These Are The Days Of Eternal Wonders
These Are The Days Of Eternal Wonders
"And ours is the voice of the seven thunders!"
It was late. Late late. The moon had long crested from it's pinnacle and was well on the way to setting, it was only a matter of time before daybreak. All across Ponyville, and indeed most of Equestria, ponies slept soundly in their beds. Except for one particular room in the Castle of Friendship. One room with the lights still on, with a pony still stirring inside.
Princess Twilight Sparkle was sat at a desk in her library, surrounded by dozens upon dozens of open books. A blackboard was leaned against a bookshelf, covered with countless formulas and equations, only comprehensible to the best and brightest minds of the nation. Papers and notes were strewn across all available surfaces, and many had found themselves carelessly tossed to the floor, the trash can having already been filled to the brim.
The Princess herself wasn't in much of a better state than the room was. Her mane stuck up at odd angles, her eyes were bloodshot and tired, with bags underneath. She was on her Nth coffee, and was a little jittery from the caffeine.
Twilight wasn't quite sure how long she'd been in the library for, a few days at least. She'd stopped paying attention quite a while ago, wanting to focus solely on her work. She'd drawn the curtains too, the pesky day/night cycle proving to be very distracting. She was gracious that food was left for her outside the door, meaning she didn't really have to leave, letting her devote her full attention to working out this mystery.
Said mystery was sat on a small pedestal in the centre of the room. On her last visit to Canterlot, she'd found herself in a particularly dillapidated wing of the castle library archives, one that clearly hadn't seen activity for quite some time. After getting over a dust induced sneezing fit, she'd found an odd parchment scroll. It had been shoved to the very back of the shelf, behind a few very large tomes, and had clearly seen better days, as it was dried out and incredibly fragile.
What struck her about it though, was the name printed on the outside. It was faded, but still just about visible.
'Horner The Heroic'.
Right there, right then, she dropped everything she was doing. She had potentially found an original Horner The Heroic scroll! This was already something of incredible historic importance, Horner was a mage ahead of his time, and many of the spells he created formed the basis for much of modern magic. He really was a revolutionary figure, and to have found one of his scrolls was, for Twilight at least, like winning the lottery. Thrice in a row.
Her glee only increased when after bringing the scroll to the archive lobby, and very, very carefully unfurling it, she found that not only was it definitely one of Horner's scrolls, but it was a spell that she'd never come across before. She had in her hooves one of Horner's lost spells.
Twilight bounced around the room she was so giddy. To actually be in possession of a long lost spell from one of magic's leviathan figures was something she could never have even dreamed of.
There was, however, one snag. Time had not been kind to the scroll that the spell was written on. Over the centuries, the parchment had become brittle and crumbly, the ink fading. Yes, she had a Horner spell, but the damage left the writing incomplete. She would need to recreate the spell herself.
The alicorn jumped at the chance to restore the spell, and had the scroll transported to her castle for her to work on. She'd been excited to begin her work, it was a privilege and an honor to finish a Horner spell, Twilight could not have been happier. At first, anyway. Now that she was a few days into it, she was decidedly less enthusiastic about the whole thing. She was still ecstatic to be working on such an important piece of history, but it was hard to show it (or feel it) when you've been awake for quite a while over 72 hours.
She was frustrated. No matter what, she just seemed to run into dead end after dead end. The spell was full of contradictions, twists and turns, and things that just didn't make any sense at all. Sometimes it seemed to imply teleportation, sometimes time travel, sometimes dream inducing, and a lot of the time Twilight had no clue whatsoever what any of it meant!
It didn't help that she had absolutely zero context for any of it. There was no foreword, no description, no notes, just the spell itself. It did have a name, but it was another lead that went nowhere. The writing at the top of the parchment noted the spell as being called 'VII Thunders', which really didn't give any hints at all, and ironically enough, weather magic seemed to be the one kind of magic that wasn't present in this hodgepodge of arcane writing!
It was maddening. She was basically flying blind. It was almost like the spell was taunting her, challenging her to finish the job. She'd had to resort to working out what she could from the damaged sections, and trying to apply any runes, formulas, anything at all that logically looked like it could work. The only problem was that the best fits often didn't make any sense either, and left her doubting her judgement. The only thing she had for comparison was the undamaged part of the parchment, which read about as well as the illicit love child of an arcane dictionary and a choose-your-own-adventure book.
Twilight groaned, rubbing her temples and taking a sip of coffee. She'd read up on all of Horner's known spells to try and get a better grasp of the way he transcribed spells, but even that didn't help. While a little eccentric on some details, the rest of his work was very normal. 'VII Thunders' was totally out of left field, and Twilight was starting to feel like maybe it wasn't a genuine Horner scroll after all.
The only problem with that idea was that there were several thing, several little signature flourishes and quirks in the runes and glyphs, certain oddities in some of the formulas, things that were present in his other work. Things that pretty much hallmarked the scroll as a genuine article.
She was at her wits end. She'd deduced what she could, and worked out the most suitable estimations for the damaged sections, and read through the whole thing enough times to have semi-wrapped her head around the idea of casting this mess of spell. But she was still missing something. As it was now, any attempt to cast the spell resulted in a magical non-event. Nothing happened.
Twilight was missing something, but she didn't know what. Even if there was something wrong, casting the spell should have at least done something. She scanned over her notes, referencing her own work with the original parchment, scrutinizing every detail.
The alicorn ran over everything again and again, pouting over ever letter, every number, every symbol. It all made sense and none of it made sense. She stared and stared, and after longer than she'd like to admit, discovered the cause of the nothingness, a little subspell that was attached to a larger part, that ensured that if anything was cast incorrectly, the spell canceled itself out.
That was at least something that she could make some sense of. Loathe as she was to admit, she had an inkling that this spell may be beyond even her abilities. She could hardly even make sense of the completed parts, let alone the missing sections!
A lot of it just flat out didn't make any sense! The formulas were wrong, incorrect in a way that implied that they should be! None of it added up, and it drove her up the wall. She couldn't make heads or tails of the symbols Horner had used, as they seemed to serve a different function entirely from what she'd expect. She couldn't work out for the life of the what purpose all the 'N's served in-
Twilight paused. Something was off. She again compared her notes to the original scroll. 'N'. There was a particularly puzzling section with a formula ending in 'N', and Twilight still hadn't worked out what 'N' equated to. But...
She had interpreted the symbol as 'N', but now that she was looking at it closer she wasn't so sure. Maybe it was Horner's style of writing, but this symbol was slightly different. More wiggly, more stylized. And looking at it now, not bearing much of a resemblance to any of the other 'N's written on the parchment.
It clicked. It wasn't an 'N', it was an Aleph! The formula didn't equal 'N', it equaled an infinite set!
This changed everything. A large block of the spell now made sense. She couldn't believe she'd missed it before, it was staring her in the face after all, but now that she'd corrected her mistake she'd hopefully be able to make some real progress.
For all the trouble it was, Twilight was determined to finish this spell. She could do it. She downed the rest of her now-tepid coffee and slammed the cup down on the desk, full of a revived sense of confidence. It was still confusing, a spell with infinite parts, constantly repeating, but it was becoming clearer by the moment.
The Princess revised her workings. Hopefully now she'd be able to run a proper test-casting of the spell and find out just what 'VII Thunders' actually was!
Twilight rubbed her eyes and steeled herself, mentally running through the spell one more time before casting it. With a breath, her horn lit up, magic surging through the room. Her purple aura danced off the crystalline walls, sparkling and gleaming.
The weary alicorn smiled as she cast the mystery spell. Just what was 'VII Thunders'?
It wasn't a very mana heavy spell, but it was mentally taxing. Luckilly, Twilight was nothing if not intelligent. Working through all the steps, she completed the final one, one of her own additions, and waited. This time, something did happen. It all clicked. She'd done it, Twilight had finished Horner The Heroic's lost spell!
Unfortunately, she didn't have much time to celebrate. Her magic had formed a frame, a large circle, and in the middle was empty. Not just empty. Empty empty. It was wrong to look at, a lightless, soulless void, a hole in space and time. With a tremendously loud crash, the circle popped, and the emptiness filled the room, washing over everything, including Twilight.
The emptiness faded away, leaving the library exactly as it was. Except for Twilight
Twilight was gone.
"Oof!"
Twilight landed on her back, wings splayed out. She hadn't fallen from very high up, but whatever she'd landed on was hard. Very hard.
Rolling over and righting herself, she found that she had landed on a road. Not a normal road, not a dirt path or cobbled street. It was smooth, slick and shiny black, like the roads in the human world. Bewildered, she rose to her hooves and looked around. She was on a plain, flat grassland spreading out for miles in all directions. The road followed the terrain past the horizon. The sky was a particularly pretty shade of pink and was dotted with clouds.
"Where in the..." Twilight mumbled. There were no landmarks anywhere, no trees, no rock formations, no signs on the road. She had absolutely no idea where she was. She glanced both ways up and down the road, but nothing came.
Was this what 'VII Thunders' did? She ran through the steps again in her head. She thought that she'd done everything right, but she no longer had her notes to refer to. Usually her mind would be racing, but she was confused and very, very tired. It was safe to say she wasn't feeling 100% at the moment.
She sighed. It was hot, she was lost. The sun was low on the horizon, slowly setting. She quickly worked out that if the sun was to the west, then that meant the road was heading roughly north/south, which would be helpful if she had somewhere to go.
Twilight hummed and spread her wings, lazily lifting herself up into the air to get a better view. Even from an elevated position, there wasn't much to see. Flat land for miles and miles in all directions. She spun around, straining to find any change in the terrain, looking for anything, anything at all.
There was one thing. Something way off in the distance, there, on the horizon, on the side of the road. She couldn't make it out, it was too far away to see any details, but it was something nonetheless! It'd be as good a place as any to try and make some sense of her situation, hopefully she'd find some kind of explanation.
Twilight yawned and began to fly in the direction of the thing, following the road's path. With any luck, she'd be able to figure everything out quickly, and she could go back home and get some rest.
The Princess, despite her situation, was actually a little bit bored. The initial surprise had worn off, and her surrounding were incredibly unremarkable. Maybe remarkably so. She chuckled at the thought, and continued on her path, slowly gliding towards her destination. She wasn't in a great hurry, she was too fatigued for that.
It was taking quite a while to reach wherever it was she was heading, testament to just how empty this place was. As Twilight grew closer, details became more apparent. After a while it became clear that the place was a dirt clearing adjacent to the road. There was a small, burned out campfire and a ratty looking tent set up, backing on to the grass. She noticed that as she flew further, something else had come up on the horizon, she'd have to check that out next. Twilight landed on the road, a couple of dozen feet from the clearing, not wanting to rudely pop in unannounced on whoever was in the tent.
The rhythmic clip clop of her hooves was quite loud on the road surface. As she approached, a head popped out of the tent's flap. A stallion, unicorn, with a stark white coat and floppy, icy greyish-blue mane. He glanced around, before spotting Twilight and smiling.
"Ah, Ms. Sparkle! I've been expecting you!" He called.
"You, uh, you have?" The Princess replied, slowing to a halt, bemused.
"Of course, of course!" He said, stepping out of the tent and walking towards her. He was gangly and tall, and was carrying an open bottle of wine in his magical aura. Pale yellow, she noted. He somehow seemed oddly familiar. "Only the brightest minds end up here, and yours is particularly brilliant!"
"Um, thanks?" She intoned, blushing lightly at the praise. She was glad to find out that he was friendly, but this was all very strange. There was a slightly awkward moment of silence before she spoke again. "So, where is 'here'?"
"Oh, this?" He gestured towards the tent, taking a swig from the bottle. "I just wait for ponies here. If a pony's home is his castle, then I guess you could call this my chalet, haha!"
"No, thats- I mean here, all of this!" The alicorn explained, gesturing the the land all around.
"Oh come now Twilight, I'm sure you can figure that out. You finished the spell, didn't you?" He said, taking another drink before offering the bottle to Twilight. She declined. "All you have to do is put two and two together!"
"How did you know about the spell?" Twilight gasped. She'd only told her friends about the spell, how could this random pony know?
"Oh dear, that's rather disappointing, I expected you to get it right off the bat!" The stallion said, playfully rolling his eyes.
"Get what?!" Twilight demanded. Whoever this unicorn was, he was starting to get on her nerves.
"Think, Twilight! Elements of teleportation, elements of time travel, elements of universe hopping, all in the same spell? Appearing in a strange land?" He rattled off, tapping the side of his head with a hoof. "Handsome, charming Stallion who knows all the details?"
Twilight's mind tried to make sense of everything. A combination of parts of all spells like that could mean-
"VII Thunders is a trans-dimensional spell?" She said.
"Yes! Congratulations Princess Sparkle, you've travelled sideways in time!" The stallion yelled, taking a celebratory sip of wine, again offering the bottle to Twilight, and again being refused. She was even more baffled now.
"Sideways in time? What does that even mean?!" She growled, quickly losing her patience with this stallion's shenanigans.
"Well, not forwards, not backwards, sideways." He said bluntly. "It's hardly dissertation worthy, honestly."
Twilight covered her eyes with her hooves, dealing with this stallion was becoming an ordeal.
"Look, can you please not be so pedantic. I'm very tired, and I've just been whisked away from my castle, I'm not in the mood to be toyed with." She said, voice quiet. "What does travelling 'sideways in time' entail?"
"Aw, did the pretty purple Princess overwork herself trying to figure out the spell? You have my sympathies, truly." He replied. "Don't you worry Seventh Thunder, we'll get you somewhere you can rest soon. Drink?"
"No thank you." She grumbled. "Wait, 'Seventh Thunder'?"
"Well, if I'm the first, Clover's the second, yadda yadda yadda, you're number seven. You must have heard how loud that spell is, right?" He reasoned, finishing off the bottle of wine before floating another one out of the tent.
"The first? Clover?" Twilight parrotted. Nothing this stallion had said had made any sense at all, she was totally lost, and she wasn't getting any answers fast.
"You've still not connected the dots?" He questioned, Twilight answering only a blank stare. He sighed and slicked back his mane with a hoof, turning to face her with a haughty look on his face. "Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Glow Horner."
"Hardee har har." Twilight deadpanned, though she did have to admit he didn't look far off the old drawings she'd seen. "Don't mock me, Horner The Heroic would have died before Luna was banished."
"Twilight, you wound me, do I really look that old?" He chided. "Whether you believe it or not, I am indeed Horner The Heroic, and I wrote the scroll you found. Bealucræft is a powerful thing, no?"
He smirked at her. Twilight couldn't decide if she should take him seriously or not. Yes, he did look like Horner, and he did seem to possess the love of alcohol and liveliness Horner was known for, but it was ridiculous to even imagine a unicorn living that long!
"Okay then 'Horner', explain how you're still alive." She demanded.
"Oh, that's easy!" He said, shaking his head and allowing his mane to flop down again. "We've travelled sideways in time! Time doesn't work the same way here. I'm actually pretty sure time doesn't work at all! It's been sunset since I created this place. Pretty, isn't it?"
"This is... your dimension?" She questioned.
"Bingo! An infinite area free from the normal rules of time and space. Pretty nifty, if I do say so myself." He beamed.
Twilight didn't know what to make of all this. This stallion could actually be Horner The Heroic. He was known for creating spells that were groundbreaking, and there was evidence that he had worked on some mind-blowingly weird stuff, which this certainly qualified as. She was in an endless land that had no passage of time, talking to an Equestrian mage who should by all rights be long dead. All of this should be very impossible.
It was all a bit much. She was too tired for this. She didn't really feel like having an argument right now, even if this pony was rubbing her the wrong way.
"Okay, fine, whatever, you're Horner The Heroic and we're nowhere in space and time." She stated flatly.
"That's the spirit!" He exclaimed before downing more wine. This pony clearly had a high tolerance for the stuff. He offered the remainder of the bottle to Twilight, she again refused.
"So, now what?" Twilight asked, the conversation having reached a lull.
"Very glad you asked, Princess!" Horner started. "If you'll follow me, we'll go to the Palace of Wisdom, I'll introduce you to everypony else."
Twilight scoffed a little at the name of the place. 'Subtle.'
"Can we talk about, well, this? This place? The spell?" She asked.
"Sounds boring, that can wait 'til we get there."
Twilight huffed.
Horner drank the remainder of the bottle of wine, throwing it into the grass before pulling yet another bottle out of the tent. Twilight noticed that the discarded bottle didn't hit the ground with a thump, but a glassy clank. Investigating, she found the roadside was littered with dozens, maybe even hundreds of empty wine bottles. She shot Horner an unimpressed look.
"What?" He asked.
"Isn't this just a little excessive?" She said with a raised eyebrow.
"Call it excessive if you want." He replied, starting his third bottle. "Excess means nothing in a world of infinites. Now let's go, we're wasting time."
"You just said that there is no time here!" The alicorn countered.
"Eh, potato potahto."
"That has no relevance to this conversation at all!" Twilight shouted. This pony was very good at pushing her buttons. No, not in that way.
Horner was already walking down the road, leaving Twilight to catch up. They trotted in silence for a while, allowing the scenery (or lack thereof) the pass by. Aside from the sound of their own steps, there was no noise. No chirping insects, no birdsong, no breeze, nothing. Twilight found it more than a little unsettling. As much as she welcomed a break in the back and forth with Horner, she wasn't sure that this unnerving quiet was any better. The sloshing of Horner's wine punctuated the hoofalls every now and then. Twilight eyed him derisively.
"You certainly drink a lot." She noted. Truth be told, she was actually a little impressed at the amount of alcohol this stallion could put back, but she wasn't about to let him know that.
"Twilight, all wise ponies gather at the waters of knowledge." He said, wiggling the bottle in front of her face. "And those waters flow from long neck bottles!"
As if to make a point about it, he proceeded to chug about half of the bottles contents right there and then, wiping his mouth of any dribble with a fetlock. To his credit, he managed to keep his stride, despite briefly walking on only three limbs. Twilight, for her part, was unfazed.
"Are you implying that all academics are alcoholics?"
"If they're not, they should be, it's a lot of fun!" He said, waggling his eyebrows and offering the Princess the wine bottle for the fourth time since she'd arrived.
"Horner, please stop trying to give me wine." She said curtly.
"Oh, lighten up Princess, I'm just having some fun. You should try it some time, you might enjoy it." He replied, giving her a sideways glance. Twilight spluttered and stopped in her tracks, wings flaring out.
"I'M FUN! I AM FUN!" She shouted at the stallion as he continued to walk down the road.
"Well, I never would have guessed it!" He called back to her. "You should have said something earlier! And here I had you pegged as a grouchy stick in the mud!"
With one powerful flap of her wings, Twilight sped towards Horner, overtaking him and grabbing the wine bottle out of his grasp. Skidding to a halt in the middle of the road, she looked right at him and downed the remainder of the bottle, gasping for breath once she'd finished.
"Now you're getting it!" Horner cheered.
Twilight knew she'd made a mistake. She did not have a high tolerance for alcohol. Half a bottle of wine was a lot, and she'd just drank it all in one go. It was only a matter of time before she started to feel it's effects. What was she doing? She'd never done anything like that before. Was Horner really just that annoying?
"You manipulated me!" She accused.
"I didn't make you do anything, you snatched that bottle away from me all of your own accord!" He countered, taking a sip from a bottle of-
"Where did you even get that?!" Twilight yelped, glancing between the empty wine bottle she was holding and the mostly full wine bottle Horner had.
"Sideways in time, nowhere in space!" He said, smiling. "We can bring things from anywhere and anywhen here. I think this place kind of exists parallel to the universe, and also everywhere at once for eternity."
Anything Twilight was about to say died on her lips. That was ridiculous. Brilliantly ridiculous. A plain separate from space and time, yet able to interact with it at any point. The idea was incredible, but there was no way anything like that should be possible. How could two dimensions interact? What happened to the dimension the items were taken from? If what Horner was saying was true, this place could reinvent magic, nay, change the very understanding of existence itself. This was important. This changed everything.
"How? How does it work? Tell me!" Twilight shouted, practically bouncing on her hooves, suddenly very eager to talk with Horner.
"I dunno, you just kind of will it, I guess." He shrugged. Twilight thought for a brief moment, and suddenly found herself in possession of a fresh spiral bound notebook and a sharp pencil. She looked at the items in disbelief, and then back to up to Horner.
"Horner, we are going to need to have a long, detailed talk about how this place operates."
"Ah ah, that sounds very boring, Princess. I thought you were fun?" He teased, setting off down the road again.
"No no no, you don't understand!" She insisted, teleporting right in front of his face with a flash, causing him to stumble. "Fun can wait, this is important!"
"No no no, you don't understand!" He countered, steadying himself and continuing past her. "I don't feel like talking about it right now, because it's a very dry subject. Very, very dry."
This was all wrong. Horner was a mage, a world class magician, how could he possibly not want to talk about this spell, this marvel of arcane science, possibly the most incredible spell ever created, that he himself was responsible for?!
This was important. It was of the upmost importance. Twilight needed to know how it all worked. For the good of Equestria.
"Horner." Twilight said darkly, again appearing in front of the unicorn, picking him up with her telekinesis, starting him in the eyes. "We are going. To talk. About magic."
The stallion smiled a smarmy smile. Twilight didn't like it.
THUNK.
"AH!"
Twilight fell to her haunches, both forehooves clutching at the top of her head where a lump was already starting to form. In surprise she'd lost her magical hold on Horner, who was skipping gleefully past her. She grimaced, staring daggers at the still sealed wine bottle rolling on the floor. Horner had willed it into existence just above her head, gravity had done the rest.
"Now now, Princess, that was pretty rude of you." He said smugly, picking up the bottle. "My world, my rules, Seventh Thunder. We do what I say. And besides, were you really just going to sit and interrogate me in the middle of the road? That's dangerous! Somepony as smart as you really should know better."
Twilight couldn't even think straight. Her head hurt, she was starting to feel tipsy, and she was still tired. And to top it all off, she still had no answers. Well, no useful ones. Only more questions. He was right, though. She'd just been incredibly rude, picking up another pony and demanding to talk. That wasn't her. Was it?
"Please." She said quietly, almost a whisper. "I just want to know, I need to understand how this all works."
"Oh, don't you worry, kitten, everything will make sense soon enough!" Horner offered. "We just need to get to the Palace. C'mon, walk with me, Twi, not far to go now."
Twilight weakly stood up and went to follow the stallion. Looking at her pencil and paper on the floor, the popped a saddlebag into existence and put the items inside before setting off behind him. What exactly was she even doing here? She could feel a headache coming on, and she had a slight, but noticeable, sway in her step. She just wanted to find out how this place worked, go home, and sleep. She didn't even question the fact she'd just been called 'kitten'.
She hoped that she'd be able to figure everything out as soon as she could. Her bed was calling her. For the moment though, she trotted behind Horner, letting him lead the way to wherever it was they were going.
"...and that's when I invented snow! Fantastic bit of work, if I do say so myself, and the kids just love it!" Horner rambled, sipping from- Twilight wasn't even sure how many bottles of wine this unit of a pony had finished by now.
"Horner, you did not invent snow. Nopony invented snow!" She protested.
"Prove it."
Twilight only grumbled in response. They'd been walking for what felt like hours. Any residual amazement she'd felt about this place had worn away, and she was growing to detest it's emptiness. The journey had only really been made bearable by the fact that she could summon cups of coffee into existence, just about managing to keep her sleep-deprived brain running a little longer.
Horner had not shut up for one minute. He'd been babbling endlessly about things Twilight didn't ask about, and often didn't make any sense at all. Much like everything about this whole excursion. The alicorn had tried her best to ignore the constant drone of his voice, but it was impossible to focus on anything else when said voice was the only sound there was.
Twilight was doing her best to walk straight, but it hadn't been so easy once the wine had fully gotten into her system. I didn't help that she hadn't eaten all that much the last few days, so there was nothing to absorb the alcohol. It went straight to her bloodstream. She was fine for the most part, but she was definitely stumbling more than was usual. Twilight didn't know how Horner could drink like he did. Any normal pony would have either passed out, been violently sick, or both. Yet he kept on going, it was like the alcohol didn't effect him at all!
Another thing she couldn't make heads nor tails of.
This place was bad for her. This dimension was bad for her health. She didn't understand how any of it worked, and that drove her up the wall. The only pony who could explain it to her flat out refused to do so, for seemingly no good reason. She was going to go insane trying to figure it out.
"Here!" Horner suddenly shouted. Twilight jumped in surprise.
"Here?" Twilight asked, looking around confused. She couldn't see anything different. The scenery hadn't changed at all, endless, featureless grassland stretching out in all directions.
"Here." He confirmed, tapping the floor with a hoof, creating a dull clacking. Twilight looked down, the stallion was stood on a rusty drain cover.
She looked at the cover, then to Horner. The back to the cover, then Horner again, with a piercingly sceptical gaze.
"I am not going down there." She stated.
"Why not? Enjoying the scenery?" He asked, gesturing all around at the abundance of nothing.
"Horner, you're not going to get me to climb into a sewer."
"Oh, so that's how it is, is it? Big important Princess is too good for the sewer?" He cried, apparently offended. Twilight wasn't sure if he was serious or not.
"Yes." She said flatly.
"Pssh, typical. As soon as somepony gets their wings, suddenly they don't want to visit the sewer anymore." He grumbled, lifting the cover open with his magic. "Absolute state of society today."
"I've never wanted to 'visit' a sewer."
"It's not even a sewer anyway!" He shouted, head disappearing as he descended. "It's our secret base."
"Why do you even need a secret base in your own personal secret dimension?" Twilight yelled down the hole, voice echoing off the walls.
"It keeps ponies on the edge of their seats! No one expects a secret base!" His voice reverberated back up the hole.
Twilight had given up trying to figure out anything that Horner said. Some things just weren't dedicating the mental effort to.
She looked down the hole and sighed. Was she really about to do this? Was she really about to follow one of the most infuriating ponies she'd ever met down a dark hole in the ground? Was she really going to climb down a ladder while intoxicated? Looking around at the featureless void of a land she was in, she supposed she didn't really have much of a choice.
She shook her head and put a hoof on the first rung of the ladder, lowering herself down into the hole and not bothering to replace the cover. It wasn't like there was anypony else around to fall down, anyway. Further and further down she went. She could hear Horner still climbing down below her, too. The light from the surface was getting smaller and smaller. Just how deep did this hole go down?
The metallic clank of hooves on ladder rungs bounced off the tight walls of the hole. Twilight was starting to feel uncomfortable, her wings brushing the walls. She'd not appreciated how much her new pegasus instincts would effect how she felt in enclosed spaces. She'd always been fine in cramped spaces before, but now it was different.
She'd be very pleased when she was out in the open again.
For the moment though, they continued their descent. Further and further down, getting darker and darker. Twilight had to cast an illumination spell to see, through there wasn't really much to look at, just dull, grey concrete walls.
A concerning amount of time had passed now, and they still hadn't stopped climbing down.
"Horner, how much further down? What is this, some kind of abyss?!" She shouted down, starting to get genuinely unsettled.
"Keep going, Princess, we're about halfway there." He shouted back up at her, voice sounding distant. "I think."
Halfway there? He had to be joking. Twilight guessed she'd already climbed down about 150ft or so. What kind of bunker needed to be buried that far down?
Grimacing, she continued down, every step playing on her mind. She didn't like this one bit, she was actually starting to feel a bit claustrophobic. And she certainly didn't like the sound of that 'I think'. However, despite her discomfort, she carried on. If Horner was right, they were closer to the bottom than the top now, no point in turning back.
And so they plunged deeper and deeper into the earth. Or whatever this place was made of, Twilight wasn't quite sure. Was an infinite plane also infinitely deep? Was the sky also infinitely high? How did the sun shine down on and endless land? Surely there must be areas in darkness? More questions she didn't have any answers to.
"We're here!" Called Horner. Twilight sighed in relief. Wherever they were climbing to had a source of light, as the hole became brighter and brighter as she continued down. One last step and-
"Ah!" Twilight yelped, wings flaring out. There wasn't another rung to put a hoof on, and she'd lost her grip and fallen. Upside down. Upwards. Opening her eyes, she found herself back outside, gently hovering above a uncovered drainage hole in the road.
"What?" She blankly mewled.
This was where they'd started climbing down from, wasn't it? How did they just climb down a hole and end up coming up out the same hole upside down? How did gravity not come into effect until she'd gotten off the ladder? HOW? Twilight poked her head back into the hole. It looked normal. She couldn't see the bottom. Bottom? Top? Where they on the bottom now? Were they on the other side of this world? She groaned in frustration, she didn't know.
"HORNER! WHAT WAS THAT?!" She demanded.
"Uh, a hole. Duh."
"No- YOU KNOW FULL WELL WHAT I MEAN!" She screeched, glaring at him. "HOW DID IT DO THAT? HOW DID WE GET HERE?!"
"Calm down, Princess, you look like you're about to pop a vein!" He chuckled. "Besides, look, we're here!"
He gestured behind her, and Twilight turned around. Stood before her was the most perfect, most ornate Romane style palace. Gleaming white marble, pale red tile, imposing columns, beautiful arches. It was enormous, and she stared up in awe at the architectural wonder, a very welcome change from the endless blank plains.
The awe was lessened slightly at the crudley painted wooden sign stood just in front of the building.
'Horner's Secret Base'.
She sat and stared as he happily trotted ahead, climbing up the stairs to the entrance. She could feel an eyelid twitching. This place was trying to break her, she could feel it. This stallion was getting worse and worse.
The Princess took a deep breath and extended a forehoof, calming herself. She would not allow this place to get to her, she needed to have a better grip on things. This was no way for a Princess to behave. Besides, they were at the palace now. Horner said she'd get answers there, didn't he?
Whether or not he'd meant it was another matter.
Choosing to be optimistic, she rose to all fours and followed Horner up the stairs and into the palace. He'd not proven himself to be a liar, after all. Except the whole 'inventing snow' thing. No, he'd just managed to weasel out of any and all attempts at serious conversation she'd put forward. She frowned
She'd manage to lose her optimism at a record speed.
Passing through an arch, Twilight was now inside the palace. Highly polished granite floors gleamed, reflecting everything. The white stone walls were decorated with various paintings, and decorative busts and sculptures adorned the room. Twilight gawked the works. Each was expertly crafted, with heart and soul put into each and every one. She was very sure she'd never seen any of them before, not in any museum, books, not anywhere! Horner continued straight through the room and through a door on the other side, not waiting for Twilight. The alicorn slowly trotted after him, distracted by the incredible pieces of art.
"I'm home!" He sing-songed.
Twilight followed him out the door. They were back outside now, in a large, very nicely kept garden. Two more ponies were lounging in deck chairs set out in front of a large fountain in the centre of the garden. One was an orangey-tan coloured Unicorn wearing a dark cloak, the other an aquamarine pegasus with a dark blue mane.
Horner galloped over to the fountain, springing into the air and landing in an empty deck chair with a thump and a puff of dust, not spilling a drop of wine in the process. Twilight decided to just walk over.
"We have ourselves a new member!" He beamed, looking at the other two ponies. His smile fell as he looked around the garden. "Where's everypony else?"
"Fishing." Replied the orange one.
"Fishing? They found a lake?" Horner asked, surprised.
"Not yet." The blue one said. "They think they're close to making a breakthrough, though."
Twilight stumbled at that. 'Luna help me if these new ponies are just like him.'
"Anyway, new member!" He announced. "Please welcome Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Seventh Thunder!"
"Um, hi?" She offered, taking a seat as both ponies clapped.
"Twilight, Clover and Spiral. Clover and Spiral, Twilight." Horner gestured between the three.
It clicked. Orangey unicorn, dark cloak, Clover.
"Clover?" Twilight asked. "Clover The Clever?!"
"The one and only." He replied, gruff voice paired with a cocky grin.
"Oh my gosh!" Twilight said, walking closer to the group. "Oh my gosh!"
The alicorn sat on her haunches and floated the notepad and pencil out of her saddlebag. The grin fell from Clover's face.
"I have so many questions!" She announced, smiling.
"Time out!" Shouted Horner, swatting the items out of Twilight's grasp. "Fun, Twilight. F. U. N."
She shot him an annoyed glare, and picked up the pencil and paper again, only for it to again be swatted away, however this time Horner took care to fling them away as far as he could, letting them soar through the air until they disappeared behind the palace wall.
"Twilight, questions and research aren't fun." He said. "Heck, anything that requires a notebook isn't fun by default."
"I'd rather not do the whole question and answer thing, to be honest." Agreed Clover.
"B-but, but-"
"The guy said no, Twilight." Horner spoke, cutting her off.
"What about me, what about me?!" Yelped Spiral, bouncing her way in front of Twilight.
Twilight backed up, Spiral's face was uncomfortably close to her own. She got a good look at the mare, her mane bobbing up and down with her movements, wings spread out-
"Wait, how did she even get here?" Twilight asked out loud, gesturing to the pegasus.
"Uh, she cast the spell, same as everypony here?" Horner replied, stating the obvious.
"But how? She doesn't have a horn, how could she cast the spell?"
"Best and brightest, Twilight." Horner replied.
"You got a problem?" Spiral asked, shooting an accusing look at the Princess.
"No, no! I just..."
The Princess looked back at the pegasus stood in front of her. Well, stood was an understatement, she was practically vibrating in place, looking about ready to explode. She wore a scrutinising look, and her darker mane offset her vibrant coat.
"Well, how did you cast the spell?" She asked, having pulled a new set of stationary out of the air, genuinely curious as to how the mare managed to pull of that level of magic.
"Oh THAT?" She replied, dismissing with a hoof. "That's boring. That's what you wanted to know about? Boooring."
"Then why did you want me to ask you?" Twilight replied, frowning.
"I thought you were gonna ask about something cool." Spiral said, inspecting a hoof.
"Like what?" Twilight asked, perplexed by the direction the answer had taken.
"I dunno. Poker or something?"
"Poker?" Twilight replied, now lost in the mire of this conversation.
"Poker sounds good!" Came Clover's voice.
"Aw yeah, poker is a great idea! Good thinking, Princess!" Chimed in Horner.
Twilight looked around, totally flabbergasted by how quickly her train of enquiry had been hijacked. The stallions had already set up a finely crafted felt-topped card table. Horner was wearing a visor, for Celestia's sake! Spiral let out a little giddy squeal and hopped over to the table, taking a seat as Clover shuffled a deck of cards.
"C'mon Twilight, aces high!" Clover shouted over to her, performing card tricks that are much less impressive when telekinesis is involved. Twilight started to dumbly make her way over to the table, only to shake her head and stop mid stride.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" She said, looking at the ponies grouped around the table. "I don't get this!"
"You've never played poker? No worries, Clover is a champ, he explain it all." Spiral said, Clover shooting the Princess a proud, toothy grin.
"That's- I KNOW HOW TO PLAY POKER!" Twilight shouted in frustration, taking a few calming breaths upon realising that all ponies present were staring at her. "I know how to play poker. No, what I don't understand is that all of you are world class mages, and that spell is incredibly difficult. Spiral doesn't even have a horn and she cast it, that's incredible!"
Spiral looked particularly happy at the praise.
"But none of you seem interested at all in talking about magic! Why? Isn't that what brought you here in the first place? If you're the 'best and brightest' of Equestria, then why are you so reluctant to talk about it?"
They laughed. Not chuckles, proper, full on hysterical laughter. Horner was thumping the table, and Spiral was wiping tears from her eyes. As was now the norm, Twilight was confused.
"Why are you laughing?" She asked, but it only seemed to fuel them further.
Twilight sat, and waited for them to stop, her head sunk low. She was tired, and she really didn't understand what was so funny. All she had wanted was to talk to somepony, anypony, and have a real discussion about this place and how it worked. But now, having been here for what felt like hours, having been wound up the whole time since she arrived, and with nopony taking her seriously, Twilight just wanted to go home.
Eventually, the laughter started to die down, settling on quiet giggles.
"Good one, Princess!" Horner said, catching his breath.
"I mean it." She said, curt.
"C'mon, you can't drag out the same joke, it looses it's effectiveness." He dismissed, looking at the cards in front of him, as Clover had started to deal.
"I'm serious." She asserted, in an even, calculated tone. Horner looked up at her.
"You're serious?"
"Do I look like I'm joking?" She replied, monotone.
"Twilight, we're all here because we were so tired of magic." Clover explained. Twilight looked at him in shock.
"Tired of magic? How?!"
"Maybe 'tired of magic' isn't the best way to put it. We all got bored of dealing with everything in Equestria. You know how it is, guild meetings, the pressure of just being a high level mage, that expectation put upon you to be great. Even the complexity of some of the things we did. It got to us, so we decided to leave." He continued.
"We came here to get away from Equestria's magic at large. Isn't that why you're here too?" Horner asked, it was his turn to be confused by the situation.
"No? I came here because I finished a strange spell nopony had heard of, I wasn't expecting to end up here!" She replied.
"Didn't you read the note?" Asked Horner, still baffled.
"What note?"
"There was a note, I attached it to the scroll when I wrote it, it explains what the spell does. Didn't you see it?" He explained.
"No, there wasn't a note attached, just the scroll." Twilight said.
Horner's eye's widened in a way that Twilight didn't like.
"Don't tell me that idiot took the note off the scroll." Horner muttered under his breath, holding his head in his hooves.
"Who?"
"Sixth Thunder, Wicker Wain, she was the last pony to arrive before you." He elaborated. Twilight was vaguely familiar with the name, she was an artist who'd mysteriously disappeared many, many years ago. At least this explained where she had gone.
"Okay, so, I had a note I attached to the spell that explained what it did, and that this place is basically just a little hideaway retreat kind of place for ponies who were tired of the pressures of being a well known spellcaster in Equestria, and that this was basically an escape."
"So this is just a glorified holiday home." The alicorn stated.
"You could say that, I suppose." He said, chuckling nervously, which Twilight thought could only be a bad sign.
"And you're all here just to have a break from Equestria? Isn't that a little excessive?" She pushed.
"Uhh, yeah, a break, right." He replied, not meeting her eyes. Twilight narrowed her gaze and walked over to where he was sat. He was definitely up to something.
"Something on your mind, Horner?"
"Nope, not at all, why do you ask?" He said, turning to face away from her.
"Horner." She said warningly.
"Nope, I'm not saying anything, I know you won't like it."
Twilight sighed in defeat.
"Look, Horner, I just want to go back to my castle. This place just seems set on rubbing me the wrong way, I'm done with this place, at least for now. Maybe I'll be interested again after some rest, but I'm tired and I can't take anymore of this weirdness, so please, just tell me how to get back to Equestria." She spoke quietly. "I might be back after I've had time to think. This place is incredible, but it's too much all at once. I just want to go home and sleep."
Horner continued to look away, whistling innocently. Clover and Spiral were also whistling away, none of them looking at the Princess.
"I do not appreciate being ignored." Twilight grumbled.
"You tell her." Spiral said, nudging Clover.
"Nuh-uh, this is Horner's dimension, he should be the one to tell her." He protested.
"I'm number one, so what I say goes, and I dibs it's not me who's telling her." Horner retorted.
"CAN SOMEPONY PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS GOING ON?" Twilight shouted, her voice thundering through the garden, and startling the three ponies around her.
"T-There is no way back!" Horner shouted, cowering under the table. The words hit Twilight like a ton of bricks.
"What?"
"There isn't a way back, I never came up with a way to get back and everypony else liked the place so much we never needed one!" He explained. "I'm pretty sure it would be impossible anyway, because time works totally differently! Even if you could get back there'd be no telling when you'd arrive! Please don't hurt me!"
Everything stopped. Twilight couldn't go back. No more home. No more friends. No more Equestria.
"Twilight?"
She stumbled once. Then twice. Then everything went black.
Twilight hit the ground with a thud, laying motionless on her side. Cautiously, Horner ambled his way over to her fallen form, gently prodding her on the nose. She was out cold, the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest the only sign that she was even still alive. Clover and Spiral also slowly came to stand with Horner, all three ponies looking at each other.
"Schnnnkt." Horner snorted.
"Pfffft." Clover chortled.
"SHE FELL FOR IT!" Spiral shouted.
The three of them all fell to the ground laughing, rolling around and clutching their sides, kicking at the air.
"How could somepony so smart fall for something so stupid?!" Horner cried between guffaws, tears streaming from his eyes. "I mean, 'sideways in time', 'Seventh Thunder', really?!"
"Did you see the look on her face?" Yelled Clover, smacking the ground with a forehoof.
"Oh, it was too much!" Shouted Spiral.
A quick clap of Horner's hooves, and everything changed. A puff of smoke washed over all three ponies, dissipating away to reveal a different trio. Rainbow Dash was in Clover's place, Pinkie Pie in Spiral's, and the embodiment of chaos himself, Discord, was in Horner's place.
They kept on laughing. Any time one of them showed signs of calming down, a quick look at Twilight's unconscious body was enough to start them back up again. After a while though, the laughter turned to giggles.
"That'll teach her to spend so long cooped up in that library." Rainbow said, still chuckling to herself. "Honestly, I thought we did the whole 'lightening up' thing years ago!"
"I can't believe you knew this whole thing would work!" Pinkie yelled at Discord. "It all went exactly like you said it would! That's super crazy!"
"Well, what can I say, as dear a friend as she is, Twilight is nothing if not predictable." He said, picking the Princess up. "A magical mystery? Hook, line and sinker. And to think all I had to do was open a portal to another dimension. Why, it's practically a sandbox!"
As if to emphasize his point, he clicked his talons, a bucket and spade popping into existence, pouring sand onto the floor.
"I gotta say, that was a pretty high level prank." Rainbow spoke. "I hope she'll learn her lesson, she can't keep hiding away like that."
"What lesson?" Pinkie butted in. "I mean, I know we wanted to make a point about her spending all her time isolated in the library, but did we really teach her anything? It seems to me like we just really freaked her out. I wouldn't be surprised if this changed nothing, especially since she's not even awake to hear about the moral we're trying to put across. And for us to tell her when she wakes up would surely only serve to backfire on us, I mean, who wouldn't be pretty angry about being tricked into thinking they'd be taken away from their home forever!"
Rainbow and Discord stared at Pinkie.
"Oh, I mean: haha! We sure showed her, right guys?! Wowee, that was funny!" Pinkie finished, smiling brightly.
"Aaaaaanyway," Discord said, shooting an odd look at the pink party pony. "I think I should probably get this purple princess pony back to her home, as much fun as it would be to keep her here."
"Yeah, she did look pretty dazed, she could use a good sleep." Agreed Rainbow.
"Well, that was certainly one for the ages, I haven't had that much fun since last Tuesday!" Discord said, opening a portal. "Thanks ever so much for your help, my friends. Toodle-loo!"
He stepped into the portal with Twilight draped over his shoulder. With a flash and a pop, the draconequus, alicorn, and portal all disappeared into thin air.
"Heh, that was pretty funny, eh Pinks?"
"Sure was, Rainbow! That had to be one of the bestest pranks ever!" Pinke agreed.
Rainbow sighed, still giggly. She looked around. The vast, open empty sky. The classical style palace. The fountain and garden. The land stretching on forever.
"Uh, Pinkie?"
"Yeah Dash?"
"How do we get out of here?"