Sunny was still trying to process a whirlwind of emotions as she looked out at Maretime Bay from the window of her newly rebuilt house. So much had happened in so short a span of time. To think it hadn't even been a month since she'd begun to bring magic back to the world she knew, and in the process had taken those fateful first steps towards her dream of uniting the three pony tribes once again. There was still lots of work to be done, but she was confident that with the help of her new friends (as well as her old childhood friend Hitch) she could succeed.
But whereas most ponies in her horseshoes would probably want to kick back and take it easy, Sunny Starscout was restless. There was still so much she didn't know yet but wanted to know. So much she wanted to do yet didn't know how to begin doing it (or even attempt it). It was times like this that made the young mare miss her father. He'd always been there to help guide her when she was lost.
"Oh, what to do? What to do?" Sunny pondered aloud while pacing back and forth. It was a beautiful day and Maretime Bay was bustling with activity. Unicorns and pegasi were now frequent sights in the formerly earth pony only town, and with Hitch back at his old job as sheriff the town was peaceful and happy. She knew she should be out there now, making the most of the day. Yet here she was, stuck indoors while debating in her head what her next step should be.
There was still one thing that nagged at Sunny almost completely. It had been lingering in the back of her mind ever since she'd found out about the crystals and had tried to bring them together. What was it that had caused the pony tribes to separate? She'd grown up on the stories of Princess Twilight and her friends, on their many adventures as they'd spread the magic of friendship far and wide. How had it all gone wrong? No amount of research had yet yielded an answer.
So the earth pony turned alicorn began to think, and think and think some more. The three crystals had to be important even if they didn't actually contain any magic within them. But the only information she had on them was those neglected and long forgotten stain glass windows beneath Zephyr Heights. Apparently, the pegasi had taken over Equestria's old capital at some point after the unicorns had moved out. And they'd built their new city right on top of the foundations of the old one, erasing most of what had been there before.
Sunny briefly thought about maybe asking Queen Haven or even Alphabittle. At the least they might be able to tell her how the pegasus and unicorn crystals had ended up in their possessions. Then again, neither of them had appeared to know that the crystals existed, the former had simply used it to decorate her crown and the latter had just kept it stored away at that bar of his. "And it was only by luck that I found the third crystal. I doubt Dad knew what it was, even he didn't know everything." She thought to herself, again regretting that her father had long been dead and thus she had no way of asking him directly. And she doubted that her newfound powers gave her the ability to resurrect the dead.
Suddenly, while looking to the seven figurines that adorned the shelf by her old bed, the young earth pony turned alicorn got an idea! She couldn't really explain what it was that had struck her, it was almost like a spark but it didn't feel like one. All she knew was that there was somepony she could ask, somepony who should yield the answers! None other than Princess Twilight herself!
And as if her mind was operating on auto-pilot, Sunny Starscout knew what she had to do! "Of course!" She said aloud! "Sunny, you're a genius! Why didn't you think of this sooner?!" With a giggle and a gleeful smile on her face, she concentrated all of her newfound magic into her horn and aimed it directly at the Twilight figurine as she pulled it off the shelf!
There was a great big flash that momentarily blinded Sunny. But when she opened her eyes, standing before her was none other than Princess Twilight in all her glory. She looked a great deal... bigger than the figurine of her, but that skunk stripe in her flowing mane left no doubt as to who she was.
Sunny was overjoyed! "It's you! It's really you!" She could barely contain her excitement!
Princess Twilight blinked slowly, as though she had just been woken up from a long slumber. "I'm... alive," She commented as she opened her mouth and examined her hooves. "But... how? And why?"
Sunny Starscout immediately leapt for joy, practically rushing up to the pony she'd admired for so long and had been so inspired by! "Princess Twilight! Oh, you don't know how long I've dreamt of this moment!" Then she blushed and giggled. "Oops. Silly me, totally forgot to introduce myself. I'm Sunny Starscout, or I guess 'Princess Sunny Starscout' seeing as I'm an alicorn now, just like you."
Twilight extended a hoof. "A pleasure to meet you in pony, Sunny Starscout."
At that Sunny stepped back a bit. "What do you mean 'in pony'? I thought you were... you know..."
"I was and yet I am not," The older alicorn vaguely answered. "Although my physical body no longer existed, I was able to see everything that you and your friends embarked upon from my own place. A place that no mortal pony can access. It was almost like being in suspended animation. But it seems you found a way to summon me back to the world of the living, at least for now."
The younger alicorn nodded. "Yeah, I did do that, didn't I? Ever since I became an alicorn, there's been so many things flowing through my mind. Almost all of them magically related. And it's been hard not to act upon them. I'm not used to having all this incredible power."
Twilight nodded back. "Believe me, I know what that is like. I myself had to get used to so many things upon first becoming an alicorn. In time, you'll get used to your new wings and horn," Then she looked around, her eyes scanning every nook and cranny of her surroundings. "This is where you've chosen to live? An old lighthouse?"
"Well, it belonged to my dad. And when he passed away, the lighthouse was left to me," Sunny Starscout explained as she then let out a longing sigh. "Along with a few other things, most of which he made for me when I was a little filly. But one of them turned out to be more important than anything else."
Twilight immediately responded. "You're referring to the lamp that housed the earth pony crystal, are you not?"
Sunny immediately answered. "Yeah. I mean, did he know when he built that thing what the crystal was or why it existed? I'm kind of thinking he didn't, or he wouldn't have left it inside the lamp for so long. It was just a stroke of luck I found it when I did."
But Twilight Sparkle snickered as she confessed. "That was not luck, that was my doing. I could sense how upset you were that your quest had seemingly ended in failure. All along, I was waiting for you to discover what was right in front of you. And when you needed it most, I decided you needed a little nudge in the right direction."
Sunny gasped as her eyes widened! "Wait, you saw everything?! Then why didn't you help me or my friends at any point prior? We could've certainly used some of that guidance when we were trying to get the pegasus crystal away from Queen Haven, or when we were all trying to stop Sprout after he declared himself emperor."
"It was not my place to intervene," The older alicorn vaguely explained. "You had not needed my help to make the discoveries that led you on your journey. And it was the bonds you had made along the way that led you to your victory."
The younger alicorn then replied. "Well, at least you're here now. You must be able to help me with bringing friendship back to the three pony tribes, right? Right?!"
However, Twilight paused and took a deep breath as her lip quivered and trembled. "I wish I could, Sunny. But... I'm afraid it's not that simple. So much has changed since my time. The world you have brought me back to is an Equestria I barely recognize. On the surface it seems similar, yet I know that it is so vastly different."
"Then, why have you come back?" Sunny questioned as she trotted up to Twilight once more. "And for that matter, how could everything just fall apart? You and your friends did so much for Equestria, so much for friendship. How could it all have gone wrong?"
Twilight Sparkle seemed to get an idea as she gazed at the figurines of herself and her friends that rested on a nearby shelf. Locking eyes with Sunny, she then made her own horn begin to spark as she declared. "If you truly wish to know, I can show you. But be warned, you may not like what you see."
Sunny boldly proclaimed to Twilight! "I'm ready for anything! If I'm going to carry on your legacy, I need to know where it was that everything you worked for went awry. What it is that you were trying to do before your time came to an end?"
Twilight grabbed Sunny by the hoof and held her tightly. "Very well then. Just hold on tight!" And without warning, there was another blinding flash that enveloped the entire room!
When the flash had faded but a moment later, Sunny Starscout could see two things quite clearly: The first and most noticeable was that Princess Twilight had changed considerably in appearance. She now more closely resembled all those historical depictions of her, from when she had been younger and had achieved so many of the things she was now famous for.
The second was that the two alicorns were clearly no longer in Maritime Bay. Instead, a massive void of floating stars that stretched on forever could be seen everywhere that Sunny looked.
The void was not empty for long. Suddenly, various screens started appearing before the two alicorns as Sunny found herself at a loss for words.
A much younger looking Twilight just explained (her voice barely changing as she did so). "I suppose it all really started when my friends and I triumphed over The Legion of Doom on what was to be my coronation day. I was so swept up in the feeling of victory, and relief that Equestria had stood. Yet only now that I look back on it do I see the warning signs I should've heeded. I'd seen for myself how easily the three pony tribes could be turned against one another, how easy it was for fear, mistrust and hatred to take hold. Just because I had been able to stop it once didn't mean it could never happen again."
Sunny tried to protest. "You had every reason to think you'd united Equestria forever. The windigos had been vanquished and you were able to preside over the longest period of peace Equestria had ever known."
"It is always in times of peace that we grow most complacent," Twilight shook her head as screen after screen cycled through her many accomplishments: From the day of her coronation in Canterlot to the day she had abdicated the throne and retired. All throughout it, she seemed to age very slowly or even not all. But suddenly, one screen commanded attention as Twilight pointed to it. "I myself was slow to realize what was happening. I'd become so concerned about expanding friendship to other nations, I barely noticed as the changes made so many ponies uneasy. I began to ask myself how this could've happened, and that's when it hit me!"
The image displayed on the screen showed Twilight looking over several stained glass windows in the old throne room of Canterlot, looking up at them not with happiness over the memories that had been preserved but with sadness and worry.
The present Twilight explained to Sunny. "My friends and I, we had become idolized. Held up as these perfect examples for other ponies to follow. What flaws and mistakes we did have were papered over or covered up," As if to prove her point, she made the figurines from Sunny's house appear in front of her. "We had been reduced to icons and symbols. Parents could tell their foals bedtime stories about how we always came together to defeat evils big and small. Too late, I realized that I hadn't sought to correct the narrative. And my friends had all been too busy with their own lives to take notice. Like me, they all believed that because everypony they knew who we really were, the same must hold true for all of Equestria."
"But you were legends!" Sunny sought to protest! "What you all did was amazing! And you inspired so many ponies, myself included!"
The present Twilight nodded her head. "Yes, Sunny. But you became inspired by legends, legends not unlike the pillars of old that my friends and I idolized: Until we learned that they were not mere legends, they were real ponies with their own identities and their own imperfections," To emphasize her point, a screen flashed by that showed a past memory of a then still only princess Twilight talking with a bearded unicorn Sunny recognized as Starswirl the Bearded. "I saw it for myself that Starswirl the Bearded, the very pony who had tutored the royal sisters in magic, could be quick to judgement and quick to anger. He was far from the perfect figure I had imagined him to be."
"And that was when you taught him and the other pillars that forgiveness was an important part of friendship," The still younger alicorn spoke up as she looked at the memory more closely. "That's what inspired me to forgive Sprout for wrecking my home and turning Maritime Bay's citizens into an angry mob."
"Forgiveness is indeed important, Sunny. But that's not the point I wished to make," The older alicorn ominously answered as the memory faded away. "My point is that, much as I could be blinded by idolization, so too could the same happen to my subjects. As time went by, my friends and I ceased to be real ponies and became these idols worth putting on a pedestal. Plays were written about us, stories were told that glorified our adventures while leaving out what were thought to be unnecessary details, we had become what I always feared we'd be seen as: Flawless."
Sunny protested again as she approached Twilight. "What's wrong with being seen as flawless? Doesn't everypony want to be remembered for the good things they did and not the bad things they did? I don't think Sprout would want ponies to remember what he did while he was sheriff, anymore than I think Queen Haven would want to be remembered solely as a deceiver."
Twilight only shook her head. "Even we alicorns are not perfect, Sunny. Contrary to what some ponies might believe, we are not these all powerful and all knowing deities. Princess Celestia was shocked to learn that ponies worshipped her as if she were a god. But alicorns are mortal, just like everypony else. We can and do make mistakes."
"But it seems like you didn't age a bit while you were supreme ruler," Sunny indicated, before gasping! "Does this mean I'm going to end up like you?! Watching all my friends grow old and die while I remain forever young, barring some unforeseen unfortunate circumstance?!"
In stark contrast to her earlier somberness, Twilight couldn't help but chuckle as she reassured her fellow alicorn. "You needn't worry, Sunny. The reason why Celestia and Luna lived as long as they did, and the reason why I didn't seem to age much while on the throne is because the crown itself prolongs one's life. It was just as much a shock to me as it was to everypony else when my age caught up with me soon after I had stepped down. I don't foresee that happening to you. I imagine you will live a long life and will grow old alongside your friends."
"Then, why was there no successor to you? If you knew you weren't going to live forever, why didn't you have somepony ready to take over from you?" Sunny Starscout pondered and questioned. "Didn't you have a student that you tried to teach the magic of friendship to?"
"If you refer to Luster Dawn, she learned on her own time. But when I offered her the throne she declined," Twilight explained as a memory came floating by on a screen, showing a much older version of herself talking with the aforementioned Luster Dawn in a throne room that had clearly seen better days. It looked as if it were just barely holding itself together, the carpet was torn up, some of the marble was starting to chip and even the stained glass windows had lost their shine. "It seemed that the ponies had grown tired of having someone make all the decisions for them. They believed that no one could ever be as great as I was, and try as I might I could not convince Luster Dawn or anypony else that I knew that they could make a fine ruler in their own right."
A realization slowly dawned on Sunny as she gasped! "That's where the crystals came into play, isn't it?"
Another nod from Twilight confirmed Sunny's suspicions. "I'd come to realize that, try as they might to hide it, the pony tribes no longer trusted each other as they once did. New technology and new changes had made it easier to live apart and make it seem natural. Rumors had been circulating for a long time, but I'd neglected them for too long. I'd sought to preserve and maintain our friendships with other species," A memory then showed up, depicting a Twilight not unlike the one from the previous memory as she fussed over the three crystals. "My intention was to give the ponies something to be proud of, like the griffons used to do and the dragons still did with their bloodstone scepter."
"But why were they broken up?" Sunny inquired.
Twilight winked. "I did it on purpose. The crystals would be hidden away. Only those I trusted would know of their whereabouts, and they were instructed only to unite the crystals when the pony tribes were able to trust one another as they once did," She then frowned. "Alas, I didn't live to see what became of my plan. After my death, the pony tribes fell into disarray. Without me to be a unifying factor, there was nothing to stop them from giving in to their worst instincts. Slowly but surely, much of my legacy was undone. The other species ceased communication with Equestria, the Crystal Empire became just a distant memory and my friends and I lived on solely as legends from a better time. The crystals became something to hoard and brag about, until you and your friends came along."
"Then... I guess it's up to all of us to keep doing what we did before," Sunny slowly realized. "We're to become the examples for other ponies to follow. But we're also to show through our failures how friendships can overcome obstacles and adversity. Or... something like that... I guess." She blushed.
Twilight simply clapped her hooves in applause. "Exactly, Sunny. And now that you know what you know, you have all that you need to succeed. When next you and your friends meet, share with them what I have shared with you. If you do that, I know you'll make me proud." And as she spoke those words, the alicorn began to fade away, almost as if she had never existed in the first place.
"Wait!" Sunny cried out even as a wind began to blow from somewhere unknown! "Will I ever see you again?! There's still so much I want to know, so much I want to ask."
Before she had faded away completely, Princess Twilight just declared as her voice took on an echo. "Do not be afraid. If you ever should need me again, you will know how to find me. I am certain we will meet again someday." And those were the last words Sunny heard before she felt her eyes slam shut!
Sunny opened her eyes very slowly, finding herself on the floor of her house and in front of her bed. Had it all been a dream? It had felt so real.
Slowly but surely, the earth pony turned alicorn stood up and shook the cobwebs from her mind. No, it hadn't been a dream! She knew for a fact that she had in fact met with the real Princess Twilight! And she could still remember every word of the conversation she had shared with the alicorn.
So it was that Sunny, with a renewed sense of hope and determination, made up her mind! She wasn't going to stay inside her home and try to process what was going on. She'd done enough of that already. She had her mission, from Princess Twilight no less. It was up to her to inform her friends of the task bestowed upon them and to officially enlist their help.
Yet before leaving, Sunny Starscout silently vowed while looking back to the Twilight figurine on her bedroom shelf. "I won't let you down, Princess Twilight! I promise, I will carry on your legacy and bring the magic of friendship back to the ponies! And I'll see to it that they understand the importance of seeing the bad as well as the good." Had the young alicorn looked back before departing, she might have seen the figurine briefly wink at her.