White. "Twilight."
"Twilight, a pastel purple pony with wings and a horn the size of the moon if you put it on a diet for a month."
"Twilight."
"Twilight, the soft glowing light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon, caused by the refraction and scattering of the sun's rays from the atmosphere; a period or state of obscurity, ambiguity, or gradual decline. "
"Twilight."
"Twilight; teacher."
"Twilight, why are you doing this?"
“Fabrications. You're not real; a mere construct of my mind to maintain my grip on basic equine traits such a conversation and healthy interaction between individuals."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"I'm conversing."
"Really? It seemed to me like you were stating facts."
"The point of a conversation is to work out the puzzle of explaining your emotions and thoughts to another individual of comparable intellect. But you already know what I say before I say it, you already know what I feel before I describe it." Misrepresentations. "My conversation is accomplishing the same thing that that would accomplish."
"You resent me."
"You're flawed in your only purpose."
"You resent her."
"She was flawed in her only purpose."
"Correlation? Bias?"
"Probably." Frustrated? "You're not her."
"You feel horrible about it; even now. Would it be better if I were? Could you stand to look at her for who knows how long your sanity will remain?"
A colorless, boring and empty sense of a false reality. Feeling the world around me, not so much as looking. It was my world, in a more literal sense than the statement could've been used in the past. I wasn't a user of magic, or a flier beyond any idea of skill. I was a god among inequine machinations of my mind meant to represent stallions, mares and foals. I didn't enforce my will through magic or power, my will was the driving force of the world, the reason it existed.
"What's changed?" Glowheart asked, tilting her head slightly.
"I was never a god in Equestria, I never had such fantasies that I were." Stop.
"Fantasies?" Luna asked, tilting her head slightly. "Are you so blind?"
"Are you implying I thought myself a god?" Stop. "I know what I thought, as do you."
"You thought yourself a monster." Twilight asked, tilting her head. "But what were you really?"
"A foal given power until she couldn't take it." Stop. "An idiot who didn't take risk into consideration due to her inflated ego."
"Was that honestly a risk? You knew you couldn't control it, you knew she could control you." Celestia asked, tilting her head slightly. "You blame yourself because you're the reason she--"
"Stop!"
Omnipresent. Twilight sat, staring at the pillar of magic that pierced through the clouds and stars. Behind her was Luna and Cadenza, confused and observing; present observers. They didn't speak, it seemed they'd lost a lust for words.
Bum-Bump... Bum-Bump... Bum-Bump...
"Twilight?" Cadenza twitched, her own voice alien to her. She glanced to her companion, who shared her worried gaze. "...Are you okay?"
Okay? Twilight's ear twitched, her eyes shifting left and right. How could she possibly be okay right now? "I'm fine." She was lying.
"Are you sure?" Luna trotted over to her, "If you need to talk to us, we are here for you." She placed a wing on her. I miss Luna, she was a good mare. Kind, understanding and empathetic as well. "Celly too, I'm sure of that."
"No, I..." She smiled, turning and sharing it with them. "I'm sure. I just need some time alone is all." Time alone? You'll have plenty soon enough.
«♦»
“I…” Celestia said slowly, shifting her eyes between her sister and her niece. “...I see.”
“Sister, what should be done about the…” Luna waggled a hoof around in thought. “Thing that Twilight created before she put herself into it? She never specified that it would fix the disaster or if it was merely like bandage to a wound.”
Celestia, poor Celestia. You failed after all that time, I still died. She sighed. “Have a battalion stationed to guard it. Earth ponies and pegasi only, I don’t want any magic possibly tampering with the device until we better understand its purpose and whether we’re actually in the clear.” She frowned, “And when she’s emotionally able, see if you can get Twilight to begin studying just how the machine works. If anypony will be able to find out it’s purpose, she will.”
«♦»
"Heyya, Twilight." Pinkie yipped happily, sitting down across from her. "How've you been? We haven't had much time to talk since well... The funeral." She frowned a little.
It was my and Celestia's fault. "Sorry.." Twilight said, frowning softly but refusing to look Pinkie in the eye. "I've been busy with princess duties." Liar. "I really have been meaning to talk to you lately though, I've missed our get togethers a lot but... You know how things are." She grimaced, glancing towards Pinkie slightly.
Pinkie sighed; she wasn't a stupid mare. "Yeah, I know how things are." Scruffing her hoof across the ground, she glanced around the near empty room, the council room Twilight and her friends used to use constantly. "Place is getting lonely you know? What with Spike moving out and Rainbow.. And Fluttershy..."
Rainbow's funeral was the last time Twilight saw Fluttershy, the incident with the timeline falling apart, well she already had a weak heart after all, it just pushed the poor mare over the edge. Pinkie had found her that evening when she went to check on her. It didn't have to be this way. Twilight sighed. It could've been different; better. "Yeah... Spike wanted to stay but he's getting a little cramped even in this castle’s massive halls, in a way I'm thankful to Tirek for destroying Golden Oak all those years ago, it let me live with spike for a couple more decades at least."
"You know, I could always sell Sugar Cube Corner and move in, Twi." Pinkie leaned forward, placing her hoof on the table. "I don't want you to be so lonely, and I'm thinking it's time to retire from the party business." She chuckled lightly. Pinkie retiring from parties. Had I introduced the idea to myself after the whole Cheese Sandwich thing, she would've died laughing. "I need a place to stay if I'm selling the old place."
Twilight frowned, "But... You said before Rainbow's funeral that you never thought you'd retire... What changed?"
Pinkie sighed, leaning back. "Twi, I'm an old mare now. I can't party like I used to, you know that. But I still wanted to help other ponies party, yet... Rainbow and Fluttershy are gone now, Twi. And you're all I really have left since Cheese passed and the twins moved out to the big city. They both died alone, and... I want somepony to be with me when I pass, and I don't know when that'll be." She frowned, her whitened mane deflating a little as she looked over at Twilight, whose face was devoid of expression, just a blank stare back at Pinkie. "I know it must hurt to hear it like that, but..."
"Pinkie, I..." Twilight swallowed, shaking her head slightly. "...Sure. Of course you can move in, Pinkie. You can have Spike's old room, I'll help you clean it up and turn it into your kind of room." She smiled, getting up and trotting around the map to her friend. "And all the ponies who work with you at Sugar Cube Corner? Tell'em I'm gonna hire them here in the castle, as my personal pastry chefs." She placed a hoof on Pinkie's shoulder, who smiled back at her while laughing a little.
"Wowie, Twilight! I wasn't expectin' all that." She wiped at her face a little, a couple tears dripping down her cheeks. "Part of me was afraid you'd tell me to move out of Ponyville to bother the twins, you know? You've been so distant, I thought you were mad or something." She stood up and hugged Twilight, who hugged back after a moment.
“Mad?” Her? “Me?” She chuckled. “Nonsense.” She was just sad. She could see it in Pinkie’s eyes, Pinkie could see it too. Twilight was afraid to see her last friend die, opting instead to avoid her in her last couple years. Pathetic.
“You did the same thing if I recall, darling.” Rarity’s voice tsk’ed, her Canterlot accent ringing in my subconscious. “Why for every wrinkle we got, we saw you a month less a year. It got to the point we barely spoke anymore.”
“Twilight was a coward.”
“Are you?”
“Of course.”
“Oh, Pinkie…” She sighed, “Have I really gotten so distant lately?” Yes.
“No it’s just… Don’t worry, Twilight.” She smiled, shaking her head. “Just… Thank you.”
«♦»
I inwardly sighed. “She did it to herself. She knew that she’d die.”
“Does that make it worse? Being with her, does it make the pain any less? Would it have it dulled the shrill ache in her heart as she grew older, nigh forever young and beautiful, as her friends aged and withered away?”
“Yes. Hearing that somepony died? It makes it less real, it takes something entirely sapient and equine away from seeing it. You know in your logical portion of your brain they’re dead, but your heart doesn’t believe it. Your irrational side didn’t see it; the life leave their eyes, their body fall limp as each joint had already begun turning into stiff rigor mortis-ridden blocks of dead flesh and bone.”
“Twilight… I’m so sorry.” Celestia said to Twilight, the latter mare something like a hoof puppet. Celestia had her horn up poor Twilight’s ass, controlling her and sending her off to do her duties as a Princess, but inside was cold and quiet. She’d say the kindest words, then send her off to fight some monster, or deal with some political bullshit. But I can’t blame her, I had responsibilities, just as Twilight does. We couldn’t just collapse and stop entirely; in a way Celestia had the right idea. Keep us busy. “If there’s anything I can do to help, just say the word.”
Twilight shook her head, giving her teacher such a fake smile I’m sure she didn’t even think Celestia would buy it. “No, no. I’ll be fine, really. I just want to go and visit Spike for maybe a week. I haven’t seen him in a long time and well…”
“I understand.” Celestia smiled to her that sickly smile I hate. The one she used for business, not the one she uses for her friends. She wasn’t exactly okay with Twilight leaving probably, but she couldn’t express that to her after promising her whatever her little heart desired, now could she? “If anything comes up, I’ll send a letter to Spike to let you know if you’re needed.”
“Okay.” Twilight nodded to her, lighting her horn. “I’ll be back at a moments notice, I promise.” Of course. She took a breath, letting it out as she warped away in both a literal and metaphorical sense.
Oh. That’s interesting. Hello, Twilight. She stared at me, my physical form anyway. The magical pillar I left here for her and Celestia to safeguard until they could develop the magical technology to better sustain a paradox. She sighed, sitting down and staring at her hooves. “Why is she here?” I wondered.
“Is she confirming something?”
“She saw her die.”
“Is she confirming herself?”
“She hasn’t died.”
“But hasn’t she?”
“Has she? How does that feel? What was I to her I wonder? I wasn’t a teacher, I wasn’t a parent or her Princess. Tartarus, I wasn’t even somepony who should’ve existed to her. I was no pony in the most poetic sense of the word.”
After a while, she sighed, standing up and charging another of those ancient teleport spells. She stared directly at me, then looked up at the contained paradox. The nigh infinitely expansive and incorporeal thing that was sitting on top of me. Hello up there! I wonder what happened to any of the planets this thing touched? Did it completely and utterly turn them into absolute buck-all nothingness? Did I actually delete a portion of the universe with this to save one little planet?
“How cruel…” Twilight whispered, shaking her glowier than the majority of the time head at me. Indeed, I am cruel.
She teleported after that, straight to Spike’s cave like she said. “Spike! Spike are you home?!” She yelled into the cave.
She stood there awkwardly for a few minutes, still awkward to be standing in the middle of the dragon bandit half-country of insufferably unintelligent morons who did nothing but sleep, eat, shi-, “...Twilight?” Spike’s deep, but still definitely young, voice thumped from the cave.
«♦»
“Sister, this needs to be dealt with post haste.” Luna whined. “We can’t just keep rotating out battalions of guards for the next ten years. Or what about if we’re still clueless as to what to do in the long run? Keep rotating them out until our planet falls apart because we still don’t know the longevity of the spire?”
“No, Luna. I don’t expect us to keep rotating out guards. But I don’t want anypony to tamper with it, and Twilight doesn’t have a clue how it does what it does.” It’s so simple, Celestia, sweetheart. “So what do you propose we do?
“It’s… Twilight said that it originated where the other Twilight mentioned that city being.” Luna said softly, thoughtfully. “What if we built something around it? A fortress?” No. “And later a city perhaps?”
“Are you insane?” For once, we can agree, Celestia. “A city built around the thread holding all of time together?”
“It would give us a reason to be there, and a safe place for the scholars to observe and study it.” ...Okay, a fortress maybe. But a city is pushing it.
“...And a town for the military stationed there, their families. They’ll likely be there for a long time, and the scholars too…” Celestia mumbled. “I’ll consider it.”
«♦»
“That’s… They’re all gone, huh Twilight...?” Spike remarked slowly, leaning up and tilting his head a bit. “Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow, Rarity… Aj… They’re just… Gone. Like that.” He snapped his talons, the sound more resembling a loud clap after having intercourse with thunder. Old gestures die hard. Luckily, alicorn eardrums are far more resilient than said gestures could rupture.
“Yeah…” Twilight nodded slowly, sipping on her tea. How Spike managed to manipulate that itty bitty teapot with his giant dragon claws I’ll never know. Though breathing fire made making tea anywhere a lot easier, I didn’t even have to conjure a flame spell or help him make a fire after his flame came in strong. “It just doesn’t seem real… Every time one of them passed away I… I still felt like they were alive.”
“See?” I sighed as much as a consciousness locked inside an omnipresent vital organ could, “Memories… I hate them sometimes. They remind me of better times, of the amazing ponies and creatures I met, only to blink and they were gone.”
“If you didn’t have those memories, who would you be?”
“Somepony better than this I would hope.”
“Or somepony worse?”
Twilight shook her head. “But… Pinkie just… I can’t handle it anymore, Spike. I just needed a vacation, from all my responsibilities, from... Just life. After watching her… After holding and hugging her I…” She sniffed.
“Oh Twilight…” Spike sighed, crawling down on his claws and stomach, “C’mere.” He reached out and nudged over into the crook of his pony-sized neck. She fell against it, not really being able to hug him anymore but still seeking just the slightest comfort he could give. Even when Spike was bigger than the cave they were in, bigger than Torch ever was or even Canterlot way-back-when, I still would give him the occasional body-tackle I called a hug. Showing a big, size-of-a-city dragon affection is hard.
“Pain helps us grow.” I remarked.
“But too much will destroy a pony, Sombra taught you that.”
Stop.
«♦»
This is a horrible idea. “My little ponies, my dear, faithful subjects.” I love it. Celestia droned on and bucking on. “It has been years in the making, and even many more years in planning. But you’ve all worked very hard with us on this; you all knew your duty and you stuck to it through the grueling years of construction and countless accidents.”
Twilight wasn’t even paying attention and I know it was bugging the buck out of Celestia, I could “see” that little twitch under her left eye every time she’d glance down at her. Twilight was just staring up at the paradox. “But now we’re here, at the precipice of a new era. Behind me, is the savior of our world. A giant spire of magical energy that stopped the cataclysm thirty-five years ago. Nopony knows what caused the disaster,” Censorship is a bitch. “Or why this spire appeared to stop it. But what we do know, is we can’t simply leave it here unguarded, and without extensive research. But since the disaster, we haven’t had a proper way to do either.”
She turned around and gestured to it, “But today you have given that to Equestria! This fortress you have built, the surrounding town capable of housing all the families of the scientists and soldiers who will be stationed here, and the walls surrounding it.” She looked back. “We have homes for the troops here! We have walls for the protection of Equestria and beyond, and we have a means to study it! Thanks to all of you.”
She sighed, smiling proudly to her fanatical subjects, who listened to her every word with the same awe they’d have if she were talking about her favorite breakfast cereal. “Welcome to New Trottingham.”
«♦»
“Mere longevity is a good thing for those who watch Life from the side lines. For those who play the game, an hour may be a year, a single day's work an achievement for eternity.” –Helen Hayes
Author's Note
Before another chapter is posted, I'm going to run through and edit Apathy because it's a complete fucking mess and a total embarrassment.
Thank you.
