To Remember You By

by SnowOriole

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 1876

Are you afraid of forgetting?

Are you afraid of forgetting?

Well, isn't that what journals are for?

-

Written for a Quills and Sofas Speedwriting Contest!

Published 2021-07-19 08:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-07-19 08:20:01 UTC

Sunday, 4/7

“Watchu doin’?”

A cracking voice echoed in the quietness of the Golden Oak Library, startling Twilight Sparkle from her reverie.

Spinning around, she looked down. And she looked up. And then, she sighed.

“Rainbow Dash, how many times do I have to tell you to knock before you come in?”

The hovering blue pegasus shrugged. “Well, I thought you’d be able to tell by the door creaking.”

“I do things in deep concentration. Deep. Concentration.” Twilight swivelled back to look at her work where she had dropped her quill in surprise. The black ink seeped into the paper, smudging the hoofwritten words. “Ohhhh nononoooo…” she gasped, and- after some fumbling- swiftly ripped the pages from the book’s spine while returning the offending quill to its pot.

“Aw crap,” Rainbow said, wincing. “Was that important?”

“Nothing that can’t be rewritten,” Twilight pressed a hoof to her fuzzy forehead as she levitated the stained pages aside. “What brings you here?”

“It’s just that, uh,” Rainbow scratched her head. “The girls wanted to hang out for supper. It was Pinkie’s idea, actually- leave it up to her to plan the randomest things at the randomest timings. So, like, do you wanna come?”

Twilight smiled nervously, “I’d love to, Rainbow, but I’m kind of busy.” She gestured at the open notebook on the table- one side covered in rows and rows of neat writing, the other side blank. “Usually, I can only turn up for gatherings if I’m informed in advance. And since you scared me, I have to rewrite what I just wrote.” She sighed again.

“What, is it some science report?” Rainbow arched an eyebrow. “Just ask Spike to write it or something.”

“Spike’s sleeping already. It’s late, and he’s a child,” Twilight said. “Besides, it’s not pressing enough to wake him up for this. It’s just my journal.”

Rainbow glanced at her. “Is this some kind of new assignment from Princess Celestia?”

“Nope. This is my personal diary,” Twilight shook her head, holding up the notebook she had been writing in. It was an unassuming shade of brown, filled with dog-eared yellow pages and bound by white string. “Another reason why I don’t ask Spike to write it for me. I like to spend a little time before bed recording the events of each day.”

Rainbow eyed it sceptically. This was easily triple the volume of some of Twilight's thickest encyclopedias, and that girl had some really thick encyclopedias. “What, so in your free time you like charting the weather of every passing second?”

“No… ”

“You write down everything that everypony does and every word that everypony says? Cuz, I know you’ve always wanted to write a book and all that, but that’s kinda creepy.”

“No!” Twilight stamped her hoof, frowning. “That’s not how diaries work! I just recount the stories that happen on that day, and only the parts that matter.”

Rainbow’s eyebrows furrowed. “But, like, isn’t the stuff that’s exciting all inside the Friendship Journal? Then what’s the point of having another one?”

“As I said, it’s personal. It’s just for myself, so I can write down the ordinary things that don’t really have lessons.” Twilight paced about, a dreamy smile on her muzzle. “Things that are worth remembering for the sake of remembering, like the errant pockets of joy and poignant wells of introspection.”

“So, just the lame stuff,” Rainbow summarised.

“It’s not lame!”

“That’s so eggheady of you,” the pegasus stuck out her tongue. “Writing everything that happens every day ‘for the sake of it’. Booooring.”

“I said I didn’t write everything in it-”

“What did we eat for lunch on the 27th of January two years ago?”

“I wouldn’t have written something like that,” Twilight protested as Rainbow snatched up the notebook and started flipping at blurring speeds. “Hey! That’s my personal diary. You can’t just take ponies’ personal diaries!”

Rainbow slapped the book shut. “Spinach puffs and orange juice.”

“W-well, maybe the spinach puffs were particularly scrumptious that day.” Glowing telekinesis yanked it out of her grasp and floated it safely down to the table again. Twilight swept some imaginary dust off its cover, glaring. “It’s my business what I want to write inside the diary. It’s my diary, after all. And you? Don’t tell me you don’t keep some kind of diary to remember the days past. ”

“Actually, no.”

“But- but your stories.” Twilight pouted and folded her forelimbs. “The tales you spin for the colts and fillies about your great adventures and daredevil pursuits. You can’t possibly hold on to so many vivid details without writing them down.”

“Uhhhhh, sure I can.” Rainbow tapped the side of her head. “I use this and think of it. Gee, I thought you were the one with huge brains.”

At that, violet eyes sparked, and Twilight cleared her throat in an all-too-familiar fashion. “As a matter of fact, brain size and intelligence quotient have barely any correlation, and it’s the amount of neural connections that determine a pony’s cognitive abilities. Did you know that Einstallion had a significantly smaller than average-”

“Twilight,” Rainbow droned, “you’re Twilighting again.”

The unicorn blushed, and gently re-routed herself back to the subject. “It’s proven that memories are often unreliable and modified, deleted or outright constructed by our brains. Which is why,” Twilight raised an eyebrow at Rainbow, “it’s very likely that the crazy and dangerous stunts that you retell orally end up spiralling further and further from what actually happened.”

“Hey, I’m the Element of Ho-” Rainbow went cross-eyed, then nervously swept a prismatic bang aside with a laugh. “Well, okay. Maaaybe I changed up some parts to make the story cooler. But ponies want a good story with action and explosions and pizzazz. Not a Celestia-darned news report.”

Twilight shifted. “Alright then. How about the smaller things?”

“Like?”

“Like the inconsequential, tender moments nestled in mediocrity,” Twilight cocked her head. “And the familiarity of mundane days? You know, whenever you get nostalgic and want to look back on the tiny moments you’ve forgotten but still cherish. That’s what a personal diary is for.”

Rainbow snorted. “I think you’re just old.”

Twilight stared at her.

“Nnnngh… Fine.” Rainbow stopped flapping her wings and slowly drifted down onto a couch. “I just think that… those memories that you really want to remember, you will remember, yeah? And if we forget some things, then it’s probably because they’re not important.”

“That’s highly disputable, actually.”

“Shhh! I’m trying to have a moment of introspection,” Rainbow hissed and put her hooves together solemnly like she was practising a hymn to the bookcases in front of them. “What I’m trying to say is: you don’t gotta pen down every day in pages and pages of words just ‘cause you’re afraid of forgetting them. I sure don’t recall every single detail of what happens, but I don’t feel bad about it because what matters stays in here.”

She put a hoof to her chest, looking a little embarrassed as she did so. “It’s… it’s a feeling, you get me? I mean, it’s still super cool that you have a diary. It sure looks like it takes a buttload of commitment, and I can appreciate commitment. All in a day’s hard work, so we can all know what cupcakes Sugarcube Corner was serving on the afternoon of 3rd November five years ago-”

“I do not-”

“-But I tend to reminisce about things more by just seeing stuff. It’s like when you step into a place and the smell and the colours and everything kind of hit you at once, and all the memories come back like that. It’s a living diary, but for non-eggheads.” Rainbow giggled and nodded at the heavy tome on the table. “Not everypony has the sheer brainpower to read that whole thing to remember what it felt like.”

“Yes, but the living diary doesn’t last forever, does it?” Twilight pointed. “So many things change so quickly. If we don’t keep written records of them, they’ll be gone all too soon.”

“Yeah, well, by the time things change, we’d have changed too.” Rainbow said easily. Her wingtips fluttered slightly, “Maybe if you could fly, you’d see what I’m talking about. ‘Cause when you’re up there in the sky, you get to see everything changing all the time, and you learn not to think too much about stuff like, ‘oh, there used to be such a stout tree there’ and you think more about ‘wow, there’s a nice flower patch now’. Then you just keep flying on and on and you’ll find a new place that’s so beautiful that you don’t miss the old times nearly as much.”

A long pause hung in the air.

Rainbow slumped into the armchair and covered her face. “Goddess, I talk too much, don’t I?”

“It’s certainly an interesting way of putting it,” Twilight said slowly. “To each their own, I suppose. I’m still content with writing my diary.”

“Typical, ya predictable omelette.” Rainbow yawned as she stood up. “Yup, to each their own. If you’re done spewing your purple words, you can come join us for supper. Or else, all you’ll have is overnight lemon curd tomorrow.”

“Right, right. I’ll come as soon as I’m done,” Twilight rolled her eyes and lit up her horn. The quill in the pot dipped, lifted and scribbled on a new page of the notebook as she spoke, “Dear Diary, today Rainbow Dash barged into my library and insulted you multiple times. However shall I avenge you?”

“That’d be one for the history books,” Rainbow feigned mock tears, chuckling to herself. “A real precious memoir. Haha! Never change, Twi, never change. Tell me again, what colour was the first firework at this year’s Summer Solstice? What was the last book you checked out from the library last year? Kay, no, don’t answer that now. Hurry up and finish already!”

Twilight ignored her asinine requests, but soon, a smile was curving along her muzzle too. Somewhere between the laughter, the rustling of pages and the oaky night breeze, the quill flew faster and faster…

And faster and faster, over rolling hills, quaint towns, sprawling metropolises, parched dunes and swathes of green. From rivers blossomed streams that gurgled and wound around mountains until they had become flattened fields. Canyons and oceans that stretched on for miles and miles. The sun rose and fell like it always did, in perfect harmony with the glittering moon.

When the wind had died down and settled around her, Twilight Sparkle chanced upon a forest. Coiling her wings by her sides, she trotted along, the worn undergrowth crackling under her horseshoes. She tilted her head up to gaze at the trees, where clumps of leaves had lost their verdant green and wore shades of reds and yellows, as chilly wind coaxed them off the edges of their branches. She thought of many things. Felt many things, as they filtered through her mind in moist, soundless grace.

“...Silly,” she finally uttered.

The evening light kissed the swaying leaves.

They danced as they fell to join the others…

Chasing away the shadows in their wake.

“Still,” she breathed, trotting further in. “It really is quite beautiful… ”

Author's Note