Author's Note

Edited and Rewritten 2025-01-18
Alright, that's chapter two redone. Let me know if you find any mistakes!

~~First place on the featured list? 250 likes? 1000 views?~~

People recognizing me from different sites?

~~First of all, how dare you. Shame on all of you. Go read other stories. It was a single chapter of 1000 words. You're all being ridiculous.~~

~~This chapter is a bit sad. And also still short. Deal with it.~~

Anyway, here's Wonderwall.

Rise From Your Grave! (Rewritten)

Only a day had passed since Spike had gone running to Fluttershy's in tears. The pegasus's cottage hadn't the closest place to Twilight's castle and rushing to Ponyville General Hospital might have made more sense, but in the panic and heat of the moment, the comforting, caring, and first-aid trained Fluttershy was the first pony on Spike's mind. He had arrived at her door a panting, blubbering mess, but he barely even needed to whimper Twilight's name before the pegasus had grabbed her first aid bag and rushed off to the castle with the young drake saddled upon her back.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a thing that the pegasus could do for a corpse. There wasn't much point in bringing Twilight's body to the hospital, but the pair of them (and a passing by Rainbow Dash) did exactly that next anyways. Of course, as highly trained as the Ponyville medical professionals were, they couldn't do much for the cadaver either.

The funeral was set for the day later, as nobody wanted to see Twilight's body for a moment longer. The event itself was a quiet affair; Despite the hundreds of ponies that Twilight's life had touched, her friends agreed that it was best not to make it a big public event. Twilight never did like attention and making a big deal of herself anyways. The only invited members were the five of them, Spike, her immediate family, and the three other princesses.

Not a single eye was without tears during the entire ceremony. Even Celestia had to stop for a quiet sob halfway through her speech, comforted by a damp and trembling embrace from her sister. Twilight's parents looked like their very hopes and dreams had been shattered and barely were able to say a word, and her brother's eyes were dull and unfocussed as he stared on in horrified disbelief, as he had since the new arrived. As each pony came and said their words, the thick mahogany coffin was slowly stained darker and darker with each fallen tear of the ponies that came to speak above it.

The burying itself took place in the Ponyville graveyard. As much as Twilight's family would have wanted her to be buried where she grew up, everyone agreed it would be best for her to be laid to rest near her friends. It was what she would have wanted, afterall. The tombstone itself was surprisingly modest for a princess, once again in accordance with her assumed wished. Twilight had, despite her dangerous occupation, hobbies, and location of residence, never prepared a will. The headstone had been engraved with a simple message, followed by a name and date. In a way, it was a reflection of her numerous reports and essays, but those never had a second terminal date listed after.

Here lies a good pony, a good mentor, a good princess, and most of all, a good friend.

RIP Twilight Sparkle
982 - 1004 ACR

Before long, the sky grew dim and the air grew cold, and as their breaths came out in foggy wisps of clouds, the party of mourners began to break apart at last. With one last goodbye and a promise to stay in touch, the contingent of Princesses and Twilight's accompanying family travelled back to Canterlot and the Crystal Empire, leaving a small group of ponies and a single heartbroken dragon to keep each other company for the rest of the night in a small, sad, and quiet wake. It would not be a restful night for anypony.

Surprisingly, least of all for Twilight.

Twilight yawned, blinking her eyes blearily as she awoke from what was quite possibly the most restful nap she'd had in years. Gone was the ever-present fatigue from one too many all-night study sessions, faded were the constant aches and pains, and even that crick in her neck that never seemed to fully settle had vanished at last. As the last moments before her rest came back to mind, the princess couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. "Well, that was certainly quite a spell, wasn't it?" She asked, expecting to see her number one assistant waiting nearby. When she was met with nothing but silence. Blinking her eyes open… didn’t accomplish much. Looking around as she might, the consuming darkness surrounding her seemed to have no intention of dissipating. With a grunt, she reached out to grasp for the table that had been in front of her, only for the hard tip of her hoof to clang harshly with some sort of hard wooden surface. An experimental push with her leg brought the sound of cracking and splintering wood, along with a frown to Twilight’s face. Sure, her newfound earthpony magic has reinforced her strength… but enough to split and crack wood from a slight push? That was just ridiculous. Pressing slightly further, she felt the hardened surface give way at last… followed by a deluge of dirt, soil, gravel and rocks.

Spitting and hacking in surprise to the sudden feeling of debris filling her mouth, she continued to push forward as more and more particulate poured down around her, until at last the first glimmer of light breached the barrier of dirt above her. It was surprisingly easy for her to push her way up, the dirt compacting and brushing away from her hooves like putty as she continued her climb up… until Twilight had surfaced at last onto the grassy loam of Ponyville’s singular cemetery, the dust and dirt in her fur startlingly clear in the moonlight.

A quick (dog-like) shake had most of the particulate flinging itself from her coat as she glanced around. Despite the cloudy and overcast night sky, she found she could see surprisingly clearly. In fact, she could have sworn in this moment she was seeing more clearly than she ever had before. Unfortunately, one of those first things that came into line of view of her newly enhanced vision was a tombstone. Her own tombstone.

Friendship Castle and the ponies inside were equally pressed down by a harsh and discomforting quiet. That isn’t to say the castle was ever particularly loud or noisy. Twilight wasn’t one to put up with excessive chaos and noise in her studying environment… but it had always been a cozy sort of silence before. This quiet was… sticky. The lack of noise left the inhabitants numb as it clung to them like the night’s cold, equally resistant to be dispelled by the crackling fireplace that felt as if it gave off no heat at all.

A cold and draft breeze seemed to blow through the room despite the windows and doors being shut tight to the unseasonable cold wind, causing Spike to shudder helplessly. Struggling to pull the knitted quilt tighter around himself, he simply continued to stare into the slowly-dying hearth, his position and expression unmoved and unchanged throughout the past two hours. The young drake could vaguely hear Rarity and Fluttershy whispering between themselves behind him, but the words were too hushed to make out. It didn't matter what they were talking about anyway, nothing they said would bring Twilight back. She was gone. Twilight… was gone.

He had never been quite sure just what his relationship with her had been. Sometimes the mare treated him like an obnoxious little brother. Sometimes she acted closer to being his mother, henning over him with a claustrophobic level of care. But in this instance he didn’t really care just what she was to him. She was gone. None of that mattered anymore. She was gone. He felt a soft hoof patting his back but he didn't bother to look up and see who was trying to comfort him. It didn't matter. She was gone.

Pinkie Pie just sighed at the shattered dragon and walked away, her mane deflated and hanging limp and flaccid against her face. She was a mare that loved parties, but her first funeral after-party wasn't nearly as upbeat as she had expected it to be. Then again, she never had expected it to be for a friend. With a soft whimper, Pinkie sat herself down in the corner, pulling her legs up to her chest and sobbing softly.

At a small table set up on the side of the room Applejack took another swig of cider, Rainbow sitting beside her in silence. For once the two of them had finally put aside their petty rivalry, arguments, and everything else. All of those past disagreements seemed silly in the face of recent events, as if every moment of fighting was a moment wasted that they could have spent with their now departed friend. Time they’d lost, spent with careless abandon in pursuits of conflict and aggression, and now with no prize to show but the aching, hollow hole mirrored in both their hearts. Eventually, Rarity came strolling over to them, pouring herself a mug of cider as she sat down across from the two. Normally she considered herself far too ladylike for such a mundane and low-brow drink, but she wasn't drinking for pleasure tonight: She just was not going to make it to morning sober. "I feel like we should be more… upbeat. Happy? I'm sure she wouldn't want us to just be hanging around moping. She'd want us to tell stories and laugh, wouldn't she?" Rarity pondered, staring down into her own distorted face reflected in each bubble of the frothy drink.

Applejack didn’t even look up when she responded, instead tilting her hat down and staring at the table with red, tear-streaked eyes. "Well, ah don't feel much like laughing. Don't know ‘bout you." Rainbow just grunted in agreement and took another draw from her own mug before placing it on the table with a clatter that seemed to echo in the quiet chamber, the only other audible sounds coming from the crackling fireplace and the softly mourning dragon.

Rarity only pursed her lips and sighed, shaking her head softly. "I suppose you are right. It's always a challenge to be happy for somepony else's sake even at the best of times. But when dealing with this... this travesty. There's nothing to be happy about."

The three ponies all sat in contemplative but companionable silence for a while, mourning somehow in both isolation, and together. The hearth was slowly dying down but nopony made any effort to put in more firewood, Fluttershy was distracted instead trying to get the young dragon to eat even a morsel of food, alas in futility. The slowly settling chill from the cooling embers was almost comforting, the cold a grounding presence that kept them from drifting off into worse thoughts.

Rarity sighed once more and glanced over to Spike, chewing her lip. Who was going to take care of Spike now? Did he even want to stay in Ponyville, or should he go back to Canterlot? Perhaps Shining and Cadence could keep him distracted far away from all the pain? "Do you... do you think-"

Whatever she had been about to ask got cut off by the loud, echoing sound of a door cracking open and being slammed shut. A second, louder and identical sound followed shortly after as Twilight pushed her way through a second set of doors and into the midst of her own wake. Shaking the freezing rain off her coat, Twilight took a cautious step into the living room, easily noticing the startled and disbelieving expressions on her friends' tear-streaked faces despite her usual lack of any social perception. This was a… bad time, wasn’t it? She had never felt guilty about walking into her own house before, but the shocked stares made her feel like she was interrupting something important! She wasn’t sure what it was, as she was certain there hadn’t been any planned events for the next few days, but clearly she was misremembering.

With an awkwardly little laugh, her mind went into overdrive trying to figure out how to break the tense silence. Thinking back to the ‘Dealing With Your Mistakes’ chapter of ’How to be a Normal Functioning Member of Society’, she decided to attempt a harmless joke. Banter was good, after all. "What's wrong? You guys look like you've seen a ghost!"

Spike just screamed. Again. Not the response she was going for, but she’d take it.