The Light Prison
"Why are you here?" Twilight asked bitterly to the open air, her voice echoing about the endless twisted landscape.
From behind one of the many dark pillars in front of Twilight, an alabaster alicorn that had not even existed a few moments ago stepped out from hiding.
"Spike asked me to visit you." Celestia answered quietly, her voice flat and devoid of feeling. "Today is his birthday. Its what he wanted."
"So? You left me alone in here for two years and you only visit me because of him?" The unicorn snarled back, her voice quickly rising into a violent shout. Her eyes began to glow with a sinister magical light that grew in intensity with every hateful word. "What makes Spike so special? Why should he be more important to you than me? I thought I was special, that I was more than just another student to you, but you never cared about me!!"
As the last words left Twilight's mouth a spire of dark jagged rock burst forth from the ground between the two ponies, jutting sharply into the air far above their heads. Vine-like tendrils surged up from the broken ground to encircle the pillar before reaching out to curve and twist about the closest of the many that came before it.
Twilight startled back in shock, the burning light in her eyes winking out... almost. Before she could even speak the growth of rock slowed and stopped, the sound of crackling rock filling the grove of spires as the vines petrified in place and became perfectly still.
Twilight quickly glanced back to her mentor, her mouth hanging open and her heart racing in her chest, but the alicorn had not reacted at all.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, Princess! I... I didn't mean to! Please don't be angry..." Twilight pleaded, desperation clouding her voice.
"It's gotten much worse here since I last saw you." Celestia spoke again, her quiet voice and as emotionless as when she first spoke.
"I'm sorry, I... I'm trying. But I can't... I can't control it anymore. I'm trying, but its so hard..." Twilight said, blinking away the tears that began to run down her cheeks. Twilight's lip quivered as some unspoken thought passed through her mind, and deep within her eyes the glow of light flickered like a candle burning low. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and slumped to the ground, holding her head in both front hooves and shaking it back and forth slowly.
"How much time is left until you find the Seam and escape?"
"I wish I could go back. I just want to see them again..." Twilight muttered quietly to herself, her voice beginning to crack.
"Twilight..."
Twilight sobbed. Small streams of tears darkened her cheeks. "I don't know... I don't know..."
Some moments passed as Twilight lay crumpled on the floor. Celestia continued to merely stand where she had first appeared, no emotion ever coloring the marble face of the alicorn princess.
Twilight heard the rustle of cloth, and opened her eyes in time to see Celestia drape a large blanket across her. Celestia wore no saddlebag, so where it had come from Twilight could not tell.
"What... what is this?" Twilight muttered, her lip still trembling as she examined the blanket. It was plain, grey fabric, but soft and well stitched. Curling her front hooves together she pulled a fold of the material close to her face and inhaled the subtle but familiar scent that permeated the blanket.
"He wanted you to have it."
Twilight brought the fold back from her face and held it against her chest. Sure enough, the faint smell stirred memories within her. It was Spike.
"It smells like him... I remember it." Twilight said, her voice small and meek as she pondered those memories. She looked up hoping to catch a glimpse of Celestia's eyes, but the alicorn had already turned away to hide her face. Twilight's lips curved into a frown.
"Why is it I can see you this time? This is supposed to be your place. I never could see you here before even with all the pillars I made. It was always too bright."
Twilight waited for a response, but the princess stood there silently, unmoving save for her pearlescent ethereal mane rippling in the still air.
If the Empire is filled with hope and love, those things are reflected across all of Equestria. If hatred and fear take hold...
"Is it because you're... afraid?" Twilight asked hesitantly.
"...yes."
"Afraid of what?"
Celestia did not respond.
Twilight sat up from the floor, clutching the treasured blanket between her hooves as she stared at her mentor's back. The flame in her eyes had slowly grown, now once more the small waning trail of dark magical light that had bled from her eyes in almost every waking moment of the last few years of her life.
"You're leaving again, aren't you."
"Yes."
Twilight felt her heart sink as the Princess began to walk away. Her forelegs fell limply to her sides, the blanket slipping from her hooves and drifting to the floor. In the corner of the blanket, previously unnoticed by the unicorn, was a stitched letter R in fancy calligraphy. The thread was worn and sun-bleached from years of use, only the barest hints of its faded purple dye visible. The unicorns eyes grew wide.
"Princess Celestia, wait! What day is it outside?"
Celestia stopped in her stride for a brief moment, a shudder coursing through the alicorn's body, but still she continued to walk away. Her horn began to glow, its a muted yellow light glaring clashing harshly with the grey of Twilight's prison.
"It wasn't even close to his birthday when you put me here. It can't be his birthday! How old is Spike? What day is it outside?" Twilight repeated more insistently as she lept to her hooves and chased after her mentor. The flickering magical light streaming from her eyes began to flare brighter again, as worry and fear at her own suspicions began to grow within. "What's going on? Why won't you tell me?!"
Celestia still did not reply. Her body began to vanish, crumbling away into tiny motes of light that scattered like sand in an ocean wind.
"Please, don't just disappear again! Tell me! How old is Spike today?" Twilight cried out after her, glowing tears running down her cheeks again. The ground trembled and began to crack, lines crisscrossing the landscape all around the purple unicorn. Light streamed up from the breaks in the ground and then died as dozens upon dozens of small jagged spikes of rock began to inch their way up to the surface.
"Spike is 100 years old today, Twilight."
-End-
Author's Note
Yes, I drew the cover art. You can find it on my dA page here -- im-not-sue. Also featured on EqD drawfriends 653, #41.
This inspired me a little, when coloring.
It would be appropriate listening music, I think.
Some Q&A with broznik592 from the deviantart comments:
Q: Yipe... Time flows like a river, and she's caught on the shoals. I was leering away from that lengthy description, but I'm glad I read it. Is there more?
A: No, it was just a short concept I came up with for the fic. I'm not sure exactly where it would go after since if Twilight escapes, she would have to be dealt with and none of the known characters would be alive. The most likely ending would be very sad and dark if Celestia had to put her down. :/
Q: Hm... Well you'd still have the villains lying around. Discord and Chrys seem like they have some longevity. Other than that I guess it would just be the princesses, the phoenixes, and the dragons. Maybe you could toss in some connection with the crystal empire? They were locked up for 1k years and are basically normal ponies.
A: I imagine that the Crystal Empire was essentially in temporal stasis. As for villains, Discord is not exactly a threat one can simply place or confront. He's more of a tree falling on your house than an bothersome neighbor. Chrysalis might've lived or died, her fate is uncertain, but she's wouldn't really have a place in such a story. Spike and the princesses would essentially be the only relevant remaining character.
By some miracle stretch and assuming ponies have time spans similar to humans (not necessarily my headcanon), Pumpkin and Pound Cake could have lived into their hundreds, and depending on the canon age of the other foals perhaps them as well. But again, that's a pretty far leap, and not necessarily relevant to Twilight.
Q: Hm... in that case, how did she become corrupted? Just the darker bits of magic she pulled in Crystal Empire taking it's toll? It could be something widespread, and she'd come out in some ravaged wasteland. Er, point is, maybe something in that could inadvertently cause longevity? Evil begets evil, and with ponies practicing magic like that, maybe someone stumbled upon eternal youth? One of the other mane 6 could be the villain, though thoroughly corrupted almost beyond recognition.
A: Twilight's longevity is because time moves slower in the Light Prison. Its something that just got rolled into the idea when I was formulating it, and I can understand if some might find it a bit tacked on.
I didn't specify a background for this idea, so the reader is certainly free to decide how Twilight got corrupted. She could have been exposed to dark magic and corrupted through dabbling, having it forced upon her, failure to save the crystal empire, a lot of ideas work and all have different kinds of potential.
As for how corruption works, my concept is inspired a bit by another setting where corruption is something that never really goes away, because that part of 'you' is just gone. You just start slowly losing pieces of yourself, until you're just not the same person anymore. The more you draw on it to fuel your magic, or your strength if you were an earth pony or pegasus, the more it takes away. Nightmare Moon is perhaps a good example of someone heavily corrupted, if we want to extend back to the start of the show. Again, a lot of ways you could conceptualize it.
As I wrote it, this was meant to be a tragic story and I think fishing for the other mane6 to be involved is pushing it a bit far, but one could certainly come up with viable ideas for it if you really wanted a happy ending.
