Egress

by Grey Vicar

Chapter 12: No More Shadows To Cast

Princess Twilight woke up with a smile. She could do this. Something shimmered at the edge of her sight. The light. It was pretty.

She glanced at her little brass clock. It was twelve o'clock. Time to wake up. Time to rule.

Noble Duty lightly nodded to her as she trotted out of her chambers. She understood. There was a strange resignation to her posture. She understood how it must be, but she didn't like it. Princess Twilight nodded to her assistants, her servants, her ministers. They blinked at her, almost in surprise. Why? Princess Twilight had everything under control, as always. Today was simply another day of her glorious reign.

It was five o'clock. She stepped up the dais reverently. Deep breaths. Power, just out of reach. Radiant beauty, there, right there. She pulled on it, raised it. The sun went up, bathing Equestria in light. Glorious light. Her smile widened. Golden light. Beautiful light. Pretty light. She yearned to be able to touch it like it touched her. She giggled. Not now. Not now. The light caressed her cheeks like it congratulated her on a job well done. She almost purred. Power. Majesty. It was hers to use. It was hers to move. How had she not seen it before? How had she been able to ignore it, to delude herself into not using her full potential?

Pancakes. Coffee. Delicious. The cook shrunk before her lavish praise of his work. Embarrassed? She couldn't miss the note of incomprehension in his face. Why? Princess Twilight was delighted by his work. He should smile! She grinned at him and he weakly returned a smile before bowing and excusing himself. Silly pony. Maybe it was the light. The pretty light. It was strong today. The sun. So beautiful. The sun. Radiant. She took a deep breath and could almost smell the sun in the air. The sun. The sun. So bright. Pretty light.

It was five o'clock and a half, time to freshen herself up and let her attendants work their magic on her mane. They too were taken aback as she chatted with them. Usually, they would talk into the silence and Twilight would only give vague replies and the occasional nod and chuckle, but she was on fire today, and got one of them to tell her about her daughter's excellent work in school and the new mane products they'd receive from Manehattan. When she left the dressing room all prim and proper, she'd already forgotten all the details. She couldn't care about a single pony, she had a kingdom to run! Maybe she could skip court today, go straight to her ministers and arrange things from there, tell them how the country should be run, order some new laws to be drafted. The noble houses were causing a bit of a stir, maybe it was time to remind them why they pledged fealty to her. She cracked her neck. She was so tense lately, she needed something to take the stress out. She'd have to see if the Royal Guard had a battalion or two to spare and they could walk on some houses and—

She shook her head and blinked at nothing. It was still morning, and she'd wandered into a corridor open to the east. Lazy sunlight poured over her from between the pillars supporting the ceiling. The light of the sun washed over her, warm and pressing. So many problems, so many malcontents. Why couldn't she just sweep them away and focus on the ponies who would stay in line and let her do her job? Why couldn't she just do her job? She squirmed. The sunlight was hot, and she hurried toward the throne room. She'd start by sending letters. Strongly worded letters. Warmth turned into cold guilt inside her as she crossed into the hall leading to the throne room. Had she really just been considering walking the army on the problematic nobles? She shook her head. She was just tired. Just tired. She couldn't be tired anymore. She needed… she needed to be glorious. Radiant. Like the sun. She needed to be bold. Decisive. The sun.

She looked out into the distance. The sun rose over the mountains, bathing the world in its beauty, in the radiant light of the dawn. She could do it. She was the sun. She was the sun. A shiver ran through her, chasing away her tiredness, her frustration. She smiled. She grinned. The sun bathed her. The sun bathed the world. She pressed onward through the wind, the mountainside fully exposed to the elements making for a poor spot to slow down. Snow crinkled underhoof with every step, and more than once, she thought a wild gust would catapult her out of the exposed trail and into the fog below. She gritted her teeth and pushed on. She smiled. She grinned. Her teeth hurt. She pushed against white. White marble. White snow. White. The light reflected off that white, made her eyes water. It stung, but it felt so good. So good! It blazed inside her, around her, pushing her forward.

Too long she’d felt stuck between two worlds. Too long she’d felt like she had been eclipsed by her task, by her duty. No more! She climbed up, up, rose over the mountains, her hooves devouring mile after mile of rocky terrain. She was a force unleashed upon the world. She was a radiant power, an unstoppable light consuming pain and misery.

The sun! The sun!

It blinded her. It scorched her. It melted her insides. It vapourized her mind. She could not find it in herself to care. She embraced the pyre of her self. Today, she was done being constrained by the laws of mortals. She had rejected her past, her friends, her family. Fed them to the fire. What was her self if not the next logical step?

White and gold and beauty and grace and THE SUN! and power in rule and love and THE SUN! and white and gold and this is how one rules and this is how THE SUN! and this is how life is and this is how THE SUN! THE SUN! THE SUN! THE SUN! THE SUN! THE SUN!

She opened her eyes.

Snow fell. Cold. Melting before her.

Stone. Stone. Around her. Below her. The mountain.

A door. Metal. Gilded. Carved into the mountainside. She stared at it as her heart beat a frantic cadence. Sunlight pounded against the metal, blazing red and yellow and white against the ancient door.

She pushed open the door and opened the throne room.

“Announcing the princess of Equestria, her majesty Twi—“

The crier’s words died in her mouth. Good. She did not need introductions. She stepped into the throne room, filling it with her radiance, with the majesty of her own self, unbound by fears and anxieties.

THE SUN! THE SUN!

She waved to the paper court and they wavered, cowered before her. Their sides were already starting to singe. They couldn’t stand her. They couldn’t withstand her majesty. She’d always known it. Let the common pony rule themselves and they would bend before the first storm coming their way, burn before the first true ruler showing them how things must be done.

THE SUN! THE SUN!

Princess Twilight raised a hoof, and the rustling of the paper court simmered down to silence.

She closed her eyes. Silence was good. Silence was the whisper of the placid forest in the evening. Silence was the gentle lapping of waves against some distant shore. Silence was the wind whistling in the grass. Silence wasn't silence. Silence was better than silence. The ponies saw silence not as a complete absence of sound, but as a dampening of the buzz of civilization to a more primal, natural sound. A thousand breaths rolling in the air like a collective murmur, the shuffling of hooves as restless bodies struggled to still themselves. Silence. She breathed out, lending her own sound to the silence. Heartbeat. The slow pulse of blood in her veins beating gently against her temples harmonized with the drone of the electrical currents running through her brain, the screaming of the light against her mind.

She'd heard true silence. The silence nopony save those who couldn't hear ever witnessed. Against the darkness of her closed eyelids, the stars glimmered as brightly as ever, and space stood still and frozen in its deathly, aeons-long silence. Did they know? Did they know how lucky they were, to burn bright like a flame, to run wild through the world like a noisy herd of dream-driven foals? Did they know that out there, out of their reach, the world lay almost completely still?

They didn't. And it was her duty in a way, to ensure they never quite knew. It was her burden to bear. Her duty. Her light would blind them, protect them.

The wind blew her mane into her face. She shivered, and the paper court took on hushed tones as they put hooves to the curtain strings, fiddled anxiously with their instruments. Princess Twilight breathed in. Breathed out. Poise. Control.

THE SUN! THE SUN!

The show started with a bowing overture as it always did, almost an apology from the silly old princess for not having been there to entertain them sooner. Drums beat against her head, trumpets rose in a crescendo to announce the first act.

It never came. The music stood alone in the air, strangled in its own momentum.

Princess Twilight opened her eyes.

Every head was turned toward the gilded double doors from which stretched a seemingly endless line of ponies come to petition their princess, and from which a lithe and tall figure emerged without waiting for her turn to cross the threshold. She strode into the throne room with steps as delicate as snowflakes yet decisive as an avalanche. Her very presence seemed to bring the chill of winter with her, freezing the air as well as the courtesans, who now stood mesmerized by the ethereal guest who had graced the Canterlot Court with her presence. The guards watched her and her entourage pass without raising a hoof. They didn't have any reason to do so, of course, but Princess Twilight would have loved nothing more for them to turn the visitor away and back to whence she had come, even though a warm smile touched her lips as the distance between the two of them lessened to almost nothing. A cold wind washed over her. The light retreated, afraid, screaming at her to send the intruder away. But she was frozen still. The sun’s heat wavered before the cold.

She knelt before Princess Twilight. Pale wings fluttered on her back. The light caught on a horn seemingly sculpted from the purest crystal and cast a crown of shimmering radiance about her head. She smiled, and glaciers could have melted just as bonfires could have frozen before that smile.

“A good day to you, my aunt.” The crystalline voice of Flurry Heart brought a thunderous applause from the paper crowd.