//------------------------------// // 19 - The Eyes // Story: Predictions & Prophecies // by Kinrah //------------------------------// “…!” Ohhhh, sweet Celestia… Why did they always sort the heavy books onto the top shelves? Use the dolly, she said. That’s what it’s there for, she said. Twilight had brushed the librarian of the castle off barely even dignifying her presence, her single-track mind already working on the books she would be studying. Said librarian had been rather miffed at that, and had that exchange not occurred, she probably would have gotten to Twilight faster when the extremely thick copy of Spell Safety Switches had been too heavy to carry in her magic and dropped on top of her head. Presently she felt like she’d just done it again. She didn’t think there were any books in Ponyville that were that heavy. “…?” “…!” Dimly she became aware of some ponies speaking. Well, that was always a plus, it meant she wouldn’t be lying on the floor crushed under a huge tome for too long. Spike wouldn’t let her down. He’d just gone and found help. At roughly the same time, she felt something cold and hard wrapping around both of her fetlocks and both of her ankles. Huh. Whatever they were, they were robbing her legs of all movement and… wait, she was standing up. Chances of remaining standing after such an impact with her head were practically 0%. That was… weird. In fact, she could go so far as to… Yeaaaaaargh! Her headache momentarily intensified as consciousness returned to her brain quicker than Pinkie Pie to a party and with about as much force, too. All of the events so far that evening returned to her immediately, and she forced her eyes open with a startled gasp. Obviously, she had not just had a book dropped on top of her. Sweeping Stroke, he… he’d dosed the muffins with snoozeberries, and whatever other flavoring had been put in them had been enough to drown out their taste. Diligently, they’d waited for him to arrive, giving plenty of time for the berries to hit their systems. Not even Reeds’ coffee had been enough to stall the effects. But just how long had she been out, and where was she anyway? Theater was the word that came to mind. She was stood at the back of a large auditorium, on some kind of raised dais, upon which she was chained. Torches flickered along the walls, between anonymous pieces of decidedly posh artwork. Sound carried well, which was how she was able to hear the argument that was going on, between Reeds Melody on her left and their trapper on the stage at the far end of the room. Between she and the stallion, looking up at the stage were… it had to be hundreds of ponies, their eyes rapt with attention on the pony on the stage. “Four hundred and ninety seven, I think you’ll find.” Sweeping Stroke’s voice broke away from the casual comments with which he had been dismissing Reeds’ accusations, and turned to Twilight, who had just turned her eyes to the chains with the aim of unlocking them with her magic. “Welcome to the Theater Royal. Do not mistake my intentions, Twilight Sparkle, for I am if anything a gracious host, but I’m afraid I can’t permit you to move.” Why would he think then that chains— Twilight blinked, and suddenly became aware of the mass that had been tied to her horn. Whatever it was, it was completely blocking her ability to use magic! But magic nullifying technology hadn’t been invented until 919! In vain, she pulled at the chains, and tried to shake the foreign object loose, to no avail. “A stone with most intriguing properties, I know,” Sweeping Stroke continued, without waiting for her to ask the question. “Its presence alone is enough to stop any magic from being cast. Some of your ‘Changelings’ will have a throne made out of it later.” He threw out the last fact so casually, stating a fact from the future as if it were yesterday’s news. “I apologize for the intrusion upon your person, but as I said, I cannot let you leave.” Twilight struggled a little more, but it quickly became clear that the artist was right. No way in Tartarus was she going to get out of there without outside assistance. To her left and to her right, Reeds (struggling) and Ditzy (still asleep) respectively were both similarly anchored to the dais, with their wings bound to their barrels with rope tied in a very tight looking knot. They’d be able to pull the ends with their teeth as much as they liked and not be able to loosen it. They had no choice but to watch and listen to their captor. “What happened, Sweeping Stroke?” Twilight called out. “We can help you!” He seemed to find this amusing. “Help me? I don’t need your help. In fact, I should be thanking you for the opportunity you gave me.” His bow was so low his face almost scraped the floor, an act of chivalry that seemed totally at odds with the rest of his behavior. “I saw so much after you left me, though I thought it but a dream at first. I dined with kings, danced with queens, I have been to the end of the world and back again and become an invaluable friend to an alicorn.” A rhythmic tapping noise came from his hoof as he clicked it against the stage to fill the pauses. “And I would appreciate it if you called me by my real name. There is no Sweeping Stroke here.” The words were like ice in Twilight’s soul. Far, far too late. Sweeping Stroke was gone. “Well in that case you won’t mind if I knock you into next week!” shouted Reeds Melody, resorting to gnawing at the ropes. She was summarily ignored. “I believe I do owe you an explanation, though.” Stalleonardo da Colton dropped down off the stage. None of the audience even glanced in his direction; their combined gaze was fixed on the front of the auditorium. What had he done to them? “As I’ve no doubt you’ve surmised from your own time’s accounts of my life, biased as they may be, I built upon the spell you left me.” “Left you?” Twilight echoed, her own eyes locked onto the stallion. “You watched me cast it and copied it down!” “Indeed. That is a good question, one which I pose to you now: Who wrote Prophetia?” That was easy, it was— uh. Twilight’s ears fell flat. Who had written Prophetia? The problem had come up while she’d been searching the archives, but she hadn’t bothered taking the time to answer it. Truth be told, there was no answer. She had learned it from da Colton’s notes, which he had written down after watching her cast it having previously learned it in the notes which he wrote down… A paradox. “Funny, isn’t it, how time seems to be made out of circles, rather than straight lines?” Without waiting for a response, da Colton jumped up onto the dais. “But I digress. One day, I cast the spell, and do you know what I saw? I saw you, and I saw… nothing.” To illustrate his point, he moved something that was just outside Twilight’s range of vision; she turned her head, and saw what she should have expected, a painting, one that had no record in the future. On it, she saw herself, Spike, another unicorn she didn’t know, and… nothing else. The land they stood upon was barren, lifeless, desolate, everything that Equestria wasn’t. Was it… surely it couldn’t be the future! But that was unmistakably Canterlot mountain in the background, where the three of them were standing should have been in Ponyville… Equestria couldn’t… she returned looking to da Colton, her expression pleading for more answers. “That’s…” “It is the end of everything.” He carefully lay the painting down. “Clearly not one that Equestria should suffer.” The great stallion paused, sighed, then suddenly frowned and turned around. “That’s not why the prophecy calls her that!” he spat at thin air. Uh… Okay, now he was showing the stallion who ponies mocked for his delusions. “Excuse me. So what I intend to do is simple, Twilight Sparkle, and you’re going to help me do it.” His stare met hers. “You’re going to help me help Equestria avoid this fate.” Before Twilight could raise an objection, he continued. “Yes, you tried to change the past by coming here. The difference between you and I, though, is that I am willing to change the future. Here in the past, we will accomplish what the future cannot. Time will change. And here, I know of only one creature capable of causing such destruction.” “What’s that, then?” asked Reeds, determined not to let the stallion continue to refuse her existence. “What could possibly be so powerful?” Discord? King Sombra? Queen Chrysalis? Nightmare Moon? No, it couldn’t possibly be them. Twilight didn’t even know if Chrysalis was around at this point in time, Discord was a statue, King Sombra was locked in time until the Crystal Empire reappeared and the Mare in the Moon was only an old mare’s tale. Something from Tartarus? Or… After she’d eliminated the impossibilities, it took only a moment to work it out. After all, she was the most powerful pony at this point in time… “Princess Celestia,” she breathed. Then she repeated it in disbelief. “Princess Celestia?! Princess Celestia wouldn’t do that to Equestria!” Reeds was equally as surprised. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” On her other side, Ditzy still hadn’t woken up. The lavender unicorn would have been slightly suspicious if all her brain processes weren’t entirely focused on what da Colton had implied. Princess Celestia was the benevolent ruler of Equestria! Sure, she had admitted times of weakness during her thousand year solitary reign, but she’d never express any desire to… to… to destroy everything! That would go against everything she stood for! “Then you do not know her as well as I do. Regardless, if ridding Equestria of her is what it takes to rid Equestria of that future, then it is a step that must be taken. And it is inevitable. The day will break.” “Th- No, it’s not!” Twilight glanced to her left, and was met by a very exaggerated eye roll from Reeds. Mad or not, he’d definitely got the monologue down pat. “What’ll happen to Equestria without her?” Sighing, da Colton hopped back down off the dais and started making his way back to the stage. “Unicorns were raising the sun and the moon long before Princess Celestia was even an idea. We’ll make do.” “That’s insanity!” “So I’ve been told.” Frustrated, angry, Twilight tried fruitlessly to free herself from the chains and from the stupid thing tied around her horn. “I thought you were her student, Sw— Stalleonardo!” The name felt wrong in her mouth now. A week ago she’d been looking up to him, but now? Now he was just… “Her first! She trusts you!” In the middle of his journey back to the stage, Stalleonardo paused, and turned to look at her, an expression of amusement across his face. “Is that what the history books say about me? Charming, certainly, but untrue, I’m afraid.” He flicked an imaginary spot of dust off an unmoving earth pony to his side. “And in any case, a situation entirely relegated to my younger years. Those years are gone, never to return.” As he turned back to finish his walk to the front of the auditorium, Twilight heard a hissing noise coming from her left. She looked at Reeds, who was sniffing and looking very concerned. “(Hey, Twilight?)” she whispered, quickly looking around. “(You smell that?)” Twilight inhaled too. Yeah. She smelled it. There were no clocks of any sort in the room, so the exact time was hazy, but nopony could mistake that smell. She nodded grimly. “(Smoke.)” Outside, the Great Fire of Manehattan was in its infancy. It wasn’t particularly hot in the building they were in, so it probably wasn’t that close, but in less than an hour the building would probably be an inferno. They had to get free, and break whatever spell he’d put over the… four hundred and ninety seven other ponies in the room. Including them, that meant five hundred. By now Stalleonardo had reached the stage again, still clicking his hooves, and with a start Twilight realized that for the last few seconds her heart had been pumping to the same beat, and there was the faint sound of drums in her ears. Were they really going to— yes, they were really going to. Of all the times for a song, this had to be most unhelpful one yet! It was all wrong, too. In a moment like this she expected some sort of ballad, but… really, a rock song? In 656?! How in Equestria did they have amplified guitars back here?! Then he began, gesturing to the crowd. “You never see it coming No build-up and no warning You try to keep things running But you can’t hold on The world afire All for the praise of liars But we can change the outcome Make that future wrong Alone we can’t do much, but together we’re strong I’ve seen the way to start Let the past rise up!” For her part, Twilight was to sing backup counterpoints in the chorus, that was where the spellsong was guiding her. But all that emerged was a sort of strangled gasp as Stalleonardo started the chorus of a completely different song. You didn’t do that! You just didn’t! “Witness the spell! The one that made me Saved me, from all the future’s certain sorrow One thousand eyes, behold Prophetia Saving us from the daybreak!” Her mind was still reeling when he did it again, switching to a third song! “Now what I’ve seen I will show to you!” Stalleonardo’s Share invaded her head without permission, assaulting her with images of the future. Worse, they weren’t all confined to that terrible future; if she had to guess he’d lost control of the spell and it was just showing anything it could find. “See the earth queen fall and the sky prince call! The incoming tide as it swallows the world! All the magic gone, leaving only dust The sun won’t protect us, set as it must This future has been right in front of you all along!” He pointed accusingly at Twilight, who couldn’t say anything. What could she say? All these things… Princess Celestia couldn’t be the cause of all of them! She was pretty sure she’d seen a glimpse of Nightmare Moon in there, but she’d already been dealt with! Hadn’t Spike told him about that?! (“Prophetia, prophetia, prophetia, save us now,” chanted the crowd.) That begged the question: How much of the future couldn’t he see? Okay, now she had to sing, no matter what, and as the spellsong switched back to a verse of song #2, she got her chance. “The future is not clear as you think It’s not just swim or sink What you see could just be a little glimpse! You can’t act on sight alone—” “You can stop the future shown!” countered Stalleonardo, and he continued on into the second chorus, which this time actually matched the verse. “Witness the spell! The one that made me Saved me, from all the future’s certain sorrow One thousand eyes, behold Prophetia Saving us from the daybreak! Witness the spell! The one that made me Saved me, from all the future’s tears and horror One thousand eyes, behold Prophetia Saving us from the daybreak!” “They say,” he continued normally, as the music launched into the bridge of a fourth completely different song, “that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Rubbish, really, but to everything there must be an element of truth. Fillies, gentlecolts,” he addressed an inattentive yet rapt crowd, who probably didn’t even realize what was going on. After all, the great stallion and this mysterious mare were singing and talking in a language barely recognizable from their own. “All eyes to me, please. The great Stalleonardo da Colton is going to produce one final work of art. The past rises for Equestria’s future.” The color drained from Twilight’s face. Five hundred ponies. One thousand eyes, behold Prophetia… the past will rise with a thousand eyes… As if sensing it was the most inopportune time, Ditzy chose that moment to raise her head groggily. “Izzit mornin yet,” she mumbled. Twilight was about to reply when her eyes were suddenly drawn against their will to the stallion on the stage, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t look away. Grunting from both pegasi confirmed that the same thing was happening to her companions. How could she have been so… blindly trusting! He was using them to… A lance of pain shot through her head as she felt magic streaming out of her horn. It was a novel idea, using attention as a magical conduit to siphon magic from even earth ponies and pegasi, but it would have been better as an observer, not a participant, and certainly not for something as… crazy as dethroning Princess Celestia! “Sweeping Stroke!” she called out, trying to resist. “Don’t do this!” “I’m sorry, Twilight,” was the response from the other unicorn, who had begun levitating in a growing ball of pure magic. “We both know this is the only way.” “No we don’t!” She fought against the magic flowing out of her with all of her strength, but it was futile. Was that it? Was this the event where the future changed, and all of her life up until that point was just overwritten? There had to be a way to break the spell! Something distracting! If she was reading the situation right, all they needed was one pony to look away, one pony, and the siphons would fail! One pony… Next to her, Ditzy snorted. She couldn’t seriously be laughing, at a time like this?! Was she falling into hysterics already? Then it hit her. Oh. Oh. Despite the seriousness of the situation, she too found herself breaking into laughter, tears forming at the corners of her eyes, though whether that was the hysteria or the inability to blink away the particles of soot that were now entering the building it was difficult to tell. “Okay, what gives?” asked Reeds, who clearly didn’t remember their earlier conversation. “What’s so funny?” “I’m trying to be serious, Twilight Sparkle.” The magic ball was almost completely obscuring Stalleonardo from view, but his voice was uninterrupted. “Please, enlighten me. I too would like to know.” “How much… do you know about my friend here?!” Twilight called out. “A pony from the background, simply here because—” Twilight cut him off. “Not good enough!” It was all down to Ditzy now. “Sometimes,” Ditzy sang, and Twilight could already feel the magic straining. It was happening. “The future’s really hard to see.” And she did it with a blind joke. Ouch. When the snap happened, as Ditzy’s eye rolled away uncontrollably, breaking the spell, it came instantaneously and almost without warning, just as the spellsong abruptly transitioned back into the bridge of the song they’d started on. With only nine hundred and ninety nine eyes available the spell lost its power, and all of the magic that had been coiling around da Colton surged back in the opposite direction. While the magic-nullifying rock strapped to her horn made it feel like a bucket of ice had been thrown in her face, Twilight was still glad to have her magic back. The restoration of their magic seemed to have broken the spell over the rest of the audience, too, who were looking around in confusion, suddenly aware of where they were, as if they were awaking from a deep sleep. Those of them who saw the three ponies chained up at the back of the room were very surprised, those who looked forward to the bewildered great artist on the stage even more so. Nopony looked up at the ceiling, just below which a layer of black smoke was building rapidly. But everypony looked up when the first embers fell. Instantly there was a panic, and hundreds of hooves thundering for the exits. On their way, a few of the stallions clambered up onto the dais and started hammering at the chains, working them loose from the boards, and biting through the knots tying the two pegasi’s wings down. “Get this thing off my horn!” Twilight shouted, and although they didn’t understand a word she was saying, they got the picture and started working that knot too. Even though her eyes were free from having to stare at da Colton, they wanted to look nowhere else. It had to end. Now. Release! No sooner had the mysterious stone been untied from her horn and stomped into the ground she had teleported out of the chains and halfway across the room, galloping for the stage and the stallion now frantically leafing through his workbook. Maybe it was too late to save the stallion from the spell. But now she had to save the future from him. Stalleonardo looked up just in time to see a lavender missile hurtling towards him as Twilight leapt onto the stage and tackled him, winding him and sending the workbook flying off into the wings. Almost as suddenly, the Return charm kicked in, and it scythed back in past Twilight’s left ear straight into her magical grip; but the stallion was already on his hooves and was trying to pull it away with his own magic. Twilight had more power behind the pull, but he had the experience that came with age. Stalemate. “The morning sun won’t last forever!” he shouted over the noise of ponies trying to escape, straining to try and abscond with the book. “It’s the truth, why can’t you see?!” Seeing an opportunity, Twilight let go, and da Colton yanked the book back and smacked himself in the face with it, breaking his concentration. As he staggered back, the book’s abused binding flew open, and several pages tore out, scattering into the air around them. “All that’s there is a mind of madness!” she retorted, again grabbing the book. She had to get it away from him. Prophetia for her was easy to memorize, it was complete, but for a version of the spell that was inherently flawed, he had to have the matrix available to work from. All of it was right there— Something rushed at her from the back of the room and she had to throw herself flat as the painting from before missed her by inches and smashed against the back wall. Now her own concentration was lost, and, panting, Stalleonardo held the book above him. No. He hadn’t won. Summoning the full magic available to her, she saw the book as it was, and the charm surrounding it. Return. Revision four. Fixed identifier. “It’s time to see a new prophecy!” She focused all of her might on the charm, and punched an Interruption spell right through the middle of it. Without the identifier, how would the book know who it belonged to? The stallion’s grip faltered, and once again the book flew through the air, landing with a solid thud on the stage. And just like that, the song was done. Huh. So that’s how that happened. His eyes wild, Stalleonardo repeatedly looked between her and it in disbelief. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go…” he murmured in awe, his hindquarters sinking to the stage and his ears flattening against his head. “But I thought… I thought…” Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a flaming timber falling from the ceiling, which landed in the thankfully now-empty auditorium, the wooden benches quickly catching alight themselves. In her haste to get the book, Twilight hadn’t even noticed how hot it was getting, or that, in fact, the whole roof was ablaze. She caught sight of Reeds and Ditzy hovering anxiously at one of the exits, and she waved rapidly for them to move. “Go!” she shouted, looking up again, making sure she wasn’t about to get squashed. “I’ll find you! I’ve still got something to take care of!” With everything that was happening, the Iris had almost slipped her mind. It had been in the bag at her side when she’d fallen asleep, but missing when she’d woken up. Da Colton had to have taken it, but where? Only he knew that answer. “Sweeping Stroke!” she yelled, over the roaring flames. “Stalleonardo! You need to tell me where you put the Iris! Otherwise we can’t get home!” The stallion didn’t respond. His own irises were pinpricks, staring at nothing, his mouth moving, but no words coming out. Perhaps the truth of his actions were finally catching up to him. Here was a great stallion, on the last day he was ever seen, and he was broken. So too was his workbook. Twilight had noticed the number of missing pages when she’d examined it in the future, but it still pained her to see them scattered across the stage, a couple of the furthest ones already starting to smolder. It wasn’t right. The book was a problem, but all that knowledge… She acknowledged it was a stupid idea even as she was halfway through gathering as much of them in her magic as she could. Notes, sketches, designs. A rhetoric on the Elements of Harmony here, an analysis of the Breezies there, even if they never made it to the future, they didn’t deserve to burn. No, wait, what? One of the pages flicking into the pile she was accumulating caught her attention, and she pulled it back to stare at it. But that was— Her discovery was suddenly interrupted as Stalleonardo tackled her. At first she reacted with force, fearing he was back to fighting for the book, but then she realized that he’d knocked her out of the way of another beam which had come down right where she’d been standing. The page she’d been holding fluttered free, rose in the heat, then caught a stray spark and burned almost in an instant. “But that was—” she started to shout. Stalleonardo shook his head. “You have no time for this, Twilight Sparkle! You must leave!” But— “Now!” Okay, but she had some serious re-examination of the book to do when she got back to the present! Pausing only to grab the book itself and stuff the pages she’d gathered into it, she looked around. Most of the exits had been blocked while she’d been dilly-dallying collecting pages, but there was a backstage door that looked clear. “This way!” she called, pulling the stallion along behind her. Even after all of that, she wasn’t going to leave him in here. Backstage. Corridor. Dressing room. Open window! Opening it was a snap; she looked out of it, saw the suspicious but convenient pile of hay in the street below, as yet untouched by fire, and, satisfied, defenestrated Stalleonardo da Colton. The sound of the roof collapsing behind her was all the impetus she needed to jump out herself. The question remained. On that page that burned… was the spell matrix for Prophetia.