Chapter 12: From Eternity
Time and Space Await…
-Time has eroded your vision; the years have darkened your demeanor. Closer still is innocence. If only you were to reach for it.
Eternity. It feels as though it has been so long and yet the time elapsed is so short. Has it been a decade, a year, a month, or perhaps a week or even only a day? Her perception is indistinct and offers no clues.
Colgate opened her eyes. Her head was heavy and her vision tunneled much like when she first began trying to suppress her magic. It was that kind of headache. She assumed at first that all the blue she was seeing was due to her disorientation. Maybe she had overdone it…again. But even as she recovered from her cloudy state, the blue of her surroundings remained.
She was still standing, she realized, and looking down revealed that she was standing on…nothing. It was just blue, as if she were standing on the drop off of a coral reef and staring down into a limitlessly deep, dark ocean. She flinched, taking a few steps back, startled. Her hooves made splashes as if she really were stepping on water, walking in the shallows, or, as it seemed, treading on the surface of the sea. Colgate looked up and, to her wonderment and awe, was greeted with an expanse like an infinite sky. The whole place was like a dome, the deepest blues like those of midnight below her, lightening to a more standard blue at eye level and eventually to a brilliantly pastel sky blue above her. It was all so ethereal. In the sky above, if it really was the sky, there were strands of white like silk threads sifting through the blueness as if they were clouds. There was a serene stillness to the place, even as a slight wind could be felt in the emptiness. Colgate took a step forward, the splash of her hoof on the film beneath her sending a watery echo bouncing around in the void, ripples spanning out from where her hoof came down. Where was she? This place might have been stunning to look at, but it wasn’t anywhere in Equestria of which she knew.
In all its swirly and gemlike beauty though, Colgate’s senses had returned far enough to normal to find the one blemish. Before her, where she had stood, were the remains of both Ruya and the element of harmony. Wherever she was, they had come here with her. Looking at it, if it had just been the element, Colgate would have been fine. But seeing the crumbled dust and knowing that it used to be her friend once again set tears to her eyes.
“Tch…” She grit her teeth and did her best to hold them back. She didn’t know why. There wasn’t anypony to hide them from. The presence of the ashes after what had seemed like forever was like a second defeat, a jab, a grim reminder that she had failed. But it brought her back. Perhaps it had only been moments, or hours. Or she was simply stuck here, damned forever with the remains of her mistake to guilt her. Then there was her. Her two front hooves were still splattered red, her fur caked together in spots by solidified blood. She blinked, letting a tear from each eye fall before wiping the rest away with a hoof. She needed to-
Her thoughts were scrambled as a sound like the clang of an enormous iron bell sent a splitting pain through her head like her skull had been used to ring it. She cringed, bending her knees against the pain as the vibrations from the noise swelled through the air. The sound dissolved into a high pitched hiss, stinging her eardrums before another deep boom ripped the stillness. Colgate could feel the pulse from the noise barrel through the air in a rush. She strained against the feeling in her head as though if she didn’t it might tear it open. The surface on which she stood remained defiantly undisturbed save for a singled spot some ten meters away where the glassy film spun into a cyclone. Each clang of the bell was like a hammer to her head and with each the spiraling water rose, gathering strength and velocity. The sound of it against the bell was icy and harsh, but the final toll was unlike the others.
The very last ring of the invisible force did not reverberate, but rather made a sound more akin to the clunk of an anchor falling against stone. The spiral shattered apart, the water slashing in all directions followed by a smooth sloshing as it converged back together at a point into a shape. It all happened so quickly that by the time Colgate recovered herself, the water had already taken the form of a pony. It was an alicorn. Colgate still held a hoof to her head as she squinted at the thing before her that seemed to be part of the landscape. It stood taller than even Celestia and water seemed to continuously flow into its hooves as it also dripped from its outstretched wings. It was like a fountain. It walked wordlessly toward her, seeming to slide across the surface of wherever she was. It stopped when it stood before her and Colgate still couldn’t believe, even as close as it was, that this pony was nothing but a moving column of water. Its empty, but infinitely deep eyes were shapes formed from liquid and even its horn was a glowing spire of crystalline liquid. It’s mane swirled about the back of its neck in a waterfall and its tail was like a waterspout, ever drawing from its source, but never exhausting.
“Wh-” Colgate breathed. She was speechless.
“The cold gates open and close,” Colgate flinched back as its mouth didn’t move when it spoke and its speech was deep and jarring, echoing through the entire space they stood in, pervading with a power that frightened her. “Greetings, Minuette.” Colgate slowly made her way back to an upright standing position.
“How do you know…” She trailed off as the alicorn’s watery eyes seemed to give her a look of assurance.
“You may not know where you are,” it replied. “But it is no secret to me how you got here.”
“Where am I?” Colgate found herself asking her questions timidly, not that she was afraid of what she was asking or what the answer might be, but it was who she was asking that disturbed her. She didn’t know.
“Have you ever been familiarized with the term noble phantasm?” Colgate hesitated to answer. This thing’s voice would take some getting used to. It was godlike in its presence and seemed to echo forth from everything around her rather than the solitary form that seemed to represent it. Even without this impending factor, its form, like a phantom that was visible only because it chose to be, was haunting.
“Do you…know Sombra?” Colgate asked tentatively. Despite the eerie feeling the figure gave her, his question piqued her interest, or at least mystified her. She wasn’t sure. She assumed that because this entity used the same term Sombra had taught her, it implied some kind of connection between the two.
“Hm?” The alicorn seemed curious, but not altogether caught off guard. “I know of him,” he replied putting an emphasis on ‘of ’ to imply some kind of distinction. “But I do not know him as you may want me to. No, I ask because where you stand is sacred ground. Your hooves are stained with innocent blood. They must be cleaned.” Before Colgate could object, the surface beneath her surged up into a pillar of gushing water around her. In her astonishment she gasped as it happened and ended up inhaling the brunt of the water through her nose. The geyser quickly stopped, but after that brief moment Colgate looked as though she had jumped from a high dive, mane slouching and dripping with water as she sputtered and coughed the rest from her nose. She stood stiff for a moment, expecting another dousing, but the water that went up never came back down. Giving a heavy sigh, she lifted her head glaring through the strands of her moppy mane at the alicorn before her. It was somewhat bittersweet to know that her hooves were spotless and she resented the figure for it. The stain was no longer there to haunt her, but it was also no longer there to remind her of what she had done. Would she forget without it, that this was her fault? There were so many things her power could have been used for and she did none of them. Colgate stood next to the dust of her only friend.
“Who are you?” She asked plainly, moving her hair away from her eyes.
“I go by many names,” the alicorn said. “The clock, Father Time, Reality. The one you may know is Axis.”
“Why would I know that?” Colgate asked.
“Well, there is only one other of your kind who has set foot in this space and he gave me that name. Perhaps he did not pass it on.” The alicorn seemed to drift off into thought.
“Who are you talking about?”
“Know you not?” It’s attention shifted back to her. “He was a great scholar. Even if you are not of his time, surely-”
“I don’t!” Colgate shouted back. “I don’t know! Just tell me! I don’t care about your riddles! Just- guhhh…” Colgate grit her teeth as a splitting pain seared through her head. Cringing, she bent her knees and sunk down as the watery figure seemed to loom over her, a single step of his sending tremors through the space around them.
“Do you forget yourself mare?” It boomed. “I gave you more than one name by which to call me.”
“P-” Colgate’s teeth squeaked against each other as she strained against whatever downward force was trying to squash her. Standing up completely straight, she glared at the alicorn her limbs shaking as he glared back
“Piss off,” She told him firmly. “With…with your royal act.” Suddenly Colgate was forced from her feet and her chin splashed against the ground as she was flattened out.
“Is Axis too hard of a name for you?” The alicorn asked.
“Is-agh,” Colgate strained. “Is no too…too hard of a word for you?” She fully expected to be smashed for her remark. But the force stopped. Colgate looked up to see the figure take a step back.
“Hm,” It uttered with contempt. “Consequently it seems you both have the audacity to talk back to me. Starswirl never knew what manners were either.”
“Star-” Colgate tried to get up, but stumbled. “Starswirl?” She wobbled upright.
“Indeed. Yet, he is still a step above you. He was able to get here without any natural born connection to it.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I already knew he was stronger than me.”
“Is that what you want,” Axis asked, “strength? Is that why you are flailing for hope in my presence?”
“Of course I want to be strong…” Colgate answered, staring at blankly into the infinity below her. Axis seemed to narrow his watery eyes, taking in the response.
“If strong is what you wish to be,” he replied, “does that mean you consider yourself to be weak?”
“How could I not?”
“And what is it that you mean, Minuette? What is strength, to you?” It wasn’t the first time Axis had spoken Colgate’s name, but this time sent a shiver through every hair in her body. She grit her teeth, knowing there was only one real answer.
“It’s what I’m missing,” She spoke through her teeth. “Might, to overcome my weakness, Tenacity, to overcome my idleness, and courage, to overcome my cowardice.”
“That is a great many things. Is strength so abstract in your eyes?”
“I don’t know!” Colgate hammered back. “I’m just a pony. I’m Minuette, a dentist, a dentist that was never meant to be here. I’ve screwed up. I’ve lost my friends; I’ve messed with time. Because of me Equestria might never be the same… And it was all because I was weak, too weak to see I was being used and too weak to save my friends.”
“So is that all? Do you give up? Is there no hope left that you can see?”
“I told you, I’m not strong enough…”
“Your idea of strength is also clouded,” Axis rebuked. “Might? Any sensible being would desire the power to move even the mountains if it knew it could achieve it, just as it might also choose to live with indomitable courage, never letting fear pause its ceaseless forward stride, if it knew it could. But this is impossible. You, nor anyone, has such “strength” as you name it. What you seek is an ideal.”
“So what?” Colgate hissed back. “What do you suggest I do? What do you think strength is!?”
“Real strength does not mean bearing your pain without strife, young filly.”
“No!” Colgate belted, raising her head, enraged. “You’re dodging the question! I didn’t want to never struggle! I just wanted my friends to be okay! I hate you! I don’t even know who you are and I already hate you! What makes you so smart, sitting here and hiding your fake wisdom from me? You don’t know what strength is either! And I don’t care! I don’t care what or who you know! You didn’t save Ruya either, so shut up! I’ll destroy you, I’ll fight you right here! I have nothing to lose…So…so…just…” Axis didn’t move. Colgate wanted him to get mad again, to tell her she was being impudent and to smash her for it. But he didn’t.
“Calm yourself child.” Axis replied, standing resolute. “Your despair-”
“Kill me!” Colgate screamed. This paused was even deeper than the last and after screaming with all the energy her small lungs could carry, Colgate heard her voice reverberate once. Perhaps. Maybe she was simply imagining it, wanting something on her end to linger, make some kind of impact. Axis shifted a hoof, perhaps the most defined movement he had made in awhile
“…And what prompts you to speak such hideous words?” He asked
“It’s the only way isn’t it?” Colgate hung her head and let the tears slide away.
“The only way to what?”
“If I die,” Colgate asked, breath shaking, “can it be fixed? If I remove myself can Ruya be saved?”
“Killing you now will not reverse what you have already done.”
“Then send me back! You claim to be powerful right? Send me back and I’ll kill myself before I have a chance to ruin the world. Please! Just let me save her!”
“What is it that inspires your sudden complete despair?” Colgate was silent for several moments. “A moment ago you stood up to me like-”
“I had nothing to lose?” The alicorn eyed her.
“Is that how you feel?”
“My only friend is dead…” Colgate swallowed.
“You poor fool.”
“What?” Colgate felt her rage start to resurface.
“Are you that stupid?”
“Hey,” Colgate raised her voice. “You have no idea-”
“I will not bend here!” The alicorn’s voice exploded outward, sending rapid ripples across the surface water with a hiss. A pulse that shook everything cut space as he stomped his foot, and, in one terrifying wave of change, the space around them went black. Before Colgate could say any more, she found herself in the attic of a house, the thatched hay roof coming to a peak above her. Even the stuffy feeling of an enclosed elevated space came with it. Before her, tied to the wall, was a mare clumsily but firmly bound in place by ropes. Two tying all of her legs together and another knotted around her muzzle. The mare’s breathes were dry and wheezy. There were puffy bags lining her eyes. She coiled and cringed against hunger pains as her eyes cried out what little water her body had left. Colgate looked on in disbelief. She took a hesitant step forward.
“B…B,” Colgate’s lip trembled as she tried to speak. “B-Berry Punch?” She said weakly. There was no response. Could this starved pink mare really be her friend? Is this what was happening while she was gone? “Berry Punch!” Colgate cried more fervently. The mare lurched forward making a horrible noise like she was puking. Nothing came up. After several more convulsions the pony’s eyes rolled back and she passed out.
“Berry!” Colgate lunged into a gallop toward Berry Punch, but as she reached the center of the room, the floor gave way. She fell through more blackness and landed on her stomach, smacking her chin again with a wince. Colgate found herself outside now on the checkerboard tile that she had left behind. Laying on their sides before her were Celestia and Luna. Both of them were covered in blood, sharp, jagged pieces of gemstone laying around them.
“Tia…” Colgate heard Luna say feebly. “Did we fail again?” Her sister didn’t answer her, but her head bent back and her eyes stilled and emptied and she stopped moving. “Tia?” Luna repeated. “We can try again right? Tia? Wake up Tia.” Colgate looked on, shaking her head.
“No…” She whispered to herself. In a sudden flash she was suspended in the sky. Below her was the old Canterlot castle glowing in waves of greedy orange. Even from her altitude she could hear the blaze snap and fume and it consumed the Everfree.
“No…” It was all she could say. With a sudden crack, something struck Colgate across the jaw and sent her tumbling back. Landing on her back, a hoof came down before her where she landed with a splash and Colgate found herself surrounded by blue again. She rolled herself over, looking on with tears in her eyes. The watery alicorn stood over her once again with its mystic stare.
“Wind in the rain!” Axis scolded her. “That is what the muses have called me. Do you understand what you have seen?”
“A-Axis?” Colgate wiped her eyes.
“That is my name,” He responded more calmly.
“Was that…the future?” Colgate asked. “Is that really what I’ve done?”
“That was A future,” Axis answered. “As it stands, in the future you have made, Berry Punch won’t even exist. Nor will Ponyville. What you saw of her is her best possible future. Even if you manage to fix everything you’ve broken you cannot undo what the changeling has done.”
“You…you mean…She’s going to die?” Colgate lowered her head.
“What gave you that idea?”
“Wh-but she-”
“Let me warn you now,” Axis interrupted her. “Looking into any future is dangerous. Many are ambiguous and what may seem apparent only seems so because you are looking through a falsehood. No future is guaranteed and the looking glass can be misleading. Never succumb to inevitability.”
“But you said you were Father Time,” Colgate said. “Doesn’t that mean you know what’s going to happen?”
“What made you believe that even existence itself could know that which has not existed yet? Neither can time know what has not yet crossed its path. It can guess and, based on paths, can conjecture every possible effect from all possible causes. It can never be certain which one will come to be until happens. What I have shown you are the darker possibilities of what you have done.”
“Then you have to let me do this!” Colgate yelled. “I’m the one that messed this up. Remove me and it all goes away with me. What else can I do!? ”
“Anything,” Axis answered. “Any action from you will result in a better outcome. But if you chose to lay down and die, then I have already shown you the result.”
“But I-”
“Don’t tell me your only friend is dead again!” Axis scolded her. “You lost one friend. But have you forgotten what she told you? Do you not remember how she spoke of all the lights?”
“Yes,” Colgate nodded. “I didn’t know what she meant though.”
“Then you have failed to see even now what I have just shown you.”
“Of course I saw,” Colgate protested. “I don’t want anypony to die!”
“Why?” Axis shot back at her. “Why don’t you want them to die?”
“They’re…they’re my…”
“Friends?” Colgate nodded. “So you understand what Ruya meant when she said there were many lights around you? She certainly didn’t mean you were shiny. There are still those who still trust or want to trust you.”
“But…But they’ll hate me,” Colgate said. “I betrayed them. I stole one of the elements and now it’s broken. How do I fix that?”
“You can’t break an element of harmony,” Axis said. “Just so you know. I’ll let you figure out what that means.”
“I don’t know!” Colgate yelled. “I don’t know what it means! I…I…” She trailed off lowering her head. “I don’t…” There was a long pause, nothing but the sound of slowly shifting water to permeate it.
“Then it is not my counsel that you need,” Axis stated plainly. The watery sound stopped abruptly and Colgate snapped her head up to see water splash to the floor, leaving nothing but small ripples left of Axis. Colgate’s eyes darted left to right, her jaw hung open, shocked at the sheer audacity of his abandonment. The very arbiter of time had simply turned his back on her. Her shock quickly sparked into anger, her open mouth changed to grit teeth and her brow warped with her fury.
“Is that it then!?” She yelled at the empty expanse of blue. “Is that all you’re good for? Vague prophecy and cryptic wisdom? What help are you if you don’t even tell me how to get back? Just…Screw you!” Colgate mustered all the magic her horn could bear and let it loose in ball that traveled like a bullet, booming from its source like a cannon. But that was it. The white ball of raw energy never met any resistance. It continued on into the infinite expanse until Colgate couldn’t see it anymore, a cause with no effect.
“I hate you!” Colgate screamed. Not even an echo. The sound that seemed to rip the inside of her throat didn’t make so much as a ripple on the surface of the water. The flat and swallowing silence was some form of realized defeat, a palpable but invisible material in the air that swallowed up her cries for help. Until…
“Dentist pony?” a voice reverberated. Colgate assumed she was hearing things at first, that this inviting, ehcoey voice was simply in her head. After all, her own anguished screaming had not so much as stirred space, but this voice rang out like a clear crystal bell, effortlessly, without force. Colgate’s eyes widened, small trepidations in the water tickling the underside of her hooves. Slowly, she lifted her head and turned it, looking behind her with an anxiety that was both pure joy and utter fear and despair, a single thought burning in her head at the form standing over the broken element of loyalty:
It isn’t real…
Interlude 6:
In the aftermath of the cataclysm all three ponies stare. Even the unicorn, whose rage has seeped over the boiling point into madness, is struck to stunned quiet over the sudden calmness. It had seemed like the mare that had been there a minute ago had ripped a hole in the world and now she was gone. There is nothing left in her wake save for a huge expanse of scorched checkerboard tiles. Everything they had seen around her, even the dust and broken crystals, is gone, seemingly swallowed as existence tried to fill the gaping hole that had been torn into it. A sense of dread pervades the air and, his insatiable rage returning, the unicorn is first to regain his senses.
“Minuette!” he calls in a renewed anger, kindled in the shame of being overpowered. His outburst is enough to jar the alicorns back to reality.
“Sombra,” The taller alicorn takes a step back readying her magic as her sister follows suit on the opposite side. “You need to calm down.”
“Calm down!?” He fires back, glaring at the mare, his voice falling to a low but biting hush as he continues. “We are missing a key magical artifact because of a mare we thought we could trust. You’d best hope you don’t need all of them for Discord. But aside from that, my niece is gone!”
“Y-you don’t know that,” The small alicorn tells him. He turns to her with a set of burning green eyes. The alicorn only sees hate in them. Part of the unicorn has snapped and he is using his madness to hide it.
“Then where would you tell me she is!?” He yells. “Did we follow a ghost here? Does a pony cry in such anguish for no reason? Ruya was sent here for me to protect! So tell me Luna! Where is she now!?” The little alicorn sinks away timidly. She is afraid. Her friends are being transformed by grief.
“Sombra stop,” She pleads. “Tia said the dark magic was bad for you…”
“I know my limits!” He bellows, his horn lighting in a blaze of green. Without warning he is struck in the back of the head by a bolt of golden light that hisses on impact snapping his head forward and knocking him off balance. He stumbles once shifting to regain his footing and raising his head, he slowly turns to the alicorn behind him with a gaze that has hints of death in his pupils. The pink maned alicorn’s expression is stern and resolved her horn shining brazenly, in spite of herself.
“Don’t threaten my sister,” Her voice is unsympathetic, but shaky with apprehension.
“Celestia…” the unicorn says slowly as he turns to her. “Do you know who you-”
“Yes,” She doesn’t allow him to finish. “And I won’t let you hurt my friends. We told you before that the dark magic you studied would go to your head if you used it too much. Look at yourself Sombra. Can you see…what you’re doing?”
“Do you think me a fool!? Can I not-”
“Look behind you!” The alicorn breaks his rant with a shout.
“What?”
“Just look Sombra.” The unicorn turns and behind him is the younger sister, small, cowering and staring at him in terror and tears pooled in the bottom of her paralyzed blue eyes. The flame on the unicorn’s horn shrinks and dies down.
“Luna…I-” He starts.
“Ooooohahahah!” A bitingly cheery laugh permeated the air. “This is such a delightful show.” In the stillness above them Discord’s form appears in a flash, apparently pleased with the state they have descended to.
“You!” Sombra’s rage immediately flares up again. “Where is Ruya!?”
“Oh I don’t know,” The draconequus shrugs. “But after that dreadful scene I’m ready to lighten the mood aren’t you?”
“Answer me!” The unicorn yells. He looses a blast of cursed energy from his horn. The ball of burning green soars toward the draconequus who twists his serpent body into a circle through which he allows the projectile to fly. As it does it immediately flies in the opposite direction as if it has passed through a portal and smashes into the space between the two alicorn sisters sending the unicorn tumbling backward. He lands on his stomach and skids to a halt as flames fizzle away into the air around him. He struggles to his feet, bruised, but far too filled with bloodlust to stop fighting. The two alicorn sisters step forward and using their magic to bring their five remaining elements of harmony before them.
“Oh yay!” He reacts giddily. “This is going to be the best part!” He sits back in the air and dons a pair of red framed plastic shades and pulls a box of popcorn from a passing ember like it is only the natural thing to do.
“It’s over Discord,” The pink maned alicorn assures him resolutely. She turns to her sister who has stepped forward with her, putting on a brave face. The two nod to each other and turn to Discord with every intention of ending him in their eyes. The elements light up and begin spinning around the alicorns like planets sent into hyper orbit. Their powers begin to resonate and Discord eyes the spectacle, relishing it with bright expectations.
“Oh yes,” He says over the roar of the spinning phantasms. “Things are getting good!”
Interlude end…
“I knew you would figure it out,” the impossibility stated, cheerfully. “Dentist pony is a smart pony.”
It isn’t real…
“Dentist pony?”
It isn’t real, It isn’t real, It isn’t real, It isn’t real, It isn’t real, It isn’t real, It isn’t real…
It isn’t real!
“Y-you’re,” Colgate’s lip trembled, struggling to take in what her eyes were seeing. With ease and no resistance, the small pony cantered over to her, nothing unnatural in her demeanor and no kind of sadness on her face.
“We’re still best pals,” the little pony asked, raising a hoof. “Right?” Colgate turned to face her, raising her own hoof and moving it fearfully toward whatever was in front of her, ready to add her own mental state to the list of things she had broken. She couldn’t even hold it still, her appendage trembling clumsily as she moves it to the hoof opposite her own, one that was held up with full assurance and did not move at all. The two met. It couldn’t be nor should it be, Colgate thought.
“B…B…” Colgate’s lips trembled, fumbling over only a single syllable. It was foggy now, or was it a haze. Something was clouding her view. She blinked to clear it up and felt two cold streams travel down her cheeks.
It’s real…
But how? Why? The hoof Colgate thought was merely a wishful apparition of her aching mind was there. She could feel it against her own and if she had pushed, she surely would have been met with the resistance that only something tangible could offer.
“Colgate?” the filly asked with sudden concern for her friend. It must have looked like she was in the grip of some horrible pain, Colgate thought. She swallowed, trying to speak, but feeling the tremor in her throat and eyes surface every time she tried. So she gave up trying to stop it. There was nothing to be gained from it at this point.
“Ruya!” Colgate broke down, collapsing and her embracing the filly with her two front hooves. They didn’t pass through. The filly’s fur was soft against her own and Colgate could feel that she had weight as she cried over Ruya’s shoulder.
“I…gh” Colgate choked on her words, swallowing again, hearing the shaking even in her own breathing, shallow and void of the words she wanted it to contain. And, no matter how hard she tried to clench her eyes shut, to just let the warmth of the small pony let her know she was there, the water still escaped her eyes.
“I…I’m…gh,” Colgate drew in a long asthmatic breath again, sniffling and hearing it come out in broken vibrations.
“Sorry…” She finally managed. “I…I’m just…gh” Colgate sputtered, breaking deeper and deeper into sobs. “S…Sorry…”
“Why are you sorry Dentist pony?” Ruya asked, simply letting Colgate cry over her, not moving. “You should be happy.”
“Gh…I…I am,” Colgate clenched Ruya tighter. “You’re alive.”
“Huh?” Ruya titled her head. “Oh no,” she stated. “I’m definitely dead.” Colgate opened her eyes, the rush of her tears stopping at this sentence.
“What do you mean?” Colgate asked, a heavy dread sinking into her chest. Ruya took a pace back as Colgate let her go, a dense confusion stunning the tears that had been flowing out in torrents. Colgate’s eyes flicked back and forth between Ruya’s searching for an answer as the filly took one of Colgate’s hooves in two of her own and pressed it to her chest. Ruya was still there, nothing particularly outstanding had changed, but Ruya looked up at her with a smile.
“See?” She said, as if to indicate Colgate had her answer.
“I…” Colgate wiped her face with her free hoof, wondering if some of the tears might still be clouding her vision. It didn’t help. “I don’t…”
“What do you feel?” Ruya asked.
“Um…fur?” Colgate answered, like a child being eased through a medical checkup that they were scared of.
“Anything else?” Ruya’s gaze remained steadfast against Colgate’s flickering eyes.
“N…no…” Colgate said.
“Exactly!” Ruya smiled, as if this were the correct answer, The answer.
“I…I…” Colgate kept her hoof where it was, stunned in perplexity.
“I have no heartbeat.” Ruya said happily, as though it were normal and couldn’t possibly affect her well-being. Yet, it was true. There was no subtle thump beneath the filly’s chest that Colgate could feel. In this regard, Ruya was as inanimate as stone. Colgate hung her head and let her hoof fall to the watery floor.
“Tch…” The tears were different now. “Dammit…” She cursed. “Dammit!” Colgate stomped, sending up a harsh spray of water. Ruya flinched, skipping a step back.
“You’re…you’re not happy?” Ruya asked, seeming slightly fearful. “Dentist pony?”
“I thought…” Colgate sniffled. “I thought I might still be able to save you.”
“You don’t have to,” Ruya smiled. “You’re alive. I didn’t give it to you so I could have it.”
“What?” Colgate lifted her head, noticing Ruya in front of her again, but this time with her gold necklace placed on top of her head, presenting it to Colgate.
“Best pals?” Ruya asked, wagging her tail and waiting for her to take the jewelry.
“How can I say that… when I let you die?” Colgate asked, looking back at Ruya, wanting nothing more than to agree and to take her trinket, but not having the willpower.
“But you did it Dentist pony,” Ruya assured her. “You found the Timescape. I knew you could do it!”
“Timescape…” Colgate repeated the word, vaguely remembering Axis use the same term, but her memory was too clouded by all the rage she had felt for his seeming lack of care or assistance, for it to be helpful. “Is that what this is?”
“Mhm!” Ruya nodded enthusiastically.
“Can it help me save you?”
“Well…” Ruya lowered her ears. “No…”
“Tch…” Colgate turned her head away in frustration again, sending up another splash with a stomp. “Then what good is it!?”
“Did you forget about all the lights?” Ruya asked.
“Why…” Colgate breathed, mentally exhausted. “Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Here, let me show you.” With short skip, Ruya landed next to Colgate, making a light splash and putting a hoof around one of Colgate’s front legs. Rather than her jump, this last action sent a wave of water out in a circle around them, as if the force of Ruya’s light gesture had forced the air and water away. The space around them dimmed and there were suddenly a myriad of lights around them, some tiny, a few others the size of beach balls, and many in between, a luminescent garden of fireflies over the water. Each light seemed to be reflected off the surface both above and below them, making the lights into an even more scattered mess.
“This is…” Colgate didn’t know what to say. Ruya had done this once before, making a cryptic statement before she let the scene vanish.
“You,” Ruya finished. Colgate looked back at her, the filly’s crystal pelt bouncing even more light around in the chaos. “It’s hard to look at isn’t it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Colgate asked, half sure she should be insulted and half sure it was nothing.
“There are so many lights that they’re hard to keep truck of huh?” Ruya smiled. That much was true, Colgate had to agree.
“Y…yeah…” Colgate nodded in baffled agreement, looking back up and the mesmerizing display.
“A lot of these are real small, you’ve seen them once, but they never shone that brightly for you. What we’re looking for are the really bright and colorful ones. And those aren’t out there,” Ruya gestured up to the vast expanse Colgate was gazing into.
“Those,” Ruya started, reaching up onto the tips of her back hooves and put her free hoof to Colgate’s chin. Colgate looked at her and the filly pushed her head to the side. “Are much closer.” Right in front of her were two hoofball sized spheres of colored light, one a shiny gold and the other a deep blue.
“These two have names,” Ruya explained with enthusiasm. “Can you guess?” Colgate blinked. She had a hunch, but didn’t answer simply because she didn’t want to be wrong again.
“These two are Luna and Tia,” Ruya grinned. The lights seemed to waver and suddenly floated away.
“W-wait,” Colgate went to go after them, but stopped, feeling Ruya tug at her leg, pointing to something else in front of her.
“I wonder who this one is,” Ruya said. “It’s pretty big.” Colgate put her free hoof back down, returning to place, the bright pink orb sending a wave of sorrow through her. Its soft hue was comforting to see against her blue fur as she raised a hoof to it, captivated by the glow reflected in her eyes.
“B…Berry Punch…” She said, almost under her breath. But then she touched it, and instead of her hoof passing through it or hearing the soft bubbly sound she expected from the floating objects, it made a horrible cracking noise and then hissed like sand as it dissolved into tiny colored grains.
“No!” Colgate yelled as the particles wafted away and scattered across the water. Ruya tugged at her leg, gripping hard as Colgate tried to get away to do something, anything.
“Dentist pony, stop!” Ruya called to her as she nearly lost her grip. Colgate stopped. She sat back down and resigned herself to whatever the filly had to tell her.
“What…” Colgate started, her voiced hinted with sobs again. “What happened?”
“Berry Punch doesn’t seem to be doing too well…” Ruya said. Colgate looked up, two more lights in front of them, one a pastel green and the other a light apricot.
“Who…” Colgate preemptively wiped her face, “Who are these?”
“This one’s name is Lyra,” Ruya said. “And this one’s name is Bon Bon.” As she said their names, Ruya touched each one and they made a distinct, bloop, like a heavy drop of water. “And uh…” Ruya looked up, tilting her head at something above them. Colgate followed her gaze and found a small gray light hovering sporadically above them, unable to hold a single place or float steadily like the other lights.
“That’s odd,” Ruya stated, a statement that was also odd, at least for her.
“Heh…” Colgate managed a slight smile with a chuckle, recalling when she had been feeling down after burning a tree before this whole mess had started. “That one’s Derpy.”
“Heehee,” Ruya giggled. “See, look at all of these lights.” Colgate looked back ahead, all of the previous lights now in a circle around her, even Berry Punch’s was back. Colgate’s eyes brightened upon seeing it, having taken its disappearance as a sign that something terrible had happened.
“She’s okay?” Colgate asked, looking to Ruya. The filly shrugged.
“It didn’t seem like she was doing too well…” Ruya stated plainly.
“Then show me what to do!” Colgate pleaded. “Show me how to fix that!” She pointed to the shattered remains of the element of harmony.
“You don’t need to,” Ruya said. “You can’t break an element of harmony silly. Didn’t Axis tell you that?”
“He did,” Colgate shot back. “I…Still don’t know what that means.”
“Here,” Ruya pointed at another light that had rotated its way around in front of Colgate. “Look at this light.” She did. Colgate’s frustration was beginning to resurface. All of it was so cryptic and this small purple light didn’t look like it held any answers.
“Wh…” Colgate breathed, unable to utter any other response.
“It looks like it’s been shrinking.” Ruya poked it.
“What do you mean?” Colgate asked, tilting her head an eyeing the glowing sphere, seeing no indication of how its size had ever changed.
“This used to be a big light, “Ruya explained. “But now it’s small. It moved away and now you see it less.”
“Twilight?” Colgate whispered.
“Princess Twilight,” Ruya exclaimed. “She’s a fancy pony.”
“What does she have to do with…” Colgate trailed off, the pieces half fitting, but not altogether. She knew the elements had helped Twilight beat Nightmare moon and even Discord, everyone in Ponyville knew. But…then what?
“See,” Ruya said. “Ruya sees lots of stuff through the Timescape and dentist pony is trying to learn the same lesson Twilight Sparkle learned when Nightmare Moon broke the elements on her too.”
“She broke them?” Colgate stared at Ruya, too perplexed to ask how in Equestria the filly could possibly know that. “But then…”
“Hmmmmmmm?” Ruya egged her on with a grin
“Are the gems not important?”
“Nope,” Ruya shook her head.
“Then what…” Colgate trailed off. Ruya pointed at the lights around Colgate. Half of her understood, the other was still lost.
“You can be loyal to your friends without that gem silly. The real element of loyalty is right here. Boop!” Ruya poked Colgate in the nose and skipped away. The display of lights vanished and Colgate once again stood in the empty expanse of blue water and sky, looking a short distance across to Ruya who was smiling back at her. This time, Colgate returned the gesture, hearing a rush of water behind her that broke the silence.
“So do you understand now?” A voice boomed. Colgate spun around ready to destroy what she knew was behind her.
“You,” Colgate sneered back at him angrily. “Why couldn’t you just tell me that!?” The watery alicorn stood just as before, like an eternal fountain, resolute.
“I find the lesson sticks far better,” Axis responded. “when it is taught by someone you care for.” Colgate turned, feeling Ruya nudging her at her side.
“Thank you…” Colgate said, and gave the filly as full of a hug as she possibly could.
“Hee…” Ruya laughed, pressing her cheek to Colgate’s, the two ponies closing one eye as they squashed together. Warmth. That was the only appropriate word. Click, a metallic latch smoothly closed around Colgate’s neck. She looked down. Ruya had put her gold necklace on Colgate.
“You’re going to need it,” Ruya smiled, answering Colgate’s confused expression.
“Hm…” Colgate grinned, touching their noses together. “You’re the best.” Ruya gave Colgate another brief cuddle, and as Colgate put Ruya down, she held on for as long as she could, but eventually turned to Axis with brighter, determined eyes.
“I get it now,” She said. “Where do I start?”
“Well,” Axis replied. “I believe there is someone who has been waiting here for you.” The rush of water stopped again and as the torrent splashed to the surface, it revealed a small pink mare. It turned to Colgate, It’s swirly eyes narrowing with rampant hatred.
“Clocktail…” It sneered.
“Screwball…” Colgate returned. Set on edge, her nerves and body stiffened. She knew what this mare was capable of. But this time she was going to stop it.
“A killer, a bawler, who thinks herself a scholar,” Screwball chanted menacingly. “what makes you belay death like a loon. You should have died at ten o’clock… Now you’ll die at noon…”
“Get her Dentist pony!” Colgate heard Ruya say behind her.
This is it, Colgate thought, you can’t break an element of harmony.