A/N: Well... it has certainly been a long while since I opened up on the DLC for Learning To Live. I do apologize for the REALLLLLLY long wait as work has very much become a priority now, leaving me with almost no time to write. But I'm planning to finish this one and for real this time, close the book on the story. I'm not ruling it another story that follows Brayden, but it will take place in a different setting and a different place.

The only hint I'll be leaving if I ever end up getting to do that would be that it involves a certain very tall vampire lady in a castle with three vampire daughters. Essentially a sequel, but in a different universe.

I've kept you too long for the wait, now here it is: the first chapter for the Reunion DLC.

Present Time - Equestria

Canterlot

Twilight's POV

"And with the help of my new yak friend Roola, I was able to solve the conflict between the young hippogriff and earth pony." I listened as my student who reported on what she did for the day on solving a friendship problem as I sat on the throne where my mentor Celestia used to sit.

Feeling very proud of my student Luster Dawn, who had grown to represent a young mare - whom I once used to be, I smiled and spoke to her "I am very proud of you, Luster. I certainly have taught you a lot and it really paid off in the end."

Years had past since the incident of Mortem and the loss of my love, and I still kept him in my thoughts a lot. There were days and moments where I just wouldn't pay attention to any of the conversations I was having with my student or friends, as my mind would slip into my thoughts of Brayden. His dark brown hair... his brown colored eyes... and the smiles that he would share with me when me and him were together.

To maintain and keep those memories of me and him in tact, I have pictures of me and him from when he was, whether it was taken from the photos here or transferred from his phone - something he left back at the Friendship Castle before he made his sacrifice. I missed him dearly... and I didn't want to let him go.

"Princess Twilight?" The voice of my student got me back to attention as my smile had turned to a bit of a sad frown. "Are you okay?"

I looked at my student, keeping the same sad emotion on my face. "Yes Luster," I responded to her. "It's just..."

"You really miss him, don't you?"

Closing my eyes, I can feel a single tear crawling down my cheek from my right eye. "Too much... you have no idea."

I got up from the throne, trotting down the path and turning right to go to the stained glass window that was closest. The window itself, right next to the window that depicted the return of the Elements of Harmony thanks to me and my friends - it depicted none other than Brayden himself with the Aria of Light making his sacrifice to destroy the Bell of Tambelon and the ram himself from conquering all of Equus. Luna, Celestia and myself are in the framed stained glass, celebrating the defeat of Grogar.

By the time that it happened, I wasn't in the same celebratory mood everypony else was in. I hid away from all of the parties and celebrations that had gone on for a month throughout Equestria. I would hide up in my bedroom, or the hotel room that I had booked with my friends while they went to celebrate Grogar's defeat. I'd just lie there in bed, crying my eyes out - wishing I could have Brayden hold me again. One time, Celestia and Luna invited me to the party in Canterlot - and I couldn't go as this was two days after Brayden's death. It was so hard on me, even both Spike and Starlight were doing their best to try and get me to go see everypony.

It would only be after the month of moping around and stingy eyes from the tears, that my friends would come to the Friendship Castle to check up on me as I had not been to see or talk with them for that whole month. I confessed to them how hard it hit me to lose somepony I loved, and that I felt like I couldn't live without him - as if a part of me was lost in the endless void forever. My friends shared their memories of their time with Brayden and cried along with me until we couldn't cry our hearts out anymore. Once we felt better, I felt relieved a bit that my grief was over - but the pain of losing him would stay with me.

I can feel a hoof gently touching my left front shoulder. I turn my violet eyes and see Luster standing there with a sad expression on her face. She kept her right front hoof placed onto my shoulder as I shared the pained, yet sorrowed look at her. Outside the stained-glass window, the sun shone on into the room, keeping the interiors around us brightened and at peace than the last many times something bad happened.

"I think I'm starting to understand how you feel, Princess." Luster says to me, with a tone in her voice that gave me some support for the sadness I was experiencing. "I lost my father a year before I enrolled into your school. He was everything to me, but I kept pushing forward. I knew he would have wanted me to."

"Luster..." I said to her, turning to look at her with the sad eyes and gentle tone in my voice - a small yet friendly smile crossing onto my lips. "Please call me Twilight. You don't have to keep acknowledging me by my title."

"My apologies."

"No need to apologize," There comes the Princess Celestia influence that still lingers in me as I had opened with a giggle. "You've known me for a long time now, so you can start calling me Twilight now."

"Alright." Luster understands, nodding.

"I do thank you for coming to report to me and give me company. The lessons in Friendship really are paying off." I said to her, changing that saddened expression on my face and looking happy. I trot beside her from the window as we move to the doors out from the throne room, with two of the pegasi guards opening the doors for the both of us as our trotting on the crystalline floor was heard before heading onto that royal carpet that stretched throughout the hallways of Canterlot's castle.

Me and Luster trotted out from the throne room, only being met with none other than a huge surprise as we came out: My five friends were there. Spike, who had grown up a lot from being a baby dragon accompanied them. Pinkie Pie as usual, has confetti pop out from behind the five to my baffled expression, which turns to joy.

"Surprise Twilight!" Pinkie exclaims brightly, giggling. "Me and the girls came by to surprise you, as in a few days it will be..." She lets in a huge gasp, to express anticipation in a pause before practically almost screaming it out. "The Super Fun Sisters Remembrance Party!"

"Calm down there Pinkie," Rarity says to her, her mane having a grayish strip to represent the old age she was getting to. "We're all excited, but we all know we came to check up and see how Twilight and her duties as a princess are going."

"How are ya, sugarcube?" Applejack greets me with a smile on her face. "How have things been doin' since the last visit?"

"I'm... well, I'm doing alright. I didn't expect to see any of you here so soon." I said, thinking for a moment and catching myself with a giggle at the end.

"You probably haven't heard the news yet, but I should probably let Rainbow Dash tell you the news." Rarity says as the rainbow maned pegasus trots up a few steps, an expression of excitement on her face.

"Twilight, Alex proposed to me..." Rainbow Dash says with giddy happiness in the tone of her voice, surprising me. A few giggles afterwards and she continues. "Alex took me by Winsome Falls to show me a part of it that I have never seen before. I was a structure of rocks to form what looked like me, soaring in the skies. He did that all by himself while we were camping together. Then he got down on his knee and proposed to me. I said yes!" A happy tear was in her eye as she told us. "That Alex, he's really changed a lot over the years."

"I'm really happy for you Rainbow Dash," I said to her with a smile on my face, knowing that Alex had matured and become more like a gentleman over the years he has been here since Brayden brought him, Andrea and Ann over from Earth. "Somehow I almost never saw it, but it took him time to respect your boundaries, but he finally became the man Brayden wanted him to be."

"He really was a 20% cooler - no, more than that... 60% amazing human." Rainbow Dash said, smiling proudly.

I smiled with her along my other friends. The thought of Brayden again however, made that smile fade, flopping my ears and making my head turn, almost looking away from my friends.

"What's wrong Twilight?" Pinkie asked, looking a little concerned when the sad expression appeared on my face.

"Yes dear," Rarity questioned to look out for me. "Is everything alright?"

I exhale a sad sigh, trotting over towards the window and looking out into the garden below on the floor we were on. In my sight other than the gardens, the skies of blue were seen with clouds in the distance - some building up, some dissipating into nothing but clear invisible air.

"Twilight's been thinking about Brayden again," I can hear my student Luster say to them, a concerned tone in her voice as she spoke.

"Oh Twilight," Fluttershy says, sadness entering the tone of her voice as she trots over to her. "I miss him too. We were all there at his side when he passed."

"I can't help myself, but think... what if he did not die? What if he was able to live, even if he didn't make his sacrifice?" I said to the girls, raising my eyes to look out the window at the blue colored sky, my focus on two bluebirds flying about in the castle gardens below.

"He had to make that sacrifice, Twilight," Rarity stepped in, with a tone in her voice knowing that she understood but had to keep on the reality of the past tense. "If he didn't, then Grogar would have truly got his wish - and worse, would have enslaved every single one of us."

Turning my head down at that thought of re-living that memory for such a brief moment, I close my eyes for a moment. "The sacrifice he made... I know," I responded to Rarity. "I just wish that there was a spell that can allow me to go back in time to see him again-"

I paused for a moment. Behind me, I can assume that my friends were wondering what I stopped about when I had mentioned the thought of time travel. If I could find the use of a time travel spell, I could go back in time and see Brayden again! Thinking about that was the one thing that really brightened up my mood again.

As assumed, my friends had that puzzled look on their faces when I turned to them with that look of discovery on my face. "A spell for time travel, that's it!" I exclaimed proudly, the first time they've ever seen me happy in years. "If we can get a hold of a time travel spell, we can go back and see Brayden again!"

"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash said, a smile appearing on her lips and going airborne to do a backflip mid-air. "That would be great! I would be able to tell him how things are in the future."

"Hold yer horses there, Twilight..." Applejack says, stepping forward with a look of concern on her face. "If ya remember the last time a time travel spell was used, Starlight Glimmer almost destroyed the timeline."

"That's why the time travel scroll got sealed away and out of any pony's hooves..." Pinkie was excited at first when hearing the potential on time travelling back to see Brayden. "...And if we did... well, we'd unexpectedly alter the future..."

"Right..." I said, really let down that there was no way to go back to see Brayden. Me and my friends share the same expression of disappointment on our faces. Well, except for Fluttershy of course. She looked like she was thinking about something at first. Then comes a small, yet audible gasp that sounded like she had an idea.

Fluttershy trots forward to me, placing her hoof on my left front leg. "I think I might have another idea on who might be able to know something about seeing Brayden again."

"Well, then who is it?" Rainbow Dash says. "I bet he's in the Canterlot library right now with that scroll!"

"No no Rainbow Dash, this isn't somepony from Canterlot." Fluttershy giggles at that thought. "It's somepony we know. We helped him a long while back ago and I still go to visit him."

"I have a feeling I know who you might be talking about." I pondered at who it might be that Fluttershy was talking about, the one who would have some sort of spell or enchantment to go and be able to see and talk with Brayden again - regardless if it was him in spirit form or not. "Who is it?"

"...Discord."