Chapter 20
Dusk stepped up to the book and warily took a peek. Nothing jumped out at her, so she looked closer. The darkness of the page did not appear to be its own color; it was as if it had been written and re-written until all the space was filled up with ink. She took a deep breath, stared into it and concentrated on perceiving as much as she could. “Hm, maybe this page isn’t so special,” she remarked after a while. She was about to turn away when she noticed something moving at the edge of the page. “Wait, what’s that? Do you see that?”
“No,” Twilight replied worriedly, “If you want it to stop, look away.”
The side of the manuscript rippled and seemed to stretch out. Dusk leaned in to investigate. Ancient Tarpanaic script emerged from the blackness and spilled out as if written on the air. The words and sentences spread out around the book and more was added on top of them and filled in the gaps.
“Do you want to keep going?” questioned the concerned magician insistently.
“I don’t know,” the reader hesitated. The verbose cloud now blocked the podium from view. It layered itself over her world as it expanded. As it came towards her she tried to look away but she couldn’t, and she was swallowed up in the blackness.
She felt that she was standing in empty space. She looked at her hooves; she could see herself but nothing else. She pawed a hoof at nothing in particular and observed that it left a faint dusty mark on the indefinable surface. She turned around to see a white shape like a doorway standing behind her. Streaks of ash led out of the bottom of the featureless portal to the “ground” under her. This door was home. Across from it appeared three more white portals. She quickly saw danger in the fact that they were identical. “Lost in a book: DO NOT WANT,” she thought as she took preventative measures. Using her paranormal dandruff problem to navigate, she put an “x” by the home door.
Dusk headed for the doorway on the left. As she neared it she saw it had the texture of parchment. An ink drawing of herself strode proudly into the frame. Celestia stood tall and white as the doorway, wearing her crown and ornaments of gold. “That’s a good sign, right?” she hoped aloud. She started forward as if to enter the door, but stopped when she saw that there was more to the scene.
Her self-sketch beckoned and a multitude of ponies came and stood around her. Celestia separated them and gave them clubs, swords, and guns. She bid them fight and they obeyed, falling upon each other savagely. The gory drawing of the struggling, killing crowd swirled around her until she grew impatient, and gestured towards a city. Bombs fell and fire breathing tanks closed in around it. Celestia pounced on the citizens escaping from the flames and crushed them.
Suddenly all the mutilated soldiers froze and stared at the bloodstained princess. The undead hordes rushed on her and held her down. A solar standard was stripped from its pole and the flagstaff was brought before the white one. The vengeful soldiers ran it through her chest like a lance, forcing it through her whole body.
Dusk cried out as she felt the impact on her scar.
The impaling stake passed out of her drawn self, emerging from between the hind legs. It still moved, now red and dripping, and pointed out the door. It changed as it neared her, from ink sketch to a look of real steel. “Oh fuck!” She tried to step away from the door but was instead sliding forward. Dusk felt the wound of her scar tearing back into her lungs in anticipation of the spike that was hurling towards her.
A limb shot out from beside her and slammed the door shut. The pain left her as she was disconnected from the bloody vision within the dreamscape. She turned to see who it was that helped her, but they were already gone.
Two doors remained in front of her.
She considered retreating from this dimension that had taken a hostile turn. The way home was still open; she had only to walk back to it and she would be safe. However, she might be close to what she was looking for. In the last vision, she was powerful; and surely three doors represented three different options, so perhaps they ended better.
Dusk moved to take in whatever the middle portal had to show. Another enchanted artwork unfolded as a huge chamber, luxuriously furnished, came into being. Chandeliers hung from the high vaulted ceiling and lit the picture with broad yellow brushstrokes. Ornate curtains covered the windows to hide the scene from the rest of the world. The middle of the room dropped into a deep silver basin. Around the bowl were gathered dozens of earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns that represented all walks of life.
The bottom of the conceptual door turned into the silver rim of the bowl, and Dusk viewed the scene from this vantage point. She surveyed the row of young colts, mares, and older fillies that stretched as if from beside her, in front across the basin, and back. She wondered why they stared blankly ahead.
Perfume, hints of liquor and potion, and even a more primal smell tickled her nose. A deep, pleased “Aaah” sounded in her ear. She could see furtive movements of something white on the close edge of the panorama. It moved further away, down the row of colorful ponies. It was another manifestation of Celestia, who worked her way out from behind Dusk into full view. It was the Princess, both in full glory and in the grip of passion. With wings outstretched in lustful pleasure, the beautiful alicorn nuzzled up beside a yellow mare, taking in the smoothness and warmth of flesh on flesh. Dusk stared as the two kissed deeply. Celestia straddled the mare provocatively, crossing over her to a unicorn colt. She rubbed her horn on his, closing her eyes and drinking in the feeling with a smile. The goddess continued her intoxicated foreplay, perusing her attractive harem.
Dusk’s already large eyes widened, greedily taking in the erotic vision. She involuntarily stiffened her wings and salivated, “Looks pretty good, heheh. I choose door number two.” She leaned forward, partially entering the dimension of the picture. She held out her hoof in the air over the edge of the basin, calculating how to safely enter this sensual world. She froze as she finally noticed the demeanor of the ponies that had earned the goddess’s attention. An earth pony cringed away and cried at the caresses of the enamored Princess. As the ruler fawned over a purple filly, urine trickled down the leg of the terrified little one. Some of them were chained, tied or gagged.
Dusk took a regretful step back, but suddenly the filly looked at her. As their eyes met, Dusk was flooded with guilty memories of the little pony. This unexpected connection with reality seemed to drag her forward by her eyes, causing her to topple over the edge of the basin. She rolled down the side and scrambled to her hooves, now completely immersed in the scene that had tempted her.
She desperately whirled about to find the door back to the empty space, but it was out of reach at the top of the deep basin. She finally realized that she recognized every pony; they were her every previous conquest. Dusk cowered from a room full of condemning memories. Her self-specter still circled, lavishing unwanted affection on each pony until they began to cry.
Celestia’s deranged ecstasy built until she had finished her circuit. The white alicorn stumbled clumsily on the edge and slid unconcernedly down to her grey alternative. Dusk dodged the apparition of herself. The Princess got up as if to fly back out of the silver bowl, but instead merely laughed at her weeping victims. She abruptly went silent and studied Dusk, who found herself once again under her own hungry and threatening gaze.
“No, I can’t touch me again!” Dusk thought and ran away up the side of the basin, only to slide back down. Celestia again cackled deliriously. The fear, shame, and hurt of the surrounding ponies rose to a tremendous weight and leaked out of their eyes as tears. Tears spilled down the sides of the bowl in growing streams. Dusk lifted herself out of the puddle that was forming and readied her wings for an escape. She threw herself towards the door, but her wings failed to move. As she crashed short of her goal, she was aware that her wings were bound. The flow of tears grew, and swirled strongly about her legs. She tried to cry out, but found herself gagged. The sufferers wept, Celestia laughed, and Dusk whimpered as the water rose around the two alicorns. She struggled to swim, but the current pushed her down and to the middle of the drowning bowl. Salty tears filled her lungs as she slipped helplessly beneath the surface. She flailed frantically, then slowly, as she lost strength.
A warm glow surrounded her and lifted her from the whirlpool of sorrows. The golden light peeled away the cloth from her mouth and freed her wings. The magic aura carried her back through the door and set her down gently, but she was still choking. When the door closed, the tears from the vision vanished from her lungs and her coat, leaving her dry and gasping for breath.
Dusk stayed where she lay and tried to recover physically and emotionally. After her fear had worn off, she was left with that familiar guilt. She knew she had done all of that violence and abuse as Celestia, but this was worse. She had chosen that door. She had wanted it. It was no magically-summoned second personality that had tempted her and tormented her, like before. It was a part of herself, a scar on her mind. Deep down she had all the same desires. Same scar, same pony. “What would I do if I had unlimited power again?” she was forced to consider. Was it possible that she could be the same monster again if she was put back into that environment?
There was the third door. “That’s just awful,” she groaned. She had seen two depictions of herself in power, two sets of grievances, and two death scenes. “Is the third time a charm, or is it stupid?” She had almost died twice—did dying in here return you to the real world, or kill your mind? Dusk decided it was probably the latter, since there was already a way to return. However, she was almost finished here, and if she left empty-hoofed the future was bleak. She figured she was out of self-destructing sins anyway.
Whether or not she was in danger, she hadn’t died. She had fallen straight into the path of death and done nothing to get herself out, yet she was alive. There was some force in this otherworld that seemed to protect her. She remembered the hoof that closed the first door and the magic that came from nowhere to retrieve her from the second. Apparently, some phantom unicorn stalked her on the page with benevolent intent. Had Twilight found a way to help her? Whoever was with her, the fact that she was not alone gave her the courage to approach the third door.
The unseen pen sketched another rich interior, but this was no fictitious room. The sanctuary of the Cathedral of the Sun in Canterlot came into view. Celestia stood in her natural place on the middle of the tall stage, just as she had the day before—whatever happened. Great marble columns and massive golden sun emblems rose up beside her. Sunlight brilliantly lit stained glass behind her, and choirs in front of her sang her praises. Dusk saw herself empowered and the sun in the sky, but not to be tricked again, she waited for the moving picture to complete its tale.
Celestia reared up and basked in the adoration of the world that was under her spell. Her eyes began to glow white, and the worshipers also lit up with a shining aura. Then the light of the singers began to leave them and pool around the object of their worship. The goddess began a graceful flight upwards as she drew their energy and their life into herself. Her whole body began to gleam with the borrowed light even as the choirs fell to the floor, dark and lifeless. The ceiling melted away from the glorious being as she flew out into the blue sky. Thousands of bright trails floated up after her as she consumed everything that was offered from the nation below her. The goddess, exultant in her power and new brilliance, rose into the sun.
As the two heavenly lights met, they shuddered. The sun collapsed on her and formed a black speck. Darkness rather than light flowed out of it as it grew. The spires of Canterlot broke apart and fell up into it, and soon the whole world began to follow suit. Dusk was also caught in its gravity, and would have tumbled through the portal were it not for powerful hooves that seized her from behind. For a moment she thought that she would be torn apart between the competing forces, but the black hole soon destroyed the door itself and ceased to exist. Predictably, her helper had also vanished.