… At first, there was the inexplicable sense that it had all happened before …
Twilight stood in front of massive double doors. Their dim surface drank the moonlight that cascaded through the glass windows to her left. It was quiet, yet not peaceful. The air was heavy with anticipation, scented with the sharp smell of sweat that she had in vain tried to hide with whatever perfume she could come by. The attempt had been rather foolish, looking back. What waited her behind those doors didn’t need a nose to sense her fear.
An uninvited memory surfaced in her mind: an image of her past self, standing at this exact spot. Besides that, everything was different from then. Where there once had been ignorance dressed in curiosity, now lay knowledge blessed with a purpose. She had been weak, now she was strong. The wings on her back were proof of that. The sweat was not, but it mattered none in the end. She was still just a pony, after all. The thing behind the door wasn’t.
“The thing behind the door,” she said to herself. A turn of rapid breath, a flash on the edge of vision, a snapping branch in the dark of night. It was all those things and more: it was their essence. In theory it was nothing, but in practice it could be anything. A nightmare only is what the dreamer makes of it. That wasn’t the whole truth, though.
Sometimes, the dreamer is nothing but what the nightmare makes of them.
Twilight straightened her wings, stretched her neck, let a few sparks dance around the tip of her horn. It was time begin. She walked to the door, raised her hoof and–
“–Twilight!” cried a mare’s voice from farther down the corridor. “Stop!”
She looked around her shoulder, hoof still raised. A figure had appeared to the doorway at the end of the long isle. She was panting and hanging her head, yet her gaze was fixed on her.
“Don’t… do it,” said Luna, fighting for breath. “You don’t… understand…”
Twilight frowned lightly. “How did you get here? It should be hours before nightfall in reality.”
“It is,” said Luna. She took a few steps towards her, but overly carefully, as if Twilight was standing on the edge of a high building, ready to jump. “I sensed your approach mid-dream. Please, you must listen to me–”
“I have listened to you,” interrupted Twilight. “It’s the reason I came. Because I listened through every scream.” She turned her head away, as if hiding something. “If only had I heard you sooner…”
Luna kept on inching towards her. “Then listen to me now: you must not go there. You have the truth, but not the whole truth. Please, we must talk more about this. But not here.”
Twilight paused. Her hoof was trembling now, reaching towards the handle made of pure silver. She saw her reflection staring back at her, tears gleaming on her pale face. It had to be done, she knew, so why did she hesitate? What was she afraid of?
“Twilight…” said Luna’s silky voice. “Come back to me.”
Her hoof was inches from the silver, yet it felt like a mile. She licked her dry lips, eyes scanning the ornate wood before her. Then, another face appeared on the surface of the door handle.
“Trust me,” said Luna right behind her. “Trust us.”
She gazed at the simulacrum… and saw the flash of teeth like knives.
She pressed the handle, and the world turned black.
***
At a different time, in a different world…
“In the dreamscape, nothing is ever forgotten,” said Luna. “And yet it is known as oblivion.”
Twilight opened her eyes at the evening sky, stretching her limbs against the cool grass. Late birdsong mixed with the fading wind to create an overture for the night to come. Despite the lack of quiet, it was peaceful.
“Sounds like a paradox,” she said.
“Yes. It does.”
Twilight eyed the emerging lights on the deep-violet sky. Most she knew by name, others by appearance only. Each and every one felt like an old friend. It was at times such as this that she envied pegasi for their wings.
“Is there a solution?”
“What do you think?” said Luna.
Twilight turned her head. Luna sat next to her in the shadow of a great oak, her bearing graceful like the moonlight. She was looking at the direction of the castle, yet it was impossible to say what she actually saw. Her eyes were like mountain ponds, at times clear as crystal, then impenetrable as lead. Either way, they always hid more than they revealed.
“I think you’re avoiding me, and what happened last time we met.”
The pools of midnight turned to her. “Quite to the contrary. We are discussing the heart of the matter.”
A breeze travelled in between them, sending fallen leaves dancing around the small hill. The garden of the castle was a masterpiece regardless of the season, but for some reason Twilight had always found its autumn most appealing. Whereas it lacked the sheer splendour of summer, the quiet elegance of winter and the precious hope of spring, an uncanny allure shined amidst the broken colors, shifting temperatures and misty mornings. It was the season of ambiguity. An enigma.
“I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed,” continued Luna, looking at the castle again. The sun was about to set in the horizon, but there was still enough golden light to swathe every tower in fiery glow.
“Could we for once not talk in riddles?” said Twilight. “At least with a matter this important?”
“Perhaps we could. That of course leaves open the question whether we should.”
Twilight stared at the dark alicorn. With little difficulty she could still recall the sight of her butchering her own sister, as Nightmare Moon, in a dream. A dream to foster, and to be fostered by in return. During her exile, Luna had been sustained by a fantasy of revenge, by a desire darker than any nightmare. Luna had showed the memory to her, for she had asked to see it. Whether she would ask again, knowing full well the weight of the request, she could not tell.
“You can’t be serious,” said Twilight. “How can you carry on, knowing she still lives within you?”
“She was never alive in the first place,” said Luna, still studying the silhouette of the city. “How could a void, a shadow, have a life? What you saw was my memory of her, which will be a part of me until my dying day. So has been decreed.”
“By who?” asked Twilight, sitting up. “By Princess Celestia?”
A brief smile visited Luna’s lips. “By myself. It’s my decision, Twilight. It would make me glad if you could respect it.”
“So there is a way to get rid of Nightmare Moon for good?”
Luna looked at her again. “There is a way to everything. That doesn’t mean all of them should be travelled.”
“Not even all the good ones?” said Twilight, frowning.
“Especially not all the good ones,” said Luna “That would only get us tangled.”
***
The surest way to wake up from a dream is to fall in it. It was the first thing Luna had told Twilight when she had taught her to tread in the dreamscape. No matter how bad the situation was, you could always find a way out by falling from high. That was the part where a pair of wings turned out very convenient, with a twist of irony of course. They only served you if you failed to use them.
Twilight wondered how falling was possible when there was no space to fall in, no gravity to abide to. She had floated before, and swum of course, but this felt nothing like that. She was not completely sure whether she was moving or not, only that something was. All around her, space itself rippled, folded on more dimensions than she could count. She had heard about this place. It was where dreams came to die.
“To die” was not the right phrase, of course. There was no such thing as the death of a dream, not here at least. In the dreamscape, nothing was ever forgotten – it was remembered differently.
“I know you are out there,” said Twilight. “Show yourself.”
The silence remained booming. Pure forms appeared from nowhere before Twilight, only to disappear under the weight of their existence. Luna had once tried to explain how dreamscape worked. “Imagine every piece of writing you’ve ever read, every glimpse your eyes have ever seen, every imaginable sensation you’ve had in your life,” she had said. “Jumble them up and feed trough a meatgrinder. That’s how you get the topology of the place.” The dreamscape was a desert. It only included what you brought there, but not necessarily in the right order. This place was not the dreamscape, though.
It was the meatgrinder.
“Show yourself!” Twilight shouted. Her head was feeling dizzy already due to the lack of anything that could reasonably be called a horizon.
Trust.
Twilight turned her head around. She had heard the voice, or felt the vibration, or simply sensed the word. But she had not imagined it.
Decision, mine. Don’t open. Not here.
It was coming everywhere and nowhere. The words were erratic, scattered. She recognized from what they came, though. The thing that roamed here was studying her, going over her psyche. It would try to cling to whatever it could. That’s how nightmares feed.
“Twilight…”
She turned again and there it was, right before her. Nightmare Moon, or rather, what was left of her. Her seed.
“Trust us,” the creature hissed. “Trust yourself.”
It was weak, Twilight saw. Luna hadn’t given it much to eat, so it barely looked like her anymore. Were it not for Twilight’s presence, it would not have even looked equine. But now it had a fresh mind to toy with, a new form to borrow, to warp. Thus it would have been more appropriate to call the thing–
“Star,” it said. “Nightmare Star. Yes. Yes, we like it.”
“Enjoy it while you can,” said Twilight. “It’ll be the last thing you know.”
Nightmare Star smiled. Or at least its lips withdrew enough to reveal a row of needle-like teeth.
“The last thing what we will know. We are one, you and I.”
A faint glow appeared deep within Twilight’s horn. It flashed mightily and spread out in a heartbeat. A circle of runes emerged, trapping the two figures inside. Energy rippled all around them. Twilight closed her eyes, preparing for the spell.
“That won’t work,” Nightmare Star said. “Not unless you’re prepared to die with me.”
“Who says I’m not?”
Nightmare Star stopped smiling. “A brave little pony, coming all this way to die. I wonder, though, whether you fully understand what you’re dealing with?”
The runic circle started turning, faster and faster. Soon it spun so quickly that plain eye could not tell the different images apart. The glow turned vibrant.
“I’m not trying to understand you,” said Twilight, her eyes closed. “That was Luna’s mistake. I don’t intend to repeat it.”
Nightmare Star eyed her in growing curiosity. “You are different from her, I can see that. She was cold, distant even to herself. Hollowed out by bitterness.” She closed in on Twilight. “Not you. You’re loved, have been for your whole life. It’s engraved in your soul.”
“What would you know of love?”
The two were now almost face to face. “More than you could dream of,” said Nightmare Star. She reached for Twilight with a hoof. At the same moment, the runes abruptly halted their spin.
Light exploded.
The brightness was so pressing it blinded Twilight even as her eyes were pressed shut. There was no heat, and yet her body burned; no sound, and yet her ears rang with noise. It was only later when she understood that is was what light sounded like.
And then it ended.
Twilight’s wings folded together and she landed on the ground that didn’t exist, gulping down air that wasn’t there. The smell of sweat was piercing, utterly covering the perfume now. She wanted to throw up, but there was nothing in her stomach to retch.
At the edge of her hearing, something rustled. Her ears, still ringing, pricked up and turned. When her eyes followed, she saw a sight that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
From the outset, it was a shivering pile of ash. Then, when you looked closer, you’d make out a single skeletal wing, all burned up and twisted. It crumbled in a puff of smoke. What stayed behind was a shape of the wing, made of darkness even more impregnable than what surrounded it. That faded away, too.
The last thing to vanish was the thing’s face. It was impossible to tell for sure, but somehow Twilight couldn’t help thinking that it had smirked at her. That mattered none, of course. The deed was done. She had won.
With a flash of her horn, she left the site.
The smirk stayed.
***
Twilight stepped through the doors with silver handles and closed them behind with a victorious smile on her lips.
“I hope you watched that,” she said. “Because I’d hate to repeat it.”
Luna, still standing at the end of the aisle, stared at her.
“You’re probably wondering where I had learned that,” continued Twilight, striding across the carpet. “Let’s just say that Starswirl’s experimental spellbook had an interesting chapter on nightmares. It needed a lot of tuning of course, and I had to invent a new law of magic in the process, but the results speak for themselves, am I right?”
Luna kept on staring.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I see you’re still digesting this.”
“What have you done?”
Twilight stopped. “Pardon?”
“What have you done?” repeated Luna. “What have you done? What have you done?”
“Hey, hello, Equestria to Luna? You’re starting to worry me…”
“What have you done?!” screamed Luna.
Twilight took a step back. “What’s the matter with you?!”
“You had no right!” With one mighty beat of her wings, Luna crossed the corridor and seized Twilight’s shoulder. Naked panic flamed on her face. “Why did you do it?! Why couldn’t you listen to me, to us? You had no–”
A blow that would have shattered stone sent Luna flying across the room. She hit the floor with a yelp of pain, then spat out a lump of blood, along with a loose tooth. In the real world, the hit would have killed her. In here, the pain made her wish it had.
Her eyes rose slowly to the figure standing in the middle of the hall. Chilling feeling passed over her as their eyes met.
By the Comets. It has already begun.
“You have only yourself to blame for that,” spoke Twilight, or what from the outset appeared as Twilight. “Never touch me without my permission again.”
“Twilight,” Luna whispered. “Look at yourself…”
Twilight snorted. “Why? Did I get some of your blood on my fur? You’ll pay for that, if that’s the case…” Her horn flared, and an ornate mirror appeared in front of her. She gave herself a good look.
The mirror shattered into thousands of shards.
“Wh–what is this?” she managed. She touched her face, felt the insides of her mouth with her tongue. She yelped when one of her own teeth stung her. “L–Luna?”
Luna got up shakily. “Calm down. It feeds on your emotions: the more you feel, the stronger it will get. Calm down.”
Twilight wavered back and forth. Her breath started convulsing. “F–feed? What? I don’t understand…?”
“The Nightmare,” said Luna, carefully approaching her. “It’s inside you.”
Twilight’s eyes grew wide. “That’s impossible!” In panic, she produced another mirror, scanning her face on its surface. “This, this, this is something else! Maybe the spell fissured, or maybe this place does this. Maybe–”
“Twilight,” said Luna, tears gleaming on the corners of her eyes. She was very close to her now. “Please, you must listen to me.” A few more steps. She raised her hoof, reaching for her. “We still have time, but you must try to stay ca–”
“I said do not touch me!” screamed Twilight with a voice like breaking glass. Her horn dimmed to the point where it almost turned black.
This time, Luna was expecting the attack. It mattered none. After she came around again, she found herself laying outside, in the moonlit gardens. Some strange sensation gripped her, pulsing in her muscles. She shook her head, dust falling from her mane, and looked at the direction of the castle. One of the walls had a whole the size of a small house in it.
“Oh,” she said. She tried to stand up, but then realized that the strange sensation wracking her body was every one of her bones being split in two or more parts. “Oh…”
She closed her eyes…
And just another reality away, opened them immediately.
“She did it,” she said. “Twilight did it.”
On the one side of her bed, Cadance gasped. On the other, Celestia frowned. “Then why did you leave her?”
“Because it’s hard to do much anything with a broken body,” she said with a hint of sarcasm. “She was powerful before. Now, with the Nightmare fuelling her… she could probably take on the three of us and come across unschated.”
Cadance muffled another gaps with a hoof. Celestia’s eyes narrowed further. “How much time do we have?”
“Until she leaves the dreamscape,” said Luna. “When she stops dreaming, it’s all over.”
They all looked at the bed next to Luna’s. Aside from the occasional twitch of a leg and a few lines of incomprehensible muttering, Twilight slept peacefully. It had been a few hours since Spike had found her like that, with a note explaining what she was about to do, in case something went wrong. For the luck of everypony, he had informed Celestia, who had informed Luna and Cadance.
“How long will she sleep?” asked Cadance, worryingly studying Twilight’s face.
Luna shook her head. “It’s impossible to say: in the dreamscape, the pass of time depends completely on the dreamer. With Twilight in panic, our minutes will turn to her hours. It all depends on how long she can resist the Nightmare.”
Cadance put a hoof on Twilight’s forehead. It was moist with sweat. “There must be a way we can help her.”
“Damn right there is.”
The three alicorns looked at the doorway. Rainbow Dash stood there, along with Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.
“Spike told us everything,” said Applejack. “We want to help.”
“Just tell us what to do,” continued Dash, stepping into the room. The others followed in her wake.
“It is good that you came,” said Celestia. “However, I’m afraid there is little any of us can do now.” She nudged Luna with a wing. “Tell them.”
One by one, Luna looked at the five ponies in the eyes. And then she told them everything.
When she had finished, a silence of a grave filled Twilight’s bedroom.
“It grieves me to say this,” began Celestia. “But at the moment, Twilight is beyond all our aid.”
“This can’t be,” whispered Rarity.
“It was her decision to face the Nightmare,” Celestia continued. “None other can can walk that path in her stead.”
“So we’re just supposed to watch from the side and hope for the best?” burst Dash. Her wings whipped the empty air. “No way!”
“Can’t we just wake her up?” asked Pinkie, hiding a pair of cymbals behind her back.
“We cannot,” said Luna. “And neither we should. Celestia is right – Twilight stands alone.”
Dash looked at her as if she had turned into a changeling. “No. I don’t believe that. I refuse to believe that.” Her eyes snapped to her friends behind her, who flinched at her stare. “We’re not going to leave Twilight alone with that thing! If it was any one of us there instead, she’d be there already, fighting until her last breath! We have to–”
A wing spread over her shoulder. The velvety touch smoothed her fur, travelling over her neck and mane, from there to her heart. She turned around.
In Luna’s eyes, the midwinter of soul reigned.
“The enemy she must face is hers alone, Rainbow Dash, because it is herself. The Twilight we know is already dead.” She looked at the unconscious Twilight. “The best we can hope for is that whatever wakes up knows that, too.”
***
About ten seconds after she had blown Luna through the nearby wall, Twilight realized that she had just blown Luna through the nearby wall. Another ten seconds later, she peered through the hole, just in time her body, or whatever was left of it, fade away like a puff of smoke. After that, only silence remained. Horrible, booming silence. And a voice.
See what we can do? See what we want to do, deep within?
Twilight flew to the site where the other alicorn’s body had a moment ago been. “L-Luna?” she called. Her voice shook like a leaf in a gale. “Luna?”
We killed her.
“Shut up.”
We killed her good.
“Shutupshutupshutupshutup.”
Wonder what Celestia will say?
Twilight stared at nothing. “I’m dreaming. I must be dreaming.”
Right we are.
“I’ll be fine just as long as I wake up,” continued Twilight. She braved a smile. Smiling made you feel good: Pinkie had taught her that. She could do with some good right now. Right. Now.
The door is right there.
Twilight turned and blinked. There was a door there, indeed. A door like any other in the universe. Except there seemed to be no frames nor a wall where it could stand. That didn’t seem to matter much, for as she walked around it, there was nowhere the door lead to, either. All there was was the door.
Luna had told her about the doors of the dreamscape. She had advised against them.
On the other hoof, Twilight really, really, really felt like waking up, so she strode to what seemed to be the frontside of the door, grabbed the handle and–
–just whom did I tell to shut up right now?
“Yourself,” she heard herself say. “And at the end of this, no matter how long it takes, we’ll walk through that door. So we’d just better get on with it.”
Very carefully, she let go of the handle. Just to make sure, she flew a couple hundred meters to a random direction.
“Who are you?”
Us.
The voice didn’t actually come from anywhere, as far as Twilight could tell. It just was. In her head. There were two reasonable explanations for that. Either she had gone insane or–
“–the spell failed,” she said. But that made no sense: she had been so thorough, more prepared than she ever had been; she had been set.
Prepared does not mean ready.
Twilight floated high above the castle now. The moon was full and all-consuming, absolutely sovereign in the sky. There was nothing even to envy it, not a star to glow in shame. It all changed in a fraction of a second when, after a brief flash of a runic circle, light exploded.
When it died down, Twilight’s head rang not with white noise but with laughter.
And then she knew.
Nightmare Star was inside her.
Us. Inside us.
She screamed.
“Get out of me! Get out of me now! Out!”
Us! Always us!
She dived. Where to, it didn’t matter. She could not stay still, to listen the voice that was hers, their’s, nopony’s. She had to move, fly, flee.
We need a plan. We’re good with plans.
“Yes. Yes, a plan! I need a–”
She remembered who had spoken the words, and screamed again.
This went on for a while.
Eventually Twilight found herself laying on cool grass, panting and staring at the empty sky. Her wings were numb of flying. Every one of her muscles ached, even those she didn’t know had existed until now.
Tired?
“How did this happen?” she wept. “How?”
Beats us. But the how doesn’t matter. It has happened. We must live with it.
“No. Not in a million years. Not ever.”
We’ll choose death?
Tears caught her eyelashes as she blinked. “No. No death. I want to live.”
Then we shall live together.
She stood up. “You have no power over me. I make my own decisions. You’ll have no part in me.”
There was no response.
Twilight looked around, for the first time noticing where she had come. It was to tree, to the great oak that stood on the small hill looking down on the gardens. It had been here when Luna had first introduced her to the Nightmare. It had been here when her eyes had opened, for the first time.
It would make sense to end it here, too.
With a precision honed by years study, she started working.
***
“What is she saying?” asked Cadance.
Luna pressed her ear half a centimeter closer to Twilight’s lips. Her sleepy muttering was barely audible, and she had to guess some of the words, but there is little that can escape the full attention of the midnight incarnated.
“Is she asking for help?” asked Dash. Rarity and Applejack hushed her.
Luna’s closed eyelids stayed completely still as she focused. The words were there, she could make them out, but the rhythm was… strange. It was not typical sleep talking. If anything it resembled singing, or humming, or–
Her eyes opened in a flash. “Oh no,” she whispered.
“What?” asked the room in unison.
Luna straightened her neck and looked at Twilight’s moving lips in horror and, to her eternal shame, awe. “She’s trying to fight it,” she said.
“Go Twi!” cheered Dash, who was quickly silenced.
“What do you mean, fight it?” asked Celestia. “You said there was no fighting it.”
Luna’s glazed eyes rose to meets hers. “There isn’t. And still she fights.”
“That is a good thing, yes?” said Cadance.
“No, it’s not,” said Luna. She shook her head slowly. “I think she will try to purge it… by using her memories as the medium.”
Celestia’s face fell. “No. Tell me that’s not true.”
“What?!” cried Dash, fighting back the hooves of Rarity and Applejack. “What are you on about?!”
Luna looked at her. “The Nightmare has no essence, no substance: it doesn’t exist in the sense we do. Thus it cannot be destroyed. Not unless… Not unless it is given life.”
A silence followed.
“You mean… Twilight is going to give the Nightmare life?” said Cadance. “How?”
“By offering it her memories,” said Celestia. She stared at the unconscious Twilight. “She is going to sacrifice a part of her self in order to kill the Nightmare within her.”
“Can she do that in a dream?” said Cadance.
“A dream is the only place she can do it,” said Luna. She put a hoof on Twilight’s forehead. “It’s where the reality of her self is.”
“Is there nothing we can do?”
For a long while, Luna said nothing. “There is,” she eventually said. A single tear fell onto her cheek. “As always, there is a way for everything. A way for every good. And sometimes… the only way to them all… goes via the most horrible, evil way there is.”
***
When Twilight finished carving the last rune, she lifted herself up to gaze at her work. It was unbelievable. She had drawn on powers she could not have imagined lay within her. The sight made her want to cry, to laugh. But first and foremost it made her scared.
She landed in the middle of the runic circle. The air hummed of magic, smelled of molten bronze.
I’m about to vitalize Nightmare, she thought.
We are impressed. There are a few ponies in history who have dared dream of power such as this.
“Whatever it takes,” she said, going over the runes one more time. “I will not succumb to you. Never.”
Us. There only ever is us.
Twilight let out a manic laughter. “Yes! Yes! Only us, us alone, us together! Forever and ever!”
One by one, the runes started moving. Whirling. They formed a dance the likes of which no artist could device.
“In eternity we trust!” she screamed at the pitch black sky. “In void we invest our hope!” She reared and spread her wings, rising into the air.
“In flesh we come!”
There was no flash of light, not the tiniest flickering of a shadow. No sound, either. Only the runes kept glowing around Twilight under the starless sky, in space between dreams.
And then she split in half.
There was nothing metaphorical about it. A terrible gash erupted right in the middle of her chest, spreading quickly. Her spine cracked in half with a sound like splintering wet wood. Her legs and wings flailed in the air for moment, and then her broken body crashed to the ground with a wet smack. The grass was soaked with blood, gore and bits of bone.
She breathed very, very shallowly. The other lung was still working, at least in comparison to rest of her. Her head was in one piece, even attached to the neck. Her eyelids flickered gently, although the eyes inside did not. After a while, even those grew still.
For a while, at least.
***
A little bit, or perhaps an eternity, later Luna arrived. No mystic portal appeared from the thin air; no whirlwind erupted to enable her entree. One moment she wasn’t there, the other she was. And that was that.
She looked around the familiar scenery. Nothing seemed to have changed since her last visit. Even the hole she had made was there.
It means she hasn’t gone completely haywire, she thought. Yet.
She set off to a random direction. Judging from the dream texture's consistency, Twilight could not be far away. And Luna had just the inkling of where that might be, exactly.
It turned out to be correct. A part of her would always wish it hadn’t been.
The grass around the oak’s base was as black as the sky, gleaming like ice. The tree itself was horribly twisted, bent into an unnatural shape. As if it had tried to uproot itself and flee, thought Luna as she walked closer. A tight feeling pressed her throat and stomach.
Then, she saw Twilight.
Both of them.
“Hello, Luna!” called the first. She looked very much like the Twilight Luna had first been acquainted with: younger, bright and eager. There was no mistaking that smile of hers, not even while half of her torso was missing. In a sense.
The other Twilight said nothing, but only gave her a long, icy look. A familiar void twinkled deep within her eyes, which the dark coat highlighted. Her actual body had preserved somewhat better than the first one’s, yet that neither could have stayed together without the help of the strange substance which now substituted each of their missing parts.
The two were playing chess.
“So nice to see you here!” said the first Twilight. She flashed another joyful smile and then returned to the game, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“Why did you come?” asked the other, staring at the board. Her voice was lower, and quiet to the point of inaudibility.
Luna stared. This was worse than she had feared.
“I… came to see you how you fared. A friendly visit.” She took a tentative step closer. “How… are you feeling?”
“Right as rain!” said the first one. The voice was unnaturally high-pitched, a bit like a claw scratching a blackboard.
“I can’t understand what went wrong,” said the other. Her horn picked the Queen and moved it across the board to eat a Knight. “Check.”
Luna followed the piece move as if it was the pendulum of her own death. “Nothing. Nothing went wrong. This is what you wanted, and what you received.” She turned her face away. “If only had I been there to tell you what that was, exactly.”
“Aww, don’t be sad!” said the first Twilight. She moved a pawn to protect her King, revealing a line for her Rook to threaten her opponent’s majesty. “Check.”
A few more moves were made. Luna could already see where the game was going, where it had always been going.
“A draw,” said the other Twilight. There was not an ounce of surprisement in her voice.
“Again?!” cried the first in disappointment. “What, that’s like the–”
“Nine hundred and forty sixth,” said the other.
The first one’s face fell blank after hearing that. But she cheered up soon enough.
“Wanna try oak?”
A gentle hoof landed on her shoulder. She looked up, puzzled.
“That’s quite enough for tonight,” said Luna. Every word trembled as it passed between her lips, as if fighting to stay together. “It’s time to wake up.”
“No, not yet! You can play too!” Her horn flickered, and the chessboard was replaced by a pile of other games. “We got it all here! Just make your pick!”
“It’s no use,” said the other one. “We can’t wake up. Not like this. My friends… They…” She batted her eyes, as if a memory or a sensation tried to surface in her mind, only to find itself lost instead. “It’s better that we stay asleep. For now.”
For all eternity, you mean? thought Luna.
“See, see?” continued the first one, absolutely ignorant of what was happening around her. “We could play Monopony, cards, “Against Equestria” special edition… We got it all! Why’d you wanna leave?!”
“Dreaming is not the answer, Twilight,” said Luna. “It’s not even a question.”
“It’s all I have now,” whispered the first one. She was calmly setting up a game of Monopony, dividing cash and arranging event-cards. “It could be worse. It should be worse.”
No, it could not.
“I would ask your forgiveness,” said Luna, her wings unfolding around the two Twilights, “But it would be most hypocritical of me.”
Soft darkness enveloped the Twilights, carrying them beyond dreams…
… and time …
… until they were together again.
“Stop!” she screamed.
Luna turned to look around her shoulder. Twilight, now her usual self, stood at the other end of the long aisle, panting heavily. Moonlight flooded through the massive glass windows, painting everything in silvery glow. Everything except the door that drank all light that touched it.
“Don’t… do it,” panted Twilight. She took a deep breath, forcing her lungs to steady themselves. “It’s not worth it.”
Luna smiled at her. “That is not up to you to decide, little one.”
Confusion beamed off Twilight’s expression. “What?”
Luna turned right way around. The handle was there, staring back at her.
My decision, she thought to herself while the sound of wings approached behind her. Mine alone.
Once again, she pressed the handle. And the world turned black.
