//------------------------------// // Home // Story: Mistakes and Eternal Silence // by Mocha Star //------------------------------// Spike saw Ponyville just as he crested a hill, tears swelled in his eyes, his breath hitched in a hiccup, and he swallowed loudly. He shrugged the backpack higher onto his back and scanned the streets, hoping for motion. For activity, for anything to show life where he lived. He hung his head and began walking again, back to Ponyville, back home. He reached the main street choking back sobs as he walked the silent way to the castle, looming in the distance. “It’s like midnight during winter,” he mumbled as he looked up, the sun still in the sky from six days ago when all this began. Feral clouds thankfully had begun to colese into large natural formations that drizzled or shaded anything they passed. He was sure nature was happy about that, because no night was bad enough, then to add on fires or whatever else was going to happen. He stopped thinking about that as best he could, realizing that the Princesses were probably… He looked aside at Sugarcube Corner’s smoking remains and tripped, falling to his knees when his eyes locked on the burnt support beams and finally the dam broke as he imagined everypony in the shop, frozen in place as they burned alive. His claws dug into the dry crumbling dirt and he groaned in pain as thoughts of what each of his and Twilight’s friends had been through, only to die frozen and alone. Half an hour later he’s stopped bawling enough to stand and return to his march towards the castle. “Maybe Twilight will be there, freaking out over all this and how to go back in time to fix it. She’s done it before, a warning about this and it’s back to normal. Heck, maybe it’s already happened and we’re in an alternate timeline that isn’t a living nightmare.” He kept his gaze traveling between windows in empty houses as he walked his own pace. The sign of a fire was obvious by billowing smoke behind several houses. He wondered whose house and whether or not they were inside when it started or not. “They’re dead anyway, what can hoping do?” He opened the door to the castle and listened to the echo of squeaking doors created by his action. “Well, anypony home?” he called. A flash of light that made him wince brought Starlight, eyes bloodshot and red, tears stained and matted her face from all angles out of her eyes; she was ragged. Her voice rasped harshly. “Sp-spike! I can fix this, it’s almost ready, Twilight’s here and waiting in her prison, because it’s a prison spike, one so advanced that even Sombra wasn’t going to use it. It wasn’t a journal of what he was planning to do, it was a book of forbidden spells he’d never use and have to ban when he took over the world, and gained immortality, and I cast it, Spike, I cast it,” she growled to herself and bore her teeth at the reflection in the floor. “Starlight, show me Twilight please,” he managed as he watched the unicorn crying hatefully at her reflection. She looked at him, showing full well her issues. “Yes, Twilight, she’s waiting for me to fix this. Waiting and waiting, waiting for me to fix my mistake all by myself. Silly Celestia is punishing me, too, for when I swapped her cutie mark with Luna’s. No night, Spike. No sleep until I fix this, a reminder, Spike, of what I did and how I have to fix it. It’s my mistake to fix… Twilight, yes! Come, come, Spike, I’m gonna get her out, just wait,” she charged her magic and teleported them to the castle throne room. Spike expected something to stand out, instead all he noticed different was that the chairs no longer had the cutie mark’s belonging to their respective previous owners. His eyes lingered at Rarity’s for a few seconds before noticing Twilight’s was missing as well. Starlight was still rambling through a ragged voice when he noticed a side door open and Twilight’s gem inside. “Twilight!” he cried and ran across the room where so many good memories had been made. He opened the door enough to walk in and looked around, stopping his rush. Tools such as saws, hammers, chisels, and axes were strewn around the base of the gleaming and still polished gem. “Oh no, Twilight,” he moved to the gem and fell to his knees, looking at her shadowed form inside. He could tell she was different, was dead. He could feel it in his heart that the person he cared most for was gone, just as was everypony else. He cried quietly to himself at Twilight’s prison as Starlight called various spell names out between sobs of her own. … “Starlight, what was the spell? You said it was bad, why?” She looked him with crazed eyes. “The first page, Spike. The first page! I skipped the first page of all of them and skipped more and more until I found a spell I thought would be helpful. I killed everypony, Spike, because I missed a page,” she barked a laugh and cackled at the roots of the Golden Oaks Library.  Her eyes spilled tears as she looked at the memories in the gems and she laughed. Her senses came back to her with a shock to her system as Spike hugged her barrel. For that moment, she wasn’t alone. She wasn’t the cause of genocide. She was sane again and had a problem to solve. “Spike, the first page explained that every spell he wrote in the book was tested in a pocket dimension made by black magic. “When I cast it in the real world it had full unfettered access to the aether we use, instead of the limited amount he did when he tested,” she hugged him back and shuddered, “there are no counterspells, Spike. This spell was one of his biggest fears, and the reason he never tested on unicorns.” “Why?” Spike asked before she could continue, frustrating her just a little. “Because, Spike, he’d have earth ponies and captured Equestrian pegasi to test his spells on, and after a dozen tests he concluded that anyone he cast the spell on would have their link to the aether corrupted and it would link to the next nearest member of the tribe. There was no way to block it, so he canceled the research and put it in the book as a warning,” she chuckled darkly. “The Book of Magic: X. I thought it was a title number, but it’s how they marked banned books in the empire under his rule. Of all his faults, he hoarded knowledge and wouldn’t let a single book be damaged. He cast spells and had his unicorn slaves-” Spike took a step back and looked at her chest fur and the smudges his tears had left. “So, Starlight, it sounds like if he cast it on earth ponies they’d all be affected everywhere?” She wrung her forehooves around each other and shook her head. “No, there was a limit to the distance based on the ability of the next pony in the chain. Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns could only affect a limited area relative to their race. If he cast this spell on a pony in the empire, or even in a city, it would only affect those within the city, at worst. But on an alicorn? “A pony with the power to control the sun, or moon, or the feelings of everypony without their knowledge. Or a certain one that had her special talent specifically in magic; one that had a connection to the very source of magic that we all draw from to live our normal lives,” her voice fell flat as Spike watched her stare into nothingness, “all but one who was casting the spell that had darkness in her heart. “The caster would be protected by the final part of the spell, so he would always live by being the focal point of the spell. Spike,” she looked down at him, but through him as though she were speaking to nothing and he was in the way, “I’m immortal. I can’t die, ever. When I cast the spell I sealed time around me, a physical barrier made of magic that’s always flowing through me held within it,” she blinked and stood, looking at Twilight’s gem. “I tried, Spike. Two days ago, when I buried every pony in Ponyville. Every single one,” she gnashed her teeth, “infants, foals, stallions, mares… Fluttershy, Applejack and her family, Berry Punch, Ditzy Doo, Time Turner,” she began rocking on her hooves, front and back reciting names. Spike listened as she spoke, rambled through the names. Everypony he knew, loved, cared for were gone. “I never found Rainbow Dash, but she was probably in training and fell to earth, squish. Maybe she was napping on a cloud and woke up, Spike, what if she woke up frozen with her eyes closed for every last minute of her life? Alone on a cloud or in her house where I didn’t look,” she blinked and flinched when she noticed him. “Where’s Flurry Heart? Shining Ar-” she was silenced by a claw to her lips. She was wrapped in a hug again that she didn’t return. “I, I killed them all. Everyone. Every one. All of them, are on my horn. I can’t cut it off, spike. I tried three days ago, when the last pony in town died. At least, I’m pretty sure she died, I couldn’t really check. No, she didn’t die, I didn’t die. I’m still here, aren’t I? Yes, forever. I’m here forever, as a reminder of what evil can truly be, and how it has to be punished.” “Starlight, it’s not your fault. You didn’t know and we can fix this, right?” He couldn’t hold on as she began to wander the side room and write notes in a new book on a far desk. He didn’t care, instead leaving the room and lying in Twilight’s chair to take a well deserved nap.