Onyx's Origins

by Onyx_Eclissius

Chapter 9

Sapphire hurriedly walked over to me.

“Onyx, are you all right?”

“No, ngh, they hurt!”

“I didn’t mean to, I swear!”

“Well you can make up for it by GETTING THEM OUT!”

“Okay! Okay!”
Sapphire raised her hoof to my face and the shards started absorbing into her hoof. At last I was freed from the horrible crystal acupuncture. After the shards were removed from my face I stood to question Sapphire.

“Why did you shoot those needle things INTO MY FACE!?”

“Number One: I don’t know what came over me and Two: You blew me up with fire before! I’d say were even...”

“Touché”
We continued to walk to the exit of the cave, leaving behind the paralyzed creature. We exited the cave to the outer portion of the castle.

“Okay, so we’re out of the cave and I can see the castle from here. It’s kinda small though.”

“Small?! It may look small now but it’s bigger on the inside, you’ll see.”

“Okay, where are we now then?”

“Hold up, I’ll check.” I flew up over some untrimmed hedges and landed. “It seems that we are in the Outer Gardens.”

“Wait, the ’Outer’ Gardens? You mean there’s an Inner Gardens too?”
I gritted my teeth at the ignorance of this mare.

“Yes”, I remarked sarcastically, “When there is an outer something that normally means there is an inner of that same thing.”

“Geez, sorry.”

“Let’s just find our way into the courtyard. I have a rough estimate of where to go, to get in.”

“Why a rough estimate? Why can’t we just fly over? II thought you knew how to get through here?”

“Stop nagging! I know where to go but the way might be cut off by overgrown hedges. One; These hedges have dark magic embedded in them, so we can’t just walk through them or separate them. Two; I don’t know if you noticed but we can’t fly over them either, it’s night. If we tried flying in the night, we wouldn’t be able to see anything once we got into the air.”

“So, Mister Cartographer”, she said sarcastically, mimicking me, “Where to next?”

“Okay, well, first is the Outer Gardens, where we are. Then we have to get through the Inner Gardens, the Courtyard, and then last, there the Castle doors await.”

“How big are the inner and outer areas in the garden?”

“Nearly the size of that Ponyville place”

“Okay, that’s not that big I guess”

“How would you even know what Ponyville is? You couldn’t have heard of it.”

“Remember, I know everything you did when you created me.”

“Plausible excuse”, I stated, raising an eyebrow.
We walked along the hedge for a while.

“I’m getting exhausted. Between me having to be a walking lantern and not getting any sleep before any of this…”

“Oh, Sapphire, you’re fine. We are almost there.”
Sapphire stopped in her stride.

“We are stopping and getting some rest!”

“No, we move ahead!”

“I refuse!”

“Then find your own way to the entrance!”, I shouted and continued to walk.

“Fine!”, Sapphire shouted back, slamming her plot on the ground in rebuttal.
I walked without looking back. At this time I was too tired to care about anything but myself and my personal goals.

“I don’t need that mare! All she does is complain about doing things!” I ranted to myself.

“She wants to stay behind and sleep, I need more rest than her! Selfish filly! And we were almost there too!”
I knew by the change in surroundings that I was near the Inner Gardens.

“Where’s that gate?”, I asked aloud.
As I continued, I felt metal bars beneath my hooves.
“What the?”, I looked down and focused on what I was standing on, “Well, I found the gate.”
Beneath my hooves was the gate to the inner garden, but something was off about this. The gate didn’t fall off the hinges. It was knocked off. There were dents in the gate. Keeping that in mind, I kept on my goal.

“I need to get to the doors before the dawn…if I don’t then Celestia will find me. Wait…if she finds Sapphire…NO! I have to go back for her; I’ll drag her here if I have to!”
At that thought, I stopped in my zombie leaden tracks and turned to go back for Sapphire. I ran as fast as I could to get to her so we’ll have time to get into the castle before daybreak.
As I made it back in view of the cave exit, I searched the area for Sapphire. When I was in doubt that I would find her. I started to get weary and cast a spell on myself to give me keen eyesight. Still with the aid of my temporary eagle vision, I couldn’t find her. I ran around a bit longer then sprinted to the spot I last remembered her to sit at. I started to run through the spot she sat at when I tripped and fell on my face. When I stood I heard a faint moan.

“Mmhh”, I turned to see what I fell over “Onyx?”

“Sapphire? Where are you?”

“Right here!”

“Right where?”

“Here! Don’t you see me?”

“I can see everything else besides you.”

“How? I…”, Sapphire paused, “Oh I see now”
Then I saw the mare appear out of thin air right in front of my eyes.

“Sapphire? Were you invisible?”

“Maybe? Yes? I don’t know!”

“How did you do that?”, I thought for a moment, “Wait, the illumination spell! That didn’t go right! Something was different about it! That had to do it. It gave you an offensive capability of those spikes and a defensive ability of your invisibility! That’s amazing!”

“Okay cool but, you woke me up from my sleep, can we both go to sleep now or are you going to kick me again?”

“Hrmm, we need to get into the castle before the break of dawn or Celestia will know where we are. If we could just make it that far then you can rest for the next two days if you wanted to. We can’t let her know where we are. Anywhere the sun touches she can see.”

“That’s why you wanted to travel in the night?”

“Precisely.”

“You promise?”

“I promise”