After leaving Rainbow Dash to continue with the preparations, Twilight started to feel her legs getting stiffer like lead weights were holding them down. She saw a bench that just so happened to be right next to the town hall and decided to sit down for a break. Both Spike and Shining were worried for Twilight when she decided to sit down and sat down next to her. As this happened, Twilight Velvet came to the trio with a saddened smile, “How have you been doing?”
Shining looks to Velvet and says, “She did alright when we met up with the one in control of the weather, though that mare should watch where she’s flying when she’s practicing her stunts. Had to throw up a quick shield before she ended up plowing into Twilight,” Shining said, taking out the overseers checklist from his saddlebags. “Let’s see, next up is decorations, followed by the music, then food, and finally meeting with the festival planner, a mare by the name of,” Shining muttered as he looked for her name, before letting out an ‘ah-ha’ at finding it, “Pinkie Pie.” He said as he put a check mark by Rainbow Dash’s name.
Out of nowhere, said pony jumped out in front of them from behind Spike. “Oh did somepony say my name!” The energetic pony said, before looking at the group, gasping, and grabbing Shining Armor and hightailed it out of there with her too-stunned-to-react captive. Twilight, both mother, and daughter, blinked at the brazen ‘foalnapping’ of Shining Armor, but before either could open their mouths to respond to the absurdness of the situation, the pink pony re-appeared and vanished just as suddenly, leaving a card that stated the time and place for the party welcoming the five new ponies in town, and on the back side was a crudely drawn picture of Twilight and her family. “Well…….that was strange?” Velvet commented, before looking down to see the jaw-dropped expression on her daughter’s face, “Close your mouth dear, or you’ll catch flies.”
Twilight closed her mouth with an audible snap as her mind tried processing just what she had seen. Spike had been silent the whole time but decided to save Twilight’s sanity by speaking up. “I think we should get going to see how the decorations are coming along.” Twilight, still somewhat stiff-legged, managed to nod her head and start heading in the general direction of the town hall. At least that’s what her head told her until Spike dashed that by turning Twilight around. “Town halls that way Twilight,” he said with a giggle.
Velvet on the other hoof, just watched her daughter with concern and sadness, seeing the disease progressing further the longer the day wore on. “Oh Faust, why must you take her from us when she had finally started to get used to the idea of having a family again?” She said in a low whisper, watching her daughter try and get her legs to move a little less stiffly. She could still remember the day when her husband found her in the Everfree forest, hiding behind a tree, along with a Timberwolf pup of all things. She had cuts and scrapes all over her body, but the worst was the two large gashes on her back and the fact that half of her face was nearly missing. Thought nopony would ever notice them, the prosthetics were nearing the end of their charge, as they ran on the wearer’s magic.
Velvet sighs and walks with Twilight and Spike. As the trio entered the town hall, they see all sorts of decorations from ribbons and tapestries to curtains and flags. At the center of it all was a white marshmallow unicorn with a curly purple mane and tail.
“Beautiful,” Spike said, smoothing his spines and checking his breath, which to him smelt fine, but to Velvet, it still stunk like sulfur. Oddly Twilight didn’t seem to be bothered by it. ‘Come to think about it,’ Velvet thought, ‘there have been a few times when she would come home that she too smelt like sulfur. I just thought it was after hatching and raising Spike, but she smelt like sulfur before Spike hatched.’ Velvet was lost in thoughts a little longer than she thought for the next thing she heard was a yell and looked up to see Twilight being whisked off by the, from what she could tell from the brief glance, fashionista.
Worried about Twilight’s well-being Velvet followed as quickly as she can and entered what seems to be a fashion shop looking for Twilight, but what she saw next made her giggle.
Twilight was standing on a pedestal, being fitted with dozens of outfits, ranging from school uniforms to bad-girl attire, to the statue of liberty. Velvet giggled as she stepped in before the fashion pony could start getting Twilight to try on wedding dresses while hiding a small tear at the fact that she too wouldn’t get to see Twilight in one. “I assume you are miss Rarity?” Velvet asked, giving Twilight a chance to breathe.
“Oh, why of course darling and I must say miss Twilight here has a wonderful coat, mane, and tail.” Rarity said while being careful not to nudge the prosthetics that her magic probing found. When she first spotted Twilight, Rarity had thought she was staring at a ghost, as she had been the closest to the apple orchard when the accident happened. It wasn’t until she manages to get her racing thoughts to calm that she noticed the differences, the fact that this mare was alive being the key factor. “And I presume you know her miss...?” Asked Rarity in the most polite manner possible.
Velvet softly giggled before replying, “My name is Twilight Velvet, and I so happen to be her mother,” she said. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d very much like to have my daughter back,” she said, finishing with a giggle to show that she held no ill will towards the Fashionista.
At this Rarity’s eyes slightly shoots open in slight shock, as she looked over to Twilight ”Oh my, I am sorry to miss Velvet, it’s just that when I see a beautiful mane or tail that looks less than perfect, I tend to act without thinking. Your daughter here was just telling me that you had come from Canterlot to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration.”
“Why yes we are and seeing as the decorations are moving along nicely I think we need to check on other things.” Velvet said,” Oh Spike do you have a copy of the list with you seeing as Shining isn’t with us.” She asked while turning her head to the said dragon.
Spike still somewhat aware of what’s going on outside of his ‘la la’ land had snapped out of it when Velvet asked him. He pulls out the list and reads it, “Well we have checked on the weather with Rainbow Dash, and now we’ve seen that the decorations in the town hall. Up next is the music.” Spike said before he puts away the list to enter his ‘la la’ land again.
Twilight managed to finally extract herself out the new outfit that Rarity locked her in, just in time to bolt out the door when her back was turned. After walking a little ways away from the building, she collapsed from exhaustion. Her lungs felt like they were on fire, even when she had just been standing still. Almost everything hurt, even more than it should. Twilight almost thought that she was about to die right there and then, before her heart calmed down, taking most of the pain with it.
However, high atop the boutique’s roof, was a bird with silver feathers. “lle coiasira naa il- de am’ amin Tinu, nan’ ta will il- be an(n) n’ala lye sarpsa au’” it said in a strange tongue before holding out a wing that glowed with a lavender aura that surrounded Twilight. “lle maranwe Uma il- tyela sinome, nan’ lye shall omenta iire I’ Anar ar’ ithil naa reunited once au’” and with that, it was gone.
Velvet and Spike ran after Twilight after saying their goodbyes to Rarity. In her mind, she looks back in her memory of both the filly and Twilight. ‘Hmm, Twilight and that filly do have the same coat and hair color that AJ described. Also what was with the feathers in her hair? They looked like they were growing from her. It’s probably just my imagination; there’s no way Twilight was the same filly that died fifteen years ago.’ She thought, before one thought struck her, ‘though what happened to her that caused her to have such grievous injuries that she needed prosthetics? And in the same places as that filly.’
Back outside Twilight and co. Has started to look for the one in charge of the music after she reassured to Velvet and Spike that she was okay. While the trio was walking Twilight heard the sounds of birds singing and followed the sound. After walking for a few steps, Twilight stopped as she heard something other than just birdsong. It was quiet, but Twilight could make out words being sung, strangely in time with the birds.
“Should I’ve stayed, were the signs, I ignored.
Can I help you, not to hurt, anymore?” they sang,
“We saw brilliance when the world was asleep.
There are things that we can have,
but can’t keep, if they say.”
Though Twilight felt it was just somepony singing a sad song once she started to hear the lyrics, she couldn’t shake the feeling it was about her or the fact that the ponies she was listening to might have been the birds.
“Who cares if one more light goes out in a sky of a million stars. It flickers, flickers.
Who cares if somepony’s time runs out if a moment is all we are or quicker, quicker.
Who cares if one more light goes out? Well, I do.”
Before the singing could continue, one of the singers let out an off-key note, breaking the trance the song put her in.
Twilight and co. Went to see what that was about, but saw a butter yellow pegasus flying over to the blue jay. “Oh um excuse me mister blue jay, I mean no offense but your rhythm is a teensy bit off.” the mare said. “Alright, I want you to take it from the top. If you want to, that is.”
Before the mare could restart the song, Velvet walked over and greeted the mare, scaring both her and her birds. “Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten your birds, My name Is Twilight Velvet, and over there is my daughter, Twilight Sparkle. We were just here to check up on the music, and I must say, it was lovely.” Velvet said, extending a hoof to the shy mare. Though strangely the mare wasn’t scared of Velvet, she was looking at Twilight with a faraway look as if she saw the impossible. ‘How… how is this possible?’ thought the shy pegasus.