“To be an apothecary is to fight two wars. The first is against the enemies of the Chapter. The second is against death itself. It requires the skills and training to be good at both and the wisdom to know which fight is worth fighting and which one is already lost. It is a hard equilibrium to reach and one could argue that no other warmare, save for the head of the Chapter has to bear such a heavy burden.”
— Sister Corbula, Sanguinary High Priestess of the Blood Alicorns Chapter
🌢🌢🌢
Tatzl was a Tartarus pit.
A wild and violent blue sun bathed the whole system in deadly radiation barely stopped by the planet’s magnetic field, making navigation hazardous and rendering auspices and arrays unreliable. To make matters worse, Tatzl annually passed through a thick asteroid belt – the scattered remains of another planet, whose course had sent too close to the sun – and the irregular tilt of its orbit, combined with the composition of its crust caused planet-wide earthquakes and intense volcanic activity all year long.
For these reasons and many, many more, the planet had been overlooked by explorers and rogue traders. They expected a deserted world barely worth the trouble... when they noticed it at all.
A very costly oversight.
Tatzl was a gold mine like no other in the sector. The planet was rich, both in unrefined prometheum and rare minerals. As an added bonus, it was conveniently close to other strategic assets, which would make it an invaluable tool in the sector’s pacification efforts while being an easily defensible spot.
Calculations had been made, costs and risks calculated, potential gains assessed and the results had been unanimous. Tatzl had to be added to the Imperium. The task would be arduous at best, but even the most conservative prognostics were very favourable. And so, the monolithic machinery of the Pony Imperium came alive to assimilate the planet.
Tatzl, however, was not a docile world. It was as if every one of its facets had been shaped to hinder any attempt of colonisation. Claiming the surface had been the priority in the exploitation efforts. The resources the first wave of miners would harvest would help to provide the necessary materials to install the planetary and orbital defences. This in itself had not been considered a noticeable problem... until it was discovered that, despite all odds, Tatzl was inhabited by hostile and dangerous feral xenos. To add insult to injuries, the specific composition of the atmosphere made use of heavy weaponry on the ground impossible while and the solar magnetic disturbances made any attempt of orbital action excessively costly at best. There would be no short-cuts, no easy way.
The initial deployments showed good results. The first waves of soldiers, aided by countless criminals trying to earn their redemption, were sent on the surface and hacked through the xenos’ forces with anecdotal resistance. Soon plans of settlements were made, strategic bases were hastily built, mining operations started... The world was slowly being ingested into the pony Empire.
Then the Tatzlwurms attacked.
The first assault took everypony by surprise. There were no warnings, no calls for help, nothing. One second, there were hundreds of ponies, armed to the teeth... then there was nought but holes in the ground and ravaged lands. Entire battalions simply disappeared. The first reports came in twenty-one minutes after the first attacks. Disorganised calls for help, incoherent screams and sudden bursts of statics suddenly flooded the communications. The first reliable descriptions of the enemy arrived almost half an hour later.
The Tatzlwurms were the stuff of nightmares. Flower-like maws, filled with teeth and tentacles put atop huge serpentine bodies; vicious predators, sliding through the earth as easily as fishes in the water. They came from the depths of the planet, attracted by tremors of the drills, the clamours of combat and the blood of the lesser Tatzlite fauna. In a couple of days, they completely wiped out the forces on the ground with an unsettling cunning and a frightening appetite for equine flesh. The losses were astronomical... but the Imperium of Equus was relentless. More troops were called, penitential planets were emptied, more material was requisitioned... and when this proved insufficient to conquer the world, the most elite armies of ponykind were called to action.
The Blood Alicorns and their successors answered this call.
The Battle Barges Sanguinem Nasus, Cadence Irae and Vitreum Filiae reached the planet on the 108th day of colonisation. On the 109th day, the tide of the battle had dramatically changed. To the spacemares, the creatures were nothing more than oversized earthworms. No matter what was thrown at them, they adapted and overcame. Soon enough, the Tatzl war went from a defensive battle to a systematic campaign of eradication, first on the ground, then underground, directly in the creatures’ lairs. In two months, the Tatzlwurms had gone from apex predators to endangered species, only surviving in the deepest burrows of the planet.
The last days of the xenocide took place several kilometres under the ground. Mere ponies were now absent of the fights – at such depths, the pressure and temperature were too much for them to handle, leaving only the spacemares to finish the jobs. The Alicorn’s 4th Company was at the heart of the enemy’s lair. Their primary objective was to force the enemy out and then let the other squads eliminate the threat. This plan, however, had changed when a particularly violent tremor had separated them from the rest of their forces and scattered the squad inside the artificial tunnels.
The sanguinary priestess checked her signal for the fifth time. This planet tested the limits of the ingenuity of the Imperium’s craft. Five signals showed on her retinal display. Counting herself and Igneous Shot at the entrance of the tunnel, only half the squad had escaped the tectonic trap for sure... meaning that the other half was either trapped deeper in the caves or in need of her services.
She tried her vox again, hoping the signal would, at last, go through. “Sisters, do you hear me?”
There was no answer.
“We need to move, Priestess,” Igneous Shot said deferentially. “We have a mission to carry and the operation relies on us.”
She didn’t answer immediately, waiting a few more seconds in hope for an answer. She also used that time to assess Igneous’s status. She was calm and in excellent health. Her vital signs were all optimal, no sign of injuries whatsoever. Everything was fine. Good.
“You’re right, ” she finally answered. Her voice was soft and soothing, a fact that often confused and reassured mortal ponies. They always expected something else from spacemares. Hers was the voice of a friend, of a confident, the whisper of somepony who would entrust you with a secret. It was a discrete and soft voice that even her communicator could not alter. It was a voice that instantly calmed the one who heard it – a phenomenon she could see happen first-hoof as the heartbeat rate of Igneous instantly lowered by 2%. “Forgive me, I am merely trying to carry my own mission.”
“Of course, Priestess,” Igneous said with a short bow.
I don’t mind you calling you by my name, you know? That’s what she wanted to say, but instead, the words that came out were “What is your plan?”
Igneous pointed at one of the collapsed tunnels. “This one should get us closer to their nest. We should be able to dig them out and carry on. The rest of the squad will likely follow and we will regroup further in.”
Only if the rest of the tunnels are open, Sister… Only if there’s still a squad to regroup with us... Once again, she kept the thoughts for herself. She hummed pensively as if thinking of the best way to proceed. This was enough to fool Igneous.
“Using bolters would be faster but a waste of ammunitions, and we don’t know how many of these things are still there,” Igneous explained. “I guess we should simply dig our way in. Unless you have another solution in mind?
To wait and regroup, Igneous... The priestess thought so loud she almost said it. She shook her head. “You are right. Let us carry out our mission.”
They dug in silence. The rocks were sharp and brittle, broken in small hoof-sized shards that tried futilely to pierce their armour. It was a monotonous task which did not alleviate the priestess’s frustration or worry. They were halfway through when new signals came in. Ire Sword first. Tempest Shot second. Righteous Hammer and Magna were third and fourth. Their life signs were good and judging from their positions, they had been spared by the scree. Nine warmares out of ten. These were excellent odds given the situation. She didn’t care.
There was only one question in her mind, and it soon echoed in eight voxes at the same time. “Where is Fanged Spear?”
🌢
Fanged Spear was enjoying one particularly gripping battle high. As soon as she had set hoof on the planet she had felt it. The craving to hunt and kill. It had grown stronger and stronger as she indulged it, a never-ending, never-quenched thirst that drove her to higher and higher battle prowesses.
She licked the blood trickling from her armour. Information and sensations filled her mind instantly as her body distilled some of the creatures’ essences in her brain. It had been a hunter, silent and deadly, preying on the surface-dwellers with lethal efficacity. It had been a prey, fleeing for days, trying to avoid the righteous fury of the spacemares. It was dead now, bleeding its now useless ichor on the ground. Fanged Spear smiled without realising it.
The voice came out of her vox like a silhouette out of the fog. She recognised it instantly yet the realisation took a long time to hit her. It was the sanguinary priestess. Fluttershy. She was calling her. “Fanged Spear? Sister, where are you?”. Her signal was close. It had to be for her to be able to contact her. “Sister, where are you? Answer me!”
Fanged Spear didn’t answer immediately. Her instinct screamed at her to ignore the voice and keep hunting. Keep looking for more blood, but she ignored it for a few seconds. The priestess was here and it meant something. “Priestess,” she said.
“Fanged Spear, are you alright?”
The voice was filled with concern. Fanged Spear didn’t like the sound of it. She wanted to hunt. The concern would make her stop she knew it. She growled and hummed the air, slowly, deeply. The noise echoed in the vox, a silent threat of violence to come. “I’ve found a big one! I’m claiming it!”
There was a hint of madness in her voice. The sanguinary priestess knew the signs too well. There was more than her sister’s life in the balance here. There was her very soul too. “Sister, we’re pulling back.”
“No way! It’s the biggest worm! It’s mine!”
As if to prove her claim, she rushed forward, deeper into the nest. She delved deep into dark tunnels. She couldn’t see more than a couple of feet in front of her, even her armour faded into the blackness. It was as if the obscurity was a living entity slowly digesting her. She still didn’t care. There were no sound but the beating of her heart and the distant tremors of her prey.
Something else tried to reach her, but the noise crashed against the static her head was drowning in. The air smelled foul, soiled by the pungent smell of wurm’s blood, though even that was slowly getting swallowed by the darkness.
It took long and painful seconds for the spacemare to understand. The creature was already healing. Fanged Spear accelerated. She would catch it and kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!
So she can taste blood again.
Something stopped her. A solid grip on her shoulder, forcing her to turn back and cease her chase. A voice pierced the static. “Sister!”
Fanged Spear reacted fast, faster than she knew she could. Her chainsword made a deadly arc toward the interrupting nuisance. She would kill them and take their blood and…
Her hoof stopped, hitting a wall made of ceramite and gene-crafted flesh and bones. Another of such wall hit her square in the muzzle. “Sister. Where you’re going there’s no going back,” the priestess said firmly. “I cannot let you. We need you.” Fanged Spear tried to fight the words, both in mind and physically. She tried to reach for the nuisance again, but a hoof pinned her arm leg in place. “Wake up, Fanged Spear! Don’t let it overcome you!” The priestess hit her again, harder this time. “Wake up!”
The spacemare gurgled something unintelligible… but this time, she didn’t attack.
“Wake up, Fanged Spear! The Thirst is getting ahold of you! Fight it before it’s too late!”
Inside her mind, Fanged Spear was fighting for her soul, claiming back the control the flaw in her gene had stolen. All the mental training she’d gone through and all of it she hadn’t deemed necessary came back to her mind, like so many weapons aimed at the beast hidden in her brain. She fought, relentlessly, with the strength and determination of a warmare with nothing to lose. It was hard. It was temporary, she had no illusion about it. But it was working.
Fluttershy looked the inner fight from outside via Spear’s brain patterns, blood composition, heart rate and a flurry of widely varying bio-data. It was as if the violence in her mind was manifesting inside her body, threatening to destroy her if it didn’t let have the reigns. “You can do it, Sister.”
Fluttershy’s voice was the tiebreaker. Slowly at first, everything was turning back to normal. In her mind, the cursed spacemare could feel her urges, her savagery receded, going back to the edge of her mind, more manifest than ever before, yet subdued. “I… can do it… I am in control.”
The priestess hoof pinning hers moved away and instead came on her shoulder. And offer of support and understanding. “Are you alright?”
“If shame doesn’t kill me, Priestess, I will be fine.”
“You vanquished the Red Thirst today, sister,” Fluttershy countered softly. “There is no place to shame here. Only celebration.”
“Thanks to you, Priestess… I owe you my life and much more.” The warmare took a deep, calming breath. “I have a debt toward you I cannot repay.”
“Think nothing of it,” she countered with a smile. Then a thought crossed her mind. A strange but pleasant thought. “Although, if you want to repay me, please, call me by my name.”
Fanged Spear didn’t say anything and she instantly regretted her request. A moment of awkward silence passed between them until Fanged Spear spoke. “What now? Do we keep on deeper?”
“There will be a time to charge head-on and face death, but today is not that day, sister. Today, we live and carry on the fight,” she said, emptying a magazine into the maw of a beast. “Let’s retreat and regroup. If that’s okay with you?”
Fanged Spear simply nodded. There will be other times to fight. This felt like another tool to keep her feral side in check. She gladly took it.
“Ready, Fanged Spear?”
“I’m ready, Priestess Fluttershy,” she answered, trying to hide her unease at being so familiar with the priestess. They started walking back to their sisters, to sanity, as temporary as it might be. She had been on the brink of losing herself that day. She had been lucky. “Thank you, Fluttershy…”
“You’re welcome,” she simply answered with a smile.
🌢🌢🌢
Decimatio had been a paradise once. When the first settlers had landed upon the planet, they had marvelled at its beauty, at the abundance of edible food and resources it provided. It had taken less than a century to turn it land into a planet-wide megacity. Two centuries had made it a toxic waste, filled to the brim with ponies. Hundreds of billions of them, living deep into the planet’s crust for the poorest individuals, or high in the planet’s atmosphere for the rich, corrupted elite in charge.
This had made Decimatio a fertile ground for revolts and insurrections and Chaos cults had carefully cultivated it. Discontent had grown to unmanageable proportions in a matter of weeks and soon, the situation had devolved into a full-on civil war that the local governor – a tired old stallion more interested in his comfort than that of his ponies – had been unable to stop. Out of desperation, he had sent a request for reinforcement.
The Blood Alicorn had answered the call.
This was when things had gone from bad to mad. Driven to a corner by the overwhelming forces of the spacemares, the rebels had called upon the powers of the Warp to help them. Demons and strange energies had swooped into the planet causing unfathomable destruction, making the purge into the deadliest kind of fights. The spacemares had immediately raised to the challenge, dealing with the demonic threat with calm and method.
Fluttershy had more work than any other warmare on the battlefield. With the forces stretched out thin, she had to constantly assess everypony’s position and status in addition to carry on her own fight. Her vox and retinal display were filled with the presence of her sisters. Commands, positions, biometrics, call for reinforcements, the whole scene played out in front of and around her dozens of times in different ways in a maddening chorus that she had to analyse and act upon. And that was when everything was fine. As it turned out, on a battlefield, things rarely were.
This was such a moment. She had seen something was wrong before the call for help had come. Ire Sword and Magna’s vitals had suddenly shifted, worsening quite rapidly while, in the distance, a building was collapsing.
“I need support,” Ire Sword let out laconically. “I’m pinned on my position. Literally.”
“Are you okay, Ire Sword?”
“I’m under a tack, Priestess,” she joked. “A column-wide tack. T’is just a flesh wound. I’d be more worried about Magna. She’s sulking since the building fell on her."
“She’ll be fine,” Fluttershy informed. “She’s in stasis and stable.” The sound of bolter shots echoed in the vox, followed by painful grunts. “I’m more worried about you. What’s your situation?”
“I’m surrounded,” she admitted. “Just little fleas, but there’s a lot of them… and in my position I can’t really scratch them all.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Take your time, Priestess,” she groaned as more gunshots echoed “I’ve got things under control.”
Fluttershy switched her vox to another spacemare. She couldn’t help but smile as the connexion went through. Fanged Spear was reciting the litany of purpose in her breath. A good way of staying in control, she approved. She’s grown so much in the last decade. “Fanged Spear, I’m going to support Ire Sword and Magna, will you be okay?”
“I will be okay, Fluttershy, I’ll go a regroup with the rest of the squad. Go save them.”
“Thank you. Fight well.”
“You too, sister.”
🌢
Ire Sword was a cheerful spacemare. Humour in the face of danger was yet another weapon to her. She had lost count of how many time had she forced a mistake out of the enemy with a witty comment or an unforeseen joke. This time however, she had little to no hope about the power of words. Demons, and especially lower daemons’ sense of humour was the worst.
There were half a dozen of them, shifting messes of flesh, bones, limbs and raw energies, hopping and crawling and walking and limping and sliding and many other things toward her general direction. They progressed slowly, conscientiously, with care and attention. They knew she could be dangerous, but they knew she was weak right now and something in their alien mind told them to be careful.
They watched with a sickening look of glee and curiosity, waiting for a reason to lurch at her. Ire Sword had no doubt they would find one soon and she was in no hurry. It gave her more time to think and elaborate a plan.
All of her options were bad. Long-range would have been the preferred solution here. However there were only two bolts left in her bolter, and even with her accuracy, she wouldn’t be able to get them all with that. Close combat was also, and almost literally so, off-limits. With three-quarters of her body under the column, she couldn’t move much and, while her right hoof was fierce, it still wouldn’t be enough to fend them all when they decide to attack.
But these were not enough to crush her spirit. As long as she had some life in her body, she would fight. A plan was already forming in her mind. All her options were bad, so she had no qualm picking a terrible one. There’s no way I can get out of this in one piece, she reasoned. But if I can get rid of them all… I will have bragging rights for decades. In any case, the time for planning is long gone.
The plan was simple, crude even. But is was all she had. She needed to force them into a compact mob and then shoot in the middle of them. An almost impossible task… without a good bait.
“So what are you abominations waiting for?” she goaded them. “An invitation? Well now you have it. Come on! I’ll take you all at once!”
The first part of the plan was to provoke them. It was also the only fun part about it. Everything else included pain, whether it worked or not. All she needed was for them to attack all at once.
So, of course, they didn’t.
At her signal, the creatures became frenetic. They flocked around one of their own and, in a totally unexpected feat of cunning and disregard for solidarity, threw it at the mare. Far from complaining, the creature played along with it, its shape-shifting to accommodate its new status as a projectile. Spikes and barbs and claws and teeth grew in and out, all pointed at her.
Reflex took hold of her body. The bolter moved up in an instant. Aiming, shooting, killing… they took even less than that. Before she had realised, the demon was dead, its body flying in the opposite direction as its essence was reclaimed by the Warp.. round crashed on the creature before it could even make half the distance, but already another creature was chucked at her. Ire Sword hesitated for a second… then shot.... then cursed the Warp and its denizens as another demon became airborne.
The ball of pain grew bigger in her field of vision. With the amount of stimulant in her blood she could almost see it in slow motion. She braced for impact ready to defend her life. So much for my bragging rights.
The impact never came. There was a shrill sound and a flash of blue light… And the creature was dead, hacked in two pieces evaporating back to the Immaterium.
“You will not touch a single hair on her fur!” Fluttershy declared. Her voice was calm, even angry and this made it even more threatening. Ire Sword had never heard its owner use such a tone… and she was feeling immediately grateful that she had never done anything to deserve it.
“Sister… you’re a sight for sore eyes. And in my case, sore body.”
Fluttershy put herself between the demons and the warmare. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll live. And I think I have to thank you for that.”
Fluttershy nodded. Then, she attacked.
The sanguinary priestess was reclusive, only leaving her quarters to participate in the most demanding conflicts. Even her training was made in the secrecy of her laboratory instead of the sparring rooms. As a result, Ire Sword had seldom seen her fight. It was a spectacle she’d never forget.
Fluttershy didn’t have the strength of Magna, nor the speed of Fanged Spear. She fought with unnatural grace and precision. Her blade moved like a breeze, floating into the air and finding the best position to strike. Her blade always found the vital spot, it was always where it needed to be… or rather the enemy always found themselves at the wrong side of it. Her style was an invitation to die, calmly sent at the enemy of ponykind. An invitation none could refuse.
In a matter of seconds, the demons were nothing but collapsing fragment of ether dissipating on the ground. The priestess had barely broken a sweat.
“That was really impressive,” Ire Sword admitted.
The Priestess dismissed it with a movement of her hoof. “Think nothing of it.” Fluttershy came closer to Ire Sword, checking the rubles that had entrapped her sister. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
Fluttershy started to inspect the rubble under which Ire Sword had been stuck. For a few moments there was only the silent noise of Fluttershy’s inspection accompanied by the background music of conflict. It quickly bored the warmare. “On a scale of one to what you inflicted to those daemons, how much will it hurt to get out?”
“A lot less,” she said with a smile. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”
🌢🌢🌢
“Don’t you dare die!” Fluttershy screamed with a surprisingly aggressive tone.
The dying warmare didn’t answer. Fluttershy had told her to close her mouth and she was not foolish enough to disobey. Besides, acid had already got her tongue.
“Heh. We can’t die with you around,” Ire Sword joked while deflecting an Eldeer sword.
“Death fears Fluttershy,” Igneous Shot added humorlessly.
The attack had been highly unexpected. There had been no precursor sign nor motive allowing them to foresee it. It also made no strategic sense. There was nothing so valuable on The Sanguinem Nasus that it justified attacking a spaceship full of spacemares. It mattered little to the ponies of war, however. The will and motivations of Xenos was none of their concern. If they wanted death at the hooves of the Daughters of Cadence, they would have it.
It had taken only a few minutes for the spacemares to turn the fight. But the Eldeers had made good use of this time. Dozens of crewponies laid dead in their blood, their body mutilated by strange, alien weaponry. And this fate had not been unique to the mortal crew. Several spacemares would have to be harvested… a tragic and gruesome task that Fluttershy would have to carry… after she had saved Righteous Hammer.
“Don’t you dare die on me!” Fluttershy repeated this as a mantra. This was the only thing keeper sane. The only thing keeping her hole and aware. The last rampart against the madness hidden in her. She had to save them. “You’re not allowed to die!”
🌢🌢🌢
They were dead.
They were all dead. It had taken only one second. She knew there was nothing she could have done, but she couldn’t shake that feeling. She had failed them. Igneous Shot’s dead eyes watched her with incomprehension.
I have failed them... The idea parasited her thought process, clinging to her brain like leeches, sabotaging her attempts at rational thinking. I have failed them. They're dead.
The creature above her roared in rage, sending even more flames in her directions. The remains of her sisters burnt like wax candles atop a fire. There would be no progenoid glands to recover. She was denied even the opportunity to give her friends a chance to rise from the ashes anew. Something stirred inside Fluttershy as the last traces of the “Immortals” dissipated into the burning inferno. Something deeply rooted in her, something she'd kept hidden and locked for as long as her memory would go, something dark and violent. It grew with each beat of her hearts, leaving no place for anything else. It fed off her guilt, cannibalising it, turning the little voice in her head into a rising roar in her throat.
She heard something in her vox. A voice. They wanted to know something. Somepony answered. It took her second to realise she was the one talking. Her voice was calm. So calm. She could hear a chainsword. She didn't remember taking it or turning it on. She did not care.
There was no one to heal anymore. Killing was all she had left.
🌢🌢🌢
She could hear the voices... It had taken her some times to get used to it but, with a great deal of efforts, she could grasp words and get their meaning. She still had not managed to open her eyes or move her body. Everything was hard and strange as if her brain had been rewired to do new functions she had no knowledge of. She let the matters go and focused back on the voices. She felt like she knew them. But just as the meaning of the sentences, the identity of their owners always evaded her...
The voices spoke of choices, of pain, of duty and rest. She didn’t get all of it. She was tired but didn’t want to sleep. Sleep brought some… memories and feelings. Too vivid and dark to be ones she wanted to relive. Dreams of death and pain, dreams of loss and grief… dreams of bloodlust… dreams of a loss so great and so profound merely thinking about it scarred her soul…
Is this my life now? she thought. Forever dreaming the darkest aspect of her mind and nothing else?
Time passed. Unremarkable in its flow. Until light came out.
The experience was troubling, weird and shocking beyond words. All of a sudden… Fluttershy could see. But it was nothing like her previous experiences. Her senses were wrong. They weren’t hers. They were someone else’s. Something else. Something big, something cold… That’s when she understood. No! No! No! I don’t want to live! They’re all dead you can’t ask me to continue after my failure! Save them instead!
“Fluttershy?”
Slowly, unconsciously, she felt her body and mind bound with the machine. She could feel it… herself… twitch. It was a sickening sensation. Why me? Why did you have to pick me? I’m a sanguinary priestess, not a warrior! I can’t save anyone in this body.
“Does she hear us?”
“Her brain pattern indicate that she does.”
Why? Why couldn’t you let me rest?
“Fluttershy? Please, answer me.”
She wanted to scream, she wanted to ask them to put her out of this simulacrum of life. She served in dignity for centuries, she deserved to rest. She wanted to say this and so much more… But she didn’t.
Instead, she turned to look at the source of the voice, the motion registering in a way that was not quite the same as feeling. She identified the chapter master in a way that was not quite the same as seeing.
And she knew. Knowledge was knowledge, even now. Even like this. The only thing that was left of feeling alive was the knowledge that this was all there was. That it did not matter what she deserved any more than it mattered what she wanted. That the only thing left for her that could truly be described as genuinely living was the memory of what it had been like to be alive. To breath. To feel. To be with her sisters and to share in their triumphs and defeats. To know that these memories were all she would ever have.
Like everything else, Fluttershy’s voice was wrong. It was deep and robotic, and it would be the only sound she’d hear from herself again. Still, she answered. Because she had to. Because pretending to be alive was the only thing left for her.
“I am ready to serve again.”