Some music, if you feel like it? Future People from Alabama Shakes. Just listen to the whole album as you read this story- I've sure listened to it as i wrote this.

Darkness, all around. A fleeting sense of purpose, of deep understanding, of cosmic meaning. Motes of light dancing accross my vision. I'm only vaguely conscious of my body- which feels both like rust and pudding, somehow- and a dizzying headache.

As the stars stop spinning around my head, i finally take stock of my surroundings- a bare, ashen wasteland. Bodies all around, innate, charred or otherwise reduced to bits of gore.The strong wind whipping around me brings dust (and ashes of pony parts) into my eyes, in my nostrils, on my tongue. A little whinny and a snort clears my aching sinuses. Bits and pieces of gore clung to my pelt in various places (was that an eye or a gland?) And i swallowed back some bile, my dock spasming a bit.

I had let myself go again. The gamble hadn't payed off.

My eyes are finally open. I can't let it end like this. After all theses lives trying to make them all pay, maling them suffer a fate mimicking the state of my broken heart, i finally realise: Its not what i wanted.

There might still be enough power left to go back. My horn sparks as i try to push a little aether through it- it's sizzling, scalding heat reminds me of just how hurt I am. The battle had been fierce- i hadn't expected them to follow me through my spell, but i was able to overcome them, in the end. My eyes glaze over my wounds- I had a choice to make. Either heal myself, and stumble around the wastes i've created for sisters knows how long.

Or... I could try to go back. I can feel a twinge on the web- other ponies, or creatures, have answered the call. I could join them.

Straining, pushing aether and complex thoughts into my horn, i channel the spell. I've already reached a conclusion. There's no point in wandering a broken Equus. True, killing everything did feel satisfying, but at what cost? I need to try once more... Just once. Then i can give up and sleep. Hopefully definitely, but I wouldn't push it.
The fates don't take kindly to those who work against them- and those who aren't born from it.

With a grunt, I let go of the vortex of energy swirling around my horn, and bid goodbye to my crystal. I'll return to being an earth pony, when I go back. I'll forget a few things.
But insight... Insight is forever inprinted in my psyche. I'll have to trust future/past myself to do the right choices.

And with a wink, I exhale, and step into the light pouring from my horn.

----------//----------

I startled myself awake. With a little snort, i look through the window on my right- bright sun, pastel colored sky. A few lazy clouds. On the floors under me, i can hear clutter and cooking sounds- and two sets of hoofsteps.

"Home?" My own voice startles me, yet again. For some reason, i expected a dry, hoarse croak, an unintelligible word- but a soft, kinda smokey and honeyed voice reaches my ears. The smells of blood, gore and death are replaced by hints of vanilla and hay bacon, and soft wood, with a slightly metallic twinge, hinting at the Earth Pony styled home I remember growing up in, and breakfast being prepared downstairs.

With a grunt, I push the sheets away from my slightly sweaty body and sit up on the edge of my hay bed. The sun's position tells me it's somewhere between 8 and 9 am, and the softly chirping birds tell me the neighborhood is apparently safe. There are no screams, no tension in the air- ponies are carefree, stumbling down the streets, the stress of a future war completely faded into the recessed corners of my mind.

With a glance, I look at myself in my room's mirror- an antique piece of Earth Pony art, a standing mirror with an etched rune frame, made of a dark maple and with abyssal wood accents. Once a mirror used to communicate between realms, it was now a decorative piece of junk that reflected all manners of lights. As of now, it showed me back my own face, the bags under my slate eyes, with hints of a red sun reflected in it- and the familiar amber center around my irises, showing i had been unter magical strain- no duh- and the whites slightly bloodshot, some veins almost pulsing with aether energies, showed I was making quite an effective recovery, but still needed a little rest. My body wasnt physically hurt, but hints of scars could be seen under my bland beige pelt. Locks of an ashen blonde mane fell before my eyes, and I blew them away with a tail flick of annoyance. I stretched- and cracked a few joints of- my long, long neck, and released a sigh of satisfaction upon working all the kinks out. My furr had thick, ruffled patches, especially my shoulders, dock, and collar, and I knew I would- no, will have to spend quite a while brushing myself off. My cutie mark, oddly placed on my forehead, was itchy this morning. There must be some weird magic nearby, or at least someone in my household has been busy practicing some spell or something- that much I could feel, even without throwing my senses around.

Today will be a good day. One without fighting for my life. I'll be able to rest without keeping an eye open. I won't have to eat rough patches of grass and leaves to sustain my compressed stomach- in fact, I might be slightly overweight now.

Raising a hoof to my chin, a much shorter beard meets my frog, and I streak it slowly, mindlessly.

I can remember a few things this time. I remember the regret of yielding to my rage, I can still taste the bile of regret down my throat. Did i really...? All of them?

I shudder. There were times I wished I wasnt plagued with eternal life- but I knew it was futile to dwell on what ifs and maybes. Stirring my body, getting a feel for every part, i notice the distinct lack of injuries- but the pain is still there. My left hind leg was still half rusted in, and wouldnt move as fluidly as my other limbs- my long neck crickled and cracked in many places, suggesting I was still under a lot of duress, and needed some downtime. My muscles ached but didn't protest much as I tried to stand up.

There was much to do, and lots of time to do it- but time would soon be working against me. I knew where I had to go today- For the sixth time, I would have to gather up a crew, and figure out what manner of big bad evil guy the universe would be conjuring to screw me up the backside today, before setting out on a quest- find some way to stop the eventual war from wrecking the whole known world.

Taking carefull steps, I waddled down the stairs to at least get a little breakfast in me first. Saving the world could wait.

----------//----------

As I trudged down the stairs, a pink tail came into view in the kitchen. Instinctively, my backside clenched shut, and my dock spasmed- my shoulders buckled down and my hind legs flexed slightly. I wasnt prepared for what was coming.

"Oh, you're finally up. Sit down, I'll get your breakfast ready." The voice that haunted every colt in the area. The voice that transcended time and would always make me anxious and edgy, even as an ascended deity with ties to the underworld.

Even the fiddler would hesitate to claim this mare's life- a fambloyant pink and off white mare, a genius in magitech and other arcane sciences. An accomplished engineer and spellcaster- one that had graduated from the mainland's most distinguished school for gifted unicorns- and the most fierce pony alive.

My mother, Dawn Spark.

"Don't trouble yourself. I'll tend to my own meal, just take it easy and relax, Mother." Sweat broke on my brow as I spoke- an act of defiance, any question to her authority, could have desastrous consequences.

"Did I stutter? I said Sit Down. I need to have a word with you." The back of her head was starring right into my soul. I didnt need to see the fiery orbs of molten stone to know there would be no escaping this.

With a wordless nod, I sliently walked to the table and slid into my seat, a high chair of feathers-stuffed vegan leather- and noticed the slight peeling of the leather, the nicks and marks on the softwood maple table. Our household had seen better days, and with our failing bodies, we just couldn't keep everything in top condition- and many pieces of furniture now sported some marks of wear and tear. The entropy was strong in our household, and the strain on the magical spectrum was almost visible around us, a shimmering- not unlike vapor over a cup of tea, which Dawn Spark just placed before me along with a bowl of seeds and nuts, honey and berries.

"-he still hasn't called. Not only am I worried over him, now I'm worried over how we'll fare this winter." Blinking one eye, she aimed the other directly at my irises, taking great care not to waver, or hesitate while she hissed, "were you even listening?"

Disturbed, distracted by my own thoughts, i had missed the first half of her sentence. Already, I could feel her stare bore a hole into my very soul.
Quickly reviewing what I heard, I was able to piece back what she had meant- or so I hoped.

Taking a sharp breath, I nodded before clearing my throat. "Should I go-" As I started speaking, I saw the light in her eyes. She was already pissed.

"You will do exactly as I say, today. I don't want to see you sprawled on the couch as long as you haven't reported to your Father. I want the lab to be restocked, and I want you to ask the sisters for more financing before you do. If I have to use my magic to heat the house this year, you won't ever hear the end of it. And make sure your father isn't lacking anything either. I want results before the first snow, but I dont want him forget to eat and starve either. Now gobble up and get going, I want you out of here so I can concentrate upon more pressing matters." And with that, I was apparently spared her ire- for now, at least- and knew what I was going to do today.

With a weary sigh, I nodded. "Sure thing, Mother." She narrowed her eye at me, signaling that the sigh might've been pushing it a bit, and she half stomped, half stormed out of our dining area, and went to sit on the sofa a few hooves farther away into the open-spaced condo we shared. With a little spark of her horn, she was already hard at work back in her own wonderland, somewhere in her mindscape. Being careful not to make much noise, I ate as quickly as possible, making sure not to get any seeds stuck in my teeth and drank the energizing tea in a few gulps to wash the meal down. I quickly took care of the dishes, carefully manipulating it with my lips instead of my teeth to avoid unnecessary noise- or damaging the polish by scratching it, and headed back upstairs so I could get ready to head outside, to the lab we all worked at. Princess Cadence's very own research center on the mind and Thaumaturgical sciences- which was pretty disctincted from magic due to its biological approach to its relation to us ponies. Thaumaturgy was the fields, the magics of earth ponies and pegasi alike, and innate body magic of unicorns, while the more commonly refered to "magic" usually meant the channelable energy unicorns shot through their horns.

I myself possessed a peculiar innate magic. Born an earth pony from the union of a pegasus and unicorn, I was a special case of evolution and cutie mark, magical destiny nonsense. My mark wasn't on my flank like others. It hung over my eyes where a unicorn's horn should be, and was more of a symbol then a pictogram ponies usually have. It was a simple inverted triangle with a dot at its center, and small circles on the triangle's angles- the symbol unicorns use in their texts to represent wild magic, the kind that isn't controllable, that floats around and warps stuff. The bad, chaotic kind that even Princess Celestia can't deal with, and won't stick her hoof in. The foul kind that unaware foals ran into, twisting them into eldritch abominations and the next evil to be cleansed on Princess Twilight's list.

The kind that I, for some reason, seem at least partially immune to, and can somehow absorb. My mark allows me to comprehend the nature of synthesized, corrupt or otherwise eldritch magic, and refine it into stabilised magic- the kinds of which is only a definite amount of available that every unicorn and creature under the sun uses. The kind that weaves this world into atoms and structures you can stand on. You see, my whole reason for being alive is a necessity. I am Essential to this world, and so have made a contract with the very earth we are standing on. Me and my familly, in fact.

Did I forget to mention this? I am approximately 430 years old. I have in fact lived six other lives before this one- a few of which died a bit prematurely, other who lived outstandingly long for the common 70 years old life expectancy of equines. Through an unnatural, synthetic process, my ancestors had found a way to retain their memories and start another life from birth- but few were able to undergo the process and stay sane. It robbed me of a few emotions, and left me a broken husk of flesh with a hollow heart, and I feel like i've been spared the worst of fates such a process can afflict. My power rivals that of other big evils and super powered equines everywhere, and so I am on the royal watchlist- meaning I've been surrounded by the brightest minds ever since my first rebirth, and have always been around to help shape the history of Equines on this part of the globe. Due to aforementioned contract with Terra Firma, I am to assist druids and royals with conserving our age of peace, while forever being on the lookout for the next big thing that could ruin us all. The kind of life that never gets old in more ways than one, and constantly makes one fear for his life- or unlife, as the case may be. My body is of the same flesh as anyone else- but my mind makes me a weapon, an asset, as the royals call it, that must be kept under wraps, for fear of starting yet another apocalypse. Imagine if any other equine you met while grocery shopping was a 600 yrs old deity of some kind. If the one packing your saddle bags was galacticus, enslaver of worlds and now reformed super evil, and if just about anyone had that kind of super destiny magical thingy for a cutie mark? This is why I'm the only one of my kind, and living in semi-hiding. My mother thinks i'm yet another gifted children of our family, as to keep up appearances as much as possible. In fact, only two sisters know of my real identity- Celestia and Cadence- and a few members of the "Royal's intelligence and Special Anti-disaster Team" or RISADT, as we call it, are aware of just how fucked up my life is.

Blinking, I realize that I'm standing before my room's mirror, starring at my own eyes for god knows how long, completely lost in my thoughts. My slate-colored, bloodshot orbs had a hint of metallic, deep blue, and the rind around my iris was slightly yellowed. I looked like shit, but at least i was apparently sane and normal. I wasn't corrupted or otherwise affected by any radiation or Thaumaturgical field of any kind. Safe enough to venture in my own mind, for my morning check up.

It was time to take my medicine and fall into a meditation to see if my soul was still in good shape. Especially after travelling through time like I did- who knows what kind of stuff I could've picked up on the way, that could be hitching a ride in my spiritual realm not unlike a virus or rat on a ship? Though to be fair, my mother would've sensed it somehow, in all rationality.

Taking great care to restrain my earth pony strenght, I fish a hoof into my jacket, and unveil a translucid, smoked glass water pipe. I've crushed such pipes in the past, and my tender frogs remember the pain of little shards of glass dancing a waltz in my flesh, making me slightly shudder. I place it on my room's desk and take a seat before it. Producing a small silicone container, I open it to reveal six little cases each containing a different strain or mix of the drug that's holding my mind and soul together. I take a metal stick in the lining of the case, and proceed to dip it into the most common blend, opiates and poison joke. The latter's aroma, mixed with the poppyish, cannabinoids rich scent makes my sinuses tickle and my mouth water as I focus on the terpenes invading my nose. Hints of pear, peaches and mangoes mixed with the unmistakably hibiscus-lile bitter aroma of poison joke makes for quite a flavorful combination that I especially enjoy in the mornings before my ritualesque meditation- the sativa makes my mind active and awake, though relaxed and focused- while the poison joke cleans the mental clutter away and purges my system of any magical or Thaumaturgical radiation/degradation, a quite effective drug to start your day or burn the rads away.

I take ahold of the pipe and apply pressure on it's switch, making the banger heat up until the quartz becomes a glowing red, and let go to let it cool down to around 350° Farenhoof, meaning i wait about 27, 30ish seconds before dipping the metalic stick into the banger, letting the thick smoke bubble around the pipe and into my lungs as i take a lomg, slow breath. A rich, creamy aroma of a blend of fruits and earthy flowers fill my senses with a little euphoria, which is quick to pass, and makes my senses finally fall into focus. I finally feel normal, whatever that is, and ready to fall in meditation.

It was time to take a look at myself.

Author's Note

Another start. This story might even get uploaded, who knows.

Imma be fair and share the sheet with this one, it's still a work in progress but i don't care.

Refer to: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/363579/46/skyreach/spear-breakers-folly

KudzuHaiku gave me an idea. If such a dangerous kind of magic exists, there must be a way for a pony to have a talent that nutralizes it. A very specific, extremely weird kind of talent that ill try to make a character on.

He must be an Earth Pony, first and foremost. He will have a peculiar shade of beige for a coat, one so plain its hard to look at. It's shade will change occasionally as he harnesses different levels of power. It will be between sandish, washed off hayfields kinda tint, to a more earthy, stoney, pale charcoal kinda look. His eyes will tell more about the state of magic he's under. His eyes... they're an ever changing color, most often a slate, somehow dark blue looking with a pale yellow center around the iris. The pale yellow can be anything from white (very extreme conditions) to a very fiery, sometimes even dark kind of red (But it has to pass from yellow to orange first, then a burnt kind of orange that can only be achieved with a special connection to a holy flame, wich he clearly won't possess until a much further point in the story)
His mane is simply put an ashen blonde, that turns greyish with time. He used to be a platinum blonde tho. Usually sports a leather duster filled with miscellaneous items that one wouldnt usually carry, but could always have a use for- and drugs. Always.
He will sport a beard- a rare feat for ponies, an elongated neck and slender legs. His delicate, yet slighlty bulky frame has a little extra patches of hair around the usual patches you'd expect a northern tribe pony to have, but he's from a deadbeat, backwater farmland, was a studious sort that enjoyed psychology, Philosophy and the arts, along with magic- something he might retain from his parents, somewhat- and has a kind of Charismatic silver tongue, and an almost manipulative vibe, but always has the greater good of everyone in mind. He is from a very specific heritage that can access an ancestry bloodline power- which lets him spiritually sense around him, not unlike a unicorn can magicaly sense- but with an extra kick to it. He can manipulate wild magic, and attune himself to any magic he can sense and get a good feel on. That can give him insight as to how to use certain magics in any given situation, though he himself is about as talentless and clueless as can be.

Stats?
Level 10
Strenght. (STR) 6
Perception. (WIS) 7
Endurance. (CON) 5
Charisma. (CHR) 6
Intelligence. (INT) 6
Agility. (DEX) 5
Luck. (S/QI) 8/+

-*-Feats/Perks-*-
Chosen Few - makes him one of the few essential characters in the story. Cant really die but can be extremely injured, permanently crippled or worse.

Psychopump - his old soul carries the mantle of a half-deity with ties to the underworld, leaving to a few advantages over mortal races but also great responsibilities and flaws he has to deal with.

Ancestral Ascension - he has an ascended soul due to an ancestral ritual he underwent, binding his soul to his body- meaning he can only partially connect with the spiritual plane, and cannot move his soul apart from his body... But it leads to weird glitches one might exploit. Also, he gains an awareness of his surroundings because of that. Cant get sneaked on.

Nephilim Heritage - his weird rebirth thing made him one quite acquainted with the "angels" and the "demons" alike- but it also made him have both friends and foes in low and high places. He can't really call on those friends, but he doesnt really have to run away from those enemies either... Unless?

Intro-Survivo-path - living through horrible lives and deaths has made you somehow more able to undertake any given kind of task or undergo any given trial without much penalty- however, others might find you a bit cold or unrelatable. Gives you access to unique dialogue that somehow bluffs people, for some reason.

Nature anti-opath - you can't stand nature, and it can't stand you. You get bonuses in cities, but maluses in any wilderness. When under these bonuses, you do reduced damage but have higher defenses and reflexes. When under those maluses, you suffer from damage more and specific damage types you get weak to affect you a bit more- but they push you over the edge, and let you hit back with surprising strength.

Wonderland - you have a wonderland in your mind that lets you control your subconscious and inner self when things get rough. Also get access to a few features and perks.