Celestia sat in her chambers, re-reading Twilight's friendship letters, a pot of tea and a box of tissues close to hoof. There were times when she cursed her immortality, yet another pony had been taken from her by the march of time and her own mistakes. The light of the afternoon sun shone in through the balcony window, but the warmth it brought didn't ease the cold in her soul.
First Sunset Shimmer, now Twilight, gone because she'd made a mistake in how she'd handled, no, how she'd treated them. The very wording was a giveaway, you handled objects, you treated ponies. She'd turned Twilight's desperate attempt to warn her into a lesson, to teach her and guide her towards what she might have become. Well, it had been a lesson, but Twilight wasn't the one who'd learned it.
Alicorn memory was near eidetic, it had to be to store and organise centuries of memories, so she could still remember Chrysalis's words.
You took your most loyal subject, your treasured student, the pony who’d placed her life on the line for you again and again and protected Equestria from everything from your nutso sister to Discord, and during a time of crisis refused to listen to her, or indeed give her the level of attention you’d give some random guard warning you of a threat.
The dying Chrysalis had obviously been doing her best to do the most emotional damage she could in the time she had left, since physical damage had been beyond her. If only her vitriol hadn't been so accurate. While under normal circumstances Celestia had long trained herself to avoid second guessing herself, or dwelling on past errors, she couldn't help come up with a dozen ways she could have handled the situation better.
Yes, she'd believed that Twilight's outburst was simply due to the stress of the situation and the worry that Cadence was somehow taking her brother from her, magnified by her tendency to overthink something and extrapolate it into a disaster, but she already knew of Twilight's tendency to do exactly that, and should have been there to calm her down, not shut her off. She looked down at the friendship letter in front of her, one that hadn't been sent by Twilight.
"Dear Princess Celestia,
We're writin' to you because today we all learned a little somethin' about friendship. We learned that you should take your friends' worries seriously. Even if you don't think that she has anything to worry about."
Just because she'd been certain that Twilight's claims had been false, didn't mean she should have dismissed her so quickly. She should have taken charge and talked her down, even cast a detection spell to prove that Shining Armour wasn't mind controlled. If she'd taken Twilight seriously, she might have uncovered Chrysalis in the process of demonstrating that her fears were groundless. Then she might have been able to defeat the creature before she consumed enough love energy to fight against Celestia and win.
Tears stained the paper and she gave an unprincessly snuffle as she levitated a tissue to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. Despite everything, rejection by her family and friends, dismissal by a princess who had once again demonstrated that there was no fool like an old fool, Twilight had found a way to win through and save everybody, except herself. Chrysalis had been right, in her own twisted way. Twilight had been a far better friend to them, that they had to her.
If only time travel spells allowed you to change the past, rather than just visit it, she would have gladly used one to change fate's design, but that was beyond even alicorn magic. However, there were things she could do, if not for Twilight, then to honour her memory. First of all was to get herself cleaned up and provide the Equestria Twilight had saved with the ruler it needed. She cast a cosmetic charm to wipe away the signs of her sorrow, and placed the letters in a small chest with Twilight's cutie mark on it.
She trotted over to her desk to examine with distaste the reports that had piled up on it. The aftermath of the attack had added to her workload, with everything from road repairs where the changelings had for some reason dive bombed their way in, to complaints from the usual 'noble-ponies' about why this had been allowed to happen. There was one report from a Moondancer on possible spells to detect disguised changelings, but without a changeling to test it on, there was only so much she could do.
Celestia remembered the unicorn as an alumnus from her school, mostly because she was one of the ponies Twilight had mentioned discussing magical theory with. It had been her hope that those friends would generate the spark of friendship within her student. She blinked away more tears, everything seemed to remind her of Twilight, and what she'd lost. She got hold of her emotions and set to work on dealing with the rest of the papers, starting with a thank you note to Moondancer and some suggestions on possible further lines of enquiry.
This was important work, she told herself, and doing it would help bring stability back to Canterlot and Equestria after the shock of the invasion. Luna would awake in a few hours for the changeover from day to night, and she needed to be ready. She almost managed to lose herself in the paperwork and forget her grief. Almost.