Chapter 2
Snowflakes are like ponies. They’re all different, but get enough of them together, and you can move mountains.
-Commander Hurricane, of Pegasopolis
Twilight woke up shivering. She tried drawing her hooves in, curling into the fetal position, but it was largely ineffectual simply because of just how cold it was.
Eventually, her eyes blinked open, and she looked around. She was back in the throne room, but it appeared even more dilapidated than it had been before, with the roof itself beginning to warp from a great weight on top of it. The hole through which the Batponies had descended onto her guards was wider, and more ragged around the edges, where tiny avalanches of snow slid through occasionally, aided by the snowflakes drifting inside. The opulent rug had finally decayed into nothingness, leaving bare stone below save in the corners of the room. Princess Celestia’s throne had been knocked over now, but so had the smaller, blue throne beside it.
In the doorway, something caught her eye—a silhouette, framed by the sunlight shining into the entrance hall. The sun by itself seemed a miracle; it had been absent so long now that she had almost forgotten how blindingly bright it could be, after so long in the darkness.
The silhouette itself was a curiosity. It looked bipedal, but hulking, like a minotaur but smaller. Much smaller, with almost the same proportions as a pony, but limbs in all the wrong places. Twilight was suddenly overcome with the desire to see this creature in detail, examine it in the light, and she stepped towards the silhouette.
With each step, the sunlight got brighter, and the shadow became more indistinct. Desperate to reach it before she was blinded, Twilight spurred herself into a gallop towards the doorway, where the brightness finally overcame her vision, until she was running blindly into the light.
Inevitably, she tripped on something, and fell, still blinded, into a snowdrift. Pulling her head out, she found the desire to find the creature was gone, leaving in it’s wake only confusion.
She had entered the entrance hall now, which seemed in even worse condition than the throne room. A full third of the ceiling here had crumbled, and a massive snowdrift—which she was now lying in—had covered most of the floor. Rot had finished the balcony, and the ruins encircled the room, blocking off any of the doors not already blocked by snow. The only doors left open were those leading to the throne room, and one in the far corner, which seemed to lead up a tower.
Pulling herself out of the snow and shaking herself off, she made for the latter. Inside, a tight stone spiral staircase led up sharply, and Twilight regretted wearing her long pleated skirt. Yet, as much as it kept catching her legs, it was one of the few things protecting her from the cold of the castle, even if it wasn’t doing the greatest job.
Peeking out arrow-slits on the walls, Twilight realized what the tower was—it had once been a watch-tower for Castle Everfree, keeping watch on the surrounding forest and lake, warning the rest of the castle in the case of hostile forces and rampaging wild-life. Now, however, it was crumbling, whistling with the wind and only getting colder as she climbed higher.
Towards the top of the stairs, snow began building on each step in greater amounts. Twilight soon found the source; a room at the top had a door leading outside, and this had been left open. Shutting it with her magic, Twilight blew the majority of the powder down the stairs, mostly clearing the room. It had been living quarters for the tower guards long before. Everything but their beds, a table in the centre, and, thankfully, a stove, had been eroded away by time.
The stove was quickly cleared of frozen debris, and Twilight found a small stack of logs nearby, only to growl in frustration—they were, of course, too soggy to burn. As she contemplated various ways to dry them, something creaked above her, and the ceiling released a small shower of dust.
Something was on the floor above her. Something alive.
Twilight moved to the door, took a deep breath, and pulled it open, toughing out the cold wind and powder blowing through her exposed fur. She couldn’t be outside too long, as she didn’t have enough layers to survive this temperature for more than half an hour.
Outside, the original stone staircase leading further up the tower had crumbled, and been replaced with a metal catwalk. Twilight stepped onto it, and almost immediately regretted it—without boots, the cold metal shot needles of cold straight through her hooves, her frogs sticking to it. Pulling them off stung, and Twilight was distinctly reminded of winter in Canterlot, where foals would stick their tongues to lamp-posts for fun.
Then, she looked out through the blizzard, and her mind stopped.
Equestria was just… gone. All of it. The forest that stymied her and her friends wasn’t even sticks any more, just a snowy, endless plain. The mountains remained, but she didn’t recognize the shapes, not even the Canterhorn. There was no smoke in the distance from Ponyville, and she couldn’t spot Fillydelphia’s smokestacks through the blizzard, like she usually could. It was all covered by the snow, or just… gone.
Numb from the cold, or perhaps from the discovery, Twilight trudged up the metal catwalk to the top of the tower. It was an iron door, rusted around the edges, but the lock and hinges were clear. Thus, when she tried the handle and it didn’t open, it only meant one thing; somepony had locked the door on the other side. After a moment, she knocked three times.
It didn’t open, but she managed to hear the lock ‘clunk’ over the wind. Surprised, she pushed it open, and entered the darkened room, wreathed in snow from the outside. Against the wind, she managed to shut the door behind herself, fully immersing herself in the darkness.
There was a terrifying moment of silence, in which Twilight was blind, and yet knew something was in the room with her. When that something spoke, she jumped.
“The last pony on Arcadia sat alone in a room.”
Twilight blinked, and then finished the quote. “There was a knock at the door.”
The other pony’s voice was gravelly, but female. It seemingly hadn’t spoken in years, and the words were unfamiliar, but it spoke with a hint of regality. It was not unlike Princess Celestia’s, but it just… wasn’t, in some way that Twilight could not put her hoof on.
“That’s a Brown Quill story.” She added, dumbly.
“It is.” A shadow shifted almost imperceptibly in the darkness. “I’ve had… quite a lot of time to read. That was one of my favorites. So short, and yet it gave me much hope.” Another shift of black on black, against the barely-visible gaps in the shutters. “What other literature would the ghost like to discuss?”
Twilight paused. “Ghost? Why do you call me that?”
“Because, Twilight Sparkle, I killed you.”
At this, one of the shutters clattered open, and Twilight was nearly blinded by the sunlight’s sudden return. Another silhouette sat in front of the cleared window, but it was still too dark to be Celestia. With a start, she dropped into a combat stance, and charged her horn, realizing the magic came to her incredibly fast. “Nightmare Moon.” She hissed.
The shadow only chuckled. “No, not any more. It was satisfied with it’s work, and released me.” With barely a flicker from her horn, the rest of the shutters began clattering open, allowing more light inside. The room, and its inhabitant, was revealed.
Had Princess Celestia been dyed blue, she would have been a dead ringer for this mare. Aside from a few notable differences in cutie mark and various alternative colours, she was nearly identical. A sentence from her old story-book came back to Twilight, and the whole mess clicked. “You… You’re Princess Celestia’s sister, aren’t you? Princess… Uh…”
“Luna Selena, yes.” She sat on the bare stone floor, barely lifting her head off it to look at Twilight. In fact, the whole room was bare, with Luna and a small, rotting crate of books being the only things inside it, save Twilight herself.
Awkwardly, Twilight stated, “Well… Uh… I came here to stop you?”
Luna chuckled mirthlessly. “Yes. Yes you did, and you failed. A thousand years ago.”
“What?”
Luna spoke slowly, as if to a child, an annoyance. “One thousand years ago, I came back from the dead, because the Nightmare remade me. She seized full control, and we captured my sister, then shrouded the planet in shadow. Then, I watched the planet die around me.” Her voice cracked, and it all began flowing out, a string of confessions of terrible things. “Trottingham crumbled under my hooves! I stalked the tunnels of Край Мира as a spectre of death! I drove all of Griffonia into madness and suicide!”
Then, she was finished, and lay her head back down onto the stone floor. “I had become unto death, destroyer of Arcadia, and I hated every second of it.”
Twilight blinked. “You… killed everypony?”
Luna shrugged. “Some died by my hoof alone. Others, pneumonia. The cold took the rest. They’re all dead now—it matters little to me how it happened.” With a sad sigh, she gazed out into the blizzard. “Not even my beautiful Thestrals could survive this new ice age. I held the last, saw the betrayal in her tiny eyes, and felt her go as cold as her mother and father before her. When she died, all that was left on Arcadia was myself, and the ghosts.”
Tentatively, Twilight approached. “How long have you been alone?”
Luna watched her, her vision moving lethargically, as if too sad—or too tired—to even move her eyes quickly. “All other life on Arcadia was extinguished after four too-short years.” She closed her eyes, and her voice became more of a whimper. “I cannot even die. There is too much background magic, too much life, from long-dead creatures, in the air, and any injury heals too quickly. It shall be many millennia more before the Nightmare absorbs the rest from the aether.”
Twilight had closed the distance, and stood beside the prostate Alicorn. “So, that was her endgame… Well, for what it’s worth-” She sat beside the taller mare, and hugged her. “I forgive you.”
She was not prepared for just how cold the Princess was—stars above, it was as if she had no body heat of her own whatsoever!—but she kept her hooves wrapped her nonetheless, and this seemed to be warming her up. Yet, Twilight’s own heat seemed to shock Luna the most. “Thou- You are no ghost! You are no trick of my warped, ancient mind! But how can this be! How can you live yet!”
She paused, and slowly put a freezing hoof around Twilight, returning the hug for the first time in several thousand years. “And… and how can you possibly forgive me?”
“Because that’s what friends do.” Replied Twilight. In that moment, she had a flash of inspiration, and some of the puzzle pieces fell into place in regards to the Nightmare. Her only obstacle was time itself, now.
The hug had made her face the wall almost opposite the door, and this left Twilight unable to see Luna’s face as she muttered to herself. “I still do not understand, how did you move through time as easily as floating downriver? Only one creature I know of could do it with such ease, and he-” She cut herself off, stiffening, with Twilight in her grip. “Border World.”
“And so the Sspark realizes her… significance.” The voice was unnatural, even just to listen to. The accents were on the wrong syllables, it started and stopped at unusual points, and was frequently interrupted by clicking, hissing, and what may or may not have been severely belaboured breathing. Whispers were audible around the edges of the voice, like the dead were speaking through it not quite in unison, and finally, Twilight realised the voice had not only been heard through her ears… but through her mind as well.
She tried to turn, just to see what could possibly exist and how it could make such an unsettling noise through speech alone, but Luna held her rigid. “Nay, Ghost. He is not a welcome sight, for either of us.”
Twilight stared at Luna’s withers, and the unblemished moon that was her cutie mark. “What is he? Or… it?”
Luna’s head didn’t move. “A mentor, one I sought out personally. Tell me, Teacher, why have you found me now? When I could not find you, I assumed you had died in the interim. Will Solus Celestia reappear as well, or will she remain deceased?”
“This One goes where,” the statement was interrupted by a throaty, unnatural click, “and when, it is… needed.”
“So, you have abandoned me?” Luna said, seemingly on the verge of tears.
“THis is a -click- a possible future, an alternative possibility.” It made a new noise, a shuddery sort of croak, followed by a distinctly alien trill. “The Spark needed to see what wouldsd occur shouldsd she fail.”
Luna gave Twilight another squeeze, like a tiny foal’s security blanket. “She has already failed.”
“In this line. -trill- Not the next.”
Tensing, Luna asked, “You’re going to prevent any of this from happening?” She glanced back at Twilight, who was finally able to see the concern on her face. “What would happen to me?”
There was a pause, before the creature—Border World, that was… it’s name—spoke again. “This One is… Unsure. -click- Perhaps the Luna wouldsd continue as she had before. -click- Perhaps the Luna wouldsd simply cease to exist. -trill- This One’s view is obscured -wheeze- and cares little to entertain thoughts purely theoretical.”
Luna slumped, but didn’t release her grip on Twilight. To the contrary, it seemed to tighten, as if afraid to let her go. The latter felt the need to say something, before the grip got too tight. “Luna, I-”
“Twilight.” She interrupted. “Before you make a promise you cannot keep, know this: I have spent the last two thousand years regretting a single action. I said to myself a million and one times that if I could take it all back, return things to the way they were before, I would in a heartbeat, yet I knew that such things were impossible for me. They are not impossible for you. Do not make an action you will regret, and fix what you can… For I cannot.”
Twilight’s heart fell. “But…” She suddenly felt like a filly again, being coddled by Celestia. They were so obviously sisters, now that Twilight looked at her again. “But… You won’t remember me…”
“I will not.” Luna agreed. “But it shall still be me. So, be a good friend, so that when I reach this age again and Equestria yet lives, I remember you still.” She folded an ice-encrusted wing over Twilight, and released what had at some point graduated into a death grip. Now, Twilight could move, if she so wanted to, or she could stay as long as long as she liked.
Border World’s voice came, and sounded slightly annoyed. “The Spark shall have to look upon -wheeze- This Oone eventually.”
Luna sighed. "Yes. But give her some time." She rested her head atop Twilight's. The latter realized they were both crying, but neither wanted to point it out. "I wish so that coming back with you was an option, Twilight, but I know not what havoc t'would wreak 'pon reality." Her gaze turned to a window, and the perpetual snowstorm raging outside. "And live or die, I have yet to complete my penance."
After some time, Twilight grit her teeth. "I-" Her breath caught in her throat, and she gave a choked cough. "I'm ready to see Border World."
"Are you sure?" Twilight nodded. Luna sighed. "Then turn around."
The first thing Twilight noticed was the horn. All Unicorns had a focusing crystal in their skulls, formed as their mother's magic flowed through their wombs, and this gave them the ability to wield magic. Size corresponded to magical strength. But a sheath of Alicorn ensconced it, kept the sharp gem from piercing the womb, and protecting it from damage after birth.
Border World had no such sheath.
It had been chipped away, broken off, leaving the delicate, orange, and glowing crystal in his (it's?) head fully exposed. There had been rumours at the academy, of course, of ancient wizards, even Starswirl the Bearded himself, performing such acts of self-mutilation to allow access to even more magical strength. But Twilight had written them off as fiction, because the very thought made her flesh crawl and her horn ache.
Secondly, Border World was bipedal, and yet clearly should not have been. His legs, where they joined his body, were twisted and warped, having healed wrong after something had broken them very badly. Whether either had been intentional or was unknown to Twilight.
Finally, his neck, and by extension, his head. The former wasn't too bad, if one was to ignore the strange angle it jutted out of his shoulders at, the permenant bloating, and the boils that covered it. The whites of his eyes had been stained blue by Moonglow addiction, and his eyes were cat-like, but that at least, could be explained by his original species being that of a batpony. He seemed to be their equivalent to Unicorns, as he lacked the wings typical to them.
His mouth was- Celestia's crown, his mouth! His lower jaw had been broken down the middle, and both halves now moved independantly, with jagged, broken teeth dripping saliva as he breathed, because he could no longer close his mouth properly. His tongue simply wasn't there, and neither was the floor of his mouth. Whatever had not gone with the jawbone had been surgically removed.
Twilight suddenly realized she was screaming, loudly and shrilly. She cut herself off, clamping a hoof over her mouth. This prompted the creature to smile and speak, which started the horror show all over again. "The Spark haas not defecated herself." He clicked his jawbones together. "She is sstronger than most. A pity. The event would have vbeen entertwining."
"Teacher!" Luna swept Twilight back into her wings, shielding her eyes. "Apologies, Twilight. He is a rude old stallion when he is at his best, and a cranky old mare when he is at his worst."
The darkness was starsent to Twilight, who muttered, "But how... How is something like that still alive?"
Luna patted her head. "I wish I knew, myself. All I can tell you is that he was already ancient before I sought him out. I know not how one so twisted lives."
Twilight peeked from between Luna's feathers at Border World, who nodded. "Magic (he paused as one of the bulges on his neck inflated, then deflated with a wheeze) has destroyed This One, but magic has madit whole."
Twilight closed her eyes. "And you can get me home?"
"This One has retreived The Spark -trill- from the void itself. There is nowhere The Nightmare can send The Spark that This One -wheeze- cannot retrieve her. Nor -click- would This One do the same. It is an easy jaunt back."
Twilight took a deep breath before forcing her gaze onto Border World. "Do it."
The creature had kept his forehooves held to his chest like a praying mantis for as long as Twilight had seen him, but now he separated them as if expecting a hug. He held out one of his hooves—correction, one of his horribly mangled hooves-turned-claws—towards her. Twilight jerkily put her hoof into his, still unprepared.
Border World tilted his head. "This One musr bear the physical weight of The aSpark through the Transverse, as well as the metaphysical."
"What do you- Eek!" In a single, fluid motion, Border World yanked her up and into his forehooves, cradling her like a calf in a minotaur's arms. This put her face far too close to his own for her liking, after shocking her with his strength—after all, he was no physically larger than Twilight, simply configured differently. Yet, even standing as wrongly as he was, he was bearing her weight without any difficulty.
Then, she came to realize how much she was repulsed by Border World's flesh. It was utterly lacking in fur, leaving unnaturally-rubbery Batpony hooves holding her up. "The Spark would do well to -wheeze- cease her struggling, and close her eyes. This one has no compunction against dropping her currently."
She glanced one last time at Luna. "Parting is such sweet sorrow."
"Spear Shaker?" The millenia-old pony chuckled. "Appropriate, though not in context. I am no Romeo."
With no further warning, Border World began making a droning noise that set Twilight's horn and teeth on edge, while swaying forward and backward. Twilight spoke over it one last time: "Goodbye, Luna."
"Fare thee well, Twilight." The world seemed to go oily in Twilight's vision as Luna began crying once more, as though she was moving through an oil painting. Then she closed her eyes.