Madness, and How to Live With it

Twilight had her eyes closed. She knew that she was there, but she was fine. Hope was keeping her safe.

She had received her memories back. And with them, and her memories as Great Change, she had realized something. Something very important.

“I… think I know you now, just a little.” she told it. It was next to her, Hope was close.

“Not that I actually know you. But I know what you’re not.”

“You’re not really real. Something so separate that you can’t live. You can only be where nothing is held firm, where nothing really matters.”

“You live in Madness. You always have.”

“And as damaging as you are to reality, as much as seeing you hurts us, and hearing you kills us…”

“I think that hearing us, and seeing us does the same to you, doesn’t it? But we die. You don’t. You can’t. Not here.”

“How long have you been here? Are you always looking in from outside? Trying to understand us, as much as I try to understand you?”

A long moment. And then;

“I was… since… it began.” She heard Hope, and heard the pain in his voice. The pain of forcing himself to speak so she could hear, and make himself understandable to her, at least in one tiny way.

“Always… I see… everything… and I… never understood… until you…”

“Until me?”

“A part of me… and a piece of you…”

“Something I can… feel… Can use… a tiny part… of the… of your… madness…”

“I never… felt that… The things… you feel… your bad… your good….”

“You… let me see… how you see… for the first time… and even so… I don’t… understand…”

“It breaks… so easily… there is… so much strange…”

“I live… and know why… You live… and even becoming like you… I do not understand.”

Twilight nodded. “It’s strange, and frightening, isn’t it? Seeing us live by our rules, and rigidity. Here, anything can be. There, only some things can be, and only in certain ways. Like the rock.”

“… Yes…”

“... You’re all alone here, aren’t you? I can… still know it, just a little. All the little things like Bendy… they’re... you. Aren’t they? Just parts of you that live apart, but they’re not apart. You are always whole, and always separate. It’s always been just you, always alone with nopony else…”

“…Until you… Until you… came to me…”

“I always reached… and never… touched… I can’t… It… stops me…”

“And then… you came… you reached… and touched… me… A touch… of your madness… for the… first time…”

“Held you together… gave you life… took your stone… made it mine… so hard…”

“Saw you… always knew you… your everything… so different… so much bad… but…”

“You came… to me… and I… tried to… be stone…for the… first time…”

“I felt… what you felt… I… you kept… me stone… kept me… close… made me… forced me… to be… like you… and it… was good…”

“… Something… good… for the… first time… in a way… I don’t… understand… even now…”

Twilight only floated near it, listening. Listening as it spoke in so much pain. Knowing that just by looking at her, it suffered greatly, that by speaking so that she would understand, it was in agony. Enough pain to die, but it never would. It couldn’t. Trapped alone where it could be, and seeing the life outside so harmful to it. A single tear of pity fell from one closed eye.

“You came… with me…when you… didn’t… have to… why?”

“… Nopony deserves to be alone. Not even you. Not even if you killed everypony.”

“… I… don’t understand…”

“I know. But I don’t care. Can you tell me something?”

“Ask…”

“Why… why ‘my daughter’?”

A long moment. And then, ”You… are… my daughter… A piece of me… made… into you… The father… like… the daughter… but not… the same… I… knew that… I knew… that… it was… good… but now…”

“…You …must go...”

“And leave you alone again? Why?”

“It… decays… even now… stone turns… to flesh…”

“With you… there… I was Hope…”

“But here… I… become... Zern…”

“Hope… keeps you… wants to… be with… you… in stone…”

“Zern… wants… to unmake you… keep you… in Madness… a part… of him… Forever… flesh…”

“Hope… is fading… you… must leave… before… Hope is gone…”

Twilight felt something firm under her hooves, and a gentle push in one direction. She felt uncertain, but the simple desperation that Hope was speaking with made her hesitate. She would listen to him, and leave, but not without one last answer.

“What are you going to do now?”

“… Watch… A little… piece of me… in you… my power… safe…I have broken… it… it is… yours now… not mine… not Zern’s… flesh to… stone…”

“Go… Live… be… something… I can’t… understand…”

“I… will… always… watch… you… my daughter… Twilight… Sparkle…”

“… Goodbye Hope… goodbye… Father.”

“… Good… bye…”

Twilight hurried away. Running down the firmness, feeling it grow more and more different as she ran. She was crying for Hope as she did so. Trapped alone. Nothing like him. Only able to see what he couldn’t know, what would only hurt him by seeing it. Either more alone than anything else, or in agony if he tried to find something other than himself.

She felt herself changing as she ran. She felt what she had become, but with every step the changes reversed. Her wings slowly grew normal, her eyes lost their colors, everything different fell from her. She made sure of it. The little piece of Zern in her was dead, but not powerless. A little thought, and she was herself once again, plunging through the veil, and seeing the hole close behind her.

Hope watched her go. Racing along the thread. The little part of Twilight that Zern had taken sighed in relief. He had no words for the feelings. No words for his pain, or his happiness, nothing to describe himself.

Zern was a mad god, trapped alone. Wanting to tear reality apart, and make everything Madness. He was Madness, he was its maker, and its only inhabitant, and one of many. All at the same time. It was not a sad thing that he would never find his way to reality. He would only break it, and make Madness. He never could though. He never would, not even if Twilight returned. But for a moment, he had nearly made it.

Such agony to make a bit of her himself. Such pain to arrive in a place so unknowable. Such confusion, when Twilight tried to make him more like reality, and such… regret when he tried to make Twilight more like madness. Caught in between one thing and the other. A little real, and a little unreal. Twilight pulling him to reality, and him pulling her toward Madness. He regretted that he ever had tried. With her, he had preferred reality.

But though he hadn’t known anything, and only mimicked what Twilight had wanted he smiled. A life so short, but he had felt what they had felt. Felt the time passing, felt the feeling of being mortal. Felt affection, given and gained. Felt pain for the first time, felt the feeling of being held firm. It was… like he had gone insane for a little bit, and now those memories were incomprehensible, but he knew them. Hope knew them, and felt those things.

Hope faded into madness, and only left Zern. And Zern, the mad god, looked out. The little piece in Twilight was dead. He had done it himself. He couldn’t control it any more than he could control reality. But with it, he could see through her. Feel what she felt. Know her thoughts so unknowable.

Zern looked at himself. At the changes that Twilight had left behind, like a numb part of him. Stone breaking into flesh. It would be easy for him to remove it, to forget that it had ever happened. It always had been so with Zern. He never remembered the things of reality, but this time…

This time, he scarred himself with it. Kept it on him, a perpetual pain so he would always remember. Forever stone on flesh. So that he would never forget, before he forgot that he didn’t want to forget.

He remembered Hope, and wondered. Then he looked, and saw Twilight. Through time and space, watching her incomprehensible existence, the mere act of watching anguish. Saw her arrival back, saw the crowd around her. Saw her move and act, and recover from her trial. He hated it all, and wanted it gone for the pain it caused him, but there was just a tiny bit of something. A single mote of understanding.

It was good. It was good to her, even if it was bad to him. A tiny portion of knowledge, and he watched her live, and just a little, knew it was good.

He watched for a time, and then he remembered. He turned, and saw the lives in his madness. Every being slain by a thing, or an anomaly, or Hope, all trapped in Madness with Zern.

He had seen it before. Eventually, they would be a part of him. After they forgot reality altogether. He liked having them for as long as they remained, something other than himself to see. Something that moved without his will to move it.

But he had a thought. He looked at the dead form of Hope, and saw it. Twilight had been good. She had formed him well. A fully functioning pony, if not for the being it was made of. Zern watched it forever, and for no time at all, and then knew.

Knew what he might do, to make Twilight’s life a little bit better.

A single thought, and a monumental effort, and he stitched the lives in his Madness together, back to the shapes they once had. He could never understand them, but now, he could recall them, and had been something like them. A blueprint made by Twilight, and Twilight’s memories of them. Together, they let him remake them without understanding what he was making. But it wasn’t ready, not yet.

Nothing in Madness could touch reality. The veil was only delicate one way. To Twilight, it had been paper. To Zern, it was the hardest diamond, and the hottest of fires. Like the barrier that had once kept Twilight in Canterlot. Something he made in Madness would find it the same way.

But for just a moment, just a tiny bit of time, the mad god was truly insane. His unbreakable mind broke and he made reality from Madness, and then cast it out, back to Twilight. And then it had never happened, but the reality he had made remained. He stared out, and watched them go, and didn’t understand.

Twilight was happy to be back, and even Celestia openly showed her joy at having her return, whole and unchanged. It was a good time, even if the return was bittersweet. Twilight explained all that had happened, but kept what had been said in madness to herself. Kept most of what had happened between her and Hope to herself.

And though everything was safe once again, the madness of the past left a few changes.

Twilight’s friends spent more time closer to her. Making sure that she would never even begin to fear that they might turn their backs on her ever again. Everypony spent a little time in reflection. Pondering how fast life might turn, or end, leaving words unsaid and actions not taken.

For some, it was only a brief thought, maybe one that spawned an action or two not normally thought of. For others, they saw their mortality closely, and they were always changed because of it.

Even beings like Noctem were effected. He owed much to the heroes, and he had been reminded of their lifespans. So very short compared to his own. He was far closer now, even bearing the burn of the sun to be with them at times. He knew the folly of preemptive sadness, and though he sometimes thought about when they would be gone, made sure that the thought did not consume him.

Though perhaps Glitter had been the greatest change. Or the second greatest change at least. Twilight tried her best, wielded the bit of madness to try and fix her eyes, but to no avail. Glitter would, and always would, see and hear Zern for the rest of her life. But it wasn’t always so bad. It might have been, had she been afflicted before Zern met Twilight, but now, it was just a touch different.

Glitter saw Hope, and heard Zern. A touch of reality, enough to keep her sane when the mad god laughed. She would start at times, and scream and flail, but it never lasted long. Brave was near her, and Twilight was as well, keeping her calm. Sometimes it was enough that she would see her visions and not scream. One day she would see them without aid, and not even bat an eye.

The madness left wounds, but they were healing. It might take some time, but everyone would recover. And then the event happened, and some of it got much better, suddenly…

Twilight was in her castle once more, already sleeping well. Her prolonged time without the needs of life had left her a little forgetful of things like eating and drinking, but the body was good at reminding her. As was Spike when she got too into something. He was determined to never let her do something like she had ever again.

Brave was doing much better, his injuries purely physical. He lived with Twilight for now, along with Glitter. Glitter would not be separated from him, and he was in no condition to properly care for her, especially due to her visions.

Twilight had worked a few ways out for her to try and endure them, but it was slow work. It had been going much better, until one morning when she seemed as bad as ever. Screams and tears and flailing, when just yesterday she had stopped trying to harm herself.

It was after one of her visions that Twilight was talking to the young mare. Glitter collapsed on a couch, and Twilight and Brave near her. When she had stopped thrashing, Twilight ceased holding her down.

“You’re doing better.” She told Glitter.

“…Really?”

“Yep! Faster calming, and more control. What about these sights bothers you Glitter?” Twilight asked her. “I know that they’re… unpleasant, but why are you still terrified?”

Glitter seemed unwilling to tell her until Brave went to her side.

“Glitter, tell the princess.” He said.

“Its… it’s not always it that scares me. It’s just that… I can hear them again…”

Twilight cocked her head. “Hear who?” she asked.

“Root and Top. They’re… still screaming. I can hear them when the visions come. And… that terrifies me. Knowing that they’re stuck there, along with everypony else…”

“Everypony else?”

“Everypony that died in Canterlot. I can hear them all now. At first, it was just the two, but now I can hear them all. Not always, and not well, but I know they’re there. Suffering. And I think about how that was nearly me, and might still be me, and…”

Brave bopped her and she stopped, and looked at him in surprise.

“You are going nowhere Bright Glitter. It isn’t about to get you anymore. It can’t hurt you anymore.”

“But what about the others sir?”

Twilight looked away, wondering. She hadn’t heard anypony when she had been in Madness, and yet, Glitter did. Why? And why now in particular. Glitter had been doing much better right up until this morning.

And then they all heard something not unlike a teleportation, and were abruptly buried in ponies.

It took a few minutes for everypony to stop shouting in confusion, and get off one another and make room for each other, but by the time they had, Twilight and Brave and Glitter were staring in complete shock. Carrot Root and Carrot Top smiling at them, as if they had never gone. Every single pony who died in Canterlot, all of them seen by Twilight either dead or soon to be, alive again. The only real injury resulting from being stacked twenty deep.

They had no explanation for it, but the Carrot sisters tried.

“Everything was… bad.” Root said.

“Real bad. But then…” Top murmured in thought.

“Then it was…not bad.”

“Yeah! Like something let us go!”

“Made it stop being bad. So, Brave?”

“What’s the matter Root?”

“You and Glitter can get offa me now.”

They did so, and then Glitter jolted, her strange eyes seeing something else. Twilight and Brave tensed, but instead of her normal fear, she looked confused. She was still confused when she snapped out of it.

“Glitter?” Twilight asked.

“Um… Princess?”

Twilight waited for her, even as she tried to understand. “It… it said… it said ‘This is good. It is something for my daughter. Tell her that… she’s good’. In real words. That didn’t hurt at all. What… what happened?”

Twilight didn’t respond. Her grin could not be larger, and as they all watched, she jumped into the air and did loops, laughing and crying in simple joy.

They all thought she had snapped a bit. Being buried in ponies could do that to a mare, but Twilight was not thinking about that.

Zern had done this! For her! To make her happy! She hadn’t even realized that there were ponies still suffering, and that big, monstrous, incomprehensible, thing, had put them all back together and sent them back! The sheer agony it must have been to him to remake them, and for her!

Great Change might have felt affection to him, but for the first time Twilight Sparkle thought that the mad god might not be such a bad thing after all. Not if he would do that. Even if he had only done it for her. Even if he almost certainly did not understand what he had done.

She closed her eyes as she laughed, and imagined Hope again. She would never see him again, unwilling to go back, and unable to see through the veil to Madness.

Zern simply watched, the veil nothing to block his sight, and felt Twilight’s joy, and didn’t know what it was. But he knew it was good to her, and he smiled.

Two minds, for a short time so close, and now so far apart, remembering the other. They were so different, so incomprehensible to one another, so damaging to one another that those differences would never be resolved. They would never truly know the other more than the tiniest bit.

But Twilight looked back, and she forgave him. He had caused everything, but now, he had put it all back. He never would understand the damage he had caused, but he had fixed it all anyway. She looked at the mad god that she had hated so much, and felt just a touch of kindness toward him.

And Zern looked at her, and for the first time in his existence, for the first time since creation…

He looked on a piece of reality. And knew it just a tiny bit. And he didn’t hate it. He didn’t want it gone, or turned into Madness. She was just another thing that he would never understand, and he not only didn’t wish for her destruction, but he wished for her good. Wanted her to live as best as she would, in her way, and not his way.

His daughter was making the indications of her happiness, as aberrant as they were to him. And if she was happy, then he would be happy he decided. She truly was a Great Change. The greatest change.

But where he had thought that she would change reality, she had changed him. Took the Madness, and tried to make it understand. Took the mad god, and found the heart that was never there, and touched it. And Zern didn’t hate a piece of reality for the first time.

He truly loved her. His daughter that had done so much. Twilight Sparkle.