Separation Anxiety
Twilight Sparkle woke up.
She was back in the Cliffjumper's medical bay.
This made no sense.
She shook her head, but when she tried to remember what had happened, a splitting pain tore through her skull.
"Aah!" With a cry, she fell back down into her pillow, reaching up to grasp at her head. As she did, she felt what must have been at least two inches of gauze around her forehead and a thick padding around her horn.
"P-Penny... What happened?" She asked, looking over to the bed next to her.
Silence. Pennington wasn't there.
He must have gotten out of it in better shape than I did.
"Pennington isn't here, Twilight..." Constant Care's gentle voice crooned as she walked in the door.
"More importantly, how are you feeling?" Close followed her sister through the door, and they both stood at the foot of her bed, watching with anxious and worried stares.
Immediately, Twilight felt that something was very, very wrong. Close Care's face wasn't pulled into its normal tense tightness, but instead had softened to the point where she was willing to give Twilight a weak and fake-looking smile. Constant, who was normally as bright and chipper with her patients as she wanted them to be, looked as if she were on the brink of crying, but was trying her best to put on a brave face about it.
Before she could ask, though, Sure Shot came storming into the room. Normally, the green pegasus was even more light-hearted and eager to smile than Pennington, but his face now wore only the darkest of scowls. Like a tornado ripping through a small down, he shoved his way to her bedside, jutting his face in front of hers with uncharacteristic ferocity.
"From where does the moon rise in these parts?" He growled, barely restraining some mysterious anger.
"W-What?"
"WHERE DOES THE MOON RISE!" Sure Shot slammed his hoof onto the nightstand, splintering the wooden surface. The sound of the wood splitting was like a gunshot, and he was breathing heavily through his nose. His screaming sent Twilight into another momentary migraine, and she took a second to finally remember what he was talking about.
"Um... Uh.... Where the sun sets!" Twilight finally remembered the code that she had been forced to learn before she left. "Where the sun sets, the moon shall rise!"
When she said this, Sure Shot seemed more disappointed than relieved, but his anger washed away. He shook his head in despair and walked slowly away, not even looking at Close or Constant.
"What- what's wrong?" Twilight asked as the pain in her head receded.
"He... Was hoping that you were just a changeling spy." Close muttered, still seeming more sensitive and less grouchy than usual. Normally, she would have been angry with Sure Shot for his outburst and destruction, but she didn't seem to even notice. "If you were, it might have meant that the real you and Pennington were still together somewhere. As a team." Close was more emotional than usual, and was beginning to even tear up a little.
"If you were, there might be a chance..." Constant spoke as her sister stopped. "That you would both have made it out of there. We found you alone, unconscious in the middle of the plains." She was beginning to shed a few silent tears as well. "We wouldn't have found you if Sure Shot hadn't been taking a bird's-eye view to try and find another dune worm to hunt." She walked a little closer, grasping Twilight's hoof between two of her own. "It looked as if you had long-range teleported, and it left you with a small concussion, along with a sprained horn. It shouldn't leave any permanent damage, but you need to go without using magic for a few days, maybe a week.
"Constant... Where's Pennington?" She asked quietly. "The last thing that I remember was that he was trying to use my energy to make a shield!" Calling up the memory placed her cranium in even more pain, but she didn't care.
"Twilight... if he said that was what he was doing, I doubt that he was telling the truth." Close finally spoke again. "Sure Shot saw Pennington's signal, the blue flash, right above where you were... He sent you here on purpose."
"He... lied?"
Sorry, Twi...
"But, then what happened to him? Where is he?" She started to rise out of the bed as panic seized her, but a dizzying wave of nausea washed over her and forced her down again.
"Twilight, you need to rest right now..." Close seemed to be gaining her stony composure back as she pulled the blanket back over her. "We shouldn't be stressing you out with all of this."
"I want to know."
"Twilight, you really shouldn't-"
"Where is Pennington?" Twilight turned to Constant, praying that the softer of the two sisters would grant her request.
Constant returned Twilight's gaze with teary eyes for a few seconds, then turned away to look at the ground.
"Pennington Inkwell is 'Missing in Action.' The time until he is presumed dead is two weeks." The words seemed as if they were crushed under the weight they carried, and that same weight settled on Constant's shoulders, pulling her normally light spirit down to Earth. "If he fails to arrive before then, there will be a discrete ceremony in Canterlot, deserving of a superior officer in the New Lunar Republic."
The monitors by Twilight's bed began to beep rapidly as the full news hit home for her. Despite the fact that the machine's beeping said otherwise, she felt as if her heart had stopped in her chest. "So... He's dead? You think that Pennington is dead?"
"Well, it's the assumption that we would have to make." Close seemed to be barely holding the weight of the news, herself. "But for now, we have to wait and see if he pulls some kind of miracle out of his rear end..."
Twilight spent the next few days in a daze. The Cliffjumper eventually returned to the NLR headquarters, but no pony seemed to want to talk. The entire facility seemed to have lost the lively spirit that it had when she had visited it for the first time. Word of Pennington's "possible death" had spread like wildfire, and she seemed to be the object of blame for it in some ponies' minds. On her first day of being able to get up and walk again, she had tried to take herself on a tour of the parts of the facility that she could remember. There was only tense silence, now, and it took only a few angry glares in her direction for her to quickly retreat back to her room again.
"Oh, it's all good, Twilight! Penny will be just fine!" Quick Strike was her only visitor, and the only one in the world who seemed upbeat and hopeful. "I taught him everything he knows about combat! He could take on THREE hives of changelings! While sipping that stupid ramen with one hoof!" She would punch the air enthusiastically, as if striking down one of Pennington's foes for him. "Have a little faith in him, Twilight! Didn't you say that you two are boyfriend and girlfriend?"
"Well... Yes?" Twilight sniffled loudly.
"Then he has something to fight for!" Quick Strike grinned. "Writers are cheesy. Guys are cheesy. Never underestimate a writer-guy when he's fighting for love! It's the cheesiest thing there is!"
Twilight laughed, and for a few days, the two of them became close friends. She didn't see much of Sure Shot in her days at the NLR, and she could only imagine what it was that he was doing. She could hardly imagine the pegasus crying into his pillow the way that she did at night. But it was impossible to tell for sure, since she held her composure with ease during the day, as well.
Soon, though, when she was feeling well, she told Quick Strike that she wanted to go back to Ponyville, much to her confusion.
"But, aren't you going to wait and see if he comes back? Wait for him to pull through?"
"I don't want to be here when he's pronounced dead..." Twilight shook her head. "I need my friends back in Ponyville right now."
"Well, despite what some of these knuckleheads might say, you'll always have friends in the NLR, as well." In a rare moment of tenderness, Quick Strike pulled Twilight into a tight hug.
Twilight didn't see Sure Shot as the Cliffjumper carried her across the plains and back to Equestria, and she left the ship with tearful goodbyes to Close and Constant. When she found herself back in the border town, she had no trouble finding the train station and boarding the next train back to Canterlot.
As she stepped off the train and into her home city, she couldn't hep but feel yet another pang of grief. Is this all that's going to happen? I just go back to my life as if I never met him? The gleaming buildings and sky-scraping castle were all familiar to Twilight, but the world seemed more alien, more cruel than it had before.
"Twilight Sparkle!"
Twilight was shaken out of her revere as a pink unicorn came bounding up to her. With a light-pink coat and a shorter violet mane than most other ponies, the stranger was almost unrecognizable, and seemed to hold no place in Twilight's memory.
"I-I'm sorry. Do I know you?" Twilight asked.
"Well, no... But you know Pennington, right? You left with him..." The pony looked nervous, but something seemed to be overwhelming it. "I wanted to know how he is... I haven't heard from him in a while, and now that you're back, he can't be far behind, right?"
Twilight finally recognized her: the unicorn who had dyed Pennington's mane and coat to look like Scorching Quill. "Wait... Your name's Callalily, isn't it?"
"Yes. Callalily Curl. I'm an old friend of his." Lily responded with a smile. "He sent me some letters talking about you and what you two were doing. I really wanted to see him again... I always do right after he gets back from one of those crazy adventures of his."
Twilight could feel her composure cracking as water began welling up in her eyes. She felt her heart break in two for what must have been the thousandth time. She hated to tell Lily this, she could tell that Pennington meant a lot to her. It was like telling a little foal that Santa Hooves wasn't real... crushing a belief.
"Pennington... Isn't coming back." She muttered, unable to bring the words above to any louder volume out of sheer fear of them. "They said that he's going to be considered 'Missing in Action' for two weeks, and then 'Dead' after that..."
Just as she expected, it was like a light in Lily's eyes went dim. The light of hope. Her shoulders and tail drooped, and her ears flattened against her head.
"Come with me, Twilight..." She turned around and began to walk with a long sigh.
Twilight balked for a moment, then nodded and followed, trying to hide her confusion. Lily led her through the crowded streets with hardly a word, and Twilight found herself with only her thoughts as she followed the bobbing tail. Eventually, Twilight found herself back outside of the salon where she had seen Lily before. The mare in question pulled out a small set of keys and unlocked the door, walking inside of the store in spite of the obvious sign reading "Closed."
"Callalily Curl's Beautification." Twilight muttered as she walked inside. "Seems like someplace Rarity would go."
"Well, I have to admit, Rarity's never needed my help. She can style her own mane perfectly well." Lily replied, surprising Twilight with her range of hearing. "Anyway, I knew that this day would eventually come..." She opened the bath where she dyed full coats and set a steaming faucet running.
"You knew that he was going to die? Then why didn't you stop him?" Twilight asked, her eyes once again filling with tears. Every time that she said it, the fact became more cemented in her mind that he was dead.
"The same reason that you didn't, I'm guessing..." Lily replied as she poured a few select bottles into the bath, filling the entire shop with the smells of lavender and pine. Somehow, the two differing scents worked together in a way that Twilight would never have thought they could. The lavender allowed her to relax for the first time in ages, washing away her tension in waves of blooming aroma. The pine, on the other hoof, gave her an invigoration that ran through her body, replenishing that deeper energy that she felt she had lost upon the horrifying news. The combination of comfort and excitement reminded her of what it was like to be with Pennington, though on a much more manageable scale.
"If you try to stop him, he just wants to go even more. Neither of us could have watched him every hour of the rest of his life, now could we?" Lily, in spite of her obvious sadness, smiled as she walked behind the counter and opened a small panel. "I've been saving these for a long time... But not nearly as long as I wanted to, I suppose."
When she slid the panel back, there were several bottles inside. Some were filled with a cloudy, faintly yellow liquid, and the others were filled with a golden syrup that she easily recognized as honey.
"What's that?" She asked, stepping forward to get a closer look.
"Lemon juice and honey." Lily stated quietly. "Pennington used to use these to make his own lemonade. Didn't you know?"
"Well... No. I've never been inside of his house, and he never had any around me..." Twilight mumbled. "I always thought he would just drink ramen broth, or something..."
Lily seemed to find this entertaining as she began to mix the two liquids in a much larger bottle, which she shook vigorously. "When we were little, he tried convincing me to set up a lemonade stand with him. We didn't sell a single glass, except for the ones he drank, himself." She examined the transparent bottle, then shook it again. "It's not bad watered down, but he insists on not adding anything but the raw ingredients. I swore that I'd never drink this stuff straight again until the day he died." She examined the bottle once more, then pulled out two small paper cups. "Would you like some?"
Twilight considered the offer for a moment, then nodded and picked up one of the cups. The yellow-ish gold liquid inside didn't look any less appealing than anything else that most ponies drank, but knowing that one of the main ingredients was pure lemon juice put her off slightly. She looked over to Lily, who was walking towards the full tub.
"Go ahead. It's just strong, it's not poison!" She smiled and lifted the cup to her own lips, shuddering at only a small sip. "Yep... Definitely strong. Sweet, though..."
Twilight sighed and looked at her own cup again. She closed her eyes and put the cup to her lips and tipped a small amount of the liquid into her mouth. When the drink touched her tongue, it recoiled in shock as a sudden sourness threatened to shrivel away the insides of her mouth. Her face scrunched up in reply, and it took all of the willpower that she had to stop herself from falling into a fit of coughs and choking on the liquid, which she promptly tried to swallow in order to rid herself of the hindrance. After swallowing the stinging substance, she opened her mouth and took in a huge gulp of air in order to cough.
"Pennington said it had a 'kick.' I would always tell him it was a kick to the jaw..." Lily, who was gently lowering herself into the pool of steaming water, gave her an understanding smile. "You have to make a conscious effort to taste the honey." After taking another sip and immersing herself up to her neck, she motioned to the opposite side of the dying bath, which was beginning to look more and more like some kind of hot tub. "Why don't you take a dip? I think that there's something that you need to see."
Twilight looked at the tub, then her cup. While the temptation was there, something about it seemed... wrong. "You want me to relax in a hot tub... when Pennington just died a few days ago?"
Lily nodded with solemnity. "Pennington told me a lot of things on his visits here, and one of them was that when he finally did kick the bucket, he would want me to 'stop worrying and relax for the first time in a gazillion years.'" Tears were beginning to build up in her eyes, now. "I guess... That was his last wish for me. To stop worrying about him for once and let myself feel good..." She shook her head, and tears were beginning to fall. "But I still feel terrible... It's a new type of terrible, too! I usually feel like my stomach is going to leap out of my throat, but now... I'm just empty!" Rather than wiping the tears away, she sunk her head under the water with a sob.
As everything grew silent in the room, Twilight saw a stack of blue-glowing scrolls float over to her from the other room, landing in front of her in a pile. She looked at them in a weak, forlorn curiosity. When Lily finally came back up for air, Twilight could see her horn glowing, marking her as the one responsible.
"I don't know if you were supposed to see these..." Lily seemed to have regained a small amount of her composure, but her voice was still trembling. "But if there's one thing Pennington was good at, it was using words, but if there's one thing that every stallion is bad at, it's talking about their feelings... So, he sent me these letters instead of talking to you." She took a long, shuddering breath, then exhaled in a similar manner. "I think that you should read them."
Twilight blinked a few times, then looked back down at the pile of a dozen or so scrolls. She picked one up with her magic and held it at eye level.
Dear Lily,
Stop worrying, I'm fine.
Twilight and I reached the NLR's Eastern Base today with a little help from Sure Shot. Do you remember him from our days in elementary school? He managed to build that all-terrain worm hunter, calls it the "Cliffjumper."
Before he got here, though, Twilight and I got into a little tousle with a dune worm... Nasty critter, about five stories high, big mouth, eats unicorns like popcorn... Like I said, very nasty. I knew that he'd been following us for some time, but I didn't want to worry Twilight... She panics almost as easily as you do! Besides, from my perspective, it was worth risking my life for those hours with her.
Lily, you have no idea what it's like, to see her in the moonlight. When we're alone, just the two of us, miles of pale sand, and Luna's moon... I hope she hasn't noticed, but I tend to keep staring. When the moon would rise, and its pale light bathed the world in a milky glow, one would think that she would have been harder to see...
In the moonlight, she came to life. Her lavender coat catches the moonlight and seems to trap it inside like a thousand tiny crystals, making her glow with sheer beauty a thousand times greater than the progenitor of the light itself. I could hardly comprehend our surroundings whenever she was in my sight, and if my hooves hadn't kept moving by some subconscious rhythm, I would have wound up standing there like some kind of intoxicated idiot, drunk from the long draughts I was taking of her radiance. Even her deeply violet mane became more beautiful as the moonlight stripped away the disguise of day, growing even darker, like the vastness of infinite space itself, with two stripes of shimmering pink and lavender lighting up the darkness with life.
Her eyes... what words could I use to describe her eyes? None exist to illustrate in their truest, purest form what one could see in those eyes. There was a scintillating sea of amethyst in those eyes, one upon which I could sail for a thousand years and still wish to see more of. I tried to hide my fascination with those hypnotic orbs whenever our eyes met, but... there's a compelling curiosity in them, one of a thousand questions within them, all wrapped up in a thirst for knowledge that I only can imagine as unquenchable. I can see in her eyes that she wants knowledge the same way that I want adventure: undeniably and impossible to resist. Some of those questions must be about me, because in those magical moments where our eyes meet, it feels as if she's looking straight into my soul, digging through the clutter and mess for answers. Somehow, though... I don't mind. She could look as long as she wants, find all of the answers that she could possibly find from me, and I would still leave myself open to her. I trust her enough that I would commend my soul to her care if she would only ask...
I can tell that she doubts me. It cuts me to the core to know that, but she doubts me. Perhaps with good reason. When the worm finally attacked, I did my best to protect her, but I wasn't strong enough... Lily, how can I become strong enough? I feel like I would have to be able to lift all of Canterlot, even hold all of Equestria on my back before I would be as strong a stallion as she deserves... Instead, she wound up saving me. She refused to leave me, though, and in the moment that she was willing to scream at one of the most fearsome creatures in existence for the sake of a fool like myself who seemed to only be good at making mistakes, I saw a new quality in her. Not pride, nor the adorable stubbornness I have grown so fond of, but a sense of nobility that is truly regal. She refused to back down, taunting the creature and keeping it away from my helpless, weak, body, as undeserving as I was of her protection. She held herself with all of the authority and nobility of a princess... Nay, a queen, or even an empress! Empress of those mystic powers that bind unicorns to magic.
Lily, now I know that Twilight Sparkle is a treasure. Perhaps some heavenly cherubim or guardian angel sent to protect the world from those evils that would consume us all... And I love her. I realized it the moment that I chose to send that monstrosity after myself to protect her. I love Twilight Sparkle. But I may have to do something very hard, soon. Something that will make her angry with me, a fact that will grind my soul to dust. I have to send her home to Ponyville. She must be far away from me when I enter the changeling hive. I couldn't live with myself if she were to be captured or, a thousand million times worse, killed. I would die of anguish, of a heart not only broken, but shredded apart into the tiniest slivers imaginable.
So, if you see Twilight back in Canterlot, send her happily and blissfully on her way to Ponyville. Don't tell her any of this, or she'll just see me as some kind of lovestruck fool, and probably even fear for her own safety around me. I have no intention of telling her my feelings unless it is on my own terms.
Don't worry, I'm fine.
-Pennington Inkwell
As Twilight reached the end of the letter, the words blurred and shifted through a veil of tears, and she was on the brink of a complete mental breakdown. She looked back to Lily, whose reddened eyes were watching her intently.
"Every one of them is like that." She whispered with a melancholy smile. "By the time that he had sent me his last letter before entering the hive, he sounded as if he had practically already bought the rings for his proposal... Whenever Pennington Inkwell fixed his mind on something, he went after it... whole-heartedly."
Twilight took trembling steps over the scrolls, trying carefully not to touch them, and walked to the tub. She left herself sink to the ground when she was finally standing over Lily's shoulder.
And there, among the scents of pine and lavender and lemonade, among the bottles of dye, the mane-dryers and the comfy chairs, among the steam and the love and the grief...
Twilight Sparkle cried.
She let herself lose all control in heaving sobs, sometimes leaning down and wiping her tears in Lily's mane, and other times letting them fall into the water. She didn't care anymore about trying to look at things rationally and in intellectual manner, she didn't care about the composure that Princess Celestia's personal protégé should always hold, nor did she pay any kind of mind to the thought that she was crying with somepony she had met only minutes before. She cried like a filly, blubbering and moaning the words she wanted so badly to scream at the top of her lungs for the entire world. She hadn't cried in this way for years, in the way that poured her entire soul out of her body, sent it screaming into the night, and pulled it violently back to the reality of her body. As she cried, she felt all of the grief and sadness, all of the pain and self-blame flow out of her body and diffuse into the air, leaving her a hollow, husk of empty emotions over something that no amount of crying or screaming could fix.
After what felt like at least an hour of crying together, Twilight and Lily finally began to calm down again, this time for more than a simple quell in the hurricane. The two looked at one another with the kind of connection that only grieving together can create, and Twilight knew that she finally had somepony who understood what she had been going through.
That was when the knock came. When they looked up in unison, Twilight saw at least a dozen royal guards standing outside of Lily's shop, in full armor and looking as official as they always did.
"Twilight Sparkle!" One, probably the platoon leader, shouted. "You've been summoned by Princess Celestia to the castle for a private audience, immediately!"
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Very powerful chapter, the letter was the real ringer I'd say. Emotionally laden, it just piled on how much the two of them had managed to come together in such a short time. I am eagerly awaiting the next chapter.
This summoning will either end really good, or really bad. I'm not sure which I want!
So sad
I'm hanging on the hope of that two weeks M.I.A, can't help but think Penny is alive.
I wonder why Princess Celestia have summoned her immediately, next chapter nao!
Aww, shit! I read through this whole story in one night and NOW I come across the dead end.
Well there's no tragedy or sad tag yet so "penny" is probably still alive.
2083189 WOW! One sitting? And this is my longest story! I need to get to work, then! Unfortunately, I DO have schoolwork to do...
2090709 Well, now that you mention it, I probably should add a tag to a couple of my stories... But just wait to hear from Luna. She knows the truth.
2090845 Lol but yeah but great story regardless so i give you
due to who daring due is based of now if only pennys father is obsess with a holy goblet.
Also John Williams best composer ever! In my opnion favorite song though
Life will find a way.- Ian Malcom
That was when the knock came. When they looked up in unison, Twilight saw at least a dozen royal guards standing outside of Lily's shop, in full armor and looking as official as they always did.
Celestia damn it! talk about bad timing I really want to go smack those guards all upside the head for that.
2095414 Oh, trust me. Celestia's sense of timing and such gets much worse...
No one is going to be happy with her soon... 
you made me cry................
HA! No cliffhanger for me, for I come to the party, how you say, fashionably late! Huzzah!
That letter was beautiful.
> Sudden urge to drink lemonade
That was unbelievably lovely! I almost cried in this chapter! The fact that i didn't stunned me even more and now i want to go off and think about how cruel i am for not crying. The letter is amazing and i wish i could do that one day. Talking or writing to a friend or journal about someone so special that i would throw away everything i had to make them happy.
The the end of the earth and back again,
Sincerely,
Soulyman