//------------------------------// // Interlude: The Litany of Injustice // Story: Rekindled Embers // by applezombi //------------------------------// Interlude: The Litany of Injustice              Fairy Light was running.  Galloping.  Caution and subtlety didn’t matter any more. No!              It was impossible.  It was a lie.  More filth spewing from the lips of the chief deceiver.  It had to be a lie. It’s not true!              Her hooves pounded the dirt, and she ignored the stunned stares of Knights and squires alike as she ran through the grounds of Old Canterlot's palace.  The ponies might be gawking, but they didn’t matter.  It can’t be true!  She can’t have turned!              The Shrine of the Generous was guarded by one Knight, a truly ancient earth pony named Taffeta Frill.  She blinked in shock when Fairy Light sprinted up, but said nothing, only bowed and reached to pull the door open for her.               “Nopony knows I’m here,” Fairy muttered, and Taffeta nodded.  She would keep her silence.              There was nopony staying in the Shrine of the Generous that night.  The next batch of squires wasn’t due to show up for a few days, and the Radiants who would be instructing them would arrive just a day before that.  For now, Fairy Light had the place for herself.              But Fairy still couldn’t help a nervous glance over her shoulder as she began tracing the runes in the air, the very runes that would open the secret beneath the floors of the living room.              The orange glow of the enchantments embedded in the floor spilled light into the darkness, an eerie radiation that filled her with nervous dread.  Coming to visit the Oracle used to be comforting.               That was, of course, before she’d started her list.              The first name on the list had been Peridot Shine.  It was no secret who had killed her, even though the Mystics didn’t allow anypony else to see the records they’d taken of the incident.  Still, Peridot was the first of many dead ponies to lay at his hooves. Spruce Bark Rusty Gyro Champagne Flute Hollybright Nickelplate              Dozens of other names, too, a litany that she repeated to herself.  Some Fairy was certain about.  Others she had only speculation and suspicion.  But as she waited for the magic to do its work, she whispered them silently into the empty room.  When the passage finally opened up beneath her, lit by the strange orange glow, she dashed down the stairs.              When the puzzle pieces were all coming together, they were supposed to make things clearer, not throw everything into darkness.  Emberglow was a heretic.  It couldn’t possibly be true.  And yet, Mercy Song had confessed everything to her, when pressed.              Including every single one of her ‘missions’ she’d gone on at her lover’s behest. How could this have happened?              With a wrenching cry, she rushed to the plinth that held the Oracle, seizing the cloth that covered the orb and ripping it off.  The unicorn horn inside glowed to life at her touch, and the blue light overwhelmed the orange in the room.              “Speak to me, Oracle,” Fairy rasped.  She knew well the danger it represented.  The Oracle, for all its oblique mystery, had its own agenda.  But it was the only guidance she had now, the only way to unravel Steadfast’s plots.  “Please.  Make this clear.  Why did Emberglow…”              She couldn’t bring herself to say it.              “Fairy Light.”  The horn pulsed, and Fairy Light gasped.  It had only ever spoken to her in prophesy and verse, and never by name.  “You came.”              “I…”              “I had no doubt.  You were always fearless.”              With each word, the horn pulsed and glowed brighter.  Fairy stepped back.  “Why are you talking to me?”              “Things have changed, Fairy Light.  I am the same as I have always been.  But now I am more.”              “What are you?”  She felt her rump hit the floor, her eyes locked on the glowing orb and the horn inside.              “I am nothing.  Nopony.  Ephemera and nightmares, given intelligence and purpose.  I am a tantabus.  Or I was.”              “Tantabus?”              “A monster.  Pasted together from dreams and guilt and an iron willpower stronger than death.  I was made to torment Starlight Glimmer, to always remind her of her sins and her failures, and to keep her focused on one purpose.  She traded her memories for life, until she was a cold and shriveled thing.              “Only, somepony interfered.  And because of his actions, Starlight’s sacrificed memories were stored, rather than destroyed.  And when she finally died, they came to me.              “I am not Starlight Glimmer.  But I remember what she saw.  Who she was.  And I remembered her purpose.  Finding Rarity.  And that’s what I’ve been guiding the Radiant towards, ever since you all woke me up.”              “That’s what the visions were?”  Fairy Light’s head was spinning.              “From the very beginning, yes.  And you succeeded, Fairy Light.  You were the Grand Master that led the Radiant to the Day of Hope.  Rarity lives.”  The horn pulsed with amused laughter.  “Congratulations, though I doubt it is like you imagined.”              Fairy Light’s jaw worked wordlessly.  She’d been meaning to ask about Emberglow.  About Fairy’s own prophecy, all those years ago as a squire herself.  But this…              “I dismissed the rumors,” she breathed.  “I shouldn’t have…”              “Your progenitor lives, Knight Radiant.  And she fights alongside the Discordant.”              Fairy Light rose to her hooves, bile in her throat.  “No!” Her hooves shuffled along the stone floor, backing away until her rear hoof struck the bottom of the staircase.              The Oracle laughed.  “She’s a unicorn, Fairy.  What did you expect?”              Fairy Light gulped, and sat down on the lowest stair.              “You knew, didn’t you?” the Oracle said.  “You’re too smart not to.  You’ve seen the pictures.  The books.  The Mystics are good, but they can’t delete everything.  You knew.”              “I knew,” Fairy Light said, the damning words nearly sticking in her throat.  “But it didn’t matter.  Not until today.”              “Looks like you have some decisions to make.”  The Oracle’s voice was cold and unforgiving.  The chill outside had nothing on this, and Fairy Light felt herself shivering.              The last thirty years of work; planning, plotting, backbreaking effort, hope and faith and dreams, played out before Fairy’s eyes as she panted for breath.  Her own prophecy, given by this very Oracle, replayed in her head.              The glow of hope lights the torch of revolution.  Flickering flames become the bonfire that rewrites history.  The phoenix flame takes wing on flames of love and loss.              Hundreds of Knights Radiant, each with their own unique vision.  And every single one with the same charge.   Six there were, now five remain. One rules from the shadows, the others follow blindly. Hope is lost, but the lost can be found. The Sleeper will awaken at the hooves of her children. The Generous will find the lost and restore Hope to Equestria.              “The sleeper was Rarity,” the Oracle said, as if it knew her thoughts.  It probably did.  “And Emberglow was the one that found her.  Is it any wonder she changed sides?”              “Because you manipulated things!” Fairy Light shrieked.  “You played us all like puppets!”              “Perhaps.  But now you know the truth.  And like I said before, you have some decisions to make.  This is not the same world as it was last week, Grand Master Fairy Light.  Everything is changing.  Old heroes are being reborn as new ponies.  Even you.  The world is being shaped into something else, and the Diarchy is headed towards war, no matter what any single Knight wants.  Will you bury the truth, like so many before you, Fairy Light?  Or will you join with the Discordant and…”              “NO!” Fairy lurched forward, her hoof frantically slashing at the Oracle and knocking the orb from it’s plinth.  It crashed to the floor, the glass shattering.  Fairy’s breath came in heavy pants.  “I will not betray my home or my ponies!  I will not be the Grand Master that leads the Radiant in heresy!”              “So you choose lies, then.”  The disappointment in the Oracle’s voice was palpable.  “I had thought…”              “No!”  She was not Steadfast Word.  “The Diarchy doesn’t need the lies.  We just need to…”              “Adapt?  Refocus?  Maybe under the reins of a strong leader, who can take control and reshape the Diarchy at their whim?”              It was uncomfortable talking to a pony without a face, without ears and eyes that Fairy Light could read and gauge for intent.  The disembodied voice of a nightmare creature emanating from a severed horn, however, offered no such feedback.  But the contempt and sarcasm in its…              …no, not its.  Her.  In her voice.  The contempt and sarcasm in her voice was palpable.              “I am not like Steadfast!” she snarled back.  “You and I… you and I have been trying to counter him!  Is this why?  So you could guide me into some sort of… heresy?”              “No.  Never.”  Wisps of blue light began to swirl from the horn, dancing through the air until they took shape in the air next to the plinth.  It was a featureless pony, merely an outline of smoke and magic, but she bowed her head as if ashamed.  “I’ve only had one purpose.  To save Rarity.  Anything else I've done has been for you and the Radiant. To help you build something good within the ashes of this waking nightmare.”              Fairy opened her mouth to talk, but the figure continued.  “Would it make me pleased if you did lead the Radiant to join the Discordant?  Reunite the family, so to speak?  I don’t know.  I am a monster of nightmares and guilt, but even I…” the entire shape trembled.  “…even I hate the blood that is spilled.  It makes me sick.  Ponies shouldn’t kill ponies.”  The figure slumped against the floor, ignoring the broken shards of glass and the horn.  “Maybe it’s because I have all of Starlight’s memories, now.  I remember what this world was.  What it should be.”              “I won’t betray my brothers and sisters,” Fairy began, moving slowly closer to the prone form.  There was something pitiable about her, something that reached out to the healer in Fairy.  “But I can’t let a murderer guide the Diarchy, either.”              “Forge your own path, then?  Just as you were always wont to do.”  The smoky shape sighed.  “It will be the harder route, for sure.  But you bear the soul of a hero, Fairy Light.  I’ve always known.”              It was just like something she had said earlier, right at the beginning, when the Oracle had said Fairy Light was always fearless.  Even now, it pricked at her curiosity.  Despite herself, despite the situation, Fairy had to ask.               “What do you mean?”              The Oracle’s head rose, and Fairy was sure she could hear amusement.  “It is sinful, isn’t it, to speculate on your past lives?  On who you may have been before you were born?”              “You know something.”  Perhaps it didn’t mean anything, but there was still a part of her that wanted to know.  Perhaps needed.              “What would you do with the information, I wonder?”  The Oracle lifted a hazy hoof to tap at her chin.  “Would it change anything?”  Fairy felt exposed, as if the Oracle could see to her very soul.  “No.  No, I don’t think it would.  It might even help inspire you.”              “What—”              “Did you know, with the spells Sunburst cast, I can see them?  The heroes of Ponyville, reborn in new forms all through the Diarchy?  Each one, in their own way, paving the way for Emberglow and Heartwing to find Rarity, to restore Harmony to the world.  Not because destiny forced them to, but because that’s who they were then, but more importantly, it’s who they are now.                “Like the scholar reborn as a precocious little foal.              “Or a would-be conqueror with a cracked horn, reborn as the orphaned filly raised by pirates and taught by a princess. “A faithful mailmare who always found her path eventually, now a kind mother, filling the dresses she makes with all the love she can offer.              “Or maybe a great and powerful illusionist, experiencing life again as an irreverent Knight and mother, as passionate as she always was.              “And then there’s you, Fairy Light.  I recognized you first.  The form may be different, but the soul never changed.  The crusade may be different, but you always were one to pursue your goals with a single-minded determination and courage.  Whether you’re chasing after a rainbow on broken wings, or trying to match Steadfast Word at his own game.”              It was all too much.  None of it made any sense to Fairy.  Who were these ponies the Oracle was talking about?              “I know you’re confused.  I know you feel overwhelmed, lost, and maybe even betrayed.  But I promise you, Fairy Light.  My only goal has ever been to help you bring about the Day of Hope.  Now that it’s happened, my purpose is gone.  And now… I wish to help my friends.  Or, Starlight’s friends.”              “Those ponies you mentioned?” Fairy’s mouth was dry.              “Yes.  Including you.  Old souls are becoming new again, all to shape the future.  Steadfast wants one future, a future where peace exists due to strict control.  He builds his power atop a mountain of corpses, a list of names you yourself have collected.  The Discordant perhaps wish to burn it all down and start over.  But if you wish, I will help you forge a different path.”              “Just like you’ve always guided me.”  Fairy Light nodded slowly.  “A different path?  Yes.  A path of justice and balance, maybe.”  Her mind began to light up with ideas, and she reached down with a hoof to help the Oracle up.  This was going to take some getting used to, but she was already steeling herself for the challenge.  “What should I call you?”