Eternal, Nightfall

“—wasn’t scolding her though!” Twilight threw her hooves up in the air in her own defense against Bonbon’s insisting that the princess had berated Nightfall only two hours ago.

“Then why is she upstairs crying, Twilight?” Bonbon demanded with a stomp of her hoof. “I even told you to stop and pay attention to her, but no, you wanted to keep going.”

Spike and Lyra both watched from the sidelines of the living room as the two mares butted heads. Normally, Spike would be scared to see what Twilight might do to anypony who was screaming back at her, but seeing as how Bonbon didn’t let a title such as “princess” mean anything, he found it entertaining somehow. On the other hoof, Lyra was sitting on the couch with her head in hoof chewing on the bottom of her lip. She mumbled something incoherently every now and then and even fidgeted in her seat.

For an hour since Nightfall screamed at both Bonbon and Twilight and cantered upstairs, the two of them had been arguing back and forth and it was going nowhere. Finally, Lyra was getting a headache, and she let them both know when she put her hoof down and her horn flared up, casting a Silence spell on the two of them.

“Ah. Much better,” Lyra said with a sigh and leaned against the couch, crossing one leg over the other.

“What’d you do to them?” Spike asked her when he could no longer hear either Twilight or Bonbon shouting at each other, only noticing that they seemed to still be doing so without realizing that neither of them could no longer be heard.

“A simple reverse Silence spell, Spike,” Lyra said back to the tiny dragon, “They can still hear each other, but nopony else in this house can. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“That’s a nifty trick, Lyra. Can they still hear us?”

“Nope,” Lyra said smugly with a cheesy grin on her face.

Spike tried not to laugh at Lyra’s smug response, but failed horribly and fell off the back of the couch and onto the floor holding his sides as he laughed. After a couple more minutes passed by, Twilight and Bonbon had stopped fighting and turned their attention to Lyra.

“Finally!” Lyra howled, throwing her hooves into the air before casting another spell, removing the hex on them both, “both of you done now?”

“What’d you do to us?” Twilight demanded.

“Lyra!” Bonbon growled at her with dagger eyes.

“I cast a spell so nopony else had to listen to the two of you bickering like fillies over the same colt,” Lyra answered earnestly. “Look at both of you. Friends don’t fight like this, do they?”

Both mares went to speak in response but Lyra held her hooves up to the two of them and continued talking.

“So Nightfall gave me the slip when I forgot my saddlebags. Okay, fine. It happened, my bad. You,” she pointed to Bonbon, “found Nightfall in town at the train station but she returned with you. And you, Twilight, I understand why you tried to teach her a lesson, but you did raise your voice at her a little. You did frighten her and we all saw it but you didn’t, so she screamed back and ran off.”

Twilight tried to interject but Spike, who had walked around the side of the couch, shook his head at her.

“Lyra’s got a point, Twilight,” he said to her, “Nightfall isn’t like any of the fillies we know. Yelling at her was not the way to go.”

“But I wasn’t yelling!” Twilight huffed before she lowered her head in shame when she finally caught herself raising her voice again. “...oh.”

Bonbon, at this time, also hung her head low then perked back up and looked at Twilight. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I shouldn’t have shouted at you because you scared her.”

“No, I’m sorry, Bonbon. I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it’s because I was worried she had gotten hurt.”

Seeing them apologizing brought a smile to both Lyra and Spike, and they both hugged their respective ponies. With one big pile of hugs, both the princess and the candymaker glanced at the other then shook hooves.

“I’m going to talk to her now,” Bonbon told the group and slipped out of their embrace. “I’ll explain things to her, then I think you owe her an apology, Twilight.”

“Let me know, Bonbon. I have quite the apology to give.”

Bonbon smiled, then headed right upstairs in search of Nightfall, but just as quickly as she had left, she came barreling down the stairs and looked like she had seen a ghost.

“Bons…?” Lyra managed to say before she flinched and laid her ears flat.

“Nightfall’s gone!” Bonbon cried.

“Gone?!” Lyra, Spike, and Twilight shrieked together in shock.

“The train!” Bonbon bolted out the door like she had been shot out of a cannon and raced off towards Ponyville.

“Spike, make sure the CMC stay here when they get out, and keep them here,” Twilight told him, then looked at Lyra and nodded before she ran out the door next.

Spike scratched his head after Lyra pulled the door closed behind her and headed upstairs.

“This can’t end well,” Spike said with a sigh, shaking his head afterwards. He looked at the clock. “School’s out in an hour.”

~==~==~==~==~

Twilight and Lyra had just stepped hoof into Ponyville when they saw Bonbon over by one of the stands talking to the pony in charge. They approached Bonbon and got noticed almost instantly by every pony in a ten-foot radius. The entire market got dead quiet and all eyes fell upon Twilight Sparkle.

“Weird,” Lyra whispered to Twilight.

The stall owner who Bonbon was talking to, who had just been explaining to the mare why her roses weren’t as bright red as they once had been, was also now staring at Twilight. Be it absentmindedly or not, Twilight caught Roseluck looking and looked back. In her eyes, Twilight saw something unsettling. So much so that she felt her stomach knot up. In Roseluck’s eyes she saw an emptiness that saddened her, but that emotion was fleeting as the flower pony’s eyes soon grew to the size of dinner plates.

“Roseluck, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked her.

Roseluck suddenly screamed, and everypony that was looking at Twilight screamed back and took off in a hurry. All around them, Twilight, Bonbon, and Lyra watched as every open door slammed shut, every open window pulled closed and blinds drawn so that they could not see the now terrified ponies—with the exception of Roseluck, who was now crouched low behind her stall quivering and silently muttering to herself.

Bonbon leaned over the tabletop and looked down at Roseluck. “Roseluck?”

The mare didn’t say a word to her, she simply started rocking herself and closed her eyes. Lyra blinked, then pulled Bonbon away as Twilight looked down at Roseluck with confusion.

But as if Roseluck knew that Twilight was now staring down at her, she opened one eye and looked up before shrieking again, this time saying something.

“You’re dead though!”

You’re dead though!

Those three simple words brought down a ton of weight atop Twilight and her company. She was at a loss for words, even with her maw agape wanting to say something, but couldn’t. It was then that it hit Twilight as she continued to blankly stare at Roseluck for a second time: that look of terror on Roseluck’s face, the ghostly feeling in her eyes, and the trembling. Twilight had a flashback to only a week ago when Nightfall had looked at her in that very same way.

“Twilight?” Bonbon pressed a hoof against her wither.

I’m dead? But I’m not, I’m right here. Twilight thought to herself, completely oblivious to Bonbon’s nudging and calling her name.

Lyra grabbed Bonbon’s hoof and shook her head when her dear friend turned to her in shock. Twilight then blinked and snapped her wings out, jolting high up into the sky before she darted off towards the one place she just had to see now: her castle.

“Twilight!” Bonbon yelled out in vain.

Lyra squeezed her friend’s hoof, then took chase after Twilight. Bonbon didn’t have to be told where they were both going because she already knew. She also knew that somehow they may just find Nightfall wherever Twilight was going. She didn’t know for sure, but Bonbon’s intuition was assertive in its argument to follow Lyra and Twilight.

They didn’t have to run for long as the castle was just beyond one final hill, or at least a very large, empty space where it should be. Both mares’ eyes bugged out when they saw Twilight standing only a few feet in front of them, her wings dragging against the dirt and her body as solid as stone.

When they trotted up to her and stood on either side, their mouths fell open at the sight beheld: a large crystal stump that belonged to the once proud-standing Castle of Friendship, jagged with remnants of crystal branches and foliage of withered plants and vines. But the centerpiece to this travesty was the marble statuette they all saw, and the tiny filly who seemed to be screaming at it.

“Nightfall,” Bonbon whispered silently, recognizing the light streaks of red and magenta against a gray palette of fur.

I… I’m dead in this world? Twilight told herself, hooves shaking as she slowly stepped toward the statue, lost in her thoughts and now oblivious to the filly sobbing next to it. It all makes sense, but… My friends… If this is what it takes for me to die… then what will I have to live for after my friends are all gone? Is this Twilight better off than me?

“Why do you hate me?!” Nightfall’s scream snapped the three mares out of their stupors.

“Nightfall!” Bonbon rushed at a steadfast pace towards the filly.

Nightfall’s ears twitched and her body jumped in shock when she heard the sudden voice. She turned around and faced Bonbon with watery eyes and anguish on her face. She was both crying out in sadness and scowling with rage. This made Bonbon stop short and reel back. As she tried to read Nightfall’s body language, somehow gauge the best way to interact with the distraught filly, Nightfall saw Lyra and Twilight now in the distance behind her and snarled.

“You’re dead!” she pointed a hoof at Twilight.

Bonbon mistook it as it was she who Nightfall was pointing at. “Pardon?”

“Me…” Twilight said sullenly next to Bonbon.

Twilight sulked by Bonbon with Lyra in tow, her head low but her eyes locked onto Nightfall the whole time. “...Isn’t that right, Nightfall?” she asked and fell back onto her haunches.

Nightfall, scowling at Twilight, said nothing back to her until the two of them came to terms that the other really was in the same place, and walked by the other. Now seeing as how Nightfall had no intention of speaking to her, Twilight lowered her head in defeat and frowned. She was honestly hoping Nightfall would say something to her, anything at all as to why she looked at Twilight with such disdain and animosity.

“May I?” she asked the filly in a low voice, with melancholy dread in her words.

Still anguished and leering at the depressed princess, Nightfall stepped aside, her head never moving nor her eyes ever leaving Twilight’s being as she did so. The princess now looked at the statue that Nightfall had been yelling at and her heart stopped beating as her body caved.

Twilight now had a better view of the marble sculpture and the headless pony that it was made to resemble. She saw that only its right wing was fully extended, albeit broken off at its tips, while the left wing had only a jagged pike that stuck out where it was supposed to be. Her heart throbbed in her throat now and was intent on choking her out, but where the statue instilled a sense of loss and reality, what made Twilight’s eyes fill with tears was the plaque that the pony stood upon.

“The Enemy of Us All...” Twilight spoke to herself, gulping hard as if to swallow her still heart—and her pride—letting her subconscious fears of what her immortality brought with it pummel her with every ounce of morality that she fought so very hard to defy. “...Long live the Moon.”

And as if the statue—in its decrepit state—or the hurtful words that it spoke to her weren’t enough to drive home the fear that both Roseluck and Nightfall had filled her with, then the symbol she saw chiseled into the back of the slogan—a pink five-pointed star with five white points behind it surrounded by five smaller, white five-pointed stars—did for sure.

“...M-my C-cutie...Mark...” Twilight’s head fell and she dropped to the ground, hiding her face in her hooves as she started to bawl loudly into them. She wrapped her wings around herself like she was trying to find shelter or comfort in them and to push away all the bad she had seen as she cried.

Lyra and Bonbon looked at one another then treaded lightly towards both Nightfall and Twilight, with Bonbon going over to Nightfall with open arms, and Lyra seating herself down next to Twilight with a hoof on her wing to try and comfort her.

Nightfall ran to Bonbon and buried herself in her adopted mother’s embrace, now crying freely herself as her anger dissipated only sadness remained, repeating apologies to Bonbon in between every latent sob. Bonbon put on the strongest face that she could and held Nightfall close to her chest, caressing the little filly’s mane and letting her cry and find solace.

I need your help. I can’t do this alone. Will you help me?

Bonbon heard those words again, but this time she didn’t even feel the applebucking pain that came with them; she only heard Nightfall’s broken sobs and moans and felt only the filly’s shaking body against her own stoic self. But then she heard somepony new speaking and she recognized next that it was actually herself, and she was speaking in reply to whomever had asked her for her help.

Why me? What can I do? I’m just a candy maker.

Trust me, Bonbon. You’ll help in ways you never thought you could.