***
“Do you ever wonder why this happened?”
I was so surprised by the question, the tea tray I was putting down actually rattled. I winced slightly - I knew I was better trained than that. “What, Princess?”
I heard her wings rustling, the quiet of the room accenting all of the quietest noises. “Do you ever wonder… why they did what they did?”
I blinked, and since she was speaking to me, I turned to look at her. “Um… who did what, Princess?”
She was looking through a window, the joints between the panes casting a patterned shadow over her figure. “Tirek. Chrysalis. Sombra. All of them.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this line of inquiry. “Well… they were evil, Princess.”
“Yes, but… all the same, what drove them to such drastic measures?” Her hair, a pink mass that flowed over her shoulder, seemed to shimmer slightly for a moment. “Come for a moment.”
I dutifully walked forwards, the clink of my hoofsteps on the cold marble the loudest sound in the room until I paused next to her. “Do you need something, Princess?”
“I just… stay here, please.”
I looked at her face, and could see several tear tracks. Refraining from fidgeting, I sat down on the floor and looked out the window. The sun in the sky gleamed down on Canterlot below, shining its light back up through our glass panes.
“It’s ending.”
I looked up at her. “Princess?”
“I never…” She winced. “I never told anyone. It wouldn’t help at all, anyway.”
I blinked, and repeated my question. “Princess?”
She looked at me. “Can you keep a secret?”
I nodded. “According to the official documentation, anything that you say-”
She shook her head. “No. I want to know if you can keep a secret.”
I tilted my head. “Um…”
“You wouldn’t have to keep it for very long.”
“I… I’ll try my best,” I gulped.
She looked over at me and nodded. “I suppose that I have to tell someone.”
There was a pause, and I looked out of the window again, waiting. The stillness in the room was absolute.
Then, a pair of white wings wrapped around me, and I tensed. “Princess?”
“I’m so… so sorry.” A tear silently dripped onto my chin. “I didn’t want it to end this way.”
I was silent as my Princess’s white wings shivered around me. There was a silence amongst the warm wings and cold tears.
“It wasn’t supposed to end this way, but the world wasn’t meant to last forever.” A flash of gold came from above my head. “The world is ending, Twilight.”
I blinked. How did she know my name?
“I’m so sorry.”
As the warm wings wrapped around me, a roaring filled my ears.
I closed my eyes and whispered, “It’s not your fault, Celestia.”
Then, sleep claimed me.