Splitting aMid the Night

Midnight's inner self reported back after she had done a bit of slack and hay to pass time.

This should work. We all ready?

Midnight pondered for a second if she was. It was only Monday evening, how could she know how long she'd be gone? Could she leave if she wanted to? What if her father would find her lifeless shell while she was busy exploring her own mind?

Thought so. Brace ourselves.

She didn't have any more time to prepare as she lost consciousness with a feeling of getting pulled inside her own skull, the world around her quickly sliding by and fading out.

Clear air. A sense of gravity. Some light. Three things that Midnight had been missing during the one second travel that had felt like an eternity to her returned. It took a bit of effort to keep her balance, but she eventually stabilised her wobbly legs. Opening her eyes, she saw her blue maned self smiling back at her.

Noon waved a hoof around. "This is it. The mental world."

After surveying her surroundings, Midnight responded. "Looks like a nurse's office."

"A mental nurse's office."

"But surely there has to be more to me than this room. I mean, there's the chair, desk... wait, this is equipment fit to treat foals. As if I ever would."

"We often change our opinions given enough time to think them through, even if we once declared the option we choose impossible."

"Well, since everything I do is irrelevant anyway, I might as well get a few of my own... some time..."

"That'd make her sad."

"Whatever. I want to see the cool stuff!"

"Try the door. Who knows what might be behind it?"

Only now Midnight spotted the wooden door leading out of the small office. She opened it and stepped through. The second unicorn following right after gave a short whistle. "Oooh. Impressive. Yet somehow tacky."

"Shouldn't you already know this place?"

"How? It only starts to exist now that you observe and generate it. Physics. Well, screw physics, you have magic."

"Where have you been then?"

Noon pointed towards an old door. "My place in our brain. Explore it if you really wish." Midnight shrugged and entered the room. It was an almost exact copy of her own bedroom. There was the big window giving access to her balcony, the bed to the right, the small desk to the left. Noon didn't seem to clean it at all, though. "Don't blame me for not picking up my stuff. Or... maybe do, but remember I'm just you. The true you, without the 'discipline' you brought upon us."

Midnight ignored her and checked the clock hanging above the door. "Hey, is this thing accurate?"

"Depends on if you know the time. Did you know time passes five times more slowly while you're dreaming?"

"This is kind of boring."

"Well, I won't complain if you give me a mansion to live in instead."

Midnight turned to walk back out. "Main hall it is again."

Now that her angle had changed, the sun shining through the glass ceiling of the huge hall momentarily blinded Midnight. "Where should we go next?"

"You tell me. I can't see anything over there. Make it exist."

Midnight followed the stretched imaginary foreleg to an area which appeared to be white for just a moment, but filled with color as soon as she looked.

Further down the hall, there were some more unmarked doors. One was surrounded by a deep blue crater, the holes in the wall that formed it occasionally giving off a little smoke of the same color. In the distance, Midnight heard rushing water.

"Ah, yes. The area where your real trouble is located. Take a good look at it. Not too much time ago, it grew considerably. Can you guess why?"

"I thought I had just left that area."

Noon made a slightly insulted, but highly melodramatical, expression. "Oh, how hurtful you always are. What did I do to you? I've always got your back, even now. Literally, even. Look!" The unicorn to Midnight's right was wearing a necklace made out of Midnight's own spine. She tried to resist and dispel the illusion, but without any way to give them orders, her legs quickly gave way and she tumbled to the ground. "Aw, don't act like that," Noon threw the bone away. As soon as Midnight had lost sight of it, she felt it back in her body and started to climb back up to her hooves. "As if you'd believed it."

"So, if I just go in there and do whatever I have to do, I'm fine?"

"First, no. Second, you can't go in there. I tried, its entropy and nonsense would only disintegrate you the second you tried to set hoof in it."

"Then how are you still here?"

"For the same reason you are. You're still alive and my source is somewhere else. Hey, that just proved that I am not a product of insanity."

"Make me believe this is not a product from you."

"A product's product? We have to go deeper. You'll understand."

"Fine. So I won't solve my own problems. Where should I go then?"

"How about the Flow of Eternity? That's always fun when I'm there. You know, when you are not chaining me to my room like Mommy always did. Or pointlessly murdered me, as was done to her."

"Uh, what kinda thing? I've only memorised three books on pony psychology, I can't remember what you're talking about."

"Your memories, filly."

"Easier ways to say that. Where is it?"

Noon flopped her ears. "Just follow the sound of water. It's called the Flow for a reason." Midnight walked around the hall for a little bit, past quite a few doors, until she found the one the sound was coming from. She pushed it open and walked inside. As always, Noon followed just a few paces behind her. "Isn't this cool?"

"Twenty-three degrees Celsius, actually."

"What a block. So, you may notice we're in a small tunnel and there's nothing here but the door behind us and the Flow, extending itself and the tunnel further down in both directions than you can see."

"You don't say?"

"Silence. The Flow of Eternity functions relatively simple. You just get in and move a certain distance, then get back out and you'll be back where you were at the moment you've chosen. Of course, you can't move into the future. Only those blessed with Clairvoyance can in order to access their visions. Maybe you know one?"

"Not that I knew. So, if I want to go back, say, a year, wouldn't that take forever?" Midnight moved forward and dipped a hoof into the clear water. It was ice cold.

"Nope! That's why it's so cool. If you take a whole step at once, that's about a day, but if you take two at once without leaving the stream, you'll get four. It's two to the power of how far you're walking. How about you take eleven point five steps, for example?"

"Huh? Two to the power of eleven multiplied by radix two..." It didn't take Midnight long to calculate the result as she had once memorised just that table to pass an extremely boring day. "About eight years. Ha ha. Because you don't take me back there enough already." Midnight walked back into the main hall.

"I find your resistance as funny as it is futile. Soon, little robot. Hear your joints squeak. Feel your artifial mane brush up against your photosensitive cells. Oh, what's this? You have a leak."

Liquid ran down Midnight's head until it came to her mouth. With it came a bit of blue hair, burdened and stickied by what flowed through it.

"You bleed. You are imperfect. Out of my sight."

At once, the wound was closed and all blood had vanished.

"Interesting."

"I know. What your fantasy is capable of goes beyond even me."

"I find it interesting that my mane dying spell appears to wear off. Mirror!"

"Sweetie, we're in your mind. Just picture one hanging on the wall over there and you'll see how you've last seen yourself in it."

"You're the unreal one here, not me. Hmm..." Midnight critically looked at what reflection was stored in her mind latest. A streak of blue had reappeared in both her mane and tail.

"Never disrupt a caster's focus, or else terrible things will happen. Blue with pink, how could you?"

After closely inspecting the new style her mane had taken, Midnight had to admit she kind of liked it. At least Noon did not like it, so she obviously had to keep it. "Remind me to run some spell detection over Sparkle. I have a feel that filly is hiding something. This is not stalking, right?"

"Not when you do it. Speaking of Filly, there's something in here with her that I think you'll like."