The Mask of Despair and the Face of Hope

by Wings of Black Glass

We End at the Beginning

It took time to get back to Ponyville. It was hard to say how long, the sky never changed from its awful clouds of grey. We ate when hungry, rested when tired, and slept when exhausted. Although I dreamed, I was not visited by Despair in my nightmares again. Over time I grew weaker, not stronger, I must have done more damage than I thought with my final attempt to defeat Despair. My leg didn’t get much better, if anything, it got stiffer. My wing ached; hopefully, the splint braced the bones so they could heal.

At last, I could see the familiar silhouette of the town of Ponyville ahead of us. Unfortunately, the city was as silent as the rest of Equestria. The trees in the park and all the flowers were wilting now. The lights were all out, the familiar sights all washed out. Was it my imagination, or were the colors of the world starting to fade away? Or maybe it was just the grey clouds overhead and the still air playing tricks on me.

Sable brought us to the doors of the castle of friendship, the purple crystal walls almost black in the weak light. After he helped me down from the cart, I glared at it, despite all the aid it provided I still hated it for being a symbol of my weakness. I really would have instead walked home under my own power if I could have.

There were supposed to be two guards out front. One disappeared before we left. The other was still there, curled up by the door. He hadn’t moved in days, and he never would again. I would think him sleeping if I didn’t know the truth. This was not the first such pony they came across. On the long road home, we found a few like him where they had been out when Despair’s curse caught them, out late at night or traveling on the road. Still, it hurt to see him.

Sable opened the door a crack and stepped inside. I tried to follow when he returned suddenly, and wrapped an arm around me and flung one of his new Alicorn wings in front of my face. All I could see were the silver tips and black feathers, it was like the night sky, and there was warmth there.

“Don’t look.” It was the same tone of voice he used after he found his parents.

“Wha-” I tried to push past him, but I didn’t have the strength, physical or emotional.

“You don’t want to see them like this.”

“That's… not fair.” Tears started to stream down my face as the pain in my chest grew stronger. “I should see them.”

“No.” He was crying too.

“Let me see them!” He gripped tighter. “Please!” I nearly wailed.

“Twilight, listen to me.” He dropped his wing, but he was so close to me that I couldn’t see past his face and mask. “I don’t want you to ever remember them like this.”

“But you saw your parents, I should see them!” It was a weak argument.

“You did.” He paused as I gasped for breath. “You saw them stand beside you, ready to save the world.” My mind flashed the image of my five friends standing beside me as shining golden spirits. “Remember them like that. Remember them as beautiful and strong and happy.” He shook his head, slowly. His eyes glanced down to the guard beside the door. “Not like this.”

“Let me see them.” I begged now, with no real power behind it except my voice. A static charge built around us as Sable embraced me again. For just an instant I saw an orange leg just inside the door before everything vanished in a flash. The thunder-crack of his teleport was so much louder than I remembered it. We appeared, standing in my bedroom. With my broken wing and my wounded leg, I would never be able to make it down the stairs. He’d taken the choice from me.

“I’m sorry.” Now I wept loudly; it wasn’t fair. “If you want to hate me for this, you can.” Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. “I accept that punishment.” I had no more words, nothing I could say. Even when he picked me up and placed me gently on my own bed, I still tried to struggle towards the door, reaching for my friends I would never see again.

Sable walked sadly away from me, but he stopped before reaching the door. He turned to my dresser and placed his silver mask upon it, next to the orrery he made for me. Then he flicked the three switches on the model and set it on the floor. The little sun and moon floated up into the air, and the room was filled with small projected stars. Then he wiped tears away and shut the door softly behind him. I didn’t hate him for it. I knew he was just trying to save me from more pain.

There was nothing to hear except my own pained breaths and Sable’s hoofsteps. I could track him through the castle just by the sounds he made. He was in the hall, then down the stairs. Another hall, the kitchen, the map room. A door opened. Now he was outside. I couldn’t hear him well enough anymore to tell what he was doing.

So I just watched the little candle lights of the sun and moon orbit, the little aurora and comet set his mask glinting. The many reflective panels on the mask’s filigree gleamed and flashed almost like real lightning. Was it a comfort now, his beautiful model? As the stars turned, I noted the accurate constellations on the opposite wall again. That night in the park came back to me. I had no idea then what my meeting with him would mean, to either of us, what would happen because of us even knowing each other.

The window wasn’t far away. I could hear him outside, faintly. Just getting there was a herculean task for me, even getting off the bed was difficult. Was my body really so weak now? I must have been wasting away by the hour. I looked up at the window shutter and sighed, not that long ago I could just have willed them open, and they would all obey my command. Now I had to struggle to get one open enough to see outside.

Sable was there on the grass not far away. He was digging shallow pits, graves; three were done already. It would have been easy for him to use his magic to open the ground, but he didn’t, he was using his hooves. He could have picked any place, anywhere I couldn’t see from any of my windows. This he was letting me see. There were no visible corpses; they must have still been inside. I had to lean against the wall as I watched. It took him a long time to dig them, all side by side. Despite the discomfort of standing for so long, I watched him do it.

Once all were dug, he looked up at my window and then disappeared for a while, walking away to find something. I heard him down in the map room; something cracked loudly as stone broke. What was he doing? He returned into view not long after, carrying great crystal slabs. I recognized them as the backs of the crystal thrones. At the head of each grave, he planted one, the marks on the crystals visible from here. On the slab with my own mark, he magically transformed it to match Starlight Glimmer’s. As Spike didn’t have a cutie-mark, he settled for carving the little dragon’s name into the headstone.

There were two more graves without headstones, adjacent to Applejack’s. Who were those for? And I remembered now that I also brought Big Mac and Apple Bloom to the castle. Here he used magic. Two stone slabs emerged from the ground, onto which he scrawled the marks for the siblings.

Here now he returned to the castle, and it took him a long time for him to come back into view to view. Each of the bodies he brought out and placed before the graves was wrapped in a sheet, I couldn’t see the corpses. One last torment, or was it a kindness? Before he set them in the graves, he returned to my side, retrieved his mask, and wordlessly carried me out to the grave site. One by one he put the dead in their places, very gently. Fluttershy was the last, and he looked sadly down at her wrapped body for a moment before filling the graves and covering them with earth.

We stood there in the silent world with nothing to say, it had all been said. It was so quiet I could even hear our tears drop to the ground. Then Sable raised his head towards the sky, and lightning reached up from his horn to the clouds high above. The thunder cut the air; I felt the rumble down to my bones. He again shot his lightning high, and the second boom was the same as the first. A third time the bolt reached high, and this time the clouds were illuminated by his neon blue glow, his salute to them echoing far into the distance. As his light hung in the air something soft and white began to fall around us.

“Is that snow?” I didn’t think my voice would sound so loud. But everything here in the quiet world seemed louder than it should.

“No. It’s ash.” I watched it fall for a moment, Sable’s magical glow illuminating the ash as it descended. It was almost pretty, but then the ash landed on the graves, and I knew there was no beauty left here. So I turned away, and Sable helped me back to my room. I could see the effort to bring me here and to dig the graves had drained him.

“Don’t go.” I called out to him as he was about to leave the room, to sleep in his own bed. He looked back to see me reaching for him. “I don’t want to be alone.” He came back to my side, drawing the blanket over me.

“I’ll be right here. You can rest now.” He remained beside me until I fell asleep.

I expected to see something in my dreams, but there was nothing. It was the kind of sleep where you close your eyes and then open them again sometime later with no sense of any time having passed. I blinked, still not rested, and spotted Sable standing in the middle of the room. Little blinking lights surrounded him, at first I thought the orrery was still going, but I didn’t recognize any of the shapes. Then Sable, his back towards me, started moving the little lights around with his hooves or with his magic. He was doing something to his mask, floating in the air before him. I closed my eyes and slept again. I dreamed now, and strangely it was of the Alicorn statue back in Pinewood, all was silent except for Sable’s voice half-heard through the fog of dreams.

“Twilight? Are you awake?” I blinked. I thought it was sometime later. Whatever Sable was doing he had finished, he was wearing the mask again.

“Sable?” My voice was weak, hopeless.

“It’s time to go.”

“Go where?”

“Time to go save the world.” His voice sounded hopeful, and I raised my head.

“How?” I pointed out the window. Ash was still falling outside. “How can we fix… this?”

“The same way I started it.” What did he mean? “Come on.” I couldn’t complain, I didn’t have the energy for it. Confused, I allowed myself to be helped down to the map room.

“I still don’t understand.” We stood beside the table. The castle felt hollow now.

“Time travel.” He tapped the map. “We can go back, stop Despair.”

“How? That spell was beyond you, and I can’t use magic anymore.”

“I failed when I tried to cast it before because I was trying to go back to a moment which never happened.” He placed an Alicorn wing over me; it was warm and comfortable. “This time is different. We can go back to before Despair attacked Tartarus, intercept him, catch him before he can cast that curse.” I looked from Sable to the table. It could work. If I were the one to cast the spell.

“Are you sure you can do this?” I met his eyes again.

“Do we have another option?” We did not. His confidence was uplifting.

“Alright. Let’s go save the world.” I took a deep breath and tried to smile, and Sable set me on the table. He joined me there, and we each threw a wing over the other. We would do this standing side by side.

Sable started his spell, closing his eyes to focus. I couldn’t feel the flow of power in the room anymore, but I could guess what he was doing. Drawing strength from his inner powers, probably more significant now that he was an Alicorn, and linking his magic to the map’s. His horn glowed, brighter, the table started to rumble. Electric charge filled the air, lightning sparked off the chandelier above. I frowned, something was wrong. Sable opened his eyes, glowing white with power.

“I can’t see it.” Words echoed with power, the air cracked. I glanced down, the edge of the table was starting to dissolve!

“Sable! Stop!” He couldn’t hear me. “The map can’t take it!”

“Where do I go?” I had to stop him now before the magic backfired on him again. But what could I do? “I don’t know where to go.” The only thing I could. It hurt my leg, straining against the pain, I pushed him off the table. The light vanished from his eyes, the magic cracked, and we both ended up on the floor. My side screamed at me and I with it, I’d landed on my broken wing. “What happened?” Sable blinked. “When are we?”

“It didn’t work.” I had to speak through new tears. “We’re trapped here.”

“No… no, it can’t be.” We both climbed back to our feet. “I saw the tunnel of light. I saw the past, all of it.” He placed one hoof on the edge of the map, and the stone crumbled away. “It was all there, but I couldn’t see where to go. I couldn’t tell where to take us.”

“So that's it?” I looked at the map myself. It had lost most of its color, and the edge was crumbling. “Look, the map doesn’t have the strength to send us. The Tree of Harmony is dying.” Silence fell on us. Sable circled the table, thinking. We were silent together for a while.

“It is a price I could pay.” I knew those words. “If that were the cost to save you.” He was looking at me now, his voice calm. I flashed back to the conversation on the way back from the Crystal Empire.

“No. Don’t do it.” It hurt, but I limped over to him.

“Twilight.” He sighed quietly. “It’s the only way.”

“No, no. We just fixed you.” My breath caught in my chest, more tears. “You’re an Alicorn now. You even got your cutie-mark.” He glanced down at the golden shield with my star on his flank before looking out the windows, his expression hardening. “I can’t ask you to give that all up.”

“Not at this cost.” He gestured to the falling ash outside. “No wings, no mark, are worth this.”

“You said you couldn’t see the way.”

“There is a point I saw clearly, like a beacon. A focal point of power, a place in time which is special to us. The moment I created the monster, Despair. I can send you to just a few moments before the spell collapses.” He glanced back at the table, frowning. “The map doesn’t have the strength left to send us both, not physically. I can even make it so you end up in your old body, you’ll have your mark back, all your power.” I nearly collapsed against him, crying. “Twilight, listen to me.” He pushed me away, looking right at me. I tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let me. “You can stop me from creating Despair in the first place.”

“You can send yourself, don’t send me.”

“I can’t go back this way. If I go back like this, I’ll have to be in my own old body, trapped within the Amulet’s influence and the spell I was already casting. If I go back, I won’t be able to stop myself; Despair will appear again, with all my new knowledge, maybe even my Alicorn Body. He would be impossible for our earlier selves to defeat him then. You have to be the one to go.” He had all the answers, didn’t he? I had no arguments left, save one last desperate plea.

“Don’t leave me.” My voice was little more than a whisper. He sighed again.

“Twilight. I’m not leaving you.” He took off his silver mask and placed it on my face. It was still warm with his body heat. “I’m here.” He placed a hoof over my heart. There was nothing left I could say. I nodded, at last letting him sacrifice himself. Some tiny part of me remembered the joke he made. “It would seem it took me to the end of Equestria to finally win one of these conversations.” It was almost funny; we were thinking the same thing. I tried to laugh, but it was hollow. Sable helped me back onto the table. I stood at its center and watched him as he prepared to send me back. “Remember, you may only have a few seconds before the spell completes. Stop me, any way you can.”

“I will.” I held my breath, for my own stability, and to avoid crying out. He gathered all his Alicorn magic, all the powers of the map, and all his hopes. This time there was only warmth and light, the air filled with color around me. Alicorn wings spread wide, the stars glittered on the midnight lake. His cutie-mark shone brightly. He never took his neon blue eyes off me. He nodded gently, one last time. “Goodbye, Sable Stardust.” The map opened beneath me.

I tumbled through the conduit of light and color, alone…

Author's Note:

One thing about how I did this which pleases me greatly. I took 'in medias res' to the utter screaming extreme edge. If I just ended here outright, then my last and first lines are the same moment.

But I have a few unanswered questions left. Including the important one, what happened to Sable Stardust?