Having never been pulled through an event horizon before, Blackbird was somewhat disoriented when she popped into existence. It took her several seconds to regain her senses and figure out what was around her. Stone was beneath her claws and hooves, but what kind of stone was unknown. There were walls here, but looking at them caused them to retreat into the distance, zooming off to some unknown, infinite horizon. Above her was some manner of vague darkness that was utterly unfathomable.

“Be careful!” a voice said in warning. “Don’t step on that.”

Jerking her head around, Blackbird tried to ignore the walls as they shifted and looked down. Near her front talons was a creature, something small and limp. It was black, no, maybe it was blue—no, on closer inspection it might have been green? The colour was so dark, yet so indistinct, so it was hard to tell. Whatever it was, whatever colour it was, it wasn’t moving. Was it dead? It was a weird half-simian, half equine thing, whatever it was.

“What is that?” Blackbird asked.

“That was the Void.”

“Yeah, but what is that?” Blackbird began looking around for the source of the voice.

“That was a centaur.” The voice, as it turned out, came from behind Blackbird.

Whirling about, Blackbird spotted a tiny blue alicorn filly. She was little, somewhat gap-toothed, and glanced down at the dead body on the ground with a sad, forlorn expression that only foals seem to have. The filly had a stubby horn, tiny wings, and a terrifying aspect about her that made Blackbird want to cower.

“Who are you?” Blackbird was mindful of the corpse and was careful of where she stepped.

“I am the Essence of Night,” the filly replied, looking up at Blackbird. “You came for Dim.”

“Am I in the dream realm?” Blackbird made the mistake of looking around, and the walls went zooming away from her at the speed of perception, and she returned her gaze to the tiny blue filly.

“No,” the filly replied, “you stumbled through a door. I’m not sure how. Honestly, you shouldn’t be here, though I am glad you came. In your current form though, I think you’ll find that Dim is quite unreachable.”

“It feels good to be back in my body again… I was a constellation of stars just a moment ago and I—”

“Is that what you perceived?” Blinking, the filly was curious and peered up at Blackbird in the most peculiar way. “You mortals and what you think you see.”

“I was in the night sky, and there were all these constellations, stars, and I was a constellation too. There was a Star Maiden and some scales and these scary dark places beyond the stars. I was in a body made of stars and everything was so beautiful…”

“Uh-huh.” The filly’s head bobbed in a solemn nod and moving her stubby legs, she moved close to Blackbird. “That is what your mortal mind made you see so you wouldn’t go mad. What you actually experienced was incomprehensible and indescribable. You were so set on reaching this place that you ignited your own inner potential and pushed past the usual mortal barriers. You even survived the encounter of meeting with beings beyond your limited comprehension. What this means for you, I’m not sure, but you’ve done all of this to yourself.”

Now, Blackbird was confused, and she wasn’t sure what to say.

“Silly self-realised mortals, stumbling into realities they aren’t prepared for and can’t comprehend.” The Essence of Night sounded a bit miffed and her lower lip protruded while she gave Blackbird a sullen, pouty stare. “First you trespassed in the dream realm. You don’t belong there. I’m not sure how you got there as more than a dreamer, but you did. And when the realm’s natural defenses tried to deal with you, you rooted yourself into that reality by facing one of your worst fears, which really says something about you, because as far as fears go, that’s not much of a fear. I suppose it must be wonderful to be a big, scary hippogriff, tromping about and being completely oblivious to the dangerous world around you, by virtue of what you are.”

“I have fears,” Blackbird said while she squirmed in place.

“Yeah, stupid ones,” the filly replied. “I whipped up an army of cosmic horrors, tentacle monsters, dark, vague, indistinguishable shapes, eldritch abominations, the usual assortment of nightmares, and your psyche responded to none of them. So I had to dig deeper, and deeper still, and then I ran into that. I was disappointed, let me tell you. You just didn’t leave me much to work with.”

“Well, if you came looking for the fucks I have to give, I was fresh out at the moment.”

“So I noticed.” baring her teeth, the Essence of Night shook her head. “You faced that fear, and didn’t go running off, screaming, so I had to hit you with the one thing you can’t bear to face… the very reason why you are here right now. Care to make a guess as to what that is?”

With a shrug, Blackbird replied, “Loss?”

“See, most beings wouldn’t say that so casually.” The filly puffed out, her wing feathers fluffed, and fine hairs along her spine stood up in a dark stripe. “You fell out of the dream realm on your own, I’m not sure how or why. You tumbled into the spaces between the barriers of reality, and really, you should have gone stark raving mad… but your mind turned it into a pleasant vision about stars and constellations, so it seems. You even made a deal with the Void, who is now dead. The very last vestiges of what he was were lost in that in-betwixt space. And the Void, who was a real prick by the way, just like Dim in almost every conceivable notion, brought you here in a flagrant violation of the rules. This is why nobody, and I mean nobody likes chaotic beings of neutral bent. They do whatever it is they feel like with not a care for any of the consequences they might cause.”

“Yeah, Libra, the scales that I saw, he was juxtaposed between the Star Maiden constellation and Capricornus. I found Dim’s candle there, right in the middle of everything, with other neutral entities. I’m not sure what that means, though.”

“Juxtaposed?” The filly’s wings flapped once and she shook her head.

“Hey!” Irritated, Blackbird reached down, grabbed the filly by the scruff of her neck, and yanked her up to eye level, ignoring her flailing kicks of protest. “I’ll have you know that I went to school and I’m not as dumb as I might look. I might not be smart like Dim is smart, but I manage to keep my wits about me. I made my way here, didn’t I?” To make her point, she gave the little blue alicorn filly a hard shake while looking her right in the eye.

“Put me down!” the filly demanded while her wings flapped and her legs thrashed about.

“Where’s Dim, you snotty little tyke?”

“Out of your reach!” The Essence of Night gave Blackbird a hard, defiant stare.

“We can do this the hard way…” Blackbird gave the filly yet another shake.

“Yeah, let’s do that!” The filly split open like a torn stuffed animal and creeping doom came spilling out. Spiders, bugs, centipedes, worms, leeches, and other horrors slipped free, along with a flock of bats, which went swirling around Blackbird.

In the chaos, the filly was dropped, and Blackbird waved her wings to get the swarming bats away from her face. Even more disgusting horrors spilled forth from the rip in the filly—what appeared to be an endless stream of creepy-crawlies—and her tiny little eyebrows formed a malicious ‘V’ above her narrowed eyes.

“Ooh, spiders!” Reaching out, Blackbird plucked a wriggling eight-legged horror from the seething hoard, examined it for a moment, and then popped it into her mouth in the same manner that one might do with popcorn. Several legs scurried against her lip and there was a loud chitinous crunch when she chomped down.

At the same moment, the horrific illusion vanished and the filly, covering her eyes with her two front hooves, cried out, “Oh gross! Yuck! You’re not supposed to eat those! EUGH!”

“Where’s Dim?” The illusionary essence of what had once been a spider swirled away from Blackbird’s lips while she asked her question and she picked up the alicorn filly once more. “Spill the beans, tot, or else it’ll be you I eat next. Got me? Dim is my friend and he saved me once. He didn’t have to save me… he could have left me and saved his own hide, but he didn’t. So I am returning the favour and I will not be turned away, you annoying, mouthy little shit.”

“Mark my words, your single-mindedness will one day be your undoing.” Hanging by the scruff of her neck from Blackbird’s talons, the filly crossed her forelegs over her barrel and glared in defiance. “This is Dim’s sanctum. He resides in the Pillow Fortress of Seclusion. He needed a soft place to hide away.”

“I think I can deal with a pillow fort,” Blackbird said while dropping the midnight-blue alicorn filly on the ground. “Now, where is he?”

“Try looking?” The filly’s sarcasm was palpable.

Squinting, Blackbird did just that, and was immediately repulsed by the horizon, which played tricks on her. As the walls went zooming away at the speed of perception, she felt herself grow queasy. Looking down, she stared at the floor, she had herself a good think, trying to grasp how this place worked. Shuffling around, she looked at the dead centaur foal and felt pity for him. It felt wrong to leave him there, just lying on the ground in this place, whatever this place was, but she had no idea what to do with him.

Steeling her mind, Blackbird tried again and right away, she wished she hadn’t. The walls did their thing again, stretching the room out to an infinite length, and Blackbird realised that her mind balked at the notion of infinite, endless interiour space. Why, the size of the rug one would need to cover this ugly floor… it was impossible to conceive.

“You’re so dumb,” the filly said to Blackbird in the manner of annoying tykes everywhere, on every plane of existence. “It’s like you existed in a three dimensional plane of existence.”

“Are the walls even real?” Blackbird asked.

“Are the walls even real?” the filly repeated, mocking the much larger hippogriff. “Look at me, I’m a big spider-eating stupidhead that can’t perceive extradimensional spaces because my stupid brain is stunted from existing in such a limited reality.”

“Huh.” Blackbird scratched her chin for a moment and engaged her brain. “What would Dim do in this situation? How would he sort this out?”

This wasn’t regular wizardry, no, this was asshole wizardry, so to sort this out, Blackbird figured she’d have to think like an asshole. Going against her own cheerful nature, she tried to think grumpy, cranky, awful thoughts, and how to be the most acerbic, assholish individual as possible. The answer, it seemed, was sitting right beside her, and Blackbird knew what needed to be done. To find this asshole, she would have to become an asshole.

Reaching out, her talons moving with lightning speed, Blackbird snatched up the filly by her head and then hurled her at the wall with terrific force, but was careful to not actually look at the wall. With a fantastic cry, the filly went hurtling off, tumbling end over end, trailing vulgarities behind her like some profane blue-streak comet. A second later, she struck the wall with a terrific splat, thus proving the wall was a real, tangible force that could be interacted with.

“You unmitigated asshole!” the filly shrieked as she bounced and skidded over the floor after having impacted the wall. When she tumbled to a stop, she rose, defiant, gave herself a shake, and her lip curled back into a snarl at Blackbird.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Blackbird moved with alarming alacrity right for the wall, so much so that the filly had to scramble to get out of the way of the huffing hippogriff hauling ass. Spreading her wings, Blackbird launched herself right for the wall and braced all four of her legs for impact. The room—no, reality—tumbled around her, and for a terrifying moment, Blackbird had no concept of up or down, sort of like flying through a thick fog.

When she opened her eyes, the room had become a hallway. She stood in a narrow space, standing on what had once been a wall, and the floor she had lept from was now the wall beside her. As for the filly, the Essence of Night stood on the wall still, and her mocking laughter echoed through this space. The dead centaur was still stuck upon what had once been a floor but was now a wall.

Blackbird realised that she was in a hallway, an entryway, and ahead of her loomed a door…

Beyond the door was a round room, such as one might find in a tower, and in the center of the room was Dim’s Pillow Fortress of Seclusion. It was exactly the sort of thing that a foal might make, if a foal had a mind-boggling surplus of the most extravagant, most luxurious pillows. When the pain of living proved to be too much, one retreated to a softer place.

“Don’t hurt him.” The filly’s whole demeanour was now changed, and she peered up at Blackbird from where she stood near the hippogriff’s hooves. “Brute force won’t help you here, not in this place. Strength is of no use in this place. Dim has nullified it.”

“Dim?” Blackbird approached the extravagant fort and began to look around for an entrance. Reaching a curtain, she reached down and tried to lift it. When nothing happened, she gave it a stronger tug, and found that it was to no avail; it didn’t budge in the slightest. The fabric was every bit as solid as iron.

“You don’t belong here,” the Essence of Night said to Blackbird in a gentle voice that held no antagonism. “Look at you… you killed an alicorn. You are a monster made of teeth, claws, thewy sinews, and muscles. Everything about you is hard and dangerous.”

Undeterred, Blackbird circled the pillow fort and sought out some other means of entrance. It didn’t matter that she was a hippogriff, that she was a monster; she could be gentle. Her father, Stinkberry, he had taught her meekness. She tried so hard to be gentle and to be somehow unassuming. Dim was one of the most fragile ponies she knew, and she hadn’t broken him just yet, though she had rolled over onto him one night while sleeping.

She had awoken before he had suffocated too much…

“It wasn’t a real alicorn,” Blackbird said to the filly who followed at her heels.

“Does that matter?” the night blue filly replied. “Do you think the common creature knows the difference? They watched you, a hippogriff, dismember and eviscerate the very pinnacle of perfection. If an alicorn is the very peak of perfection, what does that say about you?”

“But I don’t wanna hurt no one!”

“You chucked me against the wall,” the filly said in a knowing sort of way. “And I’m a foal. You didn’t hesitate, not even for a second, you just picked me up by my head with your birdie claws and hurled me. You’re a meanie.”

“You’re not real, so you don’t matter.”

“Oh, I beg to disagree. That hurt. I’m real enough in the way that matters. But I am willing to forgive. They say that forgiveness is divine, you know. Every mortal has a spark of greatness in them because of that.”

Pausing suddenly, the Essence of Night bumped into one of Blackbird’s hind legs, but the thoughtful hippogriff paid it no mind. Reaching out, she grabbed a pillow in her talons, gave it a yank, and grunted when nothing happened, nothing budged, not even a scant inch. Bracing herself, Blackbird put her back into it and applied the same sort of strength she had used to physically pull the alicorn apart—but nothing happened. The pillow fort was utterly undisturbed by her actions.

“Libra said that I had self-ignited my own divinity,” Blackbird said to the filly while she continued to tug and pull on the pillows. “I don’t think it was for forgiveness. What did he mean by that?”

“Well,” the Essence of Night said in a somewhat annoying know-it-all manner, “every single pony has within them an inner-alicorn of sorts. For some, it slumbers. For others, they self-actualise their own potential and awaken to what they are truly capable of, and this inner alicorn awakens. When this happens, they go on to live extraordinary lives, though sometimes in a most ordinary way.”

“I’m not a pony.” Blackbird gave up and sat down upon the floor, almost sitting on her filly companion.

“No, you’re not.” The filly too, sat down, and reaching out one stubby leg, patted Blackbird on the thigh. “You are a creature of chaos and contradiction. Most of you is an earth pony, and this is a problem, because you have wings. You are at your strongest when you have your hind hooves planted on the ground, and let’s face it, most of the time, you are flying. As such, you are cheated of your own strength.”

Frustrated, Blackbird grabbed a corner of a pink velvet pillow and gave it a hard yank—so hard in fact, that she almost dislocated her own shoulder when it didn’t move. To have all of this strength but to be utterly powerless against pillows was disheartening.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but monsters are often robbed of their own potential.”

“Am I really a monster?” Blackbird asked, fearing the answer.

“In the strictest definition of the word, yes.” The filly was apologetic with her reply, and leaned up against Blackbird while rubbing the hippogriff’s thigh. “Many are monsters though, and that’s not a bad thing. Some monsters are frustrated because they don’t fit in, and sometimes, they lash out. They become bad monsters—monstrous monsters… though sometimes it isn’t entirely their fault. Monsters too, need love and self-actualisation, just like everybody else. But it is harder when you are different. Dim is a monster, thoroughly and completely, he was born to be a monster, but does he not have feelings? Does he not fear pain, hurt, and rejection? Dim stood, and I suppose he still stands, upon the precipice of collapsing into his monstrous nature.”

“Is that why he came here?” Blackbird stared at the paradoxical pillow fortress that she could not topple and wished that she could reach Dim. “Rather than risk taking a tumble, did he just run away and hide?”

In a low, squeaky voice, the Essence of Night whispered her reply, “Sometimes the pain of living makes monsters. I know this better than most. My counterpart in the mortal realms, Luna, the pain of living drove her to despair. She wanted love, recognition, self-actualisation, all of those things that are common, garden variety wants… and when she could not have them, she embraced monsterhood. Such is the way of things, sometimes. Luna now has those things, and it is very, very hard for her to un-monster-fy herself so that she might enjoy them. She is healing though, and is learning to cope with the pain of living.”

Was Dim running away a good thing? Blackbird’s brows furrowed and she stared at the impenetrable pillow fortress that was the source of her frustration. Rather than risk the whole of the world, rather than embrace the worst aspects of monsterhood, Dim had withdrawn, perhaps sparing the world of one more monster. Surely, that counted for something, something meaningful even. Maybe Dim wasn’t off just sulking, maybe he was trying to do right in his own messed up way. She was still going to have to sort him out for leaving, but Blackbird was willing to admit that she might have misjudged his motivations.

She reconsidered, and thought about what she had learned among the stars. Since when did Dim care about right or wrong? Rubbing her chin now, Blackbird thought about how she had found Dim in the middle, in the shadow of the scales. One lone candle behind the scales of balance. If Dim hadn’t done this out of a sense of right or wrong, then why? His motivations were maddening, and there were times—such as now—when Blackbird desperately wished that she could understand him.

Dim didn’t care about things being right or wrong, no, Dim mostly cared about what was fair. She thought about the trial that he had presided over and his sentencing. Blackbird recollected all of the times when Dim had become involved in something—right and wrong never motivated him. Dim hadn’t killed Zinc because it was the right thing to do, no, Dim had blown Zinc’s brains out because that was fair. And later that day, Dim had poisoned Grimy’s tea. Thinking back, Blackbird remembered all too well her own hurt and outrage, but her eyes had been opened since then.

Grimy’s death might not have been just, but it was pretty damn fair, when one squinted at it in just the right sort of morally ambiguous way.

Swift Swirl could have been killed without a moment’s hesitation, but Dim had offered mercy instead. Facing great risk, Dim had found a way to save the colt, sparing him from a fate worse than death. There was no good reason to let the colt live other than Dim’s own whims and desires. In showing mercy, Gesundheit gained a helper, and Swift Swirl gained a purpose. Blackbird, though no great philosopher when it came to morality, decided that this outcome was fair.

Where Eerie was a restorer of law and order, Dim was a force for fairness.

“How do I get past these pillows?” Blackbird asked of her filly companion.

“The same way that the Void and I did,” the filly replied.

This made Blackbird think of the centaur foal in the other room, and of the filly sitting beside her. Reaching up with her talons, Blackbird brushed her mane out of her face, blinked, and wondered how pillows could be so impervious. Her claws could gouge chunks out of steel, but she hadn’t been able to leave a single, solitary mark upon these pillows.

“You could go in there right now?” Blackbird glanced down at the filly leaning against her side and contemplated their difference.

“Sure can. But nopony wants gross girls in their fort.” The Essence of Night sighed and pulled herself away from Blackbird. “When the Void arrived, it took him a while to figure things out as well. At least he didn’t throw me against the wall though, so kudos for him. He and Dim spoke for a brief eternity or so, and I watched you blunder your way here. I have no idea what the Void and Dim had to say to one another, and I haven’t asked, so don’t bother interrogating me, spider-eater.”

“The Void gave me some of his power as well—”

“He sure did!” Tiny thunderstorms flashed in the Essence of Night’s eyes and her ears pricked in an aggressive way. “That was a major no-no, and me and my sister, we’re not too happy about that, let me tell you!”

“You are the Star Maiden?” Reaching out her talons, but mindful of her claws, Blackbird poked the filly in her tummy and got a scathing frown in response.

That I am.

“Well, half of her, I suppose.” Blackbird poked the foal in her tummy again, and the thunderstorms roiling in the filly’s eyes intensified. “Aw, come on, don’t be like that. You have nothing to fear from me—”

“Says the crazy alicorn slaying hippogriff that chucked me into the wall.”

“How do I reach Dim so that I can help him?” Blackbird withdrew her tummy-touching talon-finger and did her best to look kind—though tossing the filly against the wall once more remained an option. “I need to get Dim back into the fight. We have a lot to do. There’s a whole lot of the world that needs to be made right. And if things can’t be made right, then maybe Dim and I can make things a little fairer.”

“You’re dense,” the Essence of Night stated in a matter-of-fact sort of way.

“Not that dense,” Blackbird replied. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I can surprise you. Dim would never keep my company if I was dense.”

“Surprise me?” Shaking her head, the little blue alicorn filly let out a haughty huff. “As if.”

Moving with the sort of speed that angry hippogriffs possessed, Blackbird’s talons circled the filly’s throat in less time than it took to blink and then she began squeezing, applying enough force to make the startled alicorn foal’s eyes bulge from their sockets. Yet again, Blackbird lifted her companion from the floor and held her up to eye level.

“I’m pretty sure that was you in that rape nightmare.” Try though she might, Blackbird could not keep her voice from quavering. “So you’d better shut the fuck up about having your head bashed into the wall. Now, if you know what’s good for ya, you tricky little shit, you’ll tell me what I want to know or else I’ll unscrew your head from your neck. Got me?”

“This… this is what keeps you out of Dim’s Pillow Fortress of Seclusion.” Gagging out her reply, the filly kicked, struggled, and thrashed in Blackbird’s grip. “Brute force holds you back, you big dumb hick!”

Scowling, Blackbird gave the half-strangled filly a final spine-compressing squeeze and then dropped her.

“You big, stupid, spider-eating sphinx!” The filly flopped on her back and her legs kicked in every direction while she gasped and hacked. Rolling over, she crawled away on her belly, coughing and spluttering while making inchworm like movements. “I’ll admit to being surprised!”

If being a hippogriff wouldn’t work, if that wouldn’t gain her entrance, then she had to be something else. While the throttled Essence of Night lay heaving on the floor, Blackbird resigned herself to having a good think. The Void had gained entrance somehow, and so had the Essence of Night. Contrary to what she had expected, she didn’t feel better after strangling this annoying whatever it was that had taken the shape of a foal.

It was at this moment that Blackbird had an epiphany.

With her father, Stinkberry, still fresh in her mind, Blackbird allowed his memories to run rampant, even though it hurt a great deal. Stinkberry Coffyn had taught her so much; how to be humble, unassuming, gentle, how to gain the trust of others, and all of the various values of friendship. Blackbird had needed these things, these precious, precious things, and while life wasn’t perfect, far from it in fact, she was able to make friends and sort of fit in, monster or not. Blackbird was a behemoth that lived in a world of little ponies.

Reliving her memories, Blackbird recalled the time when she was just a little nipper, when she was tiny, when she was small enough for her father to cuddle her, as he was wont to do. Before she became a lumbering colossus, she had been his little fuzzball, and when he held her, he would blow into her ears to annoy her. In response, she would ‘rawr’ at him, but she had learned not to bite him, claw him, or otherwise do him harm for being an annoyance. Those lessons in play had been her first lessons in being gentle.

Yes, she was a titan that could rip the wing off of some pseudo-alicorn, but she had also been the caretaker of ducks, chickens, and geese. Blackbird had proven that she could be trusted with the tiniest and most fragile of lives. Yes, she was a hippogriff, but she was also an earth pony, a fact that she now knew that she had sorely neglected. Her father was an earth pony that respected life, all life, and Stinkberry had loved what many might consider unloveable.

With these thoughts, Blackbird felt herself shrinking, growing smaller. Why growing smaller? That was a contradiction in terms, but then again, she was a contradiction in creatures, so she supposed it was okay. As Blackbird shrank in size, the pillow fort grew larger, until it became a grand imposing structure fit for a prince in exile.

One day, her prince might come, hopefully in a nice, pleasant way that wasn’t at all rapey and scary, as it had been in the dream. Blackbird was eager for that day to happen, but they had to find her mother first—together. The smaller Blackbird became, the idea of being with Dim in that way at first made her shudder, then repulsed her, and then she found it absolutely disgusting.

Did she really want to go inside of a colt’s fort?

Ick.

Who knew what he might be doing in there?

Ick.

“Be brave,” the Essence of Night said and there was no trace of mockery in her voice.

Blackbird, now a tiny little nipper once more, had a good look at her stubby forelegs, her tiny clawed talon-fingers, and she gave them an experimental wiggle. Her wings were almost too small to fly with, and her bottom was a lot chubbier than she remembered it being. She might’ve gone past the little nipper stage, right to fluffy fuzzball.

Reaching out, Blackbird poked the pillow palace with her talon-finger and felt softness. She was now a soft thing, with a pleasantly plush petable pudge. Now, she was more sleek, chubby housecat than death on black wings, though what an odd, disturbing housecat she was. Marvelling at the vagaries of magic, she gave the pillow palace another poke.

Grabbing a corner of a blanket, she lifted it up and peered into the darkness within…

Author's Notes:

So, uh, Blackbird is travelling along her own Hero's Arc, her own monomyth.

Where are we now?