//------------------------------// // Ch. 2 The Cost of Freedom // Story: A Heart of Stone // by TheWhiteFreak //------------------------------// Ch. 2 The Cost of Freedom I regained consciousness and became aware that I was on a wooden floor that was jostling and bouncing around. I slowly opened my eyes and rose to my knees while rubbing my head and groaning. I looked around and saw that I was in a cage that was traveling through a forest, I canvased my head around my cell and saw in my cell were two black, four-legged creatures with insect wings on their backs. I let out another screech and scrambled away from the creatures and my back clanged against the bars of the cage. “Sweet Celestia! Hey! This suit of armor is alive!” I heard a shout from behind me. I turned my head and saw another four-legged creature that looked similar to a horse but smaller with grey fur, brown hair and tail and yellow eyes and a horn sticking out of its forehead. I looked down at the little creature in surprise as I watched him speak again. “Hey everypony come and look at this!” he shouted and was soon joined by five more of the pony things. “AAAHHH!” I cried out as I lurched away from the edge of the cage and stared at the horse creatures. “Wow, would you look at that. We thought it was a suit of armor. Hey Thrash, good thing we decided to lock it up after all.” A tan pegasus with an orange mane joked out as he spoke to what looked like a unicorn. ‘What the hell is going on? Why is there a pegasus and a unicorn talking!?’ “You think we should tie it up? Looks pretty strong to me” the grey unicorn said to the crowd. “Nah, those bars are plenty strong enough” the pegasus responded. Even though I had no mouth I was apparently still able to hyperventilate as I was being ogled by these strange creatures. I wasn’t even paying attention to the two that were in the cage with me until I felt a tap on my back, I quickly snapped my head to behind me and came eye to eye with the black insect looking thing. “Be silent ancient one, or they shall harm you further.” The little black thing half spoke and half chirped out. My body was frozen with fear again as I looked into the solid blue eyes of the creature. “Wh-what are you?” I shakily asked the strange creature in front of me. “I am a changeling ancient one, my name is Copy and this is Duplicate and you have nothing to fear from us ancient one.” He placed one of his arm-things on his chest and then waved it over to the other changeling in the corner. I took a few more deep ‘breaths’ and tried to calm my racing heart before I sat down cross-legged. “Why do you keep calling me ‘ancient one’?” I asked Copy. “Because that is what you are to our race. Do you truly not know what you are?” I only shook my head at ‘him’. “Many eons ago, when our race was still in its infancy, we lived in a harsh and barren land far from Equestria that barely supported any life. The queen at that time was approached by creatures of crystal and stone who offered us the knowledge of how to feed off of emotions rather than physical food in trade for them to feed off of our magic. The queen agreed and then began a symbiotic relationship with the beings that called themselves Magic Eaters. Centuries later the Magic Eaters one day approached the queen and said that they were dying and had to leave but they would not say where they were going. The queen begged them to stay, that she would find a way to cure them but they could not and she could only watch them as they left, the queen even sent scouts to seek out other Magic Eaters but they met with little success. Duplicate and I recently learned of this ancient history of our kind through a long lost hive that we found in the Icelands when we were captured by these ponies” During his explanation our captors apparently went back to whatever they were doing before. “I don’t understand; I can’t be one of these ancient Magic Eaters, yesterday I was a human.” “Hu…man? I do not recognize this word. What does it mean?” he struggled with the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth. “You know, human beings, Homo Sapiens, humanity… anything?” I looked back at Copy with worry as he shook his head. ‘How can he not have heard of humans? But then again I’ve never heard of changelings or Magic Eaters or unicorns and pegasi that can speak.’ “I apologize ancient one, I do not know of these Humans you speak of and we have traveled over most of Equestria and beyond.” “Wait… What is Equestria? I’ve never heard of a place like that on Earth before.” Copy looked back to Duplicate for a second before looking back to me, “Pardon me ancient one, but did you just say Earth?” “Yea I did, why does that matter? Is this not Earth!?” I was starting to panic again at the prospect of being on a different planet. “During our discovery of the lost hive we came across a large stone tablet that was written in a language that we did not understand aside from one word, Earth, which was written underneath a picture of a world that looked similar to ours but was also very different along with what looked like the board of a game that ponies call chess.” “What!? There was a tablet that had pictures of my planet!?” I nearly screeched out. “Please ancient one, you must be quiet, we do not know what these ponies would do if they got this kind of information. We will gladly take you there but we must first escape our confinement.” He whispered to me. “Do you have a plan? Cause in case you haven’t noticed they are armed and we are not.” “We do not need them, and you can make your own weapons from your mind ancient one.” He smiled and revealed his fangs. “I can do what now?” I would have looked dumbfounded if I had a face. “From the ancient text that we read, it is said that a Magic Eater is the embodiment of magic and can funnel their power through their bodies to create almost anything from crystal if they have the magic to do so.” “But how do I do it? I never used magic before.” “It is easy ancient one, simply close your eyes and imagine what you wish to create and your magic shall do the rest.” I let out what sounded like a sigh before I closed my eyes and began to focus on the mental picture of a weapon. I started to feel a slight tug at the back of my brain which I assumed was my magic and I felt it draining from my body into my hand. I even started to hear sounds like glass cracking and stone scrapping together. I quickly looked down to see what was happening and saw that there was a mass of the same crystal and stone that made up my body, sitting where my hand used and slowly growing and changing shape. Like a time-lapse video, I watched my hand slowly form into the shape of a sword about four feet in length before stopping. I looked at my new appendage and saw that the core of the weapon was made of stone while the sharpened sides of the blade were made of crystal. “Excellent job ancient one, now use it to cut through the lock on the door and Duplicate and I shall take care of these ponies immediately” Both him and Duplicate rose to their hooves and prepared for combat. “Uh…ok” I responded as I too got to my feet but still had to crouch due to the low ceiling and staggered over to the door of the cage. I took a quick glance around and saw that all of the guards were far too busy looking at other things to even pay attention to us before raising the sword and swinging it down on the lock. The lock offered no resistance to my blade as it sliced through like a hot knife through butter and watched as the cage gate swung open. I saw a green flash behind me and as I turned I saw both Copy and Duplicate wreathed in green flames as they rocketed out of the cell like green bullets. I could barely follow with my eyes as they bounced around, crashing into ponies and bouncing off of them like pinballs while avoiding retaliation by our captors. I slowly emerged from the cage as I watched them defeat our captors and was amazed at their speed and skill. “You freak, I’m gonna kill you.” A dark and gravelly voice came from above me. I looked up and saw the unicorn thing from before was levitating a spear and standing on top of the cage that we were held in. I then saw him leap off of the cage and attempt to stab me with the spear. “AAHH!” I cried out as I dove away and the spear imbedded itself in the ground where I just was. “I knew it was a mistake to leave you unbound. A mistake that I will remedy.” His was glaring daggers at me as he slowly approached me. He galloped towards me with the spear in front of him and let out a battle cry. I was terrified by this strange creature that wanted me dead so badly, I had seen death before and it used to scare me, but I had never had another person actually try to kill me and the thought of a sentient being doing so had petrified me. With another shout, he leapt at me; I cried out in turn, closed my eyes and brought my hands up to protect myself. I waited for what felt like hours for the pain of the spear to rip through my body but I only felt a small scratch that started at my abs and went outwards along my stomach. I slowly opened my eyes and came eye to eye with the pony, fear in his eyes. He let out a gurgled gasp as he coughed and blood came from his mouth that splashed onto the ground. I looked down and saw that my sword hand was sticking through the dead center of his throat and bleeding profusely with his blood splashing onto my legs. I cried out again as I slung the pony to the side, sword sliding out of his throat and I could do nothing but watch as his life slowly left him. I stared at him, completely frozen and wasn’t even aware of the fact the one of the changelings had placed his hoof on my shoulder. “Ancient one… are… are you unharmed?” his voice was ragged and he was breathing heavily. I turned my head to address him and cried out again when I saw both changelings shakily standing with a spears and arrows sticking out of their bodies and green blood leaking from their wounds. I quickly spun around and was looking at them with fear in my heart at the possibility that the only two creatures I knew in this world could be dying. Copy only gave a weak smile as him and Duplicate collapsed on the ground, “Do not fear for us ancient one, we knew that this was going to happen and we are glad that we were able to at least grant you your freedom.” “Don’t say that! You are going to be fine! You can’t leave me alone like this!” there would have been tears streaming down my face if I knew how to cry in this body. “Do… not worry ancient one… there is one last gift that we can give you before our life leaves us. The gift of our magic… and our memories.” His voice was getting weaker as he spoke. “Stop! Don’t talk anymore! You need to save your strength!” “Please… ancient one… there is no time for us. Now… place your hands upon our bodies.” His eyes were growing heavy. I could only obey his dying wish and I placed my hands on the both of them, I watched as their horns lit up with a green glow and saw the glow travel from their horns and up my arms. I could feel their magic as it coursed through me, rejuvenating me, feeding me yet it had no taste or flavor, I simply felt… full. Along with the magic, I felt something else coming from them, soon I was assaulted by a flood of images as they smashed their way into my brain. It was like I was watching the life of another in fast forward with all the experiences and memories flooding into my mind. I grunted as they finally slowed and then stopped, I tried to process all the memories that I had just learned but it was a tangled mess of garbled images and sounds. I looked down on the two changelings that had just given their lives for me and could only look down in sorrow at them. They were now just empty husks and their black carapace that had once had a beautiful sheen to it was now a withered grey and was flaking off. “Good… those bugs are finally dead.” I heard a voice call from my right. I looked over with anger and sorrow in my heart and saw a brown unicorn with a short-cut black mane and tail and dark brown eyes and was wearing leather armor that was missing pieces and was burned in places and he was bleeding from a few cuts that he had on his body. My vision went red and I lost control of myself, I let out a screech and lunged at him, he swung the sword that he was carrying down on my head but it just snapped like a twig. I grabbed him by the throat with my free hand and lifted him to eye level. My body was seething my rage as I looked at this monster that had killed the only two creatures that had helped me. As I held him in my grasp I could feel the magic coursing through his body and in a subconscious act, I began to drain his magic from his body. He tried to resist me at first but I easily broke his barriers and continued to drain him, I watched as his body seemed to lose its color and he began to struggle less and less as his body withered but I did not stop until he was left with nothing. My rage cooled and I looked down at the pony that I had just drained and saw that he was now just a withered husk of a pony, drained of his life. Even though I had taken the life of two ponies, I did not feel bad about them, I felt far worse for the two changelings who had died. I dropped the husk of a pony and walked over to them and knelt down in front of them. “I am so sorry Copy and Duplicate, I am sorry that you had to die so that I could be free.” I spent at least an hour digging a grave for the first two friends that I had ever had; human or otherwise. Once their grave was done I slowly picked up each one of them and placed them gently in the grave before burying them and creating a tombstone from a nearby tree and etching the words into the tombstone before placing it in the soil at the head of their grave before I turned and walked away with my stone feet crunching softly in the falling snow. Here lies Copy and Duplicate Two changelings who gave their lives to save Diamant the Magic Eater Author’s Note: Hope you have enjoyed this chapter, I really hope that I didn’t throw a monkey wrench in the engine by adding a backstory to the changelings or that I have added another climate to the world but since there has been almost every other type, forest, desert, mountains and even a volcanic area, why not add a frozen area like Antarctica or Siberia? Or maybe a place a little less extreme, like Alaska? If these decisions upset the balance of the world I can change it if necessary. I hope they can stay but this is my first time working on a story that involves others so I will bow to the ones who came before me if needed.