Catching led Comforting along towards the reference section. It was no great room of old newspapers, instead a single dedicated computer. There she clicked her hooves on the keys and brought up a specific newspaper article dated from about a year back. "Here." She pointed to it on the monitor. "Have a look."

Comforting peered over at the article about the accident and felt that dread begin to well up and manifest. "Mmm, alright, what am I looking at?"

Catching jabbed at the screen. "Some ponies hurt ponies, like on purpose." She flipped an ear back. "I was hurt in it." She flipped to the next page, displaying the scene. The newspaper had taken a reasonably safe picture, with no injured, or worse, on display. "My cat didn't make it." She took a slow breath. "Just a cat." She swiveled a chair towards Comforting. "Not even a whole pony. Can you save them?"

Comforting kicked to look at Catching with a wince, looking for the bandages or hints of trauma on the filly, but no, Catching looked hale and healthy. "Save the cat, you mean."

"Please?" Catching gave her best smile. "She was the best little kitty ever. She never made a fuss. She always came when I called. I loved her so much... You can make anything happen, I heard."

Comforting counted softly, like ticking away seconds before speaking again. "It's not a thing of time or place, I can go anywhere and change anything if it pleases me. The magic I have is my own, and it responds to my own desires." She clapped her hands gently. "Which has its perks and its downsides. My magic follows my whims. So, even if I did want to get into the pet revival business, the pet would only be around for as long as I whimmed at it."

Catching prodded her in her lower belly, as high as she could reach. "I heard you wanted to make the library bigger. How are you going to do that, but you can't fix a pet?"

"One, because I have an idea. That idea would not work for a pet, or anything alive, really." She curled a finger to her chin. "Actually, since you brought it up, huh. Is that why dad was able to save me? That makes sense, looking back on it."

Catching's eyes shone with infinite hope. "You just realized a way to save her?!"

Comforting waved her hands in the negative. "No no. That only worked at that instant, before it, really." She raised a brow at Catching. "Not that you know—" She trailed off as Catching went back through the archives and found the ancient article from when Comforting was in the hospital. "Oh, maybe you do."

Catching frowned. "Yeah, that wasn't even about you, actually." She sniffed in the dry air, just to have her nose itch, and she rubbed her nose. "There was somepony in there while you were there. You were second fiddle on your own deathbed." She looked Comforting up and down. "You recovered nicely."

Comforting crossed her arms with a huff. "Some could argue I didn't recover well at all. Either way, this won't work on your kitty. They've been gone for about a year. I'm sorry, I really am. It sucks, a lot, to lose a pet. I'm not trying to say it doesn't."

Catching tugged along Comforting again, nodding slightly with an intense look that melted into sadness. "Yeah. You can say that again. But! You could bring them back for a little bit. Make my memories alive again! Please? Maybe if we save a photo. They weren't even that old."

Comforting dropped to Catching's level. "You want a moment with them? You want to tear open that wound all over, and lose them again?"

"Yes! I would have traded the world for another day with her." She pet along her arms, hunching at the memory of hugging that adorable and wonderful little kitten, snuggled with her and grooming her mane and learning.

"It may not even be a day." Comforting flinched at the idea. "A moment, perhaps, a single breath. Is that what you really want?"

"Yes! I'd have given anything to go back." Catching crossed her arms. "Please. That one thing. That's it, really, really."

"I think there is one thing we can do." Comforting clasped her hands together. "Bring up those pictures."

Catching did so, bringing up a picture of that cat. The cat never made it to the paper, but she had some on her phone. "Here she is."

Comforting captured one image and transplanted it into her phone. "Right, then, little miss." She pulled out that phone, image waiting on it. "I really think this is more pain than it's worth. Are you absolutely sure?"

"Absolutely. One hundred percent sure." She pulled out her phone, at the ready, determined expression on her face. "Bring her back and I'll make it work."

Comforting put her hands together. "Alright. Hm, something got in there." She wriggled her hands just so as if pretending something were fighting to get out between them. "What's this?" She threw her hands aside, allowing a cat to fall to the ground, on its paws of course.

"Meeowww..." A kitten tumbled from Comforting's hands onto the floor. Its body was dainty and skinny, not too large. Their fur was all white except for some brown and orange spots that shaped a few vague and lopsided spirals. Catching grabbed up the kitten with an excited almost squeal. "My kitty! Oh gosh! Hi again, Kitten!" She looked the kitten over quickly, recognizing the one she had known and loved for so long.

"Mrrr!" The cat replied, then started to struggle in Catching's hands.

She released the cat, just for the cat to dash away. "Wait, come back!" Catching took off in a gallop after the summoned cat.

Comforting shook her head at the departing filly. "There's no way this ends well."

Catching bounded down the steps to see her cat starting for the door. She raced for the door as quickly as she could, thrusting her head outside and scanning around rapidly, but she could see no cat. It was as if the cat had never been there. "No... no way."

Comforting floated beside Catching. "Sorry, dear."

Catching was silent, staring outside without actually seeing anything.

Comforting sighed slowly. "I did warn you."

Catching dug out her phone with a trembling hoof. She opened the picture of the kitten again and stared at the happy feline, wishing her back, begging, praying, hoping. But the cat didn't emerge. She slumped in place. "That was the moment?"

"A moment longer than most get." Comforting sank to a seat next to Catching. "But just a moment. I'm sorry if it helps, they looked happy to see you, and not upset."

"Yeah." Catching whimpered softly, just like the cat that wasn't there anymore. "Just one more moment? She really was happy. That helps, but..." She stared out the door before dashing out the door again, hoping against hope she had just missed seeing that precious cat. She twirled around, searching wildly with her eyes, but any cat she did see, it wasn't hers. With a groan, she eventually returned to Comforting. "Thanks." Her voice was quiet and sad. "You did your part."

"Yeah." Comforting touched Catching on her shoulder with a hand. "Sorry to get your hopes up. I'm a huge jerk."

"But I was happy to see her again." Catching pressed her hooves together. "And I'm the one that asked you to. I didn't really get my hopes up at all, not like that."

"At all." Comforting frowned. "Not even a tiny bit, huh?"

Catching pinned her ears back. "Maybe a tiny bit." She buried her face in Comforting's fluffy side, and she wept almost silent tears. Comforting lowered one arm over her shoulder. She nuzzled softly at the filly in turn.

"Sometimes a kitten just has to grow up and move on." Comforting stroked softly over the back of that weeping child.

"Not like that!" Catching fell back on her haunches, wiping her eye with an arm. "It's not fair." She took a shaking breath. "Not fair at all."

"Life seldom is." Comforting brushed through Catching's hair, but that motion got caught and started to groom. She hesitated to correct that hoof before she just decided to go along with it. Straightening Catching's mane was a pleasant distraction for the moment. "Are you alright?"

Catching was quiet a few moments more. "Yeah."

Comforting pulled the filly against herself in a strong, warm hug. "Let it out, whatever you need."

Catching sniffled, still snuggling Comforting close. "Just a moment is all I wanted. To let it last one more time..."

"That was plenty." Comforting smooched Catching on the forehead and set her down. "You're a clever filly, digging up all those articles. Not many know where I'm from. You really surprised me."

"Oh yeah? Did it?" Catching glanced up and rubbed at her eye again. "So, it was on purpose?"

Comforting inclined her head. "With dad, you can never be entirely sure one way or the other, but I did make a choice in the end, and I'm living with that choice even now." She throws her hands apart. "Comforting, spirit of chaos. I could have just stayed a filly, but then we wouldn't be having this chat right now. I'd be long gone."

Catching pointed her hoof up. "Oh! What does being a chaos spirit mean exactly? What can you do that isn't regular magic?"

Comforting laughed light at that. "What we just did, to start. I skirt the rules, instead of trying to pen my own. It's very different. Now, this may be mean, but I think it's far past time you took your eyes off the past, and started looking at the present. You are full of talent I'd like to see you using, for yourself or others."

"I had plans..." She whispered, then held up a hoof. "If it's alright?"

Comforting nodded quickly.

"I did have a plan I made up about it." Catching bounced and scurried back off up the steps for her seat, which Comforting followed. She hopped up into her seat and got tapping with her hooves quickly. "I like looking things up." She brought up an article. "But how do you look up articles about things that don't exist yet? It's kind of a past thing."

"Yeah, good question." Comforting ran her finger along her chin a moment. "The future can still make the news. Ponies learn something could be coming, or start a big project, and other ponies write about that. Possibilities, really, for a better future ahead."

Catching clicked through some sites until she found one talking about the return of pegasus magic, and what weather magic could mean for ponykind in the future. "Huh." She laughed at the article. "Weren't you involved in that?"

"Indirectly." Comforting smiled a little deviously. "I just brought an old friend along, but it was her, the friend, that did all the work, not me. I just happened to be in the right place."

Catching leaned forward to the computer. "This says ponies can control the weather if they manage to do something with the magic they have now? That does sound kind of amazing."

"Doesn't it?" Comforting ruffled the top of Catching's head. "The present is bright, and the future is glimmering with possibility. I know it stings, but the past should be left there."

"That sounds amazing." Catching started searching around to see what other sorts of cool future things were happening or might be in the near future, ready for ponies to enjoy. "If ponies learn how to use these spells, there are gonna be lots of places where ponies can finally get to!"

Comforting shut up, realizing Catching was already looking away from that painful moment. "Amazing, isn't it?" She pat Catching on the back. "Just imagine what may come next."

Catching jumped and squeed with joy at all the potential for cool new things in the near future, what she could potentially study and enjoy in school, what her hooves might find at work. She hopped to her hooves with a bounce, racing down the steps before remembering her manners. "Oh! Sorry, Comforting!" She spun around quickly to face the large woman. "Um, thank you."

"And you!" Comforting bobbed her head towards Catching with a chuckle. "Go on." She blew a final kiss, smiling as Catching dashed away towards brighter things.

Author's Note

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