I turn our gleaming-path around the black circle in the sky below us. He must be down there. We burst through the clouds and hit the ground in less than a blink. The rainbow road burns a pattern of circles into the ground, charing dried plants as it marks our landing point.
Twilight managed to land with all her strength and power at the ready, she's taking stock of our position. I can’t stand upright for a few seconds, the spell was so draining. Mentally I thank Princess Luna; there’s no way I could have gotten us here without her anchoring the spell at the other end and providing most of the energy needed.
Still panting, I look around. We’re in a crater, wait… no, those trees around the edge look familiar. We’re nearby the lake where the amulet should have been hidden. The plant matter beneath my hooves crunch slightly, and I glance down. Dried out, but still recognizable as seaweed. He must have boiled the lake away! Can we even compare with that kind of power?
Motion in the center by the side of a small bonfire draws my attention. A face like blackened charcoal meets my eyes, his scarred face cracking a horrid smile at us. My heart drops into my gut when I spot the object on his chest, the Alicorn Amulet. We’re too late. Despair is waiting for us, and that’s all we’ll find here.
Then I see Twilight at my side, determined and sure, and I recall what she said last night. Hope is a power, grasp it, and never let go. Despair clearly has all the advantages, he’ll have traps and defenses at the ready, but she still stands against him. Seeing her now, I think I understand what she was really trying to say to me last night.
It might be all I have left, but I still have hope.
If… when we’ve won this, I’m definitely telling her how I feel.
Luna paces on the balcony, her shoes clicking loudly with each agitated hoofstep. She raised the moon some time ago but has been here trying to settle her emotions before going to work. So far, her only conclusion is that she is conflicted.
At one end of her pace, she can spy the tower where Stardust lives, and the neon-blue lightning that had danced across Twilight flashes in her mind. He should be sitting in a prison cell for that. She turns away, trying to let her anger cool and recalling what Twilight had asked. Let him go, she said, he’s suffering enough.
When pressed, the Princess of Friendship had reluctantly explained. Stardust, or Sable as she called him, had been there at the crater where she fought the Monster of Ash. He had been her friend and ally, he was the one who had to be left behind when Twilight was sent back to stop the Monster from ever being created. Twilight’s explanation of the metaphysics behind it all is still properly confounding. However the magic works is not essential, only the consequences matter.
Twilight was evasive on Stardust’s story, but what she was able to pry loose told Luna more than enough. Of a life lived in self-imposed emotional exile. Of solitude and misery because he couldn’t see past his own pain and self-loathing. Twilight hadn’t used those words, but the story was a… thematically familiar one to Luna, so she was able to understand his actions. For that reason, she can’t quite bring herself to be truly angry with him. So she turns back in her pacing and walks back to the other end of the balcony.
Still, his condition cannot have been helped by his confrontation with Twilight Sparkle, and this worry keeps her from concentrating. Even with Twilight safely back in Ponyville, she hasn’t seen any sign of Stardust. He will have locked himself in his home until he can get a handle on his anger. At least, that’s what she thinks he would do.
It’s what she would do.
So she paces, uncertain. He wouldn’t want her to interfere, but if she doesn’t, he might hurt himself. Accidentally, she is sure, not even wanting to seriously consider he might harm himself intentionally. So she turns back again until she can see his tower and her earlier anger returns.
It’s gone like this for an hour or more. Turn, concern, turn, and anger.
She pauses to look up at the moon, but tonight it’s covered by dark clouds. There’s a storm tonight, or was it planned for the morning? Lightning flashes, far away, and she counts the seconds before the thunder rolls over her. The storm is so distant that the noise is little more than a grumble.
The flash of light reminds her that this will all pass in time and that she cannot spend all night pacing uselessly. She sighs and allows herself one last look over towards Stardust’s tower before she has to descend out of reality.
Through an infinite hall of little orbs of light, she wanders, watching Equestria sleep. Here and there, she looks in upon a dream, watching the joyful and the adventures alike. For the frightened foal trembling beneath sheets, she is a reassuring presence. For the concerned, a voice of assurance that all will end well.
Then a scream, a familiar one not heard in some many weeks. It takes only an instant to find the source, a purple Alicorn at the bottom of a burned lake standing against a Monster of ash and sorrow. She sighs, the encounter with Stardust must have triggered Twilight’s terror again.
She descends as the Monster advances, swatting it aside as she lands at Twilight’s side. The small Alicorn has not fared well tonight, battered and bloody, and her left-wing twisted sickeningly. In particular, a horrid gash on her flank bleeds profusely right through her cutie mark, which is somehow missing. The prone pony doesn’t notice her.
“Do not fear the Monster, I am with you.” But Twilight doesn’t seem to hear her. Luna frowns. “Twilight?” She groans weakly when Luna nudges her. “Stand, Princess Sparkle. You have already faced this terror and proven victorious.”
“You are incorrect, dreamwalker.” That’s not Twilight’s voice. It’s coming from over by the bonfire. Luna stands over Twilight, shielding the small broken body with her own as she spins towards the owner. The Monster stands from where she had knocked it down, facing her with a gaze of pure flame. “Twilight was unable to win this conflict.” A white-hot arc breaks open its blackened face, a wicked and cruel smile. “I took everything from her.”
“Begone, Monster.” Luna blasts the creature away, sending it hurling into the fire. The bonfire sputters, and the blacked form of the Monster emerges again, unscathed by her attack.
“I killed so many.” Cutie-marks fly into view, thousands of them, too many to count, spiraling around the Monster before shooting into the black hole in the sky. “I killed her family, her student, and her mentor.” It raises one arm, and Celestia’s mark hovers there for a moment before the Monster clenches hard, and the bright sun explodes into a shower of failing embers. Even knowing it isn’t real, Luna still cringes. “I killed her friends, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.” The marks of Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy appear around it, flashing away just like Celestia’s.
“You are nothing, just her dream!” Her forceful shout, amplified by her will, blows out all the flames inside the dried lake. Everything goes too dark to see. The light at the core of the Monster, the glowing gem of the Alicorn Amulet, pulses back into view first. The ominous red glow is joined by the Monster’s magma eyes, followed by the lightning blazing across its face, and then finally its white-hot mouth as it laughs.
“Again, you are incorrect, dreamwalker.” Small fires burst with each of its hoofsteps as it draws near. Luna refuses to back down, standing tall against the hate. The Monster draws up to her, just outside of reach. Its eyes meet hers with equal will. “This isn’t her memory.” With one hoof, it reaches up and starts to pull on its face.
The lightning across its face stretch and strain to hold the Monster’s skin together. The blackened fur flakes off, dropping onto the ash below like chips of volcanic obsidian. It struggles harder, ripping its own face off. With one final tug and a tearing sound like violent thunder, it finally rends its face off and drops the black mass into the ash like a discarded mask. Luna stares in horror at the familiar face that meets her eyes.
“It’s mine.”
Luna flings herself out of the dreamspace with such force that she stumbles over when her consciousness returns to her body. Cold stone meets her, and she has to stay there lying on the floor while she shudders. The shock leaves her gasping for air, disbelieving what she just experienced.
She has to use the railing to pull herself upright, grasping at her head. The oncoming headache is a reminder that she shouldn’t have kicked herself out of the dreamspace so violently. When she opens her eyes, she finds herself facing Canterlot city, and her heckles rise along with her temper when she spies the source of Twilight’s terrors.
Stardust. It had been Stardust’s face behind the Monster’s mask.
She’s in the air before she can stop herself, angling over the palace walls towards his tower. It’s not far, and she doesn’t have long to consider what she’s going to say or do when she gets there. Her first instinct is to use her trembling hooves to smash in his face, but she buries that before reaching his tower. There has to be another explanation. The large window is closed and locked, naturally, and she doesn’t even bother to check if the front door is unlocked before teleporting inside.
It doesn’t surprise her that the interior is unchanged from when she was last here. Stardust had only one night here once he was out of the hospital. She isn’t quiet as she stomps over towards his bed, noting the glass with a dark-blue liquid at his bedside, but he doesn’t wake. Small burns from the lightning he used earlier have singed marks across his face very similar to the filigree on his masks.
“Stardust!” She controls herself just enough to avoid using the Equestrian royal voice, keeping her shout just shy of deafening. Stardust doesn’t wake, nor does he give any sign that he heard her at all.
Involuntarily she glances over towards the kitchen space to be sure he hasn’t brewed himself a new poison. There are another set of ingredients out, he had undoubtedly made something. She gives him a quick glance, still sleeping, although she can see him twitching slightly as his dream continues.
Curious, and trying to calm herself, she checks what it is he made this time. Honey, tea, wintergreen mint, the finely powdered amethyst, as well as a few chemicals that are safe to drink. The pot it was mixed in contains a small amount in its base, still fresh, which matches the fluid in the glass at his bedside. Ingredients for a sleeping potion, correctly made this time. Unfortunately for him, if his goal was to rest without dreams, this was a poor decision. His new concoction is one she is familiar with, a draught that would guarantee an active mind.
“This explains why I found his dream, for once.” Also, why he didn’t respond to her shout. Now, however, she knows it won’t be complicated to wake him. She stalks over towards him, staring down at him and still trying to determine what it is she plans on saying.
Luna dips briefly into the dream-world to find him again. He, the Monster, stands in the dried lake under a sky of perfect grey. There is no motion, no life in this place. Even Stardust seems frozen like black stone. She pulls at his psyche, ripping him out of the dreamspace and back into his own body. He lurches and gasps, rolling out of his bed and onto the floor with a thud.
“Explain,” Luna demands it of the prone pony, loudly and firmly, affixing her stern eyes on him. He repeatedly blinks up at her as he tries to reorient himself, twisted blankets and sheets binding him to the floor.
“Luna? What?” His waking mind still hasn’t fully processed the dream. Then he mentally catches up to her, and his tone shifts away from honest confusion. “Hmpf. Trespassing. Just like her.” His voice nearly matches his earlier bile.
“She said you were her ally. If that was true, explain why it was you attacking her.” She doesn’t help him as he wiggles out of the tangle of cloth and stands with cracked glass wings folded under her unrelenting stare. He looks over towards the glass at the bedside, lifting it and frowning at the remaining potion. It briefly appears he’s considering downing the rest, but his eyes swerve towards Luna, and he clearly decides against it, there is no escape in unconsciousness.
“There’s nothing to explain.” Luna’s scowl deepens. “Because that’s how it happened.”
“You lie.” Luna snaps, crashing one hoof down hard enough to crack the floor and lashing out with her aura. The glass with the leftover potion shatters as her forceful impact breaks the nightstand in half. He doesn’t even flinch at her outburst. “I’ve seen how Princess Sparkle remembers that day.”
“She remembers how she chooses to remember. I am responsible for the agony she suffered.” Why isn’t he trying to defend himself? “Just as she is responsible for mine.” He turns away, slowly heading towards the stairs to the second level and ignoring his coat hanging by the door.
“I want an answer, a real answer.” She beats him to the top of the stairway and blocks his path, her eyes locked on his.
“I’ve already given you one.” Electric charge builds around his horn. He wouldn’t dare attack her, would he? Luna braces herself, but no attack comes. Thunder crackles as he vanishes and then reappears nearby the giant hourglass, his face towards the window. “All you need to know.”
“Stop evading the question!”
“Don’t make me repeat myself! You were there to hear what she said.” Neon-blue eyes reflect in the glass, just barely visible in the night.
“Yes, I was! I heard you screaming it was her fault. This isn’t about what she may or may not have done!” Luna stamps hard again, sending a shudder through the building. “This is about what I saw in your dream and her nightmare!”
“Then, you’ve seen enough.” His voice has dropped, no longer shouting, but he still doesn’t turn to face her. “You’ve seen me kill Equestria. You’ve seen me violate Twilight.”
“That’s nonsense, and you know it. You need to stop keeping secrets from me!”
“What do you want me to say?!” He spins, finally facing her. “That I was controlled by some evil spell? That I wasn’t responsible for my actions?” Teeth grind, and his eyes twitch. “Well, I can’t!” He jabs his right forehoof into his chest. “I made the choice to cast that spell!” Slowly, his gaze drops to the floor. “I made the choice to put on the Alicorn Amulet. I am responsible.”
“You’re still dodging the question! I’ve had enough of these half-truths and deceptions! I want the whole story!”
“You want to know what I did?” lightning dances across his face again, the glow illuminating something dripping off his face. It could be tears or flakes of charred fur or both. “I made that thing. I made it bone and flesh. I gave it my own hate. I gave it the knowledge it needed, and the will to do it. Everything it did, it did because I wanted it to!” The heat of his hate flows through his mane, making it smolder like hot ash and turning it from black to a filthy grey.
“That face…” Her mane is already standing on end, or it would now as she shudders. It’s not neon-blue eyes that meet hers as he raises his head, they glow red with burning embers. Beside those eyes, his fur is crossed by the lightning marks of the Monster’s face, blazing with an electric fury. The hate in his face bleeds into his fur, deepening its shade until it fades almost all the way to charcoal black.
“It is me. I am it. I am Despair.”