On Immortality
A spider spins its web. Systematic. Symmetrical. Delicate. Complete. Anyone who dares interfere with its pristine beauty ventures torturous scrutiny under the scowl and vigor of its master, a fiery hurricane of rancor unrivaled even by the hellfire miasma which dooms Tartarus. Armed with fear and vengeance the spider strikes, caring not whether it will breathe its final breath, for it is protecting the very purpose of its own existence, maintaining the necessary creation upon which it survives and thrives for time indeterminate. Intruders luckless enough to succumb to the master’s saneless ambush find their graves intertwined with the very silk they sought to destroy, blending seamlessly with the enviable perfection which mocked them all their lives for their inescapable, irreversible faults. But as the master of this artistic white canvas of plague grins heartlessly at the torment of his victims’ souls, the spider is perpetually spinning another web along his mortal coil. A web equally as finite, yet infinitely more complex. It is imperfect by nature, the very essence of the silk indefinable. A spider spins its web. Tumultuous. Oblong. Rough. Deficient.
Arachnids are not the sole wielders of this power, however. Indeed any entity which breathes in tandem with the soul of the universe can architect said web without the need for spinnerets. Insects. Plants. Animals. Yes, even we ponies carry assets sufficient to paint a most vivid and boundless masterpiece which fills the space around us with so much wonderment. Colours undefined serve as our yarn, imagination and thought our needles. The web of life ensnares us all, and we become as slaves, fuel for its driving, endless power.
We cannot fathom such a web in appearance as we know it. Bending. Spinning. Splitting. Coinciding. Random in nature, predictability is a program wired into its ubiquitous core, nothing more than an invisible pattern, a tool of frugality in the dissection of its commandant. While we are responsible for steering the vessel of life, we know not our destination, driving blindly forward on the faulty veins of time, growing slower and more exhausted with every vital movement as the spider who cannot spin forever. But how can our web be incomplete if it is finite? Boundless. As the universe is dotted with countless stars of differing potential, we reach lifelong for pinpricks of hope and achievement, many of which will elude our feeble, imperceptible grasp. And in the end, our efforts—successful or not—converge on one point: the point which serves as the sole, dreary link between our spider’s diabolical silky snare and our own Pandora’s box of a web. It is fear incarnate. An inevitable tragedy, striking with the precision of a guillotine in our most vulnerable of moments.
Death.
We cannot avoid it. Death is the ultimatum we are all forced to adhere to. From the infinitesimal moment of our creation, a dark timer is set into motion. The timer has no way of counting, it rings whenever it is empty, when the differing oily sands of its hourglass brain cast their final stone to the breathless heap of vile ashen fate beneath. It rings with the unfair tone of final dismissal, a bell of the universe which cuts our strand short leaving us mercilessly floating in an unknown limbo of solitude. We were still reaching, still hoping, still believing in a world of fairness and reality. The guillotine of time cares not, it drops at the tone of an oppressive blood pact being fulfilled. The clock itself does not care for our existence which flickers in its hollow ticks and is left open to tampering, apathetic to any malicious mite of silk which seeks to remove a gear from its mechanism, stepping on the executioner’s foot. And when the alarm finishes its heartless, deafening ring... silence. Nothing.
But does life truly abide by the grisly contract of death? Does our web ultimately end where we do?
No. The truth resists simplicity.
The artisans of the web do not work alone. As veins merge and dance the delicate dance of life at each other’s sides, impressions remain. Unique, irreplaceable grooves visible only to the workers who craft them. Memories. So long as memories exist, so long as a single, hiccuping strand continues to trudge aimlessly through the murk of the universe bearing its tattoos proudly, the artists etched into those markings live on. So we are all immortal in the minds of our comrades, yet still we fade. Vivid at first, initial impressions cannot maintain their full form between entities. Like snowflakes, no indentation can mirror another, even if a copy exists somewhere in the complex master plan. A century goes by. The web is still freighted with life and ambition, but our initial markings are two-dimensional. A once tangible, lifeful memory is pasted dryly into inequivalent scripture. A formal shadow.
They are not useless, though, if the first impact, the power which sparked the memory into existence and initialized the chain of its command, was deep. An abyssal groove is unforgettable, serving as inspiration and motivation for which many can only strive for millennia to come. It is a star. A beacon. A hope. A legend. And it does not fade.
The cycle to which we acquiesce is fair and just, in truth. But truth is malleable by emotion, the jester of the cosmos who delves not only in splendor, but also in grief, laughing his immortal laugh at our infinitely finite, pathetic web. Emotion has no strand with which to tangle, no heart with which to empathize. Emotion giggles gleefully as he plays unhallowed symphonies with the cords of life’s lyre, resonance often eternal. Emotion curses our existence and cements our hearts only to shatter them to glitter with a thunderous mallet. Ambush. Betrayal. Yet we cannot resist indulgence as no ear unimpaired can refute the temptation of a Siren’s song. Friend. Foe. Fickle.
But what is it to conquer emotion?
Very few—within epsilon—of those who exist in our entombed universal stronghold carry what we unfathomably know as the potential of ascension. A gift. An anomaly of the masterfully crafted plan, ancient in design. Ascended beings were never presumed to be possible within the realm of secularity, as they grow far beyond imagination and thought, yet still suffer under the vile constraints of our carefully wired web. A peculiarity of cosmic ambiguity, defying fundamental laws of logic, reason, and life itself. Indeed, they possess a power paralleled by emotion alone: interaction with a construct not wholly their own and free to break its single, deadly rule.
Immortal.
Yet immortality extends far beyond the tragically simplistic fact of being able to distract death's ire. Repercussions tell tales of majestic grandeur which dwarf the purpose of the base; indeed, the aftereffects of deathless life surpass both explanation and comprehension. Whereas mortal entities manage to escape our majestic web shouldering a healthy dosage of life's nectar, ones cursed immortal never cease twisting and writhing within the web. The spider who can spin forever. Who must spin forever. Being force fed life blood on an alarming cosmic scale. Inevitably, power and experience is siphoned endlessly from a life which ends with time's finality. Infinite potential becomes frightening reality, and unspeakable accomplishments beseech the immortals. A terrific blade of power not designed for those who wield it.
The universe, however, is not so ill-prepared.
Upon awakening to their real, unrivaled potential of immortality, an act of unbeknownst timing, a lofty proposition presents itself to the unlucky bearer. A choice of destiny. The crossroad which divides worlds and shapes the universe. One thoughtless, ill-advised action will seal their corruption, a curse with no pragmatic nor divine cure to speak of.
Full ascension.
An unspoken basic ruling limits knowledge of topics with such prime significance as this to those snared within its pinprick cluster of slaves. An opportunity exists. A most desirable, lustful path upon which emotion itself is nothing more than a tool of manipulation. A plaything of chaos. We are free to reject the contract of morality to which emotion holds us in favour of access to a raw, unbridled power, seductive to many a mind, yet not truly limitless. Should we choose to accept and ascend to a playing field far beyond comprehension of any bound mind, we still cannot escape the bonds of reality entirely, but we are free to manipulate the wispy conglomeration of life which morphs the world around us, soullessly tampering with its captives. We can no longer feel for such trivialities as empathy and love, such are byproducts of emotion, now our personal servant. Indeed, the freedom of full ascension is a tantalizing prospect to many a thoughtless mind. But its wicked embrace, soothing at first, corrupts our judgment, and evil is born.
To choose against full ascension is to remain under the cold stare of emotion and neglect our magnum opus of potential power. Only the wisest can see reason in a foolish choice. A steady balance is maintained in such a decision, the dynamic scale of rights and rules incapable of faltering under the protection of an almighty guardian who transcends time itself. As the greedy pupils of our counterparts treasure calamity and discord, the vivid, glorious hearts which reside within a courageous few seek to impede it. Emotion is still their master, but they can refute its slavery. Direction of emotion is more controllable, if less powerful. Those who fight against the satanic allure of full ascension become as ballasts of reality, sacrificing their priceless potential—the ultimate goal—in favour of an equal, safe, harmonious existence for all manners of life. Selflessness and humility equate to their morality, the silent guardians of an innocent domain.
No choice is ideal, however, as this option too takes an unseen toll.
Longevity is assured, yet permanence is not. Rejection of the putridly tempting acquisition of supreme power destroys a blockade: the rule-abider is thrust with a badge of mortality and a death clock is set in motion. Size lost in a haze of unique uncertainty, a seemingly void hourglass tilts, creaking in harmony with the torture rack which strips immortality from our rightful future. Black sand cascades in dunes, and time ticks silently toward the inevitable, deafening tone of our soul’s usurping. As with any other web engineer’s unsure alarm, a blanket of infinitely dense wool shrouds our perception of this alternate time zone, and we can only pray. And while the charm of immortality ensures existence multiplicative of any other, we become finite.
A constitution simple in design yet wrenching and twisted in practice, these our the rules of our universe. But beings strive to break and bend rules—intentionally or accidentally, it matters not—like foals with so little knowledge of principles which supersede them. Possibility shatters, creating roughly textured memories which fleetingly yet profoundly exist. An entity can become diametrically opposed with itself.
I am Luna. I am one such entity.
My mind was once trapped in a brutal struggle of spite and envy. Emotion’s fickle devices are even more dangerously powerful than any imagination can assume or infer, as a clash of two souls—mine and another—occurred on its plane of dominance, and an impossibility was scarred into history. Indeed, my heart grew susceptible to a fully blackened, fully ascended, and the truly immortal demon known eloquently as Nightmare Moon. Shrill air still pierces many a mind at the cataclysmic sound waves which unwillingly carry her name. None recall this, one of the darkest hours in the annals of our history, quite as vividly as the one whose consciousness was held prisoner by the very assaulting power she brought upon herself. Foolish. I was so foolish.
Yet my subconscious curiosity plagued me, and my perception of reality became as an obscene chimera of wicked and unfeasible design. No reasonable power could withstand such a bombardment of clashing ideals and realisms, trapped in a pseudo-emotional limbo of black illness. I experienced what no amount of magic in this continuum of reality could ever hope to achieve. I obtained a glimpse of my own, alternate passage of time. A path existing in a plane where full ascension and greed had overtaken my willpower and I had claimed my potential, undeniable power. A long forgotten view of immortality.
In the eyes of the bludgeoned millions of whom I am one there is a unique depth to every being, a beautifully varied mosaic, an unfathomable spectrum. But such personalities vanish indiscriminately in a sea of gray lines, becoming one-dimensional shattered fragments of their true elegant forms, clouded by the jade eyes of a villainous immortal beholder. Paradise to the one who comprehends its twisted beauty, asylum to any reasonable mind. Sickening. The single link which emotion still maintained with my uncorrupt form fed me with nothing but writhing nausea at the feeling of such dramatic disregard for life as its gracious web was plucked and strummed with nothing more than luxurious apathy. Failure to understand anything beyond desire and lust, an inability to empathize. I cannot fathom finding pleasantry in such a vile landscape of unfortunate souls, but I also have no power in such a realm. The power to freely manipulate the emotions of whomever we choose serves as the rose-tinted glasses through which an immortal sees bliss, a fate I continue to loathe.
But there is something more to be understood in this world of wickedness which I so despise. A fault which exists even further beyond immortality, holding this dreary plane under an incessant oppression of unseen strength.
Destiny.
Unbridled power cannot possibly go unchecked even in such an upper cosmic realm. The cruel mistress of destiny holds these beings—infinitesimal in number—to a strict, obscene rule: the inability to succeed. Their goals are diabolical beyond definition, yet they can never achieve them for this perpetual wall of balance entombs them in a predictable cycle of failure. A personal purgatory, doomed to fail as the Sun is doomed to set. Inescapable. Somehow, despite such mortal opposition to the values of these so-called despots of power, I find myself pitying their circumstance. Power has always been their purpose for being, a promise made by a crossroad post so long ago on a dwindling road of discovery. Broken, rendered useless. An empty existence.
Unparalleled sadness and violent, cataclysmic rage overwhelmed my senses whilst I reaped what I sowed in the captivity of Nightmare Moon. This imposition of martial law, it cannot be deemed just punishment, for no crime initiated it. Being concealed in this immortal ruse, however, there is an ominous juxtaposition of emotion and lack thereof. I feel the desire, the need to express this crippling influx of emotional terror, yet without empathy for my own being I am incapable of doing so. They cannot feel, they cannot fight, they cannot win.
Such is the terror of immortality, a fate I wish upon no one.