The spell doesn’t mimic a pony exactly, but it will gather all the information it needs to create a clear snapshot of that pony and the reactions that said pony would perform
~Excerpt from Memory Wishers by Twilight Sparkle
The two of them stood stock-still for another moment before the spell broke. They breathed air which neither of them had been consciously holding and visibly relaxed, looking around the room.
“So…” Regret started, breaking the silence as he turned back to the sleeping mare, “we should probably get this thing set up, right?”
“Right…” Honoured echoed softly before shaking her head slightly and lowering the box to the ground between them, flicking the lid open to reveal a vast array of equipment.
Honoured carefully wove her hoof between the various bits of machinery and wiring, plucking forth a small key from within the box as Regret sighed and started focussing on the rest of the contents, drawing bits from it, one piece at a time.
Wires, wires and more wires all appeared from within the box along with three small rings and an even smaller black box, a single red light attached to the top of it. Regret looked back at Honoured, closing the steel box and placing the black box on top. “She is going to be able to survive this, right?” Regret asked, already starting to wire the boxes together.
“Vitals say probably, the princess says maybe, who knows,” Honoured answered vaguely, glancing over to the various green screens behind them.
“And done,” Regret muttered triumphantly, standing up and back from the two boxes which had been wired together in three places, setting the red light blinking steadily.
Honoured nodded her approval, placing the key on top of the two boxes before heading towards the door, “I’ll let the Princess know that we’re about to start,” she stated, “you can get her wired in, right?”
As she opened the door she thought she heard her colleague's acid reply, “Of course. Luna help us should I actually become useful.”
Honoured smirked, shutting the door before starting on her hunt to find the princess. As it happened, the hunt wasn’t that much of a hunt as she came down the stairs to see Celestia sat within one of the rooms, looking at something just out of Honoured’s view.
She tapped lightly on the wall before speaking, “We’re just about to begin Princess.”
Celestia nodded once, completely silently. Honoured turned, already starting back up the stairs when Celestia spoke, “I meant what I said. Twilight Sparkle deserves this, she deserves a happy ending. I won’t blame you if you can’t give her exactly what she wanted, but I’d like you to give her a happy ending.”
Honoured reply was soft and almost silent, “Of course. We’ll do our best princess.”
Celestia turned her head to look at her, smiling gently, “Thank you. That’s all I ask. I think that twenty-five would be a good place to start.”
Honoured nodded, starting back up the stairs before she heard Celestia speak again, “And doctor Tradition?”
The mansion seemed to hold its breath for a moment.
“Call me Celestia.”
There was another pause, then the quiet tapping as the doctor made her way up the stairs towards Celestia’s old student.
The princess sighed, turning back to the wall again and the lone photograph that was hung there. Her smile turned paper-thin as she stared at the wrinkled photograph of six mares resting against each other.
“I hope this was worth it Twilight. I really do.”
The door clicked open and shut again as Honoured slipped through to the scene beyond where Regret had already wired the prone unicorn into the machine, placing the silvered ring around her hoof and connecting a single wire to it, making the band glow a light red.
Regret looked up from his position on a solitary chair next to the bed, band already on his hoof and wired into the box, “’bout time,” he said impatiently, “everything’s wired in and waiting.”
Honoured nodded, ignoring the tone and stepping up to the side of the room, picking up her own band and snapping it around her own hoof and taking a seat next to the black box which still stood tall and proud in the centre of the room.
“Ready?”
“Yep.”
The key glowed a light-red before turning sharply to the right with a ‘Kah-klunk’ sound. Moments later, the light on the box turned its own shade of sickly green and it started buzzing loudly, the noise filling the room before cutting off into silence so sharply that the air rang for a split-second before the world exploded into light.
Unperturbed, Honoured opened her eyes, looking around the vast and empty space that she’d found herself in; well, almost empty in any case. Honoured sighed, making her way over to the shape of Regret, still laid out on the floor and groaning slightly about the light.
Honoured sighed, kicking him lightly in the side to snap him from his stupor. Sure enough, moments later he was back on his hooves and glaring at Honoured, “Did you have to do that?” he asked, irritated.
“Put it like this…” Honoured replied sweetly, “if I hadn’t, you’d still be on that floor, moaning and groaning like nobody’s business.”
Regret just grumbled incoherently.
Honoured allowed herself yet another small smirk before turning to focus on the landscape around them, “Well good news is that she’s still hanging on – that’s half the battle right there, – now we just have to fulfil the wish and we’re golden,” she spoke confidently.
“Never turns out that simple though, does it?” replied Mr Optimism.
“It’d be nice for once,” she agreed quietly before sighing explosively.
“Alright, let’s get this done,” she muttered, her horn glowing and surrounding the two of them for a few moments in a comforting bubble as the scenery changed around them; the white landscape turning into bared trees, yellowing grass, cracked cliffs and rotting benches. The white landscape gained splotches of colour which spread out across the ground and the objects, reaching a blob which was sat upon a single bench in the middle of the dying garden.
The blob’s fur was the colour of lavender mist; barely a tint of colour across the whole while its mane and tail remained untouched by the pigment slowly spreading across the scene.
Barely thirty seconds had passed, and it was done. Honoured dropped her magic around the two of them and walked forwards towards the mare in the dead garden, closely followed by Regret.
As they drew closer, Honoured coughed politely, “Miss Sparkle?” she asked, her voice echoing eerily across the garden.
The mare opened her eyes, raising her head to stare at the two of them with surprisingly colourful violet eyes before smiling softly.
“Doctors Tradition and Regret? Ah… then this is my will, correct?” she asked, her voice a quiet sigh against the silence.
Honoured opened her mouth to reply before Regret cut across her, “You know our names?”
Twilight Sparkle chuckled softly, “Of course I do; I hired you didn’t I? As part of the Memory Wishers.”
Honoured cut in without giving Regret another chance to ask any more pointless questions, “That’s right, we’re from the institute and Celestia said this was what you wanted,” she elaborated, keeping her voice solemn.
Twilight nodded to herself, “So Celestia’s looking after me?” she sighed, “when you finish here, can you pass a message on to her for me? Just tell her that ‘everything’s going to be alright’.”
Honoured nodded and Twilight smiled.
“Thank you, and when you meet my younger self… please… be careful with what you do. I’ve been known to overreact to a lot of things…”
Regret spoke sincerely, “We’ll be careful, you’ll have said ‘yes’ before you know it,” he added, smiling.
Twilight Sparkle laughed; animating her aged form and bringing her to life, “I can see I’m in safe hooves, I won’t keep you any longer. Twenty-five should be about right.”
Honoured nodded once more before she surrounded herself and Regret within a cool aura, removing them from Twilight’s presence.
The dying mare looked around the dying garden and smiled.