Twilight shook her head to clear away the memories. That tentacle monster… it was no wonder Celestia needed her help. So many flailing arms, so many… probes. But that was in the past now. The rift was sealed, the horror dispelled to the Dungeon Dimensions where it belonged.
The other princess was still out there, helping the Ponyville guards burn away the leftover ectoplasm with her solar flares. Twilight saw bursts of fire through her castle’s windows, searing severed tendrils with a sound like deep-frying eggplant.
Ugh, eggs… Millions of eggs, all white and gushy and warm, had spilled out of the creature when she stabbed it. A few got stuck in her mane, and then they started hatching, and then they confused her for their mother, and then the suckling started…
It had been a long day.
It was going to get longer. Twilight slipped her battle armor off, lilac magic clutching it as she teleported it back to the blacksmith for repairs. Scratched hooves followed the path they’d followed many times before, winding through gleaming corridors of her castle. The Castle of Friendship, they called it.
Appropriate, then, that it would be the final resting place of her best friends.
Doors opened before her, receptive to her magic, as she spiraled up skybridges and stairways to the pinnacle of the castle. It had expanded over the years, tended to by Spike like it was one of the gems he used to grow for Rarity. After he left, Cadance had offered her assistance, but their gemnasts could never match a dragon’s talent.
The room at the peak of the castle’s keep was his magnum opus, built like a cathedral with high arches, vaulted ceilings, and soaring buttresses, all fortified by impenetrable diamond. Twilight’s horn flashed as she opened the last set of double doors and stepped inside.
“Hey, girls.”
Five stained-glass windows looked back at her, their eyes seeming to follow her as sunlight streamed through. Beneath them, mummified in opaque crystal, lay the bodies of the Bearers. All around them, medals, awards, statues and paintings, reminders of the time they’d spent together.
There were flowers, of course—magic kept them fresh forever, but Twilight still made sure to change them out every once in awhile. Rarity loved variety, after all. It simply wouldn’t do to have flowers that were out of season. And Fluttershy… her last wishes included a desire to see her critter friends again, so Twilight would take Angel’s great-great-and-so-forth-grandchildren up to meet her. They tended to eat the flowers, too.
Twilight stepped into the center, her horn flaring once again. Lilac magic leapt around the funeral chamber.
The room was a masterwork, with thin holes and fluted pipes running through the walls like a church’s organ. When the wind blew just right, Twilight could swear she could still hear her dead friend’s voices, their laughter, their…
“Dear, I must say, your mane is simply a wreck. Have you been conditioning the way I showed you?”
… comments on her style. And she’d be correct, of course. Some small piece of their souls still lived on, bound forever to the Elements, and thus bound to the Tree of Harmony, and finally bound to her castle. Their bodies may be buried, but their friendship wasn’t.
“Yes, Rarity. Saving Equestria does tend to ruin my coiffure, though.” She tried to copy her friend’s ostentatious accent.
“Well. Perhaps maximum-hold manespray would help?” The white unicorn in the window moved a little, glass shards rearranging themselves.
“I’ll be sure to give it a try,” Twilight answered with a chuckle. Right now, Rarity was the only one awake—animating the windows and letting the girls speak was brilliant magic, but also very draining.
She cleared her throat. “I’m afraid I’m not just here for a social call, though. There’s been a… development in Spike’s life.”
Rarity’s expression dropped when she heard the tone of Twilight’s voice, fragments of eyebrow furrowing. “Whatever do you mean?” Suddenly, the glass screeched as it halfway-shattered and reformed itself into an image of an aghast unicorn. “You don’t mean he’s dying, do you? Quickly, to his side! We must save…”
“No, he’s fine, Rarity!”
The window slowly returned to normal. “Oh. Whyever did you have to make it so dramatic, then?”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “He’s fine, it’s just… he’s getting married.”
Rarity smiled, glass stretching across her snout and forming little vitreous dimples in her cheeks. “Oh, he is? That’s wonderful, darling! You’ll have to hold the wedding in the castle, of course. It would be simply unforgivable for me to miss little Spikey-wikey’s special day!” A glass hoof gestured around the room. “I’m sure the other girls will be thrilled too, once they wake up…”
She tried to step closer to Twilight, but the window couldn’t move, only imitate motion. Rarity instead placed a hoof beside her mouth, as if she was whispering a secret. “Don’t get me wrong, I love what you’ve done with the glass and the crystals and all, but Rainbow truly needs her beauty sleep.” Rarity glanced askance at the slumbering mare, her mane a disheveled mass of multicolored glass.
For an instant, Twilight grinned, but she soon remembered the complication of the wedding. “Yes, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see you all again…”
“I say, it’s positively been ages since his last visit. Oh, wedding gifts!” Again the glass cracked and reformed, this time into a bashful smile. “I don’t suppose you could help out a bit with those? Being a piece of castle decoration is not exactly gainful employment…”
Twilight brushed away her concerns. “Yes, yes, gifts will all be taken care of. But there’s another problem.”
“You want me to design the dress! Oh, Twilight, you didn’t even have to ask! Why, I’ve already worked out patterns for the one hundred, seventy-three mares I thought Spike might marry!” Rarity leapt to the top of the window, making space for the glass below to render her fashion notebook. In a quieter voice, she continued. “And a few suits for the five dozen stallions I saw potential in as well!”
“Rarity, it’s not that…”
She didn’t listen, glass clicking and popping as it slid around. “So here’s the dress I made for Ember—it’s fireproof, of course—and this one’s for Flurry Heart—tell the Empire we’ll need a thousand of their finest gems, by the way…”
“Rarity!” Twilight shouted for the first time since she’d entered the chamber, her voice echoing off the crystal walls.
Slipping off her reading glasses—Twilight could never figure out why a unicorn made of glass needed reading glasses, also made of glass—Rarity looked down at her. “Dear, you know I admire anyone with a strong interest in fashion, but yelling isn’t the best way to express your opinions. Oh! Is it Luna? I always said she needed to find a good stallion… er, dragon!”
“Rarity, it’s not Luna, it’s not Flurry Heart, it’s not…”
“Could it be Torch? I have a kilt designed…”
“Rarity, it’s…” In a voice as clear as the crystal statues, she spoke the name.
Halfway across Equestria, Spike tried to think of conversation topics that did not involve shapeshifting, abducting ponies, or assaulting their emotions with foul magic.
“So, Chrysalis, do you… enjoy tea?”
“I do enjoy licking the tears off of children. Does that count?”
Somewhere in the distance, Spike could swear he heard a posh scream.