//------------------------------// // What lies at the end of the journey? // Story: The end of the world // by TwiwnB //------------------------------// A friend of mine once told me she used to wonder about the purpose of her life. So used to many of her own friends. So used to many members of her family. I have to admit it: so I used to as well. Yet we humans aren’t the only one to ask such questions and even in the happy and simple world of Equestria, some among the most curious have at least once wondered what the purpose of their own world might be. One was a purple colored alicorn, for whom the unknown was just an invitation to discover something new and amazing. The other one was a unicorn, a bit more reserved, a little more pragmatic in her approach and yet she was the one who had asked the question first: “Twilight?” Starlight had asked the alicorn. “Why are we doing all of this?” Twilight had taken her head out of the huge book she had fallen asleep reading and realizing she was indeed the one being addressed, had replied something along the lines of: “Huh, what? No, sure, I’m awake.” But after a bit of blushing and the time to come back to her senses, Twilight admitted she didn’t know: “There is just so much to do, I never considered the question…” Starlight let out a sigh, looked down to her left hoof before telling Twilight: “Yeah, me too. At least until this morning. But I had a nightmare…” Starlight started to explain. She had gone to bed as usual, the head full of new lessons, full of new challenges and full of all the fun she had had during the day. She had the head of a pony living in the magical land of Equestria. Little worries and yet so many new little adventures that it overwhelmed her and forced her to a well-deserved sleep. It had been black for a while, then pink, then images had appeared and gone away for a long while. She went from dream to dream without any worry until, at some point, the image stabilized and she found herself in her room in the crystal castle. It wasn’t exactly her room, the dimensions were all wrong, the colors didn’t correspond, but she didn’t notice it. She got out of the bed, didn’t wonder why she couldn’t feel the floor under her hooves, and went to the door. She tried to use the handle, but her hoof slipped again and again over the surface, taking parts of the handle away that turned to dust. She stopped and looked closer as she slightly pushed with her hoof against the handle. She observed the firm metal give in and turn into dust too before falling to the ground. Starlight put her hoof back, but the handle kept on decomposing and soon the whole door as well as the walls all around and the very floor under her hoofs turned to dust too. She could see the, beyond the disappearing walls, all of Ponyville turning to sand too. The houses and the ponies inside them, the trees and the ponies beneath them, the mountains and all of her friends under them. The background sky itself turned to sand and started to fall down toward the ground in a gigantic cascade. She tried to back away and escape, but her hooves were trapped in the sand. She struggled to break free and felt herself sink as she got slowly gobbled by the sandy ground. She tried to call for help but in place of sound, only sand came out of her mouth. She was thirsty, she was tired and at that moment, she first heard the voice. “You failed.” Starlight tried to defend herself, but again no sound could come out and even as she was about to start crying, she felt the lack of water burn the corners of her eyes, as only the thousands of salty grains came down onto her cheeks. “You failed.” The voice said again. Startlight tried one last time to free herself, but her torso was already halfway inside the ground. She tried one last time to speak, but she could feel that her jaw too had turned into sand. “You failed.” The voice said. Starlight was about to give up and let the sand consume her too, but another more familiar voice made itself heard, freezing in place all the grains of sands and breaking the hold on Starlight’s body. “Do not be afraid, Starlight Glimmer.” Starlight looked around and saw princess Luna emerge from a curtain of sand to which she seemed completely immune.  Starlight stopped her story and watched how Twilight’s face had suddenly changed when she had mentioned the princess of the night. It was obvious Twilight had become way more interested in the story now that one of the royal sisters was there, but there was also something else hidden in the back of Twilight’s eyes. Starlight could notice it because she had seen it in her own eyes for years everytime she had looked into a mirror. There was that little spark of jealousy, the feeling that it should have been you. “Has… I mean… did princess Luna ever visit you in your dreams?” Starlight asked. Twilight looked away and hugged the huge book she had been supposed to read as one would a cushion. “No, she never has.” Twilight replied. “I guess my dreams aren’t interesting enough…” “Come now Twilight.” Starlight said back, trying to comfort her. “I’m sure you have a very imaginative mind. She is probably too shy to disturb the princess of friendship during her sleep.” “You dream of the world turning into a nightmarish desert!” Twilight responded with a harsher tone that she had intended. Starlight didn’t know what to respond, so she just let a silence take possession of the room for a while. Then Twilight added: “I just dream that the seven of us go to the library, find a good book and go read it together near the little lake… it’s usually just very pleasant and boring.” Another silence ensued. Starlight looked at the ceiling to find any idea of what to say next without much luck. She refrained a yawn and decided to go back to her original story. “So, anyway… princess Luna explained to me that I was probably just feeling guilty about failure and afraid that my failure would make us all fail to achieve our common goal in the future. Also, she said I should probably leave my window open and dust my room a bit more often, or at the very least go drink before I go to bed…” Twilight took the opportunity and asked to know what the connection was with Starlight’s original question. “Well, I asked princess Luna how she knew I wouldn’t make everyone fail and she simply laughed. So I asked her to at least tell me what my role was in achieving our common goal, and she looked embarrassed. I pressed her a bit more and she just told me something vague and fled. I think she doesn’t know why we are doing what we are doing.” “I still don’t get it.” Twilight explained. “It’s very simple. A goal is like a destination. You cannot hope to have a successful journey if you don’t know where you are going in the first place, can you? That’s when I realized that my dream must have been prophetic. I was being warned about what would happen if I failed to do my part and my part is obviously to find out what the goal is so that we can all work to achieve it and make sure our journey leads us to where we need to go.” Twilight looked at Starlight’s kind of creepy smile and simply responded: “Yeah… simple.” But even if she wasn’t certain the reasoning made much sense, her curiosity had now been awaken. She had other reasons to wonder about it, but she too was now asking why she was doing all that she was doing, and why her friends had to do what they were doing. Heck, she was a princess and an organizer. She had once asked herself why the ponies had to wrap up winter, so it made sense to ask why ponies had to do all those unwanted tasks. Slowly but surely, she realized that the question “why” had no end that she could see and the exchange of one glance with Starlight Glimmer made her understand that she too had to find out the answer. “Alright.” Twilight said. “I don’t know why we are doing all that we are doing, but I want to find out too.” Then, both at the same time, Twilight and Starlight proposed their favorite solution for any given problem: “Let’s find a book!” “Let’s find a spell!” They looked at each other and, while they frowned, let out a laugh. “Actually…” Twilight started. “I remember I had found a book containing a spell that might help us. I mean, it wasn’t designed for that, but if we twist it just a bit…” “Let’s do that!” Starlight shouted. “Where is that book of yours?” Twilight looked away and a drop of sweat appeared on her forehead. “What?” Starlight asked. “It’s one of princess Celestia’s personal books. It’s in her personal library in her private room in Canterlot.” “So… all we have to do is steal it, right?” Starlight asked. “No, we can’t just steal one of Celestia’s private spell book!” Twilight replied, shocked that her friend would even consider the idea. A few hours later, they were both in Canterlot, behind Celestia’s private bedroom door, and were revising their highly complicated plan to steal the book. “So you distract her with the fake letter, and I start a fire in the east court. That will create enough commotion to cover for you entering and drilling the hole in the ceiling, so that I may pass the enchanted cord.” “Wait, I thought you said we needed a magical string.” “I specifically said we need a cord. It’s the most crucial part of the plan.” “Well, all I’ve got is a string. But it’s very well enchanted.” “Okay, maybe we should go for plan B7d2. I just hope we can revert gravity in time…” “Oh, hello you two. I’m pleased to find you, I was about to search for you.” Both Twilight and Starlight looked up and saw Celestia’s face watching them with her eternal gentle smile. Before they could react, she used her yellow magic and handed Twilight a book. “Here, I think it’s time I finally gave you this.” Then Celestia opened the door of her room and added: “By the way, please don’t do anything too foolish. There are creatures of immense power whom when they are sleeping shouldn’t be awoken.” “Yes princess.” They replied. Celestia disappeared and the door closed. Starlight looked at Twilight and Twilight at the book between her hooves. “Is that…?” “Yes. Yes it is.” “Open it!” Twilight quickly went through the chapters and, as her memories of her first twenty two readings of the book came back to her, she found the one she wanted. “It’s a time travel spell, right?” Starlight asked. She had recognized the very discernable patterns of such magic. Yet this was a very different and more complex yet simpler spell than the one she and Twilight has used in the past. “Celestia wrote all those spells specifically for alicorn magic.” Twilight explained. “It uses time travel magic, but it’s actually a search spell. The difference is it doesn’t just search for what you’re looking in the present, but in the past and the future too.” “That’s convenient.” Starlight remarked. “Actually, the spell requires a very clearly worded question.” Twilight kept on explaining. “So we can’t just ask what the ultimate goal is. It’s not… well to say it simply it’s not measurable in a way the magic can interpret. I didn’t remember that part before. Sorry, I guess it won’t work.” She looked up from the book and realized Starlight wasn’t listening anymore. Her eyes were fixed on a point far away, a point that nopony else had looked at before, to a point that it made her fur shiver. “Starlight?” “I’ve got it! I know what we should search for with the spell.” Starlight replied. “Okay. So… what should we try to find?” “The end of the world.” Twilight’s mind froze for a second. She repeated the word in her head, and then one more time out loud, and still they seems to have a resonance she found a little bit ominous. “You know, this may be what princess Celestia warned us about. Maybe we shouldn’t poke any further.” Starlight understood the reluctance of her friend and put her hoof on her shoulder in comfort. “Yeah, it sounds a bit weird, doesn’t it?” “Exactly.” Twilight replied, relieved to see Starlight agree with her. And Starlight grabbed Twilight and brought her closer. “Yet think about it. The end of the world. Those are just words and we can’t be afraid of words, can we? Words are just meant to be read, to be written and to lay still on their pages.” “Well…” Twilight tried to defend herself. “Words can hurt…” “But words can heal, words can guide, worlds can elevate. We choose what we do with them. You can choose too. In fact, you are the only one who can choose right now.” “Because I’m your friend?” Twilight asked, a bit lost. “More because it’s alicorn magic and you’re the only alicorn I could convince to do the spell…” Starlight let slip. “Still, it’s all about the journey. It’s not a problem to have seen a picture of your destination before you travel. It doesn’t take anything away from the adventure of getting there, does it? All we have to do is take a quick glance, a sneak peek and then come back with the certainty that we will be heading in the right direction.” “Well, if it’s just a sneak peek…” Twilight admitted. “It’s probably why Celestia gave you the book in the first place. After all, how can you be a princess and lead everypony if you don’t know where we should go? That wouldn’t make much sense, right?” “Right. I mean, sure, yeah, probably.” “I’m counting on you then.” Starlight added. “We are all counting on you!” “Okay, I won’t fail you. One sneak peek can’t hurt anypony. After all, princess Celestia wouldn’t have given me the book if it was dangerous.” Twilight replied. “Alright, let’s do this!” Starlight shouted. “Let’s do this!” Twilight echoed.