Twilight scowled at Grey Thorn: “How do you know somepony’s missing?”
Grey Thorn tipped his head to one side and opened his eyes: “Well, if they were merely dead the errand colt would have taken care of them and filled you in on the boring details, yes?”
Twilight bit her lip: “I suppose so, yes.”
“So who is it?”
“A friend of mine named Zecora. She was leading the team sent to retrieve your awful creation, when there was an accident, and she was pulled inside it.”
Grey Thorn shrugged: “So she is dead, then…”
“No--she was pulled in intact through a tear or breach in the surface of that thing. I collapsed and restrained it, and could tell she was fighting from the other side to do the same. She’s alive.”
Grey Thorn furrowed his brow: “‘Restrained it how? How was it breached in the first place?”
Noble Steel stepped forward: “Zecora struck it point-blank with a fully-charged crystal lance as it was stripping Solar Gleam of his essence. The lance exploded, tearing open the surface, enveloping her in the blast. She was pulled inside as the Void collapsed inward around the breach.”
Grey Thorn chewed his lip for a few moments: “It has never been directly attacked before. How did it it respond?”
“It broke free of the suppression field Reaper had put around it earlier, then surged, and my commander, another pegasus and I took a second pass at it, trying to hit it from multiple directions…”
A cold smile spread across Grey Thorn’s lips: “But?”
Noble closed his eyes as his ears drooped: “It all went sideways--Smudge was killed, the Captain had a wing torn off and I was blown across the cave.”
He turned to Twilight: “Shatter and I would have died with Smudge if Twilight hadn’t saved us.”
“Touching. Then how did you escape my creation?”
Twilight touched Noble gently with a wing tip: “I stopped time.”
Grey Thorn raised an eyebrow: “Impressive for one of your tender years! Even I never mastered the intricacies of stopping time for more than a few moments.”
Twilight sighed heavily: “I was invested with Death’s power, and at the moment Smudge died I was able to suspend everything in the immediate area.”
She looked pointedly at Grey Thorn: “I believe you’ve already experienced the effect.”
Grey Thorn glowered: “Yes. And now I perceive the answer to a question that’s been nagging me for some time--how is it that you're alive? The Harbinger himself must have resurrected you.”
Twilight nodded: “And imbued me with half his power in the process.”
“Luna as well, I take it.”
“Yes. That’s why they were on another world: they were trying to get his power back.”
“Clearly they succeeded, but for a time you had his power, and it must have manifested for you to use it like that.”
She shuddered: “I was the Harbinger for a time, until they returned successfully. He, umm, took back his power, then.”
Grey Thorn raised an eyebrow: “A story for another time, clearly. For now, I’d like to know--”
Twilight interrupted: “I need to know some things first! I need to know if we can communicate inside that thing, how to open it, how to--”
Grey Thorn cut her off in turn: “I believe I have the advantage, here, and you will tell me what I want to know, first. Then I may repay you with a bit of insight or intelligence.”
Twilight’s ears drooped: “Dammit, we don’t have time for this, I need--”
“I have all the time in the world, such as it is. Your friend will die at some point no matter what you do, and from my perspective, it will happen quite soon, whether it’s a few days or a few decades. I’m a patient specter.”
Twilight closed her eyes and bit her lip: “Fine. What do you want to know?”
Grey Thorn tipped his head sideways: “Oh, many things, but the thing of greatest interest to me right now is how you mastered my creation.”
Twilight took a deep breath and opened her eyes slowly: “I sensed Smudge’s imminent death, and appeared in the cavern where Zecora and her team were fighting the Void. I saw--”
“No--show me.”
Twilight furrowed her brow: “Show you?”
“Yes. You are--well, were, rather--a unicorn of some ability, yes? So I assume you have acquired the skill of projection. This place is a realm of shadows and phantasms and waking dreams.”
Twilight glanced around furtively: “Yes--I’ve noticed.”
Grey Thorn smiled wanly: “It’s a part of the dark, punishing charm of this place. As a result a projection of your memories should be especially vivid.”
Twilight licked her lips nervously: “That’s what I’m afraid of…”
“Show me the moment you wrestled with my creation and took control.”
Twilight sighed as her horn began to glow a pale lavender, and a shimmering image formed in the air above and before her. She was back in the cavern, the cacophonous scene cutting swiftly from crisis to crisis: roof collapsing on Noble Steel, Shatter hurtling past in a spray of blood and feathers, Smudge’s last breath rattling in her throat.
Twilight furrowed her brow, and Noble shrank back against a rough archway as the interim Harbinger’s boomed out her word of power and the whole awful spectacle froze.
Grey Thorn’s eyes widened while the point-of-view shifted from place to place as Twilight resolved Smudge, Noble, Shatter and Solar Gleam, coming to rest on the swelling, surging Void at last.
“But I am no normal, living pony!”
Twilight winced as she watched her past self cut her wrists, the blood welling and dripping before being sucked away by the Void’s dark tendrils. Her horn coursed with pulses and blooms of dark magic.
Grey Thorn’s eyes flicked swiftly between the projected vision of Twilight’s magic and crimson-wrapped sword seizing control of the Void, and the reaction of the living, quivering, panting Twilight before him.
“I bind you now to my will!”
Grey Thorn narrowed his eyes as vision-Twilight traced out bloody glyphs on the floor in front of the Void: “Stop! Suspend this memory!”
Twilight started and took in a sharp breath through flared nostrils. The image froze: “What? Why?”
Grey Thorn strained against the spectral bars of his cage: “What are those symbols you traced in blood? The image is blurred.”
“Shoiman’s glyphs.”
Grey Thorn tipped his head to one side: “Concerning Pony Longevity or Glyphs of Warding?”
“Glyphs of Warding. I don’t, umm, have access to Concerning Pony Longevity anymore.”
“And you scribed them in the right order, under duress, from memory? I assume it was from memory--I see no notes.”
Twilight bit her lip and turned back toward the paused vision: “I actually memorized the entire tome.”
Grey Thorn’s eyebrows jumped: “You memorized Glyphs in the short time you must have had it? Impressive! And even that tome would not have explicitly told you the order of scribing.”
“No, it doesn’t. I had worked out the basics a few days earlier, but had to take a chance that I was going to get it right at the moment I used the spell.”
Grey Thorn nodded: “Finish the scene. I assume it ends shortly.”
Twilight sighed and the scene resumed with the Void contracting, glistening and throwing off beams of violet and black energy. The vision dimmed as Twilight-in-the-past dropped to the floor, exhausted and groggy, unsteadily tracking the descending Void on its path to the cave floor.
“Not this time!”
Twilight took a deep, shuddering breath and closed her eyes as the the Void settled into its restraining basin again. The vision flickered and faded away as Twilight’s horn went dark.
“That’s it. Have you seen enough?”
“Yes, though it raised more questions than it answered. But I only have one, right now.”
Twilight opened her eyes, turned toward Grey Thorn and glared: “I showed you what you wanted to see, now you have to answer my question!”
Grey Thorn smiled: “Strictly speaking I never really asked a question. I will now, or perhaps you can come back later.”
Twilight ground her teeth: “Fine. Ask.”
Grey Thorn leaned back and slowly closed his eyes: “When you backed away, after plunging your horn into my creation’s surface, and scribed the glyphs, it appears that you rose into the air as you achieved domination.”
“That’s not a question.”
Grey Thorn chuckled: “True. When you entered the final stage of mastery, at the moment of maximum tension, as the balance tipped to your favor, did you experience some sort of release? It certainly appeared so from this perspective.”
Twilight’s ears drooped and she glanced away: “Wh-what are you talking about?”
Grey Thorn opened his eyes: “I had that experience many times--a sense of nearly unbearable tension, then sudden, shocking release. It often left me quite lightheaded, and occasionally I might vomit or nearly faint, but frequently I would climax. I kept a cloth in my satchel for just such an occurrence.”
He grinned and nodded toward Twilight’s flank: “Of course, that really wouldn’t be an issue for you. So, what of you? What did you feel, Princess?”
Twilight shifted nervously; Noble closed his eyes and fought off a sudden wave of vertigo.
“Well?”
Twilight chewed her lip for a few moments: “Y-Yes. I had an orgasm.”
A thin smile spread across Grey Thorn’s face: “And did you fight to prolong it?”
Twilight blushed and swallowed, her mouth dry: “Yes. The rush of blood, the feel of power flowing from me and into me from the Void. I was wracked with waves of energy and...and…”
“Pleasure.”
Her voice fell to a whisper: “Yes.”
“And did it surprise you?”
Twilight squeezed her eyes shut and fought to regain control of her trembling legs. She slowed her breathing and flared her wings for a moment.
Grey Thorn leaned forward against his cage: “Did it? Did it shock you, shame you?”
“No--not really.”
“How so?”
“Because I had felt something very much like it just minutes before.”
Grey Thorn arched an eyebrow: “Really? Tell me about--”
Twilight stamped a hoof: “No! My turn! Is there a way into that damned thing? Can it be the way out?”
Grey Thorn’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment, then the haughty smile returned to his ghostly lips: “That’s really two questions, but I’ll let it go, since they’re obviously opposite sides of the same coin.”
Twilight rolled her eyes: “How magnanimous of you.”
“As for ‘in,’ of course there’s a way in--at least there used to be. Naturally I had to get in and out of it frequently during its construction.”
“It’s constructed? Like a machine?”
Grey Thorn wagged a hoof: “Ah, ah, ah--no cheating! We’ll discuss that later! As I was saying, I would enter it frequently in the beginning, but not once it was fully-functioning. After that I know it would open a sort of port or rift, enough to draw in essences--”
“Or whole bodies…”
“Yes, or even entire bodies, occasionally…”
“Green Streak and Top Cover.”
“Celestia’s doomed flyers, I take it.”
“Yes.”
Grey Thorn shrugged: “The fools got too close, as apparently did your friend.”
“Can she get out the same way?”
“And here’s why I let you ask a double question: I doubt it, but I do not know.”
“What?”
“The entity that dwells at the heart of my creation--really is the heart, in many ways--has its own interconnection to the shell that forms the external presence. I don’t know how, or where it makes that connection.”
“Wait--so you don’t know how that fucking thing works?!”
Grey Thorn steepled his hooves: ”I didn’t say that. I said I don’t know precisely how it is merged with the outer, shall we say, manifestation of my creation.”
“So how, precisely, did you make this thing in the first place?”
Grey Thorn shook his head: “That’s a new question. To finish the last question, I don’t know if the interconnection physically expresses in such a way to allow for a living thing to pass through it.”
“But it might?”
Grey Thorn shrugged: “I never thought about it. And now I think we’re done for the time being.”
“No--I still have a lot more questions!”
Grey Thorn’s lips bent again in a cold smile as he tipped his horn toward Noble Steel, still slumped against the archway, breathing heavily: “I believe that’s enough for today. I don’t think your companion is looking too good.”
Twilight glanced at Noble and gritted her teeth: “Fine. I’ll be back soon, and you’d better be ready to give me more.”
“Tit for tat, Princess--I have quite a list of new topics to explore based on our little talk, so far. It’s been fascinating, and I look forward to learning more about, well, a lot of things, to use your phrase.”
Twilight glared at Grey Thorn as she turned toward Noble: “I need more, and I need it fast!”
She walked over to Steel and pulled him away from the archway: “Wake up, wingpony--we have to get you out of here for a bit.”
Noble shook his head clear and squinted at Twilight: “How many hops back to the surface?”
“One to the wall where we phase, two after that, then we levitate up the shaft. We should be back out in about fifteen minutes. You OK to go?”
The unicorn nodded weakly: “Y-yeah. I just need a breather, then we can come back and get some real answers.”
He turned unsteadily toward Grey Thorn: “This bastard’s using you, Twilight…”
Twilight’s eyes hardened as she glanced over her shoulder: “Yes. And I’m using him; tit for tat, isn’t that right, G.T.?”
They disappeared in a violet flash, leaving Grey Thorn alone. He smiled and turned back toward the area where Twilight had been projecting. His phantom horn glowed a pale gold, and Twilight’s memories flickered again before him, hanging in the air like shimmering, multi-hued gossamer.
“Tit for tat, Princess…”