Princess Twilight Sparkle breathed in deeply then let out a huff of air. Becoming a princess came with duties she hadn't anticipated, though admittedly they are duties she should have expected. A princess oversees her ponies and that's how it is.
Twilight Sparkle had been busy since she got up that morning. Her friends had all made appearances throughout the day to help her out but with the setting of the sun she found herself alone in her work now. Most of the work she had to do as Princess of Friendship involved talking with ponies about their problems. Celestia and Luna ran equestria, Cadance ran the crystal empire, and Twilight, she ran the intangible concept of friendship. Both have their ups and downs, she supposed, but Twilight was glad she didn't have Celestia's job. Helping everypony work through friendship problems is enough stress for now.
Twilight had finished her breathing exercise and motioned for the guards to let the next group of ponies in. When the doors opened a particularly young cloud white filly pegasus with a sky blue mane timidly stepped in. She was alone.
"Hello there," Twilight Sparkle said as she stepped down from her throne, afraid it might be intimidating the poor girl. Twilight walked over to the filly and bent down to eye level before saying "I'm Twilight Sparkle, what's your name?"
"uh," the filly began. "I'm Dawnbreeze." The filly looked away from Twilight when she answered. Twilight could tell the filly didn't really want to be standing in front of her to begin with but the filly was here now and Twilight couldn't just send her away.
"That's a pretty name," Twilight told the filly with a smile as she used her magic to remove her crown place it on her throne and laid down in front of the filly. "So, what's the problem Dawnbreeze?"
"My," the filly began, still not meeting Twilight's gaze. "All my friends are gone."
"How do you mean?" Twilight asked.
"My two bestest friends, they are sisters, and their mommy and daddy moved them away to Baltimare," the filly shed some tears but was winning the battle with her emotions that demanded she cry.
"Baltimare isn't that far away, I'm sure if you ask your mommy and daddy they'll be able to figure some way for you three to be together again real soon," Twilight said, rubbing a hoof along the filly's back.
"I know, my mommy said that we can see each other every few weeks or so," the filly told Twilight with a sniff.
"So then what's the problem?" Twilight asked.
"That's not often enough!" The filly was facing Twilight now, and she was losing the battle of control. "How will friendship help me through this if I can't even see my friends?"
Twilight gave the child a loving smile. She understood full well what the filly was going through, after all, she herself had experienced the same thing with her own friends and family at one point or another. Twilight suspected that most ponies dealt with this same issue.
"You're scared you are going to lose your friends but they aren't gone, they aren't even that far away," Twilight said. She then gently poked the filly in the chest. "They took a bit of your heart with them when they left, and they left a bit of theirs with you."
"I don't know," Dawnbreeze said, looking down again.
"Hey now," Twilight said before leaning her head to the filly's ear and whispering "I'm going to let you in on a little secret." The filly looked up at Twilight, ready to listen. Twilight motioned with a nod for the filly to follow her, which she did. Twilight lead the filly to a nearby balcony.
"Look up," Twilight told the filly. "Tell me what you see."
"The moon?" asked the filly. There just so happened to be a full moon that night, which shone all over the little buildings of Ponyville.
"Exactly," Twilight said. "And do you want to know something about this moon?"
"What?" asked the filly.
"It happens to be the exact same moon your friends can see all the way in Baltimare," Twilight told her.
"So what?" asked the filly.
"So what? So everything," Twilight informed the filly. "When I was younger my brother left to go be a royal guard, I didn't get to see to much of him after that. But one night, when he was able to make it home in time to say goodnight, I told him how upset I was we never see each other any more. And do you know what he told me?"
"No," the filly shook her head, still looking up at Twilight.
"He told me that we'd never be apart so long as we were looking at the same moon. He said that no matter how far away we were from each other we could look up at the moon and know the other is looking up too," Twilight said with a smile. Then she sighed. "I know somewhere right now my brother is probably looking at the moon and thinking the same thing."
"Did it really help?" The filly ask Twilight.
"It still helps," Twilight told the filly. "I miss my brother every day I don't see him but it'd be unreasonable to see him everyday, we are both very busy ponies after all. This is how we stay together. And so long as you and your friends can understand that friendship doesn't know distance then you are never truly apart."
And the Princess and the filly looked up at the moon and thought of the pony they missed. And they were content.
