Twilight swallowed and looked down the row where the Archmage had gone.
For the severalth time in the last twenty-four hours, Twilight found herself at a loss. Severalth, of course, being the best she could do as frankly she’d lost count. Where to begin? She couldn’t really deal with the idea of living for centuries. She couldn’t really deal with understanding having… presences, she supposed, in her head. Being an Alicorn. Writing a book on Celestia so in-depth that to be honest it made her want to cry with its soulful honesty.
It wasn’t as if she couldn’t try to approach these things. She could. But before even beginning, it was obvious that they were bigger than her. Grander. Older.
Much like Celestia herself. If she was honest about it.
Some of what the Archmage had imparted troubled her more than the basic problems. What amounted to--once again, she strove to be honest with herself--a love letter to cap all other love letters was minor? A minor work, at best? One she’d “moved on” from, even. The idea that Celestia had somehow planned this all out, like a grandmaster seeing the game five steps ahead. It was her life the Archmage was more or less talking about. Her whole life, organized like…
Well, like a list.
Huh. Now that was fitting. Horrifying, but fitting. Horrifying mostly in that she was not the one who had written that list. Fitting in that, if she were to ever concieve of her most dearly-held vision of how Twilight Sparkle the Fathful Student went about life, it would be at least related to list-making.
The Arhcmage seemed to suggest she would move beyond Celestia. Or, maybe that it wouldn’t be Celestia she would ever… She shook her head. She had made peace with the fact she would never be able to really approach Celestia romantically. Being her friend was a joy. It was enough. It had to be, really. And she read those letters over and over and memorized every mundane greeting and personal anecdote like scripture carved on her heart as a friend. Obviously.
To be the Archamge must be lonely, she realized suddenly. So, very lonely. The way she acted, the way she talked… it reminded her briefly of Maud, but Maud was merely laconic. A little off-puttingly so at times, yes, but she was still there and engaged in a way the Archmage seemed not to be. The Archmage seemed distant not by choice or because it was her nature, but because there was litterally no other option. She was like Twilight.
That was it. That was what had bothered her.
“She’s like me, if I hadn’t gone to Ponyville. If I’d stayed in my tower.”
Again, the books did not answer. But did they need to? She heard the words roll of her tongue and knew they were true. That was Twilight, lady in her high tower, cut off from the world by her own volition until it wasn’t even a choice anymore but a fact.
Choice. To be alone, and perfect. To be with others, and risk being weighed down.
Honestly, Twilight wasn’t sure what to think of that dichotomy.
She started walking. Whatever and wherever this choice was, she wanted to get it done with. Let it come. She was tired of walking and waiting and talking and--
As she reached the end of the row and looked around her, the scenery changed. She saw, at last, a wall and a door. Her breath caught. There it was. Her exit.
She ran to it, as if at any moment it might vanish. And maybe it would. She picked up the pace. Maybe it would just vanish, wasn’t this place all dreams and illusion anyhow? Who was to say it wouldn’t leave her?
But it didn’t. She tried pulling at it but it wouldn’t budge. Frustrated, she growled and then pushed with her magic and her body all at once and then fell through.
She stumbled into a very different sort of place.
Above her were stars, endless and shining. Below her, the tile of the Endless Library, stretching out until it gave way to nothing. It was as if she’d found the end of the world, but she knew there was no such thing. Right? Wasn’t there?
The Archmage was there, of course. Unmoving. As if she’d expected this and was not in the least bit surprised. Twilight wandered briefly if anything could move her, in both senses of the word.
Wherever she was, it was beautiful. The stars… she had always loved them, ever since her father had first set up her telescope and aimed it out past the great mountain above their home towards the heavens. Here they were impossibly bright, impossibly distinct. She felt she could almost reach out and dare to touch them, maybe if she just rose a few feet on her unsteady wings...
Celestia’s voice broke through her awe like a clocktower bell.
“Twilight?”
Twilight froze. She looked away from the stars, past the Archmage, and saw Her there. Her teacher, her mentor. Her friend. Celestia.
Twilight saw Rainbow Dash and Pinkie on either side of her, but for that first moment she had eyes for only one mare. She was, as always, indescribable. Twilight had tried many times to put words on paper or arrange them in the secret confines of her mind in ways that might do her justice. But Celestia repulsed all attempts to twist words into a conqueror’s hoof. Beautiful? Of course. It was the “of course” that taunted her. As in, of course, but anypony could say that after two seconds. What do you have to show for all the time you’ve had?
They had found each other, but there was a void between them. Twilight understood how fitting it was immediately, she on her ledge and Celestia on her ledge.
She was furious and ecstatic all at once.
The Archamge cleared her throat. “The others will have their chance, and then I will offer a final answer, and then you will choose.”
Twilight glared at her. “What others? How did you get Pinkie and… Oh.”
Blinking, she turned back to find Rainbow carting her pink friend across the void and depositing her on the title with a grunt of exertion. Pinkie recovered immediately and greeted Twilight with a massive hug and a babbled greeting.
The Archmage sighed. “Is that really appropriate, shadow? For this to be even remotely meaningful--”
“--then I should be who I am,” Pinkie said, and released Twilight.
“Hey, Sparks,” Rainbow said. “You like the armor?”
“It’s crazy. You look…” Twilight managed a strained little chuckle. “Okay, you look ridiculous but also sort of cool? It’s a bit much.”
“Hey, you’re the one that made it,” Rainbow said with a shrug. “I like the paintjob. Just not the weight. Mind adding some of the power charms next time?”
“The what?”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Pinkie pronked back to Dash and they stood together. “Nevermind that! We have important stuff to talk about. Well, one important thing. You, Twilight!”
Pinkie turned slightly and gestured to Celestia. Twilight watched her take flight and loved it as she always had.
Celestia stood between the Archmage and the new arrivals. Twilight thought of her sitting at court, petitioners on either side. Except the petitioners were not usually Pinkie in an admittedly well put together old style jester’s costume and Rainbow Dash in what appeared to be enough armor for most of the Guard. She did cut quite a figure, though. Twilight had to admit that.
“Well?” Twilight asked, trying to smile. Pinkie made one wish they could, whatever the circumstances. “First, are you Pinkie? Or are you…”
“Depends,” Pinkie said. Her cheer did not waver. “I’m Pinkie, but I’m also you. I’m what you think and feel about Pinkie, and what you know and have seen of her. I’m also me. It’s not a simple question.”
“So you aren’t a simulcrum.”
“Not exactly.”
“Twilight, we’re basically the same,” Rainbow said. “I mean, yeah, not entirely. Like, Rainbow out there doesn’t know anything about power charms or enchanted armor, but I do. I know a lot. I know a few things you don’t know. But we’re the same pony in the ways that matter.”
“If it helps,” Pinkie cut in, “then you don’t have to think of us as the same. You could think of us as the embodiment of how you feel, maybe? Or just as ponies who happen to look like your friends. Or… or, sort of how you keep the human versions of your friends separate in your head, maybe?”
“Yeah, but she does that with dumb names.”
“Well, you do look kind of crazy.”
“Pinkie, you have the dumbest hat ever, and you think--”
Twilight cleared her throat. “Girls. Please. I’ll just call you Pinkie and Dash, okay? We can sort this out later.”
“Right!” they said in unison, which honestly was unsettling.
“Well… weren’t you supposed to tell me something? And for that matter, Celestia--are you alright? What happened?”
“I couldn’t be here for the first part of your trial, as I was told,” Celestia said. “I’m sorry, Twilight. It was not my choice, I assure you.”
“No, I believe that.”
“As for us,” Pinkie began, “we’re here to convince you that you should pick us. And by us, I mean your friends. Like, Dash and Flutters and Rarity and Applehat and me!”
“And also to get you away from this one,” Rainbow added, nodding towards the Archmage, who watched quietly.
“Well, convince me,” Twilight said with a smile.
“She’s told you that stuff about being ‘perfect’ and stuff, right?” Pinkie drew the word perfect out until it was almost unrecognizable. “I don’t even know where to begin. Twilight, what did you feel when the elements shattered?”
Twilight grimaced. “Well, it wasn’t exactly pleasant. I remember being horrified.”
“Yeah, yeah, but after that.”
“Well, I realized that I had been going about it the wrong way. Treating the Elements of Harmony like they were just another artifact or spell focus is a terrible idea. They will just ignore you. They only have power in the context of our bond. We’re all linked. You, and I, and all of our friends, even before we put them on.”
“You mean like my rainboom, right?” Dash cut in excitedly, but Twilight shook her head.
“No, not that. I mean in how you five all decided to come with me. We hadn’t known each other very long, though some of you were already friends, but you accompanied me into a scary place with no real guarantees anything was going to work out for the better. In that moment, I realized that I trusted you. I didn’t know why. I didn’t have time to really analyze it.”
Twilight laughed softly and looked down at her hooves. “I just knew it was true. Or maybe I knew it could be true, and I wanted it to be true.”
“You defeated Nightmare Moon and you helped Luna come back because you stopped trying to use the world like a machine,” Pinkie said. “You’re a smart pony, Twilight, but smart ponies need friends too.”
“Yeah. Ponies need someone to be loyal to. Someone that they can trust at least a little,” Rainbow said. “Pinkie and I know what’s she said, but listen to me when I tell you that you really won’t be perfect or even better alone.”
“You’ll get more done, maybe, but even that’s kind of doubtful,” Pinkie said.
“And then what will be the point of all the things you do when there’s not a single pony there to appreciate it? You can’t live alone forever! And if you let it all go, one day you’re going to find out that nopony even thinks of you at all. You’re a shadow or a machine they can just slip paperwork to under the door and get it all signed in triplicate.”
“Remember how happy you were, when the Princess let you stay in Ponyville? You thought--”
“--It will be the greatest adventure,” Twilight said softly.
“Yeah! Just like in the book mom read,” Dash said with a grin. “When Rosebud asked Daring what it was going to be like, to go back to her classroom and teach classes instead of have adventures in the field.”
“Dash hates that one.”
“But I don’t,” Rainbow said. “Because I understand it. I saw the way you felt, and I know that you remembered it when you first started living in Ponyville.”
“And she was right. You were right. Wasn’t it an adventure?”
“Still is,” Rainbow said.
“It really has been,” Twilight agreed.
Pinkie stepped forward and took over. “Twilight, do you really think that it’s going to make you smarter or more grown up to be alone? I mean, really, what would you do? Let the Archmage be your guide and she wouldn’t even bother to leave goodbye letters. Just leave Ponyville behind, move into the palace for a few decades and learn the ins and outs of the government. Study magic in seclusion, maybe even work on some of those inventions you have in that notebook you won’t mention to anyone.”
“Because they’re failed designs, Pinkie.”
“You never tried ‘em.”
“Because they won’t work. It’s math--nevermind. They were a whim.”
“That’s what she’ll have you doing, that’s what you will more and more want to do. You won’t talk to Celestia or Luna anymore. Will you keep up your chess games by mail? General Ironclad was so happy that you remembered his birthday. Did you know that his games with you have turned his whole outlook on life around?”
“That seems a bit much.”
“If it weren’t true, it would be a bit too much, you’re right. Except you’re wrong, and it’s true. He was old and lonely. Playing chess with a little lavender filly on his last posting was one of his favorite memories, and then poof! There you were and suddenly that old warhorse had someone to talk to again.”
“I’m… I mean, I didn’t want to assume it meant that much to him,” Twilight said, looking away. “It was just a gift. I was happy that he was happy. He was nice to me when I was homesick.”
“Other ponies are important,” Rainbow said, edging closer. “Like, really important. When you’re going down towards a bad end, other ponies can pull you out of the dive before you crash. When you’re on top of the world, when you’re in the winner’s circle, other ponies are there to share in how awesome it is. It’s amazing, because it doesn’t work like math. If I spread a cake between friends, we get smaller pieces as there are more of us. But happiness doesn’t work that way.”
“Do you remember that old rhyme you found?”
Twilight jerked upright and looked Pinkie in the eye. “Yes.”
“The one you used to think about so much? You translated it and keep it on your desk.”
Twilight swallowed. Celestia was looking at her now, curious.
“The inarticulate sunlight,” Twilight said. She shook her head, trying to deny the way her heart leapt in her chest. “No, it’s dumb. I mean, yeah, I’m interested as to what it means. I’m curious. It ran better in the old language. It’s pretty. But that’s all there is to it.”
Dash cleared her throat and recited:
I have written this hoping you will read it,
Years and years hence or tomorrow.
Past all sorrow, past entropy itself
Past all of the wide and bottomless darkness of space
There is an inarticulate sunlight.
Pinkie hummed. “You wanted to know what was underneath the world, didn’t you? You used to say it like that, but you don’t anymore. You try not to think about it.”
“It’s not a mystery. There is nothing.”
But she thought of her letter and the chase she'd conducted in the halls of Canterlot's Royal Archive. Always chasing the ineffable something in Magic.
“Twilight, how long have we been friends? How long has it been since you and I and all the others learned the truth already? Don’t you feel the rightness of the Elements? You’re thinking about perfection like it’s a grade or a number, silly. But you know it’s not. You know what you've felt and seen with us is closer to that sunlight stuff than anything the Archmage has told you.”
“We don’t have to convince you. I mean, we shouldn’t have to. You already know,” Rainbow said.
“You know that trying to be some kind of isolated genius will only be sad. Does the Archmage seem happy to you? Do you want to be like her? I think you like having friends. I think you like being a pony that can even try to have them. She’s your past, Twi.”
“And we want to be there when you make the future,” Dash said.
“But we also wanted to say something else,” Pinkie said, and her cheer faded a little and she huddled closer to Rainbow. “We couldn’t bring the others because they couldn’t say it and really… really mean it. But Dashie and I could. We think you’ll pick the right choice. If it isn’t us…”
“Then we still believe in you,” Rainbow said. “We really do. We won’t be around to see it, but we know that either way, you’ll do something worth doing. We worry that you’ll do great things and find that they don’t mean anything to you. Pinks and I--”
“--it scares us,” Pinkie said, frowning. “It scares us what might happen to you if you think she’s right. Because maybe you’ll have a productive life, but a happy one?”
“One worth living?”
“And yet Dashie and I can’t deny that we trust you. We love you--we love you as much as you love Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, whatever they’re doing right now in Ponyville.” Pinkie kicked her hoof, looking away. “What you do is important. But so is who you do it with.”
The Archmage cleared her throat, drawing all eyes to her.
“I have said what could be said. Know only that it is time to put away childish things when you are no longer a child.”
And then she stared at Celestia. And then they all were.
“What do you think I should do?” Twilight asked. “My gut instinct is to choose my friends, but I’m worried that I don’t really understand what I’m choosing here.”
Celestia took a long breath. She sighed. She looked at them all, one by one.
“I won’t tell you what to do,” she said. “You are already a grown mare, Twilight. I promised I wouldn’t press you and I won’t, because it’s your choice to make.”
“May I ask you a question? Or, possibly a few.”
“Of course. Always.”
“Some of the things that the… well, the Archmage said bothered me.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “The archmage?”
“I’ve started calling her that.” Twilight gestured to the older version of herself, and Celestia gave a little “ah” of comprehension. “Did you plan for me to be an alicorn? As in, was that your plan from the beginning?”
“No,” Celestia said quickly. A little too quickly. “Never.”
They watched each other.
Celestia looked down and sighed. “But I did begin to plan for what seemed the likely future. You as the new Archmage. I was never going to push you into something you didn’t want. I just… I thought you would be a good one. I knew that if I gave you the opportunity and the know-how that you could do it.”
“What if I had said one day that I wanted to be a painter? Or that I wanted to do… well, anything that wasn’t basically that?”
“Then I would have told you to do whatever it was,” Celestia said. “Part of me would have been a little disappointed that I’d been wrong.”
Twilight closed her eyes. “Oh.”
“But I would have been more disappointed in myself,” Celestia continued, as if she hadn’t noticed. “Because I had misjudged you, or because perhaps I had wasted time you could have spent working towards another goal. I’m not sure what I would have done, actually. Painting. I’ve never been a good painter, did you know? In all these long years, I’ve never been able to paint with feeling or insight, despite technical skill.” She smiled strangely. “But I would have asked you to keep studying with me, if only because you had great talent and you seemed to genuinely love your studies.”
“I did. Do. I did,” Twilight said. “And you would have found a place for me, then? Somewhere else?”
Celestia cocked her head to the side. “Somewhere else? If you wished. A conservatory, when you were old enough, though there are plenty of wonderful ones in Canterlot.”
So it was true. She would have been alone.
Twilight didn’t know what to say. She tried to imagine it--her whole life, without Celestia. Dismissed and then… what? What would she have done? What would it have been like? To imagine a life without Celestia involved at all…
But Celestia was still talking, absorbed in her own imaginings. “I would have kept looking for an archmage, if you truly wished not to go further in your study of magic. But I would have offered you a place at my school even then. I’ve had the honor of knowing many of Equestria’s finest artists that way.” She was smiling. “I kept up with all of them, of course, as I do just about every student at my school.”
Twilight’s ears perked up. “You write all of them?”
Celestia nodded. “Of course. I have many friends.” Before Twilight could react, her expression softened. “But usually it’s only once or perhaps twice a year. Some more, some write me shorter and shorter missives. I worry that they don’t want to disappoint me, but how could they? I don’t demand they be heroes. Only that they be the ponies they were meant to be, that they decided to be. But none that I write as much as I have written you.”
“I love your letters.”
Twilight paused, her face flushed.
“And I love yours,” Celestia said.
“Would we have been friends if I had wanted to do something else?”
Celestia seemed taken aback. She looked at Twilight as if she had become an alien creature. In that stare, Twilight almost felt as if there was something wrong with her for asking. She shrank from that look.
“Twilight, I--” she hesitated, and looked at Rainbow and Pinkie. They nodded. “Twilight, may I ask you a question before I answer?”
“I… okay.” Her voice sounded small. Tinny, as if carried up from some distant basement through a pipe.
“Do you honestly think that my fondness for you is based solely on your performance or some plan I have?”
Twilight stared holes in the floor. She’d had swore to be honest with herself. Shouldn’t she also be honest with this mare of all others? And yet, she felt cold. Celestia’s voice sounded so…
Hurt.
“I have before.”
“Twilight, I--”
Twilight looked back up, ears back, eyes wide.
“Celestia, I don’t--”
They locked eyes. She read the hurt there. She could see the cogs turning behind those eyes, starting to reevaluate everything. Every meeting, every conversation, every laugh, everything--twisting it into something else. It felt like being erased.
“I was scared,” Twilight said. “I was so scared sometimes. I just wanted to be worthy that I convinced myself… I didn’t… I… Pr--Celestia, I didn’t always think that. It was when I was younger, and when I was worried. I always came back to my senses.”
“Twilight, I knew you were always so worried about my opinion. No matter how much I tried to tell you to relax.” She stopped, as if trying to collect her thoughts.
But Twilight didn’t let her. “Please, please don’t be sad. Please. I was stressed out and asocial. I wasn’t assuming what you think I was. I just didn’t want to lie to you.”
Celestia closed her mouth. Her whole face was sad, and Twilight didn’t know how to fix it.
But she had to try. She had told the truth once, why not continue? “I had a crush on you,” she began. “When I was younger. It made me nervous, because at first I didn’t want you to know. But then it was the same old problem, and I worried that you might be offended because I was just your student and… and I couldn’t talk to you even though you were the pony I trusted most because it was about you, and then Shiny was away at training and I didn’t have any outlet. I felt small and stupid. What was I supposed to think? And even after, that fear that if I didn’t measure up you might send me away, it just kept hanging on. I didn’t want to say anything. I couldn’t!”
She was breathing hard, struggling to keep her words clear. She stomped a hoof against the floor and heard no satisfying clack.
“I didn’t want you to be sad, and I didn’t want you to feel like I didn’t trust you. I’m ashamed I felt that way! I just… I’m just so worried sometimes, about stupid things. Other ponies didn’t have trouble with each other, but I did! You remember how bad I was at connecting with ponies.”
Stars. She was rambling. It wasn’t going anywhere.
She’d always known that something like this would happen. And, in a weird way, she’d been right. She had failed. A lack of trust on her part, that’s what it had been. Instead of trusting that the Celestia who had always been kind to her, who had done nothing but guide her and… and you were thinking of her as a chessmaster, moving pieces. What would you feel like if Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy thought of you that way?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
She wanted to look at Celestia but she didn’t feel like she should. What right did she have now? If love was a gift, hadn’t she just spurned it all along, really? All of her feelings felt foolish now. Love? Or the idea of it? For a brief second she had considered telling her, hadn’t she? Before Celestia had asked that question. She’d thought about it. She’d wanted to.
“Of course I would have been your friend, Twilight,” Celestia said to the mare trying not to cry. “Twilight, please look at me.”
“I’m not sure I should.”
“Don’t. That’s nonsense. You’re a grown mare, and I’ll not have you treat me like something I’m not. Look at me.”
So she did.
“I understand being afraid of what another might say,” she began. “I’m sorry if I did anything to help that worry grow. And yes, it hurts to have it confirmed you felt that way. You were honest with me, when you didn’t have to be, and I won’t dishonor that. Do you understand?”
Twilight nodded.
“I would have been your friend regardless. I was fond of you because you were a bright filly, a happy one, and you were a delight. You grew up and you retained those characteristics. Even when I worried isolation might taint them, those things never died in you. But if you think of you and I and the word ‘worth’ again I will be a bit upset. It’s insulting to you, and it’s a bit insulting to me… and it’s insulting to the happiness we’ve had. Don’t you think?”
“Yes,” she said miserably.
Celestia sighed.
They were all silent then. The aspects looked away. Celestia looked away. Twilight watched her.
But Twilight thought all the while. The Archmage had made that perfection her goal, perhaps at first for Celestia’s favor. To earn it. To be worthy of it. Pinkie was right--she was not happy. She might be “satisfied” but Twilight mostly got the impression that she was cold. That she was lonely. Twilight knew what it was to be lonely. How it would be fine, for awhile. You would be singular and solitary, happy in yourself and your freedom, and then out of the silence it would come for you, that old dragon loneliness. Loneliness was the greatest vice. What couldn’t it twist? What couldn’t it break?
“Are you mad at me?” she asked before she could think twice about it. Stars, she sounded like a child.
“No,” Celestia said quickly. “Just… I’m sorry. I’m a bit frustrated with myself, Twilight.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I would say that you shouldn’t be, but then you would deny it. It’s alright.”
“Celestia, this is a really terrible place for me to be candid, but I’m worried that after all this I’ll never have a time where I will be able to…” Twilight stopped. Where was this coming from? No. Retreat! She needed to retreat, none of this was good campaigning weather. She had a decision to make, right? It could wait--
“I know what you mean. I’ve been having conversations with the other aspects. I was just thinking the same thing.”
“I worry that I might just make you more upset, but I also think it might make… well, help you understand why I was so worried.”
“You don’t have to say.”
Twilight ground her teeth. She took a deep breath. “I think I have to,” she said. “Even if this is the worst way it could have happened. Because after this I don’t think I’ll have the courage and I’m too emotional to be smart and not say it and Celestia I’ve been in love with you for years.”
Celestia just stared at her. Twilight wanted to be roughly four inches tall so she could hide behind the Archmage’s hooves.
“I was afraid because I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, or if that was even okay, and then I was in Ponyville and you were writing letters and I could reread them dozens of times in private and suddenly it felt safer to feel that way and… and…”
“Twilight--”
“I mean, I don’t even know if you swing that way!” Twilight started laughing, but it sounded angry, like a dog barking. “I was too scared to even hint to find out! I couldn’t even go reading or asking around because I was so paranoid someone might want to know why I was asking!”
“Twilight.”
“I’m sorry, I know this is a bad time but I told you about that and now I--”
“Twilight, I’ve felt the same.”
Twilight’s brain simply stopped. Her ears were broken, obviously.
“What?” It wasn't possible. There was no way. None at all.
“I’ve been sorting through my own feelings recently. I’ve… I’ve dated former students before, Twilight. It makes a lot more sense now that you wouldn’t know that.” Once again, neither could look at the other. “I wasn’t sure what to think. You were going to be ageless. At first, the idea excited me! We could… we could have more or less forever to enjoy… But then it happened. I worried. I fretted. I’d rolled my dice and they hadn’t stopped rolling. Because it changed our relationship in a way I’m not sure how to describe. Don’t you feel it?”
“Yes,” was all that Twilight could say. She just... she was terrified to even move, lest she somehow break the moment.
“I have always been a bit of a mess when it came to love,” Celestia said. “If I’m honest, which I think is the order of the day, I can’t say that I have ever succeeded in maintaining my composure in regards to my own romantic feelings. I try, of course. Composure is… sort of my thing, as I think I heard one of the guards say the other week.” Twilight’s eyes flicked over to find Celestia flashing her a sheepish little smile. “But I’ve never handled it as well as Luna did. Luna was the romantic one. I mean, I can be too! It was just… it all seemed so natural for her. Suave and graceful. I mean, I can be those things--”
Twilight hiccuped. Oh. Crying. Dammit. But she also laughed. “I think I get it.”
"You've become such a wonderful mare, Twilight. If it hurts to hear you say that you've worried over what I thought of you, it is only because all the way I have thought the world of you. You were brave and you were loving. Even though friendship was so foreign, you took to your new friends in Ponyville and even thought it was probably frightening you opened yourself up to them. You learned all of their habits and dreams and you learned them and through you, so did I. You are a genius, Twilight Sparkle, and I've met few ponies quite like you in all my years. Star Swirl was close, but where he failed you've succeeded. I'm not talking about his spell. I'm talking about as a pony. Star Swirl died bitter and unfulfilled, wishing he had spent his life on other things. But you surround yourself with new ponies to love. I read every letter you send me and cherish them. I've thought about writing you and telling you how I felt but..."
Twilight wasn't even trying to hide it anymore. The impossibility before her was too much. She just cried, trying to keep the water out of her eyes so she could watch Celestia's lips move and prove it was real. It was really happening.
“Oh, Song, you’re crying. I really should have planned this out better. Please don't--”
“I think this was the best,” Twilight said. “Even if I have no idea what happens now.”
“I’m… unsure myself. You have a decision to make. And then… and then we wake up and I think we have a lot to talk about.”
Twilight winced. “I don’t think ‘we have a lot to talk about’ will ever not sound ominous.”
Celestia tried to chuckle but it was a weak thing.
Twilight composed herself. Everypony else was silent, waiting for her to speak.
And she had to. She couldn’t put it off. She had to make the choice.
She looked to Pinkie and Dash, and watched warring hope and fear in their faces. If she did not choose them, then what? They disappeared? Vanished? She couldn’t do that to them. Honestly, with Celestia here, with the spectre of being good enough gone, what did the Archmage have? What could she offer a Twilight Sparkle with friends throughout the ages? She’d studied and learned in Ponyville surrounded by ponies she knew. The idea that she would be unable to do the same elsewhere was absurd.
Would the Archmage also vanish, if Twilight chose her friends?
That was the problem, wasn’t it? It went beyond the idea of abandoning, of repudiating her younger self. Because that bothered her enough, but it was worse to realize that to leave the Archmage here would… kill her? Would she sleep, beneath Twilight’s mind? Who would be there to wake her? Who would talk to her in her loneliness?
She was Twilight herself, trapped in a body of death. Driven and driving forward. Over the years, would she have thought of the sunlight? That madmare’s scrawl that she’d found repeated, commented on, furiously condemned? Would she keep searching for the mystery? Twilight knew she had and would. But to do it alone--
--to do it alone was pointless. Beyond pointless, tragic. There were more things than what may or may not hide behind the stars. Five ponies had rescued Twilight before she had truly become this vision. But who would rescue the Archmage?
“I won’t leave you alone,” she said. They all looked at her, puzzled. Twilight coughed, and took a shuddering breath. “I choose friends. I choose living together. I won’t try and withdraw because of agelessness or longevity or whatever you want to call it. I grew up when I realized there was more to the world than books, as much as I love them. I choose the court that reflects that, the one where my friends are.”
Pinkie burst into tears and held Rainbow, who flushed and half-heartedly tried to pry her off.
But Twilight wasn’t finished. She turned to the Archmage and extended a hoof.
“But I won’t leave you alone. You deserve friends as much as I. Come with us. Let me show you that there’s more to life than trying to find perfection. You were the me that used to be, and I want to show you especially the me that will be.”
The Archmage recoiled, obviously confused. “What? You can’t choose--”
“I can. You gave me a false dichotomy and then told me to choose my court. I reject your classifications. There is nothing that divides my pursuits, my passions, and even myself with living together and living among ponies. I reject your classifications and your ideas, but I do not reject you. It’s my court, and I will choose it by my actions, and I choose to include you. As long as you’ll have me. Please.”
The Archmage stared at her hoof as she offered it. “I don’t understand,” she said at last. “I thought you would abandon me if you did not choose. Why don’t you? You obviously don’t approve of what I have to offer.”
“I approve of your drive and your dedication. I approve of that quiet pride in your work and your contribution. I approve of what you want to do. You are me, Archmage. I’m you. But I’m already driven and dedicated. It’s you who is behind.”
“I’m not sure they wan--”
“We don’t mind,” Pinkie said quickly. “We’ve not been on the best of terms, Archy, but--”
“Do not call me that,” the older Twilight said, but without much heat.
“Okay! If you come along I’ll find a new name for you. I promise. I’m with Twilight. It’s too sad if you just go back to sleep. And besides… the Court of Amity would be off to a bad start if we didn’t reach out, wouldn’t it?” She grinned. “Please?”
“If Twilight wants you, then I will,” Rainbow added.
And Twilight looked to Celestia. “Remember what I said?”
“I think it was something along the lines of ‘no past me, no future me, they’re all the same me’.”
“Something like that.” Twilight steadied herself and offered her hoof to the Archmage again. “I won’t repudiate the past, and I won’t fear the future. The first doesn’t deserve it and the latter… well, it seems pretty bright to me.”
And the Archmage looked down. She looked up at Celestia. “Is it alright?”
“Of course it is, my Faithful Student," answered Celestia.
The Faithful Student took her hoof and the dream erupted in color.