It Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be
Alicorns were immortal.
Everypony knew that.
I took in a shaky breath as I staggered back to the bowels of my castle, with nothing but the moonlight as my witness. At least my parents’ relief when they’d heard that made a little bit of sense. My mother had been the first to mention it, in fact; she’d said she was grateful that her daughter would get to see Flurry Heart grow up, even if she, herself, didn’t. What mother didn’t expect, didn’t hope that her child would live longer than her?
What mother, indeed. At the rate Shining Armor squared against the continuous problems head-on in the Crystal Empire, it almost felt like he’d have the chance of a coin toss to go first of my immediate family. It was a horrible thing to think and I’d never voice it to my parents (or, indeed, anypony at all), but the thought of living forever changed how I looked at life.
My teeth clenched against the limp thing I half-dragged alongside me as I pressed a panel next to one of the palace walls. Yes, my parents’ joy made sense. My friends, however… their response baffled me.
What right did they have to be happy that I’d outlive them? I’d outlast them by centuries, by millenia, and they saw that as a good thing. If it were just a variation of the old at-least-one-of-us-will-make-it sort of thinking, I’d be able to counter it somehow. Philosophically, if a pony had nothing to die for, what did they have to live for? I could lend them a few books on the matter, and surely some of them would understand.
Rarity should understand it best, out of all my friends. What good is creative pursuit if one had eternity to pursue it? There’d be no rush, no urgency to create, and the drive that filled a pony’s soul would peter out to nothing. I’d sat her down more than once to try to explain it during our tea breaks, but-
I shook my head, partially to get rid of the memories and partially to dislodge a few spiders that’d gotten tangled in the cobwebs my horn had grazed. It’d been a few months since I’d had to go down this passageway, but the castle staff had strict orders to ignore its existence. And that meant spiders. And plenty of time to think.
“Darling,” Rarity had said during our last rendezvous, growing as graceful with age as anypony could. I, in comparison, had mostly just grown in size, which made sitting in the dainty chairs at the cafe distinctly uncomfortable. If it’d been anypony but Rarity, I’d have declined the monthly invitation.
“Yes?” I had said, more for politeness’s sake than anything. The tea had burned my tongue, but I’d drained the china cup anyway. The pain didn’t matter against the backdrop of eternity, and the memory of the taste was far better than the flavor of what was currently pressing against my tongue.
The words were as familiar as they came - there wasn’t an argument that Rarity hadn’t tried before. “I know as well as you do that being a Princess isn’t all glamour. Why, even I wouldn’t wish to fill your shoes during those dreadfully boring meetings, but you’re still our Twilight, and even though I know you’ll miss us terribly when we’re gone, we’d still want you to continue, just as we’d want it for any of us.”
I slumped against the wall, mouthing along as best as I could to the memory of my response around the feathers in my mouth. “You would, and I understand wanting what you think is best for your friends,” I had said. “But it’s not what any of us could have envisioned. There’s a price to immortality, and it’s one I wouldn’t wish for anypony to pay.”
“Twilight-”
“We’ve talked about this, Rarity. The rest of you know why I hate it, and this… it shouldn’t count as living forever if it doesn’t even feel like you’re living at all-”
“You still get that chance!” Rarity’s hoof had slammed into the table, startling the other guests. My mane, wisp-like as it grew into the ethereal wave that Celestia kept hers in, had barely flickered as I stared her down. “It couldn’t have been any other one of us to ascend as you have, Twilight, but it was still you who’ll get to see Equestria grow into something we can’t imagine, and it is us who will had to make peace with it!”
“If I could, I’d give it to any of you who wanted it,” I’d muttered darkly, the shadows around our table deepening for a moment, stretching long and thin like those before the sunset. “I’d give it all away and choose to die someday.”
Rarity had been silent for a while after that, and as I limped into the stark, sterile chamber beneath Canterlot Castle, I wished I’d said more even as I knew there was nothing she hadn’t heard in arguments past.
“Well,” Rarity had said as she’d pushed her chair back and slowly got to her hooves. “We’d choose differently right back, darling. You’re worth far more to us alive, even if we cannot follow in your hoofsteps forever.”
She’d set a few bits on the check and departed, her drink untouched, the warmth of her chair already beginning to fade. I’d sat there for a few more minutes before adding my tip to the bill and making my way back to the castle, where court had been waiting and a thousand other tiny priorities would see fit to nestle their way into my schedule.
I flicked on the lights in the room before gingerly dragging the warm weight onto the table in the center. I’d been later than I’d wanted to be, and it would have been a mere few hours before the process would begin naturally.
It was something I refused to let them see, and after I answered some of Rainbow Dash’s questions slightly more graphically than may have been necessary, they all became far less curious. Annoyingly enough, even Rainbow Dash said it was worth it for my “radicalness” to last forever. It wasn’t something she had to deal with, so I guess it made sense.
I leveled my gaze at it, still on the table. The feathers of my severed wing twitched in time to my heartbeat. All in all, it wasn’t the worst injury I’d received. It probably wouldn’t have even been fatal if somepony else had been there to stop the bleeding in time, and I preferred trudging back to the catacombs of Canterlot over waiting on the battlefield, unable to move at all.
I was dying. Again. I could feel the light dizziness of blood loss and infection creeping into not only my body but the wing that had once been attached to me. I considered cursing the cause of
the injury this time, but really, the alpha manticore of Froggy Bottom Bog had no way of knowing it had wandered too closely to a pony town. It wasn’t its fault that I’d been sent to handle the situation, and… frankly, I was almost jealous of it. It got to die, and suffer no more.
There was no use putting it off. I grabbed a leather bit that hadn’t completely been snapped through yet and lit my horn. It took a few seconds for the primaries of my torn wing to catch alight, but once they did it burned with an unnatural vigor as an ancient spell took over the simple flames.
If my eyes had been open, I’d have seen stars and violet streaks dancing through the firelight. I’d seen it before, during the fights where I hadn’t been blinded but still unable to escape the scene of my death. It would be almost beautiful if it wasn’t agony.
The room was soundproof, and for good reason. I’d gotten better at not blacking out, but nothing could fully deaden the pain of my own wing being burnt to ash, and no alchemical concoction could sever my connection to any part of my immortal self.
It took a few minutes for the nerves to completely die, and I gingerly unclenched my jaw from the imprint I’d made in the bit. Might get a few more uses out of it before I’d need a fresh one, I mused as I watched my bones char.
A creeping numbness tingled through the joint above my ribcage where the flesh had been ripped out. I took a few deep breaths as the last of the magic fizzled into smoke on the table, and wobbled my way towards it. A weight slowly materialized, dragging limply against the ground as it slowly counterbalanced my other wing.
I used to watch it, but now it was mostly just another thing to wait through. First bone formed, then tendons to hold them in place as wiry muscle wrapped around them. Skin followed, and it was about the point that the feathers started to regrow that sensation returned. I only stumbled into the table slightly; I’d been ready for the stinging this time. It was as though the limb had fallen asleep and sensation had returned, but with the rage of an army. Familiar stabbing pain was still pain all the same.
Then, good as new! One whole alicorn, trauma and pain notwithstanding.
With a weary flick of my magic, I scooped up the remains of what used to be me and tossed them into a ceramic jar in the corner. I’d deal with them later, and the pieces weren’t large enough to be an urgent cleanup. One never knew what certain ponies would do if they tried experimenting with alicorn bones in their illicit studies.
I slumped against the doorframe, stretching out the last tingles on my wing as the memories of my last conversation with my friend returned. I’d probably need to send an apology to Rarity, I mused as I began the trot up the stairs to the castle proper. She didn’t understand, but I couldn’t truly fault her for that.
Alicorns couldn’t die, and everypony knew that. But oh, there were times where I should have, and times when I was even less whole but feeling it all. I wished I could have told her, or asked somepony, but a part of me hesitated every time I thought about penning a letter to Celestia with the question burning in my mind.
Alicorns were immortal, after all. But were they even alive?
