What comes out of the dark is not always the same as what goes into the dark. Tarnished Teapot thought about these words that Princess Celestia had once said to him during a private moment. He did not understand them then, but now, buried in a tomb that knew no sky, their full meaning settled over him like a funeral shroud. The Tarnished Teapot that went into Skyreach would be buried here, and the Tarnished Teapot that came out—if he came out at all—would be a different pony indeed.

The bones of the silver dragon stretched farther than the light could reach. Daring Do and Vinyl Scratch were inspecting them—for what reason, he did not know—and Rainbow, who had ventured ahead into the darkness to scout, was now almost clingy as she walked in a tight circle around him. Investigating a factory for reality in the creepy darkness wasn’t scary at all, not in the slightest. Nope, not even a little. He was fine; it was Rainbow Dash who was floofed out like a scared cat.

All sense of scale and distance were now distorted, and this troubled Tarnish. How many mountains had been hollowed out? Just how far down into the guts of the world had they traveled? How was all of this even possible? To make matters worse, he could sense that the air was stale here, almost dead, and he could not help but wonder how there was any breathable air at all in this sepulchre where the past had been laid to rest.

Where the other parts of Skyreach clung to life, no matter how twisted, this place felt dead. The old bones somehow persisted, death that endured, an unnatural state of death. It was cold here, but the chill was something beyond mere temperature. Though the machinery still functioned—he could hear the thrum of it in the depths of his ears—the factory that manufactured reality had been shut down.

Tarnish did his best to avoid thinking of the unsettling implications.

If one damaged the still-running machines, what might one do to reality itself?

He was not the smartest pony—a fact that he had long ago made peace with—but he was capable of thinking the most unsettling of thoughts. Tarnish understood outcomes, even if he did not fully comprehend the ways and means. His intelligence—so he felt, so he believed—was geared for action, improvisation. To stop and think in the middle of life or death combat was to invite fatal consequence upon oneself. But to strive for an outcome was to survive.

Now, buried in this tomb, this sepulchre, this dead place, Tarnish found himself thinking far too much about his actions and what to do next. This unsettled him, unhinged him; it left him in a near-perpetual state of fight or flight. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the outcome. Consummate survivors were not always consummate thinkers. Yet, Tarnished Teapot knew that he had to become something other than what he was, something better.

But his confidence was shaken.

“Rainbow Dash,” he said to the pacing pegasus, “what has you in such a state?”

She did not reply. He was not disappointed. Their relationship was such that it had the strength to survive whatever silence that might lay siege. Willing his horn to glow brighter, Tarnish almost strained himself to the point of failure in his attempt to push the darkness back. The shadows came to life and danced in the pale blue light he cast. Daring Do, apparently satisfied with her study, took a step backwards, away from the dragon bones, and then so too, did Vinyl Scratch.

“Look,” Daring Do said while lifting her hoof to point, “over there. Send some light over.”

Vinyl, quick to respond, sent her floating orbs of illumination over in the direction that Daring Do had pointed. Tarnish almost held his breath as two recognisable figures could be seen, shrouded in darkness as they were. They stood, silent sentinels, each of them standing vigil in the archway of a hall swallowed by darkness.

Princess Luna and Princess Cadance were quite recognisable, yet there was something off about them both. Something unsettling, and no matter how hard he tried, Tarnish could not determine what it was. Upon closer inspection, he realised that Princess Cadance might not be Princess Cadance, but somepony else entirely. Somepony with a striking similarity, a near-clone of the Princess of Love.

“That,” Daring Do said, almost breathing out the start of her sentence, “Is Princess Amore. Or Queen Amore. But she wasn’t an alicorn, she was a unicorn. A crystal unicorn. Sombra transmuted her body into crystal and shattered her. She could be resurrected, some theorise, if all of the pieces were found.”

“So what are we seeing?” asked Rainbow Dash. “I don’t get it.”

“Fates change?” Daring Do shrugged once, then a second time, and moved even closer to have a better look at the statue. “Queen Amore, Princess Amore, she might have been destined to be the alicorn of love, but Sombra’s magics were such that destiny itself was altered, or warped. It took a thousand years or more, but harmony reasserted itself and now we have Princess Cadance.”

“That’s not Princess Luna.” Rainbow Dash, who had followed Daring Do, now stood looking at the oddly familiar figure.

“What makes you say that, Rainbow?”

“Well, nuts.”

“Rainbow, how is it crazy?”

“No, Daring… nuts. See? There’s nuts on this crazily effeminate statue.”

“Why… so there is. How detailed. How peculiar.”

Tarnish did not bother looking, but took Rainbow’s word for it. There was no mark, no moon and inky spots on the hindquarters. The statue still had the thin, delicate form of Princess Luna, but a thorough examination revealed masculine features. It was, perhaps, a random alicorn—a random ambiguously-gendered alicorn. After a few moments of staring, he decided that it meant absolutely nothing and was just a piece of thought-provoking decoration.

“Look”—Rainbow Dash extended her wing and pointed down the hallway—“there’s more.”

“So there is,” replied Daring Do.

“That’s… that’s Twilight.” Rainbow stumbled ahead into the abyssal darkness, and the companions were quick to follow. “I’d recognise that face anywhere, but not that body. Why does Twilight look so weird?”

“She’s elongated and thin, like the other princesses.” Daring Do now stood directly beneath the face of the statue, looking up to the beatific face with a serene gaze staring down. “Long legs, slight body, thin neck, and those wings… those are alicorn princess wings. How curious.”

“But Twilight isn’t like this at all.” Eyes darting about, her expression one of intense guilt, Rainbow’s voice dropped into a whisper: “Since her ascension, she’s packed on the pounds. She hasn’t gotten thinner, she’s gotten thicker. At some point, she was no longer a unicorn with wings, but more like an earth pony with a horn and wings. And the way she eats… Twilight is sensitive about her weight and how her body has changed.”

“So… these statues… they show what might be? Or what should be? I mean, there’s a distinction. What if Twilight should be this way, but because of some unknown factor, instead of growing into an alicorn body type, Twilight developed an earth pony body? Trust me… I know earth pony bodies. Twilight has more in common with Maud and Octavia than she does Vinyl or the princesses.” Tarnish cringed without knowing why, and he was almost certain that somehow, through some unknown means, Twilight was eavesdropping on every word said.

It made him intensely uncomfortable, as there was no way that Twilight could be listening.

“Twilight can’t rest on thin clouds like pegasus ponies do,” Rainbow Dash said to her companions. “She goes tearing right though. Caused a really embarrassing incident in Cloudsdale one day. I probably shouldn’t talk about it.”

Standing off to one side, Vinyl pointed and grunted with no small amount of urgency.

Tarnish moved to be with her, and then tried to see what she might be seeing, only to find it right away. What he saw flummoxed him, and he stood in mute silence, unable to process what he was seeing. Twilight’s cutie mark had the unmistakable central star, which was instantly recognisable, but the smaller stars in orbit were gone, replaced by five familiar marks—one of which was less than a yard away, on a pony who had just said her friend was too hefty to rest on thin clouds.

Daring Do came around to have a look, and after seeing what Vinyl and Tarnish saw, stood in awestruck silence. Rainbow, who was still staring up at Twilight’s face, also came around to have a look, and when she froze in place, Tarnish suspected that he knew exactly what she was feeling.

It was the rainbow-maned pegasus that broke the silence.

“Is this… is this what Twilight would look like if she had… if she had us... what makes us, well, you know. What makes us special. Our talents. We already know that our marks can be swapped. They can even be stolen. What if Twilight borrowed our marks? Would she be a super alicorn? That’s some real friendship magic right there. Hey, can I borrow what makes you special for a minute?” Rainbow Dash’s awestruck chattering lapsed into silence, and she stood staring.

In a reverent whisper, Daring Do asked, “Would you give it to her if she asked?”

“Well, of course. I’d trust her with it. She’d be awesome.” Rainbow Dash shuffled a bit, then turned her head around to look at her mark, which happened to be covered by saddlebags at the moment. “I could live without it if I had to. For a little while. She’d give it back.”

Unsettled, Tarnish was unsure and uncertain of how he felt about such casual soul-splicing. Twilight could be trusted, sure—but ponies like Starlight Glimmer could not. Any pony that could steal a mark could plausibly figure out how to splice a mark, and gain all manner of talents, which would merge in ways incomprehensible beyond the wildest of imaginations. The more he thought about it, the more unsettled he felt. A soul thief would be a dreadful thing, casually stealing the very thing that made one special.

It was the death of uniqueness.

Armed with shield and wrench, Tarnish aimed himself down the dark, foreboding hallway, all while ignoring the hollow pit where there had once been courage. While looking at statues was a pleasant diversion, it wasn’t getting them anywhere. After a few steps, the others fell into formation beside him. The Twilight statue was endlessly fascinating, perhaps too much so, and it was a relief to walk away from such a demanding distraction.

There were other statues every few yards, tucked away into recessed alcoves, and he did not stop to have a look at them. They were a devourer of time at best, and a potential threat to their survival at worst. Driven by purpose, he focused on the darkness ahead. One hoof in front of the other, all senses on high alert, Tarnish pushed into the unknown. That is, until he saw a faint light ahead. It flickered, in very much the same way a theatre projector flickered, and these flickers made the shadows dance.

After so long in the dark, never had the light felt so threatening.

Gritting his teeth, his neck muscles taut, his blood pressure such that the bite in his leg was now throbbing, Tarnish continued his cautious advance. What choice did he have? The lights had long ago gone out in this place, this tomb for shadows, so to see this light, to witness this illumination was unsettling, disturbing.

It spilled from an open door and left the hallway awash with distorted shadows. Piss-shivers danced up and down Tarnish’s spine, and beside him, Rainbow Dash—her hackles raised—crept along with remarkable silence. She broke away, maneuvering herself to a position near the door, hugging the wall beside it, ready to unleash devastating sneak attacks.

Rainbow Dash was a real bitch when it came to kidneys, and Tarnish loved her for it.

Raising his shield, Tarnish moved into the doorway proper, ready to breach and clear. How many times had he been the door pony? Just how many smugglers’ dens and wretched hives of scum and villainy had he busted in on? So many games of poker interrupted, left unfinished. This was almost feeling routine now. He, Tarnish, a pony of intimidating height, would play the role of mook-magnet and would go gangbusters through the doorway. If things went well, he would push in and keep going. But if things went poorly, he would retreat and Rainbow Dash would flank his attacker.

It was an action that involved a huge amount of trust.

Now, in the doorway proper, ready for violence, his shield raised, he heard a voice say, “Do come in. You’re just in time to watch a Chosen One drop a moon on Canterlot. Please, you are safe here, and I mean you no harm. Do come in, but please, be quiet. After waiting for so long, I would hate to miss the finale.”

Author's Notes:

The next few chapters will be revealing ones.