12 - Sincerity
Morning light filtered in through the window and lit the dining room. Twilight Sparkle stared off into space. That just so happened to run into the wall on the far side of the room. Her hooves rested on the lacquered wooden table that took up the center of the room.
The same hypothetical conversation played in her mind over and over again. Despite her saying the same things over and over again, the responses she got were different every time. Some were favorable; others were less so.
Starlight Glimmer and Spike stood together nearby. The both of them remained silent, waiting for whatever she had to say.
And Twilight knew what she had to say. This conversation, however hypothetical, needed to happen. Twilight sighed and straightened up. “Okay… here is what I want you to do. I want you… to go and gather the girls. Tell them to meet me in the throne room.”
The two exchanged glances and then saluted. At once, they turned and walked toward the doors.
The doors swung open and Crystal Faire, with a tangled mane and half-shut eyes, stumbled into the room. She passed by the two as they made their way out of the room and shut the door behind them. Eventually, Crystal hopped onto the seat next to Twilight.
And the two sat in silence for several moments.
Crystal smacked her lips together and then opened her eyes just enough to glance around the table. “Where’s breakfast?”
Twilight smiled. “Oh, everyone already ate.”
Crystal groaned and then went still. Her horn lit for a moment, and a bowl of hot porridge appeared in front of her. Her magic gripped a spoon within and stirred the contents about.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “And where did you get that?” she asked.
“Um… I got it from Baltimare. Just now.”
“…You stole somepony’s breakfast.”
Crystal dipped the spoon and yielded a decent bite. She flashed Twilight a brief glare and then shoved the bite into her mouth.
Twilight stared back for several seconds and then, as Crystal prepared to take another bite, she lit her horn and yanked on Crystal’s ear with her magic.
Crystal yelped and tilted over. Once Twilight’s pull faded, Crystal sat back up, messaged her ear, and then glared at Twilight while taking her bite.
Twilight snorted and shook her head but returned to gazing into space all the same.
A few moments of silence passed between the two of them.
Crystal eventually made a napkin appear and she wiped her mouth and set both that and her spoon down. “So… are you sure about this?”
Twilight, with a certain frown, nodded. “Yes. Absolutely. I need to get this off my chest.”
“I can tell that you’re pretty nervous about it.”
Twilight nodded. “I am, just because I don’t know how it’s going to go. I bet you know what’s going to happen. I bet you could even influence it with your threading.”
“My being there makes things fluctuate, and it’s hard to favorably collapse the probability when it’s constantly changing in front of me.”
Twilight sighed and nodded.
Crystal reached across the table and lay her hoof on Twilight’s. “But, if it means anything… I think it will be okay.”
Twilight met Crystal’s gaze and smiled.
* * *
“Thank you all for coming,” Twilight said as she sat up in her throne. She looked out at the many faces looking back at her. “I know this is short notice, but this is pretty important.”
Her friends sat on their respective thrones. Spike sat in his own throne to Twilight’s right while Crystal stood on her left. Starlight stood with Owlowiscious the owl on the opposite side of the Cutie Map.
Rarity waved dismissively. “Oh goodness, darling, we’re happy to be here.”
“Ya know it,” Applejack agreed. “But what’s this all about anyway?”
“Yeah, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Twilight sucked in a breath and sat tall. “Girls, there is something that I have to tell you. I wanted to tell you about what’s been troubling me over these past few days…”
Everyone else save Crystal brightened up in response.
“And…” Twilight nodded. “I think that what I’m going to tell you is going to change everything.”
Pinkie Pie giggled. “You unlocked the secret to alicorn magic? You made another alicorn!?” She jumped up from her seat. “Oh! You made her! That’s why she’s here, right?” she asked, pointing at Crystal.
Crystal giggled.
“Ah don’t reckon it’s that, Pinkie,” Applejack replied with a raised eyebrow. “But, Ah gotta admit, Ah’m sittin’ here wonderin’ why she’s here too.”
“Me too,” Fluttershy agreed.
“That’s Flurry Heart,” Starlight blurted.
Everyone turned their attention to Starlight, raising their eyebrows like she had said the most nonsensical thing in the world.
Starlight’s eyes darted around as she took in their stares, and she shook her head. “She’s Flurry Heart, but she’s like from an alternate future or something.”
They all turned back to Crystal although their expressions remained unchanged.
Rarity puckered her lips and scratched her chin in thought. “I don’t know, but I do see the resemblance…”
“Yeah, you are lookin’ almost like what Ah imagined she’d grow up to be. Almost,” Applejack said, narrowing her eyes as she leaned across the table. “Uh, you ain’t her, ain’t ya?”
“She is, actually,” Twilight said, turning to Crystal. “Do you want to introduce yourself?”
Crystal nodded and inched closer to the edge of the Map. “My name is Crystal Faire, but your reality knows me as Flurry Heart. You may call me that if you wish. What Starlight said is true; I am from an alternate future.”
Rainbow Dash sprang from her seat. “For real!?”
“For real,” Twilight and Starlight both said.
Several awed gasps and exclamations erupted at once. Smiles and brightened faces dotted the room.
Pinkie Pie bounded out of her seat and streaked across the table and booped Crystal on the nose. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! But you probably already knew that. I’ve met you before. Well… I’ve met little you.”
Crystal chuckled. “Pinkie Pie, we are well met. As are the rest of you. Where I come from… when I come from… I grew up knowing all of you somewhat closely.”
“Crystal here travels the multiverse,” Twilight explained. “She travels from timeline to timeline, making changes here and there. She primarily prevents bad timelines from happening.”
The others cooed (or, in one case, hooted) in response.
“She’s the real deal,” Starlight said. “We all did some things yesterday together, her, Twilight, and I. I got to see some other timelines firsthoof.”
“That sounds absolutely romantic,” Rarity said. “Traveling to the farthest reaches of possibility. Oh! I wonder what you’d find out there! Adventure! Mystery!” She fluttered her eyes and added, “Maybe you’d even find love?”
Crystal shrugged. “Sure, but only until the sheets come out of the wash. Nonetheless, I do find many interesting things in my travels. Of course, I spend most of my waking moments righting the wrongs in various timelines.”
Rarity briefly went red in the face and then giggled. “Of course. Goodness, I do have to wonder what trends are in in some of those places.”
“The effects of butterflies work in mysterious ways,” Crystal replied. “In some places, you’ve already opened a new branch in Las Pegasus, and yet you haven’t even gone to Canterlot or Manehattan in others. The possibilities are endless.”
“Hoo,” Owlowiscious replied.
“You said it,” Applejack seconded. “That all sounds mighty amazin’. But Ah ain’t sure if Ah can wrap my head around all that.”
“Well, we have seen something like this before,” Fluttershy pointed out. “I mean, at least, Twilight and Starlight have.”
Starlight turned red and rubbed the back of her head. “It’s not really the same. These timelines behave a little differently. I’m not all that sure how it works yet myself. They know more about it than I do.”
“But they’re different realities, right?” Rarity asked.
“Yeah. They’re timelines where things have gone just a bit differently. But, you know how it is; things can always turn out drastically different. I’ve seen them.” She stood up and pumped a hoof into the air. “I’ve been to them!”
“That’s awesome!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Twilight, have you been to any of these other timelines? Huh?”
Words scrambled up Twilight’s throat and, after taking a moment to fold her hooves together and otherwise steel herself, she looked up and let those words find voice. “Well, see… that’s the thing… I’m originally from those other timelines.”
Everyone in the room, including Crystal, froze and then turned to face her. Most smiles had been replaced with befuddled frowns. Owlowiscious hopped a few centimeters in her direction.
“Why,” Rarity said, “whatever do you mean by that?”
“I’m from another timeline,” Twilight said. “That’s why I’ve been so bothered over these past few days.”
The others remained silent. Their glances turned toward Crystal; she regarded them in kind and then grimaced and averted her gaze. Their frowns deepened and they all fixed their attention back on Twilight.
“I haven’t been all that sure how to broach the subject,” Twilight said. Her eyes glued themselves to the table. “I mean… how does one even begin to talk about something like this? I’m from another reality, just like she is,” she said as she pointed to Crystal. “It was one so much like this one, but… things were different there.”
Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Like…?”
“Like… I came from a reality where Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy agreed to play a game of Buckball against Appleloosa when Braeburn said that they could beat Ponyville. We ended up winning thanks to them!” Twilight exclaimed, throwing her hooves into the air for emphasis. “I came from a reality where we caught onto Rainbow Dash’s cookie prank… And since her pranks were getting out of hoof, we pretended to be zombies to return the favor and we taught her a valuable lesson.” Her eyes grew wetter and she ground her teeth together. “I came from a reality where Ponyville won the Equestria Games, and where I never went to that Daring Do convention. And…”
Twilight sucked in a breath. “The Golden Oak Library… it’s still standing even now. It survived the battle with Tirek. But where I come from… Tirek blew it up.”
Her friends shuddered and shared grimaces.
“I almost lost everything that day. It took me a long while to get over it. And I remember… all of you came together and helped me out… because I had a hard time dealing with it…” Twilight shook her head. “But no matter how much I wanted to tell myself otherwise, it didn’t feel like home.”
Owlowiscious rustled his feathers. Spike glanced down at his claws as he twiddled them together.
“I don’t know what else is different,” Twilight continued. “And I don’t think I can ever know what’s different. I’m not sure of anything anymore. But… this is where I am now.”
She grew silent. Everyone else shifted in their seats and exchanged glances. Their brows were furrowed and they flip-flopped between considering Twilight and looking at everyone else’s expressions.
She knew that they were contemplating her story. She waited for them to laugh at her. In some ways, she wanted it. It had to beat the alternative.
Starlight shook her head. “I don’t know, Twilight… That sounds pretty crazy.”
The others nodded in agreement.
Starlight’s eyes flicked to Crystal. “But… I’ve seen these other timelines for myself. I know that they’re real.” She paused and pursed her lips together. “I guess… my first question is… if you’re really from another timeline, then why are you here at all?”
And so it was. Finally, the other half of the hypothetical conversation had arrived.
“When I first met Crystal a few days ago… she came to my timeline to help me… help us defeat an evil which would have taken over Equestria.” Twilight shivered. “We would have lost to it if Crystal had not shown up. We ended up pulling through thanks to her help. She saved our timeline.”
Twilight hung her head. “I thought we were in the clear. But…” Not even she was sure of the words she wanted to say next. “My timeline… it collapsed.”
Crystal averted her gaze even more.
Rarity swallowed. “Collapsed?”
Twilight couldn’t find the words.
“Yes. Her entire reality died,” Crystal said. “Just imagine… if every moment past this one no longer existed.”
All eyes, save Twilight’s, turned to her.
“W-what…?” Rarity said.
“I didn’t know,” Twilight quivered. “I didn’t know that it would be the last time I’d see anypony that I loved. I… I didn’t know that I would be the only one to survive.” Images of the things she had seen flashed through her mind, and each one made her eyes grow wetter. “I watched… Canterlot fall off the mountain.”
Everyone cringed.
“I watched the land break apart… I watched Ponyville fall into a hole…” She sobbed. “I… I can’t imagine what that must have felt like. I can’t imagine what you all must have felt like in those moments.”
She looked at their faces again. Every bit of mane still hung the right way and every freckle and eyelash was in the right place. Applejack’s stetson was still at the same usual angle. But, Twilight knew, these were not the ponies that had ceased to exist.
“You remind me so much of them. You are them.” Twilight shook her head and said, with a solemn tone, “But they were from another time… another life.”
Fluttershy and Rarity looked a little bit wet in the face. Applejack removed her stetson and set it on the Map. Rainbow Dash’s features had scrunched up and she looked ready to fly out of her seat. Pinkie Pie, usually jittery, had stopped.
“What is that even like?” Spike asked. “It just sounds so weird.”
“Knowing you lost them but they’re right there in front of you…” Starlight added.
Twilight shook her head. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s hard to explain. Either way, this is where I am now, and I want you all to know that, no matter what, I still care deeply for all of you. I just have to… adjust.”
The others still remained silent.
“Anyway,” Twilight said as she leaned back in her seat, “that’s all I have. I just wanted to let you all know the truth.” Finding herself unconvinced, she added, “That’s all.”
Spike folded his claws together while his eyes remained fixed on Twilight. Owlowiscious didn’t visibly react aside from ruffling his wings a little bit.
Starlight opened and closed her mouth a few times and then she finally put her forehooves on the Map and leaned across it. “I… Twilight…”
Twilight averted her gaze and mentally steeled herself for whatever came next.
“I… there’s just one other thing that I don’t understand.”
“I know that this is a lot,” Twilight muttered. “What is it?”
Starlight licked her lips together and then said, “If… you are from another timeline… if you aren’t the Twilight from our timeline…” Some bits of color disappeared from her face. “Then where did our Twilight go?”
Twilight blinked despite somehow knowing that the question would have come up eventually. She slowly twisted in her seat so that she faced Crystal.
All eyes in the room followed.
Crystal met each of their looks and even shied away. Eventually, she frowned and grabbed her foreleg in shame. A few moments later, she said, “Well… it is as has been said: I travel the multiverse attempting to right those things that go wrong. And this isn’t the first time that I’ve been to this timeline, not even to bring Twilight here from her own.”
Twilight blinked. This was new.
Crystal blushed and hung her head. “It’s… like I told Twilight here… I don’t have a perfect track record. I make mistakes sometimes… and…”
Twilight stood up in her throne. “Crystal… where am I?”
Crystal sucked in a breath and met Twilight’s gaze dead-on. “Perhaps… it would be best if I took you to her.”
* * *
Twilight’s legs wobbled underneath her and she let them give way.
The sounds of echoing bird chirps and rustling leaves filled the surrounding forest. The occasional tree broke up the moss-covered ground. The trees themselves blocked out most of the sun’s light, but the occasional sunbeam still broke through.
One such sunbeam fell on the mound of dirt which they stood around. At one end of the mound, a large slab of rock stood half-way wedged into the dirt.
A loud bang signaled all the air rushing out of Pinkamena Diane Pie’s mane. She also fell to her knees.
Rarity shook like a leaf. “G-g-good h-heavens…”
Twilight couldn’t look anywhere else. She didn’t want to either.
Applejack, who looked a little green in the face, threw her stetson to the ground. “Ah don’t believe it. Ah just don’t believe it!”
Crystal, who stood outside of the circle, took a step further back. “Alas…”
Fluttershy’s eyes filled up with tears and her lip quivered.
Rainbow Dash ground her teeth together. “What… the buck happened!?”
Starlight stamped the ground and pointed at Crystal. “Explain yourself!”
After a moment, Crystal turned and motioned toward a broken tree. Said tree had been snapped in half with its upper portions lying nearby. A few more trees beyond that sported snapped branches and spots where the bark had been stripped away. The trail of destruction ended at a large lump several times their size lying on the forest floor. Its orange scales shone in the sunlight. The main body separated into five long necks which ended in serpent-like heads sporting pink horns shooting out their backs. It lay with its broad backside toward them.
Countless insects flew about and scurried across its surface. It showed no signs that it planned to move for the foreseeable future.
Rarity reeled. “Ah!”
“That’s a hydra!” Fluttershy exclaimed.
“That it is,” Crystal replied.
Rainbow Dash shuddered and shook her head. “Okay. But what does that hydra have to do with anything?”
Crystal whimpered. “It has everything to do with it. It is… exactly it.”
Twilight sighed through her nose and said, “I knew it.”
All eyes turned to her. Owlowiscious hopped over to Twilight and hooted.
Twilight let her head fall into her hooves.
“It was a very very long time ago. Probably a thousand years for me, maybe two thousand. I don’t know,” Crystal said. Her tone was subdued and she sounded like she was forcing her words out. “But I came to this reality to save Twilight’s life.”
After a moment of silence, Twilight asked, “When I came out here to the Everfree? Right?”
Crystal nodded. “That’s right.”
Starlight went pale. “But… but… that was only a few days ago!”
“For you,” Crystal replied. “Twilight, your Twilight, ventured out here to collect those samples. At the time, there existed a set of timelines which diverged from there… where Twilight would have been killed by that very same hydra. I came here to correct that.”
Twilight felt like her insides were twisting into tighter knots with each word that she heard.
“What?” Starlight seethed.
“I came here to fight it off. It was a long battle that I eventually won, but… I wasn’t fast enough back then.” Crystal grimaced. “I wasn’t good enough.”
Spike, with tears in his eyes, crawled onto the mound of dirt and placed his claws on the headstone. Owlowiscious, similarly, lifted off the ground and found a perch on the headstone where he could look across the mound. His hoots were strained and he continually ruffled his wings.
The others sniffled and sobbed and turned their eyes toward the mound.
“So… she’s…” Fluttershy quivered.
Crystal nodded solemnly.
“A few days!” Rarity cried. She knelt over the mound. “Oh, Twilight! We didn’t even know!”
Applejack picked her stetson off the ground and hid her face behind it. “Gosh darnit, Twi… Gosh darn you. You… ya had to go an’ leave us like this!?”
The others collapsed and broke into wails and cries.
And Twilight remained with her knees in the dirt and with her expression blank. Crystal turned away from them.
“Oh stars, oh stars,” Rarity whimpered.
“Twilight… I can’t believe you’re gone!” Spike cried.
“But she’s right here. She’s right in front of us.” Starlight pulled on her mane. “This is all so confusing…”
Spike balled his claws and slammed them against his knees. “I know!”
Twilight sucked in a breath. “…Spike.”
Spike blinked and flipped over to face her. He swallowed every sob and whimper that he was about to have and stared her down.
“This is the answer to your question. This is what it feels like,” Twilight croaked.
Crystal shuddered.
Everyone went quiet. They wiped the tears out of their eyes and gazed at her.
Fluttershy whimpered and rose to her hooves. “Oh, Twilight…”
Rainbow Dash stood up and shuffled over to Twilight. Her eyes remained locked on Twilight, and Twilight eventually locked eyes in return and stood up as well. The two were nearly muzzle-to-muzzle.
After what seemed like an eternity, Rainbow Dash bared her teeth, raised a hoof, and rammed it into Twilight’s face.
Twilight’s cheek stung, but she held her ground.
The others gasped and stood up in a huff. Crystal, meanwhile, didn’t even look back.
When Rainbow Dash didn’t follow up, Twilight reached up and stroked the offended cheek. The sting brought some tears to her eyes. Or, perhaps, hurried already due tears along. The other part of her had expected the hit. She needed the hit, even. Twilight whimpered and looked down at the ground. “I probably deserved that for the way I deceived you.”
Rainbow Dash snorted and shook her head.
Twilight glanced over the rest of them. “All of you, even. I’m so sorry…”
Applejack frowned and trotted up alongside Rainbow Dash. “Sugarcube… Ah know this ain’t all your fault. Ah don’t think there’s any one pony to blame for all this.”
Fluttershy wiped some tears from her eyes and nodded. “That hydra sure was being a big meanie. But they always are, aren’t they?”
“And you,” Applejack continued, turning to Crystal, “you done let her die, but Ah’m sure you tried your darndest to save her.”
Crystal’s frown deepened and she hung her head all the same.
Rarity scowled. “But why would you bring another Twilight here if ours was…”
“It was… so that you wouldn’t have to live your lives with my mistake,” Crystal replied. “You would have somepony you could call your friend.”
Starlight frowned. “I guess that’s a good reason… But…”
“I know it was spur of the moment,” Crystal murmured, “and I deceived you with it. So I am sorry as well.”
Starlight nodded. “Okay.”
Rainbow Dash stroked the mound. “I’m mad at her, even. She came out here alone! She let that—” she pointed to the hydra, “—thing have its way. This is all so messed up.” She rubbed her temples and groaned.
“I couldn’t have lived with myself keeping it away from you any longer, and you deserve to know,” Twilight croaked. “It’s like I said: this changes everything. Everything between us and—”
“Ah wouldn’t say that,” Applejack interrupted. “This changes some things, sure, but… we are still your friends, Twilight. It don’t matter where you come from. You are Twilight Sparkle and we are here for you.”
Crystal blinked and turned around to watch them again. Her jaw hung limp like she had forgotten it was there.
Pinkamena sniffled and cracked a smile. “Yeah, that’s right.”
Twilight had to remember to breathe. “What?”
Spike trotted up to Twilight and wrapped his arms around her neck. “She’s right, Twilight. You need friends and your number one assistant.”
“Hoo.” Owlowiscious landed on Twilight’s back.
“And you’ll need your grad student,” Starlight said with a grin.
New tears, filled with warmth, appeared in Twilight’s eyes. The corners of her mouth curled up. “Everypony…” she quivered, “are you sure?”
“Yes. I don’t think we could bring Twilight back…” Fluttershy said.
“But,” Rainbow Dash said with a sharp tone as she jabbed Twilight in the chest, “you sure as hay can pick up where she left off. You’d better.”
Twilight swallowed. “Y-yes. I will try. I will do my best.” She wrapped her foreleg around Spike as she met gaze after gaze. “But I might need help.”
Crystal took a few steps toward Twilight but said nothing.
“I know most things. But there are things about this reality that I have to adjust to. There are subtleties that I don’t even know about. I might slip up. I’ve already done everything that I can, but I… I can’t be sure of anything.”
Starlight nodded and laid a hoof on the headstone. “Well… Twilight taught me so many things. She taught us so many things.” She stroked the top of the rock and met Twilight’s gaze again. “I guess it’s our turn to teach you.”
“Ah know that’s what our Twilight would want,” Applejack said. “And Ah know she’d want us to be as much of a friend to you as we were with her.”
Twilight smiled and wiped a few tears from her eyes. Turning her sights toward the headstone, she straightened up. “I don’t know where you are right now. But if you’re looking down on us… on me… I’ll make you proud.” She sighed. “And… I can only hope that someday, Equestria will know what actually happened to you… to us. I want to give you something better than this. I will.”
Spike looked at the headstone as well. “Me too.”
Rarity, whose mascara had run and formed large black streaks down the sides of her face, sniffled and nodded as she turned to the headstone too. “Yes. And we’ll be sure to visit often in the meantime.”
Seven ponies, a dragon, and an owl spent several long and silent moments huddled together with all their eyes fixed on the gravesite. They would occasionally wipe some remaining tears from their eyes and sniffle.
Crystal, who still stood distanced from them, shook her head from side to side and hummed. She eventually turned to leave.
Twilight looked up. “Crystal?”
Crystal paused.
Twilight brought Spike in closer and said, “Thanks.”
The others looked up as well.
Crystal’s cloak flapped in a light breeze that made its way through the trees. “So that’s it, huh?”
“Yes,” Twilight replied. “I think that I’m going to get over this. I think I’m going to be okay.”
Crystal cocked her head to look at Twilight. A frown remained on her face. “You have quite the dependable group here. You have… lost so much, and yet here they are to pick you right back up.”
Twilight’s smile widened. “They are… the best that anypony could ask for.”
Crystal’s features paled and she averted her gaze. “Must be nice having something like that,” she croaked.
Every fleeting feeling Twilight had disappeared in a heartbeat, and she gasped. “Oh! That’s right! You—”
Crystal Faire shifted, and with a loud bang, she suddenly disappeared.
The others yelped and reeled in response but Twilight stood her ground. They all stared at the spot that Crystal had once occupied.
Twilight licked her dried lips. “You’ve lost so much too, and yet…”
Starlight frowned. “Well… whatever. What’s say we all head back?”
The others nodded and gave affirmative hums.
“I reckon that home’s that-a-way,” Applejack said as she pointed through the trees.
Twilight chuckled. “I think so too. Let’s get going, everyone.”
The nine of them filed out of the site. Most touched the headstone as they passed by it.
As the others pressed on, Twilight stopped and turned. She glanced at the headstone one last time and tilted her head directly into the sunbeam.
“Crystal…” she whispered, “I just… I hope that you know… that just as they are for me… I am here for you.”
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...well this chapter was a tearjerker. A necessary one, however.
Well then.
Huh, who's been cutting onions?
But what happens next!? D:
Do they reveal Twilight's fate to Shining Armor and Cadence? To Celestia? To her parents!? D:
That happened.
Really sad in a bittersweet family friendly Rixty Minutes way. But IMO it is kinda left field. Twilight had been there for a few days, and she didn't even wonder where the Twilight of that timeline had gone. Going by how I read the story when you left Twilight in this timeline as a refugee, it felt like you simply forgot about the Twilight who went to the Everfree and simply wrote her off. Maybe you could have alluded to it more.
I originally thought it was something like this, Twilight replacing another version of herself. But the experiment chapters where divergent timelines were successfully reunited together led me to believe that maybe she'd melded with her alternate version. And then... slam that emotional door right in my face! Very nice bait and switch and switch again, from a storytelling point of view. My jealousy knows no bounds and I hate your writing skill forever! :p
8312929
It's funny that you should mention this, actually, because I struggled for a long while trying to find a good place to even allude to it (see, when I originally wrote chapter six, Crystal outright told Twilight the truth, and then I changed that after I had already started drafting chapter eight). A couple days ago I figured out a place I could allude it to (sadly, it's only one place, but I suspect that should be enough to tide people over) and I just implemented it. It's a small thing, and given most people correctly inferred that Twilight died in the Everfree, I'm not too worried that it being added in only now will break things.
By the by, 8312997, this dialogue is fixed.
8314506
Ah, you are too kind. Except... Sorry but not sorry.
8308607
Ah, I would imagine the proper start of Crystal's arc will put that on hold~
Sorry I asked.
Hnng, so many feels....
Dammit, Twilight, you dun git urself wasted.
It's nice to see that so many of what others do is completely meaningless because Crystal can just invalidate it effortlessly.
This is all well and good, but... We haven't learned more about collapsing timelines yet. My "Uh oh" senses are tingling
And the fact that Flurry Heart doesn't get any second chances makes it even more sad.
Anywho, I think this is a fitting place to put this song. I think this expresses the emotions and context going on in this chapter right now.