“Destiny gives us purpose”—with a graceful fluidity, Twilight rose from her seat and then began to pace in a tight circle around the wooden cradle, which she rocked with her magic—“but it is friendship that perfects that purpose. Whatever we are meant to be, friendship acts as a sort of… refinement process and allows us to become the best ponies that we could possibly be.” There was a pause, she considered her words, then added, “Not just ponies. No, not just ponies. All of us. Hooves, paws, or claws, we were all united in a compact and given a shared purpose. Our lives were meant to intertwine very much like… well, twine. A single thread has little strength, but combine enough threads, enough strands, and you have twine. Weave even more strands together, and you have rope. I think, Sundance, that you understand where I am going with this metaphor.”

To show that he listened, he offered her a simple silent nod.

“Celestia has… she has special vision. Her eyes see beyond the common plane. When a pony… well, this is unique to ponies… but when a pony fully realises their potential, when they become the best possible pony that they could be, they gain an alicorn aspect. Each and every one of us has this… or has the potential to have it. From the common baker to the cleverest adventurer. When we have just the right friends, the right creatures in our lives, a hidden alicorn aspect appears that few can see. It doesn’t mean that we’re meant to become an alicorn—though that is certainly possible—but what it does mean is that the magic of friendship has reached maximum potential.”

Her head turned and she looked directly into Sundance’s eyes as she paced.

“It means that the impossible can be done. We become so much more than mere beings of crude matter. With our full potential awakened, we live the best possible lives that we can. So many of the ponies of Ponyville have their alicorn aspect… and that is how I know that I am doing my job as their ruler. With so many ponies that have their full potential awakened all in one place, Ponyville is a powerhouse. And you, Sundance… you can make this work for you. I’ll help you.”

The corner of Twilight’s mouth turned upwards in a whimsical smirk.

“What about me?” he asked.

“Do you have your alicorn aspect?” Her smirk widened and Twilight Sparkle’s withered, blasted face wrinkled up as she peered at Sundance with a curious squint. “Not yet, you don’t. But don’t give up hope.”

“So I just need to make more friends, I guess. I can do that.”

In an instant, the smirk vanished, and the squint went away. Twilight’s face turned solemn and her countenance became that of utter seriousness. “You have the right attitude for it, I’ll give you that. There are many whose fragile egos would be bruised or even wounded upon the discovery that they are less than perfect. This is even more true for pegasus ponies, whose greatly inflated egos give them the buoyancy needed for flight.”

He thought about refuting this, but then he considered himself and every pegasus he knew. Pride was their tribal trait, and sometimes… sometimes it got them into trouble. It might be a stereotype, but it was one grounded in truth. Sundance wasn’t much of a pegasus pony; he didn’t go around showing off his wingspan to everypony he knew, he didn’t warble whilst he struck a pose, and he didn’t think himself to be particularly vain. But, his pride was tender, and he certainly had his moments. His daredevil behaviour satisfied something deep within him.

“How odd… if Rainbow Dash were here, she’d be letting me have it for what I said. Yet from you, I get silence. Celestia told me that you keep your pride hidden. She said that you weren’t a pompous peacock and that she worried that you might not be pegasus enough for what’s ahead…”

Oh, that stung.

But he knew when he was being goaded and he maintained his cautious silence.

“You are a curious creature, Sundance.”

Was he though? With a turn of his head, he angled his neck and had a good look at his own wings. Then he looked down at his body. Life had been less than kind recently, and he saw scars, the evidence of hard living. His hooves were not the perfect hooves he had when he lived in the city. Why, he looked quite feral; his coat was shaggy and he was more than a little scruffy. By pegasus standards, he was worthy of a snort of contempt—yet, what pegasus, and what standards? Who would dare judge him? He’d faced an angry owlbear and he lived in a place where spider season was a thing. What pompous, pooting, pontificating peacock pegasus would dare to judge him? He was beyond such petty concerns.

At that moment, he decided that he was fine with the pegasus pony that he’d become.

“A curious creature indeed.” Twilight continued her tight circle around the crib, which swayed from side to side. “Progress will be our undoing, Sundance. We’ve become the victims of our own success. What I am about to say will make you think of all sorts of questions, and I can’t answer most of them. For that, I’m sorry.

“We’re an uplifted species, Sundance. Engineered to endure. To serve a function and fulfill a role. Those that made us, shaped us, those who engineered us, they saw a crisis, a terrible, terrible future where life as we know it came to an end. Well, our crisis came and went. The end of the world arrived and Equestria came to an end—”

Sundance blinked.

“Oh, I have your attention now, I see. Yes, there are two Equestrias, Sundance. The first one came and went. As for the second, we are rapidly becoming the first, but without the governance and rule of the alicorns who made the first Equestria so prosperous. It was a grand and marvellous place. Perfect cities. No wants. No needs. A utopia. A paradise made possible. Technology and magic merged in perfect balance. Then came the end. The whole of the world was poisoned. Terrible things rose to power, with Grogar the worst among them.

“The alicorn benefactors who made our grand utopia possible could be corrupted. Twisted. Made foul and evil. The Equestria that was fell. It is now just so much ruin and rubble. Now we rise again, very much like a phoenix from the ashes, but we are far from perfect. We’re just ponies… and not alicorns. We are not our forebears. Just an uplifted species that was designed to survive… to endure… we were made to struggle, but prosperity thwarts us.”

“I don’t understand…” he managed to slip in during Twilight’s pause.

“We were made to struggle, but the struggle we were designed to endure changed. Sundance, we’re left uncompleted. Unfinished. Our perfection was never achieved. The struggle changed and now our success is our undoing. We’ve outgrown harmony. Equestria is no longer a collection of feudal communes that struggle to see another year. We’re not three tribes whose very survival depends upon trusting one another so that we might continue to exist. When our numbers were few, every life mattered. Every purpose mattered.

“But that is no longer the case, Sundance. Our cities are filled with ponies whose purpose doesn’t matter at all. Many just exist. Earth ponies fueled our industrial revolution and pony-powered machines allowed for the rise of industry. Our foundries relied upon earth pony strength and endurance. But success has destroyed them. Electricity and steam has relegated the earth pony to obscurity. Automation and mechanisation has taken over. Industrialisation wasn’t particularly kind to the earth ponies, and now, whatever comes after, it will be worse for them.”

The alicorn froze in place, her head bowed, and she ceased to move.

“Pegasus ponies face no better future. While flight is a gift, courier work is not a future. I am positive that you know of what I speak of. New technology is allowing for the automated control of weather systems and in the larger cities, budget cuts get rid of weather regulation altogether for the sake of balancing the budget. Sundance… surely you know of the struggle of the pegasus pony.”

After a moment of hesitation, he nodded.

“And unicorns… as my brother has said, we’re the victims of our own complexity. Well…” Profoundly sad, Twilight paused, shook her head, and her wings fidgeted against her sides. “I am a unicorn no longer, but my brother’s point still stands. Magic is immensely complex. Complicated. There are too many unicorns, with most of them being relatively weak. What magic they do have is hardly even developed. Magic instruction happens to be quite difficult. Instruction becomes an impossible task in the big cities. Qualified magic instructors will never work for the wages of inner-city school teachers. Overcrowded classrooms make it impossible to learn. Millions of unicorns… and most of them, a vast majority of them, the multitude of them lack even basic magical competence. It takes a lifetime of study to master magic, and there is no time to study when you’re stuck managing a factory assembly line or performing some mindless, menial tasks just so you can pay rent and fill the fridge.”

The grim reality of Twilight’s words proved too much for Sundance. These were things he could barely comprehend. Yet, a part of himself understood them on some level. He thought of the homeless ponies on the streets and the struggle for survival in the cities. It wasn’t like the struggle for survival that was Equestria’s history. Now, ponies struggled to survive while surrounded by an abundance of wealth, of prosperity. They went hungry while food spoiled on supermarket shelves. While Twilight spoke of complex things, he understood the simple gist of it, and he found that he was rather proud of himself for what little he was able to conceive.

“So this is what we face. Some will thrive in this new world as the march of progress continues unabated. But so many will be left behind. Many will never recognise even a fraction of their potential. It is impossible to restore what once was, and we can’t fix what we’re meant to be. The best that we can do is to work with what we have… which, as it turns out, isn’t much. I suppose I could talk about how we have friendship, and that’s enough”—here, she sighed, her ears splayed outwards, and she appeared annoyed—“but that would be quite a pile of minotaur dung. Friendship isn’t feeding the hungry, or housing the homeless, or offering a panacea to the sick and suffering. Equestria has a friendship problem, and I aim to fix that. Somehow.”

After taking a deep breath, Sundance almost offered to help, but he’d already done that. Why, he was doing that right now. That was the whole purpose of his visit. Twilight had avoided trite platitudes—what she said about friendship was quite revealing—so he followed her example and avoided unnecessary words as well. There could be no denying it: he was in over his head, but that was fine. He inhaled, his cheeks puffed out, and he let out a slow, prolonged exhale through pursed lips. Twilight’s ‘somehow’ was quite revealing; she didn’t know. While there was a plan, she was clearly winging it. There was no clear victory, no obvious winning scenario—at least he could not see one—there was only the minimisation of suffering.

Would that be enough?

“Sundance, you’re stronger than you give yourself credit,” Twilight said to him as she resumed her pacing around the cradle where the infant slept. “You show no signs of collapse. No sign of buckling. Even after all I’ve said, you still have that same expression of resolve. I’ve only ever seen that on one other pony.”

“Who?” he asked.

“Celestia,” she replied. “I don’t have her resolve, but I wish I did. I could tell you about my shortcomings, but we’d be here all day and probably most of tomorrow as well. It’s funny, really. Luna’s descendents, they share a host of common traits. They thrive in chaos. We tend to be our best when the situation is at its worst. For many of us, we’re not at our best when things are calm. We fall apart when there isn’t a crisis. I could tell you a funny story about a lack of friendship crises, three fillies, a doll, and one very troubled unicorn… perhaps another time.”

She drew in a deep breath.

“But Celestia’s descendents… natural stoics. Steely resolve. Bravery… bravery to a fault. Some of them are absolutely nutters. They tend to make the very best sort of friends, the sort of friends you didn’t realise that you needed until you have one. Not sure I said that in the best way. No matter. Your resolve gives me the courage I need to go forward.”

At this moment, he saw something different about himself. He thought of his friends—all of them—and he was the quiet one among them. When they met and had that meeting about turning the barony into a corporation, he’d maintained his silence—his calm. Twilight had said something quite revealing, and now, with hindsight, he saw a different version of himself. A better version possibly. Now he had a better understanding of why his friends depended upon him, perhaps.

He was their Celestia, in a manner of speaking.

Just thinking about it made the sun shine within him, and he felt a curious warmth.

“I think we’re done here,” Twilight announced. “At least for now. Miss Strudel, you’ll be responsible for the follow-ups. Sundance, it was a pleasure to finally meet you face-to-face. I am suddenly very thoughtful, and I need time to collect those thoughts. Perhaps there is something useful among them.”

He bowed his head. “Thank you for trusting me. I won’t let you down.”

“No,” Twilight replied, “you won’t. You’re too much like Celestia. Which is exactly why I need you. I really must go and collect my thoughts before they scatter. Ideas are precious.” Her head tilted off to one side. “Her name is Orange Marmalade Pie. I tell you this as a token of my trust. When I’m alone with her, I call her Marmy, and so does her father. Go do great things, Sundance.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“Thank you. For everything.”

“Oh, don’t thank me, Sundance. I’m about to ruin your life. We’ll be lucky to come out of this unscathed.”

“Any crash you can walk away from is a win.”

“Right, good attitude. And now, I must say goodbye. Farewell, Sundance.”

“Goodbye, Twilight.”

And then, before things got awkward, Twilight vanished, and the crib with her.

Author's Notes:

One more thing to take care of in Twilight's castle...