I can feel Twilight’s breathing slow as she finally falls asleep. About time. She’s been awake since yesterday morning, whenever that was. The battle with Despair drained everything from her, and given how frail she is now, I fear that everything might be literal. Her condition is worse now than when we left Pinewood.
When even was that? Looking around, I can’t tell how long we’ve been traveling. All sense of time in this forsaken place is lost to me. The horizon is no use, the sun hasn’t risen, and neither has the moon, it’s still that same almost-light it was when Despair’s spell ended. Celestia or Luna would have set things right if they could. I guess that means we failed. Are they both dead too?
I sigh and stare at my mask, glinting in the firelight. The empty eye sockets stare right back, almost like Despair’s skull. I killed him… myself. I shake my head, still trying to comprehend my own memories. Too many memories.
My hooves start to shake, and I crumple down next to Twilight, trying to stay calm for her sake. It’s no simple thing to exist again after being disintegrated. Did I die? I should be dead. I can recall the sensation as my horn punctured the Amulet, but also… I can feel it impale my own chest. How is that possible?
The only thing I can think of is that I was more right than I thought I was. Despair and I were the same pony before this all began, and now we are again. His memories are now my own. How much of the pony I am now is him? What about my body?
I glance down at my leg, the line where it was shot off is a prominent scar now. Tartarus’s gates that had hurt! My left eye twitches with phantom pain, even squeezing it shut doesn’t really help. I probably have a scar there as well. At least that scar tells me that this body is mine and not his.
Twilight twitches and groans in her sleep, she must be having a nightmare. I slip one feathered wing over her, wishing I could dive into her dreams and help. Those wings are new, too, familiar yet very strange. She struggles more, I can feel her pulse quicken.
“Twilight! I’ve got you!” I mean it to be comforting, but she shrieks and kicks out weakly, twisting the blanket around her injured leg and wing. “It’s alright. It’s just a nightmare.” If only that were really true, this place is just as much a terror. I take her and hold her close, wrapping my feathered wings around her as she had for me. “Shh. It’s not real.” It takes her a few minutes of gasping for breath and crying before her shivers calm enough for her to speak.
“Please, Sable. Tell me he’s gone.” She’s almost breathless, so weak and pained.
“Despair, the monster.” Dying firelight flashes off the mask. I can see her through his eyes, bleeding on the ground where he… I… left her. Her blood drips down from my horn into my eyes, and I wipe the memory away. “He’s gone.” How I hope that’s really true…
The creature that was once Stardust, now calling itself Despair, lifts his head and glares at Luna. Silence fills the room, disturbed only by the sound of her hoofstep as she backs slowly away. Only now can she see what she hadn’t before in those nightmares of Twilight’s.
Lightning had danced across the Monster’s face in the same pattern as Stardust’s masks. The mane and tail had matched his style, even the streak of blue was present, although burnt to ash white. Even the way they stand, ready for a fight, it’s the same. They really are the same pony.
Drums fill her ears as her heart pounds. Questions fill her thoughts. Why hadn’t she seen the similarity before? Why didn’t Twilight tell her? How complete is the transformation? Why does it fill her with dread? Worryingly, why does it seem so familiar? Where has she seen such hatred before?
She knows. Of course, she knows. In the mirror. Nightmare Moon.
She shakes her head, trying to clear it of such a dark imagining. Would this have happened if she hadn’t come here tonight? Is it her fault? Does it even matter? He’s lowering his horn aggressively, sparks skitter up and down it, his neon-blue aura flashing.
“Don’t do this.” Is there anything she can do to stop it? Her anger still burns in her veins from earlier, blinding her options.
“Don’t what?” More mockery. “Admit this is who I am?” Despair takes a step forward. “A monster? A creature of hate and pain? Well, guess what, princess. I am!” He stomps hard, sending cracks radiating out from the impact. “This world hates me! It’s always hated me! I’m tired of pretending I can live in it!”
Luna backs away another step, desperately trying to find something, anything, she can do. She could stun him, subdue him before he hurts himself. She shakes her head again. No, that would only delay this, and it would be so much worse the second time. Better to keep him talking, at least until she can think of something better.
“What, then? What do you think you can do about it? You are just one pony.”
“One pony with the knowledge of how this world died.” He taps the side of his head. His left eye loses focus briefly as energy leaps from his hoof to his temple. “I could do it again, couldn’t I?”
Could he? She’s seen the battle between Twilight and the Monster so many times now. The event runs over in her memory. The black circle bleeding fire towards the ground. The bonfire in the crater, burns and scars from the battle. The Monster with the Alicorn Amulet shining from his chest, and a cutie-mark that matches the dark sign in the sky.
Despair, the one right here, starts to circle the room. She refuses to let him out of her sight, keeping pace with him and then placing the giant hourglass between them. The glow from his ember-red eyes makes the sand seem like blood, and she can’t read his expression clearly. Behind the glass, distorted by the refraction but still clearly visible, his flank is still blank.
Luna’s eyes narrow. That’s a significant difference from the Despair that assaulted Twilight. Could it mean that the transformation isn’t total? Can she still save Stardust?
“It wouldn’t even be that hard. I remember the spell.” There’s something odd about his tone. “The only thing I’d need is that Amulet, and I’ve got the spell for that too.” Why doesn’t he just teleport away then? She doesn’t say it aloud, no reason to give him ideas. There must be some reason he’s trying to nettle her.
“You know I won’t let you. Neither would Twilight.”
“Twilight wouldn’t even try.” He growls. “Not anymore. Not after what she did to me.” What she did? “She’d try to talk me down, she wouldn’t fight back.” Luna’s mind goes back to the confrontation in the garden. Much had been shouted there, it’s difficult to remember exactly what was said. Twilight had said something about his mask.
The mask. There’s something special about that mask. Her eyes dart to the table with the masks on it, they’re still there. Stardust had said it was enchanted. Twilight had told her it was supposed to give his family back to him. What is she missing? What did that mask do?
She needs answers and still more time. Unfortunately, only Despair has them.
“Stardust. Sable Stardust.” He snarls at his old name. “I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t ever do something so vile.”
“You know nothing of what I’ve been through!”
“How dare you!” Her anger gets the better of her, momentarily. “Do you not know who you are talking to?! I know you feel alone! I know you feel hated and betrayed!” She knows she’ll not be able to talk him down this easily, but she has to give him this chance. Twilight would try, and she suspects the other Alicorn would die in the attempt to save him from himself. “I’ve been there myself!” She jabs her own hoof into her chest. “Look at what happened to me!” Despair hesitates for an instant, nearly stumbling. “You don’t have to fall to that darkness!” His eyes drop to the floor, but only for a moment, and then he hardens his gaze.
Luna glances at the mask again, still trying to piece together his story from the fragments she knows. When Twilight first asked for help, her letter had said she had to leave a friend behind. When Luna spoke with Stardust about that mask, he said it was a curse, and that the one who had enchanted it wasn’t as skilled as he thought he was. In the garden, he had said Twilight had tried to replace his mind, and she said that he was the one who enchanted it.
There. That’s what she missed before. All this is because that other version of Stardust, Sable, he put his own consciousness into that mask! He must have put Despair in there as well! Probably unaware exactly what he was really doing. Now that Despair is taking over this Stardust.
“I don’t care anymore, I already have!” Despair shouts it out. “Now, I know where I belong, at last!” Her eyes twitch involuntarily to his flank, still empty. No, he doesn’t. He’s just lashing out. The Monster had that black circle mark, Stardust does not. All those incidents where he lost himself, that was because of the melding of his mind with Sable’s and Despair’s. A melding that isn’t done. The transfer is still incomplete!
The lightning lines on the mask seem to grin at her, laughing. The real Despair is still there, waiting. If he puts that mask back on… he’ll be lost forever. Despair isn’t stupid, he’ll figure it out the moment he sees his flank. She has to get the mask away from him.
“That isn’t true! You care, or this would never have happened!”
“What?” His eyes narrow. They continue to circle the hourglass, bringing Luna closer to the masks.
“If you didn’t care you wouldn’t have sent Twilight back! You would have just let that world die. It’s only because you cared that you’re even here!” His teeth clench even harder, and the cracks along his glass wings spread further. “I don’t believe you could bring yourself to dare to cast that spell again.” The table with the masks are behind her now, she slowly backs towards it.
“You’ve seen what I could do!” More lightning runs up his horn, and he steps out from behind the hourglass. “You’ve seen what I did to Twilight.” Static sparks jump off every metal surface in the room as the fury in his voice rises. “Leave! Or we’ll see what I can do to you!”