Scrape… scrape… scrape…
She twitched her ears. What was that sound? Couldn’t whatever was making it see she was trying to sleep?
Scrape… scrape… scrape…
Maybe she could sleep through it. She was just so tired.
Scrape… scrape… scrape…
She frowned. All right, maybe she couldn’t. What even was that? She opened her eyes, and looked around. Bare white walls, a strong smell of antiseptic… was she in an infirmary? Why was she in an infirmary?
She looked to her left, toward the source of the scraping. A grey pegasus hunched over a misshapen piece of soapstone, worrying away at it with a rasp. From the look of it, the pile of dust on the floor was far more impressive than whatever he was carving. He hadn’t noticed her yet.
Suddenly, she became acutely aware that she was thirsty. She looked around again, hoping to find a pitcher of water. To her delight, there was one, but it was on a table beside the pegasus. At the moment, all she could move was her neck. She tried calling out, but the only sound she could make was a dry rasp.
The pegasus ignored her, and kept filing away. Honestly, if he was trying to reduce the piece of soapstone to dust, he was doing a fine job.
She tried calling out again, but the sound was lost as the door creaked open. A white alicorn walked through, casting a worried look at the pegasus. “Is there any change?” she asked.
The pegasus shook his head. “No’ yet,” he replied. “She’ll wake eventually. Ah know she will.”
The alicorn sighed, and looked over at her — and froze. “Twilight?” she whispered.
Yes, Twilight. Twilight Sparkle. That was her name. The pegasus was Fairweather, the alicorn was Princess Celestia, and…
Everything came flooding back. Tex, the Everfree, Luna…
She forced her hoof to move, to try and pull down the blanket covering her chest. She had to see it.
Celestia’s hoof stopped her. “Not yet,” she said. “You’ve… you’ve been through a lot.”
Twilight looked back at her. She could make out the faint shadows of bruises on her mentor’s neck and back. Celestia’s eyes were red-rimmed, and her feathers were in disarray. Looks like I can say the same about you. She tried to say so, but her voice wouldn’t cooperate.
“Here,” Celestia said, levitating a glass of water toward her. Twilight drank greedily, spilling down her chin.
She sat back, exhausted by the effort. But she still had strength for one word. “Tex?” she gasped.
Celestia paused for a moment. “Gone,” she finally said. “You truly did something special back there.”
Twilight frowned. There was something else. Something important. It took her a few moments to remember what it was. “Friends?” she said with the last of her strength.
“In the room down the hall,” Celestia replied. “Sleeping. They insisted on keeping vigil, but I managed to convince them to rest after a day and a half.”
Content, Twilight closed her eyes.
When she awoke again, she was alone. The sun slanted through the window at a sharper angle than before. More important than that was the strength that now flowed through her. She lifted a hoof, shaking with the effort. A newborn foal could have managed better, but it was still an improvement.
Now for another test. Moving slowly, she shifted the covers and placed her rear hooves on the floor. So far, so good. Her front hooves joined her rear ones. She took a breath. Her legs were shaky, but they held her.
She carefully began walking around the room, gaining confidence with each step. A wall-mounted mirror at the far side of the room caught her eye. She stopped dead, eyes widening. Then took a few steps closer to make sure she was seeing right.
With a trembling hoof, she reached up to touch the area on her chest that had been shaved, and the six-inch scar that meandered across it. A half-memory of a shining lance flashed through her mind. She shivered. It had been cold. She remembered that much.
“I expected you to still be asleep.”
Twilight stiffened. She hadn’t heard the door open. But she didn’t turn around. She just watched as Princess Celestia joined her at the mirror.
“How?” she whispered.
“Luna,” Celestia said. “She petrified you. It was risky, but it… kept you alive until we could bring you here. It gave us time to bring in the best healers we could find, but... it was still close. Too close.”
“Were you there?”
Celestia paused for a long time. “Yes,” she finally said. “I was there.”
“I’m sorry,” Twilight said.
“No,” Celestia replied with sudden vehemence. “Don’t apologize. You did what you had to.”
Twilight shook her head. “Back there, in the Everfree… I knew I was going to die. That’s how I was able to send him back.” She studied the scar again. “I should have died.”
Princess Celestia made an odd sound beside her. Twilight looked up, and saw that she was biting her lip, tears overflowing from her eyes. “Never do that to me again,” she whispered fiercely. “Never.”
Twilight reached out and touched her shoulder. The Princess responded by reaching out with a wing and hugging her close. She nuzzled her mentor’s neck, a chill running down her spine. What must it have been like for her? Seeing her brought in by a panicking Luna, petrified and impaled by a spear?
“I don’t blame you,” she said quietly.
Celestia stiffened. “Is that the truth?” she asked.
Twilight took a moment to search herself. None of this would have happened if Celestia had not accidentally brought Tex into their world. But for the life of her, she couldn’t find a shred of blame for it. Or for anyone involved. None of them had been truly prepared for what happened.
She nodded. With that simple movement, she felt the tension drain out of her mentor. Her own breath hitched, and she felt her vision became misty with tears.
Abruptly, Princess Celestia stepped away. “Your friends will want to know you’re awake,” she said, her cool demeanor back in place.
My friends, Twilight thought, a twinge of guilt appearing in her chest. She hadn’t given any thought as to how her actions might have affected them. She would have some apologizing to do, it seemed.
But there was one thing she had to ask.
“Princess,” she said. “Did… did I do the right thing?”
Celestia looked at her for a long moment. “Yes,” she finally said. “You did.”
She left, leaving Twilight to stare at the door and think. A long moment later, a chorus of excited voices erupted from the other side and her five friends burst in, surrounding her, every one trying to ask her own question.
Twilight said nothing and instead drew them all into a group hug. They understood her intent and hugged her back, content, as if suddenly everything was right in the world.
And perhaps, for a brief moment, it was.