Twilight Sparkle’s wings were digging into her back. This made her unable to sleep for two reasons:
A) She was uncomfortable. She wondered quickly if perhaps this was an issue which all pegasi dealt with, remembering Rainbow’s habit of napping on clouds, but Fluttershy slept in a cottage, so certainly sleeping on one’s wings in an ordinary bed was doable. Then again, for all her timidity, Fluttershy was quite able to endure a little bit of hardship...
B) The concept of Twilight Sparkle’s wings was not one with which she was yet familiar, meaning that in addition to being uncomfortable the sensation was alien, serving as anchor and rally point for the unresolved emotions of the day.
Days, really, for although as far as Twilight was concerned this morning had started out like any other, her friends would insist that that was yesterday morning. The morning of a day in which they would spend their time first worrying about their ineffectual performance of their destiny, and then the rest worrying about their friend after she vanished in a burst of light and whiff of ozone. For them, today had dawned as she had reappeared, augmented, and was greeted by princess Celestia.
For Twilight though, the day had two mornings, the first where she had disentangled her friends from a spell she had unknowingly cast yesterday, and the second dawning when she had stepped from a strange hall of memory where Celestia had congratulated her into a strange world where the eyes of her friends had widened not in joy at her return, but in shock at her appearance, and where Celestia had bowed, and all her friends had bowed to her. She had never felt closer to Celestia than in that starlit room of her memories, as they walked the halls of her mind and the pride and affection in Celestia's tone burst from her voice. But she had never felt further away from her mentor than when she saw her head draw back and down toward the ground, Celestia, who had taught her all that she knew, kneeling in the dirt in front of her.
Twilight rolled onto her side, shifting as the sheets rippled from the tugging of her wings. Applejack, normally so stable and reliable, had looked confused, and talked to her from twice as far away as usual. Rainbow, generally unflappable and loath to display emotion, had had to touch her wings to make sure they were real, hug her, to make sure she was real. Rarity, Twilight knew, had loved having a friend who was a unicorn as well. It wasn’t as if they were that much more alike than any of their other friends, but only a unicorn had to deal with combing (or, for Rarity, styling) hair around a horn, or that short adolescent period when, in addition to all of the other confusions of the time, they had to consciously master their horn, wrest its powers from their subconscious. Knowing this, it wasn’t hard to hear the tone of hurt beneath Rarity’s offhand remark at her appearance, realize the unavoidable feeling of abandonment she must feel. Oh, she’d been delighted at the challenge of designing and creating six new outfits for the group in the span of six hours, but Twilight was glad she didn’t have to be there when Rarity cut the wing holes for her new dress.
Then the coronation, everyone staring at her, her mother, her father, her brother, all crying. Shining, who’d never cried for as long as Twilight remembered, not even at his own wedding, was gushing like a leaky faucet. And everyone was looking at her, even when she pulled her friends out to steal their eyes, looking at her with some strange hunger or regard. Luna, watching her out of the corner of her eye with a knowing smile, Celestia, face a weird mix of intense pride and worry. The world bending to her as she was pulled along the street.
She’d tried out her wings afterwards, startled at how natural flying felt. Well... gliding anyway. Rainbow would scoff if she tried to call it flying. Her thoughts drifted as she wondered what it would be like to actually fly, fly as fast as Rainbow. She shivered at the thought of how Rainbow might react if she could, and drew the covers up closer to herself. The pace of her flight slowed down and she glided lazily through the sky above Canterlot, above Ponyville. She landed, and there was the chariot she had taken through the street outside Canterlot, slowly moving through the gates of the castle without her. She’d landed in the crowd, right next to Starswirl the Bearded! He turned to her, smiling, and began explaining some of the complex spells he had never written down, but she'd always known he'd done. Twilight was so excited, she could hardly wait for him to finish, so she could try some of them out herself! She responded, filling in the gaps in the conversation with some of the spells she'd created, and soon they were deep in conversation. The chariot was moving past them now and Twilight, noticing it out of the corner of her eye, felt intense anticipation and exhiliaration. She said a quick but warm goodbye to Starswirl, and turned just in time to step easily onto it as it passed. She sat down on the chariot without dress, crown, or wings, but the crowd still cheered at her, cheered at her for being her. For her hard work casting spells, her long hours of study, her love for her friends. She beamed out at all of them and tried to fix this moment in her mind, to make it one she would always remember, but her hippocampus had long since stopped recording in conscious memory, so the various figments of Twilight’s mind cheered on a unicorn that no longer existed in a scene none would remember.
Author's Note
Yay alicorn Twilight!
