Journey into the Heart of the Desert
Author's Note
I'm sorry I couldn't do an editing pass just yet, see the end of chapter two as to why.
The Journey Begins
Part 1. The journey
High in the sky, the fires of Ra beat upon the travelers, weary and trudging they made their way up the steps to the pyramid, looming overhead and casting shadows for miles.
Their breaths are dry, and their steps slow, but they are smiling, sweaty and holding hands as they climb into the shade of its entrance.
“Look at it, all this preserved for years!” Twilight exclaims, seeing for the first time in her life, the murals of a pyramid in person.
“Try not to get carried away twi, this place has been abandoned and looted long ago, who knows what state it’s in.” Sunset walks forward, torch at the ready, wearily observing the path ahead through the pyramid.
Twilight rambles on at length at the meaning behind the hieroglyphics, oohing and ahhing over preserved carvings, taking notes in her book. Sunset idly taps her foot, she reaches out to touch twilight, but hesitates, before moving alongside her again.
“what do you see in all this anyway twi?” Sighing, she gestures to the remanants of wreckage in a room they come across. “nothing but dead civilisation and lost power.”
“The Egyptians had such knowledge Sunny, you wouldn’t believe.” Twi beams at her, face flushed and eyes twitching. “Imagine if those stories weren’t all myths? We have magic, why couldn’t the Egyptians?”
“Your magic leaked in through the portal Twi, this world is as magically dry as this dessert.” Sunset glances around uneasily, she can hear the sand howling, but there was no sandstorm on today’s forecast.
Enquiring, she learns twi doesn’t hear it, and soon enough it fades away.
Behind them, sand creeps in through the entrance, sliding up the walls and settling into the engraved glyphs.
Part 2: the heart.
Sunset is downcast, silently following behind twi. Twi bables on about every new discovery, on the remains of would be looters, and squeals at a new sight.
There, golden and shining in front of them lies some kind of enclosure, bands of golden metal swirling around a red gem, shaped like an hourglass.
Sunset starts at the sight, her eyes glimmer with the jewel, but she grabs twilight by the shoulder. “twi, this can’t be right, we should go,”
“but sunny! What if this is it? What if we could learn the secrets of the Egyptians? I found you when I went looking for magic, what if this is destiny too?”
Sunlight winces behind twilight, remembering the promise made, so many years ago.
She looks up again at the find, her eyes open, but her grip remains firm. “Twi, what if it’s not for us?”
“Well lets at least look around, who knows how this hasn’t been-“ There is a crack of sound, a familiar hum fills the air as the gem begins to glow, and the ground shifts beneath them both.
They cry out, reaching for each other, as they fall.
Twilight comes to in a large room, furnished with colour and scrolls of all sizes, hanging on the walls, spilled onto the floor from shelves, and laying half done on a table. She picks one up immediately, before dropping it and looking for her companion.
“Sunset!?”
There is no reply, and she rushes out an entrance, eyes wide, movements jerky.
-Meanwhile-
Sunset wakes up battered and bruised, her head sore and her arms scraped.
The rooms is some kind of jewellery store, she thinks at first glance. Pedastals dot the room at odd locations, upon each a collection of gems and gold.
Getting up, she looks around for twilight, but finds no sight of her duty. “no, no no no no!”
She’s stumbles around in panic at first, when something she sees horrifies her.
There, sitting unadorned with gold, on a wooden pedestal carved with symbols of ponies, is a familiar crown.
-Meanwhile-
In a dark room, the moonlight shining in from windows high on the back wall illuminating the silhouette of a figure on the throne, eyes glowing red in the shade.
In one hand, he holds a set of scales, in the other, a jade sceptre adorned with a stylised eye.
His face moves into the light as he leans forward, and a jackals head looks piercingly through the walls, his ear’s twitch, hearing sounds never made nearby.
"For centuries, I have watched."
Journey into the Heart of the Desert
Part 3 - The trials.
Twilight has taken to reading some books, with one hand she mimics slow breathing, and with the other she turns the pages. Her breath slows, and her heartrate begins to calm down.
“Okay twilight, you can do this, you just need to know how to find her.”
She glances around at her new location, a room like the one she just left, books in ancient Egyptian interspersed with scrolls in german, prench and English.
“This is nothing like what we knew about this pyramid.” She mutters to herself as she investigates the room.
“Is it knowledge that you seek?” The voice that fills the room is deep, ominous, and serious in tone.
“Eeek!” Whirling around twilight scours the room, her eyes finding nothing but more books and scrolls.
“Do you know why you are here, Twilight Sparkle, of Canterlot?” The voice has a source now, two red eye sockets, like those of a jackal, floating in a cloud of black sparkling smoke.
Her heartbeat spikes, her breathing shallow, Twilight Sparkle responds quickly. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The smoke seems to constrict on it’s self, swirling like sand into a slow motion dust devil.
“What I want, is unattainable, what do you want, Twilight Sparkle of Canterlot?”
She gulps, the hairs on her skin standing on end, a book in her hand clutched like a lifeline.
“I need to know how to find my partner, Sunset Shimmer, of Canterlot.”
There is booming laughter from the eyes, their shape changed to one of mirth.
“You stand in the sanctum of my collected studies, and all you wish to know is how to find your partner?”
“I need her, she’s made me a promise, and if I don’t stick by her, I don’t know what will happen to me.”
“Need, is it? You do not have the strength to stand on your own two feet, Twilight Sparkle, Stealer of magic?”
“How, how do you know that? How do you even know my name?”
“Frankly, young scholar, that is irrelevant now is it not? You are in my domain, you answer my questions. Was it not you who desired my treasure?”
Twilight pauses, looking down in shame, and struggles to find the words.
“Destined you claimed, destined for what, young scholar?”
The eyes turn away, seeming to pass over the books and scrolls, the smoke whirling around it shifts and crawls up the walls, plucking a scroll from some hidden crevice, and depositing it in Twilights hands.
“I once thought I was destined, that Shurima would last forever.” The sounds of bitter laughter, sobbing and furious screaming fill the room for but a second.
“But you will learn soon enough, how that story goes, won’t you young scholar.”
The red eyes begin to fade, turning somewhere to the left, and moving through the walls.
Sunset reaches out for the crown, before shrinking back again. Her face flits between emotions, scowling, biting her lip, and then ultimately frustration.
“You hear it’s call don’t you, Sunset Shimmer, of Equestria”
Sunset turns slowly, her eyes piercing and somehow not surprised.
“So who are you then, spirit, I thought magic was dead in this world till we came.”
Red eyes come into view, black sand crawling out of the walls to form a shape, anthropomorphic, chisled, assembling from heavy thick legs to a weightlifters torso, gradually filling in till a jackals head is formed, the eyes glowing from inside the black sand.
“I am Nasus, scholar of the sands, protector of Shurima, or what is left of it.”
Sunset’s eye’s dart to the crown, her memories flash back to the sense of power she had so many years ago. Her eyes turn to Nasus.
“I wouldn’t try anything, I can take you now.”
The laughter is bitter, and hollow.
“You remind me of him, so dedicated to the cause, so willing to fight for his friends.”
Voices bellow in the room, a quarrel between two angry souls.
“Do you hear them, Sunset Shimmer, betrayer of the sun spirit?”
“What, how! I never gave you that information”
“Didn’t you? You wear those symbols, all over your clothing, your very colour scheme follows it.”
Sunset laughs, and for a moment the tension in the room is broken, and the voices fade.
“The path you seek to combat me, will only lead you and your world to Ruin, Sunset of Canterlot High.”
Nasus sighs, it is long and continues as if his lungs had no need for air.
“I know, I know that I might lose myself in the power of magic, but I have to, I need to save Twilight.”
The eyes regard her, as if a scientist looking at a chemical mix.
“You would smother her in your protection, and kill her chance to grow.”
“No! I would never do that, I love her!”
“So you claim.” A staff, jade and toped with a stylised eye sprouts from the black sand, growing like vines of crystal into its full form.
“I will judge you, along with your friend, Sunset Shimmer of the Lovers bind.”
Sunset leaps for the crown!
“Wither.” It is not a suggestion, not a word spoken without knowledge. It is spoken as if to a dog from a loving owner.
Time slows to a crawl, and Sunset feels herself slow, her mind able to keep up but her body moving at a snails pace through the air.
“You came to Shurima, Sunset of the blind eternities.”
The Jade staff falls and Sunset see’s no more.
Part 4 : Judgement.
Sunset wakes to the urgent words and shaking of her lover.
She glances up, ignoring Twilights pleas and exaltations at finding her.
“I know where we are Sunset! I was right! There were more to the Egyptians, Oh sunset I wish I could have brought that scroll, there was so much to learn and…”
Sunset sees Nasus, or at least the red eyes in the gloom of the throne room.
“You said we were to be judged.” Her hands clench, her eyes look for escape routes, and she finds herself lacking viable options.
“So I did Sunset of the Harmony of Equestria”
Twilight whirls around, “You know of Equestria, Nasus, scholar of the sands?”
“No” Nasus rises from his throne, black fur covering a body that towers over them, 3 meters high with a staff longer then that still in his left hand. Golden jewellery covers his body.
But it is not that which get’s their attention first as he walks into the light.
Swirling in his hand, two motes of light, orbiting each other, bound by red thread.
“I have siphoned your souls.”
Nasus examines the orbiting star system in his hand.
He looks up, piercing eyes at twilight’s fearful face. “What do you see from your souls, Twilight the Knowledge Hungry?”
Her face shifts, eyes focusing on the motes of light, her soul and sunsets she presumes.
“It looks like a binary star system, caught in each other’s gravity.”
Nasus hums… “Apt, from you Twilight Sparkle, studier of the skies.”
“Whats the point of all this Nasus!?” Sunset proclaims, her eyes sharp, her breathing heavy, her leg shaking.
Nasus continues as if he hadn’t heard her. “Have you heard about how stars can consume each other, Twilight of the Sciences?”
“Yes of course!” Twilight launches into a lecture, the situation seemingly forgotten in favour of spreading her knowledge.
“One of the stars has a stronger pull on the other, consuming the hydrogen from the other star, sometimes the gravity that chains the two stars can rip entire sections of the star and eject it into space, not to mention the magnetic fields doing all kinds of crazy things!”
Twilight is beaming, eager to hear Nasus respond.
“That’s us isn’t it Nasus.” Sunset is staring into the souls, eyeing the red thread.
“Yes, Sunset the Defeated”
“What is he talking about Sunset? What does this have to do with stars?”
Sunset sighs, before collapsing to the floor, on her knees, staring a thousand-yard stare through Nasus.
“We are eating each other alive Twilight”
“We are not stars Sunny.”
“But we are bound, all the same, by that red thread.”
Twilight walks up to Nasus, her eyes twitching, her hair falling out of place.
“This doesn’t make sense, what are you talking about Nasus”
Nasus is silent. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t speak.
“Twilight, that’s our soul in his palm.”
Sunset is crying silent tears, the weight of her failure crushing her into the floor.
“We never made a real relationship Twilight. I looked to you for signs I could be a good person, and you looked to me to keep yourself a good person.”
“What’s wrong with that? You saved me Sunny, showed me a way to live!”
“And now both of you will die from it, in fact you already are dying from it.” Rumbles the statue that towers over them.
Nasus sighs, and looks strangely amused and bitter at the same time.
“Were that I could cut that thread so easily, and free you from your destiny.”
He turns to them, eyes a glow no longer its usual red, but a deep deep blue, speckled with stars.
“You are at a crossroads SUNSET AND TWILIGHT OF THE LOVERS BINDING”
The room beings to shift, the black and white of space sizzling into the room, the walls fading into black and points of light, the forge of the universe hanging in the distance, great clouds of hydrogen and new stars shining brightly over them all.
“The world will not survive your current state, I have seen it before.”
“How do we stop it? How do we cut the thread?” It’s hard to tell who is speaking, the voices don’t come from the bodies anymore, the star system of souls in Nasus’s hand begin to spin, voices echoing out into the void.
Nasus looks down on them, his eyes seeing far away.
“There is a practitioner, a disciple of love. You know her Twilight of the cramped room of mathematics”
“She can show us the way? Does she have magic?”
“The only magics she has ever commanded here, Sunset of Magic and Ambition, Is the power to see the truth of love.”
Nasus’s eyes turn red again, the glow fading, and the star scape fading away.
“I have pronounced my judgement, I have no skill to save you from yourselves”
Tears of hot iron drip from his eyes, and he gestures to a statue in the room, hidden in the shadows.
The lights illuminate a crocodile man-beast, expression frozen into fury, teeth bared and long weapon mid swing.
“I couldn’t save my brother. He loved his country, he loved it’s people, and when Shurima began to crumble from within, it broke him.”
“You’ve sealed him away!” Sunset and Twilight now move their bodies again, eyes glowing with rainbows.
“I cannot redeem him, lovers of the new path.” Nasus stands tall, his sceptre fades, and the scales appear floating in the room.
He places a feather conjured from somewhere, on one end, and rips out his heart.
There is no blood from the wound, a golden organ pumping iron over the floor is placed on the other end.
“This is my legacy, young lovers.”
The scale tips, ever so slightly, down on the end with the heart.
“My sins will burn me into the void, when it comes for me. “
There is a silence, as Sunset and Twilight share messages with gestures and looks.
“What if we saw another way, a way to mend your brothers mind?”
Nasus looks on them, his eyes downcast, but a spark of hope shines.
“What way? I have scoured the earth for 5000 years, looking for methods, that might break the curse of his burden on my brother.”
“What if you looked beyond earth?”
“To steal power from another world, I would not do what happened to Shurima, to your Equestria, Sunset Shimmer of the many fold path.”
“Could you stand guard here a little longer, Nasus of the Eternal Watch?”
Their eyes are no longer visible behind the glow, rainbows of light circling their heads, mandala’s sprouting from their backs, wings growing, a horn appearing on their skulls.
Then the image shatters, and Nasus sees them as they are, two humans with joint souls.
“What, what is this magic, bearers of the New Elements of Harmony, Guardians of the Earth?” Nasus is bewildered. He comprehends, but he doesn’t believe, doesn’t dare to hope too much.
“We are on a journey, Nasus, we came here to give twilight some fun showing off Egypt and it’s pyramid.” Sunset is talking with Twilight, their mouths moving in sync, something otherworldly but ultimately still them speaking through them.
“We’ve attained the knowledge you’ve provided, Nasus, and will strive to put it to work.”
“We have the power to set you on a new journey, Nasus, Guardian of the Tomb of Shurima”
“We will be back, with our friends, and we will set your brother free”
The light fades from their eyes, and sunset speaks.
“My mentor, the leader of my land, had to do as you did once Nasus.”
“We will set you free from your eternal watch over this tomb.”
Nasus weeps, and on the scales, his heart rises as the feather falls, and as one journey to the heart of the desert ends, another begins.
-Fin-
Author's Note
I have written this piece , in about a week, I didn't wish to rush it, but I have had a horrible week, and it is culminating in me having to go to hospital, I don't know for how long. I am submitting it while I am still sane and able to write. Hopefully I can come back after my hospital stay and polish this up, fix spelling, and grammar, and present a fully fledge version of this to you all.
The sun shine eternal on your path, reader dear.