My ears are ringing.
It’s disorienting. Dizzying. It drowns out the world around me and I can’t do anything about it. I try to listen closer, to pay attention, but all I can hear is the ringing in my ears.
I look around. Somehow, I feel as though the more the ringing dissipates (or maybe the more I grow used to it), the more I can see. The world appears all around me. It’s slow, like when your vision fades back from black after standing up too quickly. Grass as green as could be becomes real under my hooves. I’m on my stomach, like a cat taking a rest.
I think about the implications of this.
I don’t remember falling asleep, though. I don’t think anypony really does. The sky is soft and blue and almost looks like I could reach out and touch the clouds that graze it. They herd together, soft and fluffy and white and perfect. I take a breath. The air is warm, a perfect summer’s day, and clear. It smells of flowers and of fruit. There is an apple tree behind me. It shades me, and everything is perfect.
I think I understand.
My body lags as I stand up and shake stray blades of grass off my coat. My mind is refreshed and I feel as though I’ve just woken up from a pleasant nap. A gentle breeze blows, lightly ruffling my mane. I follow the swaying of the grass. I follow the wind.
Ponyville comes into view – empty but not abandoned. I let my hooves lead me to the bridge. There, I glance into the water. It’s calm and still, with little blips teasing at life under the surface. I feel like water today.
My reflection looks back at me. She wears a tepid smile. She does not have wings. We reach for each other, and my hoof meets blue. I sigh and sit back on my haunches. My dripping hoof darkens the stone beneath it.
“You look sad today, Twilight.”
I look to my right. “I’m not sad.”
She furrows her brow and smiles that tiny smile she does when she knows I’m not being truthful. “What’s wrong, darling?”
“This place is beautiful,” I admit, solemnly looking over it. The colours are all vibrant. It’s like being a filly all over again.
Rarity cocks her head a bit, her smile unrelenting. “What’s wrong with that?”
I look at my hooves. The stone’s dark gray has already faded into the same colour as its surrounding. My hoof has dried. My eyes drift to the sky. The sun shines warmly on us. I did not place it there. “It’s too beautiful.”
She scoffs and sits next to me. Her presence is enough to get me to smile. “Too beautiful?”
Pristine. That’s how I would describe her coat. White and flawless and pristine. A perfect embodiment of her youth. I sigh. “It’s not real.”
“Isn’t it?”
A bluebird lands next to us on the stone guardrail. I slowly extend my hoof and it hops onto it, chirping a beautiful rendition of its birdsong. I shake the bird off. “It can’t be real.”
Rarity places her hoof on mine. She holds it close to her and her smile wavers as she speaks, “Why not? Why are you so sure?”
“I thought this would help,” I admit. My voice is weak, and I’m ashamed to even say it. “I thought that somehow… being here would be better.”
She leans into my chest, and I’m reminded of how much bigger than her I am. I always forget. “You were always happy here, weren’t you?”
I nod.
“Then whatever is the matter?” she asks again.
I don’t know what to say. Everything is perfect. The weather, the nature, her. It’s all perfect, just like I remember it.
Only… it’s not.
“I miss this place,” I tell her, gently pushing her off of me. I look back at the town and at its beautifully decorated centre. Town Hall stands proudly in view, and all of the houses and businesses around it seem to glow with a fresh coat of paint. In the distance, I can even see Golden Oak Library. It’s almost exactly as I remember. “But it’s not real.”
Rarity doesn’t say anything.
“I can’t remember who used to live here. I remember some of their names, but not their faces.” I squint and stare at Town Hall. I can almost make out the image of a tan-coloured mare bustling about through the window, but it’s just not quite piecing together. “I remember our friends, and I remember you.”
I glance at Rarity. Her royal purple mane and ocean blue eyes stand out against her snow-white coat. There isn’t a speck of gray on her.
“But you… I got you wrong, too.”
Rarity frowns at me. “I don’t understand, darling.”
“You even… sound wrong,” I whisper, looking once more at the empty town I once called home. “This isn’t right, is it? And please don’t lie to me.”
Another soft breeze blows in, this time it ruffles the feathers on my wings. I think about my reflection and how she was just a unicorn.
“No,” Rarity finally responds. “It is not. I would never dream of lying to you, my love.”
“I’m forgetting,” I realize with a pang of sadness. “It’s been so long. Too long. Ponyville… it doesn’t even exist anymore.”
She looks toward her home with an unreadable expression. “And neither do we.”
I bite my tongue. “The magic is fading… That means… I’m fading. I can feel it. I thought maybe…” I cast my gaze toward the library and hold back a sob. “Maybe if I dreamt about this place one last time… Maybe I could remember how to help everypony.”
“So you remembered me as I was when we were young,” Rarity realizes with a smile. She laughs a little bit, a short, polite laugh. The type she’d save for her most high-society of crowds. Or for a Princess.
I laugh along with her. She doesn’t sound like herself, I at least know that much. I can’t quite recall how she used to talk. She just kind of sounds like me. “No, that’s not it. I think… This is what I want to remember. When I first got here, before I became an alicorn.” I stand up slowly and look toward the water once more. “Could you come here?”
Rarity obliges and looks down at our reflection. She appears next to my unicorn self, although her mane is streaked with gray and her eyes hold a weary look to them. “So you do remember,” she says.
I shrug, watching my younger self do it in time with me. She is so different from me, it’s hard to believe I ever really looked like that. “Maybe. I don’t know. Memories don’t go anywhere, they just become harder to recollect.”
“What about our friends?” she asks, putting a hoof on my shoulder. “How do you remember them?”
I try really hard to picture them. My reflection looks behind her at the four ponies who join her. They look as they did when we first met. Young and colourful and full of life. I look behind me, but the empty sky is the only thing to meet my gaze. “I don’t know. I guess I hoped maybe they could help me fix everything. We all made the magic crystals, we all united Equestria in harmony. But now it’s just me, and I don’t know what to do.”
“You said you wanted to dream about this place one last time,” Rarity responds, not addressing what I said.
“Yeah.” I swallow dryly. “One last time.”
“Is this really what you hoped for, then?” Rarity asks. “To find an answer to this problem?”
I want it to be true. To have somepony—even if it’s somepony I made up in my mind—think that I was trying my hardest to the end. But it’s not true. And I really shouldn’t lie. Especially not to myself. I shake my head. “No, no it isn’t.”
“Then what do you want, my love?”
I once more look to Ponyville. I can almost imagine it bustling with ponies I once called my neighbours. I can almost smell the market and its many fruits and flowers and fragrances on sale. I can almost hear the laughter and the chatter. But as I look at it, it’s empty and quiet and only Rarity looks back at me.
“I wanted to see you one last time,” I admit. “They’re already forgetting about you. About all of you. Our friends. And I’m forgetting, too. Our legacy lives on in the harmony and magic it brings, but the magic is fading. Our legacy is fading. I’m fading.”
“Without magic,” Rarity whispers solemnly, “alicorns can’t…”
I dip my head. “I never forgot about my love for you. All of you. I wish I could go back to the way things were, and this is as close as I could get.”
She hugs me tightly. I hug her back, and she feels so soft against my body. “I know, darling. And Equestria will find its way again. You will not be forgotten. You’ve made your mark.”
I don’t know how much of what she says is just my own imagination and how much of it is really her—if it is really her at all. I nod anyway, unable to hold back my tears anymore. I push my snout into her neck and breathe in her lavender scent. “What use is the Princess of Friendship without her friends?” I sob.
Rarity holds me softly, leaning back to press our foreheads together. Our horns cross against each other. I notice that I’m a unicorn again. She’s just as big as me, and there’s a strange sense of relief that comes with it. “You always had us, darling.” She pushes a hoof against my chest. “In here. And Equestria will always have you, even if you go away.”
My body tingles as she says that. Like something drained out of it. Beneath my coat, my skin grows cold. I shudder, not wanting to move. “Did you feel that?”
She looks into my eyes, leaning back until only the tips of our horns remain crossed. “The magic.”
“It’s gone,” I finish my train of thought. I sigh and look back down at my body. It seems oddly fitting that I’m once again a unicorn. “I’m glad you were here with me, Rarity. Even if I just made you up.”
She smiles. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”
I exhale deeply and look back to the field from which I came. “Maybe not now, but harmony always finds a way. I’m happy we were able to keep it for so long. I definitely couldn’t have done that without you. The real you.”
When I look back, Rarity’s gone. Ponyville is gone, and the ringing in my ears grows louder once more. I look back down at my reflection, she’s the alicorn Princess I’ve grown used to seeing, and give her a sad smile. She gives it back to me. “We did our part,” I tell her.
“We’ve made our mark,” she tells me.
I don’t wake up again.
