//------------------------------//
// Chapter 15: Mirror Phase I 
// Story: When the Everfree Burns 
// by SpiritDutch 
//------------------------------//

It was daylight. Why was it daylight?
It had never been daylight hours before, where Twilight Sparkle found herself in the ruins of the Everfree Castle.

"Wait...  What happened?" Twilight shook away her weariness to look around.
She was in the antechaber before the throne room, and the sun was streaming through the holes in the roof, illuminating the path forward. Beyond, the roofless throne room lay completely illuminated.  The melted thrones and obsidion Nightmare Altar looked completely in the sunlight than in the moon's silver hues.
"But... I'm still asleep, right?" Twilight tried to use her magic and could not. Yes, still in a dream. She didn’t remember the circumstances of her being asleep at such an odd hour.

Twilight stepped in to the throne room. The sun felt strange on her fur, but then again things often felt strange in the dream. She squinted up at the divine star. Could the Sun watch and guide her like it could in the waking world?
Oh well, no more wasting time. Twilight cantered the length of the throne room to the Nightmare Altar. She felt better than normal, energetic but tense, almost like a clockwork toy that had been wound too much. Her head and neck ached slightly, but the rest of her felt fuzzily pleasant. Twilight felt determined, dangerous even.

"Hark, Nightmare of the Moon, I am come!" Twilight announced to the altar.

There was no response response, but Twilight could sense a slight change, and a whiff of something that could be the moon's power. If the altar was tethering the moon, the magical threat was invisibly reaching through the ground below. In the waking world that would disrupt the magic, but the dream had different rules.

After getting closer, Twilight announced herself again. "Lady Moon, It is I, Twilight Sparkle, brought before you once more to make a pact." She said, adopting a somewhat pompous tone.

There was a psychic rasp, and the Nightmare's voice cut into her mind. "...madness. Sheer madness. You have commited youself to death and failure, pony. Of that, I can portend with certainty.” The voice dissolved into a crackling painful hiss.

“Death? Don't be so dramatic. If its the sun your worried about, it's really not that bad.” Twilight said. "And I'm not to blame for that anyways. I tried summoning the dream during daytime and it didn't work, so this is your doing."


“No. Per usual, ignorant sun slave, you haven't the slightest idea..." The Nightmare's voice coalesced from the hiss again. "You have not summoned a nightmare, you have made one. I can see it from here, the signs of your deeds. Ignorant, but nevertheless contemptible..."

What had Twilight done to deserve this? "That's rude. I was hoping we could start out more amicable this time. The insults and violence could come later." Twilight joked mirthlessly. "You should want to be on my good side, Lady Moon. Before long I am going to put my plans into motion, and stand on this spot in the waking world. Then the onus really will be on me to summon up a nightmare."


Nightmare paused. “Sparkle, I think... We may be discussing two different things. I was hasty in assuming that you would deliberately debase yourself. That was beneath me. I do not begrudge accidental virtue." 

Twilight felt like she was still being belittled. It was probably true. "Everything is beneath your highness." She said snippily.

“That is not what I meant.“ Nightmare cautious with her words. “We have a lot to discuss. Open this pact that I may be let through.”

“Oh? Do I really deserve this royal visit. What an honor” Twilight fluttered her lashes. “Only I wonder, what do I have that you want, my lady? And what do you have that I want?" She grinned deviously. "My words might just be echoes in a dream right now, but things will be different soon. You can come and go in the dream, and it is meaningless. When we are really face to face, and you ask to let me through, that is when my decision will actually be important."

"I sound certain that day will come." The Nightmare said.

"Do you let yourself believe otherwise?" Twilight shot back.

The silence that permeated the throne room was interrupted by chirping birds outside. Clouds passed over the castle, shading it momentarily. It was a bright and sunny day, but Twilight felt only cold shadow in her heart.

“If you tarry the altar will compel you with its dark music, Sparkle.” Nightmare pointed out.

“Let it come." Twilight said, utterly confident in herself. She scooped up a chuck of ruble. "I am not inclined to be compelled to anything right now. I'd rather end the dream on my own terms." She playfully tapped the rock on the side of her head.

Nightmare's voice was sounding very odd through the crackling. Twilight could almost describe the tone as concerned. “Twilight Sparkle, before you vehemently denied my posits that victory was the fruit of confidence.  We must reverse..."

"Victory? I'm just going to wake up." Twilight said.

Moon growled. "Lo, how every frustration is a victory to smug contrarians. This mal-earned disposition ill befits you, unicorn."

Twilight was not the least bit intimidated by the phantom's words.  “What do you know about 'mal-earned'? You were given everything by circumstances of your creation, then you used your power to bully and take. I survived despite mortal weakness, and you have to face the truth of this mortal's power. You're the smug one, but your chiding can't altar the road to my peace, Lady Moon.” Twilight cackled. “Ha! See what I did there? 'Altar' my course. Ha!”

“Lady Sparkle, listen closely: Such a strange thing, a psychic malady which has taken you, surely unnatural.” Nightmare insisted. “It is, I suspect, that mind and soul tremble at the dark contradictions within you: a negative reaction to the sin you have imbibed.”

“What? Are you calling me a sinner? Are you joking?” Twilight spat, suddenly irate. “I think the dark gods in your head have driven you insane, you stupid heresiarch.”

“Nay, it is the Dark god in your head, Twilight, driving you. Lady Sparkle I swear to my benevolent intentions in this matter. Let me through.” Nightmare was almost pleading. “Allow me to help. I will offer anything.”

“Well of course you offer anything, when you think you can kill me to void the pact.” Twilight retorted. Still, the phantom alicorn's more meek tone pleased her. "That won't be happening tonight. I will be in control. You will come and go how I please."

“Do not persist in this foolishness. Only a few nights ago you, in your deference, asked for my assistance in your designs.” It was in Nightmare Moon's nature, despite her efforts, to match Twilight's aggression, thus she seethed and growled at the pretensions.

“If I find you useful, I'll use you. But I need a tool, not another mother. Do away with that condescending concern, for I have as little patience for it as I do the threats. Talk but a bit more, and I'll know you're predictable enough to be tamed to my purposes.” Twilight cackled.

Euphemistic overtures were not getting Nightmare Moon as far as she hoped. This incarnation of Twilight Sparkle worked on different rules.
The nightmare's voice boomed through the telepathic link, free of distortion. "Twilight Sparkle, you have transgressed. You committed a primeval sin and feasted on another pony's soul, so risk becoming an ab-mortal Star.  This can not continue."


A slight breeze came in through the broken glass window. The perpetually molding banners and flags fluttered slightly. Why was it so cold in the middle of the day?

Twilight was motionless for a while. The Nightmare was accusing her of...  eating somepony's soul?
First thought: Outrageous lie. The Nightmare was just trying to manipulate her.
Second thought: Interesting revelation. The Nightmare was scared and jealous of her.

"You don't say." She smirked. "Lady Moon, I'd like to hear more about the Stars, and all the types of forbidden and forgotten magic from a millenium ago." She fancied ditching Nightmare Moon if there were better prospects for power.

Nightmare's response was quick. “No."

“Tisk tisk, It's the only way I'm letting you through.” Twilight said.


It was a damnable dilema. The Nightmare had to weigh the risks of making the pact and fulfilling it, against poisoning the well by killing Twilight awake or torturing her mad. "Something terrible has possessed you." She said. But was it possession? The Nightmare could not tell if what she was sensing was extrinsic or intrinsic to the little unicorn's nature.   This mare, Twilight Sparkle, could be genuinely dangerous.  That disturbed the nightmare; her ability to victimize Twilight with impunity may only last so long.  "You flounder in ignorance. You do not know what you ask."

"I'm directly asking you to cure my ignorance, Lady Moon." Twilight said impatiently. She heaved the rock again.

A flash of fear shot through the nightmare. She had to find out what was going on with the mare. "I have ignorances of my own you can solve."


“That's good enough for me. I accept this pact.” Twilight said. They were agreeing to vague terms but she didn't care.

The blue magical glow of the altar was almost invisible in the sun, as the summoned specter appeared. Nightmare Moon's specter was only barely discernible as a patch of darkness in the air. Twilight held her head up, grinning arrogantly up at the translucent alicorn.

Nightmare Moon instinctively raised a wing to protect herself from the sun, but it was just as etherial as the rest of her. She glanced around, then retreated into the shadow of one of the partially collapsed columns. Satisfied with her shelter, her eyes turned back to Twilight.



“Lady Moon, if I'm possessed it is only by a good humor. I suspect I have you to thank for it. If so, I should be sorry for teasing you. ” Twilight laughed softly.

“In the way that all disasters beget great or terrible deeds, I am at fault, yes. WIth certainty, you would not be such as you are, had you never encountered me.” Nightmare Moon assessed sadly. “I may even trace it to particular actions and words of mine. For you to become a real pony, and not just a slave to the sun, the ambition and dream within you had to be resurrected. You accepted my conceit, and it led you here.  I fear I will come to lament this."

“Oh, you think you pushed me too far? I can get this paternalistic pablum from Celestia.” Twilight shook her head. “Nightmare Moon I've been talking to for a month was an anarcho-darwinian psychopath. Are you really that mare? Does a bit of sun flip a switch that makes you a pussy-cat?"

“I am Nightmare Moon.” Nightmare didn't sound confident. “Or rather, she is me, but also something more. I remember something, or somepony else." She shook her head, as if dispelling the intrusive thoughts. "It is immaterial what I am. What you are, may have far more reaching consequences for you mortals. You could be something more than Twilight Sparkle, partly by choice, partly by dark circumstance."

That pleased Twilight's ego immensely. "I can't deny liking the sound of that. Who doesn't want to be important?" Twilight struck a pose. "Back in Canterlot I understood my life would forever be enmeshed in the sun princess's empire, and my life was defined by its fortune, and my purpose was its proliferation.  When I met you I began to dare to imagine...  imagine that my life could be lived for my own ambition, and that there was a dream in my head that mattered, if only I could discover it.  That's why I thought I needed to free you." She explained. It wasn't entirely true but it was close enough.


The Nightmare nodded morosely. "You liberation cam much sooner than anypony could have expected. The fact is this: There is an abominable dream within you, Sparkle. From whence it came is too terrible to imagine."

Twilight chuckled at the Nightmare's melodrama. She sauntered forward, leaning into the shadow of the column. "Is that what this is? Why I'm so ALIVE?!" She patted the Nightmare's shoulder. "If this was the condition of ponykind before becoming Celestia's slaves, I now completely agree with what you were saying. She really did sap our vital and vigorous juices. Ponies who feel like THIS would never accept subservience."

"You feel like that because you ate part of a pony's soul, Twilight. You are experiencing an altered state of mind." The Nightmare countered, brushing Twilight's hoof away.

Twilight leaned back and scowled. "I'm experiencing...  some kind of magical high?"

"You are." The Nightmare agree. "You are being spurred to delusion. It may be only the high, the dream, or even a naiscant nightmare within that dream. I sense many things, confused and contradictory, all worrying. You must give up your manic foolishness for your own sake. Then your dream can be judged on its own."

"For my own sake? Am I not powerful enough?" Twilight frowned. "Then if..."
Yes, she remembered the vaguest details.  Moon was telling the truth. She had attacked another pony? Yes, she had used a spell on somepony, bitten away some of their magic. But Twilight had done more than just hunt the poor pony. She had formed some kind of magical connection that she didn't anticipate, didn't understand, and Nightmare Moon was mistaking for her 'eating' that pony's soul.   Twilight had...  had done what? She didn't know yet. She would need more evidence, a larger n, more experiments.
She felt the thrum of the nightmare altar behind her. Oh, she had her suspicions, of how she had ensnared her victim just like the dark altar had ensnared her. It had to do with the awakening of her dream then? Maybe. She only had conjecture for the moment.
"If I'm not powerful enough, I have to hunt more. Isn't that what lines up with your worldview?" She whispered playfully, glancing up at Nightmare.


"You invite your doom." Nightmare rumbled. "Do you not comprehend the sin of it? That Star urge is unnatural." She slumped back against the column, her nebulous mane flattening and flowing around it.  “How starkly fitting these horrors are revelated in a daytime dream.  I am going to fray apart in these conditions, unraveled by the spectacle of the future. I retch to even contemplate it!"

In contrast to the unnerved and fretting Nightmare, Twilight had no doubts, and no confusion. 
You see, dear Lady Moon, the holy moon granted me my dream back, and in so doing anointed me with Dark power heretofore reserved to you and your nightmare ilk. I'm positive that if I can only learn to dream more strongly, and find out more about this untapped power, I can banish all alicorn influence on me at will. I will be a truly free mare, able to live for myself.
Twilight did not say this though, but merely grinned. "I don't understand why you're so worried. If you tell me more about the Stars, or those other scary things, I might grasp the situation better."


The Nightmare sighed and sat up. "You will not be able to conquer the Stars, or alicorns, no matter how great you become, mortal."


"I deserve the right to try. Why are you sad I've come around to your ideology? What was the point of waxing philosophic if you weren't trying to convince me?" Twilight scoffed.

"You don't understand a tenth of my ideology." Nightmare sneered.

"Thank goodness I don't care to. I have my own life to live, by my own set of rules. Pray tell, Is that what Stars do? Is that what alicorns do?  Based on your words it's not what mortals do.  Where do I belong now, Lady Moon? I summoned you to explain this to me." Twilight demanded. "Don't waste my time or I'll kill myself right here."

"Attempt it and I will restrain you." Moon warned. “I have never wanted to waste your time. Every word is necessary context for what we are about to embark on. It is an invitation to insanity either way, but the more prepared you are, the less you may be damned."


“I lack the patience for your lies tonight” Twilight barked. “I may be weak now, but I am stronger than yesterday. I see the horizon as clear as day, where I am different from what I am now. I will be more powerful than anything any of you can contain. It's to your benefit to get in my good graces while you can, alicorn."

Nightmare Moon sat in silence for a while.
What was she doing, humoring the arrogance of this pony? If she crushed Twilight Sparkle now, the mare would never again pose her any issues, not with her allegiance to Celestia or her horrible dream.
But did Nightmare have any other actual avenues of escape back into the waking world? Could she really obliterate this mare she had built a rapport with, who was on the cusp of undoing her centuries-old imprisonment?
And Twilight had grown on her. The pony deserved to be saved from sin.
“I must refuse."

Twilight paused, then looked to the stained glass window. She reached out with her magic and broke off one of the last shards of glass still in the window. "Here I go." She pressed the shard against her own throat. "And these feeling would exercise themselves against the waking world. Would you like that, Nightmare?"

The Nightmare of the Moon hung her head. "I would not."

"No? You wouldn't like for me to unleash myself against the pitiful ponies of the waking world? That wouldn't amuse you?" Twilight arched a brow. "I thought they disgusted you! You ranted against their conceit, their duplicity, and their arrogance! Don't you wish to see them humbled?!"

"I do not wish for you to eat them, Twilight Sparkle." Nightmare Moon admitted.

"Why aren't you stopping me? Which part of that frayed mind wants peace, which wants war?" Twilight stoically twisted the glass shard, cutting her skin and drawing blood. "You should talk."

"Please Twilight, you should go first. I need... I need to hear you talk."

"Hear me talk?"

"To be comforted by your words, the way you talk. It is a part of you that a Dark could over your mind can not change." Nightmare said softly. "I do not wish to converse with a creature of Dark. I entered the pacts to speak with a pony, not a nightmare."



Twilight twitched. How caring the nightmare was acting, she thought. Sentimental nonsense. “Very well. You're owed your questions eventually."

"Twilight, what has informed your previous notions about what the most powerful magic in Equestria is? What, besides me, has led to this moment?"


"Haven't you seen it in my mind? I saw a passage in an ancient tome, Predictions and Prophecies. It alluded to the powerful magic that Celestia the First used to defeat you.” Twilight explained. "So you must have at least a little understanding of what was used against you."

"..."

"That detail wasn't so important at first. Everything pertaining to the Nightmare Pretender was much more salient, for what I thought I had to tell Princess Celestia." Twilight continued. "But now, with time to dwell on it, I can see that even in a dream you are a transient, empty. You're the means by which I grasp what Celestia once did."

Nightmare winced at Twilight's cruel words. “And you hope to use that magical power, so vaguely identified, against somepony? Against me?”

Twilight looked at the altar, then back to Nightmare. “Why would I bother to use it against you? Explain a bit more and I'll tell you how I might use it." Twilight spoke coolly and dangerously.

Familiar words for Nightmare Moon. She had said something similar long ago. "Delirious little pony. You are grasping at only the bare idea of ambition. Gain the most powerful magic, and use it to its fullest: It is fantasy you speak."

"Is every few sentences going to be punctuated by this preachiness? It's worse than when it was murderous outbursts. ” Twilight scoffed. “Don't disappoint me Moon, really. I won't have as much mercy on you if we ever meet in person."



Nightmare Moon looked away, then back to Twilight, her expression solemn. Drawing herself up, she stepped past Twilight into the beaming sunlight. Her etherial form warped and distorted under the golden rays, making it difficult any edge or detail of the alicorn. But her eyes still glowed bright.  "Gaze upon me. This is the travails of a divine who was utterly vanquished, her dreams discredited and suppressed. My holy moon, legions of ponies, and scores of abominations supported my claim to the throne, yet here I am."
She would have to tell the truth about the Stars. Maybe it would save Twilight.

But for the grace of the gods, so too will I thus be, Twilight though. "The Stars features in that prophesy too, though I don't exactly remember how.  It's time you explained them, exhaustively. It's not some evil society of astronomers, are they?"

Exhaustive. It seemed most of Twilight was still there, still insatiably curious, but grating obnoxious. The Nightmare retreated back into the shadow before she began the explanation.
"Perhaps in a sense they were astronomers, but they were undoubtably evil.  The Stars were a cabal magicians, adhering to a splinter ideology from a society of immortals who date back the Ancient Alicorns.  This older extinct group, The Astrus Signa Numeni, was a council of survivors of the destruction of the Tower of Bard, headquartered in Hippogryphia, which grew to include several of the diminished alicorns, some mortal leaders, and the primative avatars of the sun and moon.  The Numenia, while officially a vassal of the heavenly court, dissolved into civil war only a few centuries after the destruction of Bard, ending the first period of divine governance of this planet. The gryphs captured almost all of the remaining ancient alicorns, and they remain enshrined in their land, cadaverous and weak, to this day.   The Stars were a more modern recreation of the Numenia, re-founded by some of the surviving members here in Equestria when Celestia and I descended."

"Bard... Bard was destroyed almost three thousand years ago. And you alicorn sisters came just over a thousand years ago." Twilight did the math aloud, inviting further explanation.

"They were twelve in number, but only three of them were immortal to begin with. They three had been part of the Numenia, once dispersed now rejoined. The other nine were a mix of sorcerers, knights, warlords, and rogues,  who had chanced across the immortals in their various quests for power and riches.  They formed the Stars, a conspiracy which served no master but their own ambition, pledged to exploit the return of the alicorns to their own ends."

Twilight rubbed her chin, nodding appreciatively. "So that's why you hate them so much, eh? They 'exploited' you."

"They did, though that is not nearly the only reason to detest those worms." The Nightmare grimaced. "Besides my own hubris, above even Celestia, nothing is more to blame for my lamentable state than they are. It was they, not Celestia, who first unleashed that 'most powerful magic' you are after, at the climax of the Siege of Everfree."

"So, what...  they destroyed you?" Twilight asked.


"N- No it was...  Celestia. Celestia used that magic against me. The Stars betrayed me and assisted her with it." Nightmare struggled to explain, not solely for the complexities of magic she did not entirely understand, but for the pain she felt recalling those fateful moments.  "They Stars were my allies at first, and their leader Astral was nearly a friend to the moon princess. I was blind to their plots. The Stars needed great energy for a spell like no other, and alicorn power was the most convenient source; They had survived the destruction of Bard, which had inadvertently catalyzed the first incarnation of that magic. With Celestia and I warring, we were inadvertent mill-horses bound to their scheme."

Twilight listened, enraptured. "This magic was what destroyed ancient Bard?"

"Nay, it is still the Ancient Alicorns and Heavenly Court who destroyed Bard. But what occurs to a cosmic particle when it crashes into this word? It is torn apart, creating a cascade of energy and magic that ripples imperceptibly across dimensions, driving forth the will of distant heaven, the same way sunlight carried the Sun's will.  Thus is was when the combined attention and magic of a whole race of alicorns and the whole court of Heaven was pressed against one minuscule spot, Bard, three thousand years ago." Moon clopped her forhooves together. "Apotheosis."

"Apotheosis." Twilight repeated. "The apex of... divinity. Or, the creation of god?" She regarded Nightmare quizzically, then skeptically, then seriously.   "This magic is what gave the Numenia you mentioned immortality? It's an immortality spell?"

"It's much more. It is the realization of impossible things, of making the unreal, real, of bringing dreams into reality, and of stripping away all the rules which govern everyday reality and imposing the fantastical, the arbitrary, and the intentional. It is a wish. What it did to the Tower and to Bard is beyond description. What it did to me, Celestia, and the Stars two thousand years after is but an echo of its power." Nightmare said breathlessly.  "It could be a level mountains or erase races of creatures, but mortalkind has not yet been able to harness it so. By pure circumstance, this magic has thus far been used in a very myopic way, but a way for which it is eminently suited: to bridge the natures of alicorn and mortal kinds."


"So the Stars turned themselves into alicorns. I guess that's a variation on an immortality spell." Twilight pondered.
A wish. What outlandish prosaic nonsense. The nightmare was, if not lying to her, caught up in another self-delusion. It would make it more difficult to get to the truth of the mysterious magic ritual, and how Twilight could learn or steal it.


"You betray your revolting ignorance again. They are far from alicorns. Stars are abortions of magic and mortal pretension." Moon said, barely restraining an outraged outburst.

"Well heck, I'm a mortal with some pretensions. Why is it so bad that I should be mimicking them with whatever I'm doing?" Twilight demanded.

"They Stars obliterated their own metaphysical existence. Rejected by heaven from which alicorn soul arises, abandoning the dream from which the mortal soul arises...  The Stars are like bugs, squirming phenomena of flesh and magic but with no it there." Nightmare Moon shivered in disgust. "Even lichs have souls. Indeed one of the Stars was a sort of lich before. It is the ultimate act of sacrilegious self-hate to obliterate one's soul. It runs contrary to your mortal existences. You mortals strive in order to further your dream, but they strove to destroy it."

Twilight scoffed. "I just liberated my dream. I'm not about to destroy it."
Nightmare Moon was mixing up old grudges and present anxieties. Twilight was almost annoyed to be compared to the Stars, spooky villains of Moon's past, when she had nothing to do with them. "I want about as much to do with them as I do with you: Not bloody much."

"I admit there is an alien distance between us, but surely that is more to find rapport in than with those scoundrels who once had your nature and threw it away contemptuously!" Moon was struggling to get her point across. "The blind hunger for power, by which you find yourself seek out your dream's fulfillment, could divert you down the Star's path. You are not conscientious nor dignified in your strength. And how for? Because you hunted a fellow mortal."

Enough was enough. Twilight wasn't going to hear any more lame, hypocritical whining from the alicorn. "Inflicting pain and death to get what you want is okay, right up until your arbitrary taboo line? How can you reconcile your ideal world of anarchic struggle for supremacy with some sanctified inviolability of your enemies 'soul'?  I WILL eat my enemies soul if I kill them. I WILL get stronger not just through your vainglorious clash of wills, but through my own darwinian conquest."   Thoughtlessly, gesturally, she tweaked Nightmare Moon's ear with her magic. "I'll never be weak again, my lady. There's a million ponies in the country to hunt."


Too far, in several ways. Nightmare swiped with all her strength, the back of her hoof striking at the shoulder, a nearly fatal blow if her leg had not dissolved into haze in the sun.
Twilight went head-over-hoof, bouncing off the obsidian altar and sprawling across the dirty stone floor, totally limp.

Moon rolled her hoof. She had struck much harder than she had meant too. She wasn't getting through to the silly unicorn!
"Mortal ambition ever outpaces its ability. Sadly for you, Lady Sparkle, the gulf between is is still a vast as all oceans. Your world's fate is in our hooves, and one garrulous unicorn does not change that." Nightmare Moon rose from the shadows and stalked over the prone pony, disappointment in her eyes. "If you have the guile to defeat this-" She gestured over her body, indistinct and faded in the light. "mere impression of an alicorn, then please do.  Release me from this dream as I did you."


After that world-ending slap, Twilight needed a few seconds to remember her name. That bitch! She instinctively turned to her magic again, dragging herself upright. "Never having to talk to you again will be victory enough." She levitated the shard of glass up to her neck again.

"But the idea will remain, Twilight Sparkle. You can not dispel a fact. The Nightmare of the Moon rests on her throne, amongst her enshadowed subjects and grey lands. She will visit you again." Nightmare continued. "And Celestia, however she may exist now, commands a whole empire by your admission. Alicorns, covetous as we are, could not surrender to you even if we wanted to.
"And there are so, so many things in this world you can not conceive of which any unicorn, however powerful she may be, could not defeat with raw magic. The elder siblings of mortalkind will not humor your arrogance. Only in isolation can you be so sure of yourself. That will never be enough for you. You have something to prove to the world, thus your thirst for power is borne forth."

"But..." Twilight ground her teeth. "I can feel it! I know with all my heart I can do it!"

“Your rash action will lead you to disaster, like-"
Moon paused. Would she explain the story of Illustrious Valor to Twilight? Perhaps not. It was not the time. They were similar, but distinct cases. "That is, it will lead you to disaster like it did for me."

“I will be better than you.” Twilight barked.


This was a complete and absolute victory by the Nightmare of the Moon. Everything she had set out to accomplish with Twilight Sparkle had been done: Sparkle had completely sworn off Celestia and her imperial ideology, had committed herself to her own dream, and was absolutely determined to her own self-empowerment.
But it felt awful. Moon could only regard this outcome with horror. It was a combination of things; Most of all that Twilight was being utterly obnoxious where she could be quite tolerable before. A painful icy doubt settled on Moon, that she wondered if she had really desired this to happen in the first place. She felt like a foal who had impulsively ruined something beautiful.
It felt like the latest in a long history of failure. "That may be true. Where does that get you, Twilight?"

"A better tomb than the moon, I hope." Twilight took a limping step back, not wanting to get hit again.  "Where do you think I'll end up. Someplace high or someplace low?"
Twilight tilted her head towards the Sun, peering from behind the whispy clouds. "Hail! Your sister has given her blessing. What can you give me? I'm not past redempti-"





In Twilight's minds eye, an arresting vision consumed all thought; A grey-black void, a monumental pillar of stone, a tower beyond all mortal reckoning, stretching infinitely upwards and downwards. And on and around this tower, a swirling cloud of monstrous things, each with a different face, but as they came about in turn to address Twilight, their face was her own. Then a flash of yellow all about them, and the entire length of the tower shattered emitting gouts of rainbow flame, screams every pitch joining together in fear and agony.

Twilight jerked awake. Screaming, screaming, unable to stop herself, for a terror she could barely reckon with, until she deoxygenated herself and passed out again.





The ruined throne room, Nightmare Moon...  How long had she been staring at the sun? Her eyes now hurt as much as her shoulder. The impossible fear still loomed over her. 
Twilight  turned her attention back to Nightmare Moon. They stood in silence for a while until Twilight found the words. "Lady Moon-" She tried to conjure up the vision of the tower she'd seen, and the horror of its destruction. But the details eluded her, but the chastening fear remained.
A few factional moments of attention from the sun chastened her infinitely more than her long argument with Moon. "Ahem, my lady, I have said several unfair things. I'm sorry."

An apology like that, the denouement to a bitter argument, usually deserved a reciprocal apology. However Nightmare only truly felt sorry for herself. "If that is true, and you have recovered yourself, I congratulate you. It may not last, but for the moment I retract what I have said." The alicorn said, relieved.

It was an irritating disappointment to see that Nightmare Moon still insisted on a status difference between them. Twilight felt beyond that. Flashes of supernatural fear would not humble her back to subservience. "Too kind, as always, Lady Moon." She said flatly.

"We may have a conversation, rather than whatever that was before...  pointless yelling, suited only to convince oneself." The Nightmare sighed. "I would have run through an ever dwindling line of argumentation, but in the end I feared that I would have had to appeal to the nightmare within you rather than the pony."

Twilight obligingly led the etherial alicorn back to a patch of shadow where her contours were reconstituted. "Explain anyway, if you would."


Nightmare Moon hesitated. "I must extract assurances from you first, Twilight Sparkle. You are not as vulnerable before me as you were. I am not as vulnerable before you as I will be. If I speak further, there will be an inflection point where I am drawn into your confidence, rather than you into mine." 

That's already happened, you silly alicorn. Twilight just nodded.

"Just because we are undying does not mean we can not worry for the future as mortals do. We may be each others' balm to these fears." Moon composed herself and threw a half-lidded glare at Twilight.  "That is assuming that everything you've said is true, and you are truly dedicated to being your own mare, outside of the sun princess's dominion."

"It is true." Twilight nodded.
It was definitely true then, and probably had been for a long time, only not admitting it to herself. Twilight was committed to escaping the confines which Celestia or anypony else would put on her. She would make a future for herself, absolutely free of the norms and coercion of her upbringing:  If that meant she did eventually go back to working for the empire, so be it, but she would do it as a free mare.
Freedom...  what did that even mean in a world of ponies and social needs? That inconvenient question was not dwelled upon.

Moon looked over Twilight cautiously, then even more cautiously, glanced upward in the direction of the sun-streaked skies. She was hidden from the sun's direct light, but HER hour was inescapable, HER influence present, inscrutably watching. Could anypony born under the sun's reign, even one as dedicated to her own 'liberation' as Twilight, be trusted?
"My meaning was not so complex. If you desire to be more than you are, a form of being greater than just a mortal- The allegiance of your soul may shift, bound not to the dreamscape as mortals' are, but subject to Heaven like alicorn souls are."

Maybe such concepts held importance for Nightmare Moon, but for Twilight it was esoteric and barely meaningful. It must have signified some kind of status change in Moon's strange worldview, or somesuch. "Despite getting tortured to 'death' several times by you I haven't really had to confront my morality. I'm still young. I'd have to meditate on whether I'd want to be immortal or not, though I'd probably say yes."

"Yes, your youth is bothersomely apparent. Death, your kind's defining characteristic, is also what facilitates everything good about you; That the unworthy can be done away with, and the righteous may clear the way ahead of them. Death and mortal dreams are intertwined. What drives you forward is what undoes you, and what embraces you in the eternal hereafter. Despite the bad attitude you've taken on, pony, I see you are coming closer to a true understanding of a just ordering and life and death on this world." Moon said.

Very poetic. "If you say so." Twilight shrugged. "So, was that really all you meant when you threatened to appeal to the nightmare within me?"

No. "Yes." Moon lied.  It would be some time before Nightmare Moon could come clean about the precedent already set, and about Illustrious Valor.  "I have have return question formulated so you may ask another. Consider it recompense for my 'nagging', should it please you."


"I apologized. Lay off it." Twilight glared. "I'd ask you to talk more about the Stars if I didn't think it would upset you. Instead, I'll ask you to assess the chances of my surviving Canterlot if I act like nothing changed."

"How should I know the situation in that city? All that I can reference is thousands years past." Moon shifted, becoming severe again. "Lady Sparkle you will be challenging the social order you once supported. By your existence, by refusing to pay homage to the Sun, you will become an enemy to millions of ponies. You will have to face the sun alicorn, who has awesome magical power and abilities. A sane mare would only portend failure for you.  If you meditate on death, and decide you dislike the idea of it, you have two options: Flee immediately, or swallow your pride and renew your fealty to the sun."

"That's pretty grim." Twilight chuckled; False bravado.  To actually fight Celestia, not just in an argument, not just youthful rebellion, but a clash with the intent to do harm...   Yes, empires were solidified with coercive violence, and if Twilight wanted to live out her ambition she would be a target of that violence.  "That second idea fills me with revulsion, when I know rationally it's what I should do. I don't want to be a subject anymore, but when I think about any alternative my mind goes blank. This feeling I have, it's empty,  hollow..." She whimpered.

"Adolescent floundering is to be expected as you come out from the sun's control. That is why your sins are forgivable so long as you do not commit to them." Moon said.

"..." What an unsympathetic ass Moon was being!  Twilight squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't rekindle the total self assurance she'd had before. The longer she was lucid the further she lost touch with the Kraft and Wille zur Macht of her Dream.
She had to be put in touch with it again. She had to be reminded of how to fight for herself.  The longer she was under the sunlight, the more the fortitude left her.
"I hunted another pony.  What did that do to me?"

That question immediately put the Nightmare on alert again. "I do not know."

"Okay, nevermind." Twilight nodded. "How do I stay on the right path?"

"How does any creature discipline themselves and cultivate righteousness? I have made wrong choices before. I felt pain and rejection too, and could not cope. I suffered hundreds of years of self-loathing after my banishment. It was unpleasant. That is why I forgave you." It really made Moon itch to care so much about a measly pony, to want to steer them right. She felt like a wise sage giving advice to a disciple.

"If I wronged somepony, how is it enough that you forgive me?" Twilight asked.

Let not Twilight go from mania to depression. Nightmare paused, trying to find the best thing to say to keep Twilight's hyper-sensitized ego at a middle ground. "Dominating another pony is not wrong. It is, at worst, a necessary chore. You may have to do so repeatedly in order to self-actualize in this country of sun-spoiled sheep. There may be times it is enjoyable.  Other ponies have no right to hold you in contempt for your superiority.  Nevertheless, eating their soul is a taboo and a sin against the gods. The ponies would have no right to forgive you for it, only a divine like me."


Clearly, the 'sinfulness' of hunting other ponies was completely bound up in Moon's bonkers worldview. That taboo could be safely ignored.
Twilight had to find that strength again, where she had not been afraid of the alicorns. She would brush against that dream again.
"It won't be that way forever. There will be a time I'm only going to need my own forgiveness." She said cheekily. "And I won't need a century on the Moon for it."

"Bah!" Moon turned away, her void-like mane flicking the unicorn's nose. "Impudent, blasphemous dreamer. How you torment me. Perhaps I am not self-forgiven, and you are a tulpa of old burdens. Yes, it would make so much sense if that dark altar, this throne room, and the figure of Twilight Sparkle were nothing but a stage play manufactured by my own mind."
She sighed. "I suppose you could say the same of me. Would that not be the greatest disappointment? Despite it all, freedom feels so close here."


"Closer than ever." Twilight agreed. But there was still so, so much between it and them.


"But with freedom comes reckoning." Nightmare said ominously. "Who you are is yet to be decided. What I am is yet to be confronted.  This is the visage of the moon princess, but what speaks now is something different, I fear. An alicorn, a divine, a nightmare...  but only the later is aware of itself. Perhaps only the latter is what exists. As long as I stay up here, there will be no revelation to whether I am the inheritor of these memories within the moon, or merely a parasite upon them."
She cast a glance at Twilight. "You will face something similar."

The confession crashed over Twilight.  Was it possible? She would have rejected it immediately but it echoed what Moon had said early about speaking to her nightmare. There was something the shadowy alicorn (or maybe not!)  was keeping from her still.
"Damn." She said simply. Her thoughts raced. Nightmare Moon had shown so, so much vulnerability. If only she could keep herself together, Twilight would stay advantaged.  Was it ironic that the thing she sought in mania could potentially be the best leverage? The nature of her needs and desire had changed, she noted with grim amusement.  She didn't want to escape from the altar's dream any longer. She had to wield it like another asset.
"One last question, Lady Moon, and then we will be free. Do I have anything to fear from the Stars? Will the prophesy pit them against me?"


Moon appeared momentarily embarrassed for her earlier weakness, but adopted an irritated affect once more. "How should I know these things I have no context for?  I lack the information on the status and location of even one Star. The only creature who assuredly has been keeping track of them is Celestia, so you may ask her if you so wish." She paused. "Although, I can proffer a guess with some certainty about the leader of the Stars, Astral. I was well aquatinted with her, and her habits as a former Numenia were well known.  Astral is probably destroyed."

"Care to explain how you come about that claim?" Twilight waggled a brow.


"It is a very, very dear secret." Nightmare slowly turned back to Twilight, and with a hoof she pulled the small pony close. Her slow breaths tickling the fur of Twilight's ear. "So I will not be telling you that until I am entirely satisfied with your discipline, strength, and righteousness." She tilted Twilight's head back. The alicorn's glowing eyes stared into hers. "So unless you retract that question, this night's pact will not be satisfied."

Twilight gently pulled out of Moon's grasp scooped up the shard of glass she had held earlier. "I understand, Lady Moon. Until next time." Without hesitation she drove the shard into her neck and tried to decapitate herself- the muscles were too thick- gasping and gurgling, her grasp slipping on the spurts of blood coating everything, she tried to complete the work with her magic but that failed her too.
Twilight fell back into a sitting position, rapidly exsanguinating. She tried to focus on Moon but the alicorn had turned away, unhappy with the sight. So Twilight looked up at the sun instead...  But it was not the Sun she saw.







Heavy breathing was the first thing Twilight heard when she awoke.
Did she hear rain too? She tried to focus on the sound but it was useless.

Her eyes fluttered awake;  Twilight saw a sharp raven's beak hovering right over her head


"Oh hello." The raven said.

“Not the eye. You may peck anywhere but the eyes.” Twilight groaned, rolling over.

The figure prodded her. “Lady Sparkle you need to wake up.” The muffled voice said. “If you fall asleep now, we won't be able to wake you up again.”


That alarming warning pushed Twilight into wakefulness. “Hmm, what?” She groaned and propped herself up. Judging by the tools and tinctures stores around the edges of the room, she was in one of the rooms of Ponyville's modest clinic building. At least, she thought it was Ponyville.
Twilight was not alone- About a dozen bedridden ponies shared the other beds and gurneys spaced about the room.

The figure in front of her, a doctor with a raven-shaped plague mask, backed away.  "Well I shouldn't say it like that. We'd have to ship you to Canterlot or someplace in Unicornia with magically trained physicians. Your vitals were very faint yesterday." He cleared his throat, a horrible sound distorted through the mask. "How do you feel? Light headed? Nauseous? Is there any part of you body that feels sensitive?"

"Uh, no. I feel fine" Twilight said, apprehensive. "What is going on here?"  She heard a gust of wind outside and the rattle of the rain it drove against the roof.    So it was raining again, but it hadn't been raining in the dream...
The dream. She had to meditate on everything she had heard and seen. It felt like a turning point.

"Let's see..." The doctor mumbled, pulling out a notebook. "You were afflicted two days ago, P+0. Most of the other ponies here were afflicted yesterday. That would be P+1. New cases have been trickling in all day, but there are probably more afflicted ponies that we don't know about because of everypony staying inside now."

"I was afflicted two days ago?" Twilight repeated.

"Yes. You had it much worse than Mis Rarity. We were sure you'd fallen into a coma." The doctor scribbled in the notebook as he talked. "But if you're awake then my assumptions about how this plague behaves are all out the window.  If you could please stand up and do some light exercise-"

"Uhh, sure." Twilight rolled off the bed. Her hooves clicked on the floor as she trotted in place, then did some stretches.  "I still feel fine. I had a plague two days ago?" She asked.

"It spreads like a plague. Symptoms are unusual." The doctor muttered, continuing his scribbling. "Have a look if you wish."


Twilight eyed the nearest patient, tied down on a gurney.  The mare was soundlessly shivering, convulsing intermittently though held in place by the straps. Her face was rapidly contorting between different expressions, then going slack.

"Ponies are unconscious within an hour of infection, but their unpredictable motor movements last until they are completely exhausted. We feared this was a novel typhoid, tick disease, or worm disease, but the lack of inflammation or other physiological symptoms anywhere suggests this is a magic plague."  The doctor continued.  "Keeping patient hydrated is difficult. We had forecasted death within a week. It's good to see that may not be the case." 


Magical diseases were exceedingly rare, since the development of the continent had decreased the interaction between ponies and vector animals like parasprites, whisps, prariedogs, etc.  Nevertheless such diseases, especially those caused by curses, were serious and deadly.
But already Twilight suspected otherwise. "You said Rarity-"

"Over by the door." The doctor motioned.


Twilight approached the indicated bed. Indeed Rarity was there, the blanket over her rising and falling with each breath.
Beside Rarity was Applejack, tied to a gurney. The earth pony seemed much more restive in her unconsciousness, her limbs trying to kick or jerk.
Twilight could see into one of the other rooms, where there were more patients , and foals lying two to a bed- She immediately recognized Rarity's younger sister, and a yellow filly who she suspected to be Applejack's sister.


The doctor droned on.  "Not everypony is in this condition. There is a secondary symptom cluster  where ponies described having severe nausea or lightheadedness. Those ponies are still lucid and ambulatory. I'm not even sure it's the same disease as the comatose ponies."


But Twilight couldn't tear her eyes off the foals, side-by-side, barely breathing.
She had no idea what was going on, but despaired at the possibility it was her fault somehow. The fruit of ambition... of an evil dream, she heard Moon's voice whisper in her ear. These were the ponies she had ensnared? HOW?!
"No, not possible. I was knocked out. I'm a victim too." She hissed.

"Say what, Lady Sparkle?" The doctor cocked his head.

"I have to leave." Twilight said. "Do you have any magic-absorbent material?! Spell gauze, or black silk?"

"Um no, we don't keep anything like that here." The doctor stepped in front of her. "My lady, I highly recommend you stay so we can observe you. If the symptoms return we have to treat you as quickly as possible. Surely you do not want to rely on luck."



Twilight had already struck bad luck, of being born with a dream that inflicted this on her fellow pony. She had to isolate herself until she understood what the hell was going on, and made a plan thereby.
She was the reason for these ponies suffering. And wasn't that what you wanted, Moon asked.

Twilight teleported away- In her panic it was not as far as she was intending, appearing in the small clinic lobby and scaring the bejesus out of the nurse as she was checking on another slumped Ponyvillian.

"Ah!" The nurse jumped, then just as quickly had to rush back to keep her patient from falling over.

"Sorry." Twilight, head spinning. She staggered towards the exit.

"Oh, it's your ladyship. Save a lot of trouble that you're awake." The nurse observed.

The doctor was not far behind, running from the direction of the patient rooms. "My lady you should stay. You seem confused. There could be symptoms we don't know about yet."


"I'm fine. Great, actually. I've got to go and sort things out. Two days is already far too long. Not leaving is the worse outcome." Twilight ranted. "I have so so much to do and this illness is no excuse. I'm behind on my work and research, embarrassingly behind. I've just got to go."
But wait!  A frightening idea jumped to the front of her mind:  If two days had already elapsed, had news of the plague and her incapacitation already been sent to Canterlot?  Twilight HAD to prevent any word getting out of Ponyville.
"But I will still assist as much as I can. Who is leading emergency response? Who is in charge of coordinating the outside assistance when it arrives?"

"Outside assistance?" The doctor balked. "With this mysterious disease the last thing we would want are ponies traveling and spreading it. The only thought to contacting Equestria was to get help for you, Lady Sparkle. I wanted to send a message on the next river barge, or perhaps to send you along with it, to one of the unicorn towns upstream."

By the doctor's framing it seemed like he had taken the lead. "Okay. You don't have to bother the barge-ponies. I can send a dragonfire message and see what the magicians of Canterlot have to say about this." Twilight proposed. "In fact, you have any proposals or orders for Ponyville, you can direct them to me. I have the royal prerogative to make sure this doesn't get out of hand."

"I suppose that's reasonable. You still have a princess's fair to put on.  It would be a tremendous shame if we had to evacuate the Ponyvillians to a quarantine, or worse cancel her highness's event." The doctor acceded.

Excellent. Twilight would catch-and-kill any alarms trying to reach Canterlot.


The nurse, detecting that the doctor and Twilight would be chatting in the space for a while, went back to attending the patient.



"Oh, speaking of dragonfire..." The doctor cleared his throat. "You're little dragon was here all yesterday and most of today looking over you. He left after it started raining."

Twilight sighed. How had Spike gotten along without her? He must have been worried sick! All her duplicity was unfairly burdening the poor boy.
Everything felt like it was unraveling faster than she could even react.  "Doctor, I promise that I feel good enough to leave. You must let me go so I can send that letter."

The doctor shrugged. "I've given you my formulaic warning, but you're the noble here, and I am essentially compelled to concede.  But if you start to feel strange, you must-"

Twilight teleported away.
The doctor apprised the state of the weather (still pounding rain), gave a glance to the new patient (now limp, probably needed to be moved into the rooms with the other comatose), and slunk back down the hall.




And the new patient, faint, passing in and out of consciousness, unable to keep their eyes open...  Their head clouded with the drum of the rain against the windows...  Where were they? Still in the Ponyville clinic? Why was their body so heavy?
Or somewhere else.
He was floating, floating away, but his body was still pulling him down. It felt like hours before he felt like he was on solid ground again.

"Hello Fizzy. May I call you Fizzy? We like to be informal here." A smooth voice whispered in his ear. "We met your sister yesterday, but oh so briefly. She saw and fled, to wretched wakefulness. But you will be staying with us, as an honored guest."
Cherry Fizzy's bleary eyes cleared: He was face to face with a horrendous thing! Nay, not even, for thing did not have but one face, but many, eyes and mouths squirming and shifting across its bloated form!  But every eye was upon him, wide and eager, and every mouth grinned broad and slavering.
"Welcome to the Tower."

Cherry Fizzy screamed and bolted away, the horrible floating thing drifting behind him.



Rarity regarded the new arrival impassively. Poor Cherry Fizzy. Another Ponyvillian had been ensnared by the horrible dream. She had tried to group up but suspicion and terror reigned over the nightmare tower- For while there had to be at least two dozen victims somewhere in the dark infinity, strewn across the uncountable tiers huddling or running terrified, Rarity was alone.

Well, alone but for the jailor and tormentor.
The fleshy agglomerations of pony faces lurked at the edges of her vision, the 'manifestations', only making themselves known to mock the trapped ponies. They talked endlessly, so that the mocking buzz was nearly deafening at time: A rasping parody of Twilight Sparkle's voice.

"How long am I meant to be in this place?" Rarity wondered.
The horror and unease of the place had run its course. The passage of time was becoming meaningless; She could not tell how many layers she had climbed, not could she even imagine how far she had to go.

"You know your crime and you know your sentence, enough to deduce that yourself" The horrid Manifestation behind her cackled. "Face justice, ye sinner."

"Nothing here is done in the name of justice." Rarity retorted dryly. She had run out of venom for her tormentor.  Days and days of yelling and bargaining had tired her. She could not summon the vigor to argue with a monster specifically made to drive her crazy. So, Rarity had to be detached, for the sake of her own sanity.

The manifestation just kept laughing. "Do you presume to lecture us on justice, heretic?"

Rarity watched Cherry Fizzy running and screaming for a while longer. "You're going the wrong way." She whispered. There was probably no bottom to the tower. She had tried and failed to find it.
There was nothing for it but to try to find the top now, for a the oddest hours Rarity caught a glimpse of an otherworldly light radiating from above, a subtle promise of something, anything different from the inky void of the rest of the Tower.
"Good luck Fizzy." She turned her back on her friend and resumed her climb.

It was not easy going.  The path up the Tower was random and chaotic, as each level was a mix of intended cells, perilous walkways, and odd colonnades linked by winding stairways or curling ramps. The architecture and geometry was as impossible as it was maddening. There was no consistency across or within the levels, and doubling back did not guarantee that a floor would be the same as you left it.
But one heartening fact was that so far no levels had repeated themselves.  That let her hold on to hope that there really was something up there, an attainable summit to the dream.

What would she feel once she got out of the dream? Maybe she would wake up on her bed, to find only a moment had passed. Maybe she would have to break her way out of a coffin- Oh how dreadful it would be to have to wash cemetery dirt out of her mane!


“Even here you are a husk, motivated for fulfillment of your vain fantasies. Yet you think your god rewards your conceit." The manifestation needled her.

"As long as I can get out of here, I don't care. I have nothing to gain by feeling bad about myself. My god surely understands that. And you?  Do you have a will or purpose, other than to heckle me?" Rarity scoffed at the thing.

"I gain such fulfillment from this I need no other purpose." The Manifestation roiled with laugher, a dozen new faces pushing out of its body to add to the cacophony. "And you, Rarity, are a joy to be around. You sin with unparalleled confidence."

As useless as always to bicker. "Shoo." Rarity sighed.

Up another layer of the tower. One floor had classical motifs, with ornate pillars and angular supports, the floor above was gothic with soaring buttresses that spanned up and down beyond sight. The next floor had an impossible angle that made Rarity's head spin, so she just moved on.
But the colorlessness...  Endless diversity of architecture, near uniformity of material: That black obsidian-like stone, as if the entire Tower had been burned or rubbed with soot...  Why was the dream formed such? Had the dreamer never seen marble or brick?

"Wait-" Rarity paused on the landing of the next level. Curled in the cover were familiar faces. Ponyvillians, yes, and- "Repeats. I have seen them before, lower down."
The ponies were inert, but the ghastly bloated manifestations hovering nearby glanced in Rarity's direction, snickering conspiratorially.

"And?" The manifestation beside her cooed.

Rarity didn't answer, but her reddened cheek was answer enough.  Either she was looping back, or the Tower had placed those ponies in front of her to make her think it was so.

"Do you think everything is about you?" The Manifestation said. “Even in the more dire circumstances you find a petty way to hold yourself higher. You think you were meant for more.”


Rarity passed by the ponies,  a sandy mane grey pegasus, an orange earth pony.  Yes, she held herself in higher esteem than those cowering ponies. They cringed and cried under the abuse. She would reach the summit.

“You pretend to take your misfortune in stride. You are impious, spiteful, angry. Every gesture hides the anguish. You are a fabrication, a mere persona.” The voice beside her continued. "What would you do if you had power? What would you do if you had her power?"

"You had better hope you don't find out, darling." Rarity muttered under her breath.

Another level up, more repeat ponies. A tan earth pony with navy and pink hair was lashing out at the manifestation with her. Each jab and buck sunk into the floating nightmare’s skin, which reformed immediately after, eliciting great laughs at the futility.
Rarity trotted on.

"But you are so much wiser, so much more subtle, aren't you. Your victory over me~us will come through your own self-actualization." The manifestation sing-songed a bad imitation of her voice. "When you surpass the most easily crossed hurdle, everypony else will be forced to contend with you, and recognize the genius you see in yourself. Vindication through mediocrity!"

That one hit close. Rarity cringed, but remained silent.

"You think yourself transgressive, but when someone actually has the power to tell the truth, it bothers you just as much as the other ponies. You cling to the norms you thought you transcended. That is but one part of your pretension."  Her own personal manifestation, her own personal raconteur, with her whole mind to critique.  "How do you plead to this sin, Lady Rarity?"

Rarity set her jaw.  She had to keep climbing, up and up, stairs and ramps and ladders. Her body was not exhausted. She just had to survive the sin-monger beside her.

"At every turn you held yourself apart. When these fellow sinners would not immediately submit to your attempt to 'help' them, you gave up and charged along your cours privé. You against the entire world, you against our entire Tower." The monster's giggles came out in strange squeaks and tenors from from its non-primary mouths.  “No friends, only tools, to be judged by their utility to you, to your ego, to a half-formed vision of utopia. Is that part of your devious transgressiveness? That you're a secret bitch to the ponies who trust you?"

It hurt a lot.

"Even if you get everything you want, and you escape our Tower, how will you face the ponies left behind? Will you duck away every time Cherry Fizzy comes to meet? Will you go about life pretending you never forsook him?  Will it be thus for Berry, Rose, Amethyst?"  The Manifestation floated closer, so its tongues tickled Rarity's ear. "For Fluttershy?"


Rarity was halted on the spot.
She was in some grotto-like place now, a floor dominated by rough-hewn pillars deep shadows. A paltry amount of the already dim light of the dream-void was getting in to the place.
It was quiet, but not silent. Whispers and whimpers emanated from unseen ponies in the darkness.  Rarity listened closely.

"No, Fluttershy is not here." The Mnaifestation grinned. "Yet."

"I-" Rarity stopped herself from trembling, recomposing herself. "I can explain to her. To them all. They will understand why."

The Manifestation nodded, feigning sympathetic understanding. "Oh yes, the same old excuses. You think you have them fooled, oh so convincing with your vague dogma and prophesy. You think they do not see that your piety is a shallow excuse to manipulate.” More laughs. "Oh, but what if it is not so? Dear Rarity darling, they pretended to believe you because that is what friends do! The same norms you pretend to reject is exactly what hold your little play-cult together!"


Worst pain yet. Almost unbearable. Rarity resumed the climb. She had to keep climbing. “Is that the best you can do?” She murmured.  Any more and she would die. She would wither into a organless cadaver, unrecognizable but for a pristene mane.

"Yes, even if you betray them all, or they all abandon you,  you can control your looks. That will never fail you until you give up on yourself." The manifestation twisted and warped its flesh like it was wringing itself, which Rarity could only assume was its attempt at a shrug. "I may have many things to say about you Rarity, but I will readily conceded that you will be the absolute last pony to give up on life."



That was all she needed to hear. If it was all true, and all the pretenses of her life were stripped away, Rarity would have her will. She was different.

"Not different in a good way." The manifestation remarked.

It didn't matter. She could, and would, stand out. It was her calling, not from any divine plan, but because it was what she chose for herself.


"Do you think that will be a satisfactory excuse when you get to the top and are made to answer to god?" The manifestation asked.

"I have no opinion on that darling. Her highness can think what she wants of what I say." Rarity said with a grimace.

"Her highness? Oh Rarity, I fear you are sadly misled about the nature of this place." A wave of snickers broke out across her tormenter's angles. "Before you, she will not think. Before her, you will not speak."



Hour after hour, a dizzying arrangement of impossible things. Rarity didn't pay it any attention.
Unfortunately, invariably another thought entered her head and she had to pause. She was on another classical-type level, alone.  Rarity leaned over the edge of the tower, to peer upwards. Infinity yet lay ahead for her, and downwards, the same.

"I take back what I said earlier. You never had this much determination in the waking world. What drives you persistence now, Rarity?" The Manifestation hovered over her shoulder, caressing her with its errant legs. "Hate? Love? Pleasure?"  With lavicious joy it licked a the air, inviting Rarity to reflect and share her thoughts.  "Or is the medium where you truly thrive? Rarity Belle, a pony designed for the Tower!"

Rarity roughly shoved the Manifestation away and resumed her climb.


Uncountable time passed.

Rarity felt her body fatigue, the effort of thousands of steps catching up to her, but she did not stop.

"God would love you, if only you loved yourself." The Manifestation appraised. Rarity payed no attention.


How many times had she seen the same ponies, locked into poses of revulsion and horror. Like glass statues, they sat, while the manifestations worked to shatter them.

Another eternity.


And then, the first repeat floor.  If there was any difference between it and one Rarity had seen before, unfathomable floors below, Rarity could not find it.
Her determination began to crack. "This place, there's really no end to it." Rarity had slowed to a crawl. Every step sent fire surging up her legs and along her spine. But this was not real! Why was her dreaming form failing her now?!

"You knew that from the beginning." The Manifestation reminded her.


It continued.



Rarity didn't know when she stopped, but then she was. On one of the levels made like a ring of monastic cells, she stopped at the foot of the staircase and lay her head down. Her eyes, half-open, just staring off into the colorless void.

"If you stop here, it would not be so bad an existence. You would be alone at least, never having to confront your fantasies of other ponies again." The Manifestation chuckled.

"Oh do shove off." Rarity said, too tired to even look at it.

"I may. There is but a few tiers further a space so alike the waking city of Baltimate, where life can be lived liberally." The Manifestation shot back, its heinous cackling abating for a moment. "That is one limitation of this existence. I have no regrets generating such as I am, a dream-thing, a sin-monger. Yet I will never see a real Baltimare, nor experience the myriad vices of its intrepid mortals. I will only know the world, waking or dreaming, by their shadow on the wall of this Tower."

"Buck off and find somepony who asked." Rarity closed her eyes.
Maybe she had been the silly pony, thinking dogged determination was somehow better than cowering and screaming. Maybe the other ponies had the right of it. At least they didn't need to think. All the monsters haunting the Ponyvillians had to do to torment them was leer and bark, whereas her pride had earned her the utterly rapine obliteration of her ego.


She felt a poke at her flank.
"Just a little farther." The Manifestation whispered to her. "Just one level more. We needn't go all the way to Baltimare. Only one level farther, where a reward awaits you."

Rarity reluctantly lifted her head. "Abuse me here if you must. Fold me in half or roll me off the tower... But I can't go on."

"Rarity dear, I am not made to lie or deceive you. With the most total honesty I say that what awaits you is the thing that will make you the happiest you've ever been."  The manifestation promised. 

Rarity, despite her doubts, stood up. "From the depths of the dispare of this place will a great joy arise." She muttered. Drawing a deep breath, she mounted the last set a stairs.

"Despair." The manifestation corrected her.



The haunting thrum of the dream grew louder. Rarity began to pick out the details in the noise, a building clamor...  Hums, groans, sarcastic hisses and mocking coos.  The bloated manifestations were crowding at the edges of her vision, a dozen pony-like eyes each, awaiting her imminent reaction.
Why was the Tower paying her so much attention? Was she alone worth so much voyeuristic prurient sadism?

"Of course not. You think this phallic Tower for you alone rises? Nay. But mortal agency has always aroused the interest of the divine. Among its current guests, only you wish to surmount us and reach god." The Manifestation explained. "Is that not deserving of rewards? For you, and only you, as you've always wanted."



Rarity surmounted the stairs and looked across the level. It was another pony, resting against a column, straw hat tilted forward over her eyes.

“No... Not for me alone. It's...” Rarity breathed. She galloped forward, weariness forgotten, then just as quickly lost that momentum, so she stopped a dozen paces short of the reclined mare. "...Applejack..."

Applejack didn't acknowledge, but shifted slightly. Hovering above the earth pony was another purple manifestation, patiently respecting its target's rest.

Rarity's stomach churned. This was not a trick, some purgatorial mirage to deceive her. This Applejack in front of her was as real as the Applejack who had sat across from her at the picnic. But far from shouting, screaming, cowering, like the others Rarity had seen, Applejack was just...

"Acceptant?" The manifestations ventured.

"Not hardly. Just need a bit'a shuteye is all. I'll be back at it in'na minute." Applejack mumbled.


Surprise surprise, the Manifestation's promise was false. Rarity did not like seeing this whatsoever.

"Hmm." Applejack tilted her hat up, looked Rarity up and down, then let it fall back over her eyes. "You, huh? Though it might be that 'lil colt Rumble. Saw him a while back. Clung to me like a tick till I got 'im to sit still. Wonder if he's still waitin' on me to come back."

Rarity didn't say anything.

"Yuh... I seen what happened, to you, Twilight, then the other ponies, before I felt it too. It's in my head. Or something like..." Applejack hummed as she searched for the right analogy.  "A ringing, way far off, that got louder and louder. Got so loud I couldn't move, couldn't see, couldn't think. Thens when they brought me to the clinic, probably, with the others. So now I'm seeing you, I must of passed on."

That last sentence snapped Rarity out of her stupor. "This isn't hell you idiot, it's a dream."

"That's your conjecture." The Manifestations retorted. "Rarity dear, as always, pretending to know more than she does."

"Shut it. Don't need y'all to do my job for me." Applejack grumbled.


"Do you have reason to dislike these rotund companions of ours?" Rarity asked; it was less a tease and more a bitter bite.

Applejack let out a slight sigh. "Might do."

"Mis Applejack is a Liar, a Deceiver, a Charlatan, a Pervert, and a Deviant." The Manifestation whispered. “The complacency of others cannot wash away the burdens of her crime. The shame in her heart poisons everything! It chips away at her soul. She is a Seductress, a Temptress, and above all a Cheat. A nasty CHEAT. She asks for the responsibilities of others, as if that could fill the gaps in her soul.”

"Weak shit. Ain't you pissers ever had a sibling? I can take it." Applejack muttered.

That elicited a slight laugh, not just from the monsters beside them, but from all around. An unspoken inside joke.



"I'm happy for you." Rarity hissed. "So indifferent, so naive. The monsters are going easy on you."

Applejack tensed, pushing herself into a straighter sit. "Maybe you like bein' called a whore by a fat bastard, but I'm no fan of it,  especially seein' how I ain't done nothin' do deserve it. Probably for the best you mosey along now."

Rarity did not move though, continuing to stare at the earth mare.

Applejack sighed and pulled the hat back over her eyes. "Fine. There's worse company I suppose." She lazily waved at the manifestation above her. "No offense."

"None taken." The manifestations laughed.

"Ya know Rarity, the floatin' gal jogged my memory earlier with something she said. I think I've been here before...  Not too long back... Maybe a week or two. I didn't remember it when I woke up, but now I do." Applejack hummed. "But I wasn't on the tower, but down at the bottom. Or, kinda near the bottom, geographically speakin',  which was still a ways off but the tower was so damn high I still seemed like it was looming right over me. We were in a big 'ol desert, sand dunes and everything, and the whole dream was us trudging towards the tower."  Applejack grunted in exasperation. "But I can't remember them, or why we were doin' it.  It seemed important at the time."

That only made Rarity's mood even darker. Now she understood that the manifestations had put Applejack here just to chip at her even more.  "So I wasn't even the first pony it was revealed to. You saw it first. How very, very lucky." She muttered through clenched teeth. "And the dream captured you latter, but placed you further. You get to lay around like a fat pig, and no matter how high I've climbed, you will still be placed one floor higher."

Applejack sat in baffled silence for a while. "Uhh, what?"

"Be a clever girl and make the simple deduction that there is some spiritual importance to us being here, Applejack." Rarity said scornfully.

"Seems you know somethin' I don't." Applejack slowly rose to her hooves, adjusting her hat and retying her mane. "Who am I kiddin'.  Of course ya do. In fact..." Let out a sudden snort, her expression becoming a sharp glare. "I bet this is all your doing, you sick little cultist. Buckin' freak."

"What absolute slander. I have nothing to do with this. How can I, when I'm a victim too?" Rarity protested. She jabbed the Manifestation. "Look at this thing. It has Twilight Sparkle's face! That should tell you more than anything who is responsible for this hellscape!"

Applejack adopted a puzzled expression. "They look like Twilight to you?"

Rarity's eye flew open.

"Naw, I'm just messin' with you." Applejack chortled. "Stupid motherbucker, I got 'ya!"

Rarity's shock turned to irritated relief. "That you did. I..." She took a deep breath a recomposed herself. "I can't tell you everything I know. It's not proper."

"Proper? Aw, to hell with you." Applejack rolled her eyes. "One of y'all's lackeys'll be along eventually, and they'll spill the beans."


"My friends would hardly appreciate you calling them lackeys." Rarity tutted. She had already seen Cherry Fizzy and he had not been very talkative in his terror. Maybe he had calmed down, but in all likelihood he would be an unresponsive mess like most of the ponyvillians.  "That has raised an interesting question though, n'est pas? Why Rumble? Why the other ponies, from among Ponyville? There's no pattern."

Applejack got her meaning. "Huh. Good point there. I got no indication Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie were feelin' poorly, though forthrightly we all secluded ourselves after you 'n Twilight collapsed." She rubbed her chin contemplatively. "Why us versus the counterfactual?  If this is purgatorio, surely I ain't a worse mare than Pinkie Pie."

"That's a sour way to stand up for your friend. You wish she had been ensnared too?" Rarity teased.

"Hey, buck off. You brought it up. And besides, she's barely my friend. She's just my legal council." Applejack stretched her legs and started trotting away. "I'm tired of you. If Twilight's on this damn tower, I'll find her and make her explain. Even if she ain't privy y'all's cult goings-on, she might get the magic of it, under the 'spiritual' ya-ya nonsense you'd say. An unlike you, she likes explaining what crap is on her mind."

"Am I not good enough for you?" The manifestations puckered their many lips invitingly, but Applejack ignored them.



Rarity felt a small triumph for having made Applejack blink first, but the prospect of loneliness on the Tower outweighed that.  She silently followed behind Applejack.

Applejack leading, Rarity following, and two manifestations floating a ways behind, they circled back to the stairs up to the next tier of the Tower.

Then the next tier.

And the next. Up and up they soldiered on in silence, the imperceptible wails of the void around them only beat back by the clip of their hooves on the stone.


"..." Applejack glanced back at Rarity, then back to the path ahead. "..." She sighed. "Ya know, more than finding Apple Bloom, I'm worried about finding Macintosh."

That unexpected comment nearly made Rarity trip. "Only Ponyvillians for now." She thought to say.

"Yeah." Applejack agreed.


And farther. Other ponies, strewn about their path.

And farther.



Rarity stopped in place.

Applejack sighed and came to a stop as well. "What's it now?" She pivoted back to the unicorn. "I ain't gunna carry you."

"No... I just..." Rarity, distracted by some far off though, was staring off into the void. "I am struck. The futility of trying to reach the goddess, whilst so unworthy...  I really have been so caught up in my hubris."

"Uhh, is that what we were doing?" Applejack cocked her head.

"For the sinner, the road to salvation is winding. I am a sinner. I refused to repent... my whole life I refused, imagining I was too clever for the goddesses's plans. I thought I could make my own fate." Rarity continuing, her voicing trembling, her eyes seeing something only see could discern from the void.  "I did not submit to the divine princess even when revelation was right in front of me and explaining the error of my ways."
She was violently shaking, too much to be natural. "The desert...  Your story of walking in the desert...  I'm certain I was one of the other ponies with you!  Yes!  To find god in here I have to first find my way in the waking world."

Rarity disappeared.  The manifestation haunting her shrugged and also disappeared.


Applejack was totally slack-jawed, staring at the spot Rarity had been.

The remaining manifestation let out an amused whistle. "Oh wow, she managed to wake herself up, or something. She was talking complete nonsense though." It laughed jovially. "You should definitely keep climbing though. Don't worry, I'll keep you company.










Rarity's body began to writhe, making the doctor jump back in surprise, nearly tripping over another patient in the process.

"Uh oh. I hope this isn't the first death." The doctor, raven mask hanging off his neck, scratched his chin.


Rarity's eye flicked open, and her breathing slowed. She tried to sit up and found herself impeded by the straps.

The doctor watched her for a moment, then snatched up his notebook. "Three days, and three days. Not a big n but it's a start." He scribbled for a while longer.  "Good afternoon Mis Rarity. Did you have a nice nap or was there a harrowing of hell? I kid, I kid." He chuckled. "Feel any nausea? Are your limbs numb? I may have made the straps too tight, give me a moment."


Rarity remained silent, looking around the room. After long, pensive looks at the empty stretcher where Twilight had been and the prone form of Applejack, she finally settled her gaze on Sweetie Belle.

"Don't worry, the fillies were just pretending. I wouldn't let them come see their sisters last night so they acted sick." The doctor said. "Rambunctious tykes. I can't refuse a silly filly who so dearly cares for their family. They fell asleep when the rain started, but you can get discharged at the same time." He paused his scribbling. "I feel bad about playing along in fooling Lady Sparkle though, but she was acting very odd. Now that you are awake too I can reflect that I was wrong to suspect her."

That didn't exactly please Rarity, whose gaze shifted to Applejack again.

The doctor cleared his throat. "Uhh, Mis Rarity, are you lucid?" He asked.

After a long silence, Rarity sighed. "Fairly. " She nodded to her bound legs. "Could you please..."

She doctor slapped the mechanism and released all the bindings at once. Rarity pulled herself off the bed and to her hooves.  She unsteadily hobbled over to Applejack's prone form.

"If the pattern holds Mis Applejack will be waking up tomorrow." The doctor remarked.


"If she has the wits." Rarity gloated silently. "I was right about the dream."

"Pardon?" The doctor queried.


"Nevermind." Rarity shook her head. "Lady Sparkle is-"

"Oh the lady awoke an hour or so ago. I think she went home." The doctor said. "If you see her, could you tell her to come back and sign the discharge paperwork?"

Rarity was silent for a while. "No, I'm afraid not." She turned and galloped out of the room, down the hall, and into the pouring rain outside the clinic.

"Wait!" The doctor yelled after her. "Your paperwork!  And your sister!"


Rarity charged through the pelting rain, navigating by her intuition of the Ponyville streets, turned to mud. Up the thoroughfare, across the plaza with its battened-up market stalls, and between the cottages, to the Golden Oak. A low golden candlelight emanated through the lower windows.

Rarity knocked and the door immediately swung open.  Twilight Sparkle was seated in her chair, hunched over a book and cup of tea.
"Get in already. It's windy out there." Twilight ordered.

Rarity stepped inside and Twilight quickly shut the door behind her with her telekinesis.  Twilight shut her book and set it aside, cradling her tea while she watched Rarity drip. Rarity glanced around- Spike was watching from the upper floor, expressionless.

"Don't mind him. He's being weird tonight, and won't talk to me." Twilight explained. She looked frazzled, repeatedly glancing at unseen distractions. "Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of Spike." But that wasn't quite true, and now the onus was on Rarity to push that boundary.  She would.


Rarity shook her legs in a fruitless effort to get a bit dryer. She was really soaked. Days of neglect and the cold rain had made a mess of her mane and tail. That wasn't so important-vanity was sin-when she had a truth to find. Rarity gathered herself then advanced towards the other unicorn. She did not take the offered seat beside Twilight, electing to stand at the edge of the candlelight. "I gather you really did hunt me." She finally said.

Twilight nodded. "I did."

"And how did it feel?" Rarity asked warily.

Twilight looked away. "Rapturous, like pure light."

What a choice of words. "Hmm, I imagine so. Forbidden things are often the most tantalizing." Rarity nodded. "The other ponies in the clinic? Applejack, for example-"

"No. I didn't touch anypony else. It's...  unrelated, a magical plague or something." Twilight said.

Wait... Why would Twilight tell such an obvious lie? She had to know her victims would meet again in the dream. Unless... Twilight didn't know?

"Is it? Interesting. I didn't stay to hear the explanation." Rarity said. "The physician, Greymare Horse, said you awoke today. But I didn't see you on the tower."

"The tower?" Twilight repeated.

"The Tower." Rarity confirmed.

"Uh, a tower here? Or the clinic?" Twilight looked confused, then a bit amused. "Or do you mean, like, the patient list? Tower? I've never heard that terminology, but then again I never took my healing magic classes seriously."

That did not solve Rarity's uncertainty. Perhaps Twilight was feigning ignorance, and was toying with her.  Or, Twilight really had no idea. Spike sure seemed to be listening closely though.
Rarity had to be bold and press Twilight so there could be no ambiguity. "The Tower of the Bard, above a shattered ruin in the depths of a lost desert. It connects bridges heaven and earth and gives mortals the path to traverse the land of dreams." She stepped closer. "I saw gross, freakish renditions of you, big globes of flesh with your faces, horns, and hooves. They talked with your voice, but acted with the agency of god.  That Tower, Twilight, that Tower."

Twilight leaned back in her chair, mulling over Rarity's words. "Huh, wow. I recognize some of those words." She ran a hoof through her mane and stole a glance up towards Spike, who was still haunting the upper floor landing. "And you dreamt this tower, and also dreamed me all gross and melted and stuff? So you, uhh, did see me me?"

Still no clearer. Twilight was hiding something, but seemed genuinely off-put by Rarity's words, but was holding something back. "The dreamers are on the tower, and the torment of the manifestations keeps them there."  There! Twilight showed a little tick every time Rarity said the word dream. "It's not literally you. It's probably not even metaphorically you. But you're somehow linked to the Tower and I have a god-given mission to find out how."

"Uhh, god-given?" Twilight echoed.

Rarity nodded. "Our princess. She gives us our purposes in life, right? We are meant to live in accordance with-  Oh, why am I telling you this. You'd know better than anypony!" She tittered. "I'm being so coy, playing around with double meanings. It's so foalish. Forgivably so? I have to remember that sinful deceit is still sinful deceit, even with the patina of clever wordplay."

Twilight looked away. Was she going to have to come clean? Would the game of secrets with the Ponyvillians be brought to such an abrupt end? "Come out and say it then."

"You're not the first ponies to extol the Moon in this village, Lady Twilight Sparkle. But I can't tell now! It's not proper." Rarity winked. "I will explain everything tomorrow. Everything. I'll tell Applejack too, if she is awake by then." She withdrew from the candlelight, and trotted to the door.
"The rain...  Is so alike the tinnire ringing of the dream-void." She let out a short aggravated snort. "I'm going to be obsessed with the poetry of that damned place for a week." Rarity gave Twilight a last look. "By the by, my sister and her friend were just pretending. Please leave them alone."

"I'll try." Twilight said.

Pulling open the door, Rarity braved the rain on her way back to the clinic.

Twilight flipped open her book again, while Spike watched from above.