Fire. Stone. Sweat.
The fire blazed hot, but the stone did not melt. The stone drank the heat, but the sweat still stung her eyes. The sweat drenched her apron, but the fire did not burn it away.
Fire. Stone. Sweat. Her whole world, unchanging. She could not let it change, not until the work was done. It was too important. She slipped her goggles on, the only protection she pretended to need, and stared into the furnace. The volcanic heat inside glowed like a sun, bright enough to blind anypony else. A mile away, woodland creatures cringed away from warmth they did not know the source of.
Her nostrils flared. Too cold.
She put a hoof on the bellows and pushed once. Wind like a giant’s breath rushed into the embers. The furnace roared. Her workshop groaned and creaked. The entire mountain trembled above her head, and villagers leagues away looked up at the smoking peak with awe and terror, hoping lava flows did not come next. The door to her workshop cringed and blackened, the enchanted wards consumed by unearthly heat.
Now she smiled. Much better. Magic embraced a pair of tongs with a cloud of sparkles and floated them to the furnace. She gingerly reached inside, feeling more than seeing. There was no such thing as simple mortal sight in this chamber, and this work was delicate enough that she didn’t even dare try to peek inside, not even with a spell. Some things were too private for immortals to be privy to.
Careful not to nudge the sunstones inside lest the entire mountain go up in vaporized steam, she found what she was looking for and gripped it tight, lifting it away from its superheated cradle. Though she hadn’t seen what coalesced within her own furnace before, now she knew what it was with a single glance.
A small, delicate brooch. It glowed with singular ferocity, as if it hugged the heat to itself, yet cast it outward with equal intensity, giving and taking in equal measure. It had the shape of a flower, endowed with tiny, delicate petals. She scanned it with her magic, and was entranced by its consistency. In spite of the odd shape, not a single speck of it was heated unevenly.
“Interesting,” she said, and the words burned away the moment they left her lips. The last object she pulled from the fire had been a good deal more placid in temperament, and yet the form it took was more ostentatious.
“I think I know what to call you.”
“Twilight?” Cadance asked from the back of the workshop. She looked skittish and apprehensive, with one hoof raised up. But the heat did not bother her; it didn't even ruffle her ethereal mane, which drooped more than usual today.
Twilight did not look at her, all her focus on the brooch. She carried it like a newborn child, setting it down on her anvil and floating over an array of tools and instruments, all crafted by the greatest blacksmiths she could find. Next came a helmet armed with lenses of all sizes and shapes, which she strapped around her head. She flicked the lenses down in front of her right eye, magnifying the brooch until it looked as large as her hoof. She held it down and touched the soft metal with a needle point, teasing the flower’s petals open further, tugging and tweaking where the folds bent at unaesthetic angles.
“Shhh,” she said. “You’ll look great. I promise.”
“Twilight,” Cadance said, stepping further inside. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“This is a very delicate time, Cadance,” Twilight murmured. “If I get it wrong, this one will have to go back in the fire. I don’t think she’d appreciate having to do a repeat performance.”
“‘She?’” Cadance asked, cocking her head. “The last one was a ‘he.’”
“Just feelings I have,” Twilight whispered, using the needle to curl a leaf she hadn’t seen before. The shapes seemed to make themselves with work like this. She only had to put on the finishing touches. “Almost… done.”
“Twilight, the Council of Friends is worried,” Cadance said.
“Yeah,” Twilight said, still working. The tiny scrape of metal on metal echoed through the workshop.
“Twilight, I’m worried,” Cadance said, stamping her hoof. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to stay cooped up in here?”
“Uh huh.”
“Twilight, are you listening to me? I’m trying to tell you something important.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Cadance sighed and looked away, eyes roaming over the vast library of tools Twilight had gathered. Pickaxes, saws, drills, hammers. Twilight’s list had been meticulous and nigh-unending. She hadn’t even used half of the things in here, but she insisted she needed every single one.
“Twilight,” Cadance said, “I’m pregnant again.”
“Eeyup,” said Twilight.
Cadance smiled. She hadn’t changed a bit.
“All right,” she said with a defeated sigh. “I mean, it’s only been a few decades. What’s a few more? It’s not like the kingdom is about to be plunged into civil war just because one of the thrones is empty.”
“There’s a war on?” Twilight asked, sounding annoyed. “Nopony told me.”
“Twilight, this is serious.” Cadance rounded the anvil and stood over Twilight, her majestic mane flaring up with a dazzling array of colors. It never stayed the same. The heat seemed to shy away from it, as if loathe to burn something so pure. “I’m telling you, it’s been too long! Won’t you at least poke your head out and get some sunshine? You look so pale! Have you eaten in the last couple years?”
Twilight, distracted more by the sudden cooling presence of Cadance than her actual words, finally stopped. She looked up though her lenses, one eye magnified ten times its normal size. Her mouth hung agape, as if she tried to remember who she was talking to.
“Twilight?” Cadance asked. “Are you all right?”
“You’ve gotten taller,” Twilight said.
“So have you,” Cadance said with a chuckle. “How did you get your mane in a ponytail? My hoof just goes right through mine.”
“I, uh.” Twilight fidgeted. “I don’t remember.”
Cadance squinted anxiously. “Do you have any idea how long you’ve been down here?”
“Only some,” Twilight said, sighing as she looked down at the brooch. There was nothing for it now; she’d have to go back in the fire until the shaping was done. Twilight could say it burned away impurities, but she might be offended at the idea she even had impurities to be rid of.
“It feels like a dream,” Twilight continued, her voice distant and droning. “Like I’ve been in here all along, ever since I was born. I must have sweated away an ocean but I only need a glass or two of water to keep going.” As consciousness returned, she noticed a kink in her neck and stretched until her joints popped. “You know what I really miss? Hayburgers. Do they still make those?”
“Yes, hayburgers are still a thing,” Cadance said. She tutted and wiped away the sheen of sweat from Twilight’s brow. “You need more than a couple glasses of water, Twilight. You need rest. I went to bed on time for the first time in forever yesterday. I haven’t felt this good in years.”
“They did say we would remember what it was like,” Twilight whispered. “The little things in life.”
Cadance nodded. “The little things.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Twilight said, looking up again, all distractions gone from her mind. A light burned deep down in her eyes. Brighter than the furnace. Brighter than stars. “That’s why I have to continue the work, Cadance. So I remember. So we remember. So everyone remembers.”
“We have memories to keep. Pictures and mementoes to fill a city.”
“It’s not just that,” Twilight said. “I can’t just keep them. I can’t just hold on to them. I can’t hold them anymore, Cadance. We’re not meant to just look at a picture on a wall and tell ourselves, ‘oh, that’s where they went.’ They were more than that. So much more. Something besides us has to carry them. Not just the memories, the feelings, but the… the essence of them. Can’t you feel it?”
She leaped away from the anvil and pointed at the furnace. The heat almost made her hoof tingle. “This furnace was heated by sunstones I took from the Forge of Heorot. These tools?” She fluttered up to the racks that lined her walls. “Some of them weren’t made by pony hooves. This hammer? It came from Hephaestus’ workshop.”
Cadance tilted her head and squinted. “And you… asked permission to borrow it, right?”
Twilight giggled and clopped her hooves together. “Well, he was asleep when I got there, and you know how long a magical creature’s naps can be. I’m sure I’ll get it back before he notices it’s gone.”
Cadance sighed. “Twilight…”
“And my anvil was carved out of a meteorite, Cadance! A meteorite from space! I chose the location of this workshop because it sits on the confluence of a dozen leylines criss-crossing the entire planet! Surrounding myself with myths and legends beyond mortal comprehension! All of this!” Twilight spreading her hooves grandly. “All of this to even get an inkling, a glimpse of the sheer, unspeakable atmosphere I felt when I was with them!”
“Twilight, what are you trying to say?”
“That none of it matters!” Twilight shouted, her shout creating a thunderclap that sounded like another rumble of the mountain.
Cadance went quiet, watching Twilight as she came back to ground, her hooves gesticulating wildly.
“I don’t feel anything like I used to when they were here. No picture can tell me how their manes bounced when they walked, no ghost of a feeling can make me remember what their hooves felt like when they held me close. And you can’t look at me and say that anypony you know can ever, in a million years, even come close to what you felt when you had—”
“Stop,” Cadance said, in a whisper like dry leaves. “I… I know what you mean.”
Twilight gulped, taking a moment to compose herself. She put her hooves up on the anvil and rocked back and forth, shaking her head.
“That’s why I’m here,” she said. “That’s why I’m doing this. It’s only here, doing this work, that I get even a taste of what we used to have. I can almost touch it, like there’s somepony I know in a crowd, and their back is turned to me but I know them, I know them, and I’m reaching out and I feel like if I can just… just get even the slightest brush of their tail or their mane…”
She held the brooch up in her bare hooves. This time the heat burned, but she didn’t care. She needed to feel something.
“This isn’t just a memory,” she whispered. “Touch it. With your magic.”
Cadance reached out, and her gentle glow embraced the brooch.
“This isn’t a magical material,” she said simply.
“No,” Twilight said. “Neither is the first one that came out. I didn’t even put anything in but there it was when I looked inside. It was a necklace. A necklace with a space in it, like something was supposed to go inside. A gem, maybe?” A crazed grin swept over her features. “Do you know what this means?”
Cadance set the brooch down gently. “I have some theories,” she murmured.
“It means I’m not just making something to remember them by,” Twilight sighed like a lovestruck filly. “I’m making them.”
Cadance raised her eyebrow.
Twilight held up her hooves and stuttered. “I mean, not in a creepy way. This is a good thing! I thought… I thought at first this was just some manic compulsion of mine, I mean you know how I get those sometimes, but now I know. These things? This brooch?” She snatched it up again in her magic and jabbed her hoof at it, making a mental note to apologize for the rough treatment later. “These aren’t magic, not like some wand that shoots lasers is magic, it’s our friends. Or not exactly them, but the… the best parts of them made real! And me, I’m still here, and you’re still here, and we’re the only ones who remember them the way they should be! That’s why I was trusted to make these. Like the Tree! You remember the Tree?”
“Yes,” Cadance said, bowing her head reverently. “Ponies have built a shrine around it. It’s last petals are falling and the branches have gone dim. I hoped you would come out to see it. I felt like it missed you.”
“It left something to remember it by, too. Look.” Twilight threw open a drawer and pulled out a single, solitary shard of crystal.
Cadance’s eyes widened. “Is that…?”
“A piece of the Tree’s roots,” Twilight’s said. “I used this to focus sunlight and start the fire. I went through every combustible material on earth but this is the only thing that worked because it’s not the heat, it’s not the fire, none of this really matters. What matters is that I put my heart into this. My friendship. Everything that’s me to get back everything of them. They’re gone, Cadance.” Twilight’s eyes shimmered as she took a step forward, her lip quivering. “They’re gone and they’re never coming back, and we won’t get to see them again for a long, long time. But the things that made them special? The things that seared themselves into our minds? Those are here. In these little pieces of jewelry.”
Cadance swayed on her hooves. Twilight reached out and embraced her before she fell, burying her face in her neck, and Cadance didn’t mind Twilight’s damp face because her own face was already wet with tears. They stayed like that a while, drenched in sorrow and sweat, and it was impossible to say for how long. But they pulled apart once more, taking deep, shaky breaths.
“If…” Cadance started. “If you need more time… you can have it. All the time in the world, if you…”
Twilight shook her head. “No. No, you’re right. The ponies… Our ponies… they should see me. The work… it will still be here.” She seemed to realize something and blinked owlishly. “Did you… say decades?”
Cadance’s musical laughter filled the workshop, chasing away the last shrouds of sadness. “Oh, Twilight, I wasn’t going to tell you. I should have bothered you sooner, but I was afraid. I was afraid of coming back in here because I was just so sad, Twilight. I was so very, very sad, and the kingdom has been sad with me. I thought I might come in here and see some miserable recluse hunched over dolls made of rocks or something. I should have trusted you sooner.” She cleared her throat and fidgeted. “Equestria… might have gone a little too long without you, however.”
Twilight scrunched her snout. “Cadance, what’s been going on out there?”
Cadance rubbed the back of her neck and shrugged. “I… might have overheard some ponies talking in court, and they probably mentioned something about a legend growing around you?”
Twilight buried her face in her hooves. “Oh, no.”
“The Mare in the Mountain, I think was the term?” Cadance said with a sheepish grin.
“Oh, no!” Twilight groaned. “That’s so uninspired! Doesn’t anypony read history books?!”
“Not without you there to remind them,” Cadance giggled.
They went quiet a little longer, letting everything rest.
“How many more do you have to do?” Cadance asked.
“I’m not sure,” Twilight said after a long pause. “Two have come out already. But stuff like this is magic that goes beyond what I studied. This is deep magic. Matters of the heart, and all.” She looked up at Cadance, hopeful and timid. “I mean, you’re an expert on those, right?”
Cadance nodded, lowering her head. “I am,” she whispered. After another moment’s thoughtfulness, she went to the equipment and slipped on an apron.
“Well,” she said, “we better get to work.”
“You’re staying?” Twilight said with a fragile, hopeful smile.
“You said this one needs to go back in the fire. We’ll finish her up and do the rest later.” Cadance tenderly held up the brooch in her magic. “I think it’s time I started putting some of myself into this great work, too.” She spun the brooch around and around, admiring its beauty, unfinished though it was. “And… there are a few I might make myself. Before the fire goes out.”
“I understand,” said Twilight. “I’m so glad you’ll help me. Friendship is incomplete without some expertise on love, after all.”
“Yes. Which reminds me—”
“If you say anything about getting a boyfriend I am throwing you in the forge myself,” Twilight deadpanned.
Cadance giggled. “Fair enough, Twilight. Fair enough.”
Twilight stepped on the bellows. The forge roared back to life, and the two mares stared deeply into the heat that was not just heat and the light that was not just light.
Fire. Stone. Sweat.
But now, so much more.
