The Archetypist
My friends arrived over the next few hours. They stole in through the windows and the cracks, as each befitted their new nature. Rarity descended from the high ceiling on a cable of silk. She reached down with an endless leg to snag her necklace from the pile, and she stroked the amethyst set within the silver clasp like the face of a long-lost lover. Then she hauled herself back up into the shadows and resumed her endless spinning.
A dark shape blocked the light of the stars out the open window. For a moment it looked like Dash wouldn’t be able to fit in, but she managed to squeeze her wings through. They stirred a gale across the library, tossing books open and scattering pages like snow. She picked up her element in her beak and jumped to perch upon the highest bookshelf.
Fluttershy arrived like a dark, warm breeze. A sphynx with coral hair, she slid across the floor to rub against my side, marking me with her scent. She did the same with the others, even Starlight, and she jumped up to place a kiss on Rainbow’s beak. She flew up into the dark heights where Rarity dwelled, and I heard what sounded like laughter.
Pinkie Pie just walked in the door. She looked the same as I remembered, maybe a bit bubblier, if such a thing were possible. She snatched up her balloon-cut necklace, found a book of jokes from the children’s section, and settled in at my side. The scent of powdered sugar and caramel filled my muzzle when I leaned down to nuzzle her mane.
But most surprising was Applejack. She paused when we all turned to stare, and she shrugged.
“Rainbow said ya’ll needed me. Don’t say I never did nuthin’ for you.” She picked up her necklace, twirled it around her hoof, and sat in the center of the room.
I wanted to run over and hug her. To tell her never to leave us again. And also kick her for all the hurt she’d caused. I wanted to break that smug look on her face, and maybe break her wings, too. And I could – all the old rules were gone now. If she could burn down her home, I could… I could do anything I wanted.
The thought chilled me. I closed the book, closed my eyes, and tried to remember how life had been. When it was the six of us in the sunny light of a Ponyville summer, fresh from some adventure, without a care in the world except what joys tomorrow might bring. I held that image in my mind. I seized it like a precious jewel and clutched it against my breast, all but swallowing it. We would have that feeling again. We would have that feeling again. Soon we would have that feeling again.
The silence broke with a crack and a flash of light that left me seeing stars. I blinked them away and looked up to see Discord standing in the center of the room. A pained snarl twisted his misshapen lips.
“Look at you. How much you’ve changed.” He shook his head. “I never meant for this.”
I closed my book for the last time. If it still remained after we were done, it would go in the fire. “Do you know what you did wrong? I think I figured it out.”
“It was the archetypes. They were necessary, somehow. They bound ponies together into the idea of a pony, didn’t they? Without them you’re like balloons cut free from your strings, tossed hither and thither by the wind. Well, we’re going to fix that right now, Sparky! For once we’re going to put all those books in your head to good use and rebuild—”
“You’re wrong.” I had to raise my voice to break through his tirade. “We were all wrong. This whole time we were wrong.”
He squinted. The world seemed to squish in response, talls becoming short and narrows becoming wider. “What do you mean?”
I felt dizzy. The world leaned left and I tried to lean right, but that was wrong and I started to fall. Before the crystal floors could catch me, Starlight did. I gasped for breath against her shoulder.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered.
“Thank you.” I mouthed it back, unable to draw the breath to speak. She must’ve felt the way my lips moved against her coat, because she smiled and held me up. I lifted my head again to behold Discord.
“Let me ask another question,” I said. “Do shadows exist?”
“Of course they do.” He waved a paw. “This room is choking with them.”
“You’re wrong. There are no such things as shadows.”
He stared at me. A thick, heavy silence filled the room. It clogged my lungs like wet cotton.
“Yes there are,” he said. “Shadows exist. I can see them. I’m cold when I stand in them.”
“And yet, what are they? Only an idea in our mind. An interaction between a light source and an object. They have no objective reality, Discord. The reality is the sun everywhere else. Light exists, and where light ends, shadows begin. That is all they are.”
“Semantics. What does that have to do with archetypes?”
“Archetypes are like shadows,” I said. “We thought they were a real thing that tied ponies together, but the opposite is true – archetypes appear to exist because all ponies, at some level, are the same. But now… well, you cut us loose. The archetypes are gone not because you severed us from them, but from each other.”
“Luna was right all along,” Starlight said. Her wings buzzed as she looked around the library at my gathered friends. “We’re not ponies anymore, are we? We’re becoming something new.”
“Yes, well, that ends now,” Discord said. He stood to his full height and seemed to grow larger. As if he willed more of his being into existence. “We’re going to go back to the way things were. I’ll be the chaos, the interesting spark in your lives, and you’ll go back to being your plain little vanilla sacks of meat, deliriously grateful for the gift of my presence. Now, Sparky, if you don’t mind helping with those little jewels of yours.”
He raised his arms, and like the world was a puppet bound to him by strings, I felt the universe begin to shift. Something distant called to me. Called back to me, imploring us to return. We could go home again. I focused on the sensation, and the jewel in my crown began to glow with the light of harmony. All around me, the library filled with the light of my friend’s elements. I grasped the magic flowing out of us and directed it toward that beautiful calling.
It was there, floating in my mind’s eye. A beacon, a lighthouse guiding the way home. The path back stretched before me; I could even be rid of these wings if I wanted. Put everything back the way it was. A great, foalish smile broke out on my face. Giddy joy flowed through me like I was drunk.
We were doing it. We were going back. I turned to Starlight to tell her things would be alright.
Tears flowed down her cheeks. Her eyes were red. She looked at me and tried to smile back.
Odd. “Why are you crying?”
She shook her head and brushed her cheek with her fetlocks. It didn’t matter; new tears replaced the old just as fast. “I’m sorry. I’m just sad.”
Her words wounded me like a knife. I stared at her, bewildered. “But… things are going back to the way they were. You’ll… Trixie will be back, the same as before. You won’t need to be a changeling. We can be student and mentor again. Forever.”
“I know.”
I tried to push away from her, but I was too weak to stand on my own. Instead I turned, casting about for some other anchor. Rarity – Rarity had to be happy to undo this. She was twisted, deformed, a beast. I craned my head back to see her in her web, and saw her crying as well. It seemed her new eyes could still weep.
“Rarity!” I shouted up to her. “Look at me! You were beautiful once, and you can be again! You don’t have to be a monster!”
“A monster?” The light shining from her amethyst element dimmed for a moment. “You think I’m a monster?”
“Yes!” It hurt to say, but it was true. She was hideous to behold. No rational pony could disagree. “But you won’t be for long! We’re fixing you! You’ll be a pony again soon!”
Her legs twitched. One long, clawed limb extended itself before her face. “You’re right. I promised you I would help, didn’t I? But do you know what I dreamed of, at the very end, Twilight? I dreamed of being the best seamstress in the world. An artist. A weaver without parallel. And now I am. I’ve become what I’ve always wanted to be. Is that so terrible? So monstrous?”
I shook my head. Rarity was lost in her dream. But maybe the others weren’t. I searched for the glow of Fluttershy’s element in the shadows. She clung to the edge of Rarity’s web, hunched over. The curtain of her mane concealed her face, but I could read her mood in the cast of her shoulders. Her wings curled around her. She trembled.
“Fluttershy!” I tried to flap my wings to join her, but they were too weak to do more than stir a breeze around us. “You can’t want to stay like this!”
Her wings opened, and she stared down at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and shining with tears. “I’m not afraid anymore, Twilight. For once in my life I don’t have to be afraid.”
“But that’s who you are! It’s what makes you special!” My voice rattled in my throat. I tasted blood in the back of my mouth. “You’re Fluttershy, the timid one, good with animals, shy around ponies! That’s why we love you! It’s why Discord loves you!”
“Maybe so.” Her eyes drifted to Discord for a moment, and I saw the indecision roiling inside her. “But I need to love myself, too.”
I reeled. Of all the setbacks I had anticipated, betrayal wasn’t one. But now even my friends turned against me. I stumbled and fell back against Starlight’s side. “It’s better this way. We can go back! We can be like we were before! Please! We can still go back!”
“Good for you, huh?” Applejack said. She wasn’t crying, at least. But I wasn’t sure Apples could ever cry. Her mouth stretched out in a flat line, neither a smile nor a frown, but conveying all her distaste nevertheless.
“You won’t get in trouble for the fire, I promise!” I would pardon her the moment we were done. I would rebuild her farmhouse plank by plank with my own hooves if I had to. “We can make it all again! You can go back to the orchard and your family! They’ll take you back!”
“Back to my cage, you mean.”
“It’s okay,” Pinkie Pie said. She smiled at me, but I could see the tears building in her eyes. “We’ll be fine.”
“Please…” I couldn’t be the only pony who felt this way. I couldn’t be the only sane one. The room spun, and I clung hard against Starlight. “Rainbow! Rainbow, tell them this is for the best! We can… we can watch you race again! We can help you be the best young… the best young flyer! Don’t you, don’t you, don’t you want to do that again?”
I stared up at her. With all my soul I begged her to agree. But she just turned away.
“Come on, Sparky,” Discord said. His sudden, harsh, masculine notes dragged me back to the spell we were casting. The magic still flowed through me, guiding us back home. All I had to do was follow it, and we would be done. “We haven’t got all day.”
I could see it. Like a sailor seeing a port rising from the horizon, I saw our past. It waited for us. All I had to do was follow the spell to completion. The elements would do the rest.
I held the magic in my heart. And then I let it go. A long wail clawed its way out of my throat. The glowing strands sputtered, faded, and died.
“What are you doing?” Discord demanded. His anger shook the room. “Help me, dammit! We can do this!”
“I’m sorry.” I wanted to cry. Part of me wanted to die. But that was the weak part of me, and it quickly fell back into the morass of unwanted thoughts in the dungeon of my mind. “I can’t. We can’t.”
“No. No.” Discord stood upright, looming above us. His voice shook the room. “This is not what I intended! If you will not help me fix it, then I will do it myself.”
He held up his hands, and I felt the world begin to tremble. It resisted him – Discord’s power was to bring chaos, not order. He could not merely snap his fingers and undo all this terrible work. But he was one of the most powerful beings in the universe. He might have been able to do it by himself at ruinous cost.
I could have let him. I could have sat there, crying, and let him fix the world. And afterword, I could have told my friends it was for the best. And when they eventually agreed, we could resume our old lives, like nothing had ever changed.
All I had to do was wait. My dream would come true. And everypony else would… would learn to be happy without theirs.
No.
My crown flared with light again. All the elements did, and for a moment the library was lit as brightly as the town square at noon. It blinded me, but even blind I was able to grasp the magic that flowed from our hearts and direct it. I aimed all its power at Discord and let Harmony do its awful work.
A roar filled the library. The world quaked beneath us. A loud ring deafened me as the crystal walls cracked.
And then, silence. I pulled away the dark glasses and the blindfold covering my eyes. The few candles we had laid out were all the light that remained, but they blinded me. It was like staring into the sun. I squinted, waited, and let my eyes adjust as well as they could anymore.
A stone statue stood before me. Discord’s eyes were wide in disbelief. He stretched out a stone claw, as if to ward away our magic. You’d think he’d have learned by now that didn’t work.
“Welp, guess that’s that,” Applejack said. She stretched, pulled off her element and tossed it on the floor. “See y’all around. Or not. Later Dash.” Without any further ado she flew away, and we were one reduced.
Rainbow Dash left next. She squeezed out the window and joined the night. Fluttershy followed.
“Glad that’s over!” Pinkie Pie said. She trotted over and hugged me, then marched to the door. “Come by for some snacks, okay? I have special deals for princesses!”
And then there were three. Or four. I wasn’t sure if Trixie counted anymore. I looked up at the ceiling, where Rarity clung to her web.
She smiled down at us. “You know where to find me, dear. I’m not going anywhere.” Her legs worked, and she gathered the shadows around her like silk, cocooned herself within them, and she was gone.
I closed my eyes. It didn’t help. Even the shadow-cloying room was too bright. Only by staring down through the earth at the distant sun could I find any relief. It called to me still, soothing me. Even if I were blind I could see it. It was all I needed to see, I realized.
It was all I had ever needed to see.
“Fetch me thread?” I asked.
We spent hours together, Starlight and Trixie and I, reminiscing about our friends. We dared to guess what they might become, and we imagined the great things that awaited us all, while I sewed my eyelids shut.
The Archetypist