Mother

Twilight Sparkle sat in her room, the dawn sending a soft, orange glow in through her open window. She had not slept a wink. What had happened the night before was impossible, but it had happened, all the same.

There it sat upon her reading desk: The Element of Magic. It was scuffed, battered, and twisted out of shape, but there it sat, all the same, emitting a strange, magical influence that she and she alone could sense.

Despite its presence, her eyes were fixed elsewhere, upon the only other thing of any consequence that had been found in the dead unicorn's saddlebag: a photograph which floated before her in the air, glimmering purple.

It showed a group of humans; faces she remembered vividly, though older, harder, and decidedly more weary than they had been when last she laid eyes upon them. For those exigencies, still each face in the faded image bore a smile.

They stood in a group, having posed for the image on top of a battered, ugly machine that she recognized as a battle tank. It was different than she would have expected, but such weapons had not existed in her own world for thousands of years. She knew of them only from vague accounts in very old history books. The tank was scorched and ruined, destroyed in some conflict, and the six women seated and standing on top of it all wielded weird human weapons. Even for all this, however, the thing in the picture upon which her eyes lingered was not a human, at all.

It was a dog.

She smiled sadly at the big, shaggy mutt that sat in the center of the group. Its entire body was colored as no dog had a right to be, and it seemed to smile in a way no animal should be able to smile. Its peculiar, reptilian eyes shone happily. The woman she had pulled through the mirror knelt beside it. One of her arms was wrapped around the canine's shoulders, and between two fingers of that same hand, there was a burning cigarette. That woman was now a dead pony who lay under a white sheet in the sole vault of the Palace infirmary's small morgue.

Twilight flipped the photo over, and a tear rose to her eye as she read a short message scrawled there.

Twilight, if you're reading this, I guess we won. I wish I could have been there to see it, but if you're reading this message, my luck must have run out. Don't feel bad for me, though. I had some hella great times with some awesome people. In a way, it never really felt like I left home.

Teach this woman how to be a unicorn, would you? I think she'll get a kick out of it. She really likes these goofy books about magic and wizards and stuff, even though none of that really exists here. She's been as good a friend to me as you always were. It feels weird to have her taking a letter for me, but, well, paws, you know?

– Your Number One Assistant, Spike.

That was it; the last thing she would ever see or hear of her best friend and dearest, number one assistant. She flipped the photograph over, and looked at it once more, lighting a cigarette.

“Oh, Spike,” she sighed, exhaling the cloud of smoke. “I turn into a recluse and you turn into a hero. Why didn't I try to find a way back to you? If only I'd known...”

She flipped the photo over, and once more read the brief note on the back.

“Really fucked it all up, didn't I?” she said.

“Twilight?”

It was Lyra's voice, muffled through the door.

“Come in!” said Twilight. “It's unlocked.”

The door glowed green before opening, and Lyra Heartstrings stepped inside.

“What are you looking at?” asked the unicorn, curiously.

“Just an old picture,” Twilight replied. “Probably wouldn't interest you.”

She opened a drawer on her desk, and dropped the photo inside before shutting it.

“I just...” Lyra began, but then stopped.

“What?” asked Twilight, after the silence lingered for a few seconds.

“I'm sorry,” said Lyra. “I'm sorry about Celestia and about this whole mess.”

“You shouldn't be. You were just being's somepony's mom.”

“Yeah,” said Lyra, “poorly. I couldn't even keep his other mom around, I'm such a fuck-up.”

“Bon Bon took off, huh?” asked Twilight. “Ponies come and go, Lyra, and sometimes, they stay gone. Doesn't change who you are.”

"Oh, yes it does," said Lyra. "More than anything."

"I suppose you're right," said Twilight.

“I just wish he'd have had a more normal life," sighed Lyra. "I wish all this had never happened.”

Twilight continued to stare at the crown she had once worn.

“It was inevitable,” she said. “All this got started a long, long time ago. It wasn't your choice or mine. It really wasn't even Princess Celestia's.”

“She could have ended it, though,” said Lyra. “She didn't have to do what she did. I'm so grateful to her, but I'm ashamed to even tell her that.”

“Well, don't be,” said Twilight. “You'd be surprised how forgiving she can be. I'm not the only one who will tell you that, either.”

She ashed her cigarette into the tray, and turned to face Lyra.

“In fact, I'd like to see her, right now, come to think of it.”

“She's asleep,” said the unicorn. “At least I think she is. She woke up to raise the sun, and then the doctor asked her to go back to bed. She offered her a sedative and some morphine, but she wouldn't take either one. She just laid back down. That was when I came up here.”

“Well, I'm gonna wake her up,” said Twilight. “There's something I'd like to show her.” She levitated the crown from where it sat, but did not put it on. It was too bent out of shape to be worn, anyway.

“Come with me,” said Twilight, “if that would make you feel better.”

“I think it might,” said Lyra.

***

Celestia lay awake, staring at the wall. She was still exhausted, but the throbbing aches of her severed limbs and the accompanying sting of so many tiny wounds all over her body forbade her sleep. Suddenly, she felt a hoof on her right shoulder, but could not see to whom it belonged.

“Luna?” she mumbled, and as she rolled her head to the right, her one remaining eye saw not her sister, but her student.

“Twilight,” she said. “So good to see you smile.”

“Look,” whispered the purple alicorn, and she levitated into Celestia's view a thing that made her heart stop.

“Impossible,” she whispered, staring at the Element of Magic.

“Yeah,” said Twilight. “It's like a deus ex machina in a badly-written book.”

“I'm going to need an explanation,” said Celestia, sitting up. Her mane hung limp, and she swayed as she put her three remaining hooves on the floor. She tried to stand, but collapsed back to her haunches, still weak.

“I'll tell you later,” said Twilight, “when we're alone. I just thought you should see this.”

“I can't believe it,” said Celestia, and the crown's glow faded from purple to a golden, yellow-white. It floated over, and rotated slowly in front of her, slightly to the left so that she did not have to turn her head.

Her neck and shoulders still ached from the whiplash of being hurled to the earth by the blast of the tiny, collapsing star.

“There's someone who wanted to speak to you,” said Twilight, and Lyra stepped into Celestia's field of view.

She relinquished her telekinetic grip on the crown, and Twilight resumed her own, setting it gently on a small nightstand by the Princess' bed.

“Lyra Heartstings,” said Celestia, kindly.

“Yes, it's me,” said the unicorn.

“I half-expected Spike,” said Celestia, sadly.

Twilight shook her head, gently.

“Turns out not everything that dies always comes back,” she said.

“It makes things more precious, in a way, doesn't it?” asked Celestia, thinking only briefly of how much she would miss her faithful student, one day.

Twilight nodded, but said nothing else.

“What did you want, Lyra?” asked Celestia.

“I had to thank you,” said Lyra. “I know you could have put an end to this already, and right now, I almost wish you had.”

Celestia shook her head.javascript:void(%200%20);

“That is not your decision to make,” she said.

“I know that,” said Lyra, “but after what happened yesterday, everypony is going to wonder what's going on. If they find out, they'll want you to kill him.”

“Well,” said Celestia, “I guess it's a good thing this isn't a democracy.”

She laughed, and there was a bitter, angry undertone to it that seemed alien even to herself.

“Hell,” she grinned, “This isn't even a dictatorship. This is a theocracy, and I am God.”

She lifted her head, and sat up as tall as she could manage.

“Nopony will lay a hoof on your son.”

Lyra stared up at the Princess in stunned silence.

“Is that what you came here for?” asked Celestia.

“I think it was,” whispered Lyra.

“Go see your boy,” said Celestia, leaning close to the unicorn, and smiling.

As soon as Lyra left the room she sank back, sucking air through her clenched teeth, and groaning quietly.

“Are you alright?” asked Twilight.

“I'm fine," said Celestia. "It's really not so bad, except that I'm supposed to smile all the time, and it makes the cuts on my face open up and bleed, again.”

"I can see that," said Twilight. "I can stop the bleeding with a spell." As she said these words, Twilight's eyes turned towards the twisted crown, and Celestia detected a strange note of sadness in her voice.

“Don't trouble yourself," said Celestia. "It's good for a wound to bleed a little, Twilight. It cleans it."

"Is that a lesson?" asked Twilight.

"An observation," said Celestia, quietly.

They sat in silence for a few moments, and then Celestia turned to look at Twilight, again.

“I wondered where you were every single day,” she said.

“I did, too,” said Twilight, and she sat back on her haunches. “You know, I didn't mean to stay gone forever.”

“You could have fooled me,” said Celestia.

“I just wanted to clear my head,” said Twilight. “Just to figure things out. That was all.”

“Did you have any luck?” asked Celestia, and her tone was utterly sincere.

“No,” said Twilight, quietly. “I just sat there thinking about it; running it all through my head over and over, trying to see what I could have done differently. I just couldn't stop thinking of every single little change that might have made a difference. For the first few months, I didn't even read.”

“You're kidding,” said Celestia, bluntly.

“Dead serious,” said Twilight through a bitter chuckle. “I thought I would; that's why I went to that place. I couldn't get everything off my mind long enough to read a single page, though. I was just sitting alone one night in that ugly, old library, just thinking about it, and I cracked.”

She started breathing heavily,

“I started screaming," she said. "There I was in this old, empty place, all alone. I mean, not one pony in the entire world knew where I was, and I was just there, all by myself, screaming bloody murder.”

A tear rose out of the lacrimal gland in Celestia's empty, bandage-covered eye socket. It stung.

“I just screamed until I totally lost my voice,” said Twilight. “Then, I went and took a book off the shelf. It was Horsodotus: A History of Equestria, Volume I – in Latin, no less, but I read the whole thing. I'll never forget that book. I can still smell it, even.”

Celestia heard Twilight swallow a lump in her throat.

“That was when I realized I was never coming home,” she said.

“And yet here you are,” said Celestia, “and there sits the Element of Magic; your crown.” She nodded towards it, ignoring the nagging ache that even such a simple motion of her neck elicited.

Twilight said nothing.

“That is yours, Twilight Sparkle, and it belongs to a set.” Her one eye chose one of Twilight's two, and fixed itself there.

“You were always coming home.”

***

Rarity stumbled down the hallway towards her hotel room. She wasn't sure what she needed, but she knew she needed something.

“Something mild,” she said. “Too early to get myself totally blitzed.”

“Rarity!”

She winced, then realized it was not Sweetie Belle's voice, for once.

“Twilight?” She turned to face her friend, who was wearing a single saddlebag.

Twilight levitated the Element of Magic out of the bag, and let it hover in front of her as she approached the unicorn.

“Can you fix this?” she asked.

Rarity looked at the hovering, twisted crown.

“Of course I can,” she said, sweetly. “Just leave it in my room. I'll get right to it, as soon as I can.”

She turned and opened her door. Twilight followed her inside, and looked around.

“Wow,” said the alicorn. “Nice place. It's bigger than my room at the Palace.”

“You should see Sweetie's room,” said Rarity, “except that it's a mess.”

She walked towards her bathroom.

“Just leave it on my dresser, there,” she said. “I'll be right out.”

When she emerged from the bathroom, Twilight still stood at her dresser, looking down at something.

“Shit,” she muttered.

She had left her candle, her spoon, and an empty syringe on the dresser the night before.

Twilight turned, and gave her a concerned look.

“Rarity, this is too much.”

“Don't give me that,” said Rarity. “I get enough of it from Sweetie Belle.”

“Apparently you don't get enough of it from anypony,” said Twilight. “I always knew you did some pills, but this is fucking heroine, Rares. That shit will kill you.”

“Hasn't yet,” said Rarity.

“Seriously?” asked Twilight. “You're smarter than this.”

“I'm smart enough to take care of myself,” said the unicorn. “It's just a little horse, Twi.”

“A little horse?” asked Twilight, her voice edged with skepticism and anger.

“You know what?” she said. “I'll have somepony else fix this thing.” She tucked the crown back into her saddlebag.

“Twilight, don't be obtuse. Nopony else is going to do as good a job as I will.”

Twilight looked at her, blinking, her mouth drawn into a tight line. After a moment, she levitated the crown once more from her saddlebag, and sat it on the dresser beside the mirror.

“Just be careful,” said Twilight. “Okay?”

“I'm always careful,” said Rarity.

Twilight left the room without a further word, and left Rarity staring at the artifact that rested on her dresser.

“Always careful,” she said, and she stepped to take a closer look at the Element of Magic.

“What a mess,” she said, not sure if she was referring to the battered crown.

“I'll need some help on this one,” she said. She removed a small key that she kept tucked away in her mane, and opened the drawer on her jewelry box where she stored her raw heroine.

Beside it lay the Element of Generosity. She had put both of these things there because this was the only locking drawer the jewelry box had. The image of the purple diamond stopped her cold. She lifted the amulet from where it lay, and examined it. After a moment, she put it on, and looked at herself in the mirror.

“Fuck me,” she said, and she slammed shut the drawer without removing anything else from it.

“I can fix this shit without any help, at all,” she said, scowling at the crown.

Her head swam, slightly.

“Except maybe a little gin.”

***

Shining Armor stumbled into the infirmary, his head throbbing. The strain of reinforcing the magical shield that surrounded the sleeping colt was beginning to take a heavy toll on him, but he had told nopony. They all had enough on their minds and hearts, as it was.

This was merely his part of the weight to bear.

As he stepped into Shimmershine's room, he saw Lyra Heartstrings, asleep once more on the couch.

“For the best,” he said.

She always had questions whenever he entered the foal's room, and he never had answers to offer. If she was exhausted enough to sleep, maybe her dreams were offering her some small peace of mind.

“They won't if I don't keep this barrier up, though,” he mumbled, and he turned towards the colt.

Shimmershine was looking right at him.

His heart skipped a beat, and he backpedaled several paces.

Regaining control of himself, he stepped forward.

“Is that... you?” he asked.

The foal nodded, still lying on his side. His eyes were glistening with tears.

Lyra stirred, awakened by the clatter of Shining's hooves on the floor as he had jumped back in surprise. She sat up, and gasped with a mixture of surprise and joy to see some semblance of awareness returned to Shimmershine's face. She was beside his bed in a second.

“I'm gonna go get Princess Celestia,” said Shining Armor. “She'll be here, ASAP.” He pronounced the acronym “A-sap,” a habit he had picked up in the military, and never dropped.

He said nothing else, but, turned and headed quickly out the door.

The colt sat upright in bed on his haunches, and stared downward, blinking. His mother sat down beside him on the bed's edge, her hind legs hanging down and her back erect in a fashion that was peculiar to her.

She had no idea what to say. She was aware, on a certain level, that the creature sitting beside her was not the same as the foal she had raised, but she did not know how to approach that truth.

Finally, she decided she would have to speak.

“Are you okay?” was all she could think of.

The foal shrugged, but said nothing.

“You want some food?”

There was a tray with some hay and oats on it that had been brought in earlier for Lyra, but she had not touched it. Shimmershine looked over at it, sitting on the nightstand, and nodded.

Lyra levitated it over in front of him, and he began to eat, still not speaking. She watched him for several minutes, and then the door opened.

“So he is awake,” said Princess Celestia.

She stepped unsteadily through the door. Neither she nor Lyra said anything else. They simply watched Shimmershine finish his meal.

Finally, after he had swallowed his last bite, Princess Celestia spoke again.

“Do you remember me?” she asked.

“Yes, I do,” said Shimmershine, “from when I met you in Ponyville, and from... before.”

Lyra was amazed. It was her son's voice, but at the same time not. There was a weight in it that it had never borne before, as if all the cares of an old, old stallion had been forced onto the fragile mind of a little colt.

“Well,” said Celestia, “how do you feel?”

“Lonely,” said the foal.

Lyra was compelled to reach out and touch him; to embrace him, or to offer some words of comfort, but could not find it in herself to do so.

“Why would you feel lonely?” asked Celestia. “Isn't somepony sitting right beside you?”

“I know,” said the foal. “Lyra Heartstrings. She's thirty-four years old, and her cutie mark is a lyre. She likes music and fairy tales.”

Lyra felt strange to hear her son describe her so plainly. It hurt deeply in a way that she could not fully decipher. Then, he said something that caused that hurt immediately to fade.

“She's my mother.”

“Yes,” said Celestia. “Now, who are you?”

“I'm...” He stopped, and after several seconds, he lifted his head.

“My name is Shimmershine,” he said.

“Precisely,” said Celestia.

“I wanna go home,” said the foal.

Now, at last, Lyra leaned over and hugged her son, tightly. He began to cry, and so did she.

***

“When will they come again?” asked Cadance.

Celestia stared out of the bedroom window of the same royal suite Twilight had rejected, and shook her head. The sun was hanging over the western sky, and somewhere in the Palace, Lyra Heartstrings was doing her best to comfort a being who was in every way both a foal and an ageless, cosmic deity.

“There is no way to know,” said the white Princess. “Shimmershine cannot contain them. He remembers what he used to be, but that has not restored his power in any respect. Nor has it given him the ability to contain these spirits, as I had hoped it might. I think we are safe as long as he is awake, but that is all I can say – and that only tentatively.”

“Will you try to fight them again?” asked the pink alicorn.

“Of course I will,” said Celestia, her brow furrowing. "I hope that it will be unnecessary, now that the Element of Magic has been returned to us, but if I must, I most certainly shall."

“But you're hurt,” said Cadance.

“Immaterial,” said Celestia. “My horn works as well as ever.”

“Yes,” said Cadance, “but you can't fly, you can't run, and you have a blind side, now – not to mention the pain. You're good at hiding it, but I can tell you're suffering. So can Twilight and Aunt Luna. Why won't you take any medicine?”

“I need my wits about me, Cadance. If that means I have to suffer a bit, so be it.”

“Bullshit,” said Cadance, and she nodded at an empty Cognac bottle on a table beside Celestia's bed. “This isn't about your wits; it's about ]wanting to hurt, for some reason.”

“Maybe I'm enjoying the pain,” said Celestia, her voice low and dark.

Cadance recoiled at her aunt's words.

“I have not been wounded – physically wounded – in aeons, Cadance. This agony makes me feel alive. It reminds me of the weight of my decision. It reminds me of Shimmershine and of his mother and of the pain they now bear. It reminds me of what will happen if we fail.” She drew a deep breath, and raised her head, proudly.

“I need it, I deserve it, and I will not be deprived of it.”

“Aunt Celestia, that's masochism,” said Cadance, accusingly.

“Yes,” whispered Celestia.

Author's Note

If you've come this far, just hold on a bit longer.