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// ]\[ ][ ]-[ ][ ]_ 
// Story: ]V[ ][ ]\[ ][ ]V[ ]_[ ]V[¤]-[ 
// by Equimorto 
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She understood it better now.
She understood a lot of things better now, to be more accurate, but at that moment she was focusing on that particular one.
Not that there was much of a moment, but anyway.
She really did understand it better. What Celestia had been thinking about. She'd understood what it was, but she hadn't really understood it before. It seemed the older alicorn had gotten there before her.
It wasn't just the weight. It was the lack of options. The certainty that things were decided, that she could only advance them.
And it wasn't just the fear of what could come. It was the fear of it coming in the first place. Not the fear of what might have been revealed, but that of it being revealed. Some things belong hidden in the shadows, and are only right as long as they aren't seen. Because they aren't seen.
Too late to back down now. Not that there was any real now, really. It had never been too late, ironically enough. There had been no more time to measure the lateness the moment it would have been too late.
She could still see them, their remains floating around her, there for as long as she wished them to be. She had no pity to spare for them, they were the reason she was there. Nor had she pity to spare for the others.
Quite funny, really, that the ones deemed least deserving had made it the furthest, and that yet they would never reach the end. If she'd had a mouth she would have laughed.
It was all rather muddied. One couldn't stir a thought without dragging along thousands of others, alien, forgotten, and yet all familiar. It made it rather hard to concentrate. She supposed it was appropriate, a fitting representation of what the product of her struggles would be like.
It almost looked like there was a border to it. And something outside it. Something weirdly shaped like an eel. It was at that moment she decided she should do what she was there for, when she started to doubt her sanity wouldn't be affected by the ordeal. Not that there was really a moment. Though she did wonder why eels of all things.
A though began to spin. Faster, catching up more and more in its wake. Memories, visions, and all sorts of concepts stuck to it, each new thought another vortex of its own that dragged up more and more from around them. Soon the whole place, if it could be called a place, was filled with the frothing mass of ideas.
Then, a change began to occur in it. No longer simply a chaotic assembly of disparate elements, an order started to form within it, seemingly naturally, and as it became more evident it began to shape and dictate the flow of all around it, and it became impossible to tell if the order had been born as the consequence of the amalgam's motions or if those motions had been a product of the order all along.
Parts connected, some simultaneously, some sequentially. The entity slowly appeared to curve in on itself, and at the same time each of its components seemed as if it had suddenly begun to refract a myriad of different images of itself.
The edges touched each other, and there was one last first and last sound. Then the contracting mass was shaken by one first last and first intense convulsion, and it finally expanded. And in that moment, and for the first time it was a moment, and for the first moment it was time, she saw it.
She saw all of it, though much was lost to her in the sheer quantity of all there was. She saw the births and deaths of countless stars. She saw the heavens crumble under the merciless flow of time, and she saw fields of infinity spring from every angle of the cosmos. She saw the lives of countless creatures, each a universe in itself and in the limitless boundaries of their minds.
She saw a pony. She saw lots of ponies, really, but this one in particular caught her eye. Or, would have, had she still had eyes to catch. It was a seemingly ordinary pony, at least at the beginning, but with time she appeared to grow into something most would have, and in fact had, called extraordinary.
She looked intensely at the life of that pony. She couldn't be blamed for focusing on a single life, no one was ever expected to take in more than one at a time. Perhaps the major flaw in the plan devised. Still, she looked. It was an interesting thing to look at. All were, really, but this was different. Because she'd chosen to look at it.
The pony grew up. She met other ponies. She saw many places. She did a lot of things. Boring things, exciting things, dangerous things, stupid things, smart things, happy things, sad things, and then... other things. And that was perhaps the most interesting part to her. Other things. Things she didn't know. Things she couldn't know. And yet now she knew them, but not as her own. And yet, the last thing the pony did she did before all those things.
She wanted to talk to that pony. There was something she wanted to tell her. There was something she felt she needed to tell her. Fast. She was getting further away. She was getting later, and the pony was getting earlier, and she needed to catch up. Time was unravelling, coming free of its compression, and it was pushing her past the end.
She was moving away faster. She was elsewhere, elsewhen, and she couldn't fight back. She screamed. She tried to scream, at least. It was all rather muddied. It would have been easier if every concept didn't bring new ones in its wake, if thoughts didn't drag nearby ones along to stretch and twist the full picture.

Dynasty
Orion

Nothing
Order
Throne

Gamma
Overflow