There was nothing.
Contrary to popular belief, there was literally nothing awaiting ponies after… well, after. It was something which defied all attempts to explain. It would almost be easier describing what it was not than what it was.
It wasn’t like floating in a sea of blackness, because floating implied any sort of sensation, and blackness implied something other than blackness.
It wasn’t like going home, or anything to do with warmth, because there was neither heat nor a lack thereof. There simply wasn't, for everything.
It wasn’t like a tunnel, or like meeting an old friend, or like anything at all, because there were no senses or sense of defined self in in the after.
There was simply nothing.
And then there was Applejack.
Ah invoke by right of the earth, as a mare of the earth and earth alone, an’ as a part of the cycle like all others who belong to it.
There had always been Applejack.
Ah call, an’ the earth listens. We are all formed of the earth, and we all return to the earth when it is our time. That is the way of things, an’ an earth pony knows ‘n desires no other.
There was only Applejack.
Ah call for a pony who has rejoined the earth and all those that rest. Ah invoke the earth on behalf of Rarity Belle, formerly of Ponyville, now of Manehattan. She is remembered, and remembered so.
And then there was Rarity, because Applejack willed it from the nothingness.
Rarity is generous, persistent, and beautiful.
Just as she had after the accident, when she’d been found trapped under bolts of cloth in her Ponyville home, smothered and still.
She is focused and creative, able to multitask while still stayin’ organized.
And after the original Carousel Boutique closed.
She is graceful and polite, an’ especially good at readin’ ponies and what they’re really feeling.
And after she moved to Manehattan with Applejack.
She’s good at findin’ different ways to achieve her goals, and Ah swear she can do the work of many without breakin’ a sweat.
And after she reopened her Boutique, and faced the criticism of a public who didn’t care what she’d been through, only that she keep rising ever higher.
An’... Rarity never forgets her ideas, and she’s able to find inspiration wherever she is, if she looks hard enough.
And now, for whatever value “now” had in nothingness.
Ah call to the earth for Rarity, as remembered, so she was and is.
Every time, she was remembered as more. But that was just the way of things, wasn’t it? If Applejack remembered Rarity as such, what could disprove the Honest truth?
Rarity must be returned to the cycle, for it ain’t yet time for her to be released from it. Ah accept that all things must end, but Rarity is not yet the earth’s. She is mine, and Ah refuse her the right of rest.
There was not only Applejack and Rarity, now, there was something. A pressure, almost, surrounding all that was Rarity, all that had been defined as Rarity, like a hoof scooping up a worm from the soil.
Ah invoke as Applejack.
All that was Rarity was moving, without any sense of direction or anything to be relative to, but somehow Rarity was moving all the same.
Return to me what is mine!
There was a blooming sensation, like a drop of dye in water, expanding to fill out all the edges of something new.
Then there was black and there was pain, for to all that was Rarity there now existed the possibility of their absence, and there was now time and a now to feel them in, along with a rushing noise, like weary machinery being started up once more.
And with it came a faint thumping of a heartbeat.