There is little more exciting for Twilight than coming across a new problem. Especially when it's something she doesn't understand. And this...thing, that she's found out there... this is something she definitely doesn't understand.
Written for my mate Zontan as a part of an anthology of short stories compiled as a gift for him. You can find the others Here.
The story is finished and chapters will be published over the next week.
Thank you to Shaslan for the incredible cover art, on top of her help with the fic and description, and thank you to Snow Quill for additional editing help.
Chapters (6)
Fantastic foundation here, really excited to see where it goes, especially with the [Horror] tag.
I’m so glad I have my physical book so I could binge read the whole thing cause this little teaser chapter 1 made me wanna reread it again ahhh it’s so goooood
Really love the way you do technobabble and the set up here is so good. Can’t wait to see everyone else’s reactions as the story goes on >:3
But Twilight was so preoccupied with whether or no she could make this spell, she didn’t stop to think if she should.
Ooh. Seer, this is such a brilliant start. I love the academic tone, and I love love love the concept.
I know people toss around the word "Lovecraftian" quite a bit, but the basis of Lovecraftian horror - an overwhelming knowledge of things we are not meant to know - is strong in this opening. I'm super excited to see where you take this!!
Could I just read my physical copy? Sure. But is it more fun to read "live"? Always.
A black hole maybe? Perhaps I am being too literal lol
And there's me utterly hooked. It's wonderfully veered right into earning that horror tag. I'm as intrigued as Twilight, honestly.
Collapsars are intriguing. Especially since she's using an OPTICAL telescope to 'look' at it with the spell.
Where will we go from here? On a Nantucket Sleigh Ride of epic proportions, of course!
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Maybe - but those usually attract clouds of luminous debris, or are otherwise at the epicenter of a nebulae.
Still, this is all very exciting, no matter what the truth is.
You look out in the void, it looks back
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You know what, I do not know enough about space to make proper theories here x)
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Well
a black hole is the corpse of a star
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Inescapable stellar corpse, it fits.
That was a interesting story. Goodluck with the rest of it.
I think almost everyone here knows exactly what this phenomena is, but the ponies likely haven't had the means to discover it yet, or perhaps Luna or Celestia may be aware of what it is? I do hope she brings it up to one of them, just in case.
It could be the same as what we are familiar with, or it could be a bit more... sinister in nature, what with the magical nature of the equestrian universe and all.
Oh dear, Twilight has found New Jersey. DON'T LOOK TOO DEEPLY INTO THAT BLACK PIT OF DOOM, LAVENDER UNICORN! YOU'LL NEVER ESCAPE ONCE YOU'RE HERE!!!
It's most likely a supermassive black hole something inescapable and a corpse almost definitely is some form of something with a gravity well
I suppose a non-Lovecraftian explanation would just be Twilight seeing the result of the expansion of the universe. Voids with little to no usable energy. Entropy driving ever forward and the heat death drawing closer and closer.
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For those who believe black hole cosmology is true, they would ironically be wellsprings of life.
Poor Twilight I hope she doesn't get her Soul destroyed playing around with that spell.
Well now, with the 'no escape', 'corpses etc. being so prominent, and her mind being converted into light of all things, I think it is safe to assume that she was looking at is a Black Hole.
A corpse of a Star, and an inescapable prison for all matter it ever subsumed (well not technically since afaik energy reflecting the matter contained inside is still emitted by the Black Holes, but close enough for narrative).
And so the spell is very likely to go real wrong real fast.
Love this so far.
With the hints at hurting light it is almost a definitely a black hole at this point the horror of discovering something like that was palpable when it was first found so yeah, it's a black hole and Twilight is thinking of astral projecting herself closer to it thus falling into the gravity well and dying from spaghettification (the scientific term for being stretched out by a black holes that gravity into a line of single atoms)
How tangible is thought? How can imagination succumb to gravity? How often geniuses succumb to madness?
We shall see.
kicks back to watch some football
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Her information will be preserved at least. According to the current theories, embedded on the "surface" of the event horizon. She will be trapped until the black hole evaporates. The timeframe involved would have her world live and die a trillion times over by then. Luna wasn't wrong in saying Twilight would be better off dead at that point.
Wow, what are the chances that Twilight would randomly point the telescope directly at Azathoth?
Now I’m wholly convinced it’s Azathoth, the blind idiot god that is kept asleep by the fiendish melody of the cosmos. Azathoth is not malevolent, it’s just there, dreaming our existence into being. And if it awakes, the dream ceases, and everything is destroyed. Even if you merely disturb it’s slumber, you would be lucky to only be obliterated.
Loving this story.
Beautiful corpses?
Yep, as I feared/suspected it's a black hole - really hope you'll find a way to save yourself (or be saved somehow) Twilight...
Gurl got spaghettified
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If Twilight can still fall asleep in her (spaghettified) astral projection, perhaps Luna could reach her through the dream realm. Granted, Luna would be really, really pissed at her, and there still wouldn't be a way to get Twilight back, but it'd be something.
Then again, I'm not sure if even that is possible. The "Twilight would never know" narration seemed pretty definitive in its damnation, and Luna's "Up there, I dreamt of nothing" speech from her titular chapter probably rules out the dream realm entirely if we take it at face value.
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The sheer distance to her mind would make that incredibly unlikely to happen, unfortunately.
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Has distance ever affected Luna's ability to dreamwalk? She's obviously not entering the dreams of aliens or anything, but unless there's something I'm forgetting (which is probably the case, mind you), I kinda assumed the dream realm would be detached from the "distance" issue.
oh huh I guessed it after all
blind ignorance strikes again!
Honestly was really hoping for a more satisfying end.
Black holes aren't that interesting, even when you try to describe them like this.
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Luna did mention she couldn't interact with the dream realm of equus while on the moon, so distance likely does play a big role. There's also the concerns of what effect a black hole might have on the dreamscape, if it might still have its whole inescapable gravity there too.
If by some miracle Luna manages to find Twilight in the dream realm and the gravity is not in effect there, there's at least a measure of possibility for recovery there, if her mind hasn't been shredded by the hole in the meantime...
We can only hope black hole cosmology is real and Twilight ends up in another universe because she is no longer part of this one. At least until the black hole dies.
If there's anything to be sure about, it's that you'll never be sure about anything.
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Whatever the case, we can't be too sure Luna will even attempt communication. Twilight's "death" is just another reminder Luna doesn't own the heavens.
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True, though that could just be a consequence of the Nightmare Moon banishment. Like I said, you're probably right, but I'm still gonna try loop-de-looping through any black hole loopholes I can think of.
:P
11376007
Perhaps, but I reckon she'd have to try at least once; if not for her own sake, then for Celestia and the rest of Twilight's loved ones'. If she uses that excuse to justify not even attempting communication, I can't imagine it going over all that well:
(As an aside: once the ensuing investigation determines the likely order of events — including Twilight's conversation with the guard before her meeting with Luna — Celestia will probably blame herself for being too bogged down by penny-pinching nobles to meet with Twilight and try dissuading her. Especially if she remembers her "Always look in the dark areas" speech, for that matter. Whatever happens after that won't be pretty, to say the very least.)
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The moment in the earlier chapter where Twilight asks Luna about what could hurt light, I knew exactly what it was gonna be. But I don't think anything short of Discord would have much a chance in saving her at this point.
Ok, fine, it’s a black hole. She just got spaghettified.
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It's more the risk is too great to take. If the black hole was powerful enough to kill Twilight's astral projection made of "untrappable" light, maybe it's powerful enough to kill Luna if she attempts to dream walk there. She doesn't know enough about the physics to make a call and judging from her cautiousness, it seems like she'll deem it too dangerous to try.
In theory, Twilight should be able to be rescued, if only because she was able to instantly arrive at a black hole’s event horizon, which would be light years away. This would mean she travelled faster than the speed of light, which would be the only theoretical way to escape a black hole. Whether her sanity survived spaghettification however, is another story.
I had the feeling things were going toward that. Loved the way it was written, not only the terror of seeing something like that up close, but also how frantic the prose gets with Twilight’s mental state. Love when that's done so well.
I am curious how Twilight will be found if the story isn't done yet.
That's certainly a grim conclusion to this story. Good story though, for sure.
There is hope that the ponies will advance their sciences enough to see and understand the monster that took Twilight. While they cannot rescue her, at the very least they can get closure and carry on Twilight's pursuit of knowledge.
Does anyone know a good necromancer or soul-seeker? Could use some help.
Outstanding.
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If Celestia and Luna do let the public know where Twilight got lost and what she went looking for, I reckon that the "very underutilised" observatory with "not enough researchers" is going to become a very, very crowded place.
I love this epilogue, not just because it adds some clarity to the body Twilight left behind, but also lets us see the grief that echoes out from that. A lot of horror ends with the victim, unless there's the dreaded worry someone else goes looking for them, but seeing the effect Twilight’s fate has on Celestia here is really great, and that Luna wants to do what little she can to ease it, even knowing it isn't true... It's such a wonderful heart-wrenching gut punch to me.
A grim and tragic conclusion.
I knew her chances were beyond slim and yet I had dearly hoped that Twilight might somehow escape from her folly, battered and bruised - perhaps even maimed - but still somehow escape.
so this leaves me with a few questions.
twilight obviously projected her consciousness in the form of light and ended up passing the horizon of a black hole.
now
1. can light undergo spaghettification as normal matter can, if i remember correctly it cannot but it can be redshifted, how that would affect something made out of light but constrained i do not know.
2. is twilights consciousness destroyed or just stretched out in the singularity, meaning that she is in fact still conscious?
3. knowing that the reason nothing can escape a black hole is that the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light, and that twilight teleported to the black hole faster than light, is it possible to escape a black hole through means of teleportation as it is faster than light maybe even instantaneous travel.
i guess my hope is that the princesses find a way to teleport twilights consciousness out assuming she still lives, she would no doubt be badly mentally hurt but the story of such a recovery would be very intriguing to read. regardless great story
The star that burns twice as bright burns half as long, right before collapsing in upon themselves, and sucking in everything. Twilight burned very brightly, indeed. And now the void left by her passing is sucking the light from those closest to her. It’s poetic, if morbid.
Great story. Something need not be supernatural to be horrendously terrifying.
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As I understood it her projection underwent spaghettification (seeing as it was not pure light).
It is hard to tell as to what happened to her consciousness - near a singularity the laws of physics as we know them might simply cease to apply - but in the last recorded moments she felt (understandably) utter terror but there was not mention of dissolution of existence, so her consciousness might - for better or worse - still be in there. One thing that MAY be a saving grace is time dilation - near such a great mass an eternity at the outside might be experienced as a moment in the inside, so if any outside rescue is possible, the experienced time until then might be minimal for her.
As to if a rescue can be done... that is anyone's guess. I fear ordinary teleportation may not be feasible (as she attempted to cast the spell to bring her home to no effect) - the dream realm would be a possibility (if it circumvented the normal conventions of space-time) but since it had been weeks, Luna would have tried this already. But who can tell the true limits of magic...
That was a good story. I wonder what her spell wrote down just before passing the event horizon.