1. What Lurks in the Dark
Was it morning yet? Twilight was unsure. She’d awoken in that accursed grey part of the day that wasn’t quite night or morning, and to make matters worse, she couldn’t for the life of her seem to get back into any resemblance of restful sleep. Not even being a Princess could save her immune from insomnia, it would seem.
Maybe if I just lie here...
Tossing fitfully against the now suffocating embrace of her blanket, she winced as a loose feather was plucked out by her careless struggles. The shock of the pain, although minor, shook away any remaining sleep and removed the fanciful notion of being able to slip off to dreamland any time soon.
Nope.
The purple pony grunted in annoyance, absentmindedly manipulating the feather in a field of midnight violet, running it against her cheek and savouring the luxurious texture as the velvety spines caressed the sensitive skin below her nose.
She snorted in a most undignified manner as an errant barb tickled the inside of her nostril, banishing the spell and sending the feather itself spiraling lazily to the creaking floor below.
Et tu, feather?
She really needed to get Rainbow or… preferably Fluttershy to show her how to take care of her latest appendages; They still felt like heavy, awkward dusters, and according to one technicoloured showoff made her look like some kind of big purple bumblebee when she did dare to take to the air.
Not that she didn’t trust her, just that Dash tended to get a little bit carried away when it came to teaching Twilight new things about flying or being half a pegasus. Her wings still ached a little from the last time she tried to teach Twi how to do a double front flip over the lake. How she’d let herself get talked into that she’d never know, the sound of Dash guffawing at her clumsiness was not one she’d soon forget.
A Princess ridiculed by her subjects, hmph. And they say Alicorns have it easy.
Still, she had a much greater appreciation for that little sensitive spot between her wings now that had previously gone so unloved as a mere unicorn. Completely incidentally, she also had an appreciation for the gnarl that happened to stick out of the hollow of the tree at just the right place to…
BANG
A loud crash downstairs interrupted the warm and fuzzy thoughts of rubbing one out against the wall, and Twilight must admit she felt somewhat ashamed of herself, a light blush creeping up her cheeks.
I need a coltfriend… or a life. Maybe just a good night’s sleep for once.
SMASH
Her ruminations came to an abrupt end with yet another small demolition of something downstairs. Had it not been somewhat between three and four in the morning, she’d have bounded down in a flurry to see what was going on.
As it was she could barely get herself to escape the now infinitely more attractive pull of the warm sheets versus the cold void of the hallway beyond her room.
Why does the home invasion have to wait until I’m trying to sleep?...
Muttering curses under her breath at the inconsiderate nocturnal trespasser, she reluctantly pushed off the blanket and hopped off of the bed.
Slowly, cautiously, Twilight moped to the edge of her room, passing the light switch and flicking it with practiced ease. She expected the light to be blinding coming from hours of the exact opposite, but instead the room remained cloaked in rebellious darkness.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” She grumbled in an accusatory manner, eyebrow twitching in anger at the light-bulb hanging inert from the ceiling.
The grain of the wood took on a different life in the stillness of the night, a frightening mirror of a familiar world where light seemed to be consumed by the dark and all of the corners of the seemed to reach out to grab at her with eldritch limbs. She shivered slightly at the thought.
No… that was silly, right? A fully grown Princess no less getting spooked by a power cut and afraid of the dark like some little filly? Utterly ridiculous! The very thought sent ripples of indignation through her scientific mind, and she clopped intrepidly into the darkness. Until she was out of the comforting moonlight and into the much darker passage itself.
Come on Twi, don’t freak out, it’s just the dark, and maybe some horrible monster downstairs trying to hunt you down and eat you…
Nipping that thought in the bud, Twilight admonished herself for her immaturity. Luna controls the night now, in theory it should be as safe as the day, and theory was very important as Twilight well knew. No more Nightmare Moon, no more scary filly stories about monsters, and no more-
CRUNCH
The sound of wood wrenching and splitting apart was unmistakable, as one who lived in a literal treehouse could attest to. Anything that was capable of doing that clearly wasn’t bothering to check whether the owner was alright with it.
Twilight gulped nervously, eying the impossibly abyssal depths of the darkness surrounding her; Fear began a clammy march down her spine, turning her legs to the consistency of jelly. Trembling as she advanced past the first flight of steps towards the landing she caught a glimpse of the destruction wrought upon her precious library in the pale, languid moonlight.
Several bookshelves were toppled in her vision alone, literally ripped from the oak with unfathomable strength, their precious canvas bound contents scattered across the floor like so much straw in Applejack’s barn.
Twilight gasped, the sort of gasp a mother might give were she to see her precious child tumble down a flight of stairs or fall out of a window.The sound echoed through the ruined library, a rasp of stunned surprise followed by a low growl of anger.
Oh no! Sweet Celestia, not the books!
In a moment the fear turned to rage, anxiety to a yearning for retribution. Tartarus has no fury like a scholar protecting the written word.
The sight filled Twilight with righteous fury, her horn beginning to glow with luminescent magic as the fear, much like the shadows, began to recede from Twilight’s mind and the room respectively.
“I don’t care what kind of pony-eating literature hating monster you are! Nopony. Messes. With. My. BOOKS!”
She yelled out, any lingering trepidation banished.
The irate librarian picked up speed, confidence represented by a growing strength of light as she practically leaped down the final flight of stairs, wings extending ever so slightly as she dropped with a heavy thud onto the cold, hard floor.
It would have looked a mighty graceful and intimidating sight, befitting her regal status, had she not landed on an upturned novella detailing the finer arts of gardening and fallen flat on her scrawny, equine ass.
Groaning, she gathered her splayed legs behind her, rising wearily. She suddenly remembered why she was down here, and shook herself off, bristling with anger. Glancing around the thoroughly wrecked library, which she couldn’t help but notice that besides the upturned shelves and books, was empty.
No sign of the shelf breaking intruder could be seen, the door was still firmly locked, and all of the windows had their shutters fastened as it had been when she had closed the place up for the evening. Even tomorrow's to-do list draft was resting peacefully on the desk top, awaiting her diligent eye to rewrite the whole thing anyway.
“No way…”
Twilight had been so sure that she’d find… something, that actually not finding anything only caused her burst of courage to disappear as soon as it had appeared. It had taken all of her nerve to come down the stairs in the first place, and the crisis was far from over.
Of all the possibilities Twilight had pondered whilst descending the stairway in the shadows, she hadn’t considered the idea that her little charge might have simply scared away whatever it was that attacked the library. Her keen perception kicked in, and panic knotted in her stomach. What if this thing was simply trying to get her attention?
Focused by fear and an overwhelming desire to find the rogue intruder, and ignoring the dull pain in her backside, her horn began to glow brighter as she tried to dispel the darkness from the room, squinting in concentration as the spell began to ramp up in power.
Casting the ray around the limited space of the interior, Twilight expected to be rewarded by the sight of something at least trying to hide. Instead she saw a large patch of darkness seemingly unaffected by the great beam of magical light, as if it were simply devouring it.
The amount of cognitive dissonance between her brain and her eyes was outstanding to the point of disbelief. Twilight simply refused to acknowledge what she was seeing, trying to blink and squint this anomaly out of existence where it had no place being.
Her tortured mind worked overtime trying to compensate for the impossibility of the scene, eventually finding a laboured excuse that allowed her to at least continue functioning. It was a dream. It had to be.
Twilight chuckled nervously to herself, shaking away the beam and slowly turning away from the darkness.
"Stupid old nag, you, must have gotten off to sleep after all..."
Twilight only deprecated herself as such when nervous, not that Spike or any of her other friends were there to try and convince her otherwise.
Spike wasn't here, she realized absentmindedly as she attempted to let her mind wander into her usually pleasant dreams. She remained stubbornly planted in the library, the very vivid and unwelcome visit that was fast becoming a nightmare.
She couldn't ignore the feeling of her hair standing on end, or the abrupt chill that flooded the air as if from the heart of winter itself. Shivering again, she turned to face back to the spot she had rejected, had completely expunged from her reality.
Staring back at her was a curtain of featureless black void.
Something was terribly wrong with the darkness inside of The Golden Oaks library. Twilight knew this now. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself it was a dream, the raw scent of fear and the cold sweat always brought her eyes back to the shifting vortex of nothingness that now spread out, creeping as if alive along the edge of the room.
Twilight blinked her eyes rapidly, her instinct to bolt contained only by the fact that she was inside, and had nothing but solid oak to flee to. Her breathing intensified, and her head craned automatically left and right, attempting desperately to find an exit.
She could make out shapes now, silhouettes of long and short creatures alike massed and writhed in a race around her, pinpricks hollow pits for eyes and mouths cracked into impossibly wide grins, the vast empty spaces that seemed to shriek silently and bore directly into her soul.
Panic rose as bile, barely avoiding vomiting as the hunting darkness swirled and danced in what could only be described as a mockingly predatorial display of victory. Like a cat toying with a mouse before finally breaking its spine.
It formed a black cocoon, enveloping her, covering every surface and object. Twilight could do nothing but shudder in terror, her light flickering as her concentration wavered and unadulterated horror took its place. Her cry froze in her throat, the darkness advancing in shuddering leaps towards her perfect unison with the wavering flickers of her spell. She could almost hear the hunger.
Finally spotting the door, she made a break for it, legs pumping in a primordial dash for survival as old as the hills themselves. Pony runs from monsters, prey is chased by predator.
Tendrils of the darkness quickly lashed out at her exposed legs, wrapping themselves around and constricting tightly as if a snake finishing off a captured meal. The pain was overwhelming, and so sudden that any attempt to cry out simply froze in her throat.
Picking her up by her front legs as if she were little more than a toy, the darkness produced another tendril, this time focusing on her wings. The thing gripped savagely at her back, yanking and tugging with hideous strength, as if trying to rip the things straight off of her back.
The sickening horror of the impending mutilation drove Twilight into a state of shock, adrenaline rushing into her horn, and allowing her to surpass what would normally be an impossible barrier. Instinctively, she produced the age old enemy of the dark. Light.
Nonononono! You can do this! It’s just a dream! Just a dream! Wake up Twilight, wake up now!
Redoubling her frantic efforts, the light increased tremendously in intensity, almost as if a star had been born within the bowels of the library. Undoubtedly the brightness would have been enough to dazzle any passers by and likely awaken the entire neighborhood, had it not been blocked by the impenetrable shroud.
Twilight shrieked as the tendrils threw her away as if she were some red hot coal suddenly deposited in its grasp. Gasping as she sailed through the air and into a bookshelf, she could feel some of the small and delicate bones in her wings snap under the weight of her body, which she struggled to raise back into a standing position.
The inky cloud began to hiss as if in anger at the light, shrinking back like some wounded beast, retreating into the sanctuaries behind bookcases and in corners. She could see the deep scratches left in its wake, carved deep into the wooden floor and all upon the walls.
The marks themselves appeared to be made by tiny, incredibly sharp teeth, many dozens of them, as if the darkness itself was merely millions of gaping maws opened wide for the feast.
Twilight could barely comprehend the level of fear she was experiencing, her back leg throbbed in a deep and nauseating pain, as her wings refused to follow her orders to tuck back, remaining stuck out at her side like a broken branch.
This must be a nightmare, a sick and twisted nightmare of unmatched proportions. But if it was, Luna would have come to help wouldn’t she?
“Luna?...” She called out weakly, hoping somehow the Princess of the Night would hear and come to her rescue. The dark paid no heed to her.
A fresh movement behind the window pane seemed to attract her attention, as she turned her painfully stiff neck to get a better view. Squinting to avoid being blinded herself by the intensity of the light reflecting off of the exposed floor, the windows seemed to be coated with the same black fog, except, on the outside.
Twilight screamed as the realization dawned on her, the entire outside world had been swallowed whole, and all that existed was she and this circle of howling darkness.
Trying and failing desperately to avoid sobbing in her state of mind numbing, heart stopping terror, her tears mixed with the sweat and pooled underneath her eyes. The fog could be heard scratching incessantly against the window pane, invisible, hungry fangs gnawing at the glass to snuff out the last rebellious source of painful light.
“No! Please!.... Please!... No!...” She begged nothing in particular, as the darkness seemed to find new strength and pushed back slowly outwards once more, like waves of black water lapping at a bleak shore. Her back leg hurt so much, and her wings felt as if she'd hammered nails into the bone, pinning them into position.
She tried again to increase the brightness, horn throbbing with fresh pain almost as blinding as the light as she quivered under the enormous strain of keeping up the spell, her only hope of keeping back the tide of blackness. She wailed, tears now running openly down her face as she could feel her legs tremble and give away.
“Spike! Celestia! Shining! Da-Daddy!" Mortal fear gripped her, as her mind faced the realization that she was about to die, alone and devoured by this tide of unearthly beasts. A ringing in her ears came first, followed by a numbing of her extremities. She began to see her body was failing her, the stress of the spell and her injuries and the terror causing her frail form to shut down.
In a way she was relieved, as she wouldn't feel the teeth sink into her tender flesh.
"I ca-can’t do this!...It hurts so m-m-much...”
She collapsed, her limbs unable to cope with the pain now radiating from her horn like a dying star. Her vision swam, her mind still protesting the situation despite her body all but ready to give up the ghost.
This wasn’t right, this wasn’t supposed to happen, not in Equestria. None of this was real! None of this was possible!
“Wh-wh-why?...” She murmured weakly, barely able to breathe as her concentration broke, like a dam bursting under the unrelenting pressure of a monsoon. Her horn smoked like a piece of hot iron, the light giving way to the inevitable darkness, which solidified into the shroud and surged forwards unbidden. Twilight tried to fight it once more from the floor, but her exhaustion made the gesture futile.
As the last sparks sputtered uselessly, beasts and monsters coiled excitedly around the room, swirling like a school of ravenous piranhas. The scratching intensified, and she dimly registered the sound of glass shattering a thousand miles away.
Expecting to vanish underneath a carpet of black horror and devoured like so many carrots in Shy’s rabbit hutch, she instead found her barely conscious form surrounded on all sides by… strange creatures, emerging from the thin film of darkness as if from behind a curtain. The library had disappeared, replaced by a dark void of fathomless depth.
Her pain had left her, along with all other feeling. Fear, worry, cold, they were gone.
The bipedal creatures seemed cloaked in metal, with wicked weapons of various design either hanging from their prehensile ...hands? Or large enough to brace over their… shoulders. They looked a little bit like Spike, except much taller and leaner somehow. None made a motion to move forwards, and Twilight found herself fascinated despite her condition at their forms.
The tranquility of the surreal scene was broken, as a dark rumble shook them, like thunder before a coming storm.
I do apologize for this, strange child. We knew not else how to gather thine attention.
A voice, disembodied and ethereal floated into her head. For a split second it sounded like Discord, but… deeper, more menacing in nature.
As if reading her mind, the voice continued, as shapeless clouds floated around the assembled figures.
I… We are not of this world, in our great need we grasped out into the aether and it appears we have found yours.
Twilight could not claim to comprehend the voice, delirious as she was, but somehow found something very soothing about it. She “listened” raptly.
We require your attention, for a brief spell, oh ye creature of purest soul. Your defence was valiant and determined, if you are capable of resistance in the face of such insurmountable odds in future, it would appear our trust is well placed. We almost killed you trying to gain access to your mind.
Twilight might have found objection to being called a creature, but she appeared to be in no position to disagree with the voice as it stood.
“Whe-Where am I-I-I?... Am I d-d-dead?...” She rasped weakly, struggling and failing to raise her head from the soft, comforting embrace of the dark floor.
Do not worry with matters of where or how, child. Such would only serve to further confuse you.
She did not care at all for his… its… their patronizing tone, but again found no energy within her to protest. For being dead, she sure found it easy to take offense.
Far from here is a being in extraordinary peril. Held captive in a primordial prison, and will soon lose his mind and body to curse. He holds within him the key to saving his realm, and possibly all others, as you hold it within to save him.
Twilight found herself even more confused than she was previously. Her beleaguered mind found it near impossible to keep up with the apparent nonsense spouted by the unknown thing.
Curse? A prison? Saving all realms? Had she not been feeling the effects of her struggle so keenly, she would have yet again dismissed it as a dream. As it was she could feel the tendrils of this creature worming into her mind, a being of incredible power and… so very alien in nature.
We appreciate you will find this hard to comprehend in your ...current state. Allow us to aid you.
Twilight felt yet another uncomfortable probing into her head, pressure building against the fragile barriers attempting to reform themselves and powerless to stop it.
Her vision once again grew dark as the figures faded away into mist, the continuous pulsing of the darkness overwhelming her senses. She closed her eyes, losing sensation in her limbs as her mind began to experience a soaring soul-flight through the nether between the worlds.
She awoke shortly afterwards gazing at a squalid cell, all pretense of corporeality long vanished. She instantly felt grateful for the lack of otherworldly blackness, but the place was still much too dark for her liking.
A shapeless consciousness, passively observing something impossibly distant and strange, unaware of the monumental importance this vision represented.
With a start she found that yet another creature was twitching erratically in the corner, similar in stature to the beings that had surrounded her earlier, and clad in armour much the same.
It was clear both it and its wearer had seen better days, days of sun and grass and freedom which blended into an indiscernible mash of violence and horror. Unperturbed by the brutality of the mind she was suddenly able to read, with a bit more focus found she could hear its thoughts.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she found herself delving deeper into the psyche of it, lost within its mind, scanning through his thoughts and memories trying to understand who it… no… he was. The memories were fragmented, painfully so, as if his entire life had been shattered to pieces and scattered to the wind for the birds to sort through.
She retrieved images of fighting and pain and suffering and so much anger.
For a moment, Twilight thought it impossible that this was the same being of hope and salvation that the ...Dark has mentioned, but as she delved deeper she found it harder and harder to separate her own thoughts and self with his, like a swimmer becoming lost in an eddy and carried to fathomless depths. For a brief moment she lost herself to the other being.
What…. what is… why?... The withered creature sat in a corner, oblivious to the environment it inhabited, neck drooped and slowly lolling to and fro under the weight of his own accursed head like the serene movements of riverweed in a slow stream on a lazy summer day. Thoughts passed through its shattered mind as clouds pass upon the sky.
Almost losing his moment of coherence back to the curse, he felt but the slightest touch of something else intruding into his broken mind like the first rain of spring, bringing life back into a parched meadow. Visions of bizarre landscapes and faces of unknown creatures whirled in his mind, finally focusing on a five pointed purple star, soaring in the nights sky and beyond.
Constellations he had never seen and stars unmatched in their aura of brilliance dotted the blackness in the back of his soul, bringing with them a sensation he had long ago forgotten. Hope.
Out of his haze, and gasping with a dessicated voice, he jerked up painfully, slamming the back of his armoured head into the grimy brickwork behind. Suddenly aware of the fact that his hands and legs were half submerged in the frigid, black trickle that exuded from the wall.
Shaking himself off, his sunken pits for eyes wandered briefly past the brow of his visor, drinking in the rancid squalor that surrounded his vision. It had been yet another period of time lost to the terrifying curse, another few days, possibly weeks of being little better than…
He glanced up at the pitiful creature in the cell opposite, only barely visible as a groaning, writhing mass of red flesh and withered limbs. Had he been in a more lucid state, he would have thanked the Lords for being put in a chamber devoid of whatever it was that swarmed across the thing’s carcass.
He’d watched it die dozens of times now. Rats came to gnaw, the cold came to sicken. If those two failed; hunger was the ever present reaper of hollows. How many times he himself had fallen into the false peace of death was a number he’d long since ceased to bother counting. He’d given up after thirteen or so.
Sometimes it would bash its own head into the rusted bars of its cell until it lay still again, pausing only to moan and grasp the bars like a drowning beast. Its pleading, piercing gaze used to frighten him, but now only serves to punctuate the expanse of eternity that separates his existence and the end of time.
It was foretold he would remain in this place until that point. What remained of him, at any rate.
He could feel his mind slipping, as surely as a man clinging to a precipice can feel his hands weaken and his arms tire.
He no longer remembered why he had come to this foul place, as he was attired in fine armour and not shackled like a beast he could only assume he had come voluntarily.
He no longer remembered his own name, where he had come from, if he had family that would miss him. If he could only… remember their faces.
What good would that do? Better to them I am dead than…
Hollow.
Twilight awoke groggily, looking bleary eyed around the sunlit and pristine library floor. Taking a short moment to allow her memory to catch up with her sleep deprived mind, it all came flooding back.
She scrambled to her hooves, wincing slightly as her stiff limbs extended fully. She ran her eyes back and forth along the walls and outside the window, trying to power her horn back on despite the immense headache this produced. It took a second to realize it was broad daylight.
Was that… just a dream? Wh-why am I downstairs?
Casting a nervous glance into the now fully illuminated room, she eyed any and all shadows with apprehension, waiting to hear the gnawing of teeth or the rumble of the advancing tide.
When both failed to manifest, she noticed the scratches and gouges left behind by the darkness had vanished as well.
“Sp-Spike?...?”
The room echoed in response, deaf to the distraught tones of the Princess.
The glass of the window was perfectly intact, despite the image of the faceless horrors that once sat behind them etched permanently into her memory.
Twilight whined piteously, needing something, anything to indicate that she was back in “reality.” She had faced death, and although it had seemed to real she now found herself back where she had began with no explanation. Was she going crazy? Was she in the afterlife? Would anyone miss her if she was gone?
She curled into a ball and began to feel tears at the edge of her eyes, like a foal frightened and confused and crying for its mother. She rocked back and forth against the floor, shaking her head and closing her eyes. Her mane hung disheveled from her head, collecting tears as she pressed herself into the bookshelf.
“Spiiiikeeee!” She let out a cry of desperation, sounding more like the grief stricken sobs of a loved one instead of the pleading tones of someone who needed rescue.
Her little dragon had to be there, he just had to. Ever since she was a filly she depended on the green and purple as more than just an assistant. She’d taken care of him since he was a hatchling, and they’d been thick and thieves through thick and thin together.
If there was anyone that could be trusted at a time like this, it was him.
"Huh, wha..?"Spike snapped out of his slumber, curtains still drawn, yet the sun casting rays through the gaps of the fabric. Wondering vacantly what time it was; And silently grateful to Twi for letting him sleep in, he noticed that her bed was empty, to no great surprise. What was a surprise was the state she had left it in, messy. Desperately, uncharacteristically messy. Spotting a lone feather on the floor, he picked it up, running it nervously through his taloned fingers. He was beginning to worry about her.
“Spiiiikeeee!....”Hearing his Princess and number one pain in the plot shout after him, he sighed in relief, sound in the knowledge that some terrible disaster hasn't happened upon her. Glancing up sleepily to the clock suspended on the wall, his heart almost stopped when he saw it was well past eleven, almost edging into midday.
Aw crud.
When a hyperventilating Spike rushed downstairs, panicking about oversleeping and facing an outraged Twilight, the last thing he expected to see was the mare on the verge of hysterics, huddling against a bookshelf and crying gently into a soft, lavender wing. She looked like she hadn’t slept at all the entire night, and practically ready to bolt at her own shadow.
“Twilight!” He yelled, all anxiousness of getting in trouble evaporating as he saw his friend and practically big sister in great distress.
“Wh-what happened!?” The little drake leaped down the stairs and closed the gap between himself and her as quick as dragonic-ally possible, stopping only once he’d given himself enough room to avoid dashing into her.
The relief in Twilight’s face was instantly palpable, as her suppressed sniffles became full on wailing sobs as she threw her forelegs around him and cried softly into his chest, warm tears running over his smooth scales.
It’s over! It’s over! It wasn’t real! Thank you Spike, Thankyouthankyouthankyou...
Spike knew from experience that it’d be better to simply let her cry herself out first, before trying to extract an explanation from the distraught and panicked pony.
He was about to offer more soothing, but was cut off as he got a good look at her body, which had until now been concealed by her wings. His cold blood somehow ran colder, as hers ran warm and sticky down his belly.
Her wing stuck out at a dreadful angle, signifying what could only be a bad fracture. One of her back legs appeared almost twisted back on itself, a sight which made spike sick to his stomach, his eyes staring at the huge bruise and the blood on the floor.
Finally, his eyes settled on her forelegs, whose red nectar flowed almost freely over his smooth scales.
“Twilight… your… your legs…”
She looked down, a feeling of icy dread running down her spine almost as a counter to the new, overwhelmingly hot pain flowing from her limbs. Trickling with blood, from newly reopened wounds, were dozens of bite marks, savage and deep. How she had not noticed before was...
Agony flared from her back leg as she tried to move it, heavy bruises flaring out like some horrid flower around the center of the pain. Probably a fracture, she noted distantly, her mind too busy tearing itself apart to make much of an emotional response. She guessed that was also the reason her wings felt oddly numb as they refused to acknowledge her instructions.
A sinister, all too familiar voice echoed in her mind.
The Dark is not gentle. Do not keep it waiting.
She broke into a manic smile, the answer to the burning question was right in front of her the entire time.
All that fuss over something so simple.
It was.
She vomited over Spike's shoulder trying to laugh at the funniest joke she'd ever heard, shortly before passing out and slumping forwards..
The world span violently, lurching from one side to another and generally refusing to stay still. Black and white began exploding into a riot of saturated colour, nausea finding her within moments and threatening to empty the contents of her stomach for a second time. She found it hard to remember what had happened, her memories still foggy. Her body was unresponsive, feeling to rapidly expand and contract, filling the gulf of an ocean one moment only to shrink into a grain of sand the next.
Distantly she felt the grating rise and fall of her chest, as her lungs strained the thick soup that passed for air into her blood. Simply breathing took so much concentration that she found it impossible to focus on anything else at all. She was jostled to and fro by an unknown entity, rocking in a crib adrift in a stormy ocean. Claws fell through her coat gently, tracing a pattern in her mane delicately, picking apart the matted clumps that hung at her side.
The warmth departed, and Twilight whined, suddenly alone and vulnerable.
"-oing to get help! Hang in there Twi-"
Fading in and out of “reality” as she was, she didn't notice as Spike sprinted from the Library, crying blue murder. What she did however note, to her great annoyance, was that somewhere in the space between waking up and falling back into the buoyant void she’d vomited. Truly life was incomplete without tasting the "regurgitated-salad-and-bile" smoothie, and experiencing the wonderful burning stench in her sinuses.
"-by the bookshelf!"
The library door swung wide, bringing with it a chill wind that cut to the bone. Curling up tight, she attempted to shield her bleary eyes from the assault of daylight, but gasped at the surprisingly agonizing pain that retaliated against shifting her injured legs over the rough floor. The cold bit into her raw wounds, daggers of ice sliding into her veins as they let out blood into the ever growing pool underneath her, staining the hardwood floor with red streaks.
Closing her eyes a fraction, enough to keep the worst of the glare away, she cringed as something moved in front of her dimming the previously unwelcome light. She heard something scuff and shuffle against the floor and a million miles away. Was the Dark coming back to finish her off once and for all? To give her a hug? Her emotions were in free-fall, alternating between elation, terror and utter boredom in the space of a few scant seconds.
It lunged forwards, rising into the room and making echoing contact with the oak.
She quivered, utterly terrified yet incapable of moving as much as an inch to hide or defend herself.
She was defenseless. She tried in vain to beg for mercy, to surrender, but all that came out was a gurgling croak, vomit still in her throat coming up to bubble weakly in her mouth. The sensation was utterly humiliating, the most soul crushing kind of defeat. But it wasn't enough that the dark let her suffer before it killed her, no. She looked up at the light blue Pegasus currently panting from some exertion.
Her heart grew weary, and she sighed.
It had to impersonate one of her dearest friends too.
“ -Twilight, I'm here okay! I’m here!, what’s wrong wi-”
The voice was female, brash, and so painfully familiar. The words resonated in her head as a chime in a steeple. Could it be the real Dash? Was Dash here to rescue her from the dark? Or was the Dark just pretending to be Dash, wearing her skin and talking like her as if it were all some grotesque Nightmare Night prank. How the darkness had preserved her skin from being completely eviscerated was beyond her, She remembered all of the world being devoured by darkness, and whimpered as she prepared for what would come next.
Picturing a horde of night erupting from every orifice, and her friend's skin collapsing into a pile of limp leather, what she saw instead broke her heart. Dash erupted into tears, in the same manner that a volcano blasting through hundreds of meters of rock before ejecting a corona of death would do.
What followed was a scream, and a whoosh. Twilight could distantly register an impact through the floor next to her, and the embrace of a thousand feathers threatening to sweep her up into a cyclone of sky blue. The gentle touch of the feathers against her bare skin made her giggle gently through the haze of pain, smiling and almost staring at the mare's well defined physique. She totally would have, if Dash was a boy. A pair of hooves tugged at her face, forcing her to stare deeply into those pools of magenta brilliance. The tears streaked down her face like rain in an evening shower.
“-Look at me Twi! Do-Don’t go to sleep, okay? Just look- look! No, no! Please, please, don't d-die!-”
It had to be mocking her, that beautiful voice was just too perfectly genuine and heartbroken and distraught to mean anything else.
A pang of guilt floated to the surface, a small part of her given over to the idea that it was she herself that had caused that pain which cracked Dash's voice and caused water to fall from those stunning skies of crimson.
Twilight let her head fall, descending the short distance into the arms of her friend. She heard the impact rather than feel it, a soft down of silky feathers cushioning the back of her head, which corresponded to a patch of sticky numbness, her mane sticking to her face with a fresh coat of sanguine. Dash's bloodstained feathers stroked the base of her horn, trying desperately to keep the mare awake. She moaned, her horn now completely numbed to sensation, closing her eyes, and accepting the inevitable.
“-Stay with me Twilight! Wake up! Oh no, no, no… Why?! Why wasn't I fast enough?! I-I could have s-s-saved you...”
Her muzzle jerked suddenly to the left, the responsible hoof quivering as it ascended back to Dash's side. Dash was just shaking her head, anger as present in her eyes as the desperate fear.
"You. Are. Not. Leaving. Me. Got it?!... St-Stay awake! I mea-mea-mean it!"
She tried to do as she requested, but just couldn’t get her eyes to lock on to anything at all. Memories of a dark cell and strange creatures with empty pits for eyes accosted her mind, blending and meshing unnaturally with the architecture of the library to form an impossible half world. Dashy had transformed into black and white facsimile whose dimensions warped and shivered as if viewed through some shimmering veil. Her face looked strange with that old helmet on, and... since when did she have hands?
Embrace your destiny.
Twilight felt the terrible beast whisper into her mind, luring her ever further away from consciousness as it tried to rip her life away from inside of her. Jagged claws wrapped around her soul, ripping and tearing away at it, as if drowning and clutching at a rock. Pain, unearthly and prolonged coursed through her, electrifying her and sending her twitching. She finally began to feel herself losing the battle.
-"TWILIGHT!"-
She thought she heard somepony whispering or, screaming her name, across a large chasm, but she couldn’t make out many other details. She hoped that whoever it was wasn’t too worried, The Darkness had claimed her again and her there was nothing the voice could do about it. Despite the mortal fear she'd felt moments before, she couldn't help but feel... calm, actually. Maybe the most at peace she’d ever felt in her short, stressful life.
The edges of her form being seemed to melt away, to join her hearing and sight in the great gone by. To blend with the darkness that had enveloped her vision and all of Equestria. Perhaps she'd be able to find Dash and tell her what the Dark had done with her pelt, she'd probably like the prank it pulled.
Let go.
A voice, oddly insistent yet... soothing. It made sense, she supposed, there was nothing left for her now. Once she had found it intimidating, terrifying even! The thought of absolute oblivion was enough to drive her scuttling to Celestia for a calming word, and assurance of some precious afterlife. Celestia had always insisted she'd known what had happened after death, but it was clear now that this was not the Glorious Elysium that was promised. No, the old mare had no more idea than the rest of them.
What a fool she had been for mistaking the unknown for danger or destruction. Void was not to be feared, to be hated and vilified, it was to be greeted as an old friend and given what it deserved. All life had sprouted from nothingness, the spark of sentience sputtering only briefly before fading back to ash. All actions have an equal and opposite reaction. All things created must eventually be destroyed. Even souls.
Detaching her mind from the sensations still sprouting from her body like shooting buds of grass, she sought a deeper crevice of the abyss, to sink lower into the welcoming depths. The Dark held everything her waking life lacked; Comfort, silence-
This is not your time, my sweetest little one. Please do not leave me like this...
A maternal voice heralded the arrival of blinding light, slashing the veil of the dark, puncturing the wall enclosing around on her and forcing it back. A white feather floated down into view, landing on the bridge of her nose. She blinked out of instinct, and found herself awake once more. She tried to raise her head, but found it impossible. Whether it was restrained or she simply lacked the energy to move was unclear, although the end result was that of borderline paralysis.
"-She's in shock-"
A warmth flowed back into her fluttering eyes, washing over her wounds and easing her pain. Cracking them open she saw herself beset on all sides by tubes and pipes, swarms of ponies attending to her body, attaching pads and wires to her bruised ribs. She let out a sigh, but was cut off when she found a mask was so rudely forced onto her muzzle.
It hissed and produced a cool mist, which caused Twilight to struggle and move her mouth away, in vain of course. She found that the mist was sweet and she drank in deeply, soon causing all of her thoughts to drift away as if she were floating on a cloud. Made of cotton candy. And lemonade. This must be what being Pinkie felt like.
Giddiness bubbled in her veins as she tried to smile to catch the attention of the cute looking brown stallion in the scrubs who was rushing around trying to do some obscure thing with one of the pieces of equipment set up on a stand off to her side.
As soon as she'd spotted him, he'd run off, replaced by another of the legion of nurses and surgeons currently trying to do whatever it was. Had she been able to hear right now, no doubt it'd be a racket and a half.
That was rude, all she wanted to know was where all the wires came from. Seemed like an awful lot to just stick onto some silly old mare like herself. Still, now with the distraction taken care of she could finally get some of that well deserved rest. Snuggling back into the cold down of the black wing, she tried once more to close her eyes.
Enough.
Proving itself still present, the voice thundered with an unearthly rage, fueled by ravenous hunger and desperation. Her head seemed too small to contain the fury of the being, as it bounced back and forth inside her mind, doing untold damage to the form it occupied. The Dark was growing impatient.
Twilight felt like a train had slammed into her, all pretense of calm and tranquility disappearing as her chest exploded into pain and discomfort. She spasmodically lashed her arms and legs out, or tried to, twitching on the operating table being about the sum total of her efforts. Her purple orbs flashed back and forth, sucking as much information as she could in her flight-or-fight panic.
Her entire body ached, but nothing more so than the wild pain inside her chest. Feeling as if her heart were to explode, and her lungs were on fire, she gasped for air like a fish out of water.
“-Cardiac arrest-”
Nurses and assistants swarmed her body, laying the paddles down against her chest with a well oiled routine. Twilight wailed in pain and fear, the cold metal now flush with the bare, shaved skin of her barrel. Something burned for a fraction of a second. Then more darkness.
You are safe now, my most faithful student. No more harm shall come to you.
"-Pulse weak but stable. I think we did it.-"
This new voice was powerful and crisp, a relieved edge, laced with modest accomplishment just about detectable over the very epitome of professional stoicism. Twilight imagined it to belong to some old stuffy scientist discovering a cure to some horrid disease of yore, and chuckled to herself at remembrance of a picture of a particularly well bearded stallion in a ridiculously old fashioned suit, posing next to the microscope in question. History lessons had been fun.
“-Responding well to-”
White walls and gleaming tiles came unwinding into focus like the Canterlot express slowing down at the station. The numbness in her limbs was beginning to subside, to the great displeasure of the owner of said limbs. Pinpricks of searing agony began to march down her bare skin, an army of neurons opening fire on her nervous system.
Another hit of warmth to numb the pain and another period of dreamless sleep.
Enough hiding. You go now.
Celestia was a monarch. All throughout her long life she'd dealt with the consequences of her actions, her failures. Sometimes nothing came of them, but it seems now that a particularly egregious error had come to catch up with her. Why was it always the innocents that had to suffer for her mistakes?
The many nights she'd spent wandering down the ghostly, sunless hallways of Canterlot castle reflecting on the past had never made the pain any easier to deal with.
Wisdom was a virtue, it was said, but it could never simply be taken for granted or gained by the intervention of miracle. No. Wisdom, Celestia had found, was simply the aggregate of misfortune and pain accrued throughout one's life, tempered with the ability to hold onto hope and strive onwards.
She wished she could stop, to lie down and enjoy what fleeting joy the world could offer her. Each hoof fall over cut stone brought her one step closer to the next disaster, the next agonizing heartache, the next loved one to fall down never to rise again. Her inner eye could picture each one, smiling back at her, complete trust and adoration she simply didn't deserve. She'd failed them, allowed them to feel the pain of loss and ultimately lose everything they had. What kind of Goddess gives the gift of life merely to remove it?
So too, she realized did each step bring forth the next sunrise, the next smile, the next warm embrace between lovers and parents and children. To be mired in the darkness and misery was to surrender to one's self to destruction. She'd seen so many of them come and go, no single one like the other, none ever to return to grace her presence with the beauty inherent in each and every one of them. She felt a fraud, she wished she could march up into the heavens and turn back the hand of time itself. To give her just one more moment with them. The more she allowed the memories to come back, the angrier and more disgusted she became with herself.
A tear rolled down her snow white face, dripping against the marble of the balcony and returning to the earth. Her eyes were cooled by the slow night breeze, which carried the few clouds lazily across her sister's serene banishment ground.
Her face turned upwards to the stars, enraptured by the tapestry. The haunting beauty of the stars in the night's sky never failed to scour her soul. Oh how she paled in significance to those titans of eternity, striding across the fathomless depths of the void. Surely they would know what had happened to her little ponies? The unblinking sentinels that had watch over the cosmos must know where they went.
She envied Luna, it must be said. Hers was the domain of the night, of knowledge and investigation. Ponies may have lived during the day, ran and played and loved and lied under her sunlight, but they dreamed at night. Their hopes and their desires were the fabric of their beings, revealed so completely and honestly during their slumber.
She wished she could have given Luna the chance to know those souls from so long ago, those brave and noble hearts who so fearlessly went into that starry veil beyond life in the thousand years away. She'd have felt guilty for depriving her sister the joy of missing even one of them.
She'd trapped her on the moon, over some silly spat with a throne. Over the timing of night and day. Rage of the injustice she'd committed still burned deeply within her heart. What a vainglorious fool Celestia had been, a cruel and barbarous tyrant to deny her sister the joys of knowing their children.
She'd adjusted well, she supposed, once rescued from her own heartbreak and jealousy she'd quickly become well loved by them for her true character. She walked amongst their dreams to see their perfect, wonderful souls laid bare. Perhaps in time she'd come to find the same understanding and love for each and every one of them that Celestia held in her own heart. That isn't to say that Luna did not love her subjects, just that the passage of time had given her a different perspective.
The greatest burden, and greatest treasure in life, was love. Love was the only true source of pain, and yet, cruelly enough, was the only true source of happiness. Celestia often pondered if she had done the right thing when she helped create it all. She instantly struck down the thought as selfish, to deny all of her subjects a chance at life merely to make her own troubled conscience rest easier.
Her little ponies simply didn't deserve to die. Why she and her sister had been granted eternal life whilst her wonderful, kind, loving, brave, brilliant little ponies simply toiled and perished had often brought her to tears, ranting and raging silently at the injustice even as she smiled and preened for them.
They worshiped her, you see. That was the part that truly made Celestia's soul feel weary.
She'd known fear, anger, even hatred. All that was bad in the world was plain for her to see, her millennial gaze piercing even the strongest veil of deceit. Despite her subjects and even her beloved sister occasionally falling for the many guises darkness can cloak itself in. She could see it when no other could, so why was it always her shortsightedness that caused them all pain? She wished to be a better Queen, a better Mother to them. What kind of mother can only learn how to care for her children after they'd already hurt themselves?
She should have known better, her loneliness overriding the need to keep their safety and happiness at the forefront of her priorities. How could she have been so blind as to not see this would happen? That the very act of setting Twilight down that path would only lead to her and her loved ones being hurt?
She had come as soon as she had received that to-do list, a list that only served to remind Celestia of the innocent, wholesome life she had now ruined. On the back was scrawled a cry for help from the little dragon she'd entrusted to Twilight's protection so many years ago. One of her few good decisions, it had turned out. Had Twilight been alone, and not found until someone had come to the Library?
She shivered, such thoughts did not bear thinking about. There was too much real pain to fabricate any hypothetical.
Celestia stood vigil over Twilight's unconscious body. Her battered, broken body lying peacefully on the bed, wrinkles of the linen holding and preserving her peace. Celestia was unable to even reach out and hug her, to comfort her through the various wires and machines slithering over her form.
She was just a filly, introduced to a world far too hostile and cruel to tolerate her presence. Twilight was a victim of her own moronic, spineless need to try and save her ponies from death itself. What in Equestria was she thinking? Was she even thinking at all?
A mother that cannot protect her children is no mother at all.
"Oh Twilight..." She whispered softly, leaning down as far as she dared to stroke the side of her face.
"I have ...failed you, my faithful student. You trusted me with your heart and soul, and now I-"
She wavered, her voice croaking as she struggled to hold back a flood of tears.
"Now I just stand here, wallowing in self pity."
The harm had been done, despite what had carried out the attack, it was clear to Celestia that the real culprit was currently standing over the victim.
"I will make this right. If it takes the last breath within me, I will fix this. I swear it." She vowed solemnly, hoping that somehow her beautiful Purple foal could hear her.
The Knight was awake. Hollows never truly slept, but a kind of hibernation to idle the waking eternity was something one learned to do early on. He counted himself lucky that he’d been able to stir himself from senselessness, as he knew for fact that he’d have been unable to recover his mind had he remained that way. Still, it was only human to want for something one lacked. The boredom was an unpleasant reminder he had regained the majority of his faculties, but without memory he lacked even the ability to ruminate to pass the time.
He lacked a sense of what he once was, scattered notions and morals were hardly a replacement for a lifetime of memory, but a perceptive mind easily discovered that he was at the very least somewhat bright. Like a sword left in mud after battle, the blade grew dull and flecked with rust, but with enough coaxing and care could be honed back into a weapon of war. So he hoped.
There was little to occupy his mind in the dank cell, counting the bricks and the bugs could only keep him entertained for so long, and counting the stars in the sky at night was fruitless once he realized that the time it took to count even a small section had swept the remainder clean, bringing another and another.
He sighed, shifting into his grime splattered armour as he lay curled up on his side on the only patch of the floor that didn’t squirm back underneath him. It was a strange god that would rekindle his sentience only to leave him to rot in this prison. He had learned of fates and destinies in lessons long since faded in his memory, yet couldn’t for the ...life of him fathom what good he was doing anything sitting here.
Thinking back on that fateful day, gazing longingly into the night sky that lay beyond the gloriously expansive hole in the ceiling. He felt some relief in knowing he was at the top of this ruined structure, for a reason he could not begin to fathom. The hole was well out of his reach, he found this out early on. Even with his armour off he couldn’t seem to get enough grip on the slick brickwork to scale even half of the distance required.
None of the stars matched the ones in his ...dream. The one with the five pointed nova. He wondered how indeed he’d been met with a dream at all, he hadn’t had one since long before his imprisonment and his gradual loss of memory. He thought he hadn't, at least. There was no way to be sure, and the uncertainty bothered him like one of the many parasites that tried to make their home in his accursed flesh.
A queer, tiny little sound echoed around the chamber. A squeak, a pop, and a low chanting so faint that the Knight had to shake his head to ensure it wasn’t just some new insect caught in his helmet and whispering a sermon into his ear. Growing from a mere rattling to a resonating pulse, the chanting took on a new lease of life and filled the room with its blasphemous refrain.
Raising his head up quickly, grasping for a sword he no longer possessed, he caught the faintest shadow projecting itself against the far wall, although it could not possibly be…
Lettering carved itself with an invisible hand, savagely drawing and carving deep into the solid brick like it were naught but soft clay beneath a knife. The lettering was… arcane, complex beyond deciphering and most certainly not something which belonged in a cell within the Asylum. Still, the curious phantom continued to carve his intricate glyph, scrawling and swiping with unbelievable speed until a series of runes almost as long as his misplaced broadsword were etched deep into the stone.
It lay bare for the briefest of moments, the raw face of fresh stone rough and jagged in the moonlight, before the entire room began to thrum with an unseen force. A deep purple aura enveloped the chamber, near blinding in contrast to the darkness of the night.
Smooth tendrils began weaving and cementing itself, spreading up the walls and along the floor, cementing itself solidly within the framework of this reality. What made the Hollowed Knight abandon his new-found common sense and relax, he could not be sure. Sensing the new phenomenon to be nonthreatening on some basic, primal level, he tentatively reached forwards.
His hand shivered as it made contact with a slender purple filament, waving through the air like a vine searching for a solid object to coil around.
It grasped at his fingers, wrapping frantically around his limb, dragging his entire arm with a brutal jerk which sent the Knight sprawling forwards. He landed heavily on his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs as it heaved him forwards with a screech as metal scoured the thin layer of filth from the floor and ground against bare stone.
Well honed fighting instincts prevented him from panicking, but his writhing struggles brought only pain as it dragged him closer and closer to the runes. The indistinct murmuring sharpened into well defined thoughts, flowing freely into his mind through his arm. His withered skin crawled and burned, the alien sensation most unwelcome.
I don't want to die!
...
Hello?
Can anyone hear me?
The Knight frowned, curious despite the crushing embrace of the phantom limb. Fear manifested itself thickly, almost enough to taste. How he could tell what this thing was feeling was a mystery, but the entity itself sounded very much like a child. He felt pity, whatever remnants of his morality beseeched to aid this lost soul. Gently, he returned the embrace, his hand gripping the aura and holding it. Kindness was not something to be found in abundance.
It was was clearly lost and afraid, an innocent. He tried to burrow back into the mind which latched onto him, but was rebuffed. It was a curious experience, being denied entry to something which felt very much like an extension of his own mind. But the action made his presence known, sending back another wave of his own feelings.
In response, came another pulse of thought.
H-h-hello? Is...anyone there?
I... can't see...
...
Please say something...
The thing wandered further into his head, prying open more of the mind he'd so nearly lost. It would seem that he was simply not mentally strong enough to communicate with it the same way it was attempting to talk to it. He feared this would be a very one sided conversation.
Unable to respond, the Knight frowned, the tendrils easing up on his battered arms as it seemed to relax. His own breathing managed to return to him, and he sat back staring at the purple glow. The silence extended, his hollow eyes boring a hole into the runes that his hand was attached to, still unable to pull himself away.
The coils tightened again, presumably to ensure that he hadn't simply pulled away and left the creature alone. He tried speaking, but the state of his throat prevented anything from being emitted but a strangled wail. He winced at the skull-splitting pain, his dessicated throat tearing at the stress. It would have bled, but of course it could not. The pain must have registered in his mind, as the panic and guilt pinged back like an echo, desperate to avoid being cast back into that lonely void.
I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! Please don't go!
Immediately, the creature responded by drawing his arm in closer, like an infant closing a hand on the finger of an adult, almost nurturing the digits through the thick, grimy leather and rusted mail of his gauntlet. The Knight was perplexed, but suddenly felt he had no intention of leaving the side of this... rune. Was it being bound to the carvings? It had said it could not see, perhaps it was trapped? Mere moments ago he'd have yanked his arm away from the invading aura, but now...
He felt more of that traitorous pity, welling up from the inside of his being. It was lost and alone in a place it couldn't understand, bound by forces far beyond its comprehension. Somewhat similar to his own predicament, really. The thought came unbidden, and bothered him slightly, although he couldn't readily deny it. The childish fear of the unknown, the dreaded uncertainty of abandonment, and the resigned despair of helplessness were all feelings he'd grappled with at some point or another in his long imprisonment.
He didn't like it, but knowing he couldn't well abandon this poor creature, he relaxed his hand and allowed his fingers to be drawn into contact with the bricks themselves. Unwittingly, this simple act of compassion opened up his mind too. Unguarded, the ever probing feelers raced into the space created, and began scanning through the dormant sections of his mind. The feeling was exceedingly uncomfortable, yet he could somehow sense it was unintentional. Not that he could have let go if he wanted to.
...You're the one from the dream... but, that was... real, wasn't it? A-are you real?...
The Knight struggled to focus as the ...voice squirmed in his mind, as if trying to crawl into it to escape from whatever had bound it. He didn't know what dream it referred to, and the rest of the question just made him dread that it might be mad. Lords know he'd gone mad a few times in this small slice of the heavens, it'd stand to reason that another in a similar situation might have too. Bad timing, he supposed.
I'm not crazy! I just don't know what's happening!... I'm just as confused as you are! Makes sense if we are in the same boat like you said...
Indignant and humiliated it replied, rebuffing his thoughts as if he'd been speaking them aloud at a banquet surrounded by nobility.
There was a brief silence, and the Knight could feel the being slotting something into place.
Wait... A few *times*? Plural? That's... how long have you been here?..
The Knight froze, taking a moment to register that the creature was talking to him directly, making conversation with his thoughts. Had he been painfully, physically incapable of speech, he would have thought he was simply muttering out loud.
You can't talk?... What happened to you? I...
He felt yet another surge, the being now searching through his mind as if a librarian furiously arranging a pile of books.
A chill ran down his spine, it was one thing to be inhabited by a disembodied ghost, it was another to have his thoughts read like some kind of grimoire!
I'm inside your mind, it follows that I can read it. I'm not an *it anyway. But... that's besides the point...*
He couldn't fault the logic, although it did feel a gross invasion of privacy. He felt embarrassed for mistaking the now clearly feminine presence, unsure of how to respond to what might be a Lady. Gods, the first actual company for who knows how long and he was acting like a shy squire. The growing sense of unease, he soon realized, was not his. She'd been digging around in his "recent" memories.
Heartache and despair roiled within him, reflections of the gazing wanderer that now co-occupied his mind. He felt her sorrow, her confusion and pity. Pity for him. He felt ashamed of himself for becoming the subject of pity for an incorporeal phantom bound to a set of mysterious runes.
... Why are you suffering like this? You, you can't even remember your name! Who did this to you?
He couldn't respond, as she well knew. He hung his head, and exhaled into the frosty air mournfully. The sigh was a pointless gesture, he knew.
You don't know, do you?..
Perhaps he was more simple than he liked to believe. She'd just about summed up the majority of his knowledge of everything to do with the situation at large. If she'd seen him earlier and interacted with him in his hollow state, perhaps that was the trigger for the strange constellation? Perhaps she was what had set him free from madness to begin with?
The being tried her hardest to follow his train of thought, but there were clearly stumbling blocks of perception and knowledge. She couldn't understand, perhaps because the matter was so confusing for himself?
He tried his hardest to visualize the constellations that appeared to him, something difficult to remember for a non magician like himself. The alien and enrapturing skies were an image that breathed hope into his wretched and meaningless existence.
Caught off guard by the bleakness of his recent turn of thought, Twilight found herself walking blind into the images of the stars she'd studied over countless beautiful and starry nights, as familiar to her as the back of her hooves. The... beauty of his memory was astonishing, regal purple and magnificent black inlaid with the finest of snow white diamonds, pricking the cosmos with their luminosity.
I... I'm going to help you. She didn't trust the Dark, but everything in her very soul implored her to aid him, to see him released from this foul place and to help him remember his friends and family. She didn't know how, but it was said that she could, and that was all she had to know.
Twilight felt gradually pulled from the embrace of the Knight she had just sworn to rescue, a much kinder and gentler pull backwards than the horrid, heart-stopping jerk the Darkness had transported her with. By comparison, this merely seemed like she was floating backwards through some warm, underwater cavern.
Her mind seized upon that idea of a watery chamber, nudging herself back forwards with almost imperceptible movements. She needed to get back to him, to help him. She knew that was what the Dark wanted, and she feared what it might do in reprisal if she failed. How she was going to accomplish any of it she did not know, but the trauma of the ravenous dark still haunted her mind.
She struggled desperately to swim forwards, but that soon turned out to be pointless, she seemed to get no forward momentum in this current, finding herself still being drawn backwards.
The cavern she'd imagined herself to be in quickly revealed itself to be a vast ocean, stretching in every direction as far as Twilight could see. How she could see exactly was beyond her, as "up" did not appear to be producing any light. She was either too far down to make out the sun/moon, or the space she was in was completely cut off from the light. Either of those options would have meant she should have been crushed by the pressure, never mind drowned. As it was, Twilight could feel neither the squeeze of the depth, nor a burning tightness in her lungs.
It was as if she was simply floating in the water, waiting for something to find her. She'd imagined a cavern of water, and found herself within it, suffering from none of the effects one would usually associate with being... well... in a cavern of water.
The space was dark, but not of that same terrifying absoluteness that had assaulted her. It genuinely appeared to be a simple lack of light, as she could still make out some rudimentary details on the floor below. The peaks and spikes of the rock made it appear to be some slumbering dragon of the deeps, awaiting for a call to awake.
As if on cue, a large mass shifted underneath her, amorphous and gargantuan in scale. She should have been frightened, but she was not. The world had responded actively to her imagination, the Leviathan now stirring beneath her. None of this made any sense, and yet, none of the truly odd events had upset her like they should have.
"Twilight. You are dreaming, truly. We thought it best to try and... talk to you like this."
The Leviathan rumbled, it's sleek midnight scales gleaming as the stars in the night did.
Luna called from behind to her through the crystal clear water, resonating a peaceful vibration through her body. Twilight tried turning in the water to face the Princess of the Night, eager to see a friendly face after all this time. Instead she was met with the vicious visage of a beast, savage and furious, searching for a nemesis to crush. The Leviathan surged forth, disturbing the calm of the water with a rage unbowed by the ages.
"Who did this to you?"
