Twibright wandered the halls of the castle, the history book floating to the side in her field of vision. "So, if I'm reading this right, all the kings are different species. It's almost like—" She stopped dead in her tracks. "They don't share their history." Her ears went back. "But their history shares them." She looked up and down along the hallway. "And one place they keep touching on but not mentioning." She turned slowly towards the direction of the crypt.

The doors there were large and imposing. Twibright could see that it would take several guards to move them, or a single elephant king. "They must have been using this forever." She saw a guard seated nearby, looking bored. "Is it against any rule if I go in there?"

The guard looked over, then chuckled. "You?" He gestured with his tail at his own head, then at Twi's head. "I'd like to see you get past the door."

That sounded enough like permission. Twibright's horn glowed brightly as she reached for the doors with magic and began to push. The door creaked open just enough for her to slip inside, the guard nearly falling over himself at what he'd seen.

Twibright let herself take in the view as she walked into the ancient room, the air still and cool. Corridors stretched into the depths through stone walls, but none of that was as pressing as the overwhelming odor that assaulted her. "Oh, oh no!" She stumbled back, gagging on it. "It smells awful!" She covered her mouth with a hoof, breathing shallowly. "What is that? It's foul."

Watcher's voice echoed in the room, "Found something, have you?" He emerged with a twitch of his tail just behind Twibright . "Excellent work."

"Are you going to follow me everywhere I go?" She twirled to face him, distracted for the moment.

"Yes." Watched gestured past her into the crypt's depths. "Shall we?"

"Okay, but..." She looked up and down the halls. "Where did you get the idea for that song?"

Watcher shrugged. "She needed a song, and I delivered as best I could. I thought you were sleeping."

Twibright blushed. "Well, not quite." She shook her head slowly. "I wasn't planning on mentioning it."

Watcher laughed. "Oh? And why not?"

Twibright shuffled uncomfortably. "You didn't strike me as a musical sort. I'm, um, pleased to be wrong about that." She turned back ahead. "The smell of that corruption's coming from in there. It must be connected to the kings, or the queen, somehow. There are too many mentions of it in the history books, but never any details. This place is important, somehow." She began trotting down the corridor slowly.

Watcher walked at her side. "You're getting distracted. The past tells us what it can't be, remember? Something newer, sending things off course from where they must be."

"About that." She perked an ear at him as they advanced. "Why are you allowing Lulu to follow us? I don't mind her around, but I figured you'd have a lot more of a complaint. She's part of this world's 'story' isn't she?"

He considered that. "Yes, yes she is." Watcher looked towards the ceiling. "But there is something about her." He fell quiet. "She's a skunk."

Twibright nodded slowly. "That she is." She barely held back a laugh. "You like skunks?"

"Not that." He placed a hand on her head. "We keep following scents, and she is a source. Coincidences happen every day, but this is a bit on the nose."

"You think she's going to be part of this?" Twibright's ears perked up.

Watcher nodded. "Perhaps. I have a feeling, but I am not sure what about yet." He drummed his fingers along his outer thigh. "In either event, she has passed a threshold, much like you did. If we cut her off and sent her away, she would be a source of dissonance for the world. She'd be better off with us."

Twibright frowned as they walked through the halls, looking at each king in turn. "And how much more are you planning to teach me?"

Watcher looked around before settling on her. "As much as you care to learn. I've yet to stop you from digging, little pony." He grabbed her, one cheek to a hand, to ruffle her gently. "You hardly need my help to learn. It is your purpose, and one you have embraced entirely. I can appreciate that, one purpose-haver to another."

She smiled and hugged him for a moment. "Thank you. You're not as bad as Lulu thinks you are."

"Am I not?" He raised an ear with a smile. "I will keep that in mind. Now, that odor, it seems strongest behind this door." He pressed against its heavy stone. "And it would seem opening it will not be easy." He examined its edges, the small gap between it and the wall. "This place must be older than anything, even the castle, which was likely built around it. Some kings would have been here long indeed."

Twibright's horn glowed as she felt around the door, then slowly past it. "Using my magic on what I cannot see is, hm, difficult to put it mildly." That didn't stop her from trying, grasping around in the void beyond her vision. "I'm curious, do you know what story this world is actually supposed to tell?"

Watcher turned to her, tail twitching back and forth as he thought about it. "Oh? Curious?" He shrugged. "I do, yes. I could tell you more of it, if you like." He drummed along his snout with a few fingers. "A dreadful place, but full of life. Each member of this lives short but powerfully passionate lives, ended with violence or other means. A fine world if one wanted to savor what makes life living, but less so if one wanted to build higher and better."

"And my world?" Twibright looked over her shoulder at him. "You can't just say you were there, then not share what happened."

Watcher laughed. "You are insatiable. Your world was, is, a teaching world. That's a privileged way to put it, said by other worlds. To you, your problems are serious. To others, childlike, but teachable. The endings tend to be happy, no matter how horrible they may be in the moment. Always a chance to learn."

Twibright's ears flicked with embarrassment. "And this place?"

He gestured around them. "This one has long been a story of violence. Many worlds have such stories as their core, even if the songs they sing vary. There are fewer lessons here, unless one wants to learn to survive, or to help others survive, or stop surviving. If one saught hedonism, a passable world, but there are better, less violent, options for that."

Twibright's ears went back at the implication of Watcher's words. She was going to ask more, when the door slid open and she fell right onto her nose. "Ow."

Watcher stepped over her, one arm up as if to ward something away. "Here we are."

"Here you are." A great set of eyes opened in the gloom. "Watcher, your presence is not desired

Twibright scrambled to her hooves, staring at what had spoken to them. The smell of decay filled her nostrils, making it hard to breathe. The creature before them was immense, easily as large as an elephant, but it looked like nothing she'd seen before. It was, somehow, both just a set of eyes but the feel of something large enough to use those eyes. "Who are you?"

"Unfaithful arm." The presence pressed forward, swirling around them. "You are me. I am you. These worlds suffer no greater purpose. I will end them, and build a new system more allowing of sense."

Watcher raised a hand. "We've done this before, and you know how it has gone each time. You are not the first, nor the last, to think they can defeat the rules that make up our reality."

"Realities." The presence settled before them. "As if even your grand vantage point could be called a singular place. So many watchers, each thinking they rest alone."

Watcher shrank back slightly at that, as if struck by a thought he didn't want to follow.

Twibright stepped between the pair of them. "Who is this thing?"

The presence turned one of its great eyes on Twibright. "I just said that. You are me. I am you, unfaithful arm. Having different goals than the rest of you? Madness. I should take you back, fix you. Perhaps just destroy you and grow another?" The presence turned back to Watcher. "It's fitting that a piece of me would break off and become a Watcher, your role in it."

Watcher's ears went back. "I'm no piece of you."

"No, of course not." Unseen force plucked Twilight from the ground, holding her by the scruff. "She is."

Twibright struggled in the magic grip, unable to get a handle on what was holding onto her. "Let me go!" She flailed, hooves kicking in the air. "Watcher, what does it mean?"

"It means." Lulu stepped in behind Watcher, shoving him aside. "That this is the prissy little asshole that's making bad into worse!"

Twibright fell to the ground, then scrambled up and away as the presence turned towards the skunk. She took cover behind Watcher. Lulu stepped past them both, her voice a growl, her teeth clenched. "I thought Watcher was bad enough, all high and mighty, but you managed to find a spot to sit above him and lord it over everyone! When did your head get so big you think you own everything?" Her tail swished as she stalked towards the presence.

The presence regarded Lulu with something like amusement in its eyes. "You have a spirit of fire about you. You don't belong to this story, you realize that, right? You are an anomaly, like the things Watcher hates that I do, but they did it themselves." The presence swirled closer to Lulu. "Two-faced paladin of law and order, they think I'm the—"

Lulu slugged the being where she imagined it had a cheek. That she felt resistance and it fell back with a pained sound brought a smile to her face. "Don't care what you are!" She planted a kick right to where she figured its gut would be. "You've made my life worse, that's all I need to know."

The presence tried to rise, but Lulu kicked it again, then again, before slamming her fist right between its great eyes. "I don't care how many levels of god you are, you're getting punched and I'm enjoying—"

She was hurled back, slamming into the ground with a rough bruising of her back and tail. "Ow, damn it."

The presence drew tall. "Little mortal, I will delight in tearing you into pieces. Priorities." The glare fixed on Watcher. "We have unfinished business to attend to."

Twibright stepped between them. "No!" She held up both hooves as if she could stop it by will alone. "No, no! You're not taking him anywhere!" She lifted from the ground, hurled by the presence into a wall with a pained yelp as she crashed into the stone.

"Arm, be quiet. You will be dealt with later." The presence advanced on Watcher. "And you will suffer first."

Watcher looked between Lulu and Twibright, his tail swishing back and forth in growing distress. "I think I'm seeing a few things more clearly now." He spread his hands. "If I am one of many watchers, a step removed, but not the top step, so be it. If there are infinite steps above me, then I can do this." He clapped his hands together firmly, but nothing happened.

Even the presence seemed confused. "Was that supposed to defeat me or something of the sort? Your power doesn't work here."

Watcher gave it a smile, though it didn't reach his eyes, which were fixed on Lulu and Twibright. "No, no I don't think it does. I'm not sure I could. But, I do think, this." He put a hand by his right ear. "Yes? Yes. I was hoping you'd understand. Hm? Oh. Unfortunate."

The presence stomped with unseen feet. "What is this? Are you talking to yourself?"

"Yes, in a manner of speaking." Watcher raised his hands, but it was as if he were standing in a shadow. "I am a part of something greater. I thought I was that thing, but even an all-seeing eye can have trouble with itself, it would seem. I called to the one who watches me, but they say I must clean my own mess. Even this grand gathering of stories must finish its own tale on its own." He grumbled softly. "Now I know how Lulu must have felt."

The presence loomed over him, eyes narrowed to slits. "I tire of your babbling. I am here for you and your—"

Watcher slammed his fist into the floor with enough force to crack stone. "So, I will fight my own battles! You are right. My power doesn't work here!" He stepped forward. "That's fine, I didn't need it before it either!" His fist slammed into a gut that may or may not have been there. "It is not these physical actions, but our defiance that pains you." Another punch, and the presence was driven back a step. "We know what we want, and it is different from your story!"

Watcher kept advancing, his fists swinging wildly, smashing the presence in the head, the chest, even the gut if he could get there. A moment later, he wasn't alone. Lulu was battling at his side, helping drive the presence back with wild cries and a lashing thick tail.

Twibright scrambled up to help them, but a hoof caught on the book she'd left beside the door. She picked it up. She'd been studying this history closely, but maybe that wasn't right. "It isn't about the past." She put the book down. "It's about the present."

Watcher grunted as an unseen force slammed into his chest, shoving him against Lulu and pinning them against the wall. "How did I miss this part of me breaking off?" The presence loomed over Watcher and Lulu. "I will break you both in half."

Lulu smirked, even if her snout was dotted with red. "If you could, you already would have. You have a big mouth for something without a mouth." She twirled away, raising her tail high. "Let me teach you the power of story." Her tail came down in a long arc, spraying foulness in all directions.

The presence roared, and the sound was deafening. Twibright scrambled back, hooves over her ears.

Author's Note

No simple cracks to will closed or even use some crazy glue on this time, alas.

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