One week later, they realized it was strange to be home.
Strange for Lavender, having lived in Equestria for two months, and strange for Rarity, for the first time having glimpsed a future she’d long thought discarded. Her and Twilight, together with their daughters, a family that had somehow made it work.
Mother and daughter silently glanced out of the carriage windows while Sweetie Belle slept, their bodies in Saddle Arabia but their minds far, far away in Equestria. Thinking, missing, and perhaps even regretting.
Rarity’s ear twitched at the sound of a sniffle, and her heart cried when she turned around to find her daughter wiping her eyes.
“Oh, darling.”
Caught, Lavender quickly tried to compose herself. “O-Oh, I’m sorry, mother, I—”
She fell silent when her mother raised a foreleg. Without protests, the filly scooted over and buried herself in Rarity’s embrace, sniffling as Rarity kissed the top of her head.
“I miss Amy…”
“I know, my heart,” her mother whispered, stroking her daughter’s mane and dearly wishing her other daughter might be there with them. The hole in her heart she now couldn’t unfeel now that it had been filled for a precious few months. “I miss her, too.”
“I miss mom,” Lavender whispered next, a silent confession, and so did Rarity feel inclined to confess the same, but she could not. To confess it would be to admit she had made the mistake not once now, but twice.
Twice, twice, twice, she’d let Twilight Sparkle walk away, or perhaps Twilight had let her walk away, or perhaps it didn’t matter anymore.
It was as she’d said, wasn’t it? No sense in playing the blaming game anymore.
The carriage eventually came to a stop in front of their house, Sweetie Belle yawning awake alongside it.
“We’re home!” she exclaimed, having noticed the sullen faces of her two companions and thus trying to brighten the mood. She opened the carriage door and stepped out. “Can’t wait to get into my bed.”
When Lavender made no attempt to leave, Rarity gently nuzzled her.
“I’ve a wonderful idea,” she said. “Why don’t I set up the projector in my room, and you and I curl up in my bed and watch Rules of Love for the millionth time, mm?” When Lavender nodded, she got up and walked out, her daughter following after her. “Very well, then.”
While Rarity walked over to pay the ponies that had carried them there, Lavender noticed her aunt had yet to go inside. In fact, she was planted firmly in the street, staring at something.
“Aunt Sweetie?” Lavender called, cantering over. “What’s wrong?”
She lifted her hoof. “Look at that.”
Lavender looked to where she was pointing and was surprised to see a chariot parked nearby, two clearly Equestrian armored ponies standing by.
“All right!” Rarity exclaimed, walking towards them. “I’ve paid our drivers, and—What are you two gawking at?”
“Rarity, look!” Sweetie said, urgently. “Look!”
“There’s an Equestrian carriage!” Lavender added next.
Rarity blinked. “My word, so it is. What is—Wait.” Her eyes widened, and a forehoof found itself on her daughter. “Those are royal guards.”
The world came to a stop in that moment, Rarity’s implication getting lost on Lavender but not on Sweetie Belle.
A wide-grin plastered itself on the younger mare. “They didn’t.”
And only then did Lavender understand; understand her mother’s nearly paralyzed expression, her aunt’s glee, and the implication of royal Equestrian guards tied to a chariot.
So she stepped back. Stepped back again, and again, and again until she wasn’t walking, nor cantering, nor trotting, but galloping into her house, two names burning her throat.
“Mom?!” she called out, pushing the front doors open and running into the lobby, frantically looking around. “Amethyst?! Mom?!”
When a sound caught her attention, she made her way to Rarity’s workshop and found none other than her reflection standing on a chair and pasting sketches on the walls, joining the dozens of drawings their mother had drawn.
“Hi, sis!” greeted the filly, looking over her shoulder briefly to grin at her sister before pasting another sketch on the wall. “Do you like them? I drew them on the way here!”
Lavender fell onto her haunches, unsure of what to say for the longest time until somewhere, somehow, she found the words to speak when her sister prompted her again.
“Well? What do you think?”
“...They’re a bit squiggly,” she pointed out, and a teary laugh left her lips at her sister’s offense.
“The chariot was moving!” she defended. “We were going really fast because we had to catch up to you guys!”
And while a little filly rushed to embrace her sister, somewhere else a mare stood outside her house, terrified to go in.
Terrified because years ago… Years ago, she’d planned for what to do if Twilight Sparkle came after her. Years ago, she’d been ready to drop everything if Twilight was ready to do the same.
But this time?
This time, Rarity the unicorn had no plan.
This time, she hadn’t expected Twilight to come after her.
This time, she had no choice but to steady her nerves and walk into the lobby, only to find it empty, like some sort of cruel joke.
Had… Had they not come?
Was it all just wishful thinking, wishful hoping, burning regrets that desperately sought to be redeemed? It would be easier if it was a mistake. No having to figure out an international romance, no having to learn to live with each other again, no nothing but the future they’d told themselves they wanted.
Things would be easier if it was a mistake, and yet there she was, already mourning the loss of this unwound fut—
“Ra...Rarity.”
Her eyes welled with tears, and her heart with relief as she turned around and there she was.
There was Twilight Sparkle, standing in her lobby, tears in her eyes.
She’d come after her. She’d done it.
And Rarity didn’t know what to say.
“I… I…” The words tumbled out of Twilight’s mouth, and the more Rarity looked at her, the more she realized Twilight was afraid. More terrified than Rarity had ever seen her before.
And yet there she was, regardless, so painfully Twilight Sparkle as her horn lit up and hastily written cue cards floated from her saddlebag. A silly moment, silly gesture, silly thing that reminded Rarity of a younger unicorn reading off cue cards, desperately trying to keep it together long enough to propose.
Eventually, the cue cards fell to the floor.
“I don’t know what to say.”
Rarity stared at her, as perplexed as she was fascinated.
“You don’t know what to say.”
Twilight shook her head.
"I don't have a plan, I just came here, and I thought I'd have a speech by now, but I don't, and I don't know what to say, and I can't even read my cue cards because I can't understand my writing, but did you know that the train you took here is actually the slowest train? The Equestria Express is actually out-dated but ponies assume it's the quickest one because of the express in the name, and so psychologically, it induces them to--"
“Twilight.”
Twilight’s rambling stopped dead in its tracks, her eyes fixed on Rarity’s. The fear was still there, yet it was overshadowed by the determination in her eyes.
“Twilight,” Rarity repeated, “why are you here?”
She didn’t even have to think about it.
“Because I don’t want you on the other side of the world. Because I—”
The words caught in her throat, the tears falling anew, and yet she pushed through as she had when faced with monsters, and spirits, and changelings, and the risk of losing the love of her life yet again.
“Because I miss you,” she said, “and I miss your theatrics, and your voice, and our daughter, and being with you, and even arguing with you, and I—”
She drifted off after that, caught up in her emotions and the fact that Rarity had moved to her, was now standing so painfully close, so close it would be easy to lean in and kiss her.
“Because I still love you,” she confessed, prepared for the worst but hoping, desperately hoping for the best.
She waited, terrified, for Rarity’s reply and when it came, it wasn’t with words, but with actions as the unicorn moved in, a hoof brushing against Twilight’s cheek as their lips finally met again for the first time in years to kiss her.
Kiss her because it seemed that foolishness and senselessness did not go away with age, and because life was hard, and terrible, and awful, but if Rarity had learnt something from the mistakes of her youth, it was that living without Twilight made life so, so much worse.
It wasn’t until they finally pulled apart that the tears in their eyes were ones of joy, pairing nicely with Rarity’s laughter as Twilight rushed forward and nearly toppled her to the ground, burying herself in the unicorn.
“Oh, my darling,” Rarity whispered, holding her tight, for the first time in years adding the possessive pronoun to her throwaway word of endearment. “Oh, my darling, dearest, sweetheart, there’s no need to cry,” she whispered, even as she herself betrayed her words when she turned around to find their daughters standing by, both of them holding back from crying like their mothers.
With but a gesture from their mother, the two sisters ran to their parents, joining in their embrace as their aunt watched, similarly moved to tears. They cried, and cried, and then tearfully laughed and did noises of disgust when Twilight leaned in to kiss Rarity again, and again, and again.
“Twilight,” Rarity asked her, when they pulled apart, “how are we going to do this? An international romance? How in Equestria--”
“We’ll figure it out,” Twilight promised, earnest, determined not to lose this all again. “Somehow.”
“We’ll help!” Amethyst exclaimed, grabbing onto her mothers.
“We’ll do anything!” Lavender said next.
“But what if it’s hard?” Rarity asked, because to lose this again would devastate her. “What if—”
“I don’t care,” Twilight interrupted, leaning in to kiss her, their roles for once reversed because it was silly to her, silly to be worried about logistics, and planning, and what-ifs when none of that mattered. Stars, none of it mattered. “I don’t care, I don’t care, Rarity, I don’t care. We’ll figure it out, I promise.”
“Oh, my darling,” Rarity whispered, nuzzling her beloved, desperate for her, “Oh, Twilight Sparkle, don’t you dare let that be a promise you can’t keep.”
And it wasn’t.
It wasn’t for come hell or high water, come Saddle Arabia or Equestria, come whatever may come, this time…
This time they wouldn’t let it go without a fight.