Time and Space in Harmony

by Inkspots

Chapter 9

Time and Space in Harmony

by Inkspots

Chapter 9

“We need to find those skeletons before they get back to Taraxipos,” Dark Matter said.

Twilight turned from Spike and nodded her head.

“Fliers, let’ go, everypony else, defend the camp until Fluttershy gets here, then Jade, Pinkie, come with her to the Royal Arsenal,” Twilight called out.

Twilight, Dark Matter, and Rainbow Dash leapt out of the second story window and started flying towards the Royal Arsenal, scanning the ruins and forest beneath them for some sign of the skeletons. They passed over the palace grounds, then through the Ancient District.

“How fast can skeletons even move?” Dash asked.

“I don’t know, I’ve never faced the undead,” Dark Matter replied. “In fact, I don’t think anyone has faced a necromancer in several thousand years.”

Twilight knew. She had read the last reliable account of a necromancer fighting ponies. It was roughly two thousand six hundred years ago when a necromancer took up residence in the Canterlot Cemetery. He chased away any mourners with skeletal minions, and when the Royal Guard came, they had to fight their way through the undead to reach him in the Royal Mausoleum. The records stated that ten members of the Royal Guard died in the assault. It was one of the reasons cremation had become the standard practice by the modern era.

They were flying over the lake now, certain of the horrible prospect that the skeleton had returned to its master. The Royal Arsenal was glowing in the dusk on the far side of the lake, turning the surface of the water a sickly green color. They flew up to the main gate, and there, on the battlement, hovered a dark cloud.

“Hello little rebel Princess, have you been enjoying my palace?” Taraxipos asked.

“Where are the Elements you stole?” Twilight demanded.

“Such a rude tone? And when I’ve been so generous as to let you squat in my palace and play with my pet golems,” Taraxipos said. “I could make things much more uncomfortable for you,” he began chuckling. “I thought about it, and I’m so very glad you’ve decided to stay, despite my warning. I have thought of something so much better to do with you, Princess, than eat you.”

“Give us the Elements or we’re going to come in there and take them,” Twilight said.

“Hm, well, perhaps, you might be able to breach this barrier with your Element alone, true, but, oh I wouldn’t recommend it. Take for instance your little yellow friend here,” Twilight turned to see Fluttershy riding Oscar up to the Arsenal with Jade and Pinkie in tow. “I have her Element, and magically speaking I might as well have a claw wrapped around her heart. If you attack me, well,” Fluttershy’s pendant emerged from the haze of Taraxipos’ form and he cast a black aura around it. Behind her, Twilight heard Fluttershy cry out in pain. Twilight turned and watched Fluttershy fall off Oscar and lay, twitching on the ground. After a moment it stopped. “That was a very mild demonstration. I could kill her and the other one in an instant. I hope you know at least enough about magic to see that I’m not bluffing.”

Twilight felt her face growing hot with rage, her teeth were grinding together.

“I have made you upset, it seems.”

Twilight stopped. She relaxed, remembering what had happened the last time she had fallen for Taraxipos’ taunts.

“Well you haven’t killed them yet, so what do you want?” Twilight asked.

“I want you, Princess,” Taraxipos said. “A simple trade, you, for these two baubles.”

“Why, so you can kill me?” Twilight asked.

“Why should I tell you? I’ve outlined the trade, those are the terms, you have until morning. You can tell when it’s morning, right?” Taraxipos asked, then laughed.

“We’re never going to give you Twilight,” Dash yelled out.

“Ugh, really, I have no interest in talking to a peasant, Element or not,” Taraxipos replied. “I’m going now, this has become boring. Until morning, Princess.”

“Wait,” Twilight called out. “How did you learn modern Equestrian?”

“Oh? Ohohohohoo, little pony, you have these moments of intelligence that shock me. So many things you could learn, so many things you could infer from an answer to that question. And yet on the surface it seems so innocuous. No, I’m not going to answer that. Go away and gnash your teeth over your decision, and then I’ll see you in the morning.”

* * * * * *

“Well there’s just no arguing it,” Applejack said.

“You’re right, I have to give myself up,” Twilight replied.

“What? No, that’s not what I meant at all and you know it,” Applejack said.

The entire expedition was up on the roof of the palace tower. After their camp had been breached, Dark Matter had demanded they move camp to a more defensible position. So now the entire camp was up on the roof of the tower. Pinkie and Jade had moved massive marble blocks in front of all of the entrances and stairs. Now the camp was circled around Quick Fix’s containment device, which had been slowly coming together, but was now constantly under construction.

“What choice do I have? He could kill you and Fluttershy at any moment, he could kill you right now, while we’re sitting here,” Twilight insisted.

“And if you give yourself up, then what? I think he’s made it right clear there are things worse than death, and he knows how to do ‘em,” Applejack replied.

“I can’t risk both of your lives though,” Twilight said. “Think about it that way, even if I die or worse, but it saves two of my friends, how could I not make that choice?”

“Why make the choice, why can’t we turn the tables?” Dash chimed in. “We can breach the barrier, let’s sneak in and take those pendants back.”

“How?” Dark Matter asked. “How do we take them out of his very body without him noticing?”

“Well I don’t know, magic? But how can we play his game?” Dash said.

“If anything, he wants us to sneak in, he wants us to make some snap decision,” Twilight cut Dash off. “He used me to break out of the containment device, and at the Arsenal he tried to bait me again. We have to stop, and think. Not about what we should do, let’s think about what he wants. Why does he want me? If he kills one of us, then suddenly we’re not the Elements of Harmony. When Dash wasn’t with us we were powerless against Discord. So why bother with this trade?”

The camp was quiet as the ponies thought, except Quick Fix, who was fitting a large green crystal in the bottom of the containment device.

“Strategy?” Dark Matter offered. “He’s a wizard, perhaps he only views other wizards as real threats to his rule.”

“Maybe it’s personal, since you released him,” Rarity suggested.

“I think it might be ego. He barely sees the rest of us worth talking to,” Jade said. “Perhaps the prospect of killing AJ and Fluttershy doesn’t appeal to him. You’re a challenge to his rule, we’re, well, peasants in his mind. Unimportant.”

“When you asked him where he learned modern Equestrian, what were you trying to figure out?” Applejack asked.

“Princess Luna told me that something in these ruins showed her the path to Nightmare Moon, I wanted to know if it was Taraxipos. How else would he have learned our language?” Twilight explained. “And honestly, the fact that he wouldn’t tell me, tells me it probably was Luna. If some traveler or explorer found him, what would be the harm in telling us?”

“So he did that to Princess Luna? Changed her?” Dark Matter asked.

“I’m not sure, she’s not sure, but she was not able to become Nightmare Moon on her own,” Twilight replied.

The ponies lapsed into silence again. Twilight looked up into the blue evening sky, trying to spread all of her knowledge and all of the possibilities out in the air. She tried to guess at what Taraxipos wanted, beyond control and power.

And then she realized: all he wanted was control, and power, and she had one of those things.

“He wants my power, my magic,” Twilight said. “He wants me because of my ability, he wants it for himself.”

“What do you mean, for himself?” Applejack asked.

“He’s a shadow of his former self, if he has me, he has a body,” Twilight shivered at the thought. “And magic. The two things he needs most.”

“Then we should deny him what he needs most,” Dark Matter replied.

Twilight turned to Fluttershy, who was curled up next to Oscar. “You haven’t said anything about this yet, and you deserve a say.”

Fluttershy looked up from the ground. “I don’t want you to go, but I don’t want to die, I’m sorry. Not like that,” she said, her voice cracking. “I don’t ever want to feel like that again, like he reached inside me and...” she trailed off.

“I’m going to give myself up,” Twilight said. “It’s decided.”

* * * * * *

Twilight sat in front of her tent, staring into the embers of the fire. She hadn’t gone to sleep, and didn’t really plan to. Quick Fix was up, carefully etching runes onto a metal plate. She wondered if anypony was sleeping, or if they were just in their tents, lost in thought.

She heard hooves approaching slowly. She looked up from the glowing embers to see Applejack settling in beside her.

“I cracked a couple of ribs to save you, and this is what I get, huh?” she joked.

“If the chimera had killed me, Taraxipos would still be in the containment device,” Twilight replied.

“I’m trying to lighten the mood, but alright, be that way,” Applejack said.

Twilight leaned over and rested her head against Applejack’s neck. “What would you do in this situation?”

“I was in this situation, you know, ribs, chimera, that whole thing?” Applejack explained.

“Then why do you think I shouldn’t give myself up?”

“It’s real hard to be on this side of the bargain. In the thick of things, throwing yourself in front of a friend, it feels right. Well, if you’re a decent pony, I reckon it does. But on this side, I can’t ask you to do. I can’t wake up every day for the rest of my life with that over my head,” Applejack replied.

Twilight said nothing, she just closed her eyes and listened to the faint scratches of Quick Fix’s chisel. On the other side of camp, Oscar’s two heads were snoring out of sync, and the fire was still crackling slightly.

“I was hoping I’d be shoulder deep in an archeological dig by now, pulling out little bits of pottery and scraps of metal, commissioning masons to begin work on the palace,” Twilight mumbled quietly.

“We’ll get there. And we can sit around a fire and you can bore the pink off of Pinkie talking about cloth fragments,” Applejack replied.

“Cutting the ribbon on a new library.”

“Bringing in the first Zap Apple Harvest.”

“Spending the night in a park down by the lake, you and me... and, well, all of-”

“You and me. Down by the lake.”

* * * * * *

Twilight looked up at the sky, which was beginning to turn purple at the edges. She got up and stretched her wings out, then her legs and neck. She looked around the camp, at AJ who was asleep where she sat.

Should she say anything, she thought?

Dark Matter walked over from his tent. He was, for perhaps the first time that Twilight had seen, out of his armor. The membranous ridge that ran down his neck in place of a mane was even more bizarre outside of his armor, and his coat was dotted with healed over wounds, spots where hair wouldn’t grow back. She saw his Cutie Mark for the first time, a steel shield with a crescent moon on it. She realized suddenly how similar they were: singular creatures, who had devoted their entire lives to the pursuit and mastery of a single skill, to the exclusion of all else.

“I supposed there is nothing else I can say to change your mind, is there?” he asked.

“No. Not really,” Twilight replied.

“Very well, I will don my armor.” He began to walk away.

“Dark Matter,” Twilight said.

“Yes, Princess?”

“You have performed admirably in your duty,” she said. “And I am a better pony for having met you.”

“You don’t have to say that Princess.”

“I know, but I mean it.”

The rustling of Dark Matter putting on his armor roused the camp, though Twilight doubted many were sleeping. Jade began putting her armor on as well. Spike got up and walked over to Twilight.

“Should I make breakfast or something?” he asked.

“No, not today,” Twilight replied.

“Twilight-”

“I’ll see you when we get back, okay?” Twilight said.

Spike smiled.

“Of course, you’ll be back by lunch probably. I’ll have something special ready.”

Soon the party was ready to move. Twilight put on her crown, and those who still had their pendants put them on. Quick Fix bid them a sleepy farewell from her workbench where she was polishing glass lenses, and then Twilight picked up the whole group and levitated them up, off the building and into the air. They flew over the palace and the Ancient District.

“As soon as she’s done with the device, I gotta get Quick Fix to start on those cloud walking shoes,” Pinkie said.

No one replied.

After a minute of floating they were nearing the Arsenal. Twilight set them down in front of the main gate. After a moment, the black haze that was Taraxipos appeared on the other side of the green barrier.

“So, you realized you didn’t really have a choice, I see a glimmer of potential in you, alicorn, you have mastered basic logic,” Taraxipos said.

“Skip the insults, give us the Elements and I’ll give myself up,” Twilight demanded.

“Oh, these exchanges are always so dramatic, aren’t they?” A small hole in the barrier appeared, big enough for Twilight to walk through. “First, take off the crown, leave it there.”

Twilight levitated the crown off her head and gave it to Applejack.

“Now, you walk through, and I’ll throw the baubles out. That’s how it has to be.”

Twilight walked through the barrier. As she approached Taraxipos, she felt the air chill. Taraxipos chuckled, then tossed the Elements out and closed the barrier.

“So what now?” Twilight asked.

“Shh, none of that, you’ll ruin the moment.”

* * * * * *

“Wait, how does thinking about the destination actually affect the mathemagical formula?”

Twilight looked around. She was in a classroom, standing at a chalkboard. She was levitating a piece of chalk, and after looking at the board for a moment, she realized she was writing out the mathemagical formula for teleportation spells.

“Professor?”

Twilight turned around. There were about twenty fillies sitting in the classroom.

“Uh, well, you’re giving the formula anchoring points. The location is a variable, x, but when you consider that you want to teleport say, into a room that has a yellow sofa, suddenly the sofa becomes a component and the destination variable becomes x-y. You’re eliminating all of the possible destinations in the world that don’t have yellow sofas. Which is why,” Twilight completed the formula. “You need a clear picture of where you’re going for long range teleportations. They did experiments many years ago, they furnished two rooms very similarly, with only slight changes, and then led a unicorn into it. Then out, and asked him to teleport into it. Depending on how clear his memory was, he might end up in the correct room, but if he forgot to recall, say, that the lamp in one room was in the middle of the ceiling rather than off to the side, he would end up in the room he didn’t go in.”

A bell rang in the distance. It was the belltower of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

The students began packing up their saddlebags.

“Remember, if you’re going to practice, do so with a friend, for safety,” Twilight called out over the din of the students leaving. The fillies chattered as they walked out.

“Professor Sparkle,” a little blue stallion unicorn walked up to her. “Have you graded the homework from last night? I wanted to add the solutions into my study guides.”

“That’s very proactive of you,” Twilight turned to her desk. Where was the homework? She opened a few of the drawers, but couldn’t find anything. Did she bring saddlebags?

“Hey there,” came a voice from the door.

Twilight looked up to see a stallion leaning against the doorframe.

“Hey one moment, I’m just looking for something,” Twilight wondered where her saddlebags were. Did she even bring anything? “I’m sorry, I don’t think I brought the homework, I’ll have it next class, don’t worry. You won’t be tested on the material before you get it back.”

“Alright, cya tomorrow Professor.”

The student left and the stallion closed the door behind him. He was a grey coated unicorn with a brown mane. She smiled. Because? Because he was her husband.

“Hey Professor Sparkle,” he said. “You’ve got a break this period, right?”

“Yeah,” Twilight replied. “I’ve got Literal Composition in an hour.”

“Really? Well I’ve got an hour until my Reverse Engineering class,” he came over and ran his neck against hers and nibbled on her neck where it met her shoulder. She pulled back, shocked. He locked the door with his magic. “We should seize the moment.”

Twilight backed away from him. “We can go grab something from the cafeteria, let me just clean off the chalkboard.” Twilight turned and levitated one of the erasers up and started clearing the chalk board. After a moment, she felt him move up behind her.

“I had, something else in mind,” he said. He ran his hooves down her back.

What about her wings? That was stupid. Unicorns don’t have wings.

She shook her head, then felt something press against her flank. In a flash she picked him up and flung him over the desk.

“What was that for?” he cried out.

“What do you think you were doing?” she asked.

“I thought I was about to have quickie with my wife,” he said, his voice offended.

Twilight turned away from him, trying to avoid looking at the growth between his legs.

“That can’t be right,” she said.

“Two married ponies, having sex? Yeah that’s pretty unbelievable.”

Twilight shook her head. She couldn’t even picture herself having sex with him. Which was odd, she should be able to picture having sex with her husband. Unless they never had sex, which sounded right in her mind, but, why had they never had sex? Well, she knew she didn’t want to have sex with him, but then, why did they marry?

“This isn’t right,” she said.

“Yeah, it isn’t. Look, let’s just move over that, I’m sorry, you’re sorry. Let’s get something to eat.”

“I’m not sorry,” Twilight replied.

“Really, you’re going to be like that? Twi, what’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong is, I don’t think I’ve ever had sex with you. With anypony,” Twilight replied.

The stallion got up and chuckled.

“Well this simply isn’t working.”

* * * * * *

Twilight was soaring over the clouds. Beside her she heard the flap of wings and turned to see Rainbow Dash.

“Just a little further,” she called out with a smile.

Twilight smiled back and they flew on. After a minute they approached a puffy white cloud and Twilight followed Rainbow Dash to the top. When they got there, Twilight saw a flat spot had been cleared and a cloud bench carved out. They landed on the top of the cloud. Twilight looked around at the spectacular orange of the sky as the sun set.

“I’m glad you wanted to go out tonight,” Dash said. “I pulled a few strings with the other weather ponies and, well, it’s going to be awesome.” Dash pointed off towards the setting sun.

Storm clouds were gathering in the distance, and after a moment, a thunderstorm broke out. The lightning arced across the orange sky. It truly was beautiful.

“It’s amazing, Dash,” Twilight said.

The pegasus blushed. “Well I try. We’ve got cider and snacks, and a great show to watch,” she explained.

Twilight flopped down on the cloud bench and Dash slid in next to Twilight and put a wing around her and they sat in silence, watching the storm flash in the distance, and hearing the faint, pulsing rumble.

“It’s beautiful up here,” Twilight said.

“Well, you deserve it,” Rainbow Dash said. She reached over to her saddlebag and pulled out a bottle of cider. Twilight tried to float out a bottle, but couldn’t. She laughed to herself, of course she couldn’t.

“Dash, can you grab me a bottle too?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, maybe, for a kiss.”

“Come on Dash, I just want a drink,” Twilight said.

“I dunno, it’s really far away,” Dash said, she gave the saddlebag a shove with her hoof.

Dash turned to Twilight and started leaning in. Twilight’s face felt like it was on fire, should she go for it? For that first kiss? She realized she was leaning into it already, so she did it. She closed her eyes and her lips tingled as they met Dash’s. She tasted a little like the cider she had drunk. The warmth in Twilight’s face spread across her body and out to every nerve.

Eventually they came up for air. Dash rested her head against Twilight’s.

“I think you earned that cider,” Dash said.

Twilight felt wrong. She pulled back from Dash, who leaned over to grab another bottle of cider. Twilight ran her hoof over her forehead. It was smooth up to her mane. Which horrified her for some reason.

“Uh, what’s with the face? Am I not very good?” Dash asked.

“You’re fine, I mean, Pinkie could teach a rock to kiss,” Twilight replied. Why did she say that?

“What do you mean? Me and Pinkie? That would never happen,” Dash scoffed.

Twilight frowned. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, you shouldn’t have kissed me. How could I do this to Pinkie?”

“What are you on about Pinkie for?” Dash asked, her voice angry.

“You love her, how could you bring me up here and, all this,” Twilight said. “You’re not this kind of pony Rainbow Dash, how could you betray her like that?”

Dash got up from the bench.

“I’ve got limited time and patience, you’re being very demanding,” she said. “But this should work.”

* * * * * *

Twilight was sitting in a field of tall wheat. It was swaying slightly in the breeze. Above her the sky was a million shades of red and purple. It must be about six in the evening in the Everfree Forest.

“Twilight!” came a distant call.

Twilight stood up and stretched her neck to see above the wheat. The field stretched into the distance in all directions, but to her right a farmhouse rose out of the wheat field, and in front of the house was Applejack.

“Dinner’s ready!” she called out. Twilight’s mouth watered at the thought. She got up and headed back along the rows of wheat towards the farmhouse. As she got up to the steps she smelled a fresh pie, and what she suspected was Applejack’s potato soup. Twilight pushed her way into the farmhouse and there was AJ, in an apron, ladling soup into a bowl.

“It smells amazing,” Twilight said.

“Well sit down and I’ll bring you a bowl,” AJ said.

“I wish I could just float it over,” Twilight said.

“Don’t we all,” Applejack replied. “And we’ve got apple pie after dinner.”

AJ brought over a bowl, then brought her own and the two sat down. Applejack grabbed a kiss before she dug in.

“Oh that’s good stuff,” Twilight said. “I wish I could cook like this.”

“I keep tryin’ to show you,” Applejack said with a laugh. “But it’s alright, means you can’t run off on me, then how are you going to get your apple fritter fix?”

Twilight laughed and ate. Applejack talked about the wheat harvest, which she suspected was about two weeks off. Twilight agreed on the timing.

“Why haven’t we planted any apple trees yet?” Twilight asked suddenly.

“Remember, we’re saving up money with the wheat, then when we’ve got a good bit, we’re going to switch over to the orchard. Just gotta have money for the first few years before they bear fruit,” AJ explained.

“Right, right, sorry,” Twilight replied.

They ate the rest of their dinner in peace, then Applejack got up to grab the apple pie. Twilight looked around the quiet dining room. She could see into the living room, and stairs up to second floor. It was all quiet, except for the wind rustling through the wheat outside.

A knock came at the door. Twilight got up and opened it. Standing outside was Twilight. Twilight stared into her eyes, then shut the door quickly.

“Twi? You going outside?” Applejack asked.

“Uh, no, I’m just not feeling great,” Twilight said. “Look, I know it’s early, but can we just turn in?”

“Tuckered out eh? Sure, we can turn in.”

Twilight and Applejack walked upstairs into the dark second story, they walked along the hall and entered their bedroom. Applejack pulled out her hair band.

“Mind brushing me out before we go to bed?” AJ asked.

Twilight picked up a brush from the nightstand and started running it through Applejack’s hair.

“Nothing much to do with the wheat for the next few weeks, we should sleep in,” Applejack said softly.

“You’re right,” Twilight said. She finished brushing and the two climbed into bed. Applejack wrapped her legs around Twilight and they laid there in the darkness.

Twilight felt a rumble beneath her.

“No,” she said softly.

“What’s that sugarcube?”

The rumble intensified.

“No, not this one too,” she moaned, burying her face in the pillow.

The house was shaking.

“I love you, Twilight.”

“I love you too.”

The ground shook, then silence. Moments later the roof of the room was peeled off and there, towering above the house was Twilight.

“No!” Twilight yelled up. “I want this one to be real!”

“You can’t always get what you want,” Twilight replied.

Twilight felt herself rising out of the bed. Applejack was holding on to her.

“Don’t leave me, Twi,” she said, her voice cracking.

“Ignore him,” came the voice above her. “If you love her you must ignore him.”

“I don’t want to go,” Twilight said again.

“I’m sorry, but you must go,” her own voice replied.

Twilight felt herself rising into a bright, searing light. Soon she was enveloped in fiery pain that rolled over her body and then, just as suddenly, darkness surrounded her.

A face materialized before her.

“That last one was particularly good, wasn’t it?” Taraxipos asked.

“You monster,” Twilight was crying. “You horrible monster.”

“I’m hurt, really.”

“But I’ve figured out your tricks, you won’t fool me anymore!” Twilight yelled.

“Oh, and you assume that being aware of the illusion means you can escape from it? Your body is mine, you have simply spoiled the chance to feel happy about the distractions I have created,” Taraxipos replied. “Tell you what, you return to that quaint little farmhouse and I’ll put everything back, and you can just pretend.”

“No,” Twilight managed between sobs.

“Fine, then stay here, in nothingness forever. Forever and ever. I’ll warn you though, it gets rather dull, I know from experience,” Taraxipos said. He laughed, then his face dissolved into the blackness around her.

Twilight cried until there was nothing left, and then she laid on nothing, looking into nothing. For how long, she had no idea. Then a thought came into her mind. What was she even laying on? Probably a coping construct, like the Astral Plane, which never had a floor, but you stood around on nothing.

“You arrogant bastard,” Twilight said. She started moving. She turned herself right way up and then began hurtling through the blackness. She needed to find him. So she pulled off the shroud that surrounded her. And suddenly, she could see, simply by willing it. And just as soon as she could, she could see him, deep in her mind, a shadow cast by a figure that wasn’t there. She teleported to him.

“Hello Taraxipos,” Twilight said.

“Oh you are a clever pony,” he replied.

“You have underestimated me, which makes sense. You lack crucial knowledge,” Twilight said. Then she grabbed the air before her and pulled it apart, revealing Taraxipos. His coat was dark grey and his mane was white and dingy, matted.

“You are proving far too difficult to deal with. Perhaps I should have eaten you after all,” Taraxipos said.

“I don’t fear you, not here,” Twilight replied. She then put her hooves onto his forehead on either side of his horn and pulled his skull apart.

“You won’t enjoy what you find, I can assure you of that.”

Twilight ignored him and dipped her face into the growing pool that was appearing between the two halves of his skull.

She watched an endless litany of horror, from his very birth, pushed into the world by a mother dying of wounds from a timberwolf attack. The small animals found dead by his father, the accidents at school. Then, the more terrible things, as he learned control. The women he hunted at the Royal Academy, his posting to the court, celebrated by killing the daughter of his predecessor. His seduction of the Queen, her vicious murder. She wanted to turn away, to not see what was shown to her, but she could do nothing now but watch, watch his twisted experiments, his necromantic golems rising to life, the murders, the feasting, the endless enjoyment. Then, a terrible figure appeared, crafted by his hand, and then just as suddenly, nothing. The long, endless years, the paving stones of the sealed chamber. Then she saw them, the ones who came looking. She saw King Sombra, who came seeking power, and Princess Luna, who came seeking revenge. And then she saw herself.

Twilight pulled herself out of Taraxipos’ mind.

“What did you do to me?” Twilight asked.

“I made you a god.”

Twilight banished him from her mind with a single swipe. Here, and here alone, in the Astral Plane of dreams, he was nothing.