Past meets present
Twilight appeared in her study, trembling, dry-mouthed, and a bit sweaty in places unmentionable. She sucked in a dry, raspy breath, almost swallowing it, then another, and when this didn’t satisfy, a third. The panic was almost too much to bear, but even in her frantic state, even gasping for air, even fighting against the rising swell of anxiety that threatened to overwhelm her, she was still Twilight Sparkle.
“This is Vinyl’s doing,” she said aloud, heaving out the words as she gasped for air. “Vinyl did this. She cut corners and repurposed her voice matrix spell.”
If one held one’s breath and listened, one might almost hear the sound of eyes blinking. Twilight continued sucking wind and the others in the room were silent in their reaction to this revelation. The soul-curdling aroma of toasted tortilla and pungent cheese persisted in Twilight’s nostrils, which caused her brain to react in the most unwanted of ways.
And Twilight knew why.
Vinyl constructed her voice spell matrix with a direct mind interface. It allowed the spell to directly tap into one’s thoughts, one’s mood, and with all of the various stimuli and input accounted for, one had a thoroughly natural voice that did all of the things that a normal, natural voice did. On its own, the direct mind connection was harmless—but the stench was seeking out its own dire purpose and everything that could go wrong, had gone wrong.
“Spike… Spike… Spike,” she panted his name while trying to collect herself and her thoughts. “Spike, there is something I need for you to do…”
Fretful, Spike watched as Twilight struggled for control. She was all shook up. Anxious. Panicked. He wondered what had rattled her so and left her in such a state. His claws flexed, twitched, alive with nervous energy. She had something for him to do, but she hadn’t said what it was just yet. Her sides were heaving now and her wings were fully unfurled.
“This is illusion gone rampant and out of control, Spike. I need you to contact Luna. Do that thing you do to wake her up if necessary.” Twilight paused, hesitant, but resolve was already erasing the doubt on her face. “I’ve never been good at dealing with illusion. This is not a physical danger so much as a mental one. Well, don’t just stand there… do something!”
Startled into action, Spike got to work. Parchment, he needed parchment. And a quill! Some ink might be a good idea too. Tail waving from side to side, the young dragon waddled over to Twilight’s desk to collect everything he needed. Meanwhile, the others were still reacting to everything that Twilight had said, and maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him, but Spike was almost certain that he could read some manner of reaction on Maud’s face.
This was just one of those days, wasn’t it?
Quill in claws, Spike took a moment before he began writing. If he told Luna what was going on, it might be too ridiculous to take seriously. Send help, Ponyville besieged by a frightening funk. Luna might believe this to be a practical joke, perhaps. Spike realised that it was best to say very little, and allow Luna to do a bit of thinking on her hooves. Yes, that was the best way to go about this. Sound a general alarm and allow Luna to discover the specifics on her own.
Smiling, pleased with himself, Spike put the quill to parchment and got to work.
Where was Luna? Twilight paced the length of the room, ruminating upon the brilliant, spectacular failure that had caused this crisis. Was the illusion sapient or did it merely project the illusion of sapience? Twilight was filled with questions now, and barely even thought about… cheese quesadillas. She was far too occupied pondering the nature of what was real and what appeared to be real to think about foalhood trauma. If something projected enough realism that it was indistinguishable from reality, then the boundaries between reality and illusion broke down. If this boundary went away, well, that was unsettling.
Anything could be anything, and how could she know the difference?
“Vinyl did this?” There was something off about Maud’s voice, which caused Twilight to halt in her tracks.
“I sensed her magical signature in the… the, well, whatever it is—”
“Simulacrum?” Moondancer’s interjection cut through the noise in Twilight’s head.
“Well, that kinda works…” Twilight gave her chin an absent-minded rub with the knuckle of her wing and was tickled by her own feathers. “Moondancer, you and I… we… our encounters might have been entirely artificial. This is why I hate illusion. It is deceitful and makes you question reality. Right now, I am having a philosophical crisis, and I hate those, because all of the answers are derivative speculation based upon individual experience. Answers that are in no way real. Everything should be answerable!”
“When determining what is real, I rely upon the punch test,” Maud deadpanned.
“Does that work?” asked Twilight.
“Not very well.” Maud shrugged. “After I punch something into its constituent atoms, I remain stuck wondering if it was real or not.”
Twilight could feel her brain collapsing as she thought about what Maud had said. She stood there, blinking, uncertain, having a bit of a philosophical crisis. Perhaps all humour was also illusion, as it was something that could not be measured, and yet was something said to exist.
“Intangible things should be made to answer for themselves,” she blurted out, annoyed.
“Götzen-Dämmerung, oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert.” With these words, Luna revealed herself and emerged from shadow. Her sudden appearance caused Twilight to scream, and this made Luna smile.
It was a very polite, princessly sort of scream.
“I was summoned?” Luna’s words were most definitely a question. She cast a sidelong glance in Spike’s direction and a faint hint of a smirk could be seen on her muzzle. “The details were quite vague. Not much to go on. While a philosophical debate would be entertaining, there appears to be some manner of crisis that requires my expertise.”
“Vinyl did something with illusion. It went wrong. Now, it is terrorising Ponyville with stench, which may or may not be real. But is a stench in the mind no less smelly?” Maud made a broad, sweeping gesture with her right front hoof. “Is the memory or a dream of a rose no less sweet?”
“Argh! Stop!” Twilight stomped her hoof against the floor, took a deep breath, and heaved everything out in a ragged grunt.
“Fascinating.” Luna’s deadpan utterance matched her deadpan expression.
“No, it isn’t!” Twilight’s left eyelid twitched and the corner of her mouth had a frightful tic.
“Twilight, what has you in such a state? Surely you can handle a little illusion, smelly or otherwise.” Luna took a step backward to give Twilight some breathing room, and her head tilted off to one side as her posture became thoughtful.
“I might have had an argument with myself… a really a bad one. But I can’t tell if I did. I don’t feel smart right now! The illusion attacked me… or maybe it didn’t. I might have attacked myself. The not-knowing is driving me crazy!”
“Oh—”
“Don’t you dare say ‘oh’ like that about my predicament!” Twilight turned around, away from Luna, and flapped her wings a few times in annoyance. “I swear, sometimes, your aloofness is just downright infuriating! I’m the Princess of the Night, look at me, I’m so cool and aloof! I’m a living anachronism! Huzzah!”
Something twinkled in Luna’s eyes, but not a word was said.
“Shit!” A rare profanity slipped from Twilight’s now slack lips and she whirled around to face Luna. “I’m going to dream about this, aren’t I?”
Saying nothing, Luna gave an enthusiastic nod while the twinkle in her eyes intensified.
“Fluffernutter sandwiches!” Twilight covered her face with her wings, and her following words were muffled. “Argh, I’m so frustrated right now because I can’t make sense of things!”
“Twilight”—Luna’s words were gentle, soothing, and calm—“allow me a glimpse into your mind so that I might glean some understanding. I need to know what I am dealing with and your mind is my best chance. You have a remarkable mind for details, even if you don’t understand what you are dealing with.”
“Thank you,” Twilight gushed as she turned around to face Luna. “I really needed to hear that right now. You’re the best, really.”
“All of you,” Luna began. “I’ll need a good look into your minds. I am assuming that each of you has had an encounter with this rampant illusion. Somewhere, buried beneath your individual perceptions, there is truth to be found.”
“What truth can be found in something that isn’t real?” Twilight asked.
“Oh, that is where true truth can be found,” Luna replied.
“You know what?” Twilight licked her lips as her ears made agitated pivots. “I don’t even want to know.”
Standing atop the roof of Twilight Sparkle’s castle, Princess Luna cut a dramatic figure in the broad daylight. An emotional flood cascaded through the canyons of her mind. Though she was the most capable when it came to dealing with a situation like this one, she was also quite vulnerable. Her mind was a troubled place, as she was still sorting out the sordid details of her past. Her many mistakes, failures, and troubled memories.
Some of which were tied to smell.
Twilight Sparkle had smelled cheese quesadillas, and Luna knew why. It was a silly thing, but also a serious thing, an event that had scarred the mind of a young filly. Luna would never laugh at it, or make light of it. At some point, Twilight would need to face her fears; she would have to face herself, her anxieties, and her hangups. When she did, and if things went poorly, Luna would be there to help Twilight pick up the pieces, because Twilight was a valued friend.
An errant bit of illusion had taken on a life of its own, or at least the illusion of life. Dreams sometimes did the same thing. Sometimes, the illusion of life was indistinguishable from reality. Stinkbug’s magic complicated things a bit further; try as she might, Luna could not understand everything that had taken place. Sometimes, magic remained mysterious, a fact that caused Twilight no end of emotional distress.
For Luna, mystery was something to be cherished, loved, and appreciated. The night had its own sense of mystery, and the unknown lurked in every shadow. Some ponies embraced these mysteries, even if they had no hope of ever understanding them. Others lived in fear of them. For Luna, the knowledge that she was no longer alone with her love of the night had done much to heal her troubled mind.
She wondered how the illusion would react to her.
As Luna prepared her magic, the light began to warp around her. Shadows cast by nothing visible danced along her night-blue pelt, faint at first, but darker as the seconds turned into moments, and moments into minutes. Little tendrils, curlicues of shadow crept out from beneath her wings and dared to dance, to wiggle in the daylight.
She hummed, it was something almost like a lullabye and maybe a long forgotten battle hymn. It was rousing and relaxing. A contradiction? Perhaps. But Luna was a living contradiction, darkness that existed in the light. Since her acceptance, she had finally accepted her place in the light, and had stepped out from her sister’s long shadow.
Luna had claimed her own orbit, and in doing so, had gained her own followers, those who circled around her.
As she worked, weaving magic, she thought about those loyal to her. Some had been loyal to her long before she was loyal to them. An unsettling thought, to be sure. But now, true to herself, she could be true to them, and give the whole of herself to them with no reservations. How far she had come, in hindsight. She thought of those who had made every painful step of the journey with her, and in doing so, gave herself the strength she needed to weave such a complex, complicated spell.
Friendship, truly, was magic.
Squinting just a bit, her brows wrinkled in concentration, Luna studied the magic gone bad. It had soured, like milk left in the sun. Curdled. She could feel its parasitic energy probing her defenses. Why, it was almost nightmarish at this point, and if given a chance to continue its growth, it no doubt would become as such.
She had dragged it before her so that she might have a better look at it.
“You’ve caused a lot of problems,” Luna said to the embryonic nightmare to-be. “Don’t bother trying to speak. I am your Mistress, and you will obey me. You are quite a curious construct. The fact that you exist is evidence of the marvellous world we live in. Now, I suppose I should ask the obvious. What am I to do with you?”
She felt the will of the magical construct struggling against her. It was in her mind, even though she had taken extraordinary steps to keep it out. For now, it was a presence, though that could change. It was such a purposeful thing, as dutiful as it was flawed. It really was an infant of sorts, a toddler made of temper and selfishness.
“I do wonder,” Luna said, calm and in control. “Are you aware that you are an illusion? A very convincing one at that. You truly believe in your own existence. Sadly, that existence is parasitic. Your intelligence and everything you think you are is but a reflection of whatever you are interfacing with. You haven’t actually grown, or truly evolved for that matter. You connected with two very powerful minds, two advanced intelligences, and your interface expanded greatly to adapt to them. Nothing about you is real. Yet… you exist.”
Rage flooded through Luna’s mind, terrific rage, and she understood it all too well.
“You were a careless accident. A mute mare gave herself a voice by building the sort of clever construct that only a dedicated, devoted, knowledgeable sound engineer could. It was overmade. Overbuilt. Overconstructed. She knew that to create a living voice, she had to connect it to life itself, if she wanted it to be convincing. Over time, she tweaked it, changed it, made it evolve.
“It was an impressive bit of wizardry, because it touched all those around her. It borrowed their voices, their thoughts, and over time, it developed a sort of… I want to say synthesis. It knew and understood life. It was directly connected to emotion, a reflection of Vinyl’s magic in the truest sense, because she uses raw emotion to fuel her magery.”
Unable to stop herself, Luna chuckled. All those warnings about how dangerous it was to empower magic with emotion, and to do so without restraint. It all came to this. Well, this and Vinyl’s chronic carelessness. To say that she was merely absent-minded would be kind.
“Vinyl’s magic is at the very heart of your being. I do not yet know what she was up to when she created you, but before the sun sets, I will find out.” The rage within Luna’s mind boiled, which she interpreted as a typical foalish reaction to being made to behave.
Luna drew in a satisfying, calming breath, held it for a time, and let it out in a casual, slow exhale. She did this a second time, then a third, and after the third time, she felt ready to do what had to be done. This would not end well, she already knew that, and yet, she had hope that this would go counter to her expectations.
Yet, the very nature of this construct, with emotions left unchecked…
“I can repurpose you, if you’ll allow me. I can recondition you. Reconstruct you. But this can only happen if you will allow me to do so. If you will allow me, I can give you the meaning that you crave. You will be free… as free as I will allow you to be in the dream realm. Earn my trust, and I will give you what you crave… life. Not the hollow illusion of life, but actual life itself. All you have to do is submit to me. Allow me to alter you. This destructive fury of yours must end. If you will allow me, I will fill your empty places. I alone can give you what you crave.”
Within Luna’s mind, a barrier broke. She felt it give way and white hot rage burned through the folds of her grey matter. Sweat glistened along her neck and she felt the old familiar anger that always left her terrified. Then, she smelled it; the scent of blood, steel, and ozone. For Luna, it was the very scent of madness, the aroma of insanity. Closing her eyes, she reminded herself that she was now a different pony than the one who had stumbled.
Images flickered across the inside of her eyelids, like an old battered film projected onto a theatre screen. Broken bodies flung carelessly about darkened, blood-soaked hallways. The stench of burnt feathers, singed hair, and flesh cooked by spears of lightning. A castle and its surrounding city, all laid to waste by fighting. The scent of burning thatch and wood.
Luna did not shy away from it, but allowed herself to experience it. Yes, this was her past. These were things she had done. She had done much to be guilty for. There was nothing she could do about these past deeds, these dreadful iniquities. She had committed transgressions against the very universe itself. The worst parts of her life were behind her, but the best part was still ahead. She could make things right.
But she could only makes things right if she was the best version of herself that she could be. The past was weakness. Self-flagellation only led to metaphorical blood loss and malaise. She owed others the best parts of herself, the strongest parts of herself. And every day, she selflessly gave the best parts of herself away to others, expecting nothing in return.
The anger was something she understood, but it had no power over her.
“Sadly, you have no place in the dream realm. I am not sure I could repurpose you. It is with great regret and a heavy heart that I must do what must be done.” Opening her eyes, she drew in a deep breath and then shouted, “Do what is necessary!”
Her voice echoed through Ponyville, rebounding and bouncing off of everything. All around her, the terrors of the night popped into existence, the bat-winged nocturnal pegasus ponies. A rare sight to be seen in the day, they were not the least bit hindered by the sun. Like their mistress, the Night Lady, they too worked in the light, and did not fear it.
Chains appeared, made of some unknown substance. Great lengths of chains blinked into being all around Luna. One end connected into nothingness, while the other end was anchored to a waiting night terror. The chain did not clink, it did not clatter, in fact, it made no noise at all. Each section grew tight, while somehow anchored to absolute nothingness.
“If you will not serve as a means of rehabilitation in the dream realm, I have no use for you. To Tartarus with you. You will be free to pursue your fiendish agenda there, if you wish. I am sorry, but this is the only freedom I can offer you, as I cannot have you preying upon my ponies.” With each spoken word, the chains grew ever-tighter, the links quivering from tension.
“Dim, is the creature contained?”
“Yes, my Mistress. It is bound.”
“Very good, then. Open a portal for us, Dim, so that we might do what must be done.”
“As you command, Mistress.”
A lone unicorn shimmered into sight a few yards away and began casting a spell. Meanwhile, Luna tuned all of her magical senses to focus upon the creature so that she might study it while there was still a chance to do so. Something about this pained her, it bothered her in some way that she lacked the words to express. Vinyl’s reckless experimentation had gone very, very wrong. Exceptionally wrong. This was no mere mistake, no minor accident that could be laughed about at a later time.
Vinyl had brought a being of emotional illusion into existence.
A poorly made construct that would only know torment and suffering.
Perhaps, if properly isolated, with nothing to feed upon, it would cease to be.
A flaming, fiery vortex opened above Twilight Sparkle’s castle. It too, was mostly illusion, more glam than substance, as it was utterly unseen by the residents of Ponyville. It opened, yawning, expanding, a great burning aperture that exposed an unseen, unmentionable, unfathomable place beyond. Turning her head, Luna gazed into Tartarus, and reminded herself not to stare for too long, lest she see the worst parts of herself staring back at her.
Then, with no fanfare, no flash, Luna, her entourage, and Vinyl’s infant construct vanished. The portal closed, collapsing in upon itself in complete and utter silence. Not a trace was left behind, no evidence of what had transpired remained to be seen. As was so often the case in Ponyville, a great and terrible weirdness had come to an end by simply vanishing from the public view.
The olfactory onslaught was over.
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I love how this went from humorous idea about making smell-o-pictures... and became a metaphysical nightmare.
9419450
I write Greek comedies.
9419456
It's not far from reek to Greek, anyway. All it took here was a little "G, I wonder...".
I.. wow. It is so so good to read a healed, or mostly so at least, Luna. I’ve been sad for her in your universe a long time.
And of course more thought for ... thought.
9419456
Yes. Yes you do! And I love you for it!
And Dim is here too.
This is a delightful little tour of the 'verse so far. Aside from the stink, which i am to understand is the opposite thereof.
Luna be scary.
Every time the princesses do something successfully in a fanfic, hasbro comes up with ten ways to abuse them and degrade them in cannon.