Twilight stared at the flames, as they consumed her world.
It was terrifyingly beautiful. The flames climbed as high as the upper atmosphere until the sky itself was made from fire. Everyone else had died. Everything in the whole world.
Dead.
Twilight just stared at it all, trying to comprehend it. Trying to take in the enormity of it all. They still had hours left, at least. The table would protect the surrounding area from all the chaos for a while. She was going to use the spell, it was just... Everything. She couldn't take it in.
I lost.
So many had died. She couldn't even respond to how many had perished. She tried to feel something, anything, but she nothing came. She couldn't even think. The entire world was breaking apart around her. It was too big, too horrible, for her to even fully understand.
"Well, I have to say... I have definitely seen worse."
The voice was rough and cheerful, tinged with a thick alien accent that Twilight knew well. British, if her memory served. She knew his face as well; young, constantly smiling, with short brown hair that stuck up in spikes and incredibly deep brown eyes. The man was an alien, humanoid in appearance. He was tall and wore a very raggedy brown trench coat over a fancy dress suit and worn sneakers. His face was normally irrepressibly cheerful, and constantly in motion. Today, it was grim and hard, almost looking like a statue. His eyes looked the same as ever. They were warm and compassionate. He nodded to her. " 'ello, Sparky."
"Doctor."
Twilight didn't move from her spot, nor did she turn to acknowledge him. She didn't even complain about the use of her nickname. Slowly, the Doctor walked over to her. He sat down, slowly. The two of them just sat there for a while, looking at the sky. Very slowly, the Doctor reached a hand out and pulled Twilight into a one-armed hug. He didn't say anything, which wasn't normal, but he didn't need to. His presence was comfort enough. Eventually, Twilight broke the silence.
"Did you feel anything when it was your turn?"
She realized how that sounded, and hurried to rephrase it. "I mean, at the exact moment. When you pushed the button and Gallifrey..." her words trailed off as she gestured at the mess. In the background, an entire mountain range began to melt, crumbling and shrinking in the distance.
"I dunno." The Doctor's words were compassionate but clipped. He didn't like reminders of what he'd done during the Time War. "The actual moment... pushing that button... it's gone. Right out of my memory. I can remember seeing things like this," he gestured to the world in general, "fairly often, mind you. As the Time War rolled on, so did the meaning of the words acceptable losses." He spat the words out like they were something rotten. "But still, it's not quite the same when it isn't your home."
Twilight shuddered. Her home. Everypony, everybody everywhere, and they were all dead now...
"Hey now. Hey." The Doctor pulled her closer to him, and she leaned against him. "You're not alone, alright? You. Are not. Alone."
"This is all my fault." Twilight got out shakily. "All of it. I could have let the Arbiter go, and—" her voice just choked out. Her body was shaking, but she still couldn't feel anything. It was an odd, disconnected feeling that she wasn't sure was good or bad.
"You had every right to." The Doctor told her. "The Arbiter is just a malfunctioning machine, that's trying to fulfill a function that has long since been unneeded. It has to be stopped."
"But I didn't stop it!" Twilight was yelling, all of the sudden. "It was there! It's been here before! It's killed everypony but me, and I couldn't save them!" Her breath came out in ragged gasps. She swallowed, her mouth dry. "I have to go back. I have to tell myself to let that thing kill—" The words wouldn't come out She swallowed again and forced them out. "K-kill my friends. They're going to die all over again, and there's nothing I can do."
"Well... you could keep fighting."
Twilight laughed. It was shallow and bitter. Pinkie would have winced at its hollow rattle. "I've seen what fighting leads to. I have to give it my friends. It's the only way."
"Not necessarily." The Doctor paused, trying to find the right words. "You have the Time Travel spell, and you know everything that thing has done for the last… what, six hundred years? Go back. Give yourself some hints. I mean, normally I'd advise against spoiling things but all things considered... I'd say it's permissible."
"Is it?" Twilight looked at the ground, lit by the closest thing one could see to the fires of hell this side of death. "Celestia told me that her role as an immortal prevented her from creating real change. That we couldn't, shouldn’t interfere. And given what's happened... I can't see how she was wrong."
They sat a while longer, watching the sky. It was incredibly quiet, though that was to be expected when everything was dead. Eventually, the Doctor spoke again. "She wasn't entirely wrong, but I think she was missing something. When you get to be as old as we do, it's easy to just... decide, on what's right and what's wrong. We forget that we aren't perfect. But the answer isn't to do nothing. It's never to do nothing. Because some things are so big, so massive, only a very select number of people can deal with them. If you let that thing go, it'll be back. It'll kill more, and more, and it won't ever stop. Unless you stop it."
"How!" Twilight wasn't sure when she'd stood up, but she was staring the Doctor in the face, eye to eye. "How can I go through that again? How am I supposed to fight something that can devour continents? I lost billions of lives, Doctor. I can't go through this again." Her shoulders sagged, and she leaned against that damned Table of Harmony. "Not again."
The Doctor stood back up, his back creaking. "If you don't, then you're letting a monster eat innocent people to fulfill a very vaguely defined and almost certainly meaningless goal."
Twilight's voice was low. Quiet. Hating herself, she whispered, "Six for the world..."
The Doctor's tone was equally cold. "One is too many. Not if there's another way." He knelt down and lifted her head to look into her eyes. "Go back. Fight this thing. And then if you lose, fight it again, and again. As many times as you have to. Because they're worth it, Sparky. Your kingdom, your friends, your family, your neighbors, that one guy who makes pancakes for you in the morning— Every. Single. Life, on the planet, is worth fighting that thing over.”
The two of them sat for a while, the flames growing closer. After a very long while that felt like far too short a time, the Doctor stood again. "I have to go. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I'm not supposed to be here at all. Temporal rifts are— Well, it's bad. For a lot more than just me."
Twilight reluctantly nodded. She knew the Doctor; if there was anything he could do, he would have done it as well as stopped to explain to the monster exactly how. She sighed and stepped toward the Table. "Will we meet again?" She asked.
"That depends entirely on what you choose." The Doctor glanced back, surveying the damage done to the world. "It’s all in your hands. Always was.”
Twilight mustered up a smile. A real one, which was more than she'd been able to do for a long time. "Good luck to you, Doctor."
"I'd wish you the same, but you won't need it." He smiled back, a small smile that just said you got this so much better than words could. "Go get 'em, Sparky."