The Whisperer...
Twilight felt despair take over as she stared into the eyes of her death. The young earth pony floated in the air above, staring down at her, her gaze so intense Twilight felt the weight of Applebloom's glare pull her even harder into the sidewalk.
Twilight trembled on the spot, her eyes watering, too afraid to even move. She could see the power behind the Whisperer's eyes, the unfiltered surge of absolute authority currently determining exactly how painful to make Twilight's death. She didn't know if she had 30 seconds left, or 30 minutes, but she still took the time to notice that her life wasn't flashing before her eyes. She also noticed how casual the thought seemed given the circumstances.
"PLEASE!" Twilight yelled suddenly, her vocal cords deciding then to twitch in pleading. "Pleasedon'tkillme!" She heavily suspected that begging for your life wouldn't actually accomplish anything though, especially since she completely deserved to be obliterated for how she'd acted just minutes ago. And maybe her splattered remains of her would do a better job handling the situation than she had. But she didn’t know what else to do, she was well and truly out of ideas.
She had two jobs as a Hunter. One was protecting the living from the dead, and the other was making sure not to disturb the balance between the two sides. And she'd failed both by provoking the Whisperer.
Of all the body-hopping immortals, she had to pick a fight with what amounted to the most powerful one in existence… which was the perfect end to her pitiful life. It was poetic really. Beat somebody for trying to outsmart you, all the while claiming to be better than them, only to be outsmarted in turn. Twilight bet that famous authors would find the entire thing perfectly ironic.
Tears were freely flowing from Twilight's eyes as she openly cried, not caring anymore about who used her weaknesses against her: her life was forfeit anyway.
Twilight felt the Whisperer's overwhelming magical power envelope her, lifting her from the ground. The unicorn's eyes had closed before she started crying and pleading to not be killed, so she didn't see the painful daggers of doom being stared into her flesh. She just knew, as she hovered above the sidewalk, that she was about to become a statistic.
"Twilight Sparkle." A voice exuding with ancient jurisdiction spoke, vibrating Twilight's bones. "Twenty-nine years old. Unicorn. Female. Hunter. You claim that you're more of a threat than me, that you're smarter than I am, and that you'll do much more than hurt me."
"You are a fool."
"You're a fool to think you're smarter than an Immortal."
"You're a fool that fails to see the bigger picture."
"And you're a fool that thinks less of herself than that of her peers."
Twilight started at the final comment in confusion. "W-w-wh-hat?" was all she could stammer out between sobs. That wasn't a threat, or a problem with her very being. It wasn't even true. Wasn't the Whisperer supposed to be killing her right about now for slighting her? She opened her eyes as she felt her hooves touch back onto the ground.
"Twilight Sparkle. A unicorn with a very small amount of good luck, and a life most ponies would pity." The Whisperer looked at Twilight as she lowered herself back onto the ground; she was smiling warmly. "You've had life working against you from the very beginning."
With nothing to actually say, Twilight nodded, still too afraid to move, tears continuing to flow freely from her eyes.
"And the first moment you finally think something good has come your way, it crumbles in front of you, the truth being that even your moment of relief is short lived."
The Whisperer walked up to Twilight, looking directly into her eyes, and despite the height difference, Twilight felt like a child compared to the ancient entity.
"Twilight Sparkle, whose life has been such that you're cynical and distrusting, especially of those who mean to do only good by you. Yours is a life defined by tragedy, so I do agree that it would be very poetic that I be the one to end it. However, I'm not much of a poet."
The Whisperer chuckled slightly before conjuring a bench behind her and having a seat on it. "I want to ask you a question, Twilight.” Looking back to stare directly into Twilight’s eyes, the Whisperer spoke, “Do you wish to die?"
Suddenly the world came rushing back to the forefront of Twilight's consciousness. The last… unit of time… had been a blur, and Twilight had been completely prepared to die, but when the Whisperer began talking to her it made her lose track of absolutely everything. She didn't have the mental faculty to know her own name. Only her hearing and sight were working properly.
But that question brought her back to the present, and all at once her awareness came back. She saw the young filly Applebloom. But Twilight still felt the immense power. It contrasted confusingly with how casually she was sitting, it left Twilight feeling… conflicted. She silently took a seat on the bench beside the Whisperer and looked into those ageless eyes.
"..no..." Twilight meekly answered in return, staring down at the ground in front of her. She'd stopped crying, but her eyes were still wet from tears. The entire situation left her unsure of how to feel.
The Whisperer put her hoof underneath Twilight's chin and gently turned her so they could look at each other. "Of course you don't, no Twilight is that weak. You all fight for what you believe in, whatever that may be."
The way the sentence was worded confused Twilight further, there was more than one of her? She...didn't understand.
The Whisperer smiled, lowering her hoof. "This world is poison. Around every corner is something new to oppose you, and there's always something working against you, be it other ponies or the very forces themselves. And it saddens me deeply that you're so much worse off than your sisters."
"But I'm...not...sister..." Twilight’s words tripped as they fell out of her mouth, her hesitation catching up to her innate desire to correct inaccuracies.
A simple laugh took hold of the cool air surrounding the two ponies. "It's okay, you don't have to understand; not many do to begin with. Pinkie might have if she weren't so limited, but you almost never do." She then sat back in her seat, watching Twilight for her response.
Twilight, to her credit, was taking the encounter reasonably well. She'd started off terrified, but after the threat stopped being a threat, she calmed down; mostly in confusion, but she was calm regardless. There was something about the situation that just… felt off. Something that Twilight couldn't explain, even after you considered the fact that The Whisperer had decided to reveal herself, as well as not take revenge for beating her.
"Are you happy, Twilight?" The Whisperer asked after a moment of silence. Twilight turned to see a completely humourless expression, if anything the face Applebloom wore was one of deep sorrow. The immortal spirit motioned in a sweeping gesture forward. "I want you to look around you and tell me what you see."
Twilight did as told. She saw that the sun was beginning to set, finally closing the long day. She saw shops both open and closed, the open ones with their lights on. She saw some ponies walking down the sidewalk, but… oddly enough there were almost none. From the moment she had arrived in Partyville, the streets were almost always packed with at least a dozen people in all directions. If you looked anywhere, you'd see plenty walking down the street.
Strangely enough though, things were...empty. The streets had two ponies walking around, one a red stallion with some sort of thing around his neck, and in the opposite direction, there was a blue mare standing around. Both had smiles on their faces though, looking very happy.
Turning back to the Whisperer, Twilight saw her nod. "Yes, it is quite empty. That's because of me. You see, due to the forces at play, whenever I'm not hidden away in my host, Applebloom, there's a large radius around me that makes ghosts more akin to real ghosts. They're invisible, intangible, and inaudible. It's like they don't exist at all."
"It's a truly lonely existence, mine, that I can't make friends of my own kind. It's why I hide in the first place. When I'm hidden away in my host's mind, things in this world return to their natural order. It's also why I'm protective of my host."
"Believe it or not, Applebloom is as troubled as you are. You both value your secrets, and you both have lower stations in life. It truly saddens me that you've been placed in these positions. But it's because of these circumstances that she's so private, and in turn, I respect her wishes. It's why I'm so protective of her secrets. It's what brings her the most happiness."
The Whisperer noticed Twilight beginning to squirm slightly on the bench beside her and smiled to calm her uneasy mind. "It's okay, Twilight Sparkle, you can tell me what's on your mind. I'm here to listen to you."
Twilight rubbed her hooves together, uncharacteristically bashful in front of the Whisperer. Truthfully she wasn't fully convinced that she wasn't just going to be killed at the end of the exchange, and that everything the immortal said was some elaborate lie in order to trick her into letting her guard down. But in practice that didn't make any sense. Who goes through so much effort to humiliate you if they're just going to slit your throat?
So what was happening then? Was the Whisperer going to kill her or not? It sure didn't seem to be the case; if anything it almost seemed like she genuinely wanted to help. Which… was something of an alien sensation. In Twilight's experience help was just a thinly veiled justification for screwing somebody else over; that was how the laws of St. Orangeberg’s inner districts operated.
Which begged the question: did the Whisperer really want to help Twilight? Because if so then she could solve the farmer situation without invoking the wrath of the Executioner. But… would that be asking too much? She didn't want to piss off the Whisperer any more than she already had by making excessively greedy demands.
Applebloom softly chuckled in that powerful echoey voice of hers. "I can read the confliction on your face as plain as any story. You wish for my help regarding your current problem."
"Y-yes," Twilight stammered, "If...that, that's al-alright, m-ma'am."
The Whisperer couldn't help but let out a cheerful laugh. After a short minute, however, she decided to get up off of her bench, and walk away from downtown. Twilight didn't wait for an invitation to follow her. "I've always liked Twilights. The way you all think and act, there's something deeply innocent about you and your sisters. No matter what obstacle you may face, you'll always respect others. For most that can be attributed to Ponyville, but for you..."
Twilight didn't understand what the Whisperer was saying, she knew it was profound, but didn't understand why. She still didn't know what the immortal meant by 'sisters' and it almost sounded like there was more than one of her.
Looking back at Twilight, the Whisperer smiled, "Well. I wish to help you, at any rate." She stopped and looked directly into Twilight's eyes. "I will Unbind Applejack for you.”
Twilight's jaw dropped immediately. Was...was it just going to be that easy? Was the somehow friendly Whisperer going to solve Twilight's problem for her without hesitation? What was the catch? Nothing was this good.
Applebloom held up her hoof in a way that indicated she wished for Twilight to repeat what she was about to say. When the unicorn also raised her hoof, the Whisperer smiled. "Repeat after me: I, Twilight Sparkle, unicorn and Hunter."
"I, Twilight Sparkle, unicorn and Hunter."
"Hereby invoke the power of Sound in order to guide my following course of action." As Twilight repeated the line, Applebloom conjured a gold-coloured apple. "I take this parting gift for the purpose of removing a Binding's hold." Twilight took the apple in her own hoof, certainty entering her expression. "And in return I protect the secret from minds untold."
"And in return I protect the secret from minds untold." At the last word, Twilight felt a flood of information enter her mind. She knew that the way to unbind Applejack was to have her eat the apple. She knew that the Executioner would be handled by the Whisperer. And finally she knew that...
...that...
...that she was now bound to the prevention of anyone finding out about Applebloom's secret...
Twilight screamed.