Dream evil
At the very least Twilight could tell Anon that he hadn’t actually been involved, technically speaking. Present, sure, but inactive. He’d probably benefit from knowing that he himself hadn’t done anything to anypony.
Even if this information also dovetailed into the fact that, you know, something much worse might be going on with him. He’d appreciate the first part and maybe Twilight could just sort of skirt around the second. For now. At least until she’d found out a little bit more.
With all this in mind she went dashing back to the castle, dashing back through its corridors, dashing past guards and finally dashing towards the secured guest accommodation.
“Has he said anything?” She asked a guard on her way in.
“Been quiet,” said the guard, shrugging lightly. “Think he might have gone to sleep.”
If he’d gone to sleep it seemed highly unlikely he would have been quiet for long, Twilight felt, but she also felt that pointing this out would require more explanation - the poor guard likely didn’t have the full extent of the situation laid out before. So she just laughed.
This was awkward. The two of them made the mutual, silent decision to pretend it had never happened, and Twilight was let in.
The nature of the secured accomodation was such that it had two doors - an inner and an outer door. For the safety and comfort of the secured guests, you see. Twilight went through the outer door and then more delicately opened the inner door as the outer was locked behind her. For the guests’ safety.
“Anon?” She asked quietly, peeping around the door as she opened it.
There was something off but she could not quite put her hoof on it. The air wasn’t moving right. Or was it? Or was it too dark? Too late? Difficult to tell.
That, in itself, was worrying.
“Are you okay?” She asked, opening the door more fully and stepping in.
The place was...the same. But wrong.
The sunlight seemed to be having difficulty entering the window. It hit the glass, came through and appeared to get a bit sheepish, as though it suddenly felt it didn’t belong. That wasn’t normal.
Not immediately obvious why, either. Twilight tried to pinpoint the exact point at which the issue started but found her eye just sliding around and over it. Difficult to see. Kind of like a blind spot.
When she realised this she felt a jolt, because she remembered what the injured pony had said.
“Anon?” She tried again, stepping further into the room. No response, and the blind spot ebbed around her, some of the room opening up so she could see it, other parts disappearing from view.
He should have just been on the bed, presumably, and that should have been obvious. It was not a big room. And yet she found herself looking around and about. The area that she couldn’t see shifted whenever she looked or moved. She even ended up bumping into a wall.
At this point she started to worry and would have left but, unfortunately, she couldn’t quite spot where the door was anymore. Everything was kind of just a colourless, void of a mess.
Then she bumped into the bed and jumped, whirling around, sighing with relief when she saw Anon. But then she looked at him, and the relief went away again.
He was slumped backwards on the bed, limp, and all the problems with the light and the colours were surrounding him. Or coming from him? Difficult to tell. It leaked from him and dribbled to the floor and spread out from there. He was still visible though. Mostly.
There was a noise, too.
It was like breathing. Sounded much like his breathing, in fact, but louder, and with a rattling edge as might be expected from a fly trapped in a tin can. On the plus side this meant that he was still breathing at all. Twilight could even see his chest moving, kind of, even if most of the oddness seemed to be dribbling from his chest.
On the downside, the noise was terrifying.
She wanted to back away, but then she might have lost the bed again, so she held firm.
The noise rumbled down and down and refined and seemed to come to a point - as much as a sound can be said to come to a point - before popping out completely and plunging the room into quiet. Then, Anon cleared his throat, or something cleared Anon’s throat, and his body rolled over and, making Twilight flinch and step back, rose into the air, as thought being hoisted up on ropes.
There he hung, limp, dangling, one arm swinging gently at the elbow.
“Ah, oh, there we go, a better handle on things. Is someone there? I can - ah, give me a moment…”
He rolled over a little more and his head lolled forward, eyes staring blankly in Twilight’s broad direction. The slack look on his face made her gut hitch.
“Ah, yes, there you are, I see you now. ‘Seeing’! What a concept. And communicating, too! With sound, no less. Ah, this is quite extraordinary, I must say.”
The voice was really, really not Anon’s voice. It was more like something inside Anon’s voice, clumsily stepping about in it. Like someone borrowing someone else’s clothes only they’re the wrong size and they have to keep hoiking them up. The rattling, buzzing breathing hadn’t stopped either, and didn’t seem to actually relate to his breathing at all.
Twilight took a very tentative step forward.
“Anon?” She asked.
His head lolled, briefly, and his eyes looked right through her.
“Hmm? Oh, no, no not right now I’m afraid, just me just now,” he - it - said.
For a split-second Twilight didn’t know what to make of this but then the words clicked in her head and she was filled with a sudden, fierce anger. She even took a step forward, the swirling mass of nothing-much-at-all forced away from her.
“What did you do with him?!”
“Do? Do? Ah, oh, I see. Yes. You’re imagining harm. No, no, no harm. Not yet, at least. He is, ah, hmm, oh? What would be the word? So much of this is unfamiliar. Let me just, ah-”
Anon’s whole body twitched but his head in particular seemed to shake, hanging loosely on his neck and flopping backwards briefly before another spasm jerked it forward again.
“Asleep! That is the word, ah, yes. This one - one! Distinction! Such distinction, ah - this one is asleep, yes, and so I am able to exert some, ah, control. It is most unusual, yes.”
Twilight tried to think of where the door would be. She glanced back but couldn’t see it. It wasn’t as if this was fog or something that blocked her view, it was more like there was simply a gap that her eyes refused to see. Judging by the position of the bed though the door would be pretty much directly behind her.
Should she go for help?
It might be sensible.
But what might happen if she left? Anything could happen. And she had a chance here to learn something. It would be sensible to use that, too. And she was already here...
“What are you?” She asked.
Seemed a reasonable question given the circumstances.
“Me? Hmm, ah. I am, hmm. I am from - elsewhere. Your, ah, friend, is it? Is that the word? He seems to think it, yes? This is the word I see. Ah, friend! Fascinating! Such distinctions!”
Anon’s body - which had been drooping a little - hoiked back up into the air, one arm jerking at a hard right-angle to the rest of him. Not painfully so, but suddenly enough to make Twilight flinch in shock.
“Your friend fell through me from a higher Limit and was briefly present in me before his fall continued into this Limit, where he appears to have come to a stop. I, ah, came with him.”
This answered nothing.
“...what? What are you?”
“I am! I am, ah, well. I simply am, you see?”
Twilight did not see, obviously enough for whatever was speaking through Anon to notice.
“Apologies. This is not something I have ever had to explain. Indeed! I have never had to explain anything! Or even talk, ah, indeed. A first for everything!”
Anon’s body continued to dangle in midair. Twilight said nothing, and so the thing continued.
“The Limit in which I, hmm, reside? No, not quite right word. Not strong enough, but sufficient! My Limit lacks, ah, distinctions - not like yours! It is, and I am it, and that is all. I am height, width, and depth. Length and breadth! Weight and more besides. All is me. Here, all springs from the same fabric but diverges, becomes, ah, separate - distinct! So much! I do not know how you, ah, do not lose your mind! My Limit is only me, and I am only my Limit, you see? All is one and that is I, do you see?”
“Sort of?”
If Twilight took a couple of broad concepts as read she could just about follow what the thing was saying, in a general sense at least. They seemed very fond of the word ‘Limit’ and were putting enough emphasis on it for Twilight to gather it was important. Beyond that, a lot sounded like gibberish.
The thing laughed. Or Twilight assumed it did. Anon’s head swung from one side to the other. The fuzzy gap seemed to curdle and settle a little, twitching about the floor, which faded and flickered from view around the edges.
“Apologies, ah, I imagine it must be hard for you. Imagine for me! From a Limit - and being a Limit! - where there is only ever and always me to here, with such distinction! I was quite overwhelmed when first my, ah, awareness manifested fully here. It has been some, ah, time, since I was exposed to such distinction. I had forgotten how bewildering it can be!”
Twilight took a breath and did her best to keep calm. There was a veritable hurricane of questions available for the asking but one was foremost in importance, at least for Twilight.
“Is Anon okay?”
“Hmm? Oh, this one. Yes, I believe. He is, ah, well, unharmed? Certainly, he is not, non-distinct. Oh, hmm, dead? That is the word! He is not dead. Is that good?”
Twilight relaxed a tiny bit.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes that’s good.”
“Good!”
She took another breath. The next question was also fairly high on the importance stakes:
“What are you doing to him?”
“Doing? What am I, ah, doing? Oh, I see! No, I am not doing, ah, anything, you see? His body has become an - ah - what would the word be?”
Anon’s head twitched again and Twilight winced at how loose his neck appeared to be.
“Ah, ah yes. Doorway, that seems to fit. That is the word. His body has become a doorway, yes? A link between. My Limit - me, you see, yes? - and this Limit. And through the doorway I am leaking.”
“Leaking?”
“Yes! The doorway is, ah, opening wider, shall we say? And more of my awareness is coming in, more of, ah, me.”
That didn’t sound good. Twilight glared.
“Stop it!”
It came across as petulant, but she didn’t really know what else to do and had spoken without thinking. The colour recoiled somewhat and Anon’s body drifted back a little. The floor became somewhat more visible again.
“Oh, ah, apologies. This is not intentional, I assure, ah, you.”
“What?”
“Yes, ah, it is a result of your friend’s fall. He fell through my, ah, Limit - through me - and in so doing has taken a piece with him. It is tangled up in his colour. His, ah, essence? What is word? Ah, soul? That word seems fitting. Yes. Bound up, tangled, I’m, ah, afraid. The doorway will only widen.”
That sounded bad.
“And what’ll happen to him?”
“I do not, ah, know. Though I can venture a guess, if you like?”
“Please.”
“Your friend will, ah, cease to be distinct and what had been his distinction will become only the doorway, through which your Limit may, ah, drain into mine. Or else mine flood yours. One or the, ah, other. Likely the former.”
That sounded extremely bad.
“...sorry?”
“Just a guess, as I say. It has happened before, you see? A lower Limit had a, ah, similar doorway open into mine quite inadvertently, once, and I, ah, drowned it. I did not mean to, I simply could not close, ah, the doorway, and nor could they, it seemed. Two Limits became one, and I became more. It was, ah, unfortunate.”
Again, this sounded bad. Twilight realised her mouth was hanging open and closed it.
There were a lot - a lot - of other questions that needed asking but all of them were trying to get to the front all at once and Twilight’s brain jammed as a result and she ended up just standing there, gawping, staring vacantly at Anon’s dangling body while her mind clicked helplessly.
“Your friend is waking up,” said the thing leaking through Anon, bringing Twilight back to the moment.
“What?”
“He is waking up. That, ah, means that I shall recede, for now. It is most strange. His, ah, awakeness does much to keep me at bay! Or has done. Likely it shall not remain so. Which is, ah, a shame. But still! He’s coming back now! Do tell him, ah, that I bear him no ill will. It is simply an unfortunate set of, ah, circumstances. I am very sorry.”
“Wait!” Twilight cried, but too late.
Anon’s limp body flopped back onto the bed and almost all at once everything strange that had been filling the room just vacuumed right up and disappeared beneath his shirt and - presumably - back into that unfortunate mark on his chest. Just like that.
It happened so suddenly Twilight’s eyes were left watering from all the everything she could now see again, and all the light that didn’t feel so reluctant on coming into the room anymore.
She then heard Anon groan, and it actually sounded like Anon groaning.
“I don’t feel so good…” he grumbled, sitting upright and squinting around. His eyes alighted on Twilight. “Twilight, what-”
“I’ll figure it out!” She squealed, hurling herself at him and knocking him flat on his back on the bed again. The human, startled, had about enough time to let out a yelp as he found himself wrapped in pony.
-
Unsurprisingly, the princesses were summoned after that.
Any discipline or recriminations Twilight might have suffered as a result of her snooping and prying and lying were forestalled, for now, though she was fairly certain they’d come to her eventually. For now, Celestia and Luna were more than willing to hear her out. After all, what she’d come to them with - breathless from having run straight to them - was fairly incredible to hear.
All of them were in the secured guest accommodation, making the small room feel even smaller. Anon was sat on the bed with his hands in his lap, staring down. Twilight was positioned halfway between him and the princesses, who were looming and nearer towards the door.
“-and that’s when Anon woke up,” Twilight said, concluding the story in full. She’d given a brief rundown of what she’d felt had been the salient points to get the princesses there, but the complete details had taken a bit longer to get through.
Celestia and Luna had listened, nodding occasionally and chipping in for clarification here or there. From the looks on their faces they were plainly taking this very seriously indeed.
Anon, mostly, had listened in total, unreadable silence. It had got a little uncomfortable to watch so by the end Twilight had had to turn away from him, because it was just starting to make her feel bad seeing him so downcast.
Then again, she supposed, if you found out you were apparently doomed to become some sort of intra-dimensional gateway that might lead to the destruction of the whole world or even the universe, you might be a bit sad about it too.
“Might we talk to this being?” Celestia asked, once Twilight had wrapped up.
“Uh, well, the thing is it can only come out when Anon’s asleep, apparently,” Twilight said.
“What?” Anon asked, piping up. Twilight turned to him, a pained look on her face.
“That’s what it said. Said that you being awake kept it back.”
Anon’s brows bunched in thought as he digested this information. It seemed he’d missed that part when she’d been telling it.
“Would explain the nightmares, I guess. But then - oh, oh no. And now it can come out when I sleep? That must mean it’s getting bad. Oh that can’t be good, can it? Oh God, is that what happened in that alley? Did this thing come out and do something? Oh God that’s not good.”
A profound lack of proper sleep coupled with some uncomfortable revelations were swirling together in him to produce what was plainly rising panic. This Twilight recognised, and she quickly moved in to try and squash it before it could get going.
Putting both hooves on both his knees she reared up the better to be on his level, looking him in the face.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” she said, clearly. Anon found it very difficult to tear his bloodshot eyes away from Twilight’s ever-so-big ones, and also found himself being reassured enough for the panic to ebb. If Twilight said so, he found himself believing it.
“So Anon would have to be asleep for us to be able to speak with it?” Luna asked, and Twilight turned back to the princesses.
“That seems the way it is.”
Celestia and Luna exchanged another of their looks.
Twilight watched this, and cottoned onto what it might be that they were planning on doing. She took another unconscious step closer to Anon and wrapped her tail around his leg. This he noticed and blinked at, not really getting it. She hadn’t ever done it before.
“Wassis?” He asked her, peering down, but before Twilight could answer Celestia had taken a step forward and this had grabbed his attention.
“Anon,” she said, calmly, in that soothing way she used sometimes. “For us to better understand what it is that is happening to you, you are going to have to go to sleep.”
“I, uh, what? Uh, oh, right, right. That’s - I don’t really - I mean. I can’t do that on command, you know? Maybe - maybe later? Not right now, right?” Anon asked, looking desperately from Celestia to Luna to Twilight hoping one of them might let him off the hook. None of them did.
Luna then stepped forward.
“I would be able to help you sleep now.”
“W-what? You can do that?” He asked. Luna nodded. He looked to Twilight.
“She can do that?”
Twilight nodded too, nervously.
“I, uh, well. That’s - that’s good. That’s - do we really have to do it now? I just, I was just asleep, wasn’t I? And Twilight came in? And that - that thing was...I was...do we have to do it now? I really don’t want to. Can’t we just wait?”
“The longer we wait, the less time we may have to resolve it comfortably,” Celestia said, still going for soothing.
“I know, I know I just - it’s not - I really don’t want to. It’s - there wasn’t a nightmare this time it was just nothing really I mean a lot of nothing I can’t even really remember but that thing - there’s a thing - do we have to do this?”
“Anon…” Twilight started, turning to him again.
She wasn’t going to get through though. She could see it.
“I mean I know it’s good for me and all I just - I know I have to do it I just I’m scared, alright? Can we - can I wait a bit? Little bit? Can we do this later? I can get ready! I can ready myself, you know?”
“We shouldn’t waste time,” Luna said, advancing again, and Anon started shifting backwards on the bed.
“Please please don’t let them make me go to sleep, Twilight,” he said, eyes locked on Luna even as he tried to find Twilight with his hand.
“We have to,” Twilight said, though it pained her to do so. The edge of exhausted fear in his voice was not something she enjoyed hearing.
“It is for your own good, Anon,” Celestia said, some of her composure starting to crack as well in the face of him going to pieces.
“No-one ever’s said that and had it be good!” He wailed.
Luna, not letting her own feelings on the situation show, took a final step forward and her horn lit up. Anon fell backwards as though he’d been poleaxed.
The instant he hit the bed that fuzzy loss-of-space began bleeding out from his chest again, slithering out and dripping onto the floor and flowing up in great drift of space that you just couldn’t look at. It wafted around the hooves of the princesses, seemingly afraid to get too close, and built up in the corners and edges of the room.
From the looks on their faces, neither Celestia nor Luna had really been expecting it to happen. They also jumped when Anon sat back up before drifting lazily into the air.
Less painfully this time. There was more control to it.
“Ah! Hello again!”
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Looks like they're about to be consumed by The Nothing. At least it seems to be polite about the whole thing.
O noes! Evul chill n-dimensional flooper demon is killing a stereotypical cackling moron who probs deserves if for having no character depth or development! Who'dve thunk'th ftagn!
The Limit doesn't seem evil more like it doesn't realise what it's doing is bad
9714568
it seems to have some general impression that the situation is, less than ideal, it just doesn't have any options for fixing it.
9714510
Would a chapter exploring his childhood improve things for you?
9714706
Who does this thing think it is? Count Fenring?
9714910
To be fair, I honestly don't think this would be nescessary.
The way I'm reading it, this story seems to be primarily about how horses deal with a mysterious (yet incredibly polite) problem.
It's almost got to point it's Xenofiction, and that's p. nice. If you like that sort of thing. I do.
Anon is just the unlucky middleman here. He doesn't really need to be complicated, or particularly well defined at all.
What do I know though? I'm just some text.
9715215
I mean really in this he has mainly been alternating between being exhausted and being asleep so there really hasn't been a lot of time for him to have a character in the first place.
But that wasn't really the point of the story.
As much as anything I do can be said to have a point...
I call bullshit. Its an evil parasite consuming him and trying to make excuses. If it doesn't cooperate totally and pull back from the damage it is causing they should just kill it.
9715544
You and I think in very different directions.
But then I know what's happening so I suppose thats to be expected.
Sweet Celestia, this is getting nerve wracking. I’m on the edge of my proverbial seat in anticipation for the next chapter. Awesome work, CM.
My guess is this is a yellow Shepard situation where the encountered entity is so eldritch and foreign its mere existence breaks reality in wich the broken reality is absorbed, it probably emphasizes limit as a personal limit to stop its growth and consuming by staying in its own reality, the reason it’s so cordial is because it’s probably one of the extremely rare few eldritch horrors that recognizes it has this effect on existence and knows it can be rather bad to those inhabiting the lower planes of space times, that or the reference to the other time this happened it learned about the plights of tiny mortals and learned the concept of sympathy
Either way we should try and befriend Mr Void
9717000
Fun fact: I just decided to call separate dimensions 'Limits' because I was playing The Void at the time and thought it'd be a laugh. Same reason why I obliquely called a soul 'Colour'.
I'm not a complex individual.
Okay, I’m REALLY enjoying this story now! I’m also the kind of guy who really likes the idea of foreign SPIRITS of sorts who don’t quite understand mortals. Whether it’s Lovecraftian entities, the Deadra from the Elder Scrolls games, or especially embodiments of concepts given physical form -not unlike some fan interpretations of Discord- I’m a big fan of the concept. Also I think you are doing an excellent job of implementing the idea. Keep going!
P.S. I totally ship this Anon with Twi. Don’t judge.
9908252
These things happen.
9908352
I'm always a fan of situations where two people (or two things) can be coming at something from entirely different positions. And I don't just mean one side butters their toast on the bottom, I mean, like, one side is an immortal being incapable of comprehending the idea of death and the other is, oh, living backward through time or some shit.
Try to find common ground now, fuckers!
9909527
Exactly! You get it!!! Now I wish you would right something like that involving Discord. You’d probably nail it! I myself started a story where I was gonna go into it but I found out I run out of good comedy ideas for Discord FAST before I could get to the introspective bits. I can only right comedy in short burst every once in awhile. Most of my stories are actually as depressing as I am heh. But writing Discord’s antics require a constant stream of comedy with more than a bit of slapstick. I just couldn’t do it for any length of time.
Shouldn't have read this before bed.
Shouldn't have read this before bed.
Shouldn't have read this before bed.
An Interplanar Horror that intends no harm? He’s actually rather delightful in all honesty! Reminds me of the time Cthulhu smothered Fluttershy with a pillow. Thankfully no one was harmed.
So based on everything this is all just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Quite literally infact.
Looks like our Eldritch entity is aware of the concept of death and loss along with sadness and having empathy as well and doesn't really like what's happening but is hapless in stoping it as well the previous time it happened is likely the reason it has all of those things likely interacted with the smaller realities inhabitants as well and learned to be a batter being from them before their untimely end.
Is this dead by the way?
It was just getting to the good part too.
10177054
I know what needs to happen - probably one more bit - but everytime I try to get it down I immediately lose all enthusiasm.
Little by little getting there...
10177063
Oh well then I guess it's just the waiting game at this point.
Very interesting I gotta admit that really hit me from the left field I was convinced that we had some evil spirit/elder god thing going. But no it seems like it's actually good or at very least a neutral being.
Let's see how this goes