She should've been happy. Dear Celestia, she tried.
Twilight stood beside Cadence, watching as the officiant recited the oaths. She should've just been bucking happy. Instead, she wasn't.
Her heart hurt- watching her brother say I do, then Cadence. She was too focused on her thoughts to hear the vows. How could they do that to her?
The terror flashed through her mind's eye. Scampering through the darkness of the tunnels in the abandoned Canterhorn mines, desperately running from whatever horrible abomination trailed close behind. She could feel the bandages under her dress soaked in her dried, crusty blood.
Panic, terror, exhaustion—she ran and ran, desperately fleeing from whatever had crawled out of the churning depths beneath the mountain's skin.
Twilight blinked, shocked out of her revere as the two kissed. Again, all she felt in her heart was hurt. She should've been happy.
Why couldn't she just be happy?
"Twily?"
She shook her head, her brother's voice breaking through the fog. "I- yes, BBBFF?" She stumbled.
"You were looking a little pale there." He laughed awkwardly, continuing. "Looked spooked as a pony back from war."
"Oh- I mean, yeah. I think I'm just a little sick, you know? Post-wedding jitters and all that. Don't worry, Shiny-" she put on the best smile she could, "- nothing some food and a good night of rest won't solve."
He and Cadence looked at her worriedly. It looked like he was going to say something. Like he was going to ask her if she was okay.
"I trust you, sis, just... are you sure you're okay? You can tell me if something's wrong. I promise I won't judge; it's- it's okay."
The words flushed from her lungs—angry, scared, heartbroken—they desperately clawed out of her lungs. Her thoughts were panicked, fluttering to and fro. She could feel herself choking on her words—stuck in her throat, refusing to come up.
Please.
Please say something.
please
please im sorry
The moment was over as Celestia walked up, smiling wide.
"Ponyfeathers!" Shining swore, glancing between his sister and Celestia. "The photoshoot!" He looked at her, focus finally broken. "I have to go do a quick photoshoot, Twily. You wanna come with? We can walk and talk if that's okay."
But it wasn't. It wasn't okay. The moment was over. She smiled, swallowing her words. They felt like a stone in her throat, refusing to go down the first gulp. "N-no thanks, Shiny. I just- think I'm a little exhausted from today, you know? Big wedding day, lots of ponies, and all that. I think I'll go to sleep a bit early, okay?"
He looked like he was going to say something- something anything please
pleasepleaseplease
Before he could, though, he was dragged off by an eager-looking pony in a fancy suit, sporting a greedy, pompous grin, Cadence, her friends, and the other princesses already having disappeared. Spike looked at her, and she looked at him. He lowered his head, walking off.
Just like that, she was alone.
She was a horrible sister. The thought echoed as she sobbed. She was a horrible, terrible, stupid sister. She should've been happy tonight. She knew it, she did, and she tried so, so hard to be. She really, really had.
But it hurt. Sweet, holy Cel- it hurt so bucking much.
She couldn't help it- it hurt so bad. Her heart ached no matter what she did. Constant images of her friends' angry, hateful faces clouded her mind, thoughts of them having fun- laughing, eating, enjoying themselves without her, somewhere beneath her. Enjoying themselves because she wasn't there.
it hurt
She let out another sob, clenching the stained, watery pillow harder. The bandages and gauze had come undone from her fitful thrashing, chafing her sides, and opening up the horrible, agonizing gashes. It didn't matter.
She gasped, trying to swallow a wail. It made her choke- coughing, sputtering, heaving. Her muzzle lifted from the pillow as she glanced around. For some reason, she hoped somepony would check on her. She couldn't face them. She just hoped somepony would come.
"I'm a horrible sister." She couldn't stop the words, and she didn't care to. It just hurt so bad. They were right. She was horrible. She was a terrible sister and a terrible friend. She'd ruined the mood at her own brother's wedding. What kind of pony did that?
She clung to the pillow and stuffed her face back in. All over her, deep gashes, scratches, and bite marks reopened, weeping red from between their stitches.
Her dress lay torn up beside her bed, discarded.
Five mares, one stallion, and three alicorns sat at a round table. Their heads were all turned down in some way- all wearing masks of self-loathing shame.
Two hours had passed since the photoshoot had ended—two hours since Spike had cracked and started being openly hostile- again. The table beneath their hooves was cold, Celestia thought. Even then, however, from the other side of the table, she could feel Spike's seething rage warming the room.
They hadn't said anything. What was there to say? The damage had been done.
"Stop." He spat.
Celestia frowned. The way he said it irritated her for some reason. Almost bitter and self-justified.
"Stop. What?" Rainbow Dash, sitting not far from Celestia, asked through clearly gritted teeth.
He snorted angrily and slammed his little claws into the table. His lips were pulled back into an ugly sneer, glaring at them- Celestia specifically. "That. Stop giving yourselves that dumb, self-pitying look!"
"Spike, that is enough." His words shocked her—he'd never spoken with so much venom and crassness.
"That's enough?!" He snorted fire, clearly on accident. "That's enough?! It will never be enough!"
"Shut up!" Rainbow's hoof pounded the chair.
"Now Rainbow Da-"
"Shut up, Applejack! Spike has been sitting here all week, acting like he's the victim or something! I am sick and tired of him laying into us!" She shouted.
"Darling, ple-"
"Rainbow Dash, that's enough-"
"No!" She stood up. "Like Tartarus, it's enough! We've all felt horrible all week about what happened- for pony's sake, even Princess Celestia has that "dumb" guilty look! I am sick and tired of him sitting on his high horse and.. and..." She chewed her tongue, trying to find the words as she fumed.
"Now darling, that is quite enough! That is no way to speak about her high-"
"Oh, buck off!" Rainbow spat, Rarity's jaw dropping in response. "I don't see you doing anything!"
"Well, I never! How dare you-"
"Brazen little wench, you would dare speak of my sister-"
"Now, now y'all, let's not get 'round to splittin' hairs and allat-"
"Shut up!" Rarity, Luna, and Rainbow screamed.
Applejack stood up angrily, causing everypony to jump. "Like hay Ah will! Ah ain't gonna list'n tah y'all if'n you're gonna be orn'ry as a darn dragon!"
She clamped her hoof over her mouth, but it was too late.
"I'm what? I'm what? I don't know if you two have noticed, but none of you have done anything to make this right! I've been there for Twilight all week! Me! Where have you all been? Oh, that's right- preparing for some stupid wedding!"
Chaos.
"Well, my bucking apologies, Mr. 'I have nothing better to do,' we've been trying to help set up a wedding and get rid of the changelings still holding out in the city! Sorry we've been so damn distracted!"
"Spike, that is rude and uncalled for! How would our darling Twilight feel if she heard you saying such terrible things?"
"I bet she'd feel real fantastic!"
"If thou doth not cease with such aggressive behaviors, we will see to it that-"
"Shut u-"
"Yall've got some nerve, RD-"
"Please-"
Yelling, screaming, threatening. Everypony at the table had finally lost it. She couldn't take it anymore. As the argument spiraled, she just... couldn't. Before the first hoof could be thrown, she slammed her hooves into the floor and stood.
"Silence!"
In an instant, the table went dead quiet. Only the sound of Cadence's soft weeping could be heard as Shining Armor wrapped a hoof around her tight. His face was slack with misery and disappointment. It was her niece's wedding.
"If you all are so determined not to get along, then perhaps it is time you all returned to your chambers." She scowled at the mares and the dragon. He glared at her balefully but held his tongue. Nothing more need be said.
They all dispersed, the alicorns and the groom heading one way and the rest diverging their own ways. Afterward, only Pinkie remained at the table, quiet.
"Happy wedding day..." She tried, but her heart just wasn't in it.
Twilight stared at the ceiling. Eventually, she'd stopped having tears to cry and just sat there, heaving. Now that she was alone, truly alone, all she could do was think.
She used to love thinking. Critical thought was the mark of a great scholar, after all. She hated it now. Her thoughts weren't about spells anymore. They weren't about reporting to Celestia with some lesson on friendship. Whenever the heartbreak would go away- whenever her head was too quiet and herself too alone- the thoughts came.
Images of a monster- a hideous, grotesque masquerade of life- shrieking its way through the caves within Canterhorn. Her hoofsteps, small and frail and tired, trying with all their might to outrun the lumbering, screaming monstrosity that barreled its way down each turn- that seemed to haunt and infest every crack and crevasse.
It had painted her with every cut, every scratch, every bleeding stitch in her body. She remembered the way its filthy, pulsating tentacles had struck her like a whip. The way she'd felt the bugs that seemed to coat the creature's rotting appendages rub off on her- digging into her fresh scars.
Every second had felt like utter terror. She thought she was gonna die- alone, afraid, running through the dark from a boogeymare that wasn't supposed to exist. A creature that shouldn't have existed. There was no fighting it- nothing had done even remotely hurt it.
She remembered the crystalline chamber she appeared in. The changeling queen's terrible laugh. She remembered the gap she'd found in the chamber.
Just like that, she was there again.
Slowly, a confident-yet-bruised Twilight made her way through the mine. It wasn't the first time she'd been in a sticky situation, and it probably wouldn't be the last.
She turned a corner. Around the corner, she saw darkness. A perverse, all-encompassing darkness. One that ate everything- even the light of her horn.
"Hello?" She called. "Is anypony there? Please- my name is Twilight Sparkle. I-I need help. I need to get out of here- Princess Celestia is in danger."
Nothing. Nothing but silence. It was uncomfortable just how quiet it was. Nothing made a sound, not even a bat. There weren't even bugs.
That realization made her skin crawl. Why the hay were there no bugs in an underground mine? She'd expected something- even just an earthworm or a cockroach, maybe a beetle- but there was nothing. Nothing but silence.
She bit her lip and looked deeper into the cave before her. There was nothing- nothing but that eerie darkness. Slowly, anxiously, she started down the corridor. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but she could swear that, somewhere in the distance, she'd seen a faint slip of the darkness move.
But that was im-
Twilight blinked, the memories fading as she heard someone knock on her door. The image of that horrible monstrosity again flashed in her head, dissipating at the next set of knocks, these more persistent.
"Who is it?" She looked over at the door.
"Hey Twi, it's uh- it's us. Well, me, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie. You mind if we, uh-"
With a flick of her scarred horn, the latch opened. "Come in." She laid her face back down as she heard the door open and heard three sets of hoofsteps walk in. A quiet cough sounded beside her, and she turned her head to her friends.
Rainbow stood awkwardly in the center of the room, fidgeting and moving beside her bed. Applejack looked past her like she couldn't even look her in the eyes properly. Fluttershy hid away behind her, head buried in her mane, out of sight—and finally, Pinkie.
Pinkie was the worst. She looked at her dejectedly, her mane flat and body slack. She looked the most guilty. None of it helped, seeing their guilty faces and the way they refused to make eye contact with her.
The way they tried to look anywhere except her body.
It all felt so... disingenuous. She sighed. "So..."
"So..." Rainbow repeated back, scratching her mane with a hoof. A few more seconds of silence followed before she gave a frustrated grunt. "Look, Twi. I'm not... good? With this whole apology thing." She furrowed her brow, rethinking. "Well, I mean, I am! I'm the best at EVERYTHING I do, but, like... I don't really..."
"What she's tryna say is we don' know how tah approach this. Equestria ain't never had a war, not s'long as ah can recall. Hayseeds girl, Equestria ain't even had no army an' allat since, uh..."
"Six hundred thirty-five years ago, before the Griffonian dark age."
"Uh- yeah, that there. Ah'm sayin'- we never would'a putcha in harm's way, Twi." Applejack took her hat off. "an' we're sorry."
"Yeah.. It's just been a hectic time, and we're sorry we took so long to get around to it, and we know that's... not really an excuse." Rainbow still couldn't look at her. She wouldn't look at the wounds- at the bloody sheets or the old bandage lying in the trash. It hurt.
It made her angry. She just- she thought that..
"We're sorry..." Fluttershy whispered, peeking out for a second. She looked away as Twilight turned in her direction. She swore she heard a soft sob. Her face burned.
It felt humiliating. Why wouldn't they just- look? They'd come this far. They'd said this much. She wanted to forgive them. She wanted to so bad.
"We're so sorry!" Pinkie bounced up, landing at the foot of her bed. It wasn't an excited bounce, but one she used to get closer. Her eyes were big and wet, horrible tears budding at the edges. "We really didn't know- if we'd known, we never would've walked away! But that doesn't make it better- we're really, really, really, really, reallyreally sorry Twilight!"
She felt tears in her eyes. Why wouldn't they look at her? She gulped—they looked so sad and so guilty.
"I-I forgive you, girls. I understand. A-all of you- Rarity, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and especially Shiny." She said the words- she really tried to mean them. She wanted to mean it, even if her heart wouldn't let her. It worked, though. The other ponies in the room brightened up immediately, and Pinkie's mane sprang back up.
"Really? You do, you do?" She bounced excitedly. They were so happy-
"Yes, Pinkie." She gave a strained laugh, faking a cough after she was done. "I do. I-I was acting crazy, and I hadn't slept, and you all thought I was just being jealous, and I-I mean, I didn't even have any proof!"
The others came in for a hug. Twilight bit her lip, tears rolling out of her eyes as her injuries screamed bloody murder.
owowowowowowow-
When they let go, she noticed Applejack standing a distance further than them. She looked... sad? Disappointed, but... accepting? She still smiled, though. Twilight smiled back.
She just had to keep it up, she supposed. Hold it together. Hold it together; keep a brave face. One day, she'd be able to really forgive them. One day, everything would go back to normal.
One day.
Spike squeezed his claws tight.
How dare they! They were the ones who had abandoned his Twilight! It wasn't his fault- he didn't know what to do! She was just- she was sounding weird, and he was scared and just...
He blinked his eyes shut and held them that way tight.
It was their fault. He wanted to stay with Twilight, but they pressured him to go. He would've stayed! It didn't matter if she was wrong. This was Twilight! His Twilight- the one who trusted him to be the best number-one assistant he could possibly be! The one who raised him from a hatchling- blushing, he silently admitted he was still technically a hatchling- and the one who had been there for him every second of his life! If she was wrong, then to hay with it, he was going to back her up, even if it killed him!
I mean, pony's sake, it's Twilight! She'd sacrificed life and limb- put everything on the line time and time again- all for them! Seriously, Spike didn't even know Cadence, the only dragonsitter he'd ever had was Celestia, and if Twilight said she was acting weird, and Twilight knew her that well, then, then..
He deflated. It couldn't be his fault, too. It just couldn't be.
Spike's resolve hardened, and with a quick turn, his feet pitter-pattered off in the direction of her room. He should've left with her in the first place, not gone to that dumb photoshoot. He was so stupid! Not wasted his time with the others! He'd make it better- he just had to! Somehow. All he knew was that Twilight needed him- and he would be there this time!
Cadence wouldn't talk to him. He didn't blame her, obviously. He didn't deserve her, not after how he'd treated Twilight. Twilight had made the wedding possible in the first place. Cadence had half-raised her, and being her sister was the push that had helped her agree to the wedding. He felt awful.
"Cady?" He tried. She didn't respond; she just hummed in acknowledgment from her side of the bed. "Cady, I'm... I'm sorry."
She didn't speak; she just sighed and rolled over to face away from him. Yeah- he deserved that, too. He'd ruined everything, him and his big mouth.
"I don't want your apology, Shining Armor." She said evenly. "I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."
He winced. Every time he tried to apologize to Twilight, his nerves got the better of him. He'd made a huge mistake. He knew that. And she'd reminded him. Every single night. "I know."
Cadence shifted beside him. The silence was only momentary. Cadence seemed to find her words fast. "I'm- I'm not even angry you couldn't recognize it wasn't me."
His brow furrowed. "Why? Cady, I should've realized that you were off. I know pre-wedding jitters and all, but you're not a disrespectful, arrogant, nasty pony, and I know nothing would make you that way." And he meant it! It was stupid of him to brush it off. Even under stress, she'd never acted so... mean.
She shook her head. "That's not the problem." Sitting up, she pulled her hind hooves' knees to her chest. "I don't care about that, Shining Armor. I know you were stressed out, too, and you... I don't blame you, okay?"
"Then please- Cady, how do I make this right?" He turned to her. "I bucked up, I know it. I really want this to work out, and I know you'll love having Twilight as a sister. I need to know how I make this right."
She got up, moving over to the loveseat on the other side of the room. Her horn lit, and a pillow flashed away from the bed, followed by her blanket. Climbing onto the seat, she quickly fluffed the pillow and laid down. "I don't know."
He stared at her, then at the empty spot beside him. "I'm sorry."
"I'm not the one you should be saying that to."
Silence permeated the room afterward. He knew she wasn't asleep, but he didn't know what to say. There was nothing he could say.
"I don't know." He heard her whisper.
"What'd you say?"
"I don't know." She was lying facing away from him. "I don't know how you make this right. I can't know- I can't tell you because I... I won't do it for you. You have to make this right. Only you can, and that means that I can't just... give you the answers. To make it all better."
He nodded and said nothing. There was nothing left to say. He laid still, but sleep never came.
"Sister, you must remain calm."
"How can I? Luna, they hate me! Spike hates me!" She rubbed a hoof against her forehead. "This has been a monumental disaster from start to finish. A deep infiltration by changelings, a war right in Canterlot, and now this!"
"Calm thyself, sister! You are Celestia, Herald of the Sun! You cannot-"
"This is my fault!" She turned on her sister. "We spent centuries fighting the changelings- hunting the queens!- and yet when all is said and done, the blame lies squarely upon my haunches!"
"Your student spoke of nonsense and mad ramblings, sister! The fault is neither thine nor her own!"
"But it is! Twilight would never make such a bold-faced accusation before my very own eyes unless she utterly and completely knew without a shadow of a doubt that something was wrong! And I callously dismissed her! All that has occurred is my own fault!"
"You could not have known! Even we must admit, thine student is nothing if not eccentric!"
"But she was right! She is impulsive and neurotic, but she is more often than not correct!"
Back and forth, all night. The guards stood watch over the entrance of the room, hearing the back and forth.
Nopony would be sleeping tonight. Not here, at least. No, they wouldn't- and in truth, even after all was said and done, they wouldn't be sleeping right for a very long time.
Author's Note
I always figured Twilight let everypony get off way too easy for this, and that if she'd been put in real, life threatening danger, she wouldn't have been as forgiving.
Honestly this story was originally developed as a one off. Moreso the idea of exploring Twilight's trauma in a slightly different version of a Canterlot Wedding, and going into detail about the effect it has on her mental health had it ended worse.
After some writing, and a lot of thinking, I decided I'd instead be turning it into a full story- about 60 chapters, 5000-7000 words each.
The story will follow the premise and plotline set up by this short story, and this story will be used as the main jumping-off point. I will not give a timeline, nor will I release any official statements about timeline canon in this fic- it starts and ends on the story the reader believes-, however I will likely release the first one or two chapters within the coming two weeks.
It will generally follow the same points as earlier- exploring Twilight's declining mental health, and her inability to cope with her trauma. That's all I'll say about it, though.
If you were just here for a nice little one off, then you can take it as that too! I know there is a lot to interpret and the story is left very ambiguous, however that was on purpose- to let the reader interpret as much as they wanted in their own way, and give a good starting point for a continuation via full story. The finished story will be way more solid and concrete in how it presents itself and the plot points/information.
(This is why it seems all over the place, with a bunch of perspective shifts and whatnot- while it was originally intended as a one-off, the focus shifted, but I still wanted to release it just to separate it, maybe as a prologue or something similar).