Chapter 1
All things said and done, the sight of Ponyville's princess sitting alone in a bar was a rather sad one. There were barely any patrons left, and those that remained were unable to stop themselves from glancing at Twilight every so often, wondering what woes had brought her there.
"It doesn't even hurt," she whispered, staring at the rows of bottles on the other side of the counter.
"Can I get you a drink, Princess?" Glass Drops asked, thinking that she looked like she needed it. Any pony sitting along on a bar, eyes as vacant as the bottles in the trashcan, needed a drink, didn't they?
"It doesn't help," Twilight replied, knowing full well that alcohol would do nothing to relieve the pain or make it go away. It only burned in her throat, in her chest, in her heart, and did nothing to help her forget. It was just a chemical reaction that would cloud her senses for a few precious hours before evaporating and bringing back the painless pain — because that's what it was. "She broke up with me, and it didn't even hurt."
There wasn't a hard liquor in the entire kingdom that would do anything against the searing realization that it was gone. That the chemistry she once shared with a beautiful mare, that spark that once burned brighter than the sun itself… It had died. It had withered, and they both had let it. They both let it die, and in a way that's what hurt the most.
It hurt because once upon a time, Twilight Sparkle felt she had everything in Rarity, and she had known the opposite to be true. Because once upon a time, she had all of Equestria's beauty is the unicorn's eyes, all of the kingdom's joy in her laugh, all of the kindness in her smile, and… now they didn't, somehow.
A shot of… something was put in front of her. She glanced at the stallion, who in turn smiled and reassured her it was a present from a friend to another friend.
Twilight looked at the blue liquid, the same color as Rarity's eyes. She lifted the glass with the utmost care and she felt like laughing. Laughing because that was it, that was the culmination of their grand romance.
A shot of alcohol in the corner stool of a bar.
And Twilight smiled briefly because if their life was a book, Rarity would have called that a terrible ending, wouldn't she?
Here's to terrible endings.
In a single swift motion, she lifted the glass and drank the bitter liquid that burned in her throat. When she put the glass down, she closed her eyes and waited, almost as if hoping a single glass would put an end to it, to the emptiness, to the void.
It didn't.
"Friends didn't come with you?" Glass Drops suddenly asked, voice gentle as the music in the background. Was that his routine? His words to start one of the many healing sessions he'd administer by offering a listening ear and glass after glass of alcohol? How many ponies came there each week? How many more would keep coming? How many, like Twilight, would come not to drown their sorrows, but their harrowing lack thereof?
"I never thought it would end like this," she said, not sure if she was talking to the bartender or herself. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
"Messy breakups ain't easy to deal with, Princess," he said, cleaning a glass and carefully placing it on the counter behind him. "Give it some time, and you might be able to talk again."
Twilight shook her head, slowly, carefully. "It wasn't messy. We ended in good terms," she clarified, watching and not protesting the liquid being poured into her glass. She thought of the breakup and the shared sad smiles that reeked with acceptance of their fate. "We're still good friends, and there were no hard feelings." She laughed softly, if only because of how absurd it all felt. "We even had breakfast yesterday."
"Oh?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Well, Princess, that's a mighty fine way to break-up! You wouldn't know how many ponies have been in here wishing for a break-up like yours."
"It felt wrong," she replied. "It feels wrong."
Twilight was one to sometimes think of negative outcomes, but some time ago, when she had loved Rarity more than life itself, she had always believed the only way they'd ever be torn apart would be kicking and screaming. She had thought those late night kisses, those smitten smiles, that feeling of safety in Rarity's embrace…
"I had thought we would fight for it," she whispered, and barely did she notice his expression flicker into one of sympathy. For the first time that night, and perhaps that week since the break-up, the Princess of Friendship felt a crack in her voice. "I had thought it would be worth fighting for." She lifted the glass and stared at the liquid, again picturing Rarity's eyes. That's what hurt the most. They'd let things go on until it wasn't even worth a fight anymore.
They burned out, and it took them months to accept they had.
Again she drank the liquid in a swift motion, and now she felt the clouds in her head. Funny then how suddenly now everything seemed clearer somehow. With the burning in her throat came a pain in her chest where there shouldn't be one.
"To be in a better place," she stated matter-of-factly, almost as if she wasn't reciting from the several relationship books she'd read recently under the guise of being 'just curious'. Her ears suddenly fell, just like the hoof holding the glass, and she could hardly stop herself from feeling sad.
Because it was sad — it was terribly sad — that… that she'd reached the point where a better place was one without Rarity.
"Do you regret it?" he asked, taking away her glass to clean.
"No," she replied without much thought or consideration.
With regret came anger, and anger made it easier to forget. Anger made it easier to think "I'm better off now", and while she was — and it saddened her that she was —, what she had was not anger. It was this disappointment.She got up from the chair, rubbing her forehead. One, two, three deep breaths. It was time to leave. There was only so many hours she could keep the support-lecture at bay, and Pinkie was bound to come and get her if she lingered any longer.
She thanked Glass Drops for his charity and smiled sadly when he wished her good luck. She made her way towards the entrance of the bar, too clouded to pay mind to the few patrons still in the bar and their saddened staring as she glumly took her scarf and hat from the rack and put them on.
The icy winter air felt rough against her coat as she stepped out into the street. Breathing it in, it scratched against her throat just as the alcohol had, but sadly did not do much else besides that. Her castle loomed in the distance, a few lights shining from inside the windows, and she felt tempted to go back inside for maybe just one more glass.
"Well, well, Princess Twilight," a voice said; a voice she recognized and that once used to melt her heart, "Fancy meeting you here."
Twilight looked up and she noticed how the sight of Rarity still somehow drew a smile out of her. Perhaps not all had ended like she thought. If anything, if perhaps the raging fire had died out, it did not mean Twilight could no longer appreciate the beauty that had once captivated her more than any book or spell ever could.
Rarity looked beautiful, as always, as expected, with a long black cape draped across her back, blue earmuffs covering her head and sleek but comfy boots on all four hooves. A bright smile graced her lips, and Celestia, Twilight missed being mesmerized by it.
"How are you holding up?"
Twilight winced. "I'm doing okay," she said, and part of her wished that she wasn't telling the truth by saying that. "You?"
"I'm doing all right," Rarity replied at length. "Though some sorrows I have can only be soothed with martinis."
Twilight smiled at that, the emptiness in her chest growing larger but hurting less. "Oh, really?" she asked playfully. "What, did a customer cancel an order again?"
Rarity gasped theatrically. "Twilight! Don't be insensitive!" she exclaimed, smacking her tail against the floor. "If you must know, I recently went through Equestria's messiest break-up."
Twilight stared, unsure of what to say. As far as she knew, talking in a restaurant, hugging and then walking away could hardly be considered messy, but if— She stopped her train of thoughts gulping hard — if almost five years of being together had taught her anything of Rarity, it was that dramatizing things was Rarity's way of coping.
"Oh, Rarity," she said, playing along perhaps for old time's sake or out of some deep rooted desire to inflict pain on herself, "I'm sorry to hear that!"
"Twilight, it was dreadful!" Rarity continued, putting her hoof against her chest. She sighed dramatically before glancing to the sides and whispering, "She blew up half the castle!"
"Half the castle?!" Twilight gasped, frowning and playfully asking, "Rarity, that sounds highly unlikely."
Rarity giggled. "Well, perhaps I'm being a bit over-dramatic," she admitted. "Although," she added, flipping her mane and harrumphing, "I'm sure plenty of ponies would blow up a castle for me!"
"Well, I'm sure she regrets terribly not having blown up the castle," Twilight said solemnly, eliciting a giggle from the unicorn. Taking in account the context of the conversation, Twilight found a question hanging from her lips. One she had been afraid to ask Rarity again, but she found it was easier to ask when — if on the surface — it wasn't about her. "Why did you break up?"
Rarity replied with silence at first, stepping up again to fix Twilight's scarf. "We..." she drifted off, her hoof still working at the fabric that had already been fixed minutes before. "Remember that time you explained what a supernova was?"
Twilight let herself go back, remembering lying down on the grass at night, snuggled up against the unicorn and explaining all kinds of astronomical thoughts despite being interrupted by a kiss every other minute. "Well, I didn't explain it so much as I gave you a brief, if very incomplete, definition."
Rarity rolled her eyes playfully. "Care to repeat it?"
"Well, essentially it's a stellar explosion that happens at the end of giant star's lifespan, and it expels an enormous burst of radiation that can outshine an entire galaxy before fading away from view a short amount of time later," she explained, trying to understand why Rarity wanted an astronomy lesson now of all times.
"That's what we were," Rarity replied, finally letting go of Twilight's scarf but not stepping back. "And when we burned out and stopped shining, I suppose we just didn't want to accept it." Twilight saw Rarity's eyes twinkle, and she found she was afraid Rarity would start crying. If she did… "But I guess it was to be expected. A drama queen paired up with a logical and grounded scientist? It could have never worked forever!" she said, laughing at her own joke before falling into silence.
Silence that screamed louder than the howling wind, than their beating hearts, than everything around them.
"The girls are waiting for you in the castle," Rarity said, looking back towards Twilight's home in the distance. "They just got done with me earlier today. Rainbow Dash looked as if she expected me to burst into tears at any moment."
"Oh."
Silence again.
"I suppose now I… I'm sorry it ended how it did," Rarity whispered, looking back towards Twilight.
Twilight didn't have to ask to know what she was talking about.
"With no exploding castles?" she asked playfully, unable to stop the smile when Rarity laughed. With no screaming, no crying, no desperate attempts to continue.
"With no exploding castles," she repeated, lifting her hoof and brushing the hair out of Twilight's face. Twilight closed her eyes briefly, relishing the feel of Rarity's hoof lowering onto her cheek and staying there for an instant.
When Rarity took back her hoof, Twilight opened her eyes and confessed, "I'm sorry too."
There was some relief in saying that to Rarity herself. Some way to tell Rarity that she's sad that's how it went. Some relief in knowing Rarity felt the same way.
"Well then, my darling," Rarity said, stepping back and out of the way, "Glass Drops is supposed to have some very juicy rumors for me on Equestrian fashion, and I cannot keep him waiting."
"I… Okay," Twilight said lamely, trotting towards the castle and going past Rarity even though her hooves felt heavier with every step. Now more than ever, it suddenly felt real. It suddenly felt like maybe, in the end, she did regret one thing. Maybe she did regret she didn't fight for it.
Maybe she still wanted to.
"Twilight?"
Twilight stopped in her tracks and looked back, finding Rarity hovering by the bar door. The unicorn had her hoof on the doorknob, but she was looking up at the night sky and its stars.
"Supernovas happen at the end of the life of a star, don't they?" she asked, still looking up at the sky.
"Yes," Twilight replied, looking up as well and mapping out in her mind the constellations she could see. "A massive star, to be exact."
Rarity watched for another minute before finally turning to Twilight. "Is it really the end if we both regret how it ended?" She waited for a reply, but got none as Twilight didn't even know what to reply. In the end, though, Twilight's silence proved to be the reply she needed, opening the door of the bar and putting one hoof inside. "Maybe we really aren't a supernova, after all."
"Well..." Twilight said, looking back towards her castle and finding she wasn't so keen on going there anymore. Speeches could wait, couldn't they? A few hours, a few days, or maybe they didn't need to happen at all. Maybe not yet.
"I think that's a terrible metaphor for what happened," she said finally, offering a teasing smile.
Rarity rolled her eyes, snorting in a very unladylike fashion. "Well, if you think so, I'm sure you can come up with a better one, then," she retorted, watching as Twilight turned around and trotted towards her.
"Why don't we work one out together?" Twilight asked, following Rarity inside the bar.
"That sounds perfect."