Quite Ready for Another Adventure
“Grandma! Grandma!”
Sweetie Belle sighed and closed her book.
“Grandma!”
“I’m here, Dawn. In the study.”
Today’s entry to the diary would simply have to wait.
Shining Dawn tumbled into the room in a tangle of squeaks.
“Well! What on earth could have got you so excited, Dawn? I thought you were going off to play with your friends by the brook?”
“No, Grandma! Something important is happening! Everypony’s saying Princess Celestia is visiting Ponyville today!” The filly had picked herself up and danced up and down as she spoke, her deep blue mane bouncing over her horn.
Sweetie Belle breathed deeply and removed her glasses with her magic, cleaning them with a piece of cloth.
“Princess Celestia. Well, I never.”
“They say she hasn’t visited these parts in a hundred years!”
At that, Sweetie chuckled and replaced the glasses on the end of her nose.
“Now that, Dawn, is a bit much. She was here just a few summers ago, do you not remember?”
Dawn scratched her forehead.
“I think I do.”
Sweetie rose and ruffled Dawn’s mane. “You were a very little filly then, but you were there. I took you to see her specially, since she hardly ever comes to visit these days.”
Dawn giggled. “Not unless she’s visiting mad ol’ Twilight, right, Grandma?”
“Hush!” Sweetie’s expression abruptly flared. Dawn cowered, but her grandmother’s face softened as quickly as it had risen to anger. “Twilight Sparkle has seen a great many things, Dawn, that neither you nor I could understand. She may be very old, but she is fiercely intelligent. She’s wiser than you and me put together.”
Dawn rose off the ground slightly. “But the other fillies at school say she’s lost her mind, Grandma. They say she does nothing all day but sit outside that treehouse of hers that used to be the library, gazing at her books and saying things nopony understands. Things about friendship and all.”
Sweetie Belle sighed and pushed a strand of grey hair from her face.
“Long ago, Dawn, when I was your age, the Princess used to visit Ponyville several times each year. She sent her own student here, to live among us and learn about the magic of friendship, and report back to her on her findings.”
Shining Dawn’s eyes went as round as saucers. “No way! The Princess’ student lived here? That must have been so cool!”
Sweetie laughed. “If you can’t remember the last time Celestia was here, we should pay her a visit. We don’t travel to Canterlot very often these days, not since Rarity...” Sweetie stopped with a faraway expression, halfway through pulling on her cardigan with one hoof in its sleeve.
“You need to put your other hoof through, Grandma.”
“Yes. Sorry.” Sweetie pushed her left hoof through the cardigan and did up the buttons. “Anyway, we don’t often go to Canterlot these days, and it’s not every day the Princess comes to visit in Ponyville. You shouldn’t miss it.”
Dawn trundled about behind her grandmother as she gathered her things for a trip into town. “So why’d the Princess come to little old Ponyville? Nothing ever happens here.”
“I don’t know, Dawn. I lost contact with Canterlot when Spike left.”
Dawn thought hard. “Spike. He’s the baby dragon in your stories, isn’t he?”
“Yes. He used to live here, too. He used to send and receive letters from the Princess with his magical fiery breath, and through him we always kept close contact with her.”
“You mean he lived here too? Wow, Grandma, Ponyville must have been a really exciting place to live!”
Sweetie Belle sighed again, trying hard not to play the part of the old sage. In reality, though, it was exactly how she felt. Next to her granddaughter she felt terribly old.
“Yes, Dawn, it was. These are different times that we live in, you and I. Since the publication of the Laws of Harmony, everypony has lived beside each other without quarrel for more summers than most can remember. Ponyville remains a happy place, despite all the changes that have shaped the rest of Equestria.” Sweetie Belle’s horn glowed as she lifted her saddlebags onto her back. “Do you know, those Laws of Harmony were written by Princess Celestia’s student?”
Dawn’s eyes went round again. “The one who came to live in Ponyville? I thought they’d been around for ages!”
Sweetie Belle smiled. “They have. But they were written by that same student of Princess Celestia’s, and she learned her lessons of friendship here in Ponyville.”
The Laws of Harmony were common knowledge to all ponies, of course. They were written on the walls of Ponyville’s schoolhouse: a series of lessons about friendship, written by a very wise pony a very long time ago. Everypony had to learn the laws off by heart. Dawn had never realised that they were actually written in Ponyville, though, or that the laws were written by a student of the Princess. She had always assumed they were written by the Princess herself.
The two ponies were interrupted by the sound of knocking on the door.
Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. “That’s odd. I wasn’t expecting any visitors today. Dawn, would you open the door, please?”
Shining Dawn bounced up to the front door and pulled it open, peering around it carefully. Standing in the porch was an old pegasus, with an orange coat and a grey mane that once might have been purple. Judging by the state of her ruffled feathers and wavy tail, she had just landed from a very wonky flight.
The pegasus grinned at the nervous filly. “You’ve grown since I last saw you, little Shining Dawn!”
“Scootaloo?” Sweetie Belle appeared beside Dawn, her mouth hanging open in amazement.
“Sweetie Belle!”
Dawn hid behind her grandmother from the slightly mad-looking pegasus, but Sweetie Belle leaped forwards joyfully. The two ponies embraced tightly, leaving Dawn standing by herself somewhat awkwardly, as fillies do when adult ponies greet each other.
When the two ponies finally released each other, the pegasus spoke first. “Sweetie Belle, it’s been ages!”
“It has, Scootaloo, it’s been forever. But what are you doing here? How did the Weather Council in Cloudsdale let you take time off to come to Ponyville? I thought you had to be there to plan the weather every day except the third and fourth days of every month.”
“I do, but they let me take the day off specially for this. You know, what with things being how they are and all.”
Sweetie cocked her head slightly. “What with things being how they are and all? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I only just heard that the Princess was coming to visit.”
Scootaloo raised her eyebrows in surprise. Then she leaned in conspiratorially to Sweetie Belle and hissed, “Didn’t you get the letter? I thought all of us had got it.”
“No.” Sweetie Belle stamped her hoof to the ground in irritation. “Dinky must have forgotten us again. You know, I think that mailmare is getting to be just like her mother in her old age.”
Scootaloo sighed. “Then you don’t know why the Princess is here.”
Sweetie Belle gasped, shot a look to Dawn, then leaned in closer. “Why?”
Scootaloo whispered something to Sweetie Belle that Dawn couldn’t hear. Sweetie Belle’s eyes went round with shock, then she nodded gently, as if she had been expecting the news. What the news was, though, was evidently too grown-up for Dawn’s ears.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try to find out, though.
“What? What? What is it, Grandma?” The filly jumped up and down impatiently, until Scootaloo laid a hoof on her friend’s shoulder.
“Hold on there, gal,” Scootaloo said.
“No, it’s all right,” Sweetie Belle said. “Let’s go and see her. Come along Dawn, I’ll explain as we go.”
Dawn trotted out of the door behind her grandmother. Together the three ponies ambled down the path to Ponyville, leaving behind the ramshackle cottage where Dawn and Sweetie Belle lived together.
Sweetie Belle had chosen their cottage deliberately on the edge of Ponyville so that she could focus on her drawings and look out of the window across what used to be Sweet Apple Acres. They didn’t have any real neighbours at the cottage, but Dawn didn’t mind. It wasn’t too far to travel to any of her friends as long as the weather was nice, and if it was raining, Sweetie Belle always had good stories to tell by the fireside.
“You see, Dawn–”
“Sweetie Belle! Scootaloo!”
Sweetie Belle was interrupted again as a yellow mare wearing a large Stetson hat jumped onto her, tackling her to the ground in a fierce hug.
“C’mere, you!”
“Grandma!!” Dawn was about to leap to the protection of her ageing grandmother, but Scootaloo held her back again with a hoof.
“Don’t worry, kid. Applebloom can be a bit rough, but she’s a good friend.”
The mare pulled Sweetie Belle back up to her hooves with a broad grin on her face, straightening her hat. “Sweetie Belle! An’ Scootaloo! Bless my apples, it’s been yonks since I’ve seen you two!”
Sweetie Belle laughed, wheezing slightly. “It has, Applebloom... but my goodness, the summers have been kind to you! There must be something in the water in Appaloosa!”
Applebloom beamed in a wide and toothy grin, and shook her bright red mane proudly. “Sunshine an’ good ol’ fashioned bucking does you a power of good, jus’ like my ol’ granny used to say. I feel as young as the day I left Ponyville.”
Scootaloo gave her a playful shove. “All right, Applebloom, we’re both jealous of how few grey hairs you have. But you can’t still be bucking apples even now?”
Applebloom shook her head sheepishly. “Naw. I had to give that up a while back. Nowadays I jus’ pick the vegetables from the plots. I leave my family to buck the orchards ol’ grandfather Braeburn left. I figured there’s enough of them, an’ they’re old enough an’ ugly enough, so they can manage it themselves now.”
“Speaking of family,” Sweetie Belle said, “I don’t think you’ve met Dawn. When were you last in Ponyville?”
“Five summers ago to the day,” Applebloom said, “An’ no, I haven’t. I was just gonna ask who this shy little filly was.”
Dawn was again hiding behind her grandmother, listening to the big ponies’ conversation without knowing what most of it meant. That was what she usually did when her grandmother spoke to other grown-up ponies she didn’t know.
Now Sweetie Belle turned to her and said kindly, “Dawn, this is Applebloom. She was a good friend to me and Scootaloo when we were small. She used to live on Sweet Apple Acres.”
Applebloom removed her Stetson and extended a hoof to the filly. “Pleased t’meet ya, Dawn. I’ve heard a great many things about you from your grandmother here.”
Frightened by the assertiveness of the earth pony, Dawn shook her hoof timidly, saying, “Why do you wear that massive hat?”
Applebloom creased with laughter as she replaced the hat, making Dawn shrink back behind her grandmother again. “Why, that’s a good question! I’ve never given it much thought. My ol’ sister used to wear it all the time, an’ now I wear it. I guess that’s jus’ how it goes.”
Scootaloo whistled. “I wonder where Applejack got the hat from?”
“No idea,” Applebloom replied. “Honestly, I used to think she was born wearing it. No wonder Rarity found it so hard gettin’ her to wear anythin’ else! She loved this hat to bits.”
Sweetie Belle chuckled. “I remember my sister chasing her halfway across Ponyville with some elaborate hat she’d made, begging her to put it on...”
“Was that when we tried our hooves at hat-making?” Scootaloo giggled.
“Naw, Rarity couldn’t stand those things!” Applebloom said, hooting with laughter. “As soon as we showed them to her, she shrieked and banned us from the Carousel Boutique for a week!”
Scootaloo and Applebloom rolled on the floor, hooves flailing in the air. Sweetie Belle, however, did not join in.
“C-carousel Boutique...” Sweetie Belle turned her wrinkled face to the sky, staring blankly into the clouds. Dawn had seen her looking like that before.
“Grandma,” she said quitely, giving her grandmother a nudge. “Grandma, you’re daydreaming again.”
Sweetie Belle blinked. “Sorry, Dawn. I seem to do that more and more these days.”
“You’re starting to sound like my sister,” Applebloom said, picking herself off the floor and dusting off her hat. Her expression grew more sombre as she spoke. “She used to daydream like that when we moved to Appaloosa. Every time somepony mentioned Sweet Apple Acres, her eyes jus’ glazed over, like.”
There was an awkward silence as the three ponies looked at one another, shuffling their hooves.
Scootaloo broke the silence. “So, you’ve come for the same reason I have, then. You got the letter.”
Applebloom wiped her eyes, screwing them up and opening them again. “I did. I presume we’re all going towards the library in this merry party, then?”
Sweetie Belle nodded. “We are.” The four ponies continued along the road into Ponyville.
“How... how is she these days?” Applebloom asked, for the first time showing concern in her voice.
Sweetie Belle remained silent as they passed by the building that had once been the Carousel Boutique, as she always did, but once they had passed it, she said, “She’s very happy. She doesn’t see much and she doesn’t hear much. She sits outside her library all day long, watching all the ponies as they go by. I’ve never seen her without a big smile on her face, even though I don’t think she can see or hear much. The ponies all call her ‘Grandmother Twilight’...”
“Oh, you mean mad ol’ Twilight?” Dawn interjected.
“...Or ‘mad ol’ Twilight’,” Sweetie Belle finished, with a reproachful look at her granddaughter. Dawn grinned sheepishly.
Scootaloo and Applebloom dissolved into gales of laughter once more. “Mad ol’ Twilight sounds about right,” Scootaloo chuckled, ruffling Dawn’s mane.
“I wish I could have stayed here in Ponyville,” Applebloom said, for the first time sounding as old as Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. “I missed Twilight an’ everypony else when we moved to Appaloosa. I mean, sure, I still had Applejack back then, an’ all the rest of the Apple family. But still.”
Dawn said nothing, watching the stones go by as they trod the path through Ponyville.
“I know what you mean,” Scootaloo said. “I couldn’t wait to go and join Rainbow Dash in Cloudsdale. I love Cloudsdale, even now without her, but I always feel something tugging me back to Ponyville. Like part of me never left, and it keeps calling to me to come back.” Scootaloo looked around her. “Well, here I am. It feels odd.”
“That’s why I never left,” Sweetie Belle said. “Even when Rarity moved to Canterlot, and even though by then most of the other ponies had left too, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I needed Twilight, and I still do. She might be Grandmother to Ponyville, but she’s another big sister to me, and I didn’t want to leave her all on her own here. Rarity had family in Canterlot, but Twilight had nopony in Ponyville, except for me.”
The four ponies had by now almost reached the treehouse that was once Ponyville’s library. Mad ol’ Twilight, or Grandmother Twilight, was as usual sat outside the library in her rocking chair. Her mane was a deep silvered grey, but it still had its old two-shade dash of purple running through it. She held in her hooves an old book, and an apple that some kind filly had thought to give her.
The four ponies stopped opposite from the street from the unicorn, far beyond where the old mare could see or hear.
“Now, Dawn,” Sweetie Belle said, “Twilight is a very special pony. You mustn’t call her mad ol’ Twilight where she can hear you, understand?”
Dawn nodded. “I know, it would hurt her feelings.”
“Quite right. But it’s more than just that. You see, Dawn, Twilight is the pony who wrote the Laws of Harmony.”
Scootaloo and Applebloom watched with interest as the filly went through palpitations of shock, surprise and amazement in sequence. “Her? She wrote the Laws of Harmony? But they’re older than anyone can remember!”
“So is Twilight,” Scootaloo said quietly.
“Twilight has lived for an unnaturally long time,” Sweetie Belle said. “It is said that the Princess granted her extra long life because of all the good that she did when she was a young pony.”
“So...” Dawn thought hard again, putting two and two together. “Princess Celestia’s student... the one who came to Ponyville from Canterlot... was Twilight?”
Applebloom nodded. “We three were jus’ fillies when she came.”
Dawn squinted at the old pony hunched in her rocking chair outside the library treehouse. “But she looks so little.”
“That is because she is so old,” Sweetie Belle pointed out. “But it also goes to show that even the little ponies are capable of big things. Remember that, Dawn. Let’s go to see her.”
The four ponies made their way across the street to where Twilight was snoozing in the afternoon sun.
“Twilight?” Sweetie Belle spoke quietly, as if she was afraid the old mare might hear her.
Twilight opened her eyes and looked up, squinting in the sunlight as she studied the four ponies, her face deeply creased and wrinkled with age.
“Good afternoon, my dears. What a beautiful day it is! The pegasi have been kind with the weather, haven’t they? It’s very kind of you to visit me. Who, may I ask, are you four fine young ponies, and why do you feel the need to spend your time with little old Twilight, when you should be out playing in the fields?”
Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Applebloom exchanged glances.
“I am Sweetie Belle, and this is my granddaughter, Shining Dawn,” Sweetie Belle began.
“My name is Scootaloo,” the orange pegasus said, opening and folding her wings out of respect.
“They call me Applebloom,” Applebloom said, removing her hat.
Twilight stared at them very seriously over her spectacles, and then suddenly burst into raucous laughter that shook her entire frame.
“You should see the looks on your faces! My dear ponies! My friends! Come here, come here, let an old mare hug the few friends that still remember her!”
Dawn saw the three older ponies breathe visible sighs of relief. They each hugged Grandmother Twilight in turn.
“And Dawn!” Twilight turned to the filly, and instinctively Dawn shrank into the ground again. “Little Shining Dawn, how you’ve grown.”
Dawn shrank further into the ground. Everypony kept telling her how she’d grown today. She wouldn’t have wanted to speak to mad ol’ Twilight anyway, but now she knew that she was the famous pony who had written all those Laws of Harmony, she was even more frightening.
The old pony’s smile softened, and her eyes were warm and gentle as she spoke. “Oh, don’t be afraid, Dawn. I may look old and fierce, but I promise I’m a nice pony, really. After all, I was given the task of making friends specially by Princess Celestia very many years ago, so I like to think I know a thing or two about friendliness.”
Dawn looked up nervously. Her grandmother was giving her an encouraging smile, so she edged closer to Twilight.
“There you go,” Twilight said, ruffling her mane. “See, am I really that bad? Everypony assumes that because my mane is silver and my face is wrinkled, I’m just a boring old pony. Grandmother Twilight, they call me! I could tell them stories that would make their hearts beat fast and their hair stand on end. But the only time they come to see me is when they want to know about the Laws of Harmony. There is so much more to life than following a few laws. Sometimes I wish I’d never written them.”
“We know you’re not a boring old pony,” Applebloom offered.
“I know you three don’t,” Twilight smiled. “Thank you.” She sighed and sat back in her chair, looking up into the clouds. “A long time ago, I used to look up there, hoping I would see a rainbow. I’d sit in my chair all day long, just waiting.”
Scootaloo involuntarily looked up to the sky and ruffled her feathers. “I still do, Twilight. Even now I still look, even though I know I won’t see anything.”
Twilight gave a wheezy chuckle and sat up, her face still turned skyward. “I think your eyes must be getting old, Scootaloo. Can’t you see? Isn’t it the most beautiful rainbow you ever saw?”
Scootaloo scanned the sky. There was nothing, only clear sky and clouds to be seen.
The pegasus choked and said, “Yes, Twilight. I think it is the best rainbow ever.”
Twilight sank back into her chair again with a contented smile on her face. “I knew she wouldn’t forget. She said she’d never leave Ponyville hanging.”
There was a pause while the four ponies looked up at the sky. There was no rainbow to be seen, but Twilight seemed convinced.
Sweetie Belle squinted upwards, and to her surprise a dash of colour appeared in the sky, flying towards them. Her breath caught as she dared to wonder.
The figure grew larger, until it became clear that it was not rainbow coloured after all. Sweetie Belle sighed, her shoulders drooping.
“Isn’t that Princess Celestia?” Dawn piped up, breaking the silence.
The three older ponies gasped, and Twilight chuckled. “Well done, Dawn! Your eyes are better than all of ours put together.”
They watched as the Princess soared towards them, cutting through the air like a dove, and came to land gracefully in front of them in the street.
“Princess Celestia!” The three ponies turned and spoke her name breathlessly in unison, and bowed. Sweetie Belle pushed gently on Dawn’s shoulders, so that the filly bowed too.
In front of them stood Princess Celestia, ruler of all Equestria. The Princess towered over them all, but for once Dawn didn’t feel afraid. She felt an immense kindness and warmth coming from the Princess, and everything in her shadow felt right and good.
“Come now, ponies. Since when did you three bow to me?” The Princess smiled as she spoke, and her mane flowed gently in the breeze. Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Applebloom rose to their hooves. Twilight rubbed her eyes and blinked, looking upwards.
“Celestia,” she smiled.
“Hello, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said. Though Twilight’s mane was silvered and there was not a grey hair in Celestia’s, the Princess’ voice was full of the love of a mother for her daughter. “It has been too long, my faithful student. It has been too long.”
She leaned down and hugged Twilight tightly.
“Has it?” Twilight said. “I don’t really know. Ever since Spike left I haven’t been very good at keeping track of time. But I will take your word for it. So yes, it has been too long.”
Celestia straightened. A crowd of ponies had begun to gather some distance from them, pointing to the Princess and murmuring amongst each other.
“Do you know why I am here, Twilight?”
Twilight nodded. Her ears drooped somewhat, but her smile remained cheerful. “I’ve always known, Princess. You may have kept me here in Ponyville longer than I thought you would, but I always knew this day would come eventually.”
“Some things about being the Princess are harder than others, Twilight,” Princess Celestia said quietly. “It gives me great sadness to send you on this journey, never again to write to me, never again to give me an excuse to come and visit you in the library. I couldn’t bring myself to send my most faithful student away, who I have cherished since she was a filly. I cheated as long as I could, but there are limits even to my power.”
Dawn gasped, and Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Applebloom stared.
Twilight, however, smiled up at the Princess. “I know,” she said. She opened her mouth as if to say something more, but seemed to think better of it and closed it again.
Princess Celestia screwed her eyes shut and opened them, then breathing deeply, she turned to Sweetie Belle and the other ponies. “And you three know why I am here. You are the last of the ponies who knew Twilight here in Ponyville when we were all of us very much younger.”
The three ponies nodded.
“Then there is not much to say that you do not already understand. All that remains is to wait for Spike.”
At hearing the name, Dawn jumped up, squeaking excitedly and breaking the sombre mood. “Ooh! Ooh! Spike? As in Spike the dragon, from your stories, Grandma?”
Sweetie Belle nodded. “Yes, Dawn. Spike was Twilight’s assistant, when he was just a baby dragon. He sent letters to the Princess every day.”
“He still does,” Princess Celestia said. “The only difference is that the letters are written by him now. He is my closest correspondent, and a wonderful insight into the life of a young dragon. Speaking of which...”
A silence fell over the crowd of ponies, which by now had grown quite sizeable. Overhead there was the sound of powerful wings, far larger than that of a pegasus. From behind the rooftop of what used to be Sucarcube Corner, a purple dragon with green spines loomed into view. He was only a young dragon, but still large enough to blot out the sun, and shake the thatched roofs as he flew over. He circled the square, and the gathered ponies cowered as he descended to land beside Princess Celestia.
The Princess greeted him as he folded his wings. “Welcome, Spike. Thank you for taking time out of your migration.”
When the dragon spoke, the ground shook from the deepness of his voice. “You know as well as anypony, Princess Celestia, that I wouldn’t miss this for the biggest hoard of fire rubies in Equestria.”
Twilight’s eyes widened, then she squinted eagerly through her spectacles. “I know that voice!” she said, nearly dropping her book and apple with excitement.
The dragon leaned down to her, so that his nose was inches from the old mare’s face. “I would be insulted if you didn’t, Twilight.”
Dawn gasped as the dragon’s voice rattled the rocking chair. She was afraid that the old mare would be frightened, but instead she reached forward and grasped the dragon’s face with both hooves.
“Spike!”
It seemed to Dawn that the two oldest of friends in Equestria had been reunited after a very, very long time. Twilight wept as she held Spike’s snout with both hooves. Spike also cried, and each dragon tear hissed and burned as it dropped to the grass.
After a while, Celestia cleared her throat. “The time has come, Spike. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
The dragon nodded sadly, wiping great dragon tears from his eyes.
“I think,” Twilight said, looking at all the ponies who had gathered around them, “that I feel quite ready for another adventure, now I have my number one assistant back.”
Spike lifted the frail pony out of her chair with one hand, the old mare keeping hold of her book and her apple. When he had balanced her gently on his left wing, Twilight curled up with a broad smile on her face.
“You know, of course,” Sweetie Belle said, struggling to keep her voice steady, “That all your friends will be waiting for you.”
Twilight nodded with her eyes closed, the smile on her aged face growing wider. “Pinkie will be there, and Fluttershy...”
“An’ Applejack,” Applebloom added.
“And Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo said quietly.
“And Rarity,” Sweetie Belle said. “They’ve been waiting for a long while, Twilight. It’s time you went to be with them.”
“Yes,” Twilight said, heaving a sigh that visibly ran through her whole body, and nuzzling Spike’s scales affectionately. As she spoke, she sounded very, very old. “I do miss my friends. It’ll be good to see them again. They’ve been calling for me for a long time, and it’s time I answered them.”
“Goodbye, Twilight,” the three ponies said in turn.
At this stage, Dawn was confused. “I don’t get it,” she whispered to her grandmother, “Where is she going? And how is she going to meet all those ponies I’ve heard about from your stories?”
“Twilight is going on a journey to the Elysian Fields,” Princess Celestia said quietly, leaning down so she could speak to Dawn without Twilight hearing. “Every pony must go there when the time comes, and all of Twilight’s friends have already gone, long ago. She stayed behind in Equestria with us, because she still had much good to do, but now her time has come to go with them.”
At last Dawn began to understand. Her eyes stung as tears began to form, and she gasped, “So she’s never coming back?”
“No,” the Princess said, spreading her wings. “But that doesn’t mean that you will never see her again, my little pony.”
Dawn watched as the Princess solemnly turned and followed Spike, the dragon carrying Grandmother Twilight on one of his wings. The gathered ponies parted respectfully as the unusual group passed through them – a dragon, an alicorn, and a very, very old pony. The ancient unicorn still held on to her book and her apple, as though they were the only possessions she had left in the world.
Scootaloo put a hoof around Applebloom’s shoulder and cried quietly into her friend’s mane. Sweetie Belle breathed unevenly, and laid a hoof on Dawn’s shoulder.
“What did she mean?” Dawn asked quietly. “She’s never coming back, but that doesn’t mean I’ll never see her again?”
Sweetie Belle knelt and hugged her granddaughter tightly. “When you are older, Dawn, you’ll understand.”
***
That night, Sweetie Belle sat up long after she had sent Dawn to bed, gazing into the glowing embers of the fire and thinking.
Memories and faces flashed through her mind, images from a time past when Equestria was a different place. Names she had not thought of for a very long time introduced themselves to her, pegasus ponies, unicorns and earth ponies alike, all special to her, all gone.
Even seeing her friends Scootaloo and Applebloom had only reminded her of how old she herself was becoming, although it had been nice to talk about the past with them. The three friends had sat in Sweetie Belle’s garden for the whole afternoon while Dawn played with her filly classmates, talking fondly of memories and adventures.
When the time had come to wish her friends farewell, it had never been so hard for Sweetie Belle to say goodbye. They had parted with the firm promise to meet again before the season descended into winter.
Sweetie Belle sniffed and wiped her snout with the back of her hoof. Sitting here staring at the fire late into the night wouldn’t get her anything but a sore back in the morning. Besides, she scolded herself, why dwell on the past, when she had Dawn’s bright and shining future to look after?
The old unicorn coughed and stood, stretching and wincing slightly, then picked up the grate with her teeth and placed it in front of the fire. She was just about to mount the stairs to her bed when she heard a knocking at her door.
It was far too late for anypony to be visiting, but Sweetie Belle instantly recognised the knocking and trotted over to open the door.
“Dinky. What on earth are you doing here at this time of night?”
Dinky smiled sheepishly. She had a messenger bag slung over her shoulder, and a letter in her mouth.
“Mff. Smf mff.”
Sweetie took hold of the letter with her magic and removed it from the unicorn’s mouth.
“Sorry,” Dinky said. “I think I muddled the letters up some. But this one is definitely for you.”
Sweetie Belle sighed. Dinky’s heart was in the right place, even if she didn’t always succeed in what she aimed to do. “Thank you very much, Dinky. Don’t worry about it. Now please, go home. It’s late.”
Dinky nodded, and turned and trotted off along the path back to Ponyville. Sweetie Belle watched as she disappeared into the night, shaking her head. Then she closed the door, sat on her haunches, and opened the letter with her magic.
My Dear Sweetie Belle,
It’s funny how things go with friends, isn’t it. The best of friendships are powerless against the passage of time, and when a pony feels left behind by all of her friends, it can make her very unhappy. For this, I thank Celestia every day that you always stayed close to me, even though I would never have asked you to stay if you wanted to leave. You warmed the heart of this old mare every day, just by proving that all the things we’ve seen and done were real, and not an invention of my fading memory.
But I have sat outside this old treehouse and remembered long enough, and it is time I went somewhere new. It gives me great sadness to leave, but I know that all my old friends are waiting for me, and I am greatly looking forward to seeing them again! You know of course what I am speaking about; you are no longer the little filly I first knew when I came to Ponyville. Princess Celestia will be coming for me today, and it would make me greatly happy if you were to come to wish me well, and so that I can say goodbye.
But I have not quite finished yet. There is one last bit of good I can still do in Ponyville. I have also written to Applebloom and Scootaloo, your two fillyhood friends. Unless I’m mistaken, you three fell out of contact a little after Applebloom went to Appaloosa, and Scootaloo went to Cloudsdale. Please, take my advice: become friends with them again, and keep in close contact with each other. I know what it is like to grow old, and you are beginning to discover it. You needn’t worry about Spike; dragons can remember things perfectly for hundreds and hundreds of years. It’s natural for a creature that lives so long. But ponies’ minds grow weak with age. Keep your old friends as close by you as you can, enjoy the present, and remember the past. After all, if you never talk to anybody about all the adventures you once had, who’s to say they really happened at all?
I have one last thing I can give you. I have written everything I can remember into a book that is sitting on the table in my old library. It has all of the friendship lessons I wrote to the Princess, and it has all the stories from when I was young enough to go on adventures with my friends, including your adventures with your friends. The “Cutie Mark Crusaders”, you called yourselves. Do you remember? Sometimes I forget, and that’s why I wrote them all up into this big book. I wrote the book partly for you, and Scootaloo and Applebloom, but mainly for Dawn. Will you read the stories to her, so that she will know about us, and so that she can learn about friendship as we did? Then we can live forever in the pages of a book, and the things we saw and did will never be forgotten.
I have written enough. Now my work is complete, and later today I will meet Princess Celestia in the knowledge that what she tasked me with at that fateful Summer Sun Celebration, I have accomplished and finished at last.
I look forward to seeing you, and Applebloom and Scootaloo, when she comes for me.
With love,
Twilight Sparkle
