i forgot to love you

As Twilight walked away from Carousel Boutique, her hands shoved into her coat pockets, nothing felt exactly real—not the snow falling around her, not the cold biting her face and neck, not even her own body, which seemed to move from pure inertia, controlled by something other than herself. 

She was a princess, a job with some of the hardest decisions a person would ever be forced to make. Things like enacting wrong laws, affecting hundreds of people; international trade deals going miserably, potentially destroying fragile diplomatic relations with neighboring countries; trusting and elevating the wrong pony, and bearing ultimate responsibility for all their mess-ups. So many decisions, so many that could go wrong, so many that had gone wrong, and yet none of these failed choices had ever left her feeling quite like this. 

Like she was walking by rote. Breathing by rote. Living by rote. 

A few people dotted the nearby train station, each and every one shivering in their winterwear as they waited for the train to arrive and take them to their next destination. Her eyes wandered the horizon without direction, until they stopped on a bench in particular, and all of a sudden, two familiar women occupied it, the two huddled close together. 

“It’s not that cold,” said one, five years younger, her arm wrapped around the four-layers of clothes beside her, as yet unburdened by the weight of suddenly being responsible for the happiness of hundreds and not just her own. 

“It absolutely is,” complained the other, five years younger, demanding to be heard and attended to, as yet unburdened by the weight of having to convince herself for years that her needs needed to be put on hold for a year, then two, then three, then—”I’m going to freeze to death on this bench.”

“No, you won’t.” Lips planted a warm, loving kiss atop the fabric of a knit-cap. “I’ll keep you warm.”

“Not even that will save me. This is where I’m dying.” 

“Fine, then. I’ll have a plaque put here in your honor.”

“Excuse me?”

Twilight looked away from the empty bench and towards a woman covered head to toe in designer clothes. She knew they were designer clothes because she recognized them, of course. She would recognize them anywhere. 

She’d been there when they were sketched out. 

“Oh, my Gods! Princess Twilight?”

Her gaze fixated on the elegant logo on the woman’s coat. Three diamonds. Usually, the sight of them would bring her pride. 

Now it was something decidedly different, burning and stinging. 

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know it was you, Princess,” continued the woman, abashed. 

“It’s fine,” replied Twilight, damned to lie, and damned even more by her instinct to say, “How can I help you?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” the woman replied with a laugh, as if everything was normal and fine, which it was to her. “I was going to ask for the time!”

“Oh. Sure.” She lifted her arm, the sleeve falling back and revealing a silver wristwatch. An anniversary gift, she remembered. Not that she ever didn’t know this, but right now, right then, she remembered that detail. “It’s six twenty-four.”

Six twenty-four, which meant it had been seven minutes since she’d left Carousel Boutique, which didn’t seem that long all things considered, but seeming and feeling were very different things when counting the minutes after one’s entire world has ended. 

The woman replied something—‘Thank you’, probably—but Twilight’s mind was already somewhere else. 

Maybe she could still turn around. 

Maybe she could still run back, slam her fists again the door, and beg not for a second, not a third, not a fourth, but at this rate a hundredth chance, that she would stop putting work first, would stop only going to the theatre just because a particular diplomat would be there, would stop postponing date nights because stupid laws needed to be dealt with first, would stop putting everyone in Equestria first before the two of them. 

“Oh, Princess, I’m so sorry, but just because you’re here—”

The woman was speaking again, and some part of Twilight’s soul shriveled when her reaction was to immediately turn to her and pay attention, like she did to everyone except the one person that had mattered. 

The woman was going on about an education reform Twilight had recently enacted that had consumed months of her life, mentally and physically, taking her across the entire country as she visited school after school, met with board after board, because it was for the good of Equestria which was the only thing that mattered, apparently. 

“This will be good for when and if we have kids.”

“For when—For when we have kids? And, pray tell, when exactly are we supposed to have kids if we barely even see each other to begin with?”

“…This isn’t for forever.”

“It sure bloody feels like it! …I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine.”

“I just… Twilight, this can’t go on. What about us? What about you?”

“I just need to make sure everything is working. And then it’ll be different. This is the last big thing.”

“I… All right, Twilight. Okay.”

“And the difference I’ve seen with teachers is incredible,” the woman was saying. 

“I’m glad,” Twilight replied, having paid attention the entire time what felt like against her will. “It was important to me that the system changed everywhere in Equestria, including smaller towns like Ponyville.”

“And—I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to take up so much of your time—”

“You’re not,” Twilight replied, even though she was, she was, why was she letting her, please, why was she just letting this happen. 

“Oh, good! Well, I also wanted to say I was reading up on what you did with Yakyakistan and—”

The woman kept going, and going, and going, and all Twilight could think was how she allowed this to happen. How could she have lost sight of the one thing she was supposed to safeguard above everything else? 

She could still turn this around, couldn’t she? Would it matter? Maybe there was still time, maybe if she came back and for once showed she could put them before anyone else, for once, would that be enough of a change? Would that still be enough, would—

“And I was talking with my husband about it, and he was worried about how that would affect his business—he has a liquor store, you see—and we were so pleased that—”

She just. She had. She had to. She just had to. She just. 

“—nothing was going to change, and he told me, which I want you to know, that you really are the people’s princess—”

“I’m sorry.”

The woman stopped in the middle of her sentence, as startled by Twilight’s sudden interruption as Twilight herself. 

“I’m sorry,” Twilight repeated, every word like pulling teeth, but she had to, please, for once. She could feel her voice shaking. “But I can’t really speak right now.”

“Oh. Princess, I’m so sorry! I’ve been rude!” the woman said, and just when it looked like she was going to back off, she spoke again, because Twilight Sparkle was the people’s princess, and what she did belonged to the people. “Is everything all right?” 

She shouldn’t have said anything. 

She shouldn’t, not just because it wasn’t anyone’s business but her own, but because she didn’t know this woman, and next thing Twilight knew, her business could be leaked for tabloids all over to proudly display as front page news. 

But she said something regardless because it hadn’t felt real before, and she needed to say it for it to feel real.

“The love of my life just left me after five years.”

Silence. 

The woman’s eyes softened. When she reached out and squeezed Twilight’s shoulder, Twilight couldn’t even be bothered to be annoyed by how brazenly her personal space was just invaded, because she was too busy being crucified by the woman’s next words, haunting her the entire train ride back to Canterlot and probably for the rest of her life. 

“Oh, Princess, I’m so sorry,” said the woman. “I didn’t even know you were dating.”