Twilight had always wondered what her mind looked like, if such things could have a look. She had researched extensively before casting this spell, and every report had been incredibly varied. Fields of flowers, stygian caverns, stars or burning mountains.
Hers was a plane of colorless void, ideas and meaningless jumbles of thought melting down into glimpses of structure. A parched river bed carved through the surface, still damp, branching out in jagged spears. She had hoped her mind would be appropriately organized, given her tendencies, but that was clearly not the case.
And in the center of this void was a bundle of darkness, flickering like a candlelight, with two darker pits where eyes should be. It looked like it might have been a pony, but it also looked like a gryphon, a dragon, a wolf, and other things Twilight could not put names to. It was in constant change, and it waited stiffly for her to come to it.
“And how shall this encounter go,” it said, breathing into Twilight’s face, a whisper of malice in its smell, “will we fight? Will we treaty? Will you submit?” Its voice was of ashes and whisper soft storms.
It didn’t mention the possibility of its own defeat, and Twilight had little evidence to raise the point. This was her last gambit, a desperate bid. A phantom sensation of the outside world told her her body was keeping its part. How must she look to the world at this moment, doing what she must?
She pulled herself up high, calling upon years of practiced regality. “I’ve come to ask you to leave me, and go back to wherever you came from.”
It laughed. “I thought only alicorns could be princesses?” it mocked, and Twilight noticed she had no wings. She was a unicorn again, but that was more comforting than the darkness suspected. The best times of Twilights life had been when she was a unicorn, before her destiny had unfolded itself.
“If you like, you can call me Umbra,” the darkness said after a time. “You animals were always so concerned with labels. And I think it fits, don’t you?” Twilight continued her silence, and Umbra’s shadows wilted in playful disappointment. “After all the time you put into this meeting, I would’ve expected you to have a, hm, a game plan, as you call it.”
“A game, then,” Twilight proposed, latching onto the idea.
“At what stakes?”
“I win, and you leave this world and it’s inhabitants alone, forever.”
“And I’ll get you, should I win,” Umbra said, hungry. “Now, what will our battlefield be? You ponies have come up with so many ways to pass away your fleeting lives, it’ll be hard to pick just one.”
Boards and dice and rules danced around them, offering themselves for consideration. But Twilight would not chance this on a quick game, and Umbra scowled at any games of luck. Eventually she plucked a board of black and white tiles, and placed it before them, banished the rest.
“Chess?” The candle darkness grinned, a line of white against the black. “If that is your choice, then let us play.”
The chess board appeared before them, a collection of black and white pieces for either. Twilight chose black for herself; she wanted time to read her opponent, time that she wouldn’t have with a first move. Umbra gathered its pieces up, and changed them to a darker shade than Twilight’s, and said, “The dark always moves before the light.” Then it smiled, like it was just playing a game.
Its true point didn’t escape Twilight. It had control over her thoughts, even this early. She swallowed and hid her worry. The game had begun like all chess games; a pawn had moved. Twilight moved her own pawn, and noted that her colors looked more grey than black by the new comparison. Her pieces became grey, and the board shimmered to match the new setup; pure darkness and muddy grey.
They played with cautious advances, until the rook landed next to her bishop, in a perfect spot for Twilight to claim it. There were no other pieces guarding it, no visible plan. She chewed her lip, trying to find the trap that did not appear to exist.
“Why did I do that?” Umbra said, voicing her question. It tilted its head with a merry smile and added, “I’m just so random, aren’t I?”
And for a moment the pools of abyss turned powder blue, and pictures of an impossibly pink, utterly inexplicable pony flashed through Twilight’s mind. The memory of a hundred, maybe a thousand parties full of decorations, music, and feasts meant to make ponies happy that now sent shards of barbed pain through her chest.
The others drifted back too, fierce loyalty and stubborn honesty. Generosity behind a mask of culture, and strength behind a face of kindness. Twilight herded them together before they had a chance to leak, barred them up and hid them back in the well they had been stirred from.
She felt tears start behind her eyes and clenched her eyes shut, for only a second, to hold them. Only a fleeting glimpse of what had been, but it was enough. The shadow noticed her moment of weakness and pulsed happily. It made no attempt to mask its moods; confidence and infallible cheer worked wonders to demoralize a foe.
A grey knight moved instead, smothering a pawn into mist. They played and time passed away without touching their game.
“I could bring them back. All of them.” Umbra mentioned, so casually that Twilight nearly dropped her piece. She looked up with a glare.
“You can’t, they’re gone,” growled Twilight.
“But what is death to us? Death has bowed to your power. Death has never wanted me. Together, we could scare death off, reclaim what rot and dirt has taken from you.”
“No.”
“Why, that was awfully fast, Princess,” Umbra hissed the title. It was hitting nerves now, warming up to the game it truly wanted to play. “One might think you never cared for them at all-”
“No!” Twilight was standing, legs shaking and teeth bared. “I will not bring them back from their rest. Not for my own selfishness.”
“Still having nightmares about that first attempt, are we? Don’t deny it, I bath in your nightmares. It’s a shame how short lived that was; I could have fixed her.”
Twilight sat down, not looking at the visions that Umbra was crafting above them: dirty hooves and empty eyes and endless wailing. She was better than that now, she had learned her lesson.
Understanding it was harder, but she was a quick learner, at least.
“What’s the point of trying only once, hm? What is it your ponies always say; thrice is the charm? There were four other perfectly willing subjects just waiting for you.” A salicious smirk formed on Umbra. “Perhaps you were playing favorites.”
“No,” Twilight sighed, and finished her move. She was too tired to rise to the bait. More than a hundred years was weighing on her back, and just now she realized how exhausted she was How did the princesses bear their own lives?
“Afraid you might call up something worse than me, next time? You can not, believe me.” Umbra yawned, disinterested suddenly. “I was so interested when those old magics were called on, more so when I learned who had done so. Now it turns out you are just as cautious and rigid as your precious princesses. How dull.”
A bishop crashed into her queen, and she winced. She was getting sloppy, too emotional, too hasty. This game had to last, that was the important thing. She breathed in and out, one hoof pointing outwards, and calmed her trembling heart. There was a snicker that she ignored, which turned to a gasp she enjoyed as a grey pawn devoured a knight.
Umbra did not pay much attention to the pawns, she noted, dark or grey.
For a moment, Twilight caught the edges of a pleading voice, and sad scared eyes, and she grieved for her gambit. Then Umbra moved again, taking revenge on the pawn, and the glimpse of a place outside their game was washed away.
Somewhere the sun spun away, landed where the moon had taken shelter, and watched the world they, for the time, dared not touch. The world, in their absence, was not dark, but could not call itself light.
Umbra stared, and hid itself in its candlelight shadows. Doubt had overgrown confidence, and it did not want Twilight to see. What plan was there, what trap, what design? It had not lied when it claimed it knew the mare’s thoughts, but it had exaggerated. All Umbra heard were figments of incoherent lines, more useful to rile her than best her.
The king was open, exposed, inches away from a check. There were so few pieces on the field anymore, but some powerful ones still lingered, wild cards that could upset the game in a move or two. One wrong move and Umbra could lose a rook, a bishop, and the game would go longer.
It had not expected the game to go on so long. Victory was inevitable, even if the board was lost. Umbra was intertwined with Twilight, creeping growths in her dreams to poison them with nightmares. Sanity was such a fragile thing; eventually, she would crumble.
The chess game was just a quicker option, a way to pass the time. A fun distraction while the darkness whittled the hours. Hours? There was no way to tell how much time had passed since they came here.
And Twilight hadn’t so much as twitched since she made her move. Her eyes were closed, breathing ragged. What was she up to?
Growling, Umbra picked a knight and slammed it on the board. The grey king was in danger now, Twilight would have to move him and then the game would a simple chase. A play of cat and mouse. Umbra could discover Twilight’s plan once it had taken her.
“Check,” it snapped.
A piece near Umbra’s side glowed purple, and it looked down. That wasn’t the king, it was a pawn. A useless pawn, so far from its darker king, or any piece. What was she-
“I’m sorry, princess,” said an echo from outside. Something terrible, beautifully awful followed it, power that Umbra could never have for it burned like the sun. Song and color, and a taste of defeat it had fought hard to forget.
Umbra’s eyes opened wide, and wider still when the pawn stepped onto the edge of the board and crowned itself as the new queen. The darkness’s king was trapped where once he had been safe. Behind him lay the end of the world, and before him a trio of pawns that had been safeguarding him, now the wall that entrapped him.
“Checkmate,” Twilight said, completely calm. She looked almost happy.
Then Harmony screamed through them both, and Umbra saw the true game. Twilight had made herself out to be possessed by the darkness without Umbra ever touching her. She had seeded the path of her student, some faithful filly, just as hers had been so long ago. Lead her to the elements, so that she would overthrow the ‘corrupted’ princess.
Twilight had crowned herself the dark queen in Umbra’s absence, and let herself fall with Umbra trapped within.
And as they fell together, so far, into a prison so deep and familiar, it managed a grudging smile. “Well played,” Umbra said. Twilight had bent the rules, and won by forcing both their defeats. She would have made a glorious host.