Friends, Forgiveness, and Magic
...I walk the Foggy Road...
Lady Faust walked through a sea of fog. Gliding across the ground in a dreamlike trance, she spared just one glance back at her own body before stopping to hover over Twilight Sparkle’s frozen form. The little princess had a look of considerable confusion stuck on her face. Sighing sadly at the tiny pony, Lady Faust spared a glare at the main sources of her anger before she turned away.
Cutting through the veil of time and space with an upward slice of her horn, Lady Faust drifted down the road of fog. Notes of music and gentle voices brushed up against her ears, causing her brow to furrow even further. As the alicorn walked, she lifted her front hooves out of the fog and rested them against her hips as they transformed into hands. Lady Faust shifted and glowed until she took the form of a human woman with long red hair, wearing a simple pair of pants with a green hoodie.
As the voices rang circles around her ears, Lady Faust’s annoyance returned and she reached up to remove the problem. Taking both her left and right ears, she stuffed them into her pockets for safekeeping and smiled into the silence.
A ranch made itself known out of the sea of fog, and Lady Faust strolled into it. She walked through the fence, then the front door, and then a wall before she reached her former faithful servant. Megan Williams was sitting on a sofa in front of an inactive television. Lady Faust smiled as she recognized the book that Megan was reading and sat herself in a lone chair on the opposite side of the room. She watched Megan cradle the book as if it was a beautiful baby.
Megan’s human siblings, Danny and Molly came into the room. Danny made a remark that seemed to irritate Megan, causing her to close the book and growl at him. Molly made another remark that had Megan rolling her eyes.
Lady Faust watched the siblings argue in silence. Her lip-reading skills were terrible, but she picked up her name, plus the word ‘apple’. Lady Faust conjured up gem-studded apple slices that circled around her fingers as she thought about how she could have resolved that situation easier. Merry Weather had claimed to admire Applejewel because of her hard work and her honesty. But in hindsight, it was easier to see that Megan only fancied Everfree’s Applejack because she reminded Megan of a different Applejack.
Ah, the many variations within the multiverse. Lady Faust knew better now. She shouldn’t have possessed Applejack before Merry’s fight with Grogar. She shouldn’t have gotten angry with Merry. Instead she…well, Lady Faust didn’t know what she had been trying to do. Probably just speeding up her distraction, nothing more.
She glanced up from her pondering to see that Danny was holding a remote control. Lady Faust grew interested as he turned on the TV, but her smile faded as some human news network came in. Thank goodness she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Molly sat down next to Megan while Danny walked towards the chair that Lady Faust was occupying. She lifted a finger, and Danny turned around in a confused stumble before he sat down on Megan’s other side.
Megan growled something, causing Molly to shout back at her. Lady Faust tried to suppress her interest, but her curiosity grew without her permission. She held up both her hands and a brown book appeared in her grasp. She turned to a middle page and read the glowing blue lines that wrote themselves into her blank book.
Megan rolled her eyes. “Please, there’s no such thing as a human car accident.”
Molly glared at her. “Do you want to elaborate on that?”
“Humans crash their cars into each other on purpose, because they’re a horde of brainless, death-worshipping primitives who enjoy laughing at their own corpses,” Megan replied.
“What is wrong with you?!” said…
Lady Faust took her eyes off the book and watched the siblings argue. She grimaced as Megan and Molly continued to shout at each other, silently agreeing with Danny and Molly. Megan’s hatred of humans had been rapidly growing distasteful over the years that Lady Faust had known her. Honestly, Lady Faust could think of worse creatures than humans.
She watched Megan rip the remote out of her brother’s grasp and change the channel, shouting at the TV as another news story came on. Megan stood up from the couch and continued to rant and change the channel; her expression twisting more and more with rage as she found more things about humanity to complain about. It was making Lady Faust’s ears ring, but she definitely wasn’t going to answer them. Molly got up from the couch, seemingly to pull Megan away from the TV, but then Danny held up his hand in front of her. Lady Faust’s curiosity sprung up again and she returned her attention to the book.
“Wait,” Danny said reaching out to his younger sister. Molly turned back to him and raised an eyebrow. He sighed and said, “You’ve got to let the steam fade before you can pour the water. Just let her boil.”
Lady Faust watched Molly slowly nod in understanding before sitting back down. The three of them watched as Megan continued to rant at the TV, changing channels without registering what was on them. Eventually Lady Faust's attention was pulled towards the TV itself. She wasn’t too annoyed at Megan for constantly changing channels, since she didn’t see anything worthwhile on the TV anyway. But that changed when a superhero movie came upon the screen.
It only took Lady Faust a few seconds to identify the movie from her memories and she nodded to herself at the fond recollection. She glanced back at the humans to see that Megan was no longer shouting. She was kneeling on the floor, trying to rub the tears out of her eyes. Danny and Molly were crouching down next to her giving their sister a hug. Molly asked her a question. Getting curious once more Lady Faust read Megan’s explanation.
“…We had a good life. We grew up on our ranch far away from big city life. We didn’t have TV or internet when we were kids, so we didn’t know anything about the world. And then, life got even better. Ponies came flying across a rainbow looking for us to save them. We fought back evil centaurs, dragons, witches, blob monsters, and so much more. We traveled to a whole new world and we saved those little ponies. It usually didn’t even take that long; a few days at the most.”
She sighed. “And then the bad guys just stopped attacking. And we decided we were getting too old to keep playing with ponies. We came back home and tried to grow up like all the other human kids. And I couldn’t stand it. I was forced to read all those history books and overhear all those news stories…and I blamed myself. I felt guilty for thousands of crimes that had nothing to do with me, committed before I was even born. You two somehow managed to get by on this planet and find happiness…but I couldn’t.”
Megan sniffled. “So, I took the Rainbow of Light and used its magic to open a portal. I wanted to go back to where our friends lived, but something went wrong. Instead of finding our old home I found my Lady, and she saved me. She turned me into a pony and gave me a new purpose in life. She gave me something worth fighting for again.” She sighed. “A perfect world. A place I could be the hero again; where I could make a difference. Something I could never have here.”
Oh, so that’s what it was. Lady Faust had heard Merry Weather explain this all to her before, just not in as much detail. She flipped to the next page as Megan continued to explain her story…
Oh. Where was all this coming from? Lady Faust frowned a little nervously at the floor. That was…that’s a lot of fog. An unbelievable amount of fog. It was blocking her view of both the humans and the speech-to-text book in her hands. She set the book down and sighed. Usually the fog was a good thing. But now…
Focus. Think. Pay attention to what’s important. Drown the rest out.
Lady Faust stood up from her chair and manoeuvred her body around the humans and onto the chair that Megan had been sitting on. She picked up her old journal and found the page that her old student had been reading. The fog shifted a little as she read an old passage she had written:
Lapis the crystal pony
Had a very shiny coat
And if a pony saw it
They would stop to point and gloat.
All of the other ponies
Used to laugh and call her names
They never let poor Lapis
Escape from any pony games
Then one sunny Hearth's Warming Eve
Her parents came to say
‘Lapis your coat’s an ugly sight
So, we’re kicking you out of our lives tonight.’
Yes, all the ponies despised her
As they shouted out with glee
‘Lapis the crystal pony
You’ll die in agony.’
Lady Faust hummed thoughtfully and turned the page…oh, wait. The second part wasn’t for a few more pages. Just flip through a bit and…there! Lady Faust’s drawing skills weren’t at the same level as her writing skills, but anyone could clearly appreciate the picture of Lapis…
The fog lifted a bit as Lady Faust noticed that the humans were gone. She put the book down and walked through the house, her magic automatically detecting where they had gone. She climbed down the stairs to the Williams’ basement to see Danny and Molly using their magic to open a portal.
A yellow creature with electricity sparkling along its fur poked its head out of the portal and grinned at the humans. And surprisingly, Megan smiled back at it, even though there was nothing pony-like about the creature. Danny and Molly smiled at their sister, before they each took one of her hands and stepped through the portal.
The portal closed again, and Lady Faust nodded in understanding. Taking Megan away from both humans and ponies, and allowing her to adventure on with her siblings. It was the perfect ending to Merry Weather’s story; better than what Lady Faust would have written. Still, a small thought nagged at Lady Faust in her mind. Well, more than a few. Clapping her hands together and pulling them back caused an envelope to appear in her hands. Lady Faust went back upstairs and left the letter addressed to Megan on the kitchen table.
She placed her hands on the floor, walking through the wall even as she turned back into an alicorn. Her ears turned back into pony ears as they floated up to her head and reattached themselves.
Back down the old foggy road until she returned to…wait. There were ponies here, but this wasn’t Equestria. Where was she now?
Wandering through the crystal empire, Lady Faust came across a sign outside of a school building, declaring it King Sombra’s School for the Gifted. She passed through the walls, noting that the hallways were mostly empty. All the students were probably outside for recess. But passing through another wall, Lady Faust detected one pony sitting in a dark corner of the library.
A much younger Nightmare Moon was quietly chuckling to herself as she read a book filled with short scary stories. A pony with a dragon tail, wearing a glittering gothic dress was on the cover. The elder alicorn watched the child alicorn silently.
Her contemplation was interrupted by a group of loudly whispering ponies entered the library. The younger Nightmare heard their muttering too, causing her to scowl and scoot back farther into the corner. Lady Faust walked over to the group of children who were all glaring at Nightmare.
An earth filly with an orange coat and purple mane and tail whispered to her friends. “There she is, boys. The nightmare pony!”
The colts who were with her glared at Nightmare. The youngest looking colt among them flinched as he spotted the alicorn. “I…I’m not sure about this…”
One of the older colts frowned at him. “Hey, we’ve all gone into battle against the nightmare. You can’t chicken out on us now.”
The filly nodded. “Exactly. Don’t you want to be a member of my – I mean, the Colt Scouts?”
“But…but why do we gotta fight her? She’s just reading in the corner…”
“Menacingly!” the filly whispered firmly. She looked back at Nightmare and sneered. “Just look at that ugly black coat. Only bad guys are black.”
The younger colt winced. “I…I mean, changelings are black, and Harvest is pretty and nice…”
“EW!” the filly shrieked. “You actually talked to one of those things?! They suck out your heart and your brains! Are you infected or something?”
“You think it's ‘pretty?’ Do you wuv her? Do you love a bug?” one of the older Colt Scouts teased him.
“N-no! Shut up! I…I hate changelings!” the younger colt shouted.
“Shush! Shush,” the filly hissed at them, lowering her voice. “We can’t let her hear us.”
Another colt cringed. “She’s looking at us…”
Nightmare was indeed glaring at them, but she hadn’t moved from her spot either. The Colt Scouts shuddered. “Look at those creepy eyes…”
“Wanna know something worse?” the lead filly asked. “She’s got fangs. Like a meat-eating monster!”
The younger colt shivered. “I don’t understand. If she’s a monster, why don’t the grown-ups make her go away?”
The filly rolled her eyes. “Because her mommy is an alicorn, and alicorns get all the luck. They live up in the palace with the king and get whatever they want while the rest of us live down here and suffer! She gets little moon cakes everyday at lunch; it’s disgusting!” she sneered. “And she’s so spoiled too! She’s all like, ‘Roar! I am the nightmare queen! Zap, zap!’ She’s just a monster hiding behind her alicorn privilege!”
The oldest colt nodded. “Right. So, if you wanna be a Colt Scout, you gotta take a shot at slaying the monster.”
“B…but how is a water balloon gonna beat her?”
“We filled it with holy water, alright? Holy water melts monsters, so just throw it at her and she’ll melt.”
“Don’t worry, we’re right behind you,” the Colt Scouts said, holding up their own water balloons before they give the youngest colt his own balloon.
“Well…okay!” Gritting his teeth in determination, the youngest colt charged at Nightmare Moon and threw his balloon.
Nightmare’s mane lit up with magic and whipped out in front of her body, growing rapidly until it formed a shield big enough and thick enough to soak up the water from the burst balloon. “Every month!” she growled as she dropped her book and stomped over to them.
“She’s getting closer, save me!” the filly shrieked and hid behind the Colt Scouts, who all threw their balloons too. Nightmare’s mane whipped out again, batting away the balloons or whipping them hard enough to burst them in midair. Realizing that they were out of ammo, the Colt Scouts and their leader tried to run away but Nightmare’s magic shut the library door in front of them.
“Who dares attack the Mistress of masters?! The Deliverer of Darkness, the Princess of the Night! Nightmare Moon!” Nightmare shouted. Lightning crackled along her swirling mane and tail as the library was engulfed in darkness…because she had also turned the light switch off. The Colt Scouts all cried and screamed, running wildly around the library. “Stop, you foals! You’ll wreak my palace! Silence! Be silent– hey, I was saving that book!”
The library doors burst open, and Captain Luna came storming in. “What’s going on here?!”
“Help! She wants to eat us!” the filly and the Colt Scouts shrieked, running up to Captain Luna and clinging to her legs.
“M-mom!” Nightmare exclaimed. She shifted her mane and tail back into their natural states and ordered the lightning dancing in her hair to fizzle out. “They provoked me!”
“She’s lying! She’s a liar-liar, monster on fire!” the Colt Scouts cried.
“All of you back to your classes. I’ll deal with Nightmare Moon,” Captain Luna sternly ordered. The Colt Scouts all fled the library and Nightmare cast a nervous glance out the door as her mom stepped closer to her.
Captain Luna held onto her stern, disapproving glare for several seconds, before her right wing bent down to cover up the sides of their heads. She leaned into her daughter’s ear and whispered, “The same miscreants as before?”
Nightmare nodded and Luna sighed. In a flash of teleportation, the two alicorns were outside. Lady Faust teleported after them and followed as she watched Luna carry Nightmare on her back through the streets of the Crystal Empire.
“Where are we going?” Nightmare asked.
“Home,” Luna answered. “Those children will most likely report you to the principal, who will in turn suspend you for a few days yet again. I agree with this punishment, however I see no reason why you or I should have to suffer from one of the principal’s lectures again.”
Nightmare scowled. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“I am aware of that, Moony. I’ve seen Miss Proper and those Colt Scouts attack you before. But fighting back will not dissuade them. You can do better, Moony.”
“A queen needs to defend herself, and you won’t always be around to be my knight, Loony.”
Luna smiled back at her. “We are immortal, dear Moony. I will always be there to protect you.” She flapped her wings and took off into the air. “Now come. Just because you are suspended from school, does not mean you may slack off in your studies.”
Lady Faust followed the other two alicorns until they reached the main library in the Crystal Castle. She watched as Nightmare curled up next to Luna as the night mother read aloud to her daughter. Lady Faust blinked a few times, wondering what she was still doing here. Why was she stalking them? She frowned and blinked even more, sensing that something was wrong. She brought a hoof up to her eye…and growled as she drew back a tear.
She pulled herself away from the scene, slicing another hole in reality as she turned her head. She stomped down the foggy road again and created five bottles out of the fog as she made her way back to the present. A thunderous, thick cloud of blue and red emotion swirled out of her horn and filled all five bottles. She opened a smaller portal and sent the bottles to the same place she dumped all her trash.
She had almost returned to her own body when her head turned to something off in the distance…just to the right…
Lady Faust pushed through reality again and looked around at the interior of the main lobby. This was Glimmering Stars Resort, still in Everfree but at least she was back in the present. Frozen in time, there was Trixie, Chrysalis, Cozy Glow, Starlight Glimmer...Nightmare Moon was most likely close by...
No. The transformed Dazzlings were nothing more than a distraction for Princess Nightmare. Even less than Megan. She was planning to let the Dazzlings go anyway, she didn't need to be here...so why...
Lady Faust pushed through another hole in reality; unable to deny the facts. There was too much fog now. She couldn’t see where she was going anymore. Normally the fog was a good thing. Normally letting go of her emotions was what she wanted. Then again…Princess Twilight didn’t look like she was going to answer her question the way Lady Faust WANTED her question answered…
One last stop then. To remind Lady Faust of why she was doing this.
She reappeared in Equestria. Deep underground. She grit her teeth, looked up…and stared at the Tree of Harmony.
A thunderous red cloud billowed out from her horn again, but she wouldn’t back down. A minute ticked by slowly; she could feel every second of it, but she maintained her glare. Disgust, despair, and horror swelled up in her mind and joined the blood red cloud of anger leaking out of her horn. Pulsing black lines of magic grew out of her eyes, her mouth, her wings, her hooves...
Looking at the Tree, she remembered the clones that Equestria's changeling queen had created. She remembered those ponies (made of dark magic but ponies nonetheless) melting into puddles.
Looking at the Tree, she remembered the children who had been forced into trauma in order to satisfy the unrealistic expectations of an unappeasable tyrant.
She remembered the three holes, burning into...
It would be so easy. She could already feel her horn charging up. Just one blast and then this vile, manipulative, cruel, self-righteous, hypocritical, evil thing would be nothing more than a cup full of splinters...
Except, Twilight Sparkle wouldn't have a chance. And that wouldn't be fair. So instead, Lady Faust turned and ran from the Tree of Harmony, her hoof crushing a crystal root as she galloped back to her greatest battle. She flapped her wings once and her astral form immediately returned to her body. To Princess Twilight and her friends, it would seem like no time had passed at all. They were still wondering how to answer her question.
And judging by the look on her face, Twilight Sparkle was going to fail.