“What’s your favorite memory, Star Sparkle?” the voice of the ancient Canterlot ghoul echoed slightly off of the walls of her room as she asked herself this question.

She hummed in thought, pushing the wheelchair that had been fused with her body towards the table that held the Fancy Colts Snack Cakes her old friend, SteelHooves, had recently brought her. “I’ll have to think about that one over dinner.”

She chuckled at that. She didn’t need to eat, not really. The Pink Cloud that had mutated her two-hundred years ago ensured that. But the physical and mental changes that the omnipresent cloud had bestowed upon her were distant and peripheral facts. Irrelevant subjects that most certainly didn’t help her answer the question at hoof.

“What’s your favorite memory?” Star Sparkle asked herself again as she picked up one of the snack cakes with her magic. She would have done it with her forelegs, but they too had been fused into the leg-rests of the chair.

Star Sparkle took another detour in the realm of thought. How unhinged would she sound to anyone that didn’t know her? What would they make of her if they heard her speaking to herself? SteelHooves’ friend, the nice little mare named Littlepip, had already been given quite a shock when Star Sparkle had confessed these eccentricities to her.

“Well?” Star Sparkle pestered herself impatiently. She ignored the question. Instead, she projected her doubt onto the precious snack cake. Raising it to her mouth, she bit down and tore apart the plastic packaging with her teeth. Her doubt was skinned alive. Pushing the snack cake out of the plastic, she yanked the pale-yellow cake out with her teeth. Her doubt had its heart cut out.

She may have sounded like a mad-mare, but these conversations and games with herself were the only things keeping her sane in the isolated ruins of the Ministry of War-Time Technology’s headquarters. If the ghouls in Stable City refused to take her back in fear of her daughter’s possible involvement with the creation of the alicorns that had once lurked outside, then Star Sparkle would steal these talks between herself and herself without regret.

Chewing on the stale cake, a light bulb lit up above Star Sparkle’s head. “I have an answer for you. I can tell you what my happiest memory is,” she proclaimed proudly. “It was my wedding.”

Like a wave of pure dopamine, the memories flooded Star Sparkle’s mind. In them, the sun still shone and she was young and alive. A time when the smell of fresh roses still existed in the world. Standing before her, in one of Canterlot’s ancient gardens, was the smiling blue stallion she had proposed to after a year of courting him. Night Light.

The ceremony was short. Attended only by their closest of friends and relatives. And that was okay. Once they placed the wedding bands on each other’s horns and they were pronounced mare and colt, they realized that all they ever wanted was each other.

And so their lives went on in perfect unison. They had a son, Shining Armor, capable and bright who they had always done right by. With him, they would spend their days teaching and guiding him to the path in life that would give him happiness, and spent their nights living the unspoken promise they had made at the end of their wedding.

Back in reality, Star Sparkle smiled. She nodded to herself, agreeing that, while it had lasted, the life she had lived seemed to work. But if that was the truth, why didn’t she feel complete? Why did the sense of failure gnaw at the base of her skull?

When she saw the curtain that covered the hidden half of her room, she understood a fraction of what had gone wrong. Using the same caution one would use to handle a balefire megaspell, Star Sparkle grabbed the edges of the curtain with what little magic she had left and pushed it out of the way.

Tears welled in Star Sparkle’s eyes as she choked on her own gasp.

Her daughter stared at her. It had taken two-hundred years to gather the items that crowded the shrine that encompassed that half of the room, and the result were the accusing eyes of a thousand knick-knacks and posters begging for an answer to the question that ripped Star Sparkle’s heart in half. How could you forget me?

The only memento built in her daughter’s image that seemed to forgive Star Sparkle was a smiling statuette, the words “Be Smart” written at its base, standing arrestingly in the center of the collection. Yet this only made things worse for Star Sparkle. Unable to pretend that the statuette held anything but forgiveness exposed an inability to forgive herself.

This time, the wave was of adrenaline that drowned her in anxiety. This time, the sun shone less brightly in her memory.

There was another foal born after Shining Armor. This one a filly, born in the late afternoon on a day when Celestia had chosen to remember her sister with a prolonged night. As Night Light and Star Sparkle coddled the newborn they had created through each other, a name, seemingly shaped out of the ether and the zeitgeist of the world, was spoken by both parents.

Twilight Sparkle.

The ensuing onslaught of memories were not slow like the wedding or Shining Armor’s colthood. No, they were as fast as the light from the stars themselves. Twilight playing games with Cadence -- her foalsitter and Shining Armor’s future wife. Twilight running home from the Summer Sun Celebration -- carrying a newfound love for magic. Twilight spending her nights reading -- searching for lore that could help her better her abilities.

And Twilight losing control.

Star Sparkle’s mind ceased to race as the image of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns warped into view. Twilight, now a filly, stood on the blue and white tiles of a pristine classroom; trying with the strength of all of her magic to pass the school’s impossible entrance exam. Hatch a dragon’s egg for the dispassionate and unimpressed teachers.

There was a boom.

The light of a rainbow rushed through the room.

Twilight’s eyes shined white hot.

And in an instant, Star Sparkle and her husband were turned into potted plants. It was an experience Night Light refused to speak of for the rest of his life to anypony, and when Star Sparkle had told her friends, begging them for understanding and comfort, they only laughed and asked, How bad could that be?

It felt like her coat became fire. In the form of a potted plant, Star Sparkle had thought all of her limbs had been cut off, and all of her organs torn out. But once the synapses bounced off of cold clay, and the fire turned into ice, the emptiness kicked in. She had no nerve endings. No senses. Not even the basic capability to form a clear train of thought. With each second that ticked by, the snapshot of the tapestry that was Star Sparkle’s soul faded just a little further.

There was another flash of blessed light. Star Sparkle was a pony again.

As her eyes adjusted, she saw that the dragon egg had hatched -- a tiny, purple dragon grabbed its own tail. Saw Celestia herself stand in the center of the class -- speaking to Star Sparkle’s daughter. And Twilight listening intently -- totally unaware of the torture she had wrought.

Star Sparkle regained her sense of self, and her composure, just in time to hear Celestia tell Twilight, ...I’d like to make you my own personal protege here at the school.

Twilight was unsure, and looked to her mother for guidance. Star Sparkle’s heart raced as she remembered what nothing felt like. Well? Celestia asked patiently for Twilight’s decision.

Fear prevailed.

With a wave of her hoof, and a nod of her head, Star Sparkle let her daughter go. As her daughter celebrated, Star Sparkle thought of what to do next. This will pass, Star Sparkle had thought to herself. I just... I need to go home. Stay safe. I’ll see my daughter after Celestia makes her... better.

Then everything fell apart as Twilight Sparkle discovered her new cutie-mark. As the filly danced and shrieked with delight, Star Sparkle found that staying stoic and keeping her smile were next to impossible. She would rather curl up and die than stay for an extra second. Yet, somehow, she stood her ground.

Twilight ran to give her mother a hug, and with one simple action, Star Sparkle killed everything.

She stepped back.

With that smallest of reflexes, Twilight’s smile faded, replaced by an understanding her new status quo. Her mother may have loved her, but above all else she now feared her. The revelation passed from daughter to mother, and Star Sparkle tried to make amends. She tried to fit an eternity of affections into ten seconds, but Twilight Sparkle could not be consoled. Instead, the young filly walked away, leaving her sobbing mother in her father’s forelegs.

What Star Sparkle had seen of Twilight’s life was scattered now. Scant letters that spoke of friends in a place called Ponyville that Star Sparkle would never meet. Briefly meeting the dragon hatchling, Spike, who Star Sparkle felt had become like a son to Twilight. The beginnings of a great war that Twilight had grabbed by the horns.

And...

“What’s your favorite memory now?” Star Sparkle whimpered, searching for a memory between herself and her daughter that was of equal worth to the one that contained her wedding.

“Oh... oh, merciful Celestia. No...”

Whether it happened as a result of the Pink Cloud, or if it was just a side-effect of her age, didn’t matter. It didn’t change the thing that made Star Sparkle pray for forgiveness.

She had forgotten the last time she spoke with her daughter.

The thunder clouds roiled and fell to pieces as the three Enclave Raptors -- sleek, black skyships with an appearance not unlike that of a bird of prey coated in steel -- pierced through the storm itself.

From her seat in the Raptor named Nacreous, Captain Rolling Thunder was the mare that led the formation towards the Canterlot Ruins. It wasn’t the first mission she had carried out for her Grand Pegasus Enclave -- the scar that ran down her ruined right eye, a gift from a dragon she had slain years ago, testified that -- but it was the most ambitious.

The order to destroy what remained of Canterlot had been given to her by the High Council itself, and signalled the beginning of something called: “Operation Cauterize”. But these were inconsequential details to Rolling Thunder. After years of hunting and killing living beings -- people, not just ponies, who had friends and family and destinies -- she had discovered that curiosity would only hinder her performance.

She no longer questioned commands, choosing instead to see herself as a spearhead; a weapon fit only to brutalize the threats that could possibly topple her government.

Rolling Thunder’s ruthlessness was a fact that everypony under her command had learned at one point or another. And while it had previously allowed them to make sense of her, now -- as the Raptors took their firing positions and waited for permission to launch their missiles -- it only served to perplex them.

Rolling Thunder was not giving the signal for Canterlot’s execution.

Despite its weight-nullifying enchantments, the armor Rolling Thunder wore became very heavy as she studied Canterlot through her Raptor’s slightly foggy windshield.

What’s the point? Rolling Thunder’s burgeoning conscience wondered. Someone much worse than me already did this job.

Ignoring the other pegasi’s anxious inquiries over the intercom, Rolling Thunder closed her eyes and confronted her ugliest memories.

Pegasi ghouls devouring her mentor after he had mistakenly flown their Raptor into Cloudsdale. Branding Dashites and sending them to the hell below as a display of loyalty to her fellow soldiers... and discovering that the dragon she had killed was only on the mountaintop to raise its children.

She still lost sleep when she remembered carrying out the order to massacre the hatchlings.

Rolling Thunder opened her eyes and saw a new world. I can end this, she realized. I can leave, and my troops will follow. I can choose to stop this.

Then she remembered who she was.

Rolling Thunder closed her eyes once more, pushed the traitorous thoughts out of her mind’s eye, and fired first.

Star Sparkle ignored the deafening blasts that demolished the supports that held the city of Canterlot for over a millenium after the sisters Luna and Celestia had founded it.

It was obvious that they weren’t there anymore.

All that mattered to Star Sparkle now was finding her last memory of Twilight Sparkle. This was the one. This one held the key to her forgiveness. Her heart, through its furious and futile attempts to pump out the pink rot in her heart, told her so.

Clenching her jaw as she dissected her old mind, Star Sparkle struck upon more memories of her son and husband. Star Sparkle held them, and considered carefully reliving them. The walls to her room crumbled, crushing the tchotchkes of her daughter. As her life was swept away, realization dawned on Star Sparkle. Her life was finally ending. She was out of time.

Star Sparkle tossed aside the last moment she spoke with Shining, singing to him as he wept in her hooves, his private terror that the world would end being too much of a burden to hold by himself. She didn’t even remember the song.

Tossed aside the last day she had seen. The last time she had seen Night Light, as he pushed her wheelchair to safety and the Pink Cloud consumed him whole. All that registered now was the pitch of his scream.

If forgiveness meant cutting her soul to pieces, then she would gladly render herself asunder.

Star Sparkle closed her eyes and coughed as powdered rubble showered her, a byproduct of the falling chunk of ceiling that missed her by inches. Good. Death could wait. She was close to Twilight’s memory.

Almost...

Almost...

Nothing. The memory was gone.

Star Sparkle’s tears wiped away the mist of her mind and the grime of the real world seeped into perspective. Ghouls crying as they fled the Stable that they had called home for over two-hundred years. The groan of the remaining supports losing their integrity. And the vertical shift in gravity that followed, violently throwing Star Sparkle to the ground.

As Star Sparkle recovered, there was a soft click as something else hit the floor.

Twilight’s statuette had fallen off the table and rolled towards her. The sounds of the falling city seem distant now. Star Sparkle reached out to grab the figure built in her daughter’s image, to hold it as tightly as possible, but her forelegs refused to move. For a moment, she had forgotten that they had become as immobile as the chair they were welded to.

The tears flowed again. Helplessness crushed Star Sparkle as her magic failed her. The stress would not allow her to form a coherent spell. She faltered, but only for a moment. Star Sparkle would not be deterred. She would find a way to climb this mountain.

Desperation prevailed.

Using her teeth, Star Sparkle grabbed the floor and pushed her body forward by inches. The pain was incredible. Nails being driven into the pockets of gum holding teeth that chipped in the pattern of a spider-web. Something in her protested that her teeth would be scraped into powder before she reached it. She ignored it.

Another explosion, one far closer than all the others, jolted Star Sparkle and the statuette into the air. Time froze as she saw the statuette soar, like a bullet in molasses, away from her.

“No!” Star Sparkle screamed. The spell came back to her. Pink light wrapped around the figure. And even as time sped back to normalcy, the statuette still flowed at a snail’s pace. Though this time, it floated back to Star Sparkle.

Placing the statuette next to her head, Star Sparkle nuzzled it for comfort. In an instant, a surge of white-hot magic emanated from the words: “Be Smart!”

At long last, Star Sparkle remembered.

Star Sparkle sat in her wheelchair. Alive, free to move her legs and surrounded by the blue library in her old home.

To her chagrin, while new and shiny, the chair was cramped and felt like it was never meant to support equines. But when the same could be said for the state of the world, Star Sparkle was powerless to complain.

Star Sparkle adjusted her reading glasses, strained her eyes, and attempted to read the book that lay on the desk in front of her. She found that she could only gloss over the dull words.

She only cared for the indentations made by small hooves that had held the book tightly during the book’s frightening moments, and the little rips in the pages made by a rush to get to the next chapter. All made a lifetime ago.

There was a knock on the door. Star Sparkle sighed, guessing that Night Light had returned and forgotten the keys. It had happened more than once in his old age.

Star Sparkle slowly and magically rolled the wheels of her chair towards the door. The knocks grew louder and faster, almost youthful. The wheels stopped moving as Star Sparkle opened the door. She was greeted by a purple dragon the size of a large stallion blocking the small doorway.

With a smile, Spike waved his claw and said, Hi, Grandma!

Even though his fangs would have been enough to frighten off any other pony, Star Sparkle saw past that. Star Sparkle was focused on his inadvertent admission of a theory she had held for many years. Twilight had raised him as her own son.

Star Sparkle smiled back. Hello, Spike. It’s been so many years... she hesitated ...is Twilight with you?

Spike gave her a reassuring chuckle. I don’t go anywhere without her. You know that. She’s right behind me!

Spike moved out of the way as quickly as he could, careful to not step on the potted roses near the entrance, revealing a purple and world weary unicorn.

Hello, Star Sparkle, Twilight said on accident, the formalities of life in the government did not translate well into her civilian life.

Mentally kicking herself, Twilight turned her attention to the dragon next to her. Spike, I think you should go find Dad. You haven’t seen him in a while, and I’m sure there’s a lot you two have to talk about.

As Twilight said this, Star Sparkle saw a disconnect between her and Spike. A feeling of cold where there should have been warmth. A pale version of the relationship with her daughter.

Spike looked down, solemn. Sure. No problem. I’ll give you some space.

He walked away, into the streets of old Canterlot, and past unknown ponies who feared him like they feared the dragons in the news.

Will he be all right? Star Sparkle asked Twilight, worried for her adopted grandson’s safety.

They fear him, Twilight answered, seemingly referring to the whole world. They wouldn’t dare lay a hoof on him.

And if they do, Twilight continued, trotting into her old home, then they’ll find that I’m the real dragon.

Star Sparkle shivered. Twilight... what do you need?

Twilight inhaled and thought out her words. Mom... Twilight exhaled, I need to move you out of this house.

Why? Star Sparkle asked, now more offended more than she was scared.

I’m scared. The war is... there have been some complications with it.

The zebras, Star Sparkle asked, fueled by paranoia from the of the Ministry of Image’s propaganda, did they decide to activate their megaspells?

No. Of course not. But they can. They always can... so we have to be ready. We all have to do our part.

And what will you do?

Everything I can, mother! There are things, things you couldn’t even comprehend, that I’ve done for the preservation of life itself!

Twilight... what have you done?

Twilight paused. Her fury now tranquil, yet still present. This mare that she had once called mother had almost discovered a secret that Twilight was sworn to defend to the death just by asking. No. That was unacceptable.

Spike and Night Light -- chatting amicably -- walked through the open doorway. Star Sparkle’s daughter turned to leave.

Goodbye, Star Sparkle. I’ll send one of Luna’s guards to help you move in.

Come on, Spike. We have work to do. Spike begrudgingly followed Twilight back to the Princesses. And Star Sparkle held onto her husband, just like the last time she had turned Twilight away.

Star Sparkle held her breath. Maybe, just maybe, if she didn’t weep, she could break this cycle and her daughter would come back.

Star Sparkle was wrong.

This memory wasn’t her happiest. All it was was the last one with her daughter.

Nothing more.

Star Sparkle reeled with a sharp gasp, and there was a pause in existence. As if the world and time held their breath for her benefit. One final mercy.

“Twilight, my happiest memory,” she sobbed. “I love you so much.”

Canterlot avalanched off the side of its mountain. “I’m so sorry.”

The room imploded. “I failed everyone.”

There was cold, then there was warmth, and a voice from a better place spoke through the chaos, “You didn’t fail anyone, Mom. Not when we will always love you.”

Star Sparkle smiled one last time.

Then there was only darkness.

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