“You know, I always told myself I wouldn’t cry when I came here.” Twilight Sparkle looked up into the night sky, whose glittering stars and opulent moon shined brightly to fight away the utter blackness that threatened to overtake the sky. She lifted a hoof to brush away the darting drops of salty water that had gotten past her eyelids before they had a chance to close them in. “It’s always embarrassing to cry in front of my family.” Smiling to herself sadly, Twilight turned as the sound of hoof steps and panting drifted up from the hill below her.

“Don’t worry, Twilight.” Her father, Crescent Moon, ascended the hill behind her, letting out his breath in short bursts as if the elderly stallion had just run a marathon. “We all feel a little emotional when we come up here. I must say that it’s become a bit of a family tradition to cry on this hill.” Twilight smiled at her father as he brushed a hoof across her face to rid it of the tears that she had missed before.

“Yeah, that’s right, Pops.” The two ponies turned in unison to see Shining Armor finally cresting the top of the hill, his wife Cadence just behind him. “And I guess this year Cady gets to join in the tradition too.”

“Shining,” the unicorn siblings winced as their father’s voice adopted an admonishing tone that they had heard all too often before as younger ponies, “I still don’t approve of you taking my daughter-in-law out to such a sad occasion. Furthermore, I w—“

Sensing another rant that her husband had told her all about when they were dating, Cadence swiftly interrupted Crescent Moon with a dazzling smile. “Oh, that’s all right, father.” The use of the honorary name threw the azure pony off even more than her smile had. “I’m part of the family now, so I have no misgivings about joining the rest of you in any family anniversaries, whether they are joyous or sad.”

For a minute there was nothing but silence, pressing down upon the hilltop like a great, fluffy pillow that had somehow landed on a sleeping pony’s face. Shining Armor and his sister let out the breaths the they didn’t even know they had been holding as their father, seemingly appeased, turned away to stare off into the distance with a reminiscing look in his eyes. Twilight Sparkle soon followed him, but not before she could hear her brother ask a question under his breath. “How is it that you can do that and I can’t?”

Almost immediately after her brother’s question, Cadence’s sing-song reply brought another smile to Twilight’s lips. “Because, I’m a girl.”

Shutting out the sounds of the lovingly arguing pair, Twilight Sparkle trotted over to where their whole reason for being there rested, smiling down at the nondescript slab of stone. The only thing that adorned its surface was a cutie mark, still looking as if it had been made yesterday. The memory of all those books that she had poured through to cast an anti-weathering spell on the stone sent a shudder through Twilight’s spine as she looked on.

Yet another memory, older than the last but only just, flashed through her mind at the sight of a slightly legible envelope next to the stone. Words from the past drifted up from underneath the sands of time as Twilight stared backwards into her past.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I know that you want me to write to you about lessons of friendship, but I also have one of life that I learned today. You see, today has been very awful despondent eventful.

Twilight could still read the letter as if she had been looking at it, every blot of ink or tears on the paper still visible in her mind, as crisp as they had been the day she had sealed that letter away and brought it here.

Well, what I mean to say is, there has been a tragedy in my family. You see, my… my mother has passed away into your realm above the sky.

The letters grew jagged and broken, as if her quill had been trembling while she wrote the words, which it very well had been.

I know that one might not say there is a lesson to be found in the loss of one they love, but I believe I have found one.

In her mind’s eye, Twilight could see her younger self curled up at the headstone, staring up into the starry night sky with those innocent, naïve eyes that were filled with tears.

The night my mother was buried, I stole away from my home to spend the night atop that hill that she is resting at. It was cold, and I was shivering from the fear of something or another coming out of the darkness, but I stayed there and waited.

The non-existent Twilight shivered as some inaudible sound made one of her ears twitch, driving the transparent memory to stand up in fright.

You see, I found myself wanting to test a theory that all the other colts and fillies in my school test at their age. It sounds silly now, but at the time it made perfect sense. I wanted to test the power of wishes.

Twilight was alone on the hilltop, the others forgotten as she enveloped herself in the days of the past. She turned to see that same apparition of herself staring up into the sky, murmuring to herself and waving her ignited horn about in complicated patterns through the air.

I spent probably half the night trying to get the shapes and the rhymes down right. The ones that my Mom taught me when I was just a tiny filly anyway. Of course, back then I wasn’t really able to keep up my magic for very long, so I kinda fell down and asleep for a little while. I don’t quite remember what woke me up, the only thing being a blinding light that streaked across the sky for just a moment. After that though, my Dad found me and dragged me back home, shouting about how worried he was and all kinds of things like that. You know how he is.

Well, you’re probably wondering what it is that I learned recently, and now I’ll tell you. It was that wishes don’t come true.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

“Hey, you ready to go, Twilight?” Her father’s face, streaked with tears, broke apart the world of memory. “It’s getting late, and I have to get up in the morning for work.”

“I’m fine, Dad, go on ahead. I’ll catch up.” For a moment Twilight’s father looked as if he was going to object, but she let out a tense breath as he nodded and began to walk away. “Thanks, Dad.”

Pushing herself to her hooves, Twilight trotted over to where she had stood looking into the sky so many years ago, waving her horn wildly through the air in complicated symbols. “Now, let’s see if I can remember how to do this…”

Author's Notes:

This fiction was dedicated to a friend of mine, who recently just lost his mother in a cruel twist of fate. I couldn't think of any other way to let out this pent up emotion that I felt towards him and his situation, so this is all I can do.

Also, I know that this isn't as good as my normal stuff, but I as I said above, I just wanted to get this off my chest, so to speak.