That Which was Lost

by LadyRFC

Midnight Visit

“I thought you left last night!”
Twilight paused in her packing as Cadence slowly walked into her room, her hooves making a light clicking noise against the marble floor.
“I sent Shining Armor ahead of me. The Empire can spare me another day or so…” Her eyes roamed the room. Over the large cream colored bed covered in all the quills and paper Twilight was taking and lingering a bit on Spike’s failing attempts to stuff too many references books into another suitcase on the floor.
“Um, Spike?” Twilight tilted her head towards the hall. “Could you get me one of those large maps for our trip? There should be one we can borrow somewhere. Ours only covers Equestria…”
As Spike scurried off through the doorway, Twilight turned her attention back to Cadence.
“I heard you were being sent to the border of the great desert…” the Crystal Empire’s princess began.
Twilight sighed and returned to systematically corking various ink wells and setting them in the suitcase on the bed. “Yes. Discord is already there and being affected by whatever it is that’s been draining all the other investigation teams of their energy.”
“And their magic,” Cadence added, her voice quiet.
Twilight paused and looked over at her old foul-sitter’s worried eyes. She gave a small smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful,” her smile dropped and her voice became grim. “But we can’t risk another invasion of changlings. And with those teams coming in from Saddle Arabia, the princesses can’t leave Canterlot.”
Cadence frowned, her eyes drifting towards a window, the parted curtains revealing a starlit sky. “I could…”
Twilight set the last blank scroll inside the suitcase and shut it. “You have to return to your own kingdom. I’m the only one without an official duty. I’m the only one that can be spared.”At her last words, Twilight’s eyes caught her own reflection in the shining metal of the suitcase’s handle. The wings still looked strange to her. She moved them slightly, as if believing they were a separate entity. But, as all the times she had gone through this experiment before, they moved as she willed them to.
“Does it still feel strange to you?”
Cadence’s soft voice floated around Twilight and snapped her out of her uneasy thoughts. Blinking, she turned her attention away from her closed suitcase and towards the one Spike had been messing with on the floor. Her gold crown and decorative hoof guards sparkled among the old books and spiky quills.
“I guess I should wear them all the time to get used to them, shouldn’t I?” she said, her voice sounding weak even to her.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Cadence said, her voice holding a hint of a warning.
Twilight felt one of her wings twitch and that strange feeling, the one she had gotten the first morning she had woken up in her new form, that feeling of panic, returned.
“It’s not that I don’t feel like it should have happened. I know it was meant to, somehow.” Her head dropped a bit as she searched for the words. “I just…” she looked back at Cadence and let out a breath. “When I was little, I always thought that being an alicorn was just what princesses were. That the two just went hoof in hoof. I didn’t consider how that… changed things…” An image of her brother flashed in her mind and immediately Twilight looked away. She couldn’t ask. She thought that putting her fear into words might give it power. As if hearing it might make it real. And she didn’t want it to be real.
“If you’re worried about age,” Cadence’s voice cut through the silence, “don’t.”
“Pardon?” Twilight’s eyes met the other alicorn’s in surprise.
Cadence smiled, this time without the worry. “Princess Celestia and her sister Luna are… exceptions.”
Twilight stood very still for a few moments before slowly stating, “So I won’t live to see my friends di-“ Twilight stopped herself, but Cadence’s sad look showed she well understood.
“Throughout history, only Celestia and Luna have defied the progress of time… So far as we know. Many think it has to due with the nature of their magic.”
Twilight tilted her head in thought. “Because Celestia raises the sun and Luna is in charge of the moon?”
Cadence nodded, though a bit absently, her eyes far away. “Yes. It takes a lot of magic to do such things and some believe that same magic keeps them alive longer than anypony else.”
A dark thought drifted past Twilight and she heard her own voice saying, as if from a distance, “My element is magic itself… What does that make me?”
Twilight blinked to find Cadence standing right in front of her and felt the older mare’s mane brush her cheek as she gave her young friend a hug.
“I don’t know what kind of alicon you are, Twilight,” Cadence admitted softly. “But I do know who you are. You are a strong lady who fits the role of a princess more than you know.”
“Cadence…” Twilight closed her eyes as the fears around her heart melted away and she breathed out easier, her back feeling a bit lighter than before.
As the princess of the Crystal Empire stepped back, Twilight saw a reassuring and playful smile on her face.
“Though, for the record, I still don’t like the idea of you running off so soon after your coronation to hunt changlings…”
“Oh, it’s not all that bad. The others are coming with me.” Twilight lifted her head up and smiled broadly. “Together, we’re invincible!”
“Exactly!”
Both mares turned at the sound of the voice to see Spike waltzing into the room, his claws enthusiastically raised in the air. As a result, the map he had been holding promptly unraveled and dropped to the floor. It showed not only Equestria, but also a great many lands bordering it. Including the desert. Which seemed to dwarf Equestria itself in size.
“That,” Twilight muttered, her eyes fixed on the desert, “looks a whole lot bigger than I remember…”

Comments

[Razzy]

Road trip!