//------------------------------// // Chapter Eleven: An Afterthought // Story: Heart of Magic // by TheCrimsonDM //------------------------------// Heart of Magic Chapter Eleven: An Afterthought Written by TheCrimsonDM Trixie stared at the unconscious form of her daughter lying in bed. Several bandages wrapped around her legs and face from small injuries she’d incurred during her ‘adventure’ with Fluttershy. It wasn’t the wounds gained from the fighting itself that stabbed painful feelings of guilt into Trixie’s heart. It was the fact that Amber’s magic harmed her when she used it. It had been a long time Trixie had pushed herself hard enough to cause herself harm using magic, but it was her curse. One she had passed down to her beloved daughter. At the end of the day her daughter was almost dead and it was her fault. If Maud was here she’d be so disappointed in Trixie. Now she was just waiting for her wife to come home and be disappointed in her at a later date, something to which Trixie did not look forward too. Somehow this felt like she messed up worse than when she cheated on Maud back in the beginning of their relationship, another screw up she never quite forgave herself for. Amber’s sleeping body looked so fragile, so frail. This was her baby and she was supposed to be taking better care of her. Now what was she supposed to do? Just wait for her baby to wake up from using too much magic and nearly killing herself. The anticipation was horrible. Is this what everypony felt like every time Trixie did something similar? “Trixie,” Twilight’s voice came out gently behind her. “Twilight,” Trixie said in a failed attempt to muster any anger. She couldn’t feel angry, just sad. “She’ll be okay. I promise.” “You’ve promised a lot of things over the years Twilight. I don’t know why I still continue to believe you.” “I… don’t either.” Even if Trixie would have been angry she didn’t mean to hurt Twilight. “Just… let me be alone please.” Twilight’s hooves sounded off the hard wood floor as she retreated out of Amber’s room. “I’ll be in the living room if you need me.” Trixie didn’t think she would need Twilight any time soon. No, just wanted to wait in Amber’s bedroom, watching her daughter and feeling like the scum of the earth. *** Twilight reached the living room where Fluttershy sat on the couch with bandages covering her wing. Even with the healing magic employed that wing was going to take some time to heal. The bandages themselves were already showing through with red. Soon she’d need another change of bandages, mostly to check if the wound was healing or not. Before that though, Twilight had a very important conversation to be had with Fluttershy. “So, Fluttershy. Why don’t you tell me about the Ursa Minor.” Fluttershy’s eyes looked directly at the couch between her legs. “I… don’t know what you mean.” “Fluttershy I’m neither blind, nor stupid.” Twilight took a seat in the couch across from Fluttershy’s. “Tell me about it, I won’t get angry with you.” Fluttershy bit her lower lip. Her wings tensed up and a small cry of pain escaped her lips. If only Valiant was here, Twilight could make sure Fluttershy was fully healed. As it stood her magic just couldn’t heal damage like that fast enough. Twilight choose to wait patiently for Fluttershy to respond. Minutes went by in silence and just as Twilight was about to give up on hearing anything from her, Fluttershy finally said, “I’m sorry.” Well that was a start anyway. “Fluttershy, you know that I’ve done some messed up stuff in secret in the past myself. I’m not going to hold it against you if you thought you were doing something good.” “I… I just didn’t want the entire race of Ursa Majors to go extinct. I wanted to save… something. Anything, of their species.” “I can understand that. No one wanted the species to go away forever, that’s too painful to imagine.” There goes Twilight’s empathy classes going to work. “So when the Ursa that Trixie killed didn’t stay dead I… I thought that maybe it was a gift. I nursed him to health and we became friends.” Twilight blinked. The ursa minor that Trixie killed? Did she mean the one from back when Trixie was an alicorn and the town was under attack by Frailty? The one that Fluttershy attacked Trixie over? How long has Fluttershy been keeping this secret, nearly twenty years? Even Twilight couldn’t imagine Fluttershy being able to do something like that, and yet here they were dealing with the consequence of a twenty year old secret. “What happened to bring the Ursa back?” Fluttershy jerked her head side to side. “I don’t know. I just… I think it was that black stuff. That goo that we’ve been cleaning from the forest. It seems to… make things move again after they die. Usually the animals it brings back just go crazy and attack, but the Ursa Minor stayed sane until recently. He… he was in constant pain though. I don’t think he was meant to come back.” Twilight nodded, pretending as if she knew this already. In truth she had no idea what was going on. Her magic seemed to reach over to her flask without her knowing and it was half way to her lips before she stopped and realized what she was doing. She set it down and pushed the thought of drinking away until this meeting was over at least. Fluttershy was staring at her now, seemingly more aware of nervous drinking than even Twilight had been. Twilight cleared her throat. “Well it seems we just have more problems to deal with.” Fluttershy stared at her. “Twilight, does this have anything to do with what’s been bothering you lately?” Twilight wanted to answer that. She really did, but she knew she couldn’t do that just yet. Not until they had more information. Although to tell the truth, she wasn’t sure if this was involved with the alicorns or not. Really it just felt like everything was coming to a head on collision at the same time. If another war truly broke out soon, what would Twilight even be able to do? Undead monsters on one side, and alicorns on the other. It felt like this was all going to end in some horrible tragedy… yet she made one vow to herself. If things did get that bad, as bad as she feared it might get for so many years now, she would make sure that none of her friends could be killed, not before she went down fighting for them. No matter what dark gods she had to make deals with to keep them safe.