A blinding light and searing pain, my senses are quickly overwhelmed. Flesh knits together and blood flows once more. Bones set themselves and a heart restarts. Magic surges through my body, mending the body and returning the soul. I open my eyes for what feels like the first time in ages.
"The afterlife cannot keep you young one," Luna says. "Not now nor ever."
My mind is racing, collecting the recent events and forming them into an understandable timeline. The fight, failing, the quick blast and the unending fall. I'm dead. I was dead. Now I am alive, or some morbid copy of it. I take the chance to observe my surroundings. I am in the temple where my friends and I defeated Nightmare Moon.
Breath explodes from me like steam from a train. My friends. Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash. All dead. Destroyed at the hands of changelings. Emotion, a heady thing, returns in full force. I topple, a tree in a gale, my newly remade body dropping from a dimming ball of light. I lay there on the cold stone, no reason to stand. I relive them, each of my friends. Their final moments transferred to me in a burst of magically fueled emotion. I see the each of the Elements fall time and time again until I reach the last. Rainbow Dash. A stabbing horn brings her down, the changelings pounce on her, smashing her wings and limbs. The athlete doesn't even cry out, her eyes are locked on me. I struggle with Chrysalis, horns locked, forehead to forehead. She gloats, the sound blocked by the changeling legs. Suddenly an explosion of magic. The changelings surrounding Rainbow are removed from existence. My tiara has broken. Rainbow Dash watches me slide to the window, smoke raising from my form, a deep cut seeping blood into my eyes. Chrysalis lowers her horn for the last time and I am flung to my doom. Rainbow watches the glass break, she can see every vivid detail. I slowly sink from view, never to be seen again. The queen slowly moves in for the final kill. Threats are exchanged and she rears up, bringing her hooves down in an all too familiar encompassing darkness.
My eyes focus again, I'm lying in a pool of tears. Luna is there beside me, in an attempt to comfort me. It doesn't work. She leans in and whispers something that rockets me to my feet.
"The others are waiting for you." Luna moves away, obviously pleased with herself. She had, after all, been the only one to remember why the Elements of Harmony had been broken in stone form in the first place. It had been so obvious to her when the stones had reformed and taken their forms for each of the mares. Luna loses her train of thought as I quickly exit the room.
"Wait!" She calls after me, " you aren't fully healed yet!"
The words are quickly forgotten. The next room brings a very welcome sight.
"Twilight," an energetic voice screams. I'm on my back before I can blink, a pink monster has me by the throat. I brace myself, annoyed at how short this life has been. "Gummy was so worried but I wasn't because I knew that Princess Luna knew that I knew that she-"
"PINKE!" I scream, cutting her off before my head explodes. "I am beyond glad to see you but can you please stop yelling in my ear. My headache feels like I just woke up from the dead and you aren't really helping." Pinkie can't help but laugh at me.
"Silly pony, you did just wake up from the dead."
I stare at her, her insane logic will forever and always drive me just as crazy as she is. I take the brief pause to my advantage and examine the new room. It is much smaller than the amphitheater that I was just in with Luna, who has made her way in after me and is laughing silently at the exchange.
"Your friends will be very happy to see you," she adds with a light laugh.
Blinking again, I had totally forgotten about the others. Just the thought of Pinkie being back had given me pause; the knowledge that the others were okay as well had me nearly returning to the floor. Pinkie scooped my up and placed me on her back. She quickly galloped through the halls and doors of the restored castle. Left, right, up stairs, and down inclines she raced. A sudden stop caused me to roll from her shoulders and hit the floor with a solid thud.
"Ugh" was all I could manage. Pinkie's mad dash had left me more than a little queasy. Pinkie and Luna are behind me, both rather amused at how unsteady I was. Struggling to my feet, I took stock of my surrounds for the third time. Walls, windows, couches, and more doors, a yellow pegasus, some more couches, some potted plants.
A lightning bolt raced through me, Fluttershy was standing right next to me. "Fluttershy!" I yelled, wrapping her up quickly in a warm embrace.
"Eep" was about all she could manage.
The others quickly ran up; Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie all joining in for one big group hug.
"We've been so worried about you, dear." Rarity said, stepping back and wiping her eyes with a hoofkerchief.
"Ah told em you'd be right as rain" Applejack said, with a grin a mile wide.
"Oh, hello Twilight, I'm so glad to see you." Stuttered Fluttershy, finally coming out from under her mane.
"The gang's all here!" I bubble, beyond overjoyed at the four impossibilities in front of me. Everypony freezes as what I just said registers on my brain. "Where is she? Where is Rainbow?" I deadpan, the atmosphere in the room becomes cold and lifeless.
Luna motions the others away as I stand there, nerves on end, thinking of her last moments. Alone and defenseless. Luna brought me in close to a tight hug.
"Rainbow..." she started but quickly petered out. "Perhaps it would just be best if I show you."