//------------------------------// // Fault // Story: Tabula Rasa // by Rose Quill //------------------------------// “Luna,” Twilight whispered, nudging the mare with her hoof. “Luna, can you move?” The Lunar Diarch groaned and attempted to stand, only to fall back, a gasp of pain sliding from her mouth. “The poison is not bad,” she said. “It cannot affect my astral form, but the wound itself may fester. We must find a way to clean and bind it until I recover enough mana to heal it myself.” Twilight looked around. “I don’t see anything I can use!” “Twilight,” Luna said calmly, despite the pain and sweat evident on her face. “You are one of the most resourceful and gifted of my sister’s students. If anypony can conjure up a bandage, you can.” She opened her mouth to say more, but her eyes rolled back in her head as she slipped from consciousness. “Luna!” Twilight shouted, then started scanning the area, whispering to herself. “Basic laws of transmutation require like for like,” she muttered. “Linen can be made from plant fibers, so…” Her horn lit up as she transformed one of the surviving bushes into a roll of clean bandages. Bringing them over to her, she scanned around for other materials. “Loose stone,” she whispered, eyeing the floating debris from her explosion of magic. One of the stones shifted slightly as her aura surrounded it. “I can make this into a basin to hold water. But where am I going to get water?” Her eyes fell on the well. “Oh, this just keeps getting worse and worse,” she muttered. “What happened?” Tabula asked groggily as she started to sit up. Her eyes fell on the Princess of the Night. “Princess Luna! Is she ok?” “We were attacked by some dreamscape beasts while you were unconscious,” Twilight said, running some figures in her head. “I need water to clean her wound, and the well is the only place.” “But we can’t move the stone,” Tabula replied. “We tried.” “No, we can’t,” The Element of Magic said, standing as her horn started to blaze with light. “But I can teleport some of the masonry, maybe.” She looked at the Pegasus. “But I don’t know what sort of effect it will have on your memories if I do,” she said. “Disturbing the well could cause the stone to move or fall into the abyss around us. Maybe even shatter. There’s no guarantee that doing this to save Luna may not have an impact on you.” Tabula Rasa looked at the well and the capstone that showed how her memories were bound away, then at the shivering Alicorn. “Do it,” she said firmly. Several of the bricks began to glow in the lavender aura and they shifted slightly before vanishing with a bright white flash. A silvery fog began to drift out, and Twilight immediately encapsulated it with her magic and brought it to the stone basin, the mist condensing against the smooth sides of the bowl. She teleported another brick out to increase the amount of water vapor she could access, but as she did, the well gave out a groaning sound. A greenish light began to emanate from the fissure, and it reached out to grab Tabula. “Twilight,” she said. “Something’s happening.” The Alicorn glanced over at the Pegasus in time for hazy lines to appear on her flank, forming a cloud and a series of diagonal lines hanging from the bottom of it. “My cutie mark,” she said in awe. “I remember my cutie mark!” “That’s wonderful!” Twilight said as she continued to bring out water vapor. “I’ll try and move some more stonework, see what else we can dredge up.” But as she teleported another brick out, another groan sounded and the well began to buckle, held up only by the magic of Twilight. “Focus on the Princess,” Tabula said. “My past isn’t worth it if I wind up being the reason she dies.” “I can hold it for a few more minutes,” she gritted. More fog floated out along with another tendril of green. “I remember now,” Tabula said. “I did it, I used a memory charm on myself.” She shook her head. “I wanted to forget…to forget…something happened. Something about my family.” Twilight gritted her teeth, the strain of trying to hold the well up becoming more present in her mind. She tried to replace the bricks she had removed, but the wall had shifted in such a way that they wouldn’t fit anymore. The capstone shifted and the well collapsed, the graven stone sealing the well as it crashed to the ground. Tabula cried out, clutching at her head as the stone landed, tears welling in her eyes. “It was my fault,” she whispered. “It was my fault.”