//------------------------------// // Illumine // Story: Speak Not Of The End Of The World // by Shaslan //------------------------------// <> The dream was dark and cold. No blue sky, no balloon. Only darkness, black as the void beyond the Taelo’s walls. And yet he had chosen her dream to enter, he was certain he had. He had scanned the city carefully, picked her out, and dived deeper. He ought to have been with her right now — and instead there was only this dark, formless penumbra. <> Councilperson Kirel’s voice was nervous. Laotyn shifted uncomfortably, all too aware of the observer, of their tendrils inserted into the same receptors as his own. It was altogether too much physical contact, and he wanted it to be over already. <> he said, trying to sound suitably deferential. <> <> objected Councilperson Kirel. <> Their strident tone was — it was too much. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Laotyn had acted selfishly, had chosen his own species and his own loyalty to the Council of Elders. As if bringing a second person with him into Cherry Berry’s dream wasn’t a huge enough betrayal on its own. No wonder she was angry with him. No wonder it was dark. But he could not say that. He could not even think it, not with the Councilperson so close to him in the physical world. There was a chance he would get too agitated, that the wrong thoughts would leak out of him and be overheard. <> he tried again. <> There was a long pause, and discomfort was rolling off Councilperson Kirel in waves. And then a voice spoke. Truly spoke, the way Laotyn understood ponies did in their waking lives. No soft thoughts and gentle colours here. Just vibrational sound, raw and uncompromising, the waves of it jittering painfully through his body even all the way back on the Taelo. “Laotyn. Is that thy name, interloper?” With a pulse of hurt that reverberated through both him and the Councilperson, Laotyn whipped around, trying to locate the source of the sound. The words were Ponish, but they were projected directly to him as well. He was not translating, as he did for Cherry Berry. There was no guesswork here, just raw intent. <> One thing was for certain — it wasn’t his friend. “I noticed that one of my little ponies has been having strange dreams the last few nights.” Soft and silky as water flowing beneath his tendrils, the voice echoed from the darkness on every side. “Not nightmares, per se, but something unusual. So I decided I would come and see it for myself.” <> A pony, he assumed — but what little of their mind he could feel felt very different to Cherry Berry’s. This pony was not asleep, not like the others slept, and yet the power of their mind was beyond anything he had yet experienced. “I am the Princess of the Night, and those who would prey upon my subjects soon regret it.” As the final word echoed, sending another painful vibration through the air, light flared, and a pony stepped out from the shadows. She was huge, so large that Laotyn wondered if one of the ponies had finally found a way to change their own shape — but other than the size, her form was largely the same as the others. It was the sheer bulk of her mind that differentiated her from them. Here was a presence older and more powerful than any pony, than any person, that Laotyn had ever met. <> he asked, but she shook her upper tendril in the way he had come to learn meant no. “What are you? You are not of Equestria, nor even of Equus. That much I know already.” <> <<—Say nothing,>> interjected Councilperson Kirel. <> The blue light shone brighter, and Laotyn belatedly realised it was emanating from her. Could Cherry Berry do that? “If your intent is not pure, yes, I am.” <> he whispered to Councilperson Kirel, using only his short-range emissions. <> “I do speak for all ponykind,” boomed the Princess, agony rolling from her jaws with each word, tearing at Laotyn’s fragile skin. “And we say that we do not welcome you, aliens. We do not want you here. I see the machines in your thoughts. I see what they will do to Equestria. Take them elsewhere, I tell you, because this world is already taken.” <> Councilperson Kirel was growing truly panicked. <> Laotyn threw out a tendril from the upper portion of his body, trying to halt the Councilperson before they could disconnect. <> If Councilperson Kirel left now — if they took this impression of the ponies back to the Council — it spelled doom for Cherry Berry and every pony that called Equus home. “I realise it,” Luna said scornfully, and her voice rang louder, “And if you do not alter your course now you will find that my next warning is far more painful.” <> In desperation, Laotyn opened his mind wider to Luna, letting more of himself flood out into the dreamscape. She didn’t understand, neither of them did. These two obstinate old Elders, both certain of the hostility of the other, would doom two species to war, when friendship was possible. He just had to make her see, and then Kirel would understand that the ponies could be reasoned with. Laotyn’s memories blossomed into being in the darkness of the dream. The algae pits, glowing far below as he spiralled through the spheres. Songs floating through narrow cylindrical corridors. The pink skies of Home. Flocks of people, arcing together through the celestial storms, just like ponies galloped in herds. There was commonality here. Personhood. Shared values. They just had to see it. “What is this place?” Luna’s voice was suspicious, but the anger was suddenly fading. She took a step forward, almost crossing the border between her own dark and Laotyn’s mind, and hope surged in Laotyn’s core. She was so close to grasping it. The people were just like ponies. Families, stories, songs and history. Everything was the same. And if they worked together, if they blended their minds and their science, then just maybe they would find a way. Perhaps the upper regions of Equus’ sky could be altered, without destroying the ground. Perhaps the conversion to gas giant did not have to be total. Perhaps — —And then Luna’s hoof crossed the barrier into Laotyn’s thoughts, and she screamed. Agony spiked through Laotyn’s every tissue. The soundwaves, the vibration: it was going to tear him apart! <> begged the Councilperson, and then abruptly they wrenched their tendrils free of the receptors and their presence was gone. Luna screamed again, and Laotyn wordlessly screamed back at her, forcing more of his memories out into the open. She was attacking him, with her terrible noise, but he would not give up. He would make her see that he was not evil, that the people were not conquerers and villains. There had to be a way for them all to live in peace. There had to. It was like fire, the noise, but Laotyn dredged the very depths of his ancestors’ memories and pulled forth the most powerful of all. Home, the planet, striped in pretty shades of pink, dotted with great white discs where the storms were whirling. The little sun orbiting the giant, fading red light warming the planet. And beyond it, the great shadow. The extinction event. If this didn’t evoke Luna’s pity, nothing would. For one second, two, he was lost in the horror of his own memory, but then he resurfaced and reached for her with his awareness, trying to see how she had taken it. She had stopped screaming. That was a good sign, right? <> he said into the darkness, but all was silent once more. Luna was gone. <> he insisted, though after this disastrous meeting he wasn’t sure the Council of Elders would feel the same. No answer came, and with a twisting indigo-purple feeling of dread deep inside, Laotyn cut the connection.