Were they ever that brown?
No, she remembered distinctly its former complexion: it was swaths of mauve, reminiscent of an early sunrise. Or was it magenta? Which one was it again? She couldn’t remember, however hard she tried. Still, how could she have forgotten? She placed them there, after all. She had come by time and time again to admire how they swayed in the earliest rays of daylight, so she should’ve remembered. How could she ever forget? She couldn’t even remember what their names were anymore. What were they? Bougainvilleas? Orchids? Clematis? How could she tell from their shriveled facade? No, there’s no way of knowing anymore, there just wasn’t.
“Your Highness?”
She looked at the sprawling mass, harboring nothing less of a frown. All that’s left across the dry earth and the marble basins encircling the barren fountain were tufts of crabgrass and overgrown moss. She stepped before the weeds swaying in the wind, adding to the grave lull a soft sigh. Glancing down, she firmly dug her hoof into the earth, twisting one of the many parasitical stalks down unto itself. It folded over and over, swishing in a circle and brushing across specks of dirt. She stopped to scorn at its crumpled state, some part of her aching to expunge the others in a similar manner. She could if she wanted to. After all, the courtyard before her yielded so many of them and she’d have all the time in the world to tend to all those feeble stalks.
“Your Highness?”
Feeble.
Frail.
Cripple.
“Your Highness, if I may...”
“What is it?” she almost hissed, turning to the captain standing before her guard-drawn chariot.
“I do not mean to question your authority, but are you certain of this?”
Her gaze ran from the fields to the grandiose home that stood before it. It was a beautiful place once, as such structures often are. She remembered it having a brightness, as if it too were alive. Never had she seen its glass eyes droop beneath black patches of moisture as it did now. Never had she heard its wooden panels groan in protest as it rotted from inside out. Frankly, if she would profess, she had never seen this monstrosity before, though the monsters of her past often took on familiar guises. They’d always find a way to stir the most poignant of memories to the swirling surface of the cauldron. This one proved no different.
“I appreciate your concern, captain. However, I had long since made up my mind. Any attempts to persuade me otherwise will be futile, I’ll have you know.”
“And miss the Summer Sun Celebration?”
“I’ve already assigned Princess Luna and Princess Twilight to handle the matters concerning the celebration. As for the main event, I shall have you know that I can still raise the sun while I’m here, rest assured.”
“We don’t even know how long he has left.”
“Then I shall be here as long as he will,” she staunchly asserted. “After all he has done for me, this is the best I could do.”
“If you insist, Your Highness,” the captain sighed, gazing around the ocean of spruce and fir, and then to the domicile seated in the middle of it all. “Pardon me for asking this, Your Highness, but was he always such a hermit?”
Should she answer in his place? Does she have that obligation? There’s no doubt that he fancied the idea of loneliness, she knew that. He had spent much of his time running around the palace in search of hidden sanctuaries back when he was still under her charge, and she’d always find him in corners the guards often overlooked. He would never bring much along his expedition— just some fruit, biscuits, a blanket, and a thick book he had sneaked out from the library. In turn, she would never chastise him, for he was her student, after all.
He meant something more to her.
They all did.
Each and every one of them.
The captain never got an answer before she sent him off, chariot and all. By then, a westerly wind had picked up, kicking about dried leaves against her hooves as she turned to face the looming jaws of the plantation house. She strode defiantly into its shadow and spied its shuttered windows, before her hoof came to the grainy knob of the front door. A slow and jagged squeal whizzed from the tumblers when she gave it a turn, the timbers and hinges shrieking amid a volley of sawdust.
Darkness spilled through the hallways with reckless abandon. Light could only seep in between them in shafts, illuminating the swirling waltzes of dust specks smothering the fresh air alongside the stench of moldy wallpaper. With a hoof tracing along the iron railing, she cantered up the stairway, ignoring the faint tingles growing in her snout. Creak after creak pummeled the dreadful silence as she trod upon the upper corridors of this sanctuary, long forgotten in the spiraling depths of the forest.
Perhaps he liked it that way.
To be forgotten, that is.
Not many knew about this retreat, and those that did often spoke about the ranting and raving madpony that resided in. She never understood how ponies claimed as such, having seen no such thing in all her years. Still, perhaps there is such a creature stalking the grounds, and that very creature could be watching her now, peering from beneath the shadows, waiting, just waiting, for the right moment to pounce. She cast a wary glance over the shoulder, just to be sure that nothing will return her gaze, though all she could see was the flooding black. Should she scare it off with a wave of light? Should she stand strong like she would against hordes of yak raiders? Should she demand it to reveal its presence? In the end, she chose instead to move forward, leading the shadows in their dance.
She stopped before the final door at the end of the hallway. Light emblazoned its surface in thin, branching cracks, like rivulets straggling across the mahogany canvas. Somehow, the sight provided her a sense of mortality, like a lost soul awaiting the gates of heaven. She felt weak, tempted by her own light to raise her hooves gloriously. She could imagine crawling to it, straining with all her might to reach for the door and feeling herself fly further than she could ever imagine. She’d relish that idea, the sweetness of death against the stubbornness of life. She’d cherish that, in fact. She would cherish it very much.
A blinding glare and a jarring squeak later, she finally arrived at her destination.
Finally standing bravely.
Finally facing him as only a coward would.
“Y-Your... Your Highness has... has finally decided t-to... to see me?”
There he laid, as he had lain for years, hooked by a buzzing mess of wires to beeping monitors. The contours of age marking his slate-blue coat were visible to her, aided by her damning sun hanging bright outside. His mane, formerly a royal gamboge, had been burnished over and over until there remained only pale imitations of it amid curlicues of white wilting around his horn. His larynx rippled in an irregular pulse as he flashed that grin— oh, there it was, that grin. It never changed, did it? That one always stuck with her, that crooked curve with a propensity towards his right cheek. She could only giggle at that like she did so many times before.
“It’s good to see you again, Cosmos.”
“After all this time... aft-after all—”
A fit of coughs yanked at his form. She was quick to act, lunging to the glass of water on the nightstand. Her magic proved its grace, letting it trickle between the lumps of phlegm lodged in his throat. His wheezing was harsh, fistfuls of air rushing down to return his breath to him. His hoof wrung the sheets, his irises jabbing at the stars, then silence.
In silence, she stood there, watching.
In dreadful silence, she waited.
She prayed.
Until a choking bout of sullen laughter scoured through the room.
“H-Ha... Have you... Have you come to m-mock me?”
“No, I have not.”
A snark gasp, before a ringing bout of laughter once again.
“You were always... too nice for your own good...”
The princess smiled her first smile of the day.
“Come to me...” he dreamily sighed, frailly reaching out a hoof, to which she quickly stepped forward and cradled it. “Oh... ohh... you really have not aged a day, Your Highness... you really didn’t...”
“And you have not as well, Cosmos.”
“Oh, spare me your lies.” His smile wobbled. “I could never hope to be like you, Your Highness. Immortality, the temptation, the craving, eludes me as it does everypony else.” A huff. “I can’t help but imagine how it must feel. Seeing life through your lens, watching fates converging and diverging as they did.” Another huff. “What... what does it all mean? What does it... what does it mean? Pray tell?”
She chose not to answer.
“How have you been doing lately?” she asked.
“Ah, oh, just... just lying here, waiting. It’s a long wait, though I must endure. They say the light of reprieve is softer than an alicorn’s feather. Do you believe that nonsense? Do you really?”
“I... find it wonderful what my subjects would choose to believe. Endearing, at times.”
“You find it endearing? Oh... oh... if only I shared such sentiments,” he chuckled. “Ah, but as it draws near, I’m beginning to think there’s a... there’s a misconception. When you... when you’re suffering a-as much as I am, you’d think anything’d be softer than an... aicorn’s feather... what do you think? What do you think, Your H-Highness...”
She couldn’t hope to answer.
“Ah, but I ramble,” he rasped in her place. “No, what’s important, I know what’s important, I know... I want to ask, it’s very important... why... why are you here, Your Highness. Why?”
“Rest now,” she said with a grin, gently placing a hoof on his shoulder. “Do not strain yourself too much. We can talk a lot more about that tomorrow. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, very much so... I need rest... I need... I need rest, yes... tomorrow it is, Your Highness. Tomorrow.”
Cosmos was always a loud sleeper, perhaps ever since he was a colt. His mother frequently groused to her about how much he snored back in the day, and though he was never as loud as he was then, his purrs could still be heard even when she strode out onto the balcony. Her horn began to glow amid the fading daylight, her magic guiding the sun in its tranquil descent. She was lowering it a little earlier than her fastidious dispositions would’ve liked, and as it neared the horizon, she had a worrying realization. Ultimately, her fears were fleeting, relief washing over her when up came crawling her sister’s moon, their two respective empyrean bodies crossing each other in greeting. A quiet laugh left her lips: she could almost hear Luna’s placid voice yammering at her all the way from Canterlot, even though deep down, she knew her sister would appreciate that this night would be a longer one. Of course, the last thing Equestria needed were anomalies transmundane, and for her, of all ponies, to teeter that balance was akin to travesty.
“Just this once, sister. Just this once.”
She hoped her sister heard her promise. If she didn’t, she could always tell her in her dreams. As the last rays of daylight vanished with the sun and the moon took its place, her second smile came forward when she turned around and settled into the chair by the bedside. Gently, she drew the sheets upon his form and, without any shred of reluctance, leaned in and gave a light peck on his wrinkled forehead. From his throat then sprung his nightly mumbles— another peculiar habit of his that clung onto him, it would seem. He would often say the darndest things in his sleep, and she would often listen, trying her best not to laugh every time. So she listened in, and she muffled her chuckles with a hoof, and listened once more.
“Goodnight, Cosmos.”
She had decided to retire in the guest room, and though she knew she would have to work a sweat to make it at the very least inhabitable, she preferred it over the pyramids of paperwork she had to gloss over back in Canterlot. When she decided she had heard enough of his wonderful words, she began to creep to the door to start her self-assigned duty, though she stopped in her tracks when she heard him mutter something else.
”T... Ta...”
Did he... did he just...
He couldn’t have...
She turned around, hoping she was mistaken, hoping that it was just a voice in her muddled head, hoping... he couldn’t have said it, could he? She watched his lips and held her breath, her heart dangling at its cords. The night was spinning over her head, its infinite eyes sparkling as it peered into the room. She watched, hoping— no, knowing that he shouldn’t have said it. In the end, however, his lips moved as they were, churning it out over and over like some sort of mantra, and she heard it in all its entirety, as clear as day.
”Tia...”
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“Oh, you’ve brought gingerbread!”
“Yes, I did.” she chuckled, peeling the wrapper off her little gift. “I thought you might like some. You were always begging me to take you to the bakery so you could pick it out when you were just a colt, remember?”
“Ah, yes, yes! Ha, yes! Oh, a dreadful nuisance I was, wasn’t I?”
“It’s all just a part of learning and growing up, Cosmos. Not to mention I enjoyed it very much myself.”
“As always, you... you’re too kind, Your H-Highness.”
“I merely state what I deem as such,” she said as the knife sank into the loaf, carving out the first of many slices. “You were always a little more talkative when there’s gingerbread involved somehow. Even in our sessions together, you rarely raised a question, but if I’ve prepared a platter and left it beforehand... why, you were asking as many questions as you were salivating over them. Even soaking your notes in them once. We spent that whole morning trying to salvage anything that was still legible.”
“Did I now? Oh, I don’t really remember anymore.”
“You’ve outgrown it, that’s all.”
Dicing the gingerbread into minuscule chunks and encapsulating them in her magic, she slowly fed them to him, his fuzzy smile of contentment as he savored the taste ushering her own into the picture. The routine was languid, serenely so, stopping at times only to quench his thirst with water. There were times where he would let out dry coughs, throat walls convulsing upon lumps of phlegm, though they would calm as fast as they came. It seemed for a day, he was getting better, but of course, she reminded herself not to be too gleeful about it.
“I wonder, how is your sister, Y-Your Highness?”
“Luna?” she perked. “Oh, she’s faring well, I suppose. A few misunderstandings with the current trends of our society, but nothing too grave. You’ve never met her, did you?”
“I knew her as the Mare on the Moon, and perhaps I shall forever know her as such.”
“I could arrange a visit with her along if you’d like.”
Luna might like that as well, she reckoned; the two share a lot in common, primarily their love for the night sky. His Cutie Mark — a whirlpool of stardust — would certainly pique her sister’s interest in him, not to mention his intricately-drawn star charts that were hanging haphazardly on the wall, coated in a dusty sheen. Oh, she could imagine them already, rambling over and over about astronomy whilst leaving her alone to muse over a cup of tea. Now, wouldn’t that be a lovely sight to see?
“Oh, there’s no need to, Your Highness,” he laughed with a dismissive wave of his hoof. “There are just some things I think are best left to the imagination. I believe in that, yes. I wouldn’t want to ruin the magic, would I?”
“Should you ever change your mind, do not hesitate to let me know.”
“I will now, I will,” he chuckled. “And what of... what of... y-your current student? How was she under your stead?”
“Twilight Sparkle? Well, she— um... How can I put this... she excelled beyond my expectations, I believe.” She swallowed a lump. “You know, she strove as any of my students would, you included. In fact, there were times where she reminded me of you, Cosmos. Particularly when it comes to hiding away from the rest of the world just to read a book.”
“Oh, does she now?”
“She was always fond of reading, even before I met her. There are times where I do wonder if she would have trouble keeping up, especially with everything that was going on, but she seemed to do just fine. Even now, she always finds a way to impress me so.” A chuckle left her lips. “Oh, but I would never tell her of course, but I believe she knew deep down, seeing how perceptive she can be....”
Her voice drifted onward, her gaze lost, though she shook out of it immediately, returning to carve out another slice. “Oh, just so you know, I did head back to the same bakery for the gingerbread. The owner’s granddaughters are running the place now, would you believe that? To think, when we first met them, they were still newborns! They’d love to see you again should you have the time, Cosmos—”
“Your Highness.”
“Yes? W-What is it?”
It was then that she noticed it.
His smile had completely vanished, replaced by a look of... disappointment, perhaps? With how sickly he looked, she couldn’t tell. There was a dead glaze in his eyes, his irises flaring into a stark yellow. Her magic unexpectedly faltered before it, leaving the knife half-sunken into the loaf. A chill swept underneath her hooves— was it the wind? Was it her imagination? Was she imagining it all right now? She blinked and blinked again, yet that stone cold stare remained. What did she do to warrant it? What did she say that brought back this macabre veneer from the past? What had she said that could ever beget such—
“You failed... t-to mention that Twilight Sparkle had become a princess, Your Highness.”
Oh.
That.
The sentences in her head could never fit, however much she wanted to. In the end, she resorted to a distrait nod, though that glare still remained. Reluctantly, she tore her eyes back to the loaf of gingerbread, her horn glistening in a withered gold. The knife sank further in with an audible clap, and it crumbled, perhaps much more than she had hoped. Its tip prodded at the guts, skewering them in before the many layers and dragging them all out. Throughout it all, he stared; throughout it all, she retained her battered ignorance.
“My physician, he... He reads the paper to me when he comes by, and he did just that... o-on the day... the day you crowned her—”
“Cosmos...” she began haughtily. “You shouldn’t strain yourself—”
“Why her?”
She frowned.
“Your Highness, why her... tell me, why her?”
She stared him down, though it only provoked him to do the same.
“Why her? What did she d-do... what did she do to... to deserve it... tell me, what did she do?”
“Envy will get you nowhere, Cosmos.”
“Envy? Oh, you think I’m... you think I’m envious of her? Oh my, Your Highness! You really... you really never change, do you? Even after... after all this time... after all this time, you... you remain... blind... blameless...”
“Cosmos, we’ve talked about this—”
“What was I to you then?” he snarled. “Your former student who came long before her, the one you... you so proudly... threw away... What was I to you? Even after all I’ve done for you, was I just another disposable pony you’d want to do your errands while you lavish upon your throne? Was I... was I no better than the rest of them, even though I’ve been there for you more than they could ever imagine doing? Was I just another meaningless pony in your life? Am I meaningless to you?”
“Cosmos, you’re not thinking straight—”
“Even now, I lie here! Even now, I waste every day trapped in this bed. Every. Day. And all this time, you’re content with just stepping in and... and talking and... talking and just... it’s always that with you, isn’t it? It’s always about you or about Equestria, isn’t it? This whole time, it’s all been about you, about what you can do, what you can provide, and all this time, I’m just a rag ready to be used over and over and over, to be poked and prodded upon... and the world will never know...”
She wanted to scream at him. She yearned to, she was desperate to. It may be unbecoming of her to do such a thing and everyone who had seen the sun knew that, yet... Yet he knew! He knew how she felt about that, about everything! He knew all too well how it would anger her! He knew, and he still went ahead and stoked the embers anyway! So with a gasp, her mouth fell open, letting all the thoughts in her head to coalesce towards it into a volley of flaming arrows, drawn back and ready to pierce into the very pony before her.
In the end, all that came from those lips were nothing.
She couldn’t do it.
She tried to muster everything, but she couldn’t.
She couldn’t do it.
Not anymore.
“Does she know? Does Princess Twilight know?”
Her gaze fell.
“Ah... of course she doesn’t.” Laughter, bitter and coarser, scourged between their breaths. “Funny... I-I thought she might realize it by now... I thought... I thought the rest would know of me... of my existence... b-but you seem content to keep this little secret to yourself, eh? After all, it had worked out well so far for you, didn’t it?”
One more scoff, before he gave a brusque nicker.
“Get out. Leave me be.”
She did so without any hesitation. She could feel his stare running through her spine, wrenching into every bone and dragging it all out from her jaws. Her head hung low in a manner unlike a princess, slinking away before his shadow. As she turned one last time towards him just to close the door behind her, he refused to meet her gaze as he spoke up once more, sending one last jolt scurrying across the stone walls of her heart.
“Don’t ever come back.”
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“Cosmos?”
The world was cold that afternoon, for her sun had shied away underneath a heather-gray veil. On the third day, the westerly wind was blowing stronger than ever, sending dark clouds spiraling from the horizon, the sight of which drew her worried gaze. The trees outside were already beginning to sway to its howls, leaves applauding in terrifying awe at the roiling sky. A gale of such caliber could easily tear the boards off the walls and the shutters off their hinges, she reckoned. All of it served to augment the shadows in the house, the hallways flooding black until she was almost gasping for air.
He was asleep when she called to him. It was a strangely quieter slumber he was having, not alike the uproar outside. The meddlesome creaks of the floorboards did little to pester him, as did the squeaking of rusted springs when she settled down upon the velvet lounge chair, brushing the pillow resting on it aside. For a moment, he seemed to be smiling; Luna must’ve certainly given him a treat to behold, she surmised. She should thank her sister for that. After all, a good dream might just be what Cosmos needs.
“Dream a little dream, my faithful student.”
It was her favorite thing to whisper. She always did it: to him, to Twilight, to all of them when they were seeking serenity in slumber. After all, a whisper would do no harm, though right now, she was pretty sure it did no good either. Not to him, at least. No, she whispered it merely to soothe herself amid the surfeit of drear. No one knows how much she needs it, not even she herself, and she was supposedly the omniscient being among her ever wonderful subjects. As much as they were vocal about their most endearing beliefs, there were just some things they would say that she couldn’t bring herself to appreciate.
She hated it.
She hated being omniscient, or at least being termed as such.
For what sort of omniscient, all-knowing deity could not even comprehend the root of her own emotions?
Gravity trickled down her throat and embraced her stomach. A flash of light burst across every window, followed by a thick crash. She closed her eyes and listened in to the raving skies, having heard enough from the glorious yet all too familiar resplendence of the sun hiding behind them. With every crackle of the clouds, she seemed to be inching closer and closer, encouraged as she were by the taps on the panes. The house groaned sickly at it all, as if it had known the answer all along but would never disclose them to her out of pure spite. Considering the pony resting before her, it’s easy to see why.
“T... Tia...”
There he goes again. He had been like this for a while now, saying that singular, spellbinding word in his sleep. She could only hope that Luna had the heart to keep herself out of those particular dreams, or perhaps replace them entirely, whatever they may be. Still, it remained ceaseless amid his tosses and turns, accentuated with the scintillating spectacle toiling above the clouds. She had neither the heart nor courage to rouse him, instead trying her best to remain content by closing her eyes in an unheeded demand of silence.
Within it, came darkness.
From it, she opened her eyes.
She had a thought. An epiphany, if you will. The snare of lightning shunned it, rumbling longer than it did the many times before, as if warning her. Before it, she could only bestow a downward gaze, seeking in herself a courage she had long buried somewhere in the dredges of her heart. Heftily, she rose from her leisure and strode to the bedside, clutching ever tighter onto the last straws of her virtues — the very same ones that she shared with all of her students — before throwing them aside. In this sanctuary easily overlooked, it would be the last thing her subjects would ever know that she had done.
She would love it that way.
For it to be forgotten, that is.
“Forgive me.”
Her magic graced the pillow she had brushed off earlier. It was round, quite like her own sun. It once had a bright veneer too, though time had long since reduced it to tatters and tears, with cotton spilling out from its depths, and though she preferred something cleaner, it would have to suffice. Firmly clutching upon it, she approached him, a brief smile adorning her lips before melting away. Another snare, another warning, another pint of ignorance burning her head. Slowly, the pillow hovered over Cosmos, the stallion lost in his somnolent serenity, unaware of the shadow entrenching his wrinkled visage. She latched her eyes shut, muttering prayers to any deity greater than her that would be listening in, much less ever existed. Her head dipped low, her horn quivered, her shadows whistling a macabre tune. All she needed to do, all she needed... all she needed was a gentle push.
A gentle push downward.
“Do it.”
Her eyes snapped open. Her head jerked upward. He was looking right at her, eyes bright and brimming with a kind of hope few of his age would provide. They sparkled for her, scintillating with every flash from the windows, yearning, needing the one thing from her. All she had to do was finish the job. All she needed was a gentle push.
”Do it. Please.”
A gentle push downward upon those imploring eyes.
”Your Highness, please... please do it...”
Those eyes, stirring with the last figments of life.
”Finish what you started...”
Those eyes, glistening at the thoughts in her mind.
”Do it...”
Those eyes...
The eyes of her faithful student.
Her faithful student.
“I can’t,” she gasped, stumbling backwards as the pillow fell to the side. “I can’t, I’m—” A huff. “I’m sorry... I... I’m sorry, Cosmos. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t, I... I can’t...”
She expected him to sneer. She expected him to snort and grovel at her hesitation; to bemoan and denounce her cowardice. She expected him to toss her aside in his spasms of disappointment, to yell at her accursed look of despondency she so miserably donned to excuse her incompetence. She expected him to be the Cosmos she remembered him to be all those days ago: the Cosmos never hesitating to raise his voice to bury her in shovelfuls of deprecation after deprecation, even before the presence of others. She expected Cosmos to be the violently vociferous student she remembered fondly all those years ago.
Instead, the closest she ever got to it was his disgruntled sigh.
“You’ve... mellowed out... didn’t you?”
She couldn’t even shake her head at that, not even at being the pathetic, useless, worthless excuse she was. The sight of it only begged a chuckle out of Cosmos, before his gaze twisted back into a glower. He turned away from her, to the raging storm outside, never looking back at her, never gifting her the luxury of his tranquil gaze as he did a moment ago. She could only slink away from underneath it, silently trotting back to the door. What stopped her, if only for a second, were the grave words he parted her with, and though she had heard him said it yesterday, it tore into her a new kind of pain, one deep enough to bring a single tear into her eye.
”Don’t come back until you’ve grown a spine.”
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What does it mean to care for a faithful student?
That question came with a final splat of dirt, when she was flicking the beads of sweat gathering at her brows. She looked to the sun— her very own sun shimmering up there in all its glory, cursing its scalding betrayal while basking in its invigorating luster. Many upon this earth could only look up to it in utter awe and admiration, imagining to themselves how far those rays would travel to present itself to the farthest corners of the world. They rightfully believe it as such, for she’d like to picture herself as a generous figure, generosity being one of the six elements after all.
One can say for certain that she embodied generosity well.
She would say she embodied it better than her past self did.
She knelt down once more, sullying her knees with another layer of dirt. Her subjects would’ve dropped their jaws, even more so if they saw her spending the entire morning raking the ground and yanking the last of the weeds from the marble planters, though she’d do it nevertheless. It was unbecoming of her to do as such, yet here she was, white coat patched brown, spreading the soil over a recently buried row of seeds. Fuschias, she must remember this time. Oh, she could imagine them already, growing into a fine violet and swaying in her sunshine. They would look splendid alongside the marigolds and daffodils, she reckoned. Such a sight would be worth the wait. All she needed was time, and time was something she can always spare. One would even say she had been pampered by time.
If only she could say the same for him.
Her gaze rose towards the window, hoping to see a bemused grin staring back at her from behind the blinds. He would be jeering at the sight of her reducing herself into a mere gardener. He would chastise her for not using her authority to task it upon one of her many subjects instead of laboring through it herself. He would hate to see her like this: to see her becoming just another pony in this world, living and learning in the ways most ponies always do. He would hate that.
Then again, there’s nothing else she could do that would make him hate her even more than he did already.
She strode into the undergrowth, taking care not to trip over the large runnels of roots pervading the forest floor. It was a quiet trek, with an occasional chirp and chitter coming from the branches high above. Her smile grew when in came the sound of trickling water, for she came upon the small stream that ran through the woods. Carefully, she dipped a hoof into the running water, a light chill twanging her nerves before she settled her stained form into it with a contented sigh. She closed her eyes, feeling it all flowing through her coat, caressing the dirt and heat away from her quivering skin. She remained there for as long as she would allow herself, and even if it only lasted for a moment, she was free of all her worries.
She was free of everything.
If only for a moment.
”Why are you here, Your Highness. Why?”
Why indeed.
The answer was simple, wasn’t it?
She was here because she cared.
Like how her sun cares for all of the world, she cared for Cosmos as she would for everyone else.
Still, what does it mean to care for a faithful student?
The swirling locks of her mane drifted along the stream, as if reaching to the ocean seated at the end. She looked ahead to the horizon, to the place she would never hope to reach but yearned to see. She could imagine it, as she always did, though her imagination was always too... grounded, for lack of a better word. Never ethereal. Never empyreal. Sure, there would be many faces waiting her there should she make the impossible step, and she would greet them with the freshest tears if she could. In the end, all she can do was watch one more familiar face take its place among them, the thought of which only made her wonder once more.
Does she care about Cosmos?
Had she ever cared about Cosmos?
Why now? Why would those questions come as he neared his end? Why now? She did care for him, she knew that. She cared! If that weren’t the case, she wouldn’t be here right now to help him face his final days in her sunlight, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t be here to listen to the last of his musings and complaints by his bed if she didn’t care! She wouldn’t spend the whole day clearing out the garden if she didn’t care! She wouldn’t do all of that if she never cared!
She cared about him, she knew of it.
Yet every time she believed that, every time she made herself certain of it, every time... another question would worm its way back into her head. She would vehemently refuse to answer it. She would never admit to herself that she knew the answer to this question, as clear as her own day. The question shall remain a question never seeing itself to the end; a monstrosity with a familiar guise. She could picture them already, those angry eyes seething gold in their sockets and boring holes into her chest. She could hear him already, shouting at the top of his lungs, vocalizing the very question upon the divine.
”If you really cared, then where were you the whole time I was here?”
One thing she knew for certain? She remained terrified of the answer to that question.
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“W-Was the garden always this... pristine, Your H-Highness?”
“I suppose it was.”
He knew it was her. She could tell from his tone that he knew. He must’ve seen her at some point of her laborious chore she tasked herself with yesterday. It was worth it in the end however, where a nice view is unquestionably a great addition to the doctor’s recommendation of a few hours of sunshine and fresh air. Cosmos may wholeheartedly agree on that, though he would never voice it up. He was always too arrogant for his own good, even when he was a student. For ponies like him, age merely inflames the swell of pride rather than soothing it. Then again, Cosmos wouldn’t be Cosmos without his aggravating pride to keep him in check.
“I thought it would brighten up this place a little,” she hummed, gazing proudly at her handiwork. “There isn’t much to see now, but I know it would be a spectacular tableau to behold in the coming years. For now, I think it’s an improvement over the array of weeds that were all over the courtyard. Better an immaculate view than an overgrown one for the Summer Sun Celebration, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I’d rather... view it from the windows...”
There it goes again: those disgruntled bells of pride ringing in his head. They had been ringing ever since noon came around, when they both bickered about bringing him out onto the porch in his wheelchair. He hated being weak. He loathed it. To be limp and skeletal and just plain useless, confined to this contraption to be paraded around the grounds by the one pony he admired... oh, she could only imagine the battlefield of thoughts and feelings in his head right now, the many skirmishes between reason and emotion! Certainly, he shall cherish it as much as he shall admonish himself for it.
“You can’t just stay in your room all day, Cosmos.”
“Ah, b-but... but I’m nearing my denouement, Your Highness. I’d rather herald its arrival in comfort.”
“And miss this mess you have before you?”
“Oh, perhaps. I do admit, it is the most beautiful mess I’ve ever bore witness to in a long time, and I have seen a lot of messes in my... in my short life...”
“You’ve lived long, Cosmos. Longer than most.”
“It’s all about perspective, isn’t it?” he chuckled. “When... when there’s an ending, it... it always, always, always... feels... short... mysterious... pointless at times, even. Like how day makes way for night, I presume.”
“Day and night are but reflections of each other,” she sighed, gazing up at the sun and the moon hiding behind its radiance. “Luna and I are never too similar yet never too different. Take everything away, we’re just sisters in the end, after all. There’s no one else we could turn to, just... us. We’d tell each other secrets as much as we’d tell each other lies, but we’d always know which one it would be that comes from the other’s lips. Sometimes, I would look into her and I’d see a little bit of me inside her, waving back at me. She might see the same in me, though I’m sure she’d stop to question its merits. She’s always been suspicious of the most trivial things.”
“Life and death are not mere mirrors, Your Highness. I fathom it quite well, considering I’m on their brink.”
“But you never see what lies ahead. We spoke tirelessly of the nearing horizon, yet when we speak of death, we merely rethink back the events of life.” She solemnly glanced at her sun. “What is a funeral if not a remembrance to what the deceased was in life? What is an obituary if not a nod to those the deceased had shared his life with? Those of life see death as a mirror as opposed to a window, Cosmos, and they shan’t find comfort in it either.”
The mumbles that came from him were inaudible, though she could ascertain from it the disgruntlement of his battered pride. She smiled that one smile she knew he detested, perhaps as a challenge. She was always intrigued on the many ways he would retaliate, though there were times where she believed he may be taking it too far. That’s without mentioning that age comes with a few liberties, after all.
“Have you ever asked her? What’s it like, a thousand years on the moon?”
She stopped short of a frown.
“I... try not to think about it. It’s something I didn’t want to encroach upon.”
“Ah... shame...”
“Not all ponies are as insensitive as you would be.”
“I prefer the term ‘strong-willed’. Ponies are generally a sensitive lot.”
“These ponies are still my subjects, Cosmos. As are you.” She shook her head and gave a sigh. “You never adhered to what’s acknowledged as ethics in this day and age, not even when you were still a fresh-faced stallion.”
“Limitations, limitations. As always, we are at our best when holding ourselves back.”
“Ponies would want to retain at least some semblance of sanity as they progress.”
“A semblance of sanity... sanity... Is that what stopped you short, Your Highness? Is that... is that what it was? Sanity?”
“I...” A lump formed in her throat. “I did not stop it as a means of sanity. I stopped it because it was a moral obligation. I stopped it because I knew it was the wrong thing to do. It was wrong of me to do what I did. I was wrong... I was wrong, Cosmos. I was wrong to let you do it.”
“And yet, even after all I’ve done, I remain here.” His gaze was cold again. Dead cold. Frosty, wintry, its ice shattering her burning soul. “Suffering. Waiting. Yearning. And yet, you remain before me. Watching, as you always did. I could feel your eyes staring, even when you’re hiding away in Canterlot. Oh, I know your thoughts would come swirling back to me, trapped here in this bloody place, I know that. I know you’re watching, Your Highness, and I know you don’t intend to do anything about it. You never wanted to stop this. You never did.”
She chewed upon the crisp summer air, staring ahead to where the sun was meeting the horizon, sending the sky into a golden array. Her gaze fell before her sister’s moon, proselytizing its mystique sweeping throughout the courtyard. In its glow, she turned to him and brought from her pain a smile, her magic reaching back to the knife she had brought along with her, as she offered him something she knew he would absolutely adore.
“Would you care for some gingerbread, Cosmos?”
“Oh, I... I certainly would... I certainly would...”
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“When did you become so fragile?”
He was wide awake that night. He couldn’t sleep. Something about hearing thunderstorms in his head, if she recalled correctly. She wondered if Luna had something to do with it, though she knew her sister would rectify it should she deem it necessary. Then again, Luna may deem a thunderstorm to befit someone like Cosmos; her work remains a mystery to her at times. Or perhaps the thunderstorm was just a catalyst of sorts. Perhaps Luna pieced everything together from what she had seen. Perhaps Luna was trying to play a part in this unruly mess. Perhaps Luna thought that good shall come for both of them should she choose to interfere, and as such she did.
Perhaps Luna had made a mistake.
”Sister of mine...”
“Pardon, Your Highness?”
“Nothing, nothing, I...” she sighed. “I was remembering something.”
“You... you’ve aged...”
She looked up at him with a waning smile. “Did I?”
“There weren’t...” he weakly raised a hoof, “t-there weren’t those creases there before... those lines... beneath your eyes... you’ve learned to feel it, didn’t you? The ideas of remorse and regret. The pain that came with it.”
“I’ve been like that for some time now, Cosmos. Those creases, those emotions you speak of... I’ve had them long before I met you,” she professed quietly. “I’ve merely hidden them. It’s something that comes when you experience regret over and over, and I’ve regretted many things. It’s a constant that shall dwell in a life that stretches beyond the plains of eternity. My sister learnt of it when she returned and... and she spoke to me of it once. She talked about it, what a thousand years did to her.”
“A thousand years on the moon... so she did make a confessional...”
“Her words reeked of loneliness. You could hear it if you were there. Each and every syllable, taut and forlorn.” Her breath shivered. “I can’t fathom what it must be like for her up there. No one to look to, no one to listen to her woes... if I knew back then about what she would toil through before sending her there, I’d... I’d do things differently. I’d find another way to save her. Instead... for a thousand years, there was a mare on the moon, all alone with no one to confide in...”
All she could take was a single breath before everything came crumbling down.
“Can’t I be fragile, Cosmos?” she pleaded, eyes glistening. “Just this once... just for this one day... can’t I be fragile because of that? Of what I did... what I’ve done... to my very own sister? Can’t I be fragile when I remember that this was the day I banished her into the moon? Can’t I mourn for a thousand years lost?”
Cosmos had nothing to say.
“They celebrated it.” Fury rose in a toxic wave. “They... they called it the Summer Sun Celebration, as if... as if somehow, it made everything I did all the more better. They celebrated it as if it were just another occasion, as if my sister was... as if Luna was... expendable...” Her gaze tossed to the moon glaring down at her as it hung in the sky. “I should’ve chastised them there and then, but I couldn’t. After all, they knew nothing of what they were doing then. They thought her to be just another adversary of mine that I had to face and it’d be wrong to blame them for it. There were few like Clover and Starswirl and Cadance and you back in the day. You know that, don’t you? That they knew nothing,” she spat. “Even from then on, many others, they might’ve known, yet... yet they never understood... they never thought that what I did... what I’ve been trying to do...”
“The one before Twilight as well?”
“Sunset?” She paused. “She... she tried, I’d give her that. She tried to empathize, I think. She tried to comprehend what I was trying to do, and so she delved deeper. The more she delved, the more she discovered, and it only tested her empathy, never tenderizing it as I hoped it would. Then... she learnt about you...”
“I’d like to be there to see her expression.”
She would’ve gruffly sighed at his remark were she not busy remembering the student she was once proud of. Sunset Shimmer was always an eager learner, like the many others that came before. How the most faithful are so easily swayed, she would deliberate at times. It was always volatile, this form of faith, primed to implode upon itself whenever something she says brushed the wrong way. It was because of it that she remained punctilious around these students of hers in their conversations, yet there will always be that one student that would come to revile her methods and teachings. There will always be that one student going astray among them, and she could only be equally proud of them nonetheless.
She had seen many being led astray, Sunset being only the most recent one.
Never forgiving, never forgetting.
“Has she ever returned?”
“No,” she answered with a confidence that terrified her. “She had vowed not to see me again and it seemed likely that she intends to keep it. I’ve heard of Twilight trying to persuade her otherwise, but I believed it yielded no results.”
“As you would like it,” Cosmos scoffed. “Just... leaving it indefinitely, never quite... never quite reaching the conclusion... and if it ever did, it was because of a student slaving their time away just to fulfill your desires... what is that if not cowardice becoming of Your Highness?”
“Twilight decided to do it on her own accord. I never would’ve fathomed such a suggestion in the first place.”
“Tell me, please tell me, with she being so eager... would she finish what you started here? Would she willingly come here and... and fix this beautiful mess you made? Would you tell her about me? Oh, I’m sure sh-she would love to come down here and perhaps conjure something up, though I wouldn’t mind going by way of two bare, innocent, beautiful hooves—”
”Don’t you dare bring Twilight into this!”
Silence, frail and furious. The glare of the sun barreled through the night, broiling at the scornful grin of this pony before her. He never let it up. In fact, he donned it with pride, facing her rage as if it were an old friend. He knew, oh, how he knew... How he knew it would sting her. He knew how wrong it was, yet... yet...
“I could never imagine the day you would become so... protective...”
“What do you want from me, Cosmos?”
“You haven’t answered me yet,” he deadpanned. “When have you become so fragile?”
“Why does that matter now?”
“Why wouldn’t it?!” Anger swelled in his throat. “I was your student as much as she was! I was faithful until the very end! I was— no, I was more than that! I was more than that! I remember it clearly! I was more than that!”
“Cosmos—”
“We shared secrets! We shared moments! We said that the world would never tear us apart! We were going to rule Equestria together! I had strove in your days and your sister’s nights proving to you everything that I was, and you had thought it perfect! Was it all a lie? Was it all just something you’d tell me to keep my foolish hopes up? What was I to you, Tia?!”
A flinch.
All she could spare was a flinch.
“Was I... was I just someone you’d waste your tears on? Was I always that? Even now, as I lay here... was I no more than a ragdoll you’d speak to and hug tighter every time you had your nightmares, Your Highness? Tell me, Tia... tell me...”
“What we had, Cosmos—” she stopped to sigh. “What we had together wasn’t... wasn’t... I wasn’t in the right state of mind, I was desperate to cling onto something and I... I made a mistake— I knew it shouldn’t have happened and I knew it was wrong, but I... I’m sorry, Cosmos. What we had together was something we shouldn’t have had, it was... what we had was... it was...”
Her voice faltered into nothing, as did her glare. Blackness filled her vision; whispers fluttered across her head. She could see him. A younger him, a livelier him. A smiling him. He’d look so bright, so cheerful, so... so full of life, like all her students would. They’d always lose that spark somehow, some faster than others, and his was among the fastest since the day she... since the day it happened. There were times where she’d look at Twilight just to see if that spark still remained, because she knew how dangerous they could be without that spark. She knew, oh, how she knew, yet... yet it always came back.
It always came back.
“But it felt perfectly real to me, Tia.”
Stone gaze crashed with stone gaze, before Cosmos reeled it aside. His shadow seemed to spiral further, almost out of her reach. With no more than a sigh, she rose from her haunches and marched to the door. She felt that urge to turn around, and if only for a moment, she almost did. Her hoof came upon the knob, softly caressing the grooves and ridges carved into its surface, before giving it a turn.
“When did you become so fragile... oh, that’s not what it was... That’s not it—”
“It’s late, Cosmos.”
“—Tia, when did we become so fragile?”
She stopped in her tracks, the creaking door before her left ajar. To that question, she finally turned to him and, in the softest tone bereft of any sincerity, gave her answer before storming off.
“When you stopped seeing me as your teacher.”
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It started out innocently enough.
Reverence was always the first step. Being the glorious deity of the sun, it was always never in short supply. Her subjects adored her and her gift of daylight, so it seemed only fitting that she was revered the highest among them all. They’ve built cathedrals and chapels under her name once, all despite her insistence otherwise. They’d even write some sort of manuscript regarding the worshipping of the sun. Of course, those traditions died as the years went by, though they’d still make art of her physiognomy from time to time. There was always some sculptor or painter that would flock to her after a fit of ‘divine intervention’ and at one time, she quite delighted being admired. Perhaps youth always had a rein on her as it would everyone else. Right now, however, she’d rather hide away than willingly seat herself down just to have her face carved out from some rock.
It was in such a moment of reverence that she spotted him.
She remembered how he looked at her the day he celebrated his first Summer Sun Celebration.
He was just a face in the crowd. He didn’t have his Cutie Mark then, that much was clear. All he had were those eager eyes that mirrored everyone else’s when she raised the sun before him for the first time, yet she could see it in them. Past the glimmers of faith, she could see his aptitude long before it would germinate. All he needed was the right place and the right time to display it, and though he could never match up to Twilight’s latent display of raw magic, it was still something to behold back in the day.
Simply put, the servants had to spend a month replacing all the windows of the castle after his little show.
She sighed once more, placing the rake down as she rubbed her sweaty forehead. The day he stopped seeing her as his teacher, the day their relationship expanded beyond mentor and protege... was she always that susceptible to her emotions? Was she always that frail, as Cosmos would like to put it? She had often mourned, long before Cosmos was born, yet she had never mourned in the face of her students. She didn’t dare to, lest they questioned it. They’d always had the most pressing questions, after all.
Fewer had seen her weep. Twilight and her then-new friends did shortly after Luna’s return, yet even those were tears of utter joy. She believed only Cosmos had been the sole witness of her sadness, true and true— but it was not like she expected him to wake up that night! Having spent the whole night studying in the library, he’d usually sleep in until sunrise! She wouldn’t have known that he would just suddenly rouse from his sleep!
She remembered it happening while she was reading some old tales of her and Luna when they were fillies, transcribed into bundles of yellowed parchment and hidden in the shelves. It was one of the more heartwarming ones, where they both learned something about each other after some grand adventure, as they always do, but they’ve made some sort of really important promise which was never explicitly stated and... try as she may, she couldn’t remember what it was. She just knew it was important, yet she couldn’t remember it.
She had wept out of fear.
The fear that she may one day forget her sister entirely.
He was a teenager by then, already beginning to delve into his own perspectives of life. Perhaps rousing to the cries of her pain somehow contributed to it one way or another, though he would be too arrogant to ever tell her. He had listen to her attentively as if it were just another lesson— no, he had listen to her as if it were her doctrine, made all the more divine by her vulnerability. He’d listen and listen over and over, so much so that his morality to question was easily cast aside. For how could he question her? How dare he question her?
How dare he call her fears unfounded as they actually were?
She only wished he had done that for her.
“You shouldn’t strain yourself, Your Highness.”
“I can assure you, captain, I’m not strained in the slightest,” she rasped over her shoulder. “I did say that I can handle a rake just fine, didn’t I? It’s one of those things you’d pick up after you lived for more than a thousand years.”
“Such laborious work should rightfully be handled by the groundskeeper, Your Highness.”
“Indeed that is something we could agree on. In fact, I’d like to look for him as well and I think I know just the place. Why not you head for the graveyard, dig up his coffin and wake him up to tell him he’s been sleeping on his job, alright? Let’s do just that.”
“I do wish, if you shall pardon me so, that you refrain from addressing my worries with mockery, Your Highness.”
A long sigh whisked through the air. “I specifically mentioned that I was to be left alone, save his psychiatrist or anypony else I would call for personally. Yet here you are, standing before me, and rather defiantly at that.”
“Pardon me once more, Your Highness, but you failed to mention that he was the apostate they spoke of.”
There it goes again.
“I do not know anything about his supposed apostasy, captain. What I do know is that those are some grave accusations that you are making of a pony who had served me well in life.” She turned her tremendous gaze upon him, looking into those foolish eyes. “The work of Cosmos Tatterthought had contributed to Equestria in ways you cannot imagine. For example, you should thank him that your grandparents can live to the age they are now, and that your parents could successfully conceive you without any chronic illnesses or physical deformities to speak of. I do believe I would spend a sliver of eternity to elaborate on those and other such achievements, but you should know that I have a little bit of raking to do.”
“I... I suppose I should apologize for that. It was rude of me to speak of him as such. However, I was sent here under orders, Your Highness.”
Her stare turned grim. “Whose orders?”
“Her Royal Majesty Princess Twilight, Your Highness. We received a letter.”
Her stare grew grimmer. “When was it given to you?”
“Y-Yesterday, Your Highness.”
“Disregard the orders of her letter. Go back to Canterlot.”
“But Your Highness, she came to an assessment that you were sheltering a—”
“Disregard. Her. Letter.” she hissed vehemently. “Get out of my sight.”
It must be humiliating for the captain to dart away with his tail between his hooves like he did. Were she not struggling against the knots of anxiety twisting her mind, she’d find a laugh in her somewhere. With a nicker, she returned to her raking, her head stumbling through the choices for this section of the garden— she had been picking between hyacinths and hydrangeas. The hyacinth flowers have edges that are more pronounced when they blossom, though she preferred the way how the hydrangeas are bundled up neatly. In their own ways, both paired up well with the marigolds she had planted on either side. Perhaps there’s a way to fit both in them somehow? Perhaps there is. She might some way to fit them in. She was close to conceiving it! Oh, she would’ve! She surely would’ve, were it not for the tang of bitterness still lingering in her head, she would’ve figured it all out by now—
Bitterness.
When... when did she become so bitter?
Was it always there? Was it always rumbling inside her, all bottled up until it finally seeped from the cracks? Was it always stringing her emotions like paper dolls to roast upon a deep-seated fire? Was it there ever since she... ever since Luna had been banished to the moon? She searched with a frown, yet all that remained of it was uncertainty. Strangely enough, in its place was, of all things, tranquility, rife in the stone walkways of the garden; in the creaking halls of the house; in the rolling currents of the stream in the woods. Yes, all that remained was tranquility, and it was clawing at her from within. To that, she stared between the swaying branches, her voice tearing into it as it rose above the gentle rustle of the leaves.
“Do not interfere, Twilight.”
The wind could not carry that message, not with its weight. The night wouldn’t bother, not with its brevity. The sun seemed to flare, not in their place but in protest. In the end, her words fell into those rotting cracks of tranquility, and from it her student would seek out those words. Twilight was always a perceptive one after all, perhaps more so than most. Where other mistook it as being careful, she knew perfectly well her student was being calculating. There were always two sides of the chessboard after all; for once, she was going to play against the very student that had bested so many others in this little game.
All Twilight could do now was make the next move.
All she could do now was hold her breath.
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“Why are you immortal, Your Highness?”
How many days had he perused this question? How many nights had he pondered upon it? Perhaps both questions shared the same answer, but of course, she wouldn’t know that. She only knew what makes one immortal, as well as the names of those who perused and pondered of it. To her subjects, it is a concept terribly easy to recognize yet feasibly impossible to actualize, much like how she views the strata of death. And like how she views death, all she would allow was speculation, for an idea could unsightly twist even the soundest of minds.
She would know.
A stifled shiver ran across his eyes.
The tea was fantastic: a simmering blend of chamomile, as fresh as the shrub it was collected from. The aroma was supple and sincere to the senses, scouring her soul with a strangely somber serenity like a soft, sensual serenade. Her placid smile crumbled the ice growing between her lips, her gaze roaming across the room, never quite reaching anywhere. She took another sip, letting it soothe her tongue and drowning the bristling fuzz that was dwelling underneath it. Throughout it all, Cosmos stared ahead.
“Do you know, Your Highness?”
A trembling lump skittered across his throat.
“Do you know why it is so?”
A twisted wrinkle of intrigue adorned his forehead.
“You do know, don’t you?”
She took another sip, before turning to him with a smile.
“I’ve made some gingerbread toast.”
“Oh, I’ve...” he paused, his frown shriveling. “Gingerbread... you’ve bought gingerbread again... there really isn’t anything else, is there? I seemingly recalled the psychiatrist saying as such but... oh... how long was it since I last saw him...”
“Two weeks, Cosmos,” she replied, knife cleaving the bread. “I’ve requested some guards to send along some foodstuff the next time they might come around here, perhaps in the next few days or so. Until then, I’m afraid we’ll have to make do with gingerbread for now.”
“I certainly don’t mind the prospect of that.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t.”
As Cosmos weakly nibbled on his lunch, she threw the curtains open with her magic, bringing with it the blistering rays of the sun. She sighed fondly in her reverie of the outside world, watching every blade of grass, every rigid branch and every stalwart stalk converging upon its flamboyant rays with absolute grace. She could feel the batch of seedlings she had recently planted basking in her solar embrace, encapsulating within them a life brimming with hope. There were times where she wanted to just close her eyes and imagine it all, pulsing, praising, liberating... she could hear it as she always would.
She could hear a distant celebration.
Of things that could’ve been.
Of a path she could’ve trodden.
She could see the veneration of a student she had once admired. She could see him beside her, grinning from ear to ear. She could feel him, so very close to her. Her imagination may never prod the heavens, but she found it can be profoundly vivid when it come to the earthly pleasures, and though Cosmos had never went so far as to caress her form as he did in her head, she knew his touch to be gentle, much like a calligrapher meticulously producing their finest work.
“Why are you here, Your Highness?”
It was a haunting question. It always came back when she glanced away from him. She asked herself that question too frequently this time around and each time, there was never a reassuring answer. She strode around to his bedside, only to pause. The floors shifted, the bed creaked, the curtains fluttered. The sun froze in a drear. She searched for his eyes and found them flickering with an absentminded lightness, and for a moment she hesitated before it. In the end, she knelt down and reached for his shivering hoof, before drawing herself closer to do something he would never, ever expect.
She gave a gentle kiss on his cheek.
For a moment, he seemed invigorated. For a moment, he looked ready to spring out of the bed and prance about presumptuously with the zesty, boundless energy he had in his youth. It was hibernating somewhere in there, she was certain, though the best it could provide to him was the little grin he was wearing now. There was no spite in it. There was no pain. There was just that grin. He knew how she adored that grin, just as she knew how he adored her touch.
“I've always suspected my lips had become a little... a little too dry for your liking...”
She withheld a chuckle. “Stop it, Cosmos.”
“I missed that... I miss it still...”
“It was one time.” She smiled briefly. “It was one time.”
“I was a fool then, wasn’t I?”
“We were. Both of us.”
Tranquility, stiff and steady, blanched the air between them. Beyond it, there was a fragility. She could hear the whisper of the cracks. They were growing quieter, but she could hear those ugly sounds regardless. She glanced outside, hoping to spot a nearing silhouette. She knew it would come, it was just a matter of when. There would be a lot to talk about, much like she would in her past efforts of bureaucracy and diplomacy, though there was a weight with this one, a personal weight. She knew it wasn’t guilt— it was something more... lithe. Something more temperate.
“Why her?”
“Hmm?”
“Why... why Twilight?”
“She...” the words she couldn’t find before were coming to her, slowly. “She displayed a balance. Not a complete equilibrium, but close to it. She had a nuance to her that was... subtle, you could say. I know many whom had that, but they were rather brazen about it. Her predecessor, Sunset Shimmer, was one of them who understood such subtleties, but that knowledge made her somewhat arrogant about them. On the contrary, there was a specific way that Twilight Sparkle carried it around that, although shaky, never seemed to eat away on itself. I’d say it was her overzealous tendency of being worried about every little detail, though I’d be wrong. It was more than that.”
“Is that it? Is that all you wanted from us? Subtlety?”
“Not really, no. She had a finesse as well. Not the kind that you’d see around Canterlot, but the ones that come at moments critical. She displayed what I could only describe as a tethered sense of leadership. She never took it too far until it would seem imposing to those around her, yet was assertive enough to stand her ground at the behest of her principles. She learned it quickly in this aspect, I’ll have to admit. Even more so than my sister and I did back in our days.”
“So she’s a princess now... is she... is she...”
“Immortal?” she gave a little laugh. “I do believe it would clear up your jealousy if I’d answer you now. See, when she ascended to become an alicorn, I provided it to her as a choice — whether or not she wants to be immortal — through the means of her subconscious. I believed a direct and pointed question, face to face, would only serve to complicate everything. Knowing Twilight, she’d spend an eternity pondering over its ramifications before she would allow any decision to be made.”
“So... so she chose...”
“She made the same choice Cadance made.” Her gaze drifted to the clouds. “I think it’s best for her. She wouldn’t have much to worry about, for one thing. She’d come to cherish everything around her a little more as well. After all, it’s a little hard to say that she would achieve a lot more in a century or so compared to everything she had done so far. I sincerely believe she wouldn’t, no offense to her.”
“Ah... shame...”
“You may be disdainful at her choice, but I can tell you for certain that I envy she even has one in the first place.” Her frown took on a distant glaze, swiftly drifting back to the days of yore. “If I was given such a choice, if the world could bring itself to kneel before that choice back when they made me an alicorn, I would make the very same decision that she has made. My sister would too, should she have this opportunity.”
"You jest."
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Nevertheless, she ignored his question, instead striding forward into her blooming sunlight. “Alas, the world was crueler, a lot more selfish. I was immortal because I didn’t have a choice. I was immortal because I knew the world needed something to look up to, and the world chose me. The times that we lived in harbored no sympathies for what we thought of ourselves and the paths we wished to take, so the best Luna and I could do was make sure that anyone living past those days would have the luxuries we did not have. For that, I can proudly say that Twilight’s choice was astounding proof that we did it. That everyone had a chance to decide what they wanted to do. That the common pony can attain the simple freedom of choice.”
“I would’ve chosen otherwise if I were her.”
“I know you would’ve. You made it particularly clear the moment you came into my stead,” she sighed in reminiscence. “You’re always seeking to prolong life and delay the ever-nearing clutches of death. All your perusals into medicine and science— when I look back at it, it’s a little maddening, you know? Even after all those avenues were exhausted, you couldn’t achieve it, yet you still wanted a taste of that forbidden fruit for yourself. I had hoped you would give up and return to your work after everything you’ve done, but in the end, you just... left... and you had to make a tremendous fuss of it too.”
“Did I now?”
“But that’s just like you, Cosmos. I certainly didn’t mind that. I will never forget the things you said to me that day, much like how I will never forget the many other things you did for me either.”
For how could she ever forget? She wouldn’t dare, not with everything that came after. The memories of that day remained only in mere trickles in her head, all converging towards a singular, spectacular moment before swirling down the drain. It was only a moment, yet it had been tainted in so much rage and fury that it warped into something far more dire than she would initially believe. That one moment changed her rationales, and with that change, she found herself a new set of principles that had since persist against the throes of time. However, a moment was all it took to change him also, albeit in ways she could never, ever had the heart to imagine.
“No, that’s not true.”
She heard it before.
“You’re lying to me... No, no, I did something.”
She heard variations of it echoing from memory.
“Something... horrible...”
Those words, firm in sense yet fickle in certainty.
“I can see it in your eyes.” He was staring at her now. “I angered you somehow. I wouldn’t leave on my own accord, I know I wouldn’t, I... I... I did something you couldn’t agree with. I did something and you couldn’t see what I was trying to achieve. No... No, in fact...” He paused, trembling as he neared his epiphany. “I think... I think I’m still doing it now...”
“That’s enough for today, Cosmos.”
“Tia, I did something, didn’t I? I did something—”
“There’s a time and place for such things,” she said as she turned around. “You need to rest, Cosmos. We’ve spoken enough for today.”
“But I... Oh... Tia, I might’ve done something... I might’ve... I think... What did I do? What did I do, Your Highness? What did I do to deserve this? To deserve... All of this...”
“Rest, Cosmos,” she sighed grimly, closing her eyes and turning away before he could see her shiver.
”There’s always tomorrow to look forward to.”
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Celestia opened her eyes.
The first graceful greeting came from the sun, hanging there a little lower than she had remembered and glowing in bemusement at the sight of her drifting down the river. Gently, the water caressed her back, with rivulets of it swirling across her midriff and neck. She floated in stillness, all the while studying which way the leaves were bending and how fast the clouds were moving. In this world, all she could hear was a gentle warbling drone of the flowing current, and she was helpless to do anything but listen to it as it swarmed across the many fond memories she had conjured up in her head like a school of piranhas.
A languid yawn, tamed by years and years of restraint, timidly left her lips— she figured she must’ve dozed off at some point during her little journey. Her hooves were aching to return to land, though the rest of her body didn’t have the impulse to do the same. Instead, she returned her gaze beyond the clouds, once more heralding the translucent visage of Cosmos Tatterthought smiling his most genial smile blanketing the entirety of the sky.
She adored that grin.
She remembered how careful he was with his advances; it always amused her when she recalled how different he had been initially when he gave his confession. She knew deep down that he had always liked her, though she never quite realized the depths of his affection until later on. It wasn’t long before she found herself reciprocating them; first as a tease, then as a desire. She longed to have him by her side, simply because he knew the right words to soothe the storms that would stir in her heart and more importantly, the right way to express them. He knew how to remain stoic in attention when she poured her dark truths and darker emotions out to him. He knew something as simple as being there for her when the world she lived in did not think she would ever need another shoulder.
He knew how to treat her just like another ordinary pony, and she desired that simple desire.
So much so that even when his affection for her had begun warping before her very eyes, she pretended not to see it.
“I’m sorry.”
The princess soon rose from the river, shaking away whatever dampness that still clung onto her coat and silky mane. The wind was hefty, letting the leaves dance closely around her but never quite touching her form. The grass beneath her hooves bent away from her strides, as did the branches above her head. She sighed the last of those tepid memories away into the dirt, before dragging her head up and, with a newfound confidence, faced the looming shadow of the house before her. Lo and behold, there it was, standing there amid the trees, shabbily yet stubbornly sturdy against the trying times. Its familiarity, nurtured from all the time she had been here, welcomed her, and she would’ve already dove back into its embrace, had she not notice that something was amiss.
There was someone already there.
Someone she knew really well.
“Twilight?”
The younger princess gave no response. She didn’t even turn back to greet her former teacher enthusiastically as she was prone to doing. Quickly, Celestia trotted up to her side, though she immediately stopped when she saw it in the other mare’s eyes: a burning, burnishing darkness, cold and placid, all of it relentlessly swirling up to the house before her. For the longest time, the student she fondly remembered for being one of the kindest mares she had ever met remained severely still, the storm only growing larger in her eyes. She never uttered a single word, never letting her gaze wander away, and for the longest time, Celestia watched her stand there, stalwart and stern, until she finally found it in her to speak.
“Twilight, why... why are you here?”
“He’s in there, isn’t he?”
Her spirit flickered. “Twilight, you’re not possibly—”
“Is he in there or not, Princess Celestia?” she rasped with a pointed glare. “Tell me.”
The gaping maw of silence swallowed them both. The wind rose to their necks, their manes tossing and tussling about before its onslaught. With a nicker, Twilight quickly turned away and began stomping up to the door, only to stumble backwards when Celestia burst out right in front of her with a swift splutter of magic, desperation clawing at her features. Their eyes met once more: one with anger, the other with what could only be described as gloom.
“Let me in.”
“Twilight, if you would just listen to me—”
“Let me in. Now,” Twilight repeated her sharp demand. “I’ve been to the archives, I’ve seen the report. I know what he did and I know he’s still in there.”
The words spilled out before she could rein them in.
“So what if he is?”
“So what if he... b-but he’s... Princess Celestia, you knew what he did, didn’t you?!” Twilight cried, aghast. “You were there when everything happened, of course you knew! Do you know the things he said about you? Do you know the things he did that he said were all in your name, Princess? And all this time, he was right here... right here... this isn’t right... this isn’t right...”
“I know full well of the crimes he committed, Twilight.”
“And what, you punish him by letting him live?! By hiding him away from everyone else?!”
“I did what I believed was best for him—”
”He killed foals, Princess Celestia!!”
Her voice hitched in her throat. Her eyes frantically stumbled as it delved into Twilight’s gaze, hoping in vain that she, of all ponies, would understand; that she, of all ponies, would know that this was more than that. She remembered that gaze fondly, because why wouldn’t she? She had seen that gaze so many times she had already lost count, and every time, she’d try to brush it off. And every time, that gaze, rife with abhorrence, would always come back.
”Will you ever learn, Tia?”
It wasn’t meant to last.
She knew it couldn’t last, perhaps since day one, yet she didn’t have the heart to tell her whimsical student of that notion. What good would come out of telling him that? What good would come from dismissing one’s desires? Still, even long after she had sated hers, his merely grew, leeching what’s left of their time together like a raucous parasite. By the time she realized what she had done, he was brought before her on his knees by her guards, drenched red and screaming blasphemies and obscenities to the heavens. She remembered each and every accusation he spewed and spat in his face as he was hauled away. She remembered how appalling were the things he vowed to do to her once he was free— things heinous enough to distress her at night, mostly because she knew he had the capability and gall to see those things through.
She remembered a twisted glare, one so unlike the young, bright pony that had been her student.
How ill-omened must she be to see that glare again.
“Foals, Your Highness. Colts and fillies, stolen away from their parents and... just... gone... all for the sake of one pony... for you...”
It wasn’t meant to last.
This little secret of hers.
“Twilight, I know this... I know it can be hard to understand.” She sounded ridiculous, flustered as she was. “The report... there’s only so much a pony can write in that." Luna wouldn't even believe her were she here. "I understand that you know of the crimes he had committed, but there’s something you have to know about Cosmos and his condition.”
“I knew he got what we wanted in the end.”
“Yes... yes, he did...” Regrettably so, the ugly noises in her head cried in unison. “He did...”
“Then why do you still keep him in there?!”
“Because it’s better than anywhere else! It’s... it’s the best thing I could think of...”
“Princess Celestia, this isn’t right! You’re harboring a murderer!”
”That murderer was my student, Twilight Sparkle!!”
A gale, no less grand yet no less frail, swept across the forest. The azure of the sky hid away beneath a dismal gray, giving only so much as a peek. The frolicking trees stopped and trembled, branches stiffly swaying with nary a creak. What’s left of the dilapidated house watched with bated breath at the two alicorns that stood before it: one a teacher, the other her dear student, abjuring all their years spent smiling and laughing and learning together, and replaced it all in this singular moment with nothing else but rage. The reverie remained as it was, a tableau hidden in secrecy, before Celestia harnessed her frugal voice to use it in the most selfish way possible.
“What would you do if it was Starlight Glimmer?”
Surely enough, it all came crumbling down.
“Th-That’s besides the point—”
“What would you do if it was Starlight Glimmer? What would you do if your dear student foalnapped every colt and filly from Ponyville and beyond, threw them in the depths of your castle and did the exact same thing?”
“Starlight would never do such a thing—”
“That’s what I believed as well! That Cosmos wouldn’t even harbor such reprehensible thoughts! That even if he did, he will never act upon them! I believed all of that! And yet...” her tone shriveled up into a whimper, before culminating into a sigh. “I trusted in him far more than a mere report could ever describe and he abused it in the worst way possible. There are many things I wished I would’ve done differently, Twilight. There were many times where Cosmos had trodden upon that line and all I did was turn a blind eye, I know that. It’s wrong, it’s just... wrong... I knew he should never have any special treatment, but the pony I was back then, the Princess Celestia of the time, she looked upon the guise of Cosmos Tatterthought and saw something she would never have seen in anyone else at the time. I cannot fathom for the love of me what that something was, but that alone was enough to warrant him to stay. That alone was enough for him to reciprocate, and it was through this... through all of this... this madness...”
“But the fillies...” Twilight gasped. “The things they found in his home, the things he did...”
“He knows. He should know by now.” Celestia reared her head back to the house. “There must come a time when even one such as he realizes his wrongs. He has a right to a confession. Whatever he may say, I still intend to hear him out, once and for all.”
“And... after that?”
After that?
What could she do after that?
She couldn’t just leave him here, could she? No, she had to do something about him, perhaps provide him with a well-deserved moment of peace. Yes, she could do that. It would be the same routine as it was with the rest of her students, where she would stand by their bedside, wrapping their last moments together in an earnest exchange until they finally expire. He would disclose to her the truths left unsaid and the dreams left unachieved. Most important of all, he would recall the best of times he had shared in his life, and he would say farewell to all of that. When he does, it will just be another ordinary day in her life. When he does, it will just be another day in Equestria.
Just another ordinary day.
“I’ll do it.”
She immediately turned around. “What?”
“I’ll do it if you want me to,” Twilight said with a terrifying nonchalance. “No one else has to know about it, right?”
“Twilight, you shouldn’t.” Her voice hardened. “You shouldn’t be involved. No... no, you couldn’t! You mustn’t! I won’t let you!”
”You’re not going to do it, Princess Celestia! You’ll just ask me to leave and then you’d leave him here alive, just like you always done! You think I don’t know that?!”
There it was again. That glare, that searing star of distrust and dread, snapped up all in a span of a second. Before it, Celestia could only let out a dismal chuckle— there remained no reason for Twilight to trust her at all. All those years of secrecy, of falsehood and fallacy, would always amount to nothing more than failure. All the time that had been bestowed to her to finally make it all right, all the chances that she had exhausted... in the end, Cosmos Tatterthought remained a student unadmonished. Cosmos Tatterthought remained a criminal unpunished.
In the end, Cosmos Tatterthought remained in the land of the living.
“Twilight,” she began again. “This... this was never your decision to make.”
“Then whose decision is it? Yours?” Bitterness sprang upon her, its glinting fangs sinking into her shuddering neck. “You had centuries to make that decision! Centuries, Your Highness!”
“It isn’t that simple of a decision, Twilight!”
”How is it not simple? How, just... how? He killed foals, you knew he killed foals, he needed to be punished, justice had to be served, that was it! Tell me, Your Highness, how is that not simple at all?!”
”Because this is his punishment! This is his purgatory!”
Thunder rumbled from the distant valleys. Strangled was the wind, giving one last howl as it breathed its last breath. In the stillness of it all, Twilight Sparkle finally, finally, trembled, her eyes for once lit up with fear. Underneath the skewing shadow, Celestia raised her head high, whatever fears she may have until now washing away before the coming storm. Without further ado, she turned away from her dear student and marched back into the house’s embrace, all the while fighting the urge to glance back.
“In the end, you know nothing at all, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Th-Then tell me! Help me understand what you’re doing here, Princess Celestia! Help me understand why you’re keeping Cosmos alive!”
“There’s nothing more for me to say about him. Cosmos shall remain solely my responsibility, as he had always been.”
“You’re afraid, aren’t you?”
Celestia stiffened her lips.
“You’re afraid of something,” came her student’s breathless conclusion. “Sunset Shimmer told me about it: that you always seemed afraid whenever she brought him up. There’s something you’re not telling us... to any of us...”
“Leave, Twilight,” she pleaded. “Just leave.”
“I’m not leaving until I understand what’s going on.”
“And I’m saying that you don’t have to understand.” Celestia forced a grin. “Twilight, there’s... nothing... just nothing beyond what you already know that could do you any good. Cosmos, he’s... he’s no more than a relic of the past left unburied. He’s something that I should have been done with long ago, I know that now. What you need to understand that the truth to everything, should you learn it, might only do more harm than good.”
“How would you know that?”
“Sunset never told you, did she?”
There was a pause, before her student confidently shook her head. “I’m sure she has her reasons.”
“That reason being the truth was more than she could bear to hear. Now, we’re a dimension apart from each other,” she muttered with a frazzled sigh, turning away. “Knowing why Cosmos still lives, knowing why this house even stands here in the middle of this glade... it drove us apart. And now... and now...”
There it goes again.
The ringing bells of pride.
She hated being weak. She loathed it. She resented it to its very core. To be standing there, wordless and thoughtless, struggling to formulate something that would remotely even make sense without blustering or blithering; to look into the eye of her former student without her knees caving in or her eyes shedding a tear. In the end, however, there can only be so much weakness she could spare, and within its suffocating grip, it was only a matter of time before she would have to wring herself free.
For the sun must not show weakness, not even before the realm of darkness encapsulating it.
“I just... I don’t want to lose you too, Twilight.”
“It’s okay, Princess Celestia. Just tell me.”
And with a dithered sigh, she shall begin again.
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“Tia?”
One could see him tremble in his sheets, all alone in the sorrowful night, should they give a peek. Within this starless galaxy, his head drifts, sweat beads trickling down his chin. His stare pierced through the darkness billowing from the cracks of the wooden walls. There was movement for a minute, though he was only met with the blinds rippling in the wind coming from the open window. He gazed out of his prison, to where the moon would be had it not been swallowed by its own shadow. Finally, he can only clench his eyes shut, letting the screaming darkness strangle his vision. His larynx quivered, and from his lips came his question.
“Tia, can you hear me?”
He opened his eyes. There was something out there. Tangible, he concurred. He could hear a faint pulse, irregular to the one echoing from beneath his ears. Being bedridden as he were, he could only crane his neck from side to side. His horn tried to spark, though all that came was a timeworn sizzle. His breathing was the only sound wading through the sludge of silence, his eyes the only part of him flailing about. Tentatively, he grappled with his weakness, and with a hefty groan, he lifted himself upright. He panted and panted from his ordeal, shivering hooves unconsciously tugging at the wires nipping his wrinkled skin. He glanced up once more and... There it was, that formless presence. There it stood and stared at him, never quite wanting to show its face.
There it stood before him, and with it the shadow of the world.
“Tia, I know you’re there. I can... sense you...”
The figure stepped forward, bestowing with it a light that graced the curves of his perplexed expression.
“Who... who are you?” he gasped, eyes lit with fear. “What have you done to Tia... what have you... Tia! Tia!!”
The figure merely stared, eyes hollow of emotion.
“Tia... no... no, this can’t be it... can’t be... not now... I was supposed to tell her...”
“Tell her? Tell her what?”
The voice was careful. Measured. Perhaps a little too stiff and steady to his liking, though he cannot help but notice a subtle shakiness squeezed underneath. He stilled his trembling lip as the figure neared him, dragging itself... herself into her own disquieting light. Slowly, her features melded into a violet clarity, unveiling nothing short of a pallid glare as she descended upon him. Within a flicker, he sunk back into his ragged cocoon, the gasp he had been stifling for so long finally fluttering to the fore.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle.”
The princess winced. "You know who I am."
“More than you know of me. And here... I thought my time had came...”
“No,” she quivered. “But it will come soon.”
"I... ah... ah... I see how it is..." Cosmos couldn’t help but sneer. “So how is it? The cowardice of royalty? I ah... suspect you found it... exquisite.”
No answer.
“Answer me, dear princess,” he demanded. “Has it been everything you ever wanted? Were your desires met, as it were?”
"Save your breath, Cosmos Tatterthought."
"How cold of you, Twilight Sparkle. Can you not give this pony merely a decent conversation with his reaper?" he gruffly sighed, shaking his head. "Where is she? Tell me, young one, has she ran away? Has she left you here all alone to handle her very own mistakes?"
"She has her reasons for not being here. You have no right to tell her what she has to do."
"Are you entitled to that right then?" he snarled. "Do not think you know her better than I do, Twilight Sparkle. You may be her student, but I was more than that. She knows that I'm more than that. You have done nothing remotely close to the extent of my contributions to her."
"She never asked for your help—"
"She didn't need to! She... she— I know, I know! I know... I know what's best for her... only I know..."
"You didn't think of how she felt," she asserted, her sternness shaky. "You never thought about what's best for her, Cosmos. You've only thought about what's best for you. You only knew how to help yourself."
"Nonsense... n-nonsense... pure, utter nonsense... utter nonsense! Utter nonsense!"
His world was convulsing as it was seething. Thrashing within his weakness, all the other pony in the room could do was glare in disgust— a little sight he was delighted to witness. The silent howls his eyes emitted was piercing, the walls around them sizzling and shifting into the sky. All that remained in this blurry world of hatred was the alicorn standing at the end of his bed. All that remained was the manifestation of what should've been him, not some random mare from who knows where. All that remained before him was everything that was detrimental and dastardly and deprecatory, all culminated in this irreversible concoction of pure, undiluted—
"Gingerbread."
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"Tia? Is that... Tia, can you hear me?"
The world seemed smaller. Darker. There was a light in the distance, glowing a bright violet. The shadow of an alicorn flickered before it, though it was tinier than expected. Much shorter even. She approached him carefully, drifting through the curtains of dust dancing in the wind. Her irises were pointed, though even in the blur of the night, he could see them shriveling. As he heaved himself upward, she finally jerked to a halt, her shaky stare trained on him with bated breath when he opened his mouth to speak.
"Who... who are you?"
“No...” she gasped, looking as if in denial. "No, no... no, this can't be..."
"You... you're not her... who are you? What are you doing here? Explain yourself!"
“Something’s wrong... this must be a mistake...”
“You see, Twilight?” chimed another voice.
A lovely little voice.
From the shadows came the glare of the sun. Never a greater smile had been on Cosmos’s face, last he checked. He reached out to her, at first reveling in the coming of her presence, before stopping himself short. The blanch of abject horror had seized Twilight Sparkle’s visage, the younger alicorn taking a step back. Her mentor — their mentor — stepped forward instead, and from the very same darkness she had hid within, she harnessed a frown.
Something was wrong.
“What is this?” he fumed. “What have... what have you done?”
“No... No, he’s lying... he’s just pretending—”
“Twilight, please—”
“He couldn’t have— you couldn’t have— you two planned this! You two were in this together!”
"Twilight, I assure you, this is not the case—"
“What did you do, Tia?!” Cosmos snarled, hoof jerking and rattling against the cords attached across his body. “Answer me, Tia, what have you done?!”
A disgruntled sigh came with the dying light. A final glance was given to him, the glimmer of hope he would usually espy from the many other flickers of light dancing between her eyes noticeably absent. She grew closer to his panting form and, with a macabre tenderness, rested a hoof onto his own. The fires of the sun ravaged the last of his embattled mind, the quivers lining his throat shaking with ever more violence as every coherent thought was consumed in a spectacular blaze, until finally, after the disastrous storm came a wretched calm, bestowed upon him as he was returned to the abyss, his mind seeking solace within a fresh emptiness summoned with the utter of a single word.
“Gingerbread.”
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On the last morning so supple and tender, she tried her very best to shift her gaze upwards, never minding the dirt shuffling underneath her strides and staining her hooves. The whistling wind stroked her chin, tussling her mane as well as that of the many trees around her, and the house standing in the middle of them all. She gazed upon this hopeless abode, so beautiful in its distress, as if knowing of its fate and embracing it with the whole of its heart.
She knelt unto the world, smiling at the fresh mounds she had made days earlier. She could hear life, sleeping and unfurling with every solar serenade, ready any day now to breach the brown and seek the clouds. All she can do for it now was give a gentle coo— a bright, fulfilling verbal glow of hope, or a gentle push, if you will. She didn't have to do it, knowing that life needs not her intervention, though she couldn't help it even if she didn't want to.
Celestia knows she tried.
Light sunk into the shadow, once again with mirth. The smile had faded at long last, and with it the last morning. Death marched slowly behind her, knowing that its time is near, and that it shall be called upon swiftly. The grandeur of silence in this stately home was painful, the distant glimmers it once had trembling as the void swallowed the last of them all. Rotting wood creaked and crumbled, rugs of mold and mildew mutating ever further, all of it blackening underneath the light of both sun and moon. She raised her head before the suffering realm she was in and, with nothing more than a distraught sigh, stepped through the door of the cage.
"Your Highness..."
He was awake, perhaps much earlier than she had anticipated. The dread that had been sweeping across the estate converged upon the corners of the room, watching them with malignant eyes as it hung from the ceiling, slowly dripping onto the floor and sinking into their skin. His trembling eyes, deathly and devastated, drew from the drapes and viewed her visage, though it seemed to linger more towards the shadows over her shoulder. He was reaching out to her, she could tell, and so she strode to his side, albeit with utmost care.
"Cosmos?"
A sigh of loss.
Of loathing.
"Where is she? Where's... the other princess, the... young one..."
"Twilight Sparkle," she answered for him. "I've sent her home yesterday, after it all happened. I believe it's for the best of everyone, you especially..." Celestia bit her lip at the words bubbling in her throat. "You remembered everything, don't you?"
Silence.
"Almost everything..."
"Good..." she muttered, perhaps more to herself. Makes it less painful later on, she concurred.
"I remember a phrase. I remember it from a time long lost." Blackness swallowed his visage. "I remember that it was twisted against me. I remember it being a weapon to be used. I... you did this to me..."
"I did."
"W-Why?"
"Because it was painful. You know it was," she said. "Everything I did, I did it to suppress your pain, and it was a pain unlike any other, Cosmos." She strode towards the window, glancing out at the morning sun. "Such are the memories that you possess, and for that I closed them off, waiting ever ready for their gradual return. What do you remember?"
His gaze burned through his sheets. "The screaming... the howling... the blood..."— his mind was tossing and turning —"the chanting, the black eyes, the billowing incense, the hellfire, the horned beasts and their kin, the swirls of tissue and bone, the... no... the foals... no, the foals..." A storm of reverberations, trapped his throat, skewered his head back up to her. "How... how many? Tia, tell me... how many?"
"I..."
"Tell me!" he yelled, before stopping himself. "Sorry... sorry, I shouldn't have, I— but please... I need to know..."
All she could do was hold her breath.
"Twenty-six."
"Twenty— by the Goddesses..." his voice hitched, the luster in his eyes convulsing. His hooves shook alongside it, as if ready to spring upon his own throat and snap it like a twig. She didn't know whether to get close or to just stand idly by and watch him thrash in his suffering. In the end, all she could do was dip her head, shut her eyes away from this travesty of a world and listen to the quivering, croaked whimpers of her faithful student.
Such is the price of immortality.
Such is the burden he had to bear.
"How did it all start, Princess Celestia?"
She could never forget when it all happened.
"A filly. From Trottingham, if I recalled correctly, I'm not entirely sure anymore. Things were different then, Twilight. Every day, there will always be some famine happening in one corner of the world and a war happening in another. One filly being separated from her family was a common occurrence, so I never thought much else of it. It was only until the fifth one, I believe, that I realized it was all connected. However, it wasn't until the nineteenth victim, unfortunately, that it became the Royal Guard's top priority."
"Why is that?"
"It was the son of an aristocrat from Saddle Arabia. That one, I believe was the grandest mistake he had made, though he still managed to abduct so many without being caught."
"H-How long before you knew it was him?"
"I didn't want to believe it was you, Cosmos," she muttered, gently latching onto his hoof.
"You wouldn't dare even if you already knew," came his feverish reply, accompanied by a shriveled grin. "You always... were soft underneath all that stoicism and gallantry you would parade throughout Equestria. You'd hate to see me... to see any of us do what I did, yet I did it in the end... all those young ponies, their lives cut short by my hoof merely to extend mine... I did it... all of it..."
"I... I don't know... perhaps I've known all along it was him. Perhaps this whole time, I knew he was the one behind everything. It was all too meticulous, too complicated, too... too perfect not to be him, but instead I tried to ignore it. I tried to find something else to convince me that it wasn't Cosmos, yet when we found him—"
"I remembered... I was... screaming," he continued. "Like a fiend of sorts."
"The pain was great," she elaborated. "There are many methods to be granted the promise of everlasting life. All bring agony to those who were given it unless, of course, the caster was already an immortal themselves. Such is the nature of this magic most foul, which was why I forbade anypony from ever practicing it."
"I can still feel it. Faint, but it's there."
"The ritual you performed was volatile, Cosmos. Alongside a life spanning an eternity, you've inherited a pain both physical and mental of the twenty-six lives you had took in return that shall last until the end when it's only supposed to last for a week at most. Were it not for the treatment you're currently under, your life will only consist of suffering after suffering."
"—he was foaming at the mouth, drenched in the blood of the foals and flailing across the floor. He was screaming to make it stop, to help him make it stop, and I don't know how to, I never knew how to, I could only just... watch him, lying there, gasping and choking... I couldn't bear to see it."
"I remembered... screaming for you, Tia... you were there... weren't you?"
"I had to be."
"Yet you never did anything... you didn't even... comfort me when I needed it."
"I couldn't even if I wanted to. You knew what sympathizing with you would do to me," she huffed. "You're always like that. Always so insensitive to what others may think. Always so... so stubbornly inconsiderate of other ponies feelings..."
"He did it to himself. He was asking for it."
"Yet I could've led him away from that path, Twilight. I could've told him that immortality should never be the way to go. Instead, I... I was content with his infatuation. I was content with thinking that he's treating me like an ordinary pony, one with her own desires and dreams. I never realized that he never saw me as another ordinary pony the whole time."
"It's not like you didn't warn him!"
"It's not like I made an effort to either!"
"He was the one who took the lives of the foals, not you!"
"It might as well be me! I had him under my wing! I raised him to become what he was and what he became was a murderer! What he became was this... this monster that I spent months hunting for, all while praying that it'll never be him..."
"How... how long have I been here?"
She hoped she never had to answer the question.
"Tia, tell me, how... how long have I laid here? As of this moment... how... how many..."
Yet Celestia knows she had to.
"Six hundred and seventy-one years."
Her answer came as a sputter, forced out by the thorny vines of dread wrapping around her neck. Surprisingly enough, Cosmos didn't laugh or scowl, only drawing his gaze down to the wrappings around his body. Perhaps he didn't know which would be more appropriate. Perhaps, with the knowledge of it all was finally sinking in after decades of being left in the dark, he was struggling to adjust to the light. Six hundred and seventy-one selfish years, granted at the expense of twenty-six budding lives... and what for? What good did it do? What good had living this long ever brought to Equestria?
Strangely enough, she remained reticent.
"You can't blame yourself for that, Princess Celestia. You didn't know that he... that it turned out to be like this..."
"No... no, no, no... it was what I've done afterwards... it was the punishment I meted out... it was cruelty, Twilight. It was just sheer cruelty."
"Cosmos, there's something I have to tell you."
"Why am I still here, is that it?"
Indignation was all that remained. Her frazzled gaze fell through the cracks of the floorboards, only to be hoisted back up to be thrown out the window, shying away from the weight of his stare caressing her cheek and slithering forwards to meet her chin. "You must've wondered about that," she spoke nevertheless. "Why here, of all places."
"Why here?"
"Why, you ask... why indeed. Why a secluded building in the middle of an often-overlooked forest. Why hide him so far away from the throes of civilization when the journey here can be incredibly taxing for all these years? Why do you think it is so, Twilight?"
"Because... because you wanted to hide him away from us."
"It's more than that, Twilight. It's so much more. Don't you realize it yet?"
"What do you mean? What did you... what did you do?"
"What did you do to me?"
"I made sure you did your part to the world," she sighed, the hefty words dripping off her tongue. "I made sure that there was something I could do to remember you for, even if it meant making you suffer."
"Tell me, Twilight, apart from his misdeeds, what was Cosmos best remembered for?"
"Uh... his ventures into medicine during his search for immortality, I think. If I recalled clearly, it was unparalleled to any that came before or after him. Thanks to his work, most of the commonplace diseases and ailments that had killed off countless or ponies in the past were now completely harmless."
"That's correct, Twilight."
"I don't get it. What does all of that had to do with it now?"
"It was never done on his own volition."
"What did you mean by that?" he cried. "What have you done?"
She didn't know how she was still smiling then. "The pain you had put yourself through had changed your body, and your metabolism and recovery rates grew exponentially as a result. That was the essence of your immortality, Cosmos, and when I learned of that, I've thought of a way to put it into good use."
"You... experimented on me..."
She couldn't even muster the strength to nod anymore. "Whatever manner of plague and epidemic that would sweep across Equestria and beyond would be collected and injected into your bloodstream. We would study it's effects on your body and observe it's growth, and from what we had, we would devise remedies to combat them. That's why we had to hide you here: to not risk it breaking out and affecting everyone else out there, as well as to make sure this whole project was kept a secret." The shadows around the house pounced upon her, fangs sinking and draining whatever alacrity still swirling in her veins. "Throughout it all, you suffered, perhaps more than you should be. Throughout it all, we were pushing your body to its limits, all for the sake of moving the rest of us forward."
"I... suffered..."
"Like no one had suffered before," she muttered, closing her eyes. "I remember every scream like it was yesterday, Cosmos. I remember cutting you open just to comprehend how everything happens inside. I remember personally performing some of the injections myself even. When all is said and done, I remember how I had to clean myself by bathing in the river and I remember thinking then that I was clean as ever. That it was as if none of it had ever happened."
"You mean all this time... all the science and research... all the medicine that the doctors and nurses prescribed to us... all of this..."
"All this life came from the suffering of one and one alone. Such are the flowers of life, carefully nurtured from a distance with the fires of a dying star. Had it not for the work I've done, had it not for the unspeakable atrocities I've committed in this very house, you, your parents, your grandparents and their grandparents even may never have lived to the end of their days. Had it not for the murder of twenty-six foals and centuries of tearing into the flesh of Cosmos Tatterthought, Equestria would never be as it is right now. You exist because you were a part of my work on Cosmos, whether you like it or not."
"I... I don't believe it... no, this can't be... it can't..."
"You understand now, don't you? About why Sunset Shimmer, among so many others, had left my stead. I understand, I truly do. The thought of me drenched in his blood, closely spying upon his inner workings and prodding at them even as he's screaming at the top of his lungs... I understand what this would mean for me. I understand the implications of this notion that would shake society to the very core. The knowledge would throw the balance that already exists, and you know we of Equestria need that balance. That's why for the longest time, for the good of Equestria, it remained a secret, and it shall always be a secret."
"But you can't hide this forever."
"I have only forever to look forward to after all, Twilight. The secret shall stay until the end of eternity. Thus is my punishment, and I deserve it as much as Cosmos does."
"This is wrong... this is just wrong..."
"It is, Twilight. I'm afraid it is. As selfish as it may sound, ponykind would never have reached the state it is currently in now without what I've done. There's one thing above all that I cherish more than most, Twilight: I strive to nurture the lives of my subjects in any way I can, even despite their willful ignorance."
"So much so that you'll throw away any shred of decency and take advantage of his condition?"
"Strange, isn't it? Listen to yourself. You're sympathizing with him already."
"Twilight was speaking up for you."
"I see..." Cosmos withheld a dark chuckle. "Should I appreciate that? No, I... I think not. Her actions are merely the voice of denial... sheer denial... I would do the same were I in her place."
"Yet it does say something about me, doesn't it?" she sighed. "Every time... every time... every time I held something close to me, I'm always trying my best to drive it all away. You should've seen the look on her face, Cosmos. It's the same one... that same look... of distrust... of disappointment. In fact, it's the same one you had when you left my stead."
"Y-You're..."
"Sometimes I wonder why I even bother taking care of my little ponies. Sometimes, I just... I just wonder why I'm making all these pointless sacrifices for every one of you when all I get in return is repudiation. Sometimes I wonder why I even did this to you. Just... just why. Why..." she whimpered. "Why had it all come to this? Tell me, why?"
And with a long, airy sigh that stretched towards the ends of his life, he wore a pained grin, before finally giving an answer most sincere.
"Because you needed it more than I do."
To her, the answer was bleak. To her, it was a testament of her weakness. To her, it represented very well the largest failure she had committed. Cosmos would never view it as that, of course. Knowing how great was his adulation to her, he would readily be sullied until he was six feet under if it were done for her sake. Nevertheless, he remained on his deathbed. Nevertheless, she continued to listen.
"You needed it to remember why you're doing this. You needed to remember why you're protecting all of Equestria. When I learned of what you did to your sister, I knew... I knew you did it to protect us... because you care for us. You're doing the same thing right now... with me... can't you see that?"
"Was it worth it, Princess Celestia?"
"I don't know... was it worth it, Twilight? Was it worth keeping the whole of ponykind alive? I don't know anymore."
"It... it was. It should be."
"Then tell me, Twilight. Look into my eyes and tell me that what I did was right."
"What you did... what you did was right..."
"What you did... for ponykind, even if they did not ask for it... was the right thing to do..."
A light chuckle left her lips as she wiped her tears away. "I swear, you two are so alike, it's uncanny."
"Are we now?"
"Sometimes, I couldn't even tell which one of you am I speaking to. Your quirks, your habits, your mannerisms, your philosophies at times." One last cumbersome sigh slipped from her lips. "Even your lies sound alike."
Cosmos could offer no response to that.
"I'm tired of this, Cosmos. That's really the reason why I'm here," she confessed with a disheartened grin. "I'm tired of keeping this a secret. I'm tired of letting you suffer here. Not only that, but I'm tired of being what I am. Of what I've become. I'm just tired of everything I've done, of everything I'm doing, that... that I just wish I could just leave it all behind and run to someplace safe, away from everything, from everyone..."
"You can't."
"I know I can't."
"You won't."
"You think I wouldn't? All I need is a chance, Twilight, just a chance! That's all I need!"
"You won't do it."
"What makes you think I won't, Twilight? What makes you so sure that I'll never disappear? Tell me, Twilight, what makes you so sure?"
"You were always... too nice for your own good..."
A single trepidatious scoff was all she had left, though Cosmos had more up his sleeve.
"You're always trying to meet an impossible standard. Always striving upward, always hiking further up even after reaching the summit... you never knew when enough is enough, Tia. You're always... finding new ways to help us... because you care too much... you never know when to stop doing things for your subjects, so much so that it came to this..." A feverish cough snatched away his voice, if only for a moment. "I... I wanted to rescue you from that... I wanted to be the one to save you... to steal you away from everyone else... to keep you for myself..."
"It's an obsession, Cosmos," she muttered. "I'm obsessed with caring, I'm obsessed with nurturing... because it's the only thing I know how to do..."
"It's a rightful obsession... a warranted one... but you're... you're too... too good for us, Tia... we don't deserve you. No one, not me, not Twilight, not the whole of Equestria... we don't deserve you... yet you kept making all these sacrifices to us. You kept striving onward for four hundred years after banishing your sister, and then you strove on for six hundred more even after what I've done. You're so much more than you give yourself credit for, Tia... so much more..."
"I don't know if I can do this forever..."
"You would do it even if you didn't want to. All that you had accomplished... only you can make our civilization prosper. Only you had ruled for so long without ever being questioned. I'm merely a product of your rule, Tia... I'm merely ash compared to what you are."
"Cosmos, I... I'm not all that you make it out to be. I'm just... I'm just another mare... why can't you see that? Why can't you..."
"You're crying again..."
That she is, if the tears dripping down her cheeks were any indication. "That's all I'm good at, after all," she shivered, cradling Cosmos's hoof against her cheek. "Mourning for the past, for all the things that could've been. That's all I'm actually ever good at."
An effeminate sigh echoed alongside the whispering wind. Cosmos mustered his most genial smile, one akin of a father to his daughter, and listened with nary a word as she wept. In the dead silence of a house surrounded by thriving towers of life, there was nothing more she could want than the company of an old friend, and it was within his nourishing embrace that she set forth every liter of anxiety and frustration she had bottled up within her, lasting as long as the world wills it. When everything is said and done, she lifted her gaze back to the smile of Cosmos Tatterthought, knowing deep down that it might be his last smile she would ever had the privilege to see.
"Make it quick," was his final plea.
"I can't promise that," she said, her half-grin faltering slightly. "But I can make it painless. That I can promise."
All he could do by then was thank her with a nod, before he closed his eyes for one last time. The final moments of Cosmos Tatterthought would consist of swirling down the abyss of sleep before making a gentle landing into the realm of dreams. Should her sister peer in, she reckoned they were celebratory and would all involve her in one way or another. In the end, she'll never really understand what Cosmos saw in her, yet it didn't matter.
Cosmos listened. That's all that mattered to her.
"Rest now, my faithful student," she said one last time, giving him a final stroke of the mane. The smile she elicited from him was enough of a reply, made ever larger when she knelt down and gave him one last peck on the forehead. For the longest time, she watched him rest, letting him revel in her presence even from within the deepest confines of his slumber. For the longest time, she roamed across the room, pacing between the pony resting comfortably in his bed and towards the pristine garden outside, as well as the buds of life she had painstakingly buried underneath. It wasn't only until the moon began its slow descent that she rose and closed her eyes, before she granted him, in a single moment within eternity, the greatest offering of peace in the only way she knew how.
"Gingerbread."
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It all began in darkness.
The black was a cascading waterfall, roaring in silence. Within it laid the threadbare pathways of light, streaking across the void like veins on a leaf. The flickers of moments most memorable were effervescent, fading away with a vibrance amid the hollow world. Therein came the echoes: these ripples across the dimensions, these ruptures, tearing into stagnation like a pack of rabid hounds. In distance remained the moaning and weeping; in adjacency the vivid timbre of progress, ringing far and wide from a belfry in the middle of it all, the sound warping and warbling until finally, it developed a clarion call in clarity.
"Twilight? Twilight~?"
"Ughhh... Starlight? What... what is it?"
"Oh, nothing. Just that it's half past noon already."
"It is?" Twilight groaned, peeking out of her sheets, only to yelp out in terror when her world was scalded by the damning rays of light streaking in from the windows. Starlight's light chuckles did nothing to alleviate her temporary blindness, and though she found herself a little annoyed at her student's antics, it was nevertheless a welcome sound to wake up to in the morning, or afternoon in this case. That, and the wonderful smell of—
"I brought some coffee if it helps."
Twilight couldn't hold back a dopey grin. "Oh, you have no idea!"
Before long, she was cantering down the crystal hallways and humming a small song, all of it owed to the sensation of caffeine stirring her taste buds alight. Her schedule for that day was like any other: rearranging books, helping Starlight with a few new magical incantations, resourcing materials needed for the coming Running of the Leaves, receiving her order of new books and arranging those new books into the previous arrangement, and help out Mayor Mare with the Ponyville census, among other things. Perhaps a spa visit to top it off, she thought to herself. She deserved that, at the very least. Especially after everything.
"Is everything okay?"
"Hmm? What?" she turned around to see Starlight trotting up from behind her. "What is it?"
"It's just... you seem pretty stressed out lately."
"Me? Stressed out? I'm always stressed out, you know that!" Twilight laughed, trotting into the library: her sanctuary within the sanctuary. "And hey, I mean, who wouldn't be? Visiting Princess Celestia unannounced and everything?"
"Right, right," Starlight let out a slight chuckle. "Just making sure everything's okay on your end."
All she could do was nod.
That's all she could do in this situation. Just nod, even if she didn't want it to be like this. She never wanted Princess Celestia to face her demons alone. She never wanted Princess Celestia to finish everything by herself, mostly because she finally realized just how frail she had become ever since she suddenly skipped out of the Summer Sun Celebration. How could she not notice it before? Why didn't she realize it at all? Was she that inept at knowing who her teacher was? Even after all this time?
Yet even after knowing about everything, what then?
What else could she do? She couldn't possibly let Starlight or anyone else know about everything, could she? There's so many ways that such a conversation could go wrong, yet she remained convinced that everyone has to know about it sooner or later. One day, Equestria must know the truth behind it all. One day, Equestria must know all that was kept hidden. They must know of what happened and they must decide on what it might mean. Until that day comes, however, she had to be content with everything as it is.
"Starlight?"
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Listen, if there's anything bothering you, anything at all, don't... don't hesitate to tell me, alright?"
A light chuckle. "Where's all this coming from?"
"Oh, probably from my talk with Princess Celestia," she admitted sheepishly. "She uh... let me in on some things. A trade secret between princesses, if you wanna call it that, and it got me thinking about stuff and... yeah, you know what, I might be a little bit in over my head."
"No, no, it's fine! It's fine, I guess," Starlight giggled awkwardly, her magic sifting through an array of books and picking out from them a stack. "I mean, it's a little sudden, but yeah, I mean, sure! Isn't that what friends are for? Sharing stuff with each other?"
"Right! Of course, of course!" she waved it off with a laugh. "So anyways, anything interesting that happened in the morning?"
"Around town?" Starlight stopped to ponder. "Not much, really. I'd say Spike went out to help Rarity with her gem hunting, though that doesn't really count as interesting for you, doesn't it?"
"What about around Equestria? The map didn't ask for anyone?"
"No, last I checked. Nothing much in the news too, though there are a few... oh wait, I might have one." Hastily, Starlight reached for the newspaper, skimming across the pages before finally coming to a stop. "Okay, here it is... something something festival, no... alright, here it is. There was a wildfire that burned off acres of a forest not far from Canterlot."
"Really?" Twilight barely gasped. "Was anyone hurt?"
"Miraculously, no. There's barely any sign of anyone living near the forest... oh wait, there was this really old house in the middle of it. Like, super old. No one knows why it's even there, but it doesn't matter now. Whole place burned to the ground, I think. Some of the ponies are saying that the fire actually started ther— w-hey!"
Twilight couldn't help but notice the look of indignation on her student's face. It was warranted to be sure, having yanked the paper right out of her hooves like that, yet it was the least of her worries. Her eyes were glued to a single picture on the paper for the longest time: that of the crumbling remains of a plantation house, one she had recalled from a not-so-distant memory. For the longest time, she remained there, staring into the crumpling facade of the paper shaking in her hooves, before finally setting it aside.
"I have to go."
"W-What?" Starlight managed, even as Twilight began scurrying in a hunt for the barest of materials. "Go where?"
"Canterlot. I need to speak to Princess Celestia."
"Wait, but didn't you just— but what? Twilight, hold on a minute—"
"Starlight, I..." Twilight stopped herself. "Look, I can explain, really, I can. I just need some time to figure this out, alright? Right now, I need to see her, please, it's... it's urgent..."
"I... okay... but what's this all about?"
"I can't say. Not yet. But I will soon, or at least I'll try."
It was only half an answer, but it will have to do for now. The moment she had everything ready, Twilight immediately galloped out of the door and flew straight to the distant towers of Canterlot Palace, knowing full well that nothing could ever prepare her for this moment. Nevertheless, she was a faithful student of a teacher she had come to admire and respect. She was a faithful student that had stayed by her teacher's side and will continue to do so until the very end. If there was anyone that could ever fully comprehend Princess Celestia's predicament, it was her and only her.
Right now, Princess Celestia needs her more than ever.
Right now, Twilight Sparkle had never felt any more excited than she had in her entire lifetime.
"Hold on, Celestia," she whispered to the wind. "I'm coming."
