When you're in...

by PeaceColt112

Atom Heart Mother

Twilight felt her whole body ache as she regained consciousness, her head spinning like the wheels on the Ponyville express. A soft breeze was blowing over her back, rustling her fur. It was warm, sunny and dry. It was time once again, time to go on.

She opened her eyes. Twilight was on the edge of a cliff, beneath a tree. It took her a while to get up, for the shade that the tree provided was simply too good to pass up on. The only problem was that her throat ached for water. She felt like she was sitting in the sun for hours. In dire need of a drink she perked her ears, listening out for telltale signs of flowing water. Splashing could be heard, indicating a spring nearby. Amazing, this place seemed to have everything.

Twilight darted her eyes from one side to the other, looking for the source of the water. Something glistened in the corner of her eye, like a piece of jewellery that someone left behind. She walked towards it. Drops of water ran down a rocky surface, leaving a black spider web behind. She licked the few drops off and felt instantly refreshed. But still, she needed more.
A drop of water splashed onto Twilight’s head. She looked around in annoyance, as if someone played a prank on her. Another drop hit her, this one smack in the snout. More drops started coming down in. It was obviously above her, and increasing in size. She looked up and saw a small hole in the rock, water dripping from it.

Twilight let it flow into her mouth, cooling her off. She never experienced refreshment on such a scale. It was like being covered in ice after sitting in an oven for a good hour. She just stood there for a while, taking the sensation in. Alas, it was time to move on. With that thought of hers, some music began, seemingly out of nowhere. She was already used to ghostly music, especially if it was this good.

Twilight glanced around one last time. She noticed that beneath her stood the entrance to a cave, simply labelled by a red arrow over it. Since she saw no other way forward, Twilight began her descent into the darkness.
The moment she stepped in, the music became louder, engulfing the entire cavern. As Twilight stepped in fully, it grew in depth. Sounds of an orchestra emanated from a distance, unseen by her. The cavern walls were still tough, and the music seemed to be in her head.

No light was visible anywhere in the cave. The blackness was complete when the entrance behind her shut off, barring any sort of light from entering. She wasn’t afraid though. Slowly she became used to these places, almost certain that she wouldn’t get hurt.

As soon as he lifted her hoof, the cave walls lit up. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of green and orange glowing gems covered the ceiling and the walls. It was like a waterfall of light, draping everything in a vague green tint. Twilight noticed that the path beneath her hooves was made of solid stone, perfectly formed out of a single block. This wasn’t made by a being Twilight could comprehend.

She trotted trough the cavern, surrounded by the lights. Stone formations of all sizes greeted Twilight as she went on, some waking surprising memories inside her. She remembered her father an her mother, her friends and her life before she came to this place. It almost seemed like ghosts of her past occasionally appeared within the cavern.
The ceiling grew higher and higher, until she felt like she was in a concert hall, surrounded by high stone pillars, going all the way to the top. In front of her hundreds of gems embedded into the floor and walls lit up. It was astonishing. The floors and walls were covered in small rock protrusions around a metre long, sticking out like needles. On top of each of them stood a gem, slowly pulsing orange.

She couldn’t see her hooves anymore. It was like she was hovering, gliding across the ground. Music seemed to disappear, blend in with the walls and stone. The pillars of stone surrounding her suddenly grew, encapsulating her. It was a forest of stone and gems, proportionally growing as she descended further. It was almost like her body was acting on its own, separated from Twilight. She had a feeling that even if she decided to stop, she couldn’t.

A humongous rock riddled with diamonds stood in front of her, spreading out over the entire cavern. It glowed bright orange. Twilight approached it and was immediately drawn to it. She had to touch it, to feel it, to be part of it. It radiated heat, pulsing and heating up more and more. It was quiet, so quiet that Twilight could hear her heart beat.
Twilight extended her hoof and it connected with the surface of the diamond. Almost instantly, the diamond was vaporized, turned to a fine dust, still glowing and reflecting light. In that instant, all sound disappeared. Just the deafening silence remained. In the rock that once housed the diamond now stood a passageway, pitch black with no gemstones. A soft trail of air glided across Twilights fur. It was like she was being beckoned, drawn forward, lured almost.

Drawing a deep breath, Twilight stepped through the newly formed gateway. Again, the entrance behind her closed. Her mind grew loud, the sounds of a choir becoming more and more present. She walked on, each trot of her hoof echoing like an explosion, a hundred orchestras now burning inside her chest. She felt like her mind was being compressed, like she was growing smaller. The path narrowed, only to reveal a crack in the stone.
Twilight could smell air trough the crack and see the faint light of the moon. Placing one of her hooves carefully outside, she determined that it was safe. The music stopped abruptly, and gave way to silence. She walked out slowly, almost cautiously. It was the middle of the night, but brighter, because the moon was around three times its ordinary size. It was a planetary body of its own.

She turned around and faced what appeared to be a cliff, looking over something. As soon as he approached its edge Twilight’s jaw dropped immediately. The stars hung lowly over two cliffs, separated by a valley that was twice as large as anything that existed in Equestria. A mighty river flowed through the valley, extending into the distance as far as Twilight could see. It was all positively alive, touched by small waves of wind that eroded the landscape through the centuries. Rocks tumbled down the cliff, roaring waterfalls fed the river in the valley and the moon shone brightly upon this ancient land. It was almost like a dream. Twilight never imagined that something this harmonious could exist.

Everything was like a big symphony, a glorious cacophony of waterfalls, wind and rocks. Total chaos that somehow made more sense than anything, chaos that can only be communicated through all the six senses. The wind in her mane, the smell of the flowers filling her nostrils, the feeling of the rocks beneath her hooves. She could feel it all. Cradled by the wind, protected by the valley she felt like she was absolutely safe, like nothing could get to her.

She stood on the edge of time itself, nothing mattered anymore. It was all so balanced, right on the edge of light and darkness. This was the world that could never fall apart, the place where everything was permanent. There was no pain, no sorrow, only beauty, eternal beauty resting upon the shoulders of the universe itself. Trillions of stars extended overhead, as they were trying to give thanks to this place by playing a symphony of light. It was all natural now, the only sounds being the leaves, the wind and the rock.

No matter how many wars ponykind fought, no matter what happens to Equestria, this place will remain, only restricted by the existence of physical laws themselves. This was the embodiment of knowledge, of time and of the very meaning of life. A soft voice began singing, the melody dancing in the wind and carried trough the valley, echoing off the cliffs:

If I were to sleep, I could dream.
If I were afraid, I could hide.
If I go insane, please don't put
Your wires in my brain.

If I were the moon, I'd be cool.
If I were a rule, I would bend.

Twilight just sat down. She wanted to stay. She wanted to know. She wanted to learn everything the wind could teach her, everything the starts could teach her. She never wanted to leave. Books were her love, her passion but this place; it was like a book in itself.

Her eyelids grew heavy. She wanted to stay awake, but her body had other plans. She sat down and fell asleep almost instantly to a lullaby sang by the stars and the moon.

Twilight dreamt of flight once again that night. She flew to the stars and back in a paper boat without a bottom, folded across a crease in time. At her journey’s end she sat on the moon and looked down onto the planet, listening out for the songs of life, learning and teaching, giving and taking.

And that night she would meet all the ponies she never knew, she would meet all the ponies she wanted to know. Her mind was a book waiting to be written, the language on its pages understandable only to a select few. It would become one part of that giant cosmic library, the library where every being’s soul resides after death. There was no god, no higher power, for in that place all was equal, on the same ground.

Pure energy encapsulated here body as she hovered in the very fabric of existence itself. This was it. This was the ultimate experience, being everything and nothing at all. Soon she began sinking into the blackness of time, into the memories that surrounded her, gently caressing her. This was like the experience of being energy, just a hundred times more passionate, with knowledge now added into it. She knew everything there ever was to know but alas, she knew nothing. For all that knowledge was a mere speck in comparison with everything else.

She sank further and further into the blackness that surrounded the moon, like quicksand. Taken in, her soul was opened, exposed to the light. Who was she to say she knew the reasons why? Pony science didn’t come near deciphering the secrets of the universe. Only in this vast place, suspended in reality itself could she see that her life was fleeting, that ponykind was fleeting and that it all collapsed to dust.

Twilight was a mere atom on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. She was unbelievably small, almost infinitely so. But it still was her note in that massive symphony of time, her note that made it all one. If we remove even one note, the whole symphony falls apart. It was all important, every pony was important, every bird, every flower, every tree and every life form no matter how small.

Slowly her fur disappeared in a less violent way then before. Before she was surprised, now she was ready. She was ready
to move on once again, like a star in its final cosmic cycle. She would disappear from this world; her only remains the small part of her being she left here, the small part of us we leave everywhere we go.

Her physical existence now gone, Twilight’s mind started disappearing, absorbed by the massive darkness, by the fabric of time itself. She faded away, slowly, being knit into it. Her light still glowed faintly, now a star suspended in the ether. For no matter what happens to us, we remain, in small details, but we still remain.

She would wake soon tough, a new entity in a new place, looking the same but different on the inside. She broke on through to the other side.

And it was glorious.

Comments

[PeaceColt112]

well, this does appear similar to some of my former chapters. Maybe I'm just overthinking this stuff. I don't know.

This isn't the last of the BIG COSMIC STUFF in my 14 chapter epic, believe me. You're gonna see some serious shit as soon as Dark Side of the Moon hits 88 Gilmours an hour!

The next three albums (Meddle, Obscured by Clouds (That I think is gonna be the longest, I got 3000+ words for it already! ) and Wish You Were Here) are gonna be a lot more grounded so to say, a lot more human...or pony or whatever

Well, just tell me if I'm repeating myself or if it's okay !

*lights piece* Now then, about the references in this: Dear Esther (BRILLIANT, PLAY IT. PLAY? IT'S NOT EVEN A GAME!), other floyd albums (Whoever catches the most references wins a cookie! ) and a few others that I'm to lazy to list.

Wow, this is getting long, better cut to the chase! Well still better doing this then posting it IN THE STORY!

Lotsa emoticons on this one, huh? Well, BYE FOR NAOW!