“Ugh, Harry I’ll take cleaning duty, guard detail, or you can even throw me at a bunch of the reds if you want to. Just please, no more parties like last night’s,” Twilight moaned as we walked down one of the castle’s many corridors. “Honestly the vampires would be kinder to me than that cider.”
I paused mid step to massage my temples while my head kept on stubbornly pounding away. “I’m right there with you Twilight. I don’t think I’ve been this hung over since the time I first got in McCoy’s secret stash.”
“McCoy drinks?” Michael asked from behind me. “You never told me McCoy drinks.”
“He’s a Scotsman living in Missouri, of course he drinks.” Another pang of pain mixed with nausea hit me. “How long is this supposed last?”
Applejack chuckled next to Michael, “Yeah that’s everypony’s reaction the first time with Big Mac’s cider. It’ll get easier, trust me.”
I cast an annoyed glance at her, “I’m not talking to you, I’m still mad at you.”
She looked a little hurt. “What’d I do?”
“You punched a hole in my wall!” I shot back.
“Bucked, I bucked a hole in your wall,” she corrected. “Besides I only did that because Fluttershy started yelling that I wasn’t strong enough to do it.”
Fluttershy, who was walking well behind the group, squeaked at that. “I-I’m sorry, I don’t remember yelling at you. I can’t remember much after the Ponyopoly game.”
Personally I was glad I was unconscious for that bit. The mental image of a drunk and yelling Fluttershy was a frightening one. It’d probably be as nasty as me going up against the entire Red Court solo, and with similar results.
“I don’t remember much of anything I’m afraid,” Rarity added.
Rainbow laughed from above her. “That’s because you passed out first.”
“Well excuse me if I’m not accustomed to alcohol, I don’t normally drink,” Rarity retorted.
“Will y’all simmer down!” Applejack yelled, and received many pained winces. “Now Harry, I am sorry about your wall. I will fix it right up as soon as I can.”
I smiled back at her, “Appreciated. Now Michael, what is it that Celestia wants? I kind of doubt she just wants a pleasant breakfast.”
“I debriefed her last night on the events in Manehattan, and to my knowledge there haven’t been any recent developments with the vampires. So she’s probably just looking for a status update with all of you.” Michael swept his eyes over the entirety of the group, and then returned his gaze to me. “She also might be curious as to why you ignored her summons last night.”
Oh joy.
We walked the rest of the way to the dining hall in silence, or at least those of us with hangovers did. Michael and Applejack seemed perfectly content to converse about the perks and draw backs of their respective pieces of equipment the entire way there. They did this in loud carrying voices that were amplified further by the acoustics of the castle walls, and bounced right back into the pain centers of my brain.
Never before had I considered stress induced insanity a preferable alternative to alcohol.
We rounded the corner and the large wooden double doors that lead to the dining hall came into view. As we neared the doors they flew open, finally putting a stop to Applejack’s and Michael’s conversation. Princess Luna came through the open doors and stopped at the sight of us, with a slight surprised look on her face.
She regained her composure and lowered the hoof that had opened the doors. “Oh, there you all are. I was about to…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes locked onto me. “My goodness Dresden, what happened to your face?”
I ran a hoof over the three long claw marks on left side of my face. “It’s nothing, a vampire wanted to give me a cuddle. It was all kinds of enthusiastic, but its execution left much to be desired.”
Many of the mares behind me let out audible sighs.
Luna performed a facehoof worthy of Twilight. “You should’ve come to me straight away. I can fix that right up. There shouldn’t even be a scar.”
“Wait, you’re going to do what now?” Before I could object any further, Luna’s ethereal dark blue mane extended far past her head and brushed over my face.
An intense tingling sensation hit me as Luna’s power sunk into the cuts and began knitting the torn flesh back together. It was extremely uncomfortable, it felt like a hundred ants were parading up and down the skin of my face, and there was… something else. Underneath the outward benevolence, intent, and magnitude of her power, there was a whisper of corruption. It was faint, I only barely felt it, but it was definitely there. A stain like that can only come from one place, and I was all too familiar with that kind of magic.
I unconsciously took step to the side, putting myself solidly between Luna and my new friends. As Luna finished with her spell and her mane fell away from me, I adopted an expressionless mask and stared directly at her.
“You… you’re a warlock?” I asked, knowing full well that she was.
Michael breathed in sharply. Luna looked incredibly confused for a moment, but then appeared to guess at my meaning and hung her head slightly.
“What are you talking about? Princess Luna’s a what?” Twilight asked behind me.
“A practitioner that has been corrupted by black magic,” I answered without looking away from Luna.
Twilight shook her head, “That’s just silly. Magic doesn’t corrupt. It’s simply a tool to be used by those with the ability to-”
“No Twilight Sparkle, he speaks the truth,” Luna cut her off.
“What?” Twilight looked bewildered and turned to me for an explanation.
“Twilight, what do you know about where magic comes from?” I asked.
“It comes from our life and emotions, that’s why our magic is generally more powerful when we’re feeling intense emotions.”
I nodded, “Correct, but consider this. What would happen if you used magic to kill another sentient being similar to yourself, thereby turning your magic against its own origins?”
She looked shocked at that. “That would be horrible. Such a thing would be a-“
“Crime against nature, yes,” I finished for her. “When you use magic to harm or subvert the will of a being similar to yourself, it corrupts you and makes it easier for you to consider doing worse things. Which in turns corrupts you further, it’s a slippery slope,” I faced Luna again. “This makes me wonder what it is that you did, Luna.”
“Mind magic,” she stated simply. “A thousand years ago, I was so jealous that everypony played and lived their lives under Celestia’s sun, but only slept through my night. So I began using mind magic to force a few smaller towns to become nocturnal and live their lives at night.” She breathed a heavy sigh. “They began to fight the compulsions I’d laid on them, and their minds couldn’t handle the stress. Entire towns became paranoid to the point of insanity, and I had to lay new compulsions on them to keep them calm. But the more I used magic to twist their minds-“
I knew where this was going. “The more twisted you became,” I finished.
Luna nodded, “Yes, I could feel myself becoming increasingly malevolent and cold hearted. At some point I stopped caring entirely, it was then that my mind had been lost and I became Nightmare Moon.”
Several of the mares gasped behind me.
It was an interesting story, but there was one massive hole in it. “If that’s true, then how are you fine now? From your story you sounded like you had lost yourself completely,” I asked.
Luna turned to Twilight and her friends. “Why the Elements of Harmony saw to that.” She gestured at Twilight, “When they released the Element’s power on Nightmare Moon, my mind was restored to its previous state.”
I gibbered a bit at that. “The Elements… repaired your mind?”
I didn’t think such a thing was even possible. Generally by the time a warden comes in contact with a warlock, their minds are too far gone to be saved. If there was a way to repair a damaged mind, then who knows how many lives could be spared.
“Don’t you have warlocks in your world? How do you help them?” Twilight asked me.
I sighed. “Yes, chasing down warlocks is one the wardens main duties. But there are no Elements of Harmony in my world, and there’s no known way to repair a warlocks mind.”
“So how do you help them?” she asked again.
I shook my head. “We don’t, we execute them.”
Several more gasps were heard at, followed by a suspicious Rainbow Dash. “How do you know so much about this?”
“Because I’ve dabbled in black magic myself,” I said bluntly. “You all remember what I said about my adoptive parent Justin DuMorne right?”
“You told us that you had a falling out and ran away from him,” Twilight answered.
“Only partial credit that time, I didn’t run from him, I killed him.” I received several shocked looks at this. “DuMorne adopted me and began to use mental magic to try and enslave me, to make me into his personal soldier. When I resisted he tried to kill me, so I killed him right back. But I did so with magic, so I became branded a warlock by the White Council.”
“But you were just defending yourself!” Twilight exclaimed. “Why would the White Council call you a warlock?”
I nodded, “True, but I was still tainted by black magic, and the desire to use it again was still there. Truth be told it’s still there today, but I’ve learned to control it a long time ago. The only reason the White Council didn’t execute me was because McCoy saw that I hadn’t yet been consumed by the black. He volunteered to support me and be my mentor.” I turned my attention back to Luna. “Are warlocks much of a problem in Equestria?”
Luna shook her head. “Not really. There has been one or two since I’ve been gone, but all the knowledge required to perform that kind of magic was destroyed after I was banished.”
That was good. I didn’t want to think about the possibility of pony warlocks.
“What are you all up to?” Celestia said to us as she walked up behind Luna. She’d evidently gotten tired of waiting for us to finish our conversation.
Luna smiled up at her, “Just a history lesson sister.” Luna turned back to us, “Come, and let’s enjoy our breakfast.”
We walked over and sat at more or less random seats at the table. Celestia and Luna sat at the opposite ends of the table while the rest of us filled up the seats in between. I looked down at my reflection in my silver plate to examine Luna’s work. All three cuts had disappeared from my face, including Fluttershy’s stitches. It was like they were never even there.
Damn impressive for on the fly work.
“Well don’t just sit there, dig in,” Celestia said with a chuckle.
Without my noticing, several trays of a wide variety of vegetarian breakfast foods just appeared on the table before us. My stomach growled loudly at the sight of the food and I helped myself to a plate of whatever I could recognize. I decided to go for what looked like roasted and seasoned hay, it wasn’t as good as Twilight’s but it was a close second.
For almost half an hour we each just sat there enjoying the food Celestia’s cooks had prepared for us. Celestia and Rarity adopted what I would consider a snobbish method of dining. They sat straight backed in their seats and levitated their food to their mouths before only taking dainty little sips or bites. The rest of us, including Twilight and Luna bizarrely, went for the more basic method of pony food consumption, which is to say we repeatedly slammed our faces into our food with varying degrees of mess. We occasionally broke away from eating to laugh at the messes on each others’ faces. Luna even flicked a little bit of lettuce onto Rainbow’s muzzle while she was sniffing around in her hay
Rarity glared at us with shocked disapproval, while Celestia chuckled at our antics.
When we had finished eating, and after Applejack had prevented Rainbow from starting a food war with Luna, Celestia decided to begin speaking.
Celestia waited for us to be silent before looking intently at me. “Mr. Dresden, I do recall writing in my original letter to you and Twilight that I would answer any questions you had. But if you will allow me, I’d like to ask you one first.”
About freaking time lady.
I slouched back in my seat, “Okay, shoot.”
“Would you describe exactly how you came to Equestria? There might be important details that would have meant nothing to you at the time,” she said.
I complied. I told her how I started out at the rock face in my world, opened a Way, chased the three vampires through the conjured fog, and then opened another Way into Equestria.
“Wait a moment,” Luna interrupted me. “You ran through a thick fog? Can you describe it?”
I shrugged. “It was fog, thick, cloudy, couldn’t see my feet fog. The only thing off about it was that it was packed with static, which just meant that it was a magical construct of the lead vampire’s meant to throw us off their trail.”
Luna shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She looked at her sister intently before returning her gaze to me. “I think you ran through the remnants of my wards around Equestria.”
That earned my full attention. “You placed wards around Equestria?”
Luna nodded again, “Yes, as far as I know you two-“ she pointed out Michael and me, “-and the three vampires you were chasing, are the first outsiders to pierce the veil around Equestria in over a millennia.”
Michael and I exchanged glances as Luna went on.
“Celestia and I recognized the danger the denizens of the Nevernever posed to our little ponies. So before Nightmare Moon, I set up wards to prevent outsiders from coming here. They were supposed to hide Equestria rather than build a wall. You should’ve gone into the fog and popped right back out again. I suppose a thousand years of neglect has degraded my wards.”
I was about to voice my extreme displeasure with this logic, but Twilight beat me to the punch.
“You knew of the danger of the Nevernever, and your solution was to simply cut us off from everything?” she asked, a look of disbelief on her face.
Celestia let out a sigh, “Yes Twilight, for the good of us all, we isolated Equestria.”
Twilight kept staring at her mentor. “But there are sentient beings like us out there. Harry and Michael are proof of that. We can’t just cut ourselves off from them!”
“And there are also many monsters out there as well. The vampires loose in our world are proof of that,” Celestia countered calmly.
Twilight’s voice started rising as she became angry. “Luna’s wards couldn’t last forever. It was only delaying the inevitable.” Her voice rose even further as she began yelling. “You chose to ignore the worlds outside Equestria in the hopes that the dangers would simply go away!”
Celestia raised herself and exuded an aura of absolute authority. “And it has bought us a thousand years of peace and prosperity, Twilight. I must put the safety of my subjects above all else.”
Twilight hadn’t said it outright, but she had just pointed out that because of Celestia’s decision a thousand years ago, her ponies today were grossly unprepared for our current situation. Granted I’m here to provide the experience that they wouldn’t have otherwise, but ponies were still disappearing everyday because her guards didn’t know how to protect them.
Twilight was about to speak again, but I put a hoof on her shoulder before she could. “Twilight, this is a discussion for another time. I don’t like it either, but this won’t help us right now.”
She hesitated, but sat back down and began grumbling to herself.
I knew what was going through her head. We are all disappointed when those that we idolize prove that they are just as fallible as we are. When that idol is a semi-divine immortal, the impact is that much harder.
Luna shifted uncomfortably in her seat, clearly wanting to change the subject. “Indeed Dresden, I believe it is your turn to ask questions.”
I cast around for several relevant questions, and decided to go for the very first one I had since I woke up in Twilight’s library.
“Alright how about a simple one.” I got up from my seat, reared up on my hind legs, and waved my forelegs in front of me, “Why am I a unicorn?”
Instead of Celestia, Luna answered me. “Oh well that’s actually my doing.” She then took another mouthful of salad in an attempt to kill me with suspense.
I gave her about five seconds before my temper would get the better of me. “Would you mind sharing with us?” I said through clenched teeth.
Luna smiled mischievously after she finished her mouthful of salad, “Very well. Behind the initial wards, I placed a second set of spells. Were anything to pierce my wards and enter Equestria, the spells would transform the intruder into their closest Equestrian counterpart.” She then leaned over, took my face in her hooves, and began twisting my head to examine my musculature. “And I must say, I am quite proud of my work. Not a single muscle seems out of place.”
I wrestled myself free from her grip. “Okay first of all, personal space, second and more importantly, why?”
She leaned back in her seat and looked gloomily at her plate, “Because if I hadn’t, then you would be a gibbering mess on the floor right now.”
That stunned me into silence, so Michael spoke instead. “What do you mean?”
Luna looked intently at me, “Dresden, I’m sure you’ve noticed the ample amount of latent magical energy here correct?”
I nodded, “Yeah, first spell I cast I accidentally destroyed Twilight’s candlestick.”
“Yes, but the latent power goes well beyond simple energy to be used. It permeates through everything in this world, through matter, constructs, but most importantly through our minds.” Luna tapped a hoof on her forehead for emphasis. “All the creatures that call Equestria home, have developed brains capable of allowing the free passage of magical energy without damaging the brain itself.”
That was new. The brain of my human body could channel magic of course, but it wasn’t a perfect system. A wizard could channel magic through pure thought, but to do so would cause excruciating pain as the magic coursed through their brain. That’s why wizards had to invent random words to assign to their spells, so that they could focus their attention on the words and intent of the spell instead of focusing the raw magic. This creates a kind of insulation against the magic in your mind.
But if what Luna said is true, then that may not be the case with unicorns. If that was true, then I would no longer be restricted by having to shout my spells. It would definitely explain why Twilight never had to shout anything.
“I remember before we set up the wards, there were several little pixie-like creatures that frequented here.” Luna began giggling at the memory. “There was one in particular… Oh, what was his name?”
“Toot-Toot, I believe,” Celestia answered.
That perked up my ears.
Toot-Toot? The same Toot-Toot that acted as an information gatherer and personal rodent exterminator? No it can’t be, that’d put him at over a thousand years old.
Toot-Toot was a Dew Drop Fairy that I frequently used to gather information or perform simple tasks. While I knew that most such creatures were the next best thing to immortal I had a hard time buying that he’d be that old. Fairies like Toot-Toot have the attention span of a gnat and so are useless for any kind of complicated work, but they are hell on wheels for fast and simple tasks. Tasks like who is at this address, put this gum in that keyhole, or my personal favorite, stick this firework in his pants and light it.
Luna smiled, “Yes that’s it, Toot-Toot. He was so tiny he looked like just a puff of light. But he was such a little gentleman, always came to the Castle to visit and was very well spoken for such a small creature.”
Ah, so it wasn’t him. Must just be a coincidence.
Fairies like Toot-Toot are extremely hyper and generally eclectic by nature. They never would’ve been able to remain still long enough to form any kind of bond to warrant frequent visits, much less be able to act like a gentleman.
Luna sighed again. “But then the magic of this world began to mess with his thoughts. He and his kind became increasingly erratic. I couldn’t get him to hold still long enough to talk at all. Then for whatever reason, they developed a bizarre craving, bordering on lust, for a new kind of food the bakers called pizza.”
I couldn’t take it anymore, I fell over laughing. That was definitely my Toot-Toot, and to hear his history come from such an unlikely source was simply too much for me to handle. So I laughed and laughed while they all looked at me as though afraid for my sanity. All except Pinkie, who again didn’t need a reason to join in and started laughing with me.
How much of my life was influenced by Equestria before I even came here?
I regained control of myself and explained, “Sorry, it’s just that I know Toot-Toot. I use him as a source of information where I’m from. I just didn’t expect to hear him mentioned from you.”
Luna smiled, “Well it was shortly after this, that we expelled all foreign entities from Equestria and raised the wards.”
“But why did the wards fail, while the spell that changed Harry and Michael didn’t after all these years?” Twilight interjected.
“Like I said before, Harry and Michael are the first outsiders in Equestria since the wards went up,” Luna lectured. “The wards have been working constantly over the last thousand years, while the transformation spell has only had to work once thus far.” Luna looked at me, “The effects are anchored to the energies around Equestria so you should return to your original form should you choose to leave. I do not know of your intentions after this Red Court mess, but the effects of the spell are extremely thorough. So long as you remain here, biologically speaking you are as much a pony as the rest of us. You and Michael would of course be welcome to stay.”
Now that was an interesting idea. I had to admit it would be one real nice change of pace to live in a place of relative peace. But I dismissed that desire. I had too many things too take care of back home. An image of Susan floated to the top of my mind again, and I immediately hammered it back down.
“What about leaving?” I looked between Celestia and Luna. “Have you had any luck with whatever’s locking us here?”
Celestia shook her head, “I’m afraid not. Even with our combined strength we couldn’t pierce through the power holding the veil closed. I believe that it was built off of the remnants of the wards. Even so, it would take a practitioner of extraordinary skill to create something of this magnitude.”
I was afraid of that, if both Celestia and Luna couldn’t break through the veil then there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to unravel it. That also meant that the ‘new’ Red King was likely going to be one nasty powerhouse of a wizard.
“So that just means we can’t use the Nevernever to outflank them,” Twilight mumbled.
“Does that mean the vampires can’t use it as well?” Rarity asked.
“The main body of their forces probably can’t, but I imagine their leader could. Not that it does him much good in a full out battle. Leaders are supposed to avoid getting involved in combat unless it’s absolutely necessary,” I answered. I turned to face Celestia, “What about those bodies we found in Manehattan, have you had a chance to look at those?”
Celestia’s face turned several shades darker as she thought about her answer. “Yes, and from what I can tell they were not physically harmed, or at least not enough to kill them. It looks as though they simply stopped breathing. The most daunting thing is that this seems familiar.”
Everypony there gaped at her, even Luna.
Luna spoke first. “Sister, what do you mean?”
Celestia stared off into space as she tried to remember, “I mean that I think something like this has happened before, when we were still children I believe. Bodies like these have popped up before. The memory is faint but some of the details match. I will of course need to go through the old records to understand further.”
“When do you think that would yield results?” Michael asked.
Celestia shook her head, “I don’t know, but it won’t be anytime soon. I’m talking about over a thousand years of history and documentation that I need to comb through.”
I sighed and slouched back in my seat, “Well great, more waiting.” I looked over at Celestia, “That’s pretty much it for my questions, unless you girls have any.” I swept my eyes over my team.
They all shook their heads.
I clapped my hooves together, “Well then I guess it’s back to the grind stone. I’ve got something I need to whip up anyway.” I got up to leave but was stopped by a look from Michael, I got the meaning immediately. “On second thought, considering what happened yesterday, you all can have the day off. We’ll get back to training tomorrow.”
That earned a few cheers from the girls, and one disappointed look from Twilight.
Luna jumped to her hooves, “Oh Dresden, before I forget there’s a new soldier I’ve assigned to your battalion. He should be meeting you in your office after lunch.”
Great, they get the day off and I still have to work. Fan-freaking-tastic.
“Who is he?” I asked.
Luna smiled at me, “I think you’ll recognize him. Now go ahead and enjoy your day, just be in your office after lunch.”
With that we all got up and started filing out of the room. Michael left first, and I stayed behind to hold the door for the others. As soon as my team left the room I turned to leave as well, but was stopped by white hoof in an ornate golden shoe.
“Dresden, I wanted to thank you,” Celestia said in a soft honey sweet voice.
I cocked an eyebrow at her. “For?”
Celestia smiled even deeper, “For disobeying me. You disregarded my summons and chose to comfort those under your protection. For that I thank you.”
I chuckled a little. “Well now I know you’re nothing like my bosses in the White Council. If I disregarded an order from them, I’d get poorly concealed death threats. I think I like your complement better.”
Celestia frowned at that. “Is this White Council really that bad?”
“Well I’m pretty sure they couldn’t find their own hearts with x-ray glasses and a textbook on anatomy, so yeah.” I shrugged my shoulders, “My world is a pretty rough and tough place, but they do the best they can with what they’ve got.”
I turned and left after my friends and closed the door behind me, leaving the princess to her thoughts and her research about the strange bodies.
Where is that damned recruit? He’s not making a good first impression.
It was much later in day, almost past dinner time, and I was still stuck in my office waiting for Luna’s promised recruit. I sat at my desk and fiddled with my new shield charm, trying to get it to sit straight at the base of my horn.
Michael had again taken over the lessons for the soldiers and random guardsponies, so I spent my entire day fashioning a new shield charm for myself.
I had requested a simple ornament meant to fit around my horn from the castle’s smithy, and had received the base ornament almost immediately. It was a small band of silver strands woven together to form a ring just wide enough to fit snugly at the base of my horn. Several small dark red rubies were studded along the surface of the band and glinted with a subtle aura of magic.
After a carrier delivered the base ornament to me I’d begun the rather simple, but still time consuming task of enchanting it. It took me several hours to get the design just right so that the shield it produced would be hardy and flexible enough to stand up to damn near anything a vampire could throw at me.
I did a quick practice run and channeled a bit of energy through it, my horn glowing as I did. A large pane of dark red energy appeared before me. I sustained the simple shield and began prodding it with physical and magical senses alike. I couldn’t find any obvious flaws in the shield so it was likely ready, but then again only the intensity of battle would reveal if there were any not so obvious flaws. I could only hope that it didn’t fail at an inopportune time.
Only then did somepony finally knock at my office door. I dispelled the shield and went to sit behind my desk again.
“You’d better have a decent excuse for being this late, or some roasted hay. Honestly I’ll take either,” I shouted at the door.
The door opened and not one but two ponies stepped into my office. The first was an earth pony mare. She had a light brown coat with a blonde mane and tail, and her cutie mark was a grey cog. Her eyes were obscured by a large pair of blacksmith goggles.
The other was a pegasus… technically. He had a light brown coat similar to the mare’s, a jet black mane and tail, and a dark shield on his flanks. He seemed familiar somehow. The much more interesting parts were his right foreleg and his left wing. They had both been replaced with what looked like steam punk replicas.
“Sorry we’re late commander,” the pegasus said, and gestured at the mare. “Gearshift here can be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to her devices.” He spoke in an unusually high-pitched voice for a male, and for some reason had a slight Irish accent. That and his slightly smaller frame gave me the impression that he was younger than most of the other soldiers.
Then it hit me where I remembered him from. He was the pegasus Luna had healed at the triage center set up in front of the castle when we first arrived here.
“You’re… looking significantly better since the last time I saw you,” I said.
He tilted his head slightly, “We’ve meet before?”
I shrugged, “Well you were unconscious at the time, and you were missing a few more limbs.”
He rubbed his real hoof behind his head, “Yeah it’s been an interesting week. The name is Silent Night, and this is my sister Gearshift.” He gestured at the mare again.
Gearshift smiled and nodded. “I’m sorry for the delay. I had to make some last minute tweaks to my brother’s prosthetic limbs.” She sported the same odd accent as her brother.
“I take it that you’re the castle’s head engineer?” I asked Gearshift.
“Yes, how’d you know?” she asked.
“I meet with Luna a while back.” I gestured at the mechanical limbs, “She had machinery similar to this all around her room, and she said she was working on a project with the castle’s head engineer.” I looked back at Silent Night, “I take it you were that project?”
He nodded his head, “Yes sir. After I was injured my sister pleaded with the princess to help her restore me to full strength again. Then after they were done, I heard that you were leading a battalion against the creatures that did this to me.” He looked forlornly at his lost limbs, and then refocused his attention on me. “So I asked for a reassignment, to get some payback.” There was a certain amount of fire behind his eyes and words. He meant what he said; he wanted to make the vampires pay for what he had to endure.
I cocked an eyebrow at him, “No offense but, are you even capable of fighting at the moment?”
Gearshift spoke up, “Yes he is sir. The replacements have been set into his skeletal structure. They are as durable as ever. And I don’t know about you, but I think getting hit by a steel hoof is bound to hurt.” She smiled at her brother, “Plus there’s the surprise.”
Without a further word Silent Night raised his mechanical hoof to the horizontal in front of him. The limb glowed with a slight blue aura, undoubtedly Luna’s magic at work, and a foot long slender blade slid out of the end the limb. I didn’t see any physical action to action to trigger the short sword, so I could only assume that it was triggered through thought like Luna had intended.
He nodded at me, “I am ready and able to cut down as many vampires as I can, commander.” His sword retracted and he set his hoof down.
I eyed his mechanical wing, “What about your wing, can you still fly?”
I had touched a nerve. His demeanor immediately turned hostile, his eyes flashed, his wings flared open, and that fancy sword of his unsheathed itself again.
“No. Thanks to those things, I can’t,” he growled, and seemed to regain some self-control. “I can still glide small distances, but I won’t ever actually fly again.”
I felt a little bad for the guy, a large part of his life had been taken from him. Then again, vengeance makes for some extremely dedicated soldiers.
There’s an old saying I’m quite fond of: The vast majority of the time, a monster’s worst enemy is one of their own making.
I smiled at him, “Very well, it’s already kind of late, so tomorrow report to Michael for lessons on how to best prepare carved vampire.”
They both bowed and turned to leave.
Before they closed the door I yelled back at them, “I still want that hay later!”
I heard them chuckle as the door clicked shut. While trying to decide what to do with the remainder of my day, my stomach gave a loud rumble.
Guess I’ll grab a bite to eat, and then maybe go see if Twilight wants any last minute lessons. Heck If I lent her the shield ornament to study overnight she’ll probably have a better one made by the morning.
I smiled and trotted my way out of my office and made a beeline for the mess hall. On the way there I passed by the sparing ground when I saw just what Applejack and Rainbow were choosing to do with their day off.
They were both fully armored and were doing their best to wrestle the other into submission as they sparred against each other. It was like watching what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immoveable object.
Applejack was standing her ground like an iron sentinel and simply took each of Rainbow’s blows while trying to counter with her own attacks. Rainbow was using her superior agility to dodge almost every one of Applejack’s attacks while raining her own barrage of blows onto Applejack’s thick armor.
Neither side was showing any signs of slowing or giving ground. They were likely going to be at it for a while, and if the gathered crowd was any indicator, they’ve probably been going at each other for a good bit already. I even saw some of the gathered soldiers placing bets on the two mares.
I spotted Twilight and Pinkie among the crowd of ponies. They seemed to be laughing and whispering to each other as they watched their friend spar.
As I watched the contest I began to overhear a nearby discussion between two of my soldiers.
“They’re monsters, every single one of them. I won’t feel safe till every vampire is dead,” said the larger of the two soldiers, in a deep gruff voice.
Heh, a man after my own heart. Maybe we’ll exchange battle tips later.
“Little aggressive are we?” countered the other soldier.
“You saw all those bodies in that shed! How can I not be aggressive?”
“I’m not defending the fully turned vampires, but what about the ones that are only infected?”
I froze in place. I tried to move, but my legs wouldn’t budge an inch.
“What about them?”
“Well you remember what Celestia told us, an infected pony won’t fully turn until their first kill. Until then they’re still more or less themselves.”
Susan…
“I remember Celestia saying that there’s no cure for them. I’m not about to wait around for an infected pony to snap and start killing. They’re already monsters, they just don’t know it yet, it’s better to put them out of their misery before they kill an innocent.”
Susan… a monster…
His words hit me where I was weakest. The guilt and shame I hammered to the back of my mind were forced back to the surface and magnified a hundredfold. I snapped.
Before I realized what was happening, I had bounded over a nearby table and charged the offending soldier. Without slowing down I seized his neck with my magic and threw him against the nearest wall. I ran forward and used my hooves to pin his thrashing forelegs to the wall even while I tightened the magical noose around his neck.
“She is not one of them! I DID NOT MAKE HER A MONSTER!” I yelled so loud that I felt something in my throat tear. Any trace of self-control, or even sanity was gone.
He didn’t understand what he was saying. He didn’t realize how wrong he was, and in his ignorance he’d threatened Susan. I wouldn’t let anything hurt her, not if I could still fix her. I had to protect her by any means necessary.
I tightened my grip on his neck and his eyes rolled back into his head. Through my magic I could feel the bones in his neck creak under the pressure.
“Harry no, stop!”
Something heavy rammed into my side and threw me to the ground. My grip on the soldier faltered and he slumped to the ground.
“GET OFF ME!” I roared, scrambling to get at the soldier that had threatened Susan.
“Harry stop, you need to calm down!” said whoever was pinning me to the ground.
I cast a furious glare upward and saw that it was the heavily armored Applejack currently immobilizing me. When I saw her considerable strength being directed at me, I came crashing back down into reality. I stopped fighting her and tried my best to regain control of the whirlwind of emotions raging in my head.
When it became clear that I wasn’t trying to get at the soldier anymore, Applejack slipped off me and allowed me to get up.
I backed away slowly from the sight of what I’d done. The soldier lay unconscious on the ground in a crumpled heap, his body rose and fell as he drew ragged breaths. Several others ran around and gathered medical supplies to treat the soldier. He wasn’t in immediate danger anymore.
So I did what any paranoid psychotic would do when they just did something incredibly stupid. I ran. I ran past them all and made my way as fast as I could to my room upstairs.
As soon as I passed into my room I slammed the door behind me and curled into a ball on my bed. In the process I dimly noted the patch of fresh plaster over the hole Applejack made.
I’d say you handled that pretty well, whispered that little voice in the back of my head.
I was losing it. I needed to regain control over myself.
Can’t lose what you never had, dumb dumb. You’ve only ever repressed your pain, it whispered again.
“No, I can control myself. I always have,” I said to myself.
Really? Then how do you explain what just happened? You repress your pain and ignore it like it never happened. But that doesn’t just go away Harry. No it builds and builds until you become a powder keg just waiting for a spark to set you off.
“No, I can control it! I just need a moment of peace.”
And now you’re lying to yourself about it, literally. When you get hit by another spark and you go off again, will the resulting tantrum not be your fault?
“Shut up…”
What if that soldier died? Whose fault would that be?
“Shut up!”
What if the next time you lose control it’s one of your friends that gets caught in the crossfire? What if it’s Michael that you pin to the wall and start choking to death, or maybe Twilight? Then whose fault would that be?
“Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!”
There was a knock at my door and a muffled voice spoke through it, “Harry?”
“Go away!” I roared at the door.
In spite of my clear objection, the door opened and Twilight stepped through. My anger subsided slightly at seeing her, but by no means dissipated.
She looked at me with a mixture of apprehension and worry, “Harry, we need to talk.”
I glared back at her, “No, I need to cool off and you need to leave.”
Oh sure, drive away the pony trying to help you, that’s a great way to cool off.
“You’ve been repressing something Harry. You need to talk about it, or sooner or later you’ll lash out again.” She took several more steps towards me.
Listen to her Harry. She’s making much more sense than you are.
“This doesn’t concern you Twilight, leave,” I growled.
She glared right back at me, “It concerns you. You need to talk, so I’m here to listen. I’m not leaving until we deal with what’s bothering you.”
I looked her right in her eyes, not needing to fear another soulgaze, and spoke in the most threatening tone I could muster, “Get. Out. Now.”
She flinched only for a second, but steeled herself and returned my gaze. “No,” she said simply.
I recognized that look in her face. It was the same determined look I’d seen in her soul as she protected the representations of her friends. If I wanted her to leave, I’d have to force her.
And I considered it.
Celestia help me, I considered causing her bodily harm just because she wanted to help me.
Twilight took a few more steps forward. She was now just out of reach of my bed. “It has to do with who the Red Court took from you doesn’t it?”
I looked at her in shocked surprise, “”How’d you-“
“Our soulgaze,” she cut me off, “Most of the details are still blurry, but I saw that the Red Court took somepony important from you. So who was she?”
“Not was, is. Susan’s still alive, and is my business, as in none of yours.”
“Harry, what did you tell us last night? What did you tell us to do when the line between right and wrong starts to blur?”
I curled up in my bed again, turning my back on her. “This isn’t something a sympathetic ear can help with, Twilight.”
You stubborn hypocrite, why in the hay not?
Twilight was thinking along the same lines. “Why not? What happened to her that you can’t talk about?”
Yeah Harry, what happened to her? Give voice to your pain. She won’t leave until you do.
“What is it Harry, why won’t you talk about what happened?” she asked again.
Why Harry?
I covered my head in my hooves and began shaking. I was already at war with myself over trying to control my emotions. Now Twilight had backed me into a corner and was determined to drag answers out of me. It was too much, the guilt and pain resurged and I couldn’t contain it any longer.
“Because I loved her!” I blurted out, and shot up from where I lay to face her.
That earned a surprised look and a rare moment of silence from her.
“But I waited until it was too late to tell her,” I mumbled, my pent-up emotions now flowing free. “We were captured and she was infected. Then I was thrown into a dungeon cell with her, so that I would be her first kill. I was supposed to be the kill that turned her into a monster!” I shouted, several tears now running down my face. “And it’s my fault she was even there! If I’d warned her properly, then she wouldn’t have followed me. Then she wouldn’t… she wouldn’t…” My voice faltered as I tried to imagine happier ‘what if’ scenarios.
At this point Twilight now sat right next to my bed and had begun rubbing a hoof over my back, “Harry, what happened to her isn’t your fault. The vampires infected her, not you.”
“I didn’t warn her about the dangers of following me. If I had, she’d have stayed away,” I said stubbornly.
Twilight frowned at me, “Do you know that for sure? Can you say with one hundred percent accuracy what Susan would or wouldn’t have done?”
“Well no, but I-“
She continued, cutting me off, “Can you do anything now to change what happened back then?”
“No, but I-“
“Then you couldn’t have done anything different to protect her,” Twilight said in a simple matter of fact voice.
While Twilight’s arguments made logical sense, it didn’t stop the fact that I was the commonality to all of Susan’s current troubles.
“But I’m still the root cause, Twilight. If she’d never met me, then she wouldn’t be a half turned vampire right now. She’d be happy and living her life, safe and far away from me,” I mumbled.
A sudden understanding hit Twilight as her eyes widened in comprehension. She abruptly switched tactics on me.
“You don’t want your actions, intentional or accidental, to cause harm or misfortune to those that you care about correct?” she asked me.
I looked up at her eyes, “In a nutshell, yeah.”
She nodded, “Then go dig a nice deep hole and live in it for the rest of your life. Because short of killing yourself, that’s the only way to guarantee that your actions won’t hurt those around you.”
I gaped at her. I couldn’t quite believe what I had just heard her say, and how perfectly such an idea would clash against my protective nature.
Using what you learned in our soulgaze against me, clever girl.
“I am sorry Harry, but by the simple act of existing, you can possibly put others in danger.” She smiled at me, “And that isn’t a shot at you, that logic applies to all sentient life. By simply existing I could put my friends in danger too. And if I did do something that hurt one of my friends, I would be sad for time, but then I would move on. Accept your mistakes, learn from them, but don’t let them control you.”
I thought over her words and applied them to various troubling memories that I still dragged with me. Not only did what she say make logical sense, but it fit perfectly into my strong desire to protect those close to me. If I was obsessing over a past failure, I’d be more likely to screw up again and get another innocent hurt. If I also learned from past failures, then I’d be better prepared for future disasters.
I smiled, and even chuckled a little at her, “Hey, I thought I was supposed to be the teacher here.”
She laughed back. “You wish, if anything you’re my assistant. You assist me in learning new forms of magic.” Her face became worried again as she looked at me, “Are you going to be okay?”
I nodded my head, “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I rubbed a hoof behind my head, “I should probably apologize to that soldier though, huh?”
She smiled warmly again. ”That can wait until tomorrow, you should get some sleep.” She got up and headed for the door.
Before she could leave I called out, “Hey Twilight.” She paused at the door and looked over her shoulder at me. “Thank you, you have no idea what a little peace of mind means to me.”
I could see the cogs turning in her head as she tried to decide how to respond.
She smiled again, “Just say the word and I’ll be there to kick your flank back into line anytime.” She hesitated for a second before continuing, “I’ll be in my room if you need anything.”
With that she turned around and left my room, closing the door behind her.
I sighed and lay back down on my bed, suddenly overcome with a bone deep weariness and a slight light-headedness. I still felt bad about Susan of course, but it no longer weighed on my mind like a lead blanket. The feeling was a rare pleasure and almost a drug in its simple sudden lack of worry. I drifted off to sleep much easier that night than I normally would.
Before I lost consciousness completely, that same little voice spoke up in the back of my head.
You like it here Harry. We will find peace here. We will survive far away from our past.