Underneath dark, looming clouds, beneath an even darker sky, lies the princess Twilight Sparkle: shattered and broken. She lies still and unflinching, if not for her breathing and silent sobs. For hours she hasn't moved from this one spot, lying on the shore of an isolated pond outside the city of Canterlot. She's alone, but for her thoughts and regrets.
She wishes she had spent more time with him; she wants to feel his arms around her once more; she aches for a kiss to remember him by, if nothing else. Her lover: her partner, now lost to the world. Flash Sentry: gone. The love they shared: all for naught because he could never live to be the same age she could. So many happy moments down the drain because he died.
And Twilight knows it won't be the last time she'll lose somepony.
But he isn't the first either.
Many years ago, her parents had met their tragic ends after living long, fulfilling lives. Twilight's friends stood close by her to help her through the hard times. And it worked! But, in the end, it also left Twilight with a sense of longing: a longing to spend all the time that she could with her friends before it was their time to pass.
She had never expected Flash - whom she considered one of the toughest ponies she knew, rivaled only by her brother - would be the first to go.
Yet here she was, regretting every second not spent with him. She would give anything right now to be with him again. Even her immortality, she tells herself. Twilight grieves at this moment not just for Flash, but for all her friends and remaining family that can't follow her through eternity. Despite this, she grieves the most for herself. If she had only known before her transformation the costs thrown at her, she would have rejected the idea of immortality altogether.
Twilight continues to weep into the ground beneath her as the clouds above her crackle - the oncoming storm pleading to get out. She only barely notices this before resuming her fit of still, undying sadness. Let the rain come, she thinks. Let it run down with my tears.
But amidst the sounds overhead, Twilight's ears pick up the nearby sound of hooves on the dew-covered grass. They come closer before stopping a short distance behind her. They had sounded like they'd been made by somepony bigger than her.
And she knew at once who it was.
"Celestia," her voice quivers through the sobs, "I really want to be alone right now. Can we... t-talk later?"
"Actually..." replies a different voice than Twilight had assumed, causing her to look back, "it is we who would like to speak with you, Twilight."
Twilight would see no emotion in the blue alicorn if not for the gentle shine of sadness in her eyes, as if her grief is reflecting into the otherwise dignified moon princess. Still, she had no intentions of conversing with anypony today if they couldn't bring Flash back to her. "Oh... Luna...."
"..."
"Thanks for trying to check on me, but-"
"Yes, Twilight, you want to be left alone. I understand that. I have to talk to you though. So you won't make the same mistakes I did."
Princess Luna treads slowly along the wet grass and lies next to Twilight, the calm night now picking up a bit of wind and blowing through the forestry. The royal sister is so captivated by the light swaying of the trees that she almost doesn't notice Twilight tilting her head, indicating her confusion. "This may be exactly what you expected somepony to tell you, but... I know exactly how you feel."
Twilight allows her gaze to wander off the pony, again looking to the ground and sniffing at her wet muzzle. Luna was right; this is what she expected to hear.
The mare beside her continues: "I suppose my circumstances were not quite the same as yours, but try to take this as another alicorn's realization of what love entails."
This caught Twilight's attention.
"As I grew up, I was a very naive young mare. Because of my indefinite lifespan, I felt invincible, and young Tia wasn't much different. I was fortunate enough to fall in love with somepony before she had: a teenage gentlecolt that appeared slightly older than me, though my years vastly outnumbered his, with him being a mere sixteen and me at a 'young' forty.
"He hadn't loved me for my horn and my wings, and he never took advantage of my position. The colt just seemed to want to be with me. He wanted to be my eternal lover."
Twilight, who has progressively turned and looked up more and more at Luna, comes to question the seemingly fairy-tale-like story. "But I thought there aren't any male alicorns..?"
Luna pauses a moment and lets her own gaze wander to the calm pond in front of them, displaying only the two eternal reflections of Equestria. Her eyes shine like stars, wanting to release tears. "There weren't.
"After only sixty years - sixty years that seem to have gone by far too quickly - he died of old age, just as your own beloved now has. We both knew to the end that our love would last forever, but that didn't make it hurt any less. And in spite of his death, I questioned my own immortality, wishing that I was never born this way.
"Of course, I knew after several decades that I had to get over him and that I must accept the hoof of fate's firm grasp. In my recovery, I sought to love again. I'm sure you can guess how it ended."
"He died too..?"
Luna nods, tears now barely being held back. "And the next half dozen after him."
"By the stars... I can't even imagine, Luna...."
A tear rolls down the navy coat of her face before she wipes it away. "Ironic, is it not, Twilight? With an eternity of life comes an eternity of love to give, and with that comes an eternity of pain. Sometimes I even blame my past lovers for my conversion into the corruption of Nightmare Moon. I know deep down that the loss was all of my own doing because I asked for it time and time again, didn't I? I could have stopped after the first, but I did not. I should have."
"Who was he?"
"That's the saddest part, Twilight.
"...I don't remember.
"I chose long ago to forget the lives that I had consumed with my own, forever in a repeating cycle of loss following love, love following loss, and so on. That was also the time I stopped trying to love anypony who wasn't my sister. This is why I came out here to find you, Twilight. Because I don't want to stand by and watch through my own eternal life as my sister had me and see another never-ending cycle of pain."
Twilight begins to cry again, but she never takes her eyes off of the luminescent mare before her.
"Some day, Cadance will lose your brother, and you'll be left with only your friends for their final years of old age. Then, the only ponies you'll have... will be us: your alicorn sisters. I don't wish for anypony to experience all the pain I've endured. But after all that pain, there was one pony that stood by me as a friend and convinced me that there still is a reason to be here, that I can't simply abandon my ponies."
Twilight nodded, wiping away tears.
"And it wasn't Celestia, Twilight."
"H- huh..?"
"I'm proud to say that it was you. You, Twilight Sparkle, have saved my life time and time again, and not once have you looked down upon me with chastisement or projected shame. No. Instead, you stand and continue to fight by my side despite all the horrible things I've done. It was you that found the strength to bring forgiveness down on me in the end. Only you could have made such an impossible feat possible. And Twilight..."
Twilight, eyes wet from crying and now sparkling against Luna's, watches as Luna lowers her head down and whispers softly into her ear.
"I don't wish for our reign over Equestria to ever end.... Because you are the one that taught me how to love again, Princess Twilight. Please, allow me the chance to let you help me end my search for eternal love.
The mare lays upon the tip of Twilight's ear a gentle kiss, causing it to flinch before she goes back to her original position, though this time she is closer to Twilight than before, mere inches from one's hooves to the other's. The violet color of her cheeks heating to a soft tone of pink as her mouth lingers slightly agape at Luna's words.
Following a period of prolonged silence, in which neither of them broke eye contact with the other, Luna speaks again. "Please, Twilight. Consider the pain that we could avoid and all the moments we could share. If you only give me a chance to prove myself to you, I promise that I do this for the benefit of us both. Just as my first lover had so long ago, I don't ask this for power or sick pleasure, but for the good of both of us and our lives."
Suddenly, Twilight smiles as more tears come. "You have no need to prove yourself worthy of any chance, Luna. You've shown me that you're much more selfless than you believe yourself to be, and that's all I need to know. Will you..." Her next words are drowned out by the sound of lightning crashing down elsewhere. The rain begins to sprinkle, quickly beginning to pick up force and speed.
"Pardon, princess?"
"Will you teach me how to love again too?"
Luna smiles back at Twilight, both now sobbing with one another: for each other's losses, but also for all the losses they'd just been given the opportunity to prevent. "The first step is to let the rain wash away your tears, dear Twilight."
As Twilight does as instructed, Luna spreads one wing over her eternal lover's back and follows in her hoofsteps, letting not tears of regret, but the rain used to grow tomorrow's plants run down her cheeks.
"Luna... how can this be so easy, no matter how hard it really is?"
"Because, Twilight, a life of eternal suffering is always made whole by another.... You just have to seek out that one special pony, who will make it all alright."
"Is the night still young?"
"It has an eternity or two left in it."
"I look forward to them."
"As do I, Twilight dear. As do I...."
And in this storm, drenching two eternal sources of love, begins a new age of happiness. And if not for Equestria, then for them.
The End.