//------------------------------//
// Memories 
// Story: Memories 
// by James Pwyll 
//------------------------------//

"Oh, yeah, that was a good one. I still have the bump from that," Twilight mused.

"And that one there? That was the best gem I ever ate that day!" Spike added.

Twilight giggled to him, reaching over and holding him close. The two were, at this present moment, looking at a large book together, all while sitting on the sofa of their living room in the Friendship Castle. It was a cozy and comfortable image, seeing them together like this, but it was not the softness of the sofa they fixated on, but rather the images of the book. "Can you believe I actually went ahead with a mane-style like that? Who'd have thought Princess Twilight of all ponies would go for a look so...out there?" Twilight said.

Spike chuckled. "Hey, it looked pretty good on you. Really punkish, you know?"

Twilight looked to him with both a smile and a raised eyebrow. "Punkish isn't a word, Spike."

Spike shrugged. "Hey, it fits, doesn't it?"

"Can't argue with that one, Twi!" called a second voice. Both Twilight and Spike turned to see that it was, of course, their friends, who now entered into the living room through the nearby door.

Smiling to them all, Twilight beckoned them in with her hoof. "Thanks for coming. I know there's a lot to get sorted out before the coronation. So I'm grateful you could help me."

Rarity giggled. "Nonsense, darling. We're happy to help!"

"And I suppose you being able to work on an outfit for royalty for the umpteenth time in your life wasn't also a reason for you to get excited?" Rainbow asked with a clear smirk.

Rarity blushed. "Well...possibly. But I'd never say it!"

They all shared a good laugh together, and it was a moment Twilight in particular seemed to enjoy, given how softly she was looking to them all. But then her eyes drifted downwards again, to her book, and it was from doing that which caused Pinkie to at last notice the thing. "Oooooooh! Watcha got there, Twily?"

Twilight lifted the book slightly before explaining. "It's a photo album. Me and Spike have been keeping one since we first moved to Ponyville. We thought we'd look some of them over before we move over to Canterlot again."

Fluttershy looked to her with some confusion. "Oh my. But weren't some of those photos destroyed by Tirek when he...um...to the Golden Oak?"

Twilight nodded solemnly, sighing for a moment. "You're right, they were. But..." She smiled, pointing to her horn. "After a little magical knowhow, I got them restored. And we've been adding to them ever since."

The other mares were getting curious now, and so started to move over, sitting beside Twilight and Spike or standing behind the sofa, which was what Rainbow now did. "Hey, why's there a leaf in this thing?" she pointed out.

Twilight giggled again. "Oh, that was a leftover from that time I got a big tree branch stuck in my bedroom back at the Golden Oak."

Applejack, setting her hat to the side for a moment, turned to her with surprise. "Wait, weren't that yer first sleepover?"

Twilight nodded, happily clapping her hooves together. "Yep!"

Rarity now looked to the leaf herself. "But I thought we cleared all of that dreadful branch away that night?"

Twilight looked back to her. "Oh, we did. Mostly. After the night was over I went back to my room and found one leaf still on the floor. At first I thought about throwing it away again, but I decided to keep it." She glanced down to the leaf in question, carefully taped to that page in the book, before poking it gently. "Like AJ said, it was my first sleepover, so I wanted to hold back something to remind me of it. And the tree was pretty memorable, so I kept the leaf."

Rarity considered that, looking more than a little amused at her friend. "Well, you're not wrong about it being memorable."

Again, there was another group laugh, and as Twilight turned the page, Fluttershy started to beam at what she now saw on the next one. "Oh! I remember this! It was when I helped the other Ponyville pegasi help with the reservoir water!"

Twilight smiled to her. "You bet! I'd never seen you so excited and happy about something you'd done before, so I asked Spike to take a picture."

Fluttershy giggled. "I know the feeling. I still have the goggles." She gave Twilight a quick hug, clearly thankful for having been reminded of such a triumphant day for her. As before, the page was turned, and when it was, all of them gasped, Fluttershy especially. "Oh...oh my!"

There, right in the middle of the page for all to see, was a picture of Princess Celestia stuffing her face full of cake. Naturally, given how devoted Twilight had been to her mentor throughout her life, it was no surprise when all of her friends, Spike included, turned to her awaiting an explanation. Twilight, seeing all the confused looks she was getting, gave a shrug. "It's that photo from the Crusaders' Gabby Gums debacle, remember?"

Rarity pointed to the photo, but never once took her eyes off Twilight as she did so. "Yes...but why do you have it, Twilight?!"

Twilight thought long and hard over that, knowing that such a question deserved an incredibly diplomatic and careful hoof to properly convey all the intricacies and nuance to a decision like this. "Meh, I just thought it was funny," she answered with a second shrug.

They all stared at her, mouths agape, like fish out of water, much to Twilight's amusement, before all starting to crack from the silence of it all. They laughed together again, with Rainbow in particular laughing so hard she had to wipe a tear away from her eye. "Well, well, well, looks like our little bookworm's got herself a bit of a rebellious streak. Celestia had better watch out if you're taking the throne." Expectedly, this earned her a pillow to the face when Applejack threw one up at her, and after coughing up a feather from this moment, Rainbow shrugged. "Okay, that's fair."

Recovering from that pleasant moment, Twilight continued flipping through page after page. As she did this, her friends all gathered closer, seeing many an image that they hadn't seen in too long a time. The day of Twilight's transformation into an alicorn. The first Summer Sun Celebration she took part in as an actual Princess. The day they first met Flurry Heart. And speaking of that tiny Princess, the next page happened to have no photo at all, but what appeared to be a crude crayon drawing of Twilight, Spike and Flurry, prompting Twilight to explain. "Flurry made it when her parents left her with me that one time. I told her it was the best work of art I'd ever seen."

Fluttershy, always a lover of cuteness, placed her hoof upon Twilight's shoulder. "That was really sweet of you, Twilight."

Twilight beamed, but didn't say anything, as it was instead Rarity who did the honors. "Well, given that her parents were visiting an actual art gallery that day, your remark to her might have been a bit hyperbolic."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Given what Cadance told me about some of the pieces in the gallery, it might not be as much of an exaggeration as you think."

Rainbow snorted. "Hehe, good one!"

Afterwards, it was Fluttershy who turned the next page, and her face lit up with a smile. "Oh! I remember this! It's from when me and Applejack came back from Las Pegasus!"

Applejack leaned over, seeing that this was indeed the case, and so cracked a smile. "Heh, eyup. But ah wish ya hadn't come back with that getup, Fluttershy."

The "getup" in question being a brightly-colored short, patterned like rainbow leaves, with a straw hat and sunglasses, with Fluttershy smiling widely in the picture while Applejack embarrassingly covered her own face beside her. Fluttershy simply giggled to it. "Well, I couldn't very well leave a city like that without a souvenir. It would have been rude."

Applejack groaned. "Urgh! Ah still remember all the look we were gettin' on the train comin' back! Ya didn't even notice!"

Fluttershy just looked to her sweetly. "Oh, it was alright. I just thought it was fun to wear."

The two smiled soon afterwards, as did Twilight, content with that happy image of her friends giving each other a quick hug. Then it came time for her to turn the pages again, and when she did, she noticed that the photo on the other side had suddenly slipped out, falling gently to the floor. Using her magic, Twilight caught it before it went all the way down, and lifted it so as to get a better look at it. Here, she fell silent, her expression one of deep thought, and it prompted many of her friends to turn to her with slight worry. "Er, Twilight? You okay?" Spike asked.

Twilight nodded. "Yes...I'm fine."

Her friends decided it was perhaps best to see just what photo she was looking at, and when they did so, they understood instantly why she had fallen so quiet. It was a photo taken during a time when she was still a unicorn, and she and her five friends were all together on a grassy hill with white and blue flowers. They were all smiling at the camera, and after looking to this photo for some time, Pinkie blurted out what they were all thinking. "Hey! I remember this one! It was from when you just moved to Ponyville!"

Twilight nodded slowly. "Yeah...the day after I decided to make Ponyville my home. The day after you all became my friends."

Spike chuckled with more than a little smugness. "I think I took a decent photo, if I do say so myself."

Rainbow gave him a playful bump in the side of his arm, but Twilight was fixated on the photo now. She wasn't sad exactly, but it was obvious from looking that she had a lot on her mind. Her friends watched as she got off the sofa, slowly walking away from them all. Feeling rather concerned for her, they followed her out of the room, watching her enter into the main chamber of the castle, where she looked up to the ceiling. There, high above them, were the roots of the Golden Oak, which Twilight now stared at for a moment. "It's good, isn't it? Remembering?"

Spike took a step closer. "Twilight?"

Slowly, his lifelong friend looked back to him, and to everypony else as well. "Ever since I came here, ever since I met you, we've made happy memories together. We've been through so much, done so much, had such fun and joy." For just the barest of moments, she flinched. "Now that's all they are...memories. Those moments will never happen again. At least not like they were."

Fluttershy stepped forward now, standing right next to Spike as she spoke. "There will always be new memories, Twilight. We'll make them together. Good times won't end for us, not even with everything else that's happening."

Twilight offered her a thankful smile. "I know, Fluttershy. And I look forward to each and every happy moment we'll make from this day forward." She looked to each of her friends. "There is not doubt in my mind that we'll continue to create more moments to go in that album. And one day, I'll look back on them, just as I've looked back on them today." She took a deep breath, then exhaled just as deeply. "Change is scary. Change can make us feel like something good is coming to an end." She shook her head. "But that's not what's happening here. It's just the end of one chapter, and the start of another." Turning, she glanced to Pinkie, who had been the one to bring the album with her. "Another turn of the page."

Rainbow, spreading out her wings, flapped once and flew right over to her. "Trust me, Twilight, we're all nervous about this. But we've faced difficult times before, and we'll do it again. And we'll do it together, just like we always have!" The other mares and Spike walked beside her, looking to Twilight and letting her know that they all felt the same way.

Twilight felt a tear forming in her eye, and after wiping it away, she nodded. "I know we will...and thank you." With those words, they moved together, embracing each other in a group hug that felt like so many they'd had before. They were together, just as they always were. Through thick and thin, they knew, even if they were not saying it in this moment, that they had very intention of staying together, regardless of what form that togetherness took. And as Twilight eased herself into the softness of this embrace with her friends, her eyes drifted down to the album that Pinkie still held, to that one special photo that continued to poke out from the pages, and she gave one final smile to it. "And thank you, Ponyville...for everything."