Twilight Sparkle awoke with a sharp intake of breath, a cold sweat blanketing her body and matting down her fur. Her own voice echoed in her ears, laughing ominously and filling her blood with ice. It only took a moment for the chilling cackles to fade into silence, and Twilight slowly began to calm down.
She looked around for a moment, unsure of where exactly she was. Thankfully, it didn’t take her long to relax as the familiar sights of the loft of the Golden Oaks library came into view. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but it would soon. Probably in the next hour or two, the more she thought about it.
Curious, Twilight rolled over and looked over to the bed that had been pushed right up against hers. She smiled when, sure enough, she saw Rainbow Dash sprawled out on her back, her mouth wide open as she let out a series of loud, guttural snores.
Quietly sighing, Twilight realized with a degree of disgruntlement that she would not be getting back to sleep tonight. She groggily extracted herself from her blankets and quietly made her way for the door that would take her out to the balcony, not wanting to disturb Rainbow Dash. The pegasus had had a rough few days and arguably needed her rest more than Twilight did.
Not like Twilight could sleep very well. She’d been trying, but there was just far too much going on in her head to make a full night's rest possible. Suddenly having nineteen years worth of memories back in her head after two years without them was more than a little overwhelming, and combined with the anxiety she felt over the prospect of Midnight lurking in the depths of her subconscious...
Her worries were alleviated for the moment when she stepped out onto the balcony, closing the door behind her. A small smile graced her lips as a cool summer night’s breeze washed over her, making her mane drift a little. She closed her eyes and took in a slow, deep breath, allowing the air to fill her lungs and rejuvenate her system.
How long had it been since she came home after getting her memories back? Three days? Four? It was hard to tell. The events of the past few had flown by in something of a hectic blur. Between a tearful reunion with all of her friends, a fair amount of scolding from Applejack before they hugged it out and made up, a predictably spontaneous party put together by Pinkie, the flurry of activity that was the Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville yesterday, and then a very long talk with Spike before going to bed last night, she’d had her hooves full.
In truth, this was probably the first genuinely quiet moment she'd had since returning the stolen memories, and she was determined to make the most of it. She rested her forelegs on the guardrail, rested her chin on them, and opened her eyes to look out over Ponville again.
The longer she looked, the more she realized just how strange it was to stare at it with her old memories finally restored. When combined with the memories she had made here as an amnesiac, it was as if she was peering into two different lives viewed from the same pair of eyes. Now those lives had joined together, and Twilight wasn’t entirely sure what the result was going to be.
The days ahead were going to be crazy, that much was for sure.
Letting out a tired sigh, Twilight let her eyes flutter closed, allowing her mind to aimlessly wander wherever it wanted. Her thoughts meandered from topic to topic, not really delving too deeply into any of them for quite some time. She was too tired for that just then.
She must have been out there for a while. A few hours, at least. She was jarred from her thoughts when the sound of the balcony door opening up behind her reached her ears.
“Twilight?” Rainbow’s voice asked quietly.
Twilight put on a small smile and turned to face the pegasus as she came out. “Good morning, Rainbow.”
“Yeah, hey. What are you doing up? It’s early,” Rainbow pointed out, rubbing a hoof over her eyes. “Like, really early.”
Twilight sighed and looked out over Ponyville again, noting that she could see the first hints of the sunrise imminent on the horizon. “...I couldn’t sleep very well,” she admitted sheepishly. “There’s just so much going on in my head… I’m still trying to sort through it all. You know, make sure everything’s still there.”
“Hm. Can’t blame ya,” Rainbow admitted, sitting down on her haunches and folding her forelegs up on the balcony’s guard rail, much like Twilight had. “We’ve had a pretty crazy week… you’re holding up okay, right?”
“Yeah, I am. It’s still just… a lot to take in...” Twilight agreed. She shifted on her haunches to get more comfortable. “Discord’s Plundervines, our little… disagreement in Canterlot, Midnight, the Tree… my punishment…”
“Crazy seems to be par for the course for us, doesn’t it?” Rainbow pointed out with an indignant pout. She was quiet for a second before her ears stood up and her eyes snapped open, seemingly catching up with what Twilight had said. “Wait. Discord’s Plundervines?”
“Oh, right, they didn’t know about that,” Twilight thought, a little bit of shame creeping up on her as she realized that she had neglected to speak up about that. She nodded and looked away guiltily. “Er, yeah… those vines that attacked the Tree. Discord made them before Luna and Celestia turned him to stone a thousand years ago. They were meant to kill the Tree back then but never got to until now. The Tree’s magic was too strong, and kept them at bay.”
Rainbow was silent for a moment. “How… how do you know that?” she asked cautiously, her tone like a knife to Twilight’s already-fragile self-confidence.
Twilight closed her eyes. “When the vines gassed me and knocked me out, Discord was able to talk to me in my mind. Since he made the vines, they were made of his magic, and he can talk to any of us if we’re close enough to him. I guess the same applies to his magic. Anyways, he told me all about his vines; that he was letting them run rampant to get back at you for not letting him out of his statue, and… well… he told me some other things that set me up for my fall.”
“Like what?”
Twilight shuddered, the air suddenly feeling a lot colder. “He told me about how you refused his offer… and he hinted pretty heavily about everything else you hadn’t told me, too. Although, he made it sound a lot worse than it really was… I think he was trying to egg me on, get me angry so that I’d lash out when the truth came out.”
A heavy silence hovered between them before Rainbow placed a comforting hoof on Twilight’s back. “Well, whatever that stupid draconequus said, his vines are gone, and he’s still stone. We won. Again. Just like I said we would.”
Twilight managed a small smile at that. “Yes, I suppose…” she admitted before closing her eyes.
The two fell into a companionable silence after that, merely enjoying one another’s company as the light of dawn slowly grew brighter and brighter in the distance.
“So, uh…” Rainbow suddenly spoke up, her voice timid.
Twilight gave a short, curious hum, turning her head to look at the pegasus at her side.
Rainbow wasn’t quite able to meet her gaze, an uneasy look on her face. “There’s uh… there’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while, now,” she admitted before looking away. “But it’s kinda… sensitive. I get it if you don’t wanna say anything.”
Twilight was momentarily surprised by this, but quickly smiled and reached out to pat Rainbow on the shoulder. “It’s fine, Rainbow. You can say it. I’m listening.”
Rainbow nodded slowly, seemingly hunting for the words. Eventually, she got the look of a mare saying ‘screw it’ and chucking caution to the wind. She turned to face Twilight directly. “...What was it like when you died?”
Twilight’s smile disappeared in a heartbeat. That was… not a question she had been expecting to have to answer. Swallowing the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat, she looked ahead as she tried to gather her thoughts. “It’s… kind of fuzzy, to be honest,” she admitted after a moment, closing her eyes. “I remember taking the blast Stinger shot at you. There was a lot of pain, and then I felt really cold, and then… there was nothing. I don’t remember anything after that until Celestia pulled my soul back from the brink of dissolution and turned me into an alicorn.”
Rainbow was quiet for a moment, almost looking disappointed by that answer. She looked away and let out a sigh. “So… you don’t know if there’s, you know… a life after death?” she eventually asked.
Twilight shook her head. “I don’t know… If there is, I didn’t get that far.”
“Hmm… go figure,” Rainbow grumbled, resting her chin on her hooves on the rail and staring emptily out into the distance.
Twilight hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether or not to ask the question that was on her mind, but after a moment she decided to go for it. Rainbow had spoken her mind, after all. It was only fair that Twilight do the same.
“Why do you ask?”
Rainbow let out a puff of air and looked down at the ground below the balcony. “...I dunno. I guess I was just curious. I mean, who else is there in all of Equestria who can claim to have literally died and been resurrected? I can only think of one, and she’s my girlfriend,” she said after a second before closing her eyes. “But, if I’m being really honest… I guess I wanted to know if I’ll ever get to see my birth parents again. Or, you know, anypony I care about when I’m gone.”
“Rainbow?”
“I’m not dumb, Twilight. Well, okay,” Rainbow sat upright with a snort of self-deprecating amusement, “I am dumb, but not that dumb. I know that I’m gonna die someday… I just thought that, maybe, since you’ve done it once already, maybe you knew what came next, if anything. So that I wouldn’t have to go into it so scared whenever it’s my turn, you know…?”
Twilight stared at Rainbow for a moment, slack-jawed. She hadn’t realized that Rainbow had really given much thought to her own mortality before. It made sense, though, given the life she had led so far. After a moment, Twilight closed her mouth and put a reassuring hoof on Rainbow’s back. “Well, then I guess we should make the most of our time here while we have it, huh?” she suggested with a cheerful tone in her voice.
Rainbow smirked at that. “Oh trust me, I plan to.”
Twilight grinned, pleased with that answer, and draped her foreleg and wing over Rainbow’s back in a full-on side-hug. The pegasus leaned into her, giving off a content, grateful hum.
The two were quiet again for a few minutes before Rainbow shifted and glanced at Twilight again, her smirk falling away. “...Are you gonna be okay? You’ve been through a lot lately,” she eventually asked, the concern in her words unmistakable.
Twilight looked to Rainbow and frowned. “I think so…” she said after a moment, starting to smile again. “I have my memories back, I have my friends…”
She pulled Rainbow closer and gave her a very quick, feather-light kiss. When she pulled back, she was pleased to see the other mare blushing like a tomato, having gone cross-eyed from the rapid movement. Twilight giggled and pulled Rainbow closer against her. “And I have you. I’ll be fine.”
Rainbow quickly regained her senses and rolled her eyes. “D’aaw, c’mon, it’s too early for the sap,” she dismissed with a chuckle. Nevertheless, she reached out to return the side hug with her own wing and foreleg.
Twilight giggled and closed her eyes for a little while, the two of them lapsing into yet another long, comfortable silence.
“So… what happens now?” Rainbow eventually asked, hitting a subject Twilight had been reluctant to talk about.
“We should talk about it, though,” She admitted to herself, however hesitantly. With a sigh, she sat upright and looked ahead. “Well… I’m not sure. We need to figure out how to open that chest back in the cave and get my Element back. I just… don’t know where to start…”
Rainbow snuggled closer to her, imparting some strength and courage through physical contact. “We’ll figure it out,” she whispered encouragingly, nuzzling into Twilight’s shoulder. “We always do…”
Twilight giggled from the motion before resting her chin on Rainbow’s head. She let out a long, happy sigh from the pillow, and given Rainbow’s lack of protests, she imagined the pegasus enjoyed the position as well.
“...I don’t want to forget this,” Twilight eventually whispered, looking up at the sky. “Not again…”
After a moment, Twilight looked back down to Rainbow and saw the most loving look she had ever seen on the pegasus’ face. Rainbow leaned up until their muzzles were touching, her smile growing wider. “You won’t forget… I won’t let you…” she whispered.
“How?”
Rainbow waggled her brow in a playful manner. “By being so awesome you couldn’t possibly forget me. Duh.”
Twilight snorted down an incredulous laugh before closing the distance and kissing Rainbow on the lips. The pegasus’ wings snapped open for a moment, but she was quick to return the kiss, wrapping both of her wings around Twilight in a tender, feathery embrace.
“This…” Twilight thought to herself when the kiss ended. She rested her chin on Rainbow’s head again and closed her eyes, basking in the other mare’s warmth. “This is what I’ve missed so much… the small, happy moments like this...”
In the distance, the sun finally rose into view, marking not only the beginning of a new day for Equestria... but also the beginning of a new chapter in Twilight and Rainbow’s lives.
“...And the beautiful little memories they make.”