A Distinct Lack of Tears
I, Princess of Friendship Twilight Sparkle, stand here in my best friend’s cloud house with my other five best friends. Four of them are crying. The emotionally stoic Applejack (bless her level head) isn’t.
And I’m not either.
This is just ridiculous. Your damn tortoise is going away for three months. I haven’t seen my brother in about six. That doesn’t stop him from existing.
Perhaps I’m being too cruel to fair Rainbow Dash. Her emotional reactions have always been over the top. Like that time after Gilda, where she wailed her eyes out in my library trying to figure out what went wrong. Or when she displayed all the symptoms of clinical depression after failing to study for a test. Not even I’m that bad… anymore. She’s like a chocolate bar. A tough but thin shell on the outside, soft nougat on the inside.
But really, three months?
And unless there’s a small miracle and you all ascend to Princesses with me, lifetimes will pass without them all. And I’ll live every single one. How do you think I feel? Three months? That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the time I’ll have to spend without these… these fantastic girls.
Perhaps I need to make more friends. they are all still the only five I have. A pitiful number if I’m meant to stay sane through the centuries. Perhaps it’s for the best. The more ponies die while I live, the less I’ll be as strong as I need to be. Perhaps I shouldn’t get close to anypony.
The scientist I am screams at me, tells me to collect some data. Blurt out that I was leaving for a few months. How would she react? How would anyone react? Would she shed a single tear. No, I bet she knows I’d come back. I’m pulling a prank, obviously. She’d probably start laughing. Actually I hypothesize she’d start crying more because it would be inappropriate. While the findings might be meaningful, it’s not exactly ethical. I think I’m starting to think like Discord. What if I had an important delegation to the griffon empire? We’ve made some actual diplomatic breakthroughs recently. But really, Dash. Your damn tortoise will be fine. He’s only like, three years old. He’ll outlive you. Spike will outlive you.
I’ll outlive you.
There it is again, that tiny nagging voice I try to keep in a jar so I don’t break down like she is now. Perhaps one of us is stronger. I somehow doubt it’s me. All of the psychology books I’ve read tell me I should express my emotions to my ‘support group’ which in this case happens to be these five. That’s supposed to make you strong, by being open. But like a building in a tornado, something is going to crash through it. If the window is open or not doesn’t matter. I doubt they could help, and on top of that, I’d be crushing them with their own mortality. Applejack hides her emotions well. She probably has to. I think she’s come to grips with her situation. Now that’s a sad story. I happened to run across her parent’s death certificates in the town records.
Compared with what she’s gone through, this is nothing.
Compared to my future, this is nothing.
“I can’t bear to see Fluttershy cry,” Rarity says. I’m pretty sure they’re either secretly dating or have a mutual crush on each other, but won’t just tell the other party. Of course, Applejack seems to flirt with everypony’s favorite white unicorn too. And don’t get me started on the sexual tension between Apple-horse and Weepy-Cry over there.
Maybe I’m overthinking things. Again.
Those who live in glass houses, Sparkle. I’m afraid I’ve grown quite attached to Rainbow. Her passion burns hotter than dragon fire. I admire that in anypony. She’s like a train, constantly moving forward. And have you seen how built she is? She’s a joy to be around. We’ve started a little book club, and meet to discuss Daring Do and other series I’ve gotten her started on. She’s strong. Perhaps that’s why this scene is ridiculous. She’s freaking out about three months of absence. I can only see it ending like Icarus, the earth pony that made wings out of feathers and wax.
If I tell her, I’ll have my time in the sun, then my wings will burn as she descends into the dirt one last time. For myself, I can’t let her know.
I kind of wonder if Rainbow knows she’s going to die, or if she still thinks she’s immortal. We’re all still pretty young, in our primes. It’s natural to not think of the end. But I read a lot of philosophy when I was young. I made peace with my mortality early. It’s the opposite that’s the problem now. But hey, eternity in a crystal castle. What more could one want? They did decorate it, so a little piece will live on. The chandelier is nice too. Memories. Fond ones. Ones I’ll miss, perpetually perched above my head. I recall Pinkie saying something like, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
I’ll try. I’ll try because I know you all would look down from the afterlife, if there is one, and be heartbroken if I was sad because you were gone.
I wonder how Tank feels. If he could talk, what would he say? Right now I want to slap Dash and tell her to stop being silly. Would he do the same? Hibernation is a natural part of life, like mating or preening. Oh how I loathe the tedium required with these new wings. Get up, make sure every. bucking. feather. is aligned and well oiled. Brush mane. Brew coffee. Be a presentable pony.
I should have never left that tower. Books are great. Books are eternal. Books tell you some things you knew and something you didn’t. Books can take you to far off lands on great adventures. Books don’t expect you to look “presentable” according to standards of society. Books love you for who you are. Friends can do that too, I suppose. So we’re left with the simple equation, books=friends-eternity. I’d be a happy unicorn, sitting atop all equine knowledge. Alone.
But what is knowledge without teaching?
That’s why I wanted to write a journal so bad, so I could remember. I mean, I had a photographic memory already, but I wanted to know their feelings. Preserve my friends in a slice of eternity. Get closer and have that closeness documented. So, perhaps, if I needed to, I could look back and know the answer if I needed to know, What would Fluttershy do?
I’m actually impressed with Fluttershy. I think deep down she knows this is silly too, but she’s dealing with it much better than I am, that’s just passive aggressively glaring at Rainbow’s overreaction. I doubt Fluttershy even thinks she’s delivering bad news, but it’s bad news to Rainbow, and she’s going to react this way anyway. She’s crying now, because despite my long rant, seeing a friend cry is tough. I guess I just need a more legitimate reason than “long nap.”
Self-diagnoses are always a tricky situation, but I kind of display symptoms of a very high functioning sociopath. Empathy is still hard. I mean, I didn’t even think the library was Spike’s home too. In times of pressure like these, I retreat into myself. That’s why I’m not crying. I just literally have no idea what’s so sad. I just hope my presence is enough moral support, because even after years of learning friendship I still have no idea what to do. Those psychology books I read told me that this reaction can be natural; to have no idea what to do. But why do I feel guilty for it? Somehow I doubt a sociopathic princess would go over well. Better not seek an official diagnoses. I at least think I have a problem, therefore I probably don’t. Probably. “I’m crying because you’re not crying,” you say? Well Pinkie, it’s three months.
Oh good, she’s finally stopped wailing like a banshee. Just as Rainbow accepts Tank’s fate, perhaps I should accept my own. Some things go on forever. Trees, with enough care. The library was at least five hundred years old. Hydras live centuries. Dragons too. They all seem perfectly well adjusted, so perhaps in time, I will be too.
It’s not like I’m running out of it.
Perhaps if I write a letter to… Luna may actually be the best to handle this. She has spent a millennium alone.
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5 up votes but only 1 view?
I'll put this on my to-read.
'can't bear to'
Bare is to reveal, Bear (outside of the animal) is to withstand.
Millennium. Millennia is the plural of millennium.
Otherwise, not bad. Pretty much how I was expecting her to be thinking.
Um...well...
I don't know. This all seems a bit too dark for Twilight. She may be a tad cynical, but this is just taking it way overboard IMHO. The story itself was fine, it's just that this characterization of Twilight didn't jive with me...at all.
Have a like. I-if that's okay with you...
Wow. I'd never thought of that possibility before.
Reckon that's my favourite line.
Interesting take on why Twilight wasn't crying.
5953774
Yeah, agreed here. Twilight is in no way a high functioning sociopath, so unless you slap on an AU tag that's a pretty silly addition to this piece of writing. How is this deserving the dark tag anyway?
5953692
Thanks. I am prone to making bonehead errors.
5953774
5954547
You both are right, really. I wanted to try to think why the Princess of Friendship wasn't being empathetic. She's prone to freaking out herself, like Lesson Zero, Swarm of the Century. Honestly this season's Twilight Sparkle seems to lack empathy she gained in previous seasons. She forgot Spike lived with her, basically, and she's confused about why Rainbow is balling. High functioning sociopath is probably a bit much. I blame watching Sherlock.
I understand I probably could have just left it at "good lord this is silly," as well, people like that exist.
I'll consider revisions.
As for the dark tag, I thought it would be appropriate for meditations on mortality. Or, rather, immortality.
Woah!
5954547 Of course she's not. But thinking she might be because she isn't feeling something she thinks she should is normal.
I've heard season 4+ Twilight called 'Heavily Medicated Twilight' because she's so darned *calm* about everything.
5954830 I don't remember the episode super well (since it was kind of dumb IMO) but IIRC she wasn't necessarily not empathetic, just not crying.
I've had various types of leadership roles in my day and what I've found is that experience in crisis management doesn't make you lack empathy, but it does make you better at compartmentalizing. So my feeling was that Twilight wasn't crying not because she didn't feel for Dash, but because she didn't feel it was useful to addressing her concerns.
Not trying to take anything away from the story, of course - one of the cool things about fandom is that we can disagree or reinterpret things as we like. I just found your reaction of "this doesn't make sense" to be interesting since it wasn't one I shared.
5954985
That's actually more what I was going for, and you articulated it better than I did.
It's sort of like not crying at a funeral, except your
tortoise's... Dog's. You think you should feel guilty because everyone else is crying.Yeaaaaaah.
Twilight, the Princess of Shipping.
Twilight...... i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/107/432/i_hug_that_feel.png?1318992465
Just be happy with what you have at the time...
The random shipping kind of threw me off a little.
5955113 Naw, that's Candy. Twi just picked it up from spending so much time with her.
Not even I’m that bad… anymore.
Heh!
And yeah, this episode was trying to convey something the censors wouldn't allow, so the allegory fell apart.
"And unless there’s a small miracle and you all ascend to Princesses with me,"
Well, unless Twilight dies first, since it was said by the show's staff that Twilight wouldn't outlive her friends, but Cadence would outlive Shining Armor.
Perhaps I shouldn’t get close to anypony.
Which I'm sure Celestia and Luna will tell her is a BIG MISTAKE.
So Twilight can't admit to herself she's fallen for a human?
5955407
Sorry, but what story are you reading?
Since tortoises do not die of old age, and apparently neither will Twilight, she may eventually inherit Tank.
~KBO.
5955419
This one.
5955407 Uh...
Wrong story.
--SYA, The Horse
5954547 She's confusing wondering what the point is with being a monster....again. Huh. It's times like this that I miss G1's Wind Whistler. She would have made sense of this.
5955447
Actually, I mean how Twilight talking about her attraction to RD, comes across as her distracting herself that every time she's in human form, she crushes on Flash Sentry (which given she's in a different body with a different brain chemistry, it's logical that attraction would confuse her while she's in pony form).
fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/239/3/c/Sherlock___Psychopath_by_Annabelle_H.jpg
I think these two would either become best friends, or kill each other.
Twilight always does her research.
Of course, Princess Twilight isn't really a sociopath. Maybe pre-ponyville Twilight and human world Twilight though.
5955407 What? This story has no humans in it. You must be high. This is a story where Twilight is thinking Rainbow is foolish for crying about Tank hibernating for three months, when she has to watch all of her friends die while she stays alive do to the Immortality of being an alicorn.
Very good story dear author. I'd like to see this letter to Luna and her response.
-Sanity is overrated
"Twilight will not outlive her friends" - One of the show staff.
5956021
Not canon until it is stated in show. Let me keep my headcanon.
My take on the whole thing:
Rainbow has pretty clearly shown that she is the least mature of the bunch
Rarity is overly dramatic anyway so her crying makes sense.
Pinkie Pie's entire shtick is making others happy, so seeing her friend cry, regardless of legit reason makes her sad.
Best Pony is fragile, handle with care.
Even though Twilight has had to learn lots about friendship, with a few exceptions she's always been shown as the mature one. I don't see not crying over a silly reason as being maladjusted at all. As for Applejack, well...
img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121223051816/mlp/images/1/10/Applejack_Shooting_Stars_S3E08.png
5956045
And even then, I truly doubt Twilight knows that. Unless, during her time across the portal she ran into M.A. Larson
Twi went totally goth in this one
5956079
M.A. Larson is a Wide-scale, Reality Interfacing, Transdimentional Event Recorder. There is no way a W.R.I.T.E.R. would exist in the Equestria Girl's Universe, since, by definition a W.R.I.T.E.R. recording something fictional must be in the universe above.
5956021 'tis the beauty of fan fiction, my friend: we can do whatever the hell we want.
I, for one, will ALWAYS state Twilight will outlive her friends. Even if they show Twilight dying with her friends IN THE SHOW ITSELF, I'll still say otherwise. Not only is it beautiful irony, but one HELL of a friendship lesson.
5955764
Duh. I know it doesn't. And I know what the story is about. I'm talking about the rather silly random pairings.
5954830
Agreed. High functioning sociopath is a little too, for lack of a better word, dark for best Princess.
Eh... Twilight Sparkle is a problem solver. It's not just a "male thing" to suppress emotions that are keeping you from fixing whatever is causing the emotion. In a choice between crying about something, or figuring out how to deal with that same thing so others won't have to cry any more ...She picks a course of action (right or wrong) and runs with it.
It's part of what makes her a hero.
Remember Season 1 Episode 2, Twilight's charge at Nightmare Moon? Same thing.
Twilight "Badass" Sparkle.
<I don't cry, I get angry. You won't like me when I'm angry.)
5955407
I can't believe how far over everyone's heads this comment went.
He's talking about the inconsequential and unnecessary shipping in the middle of the story.
Other than that my only real complaint is that you used bucking as a substitute for fucking, and the situation didn't really seem to call for either anyway.
5956374
He did explain himself later, and it was a little more clear.
With the whole Flash thing, I resort to "portal magic causes freaky hormones" for an explanation, because TwiDash or SunLight is too adorable.
And when I heard that line, I basically thought what she did, regardless of how the scene was playing out. I stopped, raised my hands toward heaven, and shouted, SHIPPING.
The story is meant to be her thoughts, and her thoughts just happened to be interrupted by what could be read as flirting.
5956045
Actually, whatever the show staff says is canon is canon, it's just subject to change until it's shown.
For instance, those shooting stars AJ saw during Apple Family Reunion were representing her dead parents. Even those of us who didn't know what the show staff said at that point, who had an idea of what a shooting star means, picked up on that. But the show staff made specifically that interpretation canon.
That said, as the author stated, even if we WE know Twilight doesn't outlive her friends, she has to deal with the very real likelihood that she will. Such is the distinction between audience knowledge and character knowledge.
Her self-analyzing reminds me creepily of myself
. I do that ALL the time; I actually mentally write out everything I think or feel or say and I have been doing so since I can remember. Too many books at an early age XD. This as you may imagine adds to my self-consciousness but also causes some strange effects, such as the fact that I'm often amused at myself. Wow, I sound reeeally crazy. Or maybe I don't just sound that way 
5956408
The problem with random shipping no reason or development in the middle of a story that is trying to be serious is that you're assuming the readers will accept that that particular ship is part of the character's inherent personality, and just because you find it cute does not mean everyone does or is willing to accept these ships "for free", as in, without you explaining why this make sense. That's why good romance stories usually take their time to develop if they are not canon ships.
In this case the story is going through Twilight's thought process and reasoning for not crying in this scene, but then in the middle of it there's an offhanded "by the way, i ship this and this and myself with RD" which breaks the flow of the story and takes the reader out of Twilight's thought process because now we're not reading Twilight's mind anymore, we're reading random ship inserts the author finds cute that Twilight has no reason at all to even think about.
It's got the same impact on the story as if you made an offhand remark about how Pinkie and Rarity are pegasi, AJ and Fluttershy are unicorns and Twilight and Rainbow are earth ponies out of nowhere and then move on and never bring it up again.
So, if you want to do non canon ships, do them, but treat them as you would an earth pony Twilight, otherwise you're just inserting yourself in the fic and ultimately catering to a specific audience that wants to read about these characters smooching for no reason.
Normally I wouldn't mind such random shippings so much because it's like a brain bug in fanfics but since it's been pointed out i thought I would elaborate.
Not a bad piece. A nice look into the internal ramblings of Princess Purple. The shipping nod was, I'm afraid I must agree, unnecessary. And yet, inner monologues don't always make sense if they're written as stream-of-consciousness, so I'll let it slide.
However, I can't like this story. Not just because I'm neither a fan of Twilight nor of TwiDash, but because I cannot stand "Immortality Blues" (the idea that becoming an Alicorn made Twilight nigh-immortal like Celestia & Luna). If you want to go with that headcanon, I'm not going to stop you, but I personally reject it.
Looking at your profile, I see this is only your second story. Keep going. Even if I didn't enjoy this fic on principle, I still look forward to reading more from you.
5956504
5956408
I'm going to side with Shogoki here.
While I do appreciate those ships, it just feels out of place in the fic and, if I may be honest, distracts from the overall message that you were trying to convey with Princess Twilight. While I do understand that it is her thoughts and they may or may not be random, inserting ships doesn't make sense for this particular kind of story at all.
5954830 No problem.
My silly headcanon still thinks that Twilight is still salty not being qualified as Dashie's pet
5957026 What?
5956624
I misread your objection to immortality blues, and wrote this:
I have an easy test for Twilight to see if a metaphysical soul exists in her world, and therefore an afterlife. All she needs to do is perform lobotomy on people and see if their personality changes. If no amount of cutting changes their personality, congratulations; an afterlife exists. If cutting some pieces out causes them to lose their current personality and/memories, then I am sad to say you have it like we do here on Earth.
5957258 A long long time ago in a galaxy far....oh what the heck am I saying...here~
derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/8/29/85647__safe_twilight+sparkle_rainbow+dash_comic_crying_magic_love+heart_collar_twidash_leash.jpg
Don't Twilight and Cadence both age normally? They aren't immortal, because they were ascended to be an Alicorn, not born one.