XIII. How can they meet us face to face Until We Have Faces?
Twilight was only half-aware. Half-awake. Around her, reality churned--no, roiled--no, again, even the words for it themselves seemed to move like uneven ground beneath her mind as it struggled to surface. The best she could do was be reminded of her mother stirring a soup with a ladle.
She tried to rise but found that she could feel her legs but in a way she did not understand, as if they were there, yes, but that they weren’t the same somehow.
Any anxiety over this and over her ineffable surroundings was swallowed up in disorientation. So it took Twilight a few moments to register a very important absence. Celestia’s.
But when she did notice that she was, apparently, alone in the riot of sound and sight, she called out. “Celestia? Celestia?” Nothing. “Princess?”
There was no one there to answer her. In the vastness of that unrefined space there was, as far as Twilight knew, only herself. Around her, she saw flashes of things she recognized--her old library, her room at home in Canterlot, Ghastly Gorge, the palace, the hills surrounding Ponyville, the orchards--
“I’m dreaming,” she said softly. But this was not the dream she had expected. But of course it was not what she would expect. She had nothing to go off of, did she? Every time before this one, she had forgotten all that been done or said in this new and strange mode of sleep.
She closed her eyes, but still somehow felt the shifting dream. “Focus,” she told herself. Speaking wasn’t necessary, but it helped. Hearing her own voice made the suddenness of isolation seem less sudden, less severe. And she focused. Celestia had offered to be with her when she slept, and she’d mentioned that her presence would probably trigger an event that was important somehow. They’d dreamwalked, or had planned to with Luna’s help. They’d shared a bed--
--and there it was. Mortification.
She’d slept in the same bed as Celestia. A younger Twilight would have been doing victory dances in the aether. The older, slightly more mature, and just as prone to awkward anxious embarassment Twilight that had finally achieved the impossible dream mostly just felt like dying in a humiliated dream pile.
It had been nice, though, hadn’t it? Awkward? Very. But nice.
It didn’t mean anything. Twilight knew that. Even as she enjoyed the fulfillment of her strange, unwholesome fantasy, she knew that the action had meant nothing. Or, well, not nothing. Honestly, what it had meant was something almost as special--Celestia had left Twilight intrude upon her private sanctum and indulged a half-baked whim in order to put her friend at ease. Celestia cared about her, and while she had always known this it was nice to be reminded in such a way.
But where was Celestia now? Had she not come through? Was there a problem?
Twilight was used to being alone. To be honest, she liked being alone.
But suddenly, she felt unbelievably lonely.
*
Celestia relived all of the old trouble. Lack of sensation, being dead--not really, but feeling as if she were--and then the slow waves of returning feeling. Throughout it all, she remained calm and collected. She would have to put aside the nervous frantic Celestia of the last week and be there for Twilight. She had to help her understand. Cadance had been so disoriented by her own multiplied existence, and the urge to keep Twilight from that same deep confusion was strong.
All of her was determined and focused. She heard nothing… and then began to worry, but not panic. Twilight must share her own disadvantage in regards to Luna’s gift. She would have to find her, calm her, help her walk--
When she opened her eyes she found that she alone. Also, strangely, she was looking down at dirt.
Blinking, Celestia stood up and found herself in a town she had visited more and more over the last two years. Ponyville. The town in the heart of Equestria’s, well, heartland. The navel of the continent. Empty. Nothing moving, and nopony else beside herself.
Well. This was off to a bad start.
Celestia still did not worry overmuch. Luna would assist if she could, and Celestia doubted any harm would come to either of them. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t concerned.
It was wonderful to be in control again, or at least to be able to pretend to be in control again. It was wonderful to be alone with her own thoughts for once.
That was about when she noticed that Dusk and Dawn were utterly silent.
Consider noise. Noise going on forever, more or less, a constant droning in one ear. Or, more likely, imagine that being alone in any sense has never been a concept. That there was no physical way to be alone, that isolation was only accomplished in death.
It had been thus for Celestia for so long that without the presence of Dusk and Dawn her first reaction was to assume that she had died. And so, for roughly a minute, Celestia panicked more than she had panicked before.
But she recovered. Nopony was there to see her agony. Nopony was there to see Celestia quickly lose her mind and then find it again when she heard hoofsteps.
She stopped. Her heart stopped. Faint. Soft. Small. She searched wildly for the source of the noise. Were her aspects here? No, no they couldn’t be. She would have felt them. But how could they be separated? They had never left her, not really. Even when she was intoxicated they were only silent. They didn’t actually leave.
But she saw no source.
It would have to be good enough. She had to find somepony. Any pony at all would do, anything to fill the sudden absence so she could think.
So she did the obvious and most logcial thing. She went to the Library, for there it was before her. Twilight’s old library, still in one piece as it had been the day she arrived.
Celestia paused at the door, briefly wondering if Twilight might be inside. She hoped so. She fervently hoped so. Anypony--yes--but Twilight would be the pony who she would most cling to. Twilight, familiar and welcoming. The aspects did not comment. They did not say anything about this feeling welling up in her that Twilight’s presence was what she wanted most, and that just made it worse.
She took a deep breath, prepared for disappointment, and pushed the door open.
She had expected nothing. She had hoped for Twilight. But she had not, at all, expected to find… Spike. Which, on reflection, wasn’t actually that strange. It was the library, and he was the librarian’s official assistant and also slightly-constant companion.
She stepped in, closed the door, and blinked at him. Spike hummed a little song as he shelved books, as if he was ignoring her.
Was he part of the dream? Had Luna misfired, somehow? Had Luna put her into a dream of her own while Twilight tried to fall asleep? She wasn’t sure. She needed more--
“You know, usually ponies at least say hello when they come in,” Spike said, his tone light. He was smirking as he shelved now.
“Well… I…” Celestia coughed. “Sorry, Spike. I’m a bit out of sorts. Are you…” She sighed. “Are you one of Twilight’s aspects? But you can’t be.”
“Why not?” Spike asked.
“Because you aren’t Twilight,” Celestia said. “The ponies in the Court of Love--the ones that had faces--they weren’t actual aspects. They were memories, I suppose. Or impressions. But none of them addressed me first.”
Spike turned to her. He smiled still, not quite smugly but close. Celestia was caught again in an old line of thought--how odd this little dragon was. She had known many dragons of all shapes and sizes in the long years. Cruel ones, proud ones, wise ones. But only one could she have called cheerful and friendly with a straight-face. Even those she had befriended were gruff on the surface. He was a child unstuck in time and in strange environs. And there he was, smiling at her.
“So you are an aspect,” Celestia murmured. “And Twilight’s dreaming, her Court, will be even more of a shock to me than Cadance’s, I imagine.”
“That’s right.” Spike chuckled.
“Why are you here, if she is not? For that matter… the way you speak is different. It’s odd that you speak of something she knows nothing of. I can accept that Twilight’s Court will be different than mine--that is not so hard after Cadance--but you seem more distinct.”
“You think the Courts don’t have their secrets?” Spike asked.
Celestia frowned. “No.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“I did not. I find, more and more, that I do not like secrets.”
“No mystery?”
Celestia huffed. “Mysteries and secrets are different, young Spike. A mystery is something I can savor. It is not so much kept from me as it is simply not within my knowledge, or in some way beyond my knowledge. A mystery is a beautiful thing. A secret is an artificial thing, kept from me. A secret is a lie.”
Spike cocked his head to the side and hummed. “Maybe.”
“And now I find myself confused. In other Courts, I refer to Aspects by their, well, aspect. What they reflect or what mantle they take on. But I tend to treat them as part of the pony whose dream I am in. But if Twilight’s Court is to be like this, with other ponies, how then shall I address them?” She leaned in, narrowing her eyes. “Are you Spike, or are you a reflection of Spike? Perhaps neither. Who are you?”
“Spike. I am Spike here in as much as you are Celestia here,” Spike said with a little shrug. “You could say that I am a copy or a memory, but it wouldn’t be the truth.”
“But do you share his memory, his personality?”
“I haven’t met him,” the dragon said. “I mean, not personally. I’ve met him through Twilight. I am what Twilight has made me--but that’s not all I am. Harmony works in mysterious ways, to go back to that word. I am Spike, but I am not Spike.”
“How clear of you,” Celestia muttered with a smirk and sat.
“Isn’t it? More than that… Hm. Well, You know how when you meet a pony for the first time, one you don’t know, and you have to figure them out? There’s that short period of awkwardness while you put them together in your head. You rebuild them from scratch, trying to get it right, trying to understand what they are. Who they are. That’s how Twilight thinks about it. When she meets a pony, she scrambles to reconstruct them, knowing full well she’ll get it wrong but knowing she has to try.”
“That sounds like her. Like a model.”
“Kind of.”
“So you are that model.”
“I am Spike, but I’m also Twilight. I’m the place where they meet,” the little dragon said, puffing out his chest in apparent pride. “I’m a bridge. We all are.”
“We?”
“Yeah. There are several, you know. Twilight has lots of friends now. It’s… it’s good. I’m glad she does.” Spike’s proud smile faded. “She used to not.”
“I worried for her.”
“There were parts of her that worried over herself. They were just the quietest parts, the ones that Twilight didn’t listen to. The part of her that knew her isolation was a mistake was not that far removed from the part of her she felt was responsible for all of her anxiety and her…” he waved a claw lazily. “You know.”
“Her attacks. Doubt as a cause of anxiety. To remove the anxiety, remove the doubt.”
“Didn’t work, obviously.”
“Not a bit,” Celestia agreed.
“That’s when she first decided that she loved you, you know.”
Celestia opened her mouth to reply, and then simply stopped.
“C-come again?”
*
Twilight’s steps echoed long in the endless caverns. Everything stretched long, really. Everything felt full of something--silence and sound, silence before her and behind her, sound following her. The library was expansive. No, expansive was not the word. Twilight had always appreciated well-chosen words, and so it was with reluctance that she had named this place, knowing that her name fit even if she cringed at its presumption.
The Endless Library. She had simply thought it large until exploration had not manage to bring her to a wall. A look down a long corridor of laden shelves only showed one where at last the shelves ran perpendicular. Beyond that shelf, a host of other that ran the same way until you were going the same direction again. If there was an end, it was beyond obscured. The vaulted cieling above her suggested an outside, of course. She struggled to conceive of anything being truly the finite end, materially. A wall wasn’t a real end.There must be something beyond the wall. There were windows, at any rate, but she could see nothing through them, and they were so high that all there would be to see was the sky. Light shone through.
Along the way, she had lost track of the time. At first, it had been the repetitious nature of the Library itself which had disoriented her. She had woken at last to find herself not only bereft but lost. Celestia was nowhere to be found. She had called and called, but no answer had come. Navigation was impossible and probably pointless, anyway. The geometry of this place was that of the dream. Who could promise her it would not rearrange itself at a whim, or that she would not see impossibility that would make any hope of finding her way out impossible?
Twilight sighed softly. It was not the heavy sigh of the lost and the frustrated, but the softer sort that only those who have wandered a library for hours really know. There are many things Twilight had learned in the libraries of Canterlot and beyond, and some of them had even been from books. Silence. Patience, of a sort, and to an extent. The way time moves strangely when you can only see the sun through scattered slit-like windows, casting moving lights upon the old floors. How a quiet voice of somepony looking for you after hours can sound like a thundercrash, how it can startle you into rapt attention. The warmth and safety of a un-thought of corner.
It was the books, in the end, which had seduced her from a serious attempt at navigation or even of keeping track of herself.
It had taken her only a few moments of wondering before she’d finally taken one down, marking its place carefully. An older tome, with an artist’s depiction on the cover of the volume’s subject and author, the mule Chickpea. Twilight smirked at his grave frown. She’d read him under Celestia’s guidance and remembered how Celestia had gleefully informed her young charge that she had, in fact, met the verbose and surly constitutionalist of the Earth confederates. She hadn’t read it, but with a warm smile and a warm memory, she had carefully replaced it and moved on.
Every now and then she would take another. System Builder, Clockwork, Faithful Leap, and others. Philosophers and thinkers, all names she knew or loved, and then she moved beyond them. She found treatises in mathematics, and then she found works that had only been names in old books, things long lost. Works that had been only legends to the scholars of her oldest grimoires.
Slowly, bit by bit, she came to a conclusion. The Library was not merely a library bigger than that of the Royal Canterlot Library. It was so much more. This was the library of libraries, the center of Logos, if there was such a thing. She wasn’t sure there was, but she felt like that was right, that it was good to think there might be. To keep one’s options open.
So for a moment, Celestia and her own loneliness fell away and Twilight Sparkle did what she did best. She learned. She found books and she read from them, never finishing but moving on, retaining what she could and blessing what was yet to be read, her eyes bright.
If she kept going, perhaps she would find the center. What would be there? She did not know, but she was eager to know.
*
Celestia swallowed. “Could you… could you repeat that?”
Spike raised a solitary eyebrow, if the almost imperceptible scaley ridge over his eye could be called thus. “That’s when she first decided she loved you, the first time around.” He blinked. “Oh! You’re confused on when, or I should, which time.” He chuckled and then put the last book away tight between its new neighbors. "Tell you what, go to the reading room. It’s right over there. I have to go get the next.”
“The… what?”
Spike just smiled at her, and waved over his shoulder as he trotted off towards the kitchen. She watched him go with bemusement until he stopped at the doorway. He turned and regarded her with a serious expression she had never seen pass the waking Spike’s features. His voice changed. It was deeper, thicker, layered she might have said.. “It’s not a pleasant thing,” he said quietly. That moment is a pleasant moment. The others one were. It was one of a few dark blots on a beautiful manuscript, and I can’t prepare you for it without you compensating and shielding yourself from her reality. But I will tell you that you will not like it.”
He turned before she could answer. “It would be wrong to let you waltz in without knowing that, first.”
Celestia looked where he had gestured. Sighing, she shook her head. What choice did she have, if she wanted to understand? She walked to the homely door on the far side of the central room and pushed it open. A normal room. Comfortable, airy, spacious. A few smaller bookshelves and tables, and Twilight’s omnipresent beanbag in the farthest corner. Seeing it made her roll her eyes.
“Of course,” she grumbled as she crossed the threshold. “Honestly, Twilight, you aren’t a filly anymore, and those things are--”
Everying was horribly wrong.
She wasn’t in the library anymore. She was somewhere--she wasn’t sure where, a bedroom? A dormitory? A hotel?--confused and panicking, as if she’d been dropped into the middle of someone else’s nightmare. Her heart hammered in her throat and in her ears. She saw but failed to connect ideas with image. The skin beneath her coat crawled--no, she wanted to crawl out of it--to esape--to run to--
When she tried to backpedal, she found that her legs refused to obey. Retreat was cut off.
So she crumpled, in an agony she had no understanding of. What was wrong with her? What had done this? Twilight’s dreaming wouldn’t have hurt her. How could she?
And as Celestia began to see in her delerium a traitorous Twilight taken by nightmares painted on the dimly lit wall before her, she heard somepony talking. Fast words. They meant nothing. They were speaking in tongues. She couldn’t follow their conversation, couldn’t see them through the half-opened door, couldn’t…
Couldn’t believe it when she herself almost kicked the door off its hinges in her frantic rush. Another Celestia, herself mirrored perfectly yet changed in ways her scattered mind had trouble keeping up with, was there.
This other Celestia spoke quickly, softly, urgently. She said--Twilight, speak to me, please. What’s wrong? Who did this? What happened? Twilight, Twilight, sh, please, nothing is going to hurt you. Nothing is going to--
And the Celestia being cradled in her own forelegs realized abruptly that she remembered this exact moment already, because it had been something of a traumatic one for her.
She’d been visiting the school grounds to have tea with the Filly’s Dorm housemistress, as she often did. They had chatted of nothing and nopony, and the time had been peaceful and calm. She inquired after several very promising students, and shared her worries over a few less than promising, a few that were lonely or ill-adjusted. She had, of course, inquired after Twilight. A full report the old mare had given her, and Celestia had been eager for every word.
What had been her words? Studious. Industrious. A little high-strung, but charming in a distant sort of way. She works all the time. She’s offered to help a few ponies with work, the old mare said, and I’m glad to say she’s finally at least talking to the others.
Celestia had thought it might be fun to surprise her favorite protege, her soon to be only, and sneaked as only a Princess can full of energy and absurdity, down the halls.
And then she’d run into the filly in the hallway, who had rushed to her. She’d heard somepony crying, and she wasn’t sure who… but suddenly they heard a whimper from the room with the half-open door. Who lives in that room? Celestia had asked.
Twilight, the frightened filly had told her.
Twilight--Celestia’s--whatever and whoever she was in that moment--her shaking had stopped. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes still not quite reporting what they saw totally. The sense of impending doom lingered. And yet she could think again. Or, perhaps it was Twilight who thought.
She felt what it was like to be cradled. No, to be engulfed, really, to be taken in completely. That Celestia covered Twilight with wings more beautiful than any she had ever seen. That Celestia was gentle. That Celestia was warm. The gestalt of Twilight and Celestia began to weep, and they were comforted.
Celestia tried to speak. Her breath betrayed her, but still she tried. “H-how did you… Where did you c-come from?”
“I was nearby,” said the image of herself. “Twilight, you’re safe. You know that, don’t you? I would never let anything happen to you.”
“I k-know.”
“Good. Good. Don’t force yourself to talk just yet.”
But she wanted to. She wanted to thank her. Twilight wanted to say all kinds of things, most of them half-mad. You came for me. When no one else could help, you came for me. Twilight believed her. She believed in those words--I would never let anything happen to you--so fervently that the Celestia along for the ride was speechless.
And then she stumbled into the reading room in a confused heap.
*
Twilight had started finding books that hadn’t even be written yet.
The first one had been a shock. She’d almost dropped the thing, it startled her so badly. But telekinesis was a skill she had perfected, and so Twilight had hung on.
Two years. Only two years between the now and that book. It wasn’t a lot, but if this library had books two years in the future, would kept it from having…
She had tried only one other book in that section--devoted to architecture, as far as she could make out--and found another book from the future. Five years, this time.
She had stopped reading then and kept on, at war with herself.
--You could know everything. You could finally chase forever, search forever just as you always wanted to.
But she had to find Celestia. She had to find out where she was.
Unbidden, her letter only a week before came back to her. It thrust its words on her with such force that she stopped walking.
But I miss the seemingly endless library. Some days, when I was still your student in a much more immediate way, I felt like I could pursue my studies forever. It was like… like magic was a chase, I suppose. And that if I kept reaching out for it, kept running after it…
She had said that, hadn’t she? She’d written it, at any rate.
Where was this place? How had it known exactly what she had been thinking of? Because it was right, really. This was a perfect trap. Where others might quail before mortal danger, Twilight planned. Where others balked, Twilight organized. Where they waffled between the good and the vile, Twilight had always plowed right through and found the Workable. Some ponies, when she’d still lived in the dormitories, had been fond of saying that Twilight had everything except a personality and vices.
They had been completely wrong, of course. Her personality aside, her vice was knowledge, and her magical study. When first she’d been drunk she’d instantly compared it to the euphoria of magic. Everything had been drawn back to that, for awhile. Food, the pleasure of napping, the coolness of her pillow, the warmth of the sun, strong drink, her more basic urges, all good things had gone back to how they were like her endless chase. She’d eschewed the company of others in her frenzy.
Twilight didn’t know if she wanted to keep going anymore. There was no way of knowing what things would lie beyond, waiting to catch her in their deceptive grip. Already, a part of her wondered if it might not be nice to stay here forever.
*
After a few seconds where she lay panting against the wood floor, Celestia heard the sound of somepony clearing their throat.
“Princess? You alright?”
Applejack, her brain told her fuzzily. She knew that voice, with its nice drawl that pulled a smile out of anything that could.
“I… need a moment,” she managed.
“Sure, that ain’t a problem at all. You look like you had a scare.”
“Something like that.”
“Spike let you waltz right into that. Can’t say I like it none, but I understand his reasonin’ a bit. That was when she first loved you.”
“First? And… and loved?” Celestia shut her eyes. She was glad one couldn’t get a real headache in the Aether. “Twilight Sparkle… I mean, I had wondered,” she said. “I had certainly entertained the idea she might have a crush on me when she was younger, but she seemed to grow out of it. I even thought that perhaps with time, we might…” she sighed.
“But your assumption was that right now, she weren’t.”
“More or less.”
“Well, sorry to tell you that you were wrong, Princess. Don’t worry. We all are, eventually.” A pause. “You know, dice are funny things.”
Celestia looked up.
Applejack was sitting in that stupid beanbag chair, with a book between her hooves and a little pair of reading glasses that she watched Celestia over. Her hat was gone, and her hair was down. She chewed on a wheat stalk, and Celestia suddenly found that this was the most strange of the oddities this image presented.
“You look different,” Celestia said with thousands of years of experience and eloquence.
“Yup.”
“That’s… well. I guess that’s actually something I expected, indirectly.”
“Twilight don’t think of AJ like this, not really. I mean, she has. With the hair down, at any rate. Idle curiosity ‘bout how it might look and all. The readin’ is Twilight. The stalk’s--” she took it out and smiled. “--is ‘cause my daddy’s pipe ain’t welcome in a flammable library and she knows AJ’s tryin’ to cut down on it now that Bloom’s getting old enough to want it.”
“Ah.”
“Right, strange me talkin’ like I am and I ain’t her. It’s the lay of the land, really.”
“I’m… gathering that, yes.” Celestia paused, searching through her memories. “The glasses?”
Applejack snickered. “Twilight happens to think that glasses look nice on a mare, and bein’ that I am a little bit of Twilight, I do too.”
Celestia joined in, and found that the emotional upheaval she’d brought over from Twilight’s memory was gone. “So what does Twilight have you reading?”
Applejack set her book aside. “Works and the Days.”
“Good Earth.” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “That’s an odd choice for Twilight. I’d not thought her much for the literature of the faithful of any sort. Though, I suppose if she were to be reading any, Good Earth would be the best. I met him but once, and his memory has not faded.”
Applejack stretched. “Hesiod, actually. And no, I can’t tell you who that is. Twilight hates spoilers. But Twilight don’t know much about Gaia and how the ponies of the earth sing their harvest songs. She don’t know much at all, but she wants to. Applejack was a bit bemused ‘bout it, but she seemed to be happy. Gave Twi a copy of the book and she put it on her list.”
“But you sound as if you know,” Celestia said.
“I do. I am Twi, but I ain’t only Twi.” Applejack shrugged. “I’m the thesis, the antithesis, the synthesis. I am the whole package, one ‘n all.”
Celestia pondered this, and then decided that there were other things to focus on. “You said something about… well. Twilight. Her loving me.”
“She does.”
Celestia took a deep breath. “She… She does.”
“Yes.”
“But… but isn’t that a bit sudden?” Celestia asked weakly.
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Only if you’re misunderstandin’. She had always admired you and liked you, but then you barged into her room on the worst night of her life. That hadn’t happened to her before, and she was terrified. It weren’t all at once. She only could say it was the moment afterwards. You’re the one who said--”
Celestia found her mouth moving before her brain did. “Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards.”
“Exactly.”
“So she does. I was… I was right. I had hoped,” she said, and then stopped herself. “I had wondered.”
“Why’d you come with her?”
“Because I didn’t want her to have to go alone,” Celestia said quickly.
“That all?”
“My own trial was hard. I didn’t know when it would come for her. Ours were…” Celestia sighed. “Luna and I discussed this. She thought if I dreamwalked with Twilight, it might set off her trial and allow me to help her. I was worried.”
“That’s one way of puttin’ it.”
Celestia pursed her lips. “And you would say it another way, Honesty?”
And Applejack just kept an eyebrow raised, looking over her glasses. “Name is Applejack, Princess. And I would.”
“And how would you say it?”
“Sounds like you love her.”
“She’s--” My student. My friend. “Important to me.”
And then there was a new voice. “Then you should tell her, darling.”
Celestia turned just as Rarity and Fluttershy entered the reading room. Rarity was dressed to the nines, resplendent and opulent in a trailing dress. Celestia recognized the design. It was ancient, or might as well have been--the last time she’d seen such a design, House Belle had still held their peerage.
Which… actually made it seem even more appropriate. She wore it well, regardless.
Fluttershy seemed more or less herself. She smiled, but said nothing. It was Rarity who took the lead.
“If you wouldn’t mind a bit more company,” she said, and bowed. “It is good to be in your presence, Your Highness.” And, in a tongue that Celestia had not heard in over a thousand years, added: “Our Court is honored by the advent of the Sun.”
Celestia started. “You… how do you…” She shook her head. “Twilight. But why would you be speaking in High Adunaic? I’m positive Rarity doesn’t know either variety… But Twilight might.”
“Not very well, mind you,” Rarity said lightly. She smiled--it was so like the real Rarity’s smile, but different. Rarity herself was different. She seemed…
“So, if the aspects of Twilight’s court mirror her perception… she sees you as a queen?” Celestia asked. She tried not to chuckle. “It suits you, my fair Rarity.”
“You flatter me. But I do happen to think so.”
So Applejack, smarter than she appears. Rarity, the princess she was meant to be. Fluttershy…
“You’ve been quiet, Fluttershy,” Celestia said.
“Oh, I like to listen. Communication is a lot about listening, you know.”
“That it is.” She looked at them all. “Almost everyone, then.”
“Pinkie and Rainbow will be here in a moment,” Applejack said. “But we were in a discussion, Princess.”
Rarity trotted over to sit by Applejack. “Indeed, we were. You and Twilight. Oh, it really is romantic, I must commend you on that, Your Highness. Jumping in to protect your lover! Oh, it is the stuff of the greatest novels.”
“Hardly,” Celestia said, but she smirked.
“I think it was brave,” Fluttershy said as she walked by to sit at Rarity’s side, farther from Applejack. “I mean… for you to come with her after your experience.”
Celestia froze. “You… Do you know what I saw?”
They all nodded.
“Yes, but let’s get back on task, if you don’t mind. I’m thinkin’ we’ll have plenty of time to talk.” Applejack stood. “We’re sorry, all of us, that you can’t be with her right now. We’re all glad--all of us--that you wanted to. But you can’t. Twilight… Twilight’s gotta make the choice on her own.”
“Her choice?” Celestia tensed. “That sounds ominous.”
“It is, a bit.” Applejack’s features darkened. “It is. The thing ‘bout choice is that it’s always kind of final, y’know? But we got faith in her. We believe in Twilight. She’ll come ‘round.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Celestia asked.
They all looked at each other. They all looked away from her.
“Then this will be the last time you see us,” said Fluttershy.
She tried to look hopeful, but Celestia had a hard time believing it. For not the first time in her long life, Celestia felt absolutely powerless.
*
There were two Twilights.
One of them was entranced. Utterly enthralled. She had looked at the books. Of course she had. Dozens. A hundred, maybe, in all. Science, magic, poetry, literary criticism. Joke books. Joke books a hundred years in the future. She had read every page.
That Twilight was in ecstasy. She could stay here forever. Just the most cursory glances at some of those books had sent her into fits of inspiration. She had found a book on Metaturgic Phenomenology. She had no idea what that was--the book was five hundred years in the future, and just the introduction had left her all but panting with excitement. Seven hundred pages of totally uncharted knowledge. She was Daring Doo at the mouth of a lost city. She was a lover on the threshold.
The other Twilight had gone from lonely to afraid. Celestia was nowhere. Her friends were far away, farther even more than they had been when she had been awake. The Library was empty, as far as she knew.
It was like the old Twilight--but there was no old Twilight, there had only ever been one--had returned in full force. So caught up in the chase that other ponies weren’t just ignored but ceased to exist.
“Celestia?”
Her voice didn’t echo. It died in the stacks.
“Celestia?” Nothing. “Please. I’m…”
She didn’t finish. She kept walking and walking. The books whispered. They didn’t actually whisper, the part of Twilight that insisted on technicality insisted. But they might as well have.
And, anti-climactically, she turned the corner and found herself in a clearing of sorts. A circular emptiness enclosed by rails, shelves in all directions, a skylight above and the light streaming in. She stepped all the way to the rail and looked down.
The Endless Library was truly infinite. She saw nothing but floors and floors. Endless freedom. Infinite wisdom. The song beneath every spiralling thaumaturgic diagram, she could find it. She could hear it.
“It’s all yours, if you’d like.”
Twilight jumped, ears down, legs spreading out and body lowering into a fighting stance. “Where are you? Who are you?”
And there was a light behind her. She turned.
And saw herself.
Twilight fell back on her haunches. “You’re…”
“What you could be.” The Twilight before her was taller. Her eyes flashed with fire. Her wings were light. Everything about her was--
“Perfect,” Twilight breathed.
“Yes. I am the perfection you could achieve. The pinnacle. I am what you should be, Twilight.”
“But… but how? Do I… Will I become you?”
“If you want. You would wield ultimate power. You would know everything you wished, undisturbed in your studies. Before you the world would open like a flower.” The spectral Twilight smiled at last. “Simply stay. Read. Learn.”
“I want to. This place… this place is wonderful.” Twilight sighed. “If only I could… It’s so lonely here.”
The other Twilight cocked her head to the side. “Lonely?”
“Well… yes. Empty.”
“Empty? I assure you it is not. This place has everything you could want.”
“Bookswise? I suppose. What this place represents? Of course. Knowledge, the thing I’ve always wanted. To know. To understand. But where are other ponies? Where is Celestia? My friends?”
The other Twilight’s brow furrowed. Then she made a little “ah” of comprehension. She smiled again, and approached. Her hoof laid on Twilight’s shoulder, she continued.
“Twilight, you are ageless. You will outlast such things. I know that for now, such seems important, but with time? They will run together. It is best you understand that now, at the beginning, and save yourself the heartache of the long years. You were meant for perfection, immortality, to be as Celestia is.”
Twilight blinked. “As… but Celestia isn’t friendless.”
“Isn’t she?”
“Of course not.” The Princess--the Archmage--grinned victoriously. “She has moved beyond such things. You are her friend, because you would not be as the dust. From the first day she has meant you to be with her forever.”
“With…” Twilight shook her head. “That sounds a bit overboard.”
“Fate tends to sound such. And I would know--for when you are as I you yourself will write it.”
She made a sweeping gesture, and the world around them opened up--the air was split open, and in the voids she saw herself, ruling from a grand city of spires. She saw herself and Celestia--she saw them sitting close--she saw them sharing smiles and conversations that lasted days--she saw them sharing wine in the starry void beyond the ken of ponies.
“Become perfect,” said the Archmage, Twilight ascended. “Stay in the library, and you will have her because you will be worth her.”
“Worth?” Twilight grimaced. “You make it sound like if I don’t become you she'll reject me.”
Twilight stopped, and the Archmage just waited.
Celestia had been encouraging, but had always pushed her. Do better. Be better. Be the most you can be.
Learn everything you can. Excel.
Rise above.
“She might,” Twilight whispered.
It had always been so easy to imagine. That Twilight would fail, and her teacher would abandon her. Because she wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Her tutelage had begun in failure, and it would end with a failure.
“She almost did, you know. After the Smarty Pants incident,” said the Archmage. “Only the promise of what you could be stayed her hoof. Think of every test, all laid out to make sure, to push you towards new heights.”
Twilight swallowed. “Then what am I supposed to?”
“Stay. That is the start. But you must move beyond the small spheres you currently walk in. Move beyond the smallness of sociability. You were put in Ponyville as a test. It was the opening move of the great game. Celestia doesn’t roll dice. She plays chess. And now you must risk--that is what she wants of you.”
“She wants me to just… go back to being a hermit.”
The Archmage rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. She wants you to grow up, Twilight.”
“I am grown up.” Twilight grit her teeth. “For your information. You’d know, if you were me.”
“Which I am--the promise that made you worth her time.” She drew the last three words out slowly. “Elsewise, why would she have bothered? Especially after… well, you know.” A grin full of teeth. “We both know. So weak. So frail. So easily led down sad and dark roads. You were almost too much trouble, weren’t you?”
“What?”
Another window into a vision.
Twilight, shaking, confused. She’d been nursing her stress for days, trying to outdo herself. She’d been so sure that Celestia would be dissapointed in her attempts. Balancing schoolwork and private study and lessons with Celestia as they grew more intense with helping half the hall with their own work. Balancing until…
“Until you broke,” the Archmage said as the Twilight in the vision began to break down at last. “Until you proved to her that you were a broken vessel. Damaged. Goods.”
“Shut up.”
“I only say what you know. You are worthless to her as you are. You always have been. But you could be better. You could be worth the effort. You could become just as she is.”
“Shut up!”
“Fine. Fine, I’ll go. But you have two choices, Twilight Sparkle of Canterlot--” Twilight winced. Place names were important. And the other her knew that attribution was important. “--you choose the denizens of your Court. Choose yourself and you’ll have her by the by. Choose a multitude and she will grow distant from you, unsure of you. Uncertain. She already is.”
The Archmage made a mockery of a bow, and then she vanished.
Twilight was alone in the library.
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Fascinating
Ah, so Twilight young Court is still mostly possibility. All options are open, but only some will be used and the others will wither and atrophy if she doesn't value their contribution. It's not preset but formed, just like her mind and personality. I wonder if her aspects are just very emphatic, more so than Twilight realizes she herself is, or have actual knowledge she couldn't possibly know. Are these future books true, or formed of her own mental exercises into what is possible. Loving this story so far.
A bit hard to understand that....
So Twilight has a choice... between a Court of One, and a Court of her friends. That's the nature of her trial... interesting.
I started reading this on a whim and then found the time to be much later than I expected. This is excellent. I love the style you use. When I write, I find myself looking at a thesaurus and struggling to find a word that fits. You use words as though they truly belong! It's refreshing to see words such as pinnacle, environs, advent, peerage, etc. used so... fluidly. I don't know a better way to say that. I should really work on my everyday vocabulary.
As far as the story goes, I like the concepts. The idea of a an internal court is very interesting to me. I really like that it's implied Celestia and Luna chose power/drive(?), Cadence chose EVERYTHING, and Twilight's still got a choice to make. I kind of don't like how the drive/power side is basically displayed as a bad guy, unless that's the point! Then maybe it's her anathema. Don't tell me! I like guessing.
Basically this is great and you should feel great. Thanks!
7209437 it's interesting to me that you think Celestia and Luna chose that. Not that you're wrong but that it's interesting.
All trials differ, as all ponies do--if there were infinite Alicorns attuned to things their trials would be uncountable and never repeated.
Celestia's trial will be expanded upon but Luna's is really enough for a whole novel. It would not be a happy book.
Twilight merely has to choose. Celestia had to endure. Luna had to kill. Cadance had to lose.
Well...how's that for a confirmation/metaphorical wake-up slap?
Well, everyone guessing that her court would be her friends was right, but there's a little wrinkle that I don't think any of us foresaw.
The courtponies seem to have their own sources of information. That's... interesting.
7209449
That paints more or less the whole picture right there, I think.
7209770 Some surrender is sweet.
Hell, I might do Luna's as a story one day. The trials, but not the Court, are the same for her and Celestia as they were in Night in my head.
...damn the cliffhangers man...
i am however glad this is updating reasonably often
C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N .
I'm gonna admit it, I'm having some trouble following all this - let's just assume it's me, and not Cynewulf's writing.
I'm going to recap a few items and questions here and would love to find out if I'm following things correctly or not. Please correct me where I'm wrong:
1) if one becomes an alicorn, there's no guarantee that one will become Ageless (i.e. Immortal)?
2) When an alicorn becomes Ageless, that alicorn must face a Trial. During that Trial, that pony's Inner Court is chosen.
3) An Inner Court is a reflection of parts of that alicorn's personality (i.e Aspects). In other words, the alicorn that became Ageless develops a fragmented personality. (It's really hard for me not to think of the movie "Inside Out" as a comparison here).
4) Once established, an Inner Court helps direct or BE the personality of the Alicorn. (Just as Celestia is an amalgam of Dawn, Noon, and Dusk.)
5) To me it just wan't clear, but when Celestia, Luna, and Cadance measured Twilight with that weird spell a few chapters ago to determine if she was truly Ageless, the results seemed to blow Celestia out of the water - confirming Twilight was Ageless - but at the same time it seemed to do something to Celestia's Court. Was her Court changed/destroyed/other? I was very confused by this.
6) At the moment, Twilight's Trial boils down to which Court will she choose: her friends or inner desire for knowledge. I'm going to ASSUME that should she choice her desire for knowledge that will impact her personality to be more 'hermit' like or such and stop being social just to study.
7) Regardless of which Inner Court Twilight chooses, i'm assuming it's not going to cause any physical changes or damage to Twilight. It's just an impact on - for lack of better words here - her personality or possibly her conscience.
Any clarification here would be greatly appreciated so I can better follow along with the story. I'm very interested in what happens next.
thx
This needs a bit of proofing. There are several instances of misspelled words and missing quotation marks in the middle of paragraphs, and the latter makes following dialogue a little difficult.
Thought the title of this chapter was a Jaden Smith tweet. Color me surprised to discover that it's a C.S. Lewis line.
7217804 Until We Have Faces, ya. It's a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. Working through it and it is absolutely devastating. It's way more powerful than Hideous Strength, as much as I love the space trilogy.
Chapter VII is also taken from the title of a talk given I believe as a sermon originally. Also the title of the collection it's usually found in. Great collection.
Ooh, I like the choice you've set up for Twilight. Lonely pursuit of perfection at the cost of everything but herself and, maybe, Celestia; or the shared pursuit of friendship, at the cost of perfect knowledge and, maybe, Celestia...
There was one place where I was, unfortunately, literally unsure what the intended communication was.
Obviously there should be a new quotation before "That", but the rest is mysterious. "That moment is a pleasant moment" seems to be juxtaposed against "It's not a pleasant thing", but what on earth does "the others one were" mean in relation to those two statements? My best guess would be "The other ones weren't" as in "The other moments were not pleasant", but that requires changing every word other than "the".
Other errors in this chapter were inconsequential, and I do find the story fascinating. Right now I'm wondering how these avatars are connected with their originals, as they seem to be. And how true the vision the Archmage dangled was. After all, it alleges that Twilight will still be capable of normal interaction (in the outside world).
logical
managed
others
Quotation marks don't resume, and 'the others one were' is a very confused sentence.
delirium
been
“Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards.”
It's always exciting to find little snippets of philosophers within the writing, especially Kierkegaard.
Twilight's shut up was pretty epic.
... of course.
She's the princess of Frienship. Of course it makes sense that her Court will be held with her Reflection constructs...