//------------------------------// // Darkness // Story: The Black Wish of Silver Letter // by Silver Letter //------------------------------// After the rains, ponies walked eagerly to the convention for another year of exciting toy news. Everything on the surface seemed normal and routine. Friends met each other. Vendors set up shop. Special guests were arriving. Amongst the guests, Misty stepped from her crystal carriage, still shaken from the day prior. Her friend tried to comfort her, but she found sleeping to be difficult. There was still positive news. The princess of love herself would be stopping by to see her. Misty had never met the little princess, Flurry Heart, who was the daughter of the love princess. It sounded like a true honor. Misty opened her saddlebag, a golden train which glittered in the sunlight. It would be the perfect gift for Flurry. As security escorted Misty inside, Silver watched her from afar. Backstage before the first panel of the day, Misty put on some makeup. The saddlebag rested on a table. Misty’s friend came in and tapped Misty’s shoulder. “You about ready? We got a couple minutes left,” the friend said. “I am. I just want to be picture perfect,” Misty replied with a confident smile. She got up, adjusting her dress. Going back to the saddlebag, she opened it up to find that the pouch once holding the train contained nothing. Flustered, she checked under the tables in case it somehow fell out. She ran out into the hall. A pony in a dark cloak turned the corner ahead. Fury instantly crossed Misty’s mind that somepony took the train that cost 50,000 bits to produce! She pursued the pony. “Please stop! That’s for a baby princess!” Misty shouted, following the pony into an empty room. Both ponies were panting from the chase. Misty used magic to lift the cloak, revealing a pretty mare with shimmering black and silver in her curly mane. Around her neck was a black stone that looked like swirling shadow in the midst of a storm. “Who the hay are…” Misty stopped. The cutie mark. This mare had the same feather and ink marking as a certain pony she had seen just yesterday. “I know you don’t recognize me. Not really,” Silver said, her lips fixed in a sly smirk. “But how? What’s going on?” “This is my true self. This is what I was meant to be since I was born. A beautiful mare. Now you can be my friend just like you always should have. Don’t you see? I am Silver. I am here now.” Misty stepped back towards the door. “Why are you doing this?” “Don’t be so lame,” Silver said in her sweet voice. “You and I know that you couldn’t speak to me because I used to be a colt, which was a mistake the universe made. I fixed it like I had done with so many toys. I was a defect. I am now whole.” Misty ran for the door. The doors swung shut, sealed by black magic. The mare shrunk down. “I didn’t know anything. Those letters you got were all from my publicist! I don’t talk to any random pony! I’m sorry!” “There is nothing to be sorry for. I’m here to make it all better. I promise. By hell or high water, we shall be the best of friends!” Silver stepped forward, a hoof crushing the fallen golden train. Misty knew that her protests were in vain. It was all too late. Darkness was the final emotion. When he transformed, Silver felt it all. Pride, arrogance, anger, hate, fear, shyness, and a hundred other feelings. All the colors mixed together into a mindless swirl. Black magic was the final stage. He took Misty first then all the ponies in the convention hall. The black magic seized them, pulling them into Silver’s loving embrace. The walls were destroyed. The body of black magic emerged; a massive monstrosity made of shadow. This transcended anything that Silver once knew of life. Where he was going, there were no limits. Nothing could tell him what he could or couldn't do. Anypony who challenged him would be destroyed. Or perhaps he was neither a 'he' or a 'she', but instead, an 'it'. For nothing restrained Silver. Not in its head nor in the confining prison of sex. The guards alerted Princess Cadance and her husband. The two ponies left the palace to see that thing approach. They sent forth beams of magic to cut it down which failed. Nodding to each other, the two retreated back to the crystal heart. That very heart would belong to it. Silver would swallow it whole. The monster of black magic groaned in pain and trembled, shaking the ground and the palace, waking the baby. Below, the crystal heart struggled to contain the monster. For a moment, the black magic seemed too powerful to be defeated. Baby Flurry Heart looked from her room to where her parents stood. Thinking they were hurt, Flurry flew to them. The monster saw the baby find her parents. Silver Letter itself saw the rarest of emotions which even the black stone couldn’t grant. The spark of love in those round eyes. Unlike any love Silver had seen before. Not the fake love with Nate or the fallen love its parents once had. It was the love that a child had for her parents, something Silver couldn't ever comprehend or experience when it was a colt. Flurry's beloved cry at once weakened its magic and resolve. Such a weakness barely allowed the crystal heart to take advantage. A spear of light pierced through the black magic. Ponies fell from the sky. Misty opened her eyes in a daze, finding herself at the doorstep of the palace. Everypony was helped by royal soldiers. Silver Letter felt his life slip away. His heart had beat its last. No breath, nor life, nor love, remained. Even his emotions fizzled away into nothingness. If nothing else, he was at peace with it. Such an end was meant to be for a pony like him. Nopony would ever miss him anyway. In the immediate days after, ponies sifted through the remains of Silver’s horrible life. The black magic books he once owned. The toys he amassed. Word came to the pony known as Time Turner of his lost device. He rushed to the Empire where it lay on a tarp with the rest of the relevant evidence. “I wondered where that thing had been all this time,” Time Turner said with astonishment. “What is that thing? None of the magicians can really figure it out,” Princess Cadance said. He looked up from the stone. “Oh, it’s what I call a ‘mood stone’. It shows us what we are feeling. It’s just a prototype though. I want to make a line of toys based on this.” “So, it’s just a toy?” “Yes. Was that stallion I heard about carrying this thing? I wonder what for?” Cadance shook her head. “I suppose nopony will ever know.”