “You want to get better at magic, don’t you?”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I’m ever going to really need it," she complained. "Pegasi and earth ponies don’t.”
“Yes, but you’re not either, Twilight,” her mother replied. With look of rare patience privy only to her daughter’s eyes, she reached across the table and took Twilight’s tiny hooves in hers. “You were born a unicorn, just like all your family before you. Magic’s a part of our heritage; you can’t just forget about it because it’s hard.”
“But I’m no good at it!” Twilight insisted.
“Magic’s in your blood. It’s a part of you. You don’t have to be good at it; you just have to cherish and appreciate it. And that can only come—“ she glanced down at the blank sheet of paper, “—with practice.”
Twilight let out a small huff. “I can never get the wings,” she caviled.
Velvet smiled. “You’ll get them eventually. Come on, just one more time.”
As Twilight’s horn fired up with a lilac aura, Velvet began to speak: “Don’t get so worked up,” she said as Twilight folded the corners. “You’re focusing too much on too many details. Those don’t matter right now. Don’t be too worried about getting it perfectly in one go. All you have to think about is making it work. All it has to do is fly.”
Twilight soon slipped into the rhythms of the paper’s motions and her mother’s calming voice. Her magic field divided once, then twice into four forces each tugging at the paper. Twilight struggled to coordinate them all as she carefully fashioned the body, then the neck, then the head. Her eyes darted from one end to the other and back again. She couldn’t help but go faster, even as she scrambled to keep up with her own movements. The bundles of magic crossed over one another, twisting the paper until—
Dong! rang the Canterlot bell tower.
“Gah!” Twilight exclaimed. Her magic coalesced into one aura, which crumpled the rudimentary formations of her paper crane before tossing it haphazardly to the side.
Velvet stretched out her hooves to steady an amethyst vase filled with purple crocuses just as it was about to tip over from the paper ball’s collision. She paused, sighed, then looked up and glared.
“Oops,” Twilight said with a nervous giggle. “Sorry.”
Velvet shook her head as she straightened some bent stems in the bouquet. “And you say you’d be no good at hoofball,” she muttered. “Is your book bag ready?” she added.
“Yup!” Twilight jumped down from the chair, eager to stretch her legs, and grabbed her saddlebag from its peg in the hallway.
“Wait, aren’t you going to help me clean up this mess?” Velvet called.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Do you expect me to do two things at once?”
“I don’t like sass, young lady,” Velvet quickly reprimanded. “I can’t do all the housework by myself. Now that you’re a big filly, I’ll be expecting you to help me more.”
“Okay,” she answered willingly enough. In one quick motion, she swept the pile of crumpled paper into her hooves. She wobbled on her back legs a bit, trying to keep the highest balls from falling before she fell over herself, spilling the paper all over the floor.
“Dumb hooves,” she grumbled.
Velvet couldn’t help but chuckle. “That’s the importance of learning magic.” She levitated a wastebasket over to them, and together they threw the paper away. “See, nothing too difficult. You made great progress today Twilight, and I’m very proud of you. Maybe you can ask your teacher for help if you want to try another magic exercise."
Twilight's ears slightly drooped. "Miss Silver Quill says she's offering a new set of classes for older students who are trying to make it into Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. She might not have time to help me anymore."
"Well, there's no harm in at least asking. And maybe with enough practice, you'll be able to get into that class too," Velvet added with a wink.
"What? No way! I can barely keep up with the rest of my class. Who knows what those ponies can do! They probably defeat hydras and turn frogs into oranges and write new spells and can raise the sun! I can't do any of that!"
"Oh, I don't know about that," Velvet remarked, her eyes twinkling with laughter, "but everypony has to start somewhere, right? You can soar just as high as they do, Twilight; you should never be afraid of trying. If you want, we can practice more when I get home from the university, okay?"
Her previous frustration forgotten, Twilight's eyes lit up. "Really? Promise?"
"Of course," she answered as she tenderly smoothed her daughter's mane back into place. "I promise I'll help you in any way I can."
"Yay, thank you!" Twilight cried, wrapping her forelegs around Velvet in a hug. "You're the best teacher ever!"
"Aw, you're welcome, dear. Although, I might lose that title if I don't get to school on time. The same goes for you too, you know."
With a yelp, Twilight scrambled to quickly secure her backpack before she threw open the door. “Bye, have a good day at work, Mom!” she called over her shoulder. “I love you!”
Velvet smiled as she leaned against the doorframe and watched her little filly march into the world. “I love you too, Twilight.”
“That’s right! You heard me!”
Twilight Velvet recoiled in shock. “Twilight, honey, you can’t possibly mean—“
“Well, I do!” Twilight screamed, her body trembling as tears streamed down to form a tiny puddle at her hooves. She stood up, nearly toppling her chair in her anger, to stare her mother down like a raging bull, leaving Night Light and Shining Armor cowering at the table. With neither stallion courageous enough to enter the argument, they were both content to stay and valiantly guard the remains of their Hearth’s Warming Eve dinner, now long cold underneath the frost of ten minutes negligence and the icy spirit of hard feelings.
“I wish the Princess was my mother!”
The words were like a slap to the face. Twilight Velvet flinched and closed her eyes, turning away in grief at the crushing affirmation of her deepest fears. The words burrowed their way into her heart, unearthing those secret worries reserved only for late-night pacing and nightmares filled not with darkness, but a light that carried everything away, leaving her heart ringing with a dull and aching hollowness.
“I didn’t w-want to say it, b-but it’s true,” Twilight hiccupped with great, heaving sobs. “T-The Princess u-understands me. She’s always been so kind to me; she knows just what to say to make me feel better… she just gets me, in a way you never did.”
“Twily, you know that’s not true,” Shining said, deciding to utilize his bravery instilled from his three years of cadet training. “Mom loves both of us very much, and she always will. Nothing can change that. You know that nopony can replace our mom, not even Princess Celestia.”
“I get that and all,” Twilight cried, “but it would be so much easier to believe if she actually cared about what I’ve been doing with my life for the past two years!”
“Twilight, that’s enough out of you,” Velvet demanded sharply, shifting into her disciplinary mode as a university professor in Canterlot. “Perhaps if you actually chose to talk to me over those two years, I would know a little more about my own daughter. Now, come back to the dinner table and stop making all this fuss.”
But this only proved to agitate Twilight further. “See!” she cried, pointing her hoof accusingly her mother, as if wanting to put the blasphemous words on trial. “You’re not even taking me seriously! The Princess would know if something was upsetting me! She would try to talk to me and resolve the problem, not brush it off like it were nothing! She cares for me more than you, she lov—“
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight Velvet demanded in a dangerously low voice, all of her previous motherly patience gone. “Don’t you dare say the Princess loves you more than I do. I would do anything for you. I would give away all I have for you, would sacrifice my life for you. I love you, my little Twilight, more than life itself. Can’t you understand that?”
“Yes,” Twilight sighed. “Yes, I know. You try your best to love me, but… but you can’t do it perfectly. The Princess loves me perfectly, since she is perfect. Once you experience love like that… you can’t go back to flaws, to mistakes!” The teenage pony’s voice steadily ascended as each word fueled her distress all the more. “You can’t go back to being let down or misunderstood! You can’t go back to imperfection!”
At that crescendo, Twilight’s anger slowly drained to a quiet, somber sadness. “If you can’t understand that,” she finished, her voice barely above a whisper, “if you can’t understand how I feel, then maybe you were never a good mother.”
And with that, Twilight ran from the dining room and into her old bedroom, leaving nothing but a trail of bitter tears and soured hearts in her wake.
“Shining, go follow your sister,” Velvet ordered, barely keeping her voice from shaking. “Make sure she’s alright.”
Velvet watched as the colt obediently trotted after the prodigal daughter. She waited until the very moment when the door clicked shut to release her verbal tirade upon her husband.
“How was I supposed to know she didn’t like crocuses anymore?” Twilight Velvet cried. “When she was a filly, she always loved them! And how was I supposed to not accidently break her quill? It’s old anyway; it even has a purple ink blot on it! And how was I supposed to know what the Volat Ardea Spell was? I teach Astronomy, not Magical Theory! And how—"
“Velvet,” Night Light interrupted gently, putting a comforting hoof around her. “Twilight’s been away from home for two years. We can’t expect her to be the same filly now.”
“Yes, but I would have liked to know what happened to her during all that time! Four letters, just four brief letters was all the thought she gave her family for two years! And they were so stiff and business-like, as if somepony were forcing the words out of her! And even today, on Hearth’s Warming Eve, it was the Princess who requested she come here, not Twilight herself. She… she hasn’t missed me. In all that time, while I’ve thought about her every hour of every day, she hasn’t thought about me once. She’s been perfectly content to stay cooped up in that tower with her books and the Princess, far away from the mother who loves her!”
“There, there,” Night Light murmured as he brushed away Velvet’s tears. “As hard as it is to bear, you have to remember that Twilight’s living her dream right now. We know of the amazing talent she has; even Princess Celestia sees it, and she’s given our Twilight the once in a lifetime opportunity to study under her, something she hasn’t done in hundreds of years. We can’t begrudge either of them for that, nor can we be the ones to hold Twilight back from achieving her full potential with the Princess.”
“Yes, but the Princess is the problem!” Velvet protested. “She… she’s taken Twilight away from me! How is a wretched old mare like me possibly supposed to compare to the goddess of the sun?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say wretched—“
“Well, you’re right, I can’t,” Velvet smoothly interrupted, her voice now infused with an iron resolve. “But I’m still going to try! I’m not going to let anyone, Princess or not, separate me from my only daughter! Come on, Night Light,” she screeched, her eyes like that of one marching into a great battle. “We’re going to Canterlot Castle!”
“I… But… How…” The stallion was at a loss for words, dumbstruck at his wife’s recklessness. Still, he figured he might as well follow and try to talk some sense into her before she committed a felon of the state.
As Night Light headed for the door, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye at the night sky, with the moon cradling the darkened silhouette of its evil mistress, banished for a thousand years at the hoof of Princess Celestia and left to wander the moonscape alone.
Night Light silently prayed that Nightmare Moon would not be receiving visitors.
As would be expected, securing a private audience with Princess Celestia outside of Day Court was all but impossible for most ponies; however, being the parents of the Princess’s protégé did have its advantages. And while the night guard was not exactly thrilled to deal with an angry mare barging through the palace at such an ungodly hour, they eventually arranged for Twilight Velvet and Night Light to meet with the Princess in the Solar Garden the following afternoon.
“Now, are you alright with everything, dear?” Twilight asked her husband as the two made their way through the crystal white snow banks that coated the palace grounds.
“Me? Oh, there’s no need to be concerned about me, honey. In fact, I was more worried about how you would be handling this.”
It was Velvet’s turn to sound surprised. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Well…” Night Light began hesitantly, choosing his words with the care of a pony tightrope walking. His hoof nervously pawed the frost-webbed ground. “It’s just that last night, you were… less than pleased with Her Majesty.”
Velvet blushed in embarrassment at the memory. “I know I was angry then, but once I got around to really thinking about this whole situation… I realized that the Princess is probably the only one who can help us resolve this entire situation. Like it or not, even though she’s part of the problem she may understand Twilight better than we do. If she can’t help us get through to her that I’m her mother, then I have no idea what to do.”
At this, Twilight Velvet fell quiet, her face forlorn and uncertain. “I just… I hate not being able to help her,” she said, shamefully hiding her face behind her mane. “I’m her mother; I should know her better than anypony, but I don’t. She’s changed so much, and now… now I don’t know her at all. I wonder… if m-maybe Twilight’s right. The Princess is perfect in every way. Would Twilight really be better off with her? Am I a bad mother for wanting to keep her for myself? Twilight… she’s exceeded everything I could have ever imagined for her. She… she deserves better than me. She deserves the very best mother, and if that’s the Princess…”
She trailed off, not wanting to give life to the words that lay heavy upon her heart. Knowing words couldn’t console her, Night Light affectionately nuzzled her mane before the couple went on in silence.
It was too silent. Concerned, Night Light snuck a quick glance at his wife, who by this point had rearranged her face into one of focus, contemplation, and serenity, completely unnatural for her. As Night Light pondered this strangely calm demeanor, yet another fear formed in his mind.
“Velvet,” Night Light began tentatively, “don’t… hit her, okay?”
Twilight Velvet raised an inquiring eyebrow. “What in Faust’s name are you talking about, Night Light?” she demanded, her serene mask cracked in impatience. “I’d never dream of doing that to anypony, much less the ruler of Equestria! Despite any… less than exemplary feelings, I’ll still show my Princess proper respect! Honestly, what has gotten into you?”
“I… well, you… to make sure nothing… never mind.” Night Light decided not to question it any further.
However, he could have sworn he heard Velvet mutter under her breath, “She’d probably keel over with one hit, the old hag.”
Or stab you in the chest with that ten-foot horn of hers, Night Light thought to himself.
So with these two opposing thoughts in mind, Twilight Velvet and Night Light passed through the archway that led to the Solar Garden.
Whenever she wasn’t holding Day Court or away on diplomatic meetings, Princess Celestia, who disliked being cooped up in a stuffy office, could typically be found doing paperwork in the Solar Garden, as befitted the goddess of life and fertility. Because of this, Celestia’s constant magical presence had affected the landscape so that even amidst the icy chill of the day following Hearth’s Warming Eve, it was always summertime in the Solar Garden. Instantly upon crossing the threshold, the two ponies were welcomed with the merry solar breeze that pervaded that tiny haven of light amidst a dark and dreary world. Flowers bloomed in abundance, wearing their finest colors for royalty; smiling birds and critters flocked together in harmony; and the sun bathed the grove with its gentle rays so that the garden teemed with life. In the very center there was a fountain, crafted from snow-white alabaster and crowned with an emblem of the sun. In the afternoon sun, the sparkling blue water, seamless as glass, seemed to shatter and reform to create thousands of shimmering diamonds adorning the surface, all filling the garden with a spectrum of harmonious rainbow light.
Everything was perfect.
And sitting in a little gazebo, speaking to her secretary, was none other than the bringer of perfection herself, Princess Celestia.
Upon noticing Twilight Velvet and Night Light, Celestia’s warm magenta eyes shone with the light of an inviting smile. Motioning for her secretary to pause, she descended from the gazebo steps, every movement so heartbreakingly graceful that one would have believed her to be gliding on air. Her aurora mane swirled the unseen solar breeze, adding to her magic and mystery. The animals immediately stopped their scurrying to stand respectfully to the side of her path. Overhead, the sun almost seemed to create a spotlight around the goddess, as if wanting to pay special honor to the pony who allowed it to shine across the land every day. Wherever she walked, the grass always was a little greener, eagerly absorbing her vitality. The sunflowers in the garden all turned to face her, their sun on earth, like a crowd of expectant, smiling faces, ready to greet their perfect princess. And there she stood amidst it all, a goddess, a siren with an angel’s face who had lured Twilight away with her spellbinding song.
Twilight Velvet hated every second of it.
“Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Sparkle,” Celestia greeted in her typical serene voice. “It’s such a pleasure to see both of you again.”
At this, Night Light and Twilight Velvet (Velvet with visible reluctance) bowed to the princess. “The pleasure is all ours, princess,” Night Light said. “Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to speak with us.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” Celestia replied cheerfully. “You two are always welcome to come to Canterlot Castle. Provided, of course, you don’t attempt anything silly along the way, like breaking in during the middle of the night, alerting my guards, and throwing a sledgehammer through my balcony window.” Her smile unfaltering, she glanced at Velvet pointedly.
“Hehe… yeah,” Velvet chuckled weakly, all the while casting wary glances at the ten stoic guards stationed along the perimeter of the Solar Garden.
Not now, Velvet thought to herself, but one of these days I’m going to march right up to her, spit in that perfect face of hers, and slap her so hard her neck will—
“We assume you have had the opportunity to read the letter we sent to you last night, Princess?” Night Light asked.
Celestia’s smile dripped off her face like tears. “I suppose there’s no use in beating around the bush, is there? Yes, I have read your letter. And before you say anything, please, please know that this was never my intention. When I first took Twilight in as my protégé, I only meant to be her teacher, her guide through the field of magic in which she is so gifted, nothing more. Any actions of mine that caused her to feel otherwise were unintended. I am simply the mother of the state; I fear that my attempts at proper maternity would be woefully abysmal. And even if I could, I… I couldn’t bear the thought of making the same mistakes… with her…” Unable to look upon her own creation, Celestia turned her head away from the direction of the sun, her eyes eclipsed with the memory of a pitch-black moon. “Twilight would deserve a better mother than me,” Celestia decided, now speaking more to herself than to Velvet. “She deserves a mother free from the burden of my mistakes.”
“But that’s precisely the problem, isn’t it?” the sun goddess asked with a sad little smile. “Twilight thinks I’m perfect, that I never make mistakes. She desires a perfect mother without realizing exactly what that means. I suppose that’s what everypony thinks about me. Perhaps it’s time to set the record straight, once and for all.”
Turning to the silent couple, Celestia said, “Twilight Velvet, Night Light, you have given me the greatest joy by allowing Twilight to remain with me at the castle. All I wish for now is to impart that same joy to her, and I trust you feel the same.” The two ponies nodded vigorously. “I am well aware of how ponies have behaved over the centuries, and I know that ponies only ask for advice about a problem when they already know the solution in their hearts. You knew this when you came, and so let me tell that no, regretfully I do not have a way to lessen the pain of this emotional blow.
“However, I have thought over your… proposition, and yes, before you ask, I will tell you that my end of the arrangement is indeed possible. Truly possible. I will not allow Twilight to endure a mind game where the stakes are lies and her feelings are overridden. This must be real if it is to impact her; we cannot manipulate her desires. I believe her authentic happiness is what is most important to all of us, however this may resolve. The only question I ask is: do you truly understand the implications of what you intend to do?”
Twilight Velvet nodded gravely. “I do. I only want what’s best for my Twilight. I’ve… I’ve always wanted to keep her for myself, but now I realize she was never mine to begin with. She’s her own pony now, and… the last thing I want to do is hold her back. This problem has been building for years now, and I can’t avoid it any longer. And… this is the best way to solve it, isn’t it?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is the best way, but it is certainly one of the only options feasible at this point,” Celestia said. “It’s brash, forceful, direct. Not a method I would have chosen, but something festering so long beneath the surface cannot be solved by a gentle talk, I fear. Twilight must rediscover what it is to love.”
Then she turned to Night Light. “I understand that this conflict has little to do with you, and yet its possible outcome will be equally painful for all parties involved, including you. Regardless, do you support your wife in this endeavor?”
“I do, Princess,” Night Light stated boldly. “An unhappy life isn’t one worth living, and I can’t possibly be happy if my wife and daughter are not. For their sakes, I will go through with this.”
“Very well,” Celestia replied. “Then I will give my full consent."
Velvet's eyes widened. "Just... just like that?" she asked. "You're going to agree just like that?"
Celestia tilted her head in confusion. "If you would like me to put up a resistance, I can, but fail to see the usefulness in it. Of course then again, I don't see the usefulness of bringing a sledgehammer to a discussion either..."
"Yes, but my idea... it's rather messy, isn't it? I mean, it was a spur of the moment last night, and I wasn't exactly thinking clearly at the time..."
"That's exactly why it works," Celestia explained simply. "It's taking a risk, but love in itself is always a risk. You're showing you're willing to put your very heart on the line; think of what that says to Twilight."
Celestia paused, her soul-piercing eyes examining Velvet curiously. "Twilight isn't the only pony who must face her feelings on this issue. I understand how difficult this must be, but you must have faith in your daughter's love. Just as you are flawed, so is she, which is why coming to terms with that is so important."
Noticing their uncertain expressions, she added. "Come. We can go over the details inside." Then, after beckoning them with her hoof, the princess turned with a practiced, effortless grace that sent her mane fluttering in the wind, and led them into the castle.
"I wish she would stop doing that," Velvet muttered under her breath, though not with the same bitterness as earlier. "It just kills everpony's self esteem."
"Would you like me to trip?" Celestia called out. Placing one golden-clad hoof in front of the other, she caused her long legs to fold under each other in one swift movement before rising just before she would have fallen to the ground. Her wings unfurled like a bird to steady her, the feathers shimmering in the sunlight. She stretched her legs out one by one with the precision of a dancer before replanting her hooves on firm ground, all without batting an eye.
Velvet rolled her eyes. "Go figure. She even makes tripping look good."
Twilight curled up on her old bed and gazed listlessly around her old bedroom. It was amazing how little had been altered since the time she had spent in Canterlot Castle. If Twilight were in a better mood, she would have thought it was like she had created her own little time travelling spell to go back to the days of her fillyhood. Now, however, it felt more like how a room was left abandoned after a pony died.
Still, regardless of how she looked at it, her room had for the most part remained untouched since that fateful day she had become Celestia’s student. Her textbooks were still perfectly in line in the several bookshelves that covered all four walls, although a few were left strewn haphazardly on the floor, remnants from her frantic packing the day the chariots came to whisk her away to Canterlot Castle. Looking back on the memory, Twilight wondered, had she really been that eager to leave? Even then, did she still harbor a sense of lacking from her life, her family… and her mother?
Just then, a soft, tentative knocking came at the door. “Twily?” Shining Armor called. “Can I come in?”
A noncommittal grunt emerged from Twilight’s mouth, which Shining took as an annoyed form of permission. He peeked around the doorframe cautiously, and after confirming that the coast was clear, he trotted over to sit next to Twilght on the bed.
“Hey, how ya doing, Twily?”
A blank stare.
“Mom and Dad are home, if you want to talk to them.”
No response.
“Wanna recite the square root of 546 for me?”
Still nothing.
“Well, I guess this is better than you blasting magic lasers at me like you did last night,” Shining chuckled, running a hoof through his slightly singed mane.
“Sorry,” Twilight said monotonously. “I didn’t mean to aim at you, just near you, enough to get you to leave me alone.”
“It’s okay,” Shining said. “In fact, it was kinda cool to see you were able to fire so many. Before the princ… before you left, you would jump all over the house in excitement for hours when you managed to fire just one.
“And I… I miss those days, you know?”
Twilight’s attention peaked at this. “You… You do?”
“Well, yeah. I think about those kinds of things when I’m at cadet training. You, Mom, Dad, the times we spent together. I don’t always dwell on them, but they do carry a nostalgic feeling sometimes. That’s why I was so happy that you were coming home for Hearth’s Warming Eve this year. I wanted to spend time with you, Twily, because… well, I’ve missed you.”
Twilight looked away in guilt. She hadn’t felt anything like that coming here or anytime, really. Her family had never really been on her mind at the academy. Then, she realized that she hadn’t only been neglecting her mother, but her brother and father, too. Was she slowly losing everypony? Was the Princess becoming the only pony in her life?
“And,” Shining added gently, “I know that Mom’s missed you too.”
Twilight sighed. “I know what you’re trying to do, Shining, but it’s not working. I know Mom loves me, but she slips up; she makes mistakes. It’s like love is the subatomic velocity of anumorphic particles being expelled at the proper impetus of 34,850.662 kilodecibles, but like Mother and I, if the two continuum rifts are in cognitive dissonance due to fallacious trajectories into antithetical universes of nullification, then the end result of teleportation is impossible.”
“Er… how about, ‘the gears don’t mesh correctly’?” Shining suggested weakly, after giving up on trying to comprehend Twilight’s intrinsic analogy.
“I guess that works, too.” Twilight shrugged indifferently before lapsing into silence like before.
After a while, Twilight sighed. “I thought if anypony could understand how I feel now, it would have been you, BBBFF. I mean, at cadet training, there are so many high-ranking officers. They’re all so proud, so admirable, so respected and dignified and honorable. Didn’t you ever wish that one of them could be Father?”
“It’s… it’s not like that for me, Twily,” Shining began. “Sure, I look up to them, and I’m even on a personal speaking level with a few privates, but I’ve never thought of them as family, at least, not in the way you’re my family. Each of my trainers has a certain place in my heart, but I wouldn’t want to trade one for another. They’ve all played a different role in shaping who I am, and my mind, well, that role is where they belong. Commander Lightning Eye is supposed to sneak me extra corndogs before training, and then make my life Tartarus during the 500-meter gallop; Father is supposed walk me to my first day of school and take me out to Ponyville to watch the annual meteor showers. They’re parts of different aspects in my life, and I appreciate them both for what they do.”
“I guess that makes me an even more horrible daughter,” Twilight lamented. “That’s not how I feel about Mother and the princess at all.”
“Hey, it’s not that bad,” Shining said. “Everypony looks up to Princess Celestia; it’s natural to feel some idolization towards her. But you can’t let it blind you into—“
“But you don’t understand!” Twight suddenly burst out. “You don’t know the princess like I do. You haven’t seen her like I have. I’ve seen her come to our private lessons exhausted from the Day Court. I’ve seen her laugh after watching one of those pompous nobles crash into a wall from titling their heads too high. I’ve seen her almost cry at the sight of a blind mare and her child begging on the street, even after she gave them fifty bits. I’ve seen her scream herself awake from a nightmare on Hearth’s Warming Eve. And I’ve seen her smile, really truly smile, whenever she walks into a room and sets eyes on me. There’s a sense of wholeness, of completeness that only comes from her. I don’t care if she can’t spend much time with me; one second with her is like a week of sunlit days. I used to idolize her, but now, now that I’ve gotten to know her, I think it’s something more. I’d do anything in the world to be perfect like her, to show that I’m worthy of her, and in turn, we understand each other perfectly. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be between parents? Isn’t that what love really is?”
Shining Armor was about to respond when a soft, hesitant knock came at the door of Twilight’s bedroom.
“Twilight?” called Velvet. “Can you come out, please?”
“No,” Twilight refused stubbornly, crossing her forelegs.
“Twilight, we have a visitor. Won’t you please come out?”
“No! I don’t care who it is; I’m not coming out!”
“Not even for me?” asked an elegantly musical voice.
That voice… it couldn’t be…
“Princess Celestia!” Twilight shouted, as excited as a filly on Hearth’s Warming Day, as she flung the door open wide with her magic. Even without adorning her usual golden regalia, she was still easily recognizable as Twilight’s caring mentor. Not even bowing in reverence beforehand, the little filly ran up and threw her forelegs around the alicorn. Twilight buried her face in Celestia’s soft aurora mane, now slightly dampened with the filly’s tears of joy. She would never let go, never…
Until she turned her head and saw Twilight Velvet, her eyes regarding them with thinly veiled resentment.
Celestia seemed to sense Velvet’s gaze as well. Her body tensed, and mentor and student pulled away into more professional stances.
“Princess, with all due respect, what are you doing here?” Twilight asked. “Did something happen at the castle? What’s going on—“
“All in due time, my faithful student,” Celestia chided, her usual calm, serene voice trembling and trailing off into the distance, giving the impression of some adamantine statue that was falling apart. “For now, just follow me.”
Twilight obediently fell into stride with Celestia, but even at her side, Twilight was still filled with uneasiness. The princess craned her neck upwards so as to shield her face from Twilight’s inquiring gaze, but even then, Twilight could see her teacher’s magenta eyes clouded with guilt. Ever so often, she would snap her eyes shut as if in pain and determinedly clamp her jaw shut. Not once did she make eye contact with Twilight.
Disturbed by this behavior, Twilight’s gaze shifted behind her to her mother, who looked as if she were resisting the urge to cry. Next to her, Twilight’s father was hurriedly whispering to Shining Armor, his eyes growing wider with horror at each word. Twilight turned back her attention back to Celestia, who was now ordering her guards to patrol the perimeter of the house, not allowing a single one to remain with her. Everypony avoided looking at Twilight, but whether it was out of shame or fear, she would never know.
Night Light insisted that Twilight enter the parlor room last, and so the now petrified filly lingered outside the doorway while her heart hammered with the force of a thousand drums inside her chest. From her place outside, Twilight could only hear a few broken sobs, unintelligible murmurings of affirmation, and finally, the command for Twilight to enter the parlor room.
The moment Twilight opened the door, it felt as if she had walked into a funeral home. The vases of her mother’s prized roses now gave the aura of mourning flowers laid on a tombstone. All four ponies, each in varying stages of grief and shock, briefly looked up at Twilight with identical expressions of sorrow before bending their heads once more to focus on the stack of parchment on the coffee table.
“W-What are those?” Twilight asked, pointing a shaking hoof at the papers in question.
Twilight Velvet raised her eyes to look at her daughter with a teary-eyed smile. “Are you happy now, Twilight?” she asked forlornly, with just an undercurrent of accusation. “After all, isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”
“I-I d-don’t understand—“ Twilight’s protests were cut off as her mother used her telekinesis to push an inkwell and quill into Twilight’s hooves.
“Those are your adoption forms, my Twilight, my love,” Velvet declared. “And with your signature, you can put yourself under the full legal guardianship of Princess Celestia.”
“Mom, I don’t know what—"
“’Mom,’” Twilight Velvet cried out in anguish. “I never knew how much I would come to treasure that word. Oh Twilight, dear, you have no idea how much this pains me. The moment you told me how you really felt about me, I thought my heart was being shred into a thousand pieces right before my eyes. I… I never knew I could experience pain like that.
“B-But then I thought about the pain you must have gone through for the past two years. The fact that you had to hide your true feelings about your family, the fact that you would look back on memories of me and see nothing but faults and imperfections… that the mistakes I’ve made were holding you back… I never wanted that for you.
“All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy, my Twilight, and even after today, that’s still all I’ll ever want. You… you’ve been a miracle child in my life. You’ve brought me such joy… you’ve been so perfect… you deserve the perfect mother, Twilight. And… and if that means letting go of me…”
“Oh Mom,” Twilight said as she watched her mother break down in tears. “Please don’t cry. I… I’m sorry for what I said, okay? I didn’t really mean it. You’re my mother, and you’re always going to be. Now, why don’t we just drop all of this and forget about it, okay? I’m not going to leave you.”
“I would think very carefully about what you’re saying, Twilight,” Princess Celestia interjected, “specifically the motivations behind your words. Do you accept your mother out of love or out of pity? Do you take her as your own because it is what you want, or simply because it is what is expected from you? Even now, do you decline the offer to become my daughter because you seek my approval? There is a distinct line between authenticity and lies, and to speak love in falsehood would be an even greater wound than to outwardly declare hatred. My faithful student, here is one of the few times you will hear me say that this is not a test. There is no right or wrong answer to any of my questions; the only goal is the truth.”
“Princess, is all of this really true?” Twilight burst out suddenly. “Would you really let me be your daughter if I wanted?”
“If you so desired it,” Celestia said simply, still not able to look directly at Twilight. “Of course, you would also gain the title of princess, as well as minor jurisdiction in the government when you come of age. I… I don’t know how much freedom you would have if you became my… if you accepted the adoption. Due to political instability, having a child was inconceivable during the first few centuries of my reign. However, I do believe that when factoring in the long-lasting peace of Equestria and the royal guard that would accompany you at all times, such close ties to me would not endanger your safety any more than being my student. It is possible; of course, its actual occurrence is based solely on what you want.”
“Yes, but what about what you want, Princess?” Twilight asked. “Not thinking about me or anypony else, would you really want me as your daughter?”
“All I want is for you to be happy…” Celestia began, trailing off the moment she realized that was just what Twilight had wanted to avoid. The alicorn sighed inwardly. How easily she now slipped into those perfect, meaningless phrases of hollow kindness that she had trained herself to recite. So empty, so insincere, so fake. Was that all she was anymore? “It would bring me the greatest joy to have you by my side, Twilight,” she confessed. “To have been able to see you grow and blossom throughout the past two years has been such an indescribable blessing. I… I think that at a certain point, I started letting life swirl by all around me instead of getting swept up in the wind. You have helped me remember what… what it means to live, with all the joy and pain that comes with it. Whether as my student or my daughter, I would love you all the same.”
Love me all the same…
Twilight’s eyes darted back and forth between her mother, her mentor, and the stack of papers that could alter it all. Suddenly, she felt her heart racing in her chest as everypony’s eyes were fixated on her, waiting for her decision. It was like standing in front of the class to give an answer to a question she didn’t understand. She looked down at her hooves and tried to hide, but still the walls kept closing in, giving her nowhere to run as she stood alone on center stage. The eyes of her family glared down like spotlights, but she didn’t dare lift her gaze. How could she? How could she look into their eyes when they would ask the same question: What’s your answer?
I… I don’t have one.
“C-Could… could I think about this outside, please?” Twilight requested. “Maybe take a walk? I’d like to do this alone… well, if nopony has anything else to say, that is.”
Celestia nodded once. “That’s perfectly fine, Twilight,” she assured, even though her eyes held a less confident emotion. “Take all the time you need.”
Wordlessly, Twilight levitated the adoption forms, heavier than any stack of papers had the right to be. She kept her head bent until she was out in the hallway, where she breathed a sigh of relief. In a daze, she passed by her room and with another burst of magic, summoned her saddlebag and Smarty Pants to hover by her side. Careful to the point of reverence, she folded up the papers and tucked them into the bag. Then she fastened the straps around her waist, placed the doll on her back, and trudged out the back door.
"How can you remain so calm about this?" Velvet all but demanded of the princess once Twilight was safely far away.
Night Light and Shining immediately perked up at this, but like that of one roused from a dream, it took several seconds for Celestia to focus on Velvet. “I have full confidence that Twilight will make the right decision. She understands what's right in her heart. She'll know what to do."
"Oh yes, you would know all about that, wouldn't you?" Velvet commented darkly. "And I wondered why this problem came up."
"Velvet, that's not fair to say—" Night Light protested.
"No," Celestia said softly. "Let her speak. I think it's best if we all hear this."
Velvet glanced hesitantly to the side before saying, "D-Does... doesn't this bother you? You do care about Twilight, don't you? Then why aren't you showing it?"
"I'm sure you can draw your own conjecture. The better question to ask is why you feel threatened by me. Because how you're feeling, that hurt and confusion from my ambiguity, is exactly why Twilight won't choose me. Occasionally I slip up, but it's very rare. It's an existence that's taken me a thousand years to accept; it's normal that you don't understand."
Velvet's ear flicked in annoyance. "Try me."
Celestia shook her head. "You're too much like your daughter," she said, a tiny smile gracing her features. "There's no chance she could reject you. That's what sets me at ease."
"Well still, you could not be so tranquil about it. It's rather off-putting."
"A long time ago, I traded away everything I loved to ensure tranquility in this land," Celestia said, dropping to a hushed tone that echoed dismally across the room. "It was the biggest mistake I ever made."
Velvet's eyes softened in pity. Celestia grinned.
"Why are you smiling about that?"
"Oh, I'm just glad you're not angry at me anymore."
Velvet's eyes narrowed. "And this isn't anger?"
"No, of course it's not." Then more soberly, she added, "You shouldn't be angry with yourself, either. You did nothing intrinsically wrong. Ponies only see mistakes most clearly in others when they're reflected in themselves. They throw the blame on others because they're scared of what they see.
"And Twilight is scared, you realize that, right? Perhaps she doesn't realize it, but she is. She's scared of how much you know about her. She doesn't speak what's on her mind because she knows you'll be able to read between the lines."
Velvet scowled. "Then she's more like you than you think."
Twilight winced at the bright sunlight raining down on her. She blinked rapidly until the late afternoon sun did not shine so harshly in her adjusted eyes. She watched the sunlight slant over the withered plants capped with snow in her mother’s garden, mixed in with the frost-covered vine-like weeds that snaked up the picket fence with chipped white paint.
Brushing away the light, powdery snow, the filly landed with a plop on the concrete step and sighed. “Oh Smarty Pants,” she said, holding the beloved doll in her arms, “What am I going to do? Sure, I’ve dreamed of this, but dreams aren’t supposed to come true! Well, not these types of dreams anyway. Being the daughter of the princess…” Even the words tasted that most delectable kind of wrong, the kind that promised to make everything right in her life so easily. And that was the problem. It was so easy. The Princess already told her bedtime stories and cuddled her and sang her lullabies and chased away her nightmares. She was already mother in everything but name. So close and yet so far, with the complete perfect mother just out of grasp in that she never said the words.
Princess Celestia had had plenty of students through the centuries, and Twilight knew that when she would graduate the academy, another promising filly would just replace her. Her name would fade into a long line of prized pupils and be forgotten.
But not once had the princess produced an heir. Being her daughter was a special, exclusive love, one that would never go away. Twilight thought of what it would be like to stand at Celestia’s side, have her beautiful magenta eyes look down on her, and hear the word 'daughter' ring out in her melodious voice. Everything would be perfect in her life then.
But that was just it. In her life. Her life was not in isolation. Maybe her mother had made mistakes, but she had really done anything wrong. Nothing to deserve that kind of pain anyway.
This wasn’t a battle over who loved her more. Twilight knew that Velvet and Celestia both loved her, and love like theirs didn’t come in amounts. It was more about what she wanted and what was right. And even then, there was little decision to be made. She knew she had to stay with her mother; it was what she was supposed to do. Just like Celestia had said, this was about finding out why.
“Why should I love my mother?”
It sounded cruel, but there it was, out in the open. Sure, she had given Twilight life, but love was more than just paying a debt. She had treated Twilight well, but as Celestia showed, that was not uniquely maternal. She even loved Twilight, had given with all her soul, but Twilight was unable to reciprocate because… Celestia was just better at it. Celestia had been able to give the only thing Velvet couldn’t: perfection.
Was that all love was? A reward for the highest bidder? That was too selfish. There had to be more than that.
Twilight didn’t even notice the tears forming trails of ice as they froze on her cheeks. “Why don’t I know this already?” she cried. “All daughters are supposed to love their mothers! I-I must be a terrible daughter. I don’t d-deserve to have the Princess as my mother.”
As she cried, Twilight pressed Smarty Pants closer to her chest. “A-At least I… h-have you, Smarty,” she said, taking big, shaky gulps of frigid air. “No matter how this crazy day turns out, you’ll always be h-here for me, won’t you?”
The thought brought a small smile to her lips. Smarty was her sleepover buddy, her late-night study partner, and one of her only friends. It was hard to imagine her life without him, even though she only had to think back three years…
“’101 Alchemist Theorems!’ I love it, Daddy!”
“This is scary,” Shining Armor muttered as he watched his little sister gleefully add another heavy tome to the wobbling stack by the Hearth’s Warming tree. “I swear, we brought the wrong filly home from the Summer Sun Celebration.”
“Be nice, Shining,” Night Light chastised before adding in a low undertone, “Please make sure she doesn’t barricade herself in her room for a month reading those things, okay? I’ve noticed her eye twitching a lot lately.”
“It’d take her less than a month,” Shining pointed out. “She’s enchanted, I’m sure of it.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart!” Night Light told her as she wrapped her forelegs around his neck in a vice-like hug. “My baby girl, already such a scholar,” he praised, beaming with pride. He smiled lovingly down at his daughter, at least until he started losing oxygen. “You still have one more present,” he choked out. “It’s from your mother.”
Night Light gasped in relief as Twilight freed his neck and skipped happily back to the tree, where Velvet held out the last box.
Please be the Astronomer’s Almanac of all Things Astronomy, please! she wished as she tore away at the pretty yellow wrapping with flowers and flying cranes. That’s the only book not here that’s on my list, and this box is the perfect size. Ooh, this is going to be perfect!
“I knew you were going to get a lot of books,” Velvet said, “so I thought I’d get you something different.”
But Twilight didn’t hear her as she untied the last ribbon, tossed open the lid, and found…
“A doll!” Velvet exclaimed, beaming with pride. “I was walking home from work, and I saw this in the shop window. He was just so cute, just like the dolls you had when you were a baby, and I knew in an instant he’d be perfect for you. He’ll be a good break for your eyes after you get tired reading all those dusty old books.”
“Y-Yeah, it’s great, Mommy,” Twilight agreed, putting a smile over her crestfallen face. “Thank you.” With limp forelegs, she reached up and gave Velvet a half-hearted hug.
“I knew you’d love him,” she said. “Oh! His name’s Smarty Pants, you know. That means he’s a bookworm just like you!”
“Great. Fantastic,” she remarked, trying to keep bitterness from seeping into her voice. “Can I put my presents in my room now?”
“But we’re going to eat now,” Velvet said, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“That’s okay; I’m not hungry,” she answered, already trudging to her room, with her books held firm in her magical grip.
“Twilight, are you alright?” she asked.
The filly nodded once.
“Well, okay,” she said hesitantly. “Don’t forget to take Smarty Pants with you!” she called, levitating him to the top of the book stack. “And I’ll put aside a plate of crocus salad for later. I know they’re your favorite, so make sure to come out soon and eat, okay?”
That was the last straw. “I don’t even like crocuses!” Twilight screamed before running to her room as fast as she could.
“Twilight Sparkle, get back here right now!” Velvet ordered, but Twilight didn’t listen. She clicked the lock on her door shut and launched herself onto the bed. Not caring as the spell short-circuited and books rained down on her, she hugged a pillow close to her chest. She stayed like that for a few minutes, rocking back and forth until all the books slid off her and onto the floor, leaving her alone with the pillow and Smarty Pants.
Twilight irritably yanked a bit of wrapping paper away from his left ear. Then she propped him up on the headboard and examined him sulkily.
Aesthetically, he wasn’t anything special. He had a warm grey coat with polka dot brown trousers that matched his stringy mane. His eyes were bright purple buttons that stared blankly, almost eerily. When she poked him in the stomach, he would spring to life and exclaim, “Learning is fun!” in a crackled voice.
Twilight stuffed him under a pillow. There was nothing at all appealing or practical about him. Didn’t her mother know she had outgrown dolls long ago? Why… why didn’t she know that?
There came a knock on the door. “Twily?” Shining called. “Mom wants you to come out and apologize to her.”
For a second, Twilight was tempted to just lie there and let bands of sunlight from the window fall on her face, or better yet just scream and scream until they all went away. But just the thought of that made her feel icky, so with a sigh, she rolled off the bed and opened the door.
Twilight kept looking at her hooves, not wanting Velvet to see the lies behind her eyes. “Mommy, I’m sorry,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even. She forced her mouth into a smile. “I’m sorry I was rude. I-I like crocuses, really.”
“It’s okay, Twilight,” her mother reassured her, taking her by the hoof. “Come on, let’s go eat now, okay?”
Twilight nodded with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. She put a spring in her step, made silly faces with her brother, and everything was restored to a perfect Hearth’s Warming Day.
Only when her mother looked away did Twilight’s smile fade.
“But I was wrong then, wasn’t I?” she said to Smarty Pants. “You grew on me, didn’t you? Even if it was on accident, she knew me better than I did, right? Right?”
Twilight closed her eyes. She knew better than that. The shop where her mom bought Smarty sold knockoffs of the toys sold in central Canterlot. Her mom had done it for appearances, nothing more.
She sighed. Trying to think was useless here. Her thoughts were going in circles; she needed direction.
She levitated Smarty Pants onto her back, then pushed the gate open to the city beyond. With the regular crowds of ponies favoring the warmth of family over the snowy streets, Twilight stood alone, left to leave her family and search within for herself in the hopes of finding them both.
Her two paths were simple. Craning her neck, she looked all the way down the left and all the way down the right until they each disappeared into a white dot over the horizon. The two roads held the same destination, so why did her heart want to walk both?
With a sigh, Twilight turned right and walked into the setting sun.
Her head peeking out from underneath her blankets, Twilight watched the gently falling snowflakes swirl around the castle tower to mingle with the poudrerie blown upward from the ground. The dying embers of the setting sun behind them infused them with a burnished red glow so that they seemed to leave a trail of fiery sparks in their wake. Only after the chilly wind cooled their hearts did they settle on the barren trees, where the snow dripped in great dollops from the spindly branches and then disappeared into the obscurity of twilight.
Twilight’s heart began to pound as she saw the purple hues of dusk overtake the crimson sun. Quickly, she ducked under the covers and curled into a fetal position. She pressed her hooves to her gut, which squirmed in worry so much so that she may have actually been sick. She rubbed her head against the pillow, getting her mane all frazzled. Then she threw in some groans for good measure, and waited.
After twenty whole minutes of agonizing straining of ears, she finally caught the sound of two ponies conversing as they walked down the hall. The mellifluous voice of her mentor floated on the air, echoed by the comparatively flat drone of her secretary. Twilight hastily racked up one last cough, which was answered by a pause, a subdued murmuring, and the sound of hoofsteps retreating back down the hall before there came a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Twilight rasped while her heart thrashed in her chest wildly.
Celestia’s gentle rose-tinted eyes widened at the sight of her laid-up student. “Oh dear,” she murmured, rushing to Twilight’s side. “The maids told me you weren’t feeling well, but I didn’t expect this. And just before Hearth’s Warming, too.” She pressed her hoof to Twilight’s forehead, now blanched white and sweating copiously. “How are you feeling, my student?”
“N-not good, Princess,” she answered as she hid her lying mouth underneath the blanket. “I think I’ll have to stay in bed all day! Maybe H-Hearth’s W-Warming, too!”
The solar monarch briefly narrowed her eyes before saying, “But you arranged to see your family over the holidays.”
“Oh, w-well, I don’t think I c-can see them, not if I’m s-sick.” The bedsheets shifted as she now visibly trembled.
“Then perhaps you can arrange to see them when you’re better.”
“No, no, that w-won’t work!” Twilight burst out; then, in a more subdued voice, she amended, “I mean, Shiny has to go back to the academy after the holidays.”
“Certainly one day absent won’t be a disruption for him if it means getting to see his sister,” the princess reasoned.
“B-But Mom has to go back to teaching at Canterlot University!”
“There are substitute teachers, my little pony,” Celestia assured her. “I’m certain your mother can make arrangements to see you. Your mother has greatly missed you, I’m sure. Even a quick visit would mean the world to her.”
At that, Twilight threw off the covers, a violent movement that knocked over an inkwell onto some new quills, and groveled on the bed before the shocked princess. “No, no, please don’t make me go, Princess Celestia!” she pleaded, tears leaking from her eyes. “I… I don’t want to go, I don’t want to!”
For a moment, Celestia stood frozen as the filly wept bitterly. Then with graceful, practiced movements she sat at the base of the bed, and her wing draped over her student in an embrace. “Twilight,” she began softly, with alarm, concern, and love all rolled into one emotional cocktail, “why don’t you want to see your family?”
The combination of the feathery warmth cradling her and Celestia’s soothing voice was enough to slowly calm Twilight down. As the last few hiccupping sobs puttered out, she swallowed the lump in her throat and looked up into Celestia’s eyes.
The princess was eternal. Twilight knew that. But she was not by any means eternally young. All her agerasia was rendered obsolete by those magenta eyes, ones filled with the wisdom and sorrow of one too many lifetimes. And to see in them her own sadness equaled – no, doubled – in Celestia’s worry sent pain slicing her heart in two. She turned away from those mesmerizing magenta pools, but the weight of that searching gaze only increased her guilt for causing the princess strife.
So Twilight said in a shaking voice that steady rose higher and higher and got faster and faster, “There’s nothing wrong with Dad and Shiny. It’s just that my mom… well, she arranged for us to eat at the Upper Crust… you know, that big fancy restaurant on Stallintrin? Anyway, I know what’s going to happen there. She’s going to wear her hair in some ridiculous bun, mix up the soup spoon and the tablespoon, complain too loudly about the economy, complain extra loudly when the food doesn’t come, eat way too much when it does come, ask for too many refills of wine, insult the waiter when still in earshot, make a huge fuss about something that’ll make a lot of rich ponies stare at us, especially when she pays in bits instead of gems— I’m sorry, I’m doing something wrong, aren’t I? You’re looking at me like that again.“
“I’ve taken you to too many nobility parties, haven’t I?” Celestia asked sadly.
“No, no, not at all!” Twilight hastily amended. “I love being able to go to those with you!”
“But you didn’t notice all those details before the parties.”
“Well, yes, I guess so…. B-But that’s not your fault, princess!”
Celestia only closed her eyes. “I just didn’t want you to be lonely. In my naivety, I was hoping you might take a liking to some of the nobles’ children, but now I see that was detrimental.” Her wingtip gently brushed against Twilight’s cheek. “Twilight, I don’t want you to feel embarrassed by your mother. She’s an intelligent, caring, and wonderful mare who loves you dearly, and the last thing she would ever want is to cause you shame.”
Twilight squirmed uneasily. “I-I know that, princess. And I… I do love her, at least I think that’s what I feel, but it’s just…” She sighed and cast her eyes to the ground. “It’s just hard sometimes,” she admitted. “I wonder why I can’t love her as easily as… other ponies.” Her head suddenly perked up a bit, and she looked up at Celestia. “Princess, did you… did you ever feel like this about your mother? Err, well, if you did have a mother, because some ponies say you’re a goddess, but I didn’t know for sure…”
Celestia smiled slightly. “Yes, I did have a mother. Perhaps not in quite the same mechanics as other ponies do, but that would be the closest word for what she was to me. To be honest, I don’t remember that much about her. I was very young when I was sent to Equestria, and time in the place where I was…. 'created’… was rather fluctuant.” Twilight didn’t notice Celestia’s eyes begin to glaze over as she spoke. “I do remember her eyes though. She had these gorgeous amethyst eyes as clear as a mirror, a beauty that could never be appreciated in a place like that. You could see a whole galaxy in them, with stars constantly dying and shifting and being reborn. Her wingtips were tinted with the same color too, and when she stood in the sunlight they shone like a million pieces of glass.” Celestia’s voice cracked. “Like they would have shattered if I tried to touch them,” she barely whispered.
With a few blinks, Celestia drew herself out of the memory and wrapped her own wing more firmly around Twilight. “You’re very lucky to have somepony like your mother in your life,” she said, “and it’s a relationship you should continue to have. However, I do understand if you’re not feeling up to seeing her tomorrow. But please, won’t you just write a letter to her?”
Twilight nodded, dazed and in thought. “Okay, princess, I will.”
“Lovely,” she said as she rose from the bed. “I’ll leave you to it then. Goodnight, Twilight.”
Only it wouldn’t be a good night. The princess would scream herself awake from a nightmare about Luna. A bleary-eyed Twilight would pad into the room. Celestia would wipe away her tears and shrug them off with a thin smile that Twilight would just barely return. And then Twilight would know what it would be like to see eyes of glass.
“Goodnight, Princess,” Twilight answered, and with that, she was alone with her thoughts.
She turned to her desk, with the overturned inkwell still leaking ink onto her quills. She levitated the one furthest from the spillage; it only bore a small purple blot on the end.
Like amethyst, she thought, twirling it before her eyes. Like a teardrop.
Then she got out some parchment and wrote to her mother.
Only when Twilight saw the outer wall of Canterlot in the distance did she realize how far she had walked. For a time indeterminable she had walked in a stupor, trying to make sense of the chaos spinning in her head to no avail. So resigning herself to acceptance, she instead watched the snowflakes spinning around her instead. She felt their chill, and a feeling like envy swept over her. They were too solid to ever cry.
Twilight turned her attention to the other side of the street, where a family bundled against the snow hurried along, their eyes set on a small abode on the end of the block. The two children were dazzled by the falling snow, and when the tiny flakes landed on their noses, the air was filled with their shrieks of joy.
Twilight watched those young fillies skip around their parents, watched as they made sure never to stray too far away. Because where else would they go? They were children; their parents were everything for them. They didn’t know or care what lay beyond that warm circle of family. When they did see beyond that, did start skipping too far away, what made them come home?
The rising sun shed her golden rays down on the crowds of ponies milling around the stadium of the Summer Sun Celebration. Younger fillies and colts were dragging their parents in all directions: to the Ferris wheel, then the cotton candy booth, then the clowns with balloons, and back again. The air was filled with their giggles, the ground a minefield of their pattering hooves tripping over everything in their desperate bid to keep pace with their fleeting attention span, which fluttered wildly about to each new sound and sight.
Meanwhile, some of the older, calmer ponies formed a crowd around Princess Celestia, who had taken this opportunity to momentarily send her guards off to the side. With that barrier no longer present, ponies clamored around her, eager to gain her attention. Some asked for autographs, while others were spouting questions a mile a minute that soon trailed off into intelligible exclamations of amazement. Others just stood in silence, content to let their awestruck expressions speak of themselves. And Celestia invited them all closer, her presence like the sun pulling them around her. She looked down on her subjects lovingly, her flowering smile exuding purest joy.
Thus, the crowd parted and started milling about, leaving Twilight standing alone at the foot of the solar rostrum. Even though the spectacle had passed, her eyes stayed captivated in wonder on the ascending sun in the sky. Twilight had trouble levitating even a small paper crane; to lift the sun seemed impossible! And the princess made it look so easy! How had she done it?
Magic, of course. Magic was a lot of things for Twilight. Magic was the annoying exercises that gave her headaches, the pretty lights her teachers could make that she failed to replicate, and always the sputtering sparks of a spell gone wrong.
Her mother had told her that mistakes were a natural part of learning magic, but the Princess didn’t make mistakes in raising the sun, did she? The sun always rose at the exact same time each morning. It didn’t stall or flicker out or take a nosedive to the ground. The Princess did it perfectly every time.
Almost unbidden, Twilight found her tiny hooves making a path straight to Celestia. Her eyes were wide open as she strained her neck, darting back and forth for the perfect view. She couldn’t see much over the crowd, just the point of an ivory horn, a loose strand of pink mane fluttering in an elusive wind…
“Twilight?”
Twilight skidded to a halt. She tilted her head, her ears perked straight up to catch wind of…
“Twilight? Twilight?!”
The call was unmistakable. “Mom?” formed silent on the shape of her lips. She turned around and saw that yes indeed, her mother was not behind her. The filly had wriggled her way to the front of the crowd during the celebration and left her mother behind.
Panic was just beginning to set in. That voice sounded so scared, so desperate, like she was in trouble. Her mom needed her! She needed to find her before anything bad happened.
Numbly, Twilight turned in circles, searching the endless clusters of ponies for that one familiar face. “Mommy?” she whispered in a quivering voice. Then louder, “Mommy?!”
The sounds of the festival echoed strangely around Twilight, and Velvet’s cry soon faded into the continuous gibberish of background noise. Now with no voice to guide her, Twilight started straying from her circular course. Her unsteady hooves shaken by worry caused her to jostle several ponies in her path, who cried out in a loud, disapproving manner.
She barely muttered an apology before continuing to stumble around in a daze. Her steps grew hastier and hastier. Ponies around her ran together in her vision like watery paints, with one face dripping into the next until just moving was like swimming through a faceless sea of color. Still, she kept searching, calling out for her mother in concern. She ignored the scared tears in her own eyes and instead thought of how frightened her mother sounded. That fear had to come first.
Then Twilight looked up only to find herself in front of the rostrum, back where she started. But she had not the time for even a cry of frustration before she felt herself being lifted off the ground.
“Eek!” she shouted, looking down at the rest of her body, which was surrounded by a warm golden aura. She immediately recognized the electric sensation as magic crackling on her skin. But this magic was not accompanied by the usual uncomfortable pinpricks of static; rather, it was more refined, swirling around her in a current with the seamlessness of water.
Twilight’s legs kicked wildly in a desperate bid for freedom. A lump formed in her throat as she rose just over the heads of the adult ponies. Her pale lips remained silent, but her thrashing grew more vigorous as she struggled to gain somepony’s attention. But she was only able to make eye contact with one.
Princess Celestia, horn aglow, looked Twilight directly in the eye with a steady, gentle gaze. Her faint smile was one of quiet reassurance, and one deliberate blink silently communicated peace of mind. It happened in a mere second, faster than Twilight could process it, and when she blinked again, Celestia had already turned away.
Twilight forced her beating heart to slow. It was the princess; there was no reason to be afraid. She let her hooves just skim above the fresh blades of grass as the Volat Ardea spell lifted her like a bird in flight until she was put down next to a sycamore tree at the top of a small hill.
From here she had a clear view of the crowd, and she could easily pinpoint her mother in the middle of some golden-plated ponies.
Her slowed heart caught in her throat. The Solar Guard.
The wind stung in her eyes as she nearly tumbled down the other side of the hill in her haste. Tripping over her hooves, she crashed into several dignified ponies, but unlike before she didn’t even have the time to spare an apology before dusting herself off and running again. She charged straight into the roaming crowds, with only the sounds of shouting to guide her way.
“…How do you let a seven-year-old filly disappear?” Velvet angrily demanded of the guards. Steam from the fire in her eyes spewed from her nostrils as she menacingly kicked at the ground, while Night Light and Shining Armor stood behind and swallowed down the urge to run. “Is this what you incompetent buffoons call security? I swear to Celestia, I’m going to make your lives Tartarus if you don’t find—oh!”
Velvet nearly toppled over when Twilight barreled into her side. “Mommy, mommy, are you okay?” she cried.
Velvet looked down and blinked once, as if trying to compute Twilight’s inexplicable entrance, before throwing her arms in what could have been a hug or a strangle.
“Twilight,” she breathed, as if speaking the name of an apparition. “Oh my goodness, Twilight! Where, where were you?! You know better than to run off by yourself in such a large crowd!”
The filly lowered her head shamefully. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
Velvet clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “You can never do that again, Twilight. If you weren’t able to find me, I’m sure those bumbling guards would never be able to bring you back.”
One of the higher ranked officers stepped forward. “Now ma’am, I believe that’s enough fuss—“
“Oh no, we’re not nearly done yet,” Velvet retaliated, turning on him once more. “Do you realize just how ashamed you should be feeling? Honestly, how can any of you be able to protect the ruler of our nation if you can’t even locate one wandering filly?”
The officer was incensed now. “I believe that would be your duty as a mother, ma’am,” he said tersely through gritted teeth.
“How dare you!” Velvet shrieked, oblivious to the growing crowd of nervous spectators around them. “Are you accusing me of neglecting my own daughter?”
“Sweet Celestia, she’s worse than the nobles,” another guard whispered.
“Mommy,” Twilight said quietly, her eyes downcast to hide her flaming cheeks.
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” he replied evenly through gritted teeth, “but if you insist on making a public commotion, I’m going to have to arrest you. Make no mistake; it is in my authority to do so.”
“Mommy?” Twilight called louder, tugging on the end of her tail.
“My husband has served in the EUP for five years—“
“Actually, it was the marine base, dear.”
“—and therefore I know I’m perfectly within my legal rights to protest your behavior and subsequently report you to your superior, and as Celestia as my witness, I swear I will.”
“Well I suppose I must be present for oaths if they’re sworn in my name.”
An invisible iron weight dropped on the crowd, forcing everypony to their knees as Princess Celestia approached Twilight Velvet, groveling in the dirt.
“Princess Celestia, you have to forgive me, I didn’t mean to offend—“
Velvet’s panicked apology was cut off by the princess’ raised hoof. “That’s quite enough, there’s no need for—“
“No!” came the cry from Twilight, rushing forward to stop resolutely between her mother and her monarch. “Please, princess, please don’t be mad at Mommy. She didn’t mean to be rude; she was just scared, that’s all! Sh-she gets like that sometimes, and it’s not her fault, because she doesn’t mean to make anypony upset, I promise! Please, I love her so much, so don’t take her away to the Everfree Forest or a dungeon or a dungeon in the place that you banish her to—“
Celestia advanced and placed a gentle hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, making the poor filly’s knees tremble all the more. “Relax, my little pony. I’m not angry with your mother.”
A spark of light shone in Twilight’s eyes. “You’re… you’re not?”
“Of course not,” she replied warmly. “I’m just here to round up my guards. After all, we don’t want anymore lost fillies roaming about, do we?”
“Oh thank you, thank you!” she cried before, with an overly dramatic gasp from the nobility, she reached up and hugged the princess.
Twilight felt the princess’ body initially tense at the contact, but with the hesitance of a child, she soon relaxed into the hug. Overcome with a bitter emotion that was the daughter of nostalgia and confusion, she closed her eyes to hide the caverns of loneliness echoing in her head.
A strange feeling from long ago overcame Celestia. “Have peace, my little pony,” she said. “May such love as you have shown allow you to soar to your fullest potential in life. Now go with my blessing.”
Then leaning down, Celestia gently pressed the tip of her horn to Twilight’s. A spark like a newborn star sprung between them, and then vanished.
Without another word, Celestia turned and walked away, with the Royal Guard following close behind. In their wake sprung up hushed murmurs rippling out like tiny waves as the crowd stayed rooted in place in wonder. They all kept their eyes on Twilight, who was still looking down the path where Celestia had left, still hopelessly stunned and spellbound.
“Twilight,” Night Light said awestruck to Shining Armor. “that was… very brave of her.”
Oblivious to the whispers of all that had transpired, Twilight abruptly pulled herself out of the trance and ran back to Velvet. “Mommy, what happened?” she asked, her brow creased in worry.
“Now, don’t you play dumb with me, Twilight,” she scolded, even though her heart was too astounded to be invested in the reprimand. “You know very well that you ran off without my permission.”
“Yeah, I know that, but what about you? Why were you screaming for me? Was there a scary monster attacking you? Did you get hurt?”
Velvet gazed softened, and her eyes drifted far away while still gazing upon her daughter who didn’t seem quite so young anymore. “No,” she whispered, like one emerging from a dream. “No, Twilight. I wasn’t attacked.”
“So you weren’t in danger? But you sounded so scared!”
Velvet leaned down and affectionately nuzzled her. “Twilight, losing you is the scariest reality I could possibly imagine. I’m nothing without you. I need you, Twilight. Which is why it’s very important that you never leave me like that again, okay?”
“Okay, Mom,” she said, pressing closer to her side. “I promise.”
When Twilight withdrew from the memory, it was like coming up for air after drowning in ice-cold water. Her rapidly beating heart somehow drained the color from her face, making her widened eyes bulge with stark contrast. She blinked dazedly as she stared into the sun, as if to make sure it was her, not the world that had so rapidly changed. Because everything looked so different, like the ever-spinning earth had suddenly slowed down enough for her to catch up.
As the snowflakes landed on her chafed lips, she looked at the flurries dancing around her with newfound wonder. A snowflake melting on the warmth of her hoof felt like a miracle. She saw in a new light that blurred the hard lines to soft pastels and made the frost on the windows exude the warmest aura. It was a new light and yet so old, only found in the eyes of a child watching the world swirl by for the first time. A strange ringing echoed in her ears, echoed with the words she had heard so long ago.
“I need you, Twilight.”
She wanted to cry. Why did the answer have to be so simple? Love… love wasn’t about taking. Velvet was willing to sacrifice what meant the most to her, even though she needed Twilight to forgive her, calm her down, and support her just as much as Twilight needed her.
Celestia needed Twilight too, but not in the same way. Her heart could go on, but not Velvet. Just because she wasn’t perfect, and sometimes the child had to be the adult and teach the lesson. It was comforting in a way, to know that she couldn’t be left behind.
All those times she thought her mother had left her behind or let her down were actually her not taking on the burden. The burden to love, to sacrifice, to deny the easy love and accept the hard path with grace. As a child, Twilight had let her mother bear all the hardship, but not anymore.
Twilight looked to the horizon. I know where I need to go.
It was nearing dusk when Twilight reached the top of the hill. The sky was brumous, clumps of grey clouds hanging downcast overhead, only to divide and make way for the setting sun. Those last rays of light glowed with a rich amaranthine hue, aptly reflective of the pony who raised it. Looking into the sun miles away, she shrugged off thoughts of the coming nightfall just beyond the edge of the earth.
Twilight dropped her eyes to survey the valley below. In the off season, it lay deserted, but her memory flawlessly reconstructed the image of that Summer Sun Celebration where she had made her choice, the same one that needed to be made now. When the whole world had lain before her, she needed to remember why she ran home.
She brushed away the light powdering of snow, clearing a tiny patch of green for her to sit on. Beside her, a sparse cluster of purple crocuses rose from the frozen earth, being the first of its brethren to push its way through the cold.
For a moment her wide purple eyes looked back to the walls of Canterlot wistfully as the sunlight refracted in her eyes to make them shatter like glass. A life awaited her within those walls, which was precisely why she needed to step outside to see the bigger picture. And with the vast world below her and the endless sky above her, Twilight had never felt so small yet so in control of her own destiny. She may have been alone, but it was the first time she was alone with her self.
Twilight shrugged her saddlebags off her back and had them land with a plunk beside her. Then with shaking hooves, she took out the adoption forms.
She took a deep breath as she counted them. Eleven pages. Ten years. Ten for the past, one for the future. They didn’t feel any lighter than they had before, but Twilight found it easier to bear nonetheless.
Not bothering to read the words, Twilight engulfed the first page in a mass of lilac light. When it faded, a paper crane lay cradled in her hooves.
Her horn hummed to life with a simple flight spell that sent the crane gliding across the valley to dip beyond the snow-covered hills and pass out of sight. Her mind remained unperturbed and her gaze passive, her whole body filled with a numbing that heightened her awareness, as she repeated the process. One by one, like a mother bird releasing her children, she released them into the sky. Some crashed into snowbanks; others lost themselves in the thick of the forest; and a chosen few flew straight into the sun, where they rode on its dying rays into the valley beneath the earth.
Finally, only one page was left. It didn’t bear much, just a sentence cut off from page ten and a single name written in the princess’ elegant script:
‘Twilight Estelle Corona.’
Legally, it was meaningless without the others, but it held all the meaning in the world for her heart. In another life, she would have bore this name with pride, but all it was here was the faint whispers of a dream.
Dreams didn’t have to end when you stopped believing them. You could bottle them up, tuck them in your drawer, and open them on rainy days when the sun didn’t shine and nopony got hurt. You didn’t need to dwell on dreams, either. They could remain unspoken on her lips and never come true, and she would be happy. It meant they would be closer to her heart.
Twilight took one long look at that name before carefully folding the paper up and tucking it into her backpack, tied securely for the journey back. As a sort of farewell before she started her return home, she took one last glance at the setting sun. Its puffy red eye drooped with weariness, only finding repose in the night. Still it maintained its solitary watch over the earth, dutiful until the súton of the Mare in the Moon.
A chill that had nothing to do with the weather rattled down her spine. Tearing her gaze from the lonely eye, she forced herself not to think of that silly legend used to scare little foals. There was no need to remember faraway gazes or tears behind closed doors.
But she did anyway. And that was alright.
After all, nobody’s perfect.
As she turned to go home to the life she knew, Twilight thought of that unspoken dream of another life, and a single thought flew from her lips.
“I wonder if she would need me too.”
