//------------------------------// // Chapter Ten, Part One: The Past Is Immutable // Story: Equestrian Concepts // by Achaian //------------------------------// Chapter Ten, Part One The Past Is Immutable It was a sign of the late summer that the moon should rise while the sun was still in the sky, and its silver cascades were for a few hours stifled. Ditzy had spent most of those few hours tormenting herself over her actions, yet the thought of a moment’s blur had gradually drawn her out of depression and into action. Ditzy left her room a while before dusk began to ascend out of the shadows the sun cast. The rhythmical eyes, the incessant tempo piqued her interest again; she walked carefully through her house, at first cautious and curious, now confused and suspicious at the absence of her guest. As Ditzy searched with a disappearing patience, she encountered her daughter dragging a rather large amount of cushions and pillows on a blanket. “I’m gonna make a fort!” Dinky announced at the sight of her somewhat-reserved mother. “Just make sure you don’t take the pillows out of the guest bedroom,” Ditzy advised, not in the least surprised by the sight. “Can you help me make it?” Dinky asked, dropping the edge of the blanket she had been carrying as she looked up excitedly at her mother. “I’d love to, but in a little bit. Have you seen Tick?” “Oh, he’s outside in a tree,” Dinky replied as she grabbed the blanket again and started to tug it down the hall. Ditzy paused for a moment, hoof in the air as if about to take a step, but the curious answer stopped her. Why would he be in a tree at random? “Are you sure he’s in a tree? It might have just been your imagination…” Dinky dropped the blanket again, gave an overblown exasperated sigh, and grabbed her mother’s hoof. “C’mon, I’ll show you,” she said as she tugged the slightly confused Ditzy down the hall. Dinky opened the door for her mother, who had by then put aside her usually tumultuous emotions for a few moments of simple observation. Ditzy watched her daughter bounce outside with simple curiosity, and the foal wasted no time arriving at one of a few large trees sporadically planted around the small, quiet neighborhood. It was on the edge of their lawn, and as Ditzy slowed her approach she tried to spot the phantasm Dinky pointed to in the shifting leaves. “See! He’s right there,” Dinky exclaimed, pointing at some vague spot among the shadowed branches. Ditzy squinted, but only for a second. The grey of his coat suddenly leaped out in sharp relief against the darkening green of the leaves, and she thought aloud: “Tick?” In the tree, eyes flashed open from sleep and then slammed shut. “I told you he was in there,” Dinky said triumphantly. A few more instants passed without words, and then she meandered back to the house in boredom, leaving her mother to deal with the arboreal problem she had not quite solved and had likely only made worse. More dead-end thoughts passed through Ditzy’s mind, and she called out louder: “Tick, are you alright?” Almost as an afterthought, she added: “Why are you in a tree?” When Ditzy received silence, she had to hold back a mounting sense of irritation. Dammit, do you have to be so hard to communicate with? He’s probably asleep. I won’t disturb him if he is; but ugh, do you really need this much distance from everypony? With quiet flaps, she ascended to a height parallel to him outside the tree. Pulling aside the veil of leaves, Ditzy watched with curious eyes the slight movements of his breathing, the tight folds of his wings, and the tense lids of his eyes. He’s breathing quick. She cocked her head as she thought she distinguished a change in the harried pattern, the rustle of the leaves she held back overlaying the noise. A dream, maybe. I said I wouldn’t bother him. Ditzy watched for a minute or two, uncertain blank thoughts rambling through her consciousness. The sun began to descend beyond the horizon, and the rays cut her a silhouette of light and shadow. She turned and let the gap of leaves shut, and fell back to the ground. He heard the leaves rustle and settle back, and Tick clenched his teeth and gripped the branch harder. Even through his eyelids, his peculiar orbs had seen the fearful silhouette. The light flashed again in his closed eyes, an unrelenting sight. Trapped in the prison of his own mind, he fought vainly his other emotions. Tick shuddered at himself with thick rage, and the quiet dark of the branches did nothing to soothe him. Why can’t I run from you? ~~~~~~~~ “Now make sure you stay in bed this time, alright?” Ditzy looked Dinky firmly in the eyes as she squirmed slightly under the covers, not giving eye contact. Dinky nodded silently. “If you don’t get enough sleep, you’re not going to be able to grow up smart and big and strong,” Ditzy added. Her daughter finally looked back at her and muttered “ok,” and Ditzy told her goodnight. Ditzy halted at the top of the stairs. Is this what I would call normal? All of my life, it feels like I’ve always been in flux, like this is just another day and it doesn’t end. The only life in the ghetto was tragedy. The only life when I traveled was rejection, by me or by others. Here… I made my mistakes. I’ve worked through a lot of them. Yet I don’t want this part to end right now. This was a very frustrating day. It’s over now, and I think that maybe I can adapt myself to it. Sure, I still have some… very old problems, but that’s not the point. I’m back home now, the best I’ve ever had. I can apologize to Twilight in some backwards way, maybe by letting her indulge in her fantasy of educating me in some random field. I can dig into Tick, and I think it might be better to do so directly. Dinky might be useful, too. As he stays here longer, he’ll get more acclimated. When he was in the bar, I just had to ask him directly… he was drunk, but he’ll get more comfortable over time here. I think that he might think that I’m playing games with him, which I guess I am in a way. And there’s everyone else in Ponyville too. Nobody close like Twilight, but I have a lot of acquaintances and there’s a lot of opportunity. I can’t let the possibility of Luna showing up keep me on edge. It could be months… Consumed, Ditzy meandered down the stairs, certain that the key to her problems lay in the coming days. Absolution was close; she could feel it, cautious and optimistic vibes pervaded her imagination. She did not notice that all the lights had been turned off. She did not notice what resided in that dark. Ditzy stepped, steps of grace, but she fell through… Ditzy stepped through shadow and was enveloped by it. Her soft steps were swallowed by it. They sank deeper into the silence than they normally did. She was a bundle of light surrounded. Like shades, like dreams, like a nightmare, Ditzy paused. There were great black walls crushing in on her. And then Luna walked out of night. Wrecking, sudden, an infusion of blood to the veins, an infusion of adrenaline for her hate; Ditzy would have stumbled had she been moving, but instead she was still, shell-shocked. Light faded, evaporated, extinguished, fire doused to ashes and then the ashes froze. It was cold anger and cold fear and fiery rage all at once and it all melted and Ditzy drowned in it and moved not and said nothing but only stood still. The ancient eyes locked on her, the torments of a thousand years and icy determination clashed with fire frozen in golden eyes. Ditzy screamed—or maybe it was only in her mind—denial, anger, agonized fear. Constrained rage, but only barely. Her jaws clenched shut and her eyes seemed to shine, burning. Ditzy was sick at what it meant, Ditzy was furious at what it meant, Ditzy was afraid. Light twisted, shattered, refracted, glowed with a macabre new hue. Ditzy felt bent and trembling with fury, yet somehow she stood straight. Facing Luna as the shadows faded, Ditzy shook, the pounding blood blinding her. She only felt inwards now: only felt rage. I put everything into this—EVERYTHING! All the hope I had; all for nothing! And this is because of you, and your damn quest that was shoved on me! Words pierced through the red walls. “Nightfall…” The word tempered and infuriated Ditzy, the tone a torment, the calm, certain and regal voice torture. Somehow, she swung her head away and saw through the bloody haze and blurs of splotched light to see the floor of her home. Her home. It’s still there… I’m still here… Ditzy thought, adding bizarre relief to the cauldron of emotion. “It is our time, and it is now our time to act.” Ditzy looked back at Luna, drained. Her anger had exploded all at once: it was rapidly replaced by anxiety and fear. Luna stood tall, austere gaze silently acknowledging Ditzy’s disarray. On her sides stood two silent guards, armored, all pegasi. Celestia help me. “We will leave immediately pending the presence of your companions,” Luna informed Ditzy. She glanced around, blinked as if expecting the brothers to appear. Old aggravations added to fresh wounds as Ditzy remembered the disappearance of Quirk. The last semblance of her grace cracked as she growled. I need time… she realized, but it was a fleeting and useless thought. To calm, not to find that amorous irritation and his too-introverted brother. “We suggest that they arrive sooner rather than later,” Luna said, but what was a suggestion and what was not was clear. “Tonight we commit to action regardless, but there remain consequences for deserters.” “I’ll find them,” Ditzy said through the haze of emotion. ~~~~~~~~~ Light cut through in rectangles out of the house to illuminate Ditzy’s quiet face. She was quiet, grim, fierce with anger; her eyes shouted determination, a face of painful things that must be done. Resignation, determination, frustration. With cold and tormented shifting eyes, she glanced back at the house, but looked away before the tempest threw her into agony again. She was ice now: her hatred locked and frozen in a glacier. Ditzy stopped, examined the tree, thought about calling out for Tick. But she was cold now, and misery loves company. The ounce of courtesy she would have given him in such a pressing time would have broken her, sent her into a full-flown rage or hopeless depression. To submit now would be the death of her. Taking a second to lock her jaw in a grimace, Ditzy pivoted and bucked the tree. ~~~~~~~~ Tick dreamed, but his mind wandered away as the branch shuddered under him and he slipped out, striking the ground. He lay on his back, wings outstretched, the waking pain marring his slumber’s rest. Shifting, he stopped: frozen in sight and in seeing. A silhouette, shrouded by the moon. And at once he was unsure if he was dreaming or awake. Tick lay still, unable to distinguish even her eyes, but his mind ran quick at the sound of his name, a feeling beyond his comprehension; he was at once terrified and unwilling to move the slightest inch. What immortal hoof or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry? Then the shadow’s cutout shifted and spoke. “Tick. Luna is here, now. We have to find your brother.” Tick started to set himself upright, but Ditzy did not wait for him and turned. Moonlight caught her mane as she turned, ethereal, and the glimpse of her grim face nearly arrested her progress. Quirk. His mind rattling out of the last of its sleep-bound impediments, Tick stood up and stared blankly at the potent face of fear disguised as she turned to the road and began walking immediately. Jarring himself into action, he moved to catch up to Ditzy, and nearly simultaneously as memory returned to him his mind restrained and examined his actions. Luna is here, and so it is time… but Quirk, damn! Why didn’t I go after him? He could have done anything… And Tick knew the full extent of “anything,” knew the depths that had been plunged. It had been a long time since he had known his brother to do anything truly drastic, but they had been far apart of late and in no mood to help the other. Ditzy, his eternal distraction, had taken to wing and looked back to him, and tugged more than necessary at the sight he ascended into the sky as they searched for Quirk. Tick wrestled to keep his thoughts focused among the three vexing problems. The buffets of the night wind tore the thoughts out of his mind and displayed them in the stars, the patched-black clouds letting the light shine through in torrents. In and out of illumination they passed, and Tick found himself drifting back and forth between staring across the ground they passed and the wordless apparitions that were his memories. Yet one vision kept barreling back into the forefront of his mind, and it was not the specter who had haunted him of late. Flashes of a black binding, of a grey room, of the contours of an ancient mind scarred wide open… ~~~~~~~~ Ditzy flew quickly, the cloud banks far above casting shadows on the darkened town. Tick seemed oblivious or uncaring of the pattern in which she flew; her thoughts almost as dizzying as the long, sweeping circles they flew in. For Ditzy was far too deep in her thoughts to notice, and the two were alone without the other. There was a daughter asleep in the house far below, and every few seconds Ditzy glanced longingly back in that direction, and every few seconds she felt a spike of pain. If. If she wasn’t back in time for work. If she was gone for days, sparking a commotion among those who expected her. If they were trapped in the ruins, if Luna demanded they keep going, if it was all more than they could ever have anticipated. If Dinky woke up and no longer had a mother. For Ditzy knew the raging demon inside her too well to believe that she could contain herself forever. With a touch, she could set off in venomous fury. And Dinky, Celestia, what am I going to do, what am I going to do? The now-frigid night’s air slowly drew the heat and fire out of her, and her whirling mind slowed in tandem as the freeze focused her purpose. Quirk. I need to find Quirk. Where would Quirk be? What do I know about him? ~~~~~~~ The cold wind burned the pair as they swept through the dark streets. The racks of black clouds had soon covered the sky, and the temperature of the season’s turn reminded them of what was to come. The town’s shops had now mostly closed: Ditzy with Tick behind had finished checking what was left open. Tick had suggested in a voice taut with tension that they check the quieter, darker hideaways first. His tension went unnoticed in the cold wind; Ditzy had precious little thought to spare. Having only a few of those locales, their search had been quick. As the last door shut behind them, she felt the clang of the metal frame in her heart as another bar between her and her daughter. She stood silent in the cold dark. Behind her, Tick shifted, but said nothing. The moment rolled on into eternity as all thought slowed to nothing. Yet something colder alighted on Ditzy’s forehead, and her eyes snapped into cross-eyed focus at the single drop of frigid rain. Is it snowing? No, no, it’s months early for that… just a sprinkle. It’s starting to sprinkle. She glanced at Tick, and as he stood undisturbed by the stray droplets he stared at the ground thoughtfully. She looked at him in his thoughtfulness; Tick after a few moments looked up and moved himself slightly—curiously—as if he had to resist the urge to jump when he saw Ditzy looking at him. He pointedly looked at something in the distance. Did I interrupt your thinking? Ditzy thought with a peculiar sense of amusement, but she herself was interrupted by a few more shivering drops. There’s not supposed to be this much weather yet. I imagine this wasn’t planned by the local weather pegasi; this probably rolled out of the Everfree… And then she remembered everything, and she winced. It couldn’t have been a thunderstorm. It couldn’t have been strong enough to blow us far away from here, and take Dinky with me. The rage had passed and the void was filled with regret, sadness, resignation. The valiant gold in her eyes had blazed, burned, and then glazed, dulled. Her strength of will that had borne her so far had petered out; her hope was slipping away again. There’s nothing I can do now but move on. Ditzy stood silent again in the lightless spot, but the comfort of it had left her behind. “We need to go back. I don’t think she wants us to be gone long.” She didn’t look back to see his confirmation; she wouldn’t anticipate any obstructions to leading him around like some alien, quiet child. He had been curiously passive since he had arrived. Tick had been moving with a purpose in Canterlot; she had seen it then, even if that purpose had been alien and obscure to her. Spread wings were enveloped by a spread of clouds, and they flew again back to her house. ~~~~~~~~~ So it begins. What we find, and how Luna reacts to it, will determine the future of a school of thought, an era long lost to us, and whether I find out what this ‘Nightmare’ actually consists of… Tick noticed the otherworldly mother glance at her darkened house, shiver minutely in the sprinkling, but there was naught that could diffuse his focus now. Luna watched them both steadily, austere, observing their state of mind. At her side stood two armored pegasi, except they were not both pegasi, Tick realized; one before him stood with a bat’s wings. Then Luna’s gaze turned to lock on to him, and he could feel coils of tension rising inside him, as if he were about to fight, and the grim determination that he would not surrender what knowledge could be gained. Those who burn books burn souls. So he thought as her gaze snapped away, glanced around. What he had uncovered months before all destroyed; perhaps a sole book had survived, but he was far away from his old study now and unable to sort through that hopeful possibility. “Where is the other? Quirk?” Luna’s voice broke the cold air. “We don’t know,” Ditzy replied, flatly, yet with a strange inflection. She glanced back at the house. “He will face consequences for his absence,” Luna said simply, and let the statement hang. With what must have been a silent sigh, she glanced up over into the west and nodded to the four encased in armor, only their eyes shifting the slightest bit, and even those locking as their commander turned her head to them. The one with wings not of a feather was slow to shift her gaze. It lingered on Tick, but most on Ditzy. “We cannot wait longer,” Luna said, and so it was decided. The night called them. ~~~~~~~~~ The night was dark enough for her to cloak herself and the others in a shroud of starlight, shielding them from prying eyes, and they would move into the Everfree and into a dance as old as life itself. She glanced about at the two unwilling members of her expedition, and found one full of fire, concealed, yet determined. The other was a less inspiring case. It seemed to Luna, though, that Ditzy’s vigor had drained, leaving a thin shell of the self that had been inquisitive and demanding even in the face of overwhelming authority’s consequences. What change was wrought in thee? The ardor of her grey companion is still strong, yet thy motivations are absent. Finally, Luna turned her head and gave a warning to those two, words flying through the wind as they dipped in closer to hear. “We must allay all emotions and all suspicions and, above all, furies and fears now, for we are descending into a place where the echoes of those things have long played out an old and terrible dance. This dance is hate and the death of good things, and we must be immensely careful not to step into its rhythm, for it is quick and deadly, hard to detect, and impossible to fully eradicate. Above all else, you must be careful of yourselves in such a place. Lethal traces of an older time, shunned and poorly understand, are abundant and not to be trifled with.” The two did not reply; and while both appeared perturbed it caused Luna a great deal of silent thinking that neither of them had reacted to the statement. It was puzzling and troubling, especially given their explicit exposure. Luna would have found it awkward to talk further, so as usual she kept her thoughts to herself. Silent contemplation was a talent well-honed when one had a thousand years to practice it. Headlong into fear, headlong into hate they stumble; for all that was may be again, with all the love and the hate and the earth’s blood screaming that entails. In a thousand years, the scars will not have healed; in ten thousand, they may only fester, and the only hope of absolution lies in things we know not, in things we have not, in things we are not… It would only take them a few quiet minutes to reach the edge of the ancient grey-to-black ruins. ~~~~~~~~ Ditzy thought it to be a dead place. Great grey and black walls cascaded upwards into broken echelons of marked stone, stains streaking back down again to the bottom where creeping plants encroached on crumbled and shattered stone blocks among other debris. The night sky seemed purple, ominous, or black even, at least against the green-dark of the surrounding twisted forest. They had paused before the entrance to the ruinous place; the reverent fear that all but one of them possessed now was on full display. Like a procedure of statues they stood stock-still, and the spell was amplified immeasurably by the morbid silence around them. Tick stood, looking coldly on, beholden by none. Ditzy’s eyes were forward but her thoughts backward in the useless past. The distant trees were absent of wind; if any nocturnal animals were present then they were deathly quiet. The foreboding of the shadowed block of history gave them pause. Even the silence of the guards seemed a scared thing: beneath helmet and armor, wide eyes gradually crept around in observation. There was fear in their hearts, but they had trained themselves not to surrender to fleeting emotion. They stood as if they were before the warped gates of Tartarus; they were all still, Ditzy afraid, Tick staring straight ahead. Then a step broke the silence; Luna had moved forward. Every step seemed a travesty and every echo a scream against the quiet rest of the ruin. The ruins were a hopeless devastation. For Tick, this was the beginning of the long fulfillment that he had waited for ever since he seized the first book from the buried grey shelves in the Canterlot library. By degrees, his anger fell off to the side and was replaced by a hardened determination. He was closer now to all the knowledge that had been eradicated in the last thousand years than he had been since the labyrinthine library encounter; the promise of vast and immeasurable troves within the ruins dispelled any fear and inspired a measure of constrained audacity. He could fight now; the barriers were not unbreakable, and at last he could do something to work towards the end of the problem. This was his chance, and he would not easily let it slip by. For Ditzy, this was the beginning of fear unveiled. She knew she didn’t belong here; the fact that she was bolstered her determination to avoid any conflict in the future, to flee to the relative safety of her warm home. Ditzy had doubts about all she had learned now, and questioning of the void that faced her left her with no answer. A bottomless gorge had opened between her and Luna; there was a primal fear of loss and longing hanging between them. Luna bore on further through the broken blocks as she approached a tall pair of stone doors, the entrance to the gargantuan palace swallowed by night and creeping tendrils of shadow. Luna had stopped before the rocky gates, intent on something unseen. Then the solid doors slammed outwards without glow of magic, rumbling with the strength of ten thousand tons of shadowed stone as they did. Solid blackness remained beyond that; there was not even the faintest starlight inside. It seemed foul, vile and dead. Luna hesitated. She stared with a long, searching look, as if reading the opaque wall of lightlessness. Minutes passed, and Ditzy did not see her move. “You will never become attenuated to the darkness within. Blindly, you will search, and only when you have defeated despair will you be able to find your way through to what were once our hallowed halls of knowledge. Once one of you defeats this challenge, you will be able to bring the light to the others.” Celestia protect us, what have I gotten into, what’s even going on… “Will you be coming with us?” Tick asked. Ditzy hardly heard him through the tempo of her own heart. “No.” Luna did not turn around as she replied, but continued staring into the black-inked air. Soft clinks and quiet shifting followed the reply. “What do you mean you’re not going with us? I thought you were supposed to be leading this! And how do you defeat despair?” Ditzy burst, desperate questions fading painfully into the night. The vast ruins whispered concealed dangers, things more tangible and deadly than the conflict between Tick and Luna that Ditzy professed to not understand. They promised mortal danger, and Luna’s grim words worsened Ditzy’s torment at the thought that her daughter would wake without her. “Can you not give us some other help with this insanity?” Ditzy pleaded, the strain beginning to show in her voice, drawing the attention of Tick and the bat-winged guard. Luna turned around, and Ditzy did not have to hear her speak to know what she would say. “What you may find in there, we are not able to foretell. Go assured that it is safer that we remain outside.” “Is there to be no plan to cope with this insanity?” Tick objected. “If you are able to plan for what is unpredictable, then you may do so.” The corners of his mouth locked down, smoldering with past and present angers, but he was determined: Tick started forward. The rest followed as if caught up in their wake. The absence of sound howled in her ears, the absence of light ahead toyed with her imagination mercilessly, and they did not stop moving toward their silent destination. The shadows seemed to be flickering like fires around the edges, as if they were reaching out of the colossal ruin to envelop all of the dim light outside. Ditzy slipped back and forth between fire and fear as the abyss of a thousand years ago edged closer. No! I won’t stop here—I won’t be beaten now—it’s so cold— Too many times had she watched her dreams crumble, too many instances of fate and hate blurred her vision. And before she knew it—she stepped forward; she was gone. Ditzy was inside. ~~~~~~~~ She could feel nothing but the cold stone beneath her hooves—she could hear only her own breathing—she could see nothing at all. Where did they all go? As soon as Ditzy processed these sensations, she scrambled backwards, feeling for anything, the rough stone floor sounding with no echo as eyes and ears failed her. There was no door. There was no door! Almost seizing up in primordial panic, Ditzy stopped moving and thought with a burst of clarity. A wall. I need to find a wall. She blinked, and the only difference between the two sights was the slight effort of keeping her eyes closed. Did I fall into a labyrinth? I don’t remember falling. This place is cold to the touch… I don’t even think I can smell anything. I need, I need to find a marker, I don’t know where I am, and how did everypony else disappear? She didn’t even want to consider why she was separated from the others, or where they might be. Her own future was dark enough. Sounds of her own breathing filled her ears; every last minute occurrence of her body took on paramount importance, but it was all insignificant—it was all nothing. She started crawling along on the cold stone, and the infinite vulnerability of sight stolen wracked her consciousness. Feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, it didn’t matter; it felt like she was on the top of a mountain blindfolded, wings bound, and every time she moved an inch she would fall off or be struck by black lightning. Her flesh crawled: her presence was a desecration of the silence and every scuffling move she made only enraged the shadow further. Terror ravaged her; what could she do against the inimitable blackness? Then fire enflamed her: I’m not going to let some darkness beat me! She was a speck of noise in a great and vengeful sea of solitude. Gasping, she scrambled along against her blind inhibitions, every instant recoiling as if she would slam into a wall with every forced step. She was no captain; she was a regrettable intruder in this malevolent cave—and then she fell. Freezing! Cold, drenched in water and submerged all at once; Ditzy locked up, and she could not tell which way was up—she was drowning. Resistance proved useless; the blessed heat of her bones surrendered to ice and water. There might have been a struggle, but the frigid animation of the water had already seeped into her; her catatonic mind could not react. Ice turned to fire inside of her as the coldness began to burn. Vile, hateful nothing stripped her of sensation, and she was sure she was about to die. Things unnamed whispered around her mind. Everything was fading… But there was a light, rapidly approaching… By some miracle of chance or intent, Ditzy was pulled free out of the grasping black-cold waves; she lay on the shore by her savior—but as soon as she looked at her savior, her savior shrank away in shock. ~~~~~~~ Eris had found the light. It was a curious thing, really; it had not taken her very long to do so and it had been surprisingly easy for her. For the light was simply a globe. It was as easy as that; she had looked up on entering and had found a sphere of light lying in the middle of the strange place. With caution, but without timidity or fear, she had approached it. She picked it up rather easily; it did not seem to be solid but suspended just above her hoof. It had filled her with a sort of reverence, yet she found the last of her fear fleeing. Responsibly, Eris knew her priorities, and she started off to find the others that were worryingly absent from sight and sound. The armored, bat-winged mare walked on, and she held in her hoof a globe of light. In a sense, it was ridiculous, but the severe danger of the situation kept any mirth at bay. The light was not quite material and not quite ethereal, yet it seemed to respond to touch—she was holding it, after all, yet she felt no weight—and the luminance it gave only lasted for a few feet, leaving a longing feeling. Still, it was better than the desolate darkness that surrounded her. As she wandered around for a short minute afterwards, curiosity turned in slow degrees to worry for herself and the others, and the light seemed to shrink just barely. Then a distant splash resounded. Eris whirled about, joints in her armor faintly clinking. With as much haste as possible holding the light, she ran towards the disturbance; her mind searching furiously for a reason. The possibility occurred to her that it was one of the others, for she had heard no other noise yet, and the surge of emotion caused a surge of light from the globe, lengthening the radius. The stone became rougher as she ran toward the sound, and for an instant doubt shot through her; there was a glinting movement in the foreground and the surge continued. Straight through shadow she ran to the edge of the lucent pool, and to her horror she saw a silhouette sinking. She had a chance—an instant, but it must be now. Flinging off her armor, she tried in vain to stick the light to the ground, yet it was stuck to her; she hesitated no more and dove. Only because of her training did Eris not scream as she hit the water—it was frigid, life-stealing—but she bit her tongue and did not release precious air. Blinded by the light, she grasped Ditzy and swam back up. Heaving, gasping, too many seconds later she broke the surface; she managed to haul Ditzy onto the shore and laid for an instant, shivering uncontrollably, staring up at crystalline refracted darkness. The globe still stuck to her hoof, imperceptible in any sense except by light and some small modicum of warmth. Eventually, she gathered the strength to set herself halfway up, and she spared a glance at Ditzy. Then her eyes widened— and the light nearly went out. Ditzy was dripping black, solid black: she herself matched the darkness, what had been lucent water in the pool had turned to a lucid nightmare on her. The living shadows had enveloped her; even her eyes had become great dark sightless orbs. Eris thought to strike or flee; that painted visage provoked primal recoil. What are you!? “Where did the light go?” Ditzy asked, head turning sightlessly. “Who are you?” One of us, then, but by the caves of Tartarus what is that shadow coating you? “The light is still here,” Eris answered, stepping back cautiously from the seeping coat. “I don’t think you can see it.” Ditzy managed to roll upright, yet liquid shadows covered her as thick as tar. “Where is everypony else?” “I don’t know. As soon as I entered, they all were gone.” Is this blackness a trick of the light? Best not to tell her; she’d panic. She looked and sounded like a mess before this began. “The same thing happened to me, but I still don’t see any light. You’re going to have to guide me.” With heightened senses, Eris approached the painted-black mare. Holding out the ball of light as a ward, she brushed it close to Ditzy, who inhaled sharply. “I think I can see something.” Eris pulled back, and Ditzy shuddered again. “Nevermind. Must have been my imagination.” “Wait, I have an idea. Hold out your hoof.” Ditzy complied, and Eris mirrored her action with the globe of light, and as soon as the sphere contacted her, the shadows half-faded and Ditzy’s eyes shone through. They looked at the orb between them, and Ditzy winced at the luminance, yet she didn’t notice the wisping shadows around her. Eris and her fanged gaze watched the other mare with caution, the sliding dark escaping the other’s attention. There’s only one way to find out… Eris pulled the orb away, expecting one or the other to plunge into sightlessness, yet her vision did not vanish. Instead, she saw Ditzy blinking, holding a nearly identical orb, and the apparitions that clung to her evaporated. Yet still she shivered, even though no sign of frigid water or insidious shadow remained on her. “We have to find the rest of the expedition,” Eris spoke in an orderly tone, and her attention shifted away from Ditzy, back to the creeping darkness that swirled in the corner of her eyes. “What happened to the pool?” There was no sign of any pool left, and Eris realized that there was no a drop of water left on her. “It doesn’t matter,” Eris said after a moment of fruitless searching. There’s more important things demanding our attention, like where the rest of the squad and your friend have disappeared to. “Wouldn’t it be better to try and figure out where we are?” Eris’s expression flashed irritation, and her eyes turned back to meet Ditzy’s. “If this happened to you,” she began with a low voice, “what might be happening to them? We don’t have the time to wonder at what might be. There’s too much going on now. We’ve wasted enough time talking.” Eris ignored the quick flashes of fire in Ditzy’s eyes, and started walking into the darkness. “What if something happens to us before we find them?” “That’s why we keep our eyes open,” Eris said deliberately, “focused, and not crossed.” Abruptly the color of light tingeing the shadow shifted, and Eris twisted her head to see Ditzy’s orb settling back to white from a volatile red. “Let’s go,” Ditzy growled, “We need to find a wall.” She caught up to Eris, mildly displeased at the sudden vitriol yet satisfied by the action. “Or any sort of landmark,” the bat-winged guard added. Still, it was Eris who settled into the lead. Once the last words of their sharp conversation faded, neither felt it wise to continue. Revoking the silence that had been forced upon them seemed unwise. Consuming shadow still trailed them, and even Eris’s eyes that had plumbed the depth of many a night and cave failed completely. The floor was the only guide, unmarked rough stone. Steps and clinks of armor never changed timbre, as if they moved not at all, and the silence screamed louder than the sound. I’ve never been this blind before. The pool that disappeared, the shadows that dripped like water and drifted away like dust… This is less natural than a lower Canterlot house brew. The rhythm of the walk slowed to an inexorable crawl as time passed, and the hair-raising silence and chill of the air refused to diminish despite the distance they traveled. The steps stopped behind her, followed by a sharp crack as a hoof struck the stone hard. Ditzy hit the ground again, the translucent orb slipping through stone without leaving a mark or diminishing. “We have to do something else. We’re alone in the dark and this walking isn’t getting us anywhere.” Eris watched, perplexed by the mare’s sudden burst of anger. “What are you going to do once you’ve split your hoof open, leaving a trail of blood for anything that’s out here?” “That will get us somewhere faster than walking endlessly.” She spun around, looking everywhere for anything as the painfully loud sarcastic words faded. Don’t you have any control over yourself? You’re going to get us killed. “What do you suggest we try, then?” Eris muttered, already sick of Ditzy’s impetuousness. “Fly,” Ditzy pressed with a mercifully lowered voice. “Fly blind?” “Fly up, at least.” Eris looked up at the same deep opaque air that surrounded them. “Fly up until you can only barely see this light, and then come straight back down.” Ditzy swept her wings, hovering just above the ground, the orb attached to her hoof casting bizarre shadows in what little light they had. Higher, it was as if the light was a bubble and their vision narrowed, until there was only a sliver— “Drop!” Ditzy slid back into full sight, questioning the sudden order. “This isn’t right… none of this is natural…” Eris muttered. “I could have told you that,” Ditzy replied flatly, annoyed at the interruption. “Do you really want to go out of sight? Risk drowning in a disappearing pool? I gave you that light; who knows what might happen if you get far enough away?” Eyes narrowed, and Ditzy began hovering again. “I have to risk something to get out of here. I don’t see an exit sign anywhere.” The mutual light faded as she rose. Silence. Eris stood straight, eyeing the darkness above and around with discipline. Tempered, she waited to five—called out “You still up there?” to no reply. She tensed—crackled with electric tension—wings unfurled quickly, about to launch— A piercing noise like chimes of ice shattering flooded through the air. A shower of ice, a burst of wind; she felt the air displace as something flew by close and then a harsh thud. “Drop!” Eris yelled as she spun to face the noise, no more than twenty feet away, coiling to leap and fight or flee. Seconds passed and there were no more sounds, no more explosions, no sharp elemental showers. It might be her, if it is or it isn’t— She went at the sound, light on her hooves despite the weight of the armor, her wings balancing as the light shot bizarre simple shadows, nothing like the thick dark. There was an iron-blue-grey body on the rough stone ground. “What happened?” Eris hissed as she spun around to see all directions of possible threat, the body moving slowly, thick with black ice. “Wind… freezing wind,” Ditzy gasped, clear shocks of pain on her face. “And it was like a storm, roaring, and the light went out and I lost track of everything…” Eris shot her a dubious look. “I didn’t hear anything like that,” she muttered as she helped Ditzy back up. “Walk it off,” she said when Ditzy winced and gritted her teeth. “Whatever did that to you we can’t afford to stay near.” The orb of light attached to Ditzy’s hoof began to recover luminance, yet it was pale and dim as Ditzy lurched. “Eye of the storm…” Ditzy said determinedly, a pronunciation whose vigor was undermined by the painful pose of her body. “What?” “We have to get into…” “No.” Eris stared with strength of will at Ditzy, and the fire that shot into her eyes at the bland denial was no less. “You’re going to kill one or both of us trying to get out by tempting fate.” Yet Ditzy’s light had recovered, and she seemed to draw life from it as she stood taller. “I’m going up,” she announced. “I know what this place—” “Are you actually insane?” Eris said with appalled disbelief. “No. Stay here. I’m going up.” Sweet Luna’s Moonlight, why am I doing this? But Eris was already floating in the air, and the bizarrely determined Ditzy looked up at her with a face of anger and grit, covered with melting black ice that dripped and floated away… Steeling herself, Eris shot up and out of Ditzy’s light, and abruptly was alone with only the sound of her leathery wings. No ice, no storm, no sudden rush of wind that catapulted her away and battered her to shreds. There was nothing at all, nothing besides the pull of the ground to remind her that anything else existed. A lesser soul would have been touched by the loneliness of the unnatural place, but Eris did not let her thoughts wander beyond the immediate and the real. The immediate and the nothing, save the air she breathed. When I go back down, will she still be there? Whenever Ditzy was alone, something had happened to her. Eris rose further, hearing nothing, counting the distance from the ground by habit. Thirty, forty, fifty feet; she would drop at sixty-five; she doubted Ditzy had gone even fifty… Would it be either because of the deadliness of this place or her childish impulsiveness? But there was no use contemplating such questions if they had not yet been poised by necessity. She closed her eyes for a moment involuntarily, then locked them both open, scanning the nothing, shutting away the inattentiveness and holding still on the blade’s edge of focus. Eris dropped. And then there was a rumbling, like an ancient wall collapsing all around them. ~~~~~~~~~~ Because I know what this place is… Light left light, and anxious shifting joined anxious thoughts as Ditzy waited. And it’s why Luna wouldn’t go in. Impatient, Ditzy held her hurt leg, brain whirling through possibilities of what might be next, rushing through old painful memories. Her sphere was silent except for her, and the intensity of her thought seemed to brighten the orb. It was painfully bright, almost burning, yet Ditzy was distracted. Eris won’t find anything up there, or if she will, it won’t be anything from me, it shouldn’t be, but it might be? This place couldn’t exist, that kind of magic doesn’t exist… It did in him. The shock of realization caught her standing still, and then a shock of sound ripped the air, a distant crack. Rumbling shuddered through the earth, and Ditzy’s eyes shot wide open, filled with deep fear rising out of a dozen years of burial. “No!” Ditzy flew in full panic to the sound of the rumbling, the primal thundering pounding through her body, her mind; the adrenaline of fear and loss and agony coursed through the passageways of memory. Eris caught up behind her, shouting things loudly lost in the whistling wind as harsh dread ripped through a mind. Ditzy lost all track of what she was saying and what she heard, and abruptly the sameness of the stone floor ended: ruins and rubble ran thick; the dust had not even begun to settle. She remembered kicking and digging, clawing through stone blocks futilely, and the light became so bright that it burned her eyes to open them— And then she collapsed.