“A system of morality based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.”
-Socrates
Twilight stared in abject horror at what she had created. The morning after her exam, she had woken up early, as per usual. After spending a few minutes pondering over what to do next, she finally arrived upon a conclusion. On the off-chance Spike happens to convert all of her precious Harmonic Magic into pure Draconic mana, she’d need a means of removing and re-converting it. She had found but a single branch of magic pertinent, mainly because she had yet to learn the rest.
Dream Magic…
An art exclusive to the monks of the moon and their patron, Dream Magic is a forbidden magick with most known copies on its usage buried deep within The Vault—essentially the ultimate forbidden part of the library. It’s a literal vault containing the books that the White Heathen didn't want anybody to see. Propaganda at its finest. It's located in the Archmage's personal sanctum; which amounts to the banned area. This in itself is located inside the lowest level of the Essis, a section of the Canterlot Archive that only ponies with a degree in sorcery can access.
Fortunately, her brother had visited home just a few weeks ago. He had been acting very odd, sweating a little bit more than usual, and overall portraying the epitome of paranoia. Of course, Twilight needed details. So, she begged to go home with Shining to his abode in the castle. It wasn't suspicious in the least; she played it off as childish curiosity. So, Twilight spent the night at Shining’s. But the colt-turned-stallion didn't ever seem to sleep! She’d need another means of obtaining what she assumed was forbidden magic.
Enter Barbradeus. While their contract had been in place for about a month before that particular day, she first used him to his fullest capacity while at Shining’s. She had him assimilate all of the information in Shining’s possession. Then, the one thing he gave her was Dream Magic. It was enough to satisfy her, and now Twilight lived with the slight guilt of knowing she betrayed her brother’s trust enormously.
But either way, she had gotten what she wanted. All the pieces had fallen into place, and now all she needed to do was create the ‘Tantabus’, an item she could harness to recover the magic, should it be tainted. If it wasn't apparent, the ritual hadn't done what it said it would. She blamed the wood floor of her treehouse, the current location of this particular arcane endeavor.
But no, instead she got a blotch of amorphous black, violet, and navy energy to spawn from the matrix below. Twilight didn't really know what to do with it. It was an anomaly that she really couldn't handle right at the moment.
Lies!
What? Who was that?
I am the harbinger of oblivion, the sovereign of the mind and the taint of imagination. I will claim your body as my vassal, and my queen shall be free. You will not try and stop me. You will secede your body to me...
In response to that, Twilight’s body flared with an unnatural aura. Her eyes brimmed with a dark green, her head reared back and a similarly-colored bolt shot out and impacted with the abhorrent thing. The presence ceased in her mind. Whew! Now it's just me and you, me. Me and you…
An extremely high-pitched whine tore Twilight’s eardrum apart, distracting her from her own existential crisis as the Tantabus squealed louder and louder, even as Twilight mended her wounds.
Alright, I'm done.
A lavender beam slammed into the ‘harbinger of oblivion’, wrapping around it and pushing it forcefully against the wall. In but a moment it solidified and waned, leaving a thin, almost invisible tether binding the two together.
Good luck escaping now.
“Whoa!” Twilight hadn't anticipated any sort of resistance; what with it being a blob and all. Unfortunately, this deduction had been incorrect. The Tantabus had amputated a small part of itself off, which twisted and contorted into a rough ‘portal’ of sorts. The entity’s varying shades all collapsed inward to form a deep—almost black—royal purple. It then dragged itself through the aforementioned rip in space-time, taking Twilight along with it.
Trees. Hundreds, thousands of the same bronze-hued apple trees. Twilight wasn't even sure if she could call it an orchard, it was so mind-bogglingly vast. Surrounding and treating each tree were thousands of earth ponies; different in every way except for the apples adorning their collective flanks. As she slowly took in her seemingly infinite surroundings, she took notice of a small clearing ahead. There was a lone mare humming to herself, even as she viciously bucked a crystalline tree in vain. She seemed content, truly. Sure, her futile attempts at knocking apples from the odd, mystical tree hadn't exactly panned out for her, but so what? She was surrounded by mares and stallions alike; hard-working earnest people who didn't have any need for guile or connivery. This was her home; the oasis of her livelihood, inhabited by hundreds of like-minded ponies of equal status who were bound by blood.
Oh, duh. It's Captor 004. Twilight stealthily approached the mare. I can't properly discern what exactly this is. A dream? An illusion? Is she legitimately free? What if I'm the dreamer! Oh, not now. We’ll deal with your—my—issues later.
Twilight loomed closer, her mind running over all of the possibilities before finally identifying one. We’re in a dream. Well duh. Now, what to do about that.
In an instant, she knew. If she wanted to milk this moment for all it’s worth, what she needed to do was watch and wait. Which she did. And what she saw shocked her. The mare, with a final buck that sent quakes ripping throughout the area, knocked a single, transparent apple from the tree. As she held it in her hoof, it exploded into a radiant orb of pure orange energy. She looked at it with satisfaction, before drawing it towards her mouth.
“Crunch!” It dissolved easily in her mouth, the color draining into her as the empty husk fell to the ground and shattered. She was illuminated instantly, fading into the growing star that the mare had become. Twilight shielded her eyes from the wave of heat that accompanied the blaring flash, still mildly disoriented but avoiding the brunt of the occipital assault. As she timidly opened her eyes, she glanced upon what seemed to be a divine being.
Applejack was an alicorn.
But unfortunately, Twilight never bothered to learn the names of her prisoners. So, it was more like ‘Prisoner 004 is an alicorn’. But either way, Twilight was flabbergasted. It was at this point that the Tantabus attacked. Twilight, having been imprisoned in the moment, had forgotten about her dream-hopping friend. To her credit, though, it had dragged her into the totally alien mind of a different person. Keeping track of things was pretty difficult.
The somnial construct started by deleting all of the resident Earth Ponies. It wasn't a gradual process in the least; each and every visage illuminated by a euphoric grin before they simply disappeared. The trees were next, rapidly decaying into nothing as the earth pony’s world was upended. The ash and soot swarmed around the Alicorn mare, blotting her vision entirely. All she could see was the empty husk of her old life.
The whirlwind flashed with a familiar energy, and soon it was instead the Tantabus itself surrounding Applejack. She backed up, nearly bumping against the wall of incendiary byproducts.
The world froze.
Twilight became less than a physical entity; she became an audience. To what, perhaps? To the downfall of the newest alicorn? Or perhaps the corruption of the Element of Honesty? She didn't know. All she knew was that she was but a specter now; just a face in the crowd.
… What? Where in tarnation ahm ah? And why does mah whole body ache? The newborn deity glanced over her form, taking in her new features. She was tall, much taller than even her brother. She stood maybe three inches below Celestia herself; granted though, that was a rough estimation. She felt longer as well, though she didn't really know how to express such a sensation. Her legs were, even proportionally, much longer than they originally were—as was her neck. She almost stumbled over herself as she peered downward in an attempt to see the bottoms of her hooves. After that small mix-up, she instead made a go at lifting her hoof, finally looking it over with a surgeon’s eye.
As she put her hoof back on the ground, she shuddered from the new sensation. She could feel everything below her; the dirt squish, the insects tunnel out of the way, even the seed buried below hesitantly trying to drain nutrients from the unknown presence. She focused on the feeling, and all at once it burst with vitality. She could hear the collective heartbeat of every lifeform nearby; identify and subconsciously log their circadian rhythm. She blinked, and suddenly even more became known to her. An earthworm below was going to live for another week or so, before a wasp hunted and consumed it. There was a shrub that was going to be trampled by a bear in two hours, forty two minutes and sixteen seconds. A wildfire would ravage this area in three months, leaving room for new creatures to grow and develop. All life became somehow connected to Applejack; her very presence enlivening and rejuvenating anything nearby.
The mare took a moment to once again peer over her body. Ah have wings? Indeed, she did. A large pair, much longer than the average pegasus. She flexed her dorsal muscles experimentally, and was surprised to find them snap outward, releasing a gust of wind and splintering any branches that got in the way. They were each approaching the length of her body, but shied short by about a foot. Wait, if ah have wings… She raised a hoof again, mildly distraught at the temporary silence that encumbered her mind; her connection to nature weakened as one hoof rose into the air. She felt along her head, half-hoping she wouldn't find a horn.
Unfortunately, she did.
Ah... Uh, what's—I mean, how... Unable to formulate the most basic thought, Applejack smacked herself across the face, eliciting a quick jolt of pain in hopes of bringing herself back to a reality she could actually comprehend.
Once more, she stroked a hoof across her forehead. Once more, she felt the conical appendage protruding from it.
How in the... She took another brief glance at her surroundings. How in Equestria is this even possible? I just don't get it. This has gotta be a dream or somethin'.
A thought crossed her mind; it was silly—immature, even—yet entirely valid. Does this mean ah'm a... a princess? She shuddered. Ah sure hope not. That kinda life just ain't for me.
It was at this point that Applejack examined her Cutie Mark. The previous trio of apples was gone, the only semblance of their existence being the carnelian splotch along her flank. Inside this smeared blurb was the firm, vibrant trunk of a tree, adorned with vivid evergreen leaves bursting from its plume. Next to the tree was an orange streak; presumably depicting a fallen star. And at the very absolute center of this ‘star’ was a white circle, with the same sanguine interior.
A bit symbolic fer’ mah taste, but I suppose that's such how alicorns are. She took note of her additional features once more, taking in her new status, along with a deep breath. As she came to terms with her alicornhood, a new idea came to mind.
Where ahm’ ah?
If Twilight had any sort of face, she would've frowned in confusion. Didn't Prisoner 004 remember the ordeal that sent her there? Or did the Tantabus perform some sort of ‘inception’ on the poor mare? Twilight didn't know, but a few moments to reason led her to the latter conclusion. She'd stick to that then, for now.
Meanwhile, Applejack was in a bit of a predicament. This looks almost exactly like tha’ farm! But if that’s tha’ case, where in tarnation is Big Mac? Or Apple Bloom?
She broke into a full sprint, intent on finding some vestige of civilization. Before she could even process the change, the orchard her family had harnessed for years had shifted into the rusted maroon paint of the interior of the barn, where a lone bed rested against the wall.
“Oh…” A tired groan echoed throughout the building’s foundation, originating from the empty husk of a mare that was buried beneath the sheets, soaked in sweat and tears.
“Granny!” The alicorn fervently approached her moribund relative, careful not to overexert her enormous strength but still urgent enough to knock some scattered leaves into the air. A wave of fear gripped Applejack, and for the first time she felt that she couldn't overcome this challenge with honest, hard work.
“Applejack! Where have ya’ been? All these years, and now I find out you're a Princess?” The infant goddess winced in preparation for a verbal lashing, but instead the wistful centennial burst into childish laughter.
“Now if that ain't a surprise. I knew you were a pony of many talents, but this is a bit beyond what I had been expectin’ from ya.” Both mares gripped each other in a fierce hug, which was only considered as such due to Applejack’s strength compensating for both of them.
“Now dear, I ain't got much left in me. I want you to know that I don’ hate you fer’ leavin’. Live without the burden of guilt; it becomes meaningless in tha’ end. And lastly… Take care of yer siblins’.”
Applejack was crying freely now, but nodded. Her tears blurred her vision, and reality blurred in-kind.
Every feature was identical, every figure and color and structure identical; and yet, Applejack still experienced relative unease. Somethin’s changed. Where previously a mixture of surprise, excitement, and confusion were apparent in her granny’s eyes; now there was only a delirious sense of awe and wonder.
“A princess. Well, ain't that a surprise?” She struggled weakly to push herself into a seated position, veins throbbing against her wrinkled skin. Eventually, she slid back into the makeshift bed, resigned.
“Haven't seen one of yer kind in… How many years?” She mouthed a few possibilities: ‘ten?’ ‘twenty?’ before finally shaking her head in defeat.
“Sorry, I’ve been forgettin’ plenty lately…” She trailed off, glancing off into the distance. Was it a memory that bubbled to the fore? Or perhaps she was simply gripping onto yet another memory, soon to drift into the monotonous blur now blotting her mind. Either way, she soon started speaking again, lifting her tone in a pitiful attempt to lighten the mood.
“You must be royalty, tho’, what with that horn and them there wings.” With what Applejack surmised to be colossal effort, Granny lifted a hoof and lazily directed it at her currently anonymous granddaughter’s various additional protrusions. Then, without lowering her hoof, she dropped it to the bedside table and rummaged around, still speaking to the presumed princess.
“I guess you were expectin’ more, huh? maybe a small group’n of my kin and fellow farm folk? ‘Fraid not, just me an’ mah barn.” Finally, she found what seemed to be a hypodermic needle, filled with an ambrosius amber fluid that glistened unnaturally.
“You know, this here barn was the first thing I built with mah daddy, before he passed. Er’, ah think, at least.” An awkward silence ensued as she somberly pulled the syringe onto the mattress, oddly careful so as not to prick herself.
“I… I'm sorry the funeral ain’t nice and purty, or I guess it'd be a mortuary, er somethin’. But it's nice to have you, ta’ ease my passin’ an’ all.” Lifting the syringe into the air, she jammed it into her thyroid in a single, swift motion.
Within moments her expression inversed, transitioning from a tired scowl to a blissful grin. “Well, I guess you can just sit o’er there and watch, I'm not too experienced with the royal etiquette an’ all that. Now, if you don't mind, I have some—er—dyin’ to do.”
“Sorry, I'm not much a savant of the Canterlotian way of things. Too snuffy an’ sneaky back-stabby fer’ my tastes.” She gently rolled onto her side, careful not to disrupt her euphoria with a jolt of pain. She rested in that position for a few moments, before her eyes widened in alarm.
“Oh, I'm so sorry, yer highness! I don't mean no disrespect, just how ah was raised. What was ah thinkin’, sayin’ that to a gosh darn’d princess!” She scurried from her sanctuary, frantically gesturing and trying to formulate an apology.
With a single raised hoof, Applejack silenced the mare. Huh, I guess mah actions carry more weight now.
“It's—er—quite alright, miss. Ah ain't much fer it neither, if it means anythang’. Just mah job.” Applejack tried to smile as she imagined a princess would; so motherly and nurturing. While she failed miserably, compared to the real thing, it still held enough of a sway to calm the elderly mare.
Granny’s eyes softened. “You're different, arn’t ya? You—”
Whatever words she was trying to commune were drowned out by foam, bubbling from deep within her throat. Her hooves dragged to her neck as she clawed at it futilely, a great fear possessing her as death loomed.
Applejack sensed this and more. She could feel her granny’s uncertain terror, overwhelming any mental barriers and encumbering the essence of her being in waves of paranoia. The questions reiterated over and over again in Applejack’s mind, her newfound sovereignty over life cursing her with the sensation of death. ‘Is this the end?’ ‘Will I find peace?’ ‘WILL THERE BE SALVATION!?’ Echoed over and over, wearing away at Applejack’s sanity.
And in that moment, she knew what she had to do.
“Easy there, cowgirl. You'll have an orchard to yerself in the next life.” Her eyes softened, and the elder mare sunk into her bed, content.
But the ravaging winds of time are nothing if not apathetic, and even in such a personal moment, entropy would not stand by. First it was the fur; tinting an unhealthy green before shearing off and dissipating into nothingness. Then the tissue, bubbling with huge sacks of bacteria before imploding outward, taking most of the surrounding flesh with it. The organs followed suit, dissolving into an orange-ish soup which swiftly evaporated away. Finally, with a voracious gust of air, the bones shattered into dust and swirled into a flurry of decay. Applejack shielded her eyes, tear-stained and all, and prepared for the worst.
Nothing happened.
Tentatively unshielding her ocular organs, Applejack found herself in an entirely different area. Rather than the morose monotone of the barn, her surroundings were now nothing more than pure carnage; depraved, monstrous, carnage. But while Applejack did gaze upon the horror surrounding her, she didn't process it; her mind was too amuck with questions.
Was that tha’ right thing to do? She blinked blearily, absentmindedly wiping a tear from her muzzle.
I know she deserved a peaceful passin’, but isn't that just false hope? She reached upwards to stroke her snout quizzically, but her motor skills were promptly derailed as a mutilated corpse soared past a nearby lamp post and right into Applejack’s hooves.
She looked down.
“Momma?” The mare’s eyes widened, her arms shook, she didn't know how to respond. What… She dropped the carcass and sat down in front of it. Why… She gently prodded the familiar face with her hoof, not receiving any response. WHO? She slapped the mare harder and harder, practically beating the life into her mother with increasing desperation. A small part of her whispered the truth: it's too late, but was ultimately drowned out by the callow mare’s attempts at rationalizing what just happened.
She's okay, she's got ta’ be okay. The alicorn continued murmuring possibilities and excuses under her breath, her eyes now shut tightly in a vain attempt at denying reality, if only for a moment. But even as she did so, she already felt the awful truth sink in, the small part of her growing louder and louder until it was unbearable.
“Shut up shut up SHUT UP!” The honest part of her was swamped by a wave of denial and anger, and for the first time the filly was forced to confront an awful truth. Life ain't fair sometimes, sugarplum. Her mother’s words echoed in her mind, and as she sluggishly pried her eyes open, she could've sworn she saw the cadaver’s mouth moving. She shuddered instinctively, and when she refocused her vision the anomaly was naught.
What wasn't naught, though, was the cradle but a few strides away. Applejack remained transfixed on her mother’s stiff flesh, but the whining of the infant eventually drew her attention. Wiping her tears away, she steeled her resolve. There were other things to deal with; she could mourn later.
She approached the cradle with shaky steps, clamping her teeth down on her lower lip hard enough to draw blood as nervous anticipation wore away at her strength. Eventually she stumbled to her destination, and a single look inside took her right back. There was a baby inside, seemingly frozen in time. Its screams echoed all the same, from a mouth in the exact same position: terror. Its pale yellow fur was matted with blood, her scarlet mane ragged and soiled by dirt flecks and chunks of mud. As Applejack processed all of this, she felt a wave of nausea slam into her. Not wanting to vomit on a dead baby, she swallowed down the rising bile and took a deep breath.
After a few minutes of hyperventilating, she forced her body back over to the stillborn infant. Once again she ran her eyes over it, and once again she felt nausea overwhelm her senses. This time, though, she held herself firmly in place. Applejack wouldn't be scared; this time, she'd be strong! She extended a hoof over to the newborn and made to close its bloodshot eyes in a single motion.
It burst into flames.
“No!” The goddess frantically reached forward to save the infant’s body. She wouldn't allow it to be dishonored by incineration. But as she wrapped her arms around the presumed form of a child, she felt the strongest heat she had ever experienced wash over her as if she was the sand on the beach shore. All around her, the world crumbled away, consumed by the ravenous flames of destruction.
“AHHHHHHHHHHH!” She screamed as the pain of burning alive overloaded her brain. The sensation was so intense she didn't even notice her cutie mark burning away like a sheet of wax paper. First, the orange streak was consumed. From its spot on the mark, a hole formed and started draining everything around it. A single spark was birthed in that hole, and in but a moment the insignia of a fledgling princess was torn away from its bearer.
The pure orange ash drifted away from the swiftly burning plane, floating off into the unknown. There, an indigo maw revealed itself, stretched open to inhuman proportions, and consumed the remains of an Element. The ‘cheeks’ of said mouth bulged visibly, before slowly decreasing in size as the Tantabus assimilated the power of Honesty itself. Twilight watched all of this with mild interest, before flinching in surprise as the now vaguely equine form of the Tantabus materialized in front of her, uncomfortably close.
‘One of three, birthed of the tree. My Lady’s right, now bestowed upon me. The power of which you'll soon depend, I now control — you’ve reached the end.’
In response to the ominous quip, Twilight tilted her head upward. Once again, her eyes were glazed over, glowing a floral green far darker than that of the Changelings. She smirked confidently, and when she spoke it was overlapped by a second tone.
“I'm going to destroy you.” The filly’s horn was entombed in purple energy, so bright it was as if she was a star. She looked it directly in the eyes and jutted her horn outward, dragging it down and slowly carving the dream-entity in twain, all the while barely tolerating its mad laughter. As she reached the stomach of the fiend, bloated with orange energy, she released the energy she had collected in a single wave of light that rippled all throughout the Tantabus’s being, quickly expanding to all of the simulated reality in but a few seconds.
Although most of the plane was currently cinders drifting aimlessly through the void, the void itself crumbled like a sand castle into nothingness. White—and once that faded, the familiar scent of oak and chirp of birds wafted over her senses.
Ah, glad that's over.
“Honey!”
Oh sh—
The gargantuan aura of her mother immediately pressed against Twilight, slightly inhibiting her movements. Oh no you don't, you old hag. A blood Sigil on her torso illuminated with lavender light, and the entire cottage situated in a tree was clean, not to mention empty of any possibly-incriminating magic.
Not a moment too soon, either, for just a second later, Twilight Velvet flickered into existence next to her daughter, who had dragged a book onto her lap at the last possible moment.
“Yes, mommy?” She quizzically blinked her eyes at the matriarch of the Sparkle House, childish innocence just exuding from her curious eyes.
“Just wanted to remind you that your first day at Celestia’s School is tomorrow, so get organized now so you don't have to worry about it tomorrow.” Velvet crouched down and pulled her diminutive daughter into a hug.
“You're gonna do great, sweetie.” Twilight mumbled back a quick ‘thanks’ into her mother’s neck, which she had buried her head in. While she performed the typical expressions associated with maternal affection as was expected of her, she internalized the information with glee.
Well, I guess that means I don't have to wait for your turn, Celestia. Time to divide and conquer...
