The Prophecy of Sweetest Belle

by FaelaArts

The Hospital

As Sweetie Belle slowly became aware of her surroundings, her first thought was that she was tired. After a moment her body twitched automatically and she winced in pain. With that pain her mind slowly pushed aside its own weariness in favour for lucidity and Sweetie began to remember what happened just as her ears began working again.

“The doctor says Apple Bloom is lucky to be alive, and she’s going to take a week or two to fully recover.” Sweetie’s ear twitched as she recognised it was Twilight talking. Her body complained, but she ignored it for the moment. The pain was very dull and very ignorable.

“Ah’m so glad, ah know what the prophecy says an all but I was still worried about ma lil sis.” Sweetie took a moment again to connect this voice to Applejack. She wondered why they were being so open about discussing the prophecy, considering how much trouble she had gone through to get the information. She hoped it wasn’t because secrecy didn’t matter anymore.

“So Twilight, what are you going to do about my sister? Even I can’t deny—Even I can’t deny that she is fulfilling the prophecy.” Sweetie felt her heart give a worried thud. Rarity sounded so sad, so defeated. Sweetie Began trying to open her eyes.

“The patient is waking up,” an unfamiliar voice spoke from beside her. Sweetie nearly jumped out of her skin. Opening her eyes, she was greeted by a shot of pain and promptly closed them again. From the brief glimpse she had gotten, Sweetie gathered she was surrounded by curtains and a nurse was beside her. She heard the curtain open and close. Sweetie tried opening her eyes once more. This time, she was slightly more successful.

Five concerned faces greeted her and she managed a weary smile. This seemed to alleviate their worries. The nurse stood up and left, leaving them alone.

“Rrrity.” Sweetie slurred as pain lanced through her body. Rarity walked over with a gentle smile and held Sweetie’s hoof in her own.

“Shhh, don’t rush it. You used too much magic at once, you’re going to be sore for a good few days, darling.” Sweetie Belle nodded softly at Rarity’s words, stopped trying to talk and simply enjoyed the peace of the moment. However, soon ponies began getting bored.

“Look it’s great you aren’t dead and all but I need to get out and fly. I don’t like hospitals.” All heads turned to Rainbow Dash, who glanced away sheepishly under the sudden stares.

“That’s a good idea. We need to let Sweetie Belle rest.” Rarity gently stood up after speaking, and kissed Sweetie on the forehead before joining her friends. Sweetie decided to try speaking again.

“Apple boom,” she slurred slightly more coherently than a few moments ago. They all understood what she wanted to know at the least. Twilight stepped forward, wearing her saddlebags for some reason, and glanced backward towards her friends.

“Listen, you all go ahead. I need to talk to Sweetie Belle anyway.” Twilight’s words caused Rarity to break out into a look of pure worry and fear, before she clenched her eyes and turned away.

“I…I understand Twilight. I’ll be right outside.” The fear was infectious, and Sweetie Belle could hear the sadness in Rarity’s voice, she wanted to cry. The rest followed Rarity out, and then it was just Twilight and Sweetie Belle.

Sweetie Belle sized up Twilight, her face was a mask, but she didn’t feel like she was planning to threaten Sweetie’s life. Their eyes locked and Twilight frowned.

“So, you know.” Twilight got straight to the point, and Sweetie Belle cringed at the harsh tone that emanated from her mouth. It was almost as if Twilight was angry at her. But that was impossible, it wasn’t Sweetie’s fault.

“Is Bloom okay?” Sweetie asked, quite happy that she could speak properly again. The pain was starting to fade as well.

“We got lucky. Apple Bloom is going to be fine.”

Sweetie Belle gave a sigh of relief. Twilight was anything but a liar, and it was so good to get some good news. With that weight of worrying for Apple Bloom off her shoulders, focussing on the current conversation would be much easier. “Yeah, but I only know up to…I think it was ‘black and white will meet with green.’ Twilight, am I really the one in this prophecy? I just want to go back to being a crusader with Bloom and Scoots.” Her sadness was evident, and Twilight’s face wavered, and she turned and looked away.

“I…” she sighed in response after trailing off. Sweetie Belle waited for Twilight to continue. She turned around, her face having regained composure, and nodded. “Yes Sweetie Belle, there is no other option. You are this ‘Sweetest Belle’ that will destroy the world.” Twilight’s worlds left Sweetie stunned, as if she had been slapped in the face. There is no other option? That can’t be right, there had to be a way she just couldn’t be. “The only way to save the world is to kill you.”

Twilight’s words filled Sweetie with ice. It was such a simple statement said as if she’d over-rationalised it to a single point. Knowing Twilight, she had done this so she would not be able hesitate later, when it would be important. Sweetie Belle didn’t understand, her head hurt just trying to understand how Twilight could talk so calmly about killing somepony. What could cause Twilight to abandon her morals so entirely?

Oh, that’s right. Sweetie Belle had forgotten the fact she was apparently going to destroy the world.

“But Zecora says there’s another way! She said if I go on a journey with her we can stop the prophecy from happening!” Sweetie saw Twilight’s eyes dilate as she spoke, hopefully in surprise.

Twilight lurched forward, grabbing the end of the bed with her hooves and flaring her wings in palpable fear, “NO!”

Sweetie Belle jumped in surprise and stamped her hoof, speaking angrily, “Well why not?” Twilight opened her mouth as if to say something in response to Sweetie’s question, and then abruptly shut it.

“I...can’t tell you...” she muttered under her breath.

Sweetie Belle was about to retort but paused for a moment in confusion. “Why not?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“The prophet used the last of his magic to place a spell upon the world so that even if we know why, we can’t tell the person whom the prophecy is about. This means we can’t tell you certain things.” Twilight’s face lowered and she gazed at the floor and heaved a sigh.

Sweetie Belle paused, blinked and tilted her head in absolute confusion. Sweetie didn’t understand, it made no sense starting from ‘oh by the way you’re going to destroy the world.’ “But we’re talking about it right now! How can we be talking about it if you said the spell doesn’t allow it?”

“For some reason the spell allows anypony who knows it to talk about it, but only if it has already come true.” Twilight gave another sigh, glancing around the room. Sweetie Belle blinked, and gave another confused nod. Zecora has said something similar, it was very strange.

“So what can I ask?” Sweetie Belle was tired of the secrecy.

Twilight grimaced at her question, and then mused silently for a moment, “I can’t answer about the prophecy. But if you want information on any other subject I know about, I can answer you.” Twilight finished speaking and waited patiently for questions.

Sweetie Belle paused and thought about what to ask for a moment. So she couldn’t ask about the prophecy or about what would happen, but she could ask about what had already happened. There were two main things she wanted to know in that case. Three if she counted a very important question she would ask after she was done getting what she could from Twilight.

But where should she start? The magic book or the forest creature... It would probably be better to start with the shorter questions first. That way she could get them out of the way.

“Okay, well, Apple Bloom was attacked by some creature in the forest.” Sweetie Belle quickly went on to describe it, Twilight nodding as she talked about it.

“It sounds like a Leucrota. It’s not normally seen around these parts, it comes from where Zecora originates. Then again it is the Everfree so I can’t give you conclusive evidence to say they wouldn’t be there.” Twilight waited patiently for her next question, Sweetie Belle muse for a moment again.

“I didn’t get to finish reading my magic book. When can I have that back?” Sweetie belle watched Twilight opening her saddlebags and pulling out the book Sweetie Belle had just talked about.

“Here, there’s no point holding it from you now.” Sweetie watched Twilight place it on the desk beside the bed, and then return to gazing at her. There were two last questions to ask now.

“When are you planning on killing me and how come you could shout no when you said you can’t give away what happens in the future?”

Twilight reared back in surprise and shock. “But-I-No I-How?” Twilight went over the conversation and realised she HAD given it away. But how it shouldn’t be possible unless... She returned to looking to Sweetie Belle.

“Ask me a question about the future,” demanded Twilight.

Sweetie Belle tilted her head, but said, “Will I see an adult dragon?”

“Yes!” She gasped in shock. Sweetie Belle began to understand, and her face broke out into hope.

“Will he be a nice dragon?” Twilight turned to look at her and broke out into a smile of pure joy.

“YES!” Twilight darted into her bag and quickly pulled out paper and quill and wrote something down and floated it over to Sweetie Belle.

“Here read this,” she said, pressing it into Sweetie’s face. Picking it up in a sore hoof, she frowned, and tilted her head.

“It’s just scribbles,” Sweetie Belle replied. Twilight blinked, brought the paper over and glanced at it, and blinked again.

“It seems I can’t tell you what questions to ask, you have to choose the right ones.” She folded the paper up and slipped it into the book.

“You might as well keep it. It may come in handy,” finished Twilight. Sweetie Belle nodded, and saw Twilight was preparing to leave, and stopped her, a frown creasing her face.

“You haven’t answered my question. When are you going to ‘kill me’?” Twilight flinched, face turned away and curtain half open. There was a moment of silence, before she answered and left without another word.

“Three days from now, when you are discharged from the hospital. We will be escorting you to Celestia. I’m sorry.”

---

—This is called a channel.

Normally, the channel is the horn. But in extremely rare cases where the magic isn’t flowing to the horn fast enough, a different part of their body can be used to better access their key. There are also outside channels, but they are much harder to call upon, due to it needing three times the focus to pull off. It requires the user to focus on their channel, and instead of directing it toward their body parts, direct it toward a certain object. One well known example is Discord, who has mastered the use of channeling. Normally accompanied by a snapping of the fingers, we do not know the extent of his powers, nor of the extent he can control channels. Discord could also control other pony's channels, thus able to reverse their personalities if he so wished.

Other ponies can do this as well, but only Alicorns are known to have the endurance and power to perform such action alone. A group can normally accomplish this feat with some degree of difficulty. One such example is the moving of the sun and moon. The group unifies their magic to turn the group into a huge channel, and then sends their channel to the sun and use it’s own channel to move it. The amount of energy required to get to it is astronomical, but possible to reach with enough ponies. Once there, it is a simple matter to ask the sun to move using the vast energy available to it.

Of course, this is something only a master of the craft can accomplish, and it is not covered in this book how to do such actions. This book is only to help fillies and colts learn how to call their magic, and thus strengthen it enough that they can call the magic to their horn once it is strong enough.

Excercise 1:
Finding your magic channel.

Author's Note:

I am so unhappy with this chapter, but I've held off submitting long enough.
I'm sorry for the blatant tell,

Comments

[Oceansama]

The prophecy states that the 'Sweetest Bell' will destroy the world, but, so far, we don't know the reason why she would want to do such a terrible thing. My guess is that Celestia and the six elements, so ready to abandon their morals and kill a young filly, actually create the monster that they fear. Just my opinion as I love ironic twists like that.

Sweetie Belle is the best crusader and I enjoy stories where she takes center stage. I want to see her survive this ordeal and prove the others wrong. I've had a good time reading this story and I hope to see more from you.

[DragonOverlord2012]

I see what you mean by blunt, but I don't really see any way around it. short of needlessly tiptoeing around Sweetie Belle some more.

...You know what this needs? Some eminent danger! You know, apart from the doomsday plot . Some drama amongst the inner circle. Prophecies, especially ones like this, cause stress and eventual conflict. People end up taking sides. Of course now that I've said it we all know who's going to end up protecting Sweetie .

One question must be asked: wha the fuck is she supposedly going to do? I'd really like to know...

[FaelaArts]

2641510

[SilentBelle]

Sorry, I couldn't get around to proofreading this one. At the very least, I can offer what I think of it.

I think Sweetie Belle is acting a little less panicked than she should be... though that could be chalked up to being extremely tired, I suppose.

I think this situation has the potential to cause a nice rift between the mane 6. Honestly, I can't really see any of them willing to sacrifice SB to save everyone else. They just don't strike me as that merciless. Which I think would be a good source of conflict for the story to have. Maybe Rarity steals her away, or Twi's 5 friends convince her not to bring Sweetie to Celestia. There are many ways the ponies could react, as you have a very open ending here. I'm curious as to how it will turn out.

I think the page explaining the channels at the end is, well, not really necessary, but I don't dislike it either. I just think it might have made more sense to just have that filed away for you, as the author to keep in mind as you build up this magic system. The readers will be able to learn the rules due to how the magic is used and how the character is shown to interact with it.

I enjoyed this chapter, but it was really short.

[FaelaArts]

2643685
I know, I was so against submitting it because SB doesn't feel right, but I'm really busy and I don't have much time of the day to write.

I just needed to get the little tidbit about discord out it was kinda making me