Chapters 1. Freed from the Cruelty of Time
The eternal question that everyone must someday face, a silent predator which stalks them all of their lives and waits in the desolate shadows of life’s hardest moments, is the question of the meaning of their own existence. Some define their purpose as a clever plan to cheat Time himself; they focus so much on extending the future that they forget to live in the present. Some others refuse to face the question, turning a blind eye to the predator as it slowly eats away their dwindling time. But both of these are naught. What is mine? I can only hope that someday I possess the wisdom to answer that question…but for now, I walk the eternal road of Time and savor every moment, as it will never come again.
Night Shine presents
W I S P
They are the most important method for understanding the very nature of intelligent beings; they are simple fantasies that nopony remembers nor cares for. They are shaped and designed completely by the mind; they are unfamiliar and unknown to that very same mind who gives them the gift of existence. They are the only window into their host whose image is portrayed with complete veracity; they tell useless tales with useless characters in useless settings. They are an inherent property of intelligent beings that all share; they are the most mysterious of subjects and no one has ever discovered their purpose. I speak, of course, of dreams.
Though most can only imagine what the possibilities in dreams could ever be, those ponies that possess the power to control and manipulate the mind can examine every aspect of the dream realm. This was the occupation of one stallion, a stallion whose research led him to a discovery so terrible that he took such drastic measures that he drove himself completely insane. Now he has faced the consequences of his own terrible work, trapped within a nightmare of his own creation.
Beneath the black curtain of the starless midnight sky this lone stallion walked, endlessly trotting towards the dawn, a futile dream which lay beyond an unreachable horizon. Far above his field of vision lay an appalling rip in the curtain of the sky, where the moon had been torn from its home, ripped away like a mother from her child; her ever-watchful eye had disappeared over a millennium ago.
A massive armada of storm clouds had gathered over the empty plains. Bolts of lightning flashed at an infinite distance from each other—in such a realm as this, all distances were infinite—and yet even they lacked the power and the courage to break the eternal shroud of quiet that had consumed the landscape and fallen over it like a fog of noxious smoke.
Echoing through the empty atmosphere, the clattering of hooves against stone was the only noise that dared to break the tranquility of the night. Deafening by sheer contrast, it waged war against the oppressive silence of the realm, resounding out across the infinite landscape and into the void of nothingness that surrounded it. The sole defining feature of this landscape, save the never-ending field of emerald grass that waved to and fro in the cool night breeze, was a narrow cobbled path stretching infinitely from nowhere into nowhere. It sliced cleanly through the center of the meadow, cleaving it into two equally endless halves; the road imposed some kind of definition onto the otherwise featureless plains. Thousands upon thousands of rough stones, unweathered despite the passing of Time, were ingrained in its surface, an endless pattern of bleak gray shapes progressing into nothing.
The dead-gray shade of the cobblestones perfectly matched the coat of the empty road’s sole living traveler. Though his body had once exhibited a brilliant array of pale hues which glowed under the moonlight, over the years it had faded to gray, its color draining away with its life.
His sides were bare, of wings and of mark—though he had never possessed wings even before entering this eternal asylum. He had never once tasted the rush of the howling wind as it whirled past, hurling his body through the open air; this stallion's talent, another trait lost into the black abyss of Time, had been based purely in his magical prowess and the pursuit of the comprehension of dreams, one of Life’s greatest mysteries.
Over the countless years spent walking the roads his own mind had betrayed him, burying the essential spark of life needed by all living beings blessed with the gift of self-awareness. The unicorn horn spiraling out of his hairline, a powerful instrument which once wielded great power, was all but empty from disuse…yet rather than falling into that void which had swallowed the rest of his vital traits, his power had scattered into the background, integrating with the realm such that he found himself able to control everything within it, far beyond his previous abilities.
The stallion’s ears, once vigilant sentries perking up from his temples, clung to the sides of his head, withered and deafened by the smothering cloud of silence which had befallen the realm. His mane, long ago an adorably simplistic ball of fuzz that splayed back as if blown by the wind, had fallen flat and dead against the nape of his neck. His eyes, once glowing with the most vibrant and passionate of colors in the spectrum, had faded away completely, leaving him with a seamless and horrifyingly smooth sheet for a face…as if his forehead had reached down and consumed everything but the thin line of a mouth carved into his featureless head.
Many years ago—in a wisp of memory long forgotten—his mouth stretched wide open, capturing the essence of joy; though his voice never boomed, it resonated with a certain noticeable quality of life. Now when it opened, tearing the smooth sphere of his head by stretching his jaw naught but an inch, his voice was a quiet monotone…scarcely more than a whisper on the wind. For countless years it had spoken one phrase and one phrase only:
"Knowest thou thyself?"
Every time he said this simple riddle it was hurled at the other wanderers of the trail, specters who reeked of death; though not spectral in appearance, the only other ponies who walked the road were unwelcome visitors in this lonely dimension. All of them were perfect external reflections of his Self, faded and gray, yet beneath the skin they hid a powerful spirit of darkness he did not share—this darkness composed the core essence of these mindless servants to a master horrifying in nature.
All of these servants had created a morbidly intriguing sort of paranoia in the stallion’s mind; his emotions now were buried as he had spent centuries carrying on the fatal decision to suppress all signs of life, to hide beneath the façade of his own skin. The stallion spent this infinite night wandering the road, searching for his true self, searching for anypony he could trust.
"Knowest thou thyself?"
The answer was always different, no matter at whom he threw the question. At first they stopped and stared with their blank eyeless faces, asking "What? I do not understand..." in hopeless confusion. He had encountered many who turned his own question back against him, snapping "Doest thou?" A rare few took a moment that lasted a lifetime to respond, mulling over the meaning behind the question before daring to respond. Yet, none of them ever knew what to say.
"Knowest thou thyself?"
Such a simple question with such a simple answer; a riddle and a game, the solution to which he had implanted so deep within his brain that he could never forget…no matter how hard he had tried. Likewise, he could never forget the day that he found his true reflection; like all the others it appeared to be simply another lost soul who'd lost his soul wandering the road.
"Knowest thou thyself?"
His reflection sat motionless in the darkness and let slip the words he had not heard for a millennium, shocking him to the core: "Nay, not since the Moonset."
The voice was…different somehow. Peculiar. There seemed to be an element to it which was not present in the monotone that the stallion forced past his lips upon the approach of every traveler. The shriveled heart which had lay dormant within his chest beat again, as he felt...something. Something like a feeling.
As he had practiced countless times in his head, he unleashed the second question: "The Reaper returneth?"
Waiting only a moment for the rising breeze to whistle past, the mysterious reflection said, "The moon rises."
He said it so casually, so easily…not as a glorious hero emerging to break a thousand years' imprisonment, but like one might say as a simple greeting. The one final question that he had rehearsed for centuries on end slipped hesitantly past the stallion's lips:
"Who is the Messenger?"
The response was a riddle he had not planned for, could not remember thinking and did not understand: "The evening hour, the bridge between Day and Night, the fleeting glow of Dawn and of Sunset."
He frowned. Day and Night had been bridged? Now was the exact moment to act; his imprisonment was at its end? The fatal blow struck by Time against his spirit, the slow knife which had gradually nudged its way into his soul to cut out its core, had numbed his feelings to such an extent he could no longer feel Time's passing.
As his reflection stepped forward, finished with its task, the stallion called out "Wait!"
The stranger turned back to face him. Despite that this turn of events had never been planned, despite the fact that they both knew he was to leave immediately, he acted somehow unsurprised by this spur-of-the-moment final request.
"D-does the road end?" the stallion asked, his tongue stumbling over the clumsy riddle he had made up on the spot.
Thunder rumbled in the silent sky. One minute passed, then two, stretching the painful silence. Such was the cruelty of Time, that a moment such as this had passed in naught but an instant and his imprisonment dragged on for an eternity and a day…!
Testing the waters with its voice, the reflection responded with a simple "Yes," not letting any threads of emotion slip into the weave of his single spoken word.
"How?"
Again the word slipped out before he could help it, and again the stranger was wholly unsurprised. Time crawled painfully by as his reflection stared back at him through nonexistent eyes, reflecting on the best method in which to respond.
"Who is incorruptible?"
As if on cue, his reflection vanished in a flash of brilliant light. Ripped through the air where he stood a moment and an eternity before was a mirror, woven into the fabric of space and time.
Not hesitating for a single instant, the stallion stepped forward through the looking glass...one step closer to a final escape from this realm beyond Time, a realm twisted and manipulated by the minds of the many and the few.
Author's Note
Don't worry if you're confused; you're not supposed to understand it all yet. Everything will be revealed in due time.
A cold winter’s night found Ponyville in slumber, silent and tranquil. Wisps of wind blew in a backdrop of snowflakes upon the peaceful town, not a blizzard nor a storm but a speckled fog. Each tiny drop of crystalline ice fluttered gently to the ground in slow motion, as if Time itself had, in a rare display of kindness, slowed down to give these ill-fated travelers a chance to take in their beautiful surroundings before they inevitably conjoined with their brethren and formed a blanket of pure white upon the peaceful buildings of Ponyville.
With collective breaths its inhabitants slept on through the uneventful night, resting happily under the caring glow of the moon, whose beautiful aura sparkled against the unbroken fields of snow. The ponies’ sleep was unperturbed and innocent; their dreams were filled with happy memories of their happy lives, and happy visions of their happy futures. Children dreamt of brave adventures in faraway lands, their parents reminisced on their hopes and dreams fulfilled long ago, and nearly all were satisfied.
Only one would suffer that night.
The innocent snowflakes fluttering softly through the air looked in through her windows, watching with mild interest as she thrashed to and fro, her mouth wide open and her eyes sealed shut. Laying in her bed this pony shifted and shuffled, tossed and turned, trying in sheer desperation to break the iron grip of her torturer. She moaned and screamed, calling out into the dark winter’s night for help.
The night was deaf to her cries; the watchful gaze of the moon passed over her, but to the ignorant moon she was just another cloud in the storm, just another snowflake in the haze of white.
Frightening visions flashed before her restless eyelids, each vision more disturbing than the next. The first of these visions was comparable to a surrealist painting of the midnight sky, twisted beyond the plausibility of anything but a nightmare. The sky was a thick fabric woven from threads of dark blues and indigoes, thrown against the sphere of the sky as if sheltering it, keeping it warm as any blanket protects its user. By far the most beautiful aspect of its appearance, however, was the glowing moon that had been woven into the blanket’s center, a delicate mix of whites and grays that exuded an aura of brilliance, dazzling to behold even though it was captured on such a simplistic work of art. From out of the nothingness the blanket covered, a tiny silhouette appeared, impossible to make out under the restful darkness of night. Its form was constantly shifting as it flew up to the blanket, parting the air as if it was nothing. The nightmare’s victim watched on as the cloud of shadow drew a bloodred scythe; in a blur of crimson it slashed the protective blanket of the sky into so many shreds of blue cloth, exposing the silent landscape to the horrors outside of its protective covers. Shadows and monsters and demons beyond the powers of an innocent mind to comprehend rushed upon the landscape, corrupting the realm that the sky-blanket had tried so hard to protect. Up above the world, the silhouette of a lone stallion stood watching…
As this pony rolled over, another nightmare forced itself into her dreamscape—another twisted story she must bear witness to, another riddle she must solve. She was running for her life, sprinting as countless vines and trees passed her by on each side, naught but blurs of green and brown and gray under the moonless sky. Her breath echoed, deafening and shallow in her ears; her heart hammered restlessly against her skull like a pounding drum. The hoofsteps clattering against the road behind her drew closer and closer, forcing her heart to beat harder and harder as she pushed her muscles to their limits. A cliff rapidly approached in the center of her vision; looking up to gauge its height, she saw a faceless unicorn standing tall upon its peak, deep in concentration—as if he was trying to raise the moon yet lacked the power…
Suddenly the mare awoke; her eyes snapped open instantly. Looking down around her, she took in everything—her bedroom was the same as it always was, and a slow fog of snowflakes fluttered outside her windowsill, watching with mild interest as she took a moment to breathe. Was this the dreamscape’s end? Was the cycle of nightmares broken?
From the corner of her eye, one tiny detail caught her attention. The photo on her wall of her standing alongside her friends, laughing and smiling, was empty. She was alone, still confined in the sadistic asylum of nightmares. Yet this one somehow felt…different from the others. Less planned-out. As she experimentally swung her hooves from side to side she could tell that she was in control of her actions.
Though still, despite her nearly realistic sense of self-awareness, the air itself undulated at her motion, waving back and forth as though she had disturbed a heavy curtain. This dream was as delicately woven as the rest. Looking to the side, she noticed another peculiarity not shared by the realm of reality: the mirror was missing. For some odd reason, the pony did not want her to see her own reflection...this morbidly intriguing line of thought remained in Twilight's consciousness for naught but half a moment before she let it fall into the void of nonexistence.
After she had checked to make sure her hooves were, in fact, still hooves, she stepped through the black door frame, down the stairs and out the door, to investigate the cause of this dream’s difference in nature with the others.
A violent gust of wind howled through the empty landscape, chilling her to the bone. Puffs of mist burst from her nostrils, spreading into the air and disappearing into the merciless cold. Like a frozen shroud the snow descended over the land, holding it hostage in an icy grip, sucking the heat and life from the air.
One thing had caught her eye, and she trotted steadily toward it despite the icy chill that was determined to halt her approach. Directly in front of her house, standing tall above the middle of the road, was a single golden-framed mirror. Its height, though impressive, was not its strangest defining characteristic—the oddest aspect of this mirror was its reflection.
The world in the mirror, consumed by the frozen winter, was replaced by a grassy field that waved gently in the cool night breeze. Each blade of grass was very much alive, emerald green instead of ashen beige, yet seemed...off. Even in looking at them Twilight could see that something was wrong, something was missing. The essential spark of life was absent from these blades of grass, cut away by the razor-sharp scythe of Time. Through preservation in a realm beyond Time, the grass had lost every unique characteristic and individuality that could be considered Alive. It had chosen death by immortality.
The feature of the realm in the mirror that most caught her attention was her reflection. Instead of a beautiful unicorn mare in the prime of life, her soul filled with magic and her eyes with passion, she stood staring at the very same figure that had followed her through her dreams and nightmares. There in the corner of her eyes, and then gone like a wisp in the wind, this stallion had never before revealed himself to her in full until now.
He had…nothing. The gray-coated stallion staring her in the face had nothing but a slit of a mouth cut into his face, stuck in the same emotionless expression. The mouth opened and a single question rang out, in a monotonous voice, echoing out from the other side of the mirror:
“Knowest thou thyself?”
She frowned. Knowest thou…what? Nopony spoke like that anymore, not for centuries. The only pony who had ever spoken like that recently was Princess Luna-
Suddenly the air around her shimmered, sending out waves across the fabric of reality like ripples in a pond as its seamless surface was broken by any pebble which chose to shatter its serenity. Even thinking the name "Princess Luna" had affected the landscape—no, dreamscape—around her, setting into motion the end of the nightmares. Somehow, she knew that after this vision she would awaken, and remember only one thing—the single name that had ended the cycle of visions. That name was a key to unlocking something, and now all she had to do was find out what. The message was clear; the cycle of nightmares had served their purpose. It was time to break the cycle.
Taking a deep breath, she reached out beyond her senses and ended the dream.
With one final beat of her heart, the illusion broke. A tidal wave of mental willpower obliterated the dreamscape, and all of its settings and characters stood motionless in acceptance of their fate...save one gray silhouette fleeing the realm, whose form disappeared through a small tear in the fabric of space and time within the landscape. His work here was done.
Stumbling from her bed, Twilight Sparkle crumpled to the floor in a purple heap; her groans of exhaustion reflected off of the uncaring walls and ceiling, echoing into the uncaring hallway where they faded into nothingness, as if they had never existed at all.
She promptly turned and walked down the stairs and out the door, nearly tripping over her own hooves in her half-conscious state. As she pushed open the door, an inferno of sunlight immediately flooded into her vision and cascaded over the shelves of books, consuming everything in sight. The shadows crouched in their hiding places among the nooks and crannies of the library, braced against the light, sheltered as always in their sanctuaries of darkness.
As the spots of white settled into their usual distinct shapes in Twilight's field of vision, the first thing she noticed was the snowflakes fluttering down from the grand ceiling of the sky, undisturbed by the breezeless air. Something about them bothered her; they looked almost as if they were watching her. Warning her. Trying to tell her something. One snowflake brushed past her ear, sending a shiver down her spine; it whispered a thousand cautions into her mind, yet its voice was too quiet to hear. Deciphering these warnings amid the dull background noises of life was an unsolvable riddle, an impossible puzzle, a never-ending game...a game of silence.
The crunching of fallen snowflakes beneath her hooves disguised the sound of Twilight’s approaching friend, who in a blur of motion stood by her side.
"Hey Twi!" exploded the voice of Pinkie Pie, saturated with ecstacy. "Whatcha doin' today?"
A ruffled pattern of creases seized Twilight's forehead; her eyebrows furrowed and her mouth compressed into a frown. "I...don't know. I feel like I did have some plans for the day, but..." Trailing off, she scoured her mind for any remnants of memory of the internal schedule that normally gave strict guidance to every waking second of her life. In its place she found only emptiness, a hole that had been torn straight through her mind.
Suddenly a spark burst into life in her brain. A hole, torn straight through...? In a chain reaction of firing neurons, tiny fragments of memory began to re-assemble in her mind, forming an incomplete sort of jigsaw puzzle whose image was faded and decayed. A hole torn straight through the center of the sky...
"Twilight? You okay?" A passionate thread of sympathy was woven into Pinkie's normally carefree voice. Shaking her head to clear her vision, Twilight found herself staring into the eyes of her friend. Snowflakes broke Pinkie's piercing gaze, passing between the two and distracting Twilight for only a moment—yet they seemed to demand her full attention.
"Yeah, Pinkie, I'm fine. I just...." Uncertainty spread like a disease through Twilight's voice, contaminating its usually orderly demeanor. Her eyes closed again, trying their hardest to lull her back into the dark abyss of sleep—she immediately snapped them open, her willpower lashing out like the crack of a whip. "Actually…no, I’m not fine. Last night I had a bunch of weird dreams, and now I keep seeing these images…"
“Dreams?” interrupted Pinkie, her head cocking to the side, intrigued. “Well, I know one pony that could pull you out of the little pickle you’re in without even using pliers. You might have to wait a little while, though—she’s a bit of a night owl.”
Twilight thought for a fraction of a moment, allowing Time to translate Pinkie’s cryptic and nonsensically worded statements into a comprehensible line of thought. “You mean Princess Luna?” she responded, one eyebrow raised.
“Yup!” said Pinkie, her voice bouncing in sync with her happy-go-lucky gait. “She knows a lot about dreams and nightmares.”
“You don’t say…” said Twilight, stopping to rub her temples. A pounding headache had emerged from the depths of her mind, reaching out with black tendrils and clutching her skull with the dark, shadowy claws of pain. The wide expanse of her vision began to disintegrate at the edges, leaving a void of darkness that surrounded the colorful, vibrant world, so full of life and of pure white snow.
Twilight squeezed her eyes shut and a thousand images forced themselves into her mind all at once, the very same things she had seen the night before—The moon. The sun. A starless midnight sky. A never-ending field of grass, rolled out like an emerald carpet over a flat expanse of empty land. A road of cobbled stones, colored the shade of gray that all things become after their life force has been drained by the merciless disregard of Time. A stallion as lifelessly gray as the road he walked, his hollow voice bearing one message:
“Knowest thou thyself?”
Twilight’s lips parted without her permission; her voice spoke with a life—if it may be called that—of its own. Yet the voice that emerged from her paralyzed mouth was not hers; though it carried all of the same tones and was spoken in the same volume as it always did, its energy was all but nonexistent.
Pinkie stared at her friend, who stood inert and still in the middle of the road. Twilight’s eyes were frozen wide open, staring ahead, at something that only she could see, a sight so mesmerizing—or possibly horrifying—as to keep her in a trance, lost within her own mind…only within the recalling abilities of one learned in the deepest magics of the mind and of dreams.
The last sensation to enter Twilight’s realm of perception of the physical world before she was fully absorbed into the metaphysical was that of a slight tickling on her nose, where Pinkie’s mane had lightly brushed it—from this Twilight gathered that she was now positioned on her friend’s back—before all of her senses and all of her feelings were cut off from her conscious mind, intentionally barred by the powers of the mastermind who had manipulated her every move and thought since the night prior. It is of no surprise that such a being, with considerable power and with an innocent citizen in his grasp, should attract the concerned attention of one of the High Rulers of the Kingdom of Equestria:
Her Royal Highness Princess Luna, the Bringer of Night and the Guardian of Dreams.
Soft music flowed past Twilight’s ears, a murmuring brook of melody that wafted through her mind and into her essence, recalling her from the dark abyss of sleep. This music—a quiet, timid creature—was barely audible to anypony whose focus lay elsewhere; indeed, as Twilight gradually regained the rest of her senses, the music faded into the background, hiding in the shadow of existence. Yet it had a distinct and recognizable sound that seemed ominously familiar. It would have seemed familiar to all who heard it, as all have heard it, whether or not they know so...this is the music of the realm of the mind, woven into the dreamscape; its presence is so integral to dreams that it is one of their inherent and critical elements. Its sound is sweet and beautiful, deep and mysterious, ambient and relaxing…the gently wavering harmonies and soft, high trills seem to reach out to all who hear them, beckoning the innocent and the curious to lie down and stay with the sweet, sweet music, just to listen a few moments longer...and yet beneath this calm lay a subtle sense of danger, an ominous feeling hidden in between the lulling harmonies, that if you lay down to listen to it...you would never choose to leave.
Twilight’s vision returned to her next, slowly and gradually, as if some entity was hesitant in giving her back the senses that it had so abruptly stolen. Through narrow vision she saw a scene surrounding her, a scene so completely and utterly surreal that it sent her mind reeling in confusion. The indignant sense of Logic residing within her would have defied every iota of information passed on through her vision, if such an action was within its power.
Six other ponies all sat upon the bizarre ground, staring directly at her, their eyes filled first with anxiety and concern due to her comatose state but then washed over with relief when they saw her eyelids crack naught but the tiniest smidge of an opening. Yet it was not those ponies that befuddled her so—she knew all of them well: Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Princess Luna—but rather what lay behind them, the ground upon which they waited for her return to life and the sprawling heavens above.
Behind them lay a vast, infinite expanse of sky, beautiful and mesmerizing in its every aspect. Innumerable pinpricks of light twinkled all across the face of the sky. The moon sat upon its post in the sky's heart; though it was so huge as to dominate all that surrounded it, for some strange reason it did not seem out of place. A thousand rays of light spilled from her surface, flooding the landscape below her, although this flood was not violent but rather a gentle wash of pale fluid that gradually wandered down to the seven travelers, swirling around them with a caressing touch, bathing them in a tangible aura of contented relaxation. Swirling gases and nebulae stretched across the cosmos, breathing life through a thousand different colors into the inky-black void of Space that surrounded them, that surrounded all things in their essence.
Beneath the speckled moonlit sky laid a dreamscape equally as mesmerizing. A beautiful meadow surrounded them on all sides, stretching out into the never-ending distance, a flat landscape devoid of any hills or change in elevation—such a feature would impose definition upon this land, compelling it to be individual, forcing it to exist. Subtle waves traveled through the ocean of emerald grass, barely noticeable to the naked eye. Each blade moved from naught but a wisp of air passing through the atmosphere above. Every wisp of wind, however, was of a single mind: to travel into the center of the realm, the sole landmark in this endless plain of nonexistence. All winds converged here.
Every wisp, from the light breeze of ten such wisps to the whispering current of ten thousand, eventually was drawn into one central location, right next to the arrival point of the seven travelers. The best way to describe such a phenomenon, though the word barely does it justice, would be like a perfectly circular lake carved into the unbroken surface of the meadow. Its surface shimmered and shone, rippling with faint traces of rainbow light, casting out a haze of illusions from its center point. Beneath this invisible fog lay a pit of pitch darkness, such darkness that was truly incomprehensible to the innocent eyes of a mortal being.
From this darkness all other darkness was derived; no darkness has ever come into being that was not birthed from this living sea of death that festered in the darkest depth of the mind realm. If one could take such darkness out of the living sea and mold it to their will, they could accomplish such terrible deeds with this deathly void of nothing that any being with a soul would shudder at the thought…
And yet, what was this awful substance which rots at the core of the mind, at the convergence of the minds of the many and the few? What is this corruption that so twists the nature of reality that it destroys all purity on contact, that it shears a soul from its body on contact? What kind of material could possibly possess such raw, unadulterated power, that many would define as the root of evil?
Within the pit, quite simply, was a bottomless sea of liquid Nothing.
It was on the shores of this living sea of death, where waves of Nothing lapped onto the nonexistent grass and sucked away any traces of life, that the seven travelers sat.
Standing up on her hooves, Twilight found them completely steady, proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that her sickly state had been caused by an intelligent manipulator who could halt her ailments on a whim. Sounds echoed across the empty air between her and the six travelers, passing unbroken and unhindered through her ears until she finally joined the conversation with her friends.
“…and of course, now that we have arrived, he has released her.” Luna’s voice had a depth to it that carried a variety of emotions, undetectable to any who heard without listening. Though her overall tone was that of a strong, self-assured ruler, confident yet cautious in the face of the unknown, a subtle thread of anxiety and curiosity had snuck past, ultimately betraying that she was just as lost as the rest of the group.
“Twilight! Are you okay?!” demanded Pinkie; the deafening overtones of worry in her voice drowned out any of the ecstasy that had saturated it on most every occasion.
“Yes, Pinkie, I’m completely fine. My headache’s gone…and I think I can even remember that checklist from before!” A deep sense of relief washed over Twilight. Her friends gave her a strange look, but this was a routine strangeness, a normal strangeness. In the face of their current situation it was nothing. “So…where are we?”
Rarity cleared her throat and answered: “Princess Luna came over and told us all that you fainted, and Pinkie said something about you having peculiar dreams. After Luna woke up, she then…well…examined your dreams,” here Rarity gave Luna a confused look; the Princess nodded and she continued, “and she found out that somepony was controlling you." At this Rarity gave an unconscious shudder. "She used her magic to trace where the pony was, and that led us…here.”
“So where is this pony?” Twilight asked.
“Where is he not?”
The seven visibly jumped upon the arrival of this new visitor, who had stepped, it seemed, from a rip in the dreamscape that leaked into the nothingness between space and time. Twilight’s eyebrows descended over her eyes and shrouded them with an angry shadow. Her eyes sent palpable rays of fury at this stallion, a potent force that would crumble many beings of lesser will than he. Unaffected by this display, by any display, the stallion simply stood in his place and awaited her inevitable response.
“YOU!” Such a simple word, such a simple phrase, such complex and powerful implications that carried twice the raw power and intensity of the glare that accompanied it, implications that only the speaker and the listener could fully comprehend. Yet, though this listener could comprehend the meaning of her words, he could never wholly understand their origin, inherently derived from emotional thoughts. “YOU gave me those awful nightmares! YOU were controlling me that whole time!”
The stranger said nothing; the tangible waves of righteous hatred emanating from Twilight’s gaze passed right through him as if he was naught but an illusion, naught but a specter whose presence haunted the paths he’d once walked as a living, breathing creature.
Twilight paused; her powerful glare subsided when she made the disturbing realization that it had no effect. The angry creases in her face smoothed into the beautiful, seamless surface that flowed so smoothly over her head on every other occasion, that simplistic beauty that defined the purity of her kind. Clearing her throat, her tone softened; she spoke again not from anger but from curiosity. “Who are you?”
Again the stranger said nothing.
Luna stepped forward suddenly, seized by an urge she did not quite understand. Translating Twilight’s question into the tongue of the olden days, she rephrased it: “Knowest thou thyself?”
The effect was immediate and mechanical; the stallion spoke almost by instinct: “Nay, not since the Moonset.”
A spark ignited in Luna’s brain, followed by another, and another. Old memories that had died long ago, lost to the void of Time, returned to her as if it had only been a day since they had formed. A desperate plan, a ticking clock, an enemy of unimaginable power, a student willing to give anything to stop him…
Luna reeled back, consumed by the sudden flood of memories that flashed through her mind, a flood of information that had collected dust for over a thousand years when bitter philosophies and angry fantasies had shoved it aside.
Applejack looked at the Princess warily, then back to the lifeless one, then back to the Princess. “So…who is he?” she asked.
Luna took a deep breath, letting the air flow through the whole of her being before relinquishing it into the wavering atmosphere, letting it calm and steady her body and mind. She chose her words carefully upon responding, for even she did not fully comprehend the story she must retell. Images still flashing across the fringes of her vision, she took another deep breath and replied:
“A long time ago, before Nightmare Moon was even a fantasy in my mind, over a thousand years ago, both my sister and I took on the most gifted of unicorn ponies to train in their magic. Celestia trained her students in the lighter magics, those shallow yet powerful abilities necessary to rule and to lead a nation…and I trained my students in the darkest magics, those of the mind and of dreams, magic more necessary than anypony can fathom without fully understanding its nature. I imparted my knowledge only to the most trustworthy of ponies…or so I thought…” she paused for a moment as an irrelevant memory slipped through her mind, tasting sharp and bitter in its accompanying feelings of shame and of regret. Still, that was a tale for another place and another time.
Focusing her mind into one sole direction and recapturing the wandering thoughts that had slipped from her grasp, Luna gritted her teeth and continued: “…anyway. One of my students, a very curious student who was very devoted to his studies-“—at this Twilight’s frown deepened in thought; her mind shooting off in every possible direction from sheer curiosity—“-discovered something that even I could not.”
“He discovered a beast. Not so much a living being as an infection upon the mind; the embodiment of a sickness that had plagued thousands before his time and would plague thousands after if he could not stop it, a plague that could quite possibly have affected every pony in Equestria. Put simply, he discovered the root of insanity.”
The stallion still remained motionless, even through this shocking revelation of his deepest memories.
Luna looked down and all things blurred together in her vision; pent-up feelings of remorse burst from her mind and flooded her whole being, such that her voice, when it emerged, was like that of a helpless filly: “A plague…that infected me.”
She allowed a minute of Time to pass before continuing, giving the listeners time to digest the information kept secret for centuries, guarded closely by the one whose memories had been lost to Time. As the words sank in, six pairs of eyes widened in disbelief, stretching to gigantic proportions across each smooth and beautiful face.
Luna looked up at the faceless stallion before she spoke again, neither from bitter acceptance nor cautious fear but from newfound respect. “Because he and I were the only two ponies who knew that this creature existed, he…he…how did you do this? How are you here, now?”
His answer was, again, mechanical and forced…and yet, beneath the monotonous tone of gray emptiness that he had tried so hard to weave together, a subtle thread of pride had snuck into his voice...alas, the thread vanished in less than an instant, crushed beneath the weight of his will. Speaking with noticeable caution, the stallion responded: “Hours upon hours of ceaseless study in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing allowed me to produce a spell wherein I could preserve myself in the trappings of my own mind, transcending the body yet preserving the spirit.” Ironic, that such preservation had crushed the one thing it had meant to preserve… “Effectively, the spell allowed me to live…forever.”
A slight breeze flew across the endless plains, rippling the grass and whistling in the travelers’ ears, carrying the mysterious one’s final word across the air and directly into their thoughts. It brought to light the nature of the word, and its underlying array of concepts and implications: not a victorious achievement, not a proud feat that could redefine the notion of life, not a prospect that would incite excitement. Rather…its nature was derived solely from regret.
The stallion finally moved, turning directly to face Luna and startling everypony, who had possessed absolute focus upon his every word and action. Speaking directly to Luna, the mysterious stallion continued: “I waited for thee one thousand years before awakening from my self-inflicted stasis. Now, finally, the truth may come to light.” He rotated back to face the other ponies, seemingly unused to movement, as if any movement but straight-forward walking was an alien concept. “I discovered the insanity on the very same night that it had consumed Luna, and would have consumed me if not for my overcautious preparations. In haste I set into motion a sequence of events that have led to this moment, a sequence of events that-”
“So wait,” interjected Rainbow Dash, who had become bored with the stallion’s lackluster monotone, “Why didn’t you just kill the crazy-thing yourself?”
In another time, the stallion would have shot an icy glare directly at Rainbow. Now…he just closed his mouth, confused. Nonetheless he resumed his droning speech: “My studies had proven that only one of us, a pony that only exists once in a lifetime, could possess the one essential trait which could slay the immortal beast: Purity. This pony would have to be incorruptible, she would have to possess the willpower of a hundred of her fellows…” As he spoke, his invisible gaze swept over the crowd assembled before him, assessing and analyzing each one to the best of his ability. “Luna, are these the bearers of Harmony that thou hast brought to me?”
“Yes, they are. I have complete confidence that one of them is the pony which you speak of,” Luna said, her voice quivering uncertainly beneath a dismal façade of self-assurance.
“Surely one of them must be the incorruptible pony of this generation. As we have no method of finding out which…” he paused for a second, mulling over this minor detail with merciless logic, “…all of you must face the beast at once. As long as one of thee succeeds, the unfortunate fate which befalls the others is irrelevant.”
“A-all of us?” stuttered Fluttershy, her round eyes stretched to their limit. Raw fear consumed her voice, dripping out and infecting the others, who turned back to the stallion with a thousand unanswered questions on their lips.
“Yes. Reaper, couldst thou open the gateway to the lair of insanity?”
Startled, the ponies looked around, wondering who in the world the stallion could possibly be referring to…all of the ponies but one. Luna stepped forward and, with one flash of brilliant light from her horn, slashed a hole in the fabric of space and time, right on the edge of the sea of nothingness.
Each of the travelers stepped forward, some with terror and some with determination. Luna paused a moment; her eyes asked the questions that her voice would not. Giving an affirmative nod, the stallion watched the last of the seven enter the realm beyond the mind, ready to face the immortal and all-powerful enemy who had twisted all minds and all hearts…save the one of them whose identity was unknown. This essential fact was yet another fragment of knowledge beyond the comprehension of mortals such as them, a fragment that, for the possessor, was naught but an irrelevant fact in his twisted game.
Trotting forward through the wavering atmosphere of empty space that surrounded her like a thick fluid, Twilight carried a powerful aura of determination, such that she did not even spare a glance over her shoulder to look at the structure of a great bridge that loomed over her. As a result, she did not notice the rift closing behind her…
Neither did she look to the side, for there was nothing to see all around her. Wisps of nothing flew across the empty space and above the empty road, flitting from place to place, eternally restless. Great clouds of nothing rumbled with silent thunder overhead, echoing across the empty plain of nothing that stretched far into the distance. The very air itself dripped with nothing; the sickening stench of nothing surrounded Twilight to the extent that its disgusting odor hung like smog in the air.
It was from this very same nothing that the mirror directly ahead was formed; although it had manifested a physical form of a mirror, Twilight knew in her gut that this was only a façade, a face it had grown only to intimidate her. The mirror itself was horrifying in its beauty, for it had taken a form that it knew would elicit morbid fascination from any who had the misfortune to lay eyes upon its splendor. The polished black metal that composed its thick frame had a depth to it that no other darkness could match; it appeared to be almost woven into the darkness that surrounded it, exuding a palpable aura of nothing.
Although the center of the mirror was like any other, built from shining chrome, its silver was stained black by the darkness it chose to reflect. No other mirror would dare to reflect such darkness as this; it was not in their nature to lie. Yet reflect this mirror did, taking some sadistic pleasure in the deathly black substance that festered on its surface, waiting for another victim to infect with emptiness.
The first victim approached.
Twilight stepped up before the mirror, exposing the whole of her Self, craning her neck to gaze into its blackened depths. Yet, no matter how closely she looked, she could not see her reflection. The mirror only reflected nothing.
Speaking aloud just to know that she still retained her voice, that the Void had not yet robbed her of the beauty of sound, she asked “What is this thing? Why isn’t it…” her voice trailed off as a figure began to approach her from the other side of the mirror, steadily trotting into her view.
Its silhouette was veiled by the darkness; it wore the shadows like a protective cloak, hiding its identity behind a mask carefully woven from infinitesimal threads of nothing. The figure stepped before Twilight, mirroring her physical structure in every dimension. Doubtlessly, though, this was the only structure that the reflection mirrored; beneath the skin it hid a powerful spirit of darkness she did not share—this darkness composed the core essence of one mindless servant to a master horrifying in nature.
This was the first time that Twilight had ever been truly disturbed by seeing her body reflected perfectly upon the surface of a looking glass, for unlike all others…this mirror always lied. Twilight stared into her reflection.
On the other side of the mirror, Twilight stared into her reflection.
Suddenly the reflection planted one hoof out of the mirror, stepping from one realm of darkness into another. As the reflection stepped through it became twisted; it became demented beyond the comprehension of any but Twilight, for…she recognized the figure emerging from her reflection.
Its eyes were stretched wide across its face, with barely visible pupils dotting their centers. Its mane was frayed and chaotic, spilling out from her head in every direction. Its smile was harsh and unnatural, its brilliant white teeth stained deathly black by reflecting the darkness which surrounded them.
Twilight stepped back, unnerved; her horn glowed a beautiful violet, casting out rays of light and life into the darkness, which recoiled and hissed like a wounded snake. Fear blossomed in her mind.
In another time, in another space, another pony advanced toward the mirror, her expression not of determination but of innocent glee, her eyes closed and her heart lively. Her mane sprang up from atop her head with ecstasy, bouncing with every bound of its owner, seeming to laugh for no reason at all—the best possible reason to laugh. Bounding forward, she advanced towards the mirror, whose deathly stillness embodied the very antithesis of her essence.
The second victim approached.
She opened her eyes, and then stopped. Those who had only just opened now had to bear witness to the darkest view she would ever know.
The second victim stared into her reflection, her gleeful expression scrunching into a mask of disgust. The figure that approached her had taken her reflection and twisted it beyond even her darkest nightmares, putting on a form that she had worn but once in her life.
Its eyes were stretched wide and unblinking; its tooth-filled mouth reflected the darkness. Its mane had fallen flat against its head, loosely dangling beneath that horrible smiling face. Its skin was a shade darker than the second victim’s, not that perfect and beautiful pastel pink which reflected her personality with perfect accuracy but a sickly gray. The second victim stepped back, suddenly unsure, her naïve optimism deflating faster than a balloon in a freezer.
In another time, in another space, another pony advanced towards the mirror, her expression not of innocent glee but of prudish disgust. She hesitantly stepped into the plane of darkness, trying her best not to recoil as the shadows of nothing stuck to her beautiful coat like black tar. Some such materials would have felt downright pleasant to the touch; even mud, in the proper situation and with the right usage, could soothe and relax the skin, rejuvenating it, filling it with new life. However, this dark fluid that bubbled and boiled on her skin did the complete opposite; its presence seemed to drain energy from her very soul, sucking the life from her in a manner not unsimilar to Time’s. Nevertheless, she stepped forward, proceeding into the repulsive darkness.
The third victim approached.
The third victim’s jaw nearly dropped off of her face in sheer horror at the figure that steadily trotted towards her; she immediately backed away from it, repelled by its very presence—such a presence was an insult to every Thing that dared to live. Its mane was frazzled and dirty; once beautiful, now fallen from grace into darkness. Its eyes were stretched wider than dinner plates, staring without blinking, constantly twitching. Strangely enough, to anyone who would not have instantly recognized it, the figure was wearing a set of bathrobes and slippers on its hooves, stained black by the corruptive atmosphere. And yet, this form was horribly familiar to the third victim, as the disconcerting memory of when she had worn it could not—or would not—leave her mind.
In another time, in another space, another pony advanced towards the mirror, her expression not of prudish disgust but of brash fury. Her wings beat at her sides, driving her forward into the black nothingness like a bullet through water; the sea of oblivion that surrounded her pushed her back faster than any gust of wind, taunting her with its lazy strength. Pounding heartbeats filled her ears, faster and faster; her heart could not overpower the all-powerful force of the oppressive darkness.
Sighing and giving up, she floated to the ground, taking a second—is the passing of Time quantifiable within the Void?—to rest. Craning her neck up, she saw a very interesting something ahead of her. It looked kind of like…a mirror.
The fourth victim approached.
With every step that the reflection took towards her, its legs wobbled and shook, jittering so fast that it made the fourth victim’s head dizzy. Its pupils, tiny pinpricks in the vast white space of her eyes, darted every direction, looking for something, finding nothing. Its tail drooped down beneath its legs; its body radiated pure fear from behind a paper-thin mask of confidence. Its mouth was not stretched into a toothy smile but compressed into a frown, then a smile again, and then a frown, paranoid and scared. The fourth victim glared at the figure in disgust, for she could remember the exact moment it reflected and it annoyed her to no end…or to her end.
In another time, in another space, another pony advanced towards the mirror, her expression not of brash fury but of petrified terror. Every meek step she took into the shadow-infested plains of nothing sent cold shivers through her spine, running up her back like spiders of ice. It was of little importance, though—is the passing of Space quantifiable within the Void?—for if she could not come to the mirror, the mirror would come to her. In three steps it was within sight; in five, it was within reach.
The fifth victim approached.
Emerging from the mirror, emanating roiling waves of hatred, was a figure that the fifth victim recognized all too well. Its eyes were glaring slits, shooting daggers at any and all who suffered the fate of drawing its gaze. Its mouth wide open, screaming five silent words that the fifth victim could remember with distinct clarity, from a night so long ago—the best of nights and the worst of nights. Its body wore a once-beautiful dress decorated with irony; beautiful green vines delicately woven into its design were shredded and ripped, and pretty pink flowers that once clung to its wearer's mane had been thrown off. This creature’s gaze locked onto the fifth victim, who froze in absolute terror, immobilized by the sight of her reflection advancing slowly towards her, its body tensed like that of a tiger ready to pounce onto its prey.
Five little ponies stared into their darkness reflected by the lying mirror, their eyes pinned to the silhouettes which steadily advanced towards them, floating across the black void with wisps of shadow trailing behind them.
A sixth and a seventh among them walked separate paths through the Void; their fates would determine the fates of these doomed victims who, as of this moment frozen in Time, were slated to die.
In another time, in another space, in another dimension of the universe, the sixth victim marched into the black frothing pit, steadying the frantic anxieties of her mind. Thoughts darted from place to place within her panicking brain—some bitter memories and some fatalistic realities—and yet she soothed them all with a single thought, one last hope to hold onto as she descended into the abyss.
That hope was in the six guardians of life who had journeyed with her into the darkest depths of existence, those incorruptible beings who had rescued her from the very enemy she must face again.
This location in the realm of existence, into which she descended with an aura of calm in the storm, was wholly the same as the location in which the other five victims dared to battle the Void—all of them confronted the very same mirror—and yet it was wholly different. The infinite Void, the pit of nothingness from which all corruptions are derived, was of such a peculiar and fascinating nature that, though it was an infinite plain, all locations were one.
Imagine, if you will, a realm where if you walked straight forward for a thousand years, you could turn around and end up exactly where you had started. In this manner it was very similar to the great road of Time that all must travel…although one great and beautiful fact lying in wait for all to find is the quintessential nature of life, a nature that the Void does not share: Time gives its travelers the glorious gift of purpose. Some still need to find this purpose, though they may find it sooner than they expect…
An air of serenity surrounded Luna as she descended into the abyss, breathing deeply, thinking deeply. Familiar shadows surrounded her on all sides, whispering in the darkness, gleeful and excited that their master had returned. For these were the very shadows whom she had commanded as the Master of Nightmares, wielding their terrible power with ease and control, using it to her every whim. In this state, though, the equally terrible irony is that the true controller of the shadows had given her this power at the price of her will; her actions were not her own but of this entity who has always twisted the minds of the many and the few. In that case…who was the real master?
A mirror loomed up ahead, the mirror she had feared and despised, the mirror she had grown to love and loved to grow within her heart, a corruption that bloomed into a consumption of the soul.
The sixth victim approached.
The surface of this mirror rippled as it was casually brushed aside by the merciless Bringer of Nightmares, Wrath of Jealousy, and Incarnate Shadow who had threatened to plunge the entire world into darkness: Nightmare Moon. Her gait was equally regal, equally confident, and equally serene; her essence was undeniably derived from Luna’s own. However, the most fascinating aspect of this mirror is that it steals the darkest part of its victims’ hearts and twists them so beyond their original essence that, by the climax of their corruption, they embody the antithesis of the spiritual essence which gave them birth.
Two glowing dragon-eyes emanating blue fire locked onto Luna’s, attempting to glare through the mask of confidence, searching for weakness. Finding none, it hesitated but a moment before exiting the mirror.
Taking the initiative, Luna spoke at her oppressor: “You should not still exist. I watched them kill you, permanently. Therefore you must be an illusion, only a shadow of the mare who-” Luna’s speech faltered as a very familiar egotistical chuckle cut her off, rumbling through the Void and resonating with its darkness.
“My dear, beloved Luna, the petty successor who dares to wear the body that is rightfully mine, you are as naïve as you are weak. You cannot kill death. Light does not destroy shadows…it only creates them. So long as the Void of emptiness exists, I will never die.”
Luna’s gaze hardened. She stood her ground even as the beast that had possessed her for thousands of years calmly approached, even as it casually ignited its horn with a flash of indigo fire. Channeling the power of her will through the spark of life that drove her forward, amplifying her power with resolve, Luna ignited her own horn, that powerful instrument which brimmed with energy spilling over into the darkness, casting rays of light in all directions.
“Shall we begin, then? Just like old times?” spoke one reflection.
“Gladly.” spoke the other.
A thousand meteors fell from the sky far above them, crashing down into the Nightmare with infinite force. A cloud of glorious light wrapped tightly around the meteors, shining with harsh brilliance into the eyes of the Void, searing them with the power of life.
The Void hissed and retreated, putting all of its efforts into the puppet it had summoned from beyond the mirror. Waving the aerial strike aside with a flick of her horn, the Nightmare responded in turn, calling upon the shadows to attack and to consume the purified Regent of the Night.
Frantically the Regent rose into the air, rising up through the Void to escape the shadows’ grasp. Yet none could escape the bottom of a bottomless pit, not even her…the shadows’ claws scraped along her coat, tearing at her essence, ravenously craving the spark she sheltered so close to her heart. Summoning her magical energies from within, Luna detonated a shockwave of pure energy; a tidal wave of light pulsed from her body and her soul, reaching out into the darkness. Most would flee in terror before such a display of power, but the Void simply consumed it, wholly undaunted. Its puppet rose into the air, eye to eye with the Regent of Serenity.
In the same instant that both reflections took to stare into each others’ cold eyes, two beams of raw energy met between them, blasted out in less than a second. On one side was a ray of pure moonlight, beautiful and white, a band of living radiance that had been focused and weaponized. On the other was a straam of black smoke that quite nearly blended in with the Void who controlled its master. The two beams shared equal power derived from equal determination; streaks of light and darkness flashed around them in every direction, spiraling into the nothingness. Deafening claps of thunder echoed around the beam of life, sending out shock waves into the Void, rippling and disturbing the nothingness. Equally deafening explosions of silence reverberated from the opposite side, silencing the thunder where the two waves met, creating a mesmerizing pattern of noise meeting silence, beautiful sound warring with empty quiet.
Frozen beyond Time in this timeless realm, the two Night Mares fought for an eternity and a day, a moment that lasted forever and passed in a second. Such was the evil of this Void beyond Time: Though Time has the mercy to let all moments pass in quantifiable measures, this dark realm stretched Time beyond its limit, twisting and perverting it out of shape such that it could never be re-formed nor recalled to life, damning the bottomless Void to live forever, preserved with dead life.
All other regions under Time and Space sat upon a plane of existence far above that of the Void, a plane where Time—though ostensibly cruel—could never match the cruelty of his reflection within black mirror. All other realms above the Void enjoyed a transcendent existence, empowered with purpose, filled with elements of light to fight the single element of darkness which corrupts every Thing within its reach.
Frozen in Time, the sixth victim fought until the end, an end that she would never see until the unknown Incorruptible One should free her.
In
through
your
mind…
Do you…not fear me?
In
through
your
mind.
What lies within…you’ll die without.
Wisps of black vapor swirled around Applejack as she trotted across the gleaming bridge, a structure woven from the dream-walker’s magic—the only substance capable of bridging the infinite Void that boiled beneath her, frothing over with imperceptible shadows that floated up from the abyss, twirling about her body, examining her mind.
Every wisp that drifted past her ear whispered its own hideous message, penetrating and sprouting within her resolve and blossoming into a hideous weed that choked her will from within. Her eyebrows folding into a powerful glare, Applejack forced the vaporous demons from her presence with a single thought; they immediately scattered in the wind, leaving a clear path to the black-framed mirror directly ahead of her.
As she approached the mirror, she began to hear its voice in person, the same voice that the murmuring shadows carried to her; the shadows had carried echoes of the silent despair that their master freely emanated. Mesmerized by the whispering entity that drew her in like a moth to a candle, she stepped in front of the mirror and gazed into its depths, morbidly curious as to what she would see.
The mirror…showed no reflection.
Applejack’s eyes stretched wide in disbelief; a sudden impulse to back away from the mirror and forget its very existence flooded her like fiery venom, boiling hot in her veins, pulling her with tangible strength away from that deathly surface.
Forcing herself to carry on, she took a step towards the mirror, then two; her hoof hesitated in the air for a fraction of a second before she stepped straight through the surface of the looking glass, passing through its ostensibly tangible surface like a veil of thick fluid—fluid that swirled restlessly at her touch, rippling in distress. Ignoring its protests, she jumped through the veil and into another world, the darkest realm, the lowest plane of existence that simmered beneath all others.
As her head passed through the veil of shadow, explosions of pain burst through her mind, spreading in an inferno of stinging heat. Her heart pounding desperately in her chest, in sync with the agonizing throbbing in her skull, Applejack fell into the dark void of unconsciousness.
In
through
your
mind…
A cold winter’s night found Ponyville in slumber, silent and tranquil. Wisps of wind blew in a backdrop of snowflakes upon the peaceful town, not a blizzard nor a storm but a speckled fog. Each tiny drop of crystalline ice fluttered gently to the ground in slow motion, as if Time itself had, in a rare display of kindness, slowed down to give these ill-fated travelers a chance to take in their beautiful surroundings before they inevitably conjoined with their brethren and formed a blanket of pure white upon the peaceful buildings of Ponyville.
One tiny flake of snow landed on the tip of Applejack’s nose, gently prodding her awake. In front of her sat a tiny young colt, his coat pure white as the snow, his eyes dark black as the midnight sky; two empty orbs stared through her waking eyes and into her soul. As the brilliant spark of her consciousness reemergecd into the dreamscape, a soft melody played through her ears, matching the subtle parting of the colt’s lips.
“One by one by one…by…one…by…one. The lights are going out across the sky...” His sweet voice trailed off into nothingness.
Applejack looked up into the black heavens above them, watching in morbid fascination as the moon faded into a dim shadow, and the six stars surrounding it vanished from existence. Only one of the six remained, shining down with all of the force it could muster.
Standing onto her hooves, Applejack looked past the colt towards the buildings; as she looked around, her smooth face scrunched into a frown. Where Twilight’s house should have been, a black sphere rested in its place, with a black-framed door waiting patiently outside. She looked back into the empty eyes of the colt, who stared up at her in sorrow.
“He won’t let me in…can you make him let me in? Because…” the colt squeezed his eyes closed as an uncontrollable shudder seized his body; “…it’s really cold out here...”
Applejack wrapped her hoof around the colt’s body, fighting the urge to recoil in shock at the absolute cold of his ashen skin. Half-carrying him along the way, Applejack strode up to the door and pushed it open; the empty Void within immediately sucked her inside, pulling with all of the force of a hungry vacuum...yet it seemed to actively reject the colt's presence.
As Applejack looked back at the colt, he stood at the verge of the abyss, and the last sight she witnessed was his contented smile and his closed eyes as he lay down to sleep, knowing that he had found peace at last.
The first sensation to flood her mind upon awakening was light. Not the harsh yet glorious rays of the sun, nor the pale aura of the moon, but…the dim glow of a candle wavering in the darkness of a featureless room, casting long shadows onto the wall. Brushing several drops of melted snow off her coat, Applejack strode into the room, towards the figure standing calmly on its other side, a monstrous entity staring at her with a smile on its face.
Its form was hardly describable; with every subtle turn of the head it changed completely, sometimes a dragon, sometimes a lion, sometimes a hissing snake. Its body was constantly and completely symmetrical, hypnotically appalling in appearance.
The creature extended a claw towards her and smiled. “Hello, Applejack. It’s nice to finally meet you face-to-face. My name is Sykosis.”
Its voice was the voice of a thousand, haphazardly merging a child’s shriek with a stallion’s deep growl with the hollow monotone of a pony on the verge of death. This abomination of existence exuded a tangible aura of death so powerful that many of lesser will than Applejack would have been completely repulsed by his presence, instinctively fleeing as far as possible from those two hypnotic golden eyes. Even with her potent resolve, Applejack still struggled to respond to the creature. As a response, she glanced up at him warily; her obvious distrust spoke for itself.
“You didn’t happen to see Conscience floating around here, did you? Quite an annoying fellow…I keep him locked out, but he simply will not go away.” Applejack stared at the heartless beast, disgusted beyond belief.
Again the silence passed; palpable tension dripped from the air as Applejack glared unblinking at the formless being.
“Are you going to kill me?” it asked, bemused.
In response, Applejack took a step towards the creature, her will pulsing in her ever-beating heart.
The creature’s mouth twisted into a hatefully malicious grin, then opened and poured out a waterfall of black shadows. A thousand voices screamed directly into Applejack’s mind, blasting noise through her skull; all at once a dying beast wailed and a newborn screeched and a stallion yelled “YOU MEANINGLESS FOAL! YOU THINK YOU COULD KILL ME?! I HAVE DESTROYED ENTIRE KINGDOMS WITH A SINGLE THOUGHT! I HAVE LAID WASTE TO YOUR ENTIRE PLANE OF EXISTENCE! I HAVE CORRUPTED YOUR PRINCESS TWICE; I HAVE TWISTED ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS SO FAR FROM SANITY THAT THEY SERVE ME WILLINGLY, AND now I have…you.” The dissonant explosion of noise died down to a whisper, in the same pitch as the painful whine ringing in Applejack’s ears.
Struggling to clear her mind, Applejack looked back at Sykosis, whose form was flickering between the hideous demon and a disconcertingly ordinary black-framed mirror.
Trotting up to the mirror, she stretched her hoof back and punched straight through its center.
It shattered into a thousand shards of silver ebony, fading into a mist of darkness that dissipated into the air, gone like a wisp of smoke on the wind. Inside the the black heart of the Void, a candle blew out, its flame choked by the atmosphere of nothingness that had lit it in the first place.
As Applejack felt the soothing call of reality extend to her consciousness, recalling her from the black Void, the last image to mark her vision was six twinkling stars and a full moon shining brightly over the sea of nothingness, whose tides no longer lapped at the fertile shores but receded from them with bitter despair.
The Mare Cognitum receded within itself, shrinking its entrance to a barely visible pinprick on the endless meadows of Time, singing itself to sleep with a silent lullaby of isolation.
As seven mares awoke within one of the countless rooms inside Canterlot Castle, their mysterious companion trotted through the Castle Library’s empty halls, his hoofsteps echoing and his silhouette flickering in its helplessly weak state, as it desperately struggled to exist. Staring through invisible eyes, he looked up for a fleeting moment only to read the sign above the room he had known so well so many years ago:
Star Swirl the Bearded Wing
A tiny creak echoed into the silence as he trotted into the moonlit room; pale light washed through the windowsill, cleansing the room of its darkness. Stepping over the milky-white shapes stretching across the floor, the stallion stopped suddenly; his head bent over in deep concentration.
With a flash of grey magic a leather-bound book zipped to his side and automatically flipped open, whipping from page to page in a blur of yellowed paper. Finally they stopped, on a page that had not been opened since the first of the seven, the radiant glow of Dawn and of Sunset, had stared into the black mirror in paranoid desperation...a comparatively recent occasion; it may as well have been yesterday.
Taking a deep breath of air he could not taste and calling upon magic he could not feel, the stallion shimmered and disappeared, his form exhaling a silent sigh of relief as it reentered the realm of its prison on the eve of its belated liberation.
A day and a night passed in less than a second as one lost soul traveled through the empty realm between Space and Time, whisked away to a location he knew far too well, an empty road in an empty dream in an empty realm. He stepped down onto the cobbled road, breathing the familiar dead air of a silent atmosphere.
A figure was approaching down the road, his perfect external reflection. On the inside, though…something had changed that his past form did not share. Something like a feeling.
The figure stood before him, unknowing, unfeeling, unprepared. In a hollow monotone it asked, “Knowest thou thyself?”
He replied simply, “Nay, not since the Moonset,” suddenly curious as to the veracity of the coded phrase. Though he had indeed lost his identity since the Moonset so many hundreds of years ago, he felt a tiny spark of Self reemerging within his soul, faint but growing in intensity.
The figure opposite him, so similar it appeared as a perfect reflection, paused for a moment before responding, completely still. Though none of its emotions leaked out from beneath his skin, the stallion knew exactly what he was experiencing. It asked, in a voice with barely a fragment of extant life, “The Reaper returneth?”
Waiting only a moment for the rising breeze to whistle past, he said, “The moon rises,” remembering the form of his former mentor looking into his eyes; the fleeting memory resounded with an echo of fondness.
“Who is the Messenger?” the reflection asked, with a subtle thread of curiosity woven into its empty speech.
He thought for a moment, pondering the best way to present the identity of Twilight Sparkle without revealing her to the shadowy reflections that patrolled the road and watched with all-seeing eyes. Deciding on another riddle, he said, “The evening hour, the bridge between Day and Night, the fleeting glow of Dawn and of Sunset.”
For the first time, the figure’s expression changed; his mouth barely twisted into a thoughtful frown. Remembering the following occurrence, the stallion turned to leave, right before his past self predictably called out, “Wait!”
The stallion turned around, wholly unsurprised, half-smiling beneath his expressionless mask of a face.
“D-does the road end?”
Does the road…what could he mean? Ah, the final solution to their shared predicament; the slayer of the mirror who would end this prisoner’s eternal sentence on the dead-gray road…still, his past self must not know too much, not enough to alert the ever-watchful eyes of Sykosis to their plan—eyes manifest in the countless empty reflections who dared to walk the same road which lay beneath his hooves. “Yes,” he answered, cautious in his approach.
“How?”
Remembering who among the seven had triumphed against the black mirror, he asked, “Who is incorruptible?”
With perfect timing the stallion’s time-travel spell wore off, and his mysterious silhouette vanished from the road of Time like a wisp of smoke on the wind, feeling an unfamiliar sense of relief now that his purpose was wholly fulfilled.
Long shadows stretched into a room overflowing with darkness, made evident by the beautiful rays of light spilling in through the open door. Though shadows festered inside, wisps of that black smoke that pours eternally from the dark Void who gave them the gift of existence, they stood before the light not hissing but fading.
These shadows, unlike so many of their brethren, did not fight the inevitable power of Fate enforced by Time; these shadows took up their destinies in a warm embrace, welcoming the unknown force that would bring about their end, knowing that it would bring greater joy into the world than they ever could. The light that would destroy them…welcomed them to their final departure from this life.
Such was the flickering glow that radiated from one tiny candle, a herald of beautiful light into a dark and dusty storage room in Canterlot Castle, the room that held countlessmemories that had been forgotten by Time…or so one would think.
This room, this very space within the palace of the greatest society ever upheld, was living proof that Time does not forget its children. All of the memories recorded upon the thousands of scrolls within the thousands of crates in this one simple storage room could live on, beyond the reach of the Void. Time has let these memories live…forever.
One such crate shifted from its position inside the ancient wooden shelf, stirring up a maelstrom of dust that elicited one short cough from the room’s silent visitor. Displacing the dusty air, the heavy wooden crate sailed out of its hiding place among the thousands of others, indistinguishable…and yet one tiny detail, hardly noticeable to the average passing glance, made it like no other such crate in the world.
This was a simple phrase, a tiny last-minute inscription marked upon the crate before it was locked away, inscribed with inconspicuous ink that had lasted over a thousand years. What message had been hidden away on this simple box full of ancient messages from an era seemingly forgotten by Time?
Three words: Thou knowest thyself.
Not a question, but a declarative statement.
Using wisps of gray magic, cast from the once-powerful instrument whose power had all but drained away into his psychological jail cell, the dream realm, he lifted the lid off of its crate, stirring up another torrent of dust. Floating it through the air, he placed it on the ground not in a careless toss but a gentle touch, birthing only the tiniest of noises to echo through the ancient halls. Scanning carefully with buried eyes, he sorted through the scrolls, flipping through them one by one until he found the final letter, marked with the date that had passed at this very midnight one thousand and one years prior, a midnight that some would think Time had forgotten, a moment that some would say had passed and gone forever, left without mercy to drift into the Void.
Some would say that that moment’s generation, beautiful creatures who had always carried on the unique spark that made homes from the fertile ground of their souls, were gone and dead for eternity.
However.
Time does not forget its children, the great and the beautiful children of existence who are chosen to carry on the essential spark of life. Children such as these are doomed to see only from their own perspective, locked in one straight path through the dimension of time, moving at the ongoing speed of one second per second. Through magic some have transcended this existence for fleeting moments, and yet they catch barely a glimpse of the great truth of the “cruelty” of Time.
Time does not forget its children because Time does not forget. Some may think that as life moves on and they pass down its spark, all that they have done is forgotten, and that all memories are destined to die in the Void. The many and the few who believe this forget the quintessential nature of Time. Every memory that is made, is made, and no Void can take that away. Every moment that passes still lies at its point of birth upon the linear dimension of Time.
Though the carriers of the spark may be forced to move from it, to carry on their grand tradition through which all things are possible, their departure from that moment does not destroy it. Rather that moment rests in its eternal home we call the Past, calm in the knowledge that it shall forever mark all that occurred within it when it was the Present for the carriers of the spark. Every single ripple that the carriers of the spark make across the fabric of the universe does not die; rather, it rests at its point of conception, visible only to Time and to itself. The Void cannot consume that which will never truly die.
Staring through forgotten eyes, the long-dead stallion—only a wisp of a memory of the beautiful soul that once resided within his body—began to read.
To Princess Luna, my brilliant teacher,
I wanted to write this letter, record this memory, because it could be my last. I know what you have suffered over the past years, a disease so beyond my power to cure it that I have been driven to desperation to help you; I have ensured that no one will suffer from this disease ever again. If this crazy plan works, you could very well be the last to ever have to look in the mirror and see somepony you do not even recognize.
And, if this plan works... I will I might never live in this world again, never again see the beautiful faces of all of the friends who led me to become the colt stallion that I am on the dawn of this day in the three-thousand-and-twelfth year of you and your sister's reign of peace and serenity, born from the ashes of Discord’s destruction. I am who I am not only from the flourishing of my own mind, but of my friends’ who have grown me.
When I first realized what was happening to you, I…I would never have gone this far. If only I had realized just a few days sooner, so that I could have told your sister…! Alas, she was busy defending her subjects friends from your reflection, that heartless puppet of the Void. She has chosen her method of defending the children of life, and I have chosen mine…a choice I never could have made without knowing that my true self lived on through the friends who will carry on my memory forever.
Now I will lock myself into prison with you, awaiting the day that we both can be freed, to free each other and to free everyone from the monster who wrought both of our wretched fates.
I can see my friends now, see them in the pure rays of sunlight that pour out from beyond the horizon and spill through my window-sill; I can feel their spirits carrying me, easing this horrible burden I must bear. But for them and for all I shall bear it…if it takes ten years, or even if it takes one hundred. I can see them now…yet someday, if all goes according to plan, I may not recall their beautiful faces. This final picture, capturing the life that we have shared as a family, will preserve their memories now and forever.
Enclosed in the scroll was a small picture, a photo of five friends sitting together in the shade of a great sycamore tree. Brilliant rays of sunlight gushed from the apex of the sky, glorious and powerful, capturing the essence of life. The sky was a wash of ocean blue behind them, laid flat against the crown of the world. All of the friends’ mouths were stretched wide in delight, seized by the merriment of this moment preserved by Time. Looking at each of the five as his gaze swept over the instant cradled within the loving caress of Time, an explosion of memories burst through the rusted barriers within the stallion’s mind, filling him with new life.
Sitting on the far left of the photo, a cocky half-smile etched into his face, sat a grey pegasus with tar-black hooves and gray-fringed pupils staring up out of the memory etched into this ancient parchment. His mane splayed in every direction; hairs of brown and black and everything in between bustled out of his skin and formed an untidy cap of a mane atop his head. His long legs rested against the ground, folded beneath his thick body.
Staring at the pegasus’s image in curious fascination, one memory broke loose from its bonds within the stallion’s mind and seized his attention for naught but a second:
The sun was setting crimson beyond the horizon; its soft rays dripped over the sky beneath the pink-tinted clouds. Sitting beneath this beautiful dusk, the gray pegasus sat with his wings folded and his eyes closed, humming a tune that only he could truly know. The earth listened to him and reflected his soft melodies, casting back his music into the open air; the ground itself resonated with waves of harmony.
Standing nearby, the unicorn colt initially did not dare to approach, frozen in sheer awe. Suddenly the pegasus’s eyes opened, not in a snap but in a gentle awakening. He turned to see the colt standing and staring at him, who immediately turned and blushed, hiding his face in embarrassment. His voice infused with youthful kindliness, the pegasus called out, “Hello there, friend! What’s your name?”
Shaking his head from side to side, the stallion turned to the next figure in the photo, another pegasus who he recognized instantly. This face was scrunched into a brash smile, infused with the most powerful and resolute spirit that the stallion had ever known.
Just a younger stallion, his own age at the time, his face embodied the fundamental nature of youth, full of adventure, brimming over with life. His mane alternated between the black of midnight and the gold of the sun, shooting out from his head with the inherent ecstasy of youth; his coat was splashed with vibrant turquoise, a lively fusion of sea-blue and emerald-green. His deep blue eyes carried a fiery passion that perfectly displayed his vivacious spirit, and yet beneath them they carried a deep wisdom far beyond his years.
Another memory burst from its chains within the depths of the faceless stallion’s mind, blossoming into his consciousness as clearly as if it was only yesterday:
Seated right beside his friend in the serenity of the night, the unicorn colt fostered one tiny secret that festered in his otherwise-pure mind. For a long time he had watched his friend soar through the skies faster than lightning, than the bolt of indigo-grey lightning across his flank that befit a master of the air, riding upon the brilliant rays of the dawn as they sped out from the horizon and into the world. The pegasus looked over at his friend, his forehead creasing into a concerned frown. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, his voice infused with curious sympathy. Taking a deep breath, the unicorn colt responded, “I…don’t want to talk about it.” A wing stretched around his back, soothing him; such a simple touch was a gentle reminder that no secret could shatter the thick bonds of a true friendship.
Like the roots of a great tree growing up from the fertile earth, friends form strong connections over time that no small insecurity or difference can shatter. Taking a deep breath, the unicorn responded; his words blended with the winds, soothing the uneasiness within and fostering a new bond between two friends who sat together under the starlit sky, close as two brothers…
The stallion looked over to the next figure in the photo, his heart thumping violently in his chest, breaking loose from the chains that had held it in place for so long. Looking at the earth pony near the center of the photo, he again recognized her face instantly, staring into the lidded olive-fringed eyes that had never failed to soothe his soul.
Her lush mane flowed over her head like a gentle ocean wave, grey-blue; her pale grey body blended into the grassy fields and emerald forests that she often wandered. The emerald-green shade of the tree that marked her flank perfectly matched the trees upon which her symphonies of birds sat, singing in beautifully moving harmonies that ran joyously through the forest.
Joining its two brethren, a third memory broke free and snatched the stallion’s attention, recalling feelings buried long ago beneath centuries of endless walking:
No words could describe the beauteous song that flowed from the choir of feathered angels that rested upon the branches of the softly swaying trees, waving to the tempo of the music. The intricate melodies and murmuring harmonies swept through the forest like a cool breeze; truly, no experience in the world could surpass such a cool night breeze blowing its listeners away with beautiful music. Quietly trotting up from behind, so as not to disturb the earth pony’s music, the unicorn colt sat down beside the three other ponies who had gathered to listen and to let the music flow through them.
She turned to the group, a petite smile playing across her face in the morning sunlight. In a voice no louder than a whisper on the wind, she said, “Thank you for coming here to listen. I always try to put my deepest expression into my music, and to know you guys appreciate it makes me really glad…” A wave of contentment washed over the colt, derived from the pleasant surprise of knowing that some of the indescribably sweet music’s inspiration came from him…
Standing on the far left of the photo was a very familiar stallion, a slightly older earth pony whose smile betrayed pure bliss on the highest plane of being, merged in perfect harmony with the ecstatic joy of his friends. His coat was the pale gold of flowing honey, his ruffled mane an olive green. Though his confident expression clearly portrayed the strength of a leader, the depth of his emerald eyes hid a passionate tenderness, a vulnerability that had ascended into a virtuous strength by the tangible presence of his friends standing beside him. Even if only his closest friends knew it, those who had travelled far and learned much could see it in his eyes—this pony was a wanderer, of the kind destined to roam forever. Yet, unlike so many of his brethren, life had granted him the greatest gift he ever wanted: in his friends he had found a family and a home, a place where he belonged to a group that had grown to love him.
One final memory surged into the grey stallion’s mind, shattering the dark despair that had loomed over him for so many years:
Sitting alone under the beautiful stars that twinkled with life, two friends laid beside each other on the grassy meadow, swept by the cool touch of a murmuring breeze, a breeze that whispered of arcane secrets hidden in the caring embrace of the night. The elder stallion turned to the younger, his trusted friend; deep whispered words passed between them and a tear fell from the elder’s eye.
For this stallion had spent a life wandering the world…yet now, in a world and with a friend he knew he could trust, he had found the family that he had been searching for all along. The two hugged in a tight embrace, together in harmony, together in friendship, together in the beautiful experience of life.
One of the stallion’s hooves was wrapped around the shoulder of the unicorn colt who sat in the center of the photo, a colt whose face…
His face…
His face was a reflection of the face that looked upon this letter with pride after writing it, so many years ago.
He looked down at the picture of his friends, his family all around him, and…a most peculiar feeling rose within him. A tiny drop splashed against the ancient paper of the scroll, forming a dark blot next to the photo.
The stallion blinked.
Beneath the photo there were only a few short paragraphs, forming one final conclusion to this chapter of life:
With my waking eyes I can see a pure nation rising from the ashes cast by the shadow of the rising “Nightmare Moon”, and by all of our race’s struggles from the struggles that have passed us by and the struggles that live on, existing only to strengthen the descendants of this generation of life. Equestria’s history is only just beginning, and I have played my part in ensuring its future, so that no pony will have to suffer the imprisonment…that I march to now, a coffin of immortality to rest in I know not how long.
I can see a beautiful world rising up against the abyss, full of beautiful lives woven together with the harmony of friendship. I can see the spark of life, glorious and brilliant, shining in the night from every soul united against the darkness. A new dawn will rise, a dawn whose light shall pierce every nook and every cranny of every dream upon this wounded earth, healing it with unbreakable permanence.
Now I go to my grave not with despair but with confidence, confidence that the life within myself and within all who dare to live will be passed down, from now into eternity.
Author's Note
On a night not unlike this one, less than a month ago, I stated that I hoped that "someday I would possess the wisdom to answer that question...of the meaning of [my] own existence". Now, thanks to the concepts I have delved into so deeply by writing this story, that day has come. I can now define the purpose of my life:
For me, at least, the purpose of life is to have purpose. The meaning of life is to have meaning. None can say that their life is meaningless, for, by living, they fulfill their purpose as one individual against the Void which we struggle against for all of our lives.
Imagine a blank canvas...covered in nothingness, yet with infinite possibilities. Every man and woman on this earth is given one square inch of the canvas to paint with whatever they please; as long as they paint something, their purpose is fulfilled. I plan to make my tiny contribution to the canvas as beautiful as possible; it shall flow in harmony with all around it, creating, on the whole, a much more beautiful Life than existed before my input.
Thank you for taking the time to read "Wisp", my dear friend. Never give up the struggle, no matter your place, no matter your stance, no matter the individual Self you have painted for yourself and for everyone in this life.
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