Speedwrites

by Holtinater

Framed

Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, was finally stepping down. Like her predecessor, she had ruled for a thousand years. She had left Equestria a prosperous country, united with those around it. Looking back on it, she knew that if given the chance, she wouldn’t do a single thing differently.

But she needed a break. A long one. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t have a plan. No immediate appointments, no upcoming deadlines, no overarching goals for where to take Equestria. She had officially stepped down, and now had nothing to do. The feeling filled her with unease and panic, which then immediately subsided to calmness and curiosity. Maybe she’d do what Celestia and Luna did all those years ago and have herself a little adventure, exploring the things she’d wanted to do but never had the time. Or maybe she’d sit in her room and read. Maybe both, or neither. She certainly had the time to decide.

The only thing she really wanted to do now was to walk down the halls of the castle one last time before she headed off. Twilight memorized the entire layout of the castle in her first week as Princess, and a thousand years of rule certainly helped in that regard.

The first things she passed were the many windows which featured the many heroes of Equestria. The more recent ones were first, with Jasper holding back the ferocious blizzard that struck the north just last year, and the defeat of the Army from Limbo eleven years ago. As Twilight walked further, she saw events that occurred from long ago. The discovery of pixies 74 years ago (and wasn’t that a catastrophe), the literal fall of Cloudsdale, and it’s reconstruction, 112 years ago, on and on and on…

Twilight found herself standing still. In front of her was the start of her journey. The defeat of Nightmare Moon. She was in the center, and she smiled when she noticed that she was just a unicorn in these panes. Surrounding her were her first five real friends.

She glanced behind her, and saw their legacy. Everything she had walked through was based on this one event, which seemed so trivial at the time. She had thought Celestia so careless for not taking her seriously, and was determined to save Equestria not because it was the right thing to do, though it was, but because she needed to show her that she could. That, among all of the tests and pop-quizzes she had passed with flying colors, this was not beyond her ability.

How naive she was back then. Everything centered around herself. Didn’t have her wings, or a castle, or an empire. Didn’t even have any fr-

Twilight found herself holding her breath. How long has it been since the Princess of Friendship had any friends of her own? Sure, she sent mail to Celestia and Luna, but that's been getting more and more infrequent with their adventures.

She smiled as she turned away from her framed beginning. She now knew exactly what she was going to do with her time.

Author's Note:

Prompt: Framed. Initial timeframe of 33 minutes to write, 8 to edit.

---

This remains largely unchanged from what was submitted for the Panic. Despite its issues, I still rather like how this turned out. Could I have done it better? Certainly. Will I spend the time to rewrite it? No.