//------------------------------// // 6 - One’s a Tragedy // Story: Blink Again // by Amarandream //------------------------------// “...because we broke her. She’s broken. It’s been two days now; she’s starving. Because of you.” “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut—“ An odd buzzing feeling filled the air, followed by a sharp pop. Both Twilights clicked their mouths shut on the instant. Somepony’s day was just ruined. Light rushed over to the dart she'd fashioned out of bone. Attached to it was a piece of paper with a warning written in blood. It was the result of her latest brainstorming session for an escape. All she had to do was stick the next clone with the dart, and if she was lucky, it would take her message with it when it disappeared. Of course, this would injure the newly formed pony, but they would no doubt be healed back in Equestria and it would be well worth the risks if it prevented future teleportations. The only problems were the height at which the clone appears, the dark atmosphere, and the extremely limited timeframe she would have to throw it. All factors contributing to the likelihood of a miss. Luckily, she'd just spent all morning practicing her throws on a corpse target. Light set her sights on the new clone—another Twilight by the looks of it, though something was off about it—and threw, utilizing her teeth and making a sharp whipping motion with her head. The dart sailed through the air, embedding itself directly in the new Twilight's cutie mark just before she disappeared. And then it fell from the air, still marred by the new Twilight's blood, clattering harmlessly against the floor. "NOOO! WHY? CELESTIA, PLEASE, WHY?" Light screamed into the air, tears bubbling up to accompany her frantic breaths. Nothing worked. Nothing ever worked. At best, the new Twilight might appear with the wound still there, but while that would raise questions, it wouldn't necessarily lead them to the right answers. And that was a big if. For all Light new, the injury might have simply healed over the moment the clone disappeared. This sucked. Everything sucked. Life was either some big joke she didn't get, or the greatest tragedy ever conceived. That, or she was just feeling particularly pessimistic. Just like Twi, she supposed. Something nudged her left shoulder. She didn't have to look to know that it was her somewhat disagreeable doppelganger. "Listen, Light, I know you're upset, but we don't have time for this. It was a good idea and all, but you can't really have expected it to work, not after the potentially thousands of ideas tried and failed, both in this pocket dimension and in those of other unicorns. Right now, we need to check on the new Twilight. Something was definitely off about her. It was hard to see, but she looked different somehow. I'm worried it might spell trouble." "Uh, right." Light quickly nodded, wiping away her tears with one hoof. "We should check and make sure she's okay. She'll be in for quite the shock, and if something is wrong, we need to be ready." The two picked their way through the corpse pile, looking for a scared newcomer just as they had two days prior with Fluttershy. When at first they didn't find her, they went back through again. Then again. Light stopped, slowly scanning over the area once more. Where was she? The place was hardly large enough to make finding a single pony difficult, and she could think of no reason another Twilight would intentionally hide from her. Then she heard it. A barely audible gasping, ceaseless yet slowly growing more desperate. Where was it? She frantically rushed from one body to another, following the sound of the breathing to the best of her ability. There! Light stopped at a body, badly damaged as any of them, but looking much fresher. The Twilight was still alive, if barely, her chest rising in shuddering, uneven patterns. "Twi, over here! I found her, but she's hurt pretty bad. She needs help!" Said pony was by her side mere moments later. "Okay, let's... oh. Light, I don't think it's safe to move her. Whatever got to her, it did quite the job." Twi frowned. "I don't think she's gonna make it." "W—wh—where am I? I can't feel... oh, it hurts. Somepony, please, help me." Both mares stared at the terrified pony before them, equally stunned that she could even speak after those injuries. It was interrupted by gasps and significantly mangled by the damage to her face, yet it was understandable nonetheless. "Oh sweet Celestia," Light breathed. "What do we do? I know a spell that could heal those wounds, but I can't cast it here. We have to do something. She's going to die. Twi?" Twi just shook her head and took a step back, refusing to look at the dying mare. Though that refusal seemed heartless, Light was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Her companion knew what was going to happen, and just couldn't bring herself to watch it. Maybe it was easier that way, but she couldn't do the same. The least she could do was provide some comfort. "Help. Please," the voice below them squeaked out, sounding desperate to receive something, anything from them. "I'm here." Light lowered herself to her belly and pulled the mortally wounded mare into a hug. "I'm so sorry. I know this is very confusing, but I need to know what happened." "Griffon bandits... from Haukland." The dying Twilight coughed, spewing blood with each convulsion. "Attacked me. Didn't like—" She coughed again, tried catching her breath, opened her mouth to speak, then went into yet another coughing fit. "Shh." Light wrapped a wing around her as she began to gently rock her clone back and forth. "That's okay. You've said enough. Just lay still. This nightmare will soon be over." "I'm scared." She sniffed, tears mixing with blood around her muzzle. "Are you," she hacked, "a changeling?" "Uh, yeah." Light nodded, trying to hold back tears of her own. Celestia knew she'd cried more than enough already. "I didn't want to scare you, so I took this form. Is there anything you want to tell your friends before you go?" The newcomer nodded weakly. "Tell them," she gasped, struggling to summon the needed breath to continue, "I love them. So much. I'd be nothing without—" She coughed and sputtered, and this time, didn't regain her breath. Her head fell limp, the light draining from her eyes, hopefully to go someplace far more comforting than this. Light reached a hoof up to close the princess's eyes, both as a sign of respect and to avoid that dead stare. To think, that would have been her if she hadn't tried teleporting to Rainbow Dash's party. She didn't know how to feel about that. She'd be dead, yeah, but that still might be better than where she actually ended up. Either way, she felt sick. "You lied to her," came Twi's voice from behind. Light turned and vomited, narrowly avoiding doing so on herself or the body. One would be disgusting, especially given how hard it was to clean anything in the pocket dimension, and the other seemed disrespectful. This was despite the fact that she still ended up spraying some other corpses. Somehow that didn't seem as bad. She hadn't been speaking to them just moments ago. She took a deep breath, wiped her muzzle, then slowly released the dead alicorn and stepped away, pointedly not turning to face her companion. "It was for the best. There was no time to explain the truth. Me being a changeling was easier, and she was better off believing her friends would receive her final sentiments." "Oh, I agree." She raised her injured hoof in an assuring gesture. "I'm just surprised you thought of it, what with our tendency to overexplain things and all. Plus, it just wasn't that convincing of a lie. I suppose that doesn't matter to a dead mare though." "Yeah. I guess." She finally turned to face Twi. "Do you think the next Twilight survived? If this one died of her wounds, don't you think the same fate may have befallen her replacement?" "Probably." Twi shrugged. "At least that means we'll finally get a proper funeral, rather than a thousand unmarked graves. Our friends deserve a chance to actually mourn our death for once." "What!" Light gaped. "How can you say that? To them, we never died. Assuming she doesn't get the medical attention we lacked here, this will be heartbreaking for them." "Heartbreaking? It will probably save them. They're far better off not having a friend who can teleport them around all filly-nilly. Besides, even with help, she may die. Her injuries were intense, and you may have made them even worse with that dart of yours." Light groaned. "Oh no. What have I done? The dart didn't stay, but the injuries might have! And now, even if they did, nopony will be able to tell what I caused and what the griffons did." She put her head in her hooves. "I just hurt a pony for no reason at all!" "Relax," Twi said flatly. "It doesn't matter. If she dies, our friends are better off. If she lives, the one minor wound you might have caused will be nothing compared to the rest. Regardless, we need to prepare for the possibility that we truly are alone now. Another teleportation may never come. That means no new supplies, nothing to break up the monotony, nopony else trapped here, and no more chances to make your foolish escape or warning attempts. It very well could just be you and me for the rest of our lives. And Fluttershy, I guess. If she even counts." "Or," Light interceded, beginning to pace, "Celestia or Zecora or Discord or somepony else might heal her and we'll be seeing things teleport in within a day or two." "Sure. I guess that's possible. Though for everypony's sake, I hope not. In the meantime, we should check her saddlebags. She might have something we can use." "Right." Light stopped, turned on hoof, and pulled the saddlebags off their late owner. They were bloodstained and badly torn by griffon claws. She would have been more worried about their contents, but the cloth was the kind she used for long distance travel, thick and sturdy enough to withstand the elements. Hopefully that provided the interior some level of protection. She pulled at the buckle. "I'm having a little trouble. The buckle's damaged. Maybe if I—" She gasped as it popped open. "Food! This must be her travel rations!" "What? Let me see." Twi crowded in at her right, pulling at the lip of the bag with one hoof. "Carrots, apples, hay. Ha! Light, we've hit the jackpot!" "Right," Light murmured. "I suppose we have." She watched Twi stuff a hoofful of hay in her mouth, unable to summon quite the same enthusiasm over their loot. Her stomach still hadn't settled from having a pony die in her grasp, and she hated feeling like she was profiting off the death of another. Still, those veggies sure looked good, and it wasn't as if she could do anything else with the stuff except... "Wait! Stop." Twi groaned around her stuffed gullet then swallowed and turned back to her with a rather dramatic tilt of the head. "What now? What could possibly be wrong? It's free food, for ponies sake! Good stuff too!" "I know, but," she sighed, "I think we should give it to Fluttershy." "What! You can't be serious. She might as well be a vegetable herself!" "Hear me out!" Light put a hoof on the bag, preventing the hungry mare from taking any more. "She won't eat the meat. I've tried force feeding it to her, but she won't chew, she won't swallow, and if I actually do get any in her, she just throws it up. It's not her fault, but her body's natural reaction is to reject it. Maybe if I can get some of this in her, she'll actually be able to keep it down." "Ugh." Twi groaned in disgust. "You are being generous to a fault, just like a mutual friend of ours. In fact, you've been acting about as frivolous as her too. Ponies are not meant to eat meat, let alone other ponies. You’ve said it yourself: eating this stuff will eventually kill us. Supplementing our diet with the rare produce we get is the only way to ensure our survival for any serious length of time." "I know, but Fluttershy will die a whole lot faster than we will if she doesn't get this." "She's already dead!" Twi screamed, stepping up a mere inch in front of Light's face. "Her body just hasn't figured it out yet. But you know what? Fine. Go on. Take our food. Waste it. I don't care to live much longer anyway! Just don't come crying to me when you get sick of being a cannibal." Light's jaw tightened. She wanted to scream back, to call her other self heartless and despicable, but she knew it wouldn't accomplish anything—not when she already had what she wanted. Besides, part of her felt that Twi was right, both morally and logically. She just couldn't bring herself to abandon her kindest friend. Not yet at least. Hopefully not ever. "By the way," Twi shot at her with more than a little vitriol, "I'm taking this body. If I'm going to eat meat, I might as well get it while it's fresh." Light gasped. Was Twi really going to go and immediately start eating the pony that died right in front of them? That seemed downright unimaginable. Was the mare insane? She shook her head. There were no words. All she could do was pick up the saddlebags and begin heading in Fluttershy's direction. "Oh, and by the way," Twi yelled from across the growing distance between them, "don't talk to me anymore! I think it's best if we both left each other alone. At least until you learn to get that head of yours screwed on straight!" Light ignored her. She even ignored the crushing loneliness, the knowledge that her only companion just turned on her. Or perhaps it was she who turned on Twi. She couldn't tell. She just kept walking.