Local

by Seer

Perception

Twilight dreamed of a mare like her. Only closer than ink in something as consciously cliched as a tear-strained diary could ever conjure.

Less like smoke, more like meat, all wrapped around a skeleton perceptible underneath skin. Something you could touch, could speak to, could reassure and coddle and love.

Twilight dreamed of being so much closer than she’d ever been to the mist under which a mare nothing like her hid, cruel eyes and cruel tongue and cruel smile. Tickling breath making Twilight squirm, peering into the infinite possibility of the world that lived in the mirror. The Twilight that stared back had been given a makeover, and Twilight remembered distantly that she’d cried like a child when she’d seen this.

She also remembered faint stains on the glass. Fog from a shower’s aftermath and hooves that try to scrape it away, marring the surface and leaving a signature of imperfection. The act of attempting to clean leaving it dirtier and dirtier and dirtier still. When did she start dreaming in writing

Maybe that mare that was nothing like Twilight was a little bit like Twilight after all.

But she digressed.

Oh god, had she digressed.

Did she do anything else?

But still, she digressed.

Twilight dreamed mainly of that mare like her.

Twilight dreamed of being able to run hooves through her mane and tell her for just one second that it would be alright. They both deserved that, she thought.

Twilight dreamed of that mare asking whether Twilight thought she was insane. She dreamed of having to listen to all the nails and hornets and shards of gore-slick broken glass emptied from the holes in a freshly trephined skull.

She dreamed of looking into those eyes dilated by milk-bottle glasses and being the cause of wetness when she admitted that yes, you are insane.

You are insane.

You are insane.

They’re all insane.

Everyone who’s ever lived is fucking insane.

What the hell was Twilight meant to say to a mare just like her?

What the hell was a mare just like her meant to say to Twilight?

That there is nothing for anyone here?

To get out while she could?

Maybe that mare that was just like Twilight wasn’t too much like Twilight after all.

But she digressed.

Twilight mainly dreamed of finally being close enough to hurt a mare just like her.

Being able to tell her that she was insane.

That mare would have probably believed her, none of the intellectual, academic indignance laced through Twilight since she was a child. Her dusty, inkstained birthright.

Maybe that mare wasn’t as much like Twilight as she thought.

But she digressed.

Back to thoughts of clamping her metaphorical jaws onto a cheek and pulling until skin tore and capillaries leaked her lifeforce and tempted Twilight’s tongue with a forbidden, coppery rapture. Being close enough to destroy. Being close enough to touch that meat that was the totality of her. Something a pony could scream at and make weep and weep and weep then lean forward grinning madly to lick the tears off their cheeks.

Gods, was there not some rapture to be had in that?

How pleasurable life might be if you could just hurt others without caring about it. Could you imagine such a thing. Twilight thought that a mare nothing like her, who might be more like her than she thought, had tried to teach a mare that was so much like her, who might be nothing like Twilight in the end, that very lesson.

Neither of them seemed to understand the other in the end.

Maybe there were no mares like you, Twilight.

She certainly hoped there weren’t.

Maybe she’d learn those lessons if she stayed here.

Maybe she’d become like the rest of them.

Maybe she’d become something no-one could scarcely imagine, even in the darkest, loneliest moments. Even in the misty, cubist ephemera of nightmares.

Twilight felt the meat of her tangible self form a subtle, sordid smile at the thought.

Even through the kaleidoscope of a dream, Twilight already knew that when she woke up she’d worry about what kind of pony that made her.

---

“Twilight?” came a voice from the top of the stairs, which was petulantly ignored.

Her cheeks burned as she heard Spike mutter a small ‘for god’s sake’, before calling out once more.

This was pathetic. Even in the current situation, this was pathetic. She wasn’t supposed to be in this position. Spike was supposed to be the one who needed guidance, coaxing, discipline. She was supposed to be the adult. She was not supposed to hide away in a depressive sulk, unshowered and enfeebled by her fraught, malfunctioning mind.

And yet…

Twilight shut Night Owl’s diary, and then did the same with her own, before swiveling on her chair to face the door.

“I’m fine, Spike, okay?” she replied. The air remained pointedly stationary, coloured only by the amber light from upstairs slicing into the muted cool tones of that of the cellar. It was almost comical in its blatancy, a clear lure, temptation with memories of warm libraries and warm ponies, warm conversations, warm food.

Like a return to the oblivious swaddle of the womb.

But Twilight had left home when she was still a child, her only permanent residence being the state of her being. No dormitory, no royal apartment, no library. Not really. So she pulled her blanket over herself tighter, and remained silent, defiant of how much he clearly wanted her to elaborate.

Defiant of how much she just wanted him to say something comforting.

Neither acquiesced for a short moment.

“Can I… can I come down?”

“Don’t worry,” she said, haste betraying her clear discomfort at the prospect, “I was… uh… about to come up anyway. I’ll meet you up there.”

Twilight flicked the door shut with a flare of her horn, but was careful to not seem like she was slamming it in Spike’s face… not that a part of her didn’t want to. But she wouldn’t stoop to it, she wouldn’t give him any ammunition to take off the island.

She thought back to a whelp, slick with the amniotic leavings from the egg she’d shedded for him. She remembered how he sucked on his own tail, coiled in on himself against the world she’d revealed for him.

And Twilight sniffled, and realised the thought of slamming the door on his face actually made her want to cry, regardless of what he’d said. Regardless of how he’d told her how he didn’t believe her, how nothing was even happening here… and maybe he was right.

Not factually right, but maybe to him, that was reality. Did that make him right, or wrong? Were those who’d lived their whole lives watching nothing but shadows on the wall of a cave wrong to say that those shadows were all there was in the whole world? Because that was their world, and this might be Spike’s.

But there was always the opportunity that… whatever this was, that he was in on it too. Maybe he laughed at her with Rarity whenever he slinked off to fawn over her while she ignored him and worked on her dresses.

Twilight looked at herself in a nearby mirror, and for a moment felt a stab at horror at the gaunt, tired face that stared back. The eyes pleaded for some release, some catharsis, maybe absolution? The twitching muscles and spiderwebs of capillaries haloing jaded irises begged her to remember that Spike was still a child, the burden of his species’ long life extending his infancy long beyond what his mannerisms would imply.

She wondered how many scholars and pioneers looked in disgust at what their necessary self-neglect had done to their bodies, their minds, their relationships, and wondered whether it was worth taking an easier route.

Maybe it was worth going upstairs and having breakfast with Spike.

Maybe it didn’t matter what he knew, or didn’t.

She pushed the chair away from her desk and crept towards the stairs. It would have been so easy, so punishingly, horribly easy. Twilight touched the door, and felt the warmth of everything that used to feel like home bleeding through, contrasted with the damp chill of the cellar.

She pressed her body against it and remained there for a moment. She imagined it was how Spike felt, all those years ago. The warmth of the only home he’d known being taken by the massive, uncertain place he’d suddenly found himself in. That Twilight had taken him to.

Good god, how she wanted to just sit there and eat breakfast with him. Or dinner, or lunch, or supper. She wasn’t quite sure, she hadn’t been sleeping too well these days.

“...I don’t think…”

Twilight’s ear flicked, there were voices coming from the other side of the door.

Of course, it could have just been library customers, but they seemed to be speaking in consciously hushed tones.

Like they didn’t want Twilight to hear them.

“... she doing?”

“She’s just about to come out of the cellar, and she’s been down there for days now.”

“Would it be better if I stayed or left?”

“I… I think you should leave, being honest. I don’t mean to be offensive I just… I mean she’s taken this long to talk to me, if there’s anyone else… it might be a bit much for her?”

“No no, I understand completely, look after her and make sure to reach out if you need anything darling.”

Twilight felt the last of the warmth from the world outside leave the door, leeching out into the cold safety that ensconced her. And all at once, the world was cold again.

“Twilight?” came Spike’s voice from outside, “Are you coming out?”

And it would have been so easy to just accept that Rarity was a concerned friend coming to visit, and Spike was just talking to her about Twilight’s wellbeing, and that there was nothing else going on here. And it would have been so easy to just open that door, and sit with Spike for half an hour, hadn’t he earned that?

Hadn’t she earned that?

But that’s how they get you, Twilight.

Twilight locked the door, and walked back down the stairs to her desk.

Any comfort in this world was the comfort we made, that’s what being a scientist was. Being a scientist, a scholar, was carving out your own slice in the universe and wrestling some sense out of the writhing madness. And you had to be ruthless, you couldn’t give an inch.

And Twilight would not sacrifice her slice of predictability, sheltered down here as she was from the raging waves seeking to topple her island, for the pretense of a normal breakfast.

I think we all know we’re a bit beyond that now.

So Twilight did what she always did in this situation. She retreated to the one comfort zone that nothing could ever take away from her, not matter what.

Because Twilight had been learning a new spell.

And now she was going to try it.

She steadied herself on the corners of the desk. This was not something trivial, especially for someone as malnourished and sleep deprived as Twilight was at this moment.

But then, that was no reason to stop, was it? What harm could this do that hadn’t already been done?

Maybe Twilight needed to unlock the door before she began, just in case she passed out. After all, Spike would still come and help her, if she really needed it…

Twilight kept her eyes away from the door, and didn’t touch the lock.

She bit her lip, and winced as the magic in her horn began to steadily increase. It was a tricky thing, to gather up all the energy needed ahead of discharging it for a spell. Because it wasn’t like other tasks. This wasn’t like gathering up all the dynamite needed to blow through a wall, you needed more finesse than that, more specificity. You needed the right kind of dynamite.

And in the all the cells of the fluted alicorn atop her head, Twilight gathered the specific magic she needed.

The room’s temperature increased, it became uncomfortably bright, every fold and ripple of the minerals in her horn chorused as the energy continued to increase.

It sounded like screeching metal. It sounded like a dying star. It sounded like rocks cracking underneath the earth.

And though the heat was agonising, and the lights bouncing off the walls were searing her eyes, Twilight didn’t stop. She didn’t stop until she finally hit that sweet spot, that nearly imperceptible biting point that a lifetime of studying magic had taught her to just be able to feel, on instinct, like a sixth sense.

Twilight finally released her spell, and the energy dissipated with no bang, rather a slight fluttering of silvery light, with no sound whatsoever. It enveloped the books on her table, and the diaries of both Night Owl and Twilight Sparkle shuddered for a moment in the grip of the spell.

Twilight slumped on her chair, coat slick with sweat and lungs shrieking for oxygen as she tried to recuperate composure enough to actually check how successful her spell had been. It took her a while, longer than it should have.

She hadn’t wanted to speak with anyone, and so had been sneaking up to get food and water from the kitchen in the middle of the night, and every subsequent day she would curse herself for not getting enough. She was running on fumes, the fact she’d managed to do this at all had been a minor miracle.

But sure enough, it looked like it had paid off. Because when Twilight was finally able to start breathing normally, and her vision sharpened from the unfocused fog it had degenerated to, she saw her desk.

And there was nothing on it.

She reached a tentative hoof down, and sure enough felt the sturdy hardcovers of two diaries, now vanished from sight. The light bent around them, making it look to all the world like there was nothing there at all. But Twilight knew better. She knew exactly what was there, she knew she was looking at them right now.

And she knew that if these books had eyes, they’d be looking right back at her.

This was powerful magic, even for her. She’d had to keep practicing as much as she could physically stand.

After all, she needed to enchant something much bigger than two diaries.

Comments

[samble]

It updated! Time to reread. Thanks, OP.

[Lunar Beat]

Beautiful. I love this story. You have a fantastic way with words, and I'm glad to have jumped on this story as it's getting updates again.
I'm very excited for more!

[dark_samus3]

Local updated 👀

[SigmasonicX]

Good chapter that really showcases the moody paranoia this story is great at.

[new55]

That was a good chapter goodluck with the next one.

[Hannah Nelson]

Scary story

[Ice Justice]

What a visceral chapter!

I wonder what she intends to enchant. My first guess, herself. So the watching, judging, dispassionate eyes can no longer find purchase on her

But why test on the diaries? What significance do they have, except perhaps as a symbolic extension of herself. Would a simple stone have worked much the same for a trial?

Or is there more to the spell, more than simply hiding things from sight.

... Does she intend to sneak into the Carousel?

Or stranger yet, banish it from sight?

[Random oddity]

It’s back! Hooray!

[Ice Star]

And the prose in this is delicious, as always. You're one of the best writers on the site when it comes to atmosphere.