Hundred years later, Princess of Magic Twilight Sparkle once again returns to Poniville to meet an old friend and close the circle started long ago.
Almost a hundred years since Twilight has made her friends in Ponyville, she once again returns there with a heavy heart, unclear mission and a single friend. Things have changed a lot since then, and the very town is unfamiliar to her. But maybe an old friend from the past would help her see that even though everything changes, perhaps nothing is truly lost.
The party cannon was fired precisely at noon and the wind had spread the sparkling confetti over the paving stones, roof tiles, and the backs and manes of all the ponies gathered in the Ponyville main square. The sun was shining brightly, its rays glinting off the brass and copper of the cogs and wheels of the old clockwork.
It was then that she heard a familiar bouncing sound and quickly turned around to see the unexpected, yet familiar, sight of Pinkie Pie skipping towards her out of the bushes. It took the pink pony less than two small jumps to cover the distance between them until she stopped as if crashing into an invisible wall.
"What’s up, Twilight? Hey, wait a second, what are you doing here?"
The mechanical gadget slipped from the grasp of her magic and disappeared into the long grass.
***
The first colors of the rising day were barely seen against the dark veil of the night, and just like every day before and since, the rising sun had reminded her of Princess of Celestia: Once, a long time ago, the weight of the sky had fallen on the back of a young alicorn named Twilight Sparkle and she was never able to forget its impossible burden. She had changed since then and so had the world around her, but the sky and the sun have stayed the same.
Taking her eyes off the window, she had turned to look in the silver mirror. Her once lavender coat was now the color of a clear summer night, and her mane and tail were adorned with the pattern of the first evening stars. In the passing years, she had grown, now rising far above her servant-mares who were helping her into an indigo gown and cape.
She shifted her spectacles slightly and considered her garments. Every single fold had to be done per the demands of the etiquette. As a Princess of Equestria and the Dean of the University of Magic, she simply had to follow a certain image, whether she liked it or not. Life was so much simpler back when ponies only dressed up for special events… On the other hoof, this was exactly what she was doing, so perhaps there wasn't that much of a difference.
Now it was time to put on the horseshoes. Her hoofmaids were already walking over to the large wardrobe, but with a simple effort of her magic, Twilight had already preempted them, bringing out the horseshoes and diadem surrounded by the purple aura of her magic. Letting out a very small sigh, Twilight nodded to the maids:
"Thank you, girls. I’ll take it from here."
The purple stones on the horseshoes shone with the red sparks of the rising sun, which looked like small pieces of dusk on her hooves. Twilight had always tried to capture the mysteriousness of Princess Luna without the older alicorn’s darkness – as the most powerful sorceress of the modern age, she believed she was expected to project mystery and even danger. And regardless, the amethyst always brought out the purple of her eyes or, at least, that is what Rarity always insisted and who would know better than the original designer of the ensemble?
The thought of her old friend had brought a sad smile to Twilight. Rarity was so happy about those last changes in fashion… Twilight stopped her thoughts to avoid the pain that would inevitably follow and tried to distract herself by looking out the window again.
Down below, the guard pegasi were already preparing her carriage, but she suddenly found herself unable to even contemplate the thought of the coming trip and its destination.
It would be a short ride, and then there will be thousands or even tens of thousands of ponies, all of them looking at her with sadness and adoration. They will be crowding around her to express their condolences and their reverence, and they will bow to her and be awed and bow again, and then she will have to say the speech with all the right words and feelings to all those ponies whose names she did not even know…
No! Not today. She could do it on any other day but this. She may be their Princess, but today was the day of her grief and she would not share it.
With her eyes closed, she slowly exhaled. The sharp pang of her conscience was short but still painful. She had no right to be so selfish and to think of her own feelings instead of theirs. She was a Princess of Magic and her duty was to them. To magic, to Equestria, and most of all, to all her little ponies… and yet, she decided, today she would allow herself to be no more than a grieving friend.
She let the diadem drop from her magic grip, and the ding of silver and gemstones against the hard floor echoed through the room. Even through her tightly shut eyelids, the blinding flash of purple and white hurt her eyes.
Before her sight returned to her, Twilight could already feel the nostalgic bittersweet smell of recently mowed grass, of the wildflowers in bloom, and of the wild, endless forest.
Finally opening her eyes, she looked at the brightly coloured houses of Ponyville, which, from her vantage point on a hill, looked like toys forgotten by a giant on the edge of the boundless forest. The lights have already stopped dancing in her eyes, and she just now felt the tears welling in the corners.
She turned sharply away from the sight and ran, gathering the speed with every step, until, at the very edge of the cliff, she spread her wings and took into the air.
***
The sound of the cannon fired was still echoing through Ponyville, intertwining with the ringing of the clock tower bell striking noon, when the sombre procession began from the Town Hall on the Two Sisters plaza along the Twilight Alley towards the old clock tower.
The march was followed by a cacophony of sounds, where firework explosions, the ringing of the clock tower bells, the booms of party cannons, and the crackling of roaman candles all connected to create a single symphony of a party that contrasted sharply against the silence of the procession. Every citizen of Ponyville was here, from the youngest foals to the most elderly earth pony, they joined in their march by thousands more. Many ponies, pegasi, gryphons, humans, dragons, and creatures much stranger than these came from every corner of Equestria and even further to join in this silent cavalcade, stepping solemnly in the shadow of hundreds of blue and yellow balloons filling the sky.
"Ohmygosh! IT’S A PARTY!!!!", Pinkie Pie bounced again, one pink rubber ball buzzing with energy, jumping all around the startled Twilight. "Look, the balloons! And the fireworks! Oh, oh, and a giant cake! Twilight, why are you not looking at the GIANT CAKE!?"
"Wait, Pinkie, just… wha… how?"
Flabbergasted, Twilight ignored the falling mechanism that slipped out of the grasp of her magic, and it immediately disappeared in the tall stalks of grass, blinking with the last glint of sunlight on copper. She looked at the pink whirlwind of Pinkie Pie who was already buzzing all around her, examining her mane and her hooves and her coat, and never, even for a second, stopped the stream of words.
"No, wait, that weird pony with a sand-clock cutie-mark said that I might fall into the far, faaaar future! And look at you! With the mane, and the glasses, and how tall you are…” Pinkie jumped all the way to Twilight’s height to emphasize the point “...You are totally a Princess now! Not that you weren't before, because you totally were, but now you look like Celestia! Or Luna? Anyway, it’s absolutely Princess-y!"
"Pinkie, STOP! Please!”, was all the Twilight managed to squeeze out, but it was enough to make Pinkie freeze mid-jump in the air.
Only then did the Twilight finally manage to notice that her jaw was slack in the most surprised expression. She really was not used to being this surprised anymore, and definitely did not demonstrate her surprise in a very long time. It really must have been Pinkie Pie, exactly like she remembered her years upon years ago, right here in front of her. That was utterly impossible, yet there she was.
Frowning, she was almost ready to cast a spell of Revelation that would break any illusion and reveal any changeling trick, but then, as she realised what Pinkie just said, she finally remembered what was going on. A huge wave of relief and happiness hit her almost as hard as she facehoofed herself, and all she could do was laugh and hug Pinkie with all her strength.
"Whee! Free hugs! But what’s the occasion, huh, Twily?"
But Twilight was too busy laughing to answer that. Dear sweet Celestia, it was so long since she laughed with so much levity and happiness. Her laughter quieting down, she found herself looking at her old – and oh so very young – friend intently.
Pinkie stared back, feeling up her own face under Twilight’s intense scrutiny.
"What? Twi, what’s going on? Is there something on my face? There’s something wrong with my face, isn’t it?! Where?"
That brought out a few last chuckles out of Twilight.
"No, Pinkie, everything is fine! It’s just that I forgot… I almost forgot our adventure in the Caves of Time. You got lost because of all the chronovores chasing us, and I could only come and get you after…"
"Hey!", A pink hoof firmly closed Twilight’s mouth, preventing her from talking, "Spoiler alert, you silly filly. If I wanted to know how it ends, I would just flip to the last page, right?"
"Wht, whft?" stepping back to free her muzzle Twilight repeated herself, "what?"
"Eh, never mind, I did sneak a peek anyway, so it’s ok. Sort of. Anyway, now I am not now, right? I am waay in THE FUTURE, ain't’ I?"
"Well, yes, you are, but…"
"Ohmygosh! I want to see so many things! Soooo many questions! How’s Gummy? Do I still live in the same place? Is Celestia still a Princess? What are Pound and Pumpkins’ cutie marks?”, she drew a huge breath, “and I would REALLY like to go to that HUGE PARTY down there, it looks super-duper fun!"
Looking down at Ponyville, it was probably for the best that Pinkie did not see Twilight’s smile die on her lips.
***
The red light of dawn was already spilling over the green leaves of the age-old trees, and the morning breeze beat against Twilight’s wings as she rose into the air. The weather was changing - precisely by schedule, as it should in Equestria.
In her flight, there was no longer any trace of the initial awkwardness of her first clumsy attempts to take wing and she had almost forgot how she used to be afraid, new to her wings as if expecting them to fail her. Likewise, a long time ago, she lost the thrill of the flight, the all-consuming adrenaline rush of going faster, the euphoria of the sky rushing past her in a maddening race. Now her wings, much like her hooves, were just a mode of locomotion, something to get over short distances in case she did not want to teleport for one reason or the other. Grand entrances aside, she could hardly understand why Celestia always chose to travel on a pegasi-drawn carriage, and never in a million years would she understand Rainbow Dash, for whom flight was her whole life and the only passion, from the day the rainbow-coloured pegasus was born and forever.
Until the last of her days.
Clenching her teeth, Twilight flapped her wings against the rising winds, flying higher and higher above the light morning clouds until she could barely see the dim orange lights reflected off the roofs of Ponyville below. She began to move towards the faraway mountains on the horizon, piling speed on until she was at her limit. Her heart was thumping loudly and painfully against her ribs as if trying to escape this mad race against herself.
She flew until she could barely keep herself in the air, her dress now a soaked mess, her sides foaming with sweat. But somehow this mad dash above the Everfree Forest helped to settle the inner turmoil that was haunting her so, and she finally acknowledged where her wings have taken her.
Diving down in a wide arc, she flew downwards, almost touching the tips of the ancient oaks with her hooves. The forest below teemed with a life of its own, as free and inscrutable as it was a hundred years before, and a thousand years before that, and still just as wild. Its folds still covered myriads of birds and beasts never seen or named by any pony, living their lives in the pale light of firefly swarms and will-o-wisps and never seeing the rays of Celestia’s sun from under the leaves of the trees.
A mighty roar shook the forest underneath, felling a tall elm tree instantly swallowed by the thick growth of the forest. Whatever it was, Twilight was neither threatened nor interested and soon the incident was left far behind, the creatures of the Everfree Forest once again left to their own devices.
They spent a lot of effort – she and Fluttershy, back then, to save the Everfree Forest from the inexorable march of pony civilisation. Progress was moving with a speed of a diving Wonderbolt, requiring more and more space and resources with each passing year. Ponies required places to live, safe from the monsters of the untamed lands. They needed the comforts and predictability that were contrary to the very essence of this place.
Hail and storms, thunder and rains brewed above it, unpredictable without pegasi oversight, untamed and perhaps untameable in their fury. Beasts were born here, at the roots of millennia-old trees, to hunt or be hunted, to perish or multiply depending on their own wit, strength and luck in a circle of life free of animal-team pony care. Here, monsters that would stagger even the most learned of unicorn-zoologist reigned supreme.
The Everfree Forest was an entity unto itself, and it did not need ponies.
Nor did ponies need the Forest – what they required were lands to plough and sow, to grow fruit and grass upon; they wanted wood for ships and buildings; they wanted space to build houses and castles and schools. Even when speaking for Fluttershy’s motion to protect the Forest, Twilight still had her doubts: she was a creature of order and organisation, of system and design, and she had to acknowledge the arguments made towards taming and domesticating the Everfree Forest for ponykind.
But the noes have had it, and today, more than any other day, Twilight was happy to see the Everfree forest unchanged and free. Only here and now could she truly be alone and by herself, a lonely soul in a vast sea of chaos preserved in the heart of an orderly Equestria. Equestria to which she was now an irreplaceable and vital part. Here and now she could pretend she did not have this endless burden of duty, to imagine that she could put away, if for a moment, the gilded shackles of her title.
The lonely mountain rose on the horizon, getting closer with every flap of her wings. Her tired muscles protesting every step of the way, her lungs on fire, Twilight pushed on, throwing her all into the flight. It was long since she flew so hard, not since her first year as an alicorn, when she raced Rainbow Dash across the forest to the very same mountain.
Back then, the mountain rose above the forest like muscles rolling underneath the hide of a giant creature, its slopes covered in the thick growth of mighty trees. Now it looked more like skeletal remains of a long-dead mythic beast; its sides barren and scorched, with nothing but the most tenacious of vines covering its bare rock, and a rare tree, that once stood proudly, with its branches reaching to the sky, still clinging to life, too stubborn and entrenched in the cracks of the mountain to wither.
Back then, when Twilight had just started to fly, Dash was doggedly determined to teach Twilight every single trick of ace flying. It took months and months of bruises and exhaustion, proving to Twilight once and for all that despite her new alicorn wings, she was definitely built for cosy evenings in the castle library with dusty ancient tomes and a nice mug of hot cocoa, not for mind-numbing terror and exhaustion of all those barrel rolls, nosedives and corkscrews. Unfortunately, this argument had failed to convince Rainbow.
In the end, she mastered the material, and it was a time for the final test (as it always is). They were racing over the Everfree Forest, and Twilight hoped that should she ace this test, she’d be able to finally finish the training sessions. She was almost missing her time with Rainbow already: the moment she freed up the time from her flying lessons, some royal duty or the other would surely find a way to occupy every minute and second of it.
Rainbow Dash was leading of course, not by that much – by a nose or two, and much less than she could have, with her being a reserve Wonderbolt. With a mountain barely a stone throw’s away, she was sure to win the race. Or so she would think....
Twilight smiled, imagining in the smallest detail how her friends' cocksure grin – which she just knew Rainbow Dash had on her face - would disappear, turning into shock and indignation. With a short laugh that took the last of her breath, she closed her eyes, casting the spell of teleportation.
"HEY! NO FAIR!" - Dash's shout caught up with her as Twilight’s hooves sparked against the plateau of the mountain, trying to slow her slide.
"Na-na-na-na. I won, I wo...." - Twilight blew a raspberry towards her friend.
"Why, you little cheating...", Rainbow hit her full speed, and both ponies rolled across the plateau, over the rock and hard bush that covered it, barely stopping over the very edge of the mountain. The pegasus was panting, her sides foaming and on her face was such a childlike expression of utter betrayal that Twilight could not help but laugh.
Soon they laughed together on the open plateau, listening to the skitter of stones displaced by their brawl turn to rumble, and then to the thunderous booms of a landslide…
... Twilight's hooves clicked against the hard scorched stone, and she folded her star-spangled wings, gasping for air to catch her breath. The permanent smell of sulphur and burnt stone had marked the plateau, and no vine nor a single blade of grass survived here. Finally regaining her breath, Twilight shifted uneasily, and with a last glance towards the Everfree Forest behind her, she started to go up over the crumbling mountainside. Her every step raised a small cloud of black soot and ash, quickly ripped apart by the howling winds.
The higher Twilight ascended, the more the hard smell of the sulphur and smoke was burning her throat. She could have, of course, simply flown all the way to her destination in her mad dash across the forest - the yawning pit of a cave few hundred meters above her landing place... but she did not. However long and hard her flight might have been, it was this last step that was the hardest. It always was.
She trotted through the arch of the cave entrance on the top of the mountain and peered into the blinding darkness ahead. She could not see further than her nose in the pitch-black of the lightless cave, but she did not need her sight to know what lay within.
As she always did, hundreds of times before, she took three careful steps over the stone polished to glass by the immense heat, the clopping of her hooves echoing over the infinite abyss she knew was not even a foot in front of her. Peering into the darkness, she whispered the name of her friend.
Only the echoes answered her, so she called again, louder this time. Still, nothing called back but thousands of reflections of her own voice echoing ever lower. Finally, as she always did before, she shouted at the top of her voice:
"SPIKE!"
***
The bell chimed for the last time, and it was past noon when the procession entered the shadow of the Ponyville clock tower. Back atop the hill by the edge of the Everfree Forest, Twilight Sparkle was trying to find the right words to explain... but was, again, interrupted by Pinkie
"Look Twily, you dropped something."
The distraction came as a blessing, diverting Twilight from her torturous thoughts to look at the piece of mechanism she dropped earlier, at which Pinkie was now pointing her hoof.
"What is that thing anyway?"
A lavender aura wrapped around the mechanism as Twilight pulled it up to her eyes.
"This... honestly, I've no idea. I think it has been lying around my lab for ages. I don't even know where it came from in the first…"
"Okie-Dokie. Well," Pinkie dramatically looked at her empty front hoof, as if expecting it to have a watch, "it's time for a PARTY!"
"Pinkie, wait…” Twilight tried to stop her friend again, but this time it was not enough, as Pinkie was already galloping downhill towards Ponyville.
Sighing, Twilight could only tuck the mechanism back into the pockets of her gown and teleport to catch up with her friend. Together, they trotted on the old overgrown path, past the edge of the Everfree, and into the town, Twilight struggling to keep up with the bouncing trot of her friend. Several times she tried to broach the hard topic of what the party they were attending was, but she could barely put in a word edgeways, as Pinkie was talking non-stop all the way, allowing Twilight to delay the dreaded discussion again and again until she was completely consumed by the easy and simple conversation.
On the empty streets of Ponyville, the wind was scattering around the shiny sparks of confetti and ruffling around the few balloons stuck under the roofs or in the wires above, and the only thing to breach the heavy silence of the town was clopping of their feet and Pinkie's chatter. There was no longer any music - silent were the trombones, the drums and accordions and the last fireworks have already been swallowed by the sky. The city was silent like a ghost town, the only movement around them was the flapping of black ribbons and the motley flags flying at half mast.
None of that seemed to affect Pinkie in the least - she was too busy talking.
She was telling Twilight about how she got lost in time - something Twilight already heard dozens of times in the last hundred years, and even partially witnessed herself, but was more than happy to hear again. She was asking Twilight every question imaginable - about her spectacles and her gown and her horseshoes, what she ate for breakfast, and hundreds of small things that would hardly be the interest of any other pony who found herself a hundred years in the future. She barely even waited for Twilight to answer before she skipped to the next question until she asked:
"So, Twilight, since it's been so long, you must have tonnes of new friends, right? I would really, really like to meet them!"
"I... well, you see... the thing is", Twilight looked away, as she tried to explain, realising that they were almost at the centre of the town. "Pinkie wait!", she tried to halt her friend again.
For in front of them, just beyond the bend of the street, there was a sea of heads, flanks and shoulders, all frozen in the silence and contemplation, its’ soft muttering catching two incoming ponies by surprise. Once again, Pinkie froze mid-jump and gave Twilight a perplexed look.
"What's the matter? We are gonna miss all the fun! Well, actually, for a crowd this large, I expected something more exciting…"
"Pinkie... you see, it's not quite what you think... not at all what you think. We shouldn't even…"
"Look, something's starting to happen!"
And indeed it was - following a drum roll, the crowd came alive, murmuring, whispering, moving. A pegasus in a tuxedo flapping in the wind had risen on the stage - a small wooden thing erected in the middle of the square right underneath the clock tower. It was not too big, but high enough that all of those gathered in the plaza, even Twilight and Pinkie standing at the very edge of the crowd, could see him.
He took the stand and checked the microphone, causing a burst of static to echo around the square. Behind him loomed a giant pink monstrosity of a three story-cake liberally covered with icing and sprinkles.
"Greeting, mares and gentlecolts, and all our guests", His voice, deep, if a bit raspy, boomed through the speakers and all across the gathering, silencing the rumble of the crowd. "My friends... it is hard for me to find the words to express what I feel... what we all feel today. The Princess of Magic, Twilight Sparkle herself, was to give her speech today, from this very stage, and I am sure she would be able to do it much better. To express our feelings, console and support each and every one of us. Alas, she could not make it today, for reasons of no doubt great importance for all of Equestria..."
"Hey, Twilight, he is talking about you", Pinkie whispered loudly, "But... you are here, aren't you?"
Twilight winced.
"Pinkie, I"....she barely managed to mumble before she was interrupted by a pink hoof poking her hard in the side.
"Hush! I am listening!"
"... for all of us. Every pony in our town knew her and loved her, from their first birthday to their elder years. I... we cannot imagine Ponyville without her. With her help, every day was a party... sometimes too literally”, a wave of silent chuckles rolled across the crowd, a testament to the truth of those words, “Most of us still remember the ill-famed and even somewhat tragic Carnival Year. But one way or the other, everything she ever did, was done to make everypony in this town happy. She was chosen to be a mayor if this town twelve consecutive times, and every single time she did it perfectly, though I swear I will never understand how..."
Another wave of quiet laughter rolled across the square. Even the speaker himself gave a few chuckles. Wiping budding tears from his eyes, he continued.
"She was...eccentric and random and absolutely brilliant, and that is how we loved her and that's how she will always remain in our hearts. All of us, from all over the world, and some of us I see here who travelled quite a bit further than that. I am sorry to give such a short speech… it is hard for me to find words that would capture and honour this exceptional mare, but it is now time for our final goodbyes."
The orchestra started playing some piece of music that was joyous to the point of hysteria… and yet was somehow ever more tragic for that, and through the silent crowd, two ponies clad in madly cheerful outfits carried a....
"Looks like all of them loved this pony", Pinkie noted, "she must have been great!"
"Pinkie, I don’t think you should see this" – The Princess’ voice almost broke as she tried to stop herself from crying. She grabbed Pinkie by her tail, trying to move her back into the alley, but the pink pony would not budge as if grown into the stones of the plaza.
"Oh come on, just a few more minutes!"
They were starting to get noticed. Some ponies from the back rows already turned around to look at all the commotion. Whispers and whinnies of surprise started spreading through the crowd. The pall-bearers were already gone from the scene, hidden behind the giant cake, but Pinkie kept watching.
"Ready! Set!" – Ponies wearing parade dresses charged a twenty-foot tall party-cannon, pointed at the stark blue sky.
"Farewell, Lady Mayor. Farewell Pinkamena Diane Pie. Fire!"
She did not care if the ponies around her could see their Princess crying. Unable to even look at her friend, Twilight simply let the tears flow, sobbing uncontrollably into her mane.
It was then that the sky above Ponyville exploded into a million shards, an inequine, bloodcurdling cry that could not be a product of any living thing in Equestria or beyond rolled across the square, shattering eardrums and windows alike, from the Rail Station to Sugarcube Corner, and from a wound in the very fabric of space and time, a chronovore appeared.
It was the hour before noon or so, and minutes flowed in the pitch black darkness, pooling into an eternity of hours and ages. Her voice carried on, through the cracks and tunnels, all the way to the roots of the mountain. She screamed again and again, with no answer save for the echo and a faint breath of sulphurous air and soot.
She sighed, and foregoing another flight, she simply stepped through space into Ponyville, a sharp flash of lavender magic casting light down into the well of the abyss behind her…
***
Time passed and the eventful day, full of dangers and impossibilities for all of Ponyville, was over, and there was evening, and then there was morning. And then, in the depths of the well spanning the whole mountain, deep underneath the earth, an eye slowly opened, like an amber fire lit in the blackness of the underworld - as big as the face of the clock on the Ponyville tower. Its black vertical pupil moved and contracted as if trying to focus on the small and fragile world above.
Flame erupted from the top of the mountain, melting rock and scorching the sky and the whole of the mountains shuddered and convulsed with a colossal undulating roar that nopony, no matter how smart or patient, could recognise as speech.
Yet, if time were to lose all meaning, to compress and contract turning days and weeks into a handful of instances, the roar would spell out a single word.
"T-W-I-L-I-G-H-T?"
But that, of course, could never happen.
***
After the darkness of the cave, the daylight hit Twilight in the eyes, already burnt by the flash of the teleportation spell.
She did not focus on her destination when she was casting the spell, so it was no surprise to find out where she ended up. The morning breeze was picking up, bringing cold air filled with the smell of apple blossom. It pierced Twilight’s gown and coat easily, causing her to shiver.
Not even ten steps in front of her were the Sweet Apple Acres, surrounded by a white picket fence. It was so much bigger now than it used to be, as the Apple family continued to grow and prosper in the last three generations, adding more nieces and cousins, in-laws and wives, sons and daughters, and grandchildren to its ranks. It was now run by Applejack’s children, after the family matriarch had passed peacefully at the ripe old age of eighty-nine years, surrounded by mourning children and grand-children. Sweet Celestia, it was more than thirty years ago!
She never lost her habit for this interjection. It had been almost a hundred years since she was technically Celestia’s equal as a princess. Even though her teacher had, and would always have, thousands of years worth of experience over her, she had already started to see her teacher differently. Yes, the Princess of the Sun was powerful and wise and graceful beyond measure and most of all, almost infinitely kind; but she no longer saw her as the infallible, omnipotent goddess she once was to her faithful student.
She had seen Celestia’s mistakes – however small and rare they were - and even had to deal with their causes or consequences once or twice. More than that – Twilight had seen her and been with her during the older Princess’ moments of weakness that almost no pony was privy to when fatigue or despair had turned almost imperceptibly the nigh-all-powerful Sun Princess to an exhausted and dispirited unicorn with wings and millennia of bad memories.
She had to walk in her shoes once when all of the Equestrian magic was given to her to protect it. The sheer magnitude of responsibility that fell on her felt like a weight of the sky on the back of Haycules, almost crushing her to dust in the brief time it lasted. Later, she had to take a smaller role as dean of the University of Magic and a princess in her own right. It was exhausting and hard work and it would never, ever stop, her roles and duties only snowballed further as time went on.
She even heard her own name gaining use as an interjection, with ponies exclaiming in their exasperation “Twilight make this dimwit understand!” or “If you have not done your homework again, so help me Twilight I will..”
And yet… and yet in moments like this, she could not stop herself from calling Celestia’s name and wish for her mentor to be here, with her.
The air was full of the sweet smell of apples, young grass, and the earthly scent of recently-ploughed fields. All the enormity of the orchard and farm was quiet – Twilight knew that all of the Apples, from youngest to oldest, had gone to join the procession in the town.
She could now go past the well-maintained wooden fence, along the tidy stone road underneath the apple trees, and a few hundred yards on a small hill where wild apples grew, she would find the simple black granite stones.
Granny Smith was the first of Apples she knew to leave - an expected and inevitable tragedy. Then - Big Macintosh, followed by his sister not ten years later and Apple Bloom soon after that. Underneath those wild apples, in the earth covered gently by the falling leaves and blossoms, were Applejack and her husband, her first son, her first grandchild and many, many others.
Rainbow Dash was the first of her friends to pass, Pinkie Pie was the last. It made no difference, she could not help but think, sometimes, if they left this world surrounded by dozens of grieving relatives, in a small house filled with animals by the edge of the Everfree forest, or in a single instance of a blindingly fast flight. One always crossed the final line alone.
Just like she was now.
Rainbow Dash – Her Dashie - died in a crash, trying to prove - to herself most of all, that she could still do a Rainboom. A Wonderbolt, fastest Pegasus in all of Equestria for over a decade, she alone of all five of Twilight’s friends could never accept the inevitable march of old age.
Inevitable for all but Princess Twilight Sparkle.
In the solitude of her rooms, Twilight cried for days. She resolved not to show her tears in public and cried anyway, breaking down in the middle of her speech.
Studies into the ageing spells, that according to Celestia and historical chronicles have prolonged Star Swirl the Bearded’s lifespan to impossible lengths, have taken all of her free time for almost a decade and brought her nothing but disappointment. The effects were either temporary and purely cosmetic or required a magic of the deepest and darkest kind, the one that came at a price too high for her friends to be willing to accept it.
Dozen years later, Fluttershy had passed away peacefully in her sleep. They found her in her cottage two days later, a weightless, almost transparent body surrounded by thousands of beasts and birds that came to pay their last respects.
She did not find out about Rarity for weeks, perhaps even a month. In the Mirror Universe, Princess Twilight Sparkle was locked in combat with Princess Twilight Sparkle. Winning by a hair's breadth and a bit of luck, she returned victorious through the magic mirror only to find out the tragic news. A new Carousel Boutique was opening overseas, and the sailboat she was on with her husband was lost in a terrible storm that followed them from Ponyville.
Applejack, the strongest of them and the most enduring, was next in line. Back then, thirty years ago, Twilight Sparkle, as beautiful and powerful as she had ever been, with the first stars blossoming on her evening sky-colored coat and mane, stood between the young apple trees that were planted to mark Granny Smith’s final resting place. The wind was blowing in her mane and stung her eyes, yet Twilight, with a chilling realisation, knew that she could now hold her tears without crying.
Now Pinkie Pie was the last one. Her life and times were unbelievable even by the standards of their crazy adventures, and Twilight had long since stopped even trying to rationalise or even understand anything about her.
After her hundredth’ birthday, Pinkie had decided to take her well-earned pension and left the mayor’s office, and it was probably then that her age had started to catch up to her. To Pinkie, the objective reality was always more or less a question of preference and style, but her last years spent at the retirement home in Ponyville got really weird. Amidst the peaceful amethyst and lavender coloured walls of her last home, strange things and stranger sightings happened increasingly often. Something was coming, or maybe happening, or maybe it was just Final Summons calling for Pinkie to wherever it is that ponies go after they shed the mortal coil. Summons even Pinkie could not or would not ignore.
Thus the circle has been closed.
Ponyville grew so much in the passing century. The grand oak that once was her home and library was destroyed and rose again as a Castle of Friendship – which, in turn, was annihilated to the last brick by a giant storm that broke free of pegasi control and escaped to the eastern sea.
Here she stood again. Times may change and she may change with them, but again she found herself in an unfamiliar town full of unfamiliar ponies, with nought but a heavy heart, unclear mission and a single friend.
Spike had stayed with her through all that time, at least in some sense. He just grew up. Species and subspecies of dragons were uncountable and almost infinite in their variety, never properly studied or classified due to their temper and destructive power, so neither Twilight nor Spike, and not even Celestia herself knew what time would turn the baby dragon into.
He never grew any wings; he just grew, and grew, and grew, the world around him becoming ever smaller, ever more fragile. His friends became too tiny, too frail, too quick to follow. Giant and fearsome to behold, he slept for days, then – for weeks and months. Back then, he was still close by, almost the same little dragon that she had hatched from the egg, only bigger and a bit more mature. Her little brother, and in some sense, even her son.
Losing Rarity was the final straw that caused him to break away from this world. The world that became too small and unfair for him. Deep inside the Everfree forest, he had made himself a lair underneath a mountain where he dug up tunnels consuming ores and minerals to feed his growth, and slept for years at a time. His dreams were not gentle or peaceful, and every year or so, a land would convulse and mountains shudder as pillars of flame erupted from underneath the earth in a fountain of molten rock and poisonous black smoke.
Spike was still her closest friend, the first and last friend she had. Princess Luna, the guardian of every pony’s dreams, had shown Twilight the path to the strange and wondrous land of the Dreaming, but the path to the dreams of dragons was long and treacherous, and even when she managed to reach Spike in his slumber, every time it became harder and harder to talk to him, to make him remember his big sister…
Twilight came to a halt. Deep in her thoughts, she never realised where she was going, barely registering that she was moving at all. Sweet Apple Acres and the silent little hill with the wild apple-trees were left far behind her, and she was back again to the edge of the Everfree Forest, its new undergrowth sprouting through the cobblestone of the untended pathway. Fluttershy’s home, covered in ivy, moss and wild grapes, was almost consumed by the forest, as if Everfree itself was eager to make it a part of its infinite canopy, taking her from Equestria. As if it was there that it truly belonged, a place of pilgrimage for all the creatures of the forest.
She was yanked from her thoughts by a familiar voice, a deep baritone dripping with poisonous sarcasm.
"Why so serious, my little princess?"
***
The time broke apart and the sky above the clock tower fell to earth in a whirlwind of debris. Edges and sides of the chronovore formed and shifted, settling in an appearance that defied description and comprehension, and time itself reversed, devouring its own tail…
***
"Na-na-na-na, I won, I wo...." - Twilight blew a raspberry towards her friend
"Why, you little cheating..." - Rainbow hit her full speed, and both ponies rolled across the plateau…
***
…and moving forward in dazing spirals...
***
...when she opened her eyes, it was already over. She stumbled back on her legs, trying to collect the scattering thoughts…
***
…finally she managed to force the sequence of events into some semblance of order, with “was”, “is” and “will be” making meagre sense, the rip in the sky was already closing in the greyness behind the monster.
Her feelings – her heartache, fear and sadness didn’t matter anymore. Her subjects, all of the town, perhaps all of Equestria, were in danger, and she had to be ready to defend them.
She remembered the chronovores. It was quite some time since she met them, but she could clearly recall their ability to suck out and consume the history of anything they touched, how they moved seemingly unconstrained by bounds of time or space. Their adventure in The Caves of Time was hard to call fun or pleasant (for everypony save Pinkie Pie at least) and Twilight never figured out how to defeat a chronovore one on one. Back then, they simply sealed the Caves with the chronovores still inside, but that was not an option she could use here.
What should she do now? Her mind was racing, trying to figure out a way to defeat a creature that could control time itself, if within some limits. She could have used some of the Time Magic she knew, but she had barely any experience with this sort of magics, and none of it was really successful. On the other hand, she could…
First cries of fear rang across the plaza, as ponies gathered there began to panic at the sight of the monster, and tossing aside all the complex multi-level schemes she was considering as her battle plans, Twilight had to act immediately. Before anypony could get hurt, she cast her teleportation spell, flooding the town in lavender light.
Once again, her poor eyes stung from the flash, but shaking her mane, the Princess collected herself. Never had she ever teleported such a crowd with a single spell, and a sudden drain on her magic reserves was staggering. However, she could not flee like others have fled since every piece of consumed history of Ponyville would make the chronovore more dangerous. Now it was just the monster and the Princess in an empty town square.
"Whee, Twilight, that was FUN! Now do it on me!"
"Pinkie, how are you still…"
"Hey, look out!"
Still reeling from the effort of the massive spell, Twilight barely started to move before Pinkie tackled her to the ground and the clock tower exploded in a massive fountain of crumbling bricks and rusting cogwheels behind them.
(Without the chronovore the clock tower would have stood there for a long time. Its bricks would have been covered by the moss and brass mechanism of the clock would have become green with time. Perhaps even the name of Ponyville itself would have been changed and forgotten before the clock would chime for the last time and the masonry of the tower would collapse under its own weight)
The chronovore consumed all of this future in a matter of a second. Hundreds of razor-sharp edges retreated from the remains of the clock tower, searching hungrily for a new target. Those must have been the sides of its multidimensional impossihedral body, stretching and twisting into needles, edges and blades while still being a part of a single, monolithic, unmoving whole.
The chronovore was quickly growing, rising from the size of a buffalo he was when he had first appeared to now rising higher than the large houses of Ponyville.
A cloud of stone dust had covered the plaza, but before the last pieces of debris had touched the ground, Twilight was already back on her hooves.
"Pinkie, run! I cannot spare another teleportation spell right now!"
"You are such a silly-filly Twily. We have both just seen that I’ll live for another hundred years. Well, slightly less than hundred years, unless you count the time..."
Flapping her wings hard, and barely hearing Pinkie over the howl of the wind in her ears, the Princess rose in the air, distracting the chronovore’s attention. A few needle-razor-things stretched towards her, forcing Twilight to go even faster to avoid them and in a vertigo-inducing loop-de-loop, she dove towards the chronovore.
"Return whence you came!" – she shouted out, before releasing all the magic she had left in a blast of pure energy. A purple ray shot from the tip of her horn, piercing the monster clean through, and in a shout that made her heart miss a beat and ears ring, the chronovore’s form had split apart and crumbled onto the bricks in a pile of debris.
She sighed in relief and…
***
…had covered the plaza, but before the last pieces of debris have touched the ground, Twilight was already back on her hooves.
"Pinkie, run! I cannot spare another teleportation spell right now!"...
***
"…my little princess, if you do believe you drew the short straw here, why don’t you use that spell on yourself, hm?..."
***
"Whee, Twilight, that was FUN!... Hey, wait a second, that had already happened! Ugh, I hate reruns."
Twilight shook her head and stood up a second before chronovore’s edges pierced the clock tower behind her and Pinkie.
"Pinkie, what is…"
"Look out!"
She limped to her hooves, as once again she watched the Ponyville clock tower crumble. The chronovore, completely unharmed, was still growing, once again raising his needle-like appendages from the clocktower debris, but this time they weren’t searching – dozens of live blades, humming with energy shot directly towards Twilight.
Still drowned in the dust cloud, the Princess dodged blindly, her mind moving as fast as her body. The chronovore controlled time – she should have expected that. As she should’ve known that she would not win this battle through brute strength – even should she pulverise the monster into fine dust, it would merely rewind the time back to when it was still whole. All she could do now was stall for time (no pun intended)… but why was the tower still standing? And why is she feeling just as exhausted as before time was rewound?
Three lucky dodges gave her enough space and speed to finally take flight, but she was still trapped between the edges of the chronovore, snipping around her like giant deadly scissors. She rolled across the stones of the plaza, dodging behind the scene, jumping away seconds after the chronovore’s needle-like body had pierced the wooden structure, turning it into a cloud of rot and sawdust.
(It was not meant to be a permanent fixture. Soon it would have been carefully disassembled by the townsfolk and the planks would be assimilated - into nice white-picketed fences around Ponyville homes or turned into the see-saws on the playgrounds until they’d find their final resting place burning in some fireplace keeping ponies warm during winter)
That future was also taken by the chronovore. There was even less space for manoeuvres now, no place for cover left on an empty plaza surrounded by a dense ring of high houses. She had to take higher in the air, but that avenue of retreat was cut off by now numerous edges of the chronovore. She was trapped.
With a thunderous clap, a party-canon shot crashed into the thick of the chronovore’s body, sending myriad cracks spidering across its surface, blowing it to smithereens in a shower of confetti and fireworks, and even though her poor ears were ringing, Twilight could discern Pinkie’s excited shouting.
"Ooh! I always wanted to try shooting one of these! Did you see it go, Twilight? "
Twilight smiled against her will and rose to her hooves, something small and sharp in her pockets cutting into her flanks. But the chronovore’s shards stirred once again, breaking time apart, and she had started to remember…
***
Three lucky dodges have given her enough space and speed to finally take flight, but she was still trapped between the edges of the chronovore, snipping around her like giant deadly scissors…
***
...a deep baritone dripping with poisonous sarcasm.
"Why so serious… No, no, no, that will not do. That will not do at all. Enough with the jumping around" – Discord snapped his fingers.
It was five to noon, and by the Town Hall on Two Sisters Plaza, the crowd was already gathering, as Discord snapped his fingers right in front of Twilight’s face.
"What?"
The Princess shook her head, trying to chase away both the ghosts of the past and heavy thoughts of the future and looked at the spirit of disharmony. His snakelike body coiled about, conforming to impossible shapes as he looked at her with a perpetual sly little smirk. The only true constant in her life – Discord, the eternal spirit of chaos. Irony so thick it actually hurt.
He was always there, and he was always Discord, whether he was her worst enemy or a shaky ally but hundred of years ago, now or thousand years since he would always be there, to deliver another blow. To plant seeds of doubt, to make her question her friendship, to sow discord and mistrust – in short, to ensure that everything goes as wrong as possible. Or “to make things more fun” as she assumed he would put it.
At least for now, it seemed, it was not the time for his sudden, yet inevitable betrayal… but, she guessed, it was as good a time as ever if he would so choose. Princess sighed.
"What do you want, Discord? Whatever it is that you wanted to say – speak your piece and leave. I’m in no mood to amuse you."
She walked right through him, not bothering to walk around, and his form turned to smoke to let her through, coalescing back behind her.
"Well, well, well. My little Princess, watching you is all the entertainment I could possibly need. This Byronic visage, the stern look you give me over your spectacles (very sharp by the way, these glasses are so totally you), the solemn gait that just speaks of all the duties and obligations you carry. Priceless, I tell you!"
Twilight just kept walking. She knew that the only reason Discord was with her here and now, was the opportunity to make her hurt. Ignoring him was her best defence.
"So, no snappy comebacks today? Such a pity. I am sure, Pinkie would find something to say."
This was almost too much. Twilight stopped, and turned around, and peered at the draconequus coiled around her. If he expected her to break down, he would be sorely disappointed. Perhaps some time ago that would be exactly what she would do, bawling like a foal, or shouting at him to go away. Now, all she did was shrug, and resume trotting along.
"I have never bothered to spare enough energy to despise you as much as you deserve, Discord. I know that you don’t care about me, but Pinkie was Fluttershy’s friend too. You could at least respect her memory today."
"Respect?!" Discord was almost pleased by this slip of her tongue, "Moi? My little princess, you like none other should know that my very nature makes it impossible to respect anything. Dear sweet Celestia, I’d probably lose my job I ever did."
"Precisely. Just like I always told Fluttershy. Only she would always ask to give you one second chance after another. But you – you never cared about her."
"But that is a lie. Tsk, tsk, and you call yourself a Princess. For shame." His voice suddenly lost all of its mad cheer, "I loved my only friend dearly. But she is gone now. And I am not. And I will always be, and I will never be anything but me."
"That’s exactly what I am talking about." finally losing her temper, Twilight struck the path with such a force that paving stones cracked, "'Me, me, me'– that is all you are capable of thinking about. Nothing but yourself!"
"Such hurtful accusations, eh? But may I then ask, how are you wallowing in self-pity all the way over here? When all of the Pinkie’s friends are gathering over there." he pointed towards the plaza, Ponyville, the clock that was not two minutes away from striking noon. "Your precious Pinkie Pie had family and friends you know. So why then, when they need their Princess, the one, that mind you, has known Pinkie longer and better than anyone alive, you are not there to console and support them?"
"Because… " another sigh escaped Twilight’s lips. Talking with Discord always felt like treading across quicksand - no matter how you tried to avoid it, it would inevitably drag you down and suffocate you. "Because I have lost too many of them. I thought… I was afraid, I even hoped that it would become easier with time, but it just doesn’t. Every time it hurts more and more… I can’t..."
“Me, me, me,” Discord interrupted her, his tone even more poisonous than usual. "Well, I’ve done this thing for quite a bit longer than you, or your precious Celestia for that matter, and believe you me, nobody cares about your swollen ego or your incessant self-pitying. Do you really think it is you who got the short end of the stick? Eternal youth, incredible magical powers, adoration of thousands upon thousands of ponies all across Equestria… your friends did not get that option, you big crybaby. All they got is a great big eternal nothing and a nice stone to mark where their bodies lie."
Twilight ground her teeth in frustration, and her horn caught aflame when she called on her magic.
"You know, Discord, I have hypothesised for some time now that I don’t even need the Elements of Harmony to turn you to stone. And you really, really tempt me to test that theory now.”
"What?" Discord finally took notice of Twilight words. "Ooh, well isn’t someone testy!", he tried her horn with his clawed finger and immediately pulled it back, burned by the magical aura. "Well, my little Princess, if you do believe you drew the short straw here, why don’t you use that spell on yourself, hm? Just picture it – a nice small statue in some garden somewhere – by the Fluttershy’s cottage, maybe? I might even come visit, dust off the cobwebs from time to time. No duties, no obligations. No friends that leave you. Just peace and quiet… forever."
Even if threatened by Princess' magic, he just smiled a mirthless smile and looked at her, waiting.
Twilight released the magic, dousing her aura. The conversation had suddenly left her numb and exhausted – as expected from Discord.
"Just say what you’ve wanted to say, Discord, and be gone."
"Oh my, we are already here. Well, I guess it really is time for me to go."
The Princess looked ahead at the Ponyville spread at the foot of the hill they were standing on, the distant clock tower was preparing to strike noon. Discord was already disappearing into the thin air, with only his hand and mouth staying behind.
"By the way, besides the pleasant small talk, I came here to give this to you.” With a snap of his disembodied fingers, a small object fell towards the grass.
Grasping it in her magic, she had examined a small brass mechanism
"And this is…?"
"Oh, just a small little something I’ve borrowed from your lab, hope you don’t mind. I’m sure you’ll figure it out in a jiffy."
Before she could answer, the sound of the bell rang from the clock tower answered by the shot of the party cannon, and the spirit of chaos disappeared completely before Twilight momentarily distracted by the fireworks and the confetti, could ask him anything.
She looked at the mechanism again, all cogwheels and bolts and pieces of springs… she almost remembered what it was that she held in her magic, when she heard the familiar bouncing sound behind her…
***
…clock tower behind her whole again, the edges of the chronovore filling the sky above, seeking hungrily. Barely fitting now into the three dimensions of space they stretched towards her, Pinkie, the party cannon, houses around and all of the town.
Half-remembering, half-guessing, Twilight figured out what she had to do and before the needles touched the clocktower again, she closed her eyes in concentrating on what little magic she had left. She pulled out the piece of the mechanism from her gown – its brass a perfect match for the mechanism of the clock tower as it would be in hundreds of years from now when the tower would have fallen apart under its own weight. The same tower that was still standing now, making the shard she was holding impossible, yet existing.
Putting everything she had left in the last spell, she channelled her magic through the brass of the mechanism and sent a wave of pure space-time paradox, sparkling like a firework rocket, to pierce the side of the monster.
In the moment of silence that followed, Twilight had almost thought that she was mistaken, that epiphany she had was nothing but a mirage born of her desperation. But then she noticed that for the first time since skies have broken apart, the chronovore's edges were receding. The whole volume of its monstrous body was folding into itself, collapsing into a dimension orthogonal to the normal world, and within a second that lasted an eternity, with a ringing shriek that ripped the silence apart, it was finally gone.
It took Twilight several attempts to get up on her hooves as she tried in vain to put the events of the day back into a chronological order. No matter how hard she struggled to figure out what was supposed to follow what, somehow causes and effects kept switching places in her memories.
At least she could be almost sure that now was actually the present, and that things would proceed in a more orderly manner in the future. Or so she hoped.
Time was piecing itself back together, a straight arrow from “before” to the “after”.
"Whee! Best party EVER!"
Pinkie propped her up as the legs were about to give up from underneath a tired Princess, distracting her from her existential contemplation. “But what happened? How did you done it?”
"Well, it’s really simple once you figure it out. You see, chronovores don’t really control the temporal flow, they merely create a local superposition of time-space continuum entanglements that … let me draw you a graph, it’s just basic differential calculus, really."
"Nononono!” Pinkie grabbed her head in mock-agony. “TMI, TMI!"
Twilight poked her friend in her pink side and laughed at her antics.
"Alright, alright. Doesn't really matter anymore, anyway. Come on, we have to find something."
"Wait, wait. We came to a party, so we cannot leave without actually partying. Look, everypony is coming back here!"
Looking around, she knew that Pinkie was right. The first ponies she had teleported away were slowly coming back, confused and afraid.
She looked herself over. Her gown was in tatters, one of her horseshoes cracked, another - lost altogether, her glasses barely holding on her face on a bent and cracked frame, but it really did not matter. She had almost teleported on the stage (that somehow was intact again), to try to tell everypony what had happened and that the danger had passed, but Pinkie was already there.
"Come on everypony, don't be shy! What is it, a funeral? It's time to par-tay!"
The crowd buzzed in surprise. Some of the older ponies were trying to explain something to the younger ones, but no one listened to anyone, too surprised by the recent events.
She completed her teleportation spell, appearing by Pinkie's side on the stage in a lavender flash, and everyone immediately fell into silence, letting their Princess speak. "Friends. Too much has happened today for me to explain now. Please let's set it aside for the time being. We know why we are all here, and we all remember how our miss mayor wanted her farewell party. So LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!"
"Huzzah!" Pinkie jumped at least three yards into the air, falling on the fuse of the party cannon.
As the wave of confetti and streamers covered the plaza and the one-pony orchestra started to play, the crowd fell back in confusion. But soon the first of the guests began to move with the music, and then some more joined it, and soon everypony and mule and griffon and other creature of every shape and size was mixing together, dancing, singing, drinking, all the way to dawn.
And Twilight was with them. She laughed, sang silly songs, and played the games and ate the sweet cake. She shot magical fireworks and told tall tales of their adventures and life.
And was merely happy.
***
But time was back to its inexorable march forwards, and thus it inevitably came to the moment when they had to go. The first colours of dawn lit Equestria's sky, as far away in Canterlot, Celestia raised the sun and started the new day.
It was the glint of the first rays of the morning off the brass that allowed Twilight to find the very thing she was hoping to spot for the most of the night - not that she had a lot of attention to spare from the party. She really had no doubts that when the time would come, she would inevitably find the piece of the old clockwork lying in the grass.
She took Pinkie aside, prying her out of a group of her new friends, and took her back up the hill where she had met her yesterday.
They kept up the inconsequential small talk until Twilight recognised the place.
"Pinkie," she stopped the barrage of her friend's chattering.
"Hmm?" Pinkie used a pause to finish up another milkshake, despite probably eating and drinking at least twice her own weight within the last few hours.
"Pinkie, you cannot imagine how happy I was to see you again. I should’ve told you that… that this wasn't just a party.. it was... well it was your..."
"What, you thought my funeral would be some sombre bore-fest? Hah! No way!"
"And it doesn’t bother you?!"
"Duh, of course not. I am not a silly-filly like you. It was exactly as I wanted it in my will. And it was amazing - with the party cannon, and the giant cake, and the chronovore attack..."
"Huh. I..."
"What?"
"I didn't want you to know when we came. I thought it would be really hard on you."
"But why, Twilley? We all get what we get. Me, and the girls, and even you, silly. Whatever happened here, I have a whole life ahead of me to live, and that's what will always stay with me. That itself would be more than enough, BUT..." she raised her hoof in the air dramatically, "it also will stay with you. And all of those who came here today. And everyone who knows them. While you are all here, it was worth it."
Twilight just hugged her friend, unable to say another word, and they stood there in the light of the dawn until Twilight knew that the time had come. Reluctantly releasing Pinkie from her embrace, she levitated the bit of the mechanism from her gown and gave it to her friend.
“Souvenirs, neat-o." she grabbed it in her mouth and in a single flick of her neck hid it somewhere in the depth of her mane. “Thanks a bunch Twilley, but what is it?”
"Just give it to the other me. When the time comes, she will know."
"What? This whole time there was another you, and you never introduced me? Twy?"
Pinkie looked around trying to find her friend, but Twilight was already veiled behind the Invisibility spell, and at the top of the hill, by the edge of the Everfree Forest, Pinkie was alone.
As she was about to call out to her friend again, a lavender flash lit up the dim morning, and from outside time and space, a slightly singed and much younger Princess Twilight Sparkle had appeared, falling on the grass.
Younger Twilight stood up unsteadily, looking around, and instantly spotted a confused Pinkie Pie.
"Thank Celestia you are here! Come on, Pinkie, we have to go. You have no idea how much time I spent to... Just tell me you didn't touch anything! The smallest change in the time can lead to a cascade of effects..."
Never pausing her speech, she grabbed Pinkie and with a final flash of lavender, both of them were gone.
***
Twilight - the old and tired Twilight - was walking slowly downhill. She half-expected to see Discord again - perhaps he would appear to demand his praise for saving her, or maybe for an "I told you so" he seemed to enjoy, or perhaps to try to aggravate her again…
But the spirit of chaos remained unpredictable and so she stayed alone for now.
She looked down at the town below. Celestia had raised the sun high enough, and the dawn surely had now turned into mid-morning, but the party just kept on going. If anyone knew how to get the party started it was Pinkie Pie after all....
It was then that she realised with surprise, that she no longer felt the familiar dull heartache when she remembered her friend. All her friends, all that they've shared, all the moments they had - both happy and sad, all that was in the past and that she could never get back - all of it was as close to her heart at it had ever been, and yet she felt not the pain of regret and mourning, but a steady feeling of warmth.
She could have returned to the party below. Keep celebrating, maybe even attempt to dance again, and just keep being another guest at the gathering. Maybe meet someone new, or learn something about those beings that came from outside this world to give their farewells to Pinkie or places they came from…
But no, her problems would not be resolved as easily. She still was a Princess, and still a heavy burden of eternity and obligation weighted her down. She was not yet ready to get close to somepony, to make new friends, nor could she afford the time for that.
However... she was the Dean of the University of Magic. Even if now her position mostly involved administrative and research duties with an occasional lecture... she could probably find the time to get some students of her own.
She smiled to herself. She had finally understood why, so long ago, Celestia had chosen her and Princess Cadence, and probably many others as well, from the incalculable numbers of her subjects, to be her personal student.
Accepting all of today's events, all the craziness and fear and excitement, from the first second to the last, whatever order they came in, she took in the last gaze of Ponyville below, of green grass and morning sunlight, the clock tower that stood high above the town, and belated fireworks in the blue sky, she closed her eyes and cast a Teleportation spell.
