The Lasser effect

Twilight Sparkle and two of her friends, Pinkie Pie and Rarity, were gathered around the Cutie Map which sat inside the Friendship Castle. What soon followed would be a tragic act of unexplainable events: a knock sounded at the door which alerted both the friends; Twilight, however, was too intertwined with a book to acknowledge the disturbance. After a lengthy silence, one of the two sighed in defeat knowing that she was the one who was going to open the door.

Twilight was studying an arcane magic; the raw, unbridled kind that related to time. Her cause was to further study the particular case in which Starlight Glimmer, a rogue unicorn, used a powerful spell with such a high requirement for skill; something that even the father of magic, Starswirl the Bearded, had troubles performing.

Rarity answered the door with a hefty pull, she found the famous mailmare of Ponyville standing next to a large antique mirror, which was in the careful hooves of two abled carriers. With eyebrows raised, she asked, “What seems to be the occasion? A gift, or some gaunty item which Twilight ordered?”

“I just don’t know,” the mailmare begins, “it is supposed to be a mirror. Other than that, I’m rather clueless to the whole thing. I was told, ‘Deliver this here mirror to the Princess.’ and that is what I am doing!” After a glare from the other two, she amended, “With help of course!”

“Uh-huh,” Rarity replied while looking opening the door widely, “why don’t you come set that inside, I’ll go check with Twilight about where she wants it?” As she turned to leave, a realization crossed her, “This is for your troubles,” she said while levitating a few gems to the group.

The mailmare shook her head, “We aren’t supposed to take tips; besides we were already paid for the delivery!” The other two nodded in affirmation and began to heave the mirror up for carrying.

“Well… suit yourselves. I’ll go check with Twilight,” the purple maned mare explained before she fully turned to leave the group to their work. “For now, why don’t you just set that anywhere; I’m sure Twilight can take care of the rest.” With that, she trotted back to the Cutie Map room.

Sometime later, and Twilight was able to get a good look at the mirror. She found herself admiring it with a sort of newfound passion. A title on the paper that came with it said that the mirror was a Lasser Glass; the name sounded familiar to the scholar, she recalled something she read: Lasser, the original owner, died of an unknown and mysterious circumstance.

Pinkie and Rarity exchanged glances, one that said ‘I don’t like this’. They knew how she was around new, magical items; but this seemed different. This seemed like a fixation, and an unnatural one at that. She removed the tattered cloth covering the mirror, a large crack adorned the corner, and it sent out a small cloud of dust.

The mirror looked aged, but it was still unique. After what felt like two minutes of staring, the group broke eye contact towards the glass and they found that it was now night out. Rarity and Pinkie stared shocked back to each other once again; moments later and they were staring from the nearby window to the mirror.

Twilight searched the room frantically, after a few seconds she began to blink. She could have sworn that she heard somepony whispering, yet she couldn’t figure out where it was originating. Hopefully, I’m not going crazy and I won’t need to tell the others, Twilight thought.

The mares found that it had been six hours since they first viewed the mirror. Twilight began to circle the Lasser Glass; she wondered if it could alter the ponies’ minds and realities. She also wondered if she was giving it too much thought.

From their long, awkward gazing in silence, Pinkie and Rarity willed the other to ask the question that had been on their minds. Finally, Pinkie drew a breath and asked the question, “Twilight, are you sure we should be playing around with this mirror?”

“Let’s learn what we can about this,” she replies simply. She began to shift through her books and tomes, looking for stories and myths about the Lasser Glass. The first step was discover all that they could about the previous owner; after a relatively short search Pinkie found what they were looking for: a short article in a book about crimes. It read along the lines of this: two siblings, a brother and a sister, lived together, and at one point the brother ended the life of his sister in cold blood; the sister’s body was found in front of the mirror with a spike in her barrel.

Other recounts told about how the events were hard to explain, that both the siblings actions could be based upon the psychological events of their past. The brother had shot their parents until they died. However, there were also cases that took place around the mirror that dated back to the birth of Equestria.

Three hours passed, during which Twilight’s friends had left for their own homes leaving Twilight to herself. She was reading through all the information that she managed to find out; from the mirror having a magical and perhaps even a supernatural quality (even though she knew that there was no such thing as supernatural). It was perplexing, and as she continued to wrap her mind around the glass, she couldn’t help but feel that she didn’t really understand it. Once again, the glass whispered to Twilight, but it went unnoticed at first; as the whispers became more and more apparent and pronounced, Twilight was finally able to truly notice it.

She called out into the dark, “Is anypony there? You should show yourself, it isn’t polite to stay hidden.”

The voice, or rather voices, blended together and in a rough, mashed tone said, “Everything is fine.”

Twilight looked around confusion etched across her features, before she decidedly relaxed and went back to her studies. After several seconds passed, she began to play and toy around with her books while she read, but she had finished all the informative reading and was now just reading through whatever she could find. Her lips felt dry, parched even; so she teleported a single bottle of water, after twisting off the cap she held it to her lips, where she took a long draw.

She gasped, and wheezed; her throat inflamed, it felt like she had drank an entire bottle of acid, and her eyes began to water. Soon, a hole would be burned through her throat (or so she thought), and she would bleed all over the place before the inevitable happened. Twilight stumbled around, she needed to contact one of her friends or even Spike, but she found herself to be too weakened. She shuddered, while rubbing at the bumps that wasn’t there, and the soreness spread; it wouldn’t take long before everything went dark, and she would draw her last breath.

The Lasser Glass hummed softly, the whispers made nary a sound in the air, and then there was Twilight’s almost spastic voice.