A Meeting Between Two Old Friends
Even after five years since the war ended, it was still hard for me to get used to the human lands. Having none of the magical energies that were prominent in Equestria, traveling here always made me feel like a piece of myself was missing. I was still baffled by the number of ponies who lived outside of Equestria. How they could live like this was mind boggling to me, but I guess it was something they just got used to over time.
Because of this, the only time you would ever see me in these lands was if it involved something diplomatic or political. Another less known reason was to check on the condition of former Princess Celestia in Paris, France. She was still in her coma, and it was decided that her trial for her crimes against both humanity, and ponies, would be held when she woke up.
Today I was here for a different reason besides speeches of forgiveness and aid or some PR event to promote friendship between our two races. Nor was I here to deal with a tense situation involving one of the many extremists’ groups from either side who wanted to continue the war and see one side eradicated.
No, I was here to visit an old friend. Someone who I thought I would hate forever for her betrayal… but now here I am, my eyes opened to our sins, ready to beg for forgiveness. I have lost so much these past few years… I just want to gain something back for once.
Cary in North Carolina was a nice town, as far as human ones go. It wasn’t a surprise that Fluttershy chose to live in such a luscious and green environment with plenty of forests and flowers. Places like this, untouched by the war, were few and far in between. It reminded me of the forests back in Ponyville, so I guess this was of some sort of familiar comfort to Fluttershy. Some things never changed.
Sadly, friendship wasn’t one of those things. When I was younger, back in our home dimension, I thought friendship could never be broken or destroyed. I had battled great evils and dealt with situations where the friendship I shared with my five best friends was tested time and time again. I didn’t think the war would bring that to an end.
Yet, I was wrong.
Pinkie Pie and Rarity’s remains were somewhere in Ponyville, most likely buried under rubble or blown to bits from the bombing. The town I once called my home was still too damaged to fix, even after all these years. There was barely anypony alive now from that town, and it served no economic, political, or military function. Thus, I had no choice but to put repairs for the once great town on the bottom of the list. I at least made a memorial there, a place where I went every year to place flowers for not just for the two friends I lost that day, but for all those lost: The Cakes, Mayor Mare, Cheerilee, Nurse Redheart, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Bon Bon, Diamond Tiara, Caramel, Berry Punch, and so many more. All gone.
I didn’t lose everybody. I still had Spike, my adopted brother and the one who has kept me from breaking down into a mess many times. Some of the residents from Ponyville like Derpy, Amethyst Star, Lucky, Vinyl Scratch, and such still sent cards to me during holidays. And my other close friends, besides Fluttershy, well… they were alive… but our friendship was forever dead.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack were now terrorists who I had to struggle with hunting down along with the rest of the so called “Equestrian Freedom Fighters”. We had a big argument about my surrender to the humans, and neither of them accepted it. Both had lost so much, both friends and family, that they refused to make peace with humanity. They, and so many who joined that so called “freedom group”, just couldn’t accept that the world we once knew was gone. They hated me, and their frequent attacks on both my ponies and humans made it clear they would never give up. They always were a stubborn pair.
All I had left was Spike, but he made it clear that they only reason he was helping Equestria was because of me. He hadn’t forgiven ponykind for letting his kind and all the other races die without a means to raise and lower the sun and moon. He was the last dragon of our world, and sometimes I still hear him cry in his bed at night. Even if I could find it in my heart to forgive Celestia for all she had done, I could never forgive her for making my baby brother cry.
Yet despite having two friends dead, and two forever hating me, I still had one chance to save something from my past. The only friend I turned away after she followed her heart and sided with humanity: Fluttershy.
Under the cover of an illusion spell, I landed in front of a big blue house with children’s toys, both human and pony, scattered across the lawn. There was a beautiful garden of all sorts of flowers near a red van parked beside a shed. For the first time since my negotiations with humanity five years ago, I was too nervous to advance for a long time.
I was going to see Fluttershy for the first time in years. A good portion of those were spent in anger, disgust, and hatred over the fact that she sold out her own kind; siding with a corrupt and dangerous race of war-making murderers. Only it turned out in the end that we were the corrupt and dangerous race, manipulated by a monster who sought to create a pony only world for whatever twisted reasons. A monster who let everyone else in our world die, and was willing to exterminate an entire race of a different world to do so.
I was no longer blinded by the sun, nor was the rest of my kind. The day I exposed everything was the day that Celestia was not just hated by humanity anymore. Everypony, except those of the Freedom Fighters and other minor groups, wanted to see her die for what she had done. A year after all that, I sought to find Fluttershy. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Beg for forgiveness? Say she was right? A simple hello? Would she even forgive me? I knew we couldn’t go back to what we once had, but could we at least start over?
These questions continued to haunt me as I took each step forward to the door. From what little information I could get, Fluttershy worked at a pet daycare, and married a human of all things; a doctor, specifically. Pony-human relationship in terms of actual romance were mixed. Some saw it as a way to heal the damages between our races; others found it sinful and disgusting.
Most importantly, she was a mother. Ponies and humans couldn’t have children together-at least, not yet anyway- but I knew she had adopted three children after the war. Two humans and one pony, a pegasus like her. This made me worry even more, since not only did I have to make up with Fluttershy, but prove myself as a decent pony to her family despite what some papers still say about me.
I finally arrived at the big red door with a smiling sun that had the word “Greetings” on it. Now I had wished I had taken Spike’s offer to come with me, or at least brought some of my guards. Why did I have to be so stubborn in fixing my own problems by myself? I could have at least phoned ahead.
I raised my hoof and knocked, turning off my illusion spell as well. I waited until I heard the sound of hoofsteps coming towards the door, but they were small to be an adult’s. The door opened, and I saw a brown male Pegasus with a black name look at me with curiosity. He had no cutie mark, and looked to be no older than six. This had to be Feathershy, the pony that Fluttershy and her husband adopted.
“Um, who are you?”
“I’m sorry, um, is your mother home?” I asked in the kindest voice possible.
He slowly hid himself behind the door, nervously looking at me like he was expecting me to attack. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was adopted, I would have sworn he was Fluttershy’s flesh and blood. “Who should… who should I- I- I- I say is c-c-calling?”
“Twilight Sparkle. I’m… an old friend… or at least, I hope I am still,” I answered honestly. I half expected to get rejected by this colt.
Instead, I heard somepony walk forward and, for the first time in so long, I saw my old friend. She had gotten her mane cropped. It was much shorter, and looked to have darkened over the years. She was much taller, leaner, too. I noticed a few scars on her body, most likely from the war. I had heard she took up medical training to help humanity during the war, but it seemed she went even into combat rather than just be stationary. Her eyes were still bright, yet there seemed to be a loss of that old glimmer and joy she always had. Most likely another side effect of the war. Yet despite all this, she still looked beautiful. Rarity may have been the prettiest of us when she was wearing makeup, but Fluttershy had always had natural beauty with her.
“Twilight,” whispered Fluttershy, who stared at me in shock before a small smile graced her lips. “It’s really you…”
“Fluttershy… I…” I tried to say something. Anything. The fact that we were seeing each other after all these years, after all the chaos we went through for so long, and I didn’t know what to say. A million things went through my head from simple apologies to full on speeches asking for forgiveness. Yet I just stood there with my mouth open and closing, eyes misting, and my entire body shaking.
Suddenly, she wrapped her forelegs around me and nuzzled my neck. I froze up as I felt the familiar kindness she always radiated washing over me. In an instant, I cried. I cried for our lost friendship. I cried for all our friends. I cried how I was too foolish and blind to see that she was right all this time. I cried because I could tell, right then and there, that Fluttershy had never once stopped being my friend.
“It’s okay, Twilight. Let it all out,” whispered Fluttershy as I lost all control of my body. If not for her holding me, stroking me, whispering in my ear soothing words of comfort, I would have collapsed to the ground.
In that single moment, I was not Princess Twilight. I was not Ambassador Sparkle. I was just Twilight.
***
After calming myself down, Fluttershy guided me into her warm home. It was cozy, looked family-friendly, and reminded me a bit of the homes back in Ponyville. A few animals could be seen like some cats, dogs, and birds, but lesser than she used to have in her cottage. I saw pictures of her family, including her other two children, both human, who she said were at school and her husband at work. Feathershy was too scared to go to school yet, so Fluttershy was homeschooling him until he felt ready to go.
The little colt seemed to warm up to me after his mother introduced me as her friend.
Friend. I was still her friend. I repeated that over and over again to forever keep it in my head. I was still her friend.
Feathershy then excused himself to go play with his toys upstairs, leaving the two of us to sit on a couch with some warm green tea. “I apologize for my son, he’s quite shy when it comes to strangers,” said Fluttershy, handing me a cup.
“I wonder where he got it from,” I joked, which made us both giggle. We drank a bit of our tea before looking at each other with smiles on our faces. “Fluttershy, I’m so happy to see you again. I’m so sorry about what I said I-”
She raised her hoof and stopped me. Increasing her smile, Fluttershy shook her head and said, “Twilight, I never once hated you or any of the others after I sided with humanity. I don’t blame you for following Princess Celestia. We were all fooled.”
“I know…” I whispered, “but I still can’t believe the one mare I looked up to the most in my life was such a… horrible being.”
Fluttershy pressed her hooves against mine. “Do you hate her?” she asked quietly.
“How can I not?!” I shouted, but I suddenly remembered that Feathershy was right above us, so I lowered my voice. “She lied to us. She let all those races back home die including our friends like Zecora, Little Strongheart, Gilda, and more! All while saying everything was fine! She tried to eradicate an entire race just so she could create some kind of pony utopia!"
Even the few griffins, minotaur, zebras, and donkeys that did come with them during the transportation across the dimensions were gone. They had rebelled against us during the war, but were quickly overwhelmed. Celestia demanded that they be rounded up and held in captivity until the war was over, but they managed to take over some of our ships and tried to head to the human lands containing all the remaining non-ponies of Equestria. Our navy sunk them on one of the naval commander's orders, but even now I cannot tell if that was his decision or Princess Celestia's.
"She… she put a stain on our kind that will last forever! Even if all of humanity was to forgive us for what we did, it would never fade away! Never be forgotten! She betrayed everything we ever stood for… and ruined us… ruined our friendship…” I closed my eye as a tear dropped down my cheek. “I can’t forgive her, Fluttershy. All I want to know, before they sentence her to die when she wakes up, is ask her why she did all of this. I just want to know before I can write her out of my life completely.”
“…It hasn’t been easy, has it?” asked Fluttershy as she hugged me again. “You’ve suffered so much… with the war, with the princess, all the loss, Applejack and Rainbow Dash…”
I winced. “You know?”
“We do get news of what goes on in Equestria here, Twilight,” said Fluttershy as she nodded towards their big screen TV. “This may be the place I live now, possibly for the rest of my life; but Equestria will always be my home.” She closed her eyes as a tear dripped down her face. “Can… can you show them mercy for what they’ve done? If they were to surrender?”
I shook my head, but I think she was expecting my answer anyway. “I can’t. Innocent lives have been lost because of the Equestrian Freedom Fighters. Actions that Dash and Applejack have taken have caused both ponies and humans to die, Fluttershy. Even if I wanted to spare them from the death penalty, the U.N. will not. I’m sorry, Fluttershy, but their fate is sealed. They will either die fighting, or be captured and executed.”
“I know,” whispered Fluttershy as she drank her tea. “I just wished all the fighting was over. Haven’t we lost enough on both sides?”
“I wish everyone felt the same as you did, Fluttershy. I’m just so tired,” I whispered as I sank into her couch. “I’m tired of politics. I’m tired of having the fate of our race on my shoulders. I’m tired of appeasing, arguing, and demanding things while dealing with a nation that doesn’t know if they should love me or hate me. I’m tired of humans looking at me with distrust, although I can’t blame them. Sometimes… sometimes I think about just taking Spike and leaving it all. Just going away some place and living the rest of my days alone… but I don’t want to be alone… I just want a friend…”
I glanced at Fluttershy, who was now openly crying. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have been there for you after the war, after everything… I should have helped you deal with this…”
“No, you had your family to take care of, Fluttershy,” I argued as I sat up and brushed away her tears with my wings. “You had responsibilities and, to be honest, I would never want you to get involved in the things I have to deal with now.”
“I still could have been there as your friend to talk and listen,” said Fluttershy as she wiped her eyes. “I just… I’ve just been trying to put the war behind me and move on. To my shame, I never once thought about meeting up with you again. I thought you hated me.”
“To be honest, I thought you hated me,” I confessed, lowering my head in shame. “I called you a traitor… and a coward. I hated you for choosing humanity over us. For listening to Lyra over me… but you were right. I was wrong.”
“Twilight,” whispered Fluttershy as she shook her head. “Don’t try to blame yourself. There is only one pony to blame for all of this… and when she wakes up, she will pay.”
My eyes widened when I heard this and turned to my friend, who had a tint of rage in her eyes that I rarely ever saw in the past. “I never thought I’d hear you say that about anypony.”
“…War changes us, Twilight,” she answered, shaking her head. “All my children? They lost their parents in the war. Feathershy was too young to remember his, but my other children still have nightmares from time to time. My husband and I do all we can to soothe their tears and fears. I’ll help them have a future that Celestia would have denied them if it’s the last thing I do on this earth.”
“…you’ve gotten a lot braver, Fluttershy,” I replied with a smile. It was hard to believe that this was the same pony who was once afraid of her own shadow.
Blushing, she thanked me, and we soon turned the conversation elsewhere. I asked about her husband and children. She asked me about Spike. I asked about Discord, who I was surprised to learn was using his powers to fix ruined cities. Guess war can even change a spirit of chaos. We talked about the old times, avoiding anything unpleasant. Eventually, time flew so fast that before I knew it, it was three hours since I had arrived.
“It’s getting late. I guess I should be going back to my hotel,” I said, rising up.
Fluttershy quickly got up and rushed in front of me. “Wait! Don’t you want to meet my husband? My other children too? In fact, let me take you to dinner. And a Carolina Hurricanes game! Oh, there is a nice little fair this weekend we could go to…?”
“I… I do want to do those things, Fluttershy, but I don’t want to bother-”
“No!” she shouted, stomping her hoof. “Twilight Sparkle, we have not seen each other in years. While talking to you was great, I want more than that. I want to hang out with my friend. I want my family to meet one of the kindest, wisest, and friendliest ponies I know. I want you in my life and I want to be part of your life. I don’t want the war, Celestia, or the past to keep us from what we should have continued to have been. Friends, Twilight Sparkle. I want us to be real friends again.”
I stared at Fluttershy for the longest time. I saw such determination in her glare that I swear I thought I was under The Stare. Once again, my eyes got teary-eyed as I found myself glowing inside with the same spirit she had. Yes, I wanted to be real friends with her again. For just a few days, the world could go on without Twilight Sparkle.
“So, where can a mare get a good hayburger around here?” I asked with a smile on my face.
War may change friendship… but some things always stay the same.
Author's Note
Yup, here is the big sequel to Negotiations. There will be more stories about this series that will come, but for now I will focus on other stories of mine. I hope you enjoyed.
If you want to commission me, please check out this blog post
Or if you want to donate to my comics patreon that works too!
