Immortals
The two mares sat side by side upon a cloud. It was fitting that their friendship would end in the same place and time that it had begun, all those centuries ago.
The larger was the only pony living who remembered reaching out to a megalomaniac hellbent on throwing away the world if she couldn't have what she wanted.
The smaller was the only pony left who remembered the other as a school principal instead of the High Empress of a nation that spanned a planet.
Together they had buried many friends. The smaller had held the larger when her mentor disappeared, and spoke the eulogy for a lost mother, wife, friend. The larger had guided the smaller to a better life, and each had been great comfort for the other.
Starlight Glimmer, a wizened crone of a mare approaching her fifth century of life, looked out upon the hills and valleys of Equestria. From this vantage at this time, one could see the unspoiled country of ponykind just beginning to flirt with industry. The future site of New Canterlot, now a sleepy hamlet named Ponyville. She took a breath that rattled through the respirator affixed to her snout, and saw it was good.
The larger cleared her throat. Empress Twilight Sparkle saw only innocence she herself would break in the aim of creating a Golden Age. She wept inwardly, and cast her gaze skyward.
Twilight had begat herself a scattering of foals, who had gone on to make their dam proud and multiply. Starlight had counselled generation upon generation, helping to guide the growth of countless. On the balance, neither could say the other was wealthier or poorer.
Twilight cleared her throat. “All these long years, I've kept a secret from you, Starlight.”
She was answered by a voice paper-thin and hoarse from the passage of time. “It's about to happen. I want to watch.”
After a pregnant pause, reality shuddered as if struck a blow by a wrathful deity's forgehammer. Equestria shook, as a wave of rainbow-colored magic washed across the countryside.
Starlight let out a breath that shook, her magical senses tingling as she felt the tangled threads of destiny weaving an immaculate, beautiful tapestry. She frowned when she noticed that Twilight seemed unmoved.
“Five hundred years and you still have the worst poker face imaginable. What have you done?”
Twilight stared down at her, for a moment seeming much farther away than the hoof-width and much older than the hoofful of years that separated them.
“It started out as a game. What could I fix? What could I change? Over time I noticed that some points resisted change, but that changing others would alter the course of history.”
She stared at her hooves. “I changed the course of a river nearly at the dawn of time a single hoof-width. That river now turns the turbines of Ponyville Hydroelectric. I moved the plotlines of the homestead that would become Nickerlite, and made the Pie Clan wealthy. I sat for a painting by the great artist Vermincelli. I added a line to several geneologies; uniting the Pies, Cakes, Apples, and Pears. I wrote an heir to the Griffon Empire; in twenty years a griffon raised among ponies and with ties to two of Equestria's national heroes will take the Scone and the name Grizelda Stormbreaker.”
Starlight snorted. “So you've spent time gallivanting across history.”
Twilight shook her head. “I've seen it all. The fires of Trot burning. Magebeams glittering at the gates of Tartarus. All of it lost, like tears in the rain. And… that's when I really got to work.”
She pointed with a wing towards Sire's Hollow. She smiled as Starlight gaped, watching as a tiny pigtailed filly raced out of her father's bookstore to show off the fallen star adorning her flanks.
“You will be accepted to Celestia's School as well. I failed my test, so Celestia will rest her hopes upon you. Sunburst will be put into classes with myself. He'll be nudged towards the Archives.”
Her dour mood reversed, and her eyes sparkled with the simple joy of a good work performed perfectly. “He will meet a young mare and eventually they'll fall in love. They will venture together to the Frozen North, and their filly will grow alongside Flurry Heart, becoming her hoofmaiden, adviser, and personal Archmage."
She glanced down at Starlight from beyond the gulf of years. "You were always better at deciphering Starswirl's hornwriting than I was, and your Old Ponish is better than mine... will be. You accurately translate his last spell as Omniomorphic. You will have a truer, fuller understanding of Harmony, and of the Spell of All Things than I ever did- even now."
Starlight stared at her, aghast. "Twilight. What have you done?"
Twilight flared her wings wide. "I have given. It is the truest, most honest, deepest part of myself. We both know that the life I lived was not mine. It was yours. I give you my life. I give you our country, in the knowledge you will lead it better than I ever could. I disappear into the annals of history, a mere hoofnote on the shining edifice of your reign."
Starlight shook her head, removing her respirator to cough and spit up a mouthful of blood. "I refuse. I won't allow you to do this. I'll go down there right now and blow my own head off. I died tragically and mysteriously in my foalhood, never to darken your days. Whatever you did never happened." She scowled and growled, vapors of aether coalescing around her horn.
Twilight simply closed her eyes. "Then you leave Equestria without a future, without a hero. Nightmare Moon returns and rules. Chrysalis wins. Sombra raises an army and rolls over our fair nation."
She smiled. The summation of her life's work, accomplished in the most Twilight of ways. Two lines of text scrawled in the right place.
One in the appointment book of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Instead of an open, unshielded classroom, young Twilight Sparkle was lead down to a mage-warded practice room where she was safe from the Sonic Rainboom's wild magic. One in a certain journal kept in Celestia's study. One short sentence.
"I am sorry, my daughter."
She opened her eyes, and held out her arms. Starlight sniffed, and shifted into them. She nestled into the downy chestfluff of the mighty Alicorn of Friendship, and allowed herself to be embraced by wings that had sheltered her in her worst moments. She felt the spell end around them, snapping them back to the present day.
She watched as Twilight began to fade from her sight, strength filling her limbs. Her memory unwound, and stitched itself back together. She could remember the joy of sharing a cutecenera with Sunburst. Of being accepted into the school.
Together with Spike, playfully needling Moondancer and Sunburst as they held hooves, before that fateful missive dragged her away from their hoof-fasting ceremony.
Being surrounded by new friends, and keeping contact with her old friends. Becoming the mare she'd once been so long ago, but from a position of honesty, loyalty, kindness, generosity, and laughter.
As her wings unfurled from her sides, she opened her eyes as her best friend's soft smile disappeared completely, taking with it every vestige of her old life.
She sat staring out across the rolling hills of her country, at a sun freshly risen by her own power, from the highest balcony of her crystalline palace. She raised an uncomprehending hoof to her cheek, blinking away tears.
Try as she might, she would never get the soft smile of a violet alicorn she'd never met out of her mind.
Twilight's smile slowly slid from her face. Above her there were only angry black, roiling clouds of soot. Below her hooves crunched the ashes and cinders of her sacrificed life. She rose and turned, picking a direction and beginning her trek across the endless desert of gray sand.
The Lighthouse Keeper closed her jade-green eyes, and unfurled draconic wings. She nodded faintly, and in turning disappeared entirely.
Dear Princess Celestia...
Today I learned that sacrifice is the highest virtue any pony can ever strive for. That everything you own, including your life, can sometimes better serve the greater good in the possession of someone else.
Equestria Prevails.
-Eternal Princess Twilight Sparkle.