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// (---) 
// Story: Never Going Back Again 
// by NorrisThePony 
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(postscript)


Celestia hit the ground in a slurry of yellowish-orange liquid, and there were what felt like a dozen hooves on her the moment she did. The impact should have stung, but it simply felt numb instead. 

Her head was throbbing, a furious force feeling as though it were forcing through her skull, rending her apart from inside out. 

She lay panting for a moment, blinking again and again but unable to will any sight into her gaze. Through what sounded like a tunnel, she heard urgent voices. She heard hooves scraping upon a marble floor.  

And... She felt Twilight Sparkle’s hooves there, too. Even without her sight, and even with a dozen of them all helping her to her hooves, she could feel the distinct sensation of Twilight holding her tight, ignoring the heavy layer of biofilm still clinging to Celestia’s body. 

“You’re here... You’re here...” 

Shapes formed out of the blinding white, the longer Celestia squinted and stared. A window...tall, glass. The rising of buildings and smokestacks towards a dull sky of inky blacks. Taller and grander than she had ever seen them, even during the busy days of an industrializing Equestria.

And against it all...

“Twilight...” Celestia’s body was in agony, sore and numb and stiff and new all at once, but she pushed through the worse in order to wrap her hooves around Twilight’s neck. Off to her side, Luna was looking down at her, a small smile on her face and fresh tears streaming down her face. She knew she was moments from passing out, the sheer exertion on her newly awoken body even from the few moments spent conscious too much. Her headache went from splitting to agonizing. Her vision danced and swam. But... The mare she was holding felt real, for the first time in so long. Perhaps that feeling was enough. 

She blacked out, in Twilight and Luna’s hooves. Beside her, several other pods were being tended to, as well, as the other inhabitants within emerged. Carefully and calmly, and with considerably less fanfare, but with the dignity befitting the ponies within all the same. 

And somewhere, a million miles away, the gnarled ruins of an ancient space station lost the last of its purpose, as the point it had been orbiting for a dozen lifetimes ceased to be.