Game of Worlds

by DualThrone

Luna: For the Night is Dark II

Apoptosis setting down the tea cup caused the entire dream to dissolve around them and be replaced with them standing just inside a white picket fence in the midst of a bright, cheerful garden, and the immense mansion of a noble’s estate spread out before them. It was a place that Luna recognized instantly, and she turned to look at Apoptosis with what she knew was a surprised expression.

“Can you imagine a better place for a gentle, wounded soul to recuperate in?” Apoptosis said to her unasked question.

“That’s not why I’m surprised,” Luna told her, turning back to take it in. It was Fluttershy’s dream so only some of the sense of the Verdant Heart Recuperative Asylum was conveyed by it, but during the six months since the destruction of the Guardian, she’d visited nearly daily and knew the grounds intimately. The true Asylum was bathed in subtle and soothing fragrances from the gardens, swept by gentle breezes, and was so airy and light that it had a feel more like a resort than a hospice and treatment center for any form of mental illness that didn’t require securing the patient for their safety.

“You think it strange that I’d be familiar with a mundane institution.”

“It does seem a bit out of the scope of the concerns of… well, whatever you and your sisters truly are.”

“It would seem so, and yet the only thing that we are more concerned with is our chosen bearers,” Apoptosis said as she started wending her way through the gardens, noticeably taking care to stay on the paths. “Generosity is intimately familiar with institutions and individuals that embody a generous and giving spirit. Honesty could tell you every detail about those who are especially concerned with discovering truth or proclaiming truth, as if they were her dearest foalhood friends. If there is a magical researcher or practitioner of note, Magic knows who they are and what they’re doing right now.”

She gestured to the Asylum with a wing as they approached. “That place radiates peace. Its gardens glow with gentleless and its very walls are woven through with kindness. For a thousand years, it has rested the spirits of the afflicted and embraced them in whatever state they arrived in. More than any place of medicine, the structure itself exists to heal. And Doctor Verdant Heart has made its flame burn all the more brightly. Of course I know it; I could stroll through its corridors blinded and deafened and always know where I was.”

Luna nodded slowly, understanding. “And it’s where you are sheltering Fluttershy, to help her recover from what Zambet did to her.”

“Yes.”

“Because of what she associates with it?”

“Because of what I associate with it,” Apoptosis said. “Like the physical baubles of us Elements, having a symbol to believe in makes me far more potent than I’d be without it. This place symbolizes what I am and so, I am made more powerful within its manifestation in this dreamscape.”

“You speak as if you’re…”

“...a person,” Apoptosis finished. “That surprises you.”

“No more than you using a personal name for yourself, or expressing a dislike for Nacht, or talking about the other Elements as your sisters, or ascribing personality traits to them, or explaining your willingness to handle Nacht in a particular way coming out of trust for your sisters.” Luna reached the doors of the asylum, each decorated with colorful stained glass depictions of a bouquet of roses on one and two ponies sharing a cup of tea on the other. “This is the first time either of us have had any indication that you’re fully aware and have distinct personhood. Some awareness was implied by the results of aiming your power at a problem, but not sapience.”

“It can hardly be surprising to you that each of us having an individual chosen bearer would have a different effect than having to share.” Apoptosis put her hoof on the door and looked at Luna. “Ask only about the message. I recognize the danger, which is why I’m allowing this at all, but I will not permit even unintentional harm.”

“I will abide by those conditions, out of courtesy.”

Apoptosis smiled broadly, even a little warmly. “Luna, your own capacity for evil is not strong enough to do what would be required to overcome me. Which is also why I am willing to permit this: you are not evil enough to force the issue.”

She pushed the door open and just like putting her teacup down, this caused the dream to dissolve again and Luna found herself inside Fluttershy’s home. Outside, she could hear a storm raging, causing the windows to rattle a little in their frames, but the home was bright, warm, and cheery. Fluttershy lounged in front of a fire with various animals snuggled up to her, looking over her shoulder at a book she seemed to be reading to them. A cup of fragrant peppermint-apple tea sat at her hoof and an exquisitely hoof-stitched quilt was draped over her.

“H… hi Princess.” The faint, trembling stutter both made it clear that she was talking to Fluttershy herself within the dream--and that the pegasus was terrified, even safe in an illusion of her own home, her animal friends clustered protectively around her, what was clearly a representation of Rarity’s work shielding her, sipping a kind of tea that blended the favorites of Pinkie Pie and Applejack, reading a book that Luna suspected was a Daring Do story.

“Hello Fluttershy,” Luna said quietly. “I hope I am not causing you distress.”

“It’s… the opposite,” Fluttershy near-whispered. “You’re… real. And that means… she’s gone.”

“Yes.”

“B… because she wanted t...to go.”

“Yes.”

Fluttershy nodded slowly and took in a breath, closing her eyes. “T… there is… a great and t… terrible power under… under the ice in the east,” she said. “If Evil.. o… o… obtains it… the results will… be unimaginably… terrible.”

Luna blinked. “What?”

“She… asked me to tell you,” Fluttershy said. “Glamor… told me… to tell you. It’s…. It’s where their plans are.”

“Who’s…?” Luna shook her head. “Never mind. I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Fluttershy. Thank you for passing the message along.”

“Stay,” Fluttershy said. “Please. Apoptosis is… very kind… but she’s not real. She’s… only in… in my head. You’re real.”

“I promised…”

“She… she can b... b... buck off,” Fluttershy said. “Please.”

Luna took in a breath and nodded. “Alright. I have to act on the message but… I’ll stay, for a time.”

Fluttershy smiled and patted the space beside her with a wing and as Luna lay down and rested one of her own wings atop the shaking pegasus, Fluttershy pressed in against her side and once again began to read as a dream storm raged outside the dream house, deep within a dream of safety.

---

Luna woke and raised her head to find herself eye-to-eye with a pair of brilliantly turquoise eyes she recognized immediately, despite having never seen outside of her dreamscape.

“Hello Selune,” Nightmare Moon said with a broad, warm smile. “Did you rest well?”

“No.” Luna climbed to her hooves and returned the other alicorn’s smile. “When did you arrive?”

“Shortly after you entered your dreamscape.” Nightmare looked at the still form of Fluttershy. “Trying to discern why the Element of Kindness is comatose, I take it.”

“Yes,” Luna said. “Zambet.”

“I was afraid of that.” Nightmare shook her head. “I had some idea that she would eventually come here but I foolishly mistook your warning of a zambet roaming about looking for an easy meal as a sign that she had passed this situation by in search of a richer morsel. I ought to have known better.”

“You know of her?”

“I both know of her, and know her personally,” Nightmare said. “We are… peers. Colleagues, in a sense, effectively in the same ‘business’.”

Luna considered this a moment. “Fixers?”

“One term for it, yes, although ‘facilitators’ would be more accurate. To use a business analogy, we’re both contractors although I seek out the ‘employers’ I wish to work with, whereas her ‘employers’ seek her out.”

“What is her usual way of working?”

“The exercise of patience,” Nightmare said. “And of highly selective violence. She greatly prefers to act after she’s tied up every loose end she can imagine, and always keeps several contingencies on hand to deter opposition or crush it rapidly and efficiently. She has industriously cultivated a habit of being deferential and polite, and approaching any kind of negotiation with a very big stick so that her carrot is especially sweet and appealing. She has an obsession with order, rules, and keeping every aspect of an agreement, both the letter and its spirit. I suspect that you’ve seen why she cultivates that obsession as much as she cultivates excellent manners.”

“It renders her all but immune to Light,” Luna said, thinking of Spite’s attempt outside the city.

“You can’t make water wetter by adding more water,” Nightmare confirmed. “It’s very clever, because the mortals that confront her never try to oppose her with the Darkness. It is always with fire, faith, or sunlight; never with innately creative and chaotic energies.”

“So why would she use violence to prevent one of the Elements from blasting at her with Light?”

“The Elements are a perfect balance of Dark and Light, and so work as both at the same time.” Nightmare’s expression grew solemn. “And she didn’t resort to violence. Her violence is horrifying to behold and she has a very, very distinctive signature. No, this is what is left behind when she leverages her contingencies.”

“A broken spirit.”

“It varies, depending on how the request is received, and how strongly it repulses the one she poses the request to.” Nightmare sighed. “Sometimes she asks a thing that someone is willing to do but wouldn’t normally do at the time it’s requested, and very little mark is left. More rarely, it’s a distasteful request and is extremely uncomfortable to struggle against. Most rarely it is strongly against the person’s nature and well…” She gestured at Fluttershy to illustrate. “Only a few times has it been utterly anathema--not in this case, you’d know immediately--and… what is left is difficult to heal, and the person will never be the same.”

“So this contingency is… she asks politely for something.” Luna eyed the other alicorn. “There must be more to it. She was able to simply ignore any resistance from Apoptosis in forcing Fluttershy to obey.”

“Zambet knew her Name,” Nightmare said. “With that, no force short of divine intervention can guard against it.”

“Well, she is one of the Elements of Harmony, so I imagine…”

“No,” Nightmare said. “That’s not her Name. The difference is incredibly subtle but from a metaphysical perspective, is like night and day. If you were say to Zambet ‘Her name is Nachtmiri Mein’ she would know the name that I am given but if I was to say to Zambet ‘my name is Nachtmiri Mein’ she would know my Name.”

“Fluttershy called herself by name in Zambet’s presence,” Luna said. And then something connected and she looked at Nightmare with horror. “As did everyone she’s spoken to.”

Nightmare blinked. “I… don’t imagine that’s many people,” she said. “Zambet isn’t…”

“We suspect she’s been masquerading as a high society pony in Canterlot for some time,” Kyra said from the doorway, before bowing to Nightmare. “Empress Moon, well met.”

“Well met indeed, Kyra das Pupa,” Nightmare said with a touch of warmth, returning the bow. “But yes, that wouldn’t be unusual for Zambet. She may not have overwhelming raw power but what she does have is a particular set of skills which are ideal for learning everything she needs to know to accomplish her purpose.”

“Similar skills to my niece’s spies,” Kyra said.

“Identical skills, actually, although Zambet doesn’t have a dozen professionals, who benefit from a dozen generations of their family each, to help her.” Nightmare turned back to Luna. “But you need not fear for what is likely dozens of ponies who introduced themselves to her while she was concealing herself. The power she uses is incomprehensibly complex with dizzying numbers of caveats and details, one of which being that if she gains a Name from someone who is not aware of her actual self, the someone has to be actively willing to grant the request. It’s ideal for espionage because it leaves no trace and the touch is so light that the contingency can be used as often as she desires.”

“Conversely…” Luna glanced at Fluttershy’s prone form.

“...any more harmful use of the power can be done only once,” Nightmare said. “Correct.”

“Is there a way to take a Name back?”

“Difficult to know,” Nightmare said, looking at Kyra. “Do you remember every single time you introduce yourself to someone?”

Kyra nodded slowly. “I see the genius of it. The thing that lets her use it is so incidental that you only know you made the mistake when she asks nicely for you to kill yourself.”

“I’ve never known her to use a contingency that way,” Nightmare said. “If she has her contingency on someone strong enough she needs to eliminate, she’ll have far more effective uses for them.”

“Seems like she could have used Fluttershy more effectively then.”

“And I’m sure she’s furious at herself.” Nightmare smirked. “I’ve no doubt that she used the contingency at the last moment, because she was forced to, and that she hadn’t calculated Fluttershy to be any danger to her. I’m sure that learning that apoptosis is a component of kindness, and of healing, came as something of a shock.”

“The personification of Kindness in the dreamscape called herself that, Apoptosis.”

“Interesting.” Nightmare took in a breath and looked towards Kyra. “So with Vorka having evacuated and Zambet having left, I imagine that the threat to the griffons has passed.”

“Vorka left a lot of his toys behind but without him to direct them, I doubt it would be hard to systemically free all the cities he ensnared,” Kyra said. “And for the moment, the Archive is anchored in the…”

“Not anymore,” Nightmare said. “The airship returning from conveying Twilight and her friends to the Dragon Lands to check up on your sister said they saw an immense building materializing in the plains near the dragon lord’s grotto.”

Kyra gaped at her. “Vorka can direct it?”

“Of course he can’t,” Nightmare snorted. “He’s a genius at creating things but he can only decipher the creations of others by dismantling them--and as you know, the Archive is far too dangerous to be dissected under controlled conditions like Vorka requires.”

“As she knows?” Luna looked at Kyra. “I think you left something out when you told me about that place, Kyra. I thought it was some kind of metaphysical place where Vorka was storing Spite. It didn’t look particularly exceptional.”

“You entered it?” Nightmare looked at Luna and then at Kyra, and then at Luna again. “Please tell me you didn’t try to read anything.”

“She didn’t,” Kyra said. “None of us did. We left immediately upon retrieving Spite after Vorka got hold of her.”

“Excuse me, what are you two talking about?” Luna stared hard at both of them. “Why wouldn’t we enter? And why do you care whether I read anything?”

The two of them looked at one another, before Nightmare looked at her. “You… might want to be seated for this,” she said. And then when she was, they told her: how the Archive had been found, the attempts made under Queen Vespa to penetrate its defenses, and how the changelings had been monitoring it. She sat with it for a moment afterwards, turning the information over in her mind, before looking up at Nightmare.

“So there’s some kind of metaphysical magical phenomenon wandering all over the face of the world, promising unlimited real-time knowledge of any subject whatsoever, ensnaring innocent people to power itself and… it has suddenly appeared in the Dragon Lands. Where my niece and most of the Elements of Harmony went to check up on Ambassador Thalia das Pupa.” She let the statement sit for a moment. “If this is all a coincidence, it’s the most unlikely one I’ve ever heard of.”

“Most of it is,” Kyra said. “Even with Tharalax hanging about the palace like a foul odor, there’s no way that whatever force caused Thalia to ask for big sis to help could have anticipated that Chryssy would ask the Elements to act on her behalf.”

“I wonder if the force could be that ‘Voice’ that Zambet was referring to.”

Nightmare looked at her. “What voice?”

“I don’t know,” Luna said. “When we encountered Zambet here, I asked her where she was going to do her business, and she claimed not to know. She said that somewhat she called ‘the Voice’ was seeking out the location, however.”

“That sounds like Sotto Voce.” Nightmare frowned. “But that couldn’t be right, I haven’t heard word of him for thousands of years. Granted, creating a construct like the Archive strikes me as the kind of project he’d approach with intense enthusiasm, but it would require a vessel with unusual magical gifts.”

“So a nightmare like you.”

“Yes,” Nightmare said. “One of the few, in fact, who examined my aversion to seizing vessels and concluded that it merited experimentation. Even so, I had assumed he’d made a mistake and been destroyed; that he could possibly be here, positioned at the point of decision, possibly in control of a weapon like the Archive is… concerning.”

Luna met the black alicorn’s eyes directly. “Would he be inclined to harm the Elements?”

“That’s a complex question,” Nightmare said. “Yes, if it was the best way to achieve a goal, he would certainly harm them. If the risks outweighed the benefits, he would only do so if circumstances compelled it. A move like positioning the Archive near to himself is an unusual gambit given my admittedly fragmentary memory of his nature.”

“So, summary time,” Kyra said. “We know that Vorka was seizing griffons for experimentation, to make footsoldiers or something. We know that Zambet was faking being a normal zambet, was faking being Vorka’s pet, was probably faking more things than that, and eventually showed up here. She made off with Lily Shell, true name Lashaal, and used one of her grisly contingencies to completely disable Fluttershy for the time being.”

“We know that someone called ‘the Voice’ has secured a confluence of a lei line,” Luna said. “We know that another such confluence is somewhere in the Provinces, and that there are others besides. We can reason that ‘the Voice’ is at or near the Lands and this probably means that’s where his confluence is. I know, from a message that Fluttershy passed on in the dreamscape, that everyone who’s part of this plan wants something buried under ice and it would be devastating if they succeeded.”

“Passed on from whom?”

“Someone she knew only as ‘Glamor’,” Luna said. “I have no idea who it could be.”

“Figure it out later,” Nightmare said. “So, buried under ice. The only places I remember from our collaboration with a lot of ice are the Lands, the Ends, and the Glass Waste.”

“So called because it’s a featureless plain of perfectly and perpetually smooth ice stretching over hundreds of square kilometers,” Kyra said.

“And somewhere under it is imprisoned the capital city of the Crystal Empire of ancient times,” Luna said. “Along with every structure that was part of the Empire, and those that lived there. The Abomination of Sombra dragged it all out of time and reality, his contingency to stop us from executing him, a spell that neither of us have ever fully understood.”

“Moved it under the ice, but it’s not really physically there,” Nightmare said. “At least, so I recall from your memories.”

“Yes.” Luna nodded. “And part of the Abomination is that no one knows where it is. We could be standing right on top of it, with our nose plastered against the ice sheet and staring directly at it, and it would be invisible to us. Part of the reason it’s so inexplicable is that the spell is so incredibly complex, something requiring the talents of a Starswirl or a Clover or possibly Twilight, and yet was used be a unicorn that has never shown any exceptional magical aptitude.”

“He used an artifact.”

“Yes, and one we don’t even have legends about.” Luna sighed. “And the perfect thing for some loose confederation of Evils to be looking for. They could also be seeking the Crystal Heart but I can’t imagine they have a way to use it.”

“Love is not purely a force of gentleness and light,” Nightmare said, “any more than Kindness is purely soft and sweet and harmless. Even love can be used for evil, if you know how, but neither Zambet nor Sotto Voce do.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

Nightmare turned to look at Luna, and then at Kyra. “When you were speaking to Zambet, did you have any sense that hurting others had any emotional weight to her? Satisfaction, guilt, happiness, sadness, anything?”

“No,” Kyra said. “She said that she would take Fluttershy with her in a jaunt through the Void if we tried to stop her from leaving. She said it like she was offering to take her down to the corner shop for some sweets.”

“I had the same sense,” Luna said. “Why?”

“Are either of you familiar with the psychological concepts of sociopathy and psychopathy?”

“Only that both are extraordinarily rare in Equestria,” Luna said.

“And fatal for changelings,” Kyra added. “At least to any degree above extremely mild. Even extremely mild cases cause dangerous levels of malnourishment. We only recently developed a means to cure the condition.”

Nightmare blinked. “This is the first I’ve heard of it being possible to cure.”

“Before recently, it wasn’t.” Kyra stared into space a moment before focusing on Nightmare. “Why did you ask about psychopathy and sociopathy?”

“It’s a trait inherent to Evils,” Nightmare said. “All Evils, with impossibly rare exceptions. Lacking the trait or experiencing it on a more mild level makes you practically an abomination, a freak.” She grinned widely. “Not that the extreme few have any reason to complain.”

“So you…?”

“You remember my story about my first attempt to seize a vessel the way nightmares ordinarily do?”

Luna thought a moment and nodded. “Empathy would make it impossible.”

Nightmare gave her a nod. “And that is why I’m certain that neither Zambet nor Sotto Voce would be able to use love for evil ends, at least in the abstract. It’s possible to use emotional connections to pull a person’s strings, possible to intellectualize emotion so you can use it against a person, but magical energy isn’t sapient. You have to resonate with it to manipulate it, the way that Zambet resonates with Order and so can manipulate energies infused with it, and…”

“...if you can’t experience the essential quality of magical energy, you can’t control it,” Luna finished.

“So what do we do with any of this?” Kyra said. “It’s great to know where they plan to go, and what they’re looking to do there, but the place is invisible to us.” She frowned. “Which raises the question of how they plan to find it.”

“The lei line.” All three of them turned to look at the doorway, where Spite was standing. “They’re following the lei line there.”

Author's Note:

And here is the next installment. Took me a while to find a place where it felt like it could be broken, so my apologies to my readers. Please comment and if you can find something to criticize, I encourage you to speak up. :)

Off to work on the next part, wish me luck.

Comments

[Tache]

Finally caught up to the latest!

I've definitely enjoyed this so far, thank you for the story!