Chapter Five
Fulfillment
===============
Daybreak Aurora lounged on Celestia's former throne, wearing a broad, pompous grin. She looked to her right. “Magnificent, isn't it? I think this decor suits my new kingdom perfectly. Don't you, Celestia?”
“Twilight,” Celestia choked between sobs. “What have you done with her?”
“No harm has come to them.” Daybreak rose and strutted toward the entrapped Celestia without so much as glancing at Luna on the throne's opposite side. “They have merely become pieces in a little game I'm playing.”
Celestia gave the most burning glare she could, but her bloodshot eyes betrayed her exhaustion. “And what game is that?”
Daybreak took several steps forward, making sure her frame was in full view of Celestia. She puffed out her chest. “Energy. Power. It is what I have sought my whole life. My affinity for magic surpassed not only those around me, but those who came before and after me as well. It was my destiny, my purpose.”
She paced in front of her captives. “And when you realized I would surpass you, you were afraid of what destiny would bring.” Daybreak leaned close to Celestia and licked her lips with her forked tongue. “Welcome to the future. You have tried to stop it, but you were only temporarily successful. Nopony can stop it now. You expelled me under the guise of being blinded by my own desire. That brings us to my little game.”
She turned and blew a ring of green flame. It slowly billowed forth until it formed an archway a dozen feet before them. With a snap of Daybreak's fingers, a scene filled the flaming arch like an enormous looking glass. Within, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rarity stood in one of Canterlot's old dungeons that had not seen use in several centuries. They were all in a stupor, standing in place with their eyes closed and drooling mouths hanging open.
“Twilight!” Celestia yelled.
“Soon,” Daybreak said, “you will see those you lauded as the saviours of Equestria—even your precious teacher's pet—are not above the flaws you damned me for. They will spend the rest of their natural lives languishing in a world I have fabricated from their own dreams. And you will watch them all slowly wither away. Perhaps then you will appreciate the extent of your mistake.”
Celestia's expression grew earnest. “Spike, I know you're still in there somewhere. You have to fight this. Daybreak is going to tear Equestria apart, and you're the only one who can—”
A loud thwack resonated in the room. A bright red mark blemished Celestia's face where Daybreak had struck her. “Silence! Your words are wasted. It's like your endless, insufferable lectures. It is a wonder that I survived my fillyhood after the countless occasions you nearly bored me to death.” She raised a finger and shot a small bolt of magic that scorched the tip of Celestia's snout, eliciting a small yelp.
“Don't you dare lay another claw on my sister!” Luna said.
Daybreak's eyes narrowed, and her tail swished as she approached Luna. “Oh, of course. Where are my manners? I believe we have never properly met.” She cupped Luna's muzzle in her hand and stroked it as she would a dog's. Luna bared her teeth and snarled. “You were oddly never around when I lived in my pony form. Where were you, again? Ah, that's right. You were you sister's favourite moon decoration, much like you are my favourite throne room decoration... no, you are only my second-favourite, behind your dear sister. Just like the old days.”
“Free me and say that again.” The venom in Luna's voice was potent enough to wither flowers, but all Daybreak did was chuckle.
“What's the point? Even combined, your powers are no match for mine.” Daybreak's draconic eyes glittered with malice. “What chance could you possibly have alone?”
Luna spat at Daybreak, barely missing her. “Try me.”
Daybreak tutted and waggled her finger. “Such insolence, Luna. I suppose you have a penchant for picking fights with those whose powers far surpass your own. I thought you'd have learned your lesson while trapped in the moon for a thousand years. Perhaps you needed a thousand more.”
Luna closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. A feeble white glow surrounded her horn, but the crystal did not so much as crack.
“How adorable,” Daybreak said. “Your new accommodations are made from my magic. Short of me allowing you to go free, it would take a force stronger than me to break them—which, thanks to my new body, simply isn't possible. You can try to break it until you're blue in the face—oh.” She threw her head back and laughed, her voice booming off the walls.
“You will not prevail, Daybreak. You will never prevail,” Celestia said.
“Oh?” Daybreak rounded on her. “It looks to me like I already have.”
“Surely you are aware of the events of the last two years. Thanks to the efforts of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, Equestria has survived far worse than the likes of you.” Celestia's voice bore the strength of tempered steel. “Holding us here will upset the natural order. If the moon remains in the sky for too long without the sun to keep the world in balance, your kingdom will become nothing more than a frozen wasteland, devoid of all life. Then who will you oppress? Your victory tonight is as empty as your heart.”
Daybreak gave her a slow, mocking clap. “Oh, bravo, Celestia. I see that even in your situation, you not only remain quite the orator, but are capable of bluffing with a straight face. That's right—I call your bluff. You think either the unicorns have forgotten how to manipulate the celestial bodies, or would be unwilling to do it with you as my prisoner. Once again, you underestimate the extent of the magic I command. For somepony as supposedly wise as you, that is a surprising lapse in judgment.”
Daybreak raised her right hand into the air and balled it into a fist. Magic radiated from her horns like slow-rising steam, and her eyes glowed white. She pulled her hand down. Its descent was slow, and it shook as if it tugged an immense weight. As her fist lowered, the moon sank behind the horizon, plunging the throne room into total darkness, save for the glow of Daybreak's magic and the flaming oval outline of the magic looking glass.
Daybreak sneered at the horror-stricken Celestia as she opened her left palm and pushed it toward the ceiling. Is it reached neck-height, warm, orange fingers of sunlight poked into the room. “As you can see,” she said, the magic around her fading, “it's... daybreak.”
Celestia finally managed to say, “But how?”
“Dragons are mighty creatures,” Daybreak said. She folded her arms. “Even a wingless whelp such as Spike is dragonkin. But the dragons have one weakness: they possess no magic. Truth be told, I could not predict what would happen when I merged my essence with his body. But, with him as my vessel—my conduit—the results speak for themselves.”
“You're an abomination.”
Daybreak zapped Celestia's snout again. “I am beautiful!” she bellowed. “Now...” Her voice returned to its measured arrogance as she strutted toward the flaming magical glass and gestured at the six ponies within. “I think it's time you see the world through their eyes.” She snapped her fingers.
What Celestia saw made the blood freeze in her veins.
* * *
Wind whistled through dozens of decrepit windows, their grimy glass panes rattling within rotten wooden frames in thick stony slits. The frigid gusts curled around countless bookshelves carved from rock and stirred the hairs on Twilight Sparkle's mane. She sat huddled in a pile of blankets, muzzle buried in a foot-thick tome whose yellowed pages spoke of ancient unicorn history, fables, traditions, and customs from the Vanhoover region three thousand years prior to the city's founding. Apart from the foggy white light bleeding through the windows, an ornate lantern in the shape of a unicorn horn illuminated her surroundings, the flames' light flickering between the spirals.
She sat in the middle of a library whose name time had long forgotten. It was an ageless place beyond her wildest fantasies. Hidden within a mountain deep in the Frozen North, it had taken Twilight years to locate. But after consuming all the knowledge in the Canterlot Archives, she had to have more. This repository of pre-Celestia lore would sate her hunger for decades to come.
Twilight sat nestled between two bookshelves that stood forty feet tall and stretched for hundreds of yards. They were curved and meticulously carved from the stone that comprised the entire structure. Rows upon rows of these shelves formed rings with periodical gaps that allowed both easy access from one ring to another, and paths toward the rectangular windows at the room's edge. A round table with stalagmite-like chairs sat in the centre next to a tight spiral staircase that spanned the library's dozens of floors.
The structure itself was hewn from an uncharted mountaintop. Twilight's provisions had run out shortly after her arrival, but she found the topmost floor—the custodian's quarters—contained a pantry that always seemed to replenish itself with fresh food whenever she opened it on an empty stomach, and a water basin and sink with levers that pumped fresh glacial water.
The days were no longer days to Twilight. Her only perception of time was the closing of one book and the opening of another. She had to sleep several times before she made it more than a few pages through the first book she eased open; the language was antiquated and rife with words that had long fallen out of use or had their meaning or spelling changed entirely.
She occasionally hummed to herself over the wind's constant howl. Now that she had grown used to the language, it had a sort of music to it that contemporary speech lacked. The unread portion of her current book only came up to her fetlocks. She grinned. It would be easy to finish this book and perhaps start on the next before she had to retire for sleep.
A sharp crack tore through the air, as if the stone floor itself had split open in front of her. She yelped and sprang to her hooves. Between the shelves ahead, a gash-like tear had appeared in reality itself. The starry blackness of space lay between its jagged edges. Without warning, it stretched open like a sideways gaping maw. Before Twilight could react, it surged forward and swallowed her whole. In a flash, her surroundings vanished.
Twilight floated in a void with only what looked like distant stars providing illumination. She was weightless, a sailless ship drifting in a still ocean. It's like I'm in space, she thought. But how can I breathe if that's the case? Her mind could produce no logical explanation.
Another jagged tear appeared in front of her, but this one made no sound. It morphed and shifted into the form of an alicorn. In a flash of light, the black outline took the shape of Princess Luna. She wore a baleful expression.
Twilight blinked and shook her head. “W-what? How?”
“What is the meaning of this, Princess Twilight Sparkle? Luna's voice boomed. The lack of walls to provide an echo befitting such a loud and commanding voice left an eerie feeling.
“I'm studying.” The lack of conviction in Twilight's voice took her by surprise.
“At the expense of what?”
She did not understand what Luna meant, so she shrugged.
Luna shook her head in palpable disgust. “The Princess of Friendship spends her time rotting within an abandoned library, obliviously passing the time whilst Equestria burns.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Don't you? Your royal title implies you would surround yourself with other ponies. Tell me—how many visitors has this library had, the two of us aside, in the last thousand years?”
Twilight stared past Luna. Something about her words struck a chord, but which chord, she did not know.
“Then you truly are lost,” Luna continued. “Daybreak Aurora was correct. You are no better than she.”
Daybreak Aurora... Somehow, the name sounded familiar, though she could not place it. “I... I don't understand.”
“Then allow me to show you what has become of the world while you were encapsulated in your little bubble of books and endless research.” Luna closed her eyes, and the void shimmered.
Twilight still felt no gravity, but her surroundings had changed. She floated above a procession of ponies, all burdened with massive saddlebags, marching toward Canterlot Castle. It would have looked like an army had it not been for the lack of uniforms or weapons and the presence of fillies and colts among the mares and stallions. Ahead, flanking the approach to the mountainside trail leading to the capitol, two statues towered some three hundred feet high.
They cast intimidating shadows on the approaching ponies. They depicted the same creature standing tall with one hand clenched into a fist by its belly and the other with an open palm facing the approaching ponies as if to ward off would-be attackers. The creature, which almost resembled a dragon, had long, slender limbs that suggested femininity. Several spikes protruded from each, and its head inexplicably had what looked like a unicorn horn.
The land around the castle, which Twilight remembered as lush green plains of grass, checkered wheat fields, and winding rivers, was now nothing more than a brown, lifeless stretch of terrain that could only be described as a desolation. She looked to the statues again. “That... that's Daybreak Aurora, isn't it?” she found herself saying.
“Indeed,” Luna said, floating beside her. “After she usurped the throne, she transformed our once beautiful kingdom into... this. My sister and I could only watch, and you had long since disappeared into the Canterlot Archives to pursue what you called 'a higher education.'”
Guilt made Twilight want to stare at the ground, but she could not tear her eyes from the statues or the ponies marching toward the castle like drones. “What are they doing?”
“Observing custom. Gone are the Summer Sun Celebration and Nightmare Night. Now, the only day of jubilation—if you are deluded enough to call it that—is known as The Light of Dawn.”
“The Light of Dawn?”
“Hardly a fitting name. It marks the anniversary of Daybreak's ascension to the throne. On this day, all her subjects are to bring gifts worthy of her splendour.” Disgust curled Luna's words. “Anypony who dares not attend, or brings a gift she deems unworthy, faces a life sentence of slave labour. Those statues serve as a reminder of that.”
Twilight retched and would have vomited, had she eaten in the past eight hours. The shock sent her memories tumbling back into her mind. They flickered in her eyes in an accelerated slideshow: Spike leaving the library; Rarity storming in with the diamond; her earnest journey to Canterlot; Celestia's tale of Daybreak Aurora; Spike eating the diamond; Daybreak possessing his body and using it to conquer Equestria. “I... I have to do something!”
Luna disappeared and reappeared in front of her. She wore a grim smile. “Only you have the power to save yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“None of this is real. It is an illusion fashioned by Daybreak herself. You and your friends' minds are trapped within it. As long as you are content with your situations—a twisted paradise of your greatest desires taken to their most extreme ends—you will remain imprisoned by your own yearnings forever. You must reject it.”
Twilight felt her throat constrict. Give up the lost library? The books were so captivating, she could not fathom the idea. But the state of the land and the statues—and the knowledge of how they had been built—formed an anvil around her neck. She closed her eyes. The library had brought her so much simple joy, for it was a fountain of knowledge from which she could drink forever, but what was once pure, cool water turned to bile on her tongue when she considered the price of her paradise.
“I'm ready, but... how did you get here?” Twilight could not believe it had taken her this long to ask that question.
Luna's grin became mischievous. “You have made the same mistake Daybreak Aurora did: underestimating me. Because I was banished during her lifetime, she thinks me weak. She never did learn of my dreamwalking powers. Presently, Daybreak thinks I am attempting to escape my crystal prison, whereas in reality I have entered her illusion and put my own special touch on it. To Daybreak, you are still in that library. When you awaken, you will be able to re-enter this world like I have by tapping your horn against your friends' heads and listening.”
“Where are they? In this world, I mean.”
“I do not know,” Luna said. “And I cannot simply shatter the illusion myself. It would alert Daybreak, and she would recreate the illusion and make sure I could not interfere again. I must focus my power on keeping her thinking that there is nothing irregular occurring in this world. Therefore, the task of locating them and convincing them to leave falls to you, Twilight Sparkle. They are your friends, and you know them best.”
Determination filled Twilight with renewed strength. “I am the Princess of Friendship. It's the only way out of here, and the only way for us to challenge Daybreak, since brute force won't work. I won't let her win, Princess Luna.”
Luna drifted backward and nodded. “No, you will not.” With that, she phased out of sight in a blur of bent reality.
Twilight closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. She concentrated as hard as she could. “All the knowledge in Equestria isn't worth abandoning my friends for. Nothing is.” Her voice grew louder with each word she spoke. “I don't want it. I don't want any of it!” she screamed.
The sound of a thousand shattering panes of glass tore into her ears. Her head spun, and she felt like a barrel caught in a massive whirlpool. Her side hit something cold and hard. Vertigo slammed into her brain.
She cracked her eyes open, and things finally began to stop spinning. She lay on her side in the middle of a dank dungeon made of stone. Judging from the moss, decay, and stench, it had not seen use in many, many years. The only way out was a barred steel door to her left. A pair of torches illuminated the dreary room. Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie, and Rainbow stood in various spots in front of her, unmoving. They all wore the same listless expression. Their eyes were closed, and their jaws slack.
Twilight stood. Where was Applejack? A quiet sob from behind answered her silent question. She spun around and saw her friend huddled in a corner, face buried in her Stetson. Twilight approached, her hooves making an echoing clack with each step.
“Applejack? You're awake? But how?”
Her friend continued sobbing as if she were not there.
Twilight knelt beside her. She placed a forehoof on her shoulder and gave a gentle nudge. “Applejack? Hey, it's me, Twilight. Are you awake?”
Applejack tilted her hat up just enough for their eyes to meet, and then lowered it again. Her eyes were red.
“What's wrong? Surely you were in Daybreak's dream world. What did you see?” Twilight did her best to soften her voice with hushed sincerity. Applejack quivered beneath her touch. Twilight could not stop herself from shuddering. “Applejack, please, speak to me. I'm here. Whatever nightmare she put you through is over. It's really me.”
Applejack let her hat drop to the floor. She gave Twilight a blank stare with puffy eyes. “I...” her voice came choked and feeble. “I saw my parents.”