Metanoia

by littlerobotbird

11 [Arc 01 - Perturbation, Part Seven] <rev. 08.24.2014>

“…ain’t goin’ no place, y’hear? No matter what.”

“…”

“You wanna say something ‘fore we get started?”

“…”

“…”

“We’re here, Fluttershy. All of us are here…”

“…”

“…”

“Tha’s alright, Rares. Let it out…”

“…”

“She ain't lookin' too good, is she?"

"Applejack!"

"Sorry, I'm just…"

"We all are."

"…"

"…"

"Madames?"

"Oh, sorry… didn' see y’there…"

"That is quite alright."

"The princesses ready?"

"They should be here momentarily,milady."

"Thank y’kindly."

"Madames."

"…"

"…"

"Y'hear that, 'Shy?"

"This'll all be over soon."

"Yeah. We'll be back in Ponyville lickety split."

"…"

"Jus' you wait, 'Shy."

"…"

"Jus' you wait…"

[o-0-o]

The door to the ancient castle swung listlessly from its groundings as the pair entered the roofless room. The grand night sky cast a soft blue over everything as Fluttershy stared at the empty shrine at the center of the entry hall.

“The Elements. They’re already gone…” Twilight said, clearly disconcerted their absence as she ran a hoof over the shrine’s base.

“It must be farther along then we thought,” Fluttershy muttered, distracted and more than a little antsy.

As she studied the vines creeping over the columns that had once held up a long gone roof, she could hear the quiet pitter-patter of rodentine feet from somewhere ahead. Somehow, the sound set her at ease as she glanced from the lonely shrine to the tower sitting beyond the broken stained-glass windows lining the hall.

“Twilight, where are you?!”

“Look!”

The tower remained alight with the soft, magenta glow as Fluttershy and Twilight exited out the back of the entry hall.

The exterior stairs had long since crumbled away and so they found their way to another point of entry: a stairwell that spiraled upwards to reach the old throne room.

“Feels so strange to be here…” Twilight mumbled as they began their ascent, hewing close to the central column.

“How come?”

“Just, I’ve never actually come this way. The first time I teleported up with Nightmare Moon. I wasn’t even awake the second time,” she reminisced, brow furrowed as she trotted. “Nothing I’m going to get my tail in a twist over. Just thinking out loud.” Twilight fell silent with a soft blush, smiling reassuringly at Fluttershy.

Slowly they made their way up, the ceaseless echo of their hooves filling the stairwell.

Soon, a magenta glow began to creep down the stairwell and Fluttershy couldn’t help but feel a tingle of fear crawl up her spine as a cool breeze flowed down around them.

The thought of what might lay just beyond the last curve of the stairs…

She could hardly even bear to think of it.

“Twilight?”

“Yes, Fluttershy?”

“What do you think will be there?”

Twilight was quiet a moment, lowering her head in thought before glancing back up at her friend. Her smile was gone.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh…”

“I don’t know, but I know that I believe in you. And I know that you believe in our friends. I don’t think I need to know anything else right now,” Twilight whispered, giving Fluttershy a reassuring nudge. “I’ve just got a feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“Yeah. That they’re here for you. In here, out there… I just know that they’ll be all around you, lending their strength,” Twilight stated, smiling sadly for a moment before turning her attention back to the steps before them. “Maybe that’s kinda silly, but, either way, I always know that things will work out somehow when we’re all together. And we’re always together, Fluttershy, even when we’re apart.”

“Maybe.” Fluttershy stared at her ascending hooves. “They aren’t gone. They’re still here, out there. They wouldn’t abandon us. They never would.”

“Absolutely, Fluttershy.” Twilight nodded.

Steadily, the glow increased in intensity as they mounted the stairs, growing to fill the entirety of the curved stairwell as the drew nearer to the top. Then they could hear it, softly at first, but growing in volume.

“You little foal! Thinking you could defeat me!”

The voice boomed in her mind, its familiarity sending a quiver of fear down both ponies’ spines.

“Now you will never see your princess, or your sun.”

Twilight gave a visible shudder the throne room entrance came into view.

They rounded the last bend and gasped at what they found.

“The night. Will last. Forever!”

Maniacal laughter rang out in the deserted throne room.

“Where is she?” Twilight hissed as though the volume of her voice would control the appearance of the night mare, her head low as they entered the room proper. “You heard it too, right?”

Fluttershy simply nodded, glancing around the room with wide eyes and trembling hooves.

The room was just as she remembered, like the entry below only more complete.

But there was no Nightmare Moon.

Not even a statue of the corrupted alicorn graced the empty hall. The room lay completely bare save for the rogue vine that had climbed its way steadily into the room over its many years of neglect.

“She should be here. It only makes sense…” Twilight trailed off as she made her way to where the throne would have sat a thousand or so years prior, hooves moving at a quick clip. “She was right here.”

Fluttershy remained silent as she moved slowly towards the unicorn.

Something was off.

A heaviness in the air. A cold chill running down her spine.

It hadn’t been so foreboding even when they had been hot on the trail of the ponynapped Twilight Sparkle and her captor, the infamous Nightmare Moon.

Of course, she had been surrounded by—

“Fluttershy! Come look at these.”

Her reverie broken, Fluttershy looked to the empty pedestal at the back of the room as Twilight waved her over, a small smirk growing on her face.

“What is it, Twilight?”

“Look at these markings.” Twilight took a step back from the pedestal.

There, in a nearly perfect circle, was a sextet of scorches lining the edge of the pedestal’s top.

“They look—”

“New. Exactly. Feel them.”

Fluttershy ran a hoof over the nearest mark, her eyes going wide as she felt an odd warmth course up her hoof, a rather familiar warmth in fact.

“What does this mean?”

“I don’t know, but I think we’re in the right place to find out,” Twilight stated with a confident grin. She led the pegasus from the platform and back to the entrance. “It’s been here, Fluttershy. Recently, too.”

“What do we do then?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we just… wait?” Twilight shrugged, settling down beside the stairs.

“We can’t just wait. There has to be a way,” Fluttershy stated, fur bristling even as her stomach twisted into knots, hardly able to believe the words coming out of her mouth. “There has to be a—”

“Way to draw it out?” Twilight asked, face stern as they looked into one another’s eyes.

“Y-yes?” Fluttershy felt her heart sink.

“You know how we can.”

“I… I can’t,” Fluttershy whispered.

“It worked once before,” Twilight stated calmly. “I don’t like it either, but I don’t like the idea of just sitting here and doing nothing even more.”

Fluttershy’s voice was lost for a moment, managing only a soft squeak of discontent.

She couldn’t let the unicorn do it.

She simply couldn’t.

“No… we can find another way.” She couldn’t look the unicorn in the eye as she spoke.

“We have to try.” Twilight laid a hoof on the pegasus’s shoulder.

“No…” She shrugged off the lavender hoof before sinking to the floor.

“It’s the only thing we know works…”

“Please… just no…”

“Fluttershy…”

“We’ll find another way!” Fluttershy yelled suddenly, Twilight jumping back a solid foot as the pegasus’s tear-stained face glared up angrily.

Twilight simply stared for a moment.

Her breaths came in hard, ragged gasps, her eyes bloodshot, wild and desperate. After a second or two, the pegasus slipped back to the ground, eyes closing as the tears ceased to flow.

"I… I don't want to be alone…" Fluttershy spoke in little more than a whisper, the room blotted out by her thick pink mane as it flowed in front of her muzzle.

Soon, the only sound in the room was the nervous shuffle of hooves drawing nearer until Fluttershy felt them embrace her.

“You won't be alone, Fluttershy.”

[o-0-o]

“We're almost ready.”

“Good… good…”

“…”

“I am glad that you've decided to attend, my student.”

“I thought it best that I observe. Just in case the worst does come to pass.”

“…”

“…”

“So little faith.”

“You would know best, milady.”

“And such insubordination as well. I fear I’ve taught you too well.”

“…”

“…”

“I believe in you, milady. But all this. Just too much is unknown.”

“Indeed.”

“I stand by my prior assessment. The risk—”

“Is high. Your fears are understandable. There is a great deal of fear to be had, toiling in ignorance, but this is a burden that were—are forced to bear.”

“Forced?”

“…”

“I fail to see how we are being forced in any way. This is not a necessary risk in the least. There are other conduits. Perhaps it would take time, but surely it would mitigate the danger if not your conscience.”

“There may be… greater dangers in not taking this risk.”

“…”

“…”

“What aren't you telling me, Celestia?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Your majesty!”

“…”

“M’lord?”

“…”

“Are they prepared?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Let us begin then.”

“Yes… let’s.”

[o-0-o]

Fluttershy trembled in Twilight's grasp; the hooves were warm, but devoid of any comfort as she found her thoughts playing the moment over and over in her head.

If it had done what it had to Rainbow Dash, what were the chances that Twili—

“It's a chance we need to take,” Twilight whispered softly, her chin resting atop the pegasus's head as her hooves held tight. “I… I'm scared too. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t, but I'm not what's important here. You are, Fluttershy… you are.”

“But… I can't do this alone…”

“You won't be, Fluttershy. Remember, even if I'm not here, I am. Dash had it right. You’re what matters here. Not Rainbow Dash. Not me. Not Pinkie or Rarity or Applejack. Besides”—she paused a moment as Fluttershy tilted her head up to look—“I know you'll remember us. I know you'll win because I know you.”

Fluttershy lowered her gaze to stare at the empty room around them, glancing at the pedestal at the center of the room.

She recalled the corrupted alicorn standing at the room’s center. She thought back to the night she had sealed her friendship with not only Twilight, but the others as well. Ties that had previously looped between them by happenstance and chance were solidified and tightened. She could feel the warmth she’d felt that night as she looked from the deserted pedestal to Twilight's smiling, confident visage.

“O-okay. You’re right. We can do this.” She slipped from the unicorn's hooves and rose to her own.

“Know we can, Fluttershy,” Twilight said in response, rising and trotting over to the pedestal. “Okay… right about here.” She positioned her hooves carefully before looking back at the still trembling but determined pegasus. “Ready?”

“Well, no… but I know we have to,” Fluttershy said with a wry little smile. “How are we doing this?”

“I figure if you stay by the door and I stand here,” Twilight began, motioning to her hooves, “then we might trigger the memory.”

“And you think that will work?”

“It's worked pretty well so far,” the unicorn stated with a shrug of her shoulders.

As Fluttershy watched on, Twilight stared intently at the center of the platform.

She stared.

For a few seconds…

…then minutes…

“Twilight?”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing is happening,” Fluttershy stated bluntly, shifting from forehoof to forehoof nervously.

“Yeah… I can see that,” Twilight replied before falling silent, glaring at the faulty platform. “Stupid rock.” She growled audibly before perking back up. “Maybe if you go down the stairs and come back up?”

“Um… I'd rather not,” Fluttershy admitted, sweeping an idle hoof across the floor. “If you wouldn't mind…”

“Fluttershy…”

“Okay,” the pegasus agreed in little more than a murmur, trotting towards the staircase.

She paused a moment at the top to glance at Twilight.

“It'll be alright, Fluttershy,” her friend reassured her, the soft smile belying the nervous tremble of her body. “I know it will.”

Fluttershy didn't speak, she simply nodded before trotting down a few steps until the room was out of sight.

“Twilight!”

“Yeah?” the reply echoed off the stone walls.

“I don't think this is working!”

“Just give it a minute!”

“I don't think it's—”

A harsh shriek issued forth from the top of the stairs, Fluttershy's eyes going wide as the fur on the nape of her neck stood on end.

“Twilight!”

An evil laugh filled the stairwell as they ran up the stairs.

They’d recognized the shriek. The thunderous crash of hooves on stone that followed had only fed the doubts and fears, but they were compelled onwards. They felt something. Something that permeated the very air.

“Don't worry, Twilight, we're here,” Pinkie called out as they pressed on.

“Don't worry, we'll be there,” Applejack hollered as well.

A chorus of hope for the lone unicorn as she faced the threat of Nightmare Moon.

Alone, but not for long.

“You think you can destroy the Elements of Harmony just like that?”

They arrived at the top to find Twilight in a standoff with the corrupted alicorn. The dark visage of the alicorn spoke of a rage barely contained as they took flanked their newfound friend.

“Well, you're wrong, because the spirits of The Elements of Harmony are right here!”

As she spoke, the remnants of the elements began to shake and shudder and glow at the dark alicorn’s feet.

“What?” Nightmare Moon reared back in surprise as they lifted into the air all around her.

“Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of Honesty!”

A few of the remnants broke away to encircle Applejack, glowing a soft orange as they did so.

Fluttershy glanced at to the main concentration to see another grouping of shards peeling away.

“Fluttershy, who tamed the manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of Kindness!”

She flapped back as the now pink glowing shards surrounded her, arcing around her almost protectively.

“Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the spirit of Laughter!”

Pinkie bounced up excitedly as a group of blue shards surrounded her, Fluttershy smiling softly at her infectious excitement.

“Rarity, who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift represents the spirit of Generosity!”

The usually talkative fashionista blushed as a ring of purple shards surrounded her.

“And Rainbow Dash, who could not abandon her friends for her own heart's desire represents the spirit of Loyalty!”

Rainbow simply hovered, her determination unwavering as red-glowing shards flew around her, glinting dangerously.

“The spirits of these five ponies got us through every challenge you threw at us.”

“You still don't have the sixth Element!” Nightmare Moon sputtered, a subtle fear tinging in her voice. “The spark didn't work!”

“But it did. A different kind of spark,” Twilight corrected the alicorn before turning to her allies. “I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I cared about you. The spark ignited inside me… when I realized that you all”—she turned her focus back to the alicorn—“are my friends!”

Fluttershy gasped as a ball of light formed just above them.

Rays of blinding-white light flooded down as a new element, the sixth, descended just above Twilight as the dark alicorn could only shield herself from its light.

“You see, Nightmare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the… the spark, that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth element: the element of… Magic!”

Fluttershy felt a warmth invade her as the shards surrounding her no longer simply glowed with the light, but were imbued fully with it. The gray stone became pink crystal as she felt their energy flowing through her every cell and fiber. She closed her eyes as the pink crystals shot towards her, opening them once more to find that they had formed a singular crystal that now hung about her neck in a clasp formed from the aether.

As she closed her eyes again, however, she did not find herself staring into the familiar dark, but, like a babe opening its eyes for the first time, she saw the world anew.

She saw her friends as they surrounded her, but not as mere unicorn, pegasus or earth ponies.

She saw them not as ponies at all, not as mere corporeal beings that could be brushed aside by the threat before them.

She saw the light of their very being made visible. The glowing silhouettes of their auras reaching out to touch her own as they all flowed together around the Twilight’s magenta silhouette before forming into a ball of pure light as they all lifted into the air.

The pure ebbed and flowed together into a rainbow of light that coursed upwards before swirling around the now screaming alicorn.

Her cries increased in volume as Fluttershy could feel the energy being drained from her, the fuel for something she couldn’t explain but implicitly understood. She could feel something building as the rainbow formed a brilliantly colored tornado around the dark alicorn.

And, as she looked over, she could make out the black silhouette of its form within the vortex, but beyond it, she could see the faintest outline of another aura, an aura of midnight blue within the black shell.

Finally, Fluttershy felt it coming to a head, the alicorn’s cries fading beneath the sound of the whirling magic. But something was wrong… something was off.

She could hear it.

Softly at first, but growing by the second until it filled Fluttershy’s mind and subsumed her thoughts in fear.

Laughter.

It was laughter.

Dark, knowing laughter.

Fluttershy’s eyes snapped open in time to watch the rainbow twist and shift before exploding outward, sending the ponies scattering across the room. Fluttershy tumbling back along the floor before collapsing in a dazed heap.

With a groan, shelooked up to find that the rainbow vortex remained, swirling about the dark alicorn as her laughter filled the hall.

“Did you honestly believed you could defeat me so easily?”

Fluttershy watched in horror as the colors bled from the rainbow and vanished into the gray air, slowing as the energy was taken from it.

“Oh, you poor… poor little foals,” the voice calmly reproached them, speaking as if to a child whose ice cream had fallen into the dirt. “So much faith. Broken so very easily.”

Fluttershy trembled as the vortex halted, leaving a gray swirl that began to chip and crack. Panicked, she glanced from the disintegrating rainbow to her friends as they lay, scattered and struggling.

“Oh, my sad, pathetic, little ponies…”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened as the rainbow crumbled to reveal the dark alicorn.

Or rather, what she had become.

“Perhaps now you will know…”

An audible gasp rose from the ponies as it rose from the ashes of harmony. Wisps of pure darkness curled up from its pitch-black form as it stepped forward, smiling with glinting teeth that would’ve seemed more at home on a dragon or a manticore than anything remotely equine in nature. It looked upon them with cruel, draconic eyes that seemed to pierce, sending a shudder of fear through Fluttershy as she struggled to her hooves.

“This ain’t right… this ain’t how it happened…” Fluttershy heard Applejack’s voice echo softly beside her.

A deep, rumbling laugh echoed in the hall as the nightmare strode towards them. Fluttershy could feel her knees trembling as the floor began to shake and, with a cacophony of cracking stone, the room tumbled apart around them as the nightmare filled it fully.

The deepest dark filled the sky above them as the beast stared down at them.

“Now you will know your folly!”

Fluttershy gasped as a trio of shadowy tendrils lashed out around her. She watched as they struck at and then through her friends. One by one they cracked and burst apart in bursts of light that were soon consumed by the dark.

For a moment, Fluttershy was silent.

Then she felt it building in her constricted throat.

She screamed.

She screamed as the last of them faded.

She screamed as the tendrils lanced towards her.

“Fluttershy!”

She screamed as they tightened around her neck, choking the voice from her as she was thrust into the air.

All she could do was kick her hooves futilely, trembling wings clasped to her sides as she stared into those terrible, slitted eyes before her as their color shifted.

“Fluttershy! Hold on!”

She could hear the yells as the beast’s gaze pierced her with its now red eyes. She gave a shudder as her limbs went limp, the air cut off. She could feel everything starting to slip, the image before her swirling and fading the longer she stared.

“Let her go!”

The crackle of electricity filled the air as the nightmare let out a bestial roar, shaking her to the core.

She felt the beast’s grip slip from her and soon enough she felt stone beneath her hooves once more.

“It could have been gentle, you know…”

She heard it whisper in her mind, the voice seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Gasping and choking, she stared up at the now smirking nightmare.

“Get away from her!” Twilight yelled, drawing the nightmare’s attention as her magic concentrated around her horntip. She growled as her horn arcced with arcane energies, moving to fill the space between Fluttershy and the nightmare.

“So sad,” it remarked, simply shaking its head, the omnipresent smirk remaining as it feigned its sympathies. “This could have been so much easier if you’d just been cooperative. Nopony had to be hurt.”

“Liar!” Twilight hissed, bits of magic shooting off her horn as she wielded it like a torch against the darkness before them.

Fluttershy could say nothing, her body refusing to comply. Whether it was to flee or fight, it didn’t matter. She could only stare at the beast, trembling with an all-encompassing fear.

“Well, if you shall cling to these”—the nightmare leaned dangerously close to Twilight—“silly little apparitions, perhaps I will simply have to rid you of them.”

The nightmare shot forward, the magic surrounding Twilight’s horn dispelling as the unicorn ducked the beast’s snapping jaw with a frightened yelp.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy managed to cry out as a tendril of darkness snaked forward to grab Twilight’s neck and hoist her into the air.

Legs kicking against the incorporeal shade, she was lifted up to eye level with the nightmare.

“What a sorry apparition you are. Strange that you’ve survived this long.”

“D-don’t hurt her,” Fluttershy stammered out. “P-please… don’t.”

“Do you hear that, my little apparition? Do you hear how pathetic your master is?” the shadow asked the flailing unicorn as its form twisted and shifted, the once equine shape losing its definition as it grew larger and longer. “Perhaps you should have learned from her.”

“Fluttershy…” Twilight gasped out as she was lifted higher and higher.

“Please… please don’t…” Fluttershy choked on the words, tears flowing freely.

“Fluttershy… don—”

The beast grinned wickedly, a pair of monstrous fangs now protruding from its maw as it choked the life from its victim.

“Fluttershy… don’t give… don’t give in…”

Fluttershy found herself unable to reply, feeling her frightened eyes upon her.

The beast merely laughed as it lowered the unicorn towards Fluttershy.

“Oh, what shall you do, little pegasus?” it rumbled with a mocking laugh, the grin widening as it became more and more defined, scaly tail wrapped tight around the unicorn’s throat.

I won’t let you down, Twilight… any of you…

The serpent’s laugh filled the hall as it looked upon her with malice-filled eyes. Its body coiled as it reared to its full height, the throne room groaning as it expanded impossibly to accommodate the beast’s massive girth.

Slowly, the beast brought Twilight down to Fluttershy’s level so that they might look one another in the eye.

“Perhaps you need a moment,” it said, black tongue flicking out.

“Flutter… shy,” Twilight choked out, voice strained. “I know you ca—”

“Twilight!”

Fluttershy’s cry mixed with the echo of the snap and, with a soft thud, the body hit the floor just before her. Her neck was twisted at an odd angle, lolling, eyes still wide open.

“Oops, too late.”

“Twilight.” She stared at the now motionless unicorn, shuddering as she brushed a hoof across her side.

She felt cold… so cold…

Slowly, before Fluttershy’s eyes, the colors faded, leaving behind a cruel, stone representation of the unicorn.

“Oh, this just won’t do,” the snake cooed, trailing a coil cautiously over the stony remains. “We certainly can’t leave her in such a state. It simply wouldn’t do.”

The beast pulled back, Fluttershy moving to grab the unicorn before it slammed its tail hard into the ground, sending Fluttershy back onto her stomach and the statue into the air.

“No!”

Fluttershy made a desperate to dive for her, but, as she skidded across the floor with a powerful flap of her wings, she watched it crack and break apart.

Trembling, she felt the ash settling around her, a small pile accumulating in the soles of her forehooves before the horn hit, shattering completely.

She simply stared for a moment, eyes burning as she felt the bile bubble up in her throat.

“Tell me, little one.” The snake curled about the trembling pegasus, its voice cooing gently as Fluttershy felt its tongue tasting the air around her. “How long do you wish to play this game of yours?”

Fluttershy was silent, the snake’s breath scattering the ashes across the floor as she could only watch.

“Or rather,” the serpent’s voice filled with a cruel sneer as it encircled her, “how much longer can you keep playing this game?”

The pegasus whimpered, eyes screwed shut, as the serpent’s tongue flicked through her mane, tasting her apprehension, her fear, her cowardice.

“Such a weak, pathetic specimen. Are you certain you’re even a pegasus?” the nightmare asked with a smile, lowering itself to eye level as it shrank to a more manageable size. “Hardly even a pony. Perhaps something in the rodent family would have suited you better. Perhaps even a hermit crab.”

Fluttershy curled tighter around herself as the nightmare shrank to a pony-sized serpent. She could feel the coolness of the scales as they sapped the warmth from her. The light dimmed and the throne room faded away until it was just Fluttershy and the nightmare, suspended in darkness.

“Now… your friend on the other hoof…”

Fluttershy’s ears perked, shivers ceasing even as the coils tightened.

She felt it once more.

“Rainbow Dash. There was a specimen of a pegasus. So bold. A bit arrogant, but a pony that could get things done,” the nightmare mused as Fluttershy’s eyes opened to stare at the distracted serpent. “That could have been a challenge. Some sport at least.”

Fluttershy felt it growing within her, a familiar feeling.

“But alas, we have poor, pathetic little Fluttershy. Truly is a fitting name for you, isn’t it?”

”Stop talking about her…”

“What was that?” the snake asked mockingly, uncoiling slightly as it looked at her. “Does the poor widdle Fwuttershy have something to say?”

“Stop talking about her,” Fluttershy growled, eyes shut as a few stray tears curled down her cheeks. “You don’t have the right.”

“Oh, and who will be stopping me, little one?”

“I will,” Fluttershy whispered, eyes opening to reveal a pair of glaring turquoise eyes.

“Hmph,” the nightmare snorted, unfazed by the pegasus’s stare. “You must be kidding.”

“You won’t win,” she stated, the edges of her eyes beginning to glow, a soft pink light filling them.

“Oh, this again,” the snake mused, drawing back as Fluttershy stood, her body filling with strength. “Perhaps this will be a bit more interesting.” The snake chuckled as it rose again, its mass increasing once more to fill the blown apart throne room, the light casting away the darkness.

“We beat you once. We can do it again,” Fluttershy whispered, taking a solitary step towards the serpentine monster as her wings flared aggressively behind her.

The pegasus’s natural turquoise eyes had been subsumed by the pink light and she could once more see the beast, not as it appeared, but as it truly was: a formless shadow that pulsed and throbbed with darkness. She traced the flowing black tendrils that extended from its body, linking it to the shifting throne room.

“Oh, this will most entertaining,” the nightmare remarked, voice no longer coming from its serpentine mouth but the room itself, the stones trembling with its deep, rumbling bass.

“You don’t scare me,” Fluttershy stated, her conviction wavering ever so slightly as she heard the stonework groan, threatening to collapse around them.

Spiderwebs of cracks shot through out the stonework as a deep, throaty rumble surrounded the lone pegasus.

“But you should be.” The tremors of the beast’s laughter shook the room to its very foundations as the shadow expanded ever larger before, without warning, it cracked apart. “Only a mad pony wouldn’t be…”

The room split right down the middle, the walls and windows snapping into twisted shards that burst outwards, leaving only the barest structure remaining as a few stray columns and the entrance were still rooted to the relatively intact floor by vines.

Fluttershy glanced about, eyes wide as the forces of gravity seemed lost to this world, bits of the former room hovering as remote islands in a sea of endless dark.

“For you see, dear Fluttershy,” the serpent began, “you are in my domain now.”

Author's Note:

[revised 08-24-2014]

Comments

[UseFistNotMouth]

Well I was about to go to sleep...
F*** that apparently.
With all the fics that updated after super long breaks in the last couple days I'm running out of gifs to express my joygasms...
3.bp.blogspot.com/-fVwHY5FBLQU/Ty6E7AeaojI/AAAAAAAAdxk/Bb_wtfeABZ0/s1600/125350+-+animated+bed+bedroom+books+duplicate+leg_wiggle+rainbow_dash+reading+Read_It_And_Weep.gif

Oh and thanks for that Mother Russia link. That was epic.

[Ivo]

OH MY GOSH!
When I saw this updated I just was like:-->

Anyway: Now after I read it I just can say:
This was epic as ever!
I am really looking forward for where this is going now!

And don´t apology for taking so long! You know the proverb:
Haste makes waste...

[UseFistNotMouth]

337742

The pony version is haste makes paste...

[FanOfMostEverything]

You are an evil, evil tease, you know that?

Looking forward to more.