Twilight

by Yoraiko

Twilight - 1

Time heals all wounds, they said. But sometimes, it created new ones. It’s progression was not poetic, had no purpose, and could not convey any deeper meaning. In the endless void lost Time wasn't about giving, but all about taking what couldn't defy. Life, just a fleeting moment. Time did not care who or what fell victim to it, as long as it could continue to command over all that was. 

There was no god. No higher order or an instance of fate.
Only the time that passed and decayed, that did not call for anyone, that was high and deep, and that still never slept. Time represented transience. And transience lured death. Death was a promise of absolute justice, to which every living being, which had been given the unprecedented luck to 'be born', eventually had to submit one day. No matter the cost.

Equestria had once been the thriving center of a lively, almost unnatural and idyllic world, the meadows and forests buzzed with life, the blue skies cared for by wings. Rivers and lakes were home to the inhabitants of this distant paradise, as were numerous valleys and cities. 

'No country as pure as Equestria, no folk like that of the ponies', they had once said. Under the fruitful and wise rule of the patron saint of the sun and the moon, three nations who found each other in the darkest hour grew within a few millennia to become the most loving community on earth, together with the teachings that connected them. Knowledge and feelings that eventually reached the other species. Yes, Equestria was a place of harmony and living together. An unique place of love and acceptance. 
But above all, a place of friendship. 

Nothing was left of that. The ruins of Canterlot, illuminated by relentlessly scorching amber evening light, testified to this better than any other place in this dead world. An in every aspect of this time dominating, almost unbroken silence lay over the rambling piles of stones, decaying remains of long-forgotten buildings and buried mountain paths, which were once the pride of the unicorn folk. Merely crickets and similar small animals still did their daily work and interrupted the hostile silence of this lifeless city. Nothing else moved here, no breath of wind went, no bird flew. High, high up, where the royal palace may have been a long, long time ago, only collapsed remains of actually immortal structures remained now, silent and overgrown by weeds and moss alike, they were proof of the incontestable transience. Somewhere in one of the few remaining chambers of the shattered palace something stirred, a body looking for the comforting shade that had become rare these days. The long, thin legs of which the creature had four and the full mane as well as the tail made it easy to identify it as a pony. It only moved sluggishly, scratching its fur here and there, rolling around on the dusty stone floor or killing an insect hurrying past. It seemed to be in a state of paralysis and lethargy, which had also spread to her physical state: the once magnificent mane of the princess was gray and decayed, little more than matted remains. Her tail lay long and lifeless beneath her and stuck in the cracks of the rock, no waft and no color in it. Her purple fur was torn and dirty and sticky in countless places, large parts of the pony could no longer be recognized, even her wide wings seemed to be emaciated and dull. Cobwebs twisted around the long horn on her forehead, which, together with the rusted crown, was the only clue to the position of this Alicorn. Her fragile face and lavender eyes were as faded as the rest of the princess, there was no spark of magic or lust for life in the depths of her pupil. Was it a walking dead who succumbed to time here?

Twilight Sparkle knew she had to move. The stench of her own body and excrements maltreated her senses, almost making her choke, and she hadn't eaten for at least ... a long time. But then again she wouldn't die anyway, and no one else would smell her. So why muster the strength to get up and go out? Out into the light that never left? Out into the detailed painting of all tragedies and mistakes which would agonize her senses once more? 

It did not matter. Hunger was a nuisance to her, and so was her stench. At some point she would move. She might as well do it now. Without any special effort, more out of a reflex, Twilight Sparkle lifted her tall Alicorn body and scuffled out of the demolished tower room, her legs led by a stumbling pace. The crumbled and rotting palace courtyard offered nothing to her, so she left it behind and climbed down into the ruins. Forced past thousands of decayed corpses from earlier buildings that had long ceased to house life beyond maggots and millipedes. From here she could still see the entire ruin valley. It was an amber-colored, static desert of chunks, skeletons, and rampant weeds that had retrieved what had once been so laboriously snatched from it. 

There was no sound and no movement here as far as Twilight's senses went. The evening twilight behind her was her only companion as she descended the rough path she had cleared at some point and rarely turned her half-closed eyes from her hooves. She had already carefully studied everything there was to see and discover hundreds of times. In a world where nothing changed, curiosity died first.  

Twilight reached one of the few remaining rivers, which, due to its position directly next to the mountains of Canterlot, was protected by many rocky ledges and some intact trees and climbed in dispassionately. One step forward, two steps back. The pale, lukewarm water only cleaned her superficially but sufficiently. Twilight lowered her head and drank the same liquid in which she was washing her body. No one was here to be surprised that Equestrias ruler bathed in a dirty mountain river. There was no one to interrupt her. And there was definitely no one who wanted to keep her company. It took ten minutes, but Twilight wasn't sure. She had lost her sense of time a long time ago. The time was still there, there was no doubt about it, it still commanded everything in its world, but it no longer had a shape. 

Twilight Sparkle emerged from her river and dripped back into her home, the Sea of ​​Ruins. There was a place she hadn't visited in a long time. Her quietly beating heart, which had lost all forms of excitement, commanded her. It was time to once again expose herself to the most harmful of all poisons in the twilight, that yet could make one forget for the shortest of moments: Memories. She knew all the paths within the stone heapes and destroyed structures very well, because nothing changed here by now. The times when a new ruin joined the sea from time to time or something fell apart were long gone. Her path to a split house that was once a boutique was quiet and uneventful. Twilight climbed over isolated skeletons and blindly walked past the floor covered with glass and scraps of fabric until she reached the far corner of the round structure, in which two inner walls had collapsed at each other. Only a small hole between them allowed Twilight to squeeze through like a rat and, completely in the dark, lock out the twilight. Her horn glimmered faintly in a gloomy pink, no light bright enough to illuminate a path, but enough for Twilight to find her treasures. A green scale, there it was between other rubbish which wouldn't look like anything to an outsider. The greyed Alicorn gripped it with both hooves and stared at it. For minutes. She had hoped a tear might leak, but her eyes stayed dry. She led the scale to her heart and left it there, warming it in a deep embrace as if it were alive. Her own weak breathing was Twilight's only assurance that the world still existed. That she was still alive. She put the scale aside and picked up a much larger object, which, through dust and darkness, turned out to be a book. A book that was eaten away by the teeth of time and was badly affected, the cover which was once oh so very noble. With a tired look and a weak hoof, Twilight scrolled hrough it, letting pictures and letters pass her eyes.

She remembered the girls she met in this special place. These strange ponies who should soon become her best friends. Yes, she had almost forgotten her faces again. 

Then there were the adventures they had experienced together. The tasks they mastered, the battles they won. Twilight wanted to remember what it was like to feel something. And how important it was not to feel it alone. She tried it. She struggled. But she just wouldn’t succeed. There was only emptiness. 

There were memories no one could take away from Twilight. In which they had achieved something as friends. They saved Equestria. They taught others about the incredible strength of real feelings. And they helped the next generation to find their way. Everything was always fine. As long as they would be together. 

Twilight closed the book and buried her face in her hair. Everything was always fine. Everything was good. How could it have gotten this far? How could she have let it get this far? Why ... was she just so powerless on her own? 

Twilight pushed back into the sunlit part of the ruin and felt what she was going through after each visit. Self-loathing and emptiness that left her usual apathy far behind. A dark, black void that outshone all sunlight and asked her only one question:

Why? Why am i living Why why why? Why am I still living? For what? Why? Why am I breathing? Why am i leaving Why am i sleeping Why am i eating Why am I?
Tell me ... what should I do? 
May I ... not finally go? 

Ending an Alicorn's life was surprisingly difficult. Even if the Alicorn wanted to end it herself. Twilight hadn't made it so far. But if she was honest with her friends eyes or the ones of a certain dragon, honest with the occasional voices behind, above, below, in her, she had never really tried. She was afraid. And maybe that was the only reason why she was still in the twilight. Fear. Cowardice as the last of her weaknesses. She didn't care because she knew the eyes weren't real. Not the voices and not the silhouettes. She was all alone. Nobody would care how cowardly she was. She could do whatever she wanted. Life was pointless. But perhaps, dying was too. Neither of them appealed to Twilight. But as an Alicorn, she didn't have to do anything to live. So living. 

With her legs dragging, the Alicorn trotted beyond the crumbled houses of the Sea of Ruins, back to her refuge and her grave, away from the scorching twilight, away from terrible memories, into silent nothing. She got on what was once a main street when she stopped. Twilight Sparkle never stopped on her way, because nothing was different from the previous time. But this time there was something. In front of her, just a few meters away, behind skeletons and chunks, stood someone. Twilight widened her eyes and lifted her heavy head to look beyond the ground. When she realized who it was, visiting her here, she stumbled, took a step back and struggled to keep her balance. Heat and cold flowed through her body faster than they ever did as long as she could remember, and her forehead ached as did her racing heart. Twilight was too petrified and rusted over the years to really succumb to an emotional outbreak - there was hardly anything left in her. But she was sweating and narrowing her eyes as she staggered awkwardly back, and that alone made her fear. She no longer knew these events. New. Physical reactions. And she certainly didn't want to imagine this person, because that’s all she could be, an imagination, but even that was too much. She couldn't stand such excitement anymore, so Twilight put her face in the dirt, knelt on the ground, and covered her head with both hooves in the hope that the twilight might burn her mind away - as it always did. 

Cozy Glow took quiet steps towards Twilight Sparkle. Her pale pink fur and light blue curls, like her tail, were largely preserved in contrast to the disastrous Twilight, thin, beige bands and a bandana held her hair together. Neither her horn nor her wings seemed particularly affected by the circumstances, but her body was emaciated like twilights, and the color had disappeared from her eyes too. When Cozy stood in front of the crouching and trembling Twilight, she looked down expressionlessly at the royal Alicorn, closed her eyes several times and paused until she let out a deep sigh and said "Get up" in a bored voice. 

There was no visible reaction from Twilight, so Cozy Glow repeated herself. After a long moment, which was quiet except for Twilight's heavy breathing, Cozy knelt down to her.
“I'm real, you fool. Now get up. ” She spat on Twilight's crown, the drop slowly ran down and touched Twilight's forehead. She let out a pitiful cry and flinched like a cornered animal. Cozy Glow rose and took another step towards her former arch enemy. 
"It's been some time, huh?", the Alicorn's meager tone resembled a dry whisper, yet in such an environment every word, no matter how quiet, could be heard clearly. Twilight rose to her hooves with all her strength and blinked at Cozy Glow two or three times. 
"You're alive ..."

"Yes ..." Cozy Glow nodded. Both mares stared at each other. Twilight didn't know what to say. It had been a long time since she had met another living being. 
At least, that's what she believed. After a few moments, Cozy looked out over the Sea of​ Ruins around her.
"You weren't the only one who thought we'd gone out there with everyone else when it happened ...", Cozy's dispassionate look took on a trace of her old malice when she looked at Twilight, "... the end of the circle."   

Twilight's body had calmed down by now, her heart had returned to its constant rhythm, and her interior had dismissed the facts as not overly special. Nothing that happened could upset her, as her soul dictated. But the bitterest of all memories, deeply sealed within her, and about to be freed by Cozy, still hurt noticeably, more than the light, more than the cold. 
“... Chrysalis, you and Tirek were here when it happened, after all. You were never seen again, everyone thought… ”

“ ... That Princess Cadance blew us, together with the sisters, Starswirl and half Canterlot into nirvana, yes. But we were careful, you know. Chrysalis and I weren't as stupid as Tirek to plunge right into action. We saw our chance and fled. And here we are now… ” 

“ Alive as a false Alicorn. ” Breathed Twilight with a look that made her feel old hatred. Cozy's smile died and she approached Twilight, just as much weight in the eyes as Twilight knew it from her reflection.
“Should I be ashamed? To be still alive? I know you don't envy me for that. ” She looked down at Twilight and lowered her eyebrows, but didn't grimace. Twilight approached her enemy close by.
“No… you should be ashamed to be one of the reasons for all of this. YOU… ” It 
boiled up in Twilight's throat, but Cozy Glow raised a hoof and managed to cut her off.
"Stop it. Not me, or Tirek, or Chrysalis or Discord, or anyone was to blame for
the end of the circle. That your dear Cadance lost her marbles at such an epic scale is something you can condemn time for, and maybe the question of whether one should really bring together immortal beings with those who are simply not.”
The cutting tone of Cozy's second half of the sentence did not fail to work and hurt Twilight deeply. Her doubts and thoughts, her memories, and her remorse agreed with Cozy. The pink Alicorn turned away from Twilight and looked without particular interest over the extensive ruins at the evening sun.
“We weren't the reason, just the means to an end. Tirek, who was apparently immortal as an aging old man and I, the first living pony who had created an artificial Alicorn - me. It wasn't actually that stupid to put her cards on us, I have to give the princess that. Too bad she ended up blowing everything up. ” 

Cozy wandered away, kept going through the streets of history, and Twilight had an inexplicable urge to follow her slowly. Together they walked in a direction that Twilight did not know, through unchanging light.
"As if you disgusting criminals had ever helped her." The lavender Alicorn hissed with a long-gone fire. She hadn't forgotten who Cozy was back then. Cozy didn't turn around when she answered.
“... 'Disgusting criminals', aha. The queen and mother who had her people and family stolen from you and was made an outcast. And the disturbed foal, that got even more disturbed in your blinded friendship school. Really, friendship princess, we were monsters. ”

An old feeling, that Twilight could not prevent. A scorching rage that made the rusty gears of her sleepy body rattle again. Twilight gritted her teeth and now Cozy turned to face her, a pristine, questioning look on her eyes.

“How can you excuse your actions after all this time? After everything that happened? Are you going to tell me that you were three innocent lambs?!” 

“No,” Cozy shrugged, “I want to say that Chrysalis and I didn't do what we did for no reason. We thought we were right. ”

“And ... and what about Tirek?! If you think he was just a victim, I can tell you- ”

“ Nah, Tirek was just evil. No doubt." 
A cheerless smile covered Cozy's lips and also reached her freckles, the Alicorn stopped, stared at the remains of the castle above them, then looked at Twilight with her bronze eyes. There was no hatred, no madness or false friendliness. That wasn't the Cozy Glow that Twilight knew.
“I think we deserved a chance to be understood. That's all. But isn't that something that one can expect as a faulty existence from the princess of friendship and the elements of harmony? Doesn't everyone deserve some sympathy? ”

Twilight's chest contracted and her mouth grew drier than usual, she stared into the dreary gravel in front of her and stared back into Cozy's eyes. 
"But instead", Cozy started and Twilight knew what she would say and she would have given anything not to have to hear it, "... you turned us into stone, with a smile. Damned us to remain motionless in absolute silence and isolation for years. No matter how loud I screamed, no matter how long I pleaded, my body remained stiff and my world black. ” 
Like a broken automaton, Cozy rattled down the words that were so far in the past and yet had to contain so much pain. The friendship princess avoided the eyes of her counterpart and scraped her hoof in the dust. Her mane covered her face, but her lips were unmistakably pressed together. Of course, Twilight also knew what role she had played in all of this. It was her constant stubbornness and insistence on principles that had brought about this greatest of all tragedies. In this regard, she was as guilty as anyone else. No, even more, because she was not petrified at that time. 
But a voice in the back of her head did not allow her to make concessions. Not towards her. 
“You had to be stopped. It was the right thing to do. We did the right thing.” Twilight repeated to reassure herself, knowing that there were doubts within her, that there always had been doubt within her.
Cozy continued to walk through the remains of the city and Twilight followed, slowly moving away from the palace, away from the Sea of ​​Ruins, to the wasteland plains beyond these mountains. 
“Many paths lead to the right thing. 'Friendship magic is more than rainbow lasers’, wasn't it?” The artificial Alicorn lightly climbed onto an overturned watchtower, which blocked the way, past smashed skeletons in rotten armors. Cozy stopped at the top and looked down at Twilight, who made no move to follow her. The princess was still sinking in her own shadow instead of keeping eye contact. 
“You could have been responsible for making your fucking school make me what I ended up being. Or for Chrysalis' treacherous children. But that would have meant admitting mistakes. Something in which you Alicorn types never really exceeded, not even when you got at each other's throats. Am I wrong?” 

Twilight's hoof froze and she took a deep breath before looking at Cozy with a tired look in her eyes. 
"...mhm. I admit ... we ... I ... made mistakes. Serious mistakes. ” 

"No shit." Cozy Glow commented dryly. Twilight was no more moved by it than Cozy by her lethargy.
“... why are you here, Cozy? Why now after all this time? So that I ask your forgiveness? What would that bring ...? None of that matters anymore. ” 

"Look around." 
Cozy Glow spread her grown-up wings and stretched her front legs to the side, pointing to the rampant nothing and the omnipotent evening sun around them.
“There used to be very different ideas about what hell looks like. Some ponies thought it was Tartarus, others saw redemption in it, but most feared it as a place of eternal torment. Nobody knew, so there was uncertainty. This is long gone, because hell is here now. And all of a sudden everything went quiet.” 

Twilight also looked into the twilight. Saw the red sky, saw the barren deserts. None of this was new to her.
“Yes… but the only two souls who could have changed anything are no longer. We cannot do anything. And believe me, I've tried everything.” 
The bitterness of countless hours, days, weeks, months, years returned to Twilight's heart, the struggles and hopes, the growing despair in her and every other pony of Equestria. The suffering of having to watch one important friend disappear after the other from her side. Until she was all alone and just gave up. A giggle from Cozy. Twilight looked up in surprise. The vague hint of a grin spread across Cozy's dry lips as she tapped her forehead with her left hoof.
“That’s the problem with you magic types ... you so reliant on all your special power, you forget to use your brains!” 

Twilight immediately remembered the words Cozy Glow had spoken to her, Celestia, and Luna. It was one of her few sentences that Twilight had never really gotten out of her mind and which took on a whole new meaning after the ‘end of the circle’. But now, in a situation where nothing happened and nothing mattered anymore, it angered Twilight.
“What are you going to say, Cozy? Why are you here? What do you want from me?!" 

Cozy noisily pushed down from the crumbled tower, took a few pebbles with her, but landed gently in front of Twilight, who was now staring at her deadly grim.

“What you too should want, Twilight Sparkle - finally escaping hell. Ending the twilight.”

Twilight had known instinctively that Cozy Glow was headed for such silliness, but she shook her head in disbelief and narrowed her eyebrows admonishingly.
“Impossible… The sun and moon haven't moved since they died, and since they couldn't teach me… like I said, I've tried everything. I had enough time to do so. I don't know what you've been doing for so long, but-”
thumpedhers 
Cozy pushed her horn against Twilights and rammed her forehead against hers, anger burning in her bronze eyes.
“Until recently I DID try everything Twilight, in contrast to you, who you stopped living a long time ago and are only rotting away lethargically and wallowing in self-pity because all your friends are dead, I went on. But it doesn't work alone. ”

"But-"

"The bewitching bell, fool!" Snarled Cozy and walked away from Twilight again to trot around the tower. Twilight followed, the image of that ominous bell in her head that had been used as a weapon against her long ago.
"The bell ... I forgot it ... but it doesn't exist anymore, does it?"

“Of course it does. As you surely know, Discord brought it here to use it against the sisters and their entourage and to free us… it worked, but unfortunately not quite as he and Cadance had imagined."  

Yes, Twilight went back. Discord and Cadence had used the bewitching bell to restore Tirek's strength as soon as they freed him from his stone prison. However, she knew nothing about the fact that he had successfully used it against Celestia or Luna.
"Did he ..." 

"Yes," nodded Cozy without turning around while walking, "he freed us, gave us our powers back and used the bewitching bell against the Sisters to deprive them of some of theirs. Only then did they transform into Nightmare Moon and Solar Flare, overwhelming Discord and Tirek, forcing Cadance to swell on to Eternal Amore. The rest ... well, you know about that.”

Nausea and terrible pictures irrevocably haunted Twilight, bursting buildings and burning bodies, a pink, atomic explosion, the screams of countless foals, the horrified looks of her friends and the guilt of not being there ... the Alicorn faltered and stumbled. Cozy Glow stopped and finally turned to wait for Twilight to compose herself.
"Hah ... hah ...I'll be... alright...." 

Cozy watched her with expressionless patience as Twilight locked out the horrors of the past and rose. 
“Does that mean… the bell still exists? With Celestia and Luna's magical signature within it? ”

A quick nod confirmed Twilight's greatest, yet most unlikely hope. That was what hadn't happened to her for oh so long. A little spark of hope. 
“Quite right, Chrysalis and I had grabbed it and were gone before the disaster peaked. We actually wanted to use the bell against you and Equestria, but we watched the situation for a while and realized that it hardly made any sense anymore.”

"Because Equestria already had put itself out of action..."

"When after a few years everything went down the drain, not only here but also everywhere else in the world, we decided that we had to solve this problem first before we could think of any plans. Well, it turned out that the twilight was more persistent than I assumed.”
Cozy spat into the ground in front of her and opened her wings to fly down the rest of the mountain. Reluctantly, Twilight followed her, flying for the first time in ages. Below them, scant bushes and overly amounts of rock formations passed by. 
"But if Celestia's and Luna's magic is inside the bewitching bell … you should be able to move the sun just like the moon." 
At least the magical signatures of the patrons were the key to the twilight in Twilight's knowledge. But before Cozy could say anything, she realized that she really relied on magic too much. If it had been that easy, they would have done it long ago.

“No, unfortunately that is not enough to end the standstill. First of all you need two Alicorns, one for the sun, one for the moon. Additionally… immense amounts of properly channeled power, since the bewitching bell carries only a small fraction of the princesses signature. Tirek's power went with him, mine is not enough and you… are just a shadow of yourself. ”
Cozy landed far from the foot of the Sea of Ruins in the plains around the mountains, which looked like a desert, here and there smaller animals moved back and forth between rare trees and bushes, in the distance something forest-like could be seen and hoof marks showed that before not too long ago other ponies had come through here - probably hunters, as Twilight thought. She couldn't deny Cozy's words.
"But I'm an Alicorn." she replied in a firm voice. Cozy turned to her and nodded as she looked down at her miserable figure.
"But you're an Alicorn."

"Why now? Why didn't you come to me earlier?”

“Chrysalis was reluctant to work with you, and frankly, I was too. From what we heard, you were among the persons who preferred our further captivity to averting the twilight, and so we stayed among ourselves, researching together how to use the bell.”

Twilight looked down with tremendous feelings of guilt. Yes, she too had denied Cadance and Discord and joined the princesses. Criminals were not allowed to be liberated, no matter the purpose. It was an uncompromising view of blind principles. A stubbornness that had cost everything and killed millions. Cozy ignored Twilight's pondering and went on.
“Chrysalis has been studying the bell all this time, she can handle it and release the powers in it at will. Moon for me, sun for her. After many, many years of fruitless attempts to adequately control them and move the sun, her time in this world is coming to an end. So I was able to convince her that we are running out of time and that we need a second Alicorn. Searching for you was a priority and there was no question that ending this hell is more important than our differences. But you are not enough. ”

"What else do we need?" Twilight asked straightforwardly, now that she had retrieved her soul. Cozy Glow remained silent and continued to look at Twilight until she understood.

"You can't be serious ..."

"Of course I am, or do you know anyone else in this dead world who has enough power to put us both on the same level as Celestia and Luna?" 

Twilight had no answer to that because it didn't exist. She bit her lip and closed her eyes at the thought of seeing him again. It seemed like the time had come to face all the horrors of her past.

"I know," Cozy whispered in a casual tone, "your last meeting was not particularly pleasant, all of Equestria noticed that, but if it consoles you, I don't dig a meeting too much either. But this is more important than our feelings. ”

She was right. The once so delusional, unpredictable, malignant foal was right. Twilight was still the ruler of Equestria. If there was a chance, no matter how small it was, to save her home ... no, to the whole world from the abyss again, she had to seize it. A thin, weary smile played over Twilight's cracked lips. 
“You are right, Cozy Glow. You have changed." 

“We all have changed, Twilight. But not all of us are still alive. Now come, you know best where you have banished him to.”

"Yes ..." Twilight breathed and closed her eyes again. With a long movement she turned back to the Sea of R​uins, looked up at her dilapidated castle, searched the boutique in the midst of the endless stone ocean, thought of the scale and the book in it. A long, weak sigh escaped Twilight's chest. 
A trace of color, a breath of life, crawled over her face, drawn through a long, seemingly endless period of hopelessness and self-pity.

 She nodded towards Cozy Glow and together they took off, away from the Sea of ​​Ruins, up into the twilight and south, to the place where Twilight hadn't been since that day.