you or nothing at all [end of TEL re-imagined from Rarity’s POV]

To say that I’d moved on wasn’t correct. 

To say that I’d let her go wasn’t right, either. 

The truth of the matter is that I had learned to live around her absence.

I suppose it’s like losing a limb. You will never have it back, you will always know it’s gone, things will always be different, but with time and patience, things will become normal again. 

Not the same. Never the same. But normal. All right. Okay. 

My heart had learned to navigate blood around its missing parts, my brain learned to accept and tune out the endless thoughts of Her, and my soul learned to thrive despite the hole in its center. 

It was a fact of life that I would always love Twilight Sparkle, that she was my person in so much as a person could be mine, and that I was likely never to see her again, but this fact no longer hurt. I was okay. I was at peace. 

I would find someone else. I would love someone else.

Just as it would be someone else who would help her. One day, I didn’t know when, decades or centuries or however long it took into the future, someone would break Twilight free, and I would have nothing to do with it, and for once…

For once, finally, that didn’t hurt. 

It was all right. 

As long as it happened, which I had faith that it would, as long as one day she was allowed to be happy and thrive and exist outside of the prisons that tormented her, both physical and mental, then I could learn to live and die with the fact that she was gone from my life. 

“Yanno, I think we should buy more bread.”

“What, so you can eat all of it again?”

“Hey, don’t talk back to me! I’m practically your boss, bug.”

“What?! Since when?”

I’d been staring at fruit for two minutes now, the bickering Rainbow Dash and Incantation trailing after me, the latter trying to be helpful and the former trying to turn the Dreamland’s larders into her personal pantry. 

I wasn’t paying much attention because I was too busy deciding what I wanted for the fruit salad I’d been craving for a few days. Though it felt vitally important for me, and it was in that moment, you could be forgiven for considering it a really rather trivial decision. 

It was so trivial. The day thus far had been so trivial. 

Tell me, what’s that thing they say about a watched pot? 

“You know, maybe I’ll just have a plate of apples.” I picked up a particularly red one in my hand and turned it over. “Do you two like apples? Hm?” I prompted when neither replied, and when I turned to look at them, I found only Incantation frowning off into the distance. “Where did Rainbow Dash go?”

Ink blinked at me. “Huh? Oh! Uh.” She gestured towards the distance. “She went to check on something?”

I looked towards where she was pointing and found Rainbow Dash several stands away, speaking in hushed, hurried tones to somebody hidden from view.

“I think something’s wrong?” Incantation said. 

“Hm!” I flicked the apple back into the basket and marched towards my friend. “Let us see, shall we?”

“Okay, okay, no worries, okay,” I could hear Rainbow saying the closer I got, catching a welcome glimpse of Pinkie and Professor Awe talking with her. “We’ll figure this out, just, uh—”

“My, my!” I exclaimed with gusto, my several bags of purchases floating behind me. “What is going on here? A social gathering I wasn’t invited to? How dreadful.”

One by one, three sets of eyes landed on me, two of them terrified, and Pinkie’s? Pinkie’s looked haunted, which I suppose is expected of an executioner about to bring a hatchet down. 

“Uhhh.” Rainbow stepped forward hurriedly, panic in her voice. “Rarity, hey—”

But my concern for Pinkie was faster. “Pinkie, darling, are you crying? Sweetheart, whatever’s the matter?”

Pinkie simply stared. Mute. 

“Miss Rarity,” started the Professor, “I think—”

“Pinkie, but you’re shaking! What’s wrong?” I exclaimed, my concern for her tripling at once. I was upon her at once, reaching for her. “Darling?”

“I’m—” The words came out suffused in horror. “I’m sorry, Rarity.”

My bags floated down the ground. “Sorry? Sorry for what, dearest?” 

I didn’t know. It didn’t even occur to me. I say this because I want you to see, want you to understand how at peace I finally was. I’d moved on. I’d let go. 

Or, well, I thought I had. I told myself I had. 

God. 

I had. 

“I tried to answer,” she said, stammering through a horror unlike she’d ever known. “I tried to come, but it—I—” She choked on her own words, eyes blurry with tears. “Rarity—”

“Tried to answer?” I repeated, still at a loss until my eyes landed on her bare neck, and then further down as the world fell away when my sight ended on the necklace clutched between her hands, the crystal the same dull, haunting pink glow. 

If it glows, if she reaches out, I’d begged her the day I gave it to her for the sake of my own sanity, find me immediately, please. Swear it. 

I promise!

“Ah.” 

“I’m sorry,” Pinkie continued, destroyed, “it started glowing, and— it stopped really fast and—” She could barely get the words out. 

I wish I could tell you what I thought. I wager I could come up with something if I tried, take a stab at painting a portrait of my mind in that precise moment, but the truth is, I wasn’t thinking anything. I couldn’t think of anything, because the entire world had become a great, loud buzz filling up my thoughts. 

I could only act. 

I could only feel. 

Feel the shaking of my hand as I lifted it towards the necklace. 

Feel the tremor in my voice as I asked, “May I?”

 I’d forgotten how light the necklace felt, you know. Forgotten the feel of it in my hand, the silver chain cold against my skin but the pendant warm to the touch, its cracked parts rubbing against my thumb.

I hadn’t held it in so long. I hadn’t held it in, hm, almost a year? Maybe more? 

My beautiful, beautiful necklace, one of only two in the world, so precious to me that I—I admit more than once, when all I had was the dark and its glow—I’d debated giving it the honor of being a beautiful noose. 

I took a deep breath. I tried not to think. I couldn’t allow myself to think because to think was to hope, so instead I breathed in, breathed out, closed my eyes, and as magic enveloped my hands, I murmured our spell. 

Dead silent, everyone watched as the necklace flashed. And flashed. And flashed. And flashed. 

And then stopped after a minute just as I looked up with a smile. 

“Well, then,” I said, every word light, “I suppose whatever you saw must have been a trick of the light.” I handed it back to her. “Here you go, dear.”

“…Rares,” Rainbow said, agonized. 

“Don’t feel bad, Pinkie,” I said, and I meant it. Because nothing had happened. Nothing had happened, because for something to have happened meant I would have hope once again, and if my hope was unfounded, I didn’t think I’d come out of it alive a second time. “It was just an honest mistake.”

“But it wasn’t a mistake,” Pinkie protested. “I—I saw it—”

“Pinkie,” I said. “It was a trick of the light, wasn’t it? Think.”

“…Yes. Yeah! Yes, it was!” Pinkie said, as tears burned her cheeks. “I miss her so much, I totally tricked myself into thinking she called! Oops! Right, Professor?”

Professor Awe said nothing. He only stared at me, then spoke: 

“I think we should go to Ponyville,” he said, every word careful. “Isn’t the Dreamland closed this week?” When I said nothing, he insisted firmly but kindly, “it would be prudent even for a trick of the light.”

Eternity passed by. 

“Fine,” I relented in a whisper, even if I knew nothing would be different. 

But I’ve found I know so little. I talk such a big talk, walk such a big walk, but at the end of the day, so many things I thought I knew for certain have time and time again been proven wrong. 

I thought, for example, that Twilight Sparkle was gone. 

The necklace now glowing in Pinkie’s hand, however, told me that Twilight herself thought better. 

And didn’t she always? 

It happened so fast. 

It happened so, so fast. Professor Awe gasping in surprise, Pinkie screaming, and before I could process it, the necklace was shoved into my chest, into my waiting hands. 

I just stared, paralyzed. 

She was calling. I thought she was gone. She might as well have been dead, I thought she was gone, the haunting was done, and yet there she was, the ghost of the Everfree Forest come back to life. 

“Answer it!” Rainbow yelped, her voice snapping me back to reality. “Answer it! What the hell are you waiting for?!”

Terrified, because I was, I was terrified, I murmured the enchantment, magic pulsing from my hands, every single part of my being afraid of what would happen next. Or what might not happen. Or what—

Ping!

There was a split-second of quiet, of relief, followed by pain as, in an instant, a symphony of foreign, panicked thoughts crashed into me, overwhelming me completely.

“Rarity?!” I could hear Pinkie call as I bowled over in pain, someone’s arms wrapping around me as I fell. “What’s wrong?!”

It hurt, my entire body—or was it hers? Ours?—was ripped through with a choking, agonizing magic unlike anything I’d ever felt, clouding me so completely that I couldn’t form a single coherent thought. 

But instead, a voice cut through the pain. 

“…Rarity…”

I heard Rainbow yelp as my nails dug into her arms, every ounce of rationality left in me holding on to dear life, tears burning my eyes, because I’d forgotten. 

How could I have allowed myself to forget the sound of her voice? 

“…Rarity, I can’t,” she said, again, every syllable agonized, every word despairing, every word resigned, and it was only when she spoke again, saying her last goodbye, that I came to. “I’m sorry.”

A long time ago, the two of us seated atop a bookcase, I asked if she could take over my body. We were sharing a mind, after all, and the mind ruled over all, so it stands to reason that she could control my actions if she so desired, did she not? 

I remember how she hemmed and hawed. 

First of all, she’d said, frowning at me, control was not the word. Control meant overriding and taking agency away, whereas the spell relied on an emotional bond so close that what both wanted or what only one of us wanted would be one and the same. 

“But,” she continued, “to actually physically influence the physical body of someone, even with the spell, you’d have to—it would have to be a show of willpower that’s almost irrational. Like survival’s instinct.”

“Ah,” I remember saying, “an ‘it’s either this or death’ sort of thing.”

“Sort of, yes. It’s either this or death.”

I had found her library. I had found her books. I had fought dragons, faced the spirit,found Princess Luna, survived a bloody curse, seen who she was, what she deserved, loved her, loved her, loved her, went through hell and beyond for her, and she was saying sorry to me? 

Nothing mattered anymore. The pain fell away, the world fell away, who I was fell away, everything so distant and so far, as all that remained was my will. Rushing, overflowing, furious, because she—

She was giving up? On me? On us?

On herself? 

Every inch of us screamed in pain as I began to move. 

But not me, I should clarify. Me, Rarity, in Hollow Shades, stayed still, clutched in Rainbow Dash’s arms. 

But hundreds of miles away, past a sleepy town, past a cursed forest, down a trapdoor, into a tunnel, and on the other side of a black barrier, I stood up and slammed her hand against the barrier. 

“No.”

Either this or death.  

The chaos magic was not pleased by this, and just as fast as we’d stood up, I felt its agonizing grip return, pushing away whatever willpower I’d given her. 

I couldn’t save her. If I could I would, I would gladly fight her demons again and again and again, but the truth of it all wasn’t just that I wasn’t there with her, but that her prison was precisely that. 

Hers, kept in place with her own two hands, blindly believing a terrible story the Spirit of Chaos whispered in her ear so long ago. 

No matter, I thought, as I pushed memories into the forefront of our minds, I’d just have to tell her a new one. 

One after another, I recalled my most cherished memories of her. Meeting her in the library, wondering if I was dreaming. My delight at showing her a camera, and my horror when she dismantled it then somehow improved it. My silly giggling when first she smiled at me, or how I spent my first trip in Hollow Shades completely homesick over her. The first time we used the necklaces. When the chaos magic first attacked us, and while arguing over each other’s safety, I told her I loved her. 

I thought of almost a year ago, days before I left for Hollow Shades permanently, when I visited her for what I believed was the last time. 

“Twilight,” I’d said, my head pressed against the barrier, “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m leaving. Pinkie and Princess Luna need me, and I… I can’t stay, Twilight. I can’t save you. As much as I may want, I can’t… I can’t fight this battle for you.”

Once upon a time, I did not believe in Princess Twilight Sparkle. 

But now I did, and even if it was the last thing I did, so would she. 

A quiet intensity washed over me, but before I could understand it—

Ping!

The connection died, and when I opened my eyes, four friends staring down at me with wild, terrified eyes, the only thoughts in my head were my own. 

“Rarity?” I could hear the panic in Rainbow’s voice, which quickly became a startled yelp when I turned around and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her. “Rarity?!”

“The library!” I gasped, frightened tears filling my eyes. “We need to go there now, she’s in trouble!”

“Now?” Professor Awe said. “But, we can’t. The next train for Ponyville doesn’t leave until tonight.”

“No!” My voice felt entirely alien. I felt like I was possessed, running on adrenaline. “Tonight is too late, we need to get there now! We—” My eyes landed on Rainbow’s wings, tucked behind her back. “Take me.”

She blinked. “Wh-What? Ra-Rarity, stop!” she yelped as I shook her once more. 

“Take me to the library! Fly me there!” I demanded or pleaded or begged, I truly do not know. “Rainbow, please!” 

“Me, too!” shrieked Pinkie Pie, practically launching herself at Rainbow, the two of us gripping her like she was the only thing keeping us alive. “Rainbow!”

“The—The two of you?! I can’t even fly one of you. Are you insane? Ponyville is miles away. What do I look like? A friggin’ packhorse?!”

I could hear the cracks in my voice. “Twilight is in danger, Rainbow!” 

“I know, Rarity! Fuck!” And I could hear the cracks in her voice, as well. “But I can’t! I can’t carry you all the way there, I’d be wiped before we even make it halfway!”

“Uhm… Ahem?”

One by one, four sets of eyes darted towards the changeling awkwardly standing to the side. 

“Uhm. So. Er.”

What startled shrieks came out of several rubberneckers when, before our very eyes, my lovely assistant transformed into a large, strong golden-colored pegasus. 

“…Neigh?”

You remember when I was cursed? A long, long time ago, after I’d met with Princess Denza? I took the train back to Ponyville that same night, not knowing if I would ever see Twilight Sparkle again, and I remember thinking… 

I remember vividly thinking that was the longest trip of my entire life. And it was. 

Until now. 

We soared through the sky, Incantation pulling a little wagon carrying two women who could do nothing but hold hands, pick a deity and pray as they watched a third one cast a communication spell again, and again, and again. 

With every second she did not answer, my terror grew. 

She could be dying. Or, she could be possessed again, the barrier still there, never leaving, never going down, trapping her there forev—Gods. 

“I see it!” Incantation called out, elation in her tone. “I see Ponyville!”

The reaction was immediate, the three of us turning to the edge of the cart and practically leaning completely out, trying to glimpse my hometown. Just as Incantation said, Ponyville came into view on the horizon, but whereas Rainbow and Pinkie focused on the town, my sights were set on the large oak tree standing tall amidst the forest beyond. 

“Look!” Pinkie exclaimed, pointing down at the town. “Everypony’s having a big meeting!”

“What, whe—What the hell? Is that Spike?! What the hell’s he doing in the middle of the town?!” Rainbow turned towards Incantion and me. “Hey, we should probably go check it—”

“No!” I barked, not wanting to be rude, but by the stars, I could not care less about whatever announcement Mayor Mare was probably making. “We’re going to the library, and nowhere else!”

“Okay, okay! Geez!”

“Okay,” Ink said next. “Hold tight!” 

She plunged down towards the forest and Twilight’s tree, the cart pummelled by errant branches from the trees all around us. Ours was not a graceful landing by any stretch of the word, Incantation colliding against the bottom of the library’s sinkhole, our poor cart following suit and us with it. 

“Ooooh!” Pinkie said in a daze, staring up at the tree from her sprawled position. “There’s three trees now? Neat!”

I scrambled up to my feet, rudely—I admit, but really, I’m sure you understand my situation—failing to even inquire if Rainbow Dash or Incantion had all their limbs intact as I rushed to the trap door, only to find it already sprung open. 

And only then. 

Only then did I think: 

Did… 

Did she get out? 

“Oooough,” I heard Incantation groan, the changeling returned to her humanoid from the shock of impact, half her face bruised. “Never… doing that… again….”

My better instinct called for me to go to her, even as my heart demanded I throw myself down the trapdoor, but any attempt to help was thwarted by Rainbow Dash running to Incantation faster than I could think. 

“Rarity,” she said next, gesturing with her head to the trapdoor. “Go! I’ll take care of stuff up here. Go and make sure the princess is okay!”

“But—” I hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Rares! Go!” Rainbow said, sounding almost exasperated at me. “You’ve been waiting a long time, now’s not the time to worry about us!”

Throwing them one last glance, I turned around, cast an illumination spell, and rushed down the stairs, the pounding of my feet almost in tune with my heart, both frenetic and intense and both coming to a complete stop when I reached the bottom of the stairs and saw the state of the tunnel. 

“What—” 

The word tumbled out of my mouth, my eyes scanning the dozens of shattered inkwells all over the ground, their ink splattered everywhere like someone had used their entire body as a brush. My black cloak from Hollow Shades was still there, no longer neatly folded but completely undone, crumpled against the stairs. 

“Oh my stars,” I whispered, panicked, still for a moment before springing towards the library, the name bleeding out my lips, “Twilight?!”

Darkness permeated my beloved library, the only thing cutting through it being my own spell’s light and Twilight’s necklace glowing on the floor, near the tunnel entrance. 

I quickly picked it up, searching in vain for any sign of its owner. 

“Twilight?” I called out, desperate. “Twilight?!”

“Star, light, please!” I said next, and again when nothing happened, and when a third time resulted in the same, my panic only grew. 

And grew as I stepped further into the foyer and found tables completely overturned, and then the panic reached its peak when I saw rows of bookcases tumbled onto the floor and each other, the entire place a disaster area. 

“Oh, my stars, oh, my stars, oh, my stars,” I whispered and then yelled out, climbing on top of overturned bookcases, running on them and the uneven bridge they’d created. “Twilight?!”

Was she even still there? What if Discord took her? What if she left? Where would she even go? 

“Unless—”

I looked back towards the tunnel entrance, thinking back to whatever was happening back in Ponyville. Maybe she was there, but… what if she wasn’t? I looked back towards the bookcases, heavy and suffocating anything beneath them. If I left to Ponyville, and Twilight was buried beneath these bookcases, dying, I would— 

“Twilight!” I screamed, afraid of making a choice. 

If I left…

If I left and then I couldn’t come back in again, I would die. I knew this for a fact, I would die, I would not survive it twice. 

But maybe I wouldn’t have to be the one to decide, my attention caught by the distant sound of Rainbow, I assumed, running down the stairs.

“Over here!” I called out, desperate, jumping down a bookcase and doing an utterly miserable job of lifting it even an inch. “Come quick! I need your help with these!”

A moment passed, and before I could yell again, a voice that belonged to none of my travel companions hesitantly called out my name.

“…Rarity?”

Not for the first time that day—frankly, not for the first time in my life, and certainly not for the last time—the sound of Twilight’s voice arrested me entirely. 

There is a very unique kind of fear that comes with being on the verge of getting something you’ve longed for as desperately as the day is long. In my case, it was the fear it wasn’t real, that if I dared act, dared call back, this would all reveal itself to be a dream, a fantasy. I would wake and find out Twilight was just as I’d left her. 

Six feet under in every way that mattered, my dying heart entombed alongside her. 

“Rarity? Where are you?” hesitantly called out the ghost of my past, Lady Death herself. “It’s me.” Apprehension poured out of the cracks in her voice as she clarified, “Twilight.”

Silly, I might have said, if I could even speak.

As if I wouldn’t recognize her voice in this life or the next.

The bookcase complained under my weight as I climbed back on top of it, and so did the next and the next as I carefully ascended the rising platforms they’d created, using the vantage point to sweep the dark for her. 

It wasn’t until I reached the last bookcase, right at the edge of the foyer, that I could somewhat make out a figure standing by the tunnel entrance. 

It looked like her. It seemed to be her. It felt like her, but it wasn’t until raspberry magic enveloped her right hand and a burst of magic shot out towards and past me that I knew it was her. 

I stepped back, surprised, but kept my eyes on her—only her, always her— even as I heard a clanging noise near me and saw a candelabra float up in the corner of my eye, its branches twisted in every direction. 

“Star,” I said, gently, “light, please.”

The candelabra continued its path towards the ceiling before transforming into a chandelier, a soft light bathing the library and revealing the damage in its entirety. Revealing the library for what it was—not a neat archive for books and secrets, but a prison, its interior finally matching the fractured psyche of the woman it was meant to keep locked up. 

There she stood, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and what a sight she was. 

Her long lavender dress, once pristine and elegant, as impenetrable as its owner, was now a tattered mess, ripped in parts and covered in a black substance I only belatedly realized was ink, much like what I could see of her wings peeking out. Her face fared no better, half of it smeared in ink, her beautiful hair a complete mess, and her expression…

Even from there, still so far away from her, I don’t think I’d ever seen Twilight look that terrified. 

I also could not tell if she was translucent, try as I might, my narrowed eyes doing little to improve my vision. 

“Rarity, I…”

She cut herself off, her hands balling into fists. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking down, looking away. “I’m sorry about all the things I said, Gods, I—”

Why? I didn’t even remember. I didn’t even care anymore. She was there. 

My stars, she was there. 

“I don’t… I don’t expect you to forgive me,” she continued, pushing the words out, not allowing them to breathe. “But I promise I didn’t mean them, I—I was angry, and scared, because of—” Her voice shattered, but she continued, ever the brave princess I knew. “—Because of Cadance, and—and—and Shining, and then your scars, and how you almost died, and I was terrified because—”

But even brave little princesses faltered, and when she fell to her knees, her face in her hands, I could barely make out the rest. 

“Gods, I’m sorry,” she begged, “I’m so sorry.”

A loud crack rang out in the room, and she looked up to find I had teleported a few feet away from her. I wonder if she noticed how effortless it was. What’s the point of practicing teleportation, I’d said once in a dream, if you won’t be there to be impressed?

Well, so much for that, no?

I stepped towards her, my terrified gaze glued on her, my heart practically beating out of my chest. I couldn’t see through her. Every inch of her looked physical, tangible, and even on the floor, gods, she had a shadow. 

Her hands lowered in rhythm with my body, kneeling before her while her own hands gripped each other. 

Blood stained her cheeks. 

“You’re hurt,” I whispered. 

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Why? Sorry for what?” I asked immediately, and though I did not sound angry, if maybe just a bit harrowed, she still flinched as though I were. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

She looked at me, bewildered. “But—I—” She swallowed visibly, no longer able to hold my gaze, instead staring down at her hands and their white, white knuckles. “Okay.” 

She was quiet a moment. 

“Rarity,” she began, so ashamed, “I—”

Her sentence died a death as gentle as my hand on her chin, her wide eyes meeting mine as I lifted her gaze. I don’t know what she’d expected. In truth, I don’t know what I’d expected either, but as my hand moved on, fingertips grazing her crimson-black cheek, never in my wildest dreams had I expected her to be so soft. 

“You’re here. You’re actually here.” I felt like in a dream. “You’re free, Twilight.”

How she shocked me when her expression hardened, harrowed. 

“Free? That—That doesn’t matter, Rarity, I—” Tears rolled down her eyes. “Don’t you hate me?”

“Hate you?” I took my hand back, my brow furrowing. “Whyever would I hate you?”

“Because of what I said?” Twilight asked, horrified and bewildered in equal measure. “Because I told you that meeting you was the worst thing that ever happened to me?”

I could feel my voice faltering only just. “…And am I?”

“No.” Her conviction returned, and for the briefest of moments, my Twilight was back, as fierce and determined as ever. “You—You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Rarity, I—” Now it was her hand that held mine, gripping it tight. “I love you.” 

I had always known, of course. We both had always known, but to hear it said? 

“I love you,” she repeated, and as she let go of my hand, her sunforsaken anxiety joined us once again. “And I think you loved me, too, but I—I messed up again, and it’s been—” Her gaze went to her hands, unable to look at me, the weight of everything hitting her all at once like it had once hit me. “It’s been two years, and I said horrible things because pushing you away was easier than losing you, and now you—” She could barely get the words out, but if Twilight Sparkle was something, it was stubborn. “You probably don’t even love me anymore, and I don’t blame you, and—”

“Twilight,” I said, softly, and when she kept staring at her hands, I continued. “Look at me.” 

She did as I asked, blinking at me with frightened, tearful eyes. 

There was so much I wanted to say, and yet all I could start with was fixing something decidedly wrong. She watched as I reached into my pocket and fished out her necklace, the pendant glowing as fiercely as ever, and when I leaned in and snaked it around her neck, the clasp closing with a click, the poor dear froze at my touch. 

The pendant dropped onto her chest, and when I pressed my hand against it, I felt her heart speed up. Felt every single thump of a heart that was as much mine as it was hers in every way that mattered. 

“Twilight, you can push me away. You can lock me out. You can tell me awful things, you can do whatever you want, all manner of things, but—” When I locked eyes with hers, I finally felt tears burning my eyes. “No matter what you do, no matter what it is, I will always love you just the same.”

I’ve said once or twice that Twilight, at times, had a very particular way of looking at others, like she’s not simply seeing you, but examining you, understanding you, undoing you and putting you back together in her mind. I’d never met anyone with such an intense gaze, and so often I told myself it was because she was a princess, a leader, a monarch, what have you. 

Now, I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but… 

But as she finished taking in my words, her gaze stripping me bare, finally perhaps believing what was before her, she looked every inch the intimidating monarch she was. 

And when my entire world came to a stop when she leaned in to kiss me, my hand tightening around her necklace in shock as she snaked her fingers in my hair and pulled me close, desperate and in love and desperately in love, well, it wasn’t really very royal of her, but…

Oh.

Oh, princess. 

A thousand times over for that kiss.

A thousand times, in this life and the next.

She stayed there even as the kiss ended, the two of us so close, and when I spoke, our lips brushed, salty with our tears. 

“Oh, Twilight Sparkle, you silly little princess,” I whispered, clutching onto her necklace like my life depended on it, my other hand at home on her cheek, her own hand over mine. “If you only knew how much I’ve missed you.”

“I’m sorry. I’m here now,” she said, and she kissed me again, apologetic, gentle, and when she spoke again, her voice broke. “I’m sorry it—it took me so long. I just—I—”

She allowed it when I pulled her into a hug, and it was only there, in the safest place she would ever be, all but cradled in my embrace, that she finally let herself cry. 

“Oh, my darling, it’s all right. It’s over,” I whispered, holding her close as she wept. “I’ll make sure no one ever hurts you ever again.”

And they wouldn’t. 

On my life.