Maddie was immensely asleep in her hypnotic induced slumber with nothing to disturb her peaceful time. It was as if in the little girl’s mind, time stood still and she was in complete contentment. There wasn’t a sound to break her from her tranquil nap, that is, except for the sound of Spiral Swirl’s voice telling her, “Maddie, time to wake up!”
The girl’s ears registered the command as she slowly woke up from the unicorn’s spell and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. When she finally came to, Maddie looked at Spiral, gave her a friendly hug and said, “That was a wonderful nap! Thank you Spiral!”
“You’re welcome Maddie!” The teal mare responded back with a warm smile.
“Though I will say, before falling asleep, it was hilarious the way you gave orders to my brother by having me say everything you said and having him move in a zig-zag pattern! Maybe I should ask you for more creative ideas in the future when we play around with hypnosis!”
‘Wait! How does she know about what happened earlier on? She should’ve forgotten what she did when…oh shoot! I forgot to tell her to forget what she did while she was in a trance.’ Spiral said in her head realizing the mistake she made. ‘I just hope she doesn’t…’
“Hey, wait a minute!” Maddie said breaking Spiral from her train of thought. “I thought you said that Joey and I couldn’t remember anything we did while we were hypnotized because of some post-hypnotic amnesia or something.”
Spiral was utterly tempted to use the trigger phrase to send Maddie right back down to trance and cover up her little slip-up. But she remembered the promise she made to herself earlier and with a heavy sigh, looked the girl straight in the eyes and said, “Maddie. There’s something I need to tell both you and Joey.”
“About what Spiral? Does it have to do with what I just said?” Maddie looked at the pony with a confused and scared look.
“Wake your brother up so I can tell the both of you.” Spiral said as she prepared herself for what she was about to say to the children.
‘They deserve to know the truth. Even if they hate me for it, I have to get it off my chest.’ The mare said quietly in her mind, knowing it was the right thing to do.
“Joey, wake up!” The younger sibling ordered to the entranced older sibling, bringing him back to the waking world and immediately taking notice of the swimming trunks he was wearing and the sudden change of location from in their bedroom to the swimming pond.
“Umm…how did we get here and why am I suddenly in my swim suit?”
“Spiral has something she wants to say to us.” Maddie said getting her brother’s attention before sitting down on her own towel and giving Spiral her awareness and said, “So what did you want to tell us?”
Spiral let out another heavy sigh before she said, “I haven’t been completely honest with you two.”
The eldest sibling had a raised eyebrow from what he heard come from the unicorn’s lips and asked, “What do you mean Spiral?”
“I lied…I lied when I said that hypnotic subjects forget their experience during entrancement. Post-hypnotic amnesia is all made up. I just made the two of you forget what you did every time you fell under my spell.” Spiral confessed as her heart began to race, expected the worst responses to arise from the children.
“But why? I don’t understand.” Joey asked anxiously trying to understand what was going on.
"When I first saw the two of you...I...I……I wanted to turn you into my hypno slaves." Spiral said as she couldn't bring herself to look the children in the eye. Maddie let out a loud gasp while Joey was taken back the most from what he just heard. At first he refused to believe that the magical unicorn he and his sister befriended would even consider doing such a thing.
“I don’t think I heard you right. You didn’t just say you wanted to turn us into your hypno slaves, did you?” Joey asked wanting to hear from the pony’s own words that what said was a mistake.
“I did Joey.” Spiral answered back still not looking at the siblings who at this point were questioning their faith and friendship in the teal colored mare.
Maddie was on the verge of breaking down in tears and asked in a heartbreaking tone, “How could you Spiral? I thought we were friends!”
‘Just as I predicted…Maddie already despises me. Now for the other stab in the heart…’ Spiral said sadly in her head and only waited for Joey to respond just like his sister.
But surprisingly, he didn’t.
Instead the boy asked, “Why are you telling us this?”
This completely caught Spiral off guard as she looked at the boy with a surprised, wide eyed look on her face and saw him standing up, staring deep in her eyes as if scanning her down to her core. She was left speechless for a couple moments trying to gather her thoughts until Joey broke her concentration and said in a firm voice, “Spiral, I want you to look me straight in the eye and tell me the truth of why you decided to tell Maddie and I your true intentions.”
Spiral swallowed to help calm herself and finally had enough thoughts gathered to begin speaking again.
“With the short time I spent with you, Maddie, and your parents, I felt…welcomed; almost as if I was part of your household. Despite the fact that I initially wanted to control you all for my own personal benefit, in the couple days I’ve spent living with you and your family, I realized how selfish I had been with abusing my power over everyone and how much I took for granted.”
Joey let the information sink in for a minute before moving on to another question.
“Why did you originally want to make us hypno slaves?”
The boy’s question sat in the mare’s mind as she contemplated how to answer it.
“When I first woke up in this world, I was alone, with nowhere to go and nopony to turn to for help. It was by mere chance that I even came across you and your sister and when I saw the two of you for the first time, I thought that by making you my hypno slaves, you might’ve been able to help me not only with providing food and shelter, but potentially finding a way for me to return to my own world. For the former, as I said earlier, my abusive actions toward you two and your parents is inexcusable and will face the consequences for those actions. As for the later, I now realize at this point it’s only wishful thinking and have come to accept the proposition that I may never be able to travel back to Equestria.”
“But why go out of your way to turn us into your mindless puppets if all you wanted was help?” The older sibling asked as he sat back down on his towel. Maddie listening intently to the whole conversation.
“I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t even know if I could fully trust you or your family. Let me put it this way; if you suddenly woke up in a completely different world where everything is unfamiliar and there weren’t any other humans around, would you really be so careless as to walk straight up to the very first creature you might come across and try to befriend it without first thinking how it could potentially be very dangerous?”
As much as Joey hated to admit it, Spiral did bring up a good point and sat in deep thought. But, while he was thinking over what the unicorn said, Maddie spoke up and asked, “But isn’t that what you did when you first met us? You just came straight up to us, befriended us, and started to trust us before you even started hypnotizing us. So why try turning us into hypno slaves after befriending us?”
The girl’s question regarding the pony’s contradictory statement brought the boy from his thinking state and asked, “Yeah, why did you?”
Knowing she was cornered, Spiral let out another heavy sigh and said, “Life’s always been hard on me and my family. I’ve always used my Hypno Magic to help ponies out with their problems, but I also use it as a means to deal with those who’ve done my family wrong in the past by bending them to my will and...” The mare stopped for a moment and let her head hang.
Joey began to grow concerned for Spiral with where she was going and told her, “We don’t have to hear this if you don’t want to talk about it.”
The Equestrian looked up at the children and said to them, “This is something that needs to be shared. You deserve to know the whole truth about my past after everything that’s happened.”
Spiral took in a deep breath, held it in for a few seconds, and exhaled before she started talking again.
“Remember a couple nights ago, when I was describing in detail about the way things work in Equestria? On the surface, it sounds like the perfect place to grow up in and live. With magic to help us in our everyday lives and a population that surrounds itself in the traits of friendship, you would think that statement is universally true. Sadly that’s never been the case for me. My family has had a dark history of being mistreated and unloved for years. It all started back with an attempted theft of a magic super weapon known as an Eclipse Bomb.”
“Eclipse Bomb?” Joey asked raising an eyebrow.
“Not much is known about it. Only that it was a device designed by Nightmare Moon as a means to help her in her conquest to bring everlasting darkness across the land of Equestria and the borders beyond.” Spiral explained to the boy. “But in short, it was something that screamed, ‘Bad News!’ to the entire population. Luckily, it never got the chance to be used and after Nightmare Moon’s banishment, it was locked away deep in a royal vault in Canterlot.”
“That’s a relief.” Maddie said before her brother asked, “But how does this connect with your family?”
“About 55 years ago, three criminals broke into the royal vault with the help of an unsuspecting unicorn who was brought along under the pretense that she was helping to test the security. That unicorn happened to be my grandmother: Fine Detail.”
“What happened to her?” Joey asked a bit more concerned with how Spiral might answer back.
“She, along with the three convicts, were caught in the act and imprisoned for trespassing in the vault. My grandmother did her best to prove her innocence to Princess Celestia, and was able to get a reduced prison sentence of only four years, but in the end, her testimony wasn’t enough to save her horn from being…”
Spiral stopped for a moment as she closed her eyes and took in another deep breath to help subside the rage she felt at that moment before finishing her statement.
“…shattered.”
Maddie gasped at the unimaginable horror of a unicorn losing their horn while Joey’s heart skipped a couple beats as he tried to stay as stoic and calm as possible.
“And yes, it’s just as painful as it sounds. The three convicts received the same treatment of having their horns chopped off as well and were sentenced to prison for life, but I feel my grandmother’s punishment was far worse than what the others got. While the three would be spending the rest of their days in a confined cell being fed meals, the innocent unicorn, who just lost her horn, was about to endure much worse than she could ever ask for. The four years had passed, and my grandmother was finally allowed to return home. The first thought that crossed her mind would be how happy her husband would be to see her and how she could reconcile with him for the time she was gone. But instead, she found him married to another mare. He wanted nothing to do with a unicorn with a ‘criminal record’ and broken horn so he kicked her out of the house along with the filly she brought into the world before she was imprisoned.”
This only made Joey’s heart feel heavier than before while Maddie was on the verge of breaking out into tears.
“With nopony to turn to and a four year old filly to watch over, my grandmother began a long journey to find a place to raise her child in peace. Needless to say, the expedition was grueling and harsh for her because of her broken horn and anypony she came across showed little to no sympathy for her. Carriages and trains wouldn’t let her board as a passenger; forcing her to travel on hoof. And because of how much hotels and inns overcharged their open rooms just for a one night stay, the money my grandmother had on hoof had rapidly run out. Throughout the next couple of months, she and her daughter were forced to rely on the kindness and generosity of pass-byers to get through. After earning enough, the two of them were able to travel a little further, until they came to a small town called…”
Spiral paused for a few seconds until she had the vigor to utter the name that made her seethe with anger as she said it.
“…Ponyville…”
“Ponyville?” Joey asked in a confused tone. “What was so bad about that place?”
“It’s a town that claims to be the perfect place for anypony to live, but the inhabitants were too concerned with upholding their reputation as a place without a trace of ‘criminal element’ to assist out one of their kind who was in most need of help. To make matters worse, at the time my grandmother and her young foal had arrived in that town, winter had already started and it was expected to be the coldest location in Equestria that year. The citizens in that town had no compassion towards her whatsoever and didn’t so much as offer a slight bit of shelter. And because of their attitude towards her and the extreme cold, my grandmother died during that winter.” Spiral said as her anger was starting to boil up. Maddie was letting tears flow down her cheeks from listening and wanted to hug her tormented friend, but Joey held her back and had a look that said, ‘Let her finish.’ Spiral paused momentarily to breath heavily, trying to rein in her anger some before continuing.
“With her death, the ponies of Ponyville were more than willing to help out the filly who was forced to survive on her own thanks to their cruel nature towards Fine Detail. But because of how long the foal was out in the cold for, she had a severe frostbite on one of her legs and had to have it surgically removed.”
Maddie simply couldn’t hold it back anymore and hugged her pony companion in a tight embrace (not enough to choke her) as tears flowed down from the girl’s cheeks onto Spiral’s fur as she cried out with, “Oh, Spiral! I’m…*SNIFF*…so very sorry about what happened to your mother and grandmother!” Even Joey, who had tried to stay strong, couldn’t prevent shedding a couple tears for the unicorn’s tragic story.
The little girl kept embracing as the mare continued on.
“Luckily for my mother, she has a happier ending than what my grandmother had. Despite having to live with an amputation, she went on to become one of the most beloved ornithologists, met a nice stallion and had two fillies. The family grew up together in a nice household and loved each other very much and everything finally seemed to turn up for them during the first couple years of the newborn foals. However…”
The mare took in another deep breath as Maddie calmed herself down, broke the hug, and sat back next to her brother to listen to what Spiral was about to say next.
“…one of those fillies’ childhood would be full of abuse and cruelty, especially in the later years at school.”
Joey seemed to catch on to which filly Spiral was talking about, but just for reassurance he asked with a soft, “You?”
The mare nodded her head and felt her rage rising again while saying, “It was hard to make friends around since a lot of ponies were gossiping about my family being descendants of a ‘criminal mastermind.’ My sister and I were often bullied at school by the other classmates and some of the teachers outright gave us bad grades on purpose just because we ‘shouldn’t be allowed to succeed.’”
“That’s terrible!” Shouted Maddie in protest.
“There was nothing I could do about it and when I tried to tell a teacher one time about how the answers to the questions on one test were correct, that teacher just marked my test with an even worse grade.”
“Spiral…” Joey began, trying to think of what to say next. “Didn’t you ever tell your parents about what was happening in school?”
“I tried to, but they weren’t much help at all. My parents were too busy with their careers. I was pretty much living every school foal’s worst nightmare.”
The teal unicorn then took in a couple more deep breaths before calming down and letting herself continue on.
“But there was a small silver lining from the years I spent in school and that was spending time with the only pony I ever considered close to a companion: Beachcomber. I felt like she was one of the only classmates who didn’t see me as anything criminally related, just somepony that needed company. She and I often talked about what we hoped to accomplish with our special talents. Her talent was scuba diving and finding all sorts of rare shells and had hoped to use those skills to open up a marine store and sell all sorts of underwater goods for decent amounts of bits.”
“Did you two still talk to each other before you arrived here?” Joey asked.
“Not much. We went our separate ways after graduation. She went on to start her own business at Palomino Point Beach.”
“When did you start using your Hypno Magic on others?” The boy inquired moving back to the subject at hand.
“It was shortly after I had earned my cutie mark, my family and I had a celebration and my mother gave me the pocket watch I carry with me to this day as a gift. The first pony I ever used my Hypno Magic on was my sister, Inside Scoop, where I helped her get over anxiety issues when interviewing ponies for the school paper, but I also implanted a suggestion to where she had to share her frozen fudge bars with me.”
Maddie gave a quick giggle at last part before being nudged by her brother to let Spiral continue on.
“I’ve always had a passion to help ponies out with their problems using my hypnotic abilities, but at the same time, I also wanted to get back at those who did my family wrong in the past with those very skills.
“Ponyville?” Joey questioned wary of where she was going with this.
“Yes...” Spiral answered as she tried her best to contain her anger in front of the children. “And I had come very close to enslaving them all to make them pay for what they did to my mother, and her mother. But it was the work of one Princess Twilight Sparkle where she used my own power against me and prevented me from using my Hypno Magic on other ponies.”
Maddie and Joey were having a hard time sympathizing for Spiral with how she talked about mind controlling an entire town for revenge, but said nothing.
“I spent time in jail for my actions of course. During my imprisonment though, I didn’t think about how to better myself as a pony. No. The only thoughts I had were about how to get back at the citizens of Ponyville and Princess Twilight.”
The two siblings were beginning to get a little nervous with the mare’s tone building up with rage. Before any of them, could say or do anything though, Spiral took in a deep breath, held it in for a couple seconds, and let it out slowly, calming herself down before continuing on.
“But looking back at what I did, it was probably a bit too extreme what I tried to do. I realize now that taking revenge on ponies whose parents have probably passed on wasn’t the best thing to do. But no matter what anypony tells me, no one will ever make me change the way I feel about that town, what they did all those years ago, and how Princess Celestia knew that my grandmother was innocent, but refused to prevent her horn from being broken.”
There was silence for a few moments, until Joey cut through it and asked, “What happened next?”
“Well, after spending a few years in prison, I was eventually let out under parole. I was given approval to keep an office to work with and continue to help ponies with their problems, but I was still not allowed to use my Hypno Magic on them since Princess Twilight’s post-hypnotic suggestion prevented me from doing it. I made due with the best of my situation until I could prove to society that I was worthy of using my hypnotic talents to the fullest again.”
“Did you ever get permission to use Hypno Magic on ponies again?” Maddie asked curiously.
“Sadly, no. Before being brought to this place, I still had a lukewarm reputation with the citizens at best and still had a long ways to go before getting their trust again. But at this point, I don’t think it matters.”
Spiral stood up from where she sat, looked away from Maddie and Joey, and closed her eyes.
“I’m stuck here in this world with probably no chance of returning back, my mother and sister are certainly worried about where I am, and now…I’ve betrayed your trust since our first meeting and continued even after everything you and your parents did for me in the past few days. I don’t deserve to stay in your house let alone be in your presence. Perhaps…it is best that I…I…”
The unicorn couldn’t hold back her sorrow anymore as tears began to form and her voice couldn’t bring itself to finish her thoughts. She didn’t care if the children bore witness to her breaking down crying. In her mind, she deserved to be ridiculed, shamed, and banished from the family that took her in, in her time of need no less. The mare sat on her haunches and expected one of the siblings to ask another question or deliver their harsh judgement onto her just like the ponies back in Equestria did when she was younger. But what she received next was something that shocked her to her very core. It wasn’t a rebuke, or even a slap…
…it was a hug.
Spiral opened her tear-filled eyes in surprise to find the oldest sibling having wrapped his arms against her fur coat in a consoling manner.
“But I *cough*…I *cough*…*cough*……”
Spiral was choking on her words; trying to come up with whatever excuse she could think of as to why the boy should leave her alone, until Joey interjected.
“You don’t need to say anything else Spiral.” The boy said breaking the hug and looking deep in the mare’s eyes.
As the unicorn stared back at the oldest sibling’s eyes, she knew exactly what he meant and didn’t hold back anything now, as she wrapped her forelegs against his own form and cried even harder. Joey did his best to comfort the pony by stroking her mane to help calm her down. Another pair of arms wrapped around Spiral as Maddie joined in the hug and shed tears of her own.
Tears filled with years of built up agony and torment rained down from the mare, onto the ground with painful thoughts of the past playing in her mind. With only a bit of strength in her voice, Spiral weakly uttered, “Don’t leave me…”
“We’ll always be here for you Spiral.” The brother said in a sincere tone while still stroking her mane. “Take all the time you need right now.”
Joey’s words only made Spiral tighten her hug against the boy. Doubtful thoughts still lingered in the mare’s head and said in a broken voice, “I don’t deserve your kindness…your generosity…or even your forgiveness…”
“Shh…just let it all out.” Joey said not minding the tighter hug, only wanting to comfort the distressed pony. Spiral said nothing else and just continued to pour out tears. The more tears that left the teal unicorn, the more negative memories seem to vanish from her, until new, positive ones started to sprout with images of Maddie, Joey, and herself spending time together talking, playing around, and overall having fun. Those thoughts combined with the reassuring and soothing hugs from the siblings soon brought a joyous yet small smile. The whole ordeal had left her with just one question in her mind.
‘Is this…what real friendship feels like?’