Falling...
Pounding...
Rushing...
A sheer slate of grey...
Fear...
Pain.
And then, Light Flow became very aware of a complete and utter darkness.
It was the sort of darkness he'd imagine would exist in a fictional void: perhaps one in which dark rituals and unholy creatures lurked. The kind of void he'd loved to read about as a foal, had wished he could emulate in some way, and that had inspired him to bug his mother to paint everything in his room completely black. Never mind that he couldn't find his door in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom; he'd never been so happy to feel so perpetually brooding.
That sort of void that he was imagining was that special, fictional sort of void that didn't exist in real life, and that was actually quite dissimilar in every notable way to the one he was faced with. It wasn't encompassing, soundless, lightless or thoughtless. So really, he was just wishing he was experiencing that kind of void instead, because the one he was in now was a huge letdown.
For one, he could obviously think, so that pretty much crossed the possibility of some kind of afterlife or in-between off. That really sucked; once he'd worked up the nerve to actually jump from that window, he'd kind of gotten excited halfway down about seeing what came after life. Of course, that had almost immediately replaced itself with a very real, screaming fear at twirling end over end of himself through the air and being buffeted by the constant wind and feeling the stinging in his eyes and opening them just in time to see the ground approach and then all he felt was-
Light Flow groaned, because his head hurt, and there was something agitating it. A kind of shaking- bumping- swinging motion that just wouldn't stop. It felt like he'd gotten onto a carriage with an upset stomach, and then that upset stomach had evolved into full-blown nausea, so now he was really just wishing he could get off before he could vomit all over the nice ride that he'd probably get thrown out of soon.
Though... he did feel sort of nauseous, didn't he? There was something very wrong with that, but for the life of him, he wasn't sure what it was...
No, wait- he was sure. He couldn't do anything for the life of him, because he should've been dead.
How did he know that? How... was he thinking?
He murmured in quiet discontent at the revelation, but that was strange- his mouth felt kind of cottony, but he had a mouth. He... felt pain? Hadn't he thrown himself out of a window to his death? What was-
A yelp- a distinctively female yelp pierced his ears, and he was suddenly aware that he had ears. Ears that heard more than he felt the wind as he fell, and while his immediate fear was that he was about to relive what he'd thought was his sure death, the next sensation in line was hitting the ground.
And opening his eyes.
Light blinked rapidly- but that should've been impossible. Grey grass and mottled grey trees met him- but that couldn't be right...
Sounds. Sense. The beating of his heart- not stilled in his not smashed-open chest.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
He counted off in his head, then sucked in a deep breath. Cold. Sensation. Ground under his hooves- he still had hooves. His mane tickling the back of his neck- was he alive?
There was a total silence in his ears. Grey grass and dead trees around him. Imperceptible amounts of filtered light. A persistent mugginess. He was in the Everfree forest.
Nothing felt strange. Not at all; everything felt just fine. Nothing hurt, aside from his head, and he obviously had all his bones and whatnot.
Was this what his own personal Underworld looked like, or was he really..?
A scuffle. A clear noise made by something shuffling in the packed dirt.
And Light was suddenly very aware that, for all that he was unsure of his mortality, he was splayed out on the ground, staring at nothing with his guard completely down, in the possible middle of what was assuredly the most dangerous place in Equestria.
And- that was fear. Yep- uh-huh- he was definitely feeling fear for his very kept hold on his miraculously inscrutable and completely whole life.
It was a huge shock that he was still alive, but that could wait until he was going to stay that way.
His nerves were still waking up- give him a break, he'd thought he was dead- so it took a few false starts to get his hooves under him. If it was a wild animal that was currently stalking him, then at least it wouldn't make fun of him for slipping on his own hooves and smacking his chin into the ground twice. He really had to count the small blessings, because he'd just gone through a certain-death experience, and he predictably wanted to henceforth savor the little things in life.
Eventually, he got there. His hooves felt sluggish and now his chin ached, but he eventually stood, and whirled around to the source of the noise that might've come to kill him again. Or for the first time. You know, he probably shouldn't have used the term whirled around, because he'd really just turned around- he was lucky to be standing at all, alright?!
His eyes swept through the very same-seeming sights of grey plants and dead flora, to land on the one thing in front of him that wasn't some shade of grey, and that very much wasn't dead. Just like him, somehow.
A mare. A creamish-colored, completely stained-with-brown earth pony mare with curly purple-and-pink hair. Her wide, cerulean eyes were fixed entirely on him: standing with three hooves on the ground, with the fourth wrapped in dirty grey bandages around its pastern and kept at her waist.
A slightly brown, very translucent soul spinning within her chest. Barely visible at all, like the last time he'd seen it.
He knew her. Immediately, he remembered her.
Had she been carrying him on her back? No- that didn't matter. The secret agent. What was her name? That didn't matter, either.
"It's you!"
"You're alive?!"
Two voices clashed; two ponies flinched, then stared at each other in confusion.
He'd shouted out an accusation, but what had she said? He was- he was alive? What?
That brooked many questions; so many that he wasn't sure which one to chase after first. Did he start with the obvious, go for the slightly less obvious, or for the completely unexpected?
One of them had to speak first, and it really made him question the skills of the supposed 'secret agent' when he opened his mouth before her.
"What do you mean I'm alive?" He threw the obvious question out as soon as he could: stopping the mare with her mouth half open, which then gaped open uselessly. Beat her to the punch; now if only he could get out of this mess without getting punched. It was a very clear memory in his mind: the dulled pain of having his legs swept while his body wasn't his. He'd like to avoid anything like that happening again.
As the rather poor excuse for an undercover cop shut her mouth, then opened her mouth, then shut her mouth, Light Flow couldn't help but feel a very sweet sense of vindication. Watching her grasp piteously at something to say as he'd so clearly thrown her off was just as intrinsically satisfying as he'd always thought it would be, and- whoa, was this what it was like to be Nightmare Moon?
Nightmare Moon.
His hooves suddenly felt very... weak under him, and it took a great deal of effort on his part not to fall down. The most he did was stumble slightly back, and for his condition, he thought that was pretty good.
He could remember... the last thing he remembered was Nightmare Moon's throne room, and Her egress from it. Her bid for him to follow Her to stop the heroes from finding the Elements and defeating Her. She'd left him alone with his thoughts of his friends. Alone in a room with many windows.
He supposed She'd never imagined he'd have the nerve.
He barely had.
Something did feel strange.
He shook off the sudden, full-body nausea, and blinked rapidly to drain an image he wanted to forget from his gaze. He breathed in, then out, then firmly locked the intrusive thought into a box for safekeeping. Or just so that he'd never have to think about Her again.
It was silent, he realized, and so he threw his head back up. The mare- the liar- still hadn't recovered from whatever was occupying her: still staring widely at him as though she couldn't believe he really existed. And, if she had thought he was dead, then she had a pretty good point. But- well, how would she know if he'd been dead or not? For that matter- what was she doing here?
As he stared at her mistrustfully, he couldn't help but notice- her soul was barely moving. It was spinning slightly like all souls did, but that way it was spinning seemed... stilted. She was obviously flustered, so her innermost reflection should have reflected that, but it wasn't.
A mare of mysteries he had no time to ponder.
Light put a hoof to his head, and seethed into it. "You know what- never mind," he muttered: shaking his head, then throwing his hoof to the side as he fixed the mare with an angry glare. "What are you doing here, anyway?" He swept his eyes around at the surroundings, just to make sure. "Aren't we in the Everfree forest? How did I get here?"
The mare- the mare who he could remember had once hit him in the leg- jerked slightly at his voice. He could tell she'd been lost in thought, because for as often as he'd experienced it himself, the signs were very clear. She blinked, and, almost as though she was seeing him for the first time, recognition flooded her eyes.
And then, the recognition was entirely smothered by another look. A guarded look. She was about to do something sneaky, wasn't she?
Her posture immediately changed in the moment after; her hooves came closer together, her back straightened, her head rose and her mouth curled into a pleasant smile. All at once and so suddenly, he was looking at a mare completely different from the one that had stood before him only seconds ago. And when she spoke, a voice he did not remember came from her mouth.
"Oh, sir, I'm so glad you're okay!" came the sunny, cheery, nauseating voice from a mare who was only pretending to be ditzy. The mare- the big fat liar- nodded: her smile growing wider, if such a thing was possible. "I'm an archeological major doing research on the old kingdom, and I found you lying collapsed in the middle of The Castle of the Two Sisters! Why, I'd positively thought you'd gone and died!"
She hummed a laugh, and waved her hoof. "I'm just as pleased as a pony skull to know you're alright!"
She giggled openly and annoyingly at that, though Light could only curl his lip in disgust. What kind of a metaphor was that? Pony skulls smiled, sure, but it was a weird thing to just say. Was it because she was pretending to be an archeologist? That was just-
Oh wait, he pretended to be an archeologist to hide his special talent. Maybe he should think twice before making fun of imposters.
Make fun, he would not, but get mad? He would still do that. His disgusted look bled into a very easy glare-because he was angry at her- and he firmly stomped his hoof, drawing the attention of the mare with nothing but insincerity in her eyes.
She was smart, he'd give her that. She'd deflected the question, provided an answer for her own, and presented a completely benign front all at once and in a false voice. Unluckily for her, he knew better, and her lie wasn't even nearly perfect.
He'd forgotten once, but never again.
Her soul was still stilted.
"You can't trick me; I know who you are. I remember you, and what you and Princess Celestia did to me," he said in as firm a voice as he could manage: a tone that brooked no misunderstanding, and at that, the mare's expression stilled. The cheer on her face chilled, and she was left smiling aimlessly, as the stare in her eyes grew dimmer and dimmer.
Until that smile turned upside down, and her brow narrowed.
"Alright then."
In retrospect- not such a great idea to promptly uncover the undercover secret agent who had already proven she could totally kick his butt.
In a flash, she moved, and before he knew what was happening, he was laying flat on his stomach. Too fast to see anything besides a blur of cream, though maybe his reaction time was thrown off by his recent possible demise. His hoof was quickly grabbed- jerked- then twisted behind his back, and his yelp in pain was then muffled as his head was pushed forward into the dirt.
The shock turned into adrenaline in a second, and as soon as he was cognizant, he began to furiously squirm against the heavy weight of the jerk mare who was kneeling on his back. He felt the mana in his veins begin to flow; gritting his teeth as he imagined poking her in the eye with a shimmer of red- but then, he let it fade away.
A voice- a chillingly familiar voice was reminding him of what had happened the last time they'd struggled.
Anti-magic horn ring.
He couldn't give her a reason to nullify his magic, not when he might need it later.
With magic firmly disallowed as a potential option, Light resorted to writhing and squirming, but no matter how he moved he just couldn't dislodge her. There was- ouch! Her hoof was digging into his back! Wasn't one of her hooves bandaged? How could she- was that a latch being clicked?
And then, there was something cold and metal around his hoof.
He had a sinking feeling all of a sudden.
"Light Flow, you are hereby under house arrest under suspicion of colluding with the Nightmare Queen to overthrow the Crown, as well as multiple additional suspicions of violating the sanctified ban on all forms of Black magic." Her voice was no longer sunny- but at least he recognized it now. It was a sweet voice, drizzled with something bitter. The voice of a mare who'd led him to a tree house in the woods. The voice of a mare who'd pretended to be his best friend.
A voice that stilled his blood within his veins, as it firmly stated his worst fears in an intense, droning monotone. "There will be a pending investigation into whether you have killed, maimed, or otherwise harmed anypony or anything under the influence of or at the bidding of the Nightmare Queen, and at which time such acts are discovered, you will face legal repercussions."
This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening to him.
"I am required to inform you that you will be subject to multiple forms of interrogation until such time as it is fully understood the extent of your general wrongdoings and specific violations of Equestrian law, especially in regards to your usage of Black magic and the measurable scope of your overall Black magic corruption.
"If it is discovered that you have broken the 49th Celestial Commandment outlawing all usage of Black magic-" Her press into his back firmed, and he was suddenly breathless, or moreso. "-you may be subject to the additional devotional punishments of the Solar Church."
He was breaking out in cold shivers all over now, but he could barely help it. It felt like every muscle in his body had gone completely numb, and he couldn't do anything except gape uselessly as her steady voice droned further in his ears.
Holy fire.
"Following your absolution in the eyes of The Pure Goddess, you will be sentenced to a variable jail time, after which time has been served you will be released on parole without the use of your magic." The grip around his hoof tightened and drew back: forcing him to lean uncomfortably up as he grimaced in silent pain. "Neither I nor any serving officer are compelled to offer you any additional or compulsory rights or freedoms, as stated under the wartime statutes detailing the handling of traitors to the Crown."
He'd been wrong. He wasn't alive. He really had died in that fall, and now he was in Tartarus.
"Upon returning to civilization, my investigation into your actions as taken through service to the Nightmare Queen will begin. You are legally compelled by the Holy Crown of Equestria to comply with any and all investigatory actions. Failure to do so will result in further or compounding jail time pending additional punishments or restrictions."
It was all too surreal. This couldn't be happening. This had to be a trick. He must've been dead, or he was still in that room with Her and She was using magic on him again. It had to be anything but reality.
The grip on his hoof loosened. "I am not compelled to explain any further rights to you, nor am I required to reexplain anything I have previously stated, nor is your explicit understanding of this arrest required. Neither myself nor the Crown are liable for any physical or mental damages, but if you believe you have been treated unfairly or discriminated against, you may request court time to express your grievances in a minimum of eight to twelve months."
The hoof that was still pressing into his back finally eased, and bit by bit, the weight on his back retreated. His hoof bent back to his front, though it ached...
But the slight pain made it all too clear that this was reality. This was real, and he was being arrested.
And he couldn't even sue for trauma.
Great.
Light groaned in a mixture of pain and misery as there was a soft stepping of uneven hooves, and the extremely dirtied mare who'd just ruined what little life he'd had trotted out into view and promptly sat down. As there was so little to look at, his eyes were drawn to the stained saddlebag slung over her similarly stained waist. It was adorned by its speckled-red latch with the cutie mark similarly sketched on her flank, and it was flapping closed as the mare trickily fished out a sheer silver band with her teeth.
The band clicked open with a latch from a quick jerk of her head, and was messily guided onto the hoof that wasn't bandaged. It went click again, and though her new accessory was quite plain, she seemed more than pleased with it.
And then, she turned her eyes to him. Dull cerulean eyes, brimming with total mistrust and a foreign sense of antipathy. "...You can get up now," she stated dryly after a moment of shared staring. The tone of her voice was back to normal- less frightening- but otherwise completely disinterested.
For the mare who had just detailed the rest of his future at the hooves of the government, she didn't seem too preoccupied with his fate. Her soul still wasn't active or especially visible, so there was either something wrong with her, something wrong with him, or she was just a complete sociopath.
He knew she was a mule, at least.
Rather than stand- because screw her- he huffed loudly, and pressed his body further into the dirt. His silent objection was met with as little as a dry stare: followed by a rolling of her eyes and a sigh, for which she stood up. Panic flared in his veins as she began to trot towards him, though for how he braced for her to stomp his brains out, she only reached her good hoof down towards him.
"Come on, get up. We need to get out of this place before it eats us alive."
He stared widely at the hoof being offered to him, before focusing his stare on the mare offering it. The once-creamy, secret agent mare who had been the one to pin him was now offering to help him up: nothing but faded apathy and a slight anticipation in her eyes.
He didn't like her. Even despite all that she'd done to him, he just plain didn't like her.
It wasn't looking as though he had much of a choice in the matter, unless he really did want her to stomp all over her face, so even though it made him feel like a fool, he cautiously reached a hoof out to take hold of hers. He was immediately jerked forward with such strength that he really didn't have a choice but to stand. So stand, he did.
He glared at her for his mistreatment, to which she only stared blankly at him. The stare-off only lasted as long as it took his gaze to track downward, and as it did, it suddenly became very apparent what that cold feeling was.
"What... did you put on me..?" he murmured absently: staring widely and unabashedly at the identical silver bands around both of their conjoined hooves. In the second after, her hoof slapped his away, and he wincingly cradled the aggressed limb closer to himself as he studied the new, foreign object on it.
It was a metal ring: big enough to fit around his pastern, but small enough that he couldn't just slide it off. Entirely form-fitting, and it didn't even chafe. Certainly not a hoofcuff, though he was being arrested.
What had she said..? He was going to be put on parole after his... 'devotional punishments?' Like there'd be anything left of him afterwards...
"It's a magical imprint tag." He looked back up from his depressed pondering to see the mare frowning stonily, which he was beginning to feel was a usual expression for her. As his attention was on her, her frown deepened. "It's a preventative measure to keep you from wandering off until we get back to Ponyville and I can start interrogating you."
He blinked, and stared bewilderedly back down at the... 'magical imprint tag.' Awfully concise name for a magical gadget, but still pretty fancy for a souped-up hoofcuff. There was probably no running away to hide in the forest for the rest of his life as long as he had it on. There went his forest hermit backup strategy.
"How does it do that?" was his next question, and he looked back to his new arrest officer as she scowled at his question. Her tense posture and tapping hoof were clear indications she wanted to get going, but she'd never told him he had the right to remain silent, so he was gonna talk. He'd just been freed from an applicable eternity spent with an insane moon Goddess, so he was going to enjoy what little time he had.
Also he might have recently died, but he was feeling surprisingly apathetic about that.
Her eye flicked out to her left, then found him again. She unceremoniously held up her own banded hoof. "See mine?" she asked, and though he didn't really like the condescension of asking whether he could see, he still nodded.
Her stony expression broke, and she finally smiled, though he didn't really enjoy the meaning behind the smile. It was sort of... sadistic. "It's linked to yours, and if the wards they're both imprinted with detect a distance of more than twenty-five yards between them, yours will incapacitate you."
He sucked in a breath: jerking his gaze back to the band around his pastern that was apparently dangerous. "And how does it do that?!" he cried. He'd mostly felt a little dead since he'd been summarily told that he was probably going to prison for the rest of his life, but knowing that he was now very firmly tethered to this mare was helping him to feel a little more alive again! Funny how imminent danger did that to a pony!
His panic was throttled and muffled by a more quiet fear as his hoof was forcibly lowered by another, and he was suddenly staring directly into the sharp, cerulean eyes of the secret agent. "Calm down, it's only preventative. It won't hurt you as long as you stick by me." Her words were punctuated by a lean back, but even as she retreated, he very much wanted to scream that he couldn't calm down because there was a dangerous magical object on his hoof.
But with the way she was staring at him, with her eyebrow raised like that, made him think a few more times than twice about it.
Though he was feeling more than a bit dizzy, so he put his hoof to his head. It was a sad stand-in for leaning on something, but there wasn't much around besides the dead trees, so he'd have to deal with what he had.
And what he had was a headache.
"I'm... really being arrested..." he murmured, and hearing it out loud made the feeling so much worse. He looked back up from the ground to stare at the mare: feeling a sense of still mortification beginning to spread through his cold cheeks. "This is real? I'm not- I'm not actually dead?"
The word felt heavy in his clammy mouth, and it only weighed heavier on his mind. When he'd woken up- realized he was alive after he... he could remember the fall... and the pain...
It didn't seem fair. It didn't seem right to have done all he did... to then be punished...
His next breath was sharper as he raised his other hoof, and closed his eyes. He'd spent so long up there in that castle... doing all he could to stop Nightmare Moon, and now...
There had been so much he'd wanted to do... There were so many new possibilities...
A feeling was welling up in his chest, again. A feeling he'd bared his heart for, that had followed him for his entire life, and might stay with him until he died again.
He'd wasted his life.
Touch. A hoof on his.
His eyes flew widely open, and they were met with the abject color of pure cerulean: a beautiful color marred by a swatch of guilt-tinged remorse.
She was right in front of him, and there was a soft frown on her creased face.
"Try... not to think about it, Light." Her hoof lowered from where it had rested over his, and she promptly averted her guilty stare from his. She turned from him and began to trot away, and in a single moment, something shifted in her chest.
There was a flash of color behind her soul. For a single moment and right before his overwrought stare, the boring brown flickered, wavered, and he caught a glimpse of shining cerulean blue.
Shimmering and slowly spinning with sadness.
And then it was gone. Painted right over by see-through, silent brown.
Light blinked rapidly as he tried to burn the quick image into his eyes. He'd barely seen it, but he had seen it. He was going on the assumption that he'd stopped seeing things since he'd been given his wits back, so he was trusting that he really had actually seen that.
But if he was sure he'd seen it, then he knew what it was. Her real soul, under the obviously fake one.
And she was sad.
She was walking away: the sparse light flickering down from the canopy bathing her dirty body in subtle rays as she passed through a dense thicket of plants. He could hardly believe he'd seen what he saw; the change of emotion from the dry mare was-
Wait...
He cast his gaze up, as fast as he could, to the canopy above.
Light trickling down. Shining, bright light.
He gaped openly at the sight, for... every reason he could think of. He blinked, then blinked again, and- just so he wasn't imagining it- blinked many more times after that.
But it stayed. The bright light of day filtered down around them: visible even through the choking array of the Everfree's dead leaves.
It was day.
He'd done it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Bon Bon walked slowly away from the miserable unicorn with dried, runny red encrusted all over his sides, she was very glad she'd been trained to cover her emotions. Her additional precautions, as well, if Light had regained the apparently inherent ability of a born Necromancer.
For all that she was calm and collected on the outside, her heart was pounding in her ears.
Her slow gait stilled between steps, to listen carefully as the crunching of dead grass underhoof began behind her. Slow and unsteady in its own right, but following. She began to walk forward again: ducking her head and grimacing to avoid overbearing foliage and branches bearing down. A dead, leafless bush scratched along her bandage, but she barely felt the sting.
Between every blink, she still saw what she'd seen, following her magic compass. Behind every breath, she could still taste the scent in the air. In the back of her mind, it was all she could think about.
Jutting bones. Broken skin. Twisted, bent hooves. Teeth scattered over the stone.
The blood. The running. The spatter.
And now, he was walking behind her. On his own four hooves, which were no longer noticeably broken or twisted out of socket. After he'd finished speaking to her, with his mouth full of the teeth that she was sure she'd left on the ground in the castle.
The sight she'd been witness to was as awful as any she'd ever seen. Rarely did her missions intersect with death, and never had she failed to prevent one.
But there had laid Light Flow: dead on the cold, grey ground.
She suppressed a shiver, and spared as quick as glance behind her as she could. Light was, thankfully, following a couple hoof-lengths behind her. She'd expected his head to be morosely down at his hooves, but it was up: sharp, red eyes focused on her and immediately meeting her gaze. Her heart skipped a beat and she returned her stare forward, cursing herself for being so unprofessional as to look in the first place.
Light was going to have to make a trip to Town Hall to change his documented eye color, because they were pretty permanently red, now. A clear sign of corruption. Once upon a time, that would've been all she needed to slap cuffs on him for breaking Black magic laws, even without the whole... resurrection thing. It had probably been that whole resurrection thing that had pushed his corruption over the first stage.
But that should've been impossible. There was a Necromantic spell to prevent and reverse death, but there was just no way Light had learned it. Not in the time he'd been under surveillance, and certainly not in the span of a single night.
Yet he'd still come back. Long, long after she'd hefted that sagging bag of bones onto her back, wincing for the feeling of empty skin and grimacing as the cold feeling of blood began to seep over her coat, he'd... come back. That bag of bones had stitched itself back together when she wasn't looking, and now, he was fine. Nothing noticeably off about him at all, aside from the bloodstains he still hadn't noticed.
She had to wonder, though, what had lead to his death? Did he know?
If he did, then it only made her feel all the worse for arresting him.
A patch of twisted black brambles came up before them, so she turned to duck behind a tree. Hopefully Light had seen her go around, though it would've been really funny to watch him stumble through the thorns.
He probably didn't need the brutalizing after the one she'd given him. She wished she could tell him that it wasn't as bad as she'd made it sound: she felt the need to comfort him pressing on her jaw, but she had to clamp down. She'd had to put on a tough front. For the safety of her post, she had to cover as much as she could; play dumb and brutal for as long as it took until the all-clear came through and she could let Light go.
She'd still have to interrogate him, but Her Highness had been fairly clear that charges wouldn't be pressed upon Light. Nothing that had happened was his fault- unless he'd actually done something while she wasn't looking- and the political clime was lax enough that they could safely skirt by the edge of the old, antiquated laws. He'd be able to return to his old life none the worse for wear, just as long as Light hadn't actually killed anypony.
She just- couldn't tell Light any of that, since it would've implied that they knew all those things, which would imply they'd been watching him, and... well, the Crown simply couldn't let anypony know about that kind of surveillance. Bon Bon was just glad the EIA hadn't been allowed to kidnap ponies off the street for a few centuries, otherwise the entire problem with Light could just be solved with a carriage and a few suits.
She really hoped the all-clear would come soon, though. After all...
She flicked an eye down as she walked, to see the light dappling the grey grass.
She'd never forget the moment the sun had risen as she'd crossed that fixed bridge she'd once fallen off of, and she could feel the warmth crawl over her. Raise her eyes to Her Majesty in the sky, and know that she was safe. Feel the profound peace of being loved in her breast, and know, without a doubt, that she could smile.
Her Highness had risen over the Night, and the Nightmare was over. For all her loving faith, Harmony had emerged victorious, and her burdens were made lesser. All she'd done for the Crown; all that she'd sacrificed had been repaid in that single, glorious moment. Everyone she loved was safe, and soon, she could go home.
It had seemed even sadder, then, that she'd been carrying Light's dead body on her back.
But he was alright, now. She was going to have to ask Her Highness how he was alright when they got out of the Everfree, but the important thing was that he was safe. Nightmare Moon had been defeated by the Elements of Harmony, and Light, as well as Equestria, was safe.
She just didn't know how, yet.