Bliss in Darkness

Crossroads

"To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle....

The land of Equestria is again in turmoil. I am unaware of the source of this disruption, but it must be contained immediately. Gather the rest of the Elements of Harmony and prepare for my arrival.

Princess Celestia"

"This isn't like her to write so hastily and informal." sighed the purple mare. She had been up all night studying, and she was exhausted.

"Well it must be urgent Twilight, I'm sure the Princess would not over exaggerate." Replied the fashionable white unicorn.

"Yeah, Ah agree. She wouldn't ah called on us if it weren't important." The orange farm pony added. "Besides, we bucked Nightmare Moon and Discord into next Tuesday last time they came around."

"Yes, but this is different. Why do you think I was up all last night studying strange magical auras?" Replied Twilight, her sleepy head resting on the table.

"Because you wanted to throw a magical PARTY?!?" Exclaimed the spastic pink party pony.

"Ugh... no Pinkie. Because all day yesterday I felt some kind of dark magic emanating from the forest. I was scared it would turn out to be... well... something like this." Twilight sighed.

"Oh.. um.. don't worry Twilight... I'm sure Princess Celestia will know exactly what to do." Replied the meek pegasus, trying to comfort her friend.

"Yeah! And besides, we have the power of friendship! Nopony can take us down!" Exclaimed the excited element of loyalty.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light on the other end of the library. As the glow died down, there stood Princess Celestia in all her glory. Her mane flowing in a breeze that seemed to only exist for her.

"Greetings my little ponies, I would love to chat, but we have a dilemma on our hooves... A strange creature attacked one of my guards several hours ago along the northeastern border of the Everfree Forest. He is alive but he seems to have gone insane. I need to know what this creature is, where it is, and I need it stopped before it can harm anypony else!"

"We're on it Princess!" Exclaimed Rainbow Dash with a salute.

"Yeah, nopony threatens Equestria on mah watch!" Said applejack enthusiastically.

"I'm glad to see your dedication, but I must warn you. Nightmare Moon and Discord never actually hurt anybody. They just wanted everlasting night, and chaos. This creature... almost killed a pony. I feel wrong sending such young mares to investigate, but I know you are the bearers of the elements. Just try to be careful, ok?" Princess Celestia said in the same loving tone she used with the injured guard.

"Yes, I'll make sure they keep their flanks out of trouble Princess." Twilight said looking at her friends with a look that said 'I'm watching you.'

"Good luck my friends! If you need me, feel free to have spike send me a message. And remember... This is an enemy we have not faced before. Expect anything."

***

"Well this is new." I said as I found myself in another impossible situation. Earlier, Nightmare Moon claimed she was sick of my 'incessant babbling and complete disregard for her feelings', so she locked me away in the dark recesses of my mind. Suddenly, the void of my mind gave itself form and structure, and gave me a metaphysical body. My mind took the form of a large three section hallway with hundreds upon hundreds of doors. Each door was labeled by what it contained, and they were organized in three sections.

'Logos, ethos, pathos.' My mind revealed. Logic, ethics, and emotion. In the logic section, there was information on how the world worked. The ethics section contained information of what defined me as a person. The emotion section contained all my feelings. It was a strange sight witnessing my mind in such a literal sense. I decided that it would be a good idea to use this to my advantage. Without knowing it, Nightmare gave me access to all the information I had somehow locked away.

Logic had thousands of doorways, for it contained all my knowledge. Everything I had ever looked at, heard, smelled, tasted, or felt was locked away within. 'That must be where all that random information comes from...' I thought as I gazed upon the arching hallway.

Ethos only had one door. Values. 'That one looks interesting...' I thought as turned to face the third and final corridor.

Pathos had eight doors. Hate, Greed, Pain and Lust lined the left side, while Love, Kindness, Happiness, and Respect adorned the right side.

'You locked this all away for a reason you know.' I conversed with myself.

'Yes, but who am I without my memories? I'm not the same person...'

'Do you really want to be?'

'After seeing those dreams, no. But I still want to find out who I was.'

'Well then open some of those doors. But don't say I didn't warn you. We should open 'Values' First, so we can find out how to deal with the emotions we will likely be uncovering in here.'

I took my own advice and approached the first door with caution. Obviously I had been a pretty horrible person, and I the last thing I wanted to do was suffer some kind of emotional trauma. I strengthened my will, bolstered my resolve, and gripped the handle of the 'Values' door.

One twist and pull later, I felt a rush of thoughts and emotions. It felt the same as when I had read the Latin phrase on the letter I had written myself. Redemptio per adversitatem invenitur. Through adversity, there is redemption. It made sense, but I did not know why. I had all the answers, and none of the questions. But at least I knew how to deal with whatever else I would find in the doors.

Next, I took a visit to the 'Pathos' section. I decided to get the worst over with and headed to the door entitled, 'Hate'. I opened the door and all the rage from my previous life funneled into me. Pure, undiluted, causeless hate. I knew the true meaning of hate, but again I only had an answer to a question I had not asked. I flung myself towards happiness, hoping to end the swirling hurricane of evil thoughts in my head. Once the door to happiness was open the hate seemed to dissipate. It was better, but it seemed that in my previous life I had far more hate than I had happiness. Which brought me to Pain.

About half an hour later, I was finally finished with all the 'Pathos' doors. I was in emotional turmoil at this point, and unless I had release soon, I was going to explode. It was then, a fourth section appeared. A stairway spiraled upwards to a golden archway labeled 'Memories'. This was it. All the right questions for all the answers I had just uncovered. I didn't even stop to think of the consequences of my actions. I was desperate for the truth. I needed closure on these feelings. I flung open the door and fell to my knees. I closed my eyes, and opened them in a verdant green field.

"Come on Charlie, you aren't even trying!" came a voice, far off in the distance.

Authors Notes: Sorry this chapter was rather short. I'm just trying to set the stage here. Next chapter will be all about Charlies past and after that you will get to see how the Nightmare Moon problem plays out. Also, I got myself an editor now so give a shout out to Swag! This image is dedicated to you, as I'm sure you run into this problem quite frequently.

Ok, well sorry about that. Had to get the silliness out of my system. Now to type the next chapter. Also, how is everybody enjoying the story? I'm doing this for the community mostly, so if you guys don't like it I might stop writing...