Twilight was sitting at the back of the room, staring across at the three beds and the huddle of her friends. It was still hard to think, but at least it was the noise of the crowded wards around them, instead of the screaming in her head. She felt warmth wash over her, and started, realising that the Sun Princess was standing beside her, gently trying to get her attention. Celestia's expression was ... strained. There was a deep pain somewhere behind those serene, immortal eyes.
"Twilight Sparkle? You asked to speak to me?"
Twilight looked up at her mentor, pleading. "Please, Princess. Please make it go away. Just take it out if my head."
Celestia's expression flickered to one of anguish, and she bent her neck down to draw her student against her. "Twilight... I wish I could. My ponies, my sister and I owe you and your friends more than I can ever repay, and there are magicks that could cut out the memories of these days - but I cannot. I dare not."
Twilight's eyes filled with tears, and she shuddered. "Why, Princess? He made me see things... things I don't..."
Celestia enfolded her in her wings. "Twilight. We have questioned Beatrice Lulamoon. She met the Herald two years ago."
Twilight stared up, tried to speak, choked. "Two years? He was here that long?"
"Perhaps. And we have no idea what he was doing all that time."
Twilight squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to look into the alicorn's sorrowful gaze. "Oh. That's why you can't let me forget. We can't trust Ivory Tower's book either, can we? Since Herald had it first. So everything he put in my head..."
Celestia nodded, very slightly. "... may be the only knowledge we have of his methods and intentions, and of the things he served."
Twilight sobbed, once. "I understand." She looked over at her friends. "Then I suppose we have to go through with this now."
Celestia nuzzled her student's mane, and helped her to her hooves. "Yes. You saw spells like this used ... elsewhere?"
The lavender pony nodded, and looked sick. "Yes. These things... that lived there used it on their own people. To keep them around to question. Or just to hurt. If the... souls... escape they try to return wherever they were taken from. Even, even if the body is already, already dead. And then they'd get up. And try and hurt the first one back. The Herald would have done that, after he thought he'd won. Just to see how we'd react." She swayed on her feet, remembering the tower and the rows of broken bottles and the shambling biped things clawing their way up the spiral stairs.
"Then we are truly fortunate that the fillies survived Herald's trap."
Twilight's breath heaved in her chest. Celestia moved to touch her. "I am sorry, Twilight Sparkle. I should not have said that and made you imagine the alternative."
Her friends looked up from beside the fillies' beds. Applejack looked utterly exhausted, bags under her eyes, and even Rarity looked dull and lifeless. Rainbow glanced up, then went back to holding Scootaloo's hoof with her own.
Fluttershy looked deeply pensive, as Celestia opened the magically locked chest between the beds, and extracted the humble, ordinary jam jar the Herald had used to house the fillies' essence. Pinkie's smile faltered. The little lights inside pressed against the glass, trying to move closer to the alicorn.
"You sure this is going to work, Princess? Twilight?" murmured the orange mare.
"Not certain, Applejack. But I must weigh the risk of attempting this now, against whatever risks arise from leaving the fillies in their current state. Doctor Bayo assures me the fillies are as healthy as we could hope for, but the final decision is yours and your families’. Or, in Scootaloo's case..."
"Yeah. Well. Let's do it. I can't stand to see them like this anymore. Granny and Mac agree."
Rarity nodded. "Mother and Father arrived this morning. Missed all the excitement, thankfully."
Rainbow Dash looked stricken. "But what about Scoots, she -"
Celestia shushed the pegasus, gently. "Her guardian has already agreed. I would not proceed without the agreement of all involved."
The ponies stepped back, and Celestia moved the beds closer together, her expression one of deep concern as she stood over the three bandaged, splinted fillies, and silently, smoothly, opened the jar. The ponies held their breath, and chewed their lips. The little sparks, one white, one yellow, one orange, hesitated at the lip of the jar, as if afraid to leave its confines, then launched themselves, flowed into the air, danced around each other and moved towards the alicorn. She whispered, brow furrowed. "Not me, my little ponies... your bodies wait for you." The orange light dipped in the air, hovered briefly over the still form of Scootaloo, and was drawn into her with her next shallow breath. Something changed, then, difficult to describe, but the little pegasus no longer seemed... empty. The other little lights followed suit, and the ponies cried a little, in relief, when the girls moved slightly in their sleep.
Scootaloo stirred, and reached up to clumsily touch the bandages over her eyes. "Ow... A.B? Sweetie? You guys?"
Dash raced forward to touch the fillie's foreleg. "Hey sprout. You're safe, we got you."
"Rainbow Dash?" Scootaloo tried to sit up, and whimpered. "That really hurt... what happened? Where are Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle? I had the weirdest dream..."
The other ponies pressed in, with the exception of Fluttershy and Celestia. The pegasus looked up at the alicorn, and tried to find words. "Princess?"
"Yes, Fluttershy?"
"Herald... he said I wasn't really kind, that I was ... faking. Do... you think he was right?"
Celestia looked down at the meek yellow pony, and smiled. "Fluttershy - you are still the Bearer of Kindness. That you and your friends were able to drive the Messenger back into the Outer Dark proves as much."
"Oh. I don't want anypony to think he was right. I try really hard not to be mean, to anypony."
"I couldn't find a single pony, in all of Equestria, sociopathic enough to be a good cultist."
"And the Element judged you kind. You stopped him before he could hurt any of you."
Fluttershy looked down. "He said he'd hurt us if we tried."
"If I wanted to hurt you, you'd already be dead."
Celestia's expression flickered, but she nodded. "Yes, he did. But he was wounded, and perhaps he hoped to cow you all, as he recovered his energy."
"He can't come back, can he? He hurt so many ponies, even if he didn't ... hurt... us."
He moved a hoof, pushing Fluttershy out of the way; the eyes of his mask lighting up...
Celestia's expression changed to grief. "I know, Fluttershy. So many of our Gaurdsponies and Hussars were very badly hurt, or injured in their minds, and even those ponies without full knowledge of today..." She sighed, very sadly. "That it happened at all has damaged the trust our little ponies have in my sister and I. But Luna is warding the thin places he used when meeting Beatrice. He cannot enter there again, and we will be prepared against him if he tries."
"There is always another way into a world."
Fluttershy looked up at the Alicorn of Day, and managed a little smile. "And I'll still have my friends, won't I? He can't hurt us again if we stick together."
the shock, running up her foreleg, and into her body
And in her womb, a heart began to beat.