*Darkness.
But conscious, like before.
… He was going to wake up.
… Isaac didn’t want to wake up.
… He had no choice.
Isaac awoke to silence. And pain. He couldn’t move his neck, finding it braced by some kind of padding, but he could feel the bandages across the majority of his body. Cleansed of blood. His eyes were dry. The room was dark, the only light filtering in from the pale moon outside.
The child tried to sit up, but felt himself slammed back into the bed roughly by some unseen force.
“You do not fool me.” He heard a low voice.
Isaac looked around in a slight panic, before finally noticing the outline of the darker Angel, just beyond the window’s light. Her eyes glowed slightly in the shade, cold, unforgiving. Hateful. “You may have beguiled my sister, but I will not fall for your trick.”
She walked over to him, never taking her eyes off him. “I know what you are. What you will do. And do not think for one moment that I will ever let it come to pass.”
Isaac was silent. She continued, her words even and calm, betraying their meaning. “I will not accept any foul deed. One step out of bounds, one pony hurt,” the angel drew close to him. “And I will not hesitate to finish what I started. Understood?”
Isaac, unable to nod, replied in subdued affirmative, “Yes.”
She nodded. And he slept.
When he woke up again, the room was bright. And he was not alone. Several creatures- ponies, he now knew- were speaking in hushed tones, including the Angels. They stopped when they heard the covers shift, and every eye was suddenly on him. Reflexively, he pulled away from them, against the headboard, clutching the blanket. The dark angel glared, and a smaller white pony’s horn lit up, but dissipated at a motion from the white angel. It looked at him with concern that Isaac had trouble believing was genuine.
After a brief and tense moment of silence, it asked him, “How are you feeling?”
Uneasily, he replied, “Okay.”
More silence. It felt oppressive in Isaac’s heart, heavy, large, a weight of awkwardness. Eventually, he chose to break it. “Are you?”
It nodded. He continued, but petered out halfway through his question. “Who…?”
“These are some ponies who are here to help you,” It began, looking over at the others. “This-”
Isaac shook his head, and pointed at the angel. “You. You aren’t like the other Angels.” ‘Not evil. Not vengeful. Not even angry.’ he thought.
It seemed a bit surprised, but answered him. “I am Celestia. I’m not an…’angel’, whatever that is.”
Celestia. That was… holy, but not an angel’s name, as far as he could recall. Something to do with the sky. Regardless, an Angel would not lie. But non-Angels can lie. So where did that put her? Isaac stowed away the notion for later.
Presumably this also meant the other was not an Angel either. Isaac looked at the darker one, but quickly looked away from the stoic and intimidating glare she presented. He’d ask later.
His thoughts were interrupted by a cough from the white pony, who had stepped closer to him. This one didn’t have wings like the not-angel ones’. He wore some kind of armor, like the guards, but with a different emblem on the breastplate. His expression was serious, but not a look of opposition or anger. “So who are you, then?”
“I’m Isaac,” the boy answered, twisting the sheets in his hands anxiously. “... Just Isaac.”
“Shining Armor.” The pony introduced, but he stepped back, noting Isaac’s nerves.
The one next to him, with a similar build to the not-angels, yet smaller and pink, spoke up. “I’m Cadence. Are you sure you’re okay?” Her voice, unlike ‘Celestia’, had a somehow more convincing level of concern.
Isaac felt himself about to insist he was fine, but hesitated. She picked up on this. “What’s wrong, really?”
He didn’t want to say. His chest hurt from the heartache his whole situation brought to mind, speaking it would be pure torture. He had an idea. “Could… Could I have some paper and a pencil?”
A look of confusion passed over several of their faces, but a purple not-angel nodded at some small scaly creature, who rushed out of the room. She asked him why he needed it.
The child gave a slight, sheepish smile. “I… I draw better than I could say it.”
The scaly thing returned with some paper and a quill. The purple one thanked it, and floated the paper and quill over to Isaac. He spread the papers across the bed, kicking the sheets to the end, and began to draw the simple figures of himself and his mother. The story he’d repeated to himself for all of his eternity ran down through his head.
*‘Isaac and his mother lived alone on a small house on a hill…’
*He pushed the last picture out of the way, depicting himself sitting alone and hyperventilating in the Chest. It was odd. So long had he known this tale, had he lived it- yet this time, it felt almost liberating to recount it. Isaac looked up from the sketches, to the faces of the ones he made them for.
Celestia looked heartbroken by them, as did Cadence. Shining Armor seemed almost disgusted, repulsed by the idea of it. The purple one, whose name he didn’t know yet, was shielding the eyes of the lizard-thing from them, her own eyes in a perpetual cringe. Luna looked down at them impassively, though he thought for a brief moment he saw her expression soften.
They aren’t throwing me back in there, he thought positively. They aren’t attacking me. They’re… is she… crying?
He saw tears welling up in the eyes of the pink non-angel, who looked at him with such pity that he almost felt guilty for making her cry. Isaac withdrew back to the headboard of the bed, mumbling an apology and wrapping his arms around his legs. Stupid, stupid, stupid, -
He felt something warm close around him, holding him. Trapping. He yelped, scrambling away in blind panic, a blur of pink moving across his vision as he fell off the side of the bed. His heart raced, as he stood up, seeing Cadence, mouth covered by her hooves out of horror as she stared at him, tears welling freely from her eyes.
“I… I don’t…” mumbled the child awkwardly, bright red with embarrassment and shame. “... sorry…”
Shining held her close, shooting a quick glare at the child, who busied himself picking up the scattered drawings. Isaac avoided eye contact. He didn’t want to see their disappointment, their shame, hatred. It was crushing. Petrifying. He felt such guilt, such sadness, such regret-
“Isaac?” He heard Celestia say. The child forced himself to look up at her. “We’re going to be right back, okay?”
He nodded. Back with guards. With the Chest. Chains. He continued to tidy the papers up as they left, knowing exactly what they were doing. He knew they didn’t want him there. Last night was proof enough. He sighed, placing them all up on the bedside table. He took a quick glance around the room, vaguely and grimly hoping to find a trapdoor. Not locating one, he climbed back up onto the bed, and began to draw another picture.