Gods Behind the Sun

II: Studying the Universe

The door to Golden Oak Library swung open, smacking hard into the adjacent wall. Spike jumped awake as the crescendo of noise burst through the building. Rubbing his eyes, he saw Twilight had returned looking rather tired - and rather shifty. With one final gasp of effort the field of magic round her horn vanished, as a large steel crate appeared in midair before crashing to the ground.

“Twilight…!? What in Equestria is that you’ve brought in here? Why was it cloaked?”

The unicorn responded through short, sharp breaths as she recovered. It was apparent that the effort of maintaining the levitation and invisibility spells for the entire train journey home had drained her somewhat.

“Well… Spike… it’s a, phew, it’s a crate of books. I found them in, in the Library. You need to keep this quiet, Spike. You never saw these. I… I think they may be really important to the Princesses.”

Spike sat back and listened as Twilight explained the whole event. He rubbed his chin in thought as she mentioned the ancient School and the vast marble doors. His mind drifted as he tried to think if those details sounded at all familiar to anything he’d heard of before, but nothing came to him.

“So… what do you think it all means Twi?”

Now it was Twilight’s turn to look thoughtful. “I don’t know Spike. Whatever they are, they must be of real significance. I’ve never heard of the School of Eyes, or seen marble structures like those doors. I can tell they must be ancient, though. And for something to have been locked away below the city for such a long time, they must be really important.”

“...Or dangerous, Twi.”

“What? Don’t be cowardly. These are scholarly books, they aren’t a collection of evil artifacts or something! These will give us insight into a world as old as the Princesses, perhaps a world even older! Imagine the sagely wisdom that could be sealed within these pages, just waiting to be discovered! Now, make yourself useful and hold the basement doors open for me. These books need locking away in safety.”

Cautious, Spike rose to his feet, descending the stairs and retreating to the basement doors. They crept open as he slowly split them apart, revealing the cold steps into the cellar. Spike didn’t like going down there, it was always horrendously cold, plus one could barely move for Twilight’s scientific apparatus. The purple unicorn rushed past him, grunting as the heavy crate weighed down on her mind. Zipping down the stairs, another crash reverberated around the room as she dropped the box to the ground. Twilight wiped her brow.

“Thanks for that Spike. Now, if you don’t mind, I have some reading to get to.”

With that she telekinetically drew the doors closed, leaving Spike to do whatever it was he did during his free time.

Wrenching the top of the crate aside, Twilight took a deep breath as she drew out one of the tomes. It was a heavy hardback book, it’s cover decayed beyond recognition. Pulling the book open, Twilight gagged as the scent of thousands of years of rot and fungi danced from the pages. Fortunately, all the pages were still readable, even if they were rather worse for wear. Blowing away some more of the dust, Twilight made out the title of the book, written across the innermost page.

Sky Song’s Study of the Extraterrestrial Influences Upon Eqiis.

With her interests thoroughly piqued and curiosity whispering through her mind, she began to read.

Page 34 -

“Day 27 of the Astral Study. Energy spikes within the Sun have now been recorded consistently every day since the beginning of the tests. These fluctuations have no sign of ending or growing weaker. In fact, evidence points to the fluctuations in fact grower stronger with time. Superior's advice is to continue studying the anomalies.”

Page 60 -

“Day 41 of the Astral Study. Energy spikes have now entirely dissipated. Whatever was the cause of such bizarre activity has now entirely ceased. However, shortly after the conclusion of this event, word was sent to our Superiors that the most noble Grand Duchess Darni had fallen severely ill. All of our studies are to be redirected into alleviating her illness. I personally feel this is a waste of our scholarly time, but the well-being of the Nobles is precedent.”

Twilight set the book down, rubbing her chin in thought. Grand Duchess Darni? Her knowledge of Equestria’s ancient history was limited, but she had been taught a little about the aristocracy by the Princesses, and she certainly didn’t recognize the name. Skipping ahead a few pages, she returned her focus to the book.

Page 67 -

“Studying Mistress Darni’s illness has yielded results that are, well, both disturbing and deeply bizarre. The illness was initially reminiscent of a fever, but it lingered far longer than any normal fever should do. Medication had no effect, and in fact only seemed to worsen her health. With time and more ‘in-depth’ studies, evidence would imply our good Grand Duchess is in fact pregnant. With the unfortunate death of the Duke just a few weeks prior, the Duchess had been in a period of deep grieving, and unable to bring herself to leave her chambers. With no recollection of any sexual engagements, the Superiors are investigating the possibility of a drugging and rape case. All guards posted to her quarters around the time of the event are to be interrogated about their possible involvement. With the Duchess’ sickness now correlated to pregnancy, we have been advised to return to our prior engagements. I must say I’m glad to be able to return to my observatory. The sky is so much more interesting than the events here upon the ground.”

The next 60 odd pages consisted largely of diagrams of the stars: constellations, far-off planets and asteroids, along with scribbles in a language Twilight didn’t recognize. She chose to copy out the words onto a piece of paper, in some vague hope she could spot patterns in the dialogue. Turning another page, the diagrams had suddenly stopped. Instead the pages were full of stressed, urgent notes, the writing messy and almost illegible, as if the pony that had written it had been in a hurry - or deeply shaken.

Page 135 -

“By the stars! The Grand Duchess’ babies have arrived, and they have immediately been brought to our school for study. Despite being born an unimaginable five months early, both foals are perfectly fit and healthy. But, more alarmingly, the foals have both wings and horns. It is as if they are some amalgamation of unicorns and pegasi… Naturally this has been kept under wraps, and we are under strict instruction that these secrets never leave this building. We are to study what, precisely, these two ponies are. One would presume it is purely mutation; a mistake in the divine design. But our Superiors are uncertain.”

Twilight was shocked, almost to the point of fainting. Her head had gone light as the words tumbled from the page. These foals must have been the Princesses! Nopony knew where those two majestic alicorns had come from, they’d always been more than a little coy about their history. It was always assumed they’d been alive since the conception of Eqqis itself, with no other evidence to go on… But these tomes suggested that not only were they born of a mortal pony, but it also suggested ponykind had been around long before them! B-But why would the Princesses hide such a fact from everypony? Twilight returned to the book, but found the remaining pages were all blank. After that prior entry, there was only one more short paragraph in the book.

Page 136 -

“The Grand Duchess is dead. Her heart gave out shortly after the birth of her foals. The Superiors are arguing with the Royal Consorts about whether or not an autopsy should take place before her funeral. They want to bring her cadaver here to the School to study. The way they speak, it sickens me. Perverse glee seems to drip from their tongues as they discuss cutting her open to study her heart and her womb. I’ll be no part of this. As of tomorrow I am surrendering my position here at the School of Eyes. I enrolled at this place to study the universe, not to involve myself with some sick, sexual pleasure from desecrating the corpses of our Royals.”

Twilight placed the book down, her heart and mind racing. Settling back in her chair, she took a moment to breathe. So, this stallion was a member of the School of Eyes, some kind of establishment studying the universe. Why were there books sealed away? The story of these alicorn foals had to go so, so much deeper in order to justify all of this secrecy... She felt a little queasy just thinking about it. Just one book had left her shaken, and how many more were there in that crate? At least ten, easily. Still, she’d started now. What point was there in ever stopping? Setting down Sky Song’s book, she set her eyes on another. This one was almost immaculate, light glinting enticingly off the gold embossed title. The pages too were gold-leafed, and the book felt incredibly heavy. This was clearly owned by somepony of a considerably higher standing than Sky Song. Holding the book in the light, Twilight read the title aloud:

Second Chief Scholar Hyeon, of the School of Eyes: Enlightened Knowledge of Above.

“...Above?” That was the other part of the warning message over the tomb door. Intrigued, Twilight cracked open the book, her stomach still more than a little uneasy.

Page 2 -

”The Grand Duchess’ autopsy yielded nothing out of the ordinary. Her anatomy was entirely normal, and her heart had given out due to stress, an unfortunate - though not uncommon - outcome of premature birth. Despite this, Grand Chief Scholar Gyebal has deemed it necessary to take her cadaver to his study for additional examinations. While nothing out of the ordinary has been found regarding Darni’s body, there is a lot of intrigue surrounding her foals. Some of the scientists that carried out the autopsy have suggested we kill one of the foals and study their anatomy too. While I would be all for this, I feel that such anomalies are a little too rare and extraordinary to nonchalantly destroy. I have instead advised we study the foals as they grow older to see how what becomes of them. The Grand Chief has just informed me that he grew a little too rambunctious in his studies of the Grand Duchess, and her body will have to be disposed of quietly. Honestly, the things I keep quiet to defend that stallion’s position in society.”

As the last few sentences seeped into Twilight’s mind, she found her uneasiness quickly replaced by horrendous disgust. Practically throwing the book aside she threw her head downwards, only to vomit violently over the cold cobbles of the basement floor. Taking several deep breaths she waited for it all to subside, before sitting up again. Awash with a sense of disgust, the unicorn called out, her voice meekly filling the basement.

“...Spike? C-Could you bring a mop down here please? I, I don’t feel well.”

Closing her eyes again she listened to scrabbling claws as Spike dashed about the Library. Metal clattered and water sloshed as he struggled with a mop and bucket down the stairs, retching at the heady smell permeating through the basement. Pinching his nose, he set about cleaning away the mess, focused on working quickly over working well.

“What in Equestria caused that? You haven’t eaten anything off, have you?” His speech was interlaced with Twilight's gurgles and splutters as her head lurched forwards again. Fortunately, despite continuous gagging, nothing else came up.
“S-Sorry Spike, I’m fine. It’s just the stuff in these books, it’s pretty heavy. Heavy and, well, really rather graphic.”

She sat quietly as Spike finished clearing up, before ushering the bewildered dragon away. His efforts were appreciated, but Twilight had to focus. She couldn’t be letting Spike distract her with petty chat. Rubbing her eyes, she returned to that most corrupt of books.

Page 14 -

“One of the scholars came to me last night with some rather insane theories. He’d been studying patterns in solar energy, and noticed they shared a pattern with our noble Aristocracy. Whenever an energy spike had been recorded, one of the female nobles had fallen pregnant shortly after. While correlation is not causation, I encouraged the stallion to study the case further. After some further snooping he found that almost all of these impregnations had in fact led to stillbirths and miscarriages, a fact that neither I or the Grand Chief were made aware of. These tragedies must have been kept a strict secret among the Royal family. Clearly they were hit with considerable panic when the foals were finally born, or else we at the school would presumably be none the wiser. With permission from Gyebal, I intend to direct every scholar’s investigations to the subject of these births. I believe that these solar abnormalities are somehow involved with these impregnations, and perhaps are even the force creating these unicorn-pegasi hybrids.”

Page 73 -

“A year has passed since the beginning of these studies, and hideous things are starting to become apparent. The scholars are starting to become convinced something - or some things - are alive in the sun. They don’t know what, but they are certain that they wield some kind of massive celestial power. The energy spikes consistently led to impregnations of the female nobles here in Equestria, and it seems likely that many were without the involvement of any males. These divine impregnations will have some scientific explanation, but the realization has severely unhinged some of the scholars. Many of the astronomers have locked themselves in their studies, their eyes and ears locked on the sun at all times. They won’t come out for food or water, convinced that the drive for knowledge will keep them alive. I’m becoming convinced that insanity is taking hold, but Gyebal will hear none of it. He’s just putting it down to enthusiasm.”

Twilight tried to continue, but she could feel her vision going slightly blurry. The words morphed into one, the whole page slowly melting away into nothingness. Reeling backwards she clutched at her head, stunned by the ferocity of the sudden headache. Bizarrely it passed as quickly as it had arrived, leaving Twilight understandably confused. She had a large stack of paper next to her that she’d been furiously scribbling notes over, beside which she placed Hyeon’s book. It seemed to her that she needed to find the book of one of these astronomers if she wanted real answers. Hyeon and Sky Song before him had both seemed somewhat skeptical of these celestial powers, but Twilight was becoming convinced they had some truth to them. They had to. What other explanation was there for all of this? Scrabbling through the box, Twilight searched for a book that could’ve belonged to one of those more dedicated astronomers. Eventually, she set her eyes upon a dirty, decrepit book, smeared in ink and what appeared to be blood. She shuddered on the sight, before focusing on the title:

THE GODS BEHIND THE SUN

And beneath that, a name:

Red Night.

Opening the book to the first page, Twilight began to read, closely investigating the bizarre diagrams accompanying the words.

Page ? (The bottom of the book had been damaged beyond recognition, the pages soaked in some long-dried liquids.)

“I can hear them all. They sing and shriek to one another like banshees and sirens. Not just one, but many! Hundreds, nay, thousands! All screaming and bickering with one another, jostling for space, jostling to be free! They live within the Sun, trapped by it’s fiery walls. With the spells that Gyebal granted me access to, I have been able to communicate with those souls, hear their plights! They control everything, and yet they are trapped, formless, unable to truly rule the universe they conceived! Clearly few before me have had the capability of communicating with them, for they begged me for assistance! Extraterrestrial souls, pleading with me! They showed me all they were capable of, and spoke in hushed whispers of their future!

While they may be formless, they can still influence the universe! It is said they have toyed with taking over the minds of ponies many a time in the past, so they can finally have a physical body! Tragically, every host has been driven to insanity whenever it was attempted, be them unicorn, pegasus, or lowly earth. Our minds are simply too weak to inhabit such almighty beings, but hope has not been lost! Some have delved into the most sordid of affairs, impregnating affluent mares of noble blood in order to conceive offspring of uniquely strong mind and body. They referred to such offspring as 'alicorns', almighty hybrids of unicorn and pegasus. Alas, they mused that such divine impregnation commonly led to stillbirth. But hark, not this time! Two strong alicorns were born by Darni’s womb, bless her soul! Those children of hers already contain two formless souls, just waiting for their bodies to grow strong! Once they age and develop the ability to speak they can reveal to us mortals just who they are! Then they will be able to take their rightful place as lords of Equestria, leading us into a new era! I need to know more! Soon I will commune with those formless elders again, and will eagerly write their words!”

Eagerly turning the page, Twilight was shocked to see the following piece of paper was blank. As was the next, and the next, right up to the end of the book. Every page up until now had been fit to burst, right before this sudden stop. She presumed answers could be found in the later pages of Hyeon’s book, considering she'd barely gotten a third of the way through his work before. Plus, as the one of the ponies apparently in charge of the School, his notes had to contain evidence of a scholar suddenly leaving the establishment, as Red Night presumably did. Why else would he have gone quiet? Skimming along, she searched for the name Red Night, until eventually it burst out from the page.

“One of the scholars came to my room last night and woke me with a start. He sounded panicked. Through his wobbly voice I understood that Red Night seemed to have hurt himself. Ponies passing his room could hear sobs and cries of anguish from within, and one noticed a thin trail of blood dripping out from under the door. They went to assist him, but he'd locked himself away in his little study room. Being the only pony with a master key, I had to be asked to open the door. Upon arriving at his room with several scholars and guards at my back, I happened on the most morbid of sights. The scene before me haunts my soul, and to even dare recollect it leaves me sick. All I care to say was that he had been driven to suicide, perhaps by the images shown to him by those bizarre beings above. I quickly had his body incinerated, and swore the other ponies that bore witness to secrecy, or else their careers at the school would be swiftly terminated.”

Strange, the story just wasn't adding up. Why would somepony be sworn to silence after witnessing a suicide? Why all the secrecy? And on top of that, why could Red Night be heard crying and screaming in pain? If he’d attempted suicide it surely would’ve been something quick, like the snapping of one’s own neck with magic. Why would he choose an option that was potentially slower, more painful, and less reliable? Something was wrong, and Twilight was convinced the secrets laid with either Hyeon and the elusive freak, Gyebal. The pony in charge of it all. If anyone was going to have the whole story, it would be him. Twilight craned her head down into the crate, scouring for Gyebal’s name. Nothing at first, but then - there it was! Buried away at the bottom!

Ascension, Masterly Scholar Gyebal

Resting the book on the desk, Twilight reeled backwards. A stabbing pain had shot through her skull, lurching round her brain and searing across the back of her eyes. Her whole head fizzed and popped as the pain lingered. But unlike the pain she’d suffered earlier, this one lingered. It was a full half an hour of pain before the sensations finally dampened, an experience that had shaken Twilight to her core. Despite the pain, she began to look over the text, impatient to understand it all.

Page 17

“After a mere four years in the care of myself and the doctors, our two young alicorns are capable of speaking! I’d grown incredibly fond of them, especially that sweet little Celestia, very quickly. The doctors and scientists protested to them sleeping in my quarters with me, but I would hear none of it. I wanted to be able to wake up and watch them whenever I desired. Watch their wings flutter and their horns spark as they played. It made me feel like I was the father of a new generation. Little Celestia just spoke her first words, and young Luna seemed to pick up the ability moments later. Their speech is perfect, eloquent, perhaps even angelic! Yes, they are still children, but children with a knowledge far surpassing all of ponykind! I have locked the doors, and plan to do nothing but sit with them, listening to their stories. Everything they say shall be recorded, as I’m sure those scientists banging at the door will want to know more some time.

Young Celestia spoke predominantly. She explained that she and her sister were beings forged from fire hundreds of thousands of millennia ago, long before Eqiis was even conceived. Their 'real' names were Dies and Noctis, which hurt me a little. I'd always known them as Celestia and Luna (it was even me that chose those names for the young fillies), and now to know them differently made me feel like I didn't know them at all. Lo, there was nothing I could do. Once the two were born they lacked form, forced to float around space like gas. Slowly more formless ones came into being, and as each one did a new part of the universe came into existence too. Celestia was the first, and so she became the Goddess of the Sun. Young Luna was born after Eqiis had formed, and she became the Goddess of the Moon. Some gods embody physical things, some embody concepts - both kind and spiteful. There are also gods with physical bodies, though Celestia and Luna both seemed unequivocally scared to delve any deeper. They mentioned fleetingly that one of these gods resided deep within Eqiis’ core, but they shared nothing more. The little mare told me that many of the concepts would be far to foreign to a pony to even comprehend, so to save my sanity she tried to keep it all simple. Bad things happened to ponies that received godly knowledge unfiltered - perhaps they spoke in reference to Red Night’s unfortunate passing.

When a mare of noble blood is impregnated by a formless god, an alicorn foal is conceived. These alicorn bodies have minds powerful enough that a formless one can inhabit them. Ms. Celestia explained it to me with the analogy of a ‘soul’. Divine impregnation commonly leads to the death of the fetus, as the bodies of mortal ponies can rarely handle such an ordeal. The formless communicate telepathically with one another, a skill still held by those alicorn ‘inhabitants’. Celestia and Luna were kindly souls, so they continued to commune with the formless beings above that they’d had to leave behind, as a sign of respect for the power they held. And what great power it would be. ‘We’ve not developed to our potential yet’, Celestia explained, ‘but once these vessels age, we will be able to fulfill our destiny as protectors of Equestria’. I asked about the creation of alicorns, and if divine conception was the only way. Celestia’s pretty little face went even whiter at that comment.

‘No-o’, she stuttered - strange, she’d been nothing but confident beforehand, even when discussing dark concepts. She explained that we mortals could categorize alicorns in three different ways: Divine conception, physical conception, or ‘ascension’. She shuddered when she mentioned the third term - naturally causing my eyes to light up with intrigue. We already understood divine conception, so I didn’t press any further. Physical conception was as simple as it sounded: the physical breeding of an alicorn male and female. But with no alicorn males in existence, this was impossible. To my eternal shame, I was a little too eager to question them on whether a strong unicorn male would be capable of impregnating such fine specimens, not to mention me asking if we should try, regardless of the outcome. In an effort to lighten the atmosphere I changed the subject to that third topic, ‘ascension’. They were anxious to move on, but pressing the mares for comment worked. The ‘Ascended’ are the result of a mortal unicorn's mass accumulation of knowledge. As a pony learns more, and they are presented with the dark secrets of the universe, their brain and body begin to expand - both physically and metaphorically. They lose their sanity, but their body transforms into that of an alicorn in the process. With their bodies ascended and their minds weakened, a formless one can ‘take the place’ of the host, crushing the original ‘soul’ and inhabiting the body. The little ponies’ eyes darted around the room as they told the story, quivering slightly at the barbarity of it all. ‘That was what was happening to your acolyte, Red Night. He had become hypnotized by the power, being exposed to far too much. His body began to change shortly before he locked himself away, and the process would have been completed if your associate Hyeon hadn’t executed him.'; Naturally, this revelation made me incredibly angry, but young Celestia and Luna both looked oddly accepting of it all, as if it were for the best. Regardless of what they think, I can’t say I agree. I do not plan on mentioning it to the mares, but I will be encouraging my other scholars to follow Red Night’s path. But this time, Hyeon will find himself ‘otherwise engaged’. With the mares rapidly growing tired, I bid them goodnight and left them to rest. I had instruction to pass along to my loyal scholars. The School of Eyes was about to be written into the history books:

The birthplace of Gods.