It's finally over.
After five hundred eighty-two attempts to lift this Celestia-forsaken curse I think I've finally done it. All the pain, the heartache, the suffering, the madness, the fear, the death... it's all over. I thought I'd be happier. I thought I'd be so happy that I'd break down and cry right then aFnd there and never stop, but I'm just... tired.
I'm just so tired.
I just want to go home and sleep it all away, but I know that even if the curse is broken, the nightmares still remain. Sleep won't bring me peace and I feel like the more... extreme alternative would spit in the face of everything I went through to save that mare and the rest of Equestria from their grisly fate at the hooves of those things. And it's just as well, really; I've had more than my fill of self-annihilation.
I promised myself that once this was all over, I'd destroy this journal—this temporal anomaly that's stayed with me through every horrible loop—but now I find myself somewhat reluctant to follow through. After all the hardships I had to go through, it doesn't really seem right. I thought I wanted to wash my hooves of everything to do with this wretched curse, yet here I am, clinging to this constant reminder, unable to let go.
Maybe it's because of her? Maybe it's her own diary?
I've lost count of the times I've seen that mare jot her thoughts and feelings down in that diary and yet every time she does, it seems to ease her mind. I've gotten her to show me the contents a few times, but after so much time spent just observing her, I don't need to see what she's written, I can see it in her eyes. Maybe it's that sense of relief—that feeling of knowing that outlet will be there when it becomes too much to handle.
And then there's Twilight Sparkle herself.
At this point I basically know just about all there is to know about her, and even now, after everything is said and done, she doesn't know a thing about me. She doesn't even know I have this journal—at least not in this cycle. Sure I've shown it to her a few times in an attempt to subvert the inevitable disaster that befell Equestria again and again, but it never worked out the way I'd intended and even made things worse in some cases, so I just... gave up that approach eventually.
In fact, I was ready to give up completely this time around. I was ready to leave Equestria to its demise—to let those horrors swarm the land and decimate everything I've ever known and loved. I'm not proud of my moment of weakness, but after watching the world crumble around me for almost the six hundredth time, I feel I can hardly be blamed for wanting to quit altogether.
At any rate, I was so sick and tired of it all that I decided this was going to be my last attempt. I didn't even care enough to put it all on the line. There were no gimmicks, there was no overarching plan of action. I just... played dumb for the most part, throwing in a bit of theatrics here and there for flair... and it worked.
All that effort and in the end all I had to do was to let everything play out the way it was meant to until the very last moment. Now that I look back on what happened, I feel like I didn't even contribute all that much this time around. It was Twilight that did most of the work in changing her own fate and the fate of Equestria. All I did was say a few inspiring words, and that was enough to get her to do what needed to be done.
That damnable Red Crystal—the root of all my pain and suffering—was finally destroyed and Twilight Sparkle is none the wiser of all my nightmarish trials. Now those trials are at an end though not everypony made it out unscathed. While she's fine physically, it seems Twilight saw something in that place—something that will probably stick with her for the rest of her life.
I can't imagine what it may have been, but I doubt it's any worse than what I've seen come to pass countless times myself. I'd like to say that I sympathize, but if I'm being honest with myself I really want to tell her to get over it even though I know that wouldn't be fair. I'm not quite sure what happened to the 'mountaineering expert' after the blizzard, but I'll just assume he made it back to his lodge somehow.
Still, despite Twilight's trauma and the missing mountaineer, we're both safely back aboard an airship headed back to Manehattan and I really couldn't ask for a better ending all things considered. I've all but demanded that Twilight get some rest, and after some light cajoling, she agreed, but I know better. I'm sure she's locked herself in one of the backrooms and is no doubt spilling her guts onto the pages of her journal.
I can't really blame her, and in fact, I've taken the opportunity to sit down and do a bit of writing myself, hence this entry. I don't know yet if this is to be the last, but whatever I decide to do, I can do so knowing that I don't have to worry about Equestria's destruction—at least, not at the hooves of ancient genocidal wraiths. Though, having said that, I do wonder what comes next.
I still have so many questions that even now I have yet to find the answers to. I called it a curse, but really, I still don't know what happened to me. At first, I didn't know why or how this time loop came to be, but I do know that it all started and restarted the moment Twilight Sparkle stepped into my shop. I don't know why I of all ponies, was dragged into helping that mare save Equestria, but with each passing cycle, I began to suspect it had something to do with this journal.
It's the only explanation I can think of, both because the entries I write don't reset like everything else and because of how I obtained it in the first place. It took me a good ten or so cycles to pinpoint the exact moment that horrifying invasion happened, and another few to actually get Twilight to take me with her to the Crystal Mountains.
The journal I obtained a few months before all of that began and it was only after I started using it that I remembered how I got it. The memory is still a bit vague, but I do remember a rather jittery customer leaving it on the counter after they came to pick up a custom order for an engraved jade cabochon. I hadn't even noticed it was there until the customer was long gone.
I wanted to return it, but strangely enough, I couldn't—and still can't to this day—remember the customer's name or face. So, I kept it in the back until the customer came to retrieve it, but I never saw them again. I completely forgot about the journal's existence up until the second cycle. I'd scared Twilight away from the shop after a mild panic attack, gone to the bathroom to collect myself... and there it was, sitting right there next to the bathroom sink—like it had always been there.
Like it belonged there.
Like it was expecting me.
For a moment it had a sort of hold over me and I remember opening the journal before I even knew what I was doing. I knew it was wrong, it didn't belong to me after all, but that didn't seem to matter at the time. To my surprise, there was nothing written in it, and for an instant, I felt a rather troubling compulsion to fill in those blank pages—though with what I wasn't sure.
At first, I thought the situation terribly ridiculous, that it was just a weird coincidence and I tried to ignore it. Then I got suspicious when it kept showing up in every subsequent cycle and tried to get rid of it. Naturally, that didn't work either as it would just show up again after each loop no worse for wear. In the end, I gave in and just decided to use it after the sixth cycle.
Funnily enough, my circumstances became easier to bear once I started writing—not by much, mind you, but enough that I could keep going for a while longer. Thinking about it now, I also wonder how I'd go about ridding myself of the thing. I know of Twilight's covert 'affiliations' and I know what her job entails. I've thought about giving the journal up to the POUT agency, but that would require me to explain my predicament and I'm not so sure I'm ready to deal with all of that nonsense when I've finally got my hooves back on the ground so to speak.
I know Twilight wants to bring me into her line of work, but I don't know. I mean, what else is there for me? I'm a seamstress and I wouldn't give that up for the world, but business hadn't exactly been booming in that regard and while lapidary does pay well enough, it's just not something I'm passionate about—not nearly as much as fashion anyway.
What's more, I've grown quite sick of the big city. I could say my disillusionment was all because of what happened, but that wouldn't be entirely true. Even before the cycles began, I was already somewhat homesick. And yes, I suppose I could pack my things and head back to Ponyville, but I'd already made a big show of leaving and fulfilling my dreams of making it big in the fashion industry. Unfortunately, that hasn't exactly panned out the way I'd intended.
So who knows.
Maybe I'll discuss things with Twilight when she feels a bit better—Celestia knows she deserves to know the truth. I still have time to decide and for now, I'm going to push the questions I still have to the back of my mind and use the rest of that time to take my own advice.
Maybe things will become a bit clearer once I've had a good, long, well-deserved nap. And who knows? Maybe I won't even have any nightmares this time.