Fears of Bygone Eras

by Lusaminia

Chapter 6

Hey mom,

I’m sorry, I really am, but I’ve decided that it was time to go off on my own. I know you’re not going to be happy, but I had to make this choice for myself. I’m nineteen! All my friends are in Canterlot or Ponyville or somewhere else in Equestria. I enjoy our little adventures together, but I miss them, and if I don’t leave soon I might forget them too. I can barely remember Psyche’s face anymore, and I can’t recall Thunder’s voice. You must understand that these were my foalhood friends, and if I forget them I… I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself because I don’t know what I needed to forgive in the first place.

I know you’re upset, but every time you leave you are gone for a little longer. You told me that one day I would have to make my own adventure, like the ponies and wolves from your stories. That time has to be now. I’ve already sent word to Psyche that I will be coming to Canterlot, and the Festival of the Two Sister’s will be coming up soon too! What better for a first adventure, right? I mean, I may not be working for the Crystal Empire of Griffon Empire, but small steps first as you always said.

Do me a favor, and don’t worry. I’ll be fine.
Your daughter by bond, Luminous Oracle.

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Luminous groaned as she returned to the waking world, pulling the comforter closer to her face. Her blankets had been wrapped around her, ends being pulled out as she tried her best to turn into a ball. Not recognizing the covers in her hooves, she bit down, only for the horrible taste to completely wake her. Eyes wide open, she pushed every blanket on her off the bed before trying to spit the taste out. It didn’t work, and she relaxed on the bed, doing her best to remember what happened and why she was here.

Looking around, she was definitely not in Psyche’s house, though the fact she had a bed to herself was enough of a hint in itself. The walls were grey, with an end table next to her bed and another next to a window. That window seemed to be the only source of light, but it was more than enough to fill the room with the sun shining right through it. It finally hit her where she currently was: Canterlot Castle. She facehoofed as she remembered that, along with Thunder escorting her, meeting Queen Twilight and…

Her body went cold, a response which she tried to tell herself was due to the nonexistent breeze in the room. In fear she decided to hug herself, hoping to feel the keratin of her hooves against her fur. A sigh of relief escaped her as that feeling surfaced, but her body stayed tense as she remembered Queen Twilight’s attempts to comfort her. She could touch Spike, Thunder, herself, but her entire body phased right through the alicorn like it didn’t exist. Like she didn’t exist. She shook her head as her mind went down that road, knowing nothing good would come for it.

Her thoughts turned to her mother’s stories of another Equestria, the one which she had apparently grown up in. Luminous never understood what she meant by “another Equestria”, but every time her mom told one of those stories she found herself drawn in. One particular story stuck with her in this instance, the first one that she remembered hearing about a princess that abandoned her kingdom for a happier life. The first time she was told it, she was happy for what the princess had done, forging a path that she was happy with. That was before her mom had revealed the repercussions of those actions, and how the kingdom fell into ruin and the princess’ sister went made with rage. In time the princess, so overcome with guilt and seeing her people suffering, did what she thought was best and put her sister to rest. The princess then left, the kingdom too far gone to be saved and herself in no position to call herself a leader.

Compared to the Equestrian folktales and storybooks she obtained from travelers and the like, her mother’s stories had always been more down to earth and somber. Though her mother was a genuinely happy individual, she disagreed about many things in life, the biggest being the constant “happily ever afters” in modern folktales. Luminous knew about things most foals didn’t understand at a younger age, such as death and depression. She had thought about those very things before leaving home, but she knew that it was the right thing. Besides, she didn’t have a kingdom to protect, only herself.

That was back then, however, and she was starting to think she had been wrong to come here. Ever since she left home everything had been off, especially since she arrived in Canterlot yesterday. The vision, this uncomfortable sense that she had somehow been here before, and now her meeting with Queen Twilight. She was starting to think it was a big mistake, that this had been the worst decision of her entire life. Keeping memories meant nothing if doing it caused her, and it only felt like it would get worse.

Her attention was drawn away as she heard somepony knock on the door. She sat there for a few seconds before the pony on the other side knocked again. Luminous finally got up, making note that she would have to make the bed later, and went to the door. Opening it, she was surprised to find Psyche in front of her, face as stoic as ever with that small old blindfold over her eyes. Luminous sighed, thankful that she didn’t have to face Twilight so soon.

“You left so I decided to follow,” Psyche told her. “They told me you were crying and went to a guest room. What is crying? You never told me.”

“It’s… better off you don’t know that one,” Luminous told her, looking away in embarrassment. “How did you get in the castle? I doubt they let anypony in here.”

“You enter it by walking, like any other place,” Psyche said in a matter-of-fact-way. “Somepony told me I shouldn’t be here, but you were here so I assumed it was “lying”.”

Luminous quietly laughed, shaking her head with the slightest of smiles. “Of course you did,” She looked to her friend, an old habit returning to her memory as she touched the blindfold. “I… I need to look at them right now.”

Luminous slowly lifted the blindfold of Psyche’s face, the earth pony getting unusually tense as she did. After a minute to let her friend relax, she completely removed it, meeting eyes that she had not seen in years. Psyche’s iris’ seemed to blend into the white of her eyes, pupil’s drifting towards the floor as the earth pony did an uncharacteristically frantic search of herself. That search stopped when Luminous hugged her, feeling the fabric of the blindfold in the hooves of her friend.

“You did this when you wanted to talk alone, where no pony could see us,” Psyche said. “I’m assuming that still applies, right?”

Luminous stepped back from her hug, resting her forehooves on Psyche’s shoulders. She nodded, a response that her friend couldn’t see, but one the earth pony knew had been her answer.

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Silvia’s eyes were closed, ears flicking an every direction possible as she stood outside the entrance to a nearby cave. Behind her was Ember, as before, but she was also joined by two other dragons that she had deemed smart enough for the task at hand. The medallion around Silvia’s neck glowed blue, illuminating the entrance. Though she didn’t use her eyes, she was looking for something. Something that told her this was the right place. Something that told her whatever was inside wasn’t just dangerous, but was what she was looking for. Though she wanted to panic with each second that passed by, she kept calm.

A faint noise caught her ear, quiet enough were she was the only one that could hear it. Her ears stopped in the direction of the sound, a low hum reverberating from her throat. It was a spell she had been taught what felt like centuries ago, one of the few memories she still had of her people. In the same way unicorns channeled magic through their horns, her people carried magic through voice and song. The specific spell was a simple chant of boosting her hearing. It was something not natural in modern Equestria, in a land where her people were extinct and absent from history books. Though, it seemed less like they went extinct and that some foul magic wrapped their body and trapped their intelligence.

With her hearing temporary enhanced, she focus on the noise she heard, one which still continued on from the depths of the cave. A single word could describe what she heard, one that had hurt her heart more times than she wished to admit: crying. Her medallion had been right, and what it led her to was crying. It could be a foal, a pup, or any number of things ripped from the place it had long known as home. Any other soul would race to comfort what it was.

Silvia, however, only saw danger at the creatures act. That’s what she believed it to be, though their had been times she was proven wrong. Wrong or not the same ending would have to play out, and she would rather not feel guilt than be overtaken by it. So many stories had been told to her of those who, newly blessed and still inexperienced, died from mistaking a child for a beast. If it wasn’t for her own experiences, she would have seen those stories as a scary story to try and out those unfit for the job. The job of hunting a paradox. Hunt anomalies.

Silvia, opened her eyes, mentally prepared for whatever was to come, and turned to Ember. She motioned towards the cave with her head and stomping with a hind leg, which she had taught the dragon meant “behind me”. Her kind, though they could speak, had no spoken language, but rather one of motion, expression, and body language. It had taken time for the dragonlord to figure out the basics, but Silvia had deemed it necessary. While her Equish was better than some “foreigners”, a mistake in her field of work could be fatal.

Spoken commands, in her work, was a mistake.

“Keep your mouth shut and follow behind her,” Ember told the two dragons beside her. “Don’t ask why. Just be prepared in case this thing spots you, and don’t even try to trash talk or taunt it.”

With a nod of understanding, Ember turned to Silvia, who had already started making her way down the tunnel. They walked as quietly as they could, Silvia’s medallion as the only source of light (dragon fire had been deemed too loud). Every once in a while one of the dragons would kick a loose rock, but Silvia knew nothing could be done. Dragons weren’t the most subtle of creatures, and their body structure wasn’t built for stalking. Right now, she would forgive Ember for wanting to get her people involved with her fight, but she would need to talk later about bringing others along.

The crying got louder and louder, and as Luminous got closer she willed the medallion to turn off. One of the dragons gasped at the sudden darkness, Silvia looking at him with her eyes half closed. No translation was needed for the dragon to know what she said. His gaze quickly fell upon something up ahead, a strange… glow, for lack of a better term. Not far away was a large chamber, at its center the darkness seemed to be stronger. Specs of white, like ash from a burning log, gave the concentrated darkness a sort of form. A form, Ember noticed that looked very familiar to a pony.

Silvia sighed internally, a quick observation about the form telling her what it was in front of her. This was not a paradox, but something much worse. The noise she had heard, though initially seemed to be from the thing in front of her, had no true source. It echoes around the room, the cry unnatural, like a record broken and repeating the same notes over and over again. Even then, the figure was still, not sign of movement that indicating that it was truly crying. It was a lure, one that she had seen time and time again, and it meant one thing.

Ember watched as Silvia folded one ear against her head while the other stayed up, the right side of her lips in a snarl. It meant two things, depending on the situation, but both gave the same general idea: “get back” or, the one Ember believed it to be “Unborn”. She spread her wings, stopping the dragons behind her from moving any further. They were not prepared for this, and she wasn’t either.

With another hum, on which continually seemed to go up and down an octave, she stalked the target in front of her. Body low to the ground, she bared her teeth, which flowed with a magic of similar color to her medallion. As she got closer, the creature’s fake crying only got louder in her ears, as if it was trying to overwhelm her. She stopped, her wish to take it down without notice dying as the form got wider, a maw of sharp white teeth facing her. She watched the head, knowing that, alone, she had only one chance to kill this thing. As a white orb appeared on its head, she took that chance.

The creature’s maw stretched outward, Silvia dodging to the right as the boneless creature did it’s best to chomp her head off. The thing screeched in failure, Silvia leaping at it’s head with zero hesitation and wrapping her teeth around its neck. It wailed even louder as she crouched down, Ember doing all she could to block the sound out. As Silvia’s teeth sunk further and further in, the wails changed, and a voice rang out.

“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” It chanted, yet despite sounding like a cry for help, the voice giggled. “She’s alive! Kill her! She’s still-”

As Silvia’s teeth met, the creature was silenced. The orb slowly cracked before, piece by piece, falling to the ground, the form dissipating in turn. All that was left was an orb of light, one which Silvia took in her paws and drew close to her amulet. It started to glow brighter and brighter, before covering the wolf and the creature’s remains in a strange multi-colored prison. A prison that Ember realized was made up of various shards of colored glass, like that found in Equestria’s throne room.

“Thy false soul, and thy soul’s false land,” Silvia said. “Return to beyond time’s shell, and out of the creator’s canon, so one day it will tell another true history,” The orb of light grew dimmer and dimmer, some form of magic breaking it apart. “Her law-” Silvia smashed it apart, the cave returning to darkness and her temporary prison dissipating. “-is for her believers.”

Silence followed her words, the only sound being the slight whistle of the wind outside. Ember had seen Silvia deal with a paradox before, but she had never seen anything like that. It was stunning, if a little overly dramatic with the speech, but with all the tac and practicality Silvia put into her movements dramatization wasn’t knew. She was a mother after all, and even if the life stories she shared were true, she knew what a foal or pup couldn’t handle. That dramatization affected her speech, which affected her voice, which in turn altered the way her magic was materialized.

Silvia shook her head, knowing that thinking about it for too long was a really bad idea.

“You can speak now,” Silvia told the dragons, looking at where the creature had been. “It’s been erased again.”

Ember’s eyes widened. “Again?

“Unborn. I mentioned them to you, but didn’t give specifics,” Silvia said, walking over to the dragon lord. “Ponies whose existence never saw the light of day. Those planned for life but never saw it. It’s like a paradox, but they exist in no timeline whatsoever,” Silvia looked back. “Erased, somehow clinging on to what little existence they have, only to be erased again by those like me,” Silvia looked back to Ember, a fire in her eyes. “You’ve now seen the true danger of my cause. You truly want to support me?”

Ember didn’t hesitant. She nodded with a smile, ready to fight by Silvia’s side.

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“Luminous, have you been a ghost this entire time?”

Luminous sighed, holding her head in her hooves after explaining for the third time in a row what had happened earlier that day. It was almost painful how little Psyche actually understood what had happened, but it made her happy. She couldn’t stop herself from giggling a little despite the fact she was holding her head. Looking at her friend in the eyes, something that she was one of very few to ever have the privilege of (or perhaps the only one, she didn’t remember), she immediately felt a calming sensation going over her.

“Think of it like I have an invisibility potion that only worked on the queen,” Luminous said, trying to be as straightforward as possible. “Like a “spook the princess” potion, but I never put it on, and I’m not dead.”

Psyche stayed silent for a moment. “Sounds like you’ve got a problem.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying for the past half hour!” Luminous exclaimed, her voice hinting both agony and silent laughter. “I don’t know what it means, and I need somepony who might understand,” She frowned. No second emotion could be found in her face or voice as she spoke. “I’m scared, Psyche. What the heck is going on with me? This shouldn’t be happening.”

“No, it should happen, consider you and-”

Psyche stopped, Luminous hearing enough of what she said for her eyes to wide, mouthing hanging open. She almost didn’t want to ask, noticing how Psyche was… trying her best to look away from her. Her head was indeed not facing her, but her eyes were shifted in the wrong direction. Luminous didn’t really think about it, to stuck on the words she had just heard.

“Should have happened?” Luminous said. The words did sting a little, though she knew Psyche lacked the ability to truly insult her. “What? Psyche, what do me and Twilight have in common.”

“I can’t say more,” She replied. “Silvia said I couldn’t tell you. I just made a mistake.”

Luminous opened her mouth to reply, but was stopped as she heard somepony knock on her door once again. “Miss Oracle, the queen has asked me to take you to her.”

Luminous’ heart skipped a beat, looking to Psyche for help. The earth pony nodded, her head hanging afterwards, as if she was actually disappointed in what she had done. Deciding to go with what Psyche suggested, Luminous moved to the door. Opening it she saw a guard standing there waiting for her. With a nod of her own, she shut the door behind her and followed the guard down the hall.

Only for a sudden, loud thud to draw her attention back to the door.

“Miss Oracle?”

She shook her head. “Right, sorry.”

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“You idiot! You absolute imbecile!” Psyche cried out mere moments after Luminous had left, hitting her head against the door knob. “You had one job! Silvia gave you one job and you screwed it up! You can’t do anything right. Ah!” On the verge of crying, she fell to the floor. Her hoof reached for the spot that in her head that had been rammed with. She visibly shook. “Y-y-you h-hurt your true self, and… a-and now you… you do…”

Her words trailed off into sobs and wails, her brain reminding her that, with every emotion she couldn’t feel, there was one that she could. One that she had felt at some point every day of her life.