Twilight sparkles watches the sunrise.

Red. Very Red. Hints of orange. Yellow. Bright light, yet not close to being white.

She knows that nopony has ever looked at the sun quite like this. It’s been passed down from mother to son, from mother to daughter, from father to son, from father to daughter so many times it hardly even needs spoken; don’t look at the sun.

The clouds are wrapped around the massive stellar orb like a blanket. Swaddled in it, the inner gift simmers and glimmers, an almost perfect combination.

Almost as much as that night had been. There she was, suddenly the third or fourth most important pony in the entire world, and more importantly, one of the most knowledgeable ponies in all of Equestria. Here she was, the apprentice of Celestia, and now, she was on the same level as her.

A single ray of light bursts out from the clouds and illuminates her.

Here she is now, sitting here, staring at the sun. She can hardly believe it. How many poems had been never written about it? How many poems mentioned the sun without knowledge of what it really was? It was… almost impossible to think about.

She was on the same level as the lord of the sun, the one who made it rise and fall. Luna and Celestia both bowed to her, and she bowed back.

“It’s…” She doesn’t finish the statement. Here, here she is in the moment. In the moment between moments, really.

She looks at it with eyes that have knowledge, and tears trickle out.

Humbleness.

Arrogance.

Curiousity.

Each one falls out of her eyes, dripping, hitting the dark green grass. Maybe it would survive, perhaps? Blessed with the water of a god.

She was on the same level as the gods themselves and she still wondered. She wondered why she could hear a heart beat, four heart beats when there were three in the room.

She shouldn’t’ve asked, but she did.

Now, she stares up at the son, ignoring the agony as another beam crosses into her vision, and tries to understand exactly what she is seeing now.

There’s a heart beat.

She thinks it is her own, but she can’t be sure she’s even alive anymore.

What was the heart beat?

She asked this and Celestia almost looked ashamed. Which couldn’t be right, because they were all gods now.

But she asked anyway. She shouldn’t have done that.

The grass around her is slowly turning to ash. She is standing at the end of the world, the last known place on any map.

Or is she standing at the end of her world, when everyone else is gone and she sits, peering at the round off white shape hovering the sky? Destroying everything around it, and providing life?

They didn’t know exactly what to tell her. Celestia spoke, but it was… confused, mangled, different, not real words.

Is she alone, or is she dreaming? A little life, warm and gleaming. The crows are gone, they cannot pluck the eyes out of the ones she used to love.

Is she alone or does she sleep? A little life, a little heart beat, thudding in the wastes at the end of the world, or the end of her world.

Hard to tell.

Is she in Ponyville now, standing on the cliff before the final water fall?

Is she at the end of death, in the cloud house that she once knew before fast became slow?

The sun is still glowing, all the while. Beating, beating like a drum.

She tries to see past the fire, past the light. Past the corona.

It’s an egg. Celestia tried to tell her this. Hard to believe. Impossible.

She is knowledge now. Celestia has fallen, this is the last sunrise.

She stands at the edge of a cliff at the end of the world, and she is alone, surrounded by the last life on the planet; herself and a few tufts of grass, slowly burning away.

She’s burning as well.

She doesn’t mind the pain.

It’s a sign that she’s still alive. After all…

It’s an egg; Celestia said to her, in all seriousness. She laughed and laughed at her. That was impossible, that was stupid, that was ridiculous.

She can hear the heartbeat now.

It’s low. It’s loud. It’s the tick of a clock at the end of the world, slowly inching towards her last breath.

Twilight sparkle watches the sunrise and the sunrise watches back. Her wings on her back are different now, the wind itself under her command. She has no more a horn than the world itself has a horn, she is magic.

She is the wing. The world is her.

The sun is something else.

The last pony on earth stands at the edge of the world.

There is a knock at the world.

A heart beat.

Once, she was a pony that sought knowledge. She dreamt of reading books when she was sleeping, and she read of books dreaming when she was awake.

The moon is gone out of the sky now. It was a dead thing, an abomination in the sky.

A long time ago, two gods were given the responsibility of the world, and all the other worlds too.

Then they died, and a long time ago, two gods were given the responsibility of the world, and all the other worlds too.

Now there is one god, and she is the planet, she is the universe, she is magic, wind, honesty, loyalty, generosity, kindness, laughter…

She was the core of the world, and the sun had a heart beat.

Was she at the end of the world?

Is she at the end of the world?

Will she be at the end of the world.

Twilight sparkles stares at the sunrise.

There’s a heart beat.

Celestia is beside her.

Celestia is beside her dead.

Luna is beside her.

Luna has made her grave.

Was it just yesterday that she discovered the sun for the first time?

It’s so perfectly round.

The sun hatches.

Twilight sparkle is dead.

Twilight sparkle watches the sun rise for the very first time on a new day.

It touches all the ponies in the land. Nopony looks at the sun. That would be silly; who looks at the sun?

Author's Note

I have no shame.