Splitting aMid the Night

"Oh woooow." Twilight's eyes widened as they stepped out of the library which now stood alone on a tiny island of rock, floating in an endless void with only a narrow path connecting outwards. There didn't seem to be anywhere to go, but Midnight knew that there was always more to the Flow than the eye could tell. Thus, she led the way forward and, soon enough, additional matter came into existence to join at the ends as if it had always been there. "The tides of magic, unfurled before us. You could set all of Canterlot onto this and they wouldn't be done researching it in a century," Twilight said once they reached a small platform with something resemblant of a tree.

"They shouldn't be. A fragment of the power at loose here could wipe out life entirely. I mean, just look at how easy it is to use magic." For demonstration, Midnight levitated a nearby boulder of about her own size and flung it off the platform in a wide arc.

"If I might remind you," said Noon, whom they had both already forgotten due to her silence, "this is not a separate world. In fact, it is yours, so everything here is but a metaphor. In case you're curious, in the real world, a spectral force just took candy from a foal and tossed it into the dirt."

"I feel achieved. That's another cross on my purgatory bingo card." Leaning back against the tree, she saw Twilight being only lightly amused, so she quickly added, "But why exactly do I see candy, even as rocks, but not the foal holding it?"

"You are not yet fully aligned, robot. Once you are, the Flow will reveal more of its secrets to you. You will also gain more control over it. You are, after all, the nether princess." She motioned for them to follow. "But perhaps you are already close enough."

"For what, exactly?" Midnight asked as both of them trotted after the semi-real mare. "Sparkle, I just know that you've got all of Ponyville mapped out in that magnificent brain of yours. Mind to say where she's taking us?"

"Well, along the only path available, I suppose. More accurately, I think we're headed southwards. I mean, look at the sun." She pointed to the left where the Shadow Star floated just above an undefined horizon.

"Y'know, that thing ain't moving."

"Oh. Anyway, our turns say the same." Twilight lowered her eyes and fell silent. After some seconds, when it became clear that Midnight wasn't going to ask, she said, "Guess we've lived together for too long now. You're used to my awesomeness." She shot Midnight a wink, then let her face drop into seriousness again. "Of course, all of this is assuming that such a thing as directions even apply here. Judging by what I've seen so far, my own calculations, and the studies of philosophers revered around Equestria, that is unlikely. Is it mean if I say that would've expected you to show me something like this the most?"

"Coming up, the edge of the forest. At least it is in your world. Exit on the right in direction of travel. Try to watch the weebles. They're very small and very, very squishy." A few moments after entering the most recent platform, they were treading on soft, sun-soaked grass, surrounded by trees, and listening to gentle birdsong. It was an illusion almost too perfect, if it weren't for the stars in the sky above that reminded them of where they truly were. "Ah, the wonders of reality unfettered by your puny laws," Noon said, flowers blooming around her lying form. "I know what you're thinking, princess. We managed to get out of Ponyville in but a minute because - wait, do I really have to say it? This is the bloody Magic Flow, it only remotely behaves like your world when it feels like it. Or when you tell it to, that is. The point is, I've got something to show to you. They should come out any moment now."

"You know what this means, right?" Twilight whispered. "She's brought us to the Everfree forest, where magic can be uncontrollable at best. If this is a world of magic, who knows what she might attempt to do?"

Noon appeared at her side. "Darling, where are we, some dumb adventure novel?" She caressed Twilight's face with a filly's innocence, which would still have been enough to make Midnight want to buck her off the platform if Twilight hadn't shaken free on her own. "You know who is and isn't the mare you love, don't you. At least you think you do. The point is, your spells fail here because it is closer to reality than other places. Mostly, it's their fault. Blame them if you dare."

A small creature stumbled forth from the darkness which hid the entrance deeper into the forest. Upon spotting it, Twilight instantly emitted a drawn out squeak and ran forward to pet it. Holding more reservations, Midnight remained where she stood and said to herself, "You know that psychic warfare is illegal, right? As is any warfare, but that's beside the point."

Noon brushed up against her side, partially merging with her in the act, "Do you remember your dreams? I know I do. Kindly get to her side, I know you want to. You might be surprised."

As Midnight approached the being which received so much undeserved love from her love, it showed a conspicuously familiar form. "What the. You can't mean to tell me that Lorwyn, out of any thing, populates the Magic Flow."

"Ah, silly. No, it recognises a shape which its princess finds favourable, a Kithkin in this instance. You have more influence in this world than you think. They are your people. If you'd accept your crown, that is." She strode to the far edge of the platform. "All that which the light touches, lying unclaimed. Kind of sad, really."

"What's she going on about? You're not really a princess, are you?" Twilight asked once she could free herself from the grasp of adorableness.

"No... not yet, at least. But really, who cares? We've got one another, that's all that counts." Feeling a sudden sense of urgency, she half helped, half forced Twilight off the ground and pushed her back to whence they came. "Come on, let's get outta here. I don't think we should stick around for too long. Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"But it likes me!" Twilight struggled to return to the Kithkin which looked as sad about their rapid departure as she. "Coming to think of it, yes I do. Oh, we might be a bit late for that, with all the time we spent here."

Noon came floating overhead. "Her dear Sparkle, time is meaningless here. Lives, lived, will live. Dies, died, will die. Does, did, will do, will have been done. I don't think that's a tense, not in your language. Anyhow. The interdimensional energy anomaly, or idea if you prefer" - she pointed backwards, to where the trees were already vanishing out of reality again - "back there in the glade is the Magic Flow incarnated. It trusted you because... it remembers what you will do for it, and looks forward to your past relationship with its princess. Does this make sense to you?" She appeared to be waiting for an answer, but continued as soon as Twilight opened her mouth, "Anyhow. What's more important is that you can casually stroll through the Magic Flow and arrive at your real world destination the same moment as if you'd used a teleportation spell. Not that there's any difference in principle between the methods, of course. What I'm saying is, there will have passed as much or little time as you wish. Coming to think of it, you'd best abandon all of your physical principles."

"I'll keep that in mind for later," Midnight said. She couldn't care much for such affairs, not when there were more important questions to be solved, for instance why her leg was already across Twilight's shoulders again. That, or why taking the same path as before now led them to a barren plateau without other exits instead of the platform they'd been on previously. "How do we get out of here?"

"You ask." She tapped Midnight's horn, then was sucked into her through its tip.

"Does she do that often?" Twilight asked as they disconnected to inspect the platform.

"Roughly three times a day." While an unnatural purple was the base colour of most of the Flow's matter, this piece was odd in itself. Apparently, they were standing on a gigantic amethyst. "Hm, ask. Well, here goes, I suppose." Midnight once again lowered her horn and called for her signature spell, though rather than any specific destination, the best she could think of was simply 'out'. Moments later, blue droplets of energy coalesced before her, eventually forming into a rift. There it floated before her, silently taunting her with how easy it had been to create despite all of her denial. "There. Beauty follows age, right? After you, then."

"One day, this is all going to get back to you." A quick touch of the lips, as fleeting as the moment which bore it, yet forever bound into their memory. "I'm looking forward to that day." Without further ado, she took and held a deep breath and climbed into the portal.

Since there was a distinctive lack of screaming, blood, or carnage coming back out, Midnight quickly followed. As it turned out, their final destination was a place far worse than one that would produce those warning signs. Instead, they'd arrived in a classroom, by the looks of it. The various drawings, letters, and books along the walls confirmed an even worse suspicion. It was a school for foals, though it seemed to be luckily abandoned for the moment, except for noise coming from outside and the maroon earth mare holding Twilight in a conversation. "This is where you wanted to go?" Midnight questioned.

"Yes, it is. You see, the littluns are doing a bit of an individual project day today, and I promised to help one of the teams. You should stick around too, I'm sure you'll enjoy it." She

"You bet I will, because, in ascending order of importance, maybe I will have fun with them, it'd take a restraining order and five mustangs to get me away from you, and I have no idea where we are relative to the library, so I couldn't get there if I wanted to." Midnight headed to leave the room before a better idea overcame her, "Then again, screw doors," and she teleported into freedom through the opposing wall.

The outside looked as expected, especially considering that Midnight had already seen it through the window. The sun came down mercilessly from above, bringing life to the plants as much as to the ponies around. Yet its heat wasn't overwhelming as only a single filly had taken shelter under the solitary tree that stood within the fenced area. The others stood, ran through the soft grass, or sat at one of the tables, plotting new adventures. There was a surprising amount of adults around, perhaps one per two of the seemingly endless foals. Not only that, but none of the pairings seemed to be biologically related. Of course, Midnight understood their motivations, and perhaps she could even find time to help one of the youngsters discover life. Unfortunately, she had to work down her list of things that she wanted to do one by one, and she hadn't yet found a cactus large enough to headbutt properly.

Don't give me that look. You know how hard it is to walk anywhere when you could teleport with just as much effort, maybe even less?

And I thought my revelation of the Magic Flow would have taught you anything. Clearly your head is thicker than I realised. At least you can see that which is out of your reality, such as me even when I don't show myself. But knowing you better than you yourself, I'm surprised that you're still only a supportable amount over standard weight. Wait, how heavy are you, anyhow?

Before Midnight could finish her thought, a fit of noise filled her ears. With a bit of imagination, it could even be considered music. As it turned out, Vinyl Scratch had a small music station set up behind Midnight and was teaching somefoal its use. Despite Midnight's best efforts, she was quickly spotted and Vinyl called, "Hey, haven't seen ya in a while! C'mere." As much as she'd like to, there was no denying such an open invitation. "There. Liked the demonstration?"

"Well, he is sure to top that very soon, I'd say." Something about the colt Vinyl was teaching fascinated Midnight. His stature was smaller than usual, almost fragile. His empty flank, together his white and black coat and mane, certainly served to support that impression as if all colour had faded out from him, unable to support itself. To top it off, there were tiny wings adorning his sides. She could not find an explanation why one like him should be interested in music.

"... That was one of my pieces," Vinyl said. Somehow, the confidence in her voice was lacking a tiny edge, one that was otherwise more than filled.

"I know."

"Yeah." Sadly, any hit that she may have taken previously was already fully restored. In fact, a barely visible smile came onto her face. "See, I told you she's a fancy, if only for her, ah, honesty. Anyway, what brings you here?"

"The mare I love kinda dragged me along." Looking down, she saw the colt bursting to respond to her. So he actually was as shy as he looked. "Hmm?"

"Mommy says proper mares don't do anything more than friendship with other mares," he stuttered, apparently surprised to be adressed so directly.

"Does she?" Midnight asked with her voice carrying more genuine surprise than expected. "Well, I've said and done plenty of things in my past which I don't want to mention to your ears, never attend the weekly ceremonies for worshipping our gracious overmare, instead believe in cynicism to carry my world, have masturbated about two thousand times and don't intend on stopping in the future, and if there's anything you can imagine, I've probably done it with the pony I chose to love, pre-maritally of course. So I guess I'm not a proper mare after all. But I'm sure Vinyl here, one of the properest ponies I know, will gladly explain to you everything about her relationship with Lady Octavia."

"Thanks for that," Vinyl Scratch hissed with her face fallen back into order, though she couldn't hide her own amusement.

"You're welcome, darling." From behind her, Midnight could just pick up the melody of the sweetest voice to ever exist. "Ooh, there she is. See ya later maybe, gotta tell her about how improper I am."

"What in the name of plot burgers were you even thinking?" Midnight circled around the beauty stretched out on her own bed. Her work was progressing, but not by far done. "Runes. Giving such power to a filly, what did you expect to happen? Loti growing everywhere, even in solid wood?"

"I don't know... just fix me, alright? You can fix me, right? Right?"

To another pony, Twilight might look to be in grave danger as she was missing her right foreleg along with several small features across her body. Fortunately though, there was already skin and hair in place of those things, as if they'd simply never been there. "Sure I can. Magic never does the damage it appears to. You're a particularly interesting case, Sparkle. I can clearly see your leg, it's there, just... in another reality. The one we were in just this morning. So I suppose all I have to do is pull it back to the reality we all share." Recovering objects that seemed to the untrained eye to have been lost in magical accidents was a surprisingly standard procedure, yet Midnight had never before been able to actually watch her own work. Normally, a unicorn would use a simple teleportation spell to pull the affected object out of the Flow, but somehow, even that seemed to be too much effort. Instead, the leg seemed to obey her when she simply commanded it to return into sight, where it stayed even as her vision shifted back out of the Magic Flow.

"Huh. Why, that's convenient." She briefly shook her regained leg. There were no actual damages visible from the outside and neither did she seem to find any. "Yay for magic doing everything possible!"

Midnight helped her get a steady footing back on the ground. Perhaps it was an unnecessary gesture, but it certainly was just as gallant, especially when she then abused her hold on Twilight's body to force their heads together another time. "The lazy part of me is still mad, by the way. Maybe it'll accept dinner as a payment. You should definitely try the idea." She gently guided the two of them towards the stairs. "Come on, don't be shy."

"Coming to think of it, have you paid your share of the weekly groceries?"

Her guidance became just a bit more aggressive. "Less shyness please, we're both hungry and exhausted from a day out, I'm sure you'll be able to make something great happen."

"She is rapidly adjusting. Soon she will be aligned fully."

Midnight felt odd. She knew that she had likely left reality, but her exact location remained unclear. It was like swimming at the very bottom of an ocean, but then again she did not feel as if she even was herself any more. There were no surroundings to orientate by, only a sensation of floating without a body by which to relate it. That and the strange voice she'd just heard, which was now joined by another, "Good. All shall share in glory once the Dawn fruits. May the Father guide you."