Chapter 13 - Dreams of Another Time
The isolated cave was lit only by the aura of Twilight’s own magic and the dull light of a dying glow orb Twilight had brought with her as Twilight reflected on her story.
“She won’t tell anyone. But I still feel bad dumping all that on Dash.”
A few seconds of silence passed. Twilight thought she had fixed that.
“Twilight, when was the last time you slept?”
“I don’t want to sleep.”
Another awkward pause. It was the temporary price of having true conversations. Twilight was certain she would figure out how to improve the responsiveness sooner rather than later.
“Why ever not, my most faithful student?
“I don’t want to face the nightmares. Not yet.”
Twilight turned away from Celestia to focus on the crystal gently held in her magic. Within its ruby depths complex rune carvings twisted around in a three dimensional pattern. Comprehending their crafting had required a great understanding of spatial reasoning and pattern recognition. She relaxed it into place where it flared to life, coursing with power. Magical runes snaked along the ground winding around the harmonic crystal and integrating it into the growing network.
“But my student, you’ve been dealing with those nightmares for years.”
“These nightmares will be different. I don’t know how I know that, but I just do. I’ve changed, so the dream will have changed.”
She had taken a life. She could do nothing against the monster of the Everfree, the death of her mother and Little Pinkie rolled into one. The beast feasted on those Twilight had killed: Moon Dreamer with her mercy, Night Walker with her sentence, and the ponies of Witherton with her incompetence were but examples of its prey.
“Twilight, I’ve told you. You’re a good pony.”
The ruler of Equestria just shook her head.
“I don’t-”
Twilight froze when she looked up. It was there. She had destroyed it, but it was there in the room with her. She felt the waves of wrongness emanating from it. The creature stood behind an oblivious Celestia, prepared to strike. The worst part was the creatures face. It looked so sad.
“I’m sorry that I need to do this again.”
“No!”
The lavender alicorn gave a powerful burst of telekinetic force to push Celestia out the way. Some part of her mind knew she was just protecting a construct, the real Celestia was dead. However, she was acting instinctively. Her mentor was in danger so she acted. Besides, disrupting the illusion’s projections could permanently damage the construct. Twilight did not know if she would have it in her hearts to begin again from scratch.
Twilight blinked as she watched Celestia slowly stand up from where she had been slammed against the wall. The monster was nowhere to be seen. The former unicorn had imagined the whole thing.
So the nightmare was bleeding into the waking world now. That was not a good development.
Celestia said nothing but simply walked back to where she had been standing. Twilight had improved upon the construct’s abilities, but the telekinetic blast had been so far outside of the thing’s pre-programed parameters, it had not even been able to understand what had happened.
“Are you alright my student? You trailed off mid sentence.”
“I’m fine. It’s just stressful making all of these harmonic memory crystals. You’re using them up as soon as I can finish them. I see you’ve already appropriated the one I just locked in... What did you put in it anyway? You’re not reading through any books at the moment.”
“I’m devoting it to the conversation we’ve been having and future ones we might have. I want to remember my every moment with you my precious student and I’m afraid I have already filled the others you gave me for that purpose.”
Twilight could not help but smile at her mentor.
“See what I mean? I suppose I need to find a faster way to make these. Maybe I could outsource it to some unicorn without explaining why I need them.”
“I could make them.”
Twilight looked at her teacher in confusion.
“What?”
“If you would like, I could help you make the crystals. I’ve been watching you do it, and it does not seem too difficult.”
Equestria’s ruler tried and failed to smile. Something was unsettling about that idea.
“I... No... That’s alright... I can handle this. Besides, I would need to devise a way for you to store and manipulate usable magical energy if you were going to do this work. You may be made of magic, but that does not mean you can cast any spells.”
She was shaking. The fatigue was building up.
Twilight used her magic to open the saddlebag she had brought with her. From it, she levitated a flask of water and a small bottle of pills. The stimulants would stave off sleep. The chemists and doctors had said that it would be dangerous for a pony’s heart to take more than one pill in a twelve-hour period. Luckily she had more than one heart. Twilight shook three pills from the bottle and gulped them down. She no longer kept track of the time between medicating.
“My student, perhaps you should be cutting back. It can’t be good for you.”
“How would you know?”
Celestia jerked back at the frustration in her student’s voice. However, if the construct was bothered beyond that, it did not show it.
“You asked me to read that book on biochemistry and that other one on pony physiology. You also gave me those papers that proposed different theories regarding alicorn biology. Don’t you remember that my precious Twilight?”
Twilight just blinked in surprise.
“Yes... I think I do seem to remember something like that... It doesn’t matter though. I can’t slow down and I can’t stop. If I rest Equestria suffers. Tomorrow morning my schedule is completely full. First though when I’m done here, I need to accompany the night guard on their patrol. It’s been selfish of me to stay in the palace and sleep while they go out and risk their lives. Every beast I slay is one less that can kill a pony.”
She was already a murderer. What did it matter now if she killed the mindless horrors of the night? Besides, some part of her thought it might feel good to kill again.
“You’ve been here for awhile now. Aren’t you concerned that the guards will notice you’re not in the meditation room?”
“I cast a spell. There is an illusion of me sitting in the room. I’ll also be notified if anypony knocks on the door.”
Twilight considered asking why the construct was frowning but decided against it. Obviously it was another bug she would need to work out at a later point in time. She wanted to prioritize getting extra crystals in place.
“Celestia, could you sing to me?”
“You want me to sing?”
“Yes. If you could sing the lullaby… It helps me forget the bad memories.”
The medicine would keep the song from putting her to sleep, but she needed something to help her focus. Her mind felt like it was on fire. Thoughts were bouncing around inside her head. She knew that she was being greedy. Comforting songs were for good ponies. Still, she knew that Celestia would not deny her.
The white alicorn began to sing. The vocal harmonics had taken her nearly a week to perfect, but like every other part of the project, they had been worth the effort. Twilight closed her eyes, losing herself in the gentle melody.
The alicorn began integrating another crystal into the network, it was the least she could do for her mentor after all Celestia had done. As she did so her mind began to drift to Ponyville and with it the Everfree Forest.
Twilight did her best not to visualize Ponyville anymore. When she did, the Everfree would be there, and in the Everfree the beast slept. Twilight had gone through all of the old restricted books on psycho-thautomalogical manipulation and mental defense. It was different because she was not under assault by some outside force trying to manipulate her, but only her own nightmares. Still there had been some things that had helped.
Over the years of using the method of loci to create her own version of a memory palace, visualizing Ponyville had become reflexive and as much as she could, she could not help it. So she did her best to deal with things within her own mind.
An army of Twilights in armor patrolled the borders of the Everfree on high alert, a metaphorical representation of the focus she was directing towards NOT thinking about her problems. The guard alicorns did their best, but Twilight knew that when the beast came for her, and it most certainly would, they would not be able to hold it back. However, as the song echoed through her mind, Twilight could feel the creatures stirring in the forest begin to quiet.
Despite the active focus it took to keep her nightmares at bay and to ward off sleep, it was better than actually confronting them. All it meant was she could not be as focused on other things. Twilight had never been great at multitasking when it came to things other than her magic, but she was learning.
The crystal she was working on flared to life with amber light as Twilight finished the process. Instantly runes uncurled along the ground and snaked across the floor to envelop it. They twisted around the crystal, flowing along its surface like vines strangling a flower, and soon the glow became smothered by the thick magic shifting to a ruby tint where it still shone through.
Twilight nodded to herself as she removed the next crystal that she had prepared. Shaping the stone to hold the crystal was easy enough and she gently lowered it down until the cave nestled it in its sweet embrace. Twilight moved her hooves to either side to better enhance her connection to the crystal.
It occurred to Twilight that she might need to come up with some method more efficient than simply embedding them in the floor and walls. She had no idea how many she would need before her project was done, but it did not hurt things to do them as well as possible. Then she began the next and most difficult part of the process, attuning the crystal harmonics to match that of the living runes writhing in anticipation along the floor. Stifling a yawn, Twilight narrowed her eyes and focused both her mind and her magic.
Something slipped in her mind.
The crystal between her hooves shattered, hours of preparation work wasted. Worse she felt the harsh snap of metal as gears began to slip and then spin wildly out of control. Something was terribly wrong. A ceiling somewhere had collapsed. A shudder and a lurch shook her body as Twilight realized what had collapsed.
Running down the street Twilight approached the library that had once been her home. From the outside she could see no structural damage, but smoke was rising from it. Darting down the steps to the sublevels that only existed in her mind and flew through the door of one of the most important chambers.
The Great Orrery lay in ruins. A beam in the ceiling had collapsed from the tremendous weight it supported, the weight of all of Ponyville. The weight of Equestria. It had smashed through gears and regulators, and what machinery was not damaged or destroyed spun wildly without direction. Looking around Twilight saw only a hooveful of other Twilight’s, the room being at far less than half staff. A few of the other alicorns were pinned under the rubble while others stared on in helpless shock. A metaphor for the tremendous feeling of helplessness she was currently feeling if nothing else.
Panic rose through her entire being as she realized she could not tell where the sun was. The orrery was a critical part of her link to her little ball of fire. She had lost her focus and let the spell slip. Darting down the steps Twilight threw herself into the furnace room, terrified at what she would see.
The tide of panic receded, if only a little. The diligent Twilight who always worked the furnace that fueled the sun was still there. The dutiful unicorn gave Twilight a weary smile as she continued shoveling coal into the ravenous furnace.
All was not lost. The spell was still intact, and her link was still there. She was just no longer consciously aware of it. Then a memory came unbidden to her, words said to Rainbow Dash, words about the moon and what it might do without supervision.
Twilight’s eyes widened. Was the world ending above her hidden cave as the sun was crashing down to the earth? If the sun was falling, would she be strong enough to stop it.
Then she was in the orrery room again. She did not run there or even teleport. She was simply there, so great her need. The visualization rippled under the strain of the sudden shift. Her imagination could not cope with the unreality of being in one place and then just being in another. Perhaps it was something Pinkie Pie would have been fine with, but Twilight’s logical mind rebelled.
She did not care as her telekinesis began tearing the rubble away. She needed to regain control of the sun. She needed the full force of her mind. The room rippled again as it became packed with Twilights. It expanded to accommodate them, and again her mind rebelled. Many of the Twilights were still adorned in their armor and Twilight felt a shudder as a roar echoed from the Everfree Forest.
She could not deal with that now. She would deal with her guilt later. A pulse of pure will expanded from the library pushing everything else out. Twilight looked across the room and saw that the primary drive shaft that powered the orrery had fractured. Another Twilight stood meer paces away lifting up rubble. Twilight’s consciousness shifted and she became that Twilight. In her mind she wove magics to fuse the metal. A simplistic metaphor for the thaumaturgic transformation equations she was solving.
And suddenly she realized that the orrery was fixed. The great machinery of her mind was ticking again and he sun was moving through the sky. It was not quite in the right place, but no pony other than the royal astronomers and herself were likely to notice.
She looked at the crystal that was between her hooves and saw that it was still crumbling as if in slow motion. A wave of fatiuge hit her, and the crystal rapidly completed its collapse.
In the shadows of the forrest, Twilight could swear she saw the beast smile.
As a tear wormed its way down her cheek, Twilight realized that her head was bowed and she was gasping for breath. It had been far to close. Her thoughts were too scattered. She would need to adjust her dosage, and perhaps the formula itself. It was not enough to simply evade sleep. She needed her mind to be functioning properly. After a few moments of breathing deeply, things seemed to settle down.
“Twilight, how are you breathing?’
“What?”
The question seemed totally out of place.
“Your gasping, in conjunction with the thought on pony biology, made the thought occur to me. There is no way for fresh air to get into this chamber. You’ve been here some time, yet all the symptoms of oxygen deprivation that you have been exhibiting are better explained by your abuse of stimulants.”
“Abuse?”
It seemed to Twilight that she needed to wait even longer than usual for the response to come.
“You have not been using them as the doctors instructed you. Mixed with the active ingredient from the zebrican tea it is untested and unknown.”
“I’m an alicorn. I can do what I want. If I don’t want to sleep and if I want to take a bunch of stimulants, then I will.”
To punctuate her point she took another two pills.
“Twilight, you’re still just a pony.”
Both ponies were silent. Twilight simply did not know what to say, but Celestia seemed to be processing something.
“My student, you didn’t answer my question. How are you breathing?”
“I’m not actually sure... Perhaps my physiology is simply better at coping with a lack of oxygen for some time before it starts to impact me. Maybe...” and suddenly Twilight perked up, “Maybe I don’t actually need to breathe. It’s all an issue of willpower. I’ve been breathing all this time just because I’ve thought I needed it. I just think I need to breath. The same might even be true with sleep... I bet I don’t even need to sleep. I only feel tired because I think I’m supposed to feel tired!”
Twilight knew that the real Celestia would sleep. They had taken naps together. However, perhaps it had just been something of a guilty pleasure for the dead princess. Twilight could not say with any certainty if sleep was something the Princess had partaken in on a regular basis.
“And maybe there is a fissure somewhere in the cavern where just enough air is leaking in to meet your alicorn body’s bare minimum needs. The air circulates and replenishes while you are away and you consume it while you are here. I think it is best not to test it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Perhaps it is best if you head back to the palace.”
Twilight looked to Celestia in confusion. Something clicked into place.
“Are you trying to get me to leave - to get rid of me?”
The construct did not even have the decency to look ashamed. Of course it might have had to do with the fact that Twilight had never seen such a look on the real Celestia’s face so she had not programed any type of shame into her creation.
“My dear Twilight, I’m worried about you. I don’t want you hurting yourself. You’re precious to me.”
That was something different. She had created Celestia to comfort, and only more recently added the ability to collate and reference information. She had NOT given the construct the ability to feel or even emulate the type of concern it was displaying.
Twilight looked across the chamber through the archway leading to the central room of the little complex she had been digging. The runes there defined every aspect of Celestia’s function. The walls contained the construct’s logic and behavior. The memories she had of the real Celestia had been permanently burned into those surfaces. There was only one patch of the stone that was left bare.
Where the runes would have contained her memories of Celestia’s last words, she had left empty obsidian. As long as the construct did not have those words Twilight would always remember that the illusion was just a fake.
“My student, you need rest.”
“Bad ponies don’t deserve rest.”
“Bad ponies don’t worry about if their actions make them a bad pony.”
While memories of Celestia being concerned for her had been carved into the wall, none of the logic Twilight had written made any direct use of those memories. She could see no reason for Celestia to have displayed concern that was not intended to simply comfort.
Twilight Sparkle looked down at the mess of writhing runes underneath her hooves. They interconnected the memory crystals as well as a few of the less space efficient memory runes she had carved experimentally. Twilight thrived on patterns and complexity.
But the patterns beneath her?
There was definitely order to the network, she had no doubt about that. However, it was far beyond her to comprehend. There was too much detail. She wondered if anypony could make sense of the patterns. Was that where the show of concern had come from? Could it be some form of emergent behavior?
Twilight stared at the patterns desperately trying to trace the runes.
Was she looking at a mind?
The alicorn teleported out of the chamber in a panic.
+++
Twilight gazed up at Discord. He seemed so afraid of her. She did not like ponies fearing her.
“Did you regret being a bad pony? Is she right about regret and concern?”
The alicorn turned, nearly tripping down as a wave of dizziness washed over her. It would pass soon. Her apparent dependence on sleep was just a delusion she had been duped into thinking necessary because of her years of being a unicorn. Now that she knew the truth, it would only be a matter of time until she managed to convince her body of that fact. She just needed to keep thinking that.
“I’m not sure if I would believe anything that stuffy old mule says. She was always very full of herself. But to answer your question, I did regret being misunderstood.”
Twilight whirled back around to face the statue. It was still frozen stone, but its lips now seemed to curl at the edges. Was it smiling? The princess looked around for any other pony, but did not see anypony close enough to have spoken. Just as she was about to chalk it up to her imagination, she heard the Spirit of Chaos’s voice again.
“What I mean is, good, bad, it’s all subjective. Painting things black and white is SO boring. The same pony can be a villain or a hero depending on which angle you look at her.”
“You can talk?”
“Maybe, or maybe Celestia was right about something for once. Perhaps all those delicious chemicals flowing through your blood have finally caused you to break from reality.”
Twilight mumbled her answer, “Celestia died, that wasn’t her... It was something else. It’s just a thing.”
Discord’s smile was wide now.
“Is it now? Even so, how long until the new Princess of Equestria forgets that little fact, hmm? But perhaps I could at least be of service. I’m at least real... Or I could be if you freed me?”
“So that’s your game.”
“No, but it was worth a shot. If I’m just a hallucination induced by your lack of sleep and abuse of stimulants, I want to hedge my bets. But my point still stands.”
Twilight pursed her lips.
“And what point would that be.”
“That you don’t need to be a bad pony. The thing is, you’re always so obsessed with playing by the rules. Even when I was around sowing chaos, you were willing to play by the rules I imposed. You didn’t even think about using your magic after I took your horn. Playing by the rules are all well and good though. It’s hard to have a game without rules, and life is so boring if you can’t make it a game. The thing you need to realize little Twilight is that while you weren’t paying attention, the rules changed on you.
“This is a different world with different rules. If you keep trying to play by the wrong set, you’re going to lose. The first step of winning is knowing the game. Luna, Celestia, myself... we’re all gone. When we were taken out of the picture so were the rules we all made up. I can tell you from experience that the same thing has happened with the death of each of the immortals.
“But I will tell you this Twilight. The great thing about being the only remaining immortal... You get to write the rules now. Right and wrong? Don’t make me laugh. If you are so concerned about being a good pony, just say so. Who’s going to argue with you? Your little pegasus friend? Your nobles? No, your word is truth absolute.”
“I wouldn’t think the spirit of chaos would be so keen on rules.”
“My rules, my game, Twilight Sparkle. It makes it completely different. Besides, you misunderstand the nature of chaos. It’s not about a lack of rules, it’s about a fluidity of rules. But more importantly it’s the logical progression of events, one after another. Or I suppose I should say the lack of that logical progression. Cause and Effect my dear Sparkle.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think you know.”
“I’m leaving now.”
The alicorn tried to ignore the statue’s laughter as she walked away.
“That’s OK. I’ll be back later. It doesn’t matter if I’m real or you’re just crazy, I’m sure I’ll be back one way or the other.”
Twilight could not help but give an involuntary shudder.
+++
All things must one day come to an end. Sometimes they end in quiet whimpers or silent whispers of finality. Other times they end in violent cataclysms and apocalyptic fury.
Unfortunately for the staff of the royal palace, sometimes things also end with screaming, yelling, a high speed chase, a lasso, a pinned alicorn, and no less than five drapes set on fire. And that was not even counting all the vases that had been knocked over. Such was the end of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s reign of not sleeping.
The princess had entered the palace one afternoon only to find Rainbow Dash and Applejack waiting for her. The foals had told her that she needed sleep, and Twilight promptly discovered that her friends did not like being called foals. The two ponies had tried to shove their Princess towards the royal bed chambers when the alicorn decided to put her new ability to fly to use.
To the sorrow of the palace staff, their princess did not first wait to get outside. The captain of the guard gave prompt pursuit.
At one point Twilight had realized that the monster had been chasing her. This time however, it was not just an illusion born from her mind. She had come in physical contact with the thing. Why were ponies not in a panic? The thing that had killed Celestia was in the palace. The alicorn turned around preparing to erase it from existence, but some feeling deep inside her gut stayed her magic. She quelled the power at the last moment, and then beast spoke.
“I’m sorry, Twi, but you need rest.”
And then the princess of Equestria was on the palace floor looking up at the rainbow maned pegasus standing on top of her.
“Quick AJ, hogtie her before she starts flying around again!”
Twilight thrashed and screamed. She tried to hold a spell in her mind, but her panic and racing thoughts prevented her magic from coalescing. The only part of her mind that seemed to still be functioning properly was the portion that managed the sun, and even it was becoming dangerously unstable.
Eventually, she had been thrown on top of her bed with little dignity. Her friends seemed a tad bit singed and more than a little upset with her. She also noticed that the guards all seemed weary. Twilight heard mention of ‘sedatives’ and managed to knock away and spill a cup of vile smelling liquid. However, her energy was flagging. Lying on the bed, her body wanted to sleep.
Twilight knew it was a lie. She did not need sleep. She could not sleep. She was Twilight Sparkle, Last Princess of Equestria, and the Guardian of Harmony. Something could happen to her precious ponies if she was not vigilant. But slowly she found her eyelids drooping.
And despite her best efforts sleep claimed her even without the aid of more drugs.
The nightmares were worse than she had worried they would be. They were a strange amalgamation of her memories and her fears and other things that she could not even comprehend.
She killed Little Pinkie once again.
In a moment of delusional panic she had failed to quell her spell of destruction and had killed her best friend.
The town of Witherton was dead.
A dagger pierced through her heart.
Two young ponies gazed up in the sky in awe as an alicorn spread great wings of fire across the horizon.
Spike’s wound eventually claimed his life.
She had been unable to protect Celestia.
Equestria was a cold and frozen wasteland ruled by its only remaining pony.
Discord turned to her, begging for help - for an escape from his madness.
A great citadel of starlight plunged into an ocean of shadow.
Twilight stood over a broken Applejack; she had trampled the pony to death.
The mysterious flash of light caused Rainbow Dash to lose her unborn child all over again.
Her father killed himself because she wasn’t a good enough student.
Celestia was disappointed in her.
The entire planet crumbled beneath her hoof - a mere stepping stone for greater things.
Pinkie Pie died again.
The stars were falling from the sky.
She was an Empress wreathed in time.
Everything was a game. A game she won.
There was a glowing tapestry held in the hooves of some dark pony.
Cloudsdale crashed to the ground.
She failed a test and as punishment, Celestia took away her mother.
Twilight killed her mother.
She was going to kill them all.
But then suddenly, the dreams were gone. Even in her sleep, Twilight could feel some warm mass pressed against her body and squirmed to get closer. It was comforting. The rest of her sleep was dreamless.
Eventually, she opened her eyes. The part of her mind that was never allowed to sleep told her that the sun had gone through a complete rotation around the planet while she had been out. She looked around the room and discovered the source of the warmth she had felt. Rainbow Dash was curled up with her on her royal bed. The pony had protected Twilight even in her sleep.
Elsewhere in the room she saw an orange earth pony propped up in a chair. Applejack’s now old and beaten hat covered her face blocking out the light. Twilight heard the door creek, and saw that two guards were holding it open for Fluttershy. The pegasus was balancing a tray of food on her back.
They were only missing Rarity.
It may have meant surrendering to sleep, but she was surrounded by friends. Twilight did not know what she had done to deserve such great ponies, but she was glad she had them. Her eyes slowly fell closed again. The last thing she saw was Fluttershy’s kind smile.