The Last Princess

by bookhorse125

What We've Lost

Sunny took a deep breath and waited for Twilight to react… but the elder pony remained silent and motionless. She finally looked away, her eyes brimming with silent tears, and Sunny felt another wave of sorrow for this pony wash over her.

She gingerly took a step towards the princess. “I know what it’s like to lose somepony you love,” she said again. “But trust me when I say that they’re still here. And this…” She waved her hoof around at the cave. “This is not what they would want you to do.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’ve made too many mistakes. I could have changed things, but I chose not to. I got so caught up in my feelings that I lost sight of everything else.” She turned away from Sunny, knowing she was the one to blame all along, giving her strange relief and crushing guilt simultaneously. “I was not the pony I wanted to be. I was not the pony I was expected to be.” She sat down and curled her tail around her.

Sunny sat down next to her. “What happened?” she asked in a quiet voice. “I just want to know what happened.”

Twilight took a deep breath and carefully allowed the memories to come rushing in. “Back before I became ruler of Equestria, my friends and I fought these three villains who were able to almost defeat us by spreading lies amongst ponies and other creatures that they needed to stay with ponies just like them. When we defeated them, we managed to convince almost everypony that unity and friendship were better than division and mistrust. But I guess some of them didn’t believe us, and as time went on, those ponies got louder. I could have stopped it if I wanted to. But I didn’t. It was selfish of me, but I was tired of having to save the world so much, having all the responsibility come down to me and my friends… Besides, ponies had always fought in Equestria’s history, and everything had always turned out okay. I had hoped that this would be one of those times.

“But it wasn’t. And before I could realize that… my friends started disappearing.” She swallowed the tears forming in her eyes and forced herself to keep going. “I was there for each of them until the end, but it felt like they had abandoned me in this big world all alone, when I needed them. I couldn’t deal with this by myself - I needed them, and they left me. So I looked at all the chaos and confusion and disharmony around me, and I tried to think of a way to convince them to reunite and become friends again.

“I never got the chance. Because of all the disharmony in the world, the Windigos returned - creatures of ice and snow that fed off of mistrust, turning the land as cold as our hearts wherever hatred dwelled. Ponies were starting to freeze, and still they refused to come together. I realized that the Windigos only existed because of an imbalance in magic - something was missing, and that imbalance had allowed the Windigos to exist. I didn’t know how to bring that magic back, so I thought that, if I got rid of all magic, balance would be restored, and the Windigos would vanish forever, so that ponykind would never have to live under their freezing threat again. So I summoned all my strength into creating crystals that would house all the unicorn and pegasus magic, but I think the spell went wrong. Instead of just two crystals, there were three, and I don’t even know what it was for. But before I could figure it out, ponies caught wind of the fact that there was no magic, and that it was stored in those crystals. They stormed the palace and stole them, forever separating so that they could live by themselves.

“But it did work. The Windigos vanished… and I hoped that, one day, ponykind might unite and bring magic back. I hoped that they might see that, if they united, they could bring magic back, bring friendship back. But every day, it felt like more and more was falling apart, and there was less and less I could do. I knew that taking away magic wasn’t working - ponies were getting hurt, and the pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies had already established their own separate cities, alone and away from each other. Even the other creatures outside of Equestria’s borders weren’t doing anything to help, instead only caring for their tribe instead of the good of us all.” For a brief moment, Twilight’s face turned angry, but the small spark of anger there quickly vanished, and she fell back into the sadness again. “I would have brought magic back if I could, but the pegasus crystal was under the highest security in all of Zephyr Heights, and I had no idea where the unicorn crystal went. I searched and searched for it, but I couldn’t find it. The only one I could find was the third crystal, but by that point, I was so tired, so… alone… I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. Not without my friends.”

Tears splashed on the ground as Twilight’s feelings overwhelmed her and she began to weep. “I came here, trying to find a solution, a way to free them, bring them back, but I had to wait for magic to return before I could do anything. When it finally did, I took the last part of them that I had left - the Elements of Harmony, and tried to bring them back… but I failed. I failed all of Equestria, I failed them…” She broke off as a sob built up in her throat.

Suddenly, she was aware of a golden glow that had filled the cave, and turned to see Sunny, in her full alicorn form, her wing gently spread over Twilight’s back. Twilight took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes.

“After everything that happened… all that I didn’t do… how would I even begin to fix it?” she asked. “As long as I’m still here, Equestria is my responsibility. I know I haven’t been the best pony - in fact, I’ve been downright awful… But I want to fix this.” She looked at Sunny with watery eyes. “I’ve told so many ponies how to undo the harm they’ve done. Helped lost ponies find their way back to the light. But… how would I even begin to start?”

Sunny lit up her horn and gently levitated over a small scrap of paper, the edges torn and ripped, the image faded from age, but the picture still legible. Twilight took the picture in her hooves and stared down at her five friends, the best ponies in the world, who meant the world to her. More than that. Everything.

“Right where you started.” Twilight looked up to see Sunny standing in front of her, holding a worn purple leather bound book with her magic. “By making some friends.” The alicorn let it drop, and it landed with a thud at Twilight’s hooves, sending up clouds of dust.

Twilight stared down at the friendship journal with apprehension and even fear, but at an encouraging nod from Sunny, she carefully opened the worn book and took a deep breath. Her eyes scanning the first page, she read in a careful voice, “Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria…”

---

It had been several hours since Twilight had begun reading the journal, and Sunny had kept her talking with questions of her own - not necessarily because it would help the elder pony to talk about what she had lost, but also because Sunny had only heard vague stories about this legendary pony and what she had done, and she longed for something more that she could spread to the world around her, just like her dad had done to her.

When Sunny ran out of questions and fell silent, Twilight studied the alicorn in front of her and asked, “So, how did you become an alicorn?”

“Logistically?” Sunny shrugged. “I have no idea how it works. But it first happened just before the three crystals were brought back together and magic returned-”

“You mean it worked?” Twilight’s eyes suddenly filled with hope. “You brought magic back and reunited all of ponykind?” Hearing that some of the mistakes she had made were being corrected gave her hope that not all was lost. “Where were they? What did the third crystal have to do with anything?”

Sunny sat up eagerly, excited for it to be her turn to tell the exciting tales. “Well, it actually began when I was a filly,” she said. “My dad used to tell me all about you, and one night, I decided to send a message to any unicorns and pegasi out there, saying that they had friends in Maretime Bay - where I’m from. So we sent it out by lantern, and I honestly completely forgot about it. But then, several years later, a unicorn named Izzy came to Maretime Bay and started a panic. She had found my note when she was a filly and had finally decided to try and find the earth ponies. My earth pony friend Hitch tried to arrest her - in fact, the whole town was in chaos, but we both escaped and decided to go to Zephyr Heights to see if we could find any clues about where magic went and bring it back. But we learned that the pegasi couldn’t fly, either, and then me and Izzy got thrown in jail! But Zipp - she was a pegasus princess - rescued us and brought us to this abandoned airstation, where there was a window of your cutie mark and the pegasus and unicorn crystals. We figured out that they belonged together, and after stealing the pegasus crystal in Zipp’s mom’s crown and dragging Zipp’s younger sister Pipp and Hitch into it, we set off for Bridlewood to search for the unicorn crystal. Izzy helped us disguise as unicorns so that nopony would suspect anything, and I won the crystal in a dancing competition - don’t ask. We tried joining the crystals together, but it didn’t work. Feeling like I had failed, I went back to Maretime Bay, where I found the third crystal in the lantern my dad had made for me and figured out that there were three crystals to represent all ponykind.”

With the explanation of what the third crystal meant, Twilight’s eyes lit up, but as she thought about it, it made complete sense. Alicorns were a combination of all three ponies, not just unicorns and pegasi, so it would make sense that, to bring magic back, all three ponykinds had to reunite.

“But while we were gone, a pony named Sprout was whipping Maretime Bay up into a miniature army to destroy the unicorns and pegasi to keep the earth ponies safe, and when my friends and the ponies chasing them showed up, it caused a massive fight against this giant machine that Sprout had made. He destroyed my lighthouse just as we managed to get all the crystals together, but at first, it didn’t work. Magic didn’t come back.”

“But it had to have,” Twilight interrupted, her expression confused. “That’s how I designed them - ponykind unites, crystals unite, magic comes back.”

Sunny nodded. “We just hadn’t done the first step. Ponykind hadn’t really united yet. But amidst all the destruction that Sprout had caused, all ponies saw that we were really better together - that friendship is better. Alone, we just tear each other apart until there’s nothing left but dust and rubble. But when we unite… the crystals lit up and circled around me and lifted me into the air, giving me these…” She gestured to her wings and horn. “Then they fit together and caused a massive explosion that brought magic back-”

“Ow!” came a voice from the entrance to the cave, and both Twilight and Sunny gasped, turning to see who the voice was coming from. “That was my hoof, Izzy!”

“Sorry,” replied another voice.

Sunny gasped and stood up, stepping towards the cave entrance. “Izzy?”

A unicorn’s head popped into view, and her eyes lit up when they landed on the golden alicorn.

“Sunny!”

Author's Note:

Sorry this got so late, I didn't get much time to work on this until just now! Tell me what you think!

Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading!

Comments

[Phetiamwantip]

This is pretty good, I like it!

[Yoshifan30]

So that's why Twilight did all of this that she felt failed Equestria and not only that because her friends passed away which that's always so sad she felt so lost and that's why she was so close away from it but until sunny wants to offer her as a friend so she will never be alone and told her that the magic did return and she even explain about her experience back in the new generation movie but it looks like Izzy and the others found sunny they should be a very interesting to explain to her friends