//------------------------------//
// Revelation 
// Story: Tabula Rasa 
// by Rose Quill 
//------------------------------//

Twilight charged her horn and blasted the stone that capped the well in front of them. The stone shuddered a little, but that was about all that happened. She grunted and kept her attack up.

"Twilight," Tabula said. "I think I see something."

The strain was incredible, but she kept pushing until she felt a wing slide over her shoulders.

"That is enough for now, Twilight," Luna said. "You must conserve your strength."

"The stone," Tabula said.

The two Alicorns walked up, and where there had once been a charred spot there was now a faint impression of a cutie mark.

"It's definitely a cloud," Twilight said. "And some sort of line? Lightning, maybe?"

"No," Luna said. "It is too straight to be a lightning bolt. The detail is too slight to be sure of what it is at this point."

Tabula gazed at it for a long moment, the silence dragging on.

"Are you ok?" Twilight asked.

The olive Pegasus shrugged. "I suppose," she said. "There's progress. Maybe in time, I can at least figure out my cutie mark before I wake up."

The Princess of Friendship nodded. "And if we have that, we can find out what your talent is," she said excitedly. "I happen to know a few fillies that are experts in cutie mark meanings."

Tabula smirked. "They get theirs in cutie mark analysis?"

"Something like that," Luna laughed.

Tabula kept staring at the stone. "Those runes seem familiar..."

"Several are still in use today, though slightly altered," Luna said. "They are variants of Old Ponish, and few today know how to speak them."

"Lustru iktos norsko ith skortás," Tabula said slowly. "Norsko ith aichiun deskar."

Twilight and Luna stared at her. 

"You can read Old Ponish?" Twilight gaped.

"Just these," she said, reaching up to touch the runes. "For some reason..."

As soon as her hoof touched the rune, her eyes flew open and began to glow with an inner white radiance. The dreamscape suddenly swirled to show a sprawling cloud bank where Tabula stood, her cutie mark still obscured taking a scroll from another Pegasus who was cloaked in shadows. Tabula then opened the scroll.  

Walking up behind her, Twilight looked over her shoulder. The scroll contained the same runes from the stone, as well as some obscured other 
lettering.

"This is it," Tabula said. "The end to all things."

And she began reading the scroll, the obscured letters coming out as silence.

And black light began to coalesce around her before she started thrashing around and screamed.

"Stars above," Twilight gasped. "She did it to herself."

"What happened to her that she would willingly forsake her life as such?" Luna asked.

The image of Tabula shook as a bolt of green lightning took the cutie marks from her flanks. As the dark cloud vanished, the Pegasus stumbled, then fell over the edge of the cloud.

"One part of the mystery is solved," Luna said as the dreamscape faded back to the well. "Maybe this will uncover some memories."

Twilight turned towards Tabula, but her face paled as she saw the Pegasus.

She was collapsed by the well, barely breathing.

"Maker," Luna gasped, rushing over. She touched her horn to the body, and sighed in relief. 

"She yet lives, but the trauma of reliving the effects of the spell has left her weak," The Princess of Dreams turned to Twilight. "I am unsure of how long until she awakes."

Twilight nervously looked around. "What will happen to the dreamscape until then?"

A low growl sounded in the bushes, ominous and threatening.

Luna stood, her wings spreading and horn flaring to light.

"We are about to find out," she said grimly.