=Some One Shot=

Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBkRrXK147g

>You’re Princess Twilight Sparkle and you’re doing something you’ve…never really done before, in a place you’d never even heard of.
>The Frostback Mountains you were sent to blew a harsh and bone-chilling wind through the canyon you found yourself standing in. You increased the power of the enchantment keeping you warm.
>It had all started when you were with Princess Celestia and a messenger arrived. Celestia saw to it quickly, stepping away from the experiment you were running together at the time, which was odd for her.
>What happened next was…unnerving.
>Celestia had shooed the messenger out of the room and locked the door, leaving only the two of you inside as she went to the fireplace and threw the letter in.
“Princess?” you had asked, tearing her away from staring at the flames consume the parchment after a minute or two.
>”Twilight.” She had answered. “I have a very important assignment for you…one I’m afraid your friends cannot accompany you on.”
>You had gulped, the last time she asked that you woke up with wings and a crown.
>Celestia had packed a bag for you as quickly as she informed Luna who organized a private train to take you north to the mountains with the same anxiety Celestia showed.
>It hadn’t been twenty minutes since the letter arrived that Celestia was giving you a lingering hug goodbye on the train platform, saddlebags on your back and only a vague instruction to “Follow your instincts to find your way.” Once you got to the mountains.
>And before the door had closed, she looked down at you…almost sad.
>”Be careful My Precious Student…” she had said. “And keep all your knowledge close to you…you will surely need all of it for what you face.”
“What do you mean, Princess?” you’d queried.
>Before the door slammed shut and the train left the station, Celestia answered one question you hadn’t even asked.
>”We call him…Anonymous.”

>And so hear you stood, at the literal mouth of a cave with a face.
>The face, carved expertly into the side of a mountain, extended a natural rock bridge out of it which met you on the other side of a gorge.
>You hazarded a look down the drop and felt a wave of vertigo wash over you as you caught the tip of a jagged rock at the bottom of the dizzying drop. You step back and take a breath, preparing yourself.
>Okay…so something clearly had Celestia and Luna on edge and they had sent you, alone, into the middle of nowhere where you’d wandered around for almost two hours aimlessly before you followed a sort of…singing sound to this place. And now you were staring at the face of a creature you only recognized from a trip through a magical mirror, and even then just barely.
>Also there was now someone looking at you.
>Wait what?
>You look to the entrance of the mouth-cave and there is indeed…something standing there. It’s far, but you see it standing tall atop two long legs.
>Well…introductions were in order.
>You wave your hoof over your head.
“Hello! Are you who I’m supposed to meet?!”
>What responds to you comes from the valley itself.
>”Princess Twilight Sparkle, we know who you are. You are welcome here.” Says a calm and melodic voice which echoes along the icy walls.
>You wince a bit until the high pitched resonance of the ice stops.
>”Please, come inside.” The voice says.
>Well…invitations were invitations.
>You began to walk along the too-natural bridge and took the opportunity to look at the facial carving up close.
>It stretched up some two hundred feet along the jagged stone wall in another almost natural pattern, as if the stone had been weathered by the elements in that shape by some unknown force…preparing it for whomever you were to meet with here.
>As you cross under its dreaming eyes, you feel for a moment that you are being observed. A feeling that passes quickly but leaves the hoof-print of judgment.

“This is…a nice home you have he-EEP.”
>You stop mid trot as you reach the standing figure and even begin to back-peddle a bit at the sight.
>He…IT stood high above you “looking” down. Except in place of any eyes, nose, or other features and wrapped in a void black suit and tie with two glowing symbols were only stars.
>Stars and nebula and exploding supergiants forming the base core for spinning spiral galaxies. All encased and molded into the shape of a biped.
>One that puts its stellar hands together and bows down to you.
>”Your Highness.” He says with his soothing voice. “I am Nebuchadnezzar. I welcome you to this place.”
“N-Nebuchadnezzar? Not…Anonymous?”
>Nebuchadnezzar rises up to his full proper stature. “No. You refer to my master, the lord of this place.”
“I…see. And you…?”
>”I shall take you to him.”
>Nebuchadnezzar turns on his heel and gestures down the ice lined hallway. “If you will follow?”
>You nervously nod and follow “him” down the hall.
>While walking through the howling ice caverns, your mind races. Who was he? Who was Anonymous? How could such a creature come into existence? He was made of STARS! Was he warm to be around? Could he control that? Is there a race of star-people that you don’t know about? Does he need to eat? Does he need to sh-
>”The master will answer all questions in time, Princess Twilight.”
>You think of nothing before thinking “Can he hear what I think?”

>Nebuchadnezzar leads you through a tunnel cut from solid ice deeper into the…wherever you were. You can look around and see the frozen victims of the planets ice age still trapped and preserved in the cold.
>The thought of that chills you more than the climate can.
>The ice and cold gives way to…rock. Carved rock. Carved rock in a constricted pattern. You gasp quietly to yourself as Nebuchadnezzar leads you into a beautiful amphitheater with gray trees growing up the masonry.
>Looking past your guide as he leads you along a magic path of light, you see a glowing white tree.
>What’s more, you hear it.
>Faint whispers rise from the grooves between its bark and fill the room with a chorus of hushed tones, each saying something different and particular.
>The two of you pass by the tree, you’re prepared to not give it a second thought until-
>”The cypher to Starswirl’s research is…”
>You pause and turn to look at the tree at rocket speed.
>You’d been trying to crack that cypher for months, the secrets of all of Starswirl’s most advanced spells were locked inside that tome!
>You had to know, you just had to.
>Stopping a bit to let Nebuchadnezzar walk ahead, you reach tilt your head a bit towards the tree to try and he-
>”Please do not touch the Infinitree.”
>You scramble back to the path, Nebuchadnezzar is standing looking back at you.
>”This is the first branch to reach this place, we have not tamed it yet.”
>An untamed tree…
“O-of course. Sorry.”
>Nebuchadnezzar continues down the path towards double doors in the distance.
>”Come, the master awaits.”

>The doors open for Nebuchadnezzar before he reaches it, beyond is a circular room of solid ice, the walls consisting of jagged crystalline growths contrasting with the smooth and not-slippery-at-all floor. In the center of the room stood a wooden table and chair. In that chair rested a clothed figure, another biped.
>It was smaller than you’d expected. About half again or so as tall as a pony. Covered in what looked to be fine silks that hung off its leg as it rested it in the air, leaning into its fist while reading what looked like a leather bound journal.
>”Master.” Nebuchadnezzar says with a bow. “May I present Princess Twilight Sparkle, first of her line, Princess of Equestria and student of Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria.”
>The unmistakable sound of a book being closed comes from the table as the figure perks up and turns its head. You catch a glimpse of fine but narrow features with dark eyes behind them.
>”I see…you may leave, Neb.”
>Nebuchadnezzar bows. “Master.” And leaves, closing the doors behind you and leaving you alone with…
“…Anonymous? Is that you? Are you Anonymous?”
>He pushes himself up from the chair and walks over to you, the sound of his footwear echoing through the hall.
>His eyes drift over you and you him. He stands before you with his hands in his pockets, his face a noble one with raven colored hair. “I’ve held many names in my years, child…Anonymous is the one I am called here.”
>You nod in understanding.
>”Your kind had no word for me when we met the first time, so they used one to describe the unknown…one must appreciate the theatrics of it all..”

“I...see.” you say.
>”Why are you here?” he asks bluntly.
“Oh, uhm, Princess Celestia received a note about you? After that I was…sent off on a train here.”
>He closes his eye sighs, it feels like the whole MOUNTAIN sighs and a gust of wind carries through the room.
>”This again…one tries to get away…” He says as he paces around pinching the bridge of his nose.
>You tap your hooves on the ground. 
“Uh…right. We’re sorry?”
>He sighs tiredly again.
>You look Anoynmous over inquisitively, he was bipedal like Nebuchadnezzar, but seemed to possess skin, a main, eyes and ears, just like you. Or at least closer to you.
“Anonymous…you and Nebuchadnezzar…what are you? I’ve never seen the likes of you before. I’ve never seen the likes of you before.”
>Anonymous is silent for a moment.  “What I am…what I am…”
>”What I am is much more difficult to describe than you would think, child.”
“And why is that?”
>Anonymous stands before you with a small smile as he holds his arms out wide, clattering the ice crystals with an invisible presence.
>”Because there is infinitely more to me than meets the eye.”
“Try me…”
>Anonymous chuckles and takes a few steps closer to you. “Daring…I certainly see Celestia’s grooming on you, My Little Princess…” he looks at both sides of you again. “Celestia and Luna…among others…both demanded I share with them what you’re asking for. Are you saying you wish to follow their path?”
>You nod once, you wanted some answers as to what was going on.
>Anonymous smiles wide. “Very well then…let us begin.” He says taking a few steps back.
>Despite his words, nothing happens for moments.
“Uhm…how are we going to do that?”
>”Quite simple, Princess.” He says. “I’ve been releasing spores into the air that I may communicate with via my mind since you entered the room, by now they’ve latched onto your brain and should be ready to induce a hallucination.”
>WHAT.
>”Now.” Anon says with a click of his hands.

>Princess Celestia had taught you how to fend off mental attacks and you wasted no time in erecting magical barriers around your thoughts out of instinct.
>They delayed things long enough for you to see something through the link between your mind and Anonymous’.
>You saw a field of stars and galaxies and exploding supernovas stretching out beyond eternity towards. Comets race by and smash into one another and cosmic energy tails snake along and through every inch of space towards a brilliant green sun’s corona peering over a spot of utter darkness.
>Before your mental barriers are shattered like single tree trying to stop a tidal wave, you see the star blink at you.
>White hot pain fills your mind and forces your eyes shut.
>When you open your eyes, you’re on a field of sand that stretched as far as you could see. You look to both sides and see the burnt out husks of what could have once been trees as the four winged scavangers flap between then.
>Behind you is some…grotesquery you can’t begin to describe the nature of beyond its distended limbs, skeletal chest, and chitanous head…and the fiery ooze seeping from some “orifice” below its waste.
>”Welcome.” Says a voice.
>You turn your head forward and see Anonymous now standing amongst the sand.
“Where-“
>”We are exactly where we were Twilight, fear not. Physically you and I are standing in my study whilst I communicate with the spores in your brain and command them to let you see and hear and feel what you must while also ensuring you don’t drool over yourself.”
>You’re taken aback.
“And after?”
>”We return, you have my word.”
>You put the hoof you raised in concern down and nod. 
“Why are we here?”

>Anonymous bends down and picks something minuscule off the ground, releasing it and letting it float to you.
>”I was made aware of your trip through the mirror so that allows me to leave some explanation absent.”
>A single grain of sand floats before you, utterly simple and identical to the ones home.
>”In this analogy, consider that that grain of said…is your universe.”
“My –what-?”
>”Universe, dimension, reality, it doesn’t matter. The point is, consider that the boundaries of everything you could encounter in your local plane. Born out of an explosive expansion some billions of years ago and made out of a never-changing amount of both matter and energy.”
>You nod, you know that.
“Which cannot be created nor destroyed.”
>Anonymous snaps and raises a finger. “Quite so, always nice to speak to someone who knows what they’re talking about. Celestia was –very- ignorant when we first met.”
>Anonymous spreads his arms out and spins around, gesturing at the desert.
>”Now imagine every other grain in this waste is another parallel reality. Some so similar to each other that you could spend a lifetime searching for any distinction. Others so radically different, they defy comprehension to you.”
>You blink once, twice, three times in consideration. You’d hypothesized about the nature of existence like this before but…
“That…many?”
>”Mhm!”

>Anonymous floats additional single grains up. “Here you were born in place of Celestia, here you died shortly after you were born, and here you’ve lived your entire life exactly the same as you have now down to the atom save for the fact that you and your friends only speak Prench.”
>Anonymous lets the grains float away in the wind.
>This was…so much…
“O-okay.” You stammer under the weight.
>”And so, as discussed, all of these realities spawned from the same place. The Big Bang. And they all came into being with the same matter, energy, and potential as each other, the only difference is the variables that effected them.”
“Yes? And?”
>Anonymous holds his arms out.
>”And so this is beyond that. Before. This place was not made with the matter from your Big Bang, it is outside that equation.”

“How did you get here? With us? In our world?” you ask.
>”Aaaah…” Anonymous says, leaning back a bit. “In order to tell that story, I must first tell another one. A tale that speaks to my very purpose, a tale of war.”
>The ground beneath your hooves rumbles and quakes and far off on the horizon, slithering black tentacles the size of mountains erupt up from the ground and shoot into the sky.
“WHAT IS THAT!?” you cry.
>”My Mother.” Anonymous answers, looking to the sky.
>You follow his gaze up to a maddening burst of lights and chaotic sound that engulfed the heavens despite being absent previously.
>You can’t take your eyes off it as the tentacles enclose on it and the thundering drums that seem to emanate from its nucleus of light grow more rapid.
“What…is THAT?”
>”Her husband.” You get in response.
>The country sized wiggling appendages reach towards the light and sound and make the pressure build up in your head. You hear the chattering of teeth and the clinking of bone as you squint your ever-heating eyes for you dare not tear them away.
>The drums and teeth and bones grew louder and the lights flashed brighter until they violently ceased in an explosion that sent a wave of…nothing all around it.
>The cascade blew over the land you were on, draining it of color and making all silent save for you and Anonymous.
>”Mother killed her mate and unleashed His power…taking a terrible toll on our home.”
>”But it was not without its own…opportunity.”

>The visions around you accelerate. Flickers of shapes and figures zip by you while Anonymous talks.
>”In our home, Mother’s husband’s power was so great that our fates were written in the blood that the stars dripped down to our sands. Each moment of our lives determined as we were birthed in our pools.”
>He reaches down and grabs a handful of sand, letting it fall through his fingers. “However with His death, our threads were cut. All fates would be the same…to die on this spot of mud in a place alone to all.”
>Above you, the stars in the sky began to wink out.
>”…Until.”
>The light of the stars instead makes way to a warm orange glow from above where that…thing in the sky made of shapes was. In its place there was a thing that did not belong.
>The sky was cracked. And beyond it rested light.
>”The death of the Many Angled One broke our plane…made a crack in the vase that contained us. And beyond it, salvation.”
>Anonymous extends a hand towards the fracture and the vision speeds through it. Light and color and sound zip past you until you arrive at the other side where you both float in a cosmic sea of silent dust and fire.

>”There was a beacon, a lightning striking land to signal a ship in danger…an explosion.”
“A Big Bang…” you say.
>-Your- Big Bang, Twilight Sparkle. As much as one individual can lay claim to the beginning of their creation, anyway.”
>Anonymous waves a hand and shapes appear around you, fleshy beasts of bone and sinew and palps and stalks floating through the cosmic furnace around you.
>”My kind saw this warmth and we followed, taking refuge from our dying world in this pocket of infinity. Thus we existed inside your cycle, despite being outward of it.”
>Planets and comets zip by as Anonymous moves the vision again. “My kin settled around. Some on some worlds, others on others. Some wandered, as I do.”
>One familiar planet comes into sight. The two of you racing through time and space to a secluded range of mountains and the citadel inside, through the rock and stone to two waiting figures standing in a crystal room.

>You open your eyes, you and Anonymous have not moved from the room you stood in.
>”Satisfied with your answers?”
>You pant a bit and catch your breath. That was…breathtaking, if you could excuse yourself for the pun.
“I’ll be fine…although I want to know something else.”
>”I have the feeling that’s common with you. Ask.”
“In that vision, you said that it was a tale of war and that it “spoke to your purpose”, what did you mean?”
>Anonymous smiles and takes a few steps closer to you, kneeling down.
>”Where there is life, there is conflict. That is what I have learned in my time in this realm. In our realm, this was not the case. Fate determined that none would rise up against the Many Angled One as he decreed it. Mother’s rebelling was the first act that worked, but it was not the first she tried. That was me.”
>You cock an eyebrow.
“You.”
>”Yes, very much. Mother created me to embody conflict, both the biological march of change and the sociological war of passions. I was to be the first real conflict of our world, but fate was too strong. Eventually…Mother intervened.”
>Anonymous holds his paw forward and you watch as its shape shifts. “Where there is life, there is conflict. In order for more cells to be made, others must die. Trillions upon trillions of deaths take place across your body every second of every day, an eternal war of survival and evolution that happens in every being on every world in every reality.”
>Anonymous bumps your hoof with his which now replaces his hand. “All of this and more is my domain.”

>You’re busy marveling at Anonymous’ rapid change while he talks.
>”When I arrived, I wandered amongst the stars, enjoying the freedom being cut from fate brought me and watching the denizens of planets exercise it as well. More often than not, that will was exercised in conflict that bloodied the stars. At times I watched, at times I fought, at times I commanded. My campaign across the cosmos has been long indeed, Twilight Sparkle, and it was what lead me to your world.”
>That was troubling.
“How?”
>Anonymous sighs and withdraws his hoof, reverting it quickly to its original form. “There are times when I find myself…weary in my travels.”
“Weary?” you ask, trotting around him.
>Anonymous nods. “To live something day in and day out I find here becomes…tiring, perhaps the effect of the free will I now exercise, perhaps another, but I would just…sit for eons unending as I grew weary of my purpose. That was, until I found this place.”
“That’s…ominous.”
>Anonymous, surprisingly, chuckles. That makes the ice shake. “Yes I suppose it would be…but it is better than that, I promise. Your world had life…but it did not have conflict, at least not to the extent that the rest of the cosmos had.”
>Anonymous waves a hand and a chair slides across the room and spins around towards you, letting him sit.
>”Your ancestors, your tribes of Pegusi, Unicorns, and Terrans lived in a harmonic unity rarely seen in nature, only splitting due to outside forces. Before them even the primordial deities I watched, Sleipnir, Ordalia of the Golden City, Typhon, lived peacefully in their realms of influence.”
>Anonymous sighs…but a content one. “Here one could evade the mires of the norm…and catch their breath.”
“But that’s not true.”
>Anonymous opens one eye.

“We’ve had conflicts, monsters, Discord and Sombra and Tirek in addition to Grogar and Smooze of old. What about them?”
>Anonymous smiles. “What about them?”
>”Tell me, if Discord could do anything at all, how did he lose to Celestia and Luna? Unless…someone were occupying his attention for the final strike.”
“You’re suggesting that you were there when Discord fell, really.” You say.
>You feel the pang in your head of the spores effecting you. In your mind flashes an image from behind another’s eyes.
>You’ve got Discord pinned on the ground, letting you slash at his face with your molten claws before going in to bite. You relished the shocked look on his face when he realized he was hurt.
>”He disturbed my time here, I did not care for that…”
>Anonymous taps his steeple fingers together. “Which I believe brings us to why you are here…”

>You straighten yourself. Your scientific curiosity had gotten the better of you, but you remembered you were sent here on a mission.
“Yes, the note, Princess Celestia i-“
>”She is concerned with The Breach…you know it, yes?”
>You gulp. The Breach was a crack in the world few but the highest scholars knew of, it was the source of magical energy that emanated from it and drifted over the planet, making the lay lines that allowed magic to happen.
“I do.”
>”What you do not know is that my presence here effects it, as a planet of sufficient mass effects the gravity around it. Your Celestia is worried that my being here in my…doldrums will affect The Breach, widen it, and swallow your world whole.”
>Your heart beats in your ears.
>”And she has sent you…to fix that problem.”
>anonymous stands and you gulp. He seemed a lot taller now and his eyes bored right through you.
>”So do what you came here to do, Princes Twilight. Stop me.”
>The package. The package! Now was the time for the package!
>You reach in and pull out.
>…A deck of cards.
>…
“Uhm…f-friendly game?” you stammer out.
>You were dead, you were so dea-

>“HA! AHAHAHAHAHA!”
>Anonymous leans his head back and laughs, mouth far too wide open and fangs showing, shaking the building.
>You laugh along for fear of being eaten.
“Hahahahaha! Whatarewelaughingat!”
>”You equines…”Friendship is Magic” indeed…that old trick should not work on me-“
>anonymous snaps and a part of the ice table expands, along with another chair sliding over.
>”-but here we are.”
>Anonymous sits down. “Perhaps that is why I continue to come back and care for this place…Now come, let me deal and you may tell me of your latest experiments.”
>You trot over and cock and eyebrow, but you have a smile this time. 
“You watch me?”
>Anonymous grabs the deck and cuts and shuffles it, flipping cards out. “I am a resident deity, I watch everything.”
>You take your seat on the comfy chair and begin discussing teleportation with the Monster From Beyond the Stars.
>And finally, you weren’t nervous or scared.
>As you knew as well as anyone, everyone needed a friend sometimes.