New Wings

The wake was solemn and intimate, with only close friends attending. There was almost no family left aside from the brother, and he was too far away to be able to make it, away in another empire and under constant threat from external elements. Thus, the only ponies present were the deceased’s five closest friends, and the two alicorns presiding over the ceremony.

There were plenty of tears, plenty of self – hate at not noticing their friend’s plight among the five, and plenty of melancholy to go around. Each step they took upon approaching the coffin was weighed down with the weight of the world itself, and each look they took upon the visage of the pony who had brought them all together in the first place stirred within them mixed feelings. There was the all – consuming sadness, and the ever – present guilt as always was in times of great tragedy, and there was a hint of something different. Disgust? Contempt? No, it was something less, for such good friends could never hate each other for their mistakes, even if her mistake was to kill and attempt to take her victims’ wings for her own. It wasn’t hate, it was a mix of curiosity, guilt and anger, torn between despising her for her acts, despising themselves for not doing anything about it, and wondering what drove her to such acts in the first place.

Silence reigned in the small hall. There were far too few ponies to make a ruckus in the first place, and they cared for and loved the pony in the coffin far too much to disrespect her last moments above the earth. Other ponies avoided the place, knowing only her crimes and not her, hating her for her madness. There was also certainty amongst the grievers that they would be branded as friends of a murderer once the ceremony ended, yet they cared not, knowing that their friend would have stuck up for them if they were the ones in such a position. She was their friend, one of the greatest unicorns that the world ever saw, but most of all she was their friend.

Princess Celestia stepped forward, regal and graceful even in her sorrow. She wept little during the wake, but her sister beside her knew that she was far more hurt than she let on. It was who she was, as always, being forced to be strong when all she wanted to do was be the weak, vulnerable and normal pony that she was at times. Sadness was never an option for her, for goddesses and supreme rulers had to be above such trifles. In a way, she envied Princess Luna, who had the freedom to be herself, to be sad, to be angry, and to be joyful in public. She had no such options. From the very beginning her personality and her actions were decided – she was the benevolent ruler who above all else always stayed kind, fair and calm. She was the ruler her land and ponies needed, and deserved, but not the one she wished to be.

Beside Celestia stood Luna, her slightly smaller form stern, trying to be strong for her sister, which was a little easier on her for the only ties she had with the dead was one of gratitude for returning her to her good self and helping her become accepted by the public. She had vowed to herself that she would repay her by letting her memory live on as the element of magic and as the savior of Equestria thrice over, not as the pony that killed.

A small dragon hatchling was standing beside the two sisters, weeping loudly at the loss of his surrogate parent. He had been left behind when she left Canterlot to pursue her insanity, and thus he was exempt from the judgment of society, not subjected to the stigma that would now follow the pony who raised him forever. However, he would have not minded being hated by the world if it meant that she weren’t in the coffin, and she wouldn’t leave him alone. Racked by sadness he bawled on the floor beside the coffin, beating on it until one of the ponies picked him up and hugged him, taking him to her friends.

Few words were said as the coffin shut, marking the permanent departure of Twilight Sparkle from the world, from her studies, from her love, and from her friends.

Celestia had retired to her private chambers, closing the curtains and hiding from public scrutiny. Once the doors shut and the curtains slid closed, she began to weep openly, letting her tears fall onto the ground, not caring for anything. She lost her best student, and the closest pony she ever had to a daughter. She wept, her ethereal mane dropping down to the floor and her regal form collapsed on her bed in a heap.

“We – I suspected that thou felt such,” came her sister’s voice from the doorway. She walked up to Celestia, saying, “I would suggest that thou - you - hide not.”

Celestia quickly composed herself so that her speech wasn’t affected by her tears. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand... Over a thousand years Equestria has created this mass delusion that I am perfect, and I can’t go breaking that illusion.” She sobbed a little more and added, “That illusion which also led to her being this way...”

“Sister, care not for what they think. They know nothing, and it is your own life after all. And regardless of what they say, or what you say to yourself, it is not your fault.”

“It is... Can I confide in you some things?”

“You can tell me anything, sister.”

“Sit next to me,” said Celestia. Her tears had stopped by now. She gestured to the side of the bed that was unoccupied, motioning for Luna to sit down. Once she had, she began to recount her tale. “You were in Fillydelphia then, so you would not know of the circumstances of her going insane. There are two major things that happened, and they were my fault one way or the other.”

“A few days before she left Canterlot and Ponyville to wander around, Twilight approached me with some personal matters on her mind that she needed my help with. They were no mere academic questions as usual, but something more emotional in nature. She professed love for me, no doubt because of her seeing me as perfect. I did what I had to do, of course, and rejected her. I was surprised by how sharp she was, instantly discerning the real reason I refused to reciprocate.”

“She knew that you rejected her because you couldn’t live with grief for the rest of your life. I fail to see how it makes her death your fault.”

“She was always more taken with me than any other pony, even when she was young. I can only imagine that it was more painful for her.”

“She inflicted the pain on herself when she saw her rejection wrongly. It was not your fault she turned into that – that madmare.”

“There was another thing that happened, the night that I spurned her advances. It was my fault – indirectly, I thought, at first, until some evidence came to light only recently. I will speak of it later. That night she spent in her family home. I understand that her family came home to her sleeping in her room, a candle on her desk as usual whenever she studied late. They paid no attention to it and left her in peace, retiring to their own room. And in the middle of the night, that candle burned down the house. It left her mostly untouched, with only a few burns, but her parents died, the fire from her room trapping them in theirs directly upstairs.”

“I thought it was simply great misfortune coupled with rejection that drove her mad. But I soon found out that there was more to it than that. I visited her old home a few days back, and found something in the ashes – a note she meant obviously for herself. It turns out she intended to leave the candle unattended and see whether I truly cared for her enough to save her. Sadly, I chose the wrong night to sleep, and she paid the price. I can only think how that would have affected her – to be spurned, to lose your family, and to feel abandoned by the one you look up to – all on the same day.”

Luna took Celestia’s silence as a cue for her to voice her thoughts. “As sad as that is, I sincerely doubt that somepony as sensible as your student would descend to insanity for something like that. Many other ponies go through worse in one day and yet they trudge on. Surely one who qualified to be your protégé can do the same.”

Celestia opened her mouth to speak but stayed her words. Luna’s thoughts were sensible, and the more Celestia thought of them, the more sense they made. No matter how enamored Twilight was, it simply made no sense for her to become a murderer from a mere spurned advance. She was stronger and smarter than that.

“Perhaps there is more to this than meets the eye, sister? Enough, possibly, to warrant a deeper look?”

“Perhaps. But I wish to rest now. There is nothing I can do anymore... She is gone. She was the closest to me aside from you... And she had such a bright future ahead of her. It’s a shame her time had to be cut short.” Celestia’s eyes were dripping tears, yet her voice wavered not. It wasn’t in the way of a princess – of a ruler – to show weakness. Sometimes Celestia regretted being the princess, for it meant that she could very rarely be herself.

Luna’s thoughts were elsewhere though. She shared in the grief, but her thoughts were currently wandering. She was absentmindedly chewing on her mane, and said, “Her time was cut short, tragically so, but I think you can help her still. You just need time on your hooves, sister.” Her emphasis as she spoke was unnatural, as though her words meant another thing entirely.

“Are you implying what I think you are?”

“I implied nothing, sister. I merely said that you needed time. Maybe we can talk about it some more tomorrow, in the quiet library, where the troubles of the world are polite enough to keep silent?” Luna turned her back towards her sister, stepping away and leaving her to contemplate. Tomorrow would be when she decided.

“I still cannot believe you would actually suggest this,” said Celestia to her younger sister. “I appreciate, but I would never have expected you to want me to go through with it.

“I see how sad Twilight Sparkle’s circumstances have made you, and I cannot have that,” she answered, smiling. “If this is the way to help you be happy once more, and get that bright future you spoke fondly of, then I shall stand behind it all the way.”

The Canterlot archives were majestic, even for those with little appreciation of knowledge. There were thousands of shelves filled with tomes, some not found anywhere else in the world. Tomes stretched out in every direction, a massive labyrinth of text and wisdom.

The wing in which the royal sisters were in was less conspicuous, with smaller shelves and less decoration aside from the single large hourglass set in the center, in front of which they stood, Celestia clasping a book in her magic. It was a nondescript book, bound in black, without any text to identify it. The only feature that stood out aside from its blankness was the iron chain bound around it, with a lock to keep it secure.

Celestia’s horn glowed as she put it in the hole of the lock, magic coursing through the grooves in her horn to the small gaps within the mechanism. The lock fell open, and Celestia opened the book.

It was a good thing that they had the foresight to dismiss the guards beforehand, for the moment the pages turned, a voice emanated from the paper. It was the voice of a pony who was an old friend of Celestia. A very old friend.

“Celestia! I had given up on you ever waking me up. A thousand years as a book... I started to regret it only last year when the library stopped expanding.”

“Starswirl. It has been a long time, old friend.” Celestia smiled. Even if the situation was somber, it was reassuring to talk to one of her oldest friends. “I still fail to see why you preserved yourself in a book when you could have had the past thousand years as rest.”

“My quest for knowledge will not let me do that. I chose to keep bits of myself here so that I may continue to learn until my pages rot. A solitary existence, no doubt, but I have my books and my spells to comfort me. I need nothing else. Now, you have indulged my pent – up craving for speech. What do you need of me?” The book’s pages flapped a bit downward, as though bowing.

“I need a certain spell that will bring me back to the past, for there is something I must change. I need to be able to stay indefinitely, and yet be able to leave when I need to. And I need to be able to safely change the past without destroying the future.”

“Time travel. One of the magics that always eluded me, for I was but a humble unicorn in life, and but an ancient tome past that. However, you’ll find that I have just the trick.” The book turned its pages, coming to a halt at a point with several runes drawn on them, and a few words. “This is the best time spell I have ever created, and will ever create. However, only a creature of immense power could possibly hope to use it. And even then there are plenty of risks. Once you get to the past – provided that you do – you will be unable to use your magic. Your magic will return only when you come back to the time when the spell was cast. You will have to live out the days as a normal pony then.”

“That will suffice, for the most part. Luna, I believe you can take care of the kingdom while I take care of our youngest princess?”

“Of course, sister. Worry about yourself.”

“Those are not all the extra details involved. There is a little extra information you need to know. Only those present and witness to the casting of the spell will know that you exist while you are gone. You will be erased from history while you change it, and if you never return none shall ever know that you once were. Is this a risk that you are willing to take?”

“Twilight put her life on the line many times for my sake. She has saved the world as we know it thrice over. Now it is my turn to risk it all to get her back that she may continue being the heroine that Equestria knows, not a murderer forgotten and left to rot in shame.”

The book chuckled. “Hahaha! Well said. I’m not going to try and change your mind; I know how pointless that is. If you are ready, then read the page I have opened aloud. And be careful.”

“I will.” Celestia took a deep breath, and incanted the incantation in the pages, willing them to show their power. As she spoke the pages around her flew, as though caught in a typhoon, and the floor began to glow a vivid blue. Everything floated upwards as she cast the spell. The light grew more and more until it enveloped the library, and in a flash Celestia was gone.