Spike was so big, he could barely get through the hospital suite's doorway. He rushed to Twilight's bedside, leaned over, and hugged her. She cried a bit, and Spike pretended he didn't.
After a long while Twilight pushed him upright, keeping her forehooves on his massive arms while she looked him over.
"Well, you certainly aren't my little brother any more!" she said. Looking more carefully, she frowned and lifted her hoof to gently touch the jagged scar that ran along his jaw.
"How..."?"
"It's… It's a long story Twi," he rumbled. "I… I shouldn't be here. Celestia wanted to be the first to talk with you, but… But I wasn't going to wait, blast her!"
Twilight was shocked. She had never imagined that Spike would speak of Princess Celestia with such disrespect in his voice, or that he would ever disobey her.
"I knew you weren't dead. They gave up, but I never did," Spike continued, his thick, clawed hands clenching and unclenching in agitation. "They were angry with me when I didn't come to your funeral, and I've never visited your tomb because… no, it's not a tomb, it's that thing like one, but there's no body inside."
"Cenotaph," Twilight said quietly.
"Right," Spike nodded. "I was right, and Celestia can go—"
"Spike! It's okay! I'm back. I'm back, now!" Twilight slid her hooves down his forearms and pressed down on his hands, quieting them.
"Only you, Twilight Sparkle," came a soft voice from the doorway.
Twilight looked up to see Celestia standing there. She didn't seem to have aged a day, but she was different. She wore no crown, no peytral, and she was unshod. "I should have known. Only you could have returned after so long."
Her glorious dawn-colored mane flowed down her proudly arched neck and draped across her shoulders and back, gleaming even in the low light of the room. It shimmered as it moved with her body beneath, but that was all. It showed no sign of the magical mantle of power that it had once been.
Twilight stared at her in shock. "You… You aren't… You're not…"
"No, Twilight Sparkle, Luna and I rule Equestria no longer. You did not know of this? You received no news of the world where you were held captive?"
Twilight shook her head. "No. No, it was… It was time shenanigans," she finally said, not even attempting a more complex explanation of what she had been through. "It's only been about a month for me. But… But if you and Luna don't rule any longer, who does?"
Celestia sighed and turned to the door. "Your Highness?" she called.
A peach-colored alicorn with a striped mane of near-white hues stepped into the room. She was almost Celestia's height and a golden crown sat on her head.
Celestia cleared her throat and took on a formal tone. "Princess Twilight Sparkle, I present you to Her Royal Highness of Equestria, Princess Sunrise Aura."
= = =
Princess Sunrise was—nice. Nice, but a bit formal and aloof. Twilight supposed it was understandable. Meeting the pony that would have taken her position originally had to be uncomfortable for her. Princess Sunrise briefly let Twilight know she was welcome back in Equestria and would be honored as a princess of the realm. She didn't mention anything about any position of authority however, and left after a short while.
After that, it was a steady parade of visitors and Twilight retelling her story many times until a doctor appeared in the late afternoon and insisted that his patient be given time to rest. Twilight was secretly grateful. Despite all the drastic changes in her life since she moved to Ponyville, she was still an introvert, and being in a crowd for any significant time exhausted her.
The other reason for her relief was that her closest friends, even though they were overjoyed to see her, felt like strangers. They were so old. Most of them were married. They had children (In the case of Pinkie Pie, lots of them)!
Twilight realized that the years she had spent with them were now only a tiny fraction of their lives, a brief span now idealized by them into old stories that she could hardly recognise.
She maintained an iron self-control until everypony had been ushered out, and then she burst into tears. Spike, who had simply ignored the order to clear the room and had curled up in a corner, was at her side instantly.
"What is it, Twi?" he asked. "What's wrong? Should I call the doctor?"
Twilight couldn't speak for a while, but shook her head and grabbed Spike's claws with her hooves, and hung on to keep him from leaving or summoning anypony.
Finally, she quieted down and levitated over a box of tissues, going through most of it in order to make herself presentable again.
Spike sat and watched her patiently. "Overload?" he asked, when she seemed ready and able to talk again.
She nodded. After a while, she quietly said, "Everything's changed."
After another long silence, she said, "It will never be the same again."
Spike didn't say anything for a while, but then asked, "You came back from the future. That's what you said to Rainbow Dash, right? So, can't you go back in time again? Back to before you got foalnapped?"
Twilight drew in a sharp breath. "No! No, I couldn't do that to all of you! You've had lives, children, accomplishments, and if I went back, all that would never have happened. Things would be different if I went back and became princess. It would be like I… Like I killed all of you!"
Spike frowned at her. "Maybe some of us would like a second chance. A chance to grow up with our sister."
Twilight almost started crying again. She pulled Spike into an awkward hug and began to mumble out apologies to him.
"No, Twi, it isn't your fault. But, I wouldn't blame you at all if you decided to erase the last twenty five years."
Twilight released him and shook her head. "I can't, Spike. All those ponies…"
Spike hesitated a moment. He didn't want to upset her any more, but he had to ask. "But you did it once. You tried to go all the way back, so…?"
She sighed. "By entering the timestream here, I made you real. I solidified the change, collapsed the probability waveform, and... "
Spike shook his head. "No, I mean all those future ponies. The same thing happened to them, right? They won't exist now. Not in the same way, at least."
Twilight blinked in surprise. Then she gave him a sickly grin and a gentle punch on the shoulder. "Look at you! The voice of reason!" Then her grin disappeared. "But it's different. Everypony seems so happy now, and those future ponies… Well, they were… Something was wrong with them, and it wasn't just the insane supervillain that was their princess!"
"All of them?" Spike asked. "Not all of us are exactly—"
But Twilight had stopped listening, and had sat up straight in her bed. "Help me up! I just realized something."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm fine, just weak. Help me over to the window."
Spike did better than that, he lifted Twilight bodily out of the bed and carried her to the wide window that overlooked a swath of the old city of Canterlot.
Twilight stared intently out of the window. "I knew it! Ponies, zebras, kirin, dragons, hippogriffs, changelings, diamond dogs, some I don't even recognise." She turned her head back to her brother. "In the future, Canterlot covered the entire mountain and the valley and the hills. It stretched so far that I couldn't see the edge of it. But, I never saw a single creature that wasn't a pony!"
"Huh. Yeah, that's kinda creepy, I guess."
"I can't go back. It's not just that I can't risk turning into her, I can't risk Equestria—maybe the whole world—turning into that horrible place. No cutie marks, no purpose, no control when the Oracle takes over—"
Spike knew the signs. Even a quarter century since the last time he'd seen her, he could tell when Twilight was working herself into a stress-induced meltdown. "Then don't," he said forcefully. "Don't go back. Stay here with me—with all of us, I mean."
Twilight stopped, took a deep breath and nodded. "Right. Okay. I guess I don't have a choice."
Spike turned to carry her back to bed, but she stopped him. "Put me down, Spike. I want to stretch my legs."
"Are you sure?"
"Honestly, I'm fine. Well, fine-ish. I can stand on my own four hooves, at least."
He knelt and gently put her down, staying there to catch her if necessary. She wobbled a bit, but soon took a solid stance and stretched out her legs one by one. Then she rolled her neck around and swayed again before stopping. "Not too, bad. Celestia said Cadance, Shiny, and the kids will be here tomorrow, right? I'd like to meet them in the lounge instead of my room. No need to worry them, and I don't want to meet my nephew for the first time lying in a hospital bed."
"Right," Spike said doubtfully. "You might want to be sitting down, though. It's been a while, and ponies change…"
Twilight realized that she had been picturing Shining Armor as he had been before her coronation. Her older brother would be much older now. And there were some other ponies who hadn't visited that day. "Spike?" She tried to keep her voice level and calm. "Mom and Dad…?"
"We'll go see them as soon as possible," he hurried to reassure her. "They know you're back, but it's a long train trip from their place in the south, and they're… They're not up to it."
Twilight let out a breath that she hadn't realized she was holding in. Her parents, old and fragile, but at least she would see them again. Then another thought struck her. "Oh, poor Windfall! Her friends will… we have to find them. Contact her old outfit… Something! She'll be so disappointed."
"That pegasus that was with you?"
"Yes."
"I don't think she's even conscious yet, She was pretty banged up. Some deep cuts, busted wing and a bunch of ribs. The doc said they wanted to keep her knocked out until the bones had a chance to solidly knit. It'll probably be another couple of days."
"Alright then. I want to be there when she wakes up. I owe her that." Twilight snorted. "I owe her a lot more than that. Maybe I can arrange for a stipend from the Treasury… Oh, wait. I can't do that anymore can I? I can't even ask Celestia. Do you think Princess Sunrise..."
Twilight trailed off because Spike was vigorously shaking his head.
"What?"
Spike shrugged. "She had a rough start. Not too bad at magic, but good with ponies. The thing is, every time she made a mistake, or some crabby noble thought she made a mistake, or even a less than perfect decision, they kind of…"
"Oh, no…"
"Yeah. 'Twilight Sparkle would have…' or 'You're no Twilight Sparkle' or crap like that. Twi, she had barely been born before you went away and everypony threw your memory at her like a… I don't know, but she isn't exactly keen on getting to know you."
"Understatement?"
Spike laughed. "You can still read me pretty good, Twi. Yeah, I tried to explain to her that you were just a pony, that you had your flaws just like anypony else, but she… All you were to her was the name she associated with being attacked over her shortcomings."
Twilight groaned and sat down, lowering her face to her forehooves. "So… Chances of Friendship turning this situation around are slim?"
Spike cleared his throat. "I've been living in the Crystal Empire when I haven't been travelling, because… Uh… I'm technically banished from Equestria."
"What?!"
The young dragon shrugged his huge shoulders, making his wings flop outwards for a second. "She got snippy. I got snippy. There may have been some harsh words and some flaming tapestries involved. But she's the Princess, so… Anyway, I'm here by special permission right now. I have three days, and then the Royal Guards will start whacking me with sneeze trees or something."
"Spike, that is outrageous!"
He chuckled. "They gotta resort to cheap shots, Twi! My scales are too thick now for a spear to do much—"
"No! It's not funny! I won't stand for it! I will—eep!"
"You're not standing for anything. You're gonna lie down!" Spike said as he easily lifted her up and carried her back to the bed. "The doc would do that frowny thing at me if I let you get all upset when you're supposed to be resting."
Twi struggled for a second. Just long enough to realize how strong her "little" brother had gotten. "You're right," she said as she relaxed and let him tuck her in. "Of course you're right. So… Where does that leave me? I guess the Empire isn't a bad place to live."
Spike chuckled again. "You aren't banished, Twi!"
"I might as well be! If that's the way she treated my brother, then I'm certainly not going to stay here!" Twilight took a few deep breaths until she felt calmer. Then she looked up at Spike and gave him a sly grin. "Are you sure you don't want me to depose her for you? I could totally take her."
Spike laughed so loudly that the guard and an orderly stuck their heads in the door to see what was going on.
= = =
On the far side of the hospital, a battered pegasus mare groaned and tried to roll over. She fought her way to consciousness long enough to take a brief look at the small, dark room, and the shackles connecting her to the solid iron frame of her bed.
The irises of her eyes flicked a strange metallic gold for an instant before she sank back into unconsciousness.
= = =
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