The rain drizzled down steadily, painting the world a dull grey. It was appropriate, she thought. Princess Twilight Sparkle sat on her haunches staring at the headstones before her, letting the cold water slide down her face and mingle with her tears. So many friends, now gone. So many years passed since she became an alicorn, yet the sting had never abated, a weeping wound in her soul that time had never closed. She missed them all so very much. She had so many responsibilities now. And sometimes, she needed to come and sit in the silence of the world and just remember.
Her eyes alighted on the first headstone, the first to go. The first one to leave her. A simple plain headstone with a graven image of the sun.
Her dear mentor. Celestia had been like a second mother to her and a teacher and friend. And when Twilight had ascended, Celestia had been right by her side all the way, helping her and easing her into her new role. And when Twilight had finally begun to treat her more as an equal than a teacher, their friendship had blossomed. But the truth had always been that Celestia had seen Twilight’s destiny was to succeed her. And had known that the time would come for her to step down to rest; her final rest.
She looked away, but in doing so found herself staring at the next headstone, this one carved with a cloud and stylised rainbow. Rainbow Dash had finally found her place in the Wonderbolts. She’d been so happy, ecstatic, that day, Twilight remembered with a half-smile. For years, Rainbow had wowed the crowds with her skill...Until that day. That day when Rainbow had left her too.
She shifted her gaze away, not wanting to relive that day, but her glance instead rested on the next pair of headstones. One with a beautiful carved image of a flame as if frozen in time and inlaid with emeralds, a cutie-mark that might have been. Next to it, the marble stone set with nothing but a trio of diamonds. Spike. Rarity. It has taken them so long to admit it to each other, but their love had finally blossomed. It had been such a controversy at first. Both Spike and Rarity had become public figures, both through association with Twilight and the Elements and in their own fields. At first Twilight had feared that it would be a passing fling, that Spike would be hurt, but he and Rarity had proven stronger than that. Through the bad and the good, they had stuck together until the very end. Until they left her, too, with nothing, nothing to remember them by except these cold, harsh grav-
“Auntie Twilight, you forgot to take your pills again this morning, didn’t you?” The deadpan expression of long-suffering exasperation came from a pink half-dragon unicorn stallion trotting out of the back door of the library and into the garden.
“Oh, Sugilite! 1” Twilight cried, seizing him in a crushing grasp and sobbing into his shoulder. Years of practise meant only coming within a hair’s breadth of poking her eyes out on his folded reptilian wings, which were held on his back, dragon-style, rather than against his sides like a pegasus’. “I’m so sorry! You’re the only thing I have left to remember them! You remind me so much of your parents... I miss them so much... I always promised I’d look after you, before... they... left...” her voice dissolved into sobs.
“Yes, Auntie Twilight,” Sugilite continued, levelly. “Before they left. A week ago. To Las Pegasus. For their ninety-forth second honeymoon. And will undoubtly return with another dear sibling on the way.
“Also, I’m four-hundred and eighty-five, I’m quite capable of looking after myself,” he added in an undertone. He paused to look at the gravestones. And glanced up at the sky, where the dull grey clouds poured rain down into – and only into – the Ponyville library’s garden. With a roll of his emerald eyes and a long-suffering huff of breath, he returned his attention to the sobbing alicorn clinging to him. Yes, this was a good one. “Come along Auntie Twilight, let’s get you inside out of the rain.” He tried to keep the exasperation out of his tone. He very nearly succeeded...
But Twilight merely plopped back down onto the wet grass and stared mournfully at the headstones now adorning the middle of the lawn, hair all askew. With a sigh, Sugilite lifted the pensive princess with a violaceous cloud of his magic, brought her inside and then fetched a towel with a second one.
Twilight felt numb, something that had nothing to do with the cold. She barely heard Sugilite’s muttered admonishments, nor felt his attempts to dry her wet fur and mane and comb the latter back into its usual style (he was Rarity’s son after all). She barely noticed when he left her, mostly dry and in a chair by the warm fire, while he rooted around in the kitchen behind her, grumbling all the while.
Because it meant she was inside the Library. The place where she had spent so much time; first as Celestia’s student, and later as a second home and retreat and eventually even laboratory. And the place filled with so many memories of the one whose presence she missed the most – her lover, her wife, the other half of her soul. They’d shared so much here. This was the place where they’d finally confessed; the place where they’d culminated their relationship from friendship into something so much more. She missed her so much. Her rugged determination, her kindness. Her level-headed practicality, keeping Twilight grounded, keeping her calm when she fretted and always, always believing in her. It hurt so much when she’d gone. Sometimes, Twilight could even hear her voice, the country twang she’d found so appealing. Calling to her, in greeting, for the day they’d be reunited. She could hear it so clearly...
“Ah said, ‘I’m home’,” Princess Applebloom repeated, trotting into the room. The yellow alicorn took in the sight – a slightly damp and bedraggled Twilight, wet patches all over the floor, and an exasperated-looking Sugilite entering the room with a small bottle clasped in his magic. He gave the bottle a little waggle and nodded meaningfully at Twilight.
“Oh, Twilight...” Applebloom sighed. “Again, darlin’?”
Twilight, crying anew, pounced on her in another death-grip hug. “Applebloom! You came back! I’ve missed you so much! It’s been so long!”
“Twilight, Ah went out fifteen minutes ago t’ pick up the milk!” Applebloom face-hooved quietly with one hoof as she stroked Twilight’s mane soothingly with the other, passing the milk in her own crimson magic to the half-dragon. She manoeuvred her woebegone wife back to the couch and eased her onto it. She looked over at Sugilite, who was now pouring the kettle into a cup. “How bad is it?”
“Didn’t you see the rainclouds from the front?” Sugilite replied.
“Nah, but this place is bigger’n it used t’be. That bad?”
“Go look,” Sugilite suggested, while carefully stirring a cup of jasmine tea and getting one of the pills out.
Applebloom looked.
“Graves. She magicked up graves for all o’ us? Ah’m sorta impressed... ‘Taint bad work for quarter o’ an hour,” Applebloom said, her expression caught between disbelief and affectionate amusement. She sat down next to her love, and, taking the tea from Sugilite with her magic, pressed it into Twilight’s hooves. “Oh Celestia, Twilight, y’done a good ‘un this time an’ no mistake, ain’tcha, darlin’!”
“Celestia!” Twilight wailed. “She’s gone! She’s gone and left me! I don’t want to run Equestria on my own!” The tea-cup shook until Applebloom stabilised with her magic.
“Honey, Celestia ain’t dead, you know that,” Applebloom said comfortingly. “She’s just taken the decade off to go an’ be a pirate again. Grower knows why,” she added in an undertone.
“Also, pretty sure Auntie Princess Luna is running the country at the moment,” grumbled Sugilite acerbically. Applebloom rolled her eyes. Tact had never been his strong point; he’d inherited his mother’s lack of tolerance for fools and his father’s witty sardonism and growing up with the pair of them he’d developed quite a resistance to histrionics.
“C’mon now, darlin’. Drink yer tea and take yer little pill. Fer me?” She gazed at Twilight, giving her her most soothing and affectionate smile. Twilight hiccupped, but nodded tearfully. The purple princess took a sip of tea, and then downed another with her mood-stabilising pill.
The effect was almost immediate. She blinked twice, and looked around. Applebloom smiled at her affectionately and Sugilite rolled his eyes.
“Oh, no. I did it again, didn’t I?” Twilight sunk sheepishly further into the couch. “How bad was it this time?”
“Well, not quite as bad as the time Auntie Princess Celestia and Auntie Princess Fluttershy pretended to have a messy break-up for the explicit purpose of having angry make-up sex,” Sugilite said unhelpfully. Twilight cringed. That had not been her finest hour... “But, to be fair, better than the time your found Auntie Princess Rainbow Dash and Auntie Princess Zecora banging on the kitchen table.”
Twilight’s reflexive laugh nearly had her choking on her tea. She’d not been able to look either of them in the eye for weeks after that unfortunate incident.
“Sooo... Bad but not awful...?” Twilight asked hopefully.
“Darlin, you put headstones in the middle o’ the lawn and set yerself up a personal raincloud,” Applebloom said gently.
Twilight face-hooved. “Oh, yeah. I did do a good one this time, didn’t I?” she said with a half-snorted giggle. “Headstones? Wow. Sorry,” she apologised.
“Don’t worry about, it sugarcube,” Applebloom said. “We can fix it between us later.”
“Yay,” Sugilite monotoned, waving his hoof in mock celebration, making Twilight giggle again.
“Hush, you,” Applebloom admonished.
“Yes, Auntie Princess Applebloom,” Sugilite said, in the manner of an unrepentant scolded foal nearly five hundred years his junior. Applebloom simply glanced heavenwards; like the rest of the alicorns in the extended family, she was completely inured to Sugilite’s idiosyncratic form of address 2.
Applebloom turned back to Twilight. “Now, why did you not take yer pills this mornin’?” she asked gently.
Twilight groaned. “I just forgot,” she said with reprehension. “I was up late last night reading that new adventure novel Rainbow sent me with her letter from her tour in the Uneighted Kingdom... I guess I just over did it again. I was so tired this morning...” She trailed off, and gave the sheepishly hopeless smile Applebloom loved so much. And had become at least a little resistant to, in five centuries.
“Honey, you know you need ‘t be more careful ‘bout exertin’ yerself in your condition,” Applebloom mildly rebuked, taking the sting out of her words by placing her hoof gently on Twilight’s gravid belly, her eyes warm. “’Specially in the last term, which is why yer here, and poor old Luna’s runnin’ the country all by herself for a couple of months. Least you can do is try not to make her too more stressed...!”
“I know, I know,” Twilight chuckled dryly. “You’d think on the hundred and twenty-seventh time, I’d have learned by now...”
“Not really,” Sugilite called from the kitchen, where he was making more tea – for all of them, this time. Twilight rolled her eyes and ignored him, well used to his sardonism by now.
They’d all gotten used it, of course, Applebloom reflected. Twilight had a few Incidents every time she was pregnant. It was just an unfortunate personal quirk of biology. Twilight’s first time had been the most emotional and it had involved tears and all of her friends comforting her for days, making sure she was never alone and she knew she was loved... The subsequent times had been stressful, but at least they’d been expecting it. By about the tenth time, it had started to get a bit commonplace and they’d gotten better at handling it (and Twilight had got medication to help stabilise her erratic mood swings.) On the seventeenth time, she happened to have an Incident while with Shining Armor. Who, with the subtle tact of big brothers everywhere, had told her flat-out she was begin ridiculous. (The only reason he was not still sleeping on the couch was the fact that it had actually worked...) By this stage, everypony had gotten so inured to it that it was no more a crisis than emptying the wee out of a foal’s galoshes. The mood stabilising pills worked wonders, of course, since she and Twilight had both had a hoof in making it (she was a premier chemist as well as an engineer, after all) 3.
Seeing Twilight looking a little crestfallen, and sensing she was likely to get herself genuinely stressed about her mistake, Applebloom gave her a soothing nuzzle. “Now, don’t you go gettin’ all worked up over this, Twilight. You just need t’ be a bit more mindful is all, darlin’,” Applebloom said. “We can’t all be like Pinkie and Derpy,” she added, smiling.
“I know!” Twilight said with a fond and rueful roll of her eyes. “If I didn’t love them both so much, I’d hate the way they both just glow whenever one of them is, to borrow their favorite phrase, ‘carrying a bun in the oven!’”
Sugilite snorted with amusement. “Mom says the same thing.”
“Well,” Applebloom agreed, “that is kinda vexin’ ain’t it? But Ah ain’t no angel myself, when it’s my turn.”
Both Twilight and Sugilite made derisive noises.
“Come on, Applebloom,” Twilight giggled. “You aren’t nearly as bad! Your only problem is getting you stop working long enough to give birth! I keep telling you, it must be all that Earth Pony ancestry. Applejack is just the same!”
It was Applebloom’s turn to smirk. “Now, Twilight, don’t you forget that Luna has to practically tie Sis down t’ get her t’ stop workin’. See, it ain’t just you.”
Twilight smiled at the memory. “‘Practically’ nothing, do you remember that time when Luna was taking a sabbatical and she literally tied her down?” Both alicorns laughed at the shared memory – the pictures (which Rainbow and Spike had insisted on taking) had provided blackmail material for nearly ninety years.
“I still find Auntie Princess Luna’s proficiency with knots to be slightly disturbing,” Sugilite volunteered.
“Come o’ bein’ married to an Apple,” Applebloom said brightly. “Yer Auntie Twilight, now, she knows how t’-” she broke off, as Twilight, blushing and giggling, gave her an affectionate shove with one hoof. Sugilite made an exaggerated shudder.
“I really did not need to know that,” he said emphatically.
“Oh,” Twilight said, with sudden recollection. “Do you remember what Trixie was like the first time?”
Sugilite shuddered again. “Don’t remind me. I will never understand all those wierd and exotic cravings she was having. I’m still mostly convinced she was putting it on, just so Auntie Princess Sweetie and her long-suffering first nephew would run up and down the country for Miss ‘Great and Powerful.’”
“Oh yes, I remember!” Twilight laughed. “Actually, didn’t you end up helping Celestia with Fluttershy too?”
“Yes, but at least Auntie Princess Fluttershy pretended to be grateful. I tell you, though, no-one laughed harder than me when Auntie Princess Sweetie had Sky Rocket and she was even worse then Auntie Princess Trixie.”
“Until you got roped into helpin’ yer dear Auntie Princess Sweetie,” Applebloom added slyly.
“It was nearly worth it,” Sugilite reflected. Noting Twilight had finished her tea, he slipped into the kitchen to brew a fresh pot for all of them.
“See, darlin’” Applebloom said. “It ain’t no reason to get worried. We’ll all be laughin’ at this one, next time around.”
“You’re right,” Twilight said, leaning forward to nuzzle Applebloom’s cheek.
“As always,” the yellow alicorn replied with mock smugness.
“We better take pictures, though, or Celestia, Dash and Spike will never forgive me!”
Applebloom nodded. “Ah’ll get the camera after we’ve had tea.”
Sugilite brought in the tea, along with a few biscuits, knowing Twilight would likely need some nourishment after a hard morning’s freak out. They had just settled in, and began discussing how to apologise to the Ponyville weather patrol – and how unmake a dozen or so headstones without damaging the lawn – when the library door burst open and a very excited looking Princess Scootaloo bounced into the room, looking more excited than the time Rainbow Dash had pulled seven consecutive Sonic Rainbooms and nearly destroyed the entirety of Cloudsdale. “Sugi! Sugi! Guess what!” she giggled.
Sugilite looked blankly at his spouse of some three hundred years. “Auntie Princess Rainbow Dash missed a trick and got her horn stuck in the side of a custard truck again?” he hazarded, hopefully. That had been hilarious.
“No, silly!” Scootaloo grinned. “It worked!”
“It worked?” he replied, momentarily puzzled, then comprehending. “Oh, the new fertility treatment! It worked!” Sugilite kissed his wife delightedly. After a such a long time, it was finally happening. They’d finally closed the last hurdle caused by his own complicated birth.
Applebloom and Twilight exchanged knowing glances, remembering the first time they’d discovered they were going to be parents.
He and Scootaloo did a little excited dance, while chanting “I’m pregnant!”
“You’re pregnant!”
“I’m pregnant!”
“You’re pregnant!”
“I’m pregnant!”
“You’re... pregnant...”
Sugilite stopped. He looked at Twilight. He looked at his wife. He thought about the other pregnant females in his huge extended family.
“After you with the pills, Auntie Twilight.”
1 Named for the gemstone, properly pronounced “SOO-gi-lyt”, though commonly pronounced with a soft g, though only once in Sugilite’s earshot.
2 Except Shining Armor, who had never really accepted being called “Auntie Princess Shining”, but it had initially made everypony laugh so hard that it had stuck. Only Twilight got away with merely “Auntie,” though the actual reason for that had been forgotten long ago.
3 There was now, in fact, a thriving industry from the results, bringing relief to many pregnant ponies. Not a few of whom, were, by this point, descended from the Alicorns of Harmony.
Author's Note
So, if by this point you are either laughing, going “the frag did I just read?!” or wailing in despair as I pulled the Sads out from under you, I will have achived my goal.
Yes, I may have ever so slightly lied with the tags (and yes, I did specifically ask permission first!) In the staggeringly unlikely event people read this after the publication date, please note said date was April 1st. (Who am I kiddin’, I’ll be lucky if anybody reads this nonsense at all!) Also, Sugilite has to deal with his family and now his quite-likely-to-be-a-bit-crazy pregant wife. That’s totally tragic, right...? (The summary, you will note, is entirely truthful, just not in the way you might have expected...)
It is something of a polite and hopefully humorous take that to all the “Spike/Twilight/other character ends up old miserable and alone/immortality stinks”; I figured it was about time there was a bit of council for the other side (given it was sufficently a Thing to get me off my boney arse and actually write my third fanfic in twelve years...!) and it seemed the right time of year for this sort of thing, so...
I would like to thank/blame the Giant in the Playground forum ponythread for this, since the silly ponies should know by now that encouraging me is a bad idea. Special thanks to ICN (on aforementioned ponythread) for proof-reading my terrible mistakes and correcting my attempts at Applebloom’s accent so she sounds less like she’s come from Yorkshire or something; and to SlyGuyMcFly (also of ponythread) for the cover art which is so much better than my scribblings it isn’t funny. (I am many things - a rotten lying git, for example - but an artist is not among them...)
