“Could you tell me why?”

The white alicorn tapped into the ley lines of the universe, her soul pulled toward a higher plane of existence. The orb of light felt as an extra limb, carried and set aside at a whim yet never an unusual vestige of her body. And of course, she felt the purple alicorn floating beside her in the void, connected as they were, tied together as much by their proximity as by any simple objective truth.

In a time gone by, these things were given names—Celestia, the sun, Twilight—but names were a necessity back then. In that era there had been a grand sphere, nothing compared to the scale of the void yet extending further than the eye could see. Upon this rock lived innumerable smaller creatures, who lived in thousands of cities, who feasted upon hundreds of plants, who gazed upward at billions of stars.

Now was a simpler time. There were the alicorns: these two and two others. There was the orb of light. There was the orb of dark. Simple.

Without effort or strain, the white alicorn lifted the orb of light. The orb was meant to be lifted. The white alicorn was meant to lift it. Each had its place.

“Of course,” she replied. “What knowledge do you seek?”

The purple alicorn thought for a length. In a time gone by, this length had measure: seconds, and eons, and fortnights. There was little need for such concepts now. The white alicorn would remain. The orb of light would remain. The void would remain. So she thought, and the white alicorn saw no reason to interrupt. Then she spoke. “Why do you remain at my side?”

“Because I have always been.” The white alicorn caressed the other’s face with a hoof, the corners of her mouth faintly upturned. “And I always will be.”

The purple alicorn thought. “It is a good reason,” she confessed, “much as the orb of light always has been, and always will be. Is this the only reason?”

She shook her mane, and the cosmos rocked and ebbed with a kaleidoscope of color. “I love you.”

“Yes.” The purple alicorn nodded, with an air of finality. In addition to the four alicorns and the two orbs, there was magic—that with which the white alicorn moved the orb of light throughout the cosmos—and there was love. That love existed was irrefutable. Yet she was not pink, nor was the alicorn before her pink, and thus in time another question rose to mind. “Why?”

“When the universe was young, I used words of beauty to express feelings only my heart could know. I took you, delighting in every inch of your being. I spoke of dreams and desires, of hopes and fears, of meaning and truth as best we knew them.” The white alicorn smiled at her partner. “Would you ask of me to repeat these?”

“They satisfied me beyond measure, completely and deeply. I do not question that you love me, but this is not my concern.” She frowned. The pink alicorn would have understood. “I wish to know why you remain at my side.”

The white alicorn shook with laughter, weightless. “Love still remains. Though the others long since left to travel the universe, the orb of dark rises as it always did, and I love you as I always did.”

“Yes, but this is not my concern. I understand that love did not leave, and I understand that you love me.” The purple alicorn looked above her at the unending void, indistinguishable from that below her. “How did it begin?”

They thought.

“As I recall,” said the white alicorn, a hint of wryness in her tone, “you wished for me to love you.”

“Yes, I recall this.” She nodded. “But you did not give me your love solely based on my wishes.”

“No, for love must be given of one’s own volition,” she replied with a nod. Though neither of them were pink, there were basic truths of the universe that all understood. It was much as how the white alicorn used magic to raise the orb of light, even though she was not purple. “It was you who presented the question, but it was I who found the answer within myself.”

“How did the answer come to you?”

Wrinkles and creases pressed themselves into the brow of the white alicorn. She spoke slowly and deliberately, as though the words passing her lips were foreign even to her. “I saw you the same as I saw myself. Of course, we are alicorns, and therefore we are the same. But there was a time where you were not an alicorn. Do you recall?”

The purple alicorn thought, and thought. “Ah. I recall.”

“I was an alicorn, and you were not, therefore we were not the same.” The white alicorn draped a wing across the other. Heat, blazing and unyielding, pulsated beneath her wing, totally unlike the void. “Yet this was not as I saw it.”

“Your thoughts were inconsistent?” The purple alicorn’s laughter, beautiful and melodic, sang through the galaxy. “Yes, I believe this is love. But there were two other alicorns before me. Did you not see them the same as yourself? Did you not love them?”

“They were the same as me, but not in the way that you are the same as me. I loved them, but not in the way that I love you.”

The purple alicorn thought. “Yes.”

Time passed.

“But this is not my concern,” she added.

The white alicorn tilted her head. “Tell me of your concern. My thoughts are consumed by it.”

“Long ago, the four of us were together, amongst many. Long ago, it was just us four. Long ago, the other two left to see all that there is to see. Not so with us.”

The air within the white alicorn’s breast turned bitterly cold, sapping the heat from within her. “You wish to leave.”

The purple alicorn’s expression remained unphased. “There is infinite space in the universe, and there is infinite time. I would desire to see it, as the others have seen it.”

“We could see the universe together,” the white alicorn was quick to reply. “Much as the orb of dark yet rises, I too could attend to my duties.”

“Yes,” agreed the purple alicorn. “You and the orb of light are bound, no matter how much distance separates you.” Silence smothered the pair as they thought. “Would any matter of distance break your love for me?”

“No. Though the universe is endless, my love knows no bounds.” The white alicorn tried her hardest to smile, but her lips betrayed her. “And yet, I would desire to remain by your side. Do you not share in my desire?”

The purple alicorn thought; the white alicorn grew colder with every immeasurable moment.

“The universe holds infinite space where you are not, yet only here do you remain,” said the purple alicorn. “I desire to see what I have yet not seen.”

The white alicorn turned to face her in full, eyes wide and searching. “Have I wronged you? Has my love not filled your heart? Do you wish to rid yourself of me?”

“No to all,” came the purple alicorn’s reply, quicker than the others before. “Your love has touched me in a way that nothing in the universe ever shall. It is something that I will treasure for the rest of time.” She brought her hoof to the other’s cheek, brushing lightly against the soft white hairs. “But if I do not experience the universe, if I do not live eternity, then I will never understand the truth of those beliefs.”

“Twilight.” The white alicorn held the offered hoof close against her, invoking the ancient name that had not been spoken for immeasurable ages. “Twilight, please. Don’t leave me.”

The purple alicorn wept openly, yet said nothing. She looked to the white alicorn, listening as she once listened, searching as she once searched.

“Before I found you, I was alone,” said the white alicorn, memory upon memory racing through her limitless mind. “We were surrounded by so many others, and yet I felt a loneliness that the void could never know. I did not know another who was the same as me, until I let you into my heart. Until I gave a part of myself to your heart. Without you here, by my side, I will remain incomplete for the rest of eternity.”

“As shall I.” The purple alicorn leaned in, resting her forehead against that of the white alicorn. “Yet, knowing all this, do you regret the path that led us here?”

“No, but...” The white alicorn shook from her core as tears fell past her hooves and vanished into the void. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“You will still be complete,” the purple alicorn said as she pulled back. “You will still raise the orb of light. You will still exist. Your life will have purpose.”

“Yes,” sobbed the white alicorn, “but that is not my concern.” She stared down at her hooves, reliving many a fading memory. “Twilight.”

The purple alicorn adjusted her wings, searching for a comfortable position. “Yes?”

“Do you love me?”

The purple alicorn averted her gaze. “Yes. Beyond measure, completely and deeply.” The thought was incomplete. The purple alicorn thought; the white alicorn held her breath. “However, my thoughts are consistent.”

A wail bubbled up from within the soul of the white alicorn, reverberating its sorrow across the cosmos.

The purple alicorn bit her lip, and as she stared at the other, her partner, she did not comprehend the sight before her. And yet, this was the not the unknown that she yearned for. “I am sorry. But I do love you.” She turned, spreading her mighty wings with which she might blaze a path to the edge of existence. Pausing, she looked back one last time. “I do love you.”

The white alicorn met her gaze, staring into the soul of the other so much like herself. She closed her eyelids, pushing forth a fresh pair of teardrops. “Yes.”

With a beat of her wings, the purple alicorn took to the void. The white alicorn stared unblinking as her partner grew smaller, shrinking into the infinite, then fading into memory. “But not in the way that I love you.”