"You?" Starlight frowned, stepping towards the pool. "What are you doing here?"
Her lookalike straightened up, staring at her from across the starry surface, and shrugged.
"This is a trusted friend of the Night Mother," Yanavan introduced, standing back a few paces. "I was surprised to see how similar you look. But I see you are already acquainted."
"Starlight," Glimmer said, drawing a breath. "Do you remember when I said that the more you used the Nightmare Modules, the more you chased this path, the more it would chase you?"
Starlight swallowed. "But I stopped using them when you told me to. I got myself back to normal and didn't get tempted into anything! Didn't I?"
"You did." Glimmer nodded, pacing slowly around the hexagonal pool until she was at Starlight's side. "But it's a start, not the end. Do you believe in destiny?"
"Like my cutie mark? No." Starlight's nose scrunched. "That was the whole point of running away up here. So nothing could tell me what I had to become."
"And how about you?" Glimmer's gaze turned to Yanavan.
The old monk chuckled. "Destiny is whatever those powerful enough to enforce it decree. In these lands, that means the Night Mother. Anyone who challenges her directly? Good luck."
Glimmer nodded. "It makes sense, doesn't it?"
"...Where are you going with this?" Starlight asked warily.
Glimmer averted her eyes. "How powerful do you think we are?"
"What, us?" Starlight tilted her head. "I don't know, strong? Not that strong? You're strong." Glimmer had told her how far she could go before, and so had the reflection in the dream that gave her the Nightmare Modules. She already knew she'd killed windigoes and crossed mountains, but she had a bad feeling about admitting it, for more reasons than a Monk Lord standing right there.
"Okay." Glimmer continued to stare at the pool, the city's blue pulsing veins originating in its depths. "If you said your friends will stay safe, do you think you're powerful enough to make that their destiny?"
"Of course I don't!" Starlight winced; it would have felt wrong to say anything else. Even being asked the question stirred something resentful inside her. "Why would you even ask that?"
Glimmer didn't look any happier about it than she felt. "Context. You're going to have to take my word on this, Starlight, but the two of us are exactly the same in our potential. Both of us have missions, as well. I know more, but that's it. Up until now, I've been using a lot of tricks to keep up with you, stay hidden and appear either omnipotent or a trick of your mind, but I've hit a battle I'm not confident I can fight. Can you guess what it is?"
Starlight's brain turned, and she stared at the wall for a moment as she tried to put Glimmer's words into a coherent story. "The Night Mother is making you do something," she eventually surmised.
"Close enough," Glimmer answered. "What she's doing is taking interest in you and your Nightmare Modules. I promised you if you did continue using them, you'd get drawn further into the highest turmoil of the world. Sadly, it seems I wasn't quick enough. Now the powers that be are interested in you anyway."
"What...?" Starlight swallowed. "What do you mean? What do I do?"
"That's up to you to decide," Glimmer apologized. "As for me, I work with the Night Mother. I decided she was someone I needed on my team, so I help her out in return. And right now, she's asked the two of us to draw you further in." She hung her head. "I'm sorry, Starlight, but this is not a battle I feel like fighting. I'll still be on your side, but if you don't like this destiny you're moving towards? You'll have to change it on your own. Yanavan?"
Starlight felt her heart clench. She wasn't sure how much she had ever trusted Glimmer, but it suddenly felt like it had been a lot. Before she could speak, though, dark magic crackled around the stallion behind her.
She spun... and Yanavan tapped the ground, power divesting itself from his hoof into the floor. A dark circle inscribed itself between the veins, glowing with the colors of the night, complex magic runes gently radiating into the air.
"But let's talk about yourselves," the Night Mother said, shifting the conversation off Starlight and Yanavan. Her eyes fixed on Valey. "You in particular. You have a lot of questions you came here to get answered, don't you?"
Valey strongly returned the aged, robed sphinx's gaze. "Yeah. That would be cool. You really wanna help me, though?"
"I bear a responsibility to all you children," the Night Mother answered. "Come. Open your heart to me, and I will read what I can of your past."
Valey suddenly felt a probing sensation in her chest, the same gentle knocking that accompanied dusk statues and the Firefly Sisters' song. Only now it was restrained, like it could attack with force yet was taking care not to split her open. Her cutie mark vaguely tingled; there was no real danger, but she was being touched by something immensely more powerful than her. She instantly surrendered, letting the Night Mother in.
A brief, pleasurable tingle suffused her, and then the sensation was gone, releasing her from the sphinx's influence. "I see," the Night Mother said. "This could take some explaining..." Her eyes shifted to the right. "Have you ever heard the name Princess Luna?"
"A little?" Valey tilted her head. "There's an insane dude with Nightmare Modules of his own in Izvaldi who rambled about her for a bit, but he was kind of hard to follow and I don't really remember what he said. Something about how she created batponies, but isn't you, and thought I was something called an artifice?"
"An Artifice of Luna," the Night Mother agreed. "One of three ever made. One she took with her to the moon when she was banished and I stepped in to shepherd her children in her place." She fixed Valey with a look. "You fear being created for an evil purpose by an evil god. Princess Luna was banished for falling to the grip of indominable jealousy, but she had begun her fall already by the time she created your race... much less the Artifices. Your fears are founded."
Valey felt her legs grow weak, giving out without warning. But suddenly, the Night Mother was closer, and caught her despite her age. "Shhh."
"Bananas..." Valey blinked, too shocked to do anything. "You mean I came all this way for this? I survived Ironridge, made friends, tried to be a better pony..."
Maple and Gerardo drew up alongside her, Maple taking her off the Night Mother into a hug. "Oh, Valey..."
The Night Mother stepped back, silent for a moment as the two mares clung together and Gerardo stood guard watchfully. Eventually, the griffon gave her a critical look. "That's not the end of the story, is it?"
"You're a big believer in destiny, aren't you?" the Night Mother said wryly. "You believe where you came from has to dictate where you are going?"
Valey blinked, her eyes not yet wet to need drying. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"There are countless forces in the world that draw creatures together and lead them apart," the Night Mother began. "Love. Hope. Understanding. Friendship. But the only way to say for sure what a creature will do is to be powerful enough to force them to do nothing otherwise. You are fated not to walk through those doors until I say so because I can open them and you can't, for example." She pointed at the locked doors back into the temple. "Princess Luna is helpless and imprisoned where she was banished on the moon for waging jealous war against her sister. She holds less sway over your destiny than a housefly, only that which you give her."
Valey's jaw hung slightly slack. "Hold on, so stuff works that way? Like, as a goddess, who knows a ton more about the world than I do, there's nothing, like... built into me to mess things up?" Her eyes narrowed. "What about the giant comet I came down here in? Moon glass is bad for batponies. Nightmare Modules are bad for everyone! It's totally not harmless!"
The Night Mother smiled grimly. "You aren't harmless either, my little pony. Dangerous enough to have your eyes on the Empire's tournament, in fact. But you get to choose who you hurt, or whether you fight at all. Fighting for your friends alone, unbound by superiors, duty or honor, you have even more of a choice than most living creatures."
Valey stared. "Yeah, but... if she made me because-"
"Luna created her Artifices for one purpose alone," the Night Mother interrupted. "She was a harmonic mare. Jealousy and altruism conflicted intensely in her. Would she have made them had she possessed the counterparts to the Immortal Dream, the artifact that created sarosiankind? No." Her eyes narrowed. "But despite every conflict in her mind, she made them for me."
Valey had nothing to offer.
"Behold." The Night Mother spread her wings, lifting off Eidys' cloak with a shimmer of moonlight, turning her side to Valey and showing her flank.
There, drawn in midnight blue, a complex set of triangular runes faded into existence, a cutie mark that looked less like a pictograph than a spell yet to be cast. "If being an Artifice troubles you," the aged sphinx said, "I have one too."
"Buh?" Valey almost reached out to touch it before stopping herself and shaking out of a daze. "Wait, you're the same thing as I am? But my cutie mark looks normal..."
The Night Mother pressed again on her heart, and Valey felt another tingle, followed by a sensation to look at her own flank. Her mark was gone, replaced by runes much like the Night Mother's, only hers were a deep, ruby red.
"This is what they look like," the Night Mother said. "All of them are capable of obscuring themselves to appear as brands of normal ponies. The visual components of such things are ephemeral. If you meditate on yours, you should find I've given you the ability to shift yours back and forth at will."
"So you're the same thing I am?" Valey asked, not quite caring about the change to her flanks but staring into the sphinx's eyes.
"Our brands are," the Night Mother answered, putting a paw on Valey's chin. "Do you know the relationship between body, brand and soul?"
Valey stared.
"Cutie marks, as you call them, are not creatures' souls," the Night Mother went on. "But they are bound to them. In earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns, a pony's cutie mark grows from the union of their soul and their body, as a manifestation of their truest hopes and dreams with a real, often physical power to change the world."
"But batponies are different?" Maple whispered.
The Night Mother shook her head. "Many races have existed since before recorded history even at the time I was born. Sarosians are different. They were created as vessels by a mortal ascended to godhood, using tools built for or left by gods. The Immortal Dream is the world's truest, most unstoppable embodiment of hope. It grants wishes by creating cutie marks, detached from bodies or souls, that embody any desire. When Princess Luna first gained the Dream, she created many of these as works of art, divine expressions of the innermost hopes of her soul. She then created sarosians' physical forms, also made purely from hope, as an attempt to bring her dreams to life and allow them to live themselves out in the world on their own."
Everyone listened in rapture. "That sounds so special," Maple breathed.
"The creation of life as a realization of your dreams?" The Night Mother gave her a serious look. "Is it really? All mortals pass away, yet life has endured in the world for thousands of years. Where does it come from?"
Valey tilted her head. "Uh, having kids?"
"Precisely." The Night Mother showed her teeth. "But what parent bears foals for the sake of themselves and not their children? In the world we were left, children come into their own, discover their own talents and live their lives in pursuit of their own dreams. As close as family can be, as great a gift as life should be, what Luna did was not the order of things. That is why I call myself the Night Mother. They may be her children, but I guide and shepherd them out of love alone, not because they make manifest anything for me."
"I..." Valey swallowed.
"And," the Night Mother continued. "Even Luna, ascended to a goddess, was not able to alter this way of the world. Born of bodies and cutie marks, sarosians have souls just the same as any other creature. They are weaker for it, beginning with all three when original ponies begin without all three and grow their hopes as they age and learn. Their bodies were created for this purpose by Luna's magic, yet their marks were forged by the same magic of creation that empowers the rest of the world. As such, their links are weaker, with their marks bound less powerfully to their bodies and their souls not at all. This is why original ponies can resist the effects of moon glass yet sarosians are consumed, and why those born without cutie marks can retain their souls even if their marks should be severed."
Valey's jaw hung. "So what does that mean for me?"
"It means you have a soul, mind and will just like all of your friends," the Night Mother promised. "Creating souls was not something Princess Luna could even attempt to do. All of the marks within the meteor were bound to such souls. The personality shifts ponies experience after withdrawing these marks into themselves are the result of two souls improperly sharing one body. These excess marks and souls can even be passed on, should they be mares and have children, creating foals with predetermined marks just like sarosians. But for you?" She smiled gently. "You have a body designed by ascended hooves, but born of a mortal womb. You have a brand of immense power, crafted by Luna's own hooves. And your mind, thoughts and decisions are your own just as much as anyone else in this room."
Valey sagged. "So this mark isn't, like... going to actually do anything bad?"
"It would be up to you to use it either way." The Night Mother took a step back. "Original ponies have brands that match their loves and talents. For anyone born with a brand or given one artificially, it is just power. Perhaps they can use it to support their dreams, and most do. But it is nothing more than power."
"So..." Valey fidgeted with a hoof. "So mine and yours..."
"What do they do?" the Night Mother guessed. "There are three Artifices corresponding to the three societal virtues. Much like there are three true artifacts, the Immortal Dream being the one with which you're familiar. Yours corresponds to love. I think you're already acquainted with its power."
Valey slowly nodded. "It lets me see when I'm in danger. That's like telling the future?"
The sphinx nodded back. "Of the virtues, love binds creatures together. It is related to closeness, drawing in, contraction, the end and destination of all things. Fate may not allow a fixed destination beyond what we can impose on each other, but all things that move still have direction. Mine, meanwhile, is the Artifice of Hope. In this view of everything, love and hope are two ends of a three-sided coin. Hope drives ambition, leads us to strive and search for more than what's already there. It is related to drive, spreading out, expansion, the beginning and origin of all things. Tied to the powers of creation, Luna's favorite of the three, my Artifice was given to me as a gift. It gives me limited power over the brands of others."
"What kind of power?" Gerardo instantly asked, raising an eyebrow.
The Night Mother met his eyes. "If your talent truly did not reflect your desires, I could, perhaps, make changes."
Valey sucked in a breath.
"Perhaps," the Night Mother insisted. "Your brand is not your destiny. I do this to grant power, not to take it away, and I will not break my requirement that you seek me out. Felicity has told you of her quest for me. You know how this works, and it will be much healthier for you if you can live with things you're unhappy with instead of asking me to deal with them instead. I tell you this only so you can know you are not alone."
Valey bowed. "Yeah. I get that. Not that I'd want to get weaker in a fight, either. Just..." She gritted her teeth. "Last question, I guess, then. Why am I here? Why did that meteor come down, and why was I and everyone else inside?"
The Night Mother sighed. "There, I can't say. I've never learned the reason. It may be lost to time itself unless Luna returns and tells us."
"Well... thanks." Valey slumped, then looked up. "I still don't feel that great about being... you know. But I've actually got some answers, now. Thanks."
"One last thing," the Night Mother said, her eyes flashing as the dusk statue began to grind, uncovering the stairs to Starlight. "Things are finished below, so you may leave. Please enjoy my city. But you..." Her eyes fixed on Maple. "You've been damaged somewhere in your past by an intense source of magic, haven't you?"
Maple blinked. "Have I? I think maybe, but how so?"
The Night Mother nodded. "The connection between your soul and your body is somehow broken. It won't affect your day-to-day life, but you should be aware it may have side effects around certain kinds of magic. Most importantly, your brand is the only link between the two, like a sarosian. If it is somehow ever removed, your body will become a lifeless puppet unless someone can restore it. Be careful."
Maple swallowed, hearing the sound of hoofsteps on the staircase. "I will."
Starlight stared at the rune Yanavan had created, suppressing a shudder. "What's that?"
"Nightmare Module five," Glimmer replied. "The one that contains a memory of Princess Luna's greatest betrayal. She was forced to create it as part of..." She averted her eyes. "A process."
Starlight frowned at it. "Okay."
"It doesn't show you the memory directly," Glimmer explained. "It's designed so it can be shown to others, as well. Using it creates that, and touching that is what will show you. It's... the one I was worried the fake Yanavan would convince you to use."
"When you asked me to turn back to normal before I got too drawn in?" Starlight's eyes widened slightly, and she took a step back. "So what are you doing with it now?"
Glimmer sighed, her ears going down with remorse. "Nightmare Modules are nothing more than information. This one contains nothing more than a memory. From the Night Mother's immortal perspective, you're in a role where having the module and having the memory are no different. She wants you to watch it because there are things about her she wants you to understand. So now? I have to talk you into this."
"What's in it?" Starlight hesitantly took a step back, glancing over her shoulder at Yanavan. "Didn't you say if I kept using the Nightmare Modules, it would be a lot harder to stop and live like a normal pony?"
"I did," Glimmer apologized. "And I stand by that." She paced again around the starry pool, coming to a stop at the edge of the memory. "Like I said, there are powers that are interested in you, Starlight. But if you want to live at peace, the ultimate force and fate that drives you to be stronger, search for something better, and not accept things that are wrong? The biggest destiny you'll ever have to fight is yourself. Knowing that there are things you can do and doing nothing. Watching this will push you closer. It will make it harder to sit down and pretend like the world is fine without you, and I don't know if you'll be able to do it. I don't know if you can watch this and not only become even more driven until you fall like Luna did."
"But I believe you," Starlight quietly protested. "I put away the Nightmare Modules. I don't want them! Why are they following me here? Why?"
Glimmer paced closer and hugged her. "You're about to say it isn't fair."
Starlight's next words died on her lips.
"I have to talk you into this," Glimmer whispered. "I need the Night Mother's help, and this is what she's asking of me. I'm so sorry. I hate making things harder for you and just want to see you at peace. I hate this."
Her eyes began to water, and Starlight saw it. "It'll be okay," she promised. "I'll do it, but it won't change anything. I'm still never using Nightmare Modules again, no matter what."
"Don't promise that," Glimmer murmured. "There will come times when the price of having power and not using it is greater on your mind than going too far. You just need to be able to hold onto yourself when you do, and leave once as only once. I just need you to be at peace, Starlight. Do you believe in happy endings?"
Starlight frowned. "Of course. Why wouldn't I?"
Glimmer sighed. "I'll watch it with you, if that will help. This will make your future harder. Please stay strong."
"Thanks," Starlight mumbled, then drew herself up and took a deep breath. If this was a challenge, she would rise to it. Whatever knowledge Glimmer thought would make her life harder, she'd have to live with. She was an expert at dealing with hardship already. She could do this.
They moved their lilac hooves as one, stepping into the circle.
"Alright. That's enough." Twilight Sparkle sat up, silhouetted through the window by the first rising rays of dawn. "Starlight, what did I say would happen at dawn?"
Starlight grinned, her mane slightly unkempt from a night of talking. "We... take a break for breakfast?"
Twilight looked more concerned than amused. "Starlight, your story is incredible and I'd love to keep listening, but ever since you entered that dream cave, I..." Words failed her, and she shook her head to reset it. "This is becoming less a literary endeavor and more something where I need to warn the Princesses. Anything less could be a dereliction of duty!" She kept her voice remarkably in check for the clear stress in her eyes, pleading Starlight to go along. "I appreciate everything you've gone through, and unaccounted for remnants of Nightmare Moon's magic that can be extracted from meteorites spread around the world are one thing, but... don't you think hidden altars where she bestows power on ponies from reflections in dream water are dangerous?"
"My life has been pretty dangerous, Twilight," Starlight admitted. "But what are you proposing? That we pause the story and go to Canterlot so you can tell Celestia about things that happened eighteen years ago? Some of this might have been dealt with by now."
Twilight's eye twitched, clearly torn between demanding safety-related spoilers and preserving the story's integrity.
Starlight drew a hoof across her heart. "I swear Celestia is already aware of any threats I know of related to this that may still be active."
"Yeah, Twi," Rainbow interjected. "Maybe we should hear what's in that memory first, at least?"
"I..." Twilight fidgeted. "Nightmare Moon isn't safe. And with all this future-telling, I'm getting more and more suspicious Glimmer is a future you trying to avert a catastrophe like the ones you and Valey saw. Starlight, this could be serious."
"Twilight..." Starlight yawned. "If I was aware of any imminent, crushing danger to the world and have been for eighteen years, don't you think I'd at least have told you about it when I became your student a week or two ago?"
Twilight's wingtips trembled anxiously. "Well, maybe..."
"No, it's okay!" Starlight smiled disarmingly. "We'll go to Canterlot. You can introduce me to Celestia, and I'm sure she'll never have heard of me at all after how big of a splash I made in the northern world what with the windigoes and everything else that wound up happening, and we'll just pause the story right at a cliffhanger..."
Twilight twitched harder.
"She does have a point," Rainbow pointed out. "Look, I dunno about you, but I'm gonna need some time and like a million reminders to get all this through my head. I do going fast and being awesome, not batpony soul science. So maybe we should, like... hear about this memory and finish this bit just so we don't have to redo all this later? Since it's fresh in my head, I mean. And how long can a memory be?"
"Show you the memory," Starlight corrected.
"Yeah, show us... Wait, what?" Rainbow trailed off, blinking at her.
Starlight bowed her head. "I just said it was a Nightmare Module designed to show the memory to anyone. Most of the story, I've had to tell, but this is a part you could actually live. I just thought I'd offer, and all."
Twilight slowly gave her a look. "This is why you were talking about showing us the modules last break, wasn't it? You have moon glass? Or a way to use them safely?"
"I have another way to use them," Starlight said. "You'll want to close your eyes while I cast it, but everything will make a lot more sense if you see this. If we're going to the Princesses to see what they don't know, you'll really want to know this first."
Twilight took a deep breath. "This is making me nervous, but, for science." She shot both mares a look. "And then we're definitely going to see the Princesses."
Rainbow folded her forelimbs behind her head, kicking back and closing her eyes. "Fine by me."
Twilight averted her gaze too. Shortly, there was a crackle, and when Starlight gave the all-clear, she looked.
A ring of dark energy burned on the castle floor, seeming to draw color away from the crystal palace. Starlight sat unaffected, looking completely like she used to. Runes in the middle of the ring sent wisps of purple and midnight light trailing like geometric smoke, and it seemed to make the room quieter by its very presence.
"So, uhh..." Rainbow sat up and scratched her head. "You're sure this thing is safe, right?"
"It's a memory, Rainbow," Twilight reassured. "And besides, I'm pretty sure I already know what it is. I actually have watched this before, back when we gave the Elements of Harmony back to the tree. It's her fight with Luna, where Luna first transformed!"
Starlight sighed and beckoned them closer. "Just watch."
Twilight and Rainbow Dash stepped closer together, presenting their hooves. "Alright then..." Twilight's ears folded. "How do we do this?"
"Put your hooves in on three, and I'll activate it," Starlight promised. "One... two... three!"
Three taps sounded simultaneously on the crystalline floor. The ring reacted, flaring, and started to rotate, its energy drawing up and drawing the ponies in until they were standing together in a dark cylinder. Rainbow bit her lip, Twilight watched the runes in morbid fascination, and Starlight stood like she had experienced it hundreds of times before, until the floor was sucked from beneath them and they toppled into a winding chute of shadow.