Forgetfulness
“Big brother, are you crying?”
Twilight Sparkle had just walked into the library room of her house when she spotted Shining Armour. He was seated in a high-backed red leather chair facing an elegant fireplace, and he was gently sobbing to himself while reading a large grey book.
Twilight approached him as her sibling looked up, his eyes watery. Twilight found this very curious—she had never seen Shining cry before, let alone because of a book.
“Sorry Twili, it’s just...” he trailed off, sniffing. “Just a really sad part in this book.”
Twilight was sympathetic, she knew what it was like to get really attached to the characters in a good story. She moved closer to comfort him. But Shining reacted sporadically, jerking the book away as if he expected her to try and grab it.
“Huh?” she sputtered, eyeing him suspiciously. “Shine... why don’t you want me to see that?”
Shining half-heartedly tried to play it off, muttering nonsense excuses.
“Well now I do want to see it!”
“Well, I’m sorry Twi. You can’t.”
The young filly made a ‘hmph’ noise, and turned to walk away with her snout in the air. When she saw Shining open up the book again, she turned and knocked the book out of his hands with a lightning-quick flash of her magic.
“Ha!” she shouted as the book flew towards her and landed open on the hardwood floor with a thunk.
But when she looked down at it, she was filled with confusion.
“Shining... alright, now I know you’re hiding something. These pages are all blank!”
It was true. Twilight quickly flipped through the book. Each had nothing on it whatsoever. She looked up at her brother accusingly.
“Look, Twilight, I don’t have to explain myself to you. I’ll...” the anger drained from his face and was replaced by his sorrowful look from earlier. “I’ll tell you later.”
Twilight wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t know how to proceed. She knew that it wouldn’t be a good idea to pester Shining. He seemed in a pretty bad mood. She left the library and climbed the stairs to her room.
Twilight was nearly asleep when she heard the door to her room click open.
She heard the faintest of whispers call out,
“Twilight!”
She rolled over to find Shining Armour standing in her doorway, his blue mane lit up by faint light from the hall.
“...Shine?” she mumbled.
“Do you still want to know what that was all about earlier?”
Shining sighed. “When I was crying in the library today?”
Twilight was totally confused. She rolled out of bed groggily and trotted quietly over to the door.
“What in Equestria are you talking about?” she asked in a whisper.
Shining looked at Twilight, pained indecision showing on his face.
“I shouldn’t do this to myself, but... Twilight, there’s something I have to show you. No, shh. I know you’re confused. Just trust me. Follow close and stay quiet.”
Her natural curiosity taking charge, Twilight followed Shining as he disappeared down the hall. He led her downstairs, and back to the family’s library.
The fire was still blazing underneath the mantlepiece. Shining approached it, and simply stood looking at it.
“Shine...?”
He used his magic to pull away the fine mesh fireshield that protected the furniture from sparks.
“Shine?!” Twilight said again, concerned and perturbed.
Then Shining Armour stepped into the fire and disappeared.
Twilight’s jaw hit the floor, and there it remained until she heard Shining’s voice from somewhere beyond.
“Twilight, just do what I did. Nothing bad will happen, I promise!”
“W-what? Shining? Where are y-you?”
“Step into the fireplace, Twi. It doesn’t hurt.”
Trusting her brother, Twilight stepped cautiously forward. She felt heat, and it scared her. But, summoning all her courage, she leapt forward, bracing herself.
She tumbled out onto a cold floor, clearly made of stone.
Twilight opened her eyes, which she had screwed up tight before entering the flame. She gasped, realising that the back wall of the fireplace was an illusion. Indeed, the fire itself was a carefully crafted enchantment, one that radiated heat and looked just like a real fire, but apparently was not hot enough to burn anypony.
Now she found herself in a dimly lit corridor. Past Shining Armour, a dim light shone at the end of the straight passageway. The big white unicorn had already started trotting towards the light, and Twilight ran up to catch him.
“Shining... where are we?”
“You’ll see in a moment,” he assured her quietly.
Twilight couldn’t understand why her brother was so glum. Didn’t he find this exciting? Of course he had to have been here before, but that still didn’t warrant the look of downright depression on his face.
As the two siblings approached the end of the tunnel, the light turned bright blue. Awed, Twilight entered into a circular room that was perhaps twenty feet across. In the centre was a glowing stone. It was blue shot with dark red streaks, like a marble that foals play with—except it was as big as Twilight’s hoof. It appeared to be the only source of light in the room.
“What is that?” she asked, gesturing towards it.
“Pick it up, you’ll see.”
Twilight’s horn glowed light magenta, and the orb gained a similar aura around it. As soon as she exerted her magic upon it, a soft blue ray appeared between it and her horn, connecting them with light.
And then Twilight saw the shimmering, shifting image of a stallion appear directly where the orb was floating.
His coat was a light blue, with a flowing mane of orange and red forming a rusty waterfall down his neck. He was a unicorn, like Twilight and her brother. His cutie mark was a simple red and orange flame.
Startled, Twilight lost her concentration and dropped the orb. The mysterious pony disappeared as soon as she lost magical contact. Shining was ready for this, however, and he caught it with his own magic before it hit the ground.
“W-wha...”
“Just pick it up again. He has something to say to you.”
Twilight cautiously complied, and one more the pony appeared before her, his apparition surrounding the orb like a cloud.
Hello, Twilight.
“Y-you kn-know my name?”
There was no response from the shimmering figure. Twilight lowered the stone to the floor and turned to Shining, demanding answers.
“Who is he? What is he? Where are we?”
“Shh, Twilight, slow down. I’m going to explain, but you need to keep quiet while I do.”
Twilight agreed to this, and Shining Armour began his tale.
“Okay. Twi, you know how soon you’re going to be leaving to become Princess Celestia’s student? Well... you weren’t the first one that she considered.”
“Well obviously not, she’s immortal! I’m sure she’s had dozens, if not hund-”
“Twi! I said no interruptions! I meant within the past few years. She had considered someone besides you. Before you.”
“Really? Who?” Twilight asked, both excited and suspicious (and clearly also wilfully ignorant of the “no interruptions” rule).
“Him,” Shining gestured to the orb, lying on the ground. “Can you guess who he is? Potential protege of the Princess, skilled with magic..."
The mauve filly drew a blank.
"Twilight, he's our brother."
"What? Don't be silly, Shining. We don't have a brother!"
Shining looked at the orb.
“But we do. His name is Red Sky.”
He turned back to Twilight.
“He’s our older brother, Twi. Sit, and I’ll tell you about him...
I remember, when I was a little colt... Red was learning about magic, and he was prodigal. A lot like you, Twi. Except... different. His special talent was in magic, but... it was... of a darker sort. He was gifted, all right. But he didn’t want to take things at the slow pace that all young unicorns are told to take. He wanted to learn how to cast more powerful spells, and sometimes our parents would give in, just to humour him.
“Let’s just teach him how to do it,” Dad would say, “then when he fails, he’ll see why he has to hold back and train slowly.” But it never turned out that way. He’d do it better than his mentor on his first attempt. When Red first learned how to create a light source with his magic, he damn near created a second sun in our living room.
So as the years went on, his teachers and parents stopped trying that. But... all that did was drive Red to figure things out on his own. Confident and cocky, he’d pull out spellbooks at random from the library, and try out whatever he wanted. It always worked.
His favourite sort of spell, though, was the destructive kind. War magic. The sort of things that only Royal Guards are allowed to learn. Sometimes he would take me with him when he went out into the mountains around Canterlot. To let me watch all the awesome things he could accomplish with nothing but his horn, a book, and some concentration.
Conjuring dragons that were made of fire, freezing things solid, wrenching them apart or crushing them telekinetically... It seemed like there was nothing he couldn’t do. And I was always there to see it.
It was probably because I was such a good audience. Always so impressed. I guess I knew that he was doing things he shouldn’t be doing, but I was too young to think much of it. Besides, we were so close to each other, I doubt I would tell on him even if I realised the gravity of the situation. I idolised him.
But he was never satisfied with himself. He always wanted to be better. He wanted to put his own abilities to the test.
Celestia, meanwhile, was considering taking him on as a student. I guess it had been a while since she had seen a unicorn colt with as much potential as him. She came to visit him sometimes. Always told him that if he wasn't patient, he wouldn't reach his full potential.
And he hated it. Said they were treating him like a foal.
I knew he was planning something. Something big.
But what he did... I sure didn't see it coming.
One morning, he asked me again if I'd like to come see him train some more. Of course, I agreed to follow him. But we walked for hours, further than we had ever gone away from Canterlot before.
Deep in the mountains we went, out of sight from everypony. And then he took a book out — looked absolutely ancient, and downright frightening. Big, black, lots of weird golden markings.
Then he started to recite this spell from it. It was really long, he must have stood there for ten minutes just concentrating and muttering to himself. Then he stopped. At first we thought nothing had happened.
Then I saw what he had wrought. Some sort of monster began to materialise in front of him. A long serpentine tail and body. A massive pair of leathery wings, a huge head, and four legs with giant claws. All made of wispy red smoke.
A dragon. A wild dragon, Twi. Can you believe it? He just made it out of thin air.”
Twilight blanched. She had never even heard of anypony conjuring a dragon, let alone seen someone execute it.
“How did he... no, why would he do something like that?”
“Red thought he could control it. He tried to tell it what to do, but it hardly even heard him. Just knocked him aside with one swipe of his massive claws...”
You can imagine how much trouble it got him in.”
Twilight nodded slowly. She had never dared to question Celestia. The princess was benevolent, yes. But to knowingly do something that posed a huge threat to the lives of thousands... Even Celestia had her limits.
“Celestia told him he would never be her student. He was too hungry for power, and had complete disregard for the safety of others. Our parents locked him up indefinitely. I wasn’t even allowed to talk to him. But I did anyways, snuck into his locked bedroom at night from the window. He said that... he was ‘leaving’.
I didn’t understand what he meant at first. I thought he meant he would try to run away. I told him not to. I tried to explain that the anger he received from Celestia and from our parents was only temporary. But he said he could never change, never slow himself down enough to live like a normal pony.
In a lot of ways, I understand his reasoning. With the magical potential he had, how could he bear to waste away learning things in classrooms that he had already taught himself long ago? He could never go back to how it was before the dragon incident.
So... he was leaving. But not just our family. Not from Canterlot. Not even just Equestria.”
“Wait, you mean he’s outside of Equestria?” Twilight gasped.
“Worse, even... You see, Red didn’t just want to leave. He wanted to be left alone. He didn’t want anypony to come looking for him, like he knew they would. He could never put enough distance between him and the Princess that she would stop looking for him. He knew that she viewed him as a threat to ponykind.
So he wasn’t just going to escape physically. He was going to escape...
From our memories.”
Twilight was confused. Shining, on the other hand, was starting to tear up. He turned towards the passageway leading out of the room.
“Come on Twi, we should go. It’s getting late.”
“I don’t... Shine... what does that mean?”
“Walk with me, and I’ll tell you.”
“Can’t I talk to him more?”
“He won’t say anything. It’s just an image.”
The two siblings began the walk back to their home. The blue orb containing the image of Red Sky was left forgotten on the stone floor.
“Right before Red left, he cast a spell. An ancient and powerful spell, and its purpose was to remove all memory of him from the minds of anypony who knew him. Every picture of him turned blank, and every line about him in every letter or diary was erased... Not even Celestia was safe... that’s why you don’t know him. Why you’ve never heard about him or anything to do with him. And you never will.”
“But then... how do you know about him? How are you telling me this?”
“I was the only one he excluded from the spell, and he only let me remember him because I begged him to. If only I had known how much I’d regret it.
He told me about this room that we’re in, hidden beneath the house. He told me that it would be the only place where I could speak of him to anyone.”
Shining trailed off, then quietly added, “The only place anyone could know about him...”
The two arrived at the illusory brick wall that separated them from the library.
“Well in that case, why haven’t you shown me this until now!?” Twilight turned on her brother, suddenly angry. “Don’t you think I deserved to know about him just as much as you do?”
“I... Yes, I do think that,” Shining said in a voice filled with hurt.
“Then why!?”
The white unicorn said nothing, merely turned and leapt through the brick wall.
“HEY! Come back here! I am NOT going to-”
Shining was seated in a leather-backed chair beside the fireplace, reading out of a book. Tears were fast forming in his eyes.
Twilight just looked at him with surprise.
“Big brother... Are you crying?”
