Many years later…
Light.
It was everywhere, filling Little Wing’s very being. This… was different than before. Where previously this very sensation had been filled with nought but despair and dread, now it was… peace. She was peaceful, and happy.
The slow beeping of the heart rate monitor was fading away, as were the faces around her. She had been admitted some days ago as her strength began to fail, her old bones no longer being able to support her anymore. She had been given a nice room and a comfy bed, every need seen to by the nice ponies working in Cloudsdale General Hospital. Her dearest possessions laid out on cabinets around her, the room looking more like a nice bedroom than a hospital room now. There was her old Wonderbolt uniform. Pictures of her life, from the day she got her cutie mark beating a storm cloud into submission to the birth of their second child, a daughter that time around. Then there were the images of her parents, Scootaloo, Misty…
It had been such a long time…
And those faces around her now… everypony she loved, and who loved her. Her children. Her friends. Her remaining sister; Rainbow Dash, as young and stubborn as ever thanks to the Tree of Harmony, who had been doing her best to get Little Wing to fight for every breath.
And she had. Each and every single one.
But the time had come. For good, this time.
And they were all there, holding her hooves as she faded. Sky Dancer held Little Gale as the stallion couldn’t restrain his emotions, letting tears freely fall. Rainbow Dash sat stroking Little Wing’s greyed mane, offering her a comforting smile as she struggled to hold in her own sadness.
But they would see each other again, just as she now went to see Misty Gust.
Everything blurred, and all sensation began to dissipate… until there was nothing left to feel. Her loved ones could no longer be seen, everything being that one bright light. But then, as it had been before, she was halted.
“Are you ready, Little Wing?” Penumbra asked amidst a familiar field of stars. “Standing here, one final time…?”
So, here she was. Looking at a hoof, Little Wing saw it was the vibrant cyan of her younger years. She felt more energy than she had in a long time, her wings fluttering freely on her back. And was it just her or did this realm feel… brighter than it had before? Much like everything else, it seemed more at peace…
But still, Little Wing couldn’t stop tears of her own.
“They will be okay, won’t they?” she asked the alicorn that had been the catalyst for everything, and now the one to send her on her way. “My family, now that I’m gone…?”
Penumbra gave her a small smile, nodding in assurance.
Little Wing nodded, wiping away her tears with a hoof. “Good. I… think I’m ready this time. If you would… walk me there?”
The smile brightened. “It would be my honour, old friend. But I can only accompany you to the edge. I cannot enter with you.”
The smile was returned. “That’s okay. Just to the edge then.”
And so they began to walk, deep into the twinkling lights of reality itself. And as they went, Penumbra steadily slowed her pace while Little Wing’s remained constant. This continued until Penumbra finally slowed to a complete halt, watching calmly as Little Wing took a final few steps in peace…
And then she faded away, finally passing into the beyond.