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Chapter 13,461 words
Bonus Chapter - The After1,054 words

Bonus Chapter - The After

The city was far warmer than it ever had been under Sombra's rule - the Crystal Heart assured that much. So long as there was love and hope in the city, the Empire would remain a bastion of warmth in the middle of the snow.

Citrine's home was frigid.

She'd sold off the brickyard, of course - she'd only worked it to avoid Sombra's leash and it had too many memories besides. Now, a handful of months later, Citrine lived near the outskirts of the city. The yard was, generously, a mess. In the time since the city returned, she had tried to go back to sculpting again - but all she had to show for it was a pile of stone and crystal shards, a dozen pieces that weren't even quarter-completed, and sore hooves.

In truth, she didn't care. Her new neighbors avoided Citrine's dreary little crystal bungalow - it only took a month before they stopped trying to start conversations and recently they'd even given up waving hello. That was okay. It didn't matter, after all.

It was Tuesday - Citrine knew that because the delivery colt dropped off a basket of food. She honestly wasn't sure where it came from or why it kept showing up - she wasn't paying for it - but it was there like clockwork and there was no sense in wasting it. The tip-off that this was not a normal Tuesday was that there was something else with the basket when Citrine came out to collect it.

"Hello," gently ventured the Princess of the Crystal Empire.

Citrine stared dumbly, eyes blinking slowly. "Um."

Leaning in a little, Cadence tipped her head to the side. "Is this a bad time?" She laughed uneasily. "Of course it's a bad time. You don't have other kinds of time, do you?"

Thoughts swam through Citrine's head right up until those words - how she couldn't remember the last time she'd brushed her mane, or that she didn't have any food prepared to offer the Princess, or why did the Princess know to show up now with the basket, or that her breath probably wasn't very good and this was royalty and-- And something about those words snapped it all back into perspective. This wasn't Sombra (so being unprepared wasn't going to be harshly punished) and the words were a reminder of the crumpled newspaper of a life Citrine had.

An instant of panic faded into an energy-less frown. "What can I do for you, Your Highness?"

"Oh!" Cadence smiled broadly - a fake one that barely covered the new monarch's obvious unease. "There's somepony I wanted to introduce you to."

The door slammed shut with enough violence to crack it by the upper hinge.

Blinking, the Princess was momentarily stunned. "I, uh... Not like that! I know I'm the Princess of Love but I didn't mean 'introduce you to' that way!"

The door didn't open back up.

Frowning, Cadence considered her options. Breaking down the door was both well within her capabilities and technically not illegal since she was Princess - but it was quite rude and probably wouldn't make the next part any easier. And it was rather unlikely that Citrine would open the door again any time soon. Since blind-teleporting Citrine out of her home was exceptionally unsafe, that only left continuing the conversation through the door.

Lighting her horn, Cadence cast a quick repeater spell - her Royal Canterlot Voice had never been as strong as Celestia's, so instead Cadence had relied on the spell to rebroadcast her words from other locations. Here, it would suffice. "Citrine, I'm sorry but please be assured that this is important. I'd like you to talk with this pony - or at least listen to her." Stepping aside, the Princess of the Crystal Empire nodded to her companion.

Stepping up and out of the shadow of the alicorn was a fairly petite earth pony - a mare with pewter-grey fur and a periwinkle mane cut in a short bob. She hesitated, glancing back to the Princess. Cadence smiled softly and nodded - that encouragement was enough for the mare to inch up to the door.

"Um. Hello there. Princess Cadence said that your name is Citrine. I'm wondering if that's Citrine Star?" She paused uneasily, unsure if there would be a response - there wasn't. "My name's Lucky Jewel. I'm from Fillydelphia, but my family's originally from Vanhoover. And, um. From the Crystal Empire before that. My hobby's genealogy, which is why I know! I've been tracking back our family's history almost forty generations until I hit a dead end with, um." She took a deep breath. "With my ancestor Zircon Star."

The air hung thick with silence. Lucky Jewel shifted uneasily from side to side, looking to Cadence with concern. Cadence, for her part, held her breath.

Silence evaporated around the miniscule sound of the door scraping open. Only a hair, but enough for Citrine to peek out. "You're.. what?" Her voice trembled, taut.

"You're my great-to-the-fortieth-power grandmother," Jewel simplified. Eagerly, she pulled a bulky scroll out. "I can prove it! Really!"

The door opened wider. Citrine's head turned not to Lucky Jewel but to Cadence. Cadence, who was smiling gently and gave a small nod.

Citrine took a long, deep breath. "Jewel, can you... can you tell me what happened to my family?"

There was a slight waver in Jewel's desperate smile. "A little. It's been a long time so the details are, um, not detailed. But I do know some things! Like how they moved to Vanhoover with a lot of other Crystal refugees, and how Zircon became a ceramic artist!" She took a tiny step forward. "Can... can I come in, Miss Citrine?"

The Crystal pony closed her eyes for a moment, processing those tiny, precious scraps of information. When she opened them, she managed a wan smile. "I suppose that Grandma will do."

Lucky Jewel let out an unrestrained squeal of glee as she bounded through the door. "I can't tell you how excited I am! When I traced our lineage back to the Crystal Empire two years ago, I'd never have expected I'd get the chance to follow it further, let alone actually meet one of my ancestors!"

The door closed.

Cadence's smile grew wider as the dullness of the house's crystal took on just a hint of a shine.

Author's Note:

As mentioned in the previous chapter's author's notes, this chapter is non-canon to the story (such as it is). I'd originally cut it because I felt the story ended better with the harsh, raw finale of the prior chapter. But I've had several requests to flesh out the epilogue and I had it half-written anyway, so why not!

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