//------------------------------// // The Turning Point of Destiny // Story: Northern Venture // by Chengar Qordath //------------------------------// When I opened my eyes, all I could see was darkness. For a moment I wondered if Starlight had decided to get some revenge for me taking out one of her eyes by blinding me. Or if somewhere in the transformation process I’d lost my eyes—not all of Blackfyre’s creations had them. I guess that made sense—eyes are a big and obvious weak point for most living creatures. However, it wasn’t that kind of darkness. When I felt around myself, there weren’t prison bars or crystal encasing me or a cold cavern floor beneath me. In fact, I didn’t even feel solid ground under my hooves. I was just floating in an empty void. I looked around, trying to find anything other than the empty darkness. “Where am I? Is anyone out there?” I spun around and spotted something in the distance, right behind me. The figure slowly approached, lazily flapping towards me on a pair of dragon-like wings. It looked kind of like a pony, though I’d never seen a pony with bright red scales before. The black armor looked almost exactly like the set Starlight had been wearing back in our first fight in Coldharbor, and her eyes were almost completely black other than her teal irises. Her red and yellow mane rippled through the air like an open flame. I lit up my horn and made sure all my defensive spells were firmly in place. I had no idea who or what this thing was, but it sure looked like some sort of demon I might have to fight. “Who are you supposed to be?” The monster snorted and rolled its eyes. “Oh please. Don’t tell me you haven’t already figured it out.” She conjured up a ghostly image of me, placing it side by side with herself. There was enough of a resemblance to make it obvious. “I’m what you could be.” I glared at the monstrous parody of myself. “I’m nothing like you.” “Well, you certainly don’t have my good looks or my power,” my demonic self shot back. “Not to mention you only have half the limbs I do. As for the rest of it ... well, let’s take a little trip, shall we?” She waved one of her hooves through the air, and darkness fell away, to be replaced with a vista of Canterlot and the royal palace. Except it wasn’t the palace I remembered; instead of looking warm and welcoming it was dark and foreboding, and all the banners bearing Celestia’s symbol had been replaced with... Oh joy, alternate demon me was going with this. We shifted down into the throne room, where I sat upon a massive seat that would’ve been ridiculously oversized even for Celestia. Speaking of whom, Celestia herself was standing before the throne, bowed so low her muzzle was practically scraping the floor. She wasn’t the only one; Cadenza was there, and the Council, Argentium, Scarlett Runseeker, Solar Shimmer, and dozens of other familiar faces. Every last one of them, bowing to their glorious queen. Me. I grimaced and shook my head. “No, this isn’t... This is just an illusion. Or in my head. Something like that.” My evil double scoffed. “No, really? I was sure that the weird visions in a mystical black void where you talk to your evil subconscious was physically happening. But yes, this is all in your head. After all, it’s your dream we’re seeing.” I stared at the impossible scene before me, of the entire world’s submission. “No it isn’t. I’d never ... it’s just a power fantasy. Who hasn’t dreamed of being supreme ruler of the world at least once? Doesn’t mean I want to actually make it happen. It’s no more real than that time I dreamed about being baked into a giant quesadilla and having to eat my way out of it.” “And the next day you went out and ate a quesadilla,” my double pointed out. “Just like you made that fantasy into a reality, we can do the same with this one. It would be so easy. All we need to do is unlock the potential hidden within you and make you as powerful as you were meant to be.” She spread those draconic wings with a proud smirk. “This isn’t what I want,” I snarled, waving at the preposterous scene before me. “I don’t want to be some sort of evil tyrant forcing everyone to worship the ground I walk on.” “You say that,” my double murmured, “but don’t forget who you’re talking to. You can’t deny you like the idea of making all those short-sighted fools bow down before you. To make even Celestia herself acknowledge you as her equal ... or superior. This is our chance to finally make it happen, and all you have to do is reach out and seize the power being offered to you..” “But this isn’t what I want!” I snapped at her. “I like the idea of standing side by side with Celestia, but I never wanted to crush her or steal Equestria.” “Oh really?” My double smirked and shifted the scene back to my childhood, when I’d sat on Celestia’s throne and pretended to be Princess—then a decade later, when I’d lashed out at her in the middle of my breakdown. “We both know there’s a part of you that would love to beat her. To take everything she’s ever achieved and do better.” I clenched my teeth as the scene shifted back to the throne room. “First scene, I was a kid being silly. Second was in the middle of me having a breakdown. And finally ... yeah, I do want to do better than her. Not because I’m trying to show the world I’m superior, but so she’ll be proud of how much I’ve accomplished.” “And for your own pride,” my evil twin countered. “Yeah, sure,” I admitted. “I want to achieve great things with my life. When I get old, I want to be able to look back at everything and say ‘yeah, I did a good job.’ I want the history books a hundred years from now to talk about all the great things I did with my life. I want a big statue in the middle of Freeport, celebrating how much I helped them and everything I achieved. What’s wrong with any of that? Doesn’t mean I’m evil, just that I want to live a good life.” I took a deep breath. “And yes, maybe that means trying to outdo Celestia, but there’s nothing malicious about that. She’s my mom, and the most wonderful pony I’ve ever know. Of course I want her to be proud of me.” “Fine, then.” My double shifted the scene again, and we moved from Canterlot to Freeport. The city itself looked far more prosperous than I remembered, with none of the slums or run-down sections. Happy citizens of all races mingled in the streets, or in beautiful open plaza where statues of me towered over everyone. My evil twin smirked. “Is that more to your liking?” “Maybe,” I admitted. “So what's the catch? “No catch,” the demonic version of me lied. “You just need to finally become what you meant to be. Me.” I frowned at her, and would’ve crossed my legs over my chest if I could’ve. “Somehow, I don’t think it was destiny to turn into a freaky dragon-horse crossbreed with an appearance that just screams ‘Look at me, I’m evil!’” “Destiny is flexible,” Demon-me answered. “Why limit yourself to the equine form when you can transcend it? Blackfyre can help you do that. Just imagine how much stronger you can be if you combine his gifts with your transformation into an alicorn.” I glared at the creature. “So this is all just another pitch to make me try to join up with Blackfyre. If you really are part of me, you’d know that’s not happening.” I waved at the idyllic vista before me. “I wouldn’t really be ruling Freeport, I'd just be his proxy because he's too lazy to do the job himself. Not to mention Blackfyre would probably come smash the city at some point just for the sick thrill of watching it all burn.” “You’d only be working with him for a time,” my double shot back with a nasty grin. “His laziness makes him all too easy to destroy from within. Play your cards right and he won’t even know you’re plotting against him until it’s too late.” “Plot betrayal against the guy who’ll carve a bunch of control runes into my back as the first part of hiring me on as a minion?” I scoffed. “Yeah, we can see how well that’s been working out for Starlight. How can I stab him in the back when all he has to do is look at me and I’m down on the floor writing in pain?” “For starters, you could destroy him in a way that doesn’t require you to be present when the hammer falls,” she pointed out. “That’s how Puzzle would do it, and I’m sure you’ll want his advice for all this skullduggery.” My evil twin shrugged. “And you’re Chainbreaker’s wielder. It didn’t do Starlight any good, but the equation’s way different for you. He’d never be able to make a slave out of you the way he has with her.” “Assuming Chainbreaker still lets me touch it after I join up with Blackfyre,” I countered. I still didn’t completely understand how the sword worked, but I was pretty sure a sword that was all about freedom and liberation wouldn’t like me joining up with a petty tyrant. It clearly hadn’t done anything for Starlight when she stole it. “And even if Chainbreaker kept me from getting put fully under his control, don’t you think Blackfyre would object?” I pointed out. “It’s a pretty safe bet he’d test out his control over me before he let me do anything, and if I had any freedom left he wouldn’t trust me to breathe on my own, let alone rule over chunks of the planet.” “Then you just have to fake it well enough to satisfy him,” Evil-me answered. “Bow and scrape a little bit whenever he comes around, and plant the knife in his back as soon as you can get away with it. It wouldn’t be that hard. Sure, it’s a risk, but nothing ventured...” “Pass,” I growled. “That plan means years of needing everything to go perfectly right, and I’m dead if it doesn’t. I’m not averse to taking a calculated risk to get a big reward, but you’re talking about the equivalent of playing with matches in a room full of fireworks and hoping nothing goes wrong. And that’s not even getting into all the horrible things I’d have to do to play along at being Blackfyre’s loyal minion for however long it would take to set up a backstab.” My evil twin rolled her eyes. ”So what do you want then? Freedom?” “Not being enslaved to an evil dragon who’d kill or torture me the first time I displease him would be a nice start,” I agreed. “If that’s what you want, I’ll need a costume change.” The skin slowly sloughed off the demonic version of me, and its hair changed color from red and yellow to green. Rising Fire stared down at me. Guess I should’ve known she would show up as long as I was facing off against evil versions of myself—or at least crazy liches who claimed to be from an alternate timeline and were suspiciously familiar with some of my best spells. “There is no greater freedom than mine.” She shifted the scene before us to a broken, ruined world. “All is dust, but that means there is nothing to restrict me from doing as I please. I could spend a century reading books, walking across the world, or even lying in bed demanding my servants feed me. Even the chains of mortality are long gone. I am no tyrant, but those who wrong me or my world will face my wrath.” “Horseapples,” I snarled. “If I’m not turning into a freaky demon, I’m also not turning into some sort of lich. Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested. What’s the point of having absolute freedom if I’m left in a desolate wasteland with nobody else to enjoy it with?” I held up a hoof to cut off the response. “Let me guess, this is one of those ‘No mare is an island’ things. The only way to have absolute freedom is to live in a world where there’s nothing that can restrict me. Just like how Blackfyre wants to do things.” I scoffed and shook my head. “Yeah, that’s not my idea of freedom. Sure, I want the right to do as I please, but I don’t need the freedom to be horrible to everyone around me. I have responsibilities, and I think trying to do a good job with all of that makes me a better pony. Look where I am now compared to what I was like three years ago, when I was just a student.” Rising Fire shifted back to the demon-dragon form, baring her fangs at me. “So you say you want freedom, but at the same time you say that having your freedom chained down has made you grow and develop, and you need those restrictions? Do you even know what it is you want, or are you just a living contradiction?” I groaned and buried my face in my hooves. “You wouldn’t understand.” My evil self conjured up a big comfy armchair and flopped back into it. “So explain it, then. I can’t help you get what you want if I can’t even tell me what that is.” “Well I never asked for your help in the first place,”        I growled. I took a breath, and tried to figure out the best way to explain it. “I want to be important. I want to make the world a better place by my actions. I want Celestia to be proud of me and what I'm doing. I want to prove I deserve my wings, and get them.” “And what would you do with an alicorn’s power?” Demon-me challenged. “Because right now you seem like a dog chasing a carriage who wouldn’t know what to do with the thing if she ever managed to catch it.” I sighed and started massaging my forehead. “Not this stupid question again. Okay, yes, I don’t have everything perfectly planned out for what to do after I become an alicorn. It’s such a huge hurdle to get over that I didn’t think it was a good idea to count my chickens before they hatched. I’d probably just stick to doing what I’ve been doing, except better.” “Will you overthrow the Council?” Evil-me challenged. “Because I’m sure you realize that if you come back to Freeport as an alicorn and Chainbreaker’s wielder, they’ll see you as a threat. It’s a combination that’s practically tailor-made to destroy their legitimacy and make everyone think you should be running the show. Is that your plan, then?” I frowned and shook my head. “No. I mean, I have plenty of issues with how the Council’s been running Freeport, but I’m not planning on touching off a civil war or trying to pull a coup. I’ve been trying to fix problems and help people without burning down half the city in the process.” “That’s not how Ushabti or Torch did things,” my double pointed out. “Well I’m not them,” I countered. “And while the Council has a lot of issues, they’re nowhere near as bad as a bunch of crazy necromancers lead by an ancient vampire, or the zebras back when they tried to annex the islands. Maybe it’ll come down to a fight eventually, but I’m not in a hurry to start one if there’s another option.” My evil twin scoffed. “Why do you even want power if you’re not going to use it? Don’t tell me this quest to become an alicorn is nothing more than looking for validation.” “It’s my destiny,” I answered. “What more do I need?” “So it really is.” My double scoffed. “You’re pathetic.” The demonic version of myself slowly faded away, leaving me all alone in the darkness. I sure as hay didn’t miss her. “Yeah, well you look like you’re trying way too hard to be some big bad evil mare. Sure you don’t want a big cape with spikes and skulls on it?!” My evil twin didn’t answer. As the minutes dragged onward I almost wished she would come back. Not that I wanted to have some stupid evil version of me trying to tempt me to become an evil tyrant or whatever, but the alternative was just hanging here in the middle of a black empty void. I’d take just about anything over utter, complete boredom. For a moment, I could swear I heard Celestia’s voice. “Sunset? Where are you?” I looked, trying to figure out where she was. “Celestia?! I’m right here!” I went running off to where I thought I’d heard her. “I need your help! Please, where are you?!” I heard her voice again, but it sounded even further away, like she was trying to talk to me through half a dozen closed windows. I couldn’t even make out the words, but I recognized her voice. That was all I needed to start running again. I kept trying to find her, but no matter how far I ran or how fast I moved, she just seemed to be getting further and further away. I ran and ran for as long as I could, until I tripped over my non-existent leg and fell flat on my face. Somehow. You’d think that couldn’t even happen when I was trapped in a dark, ethereal void with no solid surfaces. With nothing better to do I just sat there, weak and helpless. Forget gaining a set of wings, I hadn’t even kept all the limbs I’d been born with. Blackfyre had just been toying with me, not even my death curse had phased him. Not to mention it had utterly failed at keeping me out of his clutches. I was nothing. Just the sad, broken remnants of a pony whose body would soon get repurposed into another one of Blackfyre’s beasts. Just one more pawn in his grand plan to destroy Celestia and become the most powerful petty jerk on the planet. My death wouldn’t even mean anything. It all seemed like a good plan at the time: give Celestia all the information she needed to find Blackfyre’s secret stronghold, kill off the nasty anti-magic critter Blackfyre had whipped up to have an advantage against her, then get away. Too bad the ‘get away’ part of the plan hadn’t worked out and Blackfyre could easily replace his Warpmouth. And now he had me, and could use me against Celestia. Guess that changed the plan to me stupidly getting myself killed for nothing, and maybe even dooming everyone else in the process. I wasn’t going to cry. I was not going to cry. ... Dammit. I’m not sure how long I sat there with the hot, bitter tears rolling down my cheeks before I heard another voice. “She can't reach you here.” “What?!” I bolted up to my hooves, hastily wiping my eyes dry. “Who’s there?! Show yourself!” The new pony stepped forward. It took me a second to place him; it was the same earth pony I’d had a dream about after Blackfyre broke my leg. Light blue coat, dark purple hair, and a long, thin, carefully braided beard hanging off his chin. There was something oddly familiar about him, but I couldn’t place it. When he spoke I noticed a strange accent, drawing out his words just a bit too much. “We are beyond Celestia’s light in this place. But there are others who can help you. Us.” Oh joy. More creeps trying to tempt me into making a deal to get out of the mess I was in. “So who the buck are you supposed to be?” The strange guy chuckled. “You may not know me by sight, but then your teacher would be one of the only ones who would. However, you would know me by my works.” “Cryptic and useless,” I grumbled. “Perhaps a more familiar face then?” The other guy from my dream, a white-coated pegasus with a black mane, stepped out the shadows. “I should hope you would know me, considering how much your apprentice admires me.” He smirked. “Not to mention her desperate hope that the two of us might be related.” With hints that blatant it wasn’t hard to connect the dots. “Torch Charger?” He smirked and nodded, turning it into a grandiose bow. “The one and only.” “Which means...” I took another look at the earth pony, noticing that he seemed to be styling himself after old Selerika. “Let me guess, Ushabti?” “Indeed.” He frowned, giving me a quick once-over. “I see you have been putting my sword to good use.” I shrugged. “Kinda needed to. I would’ve liked to put it back in a museum, but there wasn’t time to go back to Freeport and it’s really good at slicing up monsters. Hope you don’t mind.” “Not at all.” Ushabti shrugged. “Chainbreaker was meant to be used. I passed it on to a warrior clan when my time on the mortal coil was done for a reason, rather than leaving it to rot useless in a dusty tomb. Taking it to Blackfyre’s abominations was the best use it’s seen in the centuries since Torch wielded it.” “It’s a symbol.” Torch crossed his forelegs over his chest. “It serves as an inspiration to all within Freeport that they will never be slaves again. It was hardly useless. If it hadn’t spent centuries being Chainbreaker, it wouldn’t be what it is now.” Ushabti shrugged. “I suppose you have a point. My sword has grown to be quite a bit more than it once was.” He turned back to me. “Your shadow wasn’t wrong to suggest that it could keep you free from Blackfyre’s domination.” That certainly caught my attention. “What do you mean?” After a moment’s thought I had a pretty good idea where this was heading. “Fine. How about you throw me your pitch. Everyone else has been. Will Chainbreaker turn me into a dark queen who rules over all she sees for the next ten thousand years.” “Nothing quite so grand as that,” Ushabti answered dryly. “But Chainbreaker is not just an especially sharp piece of steel. As Torch said, it’s been a powerful symbol displayed in a public place for centuries, venerated by generations of Freeport’s inhabitants. That gives a certain degree of power. And, as you have doubtless surmised by now, its former wielders have also left a certain mark upon it.” “Or at least, its most famous ones,” Torch cut in. “Otherwise there would be a dozen of my ancestors crowding around us.” Ushabti frowned at him. “Well, I suppose not everyone has the capacity and opportunity to achieve great things.” His gaze shifted back to me. “Naturally, that does not apply to you. Oh, you have quite the impressive destiny ahead of you.” I groaned and tried to bury my face in my hooves, though that was a lot harder to pull off when I only had one full foreleg. “Not destiny again. I think I’ve already got more than enough of that to deal with just becoming an alicorn.” “Not the sort of destiny we had in mind,” Torch answered. “In my experience, people who think they know exactly what their destiny is going to be and how it will come to be usually have no idea what they’re talking about. They just decide they want something, and then try to get it while feeling a massive sense of entitlement. Destiny isn’t so much a defined and laid out path as it is a sort of potential. Being the right pony in the right place at the right time, and being able to change the course of the world with your actions. But what form that ends up taking ... we can’t say that until it happens.” Ushabti chuckled. “I certainly never planned to become a revolutionary or throw a Zebrican occupation force out of Freeport and construct a new regime. I just wanted a quiet place to do a few harmless experiments. But ... well I suppose some of us are driven to greatness, and others had it thrust upon them.” He cleared his throat. “ But to get back to the matter at hoof, there is a means by which you could free yourself from your current predicament.” “Oh yeah? What's the catch?” I glared at both of them. “Because I know how it goes from here. I’m dead if I don’t do something, so everyone’s going to ask me to sell my soul to get out of this mess.” I took a deep breath. “I cut off my leg before I gave in. I threw a death curse at Blackfyre rather than become his slave. Same applies to anyone else.” Torch chuckled and shook his head. “I would think you would know that I have no interest in keeping slaves. That said, the price isn’t going to be cheap; there is power in Chainbreaker, both from the fragments of spirits it has collected and as a symbol of a nation and freedom. And it could be used to free you from your prison. But to do so we need to bind its power to you, and given the circumstances that will require a sacrifice.” It wasn’t hard to guess what he was building up to. “Let me guess: you can give me the power to beat Blackfyre, but it’ll burn out the last of my life energy or something?” I shrugged. “I already threw a death curse at Blackfyre, I think at this point it’s safe to say I’m willing to die if that’s what it takes to stop him.”Ushabti frowned, slowly circling around me. “You seem eager to die for a pony with so much to live for. I know it seems a strange thing for a necromancer to say, but life is too precious to throw away so readily.” I groaned and rolled my eyes. “I knew dying was a possibility as soon as I committed to my plan to take down Blackfyre. I was going into his cavern all by myself, I’d have to be pretty stupid to not realize this was a high-risk mission.” Torch scowled at me. “There’s a difference between accepting death is possible and embracing it. I knew that every time I went into battle I might die, but I never went on a suicide mission. You did. Maybe you told yourself you stood a chance of getting away, but I don’t think you can really lie while we’re in your consciousness now. Admit it. You knew this was a one-way trip.” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “Yeah, okay, I knew making it out of this mission was always a longshot. Nothing short of a miracle would let me survive, and I was okay with that if it meant beating Blackfyre.” “Somehow I doubt it’s that simple.” Torch tapped my head. “We’re not the first to comment on your seemingly self-destructive drive. Your friends tried to warn you, and even Starlight Glimmer seemed ill at ease. When even your mortal enemies show concern for your mental wellbeing, perhaps you should reconsider your actions.” “Is there supposed to be a point to this?” I growled. “Or did you just want to give me the same old tired lecture I’ve already heard before?” Ushabti took a seat in front of me, keeping his tone carefully neutral. “Would I be wrong if I said that you would rather die attempting to become an alicorn than live out the rest of your life as a ‘mere’ unicorn?” I shrugged. “Don’t they always say that it’s better to strive for greatness and fail than aim for mediocrity and succeed?” Ushabti frowned at me. “Considering the vast majority of people in the world live in what you would doubtless consider mediocrity and lead happy, successful lives, I think you are selling the idea short. There is nothing contemptible about leading what most would consider an ordinary life, yet it seems you consider anything less than perfection in achieving your goals to be an absolute failure.” Torch shifted the background again, back to when I’d first passed through Coldharbor and gotten into a skirmish with Sigil. “You’ve always hurled yourself head-first into mortal peril to get what you want. You were willing to die just to stop someone from bringing you home to a mother who was worried for you, even if she did a terrible job of showing it. That determination that borders on madness has been one of the secrets to your success; your willingness to escalate a battle past the point of reason.” He moved the scenario to Rising Fire. “Often, your foes chose to yield rather than continue a battle that could only be won by destroying you.” “That’s how fights go sometimes,” I shot back. “Sometimes the way to win is to take it to a point where they can’t or won’t follow you.” “That is often true,” Ushabti agreed. “But everyone around you seems to think you’re just a touch too cavalier about putting yourself in mortal peril. Where once your drive was admirable, now it seems you won’t stop until you’ve destroyed yourself utterly.” “Well considering you guys want me to kill myself as part of whatever power-up I get to escape from Blackfyre’s clutches, that should be fine,” I shot back. “So let’s get on with it.” “You misunderstand,” Ushabti murmured. “The price was never going to be your life. With how little value you seem to place upon it, that hardly seems to be a sacrifice. Alas, the price for this will be something far more precious: you must give up your potential to become an alicorn. By using that power, we can unlock everything you need to escape confinement and perhaps even survive the coming battle.” If there had been a floor in this weird void, my jaw would’ve hit it. “I—buh—you want me to do what?! No!” “So eager to sacrifice your own life, yet you balk at the idea of giving up something far less valuable,” Ushabti murmured. “But that potential energy is the only true power available to us. Your unicorn magic and life energy have already been depleted by your death curse. You barely have enough to keep yourself alive, and even that required Blackfyre’s intervention. The only strength left within you is that kernel of untapped potential—power we can help you draw upon to become what you need to be to defeat Blackfyre, but once spent it cannot be restored. I assure you, if there were a less costly alternative we would have suggested it.” “You will still be alive,” Torch added. “Where there is life, there is hope.” “No, I won’t...” I shook my head. “I don’t have to do this.  Celestia’s coming. She got my message, she’ll be here along with Argentium to take Blackfyre down and free me.” Ushabti shrugged. “Perhaps, or perhaps not. There is no guarantee that your message got through, or that she will be able to find you in time. Perhaps Blackfyre’s wards are too powerful, or his spawn backtracked and eliminated Puzzle and Strumming. There is no guarantee help is coming, and even if it is coming we cannot be certain it will arrive in time.” I shrugged. “I’ll take my chances.” Torch sighed. “You do realize that if help doesn’t arrive in time, Blackfyre might well succeed in transforming you into a Blightspawn he could use against Celestia once she does arrive, which can only end badly.” “That kind of transformation will take days, or even weeks,” I countered. “We’ve only been talking for five minutes. I think I’ve got plenty of time to spare.” Ushabti shook his head. “Surely you do not think the passage of time here perfectly correlates to time in the waking world. It took you three days to recover enough from your suicide attempt masquerading as a heroic sacrifice for us to reach you. If we do not act soon the changes Blackfyre is working upon your flesh might be irreversible, and you will be the beast you saw not long ago.” Oh. That wasn’t great news. Still... “Then she has to be close by now.” “A rather thin hope to place your life and soul upon,” Torch murmured. “Especially when you have a clear path to escape sitting right in front of you. And there is price those you care for will pay if you’re wrong.” I scoffed. “Well I’m not giving up on the thing I’ve spent my whole life building towards just because she might not get here in time.” “Why does it matter so much to you?” Torch probed. “You didn’t hesitate to throw a death curse at Blackfyre, but now...” I groaned and ran my hoof down my face. These two were supposed to be smart, so why didn’t they get it? “Because it’s my destiny!” “Remember what we just said about the dangers of such hubris that you think you know what your destiny is?” Ushabti countered. “Let us consider the facts: your ‘destiny’ has done nothing but bring you misery and pain every time you pursued it. You have destroyed relationships, ravaged your body, tried to kill yourself, and are now on the verge of being turned into a monster to be used against Celestia because of this quest to become an alicorn.” I scowled at them. “I have no idea what you’re going on about.” “Then let us go back to the beginning.” Torch fixed me with an unyielding gaze. “Why did you attack Cadenza?” I sighed at the reminder of something I’d really like to forget. “Because I was a stupid angry kid.” “Yes, but let us consider what exactly you were angry about,” Torch countered. “You were mad at her because she was an alicorn, and you weren’t. You thought she’d stolen your destiny, or maybe just achieved without trying the thing you’d spent your whole life striving towards. In either case, if you’d never lusted for an alicorn’s wings there would be little reason for the two of you to ever come into conflict.” I didn’t especially like the way he laid it out, but there was no way I could argue against him. I doubt I would’ve had any issues with Cadenza if not for her having wings when I wanted them. “Yeah, I guess. But that was years ago, and I’ve changed.” “Yes, you have,” Ushabti agreed. “And while in many ways that is for the better, you have not stopped driving yourself like a madmare towards the goal that in your own words has defined your life.” He shifted the scene to several of the battles I’d fought since coming to Freeport, and every single questionable decision or crazy risk I’d taken during them. “At the rate you were going it was only a matter of time until you faced a foe you couldn’t defeat, or just got unlucky. Rising Fire was your first taste of that, and then Scarlett, Starlight, and Blackfyre. Not to mention escapades like agreeing to duel a trained warrior without using magic.” “Yeah, I was taking chances,” I agreed. “You don’t become an alicorn by playing it safe.” “And if you were taking carefully calculated risks, that might be a valid argument,” Torch shot back. “But that’s not what you did. You threw yourself head-first into mortal peril time and again with barely even a thought to your own survival.” Ushabti nodded along. “You could have stuck with the convoy and kept protecting the refugees, or strung Starlight along by leading her away from them. With your abilities it would have been difficult for her to catch you if you had tried. Your missing leg is a disadvantage, but one that’s easy enough to compensate for with a little forethought. Not to mention simply staying the course was a perfectly valid choice. You did force her to withdraw after wounding her badly enough that she needed Blackfyre’s healing.” “And she had me dead to rights before her runes kicked in,” I pointed out. Torch shrugged. “That’s the fortunes of battle for you. You can never say for certain how a fight will turn out. However, your situation certainly wasn’t anywhere near so dire that turning yourself in to her was the only possible way to keep her from destroying the convoy. You chose to go into certain death when there were no shortage of perfectly viable alternatives.” “It worked, didn’t it?” I snapped. “I got her away from the convoy, gave Celestia directions to find Blackfyre, and then did critical damage to him by getting rid of his Warpmouth. That’s way better than a stalemate. As long as they get here before I get turned into a Blightspawn, I’d say this whole thing worked out pretty well. Sure, a lot of the damage I did was temporary, but that just means Celestia and Argentium need to finish him off before he fixes it.” “Ah, so you think it was all a noble sacrifice?” Torch probed. “Were you perhaps hoping that if you gave your life in the service of a good cause that would finally be enough to earn the reward you so desperately crave? I sacrificed myself to free slaves and take down the Necrocrats, as did hundreds of others who joined the Council’s uprising. I think you know your history well enough to realize that we didn’t have dozens of alicorns running about.” “Not to mention intentionally sacrificing yourself in order to get a reward is no sacrifice at all,” Ushabti added in. “You wouldn’t be giving up your life if a minute after your death you pop right back up, and with a new set of wings as your reward.” I clenched my teeth and tried to keep all the boiling rage and frustration in. I didn’t quite pull it off. “So what am I supposed to do?! I’ve spent years busting my butt trying every single thing I could think of to become an alicorn! And you’re right, it does just make me miserable, because I’ve never pulled it off or even gotten anything that made me think I was getting closer! But I can't just give up on it after all these years! What does that say about me if I just abandon my destiny because it’s too hard?!” “That you’ve changed your priorities.” Ushabti was infuriatingly calm in the face of my anger. “Many ponies do that over the course of their lives. I went from wanting to be a magus, to a forbidden researcher, to an exiled researcher, a revolutionary, and then the ruler of a nation. Was my time spent becoming a magus a waste?” “And you’re sacrificing so much of yourself to become an alicorn that I have to ask if it’s worth it.” Torch sighed and shook his head. “You’re like a merchant who lost money because the price of grain dropped, and responded by sinking more and more money into it to try and justify the original loss. You just said that trying to become an alicorn has made you miserable and everyone around you keeps telling you that you’re destroying yourself with this quest. Where does it stop? Do you have to destroy the lives of others before it ends? I’m sure you know that if Blackfyre succeeds in transforming you, the ones you care for most will suffer for it.” “No, I just... “ I struggled to think of a way to explain it. But ... I couldn’t. Not logically. They were right. Trying to be an alicorn was just making me miserable. Why was I even doing it anymore? To make Celestia proud, and earn her love? She was already proud, and she already loved me. She always had. Because it was my destiny? Strumming had been right, I didn’t give a flying feather about destiny in any other context. Because I deserved it after all my efforts? Feeling entitled wasn’t how you got wings. I slumped down, defeated. “I guess it was all just a waste then.” I felt Ushabti’s hoof on my shoulder. “Admitting that you have made a mistake is the first step towards fixing the problem. Now that you know what you’ve done wrong, you can start to make it right. Sometimes the most powerful chains that bind us are the ones we make for ourselves. Of course, since we’re the ones who forge those chains we can also break them.” “And I would hardly call the last two years of your life since coming to Freeport a waste.” Torch waved a hoof, and the background shifted one last time, letting me see dozens of scenes playing out. Stopping Metal Mome, quelling the riot Starlight started before anyone died, keeping the Black Codex from falling into the wrong hooves, rescuing Kukri from the Primal Changeling, keeping Zebrica’s court struggles from turning into a bloodbath in Freeport’s streets, stopping Rising Fire, and then making sure nobody died in the blood feud Strumming wound up starting. All the good times, like celebrating my birthday or training Kukri. It ... wasn’t a bad life at all. And I didn’t need to be an alicorn for any of it. I took a deep breath. “Okay. Fine. Let’s do it.” “Are you sure?” Ushabti asked. “Once you do, this there is no going back.” “How many ponies die if I don’t?” I shot back. “My friends could die, and if I was willing to sacrifice them just to hold onto my dream of getting wings I wouldn’t deserve either one. Yeah, I’m sure. I gave up a leg to stop Blackfyre, I can give up my pride and pointless quest that only ever made me miserable.” Torch nodded. “Good answer.” The black void started fading away, a blinding white light replacing it. There was a strange sort of tugging sensation in my chest, and I saw an orb of energy fly out of me, hoving in the air in front of my face. Then it shot back towards me, whirling around faster and faster, and I could feel something within me ... changing. As everything around me faded away, a random thought sprang to mind. “Wait, was this all some sort of test where I have to prove I’m willing to give up the thing I’ve been obsessing over in order to earn it?” Everything around me vanished before I got an answer.