Identity

History

Twilight stewed over her collections of dictionaries and Encyclopedias. “Hey Twilight, can I go out?”

“Why would you ask? I’ve let you do that for most of your waking life?”

“I dunno. I might have changed.”

“Spike, just do what you want and leave me alone.”

“Fine!

And with the temper that marks dragons as being different than ponies (after all, being a scaly fire breathing winged quadruped was not, necessarily exclusive to the reptiles).

It mattered considerably less than the real thing at hand, what had Chrysalis said about the Singularity.

“Every race goes through a singularity.”

“What is that?”

“Mythology. Preferably associated with the Canterlot area.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Caves, caverns, gems. Something about the Singularity.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Then I’m sure that you’ll know the first part.”

The library was filled with the ever expanding collection of books, and now books on microfilm. It seemed hard to imagine that one so large as this would lack the shreds of knowledge that she needed. The wrinkled librarian delivered her to the relevant books. She checked out the shelf. The librarian did not even blink at her request.

“Have a good day!”

“you too!”

Twilight pulled the shelf of books out the door.

Spike was outside waiting. “Sometimes Twilight, I wonder whether or not you’ve ever seen yourself.”

Twilight ignored the angsty dragon and teleported back to the castle.

“Spike! I’ve found it!”

“Twilight, what does it matter, the dragons already went through it a long time ago.”

Twilight shook her head. This dragon was getting quite irritating to be around.

There were reports, thousands of years ago, that there were voices to be heard inside the tunnels of the pre-Canterlot area. They were requests for original thought. Nopony who went inside ever had one. Did they still lurk inside the tunnels, waiting for some unsuspecting intelligent entity to wander inside? To bequeath upon them the dangerous, sometimes suicidal wish of that being?

A white alicorn sat in a courtyard, reading a book in the quiet. The castle around her was unusually silent. The servants moved with a stillness within them that silenced them to the rest of the world. The wind blew slightly. Celestia looked up. It was not like her to forget what the weather was for the day, but it was also not like her to take chances. There were no clouds in her sunny sky. Celestia smiled and returned to her book. Sometimes it amazed her how quickly her citizens could come up with new implementations of the same plots that she had read three years ago. She visible contained a laugh, but her face went sour at some revelation. She closed the book, content to lay in her sun in the quiet. She had just closed her eyes when a shriek crossed into her ears. “Celestia!”

Her eyes bolted open. It was probably Twilight, with some kind of silly question about some kind of obscure magic that she had not thought about in millennia. She let out a breath, took up her book, and smiled. No matter how tiresome she could be, Twilight was a good student, and now a half-way decent princess. The purple newly Alicorn bounded out into the courtyard, destroying a potted petunia which Celestia had saved from falling out of the sky one day. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice called out “Not again!”

She shook her head. Now was not the time to worry about schizophrenia.

“What is it Twilight?”

Twilight stopped right next to her, panting. “Calm down Twilight, catch your breath, your question isn’t worth passing out.”

After a few deep breaths, Twilight finally regained her composure.

“Celestia, Chrysalis told me about something today that I have never heard of.”

“What have you been doing with Chrysalis?” Celestia’s change in demeanor was as sudden as any other sudden unexpected phenomena.

“She got involved in a project of mine.”

“Oh. Okay, in a good way Right?” Twilight nodded. “Good. Did you try getting anywhere with peace settlements?”

“Yeah, they’re going to build an embassy in our major cities.”

“Wonderful Twilight, your first real diplomatic triumph. What was it that you have never heard of before?”

“She said something about all species going through a singularity. What’s a singularity?”

Twilight shrunk back from Celestia as her anger grew. It dissolved almost as quickly.

“What was this experiment that you ran?” Her voice was without any warmth whatsoever. Twilight struggled to think of the best way to put it.

“There was this team of scientists who came up with a way of storing a mind and writing it to a body.”

“And?”

“I cloned myself, put my mind in the new body, and then decided that she was her own pony and let her be.”

“Twilight, you’ve led to times more trying and disturbing than Discord.”

“How?” The indignation in Twilights voice was a sign to Celestia that she had expected to be praised for her ingeniuty and ethical execution of her idea.

Celestia sighed. “That cavern in Canterlot Mountain was what remained of the Singularity of a race that we never met. They were once the best and the brightest of the race, but time had corrupted them, they had become obsessed with whatever innumerable pieces of originality they could make. They traded those for their own lives. We gave them a little, and they allowed us to become what we are today. We also destroyed them.” She shuddered.

“Lulu, what now?”

“The parts of the tunnel with the creepy voices offering unlimited power should be ahead.”

“This is absurd Luna. We really should return home. The lantern’s low, and I don’t want to trust that you’ll stay with me to use my magic.”

“Of course not Celly; I could get out before the lantern ran out.”

They walked down a suspiciously smooth tunnel. Bits of crystal flashed in colors that the lantern never projected. The two ignored them intentionally. The wind blew outwards, carrying the stench of a bed roll. The two recoiled at the scent.

Soon the two came to a junction in the tunnels that rung the mountain. In it was the single bedroll that reeked so badly. It was made of hay, in it a single skeleton. Around it, however, was a large supply of lantern fuel.

‘See Celly? I knew that it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Does it bother you that you are looting it from a corpse?” Celestia deadpanned. The white unicorn finding her sister’s eagerness to continue nearly exasperating.

“Nope. This pony sure doesn’t need it.” She smiled at her sister. The white unicorn placed her hoof over her eyes.

“I guess that you are right. But just don’t take anything from the body. It might be diseased.”

“But I found this bag of fourteen bits…”

“keep it then.”

The younger sister smiled again, obnoxious as before.

Celestia grumbled something about her sister being the most useful rogue in all of Equestria.

The caverns grew more densely studded with crystals. Some of them in the deeper darkness flashed messages at each other. Red-blue-green-green-blue-yellow.

“Evil Voices? Can you hear me?”

The crystals ahead displayed an arrow further into the cavern. The two followed it, it moved to show them exactly where to go.

“Customer service seems to be their strong suite.”

Celestia nodded numbly. She was supposedly the responsible one, why would she allow, perhaps even encourage her sister to act like this? The crystals stopped moving, and formed a red and white octagon with a squiggle, followed by a tree, and a ring, and a rapier’s handle.

“What is it that you desire?” The voice rang out, raspy, obsolete, and creepy sounding, from all directions. The two could feel the weight of ancient minds looking down at them. Large, corpulent, and diseased. Staring lustily at them.

“We desire to be made immortal, and to have control over the heavenly bodies.” Luna giggled impetuously. What was the chance of that being granted.

“Would you prefer the moon, Federal Blue one?”

“Sure, why not?”

“And you… the one with integrity, are you desiring the avatar of the sun?”

“What does this entail?”

“A transformation, manifestation of all three races into a convergent, immortal mass. Equalization of temperaments to allow for fine magical control under pressure. Continual expansion of magical abilities, and rapid regeneration. Estivation will be possible, but will leave a mark upon the mind that will take serious trauma to reduce. Agreeing to such a deal will require participants to submit original thought in order to be used by incorporating mind for profit, implicit agreement to distribution and acceptance of the loss of the original thought’s ownership is implied. Summary participants also agree to DNA scanning covered by the Waterholm-Scafford case resolution, allowing us to sample non-Intellectual property without consent. Do you agree, both of you?” The voice was constant. It pronounced all of the words flawlessly, without inflection or any other cheapening of the language.

“Yeah. I’ll be damned if I let my baby sister do this alone.”

“Which Original thoughts do you wish to use to pay?”

“Pick one at random.”

After thirty five minutes, it said, “Original thought generated as democash for use by exterior participants in all transactions in initial contracts. As covered by the Inferior Vs. Superior trial in 2210 CDA. Are you certain that you wish to use your democash for this purchase?”

“Dammit. Just do it!” Luna shouted. The rock blinked.

“Are you sure you do not want to have a complimentary tutorial on Economics 2.71828?” the voice sounded unsure for a bit. Almost concerned for their mortal stupidity.

“No. We have no plans for conducting future business.”

“Very well then. As defined in Gerber Vs. AOL, we accept your withdraw, and produce proof of purchase in form of requested bodily modification.” The lantern went out. So did the gems. In the darkness, there was sudden absolute silence, then a tittering. The sound of sand falling down upon sand resonated in the cavern, then it ceased.

The two mares felt strange. They blacked out before they could learn what the feeling was.

“Lulu!” Celestia yelled into the darkness. The blinking gems remained too dim to see with. Her horn felt sore. Her body felt sore in fact. “Where are you?”

She thought about fire. About the sun. It’s light. And called it to her instinctively. “Lulu!” she cried.

The light called to her. And she answered. The light exploded outwards. The entire cavern was filled with light.

“Do you find your new form pleasing? We are proud to announce to you, Celestia, that your form is refundable for the next twelve hours.”

“What form?”

“We assumed you had noticed. Allow us to provide a mirror.”

The wall in front of her silvered. She saw the same mare as before, but taller, a longer horn, more importantly, she had wings.

“That’s what you meant when you were talking about the ‘convergent immortal mass’.”

“Yes Celestia. We mean what we say.”

“Where is Luna?”

“She asked to leave. Please do visit though. We haven’t had company in far too long.”

“Allow me to leave, please.”

She found herself outside the tunnel. Next to Luna. Her hair waved in ethereal stars, and she looked upon the night sky above her and knew that it was hers by right and means.

“It is beautiful, is it not?”

“Yes. I would say it must be.”

“It is as much mine as it could be imagined.”

Celestia sat, considering this.

“Do you know the time?”

“About five hours after midnight.”

“About an hour to sunrise then.”

“And then the sky will be yours.”

Celestia nodded. “But I doubt that it could hold the beauty yours does.”

“You never know.” Luna whispered. The sisters watched the sun rise as passively as either of them could manage.

“And there your beauty is.”

Twilight scratched her head. “So you found that it desired to continue contact?”

“It was a business relationship Twilight. I felt its loneliness. I also felt its avarice. It was far too trusting in a way. It never held that it could ever determine the outcome of what it did. I think that it knew more than it would ever openly admit.”

The black unicorn looked scornfully upon the shining metropolis that had been built underneath him. It had cast him out, their rightful ruler by right of might. And it said no. To him.

And whispers of the young empire of the other ponies, the ones that did not shine in the light or glitter like stars. The ones that held the stars affixed and the sun above the plains. He snorted. What contempt! Such things were not possible. Perhaps, however, he could find what had finally unified them after Discord.

He journeyed across the frozen tundra that separated the two friendly nations. Cursing the cold as much as the sun.

It was not for months that he did arrive at the nation. Equestria they called it. Why would he care enough? It was little more than a blotch on the map compared to the Crystal Empire. The one that he knew that he would surely rule.

He came upon their white marble atrocity. Their Canterlot. Built by the victors to show their mastery over the sub-minded frivolity of the average citizen. The mountain was encrusted with blinking jewels. Crystals that shined odd colors, not consistent with what they appeared to be made of. The black unicorn had a suspicion. He laughed at it. To simply go inside…

The mountain had an entrance that was clearly not natural. He grinned, knowing that nopony in either empire would have ever noticed such a phenomena. He walked inside, shunning the light.

“Who is here?” He said simply. The cave lit up in response to him. The multifacetous crystals seemed to gaze through him.

“We are. What is it that you desire, crystalline approximation of Pony?”

“I want to rule the Crystal Empire; I want the ability to force it to do my will.”

“Such things are Trivial. No charge for you.”

And he had a wonderful presentation upon the subject of slavery, dictatorship, and military coups, naturally, all presented in a confusing, complicated fashion. “I think I understand.”

“So do we.”

“It’s all about the crystals!”

“You seem to have missed the point of the presentations.”

“Whatever, thing. I will return to the Crystal Empire and create a new age of poverty, disease, and unhappiness. Those idiots down in Canterlot will wonder what hit them.”

“And again, these are not generally the traits one associates with leadership. If you want others to follow you, we have another presentation for you, this time it should have been simplified so that even you can get the point.”

“Well then, I guess that you can take your presentation and paint it red.”

“As far as we can tell, there is no record of that idiom ever making sense, or actually having been an idiom whatsoever.”

The black unicorn hissed at the rock. “I shall take my leave, you collection of useless gemstones.”

“It does not seem that we could profit from one such as yourself anyway.”

The black unicorn cursed the stones for their worth in gold. A process that left the crystals speechless at the stupidity of the one they had nearly been required to deal with.

“We were their last friends. Before they allowed Sombra to leave the cave, we were friendly. We often asked them for advice, which was most certainly instrumental in our founding, but after Sombra, we could no longer trust them. How can you be sure that it will not be us in the future who live like that?” Her eyes were filled with fiery sorrow, burning away at her mentor as any drink imbibed with the gift of Bacchus.

Twilight stood still for a moment. Her eyes did not move. Her breathing was normal, she looked up with a calm filled with certainty. “We can’t end up that way.”

“What makes you so sure that we are not meant to follow the lead of the others?” Celestia’s anger waivered.

“We are not like them. We are not like the changelings, they survived the singularity. We certainly will.” Twilight’s didactic tone never waned.

Her eyes began to glow with the sort of fiery intensity that had lead ponies to follow Celestia in the first place. “But will our societies be filled with revenants or productive, happy citizens?”

“Does it matter?”

“Zombie ponies aren’t worth saving.”

The wind blew again. A symbolic storm cloud passed overhead, raining dreary revelations upon the two regents.

“There really is no going back, is there?” The wind blew again, carrying the scent of the royal garden.

“All that My Sister and I have collected regarding this phenomena predicts that there is no going back.”

“Twilight, I may have been wrong, there is no sign of accelerating change so far. What has happened, however, is that the machines that Frenzy Idea made sold far too well for anypony’s wallet. We’ve had to institute more taxes on him just to stop him from devouring our economy.”

Celestia smiled.

“So, your farming bill seems to have had the opposite effect, they’re getting poorer faster!” Twilight smiled, waiting for a laugh.

“Twilight, that wasn’t funny.”

Twilight went white. Celestia laughed. “That joke was insensitive, but I must admit, it was not so bad.”

“It was terrible.”

“I know.”

“I often wonder why those remnants were so willing to help either us or Sombra. They charged us a fee, or at least they tried to.” Luna said. The moon twinkled improbably in the distance. “I’m sorry, sometimes the moon tries to respond to me. It doesn’t know what it is talking about.”

Twilight shrugged. “I doubt that they really understood our position in the world. They did not see us as a burgeoning young species, they probably saw us in a more equivalent way. They had to assume so, otherwise they would be wracked by the changes that they would impose upon themselves in their environment.”

“Twilight, as much as I appreciate thine attempts to justify our destruction of a one-time friend of ours, but we consider it to be more polite to simply acknowledge the grief that it has caused us. Also, Twilight, the laws that they can impose upon themselves in a flexible imaginary environment renders any of our concerns about such things as stability or stagnation absolutely out of context.” Luna simply looked upwards again. “Sometimes I wonder what they found out there that made it seem acceptable to retreat into a mountain and live in their fantasies.”

“Something that can no doubt be changed” Twilight said.

“Perhaps.” Luna’s tone softened. The moon twinkled for a bit longer. Luna blushed. “Sometimes I wonder where it picked up such crude language.” She laughed. Twilight sat there, next to the laughing princess of the night, knowing that there were a hundred possible reasons for saying what she did.

“I hope we can” She whispered to herself, under the hope that Luna could not, or would not hear her. “I hope.”