tempt ['tem(p)t] tr.v (often - s.o with s.t, to do s.t.)
1 try to get (a person or an animal) to do s.t
(by offering her/him/it s.t ATTRACTIVE),
to attempt to PERSUADE or entice to do
something, esp something MORALLY wrong or
unwise. 2 make (a person or animal) WANT to
do s.t, to cause to be STRONGLY disposed to s.t.
3 to PROVOKE or to risk provoking (to tempt faith).
It all started with what seemed to be the most ordinary day in my life. I’d wake up, work my shift at the weather team, hang out with my friends in the afternoon at a picnic, spend the evening reading Daring Do, before finally hitting the hay.
After I woke up from an incredibly great slumber—seriously, I didn’t ever recall sleeping that well before—I got up and I patted Tank, who was sleeping on the floor next to my bed, as the little tortoise gave me a slow smile. Little heartwarming moments like this one were usually good signs for a great day being ahead of me. I ate breakfast and took a shower before heading off to work.
As usual, there wasn’t much for me to do. Normally I would’ve been able to work my schedule in nothing more than ten seconds, but I was way too relaxed that morning to rush it, so I took my time. Glancing over the busy streets of Ponyville was always an amusing sight. Because of the nature of my work, I could afford getting up a few hours later than most ponies.
It all seemed as ordinary as one could imagine: the Cakes were baking their newest sensational tower of a diabetes bomb, Lyra was playing her lyre in the park while standing in a very unhealthy position, and you could occasionally hear the exaggerated whining coming from Carousel Boutique every once in a while.
After I finished my shift, I still had plenty of time to spend until the picnic with my friends later that day. I would’ve taken a nap in AJ’s orchard again, but after she discovered my hideout the other day, she took away my bed clothes, and I really couldn’t be bothered to bring new covers and pillows every time she found one of my hideouts if it meant playing pendulum between my house and her trees. As a simple alternative, I’d decided to fly home and sleep there instead.
This is where the seemingly ordinary day started to get kicked out of its seemingly perfect ordinariness. As I got closer to my house’s entrance, I could make out something that looked like a pitch black brick laying in front of it. It stuck out way more than it would’ve down on the ground, due to the fact that clouds are white. I must admit, I was a little unnerved. Everything in my house was enchanted so it would not fall through the clouds. This included the Daring Do books, which Twilight kindly enchanted when I borrowed the whole series. So whatever that brick was, someone must’ve enchanted it as well. And what could be so important someone actually took the time to bring it up here? was my next thought, amongst similar questions which followed only seconds later.
I knew I wouldn’t find answers anytime soon, but at least I could start to understand more as I finally got to the ‘brick’. I picked it up as I got to my house’s entrance and almost let it slip out of my grasp at its unexpected lightness. I immediately realized it wasn’t a piece of stone, but much rather... a book. The blackest book I’ve ever seen. I could feel an engraving on the cover, but it was so hard to see what it looked like that I didn’t really care to take a closer look at it, as my mind was more focused on the actual content of that book.
I opened it to a random page and promptly dropped my jaw at what I saw. To be more precise, it wasn’t just a book, it was a dictionary; the blackest dictionary—heck, book—I’ve ever seen. That wasn’t the creepy part though. Instead of being black print on white paper, as with most books, this dictionary had completely black pages with red ink on it; or at least I thought it was ink.
The random page I’d opened was in the T-section, and for some odd reason, one entry seemed to stick out a little in particular:
tempt
Taking a closer look, I noticed why it stuck out. A few selected words were printed capitalized and bold, such as ATTRACTIVE and PERSUADE. No other entry on that page had that, so I knew something was off here. I quickly scanned through the pages, but found no other entry with that format. What were the odds to open a new book to a random page, and already being greeted by the only page that contained something unusual?
What is this thing? What should I do with it? I asked myself. I wanted answers, and I wanted them soon. Should I show this to Twilight? Maybe she can help me understand what the hay is going on here. The picnic was still hours away, so I decided to hit her up with those questions immediately.
I grabbed my saddle bags, put the book in there, and started flying to her library only seconds later.
“Hey Rainbow Dash, how can I help you?” Twilight said with a smile after I knocked at her door. Fortunately, she wasn’t having an emotional breakdown over forgetting to send a letter to the Princess and destroying half of Ponyville again.
“Twilight! I just got home and saw this dictionary laying in front of my house. I have no idea what it is or why anypony would leave it there for me! I was hoping you could help me figure that out.” I opened my saddle bag and put the black dictionary on the nearest table.
Twilight’s kind smile vanished and was replaced by a slightly worried frown.
“Uhm, Twilight, is something wrong?”
“I... don’t know. Something tells me this can’t be a good sign. I don’t recall ever seeing a book like this before.” With her horn glowing up, she levitated the book towards her and opened it. Her jaw dropped the instant she saw the red-on-black pages, probably not unlike my expression. “What in Celestia’s name is this?!”
“I don’t have a clue! That’s why I was hoping you could help me find some answers. I thought you’ve read enough egghead stuff to know about every possible piece of literature out there.”, I said with a light chuckle, although I knew this wasn’t exactly the right time to pull jokes.
“Rainbow, please!”, Twilight shouted while giving an angry stare that probably would’ve made Fluttershy cry. “I don’t know what this is about either, but I can try to figure out what’s going on in time. All I need is some time and a little bit of patience from you.”
“Patience?! You know that if there’s one thing in Equestria I don’t have, it’s patience! Can’t you please, please, please make an exception for once?” I said while I gave her my best puppy eyes.
“For once? Rainbow, as far as I can recall, I can’t remember ever not making an exception for you. But okay, I will try my best trying to get to the bottom of this. I’ll tell you what I’ve discovered when I see you later at the picnic, if anything.”
“Oh, thank you, Twilight! I was really unnerved when I first saw this thing. Hope you’ll find something!” I gave her a quick hug. “Well then, see you later!”
“See you later, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight said with a slightly forced smile. You could tell she was just as stressed as I was.
I flew home and tried to sleep until the picnic was on... with emphasis on ‘tried’. I just stared at my white ceiling the entire time as I couldn’t get my thoughts off that book. Oh Twilight, PLEASE find something!
After several sleepless hours, which might as well have been several days, I grabbed my things and flew to our meetup as fast as I could. I wanted answers! But as expected, I came in a few minutes too early, and besides Pinkie Pie, who was cheerfully putting party decorations everywhere, nopony else was there yet.
Over the course of the next few minutes, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity arrived, and started to talk about their usual new tales of everyday life. I would’ve joined them, but my mind was busy focusing on something else. I also didn’t really feel like telling everyone about that dictionary just yet.
“Ah sure wonder what’s takin’ so long with that unicorn...”, Applejack said after several minutes. “She’s usually th’ first, and never comes too late to a picnic.”
I got more and more frightened by the minute. Eventually, it got the better of me and I set off. “Sorry guys, I need to check what’s keeping Twilight so busy. Later!”
Within a second I was out of their sight. If only I could’ve enjoyed that picnic a little more...
I could already see with the library emerging from a distance that something was odd. Twilight wasn’t exactly known for being an energy saver, and the only time the light wasn’t turned on—and even then rarely—was during the nighttime. At that time, however, there was no light coming from the housetree at all. It couldn’t be because she left the house for the picnic, as I hadn’t passed her on the way. With less distance between me and the tree, I noticed more details. Leaves and branches were scattered around it, and several curtains behind the closed windows were in a mess.
When I arrived at the door, I didn’t hesitate at all to repetitively slam my hoof against it. “Twilight! What’s taking so long?” There was no answer. “TWILIGHT!” Silence again. Whatever happened, it must’ve been something horrible. That was finally clear to me. I didn’t wait any longer; I walked a few steps back and crashed through the door.
After a little dizziness, I noticed a slight sting in my right foreleg. Looking down at it I noticed an about two inches long cut with blood dripping out of it. Ah Tartarus! Whatever, it’s nothing serious. Now where the heck is Twilight?!
I took a look around the house. The entire library was in a mess: Books were scattered all over the floor, and the few ones still where they belonged totaled a number a baby foal could understand. When I turned my head towards the stairway my jaw dropped.
There were big red patches of blood all over the individual stairs, forming a clean line that got increasingly bigger with every stair that led towards the upper floor. My worries were now boosted by an infinite amount. I flew upwards as fast as I could.
My heart froze at the scene before me.
There lay Twilight, unconscious. Fresh wounds and even some seemingly old scars were all over her body, some bearing a size greater than three times of the tiny cut I had. A stream of blood was flowing out of her lower belly. I rushed over to her and held her in my forelegs. My already wet eyes could no longer hold back the tears and I started to whimper. “Twilight! TWILIGHT! Speak to me! What happened to you?!”, but just like before at the door, there was no answer.
After looking at her wounds further—in particular a huge one which was responsible for the majority of the blood puddle—I carefully laid her back down on the floor, and started searching through the house for a first aid kit. Several minutes after hopelessly doing so, I decided to just get some towels to get the most threatening wounds out of the way first.
I did my best to cover them up when I returned—which isn’t saying much, as towels aren’t exactly known for their effectivity in first-aid. Once I was finished, I turned around to leave. “I’ll be right back, Twilight! I’ll just get doctor real quick. If you can hear me, don’t move before—”
“Do you really want to go already?” a deep and distorted voice uttered. It was incredibly loud, and I couldn’t make out from where it was coming from.
“Wh-who said that? What did you do to Twilight?!” was my response as I frantically looked around the room for the source of the voice.
“Me? I didn’t do anything to make her mane look so messy, if you mean that.” the voice said with a sinister laugh, “But it could indeed be true that I made her less... purple. I prefer red anyway, since I was written with that instead of ordinary ink.”
My eyes rested on the black dictionary laying neatly a few yards away on the floor. Blood was all around it, but not on the book itself. “Y-you? But... but you’re just a book! A worthless piece of paper!”
“Worthless piece of paper? Young lady, you need to watch your tone.” The book was the engulfed in a black aura and flew towards me, stopping just a few inches over my head. “But I can’t really blame you. After all, not everyone has the same likings for red as others.”
“Buck you!”
“I would, but unfortunately my shape doesn’t really allow me to, hehe.” If I knew this book would feel pain, I would’ve just punched it right there and then. “Now seriously, enough with the immature talk. Your friend is in a pretty bad condition, and I can tell you right here that there’s no way a doctor would arrive before it’s too late for her. Her fate is hopeless and she won’t have more than a few minutes before the inevitable takes her. Your pathetic towel bandages won’t prevent that either.”
As much as I hated to admit it, the book was right. Twilight would be dead any second. She was barely breathing anymore, and the towels were already entirely soaked in a single color.
“You could’ve prevented this if you chose to take me inside of your house right away instead of taking me to her. I wanted you, not some second-rate unicorn.”
Hearing that, I looked up at the dictionary floating over me with a confused expression. “Me? What do you want me for?”
“You’re loyal. You’re strong. You’re fast. You are what I need to cleanse this world from corruption. You can build up other’s trust with your element, and you can always escape when things get too... questionable. You’re perfect.”
There was a moment of silence in which it let me process what it had just said. A few moments later, the book opened itself up, and started to drop out pages. These pages weren’t ripped or looked like they were cut out with scissors; they were simple and flawless detachments from the original source.
“Equestria isn’t the perfect land you’ve always thought it was. It suffers from eight crimes from powerful ponies. Ponies which don’t deserve to exist for what they are doing. Ponies whom abuse their powers for their own benefits. These crimes are:
Hypocrisy, Imposition, Deceit, Violation, Egoism, Betrayal, Forsaking, Oppression
And I want you to solve that problem once and for all, to bring peace to this land again.”
With each word, a new detached page was being laid in front of me, all showing the corresponding dictionary entry, and all having a few words bolded and capitalized, just like that page I saw earlier that day.
“But of course I’m not unfair, only asking from you without giving anything back. If you join me, I will heal your little friend here. If she wakes up tomorrow, she won’t remember anything, and you better work hard to keep it that way. Don’t you dare to breath a single word of this to anyone!”
I felt an invisible force pushing against me as I felt more and more power escaping my body every second. Very soon I slowly felt myself losing my consciousness as well. Before I fully lost it however, I saw two more pages escaping the book. One was moved towards the edge of the room, but the other one flew directly towards my face. I immediately recognized the page.
“Temptation—the act of offering someone something attractive in order make them persuade something, even if it’s morally wrong or unwise. That is how the crimes of the corrupted were committed. However, we’ve entered a state in which we can only fight fire with fire, so it’s not morally wrong to give you the same treat.”
“T-treat?” I asked with whatever energy was still remaining in my body.
“You will gain might beyond belief! You will fly faster than any Wonderbolt ever flew! You will be stronger than any dragon ever was! You will have more knowledge than any magician ever knew! You will be perfect!” There was a short pause. It then said in a slow, friendly, and captivating tone “Will you join me?”
Y-yes. I wasn’t able to say it out loud because of my lack of energy, but as I saw the book slowly rising I knew it heard me.
As I was engulfed by darkness, I couldn’t think of anything except for one thing:
Temptation.
Author's Note
My first attempt to write something serious. I hope no one misinterprets the blackness of that book as racist jokes. :V
Still being a new author means I'm actively looking for feedback. Feel free to point out anything that bothers you! I don't mind negative criticism in the least.
Huge thanks to my pre-reader and editor Abcron!
