Honestly, I have a very hard time remembering exactly what happened the day we returned to our present without our daughter. We quickly ran inside Princess Twilight's Castle to the rug in front of the Portal and collapsed... Shysage and I, we were in so much bleeding pain over our Ari. I had to ask our friends about a lot of this. It was just excruciating...
I remember Fluttershy and Shyna were the first to join us. I am almost positive Sis felt our presence, or more likely, our pain, as soon as we returned to the present. Both hugged us and quickly joined our crying. And I think my sister quickly felt what had happened. She didn't know names or anything, but Fluttershy deeply felt our loss over our daughter... And when she could, Fluttershy managed to explain some of this to Princess Twilight. Our amazing Princess had already realized that we were not crying because of the mob of angry stallions, and that something far more painful had happened. Princess just didn't know what it was until Fluttershy tried to fill her in. And I guess that, at some point, Princess Twilight got a message off to Cel and Lu, well Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.
Maybe an hour later, and the rest of Princess' girls (Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rarity) along with Filia and Fiona, all of our amazing pony friends were crying with us, trying as best as they could to help us through a... another... ...terrible nightmare... In that respect, we were glad to be back. To have to face such a loss alone would have been far worse...
I think we all cried together the rest of the day. Honestly, I lost track of time. I hurt so bad time really didn't matter much to me. I couldn't see that ever changing. We had left our precious daughter buried far back in the Past...
At one point, Pinkie Pie did try to tell me it would all work out. Through gut-wrenching tears, all I could do was nod and cry on Pinkie's shoulder for a while. I appreciated the gesture though.
At another point that afternoon, I remember being literally surrounded by loving, caring mare friends. That really helped, and I love every one. But I noticed that Shysage was by himself, crying as hard as I was, still over on the rug. That seemed so tragically wrong to me. He hurt every bit as much as I did. Ariel was ours. This was our tragedy. I gently pulled myself away from whoever I was hugging, and made my way back to my Stallion. Shysage and I, we cried together, surrounded by amazing, caring friends, for the rest of that day.
...
It seemed like late in the day when Cel and Lu walked quickly into the library, both already crying. Our friends made a path for them, and our girls quickly joined us. I think they just as quickly felt our pain as we cried together hours more.
But through my agony, I also began to sense... There was more pain than just ours in this room... After crying with Cel and Lu for a while, Lu quietly said just these words, still crying softly herself.
"Sister, its ok now..."
After Lu said this, Cel (Princess Celestia) was clearly working on calming down. She had some things she evidently wanted, maybe needed to say. It was then that I realized Cel and Lu were carrying pain that evening too... Of course, I cared. But I had no idea what it was... And I guess, sensing their pain maybe helped Shysage and I both... Maybe it put ours in perspective; their pain was important to us too. We all worked on calming down as a result. And with each passing minute, it became clearer that Cel and Lu were both reeling inside...
Cel tried to start talking a number of times. Each time, she would try to speak, then collapse into tears again as we hugged. Well, as bad as I felt, I would have done the same thing. I doubted I could even talk right now.
She finally started getting some words out. Cel spoke very slowly, very disjointed, clearly having trouble placing words, crying, breathing haltingly the whole time.
"Mom... dad...
"I... The last time... When you came back from the... future...
"That was very hard, because you couldn't... You just couldn't tell us... anything... Well, not much...
"That night I couldn't sleep, so I just worked on trying...
"I was trying to remember... things from the... past...
"And I know... Centuries... So many memories... Forgotten...
"I know you were... in the future... But I just tried...
"For hours... I remembered... nothing...
"Just mom and dad... and that tree house...
"So many amazing mem...
"I was almost back asleep... Then I remembered...
"I remembered... Oh my goodness...
"I remembered...
"...Our... Foal-sitter... Lu and my... Foal-sitter..."
Cel stopped and cried for a while, and Lu did too. We had no idea why... The four of us just hugged and cried together more. Cel soon stopped again though, and tried to keep going. It was still clear this was very difficult for Cel, and for Lu too.
"Our... She was so amazing...
"Our Foal-sitter...
"When I remembered her, I... I remembered...
"Our mother... So different... She tried so hard to stay... To stay with our father, King... King Thars... That was so different...
"Mother told us... Often... Father needed her..."
Cel stopped and cried some, then continued.
"Mother loved us so much...
"She always left... us... with our amazing Foal... ...Foal-sitter...
"Our Foal-sitter was... ...amazing... ...too... Beautiful... So smart... Gentle... Patient... She hugged us both a lot... We needed that...
"Our world... ...so full of death... ...deceit... ...arguing ponies...
"With our Foal-sitter... Lu and I... so much love... amazing peace...
"I think I remember more... than Lu... Lu was younger...
"But... we both adored... Absolutely adored our Foal-sitter....
"She was our world... our peace..."
Cel tried to laugh while crying...
"Our Foal-sitter... She started calling us Cel and Lu... So much easier to say... Fast..."
Cel was quickly crying again, and kept crying...
"While life in Coptol... Boiled over... Cougars... Stubborn ponies...
"Our Foal-sitter kept... She was our peace, our haven...
"Until we were... Tak... Tak..."
Cel started crying again, and couldn't keep going.
It was clear Cel and Lu both loved their Foal-sitter, whoever she was, and I could easily envision the terrible thing that was life in Coptol. It was like the ponies were so preoccupied, fighting behind the scenes for their clan... They couldn't see the coming Cougar threat. Shysage and I, we both deeply loved Cel and Lu... I was so glad to learn... At least there was a loving heart for them, before the terrible... Before we rescued them...
Well, we both loved Cel and Lu and, even in our pain, we were glad, I think, to be able to cry with them through this memory... That's what we did... I think, thats all we could do...
Even after a while, Cel still couldn't talk...
Then Lu tried. She too, slowly spoke through tears...
"Sister reminded me about our... Foal-sitter the next morning...
"I remembered right away...
"We both hugged and cried together... Our Foal-sitter... ...really was amazing...
...
"But we both realized at the same time...
"Dad's mane and tail... Mom's pony coat... Both your loving heart...
"We both knew in our soul... She was clearly yours...
"And we had no idea how that would even work...
"You had no foal even... And in the Past...
...
"All I remember... Her name was Ari..."
...
Fluttershy quietly said "Oh, my goodness", then burst loudly into tears. She evidently felt her way into what had happened based on what Cel and Lu said...
Honestly I... I was in no condition to even think, and I had trouble grasping much of this...
Fluttershy, also crying herself, said quietly and calmly... I think she was trying to explain for everypony else. I listened to my sister...
"I... I think Shysage and Summer went back into the Past and had... a foal... a mare... But they had to leave her there in the Past when they came back to us... But their daughter became Princess Celestia and Princess Luna's Foal-sitter..."
...
It took a while for this to sink in... Shysage and I were reeling for the reason... ...what Fluttershy said about our daughter. But Cel and Lu's Foal-sitter? Our Ari did that?
I nudged Lu gently away just a bit, and looked into her eyes... It was clearly true... Of course Cel couldn't say anything about it before, even though she desparately wanted to... But now... The four of us burst into tears together, and cried loudly for a while...
It seemed that, in a crucial time in Cel and Lu's life, our Ariel Dawn had been their Foal-sitter... Our Ari had helped them through a nightmare... Evidently, our Ari had loved these two foals, until Shysage and I rescued them, and were able to take over...
I... That was so amazing... Shysage and I are committed to true friendship. If that was the role we played, having a daughter so our daughter could also love the foals that would one day become Equestria's Princesses... I couldn't speak for Shysage. But I would try to live with that... Since that was clearly what Cel and Lu needed... What Equestria required... We should be thankful for that, for the role our Ari could play...
Cel, Lu, Shysage and I, we cried together there for a while, surrounded by the rest of our loving family, Princess Twilight and all our friends... Shysage and I, well Cel and Lu too; we were all clearly calming down. What our Ari would go on and do to help Equestria's Princesses... We could do this...
Over the course of an hour or two, it seemed like we all slowly calmed down... After my crying stopped... I think I was the last one crying... This still would not be easy... But I tried to thank our amazing pony friends. I turned to face them and tried...
"I... Shysage and I... What Fluttershy said is what happened... Our Ari was so amazing... But when we had to come back... She didn't... It really helps though..." Well, I thought I was ready for this, but I guess I couldn't continue. I put my head down, and wept softly.
Fluttershy ran quickly up, hugged me (which felt so amazing), and we cried together... Shyna, Pinkie Pie (I thanked her for before), Filia, Rarity... I hugged and cried with everypony, and that took a while. Cel and Lu were still crying softly with dad (Shysage).
...
I heard Rarity scream loudly, and immediately opened my eyes and looked. Over Applejack's shoulder, I saw it... It was just a dull orange blob. It looked like the same orange as the Portal Beacon, but this was so different... This blob barely held any form for very long, and faded in and out repeatedly... And there was no sound... Briefly, we all just stared at it. It was quickly gone.
Shysage spoke first. "Summer..."
Cel didn't wait. She quickly stood to her full height, which put her looking down at me, and Equestria's Princess had the most stern look in her eyes... She loudly shouted just one word.
"GO..."
Everypony else in the room except Lu and Princess Twilight, immediately fell to the floor before their Princess... She was... uhm... determined... This was a royal decree if there ever was...
Bah, the Past... Again... I guess I hoped we wouldn't find Lord Melvain again, or I would really be tempted to... A present without our Ariel would make that a tough choice...
I changed into a people and stood up, then spun up my Cutie Mark (just in case, based on past experience...) Shysage was right behind me, and he quickly took my hand.
I glanced back at Cel, and her stern countenance had not changed. I grabbed the edge of the Portal and squeezed. Equestria present, well our present faded from view...
We quickly arrived whenever our destination was. The Portal would sort all that out. Shysage and I were both standing, facing the Portal, but neither of us recognized the small, dark room.
Again, out of caution, I started to say "Shysage, please stay a peop--"
I heard a pony cry... "Mom..." I would never forget my daughter's voice...
Ariel was maybe ten feet behind us, laying on the floor. Clearly older, she still was looking up at us with an almost childlike, helpless pleading in her eyes. She was crying buckets right away... We guessed she had been crying a while... We both stayed people, and were quickly on the floor next to her... Ariel's head was up in my lap, and we all cried together... I have never ever cried that hard... I had my little girl back...
I know for a fact that it took Shysage a while to get through to me, to Ariel and I... I wanted to ignore everypony, and just hold my precious Ariel... "Never again" I kept saying to myself... But I finally listened to my Stallion.
Shysage had already said a few times...
"Summer, take us back, quickly..."
I tried to stop crying. This was all I could say...
"Ariel, you are coming with us..."
Shysage had the presence of mind to explain to Ariel what she needed to do, what would happen. She walked over to the Portal with us as the pony she was, and Shysage bent down, kissed his pony girl on the forehead, and held one of her front legs. Ariel leaned up against Shysage's leg and cried softly. They were ready to go as soon as I had my Cutie Mark spun up.
Looking back at my Ariel, I squeezed the Portal. Equestria deep in the Past began to fade... Our Ariel didn't... She was coming too...
The Portal actually held the Phantom Alicorn briefly in the Past. Maybe this was a small, first charge, I don't know. But the Portal in our present soon came into view... I could tell when I saw the corner of Princess Twilight's Library around the edge of the wooden Portal frame.
Cel and Lu literally screamed Ari's name the moment they saw her. Ari spun around quickly, and the three of them were hugging tightly, crying loudly together... We heard a bunch of times from all three of them something like "I thought I'd never..." Still, it was clear there was a lot of devotion between our Ari and her two charges, now Equestria's Princesses... Their crowns didn't... Ari saw Cel and Lu. She loved both so deeply...
The three of them cried together for a while, but Shysage and I both knew this wouldn't last... The pain in our Ari's heart quickly became so great... Shysage and I had stayed people, and we sat down on the carpet right next to each other, hugging, watching, waiting... We were fighting back tears... Still crying, our Ariel Dawn... She closed her eyes, lifted her head high, pulled away from Cel and Lu... And almost without even looking, she found her way into Shysage and my Lap... She actually walked up into our laps, and lay down on her belly there and just cried. Shysage and I, we cried with her, and hugged her tightly. Ok, so now, I have never cried so hard... I don't think Ariel or Shysage, either...
I don't know how... But we had our Ariel Dawn back...
Again, everything around us just melted away... All we could do was cry with our Ariel... She was ours... She was here...
I managed to only say one thing to our Ariel...
"Ari, welcome home..."
This made all of us cry harder. The three of us cried there together for a long time...
Cel and Lu were soon laying on their bellies, facing us, facing Ari; they cried with us. The rest of our amazing friends spread out around us and cried with us too. This was our family. We were all home and safe.
And Pinkie Pie was right.