From her wheelchair, Daring Do felt the world shake slightly. As if something had quietly produced a profound and distant crack. She looked up, momentarily rising from her stupor and turned her head back toward the building that would never be her home- -but would be where she lived until she met her final end.
“What was that?” asked one of the orderlies, the female.
“Nothing,” said the other. “Nothing is wrong. Nothing happened. Everything is fine.”
Except that nothing was fine. Daring Do suddenly realized that. The thoughts came back to her, the ones she had learned to hide from so long ago. She would never again live another adventure. Repeated injuries had left her body ruined and broken. It was the inevitable course of her life: in time, she would lose the ability to fly. Then the ability to walk. Without her adventures, everything she lived for would be gone. Yet she would keep living, because that was all she know.
But a thought occurred to her. She recalled that Rainbow Dash had come to visit, although it felt so long ago now. Rainbow Dash, who she barely knew, yet who seemed to know her better than most ponies she could think of. The only reason she knew, Daring Do realized, was from the books.
The books. That was something she had not thought about for a long, long time. Her state would lead her to stop adventuring, and that would take away writing as well. No new adventures meant no knew stories, just days of sitting on the porch staring at the trees, trying not to think. Or at least that was what the voice in her head told her .The voice that wore a red mask.
Except the voice was lying. The failure of her body had taken away her adventures, but it had not taken away everything worthwhile.
Daring Do moved. She slowly reached down and carefully drew out a piece of paper from beside her. Then, with equal care, she removed a pencil. She felt it in her mouth, twisting it, recalling the taste of so many like it, and of the quills she would use in later drafts- -first red, then black, then red again, as long as necessary.
There were more stories to tell. There were always more stories. She had some, still, but even when those ran out, there were those of others, those that she could form in her mind into adventures all their own. Her body had failed her. But her mind had not.
She put the tip of the pencil to the paper. The orderlies behind her screamed in anguish, and Daring Do felt the world around her collapse into fog. She began to fall through it, and as she looked up, she saw a pair of blue eyes and a strange, alien face staring back at her. A face linked to a body that bore a metal hand. The face smiled, satisfied that Daring Do would live to meet her in person.
Caballeron felt space ripple around him, as if the house around him were preparing to collapse. He wondered for a moment why it never did. He found himself wishing it had.
Then it clicked. Somewhere out there, Daring Do was beating him. She was doing something he was unable to, winning the competition they had so dear for so many years. She was upstaging him yet again, but it should have been impossible. He was Caballeron.
“Don’t you look away from me!” screamed his father. Spittle landed on the younger Caballeron’s face, and a hoof was raised to strike him again. This time, though, Caballeron did not allow it. He raised his hoof and blocked it. He was just a boy, and he was weak; the blow battered his foreleg severely, and he was sure that something in his wrist had popped out of place. It did not matter, though. The gesture had been enough. His father stared back with surprise and confusion.
“How dare you?” he whispered.
“How dare I?” demanded Caballeron, standing high and pushing his father’s hoof away. “Do you know who I am?”
“I know exactly who you are. You’re nopony at all. Just a failure who couldn’t even rebuild our legacy, who doesn’t deserve a name- -”
“Oh really. A legacy. Some grand, important thing, perhaps? With significant monetary value?”
Rage crossed the elder Caballeron’s face, and the younger was afraid he would be hit again. Except that his father simply seethed rather than coming to blows. “Money? MONEY? Is that all that matters to you?”
“Why wouldn’t it? It was all that mattered to you.”
The elder Caballeron gasped. “You don’t have the right- -”
“Why not? Because you don’t wish to hear it? Or maybe you don’t remember? Or maybe, just maybe, you don’t want to?”
“Shut your mouth, son, I don’t want to hear- -”
“SON!” cried Caballeron, roaring with sardonic laughter. “Oh how very rich! Calling me that now, when you never could bring yourself to in life?” Caballeron stepped forward, and his father did not retreat. “You stand there, telling me it’s my fault for failing to rebuild. But why do I have to rebuild?”
“You waste money constantly on your petty adventures and on your rivalry with that PEGSUS- -”
“That Pegasus is a valued nemesis, and all my money I made myself. Through hard work. Not honest work, obviously, but hard work nonetheless!” He chuckled. “Something you wouldn’t know anything about, though, would you?”
“I know more about money than you EVER- -”
“Yes. How to spend it. It was always about ME rebuilding. But why? Why do I have to rebuild? Why didn’t I inherit a thriving manor, an ancient fortune, a house staffed with competent servants? You and your father. You squandered it. You spent everything we had, and sold what was left to keep spending!”
“It isn’t the money that matters!” cried the elder Caballeron. “It’s the name! The honor- -”
“Of being a laughingstock? Of everypony whispering behind our backs about the lavish parties, the yachts, the jewelry you couldn’t afford? If our honor is tied to our land, it was not I that stole it away.”
“You’re a criminal!”
“Yes,” said Caballeron, standing tall. “I am, and I pride myself in what I have accomplished. My reputation, the fear I inspire, the connections I’ve made. By myself. Without YOU.”
“But the name! You’ve failed the very NAME of our lineage!”
“I did not fail the Caballeron name. It would seem that it has failed me.” Caballeron smiled.
“You don’t understand. You’ll never understand. You’ll never be worthy of it.”
“Worthy?” Caballeron laughed again. This time with some level of sincerity. “What do I care about being ‘worthy’? You’re not around to take the name back. Not that you could. So it belongs to me.”
Caballeron’s father’s eyes widened. “You can’t- -”
“I can. The name belongs to me. I’ve laid claim to it. I am the ONLY Caballeron.” He smiled wryly. “I’ve stolen it, if you like.”
He turned to the ghosts of his ancestors and laughed in their faces. “Depart. Go to whatever pit you crawled out of. I don’t need you.” He pointed at the building around him. “And I don’t need this! Why have I bothered keeping hold of something so worthless? I have my degrees. I have my business. I might as well sell it. Maybe to a mining company who will burn away everything and grind the land away until there is nothing but a hole where your precious birthright used to stand.”
Caballeron’s father looked heartbroken. Caballeron took joy in that. “Please, son…”
“Father. Goodbye. I don’t intend to fixate on wasting time building what you brought down. You should vanish with your legacy.” Caballeron tuned away. A door had opened on the wall. He approached it, not as a colt but as he was in life- -as a stallion. A stallion with the name Caballeron. He the only pony who bore that name- -and perhaps the last, or perhaps not; it did not matter either way.
“Son, please. Please don’t leave me.”
“I wish I could say I loved you, father,” said Caballeron. “Maybe I did at one time.”
“Forgive me…”
“There’s nothing left to forgive.”
Caballeron stepped through the door. His father stared for a moment longer before collapsing into mist alongside the endless line of Caballerons who had come before him. They all turned to mist at once, and Caballeron was left all alone and free.
Flock was shivering and cold. The streets rolled out in all directions. And endless maze built of stone beneath a sky so filled with smoke and clouds that the sun never shown. He had always loved this city, and hated it at the same time. Loved it because it reminded of home, and hated it because it was not- -and now because of the horrible memories it brought back.
Silversmith stood in front of him, watching. Staring. She did not speak because she did not need to. Her presence was enough, and her endlessly accusing glare. He was a wizard. He had existed alone for so very long, and endless stream of work in the name of the Eternal King- -broken only by one brief period of light. The period when there had been one other, one friend. A friend who had passed on while Flock continued, propelled endlessly forward through time in the bodies of countless generations of birds. That pony was Silversmith.
Then he felt it. He did not have the same context as the living ponies did; his view of the world was completely different. Perhaps they heard it as a sound, or saw a flash of light, or something of the sort. Flock did not. He simply perceived that the spell around him had changed. It was weakening, in a sense, but not quite. In some respects, it grew stronger as the attention was directed solely at him.
Silversmith turned her head and looked out. “The others,” she said. “They’re breaking the spell. Would you look at that.”
“That’s not possible.”
“No. It isn’t. At least it shouldn’t be. But you were never one to press for the impossible, were you, Corvius? Oh no. Everything operates just as it’s meant to.”
“What do you even mean?”
“I mean, you can’t do what they did. You’re too sick, too broken. I can see it. Right now. You’re trying to figure out how they did it, but you can’t. You just can’t figure it out, how two Pegasi and an earth-pony managed to do what a ‘great and powerful’ wizard couldn’t.”
“What makes you think I don’t know?”
“Because that’s the way it works. That’s why you got me, wasn’t it? Because you forgot how to think like a pony. You made yourself immortal, but you’re still fading. Soon there won’t be anything left.”
“And does that matter?”
Silversmith paused, as if confused by the question.
Flock looked up at her. There were tears in his eyes. “Do you think I’m afraid of you? That I don’t know how to break this spell? That I couldn’t?”
“You can’t. You don’t understand how.”
“I do. I don’t know how they did it but I know how I would do it.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because I don’t want to. Because of what it will cost me. Please don’t make me, Silversmith. Just leave me. I beg you. You’re right. You were a pony. And I let you stay a pony. So go away. Let me be a hideous, deformed thing and keep going.”
Silversmith sighed. “You know I can’t do that.”
Flock stood. “So be it,” he said. “I suppose it had to be this way.”
“What way? Corvius, what are you doing.”
“Simple,” he said. “I’m going to tell you the truth.”
“The…what?”
“The curse that infected your legs? It was one of mine. I designed it. True, I did not deploy it, but somepony else did. I could have saved them, too. It would have been difficult but not impossible. And to remove the curse as well, with a little more effort. But I chose not to. Because I wanted to use you as an experimental platform.”
Silversmith’s eyes widened and her face contorted with anger. “You son of a- -”
“Language. You SHOULD ask why. It’s not idol curiosity. You were right. I needed a living pony. I can’t do many things. Read from the Book of the Black Tower, for example. It won’t let me. I needed a slave.”
“I was your friend- -”
“A friend? A friend. Surely you can’t be serious.”
Heartbreak seemed to cross Silversmith’s eyes. Flock understood what it felt like. “But…I…”
“Was useful. That is all. And you aged and died. I could have stopped it. But I didn’t. Because I was so very disappointed in you.”
“But everything I did- -”
“Your work was excellent. But you disgust me. That’s why you died. You know that, don’t you?”
“I don’t- -”
Flock closed her eyes. He could feel his mind rewriting his most precious memories. “Because you are genetically inferior.”
“Flock…”
Flock opened his eyes. The world around him was already fading. Yet there was more work to do.
“I reject you,” he said. “I reject the memory of you, of any happiness you think you might have brought me. It was all a waste of time. The very idea of friendship is folly. You were a tool in my plans. Nothing more.” He raised a shaking hoof. It steadied as he brought it up, and the process was already complete. He believed what he was saying. “Now LEAVE.”
“No.”
Silversmith’s face suddenly contorted. Her eyes pulled open wide but slid closed at the same time, forming the slits of a mask. Her mouth drew back into a horrible, impossible smile.
“Of course,” she said, softly. She no longer bothered to speak in Silversmith’s voice. “I remember you now. It has truly been a long time, Gxurab. I cannot claim I am happy to meet you again, but I at last recognize you now.”
The world around Flock turned to mist and dissipated, and he wondered if what he had given up was worth the cost of survival.
The fog lifted, and once again the room became dark and cold, lit only by a now almost fully drained fire crystal. Daring Do was in a corner, breathing hard, while Caballeron was lying on his side near the crystal. Rainbow Dash was stuck upside down on her wings. All of them looked pale, but they were alive.
Flock blinked, standing through the pain, and saw that Scarlet Mist was already mincing toward him.
“I suppose this body has unusually low magical potential,” she mused. Her voice would have been profoundly beautiful had it not been contaminated so badly with sadistic hatred. “Yet it does seem to be sustaining me. For now.”
She turned her head sharply, and her boots stopped clicking across the stone ground. She reached up slowly and touched her mask, her hoof immediately moving to where a large hole had been burned into it.
“I’ve been damaged,” she said. It was more of a statement, but that carried profound and dreadful realization. Suddenly her face turned toward Flock. The thin, horizontal slits of her eyes glared at Flock. “Why am I damaged?”
“Scarlet, there’s been a development- -”
“You filthy insect!” she screamed, suddenly lurching forward. She pressed a hoof against his shoulder, shoving him back. Flock screamed and was forced back by a surge of red magic as she morphed his body. What he became made Rainbow Dash gasp in disgust: he was still a pony, but he was a flattened, wrenched thing that looked more like an especially vicious insect than anything else.
“What is this? What have you done to yourself? No, I do not care- -what is the status of the Empire? I remember fire, glorious war- -and my body being taken out from under me.”
“Scarlet- -” Flock coughed and spat; his voice was badly distorted by a mouthful of needle-like teeth.
“STATUS.”
Flock scuttled backward and sighed. His body shifted again, once again resuming the form of a black unicorn. “It still stands.”
“And Sombra?”
Flock’s expression fell. He shook his head.
“ANSWER ME you deformed- -”
“He’s gone,” said Daring Do.
“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash, still stuck on her wings. “I kind of might have, you know, murdered him. A little.”
Scarlet Mist stared at Rainbow Dash- -yet did not seem especially angry. “Really?” She turned back to Flock. “Then who sits upon the throne?”
“Penumbra Heartbreak.”
“Wait,” said Rainbow Dash. “That means…” Daring Do put her hoof on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder and shook her head. Rainbow Dash nodded and was silent.
“So the prophecy was not as pointless as I anticipated.” Scarlet Mist shrugged. “And the others? What of the others?”
Flock’s expression once again fell. “Gone. For the most part, all of them are gone.”
“Gone?” Scarlet Mist moved forward suddenly, producing an almost palpable wave of anger as she did so. Yet her voice remained nearly calm. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”
“The Nameless One persists, of course. And if Crozea survived the battle, I have not been able to locate her. And according to my calculations, we have recently intersected Thirteen’s original timeline. She has been born relatively recently. And of course the changeling queen…”
“That’s six. There were thirteen of us. Philo? Buttonhooks? That insufferable Blue Knight?” She paused and looked around. “Luciferian,” she said, suddenly. “Where is Twilight Luciferian?”
“Gone. They’re all gone. Although…” Flock smiled slightly, as if he were relishing the pain of someone the rather did not like. “A white stallion of House Twilight DOES currently sit on the throne. Just like the prophecy stated.”
“The war,” said Scarlet Mist. “The war. I remember a war.” She turned sharply toward Flock, and he took a step back. She began to advance toward him. “And you did not fight, did you? Of all of them, of all of us- -YOU. The weakest one. You did not even fight, did you? No. You must have retreated. Back to that private world of yours. To ride out the war while the rest of us DIED.” She pointed at the hole in her mask. A hole that must have gone far deeper than the mask alone when it had been first made.
“Did you expect me to fight?” spat Flock. “I’m no soldier! I’m a mathematician, an engineer! What? Should I have stood against the combined forces of Celestia and Nightmare Moon all on my own? If Luciferian couldn’t win- -”
“YOU COULD HAVE TRIED!” screamed Scarlet Mist. “If it hadn’t been for you, and that COWARD Holder, we would not have lost! The King would still sit upon the throne instead of that little pink abomination!”
She roared and turned away from him. “That was our home. Or yours at least. And you let it slip through your filthy little hooves.”
“I had to persist. I had to prepare for his return.”
“Return?” Scarlet Mist laughed, and it was a horrible sound. “Unlikely.”
“The spell. I completed it. I finished the plans, the processes- -”
“And quantified the pony soul. Congratulations. I see what good it did you.”
“Sombra lives.”
“And so does the princess,” replied Scarlet Mist, darkly but not out of hatred. “And the world has moved on. And now it is far too late.” She slowly tilted her head to stare at Flock. Somehow this was more horrible than her previous erratic movements. “My body. It could not have survived this long. There is nothing left for me to search for.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t?” she said, coldly. “Then why have you returned me to such a body?”
“Because I need you.”
“But I do not need you. Nor do I require anything. I with only to go back to sleep. There is nothing for me here.”
“But you won’t.”
Scarlet Mist eyed him suspiciously. “And what makes you suppose such a thing?”
“That you can’t. Not when you have a body. When you’re a mask it’s one thing, isn’t it?” Flock smiled and approached her. It was the same smile as before. “But not when you have a body. The rush of life. Your greed. Your hunger. Your power.” He looked up at her. “I know you, Scarlet. And I know you cannot resist those things. You cannot give up on life once you have it. You had one chance.”
“Yes,” she said, oddly calm. Then, much less calmly: “and you took that from me.”
Her horn ignited with red light, and Daring Do reached for her whip. She did not need to draw it, though, because Flock seemed to have expected this.
“It’s the Hand of Doom.”
Scarlet Mist’s horn remained charged, but she did not use it. “That pointless thing you were so very much obsessed with?”
“Yes! It’s real! It’s actually real!”
“I feel like I should be concerned, then.” The light of her horn faded. “I was never your friend, Gxurab, but I at least had the capacity to understand your work. If you resurrected me, I can only imagine that this is indeed dire.”
“It is. The Questlords of Inverness stole it from me.”
“Because you are a carless fool no doubt, and weak without a king standing behind you with funds and armies. But the Questlords are extinct. Even in our time, even when I was whole they had been driven to extinction.”
“By the false-gods.”
“By Celestia. I have no quarrel with gods or want of politics. You know that, Gxurab.”
“Never mind,” said Daring Do, stepping forward. Scarlet Mist turned to her, and Daring Do shivered. Something about the mask was terrifying, although she was not sure what. Perhaps because the pony behind it was not the pony who was looking at her.
“You,” said Scarlet Mist. “Pegasus. What do you want? More of, why should I not bisect you now?”
“Could you?”
“Yes. Easily.”
“But you used that mist instead.”
“Because I enjoy your pain. What right do you have to speak to me?”
“I helped free you.”
“How curious that you think I am free. But yes. You did. I recall you. And for that, I hate you desperately.”
“But if what Gxurab has told me about you is true, you hate everypony.”
“Yes. Because hate is all I know. Because hate is all I NEED to know.”
“Then why are you looking for a body?”
Scarlet Mist glared for a moment. “What do you want, pony?”
“The Hand. If it finishes what it’s doing, it’s the end of Equestria.”
“It is always the end of Equestria somewhere. Why should I care? My body no longer exists. No other body can substitute. I have to have it, to make me whole again. If that will never happen, why should I serve you?”
“Because you get to punch Questlords?” suggested Rainbow Dash.
“Because you owe it to her,” said Caballeron, suddenly breaking his silence.
Scarlet Mist turned toward him, raising her horn. It glowed red, and for just a fraction of a second Daring Do was sure she saw the tiniest flash of green within the glow. Scarlet Mist did not attack.
“I owe nothing,” said Scarlet Mist.
“That is a lie,” growled Caballeron. “That body. She made a sacrifice to bring you here. To help us.”
“Which you cannot comprehend, can you? I have witnessed your mind. Your greed matches mine. It is untainted and pure. That a pony could sacrifice is beyond you.”
“That does not change the fact that SHE understood!” cried Caballeron. “If it had not been for her, you would still be there, lying in that box! And she will….she’ll…”
“She will do nothing. But I know what you wish to say. Yes. It is true. I will drain her of all magic and life-force, burning her away to ash. Then as Gxurab suggested, I will attach myself to a new host and do the same. To her, and to the next. Across eternity until I am destroyed or find a pony that can bear to stay with me. And the only pony that can is ME.”
“She knew that, and she accepted it. So that…” he paused. His face was drawn, and he could not look near Daring Do. “So that others could survive.”
Daring Do stared at him. She had not seen him behave like this in a long, long time.
Scarlet Mist also stared. Then turned back to Flock. “So be it.”
“You will help us?” said Flock, hopefully.
“Not out of selflessness, which is a pointless vanity. This body will not last long. It is already fading. I require a new one. A Questlord knight should be more than adequate.”
“There is a mare,” suggested Caballeron, much to Daring Do’s horror. “Carillon Heartstrings.”
“I do not care what her name is. If she is adequate, her only name will be Scarlet Mist.”
“I assure you. She is.”
“We shall see. Or I shall. The rest of you do not seem to realize who this is.” She pointed a red-clad hoof at Flock. “He intends to betray you all. I have no doubt of that. To him, you are all expendable. Yes, you may succeed. And he and I will both survive. The rest of you will not.”
And with that, she left them to stand in knowing silence.