13 - Reality
Adamantine’s world folded back out. She then spread her wings and kept herself level.
A large island, a few kilometers across, sprawled out before her. The center of the mountain stretched up, ending with the caldera of a dormant volcano. A dense jungle surrounded it on all sides, ending only at the pristine, sandy beaches that lined the edge. An expansive ocean surrounded it, stretching from horizon to horizon. Only a few cumulonimbi decorated the clear blue skies around her.
Adamantine chuckled and then scanned the jungle. Shortly enough, she spotted clearings and gaps in the trees and then structures among them after that. She flew down to them.
Adamantine landed among wooden huts and gazebos with roofs topped with straw. Some bits of straw had fallen off these roofs but much of it still clung. Large sheets of bamboo cloth served as doorways into the circular huts with smaller sheets sitting in crudely constructed window holes.
She swallowed. She knew what these were. The one directly in front of her had once been the hut belonging to Gabbro and Basalt, as well as the two unpony foals they had adopted. She even knew the foals and who they had reincarnated from.
She remembered their faces. Adamantine saw their images dancing around the front of the hut as Gabbro’s image hung in the entryway.
Adamantine trotted down the dirt pathway, running her eyes over a few more huts as she went. The occasional tree hung over her and the rest of the village, leaving patches of shade. The songs of birds echoed from several directions around her.
Everywhere she looked, she saw memories of her subjects laughing over jokes and holding thoughtful, energetic discussions about topics she knew nothing about. She still knew their names.
Adamantine spotted a rubber ball next to one of the huts. A large amount of grime had accumulated on its surface. She could remember watching the foals kicking it through the streets as part of whatever games they had come up with.
She passed by an opening in the trees and peered into a large clearing beyond with a large wooden pavilion to the side. She saw images of parties the unponies would throw, complete with games and drinking and grand feasts, often capped by fast, upbeat music.
She continued through the village as she recalled more memories and thought back to the unponies who once lived here. This had been one of the many places she had called home (as there had never been a permanent place), but this had been the last place before The Great Benefactor disappeared. This was the last place they had all been happy.
She could still see their smiles. They had smiled here.
Adamantine reached a rather large hut and she paused. She especially recognized this one. The cloth that covered the door, while containing a few frays, looked ornate and colorful. Catching her breath, Adamantine lifted the curtain and stepped inside. This hut was unlike most others as it had multiple rooms; a wooden pillar supported each one. An adjacent room hosted a bed, with its sheets somewhat soggy but otherwise folded nice. A little, lacquered wooden throne, with countless contours within it, took up the hut’s back walls.
She approached her throne. Slowly, silently, she took a seat on it.
She then stared into nothingness.
“I don’t know if you can hear me,” she said to nopony.
Adamantine gained no response.
“I spent my life with all of you. I loved you all. I did my best to keep you all fed… and sheltered, and entertained. I did my best… to make you all feel loved… and accepted, and have full and fulfilling lives…” She paused. “I know you all said you loved me, and I think you did…”
Adamantine swallowed. Adamantine sniffled. “I let you all die. I let it happen. And… I am still here.
“I… I was a good Queen, wasn’t I? I… I did my job right, didn’t I? I’ve made you all proud, haven’t I?”
She continued speaking to a crowd of unponies that didn’t exist. “Everything that I’ve done, even now… it’s what our maker set out for us. I’m fulfilling our purpose. We’re almost done…
“I can… only hope that, once this is all said and done… that I’ll have earned your forgiveness for me letting you all down…”
Twilight Sparkle sifted through her thoughts. She had to determine what she did and didn’t know. She had to know who she was now.
She knew the certainties: she was Princess Celestia’s former student and was now Princess of Friendship and Principal of the School of Friendship. She had friends all over and had saved the world many a time from the likes of Queen Chrysalis and the Storm King. She had once given her own life to save the day only to get it back later.
And she had a dear friend named Sunset Shimmer who had just done the impossible.
But other impossibilities lurked in her mind. She could distinctly remember failing the entrance exam to Celestia’s school. She could distinctly remember living the following years as a shut-in recluse, penning papers in silence and obscurity.
She vaguely remembered other things: working bookkeeping during the war against King Sombra, hiding underground while Lord Tirek ravaged the surface, choking on factory fumes, running from changelings who looked like ponies she knew, becoming a plaything for a chaos god, and watching as Nightmare Moon razed Canterlot. And she vaguely remembered parasprites followed by a heat and hellfire so intense… that she shriveled up and burned with the rest of them.
Those were things that had not happened. These were fleeting thoughts at best, echoes of realities no longer real. And, yet, they had been real, and now they lived in her to a degree.
Twilight ruffled her wings and then turned to face her friends. “Is everypony okay?” she asked.
Applejack looked up. “Uh, yeah. Ah’m feelin’ okay, Twilight.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash added. “Me too. I just have some weird thoughts right now.”
“Me too,” Fluttershy whimpered.
“It’s gotta be our other selves!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “We have all of their memories.”
Twilight pointed. “Yes… Yes… that’s exactly it.”
“Ah remember,” Applejack said, scratching her head. “Ah remember workin’ the farm real good to make goods for the war.”
“Yeah, those things!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “I remember I was in Nightmare Moon’s guard!”
“I… I also remember things,” Fluttershy said. “I remember being so… so… angry at Flim and Flam for what they did to the Everfree Forest. All those poor creatures…”
“I didn’t know wartime vogue could be so… enchanting,” Rarity mused as she stroked her chin.
“I remember when Discord came rolling through and he made it rain chocolate rain for days,” Pinkie Pie added. “It was pretty great.”
Discord, who floated next to Fluttershy, chuckled and then snapped his fingers. A cotton candy cloud formed above Pinkie Pie and poured chocolate rain on her, to which she gasped and then began lapping it up. “It was good fun,” he said. “But I got carried away.”
“Gosh,” Starlight replied, holding her head. “It actually happened. We actually managed to solve the other timelines through all this.”
The others looked over. As they saw Starlight’s awestruck expression, their own smiles grew.
Starlight looked up and beamed. “You won’t believe how much of a relief this is!” Her smile faded. “Especially… I remember dying in a lot of those timelines. But…”
“Yeah. Those other places really sucked. But hey!” Rainbow Dash motioned to them all. “We’re all here.”
“That’s right. We’re all still the best of friends,” Applejack said, kicking the dirt. “We’ve been through thick and thin, highs and lows. And we done did it again.”
Rarity chuckled. “Oh, are you talking about us saving Equestria? Goodness knows I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve done that.”
Fluttershy nodded. “Yes. But gosh. Just thinking about the lives we lived…”
“We did live them,” Applejack said, “once upon a time. We don’t look a lot like that no more, but they happened, Ah think.”
“We are them, and they are us,” Twilight said. “We’re a mixture of all of us. Or… You know, I guess we’re us with a little bit of them.”
She looked around. She could see everyone she expected to see there. The leaders of the other nations hung around each other, now quietly conversing and sharing notes. Her students from the School of Friendship—Twilight took a moment to look and confirmed that the school indeed still stood next to her castle—also murmured between each other. The Pillars of Equestria, all seven of them, spoke between each other as well with Starswirl the Bearded and Stygian leading the conversations.
Twilight beamed. Everything looked exactly as she expected it to be. Everyone was in the high spirits she expected them to be.
It… it worked perfectly! she thought.
Twilight looked over and spotted Princess Celestia and Princess Luna wearing long faces. She turned her ears toward them.
“By the stars, Sister,” Luna mumbled. Her body looked clean and devoid of any bruises or cuts. “I… I sealed you away. I put you into the moon. I… I’m so sorry! I’m sorry!”
Celestia sniffled and stroked Luna’s cheek. “Don’t be sorry. Don’t be sorry… We’ve gone over this plenty of times. You lost your way, but you found it again.”
“Sister…” Tears appeared in Luna’s eyes.
Celestia shook her head. “No matter what happens, I will always love you. No matter what. The day I lost you to King Sombra was the worst day of my life… any of my lives.”
Luna surged forward and wrapped Celestia into a tight hug, which Celestia immediately returned. The two sobbed into each other.
Twilight flickered between a smile and a frown and turned her attention to her friends from Canterlot High School. She could see Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna counting heads and occasionally whispering between each other. The students, still in the same forms they had come over in, rubbed their heads as they tried to force some memories to the surface.
The other Twilight clasped her head. “Gosh, my life just went down the drain after that… I just…”
“Gosh, that sounds so awful…” the other Fluttershy replied. “I’m just glad that you’re with us still.”
The other Twilight nodded. “Yes… I’m thankful for that.”
“That’s right,” the other Applejack said, placing a foreleg on the other Twilight’s withers. “Ah’d much rather lose the Friendship Games than lose you any time.”
“Although…” the other Rainbow Dash began, poking her chin, “I gotta say… it’s going to be pretty cool saying we beat Crystal Prep for once.”
The other Rarity gasped. “Rainbow Dash!” she barked.
The other Rainbow Dash turned and threw a shrug. “What? We did, though.”
“We tied with them, though! And we got Twilight!” the other Pinkie Pie cried.
“Yeah, but that’s a tie. It’s not the same.” The other Rainbow Dash turned red in the face as the others (including some from outside the circle) stared at her. “Look! I’m not saying us getting Twilight out of it was a bad thing. No way! Best thing that happened there! But we beat Crystal Prep!”
The other Applejack scowled. She then leaned forward. “Say, Wallflower, ya reckon you could make this one forget about winnin’ the Friendship Games?”
Wallflower Blush, who had been watching from outside the circle, jumped. “Oh! Uh, yes! I probably could arrange that…”
The other Rainbow Dash jumped into the air. “No! Don’t you dare!”
Twilight chuckled to herself as they continued bickering amongst themselves. She then scanned around for familiar faces again. Everyone was there. Everyone was safe.
A knot in her chest loosened up. Everything looked exactly how she thought it would. Everything looked and felt exactly as she needed it to.
She eventually found Tempest Shadow and trotted up to her. “Hey. Are you doing okay?”
Tempest, who faced away from her for a few moments more, eventually turned. She still had a jagged scar across her right eye but now Tempest poked at the very much whole and intact horn on top of her head.
Tempest beamed. “Yeah… I’m…”
Twilight gasped. “Your horn!”
Tempest focused for a moment and eventually lit her horn. A light blue aura formed around it, although a few sparks also came off which made her yelp with surprise and step back.
Twilight also backpedaled. “Woah! Easy!”
Tempest blushed and quit the magic. “Oops. My bad. This feels a lot different. I just… I can’t believe… my horn…”
Twilight scratched the back of her head as she considered Tempest’s horn which had been broken once upon a time. “You got it back… Finally…”
“I don’t…” Tempest sighed. “I won’t complain. I’ve wanted my horn back for such a long time…” She paused. “Here I was not even thinking about it anymore, and now…”
Twilight grinned. “Huh, yeah. Funny how that works, right?”
“Yeah…” Tempest sighed. “Ironic, even.”
Twilight giggled. “In many ways, yes.”
“But I don’t get it. I lost my horn a long time ago. A really long time ago. I shouldn’t have had a horn anywhere.”
At that, Twilight smiled. “Well… then maybe someone threw you a bone?”
After a thoughtful pause, Tempest shrugged. “Maybe. Whoever it is… I can only hope I can thank them.”
“Yes…” Twilight agreed.
Twilight’s eyes wandered some more. Everyone else seemed to be in top form and increasingly high spirits as they all shared stories of lives they had once lived. She swelled with pride and joy.
She laid eyes on where she knew Adamantine had just been standing. And then she found Adamantine herself standing with her back to them a small distance away, such that Adamantine stood removed from the pack.
“Adamantine,” Twilight called as she started in her direction. However, when Adamantine didn’t respond, Twilight stumbled in her steps.
She then noticed little bits of what looked like black dust falling off Adamantine’s body. As Twilight subsequently gave Adamantine herself a once-over, she noticed that some small bits and pieces of Adamantine’s body were missing.
Twilight’s heart sank. There was no way.
Adamantine finally turned to face her; a large crack had formed across her chest, with bits of sand trickling out of it. A smaller crack had appeared across her muzzle and grew by the moment. The bits of sand that came off disappeared in the wind shortly after.
Adamantine’s expression remained calm and, strangely, content.
Twilight gasped. “A… Adamantine! You’re…”
Adamantine nodded solemnly. “I suspect that, now that everything is really well done and concluded, my spell is beginning to cancel right about now,” she said with a soft, sure tone.
Twilight suppressed a horrified gasp with her hoof. “Oh… oh gosh! I’m so sorry!”
Adamantine tilted her head. “What for?”
Twilight searched her mind for the words. “I-I… No… If only I had known about this… Adamantine, I could have put something together, or…”
A few hushed gasps behind Twilight signaled her friends appearing beside her. They looked on with wide-eyed shock.
Adamantine shook her head and motioned for Twilight’s silence with her hoof. “Don’t fret over me, Twilight. I think… actually, there was no other way I wanted this all to end.” She gave herself a once-over, stopping briefly to observe a growing crack in her right foreleg. She sighed and looked back up. “I’ve done everything that I need to do. And now… I get to go dance with my people again, wherever they are.”
Twilight couldn’t find the words to speak. She instead opted to remain silent for a moment.
“We did well, Twilight,” Adamantine said as she smiled and waved them off with her hoof. “Don’t let this get in the way of our victory today.”
“B-but, but…” Twilight stammered.
“A respectable choice,” Tempest mused with a smirk. “I won’t stop you.”
Twilight opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and then opened it again. “But…”
“Twilight,” Tempest said, firmly placing a hoof on Twilight’s withers.
After a few moments of absorbing Tempest’s calm, sure expression, Twilight finally wilted and sighed. “Adamantine… if… that’s what you want, then… I… understand. But… stay with us as long as you can, okay?”
Adamantine tilted her head. “Twilight? Are you sure? I’d hate to force you to watch this.”
“But I’d hate for you to do this alone! Adamantine, you deserve to not have to be alone right now.”
Adamantine paused.
After a thoughtful pause, Twilight took a couple of steps forward and continued. “Listen…” she began with a softer tone before looking at each of her friends. “I’ve died before. I’ve been there, and I’ve done that. Take it from me.”
The others sequentially firmed up and gave affirmative hums.
“Come on, Adamantine,” Applejack said.
After a few moments more, Adamantine nodded solemnly. “I suppose if I must. And you are right. To be surrounded by friends in these moments sounds nice.”
Twilight smiled and held out her hoof.
Adamantine took a few steps toward them. Her expression remained unchanged. “And, truthfully, I believe there is one last thing that I must do.”
Starlight’s eyes widened. “Huh? What?”
“Where is the crystal ball?”
Twilight and Tempest exchanged glances.
“I have it,” Princess Celestia announced as she and Princess Luna trotted up. She wiped her eyes of some wetness and then floated it to Twilight. “Here.”
Twilight received it with her magic, and she gasped. A shallow crack had formed on one side of the crystal ball. The ball itself still showed complete black otherwise. She gasped, looked at Princess Celestia, back at the ball, and then back again. “It’s…” she croaked.
Princess Celestia furrowed her brow.
Adamantine lit her horn. Her magic sputtered and cut out and she even grunted as she got it going. Finally, she straightened up as she quit her magic.
“Hello?” Sunset Shimmer’s voice said from within the crystal ball.
Twilight’s blood ran cold and she even shivered as she turned to face the crystal ball. She didn’t believe what she had just heard. She wanted not to believe.
But there she was. Sunset Shimmer looked back up at Twilight from within the ball.
“S… Sunset?” Twilight croaked.
“Twilight…”
A flurry of shocked gasps erupted around Twilight as her friends bunched together, trying to get a good look at the mare in the ball.
“Sunset!” Rainbow Dash cried. “Can you hear us?”
Sunset blinked and looked at Rainbow Dash. “Yes! I can hear you. I can see you too!”
Twilight fought to keep her breath. “Sunset, wait… why are you…?”
Sunset stared into the distance. Her mouth hung open for a moment. And then, finally, “I’m… still here…”
“N-no…” Rarity squealed.
“Oh stars!” Starlight cried.
By this time, many of the others were looking over. The population of Ponyville and the students from the School of Friendship carried about their conversations without any regard to them. The leaders of the other nations and the Pillars of Equestria looked on with mild interest. However, now the visitors from Canterlot High School now trotted forward wearing fearful and dismayed frowns.
Fluttershy grabbed onto Discord and whimpered. Discord frowned and curled up next to her, holding her in return.
“I don’t understand…” Twilight croaked.
After a moment, Sunset’s features fell. “Of course… on average… I was here, sealed away. I’m… not out.”
Adamantine looked up. “I am sorry,” she said simply.
Princess Celestia pushed up. “Adamantine, you don’t have to be sorry about this.” She turned her attention to the ball. “Sunset Shimmer.”
“Princess Celestia?”
Princess Celestia glanced around. “I hope you can see what I see. It’s done. You did it.”
Sunset smiled and even sighed with relief. “That’s good… that’s good.”
“We’re all standing here thanks to you,” Princess Luna added.
Sunset scratched her head and looked anywhere else. “Well, I’m glad that everyone made it through okay. That’s what this was all about. I’m happy knowing that you’re all safe.”
“But Sunset!” the other Twilight exclaimed as she darted up. “You’re still not out!”
“Yes! That’s… We have to fix that!” Twilight exclaimed. “I could go to the door, and I could put in a command to get you out. That should work.” She turned. “Adamantine!”
The crack across Adamantine’s midsection grew twice its size as she coughed. She then glanced up. “Twilight…”
Twilight sucked in a breath.
Looking forlorn, Adamantine sighed. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I can feel it; Consensus put a lot of strain on everything, so most systems are fried. Everything else is already shutting down, too. I… don’t think you’d be able to do what you want to do anymore.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “No. No no no no no! There’s no way! I have to get her out. Sunset, I have to get you out! I could fix it, maybe, or…”
Sunset stared into space for a moment and then hung her head. “I… see…”
Principal Celestia stepped forward, positioning herself right in front of the ball. “Sunset, are you sure there’s no way to get you out?”
Sunset shook her head. “I… don’t know what all we could do. I mean, if the seal functionality is broken, then I don’t know…”
A few angry and distressed negatives flew this way and that.
“I’m sorry,” Adamantine echoed.
“I guess… I guess this is just how it is,” Sunset continued. “I… was prepared for this. I knew this might happen. I’m sorry, everyone.”
Principal Celestia sucked in a breath as she looked at the crystal ball. And then she gasped and narrowed her eyes as the small crack on the crystal ball’s surface proliferated and cut deeper. Her eyes darted up to Twilight who watched with similar alarm.
The back half of Adamantine’s tail fell off and dissolved in the breeze. She coughed for a few moments.
“Can I say something?” Sunset asked.
“Of course. We’re all listening,” Principal Celestia said.
Sunset spun around, observing everyone around. “This all… I know what I did this for. I knew what might happen going in. I made the decision to make a sacrifice. I… signed up for this. Because you all mean a lot to me, and…”
She pursed her lips as she thought. “If this is what it is to make sure you’re all okay… then I’m okay with this.”
Spike, who carried a couple of books under his arm, approached the ball. “Come on, Sunset. Don’t say things like that!”
“I’m sorry, Spike,” Sunset replied. “I know we’ve been there and done that. That’s just how it happens, I guess.” She paused and craned her neck to see. “Hey, what do you have there?”
Spike blinked and then brought the books forward. “Oh, these? Well, I have this one,” he said. The book looked much like Sunset’s message journal, adorned with five symbols: one a red and yellow sun, one of purple and white stars, a purple and white star with turquoise jets, a crystalline tree, and a pair of bug wings. “I don’t remember what this is.”
Sunset frowned. “Uh, me neither. Not right now, anyway. What about the other one?”
Spike held the other up. Its design had a horseshoe topped by five of the Elements of Harmony; the Element of Magic sat atop them. “Oh, yeah. The diary. I have that too.”
Sunset narrowed her eyes and stroked her chin. After a moment, she pointed. “Do you think you could put an entry into the diary for me?” Sunset asked. “I’ve made a diary entry every other time we’ve done stuff with this. I just want to make one more.”
At once, everyone turned to face Spike.
Spike puffed his chest out and nodded. He set the books down, opened the diary, procured a quill, and sat over it. “I can do that. What do you want to say?”
Adamantine straightened up, even as a part of her leg disintegrated. The cracks on the crystal ball spread further along its surface.
Sunset scratched her chin as she thought for a few moments. And then she began speaking.
“Dear Diary,
“These past several days have been the roughest of them all. Many of the worst things happened, and mistakes were made. In the end, we succeeded in performing the biggest, most complex task of them all. We brought everything together. And I feel like we shouldn’t have even come close to getting this far.
“But we did it, and I know why.
“Things happened that tore us all apart. Pretty deeply, I think. I was mad at people dear to me, maybe others were mad at me, and they were mad at each other. Everyone was mad at everyone. No one wanted anything to do with each other.
“But a dear friend of mine, who had the right to be maddest of all, at us even, had such faith in our character that she put all of that aside and came forward to help us in our time of need.
We couldn’t even have gotten started if it weren’t for her. And she… she showed us the way. She set the precedent, and… in a way, she taught all of us an important lesson, I think.
“We were all able to acknowledge the mistakes we had all made and share a little forgiveness and… come back together. And because of that, we accomplished the impossible. We did so much more than we could have ever done by ourselves.
“And we were able to do that because we remembered that the people worth having in our lives are worth keeping too, whatever it takes. And I know, for a fact, that every single one of us is worthy.
“We’re good characters. We needed to remember that. And… we all did.
“Yours truly,
“Sunset Shimmer”
Sunset fell silent as she pondered what she had just said. And then she looked up and smiled. “Yeah.”
Spike finished writing the last of it into the diary and then nodded.
“Well said,” Adamantine said.
Some color disappeared from Twilight’s face. “Sunset…”
“I mean it,” Sunset said. “All of it. You know that, right?”
Principal Celestia nodded sagely. “I understand. I believe you. Sunset Shimmer… I want you to know that I’m proud of you.”
Sunset tilted her head. “Really?”
“As am I,” Princess Celestia said. “You’ve grown up since you were my student. I knew you had potential. All you needed to do was find the right path. And you did… and you’ve exceeded every expectation.”
“I don’t think anyone else could have done what you did. You’re really something,” Starlight said.
Twilight grimaced. “You deserve so much better than this. I would give you the world if I could.”
Many of the others gave affirmative hums and nodded with approval, wearing warm smiles all the while.
Sunset looked teary-eyed. She sniffled. “O-oh… Of course. I just...”
Adamantine grunted as her right foreleg broke entirely. She tumbled forward, landing on her left leg which gained a considerable crack from the impact. She grimaced and then promptly hurled; bits of sand shot out of her mouth and splattered within the grass. She coughed and wheezed and tried to hold herself together.
Starlight gasped and raced over to support her. “Adamantine!”
Applejack also galloped over and supported Adamantine’s other side. Her friends also rushed over and hovered around her.
The crystal ball crackled and popped as the image of Sunset within the blackness disappeared.
The ball displayed nothing now.
The cracks proliferated even more, finally covering most of the surface and reaching nearly to the other side.
Principal Celestia reached up and grabbed the crystal ball. Twilight let her magic go and galloped up.
“Sunset!” Principal Celestia yelled as she gave the crystal ball a light shake. “Sunset Shimmer!”
A few sobs flew over their heads.
And then the crystal ball emitted several crackling sounds that sounded like static. Some undertones of Sunset’s voice made it through but nothing discernable came out.
“Sunset!” Principal Celestia cried.
“I—” Sunset’s voice said through the crackles. “I-I’m—”
Adamantine coughed some more, chuckled, fully sat down, and finally closed her eyes. As her wings fell from her back, forming a pile underneath her, a contented smile spread across her face.
A heavy silence hung in the air as everyone watched. Some stumbled into each other and held each other up for support. The cloud sheet above cast them all in a grey color, accentuating their melancholic frowns.
“—let—” Sunset’s voice said, “—know—”
Twilight held her breath, but her eyes felt so heavy now. She met Principal Celestia’s eyes; she had the same somber frown.
“—okay,” Sunset’s voice said. The static seemed to settle down for one final moment, allowing Sunset’s voice to come through clear.
Principal Celestia sucked in a breath.
“I’m…” Sunset’s voice calmly said, “I’m… okay…”
The crystal ball turned quiet.
Adamantine sat completely still now.
The cracks in her body proliferated and more sections broke off. The piles of sand underneath her slowly dwindled as some calm winds carried particles away. Finally, the last bits of Adamantine’s serene face disappeared in the breeze.
Starlight gasped and couldn’t help but backpedal. Applejack’s expression firmed up as she doffed her stetson and held it against her chest. Rainbow Dash’s expression flickered, showing hints of a grimace. Pinkie Pie latched onto the closest being she could find—Rarity, it turned out—and held on for dear life while letting off some resigned whimpers; Rarity reciprocated but still attempted to hold herself high. Fluttershy curled further into Discord, and he looked on with a solemn frown while stroking her back.
A puff of smoke emanated from the crystal ball as it split into two halves and then broke apart even more. Scores of pieces fell from Principal Celestia’s grasp and landed in the grass.
The world stood still now. It could have very well remained that way for all Twilight cared. She ran Sunset’s last words through her mind. She considered the crystal ball and how it lay in pieces. She considered Adamantine, now nothing more than scattering dust.
Principal Celestia also stared, looking pale in the face. She eventually put her hooves back down and sighed. Princess Celestia trotted up beside her and looked down at the pieces from over her counterpart’s shoulder. Her mane blew in the same ethereal wind as always. Spike came upon her other side and stood there with his claws folded together.
Vice Principal Luna sniffled and stood up straight. The other Twilight removed her glasses and wiped her face. The other Rainbow Dash fumed on the spot, stamping a hole into the dirt. The other Rarity sobbed as she embraced the other Applejack. The other Pinkie Pie hobbled over to the other Fluttershy, who had crumpled to the ground and whimpered quietly, and fell on top of her, joining her in her subdued crying. Wallflower’s expression wavered and she solemnly shook her head.
Tempest watched it all from a somewhat removed position. Eventually, she stood up as straight as she could, lifted her hoof to her head, and saluted.
Around them all, a few more sobs rose up as well as words of reassurance. Even those faded away quickly in favor of solemn, mournful silence.
Twilight lifted her head and looked toward the heavens as a few tears fell down her muzzle. She let out a breath she knew she had been holding, sniffed, wiped her face, and then stood tall and firm.
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Well, that was heavy.
I'm not sure this was as emotionally resonant as it should have been. Sunset seemed almost too calm and detached.
My God... you actually killed off Sunset Shimmer... I mean, I expected Adamantine to bite it, but I didn't expect that.
10093787
She's not dead. She's just... sealed away.
And besides... Twilight died and came back once. Don't lose hope!
10092872
Outright sadness is not the aim here. It's meant to be more melancholy.
Rest well, Adamantine. You've long earned it.
I feared that was going to be Adamantine's fate. I was really hoping that, somehow, it wouldn't be.
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I'm sure you have seen a moment in a movie where one character believes that they are making a sacrifice and they are calm about it beforehand. There are recorded radio calls of battles showing that it is a real thing that happens with soldiers given the scenario of the right personality of the soldier combined with a grim-looking scenario before them. Given what RQK said was the goal, I would say he got it spot on.
Hm... a message journal for the team in Reflections. Interesting... wait... Consensus just merged the 8 timelines in the Crystal Ball Trilogy, right? So the Refuge Timeline where part of Reflections occurs is ok, right? Sunset could still use that, right?
Adamantine shook her head and motioned for Twilight’s silence with her hoof. “Don’t fret over me, Twilight. I think… actually, there was no other way I wanted this all to end.” She gave herself a once-over, stopping briefly to observe a growing crack in her right foreleg. She sighed and looked back up. “I’ve done everything that I need to do. And now… I get to go dance with my people again, wherever they are.”
Dammit, RQK... you made me cry. Again.