A few months earlier.
I stretched out my foreleg to make sure it still worked and that I had put everything back together right. So far everything felt fine although I don't think there was quite as much feeling in there compared to what I remember.
Oh well, it shouldn't prove to be too much a problem if I forgot to properly connect a few nerves in my left foreleg. I can fix that later, anyway. I'm more concerned with the fact that I'm alive.
Perhaps the most important part of all is that I'm me, and only me. That heart the crystal ponies loved so much may have blown up my body and expelled me from the Empire's borders but it would be laughable to think that such a thing could kill me. In fact, I think it may of helped me instead, just like the spell of the two Alicorn sisters.
Suffice to say, I know exactly why that heart didn't kill me.
Hmm, laughable... could I still laugh? I tried to and it just ended up sounding more like a hoarse cough instead. I'm still not used to having my voice as it truly is back. That spell Onyx used to make it sound so... well, laughably villainous would be the right term I suppose... wasn't exactly strain-free on my part but why would he care about that when he can be off playing tyrant?
I let out another cough. Unfortunately, there are still some traces of it in my voice but not too much, thank goodness. It should wear off soon, maybe in a day or two? It's a bit hard to tell with all this disorienting light. I'm not sure if it is the light of the sun or the moon since I'm out here in a blizzard. I can barely make out the Gemheart Mountains in the distance. I'm knee-deep in snow but it doesn't feel cold at all.
After being trapped in a cold lightless void for so long, snow is warm. But that might be just a temporary occurrence as well.
It would be awfully nice to know if it was day or night right now under all the snow being whipped about by the howling wind but I don't know any spells designed for adjusting weather without being detected.
I should get moving now since I won't last much longer out here...
I stop walking and squint at the horizon and shield my eyes from the snow with my bare hoof. Those aren't the mountains in the distance... I'm standing right in their shadow.
This is just great, I can barely see anything so what's left of my vision must not have been fixed as well. I need more time, but as if that isn't enough I'm stuck in the Empire of all places, which like myself still hasn't fully regenerated enough to take up the entirety of the vale.
So, right now I must be standing in what could soon be foothills. Lovely.
I doubt I'll have enough time to leave the borders that the mountains make up and even so, I wouldn't have anywhere to go. It has been one thousand and one hundred years after all and there's bound to be peasants everywhere. I don't know any places outside of the Empire and a few areas up north that are considerably more frozen.
I don't want to go there anyway. There is nothing I want up there, all my chances lie to the south, assuming wherever it was that those two Alicorns ruled still exists.
I wrangle the hood of the plain cloak I conjured and yank the crimson fabric over my head. Maybe it isn't such a bad thing being stuck here. Sure, my magic may be maladjusted for now but with enough time I can fix that. Nopony here goes in the mountains and there's bound to be some individual that thinks I survived and I can't let them know without a grand entrance now can I? So what else can I do but regenerate right under their muzzles?
That new pink princess that they stuck on the throne can't be much more than a puppet any way. I ought to test her since she could prove to be quite the toy later on for whatever crazy ideas I have in the future. Really, she's got to be a toy those colors can't be natural.
She looks like candy.
Behind me is the faint silhouette of what I now know are the mountains themselves. If I remember correctly this one had abandoned mines, so it would be a good place to stay and wait until my magic is what it should be.
As I head that way my hoof catches on something hard in the snow and I stumble a bit. I brush of the many layers of snow covering the object, which I can see is frozen so I levitate the chunk of ice from the snow with my magic. Through the red glow and the snow I can see what appears to be some kind of stones. Oddly enough they radiate magic of some kind, my senses are still a bit garbled but I can feel a few basic enchantments laid in there. Nothing harmful but the traces are a quite dull now. What could they be?
Keeping in mind that the objects inside this chunk of ice I have yanked from the ground might not be stones or something that can take damage well I do my best to keep the dark fire I use as controlled as possible as well as minding the position of each bit as the ice begins to melt. It's not as easy as I would like to say since the aura on my horn threatens to die multiple times since it has been quite a while since I've done this.
Soon, one stone finds it's way to the ground and hits the snow with a faint hiss.
Then there's another, and another. It continues until I've defrosted each piece.
Now I know that they are silver fragments, a few are a bit warped around the edges from where I wasn't careful enough with my flame.
With my personal magic, that has the aura that is same crimson as my eyes, I lift the shards of what was once a very familiar weapon out of the snow and tuck them into a small interior pocket in my cloak, which aside from the hood is the only 'luxury' to it. It is only now that I really head towards the mountain.
Don't worry, I still remember.