Background Pony

XIX - Diminuendo

"If you must know, lost one, it began with a question, and not with an exclamation. That which was once singular desired truth, and so it became many. In this quest for knowledge, the one broke itself down into many parts, each ringing with a different sound, repeated into the bowels of oblivion like a chorus. The song was born, and it was neither a sob nor a laugh; that would come later, for it hadn't yet realized that once the barrier was shattered, everything would break and break forever."

I panted, eyes darting left and right across the darkness. I heard the voice; I knew the voice. It had been whispered into my ears all my life, even before I was born. I just didn't realize it until then, until I was in that place. The beat of my heart gave meter to the words, giving them meaning and comprehension that I couldn't afford until that very second, submerged within the darkness.

"Someday, the shattered pieces will become so small, that they will lack the breath to share with each other the answer that they have so disparately learned. Then, in the great dark silence of the universe's tragic end, the many will become the one once more."

A gasp escaped my lips. Petrified, I stared as Creation unfolded before me. The swirling lines of a labyrinthine forest melted through the obsidian veil. Tree trunks formed around the scene, glorious and ancient. I saw an emerald glade stretching before me, awash in twilight. Leaves fell from the branches above, scattering across the tranquil scene. In the centermost halo of pale light, a beautiful equine figure reclined on a bed of soft earth. Her coat glittered with the aura of a billion tiny constellations. An ethereal mane of indigo shades rippled in a magic wind. The twilight caught a sheen of sweat on her neck, and it was then that I realized that she was convulsing in agony.

"She too was a part of the song, the same song that created the universe, that painted it with both joy and sorrow. For all of her power, for all her ambition and will to create, she was yet to realize that for every song of exultation there needed to be a funeral dirge. Who could have blamed her? She was carrying out the will of the music, for the music was her. Up until that moment, she wrote ballads only for herself. It never occurred to her that she would win an audience among the dead."

With a shriek that could pierce the heavens, the Matriarch raised her muzzle toward the air. A holy sound came from her, bombastic and full of purpose. The trees shook and the grass billowed in cyclonic currents. Far above, the stars quivered as the entire universe buckled in anticipation of the immortal songstress' symphony. And yet, as the minutes, hours, days, years, and eons rolled by, she thrashed and quivered upon her side, her rear legs spreading and bending with each wave of pain that soared through her.

She wasn't alone. A distraught alicorn stood at her side, pacing about her front and back end, tilting her horn forward and casting spell after spell to alleviate the Matriarch's labor pains. With a pale expression of fright, young Celestia hovered at her mother's side, powerless to make the birth transpire any smoother.

"Up until that time, lost one, she had performed her duties towards one singular purpose: to seed life. But the very reason she existed in the first place was because purpose was no longer singular. For the sake of understanding the one, the music had unraveled itself to become the many. She was an immortal, incapable of grasping the truth that the one sought. The music held a greater divinity than her. She was its unfortunate vessel, a prism through which light was bent to pierce the furthest reaches of this new and bleak universe. Between light and darkness, there had to be a barrier. Between day and night, there had to be twilight."

The Matriarch suffered a final spasm. Her face streamed with tears. Celestia knelt down beside her to perform the delivery, but whatcame out of the Matriarch was as silent and still as stone. A pale light rippled across Creation as the music broke into dissonant sounds, grating and off-key. Then, with the grace of an endless sigh, the fractured song echoed into oblivion. A throng of leaves fell from above while the trunks of the nearby trees withered and dried up. The grass turned to brown, wilted stalks, and the soil beneath morphed into dry, caked stone.