Clarity of Purpose
The night persisted. For the first hour Twilight assumed it would eventually begin to fade. Over the next two or three hours she had begun to suspect that she’d put more power into the spell than she’d realised and it was clear that the magic, cast in anger and fear, had established itself as a fairly permanent fixture over the town, which left Twilight with something of a problem.
The others had returned a few hours after Twilight and found Ponyville in absolute panic, with more than a few ponies already packing their belongings as they sought to flee ‘Twilight’s night’, the curse, the dragon and, according to the wildest rumour, the fact that Twilight had become the new Nightmare Moon. She later wondered if she should be impressed at how much power they ascribed to her, or annoyed at how gullible they could be.
As for a possible solution, Twilight opted for the safest option: Curl up in a corner and wait for everything to be happy again, which was exactly how Spike finally found her, in the back of the library, surrounded by a protective wall of books.
“She’s adorable,” Fluttershy said as she peered over the wall of Twilight’s impromptu palisade.
Pinkie Pie circled the little book fort Twilight had hidden in, poking her nose here and there as she examined the sleeping librarian. Twilight had finally succumbed to fearful exhaustion and was flat on her back, all her legs in the air, and half-buried beneath the collapsed east wing of her fort. It was a very impressive fort; a central keep constructed from hardback fiction, surrounded by a curtain wall constructed entirely from the Equestrian Tax Code, all on a foundation of philosophy references.
“You think we should wake her?”
“Oh, I don’t know, she must be so sleepy.” Fluttershy leaned forward and nosed at Twilight’s ear. It twitched. “All that running to and fro and being chased by dragons... it’s a wonder she stayed awake so long.”
“She might be plum-tuckered, Fluttershy, but she can’t hide from what she did. That stuff ain’t right.”
“Applejack, be fair--”
“Fair? Have y’all looked out a window?” Applejack pointed a hoof at the dark scene outside. “It’s three in the afternoon an’ it’s dark as midnight! My apples ain’t happy!”
With a loud snort, Rainbow Dash jumped in front of Fluttershy, raising her wings protectively around the cowering pegasus. She pawed the floor and glared at Applejack, but any argument she was going to make was interrupted by a terrified squeak from within Fort Grimoire.
The group gathered round Twilight to find her staring at the ceiling. More accurately, at some point a few miles above the ceiling. The unicorn’s ears fell flat against her head as she noticed their concerned faces peering down. Her eye twitched.
“Luna is going to kill me...”
“Twilight, Ah don’t think--”
“She’s going to banish me to the moon, and then Celestia is going to banish the moon to the sun, and then they’ll banish the sun to... to somewhere else even worse!” She rolled onto her side and curled up into a little ball. “And then they’ll... they’ll...”
Twilight wrapped a foreleg around her shoulder and began to rock back and forth, humming tunelessly while the others watched. None of her friends could recall seeing her quite so out of it before, even on her worst days.
“Sugarcube, it ain’t that bad...”
Unfortunately for Applejack’s sentiment, at that very moment the door of the library crashed open, admitting a gust of wind so powerful that it knocked a few books from their secure shelving and demolishing another wall of Twilight’s abused fortress. The ponies stepped back in fear as, from the darkness without, none other than the Princess of the Moon herself stepped into the library, accompanied by a cloying curl of dark mist and chill air. She surveyed the quiet gathering with an imperious gaze that paused at each pony in turn until it settled on Twilight.
“Twilight Sparkle.” The princess took a step toward Twilight’s prone form. Luna’s voice was menacingly quiet. “Explain thyself.”
“Bwaaa... Princess Luna!” Twilight leapt from her book fort and stumbled backward across the curtain wall. “What a nice surprise that you would turn up in my library right now when nothing remotely important has happened at all!”
Luna narrowed her eyes at Twilight and took another step forward. The young unicorn tried to chuckle and even made an effort of gathering up some of her books but the princess merely tilted her head. “Twilight, thou art--”
“You just came at a bad time, the library isn’t in the best state right now...”
“Twilight--”
“I have to clean up these books! I have to clean up everything! I didn’t want to make a mess but I did it and now I have to clean it up or I’ll never be able to--”
“Twilight Sparkle!”
The books Twilight had gathered with her magic fell to the floor, pages fluttering like so many distressed songbirds, collapsing the remnant of her temporary refuge. Twilight lowered her head and Luna, eyes widening just a fraction, stepped back and lowered the wings she had instinctively raised. She lowered her voice along with them.
“Prithee explain thou whence came night over this place, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Oh, well, you see...” Twilight sat on her haunches, forehooves tapping together. She stared at the floor. “It’s... complicated.”
Luna shifted her wings. “We are not in any mood for--”
“No, no I can explain, just please promise you won’t banish me!”
Luna glanced at Applejack, who had sidled up beside her at this point. The apple farmer shrugged.
“Twilight, we shall banish thee not, it is not our way. Yet, thou hast dared wrest control of a portion of our night.” Luna lowered her head to Twilight and looked her in the eye. The unicorn’s heart leapt into her throat. Twilight squeezed her eyes shut as she felt Luna’s cool breath on her fur. “Such acts require an accounting.”
Twilight kept her head low as she walked to the door, refusing to look at any of her friends. She was followed into the night by Luna a moment later. The alicorn princess paused for a moment to look at the other ponies, finally resting her eyes on Applejack.
“Follow if you wish, our little ponies. We may require corroboration of certain events.”
The streets were deserted as the group made their way through town and silent, except for the quiet sound of Twilight as she explained the events of the past few days to Princess Luna. The princess listened, her impassive face giving not a hint of reaction to the story until they reached the place where it had all begun.
The Boutique was silent when they arrived. Deserted. None dared go near the place now the magic infesting it was so obvious. The grassy gardens around the building were a mess of torn up divots and hoofprints, the only remnant of the stampede that had followed Twilight’s magical excursion earlier in the day. The curse itself still glowed faintly in the starlight, twisting toward the night sky as if reaching out for the stars themselves.
“This is unlike anything we have seen...” Luna moved toward the shade of Rarity, pausing to examine the wings. Her eyes narrowed as she examined the form and she backed away from the apparition once again. “Twilight, though shouldst have fully informed us of this as soon as it was discovered.”
“I know, I’m sorry, I just--” A glare from Luna silenced Twilight before she could exercise her reasoning. Celestia might have listened before correcting her, but this wasn’t her mentor, and Twilight still wasn’t sure how to handle the younger princess in all her moods.
Luna circled the shade, taking care not to come between it and the rest of the curse. She looked up at the building and then down at the floor, still frowning, before stepping away once again.
“It is ancient, this magic, yet it feels familiar... Twilight,” she said, turning from the building to face the group. Twilight’s ears drooped again. “Thou shalt keep us appraised of this. We wish to hear the very moment anything changes.”
“Yes, Princess, o-of course.”
Luna crouched to nuzzle Twilight’s face. She smiled, just a little. “Be at peace, Twilight Sparkle. We wish thee no anguish.”
“Not... not even for...”
The moon princess looked up at the night sky and smiled again. “Not even for the stars. We are not entirely averse to their appearance at this hour, Twilight, and thou hast shown remarkable aptitude and creativity in their use. Nevertheless...”
Luna closed her eyes as her horn began to glow. She took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly; with her breath the night sky began to slough away like mist in the wind, peeling toward the horizon in great, curling streamers that faded into the bright blue evening sky. Warmth and sunlight returned to the town, hiding away the curse and restoring some slender skin of normality to the Carousel Boutique.
The small group of friends blinked in the bright afternoon sun, sharing relieved looks, their mood brightening. Somewhere in the distance cheer was raised and ponies began to emerge from their homes, blinking in wonder at the sudden return of the sun. With her wings raised high, Luna turned to face Twilight and her friends once again.
“We shall return to Canterlot, Twilight. Celestia must hear of this.”
“Yes...”
“Twilight, attend.” Luna knelt down before the unicorn and raised Twilight’s head with her hoof until she was looking straight into her eyes. “We have forgiven thee. Do not presume to hold thyself responsible for that which we have dismissed.”
“But this isn’t a stupid attraction spell or a tardy report, Princess.” Twilight swallowed and looked away from Luna’s face, her eyes welling with tears. “I really screwed up this time, I didn’t s-stop and think about what was happening, and now Rarity-- Rarity might be--”
“You were not capable of fully rational thought, Twilight Sparkle. Thy fear overwhelmed thee. Be at peace, young one, thou hast acted with good intent and cannot be held at fault. We shall speak of this another day. I would like to hear more of this magic you cast, also.” Luna smiled as she stood again. She took a final look down at Celestia’s student, curiosity and an odd sense of pride dancing behind her eyes. “Fare thee well, young mage.”
The alicorn leapt into the air and sped high and away on a few powerful beats of her wings. The others watched her glide away toward the horizon but Twilight refused to join them. Her eyes were fixed on Rarity’s shade, still just barely visible by the door. For just a moment it seemed that the ghost might start to move, its pose was so dynamic.
Twilight moved toward the curse, releasing a gentle magical probe that wrapped up and around the building in a translucent bubble of swirling light. The bubble began to contract, inching toward the centre of the Boutique, until Twilight noticed the nearest tendrils of the manifest curse starting to twitch and writhe, as if reaching out toward her power. She let the probe dissipate; the writhing spectre stretched out toward the fading energy, before slowly retreating back to its original stance.
The movement was puzzling. Magic, even so-called curses, didn’t usually act with any sort of intent. They were tools. She’d heard the oft-repeated mage’s koan, that magic was alive, but Twilight had tended to dismiss it as some sort of metaphor for the unpredictable nature of extremely powerful magic or the creativity involved in casting more complex and energetic spells. The idea that magic actually lived...
Only one pony seemed to have any idea of what was going on. Not even the Princesses knew, and they were normally the first ponies Twilight would turn to with something as severe as this. Zecora had spent a whole night with the curse and spun her yarn of ancient riddles. She’d known what was going on, but she’d hidden it from them. Twilight knew she’d have to deal with that problem soon, if she was to have any chance of resolving the curse but for now, though, there was a more immediate problem.
The others were still talking a short distance away. Twilight turned to walk toward them but was drawn up short by the sound of gentle hoofbeats on the grass behind her. She turned back to find Zecora walking slowly toward her, the Historia Magicae volume clenched in her teeth. The zebra stopped and the book fell at Twilight’s hooves. They stared at one another, neither willing to look away. Eventually, Twilight gave in and raised her eyes to the Boutique.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
Zecora shook her head. She nudged the book with her hoof, but refused to take her eyes from Twilight. “This curse spoke until I woke, but I did not learn much, except that it is old, and dangerous to touch.”
“But you touched it anyway.”
“To save a friend I would go to any end. To end my own curse, perhaps I would do worse...”
Twilight’s breath caught in her throat as she considered what Zecora meant, but she carefully pushed the thought to one side. Despite her curiosity, there were bigger issues at hand. “Show me how to talk to it. I need to understand what it knows.
“Twilight, your power is greater than mine, but please take heed of this warning sign. The curse will take all it can from you. It will eat you up whole and take no time to chew. Heed the warnings of your Star Swirl, do not let it touch you, girl!”
“But... but you touched... I need to study--”
“I barely with my life escaped by bleeding edge of knife,” Zecora replied with a petulant frown. She tapped the book again, firmer this time, causing Twilight to wince in sympathy with the bindings. “It is old and weak, not near its peak. Listen to the book, my friend. I would not see your life so end.”
The book. Twilight was still intimately aware of the warnings it contained; the brief outline of the story of Starswirl’s assistant haunted her more than she could express. How close had she come to experiencing the same fate? How close had Rarity? A shudder ran down her spine as she thought about the possibilities of some monster with her abilities set lose on the world. It made any decision she might have chosen almost entirely moot.
“It has to be destroyed,” she muttered. Twilight gathered the elements of the most powerful Dispel she could recall from her studies, focussing on their assembly like a piece of clockwork. She didn’t notice the sudden tension in Zecora’s stance as the spell began to manifest.
“Wait, Twilight, that is not right.”
“You said it yourself, Zecora, it’s dangerous.”
“But all the lessons it could teach--”
Zecora’s words were cut off by a loud snap as Twilight released her spell. The air itself seemed to tense, now thick with the cloying, greasy feel of potent magic. The infestation writhed toward the power, wriggling as if in joy at so much magic suddenly appearing to it, only to suddenly recoil as the spell wound up to its finale. Another snap accompanied a thrust of Twilight’s horn. The curse seemed to wind up around itself and began to withdraw from the building, its boughs and vines shrivelling and shredding away to nothing.
As Twilight watched, the ghostly image of Rarity moved, fully visible now, and finally animating through the last few moments of her life as a pony. Her hair sloughed away in huge clumps, exploding out in a bright white cloud around her body. The great wings flapped against the ground and the pony turned its naked, distorted head toward Twilight, baring its incongruous teeth at her. Twilight looked away, not wishing to see any more, until the curse dissipated with a final, silent scream.
The power of her magic rebounded against Twilight with enough force to knock her to her knees. She gasped and struggled to her hooves, and carefully turned to look at the Boutique.
It was gone. Everything was gone.
Twilight found herself on a featureless plain, flat as a tabletop and empty as far as she could see in every direction. She looked about the plain, then scuffed at it with her hoof to find, beneath a thin layer of sand, a perfectly smooth surface that rang with a single, almost inaudible note as her hoof touched it. It looked almost like...
“A jewel? If only Rarity could see this,” Twilight said, smiling just a little. “She’d have a fit.”
And then there was the sky. Twilight hadn’t noticed it at first, but when she paid attention to it she realised what was wrong. It seemed to be an evening sky, faintly purple, cloudless. But motionless, empty, unchanging. And she hadn’t felt a single breeze or seen any movement since her arrival in this place.
Hoofbeats sounded behind her, dead and flat in the lifeless air. “Who’s that? Zecora?”
“I am here,” the zebra said behind her, despite Twilight having just looked that way. “My dear.”
“What is this place?”
“The endless infinity of boundless harmony,” Zecora replied. Her voice sounded a little hollow, but that was probably a result of the complete lack of anything solid to give it depth. “This curse now seeks to find the best way to control your mind, and surely it has brought you here to spark a certain sense of fear.”
“Here being...”
“Harmony,” Zecora repeated. “Without end.”
Twilight looked around the painfully empty landscape, her eyes watering as they tried to focus on something, anything to give it a sense of scale and purpose. “Doesn’t look very harmonious to me...”
The zebra’s stance didn’t change. Twilight suddenly looked at Zecora and frowned. “This is how the curse will take my mind?”
“Your mind, your flesh, your everything, the end of harmony to bring.”
“Uh-huh... and it’s showing me this because it thinks I’ll be scared into giving myself up to it?”
A faint smile lit Zecora’s lips. “Harmony, is all for naught. It shows you this to bring that thought, so that in despair you give your mind and grant it power over your kind.”
“This isn’t harmony. This is a dead nothing.” Twilight stepped away from Zecora and shook her head. “And you missed a rhyme.”
Zecora’s smile froze in place. The endless plain dimmed and seemed to withdraw, or perhaps it was Twilight flying away from it, but the end result was the same, as she found herself in an equally featureless void. Before Twilight could take a breath she was roughly deposited in the centre of the Boutique, surrounded by the glowing threadwork of the curse.
“Well that was anticlimactic,” she muttered.
“You think so?”
Twilight froze in, her heart pounding. That voice... A harsh laugh filled the room, as if the voice could read her mind. Twilight turned, fighting the urge that demanded she flee the room without looking back, until she was face to face with... “Nightmare Moon? But--”
“Surprised to see me? Did you really think your pathetic attempt to destroy me would work? Dear me, Celestia’s brightest student...” The demonic alicorn shook her head in mock surprise as she began to slowly circle the room. “Your Elements of Harmony were amusing, colourful certainly, but ineffective. I mere pretended defeat! And now I come to claim my revenge on your little clique. Your Rarity I turned, and you’re next! Yes...” Nightmare Moon’s face filled with devilish glee. “Yes, you see now don’t you? I, the Nightmare, the true empress of Equestria, the eternal night, I am the curse you feared, the curse that drove your friend Rarity away! I am the true night that will fall over this whole land and you are just a pathetic little filly who didn’t know when to stop meddling.”
The Night Mare’s flowing mane whipped about the room as she stalked towards Twilight. Her laugh echoed, louder, deeper, until it seemed to fill the entire world and Twilight found herself backed up against the wall. In desperation she summoned the most powerful blast of magic she could conceive, a spell without finesse or refinement. Raw magic, untempered, uncontrolled, flashed from her horn.
The blast knocked them apart. Twilight recovered first, took stock. She was uninjured which... which was impossible. Ignore it, she thought. Move on. Twilight cautiously approached the prone form of Nightmare Moon until she stood over her unmoving head. The alicorn’s lizard-like eyes turned toward her and she laughed once again.
“Insolent whelp,” she screamed, her form already dissolving. “You cannot stop me retaking what is rightfully mine! Not you, Celestia or anypony can ever defeat Nightmare Moon!”
Twilight shook her head and mustered another blast of magic, a simple cutting spell. She merged it with a light spell and put as much power into it as she could muster. In the glow of her horn, Nightmare Moon’s face suddenly fell, eyes widening as she recognised the potency of Twilight’s desperate magic.
“No...”
“I already beat you,” Twilight growled, readying the spell to strike. She reared back.
“No please! I’ll—”
The magic cut. There was no blastwave, no fancy lightshow, merely the sound of silk on a sharp blade. Nightmare Moon’s scream of enraged terror ceased half-formed as she disappeared, as if a door had been closed on her, sealing her away.
Twilight choked a sob, suddenly aware of what she had done. I killed her. “I killed Luna...”
She felt a warmth at her side, the presence of another pony and an extremely powerful magic user. Twilight looked up into the kind, sad eyes of Princess Celestia. The Princess bowed her head and closed her eyes in acknowledgement..
“Dear Twilight, I understand your pain.”
“But... but you knew?”
“Of course. I forgave my dear sister, as she forgave me. I found it was an interesting challenge, to maintain harmony with such as her, but for harmony’s sake I tolerated her indiscretions.”
Celestia stepped back, her face suddenly stern. When she looked down at Twilight again any hint of kindness was gone, replaced with anger. Anger? “Princess?”
“And we thought we had taught you better than this, Twilight Sparkle.”
“But—”
“Do not attempt to hide from your acts. You have murdered our sister, in cold blood, when she was willing to yield.”
“No!”
Celestia closed her eyes, summoning a faint white light to her horn. When she opened her eyes again they glowed a bright, pearly white, filling the whole room with stark shadows. When she spoke, it was as the sound of a thousand blazing fires.
“Twilight Sparkle, we have found you guilty of this most heinous of crimes and cast judgement. For the sake of the harmony of our ponies and our land, you are hereby banished from Equestria for all time, and we can think of no place more fitting for your banishment than the moon so beloved of our dear sister, Luna.”
Twilight cowered at the feet of the one she had trusted for so long. She heard Celestia laugh, and... that was wrong. It was all wrong. Twilight closed her eyes, refusing to accept the possibility that her mentor could be so capricious. She saw the glow of Celestia’s power, heard her chanting ancient, arcane words...
And like that, it was gone. Twlight hung in darkness, suddenly alone, suddenly lost, unable to see or hear or feel anything, unable to feel even herself. But, in place of feeling, there was memory. She knew now where she was, what was happening. The curse had tried to take her, to turn her to whatever purpose it was designed to achieve. Had she beaten it? No, if that were the case she’d be in the real world again, but she had thwarted it. For now.
Twilight felt a surface form beneath her hooves and drew courage from the sudden foundation — then realised what she felt wasn’t the floor, not was it her hooves that felt it. It was certainty. Abstract, immaterial, a thing her mind had to translate into forms she understood, but a foundation nonetheless. And then there was light, which slowly resolved into a glow from her horn, revealing a patch of black sand that faded into the shadow of an endless night. For a brief, panicked moment she believed she really had been banished to the moon, until memory quickly asserted itself.
“Now to find a way out,” she said to the world around her. It seemed pointless to talk, yet she did so anyway. It felt right. Twilight pawed at the dark sand, finding it rough and sharp, untouched by the elements or time. “Walking would be a waste of time, I might just be standing still and not even know it. Perhaps... a thought?”
Another voice, or perhaps merely the idea of a voice, infiltrated her consciousness. «So strong, so brave, such determination to persevere oh great mage, mage of mages, greatest of all unicorns.»
“Who are you? No... I know who you are. Why are you?”
«Great mage, great one, you know, you understand, you seek truth. I am truth. I am reality. I am the maker, the unmaker, the changer. Why? Why do you come within, knowing what you know, what I am, suspecting what you suspect?»
“You tell me.”
«To learn. To seek. To understand.»
“To destroy you and save my friend,” Twilight shot back.
«The Dragon.»
Twilight pawed at the ground, ears folding back. Metaphorically. “She is no dragon! She’s a pony, a unicorn like me!”
«I beg to differ, young unicorn, great unicorn, greatest of all magicians. She is a dragon.» Laughter, or something that might have been like it. «Oh your thoughts, so precious! To believe that I would be interested solely in such petty things as turning one of your friends into a beast. She was to be a slave, a rebirth of slaves, merely one of many. Her magic was to be a catalyst of change in your peaceful, mundane, boring little world, a bringer of growth and new life, better life, free of the tyranny of unchanging harmony. Surely one of science such as yourself must appreciate that life unchanging is no different from death. The precious harmony you seek, oh mage of mages, is the same endless, eternal unchanging nothingness I was created to end.»
The lifeless crystal plain was back, the same endless sky casting its lurid glow on featureless sand that stretched from here to eternity. Twilight felt herself more solidly now, more completely. She turned and looked about; here and there she saw hoofprints, her hoofprints for all she knew, for there could be nobody else there, in her own mind.
«So harmonious, so unified, so unchanging, so complete,» the voice spoke into her mind. Twilight frowned.
“This isn’t harmony.”
The silence was total, the landscape eating up Twilight’s voice as soon as it left her mouth, assuming it was her mouth that spoke. Her interlocutor’s silence was becoming worrisome. And then she heard something, like a hoofstep, but... was it someone sitting down? Sand crunched.
“Seems quite harmonious to me, my dear.”
Twilight turned and found herself face to face with the mismatched body of Chaos himself.
“Discord? Oh, I see. Another attempt to trick me into giving up my soul.”
“Oh mon capitaine, no trick.” The creature leaned its not inconsiderable head down close to Twilight and, taking her chin in one hand, looked her in the face. It smiled. “What do you think of my little world?”
“I think Discord is a statue in Celestia’s gardens.”
“Oh this?” A flash of light obscured the creature for a second. When it cleared the statue of Discord stood on the sand, its anguished eyes staring down at her just as she remembered. The creature wrapped around its granite double and leered down at Twilight. “Well yes, I suppose that would be true. Ah, mon petit filet! You see through me again, great mage!” The pseudodiscord stood up as the statue disappeared, and examined his body, turning back and forth. “Interesting form. Chaotic, but it seems a little showy if you ask me. Oh don’t look like that, I plucked this shape from your mind as something you would both fear and be familiar with. Evidently your contempt is rather greater than your fear.”
The creature sat and stared straight at Twilight, an annoying faint grin gracing its mismatched features. “You ponies are so interesting. You remind me of my creators, though they were more...”
It waved its hand in the air, searching for a word that Twilight was only too happy to supply.
“Evil?”
“Alive. Like this Discord, they sought change, though,” it chuckled, “they were more orderly about it. Chocolate rain? Please... what does that achieve? He broke things for the sheer joy of breaking them. I, on the other hand, break things to let out the yummy goodness of change and life inside of them.”
The creature paused and frowned. Then it smiled. “Ah, form shapes thought! How interesting.”
“You aren’t having my mind or my power, whatever you are.”
“Oh but I already have them both, great mage,” the image of Discord answered. It swirled around Twilight, alighting with it s head close to hers; strange how it didn’t seem to be breathing. Twilight rolled her eyes and stepped away from the creature.
“If you already had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d be gone.” She pawed at the ground, digging away the sand beneath her hoof until she found the crystal again. A faint scent of loam and grass filled her nostrils. Twilight smiled. “You’re desperate.”
“I don’t feel particularly desperate, ma cheville, but I suppose you’re correct. Oh how distressing. Yes, I am old. Ancient. Far older than anything you marvelous little ponies could conceive, even your oh so benevolent rulers, and I am weak...” He looked around, his face weary and lost. “It hurts you know, to have failed in my task. Even your Rarity would have been enough, had I not been so slowed by age that she was cut from me before I could complete the work. Even the zebra was too strong. I could have taken them, and then I could have taken you. Alas, it was not to be, my dear.”
It smiled at her and leaned back into a couch that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. A pipe appeared in its claw and it took a deep draw before bowing a few smoke rings. Twilight ignored the smoke and glared at her interlocutor.
“What work?”
“Why the joy of the new, of course! To spread, seed, spore, grow,” it said, punctuating each statement with a jab of the pipe. “Transform, destroy, create, change, break. To create the division and strife from which new life grows. In my own small way, that was my task.” The creature waved at the endless, trackless plain. “Ending this never-changing sameness you call harmony.”
“This isn’t harmony. Night and day are different from each other as they can be, but they’re in harmony. Separate, equal, each within the other,” Twilight declared, not knowing quite where the words came from. “You would have them in conflict, fighting one against the other.”
“Night and day in conflict? They are merely different levels of light! My creators sought a thousand suns, a thousand nights, each different, each fighting, each alive! Your cycle of night and day never does anything new. It just sits there, spinning in circles like that overstuffed politician your dear Celestia has become. My creators wanted permanent change and I was meant to be part of that change.”
The creature rested his chin on one hand and stared off into the distance. Twilight followed his gaze and realised the world around them had begun to contract, the horizon drawing toward them like a scroll rolling up on itself. For just a second her heart went out to the creature before her, until she remembered just what she was dealing with and what it wanted to do; she quickly stomped on the feeling. The pseudodiscord turned a knowing look toward her and grinned.
“Sympathy for Mohini. The last trick,” he said, sadly. “Farewell, great mage. You have bested me, this time.” The creature stood and raised his hand, ready to click his fingers, but then paused. He leaned down to Twilight, curling his tail around her in a very distressing way as he spoke. “Before I go, I really should warn you to watch out for the zebra. She and I had quite the conversation before she left. You might want to ask her just when she got that curse of hers.”
He snapped his fingers and disappeared with a pop. A moment later the empty world followed, depositing Twilight in the same black void she’d started in. Before she could fully comprehend the change, a riot of sound and vision exploded in Twilight’s mind. Birdsong and the sound of wind in the trees filled her ears, the light burned a mash of glorious technicolour sight and, beneath her hooves, the green grass pressed ever upward, tickling at her skin.
“-- you’ll send them all beyond our reach,” Zecora finished.
Twilight blinked. She was staring at the Boutique. The weariness she felt seemed more than could be accounted for by the few moments of expended magic, but no time appeared to have passed at all. Twilight lifted her face to the warm sky and smiled in the eddy of a calming breeze that carried the scent of distant flowers, each scent remarkably unique and fresh to her nose. She returned her gaze to the Boutique. The magic infesting Rarity’s home was gone.
Zecora cleared her throat. She turned to Twilight, something like anger burning in her eyes, and tried to speak, yet seemed unable to form the words. With a frustrated snort, the zebra turned and stomped away across the grassy avenue.
Twilight was more than willing to let her go. There would be plenty of time to extract an explanation from her about her ‘curse’ another day. She turned once again to her friends, only to find they were now all moving toward her, their faces the picture of concern and worry. Rainbow Dash trotted forward to give Twilight an uncharacteristic nuzzle.
“The hay was all that about?”
“Nothing,” Twilight grumbled. “Just...”
She turned to look at the Boutique again, frowning as she recollected the timeless moments spent with the curse. Why would it warn her about Zecora? Did it stand to gain anything, or was it just a last parting shot to spread its ‘chaos’? It seemed almost a shame to have destroyed the curse now; such powerful magic could have provided any number of new avenues of research. But...
Twilight shook her head. That was a dangerous path to even speculate about.
“The curse is gone,” she said. Twilight’s tongue felt sluggish and thick as she spoke. She licked her lips. “We don’t have to worry about it now.”
“See? Didn’t Ah say ya’d lick that critter?” Applejack flopped a foreleg around Twilight’s neck and pulled her into a hug. “Y’all just needed some incentive is all.”
“So, what now?” This from Rainbow Dash, as she snuggled up protectively againt Twilight’s open side. The pair were joined by Pinkie and Fluttershy in a sort of impromptu group-hug, though it felt a little empty without Rarity. Twilight let herself be swallowed up in the warmth of their friendship for a while. Soon, though, the others pulled away from her, the same thought shared silently between them.
“We have to find her,” Twilight said, her voice low. The others remained quiet for a few moments. Strangely, it was Fluttershy who broke the silence.
“Do you think she changed back?”
“I don’t know,” Twilight replied.