Act IV – ‘Horror’
Synchronicity, Act IV – ‘Horror’
“I know I checked for temporal distortions,” Twilight said as she paced back and forth, “they leave a huge signature, they’re very easy to trace, so it’s not that…”
Rainbow sat on a cushion, watching Twilight pace. She had seen Twilight brainstorm like this once or twice before, when she was stuck on something that seemed particularly difficult to figure out – there was a lot of walking from one spot to another and a lot of talking to herself, which made it difficult to get any reading done. Usually she sat her book down and observed; she had always had this impression that smart ponies like Twilight did a lot of contemplating in silence and sitting still and other things that would be boring to look at, but Twilight working a problem through was more like a wrestling match. Twilight would attack the problem, assaulting it with logical arguments and deductive reasoning until it could stand no more and tapped out, solved. The fire and passion that went into Twilight’s debates with herself were fascinating to watch.
This fight didn’t seem to be going in Twilight’s favor, however. The sun was lurking below the horizon outside, which meant they had been up for over an hour since being awoken by the light from the diary, and Twilight hadn’t made any headway with finding a link between the dreams and the diary entry that had not been there when they had fallen asleep. It wasn’t unusual for Twilight to take a long time to get anywhere, but Rainbow had never seen her go through three cups of coffee in an hour, and she took that as a bad sign. The mug that sat beside Rainbow was her first, and still mostly full. She picked it up and gently swirled it, watching the dark liquid splash up the sides.
“…I went over every page in the diary for Obfuscation Effects, but maybe I missed a page? I could check it again…”
Rainbow wished an idea would come to Twilight. They had compared dreams, briefly, but other than the common elements of the Manor and the black roses, there was nothing more to be gained by analyzing them, Twilight said. Rainbow thought maybe she was a little dismissive of this dream-magic, and she found herself wanting Twilight to be more open to discussing it further just so there was something for her to do. There was only so much waiting around she could handle. This never happened to characters in stories, she thought, watching a tiny bubble spin on the surface of the coffee. They always knew where to go next.
“You know,” Rainbow said into her mug, “this is a lot like a ghost story.”
“Hm?” Twilight stopped mid-stride, and looked at Rainbow.
“I mean, this is the sort of thing that only happens in stories, you know? Two ponies go into a spooky old building and take out an old book or a statue or something, and then funny things start to happen to them.”
Twilight was staring at Rainbow with an unreadable expression. “Only happens in stories,” she murmured to herself, and then the fire and passion bloomed on her face like the first rays of the morning sun. “Rainbow, you’re brilliant! I could kiss you!”
Rainbow blinked. “Wha-” she began to ask, but Twilight was already busy pulling books off a shelf and piling them into an ever-growing tower.
“Stories!” Twilight shouted, her voice full of glee. “Ghost stories!”
Rainbow glanced at the covers of one of the books: Spooky Stories for Fearless Foals, showing a translucent face grinning outside a bedroom window, all drawn in bright primary colors. Another book dropped on top of it, with only the title (Tales of the Unnaturale: A Compendium) printed on the cover in thin golden letters.
“Twilight,” Rainbow said, furrowing her brow, “aren’t these… fiction? Y’know… not real?”
“It’s just like studying folklore,” Twilight said, somewhat out of breath. “You read the same kind of story from different sources and you piece together the common elements. Where does the idea of ghosts come from? It has to start somewhere. So maybe-”
“Something like this happened to some ponies some time long ago, and they told a story about it and those ended up becoming ghost stories?”
“Exactly!” Twilight seemed satisfied she had gathered enough books; she had a twin stack only slightly shorter than herself. “And maybe we’ll find a solution out of studying the source material. Second-hand source material. Whatever.” She looked at Rainbow, eyes bright. “It all fits so far – unexplainable activity linked to a place where a death occurred, repeated supernatural phenomena…”
“And the creepy house, the violent deaths, weird dreams about the same stuff, somepony dying before they got to finish something major in their life, the glowing lights at night,” Rainbow added.
“I hadn’t thought of some of those, but you’re right,” Twilight said, then tilted her head to the side. “Hey, how do you know all these things about ghost stories? I've only ever seen you reading Daring Do.”
“Not all ghost stories are in books. You’re looking at Cloudsdale’s number one authority on comics.”
Twilight paused, then giggled. “Really?”
That wasn’t the reaction Rainbow had expected. “What?” she asked, slightly deflated.
“Isn’t reading comics kind of… dorky?”
“What? No!”
“I mean, I just can’t imagine somepony as cool as Rainbow Dash reading comic books…”
“Comics are cool!” Rainbow protested.
“But you don’t still read them, right?”
“Well, no, because…” Rainbow was about to say something about that being foal’s stuff, when she realized two things: one, that Twilight had trapped her; and two, that Twilight had been teasing her. She tossed a cushion at Twilight, who batted it to the side with a glob of purple energy and laughed. Rainbow smiled and rubbed the back of her neck. “They were cool when I was a filly, okay?”
“But you were so adamant about not liking reading,” Twilight said, “and it’s pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?”
“No, not really. Comics always go straight to the action. There’s none of that boring stuff like in the beginning of most books where it tells you where the story’s going on and what the main character is like, you just get it in the first couple of pages.”
“Not all books are like that,” Twilight noted.
“I know that now,” Rainbow said, “but the only books I’d ever had to read were all for school, and those were all boring. Well, maybe you wouldn’t have thought they were boring, but I sure did.”
“What was boring about them?”
“I don’t know, everything? Most of the stuff we studied in Literature was all famous old pegasus stories, and all of those are either about a general who loses a war because he didn’t listen to his lower officers or a soldier wondering why she was a part of the war she barely came home from. I know it’s meant to say something deep and meaningful about the pony condition and all, but would it have killed anypony to put in an awesome fight scene or something? I bet old unicorn stories at least have cool magic in them.”
Twilight smiled. “I guess they do. I never studied them. For school, I mean. I learned a lot of magical theory with the Princess, but never went in-depth with any other subject. I read a lot of the classics in my free time, but it always feels like I’m never going to be done with all of them.”
“I think that’s a better way to do it. If I had to study Daring Do and write papers on what the book was saying about the conflict with Germaney in the real world, I’d probably hate those books, too.”
“I like doing things like that,” Twilight said. “Exploring the text further. Finding where a story fits into history.”
“Well, yeah, that’s cool and all, but I didn’t like being made to do it. It’s like, I was told these old boring stories were awesome and then had to learn all the background information that confirmed it was all boring. I would have liked to learn more about stories I thought were cool in the first place. But all those were in comics. Y’know, not serious stories.”
“I think I understand. So, what’s so cool about comics?” Twilight asked with a smile.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you just told me what you didn’t like about books when you were a filly, but why were comics better? Make me see that they’re cool.”
Rainbow paused to consider. It wasn’t a thing she had thought about for a long time. The three big cardboard boxes full of her old comics were sitting in a closet, probably still taped shut from when she moved out of her parents’ house. “I really liked the hero comics, first off. They’re kinda cheesy, but the whole fighting for good against evil thing, that was for me. Before I got my cutie mark, I’d secretly wish my special talent was something I could use to beat up bad guys, save the day, and then say cool one-liners.”
“Well, it almost is,” Twilight said with a wry smile.
“Almost.” The Mare-Do-Well incident flittered briefly though her mind; that was still something that made her cringe a little to think about, so she cast about for a way to shift the subject. “When I got a bit older, I got into horror comics. Ghosts, vampires, ghouls, stuff like that. The spookier the better.”
“So that’s how you got so good at telling ghost stories.”
“Yeah. I think I kept half of flight camp awake at night every year. I was the scary story master.” She laughed. “But I guess I sort of just… stopped. Grew out of it. Reading comics, I mean. I never thought about stopping, it just... changed.”
“It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it?” Twilight said. “How you change.” She looked down at her coffee mug. “I used to really hate the smell of coffee. I’d refuse to go into the kitchen until my dad was done with it. Now it’s what morning smells like.”
“It is funny,” Rainbow agreed. “How much you change.” A short laugh escaped her. “I mean, I’d never in a million years imagine I’d be spending afternoons in a library. Reading. And liking it.” Twilight giggled, but Rainbow maintained a straight face. “I’m serious! I might have had to beat myself up if I’d have done anything that uncool as a filly.”
“What’s so uncool about reading, anyway? I never thought it was uncool, but I’m a big egghead, so I may not understand everything about being cool,” Twilight teased.
“Well, like…” Rainbow glanced at a knot in the library’s floor, then back at Twilight. “So, okay, real talk? You know how I can be a bit… competitive, sometimes?”
“I may have noticed.”
Rainbow ignored Twilight’s deadpanning. “Reading, and Literature, and stuff… it wasn’t something I was very good at. In school, I mean. Like, I could do it, it just…”
“Wasn’t interesting?”
“Right. It wasn’t. Wasn’t what I was interested in, so none of what I was ever supposed to read stuck in my head. But comics…” Rainbow gestured with her hoof. “I knew every detail. Like, issue numbers and back-stories to all the minor characters who were only ever in an issue once and when all the crossovers happened, all of it. Nopony knew more about comics than me. Nobody could beat my knowledge, you know? It’s like…”
“It was something you could win at,” Twilight said.
“Yeah, and reading books wasn’t. So that was for dorks, and comics were for the cool ponies. In Cloudsdale, anyway,” Rainbow added, noting Twilight’s skeptical look. “That’s sort of how everything was. Winners and losers, and I was gonna be a winner no matter what.” Rainbow paused in reflection. “Not everything is like that, though. Like, your folklore stuff. How would you win at that? You're not competing with anypony. It’s just a thing you do for you.”
“I want to show you something the Princess showed me,” Twilight said, and she cast about the library looking for something. Her eyes settled on Rainbow’s coffee mug, long since cool and still mostly full. “Can I borrow that?”
“Sure,” Rainbow said, and nosed it over to her. “I don’t really like coffee that much. Makes me jumpy.” She grinned at Twilight. “You know, for the next time we’re up early trying to figure out how we can be having the same dreams.”
“I’ll try to remember for then” Twilight said, then closed her eyes. A second mug appeared in a bright flash, identical but empty.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Rainbow said, impressed. “Copy stuff with magic.”
“It’s only a standard replication spell,” Twilight said. “It doesn’t last very long, so it’s not good for very much.”
“Still. It’s cool.”
Twilight smiled, then shifted her attention to the twin mugs. “So, you know what would happen in I poured the coffee from one mug into the other,” she said, and did so, careful not to spill any. “That’s how all matter works, and all magic to some extent. It can move around and change shape and form, but there’s no real way to create or destroy it.”
“Pfft, I could just drink the coffee. Coffee gone.”
“From the mug, yes,” Twilight said, “but it would move through you, change shape and form…”
Rainbow considered this for a moment, then wrinkled her nose when she figured out what Twilight was getting at. “Okay, I guess you’re right.”
“But knowledge doesn’t obey the rules of magic and matter, and that makes it something very special. If you imagine the coffee is knowledge… something that you know that I don’t, for example, and you tell me…”
A soft green light surrounded the full mug. This time when Twilight poured from one to the other, the empty mug filled but the full mug never decreased, leaving Twilight with two cups of coffee.
“Princess Celestia showed me that in my first lesson as her personal pupil. She said all of Equestria was built on the shared knowledge and friendship and love from the ponies that came before us, and the ponies before them, and all back through history. I never forgot that, and I wanted to learn all there was to learn about all that history that brought us to where we are today.” Her serious expression softened a little. “But when the Princess did it, it was with water and clear goblets, not cold coffee.” She concentrated on the copy-mug for a brief moment, and it dissolved in a shower of technicolor lightdrops.
“It was still pretty cool,” Rainbow assured her. A thought crossed her mind, and she voiced it. “You know, I don’t think I would have liked you very much if I knew you as a filly, Twilight. I would have just seen a bookworm, and not seen, y’know, you.” She paused, then added, “I’m glad I didn’t know you when I was a filly.”
She looked up to see Twilight chuckling silently to herself. “I’m glad you didn’t, too,” she said with a smile. Rainbow suddenly found it very difficult to look away from Twilight’s eyes. No more than an extra second or two could have passed to have turned their glance into a long gaze, but that extra second or two made a world of difference.
“Well…” Twilight said, not moving, “we have a lot of reading to get done, so…”
Rainbow blinked. “Right. Yeah. We do. Let’s get to it!” She hastily grabbed the first book from the stack and cracked it open, raising it in front of her face. For no reason she felt warm and jittery, like she had just downed all coffee that sat in front of her instead of letting it slowly cool in the mug. She focused on the book in front of her, forcing herself to start reading the words on the page.
-/-
That day, and the next few that came after it, passed without significant incident. The library was quiet, filled with only the sound of page scraping on page. They would record their findings of what happened in each ghost story, then set it to the side to take a fresh book. Each night the diary of Winthrop Maresdon would glow to life. Twilight would dutifully watch the new entries appear before climbing back into bed. When Spike returned from Canterlot, he seemed unfazed by the mountains of unshelved books and the giant chalkboard set up to one side of the library covered with tally marks with ‘Common Themes of Ghost Stories’ written at the top, but was mildly surprised to see Rainbow helping Twilight research something.
-/-
Rainbow had managed to make it through eleven of the Twelve Tales for After Midnight before she realized the sun had long since sunk below the horizon. Twilight had made a big dent in the stack of books she had prepared for that day. A long roll of parchment marked with neat bullet-pointed notes sat beside her. She held her quill in her mouth as she read.
Rainbow stretched her legs and her wings, then noticed the clock. “Wow, is that the time?” She pulled out a loose feather and tucked it into her book at the beginning of chapter twelve.
Twilight looked up from her parchment. “How did it get that late?” she asked, rubbing stiffness out of her neck.
“Hey, you wanna go get some food?” Rainbow asked, suddenly realizing all she’d had to eat today was a mouthful of coffee and an apple between chapters six and seven.
“Everywhere will be closing by now…”
“Oh yeah,” Rainbow said, dejected.
“I could make us something,” Twilight suggested.
“I didn’t know you could cook, Twilight.”
“Well, I’m learning. I just don’t get much opportunity to practice, since Spike always chases me out of the kitchen. But since he’s asleep…” She trotted to her tiny kitchen and a book followed her, floating down from the loft. Rainbow was able to catch the title as it passed by: Simple Suppers for Two. “I should have everything for at least one recipe in here…”
Ten minutes later they were sat at Twilight’s kitchen table, a bean salad in front of them. “How is it?” Twilight asked.
“Good,” Rainbow managed around a mouthful of food.
“Are you sure?”
“Mm-hm.” She swallowed. “Yes. I wouldn’t say it’s good if it wasn’t.”
“Well, good.” She smiled and took a bite of her own salad. “I think it’s important to always be trying new things.”
“Cooking, folklore… you’re a pony of many talents, Twilight.”
Twilight looked away into her salad at the compliment.
“Hey, um…” It was suddenly very urgent that Rainbow Dash take a large sip of her water. Her mouth felt dry.
“Yes?” Twilight looked at her across the table.
“So… I’ve been thinking…” She glanced back at the chalkboard. “…Do you think we’ll have to go back to the Manor, to sort everything out with the diary?”
“Oh.” Rainbow thought that maybe she saw a strange expression on Twilight’s face for a second… disappointment? “Yes, that was going to be my hypothesis, too.” If she had been disappointed, it was now being masked by a smile. “Just wanted to be completely sure, first.”
“That’s probably safe,” Rainbow agreed.
“I was thinking we should go at night, around the same time new diary entries show up.”
“Makes sense.” None of this came as a surprise.
“And, if you’re ready, maybe we could go tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow?” All of a sudden, that seemed too close. Too soon. Tomorrow was… well, there was barely anything left in today.
“If you’re ready, that is.” Twilight looked at Rainbow, her expression unreadable.
“Sure,” Rainbow said after a moment’s pause, “sure, I’m ready.”
“Alright,” Twilight said, “tomorrow night.” She nodded to herself.
“It’s a date,” Rainbow said, then took a large mouthful of beans. When she looked back up at Twilight, she was smiling.
“Yeah,” she said.
-/-
Rainbow found herself missing whole sentences Twilight spoke as she finished her meal. When she tried to read the last chapter of Twelve Tales for After Midnight, she found herself re-reading sentences over and over without taking them in. When she lay down in bed for the night, she hoped she would be able to concentrate after some sleep. It was going days reading without a break for a nap or two that did it. That and the coffee in the morning. Must have been.
Sleep was hard to find. Half-formed thoughts from the past few days ran through her head, collided, merged. It was like skimming through a thousand dreams. Twilight said it was funny how much a pony changed. Coffee poured from one mug to another without emptying. Rainbow said she was afraid to eat apples from trees. A question came to mind over a bean salad, but a different question was asked. Rarity said Winthrop Maresdon was a brilliant scholar but did very poorly around other ponies. Facts about old furniture were recited. Rainbow asked how you won at folklore.
In Rainbow’s dreams that night, she was standing on a rope bridge suspended over a bubbling lava flow. The bridge was old, the rope fraying, but if it broke she could fly away. Or could she? In some of her dreams she lost her ability to fly. If the bridge broke, she would find out.
Behind her lay Ponyville, the bridge leading right into the town square. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. The sun shone down. It was a perfect day. In the other direction, the bridge led to a pair of iron gates. Beyond them, shrouded in mist, lay the shape of the Manor.
She was carrying the diary in her mouth. She could continue across the bridge and finish things there, but the bridge only looked like it got worse from where she was standing. She could go back to the safety of Ponyville, but she might hit a rotten plank in the bridge and fall. Even if she made it back, she would still have the diary with her. She looked down at the swirling lava. She could drop the diary into it and fly off. But that seemed wrong, too. The dream wouldn’t let her do either of those things. So she watched the lava flow under the bridge, waiting for something to happen.
The dream seemed to last forever.
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The way they interact is so cute to me, I could ALMOST forget about the creepy book and haunted mansion hanging over their heads.
Almost.
790918 Creepy book? Haunted Mansion? Oh right! I completely forgot about those during the supper scene
That title... My dad loves that song.
790918
I totally could forget about that stuff if they'd stop mentioning it! Can't you two just be adorable without bringing up the scary mansion every five minutes?!
This is very interesting and mysterious. For some reason when I read it ti reads like something from Silent Hill. To me anyway. Good chapter.
That was some great character development, and wonderful ties back to culture, by that I mean the development of ghost stories and common themes. It's interesting to see a ghost story taken from a perspective of those who are referencing others to resolve their own problem.
Great work.
Loving this.
Well I won't be sleeping tonight.
I think that once Rainbow awakens, the very next night they go to the manor and must escape the clutches of an ethereal being who wants her diary back.
Now this right here was an awesome chapter. The character interactions are charming and believable, and only now are we starting to get hints of romance, so you're obviously taking your time developing the relationship, which I appreciate massively. Not to mention that you're taking what I personally believe tends to be the best approach to shipping: making it only one facet, if a not-insubstantial one, of a larger story.
I also loved your development of Rainbow's past and resulting analysis of her psyche. And that second paragraph was an absolute joy to read; keep that up and you'll earn that currently-empty slot in my "Excellent Prose" feature box.
Mmm... Character development.
I was actually a bit iffy about following this on some of the earlier chapters, but this chapter completely sealed the deal for me - amazing.
Does this scare the shit out of anyone else? I might pee my pants tonight. Never read this story at 11 pm.
>> LonelyChild
Psh,I Read this at 2:00 A.M
Didn't even get chills.
Great chapter, but not very horror-inducing. The chapter title lied to me.
I've never said this before, but I actually wish I hadn't discovered this story until it was finished. Trying to read it in snippets is going to completely wreck the mood... Maybe I should just track it until it gets marked 'complete', or watch for it on EqD...
Another great chapter
I'm glad to see that you're taking your time developing the romance between Twilight and Dash, so many fics I have read just rush into the relationship, and because of this they lose all the juicy lead-up.
I'm looking forwards to more
Now THIS is shipping I can get behind!
great well written.. you ha
ve talent here keep going
It's a good chapter, mostly! The interaction between the two of them seemed to drag at first, but it got better as it went.
I agree with all previous statements. The character interaction is the crown jewel here. Keep it up!
Another Synchronicity? Hmmmm...
Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Romance, and HORROR!?
Insta-track!
Awesome. Just awesome.
Period after then.
This story is really interesting thus far. I'm curious as to how it'll end.
Rainbow and Twilight together is so d'awww.
Alternate chapter name, "TwiDash, the chapter".
Ah, yes. I still like it. It's not that it's that scary, but it is... charming, in a very nice way. It really feels like it's own thing, not cliché, and it goes to interesting places. Exploring aspects of characters that are unrelated to their most typical attributes is, I think, a good way to make those characters feel alive, and it works well here.
Also, the romance. Very subtle, very charming. I approve.
The only horror aspect of this chapter was my slow realization that this was the least scary chapter.