The Flame of Thymos
by Flashgen
Twilight Sparkle held many things in high regard: Princess Celestia, her friends, her family, but the first and greatest of them all was knowledge. To know things gave understanding, reason, logic through which other things could be bent to comprehension. However, she did not mistake knowing things for being correct or for absolute understanding. In the collective knowledge of ponykind, her knowledge was but a drop in a bucket; in the collective knowledge of Equus, that bucket could not even match a fraction of a lake; in the collective knowledge beyond Equus, if such places existed, that lake would look to an ocean as a drop of water to a lake.
She also did not take knowledge and its sources for granted. Twilight knew that for her to read something in a book, somepony must have had to view it as worth knowing, and committed it to those pages. For them to have learned it, someone else must have taught it to them, or their natural curiosity must have driven them to the dark corners of the world or forgotten shelves of libraries in the search for answers. And, if like her, they had found it in another book, this property of value and effort would have compounded back through the ages.
That was how Twilight even had a book from ancient Pegasopolis on her desk, obtained by the Canterlot library and translated into modern Ponish multiple times. And her own curiosity was why she had even pulled it from a shelf, fascinated by the title on even a glance. That self-same curiosity then drove her into maps and books on cave diving and, eventually, to a worn shrine in a forgotten cavern.
Against all efforts to keep something forgotten and buried, that chain of curiosity and knowledge had led her there.
That was how Twilight Sparkle found The Flame of Thymos.
Rainbow Dash yawned as she awoke and turned over on her cloud perch. It was just before noon when she had found it, only a few short hours after her weather duty shift had started, and as the evening sun began to dip towards the horizon, she considered it a day well spent. Sure, there might have been a few stray stormclouds in the air and a cumulus or two out of place, but it wasn’t something anypony would actually notice. Even if they did, it wouldn‘t take more than a few seconds of effort to clear them.
Taking a moment to stretch her legs, Rainbow Dash finally stood and looked down at the streets of Ponyville. From above, she could see most of the main thoroughfare through the markets and past Town Hall, and it quickly took her by surprise. Where she had expected to see bustling streets of ponies finishing up their days or talking to one another, she instead found them deserted.
Craning her neck to look at the edge of town, out towards the Everfree Forest and Sweet Apple Acres, she was only met with empty dirt roads and the faint shifting of signs and trees in the evening breeze. She couldn’t even see ponies moving around through the windows. A hint of worry bubbled in her stomach, but she brushed it aside.
“Must be one of Pinkie’s surprise parties… and a pretty quiet one at that,” she muttered to herself as she took to the air, swooping down and then gliding towards Sugarcube Corner.
As she descended below the rooftops, she noticed tattered curtains and broken shutters on windows. Doors hung open on their hinges, and the broken remains of wagons were shoved into alleys.
The worry began to bubble again, and Rainbow Dash picked up speed. When she arrived, she found the windows flung open and the door hanging ajar. “Pinkie Pie?!” she called out, resting a hoof on the door. The only reply was her voice echoing back at her. “If this is some kind of surprise, it better be a good one… and you know my birthday was already two weeks ago, right?”
Pushing the door slowly, the creak sent a shiver up Rainbow Dash’s spine. She slammed it with all her might as she barreled inside and clenching her eyes shut in anticipation of blinding lights and a stream of confetti. The door thudded against the wall, creaking once more as it came to a stop.
It was abandoned, its lights off, but the room was in disarray. Smashed cakes and cupcakes littered the walls and floors, the front display of glass was shattered, and the door leading to the kitchen had been torn out of the frame.
“Pinkie?! Pinkie, are you here?!” she shouted, flying to the kitchen to find it in the same messy state. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake?!” Rainbow Dash flew up the stairway, finding the doors to each room flung open wide. While she found yet more confectionery carnage and shattered furniture, there wasn’t a sign of anypony or where they could have gone.
Rainbow Dash’s mind swam with possibilities: a changeling attack, a beast from the Everfree, some magical spell or artifact gone awry. “Twilight,” she muttered, “I gotta find Twilight. If anypony could survive some mess like this, it’s her.”
Flying back downstairs and into the streets, Rainbow Dash tried to keep calm and orient herself towards the library. She stopped, however, when she caught a glimpse of color, out of place in the sky. Three pegasi, flying towards Ponyville. Squinting, Rainbow Dash lifted up into the air, putting on her flight goggles to block out the glare of the sunset.
As she got over the roofs, she could make them out clearly: Thunderlane, Cloudy Skies, and Blossomforth. They were barreling towards her, and she breathed a sigh of relief to see another pony. “Thank goodness!” she shouted, flying towards them. “What the hay is going on, where is everypony?!”
Even as she approached them, the pegasi weren’t slowing down. Rainbow Dash spared a glance over her shoulder, but there was only blank sky behind her. “Guys?” She began to back up, flexing her wings in preparation to move.
Thunderlane barreled forward, hooves outstretched and screaming at the top of his lungs. Rainbow Dash flapped hard and flew above him, watching as he quickly spun to turn back towards her.
Blossomforth and Cloudy Skies were neck and neck, screaming as well. Rainbow Dash twisted and dove down, just before the two converged where she was and hit one another, sending them both spiraling down the ground below.
“You know you don’t wanna mess with me!” she shouted, turning to Thunderlane. “Especially if you’re changeling spies!”
Thunderlane surged forward, tackling Rainbow Dash. The two began to spin head over tail as she tried to kick him away. With his face inches from her, she saw a light burning in his eyes: a sickly orange and red like a roaring blaze. As she screamed, the same light shone through his mouth.
With a solid hind kick, Rainbow Dash tore herself away, and the two dove back and forth, Thunderlane hot on Rainbow Dash’s tail. Even as she flew towards the streets, she couldn’t seem to shake him. Whatever had happened, it was clear he wasn’t himself, and that probably went from Blossomforth and Clear Skies too. That worry began to bubble up as Rainbow Dash thought of her friends.
“The Flame!” Thunderlane finally shouted, his primal scream ended. “The Flame needs you! You need The Flame!”
“The Flame! The Flame!” Blossomforth and Clear Skies’ voices echoed through the streets. Rainbow Dash could tell they were converging on her once again, but she also knew she was faster than them, stronger than them.
Barreling down an alleyway, Rainbow Dash sped up, daring to take a blind turn into the streets. And as she came out, Blossomforth and Clear Skies were right where she wanted them. With a spin and a barrel roll, she doubled back down the alley, right into and then past Thunderlane.
They crashed into a set of carts, their screams and shouts fading to silence. As quickly as she could, Rainbow Dash made for the library, hope burning in her chest that Twilight was there.
What she found was another empty, disheveled building. Books were strewn across the floor, but the furniture and doors were intact. Something about it was different from Sugarcube Corner. Even though the books littered the floor, they were open to earmarked pages, with passages circled and underlined. Stranger, they were laid out around the center table, next to an empty glass case and a far older looking book.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t make heads or tails of what any of it meant. There were words like Power, Allure, and Mighty, but one stuck out, one she had heard shouted at her: Flame.
The Flame of Thymos, the book had called it: an artifact thought lost in ancient Pegasopolis. It made no mention of what it was or did or why it was important, only talking about where it once was and where it may have been lost. And there, in the margin of a page, were words in fresher ink, in hoofwriting she had seen before: Twilight’s.
[i]“I know where it is. I know where I can find it.”
“How to activate it? What does it do? What was it for?”
“It’s beautiful, entrancing.”
As she flipped through the pages, a slip of parchment fell out. Rainbow Dash picked it up and turned it over.
“The Flame burns in the back of my mind. A fire without fuel yearns for knowledge to feed it. Even with my eyes shut, I see it, blazing stronger with every second. It longs to be seen, to be known. It longs for me to show others. I know I won’t be able to hold back forever.
Don’t look into the light. Stop me, please.”
Among the scattered books was a map of Ponyville with the edge of the Everfree circled and the word “Leyline.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t know what she needed to do, but she at least knew where to go.
Perched atop a storm cloud, Rainbow Dash slowly crept towards the Everfree Forest. Static and potential tingled her hooves and the edges of her flight feathers with every flap towards her destination. The sun had crept below the horizon, but she was certain if she moved too quickly, or without cover, she’d be spotted for sure, even under the dim light of twilight.
Before long, a chorus rose above the wind and rustle of leaves, and she saw a light shining through the distant canopy, the same sickly light that had been in Thunderlane’s eyes. With her goggles on tight, she began to drift down.
One voice called out, louder than the rest. “The Flame of Thymos burns!” Twilight shouted, and the voices echoed her words.
“The Flame of Thymos burns for power and for hope! The Flame of Thymos yearns for knowledge and to be known! The Flame of Thymos blazes through our minds, through our eyes, through the world and worlds beyond!”
As Rainbow Dash came to a rest over the canopy, she spotted them in the clearing: everypony from Ponyville packed together, their gazes on the light just out her sight. Their eyes shimmered with it, their bodies swayed with it.
“The Light! The First Light!” Twilight proclaimed, the light shifting, as if lifted from its spot. The crowd fell silent. “Plucked from the Heavens for mortal eyes, for mortal hooves, for mortal minds! Knowledge and knowing! Learning and yearning! Feeding on the fuel that it births to feast upon it again!”
The crowd stamped their hooves. Rainbow Dash flexed her wings and closed her eyes.
“With the Power of this place, The Flame of Thymos shall burn brighter still! Its light shall shine as a new dawn, to replace the false sun that took its place when it was plucked from the Heavens!”
Through her shut eyes, Rainbow Dash could see the light burning. It refracted into a kaleidoscope in the darkness, and she felt something clawing at her mind. Words filled her eyes, muffled and distant.
"Let our ravenous hunger be fed, let The Flame be fed, let The Light be fed!"
Rainbow Dash felt another jolt of static arc through her, her wings fluttering with power. She let go of a breath she had been holding and dove down. As lightning arced through her, connected to the storm cloud, she rocketed down. The light burned brighter through her shut eyes, the voices grew louder, and a fire lit in the back of her mind. With her hooves outstretched, she followed the flame,the voices, the light. The crowd erupted into shouts of anger, hooves stomped and wings flapped. She even felt the grip of magical energy around her.
But it was too late. As Rainbow Dash took The Flame of Thymos from Twilight, she flew up and then slammed it down onto the ground. The path, as short as it existed, was enough for the bolt of lightning to fly from the cloud to The Flame. With a clap of thunder and the shattered of glass, the light faded from her eyes and the flame was extinguished in her mind.
The terrible voice in her mind screamed and then fell silent.
When Rainbow Dash dared to open her eyes, she saw the crowd collapsing, but Twilight stood tall.
The sickly light faded to embers in her eyes, and she smiled.
She also did not take knowledge and its sources for granted. Twilight knew that for her to read something in a book, somepony must have had to view it as worth knowing, and committed it to those pages. For them to have learned it, someone else must have taught it to them, or their natural curiosity must have driven them to the dark corners of the world or forgotten shelves of libraries in the search for answers. And, if like her, they had found it in another book, this property of value and effort would have compounded back through the ages.
That was how Twilight even had a book from ancient Pegasopolis on her desk, obtained by the Canterlot library and translated into modern Ponish multiple times. And her own curiosity was why she had even pulled it from a shelf, fascinated by the title on even a glance. That self-same curiosity then drove her into maps and books on cave diving and, eventually, to a worn shrine in a forgotten cavern.
Against all efforts to keep something forgotten and buried, that chain of curiosity and knowledge had led her there.
That was how Twilight Sparkle found The Flame of Thymos.
Rainbow Dash yawned as she awoke and turned over on her cloud perch. It was just before noon when she had found it, only a few short hours after her weather duty shift had started, and as the evening sun began to dip towards the horizon, she considered it a day well spent. Sure, there might have been a few stray stormclouds in the air and a cumulus or two out of place, but it wasn’t something anypony would actually notice. Even if they did, it wouldn‘t take more than a few seconds of effort to clear them.
Taking a moment to stretch her legs, Rainbow Dash finally stood and looked down at the streets of Ponyville. From above, she could see most of the main thoroughfare through the markets and past Town Hall, and it quickly took her by surprise. Where she had expected to see bustling streets of ponies finishing up their days or talking to one another, she instead found them deserted.
Craning her neck to look at the edge of town, out towards the Everfree Forest and Sweet Apple Acres, she was only met with empty dirt roads and the faint shifting of signs and trees in the evening breeze. She couldn’t even see ponies moving around through the windows. A hint of worry bubbled in her stomach, but she brushed it aside.
“Must be one of Pinkie’s surprise parties… and a pretty quiet one at that,” she muttered to herself as she took to the air, swooping down and then gliding towards Sugarcube Corner.
As she descended below the rooftops, she noticed tattered curtains and broken shutters on windows. Doors hung open on their hinges, and the broken remains of wagons were shoved into alleys.
The worry began to bubble again, and Rainbow Dash picked up speed. When she arrived, she found the windows flung open and the door hanging ajar. “Pinkie Pie?!” she called out, resting a hoof on the door. The only reply was her voice echoing back at her. “If this is some kind of surprise, it better be a good one… and you know my birthday was already two weeks ago, right?”
Pushing the door slowly, the creak sent a shiver up Rainbow Dash’s spine. She slammed it with all her might as she barreled inside and clenching her eyes shut in anticipation of blinding lights and a stream of confetti. The door thudded against the wall, creaking once more as it came to a stop.
It was abandoned, its lights off, but the room was in disarray. Smashed cakes and cupcakes littered the walls and floors, the front display of glass was shattered, and the door leading to the kitchen had been torn out of the frame.
“Pinkie?! Pinkie, are you here?!” she shouted, flying to the kitchen to find it in the same messy state. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake?!” Rainbow Dash flew up the stairway, finding the doors to each room flung open wide. While she found yet more confectionery carnage and shattered furniture, there wasn’t a sign of anypony or where they could have gone.
Rainbow Dash’s mind swam with possibilities: a changeling attack, a beast from the Everfree, some magical spell or artifact gone awry. “Twilight,” she muttered, “I gotta find Twilight. If anypony could survive some mess like this, it’s her.”
Flying back downstairs and into the streets, Rainbow Dash tried to keep calm and orient herself towards the library. She stopped, however, when she caught a glimpse of color, out of place in the sky. Three pegasi, flying towards Ponyville. Squinting, Rainbow Dash lifted up into the air, putting on her flight goggles to block out the glare of the sunset.
As she got over the roofs, she could make them out clearly: Thunderlane, Cloudy Skies, and Blossomforth. They were barreling towards her, and she breathed a sigh of relief to see another pony. “Thank goodness!” she shouted, flying towards them. “What the hay is going on, where is everypony?!”
Even as she approached them, the pegasi weren’t slowing down. Rainbow Dash spared a glance over her shoulder, but there was only blank sky behind her. “Guys?” She began to back up, flexing her wings in preparation to move.
Thunderlane barreled forward, hooves outstretched and screaming at the top of his lungs. Rainbow Dash flapped hard and flew above him, watching as he quickly spun to turn back towards her.
Blossomforth and Cloudy Skies were neck and neck, screaming as well. Rainbow Dash twisted and dove down, just before the two converged where she was and hit one another, sending them both spiraling down the ground below.
“You know you don’t wanna mess with me!” she shouted, turning to Thunderlane. “Especially if you’re changeling spies!”
Thunderlane surged forward, tackling Rainbow Dash. The two began to spin head over tail as she tried to kick him away. With his face inches from her, she saw a light burning in his eyes: a sickly orange and red like a roaring blaze. As she screamed, the same light shone through his mouth.
With a solid hind kick, Rainbow Dash tore herself away, and the two dove back and forth, Thunderlane hot on Rainbow Dash’s tail. Even as she flew towards the streets, she couldn’t seem to shake him. Whatever had happened, it was clear he wasn’t himself, and that probably went from Blossomforth and Clear Skies too. That worry began to bubble up as Rainbow Dash thought of her friends.
“The Flame!” Thunderlane finally shouted, his primal scream ended. “The Flame needs you! You need The Flame!”
“The Flame! The Flame!” Blossomforth and Clear Skies’ voices echoed through the streets. Rainbow Dash could tell they were converging on her once again, but she also knew she was faster than them, stronger than them.
Barreling down an alleyway, Rainbow Dash sped up, daring to take a blind turn into the streets. And as she came out, Blossomforth and Clear Skies were right where she wanted them. With a spin and a barrel roll, she doubled back down the alley, right into and then past Thunderlane.
They crashed into a set of carts, their screams and shouts fading to silence. As quickly as she could, Rainbow Dash made for the library, hope burning in her chest that Twilight was there.
What she found was another empty, disheveled building. Books were strewn across the floor, but the furniture and doors were intact. Something about it was different from Sugarcube Corner. Even though the books littered the floor, they were open to earmarked pages, with passages circled and underlined. Stranger, they were laid out around the center table, next to an empty glass case and a far older looking book.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t make heads or tails of what any of it meant. There were words like Power, Allure, and Mighty, but one stuck out, one she had heard shouted at her: Flame.
The Flame of Thymos, the book had called it: an artifact thought lost in ancient Pegasopolis. It made no mention of what it was or did or why it was important, only talking about where it once was and where it may have been lost. And there, in the margin of a page, were words in fresher ink, in hoofwriting she had seen before: Twilight’s.
[i]“I know where it is. I know where I can find it.”
“How to activate it? What does it do? What was it for?”
“It’s beautiful, entrancing.”
As she flipped through the pages, a slip of parchment fell out. Rainbow Dash picked it up and turned it over.
“The Flame burns in the back of my mind. A fire without fuel yearns for knowledge to feed it. Even with my eyes shut, I see it, blazing stronger with every second. It longs to be seen, to be known. It longs for me to show others. I know I won’t be able to hold back forever.
Don’t look into the light. Stop me, please.”
Among the scattered books was a map of Ponyville with the edge of the Everfree circled and the word “Leyline.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t know what she needed to do, but she at least knew where to go.
Perched atop a storm cloud, Rainbow Dash slowly crept towards the Everfree Forest. Static and potential tingled her hooves and the edges of her flight feathers with every flap towards her destination. The sun had crept below the horizon, but she was certain if she moved too quickly, or without cover, she’d be spotted for sure, even under the dim light of twilight.
Before long, a chorus rose above the wind and rustle of leaves, and she saw a light shining through the distant canopy, the same sickly light that had been in Thunderlane’s eyes. With her goggles on tight, she began to drift down.
One voice called out, louder than the rest. “The Flame of Thymos burns!” Twilight shouted, and the voices echoed her words.
“The Flame of Thymos burns for power and for hope! The Flame of Thymos yearns for knowledge and to be known! The Flame of Thymos blazes through our minds, through our eyes, through the world and worlds beyond!”
As Rainbow Dash came to a rest over the canopy, she spotted them in the clearing: everypony from Ponyville packed together, their gazes on the light just out her sight. Their eyes shimmered with it, their bodies swayed with it.
“The Light! The First Light!” Twilight proclaimed, the light shifting, as if lifted from its spot. The crowd fell silent. “Plucked from the Heavens for mortal eyes, for mortal hooves, for mortal minds! Knowledge and knowing! Learning and yearning! Feeding on the fuel that it births to feast upon it again!”
The crowd stamped their hooves. Rainbow Dash flexed her wings and closed her eyes.
“With the Power of this place, The Flame of Thymos shall burn brighter still! Its light shall shine as a new dawn, to replace the false sun that took its place when it was plucked from the Heavens!”
Through her shut eyes, Rainbow Dash could see the light burning. It refracted into a kaleidoscope in the darkness, and she felt something clawing at her mind. Words filled her eyes, muffled and distant.
"Let our ravenous hunger be fed, let The Flame be fed, let The Light be fed!"
Rainbow Dash felt another jolt of static arc through her, her wings fluttering with power. She let go of a breath she had been holding and dove down. As lightning arced through her, connected to the storm cloud, she rocketed down. The light burned brighter through her shut eyes, the voices grew louder, and a fire lit in the back of her mind. With her hooves outstretched, she followed the flame,the voices, the light. The crowd erupted into shouts of anger, hooves stomped and wings flapped. She even felt the grip of magical energy around her.
But it was too late. As Rainbow Dash took The Flame of Thymos from Twilight, she flew up and then slammed it down onto the ground. The path, as short as it existed, was enough for the bolt of lightning to fly from the cloud to The Flame. With a clap of thunder and the shattered of glass, the light faded from her eyes and the flame was extinguished in her mind.
The terrible voice in her mind screamed and then fell silent.
When Rainbow Dash dared to open her eyes, she saw the crowd collapsing, but Twilight stood tall.
The sickly light faded to embers in her eyes, and she smiled.