//------------------------------// // (Empathy) The Broken, the Mended - VII.I.I - The Second Day of the Rest of Your Life // Story: The Broken Bond // by TheApexSovereign //------------------------------// VII Empathy The Broken, the Mended ACT I of III Seeing with the Eyes of Another Chapter I of V (XV) “See what I did there? You just said all the things YOU needed to hear!”  A threat loomed from behind.  And fear flashed up Toola’s throat. Her instincts flared, electrocuting her spine, down her legs so sharp she sprung aside without a second to think. A pie crust exploded upon her incomplete painting before she hit the carpet, chilly flecks of acrid banana-sour paste drizzling her face.  One second Toola couldn’t breathe, the next there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world.  Her incomplete painting, now a chunky blonde abstract. A wooden clatter reverberated miles away—Toola’s jaw hung, no longer clutching her paintbrush.  My incomplete entry... Toola stood, whirled, tearing off and slamming her beret unto the living room carpet. “You ruined it!” she crackled. “Why the hay did you do that, Coconut Cream?!”  A twisted face, her grey hoof batting aside their now-empty picnic basket. “Oh, you suddenly care about how I feel?! You didn’t when you cancelled our picnic! You didn’t even look me in the eye!” Coconut’s own welled—puffy, ruddy coals bejeweled with amber.  Toola’s heart twisted. It was because of her painting, definitely. Coconut had no right to do that, she was the jerk here, she deserved to cry for this. “Maybe ‘cause this is a little more important, don’cha think?”  “Oh, wait, that’s right, that makes sense,” Coconut breathed, then sneering: “my feelings suddenly matter cuz I ruined your precious painting.” The scope of her selfishness made Toola gasp. “As if I got this far because I wanted to?! You were the one who pressured me into the first, the-the school competition—!”  “Because I knew you’d be amazing!” Coconut cried. “And you were, you are! But ever since then you’ve been blowing me off like you don’t even care about your best friend!”  Her jealousy was totally obvious. “Of course you’d think I’m doing this because I don’t like you. You’ve always been so paranoid, Coconut, you’re so annoying and stupid about that!”  Coconut stamped her hoof. “Just stop acting like you don’t care about me! You’re my best—!”  “I was,” Toola cut in. “Before you were tryna hog my every waking moment!”  “That’s not fair! I only kept asking to hang cuz you keep canceling on me!”  No, this wasn’t fair; Coconut knew it, and she was trying to make Toola feel awful for achieving her dream. “You know my creativity comes in bursts. How can you not understand that?”  “How can you not understand how I feel?” Coconut lurched forward, gasping wetly, her tri-colored mane flouncing with the motion. “Being brushed aside like this for weeks, being your only friend for years?! I hate you so much, you complete and utter LOSER!”  This was too much. Toola threw her foreleg to the door. “Get out of my house!” Her painting was ruined. She had nothing to display for the nationals. And Coconut clearly hated her now.  Too much.  “Fine! I hated you anyway!”  The harshness of her voice whipped Toola beyond her skin. She couldn’t even bear to look in the direction of Coconut’s little hoofbeats as they galloped by.  Something within coiled in anticipation of the door handle lifting, the door creaking open, slamming shut, and Coconut’s muffled sobs fading into forever-nothingness.  A knock on the door, three gentle raps, preceded any of that.  Toola looked over, Coconut’s welled eyes flitting from her to the door. “Um,” Toola croaked. Swallowing, she finished clearer: “C-come in?”  The latch lifted from the other side, the door groaning as both halves swung open as one. Sunlight poured in, radiating from behind a pink-coated pega—no, an ali—alicorn?! With a broken horn!  “Princess Starlight!” Toola realized to her horror.  Coconut scrambled back, collapsing instantly upon her rear. “P-P-P-Princess Starlight?!” she gasped.  To see her best—ex-friend equally unprepared for a royal visit was a cold comfort.  Toola stepped before her mess of a painting, taking a knee as she tried to still her breaths. “I’m sorry, P-Princess, m-m-my mom isn’t he-here right now.” Always such an awkward, stammering dummy! Always! For whatever reason, Princess Starlight didn’t seem annoyed by this inconvenience, nor Toola’s social incompetence; she giggled like Princess Celestia—like a warm hug around the heart. “There’s no need for that, girls. Nor any bowing. I dislike it when friends give me special treatment.”  None of that registered. Toola, too relieved to have her nose to the floor, fantasized her burning face catching the hardwood afire and freeing herself from this embarrassment.  “Wh-what are you doing here, missus?” Coconut managed bravely.  “A little birdie told me you’re having a bit of a friendship problem,” said the princess. “Mind if I come in?”  Coconut’s gaze fell back, begging for help. ‘The princess is asking like this is my house. How do I answer?!’ it cried.  The fact that she would waste time on a couple of no-ponies like them almost made Toola forget her manners. “I-if you want,” she told the floor. “We can tell you what happened. It’s kinda dumb though, so you don’t gotta stay if you don’t want.”  “Oh, but I do want to,” said Princess Starlight, a sympathetic frown as she entered. “Your feelings matter just as much as anypony else’s.”  Toola snapped to attention, nodding a heartbeat later—something in her eyes glittered.  It was chilling as it was warming. Comforting as it was sad.  Pain: deep, aching, understanding pain. Perhaps it was confirmation bias, perhaps the rumors were true, and the Princess of Empathy had earned her wings like all the rest.  For the most part. Like all the rest, it was through trials and noble displays of character. Unlike those so high and glowing, unreal and untouchable, something heavy within Equestria’s newest monarch emanated from her gaze, dripping from her sincerely kind words.  Whatever it was, it weighed her down to earth, lent her a worldly aura.  An aura which said, ‘She’s just like me.’  It’s like ponies’ve been saying, Toola thought as the room tilted around, as Princess Starlight entered, exchanging muffled words with Coconut. How her senses—she can tell when a friendship was about to end and she comes in to salvage them. And now she was here. Somehow, someway, the Princess of Empathy was going to save her and Coconut’s.  Part of Toola didn’t want that—a small, bitter, pathetic part of her. I don’t deserve this royal visit, Princess Starlight’s time…  This had to be a dream.  This is how it’s been every day, every week now. Before my coronation was done, before I even opened my mouth to the ponies outside, the Cutie Map called for me and me alone.  I’m so tired. My heart aches—so many sad, silly ponies with stories painfully familiar.  But it’s so, so worth it.  Atop the roof of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, within its garden enclosure, Raya thankfully, finally returned towing a steaming tea set. Her eyes naturally found Distant Heart’s—drawn to her little step sister out of concern, despite doing nothing to deserve her affections.  It said something when a princess of all ponies had to be the force that brought them back together.  I don’t care what this princess says, thought Distant, glaring aside into the blue expanse, away from anypony else. The kind of mare I am’s done nothing to earn Raya’s affection. I’ll give her a happier life, distance myself and focus on my stud— “Why do you keep doing that?” breathed Raya, her voice burrowing through Distant’s thoughts. As she turned to her older sister, Raya, harsher, drenched in emotion: “Why do you keep giving me side glares before looking away? Are you really going to waste Princess Starlight’s time with that, too? Really, Dis?!”  Distant mustered all her soul to keep at an appropriate volume. “Be calm, Raya. We’re entertaining a Princess of Equestria here.”  “Oh, d-don’t mind me—”  “I could care less!” Raya cried. “How am I supposed to act natural when you always give me mixed sig—” “It’s ‘couldn’t.’ You couldn’t care less.” Distant Heart truly didn’t care though.  “Being smarter than everyone had always been your idea of fun,” step-sister sneered.  That is until Mother remarried and brought Raya crashing into her life.  “Actually!” Princess Starlight bore a crooked smile, and Distant’s heart stopped cold a second too late: “Your marefriend told me something really interesting, Raya.”  “Y-your Highness—”  “That it’s her escape. You apparently know this, so… do you not believe it?” She glanced at Distant, brief but long enough to communicate the necessary evil of revealing this.  “Look at that,” seethed Raya, “look at that! You’re so ashamed you didn’t even tell her we’re step-sisters!” Emotions were clouding her vision, blinding her to Princess Starlight’s lack of reaction.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Raya—” “So of course I don’t believe you! You lie and you love me only when it’s convenient for you, and it makes me feel like a freak!”   And Distant’s heart stopped cold—deep down, she just couldn’t bear the idea of Raya hurting because of her. “I do it to keep you safe, you little fool.”  “Yeah, I’m the fool!” Raya croaked. “I’m the idiot big sister who fell stupidly in love with you—an emotionless rag some widowed chump grafted into my family.” A sardonic titter, surely at the rage exploding across Distant Heart’s face, who uttered softly, “You just told a Princess of Equestria about our—”  “Because she wants to help us, you loon! You won’t just glower her away!”  “Raya has a point!” said Princess Starlight quickly, drawing both of them to her. “I know this is awkward, a-and painful! But, talking like this? Openly and honestly, no matter how bad it hurts?”  “It’s how real, lasting change comes about. Lying and hiding your feelings will only serve to harm not just yourself, but others in the long run. The ponies you care about.”  “Trust me,” Starlight continued. “I know.”  And the curly-maned filly dove into her chest with nearly enough force to bowl her over, wailing as the parents looked on, morose and neglectful.  Their only child squeezed Starlight as if she were her actual mother—not a cold perspective, considering she herself had done more for this little Cozy Glow in an hour than her overworked parents had in years.  “I know what it’s like,” said Starlight, closing her wings around the tiny pegasus. “To not only crave the world, but to feel justified hurting ponies to get what you want.” Cozy shrieked—not because she’d brought others pain, but because she didn’t care, and her parents had broken down upon realizing their part in this. Now she thought she was broken, too.  A familiar ache devoured Starlight’s innards as she powered on: “That way of life, though, it isn’t sustainable. All it gives is an illusion of happiness before you find yourself surrounded by false friends and a hole impossible to fill… Cozy, as a princess, I must advise directing your ambitions to a healthier, more productive outlet. But as your friend? I’m not telling you to abandon them. But you must consider your future, and ask yourself what it is that will make you happy.”  “And denying that, as I’ve told dozens before you, is the root of why I had to come in and tell you this.”  She was supposed to be the Princess of Empathy, yet she had the gall to dictate ponies’ lives as if she understood a thing about them.  “I don’t have to listen to you.” Lily Love shot up, glaring, failing to flinch this upstart princess—the first in Lily’s life, considering her “scary” black-on-black appearance, but she was too furious to care. “You’re a complete and utter witch, you know that?”  “I am.” Princess Starlight was drowned out by Angel Hope: “My Love!”  “The truth often hurts, a pain I inflict daily,” she continued, admittedly so casually.  “You didn’t even object,” Lily said, turning on her beloved, “does that mean you agree with her—that we should split for good?”  Angel shuddered, silent, ever spineless. Lily had forgotten the kind of pony the little mare was, and she hurt her because of it. I hurt her.  “Oh Celestia,” Lily breathed.  “It just hit you, didn’t it?” Perhaps Princess Starlight was correct: perhaps Angel would do well if she’d left her life. “I know that look intimately well. You’re an abuser. Possessive. Too conceited to look reality in the eye.”  “Be quiet, you!” Lily snapped.  But she couldn’t silence the truths evident here. Suddenly, the begrudging of Angel Hope’s spine tasted awful. For if she had possessed one, Angel Hope wouldn’t be a gentle friend, would’ve never given the kindness so many throughout Lily’s life, from her foalhood up to now in her teen years, had denied showing.  They would both be hopelessly alone.  “Angel.” The pony in question, her pink-on-pink color, gained a third, darker tint in her cheeks as she regarded Lily. “Do you… agree with our guest here?” Those two swapped glances, Starlight Glimmer nodding subtly. “Do you think we should… p-part ways—temporarily… until we learn to love ourselves enough to make one another happy?”  “I… sound really freaking selfish,” Lily realized, gaze shamed to the ground. “But I don’t want to lose you. I really, really don’t!”  Angel Heart breathed deep… too deep, too long—it was agonizing. She exhaled shakingly, and said looking her best friend fearlessly in the eye, “Lily, she’s right, I’m sorry.”  “Don’t be.” All she ever wanted was to make Angel happy. If this was the way to do it… “Whatever makes you comfortable. I don’t ever want to hurt you again.”  “I’m so sorry!” the elder pegasus cried. “It hurts, it hurts so bad but she’s right. We’re only going to destroy each other if we don’t change something within ourselves.”  “And that…” Startled, they both turned to the standing Princess of Empathy. “That, girls, was the first step: admittance. Thing is, you’re never going to change if you don’t start talking to one another. Openly,” she added, turning from Angel Hope to Lily Heart, “fearlessly.”  Princess Starlight shook her head, her beautiful mane flouncing gently with the motion. “Stop worrying about how one another may react, because you both love each other too much to hold a grudge. And stop prioritizing one another as if your self doesn’t matter. Because that’s what keeps fueling this vicious cycle of hope and despair.”  ‘I didn’t mean for… well, I don’t know what my aim here was.’  Captain Fizzlepop’s confession an hour ago—underlain with Twilight’s whimpers as she massaged a cooling salve into her charge’s wing. ‘I truly don’t. I took one look at his new wings and thought... Urgh! I just—! The thought of him hurting you, Twi, it unsettled me—terrified—me deeply. I thought in acting I would avoid a catastrophic fallout between the two of you. In doing so, I made the grave error of equating him to the Ursa who’d butchered me.’  ‘I only wanted Spike to be aware of himself, the reality of the differences between our species. That’s it.’   ‘But look what I’d done instead.’  ‘I’m sorry, Spike.’  ‘I wish I could take it all back, but you’re somewhere too far away for ponies to reach you now.’  Dang it, Tempest! Starlight had understood, completely: putting aside her job as the Royal Aegis, Fizzle merely acted the role of an overprotective friend. But in doing so, she pricked a sore spot for Spike she’d no idea had been there all his life.  And now... A roar cracked like thunder, rumbled the earth. A roar etched with rage, fear and pain.  A roar separate from the flames’ devouring Everfree Forest, bellowing from the drake towered only by his own smoke towers, newly-formed wings spanning across the woodland.  Clouds in tow, weather ponies buzzed insect-like from where Starlight stood shaking. This is my fault. I could have said something, anything! But my stupid anxieties kept me from horning in on Twilight’s territory.  But Spike, she only realized now, was family, too. ‘I don’t want to lose you,’ her heart writhed. Okay. Stop moping. Twilight can’t get through to him. So this calls for a little touch of Empathy… I hope! He reared up once more, leering over the canopy he now claimed his home. Spewing flames of emerald into the dusky orange sky, the hauntingly beautiful sight chilled Starlight to the bone despite the heat all around.  If only it was solely that which gripped her by the throat.  Yet something far more dangerous, more personal, darkened her soul with apprehension. Starlight unfurled her useless, clumsy wings despite herself.  No. She shook her selfish head. This isn’t the time to be afraid. A friend is hurting deeper than anypony but you can imagine.  Starlight steeled her writhing soul as Spike marched deeper into the woodland, away from the “attack site” as everypony but Dash was calling it.  To her, Starlight and Spike, it was clearly more of a “keep away from me, please, I’m a monster unfit for pony society” site if anything.  Destiny, she prayed, please don’t let me mess this up. Her wings slammed downward, the ground leaving her hooves in a balmy gust. I hate flying. She flapped again. I hate flying. And again, grunting with all her feeble might. I.  Flap.  Hate.  Flap.  Flying.  Flap.  So.  Flap.  Freakin’ MUCH!  Flap-flap-flap.  Confidently afloat above the carnage, Starlight breathed deep. “Spike!” He kept marching. Okay. Dig deep within yourself, Starlight. Canterlot Voice, Canterlot Voice, Canterlot—The ground was like a million miles up, suspended not by reliable magic but Starlight’s pitiful flying ability.  Fear latched around her throat, pushed outward by exhaustion—and cracking hilariously—as she hollered, “SPI-IKE!” The cry echoed across the land, mocking her voice’s breaking like a pubescent teen’s.  Awkward silence.  Rainbow Dash guffawed in the distance.   Unlike back on the ground, sweat plastered Starlight’s forelock to the length of her face. But she knew she only had Dash’s ribbing to look forward to because Spike’s booming footfalls had ceased.  A scaled, spearlike muzzle pointed to her, green eyes softening as they locked gazes. Relief flooded in, cleansing Starlight’s embarrassment. “Spike,” she exhaled.  And hot air rushed up from below, and a scream from Starlight’s soul—and of course the Canterlot Voice worked perfectly well here.  The flames wreathing Everfree’s border widened, rushing up to swallow her. Starlight’s conscious effort to remain afloat was overwhelmed. “Crud!” she boomed, flapped, falling faster and faster. In the back of her mind, the cuss heard throughout Central Equestria would surely be heard again within the pages of those starving tabloids.  A hard, albeit soft, cool surface smacked against her belly all too soon. Starlight picked her face up, shock and awe punching her dizzy as she was held before Spike’s massive head.  “You could have died, Starlight,” he boomed, a slight purr deep within seasoning his every word.  Sweet Celestia, he sounded kind of epic. “Yeah, well, kinda but not really. Alicorns are tough, remember?”  “But not indestructible.” Only then did she realize the emerald flecks twinkling in his eyes: full as kiddie pools, and doubly huge. “Twilight knows it was an accident, Spike. She does, and she didn’t care for a second—!”  “She backed away, she was afraid of me! She hates me now!”  Oh, boy, this is too much deja vu for me. “She doesn’t, Spike. As soon as the adrenaline wore off she wanted nothing more than to find you! She didn’t even care about tending her burn!”  “Look, I know how you feel!” she continued. Rising, her ragged words came spilling forth. “What Fizzle said had scared you. That your molting was the beginning of the end, that you’d grow up into a dragon too fierce and alien to continue living amongst ponies!”  Great, scaly brows furrowed. Throughout that speech, his eyes flickered to the destruction he’d caused to his new home.  Of course he blamed himself for the molting process giving him such bad allergies.  “I know, Spike. Believe me, I know—when I got these notions myself, I did everything I could to greedily hoard the status quo. But in doing so, I also got bigger and bigger, and inevitably warped my fate into the very thing I tried so hard to avoid! I became something I will forever be ashamed of!” Something monstrous.  Once again, it didn’t help that Twilight had been missing the point—that being she thought Spike was hoarding objects again, and accusing him constantly of such despite his insistence on not knowing the cause of his growth.  “Don’t hold it against Twilight—you know as well as I do how she gets when her family is in danger.” From Shining and Cadance’s wedding to Starlight’s downward spiral, to the current situation with Spike. “It’s all because she didn’t want to lose you. In reality, you’re definitely going to hurt her more than that burn by leaving. You know this, you’ve seen it yourself when I tried doing exactly what you are right now!”  Spike grumbled low, “But you’re a pony, I’m a dragon. You can go back and make amends. But one day, I’ll do something worse. Hurt ponies... irreversibly.”  He would never, ever kill ponies, even by mistake. His very actions now proved this, just as Starlight’s misguided intentions had in the past. And yet, just as she had then… “But doing exactly that to Twilight’s okay, because she’s just one pony, right? She’ll live, besides, so it’s fine. Am I wrong?”  Spike snarled, hot air blasting her in the face. “I see what you’re doing, but you’ve no idea, Starlight! No idea what it’s like to actually hurt the ponies you love!” he cracked. She fell back, frozen in a staredown. For one, single heartbeat, everything ground to an absolute halt.  ‘Actually,’ he had said.  ‘Actually!’ First, she was dumbstruck. Speechless.  Then, Princess Starlight Glimmer snarled back—calmly at first. “Is… is-is that what you think, Spike? Those physical hurts are the ones that matter most? Because let me tell you, let me tell you, now, Spike, you ready? It’s certainly NOT!” she boomed.  Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.  ‘NO!’ roared the fire Spike stoked within her. “Because that stuff, the thing you did: burning Twilight? It sucks, yeah. It hurts that you did it. And I know it’ll take a while for you to forgive yourself, even though Twilight’s already over it! But the truth is, that’s petty nonsense compared to the pain she’s going to feel tomorrow when she realizes she failed you.”  “But she didn’t—”  “She did.”  “This was my—!”  “She did! In her mind she failed you, because like it or not, she’s your family! She loves you to pieces and would do anything to make you happy! If she can’t do that, then in her mind, it doesn’t matter what you think or did in the past—to her, she failed. She will always think she’d failed!”  Spike threw his head back, roaring hoarsely into the smoky heavens.  Old wounds reopening within her soul, wet warmth snaking down her cheeks, Starlight couldn’t help but smile. I will save you. I will be your Sunburst, your Firelight, your Twilight in one.   Now, it was time to attack the root cause of his behavior:  “But don’t ever forget what she told you this morning!” Starlight continued. “Told both you and me: deep down, we’re somepony worth loving and having in her life. We'll always learn from our mistakes, always! We’ll change and adapt! I can’t speak for the future, Spike, so I’m not going to plant false hope in your head. All I can do is say the facts: Twilight loves you. I love you! Celestia, Luna, Cadance and Flurry Heart—that connection we share will never, ever change!”  From today, to tomorrow, to the ends of eternity, the bond of immortals will never change.  “And that, I guess, in a nutshell, is why the Cutie Map brought us here today.”  Starlight.  Twilight.  And Pri—Celestia. It was nice, having a friendship problem be so mellow.  The Princess of the Sun turned to her former student. “Twilight,” she intoned, voice loud in the stillness of her bedchamber, of the moment.   The Princess of Friendship turned to her former teacher. “Pri—erhm, Ce-Celestia?” she squeaked. Sniffled. Then dove into the larger alicorn, almost knocking her back as her forelegs spread open. “I’m so sorry!” she cried. “I’d no idea how badly I’ve alienated you all these years!”  “It’s okay,” she murmured, rubbing a bared hoof between Twilight’s wings. “It’s more than okay, my very best friend.”  Starlight’s cutie mark began to tingle—her signal to leave these two to their friendship.  Perhaps mellow wasn’t the right word.  But it was exceedingly less stressful having lived both ponies’ lives (basically) on top of knowing them so personally.  That’s not even mentioning the warmth that filled her as Starlight made her exit, threatening to burst her chest wide open, to sob like a filly.  The warmth of having helped birth a deep, meaningful bond between two ponies who, despite their differences, loved one another beyond measure.  They always, always reminded Starlight of how close she got to losing the life she had now.