Up

by Amethyst Deceiver

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Sad
Length: 6087

Up. That has been the main direction of Twilight's life. The cost of such movement, though, is often painful and requires sacrifices. But are these sacrifices, these changes, really worth it?

Up. That has been the main direction of Twilight's life. At first, she got a pair of wings allowing her to fly through the sky. Then, she was given a crystal castle overlooking the entire village of Ponyville. However, Twilight found herself strangled with her new gifts rather than feeling happy; for every step higher came at a loss of something important and precious. Like usually happens, the understanding comes too late.
Sequel to "Why me?", in some sense.

Published 2014-05-24 14:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2014-05-24 14:20:01 UTC

Up

Up

“It just is,” Twilight said. “It. Just. Is.”

Before her stood what little remained of the Golden Oaks Library, her home.

Charred ruins protruded from the ground and into the clear night sky, surrounding a pitch black hole that looked like a tunnel going straight to the centre of Tartarus. The wood that not so long ago had been flowing with sap and life was nothing but coal, as alive as the carcass of a dead insect, a husk of an existence lost. A closer inspection revealed a rectangular cracked stone of what had been once a porch, and a burned arch of what had been once a frame to a sturdy door. A look into the hole brought flashes of some silvery material, which constituted the scraps left from Twilight's laboratory. For a few days after the destruction they had sparkled and buzzed, the last charge of electricity present in them disappearing in the last convulsions of their being, but now only dead, metallic, cold matter greeted the visitors.

Although the remnants seemed distressing, uncanny in the light of the moon - the two largest protuberances of destroyed wood looked like the talons of some infernal creature that had emerged from the ground and then died in agony just as it met the sunlight - for Twilight the black ruins were a memory of where she had used to live, of who she once had been.

Tears spilled onto the sterile ground as Twilight once again started to cry. Every time she passed by the relics she couldn't help but feel her eyes get wet. During the day she tried to keep the emotions in check as best as she could, but during the night she allowed them full reign, for holding them back was unbelievably painful. Pointless as well. The day required her to look happy, content; but there was no point in pretending while wrapped in the darkness and solitude of the night.

“Are you ready to go now, Twilight?” the purple alicorn said to herself, then turned around, swaying a little.

Since she had gotten another gift that she didn't want, Twilight walked every evening back to the lifeless branches of the Golden Oaks Library and contemplated in front of them her existence, how it had gone from boring to happy and then straight to miserable. Some weeks after the forced relocation, Twilight had added alcohol to her evening routine, for this intoxicant helped her to somehow tolerate her new substinence and the pain it brought. Thankfully, or maybe not, the denizens of Ponyville didn't touch the ashes, so Twilight could come every day to check them as much as she wanted. She suspected the villagers didn't do anything about them because of her, as they witnessed her stay near the destroyed place every day.

Twilight glanced ahead, at the shining abomination piercing the sky. At times it looked solid, at times it doubled and became fuzzy, making Twilight feel dizzy and nauseous. The purple alicorn, however, got used to this side effect of alcohol. Maybe it was unpleasant, but it definitely beat looking at that thing while sober, when it appeared like a monolithic reminder about the choice somepony had made for her without asking her permission first. Deep inside, though, Twilight suspected that was the whole essence, the whole meaning, of her life - following paths never meant for her, but nevertheless pushed before her in the most insidious way possible.

Walking down Ponyville's main street, putting all her effort into a straight, decent gait - nopony knew that she was drinking bottle after bottle in the dark rooms of her abode, and she wanted to stay it that way - Twilight looked at her surroundings, so familiar, so foreign. Her eyes followed the cheerful ponies walking or sitting on the benches or enjoying their meals behind restaurant tables, and her heart threatened to tear her chest apart from sadness. Most of them were common folk who did their tasks and desired nothing more but tranquility and happiness. Maybe some of them dreamed about the big Canterlot life, but at the end of the day these cancerous wishes dissipated when their work brought the desired result or when a very special somepony kissed or hugged them. None of them were destined for greatness; and that was the main reason why Twilight wanted their life as strongly as a horse in the desert wants water. She had a taste of their existence, and compared with the Canterlot way, it was heaven on earth. But then, by some devious twist of fate, she had been stripped of it, brought back into the toxicity of the Canterlot environment with not a single prospect of getting out, no light at the end of the tunnel.

As Twilight looked at the unicorns, pegasi, or earth ponies sitting on the benches underneath the golden glow of the lamps, she perceived them as distant, an image of another world from which she was separated by some invisible bubble. It wasn't the effect of inebriation only. It was the direct result of her ascension. She wasn't simply Twilight Sparkle anymore, that unicorn who liked to read and annoyed others at times with her knowledge, but princess Twilight Sparkle. With this new title the attitude toward her changed as if by magic. At the core, though, Twilight knew it was magic, dark magic of words. As a result, Twilight felt like one of the black moths circling around and flying into the lamps - always trying to get to the light, but hitting again and again and again an impenetrable barrier.

“Hello, princess Twilight,” Scotaloo's voice came from the left. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Twilight said, grinning, using all her will to look as sober as possible. That title, though, made her clench her teeth. There was no word available in the vocabulary to describe how that new addition made her feel. “Totally fine. How are you?”

“Good,” Scotaloo said, holding her scooter. “I wanted to ask when our lessons will start again. I know you're super busy with the new duties and all, but it would be nice to have Twilight time again.”

“As soon as possible. I promise,” Twilight said, still smiling, trying to eliminate the slur in her voice.

“Okay. See you later, princess Twilight,” Scootaloo said, then dashed away from the purple pony.

“Enjoy your evening,” Twilight said, though more to herself than the filly. “And your fillyhood. You'll blink, and it will be over. Forever.”

She looked at the little pegasus, who returned to the other two members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, not a sign of pain on her face, only the folly of innocence. Twilight's heart ached from the sight; for it made her feel as if she were an outsider looking into an alien civilization. To a certain degree, however, it was truly like that. Because of the new title, as well as the damned palace, she became a stranger in Ponyville once again. She had somehow managed to slip under the radar with her wings, but there was absolutely no way to blend in when her home was a cyclopean monstrosity. It literally screamed of royalty, of the presence of a princess, something Twilight fought tooth and nail to abolish after the unwanted transformation.

The three fillies, smiling, set off for another adventure into the back alleys of Ponyville. Ponies gone from her sight, Twilight resumed her journey to the palace, thinking about her own lost innocence. She remembered a certain vision, or hallucination, she had had about her fillyhood doll. Since she had started drinking, Twilight often went well beyond the point of normal consumption. The results of this indulgence were certain unpleasant effects, like blackouts, uncontrollable bodily functions, and, in rare cases, hallucinations and delusions. One of such hallucinatory episodes had been accompanied by a vision - or maybe a hallucination, or even a dream; Twilight couldn't tell since she couldn't recall later when exactly she had slipped out of consciousness - of her doll Smartypants floating through a crimson red sky and burning in bright yellow and orange flames. Maybe it was related to the destruction of her home, but it seemed to have a deeper meaning, going back to her transition from an unicorn into an alicorn, signifying the loss she had experienced as a consequence of this transmutation. With Smartypants burned away her previous life, her youth, her self. Memories floating through her muddy mind, Twilight regretted her decision not to take a bottle of vodka with her this time. If she had taken it, the demons inside her would have been placated fast and for good. Well, at the castle she had plenty of that.

The outskirts of Ponyville were silent and dark. The illumination here was not as intense as near the middle of the town, once occupied by a healthy and magnificent tree, now nothing but charred debris. The lamps were few and between, their light weak. Some of them flickered, as if convulsing with all their might against the darkness, squeezing the last drops of energy into its dispersion. Apart from the lamps, the chatter of ponies faded away, a distant murmur amongst the peculiar silence of the nocturnal landscape.

What bothered Twilight the most was the silence, intolerable for her mind as it brought everything that was wrong with her life to the front. Under the quiet illumination of the moon Twilight ruminated for the thousandth time over the choices she had made, and over the paths she could have walked, if she had made the right decisions. All it boiled down to was disobedience. If she had disobeyed at the right moment, had said no to Celestia at the crossroads of her life, she would not have been living inside a cold crystal. However, the decision had been made, and she was here, a princess with her own castle but drowning in a sea of regret.

The castle looked dark, even with the white illumination of the moon reflecting weakly from its surface. Twilight would have preferred if the castle were all dark, though; for the parts covered by the lunar light glistened with the whiteness of bones, just as lifeless and revolting. The palace's windows were pitch black and cold, doorways into nothing. No yellow glow added warmth, life, to them, and they looked as dead as the windows of Luna's and Celestia's old castle. For a shiny new mansion, Twilight concluded, it looked unbelievably old, abandoned, dead.

Twilight stood before the tall doors of her new house, swaying left and right, and sighed. She would sleep with more pleasure in an open field or on a bench covered with a newspaper than in this... this... thing. With her new duties, Twilight didn't have time to participate in sleepovers. As she had heard, neither did her friends organize them - they had new responsibilities and activities that demanded their time. They were all growing up, breaking the code of youth in their heads, following their dreams, not having time to spend on stupid activities. For some reason this understanding made Twilight incredibly sad, as if she had lost the most precious thing in the whole world.

Twilight opened the sturdy doors, which screeched loudly in the stillness of the night, their sound odd and alien, and entered into her new dwelling. When the doors closed behind her, Twilight proceeded toward the spiral staircase leading to the living apartments. Her hooves echoed loudly through the spacious hall and accentuated the vastness, the magnificence, the loneliness of the space.

Although enough time had passed since the destruction of the library, her home, to forget about it and embrace the new place, Twilight still couldn't get used to the feel of the crystal residence. It felt cold, dead. The Golden Oaks library had been warm, cozy, alive. When compared with Canterlot the library was rather small – everything was available at a hoof's distance - but that gave the house its magical touch. It felt wonderful jumping from a bed and finding herself one set of stairs later amongst her passion. The tree was exactly like Ponyville: small, but friendly, supportive, a sanctuary where help was provided the moment she needed it.

It had been wonderful sleeping inside the library, for the tree seemed to caress her with the same care and love of a mother caressing her child. To be honest, she had never slept as good as in Ponyville, enveloped by the warm energy of a tree, with the soft light of the stars falling on her face. There was no better feeling than waking up and seeing the deep green leaves shine like gold from the morning sun instead of gray walls of a cell clearly designed for recluses.

The library had been perfect every season. In winter the tree provided comfortable warmth, and in summer its space became fresh enough for relaxing after the merriment enjoyed under the fierce radiation of the sun. In autumn it provided a nice vantage point for seeing the red, yellow, orange sea of foliage around Ponyville; and in spring the thudding of the first rain against its trunk, leaves, and branches added an ambient background ideal for reading.

It had felt like a refuge - a sanctuary - for Twilight. Despite what happened, no matter what kind of conflict occurred between her and her friends, Twilight could return to her place and feel safe, at ease; and soon the tree worked its magic. After spending some time alone within its comforting, all accepting, all forgiving walls, her head would clear up and she would understand how pointless the problem was, and she would smile at her folly.

What had impressed Twilight the most had been the feeling of aliveness, of incredible intimacy she experienced within the tree. The rooms and hallways of Canterlot were cold, monumental, lifeless. Many a pony had walked through them, and many a pony would walk, and yet they will remain, untouched, emotionless, not caring about who lived within their confines. With Golden Oaks everything was different. The library felt alive, organic, connected with everything else in nature. Just being inside it made Twilight more receptive, more empathic, more open toward others.

The house had freed, at least to a certain degree, Twilight from the mind forged manacles, and made her see that living in the mind all the time was the same as living amongst the stone of Canterlot or the Crystal Empire for the entirety of one's life. It was the library that made Twilight reconnect with other parts of her being. It was the library that made her aware of friendship, of interconnectedness, of love, of other, and incredibly beautiful and important, things that are impossible to grasp through the mechanisms of the mind. No, she didn't lose her essence - she still was the book loving and science adoring unicorn at the core – but she became aware that there's more to existence than what is present within the limits of one's intellect. Twilight considered it as one of the most important lessons she had learned in Ponyville, in the library, home.

The new place felt exactly like the edifices of Canterlot that she had learned to loathe. Every sound that happened in the vast space between the walls seemed to echo into eternity, reminding Twilight of the chasms that had appeared between her and everypony else. The echo, which had been barely present in the library, made Twilight feel incredibly alone. Even when Twilight was with her friends, the echo, the reverb, made clear for her how disconnected she was from them; for what purpose the reverberation has but to make the empty spaces present.

Emptiness. The first thing Twilight had felt about the place, and the strongest thing she was feeling as she ascended the long row of spiraling stairs. The second thing was the coldness. There was not a single ember of warmth in the whole castle. Even the gems of all the colours of the rainbow that illuminated the place at night felt cold, uncaring. Their light didn't feel comfortable at all; it was infused with the strange and peculiar glow of the phosphorescent mushrooms growing from the husks of old trees in the Everfree forest, of the will-o'-the-wisps circling above cemeteries. It was a black light of a part of existence that was ever present yet uncaring about everything and everypony.

Emptiness. Coldness. These were the main features of her new home. Even though Twilight had once lived within them, they still felt oppressive, cold, wrong. For a moment Twilight contemplated about her destiny, how it returned back to the place where she had started. She had went from the coldness into the warmth and then back into the coldness again; however, this time no warmth awaited her ahead.

As Twilight reached the second floor, where the living apartments began, she turned toward a hallway to her right. Twilight's plan to quietly reach the throne room was destroyed when a familiar voice called her.

“You're finally here, Twilight,” Spike said happily, running toward the purple horse.

Twilight turned around, waving a little in the process, then looked at Spike with the largest smile she could muster in her condition. “Spike, what are you doing here? It's past your bedtime.”

“I couldn't sleep,” Spike said as he hugged Twilight, causing the purple pony to stagger backwards. “It's... I can't explain it, but it's wrong, the whole place is wrong. I can't sleep without knowing that you're not here. It feels empty.”

“Oh, Spike, you need some time to readjust after the library, that's all. Everything will be fine,” Twilight said. A maternal smile graced her face, though behind lay hidden the mask of despair that knew how big was the lie she had just uttered. She herself couldn't get comfortable with this gift, so what could be said about a little baby dragon.

Spike freed Twilight his hug, brows furrowed. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Everything went fine before, right?”

While Spike processed her words, Twilight turned around, again swinging too much to one side, and proceeded toward the hallway glittering with the ghostly lights of the gems.

“Are you okay, Twilight?” Spike asked worriedly.

Twilight stopped, then looked back, putting the biggest grin she could on her face. “Of course I am okay, Spike. I am happy. I am shining. Don't you see?”

“Well, eh, I can't put my claw on it, but there's something off with you. I can feel it.”

“It's all in your imagination. You just need some sleep,” Twilight said, then resumed her walk.

“No, it's not,” Spike muttered in a hushed, tired tone. “You're wrong. Everything's wrong.”

Twilight pretended not to hear these words and went ahead. She knew that if she would turn around she would see the pleading and desperate stare of a child witnessing how his most beloved grandparent departed home, but at the same time she knew that she could do absolutely nothing to improve her situation. She had already told so many lies to Spike she couldn't keep them straight anymore. She hated herself so much for it.

There was much to hate her own self for, though. The library, for example. If she hadn't teleported back to the observatory, everything would have been different right now. Just a little mistake, a materialization at a wrong place, led to her current condition. The castle would have appeared no matter what; however, she could have preserved the tree along with it if she would have appeared at any other locale, even on the roof of her neighbour's house. And it wasn't like she couldn't have seen Tirek coming hundred of miles away - a thing that big could be missed only by somepony suffering from blindness. What had pushed her to go to that precise place? Why had she chosen that place of all? No answer came; the only thing left was regret, heavy, never ending, always burning regret.

And Spike, her friends. She hated herself for lying to them constantly. Since the Golden Oaks Library had been destroyed and she had been forced to live in this excuse for a home, Twilight felt most of the time like something had ripped a hole where her heart should have been. At first she had let the sadness manifest the way it wanted, but seeing the worried faces of her friends made her decide to hide the pain as far away as possible. She had been wounded severely right into the core of her being; she didn't want to feel more suffering, more pain, by making others worry about her. They had their lives to life - simple, filled with stuff they liked doing, only at times disturbed by friendship councils - and Twilight wanted them to enjoy their personal paths, paths that they had chosen out of their Will rather than because somepony said it was their destiny. At certain times, however, when her mood was extremely low and alcohol was absent from her system, Twilight felt pure hate towards them. Their lives, no matter how casual or uninspiring they were, just reminded her of what she could have been if the correct decision would have been made. She hated herself for hating them.

Keeping appearances, though, was an exhausting experience. Just pushing the muscles of her face to make a smile required Sisyphean efforts. Day after day Twilight put her mask, appearing happy and content before the population of Ponyville lest they would sense something and start offering meaningless help, for nopony knew how to turn back the time or reverse her back to her old form. At night, however, control left her; and Twilight could be herself and hate her own self for being what she was: a pawn in Celestia's hands. The more nights Twilight spent thinking, guzzling bottle after bottle in the hope of annihilating the pain, the more she came to realize how detrimental Celestia had been for her. Celestia had given her everything, thus preparing her for this destiny that she didn't even wish to her mortal enemies.

Twilight turned left at the end of the hallway and was greeted by another set stairs, which she proceeded to climb in a slow manner. To her right the white rays of the moon shone from the long, narrow windows, creating areas of white brilliance amongst the shady spaces. The pearlescent light didn't look comforting. It felt just as old and uncaring as the stone of the castle itself, a perfect illumination for this cold palace.

Everything upon which the silent light of the moon fell looked unfamiliar and dead, as if not belonging to this world anymore. Every time Twilight passed through the lunar pillars of light, she felt like a ghost, alone, lost outside space and time, with memories being the only thing left of her previous life. The solitude and quietness of the castle just added to her sensation of not being alive anymore, making her feel as if the whole universe was a haunted house populated by spectres like her, looking alive, but with the spark, the fire that made the colours shine and the stones sing, gone, blown out.

Twilight didn't have to think in which direction to go. She knew on a subconscious level where the throne room lay. As its space was rarely needed, Twilight used to sit in the room during the moon's rule with a bottle in her hoof. Nopony ever checked the place, so Twilight wasn't afraid of getting caught and let the bottles accumulate on the table, spending many nights just looking at the silver moonlight reflecting from their empty forms and thinking about things lost. Due to the acoustic quality of the room, which didn't allow any sound to escape its confines and reverberate throughout the other tunnels of the palace, Twilight wasn't afraid that Spike would hear her vomiting, something that tended to happen a lot once she started to lean heavily on the spirits. It was a perfect place for her, where she could go, meditate on her life, spend the time drinking, puke if necessary, and abandon her consciousness when she was ready.

Once inside the throne room, Twilight's eyes fell upon the necrodisiacs littering the stone table. Empty bottles, some standing straight, some laying on the table, glistened with the whiteness of the moon, shells of spirits gone. Amongst them waited for her half empty and unopened vessels of volatile substances, ready for consumption, for bringing a certain alicorn out of the shackles of her existence.

Twilight never suspected she would end up drinking so much, but alcohol was the only thing that helped her. As she drank the first few glasses, the colours and the childlike excitement seemed to slip back into her universe; and she felt like her old self again: careless, joyful, and happy for no reason at all, the curse of being an alicorn forgotten. With further consumption the burning liquid provided the warmth of total numbness that reminded Twilight of the winter nights spent inside the library, home. The more she drank, the more the world around her disappeared into warm darkness, memories slipping away into aether. Everything ceased to matter - her duties, her titles, her friends - and only warmth, so familiar, so missing from her life, remained. Then, if Twilight persisted, which she usually did, emptiness came, devoid of any sensation, any memory, any pain. In that state she wasn't a princess anymore, nor she was an alicorn, or even Twilight Sparkle. She was nothing. Absolutely nothing. She liked it.

Looking at the mess on the table, Twilight concluded that she must clean it up. That was an easy chore, though. Twilight used magic for this occasion, not feeling guilty about possible consequences. She just needed to concentrate her will, charge the horn, and then all the evidence of her passion would be gone out of space, out of time. The same thing she did when she had to empty her stomach. The act finished, Twilight would simply dematerialize the acidic smelling liquid mess, letting only the floor shine in its place. Even in the most private part of her life, Twilight reflected, she wasn't really free. Appearances still had to be kept, even though she herself knew how sick she was.

Twilight reached the table lit by the spectral brilliance of the moon. The pillars of pale white light looked as empty and dead as the whole castle. Twilight knew that the long narrow windows patterned with complex designs of coloured glass were a fantastic device to highlight the light and thus add a certain solemn atmosphere to the place, a certain touch of otherworldliness, making the rooms look heavenly, divine. During a sunny day this effect was present throughout the halls and rooms of her crystal domain; but during the reign of the moon this effect took another form, more befitting the mansion.

The unearthly light of the moon, fragile, lifeless, cold, spread across the palace a sense of transcendence and transience, of things withering, decaying, dissolving. The areas drenched in moonlight had a sense of unnatural quietness and emptiness that transformed them into cold and ancient crypts where not a single living being had walked since time immemorial. The throne room, with columns of lunar radiance falling from every window right onto the table and the seats, reminded Twilight of the images that appeared in her mind every time she read about funerals in a book. After the rituals ended and the family members went away, Twilight always imagined the hero laying in a coffin, alone in the crypt, while the nocturnal illumination fell upon him or her, giving a touch of ineffable transcendence to the pale forms of his or her body, as if it were a weak and fragile copy of the Clear Light that the protagonist must have seen at the moment of death. Twilight always felt similar to this state in the throne room at night, but the dead character in this case was nopony else but her, a ghost stuck between worlds that hadn't noticed the moment it had shuffled off the mortal coil and was now walking dazzled and confused in the search for something that would lead her to the next step.

Stuck. That was how Twilight felt at the moment. On one hoof, she wanted to take her most precious belongings and gallop as far away as possible from Ponyville and Canterlot, but on the other, she had duties, Celestia, her friends, Spike. She could disappear in the blink of an eye, go to the other side of Equestria where nopony would find her, and start a new existence akin to Zecora's; but what would Spike do in such case, and her friends, who invested so much emotion into her, made her grow, made her see the beauty amongst the living world along with the one manifesting through the letters of books. What Celestia would do? After all, she was a product of Celestia's training, somepony whose life had been nothing but following the roads laid down by the princess of the sun. Torn between choices, Twilight felt stuck, one direction leaving her into the cold life of princesshood, the other into the pits of eternal guilt. Alcohol seemed the only way out for her. Why try to choose between two dead ends when she simply could slip away, transcend everything?

Twilight took a half empty bottle filled with amber liquid, then sat on her throne. In a flash Twilight removed the cork, which fell onto the floor with an echo that sounded as loud as thunder yet as fragile as a summer breeze, and brought the bottle to her mouth. As soon as the liquid burned her stomach, she started to feel better. Unpleasant thoughts became blurred, fading away into the background where the shadow ponies waited for her when there was too much blood in her alcohol. Warmth spread out through her limbs and hit her head, making her feel dizzy in a pleasant way.

As the levels of alcohol rose in her bloodstream, Twilight saw the world around her become dreamy, distant, doubling or tripling. Usually in this state they came, the visitors whose realm was that of sleep and not harsh reality; but it was difficult to pinpoint where reality began and dreams ended while being extremely intoxicated. At first, they came as voices, voices that giggled, laughed, pointed out what she had become, urged her to gorge further on the liquid fire. Then, the voices took form. Crawling in the shadows, ever changing, they burrowed Twilight with their piercing eyes as red and burning as blazing coals. In extreme cases, when the levels of inebriation hit the roof, they danced on the table, little black imps that seemed to be made from the material darkness was composed of than from physical matter, grinning at Twilight's misery, pointing fingers while calling her names and highlighting every mistake she had made. Although Twilight was aware about their hallucinatory origins, fear still grasped her being every time she saw them. Sometimes it was mixed with anger, as the creatures took as their duty to remind her of everything she had done wrong. Fighting against them was futile. The best way to get rid of them was to drink further. Once the critters appeared, it was not much long before eternal nothingness enveloped her.

One bottle over, Twilight found with her eyes the next one - an unopened vessel filled with crystal clear liquid - then covered it in a purple blob of magic, and brought it to her place, removing the cork midway in the process. The pungent smell that burned her nose said all that was needed to be said. Without delay, Twilight proceeded to guzzle the spirit, looking at the moon between the sips.

Since she had moved into the crystal prison, Twilight started to appreciate the cold luminosity of the moon. Twilight suspected her shift toward the lunar was a result of her growing discontent with Celestia, with all that horse had done to her, with all her talks about destiny. If it was her destiny to be a princess of friendship, then why did she still feel empty from the inside? There had been a few moments when she thought that finding her princess duty would bring back the balance, the feeling of everything being right, but no such thing happened. She had a fancy title and a fancy job, yet her chest felt hollow, eaten away by some kind of creature that came from the same realm as the shadow ponies. What hurt most, though, was the knowledge why it hurt and that she would never be able to get away from it.

It was during one of the many nights spent looking at the moon and blotting herself out of existence that Twilight understood why Celestia sent her to Ponyville right in time for the return of Nightmare Moon, why Celestia sent her to the Crystal Empire just in time for Sombra's attack, why Celestia sent her that unfinished Starswirl's spell. Most of all, though, Twilight hated Celestia for sending her to Ponyville. You need to make friends, she said, and amongst all possible ponies she had to befriend the bearers of the elements of harmony. And all the friendship letters? Clearly Celestia had been making her learn about friendship and relationships, since how can a ruler govern justly if he or she doesn't know how to interact with ponies, make contact with them, understand their needs.

Everything had been planned since she put her hooves on Ponyville's soil. Maybe even before that. Celestia had taken her under personal custody after Spike's dramatic hatching, after all, so she had been controlled since kindergarten age and never suspected a thing. Celestia had attached strings to her limbs and then manipulated her into whatever direction she found necessary; and she, Twilight, fell for it like a stupid filly, not noticing the puppeteer above her. She had never suspected anything until she got wings, something she never really wanted. Even after that crucial event Twilight tried to put the paranoid suspicions away; but the new upgrade, in lieu with the destruction of her library, was the last sign that made her aware of what had been going on behind the curtains. However, Twilight woke up too late. Too bucking late.

“The blacker the Sun,” Twilight said to herself in a slurred tone, its sound bouncing off the walls, a little disturbance in the nocturnal stillness of the castle.

Twilight took another sip of the heavy fluid, then lifted her eyes up, at the moon shining like a pearl in the clear sky, surrounded by a spectral white halo. The disc seemed to hypnotize her, to pull her away from the cold walls of the castle and into the sky, into its supreme radiance. The tremulous columns of light falling from the windows added to the sense of being lifted up, of belonging to a realm not related to the heavy earthly plane. Everything upon which the pallid light fell looked removed from the surrounding darkness, somehow light, angelic, ethereal, a ghostly mirage of something that had once existed. The table, the thrones, the bottles looked as pale and fragile as ghosts, with a single stroke of a hoof being enough to send them into swirls of milky mist.

Bathed in the moonlight, Twilight felt light, like an apparition who had visited the earthly realm for a few moments and was ready to return back home. As she looked at her hooves stroked by the layer of ghostly light, she saw them turn transparent, as ephemeral as the smoke of incense, barely distinguishable in the air. At every moment she would start to float up into the moonlit sky, becoming lighter and lighter, her bodily form dissolving into the rays of the moon, the heavy load of memories left behind in the cold cell of a castle. The crystal prison left behind, she would fly high above the earth, above the sleeping villages, forests and the streams, a formless beam of white light above the sea, finally happy, finally free.

An empty bottle of spirits dropped from Twilight's hoof and rolled across the floor, its sound reverberating loudly, then dissolving into nothingness, into nihil.