Thirteen Reasons

by canonkiller

Opening Tired Eyes

Cocoon trotted through the arcing hallways of the school that her current consciousness had helped build. Her little hooves clicked on the mosaic floor, light filtering through great ceilings of stained glass.

She paused, looking up. Directly above her, a huge representation of Nightmare Moon, engulfed in golden flame, curled over the image of the current moon.

She sighed, seeing that the light had etched her into the Nightmare's place. Picking up the pace to a light trot, she hurried through the corridors. A glance at a wall clock told her she was still on time, but there were few ponies in the school at six in the morning, the earliest time slot she could find.

Skidding to a stop, she backpedaled to the closest doorway. A young-looking mare with a white coat and a billowing mane smiled from a desk within. "Magic Shimmer?" She asked kindly.

Cocoon's jaw dropped and her mind went blank. She was facing Celestia, her own enemy and Magic Shimmer's leader.

"Come on in." The Princess said, nodding a a small chair at the other side of the room.

The foal walked in, looking up at Celestia with fear and awe. "Of, course, Princess."

"Call me Celestia."

"Do you know what your task is for today?"

"No, ma'am."

The door opened again, and Magic Shimmer turned to look at it. Celestia followed her gaze to a small cage being wheeled in, flanked on all sides but the front by unicorn guards.

"You may go." The Princess commands softly.

The guards file out, and a small filly stands up in the cage. It is the same as the filly taking the exam.

"This Changeling was caught trying to enter Ponyville, where you used to live. Because you had come here, we know she is a Changeling. Your task is to unveil her, as she refuses to change."

"I'm not a Changeling! I can't!" The filly wailed.

Cocoon walked up to the cage. The filly cowers on the far wall, staring wildly at the young mare looking in. "It's you." She whispers. "You... you took my place." She sounds scared, but subtly impressed.

"I'm sorry." Cocoon replies, placing her hoof on the inside of the steel cage. Neither of them hear the sound of hooves on tile behind them. "I can't help you."

"Changeling scum!" Celestia's hoof smashes across the back of Cocoon's head, her small body skidding across the floor. "Insolent fool!"

The foal cowers, a hoof pinned to her head, a trickle of blood running down her neck. "No! Stop!"

"You have plagued our kind long enough, Changeling! You know your kind are not welcome here!" Celestia reared up, her horn glowing with raw energy. A flash of light announces the caged Shimmer has teleported free.

"Prepare to die!" Rage blinded the Princess as she releases the energy, a flame which scalds the very air.

There were only sixty-five years left until Luna returned, Celestia remembered, A student was needed, soon. A heritage of power had to be found. She was scrambling, stressed, hurt... and she had just referred to herself in the third person...

The screams of the two ponies were quickly overwhelmed by the burning material of the room. Celestia calmed, slowly, the flames dying down before extinguishing completely.

Something had gone wrong.

Cocoon stood up slowly, feeling a solid core of magic burning inside of her body. A flicker of solar flare, hidden away under layers of teleportation and protection magic. Her hooves feel off, her body surging larger to meet the boundaries that only a Goddess's magic could extend.

Her horn grows to meet the Alicorn's in length, filled with raw holes from the searing flame. She feels the pony part of her taking control, regaining balance, spreading her wings and changing them. Her very skull reshapes itself, her mane and tail flowing like water before returning to a solid state.

She opens her eyes. "Princess..." she whimpers, her voice a combination of the two she had learned to love. "Help... it hurts..." Every inch of her body is melting slowly, cooling into a hard, gray shell; an empty husk devoid of muscle and organs.

Celestia backed away from the monstrosity she had created, nothing more than an Alicorn parasite. The creature's eyes stare into hers, full of pain and sadness. They are not the eyes of a pony, but that of a reptile, a dragon, a predator.

"Guards! Trap this creature!"

The doors swing open, barely hanging on their twisted hinges. At least twenty guards fill the room, the pegasi carrying spears and the unicorns surrounding the mutation.

Cocoon throws herself forward, slamming into one of the unicorns and pinning him to the ground. She has not fed in weeks, ever since she moved to Canterlot. Her fangs pierce the guards neck in her enthusiasm, and his blood sparks with energy she had hoped to drain painlessly.

To starving to care, she licks the wound, the copper tang filling her mouth. It's a sour taste, one she would have rather lived without, but it does it's job. She feels stronger, surer. Power begins to fill her body, a heart-shaped patch on her back growing slick and strong. Thick bands of armor run down from the new carapace, connecting over her belly.

She lifts her head, a small ring of blood on her lips. The guard below her scrabbles backward, falling limp at the hooves of his Princess.

"It hurts." Cocoon repeats, wincing. The two beings she is made up of are straining against each other, unable to find solace in a single form.

"Kill it." The Princess whispers. The air in the room seemed to still as every magical particle was pulled towards her guards. The abomination - the mistake she made - does not move. It watches as the glow in the room casts shadows into slim, sharp-edged darkness.

It looks up at her, foalish eyes shimmering with tears it might not be able to cry. "Aren't you sorry?" It muttered.

She took a step back, causing the guards closest to her to falter. The rest of the charge was released without effect, as protocol insisted.

Celestia stared at the monster; its woeful eyes, its torn mane and wings, the gaping holes in it's legs and horn, the fangs curving down from its lip.

"Kill it." She croaked. "Kill it."

Cocoon shook as her Princess signed off her death. Her subconscious memory of the moment vanished as the light once again regained power, as she was once again a target.

She shot one last, hopeful look at the Princess. The Alicorn was looking back, tears running down her face. As the magic charge was released, the Princess lit her own horn, invisible in the glaring light.

Cocoon felt herself ensnared in a warm, loving light, before everything went dark.

Celestia jolted upright in her bed, soaked in a cold sweat. The darkness twisted into wraiths of Changelings, of the mistakes she had made that had been repeated.

"I'm sorry." She whispered into the dark, picking up the orb from her table. She hugged it close to her chest without a second thought, tears running down her face to glide over it's surface. The last piece of a creature she had ultimately broken. "I'm so, so sorry..."