//------------------------------//
// A Shaman's Sight 
// Story: Is Immortality Really Worth It? 
// by Nadake 
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Pinkie and Nolux galloped out of the Everfree, both mares bursting through the treeline just as the last of their magical shields crumbled. The motes that had protected them throughout their flight through the dead wood now surged up, a wall of bright light that stymied the dark fingers reaching for them. This time, rather than letting the darkness swallow them, and abating its hunger for a moment, the light darted into the base of the black magic, sinking into the haze, before flaring into brilliant life. 

The motes burst within the darkness, and as Nolux watched, the magic disintegrated before her. With each mote’s flare of light, something within the darker magic seemed to splinter, a web of cracks tracing along their lengths, glowing with a sullen red light. The light grew brighter and brighter, as more cracks formed, until the entirety of the tentacle seemed to be nothing but fragments of darkness, held together by the light. Then, only an instant after the mote entered the tendril, the red light would turn a brilliant golden, and with a hissing scream, the grasping magic flew into countless pieces, each one turning to mist, until that too dissipated. 

The shaman sighed, letting her head droop as she panted. Her sides rose and fell in time with her ragged breathing, and she could both hear and feel her heart hammering away, fear and the long gallop through the treacherous woods had pushed her body to its limits. They had stumbled and tripped, falling over themselves as often as not in their headlong flight. Thinking back to her panicked run, Nolux was amazed she hadn’t tumbled off a cliff, or stepped on a rotten tree and broken her ankle. Even getting stuck for a moment would have been a death sentence, but somehow, they had both avoided every injury. 

“Well, that was exciting.” She gasped, and she heard a weary giggle from the earth pony. Nolux was still breathing heavily, but the burning ache in her lungs had eased, and she stood a little more steadily. 

“Yeah. We should do it again sometime.” Pinkie chuckled. To the zebra’s consternation, the pink mare didn’t even seem winded by the recent activities. She was trotting about the exhausted mare, humming to herself and occasionally stopping to sniff one of the flowers that edged the little hill they found themselves on. Looking out, you could just see Ponyville over the rolling hills covered by a thick growth of apple trees. Off to the left though, there was nothing but the seemingly endless line that marked the border of the Everfree Forest, now a frozen, grey waste. 

No, no that wasn’t all. There was something down at the foot of the hill neighboring theirs. It was too far to make out distinctly, but there seemed to be two ponies there, one black, and one purple. It looked, though this was nothing like any of the visions that Nolux had ever seen, it looked as though Twilight was doing battle with the dark creature. 

That was... odd, and it chilled the zebra’s blood. She had always seen the dark mare, either battling the young unicorn, or hovering behind Twilight, whispering into her ear. No matter what though, her visions, ever one that showed her Twilight, had shown this monster, and shown either the bloody battle that ended with Twilight’s death as the end of the wicked horn, or in Twilight sucumbing to the darkness, and turning her powers on her kind.  

Those visions, the dark ones, filled with violence and rage, had terrified her for years. She had always known, known as surely as she knew her own body, that the violet mare in her visions, whose horn crackled with a crimson lightning as she tore through colts and fillies with glee, was evil, beyond bounds. She had even known that she would one day meet that monster, the one ponies in her visions called “Sun’s Bane”, and she had expected that meeting to end in her long, painful death. 

Then Twilight had come to the palace, tearing down walls and tossing aside guards with the same immense power that the shaman had seen from the evil creature she dreaded. It had been Nolux’s nightmares given form when Twilight had strode up to her dias, and demanded her compliance. She had always thought that she would face her death bravely, would hold her head high when her time finally came, and she returned to her ancestors. 

She found, though, that she was nothing more than a coward. She had given in to Twilight’s demands, knowing that she was likely doing nothing but aiding her on her path to power. That thought never even crossed her mind, she was willing to do anything to save herself, to stop her mind numbing fear. She hadn’t stopped her assailant, she hadn’t even tried. She told Twilight everything, about her visions, even about seeing the mare’s demise. 

It was then that she realized that she was no better than the snakes she had cast out of her realm, the cowardly dogs that would turn on their fellow pony in an instant. She was no better than they, yet she thought to lead her people? What right did a coward have to power? So, without thinking of the possible repercussions she had acted, blurting out a demand before she could stop herself. Cowardice was shameful, but demanding that this mare take the shaman with her? That was foolish, almost suicidal. 

She had done it though, and, to her amazement, her gruesome dreams began to lessen. They came less and less often, and even the content of her nightmare’s seemed to grow more gentle. Though the mare in her visions was still violent, killing and maiming, she was no longer cruel, she no longer seemed to take pleasure in their suffering. She seemed, in some of the dreams, to even regret her actions, to do those heinous acts reluctantly, and only at the urging of the dark mare behind her. 

Seeing them there, doing battle, for Nolux was sure that they were in a fight to the death, the shaman felt a pang in her heart. She had seen this, more and more often. The setting might change from dream to dream, even shifting and flowing around the combatants before the vision ended, but the battle was always the same. Twilight would fight, fight valiantly, but in the end, she would be no match for the monsters terrible might. She would die, impaled, with her blood flowing down the jet black horn. 

Then something happened. Something Nolux, something not even Pinkie could have expected. The clouds that had swirled above suddenly opened, blow away by a great, roaring wind as the heavens themselves were rent asunder, and raw magic poured through. Pure, white light came crashing to the ground, splashing off of the hard stone like a wave against a cliff. 

Then the heat came. It seemed to shudder out from the point of impact in a great, invisible pulse, flattening grass. It moved so fast, it was already almost to the pair, and Nolux could only stand frozen, watching as it hurtled towards her. It slammed into her like a wall, and the zebra gasped in shock and pain as the burning wind washed over her. It dried the sweat of her run in an instant, and it left her throat parched and aching as she took a shuddering breath. The shaman grimaced, and squeezed her eyes closed, leaving only a sliver open to see with. 

There have been few times in her life that Nolux was thankful for her bizarre, and unique, gift in the Sight. While piercing the Veil and seeing into the misty future was a very rare ability, it was by no means unheard of among the ancient shaman clans. But her ability to see not only the passage of time, but to watch the ebb and flow of magic all around her had made her an outcast, even among the shamans who were her kin. Her mother, her father, even her teacher, they had all feared her Sight, or thought she had lost her wits. The young mare had learned to keep her knowledge to herself, or saying it in ways that would not cause as much alarm. Telling the old warrior that she could tell his leg wound was festering, and would kill him without tending because she had seen it in a vision was one thing. Telling him she could see the dark sludge of power the evil humors exuded was a very different one. 

Now though, now Nolux felt blessed to have her Sight. She could see through the flaring light of the spell, and see also the vortex of power that was keeping the beam tightly controlled. It followed the path of the light exactly, perfectly straight as both edges narrowed to a point just above the ground. The golden magic binding the attack was laced with shocks of vibrant red, but even with the murky color of what Nolux knew was rage, the power still seemed kind, and pure. 

Nothing like the dark power that stood beneath it. Now, no longer occupied with speech, the black mare had begun to use her own vile magic, throwing a shield around herself that not even the zebra’s eyes could penetrate. It swirled about, black and oily, a thin, low dome that seemed to be all that stopped the attack from immolating her. As she watched though, Nolux grinned. More and more power flowed into the assault, and into the sheild containing it. And every time the light brightened, the darkness beneath it seemed to shrink, growing smaller and smaller, until finally, when the sunbeam was so bright that even her slitted eye was aching, it shattered. 

There was no sound, no screams and no curses, there was only the constant, high pitched hum of the spell, still pouring energy against the barrier holding it in place. 

The beam wasn’t dimming. 

Nolux gasped, realizing what that must mean. Searching carefully, her eyes flicked along the line of the containing spell, looking for a link she knew must be there. After a frantic moment, she found it, a line of gold and red, stretching from the barrier to something small and white on a nearby hilltop. Two more shapes, one white, the other dark, lay on the grassy knoll beside the white figure, where they seemed to have collapsed. With a growing sense of dread, Nolux watched as the beam brightened once more, and a wave of power surged along the length of the chain binding pony and spell. Then she saw the pony fall. 

“Winds and Rains!” The shaman gasped, and she heard Pinkie echo her shock. Nolux turned her head, and found Pinkie Pie’s eyes wide with disbelief. Her own couldn’t have been any less wide, but Nolux turned away first, looking down the length of the hill beneath them. She was gauging the danger of running down the hillside, when she saw a pink shape dart along the steep descent. “DAMN!”

The mare shifted back into the ancient dialect taught to every shaman, an archaic form of Equestrian, and continued to swear as the took off after her friend. They had just barely avoided being consumed by whatever spell Twilight had cast on the forest, and now Pinkie wanted to run right into whatever the mare was doing now?

Both mare’s were panting, sprinting down the slope and then up the next, darting left and right to avoid rocks and broken timber. Nolux stayed as close to Pinkie as she could, following the other mare’s path exactly. She knew from experience that Pinkie had a knack for choosing the best course, she had shown as much when they dashed through the forest. Now though, a stumble would do more than twist an ankle, it could mean that they could die, and that others might suffer for it. 

Others. Suffering. For an instant, Nolux shook her head, closing her eyes as she did. The brief moment passed as she shook away the approaching vision, fighting the Sight to keep running. If one happened here, now, who knows what could happen, what she would see. Her mouth tightened, and her breaths became pants between clenched teeth as a spike of pain lanced through her skull. “NO! I W-Ugh.”

Her growl was cut short as her chest ran into something small, and very strong. Brought to a halt so suddenly, she didn’t have time to slow her legs, and they slid out from under her, hooves in the air as she thudded to the ground. Above her, the pink leg that had closelined her retreated, replaced by a concerned, serious face.

“Stay here.” Pinkie said, and there was no hint of a joke about her tone. Her eyebrows had knit together in worry, and her mouth was a grim line as her eyes flicked out over the field again. “We can’t help now. We would interrupt her.”

“What? Intterupt wha-” Nolux was cut off again, this time by the same hoof that had dropped her being placed carefully, but firmly, over her mouth. 

“Shh.” Pinkie whispered, pulling her hoof away slowly. “Look.”

Nolux twisted, rolling over onto her legs and sitting up. Her eyes roamed the horizon for a moment, searching for their target, before realizing that she should be able to see the sun. 

It was still there, high in the sky. A pillar of white light, so intense now that even with her enhanced vision, Nolux had to avert her eyes. To say that the sunbeam was merely bright was like comparing a candle to a forest fire. It was beyond brightness, beyond any description that Nolux could think of. It filled the air with a violent, high pitched keening whine, like metal being torn to shreds. It made her hair stand on end, her teeth set on edge, and she could even taste it, a hot, white, bitter thing on her tongue, the back of her throat. It was so bright, it had so much power surging forth from it that even Nolux’s Sight was beginning to fade away, lost among the other sensations. 

The zebra looked lower, searching the base of the hill. They were directly across from it, on the crest of one of the neighboring rises. It surprised her that they had moved so quickly, they had been almost two hills away only moments ago it seemed. 

For a moment, staring at the hill, the shaman was confused, though she couldn’t quite say why. She scanned the base of the hill, silently thanking the ancestors for the dimmer view, finally allowed her mind to recover from being bombarded by so much power. That thought passed again through her mind, the shaman slowly turning it over, examining it. There was something there. Something important, and she couldn’t quite place her hoof on it. Something about the light, about it being dimmer. 

Her head snapped up, slowly descending as she looked off to the side of the light. “Ancestors preserve us.” She whispered. 

There was a clear line in the sky, an invisible barrier where the light seemed unable to cross. It stretched in a high, narrow dome above the hill, and her eyes could just make out the tiniest flickers of a deep, amethyst light trailing to many points of the sheild. Following them, she saw Twilight, standing at the base of the hill, horn burning white with power. 

From so close, she could see that Twilight’s head was down, even that her eyes were closed as her lips moved furiously. Chant, invocation or prayer, Nolux couldn’t tell, but Twilight repeated the phrase over and over, each repetition sending a fresh wave of magic through the horn that had barely begun to dim. 

Above them, the shield began to shift. Nolux could see the outline of the shield spell now. The wispy purple barrier that shifted like a spider’s web caught in the breeze beneath the mighty assault. She watched as slowly, delicately, the web lifted. Each strand that was bound to the ground moved gently, separating itself from its foothold and curling upwards. More and more strands, until every piece of the web was floating in the air, the dome slowly flipping itself over. The tattered edges, severed by Twilight’s will, began to crawl higher into the air, narrowing themselves into a tight cone around the light. They snaked higher and higher, reaching up into the clouds, always following the line of the light, seeming to touch the deadly ray. 

The sun was fighting back though. Angry sparks of a darker white licked out from the pillar, and wherever they touched, the web disintegrated. As though it could sense its coming doom, it fought harder and harder, eating away the web faster. Soon, they reached a standstill, Twilight’s magic no longer able to climb the incandescent wall. Soon, the mare’s strength would fail her, and the fury of the sun would batter down anew, consuming Twilight, her Princess, and everypony with them. 

Nolux let out a soundless cry, and tried to run forward, to pull Twilight back, to wake her from her trance before the spell broke. Again, Pinkie stopped her, silently this time, pointing. 

A burst of dark magic erupted on the hilltop above Twilight, and something black and furious rose to its hooves. The dark Princess had awoken. 

The dark energy radiating from the mare in Nolux’s Sight surrounded its mistress, cloaking her in power, before twisting itself into a long, narrow band. It reached out, touching Twilight, then pressing into her, heedless of the mare’s sudden scream. 

Black magic began to pulse along the weave of Twilight’s spell, climbing the vines of her purple magic swiftly. It reached the top, just as another angry bolt lashed out at the spell. Darkness swelled, batting the attack aside contemptuously, and began to climb higher, taking over where Twilight had stopped. 

The keening wail grew louder once more, a sound that drove Nolux to the ground, grimacing in pain. It felt as though her ears would bleed, the cry was so strong. The wail grew stronger, for just a moment, and Nolux screamed with it, overcome with the pain. Then the scream, the light, everything vanished. 

She felt her head land hard on the soft, cool grass, and heard a soft voice crooning over her. A hoof ran gently along her cheek, and Nolux, like the Princess before her, faded into oblivion.