Insurgence

by Rose Quill

Pillars

"Oh come now," the figure said. "I'm not going to eat you. You can stop trembling like a tiny rabbit."

I tried to speak, but my mouth had gone dry and all that came out was a tiny squeak.

The figure raised a skeletal hoof to his face and slowly went back to the amorphous cloud. "Delirium was right, never show the expected form," the voice muttered, now clearly a feminine voice as the cloud shifted into a human female dressed in dark clothing. There was a peculiar swirl of ink around her right eye.

"What are you?" I managed to force out.

"Me?" the woman asked. "Have you never heard of the Pillars of existence? And I don't mean the ones you read about in that stuffy old Legends of Magic book in that library you live in."

"How do you know that?"

The woman tilted her head at me. "I have borne witness to every soul born so that when the time comes to meet them again, they do not quail in my presence. Is it so difficult to believe that I poke my head in from time to time on some of them?" She waved a hand dismissively. "You didn't answer my question."

I worked my jaw as my mind whirled. "I...I don't know," I replied.

She sighed. "This is what we get for withdrawing," she muttered before visibly perking up and grinning. "Right then, Cliff Notes version."

She placed a hand on her chest, a silver pendant glinted briefly. "I'm Death, nice to meet you. I'm one of the Pillars of Existence, one of the Endless. But if you want, you can call me Teleute."

I paled. "Then I'm...dead?"

She shook her head with a giggle. "Of course not," she said. "If you were, I'd be sitting at a bar to have a talk with you before showing you the door to your eternity. Since I seem to be devoid of any furniture at the moment, well..." She spread her hands.

"Then why am I seeing you?"

She cocked a thumb behind her and in the inky blackness, I saw a slight swirling. "Someone kicked a hole in my wall, so to speak. I was the only one around to try and fix it at the moment." She sat down, seemingly in midair, and crossed her legs. "So basically, I've got to shove you back out the way you came, and I'm afraid it might hurt a bit."

I nodded for a moment. "How do you know where to send ponies?"

She tilted her head for a moment, then passed a hand before me. A sphere of grey light formed in the cup of her hand, the colors slowly separating into brilliant white and dusky black, speckling the grey sphere like a chunk of granite.

"I can see the deeds done by all that I have come to," she said. "Should they be more light than dark, then Providence is their destination. If darkness consumes them, then Perdition."

I looked at mine, the two colors nearly equal. "And mine?"

She closed her hands, the sphere shrinking and vanishing as she did. "Still growing," she said with another grin. "Your time is not yet up, little pony."

I felt a weight lift from my withers. Then two faces flashed in my memory.

"Do you mind if I ask about two of my friends?"

She chuckled. "I'm assuming you mean these two?" she asked as Azure and Gleam appeared in ghostly forms.

"Yes," I said, feeling the tears behind my eyes. "Are they happy, still together?"

"Yes," she said. "But they came here before their times, so I have not ushered them on yet."

My mind screeched to a halt. "Before their time?"

She nodded. "It is possible to stumble by accident into my realm," she said, the pointed look she gave me softened by the grin and twinkling eyes. "They won't remember it, nor will you. It's the cost of traversing the Paths."

"Then they're not dead?" I whispered with hope.

"At this moment, they are without hosts," she said. "But there is a way to undo much of the damage done. The Conjunction is going to destroy both worlds if allowed to continue. You know the path to take to end it all. You merely have to repeat history with a different tack. The Timeless Mare should be able to facilitate you in that." She glanced down at her wrist, a large wristwatch glinting as she shifted her sleeve up. "I do apologize, but I have to hurry this up. I have a dinner appointment with Dream and Destiny later this evening and I don't wish to be late."

She started to fade as the swirl of the portal raced to meet me, the strain of the transit scratching at my brain as the memory of the conversation with...

I landed hard on the ground by the map table. How did I dodge that blast? It had to have hit me, I could almost feel the sting still.

I looked up at Chryalis, her gloating face still hovering in the air beneath a blazing horn. I heard Sorla groan behind me, and an idea formed. I leaned down and wrapped a hoof around her and teleported away, keeping the jumps short since I could feel the tangled weave of magic distorting so close to the portal. I needed time and distance, and I wasn't sure how long I had before the mad queen caught up.

Comments

[MySisterBroughtMeHere]

There's still a chance? 😂

[Vic Fontaine]