Fates, fate, fated.
She is.
She is utterly miserable.
There’s something dull-
No, the gem.
She looks around, wildly swaying as she tears back to her campsite.
She can’t lose it. Not now.
She’s still swaying when she reaches, only this time she isn’t running. She sways in place, the winds rustling the leaves around her, around the clearing, around the-
It’s clear.
She hates me now, she’ll hate me.
Sunset swallows at the thought.
She doesn’t hate Twilight.
Does she?
I meant it, Applejack. I meant it when I told her-
She doesn’t want to think. The cave looms.
I know. I know you did, but just then-
Words echo through the cave that aren’t truly there. Perhaps she’s found something. Twilight would-
I… that was a mistake. I shouldn’t… I let myself get carried away and-
I know why you did. I know you- well. I know you don’t always think things through.
Twilight isn’t here. She lights her horn. It glows brighter than it should.
That’s-
Twilight-
She shakes her head. No. No more. The words grow louder.
No, Sunset, listen. She needs us. She’s under a lot of pressure, and she… she’s trying.
She’s trying not to scream. It’s not easy.
The woods were silent when she entered the cave, but the gem is loud, in all the right ways. Or perhaps all the wrong ones.
I know that! Of course I know that! I’m trying too, but she’s not-
Enough.
She’s more than this. She needs to stop and find the gem. She should know better. She should.
Listening? Sug’, that’s just Twi sometimes.
The voices stop. The cave is smaller at the end than at the front. It’s barely taller than her horn, too short for her longsword.
Sometimes… but not every time. But ever since the-
The cave is dark. There’s twenty horn-lengths between the entrance and this end – too much for light to get in, especially when the moon is peaking.
The moon is another problem.
Has she done too much?
A waking nightmare.
She… she’s scared. The others, they aren’t taking this as seriously as she is, and she’s getting worried. It’s almost time, and she just… she feels like she needs to make some decisions.
Cyan and pink – a delicately carved star ruby in her blue-green glow.
I’m taking it seriously! I’m making sure she’s safe! What’s the point of some fate-spun destiny if she’s too dead to fulfill it?
A fate worse than death, some called it.
The voices return, and she questions how bad it could be.
What is there to life but change? it asks.
Nothing, she thinks.
And by everything in Celestia, she needs change. She needs more. She needs less. She needs-
She needs her life.
She needs the life she was denied.
She needs-
She tips her head forward, touches her horn to the stone.
The visions – same as before – fill her closed eyes.
A dark flash of blue.
“There is no one here now.”
Fading white, streaked in pink and gold.
“You are freed.”
The most delicate lavender, pelt pressed against orange.
“They will not understand, not today.”
She reaches forward, nearly takes a step.
“Perhaps never.”
Twilight looks up, her eyes flashing with disbelief.
“Perhaps tomorrow.”
Applejack presses closer to Twilight, but her eyes are simply sorrowful.
“But not today.”
She swallows, the visions fading as she pulls away from the stone.
The six-pointed star gleams the tiniest bit purple as she places it down.
Not today.
-- -- -- -- — —
There is desolation in extravagance.
They have built themself a palace. There is no struggle any longer – the Spirit grows strong, and she grows weak, and it has taken her and built her a home.
Perhaps it is not all-cruel.
But they are still desolate.
The surface is cold, and she is unbreathing, but only because the Spirit does that for her.
There’s irony in it – and desolation. She was once the host, but this body has been claimed and reclaimed by the Spirit. She is now but a parasite in her own form – stood only by the patience and the-
Can she call it kindness?
Can something so heartless show affection? Can something so parasitic truly love?
If she could answer that, perhaps she’d know. Perhaps it asks the same of her – does she love it? Does she care for it?
Or does she regret it, regret them?
Does it care?
They are no longer turbulent, they can say so much, at the least. And their conception, well, there was no doubt they had both agreed.
She had breathed life into them and it had consumed that which she left.
Perhaps it isn’t them. Perhaps she doesn’t regret it, doesn't regret them.
Perhaps she had only regretted the destruction they had left behind.
Perhaps–
The nexter calls. She hears the future’s call, watches the stars align.
There is so much that the ponies put into destiny – so much that they rarely realise that prophecy isn’t destiny.
The nexter is flanked by the sun,and she hesitates in that regard, but it is red and gold and not pale and not somewhere between orange and yellow. And as for it? It sees the nexter’s prophecy.
The nexter’s power, unadulterated, unblemished.
Untamed.
The nexter. Its next body.
She grows weaker.
Someday, she will not be a parasite. She will be nothing, gone on the wings of time.
She will be nothing, as she always was.
She wonders, will she be remembered?
The stars, it once said, would aid in their escape. Will the stars remember her?
Her sister?
The Spirit?
She sighs, and for once, it is hers, not theirs.
Perhaps the only one who will share her desolation is the nexter. Or perhaps even the nexter will not know her.
They shut their eyes, and they ignore it, and they channel her instead.
They open their eyes and the nexter, corporeal in a way she will never be again, is lost to her domain.
They try to step in, but it is blocked – it is not her, at the end of the day, she is only herself. The nexter dreams, and she is within them, as she has been so often.
The nexter is trapped in a cage, bars built of disappointment.
She’s a little shocked – and, admittedly, proud. The Spirit was never much for a chat, but it made it clear she had been its most creative host. She’s almost glad that the nexter will carry on for her.
Once, she notes, as the cage both shrinks and grows, she would have stopped this. But she wonders now, if she still has the power to. She’s almost tempted to try – almost tempted to pull the nexter out of the cage, but she stops herself.
She should see what this nexter is made of.
The nexter simply whimpers. The cage grows even smaller, so small it can no longer let in light. She is a little disappointed.
She expected more.
She wonders what it sees in this body that so appeals to it.
Then the voice echoes through the dream.
It’s haunting.
Somehow.
She doesn’t know how it got in.
It taunts, chides.
She feels herself, feels herself pulled back.
The cage seems to dissolve in front of her.
She wonders whether the nexter wakes. But the rest of the dream is solid – although shifting in the way only dreams can.
The cage is liquid now, but the nexter is nowhere.
The Spirit pulls her back again, harsher this time, consuming.
Then the cage is twisting, liquid metal and disappointment molding itself into the shape of a pony. Then the liquid goes inward and the nexter stands, eyes blank as they meet hers.
The voice is loud, screaming, but – to her surprise – it is not the Spirit.
It is the nexter, set in the same rasp – and Luna sighs.
Perhaps she understands the Spirit after all.
Author's Note
uhhhh i have been working on the prologue for the actual main story for this but i then i had the urge to write this?? and now ive published it unbeta'd so uh rip
this ig is basically a deleted scene because there won't be any space for this in the actual au so this is kind of a sneak peek of what's to come :)
but yeah if you're confused abt what's going on, its literally me jumping forward in time in this au when i Definitely didn't need to. i'll be filling in the backstory as i write warped mirror, which should come out soon!!!
