It was dark.
At least, Half Note thought that it was dark. She certainly couldn't see anything. There weren't even the faint, glowing squiggles that accompanied shut eyes.
She tried to squint or blink, to test the darkness, but found that she could not. She wanted to rub her eyes, but could not do that either - she couldn't feel her hooves.
Come to think of it, she didn't feel anything. She couldn't feel any ground or motion, or any skin to feel those with. She couldn't hear the breathing of her friends.
She wanted to panic, to run and scream their names, but she couldn't. If she had hooves, she couldn't use them, and if she had a voice, she couldn't tell either.
It was terrifying, to say the least. She had absolutely no information to orient herself - no sense of up or down, no visuals to describe, and no sense of...a body, to feel like she was somewhere. For all she knew, it was just as likely that she was moving at lightning speed as it was that she was motionless.
It was hard to say how much time it took for her to calm down - she couldn't feel her heartbeat, and had no external timepiece to judge herself on - her thoughts had been chaos and panic for...however long she had been panicking. She couldn't tell how fast her thoughts were or weren't. There had to be some kind of time, because, well...she was thinking, and thinking took some time, right? She just didn't know how much.
Half Note had never missed her alarm clock before. What she wouldn't give to hear it's annoying screech, telling her that it was time to get up - but then, what did she have to give right now?
What was she? Did she have a body, and just couldn't feel it? If she couldn't feel it, was it really hers?
Come to think of it, could she even think if she didn't have a body? Was her brain thinking, and she just couldn't feel anything - or did she not have an actual mind anymore? What was she? Was she even a she? Calling herself "it" didn't feel right. She'd stick with she, even in this...nothingness, if only out of habit.
She stopped herself there - if she had lungs, she'd be taking a deep breath, but she couldn't tell if she did - and tried to organize her thoughts. It was easier said than done, though. Clearing your mind is easier when you have something to focus on, and are able to ignore everything else in exclusion. With nothing but her own thoughts, Half Note found it difficult to keep herself in check, and would find herself meandering from one thought to another, until she couldn't remember what she had meant to be thinking about. Every time she came to that realization, it frustrated her further - if she couldn't remember what she was thinking, how could she have any idea how much time had passed?
She wanted something, anything to fill the void other than her own thoughts. It was far harder to remember sights and sounds and smells when you had nothing available to compare them to.
A thought gripped her. The last thing she could remember was a serpent's head diving at her, riddled with teeth like needles of black ice.
She knew what that meant, but she didn't remember any pain...
"ARE YOU ENJOYING YOURSELF?" The unmistakable voice did not wait for a response - whether Laccarentia did not care or simply knew Half Note could not answer, she couldn't guess. "THIS IS THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD AS IT WAS WHEN THERE WAS ONLY ME...BEFORE MY SIBLINGS WERE BORN. I DO MISS IT SO...THE QUIET, THE CALM. THERE WAS NO DISTURBANCE - NO NEED FOR ANYTHING, EVEN TIME. WHETHER IT EXISTED OR NOT DID NOT MATTER, FOR IT HAD NO USE TO ME."
The silence resumed and Half Note's brain whirred. She couldn't see anything - what was Laccarentia talking about? Time not existing? Her thoughts tumbled against each other for...a while, she supposed, before they were interrupted again.
"OF COURSE. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. SPOILED LITTLE CHILDREN DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THEMSELVES WHEN ALL THEIR TOYS ARE TAKEN AWAY." The voice took on a tone of definitive disdain. "WHY I DARED TO HOPE YOU MIGHT SHARE MY...ENTHUSIASM FOR THE WORLD AS IT WAS AND WILL BE...PAH. I'LL HAVE TO TRY A DIFFERENT APPROACH..."
His voice faded away, and Half Note felt grateful and terrified at the same time. While the serpent was terrifying, and his words had clearly shown he was unhappy, he was the only thing aside from her own thoughts to keep her company. Regardless of what he had said about time, having something come from outside her own head assured her that it was moving forward, even if it gave her no way to measure it.
Alone, the time that passed could have been minutes, hours, or an eternity before the chilling voice returned. "BRACE YOURSELVES, LITTLE PONIES."
Before she could think on what that meant, Half Note was suddenly bombarded with sensation - dirt on her hooves, air on her skin, smells, sights, sounds - it was glorious and terrifying at the same time after what she had been through. As she gathered her wits and pulled herself together she began to sort out sounds. On shaking legs she stood up and wobbled over to Tornado Bolt and Firelock - hardly a hoof away from her and each other, but the distance didn't matter. They were laying on their stomachs and sobbing, and the Earth Pony nestled herself between them, holding them close.
The mutual warmth and closeness gradually calmed them, and they were able to get their bearings. Half Note was the first to lift her head and make good use of her eyes.
There was improvement - but very little. While there was now a definite separation of the Earth and Sky, they were both lifeless shades of grey - the sky differed primarily in that it's surface was unmarred by the lumps, bumps, and shadows of the ground. She stood up, legs still shaky, and scanned the sky. There was no sign of the Sun, Moon, or Stars - just an endless expanse of gray.
She would have thought she was colorblind, save for the very bright pink muzzle occupying the center of her vision. Normally, she wouldn't have noticed, but she was noticing everything now - not that there was much to notice. As she slowly adjusted to the sound of her own breathing, the smell of her own sweat, and all the miraculous signals her body was sending her, she found little else.
She kicked the ground with a hoof, and was rewarded with a slight poof of dust - and dust was the only appropriate word for it. Calling it dirt was far too generous, and to call it soil would incite the wrath of any farmer worth their salt. The only saving grace was that it didn't stick to her coat, but flaked gently back to the ground. The small amount Half Note inhaled only cemented her opinion of it - definitely dust.
Keeping her body low with her friends - they had both stopped crying, though Firelock had her head buried in her hooves, and Tornado was curled up, eyes wide as she shivered. She looked around once more, and found a frustrating lack of landmarks. After the months spent traveling on hoof, the Earth Pony had taken a bit of pride in being able to orient herself. But here, she had no Sun or Stars to guide her, no landmarks to work towards, and no compass to give a name to what she couldn't see with her own eyes.
She opened her mouth, then shut it again. She looked back to her friends, and wrapped her hooves around them once more, closing her eyes and breathing slowly.