Dreams of Forever

Slowly reopening her eyes after a long and pleasant sleep, Twilight spotted a familiar purple mane in front of her. She sighed in contentment, resolving to snuggle a bit closer to her lover.

"Morning, princess." Duskwing shifted his head up, his nose pressed against hers. "I think we went a bit overboard last night."

"I-It's probably fine." Twilight nervously smiled. "Remember what I said? Alicorns have trouble conceiving."

"I'm not so sure about that." He kissed her, Twilight pulling him in. Saliva exchanged, tongues danced with one another until she finally pulled back to breath. "Tell me when you start putting on a few extra pounds, I'll get the spear for your brother."

Sighing, Twilight brought him back in for a brief kiss. "If I start gaining a few extra pounds, I'm the one going to be holding the spear."

"Sounds like a deal." He chuckled lightly, his smile slowly fading as he stared back into her eyes. "Didn't our previous first time--"

"Shit..."

Gently placing the unknown machine on the floor, Shield immediately turned to the next task. The Queen's Guard were receiving three days off, minus the few times each day they needed to bring down fresh food and water. In the center of the room was the comfiest chair they could find in Ponyville with a table next to it for food and drinks, a particular filly sitting within said comfy chair with her new favorite toy.

The entire lab was coming together slowly. The alchemy station was pretty complicated, well beyond what Shield had learned in school, and the mechanical chamber was starting to get everything in order. It was an impressive setup even before considering what else was planning to be made.

Next to the comfy chair, Dusty was organizing the foodstuffs and materials for the filly that was currently rotating the sphere she recovered from the old lab. All manner of foods were left for her to snack on, ranging from nutritious jarred fruits to scrumptious cupcakes, to plain-old energy bars.

"Okay, everything is organized as you wanted." Dusty smiled at Somnia to receive approval, keeping her eyes pointed away from the sphere. Once the filly examined the items to her satisfaction, she gave a simple nod letting Dusty leave to start her vacation. Quickly floating the last crate over to the tables and machines, Shield breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thanks for the help!" Somnia lazily waved back to him. "Make sure to bring more food and water for me. I don't want to die down here."

"No worries." He winked back to her before trotting out into the hallway, passing Twilight traveling in the opposite direction.

"Hey, Somnia. Were you seriously going to start without saying goodbye?" Twilight teased.

"I was going to get around to it. Eventually." She muttered, turning up from her task. "You're here now, aren't you?"

Twilight shook her head, keeping a decent distance from the chair. "I would come over to give you a hug but..." Somnia jumped down, leaving the orb behind as she quickly trotted over to hug her mother. For just a moment, she lingered, her soul-sight focused on something... different. Shaking the idea, she kissed her mom on the cheek before returning to the task at hoof. "What do you hope to learn by studying it?"

"Anything useful." Somnia sighed. "Probably going to be a lot of scary stuff or things that are completely useless."

"Are you sure you're going to be safe?"

"I'm a Grand Councilor, these things were made for us." She held the sphere up, Twilight turning away from looking at it. "And who knows, I might even be able to transmute these common materials into something useful." She declared tapping the pile of wood next to her.

"Don't overdo yourself. The gala is the day after your return." She waved back one last time before trotting out of the room with a: "Love you!"

"Love you too." Somnia sighed. Her mother's emotions were all over the place, but she couldn't worry about that right now. She waited until she heard the mechanism upstairs close the chamber off from the rest of the world before making a simple request: Grar, you get a vacation too.

Alrighty, see you in three days! And good luck! Her friend went silent.

With nopony to see what was about to happen, she concentrated on the orb cradled in her hooves. She bit her lip and turned it a bit, checking the markings along its surface. It seemed to be in good condition, well, it was in perfect condition but she didn't have anything to compare it to. Donning the saddlebags next to her in preparation for what she was about to do, she swallowed her anxiety about finally making use of the artifact for something practical. If Grar was right, all she needed to do was think of a command and it would happen, a terrifying prospect given that one latent thought could destroy all of Equestria.

Taking a few deep breaths, it activated.

Stepping out of the metal closet, she turned her head to glance down in both directions of the hallway she found herself in. It reminded her of the service hallways in Excalion's Tower but far more advanced. The lighting seemed to come from seemingly nowhere, and the doors de-materialized when opened and reappeared when closed. Walking down the hallway, she read the different signs signifying the closet's purposes. It was a little different from Equinish script, but some drift wasn't surprising considering ponies didn't have access to the same record systems the Cyclical Union did.

She trotted down the hallway searching for the stairs or some sign to give her a sense of direction. Heading through the door into another maintenance hall, Somnia had only the slightest clue of where she ended up. Without Grar, she was lost. He did provide a map of the facility, but that was too much of a jumbled mess to make any sense of without being a super genius like him.

Four hallways later, she managed to get out of the service hallways and into an observation hallway with massive windows on either side which provided vision into the former containment cells. By the look of the chambers, whatever had let the monsters out didn't do so gently. Massive bulkheads were torn open to let them out, only a few small markings or objects in the cell indicating what it was that was unleashed upon the world. She continued for three whole minutes straight down the hallway, eventually getting out into a branching system that could take her further into the other parts of the level or up to higher ones. Unfortunately, the elevator next to the stairs was out of order due to being on backup power for tens of thousands of years, forcing her to take the way which required effort.

Choosing the stairs, she continued for some time until reaching the upper level where she wanted to be.

"If Grar was right, these should be the biology labs and the next level should branch to the physics labs." She continued to aimlessly trot around the hallways for another hour until she found the next set of stairs. Going to the next level, she had two options: Manufacturing or experimentation. Heading toward manufacturing, Somnia got a nice view of the contained labs on the side where Grar had made all sorts of contraptions. Any single one would be beyond the understanding of Excalicorn, but she was looking for something she could understand. Even so, Somnia made a note to return at a later point to ferry some of them back to her own lab to examine.

Entering the massive manufacturing plant, she looked over the unfinished items scattered near the entrance area for things she could use. The entire facility hadn't aged a day. The only sense that one could gleam from it was that it had been shut down, time seeming to be irrelevant for the metals used. A series of massive conveyors, forges, printers, and bins stretched out far into the distance in all directions, connected on one end to the matter fabricator and the other to the sorting apparatus. Catwalks were suspended above the conveyors where they could cross, allowing a pony to move to the different production lines.

Going to a scraps bin, she took out a few of the broken mechanisms, peeling bits of metal off of them before looking around for something usable. Somnia continued down the massive chamber towards where the manufacturing would come to an end. Grabbing one of the pistols from the finished end, she trotted off in search of a zero-point-energy cell.

While it would be impractical to melt down and reforge the metals produced by the matter fabricator, the cells would still be incredibly useful. No nuclear reactor, no risk of nuclear meltdowns. Instead, essentially free energy that will last for millions of years. Or a few hundred, since Grar didn't have the necessary supplies to produce a higher grade of zero-point cells. Also far less powerful.

Even so, one small cell produced more electricity than Equestria produced a day, assuming you build up its energy for a few minutes. Making her way to the experimentation lab, she entered the code Grar had given her into the manual input panel to open it to a room filled with massive machines of unknown purpose.

Cells were practically strewn about everywhere, on workbenches, tables, and the floor in some of the messier areas. Picking one up, she fitted it into the pistol getting a whine as it charged up, and aimed at a sign on the wall warning about 'deep sea horrors'. One pull of the trigger disintegrated the sign before Somnia could blink, creating a blackened scorch mark on the wall where it was and the liquefied sign flowing down onto the floor below.

"No kickback, huh?" She checked the power settings and rolled her eyes. "Couldn't set them on low, could you?" Checking the gauge on the side, the power level was about half from passive drain over the millennia. She spent the next hour collecting a large pile of cells and weapons from around the level as well as anything else that may have been useful.

Going up another level, she trotted around the hallways to split off labs and assorted storage rooms. She managed to find the armory, but it was still under lockdown for whatever reason. I should ask Grar about that. Somnia mused as she went into one of the rooms with two dozen terminals. It was a bit silly that Grar had more than three terminals considering only he, Excalion, and Queen Gavelmede even knew how to access the facility, but Somnia guessed that it was to just fill the space.

She sat at one of the terminals and tapped the keyboard, the display flickering to life. She frowned at the interface and began aimlessly pressing keys she hoped would make her proceed to the records on file. The display changed a bit in certain somewhat helpful ways, but there still wasn't any text. It looked like a puzzle, but was highly complicated and with nothing to tell what the right configuration was. "What even is this?" Somnia muttered to herself, getting up and going to the neighboring terminal to start it up.

Groaning at the sight: "Of course!" She laughed, leaving the arcade and going back out into the halls to find a room with actual information terminals. She spent a few more minutes trotting down the hall checking rooms until she found what looked to be a planning room, sitting down at the terminal within that room and starting it up to a password screen.

"Uhh..." She typed in several things she thought it could be, all of which related to Grar or the Cyclical Union but none were accepted. Grogar, Excalion, Balderiaol, the names of her aunts, uncles, and parents, Gavelmede, Misty Sunbeam. Anything that came to mind that would make sense, although she doubted his password was anything that simple since he could remember a stream of numbers, symbols, and letters over fifty characters long easily enough. She went around the planning room to check out the various visualizer tablets finding that they also had been locked. "What could be his password?"

Going back to the terminal, she typed in 'Sombra' just for the fun of it, surprisingly getting it to unlock. She blinked a few times, thinking about why and how that would be his password. Checking the files in the main directory, one was marked as 'For you.' Opening it, her eyes read it through in its entirety. Smiling at the sweet note he had left, Grar, or Grogar back then, explained how he and Excalion named the first alicorn 'Sombra', meaning 'Dreamer', and spoke to her mom about them when she was pregnant. He had changed the password to their name so that if they ever came to the facility then they could read the files.

Rubbing her eyes, the filly looked into the other files he had in the directories. There were a lot of technical files which she opened to examine. The schematics and data far surpassed her understanding, involving materials and technical specifications that outstripped even the Harmonic Empire's technological know-how. Without anything specific she could understand, Somnia got up and left back into the hallway.

She ventured back down to the bio-labs, using scraps of metal to find her way back to the stairs once she collected what she wanted. The medical station contained a lot of useful stuff which she decided to come back for on her second trip, after getting some refrigerators for her lab. She returned with even more things to add to the pile, taking one last look at her haul before nodding in approval.

Taking another look at the orb she had put away in her saddlebags, she activated it and made a portal back to her lab, tossing the stuff she collected through before going back through herself. Without delay, she activated it a second to time send her to somewhere she did recognize.

Might as well see what's left.

Twilight moved the pieces back into place, the wall seal opening for her. It had been a whole day since Somnia had isolated herself downstairs and Twilight wanted to make sure she was alright. As she approached the double doors at the end of the hallway, she could hear the sounds of... welding? Slowly opening the door, she spotted four stands with crudely drafted frames in the shape of different members of the Queen's Guard.

"Somnia?" Twilight whispered, pushing the door open a bit more. To her right in the 'manufactory' was the filly with a welding mask, welding some plates together. The entire room had... stuff just laying around haphazardly. Stepping over some of the towels the filly somehow acquired, Twilight got close enough to see what she was working on. "Is that the new smelter?"

"Yes." Somnia curtly answered, intensely focused on the task. "Need it to melt that." She said while motioning with her head to a pile of metal plates next to her.

"Where did you get this stuff from?" Twilight moved off to the side toward a table with a small device that seemed to fit over a hoof.

"Grar's labs. His big one, and his Excalicorn one." She finished with the weld and sat up to face her mother. "I'll need to revise the metal invoices I gave you."

"Alright." She picked up the device and fitted it over her hoof. "What is this for?"

The filly sighed, walking over after taking off her mask. Twilight stepped back at the massive red gash down her face. "What happened? Are you alright?"

"Huh? Oh, you mean the line?" She rubbed her face, the streak flaking away. "I was having some trouble with the paint."

"That explains the towels." Twilight mumbled while Somnia grabbed a small flattened cylinder and opened the side of the device on her hoof. Once she closed it, a few lights lit up on it.

"This is a medical scanner. Scan me." Somnia stood still while Twilight pointed it at her.

"How do I scan you?"

"Press the display on the left or right. Whichever one has the pony." Twilight did as Somnia instructed and a few beams of light scattered over the filly before a massive amount of information began being provided on the display.

Twilight smiled in awe at the electronic device. "Wow. Did you make this?"

"No, I grabbed that from the bio-labs. Grar or Excalion did." She took it off Twilight's hoof, putting it on before scanning her mother and checking the results, of which nothing was notable except for her mother's alicorn sub-types. She shrugged and trotted back over to the plates she was welding. "It was in the med-bay. I grabbed a few omni-heals while I was there too."

"How many?" Twilight approached her as she arranged different plates.

"Two fridges?" She pointed across the room towards the alchemy station. "Lots of ponies throw away good fridges just because one small piece broke inside. A little soldering here, a replaced circuit there, maybe even a good kick, and they're back in working order."

"Two... fridges?!" Twilight finally took in the full depth of the stuff Somnia had collected. It wasn't just that. Large magical crystals, entire boxes of enchanted gemstones, smaller machines she couldn't even begin to understand. Box and crate after box and crate of things that she had brought back with her from all the places she had gone to. "You just took all of this?"

"Nopony else knew about it or wanted it." She shrugged dismissively. "I also found some of the plants Grar grew in seed form. Should help out with some of the rarer alchemy ingredients. Did you know Heart's Desire was created to be refined into a midas agent?"

"I-I... No, I didn't." She sat next to Somnia. "Are you going to still be here for the next two days?"

"Mom, I need to make the first tier of Queen's Guard armor. Without it, they're practically wearing encyclopedias on them. This is lighter, stronger, magically resistant, and best of all, disguisable with the right enchantments." She sighed. "Then comes the second tier for large-scale battles. I want to give them the best equipment possible if they are going to be protecting my family."

"Then what are these for?" Twilight walked over to some half-made metal wings.

"Oh, I'm going to be replacing their wings with something better. I was testing the design with that poorer quality metal before I went ahead with making the real thing."

Her mother nervously chuckled. "This is all way beyond me."

"You can read about it." Somnia pointed to the other side of the room where there were piles upon piles of metal bricks next to a makeshift computer and mirror. "I grabbed some hard-copy drives while in Excalicorn."

"Y-You..." Twilight happily trotted over to the computer. Plugging one of the drives into the computer, her hopes were crushed by the realization it was all in Equinish script.

"I would translate it for you, but it would take years." Somnia called out. "Each one of those data-bricks is a few thousand articles and books of information."

"Entire libraries I can't read!" Twilight cried out, slamming her head onto the keyboard. "Why do you do this to me?!"

"Hey, you wanted them." The filly flipped down her mask and began welding again, cutting off any further discussion.

Flashing into the arctic plains, Somnia pushed her way through the blizzard around her toward her next destination. Her entire body was wrapped tightly up in several layers of winter gear to the point of barely being able to move, but it would be worth it once she got to the outpost.

From the lights in the distance, the small concrete and metal outpost was still inhabited, the only question was by whom. She trudged through the snow until collapsing against the door and frantically hitting it with her hoof. She could hear talking on the other side a minute before they opened the door at her persistent knocking, quickly diving in out of the frigid cold to the surprise of the inhabitant who slammed the door shut. "Aw, fuck!"

"It's just a filly." A griffoness came over and helped the shivering Somnia up. "What are you doing out this far?"

"What's a pony doing this far away from Feathergriff?" The other griffon picked her up and took the goggles off of her to see her eyes.

"Basement." Somnia mumbled from underneath the layers.

"What about the basement?" He narrowed his eyes. "And what are you doing here?"

"Let's get her nice and comfy. She must have come a long way." The griffoness took the filly from her companion and began to unwrap her. The only thing Somnia kept on her was a small hoof-mounted mechanism. All three retired to the small living area while Somnia warmed up with some hot water they had boiled. It was fairly bare, although dragging furniture this far north must have been a laborious task on its own. There were only two couches, a wooden chair in the corner, and a small crude metal table between them. Once all three were seated, one of them spoke:

"What are you doing here, pony? This is griffon territory!" The meaner one demanded.

"I'm here for what my aunt left in the basement." Somnia simply stated.

"Likely story."

"Stop that." The kind one chastised, hitting their partner on the shoulder. "Maybe we should hear her out."

"It's a communications device capable of making use of the relays around Equus. With it, I can communicate with others that have the nodes. It's worth more than a throne of pure trisium nowadays."

Both griffons turned to each other, thinking about it until the meaner one spoke up with a deceptively gracious inflection. "Well, I'm glad you've come to collect it. We haven't been able to get that vault open."

"Well, I'm glad to come to collect it." Somnia cast her gaze from her cup to them. "I should probably tell you, I'm armed with an energy weapon and a particle shield. Double-cross me, and I'll have you turned into a bloody puddle."

"Don't worry, we're not planning anything of the sort." The kind one nodded to the filly with a gentle smile. Somnia knew that they were lying from their emotions, they were bandits after all. The three made their way to the icy basement where the massive vault door poked out of the roughly carved ice. Various drills and tool-heads lay around the room, discarded or broken. Moving up to the control panel, Somnia placed her hoof on it before the vault began opening, surprising her griffon hosts.

She stepped in and examined the small machine. It was in perfect condition with the power cell still operating after all the millennia since it was stored in the vault. It possessed the same zero-point-energy cells that Grar and Excalion made, enabling the replacement of the power source to be as easy as popping it open and replacing it with one of the hundreds of cells she managed to collect.

"W-What is that?" The nice one pointed at the device.

"It's a charging station for the comms." She glanced back to the two griffons patiently standing there. "Are you going to make your move, or are we going to keep playing this out?"

"W-What are you--"

"I know who you are. You're scavengers. From the looks of the stuff around the basement, you've been trying to crack the vault for a while without even a dent."

"And just who the fuck are you?" The mean one growled back as they dropped the act.

"I'm the Queen of Equus and the Grand Councilor of Harmony. Get out of my way while I leave, and you'll both live to see another day. I don't want to kill you if I don't have to. You've accepted me into your home, given me something to drink, and let me access this vault without fuss. You haven't done anything in my presence that would give me a reason to hurt you, so let's keep it that way."

"It's ours, pony! It's our home, so it's ours to take!" The mean one stepped forward.

"M-Maybe we shouldn't..." The 'nice' one shirked back at the filly's unwavering vision.

"She's just a fledgling, bluffing about being armed to see if we were pushovers." He took another step forward.

"One more, and that's it. Last chance." Somnia warned, narrowing her eyes.

The griffon barely got off the ground by the time Somnia raised her hoof and fired an energy blast straight into the griffon, blowing them into smoking pieces. Blood splattered around the room, including over both of the other living creatures.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" The other screamed, scooting back on their haunches into a corner while Somnia grabbed the machine on her back and walked back upstairs with it, leaving the hyperventilating griffoness to freak out about the blood and her dead partner.

Somnia activated the portal at the door and threw her winter clothes through before carrying the machine through with her to the other side. Closing it behind her, she set down the machine on the ground and finally took time to breathe.

"Somnia!" Dusty trotted over. "Are you alright? Why are you covered in blood?!"

"I-I had to..." She kept her eyes closed and shook her head. "They would have hurt me. I had to kill them."

"Kill who? Where did you go?!"

The filly took another minute to breathe before standing back up on shaky hooves, tossing the sphere to the linen basket she set up to hold it, surrounded by signs saying 'DANGER: STAY AWAY' and 'WARNING: DANGEROUS ARTIFACT'. "I needed to get this." She picked up the machine and brought it over to an empty table.

"What even is it?" Dusty examined one of the small thin objects on the side of the device.

"It's a secure communications relay. Each of these patches can be given to a pony to provide a magical link between them. It was a top-secret project my aunt had developed for the royal family but was ultimately sealed away because of the risk it posed. With this, you can determine where all the other patches are in real-time as long as they are in the range of a relay."

"That's amazing! So no more earpieces?" She grabbed one of the patches to examine. It shifted color in her hoof to match the color of her fur.

"Nope, and they'll be able to be used anywhere in Equestria since the relay is still active." She walked over to the table Dusty was arranging, checking what had been brought to eat. "Please call the other guards and my mom to come down here while I wash up."

The filly left while Dusty alerted all of them to a high-priority meeting in the lab. The first to trickle in were Dawn and Shield, both already inside the castle. A few minutes later, Twilight trotted in.

"Did something happen? Where's Somnia?" She stopped in front of the relay, looking down at it and pointing: "Is that blood?!"

"She'll be with us in a little bit. Kinda got a bit all over her." Dusty answered while they waited on the others. Scuttle and Love came down with a cleaned Somnia after about fifteen minutes.

"Alright, each of you take a patch and apply it to somewhere you won't mind ripping it off, and not on the legs." Somnia grabbed hers and put it on her neck, partially covered by her mane. The patch matched her fur creating a seamless illusion. "You can swim with them, shampoo over them, and take punches. They are pretty durable to anything except if you stab them, so I would recommend the neck."

Each of them grabbed a patch and put it on, most of them choosing the neck except for Dawn who chose under his wing. Once ready, Somnia started giving her thoughts to the patch.

Think about what you want to direct to the patch, then it will be transmitted to it. It doesn't accept things you don't explicitly think to it, so no embarrassing moments when you don't want it activating. She communicated to each of them. The charging station can be used to charge it once the patch starts running low on power. It should last a few days at least if you are very active, and it will start to itch under the patch to warn you. She opened a panel on the side of the relay and began tapping away at the screen that folded out.

Testing, testing, Dusty, come in. Shield thought.

Sergeant Dusty reporting.

Dawn here. Seems to be working fine.

This is a bit like the spells we developed in the hives.

Love and more, confirming it works.

Wow, this is amazing! The applications for this technology could be huge!

Somnia sighed, backing away from the charger. Which is why we can't let this get out. Near instantaneous communication across Equestria is massive, and Celestia or Luna might want access to this technology. She revealed the small display for everypony. I've set up the map to be centered on Equestria. If one of us is foalnapped or goes missing, or whatever, this will tell you exactly where they are or where they last were. Use your hooves to zoom in or out.

Why don't you want Celestia or Luna to know? Twilight asked curiously.

I can't trust them fully. Somnia simply replied. Alright, that was everything. Mom, can you take the charger upstairs to leave in the immediate entrance-way to my lab? The filly took all the other patches from the machine to make sure nopony else could grab one.

Yeah, I can do that. Twilight levitated the machine with her while the guards followed along to return to their vacation, which for Dawn meant sleeping some more.

Once they were gone, Somnia sighed and sat down on the comfy chair to snack away on the things Dusty had brought her.

"Tomorrow's going to be a long day..."

Finishing the last touches on the leg sleeves, Somnia sat back and beheld her work. Watches, energy pistols, and light particle shields. The sleeves were quite difficult to notice unless you are up close or looking for them, and could be integrated within the royal guard hoofguards for added concealment. A small modification needed to be done for Scuttle and Love, but it wasn't too difficult to compensate.

Getting down from her chair, she made her way back through the hallway and up the stairs, quickly closing up the room before proceeding straight to her bed. Three days of adventure and creation took a lot of focus to stay on task, but the groundwork was set up to make sure there isn't a repeat of the Equestria Games or her foalnapping.

The night passed fairly quickly, a bit too quickly. And too quietly, not counting the nightmares. Raising her head the next morning, she realized why. You awake, Grar?

With no response, she got up from bed and made her way back to the puzzle room. Heading back down into the lab, she sat on the chair and began prodding with her mind at Grar's soul to signal him to wake up.

It's good to be back.

It's good to have you back. She slumped down on her thinking chair, rubbing her eyes. Thanks for telling me about all that stuff. It's going to be incredibly useful.

Consider it an apology for not being there last time you needed me. Besides, nopony else was going to use it.

You helped me with something even bigger, something I'm very grateful for, and a lot of other ponies are too. Actions have consequences, and my action to have you repeal those two layers had the consequence of you not being able to help me when I was foalnapped.

I'll take what I can get. There isn't much I can do to serve you, especially now that your powers are escalating. Eventually, you won't even need me.

Maybe not, but that doesn't mean I don't like having you around. You're my best friend, or like a second father, I don't know which.

Why not both?

Both. Both sound good. She laid back and closed her eyes, content to simply wait for sleep to come. I love you, Grar. Even if I don't always show it.

I live to serve.

You're just saying that because I'm a part of your big plans for the universe.

Pretty much. If there was ever a way to chuckle in his current form, that was it. Somnia snuggled into the leg-rest, tiredly smiling to herself. In some ways, Grar was a second father to her. He taught her to speak, walk, produce lethal armaments... Her mind wandered back to an idea she had been floating around since she came to terms with what happened to him.

Could she make him a new body? When she's powerful enough, can she give him a second chance at life? A chance where he is free to do what he wishes, where his ambitions are fulfilled, where his life is his to choose the path of?

That would be nice... She hummed, dozing into the realm of sleep.

Somnia? Are you awake?

The voice tickled her ears, despite its direct implantation into that segment of her mind. Speak or forever hold your peace.

Where are you? I thought you would be awake for breakfast. Twilight's voice came again.

Basement. Somnia sighed. It wouldn't be long before her mother came looking for her. She kept replaying what happened in the cabin over and over while she waited. She gave them all the relevant information about the situation. They made their choice, and she made hers. Maybe if she had her magic they could have been knocked out, or held in place. But she needed the relay sooner than then. The foalnapping needed to never happen again.

Twilight came trotting in smiling at her. "Have you been down here all night?"

"I went to bed upstairs, but came back down because the chair was comfier." She rubbed the leg-rest.

"Well, you must be hungry after all the work you've been doing." Twilight came over and lifted Somnia to take her place on the chair, setting the filly down in her lap. "Is something wrong?"

"Remember when you told me about the griffon you killed?" She leaned back into her mother's chest, nuzzling against it. "I've killed creatures too. A pony, and a griffon. I saved the old Nightwind and Fae from an assassin, and I killed a griffon to get that communication device."

"Oh, Somnia..." Twilight rubbed her head while she continued.

"It's not the death that bothers me. It's the permanence of it. Ponies die all the time from things natural and unnatural, but when it's made permanent, it feels different. Most things ponies do are permanent to them, but to me, nearly everything is temporary given enough time or effort. To see a life end, knowing you can't ever see them make amends for those they've wronged, or improve their life further. I-I've been thinking a bit. Is it so bad I want to make everything last forever? To know that all things are eternal, that every soul has an opportunity to repent for their disharmonious actions?"

"That's a... unique perspective. I don't know what things will be like for you, but for normal ponies like me, that permanence is what makes us who we are. If you could change anything about who you are, where you came from, then who would you be? Would you simply be the sum of those experiences? Or are you something greater?" Twilight gently smiled at her daughter.

"Have you been reading 'The Cyclical Truth'?" The filly asked a bit suspicious. "That's almost exactly like one of the sections."

"Why are you asking me if you already know what I'm going to answer?" Twilight raised a coy brow.

"I don't know if it's true, that's the problem." She sighed against the purple fur. "Are we only the sum of our experiences? Am I something bigger than just that? Is anypony bigger than just that?"

"Have you spoken to Grar about this?" Twilight petted her mane with long gentle strokes. "Doesn't he usually have some useful insight?"

"He'll tell me what was from 'The Cyclical Truth'. He wrote the book, after all." She groaned. "And even then, he just got it from beyond the veil!"

"Maybe he'll surprise you."

Nope, she's pretty much right.

"Some help you were." Twilight mumbled, going back to the topic at hoof. "Does it feel like you need permanence in your life?"

"Maybe I do..."

"Are you worried ponies will judge you because you can reverse consequences they see as permanent?"

"Yeah..."

"You can choose to let certain things be permanent. Maybe there's nothing you can do right now to change things, but eventually, you will be able to. That's something you'll have to come to terms with, that you can act but choose not to." Twilight cradled the filly in her forelegs, getting a giggle out of her. "A lot of tyrants try to do what they believe is best for those they lead. Maybe their intentions are pure to the very end, but their methods turn cruel to fulfill that goal. Maybe you need to learn to let go. Let certain things be permanent, even if they aren't."

A form of consequence you can choose to abide by. A measure to accept life how it turned out, and not by what you can do about it. What point is there to a feeling if it can be reversed so that you never felt it? What is the point of loss if it is temporary?

Choices are the most important things in life. Ultimately what makes it different from the non-living. You have a choice, exactly as you always tell everypony else. Do you want to know life as it is for mortals? Do you want to know what it is to be temporary? If so, I know you will find a way to hold onto that part of yourself.

Somnia thought about what they said while Twilight picked her up in her magic to bring her back upstairs. Maybe that's what she needs. Something stable to stand on, a foundation on which everything is built. Maybe the Cyclical Truth was more truthful than she previously believed...

Maybe... She smiled to herself as sleep drifted back into her mind.