Limits of the Horizon

by Beware The Carpenter

9 - Brink

Twilight sat in a hotel room in Timbucktoo. She’d promised Shining Armor that she would go back to Equestria; but right now that promise seemed distant. If he brought it up when she talked to him, she could just say she forgot it, like she’d forgotten being married.

After finding the gravesite, Twilight had sifted through the remaining remains of the village; shelter by shelter, centimeter by centimeter, grain of sand by grain of sand. If this had been any other archeological dig site in the world, Twilight would have excavated the remains of Zohan and the rest of the tribe to try and determine how they died; but somehow… knowing that these people were probably her family she just couldn’t do it. The rest of the village had been stripped bare long ago, and the few remaining scraps she found of her family’s history failed to tell her anything new.

Twilight needed answers, but the only way she could get them to talk to one of her family or friends who’d been lying to her for years. She didn’t hate them for what they’d done. Obviously they had been trying to protect her from the pain of loss and Twilight could understand that; but now that she knew, Twilight wanted the full story about Zohan and his family, who they were, how she met them, and how they died.

Shining Armor had broken an oath in telling her the truth, (or at least part of it,) and she didn’t want to cause him trouble for it, which meant she couldn’t tell anyone else that she knew, which meant he needed to be the one she asked. After wringing every drop of information she could from the ruin, she turned back west and followed a line of small settlements that Shining Armor had passed by; paying for information as she went.

Apparently, the Sunstrider lost the trail of the hostages in the sandstorm that caused her to stumble into her old family’s village; Shining Armor ran a two day search grid in every direction but didn’t pick up the trail, but neither did he find any bodies suggesting everypony was still alive. Shortly after this, emissaries from Ferric’s steward, the Head Shaman, and several Great Houses arrived, demanding he come to Timbucktoo to explain his presence; Shining Armor had gone willingly, and Twilight suspected he would try to recruit help in the search for Equestria’s lost ponies.

Before Twilight reached Timbucktoo, she’d been afraid that she might stand out; but those fears had been groundless. Hundreds of ponies had lived in Timbucktoo before Ferric’s disappearance; many of them stayed west of the desert when commerce with Equestria broke down, marrying and having children making ponies and zehorses were hardly a rare sight in Timbucktoo. The components for her latest project were easy to find and the money for them was a delight to withdraw.

Equestria may not have any direct commerce with The Zaharren anymore, but they both traded heavily with the Ephrintine Oligarchy and a few years ago, Twilight had worked with a member of the white council on a revolutionary new idea that could change banking forever. Small, easy to carry, wealth cards were printed on magically reinforced paper; containing the current balance of the owner’s bank account. Participating banks could contract to service each other’s clients, meaning someone could travel interstate or even across countries and have access to their bank accounts wherever they went.

For now; only a few banks were participating, and a person’s unique mana signature was the only sure way to confirm identification. This meant that, for now, only magic users could use wealth cards, but Twilight foresaw a day when anyone could access their funds in any bank, or even any store in the world; and to show her faith in her work, Twilight had stored the majority of her life savings in a participating bank in Equestria. Twilight had been delighted at how many banks in Timbucktoo were using her invention, and she had had no difficulty withdrawing money from a bank called The Shaman’s Reserve so she could buy what she needed.

Her bed, desk, and table were scattered with small tools and crystals she’d rejected; in front of her, a new cocient in front of her buzzed to life for the first time. This one was larger than the model that Shining Armor kept strapped to his wrist, capable of tracking the other the Sun Guards, Shining Armor, and Spike who Shining Armor had given a spare cocient to, up to five kilometers. More importantly; this one’s beacon had been cloaked, meaning Shining Armor didn’t know she was there yet.

Twilight wanted to keep the other Sun Guards from finding out she was there to save unnecessary hassle. She’d wait until Shining Armor was alone and she’d confront him; he would tell her the entire story about her blackout, once and for all and then they would never have to speak of it again. All she needed to do now; was wait.

Twilight leaned back, trying for the eighty-first time to imagine what Zohan might have been like. Back in her twenties, when Twilight still believed she had all the time and options in the world for love, she’d convinced herself that one day she’d settle down with another alpha unicorn who would be almost as smart and as powerful as she was. But the desert tribes were almost exclusively earth zebras.

What if… a passing unicorn had fathered Zohan with one of the village mares, and then Zohan had grown up stifled, with little to no education; but through intelligence and sheer determination managed to build the irrigation system by trial and error. After that… Zohan somehow managed to win a scholarship at Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns, started helping her with the Manhattan Project where they fell in love and got married.

Then…maybe some other tribe had threatened to wipe out Zohan’s village so he ran back to defend it; Twilight may have begged Shining Armor for support, but he refused to commit troops to an internal Zaharren affair. Twilight didn’t think that she’d have let Zohan face the danger alone, she was sure of it, besides, the marking on his tombstone were probably made by her; meaning she’d gone with Zohan to defend his village. On August Seventh, The mysterious threat killed Zohan, and then the next day killed the rest of the tribe except for herself and the village children. She’d protected them somehow, and tried to lead them to safety, but then they died away anyways, but Twilight somehow managed to make it back to Equestria safely. After that… she hated Shining Armor because he blamed her for what happened and then… tried to kill herself out of grief?

That did not sound like her.

Could losing the stallion she loved truly have affected her that badly? They said that love makes people do crazy things, but Twilight wouldn’t know.

There was something else about this that Twilight couldn’t place. Before and after her blackout, Twilight had been in the throes of working day and night on the Manehatten Project; Equestria and Celestia needed her. Falling in love, would have taken some of her time, but Zohan was probably helping her more than enough for make up for it but… she’d learned to paint in that period, well enough that she had probably spent hundreds of hours practicing.

Zohan was probably the one who'd taught her to paint, but why would she have stopped working on The Manehatten Project to learn something that had no immediate pragmatic value? As much as she’d like to say she’d have dated Zohan and worked on the Manehatten Project, virtually no progress was made on it during her blackout, meaning she had been lucid, and walked away from research that meant the end of the Everfree War and saving thousands or even millions of Equestrian of lives… to paint.

That didn’t make sense, but what if- there was a knocking at her door.

Twilight froze; she glanced fearfully at her cocient, expecting to see Shining Armor’s signature at her door, but he wasn’t anywhere near here. It was probably just her landlord, but Twilight cast several protection spells over herself and took a defensive stance, just in case there was trouble. She opened the door with her magic, and the sight in front of her sliced through her defenses; magic, mind, body and soul.

Standing at the threshold of her door was a unicorn colt, coat, mane and eyes made of the purest black except for one brilliant streak of magenta through his mane. His cheekbones looked sharp enough you could cut yourself on them and his cutie mark represented a trident or a three pronged candle stick. Twilight stared at him, unable to believe her eyes. He wasn’t possible! He couldn’t exist; but he was standing right there! Right in front of her! He was here, he was beautiful; he was... hers!

Twilight had heard stories about mothers who had been separated from their children at birth, yet recognized them instantly when they found them, even if it was decades later. She’d never believed it, until now.

The unicorn colt was staring back at her, with an expression that she could only guess was mirroring hers, a look that he’d inherited from her, but he was the first to regain his composure and break nearly two decades of silence. "H-hello Mrs. Sparkle.” He said timidly, “I-I'm sorry to intrude, I know you probably don't want to see me, but I think you might be-"

Before he could finish the sentence, Twilight had wrapped her hooves around her son’s mane, drawing him into a desperate hug as she wept openly onto his shoulder. So many emotions were running through her mind; she was afraid, confused, angry, and yet so happy she could burst. Her son didn't even know what to say, he just stood there, lost for words, as Twilight hugged him, then, after what seemed like years, he did the one thing she’d always wanted. He hugged her back.

Mother and son stood at the doorway, holding each other, crying, not caring what passersby saw them. Twilight continued to cry and wanted to cry; if she stopped crying she would have to say something, and though a thousand feelings and questions hammered at her heart and mind, she knew she wouldn’t be able to put one of them into words. Again, it was her son that broke the silence, "You’re... happy to see me?"

"Yes!" sobbed Twilight, nuzzling his neck and still unwilling to let him go.

"Then why did you leave me!?"

Twilight couldn't answer, she knew there had to be an answer, some reason, why this was the first time when she’d met her son. She also knew that whatever that reason was, it would be totally, woefully, stupidly inadequate. No answer could ever justify this. “I-I didn… I would never leave.”

“But you did!”

Twilight didn’t know what to say, she knew there was nothing she could say, but there was something she had to know, and would die if the answer was denied her for any longer; “What is your name!?”

“Obtrillion; that’s what they named me at the orphanage.”

“What orphanage?”

Obtrillion slowly tore away from her, taking more of her heart than she could live without with him; “Did you, or did you not, leave me in a basket at the door to The Orphanage Of The Shaman Temple when I was less than a week old?”

Every fiber of Twilight’s being wanted to scream denial; she opened her mouth, but she couldn’t. “I… I don’t; please, tell me… tell me that you've been happy."

Obtrillion stared at her in confusion, then turned away, sobbing, then slowly shook his head as tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Tell me that someone at the orphanage loved you."

Obtrillion's head kept shaking.

"Tell me that you had friends."

Obtrillion's head kept shaking.

"…Tell me-"

"NO!" he shouted, "None of that! Everyone there hated me! No parents, no siblings, or cousins or nephews or uncles or friends. No games, no songs, no bedtime stories, no hugs until after I left the orphanage. I was alone! Family is everything, and I never had one! I had nothing! The only scrap of love I had was the letter that I was left with. I taught myself to read when I was two so I could read it, and read it every single day, because it was the only hint I had that someone in the world might love me, but now you’re telling me that even that was a lie!"

“…What letter?”

Obtrillion angrily withdrew a slip of paper from his small saddlebag and held it in front of Twilight. It was creased in every possible angle, and tear stains marked covered most of the page, nevertheless the words rang clearly, and Twilight could sense a number of advanced preservation and restoration spells humming through this tiny piece of paper.

My son, I am sorry that I have to leave you; I wish there was another choice but your father is dead, I have no other family I can go to, and I cannot afford to keep you. I love you.

I’m so sorry.

That was all it said.

Twilight couldn’t move, she couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe. Obtrillion steadied her to prevent her from falling over, and she broke down into incalculable sobs, “This… isn’t my writing.”

“Then whose is it?”

Twilight looked back at the alien text; hoping that there was another explanation, but there wasn’t. She would have recognized those impossible curves anywhere; “Celestia’s.”

Chapter Ten >>> Sorrow

Comments

[the other sans]

but right now that promised seemed distant
Twilight had shifted through the remaining remains of the village
and she had had not difficulty withdrawing money
wanted to screamdenial

1. Promise.
2. Sifted.
3. And she had no difficulty withdrawing money.
4. Forgot your spacing.

All I can say for this is... well, shit dropped the bomb. A massive bomb.

[jemmos]

I sense "Apocalypse Twilight" is about to be born.