The wind sweeps over the hill, bending the grass in waves, rippling it like the surface of a lake. It tears through the trees surrounding the clearing, whistling softly as it passes through the branches.
And it catches the mane of the purple alicorn standing in the clearing.
Twilight Sparkle is looking down at a stone set into the ground. Shaped like a six-pointed star, the headstone is blank, but the picture set in front of the monument makes it all too clear whose grave the headstone marks.
It is hers.
"It seems dumb." Twilight says softly. "I mean, I'm not... I'm not dead. I'm right here."
The wind answers her with its steady, low whistle.
"But I still feel like it's... Important. To come here." the mare continues. "Just... Just to - I dunno, talk to you?"
Twilight chuckles, a small, slight sound.
"It's been a while." she says, smiling. "Six months, just like last time. And a lot's happened."
She pauses, as if mentally recounting the half-year's events.
"We found a town," she says quietly. "where everyone had the same cutie mark. Everyone! And we stopped a bad mare named Starlight Glimmer; she'd essentially turned the place into a cult."
Another chuckle.
"Why is it that every unicorn who's tried to hurt my friends and I has had a name practically synonymous with ours?" she asks the grave. "I mean, come on; Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer..."
There's another pause as Twilight lifts her hoof to her chin.
"Okay, so maybe Trixie's a special case. But Trixie and Sunset started on the road to forgiveness; heck, Sunset's already turned her life around! I only hope Starlight follows their examples..."
The wind echoes through the trees, a light, breezy sound, almost a chuckle.
"Rainbow Dash tried to stop winter, the Crusaders caught a criminal, and I went to the Grand Galloping Gala again."
Another pause, as Twilight regards the grave with a flat look.
"To be honest, I understand how Princess Celestia feels. It was unbelievably boring until Discord livened it up; I can see why she invited him."
A small cough.
"Anyway. We visited a Griffon town, and Matilda got married! The wedding was amazing. Oh, and we stopped a bugbear. And then there was Moondancer."
At this, Twilight's voice grows quiet. Her next words are choked out past a hot lump in her throat.
"Can you imagine," she said. "If I really had died? I wouldn't have been able to make things up to her. Poor Moondancer. Nopony deserves to have gone through what she has. And it was all our fault."
The grove seems to grow a bit darker, and Twilight's throat seems to close up a bit, her voice coming out strained.
"But the biggest thing I did," she says. "was help Princess Luna fight off..."
She looks side-to-side, eyes widening slightly with fear.
"The Tantabus." she whispers. "I know it's gone. It's gone!"
With the words, the grove brightens, but not completely. The nervousness leaves the alicorn's voice, forced away by cold logic and determination.
"But I still feel it." she says, head hung. "Sometimes. At night, when I can't sleep, and every noise sounds so much louder than it really is, and..."
"...And I think of you."
Twilight takes a step back, lost in memories, as she stares at the picture or herself, a simple unicorn mare standing in her library.
She remembers sweeping up the ashes, collecting the star-shaped patch of black dust that was all that had remained of her body.
Her old body, she thinks, forcing the thought into her brain. She is not dead!
But she was.
She remembers asking Fluttershy for advice, and the mare's quiet, almost reverent words as she told Twilight of a place, half a day's walk into Whitetail Wood, where she'd made her own resting places.
Looking off to the side, Twilight can just make out the sight of several tiny headstones, each one with a hoof-made stuffed animal resting atop the graves.
She remembers walking through the trees, searching, until she found this place, a place so quiet and serene that she just wanted to lie down and sleep, or read for hours upon hours as the day flew by on sunset wings.
She remembers digging the grave - by hoof; it just felt wrong somehow to use magic - and laying the urn down inside it, saying a small, quiet farewell to the container.
The container filled with her own ashes.
Her other friends called her morbid. They said it was unnecessary. She wasn't dead. Why make a grave for yourself if you're not going to lie in it?
Except it did seem necessary. It just felt... Right.
"Hello, Twilight." a soft voice echoes through the clearing. Startled, the lavender alicorn turns to see Princess Celestia, a smile on her face.
"Celestia." Twilight says. "I-I'm sorry. It isn't what it looks like, it's-"
"It's you talking to your ashes, Twilight." Celestia says softly. "Taking stock. Reminiscing. Looking at the road behind you and seeing how far you've come."
There's a silence as Twilight sits down slowly, head hung low in shame. A hoof rests itself on her shoulder, and a wing wraps around her, bringing the purple mare in as Celestia embraces her.
"It's quite all right." Celestia says. "It isn't morbid, and it's not dumb, and you don't look ridiculous."
The two sit there, the wind blowing their manes, before Celestia breaks the embrace, standing.
"Come on." she says. "I want to show you something."
Twilight obligingly follows the larger princess as they trot through the woods, heading toward the border that separates Whitetail Wood from the Everfree. Soon, they've crossed over, Celestia walking confidently through the brambles, Twilight following behind, a look of trepidation on her face.
Eventually, they come to a small glade, surprisingly beautiful for a clearing in the Everfree. The sun filters through the dark-green leaves, casting rippling, pulsating shadows on the two statues set in the center of the clearing.
Twin sisters, embracing fondly, both young fillies. One is larger than the other, a unicorn with a sun on her flanks, bearing a smile filled with excitement and joy, while the smaller one is a Pegasus, her smile smaller, more serene, an even grin that comes of inner peace and utmost confidence. A moon adorns her
"Luna... Me... I'm here." Celestia says softly. "And I brought Twilight this time, like I said I would."
Twilight's eyes widen.
"Yes, I do it too." Celestia says. "I'm pretty sure Luna does it, when she thinks I won't notice her absence, and I know Cadance does it; she travels to that small town every year, to visit herself and talk to the townsfolk."
Twilight chuckles softly, and Celestia raises a slender eyebrow, looking at her former student.
"I thought I was so weird." Twilight says. "Look at me, silly little Twilight Sparkle, talking to her ashes like a crazy pony."
"From an objective standpoint, it does seem odd, doesn't it?" Celestia says, turning back to the statues. "But we still do it. It's... Comforting, in a way, to talk to what you used to be."
"Is it..." Twilight stammers weakly. "Is it alright if I-"
"Ask me how Luna and I found ourselves there?" Celestia says, smiling. "It's certainly not an unpleasant memory."
Celestia sits in silence, pausing, as if wondering where to begin.
"Long before Discord." she finally says. "Long before Sombra, and Nightmare Moon; long before Equestria..."
Celestia breathes in, letting the air out softly, slowly.
"My sister and I lived together. The world - such as the barren rock it was - was still new, and the two of us were charged with... With finishing the job."
"What job?" Twilight asks tentatively, knowing that Celestia is telling her something extraordinary, something she'd kept inside until now.
"We were alicorns from birth, sired by the stallion and mare who created this planet." Celestia eventually said. "Twin daughters who knew only our mother; our father left, as is the custom for creators of their ilk, leaving her to raise us, endow us with as much of her power, her wisdom, her courage as she could before we were given our task.
"Faust was an incredible mother, and we loved her dearly. And when we arrived on this planet, we tried so hard to make her proud."
Celestia chuckles.
"What fools we were, at first. I tried so hard to spark life, as I had been taught, but there was nothing there to sustain it. I caused a thousand-thousand tiny extinctions before I realized what I was missing; before I decided to work with Luna."
Another sigh, this one matching the wind.
"In the care of our mother, Luna and I had always been at odds; I couldn't take anything seriously back then, while my sister was rigid and unbending, cold and calculating. We'd fought so many times.
"On the planet, she'd been charged with building an ecosystem; an environment of animals and plants that would spread beyond the modest little garden she tilled and encompass the world. Unfortunately, she couldn't tend to all of it at once, and it always withered, eventually dying. But she started over, again and again and again... Until I asked her for help."
The wind whistles through the statue, blowing leaves in between the two ponies.
"She relented, and we started small. A tiny garden, tilled by a single pony gardener, dutifully carrying out his work. The one became three, and then five, and then five hundred. The garden spread; life had finally expanded to fill the entire planet."
A tear slowly runs down Celestia's smiling face.
"And we loved each other, Luna and I. We'd realized how much we relied on one another. We bonded. I met my best friend.
"And then the meteor hit."
There is a long silence. Celestia takes a shuddering breath.
"It decimated the planet, killing everything on it. Including my sister and I."
Twilight's eyes widen, and Celestia nods gravely.
"It was sent by Faust; she told us as much when we talked to her after we passed. Her expression wooden, almost angry, she spoke of how proud she was of us, how happy we'd made her with our efforts. But we knew her heart wasn't in it."
"What happened then?" Twilight asks, breaking the long silence.
"We exploded with anger." Celestia answers. "We shouted her down, cursing her for what she'd done. Why did she have to take away all we'd created? Why did she have to take us away from the world? Why did she kill our ponies? I remember it like it was yesterday; I don't think I'll ever forget what she said to us."
Celestia took in another deep breath.
"She looked both of us dead in the eye, smiled warmly, and said: 'Celestia, Luna... You pass.' The next thing we knew, we were back in Equestria, our bodies changed from what you are to what we are now. From Beta to Alpha. Power untold granted to us, the Sun and Moon placed under our jurisdiction..."
The princess gestures to the statues with a hoof.
"...And our ashes entombed, just as you see them now."
Twilight lets out a long breath, slowly leaning back to lie on the grass, looking up at the sunset.
"We made our little ponies anew." Celestia says, smiling. "We miss the ones we knew and loved before they passed, but that doesn't - nor will it ever - tarnish our love for all of you. Especially you, Twilight."
"It's a lot to take in, I know." Celestia says, lying beside her former student. "But Luna and I have had..."
Celestia glances at her hoof, as if checking a watch.
"One-thousand-and-fifty years, seven months, and six days to come to terms with it. This, this talking to the ashes... It helps, somehow, as I'm sure you understand. It's useful to talk to your past self, take stock of what you've become in the days, months... years since you passed for the first time."
"The first time?" Twilight asks, glancing at Celestia.
"That's a different story, for a different moping session." Celestia says, chuckling. "I think it's time we got back; your friends - and my sister - must be worried. Maybe sometime you can ask Cadance how she Ascended to Alpha. It's a marvelous story."
Nodding, Twilight stands, lifting a hoof hesitantly.
"M-May I?" she asks, gesturing to her horn. Celestia nods slowly.
Twilight's horn radiates purple light, and, with a flash, a small, glowing ring of runes appears in the air before vanishing.
"It's a spell I made up." Twilight explains. "I'm really good with teleportation spells, so I found out a way to make a node that you can teleport to without much effort or energy. It uses almost no magic, and it's faster than normal warping."
"Like a bus stop, but for teleportation." Celestia says. "I like it!"
Twilight smiles, and as Celestia's horn begins glowing, signifying the beginnings of a teleport, the purple alicorn looks up at her teacher.
"What's a 'bus'?"
They disappear in a flash of golden light.
