There was once in the town of Ponyville a mare named Twilight Sparkle.
She lived and loved and sang and talked and walked and raced and read, as ponies are wont to, and she did these things in contentment. That she was, strictly speaking, a princess did very little to change this. She was by all accounts blameless and upright, doing good and shunning evil as best as a pony could be expected to--and often with more success than the average pony could claim.
She owned a castle in the center of Ponyville, and lands beyond the forest that were a gift from her once-liege. Some said that she was the greatest pony that had lived in centuries, but she never said this of herself. She hosted her closest friends in comfort and security every week, feasting them and asking after them, and often she gave them gifts, crafted by her own magic with love, for she was ever saying in her heart that a mage’s work was never done.
On this day, that had so often found Twilight of Ponyville up bright and early with coffee in hand found her sitting in bed, rubbing her eyes.
Waking up and bursting into tears is not a good way to begin a day.
Not that she understood those tears, really. She’d laid in bed, feeling strange, and then had come the rushing sadness, and then the scrambled thoughts of breakfast and Spike and the old library and the smell of books and the sound of the stairs beneath her feet and the coughing as the ashes hung in the air…
It had just been a lot to handle. But she was alright now. Not in that she suddenly felt happy again, because she didn’t. The morning was sort of spoiled, but it wasn’t as if a spoiled morning was the end of the world. She’d lost a lot to Tirek, and she’d had nightmares for weeks. One day, they would stop for good--all of the other threats and monsters had faded. So would he. They all did. She was always the last one standing.
Twilight sighed for perhaps the fifteenth time since she’d sat down, and at last Rarity could stand it no more.
“Twilight, I say this with all due love, but if you sigh even one more time I will be forced to take drastic measures.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow at her. “Drastic measures?”
“Very drastic.”
“So are we talking--”
“We are going to talk about nothing but what is troubling you,” Rarity said firmly.
Before Twilight could object, the third member of their party coughed and both mares paused to look at her.
Fluttershy sank slightly into the bath before straightening up and clearing her throat. “If Twilight doesn’t want to tell us, we shouldn’t bully her into it.”
Rarity gave both of them a sheepish grin. “Perhaps.”
Twilight spared a grateful smile of her own at Fluttershy before turning back to Rarity.
“Honestly,” she began, “it’s alright. Stars know I should be fine talking about it, especially with you girls. It’s… dreams, really.”
There was a beat of silence as Fluttershy shifted in the water, and then she spoke. “Well, um… what sort of dreams, Twilight? Bad dreams? Oh dear… What about?”
“Tirek.”
Rarity huffed. “Ghastly.”
Twilight smirked. “Yes, that’s as good a word as any. It’s… I mean, it isn’t that big of a deal. Nightmares can’t hurt you, after all. When Tirek was gone, and my house and… I had bad dreams for a while, and that was normal, and then they stopped.”
“But it leaves you out of sorts,” Rarity offered. She hummed. “That also seems natural, darling. Perfectly so. Do you wish to talk about it? The attack, the library?”
“No, no I’ve dealt with all that.” She shrugged. “I just feel… I don’t know. Down.”
“Well, that’s no good. We’ll have to rectify that,” Rarity said.
“Aloe’s massage can outdo any bad dream,” Fluttershy said, and chuckled. “We can distract you. And if you don’t feel better with us, we can always take you to Sugarcube Corner.”
“Yes, Pinkie is sure to dash any nightmare’s stranglehold,” Rarity added, sliding closer. “And besides, you’ve been cooped up all week! I say we make a day of it. I know I have no pressing plans.”
“I’m okay with that,” Fluttershy said.
And Twilight smiled at them both. “Thanks, girls. I’ll shake it off.”
In strangest climes Luna lay dreaming. Around her--mostly void, partially dreams.
They hung there like bizarre ornaments, as if the aether were dressed for holidays that never came. Or, perhaps, they were like clouds, amorphous and journeying towards whatever final destination awaited them at the wind’s will and whim.
Luna did not watch them for long. Her gaze slid off.
The one dream she could not lose track of was secure once again between her hooves, shining and brilliant.
Twilight’s dreams were bright, usually. Luna had always liked that about her. Some souls dreamt in chaotic, dim fuss. Others were shockingly lucid. And then, lastly, there were souls like Twilight’s that dreamed in vivid color. These souls were the curious and the brilliant, the creators and the artists. These she remembered.
Luna rarely found the silence of the Aether bothersome, but now it irked her. It was so… so very full.
The Aether bent and she conjured up an image of her sister. Shining, regal even here, Celestia smiled.
“Good evening.”
The voice was… no, it was accurate. Perhaps, at most, a bit too saccharine. Such was the nature of a simulcrum, of course.
“Hello, sister,” she said.
“Where have you come from?” Celestia asked her, or rather Luna asked herself with the puppet whose eyes were bright.
“To and fro,” she told Celestia and herself. “To and fro among the many earths that ponies can imagine.”
“Have you considered my servant, Twilight?” the Puppet Celestia asked, and her voice became mocking and sharp. “How she is blameless and perfect and untouchable? How she is faithful? Oh, no one can question her. Absolutely, her faith is assured and I trust her with everything.”
The puppet went rigid as Luna warred with herself. There was a long silence.
“And why shouldn’t she be faithful?” Luna asked, at length. Each word came out ponderous, slow. “Have you not provided for her? No, that is not what I mean to say. What cause has she had to grow suspicious of the world?” Another long pause. “No. Let me begin again.”
“Does Twilight fear Celestia for nothing? Fear and love, of course. Has anything been taken by your hoof, and have you spoiled any of her living? What lonely nights she has had, contemplating her place in the fears of ponykind. Yes, of course, what authentic faith and devotion has she to harmony.”
Luna sighed and did away with simulcrum.
It was the second night. It was time.
Truth be told, she could stop. She could simply be happy with Celestia’s words and Twilight’s friendship. She could try, if nothing else. With time, the sidelong glances would seem less searching. The shuffling hooves would seem less nervous. The whispers would just be whispers and nothing more. They would not mean anything.
But in the end, as she had done every night for so long, she refused.
There was a part of her that longed for the Tantabus. But that was a dead end. It was too dangerous, too volatile. She had tried, a month after the incident in Ponyville, to create a second one. At first, she told herself it was nothing more than curiosity. She was simply testing her own limits, seeing if she could have prevented the near-tragedy of the Tantabus.
Twilight and her friends… she wasn’t sure anymore. Certainty dried up like a river in the desert, given time. Their words had meant something then, but with every night they had sounded hollower and hollower.
And the yawning pit, the ever-hungry thing that lodged in her bosom kept yearning. It kept calling, and the more she starved it the more it insisted, and if she could not feed it with the Tantabus’ torments she would find something else.
She began to spin a dream for Twilight.
Perhaps… yes, perhaps a great tower in the frigid north. As far north as she could fly before the air itself froze her wings into solid useless blocks. She would build there a great prison and wander it for centuries. A maze of cold stone and sharp blades. A babel of agony. Or maybe if that would not serve, if that would be too inward-seeking, she would do her best to recreate it. Perhaps if she barked more at the servants. Perhaps if she met the wondering glances and let just the tiniest bit of her Glory show, that they might see or feel…
She finished. This dream would be better than the first. Far better. It had to be.
And, with a gesture, she set the vibrant soul of Twilight Sparkle spiralling. And she watched. And she waited. And perhaps, there was a part of her that prayed for what she could not guess at, some sort of peace.
When we think of ascension we think in terms that are absolute. Generally, in absolute surety that what comes after shall be whole and beautiful, or that it shall be complete and powerful, or that it shall at the very least be unblemished. It makes sense, after all. There’s a correlation of sorts between rising and fullness—a foal grows up after all. As a thing increases in stature so it increases in skill and guile and might, so the thinking goes.
Not often does talk of growing up or growing greater engender in the mind the possibility of failure—at least, not to the uninitiated, or at least not at first. Few think of growing older and immediately think, as a child, of the slow decline of years that leads a pony towards feeble legs and feebler mind. Few parents see their foals grow and dwell often upon how accident or disease might take away their running or their flying or their magic or warp their bones.
But Luna thought sometimes on these things, and now so would Twilight.
Her ascension was the cause for much celebration. Canterlot rejoiced—no, more than that, it exploded with joy as every street was filled with onlookers eager to catch a last glimpse at the newest princess before she entered the holiest place in all of the principality. One final glance of it’s favorite daughter was what the whole of the ancient city wished for, before Twilight Sparkle gave up her old form and was reborn.
Twilight stood before the gilded doors, shifting from hoof to hoof.
“Nervous?” Celestia asked from beside her.
Twilight looked up and saw her radiant, matronly smile and slowly she stilled.
“Obvious, huh?”
“Very.”
“I’m just… It’s kinda big, you know.”
“Of course,” Celestia said smoothly. Her hoof touched Twilight’s shoulder softly, just out of sight of Twilight’s eyes, for the door took up her whole vision. It was like that door just warped the whole world around it. “It’s only natural to feel some trepidation, my faithful Twilight. It’s perfectly reasonable, given what you know. How about this: even though you must enter the chamber alone, I promise you that you will be safe and sound. I will protect you from harm, so much as it is within my not-so-insignificant power.”
Twilight smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. I trust you, obviously. I know you wouldn’t let anything happen. I’m sorry I’m so nervous.”
“There’s no need to be sorry.” Celestia nuzzled against her cheek. “Go on, Twilight. Go to your destiny. I’m so proud of you.”
Twilight, flushed, nodded. She stepped forward.
The door opened with a push of Celestia’s magic, and when she had passed through, it closed behind her with finality.
Twilight lay as she had lain for days: groaning, broken. In the dark of the sanctuary, where little light entered, only two a few disturbed her agony.
And it was agony. Pain that was both searing and deep, both omnipresent and intermittent--there was always the dull pain in between peaks of intense suffering as her body struggled to right itself. It could not, or had not so far.
The attack was at its peak. Her horn was afire—not merely figuratively, but literally aflame with raw, wild arcane energy. Her malformed wings tried to extend and failed. Her legs, twisted by magic that her body had not been equal to and burned from within, spasmed.
Fire was the only way to describe the experience. Fire in her veins. Fire in her wings, in her hooves, in her eyes. It was like feeling every square inch of her body whilst on a pyre.
And eventually it passed. They always did. The fire left her. The magic died down. Her body slumped back into a limp waste.
Twilight Sparkle panted in the darkness, glad that her suffering was not witnessed. Sometimes, it was. Sometimes she had visitors.
There would be a visitor soon, at least one. There was no way for her to tell which of them it might be, though she supposed they came regularly. Keeping track of time was difficult at best. Day and night were equally dark and equally marked by flare-ups.
Sweat rolled down the faithful student’s face slowly, itching the whole way down to the floor, but she couldn’t do much but shake her head weakly. It didn’t help. Her mane, also soaked through, shifted and clung to her cheek.
That was about when the door opened.
Twilight closed her eyes, but she still saw the lights from outside for a brief second and writhed.
The door shut quickly, and then silence returned apart from her own ragged breath and sounds she recognized easily—two others were with her in the sanctum, and she had an inkling as to which two.
“No Celestia?” she said.
A low chuckle. “Of course not.”
That would be Sunset.
“She’s a busy mare, and you are… Well. You’re not exactly a top priority for the ruler of the Empire, are you?”
And that would be Starlight.
“Hello, girls.”
“I won’t lie, Twilight, it isn’t exactly a pleasure to see you like this,” Sunset said. Twilight’s eyes were still closed, and so she heard rather than saw the mare’s progress. “When was the last attack?”
“I don’t know,” Twilight answered. “Soon? Not long ago?”
A soft humming noise in her ear. Sunset on her left, Starlight before her. The clacking of hooves on tile.
“Your fallen estate has left you rather imprecise, hasn’t it?” Starlight tsked and Twilight felt the light touch of somepony else’s magic on her coat. She tried not to think of it. She tried not to think about magic at all, to be honest. “That’s to be expected. Not much has changed here. What do you think, Shimmer?”
“Much the same, Glimmer.”
“It’s a shame, really, don’t you think?”
“A shame.”
“To see the high and mighty—”
“—fallen so low.”
Twilight ground her teeth together. “Are you done?”
“Never, it seems,” Sunset said.
“What, do you want Celestia to come?”
Twilight opened her eyes.
Starlight Glimmer, junior student of the Empress of the Eternal Sun, leered at her from only a few paces away, face close to the floor so as better to grin with her flat star-point teeth in the gloom. “Pining?” she asked. “Hanging on to the hope she’ll come by again?”
Twilight tried to curse but coughed, and one cough became two and soon she was heaving and the two ponies who had come to her had backed up.
She did not stir when she was done beyond saying, “Are you done?”
“Hardly.”
“We have a check up to finish, after all.”
“You’re here to torment me,” Twilight said. Her voice was not flat, because that would imply she could control her tone at all. It was like sandpaper. It sounded like what a perforated face looks like.
“One torments a pony, not a curiosity,” Starlight said, and her horn lit up again. Twilight tried not to think. Again.
“A bit on the nose, at least, don’t you think? Come now.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“The routine doesn’t usually get that bad.”
There was a moment of silence.
“So, you expect Celestia,” Starlight said. Again.
“You always have,” Sunset added.
“And yet here you are.” Starlight hummed and from the dark she summoned parchment. Diagrams, notes, all sorts of things whirled about her. “Limp like wet noodles, cold as ice, with no sun. Honestly.”
“She comes to see me,” Twilight said. “You know she does. Don’t pretend she doesn’t. We both… know she does.”
Starlight shrugged.
“She does many things. Who am I to keep track of her days?”
“I won’t be shy. I am one to keep track of her, days and ways alike,” Sunset said, this time from the opposite side. “I am noticing some deterioration in the wings. Do you see that reflected in her aura?”
Starlight just grimaced.
“Why do you do this?” Twilight asked.
“Because you need to wake up,” Starlight said.
“Because someone’s got to show you that she’s…”
But Sunset never finished that sentence. Twilight tore her eyes from Starlight’s charts long enough to see the shadowed face of Sunset twisted by some memory that passed.
“She doesn’t really care,” Sunset said, tone softer now. “You do know that, right? Not really, really care.”
“At least, not about you,” Starlight grumbled.
“Because you’re out of the way now, don’t you get it?”
“You’re a non-entity.”
“A non-threat,” they said together.
A strange thing happened. Twilight watched as they went stock still, like abandoned puppets, before jumping to attention with new concern written across their faces. Or, well, across Sunset’s face. Starlight’s smirk faded into a grim line.
“Twilight, we do this because it’s better if she thinks that the two of us hate you. That we’re just…”
Starlight snorted. “Mindless. Bitches with issues, as I believe its been said.”
“I think there’s a bit more honesty with her than with myself,” Sunset said, stepping closer, hesitating, stepping again. “Twilight, we see things.”
“Things you’d see if you’d open your damn fool eyes.”
“Just… listen.”
Twilight stared. This was new. This was beyond new. It was practically incomprehensible.
“It’s not to say that I don’t dislike you,” Starlight said. “Because I do, a lot. You’re high and mighty, whether you mean to be or not. You’re always lording it over everyone! Look at me, Celestia loves me, blah blah. Et cetra. So no, I don’t like you. Your blind to your own position of power.”
“And we’ve never really been friends,” Sunset said, and now the two tormentors stood together. “But I don’t dislike you. I have found you frustrating before. I have, perhaps, resented your share of the sunlight. But now that you’re here…” She shrugged. “My heart isn’t in it, past convincing the Empress. And she stops listening after a while.”
“You need to start asking why this happened,” Starlight said. “You need to stop hiding from the truth!”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Twilight said, and winced. “Please, just… say what you mean. Or go away. Please.”
“Haven’t you wondered why this happened? Even a little? Things happen for a reason,” Starlight insisted, eyes afire. “Lyrae, that guides the steps of mares, but you are dense. Celestia walks you to this very room, sets all of this up, decides that you are to ascend. You, the special one, above all of us others… and then it goes wrong. Does that not seem suspicious to you?”
“No!” Twilight said, as forcefully as she could. “Not… not the way you mean! She swore to me.”
“Did she now?” Sunset perked up and leaned down to look her in the eye. “What did she say, Twilight?”
Twilight took a deep breath and tried not to release it in pained shock. Even breathing hurt, even that. She tried to make sense of what was happening right in front of her.
The routine. The routine was simple. When Sunset and Starlight came, they gloated and provoked and questioned her—things happen for a reason, don’t they? You must have done something wrong. Or been wrong somehow!—and they took their measurements and then left. Celestia came sometimes, and she sat in the darkness with Twilight, except that it wasn’t dark when she visited.
It started that way, didn’t it? But when she sat down, always right in front of Twilight, the Empress of All Equestria began slowly to glow, and as she settled herself the light grew until she shone like the sun whose image she bore. She would say such lovely things. She always vowed to find some cure. She…
“She said she would keep me from harm,” Twilight said.
“Did she?”
“She said,” Twilight continued as if she had not heard, “that she would find a way to save me. That she works and her students work and the archmage himself works, all of them working. Tirelessly.”
“And you believe her?”
Twilight flicked her eyes up to Starlight for a moment. “You two are here, aren’t you? Like… clockwork.”
Sunset shrugged. “Fair.”
But before Twilight could press, Starlight leaned back into the attack. “Yes, here under orders and all, but let’s not pretend that anyone looking at our charts knows how to read them.”
Her companion nodded. “Right. This isn’t the sort of problem either of us know how to fix, but you already know that. What might elude you is the fact that none of us know what we’re doing. Only one pony has the knowledge required.”
“Only one has the skill and the control and the insight.”
“And that one sits upon her golden throne while you, Twilight, languish. Perhaps this is the throne she meant for you, hm?”
Twilight closed her eyes again and laid her head as flat against the floor as she could. This, too, hurt.
She tried to speak but her throat was dry, and so while she gagged, Sunset made a last advance.
“At the very least, she’s failed you. Can’t you see that? If you’re going to say that she wasn’t the one driving the ascension, that it was the room or the ceremony or whatever, then don’t. She didn’t prepare you adequately. She could have prevented this, and that’s only if you buy that it was an accident.”
“This is ridiculous,” Twilight said. “Why would she cause it? And… and it isn’t her fault. I just…”
“You just know, don’t you, that she didn’t cause this.” Starlight groaned. “This is why you frustrate me so much, Twilight Sparkle. Blind and eager to please. I can’t believe you’re the one who used to teach me.”
“She has a point,” Sunset said, and she shrugged. “C’mon Twilight, don’t be stupid.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, at least the stupid have an excuse,” grumbled Starlight. “Let’s just go. We can talk to Tri—”
Twilight felt a pressure building in her throat, and only her anger prevented her from calling out before it was too late. So lost was she in pinning her tormentors down with words, wrestling with them over her diseased body, that she didn’t notice the burning sensation that spread from her chest to her extremities.
Her jaw clamped tight. Magic gathered along the length of her horn and creeped, alive, down her face and neck, like liquid eletricity. She writhed as it stung her and pushed and pulled her. She writhed when the pain of moving required some sort of outlet and her jaw was clenched shut and would not come open.
“Star! Star, I think she’s—”
“I see it.”
“What do we do?”
“Nothing. You feel this, Twilight? You were her greatest student,” Starlight hissed. Twilight only barely heard her. The magic was taking her sight and her hearing again, plunging her into an deep, dull roar. “She either did this to you herself, let it happen, or couldn’t prevent it. And you’re alright with that, aren’t you? You’ll just take it, because you’re a glutton for punishment if she’s the one brandishing the whip!”
Sunset stepped forward. “Star, we should—”
“We should just let her suffer. Like her teacher,” Starlight said, cutting her off. “She’ll see. She’ll ask the right questions and when she does, maybe she’ll finally grow up—”
Twilight woke suddenly in her bed, eyes opening wide and seeing nothing.
It was the featureless blackness above that really grabbed her wildly beating heart and crushed it like a grape, not the dream but the horrible fight-or-flight right after, as she tried to move and found herself wrapped in a maze of covers. Her struggle only seemed to make things worse, and with a frustrated grunt Twilight Sparkle found herself rolling off the side of her bed and hitting the hard floor.
She lay there, dazed and astonished, wings freeing themselves and half-extending awkwardly. How much noise had she made? In the moment, everything had seemed so loud but now it seemed so…
So empty. Silent.
Twilight was alone.
Luna released Twilight’s dream with as much gentleness as she could. Unfortunately, she could afford little gentleness. The dream shattered, and she had no energy or focus to waste on it.
She seethed. The Aether around her roiled, stormlike, flashing and chaotic. For a moment, its incoherency seemed almost to coalesece into something. But with a few moments, a few long and deep breaths, Luna regained her composure enough that the immaterial world around her settled back into its incoherent, gentle drifting.
The dreams floated on, winking in and out. But Twilight Sparkle’s dream did not join them again for some time. She looked for it, hungrily searched, and when at last Twilight Sparkle had arrived she gently captured the dream and brought it to rest with her and she guarded it and she blessed it. And she began to worry.
It was not about Twilight Sparkle that she worried.