what have we become

Just tell me, oh, tell me the truth
Tell me you’re too scared to lose
Everything that we made
While our dreams wash away in the rain
Darling, oh, what did you do, love?

If my life in the future was plagued by isolation, my return to the present was everything but. If it wasn’t my friends coming to see me daily, it was my parents and my sister, the latter having been allowed to live in my boutique when just the notion of being separated from me after her first visit sent her into a full-blown panic attack.

If it wasn’t them, it was doctors, men and women coming in and out to administer tests, do check-ups, be horrified by my complexion and rattling off dozens upon dozens of instructions that Twilight dutifully committed to memory. It was only for her that I agreed to see them even if they overwhelmed me. It assuaged her guilt over Sombra having taken me, I think, so I let myself be poked and prodded and inspected if it meant easing her soul. 

Besides, they were far from being the most difficult thing to contend with in regards to my return. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna took that particular role. 

I couldn’t blame them. Their duty was to Equestria above all else. Princess Celestia, at least, was kind and full of concern, much more adept than Princess Luna at hiding her frustrations over Twilight militantly insisting I needed time to rest before I was interrogated over my excursion. 

It’s been over a week, I heard Princess Luna whispering once outside my door. We need to know what happened to her!

Princess, I won’t repeat myself, Twilight snapped back. I was grateful she wasn’t there to see me flinch at the harshness of her tone. Whatever happens in the future isn’t going to happen in one week. 

It was a few days after that that I myself asked to speak. My friends were scattered around the room, on chairs and on my bed, and the two princesses stood tall and imposing—Celestia with her arms behind her back, and Luna with hers crossed firmly over her chest, both with their imposing wings folded behind their backs. The only thing between me and them was Twilight, sitting on a chair in front of me, her gentle expression at odds with the ones behind the two jurists towering behind her. 

I told them I was shot millennia into the future. I told them Equestria was in ruins, ruled over by a tyrant alicorn empress named Andromeda. When they asked me where she came from, I said I did not know. When they asked me what had happened to the current alicorn princesses, I said I did not know. Even despite Princess Luna’s growing frustration, any question over who Andromeda was and how she came to be, my answer was the same. All I knew was that her rise to power was a consequence of Sombra’s actions, but that since he was defeated, her rise to power would no longer happen. 

“But why did she send you back?” asked Twilight. 

“I don’t know,” I lied, standing firm even as Princess Luna stomped her foot on the floor. 

“That can’t be your answer to everything!” 

“Well, it is, because it’s the truth,” I insisted. 

Earlier, right before I started to talk, I debated telling them the truth. Not about what had happened and what our kingdom had become—I always intended on being honest about that—but being truthful about just who was responsible. Then I saw Twilight’s deeply haunted expression when I explained the former, and I realized I would have to take the secret of Andromeda with me to the grave rather than let her live with that knowledge. 

“She was a deranged psychopath,” I continued. “You can’t expect me to understand how she thinks!” 

I didn’t care if it upset them, or confused them. Everything was fine. Everything would be fine. I was back, and I had learned, and now I knew my duty was to make sure Twilight would be alright when inevitably we all left her side. Andromeda would not come to pass. 

Twilight didn’t have to find out. 

Twilight was like my shadow. 

The first few days had been the most blatant, her princess-ly side rearing its head as she gave out orders to everyone and anyone, never doing things herself if it meant leaving my side. Bring her this, give her that, call this person, do that thing. 

I was too in my feelings to be overly concerned, feeling very much the same separation anxiety, not really caring that she was in every room I was in, constantly coming over to affectionately give me a kiss—because she missed me, she said, even if we both knew it was to reassure herself I was actually there. 

It wasn’t until the second week that I started to notice. And worry. 

Worry over, oh, I don’t know, how, for example, I couldn’t go to the bathroom without her knocking at the door every two minutes I was in there. Or how I’d walked in on a harsh conversation between her and Rainbow Dash just in time to hear Rainbow hiss, “Are you going to put her on a leash next, or what?”

Or. 

Or, how I could wake up at any time—any time—during the night to find her awake, her hand clutching mine, insisting she’d been asleep minutes ago, really, and scoffing when I told her she shouldn’t keep herself up, and rolling her eyes when I told her I’d still be there in the morning. I wasn’t worried about that, she’d reply. I’ve never slept very much. You just don’t remember. 

It wasn’t until I realized she was letting herself go both thirsty and hungry if it meant less trips to the bathroom, where I would be out of her sight, that I finally confided in Fluttershy, desperate for her counsel.  

“You need to give her time,” Fluttershy said, her hands folded over her lap. “She…” She smiled, damning me when she spoke, “She loves you so much. She’d do anything for you.” 

She didn’t understand why I quickly cut our conversation short, why I asked her to please give me some space, I was simply not feeling well all of the sudden.

Twilight Sparkle loved me. And it would be her death. Was being her death. Had already been her death. 

I wonder if I did this to myself. If, as a child, reading romance novels and playing pretend, petulantly insisting I was the most beautiful and smartest and deserving-est, I didn’t wish for someone who loved me more than life itself, and a cruel trickster god found it funny to find a monkey and break its paw in reply. 

I tried to tell her. Gently at first, nudging her for space. Then more insistently when gentleness bore no fruits, and then harshly when she reacted defensively, affronted by my annoyance at her concern—and no doubt shamed by it, as well. I think she knew it was bad. I think she could feel it. 

“I just—I wouldn’t be so—We don’t know who this Andromeda person is, Rarity,” she’d insist with no small amount of aggravation, the few times she relented against her own rules and poked at the future. “We don’t know why she brought you back. What if it’s a trick? Then what? What if she brought you here, and it’s a trap, and she’s coming back for you, and—”

“She’s not,” I cut off, just as aggravated as she was. And just as sure. 

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” I replied immediately, too in the moment to censor myself. 

She drew herself up a little, her brow furrowing into a line, her tone very level. She reminded me of the princesses. She reminded me of Andromeda. 

“…You said you didn’t, Rarity. Several times in fact. You said you didn’t know what her plan is, or why she–”

“I-I—I mean, I don’t! I’m just—It’s a feeling. She wouldn’t trick—”

“Oh?” There wasn’t a single emotion in her voice. In twin violet eyes, fixed on me, narrowed ever so slightly, the empress stared back. “You said she was, and I quote, a psychopath.”

“I know what I said, Twilight!” I snapped, loud, startling us both. “I just know this isn’t a trick! She isn’t coming back. Maybe even psychopaths can have a change of heart! Maybe she decided to be good in the end.”

Twilight’s expression changed. Emotion flooded her, but not exactly concern or suspicion. Surprise. “You’re defending her?” 

“No.”

“It—” She cut herself off, the surprise gone from those eyes, replaced instead with a deep stare. In twin violet eyes, a thousand thoughts and assumptions rushing behind them, Twilight Sparkle stared back. “Okay.”

“…Okay?” I asked, surprised. 

“Okay,” she replied, sounding defeated, even as she continued to stare with that stare that would split atoms and bring about the end of the world if it meant understanding them. “I believe you. And I’ll try to let you have space.” She smiled apologetically and reached to take my hand, squeezing it softly. “Okay?”

“…Okay,” I replied. 

She kept her word. 

Day by day, even if it would never be the same, we returned to a routine like the one we had once. I’d get to work on my clothes—I never thought I’d design again, and it was with tears that I realized that designing still came to me as easily as riding a bike—and she would get back to her work, helping lead the kingdom in the wake of Sombra’s defeat. 

“I thought they were planning on having you take over the kingdom?” I asked her once, the two of us in bed, Twilight lying on her side, my stomach the chalkboard on which she wrote invisible equations with an index finger. 

“They still are,” she clarified, frowning slightly when I interrupted her maths by trapping her finger in my hand. She moved it, and continued her writing. 

“…Oh. I thought they were going to do it soon. As in, soon soon,” I elaborated, remembering Princess Celestia once privately telling me it would be good I start deciding if Canterlot might be a place I’d like to move to. Of course, that was a month before Sombra’s attack. 

As if she’d read my mind, Twilight replied, “Sombra’s return changed things.” 

“But it’s been two years since you defeated him, hasn’t it? I hope they haven’t changed their mind.”

“They haven’t.” 

Her right hand, supporting her head, was buried in her hair, itself cascading down past her shoulder like a waterfall. I found myself getting just that little bit lost in staring at her. 

It isn’t exactly that I’d forgotten how striking she was, but Andromeda had wiped most of my memories of her. The Empress had always carried her long hair pinned back and tied down, where it was out of the way and most efficient to deal with, emphasizing a face that had grown jagged and edged with time. She was beautiful, mind you, but beautiful in the same way a carved statue was beautiful. Beautiful stone-cold skin, beautiful polished edges, beautiful empty eyes.

“I asked them to delay it for a few more years,” she continued, brushing her hand over my stomach as if erasing a slate. She didn’t protest when I took her hand in mine. She simply observed our intertwined hands, rubbing her thumb against my skin. “I needed time.”

“Time for what?”

“To figure out how to live without you.” What she said was romantically tragic, and when she looked at me with soft playful eyes, it should have been tragically romantic, but instead all I felt was my stomach twist on itself when she added, “You can’t exactly rule a kingdom with your emotions getting in the way.”

What was just some idle, if a bit grim, thinking to her quickly turned into contrition when she noticed my stricken expression. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked at once, her hand squeezing mine. 

“That’s a terrible thing to say, Twilight,” I whispered. “Why would you say that?”

“I—I don’t… I’m sorry, I was just thinking out loud. It doesn’t mean anything,” she said, contrite. “It was just a thought. I didn’t mean to upset you. ”

“You didn’t,” I replied eventually, my anxiety melting away. Control, Rarity, control. If I had asked Twilight to let go, so should I, shouldn’t I? Or was I going to always keep poor Twilight at the mercy of my fear of a version of her that would never come to pass. “I’m sorry, I—” I moved over, buried myself in her, grateful when she wrapped her free arm around me. “I think emotions make us who we are,” I finished quietly. 

“Emotions make us who we are,” she repeated slowly, then added nothing more. 

She visited Canterlot a lot, much more than I remembered her visiting before my disappearance. 

I’d hoped it was to discuss her taking over from the princesses—not because I particularly wanted to move to Canterlot, or even felt ready to support Twilight through such a change, but because it would at least mean things were going back to how they should be. As far as I knew, Andromeda was never willingly granted control over Equestria, but rather took it by force when she’d removed so much of herself that all that was left was the gaping hole in her soul that only total control could fill. 

I think I’d been back for about… four months? About four months. I’d settled into some semblance of normalcy, and people had largely stopped asking me about the future, either out of boredom or respect for how clearly uncomfortable talking about the subject made me. 

The only one who would ask was Twilight, and even then, it was far and few between. I tried to indulge her when I could, if only so she didn’t suspect I was hiding something, and because I did feel sorry that most of her questions were met with ‘I don’t know’. 

It was about four months in when she took a week-long trip to the capital, explaining she and the princesses had been discussing certain diplomatic matters for some time, and the elder alicorns wanted her to spend some time so they could go more in-depth about it. 

I spent the entire week Twilight was gone mentally organizing a party to celebrate her impending new title. I designed the decorations, picked the music and food, envisioned the floral arrangements, wrote out the guest list, and, of course, sketched out our dresses. 

I brought them with me to the castle when I went to meet with her on her return, especially after being told by a guard that Princess Celestia and Luna had come back to Ponyville with her. 

Stepping into Twilight’s private library, where they were gathered, I expected to find the princesses looking delighted, and Twilight looking like a frazzled overthinking mess.

Instead, I found two older sorcereresses looking decidedly grim, and a younger one standing up to greet me with an unsettlingly sweet smile. 

“Rarity!” Twilight said, stepping towards me, drawing my attention away from the two princesses staring holes at me. “Hi.” 

“…Hello,” I said, cautiously, eyes darting to and fro between the three of them. “Is this a bad time? I can come by later?”

“You will stay,” Princess Luna harshly commanded, her tone softening only just when Princess Celestia shot her a glare like I’d never seen of her before. “Please,” she added.

“Rarity,” Twilight said quickly, her voice strained, clearly trying to make up for whatever had just happened. “What Princess Luna means is that… well, they were hoping to ask some more questions about the future, if that’s all right—”

“Twilight,” Luna hissed. 

“If that’s all right with you,” Twilight repeated, loudly. And then gently, just like Princess Luna had, “please.”

I swallowed, an awful feeling settling in my stomach. “Yes, of course,” I said, even as every inch of me begged me to do the opposite. But I pushed it down, calmed it. I could do another interrogation. I could handle it just fine. “Now?”

“Yes,” Twilight said. “But I’d like to talk to you alone first.” She glanced back towards the princesses. “Is that okay?”

Though it was phrased as such, her tone did not indicate it was a question. 

“Of course,” said Princess Celestia, offering me a look so kind it frightened me. “We’ll wait here.”

Twilight led me away, into her office, and I spoke as soon as the door shut.

“What’s going on?” I asked, taking care to sound confused, watching as Twilight strode across the room and stood before her window, a hand gripping the windowsill. She said nothing for almost half a minute, her gaze lost in the horizon. “Twilight?”

“Sorry. I was putting my thoughts together.” She turned, looked at me for a moment, and smiled warmly. “I missed you.”

“…I missed you, too.” I glanced back towards the door. “But, what do they want to talk about?”

Her smile vanished. “Right.” She gestured to a chair, magic wrapping it and pulling it out behind me. “Sit?”

“I’m fine standing.” 

She smiled sweetly. “I would appreciate it if you sit down, please.”

That awful feeling in my stomach multiplied, expanded until it was all-consuming, but I did as asked and sat down, crossing my arms as I watched her walk over, her magic placing a second chair in front of me, which she promptly occupied. 

She extended her hand towards me. “Can I hold your hand?”

My first instinct was to say no. Not because I didn’t want to hold her hand, but because something hissed inside me to not make it harder for me to flee if I needed to. But I was innocent and hiding nothing, so I leaned forward and grabbed her hand, twisting my face with that façade of genuine confusion. 

“Darling, what’s wrong?”

She held my hand in hers, as warm and affectionate as the expression in her eyes, until her hand tightened around mine, and her expression did as well. 

“I’m not upset,” she said, composed. Loving. “Or angry. I understand why.”

“Why what?”

She smiled again, and it was loving, certainly, but more than anything, paralyzing me to my seat, it was compassionate. It was patient. 

“Rarity,” she said carefully, “you need to tell me how I become Andromeda.”

My mind left my body. I think all of me left the plane of existence we resided in. I was no longer there. 

“…What?” It came out as a whisper. 

She smiled at me. It was gentle. How could she be so gentle when asking something so horrible? 

“You need to tell me how I become Andromeda,” she repeated, and now it was two hands that held mine. “It’s okay.”

“You’re not.” The words came out, still a whisper, still entirely alien, until everything shot sharply into focus, and my voice found harsh strength just as my mind returned to my body. “You’re not Andromeda.” 

She sighed. “Rarity, there’s no use—”

“You are not Andromeda,” I repeated, and terror gripped me when her own grip around my hand tightened. “Twilight. Let me go.”

“Rarity.” Her voice was level. Like she knew. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She didn’t let go of my hand, even as her voice reeked of patience. “Please. Don’t lie.”

“No. I am not lying!” I protested, accentuating this last word by yanking my hand out of hers, my chair complaining painfully as I pushed it back so I could stand. Every part of me was shaking from a fear I struggled to pass off as anger. “Have you gone mad? Where is this coming from?”

“Rarity—”

“You? Andromeda? Do you realize what you’re suggesting?!”

“Yes,” she said, quietly, and her look of resignation was such, it’s a miracle I wasn’t sick then and there. “Yes, I do.”

I would not cry. Even as my eyes burned, even as my chest screamed, I would not cry. A single tear and I would be finished. 

“I told you! I don’t know who she is! I don’t know where she came from! She was already there when I arrived! She’d been there for eons, Twilight! You think someone kept, what, a detailed record of her history for me to find?”

She said nothing. She just watched me. And a worse thought occurred to me. 

“Is that why Celestia and Luna are here?” I asked, forces beyond my own keeping me stable. 

If the princesses suspected Twilight, if they thought it was her—what about her coronation? Her future? Was she going to lose everything for the crimes of someone she was never going to be? 

“Because if they are,” I continued, shaking, “you can tell them they’re all also mad, and I cannot understand how any of you came up with such a serious accusation.”

“Ages ago, before Princess Luna wielded the moon, the Arimaspi named the stars,” she said, her eyes set on mine. “Andromeda was the name of the brightest of a cluster of six stars they saw, and—The mark on my back is a star surrounded by five more.”

“Are you insane? Twilight.” My hands balled into fists. “You think you’re Andromeda because of your mark resembling some dots in the sky?”

She laughed. She actually laughed. 

“No, I don’t. I mean, it helps my case, but that isn’t why. The reason is more because not only do you think I’m stupid, you also think I don’t know you at all.” 

“Ex-cuse me?”  

Her expression softened. “I’m sorry,” she said, sincerely. “I’m not trying to—” She cut herself off and let out another heavy sigh. “Can you please sit down again?”

“No.”

She nodded. “Okay.” She then stood up, facing me at my level a moment before turning around, towards the window again. I knew she was gathering her thoughts. She had always been a pacer. It was a fundamental part of her, so much so that it was a habit that remained with Andromeda. “You’re one of the smartest people I know. You can read people as easily as I read ancient books. You know how to figure things out.” 

“What are you getting at?”

“Well.” She turned, leaning against the window. “You’re taken to a terrible future. Equestria is gone, and the princesses and I aren’t there, and now there’s this psychotic empress who’s taken over. There…” She unfolded her arms, her palms pressed against the windowsill behind her. “Rarity—”

“I told you there were no records!” I protested. 

“So? Books aren’t the only way to get information. You know this better than anyone. Multiple times, you’ve gotten wind of some gossip you cared about, and I have watched as you got your information, no matter who stands in your way, no matter what you have to do to get it.” She paused. “Rarity, there is no world where you did not find out who Andromeda is and what happened to us and how everything went so wrong. There just isn’t. Am I wrong?”

I would not cry. 

I opened my mouth, and she continued.

“Sorry, that wasn’t a—that was rhetorical, I—” She pushed herself away from the window, and paced around her desk, riffling papers here and there. “Right. So. You have to know. You have to know what happened. But you’re not telling anyone. So, that means that whatever you found out is so terrible, you can’t let anyone know.”

“Twilight.” My voice broke. “Please. I don’t know who she is.”

She continued, eyes still on her papers. 

“And I can understand keeping it from the princesses. I can even understand keeping it from our friends. But.” She looked up. “I can’t understand why you’re keeping it from me.”

“I don’t keep anything from you,” I protested, and there were the tears. 

“You don’t,” she replied, not angry, not accusing. Sympathetic. She managed a laugh. “I mean, it used to be a problem! For as long as we’ve been together, you’ve been incapable of not telling me everything. Imagine if I were a gossip like you.” The laughter died. The smile faded. Her eyes softened. “So, the fact that you’re keeping this from me is terrifying. Because I can’t imagine what you learned that was so terrible, you don’t want me to know. So, I’m the outlier. I’m what’s different from every other time. Me.”

“Twilight, please,” I choked. “Stop, I—”

“So what I thought was protecting everyone else now becomes protecting me from whatever you found out about her.” She stepped away from the desk. “About this Andromeda person, who is capable of wielding alicorn magic, who has a name that calls back to my mark, and who you said is a ruthless murderer but didn’t immediately kill or get rid of you.” She paused briefly. “That was the other clue. That, from what you said, she treated you almost like a guest with curfews.”

“I—I don’t—I don’t know—” I fell back into the chair, my face in my hands, hearing as she stepped towards me. “Please.”

“You highlighted it several times. That she never harmed you. That she didn’t keep you locked in a dungeon. You were fine. And that doesn’t make sense with everything else you’ve said about her, unless—Unless she cared about you. Unless you were important to her.” She was right in front of me. I could hear her, and then feel her when she kneeled down, and her hand grabbed my knee. Her voice fell to a firm whisper. “Unless she is me.”

And I knew then that it was over. I was done. 

“I’m sorry,” I said, a whisper too, at first, until I said it again as a sob, and again, and again, and before I knew it, she had pulled me weeping into her arms, holding me tight. 

“It’s okay,” she said, tenderly, comforting me. I remember her resting her forehead against me. I remember the slight shake in her voice. “It’s going to be okay.”

Princess Luna and Princess Celestia stood behind Twilight’s chair as I spoke. Princess Luna’s arms were crossed, and Princess Celestia was holding onto the chair’s backrest, her knuckles white from gripping so tight. 

I couldn’t bring myself to look at them, but the few times I did, there was no other word for their expressions but devastated—especially Celestia, finding out bit by bit what a version of her beloved protegee was capable of. 

I kept my eyes on Twilight as best I could. Not just because I felt I owed her as much, but because it was easier to look at her, her eyes gentle, and her expression encouraging all things considered. She was holding my hand again, rubbing and squeezing it when I choked on my words, or needed a moment to stay composed.  

I wondered, briefly, how she could do that. How could she sit there, the picture of calm, completely unmoored by finding out everything. Was she pretending? Was she holding it in, bottling it up? Or had she already processed it? The days before confronting me, had she already wept in private, away from me, dealing with it alone? I wasn’t sure which option was worse. 

I confess it was horrific. Excruciating. Agonizing. Having to sit there and tell Twilight that some version of her would mourn me and then the rest of our friends so terribly, she would practically kill herself to cope and leave behind a living monster. 

They asked me about the box, and Princess Luna was frustrated by my truthful lack of knowledge about it. Even after she’d regained her emotions, Andromeda told me very little about it, so I didn’t know where she got it from, or who made it. All I knew was she’d acquired it at some point when she was still Twilight and used it to drain herself of her grief, and the rest of her emotions went with it as well. 

I refused when they asked me to sketch it out. I didn’t want Twilight to see it. It was crazy, I am aware, but I was frightened that just her seeing it might affect her in some way, plant the idea in her head, I don’t know, something. I didn’t want to bring that sunforsaken box back in any material and tangible way. 

The three stayed quiet when I finished the real story, telling them about the incident I caused that forced Andromeda to open the box, and everything that happened after that. How she willingly let herself be chained, owned up to her crimes. How I was going to try and repair the future, and how Andromeda instead sent me back home. 

“And then I found Twilight in my room,” I said, exhausted. 

“Thank you,” she said, squeezing my hand. She smiled affectionately at me. “I know this was really hard.”

“Twilight, this box,” Celestia said, her hands still on the chair, “are you sure you have never heard of it?”

“No,” she replied, not looking back at the princess. Eyes still on me, making sure I was okay. “I’m not sure. I’d have to see it, but… No.”

The princess sighed. “Very well.” She lifted one hand and wearily rubbed her face. I wonder if she blamed herself, too, just a bit. Hadn’t she all but forced Twilight into agelessness? “Well. This was a lot. We’ll have to sit down and discuss what can be done during Twilight’s reign to—”

“Twilight’s reign?” Princess Luna interrupted, shocked. Her wings opened slightly, as if in alarm. “There will be no reign. We can’t allow her to reign after this.” She gestured to Twilight and the wings on her back. “If anything should be done, it should be looking into whether her magic can be reverted to unicorn-kind.”

“What?!” I gasped, just as Princess Celestia turned to her sister, her wings fully splaying out as she snapped, “Luna!”

“It’s okay,” Twilight said to me, calm but quick, her hand squeezing mine. She gestured for me to stay in place, and then opened her mouth to speak, but her mentor was faster.  

“Twilight is not Andromeda,” Princess Celestia said, her hand finding its place atop the younger princess’ shoulder, protectively so. “And Andromeda is not something set in stone. She is simply a possibility, which we can now work to prevent. Twilight has done nothing wrong.”

Princess Luna took a moment, clearly reassessing not her stance, but her way of voicing it. “I am aware Twilight did nothing wrong. Yet. But just the fact that this possibility even exists should be enough to give all this pause. If she cannot handle grief, she cannot handle a kingdom.”

Twilight’s grip on my hand tightened. “If I could just—”

“Oh?” Princess Celestia said, her voice ice-cold. “Is that so? And I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about badly-handled emotions turning you into terrible versions of yourself, would you?”

The look on my face must have been something awful, I expect, considering Twilight was now holding my hand with both of hers. “Rarity,” she said, keeping my tearful attention on her, “it’s okay.”

“I didn’t mean—” I whispered. “I didn’t—”

“It’s okay.”

Behind her, the argument continued. 

“But that’s exactly my point,” Princess Luna was snapping back. “I know how dangerous we can be! We have to act now before it happens!”

“By stripping her of the magic she earned?!”

“Enough,” I whispered, before actually shouting it as I stood up, incensed. “Enough! What about you two? Why is she the only one being held accountable? Let’s talk about how no one else helped prevent Andromeda, why don’t we?!”  

“Rarity,” Twilight said, voice strained. She pulled down on my hand. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine!” I protested. “Look at the state I found you in!” I looked back at the princesses, the two quiet against my defiance. “You let her postpone her duties to grieve me? Let her sit there in her misery, trying to find someone who wasn’t coming back, with only the girls supporting her?”

“I’m not their responsibility, Rarity. Their responsibility is ruling Equestria,” she said firmly. “And you did come back.”

“Their responsibility is helping their loved ones!” I shot back. “And what if I hadn’t come back? Then what?” I stepped towards them, and Twilight placed a hand on my leg, wanting me to stay back. “How long were you going to let her grieve? Forever? Until she exhausted herself trying to get me back, and then do the entire thing again when another of the girls died?”

“Of course not,” said Princess Celestia. “But we—”

“But nothing!” I interrupted, two long years of hurt bleeding out. “If Andromeda happened, it wasn’t because of Twilight alone. What she needed was support, and you’re damn well going to give it to her now so she can rule.”

Princess Luna spoke. “What she needs is—”

“What I need—” Twilight stood up, finally letting go of my hand, her voice raised. “—is for everyone to let me speak!” 

We all fell silent as she gave us all a harsh look that faltered slightly when directed at me. I immediately felt the urge to apologize, but I held my tongue. 

“I am not stepping down,” she said, exaltingly calm. “At least, not like this. I haven’t done anything wrong, and I am not Andromeda, and we—” She looked at the princesses. “—are going to assess the situation and every option. And if I need to start grief therapy before I’ve even lost anyone again, then I will. Andromeda is not going to happen. I won’t let her happen. Okay?” 

“I know,” said Princess Celestia.

“…I believe further discussion is a good idea, yes,” said Princess Luna. 

“Okay,” I replied. 

“Great.” She took a deep breath, brushing her hands against her pants, and then turned to me with a polite smile. “Rarity. I’m sorry, but—” She gestured to some notebooks on her desk. “I need you to please write down any information you remember on how Andromeda happened. Anything she told you, or you read, or found out. Any information we can use to prevent her.”

“Now?” I asked, weakly.

“Yes, now. I’m sorry.” Her smile turned apologetic before vanishing outright when she turned to the elder princesses. “As for you two—Please. Try and think about the box. Maybe where it came from or—I don’t know. Rarity mentioned dark magic.” She faltered. “I hate to say it, but we should start thinking of how to destroy it if it ever shows up. You must have some ideas. Prioritize that, please.”

“You think it might show up?” I asked her, my heart tight in my chest.

“I don’t know, but we need to be ready just in case.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Princess Luna. 

“I’m going to go to the kitchen and make everyone a relaxing tea,” Twilight replied, and it awed me that she found it in her to grin. How did she do it? “I think we all need it.”

And with that, and a last reach and squeeze of my hand, she turned around and strode out of the room, closing the door behind her. 

The princesses and I stood in an awkward silence for a few moments before I finally spoke. 

“I’m sorry for raising my voice at you,” I said, because they were still my monarchs and my elders. 

“No need to be sorry,” Princess Luna said. “This is a difficult situation for all of us.”

Princess Celestia laughed wryly. “I’ll say.”

We soon found ourselves immersed in our assigned tasks. They’d taken the seats Twilight and I had occupied, and they were now busy discussing awful sorts of magic and how to stop it. I had taken Twilight’s desk chair, and… did anything but write. I fiddled with her pens, I rearranged her papers, I idly tried to open a large locked drawer in her desk, anything and everything but did as told. 

In truth, I felt awful. I had apologized to the princesses, but the only person I felt actually deserved some sort of apology was the only person who’d managed to keep her temper. 

After five minutes of indecision and guilt, I stood up and excused myself, telling the princesses I needed to use the restroom. I stepped out of the room, into the hallway, and when I closed the door and turned around, I felt my heart break at the sight of Twilight leaning against the wall a little ways away, her face in her hands. 

“Twilight?”

She turned to look at me, and I could see her blinking back tears. 

“Hi,” she said, voice breaking, trying her best to smile apologetically. “I’m sorry. I’m going to be a little late with the tea.”

“Oh, darling.” I wasn’t even halfway to her before she reached out for me with an arm, her legs giving out the second she was in my arms, clutching to me as I maneuvered us down to the floor, both of us in tears. “Oh, Twilight, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry,” she begged into my chest, over and over, neither of us hearing her office door opening. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, oh, princesses, I’m sorry.”

It was about twenty minutes later that Spike came over, having heard crying and finding the princesses huddled around me, Twilight weeping inconsolably in my arms. 

We only told the girls. 

We agreed that no one else had to know, but Spike and the girls deserved to know. I could tell Twilight was terrified when we told them, afraid that they would fear or judge her for something some other version of her did, but her fears were unfounded. They thought the same as me—that she had done nothing wrong, and with help and support, would never become Andromeda. 

But something changed in her. 

She withdrew—not enough to worry me, but enough that I noticed. Distant looks all the time, more lulls in our conversation, and more than once, I found her locked away in her office. She always opened when I knocked, and I tried my best to pretend I couldn’t tell she’d been crying. I think it helped her, to feel like she wasn’t affecting me, even if we knew she was. 

We were never going back to normal. We both knew this. We were never going back to who we were before my disappearance. All we could do is be there for each other as we navigated who we were now. 

When she wasn’t hiding away, though, she was doing the opposite, showcasing her emotions in such exaggerated ways, it bordered on concerning me. She would laugh harder, smile wider, pushing everything to its extreme, as if trying to prove—to us? To herself?–that she still had feelings. 

“It’s weird,” Rainbow told me once, her and Applejack having come to talk to me about Twilight. “Is this going to be forever now?”

“Now, listen here, you need to be patient, Rainbow,” Applejack replied. “It’s like Rarity said. It’s going to take time for her to let go.”

“I wish I could help her,” I confessed, because I was at my wits’ end. “She told me she keeps having nightmares about becoming Andromeda. She says she doesn’t believe she will, but…”

But she refused to sleep in the castle, asking me if we could please just stay in the boutique until further notice. And when she had to do anything relating to her duties—duties that the princesses had agreed she would still retain—she was no longer happy about it. She was constantly stressed, worried, and anxious, enough that I was starting to worry she might step down regardless. 

We developed a silly nighttime ritual, a little conversation we’d repeat once we were tucked in bed. Something to keep us both grounded. Remind her and me that we were fine and would be fine. 

“I am not Andromeda,” she would say, warm under the covers, as if the statement would protect her from any nightmare. 

“You are not,” I’d agree, and then say, “And you know why I’m so certain?”

She’d giggle, rolling her eyes. “Because if I were, you wouldn’t love me?”

“Precisely!” I would scooch over to her, scooping her up in a hug and burying my face in the crook of her neck. “And I love you very, very much, Twilight.”

“I love you, too,” she’d reply, and then we’d stay that way until either morning or her nightmares woke us. 

I prayed for it to end. I wished every night that whatever fear poisoned her would finally leave. And it did, eventually, one terrible, terrible night, about three weeks after she’d found out the truth. 

It must have been three in the morning. I was deep asleep—probably dreaming of some dress I still had to finish—when she shook me awake. 

“Rarity? Rarity. Wake up. Rarity?”

“Twilight?” I mumbled, half-awake. I blearily opened my eyes, clumsily patting my nightstand for the switch to turn on my lamp. Though the harsh light woke me up somewhat, it was not nearly as effective as Twilight’s puffy red eyes and the tears running down her cheeks. I sat up immediately, scooching over to her, wiping her cheeks with my hand. “Twilight, sweetheart, what’s wrong? Another nightmare?”

“No. Yes. I don’t—The box.” She was rambling, her voice cracked with fear. “I can’t stop thinking about the box.”

“The box? You mean Andromeda’s box?” I asked, upset. That stupid, sunforsaken box. How could it still be causing us so much harm?

“Yes. I—I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it, but—” She could barely get a word out. 

“Twilight, breathe. Sweetheart. In and out. In and out.” I waited until she had calmed down before continuing, somewhat reluctantly. I didn’t want to talk about the stupid thing, but not talking about it had done us no good so far, so I was desperate to try something new. “Princess Celestia and Luna are looking into it, aren’t they? I’m sure they’ll tell you more once they have more information.”

“But you—Did Andromeda explain how it works?” she asked me, grabbing my hand, desperate. 

“Why? Why do you want to know how it works?” I asked, perhaps more harshly than I intended. Hurt flashed through her eyes.

“Not to learn how to use it, Rarity!” she exclaimed. “I just wanted—I—” Again, her emotions got the best of her, her face hiding behind her hands again. “I just—I’m not a monster, I—”

“Wait, Twilight, I’m sorry, I wasn’t saying you were,” I quickly said, scooching even further in. “I’m sorry, I’ll— I don’t mind telling you. I’ll tell you, alright? Darling?”

 She nodded, and it wasn’t until I pried her hands off her face that I continued. 

“I don’t know a lot about it,” I said, and she nodded, listening. “She didn’t really talk about it, before she opened it and after. She said she used it to lock her emotions away.”

“And they—they stayed there?” she asked me. “She couldn’t just open it and take them out? Were they locked there forever?”

“No, she had to—I found it once, and I couldn’t get it open. It didn’t even look like it could open,” I explained, trying to focus on the box and not Andromeda tonelessly threatening me with death for having touched the cursed object. “She used some sort of dark magic to open it again, I think. I don’t know.” 

“You couldn’t open it?” she asked, and I could see the gear in her head turning, the kind of look she gave me when something I said wasn’t making sense. “But—What about the emotions? Did she say how she put them in? Was it all at once? Could she take them out after putting them in?”

“I don’t know,” I stammered, taken aback by her rapid-fire questions. “She’d done that hundreds of centuries before I even met her.”

I was startled when she grabbed my wrist.

“Think, Rarity. Please,” she asked, insistent. She faltered, and then continued, “What if it was gradual? Did she mention that? If she put her emotions in it once, and then took them out, would that be okay? Or did that mean she—did that affect her permanently, was it not reversible, did—”

“I don’t know, Twilight!” I exclaimed, suddenly frightened by the directness of her questions. By how detailed they were. “And I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Who cares whether it’s reversible or permanent or all at once or any of that? Why does any of this matter? That box doesn’t exist. You are never going to be near it.”

I’d hoped that was the end of it. I’d hoped she would let it go. But instead she leaned back, covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes filled with tears again, and if I had ever felt dread before in my life, it paled in comparison to what I felt when she spoke next.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Oh, stars.” She doubled over on herself, hands wrapped around her stomach, like she was going to be sick. “Oh, stars, I—”

“…Sorry? Sorry for what?” I whispered, pale. “Darling.” Now it was me who grabbed her wrist, urgently, my nails digging into her skin from sheer panic. “Darling, what have you done?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, her hands now covering her eyes again, her voice breaking. “I know how she got that box.”

The world fell away. I think my heart stopped. I wish it had. That would have been easier to deal with. 

“How.”

“Because I already made it,” she whispered, and she looked up when I immediately let go of her wrist, inching back in horror. “Rarity,” she pleaded, agonized. “I—”

“Where.” All emotion had drained from my voice. “Where is it?” 

“My office in the castle,” she whispered. “In a drawer in my desk where I—Rarity! Wait, please!” she begged as I launched myself off the bed and out of the bedroom. “Rarity!”

I wasn’t born with pegasus wings, but it certainly felt like I flew down the stairs. I didn’t even bother putting on a robe or slippers. I ran out of the boutique barefoot and headed straight for the castle towering in the distance, ignoring the several late-night people who asked what was wrong as I ran past them in my nightgown.

On a good day, the walk to the castle took me fifteen or twenty minutes. That night, I do believe I was flinging open the private access door to the castle less than seven minutes after I’d left my house, my chest searing with pain from the exertion. 

I could barely breathe by the time I got to her office, every exhalation coming out heaved and panted. I leaned against the frame of the door, trying to gather myself enough to act, maybe a minute or so, before once again rushing to the desk, examining it through eyes blurry with tears. 

Twilight’s desk, hidden underneath its usual coating of books and paperwork organised by urgency, source, and subject, had three drawers at one side. One for her stationery, its neighbour for stationery overspill, and below them, bigger than both put together, the Permanently Locked one.

Evidently, it did not open when I pulled on it, just as it hadn’t opened when I’d been playing with it weeks earlier. The sudden realization made me sick. How many times had I been in that office since my return? How many times had I sat at Twilight’s desk, blissfully unaware of what was less than a foot away from me? 

It was after the third try that I turned to desperate measures. I was not Twilight Sparkle. The magic I possessed was more adept for levitation and illusions and some minor illumination. I could not use it to lockpick a drawer, or to even blast it open. 

CRACK!

The stone statue of a unicorn on her desk would have to do. 

I must have looked deranged. I certainly felt deranged, kneeling by the desk, slamming the statue against the drawer over and over again, the horn breaking off the poor unicorn as the wood splintered and eventually gave out, the lock coming with it. 

I dropped the statue to the side, pulled the drawer open, and—

And there it was. 

There, at the bottom of the drawer, was a black box, glowing with raspberry magic. I admit, it was not exactly as I remembered it. Andromeda’s box glowed with a sickly green and yellow dark magic, was etched with runes and alicorn symbols, and had no visible opening. This one, on the other hand, was just a magic black box, with a keyhole and hinges, and only one or two runes on it. 

A prototype. 

CRACK!

And now the box met the floor, again and again and again. But it wasn’t breaking. No matter how hard I slammed it against the floor, no matter how much strength I used, the box persisted. It survived without a single scratch. 

“Why—!” CRACK! “—won’t—” CRACK! “—you—” CRACK! “—BREAK?!”

“Rarity, stop, please!”

I looked up to find Twilight by the frame of the door, eyes red, out of breath, a robe wrapped around her body, and my own robe and slippers tucked under her arm. If circumstances were different, I would have laughed. I would have been charmed that, in the middle of this horror, she had enough composure to robe herself and bring my own things with her. 

But, you see, that struck me, too. 

That she did, in fact, have enough composure for that. 

That, in fact, in fact, in fact, so many times in the past few months, I was impressed by how well she’d handled learning terrible things. How well she’d handled her emotions. 

“Twilight,” I said, grabbing the cursed object and standing up, “you’ve already used it.”

Not a question. A fact.

She didn’t reply, but the fresh tears in her eyes were answer enough. 

“How many times?” I asked her, trying my best not to faint. “How many times have you used it?”

She stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. “Rarity, please.” She sounded so frail. Hanging by a thread that was quickly strangling us both. “I—”

“How many times, Twilight?!” I screeched, and she flinched when I threw the box against the floor, every part of me wracked with fear. 

“I don’t know!” she exclaimed, but she did know. She did know, which is why she collapsed against the wall, her back sliding down it until she was on the floor, face in her hands, and she confessed, “Just a f-few times—”

Just a few times. 

I stumbled towards the desk, grabbing onto it for support. Just a few times. Four or five times. 

“It—It wasn’t meant to be forever,” she continued, helpless, looking up at me with desperate, beseeching eyes. “It doesn’t—It doesn’t work like Andromeda’s. My box—It doesn’t even matter that it’s a box, it could have been anything, I just thought that was more symbolic, I—It helps tone them down. I just needed them to—Just so I could think and work and—Just so I could think, I promise. And I—I stopped as soon as you told us about Andromeda, but—”

I somehow turned paler. “So, you’ve used it since I’ve been back?”

“Yes. But I stopped as soon as I realized, I promise! And my—my box, it just tones emotions down! It doesn’t remove them.” She was desperate. “It doesn’t. I don’t know how you could even do that.”

“Well, clearly, you’ll find a way!” I snapped, so enraged I didn’t notice the hurt in her eyes, nor the guilt. Nor how she flinched. All I could see now was Equestria ravaged, and Twilight turning into Andromeda, and her empty eyes and empty expression as she mercilessly destroyed lives. 

“I’m sorry,” she managed, the words cracking. 

I didn’t listen, too busy looking into the drawer and noticing diagrams and sketches and research. I grabbed one of the papers and was horrified to realize it was a journal entry detailing how she felt after using the box, and it was clinical and to the point. Twilight but not Twilight. 

“These things, are they your research on it?” I asked her quickly, gathering them up. “Twilight?” She must not have heard me, her face still buried in her hands, so I slammed my foot against the floor. “Answer me, Twilight!” 

“Yes!” she exclaimed, still not looking at me. “Yes.”

“And is it all of them?”

“Yes,” came the muffled repetition.  

“Are you sure?” When she still didn’t look up, I raised my voice so she would. “Twilight Sparkle, look me in the eyes and swear to me this is all of it!”

“Yes, Rarity!” she said, finally looking up. “Yes! Why? What are—Rarity!”

To her credit, she didn’t stop me as I slammed the door open with my magic and ran outside, through the hallway and into a small library where a chimney was kept perpetually lit with magic fire. 

I wish I could say I felt relief when I threw the papers in and watched them burn, but that would be a lie. There was no satisfaction, no letting out a long breath, just an all-consuming panicked anger that persisted even minutes later as I watched the last of the papers turn completely to ash. 

We forget so many things when choked by emotions. We forget who we are, what we stand for, what we hate, and what we love. I forgot myself, completely incinerated by my fury at what Twilight had done, that I didn’t remember who I was and who she was until I stalked back into her office, ready to continue my yelling, and instead found her sniffling and curled up against the wall—not a towering genocidal maniac, but the love of my life, looking so small and afraid, having made a misguided choice in her attempt to shoulder enormous grief by herself. 

I felt terrible. I felt very, very awful all of a sudden, watching her clutching my robe which she’d brought so I wouldn’t be cold. 

I suppose there is something to be said for the fact that, even if it was under the influence of that box, not once had she ever turned on me or been anything but gentle. Even when she found out I had been lying about something as serious as her being Andromeda, she never once raised her voice at me. Emotions turned down, her compassion and love still shone through. 

“I’m sorry,” she pleaded, completely broken. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t hate me.”

That was enough to snap me back together. The fact that she thought such a thing was even possible. That I could hate her in that or any universe. That I didn’t know in the darkest deepest pits of my soul that, had I stayed in the future, a part of me would have loved Andromeda solely because she was once Twilight Sparkle. 

“Hate you?” I stumbled towards her and then fell to my knees, gutted, all the more so as she hugged her knees closer to herself, as if afraid. “Twilight, I could never hate you, I—” I grabbed onto her legs, pressing my forehead against her knees, wetting her pajamas with tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I was afraid, and—I’m sorry.”

“What if… What if she’s right?” She was still curled up on herself. “What if Princess Luna is right? What if I do need to step down?”

“No,” I said. “No, you don’t need to. Unless you want to. Is that what you want?”

“No,” she replied weakly. “I don’t want that.”

“Then you shouldn’t.”

“But the box,” she said, hidden away. “When they find out, they won’t… There’s no way they’ll let me keep being a princess.” 

“Can you destroy it?” I asked, soft but firm voice, wishing she would let me in. 

“Yes,” she sniffled. “It’s just—It’s just my magic.”

“Then we will, and they’ll never find out.” I heard her whine, so I shook her knees. “They don’t have to find out.”

“But that’s not right,” she insisted, and she looked up briefly enough I was able to see her eyes before she buried herself back into her knees. 

“Then we tell the girls. And they can decide if you should be given a chance or not. Not the princesses, but them. All right? Stars knows we’re the ones who’ve been protecting Equestria as of late.” When she said nothing, I squeezed her leg. “Darling?”

I felt like I waited ages before she offered me a whispered, “Okay.”

I hoped that was the end of it. I prayed it was. But Twilight Sparkle is not one for letting go. 

“Maybe I am a monster,” she whispered. “Maybe it’s too late.”

“No, Twilight. You are not Andromeda,” I insisted, and I meant it. “Do you know why I’m so certain?”

And it was only then, as she finally lifted her face just enough so I could see my favorite violet eyes, that I felt real relief when she asked in a very small voice: “Because you love me?”

“Precisely,” I whispered, and the relief became tenfold when her knees finally moved away and she pulled me in for a hug, our foreheads pressed together, her wings wrapping around me. “And I love you very, very much, you silly little princess.”

“I love you, too,” she replied with a shaky breath, and I think I finally believed we might be okay when she laughed and said, “Enough to become a psychopath, I guess.”

“You’re going to be okay, Twilight,” I promised her, my hand against her heart. 

“I don’t think I’m going to be okay for a long time, Rarity.” She let out a long breath and again, another laugh. “But maybe not forever this time.”

“So long as I’m alive, you are going to be okay.”

“And after?” she asked, softly. 

I smiled, affectionately brushing back her bangs. “Well… after I die, I don’t think you’re going to be okay for a long time, darling,” I told her. “But you will still be Twilight Sparkle.”