“Princess?” a voice piped up behind me. “They’re ready for you now.”
I turned and looked at the young Earth pony mare standing behind me, her face soft with intelligent eyes.
“Thank you, River,” I said, rising from my seat. “Will you be recording notes for this session?”
The mare shook her head as we walked down the hallways of the palace. “Na, not today,” she replied, a trace of a lilt to her voice. “Ma and I are catching the train to Foalksmill later this afternoon.”
I smiled at her, glancing back at the young mare’s cutie mark, sheets of music with a closed book under them. “Going to get a bit of background history on your mom’s music?”
“Among other things,” the mare said, bowing as we reached the doors to the council chamber. “Your Highness.”
“Enjoy your trip, River,” I said, pushing the doors open and stepping inside.
“Sunset, how good to see you,” Twilight said as she stepped over. I still had trouble coming to terms with how we had all grown. The two of us now stood taller than Cadence had those twenty years ago, both our manes starting to take on the shimmering aura of magic that the Two Sisters had held in all my memories.
“Good to see you too, Twilight,” I said, giving her a hug before turning to Cadence. “And you as well, Empress.”
Cadence tilted her head, now matching height with Luna and Celestia. I looked at the Two Sisters and bowed my head in deference to the eternal rulers of Equestria.
“It’s good to see you, Sunset,” Celestia said, the subtle hints of love and humor in her voice. "I trust the trip was pleasant?”
“Much more pleasant than ten years ago, Princess Celestia,” I said, easing into the chair left for me at the table. The sole remaining chair was conspicuously empty. “And where is our youngest member?” I said, glancing at Cadence.
“She’s off galavanting across the tundra with Shining,” she said, sighing in a way I knew too well. “Said she’d rather go exploring with Daddy than sit at tea with us 'old stuffy mares'.
We all laughed at that. “Well, she always has been more for hooves on than reports,” Luna said, traces of her old accent and slightly archaic speech gone. “I trust Flurry Heart is where she should be.”
“Speaking of foals,” Cadence said, spearing me with a look. “Where have you stashed yours this time?”
“Dew and Glory are watching them along with Sunshine,” I said, helping myself to the tea on the table. “The girls haven’t gotten to spend a whole lot of time together since they started high school back home. It’s good for them to be able to enjoy this time.” My eyes weren’t seeing the table anymore. “We didn’t really get the chance at their age.”
The table fell silent, all of us remembering the Harpies, the emergence of a rogue Changeling nation, and Sombra’s heir. In some cases, the fact there had been five Alicorns to help defend the land had been the only edge we had.
“Ok, that’s enough of that,” Twilight said, refilling her teacup. “We’re here to enjoy each other’s company, not grump about the past.” She glanced at each of us, her smile infectious. “So let's cheer up and drink to the day.”
I chuckled and raised my cup in my amber aura, being joined by four others in magenta, yellow, teal, and pink.
I was watching my mentor and teacher performing her duty on a balcony in Ponyville, a lot of thoughts whirling in my mind.
“Mom?” a voice whispered. “Aunts Dew and Glory want to say goodbye before they leave.”
I turned and looked at my oldest child, Midnight Sky. The portal changed her into an incredibly beautiful young filly, one that the pony Rarity always wanted to have model for her despite the fact she leaned more towards Applejack’s mindset. Her sister, on the other hand…
“Coming," I said, turning and shutting the doors. “Where’s Aurora?”
“She’s down with Mother and Ebony, enjoying the last of the cookies.”
I nodded. Figured that Ebony would try to get one last taste of Aunt Sunshine’s cookies, especially when Aurora had helped make them.
“Bit for your thoughts, Mom?”
I glanced down at her. Goddess, it felt odd to be so tall, even now. “Nothing, my little filly,” I reached down and touched my horn to hers, love and peace flowing through. “Just a lot of memories.”
She returned the flow of feelings as we reached the foyer of the Castle of Friendship. I spied my wife of nearly nineteen years clearing platters from a side table with the help of Spike.
I smiled at the mare, seeing her tilt her head to look slightly up at the adolescent dragon. He was leaner, and from what the resources gained from his friendship with the Dragon Lord Ember, he wasn’t going to grow much more for a few decades.
“Hi, Auntie Sunset,” Ebony said, tossing her messy raven mane behind her dusty brown shoulder.
“Hi, Ebony,” I said, nuzzling her briefly before reaching over and mussing Aurora’s mane with a hoof.
“Mom!” she complained, horn flared up to fix the damage. “My coiffure!”
“Sometimes, I wonder if we had Rarity babysit too often,” Sunshine said as she came up behind me and touched her horn to mine. She had also grown slightly, though she hadn’t sprouted wings. It appears only natives to Equestria could, despite the lengths she had gone through to defend it had granted her regency over the Castle in Ponyville and honorary title of duchess through her marriage to me.
“If that were the fact, shouldn’t Midnight be more like Fluttershy? I said in a stage whisper.
Midnight leveled a look at me that I recognized from the mirror, her navy blue coat making the three magenta stars of her cutie mark stand out as she turned to face me.
“Come along, you lot,” I said, herding my family to the doors to see my sisters off. Ebony was going to be spending the weekend with us, enjoying a slow weekend out in Manehatten to watch Auntie Rarity’s new line get debuted. The two Rarity’s had collaborated on this for some time, though the pony fashionista had declined traveling this time.
“I simply have so much to do at the new VanHoover store, and Meadow is supposed to be trying out for the Wonderbolts, so I simply cannot miss that,” she had said.
My sisters were just loading their bags onto a trolley when we arrived, Ebony running up and giving her mother a hug.
“Now you behave for your aunts this weekend, Eb,” Dew said, horn flaring to adjust some of her filly's perpetually messy mane out of the way. “Just as much as you’d mind your father and I, if not more.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the filly said. “I know, Mum.”
Glory walked over, touching horns with me and Sunshine each. “So great to see you both again,” she said. She wore the gray in her mane stylishly, as always. “It’s a shame I couldn’t get Soarin and Wingsong to swing by.”
“Well, Soarin does have new recruits to whip into shape and Wingsong can’t slack off under Rainbow’s command, either. We’ll see them next time.”
Dew came and offered us hugs as well before they boarded the train. Aurora gave a Rarity-esque toss to her mane and turned, her flute and music staff cutie mark glinting slightly in the moonlit sky.
“So, when is our next visit?” she asked.
Sunshine adjusted her glasses, an ages old motion that I could mimic without thought. “Well, the Summer Sun Celebration is in a few weeks,” she said. “We could come over for that.”
“I told Applejack I’d help buck a few bushels of apples next time I’m on this side,” Midnight said. “So that works for me.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Rory?”
Aurora nodded.
“Then it’s a plan.”
I was sitting on the bed, flipping through a photo album as Twilight braided her hair.
Photos of Twilight, pregnant with Midnight and photos of her as a toddler on both sides of the mirror. Me, pregnant with Aurora, Ebony up on my back between my wings. The three girls standing grinning on both sides of the mirror, arms or forelegs thrown over each other’s shoulders.
“They grow up so fast,” Twilight murmured against my shoulder.
I nodded. “But the truth of the matter is, no matter how fast, each of these memories are etched in my mind like crystal.”
Twilight reached an arm over my shoulder and shut the book. “Speaking of,” she said. “Have you gotten Midnight’s graduation gift ready?”
I nodded. “It’s part of what we took care of at the gathering,” I said. “Twilight said she could have it fully infused in a week.” I turned and laid back. “But it’ll take another moon to cure in the collars.”
“Well, then,” she said, stretching out next to me as the sound of three teens girls giggling in the upstairs bedrooms filtered through the air. “Nothing to worry about, then.” She glanced at the dresser, various pictures from the last two decades filling it, along with the picture of my mom and I that had survived my flight from Equestria in a gold frame with her and my cutie marks engraved in it along with our names.
“We’re lucky, you know?” she whispered as we held each other. “Good friends, gorgeous daughters, good jobs,” she looked at me. “Moderately attractive princess for a wife,” she teased.
She earned a poke on the nose for it.
“We’ve come through a lot to get this,” I said. “But, even with the scars and the memories that I’d gladly forget, I love who I am and who I have. Some of it was horrible," I said, remembering the fight against Sorla, daughter of Sombra. "But if changing it meant losing any of those girls, I’d endure it all again.”
Twilight rubbed her hand along my side, the faint scars of Acerak’s talons barely visible now twenty years later. I reached my arm under her neck and felt the slightly puckered scar just above where her wings would have been.
“We’re both a little grizzled,” she said.
“War does that to a woman,” I quipped.
Chrysalis.
Sorla.
Acerak.
Gloriosa.
I pulled her into a kiss. I was about to say something else when a thudding crash came from upstairs, sending both of us headed for the stairs in the living room of the house.
“Teenagers,” I muttered as we started up the stairs.
“You know you love them,” Twilight said.
She was right. Thirty-two faces flitted through my mind’s eye: friends, nieces, nephews, godchildren, all my family.
Every last one of them.
Author's Note
If you can, listen to Stevie Nick's Crystal from the Practical Magic soundtrack. I think it comes really close to fitting the feel for this story.
