Chapter 38 - The Castle
He hadn't ever actually woken up before.
The first time, back when he had lost his memory, he had already been in a strange sort of half-consciousness when he'd regained his senses. A flash of recollection; and from one moment to the next, he was aware. That wasn't really 'waking up'.
He had memories of waking up, of course; his amnesia didn't go that far. But really, memories could only convey so much of the experience, so the rush of sensation was almost completely new to him.
Light Flow pressed what felt like his lips into a firm line as a gradual awareness wore sleepily over his mind. Nerves deadened by the recent unconsciousness woke with a jolt, and the prickly feeling of dry grass poking into his coat was the first real sensation to greet him.
A yawn pressed against the back of his throat, and he let it pass as his jaws opened with a stinging soreness that felt indescribably good. He really felt refreshed in a way he hadn't in any memory. It was a good thing he had decided to take a nap.
His body continued to laze while his mind took subconscious stock of his wakening assets, and his conscious mind took over the general responsibilities of breathing and waking up. Taking delayed stock was just as good as being prompt.
His ears: twitching sporadically in the wind. Oh, that background sound was wind howling in his ears.
His hooves: uncomfortably splayed out in the pokey grass, one on top of the other. Why was he laying on his side?
His tail: laid out much in the same manner as his hooves. Why was he on the ground?
His chest: rising comfortably, though with a fading echo of a strangling ache at its center. Where was he, and how had he gotten... wherever?
Something was wrong; something was weird. The last thing he remembered...
No.. wait, it was coming back to him! Slowly, pieces were falling into place bit by bit... A puzzle fitting slowly together... A very familiar feeling, but this time...!
The voice. The bridge. His duty!
The comforting feeling of closed-eye blindness was thrown off in an instant as he flung his eyes open with what by all rights should have been a breathless gasp. The world was a grey blur of wordless unease as his hooves fumbled on the ground below him, heaving himself up to a standing position.
His chest shook with panic as he messily turned on a dime, almost falling over again in his haste, to find the sight of two wooden poles stuck monolithically into the ground. The subtle sound of swaying was suddenly audible in his ears through the ever-present harsh howling of the wind, and his eyes trailed the sight of wooden planks leading off the cliff into a thick wall of mist less than ten boards away.
Less than ten boards away.
He had made it. He hadn't collapsed on the bridge, or fallen to his death.
He was alive. He was on the other side.
Relief couldn't even begin to describe the full body, earth-shaking, volumetric emotion that swept through his body. His back legs wobbled and quickly failed to support him as he fell painfully and unceremoniously onto his rump, but he relished the feeling regardless.
His butt hurt. He was alive.
It... was surprising: just how happy he was knowing that. Ever since he had lost his memory... he had felt some kind of... apathy, almost? Maybe it was nihilism, but... he had just been sort of... floating along, hoping for any kind of resolution to his story.
In this sort of moment, having narrowly avoided death, he had expected to just feel... fine. Not terribly excited either way, and not terribly affected. He would have moved on, in a continued search for some finale.
But this... this pumping, heaving, heart-rending pressure in his chest... He was alive..! He was happy!
Warmth welled in his eyes, blurring his vision slightly; but instead of suppressing it like instinct screamed to, he allowed the feeling to grow and bunch until it slowly ran messily down his cheeks.
He was crying, and he was okay with that!
His hooves felt light and airy, but heavy and hot and full of energy at the same time. It felt like he could have jumped up to the heavens to hug the moon, and returned in time for a marathon. His jaw had clenched tight as the salty taste of tears had leaked over it, but he forced it open to breathe in a blissfully mist-free breath; and he held it in, just for the sake of it.
His misted eyes stayed trained firmly on the sight of the relatively familiar wall of smoke as his lungs began to ache and then burn with the pressure of the unreleased breath. Finally, he let it out, and he consciously counted the seconds it took for him to fully exhale.
One... Two... Three... Four...
He could breathe, he was alive.
But... where was he?
The realization that he was in a new place came later than he would have liked, and he blinked moisture away slowly as more active thoughts began to swarm in on his newfound joy at life.
He was on the other side of the bridge.
Since he was on the other side of the bridge, that must mean he was close to the castle. Close to the voice, apparently. There was another thing now that it came to mind; where was the voice?
The usual comforting feeling of warmth in the back of his skull had faded at some point, and the discrepancy was... chilling. Where there had once been a constant presence, there was now a blank hole.
The voice had been urging him along rather insistently, and it hadn't tried to hide the fact that it was on a time limit. How long had he been unconscious? He... He hadn't missed the voice's time limit, had he?
He bit his lip as his eyes narrowed in worry, and his hoof pressed idly into the dry points of the weirdly hard grass. He was getting concerned, now. The voice should have been here, at least to say something as he woke up. Some sort of greeting, at least.
There wasn't any sort of distance requirement, he didn't think; and it wasn't likely that the voice would ever lack the measure of strength to contact him. That didn't leave many explanations left for the absence.
The voice was probably just... preoccupied. Yeah, that sounded good. A pretty word for 'indisposed' or something worse, but he would do anything to calm his own nerves. Well, of course now he was recognizing his own petty tactics, and...
Stop. He could go around in a circle forever if he let himself; it would be prudent to just get off his butt and assess the situation.
The sore feeling of tens of points lifting off his rear wouldn't leave him anytime soon, but the waning energy from his near death experience would; so he had to make the best of it. He swung his eyes away from the somewhat intimidating wall of mist that had almost killed him, and towards what lay ahead as he turned himself around.
His wide eyes took in the sight of... somewhat samey grey trees and plants. Somewhat disappointing to come to the other side of such an enormous obstacle just for the exact same sights as the other side, but-
His inner turn to pessimism took a detour off a cliff into a deep lake of pure optimism as his narrowing eyes crept to the sight of a very distinct pointed structure just out of focused sight above the treeline. Surprise bit at his heels, and his chest jumped in pain as he bit back a shocked gasp.
The castle, it was there! Just beyond the trees, he had made it!
The voice would tell him to stop dawdling, so dawdle he wouldn't. Ignoring the urge to further laze about and maybe stretch his hooves, he busily set himself on the clearest path he could randomly pick through the brush as his mind went to work on the near future. Leafy blockage crept over him once again, but his head was too swimming in the possibilities to even care about the slight claustrophobia.
The voice had told him it would be waiting for him at the castle, but he might have missed it... He could wait for it to come back for him, but the voice hadn't told him where exactly to meet it, so that could be a problem. He could wait in the main hall- if there even was a main hall, he had to remind himself.
The castle was apparently very old, and probably run down. The voice hadn't told him how old, but it had said that it used to be theirs', so...
Actually, that didn't help. He didn't know who the voice was, and he didn't know how old they were. He had been making some grand guesses in his head, but...
Really, he didn't know anything about the voice.
He should have been more concerned about that; but, as he swept aside a leaf that was probably bigger than he was, he found that he just couldn't bring himself to care. His faith had long since taken the place of rationality, and he was perfectly okay with that. Being rational hadn't gotten him anything but weird feelings and awkward relationships all day, so he was just about ready to surrender the concept altogether.
Life would just be easier in fulfillment of a higher power. He would be happier, he was sure of it.
Paradoxically deadened lush flora slowly began to thin as the underbrush came to a break just ahead of him, and his hooves picked their pace up as he saw it. The sound of the gorge's howling had long since faded, leaving the same eerie silence of the forest that he had become weirdly accustomed to.
He set his hoof forward through the opening covered by plants, forcing him to close his eyes as they swept along his face. A second later: he was through, and opening his eyes to...
A sight he felt like he had been waiting his entire life to see.
Eyes wide, mouth gaping, system stuttering: his hooves mindlessly carried him forward a few steps until one stopped on the short step of a grey, slate stone staircase.
An uneven and moss covered staircase that lead what looked to be several dozen hoof lengths ahead and upward to the surprisingly intact door of... a magnificent structure.
From where he was standing in its shadow, the large, imposing front wall of the castle that lay ahead seemed to rise into and pierce the sky itself; even with the entire top of it crumbled into a large hole that spread across and beyond the right side of its peak. It easily dwarfed the entire forest around it by multiple times; and without the mist barrier shrouding it from view, he was sure he could have been able to see it from Ponyville.
What an oddity.
The grey stone bricks that made up the structure were kept and tidy at the foot of it, but as it rose: more and more of the objects were worn and weathered, or crumbling away and sticking out and covered by copious amounts of creeping vines and moss. Entire hollowed out windows were unfortunately largened by the erosion of time, and it was hard to differentiate what was intentional and what was a hole.
The main tower that the door was set into was what mostly dominated his vision, but he could see the edges of similarly destroyed walls leading off of its gargantuan sides. He could also see incredible amounts of debris at the mostly hidden base of the walls, so he could only imagine what the inside looked like.
The door itself that the stairs lead into was, again, surprisingly well kept. A lot of what he could see of the building that wasn't just plain wall seemed to have been the special focus of time's weathers, but the door was apparently exempt. From where he was standing, it looked as though even whatever was carved into the door had kept well.
Again, as he had a feeling he would be repeating it often: odd.
As the door grew taller, it tapered into a large, curved arch shape, and he could faintly make out the edges of yet another hole at its immediate top. But the hole was... different, somewhat. It was neater than the other holes that had formed over time, and it fit into the shape of the door's arch too well.
A former window, perhaps?
It was... incredibly hard to piece together a complete vision of what he could see of the castle. He didn't really know anything about architecture; so when he looked at the blocky edges of the tops of castle walls, all he could say was that they were designed to protect archers and mages as they provided cover fire.
He didn't know anything about architecture, but he did know a thing or two about warfare. Apparently.
Regardless, the structure was towering, it had multiple towers that he could see even from here, and it was incredibly dilapidated. It was somewhat odd that, instead of what most imagery of castles would suggest, the front of the castle was a tower instead of a wall.
Rather, walls seemed to sprout like branches off of the entrance; from its immediate sides and he would guess from its behind as well. It was an interesting concept, actually. If the castle wasn't expected to be besieged regularly, it would provide easy access to multiple areas of the castle from one helpful hub.
A delayed sense of pain managed to finally reach his constantly processing mind as his vision began to dim at the edges, and it wasn't a surprise to realize that he had been staring intensely. He screwed his eyes shut for a moment as he breathed shortly in vague pain, before he shook his head roughly and opened them again.
The castle was still there; no chance it was going to get up and walk away if he stopped staring at it for a single second.
Though, there really wasn't even that much more to look at that he hadn't already catalogued. The brush had consumed and grown around the front of the building in an interesting way, which only further served to shroud the structure from view; but that wasn't entirely noteworthy.
Certainly nothing he would put in a book. If he were planning to write one. Which he definitely wasn't.
Even though a fabled lost castle in the middle of cursed woods would be a surefire bestseller.
He shook his head again to dislodge the encroaching gleam of gold in the corners of his eyes, and instead squinted once more at the structure. What else to make a note of...? He really wanted to burn this into memory, especially with his tenuous grasp on the concept.
The towering top that he had seen from the bridge wasn't the main tower's, since the main tower had collapsed inward and outward, but instead the tower to its side; just off the left branching wall.
There seemed to be the remains of some unknown structure to his almost immediate side. All but the roots of the walls had withered away, leaving a purposeless stone wall clustered right up against the side of the walkway ahead of him. It towered over the section slightly; perhaps to act as some sort of checkpoint, or watch of some kind?
A guard tower? Towers were typically round, and the walls were set into a square... That didn't immediately discount the theory, and it was probably just a matter of semantics..
Something to ponder some other time.
The stairs in front of him were badly damaged by the devastating force of time, and many steps were uprooted and uneven if even present at all. He had to make a conscious check at his hooves to make sure the next step was even there, and placing his hoof onto it brought little comfort.
With the way the stairs were at an uncomfortable incline, and the way they swerved recklessly to the side around a rocky outcrop, he couldn't help but wonder what the architect was thinking. They were probably some kind of extreme eccentric, what with the unorthodox castle design and nonsensical stair placement.
Regardless, he was fairly obviously stalling at this point; though he wasn't entirely sure why. Finally beginning the laborious task of climbing the hill towards the door gave him time to somewhat apathetically take note of the uneasy tangling in the pit of his stomach.
Was he nervous about potentially meeting the voice? Maybe, though he didn't think that was the core of the issue.
Was it the thought of exploring potentially dangerous ruins? Probably, he did just have a near-death experience, and he wasn't too keen on having another in the same day.
That didn't seem it either, though. Those problems were both.. surface deep. Problems plaguing him in the right now. The kind of existential, shaking, encompassing nerve that he felt... it seemed like something bigger.
His focus waned, and a step turned unexpectedly into a slope. His hoof slid for a moment, and his head jerked forward before he quickly stopped himself on the step just below it.
With his head closer to the ground, and his mane falling over his face, he took an unthinking moment to just... stare at the step.
He was...
He was afraid that whatever he was walking into... whatever he was facing next...
That was going to be... it for him. That he wouldn't ever come back. That the Light Flow that was walking and slipping up these steps wouldn't be the same one coming back down.
He had been fairly certain for a while now that the pony he had once been was completely distinct from the pony he was now. The amnesia and the torment that had clung to him like a stormy cloak... they were what made him who he was. The good and the bad of him.
If he walked up these steps and the voice was waiting for him somewhere beyond, then he would get his memory back.
Did that mean that he... the Light Flow that met Spike, that verbally fenced with Rarity, that bared his heart to Applejack, that discovered so much about himself through so much doubt...
Would he be... gone? Would the other Light Flow take his place?
Suddenly, the silence in the air felt much more weighted and pointed than it had before. Rather than the absence of sound, it felt more like the crushing absence of life.
Because he was alone. Alone, in the ruins of whatever life his unseen voice once had.
He took more than a moment to think about the symbolism of that; of his worsening mood where life had once flourished. Was it too heavy-hoofed to imagine that a past not his own could be weighing on him?
Gradually, through the choking haze of crippling, undeterminable emotion, his head rose to the next step.
He wanted so badly to have some realization of confidence, some exciting blast of wisdom that screamed cheerily that it would be okay. Something, anything to make him feel as though his recent escape of the mist hadn't been merely staving off the inevitable.
But there was nothing. Just the sudden, sobering realization of... potential change.
He missed the voice. He missed his faith.
Climbing the rest of the stairs was an easier task than it had looked, and he took special care to watch for more missing steps. It was almost like a game; or, that's what he would have made it into had he not been...
Sad.
His face had long since frozen into apathetic misery by the time he made it to the top of the hill; though some of the tone rubbed off as he took in a relatively new marvel.
The front door of the castle was even more imposing up close than the building as a whole. Pointed tips of what must have been railings barely framed the top of the scaffolding on either side of him, nearly marking the platform on which he stood in a little box.
It did seem odd that the sides of the door's entranceway just.. tapered off into a steep rocky slide that seemed to border the whole structure. It could be possible that, in its hayday, there might have been other structures along the sides?
It was hard to judge, since all he could see on either side was piles and piles of rubble. Rubble leading into a dark ditch, just like his mood.
It was really looking as though he may have bipolar disorder. Maybe the voice would have insight?
Turning his head away from staring forlornly where there might have once been something, he turned to where there was something. Namely, the door that was more than twice his height.
Clear cut carvings were still present on much of the door's surface, even with the structure's clear age. Wonder creeping over the encompassing melancholy, he reached his hoof up to trace along one's path from the center.
A diamond, taller than it was wide, with twin looping accents mirrored at its apex and bottom. They leapt from the tips on either side like birds taking off from a peak; swirling and swirling, on and on. Each twirling step leaving a circle in its wake; before, after six intricate loops, all four of the mirrored paths took a sharp dive back towards the exact center of the diamond.
Though, instead of a direct path, the lines took a more artistic approach. They bent back, doubled, and crossed over each other in harder lines than before; creating a clear, mirrored image facing both sides of the main shape. His trailing hoof fell off from its taskless wander and away to the ground as the drawn out picture in the stained wood suddenly clicked in his mind, and his mouth fell open slightly in awe.
On either side, like some fading memory of times gone by: were sideways trees. Delicately cut and weaved, like the most beautiful tapestries that had ever been conceived.
It was wonderful. It was poetic. It was... a miracle.
"How did it...?" A whisper through his lips came unbidden and unknowing of any audience, of his mind's own accord. There was no reason to vocalize the thought and nopony to hear it, but it came anyway.
In the middle of a long gone age, forgotten and undiscovered by any living mortal creature, pony or otherwise; it felt deserving.
Deserving of some measure of notice, in any way he could give it.
He blinked slowly as he took a step back, and let his head fall slightly in an almost imperceptible bow. The castle had been almost completely desiccated by the rigors of time, but somehow, the carving had stayed fresh through it all.
It was odd, even amidst everything else odd that he had noted before even beginning the real journey; but it brought him some measure of sudden... hope.
Hope that maybe... he would persist, too. If something as simple as a forgettable labor of love etched into a plain old door from a nameless pony who had died an indeterminable amount of time ago could survive this long, then maybe there was hope for him too.
In some way, maybe even just a small way, he wouldn't fade away.
Like the carving on a door amidst an entire kingdom that had faded from memory.
His eyes had drifted closed at some point, but he found new strength in opening them again. New determination.
He had made up his mind, he wouldn't fade away. He wouldn't just be the unfortunate chapter of some other pony's life; he would be somepony to remember!
What he'd done... What he'd experienced...
It wasn't for nothing. He felt it, deep in his chest.
He wouldn't be invalidated.
Placing his hoof on the stark obstacle in front of him felt invigorating in a way that really meant something. He was taking the reins, now. He was pushing on, towards the unknown, with no fear or doubt in his heart!
He would forge ahead, and find the voice. He would get his memories back; and he would become whole. It wouldn't be a fracture.
He would get his answers. He would do whatever it took.
No more dawdling.
He brought his other hoof up to the door, and braced his hinds behind him as he reared. The rusted hinges screamed and groaned into the quiet as long-settled dust suddenly displaced, and the diamond began to slowly divide. Moonlight spilled quietly through the widening crack, before unexpectedly bursting into the darkened room along with both sides of the door.
Faster and easier than he'd thought. Maybe it was the adrenaline?
His upright posture left him grasping at air as his support fell away from him, and vibrations echoed through his hooves as he crashed safely back onto the ground. His fur itched as he straightened his stance, and he raised his head to take in the already obviously musty room.
The doorway provided a surprisingly adequate vantage point to take stock of the room, as it was also surprisingly brighter inside than he'd expected. Though, as his thoughts drifted for a moment to the wide hole he'd seen in the roof, maybe it wasn't that surprising.
The room itself was, as he'd expected, a hub. Around the circle that was the interior of the tower sat multiple hallways, five in number and at equally distanced points.
It was all very aesthetically pleasing, nothing at all like the stairs or the wreckage outside. He was already feeling more pleasant just from the new sights.
Though, of course, the inside was not spared the destruction. Rubble covered nearly all of the floor, piled in unequally high and low places randomly. Behind it all, at the opposite end of the room from the door, he could see a right-facing staircase reaching around and above the entrance of the hallway that was set directly across from the entrance.
It rose into a what looked to be a platform, but that might've been a generous moniker in its current state. With only the floor at the very top of the stairs remaining, he could only make an educated guess.
There was a fairly large inset into the wall where the platform likely was, which painted a picture of some kind of landing overlooking the room. Perhaps somepony of importance would stand there? Or maybe a guard?
It was definitely more speculation than observation, but he could even see there once having been a matching staircase on its other side. It would have looked rather fetching wrapping around what could be the main branching hallway, and of course it would have matched the mirrored aesthetic.
He was beginning to sound like Rarity, but he couldn't lie about the pleasant glow that noting design brought him. It was just very comforting, poking out all of the possibilities for faded structures. It was like a puzzle, only far more interesting and intriguing and mystifying and intense and engaging and-
-and that was probably too many adjectives.
Snapping out of his wordy stupor, he trotted cautiously into the room. The doorway was, somewhat improbably, mostly free of debris; but it was only a few hoof-lengths before he was stepping on and over piles of bricks and splinters.
He let his eyes wander from his hooves as he came to the near middle of the room, to gaze about the walls of the tower. They were bare, unfortunately. He imagined there were once magnificent tapestries and windows and such in its prime, but there were no such luxuries remaining in this time.
So much that must have been lost. It was sad; in a markedly removed way, but sad all the same.
Dropping his eyes from the hole-infested stone walls with nothing to look at, he instead focused his attention to the most immediate problem on his mind: the many hallways.
Well, five wasn't exactly many, but it was a decision. A decision with no clear answer or definitive bias, as each hallway looked basically the same. It was really just a matter of picking one and heading off. Perhaps the classic foal's game 'Eannie Meanie's Choice'? It would be as good a way as any-
His chest clenched painfully as a nameless, indeterminate sort of tugging pull ripped at his lungs. His breath withered in his throat, and the sound of debris falling shattered the quiet as he stumbled to the right, knocking multiple stones from their place.
His hoof, incredibly enough, found steady ground, stopping his descent before it began; and his head swung to stare wide-eyed at the source of the pull. His breath found heavy pace again despite the continued squeezing that seemed determined to disallow him the very simple pleasure of breathing.
His sight landed on one of the hallways; the second one off the right wall.
He stared at the dim passage for just a moment before his hoof moved mindlessly towards it. His eyes stayed insistently fixed on the goal, even as his hooves stumbled clumsily down the pile of debris he stood on; like a foal just learning to walk.
His mind couldn't care less, though. He couldn't stop thinking about the pull.
It felt familiar. It felt warm. It felt like the voice.
The sensation of flat ground underneath his hooves was ignored as his vision narrowed, and the mouth of the passage crept ever closer, like a gaping maw beckoning him into its depths. Was he ensnared? Was he being lead by the voice, or by something more sinister?
Did it matter? Each breath felt heavier and harder than the last, and the only recourse seemed to be following its source. Whether he regretted it, there was nothing else to consider. He didn't want to suffocate again.
But was the pain imaginary? Was there even anything wrong?
The threshold passed behind him, and his breath quickened along with his pace.
It didn't matter.
As tense as the situation felt, with the pain in his chest pounding away at his head, the square-set hallway was mostly more of the same that he had already observed. Solidly gray stone walls, with little adorning them as was forced by the castle's circumstances.
It wasn't as dark as it had seemed from the main tower, there was something. While there wasn't exactly a lack of windows, they were placed few and far between, and seemed more designed for decoration than utility. Perhaps they sported great works of art once, but now they were just large holes.
No, the real source of moonlight came from the frequent holes in the walls and ceiling. From small, solitary shafts of light, to entire missing chunks of wall; the damage was always clear everywhere he went. It almost seemed more targeted than what time could manage.
Had there been some sort of battle in the castle's end?
The hallway lead across the castle's ground, providing excellent views outside at many different angles; but he could never stop to enjoy them for long. There just wasn't time.
He did have time between long hallways to note some kind of sprawling central courtyard that looked to be set a ways below the castle's walls. Almost as if the interior were set into some kind of dip in a hill.
It seemed as if the walls and towers of the castles defenses were raised against the outside world, protecting the real heart of the castle at its center. Large acres of land across an encircled bastion, where a great city might've once stood.
Unfortunately, from what he had seen, the castle's heart had been the focus of most of the destruction. There could have been buildings or anything else there, but now...
Now, it was just a large expanse of rust and rubble. A rocky mesa of failed construction, left to rot by whoever once owned the land.
He hadn't had long to stare. It didn't seem worth it.
Traversing the monotone hallways of the castle quickly became a tired routine. Climbing over chunks of the ceiling and under fallen pillars had seemed a relatively exciting prospect, but the nameless pain in his chest drove him ever on. There wasn't any time to take in the sights, or draw any sort of deeper conclusion about any of it.
It was just more junk to surpass. More obstacles. More memories that meant little to a voyeur.
Eventually, after what felt like hours of walking, his aching hooves brought him to yet another tower. He had passed multiple on his way here, all similarly filled with a lack of anything; but this final one felt... different.
For one, there was no connecting hallway for him to venture through; there was just the entrance. That was the most physical difference, since there wasn't much in the tower that he hadn't already seen.
More rocks, more nothing else.
But the real thing that brought his hooves and head to a halt was the immediate shift of the force in his chest. As soon as his hooves crossed over discarded doors on the floor leading into the room itself, the aching... eased.
It was content. It had brought him where it had desired him to go, and it had loosed its hold on his breathing.
The first unlabored breath in a lifetime of walking halls was the most gratifying reward he would likely ever receive. His bored eyes itched to explore his destination, but he closed them in favor of fully relishing his ability to breathe for a moment.
Between the choking mist and whatever this was, he was never going to take air for granted again. It was something so easy to dismiss in daily life, but its importance couldn't be more clear to him now.
He enjoyed breathing. It kept him alive, and that was good.
That was basically the end of his insight on the matter, or maybe he was just feeling a little light-headed from the very long walk. Regardless of the unwitting pun, after taking through stock of his chest's returned lightness, he allowed his eyes to drift open again.
If he had been expecting something grand, then he was sure to be disappointed. Instead of some incredible, sweeping treasure hall filled with magical answers that solved all his problems, it was simply... another tower. More rubble, more broken pasts, more nothing.
He was getting sick of the color gray. It was the color of all the walls, as if ponies in the past had just suddenly decided they didn't enjoy vibrancy anymore.
His eyes trailed the wall, where they surreptitiously found an almost hidden staircase set into the wall. There was a surprise, maybe that's what he'd come all this way for?
Now that he thought about it, casting his eyes above him showed him that the roof of the tower was strangely whole. Every room he had come across in the castle had some kind of hole in the roof, and he had taken that as some kind of unspoken rule.
Why would this tower be different? Was there a room up there?
Squinting suspiciously at the ceiling with his neck craned at an uncomfortable angle wasn't going to get him anywhere, so he set his sights back down with a huff, and readied himself to cross more rubble.
If he had to be honest, he was getting tired. Not just physically tired, but rather emotionally as well. Ever since beginning his possibly holy quest, he had been wrung through multiple kinds of laborious mental challenges; and he was beginning to feel the toll in a heavy way.
Even the flare of confidence that had risen in his chest at the castle's door had begun to wane. After all the walking, and all the loss, he just wanted it to be over.
He was just... He wanted an end, already! He was sick of having some new crisis or pain every time he so much as looked at anything interesting!
Why him? Why was all this happening to him?!
Where was the voice?! Why had it abandoned him?!
Uncertain apathy burned unexpectedly and quickly into rage as he reached the bottom of the stairs, and the hoof that set itself down on its first step did so with more force than was likely required.
He was angry. He was furious!
His raging gaze picked the path ahead apart with reckless abandon, cataloging his thoughts with more speed than he'd had all day. What was the point in taking his time when he'd probably just be subjected to even more of the same, anyway?
The stairs were small. The stairs didn't have a railing. The stairs eventually disappeared behind a wall not more than thirty paces ahead.
Stairs; more walking, more thinking.
Impatience won the war in his heart as he busily began his climb. The subtle clopping sound of his hoofsteps that he had been hearing up and down the hallways turned to a more frenzied stomping in his ears as he all but ran up the plane.
Especially unsafe due to the lack of railing, but it wasn't long before the obscuring wall boxed him into a safer climb. As if he cared, though.
He wanted an end. He wanted his memory back!
The voice would be there, he was sure of it. He would meet the voice, he would have peace, he would get his memory back.
As the nondescript feeling of upwards travel began to morph into diagonal travel, emotions that he had been suppressing all day welled in his eyes. The tears burned on his cheeks, and they drifted into the air behind him as his run turned into a complete sprint.
He wanted it to be over. He deserved his ending, Tartarus damn it! His mind wasn't some privilege to be won from some voice in his head, it should have always been his!
Questions that he had been too afraid to consider came to mind in a rush as beams of light ran periodically over his face from the windows. Who had done this to him?! Why had they done this to him?! What had he done to deserve any of this?!
What monster would ever do this to somepony?! It was sick! It was twisted! He couldn't imagine anything more bucking inequine to ever do to any living creature!
They would pay. As his breaths seethed heatedly through his clenched teeth, and his eyes narrowed against an encroaching light, he knew.
He would find a way to make them pay. No matter what it took.
Bursting out into the top of the staircase was therapeutic in all the ways he really needed. It felt great. It felt laden with incredible symbolism. It felt as though he was finally taking control of his own...
Of... of his own...
The thought no longer mattered. Actually, as his heaving chest stilled, and his eyes widened: he found that... it was hard to be very mad anymore. Rather, whatever he was mad about just kind of... slipped away.
It didn't seem worth it, standing where he now was.
The room... Oh, stars, where... how to even start?
The... The most obvious thing would be the immediate feel of the room. Where the rest of the castle had a musty dampness in its ever-lengthening corridors, the room he now stood in just felt... better.
It wasn't cold, or warm. It wasn't musty, or damp. He couldn't smell anything in the air, and it didn't even really feel as though he was in an ancient castle anymore. If there ever was a completely, exactly average room, without any defining sensation whatsoever; this would be it.
Even the lighting seemed.. warmer, than he had become accustomed to. Wherever he looked, there was just an effusing, dim light. The solitary hole in the ceiling that leaked moonlight into the room didn't even seem present; more like an object than a source of light.
Though, the soft beam of light was still present, and it did wonders to shade the room in a beautifully fitting tone. Symbolic too, considering what the room appeared to be devoted to.
Where the rest of the castle had been monotone gray wherever he looked, this room was a dark shade of blue; one that his mind desperately wanted to label as 'midnight blue'. It could have been bias, but it would fit.
What with the numerous charts on the walls, depicting sprawling points and lines that clearly represented the night's sky. Covering nearly all of the walls and some of the floor, with some even stacked on top of each other, they dominated the room heavily; and they were what drew his eye wherever he looked.
Faded, browned paper with black and blue shading; everywhere his eye went. It was the most meticulous act of artistry he had ever seen, and it was all just diagrams. One sitting on the floor particularly close to the stairway caught his eye. It sported clearly mathematically curved and angled lines, with points categorized and detailed in neat little writing along every single edge and facet of a star's formation.
Who had mapped the stars like this? For what purpose? The labor was... it was staggering to consider.
How many hours? How many years? How many lifetimes?
Well.. casually moving onto the next wonder in the room with as little ceremony as his suddenly taxed mind could handle, there was a mural of the night's sky painted onto the ceiling.
That simple little description could technically fit what he was looking at, but it didn't really encompass the sheer... majesty of it. It was more detailed and comprehensive than he could ever hope to accurately convey in any medium. Even that jumbled mess of words his mind conjured couldn't do much to explain any of it.
The... the brushwork was... it was used so seamlessly. He wanted to hit himself because of how dumb that sounded, but that's what his vocabulary spit out. It was just the way that the fading trails of a brush running dry was used to convey the nebulas as they lit certain parts of the sky, and crept into other parts of it...
The shining colors, even after years....
The consideration and usage of the space...
He... There was no adequate way... He just wasn't poetic enough...
He squinted his eyes as hard as he could, and when a familiar feeling began to well in his cheeks, he forced it to bunch up and spread across his face. It was only a moment of concentration before he could feel the warm streaks running down and matting his fur.
There, now he was crying again. All of the artistry on display here hadn't been able to move him deeply enough because of how drained he still was, but he knew they were at least deserving. Maybe it was a little cheap or ingenuine, but it was worth the blow to his integrity.
Not that he had any.
Anyway, the hole in the ceiling marred the beautiful painting, and that was worthy of a page in the history books as a great equine tragedy. His emotions were still shot, and he was beginning to lose the little steam that shock and awe had brought him, but if he didn't commit everything to memory then there was just no point to having eyes.
Where there weren't star charts dominating the room, there was a scarce bit of furniture. A wooden dresser painted black, upon which sat more star charts and a burnt candle. A cracked mirror set onto the wall beside him, with an ornate silver lining that had stylized moon carvings in it.
A table covered in charts, pencils, tools and other things he didn't even recognize. One little device that looked to be an instrument of some kind, but he really couldn't decide how the looping silver overhang could be used for anything.
It just looked like scrap metal, actually. Maybe that's what it was?
Well, a cartographer's table either way. Next, there was a balcony with closed glass doors on the side of the room. He didn't want to move from his comfortable spot at the entrance for fear of stepping on the priceless relics strewn haphazardly on the floor, but he was pretty sure there was a platform out there.
Oh, and the doors had beautiful, clear, stained glass moons on them. The theme of the room was beginning to wear on him, but... it was still very pretty?
He was... He was very tired. Every time he closed his crusty eyes, he felt the weight of... just everything. It dragged at his heels, and without any sort of imminent crisis pumping adrenaline through his battered and bruised mind, his body was starting to get really heavy.
Did a short coma caused by air deprivation count as sleep? Was that a restful thing? If not, then he hadn't really slept... in... some amount of time.
He kind of just wanted to go to bed. He had followed the chain that dragged him to the room, but there really wasn't anything here. It was stunning, sure; and there was obviously something otherworldly going on, since everything in the room had been preserved through the ages somehow.
But... what was the point?
His tired eyes drifted slowly from the table at his side, to the dominating presence in the room that he had been mostly ignoring for his own sake.
A big, comfy looking bed. Circular and lofty, set into the curve of the room, and shadowed by an overhanging cover with draping purple curtains. It was probably a moon or something, but really he was slowly finding it harder to care.
Hadn't he been obsessed with the moon earlier in the night? Was that rampant interest still in him somewhere, or was it just another part of the manipulation that was pretty blatant in hindsight?
He... Whatever.
The admittedly distressing sound of paper crinkling underhoof did nothing more than make his ears flick in noncommittal response as he crept toward the inviting surface of the bed. The sounds of creaks and coiling springs barely registered as, a blink later, he was staring blearily down at the covers he was now standing on.
Stylized moons, of course. When had he become so tired? Or jaded, for that matter?
Whatever.
He let his hooves fall out from under him, and luxuriated in the feeling of sweet, downy comfort enveloping his face. It was nice to fall down and not be in pain for once.
The bed was... nice. Yeah the bed was nice, that was it. Soft. It was just a bed; no reason to freak out.
His mind's somewhat frenzied activity began to wane as he rolled onto his side, and curled his limbs tightly into himself. He considered wrapping himself in the covers, but the room was pointedly perfectly room temperature, so he let the urge wash away.
Was it invasive to stumble across an ancient room belonging to possible royalty, only to stomp on priceless relics and crash on their bed?
Yeah.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A presence in the room woke him from his slumber.
All at once, and so heavily, something cast itself over the room like a pall.
The nearly silent creak of ancient hinges echoed and bounced off of the old blue walls, finding an effortless path directly to his ears.
The urge. The horrible, biting urge to move, to run and to hide. Get away, his mind screamed.
He had to stay still. For the life of him, he had to stay still. He didn't know why he had to stay still, but it was just the first desire that grabbed him.
Stay still. Wait. Don't open his eyes. Don't move. Listen.
The first heavy hoofstep into the room was piercing in a way that almost shook him from his self-imposed petrification. The consuming pause that followed plucked angrily at his nerves, and his coat began to itch.
It hurt, waiting for the next action. What was the hesitation for? Why the wait? What was happening?
Another step, another halting pause. Seconds waiting turned to minutes turned to potential hours, and he had to force back a dry swallow as his tail restlessly shifted behind him.
He had moved...!
The silence that followed his own action threatened to rot his mind with paranoia. The presence must have heard it, there was just no other noise to possibly drown it out. It had to be staring at him, it had to be.
Would it be apropos to imagine the burning sensation of a glare into his coat? Would it make sense in a lie? Because he really couldn't feel anything.
Nothing but a cold, creeping chill.
A step, closer than the others had been. He had to clench his teeth to prevent a full-body shudder.
A step, onto precious paper. His muscles locked painfully as his ear twitched.
A step. The bed creaked, and a weight dragged his body forward a little.
A.. surprisingly warm pressure eased onto his shaking head, and gently swept along the strands of his mane. Almost... tenderly? What...?
"You should know better than to feign sleep for me, child."
A whisper. Laced with so much that was so familiar.
His painfully tight nerves gradually loosened, and his shaking extremities slowed in their panic. "It's... you..?" He breathed softly, nearly finding a new fear in willfully breaking the encompassing silence.
The voice had come for him. It hadn't abandoned him, and it hadn't lost whatever fight it had gone to fight.
He raised his head lightly to press against the exploring hoof in his hair; somewhat like an animal, but he didn't care. A throaty chuckle was his reward, and the hoof brushed warmly along his head again. "Yes child, 'tis I. You need not suffer my absence any longer."
The hoof crept away, and his head pushed against the cold air as a keening whine rose in his throat. The weight on the bed shifted from his front around to his back, and he hummed questioningly in the interim.
A warm, comforting weight settled unexpectedly along his back, curling almost completely around his somewhat balled form. The steady pace of another pony's breathing was immediately apparent through the vibrations rumbling through his body.
This was it, finally. The voice was embracing him, and it was so much better than he ever could have imagined.
Every single protest that had built up like a stormy wall during his rapid ascent of the tower blew away in the next comforting breath the tickled across his ears, and he allowed himself to sink as deeply into the full-body hug as he could manage.
He didn't care to open his eyes. He didn't care to catch a glimpse of his fabled voice.
He wanted to keep the experience as pure as he could.
Just in case he was right.
"Child, are you well?" The soft whisper of the clearly female voice barely made a dent in the hanging silence, but it carried to his ears better than he imagined anything else ever would.
She was concerned. She wanted to know if he was okay.
"I don't think I'll ever be this well again." He murmured as he pressed the side of his head into what felt like chest fur. She was so soft and so warm. When had he last had this kind of contact with another pony?
His mother, maybe? He couldn't remember her, but that would be his best guess.
Another pleased chuckle ran through the air, sending deeply satisfying vibrations down through his entire body. She was large; so much larger than he was. "I'm glad. I feared you would have deteriorated without my presence."
The concern in her voice felt so real, so genuine. Her whispered tone spoke greater volumes to the well of emotion behind her words, and he would have shivered had he not been warmer than he'd ever been. "You are much like a leaking bucket or a faulty cable at the current moment. The question at present isn't whether you'll break down, but rather when."
Oh, that was bad. Oh, but it was so hard to care.
Something downy and ticklish draped suddenly over the length of his body, leaving just his head poking out from the blanket of unknown material.
It felt like... feathers? The voice was a pegasus?
No... something else.
"I apologize for not managing to return sooner." Despite his suspicion, the undertone of regret in her voice tugged painfully at his heart, much like the force had earlier tugged at his lungs. "In truth, the battle I have recently undergone was... not entirely how I once dreamed it."
A soft shudder, almost too weak to feel. "I had thought that... when I had finally returned... it would have been more..."
She went quiet, leaving trailing wisps of half formed thoughts in the air.
His chest ached to hear the soft pain that held steady in her unsteady words. "Are..." He began haltingly, nearly too afraid to actually hear the question posed. "Are you okay?"
The light touch against the front of his coat hardened for a moment, pulling him almost too tightly against the chest that supported him; before easing almost immediately.
"In truth, child... Whatever you must be gaining from this proximity, I must admit that it is not meant solely for you."
He would have said her tone dipped, but it had never really been raised in the first place. Whatever was troubling her must have been weighing for quite some time. "In this one moment, I fear that I have allowed myself to become rather uncomfortably compromised."
A short chuckle, with no humor behind it. The motion felt forced, and it scratched uncomfortably at his coat in a way he didn't want to feel again. The smile in her voice felt flat, and almost spiteful. "If the battle were based on emotional damage, then It seems that my sister was the real victor."
She sighed, and a familiar hoof nestled into his mane. "A master at the craft, as she always has been..."
He... didn't really know what to say. In the absence of proof, the theories he had cultivated seemed insulting, and attempting to voice any advice based on them would do nothing but offend.
"I'm sorry." It was the best he could manage. Just a simple recognition of empathy, and he had to hope she would find some comfort in it. The idea that she was suffering in any way was...
It was unconscionable. It threatened to drive him wild with some kind of insane drive to just make it better.
Comfort, or humor; either was good in retrospect, as another throaty chuckle rose in her throat. The hoof on his head ruffled through his mane good-naturedly, though with the edge of something harder in the motion. "You are sweet without exception, child. In the future, though, I would prefer you not exhaust platitudes on events in which you had no hoof."
"It's a custom cultivated in this age alone, and it's not one I'm fond of."
Right, she was old. How old? No, don't ask that question; just enjoy her company.
Company that, unfortunately, was beginning to wear on him; albeit in a very comfortable way. He had been sleeping not long ago, and the warmth that she brought with her embrace was singing a siren call to lure him back. Could she sense it, as his already closed eyes somehow managed to darken with the shroud of doze?
It was likely that she could, as the hoof on his head strayed away, and her voice seemed to whisper even closer into his ear. "You tire, child. Tire caused by trials rightly taken to bring you here. You deserve your rest, and it is needed. I shall find a way to cope, as long as you do not find yourself returning from that realm soon."
Strange phrasing, but he understood the intent. He was to sleep. It wasn't a request, or a well wish; it was a command.
Sleep, the voice urged. Sleep, the warmth called. Sleep, his mind screamed.
And sleep he did. Finally, and deeply, he slept. Falling into an unconscious freefall; into a deep dark dive, from which you shall not wake the same.
Yes, Light Flow. Your rest calls, and when you wake, you shall find yourself whole.
More whole than you've found yourself in many years, you'll find. I'll be removing taint entirely for this next trial.
The task is made ever easier by your serendipitous meeting with Kindness's soon-to-be Chosen. You hadn't realized at the time, when you managed to remember her against all odds, but there was somepony else in the background.
An overlooked hole in my sister's spell, through which I shall tear her shackles off entirely; as well as my own. Nothing shall hinder you, and nopony shall fetter your claim.
I know you can still hear me, Light. These words come not from my mouth, but from our bond; and there is no ignoring them.
Hear this, and hear it well: you will not wake to a pleasant comfort in the Night's embrace. Nothing so Kind or Generous, and do not presume my Loyalty to you. No, you shall wake to a battle.
When you wake, your last task before your first shall be to battle me. You will come at me with full intent to harm, and full intent for victory.
You will have no more than five minutes upon your awakening to prepare, and then our conflict shall begin. Do not attempt to fool me; I shall know the precise second on which your consciousness fades from my realm.
You will defeat me. You must defeat me. It is not a matter of whether, but a matter of certainty.
Unless you desire death.
Luck shall not favor you or I, but I wish you well regardless. You will need it.
Now, I command you once more.
Sleep, Light Flow; and finally: remember!
Hey, did you see that blog post? About taking some time to really polish this chapter?
SIKE, I LIED! 
Well, I didn't really lie. I just didn't expect it to be as easy as it was. I had really thought it would take at least a day or three to work up the effort to really comb the way I wanted to.
But then, I just sorta did it! Yay me!
There are still parts that I'm unsure about, but I think I've improved the product as a whole enough to be ready for publishing. The part at the end could probably be better, but I'm itching to move on.
Exciting stuff lays in the future, and we're nearly over the hump! 
Anyway, there's probably a lot I'm forgetting, but I'm gonna leave it here. I've been reading and checking for a couple hours now, and Jinx is getting tired!
Let me know about all the things I did wrong! The chapter's too long! There are too many redundant words! It's boring! Why did you put so much emphasis on empty walls?! What are you doing to the story you dumbass?! You're becoming chapter 32 Jinx again! Someone tell this guy he tries too hard!
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Like, the feck is going on, man? It's it happening before the friendship laser? After? Nightmare won? Lost, but still there? The feck does she wants?
Whether she really cares or not, she clearly manipulates him again, under the threat of death and with magical compulsion.
I find it hard to believe that her "care" is anything more then mild interest with deeply egoistical roots.
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The fact that it's still night when Light arrives at the castle makes me believe that its before the laser, though the fact that Light is feeling feathers when hugging the voice and not the material of bat-like wings that NMM usually has is odd as well as the fact that its Kindness's 'Soon-to-be-Chosen' that created the hole in the memory-lock spell. Fluttershy hasn't taken part in this story for years from what I remember (in Light's perspective at least, I think) so I can only assume its referring to Celestia's chosen being Twilight? (Or Bonbon somehow???) I think that only works if the previous bearer for the Element of Kindess was Celestia.
Irregardless, the chapter is *really* fucking weird... NMM was a total ass for mind-raping Light Flow but now feels regret and is returning his memories? And now wants him to not only attack herself after he wakes up but also to do so without hesitation with death on the line??? Like holy shit, it's really confusing... Hopefully the update for the chapter isn't *super* far away so we don't have to wait on this cliffhanger for long...
At the very least, glad we're *finally* going to see what a fully-functioning mind of Light Flow will look like since it's been so many years. I feel like the damage has gone back all the way to his foal-hood so it could cause quite a change to his persona...
Nightmare got a weird idea of battle strategy, take the one asset she got and make it fight her?
Whaaat is happening?
Is Luna talking to Light and preparing him to face NMM?
Is NMM making sure her only subject stays safe after she realised defeat was inevitable?
Is NMM going to test Light somehow?
Will Luna take Light in after being freed from NMM?
Will NMM and Light join forces to fight against the mane six?
Will the mane six even be the mane six we know?
Is the mental image of NMM and Light hugging absolutely precious?
I only have the answer to one of these questions. Needless to say I'm exited for the next chapter.
If Light is getting all of his memory blocks removed then I wonder if we're going to get a flashback of "the lost chapter" before the story continues.
Put the "romance" in Necromancer
on another note it be cool if when the dust settles he moves into the castle not like anyone else is using it and perfect home for a necromancer
Yeah, that's a swift path to suicide with any mare. Who even needs specifics when you already have know it has more digits than yours?
The AU elements be getting really AU here.
M&Ms apparently won their battle with Celestia, but weirdly enough had the wisdom to recognize that even in victory she is defeating herself.
Even if her intention was to cut the toxic person out of her life there is no way someone as clingy and desperate for validation as M&Ms could do it painlessly.
I wonder if Celestia just surrendered? Luna wasnt injured at all or anything.
If so. It took a thousand years but Celestia finally put her sister over her kingdom :V and wouldnt that just burn her.
It seems they were planning on having Light fight after all. Hm.
Honestly I wonder how much of the "you must fight with the intent to kill" thing is some sort of plan, and how much of it is some sort of melodrama.
Since light flow and Luna and Nightmare Moon are all really edgey and dramatic.
Like "we left them alone for ten minutes and they all dyed their manes black and started an emo band."
I would hope that is the case, and perhaps the elements can prevent a tragedy from happening.
I also think of Applejack who was the element of honesty, and who has spent her entire life powering through Light Flows edgey emotional angst.
Will she recognize the similarities between Light Flow and M&Ms? Shes spent her entire life dealing with "I'm a brooding loner dark lord and master of profane magics!" Who's actually just a very sad boy. So seeing her get through the bullshit could be nice.
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I'd actually like to clear up one of your ideas here that happens to be my fault.
There's a throwaway line in chapter 37, where Light offhoofedly remarks that he met Fluttershy at the party.
If you'll recall, Pinkie left the party earlier in the night after thoroughly checking Twilight for something. It seems that what she was looking for turned out to be everybody's favorite yellow wallflower!
It's a really unobtrusive detail, and I probably could have done more to make it apparent.
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Ahhh, I see. Looking back now, yeah that was pretty vague and I somehow missed that line...
11039765
Have you heard of 8th grader syndrome?
Well, main character is that, but much worse.
At this point of the story, mind you.
yes or no or will Light Flow ever find out that Celestia is his benefactor
For all the people asking what's going on, this chapter is clearly designed to create the ambiguity you see in order to build hype for the chapter where we get the answers. Why would he just give them away when that's true?
I bet the feeling that your Luna isn't the insane nightmare\demon that many portray. And even if you didn't go back over and polish this chapter it came out well.
ok, ahora estoy confundido, porque NM paso por todo eso si al final lo iba a liberar? a menos que... ella viva a travez de el, es lo unico que se me ocurre, eso o realmente apreciaba tanto a Light que desecharia su 'vida' solo por el?