Alpha Centauri

by StLeibowitz

Chapter 21: The Empty Theatre

She was soaring on wings of skin, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Open night air stretched out to distant horizons on all sides. Trees whipped past far below her on the ground. A white moon shone in the sky above her. She was back on Equestria, she realized – but she definitely wasn't a pegasus, if her wings were anything to go by. Somehow, they didn't seem as odd now should have. Even her new form on Domhan had feathers. These wings had fingers.

She eventually came in for landing on a snow-capped mountain peak. Clouds hid the world below her, and the moon was
starting to set in the sky behind her. Morning would be coming soon. But when the eastern sky started to light up with warm colors, it wasn't the sun that came up – it was Ghealach's moon.

What the hay?

The red moon rose into the sky at an accelerated pace, chewing up the distance between it and its apex. Finally, it came to an abrupt halt directly overhead. Rainbow Dash's eyes followed it all the way there; she took a step backwards in an attempt to keep it in view.

She was wearing a gown of some sort, she realized with a start. The instant her hoof had hit the ground again, her surroundings had changed without warning. Glossy brown walls rose up to arched ceilings on both sides. The rocky ground had flattened and smoothed itself, turning itself black and gaining depth it seemed, with little silvery flecks suspended within it and catching the annoyingly bright dying light of Equestria's sun as it poured in through the tall windows to her right. Her gown seemed to flow into the floor; it was black and seemingly star-flecked, with an odd depth to it – looking at it was like staring into the darkness of space. It matched her apparently deep violet coat well.

What?

She found herself walking forwards, her hoofsteps sounding hollow as they echoed down the long hallway. She turned and came to a halt at a gap in the wall – not a doorway or archway, but a place where the wall terminated in a flanged column and resumed after a few feet. Through it she could see a dim hemispherical chamber. There was a staircase down into it. With an odd twinge of trepidation, she stepped forward and stopped again at the top of the stairs. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly, and far better than she would have expected.

“And here she is – the lady of the hour!” a stallion's deep voice boomed jovially. At the base of the stairs, she realized, were four ponies – four ponies with bat wings, tufted ears, dark coats and catlike eyes, three stallions and a mare. The stallion who had spoken had a grey-streaked mane and a wide grin on.

“And what a lady,” one of the other stallions – the youngest by far it seemed, slightly younger than Dash was normally, though she had the odd feeling that she was a bit younger herself in this fragmented dream.

“Eight years of flight training – not that she needed it, of course! - and just as many of tactics, logistics, hoof-to-hoof combat and whatever else they teach at that Academy...all finished now!” the first stallion said. He chuckled. “Ah, if I had a drink I'd be toasting her right now.”

Dash – or whoever she was at the moment – laughed self-consciously. “Thou'rt embarrassing me, father.”

“It's his job,” said the third stallion, smiling faintly. “Though my wife and I put Barnard through the wringer rather more privately.”

The mare shot a meaningful look at the first stallion. “I had advised Regulus as much earlier, but he seemed intent on making a spectacle of himself.”

“Bah, 'tis a bit of harmless fun.” Regulus stepped back from the staircase, as did the mare. “Enjoy thyself at the Graduation Ball, Midnight. Stars know thou'st earned it!”

“And we will expect thee home at a reasonable hour,” the mare added, to Regulus's apparent surprise. She whacked him with her wing, though, and he nodded sternly.

“Yes, of course. A reasonable hour.” He smiled again. “I assume thou'rt old enough to determine that on thine own.”

“Regulus!”

“What? She has a commission, dearest! Thou dost expect me to give her a curfew?”

The mare sighed, but reluctantly conceded the point. “Please be home before sunup, Midnight. Things have been a bit...rocky, as of late, with the folk of Canterlot.”

“If she is unable to keep herself safe, I swear to thee I will do so for her,” the young stallion – Dash assumed he was Barnard, and the name oddly enough seemed to fit – told the mare.

“Between the two of them, I sincerely doubt any ruffians will be able to best them,” the third stallion observed, “even should they both be wine-sodden and asleep.”

“Shall we depart then, Midnight?” Barnard asked her. She nodded and descended the steps carefully, trying not to trip in her gown – flying down would have been mucheasier, but she dimly recalled some etiquette lesson in the distant past where it had been drilled into her severely that flying while wearing a dress was not okay. She would be frustratingly landbound for the night, then.

I don't remember any of this. Whose memory is this? Cloud Ferry's?

Barnard walked alongside her, escorting her to the door. He opened it for them, and they stepped through – but when Dash drew up short in the unexpected vast space, she was alone.

Thin mist twisted through the vast grey room. She couldn't see any walls, but there was a ceiling, featureless and flat about ten feet above her. She glanced back; the door she'd walked through was gone, just like Barnard, but unlike her gown, which strangely remained on her. There were no landmarks of any sort at all for as far as the eye could see.

Nervously, she started walking again, trotting straight ahead into the mist. She could see shapes taking form in the fog, vaguely familiar ones and completely alien ones – spheres that might be planets or moons, crumbling ancient castles, the indistinct outlines of ponies. Weird oval-shaped masks and black dragons. She became absorbed in watching them, idly trying to pick out something more than slightly familiar. Walking forwards didn't take much concentration after all. There wasn't much to trip over.

And then she tripped over a gigantic, furry black log.

“What the hay?” she grumbled, standing up again. The log seemed to have sprouted out of the floor as she walked over it. Curious, she examined it, circling the mass it was attached to – and after a few moments, she jumped back in surprise. That was the buggane she'd killed!

She could smell charred meat in the air again. She could feel grass under her hooves. She could feel the electric buzzing of magic in her head. Then, all those were wiped away as the buggane dissolved into ash and that ash formed into the body of a bat-winged pony with a horrifyingly familiar face.

She smelled sweat and blood and smoke and all the myriad other scents that choked the air in battle. She could feel how sore her wings and every other muscle were. Her right foreleg was throbbing where an arrow had bounced off her armor and dented it. She could feel a crushing sense of loss, and a hatred that she never, ever wanted to experience again, as she stood over her husband's corpse.

Whose memories are these?

She ran. She bolted off into the mist again and didn't look back. She burst through whirling memories as she galloped silently, the size of the space eating the sound of her hoofsteps and leaving nothing behind to replace it. Gradually, the re-experienced – or experienced-for-the-first-time – or remembered experience – stars, she hated this reincarnation thing – emotions and sensations faded. She returned to a normal pace. The mist closed in and thickened. As long as it didn't throw up any nasty surprises like that again, she was fine with it.

After an eternity or a few minutes more of walking, she spotted a tall rectangular shape ahead of her. It seemed far more solid than the rest of the shapes she'd seen so far, and that drew her curiosity and suspicion – the buggane had been pretty solid, too, after all. She came to a stop and watched it for a while. Eventually, she worked up the nerve to approach it.

Despite the dense fog, she realized it was a tall mirror. It wasn't reflecting much in the portions she could see through the fog – there wasn't much to reflect. Just dark grey infinity. Down near the base, the fog grew much thicker, seeming like an almost solid white mass. Dash stopped directly in front of that fog bank and stuck her head into it, hoping to see her reflection in the mirror in a dream-driven compulsion.

The fog abruptly cleared away and she found herself staring straight into the golden, catlike eyes of a bat pony.

With a startled yelp, she beat her wings and launched herself backwards, and slammed into somepony else who had done the same thing. They cracked skulls and stumbled in opposite directions again, the new pony – definitely a mare – cursing loudly, Dash holding the back of her head and thus unable to prevent herself from slamming face-first into the mirror. With a loud crash, quickly matched by one from behind her in the other mare's direction, the mirror shattered, showering Dash with glass shards that melted quickly into cold water. Her mane was soaked, but she was completely okay with that, because when it plastered down over her eyes she could see that it was rainbow again.

“What the heck was that?” she griped, pushing her mane back out of her eyes so she could see whoever it was that she'd bumped into. She checked her wings while she was at it; they had feathers again. Normal blue pegasus feathers. They actually looked a bit drab to her now.

The other pony had a deep violet coat and tufted ears. She had batlike wings and a ragged mane the color of her coat, but with a paler streak or two running through it. On her flanks were emblazoned the image of a golden crescent moon and smaller four-point star. She was sitting down, and also completely soaked, but Dash assumed she wasn't always like that. She could tell from the other pony's ears that she was a bat pony; when she turned around, Dash decided she was probably the same bat pony that had been in the mirror, because her eyes were golden.

“I would ask the same thing of you,” the bat pony replied. She stood up and shook herself off, sending water flying in every direction, including onto Dash. “Normally, I am alone in this place. I haven't seen you before though.”

“I'm Rainbow Dash.”

“Midnight Streak.”

“Uh...” Well, that answers the question of whose memories those were, Dash thought.

Midnight gave her an odd look. “Your name is familiar to me, but I can't place it. Are you...” She shook her head. “Luna's light, I can barely remember my own name, let alone faces and the names of others. You are simply another hallucinatory phantom anyways, I assume, although you are the first who has seemed even vaguely familiar to me.”

“You've seen more?” That is the absolute last thing I need right now!

“Yes, though not for very long. There was a striped pony who stuck around longest, but he has since disappeared, along with an egotistical actress. I will allow the source of these hallucinations credit, though – it is creative. Creative enough that I occasionally dream of seeing a strange world through somepony else's eyes.” She laughed self-consciously, which Dash observed sounded very different when she wasn't the pony making the sound. “I'm not even sure why I'm telling you this.”

“Uh...is the name 'Barnard' familiar to you?”

Midnight froze. “What do you know about Barnard?” she asked slowly.

“He was your husband?” That sounded much less certain than she'd wanted it to. “He was your husband.”

Silence. Midnight simply stared at her stonily. After a few moments, she ordered hoarsely: “Leave me.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Dash responded. She looked around at the misty space. “How do I do that, exactly?”

“Be somewhere else. I don't know the mechanism,” Midnight answered. “Leave me. Now.”

“I don't - “

“Leave!”

“I'm leaving, I'm leaving!” She cringed back a step at the sudden hardening of Midnight's eyes. Golden eyes with catlike pupils could be very good at expressing anger. She spun away and trotted off into the mist. “Sheesh.”

She glanced back after a few steps, though. The fog closed around Midnight like the jaws of some forgotten beast, leaving only her silhouette visible to Dash. After a taking a few more steps – because Midnight was plainly still glaring after her – even that silhouette dissolved away. A few more, and she found herself trotting across crimson moondust.

I always have to end up here, don't I, she thought to herself unhappily. Every bucking time.

Every night, her dreams would end with her on the red moon. After a few more steps, she simply sat down and resolved to wait the dream out.

She awoke that morning still feeling tired, but that didn't stop her from helping the wolves break camp. A buggane had left the spire in the dead of night, it seemed – one of Streamwalker's scouts, a she-wolf barely grown out of being a pup named Greenwatch, had spotted the beast as it departed, heading north. After some debate, Streamwalker had decided he would lead a portion of the pack in pursuit, and the Great One would come with them to put some eyes in the sky over the buggane. To Dash's slight irritation, Burrfang volunteered for the pursuit, and was accepted, and less annoyingly so was Greenwatch; she didn't know or recognize the other volunteers.

They chased the buggane for a whole day as it clobbered its way through the dense vegetation. It left an alley behind itself for them to follow. Eventually it met up with another two bugganes, and the three dug a rudimentary shelter – Ghealach helpfully opined that all, or almost all, buggane shelters could be described like that. Streamwalker commanded his pack to make camp, posted Greenwatch to spy on the bugganes, and they rested.

-----

It felt like the instant she closed her eyes that night she fell asleep. Dash dreamed of the Castle of the Royal Sisters, as it had been before Discord remodeled, even before it had fallen into ruin. She appeared in the main hall of the structure, and the space was decorated for some kind of event. Long black tapestries adorned the walls between the windows. The floor seemed to have some kind of spell on it, making it appear to not be there at all – walking through the hall would be like walking on top of a bottomless, star-studded abyss. Through the west windows, she could see the moon – and through the east, Ghealach's moon.

Sitting before the throne at the far end of the chamber was a bat pony. Dash felt sure she knew who it was.

Silence dragged on – unnatural silence. Not even crickets chirping outside disturbed it. Rainbow Dash decided to approach Midnight. Her hoofsteps echoed around the hall as she trotted closer, but Midnight showed no sign of noticing her. Finally, she came to a halt right behind Midnight, but was prevented from speaking when Midnight herself spoke.

“I have an answer now, Rainbow Dash,” said Midnight, not even turning to face her. Her head was hung low. “He was my husband. Barnard was my husband for ten years.”

Definitely her memories, Dash thought. Midnight continued speaking.

“That's it,” she said defeatedly. “That's all I remember. He was my husband for ten years. I can't remember when we met, and I can't remember how it ended. I can't remember how his voice sounded and I can't remember his birthday, or our anniversary, or anything – anything at all – about him as a pony. Except maybe that he was a longma” She chuckled bitterly. “I'm not even sure about that. He was my husband for ten years, and all I get when I try to remember him is a blank. Void.”

“I'm sorry.” What were you supposed to say to the ghost of yourself from a thousand years ago who'd just realized she'd lost everything?

“I've forgotten so much I don't even know what I've lost anymore,” she went on. “I remember my lessons from the Shadowbolt Academy. I can remember a few dozen battles from Luna's Revolt. I can remember some vague snippets of my foalhood – I guess that's all anypony can remember – and I can remember my own name. Things keep coming back to me slowly, but I know by now that it's not a lot. I want to know why – but maybe trying to ask a hallucination is a sign of insanity.”

“Yeah, I know how that feels.”

“Dost thou know why?”

How do I break the news gently? She wondered. “Well...yeah. Not in a lot of detail about the causes, but I know why.”

“Really?” She sounded surprised.

“You're...kinda me from the past. A long, long time in the past. You're me from a past life.”

“Rainbow Dash...” Midnight murmured. She straightened and stood up, turning to face Dash. “Thou'rt the pony I keep dreaming of. The one those other two keep talking about! And I am...” The excitement of realization drained from her voice and was replaced by confusion. “I am...thee from a past life?”

“Long story short, a pony – uh, kelpie - “ What would Beta Centauri be counted as? "Star" might be misinterpreted or just confuse her further. “ - hybrid thing messed around with my mind and pulled up a lot of memories. And I guess somehow, some of those memories stuck together and kind of resurrected some of my past lives a bit, and the ones that got stronger I guess stuck around and the other ones re-dissolved.” She shrugged. “There's probably something more complicated behind all that. What I know for sure is that at least two of you are still here, maybe three – Cloud Ferry, you, and maybe a zebra.”

“A zebra?”

“You don't know what a zebra is?”

“I am not a well-traveled mare.”

“Thing like a pony? Black-and-white striped coat?” Dash gave her a disbelieving look when she shook her head. “Really?”

Midnight turned around. “Thou sayest I am thee of a past life?” she asked, abruptly changing the topic.

“Yeah.”

“Then thou art not a phantom.”

“Nope.”

“Thou art the one I have been advising, then? The pony whose eyes I could see through and who could somehow hear and respond to my thoughts?”

“I...guess?” Dash replied uncertainly. “Somepony was giving me advice, at least.”

“That was almost certainly me.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I may...have voids in my memory over important parts of my life, but I remain myself. I will not allow myself to wallow in misery. Not when there are things to be done.” She opened her eyes again and locked them with Dash's, liquid gold on magenta. “There is something important thou shouldst be made aware of. Two other...phantoms, I suppose; beings like myself...have been plotting against thee.”

“Who?” I can guess at least one, but who the buck is the other? How many phantoms are there even running around in here?

“A pegasus called Cloud Ferry and what I assume is an earth pony who calls herself Ghealach.”

“Ghealach?” Dash exclaimed. “What the – why is she involved in this? She's already got me by the throat basically!”

“I'm not certain. They are not, however, what you might call 'discreet' in their discussions,” Midnight answered. “They seem to meet nightly. Perhaps eavesdropping on them might be wise.”

“Definitely. Lead the way, Midnight.” Cloud Ferry is going to really regret this. I'll find a way to make her.

“Truthfully, I'm not sure how to navigate this place,” she admitted. “I have only heard a few of their discussions by stumbling in on them. I don't have any idea on where they could be now.”

Dash grit her teeth. So Cloud Ferry and Ghealach are planning something and I can't even find out what?

She beat her wings and rose into a hover as she mulled over the situation. Eventually, recalling a magazine article on lucid dreaming she'd read once as well as Discord's admittedly suspect lessons on astral projection, she decided she'd try to change her dream so that she and Midnight were in the same place as Cloud Ferry and Ghealach. It couldn't be too hard – she already knew she was dreaming, so controlling it was supposed to be easy after that, and astral projection would inform how she changed it. She dropped back down to floor.

“Stand close to me,” she ordered Midnight. The longma didn't look like she understood why, but she obeyed anyways and stepped closer to Dash. For her part, Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and tried to focus on finding Cloud Ferry. She knew she'd succeeded when Midnight gasped in surprise. She opened her eyes, but it wasn't Cloud Ferry that she saw.

They were in some sort of atrium now, with a high domed ceiling and a glossy black-flecked brown stone floor. A bladelike column seemed to rise out of the floor on one side of the atrium, swelling at the base to house a ticket stand, flanked by pairs of double doors on the left and right, and fused with the wall at the back. On the opposite wall, glass doors let out onto a cobblestone street. Above both pairs of doors by the stand, Dash could see signs lit up with magical marquee lights, happily proclaiming, “Muse of Fire – Now Showing! The Bard's Finest Work Live on Stage!”

“This happened last time, too,” Dash grumbled.

“What?”

“I tried to find Twilight like that, and I didn't get to her, either. Well, not directly, at least.” She sighed and started trotting towards the doors into the theatre. “Come on. Cloud Ferry will probably be on stage or something.”

Midnight fell in behind her, and they crossed the atrium without incident. In front of the door, though, Dash noticed a glass container filled with a stack of pamphlets. Curious, she glanced at the cover of the top one; in bold block letters, it was printed with, “Act the First: In Which Our Hero Faces Great Temptation”.

“That appears promising,” Midnight observed wryly.

“Yeah. Let's get a good seat to watch the show from.”

They slipped in the door quietly, and found themselves in the upper tier of seating of a theatre that was very familiar to Rainbow Dash – it had to be the same one she'd convinced Cloud Ferry to help her escape house arrest on Equestria in. The seats ended abruptly a third of the way to the stage, and a railing rose up just ahead of that last row. They were on a balcony.

“Off to one side, in the closest row on the balcony, I would suggest,” Midnight whispered. The theatre seemed deserted and was very dark, but Dash agreed that caution would be best and whispered her agreement as well.

“Sounds good. Think we can hear them from here?”

“Almost certainly. Theatres are designed for their actors to be heard, after all.”

They slinked quietly through the rows of seating and took their positions. Then, they waited. Moments slipped into minutes and the lull dragged on without a sign of Cloud Ferry on the stage or in the theatre. Midnight kept her head on a swivel, always looking around, checking behind them and off to their sides to ensure nopony could sneak up on them.

Finally, after what felt like an hour, a lone spotlight snapped on and bathed center stage in light, revealing Cloud Ferry sitting alone, chin up and looking down her nose at the empty theatre, as haughty as a queen and as still as a statue. Her horn shimmered, and the spotlight began to gradually dim until it barely cast enough illumination on the scene to distinguish the lit area from the unlit.

“You told me you wanted to meet me, Ghealach!” Cloud Ferry snapped impatiently, her voice echoing across the room. “That tonight would be somehow important. So where are you now at this late hour? I'm waiting!”

Silence fell again. After a few seconds, the sound of hoofsteps and faint thunder echoed through the room as Ghealach trotted up the center aisle of the theatre and stood before the raised stage, winged and tall and glowing faintly red. She'd manipulated her height so as to be able to look Cloud Ferry in the eye without having to step onto the stage herself. Up close, she probably would have been very imposing. Cloud Ferry didn't bat an eyelash.

“Must you be so melodramatic, Cloud Ferry?” Ghealach asked as she stepped out from backstage. Cloud Ferry whirled around in surprise; the giant version of Ghealach crumbled away to ash and moondust. “I am not even late.”

“I am an actress, Ghealach. It's what I do,” Cloud Ferry replied testily. She tossed her head, shaking her mane out of her face. “And you are indeed late. Didn't you check the clock as you came in?”

“We are both aware it is a dream. Time is immaterial anyways.” Ghealach circled around to Ferry's left and came to a halt. “You seem to have a full house tonight.”

“Empty,” Ferry spat bitterly. She whirled back around to glare at the rows upon rows of empty seats, but thankfully didn't think to check the balcony. “Every night the same thing. There used to be so many figments shifting around in here that I couldn't trot three steps without tripping on a fragment of my life. Now there's hardly more than me and that thestral freak. No audience, either way. Phillistines! Plebeians!”

“Thestral freak...” Midnight repeated angrily in a low voice.

“Later,” Dash whispered.

“A pity,” Ghealach replied, and she actually managed to sound as if she meant it. Cloud Ferry barked a laugh.

“A pity? You've never come to a performance, either,” she said pointedly, glaring at Ghealach now. “All you ever come to do is compliment me on how I dealt with the wolves, and rub in how powerless I really am, even with a third of my dearest host's magic potential at my horntip. Day in and day out, that's it.”

“Yet you still permit me to come.”

“You dusty witch, if I put every blockade I know around my section of her mind, you'd still worm your way in somehow. The only reason you're here tonight is because you claimed it was important – so speak! What's so critical that you had to see me?”

“Perhaps you should calm down.”

“And what, act pretty again?” Ferry retorted, her voice practically dripping with disgust. “I have a spoon around here somewhere, I assume. Would you like some sugar with your tea, perhaps?”

“There is no need to be so hostile.”

“You patronizing pockmarked red potato of a moon, I have every reason to be so hostile,” she hissed, thrusting her face at Ghealach's as she took a heavy step closer. “Every word you speak, and every plan you make, puts Rainbow Dash and through her, me, in more and more danger. She isn't responsible enough to be used as a tool! Every step of the way, she has demonstrated the self-preservation sense of a three-year-old foal! You are the root cause of half the self-destructiveness of that madmare, and of all of her recent opportunities for throwing herself into situations that will most likely kill her. It is a miracle she has not been injured severely yet – or come up against a creature with magical ability, which could bypass that 'immortality' you bestowed on her and kill us directly!”

“Silence, Cloud Ferry!” Ghealach roared, her voice suddenly resonating with power. “I - “

“Silence yourself, Ghealach!” Ferry roared right back, taking on the sound and volume she'd used to address Streamwalker at their first encounter. With a sudden flare of light, she doubled in size and sprouted brilliant crystal wings, extending them fully so they caught the renewed light of the spotlight. Her horn was crystal; her mane and tail were crystal as well. She shone like the gleaming blade of an unsheathed knife. “I am not some peon to be commanded, and not some tool to be used and cast aside – both of which I know you see nearly everyone as, kelpie, wolf, thunderbird or pony! In this place, I am at least as powerful as you. Do not presume to order me to be silent.”

Midnight seemed suitably impressed. Dash just yawned instead – boring. Nothing new to her.

“Please be silent and listen, then,” Ghealach said, settling her wings into more comfortable positions and filling the air with the tinny sound of rattling metal. “I have a deal to - “

“A deal?” Cloud Ferry exclaimed disbelievingly. She laughed. “Did you hear nothing, O Dust Sentinel? I am not a tool. I will not be assisting you except when it assists myself – by getting Rainbow Dash off of Domhan and back to Equestria where neither of us will be under the realistic threat of being killed and eaten!”

“Such an empty theatre,” Ghealach murmured softly. “A pity, such an actress playing for so few, when she could instead be playing on a much more popular stage...”

Suspicious yet undeniably intrigued silence from Cloud Ferry. Dash could see curiosity and greed and longing warring with her resolve even from the balcony.

“You are absolutely correct, Cloud Ferry,” Ghealach continued. “Rainbow Dash is a madmare. She is erratic and unpredictable. Her soul, though, is bound to me, making her – unfortunately – the most reliable tool that I have. It would be far better to have a more stable mind in charge. Thanks to Beta's meddling, I may pick from three.”

“I am not a - “

“Yes, you are,” Ghealach interrupted, her calm tone cutting Ferry's voice off despite the disparity in volume. “Rainbow Dash's soul – your soul, the longma's soul – is bound irrevocably to me. Rainbow Dash will not escape my influence, even after her work is completed – she is too inexperienced with magic to ever divine a way of escape. You, however, are smarter. You might very well be able to, given time.”

“You consider this a benefit?”

“I am willing to sacrifice a very useful tool in the long term to guarantee its reliability in a time of crisis,” she replied. “Now will soon be a time of crisis. The bugganes reuniting under a strong leader, Alpha Centauri's reforms introducing key instability into the Domhanane political structure and placing stress on Beta Centauri, growing social unrest...there will be a chaos unseen since the War of Nightmares. I must make the most of it to take my rightful place as guardian of the night again and secure it against all comers, and I no longer trust that the mind of Rainbow Dash is the most useful mind to have acting on my behalf. Your acting and your seeming lack of troublesome attachment to causes like a village's buggane issues make you ideal in my eyes for the job. I only need your acceptance, and you can have the world stage back to act on.”

Dead silence. Pure, complete silence. After a wait of an eternity, Cloud Ferry shrank back down to her usual size and shook her head.

“I will not be your tool,” she repeated with finality. Ghealach nodded.

“You know where to find me when you change your mind,” said Ghealach. Without another word, her avatar crumbled away into a pile of red dust. Some errant gust of wind toppled it, and Cloud Ferry scattered it more thoroughly in a spat of anger.

While she was thus distracted, Rainbow Dash and Midnight Streak slipped silently out the theatre's exit, and vanished into the waiting night outside.

Author's Note:

Well this didn't turn out at all like how I originally planned it, mechanism-wise. Same plot goals achieved, but very different from the original plan.

I've also gone back and edited the prologue and chapters 1-4, adding in the spaces between paragraphs like the later chapters have. In the process I had to re-read the initial dream bit in chapter one and it was painful for me to read that. The subplot that was initially going to be foreshadowing has been thoroughly abandoned, and so unless some gigantic public outcry emerges in support of it I'll be editing the content of it.

Anywho, remember to like, favorite and comment if you enjoyed, those of you who haven't already!

Comments

[Arzoo]

Very interesting turn of events.

How is Ghaelach going to pick a personality; I was under the impression that she could not directly manipulate Dash's thoughts.

[Europa]

At least Rainbow has someone on her side now. Hope she and Midnight find a way to keep things under control.

I like how you don't have Cloud bow down to the moon. She's proud, she'd confident, and... she's completely out of her league. Ghealach is a moon five billion years old, incomprehensibly ancient and intelligent. The three year old foal she mentioned has about as much chance of outsmarting her. Still, I really hope Rainbow will come across that Alpha is Twilight, and gets her help.

Star beats moon, after all. Just by sheer size.

[nukestar]

4675859
She showed the ability to suppress various past lives; this is why there are only four personalities running around instead of thousands. I assume she could use the same thing on Rainbow and let another personality/past life take her place.

4677239
I am also interested to see this zebra that is currently unnamed

[StLeibowitz]

4677239
4678159

Unfortunately, the zebra may end up with the name of "Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Fic" I've had to do a bit of pruning of plot branches which haven't yet been reflected in edits to content since I'm doing my utmost to avoid losing momentum through my usual tendency to overcomplicate things through editing.

Midnight's reference to the "striped pony" disappearing was intended to reflect the zebra's future absence, actually, though if that's absence through Ghealach's suppression or absence through hiding is a matter I have not yet decided on. Either way, the zebra won't be showing up before the conclusion.

[StLeibowitz]

5385863

If Sol had an avatar I'd imagine him as grumpy but kind-hearted, annoyed by all the little metal things buzzing around him but not willing to swat them out of space with a well-aimed belch because he knows his kids like tinkering with them and would be very unhappy if anything untoward were done to them

Directed at all my readers who are still around: a merry Christmas and happy holidays to all, and I'll see if I can finally get this monstrous pile of horsewords tidied up and completed. It's the longest thing I've ever written and I'll be damned if I leave over a hundred thousand words of story without resolution.