Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
Twilight couldn’t remember when it happened. All she had was a window in time; a rough span of dates between her brother’s death and Flurry Heart’s last letter. As it were, the net she had cast was sitting languid, tangled in the depths of her aging memory. She couldn’t even remember the last time she saw Cadance smile, really truly smile with nothing but mirth behind those sparkling eyes.
Twilight looked out of the window on the last functioning train line to what was left of the Crystal Empire, now a bitter and frigid wasteland nearly devoid of life. The ground was grey, the sky was grey, the interior of the plush cabin seemed grey as Twilight tried to muster what was left of her courage. A voice in her head, one that had died less than a hundred years ago, told her to be strong, to be brave, to be loyal to the mare Twilight had loved for over a century.
Twilight knew it was already too late.
The train ground to a halt and Twilight exited, hardly noticing the cold that tore through the world around her. The sun burned in her chest, a permanent reminder of everything destiny had forced her to sacrifice. As she plodded along to the last habited building in the Empire, a ramshackle house-turned-library, she thought of her past. She thought of her library, her friendships, her quiet life destroyed by a worthless pair of wings.
Twilight’s feathers twitched as she stepped across a magical threshold. She traced the pattern of the early warning rune in her head, a large circle that covered most of the city block and centered around Sunburst’s home. It was her idea; a way to provide some small comfort to the solitary scholar. As she approached her destination, the door swung open to let her in.
The aging unicorn regarded Twilight with a warm smile, setting the book he cradled in his hooves off to the side. “Please, Princess, come in. Make yourself at home. I put water on for tea but… you were a little later than I expected.” He adjusted his glasses, the weak smile plastered across his face souring from nervous to forlorn.
Twilight lit the burner with her magic. She didn’t intend to stay for tea but she couldn’t stop herself from play-acting the pleasantries of friendship. “Yes, well, the record-breaking snowstorms make train travel difficult and Cada—Heart Breaker’s magic makes teleporting a dangerous idea at best.” Twilight shook her head, trying to clear her mind of the crushing negativity seeping in around the edges. This place, this sun-forsaken pit was sick with it; a blight upon the face of Equestria. “Has she tried talking to you recently?”
Sunburst shook his head, reaching for a letter on the mantle with his magic. “No, just this. You’ve read over it a hundred times already so nothing to say there.” He studied the failing floorboards, trying to build a sentence as Twilight pulled the letter close to her. “I see her sometimes, though. Stalking through the snow. She looks at me and just... leaves.”
Twilight set the letter down, pacing around the cramped, messy kitchen. Sunburst did his dishes, at least, but she expected that putting a book away in its proper place might kill him if the space around her was any indication. “I know you miss her. I do too.” Sunburst said nothing, hardly looked at anything but the closed book in front of him. “I’m going to get her back. I promise. Either I get her back or I die.”
This pulled Sunburst’s attention out, a desperate look in his eyes. “You don’t mean that, do you?” Sunburst looked around the room, at the decaying remains of the life he once lived. “If you don’t come back then who’s going to raise the sun? The moon? Who’s going to rule Equestria?”
Twilight shrugged, her heart a burning hole full of a century's worth of pain. “Her, I guess.”
Twilight didn’t know what to expect as she pushed into the raging blizzard that held the world outside her in its crushing grip. She didn’t expect it to slow, certainly, stalling to a comfortable snowfall that wouldn’t be out of place in Canterlot. It didn’t help quell the raging panic building in her chest as she ventured forward, the inclement weather still impeding her visibility to a worrying degree. She tried to clear some of it away as she had countless times before and found it resisting still, a powerful spell held together by the massive wellspring of emotion that powered it.
This was the first time she had been out here alone. Before she had backup, friends and allies to depend on. Sunset and Starlight were too old, too infirm to brave the weather and the Elements were dead. So it was just her and her crown, a worthless bauble in the face of the only pony left alive that still truly loved her.
Love! What a funny concept. What a fragile, delicate, idiotic concept. Yet still she put so much stock into it, as she did friendship when she was younger. Love is what drove Twilight to put one hoof in front of the other, to come stalking alone into this frigid hellscape in some foolish mission to save an unsaveable mare. Love was all she had at the end of the day.
The Crystal Castle, once a place of comfort and safety was now sitting wretched on the horizon, an ice-caked ruin stitching across the bleak sky. It was decades ago that Twilight led an expedition into it’s gutted corpse to try and find something of value. She was the only one to survive. She didn’t know what she hoped to find in taking a second trip inside. Maybe closure, maybe warmth, maybe the frozen remains of the ponies who had trusted her to protect them. She pulled the heat of the sun that hung unused in her chest and pooled it at her hooves, shivering as she climbed the slick steps of the castle.
The castle was huge, a sprawling labyrinth of crystal that Twilight could still navigate by memory alone. Her legs pulled her forwards, taking the familiar path to the guest bedroom. As she approached the massive oak door that now lay in splinters that punctuated the hall preceding it, she thought she heard laughter.
A look around confirmed she was alone.
Twilight pulled Cadance close, nuzzling into the soft fur of her chest even as her vision threatened to spin off its axis. She would spin if she had to for she knew that Cadance would be there to catch her, to cradle her too-soft in her hooves and right the spiral of her mind with that unyielding tenderness she commanded so effortlessly.
The hiccup of her lover broke the spell of Sappho and brought Twilight giggling back to the reality of the silk-draped room, a hindleg kicking out to meet a downy blanket and an empty bottle of wine. “Twilight, dear, did you drink the rest of that bottle while I was away?”
Twilight snorted, afraid to meet Cadance’s eyes in fear that the ruse might dissolve under scrutiny. Indeed, it had already dissolved when she splashed red wine across her fur. It clung to her chest and marred the bed they laid sprawled across, only half as bright as her burning cheeks. “Perhaps.” Twilight whispered, pressing a kiss against the thin line that made up the mouth of the Princess of Love. “Who wants to know?”
Twilight reckoned Cadance could only hold her steely gaze for so long, a hypothesis that proved true as she doubled over in a fit of laughter that brought them crashing together like two lonely planetoids held in the grip of a burning star. Twilight was lying on her back and Cadance sat above her, her mane hung a tangled mess and her face flushed with the heat of love and wine. Twilight opened her mouth to speak but was silenced by a kiss, a warm melting of lips together that stole the words right out of her mind. She was left an empty vessel, built to hold the love of a goddess and naught much else. “I do.”
I do. What did that mean? Those words, hanging lonesome in the thick air of the bedroom, who were they for? They couldn’t be for her, certainly. Could they? Twilight’s eyes slid off of Cadance and onto the portrait that hung above the bed where they stuck for an age. The portrait was of two mares, one in a finely-tailored suit and the other in a beautiful gown. The pink mare, the one in the tuxedo, stretched the limits of the art of painting with her beauty. Twilight remembered those words, spoken differently and many years prior on this exact date, and her heart swelled. “And I’m so glad you did.”
Cadence blinked once. Twilight turned to catch her face and she blinked again before a smile spread across her face, putting the sun to shame with such blinding beauty. Twilight was kissed again and a third time, maybe a fourth or a fifth but both her heart and her memory failed her in that moment. “You’re a dork. Did you know that? I married a dork.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and fired back a few kisses, her neck straining to meet the goddess that hung suspended above her. She had lost the battle, no doubt, but wouldn’t go down without a fight. The fight was all she had left, disarmed as she was by the totality of her love. She stroked Cadance’s muzzle with her hoof, smiling in a futile pantomime of her wife. “That’s your fault, not mine.”
“Yes, well,” Cadance kissed her again, missing her smiling face and landing squarely on the delicate perch of Twilight’s collarbone, “I don’t regret it in the slightest.”
Twilight traced an idle hoof across the now-blackened gold that lined the doorjamb. Somewhere an icicle was dislodged from its perch, echoing through the cold and empty halls of the castle. She followed the sound, bereft of any true goal or destination. She’d take walks like this in the summer, when the hot air mingled with the cool mountain breeze and the storm clouds loomed thick on the horizon.
She remembered swooping in and out of those storm clouds, the lightning chasing her flying form but never catching her in it’s thunderous embrace. She remembered watching the storm clouds rumble and shake the ocean out of the sky, watched the rain pour down like sheets of water, watching the tide rise and rise until she was swallowed whole.
She remembered the laughter and the thrill as her and Cadance danced through danger, near pulling to violent static behind them in a wake of booming sound and crackling white heat. They would crash into a heap when their wings were spent and let the wet, idle heat of the summer surround them. They would laugh and laugh as the world opened up and poured water upon their tangled bodies, as if to wash away all the recklessness held inside them.
Twilight looked up from her reverie to see the entrance to the throne room. It looked just like it did ages ago, when life still had a place in these halls. She found it interesting that, of all the rooms in the castle, this one escaped Heart Breaker’s ire. Twilight chalked it up to some shred of sentimentality surviving Heart Breaker’s corruption. Maybe the destruction of the Prince’s throne, the last physical marker of his existence outside of his saber and his grave, was simply too much for even her to bear. Twilight considered destroying the throne, provoking the errant Princess.
She knew better.
They had been apart when the news broke. Twilight was in the middle of a meeting with a foreign dignitary, the daughter of Prince Rutherford had come to discuss how they might handle the discovery of a new crystal mine. She remembered every minutia, every tiny detail in the tear-soaked face of her lover as she appeared beside her, clutching her close in some desperate attempt to feel less alone.
What Twilight didn’t remember, however, was how they got up to her bedroom. She didn’t remember how long the two of them had spent howling together in wordless sorrow, taking turns blubbering empty platitudes and tired phrases of affection and comfort. Truly language here was a burden and she wanted nothing more than to shed her voice and scream silently at the world that allowed her brother to die.
“Cadance…” Twilight wanted to pull her lover close, to wring the sorrow out of her broken frame with her hooves, but to be close would be to invite that same sorrow in. She had enough of her own to deal with right now so she opted to remain distant from her.
“Why are you comforting me? He’s your brother, I should be holding you!” Even when she was between sobbing fits, Cadence still thought of Twilight first and foremost. It stung, like the last breath before hypothermia claimed you.
“And you lived with him. Loved him, for all these years. Spent more time with him than I ever did.” Twilight thought of her distant star, her lover hanging lonely and afraid in the dark of the night, far from the spires of Canterlot. Oh how she had missed her.
“Still…” If there was more to say, Cadance couldn’t find the words as another wave of grief washed over her. Flurry Heart should be here. Twilight had sent for her personally, a magical message that not even the fiery-hearted Princess of Passion could ignore. Or so Twilight thought.
“Still nothing, Cadance. I’m your wife and even if I wasn’t I’m still your friend. I still love you.” Twilight gently guided Cadance’s muzzle towards her and their eyes met. Only now was Twilight aware of the vast distance that stretched between them, the wild and unmanageable space that had grown in her absence. Twilight started to cry.
“I love you, Twilight.”
Twilight nestled her weeping face in the crook of Cadance’s neck and hoped her words rang true. “I love you too.”
Decades after Shining Armor’s death, Twilight found she didn’t miss him. Not in the way she missed Cadance or Luna or Rarity or Pinkie Pie or, indeed, any of the lovers she had let wander into and then out of the fragile bounds of her heart. She missed him like she missed her parents; their deaths as sure in her mind as the setting of the sun. The death of her family always seemed so certain and the death of her friends so hazy, filled with the possibility of immortality. The truth is she knew the moment she felt the crown settle on her brow they were all going to die before her.
Cadance would remain. Twilight didn’t know how short her presence would be; how brief the touch of her love, and if she did know nothing would have changed. Nothing could have changed. Twilight and Cadance both had empires to lead, lives to live that did not contain either of their disparate bodies. Flurry Heart could have been there for her mother, at least, but adventure called to a young Princess and it was not in Twilight’s power to deny her that call.
She could have done more. She recounted the list as she climbed up to the observatory, the frigid air thinning as she went. This thought process was rote, a familiar cycle that kept her company in times of uncertainty. A Princess’ foresight was strong and her hindsight even more so and it was through this lens that she pored over the past, hungry for answers to questions she had yet to ask.
She had ran out of questions ages ago, however, and answers ages before that. Now she was stuck treading the same paths that she always had, climbing over the same ruined crystal staircase that sought futilely to impede her advance. She breached the open air and the vastness of the sky almost took her then and there, near ripping her soul from her aimless body. There was nothing up here to stop the wind from blowing. Nothing separating her from the endless expanse of a world she had tried to leave behind.
She thought she heard hoofsteps approaching.
Twilight had grown used to making hard decisions. She had to; any sign of weakness on her end would've been exploited ruthlessly. So it was that her royal presence was a flawless wall, a stalwart bastion of the ideals of friendship. She was magic made manifest. It was the easy decisions that tripped her up, surprised her with the way she slipped comfortably into them. Easy decisions like her partner Rainbow Dash slipping into the wrap of her wings, soaking in the summer sun under Twilight's feathered embrace.
Rainbow Dash was lying curled against her, the gentle purr of their sleeping form a welcome addition to the distant sounds of mirth from the town below. Twilight drew her Captain of the Guard close and they stirred, barely conscious of anything but the gentle heat of Twilight beside them.
It took two months of planning to get a day off for the both of them and another three to actually schedule that day off but it had been beyond worth it. It wasn’t often Twilight was able to hear true mirth in Rainbow’s voice, see the sparkle in their eyes as the zipped and ducked and twirled through the clouds. Twilight delighted in the way they turned heads, ponies gawking in absolute disbelief as they strode through the town with their heads held high. It’s like Ponyville forgot they both used to call this town home.
Twilight’s lovesick daydream was interrupted by a displacement in space, a ripple of magic that sent shivers down her spine. The two of them were wrest from their relaxation as a raspy voice called out across the skyway. Before Twilight could compose herself Flurry Heart was upon her, eyes wild with panic.
“AUNTIE TWILIGHT! SOMETHING’S HAPPENED WITH MOM!” Flurry Heart always struggled to control her volume and now was no exception.
“Cadance? What happened to her?” Twilight and Rainbow shared a look, concern passing between them like a letter might pass between two clandestine lovers.
“The whole empire is... it’s under attack! From her! I think? It’s hard to tell but she’s not there and there’s some other evil mare there instead and she’s got wings and a horn like mom does and everyone is really scared and I tried to talk to her but I can’t even get close and—” Flurry’s tirade was silenced by a stern hoof plugging her muzzle. Twilight felt dread creeping in around the edges and hindsight would tell her, eighty years from now, that this was the last moment she would know peace.
“Can you take me to her?”
“Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight Sparkle did not think she heard hoofsteps approaching. She knew she heard them. There was no other end to this, no alternative but conflict. She turned to face Heart Breaker, exhaustion soaking into her voice. “Hello, dear.”
Heart Breaker snarled, advancing a single step. Twilight didn’t move, didn’t budge from where she stood; less resolute and more resigned. “You. I am not your dear, whelp.” Heart Breaker spat her words as much as she spoke them.
Twilight searched Heart Breaker’s face for anything, any sign of the mare she once held close to her. Twilight wondered too as she stared into the flickering gold ring of her iris if she still held onto their wedding band. “Can you just please come home?”
Heart Breaker seemed as surprised to hear that as Twilight did. She faltered, just for a moment, before continuing her advance. Her horn was glowing a sickly pink, her magical aura a barely contained weapon that filled the thin air with a palpable feeling of hate. “There is no home left for me, Twilight. I thought long ago that perhaps I could build a home in your heart but I was wrong! I never should’ve trusted you, not after you abandoned them.”
Twilight shook her head and furrowed her brow. It was hard to fight the rage building in her chest, coiling around her throat as she pushed against the crackling barrier that separated them. “I tried! I tried to stand by you every chance I had but being a Princess isn’t easy. You don’t think I missed you? You don’t think I hurt too?!”
A hoof stamped into the snow and Twilight felt the roof shake, more and more of Heart Breaker’s raw fury seeping out of her trembling body. “TRYING and DOING are two separate things, Princess. You failed to do either, by my recollection. Don’t you understand? YOU DID THIS TO ME!”
All Twilight could do to rebuke Heart Breaker’s words was shake her head desperately, too busy fighting off a rising tide of tears that threatened to tear through her heart in a centuries worth of anguish. Heart Breaker continued to advance and Twilight continued to retreat until the emptiness of the sky was nipping at her heels. “Just.” Twilight’s eyes drifted to the sky, a miserable swathe of grey that clung to the horizon like a tumor. "Hit me already. See if that solves anything.”
Twilight saw a flash of light, felt the impact of a powerful bolt of magic, and was only dimly aware of her body arcing downwards before the world went black around her. When she woke up, body sore and barely held together, Heart Breaker had left.
Twilight struggled forward, compelling her body to move despite the crushing winds that buffeted her and the deep aching in her joints. She imagined that if she were to open her wings they’d be torn free, pulled from their sockets by the maelstrom that raged around her. She kept them firm to her sides. Her horn lit as she summoned a barrier, protecting her from the shards of solid ice that whipped and scoured her unprotected fur. The cold seeped through regardless and not even the heat of the sun could keep her from shivering.
Twilight looked up, shielding her eyes from the blinding light of an ice-cold sun. She felt Heart Breaker’s presence before she was visible, the storm opening up as she crested the horizon. Twilight wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, she wanted to howl at the sight of her fallen lover. She stayed silent instead.
“Twilight Sparkle. Here to finally kill me?”
Despite the distance and the violent icestorm that separated them, Twilight could hear her clear as day. Her voice was deep and rough, devoid of any of the honeyed love that soaked through Cadance’s speech in decades prior. She shook her head and Heart Breaker only laughed, a cold bark that cut Twilight to the core just as it split the frigid air.
Heart Breaker opened her wings and the storm stopped, leaving only the lazy snowfall to carve contrails into the world around. Folding her wings and standing to her full height, Heart Breaker continued her advance. “Then where are your Elements, those silly stones you put so much faith in?”
Twilight stopped in her tracks. She hadn’t been able to use the Elements since Rarity had died. She was the last one. Twilight remembered cradling her as she walked slowly off the mortal coil. She remembered the light, the love, the spark of inspiration leaving her eyes. She remembered—
Twilight was nearly bowled over as a bolt of magic connected with her shield and she hissed in surprise. She should’ve expected this. She ducked another burst and stood her ground. Heart Breaker was on the assault and it was all Twilight could do to absorb as much damage as she could. “Heart Breaker! Stop!”
Heart Breaker’s face twisted with sorrow, her brows still furrowed with rage even as tears streamed down her face. Twilight was taking calm, measured steps forward now, the distance between them shrinking rapidly. Her barrier was failing, and if she didn’t make a move soon, she was dead.
“Why? So the Princess of Friendship can put me down? So you can finally kill me and save your precious empire?” Heart Breaker spat, focusing her gaze on Twilight. “You couldn’t save them. What makes you think you can save me?”
Twilight didn’t know what had gotten into her. Heart Breaker was typically cold and reserved, a difficult opponent to face. She was immune to the Elements and they were evenly matched in strength, existing in a permanent stalemate. Twilight sighed and let her barrier drop, her head hanging low. This was her only chance now. “I don’t. I don’t think I can save you.” She studied the ice that clung to her hooves, her voice meek. “Not without your help.”
Within an instant Heart Breaker was upon her, lifting Twilight by the throat with her magic. Twilight made no attempt to fight back, instead locking eyes with Heart Breaker. “You’re pathetic.” Heart Breaker cast Twilight aside, her body crashing against the snow. “What, did you come here to give up? To die like the rest of your friends?”
Twilight tried to push herself to her hooves but found Heart Breaker pinning her down, a single spiked boot digging into the flesh of her neck. “Cadance. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when I should’ve been. You have every right to kill me. I wouldn’t blame you.” Twilight couldn’t bring herself to look in her assailants eyes, choosing instead to focus on the darkening horizon. She found it hard to breathe. “Whatever happens, I have a promise I want to make.”
“Oh?” Heart Breaker laughed and Twilight thought she heard the mare she loved, that bubble of mirth and warmth that folded its wings around her on cold nights. “Tell me, Princess, what promise you could possibly make now?”
“I promise to love you for as long as I live. If that’s a minute or a millennium, I’ll be there. I’ll love you. I promise.” Twilight closed her eyes and accepted death.
Instead, she felt the pressure lift from her throat.
