Chapter Text
Talia’s POV
The castle is too quiet.
Even for a library, even for a place this big, this old, this heavy with history.
The kind of silence that settles in after people leave - like the room itself remembers they were here and misses them already.
Everyone else has gone to bed. Twilight told us we needed rest, and I told her I’d head upstairs soon, and I meant it.
At the time.
But something pulled me back down. Some soft little voice in the back of my mind, whispering that maybe… maybe I’d missed something. Maybe there’s one last clue sitting right in front of me, waiting.
Or maybe I just didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts.
I creep down the staircase, hooves quieter than I expected them to be, and peek into the massive circular library again, expecting to find it empty.
It isn’t.
Twilight is still there.
She hasn’t moved since we left her - still curled in that old velvet armchair in the middle of the spiraling room, wings half-tucked, head bowed slightly, eyes sweeping lines of a book I’m not sure she’s even reading.
She looks… older in this lighting. Softer, maybe. Or sadder.
I hesitate in the doorway.
She doesn’t notice me at first. Or maybe she does, and just pretends not to. I walk in anyway.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks without looking up.
“Didn’t try,” I admit.
She hums. “I figured.”
“I… thought you’d gone to bed.”
“I haven’t slept through the night in about three hundred years,” she replies, her voice too calm to be bitter. “Turns out, when you outlive your best friends, the dark gets a little louder.”
I blink, not sure how to respond to that. So I just walk closer, settling awkwardly into the plush armchair beside her.
There’s a long moment of silence between us. I listen to the hum of the candlelight. The ancient creak of the tall bookshelves.
“Was it hard?” I ask eventually. “Outliving them?”
She closes her book.
Looks at me.
And I immediately feel like I’ve overstepped. Like I’ve asked something sacred, something no one’s supposed to say out loud.
But then - quietly, slowly - she nods.
“Yes.”
I wait.
She looks back down at her hooves.
“I get asked that more often than you’d think,” she says softly. “People mean it kindly. They just want to understand. But it’s like asking someone what it feels like to be missing a limb. The answer is… it hurts. You learn to walk again. But the limp never really goes away.”
I nod, though my throat’s tight.
Twilight exhales and looks back up at the stained glass window across the library. The moonlight cuts through it in shards of purple and gold and blue, spilling across her face like it’s trying to remember how to light her up.
“You want to know how they died.”
It’s not a question. But I nod anyway.
She hesitates again.
Then she starts.
“Rainbow Dash and Applejack went out together,” she says softly. “They were competing in a small rodeo tournament in Appleloosa. Both of them were in their seventies - still strong, still showing off like they were twenty. It was a fluke. A wooden beam collapsed in the arena. They were trying to save one of the younger competitors when it happened.”
I don’t breathe.
She continues.
“Fluttershy passed not long after that. In her sleep. Peacefully. She and Discord had built a whole animal conservatory just outside the Everfree Forest - they lived there together, took in creatures from all over the world. She was happy. She got everything she ever wanted. She just… didn’t stay forever.”
I glance at her. There’s a soft look in her eyes, one I can’t quite place.
“Discord never talks about her,” I say.
Twilight smiles a little, eyes watery. “He wouldn’t. But he loved her more than anyone. Probably still does.”
She turns the page of the book she isn’t reading, absently.
“Pinkie Pie was the only one who truly made peace with getting old. She had four kids - all chaos incarnate. A dozen grandkids by the end. She passed surrounded by so many of them that we couldn’t even fit them all in the room. She’d been sick for a while, but she never let it stop her from baking or laughing. Or… singing, even when her voice shook.”
I try to picture it. The bright, bouncing, technicolor energy of Pinkie Pie - settled into old age with joy and glitter and frosting.
“And… Rarity,” Twilight murmurs. “Rarity died in battle.”
I look at her sharply.
“She was seventy-nine. Still working, still designing. Still volunteering. There was a border conflict between two smaller nations, and a children’s home had been caught in the crossfire. She’d been delivering winter clothes there. She helped evacuate every single foal before she… before she didn’t come out.”
My chest caves in.
“She was buried in Canterlot,” Twilight says softly. “Her final design was carved into the headstone.”
“And after that,” I whisper. “You were alone.”
She closes her eyes.
“Not alone,” she says. “Just… without them.”
We sit in silence for a while.
My heart is heavy in my chest, and I can feel hers too - like gravity around her is different, deeper.
“I don’t know how you did it,” I murmur. “Keep going.”
Twilight turns her head and looks at me, really looks at me.
“I did it because they wanted me to,” she says quietly. “Because they would’ve done the same. Because I had to make their lives worth remembering.”
She swallows.
“And because eventually… you stop hoping the grief will leave. And you start building a life around it instead.”
I stare at her, and for the first time since I met her - since we came to this world - I feel like I understand her.
Not the alicorn.
Not the princess.
Just Twilight.
And something in me straightens at the sight of her. Something like respect. Or awe. Or maybe just love.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Twilight leans back in her chair.
“For what?”
“For not giving up,” I say.
Her eyes shimmer. But she smiles.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she says softly. “We’ve still got two girls to find.”
The severity of the situation sets itself on my shoulders once again, I had almost forgotten.
Twilight hums beside me, still half-tucked into her massive chair, another book now opened on her lap. Her wing flicks slightly when she turns a page. I watch her for a moment, admiring the calm in her face - the kind of stillness that comes only after centuries of chaos and heartbreak.
It’s oddly comforting.
“What are you reading?” I ask softly.
She looks up, surprised for a second, and then her face softens.
“An early translation of The Codex of Realms,” she replies. “It’s a catalogue of multiversal theories compiled by an ancient scholar. Mostly speculation, some nonsense. But I find comfort in rereading it.”
I nod, not really knowing what to say to that.
“Do you, um… have anything more… fantasy?” I ask. “Like, not ancient spell books or history tomes. Just-stories. Something to escape into.”
Twilight smiles warmly. “Of course. Here-”
Her horn glows softly, and a book slides from a shelf high above, gliding gently down into her magic. She catches it in midair and floats it toward me.
“The Starbridge Cycle,” she says. “One of my favorites. It’s about a traveler who discovers he can pass through universes, and the adventures - and consequences - that follow.”
I take it gently in my hooves, flipping it open. The pages are slightly yellowed, but the binding is sturdy. Well-loved.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
Twilight nods and returns to her book. I curl up in the seat beside her and begin to read.
The first few chapters are light - strange realms, mystical doors, odd magical systems. I lose myself in the worldbuilding, in the cleverness of the prose. It’s nice to escape. For a while.
But then… something shifts.
The traveler, once curious and brave, begins to change. He figures out how to jump between worlds at will - not with spells or artifacts, but with sheer force of will, using the connection between hearts as a tether. His eyes begin to darken. His narration becomes unreliable.
He starts talking about how much love exists between people. How it’s wasted when left untouched. How powerful it is - how much energy it holds. He becomes obsessed with testing it. Breaking it. Consuming it.
He begins to take people from their homes - only the ones who are loved deeply - and steals the memory of the person they love the most. He locks them in a space between worlds, where time doesn’t exist, and experiments on them.
My throat goes dry.
The more I read, the more real it starts to feel.
Because this isn’t just a story. It’s specific.
A realm between realms.
Memory loss.
Kidnapping people tied by love.
My hooves start to tremble slightly. I can feel sweat beading along my neck, right beneath my mane. The candlelight blurs at the edges of my vision.
I look up from the page and stare into the middle distance of the library - the soft hush of the ancient room suddenly feels suffocating.
Twilight shifts beside me.
“Are you alright?” she asks, concern lacing her voice immediately. “You look pale.”
I stare down at the book. At the line that reads:
“Love is a well, deeper than the oceans - but dig too far, and all you find is rot.”
My voice comes out quieter than I expect. Barely a whisper.
“I think I found our enemy.”
Twilight sits up straighter. “What?”
I can’t tear my eyes away from the book. My breath catches in my chest.
“I think… this story… it’s not just a story.”
Twilight leans over and looks at the page I’m on. She skims the paragraph, then the next. Her brows begin to furrow. I see her eyes widen just slightly as she reads.
A silence falls over us. Heavy. Thick with realization.
“Twilight?” I ask, my voice shaking.
“Yes?”
“Is it possible for fiction to be real in another universe?”
She exhales, slowly.
“In a multiverse as vast as ours?” she says. “Not just possible. Likely.”
The book closes in my hooves with a soft thump.
And suddenly, all I can hear is the pounding of my own heart.
Whoever wrote this story…
They didn’t imagine it.
They remembered it.
The clock reads 3:07AM.
Everyone is half-asleep, variously draped over armchairs, couches, or the giant rug in the center of the library. Flora’s head keeps bobbing like she’s nodding off, and Penny has her whole face buried into a cushion. Summer’s curled in a chair with her arms crossed, her scowl darker than the sky outside, and Raya is lying belly-down on the rug, dramatically groaning into the floor.
“Okay,” she says for the fifth time, muffled by the carpet. “But what the actual hell are we doing here at three in the morning, Talia?”
“I have answers,” I say quickly, holding the book to my chest. “Or at least a lead. A real one.”
Summer cracks an eye open. “This better be good. I was dreaming about kissing the hottest gal. She had a motorcycle.”
Raya lifts her head. “Wait, the chick from drama class who you were totally crushing on?”
Summer grins. “Oh yeah, it was great.”
“That is gross.” Raya pulls a face.
“Don’t care!”
Penny, eyes still closed, mumbles, “Summer might not care, but I care, Talia. I’m cold. I’m tired. And unless that book is a portal to a hot tub, I-”
“It’s about a traveler,” I say, cutting her off, “who jumps through universes. Who… takes people. People with strong love in them. He erases their memories and keeps them in a realm between worlds.”
There’s a beat of silence.
Raya pushes herself up onto her elbows, blinking hard. “Like… like Jackie and Reyna?”
I nod. “I think he’s real. I think the story isn’t fiction. I think someone lived it and managed to get it published in this world to warn people.”
Flora timidly raises a hoof into the air. “Um, not to be a downer,” she says softly, “but it’s still just a fiction book. Maybe a… scary coincidence?”
Penny immediately shoots upright, pointing at her. “Oh my gosh, Flora. Did you actually just raise your hand?”
Raya laughs, groggy but genuine. “This isn’t math class, sweet pea.”
Flora blushes. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Twilight steps in gently. “Flora actually makes a good point. But in this multiverse, fiction and reality blur. It’s very possible this book is more than just a story.”
She turns toward the rest of us, her expression more serious than I’ve seen all night. “There have been cases - rare, ancient - where victims of powerful magic have smuggled their stories into universes like this one. Masked as fiction, hoping someone would recognize the truth.”
Summer, surprisingly, is the one to speak next. “And if this guy targets people with strong love…” Her voice trails. She’s looking down now. “That explains why he took Jackie and Reyna.”
There’s a pause.
No one disagrees.
Because no one can.
All our expressions soften with the memory of them. Of the way Jackie looked at Reyna like she was a whole new sunrise. Of how Reyna followed Jackie’s voice like it was a compass. Of their stupid inside jokes. The way they used to pretend they weren’t disgustingly in love, but everyone knew.
Flora sniffles. Penny rubs her shoulder.
Then Raya, voice small, says, “Talia. You said this traveler steals the memories of the person most loved. From just one person… right?”
I nod. Slowly.
Raya’s face tightens.
“So one of them,” she says quietly, “doesn’t remember the other.”
The room goes still.
It’s like someone pressed pause on all of us.
Flora presses her hooves to her mouth. Penny shakes her head like she doesn’t want to believe it. I can’t even look at anyone. My chest feels like it’s been carved open.
And then, of all people, Discord speaks up.
His voice is strangely soft. “I… might know who it is.”
All heads snap to him.
He’s standing near the door, unusually still, paw and claw folded together. It’s the quietest I’ve ever seen him.
“In my early days,” he says, “right after I became the Lord of Chaos, I used to… explore. Jump through worlds. A lot. Most of them were dull, but one…”
He trails off. Then clears his throat.
“I met someone,” he continues. “He called himself nothing. No name. Just-‘a collector of love.’ Said he was building a place outside of time. A sanctuary, he claimed. But I knew better. He showed me the start of it once. A skeletal place. No light. No end. Said he needed chaos magic to build it, asked for my help.”
He shakes his head slowly.
“I left,” Discord mutters. “Said it was boring. But I remember how to get there.”
My heart starts beating again.
I stand, slowly, book still clutched to my chest. “You… you can take us there?”
He looks at me. Nods.
And for the first time in so long, I feel a spark of something real in my chest.
Hope.
A hope that feels fragile and raw and dangerous.
But I cling to it anyway.
Because Jackie and Reyna are out there.
And now we might finally be able to bring them home.