Lotus lay still, but not in the endless silence that threatened to swallow her. There was a sound here, repeating every second or two, exactly the same. Other sounds sometimes joined it—distant voices, the sound of shoes on something hard.

She could've been there forever, and maybe she would've. Except that something touched her shoulder, and a familiar voice whispered.

Iron Feather. "Stay as long as you need. We'll be waiting here when you're ready."

She twitched, rolling to one side. Of all the creatures she feared she might not ever see again... "Iron!"

The pegasus looked a little different than she remembered. His mane was cut short, so short it was little more than fuzz atop his head. a few bandages wrapped around his body, soaked in something that smelled vaguely medical.

"Lotus!" He dropped into a tight hug instantly, pressing close to her. The distant, steady beeping turned into a sudden rush of excited sound. "You're awake!"

She nodded tearfully. "I'm alive. I thought..." I thought Twilight and the other unicorns sacrificed me to make the spell work.

She didn't say that much, though. She couldn't be happier to be wrong.

Iron Feather didn't let go right away. Lotus didn't want him to. Only when someone else coughed loudly did she finally look up, to see Gus sitting across the room.

This was an Equestrian hospital, not some field tent lost in the wilderness. Medical machines surrounded her bed, and a large window across from her overlooked distant city streets. Lotus had never walked them before, yet she'd seen them a dozen times in photos, and heard about them even more from Iron.

"We're in Canterlot," she whispered, eyes fixed on the distant window. "How?"

"Teleport." Gus looked up at what he was doing. A book rested in one claw, along with several sitting on the low table next to him. "Same way you ran away instead of bringing me. One second, you're there, the next..."

Lotus chuckled. It sent a brief spasm of pain through her body. This was all so absurd; she hardly even had the words. "I don't know how to teleport," she eventually said. The pain was intense, but not worse than the emptiness she had just come from. Anywhere was better than that.

"Twilight took you straight here," Iron continued. "The Gungnir was badly damaged. A team had to tug it to Manehattan for drydock. You couldn't wait that long."

Lotus reached to the side, nudging the blanket up and out of the way. Even with her limited understanding of pony biology, she could still recognize—

Her belly was bigger than the last time she'd looked. So, either the hospital was overfeeding her, or...

"The foal's fine." Iron brushed his wing against her cheek, pushing the thin blanket back into place. "You weren't physically hurt. Didn't get burned like the rest of us. Was something else."

"The spell," she whispered, settling back against the pillow. She stared up at the ceiling, where someone had painted an elaborate sketch of the royal sisters' cutie marks. "Twilight said I was safe. But when we cast it..."

"I don't know what happened," Iron said. "Can't even see magic like a unicorn. But Princess Twilight said to tell her when you woke up." He leaned over her bed, then planted a kiss on her cheek.

There was the world she missed—warmth, life. There were reasons why she fought so hard to survive. She was still too weak to kiss him back.

"You're a hero, Lotus Cinder. Equestria is safe. No more lives will burn." He took a step back, then slid something metal out of a sheath in his armor. He propped the spear up against the wall beside Gus. "You're on guard duty. Protect her while I'm gone."

Gus eyed the spear, raising his eyebrows. "You can't be serious. I just—"

Too late. The pegasus took off across the room, vanishing through the door in a flurry of feathers. Lotus sighed, then closed her eyes. "I guess... we won?"

"Yeah." She heard a book snap closed, then claws on a hard floor. Gus made his slow way over to the bed, then settled onto his haunches beside it. "Don't ask me for details. Someone didn't let me come."

She cracked open one eye. "Wanted a few more third-degree burns? Searing Gale would've killed you if she could."

"But she couldn't. You stopped her. Hit her with some spell... don't know exactly what. No one will tell me any details. What did you do?"

She shifted uncomfortably in bed. However much Lotus might want to escape this conversation, her weakness told her otherwise. If she tried to stand on her own, she might collapse. Lotus Cinder couldn't just worry about herself anymore.

"What Twilight told me," she said. If she couldn't escape, she could at least sit up, pushing backward in bed against the thin blankets. Equestria might have a whole suite of differences to the world she came from, but hospitals were equally unpleasant in both universes. "Cast a spell."

"Come on." Gus nudged her shoulder with his claw. Not the sharp part, fortunately. "You're too good at magic to tell me you don't know what it was. I've seen how much you practiced. Saw those books, all that studying. You know."

Lotus smiled in spite of herself. "Careful, Gus. That was almost a compliment."

"Nobody's garbage at everything," he said. "So, you weren't meant for small town life. Sorting potatoes wasn't your passion. Didn't want to get rich learning how to trade like I did."

She suppressed a laugh, turning it into an awkward cough. "Can't gamble if I don't have money to start with." And there's no lesson you can give me in getting lucky.

"We killed her," she whispered. She had to tell someone, before Twilight got here and told her to stop. At least now no one could accuse Lotus of breaking the rules. "Twilight would use other words probably, but that's what it was. We cut her connections to this world away, so she would go to..."

Lotus trailed off, voice going so quiet that she wasn't even sure Gus could hear. But she wasn't really talking to him anyway. "I think she was... happy, in the end. All that fighting, all that killing. We let her stop."

"You think," Gus repeated, right beside her. Because of course his animal senses meant he could hear her clearly. "Did she tell you that? Iron said you hit her with the spell, and the fire just went out."

"I've been..." She rolled to one side, staring out the window again. "How long have I been in the hospital?"

Gus shifted on his claws. "Today makes almost two weeks. They weren't sure how long it would take, if... maybe you wouldn't ever wake up. Some magical thing—you can ask them how it works. I just make videos."

Felt like a lot longer than that. But of all the people to blame for what happened to her, Gus was at the bottom of the list. He didn't even want to be in this world, much less sacrifice Lotus's life to power a spell.

"Stayed busy?" Lotus asked, conversationally. "While I was... in here. You haven't spent two weeks sitting in that chair I hope."

He shrugged. "I've been visiting. It's my way of making sure they took good care of you." He grinned, opening his sharp beak into a wide smile. "No one wants to make the griffon upset. Would you believe I intimidate them?"

"Just because they don't know you. Like you would ever hurt anyone with those claws."

"Yeah." He laughed. The sound was quickly strangled and came off as harsh and clipped. "There's something else you should know. I'm not sure they'll remember to tell you, so I will."

He stood up again, circling over to his seat. He lifted something from the bottom of the pile, a scroll wrapped with a ribbon around the center. Bits of wax still clung to the middle, split apart where he'd opened it. "Big princess wrote to us. You, mostly, but my name was on there too."

Lotus reached for it with her magic—then her head began to ache. She slumped back into the pillow. Maybe the big magical stuff could wait. "What did she say?"

He unfurled it with one claw, then shrugged and tossed it back to the pile. "They can send us home. Whenever we want, basically. Thanks to the photos I brought, they can even change us back... kinda." He eyed the blankets, right where Lotus's belly now contained a tiny passenger. "There's some magic complication about you. Once you have a child..."

He turned away, staring out her windows again. "Can't, uh..." He sighed, then it all came out in a rush. "Well, can't make you yourself without killing the baby. Obviously. You could still be human if you let them make you... female. I had some photos they could use for reference, which helps. Otherwise, you have to abort or carry it to term. For another almost a year."

At least she didn't have to meet his eyes when she told him this time. They'd already had this conversation once. But if he didn't want to listen then, maybe he would have more reason now. "I'm keeping the baby," she said. "You would too, if it could talk to you."

He spun around, flaring his wings halfway. "Don't bullshit me, Lotus. You're still in the first... trimester? Whatever. It barely even has a spine right now, it can't talk."

She shrugged. "It's magic stuff. Details don't matter... I'm keeping her. And when she's finished, I'll raise her here too."

She still had hard choices to make—but all those were in the where she would raise the foal, not if.

Gus didn't look away this time or tense up like she'd just punched him. "What about everything you left?"

"I'd like to... write to my family. Depending on how easy it is, maybe even visit." If she could think of a way to even explain what happened. They would never believe any of what she had to say, not in a letter. If she walked onto the property, at least there was some chance they might listen. She'd want to learn Twilight's shield sphere first, just in case.

Gus made a frustrated sound, closer to a bird call than any actual words. He scratched the floor with one clawed paw, frustrated. "Can't get famous together if you stay here. What about the talk-show circuit? What about showing the world magic?"

"Dunno. Feels like a pretty big responsibility, Gus. Too big for two losers to make. If Equestria thinks making contact is a good idea, I'd love to help. But what if it's not? There's magic on our side, untapped. Searing Gale tried to get me to use it, try and take over. There could be all kinds of monsters just like her, monsters our world has no way to defend against."

Gus rolled his eyes, holding up one claw. He shaped his digits into a gun, pointing them at her. "Come on."

She shrugged again. Gun wouldn't kill a Nirik. But explaining it all to Gus was pointless. He didn't really want answers, he wanted to experience the future he had planned. "If you want to be famous, congrats. You already are. You helped save Equestria. I'm sure it's grateful. Maybe living here wouldn't be so bad. You can't tell me you have a ton of people waiting for you either."

The gentlest possible way she could think of saying the obvious—Gus had few living relatives. His birth mother barely sent him three texts a year, and he had never been terribly close with his foster family. But saying so outright was too cruel.

"Maybe not," he admitted. "But if I never go back, who watches the documentary?"

Lotus had no answer. Fortunately for her, the door banged open, saving her from having to invent something.

It was Twilight, with Iron trailing just behind her. From the way she was breathing, Lotus guessed she had teleported all the way here. Maybe right after she heard the news.

The first few minutes were more of what Lotus expected—the princess wanted to know that she was alright, asked about how she'd been treated in the hospital and how she was recovering from the nightmarish battle.

Lotus went through much the same dance, and heard the same answers she had already got from Iron about the state of Equestria and what happened to the ship. Lotus could already infer everything she needed to know based on her comfortable position in this Canterlot hospital. They'd won, obviously. The details would work themselves out.

Only one thing mattered to her—the one that tormented her in that black abyss the spell sent her to. It would all be a lot easier if she didn't remember that place. It couldn't exist, so let it fade back into the distant recesses of memory, never to be imagined again.

But it didn't. The question remained, growing on her brain like a mold, demanding answer. "Princess, when we cast that spell... did you know what would happen to me?" She gestured with a hoof, drawing it through the air in front of her. She traced a single symbol, the one for “void.” There was only one way to describe what she'd experienced.

Twilight froze, holding perfectly still for a few long moments. She glanced back at Iron Feather and Gus. "Could you two wait outside for a moment, please? It won't be long."

Gus shrugged, taking the book he'd been reading under one foreleg. Iron followed a few seconds later, lingering just long enough to meet Lotus's eyes. The message was clear, even if he didn't put it into words. He wanted to know what the princess told her.

He shut the door another second later, leaving the two of them alone. Twilight's horn glowed, and the window-shutters closed. The room didn't get much dimmer—overhead lights remained, and the glow of Lotus's medical monitor.

"What did you see?" she finally asked. "When you used the spell, after Searing Gale broke her way in..."

Lotus shook her head sharply. Before today, she wouldn't argue with a princess—that magical power was just too strong, too overwhelming. But after what happened, Lotus wasn't going to make this easy for her.

"I asked first. Did you know it was going to happen to me, or not?"

Twilight levitated Lotus's thin blanket down, pointing at her belly. "Not you. Her. Because you wanted to save her, instead of..." She shook her head once. "I've been there before. That... Limbo, between spaces."

Lotus glared up at her from the hospital bed. Her tail whipped against the wall. If she had less control, she might have started invoking fire while she was at it. But it wasn't the same kind of anger. Burning wouldn't help. Some problems couldn't be incinerated. "You lied. You said the baby and I would be okay."

Twilight slumped onto her haunches, breaking eye contact instantly. "You are okay. I knew you would be in the end. You're alive, so that anchor would outlast Searing's Nirik half. Once she passed, you would wake up unharmed. If we... kept you alive in the meantime." She gestured at the life support equipment; the runes of a spell penciled over the bed.

"But Applejack—she'd say you're right. I knew it would hurt and didn't warn you. But remember that day. The danger we were all in, the urgency. Ponies dropping all around us... do you think you could've cast a spell correctly on your first try if you knew it would send you there? One mistake, and you'd be dead. Everyone on the Gungnir would be ashes by now, one way or another. Your pain saved everypony."

"I don't..." She pawed at the blankets, frustrated. Twilight was right, obviously. Given her tension in those critical moments, Lotus probably would've failed the spell. But to know someone could just lie to her like that...

Lotus folded her hooves together in front of her. "I know why you did it. But I don't think I'll ever be able to trust you again."

For somepony who was barely an acquaintance, Twilight reacted with surprising intensity. She swayed on her hooves, then drew in a sharp breath. When she spoke, her voice faltered. "Equestria still... thanks you for your service, Lotus. Your sacrifice demands we help you in return. I hope you will at least... trust me enough for that. Whatever you ask, I'll make sure you get it."
Lotus took a long time before she answered. The princess had lied to her in some ways—but in the important ones, she was telling the truth. Lotus and the foal were both okay, eventually. She just had to wade through hell first. "I have some things in mind."

Author's Note

And here we see some of the aftermath thanks to the amazing KlaraPl. Equestria didn't leave Lotus for dead? I'm shocked, shocked I say!