//------------------------------// // Epilogue - Hoofprints // Story: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite // by Corejo //------------------------------// Twilight found Celestia in the royal gardens.  Not so much a garden anymore.  The rows of chrysanthemums had been torn out and cast aside, the brown of the earth piled high as guardsponies worked their shovels tirelessly, casting the heavy scent of dirt to the wind.  Celestia sat on the only visible patch of grass, just off the pearlescent flagstones leading to the Dais of the Sun.  The chrysanthemum petals danced about her in the wind, their colors of gold and white saturated by evening’s orange glow.  Twilight sat down next to her. Neither of them spoke for a long while, the sound of earth being moved more than making up for their silence.  Twilight looked at her hooves, not for a loss of words, but for an understanding that Celestia should be first to speak.  Her presence spoke its own volumes. “Thank you for coming,” Celestia said.  Her voice held its usual shimmer, but on its back rode a chill hollowness.  Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight could see how absently Celestia stared into the holes before them. “Of course, Princess.”  She left it at that, unsure what to say after hurdling the greeting.   “My advisors are busy running Day Court, and I couldn’t bring myself to disturb Luna.” “I would have come whether you asked me to or not,” Twilight said.  She turned a smile to her mentor, one she surprisingly received in return.  Love shone in Celestia’s eyes and squared her shoulders.  But the light blew out of them just as quickly, and she turned away. “I am sorry for what I almost did to you, Twilight.  How blind I was to not see you standing right in front of me.”  Her mouth hung open, words poised on the tip of her tongue.  “I…”  The rest didn’t come. Twilight’s ears fell back against her head.  “I should have told you from the beginning.  I was afraid if I had been forthcoming that you wouldn’t have believed me, and with how much Mirror knew about me…” She trailed into silence, the sound of shovels again taking the reins. “So why the digging?” Celestia didn’t answer immediately, but Twilight saw out the corner of her eye a tiny, hurt-filled smile play across her lips.  “Mirror always knew chrysanthemums were my favorite.  This garden specifically.”  Her eyes gravitated toward a little swirl of petals an errant breeze kicked up.  “The last place I’d look for Smoke Screen...” Twilight shied away.  The day before came back all too real.  The honey-drop eyes smiling down at her.  The threat of living her last moments inside a coffin of mirrors had fortune not smiled brighter...   “How is she?” A pause.  “She’s feeling better.  I arranged for her and Sylissyth to share a cell, by your suggestion.  They’re cooperative, and it seems we have you to thank for that.”   Twilight glanced back to catch her smile, like a ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds.  She thought back to how she had let the changeling down from the wall to comfort Mirror.  The chirruping sounds it had made.  True friendship. She blinked away the memory and found herself staring up at the sun, not needing to squint.  It wasn't particularly bright that evening.  “They might have made bad, unforgivable choices, but their love is real.  And if that exists, then maybe there’s hope they’ll learn to love others, too.” Celestia chuckled.  “It seems you’ve learned a valuable lesson these last few days.” Twilight restrained a sigh.  A lesson learned through an ordeal that could have had disastrous consequences.  It was hard to see it as a lesson.  How it had been aimed at her, out of malice rather than the vague sense of conquest all her other adversaries had sought, took it to a personal level she had never felt before. But she had a responsibility to uphold a standard, to be the beacon of friendship despite the hurt they had conspired to cause, to give of herself and take charge of rather than succumbing to a situation anypony else would warrant her deserving of playing the victim.   Princess Twilight Sparkle. She had a lot to learn.  About herself, and about the world.  “Yeah…”  She stared at the grass beneath her hooves.  “I guess I have.  We went through a lot,” Twilight said, her voice becoming distant.  “Me and Rainbow Dash.” “I can only imagine how it felt, Twilight.” Twilight looked down.  She heard in Celestia’s voice the careful treading, the specially picked words, avoiding the pitfalls of what had happened in the throne room.  Things like that didn’t leave the heart any time soon. “It’s not so much that.  She went through it with me, that… that nightmare.  She believed me.  She believed in me.”  She looked up at Celestia.  “She trusted me with her life.” Celestia returned her gaze with a smile.  “From the sound of it, Rainbow Dash isn’t the only one.” Twilight looked off into the distance, into the dark memories of the last three days.  When she was alone, Rainbow Dash was there.  Where she ran, Rainbow Dash followed.  Where she had fallen, Rainbow Dash picked her up. In many places, only four hooves left prints. “Do you know why she trusted you?” Twilight met her eyes.  Celestia didn’t speak immediately, but Twilight could already hear the words the radiance in her eyes bespoke. “Because I would have trusted her.” Celestia’s smile widened a hair’s width.  She looked back out onto the piles of earth growing ever higher around them.  “More than that.  You did trust her—to trust you when you needed it most.  She followed you into the dark, even though neither of you knew the outcome.”  Her wings partly unfolded from her sides.  “And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years, Twilight, it’s that friendship like that isn’t given.  It’s earned.” Twilight absently followed her gaze, letting the statement bounce around in her head.  She had endured many hardships both great and small since moving to Ponyville, and her friends had seen her through them time and again.  Not a moment had passed when she ever felt unable to ask for help, or they were unwilling to give it. Spike held a special place in her heart for that simple truth.  Her unfailing voice of reason, now lying silent in a hospital bed.  No number of needles or wound cleanings could have driven her from that room, but she would have been lying had she said the sight didn’t tear her up inside.  She would have traded a thousand enchanted blades to the heart for his injuries.   Reading him the entire series of Power Ponies and the bags beneath her eyes could never make up for his bravery, but the smile on his face all through the night was worth her weight in gold. “Is everything alright, Twilight?” She tensed, wiping away tears she just noticed.  “Yeah, everything’s fine.”  He was in the hooves of the best doctors in Equestria, and Fluttershy had volunteered to stay by his side in her absence, even after all that had happened to her.  She had no reason to get teary eyed.  He’d be okay.  He was a strong, brave dragon.  “Will… will Mirror’s magic ever come back?” “No.”  Celestia’s voice came out cold, grieving.  “Our best mages broke down her knife’s enchantment.  Dark magic, from ages older than myself.” The sentence hung in the air, a subject unwanted but unwilling to leave.  Twilight desired nothing more to do with it, but a question gnawed at her.  She looked up to Celestia.  “Then why did mine?” A genuine smile crossed Celestia’s lips.  “I do not know.  But I do know that I’ve never had a student with as much talent as you, Twilight.”  Her eyes flicked to Twilight’s cutie mark.  “And with a talent in magic, I can only speculate.” They returned their gazes to the holes after a while, and the crunch of shovel against dirt filled increasingly uncomfortable minutes. “Princess…” she said.   “Hmm?” “Mirror had said... Mirror had said that I had taken everything from her.  That… I had taken you from her.” Only the sounds of the guards answered her, and as much as Twilight wanted to, she couldn’t bring herself to look her mentor in the eyes.  Not with the weight of her last words on her shoulders. “It was many years ago, Twilight.”  Celestia spoke plainly, her voice neither floating like a summer breeze as was its norm, nor laden with guilt or heartache as it had been on their last meeting.  “Smoke Screen and Mirror Image were sisters, Smoke the eldest.  I had taken her under my wing for her gift in illusion magic.  Like you, she always had her nose in a book, and she never bothered with making friends.”  A light chuckle, and a glance.  “Just like you. “But where you discovered friendship, Smoke dove further into her studies, to the point of never even leaving her study.”  She lowered her head.  “Mirror was fascinated with her sister’s abilities long before they applied to the School for Gifted Unicorns.  When I met them, she latched onto the idea that I would teach them both.”  Something tensed her eyebrows ever so slightly, and her ears fell back.  “She latched onto me. “She followed me around wherever I went.  At least, wherever she was allowed to follow.  Half the castle thought she was my personal student instead of Smoke.”  She chuckled.  “That little smile of hers… “But as much as I would have enjoyed teaching her, Mirror simply didn’t have the prowess of her bigger sister, and I was fool enough to direct her to Canterlot Academy’s standard classes.  I had no idea how deep it hurt her, and even less how much it consumed her. “She did everything she had to gain my approval, to take what she believed was her rightful place as my personal student, but when I didn’t grant her her wish, she left in a fit of rage.”  She took a tremulous breath.  “I don’t know when it happened, but…” They both looked at the holes dug before them. “You’d think after ruling for hundreds of years, I’d notice cues like that more easily.  That I would have noticed the differences in Smoke’s attitude sooner, connected the dots like anypony else would have been able to.” “Princess…”  Twilight raised a hoof, but put it back down, instead leaning toward her.  “It’s not your fault.  You know that.” A weak smile slowly crept onto Celestia’s face.  “They say time heals all wounds.”  She turned to Twilight.  “But the only ponies to ever say that weren’t alicorns.” The urge to refute and comfort—to say that time did indeed heal all wounds—rolled to the tip of Twilight’s tongue, but Celestia’s voice rang of experience, not just wisdom.  She swallowed her words, looking down.  All she could do was stay by her side, remind her she wasn’t alone. The shouts around them grew louder, and Celestia perked up, looking to the far end of the garden.  There, the guards gathered around one of the holes.   Twilight could feel the tension in her mentor, the way her ears swivelled forward, wings slightly open.  She wanted to be there for her, to help her through what must have been a tempest of emotions.  But she knew herself to be just one student in a list that could span the globe, and that never lessened how special each and every name was to Celestia.  She couldn’t intrude on that sanctity. “I’ll be here, Princess.” Celestia leaned back, her ears flicking toward her.  Her face came around, bringing with it a smile warmer than the sun above suddenly felt.  “Thank you, Twilight.”  With that, she took to the air, landing before the coffin the guardsponies were pulling out with ropes. Cherry, Twilight couldn’t help but notice.  A bright polish that flashed in the sunlight, despite unknown years underground.  She saw the tiny figure of Celestia raise a hoof to its side, her horn aglow.  The casket opened, and for a long time, nopony moved. Slowly, Celestia’s wings fell limp to her sides, her head lowered to the casket, and the sky fell dim.  Bodies gathered around Celestia, obscuring her from view.   Though she could see no more, Twilight remained.  She was a mare of her word, and no matter how much it hurt to not stand by Celestia’s side, she held firm.  She let out a sigh, watching, waiting, as the sun slipped behind the Clefthoof mountains across the valley, until all but Celestia departed from the casket.   The moon shone full despite its waning schedule to cast the world in a brighter candescence, twinkling off the pearlescent flagstones and distant Dais.  Condolences from Luna, Twilight knew.  She wondered where in the castle, what tall tower she watched from, sympathizing from afar. Twilight’s eyes rose to the castle skyline, where innumerable shadows reached up to blend with the night sky.  Though she caught no glimpse of Luna, she saw her image spread across the starry backdrop. She had been consumed by jealousy once, had let it drive her to destroy all she had once loved.  The Elements of Harmony brought her back from that ledge, and long since had her worries of reinstatement been banished.  She found love again, despite a thousand years spent alone in darkness.  And if Luna had, then hope remained for Mirror. The thought lowered her eyes to Celestia in the distance.  She could no longer see the casket, and likewise Celestia’s mane had long since melded with the shadows.  But the way her shoulders dipped, Twilight knew her head hung low, possibly nestled beside Smoke’s as she caressed her mane.   What lengths Celestia would have gone to had she known of Mirror’s deceit.  How wholly it must have consumed her once she did.   If only Mirror could have seen it. She would have to visit her soon.  Twilight had never been fond of the dungeons, but her duty—her friendship—exceeded her reluctance.  No creature stepped beyond that brink, as Zecora had said.  No matter how far they had fallen. But that was not now.  Now belonged to Celestia, as she had promised.  So Twilight waited, beside the holes and cast-aside chrysanthemums, the still night air long spent of its earthy smell.  For Celestia.  For as long as she needed.