Part 7
The crisp evening air was unnaturally still as the golden, flying chariot descended towards the small town of Ponyville. The two Royal Pony Sisters riding in the chariot sat in uncomfortable silence, draining any remaining liveliness out of the atmosphere nearby. With the gentlest of bumps, the wheels of the royal chariot touched down on the ground just inside Ponyville. The white alicorn anxiously hopped out of the vehicle, projecting as regal and commanding an air as she could.
At the same time, though, she made herself a beacon of calm and caring authority; after all, what else would her subjects expect from her? The papers had reported on a great disaster, a murder, the most outlandish, unheard-of event in all of Equestria. Naturally, the story was being blown way out of proportion, even though it was serious indeed; it was for this reason she needed to be what ponies expected her to be, strong and reassuring.
Celestia trotted down the road, ponies all around bowing in respect and awe. She could tell that Luna was almost directly behind her by the sound of her sister's distinct hoofsteps. The pair of princesses moved through the town towards the site of the battle, exuding an aura of serenity as they passed. Only a minute or so later, they came upon a mound of rubble covered in black and blue scorch marks and blast craters. Celestia and Luna stood silently looking at the rubble, a small crowd of curious ponies gathering around them expectantly. After a few minutes, Celestia broke the silence.
“My little ponies, what happened here is a terrible, terrible thing; fortunately, these sorts of things are few and far between. Do not let yourselves be troubled, but do not ignore it either. Remember what happens when ponies give in to hate, and make sure that you don't,” said the Sun Princess, her voice slipping into speech mode. The white alicorn turned to the Mayor, who had trotted up while she was speaking. “Mayor, if you require anything for the rebuilding that you don't have readily available, just notify me and I will have it sent to you expressly.”
The mare nodded gratefully and politely, then stepped aside as the white and blue alicorns trotted past her. Celestia gestured for the gray Mayor to walk with them.
“Yes, your Highness?” asked Mayor Mare.
“Would you mind if myself and Luna set up a temporary residence in the town hall? I think it would be appropriate for us to spend some time in the town, to ease fears and speed the healing process.”
“O-of course, Princess,” stammered the gray mare, taken by surprise. “I'll have some special quarters set up right away.”
“That's quite all right, my personal guards can take care of it. Thank you, you may go now,” said Celestia. After the mayor had scampered off, no doubt to prepare some kind of opulent room for them, she turned to her younger sister, with whom she was trotting in solitude, her guards either at a distance or gone ahead to prepare the Princesses' rooms.
“Luna, you've been quiet,” commented the white alicorn in a hushed tone.
“I have, Celly. I've been playing along with your plan. Is that all that this is to you, this visit? A scheme? I heard you give that nice little speech, sister,” snapped the Night Princess, surprised at the vehemence in her voice. “These ponies need more than a figurehead, Celestia, they need more than speeches; the ponies need a friend, a shoulder to lean on. They are afraid, and I don't think you can feel that.”
Luna visibly recoiled from the accusation she'd leveled at her sister.
“Wait, Celly, I'm sorry-” began the blue alicorn.
“No,” interrupted Celestia flatly. She continued trotting in silence until the two were inside the town hall, where several of her guards were finishing preparations for their stay. She breezed past them, not so much as sparing a glance as they sprang to attention. Luna followed behind, worry and regret etched on her face. Celestia trotted through a few short halls and up a flight of stairs, then tossed open a door and entered. The midnight mare had to canter to keep pace with her older sister, barely slipping in before the door slammed shut telekinetically behind her.
The younger of the two approacher her sister hesitantly, apologetically, and wrapped a wing around her. Celestia allowed it for a moment before pulling away.
“Luna, you're right, I'm out of touch, I get it,” admitted the white mare in a shaky tone that she'd been repressing. She turned to face the darker pony, who could now see the tears threatening to spill out. “Maybe you should be the one to talk to ponies from here on, at least for this disaster. I need some time to think.”
The Night Princess winced, knowing she had brought this on her sister. She looked around the hastily-arranged room for inspiration, from the plush, sandy-colored carpet to the ornate, sparsely-occupied bookshelves on the two side walls and everywhere in between. Finally she trotted over to the roomy bay window and looked over the town, the twilight sun's rays casting long, still shadows of everything they touched. The scene was strangely calming, so Luna beckoned for her sister to share the view with her.
With a weary sigh, Celestia took a place at Luna's side. The two Princesses sat looking like this for a seeming eternity, trying desperately to communicate everything by saying nothing. After a time, Luna leaned into Celestia, both for support and out of love.
“Alright, Celly. I will go speak with our subjects; you take care of yourself. I shall be back soon.”
The blue Princess turned away and trotted out of the room, leaving the white one with a saddened, guilty expression as she watched her younger sister go.
-----
The bandaged red pegasus tapped his hoof impatiently as he sat in the lobby of the Ponyville Clinic. He wasn't in the best of moods, since Nurse Redheart had spotted him without his wing bandages on, and forcefully re-applied them (he was sure it was punishment for taking them off early). Now Flare was stuck in the lobby with his wings all cramped again, waiting on Rainbow Dash, who was in Twilight's room still.
He frowned; Firework didn't exactly know the purple mare that well, but she was the one who'd saved his life, and that was no small debt to owe. The red colt wanted to pay her back, for sure... but he didn't exactly have any way to do that, and Flare was fairly certain that Rainbow didn't either.
So he finally got up and trotted through the now-familiar white hallways of the hospital to Twilight's room, and gently pushed open the door. Inside were five ponies, one being the burnt and blackened Twilight, the other four presumably her friends. There was an aristocratic-looking white unicorn and a cotton-candy-pink earth pony, neither of which he recognized; next to them were the more familiar figures of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. They were all morosely quiet, and turned to look hopefully at him when they heard the door swish open; disappointed that it wasn't a doctor with good news, they went back to moping.
“Hey Dash, did you want to do something?” asked Firework in a hushed voice. Dash looked about ready to say something when the white unicorn butted in.
“Excuse me, sir, can't you see that she's trying to comfort her friend?” huffed the mare with the coiffed mane. “We all are, thank you very much!”
Flare was all set to snap right back at her, but the pink mare appeared between them.
“You silly fillies, fighting isn't going to get us anywhere,” she said, her fluffy pink mane drooping somewhat. “If we want to take care of Twilight we need to take care of ourselves. I'll go make some cupcakes and bring them to you girls when they're all done,” pledged Pinkie. Her face brightened and her mane poofed up a bit before she continued. “And then I'm going to throw a PARTY for our new pony in town! No, wait, ponies! There was a second one!”
And with that, Pinkie was off. The others stared after her for a few moments before turning back to each other. The white one with the purple mane had a contrite air about her.
“I'm sorry for shouting at you, darling, I'm a little anxious right now,” she apologized. “Twilight's... situation has put us all between a rock and a hard place. I'm Rarity, by the way; you should stop by sometime at the Carousel Boutique, I could transform you into a less ruffian-esque stallion. I mean, really, that mane-cut went out of style ages ago, dear! You absolutely should get it done-”
“Yeah, yeah, I'm sure, Rarity,” interrupted Rainbow Dash hastily, “but all that girly stuff is boring and takes forever. We're fine like this, so we'll be going now, bye!”
Flare barely had time to blurt out a “Wait, what?” before he was forcefully pushed out of the room by the cyan pegasus at high speed. After they were out in the hall, Dash stopped pushing him and instead let him trot on his own, and the two of them left the hospital at a brisk pace. The sun was dropping slowly behind the horizon, its rays flying almost parallel to the ground; both were forced to squint as they moved.
“Do you think we'll have time to get any practice in before it gets dark?” asked the red pegasus.
“Who says we have to stop when it gets dark?” laughed the blue one. “We can practice at night, I've done it before. I bet you have, too.”
“Caught me red-hoofed, Rainbow. Where do you usually go when you want to get in some tricks?”
“Either at Sweet Apple Acres or outside my house. AJ is usually okay with me lounging around at her place, as long as I don't damage any of her stuff. I usually don't go there at night, though, just because it's a bit easier to run into something.”
“Okay, I guess we'll start at your place. Lead the way, Dash.”
Rainbow took off for her cloud home, but an accusatory silence reminded her that Flare was still grounded, so she returned with a sigh to the ground. The two trotted together once more; as if testing the waters, Flare sped up his pace so that he was just in front of the blue pony. In response, the rainbow-maned pony accelerated to a slightly faster speed than his, pulling ahead. Firework pushed to the front again, and then Dash, and the two kept trying to outpace the other until they were both galloping at full speed. Both wore exuberant grins as they raced through the chill air of the evening, each confident in their victory over the other.
For the first few moments, they were neck and neck; Rainbow Dash might have him beaten hooves-down in the air, but on the ground he was at least a challenge for her speed. After the galloping started to take its toll, Flare began to lag behind, his numerous shallow injuries slowing him down.
After a few minutes of top speed, Dash's expression blanched before she burst out laughing and slowed down to a stop. The red colt kept running, celebrating his victory with a whoop, before he turned around and saw Rainbow Dash galloping in the opposite direction. He was about to call out in confusion when she beat him to the punch.
“We passed it! Now there's no way I can lose!”
The red pegasus sighed and raced after her. When he finally caught up, he stood panting next to the triumphant rainbow-maned mare beneath her home. Said mare took off into the air, performing a cursory loop-de-loop before settling into a hover a few hoof-lengths above Firework's head.
“You did that just to tease me, didn't you,” grumbled the red pony. He received a giggle in response. “Fine, let's just get on with this. Did you have any specific trick routines in mind? I forgot what I was planning.”
“Not really anything specific; usually I can just kind of fly around and do whatever comes to mind, and it forms into a routine,” answered Rainbow, now hovering upside-down over her rival. Without waiting for a reply, she took off, starting into a random string of loops, rolls, and dives.
Flare's gaze attentively tracked her motion through the sky, the last dim rays of the sun making her bright blue coat radiant. He thought about how they might arrange some of her stunts into a pattern, visualizing it in his mind; when the red pony did so, however, he couldn't keep focused on the pattern. What absorbed his attention instead was the glowing cyan mare that dominated his field of view. The way that she handled every twist and turn, her graceful, minute wing adjustments; it could only be described by one word.
Serene.
The way that Dash flew was absolutely casual, as easy as breathing might be for a pony. He could see how she instinctively, naturally knew where she wanted to go next, and automatically adjusted herself to go there. There was no thought involved, she just did. Flare just sat and watched, taking in the sight of the natural ace that was Rainbow Dash.
Flare couldn’t help but feel the envy bubbling up in his thoughts; her flight was the antithesis of his own. Every move he did, every turn and twitch of the wing was calculated and carefully thought through; this was out of necessity, because he had very little natural skill when it came to flying. He had had to work hard for his flying skills, and she made it look so easy...
He started to feel a twitching in his wings, a slight pressure against the tightly-wrapped bandages. The sudden sensory input caught his attention, and with a fierce blush hardly noticeable against his already-burning pelt Firework shook his head and snapped himself out of the trance.
Shortly thereafter, the rainbow-maned flier touched down next to Flare.
“So? Any ideas? I've got a bunch,” enthused the mare.
“Uh, actually I'm getting kind of tired,” lied the red colt with a remnant of embarrassment. Dash pouted sarcastically.
“You're no fun. I thought you wanted to get our routine planned out tonight,” she complained. “I bet all that running tired you out, didn't it? Pffft, you need to build up some stamina, Flare!”
Dash hovered up over the other pegasus and reached around him with her forehooves. He jolted in surprise, and she also pulled back, curious.
“What is it?” she asked. He started to mumble something, but she cut him off. “Unless you found somewhere else in Ponyville to spend the night while I wasn't looking, you're staying with me at my house. Since you can't fly, I need to carry you up there,” said Rainbow, as though stating the obvious. Flare sighed inwardly, relieved.
Finished with that little escapade, the blue mare picked up her rival in her hooves and carried him up to her home; she was careful not to disturb any of his injuries, for which he was silently grateful. After less than a minute, she set him down on the cloud and the two trotted into Rainbow's house. She quickly made up a spare bedroom for him, which was only slightly tidier than the rest of her home. With the last minutes of daylight gone, the two parted ways and went to sleep.
-----
The petite yellow pegasus sat silently next to her comatose friend, the darkness outside the room dispelled only partially by a dim lantern in the corner of the room. Next to her sat Rarity, who had finally fallen asleep out of exhaustion. The white mare lay nearly as still as Twilight, her head resting gently on the side of a plush armchair she'd acquired from somewhere. As Fluttershy looked at Rarity's sleeping form and Twilight's unconscious one, she noticed how each of them, and even herself as she lay curled in a similar chair, had their chests rising and falling softly, gently. It was like clockwork in its regularity, but so slow that it reminded her of watching snowflakes fall.
The solitude of the silent hospital room made the pegasus' eyelids begin to droop lazily, even as tears began to spill out of them again.
“Please get better, Twilight... please. I- I'll even read you a... a story...” whispered Fluttershy, barely any sound escaping her lips at all as she closed her leaking eyes and fell into a much-needed, albeit fitful, slumber.
A few moments passed before a golden glow gripped the door to the room, and it swung open silently. With magically-muffled hoofsteps, a tall, shadowy figure trotted into the room, illuminated only by the lamp; distinctly noticeable about the interloper was the pain and doubt carved into her face. The pony moved silently to a spot next to Twilight's bed, and sat down. The long, waving mane coming off of the winged figure cast an eerie shadow on Twilight's body.
The alicorn, whose pelt gleamed a soft creamy white in the dim lamp-light, removed her golden horseshoe and extended a forehoof over the still form of her star student, fondly wiping a stray lock of charred purple mane out of Twilight's face. The Princess' eyes closed, and she began softly stroking the unicorn's forehead and cheek, which were hot to the touch. A prismatic droplet fell from her eyes and stained the bland white hospital sheet with an oily, rainbow splotch; then another came, and another.
The small white unicorn mare hesitantly pushed open the door to the Ponyville Clinic; when the nurse on duty looked up from her crossword puzzle, she nodded a polite greeting.
“Hey there,” said the nurse, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Oh, um, no thanks, I was just stopping by to see someone. Thank you, though,” mumbled the white, pink-maned unicorn. She trotted down the hall leading out of the waiting room, when she overheard two ponies speaking in hushed tones behind a door labeled “Staff Only”.
“Redheart, the Arc-Site scans are done. I... don't think you're going to like them,” whispered one.
“Are they really that bad?” asked the other. There was a moment of silence and the sound of shuffling paper, then something like a clipboard hitting the ground with a clatter. “How... how is this possible? There must be a mistake, this can't be right,” objected Redheart. “Run the scans again!”
“Ma'am, with all due respect, we just can't. All of our unicorns are too tired; they've been trying to heal Twilight on and off all day, and nothing has worked. They need a break. Maybe we do too.”
The pink-maned unicorn hid herself behind the nearest object, a tall piece of metal equipment that seemed to radiate a slight magical aura. Out of the “Staff Only” door came two ponies, one the familiar form of Nurse Redheart, and the other a blue unicorn in a doctor's outfit. The two trotted silently past the concealed mare, exhaustion evident in their expressions. The white mare stealthily went over to the restricted-access door and pushed it open, seeing inside a prim office space; aside from a circular table, three cheap-looking chairs, and a few cabinets, there wasn't much in the room.
Resting atop one of the cabinets was a clipboard with a small sheaf of papers attached to it. The top sheet read like a label, with a good deal of fancy-looking reference numbers and such, as well as a bold-faced “Twilight Sparkle” indicating the name of the patient whose record this was. The white pony, out of trepidation, accidentally let her illusion spell falter for a moment, revealing the golden crown, wings, and flowing, multi-hued mane she had been hiding. Despite her nervousness, she took the file in her magical grasp and flipped through it.
Even without much in the way of medical knowledge, the pictures and graphs and notes made it fairly obvious; Twilight Sparkle, the prodigious unicorn magician, was not going to survive her wounds. The wounds themselves weren't too serious; what was really going to kill the charred mare was the fact that her injuries resisted magical healing. 'Some kind of poison,' the report suggested. 'An unknown, unidentifiable magical poison that Trixie had somehow slipped into Twilight's body while they fought.'
The small stack of papers began to tremble in the telekinetic grasp of the Princess. Her illusion spell faded away entirely, revealing her full, regal self. Celestia floated the clipboard back into its rightful place, and headed for the room that her student, her Twilight rested in.
The white alicorn made every effort to keep her crying silent. Her precious pupil, the little lavender unicorn that she'd practically raised as her own was dying. Worse still, was that she could do something about it. In her thoughts she began reciting her logic as though it were some kind of shield from the pain, justifying it.
I know that I shouldn't. I created the rules to be followed; I must not misuse my power to unfairly benefit one pony over others. I, as Princess and Ruler of Equestria, must be fair and impartial when dealing with my subjects. I should not heal one pony unless I heal all ponies.
She lowered her head down to Twilight's level, resting it on the bed next to the young mare. She looked straight at her star student's still form, mere inches away from it. Being closer just made her longing for Twilight's well-being even more intense.
You've been through this before, Celestia. Ponies die. You've seen it happen countless times in the last thousand years; it's the way of life. All things must come to an end, even those we love.
The Princess closed her eyes, trying to block out the soul-chilling sight of her Twilight, her charred, dying Twilight.
Why, my student? Why did you of all ponies have to die? I raised you, Twilight, I taught you everything. I was your teacher. I was your friend. I was... your mother. And you were my daughter, and I loved you as one. After a thousand years, I finally had a foal of my own to love and take care of and watch grow up. You were going to be the one, Twilight, you were going to be my heir; I was tired already after so long, so long watching those around me die. I was exhausted, but you were the light in my life, the drive that kept me going. Without you, I- I don't know if I can go on anymore.
That last thought rattled around in her brain for a seeming eternity, gnawing away at her resolve and her tear ducts.
She doesn't have to die. You have the power, Celestia. You could save her, overcome the poison or whatever it may be.
That's against my code. I swore as a leader to be impartial.
You won't be able to serve as an effective leader without her; you said so yourself.
That doesn't make it right!
But it makes it reasonable.
The Princess of the Day bit her lip, indecision tearing at her. After a few more moments in cacophonous self-debate, she set her face, determined to do the right thing.
She began to channel her magic.
Examining the body of her pupil with a sixth sense, almost like an x-ray view, the cool, calculating, rational side of Princess Celestia surged to the forefront. She saw in great detail the wounds that her Twilight had suffered, but the one that seemed to attract the most attention was a nasty-looking bolt-wound on her shoulder. It seemed that some kind of energy beam had grazed Twilight, boiling off flesh and, seemingly, filling Twilight's veins almost immediately with some kind of substance.
The stuff gave off an eerie blue radiance to her enhanced sight, stronger in the areas of higher concentration. The burn wound on her shoulder was practically a neon sign that said “This is the source”. The stone-faced alicorn concentrated her magical powers on the stuff, trying to scan its properties, but to no avail; it was like trying to read a book in a dense fog. Even worse, it was like the fog was actively resisting her, diffusing her magic and weakening the effect. Celestia began to get a horrible feeling of having seen this somewhere else...
Then she remembered. The asteroid, the one that had mysteriously appeared a few hundred years ago. The asteroid that had only a few days before come crashing down into Equestria. The asteroid that she, the Princess, had allowed to survive, at least in fragments. The asteroid that was now, inexplicably, somehow, killing her Twilight.
I... I did this? I let the thing escape destruction, and it's destroying me. Twilight. This can't be an isolated incident. Oh, what have I done? I failed them... failed them all. Failed Twilight.
Celestia was about to begin crying again when she stopped herself.
Enough crying. You are Princess Celestia, God-Queen of Equestria, Bringer of the Sun, Master of Day. You can handle this. Just take care of Twilight, then move on to the next, bigger thing. Stay calm.
Celestia looked up, steel in her eyes, only to see something out of a nightmare; Celestia's legs tried to turn to jelly when she saw in her reflection in the window, a grinning, demonic blue figure. It was very vague and misty in form, leaving all of the horrible details up to her imagination. It did, however, possess a large array of hundreds of teeth, each of which was the size and shape of a needle, and its eyes were empty, soulless black sockets which seemed to drain the life out of her just by looking at them. It only barely qualified as equine in form, as four tentacle-hoof hybrid appendages extended from her translucent blue body, in which a few twisted organs and bones could be seen pulsing and throbbing.
It took every ounce and more of Celestia's frayed nerves to stand up to the thing without screaming, but she drew strength from the prone figures of Fluttershy, Rarity, and especially Twilight. She kept her eyes as firm as adamant, even as her legs tried to betray her, and she looked the ghost-reflection right in its not-eyes. It's smile seemed to twitch wickedly, then it faded away into nothingness, leaving the white alicorn staring into her own confused eyes.