Remarkable: Dust in your Eyes · 8:27pm Dec 3rd, 2015
She was running. Where to, she wasn't sure.
She had to make it. Had to reach her.
Had to reach who?
Dark skies, roiling clouds. Crystals, left and right. Crystals!
She wasn't supposed to be here! She recognized this place, but she had never been!
Had she?
Ponies running scared. To the left and the right. Crystal ponies! Unmasked, and unchained, free ponies, running for their lives.
She had to hurry. The heart she had carved had broken, they needed the real one, fast.
Twilight would find it. She'd never let them down.
... she really WAS speaking the truth!
A bright light, emitting from a great tower in the distance. And rising up from it, glowing brighter...
and brighter...
and BRIGHTER-
Big Macintosh jumped as he heard a scream, shooting his head up out of sheets in the darkness of night. Scrabbling to his hooves, the stallion thundered out of his bedroom, and kicked in the door to Applejack's.
The mare had fallen out of bed, her mane loose about her face, gasping and crying as she held her hooves over her eyes. Dashing and kneeling beside her, he shook her shoulder. "AJ? AJ! Are you alright?"
"A-ah!... B-Big Mac! Ah... A-Ah don't know! Ah can't... there's somethin' wrong with me! C-can y' see anythin'?!" She lowered her hooves, looked up, and opened her eyes.
Mac had to squint, turning his head away. Applejack's eyes were glowing, a blinding, unearthly white. Raising a hoof to shield his face, he struggled to find words. "Yer... yer blindin' me AJ. Somethin's going on with your eyes!"
"Ah'm... Ah'm seein' things, Big Mac..." she whispered, her irises and pupils washed out and invisible in the glow. "Things ah... ah, ah think ah did, but... but ah'd never done! Ah... Ah'm in th' Crystal Empire! Runnin'... runnin' to find somepony!"
"What?" Her brother asked, incredulous, trying to look at her past the glow. "AJ, that's crazy talk!"
"Ah know... but it's happenin'! Ah... ah'm remembering it! Ah can see... oh Celestia that's not... Oh it is, it's that dragon! Spike's got the Crystal Heart!"
"Crystal Heart?" Mac repeated, getting up on his hooves, holding his foreleg up higher as the glow began to intensify.
"Ah'm... There's a crystal! It's... oh sweet Goddess in heaven it's Sombra! He's gonna get him! He's gonna-!... wait... who is that?... that's not that purple... no, this one's pink. She looks like Luna, B-But... oh goddess, she saved him! She... th-that heart! Is this-... Oh! OH My goddess! CADANCE!"
The light seemed to flood the room, pouring out from the mare's eye sockets. It held for a few seconds more, before with a flash, it vanished, leaving behind a normal night, Luna's moon shining through an open window.
They were still for a good minute after that. At length, AJ sat upright, and rubbed at her eyes once more, groaning... before giving a gasp. "Cadance! We have t' get Princess Cadance! She's th' only hope we have of winnin' th' war!"
A good few seconds passed before the stallion popped the question. "... Who's Princess Cadance?"
"... ah... Ah have no idea!" The mare deflated, an expression of hopelessness upon her face. "Ah just... ah don't know how, Big Mac, but ah remembered it happening. How Sombra was defeated. It was that pink alicorn, with a crystal heart, an' somehow ah know her name an' Spike's name an' ah know Twilight's there somewhere and Rarity was makin' silly hats and oh GODDESS I CAN'T GET THIS DUST OUT OF MY EYES!" Her hooves shot up again, rubbing furiously.
Mac sat down beside her, and gently grasped her forelegs. "Calm down, sis, calm down. It's over now. It's over an' done with... Go wash yer face, Applejack. It might help. After all that... ah have no idea what t' rightly make of all that y' just said." He rubbed her shoulders, trying to soothe her, ease her breathing. "Ah... ah cain't say ah know what's goin' on here, but it's not gonna be much help to us, if y' don't know more, is it?"
AJ mumbled, before nodding, her eyes bloodshot. Getting to her hooves, she gently stepped towards her door. "Ah don't even know if it... if ah really saw what ah saw. Ah mean... it all felt so real... Big Mac?" She looked behind her, worried. "What if it happens again?"
He returned the look, silent, before replying. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, sis... all ah've got t' say right now is, don't worry about it. Put it outta your mind. We're busy enough as it is tryin' to support the Equestrian Guard... we don't need wild visions tryin' t' complicate things too..." he gave a sigh of his own, lowered his head, shook it from side to side, before standing up again. "Go ahead, get washed up. Tomorrow's going to be a busy day."
She nodded, her expression downcast as she proceeded to make headway towards the restroom. Even as she walked, the stallion could hear the defeated tone in her voice. "... tomorrow is always a busy day."
Something happened to the other instances of the Map of Harmony. This is certainly the most interesting answer to that unasked question that I've seen thus far. I can only imagine what it did to Nightmare Moon...
Oh wow, I like it.
You've still got it, Conner.
Sad that I can't give this post a like. But, here's the best that I can do otherwise.
