Equestria : After the Loss

"Twilight... come lie down, please?" I was already under the covers, waiting patiently... or at this point, Impatiently, for her to join me. I'd assumed if I jumped into bed first she'd follow my lead. Boy, had I been wrong. It was already difficult enough to find any time for us to rest, it didn't help that even when we did find some, she'd refuse to do so.

"In a second, Star," she was pacing back and forth, a look of intense concern on her exhausted face. "I just want to wait for Rainbow t-"

"Twilight, she'll be fine," I covered my eyes with my hooves. Of course she was worried about Dash. So was I, but the cyan pegasus was legitimately the most reliable pony either of us knew. This was a common occurrence for her. Heck, she'd easily taken care of a couple dozen raiders on her own before. She probably wouldn't even break a sweat with five.

"I know. I know, it's just-"

"Honey..." I cut her off trying a more... seductive approach. I rubbed the mattress next to myself in a slow circular motion. "Come to bed." I fluttered my eyes at the mare I was madly in love with.

"O- okay." With a defeated, but not entirely disappointed sigh, she stumbled over to me. I lifted the covers and let her snuggle in front of me. She faced away, my beloved little spoon. I wrapped my forelegs around her midsection as I placed a gentle kiss on her ear. The kiss slowly turned into a playful nibble drawing a low moan from her.

"Thanks, Twilight," I whispered to her. I really wanted to fool around a little bit more, but I could already feel her body beginning to relax and she needed rest much more than she needed my touch.

After all this time, she still had a terrible habit of neglecting her well being. Even with all of us constantly reminding her and begging her to take it easy, she continued haphazardly down the path of self destruction. With how hard she was recently pushing herself, I was convinced she was taking pills behind my back.

She'd constantly be awake, two, three days in a row and when she finally collapsed out of exhaustion she'd be out for twenty minutes at most. As time wore on she was gradually getting much worse. I could see just how bad when we were this close.

Her heart rate was constantly elevated beyond normal. Her body trembled almost all the time. She'd get random unexplainable nosebleeds. Even her ability to concentrate wasn't what it used to be. Witnessing her slow deterioration convinced me of one thing; I had to help her. I had to take care of her. It was all my fault, after all...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It was such an easy job. All I had to do was keep an eye on the school while my friends went to deal with the fading magic. I didn't have to fight some crazy strong monster, didn't have to confront a close friend about an issue that was bothering me, didn't even have to do anything other than my everyday routine. It should've been a piece of cake.

I should've had it all under control, but... I ended up getting tricked, by a single filly, no less. I'd discovered the root of the problem by accident, stumbled upon it by nothing more than dumb luck and random chance. Cozy had been able to shove me into the rift because I hadn't suspected her of any wrongdoing.

Maybe that would've been unfair of me... to have preconceived notions of a mostly harmless filly that'd never really shown any signs of corruption. I really wish I would have. More than anything, I wish I would have kept a little bit of my old judgmental self with me so I was more suspicious of others.

My mana was forced from me and used to accelerate the process, to drain the magic from out world so much faster than should've been possible. If I had never been captured, if I wasn't so stupid, maybe Twilight and the girls would've had the time they needed to stop it.

When I was discovered by Sandbar and the others the spell was already nearly complete. Seeing the students pressured by Cozy, getting threatened by her, drove me to a state of concern I'd never been to before. With the surge of magical energy I experienced, I was able to break free from the rift... but the very same magical power that liberated me was absorbed by the rift. I was safe... but our magic was gone.

All of it.

It wasn't only that loss that hurt so badly. Twilight had started a movement towards true peace in our world. Her school had brought together the youth of all the nations in the hopes of spreading the philosophy of friendship far and wide.

I ruined that. Once word reached the ears of the other lands--which happened way faster than it should've to be honest--that one of our students was to blame for everything, both Twilight and the school were vilified. Couple that with the downward spiral Equestria was already in and the school was forced to close it's doors.

Our most infamous students were forced to return to their homelands. All of them except Sandbar, for obvious reasons, and Gallus. The griffon was adamant about staying with his friend, insisting he had no one back home to return to. When none came to get him or even inquire about him, Twilight decided to allow him to stay. It's not like we were about to force him to make the trek home by himself.

The griffons losing their ability to fly had probably thrown Griffonstone into an even worse state than Canterlot. It might sound awful, but griffons were typically a very selfish bunch. If they couldn't fly out of the blue one day, I'm sure they'd focus on taking care of their own problems over those around them. As such, Ponyville welcomed Gallus with open arms.

Yona promptly returned to Yakyakistan. The lives of the yaks didn't change too much because of the Loss, but it's not like her father was gonna let her remain in a foreign place that was becoming so dangerous.

Ember needed Smolder back in the Dragon Lands. Thank goodness she was the Dragon Lord at the time... or I guess, still is, because the dragons themselves had always been an imposing threat to every other nation. If they'd really wanted to then, if they had a malicious enough Lord, they probably could've taken over the world. Not anymore though. Ember needed all the support she could get when a civil war broke out in her lands. I'm not really sure what became of any of them in the end, though I prayed they'd survived. Ember was nothing, if not resourceful, and she was a friend.

Silverstream... what an absolute mess. For the hippogriffs, a species that constantly shape shifted, the loss of magic trapped them in whatever body they'd occupied at the time of the Loss. I couldn't imagine what it was like for those who'd been in an undesired form at the time. Silverstream had been permanently locked away from her mother for the rest of her life.

Yes, they could still see one another, but the hippogriff went between her family on a near daily basis. It was such a despicable situation for their entire species. I'm not sure whether they were still alive either. News didn't exactly travel in our new world.

The changelings... Ocellus... Thorax... He told us that along with the magic, they'd lost their ability to feed. The hive was thrown into anarchy, falling apart in a matter of days. Apparently, the king lost his position. They... they couldn't survive on normal food alone like the rest of us... so they...

So much loss. So many dead.
Because of me.

I wanted to run, wanted to hide away from everyone and everything. Honestly, I wanted to die. Maybe that would've been a sufficient payment for my failure.

But I couldn't... because of her.

Twilight must've realized how guilty I'd felt. Not like I tried to hide it from her. When she and the others got back, I think she held me for a few hours straight while I cried. She never let me out of her sight, going so far as to bring me into her own bedroom so that I couldn't find an opportunity to run away.

She assured me... all of them did, the girls and Spike. I wasn't to blame, it was all Cozy Glow's fault. I had nothing to regret. Everyone had been tricked, not just me. I played along with them at first, feigned a sort of... acceptance, acted like I believed I wasn't responsible.

That didn't last very long. Trix was always there, trying to build me up, but she was never observant enough to see through my facade. Twilight though... Twilight was relentless. It's like she knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling at all times. The more she gave me her... attention, her care, her love... the more I came to realize just how much I loved her.

She'd always been kind to me, always had shown me just how strong friendship was, but she changed after the Loss. I wasn't really sure, even to this day, if it was due to the trauma she'd experienced or if she'd actually always felt that way, but she started to show me a side of herself I never dreamt of.

That first time, when she kissed me... I knew there was no one else I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. It was... complicated, to say the least. Our world was going to Tartarus in a hand basket and yet, I was happy.

She made me the happiest mare alive. Through everything that happened, the only positive constant was that we were together... and I wouldn't have had it any other way. We were managing to live and Ponyville was thriving... or at least thriving as best a city could in this horrid world.

But there was always lingering doubt within me. Twilight loved me, she told me so countless times, expressed it in so many ways. Kind words, thoughtful actions, physical intimacy, but... I just couldn't be sure. I wasn't... I wasn't sure if she was so scared of losing me that she convinced herself to love me, to get me in a relationship where I'd always want to be around her... where I'd never want to leave her side. Regardless of those uncertainties, I chose to be hers... and she chose to be mine.

When everything was finally looking up for all of us, when things were getting so much brighter, Celestia was nearly murdered. There were still changelings around apparently, though none of us had a clue how that could be possible.

They should've all died from starvation after such a long time. Unfortunately, some of the changelings loyal to Chrysalis survived. They had to have found a new source of sustenance... or at least another way to consume love.

Regardless, one of those filthy bugs had gotten into our city. It'd blamed Celestia and Luna for everything that'd happened, particularly for the loss of magic. It tried to take the life of the alabaster alicorn with a knife.

The former princess was covered in blood and bruises, clearly traumatized when she'd come to us for help. Her chest had a large gash where the attacker had swiped at her most precious of organs and her horn dripped with an odd liquid as she stumbled into our room, her eyes frantic with fear. Somehow, probably her immense size, she was able to fight off the changeling and skewer it directly through the eye with her horn.

The disturbing event had taken place right under our noses, inside the castle within Celestia's room. Luna hadn't been in at the time or I'm sure it wouldn't have been such a close call for the ivory alicorn. Needless to say her younger sister threw a fit once she got home, though it was mostly directed toward herself. After that incident, Luna never left her older sister's side, obviously quite affected by the possibility of losing her sister as well.

That was the day that Twilight lost a piece of herself. She'd already seen the rampant death that was taking over Equestria. We all had. Ponyville had been attacked so many times after the Loss. With no border we couldn't keep the invaders out no matter how hard we tried. We lost... a lot more friends than I'd like to admit, but Celestia... her near death experience was different for the lavender unicorn.

When society crumbled families were cut off from each other. The seven of us essentially lost the members of our families that weren't in in Ponyville or in Canterlot when we rescued the princesses. All of us except Pinkie, that is. I still have no clue how her and Maud were able to get their parents and sisters to Ponyville, but they managed to do it.

With no way to travel... or rather, no safe way to, we were forced to assume the worst had occured.
I think that hit Twilight the hardest. Her parents had been traveling when the Loss hit so they weren't in Canterlot. Her brother, sister, and niece were all in the Crystal Empire. She'd lost them all. But she still had her mentor.

Celestia... Celestia had always been more like a mother to Twilight than a simple teacher. When Twilight saw her idol in such a horrendous state, made to watch her day by day as Celestia recovered, Twilight deteriorated. It was plain to see just how taxing it was for her to cope with yet another tragedy.

She could no longer accept it... any more loss. At least, her mind couldn't. She became infatuated with saving every single citizen of Ponyville, obsessed with preventing any more deaths. That was obviously an impossible feat and the more she failed the more her sanity plummeted. The only thing she felt she could do was become even more fixated.

We built a wall. We created weapons to protect ourselves. We even started toying with the anatomy of creatures themselves in an attempt to hearken back to the days when we had magic.

It was a brave new world, one I wanted to live in with Twilight... one where I had to stay by her side... to take care of her... to protect her...

Because I loved her more than I could ever express...

Because I owed her everything for all the good I finally had in my life.

Because this entire world, this terrible place of death and sadness... was all my fault.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"R-Rainbow..." Twilight whispered through gritted teeth. She was having a nightmare, clearly about our pegasus friend. I stroked her mane gently, a feeble attempt to comfort her, but all I could really do. Twilight was always distraught when the cyan pegasus wasn't in her direct line of sight.

Rainbow Dash was constantly putting herself in danger for Ponyville's sake. Whether it was patrolling the outer walls when we had trespassers or breaking up some unruly citizens in the city, Rainbow's life was threatened on a near daily basis.

Despite the fact that she'd proven time and time again that she was capable of taking care of herself, Rainbow still ended up injured on a regular basis. Each time she came to us with a broken bone or a lacerated limb Twilight freaked out.

That eventually changed to freaked out whenever Dash was handling any situation. It made me scared too. It made all of us worry. It's not like Rainbow was out on a peaceful stroll through town when she was working. She was fighting for us. Right now, she was fighting and-

A low rumble shook the room.

Darn it...

I closed my eyes as I activated the chip in my horn. I could effect any tech within several miles with the enhancement I'd been implanted with. The problem I typically encountered at such great distances was distinguishing between friend and foe. Since I couldn't physically see what I was going to hack it made things a bit harder.

But...

No matter the distance, I knew what I was hacking. A gun, another chip, prosthetics. I could poke and prod. I could completely disable or take control. I spent a lot of time studying the girls' cybernetics for situations specifically like these.

I may not be able to see Rainbow, and I wasn't sure what she might be up against, but I was familiar with those mods... and I didn't know those across from them. Something was wrong. They were... gone?

DASH!?

I leapt out of bed, my thoughtless motion waking my beloved from her slumber.

"S- Starlight?" She yawned, rubbing her eyes of sleep. "What's going on?"

I scrambled the foreign tech immediately, a cold sweat drenching me.

"It's Rainbow," I tried not to look worried, but it was a fruitless endeavor. Twilight's eyes widened as she bolted upright, her grogginess gone in an instant. "She's in trouble!" My heart raced as pure unadulterated terror overtook my wife.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Why would she do this, Star?" Twilight's eyes had expanded past the point I thought possible. She wasn't crying, she didn't even look particularly sad, she was just staring at the floor, completely stunned. "What should I do?"

We were back in our room, waiting for Rainbow Dash to regain consciousness. The raiders that attacked had been too much for the pegasus to handle and she'd... shielded herself with her wings, but the explosion was... It was just too much.

Thank all that was good Applejack had been able to get to her so quickly. The orange mare said the area she found Rainbow in looked like a warzone. Heading back out to gather data after making sure Dash was safe and sound was a given. Unfortunately, Applejack found nothing but some melted pieces of metal and charred pony bones.

I was trying my best to get Twilight to calm down and rest, but was certain that wasn't gonna happen any time soon. Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie were currently watching over Dash and I'd know the second she came to, so there was little reason for me and Twilight to crowd the room as well.

We'd gotten to witness the melee in Fluttershy's base of operations, see things through Rainbow's eyes. Doing so had only exacerbated my wife's already disturbed state of mind.

Moondancer...

Twilight had spoken of her many times before. One of her best friends was the mare who'd attacked Dash, had attacked our home. To make things worse, Twilight actually felt guilty about Moondancer. She didn't know why the unicorn had attacked us, but she felt like it really was her fault she'd done so.

I sat next to her on our bed, holding her tightly as she vented her thoughts. I knew she wasn't really asking me what she should do. I could tell she was already running through so many possible choices and scenarios I couldn't even fathom a percentage of them.

She's too smart.

"Rainbow's wings..." She rubbed her face with her hooves. "I don't..." she sighed, looking me straight in my eyes. "There's no way to-"

"There is... that," I looked away from her. "I know you probably still aren't on board, but I..." I took a deep breath before looking back at her. She didn't look mad, or even disappointed, she still just looked so very tired. "I really think it'll work. I just need you to have some faith, Twilight."

She stared at me for longer than I was comfortable, her eyes searching mine. I looked back confidently, not flinching or giving any leeway.

"You're so cute when you're determined," she chuckled. She kissed me gently, catching me completely off guard. I felt a tremor run down my spine as she pulled away, way too soon for me preferences.

"Does that mean?" I trembled in hope, excitement, and a little bit of fear.

"If Rainbow agrees," she took a deep breath and nodded. "We'll try it your way."