Anima Mea Tenebre

by Nixus

Origins Pt.2

The night air sent a bitter chill up Dante’s spine as he trudged along the street on his way to the Everfree forest. He was beginning to notice the drop in temperature, even with the fur coat provided in his pony form. Though he knew that the weather teams were responsible for the changing of seasons, Dante could still tell when the subtle shifts of the seasons were beginning. Years on the road had sharpened his senses and being a pony seemed to reinforce them even moreso. It was a useful skill, one that aided travelers who needed to plan their routes without the fear of either being caught in the seasonal blizzards and storms back home.

There were other indicators he could have used as well. The shift in the color of the leaves, slowly morphing from deep greens to vibrant reds, golds, and yellows of autumn. There was the way that the animals scurried and prepared for the coming change even without the aid of the Equestria's citizens. Even the air seemed to follow the change, showing Dante that while the land was magical and dependent on the ponies, there was still a natural order of things. Yet it also served as a reminder to him. The subtle shifts showed him the one fact he did not want to be reminded of. The winter months were approaching.

"We've spent too much time here," he chided himself as he continued walking. The thought was enough to get his mind into overdrive, questioning just how long they had been in Equestria. He wasn't even sure if the land followed the same time patterns as his own. The thoughts frightened him. What seemed like just a short time here might have been an eternity back home. Alternatively, the opposite may have applied as well, with time being much faster in Equestria. Either way, he did not want to leave it to chance. Regardless of how the others felt, he needed to get home.

For all their sakes...

A sharp crunch of stone behind him alerted his senses to another presence. When he turned around, he caught Velvet approaching from behind. Her face had lost all cheer, giving way to a stony look of determination. In Dante's eyes, she looked like a mare on a warpath. However, it didn't take a genius to figure out her goal or where she was heading.

She even beat him for the first word. "I'm coming with you, like it or not. Something hurt my filly, and I want to know what. So you'll either bring me along, or I'll whip it out of you." She pointed to her horn with her hoof and glared at him. "If My daughter is any example, then you know just how strong I could be. So I would suggest leading the way."

Dante nodded in silent agreement as he stepped out of the mare's way. It was a universal law no matter the land or creature. If something harmed or threatened another's young, then that unlucky soul was going to have to deal with an incredibly angry matriarch. Coincidentally, Velvet practically embodied that and more at the present moment.

"Then let's go," she said as she led the way to the everfree, obviously ascertaining the direction Dante was heading by observation and intuition. Unsurprisingly, she also seemed pretty impatient as she turned to Dante and said, "Get moving!"

A half-amused sigh came from Dante as he reflected on the sudden reversal of roles. "As you say, brave and glorious Velvet."

*****

Fascination and awe completely overtook Twilight as another vision ended, leaving her and her guide alone in the vast void once more. They had cycled through almost eight years of Dante's life in what seemed like only minutes. Every major event, every discovery, every lesson, all was laid bare, presented to her with sprinkled commentary from her shadowy guide. Together, they watched Dante grow from a young boy, inexperienced with the methods of magic, into the powerful magician he was today all under his master’s tutelage.

It all seemed to be natural to him as Twilight saw him train in front of her, weaving elemental magic in a fluid dance with his staff as his only partner. Clods of earth and stone sprung from the ground, shooting forward straight through three wooden targets and into the sand pit behind them. As the pieces fell to the ground, four more targets sprung up, only to be decapitated at the same time by four condensed spheres of water. Before she could even blink, the spheres disappeared and were replaced by lightning arcing from Dante's fingers. The remainder of the headless targets then blackened as the spell was aimed towards them. Then, as if to add flair to the display, he finished with by seemingly pushing out a massive circle of fire that scorched the targets and the ground around him.

The display of power, combined with her complete awe of the entire scene, left her practically breathless. While she had witnessed a few examples of his abilities, she never could have imagined that Dante possessed such finesse.

"Incredible..." she breathed as Dante fell onto his back with an exhausted smile. "It was absolutely incredible!"

"Years of devotion to the understanding and practical use of combat magic refined his talent. It is only natural that his ability would grow in tandem," her guide said, resting on his staff while continuing to watch Dante with a smile. There was pride in his eyes for some reason and, Twilight could barely suppress her desire to giggle. He on the other hand, seemed too preoccupied with looking at Dante. "He has always been quite the prodigy."

Twilight lost a bit of control and let out a small giggle. "You sound like my family, always saying how proud they were of me.”

“Do I now?” he asked, raising an eyebrow before he too began laughing. “Perhaps you are right though. I do sound much like a father boasting about his child’s accomplishments.”

A small content sigh left him as the image shifted once again. Twilight had gotten used to the shifts, even if they still made her feel a little queasy. It was much like teleporting someone without telling them first. It made her feel weightless and not in control of her own body, as though she were merely floating through the air once more. Her guide seemed not to be too affected by it though, and a part of her, still thinking of the comment made only moments ago, wondered just who or what this person was.

He also seemed to notice her curiosity with surprising quickness. “You have questions?” he asked, stopping in the middle of the hallway that built itself around them, piece by piece. Twilight pondered a moment before she decided that it was in her best interests to know a little more about him. It may have been a little late at this point, but the image of that thing she saw before she had lost consciousness was still on her mind. For all she knew, he could be it in disguise.

"I have so many, it's hard to know where to start."

He placed a hand on Twilight's shoulder, giving her a little measure of reassurance. "Collect your thoughts and begin with the matter most pressing. We have a few minutes before the end begins."

She took a breath and did as he said, collecting her thoughts and arranging them. "Where am I, how did I get here, why did you really being me here, and who are you?"

The stranger looked unfazed by the questions and simply stood there without the slightest hint of emotion on his face. A few moments passed by and Twilight began to wonder if he was stalling for time. She began to get into a defensive posture when the thought occurred to her that maybe this ghost like being was the thing that had been harassing Dante.

He seemed to notice this and gave her a half-hearted smile. "There is no need to be on guard, I do not intend to harm you."

"How can I trust you? For all I know, you’re just that thing but with a different face. Now answer my questions."

All pretenses of friendliness left his face, replaced by a cold and stony mask. His eyes seemed to grow a little colder, becoming expressionless and blank. Perhaps she had overstepped her boundaries with her comment. A gradual sensation of guilt began to eat at her conscious while he spoke.

"I brought you here to warn you of what's to come," he said. "You are in the void Twilight Sparkle, a liminal space which serves as both a home and a prison to the millions of souls that reside here. I brought you here through Dante's journal, pulling your conscious from the physical realm while I showed you the truth. In essence, I have separated your spiritual and corporeal bodies respectively."

"T-that’s impossible," she stuttered as she backed away. Fear began to creep on her like vines growing over a wall, ensnaring her and causing her to fumble her words. “To split a conscious from its body isn’t feasible. There isn’t any way, magical or not, to take someone’s soul from their body for any amount of time. Not even Starswirl the Bearded or the Princesses would be capable of it. Even if they could, that would cause damage beyond anyone's ability to repair.”

“You think far too narrowly Twilight Sparkle. There are those with magic more powerful than that of even your Princesses. I am not limited to the magic that is restricted to your world, and I could learn more than even your rulers in a fraction of the time it took them to reach their peak. Matters such as separating a soul from its body are but a simple parlor trick to me."

"Who are you?" she demanded, doing her best to stand her ground.

He sighed dejectedly and slowly ran a hand through his hair, unknowingly revealing a large scar that ran along the side if his head. "I am but a shadow of the past, one who lives in this place where I can only watch and relive the sins of my past. And while not directly involved, I am in every way a part of that which has befallen Dante..." He took a short breath as he trailed off, looking towards the image of Dante reading a book as he walked along a hallway that built itself with each step he took. "... And that which is soon to come."

"I don't follow your meaning," she said, her attention not leaving her guide. "How could you be involved in any way if you've spent so long in here? That reasoning doesn't make any sense."

"I could not tell you without putting you and Dante at risk," he replied without emotion. "There are some secrets that are better left hidden. Even Princess Celestia would agree to that."

"What does the Princess have to do with this?"

"Nothing at all, it is just a minor fact. One does not live and rule for an entire millennia without harbouring some secrets or regrets," he answered before something seemed to catch his attention. "It seems we are near to the final stretch of what needs to be seen."

"Oh, well that's go--"

"Well if it isn't the school's resident egghead with his nose in a new book!"

Twilight looked up to see Dante walk into the same young female that she had seen in the picture. Her crimson red hair fell down to her lower back and she stood above a fallen Dante who was rubbing his face after having run into her. A small mischievous grin sat on her face as she placed a hand on her side.

"That's the girl I saw before I passed out. The one in the picture," Twilight said, pointing her hooves at the girl.

Her guide nodded. "Her name was Ersa. It was her that ultimately gave Dante a small measure of joy for a brief while. Though not before she proved to be a source of harassment for a time."

"Tell me horn-boy, because I can't tell with what I've seen. Do you have some sort of sick thing for books? Or is it 'cause you're too much of a nerd that you can't pull your face from them?" the image of Ersa questioned mockingly. The younger Dante sighed irritably. Grabbing his book and rubbing his nose, he walked past her with a scowl.

"I'd rather be reading these then end up an idiotic gorilla like you," Dante shot back. Twilight would have thought that barb would have been enough, but Dante seemed keen in adding further insult to injury while Ersa grew red. "Tell me, when was the last time you read a book that wasn't made up of only childish pictures?"

Twilight and her guide both watched the exchange between the two grow more heated by the second. Where Ersa would take to verbal attacks, Dante would strike back with well thought out retorts. Both kept their emotions limited to a degree, but the argument was growing more heated by the second.

Twilight almost had to remind herself that this was Dante she was viewing. She had never seen him show any emotion to this degree unless she counted the recent happenings. To see him act like this was an entirely different experience altogether. It fascinated her to no end, but the argument proved to be a little more than taxing on her patience.

"How long are they going to stand around and insult each other?"

Her guide looked to the wall clock that hung in the hallway and groaned slightly. "We still have at least a half hour of this. Shall I attempt to fast forward this particular encounter?"

"Please do..."

*****

"ACHOOO!"

"Bless you," Velvet said on cue. Dante wrinkled his snout in an attempt to halt the lingering need to sneeze again. A few seconds passed before the tickle inside his nostril ebbed away. Velvet seemingly smiled as Dante's nose twitched. "Seems someone is talking about you behind your back."

Dante shook his head. "I think it's something in this forest."

"Could be that as well, but that isn't going to slow down the brave Dante on his trip to the mysterious Everfree is it?" she teased, prompting Dante to roll his eyes.

"I'm beginning to wonder how you and Twilight are related." he said passively. "It almost seems like you're the wild teenage while she's the serious mother figure. I would even go so far as to think that you're doing this on purpose."

"A mare can live a little, can't she? It isn't often I can just leave Canterlot and let my mane down. Besides, if it's the young motherly look you want, I can do that too~"

"And that confirms my suspicions," Dante moaned as he trudged past a laughing Velvet. He wore his own unintentional smile that had grown without his knowing. "Come on Velvet, we need to keep going."

"I have to wonder," Velvet began as they continued down the trail, "do you know where you're going? We seem to just be going in circles.

Dante grimaced. They had been walking for well over three hours searching for any signs of the area where the stone giant lay broken. Yet for all their searching, they found little of any remains. Searching for a giant statue was a lot easier when it was tearing a path through the woods. Instead, he had to rely on subconscious memory in order to figure out just where they were going.

"I really have no idea," he admitted. "When we ran out to help Sam, I wasn't able to make any markers or find any landmarks. The only thing I do know is that we left it in pieces and that there was a lake in the area."

"Well at least that certainly narrows things down a bit," Velvet said as her horn ignited. Dante cocked an eyebrow, curious as to what Velvet intended to do. To his surprise, a small wisp of magic ebbed out and attached itself to the twin ends of his horns.

"Velvet? What is this?

"Shh, I'm trying to concentrate," she said with a furrowed brow. "This spell is very finicky, so I need you to be still and quiet. If you don't, I can't say what will happen. I've only used it once before."

He rolled his eyes and smirked. "I've only known you for a few hours, but now I see where Twilight gets her compulsion to try out spells without thinking ahead of time."

"Am I going to have to cast a spell that makes you quiet?"

"No ma'am," Dante said jokingly. His smirk faltered slightly and he quickly returned to his usual neutral gaze. He was getting far too friendly with this mare. Being friendly led to openness, which in turn led to friendships or even deeper feelings. Such things would only come back to bite him in the end.

He learnt that the hard way and he had no desire to go through it another time...

“I have it,” Velvet stated as a secondary line of magic that grew from her horn and snaked out into the bushes. Slowly it grew thick and eventually, after a while, it snapped off from her horn. When it hit the ground, it slowly sunk into the earth and began to glow with a soft light. Dante nodded approvingly of the lit path in front of them. Velvet in turn, took charge and began walking alongside the line. “Come along now, we’re wasting time just standing here.”

Dante nodded silently and followed here. In truth, he was now extremely thankful that Velvet had decided to head out alongside him. Without the pathway spell, he might have traversed the everfree for even longer. He could have guessed that intuition and gut feeling would only lead him so far, but even then there was no way to ensure that he actually found what he was looking for. In fact, they were able to traverse the everfree with relative ease thanks to it avoiding the obstacles that would have normally hindered their progress.

“I haven’t been entirely truthful with you, Dante,” she spoke suddenly, catching him off guard. “There was another reason I came to ponyville. One besides coming to see Twilight and simply visiting for a few days. I also came to inspect you as well.”

Dante cocked his head to the side, confused by her explanation. “I know, you told me this when we first met. You said you wanted to get a measure of who was staying with Twilight.” He frowned slightly, his brow furrowing in thought. “That was only a little while ago.”

“That’s not it exactly,” she admitted. Dante’s ears perked up and he went silent as Velvet rubbed her foreleg. The mare was nervous, he knew that, but he was more interested in what she had to say. Perhaps there was more to the Sparkle family than he actually knew. Though he could only listen and figure out what exactly it was Velvet was looking at in regards to him. “I have been looking at you because of what I’ve heard about you from both Twilight and the Princess. In truth, I came here, watched you, talked to you, and tagged along all for the purposes of trying to understand you. It was something that the Princess asked of me.”

"So you're here to spy on me for the Princesses.” His tone took on a defensive edge and he hoped that Velvet took the hint on his disposition towards the subject. Though she hadn’t begun to even speak about the specifics of her little ‘mission’, he had a feeling where it was going. If it came to that, he would make sure that Velvet would know that she was treading on thin ice, even if she had helped him. He knew it may have seemed harsh from an outside perspective, but having someone attempt to study him and uncover his thought process, or the reasons for it, was something he could not abide by.

“No of course not!” she said. “It’s just that with what Twilight has told us, there is obviously something more to you than. Celestia even said that she saw it when you first met. She only wants to know-”

“If I’m a danger to the kingdom, or if I intend to cause any disturbances despite the fact I had told her we wouldn’t,” he interrupted, glaring at Velvet. “I know how this goes. It isn’t the first time I’ve been judged because of who or what I am, Velvet. If she wants me gone, tell her I’m gladly working on it and I’ll be out of her hair soon enough.”

“No, that isn’t it either,” she stated a little more forcefully. In fact, to Dante’s surprise, she seemed to be using a sort of tone that reminded him of a mother scolding a child. “If you would listen for a second, I will tell you why Celestia had me come down here.” She let out a huff of annoyance before running a hoof through her hair, smoothing over a few messy strands that had popped out. “I swear, talking to the younger generations is like talking to a brick wall.”

“If it isn’t to spy on me and to get rid of me, then what is it?.”

“They’re concerned about you, Dante. Can’t you see that?” she said, placing a hoof on his shoulder. “In her letters, Twilight always seems to talk about you, but it’s always the same thing each time. Either it’s, “he seems far too preoccupied with returning home, or he distances himself from any sort of connection”. She even wrote that when she attempted to talk to you and learn about you, you simply brushed her off. Not even Twilight was this reclusive when she was Celestia’s student.”

"I'm not Twilight, and I don't need your concern," Dante said with enough hostility to make Velvet cringe. "Now let's get on with this. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can help Twilight so she can help me get the spell ready."

"What was it that traumatized you? What caused such a young colt to become so guarded against the world?"

"Traumatized?"

"Reclusive behaviour, constantly on guard, avoidance of anything which reminds you of a certain issue, emotional numbness. All of these are signs you've experienced something traumatic." Her hoof prodded his chest, slightly above his heart before moving and cupping his chin. She forced him to look her in the eye as she examined him. "You fear emotional attachment, so you wish to leave Ponyville before you truly feel anything for Twilight and her friends." Her eyes narrowed and the grin that had once been there had become only a determined line. "So what was it that changed the mind of Dante?"

He practically smacked her hoof away as he recoiled. "Don't Velvet, I am not doing this. It doesn’t matter anymore."

"Honey, I have a doctorate in psychiatric medicine. I can help you with this. If it didn’t matter to you, then you wouldn’t be thinking about it or beating yourself up over it."

“No Velvet, we both know how this will go; you will tell me that what happened was not my fault, and that I should put it behind me, while I will continue to think myself unworthy of being friends with anyone. Trying to convince me otherwise is pointless. I know what I caused and I know that it was completely my fault."

"Why do you blame yourself? No one should live with this much guilt."

"Because I could have prevented it, I could have saved them all. Instead, I got cocky and they suffered for it. It is that plain and simple."

"Who are 'they'?"

He clapped a hoof over his mouth, cursing the brief rant he had just gone on. He had already fallen into that sense of comfort with Velvet; something he couldn't allow. It made him lose his edge, his only barrier between exposure and safety. He couldn't afford to keep talking. If he did, he knew things would never be the same.

"Forget it," he muttered, storming off. Velvet followed him in tow as they used the lines to navigate further into the forest. It soon became arduous with the foliage growing thicker and thicker as they marched further in. Eventually, Dante was forced to cast a few spells and he utilized the water in the ground to form a few whips. It proved effective as they practically tore through the bushes and left a path behind them.

By the time they reached the hole, the sun had begun to rise, casting a few rays of sunshine into the clearing and turning the sky into a brilliant shade of red and orange. It illuminated the area, showing the remnants of trees, the fur roughed created by giant stone feet, and the massive hole that gaped in the ground.

"Sweet Celestia, what could have caused this?" Velvet murmured beneath her breath. Dante's gaze hardened and he stared at the darkened tunnel within the hole.

Something about it didn't sit well with him.

"It was a giant statue animated by an intelligent ooze creature." He pointed into the tunnel. The action caused Velvet to swallow nervously as she glanced at it. "It came from in there. So if we want to figure out its origin, we go in there."

With that, and before Velvet could even react, he jumped into the hole and was swallowed by the darkness.

Author's Note:

If anything seems odd, or you have any complaints about this chapter or the one before it, just go ahead and comment about it or PM me. I wasn't sure how people liked the last one so I took a bit of time to try and refine this chapter. Don't worry, the next chapter is done and just awaiting editing.

See you till then!