Take Two

by LordBrony2040

Chapter 8: Dreams of Future Past

Twilight opened her eyes to the familiar sight of her palace’s most important room. Although the cutie map no longer occupied the center, the former crystal thrones that now housed her friends made this place far more precious than what it had been before. She took a moment to admire the sleeping forms of her friends sealed in their crystal containers, then steeled herself for what was coming.

The presence that had drawn the goddess out of her meditation was quickly approaching, and made the alicorn repress her annoyance. Although she couldn’t feel any disharmony in Equestria outside of Discord’s little corner, Celestia didn’t bother her these days without good reason. And if the ruler of Equestria was approaching her, then Twilight knew there had to be something going on. The possibility of ponies in danger was one she couldn’t ignore.

Her friends would never forgive her if Twilight allowed herself to let ponies suffer because she merely wanted to continue their fun. Even if most of the ponies outside the chamber weren’t really worth Twilight’s intervention. All the ponies she cared about were with her now.

Twilight’s ear twitched as the doors opened, although the goddess didn’t bother turning around to know who it was. “Celestia,” she addressed the distraction as the other alicorn walked into Twilight’s chamber. “You had better have a good reason for being here. My friends and I were playing pin the tail on the pony, and I was next in line.”

“I came to invite you to Cadence’s wedding,” Celestia half-lied, which made Twilight frown just a bit and look at her former teacher. She had to wonder if the older alicorn would ever just go out and tell her everything from the beginning. “And I wanted to see how you were doing. We’re worried about you…and the girls.”

The fact that she actually meant it made Twilight release the bit of anger she had been holding before she turned around fully to look Celestia in the eyes. After so many years of looking up at the white alicorn during her childhood, it was still strange to stand as her equal in stature.

“Thank you for the concern,” Twilight replied before looking over to the pony sleeping inside the crystal next to her. She reached over with her hoof to brush the dust away and get a clear view of Fluttershy, then frowned at her hoof. It nearly covered the old pegasus’s face. Years of experience had taught Twilight that she was never going to get used to her height. “But I don’t see why I should have to go to Cadence’s latest wedding.”

Twilight looked away from her friends and back to the white alicorn that was quickly wearing out what little welcome she had. “What happened to her last one?” she asked while remembering just why she had forbidden Cadence from ever seeing her again. “Did she at least wait till he was dead before she left him?”

The growling question made Celestia’s ears fall. “Twilight, she was still young back then, and afraid. You know she loved Shining Armor…and besides, if you hadn’t shown her how to-”

“DON’T YOU DARE BLAME WHAT HAPPENED ON ME!”

Twilight roared and loosed the restraints on her power as she unfurled her wings. The walls of her palace lit with her magic. She watched the lesser alicorn’s legs shake from strain of having Twilight focus her attention on the weaker princess. “Cadence promised she would love Shiny forever, and then she abandoned him in the end! She found a younger colt to be with, and left my big brother to die alone! And she’s supposed to be the a princess? She’s supposed to represent love?

“WHAT A JOKE!” the goddess went on before she snatched the five crystals containing her friends and brought them up to her for support before knocking Celestia to the ground with a wave of magic and pinning her down so she couldn‘t turn away from what was in front of her. “What we have is a thousand times greater than what Cadence ever felt for anypony Celestia! Pure and perfect, untainted by a stupid lust that fades the older a stallion gets.” She narrowed her eyes at the little trembling pony being crushed by the sheer weight of Twilight’s power. “Or forced upon us by family bonds that make us endure all betrayals and remain connected.”

“Twilight please…you’re…hurting me,” Celestia choked out from her prone position on the floor.

The declaration from Celestia made Twilight come up short, and she sucked in a tiny breath at her carelessness before recalling the power of her Element back into her body. She held back what came by instinct for a moment to take a magical scan of her old teacher and make sure Celestia was alright, and then looked away from the lesser goddess. “I’m sorry…I just…I don’t like talking about…her.”

For a moment Twilight feared that Celestia was angry at her, but such worries disappeared when the sun goddess’s little hoof reached over to touch her face. “It’s alright Twilight. I know the subject can be…difficult for you,” she said before looking over to her friend’s crystal containers. “How are they by the way?”

A chance to talk about her friends lifted Twilight’s mood, and she sat down to smile at her teacher. “They’re great! We were in the middle of a pin the tail on the pony game when you…uh, broke into my castle, but other than that little scare, everypony’s fine,” she said before looking back to her friends. “I should probably get back to them soon to assure them everything’s okay.”

“Pin the tail on the pony?” Celestia repeated hesitantly. “It’s that game a little…old? I would have thought you would have been showing the girls all the latest toys Equestria has to offer since they…went under.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “You’d be surprised with they like. Pinkie got addicted to that revolutionary dance game that showed up a few decades ago, but…well I thought Rainbow Dash and Applejack would love the neigh station, or at least one of its predecessors, but…they just looked at me like I was crazy when I managed to recreate one for them. Called it an egghead game.” Twilight couldn’t stop the giggle that came from that particular memory. “And it's not like I can’t make hydras and monsters for the girls to fight if Rainbow or Applejack want to take one on. Hooves on is more fun than any joystick for them.”

“I…see,” Celestia said before pausing for a few more seconds to glance over to the girls again. “Twilight…have you thought about what we discussed-”

Twilight could tell where the other alicorn was getting at before she could get any further, and used magic to promptly shut Celestia’s mouth for her just hard enough to remind her former teacher who was in control here. “You need to leave now…and don’t come back until there’s either a threat to Equestria, or you’re willing to help me help them.”

As she released Celestia’s mouth from her magic, Twilight watched her teacher rub her muzzle for a few seconds before the smaller alicorn spoke again. “Twilight…I already told you…what your asking is-”

“All you need to do is give them the same thing you gave me!” Twilight shouted, but not with the same authority and power she had been threatening Celestia with since their meeting. She fell to her knees and looked up at the lesser goddess. “Just do this for me, and I’ll leave this place like you want. I’ll do anything you want! We all will! We don’t have to be princesses, we don’t have to rule anything. We-we can stay here, in Ponyville. We don’t even have to do that if you don't want us to! We can leave! Go into seclusion! The world doesn’t even have to know about us. We can just…be together.”

A gentle leg reached out to caress Twilight’s cheek before it ran up to her blowing mane and Celestia pulled herself into Twilight for a hug. “Oh Twilight, you know I would if I could,” she whispered into her student’s ear before shaking her head. “But such a thing is not for them. You know what needs to be done.”

The memory of a discussion they had years ago made Twilight stiffen. “No.”

“I know it will be hard for you Twilight, but think of your friends. They’ll be happier-”

Twilight knocked Celestia away and rose to her full height again. “No.”

“It’s what’s best for them-”

“NO!” Twilight shouted as she gathered her power, her words cuing the entire castle to shake with her anger. “You don’t know that! How could you say something like that? You don’t know ANYTHING!”

Celestia flinched as the room was filled with Twilight’s magic once again, unfocused and unrestrained. Twilight barely noticed the alicorn gather her meager strength to shield herself and remain standing and…for a fraction of a second, Twilight considered popping the soap bubble Celestia thought to protect herself with and showing the lesser alicorn just who was really in charge. She could force Celestia to help her, and if the she refused, well…Luna had always been a weak point of the elder alicorn. If I do something to Luna, then Celestia will have to…

All of a sudden, Twilight looked at where her thoughts were going, and looked back to her friends floating behind her. Her gaze lingered on Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, who would have either been cowering from such a display or glaring at the big bully she had become. I’m sorry, she mentally apologized to the girls she considered more than family. I just…she’s been trying to take you girls away for so long…

When none of her friends replied to the thought, Twilight lowered her head in shame and drew her magic back in on herself again before she looked over to Celestia. “Please, just go away. And…no more stupid wedding invitations. If you want to help me with my research, or there’s something threatening Equestria, then come and talk to me. But…you have my answer about the girls, and…just go.”

“Twilight-”

“I SAID GO!” Twilight thundered before she restrained herself again. “Before I…before I do something stupid.”

---

Celestia did her best to hide her approach as she came up from behind the little purple mare that had changed so much since she had last seen the filly. Sleep had brought with it disturbing dreams of her student shouting at the goddess all of her mishaps over the long years. None of which Twilight had been privy to of course, but that mattered little to Celestia’s guilty conscience. While Luna had thankfully managed to calm the elder alicorn after sensing Celestia’s distress, the sun goddess had used the little bit of dream magic she had to remain lucid while unconscious for time to think.

The facts known were thus: Twilight possessed a completely new opinion of Celestia than what the alicorn had previously known, she was somehow immune to the sight that Celestia had developed to see the possibilities of where a pony’s life could lead, and that she had traveled through time. On top of which, her stay in the future had been so long that once Twilight was returned to her proper place, the age regression side effect that accompanied such magic didn’t appear in effect.

Twilight had gone to the future and stayed there for so long that she ended up being regressed in age by decades. By the time she returned, she was restored her to the eighteen-year-old mare that Celestia had seen grow up.

And then there was her attachment to the other Bearers…

Celestia felt like shaking her head in frustration at the memory of those mares; yet another thing she had not seen coming.

Twilight had been expected. Celestia would even go as far as to say prophesized. She and Luna had waited centuries to find the pony with the six pointed star cutie mark to come and wield the Elements. The others…Celestia knew that what to do regarding those five mares would be revealed to her in time. As it was, the possibilities involving the ponies that had ended up with the other Elements were too numerous to count. Once she had observed them for a couple of years, the goddess would best know how to deal with them and set things back on their proper path.

But at the moment, her attentions needed to be turned towards the mare leaning on the palace balcony, glaring down at the gardens below. There was a slight shake in her rear leg, a slump in her stance, and a few other signs of exhaustion that years of looking into the mirror after a long day let Celestia notice. The poor girl had been up all night, on top of the financial meeting she and her friends had just returned from.

The other five had decided on a quick nap at the castle before the train was due to leave.

Twilight remained awake.

“What do you want Celestia?”

For some reason, the alicorn felt like the foal with her hoof caught in the cookie jar. It was a foolish notion, as she was still the elder of the two by far, and yet…the heaviness of Twilight’s voice made the little unicorn seem far older than she could possibly be, even with the age regression side effects of time travel.

Still, Celestia knew reasserting herself as the authority wasn’t the right move in this situation. She needed to draw Twilight in. Remind her of the long forgotten past. Guide her in the proper direction. Authoritarianism wasn’t the way to go with that. A lesson Celestia had learned all too well thanks to previous failings.

“Twilight,” Celestia began hesitantly. “I was doing some thinking last night and…have I ever told you how Luna…became Nightmare Moon?”

It was a simple question that Twilight didn’t know the answer to, and the perfect way to open the conversation. From there, she would point out how Twilight was also pulling away from her, becoming more and more like Luna had all those years ago. In so doing Celestia would show the little unicorn that she cared for her almost as much as Luna thanks to the comparison, and help put her back on the right path.

The unicorn continued to look out into the center of the hedge maze garden with a deep frown, but Celestia saw a minor twitch in her left ear. “Yes, you made her that way.”

Celestia frowned at the reply. It wasn’t what she had been expecting. Still, the feelings in the alicorn’s heart agreed Twilight’s words. Although her mind screamed otherwise and threw Celestia into a light confusion that demanded to be cleared up. “And how did I do that?”

A second later, Twilight rounded on Celestia. Despite the almost comical bags under the unicorn’s eyes, her gaze held Celestia firmly in its grasp. The wild rage that the alicorn had seen during their tea the day before was gone. More than likely, Twilight was far too tired for such antics.

But what had replaced it was even worse. It was just a cold stare. Despite their lack of danger, Celestia felt a long way from calm. The tiny flame of doubt that she had about Twilight not experiencing age regression faded under that artic look the unicorn gave. Celestia could see that the little thing in front of her was old, impossibly old. “Do you know the driving force of every pony’s life?”

It was a simple question that any adult would know. Still, Celestia found herself a little off balance at being addressed so by Twilight, as if the alicorn was the student, and the unicorn was the teacher. So she answered almost on instinct. “The expression of their talent,” she replied.

Twilight sighed and lowered her head for a moment and mumbled something the alicorn couldn’t understand other than a few words before Twilight broke into a yawn.

“Luna…obsession…just got her back…use that.”

“What?” Celestia asked a second before Twilight looked up at her.

“Luna did what she did because nopony appreciated what she did. Especially not you,” she said. “And from that, her position as princess was eroded, her friends lessened to nothing, and she was left alone with those bat-pony sycophants that…worship her.” Twilight spat the word out like the curse. “All because of you.”

A bit of anger showed on Celestia’s face. “You overstep,Twilight Sparkle.”

“Really?” Twilight challenged. “Before you played with the sun and the moon, the two of you used to rule from your castle in the Everfree together. Then you took over the day, and she got the nightshift. You got all the lively and happy ponies coming to your court, while Luna was stuck with the tired and irritable that didn’t have time for tea and hay because they wanted to go home. You performed ceremonies, she fought monsters. You went to garden parties where ponies would guard their tongues about what they thought, she dealt with the darkest dreams and unabashed opinions that were inside pony heads. You got all the praise, and Luna got…nothing.”

Despite her anger, Celestia had to acknowledge her student might have had a few points. Ones that she had raised herself over the centuries of her sister’s absence when it came time for second-guessing every day they had spent together. “That…that was a long time ago,” she said. “Things are different now. There is a…a night scene in Canterlot, and once Luna sees-”

“Why hasn’t Luna started raising the moon again?” Twilight asked evenly.

The interruption made Celestia frown, but the question had her washing away another bit of indignation at the snub. It was the same question that had plagued Celestia’s mind since Luna returned. While the younger sister assured Celestia she simply needed rest, a few days would have solved that. The elder goddess knew Luna was just avoiding the task for some reason she hadn’t thought of.

So, instead of gaining the added power, height, and longevity that came with her duty, Luna remained the size of a normal pony. And mortal.

The fact that Twilight was asking such a thing out of the blue like she did… Celestia knew that it meant the unicorn also knew the answer to her own question. Even without her ability to see the possible actions that Twilight could undertake, Celestia knew that she was being baited.

She also didn’t care.

Celestia’s heart rate increased, and she had to fight the urge to nervously lick her lips. “You’re the one who knows the answer to that, Twilight.”

Something…sparkled in Twilight’s eyes, and they widened at Celestia’s reply. But then the look of a pony having a sudden realization was replaced by a cunning frown and smirk that made Celestia want to back away from the little mare.

“Oh come on Celestia,” the unicorn said in a strange tone that made her seem happy, and yet…dark, at the same time. “Don’t tell me you can’t see the problem. You’re the all-knowing goddess that makes everypony dance on her strings, the manipulator that turns little fillies into weapons and risks the safety of all Equestria by just hoping her insane little sister just doesn’t hurl the moon right at Canterlot in revenge.”

Celestia bristled. “I would hardly call myself a master manipulator. My ability to see the course of destiny is not without limits Twilight Sparkle,” she said with a frown while she looked at Twilight and was privy to nothing that a normal pony would see. “As you are well aware.”

The comment on her apparent immunity to Celestia’s sight got a curious frown from Twilight, but the unicorn shook off the expression and went back to matching the larger pony stare for stare. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out,” Twilight mumbled before she let out a sigh so long her whole body sagged. “But then…I guess it would be impossible for somepony like you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Celestia grumbled.

No response came for several minutes, and although Celestia heard Twilight mumbling to herself, it was too low for even her alicorn hearing to perceive beyond a few words such as Nightmare Night, the mention of some type of festival, and term ‘idiot with the weighty plot’ that Celestia felt was directed at her.

Then Twilight’s dark smile returned, and she looked up at Celestia as if the purple unicorn knew some sick joke that the goddess was both not privy to, and the butt of at the same time. “It’s because she hates you.”

Celestia…didn’t know how to react to Twilight’s answer. Her mouth went dry, and she felt a tiny shiver of fear crawl up her spine at the accusation. “What? No…that’s not…she was cleaned of her taint by the Elements,” Celestia said in an even, if lower than normal voice.

“Oh, she doesn’t want to blot out the sun and kill us all in an insane attempt to gain worship,” Twilight agreed. “But that doesn’t mean everything that wasn’t there before Nightmare Moon isn’t still going through her head.” There was a slight pause as she let out a tiny laugh. “Heh, if anything, it’s even worse!”

The last bit that Twilight doled out made Celestia’s cry that such a thing wasn’t true die on her lips. The fear snuffed it out. “What’s that supposed to mean?” the goddess asked with a frown.

Twilight actually rolled her eyes and looked up at Celestia like she was a student who wasn’t paying attention in class. “You have a holiday celebrating your victory over Nightmare Moon, and another one that has foals offering up a candy tribute so that she doesn’t come down and kill them!” the little unicorn exclaimed. “The ponies of Equestria don’t just feel apathetic towards Luna anymore, they outright fear and hate her! And they’ve done so for generations! Everypony was sent to bed without supper at least once while being told that one day Nightmare Moon would come for them if they didn’t do their homework. Do you think that’s just going to disappear because of your say so? Because Luna looks different?”

The lavender unicorn let out a mirthless laugh. “You stupid old nag. During her absence, you have taken what drove Luna to become Nightmare Moon in the first place and made it a thousand times worse! Nopony is ever going to appreciate her, nopony’s ever going to love her-”

A tiny spark of anger lit in Celestia’s heart at Twilight’s words and she stepped forward and brought her hoof down hard enough to crack the stone beneath them. “I LOVE HER!” the alicorn shouted back at the unicorn.

It was anger that Twilight returned in earnest. “AND IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT YOU, ISN’T IT!?” she screeched. “Always about what you want, always about you, you, YOU! Nopony else matters but CELESTIA! Who cares if everypony hates Luna? As long as Celestia likes her, it’s all fine! Who cares if she’s always alone, as long as Celestia is happy? What does it matter if she’s miserable as long as CELESTIA GETS WHAT SHE WANTS?”

For moment, Celestia opened her mouth to argue the point. She wanted to tell Twilight that the Summer Sun Celebration had never been her idea. She wanted to profess her innocence to being behind Nightmare Night. One was a festival that Celestia had agreed to in order to placate the unicorns bothering her in Canterlot while she had been too depressed to deal with their constant nagging on the date approaching the one year anniversary of her sister’s ‘disappearance’. It was only when the thing was half over that Celestia realized the Summer Sun Celebration wasn’t just some party to try and get her out of her funk, but a victory party of Celestia’s triumph over the darkness. The celebration of her little sister’s banishment.

As for Nightmare Night, that tradition started much smaller. A few hushed whispers, a little town here and there creating one or two holiday ideas before ponies moving from place to place carried their traditions with them. Then, over a hundred years of blending, and Nightmare Night was born.

“I…never…” Celestia said before she stopped herself, unsure of how to proceed.

Twilight let out another long sigh, and the anger drained from her face. “You don’t have to worry about Luna rebelling against you again,” she mumbled. “She’s learned her lesson.”

A pitiful amount of relief entered into Celestia’s body after hearing that. Even if her sister did need to be…taken care of, Celestia knew that Twilight would have been up to the task. “Thank you,” she said. “But…Twilight…I…” She stopped unsure of how to continue.

“You want to know what happens to her?” Twilight asked.

Celestia tensed, and strained to keep herself from nodding. She knew she was approaching dangerous territory by talking about such things. There was a reason Star Swirl never revealed what he had learned during his trips into the future. If he had…

The alicorn’s eyes widened as something occurred to her. Starswirl had known about Twilight’s eventual appearance as Celestia had suspected given the unicorn’s cutie mark... He must have also known about Luna as well. The facts surrounding her fall were not exactly easy to find, but they were hardly hidden!

If he had traveled through time far enough to learn of Twilight’s existence, Starswirl would have found the information on Luna as well.

He knew, Celestia told herself. All this time, he knew what was going to happen! He KNEW Luna would succumb to the darkness in her isolation while the two of us just…played around with magic! HE KNEW, and he did NOTHING!

Celestia was ripped from her introspection at the sound of breaking stone, and she looked down at the cracked ground beneath her hooves. Then, she looked up to Twilight and saw the unicorn was backing away from her with wide eyes that couldn’t hide her fear.

And Celestia felt ashamed for her loss of control.

After taking a deep breath, the goddess resumed her normal calm, and looked over to her student. “Twilight…what happens to Luna? In the future, I mean.”

The unicorn was silent for a moment, and Celestia was afraid that Twilight was fighting an order that some future Princess Celestia had given her not to reveal anything to her younger self. A Celestia that had lived with the consequences of her actions for nopony knew how long, and grown to accept them.

But she wasn’t that Princess Celestia. She was the Celestia with a little sister that was alive and well. A little sister she loved more than anything. More than Equestria. More than all the little ponies that populated her world. More than the irrefutable laws of time itself.

A part of Celestia knew that whatever Twilight had seen couldn’t be undone. It was the future that was meant to be. It was destined.

Yet another part of her, a much larger part railed against that fact. It crushed that first part like an ant beneath Celestia’s own hoof, and denounced it with a volume that made even the Royal Canterlot Voice seem a whisper.

Twilight seemed to undergo her own struggle, visibly tensing as she closed her eyes and her legs trembled. “I want to tell you-” the unicorn grumbled.

“THEN DO IT!” Celestia ordered in a shout before her voice started sliding from demand to plea. “I don’t care about the timeline, or any stupid rules regarding time travel, or anything else! JUST TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS TO MY BABY SISTER!”

The demand made Twilight look back to Celestia, and she matched the goddess glare for glare. “I want to tell you,” Twilight repeated while Celestia’s heart missed a beat at the news. “I want to tell you that Luna never raised the moon again. I want to tell you that she never took up her mantle and reestablished her connection with the Tree of Harmony. I want to tell you that she grew older with each passing day, and made you watch as the gray hairs appeared on her coat, and wrinkles began to show under her eyes. And you had to watch her die a wrinkled old nag because she couldn‘t stand to be in this world you made!”

Celestia’s breath caught, and she felt her heart stop beating for a moment at the news.

“But...I can’t,” the unicorn grumbled before she let out a snort. “As much as I hate you...taking that away from you, even after what you did to me… I can’t even bring myself to trade that foreknowledge for a mystical oath from you to leave my friends alone.”

After taking a moment to look away from the larger pony, Twilight visibly gathered herself. A moment later, she had locked her gaze with Celestia again. “The truth is, in the future that I know, Luna just dealt with some issues, and then she was back to normal. Or…no.” Twilight’s face darkened. “She was better,” the unicorn sneered. “After that, she was perfect little princess for you. She did everything you wanted.

“That’s what’s going to happen,” Twilight spat. “You’re going to get everything you want. Everypony will love you, and Luna will accept her place. You’ll rule Equestria, and she’ll sit at your hooves, doing everything you say, following your orders, knowing where she belongs, and accept that she’ll never be loved or appreciated by anypony. But what the hay does that matter, right? You’ve got her back! You love her. And if you appreciate her presence, who cares if nopony else ever will? After all, your opinion is the only one that matters, right? As long as Celestia has what she wants, what else matters, right?”

The world faded away as Celestia digested what the little unicorn had said. As much as she wanted to call Twilight a liar on what she had just said as some attempt to cause pain, she couldn’t. There was an undeniable ring of truth to Twilight’s words thanks to the emotion she put behind them. On top of which, Celestia couldn’t deny that such events were more than possible.

Before Nightmare Moon, Luna had always had a fire in her that Celestia had been disapproving of. It caused her to argue, even though Celestia had been the one in the right thanks to her superior foresight. When she had returned, Luna finally seemed to have understood that and bowed to her sister’s greater experience and knowledge.

She had thought it a good thing, that Luna had finally learned humility. That other alicorn no longer needed the praise of other ponies. After all, Celestia had felt such things and found them trivial. So Luna should have done the same.

Only…with the way Twilight had spoken, it seemed that her interpretation of the future had Luna being little more than a servant. And…as Celestia reexamined some of the plan she had for her little sister, the alicorn began to see that perhaps Twilight’s interpretation of things might not be so far of from what could easily come to be.

By the time Celestia was finished processing Twilight’s words, she noticed the unicorn was more than halfway towards the door. “Twilight…whatever happened, please…let us set it straight,” she said before choosing her next words carefully. “What you said…what did you mean, I lied to you?”

The way the mare had reacted the first time Celestia had asked such questions, she had been insufferably vague and in a fury. Perhaps if offered another chance to explain things…

“What the buck is wrong with you?” Twilight forced out between clenched teeth before she looked back at Celestia with a frown. “I’ve done my job, I’ve saved your previous sister and all of Equestria while you just went and…ran away. Doesn’t that give me the right not to fawn over you like every other pony on this planet? To have my own ideas? To be left alone from now on?

“Of course not!” she spat. “The great Princess Celestia isn’t worshiped by her student! But instead of accepting this and going on with her delusional little lie of life where everypony is happy, she just has to try and figure out why I don’t want to kiss her plot anymore! Instead of, I don’t know, taking the time to visit with her estranged sister and help Luna adjust to this new time period she‘s found herself in, she comes running to me because I don’t like her anymore!”

Twilight’s face darkened, and she turned away from the princess. “You turn away from the most important pony in your life to try and tend to your wounded ego, and you wonder why you disgust me?” she sneered. “You’re pathetic.”

Before the unicorn could take a single step, Celestia called out to her. “Twilight! This isn’t about me, it’s about you! I see the pain in your eyes and it feels like a knife has been plunged into my heart. I can’t take it! Please, let me in, let me help you.”

The unicorn looked back at the alicorn with a snarl. “The pain in your heart? I should let you help me to make YOU feel better? It’s always about you, isn’t it?”

As Twilight finished twisting the knife, Celestia let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she had been holding, and lowered her head. She had approached Twilight for one last attempt at reconciliation, one more try that the alicorn simply had to do while her student was within the castle. Now, Celestia had seen such an action as the mistake that it was. She needed to wait until Twilight came to her.

But...memory told Celestia that such an action was...inadvisable.

“I can see that telling you the answer to that wouldn’t do any good,” Celestia replied sadly. “You seem obsessed with trying to turn everything into something that paints me in the worst possible light and…if that helps you in some way, then do it.”

When Twilight frowned in obvious confusion at the larger pony, Celestia gave her a sad smile in return. “But…whatever’s going through your mind Twilight, talk to your friends about it. They seem to care about you a great deal, and if this is causing me pain to see you like this, what do you think it's doing to them?”

The unicorn stiffened at the question, and Celestia knew she had struck a vital spot as Twilight became downcast. Then, the alicorn moved forward with the opening it created. “If you won’t talk to me, then open up to them Twilight. Talk with them, laugh and cry…do all the things with your friends you're supposed to and…let them share this burden you are straining under. If you do this and one other thing…then I shall honor your wishes and no longer interfere with your life.”

For a few seconds, Twilight simply stood there looking into the distance. By the time she turned around, Celestia had nearly managed to get on top of her, but the unicorn didn’t back away. “And the other thing?”

Now in range, Celestia reached forward with a hoof and snatched Twilight up before bringing the unicorn into a hug as the large pony fell back on her haunches to stay upright. She completed the maneuver by wrapping her wings around the little pony in a cocoon of white feathers. “Twilight, I do not know what you happened to you that changed you so, or if I was the one who changed one day, and the pain and fear I see within you now is merely a consequence of my foolishness. But I just want you to know that today, in the now, I love you. And I will always love you, no matter what should come between us.”

The alicorn held the little pony in her forelegs and waited for Twilight to decide what to do next. To throw her off, or accept the gesture of affection. Whatever she decided, Celestia would allow it and let her go in peace.

“…Princess,” Twilight spoke softly, drawing Celestia’s attention. She blinked at hearing Twilight call her by her title. Ever since the little unicorn had come back to Canterlot, she had shown an extreme amount of disrespect towards the goddess, not even bothering with it.

The fact she was using it once again made Celestia hold onto Twilight just a little bit tighter.

“…can I ask you something? And you…tell me the answer?”

Even though she knew Twilight couldn’t see her, Celestia nodded. “Of course my student.”

“What happens…after a pony dies?”

Celestia found herself tensing just from the oddity of the question straight out of the blue. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been asked such a question before. Being as old as she was, many ponies had thought she knew the answers to all the questions in the universe. And several of the palace staff with a loved one on death’s door, or a pony who had crossed that threshold had come to her seeking solace.

But Twilight had none of those as far as Celestia knew. Her family was healthy, and her friends were in the prime of their lives.

“Well, many ponies believe that after they pass on, they come to a new land with a bright shore, and clear fields as far as the eye can see. A place where all of their loved ones gather to greet them before moving onto the next journey,” Celestia began. And when she felt Twilight tense, the goddess sighed and released her hold enough to look down on the unicorn. “But the truth is Twilight…I do not know what awaits us after death.” She smiled ever so slightly to ward off the memories such a question always brought up, memories of countless ponies that were no longer with her. “While I have seen many ponies off on the journey myself. Such a voyage has always been denied to me.”

Despite the fact that Celestia knew that it was impossible, it felt as if Twilight stared at her for several hours with a confused expression, trying to figure out a puzzle that had her completely baffled by its mere existence. Then, she shook her head and sighed before breaking away from the princess while stifling another yawn. “I need to get back to my friends.”

A bit of anxiousness welled up in Celestia was she watched the unicorn head towards the balcony door in a bit of an odd canter, her exhaustion evident as she stumbled every few steps. “Twilight.”

The purple unicorn looked around with her tired eyes. “Yes?”

“I know I said that I would leave your friends alone if that was your wish, so long as you share your burdens with them. But…I will need some kind of proof you are doing that,” Celestia told her. “So…I was thinking a few friendship reports might do the trick. Whenever they feel like sending them, I mean.”

Twilight stood where she was for a moment, obviously mulling over the answer with the expression on her face. “That…okay. We can do that…as long as you hold up your end of the deal.”

---

“Ah don’t know ‘bout ya’ll, but soon as Ah get back to the farm, Ah’m gonna be…”

Twilight concentrated on the sound of the rail tracks beneath her as the Friendship Express headed towards her beloved Ponyville at a gloriously leisurely pace that she hadn’t experienced since upgrading the system to ‘enable ponies to connect across the distances faster’. All that time wanting to get through things faster, to just rush to the end of it all. Twilight couldn’t believe how stupid she had been in her youth.

The mortal unicorn fought to keep her eyes open, and looked at her friends as they went on about the plans for when they got home. She smiled to stifle a yawn that threatened to come up. For a few seconds she was tempted to cast a temporal alteration spell and slow down time to enjoy the moment she was in for as long as possible, but…Twilight decided against it.

Her friends weren’t ornaments to be hung and admired by an old mare who just wanted to wallow in nostalgia. They weren’t even there to help her relive old memories anymore. They were making new ones, better ones! Twilight played with Pinkie and Rainbow more than ever before, and Applejack would be coming to her for help thanks to the years of agriculture knowledge she had. The same was true with Rarity once the unicorn figured out that Twilight could keep her ahead of Equestria fashion trends for the foreseeable future. And Fluttershy, Twilight had a feeling she would be visiting the pegasus more than ever thanks to her peaceful influence.

As the train continued on, Twilight found herself closing her eyes to relax as she pictured what a visit to her friend’s cottage would be like…

“Will there be animals?” Fluttershy asked in her timid voice as Twilight smiled down on her, glad that none of her friends would ever be able to see her tears within the…

Twilight’s eyes snapped open and her muscles tensed before she sat up on her bench with a gasp before she tried to suck in a lot of air and had to exhale it immediately. As her legs continued to shake, the unicorn closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down. No, that didn’t happen. That didn’t happen yet. “That didn’t happen. That’s not going to happen. You’re going to fix it. You’re going to fix everything,” she told herself fiercely.

“Uh, Twilight?”

Rainbow’s voice cut through Twilight’s mantra, and the unicorn looked over to the pegasus floating in the air above the aisle.

And that was when she noticed something was wrong.

The rest of her friends were nowhere in sight. Just Rainbow Dash was around. Twilight had been certain at least one of them had been sitting in the seat across from her, and…she frowned when she caught sight of a black numeral on the pegasus's forehead, half-hidden underneath Rainbow’s wild bangs.

“Hey Twilight, you okay? You’re doing the whole mumbling thing again.”

Twilight stared at the dark marking for a moment, and then closed her eyes. No, that’s not possible, she told herself before opening her eyes again. The second look of Rainbow showed that the ID had disappeared. After letting out a sigh of relief Twilight put the worries that she was experiencing some kind of side effect from her sleeping potions off to the side in order to properly address Dash’s concern. “Just…tired.”

And then her own selfish fears caused her to speak instead of concentrating on Rainbow’s needs. “Where’d everypony go?”

There was a soft thunk when Rainbow’s hooves hit the ground. “Oh, Fluttershy saw you were starting to doze off, so we all moved up a few seats to help keep the noise down and let you get some rest. Pinkie was kind of against it but...Fluttershy got her to go. ”

Despite the sweetness of her beloved friend’s actions, Twilight’s own fears were what filled her mind. If she happened to doze off…

A million billion pony faces glared at her in anger and hatred as they shouted at Twilight. Some called her monster, others demanded her death, and others…they did their best to hurt Twilight the only way they could.

Twilight shook off the mental image before her conscience could conjure up something truly remorseful. And, before she could reassure herself that everything had been worth it with her usual defensive bulwark, Twilight reminded herself that would only make the blue pegasus start to ask too many painful questions.

Some things about her past, none of the girls could find out about. Ever!

Not that it mattered. None of it mattered!

It hadn’t happened yet, and never would in the new future that they were going to build together! So there was no need to tell her friends and ruin their friendship over such stupid things!

“I don’t…feel like napping just yet,” Twilight half-lied. She ignored her protesting body and looked up at the others chatting away and laughing at something the unicorn couldn’t hear, and turned to face the accusing ponies in her mind.

It was all worth it for this.

“Let’s go and join the others.”

When Rainbow stepped over to let Twilight through and then walked by her side down the aisle, the former alicorn had to fight not to collapse into the wings of her future honor guard and hug Rainbow Dash for simply being there as she fought to resist falling into another memory.

It was a futile attempt...

Twilight didn’t know why she was so disappointed as she sat up in her hotel bed while staring at the window with the calendar hanging next to it as Celestia brought an end to the day; Twilight’s day. A day she had spent talking to the gruff griffon ambassador about asinine trade agreements concerning apricots.

But, that was the burden of being an alicorn. Such ponies had to put aside their own dreams and desires for the greater good of Equestria.

The sound of a door opening didn’t move Twilight from her position, but the appearance of a cupcake with a candle and purple frosting left by a rainbow contrail made the goddess lift her head just a little. And the thing that plopped down on the bed behind her before it wrapped a pair of blue legs and wings around her put a smile on Twilight’s face.

“Sorry it’s not a big one. They were all sold out of the good stuff by the time the meeting was over.”

Twilight didn’t know whether the tears that threaded to come were ones of happiness at seeing the gesture in front of her, or that only one of her friends could attend the alicorn on her birthday because of the gulf her royal duties had created between them. “I’m trying to watch my weight anyway,” she said before lifting the cupcake in her magic, blowing out the single candle that was there, and then splitting it in half for the two of them.

“Uh Twilight, what’re you doing?”

“Oh come on Rainbow, everypony knows birthday cakes only taste good if they’re shared.”

“Uh, Twilight…what’re you doing?”

The unicorn slowly pulled herself out of her daydream and looked over to the apprehensive pegasus…that Twilight noticed she was leaning against a second later. Confusion was replaced by surprise when she remembered such an action was out of place at the current time, and the lavender unicorn managed to stand up on her own. “Sorry Rainbow…I’m just a little tired.”

Rainbow shrugged slightly as they made it to the others. “Nah, it’s fine. Don’t see why you didn’t nap with the rest of us though.”

For a second Twilight smirked at the comment, considering it was coming from the greatest napper in all of Ponyville, and shook her head. “Too much on my mind,” she confessed.

“Twilight, I thought you were settling in for some sleep.”

The question directed towards her made Twilight look at the other unicorn in their group while she let Rainbow settle in near the window seat of a seat. “I can sleep when we’re home. So, what’s everypony talking about?”

“Oh nothing more than the usual topic for the past few days,” Rarity replied. “Although I do fear I might have found a problem with our newfound wealth. Or mine at least.”

Applejack let out a little snort, although Twilight could tell there was not any animosity behind it. The farm pony might have well as been reacting to one of Rainbow’s lewder jokes. “Rarity, yer about the only pony Ah know that can find a problem in havin’ too much money.”

The sharp stab of fear helped keep Twilight out of her sleep-deprived daze a little longer, and the lavender unicorn’s eyes went wide. “W-What problem? Is there something wrong Rarity?”

“Well…I know it’s silly but…the more I think about it, the more I find myself asking…what am I supposed to do now?” Rarity mumbled before letting out a sigh and raising her head towards the ceiling despite the fact she was turned around to talk to Twilight in the bench behind her. “At first I thought I would open a shop in Canterlot, but…when I actually saw just how much I would be getting, even if I lived in opulence, I would never be able to spend it all. Why bother making dresses when I no longer need to?”

In her seat next to Twilight, Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Yeah,” she drawled before kicking back and slouching just a bit. “Not really seeing a problem there. Hay, soon as I can find a pony that’s good enough to handle some rouge Everfree weather, I’m going to quit the weather patrol and go into full-time Wonderbolts preparation training.”

Twilight looked over to her friend with a frown. “Rainbow! Just because you don’t understand Rarity’s reasoning doesn’t mean you can’t be empathetic to her distress!” she scolded the pegasus who just looked back at her in confusion. It was rather obvious to Twilight that Rainbow had absolutely no understanding of what the unicorn had just said.

I really need to get her into reading, Twilight told herself. Too many years of talking to Rainbow once the pegasus had been challenged to expand her vocabulary were still inside her head.

“And Rarity,” the former alicorn went on before hesitation started to creep into her mind. Mostly because in all honesty, Twilight didn’t see much in the way of downsides when it came to their newfound wealth. As long as things didn’t get too out of control of course. “Um…well…just because you don’t need the money from the sales…” She paused and took a deep breath to help fight the nervousness. “Look, I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but…you hit it big in the fashion world Rarity.”

Twilight wrestled with the decision to say more. She didn’t want to tarnish Rarity’s hopes and dreams involving fashion, but…if things continued unabated…

Princess Twilight Sparkle kept the scowl from her face as she ducked her head to enter the Carousel Fashions main design studio before blowing more than a few strands of her ethereal mane out of her eyes. With all the annoyances her continually moving hair had given her, the Princess of Friendship was seriously considering to either permanently water her mane down with a spell to draw in moisture from the air, or invent a magical mousse that would work on the bucking thing. Of course, that would be after Twilight wrote a spell to make her a normal-sized pony that could still contain the power of her Element.

Sweet Celestia did she hate being tall. Being a head above her friends was bad enough, but her latest spurt had nearly put her on equal level with her old teacher!

As always, the entrance to the building with its marble walls adored with gems was immaculate enough to look like a palace. That helped her to not focus on the ponies that reacted to one of their rulers simply walking in on them without an escort or announcement. Twilight calculated she had about five minutes before Rainbow finally got over her hesitation and flew to her own personal Tartarus. It would be enough time to get everything set up.

The purple goddess did her best to ignore the surprised comments of “Majesty” and “Highness” on top of all the ponies prostrating themselves in intense bows, it was one of the good things her height allowed her to do without seeming too aloof. However, the mare Twilight found herself unable to ignore was standing towards the back and had her face near the ground along with all the others.

“Rise, my little ponies,” Twilight commanded with a gentle authority while repressing the urge to shout at all of them to get their faces off the floor and stand on their own four hooves. Protocol, she had to remember there were protocols for this sort of thing.

Wanting to get away from ‘her’ little ponies as fast as possible, Twilight trotted as fast as formality would allow, and approached the comparatively little unicorn that had been talking with a pair of business ponies before Twilight’s untimely entrance. “Rarity, I hope I am not disturbing you.”

It only lasted for an instant, but the unicorn’s eyes darted to the ponies she had been talking to, and then back to Twilight. “Of course not your majesty. We at Carousel Fashions are always happy to welcome a princess.”

Twilight knew that the formal tone and address was only because they were in public, but it still irked her. “I have a personal order I would like to make, if that would be alright?” she added before glancing at the two ponies Rarity had been talking to a moment before. Considering the unicorn had gone out to greet them personally, they had to be either extremely important clients, or business partners. Either way, Twilight felt bad for interrupting Rarity’s time with them.

“Of course, come with me to my office, if you would your Highness,” the unicorn replied with a bow.

After the two ponies had managed to get away from the others, Twilight followed Rarity into her familiar office, and the two smiled before exchanging much more friendly greetings and a hug that had Rarity standing on her hind hooves and Twilight only needing one of her legs.

Once they were done, the unicorn circled the alicorn with eyes that practically sparkled. “My Twilight, these growth spurts of yours are certainly something. You’re as big as Celestia now!”

“And in need of a new dress for formal parties,” the alicorn admitted as she blushed at the attention.

Rarity absently nodded. Twilight could tell she was already measuring the alicorn with her eyes and just let her friend do her thing while making small talk. “Unfortunately,” the goddess mumbled.

In response, Rarity giggled. “Well at least it gives us an excuse to see each other. Right?”

“Right,” Twilight mumbled as she tried to recall the last time she had seen Rarity…when she had needed another dress. “An excuse.”

As Twilight finished her tale, the other unicorn smiled down at her. “Well I was rather hoping that was the case Twilight. But now-”

Twilight held up a hoof to forestall her. “Let me finish. You hit it big and get major stars and very important ponies ordering dresses from you, and it was always something new, and big, and fancy. So even with our help, and even after you started hiring some other ponies to help you fill orders, you still had to design everything and oversee the originals being sewn together. And all that work took you away from us.”

Her vision blurred, and Twilight shook her head to try and clear it. In the end, she settled for looking down at the ground. “I know you love what you do Rarity, and I know it’s selfish and wrong of me to say this but…please don’t go to Canterlot. Please don’t expand beyond the boutique in Ponyville,” she begged while keeping her emotions in check. “Please, please, please don’t get caught up in that world again. You wasted so many years in that world, alone.

“I’m not saying stop doing what you love but…y-you have all the bits you could want now, right?” the former alicorn went on slowly as she grasped onto the most reasonable argument she could find. “And just because you live in a small town doesn’t mean that you can’t create beautiful dresses Rarity!”

Across the isle, Rarity blinked at Twilight when the purple unicorn went silent. “Well…that’s…interesting,” Rarity mumbled before pausing for a moment and moving her lips as if her next words had a taste to them. “So I’ll become famous, but it won’t be very fulfilling. That’s what you’re saying?”

Twilight repressed the urge to kick herself at the disappointment in Rarity’s voice. “I’m sorry, I should never have told you something like that. Please, I…I’m just being selfish, and tired, and…”

“No,” Rarity said gently. “It’s okay. And thank you for telling me. It’s better I know. I think I need to mull over this for a minute.”

“That means you can do me next Twilight!”

The shock to her system that Pinkie provided by just popping up from beneath Twilight’s field of vision made Twilight give out a little scream, with made the pink party pony giggle to no end. “Pinkie!”

“Teeehehe, that’ll keep your blood pumping,” Pinkie replied before she sat in the bench across from the unicorn. “Now come on Twilight give us some good news!”

Twilight tensed, unsure of what to say. While she could indeed remember a million and one times that she and the girls had plenty of fun times, it the way everything had ended helped cast an extremely dark cloud over everything. All the parties, the weddings, the foals and everything else were just brief happy moments in the lives of her friends that had gone so wrong because of her actions.

Actions that in the end, weren’t really her fault.

Actions that Celestia had both tricked and forced her into in the former timeline.

Actions that she had a chance to avoid before she set the future back onto its proper course.

“Hey! Now hold on just a cotton pickin’ minute!” Applejack cut in with a harsh tone and frown on her face. “Didn’t we agree not to talk about all this with Twilight if she’s gonna get all upset about it?”

The angry glare Applejack gave the other ponies made Twilight curious as to just what had gone on between them while she had been gone for a few seconds before brushing her curiosity aside. After what she had done, Twilight couldn’t say that her friends didn’t deserve their privacy.

Still, it was a little heartening to see her most staunch friend being the mare she remembered. Even though Applejack may not have liked the decision of the group, she stuck with it more firmly than any of the others a course of action had been agreed to.

It was why she had been the hardest of the holdouts…

“Ah said no.”

At six feet, the alicorn towered over the wrinkled little pony that might as well have been a foal in comparison to Twilight’s size. Even in her prime, Applejack would have been able to walk under Twilight’s body with her head held high. But at one-hundred and twenty, the wrinkled old mare was a shadow of what Twilight’s memories said she should be.

What she was supposed to be.

What she could be again.

Twilight shot Applejack a glare that had driven dragons into a panic and made the entire griffon army surrender in fear. “It wasn’t a request Applejack. You will be coming with me, even if I have to drag you and pin you down with my magic. I’ve given you more than enough time, more than any of the others ever had. Now say goodbye to your family, and lets get going.”

Instead of falling in line or being cowed as easily as Celestia was, the old pony just rolled her eyes before she spoke. “Don’t you go lookin’ at me like I’m some kinda foal to be pushed around by yer stare. Don’t care how much more magic you got than Fluttershy, hers didn’t never work on me, and neither does yers.”

The accusation got Twilight to flinch. “Applejack, I wasn’t staring at you.” The very thought of such an act terrified her. If the old pony’s heart was put into such strain, Twilight didn’t know if Applejack would have been able to live through it. “And I’m sorry if I’m being too aggressive but…please look at this from my perspective.”

“Yer gonna lose a friend,” Applejack said. “Ah know it’s a horrible feelin’. Lost plenty mahself over the years. You’ll…learn to deal with it like Ah did.”

Twilight’s legs shook as Applejack’s words hit her with the force of a deep space meteor impact. “Why’re you saying that?” she cried before bending down to look her oldest friend in the eyes. “Are you angry at me?”

“Twilight-”

“Is it because I’m stronger than you now?” the goddess went on. “Rainbow Dash never really forgave me when my speed surpassed hers. I tried to say it was just because she was getting old but…the magic of Harmony is what did it. My body just kept adjusting and adjusting and I managed to hide it for a few years but-”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Ah ain’t no overgrown filly like that pegasus,” she said before Twilight could finish. “And Ah sure as hay ain’t mad at ya about something like that! Or even doin’ somethin’ like this if Ah was!”

Even with the assurances, Twilight remained on the ground in supplication to the older mare. “Then please, tell me what’s wrong so we can fix it and go home.”

“You-Everything’s wrong!” Applejack shouted in Twilight’s face, causing the larger mare to cringe. “All of it! It ain’t natural! Me. You. None of this is! And you doin’ what yer doin’ ain’t gonna change that! It’s just makin’ everything worse with the way ya’ll are lyin’ to each other!”

Twilight blinked at the comment, and all of a sudden everything became clear. As she figured why Applejack was so reluctant to join the others, it made her both relieved, and more than a bit angry.

It was only with a mild interest that she noticed the skies above darkened with her mood as the alicorn sat up to her full height. However, despite the fact she towered over Applejack once again, the smaller pony showed no fear or hesitation. “So…is that what your problem is? The illusion? All these years, you’ve been saying no because of that?”

Applejack sighed and shook her head. “Among other things. But what you and others are doin’ Twilight, it ain’t right.”

“The dream construct allows everypony full mobility and absolute freedom,” the goddess replied evenly. “Without it, most of them would be worse off than you.”

“But it ain’t real! The things ya’ll do in there, the stuff ya eat, the parties and games. Ain’t none of it is real,” Applejack told her evenly before reaching down to run her hoof through the dirt. “This. The feel, the smell, the taste, this is what’s real Twilight. And I’ll be bucked by a mule before I replace all of this, with a lie.”

Twilight let out a long sigh and shook her head at the situation. “Well I guess that’s it then.”

Applejack nodded. “Yes it-what the? TWILIGHT!” she shouted as the goddess wrapped Applejack up in her magic to lift the pony into the air. “You put me down right this instant, ya hear?”

“No! I waited until your great-great-grand foals were old enough to get to know you out of respect for you Applejack, because I love you more than any other pony outside my palace,” she said. “But now that they got to know you and vice versa, I’m taking you home.”

“Ah am home!”

“Well in five or six decades, I’m sure you’ll come to see things from a different perspective,” she replied before pausing at the rather depressing time table. “If it even takes that long I mean. Once all of you are with me, I’m sure I’ll be able to solve your problem. With the six of us together, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

“TWILIGHT, PUT ME DOWN DANGNABIT!”

…

The former goddess shook away the memory, and looked around to her friends. “Applejack’s right,” she told them. “We shouldn’t be talking about these things. I’m sorry everypony, it’s just so hard, knowing how amazing your all going to be and not being able to say anything.”

A lighthearted giggle from beside her drew the unicorn’s attention to Pinkie. “That’s okay Twilight. You don’t have to feel like we need to know. The surprise is half the fun of life, right?”

Twilight took a seat next to Pinkie to give her a hug when the party pony scooted over to make room, and leaned onto her most joyous friend to breath in the strange cotton-candy scent that lingered in Pinikie’s mane to help calm herself down and relax. “Thank you Pinkie.”

The pink pony just smiled back at her, and Twilight saw it was one of her special smiles. Not a grin, or some huge showing to teeth, just a little upward turning of her mouth and dimpling that expressed a moment Pinkie had found some happiness for herself.

Twilight yawned, and leaned to rest of her friend’s shoulder. Memories of a million sleepovers entered her mind, reminding Twilight just how comfortable Pinkie was to sleep against.

Her mind clouded some more, and Twilight began to wonder if-

“I’ve got it!”

The cry from Rarity jolted Twilight up, and she looked around in alarm. “Huh? What? Whozzit?”

Further down the row of seats, Rarity giggled before she raised up and turned around to look at Twilight. “You’re right Twilight! Just because I don’t need to income doesn’t mean I need to stop doing what I love!”

“Well that’s-”

Before Twilight could get out another word, Rarity cut her off with another laugh. “In fact, I’ll be able to do even better! I won’t have to accept every request that comes by and overwork myself staying up all hours of the night. I can pick and choose my clients, and even take some time to make a few dresses for a few ponies in town that I know need a new wardrobe, but can’t afford it. I mean, did you see what Ponyville’s mailmare wore to the last formal dance we had? If there’s a pony who needs a new outfit, it’s her!”

Twilight smiled at her friends outpouring of generosity before her eyelids started to become heavy again. “That’s…nice…Rarity,” she mumbled before latching onto her pink pillow.

“And the Gala! If we’re all going to the Gala, then what better place to show off my…” The rest of what the marshmallow unicorn faded to a buzz as Twilight lost the battle to keep her eyes open. Her last conscious thoughts, confused as she was when Celestia asked for friendship reports from the girls. Wait…that’s not supposed to happen yet either.

---

Twilight stumbled forward in confusion as she found herself on dark soil. Hadn’t she been on a train just a moment ago? What was…

A slight tingling in her horn made Twilight’s eyes widen in realization. “Oh no,” she mumbled before looking around at the incomplete landscape. All around her, rich brown dirt stretched out for as far as she could see, but nothing else. Despite the fact no sun shined overhead and the sky was black as night, her visibility wasn’t impaired at all.

The fact of her being in an impossible place drove the face home.

She was dreaming.

I fell asleep. How Could I fall asleep? Even without being able to feel her heartbeat, Twilight knew it must be racing. Idiot! Why did you have to go and relax?

“Okay, okay it’s not that bad,” the unicorn told herself…before she felt her feathers rustle and looked back to find her old wings on her back. A quick look around at the rest of her body showed Twilight that she was in her early ascended form, the body she wore in the years before she had fully unlocked the flow of energy from Magic to surpass Celestia’s power.

Twilight furiously shook her head. What she looked like didn’t matter. Everything here was inside her own head, and the spell she had prepared to automatically put her into a lucid state upon dreaming was working just fine. At the very least, she wouldn’t be some kind of helpless observer when…

“WHY?”

The pained cry made Twilight stiffen, and all of a sudden, the empty dreamscape of fresh soil wasn’t so empty. Gravestones stretched out into the darkness as far as the alicorn could see. The new scenery put Twilight on edge, and she slowly backed away from all of the stone markers.

Twilight fiercely shook her head again. She needed to focus, she couldn’t get caught up in the dream. Her wards wouldn’t be enough to keep Luna out… If she’s even awake right now, the dream-alicorn theorized.

With it being after breakfast, Twilight knew Luna would have been settling into bed for the morning. With a little luck, there wouldn’t be any intrusion and she could deal with whatever her subconscious dragged up.

The ground in front of one erupted, and the half-decayed corpse of a stallion pulled itself out of the ground. “Why?”

Okay Twilight keep calm, she told herself as she looked at the zombie. Remember how Spike was acting after that first night? You don’t want to worry your friends. You don’t want to scare them. Don’t scream, don’t let the dream take you in. You’re in control this time. This is your head, and these are just stupid guilt manifestations.

Another pony crawled it’s way to the surface. It was a mare this time. “Why didn’t you save me?”

You can handle this, she thought.

Another appeared. “I played the violin!”

“Shut up,” Twilight grumbled as she felt the tugging of the dream trying to pull her into it. To force her into a state of helplessness as the dead wrongfully accused her of wrongdoing. Oh please don’t let me talk in my sleep.

And another. “I had foals!”

Willing her horn to ignite with power, Twilight gritted her teeth. While she may have been dreaming, the imagery of her magic still had power. It was something to focus on, something she knew would allow her to affect change to scenario that was in front of her. “I said shut up!”

And still, another. “You killed us!”

“I SAID SHUT UP!” Twilight howled before she fired a burst of purple energy from her horn that destroyed three of the walking dead ponies that were coming after her.

More of the dead pulled themselves up from their graves, cursing the goddess for her inaction, trying to guilt her with details of their lives, or outright blaming one of the beings responsible for their deaths. And all of them were given the same response by the princess.

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” Twilight screamed as she fired energy blast after energy blast at the crowd to keep them from touching her and dragging her off who knows where. “NONE OF THAT MATTERS! NONE OF YOU MATTER! NONE OF IT HAPPENED ANYMORE, SO STOP HAUNTING ME!”

With a final burst of power, Twilight stuck at the dreamscape itself, shattering everything around her like glass before she fell into the darkness that replaced the world.

She flapped her wings, but nothing would stop Twilight from falling through the infinite blackness. The alicorn closed her eyes to scream in a mix of frustration at her useless wings, and horror at the situation of her descent.

And then she felt herself on solid ground again. There was no simple landing, she was just…there.

The sudden change in her situation made Twilight groan. “This is why I hate dreaming,” she grumbled before taking a look around to see what nonsense she had fallen into now.

Twilight found herself in a clean room with a tiled flood and electric lamps overhead. Her surroundings were obviously based off a memory rather than some hodgepodge of horror settings. As she looked around, the hospital she was in became more and more defined with doors and a dozen other minor details. As things started to fall into place, Twilight actually found herself a little more at ease.

Wherever she had ended up, it wasn’t the room Fluttershy and Rainbow had shared after their accident. That realization made Twilight sigh in relief. Even knowing how everything involved with the hospitalization of the elderly ponies had ended, the memory of her former guard captain and most gentle friend made Twilight shiver.

The sound of a heartbeat monitor coming from behind made Twilight turn around, and she saw a curtain that was obviously hiding a hospital bed. Its sudden appearance made the goddess roll her eyes before she approached the curtain and threw it back.

The stallion laying on the bed was old and wrinkled. Tubes running into his nose kept the oxygen flying into lungs that were barely functioning, and an IV tied to his leg continued to drip a magical potion into his body that worked to prolong his life for a few more days.

Although she recognized him, Twilight didn’t feel any pangs of guilt. The only emotion that registered was annoyance. “Oh…it’s you. Experiment A.L. One,” she muttered before looking up at the ceiling. “You know subconscious, if you’re trying to guilt me into something involving this pony, you’re wasting our time.”

“Why…” the old stallion paused to breathe. “Why did you kill me?”

Twilight frowned. “Because that was the experiment.” Then, rather than waste more time talking to the failure, she turned and left through the door and slammed it behind her.

After moving through the doorway, Twilight frowned at the room in front of her. The endless beds laying side by side looked a lot like a ward she and the other girls had visited countless times to cheer up foals resting there. But instead of the young, every bed that she came across held an elderly stallion or mare. All ponies she had killed to observe the moment of their deaths.

As she walked through the mass of failures, Twilight heard them calling out to her, demanding the reason for their deaths. Five. Ten. A dozen. Two dozen. The number of ponies crying out to her continued to increase until they had the alicorn growling with irritation.

Finally, she turned to face them all and screamed. “Oh quit complaining! You agreed to it! You all agreed to it! I gave your families compensation! Scholarships! Letters of recommendation for the military! Every last one of you traded the last few days of your worthless lives to make things better for your families! And it’s not like a single one of you helped me in return! SO DON’T COME WHINING TO ME NOW!”

“And me?”

The new voice drew Twilight’s attention to one of the beds still behind her. She turned, and frowned at the middle-aged pony laying there. The dark red stallion with a black mane and a pair of crossed bones underneath a skull got a growl from Twilight before he spoke. “You didn’t give me anything before you killed me.”

“You were a murderer,” the alicorn told the rather pathetic manifestation of her guilt. “You deserved to die, and I needed to observe the death of a pony with more magic in him than somepony who could barely stand. It was a success by the way, all thanks to you…and the others.”

Twilight continued on down the hallway full of beds, ignoring the other ponies that were closer to her apparent age than the first group. When she finally reached the end, the alicorn glared at the blank wall and closed her eyes.

When she opened them, a door had appeared.

After taking one last look at the pathetic attempt to assail her mind, Twilight rolled her eyes. A part of her pointed out the logic of staying in such a room wouldn’t be too bad but...the elderly ponies crying for restitution might just annoy her to death by the time she woke up.

Plus, time flowed differently in the unconscious world. But progression would allow things to pass faster. “Whatever’s next better be better than this,” she mumbled. If it wasn’t, Twilight was going to feel really stupid for all the precautions she had taken to avoid her nightmares.

With a final thought of contempt for the ponies around her, Twilight willed an exit to the room to appear in front of her, and stepped through the door.

The world around her changed.

---

A strange sense of vertigo assaulted Twilight’s senses, and the next thing she knew, she was standing on a crystal floor that looked all too familiar. “My castle?” the goddess mumbled before everything started to take shape.

The room she was in was cavernous, but not in an impossible way. In fact, the dimensions of the place she was in made Twilight realize exactly where he was before everything had appeared. That knowledge sent a shiver of fear through her spine. “Oh no. Not this. Please, not this.”

Anxiety started to build in her mind, and Twilight started to feel that the verbal assault of the elderly was preferable to what she knew was coming next. She turned around, and found herself facing the same direction she had been a moment ago, with one change. The room was complete.

Two dozen rows of giant glass cylinders decorated what had been the space in front of Twilight, grown from the magic of her palace for her experiments. Each one with a crystal console interface in front of each to monitor the life form within. All of them filled with a thick fluid, holding a sleeping pegasus pony at various stages of her development, from embryo to young adult.

Memories of a time gone by threatened to assault her, and Twilight fiercely shook her head to try and keep it clear. She stumbled back away from the display, and blinked when her body didn’t move the way she expected it too.

The oddity made Twilight open her eyes to look around, and she had found her body had changed once again to the one she had spent so many more years in. At nine feet tall, she was the largest and most powerful of the alicorns by far. Her mane and tail flowed on their own, and a pair of wings surpassing Celestia’s in their beauty. The complete magic of Harmony had truly transformed her into the form of a goddess that surpassed all others.

Shame built in Twilight’s mind, and she looked back at her flank. Her six pointed star shone with its own light, surrounded by a collection of other symbols that included red apple, a diamond, a single party balloon, a lone butterfly, and a lightning bolt that looked to be made from a rainbow.

“Why?” the goddess asked whatever part of her mind was forcing her into her final form. “Why are you making me look like this? I DON’T WANT TO BE THIS WAY ANYMORE!”

Twilight closed her eyes and willed herself to transform back into the little alicorn body she had. But when she opened them, she saw herself as she had been before the temporal magic had allowed her to return to a simpler time.

Another attempt to remake herself into a unicorn was met with the same result. As was Twilight’s attempt to change into a smaller, six-foot alicorn.

Breathing in air through her teeth, Twilight forced herself to try and calm down. “Fine,” she told herself. “I’ll stay like this then. It’s only a dream. I’m not really… It’s fine. I can deal with this. I can deal with this, and I can deal with the rebirthing chamb-”

“Hey Egghead,” a voice called out, freezing Twilight in mid-word.

Oh no, she thought to herself in horror. The goddess's ears detected the flapping of wings a second before there was sound of hooves scraping against the crystal floor. No, no, no, no. Not this...please...anything but this.

“Wow! You got tall! Nice wings too. Bet I can still beat you in a race though.”

Twilight let out a tiny squeak as the words assaulted her, and forced the goddess to open her eyes. She looked down in apprehension at the pegasus standing in front of her, a fully grown version of what floated in the tanks.

Rainbow Dash looked up at Twilight with a smile on the face of her unofficial big sister. “Come on Twilight, let’s go race. We don’t have much time, and we gotta do the most with it, right?”

“No...no,” Twilight whispered to herself as she backed away from the blue pony that looked so much like her old friend.

It followed her until Twilight’s plot hit the wall, and she found herself trapped in a corner that had just...appeared. “Please don’t do this.”

“Do what?” the Rainbow Dash asked with a frown as its features slowly darkened turning from excitement to anger. “Remind you how you murdered me?”

Author's Note:

Editing note: Corrected typos and a minor plot point that would have become apparent two chapters down the line

Comments

[FleetlordAvatar]

Nice to see things up and running again. Now we get some insight into Twilights motivations and mindset. She's obviously feeling guilty over what appears to be an endless amount of death and her efforts to stave off death.

What she did to Applejack was unnforgivable, and the implications that she may have messed with her head afterwards have me wondering about her mental state in general.

Then that cliffhanger!!! WHY!!!!!

Anyway, can't wait for more.

[avatoa]

Ok, this is starting to get a little dark now. Am I right?

[Wroth]

Seems Twilight has done plenty horrific things and yet seems to be trying to pin them on Celestia, while ignoring her own subconscious cries that she Knows she's horrible and yet still trying to place the blame on Celestia over it.

[wclathan3]

Well, that escalated quickly.

[Obsidian Ink]

Well, this is geting alot darker than i was expecting... honestly a little dissappointed.

[wlam]

Well fuck me sideways, it's actually back! I didn't think we'd ever see it. Glad we do, though.

[RadicalDishonesty]

“Cadence promised she would love Shiny forever, and then she abandoned him in the end! She found a younger colt to be with, and left my big brother to die alone! And she’s supposed to be the a princess? She’s supposed to represent love?

I've read a lot of stories that explain this away. That say that it's just natural that Cadance moves on, or eventually falls out of love with Shining Armor, or that it's just that she devoted herself to him for a tiny fraction of her life, but he was expected to devote all of his to her in return.

I don't think I've seen one where the protagonist actually considers it straight up awful, both the implications... and I don't think I've seen one where Cadance acts self-centered like this, especially not without someone giving her the excuse that it's okay she acts like that.

It's pretty awesome, even though Twilight is straight up crazy with bitterness and resentment. so I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to agree with her... but she's making very compelling points. Not just with this.

And listen to Celestia's crappy excuse on Cadance's behalf: "Cadance was still young." Cadance was probably at least 40 years old. That's old enough to understand this kind of stuff.

[Tchernobog]

assassin trade agreements

into a six smaller, foot alicorn.

[sunnypack]

*Looks at the comments regarding how dark this was getting*... *looks at tag*.

Huh.

[VampDash]

6099085 Young by ALICORN standards. Also don't go ripping on Celestia just yet. Seems that Twilight's the one that screws up the future not Celestia herself. After all.... what she's done is something even Discord would find appalling.

[RadicalDishonesty]

6099114
Right, but even a mortal has the ability to basically understand "I am going to outlive my partner, and it's bullshit for me to decide to leave them because I was afraid. Even though if I ever move on they will not be as important to me as I am to them, I can at least make them feel loved until the very end, especially given that I have as many years as I please to find love again afterward."

That is not beyond mortal ken, and treating Cadance as if she was a teenager who just couldn't understand that at the ripe young age of 40 is a very weak rationalization.

And yeah, it's very clear that Twilight goes way off the deep end, and there will be no excuse for the level she descends to, but I mean things like Twilight telling off Celestia about her behavior with Luna. Is she wrong about this? Is it ideal that Celestia turns her sister into her subordinate because Celestia believes that she is smarter, wiser, and overall better than Luna? Especially when Celestia helped create the situation that turned Luna into what she was, and isn't really making any moves to correct it?

[VampDash]

6099134 To answer your last question..... does Luna care? Obviously Nightmare Moon would but would LUNA HERSELF care? I doubt it. After the fiasco that was Nightmare Moon she learned that she wasn't MEANT to hold a true position of power without someone else. Hence why she chooses to be Co-Ruler with Celestia instead of Queen or Princess of her own dominion anymore. If she didn't want to be one she'd have got up and left Celestia by now but she hasn't.

[gapaot]

Nice. Little Twi's not so innocent, not so perfect and not so different from Celestia she portrays. Kill ponies, experiment on them, drag your 'friends' to un-life in virtual crystals because you don't want to lose them. It's all about YOU, right? Who cares about Applejack if YOU are happy at the end? Who cares some ponies had to be experimented on, and killed without second thought, if YOU got what you wanted.

It's never about Celestia. It's all about YOU, and your need to pin the blame on somepony other than yourself, Twi.

[gapaot]

6099041
6099080
6099114

clip2net.com/clip/m325156/30bf4-clip-47kb.jpg?nocache=1

Who would've thought. Dark tag is here for a reason!

[Aotrs Commander]

As I was reading this chapter, I was definitely beginning to really dislike this Twilight and her holier-than-thou attitude.

Until we reached the AJ flashback, when I definitely did.

That was when we officially crossed the line between "entitled jerk who believes her pain of loss is more special than every other person who's ever lived" into "outright villainy" and not even the entertaining self-aware sort, but the very worst self-deluding "nothing is ever MY fault, it's always someone else's fault." I mean, what Twilight did there is the sort of thing you see in other sci-fi or something the heroes' preventing or the sort of dystopian warning tale so sometimes see in sci-fi or something.

Unfortunately, her doing stuff of THAT magnitude has utterly evaporated any sympathy I might have felt for her. That goes WAY beyond "Twilight goes insane from losing her friends" territory (and I don't have much sympathy for that). It's not enough to put me off reading - but what I really want now is to see her little secrets dragged out, so can actually feel the consequences of her actions and be punished appropriately.

It's the self-denial part I find most offensive, unquestionably. She - arguebly - hasn't appeared to have done anything completely irrevocably evil (though what she did to AJ (and by extension others) definitely is evil); most of rest is morally dubious, certainly. But her poor attempts to convince herself it doesn't matter... I hold that Evil is when you place your personal feelings as being more important than other people's lives - and that in the end, there is never any excuse for doing that, no matter how hard to done you feel, no matter how miserable or angry you are. (And Twilight has NOT been hard done by ANY strech of the imagination, and it's that I also find extremely grating.) If you are going to go ahead and do Evil, hey, fine, join the club; but at least dawn well be aware that's what you're doing and own up to it.

[VampDash]

6099242 I..... wasn't questioning the Dark Tag but thanks for just shunting me into that same group apparently.

[Reese]

Wow, been a while since this updated!

"Twilight had gone to the future and stayed there for so long that being regressed in age by decades."
I think that something may have gone wrong with this sentence; it's not parsing for me.

"assassin trade agreements concerning apricots"
...Eh?

"tears that threaded to come"
"threatened"

"Rainbow Dash never really forgave her when my"
Was that meant to be "forgave me", or is Twilight talking about someone else here?

"how amazing your all going"
"you're"

...And it ends there. Well, it was a good chapter... even though it ended there! I do hope that, after that cliffhanger, the next chapter doesn't take so long.
(More seriously, though, no rush; I remember reading that you were shifting focus to other stories because of real life stuff. Still... come on, that cliffhanger. You can't really blame me for wanting the next bit. :))

[MustacheMerlin]

Well this just got interesting!

[Emptybee]

Found a couple of odd words, auto-correct errors maybe?

A day she had spent talking to the gruff griffon ambassador about assassin trade agreements concerning apricots.

- asinine?

Twilight didn’t know whether the tears that threaded to come were ones of happiness at seeing the gesture in front of her,

- threatened?

[RadicalDishonesty]

6099145

Hence why she chooses to be Co-Ruler with Celestia instead of Queen or Princess of her own dominion anymore.

Twilight argued that Luna is not "Co-Ruler" but the subordinate to her sister. Celestia has no counter argument, based on her plans for Luna, she believes that that result is actually quite possible. In fact, Celestia even thinks "Luna finally seemed to have understood that and bowed to her sister’s greater experience and knowledge." Celestia's plans for her relationship with Luna were that Luna basically does whatever Celestia says is best, because Celestia considers herself more correct than Luna.

That is not a "co-ruler" relationship. That is the relationship of a subordinate.

Luna, according to Twilight, resigns herself to being the dumber, less autonomous, less loved princess. This is a bitter resignation of inferiority, that you are casting as a relationship of equals, when the arguments and evidence put forth puts that relationship, at least now, as anything but equals.

If she didn't want to be one she'd have got up and left Celestia by now but she hasn't.

Unless she was wracked by guilt, a need to be near someone whom she is certain will love her, and the feeling that pursuing her own desires is inherently wrong, because it causes things like Nightmare Moon, so she felt like the best/only way to get anything even near what she wanted would be to resign herself to this situation, even it it didn't make her as happy as she wants to be.

It is entirely possible to feel trapped in a bad situation and helpless to fix it, or even so guilty that trying to fix it would be wrong. People are not perfectly self confident, and Luna has more than enough reason to have her sense of self-worth or confidence crippled by this.

[Wroth]

6099329

Luna, according to Twilight, resigns herself to being the dumber, less autonomous, less loved princess. This is a bitter resignation of inferiority, that you are casting as a relationship of equals, when the arguments and evidence put forth puts that relationship, at least now, as anything but equals.

The problem, is that it's all according to Twilight, who as we can tell from her own mind is very untrustworthy on this and viewing this all on a very biased darkened light.

[RadicalDishonesty]

6099336
The catch is, we haven't actually seen Twilight be wrong about something like this yet.

Clearly she did some very wrong things, and it's possible that all of what Twilight is saying is also the completely wrong interpretation, but the fact is that it's also entirely possible that she is right about what's going on, but completely wrong about how to solve said problems and doubles down (turning things from questionable to horrible) when her plans don't pan out.

It's also possible, hell it's downright likely, that they are both right about some parts of this, and wrong about others. That Luna isn't as happy and cannot be described as ideal, but she's not as miserable as Twilight thinks.

That's something we'll have to wait to find out, though.

[VampDash]

6099329 So what you're saying I approve of Luna being side-lined? I don't but honestly it's better than the alternative. Celestia could've killed her instead. People seem to forget this when this kind of talk pops up. Luna's the sad lonely mare nopony understands.... Celestia had to deal with ponies PRAISING HER FOR TRYING TO MURDER HER OWN DAMN SISTER. How the HELL do you think that makes her feel? You think she's HAPPY about it? Scratch that from the way you've commented in this story it sounds like you WOULD think that. I'm stopping right now because I'd end up rambling to you how I feel about certain stories that show Celestia as being nothing more than cold when it's been CLEARLY shown that's the opposite. Oh and about Cadence being in the wrong on ditching Shining Armor? You're talking about her as if she was mortal..... SHE IS THE GODDESS OF LOVE ITSELF. They knew what was coming the moment they fell in love and honestly I don't trust what Twilight's saying ESPECIALLY since it's clear she's on the train to crazy town. For all we know SHINING ARMOR could've been the one who told her to move on before he died. Why? Because he didn't want her wracked up on guilt that she goes through a Nightmare Moon scenario or does that not count for reasons of "Cadence is a bitch"?

[gapaot]

6099373

I fail to see grimdark here. With all that Twilight did it warrants dark tag, but nothing too disturbing for 'grimdark'

[silvadel]

Yes I am surprised you continued with the cliffhangers.... Unless you have the whole story done now and are going to release chapters with aplomb.

Good chapter, but I don't have to say that -- they all have been.

[Dawn on fire]

Now I am left wondering if Twilight was trying to make new bodies for her friends or if she was trying to open a way to the afterlife, either for her to go through to be with her friends or to try and get her friends back if they died.

Great job, I cannot wait to read more about what happened between Twilight putting her friends in the crystal boxes and Twilight killing ponies/creating fake ponies in test tube/chambers.

[AlouetteSK]

So in an attempt to avert the death of her friends, Past!Twilight performed numerous experiments on other ponies, resulting in their death. When she realized she couldn't do anything in her timeline anymore since one or more of her friends were permanently broken, she ran to the past, trying to relive the glory days. And projecting her faults onto the current timeline Celestia, who, while not a saint on her own right, didn't deserve the amount of vitriol thrown at her by the distressed unicorn.

[LittleKhan]

I am confused by something. The elements chose their respective bearers because they possessed the matching trait: Rainbow got Loyalty because she is loyal, Applejack got Honesty because she is honest, etc. Personally, I believe that Magic actually stands for Humility, but at least we can all agree that it stands for Harmony.

Now, if the elements attached themselves to the Mane 6 because they possessed the character trait they were looking for, then why was the Element of Magic still supporting Twilight? It's implied that Twilight has been very disharmonious for a very long time, maybe centuries. But then why is Magic still pumping power into her? Wouldn't it have realized that she no longer represents Harmony?

[wlam]

6099505
Obviously it's because friendship is magic - and if she is doing one thing, it's being obsessed with her friends.

[justanothername]

I'd been hoping this would come back! This story deserves a tvtropes entry.

[Super_Big_Mac]

6099051 While technically true, the only ponies I think she's actually killed were convicts and clones. She just watched the elderly ones die to try and see just what happens.

If my guess is right, she's basically trying to see the exact moment a soul leaves the body, so she can wrangle it and put it in a younger, newer body for her friends. Basically like New-U stations or the like in Borderlands, Bioshock, and that one Minecraft mod with the clone pods that's almost always a part of maps like Agrarian Skies.

[BronyPonyMan]

6099505 i think that y the time she started her fall from grace, she and the magic of harmony were to closely tied together for it to stop. or maybe it saw or knew something that we can't.

[Wroth]

6099673

She just watched the elderly ones die to try and see just what happens.

But instead of the young, every bed that she came across held an elderly stallion or mare. All ponies she had killed to observe the moment of their deaths.

She killed them too.

[i_am_the_jam]

Well, this certainly got deeper...

[RadicalDishonesty]

6099367

Luna's the sad lonely mare nopony understands.... Celestia had to deal with ponies PRAISING HER FOR TRYING TO MURDER HER OWN DAMN SISTER.

These things are not opposed to each other. They can both exist at the same time and neither invalidates the other's experiences or feelings.

You think she's HAPPY about it? Scratch that from the way you've commented in this story it sounds like you WOULD think that. I'm stopping right now because I'd end up rambling to you how I feel about certain stories that show Celestia as being nothing more than cold when it's been CLEARLY shown that's the opposite.

I think I have an opportunity to clear the air a little here:

I don't think that Celestia would be happy to kill Luna. I don't think that Celestia is cold and unfeeling... although perhaps she might be characterized as a little cold towards immortals relating to mortals, I think that's not entirely confirmed. I think Celestia thinks that her perspective is more correct and valid than the perspectives of others around her, and to her being caring is helping out people in the way she feels is most correct according to her own perspective.

She's someone who is not as correct as she thinks she is, not someone who is uncaring, cold, or evil.

I think that Celestia believes that Luna is becoming a better person by accepting that Celestia simply always knows best, and additionally thinks that even if society shuns Luna then it's no big deal. The problem is that those two things could easily crush Luna's pride and self-worth, and Celestia, believing that pride is a vice (conveniently ignoring that, since she believes she has better foresight than Luna, she is effectively displaying pride in her abilities) and self-worth is not based on external factors (because she never had to worry about those external factors threatening her self-worth), simply would not notice that Luna is quietly unhappy.

It is very possible to accidentally neglect or hurt others in this world, and Celestia is not above those mistakes.

Oh and about Cadence being in the wrong on ditching Shining Armor? You're talking about her as if she was mortal..... SHE IS THE GODDESS OF LOVE ITSELF. They knew what was coming the moment they fell in love

I am saying that it is one sided and "unfair" for, because Shining is not a goddess himself, to have Cadance ask him to sacrifice more than she will sacrifice to him. He was expected to give his whole life to her, and she is only giving them the equivalent, to a mortal, a couple years of devotion.

And then, even in that paradigm where she is already asking more of him than she gives back, she leaves him for a younger colt. It is a supreme act of self-centeredness on her part.

And I really hope you are not saying that, because Shining is not a "goddess", then his feelings are unimportant because he's going to die one day anyway, so it's no big deal if Cadance leaves him and twists the knife by showing her feelings for him were never as strong as his to her by moving on before he's even dead.

For all we know SHINING ARMOR could've been the one who told her to move on before he died.

I think if Shining agreed to let Cadance move on while he was alive, while Twilight might still have been upset, Celestia probably would not have hesitated to use it as ammunition in an argument as to why Cadance should be forgiven for leaving Shining for a younger colt.

[Misty Spell]

6099505 How in the world do you get 'Humility' out of 'Magic'? Those two are so separate from each other that if you were to drive from one to the other you would die of old age halfway there.

[VampDash]

6099727 *sigh*

Look okay I'm sorry. I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed and I vented it out on you. I'm sorry.

[RadicalDishonesty]

6099736
No worries.

Trust me I've been worked up about stuff more than a few times myself.

[VampDash]

6099742 That and plus... I've just been reading too many Celestia's an unfeeling cold hearted bitch stories lately.... really need to lay off on those.

[Super_Big_Mac]

6099684 They "traded the last days of their lives" if you'd recall. She did no worse than remove them from life support, with their permission. That's not killing in my opinion, or else all doctors are also murderers.

[Seether00]

What? We're doing the Twilight "Waah! my friends died" route again?

Sigh

...okay then.

[Wroth]

6099817 At the same time I wonder how much of it was actually done with their agreement if her guilty conscious is trying to provoke her to emotion. Remember she thought that Applejack would agree to her vision after being forced to it for a while... How much they "agreed" to it and what she actually got them to agree too could've been vastly different as well considering her self-serving attitude when it comes to it.

We're not even sure if it's just removing them from "life support" or if she brutally killed them and made them suffer either.

There's also that one group that she apparently killed that was certainly not even close to elderly that she had apparently killed.

Twilight continued on down the hallway full of beds, ignoring the other ponies that were closer to her apparent age than the first group.

[Moonlit Shimmer]

This Twilights friendship is definetely corrupted. I look forward to her, hopeful, psychological help.

She is just as obsessed with her keeping her friends with her as Big mac was with cheerilee with the love poison.

Heres a lesson of Friendship that she needed to learn, one that Tank taught Rainbow Dash.

There will be places that you can't follow your friends to and vice versa. Sometimes you may not even see them again in your lifetime, but that doesn't diminish your friendship. Be thankful for the time that you had together and keep them in your hearts.

Sometimes. You have to let go.

[LittleKhan]

6099745 Yah, that was the lens I was reading this story with as well - and then I read the comments and I was like: wait, wait, wait, I've been doing something wrong here.

[punzil504]

6099844

The thing is... I don't think they did, even at the point that she transferred herself to her past self. She's doing everything in her power to try to prevent it, including going back in time. I get the impression that they're in some sort of magical suspended animation running on the magic of friendship.

Twilight is trying to find some way to defeat death itself so she won't "outlive her friends." She's so afraid to lose her friends that she's overcompensating by murdering criminals and euthanizing the sick and/or elderly to try to find a "cure" for death (or at least find proof of an afterlife that she can take comfort in).

Twilight's crossed a lot of morality lines at this point, but it will be interesting to see what her Moral Event Horizon is... and if she hasn't already crossed it. I mean, if her ascension gave her immortality in this story, she's trying to "optimize" it and find a way to give it to all of her friends.... which sounds noble on the surface, but less so when you factor in the "but why does everypony else still have to die except your chosen few" bit.

[LittleKhan]

6099728
The Element of Magic can't mean just raw power. By that logic, Discord or King Sombra could have wielded it. I'm just thinking that because the other Elements rely on a character trait, the Element of Magic must as well. That character trait should be a cornerstone trait, one that the others all depend on, a position that humility fits into quite well. Also, if you look at the instances of Dark magic in MLP, both users, Sombra and Nightmare Moon, were trying to bend the world to their will. The opposite type, "Light Magic" , if you will, is generated by positive traits (the Elements/Crystal Heart). And what is the opposite of trying to bend the world to your will? Well, if Pride (Arrogance) is the fuel for Dark magic, then Humility must be required for Light Magic. Remember, the Element of Magic has to wait for the others to be revealed first - does that not seem like a humble thing?

[Seether00]

6100048

Maybe she just couldn't handle all that time and booked a 1st Class berth on the Express to Crazy Town.

[ClanCrusher]

Well, this was definitely the chapter that was going to make or break this story, and after thinking about it my feelings are a little...mixed. All throughout this chapter I was more or less waiting for the 'cards on the table' moment where Celestia and Twilight could really duke this out, but in both confrontations you essentially have Twilight come across as a bully both emotionally and even physically to the point where things are uneven and relentlessly one-sided. Frankly I'm still not sure exactly what Celestia did to earn this rage from Twilight.

Twilight may have shown that she resents Celestia for how she handled Luna, but at no point during this story or the flash-forward did we ever see Twilight having a connection with Luna or any personal interest in her. We haven't seen any thoughts about her, nor have they even spoken once in the past. It comes across as one of those tactics of bringing up a flaw or fault of the 'opponent' that has little to no relevance to the argument at hand in an effort to try and attack someone and avoid the issue. Almost all of Twilight's attacks against Celestia have been like that, just picking at her faults and mistakes, and for what? Because she politely recommended that Twilight disconnect her friends from life support and some vague notion of a 'destined path' she kept everyone on? And in the case of the latter, what was so terrible about that? From the looks of it, all of her friends lived to their elderly years.

I suppose at a stretch she might resent Celestia for turning her into an alicorn and 'forcing' her to outlive her friends, but it was pretty apparent that Celestia would have done the same with her friends if she could.

I'm certain you have plans in the future towards this conflict, but unfortunately you've left the story in a really bad place with this cliffhanger, especially since we've finally seen the lengths Twilight has gone to in preserving her friends. It paints her in a villainous light with almost no redeeming element, especially after what happened with Applejack, and her 'past self' doesn't even seem slightly remorseful for what her future self did.

This isn't a conflict of two powerful alicorns having a morally gray battle like it first seemed, this has turned into 'Twilight has gone off the deep end and desperately needs someone to pull her back.' And leaving the readers with that mindset and the cliffhanger is likely only going to make that feeling fester until the next chapter comes out.

In conclusion, I'm not going to put down this story and I'm certainly going to keep an eye out for updates, but I'd be lying if I said the frustrations aren't starting to mount up a bit.

[Misty Spell]

6100061 They could also easily be aspects of friendship just as easily as character traits with magic representing the Power of Friendship I would like to know where humility and loyalty cross paths though. Keep in mind that you still haven't even tied in Magic with Humility. You're just presupposing that all kinds of magic are fueled by emotions without providing any evidence. Even then what kind of magic would essentially not being arrogant and prideful really fuel?