Twilight Over Thanalan

Twilight thought the terror may have eaten away at her by now. If not the terror, then the anxiety of not knowing what comes next. The nerves that arose from knowing somewhere, through the magitek abomination they’d forced her to participate in, Y’sanna was abusing her magic to do Celestia knows what to the innocents of this world.

And that had been eating her up. The pain Y’sanna had been forced to endure for Nero’s sadistic pleasure, the sheer brutality of seeing her own magic and that of the Element be twisted into a tool of murder, and knowing the miqo’te was still out there at this very moment. A ticking time bomb if they were lucky. Seeing how it had been achieved, just how stable could she be?

The thought that she was a walking battery of unstable mana just waiting for someone to light a match was extremely disturbing.

And it had been taking up her mind as she sat contemplating her situation, trapped as she was in that garlean cell.

But now something new had taken up residence in her mind residence. A new realization most profound…

She was really bored.

She was pretty sure there was a line in Equestria’s code of law that allowed prisoners to have access to a book during their sentences at the very least. And by Celestia’s light how she’d love a book right now.

But it did not appear that the garleans shared this sentiment.

No, rather they had left her to rot for the immediate few days following the experiment. Waiting in the silence of her own thoughts, unsure if the Empire was just going to get it over with and sentence her to death or decide to hook her up to the next monstrosity their resident mad scientist had cooked up.

She knew something about being a mad scientist. He was doing it all wrong.

Twilight groaned to herself. It was stray thoughts like that that made her painfully aware that she was starting to mentally slip during her isolation. Part of her was still holding onto hope that Y’sthola would find her way there, rain her feeling wrath upon the invaders and spirit the alicorn to safety.

‘Like the real damsel I’ve become,’ the Princess bitterly noted to herself.

But then, on the other hoof, perhaps it was best that her new friends didn’t find their way here at all. She doubted the garleans would be as ‘kind’ to them as they had been to her. And she’d been enough of a burden as it was.

Dammit, if only she could use her Equestrian magic! Failing that, had she been given the time needed to master the new system she’d discovered in this world! Heck, BOTH! She was the Bearer of Magic itself and she’d barely been able to cast the most feeble of barriers or gusts of winds. Even flight without needing to study the aetherial currents of every new region she entered.

She felt half a pony. Whatever differences there were between the magics of their worlds, if she could just adjust to it…

And then there was a shadow over her.

Twilight slowly looked up, knocked out of her self-pity by the masked figure coldly regarding her from the doorway.

It was him.

The alicorn immediately jumped to her hooves, instinctually trying to conjure magic in her horn before the ring upon it made the attempt a futile one. Nevertheless, her wings flared out and her feathers bristled as she looked upon the cloaked figure with hatred.

True hatred was a new feeling.

She didn’t like it.

“Such contempt in your eyes,” Scarmiglione noted. “Do you not require companionship? I understand your kind are communal creatures, such conditions must be most uncomfortable for one such as yourself.”

“Don’t play nice,” Twilight shot back with a frown. “What do you want?”

“We have fought so bitterly, I have come to realize we have never spoken at length. Those complete of soul are so rarely seen in this age, I did not want to miss the opportunity.”

“What?”

“It is a pity necessity has made us foes. Compared to the pale reflections around us, even myself, we ascians would consider you worthy of our respect as a beacon of life. Why, if the esteemed Emet Selch were here, he would frown most severely at your treatment.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. He wanted something, but the way he spoke did ignite some curiosity in her mind as to his choices of words.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I only have taken action where I must for the sake of this star,” the ascian responded. “As a saviour of your own, I am certain you can sympathize.”

“Saviour? You’ve killed people! You tried to kill Y’shtola!”

Scarmiglione crossed his arms, smirking as he chuckled to himself. “Answer me this; what do you know of the ascian cause?”

Twilight paused for a moment. Now that she thought on it, she only knew what the Scions had told her. Which, by Minfillia’s own admission, was not much. She shook her head and glared at him. “You’ve laboured in the shadows for centuries for the sake of sowing chaos and triggering Calamities. You’re responsible for releasing Bahamut on Eorzea!”

Scarmiglione nodded along. “Yes, that is the raw surface of it. But tell me this, and speak true; do you know why?”

Twilight scoffed. “Given the body count, do your justifications matter?”

Scarmiglione’s lips twitched up into a small smile, partially hidden by his black mask. Curiously, however, it was not as threatening as Twilight was used to. It almost seemed… pitying, in a way. “So you are perfectly content to wage war with me without understanding what drives me to fight?”

In the back of her mind, Twilight desperately wanted to scream ‘yes.’ After everything she’d been made to endure, no matter how much she disliked it, she did hate this man. But she bit her tongue and forced herself to curb her emotions for the moment. “Content? No,” she said, straightening her posture. “But I will if that’s what I have to do.”

“You don’t have to,” Scarmiglione said, raising one hand slightly. “For I am here to dispel your ignorance, if you’ll but lend me your ear for a few short minutes.”

“If your motives would have changed anything, why didn’t you open with them back in Equestria?!” Twilight demanded.

“I admit, it may have saved me considerable time. However, I had not anticipated the Tree calling to you so ardently… or you being so reckless as to follow me to this world the way you did. My hope had been to perform my good work and then see your Element returned when it was done. Your arrival made matters significantly more complicated. I’ve had to improvise.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. She was sceptical, to put it mildly, but if he was offering to explain himself to her… ‘Well. A little intel never hurt, did it?’

“Fine. Then talk, Ascian. Why are you doing this?”

Scarmiglione lost his smile. For a moment, he was utterly silent, his face lowering. His jaw worked from side to side, as if he were hunting for the words to express something. He almost looked vulnerable. Eventually, he sighed. “First, I should clarify that despite my high position among the black masks, my knowledge of this is largely secondhand. I was not present as I am for the tragedies of the ancient past. But that does not render them any less profound.”

He raised his hand higher, and a swirl of magic erupted from his palm. Twilight took a step back, instincts forcing her to brace for an attack. But instead of pain, her senses were instead assaulted by a new environment. The Garlean cell bled away like ink in the ocean, and a whole new sight manifested before her eyes. An illusion, but a vivid one. Twilight’s eyes widened as it all resolved into clarity.

What she saw almost defied description. A sprawling city unlike anything she had seen here in Eorzea spread out before her all the way to the distant horizon. Every structure was a monolith of stone and crystal, taller even than the highest skyscrapers of Manehattan and shimmering with a thousand evenly spaced sparks of resplendent gold. Coiling spires rose in between the buildings, helical spirals joined by evenly spaced supporting structures. The clouds in the heavenly blue sky seemed to glow with a subtle radiance of their own, and the stars were visible through the sapphire hue of the midday sky. In the heart of it all stood a spire taller and grander than all the others.

Twilight took a step forward, too enthralled by the scene to realize she was standing on empty air. “What… what is this?” she asked.

Scarmiglione folded his hands behind his back and looked out at the city with a faraway look on his face. “What you are seeing now is a vision of the world that used to be. This city is the capital of that old world. It was known as Amaurot… and it was paradise incarnate. The men and women who lived in this world, largely, knew nothing but peace and harmony. What dangers existed were easily dealt with. It was a utopia, free from the suffering known by Eorzea.”

Twilight frowned at Scarmiglione. “And what happened to it?”

Scarmiglione looked down. “...The Final Days.”

Twilight blinked. “The what?”

Scarmiglione waved his hand. And the image shifted. In the blink of an eye, the sky darkened to bloody red. A tempestuous wind fell from on high, tearing through the beautiful streets with reckless abandon. Black-robed men and women, giants compared to those Twilight had met thus far, were torn from their feet. Her heart shrivelled, and she gasped involuntarily as she saw many of them smeared into a paste upon the hard stone or splattered against the walls of the spires.

The sky darkened further still. Blasts of lightning fell from the clouds, striking the tops of the spires, the blasts of thunder a deafening cacophony that left Twilight’s ears ringing. And that was far from the worst of it. Balls of fire the size of a Ponyville house fell next, hundreds of them, from horizon to horizon. Twilight watched, shellshocked, as the flames punched through the stone of the spires with absolute ease. Clouds of smoke and raging infernos rose in moments, and the roar of the devastation drowned out the screams of those who endured it.

Scarmiglione began to speak. “In these ancient times, the people of the world governed it. It was the duty of our ancestors to maintain the natural order of the world. With their magics, they could create new life, and release it unto the world to maintain order. It was their greatest accomplishment. Creation. But The Final Days saw that order undone. The very laws of creation came undone, and it was as if the world itself turned against us. The seas boiled. The rivers ran red with blood. The land was tainted and poisoned. Inexplicable, terrifying, and so it seemed, utterly unstoppable.”

Their view panned, lowering into the city streets. Twilight saw the black-robed people she had seen from above sprinting in a blind panic through the streets. There was no order to their movements, no reason. It was just raw, blind terror. Scarmiglione continued. “But that was far from the worst of it. For as reality unravelled, so too did the laws that governed that which could and could not exist. And the creation magicks of the Ancients turned against them. Their fears mounted in the face of the apocalypse… and from their fear was born the beasts.”

Twilight’s heart leapt into her throat as one of the ancients, a woman, tripped over a broken stone. She crumpled to the ground, cradling her hooded head and wailing in terror. As she screamed, magic began to bleed out of her flesh, seeping through the woven fabric and coalescing only a few feet in front of her. As it gathered, it rotted, turning black and putrescent.

And then there were teeth.

Twilight shrieked along with the victim as an unholy amalgamation of fangs and eyes sprang from the mass of swirling black. The shrieking ancient only had a moment to raise her hand in defence of herself before she was unmade. Limbs and shreds of flesh and fabric scattered, and Twilight’s stomach turned. Nearby, other ancients looked on in horror, backpedalling. Then, they too began to glow with magic, and their own beasts came for them.

“As the beasts ended them, their fears made even worse beasts to accelerate the process,” Scarmiglione went on, and even he sounded unnerved. “A self-replicating cycle. A loop of despair. Never-ending, and only ever worsening. The final doom that spelt the end of the world as it was known.”

A powerful gust tore through the streets of the city, and all within was blown away, reduced to a cloud of ash that vanished into the distance. Twilight stood, eyes wide and heart pounding. She watched distantly as the sky began to clear, and a small number of ancients emerged from the rubble. In the far-off distance, she saw a monolithic figure of woven muscle and black feathery wings rising. Its many hands spread wide, and aether poured from its fingertips, bathing the battered world.

“A solution was found… in the form of Zodiark,” Scarmiglione continued, gesturing at the imposing figure. “The one true God of mankind. Though less than a quarter of our people remained to tell the tale, by His grace were the Final Days brought to an end, and the world saved. He restored the balance. He restored the laws of the world. He saved us all.”

Another figure rose, then. Behind Zodiark. A woman, rivalling the enormous man in size. But unlike Zodiark, whose very essence seemed to radiate the deepest shadow, this new figure was a beacon of blinding light that burned Twilight’s eyes.

“But there were those who feared Zodiark. Who feared the price of the restoration he might bring. And those fearful were the ones who brought forth Hydaelyn,” Scarmilgione continued. Twilight’s jaw fell open as Hydaelyn manifested a sword of brilliant blue crystal, and with a feral snarl hurled herself headlong at Zodiark. The earth trembled as they clashed, and the world around them shook and rumbled.

“And they fought,” Scarmiglione continued. “Until, in the end… Hydaelyn struck down our saviour. Zodiark was unmade, scattered into fourteen pieces… and with him, the world, and all life upon it, were sundered.”

Twilight watched Hydaelyn and Zodiark duel for a few moments longer until She rose above the god of darkness and fell upon him, driving both of her feet into his face. There was a deafening roar, a blinding flash, and all the world shattered like a pane of glass cast upon the pavement. Twilight staggered back, her senses scrambling to keep up with it all.

Slowly, the interior of her cell faded back into existence. Scarmiglione lowered his hand and slumped against the wall with a sigh as if the act of revealing that illusion had cost him dearly. “Such was the tragedy that was endured by the Ascians. Hydaelyn shattered our world into fourteen distinct fragments, reflections. ‘Shards.’ Each one beginning as a mirror of the Source, and diverging over time… but all of them are lesser. An equal division… in all ways lesser. The new people who dwelt upon these fractured pieces of the world were… weak. Stupid. Flailing fools who beat one another with clubs and stones for a few scraps of meat. Each only a fourteenth of what they were before. Gone was our paradise. In its place was hell.”

Twilight stared at the man, her eyes boring into his masked features even as he struggled to catch his breath. His claims… all too many questions started to flood into her brain as his claims came to an end. Battles between gods? The end of the world? She knew she could not trust him, but there was genuine loss draped all across his body language.

“...Hydaelyn is supposed to be a protector. That’s what the Scions said.”

Scarmiglione scoffed. “Fools. She is light. Stagnation. Complacency. She was born to see the world slip into the abyss of mediocrity and never return. She merely cares for her imposed status quo. A tyrant.”

“But you still haven’t explained the calamities!”

“Necessity!” Scarmiglione insisted. “The shards must be rejoined, and that requires the release of a multitude of elemental magicks to bridge the gap between the true world and the pockets containing the rest. Every cycle, Hydalyn sends pawns to stop us, so we must fight. And we win. But always at a cost. But we will save more in the long run, and our entire world, restored along with its people.”

“Then why not ask the Scions for help?”

“Hah! The ‘Mother Crystal’ already has her hooks in them. They will never accept the truth of this world. They are fragile. Broken. Weapons. But you… you are whole. You can see,” the ascian proclaimed, standing tall once more as his strength returned to him. “You and your element will pave the way for another rejoining. One long overdue and in desperate need of completion.

“What do you mean?”

“The Thirteenth shard was consumed by shadow. The remnants of our people there have been twisted into hungry, slathering monsters begging for a death that can never come. I shall use your crystal as the bridge between the chaos of that world and the harmony of your own. Don’t you see? Your light, your bonds of friendship, they shall save them all! And then they can be returned to the Source with the rest. Whole again. Men and women again.”

Consumed by shadow, restored to their true selves through friendship…?

Images of Nightmare Moon crossed into Twilight’s mind. The nature of corrupted alicorns, twisted by their own power and loathing into subversions of themselves. What the ascian said made some sense. If he had known about that, about Twilight and her friends’ exploits from across dimensional divides, how could he not come to believe, to hope, that the Elements of Harmony could do the same for them?

“...This is all so… confusing. I’ve SEEN what you have done! You allied with… THEM!” Twilight lifted a hoof to the door where garlean guards stood beyond. “But I… if that’s true…”

“It is. We are all that is left. We remember. And we will rebuild this world.”

“And the people? On the shards?” Twilight asked. “They’re alive, right? What happens when a world rejoins?”

Scarmiglione gave a pregnant pause. Crossing his arms, he regarded the alicorn with an appraising stare.

“...They return to this star, where they belong. They come home.”

At the cost of the only home they ever knew.

But if they were alive and well…? And the world was healed in the process?

But could she really trust him? After he’d attacked her? What of her friends in this world? They had been so kind to her. Especially Y’shtola. Eda, Papalymo…

There was so much sincerity in his tone. But so much just didn’t make sense…

“I can sense you still have doubts,” Scarmiglione went on, lowering his voice somewhat. “I do not blame you. But think of it like this. You come from a whole world, unsundered. Compared to Eorzea, Equestria is nearly a utopia. If something were to happen to your world alike to what happened to this one? Pegasi without flight, earth ponies without the land, unicorns with not even the most basic understanding of the arcane arts? What if your friends and family became basic barbarians compared to what they used to be…? Wouldn’t you go to nearly any lengths to get them back?”

Twilight wanted to say no, of course, she wouldn’t. But after everything she’d been through, and with how much she loved her friends, she wasn’t sure she could say it. She wasn’t sure it would be the truth. And so, in shamed silence, she bit her tongue. She looked down, her mind spinning.

“Now, I am afraid our meeting has reached its end. My other duties await, and I can delay them no longer,” Scarmiglione continued, pushing away from the wall. He lowered himself to one knee in front of Twilight to look into her eyes. “I do not wish to be your enemy. You come from an unsundered world. If you truly wish to see all of this pointless bloodshed drawn to a close, then I beg of you as I should have done from the start — lend me your knowledge. Help me use your Element responsibly. These imperial fools are proving woefully insufficient, and this war need not drag on once the darkness of the Void is purged. The sooner the rejoining is complete, the sooner the suffering will end.”

Twilight looked away, her ears folding back. She opened her mouth over and over, hunting for something to say, hunting for the words that might make all of this madness make sense or express her conflicting emotions. “I… I don’t,” she stammered. “You…”

“Take your time,” Scarmiglione said before standing tall. “I must go. But I will return. Think about what I have said. Think of what you’d do to save the ones you love from a fate worse than death…”

Twilight turned back to him, but he was already gone. All that was left was a shrinking point of blackest shadow that disappeared into the walls of her metal cell, leaving nothing but her distressed reflection staring back at her.

Scarmigione himself reappeared in a hail of shadow beyond the fortress. Standing under the cursed moon as he stared up and into the crater where his lord lay.

His face remained neutral beneath the mask. His posture was placid. His mouth not even twitching. Even as his clawed hand curled into a fist.

Understand…?

How could she…?

Even now, with the barest bones exposed, even a being of whole self could not comprehend the true gravity of this world.

Still, if she could come to understand even a mote of it, maybe she could help. Maybe the thirteenth could be saved. And so could Lord Zodiark.

Even if it was through half-truths.