//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 // Story: The Archetypist // by Cold in Gardez //------------------------------// I sat before the enormous sink in my cavernous bathroom. Even with the door closed and the lights out, I could see perfectly. The amethyst crystal walls let in just enough sunlight to fill the room with an easy purple glow. I sat there, staring into the mirror, and thought about Applejack. I’d never been as close to her as I was with Rarity or Starlight. Our temperaments, our backgrounds, were just too different. She disdained book-learning, while it was my life. Family was everything to her, but I barely ever saw mine. Family. If there was one word to describe Applejack, that was it. She was a mare who would do everything for her family. It was the first thing I’d learned about her, all those years ago, on that day I came to Ponyville. And now, this. Being free, she’d said. How long had she dreamed of it? Of being free of all the ties that bind our mortal clay together. Did she imagine her family tree, a lineage extending back generations into the clouded past, and cut her own branch loose? I was crying, I realized. Quietly, unconsciously. The tears ran down my face, wetting the thin coat over my cheeks. I leaned over the huge sink, struggling to reach the faucets. Finally I just turned them on with my magic, and when enough water had filled the basin, I splashed it on my face with my hooves. We could still fix this. We could still fix this. I repeated it, mantra like. But slowly the enormity of what had happened to Applejack’s family began to sank in. I breathed faster and faster. I tried to stop, to slow down, but my lungs were seized by their own energy. I started to gasp. Everything was falling apart. Applejack, Fluttershy. Starlight, Trixie. The world was changing too fast and for once I knew whose fault it was. Discord was out there somewhere, laughing at all this chaos. He finally got one over on us. This was probably the greatest damn day of his immortal life. I let out a great, wracking sob, and leaned over the sink. Something like a panicked, frantic laugh bubbled out of my chest. The sink was full. Water began to flow out onto the crystal and down the floor. I flailed for the faucet handles but they were still out of reach. Here I was, princess of the realm, one of the greatest magic users of the past thousand years, many-time savior of the world, and I couldn’t reach the damn faucet of my own Celestia-damned sink because it was too large. My hooves splashed in the basin and sent water everywhere. Something snapped inside me. I screamed loud enough that the crystal walls rang, louder than any mortal pony could have screamed. A blind rage bubbled up out of my heart, flowing through my veins like fire and setting my mind aflame. I screamed again and brought my hooves down on the crystal sink. They smashed through the diamond-hard matter and kept going all the way to the floor. Great chunks of it shot away to crash against the walls. The mirror shattered. The floor beneath me cracked. I stomped on it again and again until nothing remained but broken shards and water spurting from the twisted plumbing like blood from a wound. I stood among the wreckage, panting. I was soaked, dripping. Little cuts from flying bits of crystal turned my coat pink. I could feel them already closing up, healing in the space of seconds. The door crashed open. Light spilled in, blinding me. I raised a wing to shield my eyes. Dimly, I could make out Starlight’s silhouette. Her horn blazed, and the look of fear on her face finally brought me back to my senses. She stared at me for long seconds, taking in the scene. I huddled under my wings. Finally, she spoke. “Are you okay?” “Yeah.” I licked my lips. “Didn’t like the sink.” “Uh huh.” She kicked away a chunk of crystal that had ended up by the door. “We can get a new one, I guess.” “That’d be nice.” Her horn glowed. I squeezed my eyes shut against the light. After a few seconds I heard a metal squeal as she twisted the pipes shut. “So, um… What do we do now?” “We find Luna.” * * * Canterlot was… changed. The stars were out in the middle of the day. The summer heat that so tormented us in Ponyville was gone, replaced by the pleasing, crisp and slightly chilly mountain air. I thought it was a little much, but as long as the sun was still shining its light was enough for me. Ponies walked about as if in a daze. Dreamers who dreamed of being awake. The castle foyer had been taken over by an enormous laurel tree whose boughs chimed with the hours. We ducked beneath the branches and wound our way through the labyrinthian passages toward Luna’s quarters. An usher found us lost in one particular spiral and led us the rest of the way. I tried to thank him, but he vanished into mist. “At a certain point,” Starlight said as we watched the page colt’s remains dissipate in the wind, “the fear that dreams are leaking into the real world is replaced by the fear that we simply haven’t yet woken up.” “I don’t feel asleep,” I said. “Neither do I.” She sighed. “But I never do when I’m dreaming. Come on.” So saying, she knocked twice on Luna’s door and pushed it open without waiting for an invitation. The fire was out in Luna’s hearth, and winter had moved in. Drifts of snow piled up against the far wall. I fluffed my wings for extra insulation against the cold. Beside me, Starlight shivered. “Luna!” I called. The room appeared empty, but with Luna that meant nothing. “We need to talk!” The floor shook gently beneath our hooves. It was a faint sensation, as though somepony had dropped a heavy object on another level and the vibrations travelled through the stone pillars and the tile floors and into our hooves and then our bones. Again, and a faint drifting of dust fell from the rafters, staining the piles of snow around us a dingy gray. What did the alicorn of night dream of? The room shook again. The porcelain tea set laid out on the little table by Luna’s hearth rattled in sympathy. The far wall seemed to deform. It stretched and blackened, and after a moment nothing remained but an inky bubble slowly expanding toward us. Indentations appeared, tightening around an emerging form, and with a suddenness that kicked my heart Luna was there. She was huge. Almost too large for the room. The mantle of her wings brushed the ceiling, while the trailing edges of her feathers traced lacy patterns in the snowbound floor. Her horn, a meter-long obsidian spiral, tangled in the crystal chandelier and tore it away with a musical clatter that rang in our ears. She snorted in amusement, then leaned down to peer at us. “So talk.” Her voice shook my chest. Right. Talk. I was shivering, and not because of the cold. I swallowed the fear – this was Luna, my friend – and plunged forward. “Discord’s curse is growing,” I said. “He’s changing us all. Soon there may not be anything left of us—” “This is not Discord’s doing,” Luna interrupted. She tucked her tree-like legs beneath her barrel and lay before us; still her head towered over me. “I have been searching these past nights for his influence, and it is not to be found in our dreams. He is not responsible for the changes you see.” “It’s gotten out of his control?” Luna shrugged. The sound of her feathers rubbing against each other filled the room. “Or it was never in his control. He is not the kind of being that controls things.” “Could he still stop this?” Starlight asked. “Put things back the way they were? If, uh, ponies wanted?” “Possibly. He is very powerful, there can be no doubt about that. But if this was never his doing, then it may not be something he can fix. You will have to keep searching for him, I’m afraid.” “We’re trying. Fluttershy might be able to help us, but she’s been… elusive. Ponies have seen her, but she’s never around her cottage. I think she’s in the Everfree looking for some animal.” Luna nodded. “I cannot say where she spends her days, Twilight Sparkle, but I have seen her dreams. Have you tried visiting her cottage at night?” “I… no.” My face flushed at such a simple failure. “You think she’ll be there?” “Predicting the future is not one of my skills. But I think there’s a good chance. Only be careful that you do not disturb her dreams too greatly.” “Aren’t you upset by all this?” Starlight said. “Dreams are your realm, and Discord is disturbing them.” Luna was silent. She stared down at Starlight long enough that I grew uncomfortable, and Starlight herself began to fidget. Just when I started making plans for a quick escape, though, Luna spoke. “No, I am not. Discord has no power over dreams. As I said, the changes you see in your friends are not his doing.” I frowned. “Then… whose is it? Yours?” Luna laughed. “No, Twilight Sparkle. I am merely a witness to this great spectacle. But, if you find out, let me know. Such greatness should be appreciated.” With that she stood and crouched, her legs coiled beneath her like springs, and she jumped straight up. I yelped and ducked and covered my head with my forelegs, expecting the ceiling to come crashing down on us. But I felt nothing except the gentle touch of snow, and when I looked, Luna was gone. “We came all the way to Canterlot for that?” Starlight said. She was shivering gently. Snow started to build up on her withers, and I brushed it away with my wings. “It’s more than we knew before.” Not much, though. And not the easy answer I’d been hoping for. But now we had an idea for finding Fluttershy. And if we could find her, we could find Discord, and then… well, I wasn’t really sure what came next. Convincing him to undo all this, if he even could. That was a problem for future Twilight, though. One step at a time. We trudged through the deepening snow out of Luna’s quarters and back into the hall. The guards didn’t seem too surprised by the sight of two soaked, shivering mares, trailing the breath of winter in their wake. Maybe they were just used to it by now.