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// I stand here where I remember your grave 
// Story: Standing Before Your Grave 
// by LittleFaerieFire 
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I find myself standing in front of your grave. Alone in the dark, long after everyone had left. I wonder if you would have been glad to know how many you had touched. From this world and beyond. I however need to apologize. I was lost held captive in my mind caught by the need to fix what had been broken. I was still searching for a cure. A way to save you. It is only once your counterpart had broken into our lab did I realize that I had missed you being laid to rest.

For the second time in as many days, I find myself in front of your grave. No longer coated in shadow but illuminated by the light. Just as you shined, bringing out the best in everyone. However, just like flames, the brightest of lights are the first to be smothered. Your counterpart after tearing through our notes had concluded the same thing as you. She took me aside and gave me a choice. One that I knew I would have to make. I always imagined that when I would make it you would still be by my side.

For the third time, I find myself in front of your grave. I am still here. Everyone else is here except you. In the past, before you came into our lives we were content with just us six. Now there is a hole in all of our hearts. In my heart. They are all leaving. Moving on with their lives. Graduating. Abandoning you. I left you alone once. Never again. I am still here for you.

Only after I was the last one did I allow my gaze to move from the pearlescent marker that has been erected in your honor. One of the last things that still has the touch of Equestria. It was your counterpart's final gift. She didn't care enough to save you, but she cared enough to give you a magical tombstone. 

You were always comparing yourself to her. Always striving to be equivalent to her. Never realizing that we loved you for yourself, not that we were reminded of her. That you never needed to be an Alicorn to be loved. Standing here in the darkness I wonder if my love ever reached you. I had always told you that I didn't care for your counterpart the same way that I did you. It was at this moment that I realized that you never saw yourself as the original. That you were the facsimile. That everything would be alright as long as we had her. Even if you were gone. Even if you left me alone. Did you truly believe that I would love her as I did you after you were gone?

Even in your final moments, you sought to save your friends. I wish that you had instead sought to save yourself. 

To the fight between midnight and daydream. You thought yourself a monster. Only able to see what could have happened. You were worse than me accepting the proffered hands. Afraid that you would be stepping into the shadow of your counterpart. I believe that is why you did what you did. You were still searching for a way to make it so that we only saw you.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Eventually, you grasped their hands and let them pull you out of the darkness you had been lost in. Alone for so long that you shied away from the light. We were always alike in that manner. We gravitated toward one another. Even when you thought yourself the only monster. You still found a kindred spirit in me. 

No, in truth we had found each other. It was as close to perfect as it could be. Those two months when we had become more. I still remember how you were babbling about needing a test subject to study a way you had hypothesized to produce love. How your face lit up when I kissed you. We became inseparable. Even as you attempted to scientifically study our bond.

We never told the others not to hide it but never announced it. It was surprising that Rainbow was the first to notice. I remember the way that you hid in my arms when she announced it to the entire school at lunch. I was almost certain that had you actually invented time travel as you planned. Another version of you would have shown up and stolen you away. Not that I would have let you go without a fight.

But as I stand here above your resting place. Alone with only the company of a slab of stone in the dirt to keep me warm. It was once a beautiful memorial that was kept in pristine condition. Time however erases all even my memories of you. What was once pristine worn down by the grains of sand that bring you ever farther from me. Far more than the initial distance that was between us.

I never hid my past from you. Even with all of your touting of the truth and hard scientific facts never thought it was true. It took you time to realize that you had found another monster. Someone else had been tainted by the allure of power. Someone that had failed.  When you realized that you broke away. From the group. The girls. Even from me.

They each tried to bring you back. Each in turn failed. Honesty could not find the truth to have you return to us. Kindness listened to your woes but still, you turned her away. Laughter failed to bring the spark of joy back into your eyes. Generosity never spoke of her attempt with me but from the shadows that trailed her, she had once more failed. Loyalty sought to stick by your side through it all, she kept moving forwards with you, and only until you set her free did she leave.

Magic once more lost to this world. Harmony disrupted. Shattered. Bloodied. Broken. Once more I had disrupted this world with my actions. What was worse, I had lost your trust. I had taken your heart and had much like Harmony before it, tainted it. Twisted the remains so that nothing could grow from its remains. Magic had no need for the pretender only wearing the flesh of her kind. You needed no one but yourself.

With Magic lost and once more covered in shadow, we continued on. When you wished to return Harmony would accept you. I wish I could have said that I was the same. Months had passed when I only saw your shade. For even your vaunted counterpart had fallen silent. Magic was once more lost to me forever I had feared. I did not believe that, unlike the first one that I had lost that I could continue without it.

When you had returned there was much joy and merry-making for most. When we locked eyes yours were filled with fear. I still pray to Celestia herself that I had not whispered those vile words when you had tried to apologize. How I had not compared you to her. How I had said what I now realize the exact thoughts that had initially chased you away.

Reconciliation and reforging the bonds that had once existed between the two of us took longer. It took the rest of Harmony to shove us into a janitor's closet and wouldn't let us out until we had made up or perhaps as Loyalty suggested make out. Even with your eyes ablaze with righteous anger your scarlet face more than matched them for intensity. 

That was our second beginning. I had promised you that I was not going to once more waste it. What I never told you was that I had held myself to a higher promise as I hid the tome that was my final connection to my first home. No more reminders of regrets. Focusing on the future with you in the present.

It wouldn't last as you had discovered. Something was coming and it was having a disastrous impact on magic. With my help, we could find the source. Equestria itself was the source of this impending disaster. Promises were made to be broken. I retrieved the tome to contact your counterpart.

She never did respond. Too busy on her end of the portal. Saving her Harmony. So you in turn did the same. You were the same you told me with hate-filled tears in your eyes.

We worked, tested hypotheses, and made predictions. In the end, we had a solution that should never be used. Looking back I know naught how I believed your lie for I knew you didn't believe mine. Both of us were planning to use it.

We spent our first and last night together

In the dead of night, we struggled. No longer as a dream and nightmare. But as Sunset and Twilight. Two identical forces that together could have altered destiny. Once more cleaved from its cloth.

I have run through that night countless times. To see what could have been changed. So that instead of you accepting that fate it would have gone to someone far more deserving. In the end, you won through the trickery of the heart and guileless combat of the mind. Once more you placed that device over your heart. Sealing your fate.

I once more find myself standing over where I remember your grave is located. All that is left are regrets and memories. You fought as long as you could. Holding onto your last gasp of breath. Instead of saving it, you whispered your love to someone who didn't deserve it. As even as you perished you thought I had never seen you. That I was only seeing the reflection of her in your eyes.

When the rest of your now broken Harmony had found me I was still cradling your corpse. I in truth cannot recount those next days as when I had finally found myself I had retreated to what was once our lab. With the grand idea of altering the fate that had befallen you.

I am sorry but I cannot keep a single one of my promises to you. I stood once more in front of the blasted remains of the portal to the place that had caused your miseries. The tormentor's terrors that had been hidden deep inside your mind. Waiting for you to falter. The place that I had once long ago called my home.

There was nothing more in this world that I could use to save you. When the sky burned thanks to the third and final act of humanity few survived. I had spent the time between understanding a truth so horrific that I was for the first time glad you were not here to witness it. That with enough power anything could be achieved. With that in mind, my plans were perfected. I left the poisoned remains of our world behind.

Five targets were sought out.

Love fell first through trickery and deceit. Shattered by the loss of her other half. She shattered just as easily as he did within my grasp. Her Love would allow me to stand even with the others. No longer would I have to rely on tinctures and poisons fueled by the dying remains of a now-dead world. Just as they poisoned our world I used them to poison the Love of another. My Love for you would fuel me.

Four stood between me once more reaching you. 

The storm's fury sought vengeance for her parentage. Her Devotion for her mother and father paled in comparison to the flames I still held for you. Her storm was burned. Her winds battered. Devotion herself brought low. I took from her, her Devotion and added to the pyre that had replaced my heart.

Three were left enraged by the loss of Love and Devotion.

Seeking the Moon, the Sun crossed my path. She, like you, was once my everything. My world was shaped around her. However, as I had told you I had given up my past. All that mattered was my future. I had hoped to leave her for last. I prepared for the Sun to do her worst, instead, she, like she had done so many times before, asked me for my reasoning. Why I had once more left the path I had managed to claw my way back to. My answer was to remove her from the board. I had once orbited the Sun and now the Sun orbited you. 

Two Alicorns still lived in Equestria, the land that had once been my home. 

That night still burned and bloodied that the Moon herself found me drenched in her sister's blood. There were no words, no thoughts, only the raging of someone who had lost their love. We were both fueled by tragedy. Even when she had descended into the darkness that had once swallowed her I still held dominion. From the feasting of Love, Devotion, and the Sun I had acquired enough to still her blade. If I did not deceive the Sun before the Moon had found me you would have been forever lost. I banished those thoughts when I reunited the Moon with the Sun. 

One alone was left. Your counterpart.

I found her with her Harmony. Her herd. She dared to decry that my actions were a pointless mess of murder. That my rage would do nothing but a cause for countless deaths. All this and more your counterpart decried hidden behind her Harmony. I showed her how our world ended. I had brought one of the devices that had caused its end with me. I had learned how to sustain myself from its gifts. Your counterpart and her Harmony did not.

Equestria burned under the hate of Humankind. Her Harmony was lost only as she stood alone amidst their lost souls. Once more we stood as Devil and Savior. This time however I had something far stronger than hate fueling me. You. Your memory. Your words. Your touch. They allowed me to strangle Magic with her own mysticisms. You proved that you were superior. That she was the facsimile. I feasted on Magic as she still struggled with her chains. Magic joined Love, Devotion, Sun, and Moon.

I once more stand in front of you all that remains is but dust and ash. I had to once more visit the one who made me whole. Once more I visited your resting place. This time for the final time. Where your tombstone once glistened now rests a divide between reality. Between time. Between what will happen and what won’t happen. I return to you the life that you gave me so long ago. I give you the last of my love as I step through.

“Sunset?” I hear you cry out.