Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, was staring at the ground, completely unfeeling. She slowly got up as she heard the familiar notes of a funeral ending, watching solemnly as Fluttershy's coffin was lowered into the ground. She looked over to her left and found Discord holding his and Fluttershy's daughter in his arms, looking worse for wear than anypony else there. The rain fell in large drops, splattering into her coat and drenching her mane as Twilight walked over to the grieving pair.
"I still can't believe she's gone, Twilight... I searched and I searched for a way to make her immortal, for a way to keep her here with us, w-with m-me..." Discord's voice cracked and he held his daughter even tighter.
Twilight looked at him sympathetically before wrapping her wing around the both of them, holding them close. Her own tears, ones she thought were long dried up, started to fall as she spoke to him, "There was nothing you could of done, Discord. I have scoured the entirety of Equestria and have yet to find a spell to change the life force of any living thing... I am so sorry..."
Twilight stayed there with the two for a moment longer, trying to comfort them past her own grief. She had become quite adept at pushing her own grief aside to appear strong for her subjects... this wasn't the first best friend she had that had died. As a matter of fact, Fluttershy was the last of the Mane Six to pass away, all of them within the past year. First Applejack, then Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie (who had baked the most delicious cake for her own funreal), Rarity and finally, Fluttershy. Leaving Twilight to rule her kingdom of friendship alone, and without the friends that had allowed her to discover friendship in the first place. She left Discord and his daughter to thier grief, leaving a kiss atop the child's head before moving to the exit, thanking everypony for coming and accepting condolences in the name of Fluttershy's family, who obviously weren't yet ready to handle the public.
Twilight watched as ponies filed out of the cemetary as the rain started to fall harder. Discord came to relieve her after about an hour, insisting that she go home and rest. "You've organized and paid for your fifth funeral this year, I think I can handle this part. Thank you Twilight." Discord looked at her sincerely, all of his jokes, pranks and silly facial expressions gone.
Twilight smiled thankfully at him, putting her hoof on his shoulder before turning away and heading home to her castle. She decided to take the long way home, trudging through the muddy streets of Ponyville. She passed through Sweet Apple Acres, and admired the new barn that Applejack's family had put up in her honor. She passed by the Carousel Boutique, just now reopening for business under the management of none other than Apple Bloom herself, as Sweetie Bell's talents did not lie in sewing. Sugarcube Corner had long since been run under Pinkie Pie's daughter after Pinkie Pie found herself unable to run the bakery a mere month before passing. Twilight sighed as she walked through the town, remembering all the adventures she had with her friends and how much Ponyville had changed over the years. Naturally, it had gotten quite a bit bigger since she had become Princess, no longer being the small town she fell in love with.
After what seemed to Twilight as five minutes but in reality was an hour and a half, she found herself walking up the steps of her castle, nodding tiredly to the guards on either side before entering. She was about to head up to her room for a warm bath when one of her stewards trotted around the corner and up to her. "Your Highness, you have company in the sitting room."
Twilight rubbed her temple. She was not in mood for this... but, it was her job. "Who is it and how long have they been here?"
"Princesses Celestia, Luna and Cadence, along with Discord, Princess. They've just arrived. Shall I prepare some tea?"
Twilight's ears perked up a bit at the sound of her fellow immortals names, particularly her mentor's. She wondered what they could be here for. "Yes, please do. Anything with a caffiene kick, please. I need a pick me up. Oh, and bring in some of the tea cakes Fluttershy brought over last week."
The steward nodded before heading back to the kitchens while Twilight turned to look in the mirror in the hallway. Her purple mane flowed in a phantom breeze, streaks of bright yellow highlighting through the purple and magenta. She had grown to the same size as Celestia herself, but this had been normal to her for at least ten years now. What was not normal, however, was the disheveled look she had to her mane and the bags that had formed under her eyes. She sighed inwardly, cursing herself for allowing herself to get to this state. She tried her best to make her mane straight before heading down the hallway to her sitting room.
She came in to find them all seated before the enormous fireplace, talking quietly amoungst themselves. As she came in, all heads turned towards her.
"Good evening, Twilight. I hope we are not disturbing you." Princess Luna stated from her chair.
"Not at all. In fact, I just walked in the door myself. Decided a walk would do me some good." Twilight replied as she walked over to her own chair, taking a seat just as the tea arrived. The steward quietly sat the tray of tea cakes and kettle of tea down on the table before pouring everyone a cup. Twilight uttered a small thanks and he nodded to her and left the room.
Discord bent over and picked up one of the tea cakes, looking at it with an odd mixture of sadness and happiness. He looked over to Twilight with tears in his eyes. "These were the ones she made for you with Screwball last week...the last batch she ever made with her mother..."
Twilight looked at him worriedly, "I thought maybe you would like them, but if they bother you I can call the steward back and have him bring something else-"
"No, no. This is exactly what I need..." Discord bit down on the cake, looking solemnly into his tea cup as he chewed.
Twilight turned her attention to the Princesses. "So, what brings you here today? Is there something I can help with?"
The three Princesses exchanged looks before Cadence responded. "Actually Twilight, we were hoping we could help you. We all know how it is to lose somepony close to us... however, you've had it harder than any of us. You've lost five friends in one year..."
Celestia added, "And we all know how you can overwork yourself, especially when you're trying to keep your mind off of a particuarly troubling situation. We just stopped by to make sure that you have given yourself time to grieve."
Twilight swallowed her mouthful of tea and said, more robotic than she intended, "I have grieved privately, but in the eyes of my subjects I remained strong for them." She cringed at the end of the statement, knowing that sounded just as rehearsed as it was. She closed her eyes and hung her head, breathing loudly. Nopony else said a word, giving her a moment to collect her thoughts. When she looked up, her eyes had pooled with tears and she talked with a shaky voice. "To tell the truth, I haven't cried at all. I've been busy planning funerals, thanking ponies for their condolences, making sure the families of my friends were taken care of, looking for a replacement for the Elements of Harmony. How am I supposed to defend Equestria without my friends? What are we going to do?!" She had steadily gotten louder and louder, and when she was finished she had burst into tears, the weight of the past year coming out all at once. "I don't know what to do, I don't know what to feel..."
Twilight felt a hoof on her shoulder and looked up to see Celestia there. She didn't say a word, but wrapped her student-turned-Princess up in a hug. Luna followed suit, along with Cadence and Discord. Twilight sat there, at the heart of the embrace, crying for what seemed an eternity before the other immortals peeled away from her.
Celestia sat down in front of Twilight's chair and forced her to look up from the floor with her hoof. "As the supreme ruler of Equestria, I order that you take a break. No researching, no court, no nothing. You need your rest, Twilight. You cannot rule your kingdom or guide your subjects properly without sleep." Celestia looked around for a moment. "Where is your faithful assistant? He should be helping you, and I have yet to see him."
"Come to think of it, I haven't seen him since Rarity's funeral..." Discord added .
Twilight looked bashfully at the ground. "I actually let him have a few months off when Rarity died... he was pretty beaten up about it. I think he's been helping Apple Bloom re open the Carousel Boutique."
Luna shook her head softly. "We understand that you wanted to give Spike time to grieve, Twilight... but you didn't have to do this alone. Why did you not ask for assistance?"
Twilight held her head up high before responding, "Because as a Princess of Equestria my duty comes first to my subjects and those that depend on me."
Now it was Celestia's time to shake her head, "Twilight, dear friend, although you are mostly correct in that statement, nopony expects you to lose five friends and not even take time off. You mustn't forget that you are not the only Princess of Equestria."
Twilight hung her head. "I understand... sometimes I just find it easier to work through the pain than deal with it as I should."
"As do we all, my dear." Discord locked eyes with her, translating all the pain he felt with just one stare.
Celestia stood up from her seated position in front of Twilight. "We must get going. It is late, and Twilight is to start her own mourning period as of this moment." She gave Twilight a stern, yet kindly look, "I don't want to see any activity from you for at least a month."
Twilight nodded, grateful for the rest, even if it was forced. She knew she wouldn't have been able to slow herself down, she would've kept going until she had worked herself to death. "Thank you all for visiting, and please don't hesitate to come again. Discord, allow me to send some of the cakes home with you. I'm sure Screwball would like to have some."
As soon as the other immortals had left the castle, Twilight trudged her way back upstairs to start what she had originally been planning; that bath sounded awfully good.
Twilight awoke to sunshine filtering through the drapes and straight into her eyes. She groaned and rolled over.
'My first day of rest and I can't even sleep in?' She thought ruefully. She finally gave up trying to fall back asleep and rolled out of bed, slowly making her way to her bathroom. After her morning ritual of teeth and mane brushing was over, she made her way down to the dining hall, where she found Spike, already eating his breakfast.
"Spike! I am so happy to see you!" She ran over to him and gave him a big hug. "I thought you were helping Apple Bloom with Carousel Boutique?"
He shrugged. "It's been open for a month now, Twi... She doesn't need my help anymore. Besides, I wanted to say that I'm sorry." He looked up at her sadly. He had grown to be as tall as her shoulder, still taller than most ponies but smaller than any normal, greedy dragon.
Twilight gave her assistant a confused look, "What do you have to be sorry for? You've done nothing wrong."
"Oh, but I have. I took off. I left you here to deal with the funerals all by yourself... I was selfish. When I saw you at Fluttershy's wake yesterday, I realized just how much you had worked yourself... I should've been there for you, Twi, and I wasn't.... I was so busy crying over Rarity that I hadn't realized you had lost her too, along with everypony else... I am so sorry, Twilight!" He burst into tears and hugged her tight.
Twilight's own eyes pooled over as she wrapped Spike up in a hug. "It's okay, Spike. You know how stubborn I am, I would have insisted you take the time off anyway... besides, Princess Celestia has offically put me on a month long rest period. It all worked out in the end."
He peeled himself off of her and wiped his tears away. "Well, that's good. Is there anything that I can do? I've done my resting, I could use some good old fashioned work." He looked at her hopefully.
She thought for a moment before smiling down at him, "Well, you could always reorganize and dust my personal library... I admit, I've let it go since you've left so it really is in quite disarray."
He beamed at her before nodding and scampering off, grabbing the last sapphire muffin off of his plate and shoving it into his mouth as he went. Twilight giggled lightly before turning to the table, finding her customary breakfast of haycakes had been put there as she and Spike had been talking. She ate her breakfast in silence, ruminating on what she was going to do with herself for a month.
'I do need to catch up on some reading... and quite honestly my bedroom could use a thorough cleaning...' She chewed on her breakfast thoughtfully, listing all of the things she had neglected to do in the past year. She insisted (much to the dismay of her servants), to clean her own bedroom, saying that she never wanted to become the ruler who couldn't even pick up after herself. She had always had a problem keeping her own library clean, depending on Spike to help her in those regards, but when it came to her bedroom she was a very private pony.
She finished her breakfast and decided to walk it off by taking a stroll through her castle, another thing she had neglected to do lately. She moved through the various halls, nodding and greeting her staff as they did their daily chores of dusting, sweeping, mopping and various other things.
She didn't know where her hooves were taking her until she arrived in the throne room. Six thrones, all with the cutie marks of her and her deceased friends, sitting in the middle of a vast room made of the same crystal the rest of the castle was made of. She sat down quietly in the middle of the room and frowned. Why had she walked here? She hadn't really thought about it until she had gotten there, but something had drawn her to this room... but what?
The Princess of Friendship looked around the room, searching for anything that might spark a memory of why she had walked into the room, or a clue as to why she had been drawn there. Several windows lined the walls, tall thin ones that cast slivers of light into the room. Through one, she noted that there was an abnormally beautiful rainbow glimmering outside, one that made her think of the friends she had lost, and the first time they had ignited the powers granted to them by the Tree of Harmony.
It all came to her at once. Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Apple Jack... all gone. She was never going to see them again... never going to hear them laugh or bicker. She was never going to witness the amazing kindness of Flutters, the loyalty of Dashie, the generosity of Rarity, the honesty of AJ or the barrel of laughs that was Pinkie. A tear here, a tear there... nothing compared to the waterfall that was now gushing down Twilight's face now as she looked at that rainbow.
She yelled in fury and stomped her feet into the cold crystal floor of her throne room, "WHY? Why give them the powers? Why create an entire throne room JUST to let them die?! The Elements of Harmony are USELESS without them, and yet you let them die! Why?! ANSWER ME!!" She screamed it into the ceiling, hoping that an answer would come to her, somehow. When none came she stomped again, fury and hopelessness surging through her as she cried and bucked against the thrones, not even cracking the surface.
All energy wiped from her, she collapsed onto her own throne, curling up and resting her head into her forelegs. She still couldn't figure out how she was going to use the Elements of Harmony's powers without her friends... how was she going to summon the map? How in the wide world of Equestria was she supposed to do anything without them? She lay there crying in privacy for a long while, when she heard a sound and her ears perked up, thinking it was one of her servants. But as she listened, she realized it wasn't coming from the door... in fact, it wasn't coming from... anywhere?
She sat up in her throne, listening intently as she wiped her eyes clean.
Let the rainbow remind you...
She frowned. She knew that song... but... what did it mean? Lights appeared above the thrones of her friends, shimmering lights that came from, assumedly, the same place as the song. Eyes wide, she watched as the thrones of her deceased friends slowly seemed to hold...
"Fluttershy?! Apple Jack, Rainbow, Pinkie Pie, Rarity!! Wha-What are you-....What?!" Twilight watched in pure amazement as the beams of light materialized into translucent, ghostly versions of her friends. And not just the friends that she had lost in the past year, but the versions of them that they had been when she was first crowned a Princess of Equestria.
"Oh c'mon Twilight, you don't really believe that we would let you have all the fun without us, do you?" Rainbow Dash asked, smirking at Twilight, who still sat flabbergasted in her own throne.
When she found the words, she asked "B-but how? I don't understand, you're all-all-"
"Dead? Yes, dreadful business that... Come to think of it darling, I don't know either... All I know is that I haven't looked this good in years!" Rarity fluffed her hair in the reflection of her throne.
"Sixty three years, to be exact. Do any of you remember how you got here?" Twilight looked around at her friends, unable to process any information except that they were there.
A giggle she hadn't heard in months sounded out, along with the familiar thump, thump of Pinkie Pie bouncing up and down in her seat. "Weeeeellll, sillies, maybe it's because we are all connected to the Elements of Harmony, which were connected to the tree and this castle is connected to the tree because the seed came from that box that we opened up when we defeated Tirek and maybe juuust maaayyybeee we have a spiritual manifestation in these thrones because our cutie marks are in them and these thrones are what-" She took a deep breath, "allowed us to see the map."
Twilight took a deep breath, processing and soaking in the information. "Well, what... Pinkie... said seems correct... but, why? What is the significance? Could this mean that you would be able to go places and solve matters of friendship as you did when you were alive? But how would you do that? Can you materialize outside of this room? If so, why haven't you before? I mean I might have some books-"
"Someone stop the egghead, please..." Rainbow Dash groaned, rolling her eyes.
"Twilight, Ah don't know how this here happened neither... but do you remember what Princess Celestia said when you got your castle?" Applejack asked, looking Twilight in the eye.
Twilight thought for a moment, trying to recall that day. "Well, I don't remember what she said specifically..."
"She said that you won't be doing this alone." Fluttershy said, smiling warmly at the only living Element.
Twilight looked at her with her mouth open, but closed it when the tears began to fall all over again. "I'm just so happy that you girls are here!!" She got out of her throne and went to Fluttershy, enveloping her in a hug. Surprisingly, Fluttershy's body felt like solid vapor, there but not there. Twilight hugged her tight, and it didn't take long for the other Elements to join in.
"We will always be here with you"