//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: The Colder Tones (part 3 of 4) // Story: Displaced into Nothing // by Rockstar_Raccoon //------------------------------// The late-morning air of Ponyville was light and cheery as ever, the smell of drying leaves mingling with that of the flowers blossoming in the gardens.  I once again found that melodic *clip clop!* to be a calming presence as Twilight and I made our way along the road, but any sense of pleasantry was poisoned by Luna's words, which still hung like shadows in our minds. In the hour since Luna had left, I’d watched in silence as Twilight gave new orders to her guards, making sure that the mysterious presence would be investigated.  An uncomfortable emptiness now ruled the space between us for the few long minutes in which we crossed the green from her doorstep towards the town proper.  There wasn’t much either of us could really say.  It was what it was, and Luna had laid it out clearly in front of us, leaving Twilight and I to somehow reassemble it into something sensible. “So... Meta...” Twilight spoke tentatively, “About that conversation earlier...” I sighed, “I suppose there are a few things to talk about...” Twilight nodded slowly, her face downtrodden, “So... Were you really just trying to get out when you said you wanted to be friends?” “It wasn't so much lies, as much as telling you the parts of the truth that would accomplish my goals.” I responded plainly, “I only withheld information which I thought would make you decide to keep me contained.” “But... friends don’t do that to each other.” Twilight said, a tone of hurt entering her voice, “Friends are supposed to trust each other...” “Some things are more important than friendship.” I stated. Twilight's face fell further.  “You... you really believe that...?” “Twilight,” I said in a softened tone, “Luna and I live in a different kind of world from you.  It's not that we don't respect your reverence to friendship, in fact, I find it endearing, as I'm sure she does too.  But ours is a world of constant peril, where the kind of friendship you hold as an ideal can be a vulnerability as much as a boon.” “I... I just can't see it that way.  I can't imagine what the two of you must have gone through, but... I used to have so much trouble with friendship, I just... I finally just stopped trying.  I shut everypony out, and convinced myself that friends weren't really worth the effort... But now...” her eyes grew a look of intensity, “Now, my friends are so important to me, I can't even imagine a world without them.” “You value friendship more than we do,” I said.  “It's just a matter of perspective, Twilight.  Our perspective doesn't select for friendliness, it selects for survival.  And I'm not saying that's a good thing: I would never suggest that just because a thing is the way it is, it is the way it should be.  That would be ascribing morality to nature.  We don't get to choose our reality though.  We just have to learn what it is, and live within it.” Twilight nodded slowly, “I... I think I understand.”  She paused, a smile slowly appearing on her face, “But, you've made a falsifiable claim about reality, and as as a scientist, I'm just going to have to disprove it!” I looked at her for a moment, finally smiling back.  “You're a light in this dark world, Twilight.  Don't ever let anyone convince you otherwise.” Twilight beamed.  We kept walking a few moments longer, the din of the market streets beginning to bustle around us.  She slowed as we passed a cafe which had tables painted to resemble mushrooms.  “Are you hungry?  I haven’t seen you eat anything today...” “I can't eat, remember?  I'm not even sure this form requires any form of sustenance outside of the ambient energy I’ve been absorbing...” “Is... That sustainable?  I mean, you must take a lot of energy just to run on your own...” “I’m not sure.” I furrowed my brow, “I believe I’ve identified the structure which you would call a ‘soul’, but I don’t fully understand its inner workings yet, so I’m not entirely sure what supposed to power it.  It’s probably the only reason I’m able to function at all, seeing as a spell requires a caster.  I think it was damaged when I was in the void too, because it doesn’t seem to have a method of replenishing its own energy.  So far, I’ve been measuring its changes, and it’s been gradually losing small amounts of energy as time goes on.” Twilight’s eyes widened, her pace slowing, “Wait... Meta... Are you...” “Dying?  Maybe.  I’m pretty sure I already died.  This is a section of metaphysics that neither of our worlds have really come to grasp.  I was a bit worried that something like this would be an issue, but I’ve sort of been betting on the idea that, as long as I keep self-modifying and learning, I’ll eventually figure out how to fix it.” “Meta...” Twilight stopped, leaning towards me, her face close and her voice hushed, “Why didn’t you say something?” I shrugged, “I didn’t really notice this until I was asleep last night.  I’ve been running a calculation in the background, and, compensating for the rate of increase in power use from self-modification, I should be able to survive for another three weeks, assuming I there isn’t an unforeseen emergency.” Twilight’s face tensed, her expression souring as if she was deciding whether or not to cry. I sighed, putting a foreleg over her shoulder.  “Look, Twilight, I’m not going to try and tell you that death is a ‘good thing’ because it’s ‘natural’ or any of that, but people get diagnosed with terminal illnesses every day.  The only thing that makes it any more of a tragedy is the fact that I’m a unique specimen.  In all of the possible timelines, All The Myriad Worlds that could have been, this is probably the only one in which Twilight Sparkle found the ghost of a dead mage floating in the planet’s thaumosphere and put her in containment fast enough for her to rebuild.” “That... That puts it in perspective, I guess... But it doesn’t make me feel much better...” she looked downward again. “Twilight, remember what I said last night?”  I put a hoof under her chin, raising her face and looking into her eyes, “Even if it means all of this had to happen, even if it means I have to die, I’m still glad that I got the opportunity to meet that young mare, Twilight Sparkle.”  I gave her what I meant to be a reassuring smile, even though she knew most of my emotions were just for show. She managed to return the smile, if weakly, “Well... Even if it’s only for a couple weeks, and then we have to say goodbye... I’m glad that I had the opportunity to meet that mage, Meta.” We reached forward at the same time, pulling each other into an embrace.  I held her against me for a moment, just quiety stroking her back as I listened to her breathe through the heavy moment.  It was a good few seconds before she let go. “Thanks...” she said, “Even if I know you don’t really feel upset by it, thanks.” I smiled, “Anytime, Twi-Twi.”  I slipped away from her, “Hmm... Maybe we should do something today, just to say we spent it together...” “Hmm...” she thought, glancing around.  “How about a bookstore?” She said pointing to a nearby shop, which had shelves and displays of books stacked about. “Assuming they have anything you don't, I doubt they'd let me cast my reading spell without buying the whole collection.” Twilight frowned slightly, “You know, not everything needs to be studying.  Sometimes it's nice to just sit down and read a novel.” “A novel...” I repeated.  Perhaps Twilight was right: days of rigorous focus had left me wired, especially with that feeling of being watched fading in and out periodically since we’d left the castle.  Perhaps it was part of my nature to work myself ragged, though, did “ragged” really apply, or even matter, now that I no longer had biological needs? I glanced at Twilight.  She'd been trying hard to be a good friend, even after I'd admitted that whole thing back in the lab was more about getting out than making friends.  Perhaps there was something... right?  About humoring her? “You know, I suppose I could peruse a few titles...” I smiled at her, “with a friend.” Twilight practically beamed. We trotted over to the bookstore in pleasant silence, the half-rusted bell above the door letting out a little jingle as we went inside.  Its scent was a mixture of fresh glue and old page-dust, the cobbled-about shelving units housing a mixture of books from the past few decades to the past few months. Twilight, of course, went straight for the magical theory section, eyes scanning up and down the rows. I stood at the front of the aisle, and stretched my perception, auto-reading the titles and cross-referencing them with the known list.  3 books illuminated as I dragged them off the shelf: 2 new, one an old one that looked like it had recently been refurbished.  “These are the ones you don’t have.” I said, walking over to stand by her. Twilight blinked, having only been looking for about a minute, “Oh... Wow, you made that a lot easier...” I nodded, “I’m not bound by having to actually run my eyes over them or directly recall things, remember?  It’s very helpful when you’re trying to find new books, I guess.” Twilight gave a chuckle as she took the books.  She flipped through the pages of each tome in succession, looking through the contents, setting them back on the shelf one by one, “Let’s see... This one’s a bit out of date, and less comprehensive than I’d like...  Don’t need another beginner’s guide...  Hmm... This one looks promising... Oh... Nope, nothing new in it...”  She sighed, then gave me a little smile, “Well, I guess you don’t always find something you want... Wanna go look at the novels?” “Sure... Maybe they’ve got something about a fairytale princess who does science...” Twilight giggled, “There aren’t any Fair Folk novelists in Equestria, as far as I know, but we can alway see.” Something in the back of my mind told me that her talking casually about “Fair Folk Novelists” was a red flag, but at this point, it’s not like I could do anything with it. As we walked into the sci-fi / fantasy section, I went straight for the table marked “clearance: 50% off”. Twilight looked over.  “Looking at the bargain bin first?” she smiled. I nodded, reaching out to lift the first book from the stack, “It just seemed like the thing to do... I guess I used to go to bookstores a lot and this was where I’d start...” I perused a few titles... There was one about a dragon who was some sort of knight (though not THE Dragon Knight); picture books about characters like Rockhoof, Somnambula, and Flash Magnus; a couple revival versions of stories involving princess Luna roaming the countryside with a band of knights, which I pointed at, casually remarking, “You should get something like this for the next time Luna comes by.  Maybe seeing the way they drew her muscles and armor on the cover would put her in a good mood...” Twilight chuckled, “You know, I had some of the originals copied a few years ago, but I sort of lost them when the old library was destroyed... Maybe I should get the new printings.” I nodded with a smirk, lifting a few books to flip through the various “The Entity from Another World!” and “Spooky Stories of Scariness!” titles, but stopped abruptly on a single book. ...That symbol... I pulled it out, absently reading the cover aloud, “‘Tales from the Midnight Society: the Complete Series’...” Twilight glanced up from her stack, “Oh that?  Lyra was trying to get me into those before I moved here, but I’ve never found that author to be... um... ‘coherent’ enough for me.”  She chuckled uncomfortably. “The symbol here... It seems really familiar...”  Impossibly familiar in a world where I was an immigrant of only days... Twilight leaned over to look under it as I opened it and started flipping through pages, “This triangle thing with a pair of eyes and a looking glass?  Doesn’t look like a real symbol to me...” “Yeah... That’s what’s so weird about it...”  The book I’d found seemed to be a thick collection of pulp fantasy novellas.  They described a group of amateur occultists from a world where magic was hidden from the masses, who kept getting in over their heads, narrowly avoiding the machinations of vampires and witches by almost pure luck as they looked for evidence . “It’s set on some sort of other planet, and in the early printings, they’re some sort of fantasy race...” She furrowed her brow, tapping a hoof to her chin, “Actually, I think they were like, talking orangutans or something... They had some weird name that was hard to pronounce too... I think it was like... ‘hey-huu-mehehn’ or something.” I stopped.  The word she had said was a word I knew.  The strangest thing though, was that I knew the original pronunciation in the original language, before it phoneticized out of English into a Equestrian. “(h)yo͞omənz” I pronounced. Twilight blinked, “Is... Is that how it’s supposed to be pronounced?”  She looked at the page I’d stopped on, “Is it... Is it on this page?” “No.” I said, flipping back to the appendices until I hit a large, two page picture of a small college town set against the backdrop of the New England countryside, the trees in their mid-autumn state as they lined the road.  Even without color, I could imagine the amber and gold leaves which fell from them, as the mechanical carriages drove about on the roads.  The buildings became as tall as 4 stories near the clocktower and city hall, but the largest construction was the 4 lane bridge which spanned the Miskatonic River.  That, and of course the University which the town had grown up around... The town was incredibly familiar, as if... No. I KNEW THAT TOWN. The streets.  The buildings.  The people.  Every twist and turn right down to the patterns of the stoplights between Peabody Avenue and Hangman’s Hill, the name of the cashiers at the local supermarket (Hannah, Doug, Barbara), the half burnt-out sign above the liquor store, the fallen leaves of oak trees churning in the gutters of the road, the worn dusty signs from more a hopeful era which displayed the name in massive, bold, proud letters for all passerby to see.  The caption at the bottom of the picture only served to confirm a name I already knew by heart... Arkham, Massachusetts “I lived there.”  I stated aloud, my thoughts already beginning to tumble over themselves with the discovery of That Which Should Not Be. “What?  What do you mean?” Twilight was incredulous, “Is it based on a real place, or...?” I flipped the page again, finding a drawing made to look like a photograph of the Midnight Society’s members: the “orangutan” creatures from the original book.  All 7 of them were there, including... Marey, the brilliant technologist who became a sorceress with power over the dream world in the second-to-last book, and the central character of the final book. “This book is about me.” I said aloud, still staring at the colored drawing of the dirty-orange haired female of southern ancestry.  I glanced up at my own mane, which resembled the pigment on the page almost perfectly. “What?  How is that possible?” I struggled to keep the blaring sense of existential dread quieted as it slowly neared catastrophic proportions, threatening to spill outside of where I'd contained it, clouding my consciousness with its constant signalling. “I need this book.” I stated. “What?  Meta, I don’t even understand-” “Twilight.” I said, wheeling towards the storefront, “I need you to buy me this book.” “Ok ok!” she said, hurriedly grabbing for some bits and tossing them at the confused cashier. I slammed through the front door with a clatter, I didn’t even wait for him to count the change before grabbing Twilight’s body in my magical aura and yanking her out the door behind me.  I threw myself on a bench in a decidedly unequine sitting position and combed through the pages with wide frantic eyes, ignoring the confused glances coming from the ponies around us as I flipped them quickly, stopping on each page for the mere moment it took me to process each. “Is that actually what I am?  A fictional character?” I said, grasping for meaning in the face of absolute madness, “That would explain why I don’t have any clear memories, but it leaves so much else unexplained...” I was reading through each part, the adventure of three friends in the first, the formation of the society in the second, the introduction of Marey in the third, the death of Clydesdale in the fourth at the hands of the Deep One, and subsequent departure of several other characters... The horror of Hangman’s Hill... The secret vampire coven... The slow realization that this was bigger than all of us, that there were forces far beyond our knowledge or control, pulling strings we hadn’t even been aware of... And of course, the day I learned how to cross the barrier between the Waking and the Dreamtide... All of it rang true.  All of it aligned with my memories, even drawing up a few I didn’t know were there. “If I’m a character from a fantasy, how do I understand magic so well?”  I flipped backwards through the pages of the last two stories, looking over the concepts again, “He doesn’t give anywhere near enough information about Dream Sorcery or Metaphysics in general for me to know that.” “I don’t know, maybe an Occultist like Crowley was writing a fanfiction which explained the actual principles behind it?” Twilight offered, “There’s a whole genre of fanfiction where fans try to explain fantastical settings with real-world science and logic.” “This is an obscure pulp fantasy series, why would someone put it to that kind of scrutiny?” “I don’t know.  Maybe Lyra would?”  Twilight’s cringe worsened, “You... you don’t think she made you, do you?” The sheer horror of what my mind was struggling to reconcile, to comprehend, was beginning to overwhelm all other parts of my personality.  That internal cacophony of implications and warnings that was drowning the logical thoughts inside of it.  That peaking sense of urgency driving my mind into a near frenzy as I struggled to read the pages at lightning speed.  I had to understand this.  This couldn't possibly be a coincidence.  I had to understand how this book series was somehow connected with my existence.  It wasn't so much a fear of potentially being a fictional character, but a fear that I had no world to return to, a fear of what it might mean if my soul had never been complete and would never be true, and a fear of what would happen if I didn't understand what this meant. “Twilight, it didn’t seem like it was likely at the time, but this is solid evidence that Luna was right.  I could have come out of the Dream World as an anomaly.” “So... What would that mean?  Are you this character?  Or...?” I glanced at the notes about the author inside the cover, “Maybe we could find the author and ask them for details?” Hooved Filly’s Lovecolt was perhaps one of the strangest sci-fi horror writers of the last generation, writing stories of “That Which Should Not Be”, from colours that had never been seen to monsters hiding just out of our sight.  Lovecolt suffered from an unidentified mental illness marked by paranoid delusionality, the constant struggle with it becoming the inspiration to his writing.  According to him, it was as if the terrifying things within his mind “begged to be written.” Sadly, near the end of his career Lovecolt’s condition worsened, and he became more paranoid, experiencing delusions and night-terrors, claiming that dark creatures were hiding within the walls.  He took his own life a year before this book was published. “This book isn’t new...” Twilight cringed, reading over my shoulder, “Even if we went to his old home, I don’t know if we’d ever be able to find his notes...” I kept reading, I was halfway through the book now, and new details were emerging.  Details about the sorcery that Marey had practiced, details of the things she’d done, times she’d spent with her friends, and... and... That wasn’t right. No... That wasn’t how that happened.  It was different.  We didn’t... I wasn’t... “It’s wrong.” I stated. “Wha-?” “It’s all wrong.” “What are you talking about?” “The details, Twilight.  The details are all wrong.” On the surface, everything was clear, unmistakably a story about me and the world I’d believed myself to be from, but the details conflicted with the most solid of my memories: the ill-proportioned description of the bipedal apes known as “Huemahns”, the map of the town simplified until it became almost useless for real navigation, the descriptions of the members of the Midnight Society bland as if they were nothing but passing glances at their true selves...  It was wrong!  It was ALL WRONG!! “So... Wait... What does that imply?” “Something else is going in here.  I can’t trust my memories at this point, because I don’t know how many of them might’ve come from this book.  If I’ve been contaminated with concepts from your world, then that would explain why I know things about you and your friends, but it wouldn’t explain why I have these tangible memories of a place that’s only vaguely described by somepony who died over a year before my appearance.” “Is it possible that he knew about your world somehow?” “How could that be?  Twilight, this is the first instance of contact between our worlds...”  I stopped for a moment, “...right?” She shook her head, “I haven’t found anything...” I sat silent for a moment, facts and speculations tumbling in my mind as it tried to fit them together somehow.  “Twilight,” I finally said, “You should go talk to Lyra.  I need some time alone to process this...” Twilight looked like she was going to protest, but she stopped, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.  “Alright... But I want to talk more once you’ve calmed down...” I nodded, “Of course.  Once I have the facts straight, I’ll tell you everything, and we can try to sort it out together...” She smiled weakly, getting up from where she’d sat next to me.  She leaned in to bring her foreleg over my neck, hugging me against her for a moment.  “Don’t worry Meta.  I’m sure we’ll figure this out.” She held me a moment longer before letting go, slowly turning and walking away, leaving me to stew with the implications I’d now been given...