History Fanfic / BestFriendsForever

* EarlyPersonalitySigns: Consciously invoked; Twilight gives the baby versions of her friends their adult selves' favorite objects as toys, in order to speed them along the path of growing up to be exactly like their adult selves.

* ShootTheDog: [[spoiler:Celestia realizes that the only way to stop Twilight Spark's designs is by killing her - and manages it with a surprise attack.]]

* GoneHorriblyRight: When Twilight was a young mare, her mentor Princess Celestia wanted her to learn about friendship. She got so attached to the first real friends she made that, when she realized she would outlive them as an alicorn, she decided to kidnap them, sequester them and herself in an isolated castle, and use her magic to keep them functionally immortal in an endless cycle of regressing them into babies and raising them from infancy to old age.

* GoneHorriblyRight: When Twilight was a young mare, her mentor Princess Celestia wanted her to learn about friendship. She got so attached to her friends that, when she realized she would outlive them as an alicorn, she decided to kidnap them, sequester them and herself in an isolated castle, and use her magic to keep them functionally immortal in an endless cycle of regressing them into babies and raising them from infancy to old age.

--->Celestia nodded absently, listening vaguely to what Twilight was saying while she studied the two Applejacks on the wall. They both had Applejack’s bright green eyes, sparkling with honesty and good-natured cheer... and in both pictures, those eyes seemed very tired.

* MetaphoricallyTrue: [[spoiler:After killing Twilight, Celestia tells the members of Mane Six that Twilight his having a well-deserved rest and that they'll see her again - knowing that without Twilight's magic to keep them from getting too old, they'll eventually die and be reunited with her in the hereafter.]]

* EarlyPersonalitySigns: Consciously invoked; Twilight gives the baby versions of her friends their adult selves' favorite objects as toys, in order to speed them along the path of growing up to be just like their adult selves.

* GoneHorriblyRight: When Twilight was a young mare, her mentor Princess Celestia wanted her to learn about friendship. After becoming an alicorn and realizing she would outlive all her loved ones, she decided to kidnap her friends, sequester them and herself in an isolated castle, and use her magic to keep them functionally immortal in an endless cycle of regressing them into babies and raising them from infancy to old age.

* ApologeticAttacker: [[spoiler: Celestia sorrowfully apologizes to Twilight after fatally wounding her.]]

* BittersweetEnding: Heavily on the bitter side. [[spoiler: To wit, the surviving members of the Mane Six can now grow up and reclaim their lives, but this only happened because Celestia killed Twilight, and Celestia is gripped with remorse over what she had to do.]]
* CombatPragmatist: [[spoiler: Celestia doesn't allow Twilight to challenge her to a protracted magical battle, and instead simply nails her through the heart with a spear of light while she's distracted.]]

* MetaphoricallyTrue: [[spoiler: After killing Twilight, Celestia tells the members of Mane Six that Twilight his having a well-deserved rest and that they'll see her again - knowing that without Twilight's magic to keep them from getting too old, they'll eventually die and be reunited with her in the hereafter.]]

* NoOntologicalInertia: [[spoiler: After Twilight is killed, the magic she's worked around the castle dies with her. Unfortunately, this doesn't include the regression the Mane Six have suffered.]]

* ShootTheDog: [[spoiler: Celestia realizes that the only way to stop Twilight Spark's designs is by killing her - and manages it with a surprise attack.]]

* TryingNotToCry: After [[spoiler: killing Twilight]], Celestia can only put on a brave face for the foals and try valiantly to hold back the tears.

And the names of these foals? Apple Jack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity.

* IronicEpisodeTitle: Quite apart from the fact that any friendship between Twilight and Celestia has long since been scuppered, the story concerns Twilight's efforts to preserve the lives of her friends forever - in a way that, to put it mildly, would involve the end of any sane friendship.

-->Celestia nodded absently, listening vaguely to what Twilight was saying while she studied the two Applejacks on the wall. They both had Applejack’s bright green eyes, sparkling with honesty and good-natured cheer... and in both pictures, those eyes seemed very tired.

** Said friends are suffering this from a different angle: whenever they get old, Twilight Sparkle regresses them to infancy, destroying their identities and forcing them to start their lives again from scratch.

At some point in the distant future, Celestia pays a visit to an isolated castle where Twilight Sparkle has made a home for herself and for some reason, refused to leave ever since. At once, it becomes clear that Twilight is not on good terms with Celestia; furthermore, the castle also appears to be playing host to a small group of very young fillies.

And the names of these fillies? Apple Jack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity.

** Twilight Sparkle has been struggling to cope with the nastier side-effects of immortality for an unspecified length of time - enough to see Futtershy die of old age. Unwilling to see any of her other friends die, she's sequestered herself away with them in an isolated castle, driving herself progressively mad in her attempts to preserve her loved ones.