• Published 31st May 2012
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The Sun Whispers Your Name - Mystic



Twilight and Luna enter a dreamworld to rescue an unconscious Princess Celestia.

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Chapter I: Eternal - Part II

The Sun Whispers Your Name

by Mystic

Chapter One – Eternal

Part Two


It was not long before the grass beneath Twilight’s hooves quickly changed into a path of shining marble, the stone almost glowing in the sunlight. The city loomed on the horizon in front of her, lit up like a lamp. The mountain framed the city behind it, dwarfing even the tallest spires with its size and bulk.

It was incredible, but all Twilight was focused about was the city – the only real possible way out of this place. She looked out at the rapidly approaching metropolis, trying to make out the details.

A shining wall standing over seventy feet high spanned the perimeter of the city. Huge automatons of rock with two thick and bulging cylindrical arms and legs watched as sentinels with great swords resting in their grip, the stone points touching the wall beneath them. They were set apart evenly along the battlements, one every hundred or so paces.

Mighty watchtowers were built into the wall at equal intervals, as were magnificent gates of some deep-red wood and gold. All of these were closed, except for the one directly in right of Twilight’s position. Two alicorns had been fixed to the burgundy-coloured wood as decoration, one gold, and the other silver, both of them standing triumphant. Vines of metal curved around them like a spider-web, clinging to the stone supports on either side.

Twilight had long since stopped trying to work out what on earth this place was meant to be. Luna had said something about the dreamscape reflecting a pony’s personality or history, but she could not come up with a reason as to what all this meant. It was probably someplace Celestia had seen, but what, or where, or even when, Twilight could not guess. She just marvelled at the structure with open-mouthed awe.

No small part of her wished that her friends were here. Together they might be able to think of something more definitive than ‘go to the city’. She had nopony but herself, and she had no idea where she was.

She shook her head violently, scolding herself for thinking like that. She had to try and stay positive. If she started to let the panic get to her, she wouldn’t be able to think clearly. She had read all about it a year ago, in a book on the psychology of dealing with stressful situations. Not for the first time in the past twenty minutes, she reminded herself to find that book and give it a thank-you read through when she got home.

The city walls rushed up to meet her, the path widening out into a wide highway right before the gate. The mighty doors were open, the alicorns emblazoned on each calling her forward.

Taking a deep breath, Twilight walked past the gates in wonder, staring around at the surrounding buildings. Clean, white walls soared skyward, and every window was filled with stained-glass. The streets were impeccably clean. It was almost supernatural how no dust clung to the smooth, rounded cobblestones.

She decided to head toward the massive, golden roofed palace in the city centre. The domed ceiling was impossible to miss, and the mighty spires surrounding it only made the building easier to find. Plus, it seemed logical to Twilight that the best place to try and find the Princess would be the palace. It was at least a place to start, and it was thus better than nothing. Having somewhere to go to helped her keep the acidic panic at bay.

Twilight noticed that there didn’t seem to be any bricks in any of these buildings. More than that, there didn’t appear to be a single sharp angle in the entire city. It was as if all of the walls were shaped out of one, curving and continuous block of stone. Upon closer inspection, the unicorn could see that, in fact, almost everything appeared to be made of a single piece of marble. Even the joins between the roof and the walls were seamless, curving gently as it flowed onto the next part of the building. The same was true for the stone on the streets; it all ran into each other faultlessly, forming one cohesive body.

The buildings didn’t look built… they looked grown. Natural creations of magic beyond anything she had ever imagined rather than any creation of hooves or simple levitation. Even Canterlot could not boast this level of craftsmanship. It was impeccable, styled perfectly to be functional, beautiful, and eternal.

This place just wasn’t real… Twilight shook her head. It was just a dream land. It wasn’t real. It was all in her head.

Looking around at the organic-looking buildings, however, she found herself doubting even that.

Twilight meandered her way through the streets, always aiming towards the majestic palace on the horizon. She went through countless courtyards, markets and thoroughfares. Twilight stared in wonder at a gigantic hall she found, the structure supported by rows of pillars that stretched to over fifty feet high. A flight of steps ascended to the complex underneath, and it was surrounded by small lakes that ran their way around like a moat. All around her, the mighty towers loomed in the sky, bastions of civilisation and power.

However, it was completely deserted.

After walking through the city for what felt like an hour, Twilight couldn’t help but notice that the stone seemed less bright than before. The luminescence was gone, replaced instead by the flat-white of stone she was familiar with back in Equestria. She looked around, confused, trying to work out why the buildings here had suddenly lost their shine compared to the ones back earlier in the city. Finding nothing, she continued onwards, frowning to herself.

Another twenty minutes later, Twilight rounded a corner on the street she was on and stopped abruptly. She was standing in a courtyard, not unlike many she had seen before. However, right in the middle, a small flight of steps led up to a dais on which was a statue of shining silver. It was an alicorn, its proud head facing the sky, one leg held off the ground in victory. The winged statue was set against a backdrop of two slabs of granite that formed a rough semi-circle behind it. The rock was a black so glossy that it shone in the daylight.

Looking a little closer, Twilight could have sworn that there were words carved onto the black marble. She moved a little closer, squinting to try and see.

There were indeed words on the stone, as black and cold as obsidian. Rough gouges slanted and scratched were cut into the stone, dark smears just discernible around the marks.

Twilight read the words out loud, “Lessons. Learn. Forgive.”

Almost as if the world itself were listening, the courtyard suddenly erupted into life. A strong wind swept through the city like a typhoon, blowing with it a deluge of leaves that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. The wind carried with it a voice, a genderless, ephemeral whisper that lingered in Twilight’s subconscious.

“Fall…”

Twilight shivered, but before she could speak, the wind and the voice were gone, leaving nothing but the dead leaves it had brought with it. The words hissed in Twilight’s memory, taunting her with their simplicity. It was a message, that much was obvious. But from who, and for what purpose, she was confused as a small filly. It could have been from Celestia, but why?

It made no sense whatsoever, and it was driving Twilight crazy. She stamped her hoof against the marble in frustration, and the sound echoed back to her plaintively, reverberating around the abandoned stone that surrounded her on all sides.

Twilight fell quiet. She took a deep breath and fell back on her plan. She walked to the other side of the courtyard, leaving the statue and its magic behind her.


A little while later, still surrounded by sprawling houses, Twilight began to wonder who on earth had built or lived in such a city. She stared up at what looked like a massive mansion, the walls lined with fine threads of silver and gold. Twilight couldn’t help but notice that a small web-like pattern of cracks ran through the building, and the corners of the windows looked… stained, beaten and abused by the weather.

“Huh…” Twilight said slowly, looking closer at the cracks. They hadn’t been there only a few minutes before…

The unicorn stopped, staring at the thick lattice of vines that had crept over the roof of one of the buildings. It was met with a series of wide cracks, and the glass in the windows was gone, leaving their frames hollow, revealing nothing of the darkened interiors beyond. The stone was no longer white; it was now a dull grey, the stone looking like it had been stained by aeons of weather exposure.

The unicorn looked behind her and she froze; she no longer recognised the very buildings she had walked passed a mere minute ago. Vines had crawled along walls and weeds had sprung up along the roads through cracks that had not existed only moments before. Glass had been shattered, yet none lay on the ground, and everywhere Twilight looked, the stone was losing its lustre, the white being washed away by a mottled grey.

Twilight whirled around, trying in vain to make out the source of the decay. The silence of the city echoed back to her, revealing nothing except for a few vines that seemed to move as she looked away and looked back.

“Okay!” Twilight said out loud, relying on the sound of her voice to calm her down. “Definitely not crazy! This is just a dream! Keep calm, Twilight. The walls aging faster than you are is just a crazy dream thing!”

Calm… Twilight… faster… dream…

Twilight whimpered as her words echoed back to her. She forced herself to take a few more deep breaths. The palace. She had to get to the palace… preferably before the city crumbled to the ground around her.

Looking up, Twilight could see that she still had a way to go; she wasn’t moving fast enough. Thinking hard, she looked around, and then it hit her: the highways! The ribbons of marble road were suspended high above the city, all of them ending up at the palace sooner or later. That would put her up above the labyrinth of streets and offer her a direct path. Or, as direct a path she could get without flying.

After she had picked one nearby that led straight to the palace without too many twists and turns, Twilight made toward it. She passed through a few last blocks of row after row of the silent buildings, watching as the walls seemed to age just a little bit more every time she looked away and looked back. Chunks of rock were now missing from the edges, leaving the surfaces pockmarked and disfigured. The vines still grew thicker, becoming more adventurous as they slithered down the walls.

Twilight walked up a ramp leading from the street to the one of the massive thoroughfares above. It stood, supported by massive, circular pillars set evenly along its length. Cracks ran through the roads, and leaves and small piles of rubble had collected along the edges designed to act as small walls.

She set along her newfound path, and Twilight saw just how extensive this system of highways was; all of the major structures seemed to have a road leading toward it, and the palace was no exception. In fact, Twilight couldn’t help but feel that pretty much every road either began or ended at the castle. It certainly made her feel a lot better about choosing this route.

Down in the streets far below, Twilight could see the true extent of the destruction wreaked by the effects of the magic. The entire city looked as if it had been covered in a blanket of shadow, one that clung to the corners of every street like a mould, eating away at the stone around it. Roofs bowed inwards, garden walls had collapsed and trees appeared to be literally sprouting from beneath the roads, and as Twilight swept her gaze from left to right, she couldn’t help but feel that the decay became worse and more pronounced every time she looked back.

The city almost felt like it was dying around her. Twilight suppressed another shiver at the thought. It was downright unsettling.

However, despite the ruin befalling the structures, the sun still shone overhead, unchanging as it warmed the land. In all of the hours she had been there, it hadn’t moved at all. According to the sun’s position, it was still high noon, or thereabouts.

Once she neared the palace, she dropped back down on another ramp to the street. It looked as if it was a major boulevard, a single highway split into two parallel sections by what appeared to be a wall of pure glass, standing about ten feet high. Even it hadn’t escaped time’s ravages, though, marked by a sea of cracks and chips, stained in places by smog-like smears.

Twilight walked along the silent thoroughfare, staring at the rows of shining metal and glossy stone statues that flanked it on either side. Several were of alicorns like the one in the courtyard. Some featured objects such as the sun, the moon or planets Twilight didn’t know the name of. One or two were of magnificent and terrible beasts, dragons or hydras who snarled at the world, forever unmoving.

One in particular at the head of the road caused Twilight to pause in amazement, a shiver running up her spine at the sight of it. The monster stood crouched on two legs. Its body, covered with some sort of jagged plating, was coiled like a spring, looking ready to leap forward and strike. It carried with it a massive whip that was twisted around it, and its other hand was covered in what could not be mistaken to be anything else but fire. Two horns curled from the top of its head as it roared down silently at Twilight, its face twisted into a eternal snarl of rage. Opposite the creature was an alicorn, facing the monster with an unrelenting position, wings raised in defiance.

Twilight took a moment before continuing on, her gaze fixated on the massive demon, forever locked in is prison of obsidian. What was it? What could possibly look so cruel? Twilight wasn’t completely sure she wanted to know. Was it something from Celestia’s history? Or was it a symbol for something else entirely? Twilight shivered as the statue continued to snarl at her, its whip curling around its body like some demonic tail. It had to mean something... but what? Twilight couldn’t find an answer. She had never seen anything like it... anything so... evil.

Shaking her head to break the hold the statue’s glare had over her, Twilight looked up and saw that she had reached the end of the boulevard. The palace seemed to fill every space in front of her. Only the mountain behind it was larger. Series of towers and spires soared toward the sky, their now weathered and crumbling walls standing proudly despite the decay. These were connected to a foundation of smaller buildings synonymous to the larger structure of the palace as a whole. Sections were joined together by stone bridges and archways, decorated in layers of scraggly vines. The entire thing looked dark, covered in what looked like a layer of grime and shadow.

There was a small courtyard of grey marble, and standing in the centre was a tree, looking as dead as the city surrounding it. Its twisted alabaster trunk was more than ten feet wide and stood over fifty feet high, with a web of empty branches that reached toward the sky with skeletal fingers. The twisting roots hadn’t cracked and shattered the pavement like one would expect, but rather they had pushed it out of the way, the stone seemingly accommodating the tree’s growth. An empty pool bordered the tree’s side, and Twilight could see the roots spilling out into the parched basin.

Directly in front of her was a closed set of massive double doors of burgundy-coloured wood. They were almost identical to the ones she had past through to enter the city, only now the wood looked rotten, and the metal tarnished, despite any magical properties it may have held.

Twilight stepped forward, and her horn flared into life. The doors shuddered and groaned, encased in a purple magical field, before they started to move, thrust backwards along hinges older than Twilight could have imagined.

Or were they really that old at all? Twilight shuddered, the air seeming suddenly so much colder.

With a resounding boom, the doors slammed open, and Twilight let her magic dissipate. Alone, one lonely shadow in the hall of the ancients, she stepped forward into a great hallway. The room flew out away from her for over two hundred feet, and above her a great domed ceiling reached toward the heavens, making the unicorn feel so impossibly small, an ant in the home of giants. Twilight could make out faint murals on the roof, faded from time. She could see the sun and the moon; she could see the entire celestial cohort as it shone against a black and endless void; she could see clouds of light that swirled around great shapes in the darkness, forming, shaping, and she could see worlds, plains of steel-blue grass and mountains higher than any in Earth today.

Most of all, she could see the creatures – beasts of terrible power and stature, spreading forth across the land from a pit in the earth, from which spewed flames of fire and shadow. Some she recognized like dragons, hydras, wyverns or basilisks. Others she did not, great automatons of living rock, fire seeping out of the cracks of their chitinous bodies, holding weapons and throwing flames. They looked just like the statue of the monster back in the boulevard.

Even then, there was a light on the edge of the darkness, and from that light there was a great host of beings cloaked in crackling energies. They swept forward on powerful wings and cast forth beams of eldritch lightning from their horns. They were power incarnate, beautiful and elegant even in destruction.

Twilight gaped at this with eyes as wide as platters. The images were terrible, terrifying. They were like staring at another world, of events that could not possibly have occurred within the world as she knew it. Those creatures... that fire, that shadow... But... they had to mean something... They had to be telling her something about Celestia... but what?

It was incredible, but it was not what was holding Twilight’s attention.

At the head of the hall were seven massive thrones of marble, flecked with small threads of gold and silver. They were arranged in a semi circle around a pedestal of white metal, the two arms supporting two of the most incredible jewels Twilight had ever seen in her life. They were levitating on their own power, each about the size of a pony’s head. One was as bright and wonderful as the sun, bathing the room with a golden glow that emanated from within. The other was mysterious and ethereal, and from it there was a softer, silver luminance that danced in harmony with the light from the other.

“The sun and the moon…” Twilight whispered, staring at the two jewels in unabashed awe, ignoring the crumbling walls and pillars around her. They were literally living gems, each one creating its own source of light, levitating seemingly from their own free will.

“Princess…? Celestia?” Twilight said hesitantly, half expecting a reaction from the golden gem.

Nothing happened.

Twilight wondered if they would respond to magic, and she reached out with her own magical senses. She gasped and hurriedly sucked her magic back inside. Those gems were radiating so much energy! Waves were rippling from each of them, filling the air around them with unrestrained magic.

She eyed the gems with apprehension, not sure how to react. They weren’t doing anything, but if Luna was right about the dreams all meaning something, then these had to be a sign of something. But what, she could not fathom.

“What do you mean…?” Twilight said to herself. “What are you…?”

Twilight tapped her chin with a hoof. Perhaps she had to make some sort of a connection with the jewels. The sun made the most sense, being Celestia’s mind and all. But speaking hadn’t worked… and Twilight was a little scared to try and make a connection via magic. The sheer power coming from each prevented her senses from even getting close. If she was going to connect with it via magic, she was going to have to do it with a little more… oomph.

The bookish unicorn gulped. The idea made her skin prickle uncomfortably; those jewels held more power than Twilight had ever felt in her life, and she had no way of knowing just what they might be capable of if disturbed. It could even be strong enough to destroy the whole city! Twilight knew there was no way she could protect herself were that to happen.

Still, she was forced to admit, she didn’t have any other options other than walk around aimlessly, looking for something she had idea of what it was. The jewels were something; in fact, they were more than something. As signs and symbols went, they were bright and coloured with neon lights.

Steeling herself, Twilight’s horn began to shimmer and glow, encased in a magical aura. A single point of purple-white light began to form on its tip, growing in size and intensity. With a small gasp, Twilight let the magic loose and a streak of energy snapped forward like a lightning bolt, arcing between her and the sun, striking it with a blinding flash of light. Twilight was knocked backwards as an explosion of air rippled forward from the gem as a wave of concussive force. She hit the marble floor hard, the breath driven out of her lungs in a violent rush.

Coughing, Twilight looked up, her heart sinking to see that not only had nothing happened, that also the explosion had left no damage whatsoever except for what it did to her. She groaned, completely at a loss at how to proceed.

A low rumble cut her train of thought short, and the ground suddenly shifted beneath her hooves. Twilight looked around, alarmed, trying to locate the source of the tremor. Another rumble shuddered through the ground, and small piles of dust fell from the ceiling. Twilight watched as a red glow washed through the broken windows on all sides of the hall. It filled the entire room with a flickering crimson light, causing her shadow to dance feverishly beside her.

“Ahh…” Twilight said out loud. “What is that?” She opened her mouth to speak again, but another tremor stopped her. She waited for it to end, but it never did. The ground started to move, vibrating back and forth as a loud roar grew, driven from deep within the earth.

An ear-piercing crack ripped through the air, and huge fractures started tearing themselves into the walls, growing wider even as Twilight stared at them in horror. The rumbling noise continued to grow until it filled Twilight’s mind and shook her to her core.

A splintering explosion tore through the air like a canon discharging, and Twilight looked up to watch an entire chunk of the roof come spearing towards her, still showing the moon painted onto its surface. Twilight stared at the oncoming missile, suddenly unable to move; her legs were frozen, and she could do little but stare as the ceiling rushed forward to crush her.

Jump! The word came from deep inside her, a whisper from a source she could not name. Without thinking, she followed its advice, and she launched herself to the right as far as she could go. The chunk of ceiling smashed into the space she had been standing in only a matter of seconds before, showering the unicorn with dust and displaced air.

The voice whispered again.

Run.

So Twilight did. Not wanting to waste another second, she turned and she ran, sprinting as fast as she could towards the exit.

More pieces of masonry fell around her, shattered under the power of the earthquake. Twilight struggled to maintain her balance as the earth moved beneath her hooves, driven by a roar of unimaginable power. Dust was filling the air, turned blood red by the glow still emanating from outside.

There was another crack followed shortly by yet another explosion as another chunk of the roof slammed into the floor beside the unicorn. Reacting on instinct, Twilight threw up a force field preventing a wave of stone shards from tearing her to pieces.

There! The exit! The doorway was open, shedding light into the dust-choked hall, lighting the air up as if it were on fire.

She raced toward the light, and burst forward from a wall of dust and out into the welcome daylight.

Only, there was no day.

Twilight looked skyward in horror and saw that the sun had been replaced by a burning ball of demonic flame. She could see waves of energy ripple across its massive surface as it spewed forth plumes of blood-red fire.

“The city…”

Twilight turned from the sun to stare back out at the city. Or what was left of it. The ground was shaking even harder now, and Twilight watched as entire buildings imploded in on themselves as explosions of dust and stone. The suspended highways began to fragment as the roads of marble shattered under the power of the earth.

The whole city was breaking apart.

Then so did the earth.

Twilight’s blood turned to ice. A massive fissure rent the ground open with an ear-piercing shriek, swallowing entire blocks within its gaping mouth. As the earth shook, the fracture grew wider, tearing the city apart at the seams. There was another explosion, and the ground tore again. The jagged wound was larger, well over a thousand feet long and over a hundred feet wide. Fire spewed forth from the opening, filling the streets with sickening red flames that refused to go out, even amongst a city of stone.

More and more buildings crumbled as the earth refused to relent its terrible fury. Twilight gaped at the destruction, completely awed into submission.

A sharp explosion behind her forced Twilight to whirl around. She looked up, and her entire body went cold as one of the mighty spires began to collapse along its shattered base, falling toward her.

This time, Twilight did not wait. She sprinted to the side, pushing her legs to their limit. The tower pummelled into the ground with the force of a meteor, shattering it and the pavement alike. Twilight was knocked to her hooves, peppered in stone shrapnel that left small cuts through her coat.

She struggled to her hooves, and without even thinking, she made up her mind. Turning on the spot, Twilight sprinted as fast as she could back towards the great hall. The earth shook beneath her, trying to knock her off balance and send her sprawling. More than once, cracks opened in the floor beside her, growing larger as the earth tore apart at the seams.

The wall beside Twilight collapsed as she burst back into the hall with the jewels. It imploded on itself, a wave of dust washing out over Twilight like a wall of water. She coughed and spluttered, trying to breathe through the thick air that choked her.

The earth exploded again. Twilight watched in horror as a fissure started to appear in the ground directly beneath her. She darted to the side as the crack opened fully, plumes of fire erupting into the air. Despite the smoke, Twilight could see straight down; she could see the malicious light bursting forward from the hole in the earth. Fire crawled up along the sides of the fracture, reaching up with fingers of flickering heat. It looked hungry, desperate to devour anything it could find.

Then, Twilight saw them – the jewels. Even with the chaos around them, they still shone brightly, unaffected by the destruction. They were so close, Twilight could sense their power. She willed her muscles to go that little bit harder, to push her body along that little bit faster.

With an almighty roar that left Twilight deafened, the palace finally gave way. The walls shuddered and collapsed inwards, unable to take the strain a moment longer. Twilight watched as the entire structure fell towards the fissure, growing wider next to her. The rain of marble became an avalanche, falling in a maelstrom of stone and masonry toward the ravenous fracture.

She watched as a wall came rushing down toward them, bringing with it the entire east wing of the palace.

She wasn’t going to make it.

Twilight felt the strength surge forward, bidden forward by that thought. She felt the power fill her body, tearing at her nerves, her consciousness. Her vision exploded in a blinding white flash as suddenly the entire world was thrown into sharp relief.

As the wall fell, Twilight unleashed her power to meet it. The magic made contact and branched out, supporting itself like a spider-web of energy. She braced her mind, feeling the magic strengthen, and then, with a groan that shook the world, the wall stopped moving, coming to a shuddering halt just above the ground.

With a shout, Twilight let another bolt of energy leave her horn. It arced through the dust, illuminating it with a bright purple light, leaping forward and connecting with the jewel of the moon with an explosion.

There was a rush of air, a blinding flash, and then the city, torn apart by the world itself, melted away from around her.

Twilight found herself falling. This time, though, there was no Luna to grab her. This time, there was no Twilight herself. She had no body, and she was falling impossibly fast through a void that surrounded her completely on all sides.

She tried to scream, but of course, there was no air to formulate sound. There was no body or organs with which to generate the movement required. She was trapped completely within herself, plummeting through the unknown toward some unknown destination.

Then, without warning, it was over. She felt her body suddenly exist around her consciousness again, and she fell to the earth unceremoniously, landing on the ground in a heap.

Twilight groaned. The air was cool, and it burned slightly as she inhaled for the first time. The earth was soft and damp, and it flexed gently against her flank as she rolled over.

Trying to not be sick, Twilight opened her eyes. She found herself staring through some pillar-like trees at the most perfect night sky she had ever seen. The stars shone like diamonds under direct sunlight, burning in contrast to the inescapable void they were pitted against.

Twilight looked around and saw that the stars were not alone in the sky. The moon hung like a ghost in the night, the pale orb crowning the night with a halo of silver, as bright and beautiful as any gem. She couldn’t help but notice that on this moon, the Nightmare’s outline was still visible on its cold surface.

Suppressing a fearful shiver, the unicorn got up, struggling to her unsteady hooves. She was standing in the middle of a forest; the tall trees, taller than any in Equestria, were devoid of a single branch until they reached the upper canopy where the thin boughs were covered in needle-like spindles. There wasn’t any undergrowth to speak of, but instead a thick fog crawled its way along the ground between the trees.

In the distance, Twilight could see the vague outline of a massive mountain as it soared into the sky, dominating the horizon, the moon shimmering directly above it.

“Luna?” Twilight said hopefully. Her voice echoed back to her through the trees, absorbed by the fog until it faded into nothing.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled, a piercing cry that shattered the otherworldly silence like a plane of glass under a hammer.

The realisation hit home like a punch to the gut, with an empty feeling spreading through her stomach soon after. Twilight’s plan still hadn’t worked.

She was still alone.


As always, my eternal gratitude to my editor, Sessalisk, without whom this story would be a bigger mess than what it already is.

Thank you for reading!