Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

Lady Velvet Covers is the sole noble resident of Ponyville, living in an out-of-the-way (and mostly forgotten) estate beyond the town limits. Her Master has tasked her, and her cult, with acting against Princess Luna.
Velvet Covers is the Loremaster of the Cult, in charge of its "LEARNING" and of furthering the Cult's knowledge.

The gates are closed behind you, the maid who had been waiting for you trotting lightly to catch up to your side as you walk through the garden. The parade of trees that form a path towards the large estate is always a fond sight to behold, and you can spy an earth pony gardener tending to a few overgrown bushes in one of the far corners of the green scenario. The path itself, paved with cleanly cut stones, leads towards the mansion itself, the wide two-storied edifice that gives a clear view to the large swathes of farmlands that your family owns.

But for all the luxury that exists within the mansion, all the servants, and influence, and everything else, you are honestly glad that when you look at it you can think of it simply as "home".

Of course, you could never forget that you are a noble. Your family might not hail from a powerful lineage, but they go to lengths to compensate in everything else, be it political clout or economic might, your position administrating the farmlands east of Ponyville is a proof of that. The mansion you live in is easily larger than the town hall of the city (although not taller, by a slight margin) and several of the simple houses that dot Ponyville could easily fit inside your garden.

But you are thankful that you have never let any of that go up your head. Having lived in Ponyville for several years now, you must admit that a good part of its warmth and kindness has gotten into you. And right now you wouldn't have it any other way.

You walk past the carriage that is always left at your disposal, and that you only ever use grudgingly and at Stormchaser's insistence, and finally arrive at the front door.

"Thank you Ponpon, but I think it's better if I open it", you say, giving a quick wink to your personal maid, "oh, but would you please take this? I'd hate to drop it like that other time…"

Ponpon lets out a short laugh as the bag you had been carrying gently floats towards her, "no problem at all ma'am," she says, taking the handle in her mouth.

Your horn starts glowing once again, the doorknob of the front door answering to your magic at the same time, and you take one last deep breath before opening it.

"Silky Streeeeeam," you let your voice be carried into the main hall, "I'm hooo-!"

"Mommy!" before you can even finish, a blurred dart of brown fur comes zipping down the stairs, flying through the hall and colliding against you in a tight hug. You're nearly thrown back by her speed, and your hindleg makes you wince at the sudden effort with a sharp pain.

"Mommy! You're back!" but all of that mellows out and disappears as soon as you hug your daughter back, "I was waiting for you so we could have breakfast together, but Soft Sweeps wouldn't tell me where you went!" she continues talking, with all that energy that shouldn't even be able to fit in such a small body.

You ruffle her mane, purple like her father's, and gently let go, "well I was going to wake you up to come with me," you say as you walk into the house, your daughter trailing after you in a mix of prancing and flight bursts, "but you just wouldn't wake up! I shook you and shook you, but you were sleeping like a stone, so I had to leave without you" you make up the story as you go, saying it with as much of a dramatic voice as you could without grinning too much.

"What? No I wasn't! I promise I didn't stay up after bedtime," she says, her prance stopping, eyes wide in a sudden panic.

Of course you immediately know she did, with a reaction like that.

"Of course you didn't," you ruffle her mane again and conveniently turn your head away, hearing a clumsily hidden sigh of relief shortly after, "and that's why I brought us a little something". You turn to Ponpon, who was still dutifully accompanying you, and gently float the bag that she was holding towards Silky Stream. And whatever sort of dread she was feeling from being caught doing something was immediately replaced with glee when you dangled the bagged boxes of ice cream in front of her.

You're sure Windy Flakes wouldn't mind a few less boxes of it, and you did leave payment in the counter.

"Yay! Can we have it for breakfast? Can we? Can we?!"

You laugh at the beaming filly, thinking you can almost see light coming out of her hopeful eyes.

And you almost consider saying yes to her request.

It was a long day, a long holiday that is. Stormchaser will still be away for a few more days, so it had been up to you to chaperone a hyperactive pegasus filly, and once again you were reminded of how thankful you are for your husband having wings. Soft Sweeps in also a pegasus, having been picked as Silky Stream's caretaker mostly for that reason, but you made sure to dismiss the servants for the day after a while. Most of them were from Ponyville after all, and it wouldn't do to have them work on a festive day.

On a side note, you did wonder how much more of a handful your daughter would be if Stormchaser was an earth pony or a unicorn…

Still, you think while you try to get onto the bed with a completely stiff leg, at least you do know that you will fall asleep almost instantly. In the end you manage to compromise between awkwardly pushing yourself with magic and hoping that the covers you're pulling won't just give out on your exhausted self, although you have the dreadful impression that they will, until you manage to get most of your body onto the comfort of your bed.

Why the hell do expensive mattresses need to be so damn tall…?

But true to your word, you quickly fall asleep.

Until you realize you didn't. Or rather, you did, but you are still awake.

You rub your eyes and look around, immediately recognizing where you are. You have visited this place, before, but always under certain special circumstances, only after you have made some prior preparations.

Never like this, unannounced, unprepared.

Summoned.

You find yourself in the middle of a crossroad, under the pale light of the moon. The crossroad itself is made of some dark-blue stone, paved unevenly in a way that could be footsteps of some many-legged creature. You can see well enough, and although you can't see too far you can make out shapes in the horizon.

A great chain of mountains seems to be in the far, far distance. You can see their silhouettes but no path that leads to them, for although it looks like you are in a plane that stretches on forever, you still feel like the world somehow curves before it actually reaches the mountains.

You look up and see no stars, only the moon. And when you look behind you, another familiar sight greets you.

A great dark wood stretches on and on before you, and more than a few of the dark-blue stone paths lead to it. The forest seems dark and uninviting, almost oppressive, but you feel no sort of fear when facing it. Almost as if its oppressiveness is a part of its nature, and the forest itself could not exist in any other way. Besides, you have already walked those woods a few times and you know that its darkness can sometimes even be welcoming. If not to you, then to some deeper part of yourself.

And above and within the Woods you see the place that you know to be the Mansus.

A great structure floats above the dark forest. The only way you can describe it is as floating, for you see no pillars sustaining it, only a maddening criss-cross of stairs that seem to connect odd platforms and entire floors, or that sometimes lead nowhere at all. There are no walls to speak of, and yet you can see doors that led into closed-off rooms. There is no real shape that gives order to it, and yet your mind can see that it has the form of something like a house, or maybe a pyramid.

And at the very top of that great structure, or perhaps at its center, it's hard to know, there is a great brilliant… Thing, which is neither a star nor a lamp, but still shares kinship with them. It shines at every single floor of the Mansus, its light reaches every single room and platform, although you swear that some of those rooms and floors should block the light and stop it from reaching the ones beneath them.

You are far away from that light, and it can't truly reach you from where you are, but you know that the light is utterly magnificent, and that its name is Glory.

The sound of rustling bushes comes from somewhere near you,
though you can't see any and the Woods are still somewhat far. Shaking your head a bit, you decide not to look at the Glory anymore.

Besides, the rustling bushes definitely sounded impatient, you think to yourself as you start walking down the path.

Soon enough there is no path to follow any more, the dark-blue stones being covered by overgrown roots. But that is fine, because you know that paths are completely useless inside this place. The sound of insect wings keep growing louder and louder as you walk, and is soon joined by the noise of scissors shearing at leaves, and the sensation of branches reaching for your mane, and the pointed impression that your tail is in the wrong place, and the sheer freedom that comes from being lost and-

The sound of rustling bushes once again make you snap into attention.

You shake your head once more and head towards the source of the sound, before you forget the direction it came from and the Woods start to pull at your attention again.

The Woods have no defined path, but you somehow know where to go once you set your mind on it. And you set your mind on arriving where you were summoned.

A small clearing opens before you, the light of the moon coming almost as a glare after you spent so much time seeing it as nothing but soft whispers blocked by the leaves of dark trees. You think you are alone in the clearing, until five more figures emerge from the trees almost at the same time as you do, Copper Sicateur and Windy Flakes being two of them. Each of you came from a different direction, and you realize that the six of you have inadvertently formed a circle. A quick look at the five other ponies reveal that you all know each other, and that you all know what this meeting means.

Snap.

You hear the sound of a twig breaking, and the buzzing from the forest seems to grow just a bit louder. But all of that is drowned out by the voice that comes from every direction.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?"

You look at the five other ponies, who seem just as unsure on what to do as you, and you wordlessly sit around in a circle, all of you facing outwards. A few more silent moments pass before your cult's Master's voice comes again.

"Eternity exists in here. Eternal change… eternal darkness, bathed in moonlight… And this eternity was far more common, in fact, a long, long time ago…" you almost involuntarily raise your eyebrows. Is the Master's voice almost sounding like he is… saddened?

"A long time ago the Woods could stretch much farther than it does today… It could stretch out of dreams and into the Wake, and reach far away from the holy places like the one where we gather… But that is no longer possible in this age, not in such great scale..." the voice seems to take a harder tone as it continues, an angrier tone, "not while the fires burn, not while the world blazes with light."

A twig snaps, and you nearly jump at the suddenness of it. Not because it frightened you, but because the sound came exactly from the middle of the circle. And although you know that there will be nothing there if you turn around, you can still hear the Master's voice coming from right behind you.

"We will change that, my followers. It is still possible to expand the Woods into the Wake, and to make Equestria safe once again, hidden away by its shadows. But for that to happen… there is much to be done."

At that, a shadow appears in the corner of your vision, and you know that you will see the Master if you just look a bit more to your side. But you don't, shutting your eyes tightly instead.

You can hear the Master whisper into your ears, and for some reason you can also hear the whispers to everypony else's ears.

"Comet Feet," the whispers went to the large and gruff pegasus to which you have rarely spoken to, "our followers need to be made ready, for they will sure be needed. Share your knowledge of Edge with our most loyal, and see to it that they have the required tools."

"Starry Dancer," the whispers went to the pink pegasus mare that was sitting opposite to you, "we must ensure that we are in the good graces of our current hosts. Gain the ears of the rulers of Ponyville, so that we might more easily sway them in the future."

"Copper Secateur," the whispers went to the dark red mare that you know well, "gather more followers among the simple minded, and bolster our numbers. But do not yet tread in the way of Starry Dancer's efforts."

"Windy Flakes," the whisper went to the light maned unicorn, who always seemed to have a smirk on his face, "the Wake has its rules, and we must master them. Expand out holdings, build a place where we may more easily gather, and plant the seeds that we may later reap as riches, for we will surely need them."

"Jade Whistle," the whispers went to the aloof-looking earth pony that you have only ever seen in passing, "prepare our cadre and study what components and instruments might be of use, for we will soon need to call upon greater powers."

"And Velvet Covers…" the whispers caressed your ears in an almost tickling manner, "the one we aim for is indeed very great, but like any grand castle there are many avenues to reach it. Look for a way that we might strike at her, search for a path that leads to her. Lead the way and draw the plan, so that our followers might follow your hoofsteps and enact them. But be mindful that you prepare yourself first, armed with knowledge and lore, lest you are not sufficiently prepared and become lost to us."

All of the whispers happened simultaneously and lasted the same amount of time. When they finish, however, you wonder if they were all as equally detailed as yours, or if perhaps it was an idea that was whispered to you, and you simply overheard the diminished echoes of the ideas that he gave to the others.

But as you wonder that, you realize that the presence behind you is gone, and you stand up together with your fellow ponies.

The six of you look into each other's eyes, and for some reason you simply know that you will all reconvene in two months' time, though you have no idea how you shared in that knowledge.

And with that same wordless agreement, you turn around and head back into the forest, hearing the crunching of leaves and the rustling of wood that indicates the other ponies did the same.