Mirror: Book I - Mind

All it took was a single book. A single, fine, excerpt of text. A single line, perhaps even a single word, to be entranced into a world that was not this one. A fantasy from this reality. After all, the fantasy was only a dream, and the figure slept beneath the dream.

The figure stirred from beneath her papers and scrolls, the slumber soon leaving her eyes as she rose and watched as the words fell from her vision. She would have to recollect, she would have to rewrite. She would have to remember. She must remember.

「Friendship is Magic」

It was Twilight’s fan-fiction.

She had once again spent hours upon hours of her day catching up on her Princess duties just so she might have time to tend to her hobbies and her interests, a passion that had long laid dormant, and thus she wished to continue. It was at the cost of sleep she would tend to these wishes, for slumber and rest were no longer as important as the things she wanted to write. The story she wished to tell…would others even read? She wondered.

Twilight quietly scanned her quarters and looked to the clock at the other end of the room. Midnight had begun. She supposed that she might do herself one last bidding, if only to avoid the hassle in the morning, and summon her books in her kinesis to return them to the library. After all, she’d never turn down a visit to the archives, no matter the hour of the night. The Alicorn reorganized her papers and notes before folding her tomes into her magical field. She trotted past her doors and sauntered slowly through the shaded, crystal halls.

Black-blue luminescence danced across the castle corridors with speckles of brilliant white, as though a tunnel through space paved the way to a mysterious yet ethereal dream. The resemblance of twilight illuminated against the far doors in a dim, orange-purple light, the candle from the library double doors still flickering on and on into the night. Twilight trotted, halted, and turned to peek around the corner.

There the figure sat, still crouched over his notes, working endlessly into the ever-aging night. Twilight had learned very well by now that it could not be helped. The boy had a drive, and this desire would not be quenched until the answers finally arrived. The pony stood there for a while longer, sinking her eyes into the human’s back as he scribbled down whatever might be useful to his knowledge. She supposed playing the sneaking game wouldn’t get her anywhere anytime soon, and thus her hooves began carrying her forward. Suddenly, the boy fidgeted and glanced over his shoulder, quickly tucking his book beneath his arms.

“Twilight?” He muttered over. “You’re still up?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” She giggled quietly.

“I uh…” David gazed back over his books. “Got a little carried away, I suppose?”

“I know the feeling all to well.” She provided, trotting up to his side and resting her books onto the table. Her eyes traveled down to his book, the one she had gifted to him, sitting in his lap. Twilight remembered just then.

“Have you been drawing lately?” She decided to ask.

The boy blinked with surprise, tucking his book further down.

“N-no.” He blurted. “I-I mean, yes. I mean-!” He sighed and slouched with defeat. “Okay, I’m sorry. I wasn’t actually doing any research. Tell ya’ the truth, I got a little bored.”

“Why would you need to apologize for that?” She wondered.

“Just figured that studying is what I ought to be doing right about now.”

The purple pony slowly shook her head. “You don’t need to hold yourself to such obligations, we all have our impulses every once in a while. Sometimes it’s better to stop and take a break.”

“But I’m stuck.” He sighed with frustration. “It feels like I’m wandering through a desert, nothing but sand and the hot, dry wind for hours and miles on end. Whether I sit still or keep moving, I’m not getting anywhere anytime soon. So, I do the only thing I’ve ever really known how to do.” His hands sprawling apart, the book in his lap laid open, its most recent addition in the equine’s sight. By this point the pony had made herself comfortable, seating herself next to the human as the two peered down at his drawing.

"I’m not sure how I got here, where I am now or where this journey will lead me. But if there’s one thing I’m certain about, it’s that I’ve been having these weird thoughts lately. I wonder if any of this is for real, but I also wonder what it’s supposed to mean. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about myself through the ponies and people around me, they’ve given me the motivation not just to look forward, but to look deep within myself. To reflect upon myself. It’s almost like…I’m looking into a mirror.”

Twilight studied the boy’s drawing carefully. “Is that writing from your world?”

He nodded.

“What does it say?” She asked him.

“Mirror.” David answered quietly. Then, he chuckled to himself and shook his head. “I know, it’s pretty dumb.”

“Not at all.” She smiled. “It looks amazing.”

“Thanks.” He mumbled back.

“So, Mirror.” Twilight quoted. “Is it supposed to mean something?”

“Huh? Oh, I dunno.” The boy shrugged. “I just came up with it, nothing special.”

“Now I know that’s not true.”

“What is?”

“Everything you create is special and you should believe that it’s special, too.” Twilight encouraged.

David stifled a snort, turning his head away.

“What? What did I say?”

“Why so cheesy all of sudden?” The boy laughed. “You sound like me when I was a kid, trying to imitate some characters I saw on T.V.”

“I’m not allowed to say whatever I please? I am the Princess, y’know.” She teased.

“Whatever you say, your Highness, but don’t come crying to me when they start calling you the Princess of Cheesiness.”

Twilight struggled to laugh, giving a hardened, cold shudder instead.

“You okay?” David cautioned.

“Just a little chill.” She covered.

The boy gave another shrug before laying his book down on the table, turning to stretch and eliciting a long, tired exhale of breath. He made ready to rise and turn for the doors, the hallways ahead and his room in mind, where he may finally rest at the end of a long and arduous night. Though the smallest flicker of a calling to memory twinkled in the back of his thoughts, he just couldn’t place what it was he was trying to remember. Such struggle at remembering anything really had always made him tired, and thus he sought after his bed. But, the boy stopped and twisted around where he sat, gazing upon the mare once more.

“Twilight?” He asked her.

“Hm?” She looked back up.

“Are you really okay?”

It was a blatant attempt at trying to get her to open up, but for what purpose? The mare wondered. The way Twilight saw it, the only way David could have ever asked such a question was for he himself to open up, lay his thoughts down and be open to the point of view of others. Twilight listened to her thoughts carefully, and her thoughts told her that it was an opportunity, one she would sorely miss should she let it slip by.

“When you ask it like that-” She thought out her words. “It’s difficult for me to answer.”

“Then maybe it’s a good thing that I asked.” He furthered.

The pony looked back up and locked eyes with him, the reassurance of a lending ear to listen to her words still sure and evident as ever in those calmed sights of his. Time seemed to lurch to a stand still in that moment, the human’s gaze as focused and humbled as ever upon the pony sitting quietly before him. The Alicorn had turned her sights to contemplate an answer, and David realized only then that this was the longest sum of time he’d ever spent looking upon Twilight, upon anypony for that matter. She truly was a beautiful mare, had his vocabulary been sparse she would have been beautiful beyond words. It was the rich lavender and violet of her eyes, the plush purple of her fur, and the way her mane fell over the side of her face. The boy felt his heart skip a beat. Suddenly, he caught himself, wondering if he had ever been caught in such episodes prior without even knowing it.

“Spike was right.” She suddenly spoke. “He talked to me about the days he and I spent in Ponyville with all of our friends, before all of this happened, before I became an Alicorn. All sorts of shenanigans would go on around town, and it would always be up to us to set things right. But…we were happy. We didn’t know where our journeys would take us, or what was going to happen next, but we knew that we would face them together. Just like we always have…”

“Hm.” The boy nodded thoughtfully. “So is that what this story is all about?”

“Huh?” The pony looked over, her eyes turning out. “Wha-? Where did you get those?!”

“I’m sorry, I thought it’d be a fair trade!” He alarmed, raising his arms. “They were just lying there, I thought you wanted me to read.”

The papers Twilight had gathered and brought to the library were, as it turned out, her fan-fiction numbers and not the archive manuscripts. Her stupor of slumber must’ve made her mismatch everything that was lying on her desk, and now eyes that weren’t her own had laid sight upon them!

“How far did you get?” She hastened.

“Uh-”

“You know what? Just forget everything you’ve read.” She cackled nervously, throwing the pages together. “As far as you’re concerned, this doesn’t even exist.”

“Twilight, it’s okay-” He reached out.

“What’s okay? You must be making things up.” She laughed again. “What were we talking about just now? Beats me.”

“Twilight, I liked it.” He quickly admitted.

“Y-you…” The mare paused, blinking with realization.

“I only got to read the first part of it, but you snatched it away before I could get any further.” He subsided his frown, and looked on with a hint of interest and wonder. “The introduction was simple and clean, nothing over the top. I can tell when someone is desperately trying to get your attention, but this…I sorta’ got sucked right in. Y’know?” And he smiled.

“O-Oh.” She turned away, blushing hard and tapping her hooves together. “Well, I-I’m glad you liked it.”

“You thought I wouldn’t?” He teased. “I suppose that makes me your first reader then.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” She sufficed, bringing her notes together in her hooves, looking down upon her writing as though she expected for it to speak to her any moment now. Once she looked up to the boy, eye’s blinking and hesitant, but with a little push she put the words forward. “Would you…like to read some more?”

For what hours that were left that the night had to offer to them, or rather the time they could spend staying awake, the collaboration of worlds, timelines and ideas was uttered amongst and laughed along by the two tellers. They were both sayers of their own tales, and the fact that such two beings had met each other, that two aliens separated hundreds of light years apart, had somehow found recognition with one another in their desire to write, draw, and create.

It was in that simple moment in time, beneath the canopy of a stain-glassed castle, two souls interlinked.

The world all around vanished and shrouded apart into a thick, black and endless nothing. Within the nothing, there was something, and that something was falling. As the vantablack opened its gaping maw and swallowed him whole, nothing felt out of place, nothing felt dreadfully amiss nor was there anything to fear for. It felt to him as though all of this occurrence suddenly harbored a purpose of some sort. The tug which ran from the nape of his neck and down his spine posed an alluring pull, as though gravity were taking him somewhere, as though the will of the nature of things all around him had something special in mind this night.

Ethereal blue twinkles and sparks swirling high twirled all about the boy in his descent to the plane of blue below, getting closer and wider with every descending second that passed. In the midst of his descent the boy had opened his eyes, looking about the familiar expanse of stars stretched wide across the never ending cosmos. Suddenly, his mind began to spin relentlessly all around him, revolving at unimaginable speeds. Sharp glimpses of crystal white surrounded his figure as an unseen wind rushed amok, shards of glass spinning all around. Soon then, the flurry of wind came to a slowing halt and the tiny glass shards began collecting together before his eyes, bringing forth images he could easily recall, but couldn’t quite place.

There were images of himself and the ponies. The boy was happy, and the ponies were happy. Together, humans and ponies lived in harmony. He remembered then where such memories had come from. They weren’t memories at all, but only ideas. Mere dreams. It was, as he understood it, the one and only world he had wished for.

The reflections had at last revealed themselves unto the boy, and yet here he was, staring right back at the creator of it all. Himself.

“I was just like you, once.” Arrived her voice.

The boy needn’t turn to see whom it was. Princess Luna’s image reflected in the barrier of glass before him, and he pressed a hand upon the surface in deep contemplation. Luna continued.

“I remember my days spent in the gardens and archives of the great castle, along with my sister. So ambitious, she was, to get ahead and become the greatest ruler Equestria would ever behold. As for myself, I was a dreamer. The world I knew in my youth did not suit me so. As such, I sought only to retreat to the realm I called my solace. My very own place of escapism, not even my sister knew about it.” The nightly Alicorn adorned a sorrowful glance. “Little had I known that such manner of escapism might not offer a way back out.”

David watched on, yearning, reaching, almost begging for the images within the glass to become real. They were his own mind, his own machinations, manifested into a world seen fit by his own imagination. It was heavenly, it was perfect, it was…simply not how things were meant to be. And he knew it.

“For this is the manner of the Glass.” Luna elaborated. “It is no phenomenon exclusive to the realm of dreams. Neigh, it is only a metaphor, an ironic take on the one that you call yourself.”

Letting her words strike him as hard as they might, the boy clenched his fist over the glass and slowly let it fall. He knew not to check over his chest for that mark, the scar that had been dealt upon him. Instead, he turned slightly, eyeing the pony over his shoulder.

“Luna.” He began. “This is a dream, right?”

“A state that which our minds retreat to after falling into slumber?” Luna looked about the expanse of stars. “Yes, I believe so.”

“I wasn’t exactly talking about this place.”

“Who is to say this is a place?” She tilted her head. “That which you perceive as a place in your mind can only then exist here, and not in the physical, living realm.”

“Do you mean to say that we’re not alive, as we are right now?” He questioned.

“We are mere ideas, neither living nor dead, harnessing the forms of how we conceptualize ourselves in our minds.”

The boy recalled his own figure, and only then did he reach to check for his scar. Of course, the mark was not there, lying over his heart where it ought to be. His brows curled with indifference, squinting with wonder as he glanced back to the glass barrier behind him.

“This isn’t a dream.” He realized. “This is a dream, within a dream.”

“How do you know that it is a dream?” Luna asked him.

“Well, it’s things that seem impossible.” He answered. “Things that could never happen in the real world.”

“Because you have told yourself that.” Luna countered. “You have created the idea that these sort of things could never happen, never exist. That is why it feels like a dream to you?”

The boy nodded.

“Then it is not a dream.” She said.

David squinted with confusion.

“For the things that you know could never happen, and yet you dream of them. The desire to forfeit your reality for a dream. No, that is not the dream. It is only a want, an escape from which is meant to be, an escape from reality. We must embrace reality just as much as we embrace our dreams, only then can we embrace our true dreams.” She turned to him, gazing with a stoic pose. “Tell me, young oneiro, do you know what it means to embrace your dreams?”

“To pursue your goals, whether they be needs or wants in your life?” He guessed.

“Many may take it this way.” She replied. “A simple way to say that they are to strive for what they believe will benefit them.”

“Then how does one embrace their dreams?” David wondered on.

“To embrace your dreams is not to reach for the version of yourself that which you see in your dreams, it is to embrace what and who you are now. To embrace your reality. Your actions, your words, your morals, your beliefs. You embrace…you.”

The question stood at the forefront of his mind, displaying itself right before him as he turned and stared back into the Glass. There he was, the one who had been following him ever since he had arrived in Equestria, ever since he was born for that matter. Although the boy would never fully understand it in his own lifetime, the figure standing in the barrier was David’s one and only true enemy.

He decided that it would be different this time. He would not fight, he would not shout, scream nor strike. In that one moment he accepted the figure in the barrier. His own reflection squinted back at him, harshly, as though vowing that he would one day return. The reflection turned around and walked off into the void, disappearing into the sightless, soundless nothing.

“You are ready.” Princess Luna said to him.

The boy blinked with wonder and turned back around.

“Ready?” He cocked his head. “For what?”

“When you awake…” You will know…

Her words echoed across the endless expanse of stars, bouncing their way back into his ears, and with a sharp yet serene snap, the boy blinked back awake.

He rose and started to scan his surroundings, the walls of the library and the smell of books filling his sights and his senses. A glance across the pillows and blankets sprawled across the floor gave recall that he and Twilight had seemingly crashed somewhere deep into the night, the young purple Princess herself lying a mere step away. There the little librarian laid, breathing as calmly as ever, slumbering peacefully into her dreams. The boy crept a calm complexion, and with a tired gaze his sights fell to the papers lying before him. And there it was.

“The spell…” He muttered, quietly and automatically.

The procedures were written in perfect order, the spells defined and the arcane explained. After all this time and all of this wait, finally, the answers had at last been given to him. One last sight was spared over the Princess, and with deep consideration the boy took another blanket and draped it over her figure, calmly as ever. He cautioned not to pick her up and carry her back to her bed, lest he disturb her slumber. The boy knew she needed it. With a content nod, he dimmed the candle light, and the lone pony was left to dream in the midst of the black and blue, calm and quiet, darkened library.

A spell was like a prayer, and a prayer like a spell. For what was uttered might become so. One could only hope on faith alone, and one could be almost certain, should the procedures and materials be sewn.

As though a priest were setting a cloth over an altar, David led his sheets across his bed and fixed the covers in preparation for his spell. Trinkets of silver and vases of lavender were near mandatory in the upbringing of the spell, as such vibrations and senses would both soothe the electrical neurons of brain activity and help the caster become more focused on their task. It was a journey deep into the mind, and that journey was achieved by three spells put together.

“Permeation, interpretation, projection.” David repeated to himself.

He laid the sheets of his resting place flat. He set silver and lavender to the end tables on either side of his bed, and finally he sat down and began to regulate his breathing. For all he had was his objective in mind, and he repeated it to himself within his head until he couldn’t get it out, until it stuck. To find the reasons as to why he was here, and what he was meant to do. To find the truth once and for all.

He opened his eyes, and immediately he recognized the realm that surrounded them. There Princess Luna stood, watching and waiting.

“I have been expecting your arrival.” The Princess of the Night nodded. “The journey ahead is long and arduous, as even those with the most focused and stable of minds have fallen out of balance. I ask you, young oneiro, have you prepared yourself for this moment?”

David delivered a firm nod.