Several Years Later

Twilight walked out of her castle, a slight limp in her step as she made her way outside into the morning sun, only made worse by the saddlebags she wore on her barrel. As she stepped outside, she was greeted by bright, shining light that made her ears splay back and her eyelids snap shut.

"Twilight, are you going out!?" Spike called from behind.

Twilight barely managed a nod before she walked away from the castle, leaving a concerned dragon behind on the front door step.

"Years of therapy and she still barely talks on the anniversary." Spike shook his head in sadness. "Please, get better, Twi." He sighed, then turned around and headed back inside the castle.

As Twilight walked through town, the limp in her gait made it difficult for her to reach her destination with any kind of speed. Eventually, she arrived at the small Magnolia tree just at the entrance to the White Tail Woods. She stepped up to the gravestone in front of the tree and promptly collapsed at the base, her coat slick with sweat and her chest heaving.

After taking a couple minutes to calm down, she looked up at the grave once more and spoke.

"Hey Cooper... sorry it took so long for me to get here today. You know that my wither was so damaged that I can barely walk, ever since..." She sighed. "Celestia keeps telling me that she can heal it, but I keep telling her no... I don't know; it just doesn't feel right to have it fixed. Does that sound crazy to you?"

A gentle breeze picked up, softly blowing her mane and revealing the deep scars lining her wither and shoulder.

"You made it four years without magic, so why shouldn't I go a few with a limp?" She let out a mirthless chuckle. "Well, I do have some news for you. The last year has been really busy; what with everything going on. Sunset has officially taken over my job as a Princess since my injuries have proven to be too much for me to overcome."

Twilight sat silently for a minute, then a lone tear slowly streaked down her cheek.

"Had another mental breakdown while trying to give day-court last month. Some stallion was petitioning to have his popcorn machine posted outside the castle for tourists and the like... turns out that popping corn can sound an awful lot like gunfire when you're not paying attention." Twilight rolled her eyes. "That was fun to deal with." She sighed again. “Nopony knows what gunfire sounds like, so they just didn’t understand.”

The breeze swiftly died down, as if to leave her with silence as her answer.

"Otherwise, things have been going well. Starlight and the girls have done everything in their power to try to fix me up, but none of it seems to work... at least, not yet."

Twilight ignited her horn and levitated a small roll of parchment out from her saddlebags.

"As it turns out... that spell Starlight was using to go back in time... well, it still works."

She opened the scroll and eyed the resewn page critically.

"And, if I can do this right... just one more time... maybe I can bring you back too."

Twilight's eyes darted down to the grave beneath her. She sluggishly pushed herself to her hooves and stood upright.

"I'm gonna take back our past... maybe give you a future with your wife and daughter... maybe a life where we can know each other like we always should have."

Twilight's horn glowed brighter as the incantation completed in her mind, and the scroll was slowly enveloped in a bright white light.

"I'll see you soon."

With that, the spell completed and Twilight left in a flash of light.

Author's Note

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbImUw3ssDU

Hey guys. So here we are. I know a few of you are going to view this as me backpedaling on the ending, and I'm not sure how to change your minds. I honestly just wanted to leave this story with a smidge of hope and the *possibility* of a sequel. I'm not 100% sure how I would even go about doing that, but I think it's an avenue that I might want to tread down in the future.

I just want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, eveyone who read this story and took the time to comment, or favorite, or just enjoy my work at all. I do all this for you guys since I'm damn sure not making any money off of it, and I absolutely love reading your comments in each chapter. I know that the ending was sour or just bittersweet for the majority of you, but like I said, I can't overstate how much I appreciate you just giving my story the time of day. I'm a sucker for happy endings, but from the very beginning, I wanted to try to write this story with a sad ending, more of a change of pace than anything else. I'd like to think that overall, I'm pretty proud of how the story went. Lastly, I really have to thank Mocha Star. If it weren't for him, this story would have had a ton more spelling issues and overall it just would have been a mess. If you guys haven't checked him out, please do. He's a great guy and a fantastic editor.

This has been my longest running story on here, going for well over 6 months. Obviously, a lot of people have longer lasting stories than me, but it was a personal best, so let me have this pls.

Either way, whether you hated or loved the ending, I hope you guys do stick around for my next works. If everyone wants a sequel to this story, then I just might be making one in the near future, but for now, I want to make something a little more lighthearted. I already explained all that in the final chapter, so in closing, thanks guys. I hope to see you in the next one.