The Devil You Know

The sarcophagus rumbled as the lid slid open suddenly.

Gingerly, Twilight crept up to the open sarcophagus and peered inside. The stench of death greeted her nostrils and a chill ran down her spine as she stared down at the desiccated corpse of the Nightmare herself.

The body was frozen and contorted into a death spasm, her back arched in a painful arc. The mare’s head was thrown back in a howl of anguish, revealing a set of long, sharp fangs, her mane a matt of thin, silvery strands, clinging to her scalp. The Nightmare’s fall had not been a painless one, it seemed.

“What in Celestia’s name is that?” Rainbow gasped, peering over her shoulder.

“Luna,” Twilight said, simply. “Or what she turned into, at least.”

Rainbow blanched. “And we’re waking this thing up?”

“We’ve come this far. There’s no turning back now.”

Twilight gazed down at the corpse of the Nightmare, the vacant eye sockets staring back at her in silent rage. The inside of her coffin was inlaid with spell diagrams so close together it was almost impossible for her to distinguish them all. Here, Starswirl had laid down his final test for those who had gotten this far.

The diagrams were arranged into interlocking circular patterns, each marked with sets of runes and letters in Old Ponish.

“Not making it easy, eh?” Twilight muttered, hovering out her collection of books and laying them out.

“You can understand all that stuff?” Rainbow asked.

“Egghead, remember?”

Rainbow smirked, “How could I forget? Can you crack it?”

“Are you kidding? This was laid out by one of the most formidable mages in Equestrian history. This could take weeks!” Twilight commented, scratching her head.

“Weeks?!” Rainbow gasped, only to frown at Twilight’s smirk. “What?”

“I’m joking. With Starswirl’s texts here, I should be done in a jiffy,” she said, chuckling to herself.

“Very funny,” Rainbow snorted, though there was the ghost of a smile on her face.

Twilight grinned at her before she set to work on the diagrams.

Her smile faded as the realisation that she would be conducting dark magic around a shrivelled corpse hit her.

“Okay, Twilight,” she muttered to herself with a gulp. “You've got this.”

She set to work, carefully reaching past the Nightmare’s corpse to work on the runes beneath her.

The first few succumbed easily to Twilight’s academic might, glowing softly as the diagram was completed. Twilight soon found her frown deepening, however, as she was repeatedly confounded by the spell sequence. Regardless of what she tried, she was confronted with the same answer: there were letters missing.

She searched through Starswirl’s books but could not find the answer.

“Are you kidding?” Rainbow huffed, throwing her forehooves in the air. “We can’t wake this monster up because some senile old coot forgot to finish it?!”

Twilight brought a hoof to her chin. This wasn’t an accident. There was always an answer to be found, and it was likely staring her right in the face.

Then, something caught her eye. Just behind the skull of the Nightmare was a small inscription.

Twilight grinned. “Found you.”

“What is it?” Rainbow asked.

“Hopefully the last piece,” she replied. “I am made, but you can't carry me. You can break me, but you can't restore me. What am I?”

“Huh?” Rainbow frowned, tilting her head in confusion.

“It’s Starswirl’s last puzzle,” she replied.

“Urgh, this coot is starting to piss me off,” Rainbow grumbled. “Why couldn’t it have just been a giant switch or something?” She tossed her head back. “Damn unicorns always making things complicated.”

“We aim to please,” Twilight said with a smile. “Now we just have to figure this out.”

“Oh, this one’s easy,” Rainbow commented. “It’s a promise.”

Twilight blinked and looked at her. It couldn’t be that simple.

“What? Shining was always throwing riddles at me when we were on guard duty,” Rainbow said, her ears flattening and her gaze becoming distant. “It was one of the most important lessons he ever taught me. A guardsmare always keeps her word, no matter what.”

Rainbow’s eyes shone with a fierce determination as she spoke, as if Shining himself was there with her.

Twilight smiled sadly. “That sounds like him alright.”

She began to alter the spell diagrams in sequence and was amazed to find it was correct. Each letter slotted into place so easily she nearly facehoofed at how simple it was.

“Told ya.” Rainbow grinned smugly, earning a chuckle from Twilight.

The runes glowed as the spell began to charge, causing power to course through the ground beneath their hooves.

Then, all of a sudden, everything stopped.

Where the riddle had been, new letters began to form, and a simple phrase ominously appeared: A life for a life

Twilight stared at it for some time, feeling a deep pit forming in her stomach at the implications of those five words. Of course they would not have been given something simple and benign to complete their task. Dark magic like what they were about to perform always required sacrifices. And this was the mother of all dark incantations.

She reached into her saddlebags and pulled out the knife that she had recovered from Starswirl’s rumination orb. The runes forged into it began to glow brightly as it came closer to the coffin.

“So that’s what you want, eh?” she muttered, hovering the knife before her, the obsidian glinting in the bloody moonlight.

“Twilight, what are you doing?” Rainbow asked warily.

“It’s the final ingredient for the resurrection to work,” she said grimly. “It needs a life to complete the ritual. Starswirl was no fool; if the need was so great that you had no choice but to unleash the Nightmare, you had to be willing to give everything to achieve it—even your life.”

“That’s insane!” Rainbow exclaimed. “There must be something else we can do. There’s always been a way around these things. Come on, you’re the genius here, think!”

“There is no other way!” she retorted. “This is the only way it’ll work.”

Her horn glowed, and she began to slowly unbuckle her armour. “Help me get this off.”

“Twilight…”

“Just do it, Rainbow,” she said, taking a deep breath.

With Rainbow’s more experienced help, she managed to remove the sodden armour from herself. It felt better to get the suffocating skin off, and the cool, dry air felt wonderful against her sweat-soaked coat.

“Twilight, this is wrong,” Rainbow said. “Shining told me to protect you, and I can’t just stand by and let you do this.”

“Don’t make this harder than it already is, Rainbow,” she said. “Enough ponies have died getting me here. I have to honour their sacrifice.”

“By killing yourself?!” Rainbow said with a stomp of her hoof. “You’re not honouring them—you’re running away!”

Twilight smiled, tilting her head back to gaze into the red moon. “All I’ve ever done in my life is run away, Rainbow. But not this time.”

The words felt strange coming from her lips, like they had come from another pony’s mouth. In truth, she was happy to do this, happy to escape this sham of a life. How could she face her parents, knowing she’d left Shining there to die? How could she go back to the archives, having seen everything she had seen tonight?

She climbed into the coffin, standing atop the Nightmare’s remains. The dagger hovered in her grip, now glowing hungrily in anticipation.

“I’m not running from this,” she said. “You asked me to prove I’m not a burden. Well here’s my proof.”

She spun the blade towards herself, fighting against every natural instinct that screamed at her to stop. With a single fluid motion, she drove the dagger into her chest, pushing it deep with every ounce of force she could muster.

She heard Rainbow shout her name, but she felt so distant now. The agony in her chest seemed to fade, a numbing feeling sweeping her body.

With a yank, she pulled the knife out, her blood splattering against the inside of the coffin. She fell forward as her legs gave way, landing atop the blood-soaked Nightmare’s corpse. Her breath came in a gurgling gasp as blood welled up in her throat, her body convulsing as it tried desperately to cling to life. The knife clattered inside the coffin as she lost control of her magic, her horn sputtering with a faint glow.

She stared down at the Nightmare, now covered in her lifeblood. “There, you got what you wanted. Drink your fill, then. Take everything I have.”

She slumped and was caught by Rainbow Dash, her vision rapidly darkening as she felt the frantic beats of her heart begin to slow. The last thing Twilight saw was the blood beginning to shift towards the Nightmare’s mouth, a blue glow forming inside those hollow eye sockets.