Rekindled Embers

by applezombi


Epilogue: The Garden of Memories

Epilogue: The Garden of Memories

I know that many of the greatest books ever written do not have an afterword.  I imagine more experienced authors let their writing stand on its own, without some sort of final explanation tying up loose ends or a comprehensive denouement.  But I am not an experienced author; perhaps my amateur writing and inexperience have shown through in the narrative.  Perhaps that inexperience bred insecurity, leaving me with a need to explain myself.

Or perhaps you, the reader, have sensed that I do not, I cannot, look at history with a journalist’s objective lens.  I was there.  I watched most of these events unfold myself.  And though my ambassadors and diplomats have begged me to change the tone of my work, to better reflect a more modern and more diplomatic approach to the Empire’s relationship with the Diarchy, I can’t help but tell the story the way I experienced it.

The way Emberglow experienced it.

I miss her still.  Though it has been nearly three centuries since she passed, I think of her daily.  Perhaps part of that is because I have spent the better part of the last decade working on this book.

I pause, lifting the pen from the notebook.  My thoughts are jumbled; the words aren’t coming out quite right.  I’m not sure exactly how to explain myself.

I feel inadequate.  A silly notion, really.  I am Rarity, after all.  Element of Harmony, Raiser of the Moon and Diarch of the Crystal Empire.  I am the Princess of Hope, the Flame of Prophecy and the Belle that Rings In the Future.  I have survived longer than most living ponies, and I have the experience to show for it.

At least, that is the version of myself I present to the public.  It makes me wonder if Celestia always felt this way.  I know Sunset still does; in our private moments, we share our hidden insecurities, our doubts, and our fears.  It is something Cadance required of us in our earliest days of rule—to share our burdens and learn from the pitfalls of the alicorns who came before us, so we do not repeat them.

Cadance looks so tired these days.  Today, especially, she will need my strength.  But for now, I needed to be alone, to come here, to this sacred place, this garden of memories, and write out my thoughts, however scrambled they are.

I touch the pen to paper again.  Part of me rationalizes that whatever I write doesn’t have to be perfect, because I can always go back and edit again.  But another part of me craves the honesty of an unfiltered pen.

I remember when I decided to finally write my own narrative of the Equestrian Civil War.  Historians and journalists had been asking me for years; nearly from the day we first returned to the Crystal Empire after the Battle of New Canterlot.  And every time I refused.

Part of it was that I felt unequal to the task.  Its very nature is daunting; after all it took years of research, diplomacy, travel, and even bribes to amass the sheer volume of primary and secondary documents I would need to finish it properly.  A hundred other authors have paved this road before me.  Many of them served as aids and inspiration, helping me to understand and uncover bits and pieces of the story of which I was unaware.  To those who came before, I give my gratitude.

Of all the historians, it is to Professor True Tale, author of Through My Father’s Eyes: The Great War that I owe the most.  Even though I watched Professor Tale grow up from a foal, I still think of him as the courageous scholar and cunning writer who pioneered the first comprehensive account of these events.  Princess Sunset Shimmer’s Phoenix Awakening was immensely useful.  There is also Echoes of Harmony by Gaston Half-Claw, and even the lamentably biased Faith’s Great Trial by Sir Chimera Opal of the Mystics.  Yes, I even read that piece of propaganda, no matter how downright worshipful it is, at times, of the late Steadfast Word. 

There is a part of me, even now, that still has nightmares about him.  That still wonders if we did the right thing, by letting the Radiants spirit away the empty husk of a pony that was left after the Elements blasted the Windigoes out of his broken, bleeding body.  They assured us that there was nothing left; that the Windigoes’ forced departure had hollowed him out.  

I understand he lived the rest of his days in a Radiant care facility, barely conscious.  I have a hard time not hating him for what he set in motion.

I pause.  Maybe I should temper my language a little.  But I let it stand for now.  Reading Sir Opal’s book had been an exercise in trudging through slime.  There is only so much slander a mare can take before she starts to take it personally, after all.  And only so much fawning over one of the most vicious villains I ever fought.  

I sigh and close the notebook for a moment.  The sight of the cover brightens me out of my funk, and I smile.  I am a princess, and have the vast fortunes of the Empire at my disposal.  In addition to that, there is my own personal fortune, amassed after years of fashion design, as well as three centuries of prudent investing.

I am, after all, still a business mare, even though my other responsibilities mean I cannot indulge in that side of myself as much as I used to.

Still, even though I could have been writing on the finest parchment, or a notebook with a chic design and a velvet-lined cover, something about this cheap, elementary-school pink paper notebook, plastered with gaudy stickers and a foal’s hoofwriting, makes my heart sing with joy.  ‘Best Princess’, it says in my student’s atrocious hoof-writing.  The stickers are mostly moons.

I truly understand why Celestia adored Twilight so.  The bond between a student and a teacher is a sacred, beautiful thing.  And perhaps nopony else will understand why I treasure this gift from my very young protegee, but I do not care.

It makes me feel connected, even though I am alone here at the Harmony Memorial.  Well, alone is perhaps not quite accurate.  Only about forty paces away I can see two Knights Resplendent, their enchanted bulletproof vests bulky under professional looking orange-and-yellow suits.  My own design.

I know that within earshot are half a dozen others, either hidden with camouflage spells or just out of sight.  Perhaps behind one of the many polished, black granite obelisks that dot the gentle green hills of the Memorial.  I look up at the obelisk I am sitting under.

None of the monuments have names; rather, each one has three sides, and are decorated simply with a cutie mark, carved into each side.  Each obelisk represents someone who bore an Element of Harmony, who has passed.  This one, in particular, is a cross with a crystalline heart inside.

Somewhere, probably later today, there would be a new obelisk erected; one with Heartwing’s butterfly-in-profile cutie mark.

I made sure they were putting it next to Terminus Flash’s. 

I know nopony thinks of the Memorial as a graveyard.  For good reason; the Elements are not buried here.  But I seldom visit Emberglow’s gravesite.  I shall probably not visit Heartwing’s much either.

When I need to feel connected to my friends, I come here.  And today, on the day after Heartwing finally passed, I need to feel close to him.

Oh, there will be memorial services.  There are already a thousand notifications on my phone; I’ve set the blasted thing to silent mode for now.  A rare event—I usually like to have my hoof on the pulse of my subjects’ trends and foibles.  Of all the technologies that came about after The Return, smartphones and social media are by far the most useful and the most annoying. 

Besides, the planning can wait; I need some time to process by myself, first, in this place of peace.

I will have to stand and give speeches.  I’ll weep like a babe; centuries of life have not changed the fact that I’m an irredeemable drama queen. 

Besides, it’s what Heartwing would have wanted.  I can almost hear his voice now, teasing me.  I can already feel the tears on my cheeks, even as I smile.  He always was one to laugh at the most inopportune time.

For a while, he was my anchor.  As the Elements, my Elements, started to pass on from old age, he was there by my side for each one.  Nopony can truly be ready for something like that, but he did his best to prepare me. 

He lingered, too.  I got the sense that he was staying for Sunset and I, to make sure we would be fine. 

Yesterday, he finally passed on.  When I am ready, I will go search the sea of stars that shine down on the Path, and find his.  The old soul deserves another rebirth, at least.

I shake my head.  My thoughts truly are scattered today.  Perhaps I shouldn’t be writing this on the eve of Heartwing’s funeral.  But it seemed like a fitting mood for the closing chapter.

It was Sir Heartwing, finally, who convinced me to write.  Though people had been asking for years, it was his voice that swayed me, because he reminded me of one thing.  No matter how many accounts had been written of the so-called Great War, none had been written about Emberglow herself. 

There have been, of course, other accounts.  Professor True’s book is a biography of his father.  Sir Opal’s piece biographies Sir Steadfast, though with dubious accuracy.  Even Sunset Shimmer gave her perspective.  But I had never allowed a single journalist to access the most intimate of accounts; Emberglow’s own journals and writings.

And she did write about it.  Topaz Glitter suggested journaling as therapy for all of us, as the trauma of those events still plagued our nightmares and weighed fresh on our minds.  I don’t believe Emberglow ever intended for any of these events to be made public; however, I can think of no better way to memorialize her than to remember who she was, and to share this beautiful pony’s life with all of you.

There is a commotion amongst my guards.  They’re speaking with somepony.  I smile.  It is my darling student’s father.  How he knew to find me here, I cannot guess.  It’s probably her doing—my pupil is a genius at reading ponies.  I wish I could claim credit, but the spark was already there.

I know, because I saw it. In an alternate future, in another timeline, another reality, I saw the potential for greatness in her.  Given her own experience, Sunset Shimmer has warned me, many times, of the peril of my picking students the way Celestia did.  But even though Sunset took a rocky path to her crown, Celestia’s methods still work.

Time will tell if my darling student will rise to the potential I saw in her.  But, even if she doesn’t become an alicorn like Sunset or I, I know she will find another path to greatness.

My pupil’s father is done talking to the guards, and now I see her, bounding across the soft grass and between the obelisks, each one a memorial to one of the Elements of Harmony.  I see her stop and stare at the black granite upon which Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark is carved.

She does always love it when I tell her stories of Twilight.

When she nears, however, she slows down.  I see the nervousness in her gait.

“Sunny Starscout, my dear student.  Welcome.”

My words wash away the nervousness, and she gallops over.  I make eye contact with her father, and nod.  He looks nervous as well.  But Argyle is a wise pony.  I imagine that, even though I had canceled Sunny’s lessons for today, her perceptive father guessed that I might be in need of company, regardless.

“H-hi, princess,” Sunny starts, smiling.  “Um.  Is it okay that I’m here?  I know you wanted to be alone, but…”

She shuffles, one hoof rubbing on another nervously. A familiar motion, indeed.

“But what, darling?”

“But dad said you might need a hug.”

I have to choke back tears.

“I do, Sunny.  Today, I do.”

With all the unpretentious honesty of foalhood she surges forward, wrapping her hooves around my neck.  I hug her back.

“Thank you for coming today, Sunny.”

“Yeah!” she says brightly.  “Um.  I’m ‘sposed to say, sorry for your loss.”

She glances down, and suddenly her face lights up.

“Oh!  That’s the notebook I gave you!  Whatchya writing?”

“The end of a book, Sunny,” I say.  “Something very special, about one of the Elements of Harmony.”

“Sir Heartwing?” she guesses.  Of course that would be the first one to come to her mind.  But I shake my head.

“No.” I point at the obelisk above us.  “Do you remember who this mark belonged to?”

I can see her thinking, remembering her studies.  “Lady… Emberglow.  Element of Honesty.  The… second one?”

“Third, actually,” I correct.  “For before Applejack and Emberglow, the Elements were borne by the Sisters, Celestia and Luna.”

I wonder how much I sound like Twilight Sparkle.  Do I have a lecture voice?  Probably not, but I still sometimes feel her watching me whenever I teach.  I sometimes still imagine the smell of libraries, of old paper and ink and dragonfire.

I hope I am half the teacher she was.

“Oh, right!” Sunny says.  “And Emberglow was also…”

Her eyes widen. 

“…um.  Your wife.”  Her gaze darts between the obelisk and my face.  “Um.  You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, I am,” I say.  I smile at her.  “It’s hard to write a book about somepony if you’re not thinking about them.”

“Can you read it to me?  Like a story?”

Her eager joy makes my heart sing.  I wonder if Celestia felt like this as a teacher.  I know Twilight did.

“It might be a little scary for young ponies,” I tease, knowing what’s coming immediately after I speak.

Sunny stands up tall, puffing out her chest and trying, subconsciously perhaps, to make herself look as large as possible.  “I’m old enough!”

“Well, then, we shall have to start at the beginning, won’t we?” I say.  “But not right now.  I’m still writing the book, after all.”

There will be a whole process afterwards.  The editors already have the main body of my manuscript, and are likely hard at work.  It will be months until publishing time.  But I find myself impatient to share Emberglow’s life with an eager listener. 

“Can I help you write?”

“Hmm.  Well, what if you stay with me as I write?  You can read as I do.”  Maybe not the most efficient way of writing, as I know she’ll have questions.  She always does.

Sunny slides in so she’s sitting next to me on the grass, and I slide the notebook so she can read.  Lighting my horn, I levitate the pen and keep writing as she catches up.

I suppose, though, at the end of it all, I wanted to write Emberglow’s story not just as a history, or as a textbook.  I didn’t want to write a mere biography. 

I wanted a narrative, an epic that would capture the feel of those days, the tension and passion, the terror and elation.  It wasn’t about facts, it was about emotion.  Because no mere list of facts would ever come close to what I remember.

Perhaps that is why I cannot ever be objective.  A part of me wishes the reader could live those days at our side, to understand just what it meant to me.  And to be her.  Perhaps it is not just the reader I wish to put into Emberglow’s shoes, but myself.  I want to once again hurt when she hurts, and cry when she cries, and laugh when she laughs. 

“Why?”

Sunny’s voice interrupts my train of thought.  She’s pointing at the passage I just wrote.

“Why what, my student?”

“Why do you want to hurt and cry, like your wife?”

It is a foal’s question, of course.  But there is a sort of wisdom to it, a wisdom that Emberglow realized, in that last, desperate moment. 

“Because sometimes we have to embrace those things: pain, fear, and doubt.”  Three centuries of life have given me experience, perhaps, but some things are still hard to articulate.  “Emberglow understood how to allow herself to feel those things, to make them a part of her, without ignoring or rejecting them.  The dark parts of our lives are still parts of our lives, and when I feel what Emberglow felt, even in her dark moments, it’s like she’s with me at my side again.”

“Oh.”  She is clearly trying to wrap her head around the idea.  I wait for more questions, but Sunny is busy thinking.  So I write some more.

I hope the reader will not see me as being self-indulgent.  Perhaps this whole exercise was something I did for myself, something I undertook so that I could better remember my beloved.  Perhaps only I will find value in it, and if so, I am satisfied.

But my hope is that this chronicle will have some value for someone out there.

“Princess Rarity?”

Sunny is looking up at me.  She’s troubled.

“Yes, my student?”

“When you’re done with your book, and after you read it to me, can you help me with something?”

“Of course.  What do you need?”

She points at the page again, at the passage about my hope that my self-indulgent project will be of some use to somepony.

“Um, this.  When you’ve told me Lady Emberglow’s story, would you help me write a book?  About my mom?  I don’t remember her much, but I love her.  And I want to remember too.  Like you.  I want to feel what she felt.”

Tears clouded my vision again, and I looked at the last words I wrote.

Perhaps that would be sufficient for an afterword.  Especially if, before it was even published, it was already inspiring my pupil.

“Of course I will, my dear student.  Of course I will.”

The cycle continues.

The Path is eternal.

The heart never forgets.

The End