“Still no new readings. Still nothing to indicate what did this.”, Twilight said. Her words were muffled beneath her face coverings. We were both covered head to toe, with scarves and goggles covering our faces and heads to protect us from dry, sandy winds that was now all my home was populated by.
I looked over what remained of Canterlot Castle out onto the crumbling buildings and brown, lifeless, rocky plains that haunt my mind. The greens of the grass, fields, and forests of trees, the blues of the sky, rivers, and waterfalls, the glimmering architecture of the city, and all the ponies that I would watch go about their lives from my window were all gone, and it was all my fault. I was off gallivanting in the human world while some unknown tragedy destroyed the land I was supposed to protect.
Twilight walked up to me and put her hand on my shoulder. Her hand, amongst all the destruction, the only thing to survive was the mirror portal, though not fully functioning as evidenced by our human bodies.
“We’ll figure out what happened.” Twilight Sparkle, my “partner in crime”, as she put it. It only seems like yesterday I met her. It was orientation day. We were being shown the ropes of our first big girl jobs. I didn’t give two shits about her until she showed me a project she was working on. It was an unassuming little thing, and I didn’t give a crap about it until it started beeping like crazy around me and only me. She had inadvertently made a magic detector. A couple days later, I dragged her and her device to the portal and explained my origin to her. Of course, she laughed at me, so I pushed her through the portal. She believed me then.
“But we’ll never be able to undo it. I failed as Equestria's hero.” I can still remember that horrible day, the day I stepped through the portal to claim what was rightfully mine only for Equestria to be gone and what laid before me now to be in its place. Celestia had not found my replacement in time, and everything had gone horribly wrong. “If I had stayed… *gasp* imprisonment or not… *gasp* I should have been here!” I clenched my fists so tight I could feel them going white. I wanted to punch something. The one pony that had cared for me was gone.
“I know.” Twilight rubbed my shoulder and spoke softly. “I know… We should head back. The portal’s closing soon.”
“Sigh, yeah.”
We packed up our gear headed back through the portal, which we had to duck to get through. At this point, we were both experienced enough to not be sent sprawling across the pavement. This was good both for our equipment and for anything that might’ve gotten scrapped across the rough ground. We lifted our goggles and lowered our scarves to feel moist, clear air caress our faces. I reached back to the portal, and the now solid stone was all that I felt. I wouldn’t see my home for another two and a half years.
Twilight took my hand and pulled me away from the portal. “Come on, let’s go home.”
We walked over to the bus stop and hopped on after waiting a few minutes. We didn’t care if anyone saw us in our wasteland survival gear. ‘We just returned from the dusty remains of a magical other-world’ would probably not be anyone’s first guess as to why we’re dressed as such. We’ll probably just end up on Weird Bus Encounters or some shit like that. We got off in our neighborhood and walked back to our apartment. We got back to our place and changed into something more comfortable, i.e. our pjs. I took our clothes outside and started beating the sand out of them before it could spread, not literally, but it’s sand, it gets into places you didn’t know you had places.
“What are you doing?!”, one of our neighbors asked from the upstairs balcony.
“Practicing for my role in Macbeth! What does it look like I’m doing?!”
The neighbor scowled at me then went back inside her apartment.
I gathered up our clothes and headed back inside. I dropped them off in the laundry room then met Twilight in the kitchen.
“Y’know, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
“Why would I want to catch flies?”
“It’s an expression. You should try being nicer to people.”
“Nah, I find people annoying and would prefer to keep them away from me.”
“What about me?”
I smiled and loosely hugged Twilight. “You are the exception.” I looked behind Twilight and saw a box with a bow tied around it on the counter. “What’s that?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot about your own birthday.” Twilight pulled away and brought the box over to the table. “Open it.”
I looked between Twilight and the box as I walked over and untied the bow. The box fell open, revealing a birthday cake.
“Happy birthday”, she said sweetly.
“I…”
“Wait, did you actually forget your own birthday?”, Twilight said as she let out a disbelieving chuckle.
“I didn’t forget. I just… haven’t celebrated it in years. How did you even know today’s my birthday?”
“I looked it up in your employee file.”, she said smugly.
“You hacked into the company’s database.”
“Don’t dignify that place’s security by calling it ‘hacking’.”
“They still haven’t paid for your security software?”
“Nope” Twilight grabbed a lighter and handed it to me. “Now, are you seriously going to tell me you haven’t been celebrating your birthday?”
“I haven’t.” I started lighting the candles. “I haven’t had anyone to celebrate with since I got here.” I put the lighter down and looked at the candles and cake. The cake had my symbol on it. Memories of years past flashed in my mind. Celestia always took birthdays seriously. “Being immortal teaches one to treasure every second you have with somepony.” The cake was probably also a factor.
“You’re supposed to blow out the candles, silly. Has it really been so long that you’ve forgotten?”
I rolled my eyes at Twilight, and she merely smirked at me. I blew out the candles and watched the smoke rise up. You don’t have to be immortal to learn that lesson. You just have to be the last one to survive.
“Hey”
I looked down at Twilight and she was holding two forks for us. I took one, and we took our seats and started eating.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Physically, emotionally?”
“You know why I’m asking.”
“Sigh, I’m the last of my kind, and the only pony to ever care for me died thinking I hated her.”
“Hey,” Twilight reached over and took my hand, “we don’t know she’s dead. We haven’t gone farther than Canterlot. Equestria might be the only place like that. She might’ve taken as many ponies as she could and fled. We won’t know until we find a way to traverse the wasteland.”
I slowly shook my head. “Equestria was the most powerful nation on the planet. If it’s gone, the whole world is gone.”
“Well fine then, I’ll keep hope for you,” Twilight smirked at me deviously, “last daughter of Equestria.”
“Ugh, again with that nickname. I’m not some comic book character.”
Twilight merely laughed at me.
“Fuck you, and I love you.”
“I love you too, asshole.”