//------------------------------// // The Cosmos Eccentric // Story: Truthseeker // by RB_ //------------------------------// The train drew to a shuddering stop. Ponies of all ages emerged from its doors. Those new to the city gasped or smiled as they beheld its marble towers and golden trim. Those returning greeted the finery like an old friend. Bon Bon paid it no attention. She strode out into the crowd. Her hooffalls were sure and firm; she walked with purpose. The imposter followed close behind. Her hoofalls were quick and confused. She stumbled more than once over somepony’s luggage, pausing only momentarily to apologize before rushing to catch up. Through the streets they marched. Bon Bon kept her eyes open for more changes, but nothing jumped out at her. She’d never stayed in Canterlot proper for long. Most of her time here had been spent around the castle. The castle. She flicked her eyes up. She could see its towers looming over all the rest, as grand as ever—and perhaps even grander. Had that tower been there before? Had that roof always been golden? Had that spire, reaching up to the heavens, always stretched so high? Onwards she marched. She could feel the imposter’s eyes on her back. Lyra’s eyes. Onwards she marched. Soon enough, they came to the gates of the palace. They were open. Waiting. “Where are the guards?” Bon Bon muttered. “Guards?” the imposter replied. “Why would there be guards?” Bon Bon glanced back at her. “To protect the castle?” “Why would the castle need protecting?” Bon Bon frowned and set off again. They met no one on their way into the castle. The main doors had been left as open as the gates. No one greeted them, and no one asked why they were there. Canterlot castle was supposed to be abuzz with activity, nobles discussing grain subsidies, citizens queuing for day court, secretaries and assistants working around the clock to keep Equestria moving. Guards to keep them safe. Instead, the halls were clear, save for the occasional servant cleaning a vase or dusting a table. The only noise was the quiet falls of their hooves, dampened by the carpets that lined the halls. Bon Bon shivered once again, even as her hooves retraced the familiar route. That she still knew the layout of these halls by heart was a surprise, and also a comfort, as was that the halls matched her memory. At last, she reached the hall that lead to the throne room. And here, at last, she met a set of closed doors. She swallowed. There, just in the other room, would be the creature responsible for all of this. For this wrong, wrong world. For Lyra— For Lyra. She breathed. She wouldn’t fail this time. She couldn’t. For Lyra. She strode forwards. ───── The throne room’s doors burst open with a mighty crash. Bon Bon marched inside. The imposter hesitated for a moment, then followed her. Bon Bon didn’t care. The inside had been redecorated. The red carpet and banners had been replaced by green ones, and the stained glass windows now depicted several repeated images of the mare currently sitting on the throne. Bon Bon didn’t care. “Clover!” she roared. The mare on the throne looked up. She wasn’t the stallion who Bon Bon had seen in the cave, nor the mare she had seen on the train. Nor was she any of the other ponies they’d collected pictures of, back on a board that probably didn’t exist anymore. She wasn’t a unicorn, either. The mare on the throne was tall, lithe. Easily as tall as Princess Celestia had been. Easily twice as tall as Bon Bon. Her horn stretched a meter long from the top of her head, tapered to a point so fine she couldn’t tell exactly where it ended. The wings folded at her sides looked like they would span half the room. Her long mane trailed and collected around her throne, and hundreds of flowers had been interwoven into it—no, sprouted from it. A field of white flowers. Clovers. The mare’s eyes met Bon Bon’s. Bon Bon’s met hers. Clover’s widened, but only for a moment. Bon Bon’s remained firm. Clover chuckled. “Why hello, my little pony. Bon Bon, yes? To what do I owe the—” “You killed Lyra,” Bon Bon said. Though the words were spoken evenly, the silence made them echo. “B-Bon Bon, I’m right here!” the imposter said. “Not you,” Bon Bon said, not even looking back. “The real Lyra. My Lyra.” Clover’s eyes narrowed. She shifted in her throne, placing one doe-like leg down onto the floor, then another. She stood, and even without the platform she stood on she would have towered over them. “You remember,” she said. “I do.” “You shouldn’t,” Clover said. “That never happened here. I fixed that.” “Clearly not as well as you thought you did,” Bon Bon said. “I remember everything.” “That’s impossible.” “We hear that a lot.” “Enough,” Clover said. She strode forwards, stepping down each step until she was standing just in front of Bon Bon. Bon Bon didn’t move. She couldn’t. Something else told her she didn’t have to. A hum built up in the air, around them. Several notes played in quick succession. Bon Bon’s glare remained the same. Clover frowned. “I don’t understand,” she said. The hum built again. Still Bon Bon’s expression remained. “This… doesn’t make any sense,” Clover said. Her face was starting to show lines, now. “It simply doesn’t. You cannot be here. You cannot have memories of something that never even happened. It's impossible.” “Like Bonnie said,” a voice rang out. “We get that a lot.” Bon Bon’s eyes widened. She shot a glance over at the impostor—but she was looking back at Bon Bon, and she looked just as confused. Clover, meanwhile, took a stumbling step back. “No,” she said. “Yes,” the voice said again. It sounded just like— And then something remarkable occurred. A tingling, at the back of Bon Bon’s skull, and then her legs, and then all over her body. She looked down at her hooves. There was an afterimage there, like a blurred photograph, only not in a photograph. It was green. And then the afterimage began to move. First one fuzzy green hoof stepped away from Bon Bon’s own. Then, another. Each grew more distinct as they moved. Then another shape phased through Bon Bon’s face. She followed it with her eyes as it came into focus. A green blob became a muzzle. A white sheet became a mane. Two golden orbs solidified into eyes, pupils of solid golden light, with more golden markings ringing them. A white patch became a smile as the rest of the body materialized, in full translucent glory. “Hey Bonnie,” Lyra said. “Did you miss me?” Bon Bon said nothing, merely stared at her with her mouth partly open. “I’ll take that as a yes.” “You!?” Clover exclaimed. “Me,” Lyra replied, spinning about to face her adversary, the smile falling from her face. “I killed you!” “You tried,” Lyra said. “Turns out, you’re not the only one who can cheat death.” She held up a foreleg. Inky lines danced across its surface. “Winter Bell put this on me. It links me and Bon Bon together. When you killed me—” “Your spirit fled to her,” Clover said, realization dawning in her eyes. Lyra grinned. “Your luck just never seems to hold, does it?” “But that doesn’t explain how she was able to remember you!” “Oh, but it does,” Lyra said. She took a step forwards, towards Clover. Where her hooves touched the ground, golden circles of light remained. They spread out slowly as she spoke, and where they touched, the carpet turned red again. “See, back on the train, you said that me not knowing your name was burning me up inside. That that was just the kind of pony I am.” She took another step forwards, and Clover took a step back. “Well, you were right! But you know what? I think you’re the same way!” Lyra cried. “Except what burned you up was how I was able to stay on your tail! How I could tell who you were!” Clover grit her teeth. “Well, let me tell you,” Lyra said. “Some time ago, I was visited in my dreams by Apporoth, the conceptual god of Truth. He made me his champion, and he gave me his blessing. The blessing of Truth. “I can tell when ponies are lying,” Lyra said. “I can see through any form of deception, be it an illusion, a perception filter, a glamour, or any other such thing. I am unaffected by deceitful magic, be it mental trickery or outright mind control. In all ways, I am protected from falsehood. “And this little world of yours?” Lyra said. “This perfect fantasy? It’s built entirely on lies.” Clover spoke. “But she—” “Was under the same protection,” Lyra said. “After all, we were sharing a body.” Clover bit down, lowered her head, bared her long horn like a weapon. Its tip, impossibly sharp, came to a rest just an inch away from Lyra’s eyes. She didn’t flinch, not even as the horn began to glow a blinding white. “Well, then I’ll just have to account for all of that,” she said. “I killed you once. I can kill you again—and this time I’ll do it properly. No more vessels for you to inhabit. No more of this game.” “You won’t,” Lyra said. “Watch me!” Clover yelled. Her horn ignited, and a blast of magic, pure and white, lashed out—only to dissipate into harmless motes of gold that floated like embers in the air before disappearing entirely. “What… what is this!?” Clover cried, taking another step backwards. Her movement was unsure, now, as doubt began to creep into her face. “Like I said,” Lyra said. “Everything here is built on lies. That includes the ridiculous body you’ve made for yourself.” She smiled. “That, and… a little something extra." “You see, back in the cavern, you didn’t kill me… but you did come close. Close enough, in fact, that a certain doorway opened up to me.” Clover swung her head around and fired off another blast of magic. It proved as ineffective as the first. “You must have seen it,” Lyra said. “After all, you were functionally dead too, at least when you were between bodies.” Three blasts of magic this time. Each was reduced to nothing in an instant—and each further away from the one before it. The ripples of golden light that emenated from each of Lyra’s steps had expanded, now, each a meter, two meters. Clover’s eyes flicked down to them. One was approaching her frontmost hoof. "So, Clover,” Lyra said, “did you ever look at what lay beyond, any of the times you were bouncing between bodies? I did. I couldn't help myself; it's the kind of pony I am. I only caught a glimpse, though, only for a moment." “But it was enough.” The ripple of golden light reached Clover’s hoof, then. She yanked it away—but not before it had become apparent what it was doing to her. “Enough for what!?” Clover asked, her eyes wide as she scrambled backwards up the steps to the throne. “Enough to learn the final Truth,” Lyra said. "The one that even Apporoth himself never knew." “And as it turns out,” she said, “that is a very powerful thing indeed.” And with that said, she reared up and, with a shout, brought her forehooves down hard onto the marble. Golden light shot out from the impact—not a ripple in a puddle this time, but a wave in an ocean. It spread out through the throne room, even up the steps to the throne. “No… no!” Clover shouted. She tried to keep moving away, but her back was pressed against the throne itself. “No!” “Yes,” Lyra said, as she watched the light spread. She could feel it, some odd impossible sense, as it spread through the room, through the castle, through the city and beyond. And where it passed, it returned things to the way they had been. The decorations in the throne room, now green, returned to red. The stained glass in the windows reshaped itself into its old patterns. And outside, ponies began to remember. Lyra smiled. The wave had just reached Ponyville. Now Manehatten. Now Appleoosa. “Why?” someone croaked. Lyra looked up. It was Clover. Not as the false alicorn she had been, but returned to her own shape. Or, Lyra supposed, the body of the pony she had stolen. Now she lay there, before the throne. She looked oddly frail, Lyra thought, in comparison to what she’d been before. “I fixed everything,” Clover said. “No more monsters. No more sickness. No more pain.” She looked up at Lyra. Their eyes met. “Why would you undo that?” she asked. “I created a utopia…” “You created a fantasy,” Lyra said. She walked up the steps, stopping just feet away from her. “And fantasies never last long. “You might have kept it going for a while,” she said. “and maybe it would have been good. “But I know you, Clover the Clever. I’ve seen what you’re really like. “You didn’t do this for the greater good. You didn’t do this to help ponies. You didn’t do this for any reason other than your own, selfish desires. “You lied, all that time ago, when you told me what you wanted was life. Maybe that was what you wanted once, a long, long time ago. Maybe you even believed the lie. “But not anymore. That part of you shriveled up the moment Starswirl told you you would become an alicorn, and it died when he got rid of you.” Lyra bent down, leaned in, so that her head was just inches away from Clover’s, and she whispered something. “What you want, Clover the Clever, is power. And that is why this fantasy has to end. “And c’mon,” Lyra said, leaning back and raising her voice again. “The real world has its issues… a whole bunch of them. I’ve dealt with a few of them. Bon Bon’s dealt with more, and I bet the others have stories that would keep even you up at night. Monsters, murderers, whatever the heck Pinkie is… but I’d rather spend my time working against the monsters and the murderers than being ruled over by one. “And besides, it’s not like the real world is all bad! Two-hundred year-old vampires with stories to tell! Little fillies with songs in their hearts! And whatever the heck Pinkie is! But this place?” She grinned. “This place isn’t nearly interesting enough.” “You’re insane,” Clover said. “Perhaps I am,” Lyra replied. “It’s probably your fault.” Clover grit her teeth. “You haven’t won,” she said, some of the fire returning to her voice. “I can still jump into new bodies. I can still—” “You can’t, actually,” Lyra said, and at that, her smile faltered. Her gaze turned upwards, looking at something behind the throne. Bon Bon and the other Lyra’s eyes were already on it. Clover saw this, and she turned around, and she looked too. There was a raven there, perched atop the throne, great and terrible, and its eyes were trained down on the two ponies at its feet. And then it opened its wings, and it was not a raven but a pony, dark in coat with golden markings ringing her hooves, a great cloak of inky quills billowing out behind her. And her eyes looked down on the two ponies at her hooves. Lyra had seen this being before, and it instilled the same deep, cold, primal fear in her now as it had then. “W-what is…” Clover stuttered. “That,” Lyra said, “Is Sharasaad. The god of Death.” “W-why is—” “Well, you see,” Lyra said, “I’m the champion of a god. No one told you, but you are, too. His name is Torropoth, the god of Falsehood. He’s kind of a slimeball—no offense, ma’am.” That last was hastily directed at the pony in black. “You see, he wanted to make this into a game. Me against you. Him against his brother. And so he did, and she,” Lyra said, pointing to Sharasaad, “is the referee. And if she’s here…” “No,” Clover said. “N-no! I won’t have this!” she tried to stumble to her hooves, tripped, tried again, made it this time. “You can’t do this!” Sharasaad opened her mouth. Her voice was thick and heavily accented. “Come to me, denier. You have evaded my embrace for far too long.” “No!” Clover shouted. She turned to the steps, tried to run. “I won’t go! I won’t!” In one, fluid motion, Sharasaad leapt off the back of the throne. She bore down upon the fleeing Clover, her cloak billowing around her like great wings, and underneath, Lyra saw, was only void. “I won’t go!” Clover screamed. “I won’t—” And then Death’s cloak enveloped her, and she was silenced. “Rest now, denier,” Sharasaad said. “Rest now, and forever.” She stood, and turned towards Lyra, who had watched the entire thing from up above. “So,” Lyra said. “Me next?” “Not yet,” she said. “Be content in your victory, young one. You have earned it.” “I got lucky,” Lyra said. At that, Sharasaad’s mouth curled into a shallow smile. “There is no god of luck, young one. I will see you again when the time comes. That time is not today.” Lyra smiled, more from relief than anything else, and nodded. And with a flash of raven feathers, the god of Death was gone. Lyra turned and set down the stairs. She approached the two ponies at the base. One of them shared her face; she went to her first. “Hello,” she said. “Nice to meet you. I’m Lyra Heartstrings.” She offered her hoof to the other, who bemusedly shook it. “Hi,” she said. “I’m… well, you know.” They both giggled. “I don’t understand,” the other Lyra said. “Are… are you me? Am I you? Are we the same pony?” “Not exactly,” Lyra said. “You’re a copy of me, sort of. Clover’s perception of what I might have been, anyway.” “So she… made me?” the duplicate asked. “I’m a fake? Then why am I still here?” “Because you’re real,” Lyra said. “Everything… well, most things that Clover did… were lies. Alterations of what was real, falsifications to hide the truth. But you?” She reached out with a ghostly hoof and tapped the other Lyra on the nose. Her double went cross-eyed. “You’re new. Clover made you.” “But I’m not the real thing,” the other Lyra said. “I’m not you. We aren’t the same, I mean just look at you! You’re all… resplendent and stuff!” “We could be the same. If you want.” Lyra’s eyes shifted over to Bon Bon, who was looking on. Looking at her. “I know I do. I’m kind of without a body right now.” The other Lyra looked at her. Her eyes flicked over to Bon Bon. “I think I do, too,” she said. “Will it hurt?” “No idea,” Lyra said. “Only one way to find out, I guess.” “There only ever is.” The double stepped back, stood tall, and puffed her chest out. “I’m ready.” With a smile and a nod, Lyra stepped forwards, into her double. She shuddered as Lyra’s spirit entered her, vanishing as it phased through her. She blinked. Her eyes were golden pools of light, bright and pure—and with another blink, they were back to normal. Where once there had been two Lyras, now there was only one. She stubled slightly, regaining her balance after a moment. “Whoa,” she said. “Tingly.” She shook her head to clear it. “Brbrbrbrbrbr… ah, that’s better.” She looked up. There was only one other pony left in the room, now. “Hey, Bonnie,” Lyra said. “We did it! Equestria’s safe, Clover’s gone for good, and I’m—” Her words died in her throat as Bon Bon walked up to her. “Erm… Bonnie?” “It’s really you, right?” Bon Bon asked. “It’s really you this time?” “It’s me, Bonnie,” Lyra said. “The one and now only.” “And it’s really over? Clover’s really gone?” “I don’t think you can be more gone,” Lyra said. “And everything’s back to normal?” “Only as normal as it ever is. Well, there might be a few odd things that got left behind like the other Lyra did, but otherwise—” Bon Bon leapt forwards and wrapped her hooves around Lyra’s neck, drawing her into a hug so fierce that they toppled over. “Ack—Bonnie, we really need to stop doing this.” “I thought I’d lost you.” “You didn’t. You saved me.” “Never leave me again,” Bon Bon said. It was an order, not a request. “I won’t, Bonnie,” Lyra said, drawing her closer. “I won’t.” It was a vow, not a promise. The sun sank in the sky outside, painting the world orange as it kissed the horizon. The light blazed through the stained glass windows of the throne room, bathing it in multicoloured light. And in the middle of the rainbow, two ponies held each other and swore never to let go. It’s over, Lyra thought. It’s finally… over.