The Twilight Enigma

by iisaw

19 The Accidental Kingdom

Airships and sea-going vessels outbound for Zebrica swing south to the San Palomino Desert to pick up the westbound trade winds. On the return trip, they go far to the north to find the easterlies. The winds there shave a considerable amount of time off the trip, even for strictly powered vessels, and the mid-latitudes of the Lunar Sea are empty and devoid of anything of interest. All the maps of Equestria show a rugged coastline running pretty much straight south from Tall Tale to Los Pegasus and nothing offshore but empty ocean. Even the magical map table in my castle agreed; nopony goes there because there's nothing there.

The Middle of Nowhere sounded like a good place to be.

I didn't take a direct route, of course. I didn't want to be followed, so I used a randomized teleportation pattern to confuse anypony trying to trace my course. I even attempted a very clever move that I thought up on the fly: I dropped my exit vortex just below sea level. I thought that the resulting explosive displacement of the water would add a good deal of noise to the energy dispersion.

It would have worked perfectly if I hadn't appeared inside solid rock.

There sure was a lot of noise, though.

Despite what pulp literature tropes maintain about teleporting into solid objects, it isn't always a fatal error. A well-crafted interstitial exit vortex will jitter around within a limited distance from the target area, seeking a spot of low enough density for the caster to appear safely. Failing that, the vortex will exert pressure on its surroundings to force open a big enough void.

At that point, it becomes a contest of strength; the magical energy of the caster against the pressure exerted[1] by the material at the targeted exit point.
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[1] More precisely, it's the amount of energy needed to accelerate and/or compress the material away from the exit point. But of course the same is true for teleporting into "open" air, and so it actually takes slightly less magic to open an exit vortex on a mountaintop than it does at sea level.
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Water isn't a problem if it's shallow. Stone is another matter. I felt the exit vortex pulse in an alarming way an instant before it began to collapse and I instinctively poured as much energy as I could into it. Too much, as it turns out.

The vortex blew away the rock at the exit point, and most of the atmosphere for several yards around. I appeared, was immediately jolted by the surrounding vacuum, and then slammed by the inrush of ionized air, which also carried superheated stone fragments.

It was a shame I didn't have a magic gem in my brain that could instantly repair physical damage. I don't know how long it was before I regained consciousness, but the sun was in the sky when I did, so I would estimate ten or twelve hours.

It was a soft, insistent voice that brought me around. "Sina moli anu seme?"

For a moment, I couldn't make any sense of it, but the question was repeated, and I realized it was in the far eastern trade pidgin I'd picked up the year before.

"Mi moli ala," I replied. Which, given the vagaries of the limited language, either meant "I'm not dead," or "I'm not deadly." But in the circumstances, I figured it would be taken as the former.

But there's no sense in being imprecise if one can help it. "Can you speak Equuish?" I asked, trying to lever myself up onto my hooves and get some sense of my surroundings. It seemed I was in a slightly smoldering pit.

"Small Equuish, yes," came the reply. "Are you eating meat?"

Maybe the strange voice had been asking if I was deadly. Rocks and dirt slid off of me as I rolled onto my belly and pulled my wings against my barrel. I peered upward, but my vision was so blurry I could only make out a white blob against the sky. "I don't eat meat. I'm not a carnivore if that's what you're asking."

"You have teeth for meat."

"They're for intimidation," I said as I managed to stand upright.

"Please?"

"Teeth fake. Scare away bad things."

"This one think maybe you bad thing."

I would have shrugged if I hadn't been worried about losing my balance. "Well, perhaps I am. It's getting kind of hard for me to tell anymore."

There was no reply.

I examined the sloping side of the pit. There was a lot of loose rubble, but if I was careful and took it slow, I was confident that I could climb out. The way I felt,[2] flying was out of the question.
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[2] Like the end product of the process wherein hay is often a principal ingredient, if you must know.
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"I'm coming up," I called up to whoever it was at the edge of the pit. "You can run away if you want to, but I won't hurt you."

No answer.

It took around a half-hour to drag myself up to the surface, and I had to stop several times to rest. The dark magic energy within me had kept me in my Nightmare Twilight form, but it was as depleted as my natural strength, and I seemed to be able to think a bit more clearly.

I had intended to burn away the dark magic by boiling away as much seawater as necessary from the ocean and degrading the structural matrix as I went along, in lieu of an actual transfer. Yes, the magic would have had a corrupting influence on the target, and probably created a great many unpleasant chimerae and babewyn, but it would be widely dissipated and only affect an isolated and empty part of the world. That had been the plan, anyway. I tried to touch the Wheel of the World to get some idea of where I actually was, but my magic wrenched at me and I almost fell back down the slope.

Later, I told myself.

I scrambled up over the edge of the pit and flopped down onto a patch of grass that was clear of rocky debris, panting heavily. I didn't fall asleep, but I drifted into a vague half-waking state of mind, not really thinking, just taking in the view in front of my muzzle. Blue sky, rolling green hills covered by scattered copses of oak and yew, tall mountains in the distance. Very pleasant, actually.

Then, my suspicious white blob warily stepped into view. That close, I was able to get a detailed look at her. Her body was long and supple, covered with feathery scales. Her head was half equine, half draconic, with stubby antlers and long whiskery tendrils that trailed back from her muzzle. Her tail was more snake-like than anything else, but with a terminal "fin" of silky hair. Long flame-like tufts of hair sprouted just above her cloven hooves, and all of her except for her amber eyes was a shimmering pearlescent white.

"A kirin?" I groaned. "Holy Sun and Moon, did I teleport all the way to Neighsia?"

The kirin[3] cocked her head at me, and her little antlers glowed softly. I let her examine me, but I formed the matrix for a shield in case I needed it. Whether or not I could have managed to cast the spell was another matter entirely.
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[3] Most ponies know of them only from stories, and they're often referred to as dragon-ponies, but in fact, they are a unique species and not a hybrid.
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"Dark magic in you," the kirin said.

I gave a harsh bark of laughter. "Tell me something I don't know!"

She frowned in puzzlement.

"Sorry," I groaned. "I know. Dark magic bad. I want to make dark magic go away."

"Not easy do," she replied.

I sighed and rolled onto my belly. The kirin floated back several yards. Flight magic without wings to channel it was incredibly intriguing. If I hadn't had other, more pressing concerns, I would have been asking her a thousand questions.

"I can do it," I said, after a pause to catch my breath. I thought for a moment. With no convenient empty ocean to boil away, I would need another way to expel the evil without infecting something or somepony else. "I need a good deal of brass or copper. And some anisotropic crystals would be useful."

"Please?"

I sighed. "Brass, lots of it," I said, articulating the words as clearly as possible. "Kiwen jelo. Mute, mute."

She scowled. "We give you treasure, you no do evil?"

I shook my head. "No! This isn't a shake-down! Not gold, brass. Kiwen jelo lili, I guess? I need the brass to make a… a tool," I clarified. "Mi pali ilo."

The kirin backed away, still frowning. Evidently, I hadn't gotten through to her. She considered me for a moment and then said. "You stay. This one bring other."

I watched her snake her way up into the sky, fascinated.

Then it seemed like a good time for a nap.

"Sweet sufferin' snake skins, it's Nightmare Moon!"

The gruff shout abruptly woke me and, understandably, I was a bit cranky. I jumped up in alarm, and saw an elderly burro quickly backing away from me. I was muzzy-headed and looked around in confusion.

"Where?" I asked. "Where is she?"

The old burro was galloping away by then, so I lifted him in my magic and turned him around. "You said… oh, you meant me, not Luna, didn't you? Never mind." Disappointed, I set him down.

He backed away slowly, but didn't turn and run again. The kirin glided down to his side and they held a brief whispered conversation.

The burro cleared his throat nervously, and then said, "If it ain't too much bother, Ao would like to know who you are."

"That's her name?" I asked, nodding toward the kirin.

"Yes'm," he replied. "An' my name is Ajo. Bit of a coincidence, that. It means 'garlic' but in Ao's lingo it sorta means 'stupid,' would you believe it?"

"You speak Neighponese?" I found that fairly hard to believe.

"Just a little bit. We get by in the Old Tongue, mostly." He was so nervous it looked like a strong breeze was blowing his long gray ears every which way. "Now that you know our names, ma'am, could you be so kind as to tell us yours?"

"Twilight Sparkle," I replied, watching him carefully for a reaction.

He didn't seem surprised. "Pleased to meet you," he said, gravely.

"No, you're not."

He swallowed. "Well, you're a bit… intimidatin'. An' up until now, I thought there was only three alicorns in the world, so you're a bit of a shock in that department, too." He frowned for a second and then rushed to add, "Are you a princess? Should I be callin' you Highness an' such?"

I dismissed that notion with a flip of a wing, I didn't want to add more awkwardness to the situation. "You haven't heard of me or Flurry Heart?

"No, but it's been a while since I came to the Forgotten Lands, an' we don't get a buncha news hereabouts."

The kirin spoke to him again. I couldn't understand her, but it sounded tantalizingly familiar.

"Ao would like to know why you're here… if'n you don't mind us askin', that is. There was some talk of gold, was it?"

"No, it was brass, actually. How about we trade information? I think I have as many questions as you do."

There was another exchange between Ao and Ajo, and something clicked in my mind. "Is that Proto-Equuish you're speaking?"

Ajo turned back to me. "I ain't sure about that. Everyone hereabouts calls it the Old Tongue. So many critters come here speakin' all sorts of crazy stuff that we need one lingo to all get along in."

"Interesting. And where are the Forgotten Lands in relation to Equestria?"

"You don't know?" The old burro was surprised at that. "You came here, didn't you?"

I tried to fight back a flash of anger. The dark magic was resurging within me, and it was making me… impatient. "Where?" I growled through gritted teeth.

Ajo's ears went back and his eyes went wide. Ao's antlers began to glow softly.

I squeezed my eyes shut and took a long, deep breath. "Excuse me. I'm lost and… burdened by this magic. I don't intend to hurt you." But I might, anyway.

The whole conversation from there on out was disjointed and edged up to the border of magical combat more than a few times. It was tedious, but I learned several interesting things.

The Forgotten Lands were on a peninsula that jutted out from the Equestrian coast between Tall Tale and Los Pegasus, exactly where every map I'd ever seen said it didn't. I'd heard the name before, along with "The Undiscovered West", in old legends, but always assumed those names were a storytelling convention like, "long, long ago." From what Ajo told me, I estimated it to be nearly as large as the entire Northwestern Territories combined.

Evidently it was under some powerful enchantment similar to my "Just Don't Think About It" spell, and the "forgotten" part of its name came in because anypony who managed to find it forgot about it as soon as they left its borders.

There was no government other than the leaders of small villages, and most of the inhabitants preferred it that way. Or so Ajo told me. There was a "king", but he was nothing more than a crazy old pony who wandered around passing edicts and giving out titles in exchange for food. Villagers who weren't feeling charitable often found themselves condemned to exile by royal order.

Unfortunately for me, lack of civilization meant that I wasn't likely to be able to lay my hooves on the half ton of brass rods and wire I needed to build a thaumic wave-guide, let alone the specific crystals that would make the operation easier and safer. I considered object-specific teleports to get what I needed, but they would be easy for Celestia to detect and trace, and there was no way I was going to face her until I was… purged. I would have to do it the hard way.

Ao was fascinated by my description (as translated by Ajo) of the mechanism I intended to build. "Magic not be destroyed. Not be created. Yes?"

It was a fractured phrasing of the law of Conservation of Magic, but accurate as far as it went. But, willing translator or not, there was no way I was going to get across even the basics of Quantum Thaumodynamics, so I did the next best thing. I lied.

"I can destroy magic," I told her, grinning.

She flinched back from my display of fangs, but held her ground. "This one give help. You teach this one, yes?"

Brave girl, I thought. "It's a deal! I think we are going to be good friends, Ao!"

She looked doubtful. "Friends," she repeated slowly.

It was a start.

Days and nights went by. I worked. I slept. I dreamed. Sometimes I had nightmares, but never the Nightmare I wanted.

The Forgotten Lands were even more monster-ridden than the Everfree Forest—which was a good thing.

At least it was good for me, because if I hadn't had something to unleash my anger and frustration on during the long weeks of mining copper and zinc ore, and then smelting it to create the alloy I needed, I might have gone full Trixie on the locals. Or worse.

I was surprised by how many of them were willing, even eager to help. Their "Old Tongue" trade language was undoubtedly a direct descendant of Proto-Equuish, which made learning it fairly easy. I even picked up several phrases in Neighponese.

By the time my thaumic wave-guide was half built, there was a nascent village surrounding it. Ponies and other folk often came to catch a glimpse of the strange dark alicorn who was building the mysterious wire-work tower, and some of them decided to stay for one reason or another.

I was universally treated with great respect. Oh, sometimes it was the adoring respect given to a powerful ruler, and sometimes it was the wary respect given to a large and dangerous animal, but it was respect. Some of the ponies went even farther than mere respect.

I was flattered, I suppose, but I'd never been one to crave adoration and sycophants actively irritated me. Ajo was a smart little ass, and he usually dropped very heavy hints to ponies whose antics threatened to chafe my patience. He also carefully kept anypony away from Ao and me while we were working. There were still unpleasant incidents,[4] but they didn't seem to affect my popularity… except with the ponies involved, and sometimes not even then.
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[4] No permanent damage was done.
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That's why I was more than a little surprised when, one afternoon, Ajo rushed up to me as I was fitting crystals to a helix of brass wire, rudely shouting. "Yer Majesty! Come quick!"

I ignored him while I finished with the crystals, but he kept up a low, breathy drone consisting mostly of the word "please" until I set the coil down.

I had taken up the habit of letting dark magic rise into my horn and eyes when I was displeased,[5] and I did so then. "There had better be an excellent reason for distur—"
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[5] It was amazing how often that simple act cut short conversations that promised to become long and boring.
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There was an earth-shaking rumble, and boulders and trees blasted skyward from inside the woods near the village.

"Oh," I said, pulling more magic from within. "Alright, then."

I was halfway to the woods, rising as I flew, when the aurocks erupted out of the treeline, bellowing in anger. The huge, bull-like monster had a set of crystal horns wider than two average ponies stretched out full length, and his "skin" was slabs of granite that rumbled and crashed together as he moved. When he roared, he revealed a blast furnace mouth that flung gouts of molten stone like spittle.

I threw a lance of pure destructive force that crackled and spattered off of the thing's rocky skin like water. Thaumophobic crystalline structures in his stone hide, no doubt, I thought, sighing and rolling my eyes. Well, I'll just have to do it the hard way.

Hubris is not only generally agreed to be a character flaw, it is also often a contraindication for long-term survival. While I hovered, considering what tactic to employ, the beast charged his horns with energy and unleashed a devastatingly powerful twin lightning strike directly at me.

Only a reflexive teleport saved my midnight hide.

"Wait," I gasped, when I reappeared behind and above the monster. "Aurocks can do that? Why haven't I heard about this?"

The giant beast, having lost sight of me, decided to run down some of the screaming villagers instead.

"Oh, no you don't," I hissed angrily. "My friends and I will…" I paused. Where had that come from? I was on my own.

Or maybe not entirely.

Fluttershy knew animals, even the unnatural, ridiculously deadly ones. And she... I appeared just at the edge of the aurocks's vision, bellowing wordlessly in the Royal Voice. I reared and flared my wings to their fullest extent. It was a challenge that his instincts wouldn't allow him to ignore. He spun away from the villagers and his head started to drop, bringing his horns down to aim at me again.

I had to keep him guessing and off-balance. I darted to one side. "Over here!" He began to turn, and I teleported behind him, swatting his haunch with a wing. "Too slow!" I dodged again. "Ooh! Almost! Try again!" I'm not saying that Pinkie Pie's style of improvised play is irritating, but the aurocks was quickly driven to complete frothing rage. All I needed was a tiny opening, and the beast became so angry that he gave it to me.

Rainbow Dash relied on her speed in situations like that, and she had this trick… I scooped air with my wings at the same time as I leaped forward, using all the strength in my six limbs. I streaked under the aurocks's chin and landed an uppercut with both fore hooves. Because of the awkward angle, it wasn't nearly as hard as I could have hit him, but it got there in time to keep his head up and give me room enough to spin in place and unleash a buck that would have dropped every apple that AJ had ever grown.

The blow rocked the beast's massive head skyward, but did no appreciable damage. Magic couldn't penetrate its skin. Brute force was something it shrugged off. What I needed was precision. And something else.

I silently blessed Rarity for every time she had dragged me away from my books to fencing practice. I twisted and curved as I struck, driving the full length of my horn into the exact spot where five plates of stone met in the hollow of the aurocks's throat.

The heat and shock of the impact made me gasp, but I'd done what was necessary. My horn had penetrated to the monster's molten interior. Inside his anti-magic armor.

"Eat this," I snarled as I unleashed my spell.

I hadn't had any time to do a proper estimate, so the violence of the resulting explosion caught me off guard. It flung me backwards, spinning me through the air to crash down in a tangled heap in the middle of the ruins of somepony's garden shed. I sat up, spitting out potting soil.

The aurocks was in much worse shape. Several shapes, actually. Fragments of stone hide were scattered everywhere, coated in still-glowing molten rock. Little fires were breaking out wherever something flammable had been spattered with the stuff. The only piece that was still recognizable was his head and huge crystal horns.

Ao was at my side almost immediately, asking if I was injured.

I glanced up at my smoldering horn. "It hurts a bit, but the damage is superficial." I used my magic to wipe myself clean and put my mane and tail in order, just to make sure.

"Such a powerful blast!" Ao said. "What spell did you use to utterly destroy this formidable creature? Most mages cannot hope to battle one of those things."

I chuckled. "Frog pond," I said.

Ao got that adorable look on her face that meant she was confused and trying to hide the fact. "This one has not heard of that spell, my teacher."

"It's not a spell," I told her. "I literally used a frog pond on it. The magic was teleportation, acting on the water, which neatly side-stepped the monster's innate resistance."

Ao rarely expressed overt emotion, but her muzzle tendrils rippled in an agitated fashion. I assumed it was an expression of amazement at my extreme cleverness.

I grinned. It was what Celestia would have called an excellent teaching moment. "This is a good example of why it's wise to study the physical sciences in addition to the magical ones. Cold water in contact with super-heated rock in a tightly closed container, such as an aurocks's stomach, works just as well as any magical burst of power." I waved a wing in a sweeping gesture at the shattered monster bits littering the landscape. "Perhaps even better."

By that time, the villagers had returned to survey the damage and trample out the little fires. They made way for me and bowed as I passed. I lifted the aurocks's head in my magic and examined it with a critical eye.

I was merely analyzing the crystal structure of its horns, and thinking of some experiments I could run on it, but the villagers took it as some sort of display of victory, and began cheering me. I went with it, rearing and flaring my wings as I lifted the head high above the crowd. They loved it.

The "Hurrah, We're Not Dead!" party went on well into the night. I put the aurocks's head on a tall spiked post[6] and used a little geomancy to raise a dais of dark basalt where I could survey the festivity while remaining a little apart from it.
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[6] It's barbaric, but traditional.
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Ajo brought me a platter of vegetables and marshmallows that had been roasted on sticks above the cooling but still hot aurocks innards. Ao ushered a few of the ponies who wished (and were brave enough) to thank me personally into my presence.

I was given a large tankard of cider, which I sampled and set aside. It wasn't bad, but it was nowhere near as delicious as the stuff Applejack made.

Incredibly, the mare who owned the garden shed I'd flattened came to apologize to me for putting it where it would inconvenience me.

I surveyed her coolly. "Don't let it happen again."

"N-no ma'am!" she stammered and bowed.

"Oh, and here…" I said, levitating the tankard of cider over to her. "Go and celebrate with everyone else. I'll have some carpenters come over tomorrow and rebuild the shed for you. Hmn… no, make that the day after tomorrow. The way this party is going, nopony will appreciate hammering in the morning."

She stood there and gawped at me.

I flicked my wingtip at her. "Go on… shoo!"

The next pony who approached me was a comfortably built yellow mare with a cutie mark involving bees and golden splotches. She carried a stout wooden keg on her back. "I couldn't help but notice that you didn't care for the cider, Your Majesty," she said, after rising from her bow. "I don't blame you. Our Queen should have nothing but the best!"

Queen? When had I become their queen? Oh, they Highnessed and Majestied me quite a bit, but I hadn't seen anything significant in that. I had been much more concerned about building the construct that would harmonize away my dark magic, and returning to my friends. Yes, I organized the villagers, "paid" them in magical tasks for the mining and smelting, and kept things safe and running smoothly in the little community, but that was all just to serve my own ends.

While I was contemplating the matter, the mare drove a tap into her keg and filled a crystal goblet with a sparkling amber liquid. She held it up to me. "Best metheglyn in the Undiscovered West!"

It smelled like a blend of honey, cider, and spices. It tasted like a burst of sunshine and choir music. I was stunned.

The mare grinned proudly. "I'm glad you like it."

"Did you make this,... I'm sorry, but I don't know your name." I took another sip. It hadn't been my imagination. It was that good.

"Yes, I did! Everypony calls me Buzzy, Your Majesty."

I chuckled. I'd had a little stuffed bee when I was a foal that I'd called Mrs. Buzzy. "I wonder what ever happened to her." I said aloud.

"Beg your pardon, ma'am?"

I took another drink. "Nothing. Thank you Mrs. Buzzy! We are well pleased by your gift, and declare you to be Baroness Buzzy of… what do ponies call this place?"

Her smile had gone a little lopsided. "Most ponies call it Twilight Town, ma'am."

"Good! You're now the Baroness of Twilight Town. It doesn't come with a salary, but titles are fairly useful in a lot of other ways."

She stared at me in confusion for a moment and then said, "Thank you, ma'am."

"My pleasure!" I took another drink. "Really. Now go and party it up! Leave the keg."

My memory of the rest of the night is a little fuzzy after that, but I had a lot of fun and nopony got permanently injured, so I count it as a success.

More ponies moved into the village in the weeks after the aurocks attack, and it grew into a thriving little town. I tried to discourage the ponies and other folk from depending on me for protection and guidance, but they seemed to take my aloofness as only natural for a monarch, and were perfectly capable of governing themselves as long as I was available for pronouncing the occasional judgment or setting down a needed guideline.

The mining produced a lot of gems and precious metals as a byproduct, and various artisans and traders made good use of them. The traditional barter economy of the Forgotten Lands began to evolve.

I had several other projects to hold my attention in addition to the magical harmonizing tower and was glad to have a clever person like Ao to assist me. I didn't want to reappear in Equestria unable to explain my absence of nearly half a year, so I worked on a memory storage gem that was designed to work in concert with the Talisman of Night. When I wore the two of them, I would be able to recall the experiences stored in the gem.[7] In theory.
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[7] Of course, I thought of simply writing a journal, but evidently the surrounding spell was designed to take such obvious tactics into account. Whoever had isolated the peninsula had been powerful, brilliant, and paranoid.
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Even though I kept busy, it seemed to take forever to complete the tower.

And then it was finished, and it seemed like the past months had gone by in a flash.

"You will not stay with us?" Ao asked me, while I made the final preparations and adjustments.

"No, I need to go back home and face the music. And I miss my friends." I turned to her and smiled with my lips together. "My other friends."

"You keep us safe, here."

"Only because I'm a bigger monster than most of the things lurking out there."

"You are our monster, my teacher." She rippled in mid air, twisting and turning in an agitated manner.

I shrugged. "I won't be that for very much longer, Ao. Neither a monster, nor yours... if I ever was. You're strong, and you've learned a lot. You, Ajo, and Mayor Buzzy should be able to cope with things."

She said nothing, but continued to knot around herself.

"There will be quite a few folk glad to see me go," I said, in an attempt at levity. "That stallion I turned into a slug, for one."

Ao made a sound of scorn. "He was inexcusably rude! A week as a lowly insect was a light punishment."

I chuckled and shook my head. I could see I wasn't going to convince her, and it wouldn't do any good to correct her taxonomical error.

Ajo trotted up then and bowed. "Yer Majesty, the townsfolk would like to hold a goin'-away shindig tonight if'n that's alright by you."

"Of course. As an old friend of mine says, 'Never pass up a chance to celebrate.'"

So, it turned out that a party decoration wrecked my plan and endangered the entire world.