"But there must be a way! Something we haven't thought of yet! I... What am I supposed to do?"
"I'm afraid it's too late this time."
Starlight blinked, puzzled, and tilted her head as she tried to understand the alicorn's expression.
Twilight stared at the picture before her, eyes distant as she felt her head swimming. It had been a while. Three years, had it? Yes, three years sounded about right.
"Where is this?"
"Wrong question, sadly."
Twilight saw the Cold for the first time in a dream, or so she believed. She woke up restless the morning after, her bedsheets crumpled, cold sweat matting her mane and pillow.
It wasn't until a week later that she thought to write a letter to Luna, asking her about it. It simply hadn't crossed her mind. Being friends with the Princess of Dreams was no valid reason to bother her for every nightmare.
Instead, that first morning, Twilight simply got up from her bed, ran a foreleg over her tired eyes, and went to open the window. The Sun stung a little, but at least it warmed her up. She'd tossed her covers aside in her sleep, she reasoned, and that's why she'd grown cold.
She thought little of the dream while going about her day. She had Luster's letters to read, and Sunset's too, and Flurry's, and nobleponies asking her to regulate the size of decorative feathers that could be used on hats and citizens worried over timberwolves sightings near Manehattan and apparently a dragon and a griffon had crashed their carts in the middle of Canterlot and their gold had gotten mixed up and goodness what would she wear at the next wedding if she picked the wrong dress she wouldn't stop hearing about it from Rarity until she began selling her designs to dragons (something Twilight doubted would ever happen, so naturally Rarity was a conversation or two away from it).
But the memory of what she saw that night lingered. In the background, like a cat lazily sat on a chair, waiting for her attention. And when the last order of the day was issued and the Moon was raised and Twilight sat down in her study to eat tea biscuits without the tea and think of what to get her other self for her birthday, the memory came back.
It came carried by a shiver over Twilight's back, and it took a moment for her to realise why she'd shivered at all. Then it flashed in her head, clear like it was in front of her eyes, and her hooves began to shiver too like she was there.
It was a muted white, of green and blue hues, a colour that might have been pleasant if it hadn't been sickening. Such a shame it was the only colour left.
The plain stretched out too far for her to tell if it was a valley or a plateau or the bottom of the sea, and the light seemed to come more from around than from above. Like everything was shrouded in glowing fog, a heatless glow that came from everywhere and nowhere.
Wind blew without pause, harsh on her skin, loud in her ears, the bits of ice it carried like felt razors. It wasn't snow. Snow is soft and light and it dances as it falls and when it lands it breaks and it piles and you can sink your legs in it. What the wind carried was dry, thin, like dust or sand, as close to snow as smoke from a choked fire is to a pony's breath. And it hurt as it slithered beneath her feathers and half-closed eyelids, and it stayed there without melting, like thorns of coldness that sapped away everything else.
It was like a desert on a negative. Cold, but just as dry. The sky was a blur of clouds and frozen dust, no stars or Sun or Moon or anything else to see. And around her the land stretched on as far as her eyes could go, always the same, always lifeless and cold.
Twilight set the half-eaten biscuit down on its plate. The memory had been strangely vivid, and had left her uncomfortable. She wondered, just for a moment, if it had been a vision as those Celestia and Luna once had. But she would have known in that case. It was something you could tell, when you had one, as far as she could tell. And besides, no place in the world looked like that.
Not even the frozen north during the Crystal Empire's absence. That was a good candidate for what could have inspired the dream, her memories of the first time she'd traveled there did have a history of giving her a nightmare or two. Or perhaps something completely different. Nightmares were pernicious things, after all; she'd spent enough time with Luna to know sometimes something slipped in from outside the confines of a pony's mind while they were dreaming.
But like all other things that lived in dreams, Twilight reminded herself, they couldn't follow back to the waking world. Not without some rather large and flashy tears in the fabric of reality, which she would have most likely noticed or heard about. And besides, she'd always quite enjoyed the cold and snow.
She returned to munching on her biscuit. Were was she? Ah, right, presents. Books were always an option, although it was herself (a version of, at least) she was talking about, she certainly wouldn't have a shortage as far as her own supplies went. Maybe something simpler? Maybe she should just ask Sunset about it, like she did with Cadence and Shining. Advantages of being friends with both sides of a married couple.
"What about Flurry?"
"We already tried."
"Discord?"
"Him, too."
"Then what?"
"Nothing, I'm afraid. For you, at least."
She wasn't alone. Her eyes roamed the frozen, barren wasteland around her, her body shivered in the cold, and she wasn't alone.
It was a feeling. A sensation. The odd tingle in her back telling her that there was somebody else behind her. Maybe it was her feathers sensing a tiny shift in the air current, or her horn a slight magic disturbance, or the pressure on the ground as she felt it through her hooves, or anything else or everything else together. It was natural, it was something she'd felt so many times before in her life without ever questioning it, something every creature was familiar with. The knowledge that there's somebody else, that you can't see, right there behind you.
She'd never felt it more surely, more strongly, she'd never known she wasn't alone with such certainty despite nothing else giving her any clue that she wasn't. And she'd never been so afraid of it.
She was frozen, almost like the scenery around her, unable to turn or speak or do anything at all. And worst, she couldn't tell what came first. Was she afraid of her immobility, or was fear the very thing pinning her on the spot?
Because she'd never felt fear like that before. Irrational, impossible to explain, but it made her shake and wish to close her eyes and disappear. She couldn't, of course. She couldn't do anything but stare at the world before her, dreadfully aware of the presence behind her.
Twilight jerked up from her bed, hearing the end of something that could have been her own scream. She was shivering, sweating cold, and breathing heavily. She'd pushed the covers away, leaving her body exposed to the pale blue moonlight floating in through the window.
She got up and walked away from her bed, trying to clear her thoughts. It had been four days since she'd had that same nightmare. Repeating nightmares weren't unheard of, not for her at least, although it was odd for her to still remember the last one so vividly. Still, it was just a nightmare.
Twilight stared at the garden below through the window. It was just a nightmare. An oddly persistent one, but perhaps she was stressed out? It did seem possible. Besides, what was so scary about ice, anyway? She'd never really cared for the cold and snow, but after all, it was just ice. Even if it did feel as though there was something else there, something she couldn't quite remember.
"One day, for me. As far as I can tell."
"And how many times before this one?"
"You don't want to know that. Just know this is our best chance yet."
Luna.
The thought occurred to her during her lunch break, a couple of days later. She wasn't used to reporting her dreams to the former princess, goodness knew they both had enough to work on already, but she was getting curious about the particular set of nightmares she'd had.
Of course, she had no guarantee she would even have the same one again. But the ones experienced so far fascinated her nonetheless. That is to say, they still lingered in her mind, clearer that any other dream had ever been. If nothing else, when looking at it under the clear light of day and logic, it was an interesting thing to study.
So writing to Luna seemed like a good idea. She did hope it wouldn't be a bother, although it had been a while since she'd last written Luna a letter anyway. Thinking about it, she had more than a few things she could tell her about. The topic of her nightmares ended up being little more than a side note in a much larger list of things.
Still, it did not escape Luna's attention. When Twilight received her answer, later that evening, she noticed how Luna had explicitly said she'd be keeping an eye on Twilight's dreams the following days. Sweet of her, although maybe she was worrying a bit too much?
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
"Maybe if we start-"
"I know. I will."
The next two nights passed by without any event worth noting. On the third one, however, Twilight once more found herself in the increasingly familiar wasteland. Once more in the company of something else.
Once more locked in place, and unable to turn. This time though, she could tell there was something holding her. Perhaps magic? That was still hard to say, and the cold numbing her body didn't help.
There was still something frightening about the place. Something she couldn't really place, like the lingering edge of a forgotten memory. A chill down her spine that couldn't be justified just by the sight of the ice around her.
She was dreaming, and aware of it. The realisation hit her suddenly, bringing a number of questions with it. She'd read about lucid dreaming, and about the separation between lucidity and control over the dream, but the level of clarity she was experiencing was still almost disorientating.
Still, she had other matters to focus on. She once more wasn't alone, and whatever else was there with her felt even closer than the last time. Could she speak, this time around? "Who are you?"
No answer came. Instead, Twilight felt as if the presence had disappeared, and realised she was finally able to move. Immediately she turned, but only ice was there to greet her.
Unsure of what to do, she began to walk forwards. Her magic seemed to not be working, but she didn't pay it too much attention. It felt weird, certainly, if she focused on it, like a part of her wasn't there. But that wasn't something worth questioning if she was dreaming.
She did hope she would find something to justify walking around like that. It wasn't likely, of course, for all she knew the world of her dreams was nothing more than endless plains of ice, but it was better than sitting around doing nothing.
It occurred to her that perhaps there was indeed a magic component to the reoccurring nightmare, something she would have to ask Luna about. Surreal as it felt to walk through the frozen wasteland, it was different from any other dream she could remember.
She was tired. In part worn from walking through the blizzard, in part still feeling the weight of her previous day. It was like she'd only gotten a little rest before getting there. It could be the nightmare's magical nature, or maybe simply what the dream world had decided for her.
After a few minutes of walking aimlessly around, Twilight spotted something. A small rise in the terrain in front of her, forming a crest a few metres away higher than the rest of the terrain. Curious, she headed towards it, though her hopes weren't the highest.
Walking up the tiny hill was a rather uneventful process, and once atop it Twilight acknowledged with a resigned nod how it had not been hiding anything other than more barren plains of ice.
It was stepping down on the other side that actually yielded some results though. As she moved down a side (she didn't trust taking the jump where it cut off in front of her, just in case) and looked back at it, somethings caught her eye. Reflecting a bit of the odd and floaty light, there was something different there, sticking out of the snow.
Twilight stepped closer, curious. It was a light blue-purple, a bit muted, but it stood out stark against the pallette of colours the wasteland offered. The surface was polished, reflective, made up of sharply cut flat sections. It was rather clearly a chunk of crystal, and she was sure it reminded her of something. It was-
"It's familiar, isn't it?"
Once more, Twilight found herself in her bed, the covers strewn on the ground, chills running through her as cold sweat dripped down her body and forced pants out of her lungs.
The scenery hadn't been enough to make her nervous, not anymore. The voice had been another matter.
It had been there, just behind her, and yet it had sounded so distant. Almost distorted, like it was coming from the bottom of a pit. And it had been oddly reminiscent of something, too. She knew that voice, though she couldn't tell who exactly it belonged to.
And what she'd seen there... It was a piece of her castle, she knew it. It was unmistakable. A broken chunk of the upper branches, the structure recognisable even when the colours were faded. Why was it there? Where was there, anyway?
What was the point of her reoccurring dreams? Was it a message? Visions? By who? What was the point, why not tell her something directly? Too many questions and no real way to answer them.
Twilight got off the bed and walked up to the window, opening it to let the cold night air in. She felt tired, but too nervous to sleep, though she knew the former instinct would win out eventually. But she still needed a moment to clear her head.
Had Luna noticed anything? Twilight ran her gaze over the outline of Canterlot's buildings, taking deep breaths to calm down. She would find out in the morning. The best way to go about it was perhaps sending another letter for Luna to find when she woke up, just to be sure a reply would come.
Rather briskly, Twilight fetched parchment and quill and set to do just that, sending out the message just a short while later. The window clicked shut as she closed it with her magic once more, the covers floated back in place in the shimmering glow of her magic, and Twilight laid back in her bed, quickly falling into a less disturbed sleep that carried her until morning.
"But what about Starlight?"
"We already tried that."
"But-"
"We. Already. Tried that."
Twilight marched back and forth along the wall of her room, turning the letter up and down and around in her magic as if it could possibly reveal something else. Of course, that wouldn't happen, but it didn't stop Twilight from acting like it could.
What Luna had written had been very clear. That did not make it less confusing. Twilight knew better than to send a letter asking for clarifications, there were evidently none to be had, but all that left her with was having to accept the truth of what she was being told.
Okay. Focus, and try to figure things out. Twilight stopped, set the letter straight, and sat down as she scanned the contents one last time. She had not been dreaming during the time she claimed to have had her nightmare. That was what Luna had said.
Option one, something was hiding her dreams from the outside world as it manipulated them, and was apparently so powerful it fooled even Luna. Option two, something was physically taking her somewhere else in her sleep, waking her up, then putting her back to sleep and bringing her back to her bed, while nobody noticed, covering incredible distances with ease as it did so.
Both were rather hard to believe, but the latter moreso that the former. Of course, long distance teleportation could justify parts of it, but it was no easy feat. Nothing short of an alicorn could have carried her from Canterlot to the nearest glacier, and it did not look like what was in her dreams.
As unlikely as someone fooling Luna's powers was, the alternative would require even more power. What to do, then?
Wait. Waiting seemed like the only real answer to Twilight's situation. Whatever was behind the dreams, it would come again, and there was no point in worrying about it before then. Of course, that didn't stop Twilight from worrying about it either way, but once multiple scanning spells revealed no trace of anything weird in her room, she had to admit that waiting was all she had left. Waiting and wondering why ice of all things. She'd never liked the cold and snow.
"I'm-"
"Sorry? You always are."
"Next time we'll make it."
"We never do."
And wait she did. For three more days, always on edge as she headed to bed, always looking around during the day as if expecting to see a mysterious figure pop up from behind a corner.
Something was after her. Probably powerful, its intentions unclear so far, something that kept targeting her in her sleep. She would have questions to ask, the next time she had one of those visions.
She didn't have to wait long.
Twilight opened her eyes, once more standing inside the unending blizzard. She was were she'd been last time, the piece of her castle's branches in front of her. Someone else was there, as always, and she still couldn't use her magic.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"That's not important."
Twilight for a moment regretted ever asking the question, the voice sending a shiver up her spine that no amount of cold could hope to match. Still, if she wasn't getting an answer there...
Twilight turned, suddenly, but only found the empty plains of ice before her. Her nameless companion was still with her, still somehow behind her, seemingly closer than before. Okay then. She wasn't getting anything out of that, either. It sounded vaguely like a mare, but there was not much to work with either way.
"Where are we?" Twilight asked. In a dream, of course, but there was value in understanding what the other was trying to show her.
"Wrong question." There was a pause, coloured by a light chuckle, one that left Twilight swallowing against her dry throat. "Ponyville," the presence finally answered. "I'm sure you could have figured it out on your own. That's your castle there, after all."
Twilight would have been annoyed by the situation, were it not for her being unnerved by it as well. Wrong question? No, she had no time to waste on the other's games. "What is this? Why are you doing this?"
"Rather vague questions." The presence seemed to move behind Twilight, from a side to the other. "I'll start with the second one. I'm doing this because you need to see, Twilight. Or, because I want you to see, at least."
"See what?"
"This."
"What is this?" Twilight turned again, angry, but it didn't stop the presence from remaining always behind her. "A vision? A nightmare? What is it?"
There was a low, crystalline chuckle, somehow colder than the air around them. "Let's call it destiny, shall we?"
Biting on the inside of her mouth, Twilight turned back to the chunk of crystal half-buried in the snow. "You said I asked the wrong question before. What did you mean?"
"You could have figured out this was Ponyville by yourself. You're a smart mare, after all. No," the voice continued, "the right question wasn't where, it was when. When are we, Twilight?"
There was a moment's hesitation in the alicorn. "A vision of the future, then? A warning?" An harder edge entered her voice. "Or a threat? I don't know who you are, but I will stop you. Don't think you can scare me so easily."
"A message," came the presence's simple reply. "No more, no less. Don't look for other meanings in it."
"I'll ask again. What do you want?" Twilight was growing tired of waiting, tired of feeling like she was being toyed with.
"Our time is running out, I suppose. There is something I want to show you." Twilight felt a light shift in the air behind her back. "There, on the crystal. Move a little closer."
With dubious steps, Twilight walked back up to the broken piece of her castle. Looking at it up close, there did seem to be something on the surface, covered up by snow. She brought a hoof to clean it, and noticed the indentation in the rock as she passed over them. Something had been carved there. A mark, a pentagon intersecting an eptagon. "What does this-"
"-mean?" Twilight finished, but she was in her bed. Cold as she always was after the dreams. Alone, in the darkness of her room. And for three years, no more visions came, and she could almost forget about the nightmares.
"Where are we?"
"Not a place you know. Not yet, at least."
"Why am I here?"
"Because time is running short."
"Twilight?" Starlight called again. "Are you alright?"
Twilight shook her head. "Oh, it's nothing, don't worry about it." Her eyes returned to the picture in front of her, the marks a rogue spell from Starlight had left carved in the upper branches of her castle. An eptagon and a pentagon, intersecting each other. An accident with advanced spells at the School of Friendship, it probably wouldn't come off. "I was just thinking, is all." Another moment of pause, then she spoke, "Well, what's done is done. Thank you for telling me about it though. But don't worry about it."
Starlight chewed on her lip. "Are you sure you're alright?"
Twilight simply nodded. "Yes. I am."
"I don't understand."
"You failed."
"When? I don't even-"
"Shut up! Do you have the slightest idea of how much it hurts?"
"How long?"
The voice laughed.
Twilight stared at the chunk of crystal before her, and at the geometric marks carved into it. "How?" she asked. "What happened?"
"So many questions, Twilight. Where would the fun be if I answered them all?"
Twilight turned with a jerk, though as she'd expected it was useless. It only made her angrier. "What happened?" she shouted, almost at the top of her lungs.
A sigh came from the presence. "It just happened, Twilight. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what it was either. One morning, the Sun came up, and this is what it shined on. Equestria ended, the world with it. I'm the only one left, and I assure you, it has not been pleasant."
"When?" The words were almost breathed out rather than spoken, as sweat dampened Twilight's forehead despite the cold.
Her only answer was a bitter, chilling laugh. "You wish you'd know, wouldn't you?"
Twilight grit her teeth. "But why? Why bring me here? Why do it when you did?"
"When I did? Oh, Twilight. Don't you remember?"
Twilight was about to ask what she meant, when a third voice came from somewhere behind her. She turned, and her heartbeat dropped.
"I'm sorry, Twilight. I don't know why I keep trying at this point."
"Is there anything I can do?"
"You always say that, don't you?"
Twilight saw the Cold for the first time in a dream, and when she woke up it left her shaking and drenched in cold sweat. She ran back to her parents' room in the middle of the night, crying about her nightmare, and it took quite a while for her to calm down and fall asleep again. She would forget about the tall alicorn she'd seen there, and even more so about the other figure.
And she would forget every other time, too. Every time she found herself awake in the middle of the night, whether it was her room in Canterlot or her bed in the library or in her castle. She would always forget the endless plains of desolate ice, and the dry snow battering her coat. Always, until one night, years after her coronation.
"Here we are again, just me and the mare I hate."
"Who are you? Where are we? What's going on?"
"You were my hope and you only left me pain. This is how I repay you."
"Shining? Are you there?"
Twilight watched, eyes wide and almost panicked, at the tiny unicorn standing on top of the crystal.
"Princess?" the young pony asked. Then her eyes moved a little further, and she froze.
And it all came back to Twilight, even as her brain fought to keep it out.
All the whispered words heard in sleepless nights, all the half-seen sights out the corner of her eye, all the times the Cold had come to torment her through her life.
And Twilight looked up behind her, just as her memories forced their way into her mind. It was there, just as she'd always remembered, just as she'd always refused to remember.
Tall, pale, the white skin bare of any hair but covered in ridges and indentations, like a leg that's been buried in ice too long, like a wound that's been covered in salt. The eyes were empty, gelatinous, indecipherable. Dried up, frozen blood marked the back and sides of what had once been a pony, from two still open wounds running down her back. The flesh was thin, almost not there, the skin pulled taut over jagged, sharply angular bones.
And the thing spoke, with a voice so distant it may as well have come from another world. And the words echoed in Twilight's memories, just as they echoed in her ears. "This is what's waiting for you, Twilight."
Twilight froze there, as silent as the younger her was, as she stared at the thing that had brought her there. "Why?" she finally managed to ask.
"Because you failed, and this is your punishment."
"But-"
"But there must be a way? But there must be something we can do, someone who can help? Do you think I haven't tried?" Despite the anger in her tone, the figure remained composed, almost resigned in her posture. "You don't know how many times, Twilight. Every hour here, a different lifetime on your end. I've tried over and over and over, and now I can't take it anymore. Now it's over for me." She stepped forward, pushing Twilight back against the crystal and staring right in her eyes. "So this is what I'll leave you with. I've told you this story many times, but this time it'll be our parting."
Twilight swallowed against the knot in her throat, feeling the other's cold breath on her face.
"It happened one night," the mare began in a throaty, breathy whisper. "The morning came and this was what was left. No life, no sky, no explanation, almost no magic. No one but me, and nothing but the ice and cold around me."
Twilight wanted to run away. To scream. To close her eyes and wake up in her bed, but none of it happened. Instead, she opened her mouth, and forced a question out of her dried out throat. "When?"
And the creature smiled.
"It's over for you, Twilight."
"I'm sorry."
"You always are."
"Maybe... Maybe next time?"
"It's over, Twilight. I only have one last attempt left in me."
"But... But there must be-"
"No more trying, Twilight. No more failing. I've suffered enough. You have failed me enough."
"But-"
"This time, I'm giving that pain back."
Twilight had never liked the cold and snow. She'd always hated them, always been afraid of them. Now she knew why, and she wished she didn't. And every night she lay awake for hours, as the cruel smile she'd once seen danced before her eyes. And every sleep was plagued with nightmares, every day restless, every sunset torturous.
And every morning Twilight opened her eyes and just for a moment shivered, afraid the time had come. Afraid everything was finally over, and the Cold had descended on the world.
"This is my gift, Twilight. This is my revenge. My last dying wish."
"But-"
"There must be a way? I've heard you say that more times than I can count. No more buts now. No more pain for me. Make yourself forget, if it feels better that way."
"Why?"
"I never knew. What right do you have? After you failed so many times, what right do you have to complain?"
"I'm sorry."
"You always are. But I won't tell you. This is our burden. And I wonder, will you keep it to yourself? Will dragging others in that uncertainty heal you? I wouldn't blame you. It's what I did, after all."