//------------------------------// // Old Friends // Story: A Spark on the Wind // by ChudoJogurt //------------------------------// It was the hour before noon or so, and minutes flowed in the pitch black darkness, pooling into an eternity of hours and ages. Her voice carried on, through the cracks and tunnels, all the way to the roots of the mountain. She screamed again and again, with no answer save for the echo and a faint breath of sulphurous air and soot. She sighed, and foregoing another flight, she simply stepped through space into Ponyville, a sharp flash of lavender magic casting light down into the well of the abyss behind her… *** Time passed and the eventful day, full of dangers and impossibilities for all of Ponyville, was over, and there was evening, and then there was morning. And then, in the depths of the well spanning the whole mountain, deep underneath the earth, an eye slowly opened, like an amber fire lit in the blackness of the underworld - as big as the face of the clock on the Ponyville tower. Its black vertical pupil moved and contracted as if trying to focus on the small and fragile world above. Flame erupted from the top of the mountain, melting rock and scorching the sky and the whole of the mountains shuddered and convulsed with a colossal undulating roar that nopony, no matter how smart or patient, could recognise as speech. Yet, if time were to lose all meaning, to compress and contract turning days and weeks into a handful of instances, the roar would spell out a single word. "T-W-I-L-I-G-H-T?" But that, of course, could never happen. *** After the darkness of the cave, the daylight hit Twilight in the eyes, already burnt by the flash of the teleportation spell. She did not focus on her destination when she was casting the spell, so it was no surprise to find out where she ended up. The morning breeze was picking up, bringing cold air filled with the smell of apple blossom. It pierced Twilight’s gown and coat easily, causing her to shiver. Not even ten steps in front of her were the Sweet Apple Acres, surrounded by a white picket fence. It was so much bigger now than it used to be, as the Apple family continued to grow and prosper in the last three generations, adding more nieces and cousins, in-laws and wives, sons and daughters, and grandchildren to its ranks. It was now run by Applejack’s children, after the family matriarch had passed peacefully at the ripe old age of eighty-nine years, surrounded by mourning children and grand-children. Sweet Celestia, it was more than thirty years ago! She never lost her habit for this interjection. It had been almost a hundred years since she was technically Celestia’s equal as a princess. Even though her teacher had, and would always have, thousands of years worth of experience over her, she had already started to see her teacher differently. Yes, the Princess of the Sun was powerful and wise and graceful beyond measure and most of all, almost infinitely kind; but she no longer saw her as the infallible, omnipotent goddess she once was to her faithful student. She had seen Celestia’s mistakes – however small and rare they were - and even had to deal with their causes or consequences once or twice. More than that – Twilight had seen her and been with her during the older Princess’ moments of weakness that almost no pony was privy to when fatigue or despair had turned almost imperceptibly the nigh-all-powerful Sun Princess to an exhausted and dispirited unicorn with wings and millennia of bad memories. She had to walk in her shoes once when all of the Equestrian magic was given to her to protect it. The sheer magnitude of responsibility that fell on her felt like a weight of the sky on the back of Haycules, almost crushing her to dust in the brief time it lasted. Later, she had to take a smaller role as dean of the University of Magic and a princess in her own right. It was exhausting and hard work and it would never, ever stop, her roles and duties only snowballed further as time went on. She even heard her own name gaining use as an interjection, with ponies exclaiming in their exasperation “Twilight make this dimwit understand!” or “If you have not done your homework again, so help me Twilight I will..” And yet… and yet in moments like this, she could not stop herself from calling Celestia’s name and wish for her mentor to be here, with her. The air was full of the sweet smell of apples, young grass, and the earthly scent of recently-ploughed fields. All the enormity of the orchard and farm was quiet – Twilight knew that all of the Apples, from youngest to oldest, had gone to join the procession in the town. She could now go past the well-maintained wooden fence, along the tidy stone road underneath the apple trees, and a few hundred yards on a small hill where wild apples grew, she would find the simple black granite stones. Granny Smith was the first of Apples she knew to leave - an expected and inevitable tragedy. Then - Big Macintosh, followed by his sister not ten years later and Apple Bloom soon after that. Underneath those wild apples, in the earth covered gently by the falling leaves and blossoms, were Applejack and her husband, her first son, her first grandchild and many, many others. Rainbow Dash was the first of her friends to pass, Pinkie Pie was the last. It made no difference, she could not help but think, sometimes, if they left this world surrounded by dozens of grieving relatives, in a small house filled with animals by the edge of the Everfree forest, or in a single instance of a blindingly fast flight. One always crossed the final line alone. Just like she was now. Rainbow Dash – Her Dashie - died in a crash, trying to prove - to herself most of all, that she could still do a Rainboom. A Wonderbolt, fastest Pegasus in all of Equestria for over a decade, she alone of all five of Twilight’s friends could never accept the inevitable march of old age. Inevitable for all but Princess Twilight Sparkle. In the solitude of her rooms, Twilight cried for days. She resolved not to show her tears in public and cried anyway, breaking down in the middle of her speech. Studies into the ageing spells, that according to Celestia and historical chronicles have prolonged Star Swirl the Bearded’s lifespan to impossible lengths, have taken all of her free time for almost a decade and brought her nothing but disappointment. The effects were either temporary and purely cosmetic or required a magic of the deepest and darkest kind, the one that came at a price too high for her friends to be willing to accept it. Dozen years later, Fluttershy had passed away peacefully in her sleep. They found her in her cottage two days later, a weightless, almost transparent body surrounded by thousands of beasts and birds that came to pay their last respects. She did not find out about Rarity for weeks, perhaps even a month. In the Mirror Universe, Princess Twilight Sparkle was locked in combat with Princess Twilight Sparkle. Winning by a hair's breadth and a bit of luck, she returned victorious through the magic mirror only to find out the tragic news. A new Carousel Boutique was opening overseas, and the sailboat she was on with her husband was lost in a terrible storm that followed them from Ponyville. Applejack, the strongest of them and the most enduring, was next in line. Back then, thirty years ago, Twilight Sparkle, as beautiful and powerful as she had ever been, with the first stars blossoming on her evening sky-colored coat and mane, stood between the young apple trees that were planted to mark Granny Smith’s final resting place. The wind was blowing in her mane and stung her eyes, yet Twilight, with a chilling realisation, knew that she could now hold her tears without crying. Now Pinkie Pie was the last one. Her life and times were unbelievable even by the standards of their crazy adventures, and Twilight had long since stopped even trying to rationalise or even understand anything about her. After her hundredth’ birthday, Pinkie had decided to take her well-earned pension and left the mayor’s office, and it was probably then that her age had started to catch up to her. To Pinkie, the objective reality was always more or less a question of preference and style, but her last years spent at the retirement home in Ponyville got really weird. Amidst the peaceful amethyst and lavender coloured walls of her last home, strange things and stranger sightings happened increasingly often. Something was coming, or maybe happening, or maybe it was just Final Summons calling for Pinkie to wherever it is that ponies go after they shed the mortal coil. Summons even Pinkie could not or would not ignore. Thus the circle has been closed. Ponyville grew so much in the passing century. The grand oak that once was her home and library was destroyed and rose again as a Castle of Friendship – which, in turn, was annihilated to the last brick by a giant storm that broke free of pegasi control and escaped to the eastern sea. Here she stood again. Times may change and she may change with them, but again she found herself in an unfamiliar town full of unfamiliar ponies, with nought but a heavy heart, unclear mission and a single friend. Spike had stayed with her through all that time, at least in some sense. He just grew up. Species and subspecies of dragons were uncountable and almost infinite in their variety, never properly studied or classified due to their temper and destructive power, so neither Twilight nor Spike, and not even Celestia herself knew what time would turn the baby dragon into. He never grew any wings; he just grew, and grew, and grew, the world around him becoming ever smaller, ever more fragile. His friends became too tiny, too frail, too quick to follow. Giant and fearsome to behold, he slept for days, then – for weeks and months. Back then, he was still close by, almost the same little dragon that she had hatched from the egg, only bigger and a bit more mature. Her little brother, and in some sense, even her son. Losing Rarity was the final straw that caused him to break away from this world. The world that became too small and unfair for him. Deep inside the Everfree forest, he had made himself a lair underneath a mountain where he dug up tunnels consuming ores and minerals to feed his growth, and slept for years at a time. His dreams were not gentle or peaceful, and every year or so, a land would convulse and mountains shudder as pillars of flame erupted from underneath the earth in a fountain of molten rock and poisonous black smoke. Spike was still her closest friend, the first and last friend she had. Princess Luna, the guardian of every pony’s dreams, had shown Twilight the path to the strange and wondrous land of the Dreaming, but the path to the dreams of dragons was long and treacherous, and even when she managed to reach Spike in his slumber, every time it became harder and harder to talk to him, to make him remember his big sister… Twilight came to a halt. Deep in her thoughts, she never realised where she was going, barely registering that she was moving at all. Sweet Apple Acres and the silent little hill with the wild apple-trees were left far behind her, and she was back again to the edge of the Everfree Forest, its new undergrowth sprouting through the cobblestone of the untended pathway. Fluttershy’s home, covered in ivy, moss and wild grapes, was almost consumed by the forest, as if Everfree itself was eager to make it a part of its infinite canopy, taking her from Equestria. As if it was there that it truly belonged, a place of pilgrimage for all the creatures of the forest. She was yanked from her thoughts by a familiar voice, a deep baritone dripping with poisonous sarcasm. "Why so serious, my little princess?" *** The time broke apart and the sky above the clock tower fell to earth in a whirlwind of debris. Edges and sides of the chronovore formed and shifted, settling in an appearance that defied description and comprehension, and time itself reversed, devouring its own tail… *** "Na-na-na-na, I won, I wo...." - Twilight blew a raspberry towards her friend "Why, you little cheating..." - Rainbow hit her full speed, and both ponies rolled across the plateau… *** …and moving forward in dazing spirals... *** ...when she opened her eyes, it was already over. She stumbled back on her legs, trying to collect the scattering thoughts… *** …finally she managed to force the sequence of events into some semblance of order, with “was”, “is” and “will be” making meagre sense, the rip in the sky was already closing in the greyness behind the monster. Her feelings – her heartache, fear and sadness didn’t matter anymore. Her subjects, all of the town, perhaps all of Equestria, were in danger, and she had to be ready to defend them. She remembered the chronovores. It was quite some time since she met them, but she could clearly recall their ability to suck out and consume the history of anything they touched, how they moved seemingly unconstrained by bounds of time or space. Their adventure in The Caves of Time was hard to call fun or pleasant (for everypony save Pinkie Pie at least) and Twilight never figured out how to defeat a chronovore one on one. Back then, they simply sealed the Caves with the chronovores still inside, but that was not an option she could use here. What should she do now? Her mind was racing, trying to figure out a way to defeat a creature that could control time itself, if within some limits. She could have used some of the Time Magic she knew, but she had barely any experience with this sort of magics, and none of it was really successful. On the other hand, she could… First cries of fear rang across the plaza, as ponies gathered there began to panic at the sight of the monster, and tossing aside all the complex multi-level schemes she was considering as her battle plans, Twilight had to act immediately. Before anypony could get hurt, she cast her teleportation spell, flooding the town in lavender light. Once again, her poor eyes stung from the flash, but shaking her mane, the Princess collected herself. Never had she ever teleported such a crowd with a single spell, and a sudden drain on her magic reserves was staggering. However, she could not flee like others have fled since every piece of consumed history of Ponyville would make the chronovore more dangerous. Now it was just the monster and the Princess in an empty town square. "Whee, Twilight, that was FUN! Now do it on me!" "Pinkie, how are you still…" "Hey, look out!" Still reeling from the effort of the massive spell, Twilight barely started to move before Pinkie tackled her to the ground and the clock tower exploded in a massive fountain of crumbling bricks and rusting cogwheels behind them. (Without the chronovore the clock tower would have stood there for a long time. Its bricks would have been covered by the moss and brass mechanism of the clock would have become green with time. Perhaps even the name of Ponyville itself would have been changed and forgotten before the clock would chime for the last time and the masonry of the tower would collapse under its own weight) The chronovore consumed all of this future in a matter of a second. Hundreds of razor-sharp edges retreated from the remains of the clock tower, searching hungrily for a new target. Those must have been the sides of its multidimensional impossihedral body, stretching and twisting into needles, edges and blades while still being a part of a single, monolithic, unmoving whole. The chronovore was quickly growing, rising from the size of a buffalo he was when he had first appeared to now rising higher than the large houses of Ponyville. A cloud of stone dust had covered the plaza, but before the last pieces of debris had touched the ground, Twilight was already back on her hooves. "Pinkie, run! I cannot spare another teleportation spell right now!" "You are such a silly-filly Twily. We have both just seen that I’ll live for another hundred years. Well, slightly less than hundred years, unless you count the time..." Flapping her wings hard, and barely hearing Pinkie over the howl of the wind in her ears, the Princess rose in the air, distracting the chronovore’s attention. A few needle-razor-things stretched towards her, forcing Twilight to go even faster to avoid them and in a vertigo-inducing loop-de-loop, she dove towards the chronovore. "Return whence you came!" – she shouted out, before releasing all the magic she had left in a blast of pure energy. A purple ray shot from the tip of her horn, piercing the monster clean through, and in a shout that made her heart miss a beat and ears ring, the chronovore’s form had split apart and crumbled onto the bricks in a pile of debris. She sighed in relief and… *** …had covered the plaza, but before the last pieces of debris have touched the ground, Twilight was already back on her hooves. "Pinkie, run! I cannot spare another teleportation spell right now!"... *** "…my little princess, if you do believe you drew the short straw here, why don’t you use that spell on yourself, hm?..." *** "Whee, Twilight, that was FUN!... Hey, wait a second, that had already happened! Ugh, I hate reruns." Twilight shook her head and stood up a second before chronovore’s edges pierced the clock tower behind her and Pinkie. "Pinkie, what is…" "Look out!" She limped to her hooves, as once again she watched the Ponyville clock tower crumble. The chronovore, completely unharmed, was still growing, once again raising his needle-like appendages from the clocktower debris, but this time they weren’t searching – dozens of live blades, humming with energy shot directly towards Twilight. Still drowned in the dust cloud, the Princess dodged blindly, her mind moving as fast as her body. The chronovore controlled time – she should have expected that. As she should’ve known that she would not win this battle through brute strength – even should she pulverise the monster into fine dust, it would merely rewind the time back to when it was still whole. All she could do now was stall for time (no pun intended)… but why was the tower still standing? And why is she feeling just as exhausted as before time was rewound? Three lucky dodges gave her enough space and speed to finally take flight, but she was still trapped between the edges of the chronovore, snipping around her like giant deadly scissors. She rolled across the stones of the plaza, dodging behind the scene, jumping away seconds after the chronovore’s needle-like body had pierced the wooden structure, turning it into a cloud of rot and sawdust. (It was not meant to be a permanent fixture. Soon it would have been carefully disassembled by the townsfolk and the planks would be assimilated - into nice white-picketed fences around Ponyville homes or turned into the see-saws on the playgrounds until they’d find their final resting place burning in some fireplace keeping ponies warm during winter) That future was also taken by the chronovore. There was even less space for manoeuvres now, no place for cover left on an empty plaza surrounded by a dense ring of high houses. She had to take higher in the air, but that avenue of retreat was cut off by now numerous edges of the chronovore. She was trapped. With a thunderous clap, a party-canon shot crashed into the thick of the chronovore’s body, sending myriad cracks spidering across its surface, blowing it to smithereens in a shower of confetti and fireworks, and even though her poor ears were ringing, Twilight could discern Pinkie’s excited shouting. "Ooh! I always wanted to try shooting one of these! Did you see it go, Twilight? " Twilight smiled against her will and rose to her hooves, something small and sharp in her pockets cutting into her flanks. But the chronovore’s shards stirred once again, breaking time apart, and she had started to remember… *** Three lucky dodges have given her enough space and speed to finally take flight, but she was still trapped between the edges of the chronovore, snipping around her like giant deadly scissors… *** ...a deep baritone dripping with poisonous sarcasm. "Why so serious… No, no, no, that will not do. That will not do at all. Enough with the jumping around" – Discord snapped his fingers. "What?"