How first I enter’d it I scarce can say, Such sleepy dullness in that instant weigh’d my senses down, when the true path I left; But when a Mountain’s foot I reach’d, where closed the valley that had pierced my heart with dread, Lo! I look’d aloft, and saw his shoulders broad already vested with that planet’s beam, who leads all wanderers safe through every way.
Excerpt from The Divine Comedy, Canto I.
Twilight sighed as she closed the door to her room, the walls of stone a stark contrast to the library she had resided prior. It had been four months since she had ascended to immortality, gained her literal and metaphorical wings and crowned a Princess of Equestria. It had been four months of Court intrigue, politics and research into an obscure subject, those known as the Shade amongst the Zebra Witchdoctors. Her mentor, Princess Celestia, had given her tome upon tome of literature, biographies and research documents on the subject, testing her in Twilight’s humble opinion, by asking her to find a cure for a supposed incurable affliction.
She had records stating the symptoms; weakness of body, deathly high fever and in the end, death. She had tomes on how one contracted the affliction; a bite, a scratch, skin contact with infected body fluids such as blood and saliva. She had biographies of those who strove to end the blight; the method preferred being destruction of the Medulla, severance of the spinal cord or decapitation of the afflicted. She even had one documented case of a survivor; the victim of the assault having severed their own limb.
However, for her now endlessly long life, Twilight could find no way to cure those infected. It seemed as if this disease was a death sentence to all who contracted it, though this was still a slight number in relation of the population of Equestria and its allies. Twilight knew that past records stated this blight traveled fast, fast enough that if it was not ended swiftly at its beginning it could consume nations, but she was only one pony! Nopony could find a cure for the blight that did not involve the death of the infected, which by her figures and records were already dead, and if they could not do it with full cooperative collaboration or research and observations over thousands of years, how was she supposed to in a matter of months before Celestia would have to send military force to eradicate the infection.
“Ugh,” she exclaimed, slamming closed the massive tome before her. “It’s hard enough to read these in this cryptic language, but now they are writing in Rhyme and Prose?” She huffed exaggeratedly, planting her face on the cover of the book with force. She winced through closed eyes as pain shot through her muzzle, lifting her face and touching a foreleg to her nose to find a self-induced nosebleed. “Great…” Twilight stood from her cushion, hobbling on three legs to the door and knocking twice on the oak planks. It opened, revealing a royal guard clad in golden armor.
“Yes Princess,” the guard asked in a deep voice. Twilight chuckled nervously, removing her hoof from her face and presenting her nosebleed to the pegasus.
“Yeah, funny thing,” she began. “I was reading, became flustered and gave myself a nosebleed. Could you fetch me a napkin please?” The guard bowed once, turning and muttering something to his partner. The unicorn looked back briefly, nodding and closing his eyes. In a moment, a napkin from the kitchen appeared before her, twilight taking the cloth with her magic. “Thank you,” she said, wiping her muzzle clean as the guards shut the door. She held the cloth against her nose with magic as she walked back to her book, casting it aside and reaching for the next volume. She was surprised to; Lo and behold, meet the stone floor. She looked toward the area a pile had once occupied, finding nothing but dust and some sand. “Great…”
…
Twilight climbed the stairs of the observation tower, preferring to hoof it rather than fly, her last attempt at flight involving a headlong collision with the castle walls. As she neared the top, she began to pant from the effort the seven thousand steps demanded of her. She stood still on the landing, facing the door with a hoof raised, wavering slightly as she regained her stamina. Once her moment was over, she knocked once on the door, going for a second strike but finding the hard door replaced with something firm yet squishy. “Twilight,” a voice said from before and above her. “Dost thou wish to parley at this late hour?” Twilight lifted her eyes from the floor to the face of Luna, a smile across her muzzle as she waited a response.
“To be honest, I was hoping to find Celestia here.” Luna’s expression became slightly downtrodden to find the reason for her late visitor. “It’s about the disease she has me researching. But since you spend more time up here, maybe you could help?” Luna smiled at the mention of being useful, letting Twilight in before shutting the door.
“What is it thou wishes to find?”Luna asked, following Twilight into the rows of bookshelves that cluttered the observatory. Twilight looked over her shoulder at her, slightly fazed by the usage of the royal verse. “Sorry fair Twilight,” Luna replied, her voice becoming quiet and uneasy. “My lack of visitors diminishes my familiarity with the modern verse.” Twilight smiled and nodded understandingly. “What can I help you find?” Luna asked, Twilight turning toward the books and observing the subjects on the shelves.
“I need a way to observe this disease first hand,” she said. “However, if I do, I risk infection. I can’t have that happen; AJ and Rainbow Dash would kill me if I did.” Luna trotted up to her side, levitating a few scrolls over to her, along with a long wooden box.
“Then I think I have what you need,” she said. “Back when we were first threatened by this sickness Tia sought to end the cause without the need for the violence the Zebra tribes had used before. She used these scrolls and the stones in this box to observe other worlds for any semblance to ours.” Twilight perked up at the mention of new worlds.
“Did she find any,” Twilight asked, following Luna as she trotted to the large telescope in the center of the room.
“Only one with life,” Luna replied, arraying the stones before the telescope and following the instructions from a scroll to adjust the telescope as needed. “Take a look,” she said, stepping aside and allowing her to gaze upon the blue planet. Twilight was amazed by how much the green and blue orb was like their own. The only difference was a large blackened scar over the western coast of a medium sized continent. “By using the stones she was able to transfer her consciousness to the planet. She told me that the spell gave her a body that would serve as a disguise, allowed her to know how to use the different form, and taught her everything she needed to know about the world so she could interact with the sapient inhabitants.” Luna fell silent for a moment, causing Twilight to remove her eyes from the viewing port and look at her. She was reading the scrolls, a scowl etched across her face. “Oh dear…”
“What,” Twilight asked, worried something was wrong.
“It seems that the world is not just another planet,” she lowered the scroll and read another. “It’s in another reality. Time apparently moves differently there than it does here. She wrote that she spent a year there when she was only supposed to have spent a week.” She fell silent as she scanned another scroll. “Ah… Well that is only a minor setback I suppose. Turns out it was only a week in our reality.”
“So was this world suffering from the disease as well,” Twilight asked, Luna lowering the scrolls and nodding once.
“Yes, however they had resorted to the same methods of control as the Zebras,” Luna lowered all of the scrolls save for one, nudging Twilight aside before gazing through the glass reflectors. “Interesting,” she said, switching her view between the telescope and the scroll. “That scar on the land was not there before according to this.” She brought the remaining scrolls to her as she finished her mental debate with herself. “Time returned to normal once the year was over, in which she had watched the night side of the world fill with golden lights over the thousand years I was away. They had advanced technologically to the point of sending their kind to their moon on technology in the stead of magic. Oh, well they don’t have any. Interesting.”
“Can we use it,” Twilight asked, breaking Luna’s involvement with the scrolls. “I mean, Celestia is giving me a month to find a cure before she is forced to send military force to deal with the infection, and I’ve already read through all of the material that can be compiled on how to deal with the disease. I need hooves on experience with this matter.”
“I think that would be a well made decision,” A new voice said from behind her, Twilight starting in fright before turning to face her mentor. “You’ve taken the initiative to find a solution. This is a good choice for a princess, don’t you agree Sister?” She walked up to Twilight, nuzzling her cheek softly.
“You mean you’re okay with this,” Twilight asked, receiving a dignified nod in return.
“That I am. The spell used to transfer one’s mind to the planet has a failsafe so that if you meet a mortal end there, you will be returned to your body here with no ill effects. To prevent errors in the imitation of the spell, however, I will administer the effects to you.” Twilight looked at her mentor; worry at the mention of death evident on her face. “Do not worry Twilight,” She said, nuzzling her again for comfort. “I will watch over you every step of the way. However, the transfer will force you to forget everything about this world until you return or something sparks the memories. Are you certain you wish to go through with this?” Twilight nodded once, a determined expression on her face. “Very well then, step into the circle and I will begin the process.”
…
She opened her eyes, shutting them promptly as her gaze was met with the light of the rising sun. “What happened,” she thought, lifting a hand to her head and massaging her temple. She thought about the last night, trying to remember what had happened. She caught bits and pieces of her past; her name, her parents, her friends, memories of a few current events. She settled with the knowledge she had at hand, something telling her to get up and move, a nagging feeling in the base of her skull urging her to move forward. “Alright Twyla, get up and get going.” She rose from the ground, patting the dust from her bare skin before looking around. She found herself in a wood, a hollow between two mountains, a stream winding its way east before turning south. She decided to use the stream as a path, conserving her energy this way as opposed to pushing through the dense undergrowth of the woods around her.
An hour passed and she had made progress through the stream, her feet and ankles wet from walking in the water. She had stopped below a creeping wisteria bush, the trunk of the plant hanging down from a ledge above her as she sat on a dry rock. She closed her eyes as she rested, enjoying the smell of the flowers above her. Her eyes opened as a new smell reached her nose, however, this one strange, different and almost decaying. She looked around for the source of rot, trying to find the dead animal or decaying log. Her eyes switched to her left when a strangled sounding hiss reached her ears, finding a man in a business suit stumbling through the small clearing beyond her natural and flowered cage. The man was gray, his eyes milky and his lips missing, revealing damaged and yellowed teeth. He chattered in an animalistic way, hissing, snarling and sniffing as she stumbled closer to the wisteria that hid Twyla from view. Soon three more figures emerged from the trees beyond the clearing, some differing in clothes and genders, but all exhibiting the same grotesque features. Twyla bit her lip, suppressing an instinctual urge to scream for help, staying her feet from forcing her to flee. A gunshot rang in the distance, causing her to squeak in fright. The man stopped in his tracks, turning his gaze toward her, staring directly at her through the vines around her.
“Oh no,” she muttered, the man snarling and crashing into the thick tendrils of the bush, reaching through, clawing toward her with his fingers outstretched. Twyla backed up to the ledge behind her, putting as much distance between herself and the creature as possible. “Help! Someone,” she screamed as the other three closed on the bush.