//------------------------------// // Chapter 15 // Story: Fears of Bygone Eras // by Lusaminia //------------------------------// “There there Twilight, just stay still,” Twilight dared to glance at the emerald dragon talking to her. He wasn’t like the others in a few ways, from his more tribal like clothing to his… mental state? She wasn’t quite sure if he was more of less sane than his cousins. “And.... there we are. Sorry about the restrictions last time, don’t want your last few days alive to be immobile.” “I… appreciate the thought Tambier,” Twilight said, looking away. She had felt the mixture’s hold on her magic slipping over the past few days, and part of her had hoped they would take notice. Sadly, if Tambier being in front of her was any indication, that hope was dashed away. “You’ve been a lot nicer to me than some of the dragons here.” “Eh, wouldn’t exactly call this being nice. If you want nice however,” Tambier said, setting the jar down just outside the cell. He could tell the prison was designed for quadrupeds, as he or any other dragon could easily slip through the bars. “Doubt you’ll live long enough to make use of my latest concoction, but just so you know it’s made of a strange stone that I found in old dragon territory, or Badlands as you call it now. Area use to be more mountainous too, but I’m getting off topic.” “Wait… I think I know the kind of stone you’re talking about,” Twilight replied. “The former queen of the changeling once had a throne that completely disabled all but changeling magic. Even Disc-” She could finish saying her old friends name. Last time she had seen him it was after Fluttershy had vanished, vowing that he wouldn’t return until he found her. “It even stopped chaos magic.” “Sounds like you have a history with it,” Tambier said, moving out of the cell and closing the door behind him. He looked down the hall, Twilight not able to see who or what he was looking at. “I didn’t expect to see you down here your majes-” “Tambier, I order you to leave us,” Aurora called from out of Twilight’s view. The moment she did catch view of the long-dead ruler, Twilight couldn't help but smile at the large grimace she wore on her face. “And when I say leave, I mean actually leave!” Tambier could only sigh, knowing that he didn’t have the leverage of friendship that Topaz had with the pegasus. As he walked away, Twilight could hear him talking to himself. “There goes my test subject.” Aurora didn’t wait to see if he would follow through with his promise, opening the door to the Twilight’s cell and stepping inside. Slamming the door closed behind her, she kept her gaze on the alicorn, who seemed to smile back as if she knew exactly what was going on. Any sort of restraint that Aurora had was lost upon seeing it, sending a forehoof into Twilight’s stomach. The alicorn keeled over, but somehow managed to keep that smile on her face, much to Aurora’s disappointment. “You heartless monster!” Aurora shouted, pressing her face up against Twilight’s. “What in the creator’s name did you do to her? What spell is Luminous under that made her follow you?” “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Twilight replied, only for Aurora to once again jab her hoof into the alicorn’s stomach. “Don’t you dare play dumb with me. Psyche told me about your meeting with my many times great granddaughter!” Aurora said, a small growl coming up from her voice. “What did you do to her? What sort of witchcraft did you cast to make my own blood follow such a heinous mare as yourself! No Oracle, whether from this universe or not, would do such a thing-” “What are you…” Twilight took a minute to think about what Aurora had just told her, genuinely shocked. “Oh, Luminous is a paradox. How did I not figure that out earlier?” Aurora’s entire face spasmed, unable to perceive the fact Twilight wasn’t playing her for a fool. She knew that any attempt to beat the mare would do nothing, both because of Twilight still most likely being immortal and the kind of impression that would give. Nopony was around, as far as she knew, but something told her Tambier wasn’t too far away. If he heard her go off, if she let her attitude get the better of her, that would give a horrible impression. Ponies already didn’t trust her, save for the castle’s medic and Psyche strangely enough, but that was two in a city of thousands. “Not the point,” Aurora replied. “What the hell did you do to her? What magic did you cast on her to make her want to follow you?” “Look, Aurora, I’m gonna be completely honest with you here,” Twilight said, trying to calm the mare in any way she possibly could. “I only had one encounter with Luminous, and that was more than two weeks ago now. Do you really think that was enough for me to gauge what kind of pony she is.” “She was staying at that house, Psyche told me that. She never came home, the last time she saw her was at this festival you were holding, and her mom is a wolf,” It hadn’t taken much for Aurora to get any of that information either, considering how Psyche didn’t seem to take a hint as to why she was asking all of these questions in the first place. “This wolf, is the same creature, that sliced into my eye!” Twilight’s smile didn’t waiver at any point, only seeming to grow. “And you know what that means?” It took Aurora less than a minute to realize exactly what it was that Twilight was talking about. Though the queen didn’t mean to use the young pegasus as a tool, it was a leverage that she had just been given, and would take full advantage of. Any anger that Aurora had was replaced by fear. Fear that she might have sent her second most dangerous enemy after the only family she knew she had. It didn’t matter if that family was from an entirely different timeline, universe, or whatever. She ran out of the cell, slamming the door close once again much to Twilight’s disappointment. -------- “Topaz! Topaz! Topaz where are you?!” Aurora called out as she rushed through the castle, passing many of her own soldiers in doing so. None of them knew what was going on, but seeing their commander in this state was not a good thing. As she reached the dragoness’ bedroom door, she started knocking excessively. “Topaz! Open up! Open up!” After a minute of knocking, Aurora saw the door knob turn. Topaz opened the door, still largely asleep, and found herself immediately tackled to the ground by the pegasus. That was all it took for her to wake up completely, finding Aurora muttering incoherently into her chest. Getting up, she closed the door, ignoring the pegasus clinging to her, before moving back to her bed and prying said pegasus off her. “Okay, you’ve woken me up, what is it?” Topaz asked. “It’s, what, ten at night?” “I’m… sorry. I should have thought about this better,” Aurora said, hanging her head low. “I don’t really trust anyone else here, and ponies don’t seem to fully trust me,” She took a deep breath, but any sense of calm it gave her was destroyed by the panic in her mind. “I’m taking you up on your offer! I need you to get out there and stop Tholak!” “Oh, um… uh,” Topaz picked at her scales, looking around in a poor attempt to mask her surprise. “What, um… what caused this to happen?” “You remember how I told you I was an only child, how my mom died trying to give birth to my… my sister?” Aurora asked, looking away. It was rare for the pegasus to look as vulnerable as she was in those moments, but Topaz recognized this reaction from a talked they had before they died one-thousand years ago. “I don’t know how, but I have a grandchild! The Oracle family is still alive, and that alicorn just sent her to her death with the same group that has the canon.” Topaz didn’t need to hear anything else, getting up and grabbing a strange, glowing green spear from next to her bed. Aurora followed her out of the room, making their way down the hall. No questions needed to be asked, no “why” or “how” as to this grandchild’s existence. Aurora wasn’t one to pull her tail like that, and no matter how this all came to fruition, Topaz saw why her comrade was scared. “You realize that doing such a thing could set us back now, right?” Topaz asked. “I will admit, I’m confused about you suddenly having living family, but Tholak is after the canon, isn’t he?” “I know it’s risky, but you must understand what this means to me,” Aurora responded. “That alicorn, knowingly or not, put my own blood in the firing line. That means that if you find her, you will not only find Tholak but the canon as well.” “Take out three birds with one stone,” Topaz smiled. “Anything you can tell me about her? Looks? Mannerisms? How do you know about her?” “A pony whose lips were as loose as that dagger blade Tambier accidentally dropped on his foot,” Aurora answered, managing to get a giggle out of the dragon. “I don’t know what she looks like, but her name is Luminous Oracle. She’s… not exactly from Equestria, I guess.” Even a half lie like that left a bad taste in Aurora’s mouth, but she had to do it. As much as she trusted Topaz, she knew that the dragon already had a thousand questions about the specifics of this sudden family member. Telling her about the entire paradox and alternate Equestria thing would be a mistake, especially since she wasn’t sure how much of that was real to begin with. That wasn’t what mattered though. What mattered, was trying to save the only family she might possibly have. “Oh, and go alone,” Aurora says, stopping and turning to Topaz. “It’s possible you might encounter the two groups at the same time, right? Would have to play the double agent until you can get Luminous out of there.” Topaz smiled. “Doesn’t make me feel comfortable, but situations like this never are,” She kneeled down, putting a hand on the Aurora’s shoulder. “Just, promise not to lose your cool, please? Don’t want to clean up your mess once I get back.” Aurora nodded, a hoof crossing her chest. “Promise.” -------- Silvia and Luminous opened their eyes, the former’s paws wrapped around the later. The sudden change in temperature, the constant chill that went through her fur, told her she was correct. Moments prior, she was able to see the waterfront through the trees behind Sunnyside and Morning Brew’s home. Now, the only things that they could make out was each other. The house was gone, the moon no longer in the sky, and the darkness was so thick it felt alive. Luminous hated these moments, the ones where her visions felt more like a nightmare than reality, as if she was trapped with nothing but the void around her. Silvia, however, recognized this feeling well, and as such knew exactly where they were. This was what was left of her, no, their home. Their Equestria, broken, and just as dark and lifeless as it had always been. An Equestria where Celestia and Luna had long ago died, and the nation they birthed fractured between believers of the sun and moon. An Equestria that, in all but Luminous’ mind, was unreachable, stuck in a moment that she knew, but no longer remembered. This was all part of Silvia’s goal: figure out exactly what the rules of Luminous’ “anomaly” are, and the exact limitations that apply to them. So far she was able to gauge that since telling Luminous to focus on the visions brought them here, it wasn’t just randomly activated. Clearly she didn’t have full control of when it activates all the time, but she could come here whenever she wanted, as long as she could focus on it. The second thing was that coming here didn’t just apply to Luminous, as she was able to visit. That didn’t mean, however, that it was a matter of making physical contact. Many times before she had held Luminous when her anomaly activated against her will. In those instances, however, a key lesson from her training also restated certain things: a paradox’s powers were inconsistent. Not inconsistent as in they didn’t always have the same general affect, but inconsistent as in they didn’t always follow their own rules. That was applied here in the fact that her vision, which Silvia was beginning to realize was more akin to a time-limited dimensional warp due to how she could actually feel the ground and wind change when it activated. This wasn’t the first inconsistency, as she remembered Luminous sometimes disappearing when it activated. Sometimes, her body was fully pulled through the warp, though sometimes her body would stay afterwards, the only hint that her anomaly was active being words and a complete dissociation of what was going on. In other words, an anomaly could put a paradox in harm because, just like how it shouldn’t exist, the rules don’t always exist as well. It could make them just as much a danger as a gift, if a rule is broken in the worst situations. “Everything feels so… different,” Luminous muttered, shifting her mother’s attention back to her. “It’s never been comfortable, but sometimes it’s worse than others. The most consistent thing is that it’s always night.” Her gaze shifted upwards to the dark, moonless sky. Silvia followed her daughters, taken in her birth Equestria for the first time in years. “So… the memories of this Equestria are in their somewhere, but this is the only way for me to access them.” “Perhaps, perhaps not. It’s too real to just be a memory,” Her mother told her. She tried to remove her paws from Luminous’ shoulders, but found herself half stuck. Her right forepaw remained attached to her daughter, but the left was removed with no effort. “So, when somepony is dragged in with you, they have to keep in contact with-” She looked to her daughter’s face, the confusion evident making it clear what she was saying made no sense. “Sorry, forgot none of this makes any sense to you still.” A few seconds later, and Luminous winced as she and Silvia were transported out of her warp. That was new to her, considering her mother’s lack of reaction, it must have been normal for manually activating an anomaly... it took Luminous a full minute to realize she had no idea what that meant. In an attempt to distract herself from the larger and confusing words that had entered her mind, she looked around for anything that could start a conversation. “Hey, um, mom,” Luminous looked to the wolf next to her as she talked. “You’re also from the same Equestria as I am from, right? That means you are a paradox and also have a… I can’t remember what term you used but, you know.” “Yes, I also have an anomaly,” Silvia replied, chuckling at her daughter’s forgetfulness. “I should note that an anomaly doesn’t manifest right away. It can’t take anywhere from a month to years for a paradox to obtain one, but I’ve never heard of one forming as soon as a paradox forms. If you want to know what I can do however,” The wolf couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Well, let’s just say I can read the memory of any living creature as long as my our heads are in contact with each other.” “Wow,” Luminous responded, though the look portrayed the excitement in her voice. “That’s… less exciting than I expected it to be, consider what Arcane and I can apparently do.” “My anomaly isn’t the topic of tonight, though, is it?” Silvia asked, patting Luminous on the head. “Tonight was to see if yours was in some way manually activated, and by the looks of it, concentrating on your experience with these“visions” is indeed a manual activation for it, albeit for a limited time,” The pat turned into a hug, Luminous nearly falling over at the weight her mother was putting on her. “Just keep messing around with it and understand it’s “rules”, and-” “Ahem!” Silvia and Luminous turned back to the house, seeing a rather serious Morning Brew watching them from the patio. Brew signalling with her hoof to Silvia, no words exchanged between the two, but the latter knew what was being asked of her. The wolf turned and whispered to her daughter, who in term whispered back. She received a nod, and without another word Luminous left them, heading towards the front yard and the house’s main entrance. That left two creatures, one a unicorn and the other a wisewolf, all alone in the back of the house. “How much of that did you see?” Silvia asked, shifting slightly into a fighting stance. “You and your daughter suddenly reappearing does not concern me,” Brew said, her voice sounding drastically different from the happy yet reserved unicorn she had heard. Silvia didn’t know how, but she recognized it from somewhere. “What does concern me, is how much you seem to know about the canon?” Silvia’s stance only shifted more as that question was tossed her way. Brew teleported out of the patio and into the grass only a paws length away from the wolf. Compared to everypony else she had met, from the festival to meeting Sunny earlier today, Brew was unusually calm about the strange creature in front of her. No fear, no screams, nothing of the sort. She was calm, almost as if she had seen the creature before. Silvia pulled her lips into a snarl, though it did little to intimidate the pony. “Who are you?” Brew smiled, sitting on the dirt with her eyes closed. “I could tell you, but since you can apparently read memories…,” She straightened herself. “I think that would be the easiest and more efficient way of doing this.” Silvia looked for any hint that she was joking, playing coy, or anything of that sort, but found the unicorn deceptively hard to truly read. Looking around her to make sure no one was close by, Silvia took a few steps before sitting down. Brew opened her eyes, her expression still but heart skipping a beat as she saw Silvia’s predatory gaze on her. There was no intent to kill, at least not a big one, but the sight of Silvia’s teeth were more than enough to put her on edge. “It might sting a little. The mind doesn’t like outsiders glancing at it,” The wolf warned, resting her paws on the unicorn’s shoulders as she leaned in. Brew’s response was simple. “Just do it.” Silvia did as asked, resting her head on Morning Brew’s dome and closing her eyes. A minute later, and Brew found herself having to close her own, the “sting” Silvia mentioning feeling more like a javelin to the skull. She could hear whispers, all of which her own voice, in the back of her head. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, and the pain only grew and grew, the metaphorical javelin sliding further and further into her skull. As that pain neared the point of making her wish to scream, however, it suddenly subsided. Silvia gasped as she shot straight up, the unicorn in front of her keeling over, mind fuzzy and thoughts light headed. “The night shall rule… the spark didn’t… no.” Silvia muttered to herself. She looked to the unicorn lying down in front of her breathing heavily. The wolf offered a paw, Brew finding the strength to grab it and stand up. “That can’t be right. Sitting on the throne, many memories in the castle, with Celestia, a gigantic gap that… it can’t be.” “An alicorn’s heart is the canon,” Morning Brew said, breathing still heavy but her as strong as before. “When Twilight took over the throne, our duties, our kingdom, we saw a chance to bring our immortality to an end, and live out one last century. We wished to finally die, as all things are suppose to,” Any semblance of joy in her eyes vanished as a tear fell down her face. “We didn’t realize that in doing so, we would become near unrecognizable. Not our citizens, not our oldest friends… not even my sisters pupil knew who we were, and all called us fakes.” “I’m… I’m sorry, Brew,” Silvia replied, the shock and the amount of memories she had grabbed filling her with worry and fear. “Please,” Brew said, her eyes unable to meet the wolf in front of her. “Just call me Luna, if you wish.” No words were exchanged between the two, both sitting still under the moonlight. Luna looked up, her eyes first landing on Silvia, motionless save for the slight movement in her eyes. Looking past the wolf, however, she noticed something moving in the shadows. Three figures, all bipedal, all covered in armor a red glow emanating from one’s staff. Her eyes widened, the eavesdropping earlier filling her in on more than enough on the details to know who this was. That gut feeling was only made more correct as she saw one raised a spear. The moment it left his hand, Luna’s instinct took over. “Duck!” She shouted, pulling Silvia down to the ground as the spear past over them. Silvia looked up as it passed over their heads, it being all she needed to be snapped back to reality. She looked behind her, gaze instantly falling on the three dragons, all rushing towards her. Without a second thought, she turned to Luna, any question she had for the unicorn having to wait. “Get everypony up, including your sister. It’s not safe for you to stay here anymore,” Silvia said. “I think I can hold them off long enough for everypony to get out of here.” Luna didn’t even attempt to argue, knowing who this figure was just as much as the wolf did. She nodded, getting to her hooves and rushing to the front door much the same as Luminous minutes earlier. Silvia pushed herself up, looking to the trio of dragons that had managed to close the distance between them in a matter of seconds. In the middle was Tholak, the bloodstone scepter painting him and the ground in front of him crimson red. The look in the dragon’s face wasn’t that of anger, but a smile of crazed joy. “I applaud you for staying ahead of us for so long, and for nearly offing Aurora,” Tholak said, his happiness sounding just as psychotic as the smile he wore. “However, I still have need of her, and that alicorn will be quite a nuisance.” “If you want the canon, you’re gonna have to kill me for it,” Silvia explained, her backside raised and head nearly touching the ground, ready to pounce. Tholak only laughed at her, ripping the spear out of one of his own soldier’s hands. “Oh, trust me, I was gonna do that anyways.”