//------------------------------//
// Unforgotten 
// Story: Unforgettable 
// by Trick Question 
//------------------------------//

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash trotted into the throne room. "I'm getting way too old for this," said Dash. "Sorry we're a little late, everypony."

"Hmph. You're barely twenty-nine," said Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash frowned. "Uh, right. Just like I said," she added. Pinkie Pie giggled in response.

"Wow. Way to make a mare feel old, guys," said Starlight Glimmer, with a deep sigh.

"Cheer up Glimglam! You're bound to be an alicorn by the end of Season 10," said Pinkie Pie.

"Not even going to ask what that means," quipped Rarity.

"Twilight, did everything go okay with the family last night?" asked Fluttershy, as she took her throne.

Twilight Sparkle shuddered. "It was... rough. They already knew what the date meant, and I explained our plan. They discussed it for a while, and eventually elected to forget that their foal was going to die. There was a lot of crying, but right after I cast the memory spell I put them to sleep with a different enchantment," she said. "They'll wake up the next time they're directly affected by magic, which shouldn't count the cessation of the date spell, but will definitely count the limited memory-erasure spell I'll be casting on all of Ponyville. It shouldn't have any added effect on them since those memories are already gone."

"I'm just glad this is finally over," said Spike, leaning sideways on his chair. "Why does this feel so terrible when we did so much good? It's depressing."

"I can't imagine how medical doctors deal with this kind of stress," said Fluttershy. "It's hard enough doing palliative care for animals, but life-or-death surgery?"

"Physicians are made of special stuff, that's for sure," said Starlight.

"I definitely... no, wait a moment, where's Applejack?" asked Twilight. "Unlike yesterday, she knew about this meeting well in advance, and she's rarely late."

Fluttershy gasped. "Oh no."

Rarity tousled her mane nonchalantly with a hoof. "Applejack is a good friend with a lot of horse sense in her. If she got into some sort of trouble, she would seek our help immediately," she said. "Just be patient, I'm sure she's fine." Rarity then surreptitiously wiped a dot of sweat from her brow.

"Well, I hope she's okay," said Twilight. "We can go search for her after we finish here if she doesn't show up. But it's almost time, everypony. It'll be obvious enough when the spell expires, so you don't need to take off your headbands."

"Um, but why should you leave them on?" said Spike, the only one present without a headband. "I mean, obviously Pinkie and I don't matter, but aren't we all going to forget the dates anyway?"

"I still have an 'EXP', just in case anypony was wondering," volunteered Pinkie.

"We weren't," said Dash. Fluttershy reached out and poked her hard in the ribs. "Ow! Ugh, fine, I'm sorry."

Starlight Glimmer shook her head, turning back to Spike. "We need the headbands on to prevent either Twilight or I from remembering any more than we need to. One of us has to cast the spell, and it can't be cast successfully unless the caster retains her knowledge of the entire event. I'd rather be the one to bear the burden of knowing, but I suspect Twilight disagrees."

"You suspect right, Starlight. It makes the most sense for it to be me," said Twilight Sparkle. "You've already seen, what, two thousand dates? I didn't do any sorting, and as for everypony here, I've forgotten your latter dates entirely. Plus, I never knew my latter date to begin with. I was so caught up in my thoughts yesterday that none of the data shifted into long-term storage."

"You don't know that for certain," said Starlight. "It could come back to you later."

"Just let Twilight handle this," Rainbow Dash said, sitting up in her chair. "It's... it'll be fine."

"Agreed. Besides," said Rarity, "as much as I understand the magic in question, we'll still remember generalities of the event, won't we? Which is why you needed to handle the tourist family separately. They might not remember the date, but they would still have known it was coming very soon."

Twilight nodded. "Yes, exactly. After I put them to sleep, Spike helped clean them up so it wouldn't look like they'd been crying," she said, with a short sigh. "They knew exactly what they were deciding. I'll need to send them away from Ponyville for a couple of weeks just to be safe, but we can come up with a way to make it up to them."

Starlight Glimmer shrugged. "I still don't like letting you be the one, but if it ends up being a problem, we can probably come up with a fix later. Good luck, Twilight."

The friends broke into two groups and made idle conversation until Applejack galloped into the room. Her eyes were wet, but she was grinning wider than a yawning hippo.

"AJ? Is everything okay?" asked Rarity, her facade of calmness cracking immediately. Her hooves trembled against the armrests of her throne.

"Eeyup! Even better than okay. You ain't never gonna believe it," she said. "Get this. Apple Bloom managed to get past Mac and see Granny, and she had the crazy idea to write on her head with a red marker..."

"What? Oh? Oh!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie, mouth open wide. "And it worked?"

"That... okay, that's brilliant, which I've come to expect from Apple Bloom by now, but it's also completely impossible," said Twilight. "That isn't how this kind of magic works! If we could do something like that, it would lead to paradox after paradox!"

"Well, it done worked, so there you go. She turned a 1 into a 4—Bloom's mouthwriting's always been pretty, as you know—and Granny's back among the living, just like that. We're keepin' her away from mirrors, but she seems totally fine. She'll break the age record for earth ponies by several years if she actually lasts here 'till 1040 Anno-Sol and all," said Applejack with a chuckle. "Hopefully it won't be a slow decline, but well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Oh. My. Gosh. Twilight. Twilight! Twilight!!!" shouted Rainbow Dash, fiercely gripping the edge of the Cutie Map with her hooves. "Add a buckton of 1's after my date! Do it do it do it do it do it now!"

"Actually, that's not a bad idea," said Starlight Glimmer. "Wait, this means can save the foal! Holy Moon and Stars. We can save everypony! Forever! Seriously, nopony ever needs to die again! This is... it's just unbelievable."

"It can't work that way," said Twilight. "This has to be dangerous. Something will end up stopping us if we try, because the statistics are against it. Like, in combinatorial terms."

"Um, Twilight, I think you should know..." said Spike, but nopony was paying any attention.

"Well, we might as well make an attempt, for goodness' sake," said Rarity.

"Do me first!" said Rainbow Dash, lifting her headband as Twilight averted her eyes from the date... and then there was a bright flash of red light. "Ow. Did I do that?" Dash said, blinking several times.

"No, that was just the spell ending," said Twilight. "But that's fine, we can just cast it again."

"Guys, that might be a problem," Spike said much louder, to no avail.

"Twilight, where's the book? I thought we left it here on the Cutie Map," asked Starlight Glimmer.

Twilight's eyes widened. "I don't know! I didn't move it. Spike, do you know where the book went?"

Spike covered his face in his claws. "That's what I've been trying to tell you!" he said, exasperated. "It's not here anymore."

Rainbow Dash glared directly at Spike. "What."

"It wasn't my idea! Look. I told Celestia about the situation because she mailed me last night and asked what all the hubbub was about down in Ponyville," he said.

"I doubt she used the word 'hubbub'," said Twilight Sparkle.

Spike rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'm paraphrasing. But she told me to return the book immediately. She says all of the spells in that book are forbidden, and she shipped it here by mistake. I sent it back Pony Express. Derpy left before midnight and headed straight to Canterlot."

"No. No, no way. That... that must be a mistake. Twilight, tell her there's a foal about to die!" said Rainbow Dash, leaning so far over the Cutie Map her chin was bumping Cloudsdale.

Twilight covered her face in her hooves, and her voice dropped. "I don't think it's a mistake," she said.

"But Twilight, this is an unfathomable opportunity. We could cure death itself!" said Starlight Glimmer, wide-eyed. "I mean, surely you can talk some sense into her?"

"I'm sorry, Starlight. Celestia and I... we've had this discussion before, on more than one occasion. Immortality isn't for everypony, guys. It would ruin society and prevent progress toward a better future. Ponies are supposed to die," said Twilight. "Even Princess Celestia and Princess Luna will die someday. When I last spoke to Celestia about it, she made a very convincing argument. I've had to accept that my parents and friends will all die at some point, no matter how powerful I become, and at this point, I'm afraid I agree with her general position on the subject."

"That's as it should be," said Applejack, narrowing her eyes in Rainbow Dash's direction.

"Easy for you to say!" said Dash, wings launching outward from her barrel. "You just gave an ancient pony, what, thirty more years? Meanwhile, a little foal is going to die in less than two! How is that even remotely fair?"

"It ain't," said Applejack, "and I wasn't the one who did that to Granny. I wouldn't have brought her back, to be completely honest. I'd even take those thirty years off her and give it to the foal, seein' as I know without question she'd agree to it, even though it'd pretty much be murder at this point."

"This is wrong. Talk to Celestia, Twilight," Rainbow Dash said, thumping her hoof repeatedly on the Map. "I don't even care about me anymore. At the very least, we should make sure everypony in Equestria can live a good, long life."

Starlight Glimmer slowly shook her head. "No. There's another angle to this I just realized," she said. "Sure, we could give everypony a long life, but at what cost? There's more to life than being alive. If we give this foal another thirty years, the most likely situation is that he'll spend them in a coma, or turned to stone, or something much worse. The future might not be much better for Smith Apple. Yes, the spell was a good thing to cast, but manipulating the dates like this is begging for a 'monkey's paw' outcome. And as Twilight implied, even the act of trying to fix things could cause a disaster due to the unlikely statistics involved. Like, a comet might crash into the castle before we get a chance to make the attempt, because as unlikely as that might be, it would still be more likely than lots of ponies living past their naturally-fated expiration dates. I mean, it can't kill us because it doesn't match our dates, but we could each be timeported to our fated deathdays at the same time. It might sound unrealistic, but when you're up against fate, the most likely scenario will win—even when all the possibilities are remote."

Fluttershy hugged Rainbow Dash as she began to cry, and Fluttershy cried along with her. "It's okay, Rainbow. I... I know you don't understand right now, and maybe you'll never agree with me, but death really is a natural part of life. I hate it as much as you do, but... maybe we need to move on, so the rest of his life can be normal." Pinkie Pie trotted over and joined the maudlin hug, but Rarity sat firmly in her seat and frowned.

"This... well, it's a big pile of wet horsefeathers, is what it is," said Rarity, invoking blushes around the room. "Pardon my Prench. However, as much as I hate to admit it, I also am forced to agree. Twilight is undoubtedly right on the bits this time, as usual. Plus, the idea of a comet smashing into all of us isn't a particularly pleasant thought. It would simply ruin my hooficure, for one." The dry humor eked a soft, sad-sounding 'heh' from Pinkie Pie, but that was all.

"It isn't fair," sobbed Rainbow. "It's one foal. Just one! Just, do it for him. Please?"

Twilight's face steeled with bitter resolve, and she slowly rocked her rump in her throne. "Spike, take a letter."

Spike looked down at the floor beneath the Map. "Twilight, I already asked her if there's anything she could do about the foal," he said softly. "I'm sorry."

"Well, what did she say, Spike?" asked Starlight Glimmer, before Twilight could even open her mouth.

"Again, I'm paraphrasing, but I kept the letters so you can read them yourselves. Princess Celestia said there are always options to save a pony's life, but those options are sometimes no better than death itself," he said. "When you go against fate, they're almost always worse, so it isn't worth the risk. She also said to treasure the time you have together, because those moments are precious... yadda yadda yadda. You get the idea."

"Twilight, this mess has gone on long enough. Let's get it over with. Please," said Applejack. Fluttershy and Pinkie broke the hug with Rainbow Dash and returned to their seats. Dash stopped sobbing and nodded in defeat, then sat back down.

Twilight straightened her back upright and looked out around the room. "My dear friends, we did something very, very difficult this past day. Our actions have saved numerous lives, including two of our own—or, three if you count my ridiculous extension—"

"Which we do," said Fluttershy, with a gentle smile.

"—thank you Fluttershy—and for that we should be very grateful. An opportunity this golden rarely comes along even once in a lifetime," said Twilight Sparkle. "And now, we must trot forward. I love each of you dearly, and I'm sorry you had to suffer through this, but you did an amazing job, the ramifications of which will likely live on for untold centuries from the progeny of the formerly ill-fated."

There was a brief silence. "Anything for you, Twilight," said Pinkie Pie. "Equestria too of course, but mostly all the ponies in this room. Oh, and the dragons, too."

"Hear hear," said Rarity, her mascara starting to smudge a little beneath her lower lashes. "Thank you, all of you."

"Spike, I realize it doesn't matter now, but could you ask Princess Celestia about your squiggly line later?" asked Starlight. "I'm still intrigued."

"I already did," said Spike. "It's weird, but my date was just in small print. I'll explain more later. Oh, and she has no idea what's up with Pinkie Pie."

"Me neither," said Pinkie, painfully faking a smile.

Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes. Her horn began to glow as she cast the spell to remove the date information from everypony in the vicinity. There were no fancy flashes of light this time, but a momentary dizziness struck everypony else in the room.

"What a ghastly sensation. I take it that's why you wanted me to tell the doctors in Ponyville not to do any delicate work around sunrise," said Rarity, rubbing her temples. "I'm going to need at least three spa treatments after all this drama."

"That was the idea, yes. As a side effect, that spell should end up waking our three guests. They're bound to hear us down here and show up eventually, probably confused as anything. Spike, could you go make breakfast for eleven? I heard you in there preparing things before the meeting," said Twilight.

"You got it, Twilight," said Spike, jogging off into the kitchen.

In-between flipping the pancakes, Spike fetched four chairs so everypony in the castle would be able to take a seat at the Map. It wasn't long before the family of tourists wandered into the throne room. The parents looked exhausted and confused, but the colt seemed perfectly fine.

"Hello?" said the stallion. "I'm sorry to intrude, but we're very lost. We went to sleep in Ponyville's Dragon Inn, I think it was called, but we woke up here, somehow? Is the Castle of Friend—oh, the Princess!" The parents quickly bowed, and the colt attempted to copy them, to imperfect but adorable results.

Twilight laughed it off, dryly. "Please, I'm nopony special. Er, well, I suppose I am, but don't bow. We're very happy to have you as our guests. I'm here to serve you, not the other way around."

The mare nodded. "Thank you, Princess. Can you explain what happened to us?" she asked. "Are we in some sort of trouble?"

Twilight Sparkle shifted nervously where she stood, and Starlight stepped up next to her. "May I explain?" she asked, and Twilight quickly nodded. "There's been a mishap with a magical spell that affected most of the town. For your safety, we need to escort you out of Ponyville by heading around the farmland to the West, and we'll need to ask you to stay away from the area for at least two weeks. In compensation, we'll give you a voucher you can use later on to stay here at the castle for three nights and enjoy the city, plus a thousand bits to help with travel and shopping."

"My goodness, that's very generous!" said the foal's mother.

The foal gasped. "Thank you Princess Twilight!" he said, bouncing in place.

"You'll need to use it in the next, um... six months," added Twilight. "But if there are problems with that, let me know. We'll find a way to accommodate the three of you."

As the conversation continued, Spike busily brought out silverware and stacks of pancakes with butter and whipped cream on top in whimsical shapes.

"I guess if you need to be secretive in getting us out of town, you can't tell us what happened in more detail then," said the father, looking sullen. "I hope we've done nothing wrong."

"No! No, not at all," said Twilight, fighting desperately to force a smile to the surface, even just a phony-looking one. "You're fine. You've been wonderful—this, this is all my fault. Not yours. Don't worry about it."

"Then, um..." whispered the stallion, frowning as he leaned forward with watery eyes, "do you know why my wife and I are so terribly sad?"

Twilight Sparkle froze for a moment before saying, "It, well, um... it was a side effect of the spell, but it only hit a few ponies who visited from out of town."

Unfortunately, she could tell by his face that he wasn't buying the ruse. Internally, Twilight wondered if somehow he still knew, and then the realization hit her like a sack of bricks.

Nothing is more heartbreaking than losing a child.

Of course they knew. They were his parents. The emotions were crushing them so severely, the depth of sadness could only be caused by one thing. She tried to think of something—anything—comforting to say, but the words just wouldn't come.

So, Twilight Sparkle forcefully pushed forward a pancake stack with a silly-looking smiley face on top. "Um, pancakes?" she asked him.

It was the only smile she could muster, but it was better than nothing.