Are You Sure?

by Archmage Ludicrous

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, Dark
Length: 4113

It's not a terribly long story, but it's lasted far longer than you've been alive. You learn the funniest things, in the funniest places, from the funniest ponies. I learned It from a mare who just wanted to forget.

Oh student of mine, it isn't a little thing that you are asking of me.

How should I…

Maybe, I'll tell you about how I learned It, this time. Maybe that will help you change your mind.

It's not a terribly long story, but it's lasted far longer than you've been alive. You learn the funniest things, in the funniest places, from the funniest ponies. I learned It from a mare who just wanted to forget.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-02-09 16:30:02 UTC

┬autology

Oh.

I'm... I'm not certain that this is something I should talk to you about.

Yes, I know. You're certain.

And you've checked around.

And I'm sure you'll summon Tirek if I don't give you what you want, won't you?

Wait, wait, wait. Come back, I'm messing with you!

...I suppose you have a right to at least know a little bit. Right? It's just a long story, and I mean that not in the sense that it's a long story, but more in the figurative sense. It's a heavy topic, something I like to try and forget about. Something that I've been tempted to actually forget about, sometimes. I keep it close to my chest. The rest of the Six took great pains to keep me together after I learned It. Eventually, I coped by telling them. You'd think that telling five others would simply multiply the pain, among sixfold ponies sixfold torment, but we were a little different. It helped keep us together. Figuratively, and literally.

Heh. I don't think any of them expected the longevity they ended up with. Go ask Dame Applejack about the time she thought she died. Now that's a story that should've made the general campfire story culture. Maybe I'll disguise myself for a couple decades, and try to sneak it in there...

Don't give me that look. Yes, I know I'm sidetracking. In fact, I'm hoping really, really hard that if I sidetrack emphatically enough, you'll forget all the reason you came here. I'm a lot more clever than you. You know I could successfully do that.

...But I suppose you also know that I won't. A pox upon you student-types, I don't know how Celestia put up with me. I don't know how she puts up with me. All inquisitive, and cute, and friendly... and then they ask you the hard questions. The really hard ones.

Yes, yes. Like a bandage, I know. Well, let's get to it.

A long, long time ago, there was a little town, off a good distance from the Old Capital Memorial, up on the mountain. Well, kind of more like a hill, now. Imagine if there wasn't any traffic (I know, a stretch), then it would probably be a day or two traveling on hoof, depending on how often you stopped for rest and small-talk. The language has changed a lot since then, so the translation isn't perfect, but the town was named something along the lines of "Town of the People of the Three Tribes." Heh. I never realized that the town I lived in and loved for so many years had such a racist name. Not very inclusive, I know. The people there were pretty xenophobic too, now that I think about it, not many non-ponies. It took some years, but it integrated a bit more evenly shortly after the name got changed to something more like it is now. My castle is quite the landmark, and I suppose ponies just wanted their town changed to match. Changed to something impressive.

At the time this story took place, my castle had just sprung up. It was mere weeks after I had done battle with Tirek the first time, and seeing as I now had a castle in the general area, the ponies around decided to take a somewhat more... venerative stance of me. Is venerative a word? If it isn't, it is now. Maybe their respect was more a result of the hole in that mountain that Tirek punched me through, or the great big trough across the landscape I had blasted at him. Funny story being that it wasn't actually under my own strength that I did that, I was actually borrowing Celestia, Luna, and Cadance's power.

Hm? Who's Cadance? Oh... that's another story. She's been honeymooning with my brother for the past few centuries. Again.

Trust me, they'll be back with something interesting. Probably within your lifetime, too. You won't forget it when they do show up, it's always something big. In fact, how have you not known about them already? They certainly made a big enough splash with their arrival last millennium. Has Rarity been censoring the history books again? She's so sensitive, sometimes. I'll have to check that. I've gotten so forgetful in my old age.

Right. Back to the story.

You don't get to glare at me this time, you were the one who diverted me this time. That was all on you.

Ponies were paying me a lot more attention, at any rate. The mayor even stepped down from her position, tried to get me to take over administrative duties. First thing I did as Lady of the town was to hire the mayor to do all the administrative work. She wasn't going to get away that easily. I hired her some help, too, though. I'm certainly a schemer, but I'm not an evil one. So during all this mess, I get a call for assistance, from the hospital. While I wasn't quite as ubiquitously known for my magic back then as I am now, I was still very well known, so when an awkward case showed up, I was sure to hear about it.

And this time, they were desperate for my help.

There was a young unicorn mare being kept there, and they were at a loss with what to do with her. She had beautifully kept fur, colored somewhere between the off-white of an eggshell and the buttered yellow of vanilla cake batter, with a simple navy-blue cutie mark of the logical symbol for tautology. It's a sort of T with a longer bar on the top, in case you didn't know. Tautology. A truth that is always a truth; it was a fitting mark for her, in all hindsight. The luxurious luster of each of her hairs, and obvious use of a great amount of product told me that under normal circumstances, she cared deeply for her appearance—but that was lost on the ponies at the hospital, who saw nothing but the matted and sweaty swathes of fuzz, riled to straight ends every time she awoke. The swirls of royal purple and ocean-blue in her mane contrasted brilliantly with her emerald eyes, which anyone could see when those very eyes seemed to bulge like overfilled water balloons as she snapped to consciousness, wailing in absolute terror.

The Guards (who were basically our police, military, and renewable source of parades, back then) were called when they received reports of horrid screams from her hotel room. As they reached the scene, the screaming ceased, so they burst through the locked door, fearing the worst for the mare. They spotted the aforementioned mare sleeping restlessly in her bed, leading them to assume that she had stayed up late, then went to sleep during the day. That then, she had been struck with a nightmare in her doze. At first, that assumption satisfied all their needs. But when one of the Guards roused the slumbering unicorn to aver their beliefs, she drowsily blinked to, pondered a few moments, then broke into hideous screeching. The Guards did everything they could to try to calm her, but to no avail.

When the mare started charging a spell, the Guards fell back quickly, taking a defensive position. I commended the unicorn Guard for casting a barrier around her friends, and a further barrier around the mare. While not necessary, it was the safe action when dealing with a panicking spellcaster. In any case, when the mare discharged the spell, she fell silent, falling back into dormant sleep.

And that was where I became involved. The mare had clearly been planning to visit me—investigation of her room yielded an excess of beauty supplies, a simply luxurious dress, and a book on decorum that made her intentions clear. She was from out of town, having the name of... ack. Translation is a bit hard at times. A literal translation would be somewhere along the lines of "The One who Thinks Thoughts Unthought." I'll call her Taboo for the sake of the story. Her visit had been something she had clearly been preparing for ages—stacks of paper containing innumerable drafts of beautiful speeches on logic and morality. This mare wanted to impress me, to have my praises on her entry into the academic world. She would have had them, too. She did get them, eventually. Yes, my student, this story does have a happy ending, no matter how recalcitrant I was to avoid telling it to you.

Anyways, with the scatterings of paper on the desk before her, Taboo had clearly been working her way to something quite, quite interesting. The ink-stains on her face matched quite well with the blurred notes on her desk, and the small fracture along her muzzle seemed to fit. When It hit her, she was so shocked that she slammed her head to the desk, trying to bash the memory out of her skull. The dent in the plaster also fit with the back of her head—she didn't give up after one try, and while she did get a concussion, she couldn't quite forget...

You look uncomfortable. Are you sure you want me to keep going?

Of course you're sure. You've been waiting for this.

Those blurred notes... they didn't make any sense to anyone who read them. A feverish mash of symbolic mathematics and logical notation, with no words of any sort. They were clearly just a tool for organizing her thoughts, thoughts beyond being so ordered as to be expressed on paper. The recurring theme was obvious, though. Every chain of disparate thought brought itself back to a great big ┬. She had been certain that she had discovered some universal truth, or was on the edge of doing so. Something that could only be confirmed with itself. Something that was so true yet so disconnected from the rest of the world that it could only be stated as truth itself. Meaningless, yet clearly, oh so meaningful.

It seemed too much like something from some two-bit horror author. A pony discovers a truth that cannot be controverted, an unmistakable and irrevocable knowledge as to the state of the universe such that it renders them insane. I knew that it couldn't be that. There isn't a single piece of knowledge that will drive away sanity. Knowledge, if anything, only adds to sanity, to clarity, and to being. So I concluded that It had rendered Taboo not insane, but sane. Terribly, terribly sane. My suspicions were only further confirmed when I heard of what had happened at the hospital. Each time Taboo awoke, she cast the same spell on herself, immersing herself in total sleep. Then they suppressed her magic, and when Taboo awoke she once again returned to screaming, desperately pleading to have her put under. To have her memory erased.

"I know!" she cried, over and over. "I know It! I want It gone! Keep me from knowing It! I want life back, the way that it was! The way that it was!" All that, until they finally yielded their field of thaumic suppression out of sheer pity for the traumatized Taboo.

I could, of course, turn her memory back. Twist back the dial on her mind, and return her to the blissful ignorance we all so enjoy. I wanted to know, though. Just like you, my student. We all want to know, it's our vice. Sentience comes with the dreadful twin joys of imagination and desire, which lead evermore to the pursuit of knowledge. Sometimes, I wish that we could all be happy with what we have. I could never abandon my hunt, though. Savagely, I chase through the jungles of infinity with a leer across my face, teeth like blades to shred away idiocy and misunderstanding. Of all the self-aware races that have been discovered, we have never met any that have lacked imagination, and never any without a desire to further themselves, their species, and their allies. The primal and unending trek in the name of comprehension is a constant truth to the status of any mind capable of self-reflection.

So I devised a plan. I would seclude myself with Taboo, and ask her. I would know her truth, and if it drove me to the edge as it had her, I would use a crystal that would turn back my memory a three full hours. From there, I could decide whether or not to comply with Taboo's desires.

The hardest part of the whole ordeal was getting Taboo calm enough to speak clearly. It was twenty minutes for her to stop screaming, and a further ten after that for her to get her voice back. The next five were babble, but then, she told me this.

"Y-you know Princess Twilight, I-I admire you so much. A-a-a-a beacon. You are like a beacon. Y-you inspired me, t-told me that a young mare cou... c-c-c-could do anything. So j-just like you, I t-tried s-so hard. A-aand I m-made it P-princess! I made it... I- I never imagined it would... it could be like this. I-I had a speech! A-and now, I'm just here, st-s-stammering, Princess... I-I'm so p-p-pathetic, I j-just want it all back..."

I told her very sternly the things that I've told you many times, my student. That she wasn't pathetic. That there were no words to describe how untrue that insult to herself was. And that I cared for her. I told her then, that I just wanted to know. I told her my plan, with the gem. She pleaded with me, saying that she was certain that I couldn't handle it, that no thing alive could handle the knowledge she had acquired. But then I pointed out that she was easily rational enough to use the gem I had concocted on me, so chances are that I wouldn't have much issue with it. I further reassured her that one of the other doctors had a memory spell, too, if not quite as good. All I wanted was to know. That particular doctor was a good doctor. There are other stories of mine with him, one of the few changeling doctors in our land, in a time when ponies really couldn't handle a bit of species diversity. Now isn't the time for those stories, though. I'm too deep into this one.

It took Taboo another quarter of an hour to get her words down in the order she wanted to tell me in. She trembled the whole time. Then it... It happened so very, very quickly.

"I'm ready," she said.

And then she told me The Secret.

In the academic circles nowadays, particularly philosophical ones, you call it "The Truth." But "The Secret" will always be what I call It. That's a far more appropriate term.

When I first heard It, I was struck dumb. I couldn't speak for a while, and for a second, Taboo was concerned. Then I smiled, and reassured her that I was fine, that I would be fine. The smile was fake. I couldn't smile genuinely for... well, at least several months, and even then only fleetingly. I think it was a year and some weeks before I really could really convince myself out of miasma. The Secret hit me hard. It hits everyone hard. I kept myself together better than nearly anyone else ever has.

It took me less than a minute to agree with Taboo. She didn't deserve to have to deal with that memory. I brought her memory back a full day, and was greeted by an awed and ecstatic mare, who fawned over me with all the passion that a baby daughter shows to her mother. She loved me, with every ounce of her soul, though she was slightly frightened by her perceived sudden change in location. She even tried to give me her speech.

I cut it off. I regret doing that, now. It probably broke Taboo's little heart to be interrupted like that. I made it up to her later, though. I gave her the short version of what I told you, just now. That she had discovered a truth so great that it would change one's way of thinking, forever. That she had taken it particularly bad. That I would preserve the truth, that great Secret, until I found other ponies who could handle it. That when I did find those ponies, I might even erase my own memory. Such was the power of The Secret. I told her that she should take whatever lines of thought she had gone along the past few days, and never tread along them again.

My warning worked for a good for about three years, by the way, before she figured it out again. Taboo was truly a brilliant mare. She became my first dedicated student, although she was more like a peer in some ways. I ended up wiping her memory again the second time, but the third time, she was able to cope. Some of her works can still be found in the deep archives. You might have found her name referenced in some of the more ancient documents in our current tongue. The switch to the Universal Language about a thousand years ago was very jarring. I should really make that official translation guide again, see if we can get some of the really good old documents from the archives translated. Most of the scientific information would be pretty dated, of course, but the philosophical concepts, as well as some of the fiction, should all be interesting enough for the public. Taboo's work is still relevant enough in modern philosophy, even if she herself has been forgotten. I owe it to her to bring some of that back...

Might have to find a way to convert it to vid form, though. Ick. You modern ponies and your newfangled devices.

Me, a hypocrite? I don't know what you're talking about. Heck, I only came up with about half of the stuff.

My first few weeks of knowing The Secret were tough. I... I didn't act quite right. I secluded myself from society. My friends, the others of the Six, were rightfully concerned. Eventually, a group effort among them managed to get me to a therapist. In my third session with him, he convinced me to tell him The Secret.

I was able to cast the memory spell before he could tell the world in his screaming. I shudder to think the carnage if he had openly announced it to the world. After that, it was months of isolation, pouring over stacks of moldy books in the old archives of the capital. Anything mentioning the Secret. I wasn't sure if I wanted to find it in order to find ancient sympathy for my plight, or to destroy the knowledge so that no one else would know. I don't agree with destroying knowledge, usually, but The Secret... most ponies aren't ready for that information. The ponies who can handle It are beginning to show up more frequently, but it will still be tens of thousands of years before I'd be comfortable putting it in books for the public.

It was my friends who brought me out of my isolation. The Dame Rainbow Dash... she had begun following me everywhere I went. Occasionally accompanied by the Stalwart Spike, and Dame Fluttershy, but generally on her own. And eventually, Rainbow Dash forced it out of me.

She screamed too, but she screamed harder when I tried to use the memory spell on her. Later, when I talked to her, she said that she knew that it would make her suffer, but she'd rather suffer with me than watch me suffer alone. It was a month before I could convince her out of bed. Of course, all my other friends were even more concerned and yet more determined, knowing how Rainbow Dash had suffered. She warded them away from us, and she and I would take to the sky, fleeing our friends to seek a path to accepting The Secret. We were still miserable, and I felt terrible for the fact that I hurt less with Rainbow Dash to share my thoughts with. That she was suffering, and I was suffering less for it tore at my heartstrings, but when I told her that, she told me to "forget about it." Then she would chuckle, flick my horn with a wing, and say "But don't, really."

That always made my day. That she would care so much for me, as to not mind the burden of The Secret just to lessen my burden a little.

Of course, we couldn't hide among the clouds forever. Dame Pinkie Pie hunted us down. She was uncanny, like that. Or rather, she is uncanny like that. We kept fleeing from her, but she was always a step ahead. She always is. I never thought I would figure out why she could do things like that.

It really shouldn't have surprised us that Pinkie Pie already knew The Secret. It actually explained a lot. She was the one who eventually brought us back to society, and we alighted on the balcony of my castle on a cold and windless night. We found Dame Fluttershy and Dame Rarity already there, waiting to hear from us. Pinkie Pie had already told Applejack. Or rather, she had told all of them, and Applejack was the only one who could work it out from the way Pinkie phrased it. She was paralyzed, nearly, but relaxed a lot when we showed up.

Then, I told the other two, and the Six knew The Secret. It was nearly a full year before any of us aside from Pinkie Pie or I left the castle, but after two years, life was mostly back to normal. Sometimes, an overly inquisitive pony would badger us about The Secret, asking to know what it was, or how difficult it was to act out that drama over the course of those two years. That petered away though, over time.

The Secret has of course, found its uses aside from being some monumental philosophical goal. It's a well-known fact that Tirek the Wise was not always nearly so wise, nor so tame. The scars of my battles with him are mostly erased, but the legends have stuck around with an admirable recalcitrance. Somewhat less known is the actual way that Tirek became the docile old fart he is, these days. (Don't tell him I called him that.)

Really, all it took was The Secret, and forty years of reflection. The secret hit all of the older ones harder than most. Tirek was in the throes of trauma for at least five years before he could even begin thinking about The Secret. Princess Luna spent nearly seventy years frozen in a rictus of terror. Celestia waited a long time before trying to figure It out. Something tells me she knew how hard it would hit her.

She hasn't quite come to terms with It, but at least she talks to me now. I think she might leave the sun sometime this century. After one has begun recovering, it tends to speed up pretty quickly. I imagine that within the next three centuries, Celestia will be mostly back to normal.

So there.

That's the story about your "Truth." I'm glad that you were at least patient enough to wait this long before asking again. I'm actually quite proud that you asked for the story before the actual fragment of knowledge.

Do I think you're ready?

...No. Not yet. I think you'll get there someday, though. You're a good student, no matter what you think, and I'm confident that you'll make it.

Oh, hush your crying, sweetheart. Come here, I've got plenty of chest for you to cry on.

Most of my students don't even make it to The Secret. The fact that I think you'll get there already puts you in the higher percentiles. No wails of "bad student" from you will change that. You're a fantastic learner, and I love seeing ponies like you grow so strong.

...It's okay that you don't want to know right now. You'll know one day, and I'm sure you'll do great things with it. The Secret is horrifying... but there isn't a pony I've told it to that hasn't eventually used it to make this universe a little more hospitable. You're just fine.

Maybe it's time for bed. We can talk more about this... or less... tomorrow. We've got plenty of brand new days ahead of us.