The day I died was a beautiful day. It was wholly inappropriate and not nearly awesome enough, but what can you do?

I’d have preferred a drizzling day with dark skies and lightning, or a cold frozen wasteland where only a fading slice of sun shone on my broken body. But did I get that? Nope. I died on a nice summer’s day with the birds singing in the sky, and not a cloud to be seen. I didn’t even get the dignity of dying heroically. I mean, sorta heroically, and it was in order to save lives and all, but…well, you’ll see what I mean.

But for all my complaints, I guess the main thing is I didn’t want to die on that day. I really would have liked to die later, in an epic war or fighting off another villain threatening Equestria. I…wanted to have more time with my friends. But I died young, which is how I wanted it of course – going out in the prime of my life and all – but I still wish, with all my soul…

That I could have had a bit more time.

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Cut back a few hours to the good part; the part when I was alive, I mean. Like I said, it was a good day in the tail-end of summer, so I was actually feeling pretty content. I certainly didn’t expect to die, but what can you do? In fact, the hour before I had died was one of the best of my life. I was doing the greatest thing ever: hanging out with my friends.

Before you think I’m all sappy, let me just say that if I had to have chosen something to do before I died, it would always be hanging out with my best friends. They may not be as cool as I am all the time, but they’re the most amazing mares I know. The most amazing ponies I know come to that. Their names are Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie.

Together with me, the six of us make up the Elements of Harmony, each one of us embodying the elements of friendship. Our job is to protect Equestria by kicking the tails of whatever bad guy we see. It’s an awesome job, even if we sometimes nearly die in the process. I wish I could say that was what we were doing when I died, but no luck. Actually, we were taking part in a parade. I know, right? A parade. Still, here’s what happened.

Today was the Summer Sun Celebration, the longest day of the year when our Princess (Princess Celestia, a totally cool pony with the ability to raise the sun if you didn’t know) raises the sun and celebrates the defeat of Nightmare Moon and the return of her sister. We had a part in that, by the way. Not to brag, but it was just two years go that the six of us first became the Elements of Harmony and transformed Nightmare Moon back to Luna. Totally awesome story, but I’m getting off track.

So, yeah. The Summer Sun Celebration was going on, and everypony was celebrating. Well, everyone if you count Spike, Twilight’s baby dragon assistant. Yeah, don’t go there, it’s confusing. But while the official celebration with Princess Celestia and Luna wasn’t being held in Ponyville this year, there was certainly celebrating going on. All of Ponyville and the surrounding area had turned out to join in the festivities, and me and my friends were in the thick of it.

Because for us, the Summer Sun Celebration isn’t just a good day and an excuse to hang out and party. It also marks the day we first met each other, which is a special occasion and worth remembering, even if it is sort of sappy. In fact, I think it’s probably the most important memory I have – meeting my best friends for life.

…Even though it’s not the day I would have chosen, it might not have been a bad day to die on at that.

But back to the action, or lack of it. I mean, I’m really trying to bring in some awesomeness into the story, but not much really happened that day. Me and my friends hung out, partied at one of Pinkie Pie’s amazing parties, and that’s about it. Sorta boring when I think about it, but fun. The bad part only happened near the end of the day.

See, one of the things I forgot to mention is that Twilight Sparkle’s a princess. Not just a princess in that she acts like one (like Rarity), or even that she thinks she’s a princess and that it’s all in her head (again, like Rarity). No, Twilight’s an honest-to-Celestia, real, royal Princess. She’s got a crown and everything. Because of some crazy weirdness last year, she got turned from a unicorn into an alicorn, with wings and horn. She still sucks at flying, but it’s still really cool. She’s the Princess of Friendship, and while that’s totally awesome and all, it does have its downsides.

Example A, and the only example you need: formalities. Being a princess, Twilight has to take part in all formal events in Ponyville and some in Canterlot. That’d be cool and all, but since we’re her friends, us other Elements of Harmony have to hang out with her when the boring stuff happens. Like cutting the ribbon at a parade and listening to Mayor Mare give a fifteen minute speech.

I know. Fifteen minutes. That’s way too long. Now, normally I’d pretend I had something important to do any fly off, but I was stuck at right next to Twilight, and it was kinda hard to make an excuse with everyone watching me. That meant I saw the disaster right when it happened, which was lucky. Just not for me.

I’m not really sure why Mayor Mare wanted a giant commemorative float with the six Elements of Harmony defeating Nightmare Moon, but hey, that’s eggheads for you. And it wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d y’know, made it out of cloth or ribbons or…stuff, but nope. This was made out of wood. Apparently, it was going to be put up next to Twilight’s totally awesome castle. (I mentioned she had a castle, didn’t I?)

Anyways, yeah. It was made out of wood and super heavy. It had to have ten wheels to carry it. And what with all the rushing to complete it on time and everything, I guess no one checked how good the brakes on the thing were. Just like they didn’t think about how there’s a slope along the parade route. I mean, seriously. Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle already crashed one giant apple (don’t ask) the last time we had a parade. Would it have killed them to move the route somewhere else?

Well anyways, you can imagine what happened next. Brakes go on the giant float, and it comes crashing down the slope. That wouldn’t be so bad, but it runs into another float. And another. Ever seen a stampede of rabbits? Not too scary. But several thousand tons of rapidly accelerating wooden vehicles? Really scary.

So here’s the scene. Every pony in Ponyville is here listening to a boring speech about raising the sun and the defeat of Nightmare Moon by six awesome ponies. Bring in ten thousand pounds of wooden death, approaching like…ten thousand pounds of wooden death. And there’s nowhere to run.

At least, not in a crowd. Anypony’d normally be able to get out of the way, even Granny Smith. But ponies were panicking and there just wasn’t enough time to get them to move. Mayor Mare was shouting, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were trying to get ponies to move, and Rarity and Twilight were trying to make a force shield. But it wasn’t going to work.

I’ve seen Twilight do her shield-spell-thingy and it’s really cool. Useful too, when it’s muddy. But that wasn’t going to be able to stop this. Twilight’s an alicorn, but she’s sort of a greenhorn as well. I doubt whether Luna or Celestia could’ve stopped that avalanche by themselves either though, to be fair. Any barrier Twilight made would break in an instant, even if a thousand Rarities were giving her backup. So I did…what I had to do.

I wish I could say I said something really cool in my last moments. Something witty, with just enough sass and awesome words to make ponies cry and say how cool I was. But honestly, I think the last thing I said was ‘oh horseapples.’ I know, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Cut to the chase. I took off and flew away from the oncoming floats of death. Yeah, away. I needed the distance.

Now, I gotta pause this story and give you a little lecture, even though it’s totally at the important part. Yeah, I’m acting like an egghead, but you need to know this. I’m not the greatest of ponies for books, and I really don’t like studying anything. But what any pegasus pony knows is that the faster you go, the harder you hit things.

Yeah, elementary. Too easy for words, right? But weight plays a part in that as well. Running into Fluttershy in the air isn’t too bad since she doesn’t weigh much, but if you hit Bulk Biceps you’re lucky if you only break a wing. Anyways, the point of all this is that if you take how fat you are and multiply it by how fast you’re going, you get how much splat you make when you hit things. That’s how I knew Twilight’s shield wasn’t going to work, see.

The carts and floats and things were going probably at forty miles per hour. That’s not too fast, but they weighed thousands of pounds each. Something moving that fast that weighs that much could smash through an entire house and keep going out the other side. It’d turn ponies into toothpaste in a second.

Now I’m not a heavy pony. I don’t weigh much more than Fluttershy actually. But I am fast. And remember, the faster you go the harder you hit. I figured that even something light travelling fast enough could stop the avalanche. But I also knew anything going that fast that hit something going in the opposite direction…wasn’t going to be walking away again. But there was no other way.

I could have grabbed my friends and gotten them to safety. I’m totally fast enough to do it. I could’ve even grabbed all the Apples, the Cakes, Fluttershy’s rabbit, Spike, and even Mayor Mare in time. I know I could have. But that would have left all the other ponies, ones I knew or sorta knew. Maybe I could have left them, if it was just a choice between them or my friends. Maybe. But I know that my friends would never have left a single one behind.

So instead of helping control the crowd, I flew away. Nearly a mile outside of Ponyville, until the avalanche was just a tiny thing in the distance. Then I flew at it.

You probably know this already, but I am the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria. The fastest pony if it comes to that. I can go so fast that I can make what’s called a Sonic Rainboom. That’s when the air around me sorta explodes into a rainbow and I go faster than…fast things. It’s hard to explain, but it’s really awesome, alright. That’s what I did now.

It’s always hard getting up to Rainboom speed. I make it look easy, but when you accelerate, the air drags at you and makes it hard to fly. It’s like a giant rubber band it holding me back, but the key is to fly fast enough that it snaps and you go through it. It’s also about precision. I know Twilight and the others think I’m not good at focusing or details, but I am. It’s just that all my attention goes to flying. You can’t waver a second, you can’t hesitate. And that day I had to time my Rainboom perfectly.

I hit my Rainboom right in front of the crowd of ponies and felt myself speed up. Everything goes quiet when you hit a Rainboom – there’s just the rushing feeling of speed, but sound is gone for some reason. I had maybe 100 meters between me and the oncoming carts. That doesn’t seem like much time when you’re going at Rainboom speed, and trust me, it goes by in a millisecond. But this time, it went by so slowly.

…

I sped up. Normally I try not to fly too fast because it can hurt my wings, but I didn’t have that to worry about today. I went faster, faster. I don’t know how fast I was going when I hit, but I’m sure it was the fastest I’ve ever flown in my entire life. I couldn’t tell, because I was too busy concentrating at the time.

See, the thing about being the fastest pony in all of Equestria is that sometimes, other ponies think that’s all you can do. But I’m not just the fastest flier. I’m also a weather pony, and that means there’s more to life than speed. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but there’s something else that matters when you’re flying.

Precision.

You can’t fly without it. Hitting the right air currents, making sure not to land too hard or flap the wrong wing all plays a huge role, and that’s part of why I’m so awesome. I monitor the skies for trouble, and so I’ve got a lot of…uh…Twilight called it situational awareness, I think. Something cool like that, anyways. But that’s why I hit the Rainboom right in front of the parade floats. It was necessary to—just listen to what came next, okay?

So, I hit the avalanche, or oncoming carts and floats, whatever it was at top speed. The last thing I can remember, really remember is hitting the first float and going through the wood paneling. At that speed…well, even small splinters are like nails, y’know? I was like a porcupine after the first float that I smashed to pieces, a really cut-up porcupine. But of course, there were a lot of other things I ran into as well. Truthfully, there wasn’t much left of me after the fifth float, but momentum kept me going until there was only some blood and feathers left. That’s where I stopped, somewhere about the eighth float.

That wasn’t enough to stop the entire avalanche, though. Even if I was going at top-speed, I was still only a single pegasus, and the floats were big. But remember, I had hit the Rainboom right before that. All that compressed air and colors and stuff is like an explosion, and it exploded right in front of the avalanche. Carts, floats, pieces of wood all flew backwards, and the Rainboom made sure none of it landed on the ponies.

Like I said: precision.

The avalanche stopped. All the floats were lying jumbled up or broken, and the entire street was pretty much destroyed between my Rainboom and the crash. But I’d done it; I’d stopped the disaster, and saved every pony in Ponyville. I’d stopped it, but I’d also stopped myself.

I don’t remember dying. I just remember the pain, and how it hurt more and more until I wanted to scream and cry and beg for mercy, and then when it stopped. This was all in less than a second of course, when I hit the avalanche. But it felt like…forever. But when I died, when my heart stopped and I wasn’t alive any longer, I was still aware in some strange way. I could still sense what was going on, but like a dream. Time was slower, or faster in some ways when you die, and it’s from a different perspective, but I can still tell you bits and pieces of what happened next.

Chaos. Confusion. Screaming and the stampede of ponies that always happens when something bad occurs in Ponyville. Yeah, the usual. But only, this time, there wasn’t any sudden relief once yours truly explodes from the wreckage. There was only more screaming.

Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, they all ran right at the wreckage. I guess they thought I was just injured and were trying to dig me out. I guess I kinda expected that from someone like Fluttershy or Applejack, but I was disappointed that Twilight did the same. She’s an egghead; she knows about physics and stuff. She should have known what they would find.

Blood. A whole lotta my blood. Turns out that when you fly through a storm of wood, nails, and other sharp objects the only thing that comes out of the other side is blood.

I think Rarity freaked out first. Well, she would. She screamed, but then Pinkie Pie and Twilight started screaming as well. Even Applejack started screaming and digging at the wreckage with Twilight and the others. Only Fluttershy didn’t say anything. She just sat there, crying. I think she already knew what they would find.

There…wasn’t enough left of me to bury. Not really. I mean, all the pieces were there, but it was pieces, nothing more. Just scraps of flesh; a shattered bone here, a few feathers there. Actually, when I say I was in pieces, I mean I was in pieces. Parts of me got scattered all over Ponyville from the impact. Derpy found half of my jaw in her kitchen half a mile from where I collided.

And that was it. What more do you want me to say? They found my body – what was left of it, freaked out, and fainted. Cue more running around, screaming, throwing up, and crying. That went on for most of the day until Celestia and Luna arrived. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, I guess. Gotta keep the titles because of respect, y’know?

…They buried me a week later. Ponies kept on finding bits of me and I guess no one really wanted to have the ceremony in the first place. They kept talking about how they wanted to have ‘most of me’ present when they sent me off. It got to be sort of an obsession with some ponies, really. Like Scootaloo. I guess…I should mention that part.

So, yeah, reactions. I’m not good at that kinda thing, and it’s painful to talk about, right? But I should mention what happened so you know.

My friends, the other Elements of Harmony, they took it badly. Each in their own way; they didn’t stick together for some reason. Maybe—maybe it was guilt? They thought they’d let me down or failed me somehow? That’s a load of horsefeathers, but it’s the only thing I can think of.

But they shut themselves off. Fluttershy stayed in her cottage, crying, Rarity did the same in her boutique and wouldn’t talk to anyone, Pinkie Pie nearly starved herself and wouldn’t throw any parties and Applejack harvested every apple in her orchard. She just kicked trees, day and night. Cracked both her back hooves, but she kept kicking trees until they had to knock her out to keep her from injuring herself.

As for Twilight, she just sat in her castle and stared at a wall. It was a good thing Spike was there or she might have died too. She didn’t do anything, at least until the funeral. But that was my friends, and even if they were hurting, at least they had other ponies to help care for them. It was different for Scootaloo.

Again, not to brag but she kinda looked up to me. I mean, I was the most inspirational, coolest, most awesome pony in all of Equestria so that makes sense, but I think my death was hardest on her. Did I say collecting the parts of my body became her obsession? After her initial shock, which lasted almost four days where she wouldn’t even move, Scootaloo started going around Ponyville, searching high and low for any part of me that remained.

The less that I say about the next bit the better, I think. The day before the funeral, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle checked up on Scootaloo at their clubhouse. She’d been living there the last couple of days, not saying a word to anyone. She must have been out, because what they found was…me.

Parts of my face. Some of my mane. Feathers, hair, glued to a mannequin. I don’t want to think of what Scootaloo was thinking, but I think we can all guess. Anyways, they resolved that with Princess Celestia’s help and the rest of me joined the coffin.

They buried me at dawn. On a small hill, overlooking Ponyville where nopony would graze or disturb the grave. Some ponies wanted to bury me in Cloudsdale’s floating graveyard, but my friends told them I was going to be in Ponyville. They knew me very well.

Princess Celestia was present and Princess Luna as well. One of the rare times the sisters were there together, and to mark the occasion both sisters pulled up the sun and moon to make an eclipse. It happens only to mark the most important occasions, and I’m a bit touched they did it for me.

Anyways, the Princesses were there, but that meant Twilight and Princess Cadence as well. And where she goes, Shining Armor goes as well, and so he was there with a bunch of Crystal Empire ponies, ponies from Canterlot, Manehatten, Appleloosa…pretty much every city sent somepony.

All the ponies we’d met or saved decided to come, from Chief Thunderhooves to Fancy Pants, even Cheese Sandwich and ponies from the furthest reaches of Equestria stopped by. Even Discord popped in, and I’ve never seen him that somber before. It was the biggest crowd of ponies I’d ever seen, well not seen, but…forget it. But it was humbling, and touching and…stuff. I’m not good with words.

Full honors as a Wonderbolt. I was only on the reserves, but Spitfire pushed it past the regulations. I’d died saving ponies and that’s what Wonderbolts do. She said they’d lost the best flier in Equestria and while that’s true, I would have cried if I’d been able to hear her say that.

The ceremony took hours, and the goodbyes took longer. Each pony had something to say, and I won’t go into all of it here. My friends have words for me as well, but they were secret, and private and I won’t share them ever. And at last, they all left, even Scootaloo, even Tank. The poor guy wouldn’t eat or leave, but Fluttershy took care of him.

And that’s the story of how I died. I guess I was sticking around to see myself buried, but after the last pony left, I felt completed. The last link binding me to the world was gone and all that. Time to move on, to go to the great Pasture in the Sky or something. Fly higher, into a new world. And I was going to do that, I really was. But as my consciousness was fading, as I was about to leave, I remembered my friends.

They looked so different that day. Fluttershy’s eyes could barely open, they were so swollen. Applejack’s hooves were in casts and she had to be helped around. Pinkie Pie looked like a skeleton, all skin and bones since she wasn’t eating, and Rarity didn’t even speak. Twilight…I’ve never seen her so depressed. It was like something took all the life out of her.

They looked broken, all of them. Not just broken; crushed. Hopeless, depressed. Dead. They looked worse than the day Discord corrupted all of our Elements, and when I remembered that, I couldn’t just go.

They needed me. As a spirit, I had senses beyond normal. I could see—

Rarity, stabbing needles into a piece of cloth over and over again, hundreds, thousands of times without stop.

Applejack, drinking cider in her cellar and staring at nothing.

Pinkie Pie, hair flat, lying in a corner of her bedroom and refusing to eat anything the Cakes brought.

Fluttershy, pressing her head against a wall and crying.

Twilight, throwing her books into the air, ripping them to shreds and breaking down while Spike tried to calm her.

My friends were suffering. I couldn’t abandon them.

But death isn’t like a person. I can’t argue with death, and it was trying to take me away. No matter how hard I tried, I felt my soul, essence, being – whatever being dragged away.

Every fiber of my being was telling me that my time was up. It went beyond willpower; it was trying to fight who I was and that’s impossible. Even for somepony like me who can do the impossible, I couldn’t resist that pull. I could feel myself slipping, disappearing. But I fought on, as hard as I could. Without stop.

Even if it takes me forever. Even if it hurts more than anything I’ve ever felt. Even if it means damnation. I will go back.

Something broke. Was it me, or the laws of the universe? I don’t know, but I could feel that thing snap as it gave way. Suddenly I found myself hurtling back down to Equestria, towards the place where I lay buried.

I was going back. Back to my friends, back to make things right again. I was so relieved at the time, I didn’t even bother to wonder what had happened. I’m a bit single-minded, okay? But I had done it: I had escaped death, done the impossible and was coming back to life. It was a miracle.

Funny thing is though, there’s always a catch.