Chapter 5: Illness.
Dinner at the library was a quiet affair that night. Well, aside from the crunch as Spike munched on gems. Talisman was sitting to one side of Spike, Twilight on the other side. It was a simple affair, with dandelion salad being the main part of the dish, except in Spike’s case which was gems. Twi continuously shot curious looks at Talisman as they ate, her mind considering him closely.
So he claims to be able to pick out thoughts from somepony’s mind, but he hasn’t really proven it yet. Pinkie is fairly well known from Canterlot, and somepony from Ponyville could have told him of her tendency to throw parties for new ponies. It wouldn’t be too difficult to find out that I’m Celestia’s student. Annoyingly, almost everypony here knows that. So…. How do I know he’s not lying?
The answer was so obviously simple that she smiled.
“So, you claim to be able to pick the brain of anypony in range then?”
Talisman stopped and looked at her warily.
“Yes… what of it?”
Twilight smiled smugly.
“Perhaps you could prove it to me?”
“You still don’t believe me then?”
She laughed and shook her head.
“Of course not. You’re talking about literally picking out an idea or thought from a pony’s mind like they were a book rather than a pony. Would you believe it if I told you?”
The plain looking stallion considers this for a while before frowning.
“Not without proof, no. I suppose you’re correct.”
She smirked triumphantly as he sighed.
“I can only try I suppose.”
Twilight felt a stir of triumphant pride as he said this.
Ha! He was faking!
He stopped eating and looked at her intensely, as though trying to bore through her mind or see into her soul. He sat like this for almost ten minutes, with Twilight getting more and more smug with each passing moment. Without breaking eye contact, Talisman spoke quietly.
“About all I can get is from Spike here and his rather obsessive crush on your friend Rarity. That and things about gems.”
Spike stopped eating and looked at Talisman in alarm and then back to Twilight, who looked at him with one brow raised.
“What? I didn’t tell him about that!”
She looked back at Talisman who sighed and shook his head.
“I can’t take anything from you. It’s… strange.”
She snuffed a laugh.
“See? You can’t do it.”
Talisman looked at her seriously.
“On the contrary, I most certainly can. I can’t control it, but I can achieve it. For example at lunch the other day I was bombarded by such an overload of information I couldn’t concentrate on my notes. Applejack and Rainbow Dash haven’t been doing so well as a couple, but neither of them will admit that to anypony else because they’re too proud, Miss Fluttershy was worrying about a small echidna she had recently splinted the leg of, front left if I’m not mistaken. The worrying thing was I couldn’t pick up anything from you. It made no sense at all. It’s like something is blocking me. When it does pass over you, all I get is static, nothing useful at all. It’s like you’re protected by a wall.”
Twilight still looked sceptical and Talisman sighed.
“Alright then, obviously you don’t believe me. I suppose I don’t blame you. I does sound a bit… absurd. But it’s true all the same. I cannot make you believe me, much like I cannot make you believe in just how powerful dream magic can be. But perhaps someday I will come to understand it, and will be able perhaps to persuade you to rethink your opinion. But until I understand this, or control it, I will not think any less of you for your thoughts.”
~*~
The rest of the meal was a quiet affair with little said or done. Even Spike was quiet despite the makeup of his meal. When the meal was over, Spike stayed back in the kitchen to wash up and Tal stretched his legs in the library proper. Twilight followed him. For a while there was a silence purveying the room that was near awkward and Tal yawned.
“Well. Thank you very much for dinner Miss Sparkle, it was excellent. I will be out of your mane now, I suppose I will see you in the morning.”
Twilight cocked her head to one side, confused.
“I… I guess. And no problem, you really should thank Spike though, he’s the one who cooked it all.”
Tal smiled and nodded.
“Well, thank him for me will you?”
“I will.”
He smiled at her and turned away, trotting out the door and closing it gently. Silence invaded the room after he’d left. A few minutes of standing still, staring at the door was enough for Twilight and she marched over to it and opened it a lot more cautiously than she had the night Luna had come to visit. True to her suspicions, Talisman was settled upon the doorstep where it was dry. She grumbled in annoyance and picked him up telekinetically and carried him back inside, heedless of his shout of alarm. She deposited him upon one of the many plush seats of the library’s reading room and glared at him.
“You are not sleeping out there on the concrete. You’re lucky enough you haven’t caught some sort of nasty cold already without having to press your luck every night. You’ll stay in here. I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow and you can sleep in here.”
Talisman merely stared at her whilst she was saying all of this before a small smile crossed his features.
“Is that concern I hear in your voice?”
Twilight started and shook her head adamantly.
“No! I just don’t want somepony catching a sickness on my premises and being able to charge me for it.”
The smile widened and he chuckled softly.
“No, I’m fairly certain it was concern. You’re not actually starting to care are you?”
She blushed heavily.
“You want to sleep outside?” She asked quickly and maybe a little more aggressively than she intended. He laughed and shook his head.
“No, I appreciate the hospitality. Thank you.”
~*~
“Are you sure about this Twilight? I’ve heard some pretty disturbing things about this place.”
“Oh sure, the path to Zecora’s is completely safe! If one avoids straying from it that is. The forest itself is mostly just scary, there’s actually not nearly as many creatures in it as ponies think there is. Trust me, I’ve been through this place more than once.”
Talisman and Twilight stood before the one entrance to the Everfree forest accessible by ponykind. Twilight seemed entirely at ease, but Talisman was more than hesitant about the whole thing. Even if one didn’t grow up in Ponyville, one always heard stories about the infamous Everfree Forest. Tales of creatures so horrifically foul or so terrifyingly grotesque they defied imagination, and monsters that could turn you to stone in an instant. Dragons and star filled abominations that would sooner rip your head off your shoulders than look at you. There were even rumours of races of creatures that held no viable or believable records and some that fed upon nightmares themselves. Unconfirmed sightings of cat like creatures as large as a large pony and almost twice as long that manipulated the shadows as though they were naught but servants and hound like creatures with eyes that burned with a fire so hot it could melt stone in but a glance.
Yes, there were many creatures in the forest that gave Talisman reason to be petrified of it.
“So… this Zecora pony…”
Twilight giggled softly and gestured to their escort before entering the forest, leaving Tal no choice but to follow her and the big Pegasus stallion Demonheart.
“She’s not actually a pony Tal. Zecora is a zebra from the plains outside of Equestria. She knows things about stuff I don’t even know about, and I don’t say that lightly.”
Talisman blinked, processing this as he brushed his mane out of his eyes. True to his word, his mane had regrown overnight and once again fell into his eyes seemingly by a stubborn will of its own every five minutes or so.
“A Zebra huh? Never met a Zebra before. I have met a pony who was raised by them though. Curious pony with a yin-yang cutie mark. Didn’t show much in the way of emotion.”
The trio walked down the path that led to Zecora’s hut at a cautious pace. Tal and Twi ended up walking at the front, Demon behind them. It was with casual curiosity that Demon noted that Talisman, upon entering the Everfree forest, had gravitated closer to Twilight and seemed more wary of his surroundings. The walk to Zecora’s was not short stroll and eventually Twilight let her curiosity get the better of her.
“So Tal. Where is it you were born?”
Tal fell silent and considered the question for a long while, chewing the sudden question in his mind, grinding it down before answering simply.
“Canterlot.”
Twilight started and smiled brightly.
“Really? Me too! Mother and Father live still in Canterlot. So does my brother, but I think that’s mostly because of being Guard Captain and married so…”
She shrugged, still beaming. Talisman sighed wistfully, a fact that was missed by the ever oblivious Twilight, but captured in detail by the ever observant Demonheart.
“My family,” Talisman spoke softly, “Were descended from great unicorn magicians. Not many were ever really brilliant enough to be famed, but we did have a rather powerful bloodline. My sister inherited some of that power. My skills outside of dreams… well, you’ve seen it. I’m lacking.”
He shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m not terribly skilled outside of sleeping spells,” he admitted after a short pause, “I can perform basic feats, levitation and such things, but the more advanced magicks, such as transformation, transmogrification, transmutation, summoning, the manipulation of elements… I can’t do it.”
Twilight said nothing, not sure what to say to his admitting his shortcomings. A small smile swept over his face before fading to a faint, melancholic smile.
“Ah, but the things one can do in a dream. There are so many limitations in reality, so many things one cannot do, even within the supposedly boundless limits of magic, there are rules, laws you cannot break. In a dream, the only limit is your imagination.”
The pair of unicorns stepped lightly over a gnarled root poking up out of the path. Demonheart followed suit soon after, a mysterious smile on his face.
“You can pick out fantasies, dreams and thoughts and turn them into reality, implant ideas into other’s, although that’s very dangerous and frowned upon very seriously. I can take nightmares and use them, change them, dream up old memories to relive them once more. There’s never been anything I’ve experienced that I have forgotten and it’s because of my inborn talent for this school of magic. Everything is possible within a dream.”
His steps faltered and he almost fell, being caught by Twilight before he hit the ground. A short thank you later and he spoke again, quietly this time and not so bragging as admitting.
“See messages from others, send messages… even glimpse a possible future.”
Twilight frowned at the last revelation.
“Nopony can glimpse the future. It’s not possible.”
Talisman smiled.
“No, it’s entirely possible. The problem is that as soon as one glimpses the future, it has a chance of changing entirely depending on how one acts upon it. For example, if I glimpsed right now that we were going to be attacked and killed by, for example’s sake, an angry dragon right now and I tackled you and made it miss you and kill me, then you have a chance to react and you might wound it or drive it away before it killed you, thus changing the future. Everypony assumes time runs in a straight line. But it’s not true. If time travelled in a straight line, everything would be inevitable, and it isn’t. I could decide to stop where I am right now and that would open up a plethora of new options in the timeline. It’s very inaccurate, but it does work.”
He looked at Twilight as they walked, smiling a weird, lopsided half smile that Twilight found both annoying and endearing, if that was at all possible.
“In fact, it was a dream that brought me here. I saw a great tree, hollowed and filled with books and firelit candles.”
He hesitated for a moment before Twilight, eager to hear the rest of his confession, nudged him with her nose.
“I couldn’t tell you how I knew, but something told me that, if I found this place, and I searched long enough and hard enough, my life would be better off for it. I don’t know what I’m looking for, and I don’t know how long it will take, but I won’t leave until I find it.”
The pair walked in silence for a while before it clicked in Talisman’s head how that sounded and he blushed.
“Uh, that is, with your good graces Twilight, I wouldn’t dream of overstepping my boundaries.”
Twi couldn’t help but giggle at him and smile.
“Don’t you worry. I won’t simply kick you out because you’ve got a weird kind of creepy story about dreaming about my library.”
“Your family.”
Talisman and Twilight damn near jumped a foot when Demon’s voice floated over to them on a bed of velvet, having clean forgotten he was even there. The instant they spun to look at him, Demon’s ears pinned back and he looked to the ground.
“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Talisman tried to swallow his fear, both literally and metaphorically, and failed miserably. He’d been terrified of the big stallion since his first meeting with him and had tried as hard as he could to stay well away from him.
“It’s… quite alright. Y-you were saying?”
A rare smile flitted over Demon’s face before he spoke once more.
“You said… ‘were’… ‘were’ descended from great unicorn magicians…”
Talisman flinched and instantly turned away and started walking. Twilight went to look at him only to find him gone and spun around and hurried after him, calling his name. Demon’s ears now lay flat against his head and he hid behind his curtain of a mane, following slowly after them.
By the time Twilight caught up with Talisman, he was breathing heavily. Evidently he was not used to any sort of physical exertion. She leaped in front of him and braced herself for impact.
“Oof!”
Tan collided with lavender as the two unicorns met each other and fell. Twilight had, in her momentary thoughts, not compensated for the slightly damp leaves beneath her hooves and had been sent sprawling, but not before grabbing Talisman by his ear with her teeth as she fell. If she was going down, he was coming with her. Now with Twilight sitting on top of him, Talisman refused to meet her eye, preferring to look away. Twilight, just as stunned as he was, recovered quickly and put both of her (now admittedly damp) hooves upon his chest and spoke as though scolding a small foal, or Spike.
“That was rude Talisman! Demon asked you a question, you can’t just walk away like that! It was an honest enough question and I was beginning to wonder that as well! You c-“
“Shutup.”
So shocked was Twilight to be interrupted in the middle of her scolding that she actually did shut down and shutup. Talisman looked up at her, his eyes haunted.
“You think I like being ‘rude’ Twilight Sparkle? You think I want to be like that? No. But it’s something I’d… rather not talk about…”
Twilight looked at him stunned for a long while. It was only once Demon arrived that he gently removed her from Talisman and the trio returned on their way, albeit much quieter than before.
~*~
Talisman looked the strange house curiously. It certainly wasn’t what he was expecting. The mask above the door fascinated him and the clearing around the house was teeming with curious looking plants. These seemed to have caught the attention of Demonheart, who was pacing slowly around the clearing, closely inspecting the foliage. Twilight ignored all of this and walked directly up to the door and knocked primly. Shaking himself free of his reverie, Talisman approached the doorway and only just caught the faintest notes of the last of the exchange that happened between Twilight and the closed door before it swung open. In the doorway stood a female zebra, just as Twilight had said. He smiled, if a little hesitantly, and nodded a greeting to her.
“Come in friends, come in,
Let us find solace within.”
Tal looked at Twilight in confusion as the zebra turned and ventured deeper into the little house and Twilight either didn’t see him or ignored him as she trotted after her. With a glance to the seemingly enamoured Demonheart, Tal followed the two mares into the house, closing the door behind him. Demon stopped his ‘observations’ and looked to the door, his long mane pooling onto the ground and his now dirty tail ceasing movement. Whilst he was curious about what would happen within the confines of the abode, a voice in his head warned him against venturing inside, lest something be released that he wanted nothing to do with.
So he stayed outside.
Inside the home, Tal sat beside Twilight as she, to the best of her abilities, tried to explain Talisman’s predicament. She wasn’t doing it overly well however and soon Talisman stepped in. Or he went to, before he touched the mind of the rhyming zebra and faltered.
He didn’t mean to go all that deep. Hell, he didn’t mean to even touch her mind at all. But the one brush of contact that he did accidentally manage filled his mind with an overload of memories that weren’t his own.
Memories!? What in Celestia’s name… I can’t remember ever collecting memories!
Whilst Talisman tried to pull his brain back into order, Zecora started and looked at him sharply, stopping Twilight in her tracks. Tal sat rigid, trying to pull himself into line. He was confused, not sure who he was anymore. The memories were overwhelmingly powerful.
My name is T… Is it? I can’t remember… Zecora.. No, I’m not… I’m not a zebra, Zecora is a zebran name, not a pony’s name. My name… I’m sure it was… What was it!?
“Tal? Talisman, are you alright?”
His mind latched onto the voice and he looked wildly to Twilight, his eyes wide.
TALISMAN! That’s it! That’s my name!
Like ripples clearing over a pond, Talisman’s mind settled, his memories his own again and Zecora’s off to one side. He blushed heavily and pushed them all aside, vowing to forget them later. He looked to Zecora and her sharp glare and looked at his hooves, ashamed.
“My apologies Miss Zecora. I did not mean to… do whatever it was I just did. It was purely accidental, I assure you.”
Zecora merely sighed and looked at Twilight blankly.
“Stay a while and listen,
I’ll see if I can fix him.”
~*~
“I’m not broken.”
Talisman sat next to the big cauldron that dominated the centre of Zecora’s room, sulking. Zecora ignored him, trotting around the place and pulling various ingredients from pots, jars and bags and adding them into the mix. Twilight, off to one side, giggled at him.
“Oh Talisman, you know she didn’t mean any harm by it.”
“Yeah well I- OW!”
He flinched as Zecora yanked a hair from his mane and rubbed at his head petulantly.
“Ow… was that really necessary?”
Zecora nodded as she worked.
“I could take blood if you like,
But for that I’d need my hollow spike.”
Talisman winced and shook his head.
“No, that’s quite alright, but you could have just asked you know.”
She shrugged and threw the hair into the mix. The liquid hissed and a cloud of billowing smoke streamed up from it. The smoke was a sickly sort of green colour and smelled of sugar and the peculiar scent commonly associated with Poison Joke. Tal looked warily at it and Zecora sat down looking, if anything, pretty pleased with herself.
“Breath in deep the smoke of life,
And if deemed worthy, end your strife.”
Tal looked from Zecora to the smoke to Twilight and back again.
“You’ve got to be joking right?” he asked Zecora incredulously. She shook her head and pointed to the smoke. With another glance at Twilight, who gestured him on despite looking fairly apprehensive herself, he sighed and nervously approached the pot. With a deep breath, he plunged his face into the smoke and inhaled deeply before gagging and pulling back out of it quickly.
“Celestia and Luna, I can taste the stuff!” He gagged, coughing and rasping his way through the sentence before looking up. His pupils had dilated to the point of almost none of the blue colour of his eyes being visible. Twilight stood up in alarm.
“Tal? Tal are you alright?”
~*~
What is this?
Talisman’s thoughts were hazy and clouded as the smoke’s magic worked its way through his system. His head felt light and he couldn’t feel his hooves anymore. It was weird. Then, as he watched, his thoughts became visible to him, written in the air in a light blue colour.
Whoah… He thought as he watched the thought turn into reality. Dimly, he heard his name and he looked over to the source, Twilight and stared in a sort of stupefied wonder.
Wow… look at all that colour…
Her body was a swirl of a multitude of lights. Dimly, he registered the significance of this idea before cocking his head to one side. He couldn’t see her thoughts as he could his. There was a big ugly wall in the way and it annoyed him. Tiring of it, he turned away and caught sight of it.
A long stream of thin, blue tendrils.
There must have been hundreds of them, floating aimlessly in the air, clumped together. What he found even funnier is that they all connected to his head, and one thin tendril to the smooth, engraved stone around his neck.
Would you look at that… I wonder if I can…?
He reached out with his mind and the strands moved. Just a twitch. He frowned and reached for them with his hooves, hitting nothing but air as they rippled around him. He frowned deeper and reached for them with both hooves at the same time and, once again, they rippled impossibly and were still whole after his hooves passed by. Grumbling, he allowed his magic to well up within him and he tried to grasp them with that, failing once again.
listen…
He frowned. Where had the voice come from?
Listen and obey…
He looked down. One of the engravings on his stone was glowing, pulsing with a strange maroon light.
Hear my words and I will teach you to control my power.
~*~
Twilight watched in concern as Talisman reached for nothing and grumbled to himself. At one stage, he even began to talk to himself. It was an interesting experience to say the least. She glanced at Zecora who shrugged in return.
This was a curious predicament.
~*~
Now focus, focus and let it flow… You defeated me with all my power, now keep it, and use it as you will. This is my word, and as a creature of my word, It is on my honour that I pledge my power to you, now and until you die. Should you have any descendents, bestow upon them this amulet and I shall honour my pact even unto your offspring. But beware, should any not of your flesh, regardless how small, wear this amulet, I will tear them apart. This is my bargain, and I shall stand by it for all eternity, or until one sees fit to release me.
Think with your enemies mind, but remember who you are, or suffer as I have. This is my warning to thee, and this is my promise. Heed it, and heed it well.
~*~
Talisman gasped and shook his head, ‘waking up’ so to speak, from his trancelike state. He looked around wildly as the colours and words around him began to fade. Twilight watched as his pupils shrank down to regular size, then smaller. He swayed, unsteady on his hooves, nearly toppling before Twilight rushed forward and caught him. His eyes slowly focused on her face and a goofy smile swept across his face.
“Oh… Hiya Twilight… Gosh you’re pretty, you know that?”
Twilight blushed and pushed him away irritably, ignoring his cry of surprise as he hit the floor, choosing instead to glare at him. He looked at her with an injured look.
“Twilight, ow! That hurt!”
“Oh be quiet.” She grumbled at him irritably, “You’re not feeling that well, so you’re not thinking straight.”
He frowned and tried to get to his hooves, only to fall over again. He blinked and looked around until he found Zecora and smiled again.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just… stay here for a while.”
~*~
It didn’t surprise either Twilight or Talisman that Demonheart was asleep by the door when they came out. It had taken Talisman almost an hour to recover from his deluded state after his trance and, it seemed, he didn’t remember anything from that state, although he seemed to remember exactly what happened whilst within his trance.
After rousing Demon, they went upon their merry way, but not after Talisman left a heartfelt thanks to Zecora and Twilight had rolled her eyes at him. The trio was walking very quietly. Talisman was poking around with his rather unique skill that he had, admittedly, only just learned to control and was, to be brutally honest, really bad at controlling. He could see it, and tried incredibly hard to keep it well away from Demonheart and the creature that seemed to rest within him.
Eventually he managed to manipulate his ‘gift’ to face Twilight and, once again, he got nothing but hash.
Huh… curious. So, why is it I can pick up Zecora and Demon and pretty much everypony else, but not her?
Twilight felt his eyes on her and she glanced at him. He looked away quickly, only just noticing that he was looking at her himself. A smug smirk crossed her face.
“What? Still can’t get to me?”
He sniffed and shook his head.
“No, I can’t. And I know you still don’t believe me, but I’m sure tha-“
There was a shriek from Tal’s stone and a spherical shield flashed into brilliant life and Talisman cried out in alarm as he felt something hit the shield, not to mention as the shield flashed into life itself. Twilight’s eyes widened and, as Demon turned around, eyes wide, she collapsed senselessly to the ground.
The last thing she heard before she blacked out was Talisman calling her name.