Twilight Sparkle came to, to find herself in a starry realm. She didn't know where she was. The last thing she knew, she'd just completed Starswirl's incomplete spell, creating new magic. And then her friends... the light! That reaction! 'Am I dead?,' Twilight wondered to herself.

"Twilight."

Twilight spun around. 'Princess Celestia! She's here! But if she's here, maybe I'm not dead after all!'

"You've come such a long, long way, and I've watched you from that very first day..."

Twilight walked along as Celestia showed with her magic scenes from her life in Ponyville that she was surprised Celestia had seen. 'Did she see everything?...' she wondered, 'What am I saying, of course she did. She's Celestia!'

"To see how you might grow... to see what you might do... to see what you've been through, and all the ways you've made me proud of you..."

'I made her... proud?' Twilight thought, a swelling feeling of warmth in her chest. She hadn't been sure Celestia would be too happy with her with some of the things she'd done while in Ponyville, the 'Want it, need it' incident coming to mind... But despite that, Celestia was proud of her? Twilight smiled to herself, feeling happy and at peace with herself.

"It's time now, for a new change to come! You've grown up, and your new life has begun."

Twilight perked up, 'My new life? That confirms it. I'm definitely not dead then. What is this place though?'

"To go where you will go, to see what you will see. To find what you will be, for its time for you, to fulfill your destiny!"

Twilight's jaw dropped, 'My destiny?' Suddenly Twilight felt herself being lifted off her hooves as magic coursed through her and made her vision turn white. 'Wha-'

Suddenly Twilight felt strange as she felt her body change, but that paled in comparison to what she was seeing... 'So... this is what my friends felt like when they saw their life flash before their eyes...' Twilight thought.

Princess Celestia watched in trepidation as over a millennia of magic and painstaking work came to fruition. 'Please work...' Celestia thought, the shadow of a tear falling from her eye.

Suddenly the flashing lights ended, and Twilight slowly lowered to the ethereal ground, wings fluttering at her sides. Celestia watched in desperate hope.

"Twilight?..." she called out tentatively.

Twilight's eyes abruptly snapped open and focused on Celestia. Her cutiemark imprinted on her eyes in startling clarity, before it faded and Twilight blinked and refocused.

"Tia?... What..." Twilight fell silent for a moment, as comprehension dawned on her face, then grew into a knowing smile. "It seems we were both right."

"Twi?" Celestia asked, hope blossoming in her heart.

Twilight looked around, even as her mind processed a couple hundred dozen new memories at a rapid pace with her new Alicorn enhanced mind. Suddenly, bits of information started to click in place, and Twilight's smile turned sad. "Oh Tia... how long..."

"Too long, my friend... too long..." Celestia said, tears now pouring freely from her eyes as she ran forward with a smile and the two embraced after such a long time apart.

After what felt like an eternity, the two pulled apart. Twilight looked her over and grinned at the wings. "So, you pulled it off. What did I miss? Tell me everything."

Celestia sat in front of Twilight, and began, "It's been a long time since those days, Twilight Sparkle. I've lived a long time. It took a lot for me to achieve my Alicorn-hood, but once I did, I had the longevity to see you were right. Your thesis on reincarnation proved right. I saw you reborn over and over again... my best friend..."

"And I never knew you... oh Tia, I'm so sorry..."

Celestia shook her head, "It's alright. Our experiments were successful regardless, achieving immortality in our own way..."

Twilight grinned, looking at Celestia's wings, then her own, "I have to say, yours proved far superior to mine. In hindsight, I wish I believed your theory would work..."

"Neither of us believed the other's would work, Twi. And it's for the best we thought that, otherwise neither of us would have tried so hard to prove each other wrong." Tia said with a small smile.

Twilight smiled in return, "We always did love competing didn't we... tied for first at kindergarten all the way to the Solaris Magical Academy..."

Celestia grinned in nostalgia, "That we did... after you died the first time... I was distraught... I... I'm ashamed to say I still didn't believe your theory on reincarnation would work... but I held on to a glimmer of hope... that if it did... I needed to prove my own theory of ascension correct as well in order to see it."

"And saw it you did... I remember it all, Tia... so many years... you befriended me over and over again, taking me under your wing, teaching me the magic I forgot... so many glances that I didn't understand at the time, but... you were hoping I'd remember." Twilight finished in realization.

Celestia nodded, "After your incarnation as Starswirl, I'd given up hope that you would and started taking things in my own hooves."

Twilight's eyes widened in realization, "Princess Luna... you never had a sister when we grew up... How?"

Celestia grinned ruefully, "It was my first attempt to get another pony to ascend. It took so much effort by myself, getting it to work for another was almost impossible. I started off with one of your friends. It worked for the most part, but... it wasn't perfect, as the mess with Nightmare Moon can attest."

Twilight nodded thoughtfully, "Who-"

"You haven't figured it out yet?" Celestia asked with a grin. "Who was Starswirl's best friend in the whole world?"

Twilight's brow furrowed, "But... I didn't have any friends... no one, except you- no... you didn't!" Twilight's eyes went wide.

Celestia nodded solemnly, "Flesh of my flesh. Princess Luna really is my sister, Twi."

"You used yourself? That spell is forbidden, Tia! Even I knew that after I created it! Flesh clones were always meant to be a theory, nothing more! Besides, how does that even work? You're already an alicorn!"

"I didn't use your spell as is Twilight, you're right. The form the spell was left in was forbidden, but the version I created after I tweaked it wasn't dangerous. At least, not for an alicorn. I gave birth to a healthy happy unicorn mare, who was also for all intents and purposes my fraternal twin. I wasn't foolish to keep the spell exactly the way it was. There was a reason why I made sure the Mirror Pool was sealed after Pinkie Pie rediscovered it." Celestia chided.

Twilight winced, "And what a fiasco that was. I can't believe she found it... but Pinkie will be Pinkie."

Celestia giggled, "Too right. After Luna, then came your last incarnation's foal sitter, Mi Amore Cadenza. Believe it or not, I actually only had a hand in her ascension towards the very end. When I found her, she was already on her own path towards it. Seeing a Pegasi's ascension after my own and Lulu's, I finally had the information I needed to try to help you ascend... I'll be honest Twilight. If it hadn't worked..." she broke off, unable to continue.

Twilight stepped forward and hugged her. "It did. It did work. I'm here..."

After a time, the two parted, and just looked at each other. "I'm glad you're back..."

"Me too..."

"Where do we go from here?" Celestia asked.

Twilight shrugged one shoulder, "Eh, let's just take it one day at a time. Besides, it's getting pretty late. I should probably get back to my friends before they think I actually died."

"Are you going to tell them?" Celestia asked.

Twilight shrugged, "In time. I'm not really all that different from incarnation to incarnation, so they probably won't tell the difference. And anything they do notice will probably be attributed to my new wings, and in a way, they'd actually be right!" Twilight giggled, "Besides, I really need to get a handle on being an Alicorn now, and after that? Well, we have the whole of eternity to figure it out."

Celestia nodded, "That we do. And there's the magic of friendship to consider as well."

"Yes, there is that. Even with my memories as Starswirl, this new magic is going to take some major research to get a hang of, and..." Twilight's eyes widened, "...I'm going to be a Princess on top of that, aren't I."

Celestia giggled and nodded, "To quote the brother of Honest Applejack, 'Eeyup.'"

Twilight groaned, "You would do this to me, you were more into this kind of thing than I was you know. What am I even going to be a Princess of?"

Celestia grinned, "That, you'll just have to figure out along the way."

Twilight groaned again, "Well, let's just get this show on the road..."

With that, the two warped away to present herself to the other Elements of Harmony. Twilight's cutie mark, which had been resting in the sky next to the sun, and not budged even when Luna's moon and stars appeared, flashed, catching the attention of the Elements of Harmony, who had been trying to decipher what it means all day. The light floated to the ground and coalesced into a pony.

"Twilight?..." AJ asked in hopeful disbelief after the light dimmed down. In response, Twilight spread her new wings. 'And so begins a new day of the rest of my life,' Twilight thought ruefully, as her friends crowded around to hug her after getting over their shock. 'And I wouldn't have it any other way.' Twilight thought as she smiled, and hugged them back.

The End