This Is Where The Title Goes

AFTERWORD

A golden aura filters through the window: Sun's first smile. A few brilliant green leaves flutter past the window. If we look to the side, we can see a yellow pegasus with a pink mane sipping hot cocoa.

Fluttertree. I mean, Flutterpony. No! Fluttershy. Sorry. It's been a long day.

The bear with the tea set is heading back into the kitchen, and the little white bossy bunny is sitting by Fluttershy looking very pleased with himself.

The fillies (Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon), Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie, Zecora, Spike and Applejack all scurry around, figuring out what's what.

Fluttershy yawns, but won't let herself fall asleep. Everypony wants to know exactly how the story ends.

Not too far away, in a green pasture with the still-fresh skidmarks of an exploded phone box, stands Trixie, Princess Twilight, the Cookie Guides, and... Celestia.

She looks different.

She stands in the midst of the group, head hung. Her mane is only one colour: a dull pink: and it no longer defies physics by waving in the breeze.

She has no crown, and her eyes are dark. And sad.

As the Sun stops rising, a new light graces the skies.

"Ah. The other princesses," says the changeling.

They look up, and two deities appear.

"Sister."

The first, the eldest, sighs. Her long blue mane flutters in the breeze.

"I-I'm... I'm sorry," Celestia says softly.

Princess Luna pulls her older sister into a tight embrace.

"It happens to all of us."

Behind them, a small pink alicorn (wings and horn) with a curly purple and blue mane, smiles up at Twilight.

"Aunt-y."

Twilight smiles.

"The Crystal Empire," says Celestia, "I-I think I-"

"I don't know how Flurryheart escaped. But I know how to bring back the empire. Again."

Celestia nods.

Pause time.

You have to be caught up on the battle before I leave you- for good this time.

The story will have its happy ending.

It was simple, really.

When Twilight Sparkle first moved to Ponyville, when she was still a unicorn, she met her friends and they discovered they were tied to powerful magical artefacts called the 'Elements of Harmony'. With these, they could capture or stop practically any villain, until they had to give them to a tree.

I've got a feeling trees around Ponyville generally don't adhere to the rules of anywhere and everywhere else.

But that's not the important part. The important part is that once Twilight realised that each of them embodied an element, even through their differences, she knew she didn't need the objects that Nightmare Moon destroyed.

She was the spark to bring them back.

They were the spark to bring them back.

The main characters of a story, with no guide to help them.

And at their hour of greatest need... the Elements rose again.

It needed all six of them. It needed the real six of them, beyond the cacophony of lies that 'Queen' Celestia wove.

So, dear Reader, I don't suppose I will see you again. I don't need to hide between the fabric of reality and fiction, the fabric of Readers and Narrators.

I am Starlight Glimmer.

This has been our story.

LOCATION: Ponyville Outskirts

Four alicorns stand at four points of a pentagon. They require a fifth member: a powerful unicorn: to join them.

This unicorn, by the name of Starlight Glimmer, appears at the fifth point.

They nod, and auras rise around their horns, even for the little one.

The Crystal Empire will rise again.

The alicorns will rise again.

The truth will rise again.

The story...

The story will rise again.