The Sickness Unto Death

by Cynewulf

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark
Length: 6313

Twilight struggles with the horrible reality of a Universe that is unraveling all around her.

It began with a letter from the Princess, a routine, friendly correspondence that quickly became anything but. Reality itself is beginning to shift under her hooves in ways that she cannot hope to comprehend or explain. Around her, her friends and her home are falling into entropy and decay as doors appear through the land in midair, leading to some other place beyond the ken of ponykind. Twilight cannot fight the nature of things. She can only hope to stave off despair and salvage what can be saved of herself from the sickness unto death.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-08-07 14:43:28 UTC

I. Prolegomena

I. Prolegomena

Dearest Twilight,

Greetings, my faithful student. I do hope this letter finds you well. How are things in Ponyville? How has Pinkie Pie’s son liked his Wonderbolt’s paraphernalia? Young pegasi do love the fastest and the bravest!

It has been a while since you wrote, but I’ve been busy myself. The diplomatic calendar tends to fill up, even when there aren’t any crises. One might think it all harmless, but they’re all nipping at Luna and my heels, really. At least there’s peace left somewhere! Like Ponyville. I envy you your rustic escape, my student. I, too, had a (relatively) quiet retreat long ago when the throne was still in Everfree.

Luna has been teaching once-a-month classes if you can believe it. Stargazing, in fact. The students at my school are loving it, and her classes are quite well attended. Do you remember our astronomy lessons? I could never hope to match my sister’s grasp of the night sky’s lore, but I tried. Those are some of the best memories I have of when you were young.

I know I’m rambling. I hope you do not mind.

To be honest, Twilight, I’ve not been sleeping well.

I had hoped to ease into this. Come to it from the side with some subtlety. How is the weather? How are your friends? Is everyone well? But the truth is that I don’t want to be worrying about this later. Does everything feel right to you?

I think I may be overworked, Twilight. That is the easiest answer. Weariness—yes, Luna and I can grow weary from time to time. I would suggest something wrong with the food, but my cook is a prideful stallion, and I am immune to both poison and foodborne illness. It is probably just nerves from the warmongering in the East. You know, the Griffons. They’re always up to something, Twilight. Killing each other like foals play—with reckless, joyful, mindless abandon. They do love their explosives.

So does it all feel normal? Though, to be honest, isn’t that a rotten question? What is normal, after all, is quite dependant on the time and place and pony. I would know.

Please don’t be alarmed. (Though I expect you will be.) I’m not suggesting anything sinister! I’m simply… puzzled by my own feelings.

Your Teacher and Friend,

Celestia Songborne

II. Either/Or

II. Either/Or

Twilight is not thinking about the letter she received at all. It is quite inconsequential. Well, no. That’s a lie. It’s actually incredibly important—it is from the Princess of the Sun, after all, Twilight’s teacher and greatest hero. But it is not really pressing in a sense that it is urgent. No—she thought, as she helped herself to more soup—answering the letter too quickly was, in fact, a disservice.

It was an odd request, certainly. Was everything alright in Ponyville, indeed. Twilight supposes it is. Of course, though it seems an odd question, she knows in a far deeper way that it was not frivolous. Celestia enjoys jokes, but she is rarely frivolous. Either the Princess was asking honestly or she wanted to see how Twilight would react to an external or internal threat. Or just how alert she is? That is the rub, of course. What was the intent?

“Oh, Applejack, are you finished with the butter?” Rarity asks.

“Sure. Take it, Rares.”

Twilight sees the glow of Rarity’s magic and the aforementioned butter, but also does not see. It is a detail of her environment, but not an important one. Catalogued, but without much importance to it.

“Now, forgive me for sidetracking you. Could you finish your stories? I was quite interested.”

“Ah, sure, didn’t know farm-stuff could be interestin’. I mean, there’s the whole…”

Yes, intentionality bothers Twilight. How can she even begin to tell what it is exactly the Princess wants? What does alright mean? Does alright mean everypony is happy? Or that the Everfree has not encroached? Does it end up meaning a nebulous feeling of wellbeing? Twilight sighs and slurps her soup, as it is the only real course of action. Not that it isn’t nice, because it is. This is a fact of slightly greater importance than the passing of the butter and thus is both catalogued and analyzed briefly. It is quite good. She should come here when Spike grows tired of cooking.

The letter arrived two days ago. Twilight remembers its advent while she pauses to drink from her glass of water, distracted by the heat. It is extraordinarily hot today. Far hotter than usual for a Ponyville summer. The weather ponies had been having emergency meetings up at Cloudsdale figuring out how to deal with it. Rainbow dropped back into town around two in the morning (Twilight, of course, being up) and opened the door like a corpse just risen from the grave. Twilight offered her something to drink, but Rainbow simply asked for a light. Just a little one, can you give me something like that? I’ve been in the air all day. Tired as hell. I can find my way to Rarity’s just fine. I just… it’s dark, and… But of course, Twilight could do something like that easily.

And she watched Rainbow walk off into the night with her little will-of-the-wisp, her steps shaky and her head low, but not falling apart. Twilight felt sad, watching her go, but she could not tear her eyes away without effort. She feels a little sad now, eating her lunch with her friends in the bright, intensely hot day. Why had she ordered soup? That was a terrible idea.

The letter had been there when she turned around. Spike was long asleep, which meant that the princess had sent it by waypoint—the receiving end being Twilight’s desk. Twilight hasn’t done maintenance on the thaumaturgical bindings of the waypoint since she moved in, so it is a little temperamental. The letter was probably written hours before. Curious, and glad for the distraction from the lonely Rainbow Dash, Twilight took it upstairs and sat on her bed. She perused it twice. Only twice. Usually, she read letters from her teacher three or four times if they were short enough. But after two times, she felt odd. She glanced out the window. It was a new moon, so the stars were out in force like a great army, spear points ready, like knights prepared to joust at worlds.

“…Honestly, I don’t really got an explanation,” Applejack says. Twilight is ashamed to realize that she no longer knows the direction of the conversation.

“It is rather… strange,” Rarity says softly.

“Yeah! But strange things are usually interesting. I mean it is interesting, but not like ‘I wanna go see’ interesting but interesting like ‘oh that’s interesting I hope it doesn’t gobble me up’ interesting. Or maybe—”

“We get the point, Pinkie,” Applejack says, cutting Pinkie off with a chuckle. “Yeah, you’re right. I mean, don’t get me wrong, even I need a bit of excitement once in a while, but I ain’t really down with the inexplicable, y’know?”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight cuts in, and four sets of eyes turn to look at her. She notices that she is sweating slightly and considers wiping it off with a napkin. Later. Right now it would seem odd. “Could you repeat what… I mean—sorry, I spaced out. What’s inexplicable?”

“Thought that would get somethin’ out of ya, Twilight,” Applejack says. She seems smug. Twilight doesn’t blame her, but the tone grates. “Anyhow. Lemme back up. Had an odd happenin’ on the farm about… two days ago? Not sure, really. I noticed yesterday, but I think it took longer than just one day.”

“‘It’ being…?”

“The grass. Honestly, it’s probably just some foals, Twi, so don’t get too excited, but the grass is starting to grow and die in patches and strange… patterns, I guess. Around a spot out in the field by our house.”

Twilight blinks. “Explain,” she says, her voice clipped. She is analyzing, picturing. She sees the map of the farmhouse and barn and the areas around it as she knows them. “Where, exactly?”

“It’s between the… Aw, you ain’t gonna know the numbers. You know the orchard closest to our house? Between it in the next one over, there’s a little path. Gates leadin’ into each enclosure and there’s some empty space where I ain’t planted another tree since I lost a few last year to frost and that blight. Before the gate. Spirals.”

Twilight bites her lip. “That…”

“It could be somepony tryin’ to spook you!” Pinkie says, grinning suddenly. “You know. A prank. I mean, it’s not really a nice one, as the only pony who can laugh is laughing all alone… but it could be that. A trick? No, what would be the right word…”

“Sorry,” Fluttershy speaks up. “Did you say… growing? As in, overnight, the grass got tall?”

“As in, overnight one half of the circle, if we’re gonna call it that, is all flowers, and the other half is dead as a desert. Just ash. Not dirt. Ash. Smells like my pipe, only without the niceness. Like burning.”

“Well,” Fluttershy continues slowly, “yesterday, while I was doing my rounds, I noticed that the the grass on either side of the path was all dead. Somepony must have gone the wrong way with a cart while I was in town and had to turn it around. The dirt path had ruts in it.”

“But no symmetry?” Twilight asks.

Fluttershy shakes her head.

Twilight sighs. “That’s strange, AJ. I’m not really sure what to make of it, either. Maybe the same pony is behind both.”

“Well it’s a rotten pony if you ask me. Killin’ my grass and diggin’ ruts in the paths and whatnot,” Applejack replies sourly.

Rarity, who was chewing silently, coughs. “Be that as it may, it could also simply be a foal who doesn’t yet know any better. Or they could be unrelated. Let’s not be too hasty!” Her horn glows, and Twilight notices for the first time that Rarity has quite moved on past lunch and on to tea.

The letter weighs on her, she knows that now. It shouldn’t. It isn’t urgent or dire or even terribly long. Less than five hundred words. Only one question, and that question rather… unacademic. In fact, it is quite possible that Twilight completely imagined that the Princess was as concerned as she seemed when Twilight saw the latter. After all, she knows very well that emotional responses are often heightened in the late hours, when the body is tired and the mind has been on far too long and the stars no longer seem far away at all but rather too close for comfort.

In fact, Twilight feels tired right now. It is the crash of the coffee addict, the pony stuck eternally in senior year of university as if life was a dissertation that required more hours than day provided. Sleeping at two and half-past, up at nine—like clockwork wheels, she has kept the regiment up since she moved here. Celestia tried to reduce her course workload, but Twilight insisted on maintaining her active presence both in the academy at large and in the journals published at Celestia’s school. The basement of the library was remodeled—a project that cost her much sleep. The deficit is large. She yawns for what seems minutes.

“Do they have coffee?” she asks, blinking. The sun is far, far too bright. And also too hot. Is it hotter than before? She supposes that is not so strange. It is midday, after all. But it is far, far too hot. It just doesn’t get this hot in Central Province.

“Of course,” Rarity says with a smile. “Now, girls, do you see why I’ve been simply raving about this place? It is quite wonderful.” She gestures to a waiter presumably passing behind Twilight’s eyes that she does not see, but notices when the stallion (she guesses from the tread of his hooves) summons up his own magic.

“Thanks for inviting us,” Fluttershy says, smiling. “I’ve been looking forward to it all week, really. The critters back at my cottage have been so upset recently, and I have no idea why…”

Rarity frowns. “Oh, dear, I’m quite sorry about that… Would it be at all helpful if we skip our grooming appointment tomorrow for Opal and simply reschedule? I would hate to bother you.”

“If you don’t mind…”

“Of course. It is no problem ‘t all, my dear.” Rarity frowns. She looks down at her tea—these are small gestures, and Twilight notices them in the same way that she notices and catalogues how many semicolons are on a page or how many times the tertiary threads in Starswirl’s Fourteenth Incantationary Excercise overlap with each other—that is to say, she notices it, and she is not sure her friends do. Rarity stares into a cup, and Twilight names it forlorn. “I had hoped Rainbow could be here with us, but she is exhausted. I found her on the couch this morning.” The spoon stirs the dark tea as Rarity’s magic thoughtfully propels it. A light touch. Twilight wonders if Rarity is even aware of it. “She didn’t make it up to our bed, you see. I…” The rest trails off, as she coughs.

The remains of lunch are removed. Fluttershy also takes tea, but the rest have coffee. Or, at least, Twilight and Applejack have coffee, and Pinkie has something which resembles coffee but is a cleverly constructed trap of sugar and cream. Twilight has dared to try it only once, and the experience haunts her nightmares in an absurd fashion.

Twilight puts the letter—and the circles—aside for a moment. She watches Rarity instead and is reminded of Rainbow Dash in the cold night. And it was cold, she remembers that now. Strangely cold. She had wanted to think it was unnaturally cold, but she rejects that word as literary as opposed to scientific. Florid description has its place, she decides with certainty, like a mason laying brick.

It is strange how the years pile on all at once, all of a sudden, in a brief window of sunlight. There are no shadows at midday, and yet the lines on Rarity’s face are visible. Her coat is short and well-kept as always, her mane exquisitely styled as it has been since Twilight moved in so long ago, and yet these things are like whitewash on a tomb. The image comes and goes with startling quickness, and Twilight does not like the comparison. But, regardless, Rarity looks much older as she sips from her tea. Her eyes are not as focused as they once were, her jaw not as strong. She is not old, but she is not supple and young. None of them are. Foals made Pinkie plump, and family life as a joint partner with the Cakes made her slightly calmer. Fluttershy is still quiet, but her voice never shakes these days. Marriage changed her too. Twilight suddenly looks up from her encircling thoughts and realizes they are all older and more worn than she is accustomed to thinking of herself and her friends as being.

Tea is short. In the old days, Twilight would reserve an hour after lunch, trying her best to be social and available. Applejack would always go early and so would Pinkie, but Rainbow and Rarity would often stay to chat. Fluttershy and Twilight conversed often in the cafes of Ponyville, or on Twilight’s balcony. Some were about Macintosh. A were about barrenness. A few even concerned Applejack, but Twilight does not want to think about those. At all.

But they all leave so quickly. Almost all of them. Pinkie has an order to fill. Fluttershy can’t leave her animals alone for too long, and she has her own rounds on the forest’s edge. Applejack has orchards and fence mending.They all have their own little, encapsulated lives as she did, with their own private affairs and small, insular worlds, cut off from her own. She has no idea what happened behind those eyes.

Twilight feels strange. Unpleasant.

Rarity, at last, lingers. She looks out, towards the boutique, but makes no move to rise. She is still as a statue in the palace gardens.

“Rarity?” Twilight says after the last of their friends leave.

Rarity flinches. Twilight loses whatever words were next, surprised at how… unalert her friend is. Rarity is the one who listens, who knows who says what and why and how they say it and what it means. The reader of signs and ponies. It’s how she sells and makes deals, charms stallions and, at least once, woos mares.

“I’m sorry, Twilight,” she says softly. Frowning. She manipulates the teapot and pours herself another cup. “You took my by surprise.”

“Yeah, I know,” Twilight murmurs, hesitantly. She leaves her seat across the table from Rarity and goes around to the other side. Rarity looks out, past the little fence, away from the tables and the doors into the cafe itself, and away from Twilight, who sits behind her quietly.

“The library isn’t as busy this time of year, is it?” Rarity asks as if discovering it for the first time.

Twilight shakes her head uselessly. Rarity remains staring out at the street. Ponies pass by, none of them looking at either of them. They say hello to each other in the street, go into buildings, come out of them. All of them on entirely separate paths and Twilight fleetingly wonders at how they all mean things that she cannot be sure of at all.

“Oh, good,” Rarity says. Coming from her, the offhoofed, casual comment is less connective small talk and more a sign of something under the surface. Or is it? Twilight is perplexed. There must be a way to be sure. She examines herself and her time here with her friends. Rarity spoke quite often, as she always does. She smiled often, drank tea, and ate bread as she always did. She asked after Pinkie’s son and made sure to ask everypony about their own little lives. Normal behavior.

Twilight reaches out hesitantly with a hoof then put it down. She squirms. If she risks action and is wrong, she is a fool. If she does nothing and is wrong, she is worse. How could she tell? How does she read the unreadable signs given by a partially known quantity?

“I guess it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Rarity says softly.

“Rarity?”

“Sorry. I mean, how I’m feeling.”

Twilight bites her lip, now glad for Rarity’s refusal to look at her. “Not… I mean, not exactly.”

“You’re a kind pony, Twilight. I saw what you did.”

Nervousness blossoms in her, cold and then hot, like something prickly and infuriatingly invisible. “T-thank you,” she says and curses that she was off her guard. She faltered and thus made no meaningful decision and now appears a fool anyhow. This was not how she helped her friends, bumbling around like a nervous filly at a school dance. “Um… what exactly do you mean?” she asks. She is mostly certain, but convention requires going through motions.

“Oh… I’m sorry, Twilight. I’m distracted. I’m not quite… myself today. That’s a terrible expression, really. I am myself. Simply unhappy. What a naked way to say it. Unhappy. But I meant your will-of-the-wisp. It hadn’t dissipated when I woke up this morning and found Dash on our couch. I didn’t put it out. It was just floating about her like a little watchdog, and I simply didn’t have the heart to banish the little thing.”

“She stopped by on the way home,” Twilight offers. The story is important. She has no idea why. She simply sees the memory of Dash and her little light in the wide, endless dark, and it burns a hole through the floor of her mind, right onto her tongue, desperate to get out. “She was so tired and wanted some light to get home… I didn’t really ask her why, but—”

“She hasn’t had more than three hours a night in weeks,” Rarity says quickly. Harshly, even, Twilight thinks as her mouth hangs open. “I’m sorry,” Rarity said again, tone softer.

“Rarity… are you alright? Are you two alright?”

“What is alright?”

Twilight wonders the same thing.

“I’m not sure. I think a lot depends on you answer.” It is a lame response, and Twilight knows it. Everypony who can hear it would say so. Not that any others really notice it at all.

Rarity sighs and finally turns back to her. She seems even older than before, and Twilight wants to recoil, but will not.

“Twilight,” Rarity begins slowly as if she is piecing together a puzzle that she stared at for hours and hours, “I’m not sure how to answer that. Are we going to get a divorce or murder one another? No. I live to give. Rainbow wouldn’t leave behind someone if they begged her. If anypony was going to struggle through unhappiness, it would be us.”

“But you’re unhappy.”

“Oh, Twilight, don’t say that as if it’s a point against anything. It’s simply a fact, a part of the backdrop, I guess you could say. The summer is too hot. Which makes your… food choice seem strange.” She smiles, and it lights up her face, almost enough to dispell the water in her eyes that is distressingly close to being tears. Twilight feels trapped.

“I was kind of distracted, myself,” Twilight offers, shrugging.

“I noticed, dear. I’m sorry. I should be asking you about it, not loading you down with my home life and marriage. It’s rude.”

“Friendship isn’t rude,” Twilight said quickly. “I listen to anything you say. I mean, it’s what you do for me.”

“Reciprocation.” Rarity chuckles. “It’s beautiful despite itself. But, as I was saying: Dash and I are rather unhappy, Twilight, and I’ve put it off for far too long. I’m not sure if it’s really with one another. Isn’t that sad? Rainbow has been so hardworking, so hard-pressed, and still tried to see me as much as she can. She brought me back a rainbow gem from Cloudsdale… she knows I love them.” Rarity smiled, almost shyly. “She is back in my bed, where she belongs, more times than she is not.” The smile faded away like sand. “But it doesn’t feel like it. She gets in late. She’s exhausted. Rainbow couldn’t make it up to bed last night, and partially it was because she took one look at the stairs and just gave up.

“But that’s not really all of it. I know that. She has a job, Twilight. A very, very important one. I’m very proud of her. Whenever I get the chance, I look right in her beautiful rose eyes and I say so in as eloquently and succinctly a way as possible, I assure you! I make a conscious effort—it is how relationships live, Twilight, by intentionality.”

Twilight succeeds in not grimacing at the word.

“But she shies away. No matter what somepony says, no matter how much one is told that it is quite alright, no harm is done, there is a little seed of doubt somewhere, Twilight. A hesitation, the suspicion that it is, in fact, not quite alright, and some harm has indeed been done. Perhaps more harm than one can even guess at. I am lonely, and she knows that. I see it weigh on her—or at least, I think it weighs on her.”

“After examining your evidence, you think so,” Twilight says softly.

Rarity chuckles. “That is so like you, my friend. Evidence, yes, I suppose you could relay it in those rather dry terms! As if yours truly were a detective of love! No, Twilight, I am piecing together shreds of evidence to guess blindly at intent. Much of this is intuition. Maybe she simply didn’t want to wake me, Twilight. It’s silly to be upset about such a thing. I’m very well aware of that, and, in fact, that is also part of the problem. It isn’t the large things that upset us, Twilight. The small quarrels are always the grievances that peek over the wall to the unsuspecting emotions below! But all I could think about is how long she’s been away in some form or another, mentally or physically. She’s too tired for talking, often. Or reading. She eats little. Exhaustion pushes her to a quick bedtime and…” Rarity faltered, and wiped her eyes with a hoof. “She’s too tired for love, Twilight. It’s nonsense. It’s all just my weakness shining through, isn’t it? Am I being foolish?”

“I… I’m not sure—”

“Then who is, Twilight? She may be gone when I go home, and for some reason that frightens me. I don’t want her to be. I want her to be there, snoring without shame or remorse, like the loving, beautiful fool she is. And if she isn’t, I’m going to scream, Twilight. I will be livid. I will storm your library like a griffon with nine years of bad luck and a keg of some awful pegasi spirit and demand you give me magical wings to hunt her down with, and I will tie her to our wall.”

Twilight blinks.

And Rarity blinks back. She stops, lays her head in her hooves, and laughs.

“Twilight, life is so foolish. Don’t mind me. I’m a foolish mare turning old.”

“Not so old. Or so foolish, Rarity.”

Rarity smiles up at her. “You’re a kind pony, Twilight. I’m going to head home now if I may take my leave of you.” She stands and stretches. “And Twilight… do yourself a favor and sleep more.”

They hug, and Rarity laughs—bitterly? happily? both?—and she leaves Twilight at the table, looking out at the street.

Idly, Twilight watches Rarity as she walks. Her gait is more certain than Rainbow's, perhaps more confidant, or at least less weary. Her legs do not struggle. Her head is high.

Twilight also notices, suddenly, how odd it is that all of the new cobblestones in the little square in front of the boutique circle around a central point. Were they always like that?

She isn't sure they had.

III. The Concept of Anxiety

III. The Concept of Anxiety

Dear Princess Celestia,

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write you back! I would say that it’s been busy, but it really hasn’t. Life in Ponyville is slow in comparison to Canterlot, though it does not crawl at the near-standstill ponies seem to think it does. The truth is that I’ve been trying to figure out how best to respond, what exactly you need, that sort of thing.

The shortest answer is that no, Ponyville does not feel alright.

I need to elaborate. To be honest, Princess, I puzzled over what you meant when you asked your question. If I may be honest with you, it seemed a strange one, but I figured there were three ways to interpret it. Do I like Ponyville still? Of course. (But you already know this, so that meaning seems less likely.) Two, are the ponies here in good spirits? That is harder to answer--some are, some are not. I am lonely, if stable. Applejack seems fine, which is not really surprising as she has her life far more in order than I have mine. Rainbow and Rarity are struggling, with Dash’s obligations putting them both under strain, but it cannot be helped. Pinkie and Fluttershy are happy. I could go on and on, but I’m sure now that you mean something else.

Everything feels off.

I can provide you with a rather thorough catalogue of the things that feel not quite right. I thought about doing just that, but then I realized that a single example will suffice. Did you know that this summer in Ponyville is the hottest in living memory? I have probably mentioned it, or somepony else has. It’s unusual, yes, but not miraculous. It’s simply the inconstant, if predictable, nature of the sun and the nature of living near the Everfree. Sometimes the weather here in Central is not quite as easily corralled.

But you see, Princess, that is where anxiety comes in. I’ve been reading my Cork Guard recently, trying to broaden my horizons, and when I found he’d written about a subject I know so intimately, I jumped at the chance to read up. Anxiety and I, as you know, are old friends. I’m still thankful for the night you came for me, when I was lost in the dark, but I try not to think about that time. I’ve grown more stable since.

But anxiety is the possibilty of, well, possibility. The idea that there mightbe things, good or bad. Possibility came for me and gripped me with your letter. Could there be more to the world than what I saw? So I did some research yesterday. The former librarian left the almanacs of the centuries down in the basement in a dusty pile. Spike was kind enough to man the library while I searched through them, and I uncovered some interesting tidbits.

It isn’t just the hottest summer in memory. It’s the hottest summer perhaps ever, your highness. But there is more. Curious, I wrote to several colleagues in various corners of the country, including Canterlot, and I found something interesting.

The weather patterns don’t match up with the plans for this year at all. It’s not incompetence, either. The next day’s delay was spent making inquiries with Cloudsdale officials.

It’s as if the world, the very nature of things, has just decided to take the day off. We’ve always controlled the weather, Princess, but it also works with us. Equestria is… unique, though I cannot help but feel afraid of totally wild weather, I still understand that. But when I finally was able to catch Rainbow Dash, I found her quiet and subdued. She told me everything. The innate magic of the pegasi is not working as it should. They kick and the clouds resist; they try to call up storms  and get light showers. She wasn’t just frustrated. She looked at me, and those eyes…

Something is wrong.

There are circles all over town. Not many ponies have noticed them yet, I think. Circular phenemon, I’ve taken to calling them. They take a variety of forms, but the common linking principle is a circular shape. Dead grass, strange circles in the dust, cobblestones pointed in new directions--and yes, I have checked the mayor, who I have sworn to secrecy--and others. I’ve counted at least six. And they change. The rutts and patterns on the dirt path to Fluttershy’s house are not a perfectly circular mound, a hoof tall, completely flat on top, hardened dirt. It was obviously packed by something or somepony, and yet when I examined it myself, I found it to be… well. It was too perfect. No earth pony could do that with tools, and neither could a pegasus, but there was no trace of magic being used.

These phenomena are harmless, Princess. Strange, bewildering, yes. But they are harmless.

Why do I feel so afraid?

The possibility frightens me. The inexplicable existence. I can’t hide in here forever. Those things exist, Princess. I have to do something about them. There’s this choice and there’s no way to escape it; I’m trapped by their being. And I hate that. My skin crawls.

I just can’t explain it. It’s too perfect for a simple trick, but I want it to be that so badly. Then I clung to it all being something of Discord’s doing, stupid little tricks to bother us, but between being imprisoned (again) after the whole fiasco with Ponyville, and it being a bit too subtle for him, it’s impossible that he’s the culprit. I cannot find anypony or anything to take his place. These things just have no origin, no beginning, but I think they have an end. A purpose. I’m not sure what it is.

I’m not sure I want to know what they’re for. I’m beginning to realize how afraid I am, as I write this. It’s night. I’ve sent it by waypoint so as not to let Spike see me in this state. I hope your side of the spell is in better repair than mine.

Are there circles in Canterlot?

Twilight

IV. Fear and Trembling

Twilight

I am writing this from the gardens. What you wrote to me a few days ago… I am troubled. I am sick at heart. I will not hide this from you, not now. It would not be right to do so. Are we not friends? Do we not share a companionship which sustains us? I believe so.

I see the circles. I see them everywhere, yet they are not threatening. They simply are. The world is rearranging itself. Or has it always been this way? A thousand years and more I have lived on this continent and I have not noticed it. From the foundations of the world I have not. It cannot have always been this way.

How blind can immortals be? If gold rusts, what then shall iron do?

Our only hope is in observation and in study. We must catalogue. We must test. A rational, empirical approach is the only way forward that I see. Involve others. Do not trust only your own eyes, but seek consensus. Ask questions--innocuous questions, but ask them regardless. We must know if it be only we two who see the coming of this…

Whatever it is. Can such a thing have no name?

I know that you have kept yourself diligent. You must strive to continue this! Let no stone, no pattern, no pony go undocumented. Rationality, Twilight. We must hold onto the things that make sense of our world. Objectivity in the face of the unknown, logic that cuts through the madness of the material world to expose the underlying truth, the things that dictate the surface. The Sign beneath the signifer. It is there. It must be.

It is also possible that there may be some subtle magic at work. Despite our long lives, Luna and I have not seen all there is to see of magic and we can still be fooled. Be on your guard.

Twilight stumbled. She stifled a curse, as Spike was walking with her.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Fine. A rock in the path. A, aheh, a stumbling block. If you will.” Twilight spoke in halting quickness, brief rapid-fire declarations with awkward pauses in between them. She sniped at language from behind the rocks.

“Oh.” Spike scratched his scaly head with a claw.

“Anyhow. Spike, have you ever noticed the pattern of the cobblestones here in the square?” Twilight asked suddenly.

“What?”

“There. Do you see it?”

“What?”

“Ugh. Look, first. Then say what. At least play along.”

“Well… I guess they are nice? Uh… what am I looking for?”

“A pattern.”

“Uh… well, I really don’t see one.”

“What do you see?”

Twilight had lost all semblance of normalcy. Spike flinched. Something was odd but he would not put his clawed finger upon it.

“Are you okay? It’s just rock. There’s a little fountain and the cobblestones and ponies from town. They are laid out in a circle--”

“Yes. Yes.” Twilight sank back onto her haunches.

“Twilight?”

“I’m fine.”

“And I say, dear, that you must come by more often. Where have you been this past week? Since our last luncheon, nopony has seen much of you at all!”

Spike, for once, said little. Even in Rarity’s domain he could not shake the feeling of dread. What on earth was wrong with Twilight? What on earth did she feel or think?

Twilight smiled. It was a sickly smile, the kind of smile one reserves for the guillotine or the interrogation room. “Oh, nothing. Just busy! Say, could I ask you for a favor?”

“Certainly… Twilight, dear, are you quite alri--”

“I’m fine.” Twilight gestured to the store. “How long have you set the displays to run parallel to the lines on your floor? The ones in the carpet. How long have those been there?”

Rarity blinked at her.

“What?”

“Twilight,” Spike began.

“It’s very important,” Twilight continued, her regard for convention gone.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand the ques--”

“Exactly. I have to go. I’ll talk to you later. I promise.”

Twilight stormed out of the room, muttering.

Spike stayed behind. Rarity blinked at the retreating Twilight, with a gaped look of confusion. She shook her head. “What… what has gotten into our Twilight?” She glanced down, noticing Spike had not left. “Spike? Is… is something wrong?”

“I don’t know. She hasn’t been talking much. At least, not to me or anypony else. She asked me strange questions too. And always with that… that tone of voice.”

“Do you think poor Twilight might be under a bit too much stress? Has she been working on some new project, some great discovery?”

Spike shrugged. “She’s been sending letters back and forth a lot, but I never see her actually working on anything. She writes a lot of letters, anyway.”

Dear Celestia

The ponies of Ponyville seem oblivious. Even when they see they do not SEE if you understand me. They don’t find anything strange with what they are doing, even as they blindly follow the patterns set out in the floor. In the sky.

There was a great circle in the sky today of Cloud. I could not find Rainbow Dash to interrogate her about it.

I am beginning to fear that you were right. Magic must be at work here.

Twilight,

If that is your opinion, then let us proceed upon it. Ask no further questions.