//------------------------------//
// A False Spark 
// Story: Innavedr 
// by Imploding Colon 
//------------------------------//

	"It is broken but wants to become whole again!" a filly giggled as she cartwheeled past the pondwater, being chased by another foal.

"What?" I asked, spinning to address the children all around me.  "Do you mean this... this ring?"

"The world," explained a meditative colt.

I turned to stare at him.  "What about the world?"

"The ring is the world," he said.

I blinked.  "Huh?"

"The world that is greater than the world," he clarified.  With a grunt, he tossed a pebble into the pond water.  Droplets raised, then took on the form of a pegasus skeleton.  "They knew something about it.  They reveled in it.  She wants us to know what they knew... but is difficult, for the spark that you speak of has been missing..."

"Again, who is 'she?'" I asked.  A breath of understanding wafted through my lungs.  "Madame Nightshade?"

A chill ran through all twelve of the foal spirits.  Those who were scampering around and playing games immediately skidded to a stop.

The colt kept levitating the globules of water in the form of pegasus bones.  "Deep in the earth were they found.  Telethusilien raazan mesul urohringr fensen nelrusalemmehm."  As he chanted, he levitated several blades of grass and criss-crossed them to form a dozen symbols.  These symbols then converged on the watery skeleton and covered it like a sheet of green skin.  In a flash, the body took on the form of a naked pegasus with an emerald coat.  "By the sovereignty of the ring were they given charge of the skies."  He and the other foals watched as the equine effigy flew loops through the lavender starlight above them.  "Jemmunen vabrakren halsuth vielunu austraeoh harracranten sedraystiul.  But the breaking of the ring also shattered the heavens, and the spark lay dormant for eons..."

I flinched as the effigy suddenly exploded, falling in a curtain of splashing watr and fluttering grass.  Turning, I looked into the center of the gathered foals. "But it's back," I said.  "Austraeoh!  The spark is back!  She has a name!  Rainbow Dash!  She's on a mission to reach the Midnight Armory on the dark side of the world!"

The children gazed at me as a swarm possessed.

I narrowed my eyes.  "Haven't you heard of the Midnight Amory?  Wouldn't... w-wouldn't that be what Madame Nightshade is after?"

"She who would wish to know more than what is known is she who brought us their bodies," a filly said.  "She seeks the spark and the spark alone... even though it is a false spark..."

"A false... spark..."  I murmured.  Leaning back, I thought about the room Phoenix, Kera, and I had discovered above the sequencing chamber.  "The flame.  She... Madame Nightshade is enlarging it."  I gazed up at the nebulous world hovering around me.  "Somehow, this place, this sequencing, drawn out from the six pegasi's remains... it is simulating the spark..."  I gulped.  "This is wrong..."

"Once we have finished finding the ring's outline, she will bring her spark back to the place where the bodies were found," another filly said.  "Malassen virender hussun cul urohingr.  She wishes to breathe life back into the sliver of the ring."

"She's... she's going to carry the flame away somewhere?!" I thought out loud, and I was already starting to feel myself hyperventilate.  "Oh, good heavens... she found a piece of the machine world, but it isn't here in Blue Nova."  I gulped.  "East of here... Enforcer Seclorum..."  I grimaced.  "They're going to return the flame to where they found it... but why...?"

"All that exists is all that wishes to become whole," a colt said from the pond's side.  "This is the purpose of the living and the dying."

I gawked at him.  "Then... what purpose does the Midnight Armory have?  That's austraeoh's—... I mean Rainbow Dash's goal!  Harmony!"  I gulped.  "Is she... she misguided?"

"The spark lives and dies for the same purpose, whether or not she knows it," another child said.  "She does not know that she knows the truth."

"She would not bring energy to this sliver of the ring otherwise," a colt added.  "Austraeoh harathien niul senmar threen.  The spark shimmers in a wind that is older than the stars."

I gazed towards the lavender starlight past the curved world above, before, and behind me.  "The alicorns built the Midnight Armory.  But they came later... much much later..." I bit my lip.  "Could... could the pegasi be older than the alicorns?"  I stared down at the natural earth clinging to the otherworldly ring.  "Then... then that means the thing that empowers Rainbow Dash could be older than harmony itself..."

"The spark must traverse both darkness and light if she is to shine," one of the foals said.  "This is what the spirit of the six bodies have told us."

I lifted my face up towards them.  "Please.  I need to know more about these six..."  I stepped eagerly towards the group of childen.  "I need to know what brought them here... what part this world has to play in the ring."

The children fidgeted for once, showing a sudden quiver of reluctance.

"What... what is it...?"

"We thought you were working with her at first," a colt said.  "But now, we realize differently.  You are loyal to the pursuit of truth; you have breathed of the spark's wind."

"I am not in league with Madame Nightshade," I said with a reassuring smile.  "Please... I wish to know more.  I... I-I want to help my friend..."  I gulped. "And I want to help this world."

A filly sniffled, the image of her body phasing in and out of the sequence like a broken projection.  A few more Xonan foals beside her fluctuated the same way.  "She might get angry with us," she whimpered.  "And send us to a place wh-where there are no stars..."

I placed a hoof on her and another child's shoulder as I said, "Let me be the one to worry about Nightshade."  I swallowed.  "Now... show me the six..."