The Moon Rises

by Jack Lindqvist

The Death of Life and the Despondency that Follows

The moon moves mesmerizingly across the night sky. With a flicker of light, it shines high and bright in might, and Twilight looks up at it through her telescope. She sees the moon, pondering its reflection on the lakeside at her front. Ahead of her, the lake shined and sparkled like a colorful rainbow, but much more colorful than that.

“What a sight,” she said, smiling down at the water. The moon mesmerized. It will do that to ponies. As much, Twilight knew. She looks into her telescope again. The moon shined bright. Many sparkles filled the air, and the birds sang loud and proud against the backdrop of the night sky. Behold. She beheld. Behold, beholding, having beheld, Twilight rose up and took her bearings, looking around, taking in her surroundings. She beheld everything around her, and the world sang to her. She beheld, beholding, having beholden, seeing all that the world had to offer to her. Once again, she looked into her telescope, gazing upon the big, shining moon, seeing the night as the night saw her, all alone.

Behold. Twilight beheld. She told herself to behold the landscape and the night sky, as she always did on nights like this. This “beholding” that she did got to be one of her favorite pastimes in the frozen north, and she was in the frozen north, currently. She thought that beholding things is much more interesting than gazing or looking at them, though she did quite a lot of that too, she had no doubt. Had. Has. She stares into the telescope once again, looking for something in her mind’s eye. Her actual eye was quite occupied with other things, as her mind’s eye wandered, seeing, not seeing. What? She shifted her beholding eye to the very edge of her field of view. Once there, she couldn’t believe what she saw. Rainbow Dash, her dear friend, was on the moon. On top of the moon, Rainbow was, ogling around. Was Twilight seeing things? No, she was beholding them. This was not a medical hallucination. This was a real sight, as real as day and night. She stared into the telescope again to make sure she was right.

“What is she doing there? I have to save her,” she said to herself, loudly.

Twilight ran off the hill at which she was, running down that steep cliff that led her up there. This was an emergency situation, and emergency situations require dire measures, to say the least. Of that much, she was certain, and she did not feel she needed to be certain of much else. She kept running. What happened, how, and why? All these questions and more were ones that Twilight demanded answers to. Twilight was livid with fear, because she was afraid that she had lost a dear friend forever. That is not good for anyone to go through, whether it’s a pony, griffin, or something completely different, which is something that concerned Twilight a great deal. Her missing friend is a case in point in that thesis, and Twilight knew what it is like to lose someone. Long ago, she had lost ponies that are very dear to her, and she was afraid that it would happen again. She ran as fast as it was possible for her to run, a-leaping down around the bound at the edge of the mountain. This would not work, not at all. She zapped and teleported into a small cabin which was her place of residence for the time that her stay lasted in the frozen north. This was of course her plan all along, to come down into this cabin. She thought that it would be swell if she could reach the cabin quicker by teleporting, which she did.

Having arrived, Twilight looked around. She searched for a certain object that was a book that she had brought into the frozen north, a magical book that wasn’t much like other books, and she knew this book had to be here somewhere, as well. Twilight looked around frantically, maniacally, not knowing where the book was. She rarely knew where things were in this cabin, as they seemed to move from place to place, courtesy of Rainbow Dash, as Twilight had no doubt, and yet something seemed strange to her, and she wondered whether the place might be haunted. Could a thing like that be possible? Twilight was a mare of science, but she was also a mare of magic, and she knew that stranger things had happened in the ups, and downs, and in-betweens of her long and crazy, storied life.

It did not matter much what she believed, as she would soon be proven wrong, she thought, and that was a justified belief in her mind. She scrambled through umbrellas, balloons, and other assorted junk that was unimportant in relation to the task at hand. She kept scrambling until she found what she was looking for, a very tiny book at her behest. This was the object of her current desire, and she knew she wanted it more than anything in the world right now. It was a spell-book. She slowed down her search and picked up her book to look inside. Inside the book, there was a spell named “knock and you shall receive the answer duly,” and Twilight performed the spell. An old mare appeared, dressed in ceremonial clothing as that of a Northern pony, and the old mare talked to Twilight, all out of nowhere.

She said, “Why have you called me, young pony? Friend or foe, I cannot tell.”

“You need to help me. My friend is missing. She was on the moon. I saw her. I know it was her, and I don’t know what to do. Please help me,” Twilight shrieked like mad. It was obvious that she was distraught, and this distress echoed back to the mare in question. Twilight said these things because she knew she cared about Rainbow Dash, and this distress soon became all too clear to the mare here.

That’s why the mare responded in kind. “I know you’re concerned. I can hear it in your voice, so let us get a few things clear first. Who are you, where did you come from, and why have called me? Really, why have you called me, and what can I do to help?” The mare stopped at this. Twilight was shocked and aghast at the whole predicament. She was stunned and appalled. Twilight was downright ruined from an emotional point of view.

That’s why Twilight said, “I’m not here to talk about who I am. The important thing is that I want to save my friend, and that’s all that matters. I don’t even know really what happened and why. I saw my friend up there on the moon, and it’s scaring me to know that she’s up there. I want to do something about it. Tell me how, or don’t. That’s really all that matters to me, all that will ever matter to me.” Of course, it was clear to all involved that Twilight cared a great deal, but her manner was off, and that bothered the old mare.

She said, “Why have you called me here? I must return. I do not belong here, and you know this. I see that you have wings. You are an alicorn. That is clear. You have been gifted with great powers and eternal life among many things, and you are using your time in ways that I, a mare with very little time, cannot. This is a charade. I did not come here to be lectured about mares stuck on moons and such nonsense. I do not see what all this fuss is about. You should use your powers to bring her home.”

“I do not have that power, you see,” Twilight blurted, with the foreknowledge that she had been unfair to the mare at her side. She wanted to help her friend, like a lot. She knew she did, but this whole situation seemed to be slipping out of her hooves bit by bit and this thing was getting worse by each passing moment. Of course, the mare saw that Twilight was concerned for her friend.

That’s why she said, “Take me to the place where all this transpired. I want to see for myself. I know you care a lot for your friend, but it’s important to keep a cold head in situations like this. Everything can get out of hoof quickly, and within a moment’s notice, you do not have control anymore. No one does, because that’s not how the world works. It’s all of a piece, you see, Twilight.” That last word rang sharp in Twilight’s ears, hearing her own name, and seeing the mare in front of her, saying these things.

A mare of wisdom would not be tempted to deceive anyone in a situation like this. As much, Twilight thought she knew. She thought that this was a mare of wisdom, who was not deceiving but honest, albeit a tad imprecise in her speech, as Twilight would note with some of the ponies that she talked to on a daily basis. It was important to follow through with all this. As much, Twilight knew. She thought that following the mare out through her front door would be an idea that’s better than good, and would solve all her problems if she handled everything in the right way. This was her plan, and she really cared about Rainbow Dash. She really wanted to retrieve Rainbow Dash from the moon and end all this madness because she knew that it was possible. She had seen it before, and that’s why she thought these thoughts and said these words.

She said, “I am coming with you. So sorry for wasting your time, oh sage of the age.” Twilight was talking with one of the mares that are known as age sages, renowned for their tremendous talents and abilities for and wide, and this was all very important to Twilight, because this is what she needed to save Rainbow Dash, her dear friend, whom she loved and cared for a great deal. It was all very important all-around. As much, Twilight knew. That’s why Twilight did the things she did.

The mare called out the window. A massive bird came flying. The mare asked Twilight to jump on the bird, which she did, and this is what happened, and then they flew away and landed on top of the hill at which Twilight had been spectating the stars, which shine beautifully in the night sky, even still, to this very moment. Twilight jumped off the bird and ran up to her telescope, which stood lodged as of yet on the plot of land where she had been. Then something strange happened, something spectacular. Yes, something stupendous, and that thing turned everything upside-down, and that thing was that Twilight discovered a hole in the ground where the telescope stood. Beside her, the hole was, and although Twilight didn’t know what was in the hole, she knew that there was something strange about this whole situation. That was the gist of it.

All in all, Twilight had been having a bad day, and she did not know what to do, not under any of these rambunctious circumstances, and that bothered Twilight a great deal, so Twilight walked up to the hole and peered down in it, hoping to find some answers as to why it were there, but no such answers came, and the more she peered, the more she was astonished at just how deep the hole was, were, and continued to be, the more she peered at it. The mare walked up beside Twilight. There was nothing to say, because Twilight was at a loss for words, so she just looked at the mare beside her, who looked confused. Twilight was also confused, and very hungry in all actuality. That is, she was confused and hungry. Twilight looked at the mare beside her, whose face bore the veneer of tranquility but also confusion, and behind it was something much more serious.

This all transpired in the course of a few moments, and as it happened, Twilight grabbed the mare and teleported down into the hole. Now, it seems relevant to add that the telescope had not moved from its spot beside the hole. The telescope remained where it had ever been, and now, Twilight was down in the hole with the mare at her side, trying to figure out this whole mystery that seemed weird and strange to everyone involved. Twilight knew this, knew that this was the case, and so, she traversed the inside of the hole, searching for clues, knowing that all of this would be hard to do without the help of another person. Luckily, she had an age mare at her side, ready to serve, and Twilight knew she would be able to do so because she believed in the stories that she had heard since she had begun hearing these tales and reading these words. That hit home for Twilight, knowing that this is how it all had happened in the past when she discovered the books that told her about these stories. These stories were about things that Twilight had only seen in her dreams. That’s why Twilight didn’t hesitate to say the things she said and do the things she did. Because she knew that there was something more important at stake here, she did not hesitate. She followed through, as friends do.

The stories that she read and had heard of in her dreams were ones that astounded and surprised her a great deal, and that’s why she did the best she could to keep calm and trudge on through all this, because she thought that it was important, to do, because she knew, that she loved books. Twilight loved books. Everybody knew that. She did not hesitate. She engulfed the mare in her magic and tossed her from the place where she stood, knowing that this would be the only way for her to save her dear friend, whom she loved and cared for a whole lot, willing to die for, and knowing what was important. What happened to Rainbow Dash? No one knows, and did it really matter? Twilight was doing what she thought was right, and that’s all that mattered to her, clearly. In evidence is the fact of her doing the thing that she thought was right, which of course it were, clearly. She did everything because she cared about Rainbow Dash, her dear friend, a great deal, clearly. Twilight smacked the mare down into the ground, pounding her out of commission in a way that can be said to be rather permanent, really, and that was the fact of the matter, since her doing so would save Rainbow Dash, and now, Twilight paused.

“Oh, no. Nonononononono. What have I done?” she said to herself in a profuse manner, because she knew that she had made a mistake, knowing what making mistakes means for a person that was in her precarious position. She should not have done that, but she did, and there would be no do-overs. She wouldn’t be able to reverse her previous course of action to something better, and knowing that, she got manic and started panicking, and that panic turned more and more manic for every second that it kept on going on and on and on. It was a discombobulating experience all-around for poor Twilight, who felt very sorry about the whole situation. That’s why she did the best she could to keep a calm face throughout all this madness and not to panic any further, no more than she really had to anyway, to show she cared about Rainbow Dash, her dear friend, whom she loved, and what? Wait, what was going on here exactly?

Twilight got a déjà-vu, because she knew that she had been here before, seen these things, done these acts, said these words, but she could not quite place her hoof on when, and where, and why, and that bothered her more than she could even realize herself, and she was close to freaking out now because she knew that she, her of all ponies, was stranded in a hole with a dead pony beside her, at her side, lying there breathing, which meant that she was still alive, so Twilight took it upon herself to help the mare, without thinking of the consequences, being that she wouldn’t be able to do anything else but to salvage her dying body and making it out of the hole with the hopes of keeping her alive for a few more hours, clearly that being a suboptimal solution to a problem that is all but impossible to solve, she teleported out of the hole with the mare at her side, wanting to do her best to solve the unsolvable problem with a solution that Twilight was right now finding out is suboptimal in her mind’s eye, and that bothered Twilight a great deal, and that’s why she dropped the mare beside her on the ground, once out of the hole. Was she still alive? Besides, was she still alive? Was she still alive? Maybe she wasn’t, now that Twilight thought about it. She didn’t seem to be moving, after all. What was going on here exactly?

This all astonished and surprised Twilight all the while as she prepared to return to the cottage from which she arrived alive from the place at which she were, and that was the truth, as far as she saw it, and in point of fact, Twilight felt quite bad about everything that had happened, and she began to hesitate in many ways. First of all, she hesitated in that she did not know how to react in this particular situation. She was lost, and she did not know what to do. Secondly, and more importantly, she felt as if she was being strangled from all directions. Air was retreating from her lungs. She was afraid. Twilight was afraid. She was afraid. Thirdly, and as she arrived at the cottage, this thought struck her. She wanted to know whether any of this had really happened. Was it all just a medical hallucination, the kind that happens to other ponies but never happens to oneself, because one does not expect it ever to, hallucinations being the kind of thing that only happen to hallucinate-y ponies, not to oneself, and that are the thoughts that were running through Twilight’s woozy head at that very moment, and Twilight, being afraid of what might happen in the future, what has already happened in the past, and what is happening currently, she knew that, what? She saw the inside of her cottage. Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong. Lights hit her eyes and she started remembering things, strange things, distant things, and finally, things that she had forgotten, and it seemed the world would go on spinning forever, and that concerned Twilight all that it could, because light flashed before her eyes, and now, she saw distant things that were strange and which she had forgotten, and she remembered. She remembered.

Rainbow Dash flew into her face. She felt like she was fading fast. She was at a meadow, clearly. That much was clear. She remembered that. She was at a meadow, and she saw Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow Dash saw her, and they saw each other, and Twilight thought that Rainbow Dash looked strange all the way over there, standing there, being all the way over there on the other side of this great meadow inside of Twilight’s recollection, and Twilight recollected other things too. She remembered that strange things had happened a long time ago, many years ago, and are happening in her mind because she remembers them continually as time goes on, and in point of fact, on this great meadow, there was a telescope. This was strange to Twilight, seeing as she had been star-gazing not too long ago, and all of this confused her and made her wonder what was really going on, and what the answers were that explained the happenings and trepidations of this particular situation, and as it happened. As does happen, rather, she got her answer, and that answer was that Rainbow Dash flew up and down across the place where they stayed, and all of this was really strange to Twilight, because Rainbow Dash then crashed, dashing into the ground, and that was the coin that fell in Twilight’s mind, and suddenly, but not too suddenly, everything crystallized in front of her, and she remembered everything that had happened on that fateful night.

---

It was night. It was dark, as nights are. It was cold, though nights need not be cold. This one was. It was an evening in which everything seemed right. Everything was balanced. Everything was pure, in a manner of speaking. It was a positive feeling, in a straightforward sort of way. Twilight was sitting in the grass, enjoying the view of the stars, and nothing is strange about that. Nothing about it seemed strange to Twilight, who was doing what she would have done, had anything bad transpired, still she would have, she thought, and that was all that mattered to Twilight on an evening that was legitimately beautiful, all-around, and in many ways. She bent toward the telescope and looked inside the shutter, gazing through at the stars above that were ever so far away, ever as they would be, or so she thought, because many other things were soon to transpire in her life that would change things forever, naught of her knowing. It’s strange how that happens, when new things transpire in a pony’s life that he or she thinks will come and go, and yet some, remain and continue affecting that pony’s very life forever, and eternity is a long time, especially for an alicorn. As much, Twilight knew. That was a strange proposition to think about, but Twilight thought about it in the next moment, because what happened made her dizzy, woozy even, and she was about to faint, and she saw stars falling but not through her real eye, but rather in her mind’s eye, and stars falling means that something is falling apart.

Twilight knew everything now. Rainbow Dash flies forward as Twilight charges a beam of magic that is meant to illuminate the skies, and that is what happened, in the end, and none of that really mattered after that because Twilight, as the story goes, and Twilight knew the story all too well because she had lived it. Twilight, as the story goes, struck a deadly blow to Rainbow Dash with her beam that seemed as if it was on purpose. She thought that it might have been on purpose as yet, because, in her mind’s eye, she saw no pony in front of her, and yet in her real eye, she saw Rainbow Dash clear as day, flying overhead, and yet, she must have been aware that Rainbow was there in some way since she remembered it afterward, and Rainbow Dash being there, Twilight not seeing here, seeing and not seeing, seeing, not seeing, everything, all at once, Twilight began to hesitate whether she in fact, on some level, did not want to hit Rainbow Dash with that beam and end her life forever, in a way that is as permanent as the lifespan of an alicorn, and Twilight, knowing that she would have to bear this guilt in her heart forever, performed a ritual whereby she herself was banished to the moon, away from any ponies that should have the pleasure or displeasure of coming into contact with her. Out of shame, and because she wanted to punish herself, she did this, and it all came to a close the moment she saw the beam sear Rainbow Dash in the moment that she died. Twilight’s fate was already sealed, in some final way, and that is the truth, as she now remembered it.

---

Knowing all this, and knowing that she was a double-murderer, because she had just recently, sadly, and in a lapse of sanity and sound judgment, killed a person that was innocent, and this time, she had no doubt in her mind that it was not unintentional, but rather, the opposite of that, which is to say that it was intentional. Well, was it really a lapse or was it far more than that? How long had she been there? How long had she been where? On the moon, yes, she knew she was. On where on the moon, all seemed like a far more complicated story, a story that confused and confounded Twilight to the point where she pulled a fuse and had a conniption that was still ongoing, and now, she was mad and upset at herself, for what she had done, for what she had lost, for the pony she knew she was. This all coincided with a different realization she had about the importance of friendship and such matters. Twilight knew that she had lost a dear friend forever, and this realization festered inside her to the point where she was close to vomiting. Twilight realized that friends don’t abandon one another. They don’t ignore each other’s plight, and they certainly don’t kill one another, not by a long shot, and that’s not how good stories end. Twilight knew all this intimately now, and she did not plan on forgetting it, not by a long shot. No, never. Never. Never. Ever. What? The walls began closing in on Twilight and she had another vision of the past, one that haunted and stung.

---

The lightning flashed before her eyes again and everything swiveled, spinning and not all at the same time. Steady and unsteady was her gaze in the face of everything that happened around her, and was she surprised by any of this? Nay, she was not, and never would she again be after all that had happened to her in these fateful hours when her life turned upside down and askance. Twilight was delirious and dizzy with anticipation, for she knew that the mistakes she had made could never be recanted or taken back in some final way. They were with her forever, and she was stuck together with the mistakes in a dark hollow of misery that subsumed her life and would do so for all of long, everlasting eternity. Twilight knew this. She was dizzy. She saw Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and all the other ponies in her life that she cared about a great deal, willing to die for, and all that. It was all very strange to Twilight, knowing that these ponies were standing here, looking at her, and Twilight looked back, staring through the telescope of her memory’s recollection at her friends that she had a great deal of affection for all the while as she stood there. She did not know what to do, what to say to them, how to react when they looked at her with horror in their eyes as she told them what she had done, and it all got a lot worse as time went on and she herself came to terms with the unremitting truth of what she had done, and she panicked, a lot, and for a long time.

She panicked with the refusal to get help in tandem with that panic, which lasted, and kept lasting for a while after that. She said to herself that she would never forgive her own actions, and that had a great effect on her that lasted and would keep on lasting for a very long time as her life kept changing and shifting toward a worse future, and so it continued, and continued, and continued, and kept continuing until the world the world seemed out of shape, and Twilight’s mind was lacerated with negative thoughts that consumed her and festered inside her to the point where she was close to collapsing and imploding, disappearing, vomiting, fading, going away, and never coming back, not ever, forever, gone forever, a light extinguished, and Twilight’s final wish was that somebody would find a way to kill her, or she would kill herself, but she did not, and could not, not ever, forever, alive forever, no escape from the things that she had done, tormented forever, stuck in a valley of negative affect, and destined to regret the things she had done just for the sake of regretting them, because she knew that there would be no way to reverse her previous course of action to something better, and that killed Twilight. It made her life dwindle and sucked the life out of her, and in the years to come, there would be no life left. Only sadness remained in the wake of her actions. She woke and felt the smell of ashes. Everything tasted like death to her and she did not know what to do.

Eventually, her last conceptions of reality collapsed and disappeared, like the rest of her inner world had done, and she was left in a sorry, sorrowful state, where evil forces gripped her and descended upon her, hollowing the inside of her mind out and groping out the last remnants of her individuality. It was not a proper death, not the kind she had hoped for, but it was death all the same, death from within. Yes, Twilight had died, and now, she was reborn, and she realized the folly of her actions far too late, and it was too late to stop herself from descending into the void that she was now properly embroiled in, and the next thing on the menu was for her to be fed to the void itself, herself, being fed into the void, swooping down into the darkness, afraid, but not too much so, not too afraid to live. Never, and in her case, forever. Twilight continued dwindling away, her life a mere waste in her ever so meager eyes, and she kept fading and fading and fading and fading and fading, until nothing was left, a whiff of smoke vanished into thin air, and that smoke was the last of her spirit that had guided her long and given her comfort, gone as if it had never been there to begin with, and that was the truth of the matter, and that stung and hurt, and the fact of the matter was that she would never get well if it continued like this, continuing on toward disaster, faltering and falling, fading away, disappeared, gone, and vanished forever, now and ever, forevermore.

Twilight snapped out of it. She was standing around a group of doctors wearing lab coats performing experiments on her, various ones. She was sick, sick in her head and in a lot of ways, not fit to keep living in perpetuity. Being broken can be an exhausting thing. Everything within her twisted beyond recognizability, and she was crestfallen, beyond sick and beyond gone from the world, away from right now, away from the moment, and she fell down into a pit that she herself created, of her own doing, and all that. Twilight lived in constant fear, tearing asunder from within. It was a morbid story, that of Twilight’s, and it had many strange twists and turns that confused and confounded greatly, beyond greatly, beyond death, beyond life, and beyond anything that any other pony had ever witnessed, in all likelihood, probably, seeing as it revolved around the death and resurrection of things on a mass scale, one such that it was difficult to see a way out for Twilight, and would be for anyone in her position, past, present, or future, and that was a downer, and far worse than a downer, because she realized that she could never return to life as it once was, and she was stuck in negative spirals that descended and consumed her until there was nothing left to do but to weep and hope for a better day, one that would never arrive.

Life kept on going and going and going down, down, and down the gutter, each and every soul-crushing, horrible, horrifying day of Twilight’s measly, depressing, dumb life. It got to the point where it was hard to breathe, and think, and live. It got to the point where it was hard to convince herself to do anything to stay alive, and she knew she need not do anything to stay alive, for such was her power, but her life dwindled nonetheless, yes, the life within her. It got to the point where she died continually for years on end and returned in new forms, revivified and new, but it all descended toward the same logical terminus, which was death – cold, hard death. Cold hard facts are constituted in death, it seemed to Twilight, because death was an undeniable reality in ways that many other things simply were not, and could not be, ever, now and forever, for eternity, and it kept on going like that until everything started fading, lights and everything. Everything that seemed like something disappeared, and tearing apart, faded, disappeared, and ultimately, was gone, forever, and ever, evermore, ever in time. For all of eternity, things like this continued, disappearing, fading, and suffering in itself being itself, doing what suffering does, kept on doing what it tended to do, harming her, in great exchange replacing the good within her with something black and twisted, and Twilight wept. She had wept, she kept on weeping, and she would continue to weep until she had forgotten all of it, for such was her fate. Even now, she felt her life fading. Life is a precious thing, can be, has been, and will continue to be. Why did all this have to happen? What was wrong with Twilight, and her strange fate? What was wrong with her? What was wrong with her? What was wrong with life?

---

Twilight was still alive? That was surprising to her. She found herself renewed again inside her cabin, feeling better and better with each passing moment. She had forgotten what was important. Was it possible to salvage anything from her past? Revivify what was old and bring it to the forefront in a way that could serve Twilight to reenter the world a renewed and improved, better person, and that was all that seemed important to her right now, mattering singularly without exception in her mind, that faded and disappeared over many years, seeing as she was the kind of pony she happened to be, one whose entire visage and vision for the future had fallen into dust, the former collapsing down and the latter imploding into oblivion, disappearing forever. Disappearing. Disappearing. The act of disappearing is an act of death.

Twilight was afraid of what might happen if she didn’t handle this situation in the right way. She took a deep breath and steadied herself, waiting for the tribulations to come. She walked out the front door, descending the steps of her cottage, disappearing into the wilderness, reappearing elsewhere. She wanted to get back home, away from the moon at which she was trapped. How long had she been there? How much of what she had seen had been a mere figment of her fickle imagination, which rolled onward through her mind, wreaking havoc, destroying things, making mincemeat of her past, being the destroyer that an imaginative mind can be in circumstances that are unstable and unkind, as far as Twilight knew in her mind’s eye. She descended a valley, that now clearly, though she had not realized it before, was a crater. This was all very depressing. It was terrible. She did not know what to do, but she kept on going because it was the only thing she knew to do. She was afraid that she had lost everything that mattered to her, in all of everlong history, forever, in the many eternities that she had lived. By Starswirl’s beard, she must have been here forever. She remembered the days and nights that had passed, going into the past, disappearing into the ether. Everything, well much, was disappeared in a final, pointless, meaningless sense, and that hurt Twilight, but it didn’t kill her, not this time.

Twilight awoke, smelling the flowers, knowing she was home, hallucinating. That’s the word. Twilight was hallucinating. How strange. To hallucinate on a beautiful day like this! It seemed like a crime. Perhaps it was, and if not, Twilight would make it such, since she was sovereign in her village and her land. Twilight was a princess, one and only in her village, from where she heralded. For you see, Twilight was a complicated mare. She believed in good laws for good, law-abiding ponies to follow.

---

Twilight coughed. Some phlegm escaped her throat. She was crestfallen, though she did not know why. Twilight descended the stairs of her cottage. She was still on the moon, she had no doubt. Now, she needed to escape. She shot a beam of light into the sky, knowing that somepony might see the beam and come to the rescue, but nay, she was stuck on the moon. For how long had she been there? She didn’t know. Was there anypony that knew? If anypony knew, was that somepony around anywhere? It was unclear to Twilight. She began tearing up, seriously tearing up, tearing to pieces.

“What is happening to me?” she said, sobbing in-between each word, crying an eruption of tears that escaped her eyes and danced down her face, reminding her of a different time, at a different place, where things had been different. Twilight was forlorn. She was broken. She was transfixed in a mental state where her life passed her by again and again, and nothing could she do about it. She was stuck. Dead in the water, she was, as they say. Who, you may ask? And to that, the response may be, a flat-line going across a screen. Twilight re-awoke, awaking awake to her own wake, leaving sorrow in her wake, dying softly, slowly, fading, and Twilight was gone.

“Where am I?” she said, breathing noisily with abandon, fading fast, and disappearing into another world.

---

Twilight’s butt landed on a rooftop.

“Ow.”

Twilight looked around, acquainting herself with the surroundings.

“Seriously, what’s going on here?”

Twilight jumped off the rooftop, flittering toward the ground, landing, having landed, looked around.

“Who goes there?”

Twilight gazed quizzically about herself, scrambling around inside her mind for a reason to divert from the path which she was currently on, as she knew that there was no escape from the tribulations that were about to happen, if she were to meet another pony, friend or foe, and kill her again, blotting out another life forever, because she was insane. Twilight was insane. She was a crazed maniac, both beyond her own imagination, and that of others, whom she had killed, since they could not guess or understand what a crazed maniac she was until it was too late. When Twilight came down from her crazed flights of fancy, such as she knew they were, having lived through them continuously for many years, she saw before her a small child in the night. The child looked at her with the same quizzical expression with which Twilight had explored her surroundings not too long ago. Twilight looked back with fear on her face and in her heart, a deep fear that can hardly be overstated, knowing what was about to happen, the kind of pony she was, what was about to happen to the poor child, but to her own surprise, Twilight did naught but to look at the child that was in front of her, staying looking, keeping looking, looking on, and as the looking continued, something shattered inside Twilight. She wept. She was crushed and broken, but not dead, and she cried a little. Her cry carried out through the night, echoing and reverberating across rooftops and over skies, through hedges and over clifftops and mountains. She walloped, tripping headfirst onto the ground, making way for her body to collide with it, falling onto it, and collapsed. She was crestfallen, though she did not know why. A single last tear ran down her face. She fell unconscious.

---

Twilight re-re-awoke. She shook her head in protest against the light that hit her eyes.

“Please. I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head in further protest against any and all light that hit her eyes, thinking that she doesn’t deserve it. She should live in darkness.

“You need to calm down. You’re frying your own brain with these comments. Take a breath and relax. I will take care of you. Now, tell me about what happened. You don’t have to tell me everything. Keep it brief. I want to hear your story, Twilight,” a female voice said from somewhere in the back of the room, and that voice belonged to none other than the sovereign herself, Princess Celestia, who is the ruler of Equestria and all its assorted territories, old and new, many and one. She was planted in the other end of the room, her shape moving closer to Twilight, which made Twilight wince, and she knew that the one in front of her was Princess Celestia. She had no doubt about that in her mind as she lay in bed, eyes covered in gook, having laid there for Celestia knows how long, literally actually.

Twilight was shook with emotion. She was laid before Celestia and the world, her mistakes obvious to anyone involved, and perhaps perchance, somepony that wasn’t involved would hear about what she had done and find it in his or her heart to give her a second chance, but that is a fool’s hope, given what Twilight knew that her actions did really warrant a response in kind as. She was for having done what she had done, deserving of a death that had not yet come to her, a much more permanent one, one that would blot out her light, the same way she had done with others, and many a time did she deserve this dark, unremitting fate, faith of the fate that she deserved lived strong, and so, did many other things, did. Done. All was done. All was over. All was passed. All was past. None mattered, not really, no-no. Not did it, nor had it ever, nor would it ever. She was done. Her mind was fried, as Celestia remarked, in a bit of vivid imagery that she did not remember in Celestia’s vocabulary being there, having been there, but knowing it was there, Twilight thought about it a lot. It was a strange thing, as if Celestia’s was speaking to her daughter, Twilight being her protégé and apprentice, in many ways, being alive, being with Celestia. She remembered the times.

“I want to warn you, Twilight. You have been gone long. The world is not the one you knew.” Celestia reached her bed. She sighed, a long sigh, a deep sigh, a forlorn sigh. She said, “Twilight, you need to focus. What I’m about to tell you is very important. You need to be honest with me now. What did you see when you were gone, on the moon? What do you know that you have as yet not told me about? Please. You need to talk to me.”

“I have been having nightmares,” Twilight said. “I’ve been having long nightmares that seemed to go on forever. Well of course, what else would you expect given what I’ve done? Yes, I’ve made some mistakes, not intentional acts necessarily, but I am a danger to everyone around me. You should send me back to the moon. Of course, I deserve it. You know I do. I know you. I know what kind of person you are, what you have done for the ponies you care about. I’m asking you to do this for me. Send me back, please.” Twilight winced again, drawing back into the covers.

Celestia rolled her eyes. “How much punishment is enough?”

“Nothing is enough. Send me back.” Twilight practically pleaded with her, hoping that she would follow through, knowing what she had done, the kind of pony she was–

“You’re coming back, if I have to force you.”

Twilight squeaked, “No.”

“Get up. You have no idea how many times I have gone through this with you.” Celestia was calm but stern and direct in her commands.

“I’m going back,” Twilight said, determined.

“Twilight, you have been on the moon for a thousand years.” Celestia grimaced, studying Twilight’s expressions.

“A thousand years? That’s a long time. Well, I do remember feeling hungry.” Twilight caressed the sheets, lying there somewhat more calmly. “I studied the stars. I know them well now, probably better than you do.” Her feeble attempt at changing the subject did not go unnoticed.

Celestia said, “Twilight, get up. There is work to do. You need to tell me what you saw. Please.”

“Of course,” Twilight said. She was fast determined, as of yet, to return to the moon, either by her own power, or that of Celestia’s. She arose from the bed as if it was nothing. Twilight was practically invulnerable in her alicorn body, so she had learned, as much, that, Twilight relaxed. Her thoughts retracted inward and away from Celestia’s reach. She wanted no more part in confounding conversations with the sovereign, whom she loved, loved to the point where she was willing to make great sacrifices for her, and one of them would be what she was about to do right now. She began teleporting. Her magic fizzled out.

“Oh, sorry. You’re not leaving this time.” Celestia looked morose and concerned.

Twilight had a blank stare. She felt tricked, bamboozled by the whole situation. She thought that she would be able to escape, and so, she tried to escape, but she didn’t escape. She was stuck. She wanted to reason with Celestia, tell her it was too late to save her, but what to say? What to do? It seemed that there was nothing she could do, and so it would remain unless she could change that. She followed Celestia to the other room.

“Hello, where are you going?” Twilight said, confused and aghast at the whole situation.

Celestia, on the other hand, said nothing. She was a blank face, stone-face. That struck Twilight as comical, that a pony can apparently have a stone-face. Stone-faces all-around, surrounded Twilight and made her confused. The world seemed constituted in them. What’s a stone-face anyway?

“Twilight,” Celestia said, her voice harsh, stern, and direct.

“Yes, your majesty.” Twilight paused to take in the words of her mentor, whom she loved dearly, willing to die for, and all that. “Yes, I’m listening. What’s on your mind? Do you want to help me get back home again or not?”

Celestia shook her head. “No, look.” She pointed out the window. There were trees and desolation outside.

“Wow, what has happened to this place?” Twilight said, confused at the whole situation. “I don’t know what happened.” She felt lethargic. Everything she said came out wrong, in her own estimation. She should go back, fast, as she herself well knew.

“This is the future,” Celestia said, as she continued pointing out the window. “This is the future, as I know it, and you will know too, Twilight. I know you will. I believe that you will see the truth soon.”

“And what it the truth?” Twilight muttered angrily. “What is the truth? What is the truth? What is–”

“Please Twilight,” Celestia said. “It doesn’t have to be this way. You can live your life like a normal pony, with other ponies. You are a grown mare.”

“I think it has to be this way,” Twilight said. “I’m resolved on that point. I can’t change. I’m unwilling to, on some fundamental level.”

“Let’s go outside,” Celestia said.

“No.” Twilight ran off into the corridor. She disappeared.

The corridor shaded into a white nothingness. “Wait,” Twilight said. “Where am I?” She looked around. The corridor was empty. It was only her. She laughed. “Well, okay then.”

Celestia came from behind. “Stop.”

“Twilight. That’s my name. Twilight. Don’t wear it out,” Twilight said, through her giggles.

“Now, you listen to me,” Celestia yelled.

“Oh, I am listening. Send me back.” Twilight laughed maniacally.

Celestia smiled. “You think you’re fooling anyone with that?”

Twilight stopped. “I don’t mean to fool you. I mean to get back to the moon. I don’t want to be a pain in your back, Celestia. You know I don’t. I care about you a lot. I have made too many mistakes for me to recover safely. Please send me back. I cannot live in this alicorn form, causing trouble for other ponies, like I know I will. I am extremely powerful. You should know. And even if it were possible for me to recover from my mental problems without harming other ponies, I very much doubt it is possible for me to do so. I ask you to please send me back. Do this for me, Celestia. I beg of you. I am weak in my body. I cannot do it on my own. I cannot stand up to your magic. You know that I am sound of mind, and that I can reason clearly about such things. It is important for me to do the right thing now. You don’t know of the harm I’ve done. I killed a pony on the moon, you should know, but you don’t. Please pay attention.

“You want to know what’s happened to me? This is what’s happened to me. I committed the crime, and I am being dealt an appropriate punishment for that crime. I saw visions on the moon, terrible things, things that would haunt any pony’s nightmares forever, and it will haunt mine. I know this. I’ve thought about this a lot. My life has been falling apart. Many of the things I saw on the moon were only memories, I think. You should know, Celestia, that I care about you a lot, and it hurts me to say this, but you should send me back, because I know what I deserve. I know what I did. It’s not a matter of retribution. This is the logical end-point of my actions. If I didn’t do this to myself, some other pony would be forced to do this. You would. Stop lying to yourself. There is no saving me from my- from- from- from my demise.” Twilight hyperventilated, looking upon Celestia, who was stoic.

“Okay, but here’s a different perspective. I’ve known you since you were a little child. I saw you grow up. I watched you grow. You know I did, as you have said many times now. You know it. I saw you as a child. Have you ever, Twilight, watched a child grow up in front of your eyes? I have many times. I saw you. You were talented. You had a spark. You could inspire ponies, though you did not know it yet.” Celestia sat down on the floor next to Twilight. “Well, I knew it. I saw it in your eyes, a spark of intelligence, and something else. A spark of friendship perhaps, a spark of magic.”

Twilight applied her hoof to Celestia’s shoulder. “I will have to stop you there, my dear. Platitudes aren’t going to help.”

“But it’s not a platitude. Have you ever seen a small child before?”

“Sure, I have, just the other day.” Twilight hesitated for a moment. How many days had it been?

“Think about it. Think about the way that a child looks at you.”

“I’m thinking about it,” Twilight said.

“Imagine when a child does something bad and feels bad about it, and then the child cries and is scared, and runs off into a corner.” Celestia stared at Twilight, frowning.

“Yes, I’m imagining it,” Twilight said, trying to picture it in her head.

“Well, that’s you right now, Twilight.”

Twilight stopped what she was doing. “I see.” She paused in her tracks. Celestia was trying to teach her a moral lesson, it seemed. Twilight collapsed onto the floor. “I don’t want to hear it.” Twilight rose up. “Wait. You’re–” Twilight thought about what had happened to her in the last thousand years, what little memory of it she had. “You’re clever. You know that, right?” It was you I saw. I looked at Celestia. She looked back at me.

Maybe I should stay. I learned a lot from my stay on the moon. Maybe I could help other ponies that have gone through the same thing. I turned to Celestia. “We have a lot to talk about, it seems.” I was genuinely sorry for all the trouble I had caused. I really was.

Comments

[TheAncientPolitzanian]

A valiant effort, but your extravagant prose is as purple as Twilight herself. As a result, the text is repetitive at best—and downright incomprehensible at its worst.

Make no mistake, you show promise, but I can't see myself reading this again. That being said, keep at it!

[Jack Lindqvist]

10613807
I didn't want to poison the well, but I actually agree with this. I had a very hard time writing this story. There's too much hemming and hawing. I know. Some of the repetitiveness is intentional, but it's too much. Still, I wanted to post it, just to document my own work, and the genealogy of it. Thank you for reading.