Princess Celestia looked down at the crimson quill in front of her with an expression of utmost hatred. Not even Discord had gotten this look.
Princess Luna seemed torn between glaring at the quill and running away.
The Doctor was staring at it with an expression that most foals show on Hearths Warming.
The Bearers were looking between everyone else there, confused as to what was going on.
Abel just sighed and looked down at the quill.
"Abel, just what is that thing?"
Abel glanced up at Twilight before returning to stare at the quill, trying to phrase the answer properly.
"Put simply, Twilight, this quill is the most dangerous thing in reality."
All of the Bearers looked stunned at that statement, clearly trying to comprehend how such a small, innocent little thing like that could possibly be that dangerous.
"In the right hooves, this thing can rewrite reality itself. If it's possible, the quill can make it happen."
And now the Bearers were edging away slightly from Abel. Abel nodded at them.
"I don't blame you. But I think the Princesses know more about it than we do."
The princesses jolted a bit, realizing that they had been staring, and cleared their throats. Celestia began the tale.
"In the era of Discord, when all hope seemed lost, Luna and I realized that, as alicorns, everything about us was highly magical. So we each took one of our old flight feathers and merged them together to make a writing implement that we hoped would help. Unknown to us at the time, a bit of Discord's chaos magic snuck in, and altered the device. We merely wanted something that would guide us, but instead we created something that could...control. Even us."
Luna picked up the tale then. "We did write that we would soon find in our wanderings the means to halt Discord's reign of terror. The next thing either of us did recall was coming to our senses after having found the Elements of Harmony. With dream-diving and mind magics, we did recover the memories of the time between, and were shocked at our actions whilst we were under the influence of that wretched quill."
"And so," Celestia concluded, "we opened a portal to Nowhere, and tossed the quill inside, hoping to never see it again. Though, every now and again, it did show up again, it was met with the same treatment. And now it has returned again."
Abel shook his head. "Tossing it into the Void solves nothing. Unmaking it solves everything, but allow me to guess. Because of the chaos within it, I would have better luck not turning to stone in a staring contest with a cockatrice than you two would in unmaking this thing."
The two sisters slowly nodded, and Abel sighed. "I knew following Pinkie to a curio shop just to take a break from the wedding was a bad idea..."
Twilight spoke up then. "You said something about it being your savior...and murderer. Could you...?"
Abel turned to her and nodded. "Gimmie a moment here...gotta phrase it right...Okay. So, what do you know about the Multiverse, Twilight?"
Twilight answered instantly. "The Multiverse Theory states that there are an infinite amount of alternate universes parallel to our own."
Abel nodded. "Now, let me demonstrate what's right about that, and what's wrong."
A rock about the size of Abel's head floated into the glade. "Picture this rock as your entire universe. Everything you can see, everything you can't. Your entire world, bound within a bubble of space-time."
Twilight and the Doctor nodded, and Abel continued. "Now, looking at it from outside, each 'root' world is surrounded by a fine haze. I call it the Flux."
A small cloud of dirt hovered around the stone, partially obscuring it from view. "Further out from that, we have the alternative universes as compared to the root world. These, I call the Branches."
Pebbles, no larger than Abel's eyes, came out and hovered just beyond the dirt. "Anytime anything happens, on any scale, there's always another way things could have happened. When it's something small, like, say, flipping a bit, then that offshoot of the main world becomes a part of the Flux. If it does nothing to distinguish itself from the main root world, then after a while, it'll get...reabsorbed back into the main reality, as though it never were. When it's something large, like, say..."
Abel pointed a hoof at Luna. "Let's say that the Elements failed, possibly because Twilight failed to actually make friends. That would create an alternate reality in which you ruled Equestria in eternal darkness, forever."
All the girls gasped just thinking about it, and Abel continued. "That would be what we term a branch world. It's different enough that it'll never be reabsorbed back into the main reality, ever."
Abel sighed, and looked down to the quill again. "The problem is, there are an infinite amount of root worlds. But even in infinity, there is a split. A divide."
Abel looked up at Celestia, and his gaze hardened. "Half of infinity has magic. The quill is less harmful there. But the other half does not."
As the Bearers tried to wrap their minds around the idea that there were worlds out there without magic, Celestia looked sorrowful. "You mean to say..."
Abel shook his head. "I don't mean to say anything, I merely say it. When the quill lands in a reality without magic, and it is used, it feeds off that user's very life force. It eats their vitality."
Celestia looked at the quill and muttered to herself, while Luna placed a wing over her sister's back. The Bearers looked at the quill with trepidation. "Numbers, are you sayin' that that thing there..."
Abel nodded. "I came from another world, and this quill was also there. I am its latest, and if I have anything to say about it, last victim. When it became clear it would kill me, I wrote my life away, willingly, and the quill and I came...here. It protected me on the way, acted as a guideline, and now I protect you from it."
Everyone present, save for the Doctor, blinked at that. "Come again?"
Abel sighed. "I was a dabbling writer of twenty-five. I saw this quill when I was walking down the path home one day, and thought to myself, why not? I picked it up and used it to sketch out ideas for my stories."
Abel looked down at the quill and grimaced. "I didn't know that half an infinity away, the quill was seeking out and influencing worlds that eerily matched up with my stories to make them happen the way I was sketching them to happen. Or that it was feeding off my life. If I had, I would have never made that pro-to-con chart about having a main character die to influence the story. I especially would never have written that he should die in big bold letters underneath it. The next thing I knew, I blacked out."
Abel looked up to the sky wistfully. "When I came to, I checked myself into a hospital, and got the bad news. Cancer, spread through my body. Most of it was benign, but there was a small tumor in my brain that kept growing and was inoperable. They gave me a month to live."
Abel carefully put the quill back in the wooden box he'd taken it from and stared at it. "I looked it up when I got home. Cancer can just spring up like that, but it matched up with none of the types we knew about. I could only conclude that the last action I had taken had led to it somehow. That the quill was...eating something inside of me every time I used it, and using the cancer to do it. That, perhaps, indeed, there was a connection there. One that I could use."
Abel looked at each of the Bearers in turn, then returned to glare at the box. "I wrote with it again, and that was my last memory of my old world. 'If I am to die, so be it. My only wish is that I get to live again, in another world. One without the corruption of this world, without its influence or machinations. One more innocent.'"
Abel smiled at them. "Did you know that around every world is an Aetherial Veil? It's a barrier formed of all the rules and laws that bind and hold your universe together. It's porous, perforated with tiny holes not big enough for even the smallest particles, but they're more than large enough for thoughts, ideas, and concepts. Nothing physical gets through. But a mind and soul? That's not physical at all, is it?"
Celestia gasped then. "So, the changeling who was to be born in your place..."
Abel waved a hoof. "No, when Chrysalis laid the egg for this body, she did it so that she could have one just as cunning and ruthless as her. My mind and soul entered it before the body could develop one of its own, and, perhaps, influenced its development. I killed nothing, took over nothing, took the place of nothing. It and I were always one and the same. Thankfully, I was still recovering from my trip through the Void Eternal, and only 'came to' right before I was ready to hatch. I do not recall, nor do I want to remember my time in the pod."
Dash pointed a hoof at the Doctor. "So why's he here, again?"
The Doctor grinned. "Oh, because if he flubbed explaining things, I could provide backup. I must say though, you did a fine job there. The only thing you failed to touch on was the reason for the Veils."
Abel nodded. "The reason behind them is simple. The Veils protect every world from anything physical getting through. So far the only exception to it is this quill, which seems to stock up enough energy to come back, time and again. But there are other things that lurk in the Void Eternal. Beings older and outside any and every universe, whose motives are unclear. Just looking at them or listening to them could drive you mad."
Rainbow Dash nodded. "So, Pinkie and Twilight would be safe then, got it."
That got two indignant cries of 'hey' from the aforementioned mares, while everypony else chuckled. Celestia looked at the box at Abel's hooves. "What do you intend to do now, Abel?"
Abel sighed. "Simple. I will safeguard this quill. I at least can be trusted to not use it, for I am content with my lot and did not desire all that I have. Until such a time that we find a way to unmake this wretched thing, it will be secured in my vault. Until then, I will do as I have always done. Survive."
"Why do you keep calling it that?"
Abel looked to Dash, then back to the quill, still contained in the box. "It has slain more unwitting users than you would believe. Those that do not know the price of absolute power pay the ultimate one, and the ones that realize they actually have power are even fewer. In the hooves of the weak-willed and weak-minded, this quill could give them what they want. Absolute power without absolute responsibility, but absolute repayment. It's a shortcut with a steep price to pay. And I loathe it."
Abel got up and began to leave the grove, noticing the Doctor following him. The changeling king stopped The Doctor with a hoof, and with a wicked glint in his eyes, spoke up to Twilight. "You know, Twilight, the good Doctor has science beyond your wildest dreams. In fact, he can even traverse all of time and space. And he can't very well get away from you here without his modus transportation."
And with that, Abel tuned out the screams behind him as he made his way back to Ponyville.