Seraphimus was putting the finishing touches on her pack, tightening one strap after another. She knelt before multiple branching corridors leading nebulously into the heart of the mountain. She breathed steadily, calm and deadpan.
Hoofsteps scraped against the rock floor of the chamber, coming to a scuffling stop.
Her headcrest lifted, but otherwise she barely flinched. The griffin spoke without looking towards the far end of the chamber. "After countless goddess-forsaken months, I am finally out of your mane. Isn't it enough to just let me go?"
"No..." Rainbow Dash fought dizziness. Rubbing her head, she leaned against a stalactite and squinted at the former Talon Commander. "It isn't."
"Hmmmfff..." Seraphimus examined the firmness of the makeshift straps. "Your selfishness knows no bounds. You simply must own everything."
"No." Rainbow took a breath, teetering slightly. "I simply must own up to everything. There's a difference." She gulped. "Don't tell me you don't understand this yourself..."
At last, Seraphimus looked at her. Her charcoal brown eyes narrowed. "You look ill. Did those dastardly monstrosities give you a concussion?"
With flickering eyes, Rainbow looked to her left.
Discord hovered in place, rippling in and out of existence. He pretended to be looking at an issue of Playchaos magazine. "Hmmmm?" He glanced over at his anchor, adjusting a pair of reading glasses on the hairy bridge of his nose. "Oh, don't mind me." A fang-glinting smile. "What could I possibly enjoy from this heartfelt conversation."
Sighing, Rainbow looked at Seraphimus again. "Just a bug I can't seem to lose." She gulped. "Why? Are you... actually concerned for me?"
Seraphimus merely snorted. She returned to examining her pack. "You'll find that I took only the barest necessities."
"The 'barest necessities' in a place like this would require a friggin' tank," Rainbow's voice cracked. "With a blood-thirsty moose at the helm."
"Poetically hyperbolic," Seraphimus dripped. "I simply meant to affirm that I did not take liberally from your supply."
"Again. Why do you care all of a sudden?"
Seraphimus actually growled: "Do not mince my own words. Can you at least appreciate the fact that I have garnered an ounce of my old professionalism?"
"Aaaaaaaand what's so professional about going out into that mess alone?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "It's frickin' suicide and you know it."
"It's your foolish crusade that's the suicide run," Seraphimus retorted. She glanced up at her with a hawkish eye. "And now, I am no longer part of it." She paused... then sat up straight with a lethargic breath. "Unless... you have come here to stop me by force."
Rainbow took a breath. "I've considered it." She stared past Seraphimus. "But Logan made a promise."
"You intend to maintain his honor?"
"It was an impulsive decision... but not entirely a bad one." Rainbow swallowed. "All I've wanted was for you to be sane... be whole... be happy. But this?" She shook her head. "This isn't exactly what I wanted. I feel that you're my responsibility, and if you go out there on your own—"
"We're still in the company of your comrades," Seraphimus said in a cool tone. "You possess greater numbers and could still attempt to overpower me—"
Rainbow gnashed her teeth. "Why's everything gotta be a tooth-and-nail headbutting scenario with you?!? Didn't you ever once have friends? Like... What were Keris? Starscream? Windfarter? The other guy?"
"My life as Commander of the Right Talon of Verlaxion was one fashioned for conflict... harnessed through combat." Seraphimus stood up, testing the weight of the pack. "I excelled at what I did... until I met you." She looked at Rainbow, squinting for emphasis. "You are the last creature whom I shall allow to lecture me on kinship."
"Well, you gotta admit," Discord spoke sideways, pivoting the "magazine" around in his claws. "She's a whole lot calmer about being a whole lot calmer." He gave the issue a shake, and an extra-long page rolled out. His red-and-yellow eyes bugged. "Yowsers!" He panted. "Look at them fractals!"
Rainbow looked at Seraphimus again. "And what about when your family was still alive? What did a life of violence mean to you then?"
"... ... ..." Seraphimus stood in silence. Without looking at the pegasus, she rolled the pack over her shoulder, slipping her forelimbs through the straps.
"I... wanted to restore the real you, Seraphimus," Rainbow Dash said. "Not the crazy state-sponsored wrecking machine, but the loving wife... the protective mother... the griffin who once enjoyed harmony and the warmth of others—"
"Warmth was not meant for me," Seraphimus said. She glanced over her shoulder, her headcrest tightening. "That was made abundantly clear very early in my life."
"You so sure about that?" Rainbow cocked her head to the side. "From where I'm looking, I'd say you've thawed quite a bit."
"I know a thing or two about imprisonment," Seraphimus remarked. "It psychologically constrains a soul... whittles her down to a vulnerable, pliable substance. And yet—I am quite lucid of what's happened to me over the past few months. I choose not to accept that I've surrendered to your incessantly pedantic dogma."
"Then what's happening to you, Seraphimus?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Care to tell me?"
The griffin breathed slowly, her features sagging slightly. "A righteous humbling," she eventually murmured. "To such a degree that I could never have predicted it. I was strong, once. Courageous. Untouchable. Then you came in—and carried with you all the forces of the Blight."
Rainbow Dash winced.
"I strove to accomplish my task as a defender of the Queen's land. But... it wasn't enough. Verlaxion had charged me with protecting her foals. Somewhere along the way... I lost my focus. I allowed doubt and anger to clear my mind. I went on wild tangents, attempting to incriminate the likes of Chandler when instead I should have stepped back and allowed the Goddess' clarity to baptize me... to show me the plan she had in the most unassuming of places. Because of my faltering, I opened her up for vulnerability. The death of Verlaxion... the collapse of Rohbredden... it is all my fault. And now I am here..." She tilted her head up, gazing at the dark confining walls of the tunnel. "...in a purgatorial deathscape so far removed from the Spring Havens that I wonder if I will ever find the spirits of my mate and child again."
"Seraphimus, what happened in Frostknife... to your 'Goddess...'" Rainbow Dash gulped, shaking her head. "It couldn't be avoided."
"Yes. I realize that now."
Rainbow blinked. "You do?"
"Mmmmm... it was her plan." Seraphimus looked up. "Her plan for me all along... so that I might find my true place in this universe. Stripped of all I've loved and fought for—I am as small as I ever will be. I am a child again... a hatchling in the shadow of her... banished from the sun and spring waters of her beloved, unified tribes. I must stop mourning the state that I've been reduced to... and instead seek the enlightenment that Verlaxion had long intended for me. It is my remaining purpose." Her hawkeyes narrowed. "It must be."
"Sera, girl, you suffered for her plan, alright," Rainbow Dash said. "But it's not what you think."
"I can't expect you to understand. It was never your role to learn. Nevertheless, you had a place in all of this as well," Seraphimus said. "There may never come a day when I won't hate or despise you... but I must acknowledge the fact that you were part of Verlaxion's plan to bring me here... just like the death of my family." She took a deep breath, steeling herself or: "And that is why it would make no difference anymore to kill you."
Rainbow bit her lip.
"Ehhhhhhhh..." Discord threw away the "magazine" and shrugged. "Good enough. If you ask me, Sparky, you should just roll with that."
Rainbow ignored him. "Then..." She took a few weak steps towards Seraphimus, fighting dizziness. "...the long hunt... is finally done?"
"I want nothing to do with you any more," Seraphimus said. "And—barring any ambush that you might orchestrate—I do not intend to ever see you again." She turned tail and marched down a random cave tunnel with her pack of things. "Let that be the last word exchanged between us... and may we die separately. At peace."
"Seraphimus—Sera!" Rainbow Dash reached out for her. Her eyes flickered red-on-yellow, and she clenched her teeth. "Goddess-friggin'-dang-it!" Tail flicking, she trotted briskly after her. "Wait! Just hold up!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand the soap opera continues!" Discord mewled, stifling a yawn. "Where's a good organ when you need one?"