The sleepover was winding down. It had been a great time, Pinkie always made sure of that, but there were some parts of a sleepover that Pinkie just wasn't very good at. A conversation of looks between Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash over the last bowl of popcorn agreed that it would be time for bed in a half an hour or so, so they'd better get a move on.

“Guess it’s time for bed now!” Twilight announced.

“Yup!” Applejack agreed. “Boy, I sure am beat.”

“I’m not quite tired yet,” Fluttershy said, then she started as Rainbow poked her with a wing. “Um… but I’m very glad we’re getting to bed early.”

“Goody!” Pinkie said, bouncing as all of her theatrically yawning friends started towards Twilight’s bedroom. “Sleepover bedtime is the best!”

“Now, Pinkie.” Rarity put a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder as she floated her sleep mask beside her. “You must calm down. You know we need our beauty sleep.”

“Being calm doesn’t mean you can’t have fun,” Pinkie pointed out.

“Sleeping usually means you can’t have fun,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes.

The six beds had been set up in Twilight’s bedroom, and all six ponies crawled into their individual places, tucking themselves under covers. After some rustling and arranging themselves, they all said their goodnights.

“Goodnight!” Twilight said last, as she turned out the light.

Five ponies silently counted to ten in the darkness.

“Twilight?” Pinke said, on cue.

“Yes, Pinkie?”

“Who raised the sun before the unicorns learned magic?”

“There are a lot of theories about that, Pinkie. They’d take a long time to go over, but the best guess is that the world had a primordial magic field that did it, and that magic was absorbed by ponies. It explains how ponies evolved without magic, and also were the magic ponies have now came from.”

“Oh. Okay.” Pinkie went quiet again, and her five friends started counting to themselves.

… eight, nine, ten.

“Twilight?”

“Yes, Pinkie?”

“How did ponies get cutie marks?”

“It was a magical adaptation sometime after they developed, or absorbed pony magic. Some of the evidence indicates that earth ponies developed them first, and though the generations they spread to unicorns and pegasi and even zebras.”

“Why not griffons?”

“It’s genetics. On the rare occasions griffons have bred with ponies, they don’t have the right genes to attach to the genes for pony magic, including cutie marks.”

“Okay.”

One, two, three, four, five, six--

“Pinkie Pie?” Rainbow’s voice cut into everypony’s mental timer.

“Yes, Dashie?”

“Why do you ask questions exactly every ten seconds when we’re going to sleep?”

“Because that’s how long it takes me to think of another question.”

After a pause, Rainbow started, “You think of questions exactly--”

“Twilight?”

Twilight gave a heavy sigh. “Yes, Pinkie?”

“What happens to ponies when they die?”

“Their bodies decay and become nutrients for other living things through food, and their magic is absorbed back into the earth. From there it flows through the plants and animals and air, and can be gathered in other ponies.”

“O--” Pinkie started to say, but a chorus of voices cut in:

“Hold up there. That ain’t all of it.”

“Yeah, that’s not what I heard.”

“That does sound rather morbid.”


“It’s death, Rarity,” Twilight pointed out. “Of course it’s morbid. It’s part of the definition of morbid.”

Rarity gave a sniff. “Yes, but one should hope that nature could arrange something more elegant.”

“It’s very elegant! Every part of a pony, down to the smallest molecule, is eventually repurposed as something else that allows another plant or animal or pony to live. Nothing goes to waste, we’re all a part of each other in a great circle of--”

Applejack snorted. “Horse apples.”

“Well, those are part of it, too, when they rot,” Twilight admitted.

“No, you said everythin’ turns into somethin’ else. What about souls?”

“Well, they don’t exist.”

“Says who?” Applejack challenged.

“Nopony has to say it. They aren’t there.”

“That don’t mean nothin’.”

“It does mean something, AJ.” Twilight shifted to sit up in bed. “It means they are not present in a pony, and things which are not present in a pony are not part of a pony.”

“You grew a couple extra limbs ya’ didn’t start out with. You sayin’ that makes sense, but a part ya’ can’t see doesn’t?”

“That’s different. That’s magic.”

“Whatever ya’ say.”

“It is different!” Twilight insisted. “If you were able to look at the subthaumic signatures and destiny markers, you could explain exactly the magic flow that turned me into a princess or made this castle grow.”

“Uh, you were looking for months and couldn’t even figure out how to open the magic box, let alone what it did or that it might grow a magic castle,” Rainbow said.

“Well, that’s because you can’t actually see destiny markers and subthaumic particles.”

“Cause they ain’t there?” Applejack asked, her smirk audible.

“No, because--” Twilight huffed. “You know what? Fine. So what happens to your ‘soul,’ you guys?”

“It goes to heaven,” Applejack said plainly. “It’s up in the sky. And ponies all live on clouds and play harps.”

“So… Cloudsdale,” Twilight said, her voice flat.

“Yeah, try playing a harp in Cloudsdale.,” Rainbow suggested. “You’ll get your tail handed to you.”

“It ain’t Cloudsdale, it’s higher up. Higher than pegasi can fly. And they got houses made of crystal, and all the ponies you loved’ll be there with ya’.”

“Wow, Twilight,” Pinkie chirped. “I’ve never heard a pony roll her eyes before!”

“I’m just putting together a theory that Heaven is also completely undetectable by any means, and that why all of our studies of the atmosphere and space haven’t seen anything like it.”

“Well if it’s full of souls, don’t that just make sense? I mean, who’d wanna take up space keepin’ a bunch of souls in someplace they’d be in the way?”

“She’s rolling her eyes again,” Pinkie offered.

“She can roll her eyes all she wants. I know it’s there, and it’s real peaceful--”

“Maybe earth pony and unicorn heaven is peaceful,” Rainbow scoffed. “Not the part pegasi go to.”

“Pegasi got their own part of heaven?” Applejack asked, sounding uncertain.

“Yeah we do! And it’s awesome! There’s a big hall for brave pegasi warriors, and the cider flows in a river down the middle, and they all practice fighting each other!”

“If they’re dead, why’re they practicin’ fightin’?”

Rainbow’s voice started low and conspiratorial, “For when the giant, planet-eating monster comes to end the world!” She finished, pouncing to the end of her bed with a squeak of mattress springs.

Fluttershy squeaked and threw her blanket over her head.

“Oh come on!” Twilight said. “You scared Fluttershy.”

“Don’t worry, ‘Shy. We’ve got a while.”

“It’s okay.” Fluttershy’s voice was muffled by the blanket, but became more clear as she peeked out. “I was just startled. I… don’t really believe that. Not anymore.”

Twilight sighed. “Good. At least one of my friends--”

“Tree Hugger taught me about reincarnation,” Fluttershy added.

There was a soft smack.

“Twilight, you really shouldn’t hit your face that hard,” Pinkie suggested.

“It feels good,” Twilight said through her hoof.

“What’s reincarnation?” Rainbow asked.


“Oh, it where your soul goes to another pony or creature when you die, so you’re reborn with a fresh start to try to be the best version of you that you can be,” Fluttershy said in a sunshiney voice.

“So… you’re saying I could be reborn as a dragon or something?” Rainbow asked.

Fluttershy hesitated. “Well… yes. If in this life you were exactly the right amount good… or bad, maybe?”

“Sign me up for that one!”

“So who’s gonna fight that planet eatin’ monster y’all are waitin’ for?”

“If I do the dragon thing first, then I could die and then go to pegasus Heaven and fight the monster as a dragon.”

Twilight groaned. “That’s not how it works! If you’re going to believe in some kind of afterlife, you don’t get to pick it like a-- a vacation spot!”

“How would you know? You didn’t even know about souls,” Rainbow pointed out.

“Twilight is right,” offered Rarity. “Whatever there is after we die, if there is something, it’s unlikely we can change it. Therefore it’s pointless to waste time on guessing, and it’s most important to use our time alive to assure that we’re remembered fondly by future generations.”

Rainbow flopped back on her bed. “Been there, done that, got my cutie mark.”

“I reckon we all done a bit that Equestria’s gonna remember for a while.”

“Besides, Twilight will be alive for a long, long time! She’ll remind everypony,” Pinkie said.

“Maybe that’s why she doesn’t want there to be an afterlife. She feels left out,” Rainbow suggested.

“Immortal doesn’t mean invulnerable,” Twilight pointed out. “I’m not going to die of natural causes, and I have some pretty strong magic, but there are things in the world that can kill me. Chances are I’ll die eventually. And when I do, I’ll decay just like everything else.”

“Well, I hope you’re wrong, sugarcube.”

“That’s because it’s hard to face the idea that you really only have a finite amount of time--”

“Nah, it’s ‘cause I’d like to see my ma and pa again.” Applejack cut in. “I didn't even have my cutie mark when they died, I never really got to know ‘em.”

The six were silent for a moment. Applejack shifted to a more comfortable position and fluffed her pillow, feeling that she’d said her piece. Fluttershy and Rarity hoped that Twilight wouldn’t press such a sensitive issue. Rainbow Dash was working out tactics for a phalanx of pegasi warriors and a fully grown dragon. Pinkie Pie had started counting to herself, and Twilight was having a mental battle, which one side finally won.

“AJ…” Twilight started in a low, unsure voice.

“Um… Twilight…” Fluttershy spoke up. “Maybe we should stop talking about this.”

There was a long pause, then Twilight took a deep breath and went on, trying to show compassion in her voice as she said, “AJ, just because it would be nice is no reason to believe something that isn’t true. You know that.”

“You know I do, Twi,” Applejack said. “You show me it ain’t true, and I’ll stop believein’.”

Twilight sighed. “You’re the one making the fantastic claim, you need to show--”

Applejack broke in. “I don’t gotta show nothin’, ‘cause I ain’t tryin’ to prove nothin’ to you. Pinkie asked what happens after a pony dies, and since not a one of has been dead--”

“Um… I think we’ve all been dead.”

“Since none of us has been dead that we remember,” Applejack went on, “none of us knows. You’re the only one here who thinks everypony else oughta think like she does, so shouldn’t you be the one who’s gotta prove it?”

There was silence in the dark room.

Twilight thought about how to respond. Her certainty in fact -- the only reason she couldn’t prove it was that Applejack’s assertion practically included the fact that it was unprovable -- crashed against a strange realization: it wasn’t that her friends wanted to believe their theories, even if they were lies. They all knew better than that, especially Applejack. But they had no reason to want to know the truth, either. It wouldn’t change anything for them, it wouldn’t make them feel better. They were happy making up stories, then shrugging and saying that nopony really knows. The idea was utterly alien to Twilight, and she struggled to understand--

“Nine… TEN! Applejack wins! She stumped Twilight!” Pinkie bounced on her bed, the mattress squeaking.

“Wait, this is a game?” Rainbow shouted.

“Well, duh! I mean, we play it every time we have a sleepover, right? That’s why we go to bed an hour early!”

There was silence for ten seconds, and then all at once five pillows flew out of the darkness to hit Pinkie.