Alchemical Empire

by NineOneThree

14: Visits (Behind Bars - Under Regret - With Love)

It was like being sick... no, more like being a newborn. Not even that, though---a newborn is potential, a newborn grows. This was like waking up paralyzed and blind.
Celestia pushed herself to sit up, looking down at herself. Gone were the long, slender legs and gold hooflets, the flowing dawn-aurora mane and the collar set with a perfect amethyst. A smalll square mirror on the wall confirmed it; so drained of her power, her deific form was replaced by the more economical Earth Pony form she sometimes took as a disguise---just a regular pretty white mare with a wavy pink mane and a yellow sun Cutie Mark.

She looked around her cell, or what little there was to look at---flat stone walls, flat stone floor, a small barred window out of reach. A cot in one corner, a sort of half-wall in the other giving a little privacy to the lavatory area. There were only three walls; the part of the cell facing the hall was what looked to be a pane of glass set with tiny clusters of ventilation holes, with a steel set of bars in front. When she tapped the clear material with her hoof, however, it felt more like metal. Some sort of ensorcelled material... or, more likely, alchemized. She could feel the muted glow of alchemical symbols set within the walls and floor, presumably preventing any chance of her regaining her power and escaping.

Eventually, Celestia heard hoofsteps out in the dull white-grey hallway, and when their owner arrived she wished she were dreaming, though she knew it was all too real.
The equinculus mare looked so much like the memories Celestia had of her; then again, how much would a golem really change in that time, at least on the outside? Average in build, her mane and tail straight and muted indigo. On her flanks, a set of indigo trigram marks. The jewelry---platinum crown, greaves, and collar all set with obsidian pieces---was new, but just window-dressing. Where Celestia saw the real difference was in her strange, half-stilted movements, not like a machine and not like a pony. Where Celestia saw the real difference was in her eyes, pale marine irises around dead black voids of pupils.

"My little Alpha, I never thought that our reunion would be like this if it ever happened." She watched the Empress, an ache growing in her chest.

"'If it ever happened', Mother?" The golem mare blinked, her voice and expression blank. "How was it to happen if you did nothing to make it happen, given approximately seventeen centuries with which you made no effort to reunite with me?"

Sighing, Celestia came closer to the cell's door. "I... I'm sorry, but there was so much... it took nearly a month to fully recover from the battle with Discord, and even during that time Luna and I still had to help rebuild Equestria, fix the cycle of day and night, help those ponies recover from living in terror and pain for so long... I thought you were gone forever. I mourned you, I mourned my child in the spare moments I could find to be alone. But Luna and I had so many other children who needed us. I could not ignore the living for those I feared dead... and there are still so many who depend on me, Alpha. More now than before. My gladness at seeing you alive does not mean I can just ignore them... open the door, my little Alpha. Let me go."

"None of that matters." The Empress shook her head. "What matters is this: for one thousand seven hundred four years, I have waited for the day I would find you again. For 621953 days, for 14927037 hours, I have wanted to see you so deeply that I cannot hold onto myself. I can no longer even call myself Alpha, only Aleph. You are here now, and there is nothing that will keep me from you."

Celestia smiled sadly, pressing a hoof to the transparent metal wall. "Then what is this?"

Alpha, Aleph, whichever she was, blinked; her expression did not change. "The world is not yet ready for me to release you, Mother."

---

"AJ, you got a minute?" Rainbow Dash pulled her friend aside after lunch, gesturing over to the grey mare sitting by the window as she had been doing so often over the last two days. "I don't like seeing her all... y'know, mopey. I wanna talk with her, can you back me up?"

Applejack nodded, following the pegasus over to where Template gazed out the window. She didn't react to their presence til AJ tapped her shoulder. "Y'alright, sugarcube?"

"Hello, Applejack, Rainbow. How are you?" She turned to look at them, lingering guilt and worry etched on her face.

Rainbow Dash frowned a little. "We'd be better if you weren't so down. What's eating you?"

"What's eating me?" Template stared at the pegasus, but more at the base of her neck than her face. "I tried to murder you and your friends and it's my fault the Princess got taken. The ponies who had been so welcoming to a silly little mare like me, I repaid them by trying to kill each of them---and even if I failed at that, it still let someone so important and loved be taken away from you. That's what's eating me."

Applejack nudged her friend to cut off what could have been a tactless response. "T'be fair, turnin' all Nightmare weren't yer fault---and hay, we ended up attacking you too, remember them ribs I broke?"

"No!" Template shook her head. "It was my fault for being so weak that Aleph could turn me like that! I was so weak, she could break me so much that I felt I had to kill you! You only attacked because I attacked first, you had to fight back!"

Rainbow blinked. "She kinda has a point on the last bit---only the last bit!" She hurriedly added to cut off AJ's objection. "But... listen. The whole time you were fighting us, know what else you were doing? You were crying and apologizing like crazy, even when you were throwing lightning around and stuff. Know what that means?"
Template shook her head silently, turning her face away til the pegasus caught it, gently turning her back to look into her eyes.
"It means you didn't want to hurt us. You weren't cackling with glee, you hated every second of it! It means you're not as weak as you think."

"But... but I---" Template shook her head out of the pegasus's grasp.

"Messed up, sugarcube?" Applejack took her turn to cut in now. "Yes, yes ya did. So have ponies 'n dragons 'n griffons and everything else before ya, and so will a heap more after ya. But yer tryin' to make right what yer mistake helped make wrong, and that's somethin' good..." She glanced over her shoulder to see Pinkie and Fluttershy standing a little ways off, clearly waiting. "Listen... Flutters 'n Pinkie wanna talk with ya too, seems like, so lemme just leave ya with this: ya got a chance here to do somethin' great, but if'n ya don't let it come it'll slip by."

---

The familiar, spiced scent wafting up from the teacups was a little comfort to Template as she sat at the low table with the other mares. Pinkie was actually sitting still for once, watching her, but it was Fluttershy who spoke first.

"Now, dear, how are you feeling?" The yellow pegasus smiled gently, her voice soft and sweet as ever. "I know you've been very hard on yourself lately; were Rainbow Dash and Applejack able to help you feel a little better?"

Nodding, Template took a sip of her tea. "I... a little, but there's still so much that I hardly know where to start..." She hung her head a little. "It just swirls around in my head all at once..."

"How do you feel about Aleph?" Fluttershy and Template both looked at Pinkie in surprise, though for different reasons. "How do you feel about her after what she did?" Pinkie repeated insistently but without being too pushy.

It took a pause before the answer came. "I... I don't know, she... since the very first day I could think and feel, she's been there, but she always seemed so much more in the background than my other older siblings. I always could understand and feel that Drawplate and Chassis loved me and looked out for me, but with her I just sort of had to assume. She seemed more like a regular golem sometimes---no, regular Golems understand emotion, they just have it so subtly... Aleph sometimes made me wonder if she actually understood or even felt emotions. And I guess... I guess she did and she didn't. She did because she knew that somehow they could turn me into that... thing. But she didn't really understand because if she did, would she have used me that way, like a pawn?"

"Whether she understood or not, I know one thing's true." Pinkie, still uncharacteristically serious, put a hoof atop Template's. "Nopony who would do that to their family has the right to call them family. When she hurt you like that, Aleph gave up the right to call you her sister."

Template blinked, thinking it over for a moment. "I... I think I understand, but it still hurts to be used like that."

"I know it does, Template, but we're here to help you heal. That's what friends do, after all." Fluttershy gave her the warmest, softest smile Template had ever seen.

Author's Note:

Sorry for taking so long, everyone, but I have to be honest with you---the once-a-week chapter schedule? Yeah, I very much doubt I'll be getting back to that. I'm too close to the end not to see this through, though; I really want to finish this.