Nine Realms

Darkness and silence were all Twilight knew for a long, long time, but eventually, consciousness began to return to her. Ever so slowly, she started to open her eyes, and there, lying beneath her, was a very familiar floor. Immediately her eyes snapped fully open, and she looked on with disbelief at the welcome and long-unseen sight of the map chamber of her home, the Friendship Palace. She was here, feeling the ground beneath her hooves. This was no illusion, and she could feel it. Darting her head around, she could see her friends too starting to wake up upon the floor, and she went to each of them in turn, helping them up and looking them over. One by one, her companions all gained realisation about where they were, and soon, they looked to Twilight. The young Princess, thinking of absolutely nothing to say, simply did the one thing she could do, and smiled.

This opened the floodgates, and the ponies and Spike all rushed together, holding each other in the biggest and tightest group hug they'd ever had. They were here, they were home, and they had made it together. It was a moment of joy, of happiness that they honestly thought they'd never see again. But, it was done. The nine realms were behind them, and home was around them. Tears began to understandably form in their eyes, and already there was a great deal of sobbing from them. Nopony said anything, because nothing needed to be said. All they wanted was this. This moment, in this time, with these friends. The journey had been long, it had been dangerous, and there had been many times when they feared that it might not ever end for them. But now, it had ended, and nothing could compare to that feeling.

"We...we did it!" Twilight declared.

"We're home!" Spike added.

"About...friggin'...time!" Rainbow announced.

"I am going to have the hottest, longest bath of my life after this!" Rarity boasted.

"Oh, I can't wait to see my precious Angel again!" Fluttershy spoke through her tears.

"Apple Bloom an' mah family mus' be missin' me somethin' fierce!" Applejack commented.

"And I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm super-stoked about having something good to eat after all this!" Pinkie finished.

The group laughed together, but then, they were all taken aback by the distinct sound of somepony clearing their throat. All turning together, they looked on with surprise to find that it was none other than their other friend, Starlight Glimmer. Beside her was Trixie, who was looking to them with an arched eyebrow, but that didn't matter, as Twilight was just happy to see both of them.

"Starlight!"

She rushed forward, grinning widely to the both of them.

"Oh, you two and everypony else must have been so worried about us!"

Here, Starlight and Trixie looked to one another, with the latter giving a quick shrug. Starlight, slowly, looked back to her teacher, her voice more than a little hesitant.

"Um...Twilight? You guys were only gone for, like...a few seconds."

Twilight blinked slowly, as indeed did all of her friends. Disbelief crossed their faces, and as they stepped forward, Rainbow, in her usual way, spoke what was on their joint minds.

"Are you serious?! We were gone for weeks!"

Trixie, stepping forward herself, shook her head.

"Afraid not. I'm not sure what you saw, but as far as me and Starlight were concerned, the spell hit you, there was a flash of light, and then wham, you were all just lying on the ground there."

Rainbow opened her mouth to speak, only to be stopped from doing so when Twilight raised a hoof, lookign to Trixie with confusion.

"Wait...what spell?"

All eyes were upon the magician now, and here, Trixie started to look a little nervous, scratching the back of her head while trying to avoid their gaze.

"Well...you know how I like to practise my teleportation spells when you're not around?"

Twilight nodded slowly, prompting Trixie to continue.

"Well...I was in the middle of that when you guys all came in. You said hi to me, which broke my concentration, so..."

Pausing, she pointed over to the nearby magic mirror. The one capable of taking Twilight to the human world.

"My teleportation spell hit that thing instead. But it didn't teleport the mirror itself, it just reflected off it, and then..."

She turned again, pointing to the nearby cutie map.

"...the reflected magic struck this. There was a reaction, you guys rushed forward, and then, well, there was a light and...you know the rest."

A silence fell over the entire group, and all of them stared at Trixie with a combination of disbelief and incredulity. Then, as time went on, their expressions slowly morphed into ones of irritation and even outright anger, causing the blue mare to gulp slightly.

"Um...ta-da?"

Twilight, taking a calming breath, looked over to Starlight.

"Starlight...if you would...please take your friend away before I do something I might regret later."

The pink unicorn didn't need to be told twice, and so, without even saying a word, she took Trixie by the hoof and lit up her horn, teleporting the two of them out of there instantaneously. Now alone with all of her friends, Twilight took the next few minutes to simply try and calm herself down, which, thankfully, she was able to do. Slowly, she turned, looking to all of them, and after thinking things over, she put on a smile for them, saying the one thing that, in her heart, she knew truly mattered at a time like this.

"My friends...we're home."

They all returned to their earlier smiles after that, nodding in agreement, which ended only when Fluttershy took on a more thoughtful look.

"I...I hope we didn't cause too much trouble for the nine realms during our time there."

Pinkie, looking to her, let out a brief snort.

"Pfft! Don't worry about it! I mean, it's not like us being there was the end of the world or something!"