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// Chapter 17: Grandmother's Song 
// Story: Light and Shadow 
// by oop 
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	Total lack of sensation, it was like nothing he had ever experienced before. The last thing Shadow had felt had been connecting to the horrible reaper cloth that thing wore like a suit. Now there was nothing, none of his senses seemed operational in the slightest. His mind built a world of blackness around him, but his eyes detected no such color, or even lack thereof. It was a blank expanse, utter solitude, isolation from the sensory world.
Something happened, but he wasn’t sure how long it took, for his sense of time had vanished along with everything else, but it was the first thing he became aware of, so he naturally experienced it as instant and clung to it mentally. He wasn’t even sure what this “it” was for another unknown portion of time, until he discerned it as sound. Not just any sound however, it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. It was a song, a song unlike any music he’d ever heard. The word “genesis” floated to his mind without his even knowing the meaning.
Kinesthetic sense came back to him as he willed his suspended body to move, flailing his hooves uselessly about in the void until his brain found the command sequence to open his eyes. Color didn’t comprehend itself quickly, his retinas detecting red, and then orange, then yellow, followed by countless other colors all blending together until he realized he was looking at a white expanse. It was, for a moment, terrifying, as he realized the beast he had attacked was very probably in the same vicinity, but the lack of anywhere to hide oneself assuaged this fear quickly as it had come. Wherever he was, that nightmare wasn’t here with him.
He turned his attention back to the song, for it soothed him very deeply. It wasn’t even in words he recognized, presumably some other language. It was in old tongue, one spoken in Equestria before language truly began to divide, so a few words he could guess the meaning of. He didn’t care what they meant though, the song made him feel as light as one of his own small feathers. It was slow, haunting even, were it not for how well he perceived it, and the glorious peace it seemed to carry on each note.
Dormiat in pace et gloriosae somniis
Filius lunam et stellas
Ne ponat pedem vestries
Mane in Aurora hora est scriptor
Non occidat abscondas semita tenebrae

Suus non omnes periit, licet velata conspectus
Nuntius mox oblítus
Est Væ, vincant cum celeritate
A veloce ratiónis damnati

Consurget de somno
Est abest tenebræ
Finis est longe a te
Precipio cadens stellas
Tunc possis vincere hoc timore

Shadow’s eyes connected to his brain enough to blink a few times, trying to observe by sight the source of this melody, which continued even after the last verse. His wings flapped once, proving to be a mistake as the momentum caused him to spin upside down and remain suspended there. He groaned, his young mind swiftly growing bored with the blank expanse, and he somersaulted over again.
Finally something that wasn’t nothing registered on his strained corneas. He panicked at first at the outline, as it was humanoid in appearance, but this faded quickly. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t what kidnapped Iris. As it approached Shadow noted its form had subtle differences, curving at what he guessed was the chest and the hindquarters. Otherwise she had a thin form, wearing no clothes, but accentuated by a pale luminescence which wrapped around her like a robe.
Not entirely sure why he had taken to calling it a her, but it fit well enough. She had a face, which was what soothed the mind most about her presence, and she was smiling, eyes trained on him. For a moment he felt awed by this being, beautiful and yet so alien, feminine and yet strange. He felt the need to bow, but with no solid surface, or any surface at all, such a thing was impossible.
The song came to an end as the woman came face to face with Shadow. She had walked toward him, feet apparently firm on something far below, and she seemed pleased enough with his presence. She ran a hand through his mane tenderly, and he felt immediately soothed and accepted.
“Welcome Shadow, hunter of stars,” she said in a melodious tone, finally in the language he understood “I am most surprised by your being here, but perhaps not so much as how you have come.”
This sentence challenged him greatly, and it took him a moment to respond. “Well… I don’t even know where I am…” he said nervously, wondering if she might take offense if he said the wrong thing “And I don’t remember how I got here either…”
“Of these questions, the first is the one most oft asked, and most well answered,” Said the woman “but tidings come not before titles. I have yet to formally introduce myself, though formal may be beyond me in this primitive state. Your kind, at least those that know of me, refer to me as the queen of life, or Mother Nature if you prefer. Or, as your mother calls me, simply…”
“The Queen!” said Shadow quickly, mind racing back to Celestia’s chambers when the sisters were discussing the retribution of Discord, “Oh… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt…”
“I shall count it not against you,” said The Queen “I know a child’s mind is fast and free, wild as the land and as vast as the sea. Though I presume you wish not to tarry on such simple tithing.”
Shadow merely went quiet, not entirely able to figure out what she had just said. “You wish to know your location of course,” she continued “Well by your meager definition, you are not truly anywhere. This is the land beyond the small world of Equestria, beyond any world you may ever discover. You know this place as the eternal herd.”
Shadow’s panic snapped back to existence, his silent attitude shattering “I’m dead?” he exclaimed in a rush “No way! I can’t be dead! I still have to save Iris! Send me back right now!”
The Queen laughed, a glorious sound which caused his panic to vanish again with equal speed “Well you have not come upon such a fate as of yet young one.” She said “Though this is the closest any have ever come. While normally only a soul may enter this realm, your bodily form has been carried with you…”
“So…” said Shadow, turning this over and over in his head and not finding any reason in it at all “I’m dead… but I still have a body?”
“You are alive,” said the Queen “Very much alive, with your physical form intact. Your presence here is attributed to another.”
“That thing!” Shadow exclaimed, excited that ideas were beginning to click into place “It opened a portal or something to take Iris through and when I attacked it I got dragged along!”
“This reason is sound,” said The Queen, beaming at him “Though courage you must have in spades for your mind to remain whole after such an ordeal. A strike against The Operator is no small feat…”
“So that’s what it’s called…” said Shadow, trying to spin right-side-up again and achieving only a sort of silly mid-air somersault “What exactly is that thing?” These last words were muffled slightly as his head faced the wrong direction.
“The Operator is not exclusively from your world,” said The Queen “It is a being from many places and many times. It preys on all living things, and makes use of many more for darker purposes. That it was in a world as pure and innocent as Equestria is ill tidings indeed…”
“So it’s going to eat Iris?” asked Shadow “Or did it drop her when I hit it? Please tell me it dropped her…”
“Iris Stripes…” said The Queen, her eyes focusing on something Shadow couldn’t see, “She too is here, also in her physical form… However I sense she will not be of the flesh for much longer. Her soul is in jeopardy of the Operator…”
This much Shadow could understand “Then I have to help her!” he said animatedly “Where are they? I have to save her!”
“I could send you to them…” said The Queen, though her voice had faltered slightly “While the Operator remains on this plain he is vulnerable. You could drive him away from your world were you to strike him down…”
“Then what are we waiting for?” exclaimed Shadow “The longer we wait the more likely it is…” he stopped here with a guttural sound in his throat. He wasn’t going to allow that to be a possibility.
“Do not underestimate The Operator,” said The Queen “Many before you have tried to reclaim loved ones. The souls he owns here number well into the hundreds….” She paused here “I do not wish my daughter’s son to fall prey to him as well…”
If the situation were not so dire, the weight of these words would’ve been heavy on Shadow, but right now he had much more important things to confront “I don’t care what the risks are!” he said with conviction “If there’s any chance at all that I can save Iris I want to do it!”
“I understand…” said The Queen “Your love shines clearly through… You may yet be the one to vanquish The Operator… I wish you… the best of luck…”
Shadow put on a determined expression, offset both by his small stature and awkward spatial orientation “I won’t need it.” He said.
The moment the last word left his mouth The Queen disappeared as well as the blank world around him. Gravity came back all at once as he fell down on to what felt like solid stone. When his eyes adjusted to the dim light he could see only a dark expanse, vaguely crimson in coloration. The only physical features were huge white lines suspended in space.
Shadow forced himself to his hooves, feeling about for invisible walls. He looked around, shuddering at the horrific atmosphere. The great white lines were all around, fading in and out of existence as if they were made of mist. They formed jagged words and rough drawings, identical to those on the pages he had collected. Looking up he discovered that he was standing under one dominating shape, drawn with the same impossible lines. The symbol was a great circle with an X through it.
He took a deep breath to steady himself, and then started walking. It was icy cold in this place, a terrible temperature that seemed to rob him of warmth and conviction. It was especially bad when he passed through one of the huge illustrations, which seemed to break through one of the huge illustrations. They broke through their original forms and collected around him every time he crossed through one, sticking to his skin and burning him purely from the intense cold.
If The Operator had known more of his foe he might have tried to break something other than Shadow’s spirit, for his will was steadfast and indestructible. Had any of his friends, heck even that moron Mesa, had been taken he would push himself to the point of death to rescue them. For Iris it was likely he was willing to sacrifice his very soul.
The white trees began to attach themselves to the ground, building a crude sketch of a three dimensional forest as he pushed forward. A soundless wind whipped around him, tearing at his mane and chilling him even further. But he didn’t give up, ignoring this world’s horrors as his mind was consumed by one ideal. Iris.
And it was her shriek that gave him the final push. The sound of her voice was enough to send his determined trot into a full gallop. He could see the thing now, grossly defined in a world of crude edges and shapes. Iris was held high above, wrapped in a handless appendage, only visible against the white of her coat. She was struggling and screaming, kicking desperately at her assailant to no avail.
Iris, as he would find out later, had been in the beat’s hold for longer than any normal pony could survive. Staring at the thing for a quarter of the time he tortured her would drive them mad with terror. Iris’ blindness had saved her for this one instance, for the insanity that gripped the Operator’s victims was muted by her lack of sight.
It wasn’t his only weapon though, and through slow touch and sound he was steadily driving the filly mad. He had considered making her another proxy for her extraordinary senses, but rage at her resilience had driven him to ruthlessness. When she finally broke her soul she would join the countless others that were his.
Iris’ screaming was slowly falling into a whimper. All the touch in the world had become cold and all the sound was static. Time had slowed for her, further emphasizing the horror she was being forced to experience. It was as if she had been in the beast’s cold grip for over a day, scared and alone. Her will to live was fading, for if her friends would not save her from this fate, the embrace of death might…
And then something happened, the one thing that could bring her back from the brink. “Put her down!” the determined and childish voice of Shadow pierced through the static to reach her. The white noise deafened as the beast turned its attention away from her, more interested in this thing that would dare challenge him.
Shadow’s heart skipped a beat as the eyeless face turned toward him again, the horror beating on his psyche even stronger than ever now. Static began at the edges of his hearing and vision, but he stood his ground, eyes trained on the creature that dared harm Iris. It was stupid, sure, to do the one thing that could effectively disable him, but the first step to overcome the beast would be to overcome what it did to his mind.
He shut his eyes for a moment, hardly a blink as he tried to shake off the static, and then it was directly in front of him, wild arms waving every which way. His hooves rooted to the spot, his mouth opening up in a scream that never came out. The Operator was ready to claim its next easy victim.
“Shadow no!” Iris shrieked “Look away from it! It’s going to get you!”
And to his astonishment, the darkness crushing his heart suddenly faded. That was it! Iris’ voice stopped the monster’s power from impacting him! Emboldened, he pushed forward through the haze, head connecting to a joint in one of the creature’s legs. A new energy suddenly flooded the area, seeming to spell out confusion.
“You better let her go!” shouted Shadow, the static fading steadily as he backed up from the Operator’s stumbling form “I’m ready for whatever you’re going to throw at me!”
“Shadow…” Iris whimpered, then squeaked as the long tendril released her to fall onto the black landscape. The Operator stood, anger replacing confusion now as his wretched arms flung toward Shadow. Its face, empty of expressing the cold cruel hate of this winged equine, attempted to tear again at the colt’s sanity.
But Shadow’s bravery had peaked. He waited one second to watch the tentacles shooting toward him, and then took a leap forward, the appendages swerving in the air to shoot toward him again. He ran forward, charging hard toward The Operator with a lionhearted courage. Another blow struck sending the cretin reeling backwards. Shadow ducked as gravity took its toll and the tentacles wrapped back around their owner to vanish like smoke.
Shadow flushed with pride, child-like excitement replacing the previous horror. One advantage little Shadow had against this fiend, one that none of his previous challengers had, was that he was not only young and impressionable, but courageous enough to pose a threat.
“Alright you slender guy,” said Shadow, smile widening as the beast warped around to face him “your static isn’t even affecting me anymore… I’m stronger than you now…”
The operator backed up, confronted for once by something it didn’t understand. For millennium it had been the image of terror in a thousand worlds. For the greatest hunter of myth and fact to become the prey was terrifying. What gave a mere child such mystifying strength?
And then he said it, the words that caused it to collapse in agony, the words that for all of the infinite universe’s worth of time he had feared, but never truly believed would be spoken. Shadow glared with determination and said clearly “I am not afraid of you!” The sound of his voice echoed around the space seeming to grow in volume until it reverberated at a painful decibel. The Operator clutched at the sides of its featureless head in agony as the gigantic white drawings erupted into clouds of dust, the crimson turning to black as the world around them seemed to vanish. And then, without a sound of its own, the Operator was gone.
Shadow immediately rushed over to Iris, who had gone silent, not understanding the events. She had heard a violent tussle, loud shouts, and Shadow’s destructive sentence. She waited, trembling, for the thing to lift her up again and continue the torment. When instead she connected to the warm touch of Shadow she burst into sobs, pressing herself into him.
“Hey… don’t cry…” said Shadow “It’s gone now, it’s over… There’s no way I would’ve let that thing take you… you’re alright…”
“Shadow…” Iris whimpered, still clutching at him “I was so scared… I thought I was never going to see mom again, or you, or any pony… I was so alone…”
“Well you’re not alone anymore,” said Shadow, cuddling her closer, a tear threatening to drop from his own face “You’re safe now… I’ve got you…” He muttered comforting nothings to her like this for a long while, not noticing as the blackness around them slowly faded to a calming blue.
When he did finally look up, Iris was still nuzzling his shoulder. He could see a bright white light in the distance, steadily growing closer. He smiled, hearing the kind whisper of the Queen’s voice once again.
“Great job…”