After several days of observations and tests, Twilight was finally released from the hospital to the care of her friends. They helped Twilight back through town, walking alongside and telling her about every little thing she missed while she was asleep. The Summer Celebration passed by, though the Princesses weren’t as upbeat as they usually were during public appearances. Rainbow Dash promised her that the next Daring Doo book was the best one yet. Pinkie explained about how even though she threw several parties, they weren’t as good because not all her friends could be there. Rarity made a joke about the time Pinkie tried to throw a party in Twilight’s hospital room and got them all in trouble.
Twilight carefully shared some moments from her dream. She didn’t want to get into too much details with her friends. Especially about the aspects of her relationship with Celestia. It felt very personal and even though she completely trusted her friends, she wanted to talk it all through with Celestia first. The Princesses had returned to Canterlot the day after Twilight woke up; they had their duties to attend to after all. Twilight knew that, but part of her wished for Celestia to have been by her side.
Ponyville looked exactly like she remembered. They passed by Rarity’s shop, closed for now, looking just as prim and proper as ever. Quills and Sofas looked as she remembered this time, its welcoming store front offering the promise of comfortable seating and high quality feather quills on a sign in the window. The cafe Celestia had taken her and Spike to was just down the street from Quills and Sofas, as she remembered. That day had been a serious blow to her, and it seemed like a forever ago now.
As the group walked through Ponyville, Twilight spotted all sorts of familiar faces. Most of them were happy to see Twilight awake once more. Derpy flew overhead, her brown mane a huge mess as she tried to help the weather ponies clear the skies. BonBon waved to Twilight from the window of her shop. The Cake family, out for a walk, quickly offered Twilight a speedy recovery as they headed for the park.
Soon enough the familiar foliage of the library came into view. Its branches looking freshly trimmed and the windows spotless. “We started cleaning up right after you woke up,” Dash said with pride in her voice.
“It looks great!” Twilight turned and flashed a large smile to her friends. “Thanks girls.”
The blue front door to the library slammed open as Spike came running out. “Twilight!” He leapt at her, his short arms encircling her neck as his claws gripped her coat.
Twilight quickly embraced her number one assistant, nuzzling the top of his head. “I’m home, Spike.”
Her friends stayed for several more hours to make sure that Twilight would be okay. Spike prepared lunch and snacks for them, but eventually they all returned to their work for the day. Each one of them promised to visit every day until Twilight was back to normal. With all her friends gone, Twilight laid in bed, mentally exhausted from the sudden change in her lifestyle. If she hadn’t been woken up by Luna and Celestia, who knows what she’d be doing right now in the dream world.
“A letter from Princess Celestia just arrived, Twilight!” Spike proclaimed as he came into her room. Upon finding her about to go to bed, however, he began making a hasty retreat before she called him over to dictate the message. “My Dear Twilight,” Spike started, reading the scroll in a slightly higher pitch from his usual voice. “I have just received the news that you have been discharged from the hospital. I hope you are resting up. Unfortunately I cannot get away from Canterlot, so I have sent a train ticket dated for the day after tomorrow. I hope to see you soon, Celestia.”
Twilight finally sat up slowly as Spike held up the single train ticket, looking somewhat confused at it. “Huh? Only one? But what about me?”
“Sorry, Spike. I need to talk with the Princess privately,” Twilight replied calmly as she levitated the ticket away from him.
The train left Ponyville station two hours after sunrise. Twilight sat in a window seat, watching the familiar Equestrian landscape slide by. It was a sunny and clear day, allowing her a good view of Cloudsdale hanging in the distance. Time seemed to fly by as the train slowed down, pulling into Canterlot mere minutes after departing Ponyville.
Twilight exited the train, looking around the familiar sights of Canterlot when she was violently grabbed with magic. Instinctively, she flared her horn to defend against any kind of attack, before she realized what was happening. Allowing herself to slide across the train station, she fell into the waiting hooves of her mom and dad. “Twily!”
The rest of the morning—and well into the afternoon—she spent with her parents. A home-cooked meal for lunch made her feel much more relaxed about her upcoming conversation with Celestia. Her parents had taken a trip to the hospital with the Princesses right after they heard the news about what had happened, but with nothing that medicine could do, they simply had to wait.
After several days, with no changes, they returned to Canterlot and relied on Twilight’s friends and the Princesses to keep them up-to-date on her condition. Shining Armor also came to visit for a few days, but ultimately the work they were doing in the Crystal Empire needed him to return. Twilight told her parents that she would go visit them as soon as she could.
As the sun started to get lower on the horizon, Twilight bid her parents a good night and made her way through the city, up to the palace. The guards quickly escorted her to Celestia’s bedroom, which thankfully looked much different from her dream. It definitely looked the part of a royal chamber more than what her dream conjured up. Celestia was sitting on a collection of pillows, reading from a large scroll nearly as long as the Princess was tall. She looked up as Twilight walked into the room. “Twilight, you made it.”
“Princess,” Twilight said with a smile, walking into the room with a bit of hesitation. Before her coma she wouldn’t have thought anything strange about meeting privately with Celestia in her bedroom. In fact, she had never even been in Celestia’s bedroom before. But during the dream, this very same room had been renovated and used as their shared bedroom.
“Please, just Celestia while we’re in private.” Celestia floated over a large pillow, placing it in front of her. She waited for the purple mare to get comfortable before speaking again. “How have you been feeling the past few days?”
Twilight smiled warmly. “Much better once I got to get up and leave the hospital. My friends have been with me everyday just to make sure I’m healing.”
“I figured they would be. They are great friends, after all. Did you enjoy your time with your parents as well?” Celestia asked with a slightly-coy smile.
Twilight nodded, chuckling softly. It made sense that Celestia would tip off her family. How else would they have learned which train she was taking to Canterlot. “I did, thank you. I haven’t had a lot of time to do so since I moved to Ponyville, so it was great to just relax and catch up with them.”
“That’s good. Now, let’s get on to the more serious matters.” Celestia’s expression became grave, but she still maintained a smile. “The spell that put you into the coma.”
Twilight fidgeted; she was hoping the conversation could be delayed a few moments longer. But it couldn’t be helped, she sighed to herself with a nod. “Luna mentioned it to me. It was supposed to make me an Alicorn, yes? I saw my notes and Star Swirl’s book back at the library. Though I still couldn’t make any sense of his spell, even after I returned.”
Celestia nodded. “That is what I told Luna it did, yes. However, because of what happened to you, I feel that I should tell you the truth.” She seemed to hesitate before committing to her decision. “The Star Swirl spell is a fake.”
“It’s what?!”
Celestia winced, and uncharacteristically of her, she began to nervously shift her hooves about. “I actually invented the spell myself, a long time ago. But all it was designed to do was place the caster in a trance-esque state. However, something during the casting must’ve went wrong and the trance became so severe that you ended up in a coma.”
Twilight blinked the revelation away. “So I wasn’t going to become an alicorn then? Why, though? Why would you lie to Luna about that? For that matter, why give me a spell that would put me in a trance—?”
Celestia, apparently needing a moment to compose her response, rose a hoof to silence the tirade of questioning. After a few seconds’ peace, she began. “The transition from mortality to immortality is a harsh one. The spell’s purpose was to ease the intended target through the process to prevent any unwanted casualties by sending them into a catatonic state of mind.
“You would have become an alicorn, though. I didn’t lie about that.” Celestia paused to take in a breath, and allowed her current explanation to sink in. “However, instead of the spell turning you, I would. I don’t want Luna to know that I’ve figured out how to turn ponies immortal, though; she already holds stigma against the alicornification process. So I lied to her about an unfinished spell written by Star Swirl,” the Princess explained calmly. “Had the spell fired properly, you would have been placed into a trance and I would have teleported you to me. Once in the trance I could instruct you not to remember what happened, and I would have spent the next few hours casting the spell to turn you both into an alicorn, and an immortal.”
Twilight’s jaw dropped slightly as Celestia continued. “Once done, I would wake you up and send you back to Ponyville as Princess Twilight. The coronation ceremony would have happened right away, crowning you as the third full Princess of Equestria.” Celestia’s expression softened. “When I teleported you to my side, you fell over, unresponsive and barely breathing. I instantly knew that something had gone wrong and rushed you to the nearest hospital.”
A single detail stuck in Twilight’s mind as strange. She blurted out her question, interrupting Celestia’s flow. “Third Princess? What about Cadence?”
Celestia stiffened slightly. “Cadence is a Princess, yes. She is also an alicorn. However, she is not immortal. I had hoped for her to take up the Element of Magic when I first met her. She had remarkably strong magic for such a young mare. I adopted her as my niece and raised her myself, but in the end she wasn’t right for the role. I turned her into an alicorn and crowned her as a fellow princess, but I never finished the spell. Luna actually thinks she is a natural-born alicorn found during her exile (for now anyways), but Cadance is definitely still mortal. She attended school with your brother, growing up as a normal pony. I then met you on that fateful day and took you as my student.”
“So Cadence will die?”
“She’ll have a significantly-longer lifespan, thanks to the Earth pony mixed in her blood. But yes, she will eventually grow old and die.” Celestia closed her eyes, her head hung down. “And like her, now I will you let decide… Do you wish to become an alicorn as I intended? It will be much harder for you than it was for Cadance. Immortality is eternal, and irreversible. But by becoming an alicorn, an immortal; you’d be able to serve at my side to make Equestria a better place.”
Twilight was silent for a few moments. Just a few days ago she was about to let Tia make her immortal. She had already decided to go through with it. But Tia’s manic expression flashed through her mind’s eye. “I want to think about it for a moment,” Twilight finally said.
Celestia sighed, visibly relaxing. Her shoulders slumped as she looked back up at Twilight. “I will admit I was sure you would outright reject my offer after what you’ve been through in your dream.”
“Before you and Luna came into my dream, I was prepared to become immortal. But that was a different situation,” Twilight explained. “I was actively serving Equestria alongside you as an equal. I was… I was dating you. It was a very different life than being the Element of Magic.”
“You won’t wield the Elements forever. At least not in the same way you do now. Your friends will grow and die, while you could be immortal. Once they pass, your life will be different; the Element of Magic will remain with you, but the other Elements will find new bearers.”
Twilight blushed as her mind deviated. “…What about us?”
Celestia nodded once, her face also taking on a red tint. “Immortals have issues taking mortals as lovers, for obvious reasons. It is hard to love and lose over and over. Luna does provide friendship, but family is not always the same.” She stumbled over her words for another few moments before stopping herself. Clearing her throat, Celestia nodded again. “I mean. Yes, Twilight. We could go on a few dates together.”
Twilight suddenly paused. “And what if I don’t wish to become immortal? Would you still give us a chance?”
The question seemed to physically harm Celestia. “I... I don’t know. It would be hard, so hard, on both me and you. I am not entirely sure I can survive losing another loved one. Not again. Not ever again.” A shy smile appeared on her muzzle. “But, if you were willing to let me make you an alicorn, neither of us would have to worry, right?”
A smile appeared on Twilight’s face. Seeing the normally-so-composed Celestia blushing like a filly reminded her of Tia. The thought was quickly pushed away. That was the past, a dream; this was now, the present, reality. But could she really go through with it? Strip herself of mortality? Those icy tendrils still clawed at her coat, despite them being only fleeting, phantom sensations. She doubted she would ever fully recover and suppress what had happened in that dreamscape.
But in doing so, in surrendering herself to alicornhood and immortality once again, she could be with Celestia. The real Celestia... Her decision was made. “Yes.” Celestia looked up. “Yes, I’ll become an alicorn.”
Celestia’s face broke out into a large smile. The embarrassment vanishing, leaving only a light-red tint to her pristine white coat as she rose to her full, towering height. “Then let’s not wait. I’ll cast it right now. You should come to, once it’s all done.” Celestia’s horn lit up and before Twilight could even begin to ponder on when the spell would take hold, her world went dark.
For a long period of time, she felt cold, and numb. But it eventually subsided, and in its stead a warmth began spreading over her and the darkness started to retreat. She was still sitting on the pillow, with Celestia in front of her. Feathers tickled her back as she groaned. Her head felt rather cloudy, though it was bound to pass. “What was that?”
“That was the spell. You’ve been asleep for four hours.” Celestia’s magic reached out and pulled aside a curtain, revealing a window with the morning sky visible. “I just sent word for some food to be brought up, since we missed breakfast.”
Twilight turned her head, looking at the large purple wings resting gently at her side. “I’ve got wings,” she said simply.
“You do,” Celestia replied coyly.
“I’m immortal. And I have wings.” Twilight jumped up, flaring her wings out. She danced around the room, flapping her wings at random, even at one point lifting herself off the ground for a moment. After several minutes of this process, she abruptly lunged at Celestia, hugging the Princess tightly. “Thank you, Tia!” Twilight didn’t mean to call her that, but she didn’t seem to mind, so she too stopped minding also.
Celestia returned the loving embrace, a huge grin on her face as she wrapped her wings around the freshly-turned alicorn, and whispered into Twilight’s ear. “My pleasure, Twi. Don’t worry. Now, together, we can begin to make Equestria a better place. Forever.”
The End