It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

― Friedrich Nietzsche

There was only mindless drifting, for the longest time.

Was it eternity?

Perhaps.

Was it nothing?

No, certainly not.

Because for it to be nothing, not even consciousness itself would be able to exist. There would be an utter void of existence. But then again, isn’t even a void something after all?

To what end must one go to reach true nihilism?

That fabled utopian emptiness, that complete rejection of all the harshness of things deemed ‘real’. Surely it must be attainable.

But if it were, it would no longer be nothing. One cannot hold nothing.

Were such ponderings even sensible anymore?

No, certainly not.

Were they necessary to keep from going utterly mad?

Perhaps.

“-ight. Twilight! Twilight, answer me!”

Twilight Sparkle groaned miserably, craning her aching neck and cracking open her eyes. A blinding headache forced her to squint, even though it was clear that the night sky wasn’t nearly bright enough to be too much for her eyes.

“You okay there, hon?” a mint colored unicorn helped her to her feet carefully, alongside a worried Spike. It took Twilight far too long to recognize the neighborly unicorn; but in her defense, Lyra seemed to be the kind of pony that was always in the background.

“W-what happened?” Twilight mumbled, tasting copper on her lips.

“That thing just came outta nowhere!” Spike said far too loudly, hugging her as tightly as he could and eliciting another pained grunt.

“Everypony thought you were a goner for sure,” Lyra shook her head, evidently still a little stunned. “Hey – hey, Bonny! Bon Bon! Did you see that thing?”

She allowed Twilight to stand woozily on her own, but quickly had to be propped up by an anxious Spike. Lyra gently left her to her own devices, trotting off to curiously inspect the oddly shaped hole in the hill. Many other ponies were milling about the same area, but it only proved to be completely empty.

“Are you going to be okay, Twilight?” Spike asked nervously, and Twilight slowly shook her head before nodding.

“Yeah,” she said breathlessly. “It’s-I’ll be okay, Spike. You can let go now,” she smiled weakly, patting him on the head. “I guess that the meteor had dissipated to the point of vaporizing upon entering the atmosphere…?”

But that didn’t explain how she could have been struck by it hard enough to blast her and Spike from the hill, or how it left a gaping crater in the top of it while she barely survived.

How did she manage to survive that, in the first place?

Even thinking about it caused the sharp sliver of pain to ribbon throughout her head, and she clutched her aching temples.

“Twilight?”

“Fine!” she snapped suddenly, glowering at the confused drake. “I said I’m fine!”

He blanched, backing away a step before Twilight caught herself, and gave herself and even more thorough shake. She glanced at Spike again, but the bizarre, feral look had left her eyes in place of a mortified, tired one.

“I’m sorry Spike,” she stumbled over her words slowly, feeling dizzy again. “It’s really not your fault. I think… I think that falling star hit me a little harder than I thought.”

Spike paused for a moment, carefully and kindly helping her limp forward.

“Come on, Twi – let’s get you to a-a hospital, or-or something…!”

She shook her head, frowning. “I said I’ll be fine, Spike. I just… I just need a little rest. That’s all. I really took a punch with that one,” she chuckled feebly as she turned herself back towards the library, and they slowly made their way home.

Twilight was not usually much one for dwelling on dreams.

A dream was nothing more than a jumbled collection of the day, bouncing around in the head in nonsensical manners. She couldn’t quite fathom how Princess Luna managed to handle a single one, let alone every dream she happened across. It must have been quite the workload, and she wasn’t envious of her in the slightest.

To be honest, Twilight Sparkle was in the middle of a very confusing dream, in which she grappled with a flaming sky monkey whilst laughing hysterically and sprouting wings.

Told you it was confusing.

Twilight was just on the verge of attempting to make sense of this incomprehensible dream; or at least, she felt as if she were. It was such an odd, emotional dream. Somewhere between rapturous and inexplicable joy and horrendous terror.

She was left mainly with terror when she slowly peeled open her eyes.

“Hey there, sweet cheeks. Come here often?”

Twilight screamed in panic, jolting backwards out of the bed and falling to the floor in horror. The leering, maniacal grin of the… thing staring her in the face as it had lain next to her –

How long had it been lying next to her?!

“Oh, not long,” Kefka inspected his fingernails lazily as he reclined on her bed, one leg arched over another as if he were a pinup model. The mismatched brightly colored clothing he wore ruffled slightly as he turned to beam even more widely at her, which just seemed impossible. “You just look so peaceful when you’re dreaming of death and destruction, you were just too adorable to wake up.”

Twilight scrambled backwards in fear, scrabbling at the wall.

It knew what she was thinking.

It knew what she was dreaming.

“Twilight?” Spike poked his head in through the door, looking concernedly at the hyperventilating unicorn. “Twilight, are you okay?”

“Okay?!” she shrieked, clasping at her violently pounding heart. “That’s not funny, Spike!”

“Yeah!” Kefka jabbed a finger at him accusatorily. “You have to make jokes about crossing the road first before it’s funny!”

Spike, completely oblivious to the cackling human, only stared in confusion at Twilight.

“Uh… sorry?” he pulled at his frills fitfully. “I-I was just going to see if you, you know… wanted some pancakes…”

He looked at her with a hurt expression, and it finally dawned on Twilight the reason that he wasn’t panicking just as much as she was. But she needed to test it…

“Spike,” Twilight said very, very cautiously, her eyes never leaving the lazily stretching jester. “How many are in this room?”

He tilted his head, cocking an eyebrow.

“Two, Twi,” he stated slowly. “Did you hit your head so hard that you forgot how to count? Uh… no offense,” Spike added quickly, seeing the scowl on her face. However, her disturbed frown was for quite another reason entirely.

“Wow, took you long enough!” Kefka giggled, doing a handstand on one hand on the edge of the bed, balancing precariously. “If you were any slower, you’d be talking backwards!”

Twilight took a few long, deep breaths, and quietly said “Some pancakes sound lovely, Spike. I’ll be downstairs shortly.”

Her voice sounded a little off and distracted, but he nodded and continued along his way to continue making their breakfast.

“Nice kid,” Kefka said drolly, dropping from his handstand suddenly to kneel before her, causing her to jump. “You should totally kill him.”

“What!?” Twilight barked angrily at the suggestion, levitating a book and hurling at the grinning clown. However, much to her surprise, the moment she activated her magic and the familiar spark lit atop her horn, the entire bookshelf blasted away from the wall, slamming into the leering specter.

Or rather, through him.

Twilight flinched in shock as the bookshelf rammed into the opposite wall, the loud crack of wood and books flying muffled beneath Kefka’s intense laughter.

“Whoop!” he cackled, slapping his knee. “Missed me! Best two out of three?” he taunted her, flicking her on the tip of the nose.

Twilight, however, was still in astonishment that her miniscule amount of released magic had suffered such destructive results.

“Twilight?” Spike called up from the ground floor apprehensively. “Are you okay up there?”

“Fine!” she shouted back a little too loudly, swinging uselessly at her bare hooves through the laughing phantom. “Everything is just fine, Spike!”

“Aw, does wittwe Twiwight Spawkwe not wike big bad Kefka?” the clown mocked her and suddenly put on a sad face, dragging the flesh beneath his eyes down with his fingers. “Poor little unicorn.”

It knows my name!

“Well, duh,” Kefka released his face with a snap! and scowled at her angrily. “Jeez, you’re slow. Good help is so hard to find these days.”

Twilight seethed, thinking quickly. Obviously, his interference with her mind was causing fluxes with her magic. Either that, or she had suffered a concussion and she was hallucinating surprisingly vividly, and had just thrown her own bookshelf at the wall for no reason.

She really, really hoped that it was the latter.

Unhappily eyeing the mess that she had made, Twilight very, very carefully reached for the magic to clean up the clutter…

To Twilight, it was something traumatic and horrifying.

To Spike, it was something else to clean up.

To Kefka, it was another opportunity for fun.

To the residents of Ponyville, it was quite a surprise when the town’s central library curiously spontaneously exploded.