“Princess Celestia?”
The alabaster alicorn’s ears perked up at the sound of her name, swiveling towards the individual who had spoken it. Her head followed suit, and her eyes soon came to rest upon the form of a lavender mare she knew quite well. “Twilight!” she beamed, her gaze brightening and her smile widening at the sight of her favorite student. “What brings you here this evening?”
Twilight Sparkle trotted slowly into the room, taking in a long, slow inhale before summarily releasing it through her nostrils. Her posture sagged somewhat, and it was clear that something was troubling her. “I… wanted to talk to you, if that’s okay,” the mare explained, raising her eyes to Celestia’s own as she ruffled her wings by her side. “Sorry I didn’t ask you in advance, it’s just…”
“Nonsense, there’s no need to apologize,” Celestia smiled warmly. The snow-colored princess scooted over on her pillow, unfurling a wing before tapping the newly freed space beside her. “I did tell you that you could come to me at any time for any reason, you know.”
Twilight nodded, shutting the door to her mentor’s chambers with a spell before trotting over to the larger pony’s side, kneeling down upon the pillow before snuggling up just beside her. Almost immediately did a serene, comfortable warmth wash over her as Celestia leaned in against her side, draping her soft, downy wing over the form of the smaller mare as she looked over to her with a grin. The lavender alicorn could not help but allow a long, satisfied exhale to drop from her muzzle as she pressed against her mentor’s form, firmly planting herself by her side with a determination to stay there for as long as she would be allowed. “You’re right… thank you, Princess…”
“It is absolutely no trouble at all, Twilight,” Celestia hummed as she gently hugged the mare. “What’s going on? Is everything alright?”
Twilight sighed again, shaking her head as she screwed her eyes shut momentarily before opening them anew, blinking a few times in rapid succession. “Not really. I’m in another one of those… funks that I just can’t seem to shake.” Turning to look up at her teacher, her eyebrows slanted upwards, and she unconsciously pressed herself just a little bit more tightly into her side. “I’m worried about almost everything all the time, I can’t seem to take any confidence or pride in what I do or who I am, and… each day just seems to be blurring into the next like some long and cruel trudge through a pool of molasses. I’ve been trying to keep my head high, but… each time I raise it, it feels like life finds a new way to knock it right back down with some comically oversized frying pan, or something.”
The purple mare turned her gaze off to some indefinite point on the floor, allowing her vision’s focus to dissipate as she gave an idle hum. “So… I wanted to come to you, and ask if maybe you could give me any advice? Is life going to be like this forever?”
“Oh, Twilight…” Celestia murmured sympathetically as she squeezed the smaller pony against her side with a wing and hoof alike. It was times like these where she sometimes wished she had the ability to manifest ponies’ troubles into a physical form such that she could smite them down ruthlessly—goodness knows how satisfying it would be, both for Celestia, and very likely for her student as well. But, given that she did not possess this otherworldly power, she contented herself to embracing the lavender alicorn, smushing her against into the side of her barrel as a hum left her chest.
For a few moments, they simply remained like this. The only sound to be heard anywhere was the gentle crackling of the fireplace nearby, and the occasional deeper-than-normal breath taken by either Sun or Friendship Princess. Tears formed in the pits of Twilight’s eyes shortly before she buried her face into Celestia’s fur, releasing a shaky exhale as the moments ticked by. Time seemed to stand still—and truthfully, neither of them wanted it any other way.
“It won’t last forever,” Celestia eventually broke the silence, her hushed voice barely above a whisper. As she raised her head back to its full height, she looked upon her student, a knowing look in her eyes as she gently ran a hoof back and forth along her shoulder. “But I know that that’s not what you came here to hear, nor is it something which really helps.”
Shifting positions slightly, the alabaster princess ruffled her free wing at her side, looking at the far wall with a nostalgic hum. “Life has a funny way of going wrong sometimes. It can take any number of forms, but tragedy will sometimes strike us hard, and when it does, there is sometimes little else we can do than just be within it. You could do everything right for the rest of your life, and there would still be things outside of your control that might one day find ways to needle at you; forces unseen and unheard that make themselves known at a time where there is nothing we can do to stop them.”
Twilight removed her face from her mentor’s coat, looking up at the snow-colored mare with tear-stained eyes as she cocked her head. Celestia continued, keeping her wing draped over her student all the while. “It is, unfortunately, a part of life. Sorrow has its day every now and again, and when it does, there is little that can be done to uproot it until it decides to leave of its own accord. However…”
Celestia cracked a gentle smile, turning her eyes back to Twilight with characteristic warmth. “That does not mean that it is eternal.”
“Whenever I was much, much younger… I was in the middle of a really bad ‘funk’ myself. A pony I had been very, very good friends with had hurt me in a terrible, terrible way, and it had left me feeling vulnerable and scared. I wondered if the good things in life were all just fleeting—if, perhaps, I was destined to live a life of naught but perpetual grief, with only mere moments of ephemeral joy and happiness sprinkled throughout it. When I approached my own mentor about it, I halfway expected him to give me a characteristically gruff response, and then just send me away so he could focus on his writing. But… when I came to him, he instead sat me down, smiled, and began to talk with me about a similar time he had had when he was younger.”
“What I remember most, though, is how he explained sorrow to me when he had finished telling his story. I even remember the exact words he spoke: ‘Joy and Sorrow are like two guests in your home who are never present in the same moment. While one is by your side, the other is asleep in its bed, slumbering until it is its turn and season to rise. While they are separate, they are also inseparable; one cannot exist without the other.’”
“It was confusing to me when I first heard it. When the meeting ended, and I eventually went back to my room, I was utterly confounded by what in all Equestria he could have possibly meant. But, although it didn’t make sense, I knew my teacher… and my teacher knew me. There was a reason he had told me what he had, and I was not about to let the mystery go unsolved. I meditated on those words for a long while—journaled about them in Harmony knows how many entries, and spoke of them with my sister many, many times.”
“I’ll spare you the details of exactly how I came to the conclusion I did, but what I eventually found… was something that gave me a new way to look at life. A new way to frame the funk I was in.”
Celestia then smiled a wide, warm, radiant smile at her student, wiping one of the tears from her eyes with a wingtip. “Joy and Sorrow cannot exist without each other, because we would not know what one feels like without the other. Joy without Sorrow would eventually just feel normal, as would Sorrow without Joy. We have no frame of reference for what it might be like if the other did not exist. Whenever we experience deep, far-reaching tragedy that cuts down into our very soul, it only makes the moment when happiness returns that much brighter—that much more blissful. Whenever we have moments, times, or periods where our hearts painfully ache, the day when it leaps for joy is a day we remember, and that we cherish. Joy is like fresh water, and Sorrow like a spade in the well of our soul: the deeper the spade digs, the more water the well may ultimately contain.”
“This does not mean we necessarily have to treat Sorrow like a good thing, or that we should be thankful for it when it comes. It does mean, at least in my mind, however, that we can rest content in the knowledge that when our Sorrow eventually falls back upon its bed to slumber, that we will know and appreciate and experience Joy in amounts even greater than we were able to before.”
With a tight, loving, caring squeeze, Celestia hugged Twilight once again, folding her hooves around the lavender mare’s frame as her wing acted like a giant, fluffy blanket atop her. Twilight, herself without words for the moment, could only return this embrace—something she did gladly. Once again did the two ponies simply remain there with each other, allowing time to slowly come to a halt all around them as everything else faded into the background. For the moment, there was nothing at all in the world but them—nothing to worry about, nothing to dread.
This too, however, did eventually come to an end. With a final hum, Twilight’s grip loosened, and Celestia’s did as well in turn. “The same will happen for you, Twilight,” Celestia smiled. “Sorrow may be with you now—but it is only digging the well of your Joy deeper. And when Joy next comes… it is my earnest hope that it fills your well to the point of overflow.”
For Twilight, it was as though a great mystery had been elucidated. As the mare lay beside her teacher, she found that words were still not forthcoming—but there was nothing that she needed to say. As her heavy heart thumped in her chest, there was a strange satisfaction she took to the knowledge that one day, it would be lighter than it had ever been before—even if that day was not today, and even if it would not be tomorrow.
It would be one day. And she looked forward with eager anticipation to when that day would so come.