When the Everfree Burns

by SpiritDutch

Chapter 39: The Prospects Ahead

Dash was awoken by a snapping sound. She was immediately fully alert, jumping to her hooves in a swift nothing. But she saw no trouble, and in fact she saw nothing at all for the intense darkness around her. There was an indescribable mist hanging in the air, like silk covering every surface until it was all rendered pitch black.
What was going on, she wondered. The last thing she remembered was flying into the chasm for water. Was she still in the chasm? There was no light upwards either.

“Hello?” She called out, but all she heard were her muted echoes.

The snapping sound that had awoken her came again, but this time Dash identified it as the dying crackles of the charred wood. She was in the little annex, but the embers of the firepit not four hooflengths from her was invisible for the consuming dark mist. It was cold, but not damp; in fact it seemed to pull the moisture from Dash’s skin and breath, so that her throat became dry within seconds. Dash had the unspeakable awareness that the mist would take more of her if it could.

“Applejack!” She yelled, moving in different directions until she bumped into to a wall. “Where are you?”

“M- Mis Dash?” Came a filly’s frightened plea. If Dash had known any of the three fillies she would have identified it as the voice of Applejack’s sister Apple Bloom.

Dash jacked in the direction she’d heard the filly in. “Hey! Who is that? And what’s going on around here? Is the world ending?”

“R- R- Rarity turned back into a nightmare!” A squeaky sob replied, Sweetie Belle.

“She took my sister back to the big room where y’all fought!” Apple Bloom and the sound of tiny hooves on stone came closer, until they collided with Dash’s leg. The nightmare pegasus was suddenly aware of how chilly it was, and how cold the poor fillies felt against her.

"I knew the good times wouldn't last. This is... not good. So not good.” Dash gnawed at her lip. She was out of it for for just a moment and everything went back to hell. “Did Sparkle have a hoof in this?”

“Mis Twilight was here and then she left to find Spike, and then he came back to talk to Mis Rarity!” Said voice of the little orange pegasus filly Dash did not recall the name of. “I think she was the one who made her go crazy again!”

“Mis Twilight ain’t that crazy. She wouldn’t wanna put Spike in danger.” Apple Bloom then squeaked with realization. “Oh no y’all, Spike’s still around here somewhere!”

“We haven’t seen Mis Twilight in a while. She must have been really scared and ran away” Sweetie Belle wailed. “Or- Or maybe Rarity ate her!”

“She would have been way fatter if she did.” Scootaloo countered. “She just chickened out!”

"All of you be quiet! I'm trying to think... If you think Twilight buggered off, then that's what we should be doing too.” Dash shivered. She was tempted to cut and run, leaving the fillies in the pestilent fog, but another part of her suggested she sate her growing hunger with them. Though she was able to ignore those compulsions, Dash was starting to feel empathetic to the cravings for pony flesh Gilda had felt.
“You fillies stay here, I’m going to clear away this fog so we can find this Spike guy.” She grumbled.

“You can do that?” Sweetie Belle asked, probably wide eyed in the dark.

“I used to be a top weatherpony, the best on the East Coast.” Dash bragged, then hesitated. “But I haven’t jockeyed with mist this thick in quite a while.”

“You could carry us out of here.” Apple Bloom appealed. “For sure Mis Twilight will come back for Spike.”

"She might or might not." Scootaloo said.

“I’ll... try my way first.” Dash decided. “You three stay here, I’ll be right back.”

She crept to where she guessed the center of the roofless annex was, and unfurled her wings. She tried to flap, but the air was nearly impossible for the magic pervading it. But slowly Dash rose, until she was clear of the oppressive fog.

Up above it all she could see that entire castle was filled obscured by the fog, two stories deep at least, though it rose the highest around the throne room. It tapered off quickly away from the ruins, bleeding off mostly into the southwestern chasm.

Interestingly, the Moon was shining brighter than before, although Dash did not notice.

“Let’s see what you’ve got.” Dash challenged, and she began pushing air down with strong sweeps from her wings. The fog began boiling underneath her, but did not disperse.

Suddenly the black mist coalesced, forming a writhing mass of tendrils that struck out at Dash. Within half a second they had latched onto her hooves while other, sharper coils whipped at her wings, trying to restrain them. Her scream of surprise was quickly squelched, for dozens more tendrils reached out for her and engulfed her head in a tight wrap.
After half a minute Dash stopped struggling, and the corporeal shadows bound her wings. The malignant nightmare behind the tendrils wasted no time in pulling her back down into the fog in the direction of the throne room.

---

The largest of the dragonfire birdcages in Phyte’s makeshift lab was still on it’s side where it had fallen, its wire frame slightly bent, its hinged door fallen open. The device was none the wiser to it’s off-kilter orientation, and dutifully ignited when it’s mate in Castle Magoria sent a message its way.
Ripple Wreath was not so much deposited in as launched from the cage, the magical spill-off of his integration being blocked on one side by the ground. He was in the air just long enough to scream at the peak of his arc before falling back to the under-earth. He crashed into the lab table, smashing everything breakable into shards and splinters and completing the scattering of the equipment started by Prosser.

“Ohh.” Wreath groaned, unable to move for fear of digging any glass further into his back. “The gods despise me.”

A peach colored earth pony leaned into the feint torchlight.
“Well you're not doing a particularly good job keeping in the graces of the mortal powers either.” Prosser regarded the new arrival. "Hi there. Did Lady Velvet send you? I know I am not supposed to be working-"

“Please help me.” Wreath whimpered.

“Oh fine.” Prosser rolled his eyes, extending a hoof to the stranded knight. “I am usually much more stern with the new ones, to assert dominance and all that. But you look lost and confused, and I’m feeling a measure of sympathy." He pulled his hoof away as he bowed, his girlish sing-song voice imitating a Canterlot aristocrat. "Prosser, ex-councilor."

“Charmed.” Wreath grumbled, taking Prosser’s hoof when he offered it again, pulling himself of the ground and to his hooves. "Where am I?" He looked back at the birdcage he'd been teleported through. "I thought I was in a tower."

Prosser stepped back to give Wreath space as he brushed himself clean of splinters and broken glass. "Your tabard... Those are Prancian colors."

Ripple Wreath averted his eyes. "Colors not many earth ponies wear, I know."

"I'm more noting that you must have come from the camp in the northern foothills." Prosser said with weary caution. "I don't want to assume your intentions..." He trailed off as he scrutinized Wreath's empty stare. "Ah. Am I to guess you're disheveled state and arrival here has much to do with the, ahem, welcoming committee?"

Wreath sighed, his pent up frustration turning to . "Look, my fellow, this whole thing is going to take time for me to come to terms with, and I have no desire to talk with a stranger about it." He turned away, trying to find out something about his surroundings. Unfortunately the little circle of light around the laboratory promised to ways back to anything resembling safe respite. "And I still don't know where I am..."

Prosser followed behind him, eyeing with interest how the cuts on Wreath's legs from the glass began to fade back into his fur. "You've had a close encounter with an alicorn, haven't you. Since you aren’t a unrecognizably mutilated eunuch, it was not Astral Nacre."

"Please tell me how to get out of here." Wreath asked.

"The Nightmare of the Moon got a hold of you. What did she do?" Prosser pressed. "Come on friend, I can give you a hoof if you tell me what happened."

“I, uhh…” Wreath’s hope that the company of another normal pony would offer him respite from the madness was waning. He wasn’t sure how much to disclose. “I have to go.”

“Go where? If you wait for a few minutes my friends will return.” Prosser grinned. “Then we’ll have a fun time going back to the surface together.”

“No I think I’ll chance it.” Wreath flashed his best smile. “Nice meeting you, bye.” He shuffled around the broken table and galloped into the obscuring darkness of the cavern, disappearing between the massive statues at the edge of the light. Soon the clop of his hooves died out as well, consumed by the dark.

Prosser looked down to the birdcage, at first wondering if an alicorn would fit in it to follow her flighty plaything. Then it occurred to him that Wreath was heading in the exact opposite direction of the exit.

He considered informing the knight of his mistake before he lost himself in the uncharted subterran. “Should I… Nah.” He went back to what he had been doing before the interruption: arranging the desiccated corpses Phyte had left into funny poses.

---

After tearing through Castle Magoria and it’s grounds in search of Twilight Velvet, Astral Nacre had the idea to ask somepony where her mother could be found. She found one of Lady Airy’s guard patrolling the castle grounds who, rightfully terrified, confessed that Lady Velvet was in the Chateau la Garde.

Astral released him and started making her way south to the gatehouse.

---

Twilight Velvet's ear swiveled, detecting somepony new stepping out of the stairwell onto the roof of the gatehouse. Her ladyship had set up a temporary workstation there in the fresh air, overlooking the Canterlot fringes on one side and the road down from the city's plateau on the other.

"I'm back, my lady." The soft voice of her young maid said, as the mare approached from behind.

Velvet waved her closer. "Did you learn you lesson?"

The maid was silent.

"Okay, yes, I know your punishment was less about your misbehavior than it was my frustration." Velvet sighed. "You can handle my anger better than most ponies though."

"Yes, my lady." The maid bowed. "Anything you need of me, ma'am?"

"No. But if you see my husband, don't tell him I'm up here." Velvet grinned. "I'm being a bit naughty, working when I'm supposed to be resting."

"Yes ma'am." The maid bowed again.

Velvet pulled her lips back a bit. "Actually, there is one thing." She squeezed her eyes closed and ignited her horn. A pair of binoculars appeared in a flash of light, and she released her breath. "Look westward for me. My eyes have begun to lose far focus this night."

Dutifully, the maid trotted forward and grabbed the binoculars. She stepped over to the edge of the roof and scanned the horizon to the west with the binoculars. "It is hard to see in the dark, my lady." She reported. "And there is smoke coming off the valley floor."

"Look to Cloudsdale." Velvet said.

The maid obliged. At first the young mare wasn't sure what she was seeing: darkened blobs hanging just above the horizon. They were airships.
"My lady, there is a fleet coming this way. "

"So noted." Velvet tapped her chin. "Now look to the southern flank of the Unicornia, just as it opens up into the valley."

The maid did this to, and saw a haze of light that after she focused the lenses more resolved into hundreds of distant pinpricks. A whole patch of the foothills of the Unicorn Mountains was lit up by campfires.
"My lady, there appears to be an army gathering."

"Interesting." Velvet yawned. "Next time you see Night Light, please tell him both those things."

The maid returned to Velvet's side, giving back the binoculars. "Yes, my lady." She silently wished Velvet would be more direct about her orders. "Anything else to tell his lordship?"

"He's smart enough to realize a Cloudsdale fleet implies a blockade, and that means stunted deliveries from the valley." Velvet hummed. "Oh, but he should know Lady Airy finished her orders regarding the city guard and the accused revolutionaries within them. He should further know she failed to select any nobles to hold hostage. Tell him to put Sel Lech on the case, since he is somewhat of a class traitor anyway."

"Is putting Captain Sabonord in proximity to the alleged revolutionaries wise, my lady?" The maid asked demurely.

"I hold no resentment for commoners who have the bravery to improve their lot. Not even those that would violently expropriate my belongings from me if they could. At least they know things have to change. They could be better allies than the nobles that want the status quo. But, political necessities being what they are, the new regime will have to maintain neutrality for now." Velvet mused. "Sel is too cowardly really sympathize with revolutionaries. He wants change to be handed down to him."

"Yes, my lady."

"You don't need to tell Night Light all that. Sel Lech may not even be available for assignment right now, depending on whether or not he returned to the underground Arcanum. In fact he may well die down there, considering he is likely to encounter a monster or ancient madness, or some such. Ah well." Velvet shrugged. "Oh, one more thing. That smoke you saw coming from the valley floor, where was it coming from?"

"Apologies my lady, it was behind the plateau." The maid said.

"So, north."

"Yes."

Velvet grinned. "Some mischievous creatures have set something on fire. Good." She guestured to the stairs. "Off you go then. Keep an eye out. There's been a few reports of abductions and thefts by mysterious teleporting yellow unicorns."

"I will try, my lady." The maid bowed her head and back away, turning to trott down the stairs.

Velvet, alone once more, rubbed her forehead to ease the growing headaches she was experiencing.
Was it magical, physical, or mental causes that was plaguing her with pain? Velvet cursed her own weakness. There was so much to do, little problems all across the city to stomp down. There was precious little at her disposal to confront the threats bearing down on Canterlot, by air and land. If she could wrangle Astral Nacre, so many issues would disappear...

"I must find a way to have some leverage over her." Velvet mulled. "How can I gain control over something she cares about? Hmph. Create an alicorn, and it responds to the same control methods as ponies. Makes me wonder."

---

Sel and Aurthora galloped back to Prosser and the lab from the side cavern, disregarding their previous stealth in light of an absent enemy. They arrived at the edge of the lab to see that something had smashed apart one of the tables. There was glass and some blood on the cold stone ground.

“Councilor?” Aurthora called out, not hiding her concern. “Councilor are you here?”

“Hello. I’m just fine, no need to worry.” Prosser peered out from behind one of the stone slabs. “Oh, did the mess have you worried? Freckles here decided to throw a tantrum.” He propped up one of the pony corpses, but pushed it too far causing its stitched-on head to fall off.

“Councilor, please. Exercise some restraint.” Sel gagged.

Unconcerned by Prosser’s antics, Aurthora began investigating, picking over the broken equipment until her eyes rested on the disturbed birdcage. “Somepony else came through.”

Sel sucked in a breath, eyes wide. “Councilor, did you see who it was? Was it a mare? Or two mares? Which way did they come from? Where did they go?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Captain.” Prosser vaulted over the slab and jogged over to the debris. He grabbed a severed pony tail from the drying rack. Holding it with his mouth, he began using it as a makeshift broom to sweep up the glass. He continued talking around the bits of dried flesh. “Ash hue can shee, I’mm tze only won here.”

Sel gagged again.
Aurthora narrowed his eyes. "Councilor..."

Sel recovered his stomach and interjected. "Knowing him he did this just to bother us."

"Two mares, you said? Are they the rogues you're looking for?" Aurthora asked somewhat sharply.

"Two mares, both outlaws?" Prosser asked. "Now you have my attention sir."

Sel was getting nervous and angry. "Sir, ma'am, I'm trying to do my duty. If I can't do it here I must look elsewhere. You two can manage here alone, right?”

“We were doing mostly fine before, so I imagine so.” Aurthora grunted. “I am sorry we did not find your terrorists.”

“Well, um, keep an eye out.” Sel nodded to her stiffly, then to Prosser. He trotted out into the dark towards the passageway connecting to the Opera House.

Out of the enormous cavern, back in the claustrophobic stone corridor, Sel let out a depressed sigh. He'd really not accomplished much, besides make Lady Aurthora suspicious of him. Sunset Shimmer and her mysterious friend where still at large.
Sel had advanced several hundred hooves down the tight corridor when he heard a deep rumbling from behind him. Distracted as he was by his own thoughts, he did not pay it much attention. If he had, he would have described it as somewhere between a gravely roar and a deep, anguished yowl; An angry monster hungry for blood and souls.

But he did not hear it, and left his comrades to their plight.
Not that he could have done much.

---

“Good evening sleepyhead.”

Seeing a fanged cheshire smile as first thing upon awakening ranked amongst the worst experiences Dash had yet been through. Doubly so when the nightmare form of Rarity opened her mouth slightly and began salivating, her decorum forgotten in savage amusement.

“Ahh, BUCK!” Dash swore, trying in vain to move her aching wings. She was apparently bound in the same manner as Applejack was across the room, trussed and tethered by looted fabric pulled tightly and tied in thick knots. Luckily for her she was right-side up, unlike the unfortunate nightmare earth pony. “What the hell gives Rarity? I thought you had gone normal!”

“ ‘Thought’ being the operating descriptor, darling. I was never the kind of mare to let things go so easily.” Rarity chuckled. “I had all of Ponyville fooled for years, so I think one particularly long night is a piddling challenge at best for a mare such as I.”

“What are you talking about?” Dash demanded, then asked again. “Applejack, what is she talking about?”

Applejack was breathing hard, as result of both her bindings and suspended state. The was pain in her voice despite her efforts to keep it out, but more emotional hurt than physical. “She’s talkin about the Nightmare, or Dark Lady, or some other names ‘swell. Before you woke up she was explainin how her family’s been worshiping Nightmare Moon since forever. I don’t know if it’s true or she’s just makin it up.”

“Oh it is very true.” Rarity said smugly. “My ancestor Solemn was the first to settle on the edge of this sacred forest, where she gathered all the other faithful of Celestia’s Empire. Dnieghper Crypt was a place of peace and solitude, where the Dark Lady could watch over us. Celestia knew that oppressing us would only make us stronger so she gave us autonomy as a Free City. We lived our lives away from the bigotry of you sun worshipers."

She turned to Applejack.
“And then you came, you APPLES.” She spat. “Our corner of the world was transformed into a nexus of heathenry, as more and more outsiders arrived to steal from the faithful. Paradise was lost for generations, and the faithful had to hide. By the time I was born my family were the only ones left, all the others having moved East to Baltimare. I grew up unable to speak or worship my goddess. I grew up in constant fear.
“I wanted to change that. I wanted to restore my family and my brethren. My chance was your tragedy. It was when you left, Applejack, leaving your pliable brother all alone to manage the affairs of the most respected farm in the valley.” Applejack’s growing horror was Rarity’s growing glee. “Yes, I plied him, and I showed him what Ponyville was always meant to be. He grew deeply, passionately, and irreversibly in love with the Dark Lady. He was my tool to spread her name to others in secret, and soon an exclusive circle was made. It was only a matter of time before enough of Ponyville had joined us that we could stop hiding, and practice in peace.”

She stared at Applejack in contempt. “But then you came back, and ruined everything! Macintosh suddenly had two important mares in his life, and that was one too many. He thought he was betraying you by going behind your back with the circle and associating with me. Your abuse only heightened his guilt, until it was just too much for him. He wanted nothing to do with either of us. He cut all ties and our circle collapsed; Many were there only because Mac was. He left Ponyville with only his unwavering devotion to our Dark Lady.

“And do you know why I know this, Applejack? Because your brother confided in me, trusted me! Every word that he wanted to say to you, but swallowed to protect you, he told to me! I was his best friend in the entire world! And what were you, that he gave up everything we had for? An ungrateful, castigating, WORM!” Rarity was almost crying in pure hatred. “You should have stayed in Manehattan, Applejack, because I am about to unleash on you what I have been dreaming about for the past five years!”

---

Deep deep in the Everfree, a pony fell.
An outside observer would have seen the black alicorn topple headfirst into the shrouded antechamber, rolling down the pile of bone to rest at the base of the strange stone pyre.

But to the clouded senses and mind of the pony who was once known as Twilight Sparkle, she was plummeting through a hurricane of light and smoke.

The voice was still there, pressing at her with a tangibility that words should not have had. “Welcome, young viscountess, to my home. It is in a deplorable state right now. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Who are you?” She could not find a point to focus on, so she let the wind whipping by her take her words.

“You have seen me once before, and I still am no more than that modest lump of rock you beheld.” The voice said.
The alluring pyre, the source of the light magic in the antechamber. She had suspected that there was more to it than just being an artifact, but to think that it housed a fully formed consciousness was- Well, actually, it was not that surprising, considering that the black alicorn was herself soul bound in a set of blue steel armor.
The voice continued. “Now I must ask you the same thing. It is not that I do not know what you are, but I wish to know how to address you.”

The black alicorn was irritated by the pedantic question, but she had no real choice but to ponder it. She was not Twilight Sparkle, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted to be Twilight Sparkle. She was, as sickening as it was to admit every time, something more. The persona she had created, Ancepanox, was not the most appropriate or comfortable if she was going to be confronting this existential dilemma, but it was all she had.

“It... doesn’t matter. It’s all up in the air anyway.” She deflected. “Now how about you end this dream!”

“I am sad to say the fault lies with you, for this is as real as I can make it. I can naught other than talk. It is up to your ailing mind to interpret my presence.”
At this a thousand trees like stone pillars rose about Ancepanox, or rather she seemed to fall into their midst. Great watchful eyes as large as ponies, wretched void orbs with points of red, inset into black vines that wrapped and undulated around the pillars, watched her downward progress with occasional interest. It reminded her of Astral Nacre: A thing that should not exist.
“If you were asked why you willingly entered the abode of a beast whose aura reeks of temptation and domination, and whose home is overflowing with the manifest anguish and hatred of an ancient army, how would you explain yourself?”

“Are you a beast?” Ancepanox asked.

“No. I simply mean to convey my abominable nature, as my abstract existence is not something palatable to most sane creatures. Perhaps ‘dreadful thing’ would have been sufficiently descriptive.” The voice replied, the abounding eyes unblinking. “Now, young viscountess, please answer my question.”

Why had she come here? The black alicorn was starting to wonder herself, for her surroundings were so contrary to the connotations of knowledge, of formal instruction and scholarly learning. She was not as dismayed as she should have been by the agitated and otherworldly images she was falling though, but impatient bordering on disapointed.

“You promised me answers. I need answers.” There was a demand layered in her explanation.

“I did make that promise, circumstances being as they were. Your perceptions are being fought for by your components: The soul of a student, the armor of a traitor, the body of a monster, and the blood of a villain. Your perceptions are merging and morphing, until your worldview surpasses the dreamscape for sheer distance from reality. Psychic and psychological dissonance. Simply put, young viscountess, you are going mad.” The voice diagnosed gravely. “If you were pristine, I would have appealed to you in a way that better hid my obvious desperation and haste. If you had been able to tell that I need you more than you need me, you would have bargained and set conditions. Alas…”

The infinity that Ancepanox fell through finally ended. She collided violently with the ground, though the complete lack of pain betrayed that it was another trick of her mind.
She was at the root of the world she had fallen through, in a forest of stone pillars that reached endlessly upward, disappearing at a point high in the blank sky. The twisting vines ran up and between them, bearing the fruit of the lidless eyes, which exhibited no emotion and no feeling, only letting her know that she was observed.

“I share with you a certain abhorrence for ignorance. Your ignorance is particularly troubling. I was quite smitten by you the first time, but I doubted you would ever willingly come back by your self.” The voice explained. “For nearly a thousand years I have retained my solitude and my silence. Surrounded as I am by the pooling hatred of the damned, most mortal creatures would die before reaching me. My call would be a siren’s song, tempting heros to their demise.”

“You tricked me here with false promises.” Ancepanox spun, trying to find the right eye speak to. “You want to kill me too?”

“If you listened you would hear I mean the exact opposite for you, young viscountess. I need you.” The voice purred. “But if you wanted to spite me, and now we talk on pure speculation, how would you do it?”

Ancepanox, her senses warped and twisted, had not the first idea where to strike to destroy the entity behind the monstrous visions of vines and eyes. “When I’ve had enough of manipulators like you, as plentiful as you are, I would have no choice but to follow through with me threats to kill myself and deprive you the satisfaction.”

“Yes, you do threaten self-slaughter boringly often.” The eyes began looking to each other, speculating on the alicorn's resolve. “Maybe the prideful traitor part of you means it, but she will be in the minority tonight. The student craves knowledge I promise no matter the cost. The monster will always fight to survive. The villain will accept my demands while hatching overwhelming reprisal. You will never die so long as you exist like you do. You are defending yourself from harm even now, using your magic for protection the five minute you have been in my abode.”

Ancepanox knew she was in the antechamber, and yet she was not feeling the hostile effects of the magic that had been there, nor was she trying to use her magic. But like breathing manually, the moment she tried it she felt the shield around her, cast from her own horn. Something was running her body in the corners of her awareness, hiding from scrutiny.

“It’s the nightmare, not submerged and opposing agencies. Just that damned nightmare.” She explained to herself, pushing from her mind the ludicrous explanation the voice provided. The nightmare was something she could explain. “It doesn’t want me to die or it’d lose its host.”

“I seem to have misconveyed my message.” The voice sighed. “The components within you are facets, converging into a single consciousness. I am elaborating what you know already, that you are no longer only Twilight Sparkle.” Then it quickly added. “Nor is it the nightmare. You have not a trace of a nightmare in you. It is another Dark thing… Now, please stop arguing with me young viscountess, and let me explain.”

“Fine.” The black alicorn cautiously agreed. Under ideal circumstances she would take her time to contemplate, test, and adapt the voice’s assertion, but there was no time. Though she was not expressing it, the feeling of finally learning again was immensely gratifying. She could not help herself to ask another question. “Why do you need me?”

“You can endure the overwhelming energies of my home, which are known to you so juvenilely as Light and Dark, when they would dissolve and pulverize any other mortal in alternation. You have a tallant. A…” The voice paused. “Dare I say mutation? An intrinsic command over the fundamental aspects, so that their most concentrated they can only mat your fur.”

The black alicorn rumbled. “That doesn’t sound very flattering.”

“Forgive me for being oblivious to the courtly parlance, but what I mean to say is that you are able to withstand these surroundings when any other seeker of knowledge would die. Going forward into the dangerous new world, your power is a vital necessity to certain tasks I need executed. I mean that not as empty laudation, but as a statement of fact.”

“You presume much, but that much is true.” Ancepanox conceded, then immediately retorted with a question. “I can not help but notice you seem to know far more about me than I of you.”

“Oh, didn’t I introduce myself? I am Myriadess, the Scarlet Flame. Or I was.” The countless eyes flashed with flickering red light, a faded insight into the forceful magic the stone pyre radiated. It was old, far older than Celestia and her sister, older than the most ancient of the tomes in the Canterlot libraries. What Ancepanox could feel was indescribably primal, as though the bizarre red eyes around her had seen the birth of creation. “I am the last surviving child of Wintertide, the Fair Flame. Perhaps you have heard of him.”

Could it be true? However fantastical, Ancepanox had the taste of knowledge now, and she hungered for anything the creature Myriadess could tell her. “How did you end up here?”

“Let us do one question at a time. I never finished telling you what I need.” Myriadess assuaged. “When Celestia and her sister moved me here, more than a thousand years ago, I conveyed to them a prophecy. I was an oracle at the time you see, one of the Flames of the Gryph in old Maredia. They severed my connection to the others, but I had already known their fate for a long time.”
The stone pyre, richly decorated and carved with care, now made sense. The hippogryphs had created it to house one of their gods, though they reviled referring to the ancient augurs as such. The royal pony sisters had apparently plundered one of the Flames, and moved it to their principality in what had become the Everfree.
“I told them that their doom would be of their own creation, as it always is. I told them that their lives and deaths would be scarred by treachery. I told them that they would not be the concluding perpetrators of the cycles of change, as they had hoped.
“Lastly, I told them they their demise would accompany a magnificent convergence, where all the loose ends of the preceding eras would be brought together and ended. I told them that their only redemption would be death, and their successors would either save or damn the world.” Myriadess intoned. “Can you see where I’m going with this, and with you?”

Ancepanox sat in silence for several moments. “Successors? Plural?”

Myriadess grumbled, either tiring of the questions or hoping Ancepanox wouldn’t point that out. “There is a choice for you to make, young viscountess. Though you will not understand why until I have yielded the pertinent insight, the many opposing forces will only allow you to don the mantle of one of them, if at all. This will not be a choice to be take lightly, and I will not let you make it unless you allow me to imbue the totality of my knowledge.” Myriadess warned. “Do you wish to turn back?”

The black alicorn rolled her eyes. “Don’t waste my time. Shut up and start teaching.”

“Oh how you bluster! You are a wounded animal in heart and soul, of that there is no doubt. You are weak and cornered by fate, making a show of your teeth. But we will change that!” A deep laugh shook the world. The warped vines clenched tighter around their stone trestles, and the countless red eyes intensified their stare. “Prepare you mind, young viscountess; You have managed to make me anxious with anticipation. This oracle will provide her revelations.”

“That’s all I could ask for.” The black alicorn snorted, as the world around her was overcome by red light.

If her senses had reflected reality, she would have seen herself sprawled at the base of the stone pyre. She would have felt the oppressive magic bear her weight before pulling her upwards and laying her atop it’s uneven red-jeweled surface, transforming the image into that of an active funeral, with her own self as the departed, subject of cremation and mourning. She would have nearly tasted the aura of the primal entity housed in the stone, as it flooded her metal and flesh with the promised enlightenment.

Comments

[SpiritDutch]

I was mistaken about having a Dash and Gilda chapter next. I'm getting really close to being at a point were I can tear away the mystery of the metaphysics of the world, but I'm not yet sure how much ambiguity and mystery I should keep intact. The problem I contrive is that without the lore, ideas that sound epic in my head come across as weird and pointless.
Really, I should just write and not worry, but the thing is I'm terribly self conscious about this sort of thing. I wonder at times if I would have more readers if only I did something different. Maybe I'm wasting my time, and I should forsake an endeavor that has already consumed thousands of hours of my time.
I think... I just want feedback. Even if you usually lurk, tell me what you think. I'm so starved for attention, I'll probably do anything you ask just to keep you happy. !! NOTICE ME SENPAI !!

[TyroidMary]

Between Astral Nacre and whatever the hell Myriadess is, things have taken a turn for the Lovecraftian.

Was there any foreshadowing of Rarity's true loyalty, besides the stuff about Solemn? I can't recall there being anything indicating that Rarity was actually and genuinely evil, nor anything about her nightmare worship. Considering how much you love to use Chekov's Gun, I'd have thought you'd lead this upset a bit more than you did. Same basic thing with Myriadess, though in light of her/it actually becoming important I retract my earlier complaint about it's uselessness.
I just hope you flesh everything out more. In short, I demand more flesh!

[SpiritDutch]

Ah gee, this chapter was cringe-inducing before I made some changes. At the time I wrote this, I apparently didn't know what I was going to do for Sunset's goal, or even most of Velvet's intentions, and just slapped some macguffin crap together.

You know, I wonder if it's dishonest to be making big alterations so long after the fact. Most people aren't going to be rereading things after I've improved it. The half-baked garbage that was here pre-editing will be the defacto, or at least how the story exists in most people's mind. And is that not how reality exists, how we perceive and remember it?