Rainbow Dash lounged on the clouds above the library. Her eyes were red and puffy, her mane limp, and she sniffled as a line of snot ran down her chin. She remembered Twilight, her dearest friend, how she had helped her through thick and thin; had always known what to do. Had showed them what the minimum was for them to make the tornado work. Twilight had even dug up an old machine to calculate wing power. She sat on the cloud over the library, and began to cry; like she had for three days.
***
Rarity worked on her dress, the normally bright work room dingy and dark. Half finished dress designs were pinned to mannequins as she adjusted the fabric that hung on their frames. She did not work with her usual passion, not creating in a fit of wonder or amazement. She put down the scissors, and walked into a rear room, with a half finished purple dress placed on a unicorn mannequin. Dust lay on the floor, junk staked on the shelves. But the mannequin was immaculate. As it had been, for three days.
***
Pinkie Pie stared at her limp hair. She flicked it with her hoof and stared into her mirror. Party supplies lay ruined and thrown; cupcakes and cakes sticking to the walls, flies bussing around the mess. The stared at the mirror, and began to breath heavy. With a scream, she smashed the mirror with a hoof, and began to cry. Below, the Cakes came up to check on her, calling out the name of their employee and friend; like they had done for the last three days.
***
Fluttershy stared out of the window, while Angel fed the animals behind her. Fluttershy’s mane was creased, her hair limp and lifeless. Her stomach had receded, for she had shed a few dozen grams. The others had tried to get her to eat, but now she ate like her avian friends. She had been the last to give up, but now she did nothing but stare out of her window. When night fell, she trotted down the stairs, and lit a lantern outside her front door, so that her lost friend could find her way home. That lantern had been lit every night for the last three days.
***
Applejack was hard at work, her mane and tail tied up. Her skin around her elbows had been burned red by bleach, and her eyes were unfocused. Every surface in the house sparkled. That morning, she had bucked the apple trees, stored the apples, and even pulled the cart without a word. When Big Macintosh had tried to stand in her way, she walked around him. When Applebloom called her name, she ignored her. Granny Smith was the only one who let her granddaughter be, and when Big Mac’ had asked why, her answer was plain. She worked, because she dared not think. And Big Mac’ had asked when it would end. It had been three days now.
***
Spike sat in a government office, while a worker explained what would happen. Since it had been three days since her disappearance, Twilight Sparkle was pronounced dead. The teleportation accident that had taken her was tragic, and while it was not fair, there was nothing they could do. Live moved on; Spike was a child and needed somewhere to live. She asked if Spike would like to live with Twilight’s parents.
***
In the town square of Ponyville, there was a spark. Ponies’ hair stood on end, and lightning streaked from metal, striking black marks on the ground. A wind blew up, sending dirt and loose paper swirling around the square. The mayor walked out of the main pavilion, her hoof held up against her eyes. The town was lit up as a spark of light appeared in an open space, not three feet from the sight of the awful teleportation accident three days ago when Twilight had vanished.
The spark grew into an orb, and the orb into a ball, it swelled and swelled, until it brushed up against the dirt, sending the few ponies nearby scurrying into cover from the fearsome sight. And then, with a flash, it was gone, leaving a singed Twilight Sparkle standing in a black crater in the ground. As the ponies stepped forwards in disbelief, they stopped. Twilight’s horn glowed white, her hair was stained, and her lips cracked and bleeding. Her flank was stained with faeces, and her chest heaved in and out until she was noisily sick; causing a rancid cloud of steam to rise up as the vomit hit the black glass on the bottom of the crater.
Nearly everypony there ran forwards as Twilight Sparkle fell.
***
Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes. She was in a bed, the walls painted green. Around her, her friends looked down with concern and relief. Her face was clean, half healed cuts on her lips. Twilight looked around, and took in the sight around her. The ponies smiled as they held the purple unicorn in a hug. “Heh...” said Twilight.
Her friends pulled back, and started when they saw Twilight proper. Her eyes were pinpricks, her lips pulled back in a death head’s grimace. “Ah heh heh. He. Hahaha, hahahaha! Ha! Hahahahahahahahaha...”
The ponies pulled back from the bed as the insane laughter of the purple pony echoed throughout the room. A nurse ran forwards, and shied back as Twilight looked at her and burst into her disturbing laughter. The nurse edged forwards again, orderlies on either side to hold down the laughing pony, when Twilight leapt up and grabbed her in a hug. The nurse shook in fear as twilight breathed in her ear.
“It worked.”
***
Sometime later, Twilight sat in her bed, a magic limiter around her horn. She had calmed down considerably, her face calm. Two orderlies stood to either side, though that was just a formality at this time. In front of her, a half eaten meal of boiled vegetables and mashed potatoes sat on a tray in her lap. The door opened, and Celestia walked in.
“My faithful student,’ she said, ‘I am so glad that you have returned safely. She stepped forwards, and sat at the side of the bed, “From all accounts, you gave me quite a fright. From the reports, I had thought you had gone mad.”
“Oh, don’t worry Princess,” smiled twilight, “I’m still sane, just a bit rattled. It was a terrible three days.”
“Oh Twilight,” said Celestia, “I cannot imagine the cruelty you faced.”
“It wanted to help me!” shouted Twilight, causing her teacher and friend to reel backwards, “It never wanted to hurt me.”
“But I don’t understand...” started Celestia.
“My fear was of another kind.” said Twilight, “I felt sure that the creature was what we call ‘good,’ but I wasn't sure whether I liked ‘goodness’ so much as I had thought. This is a very terrible experience. As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But what if you struggle through to the good and find that it is also dreadful? What if the food itself turns out to be the very thing you can't eat, and the home the very place you can't live, and your very comforter the one who makes you uncomfortable? Then there is no rescue possible; the last card has been played.
For a second or two, I was nearly in that condition. Here at last, was a bit of that world from beyond the world, which I had always supposed I had loved and desired, breaking through and appearing to my senses... and I didn't like it, Celestia, I wanted it to go away. I wanted every possible distance, gulf, curtain, blanket, and barrier to be placed between it and me. Oddly enough, my very sense of helplessness saved and steadied me. The struggle was over. The next decision did not lie with me.”
“I don’t understand,” said Celestia, “what happened?”
“Oh, it’s quite simple,” smiled Twilight, “I teleported, and found myself in another world of existence.
When I first woke up... try to imagine the stench of mouldy fruit. Imagine the lazy, irregular movement of a rotting body filled with maggots. Imagine the scent of stale sweat mixed with mould, the sound of hooves screeching across a chalkboard, the taste of rotten milk, and the flavor of mouldy hay.
Now imagine that your eyes can experience those things, all at once, in terrifying detail.
That's what I saw. A stomach-churning, nightmare-inducing mass, blazing like a lighthouse beacon above me. I could vaguely make out a physical form behind it, but it was like trying to peer through raw sewage. I couldn't get any details through the haze of absolute wrongness that surrounded it as it stepped towards me. I can admit that I soiled myself, I was so scared.
It picked me up, and carried me into a room, and then it shut the door behind me. It came back with a bowl of some... green thing, and a bowl of what I took to be water of some kind. It carried in a... bed, I think you could call it, and what I think was a blanket.
The air itself was... wrong. I felt as if I was coated in filth, as though these crawling things were all over me. I would rush myself off, but the feeling would remain. I admit that I tried to run, but the... thing was there, and it guided me back in. It sat there, right in front of me as I cowed and sobbed. It tried to... comfort me, but its voice... It was wrong, Celestia, it sounded like some sort of...
Take all that Discord did, and give it a voice. That is what it sounded like.”
“That must of have been horrible.” Whispered Celestia, her hooves held up to her mouth in shock.
“It was,” nodded Twilight, “But the worst was to come. I soon learned that was not the worst thing there. I found a book, but I could not read it. The words made my eyes hurt, and staring at the pictures... I saw a golden thing. It had wings, and was made of bronze. In its hand was a... something bloody, and foul. It held the ruined head of some sort of creature, but the worst thing was the expression. The artist had... somehow... managed to give it an air of such, malevolence that I was horrified. I asked my... captor what it was, and he tried to tell me. He said it was a Thief of Brass. A monster, a construct, a machine. Something that could track you to the darkest corners of the world. It never tired, it never stopped, and it never grew bored. You might flee, but it would follow. If I fled across an ocean, it would follow, for the deep waters of the underwater ravines were no barrier to it. And that was not the worst thing.”
“What else was there,” asked Celestia, her mind’s eye imagining a silent brass monster, walking in the wet and the dark, hunting, “What is worse than that?”
“It was made by them.” said Twilight, “It was made by them, for the sole purpose of killing each other. They had fought and killed and bled for so many reasons. They don’t believe in a higher justice, they don’t think there is any justice apart from what they make. He asked me to take all of the realms, crush it down, and run it through the finest sieve, and show him truth, justice, or mercy. He told me that they did not exist, but yet they believed that it existed, so it did. He told me that everything was permitted, unless they decided to act against it. He told me that nothing was true, unless they chose to believe in it.
And yet it was still a moral thing. It said... there is no meaning, no fate save what we choose. So why not be good? It said that it didn’t need a reason to help me; it needed a reason not to. And that was how I knew I was safe.
And that was the end of the first day.
The second day was worse. The creature was insane. It was mad. It ran for no reason. It muttered to itself, it would try to do everything, and I couldn’t understand why? It looked at a device, sitting not three inches form it, and laughed as noise blared from it. Tales of death and pain and suffering. It would often pause and look at me, to see if I was healthy. It asked if I liked the food, and changed the water. It cleaned any mess I made, calmly and without fuss, though it made me ill just to look at it. It did everything it could to make me happy.
I did not venture outside, for to do so would of have made me ill. It was as hot as a summer day, but then I heard a harsh noise, and it became cool again.
It had beasts, that were just as wrong as it, and it commanded them like a master commands a hound. He loved them, and talked to them, but he forbade them from touching me. When one came close, it shouted, and the beast left. It gave me books from its library. It gave me access to everything.
I wanted to be clean, so it showed me to where it cleaned itself and said that all that was in the room was mine to use. It gave me all I wanted. When I complained that it was dark, he made it light. When I complained that I was cold, he made it warm. When I complained that I was hot, he made it cold. I asked to listen to music, so he gave me all the music he could. He found it on many... devices. I asked why, and he said that the music was in different formats. That it had been recorded with different instruments, and that it could not be played on everything. What music did play, it was different. It was beautiful. If I did not have the horn, I would play it.”
Celestia looked at Twilight for a moment, then reached up a hoof and flicked the horn ring off her favoured student. Twilight blinked, and then focused.
The music was heavy; the opening was strong on the stings, before pausing, and starting again, a horde of stringed violins and bass notes playing in a hurried frenzy of noise, while deep voices sang a language that she did not know. Then it opened up on horns, a song of such strength and beauty that Celestia’s skin crawled, and when a young voice began to sing a wilting song she almost cried. Then the music started again, this time crowd sang, while trumpets blared triumphant notes and the strings continued their angelic singing.
“It sounds...” Celestia paused, “Like a paradise.”
“And it would of have been,” said Twilight, “If it had been normal; If it had been our world. But it wasn’t. So it would never be paradise. But that was the end of the second day.
On the third day, I tried to get home. I tried to teleport, but he warned me not to travel vast distances, and only to cross the room. His world... his planet hurtles through space, so he explained, at vast speeds, at hundreds of meters every second. That the world itself rotated, and that it circulated a blazing star about nine hundred and ninety nine worlds long.
And so I was careful. In time, I found the thread, and I made my way back.”
Celestia blinked, “That sounds rather anti-climatic.”
“It is,” agreed Twilight, “But I’m just happy to be home. I think I’ll be out in a bit and then I’ll go back to the library, and we’ll be fine, I guess.”
Celestia nodded, and left Twilight in her bed, knowing that all would be well. Even in this other world, of strangeness and wrongness, a creature of good had helped it, and had felt no anger or fear, and that everything she knew to be true was.
The world was a kind and happy place, full of good, not evil, and that Twilight was no the worse for wear.
Twilight leaned back, and slept, dreaming of another world, and the strange thing she had seen.
***
Jacob sat in the room, Twilight Sparkle having left in a burst of light.
When the pony had appeared, he had freaked at first. Having a fictional creature from a TV show can do that to you. But he did his best, and helped her.
All in all, he thought that he did a pretty good job.
And Jacob brushed his teeth, and took his medicine, and went to bed, happy that for a few brief moments he had done the best he could, and that he had presented mankind as best he could.
For three days.