Pound and Pumpkin Tales 2

by Never2muchpinkie


11-18:The will to live

All the children were looking at her with confusion.

“The will… to live?” asked Plum. “What’s that?”

Twilight’s horn light up, separating Mayhem’s new friends from his old ones but still keeping them all close together. Gesturing to Pound and the rest she said, “Think back to when you fought Mayhem. What would you say was the key factor in your victory? The thing you absolutely could not have won without.”

Pumpkin smiled. “That’s easy, Twilight. It was our friendship and unity.”

“Sorry, but that’s incorrect.”

Masky’s eyebrow went up. “How can you say that?”

“That’s right,” said Peppermint. “If it wasn’t our friendship that let us win then what was it?”

“Your victory came down to Flurry, and no one else,” Twilight replied.

“Me?” Flurry said, her head tilting. “But I couldn’t do anything on my own. It was only through cooperation and teamwork that we prevailed.”

“The thing is, while your friendship was something that played a part in your victory, the true thing that led you through was Flurry. Why? Because she had something that the rest of you lacked. And it was because of this certain something that the rest of you were inspired.

“So long as Mayhem lacks that certain something he’ll never be able to overcome Nega.”

“What about me was so special? What did I have that the others didn’t?”

“Exactly what I said before,” said Twilight. “You had the will to live.”

“But what is the will to live?” asked Tree Leaf.

“It’s unshakable courage and determination and a drive to succeed.

“Mayhem’s powers were far beyond anything you had ever faced. You, Flurry, started out a weak crybaby when you first began your venture. As you reunited with your friends and saw the sacrifices they were willing to make for you, even getting badly hurt to protect you from the fake Starlight, it caused a change inside you.

“You saw that you couldn’t remain as you were. Even as the battle grew crazier and crazier, even when he stripped you of your wings and horn and left you a magicless earth pony, you still wouldn’t surrender to him. Even when he destroyed his castle and was allowing his world to be sucked up by tornadoes and trying to convince you to betray each other, you still wouldn’t give up.

“In the face of impossible odds, even when you, yourself, had no idea how to win, you fully believed that so long as you continued putting in the effort you would prevail. When everyone else was feeling doubt you were the shining beacon of light radiating that same feeling to them, taking away their own fear.

“Your victory was no coincidence. It came down to you having the will to live. You knew that if you gave up that was it, but so long as you kept putting in the effort, no matter how many times it took, eventually you would succeed.”

Flurry thought back to that time. Seeing the others try to sacrifice themselves for her did indeed change her mindset. Seeing the depths they were willing to go to in order to protect her made her want to protect them in return, and that feeling carried her throughout the fight with Mayhem.

Twilight looked back at Mayhem. “Look into my eyes. What do you see there?”

As Mayhem complied he could feel a great power coming off of her. It wasn’t intimidating like her earlier standoff with Nega, but it was a tremendous force of will.

“You can feel it, can’t you, Mayhem?”

“Y-yes.”

“Back then, when you kept on battering Flurry, it infuriated you that she wouldn’t surrender despite the gap in power between you. But do you remember what you felt after that? Confusion. Past your rage you just felt baffled that she wouldn’t give up.”

She lowered her head a bit so they were almost eye to eye. “The will to live is a crucial mindset if you want to conquer the hardest challenges. It says that, no matter what, no matter how tough things get, no matter how unlikely it is to succeed, that you will not surrender under any circumstances. You will live on, no matter the mistakes or errors you make along the way.”

“So what are you saying, Twilight?” he asked, an edge in his voice. “That I should just dismiss everything bad that I do because I think I’m so important I shouldn’t ever vanish?”

Twilight scowled. “That you’re even asking that question just shows you don’t understand at all what I’ve been saying. That’s exactly why I told you that you wouldn’t win if you went up against Nega.

“That’s the exact opposite of what I mean. The will to live is being able to face yourself. It’s being able to acknowledge the wrong you’ve done and not be consumed by it. Yes, you should feel guilty when you do bad things, but just like in everything there needs to be a balance. If you feel too little you become like you did in the superhero adventure. But feeling too much just paralyzes you.

“Spring Meadow suffered from that. Her world grew smaller and smaller, enduring a daily cycle of self-hatred that made her believe her parents hated her.

“Rather than face up to your mistakes and seek to make up for them you just punished yourselves and sought to run away from your actions.”

Both Mayhem and Spring looked at the ground for a bit.

Spring was the first to look up. “But… what else was I supposed to do, Twilight? There was no way to make up for my brother’s accident.”

“Mayhem knows the answer. He just hasn’t internalized it yet, and that’s where the problem lies. After admitting your faults you apologize with a sincere heart, and don’t do the same thing again to the best of your ability.

“Even if you’re never forgiven, you can’t live your life burdened with guilt. After all, what value does your guilt have for other people? Does feeling guilty on its own make everything better? Did it make Cup and Carrot and the rest of the parents ignore Mayhem’s actions? Of course not. You had to work to earn their forgiveness.

“And you, Spring, learned that your parents never held any anger towards you. Because you couldn’t be honest and chose to play the role of punishing yourself you just made yourself suffer unnecessarily. You came to be convinced no one could ever love you and everyone was against you.

“The point isn’t to ignore your guilty feelings and actions. The point is to use your feelings to motivate you to be a better person.”

Spring looked towards Mayhem. “You… you said that at the hospital. That your past is for learning from, not to hurt yourself.”

“Exactly!” said Twilight. “But neither of you have quite accepted that.

“Sure, it may be true that if you die or lock yourself up or isolate yourself then you can no longer commit new bad actions, but that’s not true repentance. Why? Because just as you can’t do bad things to others it also stops you from doing good things. You can’t erase the past, but so long as you’re still alive it opens up the possibility of making positive changes in the life of someone else. It opens the possibility that you may be forgiven by the ones you hurt.

“If Mayhem had taken that route just think of all the lives that would have been impacted. Think of your six friends who forgave you and still wanted you in their lives. Think of Fluttershy, your mother figure. Think of Discord. Think of me, like your second mother. Think of all the new friends you made.

“Most importantly, think about Spring Meadow and her family, as well as Sweet Pea’s family. One accident led to all eight of them suffering horribly.

“Without you around to heal Forest Meadow all seven of them would still be suffering deeply as Forest remained in his coma.

“Because you remained in the world you saved eight lives, and with your power you have the ability to save many more. That is why you can’t die, because your life has great value in the hearts of others.”

Tears welled up in Mayhem’s eyes.

“Even if Forest woke up on his own it still wouldn’t have made things as good as they are now. That moment could have come months or even years in the future, and the darkness in Spring’s heart would have only continued to grow. She had a lot of buried feelings that you revealed to her family, giving them the means to learn how to help her heart heal.

“And because you were with me next week it allowed me to bridge the gap between them, helping Spring to see that she was helping him to heal too.”

She put a hoof to his chest. “All of this is because of you. Because you were in the world. So you need to live on, because there’s so much more good you can do.”

He put his claw to his face, gently sobbing.

Spring hugged him close, crying as well. “She’s right! You did so much for our family, bringing all of us so much happiness. So don’t ever think you’re worthless.”

Twilight gave them a minute to get their emotions under control before gently tapping the ground to get their attention. “This next thing applies to both of you, Spring and Mayhem, but it can also be applicable to all of you.

“ ‘Your past is for learning from, not to be used to hurt yourself.’ That statement perfectly sums up what your emotions should be used for. They’re teaching tools.”

“Teaching tools?” said Peppermint.

Twilight nodded. “Your emotions teach you lessons. It’s just like hunger. When you’re hungry it's a signal to eat. If you have too little it can lead to headaches and getting irritable. However, if you stuff yourself and eat too much you can wind up with a stomachache. At worst, you’ll puke.

“It’s the same thing with emotions. When you’re sad it tells you that something is wrong. When you’re happy it tells you that all is right with the world. Of course we all want to strive to be happy and not feel sadness, but those negative emotions are just as valuable as the positive ones.”

“I don’t think so,” said Masky.

“Oh?”

His mind turned back to the past. “I felt so lonely and miserable back then. If I couldn’t feel sad then my act wouldn’t have been an act. I wouldn’t have had to pretend to be happy. I would be happy.”

Twilight nodded in understanding. “Maybe so, but that attitude is precisely why I said it applies to everyone and not just these two.”

She looked around at the others. “Can you not think of the value of sadness?”

She mainly got shrugs and head shakes.

“I think we’d all be better off if we couldn’t feel sad,” said Pound. “Then my bullies would never have bothered me.”

“I wouldn’t have gotten jealous about my parents paying too much attention to my baby brother,” said Peppermint.

Some of the other children listed examples of the benefits of not feeling sadness.

Twilight listened to them all, then said, “I have some of Mayhem’s power in me, so if I gave you the offer to change it so you’d never feel sadness again would you take it?”

She got nods and verbal confirmations all around.

She gently shook her head. “It seems so simple, doesn’t it? We’d all like to live a life where we don’t suffer, but the truth is that without a feeling of sadness it’s impossible to care about others.”

“Why not?” asked Flurry.

“Well, let’s do a quick experiment, shall we? Pound, I want you pretend that you can’t feel sad.”

“Um… okay,” he said.

Twilight walked up to Pumpkin and gave her a shove, gently knocking her to the ground.

“Hey!” Pound said angrily. “What did you do that for?”

“What do you care?" Twilight said as she pulled Pumpkin up. "You can’t feel sad, remember?”

Pound immediately felt chills go down his spine. “B-but,” he said weakly, “I wasn’t sad. I was mad.”

“Incorrect. Where do you think that anger came from? It came from a place of sadness. Because you love Pumpkin seeing her sad makes you feel sad, and that in turn makes you angry at the one who took her happiness away."

He blinked.

“Without sadness there can’t be guilt. If I stopped Spring Meadow from feeling sad she’d be indifferent to her brother’s accident. Mayhem wouldn’t care about his actions during the superhero adventure.

“If you can’t feel sad you can’t grieve. I could kill each of your parents or siblings right in front of you and none of that would take the smile off your face.”

That gave all the children chills.

“Wow,” said Masky. “I never thought about it like that before.”

“Me neither,” said Sweet Pea. “That’s horrible to think about.”

"So now," said Twilight, "let me ask the question again." Her horn lit up. "Do you want me to take away your ability to feel sadness?"

Now she got emphatic head shakes from everyone.

“I can’t imagine a life without caring for Pumpkin,” said Pound. “I’d turn into a terrible brother if I couldn’t care that she got hurt.”

“Glad to see you all understand the value of sadness now,” said Twilight.

“Guilt is another valuable emotion. It’s a warning light telling you that you’ve done, or are about to do, something wrong. It tells you that you shouldn’t do something or shouldn’t have done it.

“When you’ve learned the lesson that guilt has to teach you then that’s the time to let it go. If you’ve made amends to the ones you’ve hurt and have improved yourself, then you no longer have a need to feel guilt.

“Guilt is one of those tricky emotions that only intensifies with time if it’s not dealt with. If you don’t take care of it guilt turns into shame. It turns ‘I did something bad’ to ‘I am something bad,’ and thus you stop separating your behavior from who you are as a person.

“You learn to dismiss yourself. After all, if you consider yourself bad then nothing good you do matters. No matter how many good, benevolent actions you do, even if you save the whole world, you’ll always be worthless in your own eyes.”

Again Spring and Mayhem made awkward motions, fidgeting and unable to meet her eyes.

“This is why letting guilt rule you does nothing for anyone. What it ends up with is that you start running in place like you’re on a treadmill. You can run, run, run all day and all night, but you’re not actually going anywhere. You’re not making progress. You’re not growing. You’re standing still. And as you continue on you’ll grow tired, and then you’ll start going backwards.”

She took a few steps forward and sat down in front of the pair, putting a hoof on each of their shoulders. “The two of you have suffered enough. What causes other people to forgive is genuine remorse and a desire to change, both of which the two of you have accomplished.

“Mayhem, you’ve been learning to speak up about your feelings, even to Fluttershy, so that they don’t build up. You’ve helped a family hurting, using your past experiences to reach her heart. You’ve constantly strived to improve and be worthy of forgiveness.

“Spring, you learned that your parents set up rules for a reason, even if you don’t always agree with them. The brother you hurt now shines with your love. When you learned how he was hurting you saw that he needed you as much as you needed him.

“You’ve learned the lessons your guilt has tried to teach you. Now… it’s time to release it.”

The pair quietly cried.

“T-T-Twilight?” said Mayhem.

“Yes?”

“Can I… is it even possible for me to ever feel that way? That ‘will to live’ thing?”

“Of course it is. You’ve done it before.”

“I have?”

She nodded. “It was at the hospital when you helped Forest.”

His eyebrow went up. “B-but my life wasn’t in danger at the hospital.”

“My wording may have made it seem different, but the will to live isn’t about life or death situations. It’s a mindset about perseverance and inner strength. That will naturally help you in a battle with your life on the line, allowing you to overcome what seems like impossible odds, but it also applies to your everyday life. Without the will to live it makes it hard to find joy in your self-improvement or to even feel you’re worthy of good things.”

“But when did I show the will to live?”

“Try to think back to your conversation. You asked me not to interfere because helping Spring was a personal matter to you.”

“I remember, but how was that the will to live?”

“Because the will to live is most easily found when protecting another. You were willing to risk everything to help her. At that time you likely felt the same feelings that Flurry did when she was protecting the others from you.

“No matter what happened to you, even if her parents hated you after hearing your past, even if you got in trouble for telling me you snuck into Flurry’s cutecenera, even if it made it harder for you to continue your weekly wish sessions, you put your whole heart and soul into protecting someone who was deeply in need of being saved.”

“T-that was… the will to live? What I felt then?”

She nodded. “Rather than letting your past consume you and fill you with guilt, you used it as a tool to inspire someone else to find a new path just like you did. You were blazing with inner strength because you knew the pain you felt inside and didn’t want to see someone else suffering like you.

"No matter what came to you as a result, you were willing to sacrifice anything you needed to in order to help Spring. You were doing exactly what you were trying to teach Spring, using the past as a learning tool to improve, rather than as a weapon to attack yourself.”

Mayhem looked over at Spring, really focusing on the way he felt back then.

Tree Leaf raised a hoof. “I have a question.”

“Sure,” said Twilight.

“You said that the will to live is about living a good life and stuff, but it seems like the ones who benefit the most from it aren’t the ponies who have it.”

Twilight chuckled. “That’s an interesting observation, but it’s not quite accurate.

“Flurry said that even if the six of you really didn’t know each other before going to Mayhem’s world he still would have lost because he put you into a situation ideal for forming bonds. You had to grow and team up in order to protect one another from an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.

“The will to live can always be found when you feel needed. Think of what happened after I yelled at you. All of you were suffering under an emotional weight so big it felt physical, unable to even stand because of the weight of your guilt.

“And yet, what happened after that? Pound said that there was a friend in need, and asked if that was something still worth fighting for. That’s all that needed to be said. All it took was knowing a friend was in need to motivate all of you to rise again.

“You didn’t blaze red hot after that, but all of you fought off the despair and gathered your strength because you cared enough for another that you wouldn’t let your own feelings get in the way of helping them.

“Helping others gives one a positive boost in their feelings, motivating them to do more good actions. Seeing others in need motivates me to act, giving me strength I wouldn’t have if I acted solely for myself. If you need an example of that, we can just look at all of you. The five of you risked your lives to save Flurry from the fake Starlight, and she in turn risked her own life to protect all of you."

“Twilight, can I say something?” said Pound.

“Sure, Pound.”

“It’s not quite the same thing, but I want to go back to when you were talking about guilt. What you were talking about is a lot like what Scootaloo told me when I was struggling to fly.”

“And what did she say?” asked Mayhem.

“Every day I was being bullied by a colt in my class. You remember Drill Bit?”

Mayhem nodded.

“What you saw was the result of months of effort, both in me and to him. I’ve learned to fly, and he’s become a better pony.

“But it didn’t start out that way. Neither of us were the ponies we were before I talked to Scootaloo. Like me, she was a late bloomer. She really struggled learning to fly too, so I knew she would understand my feelings.”

Pounds eyes faded out as he went back in time to his conversation with her. “I told her about being bullied and how hard things were for me. She sympathized with my problems, and told me things I’ve treasured to this day.”

He put a hoof to his heart. “She showed me that I was weak. It wasn’t the bullies that were really hurting me. It was my own fears and doubts. Because I was weak I believed the bad things they said about me, and so I believed I would never improve.

“What it came down to was that I didn’t believe in myself. Unlike my family she didn’t try to tell me that I would definitely fly. Instead, she told me that it was up to me to choose the way I wanted to live my life. ‘You can either work harder than you’ve ever worked before, or be a whining loser proving that everything they said about you is right.’ ”

“That… that helped you?” said Plum.

He nodded. “I know it sounds mean, but she was right. I could either listen to the bullies telling me I couldn’t do it, or become strong enough to prove them wrong.

“In the end I was always an ugly duckling. I might have seemed ratty, but as I’ve grown up my ‘duck’ feathers came off and I turned into a beautiful swan. I haven’t surpassed Drill Bit and his friends yet in flight skills, but I’m constantly improving.”

He put a hoof on Mayhem’s shoulder. “You have that potential too. You’ve been bullying yourself, and Nega is the result of that. You can win over your bully too, and together the two of you can become better than you are.”

“That’s correct, Pound,” said Twilight. “You have to face forward, and look at yourself honestly. Along with the will to live you have to learn to forgive yourself for not being perfect. Until you ease up on yourself you and Nega will continue to suffer.

“The reason I pardoned you and began your weekly sessions is so that you would make new friends that would strengthen your heart. I did it all for a time like this.

“Your eleven friends all pledged their lives to you, making an unbreakable vow to always be your friend. Can you abandon that trust by not giving them the same?

“The will to live cannot be gained from a place of guilt. It can’t be out of a sense of obligation. It has to come from your own heart… because you genuinely want it. Focus on how you felt at the hospital, and find that strength again.”

“We’re rooting for you, Mayhem!” said Pound.

“Got that right!” said Pumpkin.

“Guys!” Twilight called out. “Please be quiet.”

“Why?” Flash said with annoyance. He had been about to chime in too. “You’ve been talking way longer than us! I don’t see why you’re trying to shut us up.”

“Don’t get upset with me,” she said calmly. “If you speak up right now your words will have the opposite effect of what you’re intending.”

“How’s that? We want to give Mayhem the strength to win.”

Pound bit his lip, then said with a sigh, “Twilight is right. We screwed up.”

“How?” said Chocolate.

“Twilight has been trying to help Mayhem understand what he needs to know to win. That’s why she was talking so much.

“The reason she’s stopping us from talking is another thing that Scootaloo explained to me.”

“What?” said Sweet Pea.

“She talked about the difference between a genuine belief in yourself and only believing when somebody is nearby to encourage you. As she said earlier, If just encouraging him was enough to help then this would have been over a long time ago.”

“Exactly,” said Twilight. “Mayhem needs to gather his own strength and learn to conquer his feelings on his own. Otherwise, he’s only going to be consumed by them any time his friends aren’t around.”

“I thought the whole point of friendship was to rely on each other,” said Chocolate. “You just said yourself that fighting for others gives you the most strength.”

“That’s not the problem,” said Pound. “I asked Scootaloo the same thing when she was talking to me. She’s not saying it’s bad to rely on others or fight for others, but we can’t keep doing everything for him. There’s a big difference between a genuine belief in yourself and only believing in yourself when someone else is there to encourage you.

“We’re not always going to be right by his side when he’s having a hard time. That’s why he has to learn how to fight on his own. That way, when nobody else is there to tell him he can do it, he can tell himself that.”

“Right again,” said Twilight. “No matter how much encouragement we throw his way it comes to nothing if he doesn’t believe it himself.

“Think of why we’re all in this situation right now. Spring rebelled against her parents because she didn’t like the feeling of being babied. While she ultimately overestimated her abilities it doesn’t change that she felt her parents thought less of her than she was capable of.

“If you keep on doing the same things as before you’re effectively babying him, giving the implication you don’t think he can succeed unless he’s reliant on you.”

“But that’s not how we feel at all, Aunt Twilight!” said Flurry.

“Then just be quiet and watch.”

Flurry considered her for a few moments then stepped away, her horn glowing as she lifted up the other children and set them down in a circle shape with a large gap. “I’m only going to say one more thing: we’ll be waiting, Mayhem. For both of you.”

Mayhem looked up thoughtfully at Nega. He was still holding himself and crying. Now he could truly see Nega's pain. But he knew in actuality it was his own inner pain. All the nasty things Nega had said to him were all things he had thought about himself when he was feeling low.

"The will to live," he said to himself, then turned to Twilight. "Hey, Twilight?"

"Yes, Mayhem?" she responded.

"Do you remember the day we met Spring Meadow, and how I thought I didn't really help her because she didn't get over it right away?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"When we were getting to the end of your explanation you talked about something that I feel is very relevant here."

"And that is?"

"You talked about the end of the journey using a black lake as a symbol of her darkness, with the people she loved being the light protecting her from that darkness.

"You said that after she received enough light and love from others she would start being able to fight back on her own. She'd be able to talk back to the nasty voices inside of her."

"Yes, I did. It does seem like we're starting to reach that point with you."

He looked around at all his friends, thinking of the vow they had all made to him. He thought of the value he had to others, and tried to imagine a world in which they didn't have him anymore.

Tears, tears, tears. He could see a lot of tears, especially coming from Fluttershy. She thought of him as a son. He could only imagine how much she would cry if he was gone. Even if it became necessary he didn't know if she would ever be able to forgive Twilight if she was forced to eliminate him.

Was he really ready to go off on his own to challenge Nega? Could he find the will to live?

He didn't know for sure, but he had to find out. There was too much at stake for him to fail.

He looked at Spring Meadow, thinking back to that time in the hospital where Twilight had said he displayed it. Her feelings had been so similar to his. She was someone reeling with guilt like him, suffering horribly.

He had only wanted one thing that day. Just one thing. And that was to see her find relief from the pain. To that end no price was too high. No sacrifice was too great.

Today was meant to be a special day... the day they both conquered their Sombra's for good. The whole reason Spring asked to do this today was so she'd finally have the courage to defeat her inner Sombra.

Spring was close, so close, to the finish line. She was almost ready to beat her inner darkness. She just needed that last little bit of encouragement to motivate her to take those final steps forward.

When Flurry had found the will to live she had been just like her future cutie mark, shining a light into the darkness to make others feel safe and continue fighting. She had brought out the best in them, allowing them to feel confident even in such a hopeless situation.

Just like with Pound and Drill Bit, he and Spring had taken off on a long journey together to better themselves. More than anyone else in the world Spring needed him right now. She needed to see him triumph so she could confront her own hurting heart and finally attain true happiness.

A short while ago what got all of them moving after Twilight yelled at them was Pound's question. They had come here today to help a friend. Wasn't that something still worth fighting for?

'Yes!' he thought. It was worth fighting for. He wanted to make that happen. He wanted to see her excel and cast off the shackles of her past.

He could feel purpose giving him strength. It was as Twilight said. He didn't want to help her out of some obligation. He wanted it for her, just as he always had. He had gone off in the wrong direction a few times along the way in dealing with his inner issues, but now he could see the right path.

He gave Spring an encouraging smile, which she returned. When he finally pulled himself out of the darkness the first thing he wanted to do was pull her out too.

He gave them all a salute. “I’ll be back soon. I have to go confront myself.”