Splitting aMid the Night

Midnight's inner demon had a way to confuse her. Even though they both were inside her own mind, she had no idea what Noon was talking about. She felt unusually powerless and without any use. Of course she was already used to that feeling. Realising what mortality meant for her had its drawbacks. She was destined to fail whatever significant task she attempted. In a fit of rage, she jumped, reaching up to the glass ceiling, a distance not even a pegasus would be able to leap upwards with a single flap of their wings. Coming back down, she left small craters. The floor around her cracked.

"Impressive. Now, if you're done destroying our property, although I too have come to the conclusion that it is too much, can we move on?" Midnight didn't want to listen to reason. Neither to Noon. Savage fury made her tackle herself and pin the false mare to the ground. She began to mercilessly pummel it. "What are you doing? Stop it!" Midnight was beginning to draw blood. "This isn't brave. It's murder." Tears began to form in Noon's eyes. Midnight removed them by kicking wildly at where they were produced. "What did I ever do to you..." The act was done, Midnight's bloodlust was satisfied. Soon, her victim would die to the injuries she had produced. She gathered what was left of her strength and adressed Midnight one last time. "You don't even care, do you?"

Her head dropped to the floor. Midnight noticed a strange breeze kick in, blowing towards the end of her mind that she had originally come from. Noon's body dispersed into dust, being carried off by the wind. Only her bones remained as the rest was blown into her room. Less than a minute later, a healthy demon emerged out of that very door. While she had been expecting this, Midnight still began to cry tears of desperation while crushing the skeleton still lying near her. "Just why won't you die?!"

Noon quickly closed the distance between them and laid a foreleg on Midnight's shoulder. "We're connected. You and me. As long as either lives, the other is immortal. We share one mind. One heart." She pressed their chests together, which literally merged. Midnight could feel a single heart pumping blood into both her and Noon's body.

She dismissed the illusion with the wave of a hoof. "Stop that, trickster."

"Oh, no 'sister'? 'Daughter'? Come. I promised to show you something cool, and I will."

Noon led them both towards yet another unmarked door. She magically opened it and pushed Midnight inside. This was awesome in the old fashioned sense, Midnight had to admit. Before her in the candle-lit room there were hundreds of pictures, varying greatly in size, arranged seemingly without any order, but all facing her, no matter where she went. They all showed the face or other parts of one specific mare.

Midnight heard the door slam shut behind her. The demon had joined her in the small room. "Yep. Each one of those is one reason why you're in love with that filly. Each is a specific memory with her. Like, if we touch this one..." Noon walked up to one of the biggest photographs and gently stroked it with a hoof. Memories of that one very Sunday, when Sparkle had been sleeping, came back to Midnight. "We get another occasion when you failed because you are useless."

"Can't I break all of those and just solve all of my problems like that?"

Noon returned to Midnight's side. "No. Energy preservation. You cannot create..."

"Or destroy matter, energy or magic. Ever." Midnight finished.

"Exactly. The point is, what you are calling a problem is a bit of both magic and energy. Perhaps there's some matter in it too. Like, the neurons connecting to create this reaction. But there is one way..."

"How?"

"You could get rid of them if you carried them to the Flow of Eternity and let that do its work. Time heals all wounds. However..."

Midnight attempted to lift one of the smallest pictures around. Only with a combination of both magic and her muscles did she manage to do so. However, her strength quickly left her and her head plummeted to the floor, breaking her neck instantly. Fortunately, they were still far from reality, so all Midnight needed to do was dust off and rise.

"If time did heal all wounds, you would not be here and preventing it from doing so and we would not have this conversation in the first place!"

"However you may not be able to bear the weight of what is your greatest joy. Think about how heavy memories of HER would have to be."

"Where are those stored?"

"I have no idea. Probably somewhere in the broken part. That seems likely since it's what caused the corruption in the first place."

"Then how can you bring those up if you'd get disintegrated upon going there?"

"Uh, you tell me. Okay, I'll give you a little hint. Well, technically, it's more like telling you. While amusing, manually activating each memory wouldn't be very effective. So I'm cheating a bit."

"You always do."

"Quiet... please. Remember what I said earlier? What is a pony but the sum of its memories? We are the tales we live! The stories we tell ourselves. You've got a good memory. So how can you know you're not two years ahead and reliving this moment in your dreams?"

"I would... I could... um..."

"That's the point, you can't. So this is what I do. I move our mind back a bit in the Flow of Eternity. Like a record player, it'll play forward from where the marker is placed."

"What? That seems a bit unconventional... on the other hoof, so does everything here. Well, if I was reliving some memories right now and, like, nothing of this was real, wouldn't the Flow have to also carry me forward?"

"I kind of can't blame you for that question, but I will anyway. Technically, it'd have to if you would revisit this place and somehow travel back to this moment, buuut, in this reality, it wouldn't because it didn't in this moment. So even though there is a future, you couldn't access it because you can't now. Got that?"

"Uhm, yeah, I suppose. Is there anything else of importance here?"

Noon pouted. "This is all you ever wanted, whether you want to admit it or not. Why not stay for a few moments? Enjoy your surroundings?" She activated another picture by casually nudging it with her head. There was sunlight. It was warm. Sparkle was there. She had her beloved wide smile on her face. Midnight shook her head to come back to reality, or what reality approximate she could reach that way.

"Stop that. How long have I been in here? I should get out before Dad finds my lifeless body."

"Well, about that..."

Midnight instantly understood what Noon's hesitant speech was aimed at. "You don't know where the exit is."

"Eventually, you have to wake up, right? So why not stay a bit longer and enjoy what other awesome stuff I have here?"

"Hmm... well, I kind of want to see Pegasus Eye's place. To see how that looks."

"Bah, boring. Does not include Filly. Oh well. We should find it from the hub."

With that, both ponies of the same appearance trotted back outside. "Don't you tell me you don't know where that is either." Noon shily ground her right front hoof back and forth. This was all the evidence Midnight needed. "Oh, awesome. You've clearly had enough time to know this place, yet you act like it's your first time here."

"It's your mind, sweet. Hm, maybe... let me flip a few switches. There."

Noon had reactived Pegasus Eye itself, which, to Midnight's surprise, worked even in the mental's world. A golden path appeared, going through almost all of the hall, before ending next to a door. "You should work on putting up signs on those."

"Yeah yeah. What's important now is that it worked. Let's go!"

As fun as Pegasus Eye had sounded, it turned out to be rather boring. Hidden behind the door had been a simple control room with a few levers and buttons on a metal machine, presumably mostly to toggle it on or off. "Boring. Now I really want to quit. Hey, I have an idea."

"Let me guess, it'll involve getting us killed in some way? You seem to like to do that."

"Hum, ironically, yes it does. Afraid? 'Cause I'm not."

"You're so stupid. What do you have in mind?"

Midnight didn't answer. Instead, she ran and jumped. The crater showed its effect quickly as she was turned to dust while still in the air, leaving back a shocked Noon.

What if that wouldn't have worked and instead you'd have voluntarily surrendered to the madness that's causing this anomaly?

Worth it.

Midnight rose to her hooves and checked her reflection in the mirror. The streak of blue she'd seen from within her mind was still present.