Chapter 3: Specters of Harmony

Chapter 3

Specters of Harmony

Luna stood alone in her chamber, contemplating Rarity's story. It was the middle of the night, and she had not slept in three days. She was exhausted. Soon, she would either have to make up her mind to enter Celestia's dreams, or she would have to get herself outside the castle and find a place to sleep.

“Cenasolus. Father beat you, somehow. I'm sure of it, but he had to die to do it. What good would it do us to do the same? You would only return one day to consume the future.” She ground her teeth. "I did not endure these aeons, and then crawl out of the Hell of my own heart's corruption to give this world up to nothingness."

“Afraid of a little nothingness, you pitiful girl?” A black face spoke from the mirror.

“I really have to remember to have that mirror taken out of here,” said Luna, inhaling slowly before releasing her breath in a controlled sigh.

Nightmare Moon grinned from the other side of the glass, her face bare of her helmet. Luna was not even facing the mirror, but the dark horse's image faced her, nonetheless. Luna knew because she could feel her eyes.

“Oh, but you know you'd miss me.” The black mare ran the tip of her hoof down her side of the glass, as if admiring its smoothness.

“I don't want you anymore, Nightmare Moon. I never will again. Why do you even bother?”

“For my entertainment,” she replied. "We all need a bit of diversion from time to time, don't we, Princess?"

“So that's what I am to you, now?” Luna spun and locked eyes with the image in the mirror. “Diversion?”

“Precisely.” The black horse seemed almost congenial. “But, who, I must wonder, am I to you?”

“What?” asked Luna, taking a step forward.

“Well...” Nightmare moon lengthened her pause intentionally, then spoke again, her voice once again full of menace. “You made me. You ask me why I'm still here, but the truth of the matter is that you're really asking yourself that singular, nagging question. I'm starting to think you need me, Little Luna.” There was something desirous and predatory in the way Nightmare moon intoned Luna's name, and it made the Princess shudder.

“I do not want you, and I most certainly do not need you.” Luna's muscles tensed as if Nightmare Moon might somehow burst through the glass and physically attack her.

The nightmare horse chuckled. “Or maybe you wish you were me.”

“I've tried that, remember?” Luna allowed a bit of smugness to sneak into her speech. “It didn't end well, in case you don't remember.”

“That's the funny thing,” said Nightmare Moon, edging the statement with a sinister giggle. “You didn't want it to end, at all. As I remember, your return to your current state of being was... forcible. If memory serves, you... I... we resisted to the last.”

“But once you were gone, I was glad of it,” said Luna. “And I still am.”

“Though the question remains," said Nightmare Moon, her words knowing and darkly playful, "why am I still here? Why am I still inside your head if you really want me gone so badly? How is it that you still cannot admit that I am what you wish you were."

Luna sneered. “So, I wish myself to be selfish and cruel?”

“Oh, I wasn't responsible for those characteristics. Those were all yours, my little pony.” Nightmare moon spat out the word “pony,” so that her saliva splattered on the opposite side of the glass, and began to trickle downward.

“Go away,” growled Luna, through clenched teeth.

“Make me,” smiled Nightmare Moon.

“I will,” said Luna. “You say I'm cruel? I will show you cruelty.”

“That’s a good girl. Show me who you really are; the Luna you dare not show anypony else, least of all your fish-belly-white, sanctimonious sister, with her prostitute-grade eyeliner -- which I might add, are all insults that I couldn't imagine if you hadn't imagined them first! Show me the Luna that thinks thossse thingsssss.” Nightmare Moon's sentence trailed off into a hiss.

“I will show you more than that, you wretched bitch!” The force of Luna's statement actually made Nightmare Moon's mirror-bound image recoil momentarily, but she rebounded through a snarl with bared, animalistic fangs as Luna continued to speak. “I'm coming for my sister, and while I'm at it, I think I've come up with a fantastic way to get rid of you -- permanently.”

Nightmare Moon craned her neck forward, and her head actually extended out into the room as if the glass of the mirror simply was not there. The spittle she had earlier deposited upon her side of the glass picked up onto her face and glistened there as she spoke. “Feel free to come in whenever you're ready, you petulant little nag. I'll be waiting.”

The door creaked, and Luna snapped her head towards it, then back to the mirror, which now bore only her own haggard reflection.

“Princess Luna? Oh, you're alone. I thought I heard you talking to somepony.” It was Twilight Sparkle.

Luna looked at the floor, a hint of shame creeping into her expression. “I guess I'm so tired I'm talking to myself. What did you need?”

“I was just wondering if there was anything I could do, or anything else you might have remembered that might help us. Or maybe...”

“If I was ready to try and wake Celestia?” Luna looked back at her reflection, and saw her eyes flash momentarily into the likeness of a snake's. “I believe I may be.” she said.

“Well, how do we do that? If it's anything like what was going on in Rarity's mind, I don't want her in there.”

“You speak as if you think I myself am somehow unconcerned.” Luna's voice bore more venom than she had intended, and Twilight's ears drooped as she took a step back and turned her eyes away from the princess.

"Twilight,” sighed Luna, softening her tone. “It's alright. I know she's like a second mother to you. She talks about you all the time, you know.”

“I spent more time around her than I did my own family for over half my life,” Twilight said, never lifting her eyes from the floor.

“I understand that, but you also should understand that she is my sister and has been since time immemorial. We have mourned legions of friends together, mourned our parents together, and even spilled one another's blood. Through all that, she has remained my closest friend and my sole confidant in all the world. I want to help her as much as you do.'

“I can at least tell you that whatever is going on in her mind is nothing like Rarity's dream. If it were, she could not communicate into the dreams of others. She's merely serving as a conduit for Cenasolus. I think father used this in some way to stop him, last time. He found some way to cut off the flow of whatever entropic magic Cenasolus possesses. That is why he died, and that explains the symbolism of Rarity's dream. I believe that Father allowed himself to be consumed. He... force-fed himself,” here Luna shuddered visibly, “to Cenasolus, in a way, in order to sate its hunger, and put it to rest, for a time. If that's true then he or some remnant of him would still be a part of Cenasolus. That may be why he was able to warn Celestia of his approach.'

“I have to get Celestia out of there. She's just like Father. If we leave her in there long enough for her to get the idea, she'll probably do the same thing. I think, however, that I may have a better... solution."

Here, Luna grinned, and for a moment, Twilight Sparkle saw in her face a glimmer of the same wickedness she remembered in Nightmare Moon's.

“Get all of your friends together by eight o'clock tomorrow morning," said Luna. "I have a job for you.”

* * *

“Your plan is to feed it?” Rainbow Dash's mouth hung open. Twilight had assembled all the ponies in the great hall, just as Luna had asked.

“My plan is to gorge it," said Luna, "maybe even choke it, if we're lucky. At the very least, it won't wake up for aeons, and that might give us long enough to figure out a way to kill it for good.”

The alicorn looked like death. She had denied herself sleep for nearly as long as even she could stand, especially given the mental and emotional stress of those several days.

“What are you going to feed a thing like that?” Pinkie Pie scratched her nose with a hoof. “It's, like, a god of entropy or something.”

“That’s exactly what it is, Pinkie.” Twilight rolled her eyes. "Next you'll be telling me that I'm, like, a unicorn, or something."

"You're not?" asked Pinkie Pie, aghast, and Twilight only sighed in response.

“I have to agree with Pinkie Pie," said Rarity. "I'm a bit confused.” She tried hard to gulp down a lump that had formed in her throat. She remembered what it looked like when Cenasolus “ate.”

“Well,” said Luna, “If this... being... insists on consuming either the life of our world or the life of an alicorn, I say it's obviously much better if it consumes an alicorn. I think that Father, rather than allowing himself to be slowly consumed, fed all of his spirit to Cenasolus at one time, effectively sating his hunger and putting him to sleep for all these aeons. I want to do the same thing again. Only this time, I want to give him an alicorn that hasn't been weakened by centuries of consumption.”

Applejack glared at Luna, angrily. “Now, I know you wouldn't feed that thing your sister,” she said, “so I'm just gonna go ahead and let you know that if you try to play martyr, I'm probbly gonna give you a pair of hooves on the chin.”

Luna smiled. “And I was worried you wouldn't have the moxie for this job.”

“What job?” Fluttershy asked, shakily. She did not like Princess Luna's tone.

“You're all coming into Celestia's dream with me. When Nightmare Moon comes for us -- and she will -- you're going to use the Elements of Harmony to rip all of her remaining essence from my spirit, so that she will manifest in reality as a separate physical being from myself. Then, we're going to force-feed her to Cenasolus in one, huge... serving, if you will.”

“Whoa!" Spike chimed in. "Are you serious? Is that even safe?”

“Not in the least,” replied Luna. “I can easily bring you all into Celestia's dream with me. The only problem is making sure we all fall asleep at precisely the same time.”

Pinkie Pie grinned gleefully.

“I got just what you need for that!”

* * *

Everypony but Pinkie Pie stood in Celestia's chamber, each wearing the talisman of her particular element of Harmony. Luna sat next to Celestia's bed. She turned to address the ponies.

“So, everyone understands that we're going to have to play this by ear, right? I don't have any idea of what it will be like in our collective subconscious, except that Nightmare Moon will be in there with us, somewhere. What she will try to do, I cannot predict.”

Each pony gave an affirmative "Right," or "Mmmhmm," or in the case of Fluttershy, a furtive, fearful squeak -- though it was still affirmative.

“I can assure you of this much, however," Luna continued. "Nightmare moon will try to turn your dreams against you. Whatever you fear, whatever you regret, whatever haunts you in the night; it will be there.'

"Also, there may be one detail I failed to mention." Luna sounded just slightly bashful, and Twilight did not like it.

"What?" asked the little unicorn.

"Nightmare Moon knows everything I know, so she knows exactly what we plan to do."

"I can see where that could make things just a bit more complicated," said Rarity.

“By the way, Twilight, where is Spike?” asked Fluttershy.

“He's at my parents' house. I told them to watch him and make sure he doesn't try to come here. No reason to risk his safety, after all.”

At that moment, Pinkie Pie bucked open the door and backed into the chamber pulling a cart laden with seven frothy tankards of cider.

“The alcohol will make it work even faster,” she explained.

“Pinkie, are you trying to kill me?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Nope, that’s another fanfic!” She smiled.

“What?”

“Nothing!”

Everypony looked around for a moment, slightly confused. Pinkie reached into hammer space and produced a vinyl copy of Pink Floyd's “The Wall,” then dropped it onto a record player in the corner -- a record player which the rest of the ponies were all fairly sure had not been there moments previous. She dropped the needle onto the disc, and after a moment's scratchiness, “Comfortably Numb” began to play.

“Is she always this excited about substance abuse?” asked Luna.

“You think this is excited?” Rarity giggled. “Oh, Darling, you simply must go clubbing with us when this is over.”

Pinkie Pie extended toward Rarity a small bottle balanced on her hoof. Rarity took it in her teeth, and gave it a quick shake. It gave a hollow, sparse rattle.

“How many did you use!?” She said through gritted teeth.

“I balanced the doses according to the constitution of the pony I mixed it for, of course. Not like constitution as in an ability score; more like I just guessed.”

“Well, whose is whose?” asked Fluttershy.

Pinkie Pie blinked and said nothing for several seconds.

“Whoops,” she finally said. “Hold on a second!”

Pinkie produced a pair of bartender's shakers the size of buckets, into which she poured all of the cider, and shook it vigorously. She then redistributed the fluid into the tankards.

“Everypony just grab one. It'll be alright.”

The group did as instructed.

“Now, drink!”

Pinkie Pie turned up her tankard first, followed immediately by Applejack. Rainbow Dash, not to be outdone, immediately began to chug her cider in an effort to finish first. Fluttershy sipped furtively, then shut her eyes tight and began to drink. Rarity knocked it back casually, and Twilight just shrugged and gulped it down at a comfortable pace. Luna sighed, and turned her head back, downing her dose first despite having started drinking last.

“Now, we just wait for it to kick in,” said Pinkie Pie.

Fluttershy, realizing that she was standing next to Rarity, moved to the opposite side of the room to avoid the uncomfortable depredations that tended to accompany the unicorn's use of intoxicants.

“I'll just stand over here,” she said.

Luna, already exhausted, began to sway first.

She crawled onto Celestia's bed and lay next to her sister.

“See you ladies in my nightmares.” She shut her eyes.

“Poor th...” Fluttershy stopped. “Is she asleep?”

Twilight, now beginning to sway slightly herself, shook the alicorn's shoulder.

“She's catatonic.”

“Poor thing,” said Fluttershy, her speech noticeably slurred. “I should lie down.” She went to a couch in the corner and curled herself into a ball.

Twilight stepped unsteadily towards the opposite end of the same couch, and sprawled herself over it.

“It just hit me; I could have just cast a sleep spell on everypo... everypa... every...” Her head flopped over, and she was gone.

Rainbow Dash, swaying quickly through a very small arc, began to speak.

“I bet none of you can outlast me.” She was sinking to the floor in a controlled collapse before she had even finished the sentence. “Never mind.” She laid her head gently on top of her crossed forelegs, and dozed off.

“Well, reckon I'll help myself along.” Applejack reached under her hat and produced a small, opaque flask marked “XXX.” She pulled the cork with her teeth, spat it across the room, and downed the flask's contents.

“Peace out, y'all.” Applejack laid down with her back against the foot of the bed, and tipped her hat down over her eyes.

Rarity and Pinkie Pie stood there, swaying gently, and looked at one another.

“Tolerance is a bitch,” Rarity said. “By the way, have I ever told you that you have the loveliest eyes?”

Pinkie Pie fluttered her eyes at Rarity playfully, and stifled her urge to snicker. “Take another pill, Rarity.”

Rarity twisted open the bottle, dumped a pill onto her hoof, and popped it into her mouth. She chewed it, rather than swallow it whole.

“Now, go lie down somewhere," said the earth mare, "and I'll be along in a minute.”

Rarity complied by finding a comfortable spot on the rug. She raised her head, however, and looked at Pinkie Pie.

“Would you like another, dear?” she asked, shaking the bottle at Pinkie Pie.

“Oh, I'll be alright. I got started a little earlier than the rest of you girls, ” Pinkie Pie said, as she casually sipped another tankard of cider she had somehow produced from thin air.

“Hmm,”smiled Rarity. Then, she laid her head down, and was soon asleep.

Pinkie just took another long pull on the tankard, and stared at the sun-shaped clock on the wall, watching the seconds tick by. Right as the second solo of “Comfortably Numb” started, a smile crept slowly across her face.

“My new personal best,” she said. Then, she hit the floor like a bag of rocks.

“Pussy,” came Applejack's muffled voice from under the brim of her hat.

* * *

Fluttershy didn't know where she was, but she knew she didn't like it. She had awakened, mysteriously, in a forest, with no recollection of how she had come to be there. This forest, however, was not like any forest she had ever seen before. It was utterly and totally dead. There were nothing but dead trees; long-dead and long stripped bare of leaves, bark, and most of their branches. No grass grew, and not the first twitter of a bird could be heard. There was only the wind creaking in the tops of the dead, gray, swaying trees, absent the calming sighs of it moving through their long-fallen leaves.

Not sure of what else to do, she took flight and moved upward to get the lay of the land. It was the most depressing sight she had ever seen. Beneath a gray, cloudy sky, the forest went on to every horizon, perfectly flat and perfectly devoid of any living thing, so far as she could discern. She was afraid, but worse, she was deeply saddened. A forest of this magnitude must have been beautiful in its life, but something had taken that life away from it. She could not help but wonder what.

The answer came in a whisper that seemed to arise from the wind itself.

“He took my future.”

“Who was that?” Fluttershy, still aloft, shot looks to every direction. There was no response.

Afraid, she settled slowly back to the ground. Unsure of what else to do, she picked a direction, and began to walk.

* * *

Pinkie Pie awoke to a sound she had not heard in a long, long time. It was her mother, humming some old song or other. She looked around, and was seized with glee. She was home!

It was her room. It was her bed. Out the window, it was her family's rock farm. She had no idea how she had come to be here, but whatever the case, she could not contain her excitement. She dashed down the stairs, full of expectation of a happy reunion with her family.

“Who are you?” Asked the bespectacled gray pony sitting in a rocker, staring out the window.

Pinkie Pie stopped in her tracks.

“It's me, Pinkie!”

Pinkie's mother just stared at the excited pony in confusion.

“That's just mean,” she said, “I don't have a daughter named Pinkie.”

Pinkie giggled.

“Okay, okay. Pinkamena, then. Better?”

“That's just cruel. Get out of my house, and never come back!” The mare's voice cracked as she yelled her command.

Pinkie laughed again, but there was a hint of nervousness in her voice as she spoke again.

“Okay; that's enough of this game. Where's Daddy?”

“What do you mean, Daddy? Who are you looking for? I've lived here alone for the past ten years, ever since my husband passed away”

“Mom, that's not funny.” Pinkie Pie's ears drooped.

“I'm not your Mother. Both of my daughters live far away, now.” She sounded more sad than irate.

“What do you mean, both? There are three of us!”

“Of course you would know that, since you used my daughter's name.” Now, she sounded angry.

“No, I really don't have any idea, and my name's really Pinkamena! Pinkamena Diane Pie!”

At this, the gray mare rocked back in her chair, and held herself there for a moment. Her eyes widened, and she adjusted her glasses.

“Pinkie never told anypony her middle name, ever” she said. “You can't be. Let me see your cutie mark.”

Pinkie Pie reluctantly turned to the side, and as she did so, the old mare finally rocked forward, again, and began to breathe heavily.

“Oh, my goodness. You really are Pinkamena. I don't believe this! It's impossible!”

“Why don't you believe it? It's me! Pinkie! I grew up in this house. You used to tell me stories and sing me songs every night before I went to bed. You and Granny Pie taught me to sing all those old songs you love!”

Pinkie's mother just shook her head slowly, and stared downward, her tears dropping onto the floor.

“Pinkamena, you can't be here. You're dead.”

* * *

The first thing that Rainbow Dash noticed as she awoke was the last notes of a guitar solo fading out somewhere nearby, though she couldn't quite locate the source of the sound. She recognized them as being from “Comfortably Numb.” Now, another song started, it was “Goodbye Blue Sky”
“Weird,” she thought. “That's not even the next song on the record.”
She was in a bright, white room with lots of cabinets and a tile floor, and she was laying belly-down on a table. She didn't remember how she had come to be here, and she was worried by the fact that she couldn't seem to move her body. She felt exhausted. Amidst this confusion, she smelled something like burning hair and flesh, and felt a searing pain near the base of her left wing. She moaned in agony.

“The hell? She's still awake? She was totally unresponsive like a minute ago! Turn on the gas again, and get me some local anesthetic -- a lot of it; as much as we can safely give her.”

She felt a slight prick near the agonizing ache in her wing, and whimpered at this new pain.

“It's okay, Ms. Dash. It's just a slight problem with the anesthesia, but we'll have you under again in a second. I swear to Celestia you were out cold. This never happens.” A magenta-colored unicorn stallion leaned his head in front of her and awkwardly adjusted a medical gas mask that she only now noticed she was wearing. He was wearing a surgical mask.

“I'm giving you a local anesthetic, too,” he said. “You should be asleep again in a minute, but we have to continue the operation to make sure you don't lose too much blood. You shouldn't feel anything. This stuff works fast. Nothing to panic about.” He disappeared from her view.

Her back and wing began to tingle, and lose feeling, but at least the pain subsided.

“Everypony saw that, right? She was out earlier. We checked! Weird as hell.” It was the same voice.

“Yes, we all saw,” said another voice, this one female. “You followed procedure. Nopony here is liable for anything. Get the cauterizer, and get back to work. She ought to be numb enough, by now.”

The smell of burning flesh intensified, and she felt a splatter of something warm and sticky on her face and side. Only moments later, she heard a loud buzzing sound, and felt herself being pelted along her left side with something grainy, like sand.

As the bizarre sensations continued, Rainbow Dash managed to roll her face sideways in an effort to surmise what was going on, and as she did so, she felt herself beginning to lose consciousness. There was nothing of any consequence in her field of vision but a table. She could see that it was covered in surgical instruments, but in her drugged state, she couldn't quite fully comprehend the significance of that fact.

She felt a series of tugs, and her head rolled a bit under their impetus. She felt the old, familiar pangs of motion sickness, and though they were far more intense than usual, she forced them down inside herself the way she always did. Then, just as suddenly as they began, both the buzzing and the tugging stopped.

Her body felt unbalanced, all of a sudden, as if her right side was somehow heavier than her left. Then, onto the backside of the table, beyond the row of scalpels, pliers, and clamps, a blue pegasus wing flopped down with a thud, causing all the instruments to rock and clink. It smoldered and seeped blood at its stump, and it was molted bare of feathers in several places. Even through the gas mask, she could tell that it smelled like cheese, a tell-tale sign of gangrene and necrosis. Despite the severed appendage's grotesque condition, she recognized it. Rainbow Dash had spent far too long admiring her strong, muscular wings to not know it for one of her own.

She tried to scream, but all that came out was a series of subdued, incoherent syllables.

“Somepony get a bio hazard bag,” she heard a different voice say, and shortly a white female earth pony came and raked her dismembered wing into a big, plastic bag.

She weakly mumbled some more panic-stricken nonsense syllables, but the intervals between them grew longer and longer.

“She's going under,” she vaguely understood as she lost consciousness. “Get started on the other one.”

* * *

Wake up, Baby!

Applejack stirred slowly. Why was it so hot?

“Come on, girl! We gotta get the hell outta here!”

Applejack's eyes opened slowly, and she was stunned to see her mother's red face.

“Momma?” She was even more shocked by the sound of her own voice. Its pitch was far too high.

“Baby, get up!”

Now, she smelled the smoke, and saw the flames that had already begun to consume the house.

Her Mother took her mane in her teeth and dragged her out of bed. She yelped and whinnied, but the big mare paid no attention to Applejack's protest as she dragged her into the hallway. As she was pulled down the hall, Applejack saw her father laying at the other end of the hallway, next to the door to the nursery. A section of the ceiling had collapsed, and lay on his back.

“Daddy!” She felt and heard the hair of her mane ripping as she wrenched her head violently forward, and she was suddenly free of her mother's grasp. She dashed forward, grinding to a halt in front of her father's body. She almost fainted at the sight of the blisters that covered one side of his head, and then there was the smell.

He looked up at her, and roared into her face.

“GET OUT OF THE GODDAMNED HOUSE, YOU FOOL GIRL!”

Something about seeing his daughter's terror must have put strength into his huge, orange body, because he managed to wedge his hooves underneath himself and push upward. He gave a low, rumbling grunt, and began to rise, shedding the burning rafters that had only moments before held him pinned to the floor.

Applejack had always loved her father, but silhouetted in the smoke and flames, covered in burns and blisters, he was, in that moment, the most terrifying sight she had ever seen. She stumbled backwards in terror, and felt again her mother's teeth in her mane, dragging her towards the stairs. Her father backed up to the pile of burning rafters that lay against the nursery door, and tensed every muscle of his body. She heard his shout of rage and the impact of his hooves against the pile, but she did not see it, having already been dragged around the corner.

Her mother spun and threw her twice her own body length towards the stairs, then came behind her, pushing her roughly down them. Applejack lost her footing near the bottom, and tumbled downward, where she ended up laying against the wall with a bloody nose. She started to cry, but her mother, usually tender and careful with her in such circumstances, just wrapped a leg underneath her belly and lifted her to her hooves.

She put a hoof against her daughter's rump and wordlessly shoved her towards the front door, an act she followed by pushing her forward with her chest and shoulders. In moments, Applejack was through the door.

She stumbled onto the front lawn, where she noticed her brother and grandmother standing next to the big, old apple tree that stood beside the house, its branches overhanging the roof. The fire licked greedily at the old tree's branches, and soon, they would succumb to its hunger. She whirled to see her mother, covered in sweat and burns, and coughing fiercely.

“Your daddy went after your little sister. I gotta go help him. Don't none of y'all dare come back in this house, or I'll beat the fur offa your ass, you understand me!?”

Even as she was becoming aware of the fact that this was a dream, even as she was remembering taking the sedative Pinkie had given her, she still could not overcome the terror that those flames had embodied in that very real moment, all those years ago. Her parents had always seemed so kind before, but this once, they were both terrifying – and it was the last time she would ever see either of them alive.

The huge, red mare disappeared back into the inferno, and Applejack, small and weak, stood on that lawn, tears streaming down her face, as she hoped against hope that somehow, some way, this dream would end differently than all the others.

* * *

Rarity awoke in her own bed. She felt a strange sense of disconnection, and she remembered some dream she'd had involving Princess Celestia and some ancient evil or other. Such things were so common in Equestria that she barely took note of it, at all. Her room was so dark that she thought it must still be night, so she rolled over and attempted to go back to sleep. She tossed and turned for awhile, but finally realized she was wide awake, and rolled over to place her hooves on the floor.

It was entirely too dark for her to be this wakeful.

“I must have gone on a bender and closed the shutters so I could sleep late,” she mumbled to herself. She cast a weak light spell, squinting even in its mild, bluish light, and stumbled to the window. When she found it, she forewent telekinesis, and raised it with her hooves. Barely any light came in, muted by some covering that she could not identify until she found its corner and pulled. As the barrier tore away, daylight streamed in, muted by an overcast sky, but still unbearable for her light-starved eyes. She was compelled to squint and cover her eyes with a foreleg. Quickly, she telekinetically closed the shutters.

“Oh, that's right,” she mumbled. “I put tinfoil up on the windows to keep the sun out. Goddamn, I must have gotten really fucked up last night to forget a thing like that.”

She dragged herself back to her bed, and lit an oil lantern she kept near it, bathing the room in a soft, warm glow. Silently, she walked towards her dresser, unsure of exactly what it was she wanted from it. On the way there, she noticed her reflection in her mirror, and paused to consider it. She should have shrieked at the horror she beheld, but she only smiled a calm, slight, and very cold smile.

Her eyes were sunken, and her face was thin and gaunt. She was so skinny and malnourished that she could count her ribs. Her mane was unkempt and greasy, and it clung to the side of her head and the back of her neck everywhere that it was not matted or tangled. Her fur had fallen out in patches all over her sides, and the pink, inflamed skin where it had been was coated with scabs wherever it did not ooze watery, pinkish lymphatic fluid -- symptoms of a long-untreated case of rain rot. Looking down to observe her body directly, she almost lovingly took in the line of swollen, abscessed scars running up the inside of both her forelegs.

If she had been herself, she would have noticed that there was an astonishing amount of drug paraphernalia scattered around the room; needles, surgical tubing, glass pipes, a small mirror on her dresser that was thinly dusted with cocaine, and beside that, several razor blades and a cocktail straw. There were empty pill bottles strewn everywhere, and several partially full ones on the nightstand. Right next to them stood a mostly-empty bottle of gin, half a dozen of its fallen brethren littering the narrow space between the nightstand and the bed, itself. The smells of burnt opium, crack, and marijuana permeated everything around her, mixed with the sickly-sweet aroma of cheap incense.

Suddenly, Rarity felt as if her bones had turned to sand. She felt a wave of nausea and light-headedness overtaking her, and she instinctively knew both what she needed and where it was. She stumbled to her dresser, and opened the top-left drawer. There was heroine inside, pure and white, the finest the money could buy – and her unique talent for finding gemstones kept her in plenty of money. In a shuddering daze, she lit a candle, and prepared a dose as quickly as she could, even going so far as to allow herself the use of a fresh needle, acquired, as always, by telling the pharmacist she was diabetic. By now, her body chemistry was so ruined that she had begun to question whether or not this was, in fact, still a lie.

Oh well, there were drugs for that, too.

"Some fucking crazy dreams I've been having,” she growled, pulling by her gritted teeth a length of surgical tubing tight around her foreleg. “Let's see just how fucked up they can really get.”

* * *

Twilight Sparkle alone woke where she had expected to awaken; at the hooves of Princess Celestia. Twilight, unlike her friends, was immediately aware of why and how she had come to be where she was, and she was happy to see where the dream had deposited her. They were in the Canterlot Castle throne room, and Princess Celestia sat enthroned as Twilight had seen her many times before.

“Princess!”

She hopped up and made to nuzzle the white alicorn, but the Princess pulled sharply away.

“Get away from me, you little wretch,” spoke Celestia, in a tone Twilight could never remember her having used before.

“What?” Twilight's voice trembled slightly as she spoke.

“You heard me.” Venom still soaked Celestia's speech.

Twilight's voice was pleading as she spoke, again.

“I came here to help you!”

“As if I would ever let a pathetic little fool like you help me,” Celestia sneered. “What could a weak, ignorant little buffoon like you ever do for me?”

“But, but I...” Twilight's eyes were beginning to tear up.

“But, but, but, but what?” Celestia turned her chin upwards slightly, and gazed down haughtily at her student. “But I won't fuck everything up, this time? But I'll actually study, this time? But I'll actually put some effort into something this time, instead of half-assing it the way I do everything else? Hmm?” With every one of the Princess' remarks, the throneroom seemed more and more corrupt. The paint peeled from the walls, the tapestries rotted, and the magnificent stained glass windows grew fogged with filth.

Celestia rose from her throne, and loomed over Twilight.

“Princess, I'm sorry,” Twilight begged. “I know I don't always get everything right, but I'm really trying!”

“Yes, always trying, Twilight Sparkle, but never succeeding. How much of my time have I wasted on you, again?”

Twilight tasted the salt of a tear that had reached the corner of her mouth, and stared at the Princess.
"I'm... sorry," she choked out.