//------------------------------//
// A Sea of Grass 
// Story: Is Immortality Really Worth It? 
// by Nadake 
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"Again." The quiet command was followed by a small woven cloth ball being sent flying through the air. The ball flew swiftly, the sharp bucking kick of the zebra rocketing it through the soft peace of dawn. Twilight aimed carefully, and a bolt of energy slammed into the ball, sending it hurtling towards the ground once more. Twilight's brow cleared, the small furrow that had been plowed there by the force of her thoughts smoothing over and the creases near her eyes vanished. A few inches above the ground, the ball slowed, its power vanishing as it barely tapped the ground before ceasing all motion. 

"Again, two." The first night, Twilight had inadvertently buried one of the cloth balls under almost five feet of dirt. She had always been powerful, but even then she had been merely a unicorn. There was a limit to her abilities. Of course, there was still a limit on her abilities, however that limit was now levels of magnitude above anything she could even fantasize having before. She could still use every spell she knew, and many more besides, but they were often well beyond her direct control. Gaining so much more power so soon had resulted in a loss of  precision, she couldn't control the bursts of energy that accompanied her magics. So now here she was, her unbidden companion pressed into service. 

Nolux lifted both balls and set them on the rock pillar the unicorn had pulled out of the ground itself for the purpose. The sides of the pillar and its cap were all perfectly smooth, except for three small indentations, in which Nolux placed her burdens. Aligning her shot, she frowned in concentration, and let fly. With the innate precision that all ponies have, some holdover of a bygone age where bucking had been a defense against predators, both hooves slammed into the sack balls. She had, as instructed, knocked both projectiles on different arcs, one shooting high into the sky, the other much shallower.

Nolux could not use magic the way that the powerful young unicorn could, but she did have the Sight, and a very powerful variant of that latent magical ability. But she could perceive any of the multitudes of possible future, and see the essence of magic. To her, the unicorns magic appeared as a smooth honey gold, with amethyst flecks coursing through the gelatinous mass. Earlier, while plucking the ball from the air, a thick column had extended from the mare's horn engulfing the rough sphere. Now though, two whip-like tendrils extended, wrapping around each ball. 

They began to pulse, thickening with each glowing wave of energy, the glow in Nolux's vision growing brighter and brighter. Then one link weakened, and fell away from the still moving ball. The energy snapped back to its fellow, the cable connected to the skyward ball suddenly thickened, and the additional energy sent it slamming into the ground, a plume of dust marking its landing. 

Twilight stood panting, beads of sweat coating her small, shivering frame. Nolux let her Sight fade, and the cocoon of golden energy that had hidden the unicorn vanished. "Are you going to be alright?"

"I'll be fine. Nothing a little sleep won't cure. We need to talk though."

Amusement and caution warred on the face of the young zebra, her head tilted to one side and eyebrows asymmetrically raised. "About what?"

"Why you are following me."




"Sister, this is madness!" A blue hoof slammed into the tiled floor of the Palace in frustration, a web of cracks spraeding through the octagonal tile of the Old Palace.

"Luna, she was never meant to be taken and corrupted. That mirror was meant as a prison for the truest evils that plague the world, not an innocent little mare. You saw what had been done to her. I could not leave her there." The voice was as implacable as the rising sun, and very much colder. Lavender eyes narrowed in concentration and annoyance at the continued obstinacy of her sister. Of all ponies, she should be leaping at the chance to help save another from that pain.

"Even assuming that you could make that spell work, Celestia!" The cold eyes flicked back to the smaller alicorn briefly, then returned to their focus. Before her, stood Twilight Sparkle. Not the true Twilight of course, but a facsimile, an abomination. 

A body is simply a collection of proteins and minerals, elements and compounds. There was nothing special about a ponies body beyond the mass, nothing that truly set it distinctly apart from that of a squirrel or a rabbit. You could create a pony body out of nothing, simply drawing the disparate materials together, aligning them and combining them.  

The difficulty, and the reason for the blanket ban on all research in that field, arose from the simple fact that all you would create is a body. No soul, no spirit, all of that energy, time, and material is effectively wasted to create a perfectly healthly, lifeless body. And so, after the work and care taken in creating the body, invariably ponies tried to give it life. They would take the souls of those dead, or sometimes even their own, and thrust it into the body they have created. The results were... horrific. They were less than animals, they were mindless things, devoid of any purpose, and without any mind. 

And Celestia planned to create another one of those things, another monster without mind or reason. Granted the spell head never been attempted by an alicorn, nor with a soul that had already been rent from its body. Even so, the very idea of such a thing was repugnant. For the first time in over a thousand years, Luna turned her back on her sister, leaving the chamber. 

A flash of pain crossed the face of the white alicorn, before the brows knit once more in concentration. Luna would see. She would make this work, she had to. She couldn't lose Twilight, not again. 




"It's simple really." Nolux was curled up in the shade of an acacia, head on her hooves. A short ways off, outside of the paltry cool the shade offered from the boiling sun, Twilight lay on the grass. All about her the grass was sheathed in frost, a sight that had nearly made Nolux bolt the first time she had seen it, almost a week before. 

In the time since the unicorn left the hilltop town, Nolux had accompanied her. When she had first appeared alongside the little purple mare, there had been no questions. A simple statement of intent, that she would be left behind if she slowed, and the pair had begun their journey across the Sarahi.Now apparently, was the time deemed fit for questions, however, and the young zebra settled in to answer. 

"I have seen many futures. None of them are quite... pleasant. There are multitudes of possible paths through this corridor, each leading to a slightly different end. Many are essentially the same, with only the sense of the time of the vision being altered, and then only by the slightest margin. The thing is, there are some futures that are radically different. There are comparatively few of them, but they do tend to stick out."

"How is this relevant?" 

"Oh, that's simple, but you need to understand how the Sight works."

"You can see the future."

"Well, yes and no. And I can see magic if I try, but that's not impor... you okay?" She interrupted herself, at the wide eyes the unicorn. "What? Its not all that special, I mean, I can't use magic can I? Anyway yes, all of the Shamans, the zebra with the Sight, they can all see the future. But I'm special. I have one of the rarest kinds of Sight, my tribe hasn't been so blessed in almost five hundred years. Oh, right. So, all Shamans can see the future, but they only see the most likely future at that moment. So if nopony changes their mind before whatever they see is supposed to happen, then it will happen exactly like they saw it, you see?"

"Such an ability would be fraught with disabilities and uncertainty. If so much as one pony directly involved, or those who are involved indirectly with those involved, then the entire event can change, radically. The distortion effect would only worsen the longer the time between the vision and the event. How would you be able to predict with any realistic accuracy?"

"Exactly, you have no idea how nice it is to have somepony to talk theory too. Don't get me wrong, the other Shaman are smart, usually, but they don't like to think about their Sight, they think that it'll go away if they question it. Silly huh? So, they are only accurate in the short term, part of the reason we're not allowed to gamble. Well, my Sight is different. I don't see the most likely future. I see many permutations of the events, and only major events. Normally a  Shaman can tell you what kind of sock you'll wear tomorrow, but I would only be able to see that if the socks were enchanted, and you seduced a Prince or something. Really big, important events to a large number of ponies. Usually, I can see almost every permutation of the event, because it is so large that there is a very low chance of those involved to change their mind. You though, you have hundreds of different futures hinging on minutia. Basically, anything that can affect you at all, help or hindrance, or one of the others that compose part of this, and each influence will create a slightly different future. Which means either you are easily swayed and have the willpower of a straw-" An insulted quirk of the eyebrow replied fully "Or else you, and everypony involved, is so important that any minute changes in your behavior will make a noticeable change in time."

"I might be flattered, but I have the feeling that such is decidedly not good." A movement, so slight as to be one that could easily have been imagined, quirked Twilight's lips into a smile. "That is all well and good, but it is also not what I was asking. Why are you, personally, following me."

"Oh! That's easy. I wanted to join you. Mostly because I've seen the futures where I go with you, and they tend to end better as a whole. So, here I am. Of course, the fact that it looks like it'll be fun doesn't hurt the prospect." Nolux giggled. "You are fun to be around Twilight, you just need to loosen up, enjoy life a little. The constant," she pulled a serious face, a comical depiction of Twilight's impassivity. "gets a little boring. Smile every now and then, or frown, or do something. It's... wrong... to sit around and bottle up everything you feel and pretend that it doesn't exist Twilight."

"Why are you, as a queen, abandoning your people?"

"Queen? Oh, you mean because I was on the throne? Twilight, the Zebra haven't had a king in longer than anypony can even remember. That was where I knew you would appear, so that's where I was. And everypony else were acolytes. I figured it had to be pretty accurate to fool you. I suppose it was a little rude of me to simply play on your assumptions rather than just tell you. I'm sorry Twi." A cheeky grin split the young mare's face, and the mare cocked her head. "How about I make it up to you?"




For a moment after the spell, there was perfect silence. Then the screaming began. Celestia's eyes snapped open from the haze of exhaustion in which they had drooped. Her wings mantled in instinctive defense against the threat, before her rational mind regained control. She rushed ahead, placing a restraining hoof on the thrashing shoulder. 

The mare beneath her writhed, still screaming. Every nerve in her body was being connected at once. It was like being born, thrust abruptly from nebulous thought and ideas into the instantaneous overload as every sense came online. Unfortunately, Twilight had access to magic as well. Apparatus flew about the room, crashing without prejudice into everything unfortunate to intersect their orbits. 

"TWILIGHT!" Celestia yelled over the screaming mare, barely audible even to her own ears above the cacophony beneath her. "TWILIGHT CALM DOWN!" Five minutes later, repeated shouts in an attempt to sooth the mare, and four growing bruises from impact trauma, and Twilight lay still and silent. 

"Princess! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to- I mean I would never have- Are you okay?"

A soft chuckle greeted the inquiry as the sides of the alicorn trembled slightly. "I am now, I am now. It is good to hear your voice once more my faithful student."

"What do you mean? What happened?"

So like her. Always asking questions, always curious.

"Twilight, dearheart, you've been attacked. You were forced out of your body, trapped in a mirror." The great white head lowered, and Celestia wrapped her long neck around her students. It was good to have her back. "I, I had to save you, no matter the cost. I'm sorry for our recent history, it was far beneath me, and nowhere near what you deserve my faithful student. I shouldn't have done it, but I, I couldn't leave you there. I couldn't lose you, not so soon." The tear that fell on the back of the trembling unicorn was different. The golden drop signaled not sadness, not regret. It showed joy, the joy of a heart finally made whole.