Twilight blinked as she realized the sound of the movie had cut out.
An orange hand retreated from the laptop in her lap and wrapped around her abdomen.
“What’s wrong?” Sunset asked into her ear.
Twilight snuggled into her.
“Nothing.”
“You’re barely watching the movie.”
Twilight snorted.
“I told you I didn’t like horror movies.”
Twilight felt Sunset smile into her hair as she spoke.
“And I said it’s barely a horror movie—they just use the aliens from the first movie to add some stakes and creep factor to the action. C’mon, that’s not it. You’re barely reacting, even at the gross bits.”
Twilight sighed and pulled on Sunset’s arms, and Sunset obliged, hugging tighter. Twilight’s body went slack, collapsing into Sunset’s embrace. Sunset raised one hand up and began running her fingers through Twilight’s hair, waiting. Finally, almost as a whisper, Twilight spoke.
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?” Sunset whispered.
“It’s going to end.”
“Celestia’s retirement,” Sunset said, realization dawning.
Twilight nodded in acknowledgement. Sunset gave a soft laugh.
“I’ve got confidence in you, Twilight.”
Twilight smiled and curled up tighter in Sunset’s lap.
“Everyone’s got confidence in me. Heck, after wrangling that Swanifying, I’m even starting to be confident in myself.” Her smile faded. “That’s not what I’m scared of, though.” She smiled again. “I mean, not right now.”
“Then what’s bugging you?” Sunset continued to run her hand through Twilight’s hair. “I mean, I can just mind-read it out of you.”
“That would be unethical.”
“You wanted to date the empathic expat. Deal with it.”
Twilight snorted, and then took a deep breath. She slowly uncurled from Sunset’s arms and moved the laptop from off of her legs, and then crawled into a kneeling position to face Sunset, who just lounged, sprawled out on the end of the couch and grinning.
“Better make it fast, or I will just Geode it out of you.”
Twilight rolled her eyes, and took another breath, frowning.
“Sunset… have you considered what’s gonna happen when school ends?”
Sunset frowned and looked away.
“Of course I have, Twilight.” She rubbed her shoulders. “I barely exist on paper, and while Celestia”—She closed her eyes and gave a wry grin—“sorry, Principal Celestia, has been talking to me about ways to stay on here, it’s… scary.” She looked up and gave Twilight a lopsided smile. Twilight returned it with a sad one. “Right, starting to see the problem here.”
“Your friends all might move away. You might not be able to follow them. You’re not sure how you’re gonna fit into the world once things change, it’s like your life is…”
“...ending, yeah.” Sunset rubbed her forehead, staring off a bit before looking up at Twilight. “Guessing that’s what’s eating you?”
“Yeah, something like that.” She smiled and looked away.
“Alright, alright.” Sunset bounced around into a cross-legged position sitting forward, and grabbed Twilight's hands and pulled them towards her. “Talk to me. What’s scaring you about this, exactly?”
Twilight looked away.
“It’s stupid—”
“Twilight.”
“Right, sorry.” Twilight shook her head and took into another breath. “Luna. Luna made a joke after she got back from vacation. She made a crack about me misplacing the capital, and, I just thought, ‘Oh. I’m going to have to move to Canterlot,’ and it just—”
“Spiraled from there?”
Twilight smiled.
“Yes.”
“And once that started, you started really thinking about what that means?”
“Yes,” Twilight nodded, looking into the distance. “I just realized how… how much I’m going to miss. All the ponies I’ve spent years getting to know – Mayor Mare, the Apples, Cheerilee, the CMCs, Lyra, Bonbon, the Cakes.” She shook her head. “All of them, are just going to be gone.”
“What about your friends?”
“I can’t ask them to go with me!” Twilight looked into Sunset’s eyes, distraught. “Applejack’s farm is her life, and Rarity’s rolled back the time she spends managing her stores to be with her family already. Dash would never leave Scootaloo behind, and she has the town weather to help manage, and Pinkie…” Twilight blinked. “Pinkie… uh.”
“Pinkie is Pinkie. She’d either be ecstatic to make a city full of new friends or crushingly depressed to be away from her old ones and you’re not really sure which because she’s Pinkie.”
“Right.” Twilight grinned. “Sometimes it’s really useful that you have a spare set so you get what I’m talking about.”
“Gets confusing sometimes, though.”
“Right.” Twilight smiled, and then slowly frowned. “I’d have to leave them all behind.”
Sunset nodded.
“Okay. What else?”
“What else? I’d be leaving behind the life I’ve spent nine years building, Sunset! Isn’t that enough?”
“That’s not all that’s bothering you, is it?” Sunset leaned in, looking into Twilight’s eyes. “That’s a logistical issue. It’s math, lists, and organizing. I know you, Twilight. That’s a cake walk for you.” Sunset grinned. “Plus, who says you can’t just move the capital to Ponyville?”
“I couldn’t!” Twilight’s fingers formed a death grip on Sunset’s. “Canterlot has so much entrenched infrastructure just because it’s the capital!”
“They’ll deal, Twilight. Plus, you’re a Princess. Sounds like a whole lot of not your problem.” Twilight squirmed and frowned, relaxing her grip on Sunset’s hands. Sunset sighed. “Would it actually kill them to do business without breathing down your neck, or to just set up shop in Ponyville?”
“I mean… it would…” Twilight quirked her head. “I… guess not.”
“You’re, what, a few-hour train ride away? I know people who commute out of this city on longer trips. That’s not what’s bothering you either.”
Twilight sighed and wilted a bit and she stared down into her lap. Sunset ran her thumbs in circles over the back of Twilight’s hand. Sunset frowned.
“It’s not just a logistical problem.” Sunset went on, looking down herself. “There are colleges here I can drive back from on the weekends, but that’s not the same as being able to just jog across town to drop in on you, or you being able to do the same. Hell, you won’t be able to visit me at all. You don’t have a bike or a car, or money for the bus.” She looked up at Twilight. “That puts a lot of distance between us, even if you could whip me up a schedule that optimizes every second. It changes how we relate. No more you popping in to meet me at Sugarcube Corner for a date, or me just swinging over to your place as soon as school gets out. Now we’ll have to wait for weekends to see each other, and class will dictate everything about when I can see you. Heck, I don’t even know if you’ll be able to spend much time over here anymore at all if the girls move away since I won’t be able to keep this place and go to college.”
Twilight was watching Sunset now, frowning, her eyes intent.
“And it’s not just ‘us,’ the other Twilight and Rainbow Dash want to go to wildly different schools, Twilight’s being completely out of state and Rainbow Dash a five hour drive away. Being able to see both of them in person is going to be rough, and that time, that distance, it’s going to change that too.”
“Even if I stay in Ponyville, everything is going to change.” Twilight said, quietly. “I’m giving up the school. Starlight will be amazing as headmare, I’m sure of it, but...”
“You put a lot of work into it.” Sunset grinned. Twilight smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Yeah, I did.” She looked away. “Even if I have my friends, they’re going to change too. They’re supposed to help me, but we won’t be arguing over what’s the proper way to eat a hayburger – it’s going to be taxes and land grants and wars.” She grimaced. “I won’t have time to teach the Crusaders lessons, or go to the local school to read to the students, or anything like that.”
“I mean,”—Sunset gave a sideways smile—“Celestia takes a few days every year to throw a parade for swans. I’m sure you’ve got some ‘Stupid Holiday’ budget in the royal agenda.”
Twilight laughed.
“Seriously, why swans?”
Twilight’s eyes lit up.
“It’s actually a throw-back to an old law where the Equestria Crown owns all unmarked swans in the water in Canterlot conflicting with another law where certain parties own swans in specific streams and fountains. Part of the celebration is—”
Sunset put two fingers onto Twilight’s lips.
“Honey, I love it when you ramble, but if you geek out on me I’m gonna start kissing you and we’ll be at that all night.”
Twilight blushed as Sunset removed her hand.
“Would that be so bad?” she asked.
“Honestly, no, but we need to talk about this.” Sunset grinned. “Okay, so... No matter what you do, your life is gonna change, and change means things stop being like they are now, and you like the way things are now, so that’s scary.”
“Right.” Twilight nodded.
“Right.” Sunset sighed. “So, what’s good about this change?”
“What’s good about it?!” Twilight leaned back, pulling her hands out of Sunset’s grip. “Sunset, I’m going to lose everything I spent years building! Nothing is good about that!”
“You’re not losing all that trust and responsibility you wanted from Celestia.” Sunset smiled. “Sounds like you’re about to have too much of it.”
Twilight opened her mouth to speak, and then stopped, and glared at Sunset. Sunset just grinned right back.
“So, that’s one thing. Plus, you’ll have way more authority now. You can do a lot more good as a monarch than you can as a junior executive.”
Twilight gave Sunset a flat look, but Sunset just shrugged.
“I’m not the one who came here a few weeks ago with a fully detailed budget for overhauling the rail system to be cheaper and faster to go into effect the instant you took over.” Sunset smiled. “You like helping people, Twi. The leader is the person whose job is helping everyone, all the time. That’s why Celestia is picking you.”
Twilight looked away, unsure.
“Look, that’s just the start.” Sunset scooted forward, leaning in until her face was close to Twilight’s. “Yeah, Twilight, you’re going to lose things here. I’m not going to lie and tell you otherwise. Thing is – your life is going to also get bigger, and that means opportunity. You can’t run the school personally anymore, but you can open up one in every city in Equestria! All those years with your friends can go into building something better for everyone, and that’s just the start, like I said.”
“Yes, but is that worth losing out on the little things? Being able to just walk down the street of a sleepy town that knew me as the klutzy unicorn who saved Winter Wrap-up?”
“I can’t tell you that, Twilight, but would that be the end of the world?”
“What’s that suppoused mean?” Twilight narrowed her eyes.
“I mean, right now, you’re the most loved of a quartet of living goddesses, you built a school you love, have a student you can’t stop being proud of, two sets of five friends who are pretty much the best, a town that adopted you, you kick the flank of every idiot who’s stupid enough to mess with you, you helped achieve world peace by taking out the freaking Storm King, and you’re dating me.” Sunset grinned. “Your life is pretty swell right now. Not having the time to snag an impromptu lunch at Sugarcube Corner isn’t going to kill you. Even losing a couple of those things isn’t going to make your life miserable. Worse, yeah, but you’ll still be miles ahead of most ponies when it comes to having a pretty great life.”
Twilight looked away, smiling. Sunset frowned, though, her eyes drifting away as well.
“You know what I really hate about this world, Twilight?”
Twilight perked up.
“There are people here who die before their body gives out.”
“You mean zombies?”
Sunset froze, and then facepalmed, frowning. “Right, forgot, magic. No, not like the undead. Humans don’t have Cutie Marks, and this world isn’t as nice as Equestria, even without the chaos gods and magic stealing centaurs. I see these people, Twilight, and their lives just… stopped, at some point. There wasn’t a conclusion, or an end, or an epiphany. They just kept having to put off finishing their dreams for something else, a chore, or a job, or a responsibility, and then eventually they got so far into the habit of that that they lost the will to do anything else. It’s like a book and as it goes on and on pages start getting skipped, until you turn a page and… that’s it. The story of who they are just ends, and from there it’s forty years' worth of blank pages until you hit the back cover and it’s over. I hate it, Twilight. I hate it so much.” She shook her head, tears forming in the corner of her eyes.
“Why are you telling me this?” Twilight said, her eyes wide, leaning back, unsure.
“Because that isn’t what’s happening to you! You’re life is going somewhere, Twilight. You’re becoming the Princess. Everything you worked for meant something in the end, it didn’t just fade to nothing because some decision at a corporation cut it short unexpectedly.” Sunset smiled. “Yeah, your life is changing, but that just means there’s more to tell, and everything you’ve done is going to be there, for you to work off of, and for other ponies to be inspired by. Your life meant something. It went somewhere, even if it’s ending as you know it.”
Twilight’s eyes darted around, unsure. Sunset sighed and swung her legs around, leaning forward off the couch.
“I was just trying to cheer you up.”
“Yeah, sorry.” Twilight gave a lopsided smile. “That’s all just a bit intense.”
“Yeah, I know.” Sunset gave a tired smile. Twilight’s expression twisted into a contemplative frown and she looked at Sunset as she swung her legs around to mirror Sunset’s position.
“If you have to see stuff like this here… why are you still thinking about staying?”
Sunset’s expression hardened.
“Computer Science. Engineering. History. If I learn how to make computers I can bring a hundred and fifty years of technological advancement to Equestria and hopefully skip all the wars humanity had to wage to get as far.”
Twilight’s eyes widened.
“I didn’t even consider.”
“I mean, that, and I have friends of my own I’d like to hold on to too.” Sunset’s expression softened to a smile. “But there’s some payoff to sticking around. Plus, if things don’t work out,”—she reached out and grabbed Twilight’s hand and kissed it—“I can always crash on the royal couch.”
Twilight blushed and giggled.
“I’m glad I’m your plan B.” She smirked.
“Honestly, sometimes it’s really tempting to make you my plan A.”
“I admit, there’s been some times where I’ve considered just showing up here and never looking back!” Twilight laughed.
“That wouldn’t solve the whole ‘your life is ending’ problem.” Sunset grinned.
“I know, but I’d rather be kissing you than thinking about having to fight Sombra a third—wait, no, fourth, time.”
“Good to know that’s the bar I clear.”
Twilight shoved Sunset. Sunset grabbed on and dragged Twilight over, the two of them giggling. Sunset pulled Twilight properly on top of her and she rolled over, staring up into her eyes, a soft smile on her face. Twilight looked back, mirroring her expression.
“I love you, Twilight.”
“I love you too, Sunset.”
Sunset reached up and ran the back of her hand across Twilight’s face.
“That’s another thing, too, you know,” she said, still smiling. “Things won’t be the same, for either of us, but we have each other. We also have our friends, all of them, that we’ve made along the way. It’s gonna be tough, for all of us, but we’ve come this far, and we have everything that’s happened behind us, pushing us along. We’ve got this.”
“Together.” Twilight grinned.
“Together.” Sunset grinned, and leaned up and kissed Twilight. Twilight returned the kiss, and the two slowly fell into each other as it ended, Twilight curling up on top of Sunset and Sunset once again running her fingers through Twilight’s hair.
“You know, this isn’t the first time things have changed for you, and things are going to be changing for your friends. I bet this isn’t the first time things have changed for them either, but what happened when their lives changed?”
“We helped each other.” Twilight smiled.
“And what happened when your life changed, especially to the tune of two extra limbs?”
“We helped each other.” Twilight giggled, looking up at Sunset.
“Right. We’ve all had to face changes. Your wings, my redemption. None of that was easy, but we stuck with it because it was important.” Her voice softened to an almost-whisper. “We were important. We were worth fighting for. As long as that’s true, we can fight to make the best of the changes we’re facing, and I don’t think that’s changing anytime soon.”
“Friendship really is magic.” Twilight smiled.
“Yeah, it is.” Sunset smiled right back.
Sunset pulled Twilight up into a hug, and Twilight wrapped her arms around Sunset’s as the two curled around each other. So they held each other as the night carried on around them, inching toward tomorrow.
Author's Note
A lot of things are ending soon. Things we all care about.
I love all of you, and you are worth fighting for.
I just wanted to let you know that.
