My Brave Pony: The Heart of the World

by Scipio Smith

The Heart of the World

The Heart of the World

At first, Twilight didn’t believe it. At first she didn’t think that she had heard right but, as she heard Pinkie whoop with glee behind her, as she watched Door begin to stride away to the other end of the circular chamber – part of the wall slid open to present another corridor to their view – it finally began to sink in.

It was happening. It was really happening. The thing that she had come searching for was finally in sight. Everything that she had wanted, everything that Zecora and Ace had risked everything for, everything that they had worked it was… it was all here. It was all really here, no more doubts, no more questions, no more obstacles, just… here, waiting for her.

She turned to her friends. Door had told her to follow alone. “Are you-“

“Go!” Spike yelled, as the girls – even Rainbow Dash – beamed at her, urging her on with their hooves, doing everything to push her forward short of actually pushing her forward. “Go, find out where they are! Go on, before they change their mind!”

Twilight let out a laugh, a laugh of joy, a laugh of giddy excitement, a laugh of relief from the stress held in for so long and finally released. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.” She turned away, looking at Door once more. “Thank you!” she cried. “I-“

“Do not thank me,” Door cut her off before she could finish. Their voice was stern, and carried with it an undercurrent of regret. “There is little to thank me for.”

“I think there is everything to thank you for,” Twilight murmured.

Door met her gaze. “You may not get all that you wish,” they informed Twilight. “And you may not get what you wanted from this. Actions have consequences, not all who visit the Heart of the World remember that.”

“I… I would say that I understand,” Twilight murmured. “But I don’t. All I know is that… I have to do this. I can’t… I need to do this.”

“Need,” Door repeated. “As you said. Well, as I say, I have decided that you are worthier than most. So come along, and come quickly before I change my mind.”

She turned away once again. Twilight followed, trotting quickly after her. Her hooves tapped against the stone of the circular chamber, and then changed to a different sort of tapping as she passed through the open doorway and into the other corridor. This one was made of metal, with a reflective floor and reflective walls and cold, sterile lights of an unknown – to Twilight – type hanging from the ceiling.

“Say Hi to Krysta for me!” Spike called, as the door closed behind Twilight.

“They’re going to be okay in there, aren’t they?” Twilight asked.

“Of course,” Door said. “If I meant to dispose of you I would have disposed of you all.”

“Right,” Twilight murmured. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance they could get some refreshments?”

Door looked at Twilight with bemusement visible even their metal face.

“Right,” Twilight muttered. “Stupid question.”

Door pursed their lips, then began to stride down the corridor, leaving Twilight to trot after her, her hoof-falls tapping lightly against the metal floor.

Door led her down that corridor, then turned to the right where, after just a few steps, a pair of metal doors slid open for her, revealing an elevator car such as they had in some of the newest skyscrapers in Manehatten.

“Is this new to you?” Door asked, as she walked in. “The Heart does not always tell me everything, I sometimes struggle to keep track of the level of technological advancement in the outside world these days.”

“I know what an elevator is,” Twilight said, as she climbed in beside Door. “Although I’ve never actually ridden in one.”

“No?” Door asked.

“No,” Twilight repeated. “They have them in Manehatten, but Princess Celestia decided not to install them in the palace – she said she liked the exercise of climbing the stairs - and there aren’t any other places in Canterlot big enough to need them. Although maybe if we installed a couple of big elevators in the city it might help ponies to get around the levels. At least the ones that can’t fly.”

Door said nothing in response to that, as the elevator doors slid shut. There was a sound like the tinkling of a bell as the elevator began its descent.

“I don’t know why it does that,” Door muttered, as the elevator ground down.

They said nothing else, and Twilight said nothing else to them. They rode down the elevator in silence, with the grinding, rumbling noise of the elevator the only sound.

Twilight studied the cab. It could do with a bit of a clean, she was forced to conclude; Rarity would have a fit if she were here – well, she might pretend to have a fit, she probably wouldn’t actually have a fit due to the earnest circumstances in which they found themselves, in the same way that she had born the dark of the rocky corridor and the sand of the desert without complaint – anyway, she wouldn’t have found this somewhat grimy elevator car to her taste. It was a wonder that Door was able to keep herself looking so pristine when she spent time in a place like this. The elevator was metal, and unadorned; it looked as though there might have been something on the wall once, but it was gone now. There were no buttons to control where the elevator went, Twilight noticed abruptly. It had just started moving once the doors closed.

“How…” Twilight began. “How does it know where to go?”

“There’s only one place anyone wants to go,” Door replied.

“Of course,” Twilight murmured. She swallowed, her throat feeling suddenly dry for some reason. Well, no, not for some reason, for a very good reason, she was about to meet the Heart of the World, an ancient… something of vast power, someone who had spoken to kings and emperors, who had counselled so many people of such great power of the years and… and she was about to ask it for a favour.

Put like that, it all seemed rather absurd. Stupid. Childish. Naïve. But she had come this far, right? I mean she’d gotten through the door – or even the Door – so things were going okay, right? It wasn’t as though this was all an elaborate prank, was it?

“Calm yourself,” Door urged.

Twilight looked up at her. “Was it that obvious?”

“Somewhat,” Door said dryly. They paused. “The Heart of the World has seen many, over the years, but they never valued the high more than the low, the ritual visits by the monarchs about the lonely pilgrims. In fact, I often thought that they preferred the latter.”

The door opened, revealing a messier and untidier space than Twilight had been expecting, lit up by those same cold lights that hung above the metal corridors. It looked as if there had once been a carpet on the floor, but it had become moth-eaten and ragged, with holes in it where the metal floor shone through. Some decaying furniture lined the walls of the circular chamber.

At the far end, lining one full semicircle of the walls, were bank after bank of screens, like the newfangled arcade games that were spread across Equestria, except without any actual games attached, just the monitors stacked one on top of the other, all black and dormant all silent.

A few stray wires emerged into view between the screens, and Twilight could only imagine how many more there were behind and hidden out of sight.

She stepped forward out of the elevator, with Door beside her, and she did so Twilight looked around.

She could see no one, and while the other chamber had been dim enough for Door to hide on the ceiling if she wished this place was not.

There was no one here.

She was about to say so when all the screens upon the wall roared to life in an instant, the sudden hiss of static making Twilight jump a little as she was presented with so many images of static, black and white jumping all over one another, lines running up and down.

“There is a pony down in my lair!” squawked the voice, a male voice – or male-sounding, at least – of the same indeterminate age as that of Door, running their words together very quickly. “There is an actual, living pony, down in my lair! Door, I thought that you were supposed to keep living creatures out! I am fairly certain that that is in fact, your job!”

“Usually, it is,” Door replied, unfazedly. “However, I thought that you should speak to Twilight Sparkle yourself.”

“Twilight, Twilight Sparkle, it has a name now, oh, that’s wonderful, that’s absolutely wonderful, that’s terrific. Twilight Sparkle, how did you even find this place?”

“I, uh, I found an account left by Queen Dido of her journey here,” Twilight offered.

“Queen Dido,” the voice sighed. “Yes, she would write it down, wouldn’t she; so clever, always writing things down.”

“As I recall, you appreciated her intelligence at the time,” Door said.

“At the time it wasn’t causing me trouble, what is she doing here?”

“Are you… do I have the honour of addressing the Heart of the World?”

“No. Well, yes, but I didn’t choose that name, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Call me… call me Bob-“

“Do not call them Bob,” Door said.

“What if I don’t want to be called Heart of the World?” they demanded.

“How about… sir?” Twilight suggested.

“No!” they cried. “No, absolutely not, I am… I am… I am tired. I am tired and I… and I’m old. I’m so very very old. Oh, call me sir, call me Heart, call me whatever you like, and you are Twilight Sparkle?”

“Yes,” Twilight said softly. “Yes, that’s right. My name is Twilight Sparkle.”

“And where are you from, Twilight Sparkle?”

“Ponyville,” Twilight said. “It’s a village in Equestria, not far from Canterlot.”

“Ah, Canterlot, Equestria,” the Heart declared. “Yes, of course, you’re a pony, you’re a unicorn, of course you’re from Equestria, where else would you come from? Ponyville. Never heard of Ponyville, must take a look for it, Door! Remind me to check up on Ponyville, it sounds rather charming.”

“It has its moments,” Twilight murmured.

“You are a long way from home, Twilight Sparkle from Ponyville just outside Canterlot,” the Heart said. “So why have you come all this way? What do you want? What would you have of the Heart of the World? What kind of crown would you like me to place upon your head?”

“She comes seeking knowledge,” Door said.

“No one comes here seeking knowledge, Door,” the Heart said. “They want power, they want glory-“

“I don’t,” Twilight declared. “I don’t want either of those things.”

“Easily said,” the Heart replied dismissively.

“I defeated Discord!” Twilight declared, taking a step forward. “My friends and I, we stopped him. He broke free, but we sealed him up in stone again. We saved Princess Luna from Nightmare Moon, my friends and I. And do you know what I did after that? I went back to the library. Just like Pinkie went back to the bakery, just like Rarity went back to her boutique and Applejack went back to her farm. Because it’s not about the glory, it never has been. That’s not why I did my part to protect Equestrian and it’s not why I’m here now. I don’t know why you’re hiding, I don’t know why you stopped accepting visitors but I am here. I found you, I got this far with the help of my friends and the least you could do is hear me out!

“The least you could do is listen to what I have to say before you judge my intent.”

Twilight took a deep breath. Silence reigned in the chamber, there was sound other than her own breathing and the muted static of the monitors on the wall.

“Three months ago,” she said, “a pony fell from the sky. He fell… he was my knight who fell from space.” A smile played across her face. “His name was Lightning Dawn, and he told me that he came from a place called New Olympia. He was accompanied by his sister, Krysta, a fairy, and they were on a quest for a magical talisman but… I don’t know if that’s important right now. What’s important is that I… I love him. I fell in love with him, while he was here. He… he could be proud, and stiff, and a little stubborn and he had been taught to resort to violence too easily but… but at the same time he could be childlike and adorable, curious, eager, courteous, even compassionate. He was a little rough around the edges but… but one you got to what was inside… it was worth it. I saw that while he was here and I… and I loved it. I loved him. He was going to stay here, in Equestria; even after their mission was finished, they weren’t going to go back. Princess Celestia gave her permission, they were both so excited… they had so many plans. They ought to be here right now. Only… they’re not.

“Somepony, an enemy, unleashed something called a Shard of Darkness on one of my friends. Lightning… to defeat it, to get it away from Ponyville, Krysta opened up a portal into the void, into a betweenspace, not teleporting to anywhere but specifically to nowhere if that makes-“

“I understand,” the Heart said, their own voice soft and solemn. “That’s… a death sentence.”

“Does it have to be?” Twilight demanded.

“The Heart of the World cannot bring back the dead,” Door murmured.

“That’s not why I’m here,” Twilight explained quickly. “I know that this isn’t… Lightning told me that he and Krysta had ended up there before, and got out, which means that they could get out again, right? I mean they don’t have to be… I was hoping that you could tell me that they were alright, where they were. I was even hoping that perhaps you could bring them here, I know that you brought-“

“Twilight Sparkle,” the Heart interrupted her. “If your friend came from beyond then I’m guessing he told you what this world really is.”

Twilight nodded. “A shield world,” she said.

“Indeed,” the Heart said. “Door, three months ago, didn’t we log two large scale spatial disruptions from the Canterlot region?”

“We did,” Door confirmed.

“That was Lightning,” Twilight said. “The first was when a hole was torn in the sky and he fell through it, and the second was when the portal opened for him and Krysta to come back… only he wasn’t there, so I sent a message through explaining what had happened.”

“It might have been better if you hadn’t done that,” the Heart said. “You know what this world is, but do you know what I am?”

“No,” Twilight admitted. “None of the sources I consulted seemed to be very clear.”

“That’s because none of them understood,” the Heart said. “Not their fault, not really, it’s a lot to get your head around. I am… I am the system that controls this world. I… no, that’s not true, not any more, that’s what I was created to be, at first, but you ponies and the like do so much of that yourselves. That was part of my programming, you know, to let you flourish, to be unobtrusive, to let you walk and run if that was what you wanted to do, so I let you take over the sun and the moon and the weather and in the end I, well, I didn’t have a great deal to do really, I just sort of… sit around, do the crossword, talk to Door-“

“But you used to help people,” Twilight said. “And you brought visitors, from… from other worlds, isn’t that right?”

“I did, once,” the Heart agreed. “But I stopped. Do you know why I stopped, Twilight Sparkle? Do you know why I have been alone with Door for a thousand years?”

Twilight was silent for a moment. “Did… did it have something to do with the disappearance of Olympia?”

“It had everything to do with the disappearance of Olympia,” the Heart said. “I… I found out that… that some very, very bad people were planning to do some very bad things, to bring some terrible things here to this world. And so… I sealed it off. I sealed it all off, nobody in, nobody out, deleted my location from all external records, I made it so that nobody could find this place, how did Lightning Dawn find this place?”

“By chance,” Twilight said. “He wasn’t looking for it, he was only looking for his magical talisman, one of the Prism Stones.”

“The Prism Stones,” the Heart repeated with a sigh. “And now you want… I can’t just tell you if they’re alive or not, that’s not how it works. I don’t know everything-“

“Nice to hear you admit it,” Door muttered.

The Heart ignored her. “Even if they are alive I can’t just whisk them back here, there have to be… they would need the proper equipment, set-up equipment, coordinates, I… I could look for them.”

“You could?”

“Yes,” the Heart said. “But once a door is opened, people can walk in, as well as out, do you understand? There is a reason why I sealed this world.”

“I know about Saturn,” Twilight said, “but please, Lightning sacrificed… he was willing to sacrifice everything for us. I… I need to know if he’s okay. Please, I… even if I have to find another way to see him again then I’ll find one on my own but I just… if you can help me find out that he’s okay… I just want to know that they’re safe.”

“Because you love him?”

“Because he deserves not to be forgotten the moment he’s not around any more,” Twilight replied.

“And after you know that you’ll go back to the library,” the Heart said.

“Yes,” Twilight said. “To the library, to picnics, to Ponyville, to… living. To living my life… and looking for a way to bring them back. I don’t want glory. I don’t want power. I don’t want a crown placed upon my head, I don’t want you to tell me that I have a great and glorious destiny that all should bow before, I don’t want to tell anypony that I found you or where. I just want to know that two people who became dear to me, are alive. I want them to know that I haven’t forgotten them.”

Once more, both Door and the Heart were silent. Then the Heart said, “Twilight Sparkle, you really are the first pony – the first creature – to come here in a long time who was not… well, alright, you are being a little bit selfish but you aren’t… I misjudged you. You aren’t what I expected you would be.” A moment’s pause. “Very well.”

“Very… very well?” Twilight asked. “You mean-“

“I can transmit a wide-band signal out across the stars,” the Heart said. “If Lightning Dawn and Krysta are out there, if they’re listening… they’ll hear you. And so will anyone else, you understand that? You understand what you’re doing?”

Twilight was silent, considering. She wasn’t sure what Princess Celestia would have to say about this, she hadn’t talked about doing this, but… but Princess Celestia hadn’t told her not to, nor given her any actual reason not to do so. And really, who was likely to be listening and even if they did listen, what would they do about it? It was just a message. Just a message. What harm could it possibly do. “I do,” she said. “I understand. And this is what I want.”

“If that is what you wish,” the Heart said. “I was created to serve the inhabitants of this world. To let you crawl, and walk… and if you want to run then who am I to stand in your way? Transmitting now… you should probably say something.”

“Where?”

“Where you are now, I’m picking you up,” the Heart said. “You are, as they say, live.”

“Already?” Twilight squawked. “I, uh… this is…” she cleared her throat. “This is Twilight Sparkle. I’m trying to contact Prince Lightning Dawn of New Olympia and his adopted sister Krysta. I say again, this is Twilight Sparkle, trying to contact Prince Lightning Dawn of New Olympia. Lightning Dawn, Krysta can you hear me? Are you out there?” There was no response. Twilight wasn’t sure how she’d know if there was a response but she thought – she hoped – that the Heart would tell if there was one. “Lightning Dawn, can you hear me? I… if you’re there, if you can hear me, if… if you’re still alive… I hope that you’re still alive. And I want you to know that I haven’t forgotten you, or what you both did, and I’m doing everything that I-“

“Twilight?”

Twilight gasped. Her eyes widened. She knew that voice, she heard that voice in her dreams. “Lightning?”

“Twilight!” Lightning cried. “How are you doing this?”

“It’s a long story,” Twilight said. “Is Krysta there?”

“No,” Lightning said. “No, but she’s okay! We made it out of the void just in time. I’m back in the field now with the Solar Legion, you’ve reached me in camp. Krysta is back at the palace in New Olympia. It’s good to hear your voice.”

Twilight smiled, even though he couldn’t see it. She blinked rapidly. She felt tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “Yours too,” she whispered. “I’m so… when you fell… I’m so glad you’re okay.” She sniffed. “Listen, tell Krysta that Spike says hi. And I do, too.”

“Of course,” Lightning said. “I’ll pass that on. She’ll be delighted. She’s always asking me how we can find our way back.”

Twilight chuckled. “I’d like that. You… you have no idea how much I’d like that.” She paused, suddenly unsure of what to say. She had come all this way for this and now that it was finally here she… she couldn’t think what to say. I should have written a script. This would have been so much easier if you were actually in front of me. “Listen, Lightning, you tell Krysta that I’m going to keep try and I’m not-“

“Twilight?” Lightning demanded. “Twilight, I’m losing you! Lily, can you stabilise the signal?”

“Lightning?” Twilight cried. “Lightning, can you still hear me?”

“No,” the Heart said. “No, he can’t. Someone was trying to trace the signal I had to cut it off.”

“Trace the signal?” Twilight repeated. “Did they… did they-“

“I don’t think so,” the Heart said. “But I can’t risk another transmission. It’s one thing to want to run, and another thing to be allowed to run into quicksand. I’m sorry.”

Twilight shook her head. “It… it’s fine.”

“No,” the Heart murmured. “It isn’t. And it’s okay to admit that.”

Twilight cuffed at her eyes with one hoof, wiping away the tears. “He’s alive,” she whispered. “He’s alive! They’re both alive, they made it!” She gasped with relief. He was alive! They were both alive! “I don’t know how I can bring them back, but… well, since I’m here, I don’t suppose you have any ideas?”

“Absent getting them to a teleporting pad on a known location that I can sync up with, and good luck with that since I can’t risk further outbound communications… no,” the Heart said.

“But it was worth a try asking,” Door said.

“I’ll find out by myself,” Twilight declared. “I’ll find… I’ll find a way, somehow. Now that I know they’re alive I’ll find a way to bring them back. Now that I know they’re alive. Thank you. You’ve given me… thank you.”

He’s alive. They’re both alive.

Wait for me, both of you. I’m on my way. I don’t know how, or when, but I’m coming.

Wait for me.