//------------------------------// // Worry Takes Root // Story: One Bolt, Moving Forward // by Boltsinger //------------------------------// “You’re doing what now?” Boltsinger asked as he and Twilight looked over the map, which had expanded considerably. “I’m going to open a school here in Ponyville!” she told him, lighting up her horn and moving the thrones back into position. “It’s like I said, the map expanding out this far tells me that we need to spread friendship, not just all over Equestria, but everywhere! But it’s a little unrealistic to go everywhere at a moment’s notice, so…” “So having a school that teaches the value of friendship lets everypony come and learn from the best possible source!” the stallion concluded, his face lighting up as he spoke. “Not just everypony…” she corrected. “I haven’t told the girls this part, but I’m inviting creatures from all over to come and learn at the school! Ponies, yaks, dragons, anycreature that wants to come learn about friendship is more than welcome!” She spread her wings gleefully, a bright smile on her face that Boltsinger hadn’t seen in quite a long time. “You’re brilliant, you know that?” he told her through his goofy grin. Twilight nuzzled her husband’s nose. “So I’ve heard!” She returned to her work, slowly getting the thrones in their optimal position. “So, with that in mind, I’m going to be doing a lot of studying. Princess Celestia told me who I’ll need to talk to in order to get my school accredited, but we also need to come up with a design for the building, a location, the layout, curriculum… It’s a lot to do!” “Sure sounds like it. Anything I can do to help?” he asked, pulling his personal chair forward and trying to find a place for it. “I’ll let you know if I need something.” she told him. Looking hard at the massive crystal chairs now situated around her, she made one final adjustment. “Aaaaaaand… done!” She landed in the middle of the map. “Perfect!” As if to match the timing, sparks flew out of her horn, the magic fizzling out. She groaned, stepping down from the map. “And then this happens on top of all that!” She put a wing on her belly, feeling a drumming and a jolt all at once. “You know, sometimes I wish this baby would just be born already! I’m tired of these side effects, and the magic shorting out thing!” Boltsinger gave his favorite mare a nervous laugh. “Yeah… That would definitely make things easier…” “You know what I mean.” she replied as she started towards the door. “Spike is going to be in Fillydelphia for a while visiting a friend, so it’s just us ponies for now.” Boltsinger made to follow her, a curious streak taking hold. “Oh? What kind of friend are we talking about?” “Another dragon.” she elaborated. “He met her a long time ago, and from the pictures I’ve seen, she’s pretty cute! You think he might finally be getting over Rarity?” “That, or he just wants to spend time with his friend.” He reasoned. “Just because we turned into what we did, that doesn't mean it has to go that way every time.” “That’s true.” she agreed, putting her wing around him. “But it is fun to think about!” She went on about what Spike had told her about the dragon, how they met in a comic shop, how she had helped him solve a mystery that he had helped Princess Luna with, and everything the two had talked about since then. After a while, they stood outside the library, all gossiping done. “I’m going to get started on that studying. I'll see you later!” She waved her wing, heading inside the large room. “Don’t stay up all night!” He suggested, beginning to turn around. A thought came to him, sending him back to the door. “And don’t forget to eat!” “I won’t forget!” she assured. Another turn, another thought. “And pace yourself! Don’t move too fast!” “Don’t worry so much!” She told him. “I’ve got this!” “Okay!” He slapped his muzzle with his wings, finally walking away from the door. “She’s got this, Bolt. Don’t worry so much.” He took one last look back at the library, completely botching his attempts at ceasing his worry. “She’s got this…” “And she hasn’t left the library for the past four days!” Boltsinger said, sitting in Sugar Cube Corner. Pinkie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy all sat in various places around the shop, listening to their friend’s grievances. “I know I should just trust her on this, but… I just can’t shake it. Probably ‘cause of the baby. I dunno… What do you think?” “Personally, I think yer frettin’ over sumthin’ little ‘cause o’ sumthin’ a whole lot bigger.” Applejack stated. “Yes, it’s not like Twilight hasn’t had absurdly long study sessions before!” Rarity noted, flipping through a magazine. “I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.” “And you’re probably right.” Boltsinger affirmed, beginning to pace around the store. “I dunno, I’m probably overthinking things… I just can’t get these thoughts out of my head!” Pinkie Pie jumped up, raising her hoof excitedly. “Oh! I know! Why don’t you bake a cake to take your mind off of things? Or a pie! Or a pie cake! We’ve got everything to make it right he-eere~!” “A cake does sound lovely. We could make it together!” Fluttershy suggested. “Just… one question…” “What is it?” Pinkie responded. “What’s a pie cake?” the yellow mare asked. Pinkie met the question with an infectious giggle, bringing forth a strangely-shaped cupcake. “It’s a cake that looks like the ‘pi’ symbol, silly!” Fluttershy blinked. “Oh… Okay.” Boltsinger felt a rumbling in his stomach that refused to be denied as he shook his head. “I dunno. I don’t think a cake will be enough to get my head clear.” He admitted. “But… food would be good right about now.” Every mono-color-maned mare in the room voiced their agreement with the cake-baking idea, heading into the kitchen as Rainbow Dash stepped beside her fellow flyer. “This about that thing you told me about?” Boltsinger nodded. “Eeyup.” “Care to give me details?” she queried. “After food.” He told her, making for the kitchen himself. Rainbow Dash smirked, following suit. “Okay. But no pie! Pinkie’s tried way too much to force it on me!” Knocking rapped the door to the library, pulling Twilight from her impromptu slumber. She worked her way out of her chair and rubbed her eyes. “Come in…!” She called. The door swung open, with a cart and a cake taking center stage. “Surprise cake delivery!” Boltsinger declared, wheeling it in front of her. The cake was simple and brown, likely chocolate. “I haven’t seen you in… I think it’s three and a half days, now… So, I thought I’d give you something to munch on while you worked!” Twilight eyed the cake hungrily, realizing that she had not eaten since the previous morning, and only just barely at that. She took a look at the orange pony with a smile, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “Thanks, Boltsinger, this was really sweet of you!” Boltsinger giggled to himself. “Quite literally!” The Princess of Friendship laughed in turn, putting her wings on the cart’s handle. Why don’t we take this to the dining room? I needed a break, anyway.” “How is your progress so far?” he asked, trotting down the hall. “I’ve got an idea for the curriculum, but I’m going to run it by Princes Celestia to make sure it meets E.E.A. standards.” she explained, soon going into a long-winded explanation regarding the nature of the E.E.A. and why she needed their approval in order to open her school. By the time she was done talking, they were at the table, a slice of cake in front of each of them. “So what made you go to the trouble of making a cake, anyway?” “Mostly Pinkie and Fluttershy.” He stated. “I’ve had a lot on my mind for a while and they suggested this as a way to clear my head.” “A lot on your mind?” she started, swallowing the morsel in her mouth. “Like what?” “Oh, nothing you need to worry about!” He dismissed, stiffly waving his hoof in front of him. “You’ve got enough on your plate already, no need to worry about my little problems.” The Alicorn’s eyebrows furrowed intensely, giving him her most inquisitive glare. “Okay… You know that I’m always here for you, right?” Boltsinger put his hoof on her cheek, wiping off a smudge of chocolate that had built up on them. “I know, but you’re a Princess, and soon to be head mare for a whole school! My issues aren’t big enough to get in the way of that.” Twilight let an irked curl onto her lips, putting her hoof on his. “While I don’t agree with that sentiment, I’ll go along for now.” She got up, stretching her wings and heading for the door. “I’m gonna head back to the library. You wanna come?” Boltsinger shook his head. “Nah, I don’t want to distract you more than I already have.” He waved her off with a half-sincere smile. “Have a good time studying!” Boltsinger trotted through the endless halls of the castle, humming a tune to himself on the way to the library. He was feeling surprisingly refreshed, like all of his worries had melted away. The only thing that could make him feel any better in that moment would be to see his favorite mare in their favorite book-filled room smiling back at him, and that’s just what he was looking to see. “Oh, Twilight~!” He joyfully called, the sound of his voice echoing across the halls. The echo travelled further than he expected, as it eventually panged his ears from behind at the same volume he had used. He shrugged it off and continued on his way. After another minute or so of his trots, he finally heard a response from her. She was making a strange groaning sound. Loud. Almost painful. As it grew in intensity, the stallion’s face went from content to concerned, sending him into a gallop. “You won’t make it…” a familiar distorted voice told him from the shadows. He paid it no mind, shaking it out of his head as he ran, tendrils of darkness beginning to encroach on the hallway. “She’s suffering, you know!” The voice said, louder this time. Boltsinger grunted, picking up speed as he heard the pained noise from beyond. “It’s so cute how you're trying to ignore me! You know you can’t get to her in time! Both of them, actually!” Boltsinger’s ears turned in the voice’s direction. “Both of them?” he repeated, thinking on the words. He gasped as the thought took root. “The baby!” his eyebrows lowered as he brought his wings up, a spark of electricity arcing between them. With a single flap, he shot like the lightning on his flank to the library door, where the shadow tendrils had only just barely ceased their advance. As he stood at the door, hyperventilating, he heard slow, deliberate hoofsteps walking up to him. A mare with a form much like his sister-in-law approached, her body wreathed in the same tendrils that covered the walls, veining out into her fur and stopping just short of her hooves, entangling into her mane and tail to give them a false mist-like quality, wrapping around and extending her horn, and spreading out like dark wings. Around her neck, seeming to meld into it, was a black amulet with a blood red jewel inside, bearing the image of an Alicorn. The mare’s body underneath looked cracked, as if it had been broken to pieces several times and reassembled. From her blank eyes and the cracks in her form came a dark red glow. She sneered at the stallion so focused on the door, sauntering up and standing over him. “You’re too late, you know.” “You don’t know that…” He told her, refusing to look her way. “How are you even here, anyway?” The creature’s head recoiled from the sheer candidness of his response, a smirk creasing her muzzle. “From Boltsinger to Boldsinger, I see!” She put her false wing to her chin. “Going to have to fix that…” She waved it off, dismissing the thought for the moment. “Very well, if you must know… I never actually left!” She sauntered around him as Twilight’s cries grew louder. “You can have your precious Princesses come in and fight me, or have that tree of yours zap me, and it might make me quiet for a while, but…” She brought her muzzle next to his ear, delicately placing her false wing around him. “You can never be rid of something that is part of who you are…” Boltsinger's eyes flashed a bright green and shrank as his ears pointed towards the floor. He shot to the door, pounding on it in a panic. “Twilight! TWILIGHT! LET ME IN, TWILIGHT! PLEASE!” There was no response, the shadow tendrils slowly worming their way onto the door. He slowly looked back, seeing the creature in full. “How did you... get like that…?” “Why, thanks to you, of course!” She declared, pointing her hoof at him. “The beautiful form comes from your memories. But the power? That comes from your worries! All of your doubt! Every little thing you fret over makes me stronger!” She laced the tendrils of her wings together by her head, striking a melodramatic pose. “‘Oh I don’t think I’ll be a good daddy! I feel like I don’t do enough for my Twilight or my friends!’” She lit her horn, pulling the stallion from the door and slapping him with her wing with a sharp laugh. “Utterly delicious!” She directed her magic to hold him up by his mane, swinging him around and tossing him against the wall opposite the door. Boltsinger slumped over on the floor, looking up at the blackening door. “Go… away…” he said, struggling to stand. “And let me… see her!” “Go away? You want me to go away?” she mockingly asked. She lingered for a moment, then brought her hoof up to her muzzle, laughing like a spoiled rich filly. “Okay, then, fine. You want me to leave so badly? I’ll leave.” She began a slow saunter back into the shadows, the tendrils on the door wrapping around the handle. “I’ll leave you to your ‘little problems’. Have fun!” The tendrils around the handle twisted ever-so-slightly, turning it and swinging the door open wide. Boltsinger rushed in at full speed, finding himself, not in the library he was familiar with, but a cave. The walls were lined with books, twisted and distorted like the drawings of primitive ponies from before the three pony tribes took root. He stepped carefully onward, the cries of his wife bouncing off of the walls from every direction. “Twilight? Can you hear me?” No response. The crying was all he could hear. Come on, Bolt… if that monster was here, then this has to be a dream! He reasoned, closing his eyes tightly. So if this is a dream, then… He put his rump on the cave floor, putting all of his focus into the task at hoof. A rumbling began, the books on the walls moving in layers while rocks fell from the ceiling. The movement got faster as time went by, the pony’s surroundings changing to a more familiar sight, forming into the library he knew. In the middle of the room, Twilight sat, her wings, head, and ears drooping as she hung over a shadowed mass in the shape of a small pony. “Why weren’t you there…?” the Princess asked through staggered breaths. “What do you mean? I’ve been here this whole time!” he told her, stepping forward. Twilight snapped her head around, glaring daggers at him. There were tears streaming down her cheeks, and the whites of her eyes had turned a shade of grey. “But you weren’t! You were so obsessed with whether or not you would be a good father that you couldn’t even be one!” She pointed her hoof at the shadowy mass. “And now look what’s happened!” Boltsinger looked at the object of Twilight’s grief, his eyes flashing green as they built up their own supply of tears. “Twilight, I swear, I didn’t mean--” “Get out…” she told him in a low growl. She began walking towards him, her eyes turning a solid and expressionless bright blue with a flaming aura of the same color forming around them. Her coat shifted from its usual lilac to a darker shade with a splotch of a purple so dark it was nearly black forming around her Cutie Mark, with her wings turning a deep purple that bore a line of the same blue magic. Her mane and tail began moving on their own, the colors going from straight and uniform to wild and fiery as the hair flowed in much the same way, a central purple spot appearing just above her horn, which now pulsed in the same color as the budding magic. All the while, armor appeared on her head, neck and hooves in a color and style that looked like a dark and twisted version of her Cutie Mark, keeping a sense of uniformity, but growing ever more sinister with hot pink accents. With one last step, her hooves glowed in the same magic that had overtaken her eyes, wings, and horn. The Pegasus stepped back, the image before him having shocked him to his core. “But… I--” “Get out…!” she repeated. “How can I help you if I’m not here for you?!” Boltsinger argued, his rump hitting the door. Behind him, he could hear someone banging on the door with a muffled voice calling out. “I SAID GET OUT!!!” she screamed, her voice distorted with a lower pitch added onto her usual one. She let out an ear-piercing scream, building up power in her horn as she reared up. She kicked the air in front of her, slamming her hooves down hard enough to crack the floor beneath her and loosing a blast of magical power at him. Boltsinger reared back, bringing up his forelegs and wings in a defensive stance. “Twilight, please! Twili--” The magical blast hit home, and everything went black.