Divine Move

by Ice Star

六 (No Escape From Reality)

I had made it. Finally, I was back in Canterlot. Or rather I was on the mountain Canterlot was built into. The city was still visible below. I could see the gold spires shining beneath the starlight, which was reflected by the rivers that flowed through the city. On the borders of those rivers were the faintest outlines of various flora, which were much more plentiful up here on the unfrequented territory closer to the summit.

It's great up here where I'm the only thing that isn't a flower of some kind, and I can see everything, and there was never a space between the earth and the sky. I can hear everything but ponies as well: wind, water, and sky. I don't care if somepony tells me I'm a stupid romantic and that the sky can't make any sound, because it can and I've heard it. That's all the proof I need, and who knows, maybe I am a romantic and at least I don't care what might be said about that.

I don't want to lose this.

I live near the top of this mountain, where the plants still are able to grow. There are these small ones that grow all over this place. They grow close to the ground in clumps and possess three or four leaves. I'm not a botanist but I don't ever recall hearing a formal name for these plants. The closest I've heard is calling it 'clover' like the old errand filly of Starswirl's, but I don't see much of a connection between the two.

I don't do much during the day, those trips I went on with Amore and the unmentionable disaster that results when you combine blue, red, and ignorance before stirring generously were the only real exceptions. Really, who wants to be up playing foalsitter with the sun shining in their eyes all the time? Not me.

At least the pink one could feed herself, I had to poison the other one to get her to shut up.

I look up to the stars and shake my head before continuing on my hike. Sometimes there is no need for words.

...

It took me a while but I'm here. If there's one thing I don't mind about travelling, it's being able to have both a journey and a destination.
Anypony who found this place wouldn't think to stop here, which is why I enjoy it here. It is a place to breathe of all things. You can't find those in a train or a city street.

I reside in this clearing. There's a few small trees that grow towards the mountain. A decent coat of grass grows across the ground but pebbles and other small rocky debris still manage to find their way through the green. Only a few steps away is an outlook where I can stand and see all of Canterlot without them ever knowing. It's very vulnerable to the wind which when I stand there with nothing around me I wonder if that's what flying feelings like. Personally, I don't want to do anything close to flying the very idea of hanging in the sky like that makes my stomach sick. There aren't any buildings here, I don't stay in such common things if I can help it. Since the first portion of my life was spent outside, before I was trapped, I prefer to stay in places like this. Most buildings feel like boxes if anything. I don't consider myself to be claustrophobic, I simply don't enjoy being in a place that I can't leave easily. I find it to be very irksome.

Where I do stay is not in any earthly location. My horn glows with a generous cloud of shimmering crimson and the air in front of me starts to shift and waver as a patch of gray becomes more and more prominent. As the spell goes on longer, the interior of the pocket dimension becomes more focused. Everything inside is in various shades of dark gray that are muted and blends together at points. It is somewhat dim for somepony who isn't used to or inclined to low lighting.

There are äerint gleaming inside, clusters of varying shapes and sizes have grown in many locations and the outlines of a good deal of books can be seen lining the stalks as if it were a shelf. Some don't fit on it or can't be balanced right and since I don't care who enchanted them, those books simply ended up being stacked at the crystals' bases. There's a few other things in there as well but most of the objects in here are just magic treatises, non-magic treatises, recorded history on what happened while I was gone, and maths books.

I toss Phobos and its sheath in there with my magic and turn around, listening for the telltale fizzling sign that the gate I opened had closed behind me. A few twigs snapped beneath my hooves as I trotted to the outcrop and sat down.

I levitate my saddlebags next to me and unfasten the buttons that fasten them shut with magic. The fact that those buttons are made of onyx stone is purely a coincidence. I withdraw a needle and thread, levitating the thin piece of metal within the translucent crimson. I then hold up the edge of my cloak which has a rather nasty tear in it from events earlier in the day. It won't need to be patched, which is good. This cloak has seen quite a bit of wear, the hem no longer exists as it only goes midway down my leg since I tore it to look so, months ago. The hood is still intact but the fabric has faded somewhat so the crimson isn’t quite as strong, I quite like that. Patches of earthy colors, many which are indistinguishable from one another are sewn all over in random spaces where a hole happened to be.

I start working on the tear, after all I don't want it to become a liability later.

So many ponies would try to fill the quiet with wasted words, as meaningless as I find their only lives. It is times like these that I treasure most. No juvenile princesses to bother me is always a plus.

There's only quiet so as long as you don't listen.

I'm not immortal, and I won't say I am because I'm quite a few things, but I'm not a liar. I've only lied, what three... maybe five times in my entire life.

I'm going to die.

I pieced myself back together once but the Crystal Heart sure as Tartarus didn't kill me, it didn't even come close to that.

I'm going to die because I'm not an immortal, nor was I ever. The same spell that banished me was powerful enough to tie a knot in the thread that keeps me connected to Onyx, and it is that very spell that is killing me. I said something like this to Amore Cadenza, probably just me paraphrasing the full information.

You can't take the soul of a mortal, even one as exceptional as myself, lock it away in a form that is barely physical for slightly over a millennium and then have that same creature appear forward in time without any negative effects. Were I an ordinary pony of any kind, I probably would have been reduced to a raving mad mess, destroyed by my own thoughts and the mental effects of time itself before the first five centuries were over. I'm very lucky to be so superior to the common sort.

Technically, I should be dead. I have only lasted this long because of my magic.

I've done everything I can to keep that from happening, which has descended into me using my own magic to keep myself alive. This of course, stunts the amount of magic I can use at certain times and restricts courses of action that I can take, but means I must try to keep my magic as stable as possible if needed by not using it in excess.

I possessed the purple princess for this reason. She has vast amounts of magic radiating from her but a highly unstable mind that just needed to be chipped away a bit. The teleportation I did from the desert to Canterlot while fully within my potential and necessary to save time was probably the biggest move that wasn't in my favor.

See, there isn't anything that makes everlasting life that I know of or have access to. It wouldn't exist, at least not on this plane. I wage a war of my own just to keep myself alive. Many years ago, a younger and much more naive me thought of how boring ponies are. To him, the world itself had so much more potential even if the ponies were worthless.

As usual, I was right. The thing is now, I've seen a bit more of this world and it's great. I want to stay here, I want to go places and read things. I even want to talk to the one friend that I have even if it is just to remind her that I'm an arrogant jerk with a superiority complex.

But I can't do that if I'm dead. I spent most of my life as a prisoner to the cruelest creature that could be and then to a purgatory of ice and darkness that wasn't as bad as it seems. To me there's only two things that separate this world from the Tartarus I'll end up in and one of those is freedom.

Never again do I want to be a prisoner, but even worse I don't want to be a weapon again or even see him after all he's done even if death is the only thing that would truly separate us. The second thing, if you can really call it that, is what truly separates them, the single factor that I care about and it makes all the difference. Like night and day, they take place in the same sky but could they be any more different? They are to me, and that's what matters.

I don't want to die before I ever got a chance to live.