//------------------------------// // Return to Ponyville: Welcome Home/The End // Story: Strange Reflections // by No one is home //------------------------------// “The Text,”  Twilight’s words were more an admission than an accusation, but still the colt flinched beneath them. “‘A’ Text really,” he admittedly sheepishly, “Not ‘The’... there have been at least three of us in just your universe alone.  I was probably the least.” “You.. brought the humans here?”  The princess watched warily as she spoke. “Some of them… It’s probably safe to say the worst of them were mine.”  A tension seemed to escape with the admission, and the colt’s attitude dissolved.  “I’d like to lie and say I mean well… I wish I could lie more and say and didn’t know it was really happening somewhere.” “But you can’t?”  Twilight just couldn’t bring herself to feel smug. “I came here of my own will… Fetlock still has to obey that rule anyway…”  The blue colt’s eyes shone with a guilty weight that belied his apparent age.  “I made the deal… I of all people knew what it entailed. I knew what I wanted, and I didn’t care what it cost… I said the words and something heard me.” “But you can help now?”  Twillight Sparkle graped for some straw of friendship. “Spoilers?”  The colt shrugged listlessly.  “Secrets and pretty little lies?  No… I’ve already done enough… too much really.” The colt met the eyes of the princess of friendship with a guilty gaze, “No, I don’t think I that I can help you, your highness.  I think your better off to figure it all out on your own. No, I think I’ve done enough. I think the last gift I can give my Diane is my absence.” Twilight blinked, and then blinked again.  There where the colt had sat was a blue rag-doll and and a book.  Picking it up, she read the title, “Dear Diary” the name signed was to no surprise, “Diane Pastel”. “Can I have Charlie back now?”  Twilight blinked yet again as the changeling filly darted back into the room, her sister close in tow. “Oh… of course,” the princess replied absently her eyes never lifting from the journal and the blue rag doll sat on top of.  For one moment she wondered if the doll’s right eye had always winked like that. “Z, this is Charlie!”  Diane gushed as she hugged the doll, presenting it to Z, “He helped me get out of Tartarus.” “Z-978 is happy to see her sister,” The changeling smiled warmly, but cast Twilight a worried glance, “But she is worried… perhaps the Charlie has only told the Diane what Z’s sister would tell herself?” Twilight tried to listen but her attention was drawn to the book.  Carefully, she grasped the tiny tome in her magic and flipped through to the last written page. “I’ve stretched myself as far as I could to protect her,” the words read, cleary written in the script of an adolescent filly, “I can’t help her anymore.  I suspect the only reason we can talk at all is because you’re the princess of friendship, and imaginary friends still count.” Twilight dropped the book as if it were a hot coal that had somehow burned her through her magical grip.  “Diane… we still need to talk, and I need to arrange a formal hearing for you and… uh… Charlie… just to establish the conditions of your asylum, of course!  In the meantime you and Z can spend some time getting reacquainted… I need to make a copy of your journal, if you you don’t mind, for research?” “Yeah, sure, whatever,” Diane replied with a wave of her hoof, before turning back to her sister, “Don’t worry, sis, Charlie takes some getting used to, but he’s a lot like Uncle Trainwreck used to be.  Trust me, it’ll almost be like having him back!” The older sister tried unsuccessfully to hide a pained flinch casting one last worried look towards Twilight as the pair exited.