White light exploded all around him, Flashes of orange danced across his vision as he stared into the liquid. Finally, the potion stayed the same shade as his fur. He smiled, and a few trickling bubbles escaped his parted lips. He pushed with his hooves to pull himself out, relieved it had worked. But he found that his muscles locked, refusing to let him up. He frowned, what the hay was happening?!? He grunted, and another -far larger- stream of bubbles cascaded from his mouth
.
Thor knew something was wrong! The potion had worked, surely Seed could see that. Maybe he was relieved and savouring the moment, but as soon as he saw his friends forelegs go tort and his and his hind legs scrabbling on the floor, he knew the earth pony was in danger.
"ARCHY HELP ME GET HIM OUT!" Thor ordered, bolting across the room towards his friend.
"Leave him!" The cold demand cut through the air like a knife. Thor glanced back and saw Zecora standing tall. Thor ignored her and tried to grab his friend. Suddenly, Seed's hind leg sprang out and hit his friend in the chest sending him reeling back in surprise.
Seed was sure he was running out of air, he couldn't have much left in his lungs now, yet his forelegs wouldn't obey him! He couldn't bring himself to pull up! From beneath the sound of turbulent water, and his own distorted grunts. The stallion heard something. What sounded like a voice. Smooth, calm... and determined.
"To fight." It said, the word echoed around the colt. "To fight, is to protect." The other noises seemed to die away leaving only the distorted and rippling voice. "And to protect, you need strength." Seed pushed, he needed to get out! His mind was playing tricks on him now! "Strength, to keep going, even when all hope is lost! Strength, for your allies to rely on when they need it." his allies? Did it mean his friends? Due to a quickly growing lack of strength, and a suicidal wish to hear what the voice was saying, Seed's muscles began to relax.
"Salvation is change! And change requires strength before anything else! Without strength, the old cannot fall for the new to begin. Without strength, bravery is simply suicide, leadership is bravado, knowledge is useless, and remorse is grief." The voice was growing in intensity as it continued. almost as though as Seed's strength dwindled, it's own grew stronger. "You are the key to it all!" It exclaimed. "As long as you wish to be! Do you still wish to help them? Your friends?" Seed was beginning to drift into unconsciousness, deep in the back of his mind, a small voice cried out.
"Yes!"
Strength, warm and familiar began to seep into his body. Seed felt himself coming back to the real world, mere seconds from the darkness of death. With this newfound strength, he pushed hard with his forelegs. As though nothing had ever stopped him, his upper half rocketed up and broke the surface of the water. Still holding on, simply to be sure he was still of this world, his hooves pulled the cauldron with him. Almost as though it were nothing, the cauldron rose up at his touch and slammed to the ground. His grip slackened and Seed fell to the floor. Gasping for breath, he registered the group of blurry friends all staring at him, before he passed out.
.....
When Seed came to, he noticed his head was resting against something soft. His head turned, and he felt his check touch warm soft fur. The sensation was heaven to him. Just to know he could feel elated him, it meant he was alive! He began to hear voices, at first they were muffled, but they eventually came into focus.
"...Heard it too!"
"You think I didn't? If I hadn't I'd have gone straight in there to save him!"
"Some element of Bravery you turned out to be!"
"Zecora said not to do anything! He did the right thing. We know now, that's the best thing."
"Is he ok? He looks pretty bad!"
"HE just nearly drowned Sweetness!"
Sweetness? Was that Thor he could hear as well? And Archy, angelica? All accept...
"It's just a shame he had to find it out like that!" Ruby! Her voice sang to him like a siren, it came from right above his head, as though from heaven. His pillow began to move, it grew stiffer for a moment, moved slightly then relaxed again. That wasn't a pillow...
Seed's eyes finally opened, immediately they were meat by the sight of purple hair and green eyes. "Oh thank Celestia! Guys he's awake!" Ruby called to the others, then returned to gazing down at the stallion. She ran a forehoof across his forehead soothingly. It was then Seed's sense began to sharpen once again, he realised what his head was lying on was Ruby's lap. He was lying on a soft blanket atop a spongy mattress.
Hoofsteps caught his attention, and he rolled his head to the side to see the others. They all sighed with relief. Angelica made her way to the front of the group, her eyes were red. Had she been crying? And she gave a shaky smile. "So you want us to leave you two alone? Come back later?"
"Urrrrggghhh...buzz off Blank flank!" Seed groaned, finally sitting up slowly.
They all gave a relieved laugh at the stallion's retort. Seed reached up and rubbed his head, sending a thankful smile Ruby's way as he did. His head was sore, he knew what had happened, but he still needed to know what they had been talking about when he first awoke.
"What happened?"
"You nearly drowned! That's what happened!" Thor laughed loudly. He bounded over and flopped onto the bed between Seed and Ruby grabbing him loosely around the shoulder.
"Yeah," Seed scoffed, "That I remember." Archimedes stepped forward, looking agitated.
"You got the spell to work, but it was different to the other times." Seed looked up at him, had he heard it too?
"Different how?"
"Well, we heard...a voice." The unicorn said simply.
"My pappa's." Sweetness added, her tone oddly low and sad. Seed thought back, now he cast his mind back he recognised that cool and calm tone. It had been Discord! But...
"Why?"
"We don't know." Angelica said, her voice was hoarse, another sign she had been crying. "Zecora wouldn't tell us!" Seed stood up and travelled across the room to his cousin. He reached out and invited her to an embrace. She took the invitation gladly. She stumbled as she came to him, and landed on her knees, her head just by his chest. "You big idiot!" She said bitterly to him as he held him tightly.
Seed soothed her gently, gently squeezing her back. He looked past her head and saw the main room of the hut was in chaos. The cauldron lay on its side, its contents spilled over the floor now staining the dirt beneath. Yet, he saw no sign of the zebra. "Where is Zecora?" he asked.
Thor was the one to answer, still lounging on the bed. "She said something about one of her spells suggesting something was coming this way. I offered to go check, but she insisted she did it." Ruby piped up, obvious doubt in her voice.
"We're 'too important to risk capture' apparently." Seed laughed,
"I'd hate to see how she made a rhyme for that!" Thor groaned and lay down holding his face in horror.
"You don't want to know!"
Finally Seed released Angelica who looked a lot better now having seen him to be alright, and asked generally. "So if it worked, did the spell say what element I was." The voice had said it so many times it was hard to forget, but he wanted confirmation.
"Strength." Sweetness said quietly. Seed turned to her, slightly concerned with her odd behaviour.
"You ok Sweetness?" The pink pony suddenly burst into a smile, but her eyes gave away how strained it was.
"YEAH! I'M SUPER-DEE-DOOPER!" but under Seed's questioning gaze she buckled. "I guessed, hearing my pappa, and you getting hurt, and..." She glanced at the spilled potion. "Other stuff, I just got kinda down is all."
Seed realised, because of him the potion had been spilled on the floor. "You..." he began. "You didn't get to find out... did you." Sweetness nodded, her face showing her disappointment. But suddenly, as all her bad moods, the notion passed, leaving her the happy mare as usual.
"It's ok! You're ok, we're ok, hopefully my pappa's ok, so that's all ok! Haha, is ok starting to sound weird? Ok! ok! OKOKOKOKOKOKOK!" She frowned down at her own muzzle almost as though she could see the ok word escaping her mouth. Leaving Seed to think.
Her pappa... because of a voice they'd heard, it had brought hope to pink mare. but what about the rest of them? What about Thor's mother and father? And his own mother, or his uncle and aunt, Angy's folks! What about all their parents? It was the first real down time they'd had since the attack on Ponyville, so now it all seemed to wash over him like an ocean.
Seed looked around and saw a lot of morose and worried faces. He could see he wasn't the only one with family on his mind. Suddenly, just from beside him. Angelica spoke up. "We need to do what Zecora said! We need to go and talk to the princess!" The group all slowly turned and looked at her.
"Come on, Angelica!" Thor protested, "Archy only just mended his leg, and Seed just nearly died. Give us a break!"
"But it's true!" The yellow Pegasus pursued, walking into the centre of the group turning slowly to face each member of the group of friends. "We need to see her, and tell her about this!" Archy frowned.
"What, the 'Elements of Salvation'? We don't even know what the last one is yet!" He glanced at Seed and grimaced.
The stallion nodded, accepting the blame. "And if anything..." the dark unicorn continued. "We need to be careful what we take to the princess concerning... you know!" He glanced at Sweetness, not wishing to upset his fun loving friend.
"Concerning what Archy?" Sweetness asked naively, smiling back at him.
"Concerning... Discord."
"WHY?!?" Sweetness demanded immediately, her face one of complete shock and betrayal.
"Well!" Archy began throwing his hooves up to show he meant no offense. "If he had a part in these elements (And let's be honest, it sounds like one of his kind of jokes, a new set of elements to go against the Princess's, not to mention that we actually heard his voice talking to Seed when he found out his element!) The princess, isn't going to be all too understanding. He was an enemy of Equestria for thousands of years!"
"So?" Sweetness pouted angrily. "My pappa's different now, he only wants to help... and bake funny treats! The princess should accept that!" Archy looked around at his friends, begging for help! Ruby came to his rescue, slowly sliding off of the bed.
"Sweety, we don't think your dad had anything to do with this." Thor bit his lip. Once again the image of the draconequus waving at him danced across his mind. "It's just... harder for the princess to accept your 'pappa' as he is now after not trusting him for so long."
Sweetness looked at the beautiful mare for a moment and nodded. "I guess. Sorry Archy." The dark unicorn gave a sigh of relief, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow.
"It's ok." He said smiling to both Sweetness and Ruby. The platinum pony however grew serious as she looked at him.
"I agree with Angelica though, we need to see the Princess. Even if not about the elements, than about the attack. She needs to know about what happened to our parents!" Archy sighed, and nodded in agreement.
"I guess so, but at least we should get some rest, maybe head out in the morning if Zecora will let us sta"- The door to the hut flung open and slammed shut quickly. All the group yelped in surprise at the sudden noise. By the door, stood a very wary, very stressed looking Zecora.
"Zecora?" Ruby asked, being the first t enter the main room. The Zebra's eyes, who had been scanning the room, snapped to the platinum pony. "Is everything ok?" She asked. To which the zebra stared at her for a minute, and without breaking eye contact with her, slowly began to nod her head. Archimedes then came in.
"Zecora, where's your cloak? You left with it didn't you?"
"Lost!" the zebra snapped harshly to the unicorn, now staring him down as well.
"Uhhh... Seed's awake..." He said tentatively. Zecora gave that same slow nod.
"Goooooood" She said slowly. "Seed needs TO be awake." He speech was strange, she seemed to have emphasised the "To" in her sentence for no reason. but there was something else. Archy felt something brush past him, and looked up to see Thor passing him. His eyes fixed on the zebra, an odd look of caution glistened behind his pupils.
"We're hoping to stay the night, is that ok?" the pegasus asked slowly, never breaking eye contact as he crossed the room. Zecora's eyes followed him slowly.
"YES! Good...STAY here with me... staying is...good." Thor straightened up. glaring at the zebra at the door. it had failed the test!
"You're not rhyming Zecora!" The penny dropped for all of the group as they saw the animal like behaviour, the lack of verse. Angelica whispered in horror.
"Changeling!"
The door bust open again, the panel slammed into the creature, sending it tumbling to the floor in a heap. In the arching door way stood another Zecora, this one wearing her cloak. Even from the back of the hut, Seed could see the figure in the shadows of the trees fast approaching the hut.
"Run little ones run!
Out the back door and be gone!" The hooded zebra cried as she stamped hard on the hooves of the double on the ground. The verse and rhyme were what convinced them. Without hesitation all of them rushed to the back of the hut. Angelica took the lead and barged her way through the small door.
They all fled, with Seed taking up the rear. He stopped and looked back, and saw the floored Zebra pounce on Zecora, through the open front door he saw the other changelings, like a swarm of demons slithering their way towards him in the dark. Zecora saw him watching and screamed at him.
"Run Apple Seed, Flee!
do not worry about me!"
With a gut wrenching pain in his chest, Apple Seed turned and pelted out back into the darkness of the forest after his friends. Leaving the gleeful screams of the changelings to mix with the terrified screams of the zebra as she was overwhelmed.