//------------------------------// // 4: Recovery // Story: Imbalanced: Legacy of Light // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// Canterlot Royal Hospital was a professional place which nonetheless kept its friendly atmosphere, something for which Starry Night was more than grateful. Still, after three weeks spent either in bed listening to the radio, or recently with some light exercise, he had enough. Unfortunately, his having-enough-ness meant very little, because he wasn’t allowed to leave not only due to the doctors, but due to his mother’s royal order as well. He wasn’t bored. Angry, no one listening to the Good Fight for long enough wouldn’t be, but not bored. By now, though, he was beginning to think that the Good Fight “reporters” were receiving news from somewhere which other sources got hold of much later, and wondered why. Sadly, the conspiracy nonsense they pushed based on their knowledge made his eye twitch quite often. “Heya, Starry!” the cheerful voice of Bladedancer coming for another visit was a welcome distraction from the radio, so he turned it down, and smiled at the mare, “Still lazying around? You’re getting fat.” “Tell that to my mother, Blade, please, and loudly! If I have to wait until she stabilizes another contingency stasis and binds it to me, I’ll be so squishy it will have to trigger during basic exercise.” Bladedancer laughed, sitting down on the bedside chair. When Starry hissed as he sat up, smile drained from her face. “Still hasn’t healed, eh?” she rubbed her own scars, old and fresh. “I almost got gutted, and the doctors said the blow nicked my heart.” “You also made a bunch of expert unicorn healers collapse from the magic drain.” “Really?” Starry raised an eyebrow, “How come?” “Supposedly, whatever caused the cuts also saps magic, apparently even afterwards, so it’s not a simple cursed weapon. The good news is that it doesn’t leave lasting dark magic effects or anything.” “I feel as if I have a panel made of ice jammed halfway through me. I doubt that’s normal.” “As I read the report, it saps magic, heat… life.” “Oh dear.” “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that both of us lost some potential lifetime. You should be fine, I’m the one reaching her twilight years.” “What?” Starry gasped, “You look great for three hundred and fifty.” A spare pillow smacked him in the face immediately. “Idiot,” Bladedancer hit him one more time for good measure before levitating the pillow away. As the happy atmosphere of two survivors of a massacre slowly dissipated, Starry looked out of the open window letting in late summer sunlight. “Any more sightings?” “No, thank Celestia.” “I wouldn’t be so sure about it...” mumbled Starry. “What’s on your mind? Do you want to fight this Flow thing again?” “Stars no!” he shook his head, “It’s just that if he successfully raided two top secret and impossibly well protected installations, then he’s clearly not scared of our security. That might mean that he already has what he needed, which terrifies me.” “Come on, we don’t-” Bladedancer stopped, her eyes going wide. She knew about Starry’s special talent, both from her position of rank and power as well as the position of a good friend, “You saw something, didn’t you, when he slashed you?” Hesitant, Starry nodded. His power indeed had activated when he got wounded. Unfortunately, the stasis spell hadn’t allowed him to properly experience the received visions. What he’d managed to piece together during his stay at the hospital was chaotic at best, and incredibly fragmented. He was still working on sifting through the flashes, and it was like trying to put together a spider web from individual strands using two industrial cranes. “I felt… immense hatred an pain, and then felt as if a black hole sucked everything out of me, ripped everything that made me who I am into pieces. Unfortunately, the rest happened during the stasis spell, so I still get a flash here and there in dreams. I saw one thing when… when he stopped the stasis spell to... I believe spite my mother. I think I saw… the future, or his future.” “What did you see? You know what he’s after?” “That’s it, Blade. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was no world, no stars, not even darkness. There was simply emptiness. That’s why I’m hoping from the bottom of my heart that he doesn’t have all he needs.” Bladedancer nodded, finally understanding. However, such information didn’t change much in the end. She’d faced warlocks set on summoning beings which would devour all life on regular basis. “Heh, another enemy who just wants to end everything. The bad guys really should come up with some original motive soon.” “Well, if he killed powerful ponies indiscriminately, and stole ancient artefacts only because he wanted to build the world’s largest amusement park, the world we live in would be a vastly nicer place,” Starry chuckled. Bladedancer's words were wrong somehow, he just couldn’t put a hoof on why right now. Something about the way she put Flow’s motive. His analytical mind kept working overtime. “True, true. Oh well, get a good night's rest, and for the love of sun, listen to some nice music for a change instead the Good Fight. Those guys are frothing insane.” “Yeah, they are, I just can’t help wondering how these straightjacket and tinfoil hat candidates keep telling me things I only learn later from high command briefings.” Starry raised the volume of the radio up a notch- “BUY OUR PALEO PONY PRODUCT, JUST LIKE CHANCELLOR PUDDINGHEAD USED TO EAT! MAKE REAL STALLIONS OUT OF YOU!” -and had to chuckle, “Anyway, do you want to go see a movie tonight? I swear if they don’t let me out soon I’ll chew my way through the wall.” “Yeah sure, eight?” Starry nodded, and Bladedancer left him alone with his thoughts and the ongoing advertisement. Hmmm... “No, it wasn’t that he wanted to end everything, he wanted everything to end. Now what does the difference mean for us?” he muttered to himself. The radio host resumed his blathering, this time on the good old topic of the war in Zebrica. Once again, he described a situation Starry hadn’t heard about yet, and once again he was sure he’d hear about it tomorrow in the news or the security briefing. “METEOR, they summoned a meteor! Real giant burning rock that went boom right through the reinforced roof. Get it? The government in the South Zebrican Republic spent ten, do you hear it - TEN percent of their yearly revenue to build this thing, you know how often they get raided by some rising dictators in the surrounding countries. It’s a lawless place, that Zebrica. So, our good old marauding army sieged the place, and had nothing for few days. The defenders just withdrew behind a giant moat full of alligators, and laughed at them. They had reserves of everything for months - food, fresh water, ammo, energy, tech. They even called for help and gave us a video recording of the enemy army. Zeebs everywhere, just striped barbarians, all of them, I tell you. Then… came the magic. If you ever doubted that Celestia had hooves in it, then leave them by the door, because this wasn’t the work of some unicorn mercenaries, no no no. As I said, the meteor crashed through the roof, crushing main part of the complex. Before that, the attackers collapsed the escape tunnels. It had to be more magic, because they didn’t have any heavy machinery. Well, the meteor let out this weird fire which spread through a fortress with AIRTIGHT areas. Damn… this hurts even thinking about it. The civilians… I saw mares throw their foals into the predator infested moat, because it was less painful then the magical fire, and probably they had more chance. Unfortunately… the few who actually swam fast enough got dragged off, raped, and in the end impaled on spikes as a warning, both mares and stallions.” Too many problems coming Equestria’s way too fast. Starry rubbed his temples and continued listening, brows furrowed in an effort to filter nonsense from reality.