What…
She stirred with a dull-burning sensation across her body. Her mind swirled with the motion of whirlpool. Her sight blurred as if she was looking through thick black glass. Where was she? Why did she feel like this? After what could be perceived as an eternity to her tired mind the feelings subsided and new feelings took the place of the old ones. The burning sensation became that of a warm hug of light beating down on her fur. The whirling became the calmness of a pond. Her vision became crystal and the world came into focus. The mare blinked her eyes rapidly to clear the last of the fog from her sight.
Grass as green as aquamarine and trees of sunset orange and red surrounded her stationary form. A groan escaped her lips as she rolled onto her stomach. The cool soil sent a shiver through her body like a lightning bolt. Her head swiveled around to gain a better understanding of her surroundings.
“Where.. am I?” She asked to nopony. Then she felt it or rather didn’t feel anything, not a single one, not a single soul, not a single pony. She scrambled to her hooves in a panic reaching out with her magic. Nothing. “Wh-where is every pony?” She asked hoping for a response from someone, anyone. There was no response. The mare was now very afraid. ‘What happened? Where is everypony and why can't I sense them?’She tried to recall from before she awoke. The last memory she could recall felt… distant… like it was long, long ago.
Smiling faces, her friends, her student, Spike…. She was with them, they were all happy. They were all sitting at a table… in Canterlot. The day was just right, warm, but not hot, a few clouds but not overcast, a gentle breeze but not distracting. It was… perfect…
It suddenly became dark, cold…. Sad. The smiles were gone, replaced by fear and distress… then pain. Faces of those she cared most about were frozen in unforgiving, unrelenting pain.
Her cheeks were a cliff the stream of tears from her eyes made into a waterfall. Her mind empty, unwilling to believe the memory that seemed so long ago. Soon her mind felt a tug. It was far away. Looking in the direction of the sensation she could see a blinding light… the sun… it was calling for her…. Command… Behind her she felt another tug also far away but not as far, it was below the horizon, the moon was also calling…
Without a thought as if it were instinct she let her magic flow. The sun began to move. It moved below the horizon while behind her the moon rose above it. Stars began to fill the sky as the days light faded below the horizon. The landscape became bathed in the soft glow of the moon… her moon…
The dam that was her tear ducts broke and a tourent broke forth. Her cheeks were once more a raging waterfall. Her mind, this time, was a typhoon of sorrow and denial. A wail of sadness escaped her throat as she fell to the cold soil once more.
Gone… they were all gone, she was alone. She did not want to accept it, but her mind told her it was true. She wished so badly that this was just some nightmare... It was not… this was real. She could not deny it… she wished she was ignorant and for the first time in her life, she cursed her own intellect. They were all dead… Celestia, Luna, her friends, her brother and his wife… her niece, her student, and Spike. All of them gone… they were no more… all of equestria was gone, no her entire world gone. More memories flooded back.
The ground ripped apart like paper, the air was thick with sulfur and grew hot. Winds ripped past her as ponies dropped dead around her. Some choked or suffocated from the ash and sulfur, others fell to their doom, some were crushed under buildings. The world was falling apart and she could only watch helplessly as countless lives were lost.
Many pleaded for her help, but she could do nothing. One pony was missing half their body… they asked for her to kill them… to end their suffering. Many more followed asking the same. “Kill us… please,”
‘Kill us’ the voices echoed in her mind over and over again. They suffered and asked for her to stop the suffering… and she did nothing….
Once more she broke into tears. The ground beneath her head became muddy, but she didn't care… she could not… because it did not matter anymore. She was alone… Soon her exhaustion overtook her and she drifted off into a dreamless, sorrowful sleep.
A tug once again pulled at her mind. Arousing her from her sleep. Once her vision was crystal she sat up. Her cheeks were stained with her tears but they no longer flowed for she had no more tears left to cry. Her mind once more felt the tug. The sun was requesting to rise… her sun. Turning to the horizon which the moon had risen before she allowed her magic to flow. Once again it all felt instinctual. The stars fade from the sky as the moon fell below the horizon. Soon the sun bathed the world in its life giving light.
Life… she looked around her. It was everywhere… if equestria was gone… then what was all of this? Her mind was drawn to a glint of light in the dirt to her left. Getting to her hooves she went to examine the reflected light.
A gasp escaped her mouth as she came across a strange necklace… with six different colored gems. An amethyst colored six-pointed star rested in the middle surrounded by the other five gems, a red lightning bolt, a pink butterfly, a blue balloon, an orange apple, and a purple diamond. The elements of harmony… the survived.
Taking the necklace in her magic Twilight lifted it above her head and slid it down around her neck where it rested against her bearal. A single tear ran down her muzzle… but no more followed.
Once more she looked around to get a better understanding of her surroundings. Her mind was still a torrent. She needed to find some semblance of certainty to calm her mind. Further ahead of her she could see the shimmer of a lake.
Suddenly her mouth felt dry, very dry. ‘When was the last time she drank anything or ate anything for that matter?’ She did not know. She made her way to the lake in long slow strides… She felt taller… she did not know why…. She made it the lake. Once again she gasped this time at her reflection.
It took her some time to recognize the mare staring back at her. It was herself, but she looked like her old mentor… Her coat was lavender and her mane had the same bangs she always remembered having… But she was indeed taller, her horn was longer and her muzzle was more like that of a mature alicorn. Turning to look at her side to gaze at her wings as she extended them out. They were huge.
Turning her attention back to the lake and her reflection. She stood there for several more moments lost in her thoughts… The dryness of her mouth reminded her of her dehydration. Bringing her head down she greedily drank from the lake.
The sun was almost at peak when she brought her head up to stare across the lake. Her thoughts had finally calmed and now one thought plagued her mind; “What now?”
When…
Memories…. It felt like there was a huge gap in them, like an eternity was missing. Before the gap was her last memory. It felt like an ancient memory, like an entirely different lifetime. Once more she could feel her emotions welling up. Her heart felt heavy as she fought back tears attempting to return… She shook her head. There was no use in crying… ‘How much time has passed?’ She asked herself. Looking back at her reflection she pondered. It must have been so long ago then… she was far larger than she remembered Celestia being, and Celestia was thousands of years old… “Thousands of years? Is that how long it has been?” She asked herself aloud. Once more she fought back tears. The tightness in her chest returned like her heart was being crushed under the weight of the universe. This time a tear did slip through, but no more.
She stood back up on her hooves and moved away from the lake. Concentrating her thoughts on her missing memories. What were they? Why could she not recall anything? Did it have a correlation to this strange world she woke up on?
This world what was it? The mare looked around at her surroundings. She could take in the complete view now that her mind was more stable. She was in some sort of sparse forest around a large lake. From what she could discern she woke up in a clearing along the bank of the aforementioned lake.
What really drew her attention was how unusual the foliage was. The grass was a soft aquamarine blue-green, while the trees had a burnt-orange coloration. Shrubs that lined the floor of the forest also had this strange orange coloration. The bark of these trees had a crimson-brown tint to them almost like brick.
“What are these plants?” She asked, At that point she realized that she was just adding questions onto a pile and it was beginning to feel redundant to ask. She continued to examine the flora… it felt familiar…
She landed on the barren landscape. She was exhausted, but she wasn’t done yet. Magic began to flow through her horn. A soft, ghostly energy shimmered down onto the lifeless soil. From where the energy touched plant life shot fourth; grass, aquamarine in color.
]Upon seeing her spell work she smiled. The grass began to expand out from where she stood, showing no sign of stopping. Looking to the west she began to trot at a slow, steady pace. The grass continued to grow and spread out word from wherever she stepped and her magic touched.
Her pace increased and before long she was galloping across the barren surface leaving an expanding cone of grass in her wake. Soon other flora began to spring up. Trees of varying shapes sizes and colors. Every tree had some varying shade of, red, orange, or yellow; like it was always autumn.
For days she galloped across the surface of the world spreading life wherever she went. Eventually her exhaustion become too much. She couldn’t run any longer. She stopped and collapsed… by a lake….
It did not matter, however, here task was done. The world now had life. There was one more thing that needed to be done… but she was too exhausted. Soon she fell into a deep sleep…
“I made this?” She said in awe. Taking a step back she once more scanned the area with her vision. All of it she grew… but why? Does that mean she also created this world…
…
…
Once again her mind was in chaos. Twilight shook her head to clear her mind once more along with taking deep breaths. Once her nerves were calmed and her mind too, one more question entered her mind; “When did I do this?”
Author's Note
Sorry for the slightly shorter chapter. The next one will be much longer I promise.
Where and Why
Trees… grass… mountains… rivers… lakes; these were the things that Twilight passed as she made her way across this strange world. This world… she only just now realized it but she was connected to it in some way… She did not know why, but that was not the question that was on her mind. She had already come to terms with her being the last of her kind, there was nothing she could do about it, it was fact.
No, the question was less of why and more of where. More or less. She knew where she was not, but that only helps so much, so now she travels; exploring this strange world that she may or may not have created… how she did so was still a mystery to her, but once again that was not her primary question… or was it?
Twilight stopped abruptly. Maybe if she knew how she got here she would now where she was. “That’s it!” She exclaimed. Her excitement died down when the reality of her situation came crashing down on her. She had no recollection as to how she got here. This lead her to another question, what were these memories that she was missing. Looking down at the elements that hung around her neck, she spoke, “I don’t assume you know do you?”
At the realisation she just asked a bunch of gems slung around her neck a question as if they were actually ponies, the mare sighed, “great I’m already going mad,” she droned. What surprised her the most is how well she had accepted her own situation, which actually raised more questions.
…
…
…
Eventually she began to roam again, lost once more in her thoughts as she attempted to think of a way to recall her memories… Then it hit her, quite literally. She was so distracted by her own thoughts that she ran muzzle first into a wall of stone, taking a few steps back to regain her bearings and a shake of her head to refocus her thoughts. As she looked up, she was greeted by a steep cliff.
This cliff was far from normal, it was quite tall, at least sixty hooves high if she had to guess, and stretched from north to south beyond the horizon in either direction. This too, like the flora, also felt familiar…
Her magic flowed into the crust of the planet. She felt around, felt every inch of the new world, then with a pulse of magic, the crust fractured into many different plates. She grabbed two different plates and slammed them together. Huge, jagged mountains formed at the point of impact.
She reached out for two more pieces of the planet’s fractured crust. Once more she slammed them together. This time, however, one slid over the other creating a chain of volcanoes.
She did this several times until she was satisfied. Flying over to one of the huge tectonic plates she charged her magic. After a few moments she released her magic into a tight beam of energy that cut right through the crust. Continuing to fly over the proto continent she cut large non-specific shapes out of the crust, she repeated this four other times.
After the seventh irregular shape was carved into the crust she flew high up to see the proto-continent in its entirety. Once more she reached out with her magic this time griping at the cut outs in the crust with her magic. With a great amount of force and a heave of her head the cut outs were wrenched upwards away from the crust of the young continent.
Releasing her magic she looked down to inspect her work, seven large mesas of varying size and and shape. One, many times larger than the others, occupied the center of large tectonic plate.
Smiling she flew back down to the surface to begin her next task.
Twilight fell to her rump as the world came back into focus after reliving the memory. To say she was a bit shocked at the memory would be a massive understatement.
“Wow…. I made this?” She asked rhetorically as she stared at the massive cliff face. She sat there for several moments longer before getting back to her hooves. “I need to know more,” she stated with a small bit of determination. She now knew how to recall her lost memories and she wasn’t going to stop until she remembered everything that she had forgotten.
Twilight spread her wings, with a mighty flap she took to the sky and over the cliff. She continued to fly east, she was going to learn as much of this world as she could, maybe then she’ll have all her questions answered.
As she flew over the beautiful landscape she noticed something was missing, there were no animals, another question that she hoped would be answered in time. As she flew she came to a large blue body of water… an ocean.
Adjusting her wing position she made a slow, shallow dive for the beach. Upon touchdown she trotted a few meters before coming to a complete stop, once she had stopped her senses took in the ocean. The sound of waves crashing against the shore, the salty smell, the wind, she closed her eyes and took it all in.
The world below her was barren. It had some form to it, but there was something missing, turning away from the planet to look deep into space. Reaching out with her magic she searched, then she found it, comets. With a single tug, a wave of icey space rocks came hurtling towards the planet. The comets charged towards the surface of the young world, but before the large icy space rocks could impact the surface they were vaporized by the mare’s magic, for the world possessed no atmosphere yet.
Turning around once more to the vastness of space she reached out again, another swarm of comets came hurtling towards the developing world, and were vaporized before impact.
The young world was now covered in a thick cloud layer. The mare made her way down to the surface to see her work. Once on the surface she looked up at the clouds that now hung above her.
Her magic began to charge, then with a flick upward, a beam of energy shot up and into the cloud layer. A purple shockwaves ripples through the thick clouds across the world, after a few tense moments, it began to rain, soon it was a heavy downpour.
The mare smiled and watched as her world filled with water. She watched it until it had seized. Taking to the sky once more she would begin her next task.
The world came back into focus as the memory faded, she was back on the beach sitting down while looking out across the water.
“Wow... how much time has passed since I did that?” she pondered while looking at the sand under her. “It must have been thousands of years… or did I do something else?” she asked, she sat in silence for several moments longer.
“I need to learn more,” she said abruptly before standing up. She spread her wings before giving them a mighty flap and taking to the air once again. She flew over the water in hopes of uncovering more of her memory and revealing more about this strange world.
As Twilight flew over one of the world’s large oceans, she began to put all the pieces together. The world she was born and grew up on was gone, destroyed. She did not know how or why but she vaguely remembered it happening. Now she wakes up on a new world much older than she last remembered. In the short time after waking up she discovered that she was missing a large number of her memories from the time her world was destroyed to the moment she had awoken. Soon she began to recall these lost memories by observing specific aspects of this world.
It was clear at this point that this world was created by her, the same could be said about the sun and the moon that she now controlled. The question of why she decided to create a new world instead of travel the stars and look for a new one… it was clear now that she thought about it. To carry on the legacy of her teacher and the other ponies that were destroyed along with her old world.
How she survived and they didn’t, she did not know, she was not sure if she would ever know. A tear ran down the side of her cheek… What would she do once she had recovered most of her memories?
Soon the lavender alicorn came across a new land mass, flying past its beaches, she flew inland, there she saw new land structures, ravens. Large, deep chasms scarred the surface of this continent. A large number of swamps littered the surface along with many wetlands.
Angling her wings she made her way towards the largest ravine in her field of vision. It was massive, if she had to guess, it probably stretched for at least a good eighty meters deep. It was also wide, at least ten meters so. Making her way down she could see the many layers of rocks along the walls of the ravine….
Flying across the surface she found one of the many proto continents she had just created. Stopping high above it she plunged towards the surface while encasing herself in her magical aura. She impacted the surface so violently that a large fissure formed.
Grabbing it with her magic she pulled the fissure open violently, magma began to rise, but she did not let it, casting a spell she forced it to cool instantly. With a flap of her wings she returned back to where she was moments ago before plunging again towards the surface to repeat the process.
After an undesirable amount of time she flew high to inspect her work. Dozens of ravines of differing shape and size littered the young continent. Soon she returned to the surface and into one of the large cracks in the ground. The walls were barren, she frowned.
Lighting up her horn she reached out to the planet as a whole. Her horn flared and the planet was morphed and reformed. Once she opened her eyes the walls of the crevice were now lined with layers of different colored rock. With a smile and a sigh of exhaustion she flew up to do her second to last task.
Twilight returned to reality with her mouth agape. Her mind was trying to process what her memories told her was true. ‘Am I really that powerful now? Am I so powerful that I can change the chemical composition of an entire planet?’ The question was kind of redundant, she had just seen it from her own memories.
“Am I… a god now?” She asked as she fell to her haunches while staring at her hooves. The reality of what she has done up to this point had now fully impacted her, she was not just powerful, she could manipulate the universe to her will. She could rearrange the atomic structure of atoms! She could literally turn lead to gold and back again…
“Who am I?”
