Scattered Pages - The Final Twilight

by Brass Scribe

Rating: teen
Tags: Tragedy, Violence, Death, Twilight Sparkle, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 7880

It's been over a thousand years since Twilight lost her friends. Maybe becoming an immortal alicorn was a mistake.

Twilight Sparkle sits on her throne, raising the moon yet again after tens of thousands of times. It's been over a thousand years since her best friends passed, and she regrets becoming an immortal alicorn that cannot seem to pass on naturally like the rest of them.

But when she has the opportunity to bring them back, will Twilight take the risks to make it so, even if it means sacrificing her own morals and making deals with those who she should never associate with?

This story was originally written for Scattered Pages: Tales from the Book of All Stories, a convention-exclusive book that was published for "Ponyville Ciderfest 2023: An Interactive Storytelling Adventure!"

Art by the wonderful Slush Pony

Preread by Vivid Syntax & volrathxp

Edited by Sonicsuns.

Published 2023-11-25 21:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-11-25 21:00:00 UTC

The Final Twilight

A darkness falls on Twilight Sparkle’s kingdom as she lowers the sun and slowly raises the moon. Another day has concluded. Twilight knows that the sun and moon can automatically rise and set on their own without her, but she insists on doing it as a tribute to her former mentors. She wonders how many times she has raised them since Celestia and Luna retired. It has been at least ten…no twenty…no thirty-thousand times at least…maybe more. To an immortal alicorn, the days to her were like minutes to a normal pony.

She sits there in the dim moonlight. A perfect image of the celestial body casts behind her through a stained-glass window of her and her five friends defeating Nightmare Moon for the first time. She usually takes pride in the way the moon aligns with the window’s design, but she feels empty tonight. Although she has seen the mareless moon thousands of times through that window, she focuses on her friends in the glass tonight.

Despite happening generations ago, she still remembers that night where she met five random ponies and together took on one of the darkest entities that Equestria offered. It was the day where she met her five closest friends.

After they separated the dark aspect that created Nightmare Moon from Princess Luna, she believed that the six of them would be inseparable. Even through trials and tribulations, the six of them remained by together: Discord could not create enough chaos to tear them apart, Sombra could not destroy their bond through the Tree of Harmony, even Cozy Glow & Tirek removing (almost) all the magic in Equestria couldn’t destroy their Magic of Friendship. But there was one thing that could separate them.

Death.

Twilight used to think becoming an alicorn was a gift: the magic of all three races and the status of Princesshood. Her ascension into alicornism changed her biology in ways that differ from the naturally born alicorns like Celestia & Luna. She did not age like the other ponies, which is something she did not know of when her mentor gave her this gift: the curse of seeing those you love live a full life, from birth to death, and outliving them without ever seeing them again.

There must be a way for me to bring them back.

First it was Rainbow Dash, taken from this life in a flying accident only a few years after Luster Dawn moved to Ponyville. That one hit the hardest for the rest of the five, as it had happened so suddenly. Twilight remembers talking to her not hours before the accident; Rainbow visited the castle to get some lunch and talk about effective teaching methods for her flying class at the Wonderbolt Academy. They said their goodbyes and went on their way, only for Rainbow to collide with a drunk flier thousands of feet in the air before being rendered unconscious and meeting her fate with the ground at near terminal velocity.

It was their first realization that they would not all be together forever, and that death could come at an instant when they least expected it.

Applejack was a mess after that, and for good reason too. While the rest of them lost one of their friends, she lost her best friend and love of her life. She stopped going to their moonly meetups, stating that she was not ready to move on and do those traditions without Rainbow.

She did eventually start going back to their meetups, but she was a lot more somber than before. Twilight had a feeling that she started coming again more from a sense of obligation to the rest of the ponies rather than for herself. Regardless of the true reason, Twilight could tell that it didn’t feel the same without Rainbow. Without her prankster buddy, Pinkie Pie was quieter and less chaotic at these meetups. Even Fluttershy seemed more stoic after Rainbow’s passing. The only one who seemed to be partially positive at these meetups was Rarity, but Twilight believed that was just her denial clouding her true feelings.

All the ponies knew that life was short and that there was only a finite number of times they’d be able to see each other. Time did heal them all, but their hearts remained loyal to their lost friend. The five of them continued meeting every moon, swapping stories, playing games, sharing pictures of their children growing up, then eventually their grandchildren. And every single meetup, Twilight could tell that her friends were getting physically older while she remained virtually the same.

Many moons after Dash’s passing, it seemed to Twilight that the rest of her friends left this plane of existence at the same time. First it was Rarity who passed right when her mane became fully natural gray. Pinkie was the next one, surrounded by all her adult children and her numerous grandchildren. Discord tried to keep Fluttershy alive for all of eternity, but it was Fluttershy herself that convinced him to let her go.

And Applejack was the last one to pass, ever stubborn, even to death itself. Twilight remembers visiting her before old age claimed her too. The poor mare couldn’t even walk anymore let alone do anything on the farm. She was insistent that she would sit on the porch of Sweet Apple Acres and watch her children, grandchildren, and even teenage great-grandchildren buck all the apple trees. Twilight would visit her every weekend and just sit on the porch with her. They would not speak, just sit for hours watching the apples fall from the trees. On the final day that she went to Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack said something to her. That stubborn mare could barely talk in her old state but had to say something to her last living best friend, even though she struggled, and Twilight could tell that it physically hurt her to speak.

“Thank ya Twilight for the best years of mah life. Ah hope one day all of us could meet up again in heaven.”

Those words echoed in Twilight’s mind every single day for thousands of years, especially that day she said goodbye to her final friend as she was lowered into the earth.

Even as Twilight looks up at this same moon thousands of years later, the tears flowed from her eyes and onto her ethereal mane. Her royal guards started to approach her, but she shooed them out of the room before she fell off the throne in a wet puddle of tears. She didn’t want this life if it meant saying goodbye to everypony she’d grown close to. If only Celestia would’ve warned me about the tragedy of the alicorn life, I would’ve declined. Twilight thinks. The room feels colder as the cooling, salty tears fall from her eyes mixed with her makeup, leaving a black, wet stain on her purple fur.

She remembers that time travel spells existed at one point, remembering the time she went back to warn herself of nothing for a brief period of time and the Starswirl the Bearded spell that Starlight Glimmer used to stop the Sonic Rainboom. While time travel is effective, she knows it always has its repercussions, not to mention that all known time travel spells were destroyed and purged from ponies’ minds after she became the sole ruler of Equestria to stop another Starlight Glimmer incident.

Twilight has also seen countless objects that have magical properties that alter the world around them: bells that take away magic, necklaces that sway minds, rocks that cause amnesia. Heck, she was the Element of Magic and used to have a crown that channeled her powerful friendship incantations. There had to be some sort of object that could fulfill Twilight’s wish.

Drying her somber tears, she stands up from her throne. If there even is an object that could bring my friends back, I have no clue where it could be! In a similar fashion to the deaths of her friends, time has a nasty habit of making knowledge lost the more it goes by. As far as Twilight is aware, there are only three ponies alive that would have any knowledge of the Ancient Equestria that Twilight lived in, as well as the Ancient Equestria from before she was born. However, one was many years younger than Twilight and the other wasn’t much older than her, so their knowledge was at the same level, not to mention both her niece and sister-in-law lived most of their lives in the now isolated Crystal Empire. Yes, they both traveled for diplomatic missions, but neither of them have the passion for culture & lore like Twilight. In fact, Flurry Heart was very much anti-history and always set out to modernize Equestria.

One royal regret that Twilight has was not preserving and studying as much as she did before she became a princess. If this was Magic Kindergarten again and the teacher asked unicorn Twilight what artifacts had the power to bring back those you lost, not only would she be able to name them all, but name them alphabetically or in order from least dangerous to most fatal. Since she had ascended to the throne, her royal duties superseded all of her passion projects and extended learning. The only thing she had done to preserve history was reorganize the entire Canterlot Archives, including the Restricted Section, within the first year of her taking the throne in Canterlot.

Wait, the Restricted Section! Twilight remembers, thinking back on her regrets. If there is any knowledge on a powerful artifact that could bring back my friends, it would be locked away in there.

Twilight lights up her horn, making an entire ring of rusty keys appear out of thin air. She carefully scrolls through each key, each one seemingly rustier than the last, until she finds a small one made of iron. Keeping that key held separately from the others, she cautiously walks out of the throne room, telling all the hallway guards she's heading to the Canterlot Archives and that she would like to be undisturbed the rest of the night. The guards say their goodnights to the princess, remaining at their posts.

Twilight continues down the halls of old Canterlot Castle, going down endless spirals of steps until she reaches an old-looking, yet refurbished door. She gently opens it and steps hoof into the Canterlot Archives. Inside, a black Pegasus mare stands up from her desk, brushing off her scribe cloak that appears to match her fur color. “Princess?” she says. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

Twilight is just as shocked to see her as she is. “Destiny Foreshadow?! I thought you went home for the evening.”

Destiny Foreshadow picks up the book she was reading and walks over to Twilight. “I’m reading up on some of the past scribes’ work and trying to catalog it by year before I go. I’m just about finished with Merlin Sky’s work.”

Twilight smiles at her young, loyal scribe’s enthusiasm. It reminds her of when she was a filly. “Why don’t you go home and get some rest. You may take the books home with you if you’d like.”

“But Princess,” Destiny starts to argue respectfully, “we’re not allowed to take any archive materials home. I could get in trouble.”

Twilight places her hoof on Destiny’s shoulder. “I promise you won’t. I’m the ruler of Equestria. If your Master Scribe has any issues, tell them that they can talk to me. Now go home you silly filly and don’t come back here until you get a good night's sleep and have a good lunch tomorrow.” Destiny lets a small chuckle escape her muzzle as she gives a minor salute to her princess, thanking her.

Once Destiny closes the door behind her, Twilight embraces the silence of the empty archive. To think, great scribes once roamed these halls. Nowadays, it’s filled with dusty books and old portraits of previous rulers. She used to laugh at the silly portrait of Chancellor Puddinghead, but now it is merely an empty frame with shreds of canvas. Most of the old portraits were like that, including the one of herself when she became as big as Celestia. It is that portrait that she’s interested in. She carefully looks around the room to see if anypony is still in there, watching, before she pulls it down with her magic. A dusty keyhole reveals itself from within the shadow of the previous frame and Twilight inserts her small iron key into it. With a gentle turn, a mechanism clicks, sinking a small rectangular shape around the wall where Luna’s faded portrait still stands.

As Twilight pulls the key out of the hole and sends the entire ring back into the pocket dimension she’d been storing it in, she pushes the hidden door forward to reveal the mossy and cracked staircase leading down into the darkness. She lights a nearby candle with her magic and walks down.

The current state of the Restricted Section is both expected and unexpected. After thousands of years of neglect, a good portion of the bookcases are knocked over with dusty & faded books spread all over the floor. Many of them are destroyed, a portion of ancient arcane knowledge lost to time itself. Of the bookcases that were not toppled over, they were claimed by the spiders years ago. Thick, white-gray ropes hung from corner to corner, bookshelf to bookshelf, as if the spiders themselves were the guardians of the tomes. Twilight is surprised that there seems to be virtually no water or dampness anywhere in the smaller room; after thousands of years without a single pony entering, she’d expected the patient and determined water to seep its way inside.

But no matter, somewhere within these lost books is a way to bring her friends back to her, she was sure of it. She moves her candle to the partially melted sconces still on whatever tables were still standing, giving the room a little more life once again.

Her best bet is to find an artifact with the power she desires. While a spell would be more straightforward, she knew that any spells that were locked away within these stone walls had some sort of dire consequence. If she remembers correctly, she put all books on magical artifacts on the shelves to the left of the entrance.

Except those shelves aren’t there anymore. In their place is a large sinkhole that looks like it filled itself back in hundreds of years ago. The earth itself swallowed all the knowledge that she could’ve needed. Oh, what an irony that time once again is keeping her from her friends. However, as Twilight walks over to the area, careful not to cause another sinkhole that would claim her too, she sees that a few books managed to survive. They must’ve fallen during the event and the sinkhole had never expanded far enough to take them.

Twilight gathers all the surviving books from that area; there were only three that happened to not be claimed by nature. The first one she tries to bring over to the nearby table, but in her magic, it disintegrates before it reaches its destination. Cmon Twilight. You need to be much more careful. The second one she levitates with much more caution, putting it gently on the side of the table. She does the same with the third one, even though it looks like it is in the best shape of the three. With the same level of caution, she dusts the covers off to reveal their titles. Both of them have been damaged in a way where she can’t read the full title, but she knows that they were both about artifacts; one has the words “Magic” and “objects” and the other just has a picture of the Element of Magic on it.

As she opens the “magic; artifact” book, like the first book she tried to lift, the pages deteriorate the moment they get re-exposed to the air. “No no no!” Twilight says aloud, banging her hoof on the wooden table. She looks over to the final book. Her familiar cutie mark shape on the cover stares back at her. She knows it’s supposed to be the Element of Magic from the pre-Nightmare Moon era, but Twilight still finds it eerie that this was the only book to survive, as if it was destiny.

She opens the dusty book. The torn pages feel like fine sand in her hooves, but thankfully they don’t get destroyed when it opens. The ancient ink is smeared and mostly unreadable, but she spots what she is looking for in the partially lost table of contents: “Event-changing artifacts, page 147.” Her careful and trembling hooves move the pages from one side of the binding to the other until she reaches her desired section. Like the table of contents, most of the pages are smeared and faded, barely readable let alone readable enough for anypony to understand the full context of the artifact.

Twilight knows of a good number of artifacts, especially since many of the now modern-day artifacts were created when she was barely a princess, but she remembers next to none of the ones that could help her with her desires. She always wished that Sunburst was still with her to help catalog them and inform her of everything. Since his passing, Twilight couldn’t find a historian/artifact expert that knew as much as him or even had half as much of his passion. The young scribe, Destiny Foreshadow, has the most passion that she’s seen since Sunburst, but she is still very green on the knowledge part.

Regardless of the ponies she regrets outliving, she has to finish her mission. The first artifact whose page was mostly intact was The Quill of Forandring. No, that just changes current lore, not to mention the last pony who possessed it went missing, she thinks as she continues flipping the pages. It feels like hours of careful reading and page flipping to Twilight. Each page was either destroyed with age, unreadable, lost to the ages, or was not what she was looking for based on what she can read. That was, until she finds a page, virtually as new as the day it was inked. It is the only one not affected by time, which again feels eerie to her, like she was meant to read it there and then.

“The Book of All Stories” is shown predominantly on the top of the page followed by a rough ink sketch of the artifact and what it does.

To think, all she had to do was write in this to change fate; with just a flick of a quill, she could make it so anything could be real. She can be a changeling hunter in Canterlot, wield a chainsaw and a baseball bat if she so chooses! Or she could fall in love with a changeling-turned-real-pony named Azalea. With this book, anything is possible.

But her mind is off-track. With such an arcane and immense artifact that sounded like it was more powerful than any spell, there are surely some sort of dire consequences if she doesn’t word what she wants correctly, like a genie in a bottle. She has to make sure that whatever she chooses could not have any uncalculated side-effects.

And that wasn’t even the biggest problem. According to the artifacts book, the Book of All Stories was essentially destroyed roughly 2023 years after Equestria was founded. The artifact book states that a Kirin opened the Book of All Stories and put history in some sort of limbo, which spawned three factions who attempted to seize control of the Book: Heroes setting out to make things right again, Villains trying to control the narrative to be on top, and a faction simply known as CHAOS who just wanted to “have a little fun.” Historians weren’t too sure of the complete outcome of that cataclysmic event, but many theorized that not all those Pages were collected and controlled before it just ended abruptly. So, her biggest problem is to find one of those Pages, if there even is one of them out there to begin with.

But Twilight is determined. She fought literal gods with nothing more than her wits and friendship, so what’s a little hunt for a magical Page!

That’s the caveat though: she never really had anypony to call her friends. Being immortal, any friends she made eventually passed. After Luster Dawn’s passing, she was never close with anypony else except her fellow immortals, Cadance and Flurry Heart, but they are far away from her these days.

Twilight needs somepony to help her find this Page, and somepony who’d even know of the Book of All Stories or what happened those thousands of moons ago. Besides Cadance & Flurry Heart, the only ponies she can think of are Celestia or Luna, but like her sister-in-law and niece, Twilight had no clue if they were even still alive, let alone where they might be.

Wait! Twilight thinks, thinking about the two ex-royal sisters. There might be somepony that was there that I could still call…or summon. She sighs, knowing that what she is thinking is a terrible idea, but she has no other place to start in searching for a thousand-year-old Page that could or could not still exist.

Twilight carefully places the ancient book on a nearby dusty table before rushing over to a new bookshelf. If she remembers correctly, she made sure to put all summoning tomes on a particular bookshelf when she organized it for the final time all those moons ago. She trots over to where the bookcase is and thankfully, it’s still standing. And to top it off, most of the books are in decent condition.

If her memory serves her right, all the summoning tomes should be on the second shelf of this bookshelf. She bends over, resting all her front weight on her forearms but leaving her back legs and flank standing up tall. She never liked that she grew to be the size of Celestia over the years as she couldn’t do things that a normal-sized pony could do, like looking at the bottom shelf without crouching all the way down.

Discomfort as it may, she reads the titles, hoping to find the tome she is looking for. ‘Summoning Creatures from Tartarus,’ no; ‘Beginners Guide to Summoning,’ no; ‘Summoning Ethereal Weapons,’ huh, why did I put this here instead of in the Warfare Section? Hmm…aha! There it is! Twilight pulls out a black-colored book, caked in dust just like the previous books, except this one is slightly different. The second Twilight pulls it out, red spectral chains appear across the whole book.

Oh yeah, forgot that I put this lockout spell on it. She lights up her lavender horn, but instead of its normal orchid hue, it lights up a deep red, the same shade as the lockout spell’s chains. A few moments of magical manipulation later, the red chains turn a shade of acceptance green and fall off the book, disappearing into the void before they hit the floor. With the chains gone, the cover brilliantly proclaims the title of the book: “Dark Spirits & How to Summon Them.”

Okay Twilight, you obtained the book. This is your last chance to back out before you make a terrible decision.

Twilight paces next to the table as she looks up to the cracked ceiling, contemplating the repercussions for who she was about to summon and pleading with herself that there must be another way to find a Page. The logical side of her mind makes the same valid point as earlier: nopony has seen the Book of All Stories in thousands of years, and those who have seen it have surely passed. Besides artificial alicorns or some subspecies of dragon, the only creatures that could’ve been alive at that that time would be immortal spirits, and there is still only one immortal spirit that Twilight thinks could’ve been there for the skirmish (let alone the only one that she thought she could probably reason with). She flips to her desired page and reads the instructions on how to summon said spirit. After her careful reading, she reads the summoning words aloud:

“By the rite gifted by my ancestor, Clover the Clever, I call upon an ancient evil, the one that I defeated thousands of years ago. I summon the ancient evil of moons past, the one who trots in shadows & creeps in the dark corners of ponies’ minds. Come forth & answer my call!”

The air gets chilly, like the Windigos have invaded the Restricted Section. Twilight’s fur tenses up as all the candles that were once lit extinguish on their own, only for them to reignite a blue-purple flame.

Twilight looks around the room in a panic as she walks backwards until she finds a familiar surface to protect her six: the table. Except, she finds it a little too haphazardly as her frightened backpedal delivers enough momentum to knock it to the ground. A blue-purple candle falls to the ground along with the two artifact books. The candle, instead of extinguishing on impact, spreads its brilliant glow across the floor, creating a circular pattern in front of Twilight. A mist of blue stays contained within said circle as a familiar laugh pierces the mist into Twilight’s ear, a laugh that Twilight thought she’d wouldn’t hear again after Luna’s reformation.

“Nightmare Moon,” Twilight says to the mist. “Show yourself!” At Twilight’s request, the midnight mist dissipates slightly, revealing an empty space. From within the inner circle, a black horn cuts seamlessly through the mist.

“And who summons me?” A silky voice asks as a set of illuminated cyan eyes open under the floating horn.

“You should know who,” Twilight answers.

The mist clears more, revealing the dark spirit within the circle. Nightmare Moon is nothing more than a floating neck and head, with all of her infamous regalia attached. “Ah, Twilight Sparkle! What a pleasure to see you with my own eyes once again!”

“The pleasure isn’t mutual, Nightmare Moon,” Twilight says. “There was no way in Tartarus I was going to summon you again.”

Nightmare Moon smirks. “Oh, but you did. And look how much you’ve grown! You look almost exactly like my good-for-nothing sister…or her sister I should say.”

Twilight sulks back a little, thinking of Celestia for a second, but especially because of how jarring it was hearing Nightmare Moon refer to Luna and herself as two separate entities; the last time Twilight’s seen Nightmare Moon, the two of them were one in the same. “Well, both Celestia and Luna are gone now, so don’t get any ideas of influencing either of them to do your bidding.”

“And why would I do that? Your precious Elements of Harmony separated me from the lesser & easily influenced alicorn. I couldn’t if I tried. And the greater alicorn, well, let me just say that I’ve seen what she’d become if she had a Nightmare Spirit take over. Not interested.” Nightmare Moon pauses for a beat to see Twilight’s reaction, which to her satisfaction is what she was hoping for. Twilight starts to wrinkle her face in anger at the mere mention of the two sisters in that way.

“Before you get as hot-headed as Daybreaker, you clearly didn’t summon me here… let’s see, based off the sister alicorns being gone and the state of the room…tens of thousands of moons later to chat. You obviously need me for something, so let’s cut to the chase.”

Twilight softens her expression. She knows Nightmare Moon is a smart and crafty being, so she doesn’t dance around the subject.

“The Book of All Stories,” Twilight says as directly as possible. “It says that thousands of years ago, it was destroyed by a Kirin and the pages were scattered. What do you know about that?”

Nightmare Moon rolls her eyes. “Oh, that’s what you want? And to think that you wanted infinite power like the weak alicorn.” Twilight forces herself not to react as Nightmare Moon continues. “Yes, a Kirin by the name of Fizzy Glitch opened the book in order to feel like she belonged. Sucked the entire world into its pages and caused a whole-out war between three factions.” Twilight interrupts Nightmare Moon to tell her she already knew about the factions and their motives.

Nightmare Moon continues, “Okay, then you know too that I was among the Villains during that war.”

“Naturally.”

“What you don’t know is that as soon as that war was near its supposed conclusion, I was banished back into limbo. I don’t even know if we won or not! But clearly, I can see that we didn’t…unless…the war isn’t over yet. Tell me, Element of Magic, is the Book complete?”

Twilight sighs and carefully flips to the “Book of All Stories” section of the artifact book, now laying on the floor. She tells Nightmare Moon that it says that the historians aren’t too sure if it even had a conclusion, and as far as they were all aware, there could be more Pages out there.

“And let me guess, you need me to help you, since I was there?” Twilight nods. Nightmare Moon sighs. “If you want my help, you need to do something for me.” Twilight had been expecting something like this; no way that Nightmare Moon would help out of the goodness of her black heart.

“What do you want?”

“For one, form. Despite looking like the classic Nightmare Moon you love, I only exist as a spirit. I need a physical pony to influence.”

Twilight shakes her head furiously. “Absolutely not! You’re not going to merge with any of my subjects, and don’t you think for a second I’m letting you possess me. I’m not going to let you take control of Equestria in my hooves.”

Nightmare Moon shrugs, or shrugs as best as a floating head & neck can.“Oh well, guess you don’t want that Page as badly as you thought.”

Nightmare Moon pulls the blue mist back over her face, prompting Twilight to lunge forward, trying to catch her as she yells “WAIT!”

The blue mist parts once again and Nightmare Moon’s floating head reveals itself. “Change your mind, dearie?”

Thinking for a second, Twilight looks around the Restricted Section again. Her eyes naturally dart back to the bookshelf where she found the summoning book. Many more books sit there, waiting for someone to read their secrets. Twilight trots back over to it, looking frantically on the shelves. “Aha!” she says as she pulls out a book. She walks back over to Nightmare Moon’s misty area, opening the pages. “You said that you want form, a physical pony to influence. How about a Blank?”

“A what now?”

“A Blank,” Twilight continues, still flipping to her desired page, “is a white, sort-of clone-like pony that I can create from a spell. It has the same physicality as an adult mare, but acts closer to an animal in terms of intelligence and mannerisms. You can control it and nopony will suffer under your control.”

Nightmare Moon lifts her head, acting like she is scratching her chin with her hoof. After a few moments of thinking, she says that it is acceptable.

“Now, before I do that for you, you said ‘for one,’ so what are your other demands?”

Nightmare Moon laughs, throwing her head back. The laugh pierces Twilight deep again, sending the same chills through her body. “You always were a perceptive little mare. Fine. Once I become physical again, I want you to keep me that way; promise me that you won’t send me back. I don’t care if you lock me up, cage me like a little housebird to show off to your friends. I just don’t want to be stuck in limbo anymore.”

Now Twilight is the one scratching her chin with her hoof. Like the careful planner she is, she thinks of the risk versus reward. “And you can find me a Page so I can reunite with my friends?”

“Oh Twilight, I will make it my mission to find a Page if you give me your word. In fact, I might know where somepony has hidden one.”

After a few more minutes of thinking, Twilight gives her answer. “If, and only when you get me a Page, you have my word.” She pauses for a second. “Now, is that all your demands or can we get started?”

“That is all I require. Now, let’s get started.”

Twilight nods, reading the creation spell for these Blank ponies. After a careful read, reread, and one more reread prompting Nightmare Moon to metaphorically pace around the mist circle impatiently, Twilight lights her horn and aims it to the left of the Nightmare Mist. The air swirls around the area she’s casting in a similar fashion to how she summoned Nightmare Moon. From the earth itself, an ethereal form emerges, creating the outline of a pony. Every second, the form obtains more mass, getting less transparent until there is a white pony shape floating in the air.

When Twilight concludes her spell, the white pony shape falls on the ground. It looks just like an actual pony mare, long-haired mane and all, except it is as white as a new piece of paper. Even the pupils of the eyes were white. It just lays there on its stomach, looking around the room with curiosity.

“There, there’s your form. Go take it and let’s get going.”

Nightmare Moon continues to look at the daft creature laying there, knowing full well that in a few moments, the two of them will become one and the same. “You have to release me first.”

“What?”

“You have to release my spirit from this plane and transfer me into this…thing, since it is clearly not going to call upon me itself.” A groan escapes Twilight’s muzzle, but she does just that. As the summoner of Nightmare Moon, she states that she releases her from her limbo and gives her the right to her Blank. The mist erupts upward from the circle, hitting the raised ceiling of the Restricted Section before bouncing down off it and engulfing the poor Blank Pony in a shower of darkness. Twilight shields her face as the mist spreads across the room.

From under her raised foreleg, she sees a taller creature where the mist hit. “Nightmare Moon, are you ok?”

The mist starts to clear as the figure becomes more apparent. “Oh, I’m better than ok. I feel complete once again!” Nightmare Moon stretches, revealing her full form once again. She looks exactly like she did when she was merged with Luna. Just like how Luna had some physical changes after she was hit by the Elements of Harmony, Twilight theorized quickly that maybe Nightmare Moon possessed some of Luna’s traits when the two of them separated.

She trots over to Twilight, feeling her face with her elongated black hooves. “Oh, it’s been too long since I’ve touched another pony, or anything. This feels acceptable!”

Twilight pushes her away from her face, looking directly into Nightmare Moon’s dimly lit cyan eyes. “There, you have form. Now for your end of the bargain.”

She smiles, looking down and admiring her own hooves again. After a beat, she matches Twilight’s action of looking directly into her eyes. “You know, I never realized how big you are now. Last time I saw you, I was looking down on you. Now we are finally on the same level and see eye-to-eye.”

“The Page. Now.” Twilight says impatiently, lighting up her horn and closing the book.

“You’re no fun.” Nightmare moon says, breaking her eye-contact. “Fine. During the skirmish, Captain Hoofbeard found a Page and buried it on one of the sister islands of the Luna Bay.”

“And you know this, how exactly?”

“The source of my knowledge is not important. What’s important is that he cast a protection spell on it that I cannot access, otherwise I would’ve gotten it myself all those years ago.”

Twilight smirks, hearing all this information. “Luna Bay. Islands, Protection Spell. Not a problem. Thank you for this information. I will be back.” Nightmare Moon raises her foreleg to stop Twilight.

“Oh, no no no. I’m coming with you. You don’t even know what you are looking for.”

Twilight stops and sighs, “Fine. I guess I have no choice. Let’s get over to Luna Bay.”

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

The moon casts its dull brightness across the slightly chilly waterfront, causing the high tide to crash across the sandy beaches of Luna Bay’s twin islands. If it wasn’t nearing the end of the summer season, it would be a perfect setting for a midnight bonfire with friends. Maybe one day Twilight will be able to do that with her friends once this is over, but for now, her mission is clear: Find Captain Hoofbeard’s Page and get her friends back.

As Twilight and Nightmare Moon walk across the cold sand, Nightmare Moon remarks that she hasn’t felt the sand under her hooves in a long time.

“I get that you haven’t physically felt things in a long while, but can you please stop talking about every little thing you touch?”

Nightmare moon continues to dig her hoof into the sand. It crumples across her royal footwear, leaving just a little bit of moisture. “You have no idea how lucky you are to have this. Let me have my moments. We’ll be out of each other’s manes momentarily.” Twilight grumbles.

The two of them continue walking across the beachfront until they reach a small, grassy area with two trees growing out of it. Nightmare Moon tells Twilight to stop.

“Are we here?” Twilight asks, looking at the two trees. “Is the Page buried between the trees?”

“Not buried. Hidden.” Twilight shoots a confused look. If Captain Hoofbeard was supposed to be a pirate, let alone an Earth Pony pirate, why did he not bury his treasure?

“Look, it’s been thousands of years. If he buried it, it probably wouldn’t be here and we wasted a good teleport to the Western Coast. He had someone cast a spell to make it hidden, and I should be able to…” Nightmare Moon walks over to one of the trees and examines the base. The impressive root system juts out from the sand and grass mixture. She lights up her horn and in an instant, her light violet magic uproots the tree and knocks it over. Twilight cringes at the impact sound.

“What was that for?!” she screams, looking at where the base of the tree used to be. To her surprise, a golden magical rune is the only thing that remains.

“Hoofbeard was smart,” Nightmare Moon explains. “This rune protects the Page, but only he could access it, that way his crew or any allies cannot turn against him.”

“So we came all this way for nothing?” Twilight asks.

“This is where you come in. You’re the Element of Magic. Your magic should be able to penetrate the seal.” Twilight looks down at the gold rune again. It is a simple protection rune, but one that is hard to break using orthodox methods. Thankfully, Twilight isn't orthodox. Usually, something as reckless as what she is thinking would be up Starlight’s alley, but she didn’t care.

She focuses her magic on the rune, casting two spells against it: a simple lockpicking spell and Starswirl’s anti-magic spell. Usually, they’d cancel each other out, but if she does what she is doing correctly, it should bypass the protection. Nightmare Moon watches Twilight carefully focus, turning the rune like a dial on a safe.

With one final burst of magic, she cancels her spell, which in turn cancels the rune. As the rune dissipates, a worn-out piece of parchment appears where it used to be.

“Is that it?” Twilight asks, levitating the paper towards her.

Nightmare Moon looks at it like she just won the Equestrian lottery. “It is indeed, as beautiful as the day I lost it.”

In Twilight’s limited research, she knows all she needs to do is write on the Page and whatever “story” she told would come true. Thankfully, she came prepared as always. She pulls out a quill that she grabbed from the Canterlot Archives on her way out.

She thinks of what she wants to write on it. She can either make her friends immortal too, or she could just simply bring them to her. But that begs the question of what age she should bring them. She could go a more morbid route and just end her immortality and simply die herself, but why would she think that? Or maybe she could…

WHACK

As she thinks about her options, an object strikes her in the back of her head, causing her to fall face down into the sand. Her magical grip on the Page & quill releases and they go fluttering down too. She sees light violet magic grab them both, pulling them farther from her reach. While still hazy from the strike, she stands up, head still spinning and vision going near double. Twilight is not letting it get away from her. As a pure instinct, she jumps at the Page, grabbing it with her teeth as it reaches Nightmare Moon’s hooves. The two of them gently pull the thick parchment like a dog pulling a rope with their owner.

“Give me the Page, Twilight Sparkle” Nightmare Moon growls, throwing Twilight to the ground. Twilight grips the Page as tight as she can, partially bringing Nightmare Moon down with her.

“NEVER!” is her response, but Nightmare Moon overpowers her and the page escapes from Twilight's mouth. She skirts from under Nightmare Moon’s stomping hooves, fumbling to grasp both the quill and the Page with her waning magic & attempting to fly backwards to create distance between them. Nightmare Moon does a complete 180 and attempts to grab Twilight with her magic. Twilight counters with one of her spells, but the ancient alicorn spirit powers through and barely grasps onto one of Twilight’s wings. In the momentum, the Page falls to the ground as Twilight gets dragged across the sand, her wings snapping like twigs in the process.

Nightmare Moon makes her break for the Page, leaving Twilight in her dust. In her quick, yet pain-ridding thinking, Twilight casts a transmutation spell and turns the sand under Nightmare Moon’s hooves into glass, causing her to slip, cracking the newly created mirrorscape on her downfall.

“Oops, that must be…bad luck, Moony,” Twilight says, wincing through her own pain as she crawls to the Page. Nightmare Moon snarls at Twilight and takes an aggressive bite of Twilight’s leg as she passes, sinking her impressive fangs deep and causing Twilight to yelp in pain again. With her leg out of commission, there is no way she can stand, let alone trot to the Page.

Except Nightmare Moon still has her own legs to stand on. She carefully pulls herself up, towering over Twilight again. Twilight readies another spell to cast at Nightmare Moon, but this time Nightmare Moon has had enough of it. With her own magic, she grabs a nearby rock that is no bigger than a buckball, and force-pushes it towards Twilight’s head. In her weakened state, Twilight tries to react & catch the speeding object with her magic, but it is no use. Bracing herself for the worst, she turns her head and attempts to throw up her hooves to take the brunt of the force, except her physical reaction time is not fast enough. The rock misses her face, but hits her alicorn horn, shattering it into three separate pieces. Nightmare Moon, satisfied with her work, levitates the Page over to her own hooves as she towers over Twilight once again.

“This was fun, Twilight, but it’s time for us to end this. Any final words before I finally make the night last forever?”

Twilight looks at Nightmare Moon, defeated and not knowing what to do. She eyes the Page and Nightmare Moon pressing the quill to it, moments away from having her wish. Except, at that moment of despair, time seems to slow down. Twilight closes her eyes, embracing the silent moment.

But she hears voices, familiar voices calling out her name.

Even though it is the least of her worries, Twilight fears she might have a concussion, because she swears she just heard her five friends’ voices calling for her. Is she dying?

No, they are not calling for her to come to them, they are cheering her on, telling her to get up and stop Nightmare Moon.

As Twilight is brought back to reality, the voices slowly fade, except for one. Her last friend who passed; the one who wished the six of them could meet once again after death.

“Twilight,” Applejack’s voice says. “It’s ok, Twilight.”

The tears flow from Twilight’s eyes, not because of her friend’s voice, but because she knows what needs to be done. She knows she barely has any magic left & her options are limited, but she needs to stop Nightmare Moon from using the Page. There is only one spell that comes to mind that’ll neutralize the threat of eternal darkness immediately.

“I’m sorry…” Twilight says softly.

“What was that dear? I couldn’t hear you.”

Twilight says a little louder, “I’m sorry…I’m sorry, my friends, that I will never see you again.”

Twilight’s broken horn flickers weakly with its familiar orchid color for a brief moment before it turns into a dull orange. She forces a raw, chaotic bolt of unkept magic out of the bony crater on her forehead. The magic strikes the Page, creating a spark along the edge. And like the power of friendship, the spark spreads fast across the paper, igniting into a great inferno. Nightmare Moon’s eyes widen as her already slitted pupils get smaller. The ash from the Page falls into Twilight’s mane.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Nightmare Moon exclaims as the final ashes from the Page fall from her hooves.

“What had to be done,” Twilight murmurs as a response, keeping her head in the sand.

With anger, Nightmare Moon rears up, preparing to stamp down onto Twilight Sparkle, ending her there and then. But Twilight has one last spell that she had the energy to conjure up. With one final flicker of her struggling horn’s base, the slower spell travels onto Nightmare Moon’s grounded legs, causing them to turn into stone.

“How? W-what are you doing?”

“Like you said,” Twilight musters, “I’m ending this.”

“But without the Page, you will never see your friends again!”

Twilight smiles softly. “If it means stopping you, then they’ll understand.”

As the final inches of the petrification spell reaches all of Nightmare Moon, leaving nothing but a rearing statue of the former villain, Twilight loses the last of her consciousness, laying motionless in the sand as the sun rises again in the east.