Unwritten

by redsquirrel456

Threshold

“A Princess always remembers that she is a servant to her people. A Princess always remembers that she is not merely a pony, she is an ideal.”

Twilight Sparkle watched Cadance strut stiffly across the room, her hooves clicking on the hard marble floor. It was polished to true perfection; she saw mirror images of herself and Cadance below their hooves, following their every move.

“A Princess cannot be taken by surprise!” Cadance barked, whirling around and making her bulbous dress billow behind her. Her eyes were narrow and fearful, and Twilight shrank back into the couch she lay upon, gently burying her nose in the cushion she had tucked under her chin.

Cadance stalked back across the room with practiced, measured steps. Every movement was premeditated and breathtakingly elegant, smooth as the gossamer thin silk trailing from her dress that drifted peacefully in the air. “And by that I mean: she must never look like she is surprised. A Princess will face many surprises but she will never appear surprised.”

She stopped in front of Twilight, who regarded her wide-eyed. The older alicorn regarded her younger out of the corner of her eyes, squinting until they were ferocious little lines cut across her face.

“A Princess,” Cadance hissed, “is the definition of poise. A master of the self. She is unconquerable. Untouchable. A paragon of all things equine.” She leaned closer and forced Twilight down until she almost suffocated herself in the folds of her cushion.

“Do you understand?” Cadance whispered.

“Yes,” Twilight whispered back.

Cadance leaned even closer until their noses touched. “Do you? Do you really? Do you really really—” She stopped, clenching her teeth and desperately trying to keep her cheeks from bulging. “Do you r- fft! Pfft!”

Her sputtering made Twilight’s lips twitch, and then she was grinning and Cadance was laughing and they melted into puddles of giggles. Twilight sprawled over the couch and Cadance rolled onto her back on the immaculate floor, kicking her hooves in the air.

“That’s her! That’s so her!” Twilight giggled, burying her face in the cushions. “Oh dear, I really shouldn’t be making fun of her like this.”

“But it’s so much fun!” cried Cadance. “Luna should’ve come with you, Twilight. Maybe she’d get to lighten up like you.”

“Ohhh, no! No no no no!” Twilight said, holding up her hoof. “She’d jump right into trying to teach you how to be a proper Princess and then we’d have to try and tell her how we already are, and then she’ll get all upset and we’ll have to call in Princess Celestia who’ll just tell us ‘Both of you need to learn to work together!’ And I’ll tell her ‘I am!’ but Luna will say ‘No, there is but one way to rule!’ And then Celestia will sigh and I’ll feel bad and Luna will be in a terrible mood for the rest of the night—”

She stopped when Cadance’s hoof, slipped free of its shoe, pressed gently to her lips. The other alicorn’s eyes went soft and shimmery.

“It’s really that bad?”

Twilight groaned and nudged her way into a hug. “It’s really that bad,” she said. “Thank you so much for letting me visit, Cadance. I just… I just had to get away from… everything. I’m supposed to worry about a kingdom now, and I just got a castle, and I’ve been having to go all over Equestria fixing stuff but it feels like I’m never good enough…”

Cadance rolled her eyes as Twilight trailed off into a depressed mumble. “It’s okay,” said Cadance, stroking Twilight’s mane. “We all have some rough spots on the road. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an end to it.”

Twilight sighed into Cadance’s mane. “It feels like there isn’t.” She pulled away and walked across the marble floor, her hooves click-clacking. She came to a balcony and put her hooves up, staring out over the vastness of the Crystal Empire. It was past midday and the sun looked especially low for this time of the year, as if it were trying to peek inside and get a good look at Twilight. The exceptional brightness of the crystal houses and the crystal ponies shining in the afternoon light didn’t hurt her eyes anymore, but they still ached all the same for something she wanted to see but remained hidden. “I’m scared a bumpy road is all my life will be, even if it comes to an end. I won’t live forever, I know that. Nothing does.”

“Except love,” said Cadance, coming up beside her. “And friendship. Can’t forget that, my little protégé.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I won’t,” said Twilight. “But I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to make it to the end. Every trial I’ve passed before, every situation I’ve fixed, every time I’ve come swooping down out of the sky as ‘The One and Only’ Princess Twilight… it doesn’t make the road ahead of me any smoother. In fact it’s like the bumps are mad I made it over them and started to turn into mountains.”

Cadance sighed, and to Twilight it seemed like a happy sigh. “Nopony said life is easy. Even me and Shining have problems sometimes. But I don’t think things are meant to fit perfectly together… love isn’t a saw that cuts out and adds pieces until ponies are a different shape and click together. It’s a glue that binds them together, pointy bits and all. It’s a choice made every single day.”

Cadance waved a hoof out over the Empire and all its citizens that milled about under the watchful Crystal Palace. “Every day I wake up and every night I go to sleep, I remind myself that I love this place. I remind myself that I love Shining and you and Equestria. I choose to have love in my heart and slather it all over everything, like this!”

She waggled her hoof in front of Twilight’s face and smeared it over the sight of the Empire, stuck her tongue out, and went “Sssssmssshhhpppt!”

It made Twilight giggle.

Cadance’s beatific smile wrenched downward to a frown. “But love can be twisted. It can bind us to things we don’t actually want or understand, but love too much to let go.”

Twilight grunted. “I know that feeling too well.” She remembered Celestia in the middle of the Canterlot’s throne room sobbing wretchedly, begging forgiveness. She remembered Luna and the fearsome need for love that made her Nightmare real. She remembered the twisted love that made her loathe and desire Celestia’s approval all at once. All of it so long ago now, but still so fresh. A knife twisted in her heart and she almost cried.

Cadance rested a hoof on her shoulder, knowing what she was thinking. “It’s still worth it, though. Love should never be totally absent from a pony’s heart. Otherwise… well. We’ve seen what creatures devoid of love can do.” Her own eyes went distant and suddenly she seemed very far away. Twilight looked up at her, rapt with attention.

“I tried to talk to Queen Chrysalis in the caves when she had me,” said Cadance. “She visited thrice and gloated each time. I tried to tell her what I’m telling you: that true love, the love that gives you real power, isn’t taken or coerced or demanded. It’s given freely, like rain falls without caring who it falls on. I looked into her heart while I spoke from mine.” Cadance closed her eyes tight and looked pained. “I saw a hole there, Twilight. A gaping, gnashing maw that only wanted to eat and eat and eat, like it wanted to be hungry and never full. Without love a creature can’t do anything except steal, because it has nothing to give. It made me scared and sad for her all at once.”

She opened her eyes again and they were frightfully old, reminding Twilight of Celestia and Luna. “Whatever drives a changeling, or Sombra, or Tirek… it’s not what drives Luna to be so hard on us, or Celestia to have been as desperate as she was when the Nightmare found you. And I know for a fact that you, Twilight, are not driven by lack of love. If anything, we all have too much.”

Twilight sniffled. “That’s what the Nightmare said.”

Cadance tilted her head. “It was right. But that’s why you beat it.”

Twilight circled a hoof on the balcony edge. "It didn't make it any easier though."

Cadance smiled. "That's the beautiful, awful, wonderful, terrible truth about love. It doesn't make things easy and it doesn't make the pain go away. But it does make anything possible. No, defeating the Nightmare wasn't easy even with all the love in the world. But without it, you wouldn't have gotten anywhere." She laid her hoof over Twilight's. "Your love is as pure and wonderful a thing as I've ever seen, Twilight. Let it buoy you up like wind beneath your wings. Let it take you further than you've ever imagined. It won't clear the path ahead, but at least that path will be yours to walk."

A deep, familiar voice interrupted them. "Since when did you become such a philosopher, Cadance?"

"Shining!" both mares cried at once, turning and lunging at the stallion. Shining Armor backpedaled a moment, his eyes widening with shock before they tackled him and all tumbled onto the floor, laughing. To Twilight, it was like she was laughing away some great weight in her chest.

"Okay, okay, I get it, I love you too!" Shining said, playfully trying to pry them off. Twilight only stopped hugging him when he gave her one of his old mane ruffles, then stood back to let him up. Cadance still clung to him, and they giggled at each other as Twilight spoke.

"When did you get up here you big sneaker?" she asked.

"Just a minute ago. I heard you talking and I snuck in. Sounded important."

Cadance frowned. "We were just going over some of the problems Twilight's been having since..." She trailed off, and Twilight bit her lip and glanced to one side. Shining sighed, wrapping a sympathetic hoof around his sister's shoulders.

"Hey, I know," he said quietly. "You already told us everything."

"No," Twilight whispered, burying her face in Shining's chest. "Not everything. I’m sorry. It’s been over a year and I still get nightmares." Her heartbeat sounded louder than usual as she tried to shut the world out and hide in her brother’s fur. “I haven’t told anypony anything about that horrible time,” she whispered. “Not really. There’s so much I can’t even put into words.”

"Just take your time," Cadance whispered, nuzzling Twilight's ear. "We're both here for you."

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself," said Shining, a frown etched across his muzzle. "Are you sure you only want to stay just the weekend? You just got here today. A few more days won't hurt. The guest rooms still need breaking in, you know."

"No, no, it's fine," Twilight said even as a wave of fatigue crashed over her, making her go limp against her brother with a yawn. "I just... I just needed a short break. Then I can get back to work."

Her half-lidded eyes didn't miss the glance Shining and Cadance shared.

"I think getting back to work is part of the problem," said Cadance. "You're right, Twilight. Luna has been riding everypony really hard about all these unimportant things. Celestia is still aloof and thinks I don't notice. And you, Twilight... you keep charging off into the sunset to help solve Equestria's friendship problems nonstop. I'm worried about all of you. Before we do anything else you need to rest. Proper rest."

"M'fine," Twilight muttered as her eyelids drooped. The train ride here had been awfully long—she was a stickler for taking regular transportation like a common pony instead of using her magic just to get here faster. And talking to Cadance had cut the strings of her anxiety, letting her fall slack at last.

“Okay. C’mon champ,” her big brother said, ignoring her mewling protests. She felt Shining's magic wrap around her like a blanket and lift her onto his strong back, like he did when she was a filly, and her eyes closed completely. Not long after she felt a real blanket wrap around her, warm and soft, and she was on a downy mattress.

She fell asleep to the warm sounds of Cadance humming some far-off, wondrous tune, a wordless melody composed in some lonely glen at the beginning of the world, and it reminded her so much of when Celestia coddled her as a filly that she even curled up like one. She felt love surround her and willingly fell into its embrace, letting her mind drift away.

/-/-/-/

Twilight’s hoof scraped over stone. She looked up at the blank cavern wall and recoiled from it, gasping. This was not Cadance’s castle. This wasn’t a place she knew. She turned around and saw only darkness, and realized she didn’t know anything about this place or how she’d come here.

A noise from behind the stone wall startled her.

“Remember.”

It was muffled, yet she knew the words before she even heard them. Without thinking she reached up and touched the wall again. It felt warm and tantalizingly thin, as if with a single push she could bring it crashing down.

What? Who? Why? she asked the voice without truly speaking.

There was a sound of rock scraping on rock. “Remember! Remember remember remember!”

Who is that? Is that my voice?

It couldn’t have been. It was deep and masculine, yet it was tinged with such sad desperation, such breathtaking determination. She knew it from somewhere, but something kept her from knowing, something deep and dark, like a gulf or a curtain between her and sweet remembrance.

The scraping grew more intense. Somepony was trapped behind the wall. Somepony needed her help. Her instincts jolted her to life and she thumped hard on the rock with her hooves. It shuddered but did not give way.

“Hello? Are you there? I’m here! Tell me who you are! Let me help you!”

“Remember!” the voice growled, and something in its tone pierced her heart. Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes and she began pounding fervently on the rock.

“I’m trying!” she cried. “Please! Just say your name! Tell me something! I’m here for you!”

She cast around for something to knock the wall down. More large rocks were scattered all around. She picked one up in her hoof and banged it against the stone before her, trying to hammer her way through.

“I’m coming,” she grunted. “I’m coming! Don’t worry. I’ll be there soon.”

The noises from the other side were fervent, manic, distressed. Or perhaps she felt all those things at once and they were merely rebounding off the wall, feeding into her own hysteria and driving her crazy. All she knew was the wall had to come down.

“Just… gotta… get…” she whispered, bashing and scratching and pleading and kicking. The marks she left on the stone grew more coherent while her movements only became ever more erratic. Her limbs grew heavy. Her brow beaded with sweat. Still she punished the stone.

A crack appeared in the wall, and through it, a faint glow of light.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m—”

Something yanked and something pulled, and all she could do was fall away as she felt torn in two. She didn’t even feel her back hit the ground.

/-/-/-/

Twilight’s eyes flew open. Before she took a single breath she sat upright and threw the covers away from her with a disgusted grunt. They landed on Spike, who slept next to her bed in a little pile of cushions, and the baby dragon sputtered and spat as the downy comforter smothered him.

“Ah! Hey! Twilight?! What’s going on?”

A loud clack of hooves on marble as Twilight dropped onto the floor. Spike continued to fumble and claw at the blanket.

“Twilight, say something!”

He found his way out in time to see Twilight heading for the balcony, flinging the doors open with the heavy hoof of magic. They made a bang that stopped his little heart.

“Twilight?” he whispered, now curling the offending blankets around his shoulders again. Fear and reverence gripped his heart as he watched Twilight spread her wings as though to take off, her mane a fearsome mess and her eyes slitted and narrow with intense concentration. He’d known Princess Celestia long enough to know regality when he saw it, and right now Twilight was a frightening and naked example.

His caretaker put her hooves on the balcony railing, looking out over the Crystal City. A carpet of stars hung heavy across the sky, reflected in kind by the spires and verandas below the palace. Even at night the entire metropolis glowed and twinkled. The city was a slice of the sky all its own. To Twilight, being here was just as good as being up there.

“He’s alive,” she said.

“Who is?” Spike asked.

Twilight leapt onto the railing, balanced precariously. She threw her head back and her wings out, and then tipped forward just far enough to fall. She heard Spike cry her name, heard little claws scrape on the floor, and then a weight on her tail unbalanced her just as vertigo took over and she began the plunge.

“Twiliiiight!” Spike shrieked as he clung to Twilight’s tail for dear life, his voice competing with the wind. Twilight’s feathers snapped as they caught the air, making it roar as she pulled up. Spike gritted his teeth as his foot claws scraped over streets made of diamond and then left the earth completely. They rushed into the air, surprising a few late-night strollers with their updraft and leaving Cadance’s citizens baffled at a Princess who flew so wildly so late at night.

She didn’t bother with them. None of her thoughts were here in the city, or the Empire, or Equestria itself anymore. They raced just ahead of her, going up, up, up into the sky, and she chased them with the steady beat of her wings and the drum of her heart. She galloped on the air and still her thoughts outpaced her, teasing and cajoling as they danced just out of reach. Spike’s screaming was just a mild nuisance in her ears as she left the earth far behind and sailed into the frigid clouds, and even the gleaming crystal city was just another light among millions.

Further, she thought, I have to go further!

This whole world was incomplete. The stars’ lights were so lackluster, the colors of the Crystal Empire so dull and dreary compared to the beauty her mind had touched. A million billion possibilities waited just out of reach, right at the tip of her hoof. She exalted in the desperate need that swelled in her chest, felt herself be pierced by the exquisite sadness of a great and powerful feeling that she could never quite name, and kept flying. No amount of exertion seemed to tire her out. No distance took her far enough. No words contained the vastness of what she felt.

It was only after she breached the cloud layer and felt little talons prick her flanks did she stop and come to rest on a wispy cirrus.

“Twilight,” Spike snapped, clambering onto her back with shaking claws, “don’t you ever do that again!”

“What?” she asked, gasping and grinning. She whipped her tail and scattered part of the cloud, and then for good measure smacked it again. “Do what? Fly? Or fly with you hanging on back there?”

“Both,” Spike snarled, securing his arms firmly around her neck. He didn’t like heights, and they were so high now the ground looked painted and the trees looked like toys. “You scared the heck out of me, Twilight! That was worse than a Pinkie Sense moment. Have you gone crazy?”

“I did,” Twilight said, too giddy to be mortified she was acting like Pinkie. “I did go crazy, Spike. I am currently totally insane and I love it! My heart is pounding! Can’t you hear it?”

Spike tilted his head one way and then another. “I hear the wind,” he said. “And I hear my bed calling for me. ‘Spike,’ it’s saying. ‘Spike! Get away from the crazy mare and get a good night’s sleep.’”

Twilight laughed and didn’t warn him when she jumped off the cloud and dove straight down. The distant ground with its toy trees and painted ground became big and real terrifyingly quickly.

“I remember!” she crowed over Spike’s terrified screeching. “I remember everything! I have to do something about this, Spike!”

“Pull up! Pull up!” he wailed, and she did, but only after she found a few trees to buzz, shearing their leaves off with her wings.

“He’s out there! He’s alive! Don’t you see what this means, Spike? He’s alive because I believe he’s alive because he always was alive! He’s alive and I’m going to see him!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Spike, closing his eyes as she corkscrewed and looped over a lake, “but I’ll agree with anything you say if it makes you stop flying.”

Twilight screeched to a halt in midair, suddenly somber. “You’re right, Spike. Flying is absolutely not going to help right now.” She banked towards the Crystal Empire and flew as fast as her wings could carry her.

“Right now I need you to take a letter.”

Spike watched forlornly as their bedroom window went zooming by. Twilight spun around the tower in a giant loop and aimed for the lower part of the great castle, gliding silently through one of the windows of the Empire’s library. Between two giant shelves she spread her wings and dropped onto the crystal floor with a click of hooves that echoed through the halls, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. A curious night-shift librarian poked her head out from her desk at the front lobby.

“Princess Twilight?” she asked in a venerative whisper. Twilight didn’t know if the respect was for her or the library. “What can I do for you?”

“Inform Princess Cadance that I am in the Library and require her attention, immediately,” Twilight said in a clipped tone, turning back to Spike before the librarian even left.

“Grab a quill and paper,” she said as she approached an empty desk, letting Spike slide off her tail. “I need to keep this quick and short.”

“You know, usually I trust you if we’re gonna be experimenting, but this is kinda weirding me out, Twilight,” Spike grumbled. “What’s gotten you so worked up? You didn’t even make a checklist.”

“I already know what I need,” Twilight snapped. “I can’t let anything interrupt me this time.”

Spike peered at her over the top of the parchment. She moved with a breathless excitement, swept up in something that had left her inspired and distracted until it was done. He knew the mood well; she was having one of her ‘mad genius’ movements. But the way she stomped her hooves and gritted her teeth made him worry.

“Dear Princess Celestia,” Twilight said, enveloping a whole row of books with her magic and tearing them off the shelves to circle around her head, “I’ve had a dream. No, scratch that. An epiphany.”

“Epif…” Spike mumbled, trying to keep up as Twilight muttered to herself like a mad genius, snatching glimpses at seemingly random pages from random books and darting back and forth through the aisles. She snatched up another quill and dipped the feather in an ink jar, and used it to draw arcane symbols on the ground.

“A year ago we suffered the depredations of the Nightmare’s near-return. Now I’ve sensed the stirrings of a power I thought was lost. Somehow, some way… Dusk Shine found a way to speak to me.”

Spike dropped his quill. In the deathly silence of the library the velvety sound of the quill hitting the ground echoed like a drum. The whole world paused for breath.

“Oh,” he said in a delicate whisper. “Him.”

“Yes, that him,” Twilight said, forcing the world back into motion with an impatient tsk. She piled books to one side only to swing another row right off the shelves. Pages flipped like leaves in a windstorm, but every so often something seemed to catch her eye and she stopped to draw another letter or star or thaumaturgic rune on the ground. “Keep writing, Spike.”

Spike bent down to pick up the quill and stopped halfway. With the slow certainty that only a child could muster, he stood back up. “I don’t know about this, Twilight.”

The alicorn didn’t answer him. Her scribbling took on an even greater fervor.

Spike fiddled with his claws. “I know you really wanted this to happen. You don’t say so in public… not even to me… but I know how important it is to you.”

The loud flump of books hitting the floor and an angry flick of Twilight’s tail answered him.

“I mean,” Spike said, his voice gaining confidence and volume as he went on, “Twilight, you talk to yourself about it when you think nopony’s looking. And sometimes you stare up at the ceiling and whisper about all these scary things, like new worlds and finding doors and…” He gulped heavily. “And leaving. At first I just thought it was you getting over, well, everything, but I see the books you keep lying around. I see how you keep asking Luna for more lessons on dream magic. And if I noticed, then Luna definitely noticed, and I think it has something to do with why she’s had such a temper lately.”

“Spike,” said Twilight, her voice losing all warmth and turning over to reveal the ice beneath, “I need you to write that letter. I’m extending Princess Celestia the courtesy of letting her know before I attempt this.”

“Attempt what?” Spike said, spreading his little arms as far as they could go. “You were blaming Luna about how things were getting so frosty between you, but we go all the way to the Crystal Empire to get away from it? And now this! Out of nowhere you’re jumping out of bed and flying around like a crazy pony! What are you even drawing there on the floor?”

“A subliminal runic transfer system,” said Princess Cadance, appearing out of the shadows of the library, closely flanked by Shining Armor and a very nervous librarian. “Colloquially known as a ‘dream circle.’”

Twilight tried not to notice the dawning comprehension on Spike’s face, with horror close on its heels.

“Wait,” the little dragon said, pointing at Twilight. “You were… you were getting ready to go! Right now! You were just gonna jump in there with no ideas? No plan?”

Twilight finally found her embarrassment and hid her face beneath her wing. “I… I would’ve been able to figure it out—”

“Without telling me?!” Spike squeaked.

Twilight gasped, coming out of her shelter full of bluster and righteous indignation. Arguments of all kinds to the contrary stood ready to burst forth. It all died in her throat at the sight of Spike, Cadance, and Shining all glaring at her.

“Twilight,” said Shining, “please step away from that thing.”

She trotted nervously in place, bit her lip, and shook her head. “Shining, please, you don’t… Cadance, you have to… Spike! I, I was just going to—”

“Twilight,” said Cadance, and something in her voice stopped Twilight’s jitters. A sense of calm washed over her, stilling the roiling sea that was bubbling just beneath the surface of her skin. “Twilight,” Cadance said again, “do as your brother says.”

Twilight stomped her hoof petulantly, but there was no force behind it. It was the act of a desperate child, and it scared her how true that was.

“You don’t know what it feels like,” she whispered as a cold sweat broke out over her brow. “You don’t know, you weren’t there! I see him, and… and then I get this feeling, this incompleteness, like—”

“It’s all right,” said Cadance, stepping forward and nudging Twilight with her nose, gently guiding her out of the circle. “We understand—”

“No, you don’t!” Twilight snapped, recoiling to hide behind a stack of books. “None of you do. None of you can. I’ve been living a lie ever since that day, and I came up here to try and hide from the fact that I haven’t done anything to fix it!”

Spike poked his head around the book pile, trying to look her in the eye. “But Twilight, you did so many things! All the girls got their keys, and you’ve really helped around Ponyville, and let’s not even mention Tirek!”

“Yeah, let’s not,” Shining murmured, rubbing his horn.

“You shouldn’t feel inadequate, Twilight,” Cadance said, settling down on her stomach and leaning into Twilight’s hiding place like she was trying to draw out a faun. “Nothing that happened that day with the Nightmare was your fault. You beat it!”

“With Dusk’s help,” Twilight whispered. The blank stares she got only made her more frustrated, and she turned away to hide her face behind her wings. “You wouldn’t understand. I don’t blame you for it. How could you, unless you were there? Unless you were me?”

“Try us,” said Cadance.

Twilight sighed and stood up. “One moment.”

She disappeared in a flash of light, and when she returned with another loud pop she held a mirror in her magic. “Look,” she said, and floated it in front of Cadance. Spike and Shining joined her. “What do you see?”

“Myself,” said Cadance, patient as ever.

“Yes,” Twilight said, distracted, “yes, but you only see you. The only you that ever could or ever would be. You’re an alicorn, Cadance. The Princess of Love. None of you is extraneous or unnecessary. Look hard, Cadance. You can’t see anything but you, right?”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Cadance answered.

Twilight’s words rolled right over hers. “But imagine if you looked in that mirror… and part of you wasn’t there.”

Cadance’s reflection gasped in horror as her wings blipped out of existence.

“But not just that,” Twilight said, her voice taking on a dreamy, distant tone. “What if something was added?”

Cadance’s reflection was an alicorn once more. This time she wore strange and beautiful clothing, and stood taller than her original, nearly the size of Celestia, her mane blustered by intangible wind. The library had melted away to a book-crowded study, and a bright sun shone through wooden shutters on the windows. This Cadance looked grand and imperious, yet her eyes gazed at something far away with unspeakable compassion. Twilight saw Cadance’s breath catch in her throat.

Shining gulped, either frightened or awed by the vision. “Twilight, what are you trying to say?”

Twilight shook her head. She knew they could scarcely believe her, and that made it hard for her to believe herself. “I’m telling you what I see and what I don’t see, and how much I notice all the little gaps and missing pieces in who I am, and also the entire expanse of what could be there. Now. When you put another mirror up behind you…”

Another mirror popped into existence opposite the first. Now an entire hallway of infinite mirrors and infinite Cadances stretched out ahead and behind. Shining and Cadance and Spike all gasped at once, because every last one was different. Tall or short, male or female, missing wings or horns or even their equinity entirely—somewhere in the far back they saw a dragon. Twilight gave a weary smile as she stepped up beside Cadance, and now an infinitude of Twilight Sparkles smiled up at the Princess of Love, every single one unique in some strange way. Though some were obvious a few looked uncannily similar, and yet that only made them all the more alien because Cadance knew they were different.

“Every night,” Twilight whispered with tears in her eyes, “I have seen this when I look in the mirror. But the one who matters… the only one who ever looked back… who really, truly saw me… wasn’t there.” Her horn glowed. “Until now.”

All the Cadances and Twilights, along with the second mirror, vanished. In the place of millions stood Dusk Shine, moving in synch with Twilight, speaking with her. Twilight reached up and touched the glass, and she smiled sadly as he smiled back.

“The one who stands right on the other side. My true reflection. What I want and what I am all at once. The one who is the most like me, and yet… so far away this tiny pane of glass is the depth of a whole other universe.”

She let out a breathless gasping laugh. “We saved each other. We made it all right again. And I… I dishonored that victory by hiding from the lessons I learned and the relationships I should have kept building. Celestia and Luna deserve better. He deserves better. I want to make it all right. Really, I do!” Her legs gave out and she dropped onto her flanks. The mirror, and Dusk, vanished.

“But I’m scared, guys. I’m scared of reaching out again and being hurt. I always knew things had changed between me and Luna and Celestia… but it was so easy to just sit back and wait instead of trying to bridge that gap again.”

She gave a desperate hiccupping sob. “I almost killed them. I almost killed everything. Do you know what that’s like? To know that you have the power to end everything that you love? My friends kept telling me after it was over: ‘It’s all right! We understand! It was the Nightmare, not you!’ But I look into their eyes and I still see the fear I caused. When I held Applejack over a cliff, when I almost killed Pinkie Pie, when I knew I was going to use the Elements to destroy this world and remake it like some… some foal playing with the universe’s building blocks! I would’ve just knocked it all over.” She lashed out and pushed over a stack of books. “Like that. They don’t know. They don’t really know what I’m capable of and neither do I. I haven’t spoken a word of what I really felt to them or the Princesses. After all that’s happened I haven’t said a thing.”

She tossed her mane and scoffed, but it caught in her throat. “Oh, we said the usual things. ‘I’m sorry,’ and ‘We forgive you,’ but what do those words mean if I haven’t really done anything? And eventually we all just… buried it. Like an embarrassing report card or some silly family secret—”

She bowed her head and wept openly. She didn’t clench or squeeze or shudder. Every muscle in her relaxed and the tears simply flowed free, finally overflowing the dam she built brick by brick ever since the day the Nightmare took her. “Listen to me. Princess of Friendship and I can’t even figure this out? I let it go for so long and now that I’ve seen Dusk again all I can think about is what I want. Some Princess I am, huh?”

For a while all she felt were the hot tears streaming down her cheeks. She barely even noticed when Spike wrapped his little arms around her forelegs, and the warmth of Cadance folding her in big pink wings was a gentle breath against a blizzard. When Shining Armor finally found his way to them and enveloped all three in his strong legs, Twilight finally felt a twinge of relief.

“If I don’t find him this time,” she muttered, “I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll never be whole. And thinking of telling Celestia just brought up all those bad feelings from before, and then I was scared of myself for letting those feelings take over so easily…”

“You know what I think?” Shining said in her ear. “I’m just a normal everyday unicorn here, but I think that any Princess of Friendship who doesn’t face things like this isn’t qualified to be one.”

“Shining’s right, Twilight,” said Cadance. “Things like this… they help us learn. Love is learning how to love somepony in spite of, and sometimes because of their faults. It’s painful. But it always is. That’s what makes love so special: it overcomes great burdens like this.”

“We believe in you, Twilight. We believe you’ll do it right,” offered Spike.

More tears flowed, but this time they were happy. Twilight looked at the half-finished rune circle and sighed.

“Then the first thing I need is the rest of my friends.”

Comments

[Lelouch Vi Britania]

That escalated quickly...

[FloydienSlip]

Great chapter, Red. Did catch a small typo:

kingdomnow

Got a missing space there.

Really liking where this is going. Keep it up!

[1stChosenStar]

Damn, can't wait for the next chapter after that speech.

[Jake The Army Guy]

Okay. Finally read this.

Holy shit.

Please keep writing.

[TheStratovarian]

I like the message she swayed them with here. Very fitting.

[djthomp]

Poor Spike, the stuff he puts up with as Twilight's assistant.

This mirror argument is pretty convincing.

“Then the first thing I need is the rest of my friends.”

Ahh, excellent. I was just a tiny bit worried with the crazied flight that she was going to go off solo and break the world again. If you're going to break the world, might as well have your friends with.

[InMyMind]

There's a sequel? There's a sequel, and it's fantastic.

[source1]

Wow, sent shivers down my spine.

[Azreal DuCain1]

5056384
Hehehe, you guys are such hams.

[Sunglasses Indoors]

Just like before, I feel like a five-year-old that's gotten hold of a book on particle physics. There's so much here that I'm not picking up on, but I guess that's what keeps me coming back.