Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Nightcall (A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 8)

The door closed behind Starlight. Inside the small room, Twilight Sparkle, Stone Brick, and the scale he had brought. And a small crystal table. Starlight was almost certain the room hadn't been there the day before, but she'd learned to stop concerning herself with the oddities of the crystal castle.

"There's something I haven't told you," Twilight began, setting the scale down onto the table. "I don't think Starlight told you either. It's not something we share around too much, even with the rest of the staff, but it is something you need to hear to understand why this is important." She stared right at Stone Brick. "Do I have your attention, and your secrecy?"

A little taken aback at first, Stone nodded, and Starlight was reminded that she was, in fact, at the presence of Equestria's only current ruler. It was easy to forget the weight of Twilight's role and titles at times.

The alicorn waited a moment, looking around the room. "I've told you every scale leads to a different world, and I'm sure you've realised how different they can be from each other. But they all have one thing in common." She paused to take a breath. "Every world we visited so far had no sapient creatures in it. We found ruins, we found traces of what clearly used to be civilisation, but we never found any signs of one still existing.

"And it doesn't look like any of them met a peaceful end," she continued. "We found worlds submerged, desertified, swept by impossibly strong winds, covered in ice. We found a planet broken in half. We found a room floating in a void that seems to be all that's left of a world, and everything inside was still in perfect condition. Every single world we've been to was destroyed in some way, some worse than others, by some sort of catastrophe." Twilight paused a moment longer. "Until now."

Starlight almost jumped up as she heard the last words. "You found an habitable world on the other side of that?" she asked, almost a scream of surprise.

Twilight gave a crooked smile, one Starlight had never seen on her face. "I found more than that. I found an inhabited world." Taking advantage of Starlight's momentary gasp, she kept going before the unicorn could interrupt her. "And it's like ours. There were ponies there."

Starlight's mouth opened and closed a couple of times, with no sound coming out of it.

Twilight's expression darkened. "And we are not going back now. Not the way you're thinking of. We'll have to be very careful in there, Starlight. And make sure we're not seen, when we go investigate."

Starlight's mouth closed with a snap, several layers of confusion and surprise warping her face. "But why?"

"I saw something there. Something I recognised. You know all about Sunset, so I don't think you'll have trouble believing me. It was night there, and the ponies were out, and I recognised the pattern on the banners around town. It's not the exact same I saw the last time, but I have no doubt it means the same thing."

Stone Brick was looking between the two mares, confused.

Starlight took a step forward. "Twilight, what did you see? What does this have to do with Sunset? And why did you tell me it was..." She looked down for a moment. "No."

Twilight nodded. "Yes. What we've gotta hope for now is that she doesn't have a way to follow us here."

"But... It doesn't make sense, the timelines I created shouldn't-"

"It's not the same. The Moon was clear, and the banners were different." Twilight took another breath. "But it's unmistakable that Nightmare Moon is the one in power there, or someone very much like her. I don't like the idea, and neither do you I'm sure, but this is the only real chance we have to learn more about how scales work. We'll have to go back there, sooner or later." She turned to Stone Brick. "I must ask to keep your scale here a while longer, I'm afraid. And I'm sure you have questions. Now is the time to ask them."

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Starlight was almost certain the room hadn't been there the day before, but she'd learned to stop concerning herself with the oddities of the crystal castle.

And as long as she stopped teleporting its major organs, it was happy to return the favor.

Ah. Makes sense that there'd be more than one Nightmare Triumphant timeline out there. Now the question becomes just how nastily future interactions with it will go. And what Stone may think of the whole concept. This definitely wasn't what he'd expected when he started his pilgrimage to Ponyville.