She stands upon the edge of the gazebo.
She's beautiful.
An endless ripple alights her majestic purple mane.
Her poise is regal; the gold of her ensemble matches such splendor.
Everypony in town is staring at her.
Including you. Standing along the outer fringes of the crowd. Just beyond the shadow of the Royal Airship floating above—moored to the topmost building of the village.
Armored guards circle on the wing. Scouring. Searching the courtyard encircling the gazebo. As her eyes do.
But they find nothing. See nothing. Hear nothing.
So she paces. And her tail flicks. And her breath comes and goes in anxious little spurts. There's a face twisted with worry and anxiousness. It's so familiar. That young, young face. The visage of a faithful student planted in the steady center of so much change.
She's not alone. You're thankful for that, until you gaze upon her companion once more: tall and handsome. Square-built and muscular. Purple scales and green spines. It amuses and hurts you to know that he's barely past his adolescence—a drop in the bucket of time. And—yet—so much of it. So much given, taken, wasted. Just to arrive at this.
She paces and paces. There's a rising murmur amongst the crowd—these simple villagers who didn't expect such a fabulous occasion. She senses their nervousness. Of course she does. The very first thing you taught her was empathy.
Who's left that can teach you?
With a wave of her hoof, she motions to the guards. They see her stern gaze, and the armored soldiers slow their flight—lowering towards the streets and storefronts and walkways. Far off—towards the side of the central courtyard—you see a blue-feathered griffon speaking closely with the town mayor and her fellow constituents. He holds his helmet in the crook of his forelimb and smiles placatingly to the elders. He's young, handsome, and there's a familiarity to his avian profile. You knew his name once.
You knew everyone's name at one point or another.
Time passes.
The crowd doesn't dispel—but they don't clear out either.
Growing more at ease, the tense murmurs morph into breathy chuckles. A round of gossip rolls through the villagers.
Maybe the Princess is here to plan a new expansion to her Friendship Schools.
Maybe she's here to scout out a vacation spot.
Maybe Her Royal Majesty is needing a partner to dance with her at the next Grand Galloping Gala, and she's looking for potential suitors.
Or maybe...
Just maybe...
...it's all just a waste of time.
Another hour.
The shadows shift.
She tilts her gaze heavenward—those violet eyes narrowing. Studying.
Look.
Look at her.
At the ease with which she performs the spell.
Her horn doesn't even have to glow.
It's barely been two mortal lifetimes. Perhaps three. And yet—it doesn't hurt her to look at it.
How long did it take you to avoid going blind?
How many weeks, months, years, decades—of almost plunging Equestria into darkness. Nearly evaporating the oceans. Nearly throwing the entire hemisphere into an earlier winter. Summer. Drought.
Just one century. One lonely century. And there hasn't been a single famine.
She's beautiful.
Even as her ears droop.
And your heart drops.
And the shadows shift some more.
So you shift some more. Deeper into the treeline. Closer to the crook of age-old cottages and storefronts leaning in from the tug of gravity and the drooping of age.
The crowd has begun dispersing.
The Princess isn't nearly as exciting and riveting as they expected.
They know nothing; she's not there for them.
But, then again, she's not there for anypony.
Not today.
Not now.
Another hour lurches by. The day—darkening. Why do you bother to measure it anymore?
Why did you even come here?
It hurt your limbs to cross the distance from the woods to the heart of this village.
Just as it hurt you to crawl out of bed the moment that you saw the green flash.
And your nose smelled the sulfuric cloud.
And you saw the letter landing in the middle of the cabin... a few ironic feet from where the rest lay in a pile. Creased. Molded. Stained yellow with age.
But for some reason, you opened that one.
The same letter that rests in the inner pocket of your cloak, burning your unbrushed coat with her words. Kind words. Faithful and flattering words. The most searing syntax of all.
The mentor she's looking for isn't here.
She hasn't been for a long time.
You've hidden her deep inside. Obscured her with shadow. Layered over her with dust, shrouds, and—yes—fat. There was a spell you had—a spell that would maintain yourself so long as you maintained it.
How long ago did you give up on that? At least a lifetime before Luna gave up on trying to motivate you back into salvaging a modicum of grace, dignity, and respect. Where is your sister now? It's your own fault for not knowing. Her letters form a pile on the opposite side of the cabin.
And here is where you've suddenly decided to pile up. Shrinking, withering, wincing away from the same light that you once espoused. Funny how an impulsive stab at “retirement” could so easily melt you down to the barest core of curled-up banalities. You left at the right time—when she still had faith in you. When she had to lean up to hug you.
How awfully smaller and truer you are now: a crumpled waif of a pony, the detritus of eons of royal hedonism collected together like silt from the end of a dead tributary. Huddled and lopsided, stooping below the heads of the “neighbors” all around you—strangers whom you've kept further distant through squinting glares and wooden shutters. You're nothing more than a pile of regretful thoughts with scarcely the strength to lean upright.
And you deserve it.
You deserve this.
You once shone across continents. You swayed agriculture. Religions were birthed and murdered by your very own light. Wars were fought, won, and memorialized—all at dawn. Your dawn.
And now...
...you can't even last until sunset before giving in to your very own brand of darkness. Was this the freedom that you sought? Was this the “retirement” that you expected to enthrall you? To reinvigorate you?
A spark without the risk of being burnt is no light worth enjoying. Face the truth. You have gained nothing. You simply gave up something that you lost a love for. You and your scrumptious, tempting cowardice. What a poor cost for a self-righteous sacrifice. In the end, you gave up the thrill of risk for the contentedness of safe, dependable, eternal monotony.
So, yes.
You deserve this.
And you forever will.
But her?
She won't.
She mustn't taste of it.
And maybe that's something you should take pride in. Just as you secretly take pride in the rising pile of Luna's unanswered letters as well.
Your student never got to see you take that leap. She wasn't there for when you stopped maintaining the spell and turned into this gross shadow of what she once admired. For her, the dream is still alive.
As it once was for you.
So then...
...why are you here?
Why now—as her sun sets and yours dies again in the hollows of your heart?
Maybe it's because—no matter how long you know that this sacred silence should last—part of you wants to see her...
And warn her...
...that even a soul powerful enough, strong enough, and wise enough to raise and lower the sun will someday suffer that same light burning out.
And while you can't stop that from happening any more than she can avoid it...
...you still wish you could lessen the sting.
But.
But you stay right there.
Because ghosts must remain ghosts, and some stings are worse than others.
Like the sting you're feeling right now. Right here. Here on the cusp of a gorgeous mistake that could have been.
The day has died.
The shadows have collected, covering her as much as they have long covered you. She stands beneath the gazebo, no longer pacing, no longer searching, no longer hoping.
She came as she wrote she would.
You came as nopony wrote you would.
And those shadows remained an abyss—not a bridge.
And this is a good thing.
This is a good thing.
The guards are grounded now. Barely awake. They look at each other with a nervous stirring.
Her companion sees it. He reads the air, the night, the stars peeking through the malaise of the moment. He raises a claw and rests it gently on her withers.
“Come on, Twilight,” he says. “Maybe next time.”
She sighs. Her breath is full of sadness. You miss that feeling as much as you miss her.
“You're right, Spike.” A faint smile—the most burning thing of all. “Come on, my little ponies.” Like a mother to her children, and she motions the guards to take flight with her to the airship just as it is being cast off—set for Canterlot several provinces away. “Next time. I'm sure of it.”
That's a lie.
And you know it.
She doesn't know it.
Maybe...
Hopefully...
...you'll no longer be around by the time she does.
“And that is also a good thing,” you wheeze to the trees around you.
You've left town under the lazy gaze of stars. Soon, your cabin appears like a headstone through the overgrown grass. You step inside, drop the envelope into its respective bed of regrets, and then retire back to your own.
“A good thing,” you murmur. You plead, you beg, but no tears. “A good thing.”
You chase it. Drifting sigh after sigh into that dusty darkness. Expecting to grab ahold by the dawn.
But you know it.
