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And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once; and we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
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Kefka Palazzo was an ordinary man, once.
Long before Emperor Gestahl ordered so many young men drafted into the royal military, Kefka was a man of peace. A family man, a man that dearly held those close to him; a man that lived, that loved and laughed.
Was he that man any longer?
No, most certainly not.
He couldn’t even remember their faces.
But, then again, Kefka hardly remembered any face that wasn’t his own anymore.
Kefka definitely remembered his own sense of eagerness, so long ago; his willingness to obey the Emperor, to prove his loyalty to crown and country, his reliability as a man of courage, a man of talent, a man of his family. A man of laughter.
Emperor Gestahl took everything from him.
It all blurred at that one point; the mythical creatures that the Empire had captured, used for testing on their own soldiers. The mysterious and untamable force known as magic, that was thrust upon him. Kefka’s mind was broken that day – shattered, the man he knew before no more than a twisting reed in the wind of madness.
But he still had the laughter.
Kefka remembered laughing. Such a good feeling.
Laughing, something so rare an unattainable that one might go to any length just to get a little. Something that dulled the pain, it filled the void. Laughter was such a light, wonderful thing.
Kefka remembered laughing as he put the shards of glass in his mouth.
The others never shared his love of laughter. They were soft, weak, angry little people that couldn’t understand. Their eyes weren’t opened by the magic forced upon him, shredding into his mind like joyous slivers of happiness.
They didn’t even laugh when he held them down and put the glass in their mouths, either.
But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t even remember their faces.
Not until he made them all look just like him, that is.
Then, Kefka remembered perfectly.
Kefka Palazzo was a powerful man, once.
When Emperor Gestahl thought that he had won, when he let his guard down; that was when the deviousness and trickery of Kefka got the best of him. Kefka won in the end; he rose through the ranks faster than any other ever could, with fire in his belly matched only by the fires he lit upon the towns.
There was a time when Kefka Palazzo was on top of the world.
Literally; Kefka struck down the Emperor with his bare hands, and singlehandedly plunged the entire world into darkness when he absorbed the same magic that had been forced upon him. Kefka swallowed it whole, drowned out the pleas for mercy in a rain of flame as he ascended to godhood. They were soft, weak, angry little people that couldn’t understand.
They didn’t even laugh when he lit them on fire.
Kefka Palazzo was a god, once.
He alone held the essence of magic itself in his hands, tore the world asunder beneath him as he shrouded all of creation in darkness; darkness that he alone would propagate, to show them all just how pitiful and meaningless their lives truly were.
Kefka would make them understand.
But then, like a candle in the dark, they appeared.
The curious band of misfits, those that had also been tainted with the touch of magic; thieves, gamblers, harlots and heroes. They thought themselves higher than him; they did not truly understand. They were all mad.
Those awful people, so hell bent on forcing him to submit to their wicked logic and reason, threw him from his mighty throne; the throne that Kefka had worked his entire life to achieve, that Kefka alone had the right to sit upon. They lit the world in hope; wretched, accursed hope, his eternal enemy. They made a mockery of him, humiliated and cast him from the heavens. They were mocking him now, with their useless graves and monuments to the many that he alone had slain.
Kefka Palazzo was a hopeful man, once.
Kefka Palazzo was a laughing man, once.
Kefka Palazzo was a loving man, once.
But that was a long, long time ago.
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“Whoa, check out that one!” Spike pointed to the tiny fourth falling star he'd seen that night in excitement, catching Twilight’s attention. She looked up from the checkered picnic blanket upon the hill they sat on, staring at the fiery little blue and red light.
“Ooh, that one’s going through the atmosphere pretty quickly!” the violet unicorn beamed at the young drake, who danced back and forth.
“Quick, Twilight!” Spike grinned. “Make a wish, quick; before it’s gone!”
“Oh, pfffft.” Twilight patted Spike on the head and nuzzled her own nose against his. “I’m already perfectly content. Although I wouldn’t say no to a few new lessons,” she said thoughtfully.
Spike laughed and rolled his eyes, patting his full belly.
“When are you going to stop trying to cram your head full and just live for a couple of days, eh?” Spike sat back down, watching the steadily growing star. It trailed through the sky brilliantly against the inky background of the night, its tail quavering back and forth in a bizarre pattern as it fell.
“Every day is just another opportunity to learn something new, Spike,” Twilight nodded sagely, beginning to pack away the remainder of their picnic. “Pass me the rest of the sandwiches, would you kindly?”
Spike grumbled something unintelligible, trundling the small plate of sandwiches (or what was left of them) to her as she levitated the remainder into their woven basket. He really wasn’t looking forward to the long walk back to the library with his overstuffed stomach, but the prospect of getting some shuteye sounded pretty appealing by this point.
Twilight stopped halfway through packing up their picnic, staring at the sky.
“… Spike,” she said slowly, narrowing her eyes at the steadily growing red and blue comet, a twinkle of gold shining behind it. “Is it just me, or… no, it did! That comet just changed direction!”
“Wait, seriously?” Spike scratched his head curiously, peering up at the falling star. “That sounds kind of… weird.”
“… Get my notebook.”
“What?”
“Get my notebook, Spike!” Twilight gasped breathlessly, the falling star swiveling downward at an even faster rate than before, a blazing tail lighting up the night sky.
Spike never got the opportunity, as the meteor promptly screamed through the air and blasted into the side of the hill, an enormous shockwave knocking them both to the bottom as flecks of dirt and debris cluttered the air.
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It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.
― Friedrich Nietzsche
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There was only mindless drifting, for the longest time.
Was it eternity?
Perhaps.
Was it nothing?
No, certainly not.
Because for it to be nothing, not even consciousness itself would be able to exist. There would be an utter void of existence. But then again, isn’t even a void something after all?
To what end must one go to reach true nihilism?
That fabled utopian emptiness, that complete rejection of all the harshness of things deemed ‘real’. Surely it must be attainable.
But if it were, it would no longer be nothing. One cannot hold nothing.
Were such ponderings even sensible anymore?
No, certainly not.
Were they necessary to keep from going utterly mad?
Perhaps.
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“-ight. Twilight! Twilight, answer me!”
Twilight Sparkle groaned miserably, craning her aching neck and cracking open her eyes. A blinding headache forced her to squint, even though it was clear that the night sky wasn’t nearly bright enough to be too much for her eyes.
“You okay there, hon?” a mint colored unicorn helped her to her feet carefully, alongside a worried Spike. It took Twilight far too long to recognize the neighborly unicorn; but in her defense, Lyra seemed to be the kind of pony that was always in the background.
“W-what happened?” Twilight mumbled, tasting copper on her lips.
“That thing just came outta nowhere!” Spike said far too loudly, hugging her as tightly as he could and eliciting another pained grunt.
“Everypony thought you were a goner for sure,” Lyra shook her head, evidently still a little stunned. “Hey – hey, Bonny! Bon Bon! Did you see that thing?”
She allowed Twilight to stand woozily on her own, but quickly had to be propped up by an anxious Spike. Lyra gently left her to her own devices, trotting off to curiously inspect the oddly shaped hole in the hill. Many other ponies were milling about the same area, but it only proved to be completely empty.
“Are you going to be okay, Twilight?” Spike asked nervously, and Twilight slowly shook her head before nodding.
“Yeah,” she said breathlessly. “It’s-I’ll be okay, Spike. You can let go now,” she smiled weakly, patting him on the head. “I guess that the meteor had dissipated to the point of vaporizing upon entering the atmosphere…?”
But that didn’t explain how she could have been struck by it hard enough to blast her and Spike from the hill, or how it left a gaping crater in the top of it while she barely survived.
How did she manage to survive that, in the first place?
Even thinking about it caused the sharp sliver of pain to ribbon throughout her head, and she clutched her aching temples.
“Twilight?”
“Fine!” she snapped suddenly, glowering at the confused drake. “I said I’m fine!”
He blanched, backing away a step before Twilight caught herself, and gave herself and even more thorough shake. She glanced at Spike again, but the bizarre, feral look had left her eyes in place of a mortified, tired one.
“I’m sorry Spike,” she stumbled over her words slowly, feeling dizzy again. “It’s really not your fault. I think… I think that falling star hit me a little harder than I thought.”
Spike paused for a moment, carefully and kindly helping her limp forward.
“Come on, Twi – let’s get you to a-a hospital, or-or something…!”
She shook her head, frowning. “I said I’ll be fine, Spike. I just… I just need a little rest. That’s all. I really took a punch with that one,” she chuckled feebly as she turned herself back towards the library, and they slowly made their way home.
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Twilight was not usually much one for dwelling on dreams.
A dream was nothing more than a jumbled collection of the day, bouncing around in the head in nonsensical manners. She couldn’t quite fathom how Princess Luna managed to handle a single one, let alone every dream she happened across. It must have been quite the workload, and she wasn’t envious of her in the slightest.
To be honest, Twilight Sparkle was in the middle of a very confusing dream, in which she grappled with a flaming sky monkey whilst laughing hysterically and sprouting wings.
Told you it was confusing.
Twilight was just on the verge of attempting to make sense of this incomprehensible dream; or at least, she felt as if she were. It was such an odd, emotional dream. Somewhere between rapturous and inexplicable joy and horrendous terror.
She was left mainly with terror when she slowly peeled open her eyes.
“Hey there, sweet cheeks. Come here often?”
Twilight screamed in panic, jolting backwards out of the bed and falling to the floor in horror. The leering, maniacal grin of the… thing staring her in the face as it had lain next to her –
How long had it been lying next to her?!
“Oh, not long,” Kefka inspected his fingernails lazily as he reclined on her bed, one leg arched over another as if he were a pinup model. The mismatched brightly colored clothing he wore ruffled slightly as he turned to beam even more widely at her, which just seemed impossible. “You just look so peaceful when you’re dreaming of death and destruction, you were just too adorable to wake up.”
Twilight scrambled backwards in fear, scrabbling at the wall.
It knew what she was thinking.
It knew what she was dreaming.
“Twilight?” Spike poked his head in through the door, looking concernedly at the hyperventilating unicorn. “Twilight, are you okay?”
“Okay?!” she shrieked, clasping at her violently pounding heart. “That’s not funny, Spike!”
“Yeah!” Kefka jabbed a finger at him accusatorily. “You have to make jokes about crossing the road first before it’s funny!”
Spike, completely oblivious to the cackling human, only stared in confusion at Twilight.
“Uh… sorry?” he pulled at his frills fitfully. “I-I was just going to see if you, you know… wanted some pancakes…”
He looked at her with a hurt expression, and it finally dawned on Twilight the reason that he wasn’t panicking just as much as she was. But she needed to test it…
“Spike,” Twilight said very, very cautiously, her eyes never leaving the lazily stretching jester. “How many are in this room?”
He tilted his head, cocking an eyebrow.
“Two, Twi,” he stated slowly. “Did you hit your head so hard that you forgot how to count? Uh… no offense,” Spike added quickly, seeing the scowl on her face. However, her disturbed frown was for quite another reason entirely.
“Wow, took you long enough!” Kefka giggled, doing a handstand on one hand on the edge of the bed, balancing precariously. “If you were any slower, you’d be talking backwards!”
Twilight took a few long, deep breaths, and quietly said “Some pancakes sound lovely, Spike. I’ll be downstairs shortly.”
Her voice sounded a little off and distracted, but he nodded and continued along his way to continue making their breakfast.
“Nice kid,” Kefka said drolly, dropping from his handstand suddenly to kneel before her, causing her to jump. “You should totally kill him.”
“What!?” Twilight barked angrily at the suggestion, levitating a book and hurling at the grinning clown. However, much to her surprise, the moment she activated her magic and the familiar spark lit atop her horn, the entire bookshelf blasted away from the wall, slamming into the leering specter.
Or rather, through him.
Twilight flinched in shock as the bookshelf rammed into the opposite wall, the loud crack of wood and books flying muffled beneath Kefka’s intense laughter.
“Whoop!” he cackled, slapping his knee. “Missed me! Best two out of three?” he taunted her, flicking her on the tip of the nose.
Twilight, however, was still in astonishment that her miniscule amount of released magic had suffered such destructive results.
“Twilight?” Spike called up from the ground floor apprehensively. “Are you okay up there?”
“Fine!” she shouted back a little too loudly, swinging uselessly at her bare hooves through the laughing phantom. “Everything is just fine, Spike!”
“Aw, does wittwe Twiwight Spawkwe not wike big bad Kefka?” the clown mocked her and suddenly put on a sad face, dragging the flesh beneath his eyes down with his fingers. “Poor little unicorn.”
It knows my name!
“Well, duh,” Kefka released his face with a snap! and scowled at her angrily. “Jeez, you’re slow. Good help is so hard to find these days.”
Twilight seethed, thinking quickly. Obviously, his interference with her mind was causing fluxes with her magic. Either that, or she had suffered a concussion and she was hallucinating surprisingly vividly, and had just thrown her own bookshelf at the wall for no reason.
She really, really hoped that it was the latter.
Unhappily eyeing the mess that she had made, Twilight very, very carefully reached for the magic to clean up the clutter…
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To Twilight, it was something traumatic and horrifying.
To Spike, it was something else to clean up.
To Kefka, it was another opportunity for fun.
To the residents of Ponyville, it was quite a surprise when the town’s central library curiously spontaneously exploded.
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