Still not sorry, actually
"... Winter set up winter set up! Good job, girls!" called out Twilight Sparkle as she helped to levitate ice chunks up into the trees. "We've had a few hiccups, but I think we'll be able to get things done way before schedule this year!"
"Sounds good, Twi!" answered Applejack around her rake as she used it to pack the snow down into piles for later wintery games of delight.
"... Has anypony seen Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy, who had been escorting woodland creatures into their winter hallows, suddenly asked. "I haven't since Fall two hours ago... I know she's probably still upset about Tank, but she's never skipped her weather duties before!"
"Do you think the dear is still holed up in her home?" Rarity suggested, halting her magical arranging of snowflakes to approach the group.
Twilight considered this suggestion for a moment.
"Hmmm... No, somepony on the weather team would have checked there first if she was shirking her duties." Lowering her hoof, and shaking her head, Twilight shrugged her wings as she next said, "She must be flying around somewhere with Tank. Maybe we should give her some space though, and give her time to sort things out for herself. We're already doing pretty good here! One pony less won't hur-"
"Twitchy tail!" Pinkie Pie suddenly shouted, having popped out from around a corner and galloped, not hopped, towards her friends. Pointing a hoof at her hindquarters again, she quickly repeated her warning. "Twitchy tail!"
All ponies in the clearing, both in and out of Twilight's group of friends, suddenly went quiet at the declaration. They stared fearfully at one another for a time... before Applejack suddenly shouted something herself. Eyes swiftly switched to her for a moment before they shot upwards towards the sky. In the distance, all saw the smoke leaving Cloudsdale's Weather Factory's main cloud producer...
BOOM!
... and soon they saw the massive ball of snow now hurtling towards Ponyville at dangerous speeds. Time slowed down for every equine in the village as they stared up in horror at the gigantic collection of frozen slush about to rain down upon them.
Every equine...
... save for one.
"Yes," Twilight muttered excitedly under her breath as her inner giddy emotions leaked through.
She felt as though her entire life had led to this moment.
Through the trials and tribulations she had fought; through hardships and heartache and even soul crushing despair did she persevere above it all in order to reach this long sought after day. She charged at Nightmare Moon, stood up to Discord, revealed Queen Chrysalis, saved an empire from King Sombra, saved Sunset Shimmer from herself, tamed the Everfree, dueled Tirek to a standstill, and blazed the path for others to free themselves from Starlight Glimmer's philosophy…
… but these great accomplishments meant little to the young alicorn now in this important moment of time. All were irrelevant in her eyes... for she had accomplished an even greater feat on another world entirely.
A battle had taken place weeks ago in the realm past the magic mirror, you see. It was a grueling battle that took as much away from her as she had from it. She fought for two long and hard days, and in those days Twilight's pony friends hadn't the slightest of clues as to where their friend had gone off to. That was the nature of the battle, unfortunately. It caused time itself to slip as it forcefully sucked it away, leaving the victim behind as an unresponsive husk to the very world around them.
For all intents and purposes in those two days amongst her biped friends, Princess Twilight Sparkle... was dead.
She was a dead slave to the glowing box simply known as television.
An off handed remark from Sunset Shimmer, delivered via a cross-dimensional journal, had been what set off the chain of events that lead to the 'battle' in the first place. It had sparked Twilight's curiosity by mistake, creating the domino effect which saw her jumping through the portal in order to spend what was supposed to be a peaceful weekend with the mirrored versions of her pony friends. All Tartarus broke loose once she arrived, however, but it was a pleasant Tartarus in a way. It possessed popcorn and friendship and even soda pop... but it also contained sleepless nights and the dreaded siren call of 'just one more episode'. Through it all though; through hunger pains from a poor diet and through bad BO from a lack of showering and even through the dreaded curse known as sleeping butt... Twilight eventually came out victorious in the end. It was a victory her pony friends would never be able to learn about, sadly, for they could never hope to understand the significance of the action in full. They lacked television, after all, or even the concept of a DVD box set.
They would never learn how Twilight had marathoned her first TV series.
Truly it was a great loss, one that Twilight would be forced to bear by herself until the end of her days... but, regardless, right now she did not care.
Twilight did not care for she knew what now had to be done above all else.
It didn’t matter to her if nopony would ever truly grasp her next few words; it didn't’ matter if it would just fly right over their pastel heads and into the boundless ether around them. It didn't matter that she might as well be wasting words, or that only she would understand their importance. All that mattered was that these words were uttered at all.
This was the most important thing in the end for Twilight knew, in her heart of hearts, that the balance of this and all worlds now rested squarely on her withers. To say the words would be to create great confusion among her friends... to not say them would be to invite chaos to the very lands themselves.
In the end, there was no question as to what now needed to be done.
Princess Twilight Sparkle needed to make history.
And thus, as the massive pile of white wintery destruction descended from on high, threatening to crush every last pony into a delicious flat pancake of flesh and gore, the Princess of Friendship stood up proudly on her hindlegs and allowed her brown, white ruffled winter fur coat to flap in the chilled winds. Mightily was it then when she next said, as she rested her forelegs on the hilt of her long and elegant broadsword,
“Winter is coming.”
A silence fell over the clearing of ponies as these powerful words were finally uttered. Big and small, mare and stallion, young and old; all looked towards their princess with eyes full of silent wonder and admiration for her great and noble actions.
It truly was just that good of a subtle reference.
“... Where did she get that sword and coat?”
As Pinkie Pie drew in her breath, about to answer Applejack's important question in full, she, along was everypony else, were soundly crushed into said pancake by a snow covered ball of frozen death.
Winter had truly come to Ponyville.
_________________________________
"Sooooo," Rainbow Dash casually began to ask as she shuffled alongside Princess Celestia. She raised her chained hooves upwards towards the monarch to further highlight her current question. "I-I don't suppose I can get a little leewa-"
"You committed an act of terrorism and killed thirty ponies as a result," Celestia deadpanned, not turning to look at the pony beside her.
"... So is that a 'no' then?"
"That's a 'no', Dash."
"Drat... Would you believe me if I said that the tortoise made me do it?"
"..."
Celestia turned her head towards the prison garbed Rainbow Dash and then further towards the similarly dressed tortoise chained to her leg. Tank sleeped soundly away in his shell, none the wiser to the events that had just transpired.
"... Maybe," Celestia admitted after a time, using her magic to levitate up a small hip flask. "A spiked one once kidnapped Luna."
"Really? How'd that go?"
The tired alicorn took a long swig of her brew before answering with,
"Poorly."
