“And that’s how it is. If Celestia casts the counterspell, the original timestream will be restored. I will be back where I left, right in front of Merrok, with all the knowledge I have obtained while I’ve been in this future. No matter what happens then, it will create a different timeline, and the one you live in will no longer exist.”
Everypony present had followed Twilight’s recounting of her meeting with Celestia without uttering a sound. It was clear that while Celestia had told them about Twilight’s displacement in time, reassuring them she would eventually come back, she indeed had told them nothing that concerned the counterspell.
Two ponies were the first to speak, at basically the same time.
“You have to do it!” declared Rainbow Dash.
“You can’t do it!” yelled Fluttershy.
Everypony looked at Fluttershy first, startled because she also had happened to be the louder of the two, and while the sudden attention gave her a bit of a fright at first, she quickly regained her determination. “We finally have you back! We can’t give that terrible lion another chance to win! We don’t know just what kind of magic he still has in store! He might just use the same spell again!”
“He will be caught off guard! Twilight will be prepared! And we’ll catch up to the two in time and give him the same beating we did before! We pretty much defeated him with just the five of us, with Twilight there he’s withered grass!”
“Don’t forget that Twilight herself is a source of magical power while in his presence,” Rarity interjected. “It might not be so easy to give him any sort of beating if she’s still there.”
“Well, he did tell Twilight th’ amplification effect works both ways an’ such,” Applejack said, eyebrows furrowed in thought. “I guess it’d all depend on what she’s got in store. I’d wager there’s a good number of anti-power-crazed-lion spells just waitin’ to be invented.”
“Thank you, Applejack!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed triumphantly.
“‘Course, no matter what, there’s still a risk.”
Rainbow groaned and stomped a hoof. “I know that! And I know that sometimes risks are worth taking!”
“But not this one!” Fluttershy spoke up. Twilight, who was watching the fight a mixture of surprise, dread and sadness, was amazed at just how loudly she did so. She’d seen her like this precisely once, when she had been arguing on Discord’s behalf during his redemption. “Merrok’s plans were foiled! No one died! And Twilight is back! We should be grateful everything turned out alright!”
Suddenly, now that there was a slight pause in the argument, the room was filled with the much quieter sound of tears. The heat died down, and everypony’s heads turned to where it was coming from.
Pinkie Pie lay flat on her cushion, head buried in her forelegs, and sobbed.
“I’m so sorry for yelling,” whispered Fluttershy, heartbroken. Rainbow Dash hurried over to her and gave her a gentle smack upside the head, then wrapped her forelegs around her while they both looked anxiously at Pinkie.
“Pinkie, darling? Whatever is the matter?” Rarity asked worriedly, herself on the verge of tears.
“I just,” Pinkie sniffed loudly, “I just thought about our next party.”
Twilight was the tiniest bit relieved that the glances the others exchanged with each other and her showed they were just as confused by that explanation as she was. She was also relieved that they were also exchanging glances with her in the first place.
“Why would thinking of your next party make you sad?” Fluttershy asked.
Twilight was overcome with a pang of guilt. “Is it … because if I cast the counterspell, I wouldn’t be able to be there?”
Pinkie stopped sobbing, rose her head and looked at Twilight with a raised eyebrow, still tearful. “No, silly, if you cast the counterspell, our timeline would no longer exist, so I couldn’t hold a party in the first place. Didn’t you listen?”
Twilight blinked. “You’re right, sorry. Anyway, I promise there will be a party, no matter what, so you don’t have to be sad!”
Pinkie blew her nose into a handkerchief with a PP monogram. “I know, silly. Celestia won’t be able to cast her counterspell thing over night and you will be staying a while even if you decide to do it, for research and things. More than enough time to have a party with you. It’s just …” her eyes got watery again, “I had to think about all the parties … you missed!” she cried out and burst into tears anew.
Glances were exchanged again. This time, they didn’t exchange confusion, but compassion. Rarity caressed Pinkie with a hoof to try and calm her down. Fluttershy pressed her head against Rainbow’s coat to seek comfort, and Applejack just tilted her hat downwards to hide her eyes.
Twilight just stared straight at Pinkie, miserable. She felt like she had to try and break the silence somehow. Try to find the words to mend it. “It’s not that bad, Pinkie. I’ll give you my word I will never miss a party of yours again.”
“You don’t understand,” Pinkie said, muffled, as her head was still buried in her forelegs. She rose and sniffed. “I just realized that because you weren’t there,” voice cracking, she fought with herself to regain composure enough to finish, “because you weren’t there, none of my parties were, were, were complete! I just had to think about you all the time, and I knew you’d be back someday, so I was always waiting for you! I always thought ‘This party is amazing!’ then I’d go ‘I wish Twilight were here’, or I’d go ‘What a wonderful day!’ and then I’d go ‘I wish Twilight were here’ and, and …” she lost it again.
“Now that I’m here, you realized just how much you’ve been missing me,” Twilight said gently, struggling not to let her voice break.
Pinkie nodded. Her sobbing died down again, and much faster than anyone had anticipated she had her forelegs wrapped tightly around a somewhat, but not very surprised Twilight, who stroked her back tenderly while they hugged.
“I don’t really care what you decide to do,” Pinkie said after a while, now finally smiling again, though as she was still hugging Twilight no one could see it, “I just want to be your friend always and forever.”
“You will be, Pinkie,” Twilight answered. “No matter the time or place or reality, we will be friends.”
“Yer gettin’ Fluttershy’s mane wet, Dash,” Applejack piped up, mischievously.
“Oh, shut it. The air is really dry here.”
Of course, they were all crying, and now less out of sadness than out of relief that Pinkie was better. Even with the tears in her eyes, she smiled brighter as she went back to her seat than Twilight could even remember her doing. She wondered if she’d smiled this brightly in those ten years she missed, and as she now glanced at her other friends, who followed Pinkie with their eyes with affectionate and fascinated expressions, she had to conclude that no, they hadn’t seen her smile like that in a very long time.
It took a while until everypony present realized that they’d been discussing something rather important before Pinkie had caught their attention.
“Where … were we?” Rarity asked.
“I think Fluttershy was the last to say something,” Twilight said, wracking her head. “Something about the risk not being worth taking.”
Fluttershy hid under her mane. “I’m sorry I yelled at everyone.”
“Don’t apologize, Fluttershy. No one’s going to think badly of you for arguing your point,” Rainbow chided her. “It wasn’t your fault Pinkie cried, either. Not everything under the sun is your fault.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry!”
“Oh, for pete’s sake! Will you argue with me already?!”
“I think I can argue Fluttershy’s side for a little while, Rainbow,” Rarity offered. “After all, now that Twilight is back, it’s not just Pinkie, all of us got back what we’ve been missing. Why take the risk?”
“‘Why take the risk’?” Rainbow Dash’s face hardened. She took off from next to Fluttershy and flew to the center of the room, looking at every one of her friends in turn. “Merrok took her away from us! Have you never wished you could’ve stopped him? Have you never wished you could turn back time and get another go at him?” She punched one hoof with the other. “I know I did! And now it turns out we can!”
“So, y’ want revenge?” asked Applejack.
“Maybe!”
“I know I want it, too, but you can’t let something like that guide your actions,” Rarity said.
“I’m not letting anything guide me! I don’t just want revenge!” Rainbow Dash let out a frustrated groan and frantically ruffled her mane, then looked back at Rarity, aggravated. “Are we going to keep pretending like everything’s okay? Like all’s fine and dandy now that Twilight is back?”
Rainbow saying this had roughly the effect of a punch to the snout on Twilight. She anxiously looked at the others, to check how they were affected. Applejack had a pained expression, as if she was feeling guilty. Pinkie Pie was strangely calm; the eyes she had aimed at Rainbow Dash were full of compassion. Fluttershy was just miserable.
Rarity was beginning to grow furious. “We waited for so long to even have her back! What more could you ask for?”
Rainbow Dash put herself down on the ground with a massive stomp, right in front of Rarity. “To have her not gone in the first place! I wanted her to be there when I got into the Wonderbolts! I wanted her to be there at my first show!”
She took off again, restless. She wasn’t looking at Rarity anymore, or anypony in particular, while the words kept rushing out. “When I won my first derby, she wasn’t there! When I broke the speed record, I couldn’t tell her! When I got my stupid medals, I asked Celestia why Twilight hadn’t got one for standing up to Merrok, and she told me it was because she wasn’t dead!” She cried, and didn’t care that anyone saw. “I wanted her to get the medal so I could think she sacrificed herself! So I could forget! She was gone for so long, I almost gave up on her! I’m the one who should be sorry!” With that, the pain was too much, and she curled up, trying to hide herself under her wings, falling and not caring she did. She wanted it to hurt when she hit the ground.
In an instant, Fluttershy was up in the air, holding her and gently guiding her downwards. She cried openly, but she smiled with kindness as the comforted her friend, who was still hiding. “You don’t need to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I gave up on her, Fluttershy!” Rainbow sobbed.
“No, you didn’t. We can all see that,” Rarity chimed up, gently, walking up and caressing her with a hoof of her own.
“We were all doubtin’ we’d ever see her again, sometimes,” Applejack added. “Givin’ up is when you start believin’ the doubts for good. Ya never did. I’d always wondered why you didn’t like talkin’ bout the medals. Seems to me they reminded ya of when ya thought Twilight was dead, and you didn’t want that, because you never started believin’ it and ya weren’t plannin’ on ever believin’ it, were ya now?”
Rainbow sniffled. Her wings started to relax. “No.”
Twilight, who had just followed Rainbow’s outbreak in a sort of daze, smiled, and slowly walked up to her. “When you thought, for just a second, that I was dead, you wanted to honor my memory and grieve. That’s what a friend would do, and nothing less. There’s nothing to forgive you for, but if it helps, I can just say it. Rainbow Dash, I forgive you. You didn’t fail me. I couldn’t ask for a better and truer friend.”
Split-seconds later Twilight had the fastest pegasus of all Equestria clamped around her shoulders, sobbing into her mane.
Of course, it was harder and harder not to lose herself in thought, when there was so much to take in. She had been so ecstatic to hear about how well everypony had been doing in her absence. She’d even started to feel a bit superfluous. After all, if they were doing so well without her, who was to say they’d do quite so well if she was there? Maybe she was even holding them back? After all, Pinkie, Rarity and Rainbow had left Ponyville in the pursuit of their dreams; what if they’d stayed, just for her?
But telling them about the counterspell had brought about a change in their behavior that she couldn’t quite believe. It was clear that she had been missed, but she had not even barely understood just how much.
The sadness she could read in the faces of her friends, as they stood around her with Rainbow still hugging her tightly, Twilight realized, was one she had never seen before. And she slowly started to understand why. This was the kind of sadness that needed time to grow. This was the sadness that ten years of her absence, ten years of waiting for her return had built.
Are we going to keep pretending like everything’s okay? Rainbow’s words were still echoing in her mind. Of course, they’d been ancitipating her coming back. And when she did, they wanted her to feel welcome. They wanted it to be the best return from the mists of time that anypony had ever experienced. They’d wanted everything to be like in the old days. After all, why dwell on the past that can’t be changed? And they had succeeded! It had been almost impossible to tell the difference! None of them had looked like they were now ten years older than she was.
Then she’d told them about the counterspell. Now they did.
‘No wonder Celestia never told them’, Twilight thought. ‘The spell required an object, she couldn’t have cast it without me. They’d still have had to wait for me, and also think about whether they’d even want me to go back and try again. Constantly look at their own lives and wonder if whatever they were doing was going to be undone anyway. It would have driven them mad.’
‘Focus, Twilight. This is here, this is now. You have to figure out what to do. Your friends need you to. Talk to them.’
“Rarity?”
“Yes?” came the answer, slightly nonplussed.
“How was it for you, me not being there?”
“Oh,” she said, slightly at a loss for words. “Well, yes. We should probably get that all out. I mean, Rainbow is right, of course, those were hard times for all of us. I guess we … didn’t want to burden you with them. This counterspell business threw us all for a bit of a loop, and oh dear, I think the last time I was stalling this desperately must have been a couple of years back, when a model had tripped over her scarf and her necklace burst and my jeweler was frantically crafting a replacement …” Rarity finally noticed the annoyed looks she was getting and let out a nervous laugh. She took a deep breath, and this time, looked Twilight straight in the eye. “Twilight, every so often, I’d get an image of you wearing a new design, and only after I finished drawing it to the last detail, I’d remember you were gone. I have a veritable doorstop full of them. I’ve been planning to move my boutique to Canterlot long before you were gone, ever since we did that fashion show with the Gala gowns, and I wanted the six of us to start it all off with another fashion show of ours. I actually had these wild dreams of making them a regular fixture. Had it all planned out, including the incentives I’d have to offer Applejack and Rainbow Dash to even consider it,” she chuckled, and sighed. “I did move, but Fancy Pants had to pester me for weeks before I did a fashion show a year later. I hired professional models, and have done so ever since. There was no way I could be on the stage, or any of the others, without you there as well.” She stood there, thinking, tears in her eyes, now silent, contemplating. “Say, you don’t think we could …”
“Of course we can!” Pinkie exclaimed. “It’s going to be the best fashion show ever!”
“I wanna hear ‘bout those incentives first,” said Applejack. “What were ya thinkin’ of for me?”
“Bribery.”
Applejack narrowed her eyes. “I’m not sayin’ that would not work.”
“It sure as hay won’t work on me!” Rainbow yelled out. “No way a Captain of the Wonderbolts would put on a frilly dress and parade around in front of the hobnobs! I’ve got a reputation to uphold and what in blazes are you pointing at?” Rainbow Dash followed Rarity’s outstretched hoof to find Fluttershy, sitting next to her. Looking at her. Disappointed that she’d refuse to participate in a fashion show Rarity had wanted to hold for so long. She sighed. “You win.”
“Of course, it all depends on Twilight’s decision,” Rarity pointed out, smiling. She looked at her long-lost friend again, eyes shining, smile unbroken. “I can’t say I haven’t missed you, dear, but I also can’t say it’s been a life not worth living. There will always be regrets, after all. But what am I saying?” She walked up and embraced Twilight, tightly. “I’d give anything I accomplished, anything I own, to have lived those ten years with you. Maybe I’d have made a living scavenging gems or somesuch, scrounging through the dirt to earn my meals. It would have been worth it.”
“Thank you, Rarity,” Twilight said, eyes closed, smiling.
“Well, I’d probably have bummed food off Applejack, too, the old sap.”
“Ah heard that!” came a yell across the room, not quite managing to sound angry.
Twilight and Rarity giggled and released each other, and Twilight’s eyes fell on somepony else. “Fluttershy, what about you?”
The question came as a shock, even though Fluttershy had to have expected it. What surprised Twilight, and made her feel uneasy, were the pained looks the others were giving her timid friend. Obviously, there was something there.
For a short while, Fluttershy had her head bowed, trying to hide it under her mane. Then she narrowed her eyes and rose up again. She looked straight ahead at Twilight. “I lied to you. I wasn’t fine.”
Twilight nodded slowly.
“For months afterwards, I was devastated. I locked myself in the cottage and cried. I blamed myself for being too late to help you, even though I had flown as fast as I possibly could when I heard the news,” she stopped, visibly ashamed, but managed to continue to speak, “Angel had to take care of me. All the other animals helped him. Then I heard from Celestia that there had been a time spell, and that you were displaced in time, and that you would come back eventually. That helped, a little. Then Angel got sick and it made me realize that I was still needed, and that I couldn’t just put everything on hold and do nothing until you could come back and heal me.”
There were no sounds. Twilight could see the others were listening just as intently. Of course they had known that Fluttershy had been suffering and probably tried to get through to her while it happened. This was probably the first time they heard the full story out of Fluttershy’s own mouth.
“I’ve started to wonder if it would help. If you coming back would really, truly, help me, after all this time.” Fluttershy’s eyes started to water, and her posture lost some of its determination. “It did. Oh Celestia, it did.”
And she ran up, and cried into Twilight’s mane, just like the others. None of her friends failed to realize, though, that of all the confessions uttered that day, hers had been the hardest.
“Applejack?”
“Yeah.” Applejack pushed her hat up. “I‘m up next. I know.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be, Twilight. It’s all of us who should be apologizin’. Like Rainbow said, we pretended. Havin’ you back can’t fix the pain of havin’ missed you.”
Twilight nodded. “So...”
“I know what it’s like to lose somepony who’s like family to you. Doesn’t hit you any less when it happens again. But, well, ya learn how to hurt less. ‘Course, I also knew you weren’t gone for good. In a way, it made it harder, ‘cause I never let go. But here’s what I think,” her expression went serious as she fixed her eyes at Twilight’s, “It ain’t for us to say whether ya should go back or not, and I think ya know that, too. I think ya were hopin’ that any one of us had suffered so much that there’d be no choice; you’d have to go back and fix it, and you wouldn’t have to think about it no more.”
Twilight went cold. She hadn’t looked at it in those terms. But Applejack was right. A part of her wanted a reason to do it, any reason, and had hoped to find it from her friends.
That was really it. She was looking for an excuse. If it might save someone, she wouldn’t care about abandoning an entire timeline, she’d just do it.
Hearing about her friends suffering for missing her - it had started to convince her that it was worth doing. Worth the risk. But then, there was Applejack, still suffering from losing her parents, and nopony could bring them back, could they? Everyone suffers. You couldn’t compare it, tally it up, and say “this is worth this much risk to undo”. Undoing usually wasn’t on the table. You had to deal. Everyone had to deal. A temporarily gone Twilight Sparkle? Nothing in the grand scheme of things.
The grand scheme of things. Twilight cursed inwardly. She hated the grand scheme of things. Thinking about it hadn’t helped her one bit. She wondered who’d invented it.
You’re allowed to be selfish. Celestia had said so. Twilight had been a bit puzzled that she’d said it like that, but now she started to understand. If she stopped thinking about how it would affect everyone, and only about how it would affect her, maybe she would know what to do.
But that was impossible. How it would affect everyone was what she needed to know to find out what she wanted. If it would help everyone, she wanted to do it. If it wouldn’t, she didn’t.
… By the stars. She’d hoped her friends had suffered, just for the sake of an easy way out. That was how lost she was.
As she struggled to find a way, any way, to find the words that would tell them how sorry she was, there were steps in the hallway. Loud, thundering steps.
Applejack turned towards the door. “Finally!” she said, joyful. “He made it!”
The door opened and almost crashed to bits against the wall. A purple dragon creature with green fins and scales stood there, saw Twilight, and rushed straight at her, arms outstretched to catch her in its claws.
She was beside herself with joy, forgetting everything else. “Spike!” And the dragon closed his arms around her, lifted her up, and cried, hugging her tightly.
“I’ve missed you so much!”, he roared. It sounded like a roar to Twilight, at least, because she wasn’t used to his deeper voice. Still, she wasn’t scared. No matter the size, she couldn’t be scared of Spike. Her little dragon brother. Okay, her big dragon brother now.
I’ve missed you so much. Spike’s words echoed in her head. Twilight shook it annoyedly. She wasn’t going to ruin a tearful reunion by dwelling on one of her stray thoughts! Of course he had missed her. She was something like a big sister to him. It was natural that he would …
Oh no. No.
It was like a dam was broken. Twilight didn’t just break out in tears, she cried, cried with everything she had. It didn’t take long even for Spike to stop and look at her with worried eyes. All her friends, who had been following the heartwarming moment with smiles and barely subdued tearing up, now started to worry, too. She cried noisily, and messily. Pinkie reached for her handkerchief, thought better of it and pulled a blanket off a table in the corner, patting it with a hoof to get most of the errant confetti and streamers off. Spike kept cradling his sister in his arms, wondering if he should put her down for a moment, but Fluttershy put a hoof on his shoulder and shook her head, smiling to reassure him. Twilight had to calm down on her own, and Spike’s arms were already the best place to do it.
After a while, Twilight finally managed to try and say something. It didn’t quite work out, through her sobbing and the snot and the fits.
“It’s okay. Try again,” Fluttershy said.
“‘M BO BORRY!”, Twilight yelled and sniffled. Rarity took the blanket from Pinkie with her magic and held it to her nose, and she blew into it, hard. “I’m so sorry!”, she repeated, somewhat calmer and less snotted up. “I was your big sister! I was supposed to be there for you! To teach you everything! To help you grow big! I’m so sorry!” she yelled, and sobbed into his scales. They weren’t soft like the coats and manes of her friends, - in fact, she suspected she might be bleeding from the cuts rubbing against them caused - but they were warm, and she wouldn’t have traded them for anything.
Spike cried, too. He was not a fully-grown dragon, but he was grown enough to barely fit through pony-made doors, and if his temperament had been different, with his razor-sharp teeth and fearsome visage he could have scared even the bravest pony around silly. But he was Spike, and he cried.
The door closed, silently. No one in the room stopped to ask themselves later how it was possible that a pony could cry this loudly in the palace and no one would take notice, and it was good they didn’t, because they’d have been wrong. When ponies cried in the palace, in fact, the masters of the place themselves, despite their multitude of celestial duties, would never fail to take notice. They also generally possessed the wisdom not to intrude into intimate affairs, though in this particular case the older had to gently remind the younger of that.
“But you were there for me, Twilight,” Spike said, calmly as he could. “You did teach me. You did help me grow big, into the handsome dragon I am.”
Twilight stopped crying for a second to chuckle.
“Yeah, very funny.”
“No, you are handsome. I didn’t mean to laugh, I’m sorry.” She sniffled, and blew into the blanket again. Rarity idly wondered how to explain the mess to the staff later that day.
“You were gone, yeah. It was hard, really hard. But everything you taught me stayed with me. When I wondered what to do, I remembered what you’d say. And all your friends took really good care of me. I had five big sisters instead. They didn’t replace you, but they helped.”
“Thank you,” Twilight choked out, tears welling up again. She wasn’t talking to Spike this time, and everyone knew it.
“I read a lot. I studied history, I studied magic, I studied biology, science, geography, everything. Then I decided I would travel, and study the world. Do my very own dragon migration, you know? I was with the griffons when Luna reached me. Took some time to fly back here. Oh yeah, I can fly now, too. Anyway. You don’t have to worry, Twilight. I really, really missed you. I’ll never miss anything again as much as I’ve missed you, and coming from a guy who never knew his parents, well, you know.” He tried to get his tears to dry, and failed. “But you don’t have to worry. I made it okay. I’m still the luckiest dragon in the world, for the time I had with you, and to have you back now.”
“I’m so proud of you,” Twilight managed to whisper.
Tears started to stream down Spike’s face, with no hope of stopping them for a long time. Twilight didn’t exactly see them - couldn’t see much through her tear-sore eyes - but she felt them splash on her face, hot in the way she remembered dragon tears to be. “Oh geez. Why did you have to go and say that? I was doing so well. Holding you in my arms and everything, a big, handsome, strong and manly dragon who has seen the world. Why did you have to go and say that? Now I’m just a crybaby.”
“Oh, give it a rest!” Rainbow yelled out. She flew up next to Spike’s head and grinned at him. Her face was wet with tears of her own. “Would you call me a crybaby? No, Spike, I am the Captain of the Wonderbolts. My tears are tears of strength. As are yours! I am proud to cry with you!” She sniffed, gloriously.
“Ya blew yer nose into Fluttershy’s mane just now!” Applejack piped up, accusingly. “‘s that snot of strength, too?”
“It’s okay, I blew mine in her tail when she wasn’t looking,” Fluttershy whispered.
“You are all disgusting!” Rarity yelled, indignant, as Twilight was blowing her nose into the blanket again. She heard a whimper. “Oh no, not you!” she hurried to say, “I mean, you’re using the blanket!”
And Twilight laughed, and laughed long and hard. Everyone else stopped and watched her, and when she still didn’t stop, they started joining in. Even Rarity, who only now realized she’d been played. It was the most joyful laugh they’d ever had, and that included Pinkie Pie, who possessed a fair degree of expertise on the matter.
It was quiet.
Twilight Sparkle hadn’t had quiet for a while. The last few hours were a bit of a blur. A happy, wet, musical mess of a blur. Oh, yes, there had been a Pinkie party. There had been dancing. Something to drink.
She stared at the ceiling. Ah, right, it was her bed. Her bed in the library. That was where they’d had the party. Just now. Not the bed, the library downstairs, where there was room.
Huh. Apparently she was displaced ten years into the future or something. Her mind told her that. She couldn’t tell just from looking around the room, and the drink had fogged up some of the details. Ah, no, of course, she remembered. It was still true. Her friends had just managed to make her forget it for a little bit.
This was probably a good time to go to sleep. After all, she hadn’t slept in over ten years. Well, after a fashion. This morning, everything had looked like a normal day. Then the lion sorcerer. Then the time shift. Then the tears. Gosh, she needed to sleep.
She shook her head. That she couldn’t do. If she fell asleep in this future, she would become a part of it for good. Waking up in this bed, after a good night’s sleep, would make her feel like she belonged there. And it would feel more and more like that with every time she woke up in it. That was fine, if she had decided it was what she wanted. But she had to make that decision now. Not later, when it no longer wasn’t one. Now.
She’d hoped talking to her friends would clear things up. Like Applejack had said, she probably had wanted, hoped or expected that they’d lived through something she couldn’t allow to let stand - but they hadn’t. In the end, all of them had agreed that it was up to Twilight to decide, they understood how hard the decision was and didn’t blame Twilight for struggling with it, and they’d support her whichever choice she made. Even Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. In the end, none of them had given her any guidance that Celestia hadn’t already tried to give her.
It’s entirely up to you. You’re allowed to be selfish. Twilight snorted angrily. Selfish was what she didn’t want to be. She wanted to do what was best for everyone. Why was it so hard to figure out what that was?
She stared out into the window, into the night. It was a beautiful, calming night.
Maybe she hadn’t thought it through enough. She tried to think herself back. Tried to imagine the scene after she’d disappeared. For some reason, the images started rushing into her head far more quickly and more vividly than she had expected, but she didn’t dwell on that particular oddity.
If her friends were to be believed, they’d have given Merrok quite the beating. Twilight tried to imagine how furious they must have been. Rarity, with her teeth clamped around Merrok’s tail. Pinkie Pie, belting him with bowling ball pies. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, giving him all they’d got. Fluttershy, consumed with rage. All because he’d taken Twilight away from them.
She saw farther ahead. Shining Armor, banging against the barrier, crying out her name. Their devastated faces when it came down, and there was only Merrok, and she was nowhere to be seen. Fluttershy, who wouldn’t come out of her cottage. Applejack, losing herself in farm work. Pinkie, wondering if she could ever party again. Rarity, sowing quietly in a rocking chair as it rained outside, fighting back tears. Rainbow Dash, racing, racing, to forget Twilight in the roar of the wind. She saw Spike, back in the palace, in Celestia’s bedroom, crying himself to sleep. Her heart ached, having to see it all.
And then, she saw herself again. She saw herself meeting Applejack again, who was beside herself with joy, but barely contained it because she had to send her long-lost friend to Celestia first. She saw all of them, anxiously piling up behind the door, even though they couldn’t understand a word, barely holding in their excitement. She saw the laughter, the crying, she saw Spike who had grown big and strong and smart, and she saw the party, and it made her tear up with happiness. She’d made them whole again. By coming back, she’d made them whole again. She was all they’d been missing. They were fine now.
There was nothing she really needed to fix.
And that should have been the end of it. After all, if there was nothing she needed to fix, it couldn’t be a risk worth taking, now could it? But to her surprise, Twilight found her heart still ached.
You’re allowed to be selfish.
If it was about what was best for her friends, she had her answer. They were happy, now. Twilight had been stolen from them, but they had her back, and the joy of their reunion made up for ten years of loss. It shouldn’t have been that easy, but it was. But what if Twilight truly let herself think selfish thoughts?
After all, they had accomplished so much … without her.
Twilight shuddered. She hated herself for thinking like that. But if Celestia was convinced it would get her anywhere …
Rarity had opened her boutique in Canterlot and become a magnificent designer - without her. Pinkie Pie had turned into Equestria’s number one party animal - without her. Rainbow Dash had made Captain of the Wonderbolts - without her. Fluttershy had become a professor - without her.
And suddenly, Twilight was angry.
At herself, of course, because she had thought like that - because she kept thinking like that. But then she realized there was a scapegoat. Actually, no. Not a scapegoat. That was someone who was innocent and used to distract from the real culprit. Merrok wasn’t innocent.
Neither was she, but she had been ripped out of her time, placed ten years into the future. Sure, she’d had to disrupt the spell herself, but that was in self-defense. After all, if everything had went according to plan, he’d have had her at her mercy.
And here she was. She’d missed seeing Merrok get his just beating at the hands of her friends. She had missed how he had slowly drained himself of magic as he realized his plans were foiled. And then - she had missed Rainbow Dash becoming a Wonderbolt, then becoming a squad leader, breaking the world speed record and finally her promotion to Captain. She had missed Rarity coming to Canterlot, she had missed Pinkie’s grand party that started her career, she had missed seeing the looks on Rarity’s face as she struggled to find some place to put the money, she had missed all of the fashion shows, she had even missed her own chance to be the star of one, together with all her friends, before the grandest audience Canterlot had to offer. She had missed Applejack looking over her flourishing farm with pride; she had missed Fluttershy’s lecture and the day she’d been awarded her honorary degree. She had missed accompanying her on the professoral dinners and meeting all of the idols of her study time, and she had missed seeing her face flushed with pride when she handed her own students their diplomas. She had missed Spike growing up into a big, kind, smart, handsome, all around wonderful dragon.
And there was so much more. She had missed Applebloom and her friends finding their purpose and earning their cutie marks. She had missed the last seven volumes of Daring Do arriving in her mail, fresh off the presses. She had missed the birth of her nieces and nephews. There was no way to ever find out just how many things, big and small, she had missed. There was so much.
Merrok had taken Twilight away from her friends. That was bad enough. But it wasn’t Twilight’s friends who had been robbed the worst. They had had one of their best friends stolen away from them, yes. But Twilight? She had been robbed of all of them, and more. She had been robbed of ten years of her life. Ten years that, she realized, she wanted back. More than she’d ever wanted anything.
She shook her head, violently. No, this wasn’t right. Anger wasn’t the right emotion to have when making a decision like this. She couldn’t allow herself to rush into anything. It was far too important. Far too much was at stake. Equestria was safe. Her friends finally had her back. She couldn’t allow herself to jeopardize a good thing.
“And I won’t!” she declared into the night, determined to the core, as the images in her head cleared up and the moon-lit sky appeared once more. She flashed her horn, and she was gone.