The sun was even warmer than he'd remembered.
It felt as though he'd been waiting forever to feel soft, green grass under his hooves. Not grey, nor tainted, nor otherwise magically desiccated. The wild, natural fronds of a world brought to stunning life was a comfort he'd once taken for granted, but no longer.
The wind blowing through his mane carried the scent of faint dew and bright, summer energy, all without asking a single thing of him. Such simple, uncomplicated facets of uncompromised nature: untouched by circumstance or mindful depravity.
Nothing dead. Nothing magical. Just green, grassy hills over babbling brooks under fluffy white clouds as far as the eye could see; the shining sun above the freely-gifted mark of a world at total peace.
He actually kind of missed the Everfree. The scent of summer was uniformly earthen and nauseating, and the sun had a very frustrating tendency to get in his eyes the longer he tried to stare. Had life on the outside always been so uncomfortably stimulating? He'd been putting nature on a pedestal for the sake of dramatizing his experience in the Everfree, but it really wasn't all that great.
Light Flow took a mediocre breath of life-stirred air, as the mare next to him did the same.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" came Bon Bon's quiet murmur. He nodded with a hum of agreement, just because he knew it was polite: keeping his eyes firmly on the thatch-roof horizon. He'd rather look there than at the perpetually-frowning secret agent, no matter how the sight of it sent squirming worms wriggling through his stomach.
From their side-by-side position on a hill with the beckoning depths of the Everfree behind them, the sunlit scape of Ponyville's small expanse sat comfortably before them. The sun high in the sky drippling over hay woven on plaster; the noises of a commotion in the town square visible and audible from where they stood. Just then, a stray red balloon broke free from the townscape: heading quickly for freedom in the sky.
The Summer Sun Celebration, with the Princess in magnificent attendance- that is, if She would still dare.
He really hoped She wouldn't. Ponyville didn't need a reigning Goddess in its midst, nor Equestria's miserable pretender.
The Sun's holy throne had been returned to Her by a constant stream of unworthy sacrifices, all so She could sit atop Her ill-won, aristocratic privileges for another thousand years. It was Her place: sat higher than scorn or rebuke, looking coldly down at those faceless masses laying prostrate. Lives lived in reverence; deaths offered for worthless absolution.
Even in the quiet of the open glade, he could feel the weight of the heavy hoof that had personally writ his fate, clad in beautiful, unfeeling gold. If he ran, could he ever escape it? If he hid, would Ponyville care to veil him?
A hill and a stream and just a few loose copses would be all it took to take him to that ever-so-strange place he'd grown up in. That tiny place that had fostered him as a ignorant foal running with his mother from the grime- the crime- of the big city. Ponyville. His home.
The neat rows of buildings in a town planned to perfect detail, marred by that quaint construction of uneven dirt roads, too-large alleyways, and completely self-defeating architectural structure. If he closed his eyes, he could picture the sense-melting sight of the practical joke store somehow sitting right next to the spa: the open market a street beyond, sitting next to that open, unfenced stream that hilariously often enjoyed clumsy visitors.
A town theorized to an architect's vision, and executed by their mentally unwell brother. Every decision made in the town's overall construction seemed like the setup for a punch-line.
The incongruous clock tower built far too east to be helpful. A rickety water tower aside a looming, scarce-used dam sitting under and far away from the distant picture of the sky-scraping Canter mountain. A schoolhouse on a dirt road across town from the residential district. The buildings themselves having so much flair and so little structural consistency.
Everything was so backwards and outdated. Nothing about Ponyville made sense, least of all the ponies living there.
He fit in.
He could almost make out the shape of that pretentious boutique made in the style of a foal's carousel from their outlook, sitting so close to the edge of town as it did. Barely any buildings between them, and only a few dusty storefronts. If he made a break for it, could he make it? Was Rarity there? Would she protect him?
"For a while I thought I wouldn't see it again," he murmured, trying to keep the growing hole of melancholy in his chest from consuming his tone. He failed, so he turned a sad chuckle sardonic, instead. "Not in the daylight, at least... maybe during a militant razing."
He couldn't keep his bitter smile, even ironically.
That wasn't very funny. It had almost happened. Thatch rooves set ablaze and whimsical accents smashed to dust.
A river of colors floating away.
He blinked the visions of carnage out of sight, and turned his gaze to the west. A distant vista of sheer green led from a long path of trod dirt. A place he'd never forget- not again, at least.
When would he next visit? Would it be as a free pony, or in chains? Trussed up and kicked to the cold ground in front of the mare he'd never wanted exposed to his plain deceit...
He couldn't imagine anything more terrifying. Staring into those emerald eyes slowly filling with a grim knowing.
He hoped he'd be given some dignity in his arrest, but there was every possibility it'd be made a public spectacle. 'To renew the faith of the masses,' as the records had said of the punishments. Fire licking at reclining hooves, and the screaming masses rejoiced at the cinders.
Some tiny, terrible part of him actually enjoyed the thought of public executions. A legally exempt way to watch a brutal murder- one that'd actually be markedly companionable? He didn't subscribe to the kingdom-wide Faith, but he couldn't deny that any institution that viewed ritualistic immolation as a sanctified act was really cool.
Also pretty reprehensible- but he didn't have too much personal grief over it. At the stage of his life he was currently in, he'd pretty much dropped all social pretenses. The only problem he could really find with the macabre potential was that he might be on the receiving end of one.
It'd still be pretty cool, he guessed. Participating would just be a bit more painful than watching. Maybe some lucky colt in the audience would get a mouthful of his ashes, and he'd grow up idolizing the macabre just like him. A comforting thought.
The mare- his captor- beside him took a deep breath. Firm and paced: one long moment of anticipation, then out it came, followed by her even-tempered voice. "I'll ask again once the interrogation begins, but I'm going to give you a chance to tell me right now, without any extra incentives or stimuli."
He didn't turn to look, but he knew her eyes were on him. He could feel how her gaze burned. "What was Nightmare Moon's plan? What did She want?"
The question. The name he never wanted to hear again.
He really didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to think about it, or Her.
He wanted to run away, and pretend like it had never happened; to escape to that wheel-marked road heading west until he passed through those old, ivy-woven wooden gates overhead. To walk through the quiet orchards with the subtle scent of apple blossoms clouding his vision until he caught that sweet flash of discrepant orange through the brush, as he always did.
To lay beneath the setting sun, feeling warm breath over his ears and soft fur against his cheek, knowing that tomorrow would surely come. That tomorrow would be just another day.
He swallowed, and turned his eyes away: to the sky, instead. Bright and blue. White clouds and a yellow sun. A foal's drawing of a perfect day.
It just wasn't worth it to pretend like that wasn't a fantasy.
"She... wanted to destroy Equestria," he murmured: narrowing his eyes, and thinking of glimmering green emeralds behind the sights. Shimmering with laughter and full of affection. Hard with anger, but worn with concern. Something deeper. Something wonderful.
He'd been robbed of that life.
"That was all She really wanted."
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They hadn't stayed on the hill for too long; maybe just long enough to really make it clear that he may never return to that terribly devised place he'd grown up in. He'd have to hoof it to Bon Bon, whether she was drinking the sight in as much as he was, it was an excellent bit of mental warfare to keep him there so long.
It was hard not to feel discouraged in marching to his doom after he'd stared at everything he'd undoubtedly come to miss for twenty minutes. Sort of like a last request, except compulsory, and unwelcome.
Maybe she really was feeling just as melancholic as he was- it was very hard to say for sure. There had been an awfully grim expression on her face as they'd turned from Ponyville and began making their way to his home, but he still wasn't sure if he shouldn't chalk that up to her natural personality.
He really doubted it was for him, so it was probably some nonsense about how she wasn't sure she'd ever see Ponyville again and how she was so glad the sun had risen over those thatch-rooves and dirt paths- wait... no, that was what he'd been thinking.
He was a bit scattered.
It only grew worse as following the mare's quick steps had, strangely enough, not taken them to the path leading to his home: instead taking a sharp veer off onto a left fork towards Ponyville. A quick moment of uncertainty as their direction changed- like he was stepping off a sudden and unexpected cliff's edge.
He'd naturally questioned her as they walked in as few words as was necessary- he knew which way his house was- and she'd thrown a quip over her shoulder about how she needed to take a detour to pick something up that she was needing to interrogate him.
He'd been too preoccupied with thoughts of his wrecked future to ask further, but- thinking about it now- it should've seemed the teensiest bit invalidating to go on a shopping trip to pick up some implement of his torture. Picking through market stalls, perhaps? Hemming and hawing over the whips and chains on display, until- oh, how about this branding iron, Light? It's in the shape of a dunce cap!
Nonsense, of course. He'd never choose a branding iron to torture himself; getting his cutie mark had hurt enough for a lifetime.
They'd taken their short trip into Ponyville with the mare completely ignoring the entire time how entirely uncomfortable it was making him. He just didn't like the idea of anypony seeing him with her- or seeing anypony at all.
They'd skirted all the way around the edges to presumably avoid witnesses- he'd not stopped to ask- fairly quickly arriving to the least populated street of the residential district, where she'd instructed him to wait for her at an inconspicuous bench by the side of a seemingly vacant home while she went and got what she needed.
He'd taken a look at the house, then at the plain wooden bench, then back to Bon Bon.
The following argument had involved more obstinate gesturing to his cuffed hoof than was probably necessary, but Bon Bon saw the light eventually. She'd very amicably invited him to wait in her foyer- oh so genteel of her! Why, thank you very kindly Bon Bon! He'd absolutely love to wait inside, and maybe while he was around he could find her kitchen and lick all of her utensils!
As spiteful and masterfully petty as that would've been, he didn't have a chance to snoop around. Because-
...because he'd just thought twice, alright? Nothing had happened while he was at Bon Bon's house. The mare had gone up a set of plain stairs, retrieved whatever she was looking for, come back down- cold stare and all- and then they'd left to make their way out to his house- a wholly superior home, by the way.
Nothing else happened while he was waiting in the secret agent's living room. He didn't touch anything or happen to meet anypony who Bon Bon hadn't given him a heads up about, and that somepony he hadn't met most certainly didn't try to hit on him or ribaldly invite him back while waggling their eyebrows.
Nothing had happened. He only felt sick and self-conscious because he... he didn't like Bon Bon's choice in curtains. Yeah, that was it. A flower pattern? On purple drapes? She may as well have just bought something plain at that point. Disgusting taste. Disgusting mare.
Following their anxiety-ridden trip to Ponyville that had ended up being mostly uninteresting, they'd retraced their steps and set themselves back onto the path to his home. Well- she'd retraced their steps: he'd just followed behind her in a melancholic daze. It was half owing to his disturbing run-in with... nopony, but mostly because of the niggling idea of seeing his home again.
It had only been a day, but it felt like months after everything that'd happened. Would everything still be the same? Was he still the same? What if the sight of his once-solitary home struck disgust rather than comfort? Who could really say? Nothing about his life felt even remotely similar to who he'd been before- what if he didn't like living as a hermit anymore?! What if he had to move back into town because he was too traumatized to live alone?!
The thoughts swirled distressingly around his headspace with every step along the familiar dirt path, until-
"What in Tartarus happened to that tree?!"
His eye went immediately to the tree- the charred, leafless husk of a tree that sat in his front yard- then to his house. His wonderfully isolated, beautifully ivy-covered cabin with its door kicked in and hanging by a loose hinge. He'd once heard a drunken implication by a certain blue imbecile that his house looked like the house form of an abuse victim; now, he could actually see what she'd meant, though he still didn't like that she'd said it.
Its desiccated, forest-riddled façade was admittedly very well accented by the new, haggard feature, but he also hated it. He didn't even care that it looked bad- he cared that it felt bad! It made him feel- it was like- was nothing sacred in his life?!
The air in his chest suddenly felt so much less safe. He'd never really wondered what would happen to his stuff after he was... well- gone, but now he was, and it brought a very disconcerting kind of ennui.
He'd... only been gone a day... Who had- why had they-
That tree- completely uninteresting and unnoticeable- standing not too far away from his home, had seemingly been hatefully torched. Stems stripped bare; bark charred to bits; its flakey exterior was most definitely identifiable as a mutilated husk.
Even stranger: the damage was mostly focused on one specific side of its trunk- which, actually, made a little more sense considering the... crater.
He'd cantered over to the husk as soon as he could feel his legs again, to stare at the scene with horror. To gape widely at the large circle of blackened earth rimmed by brittle, dead grass, and to begin mourning the once-scenic view from his front windows.
Granted, he'd never gotten around to hiring that landscaper whom the mayor had recommended to him, so the windows were still covered in vines and ivy which made it completely impossible to see from them- but now he'd lost the potential for a great view! How could they have done this?! Who'd had the gall to ruin one of his goals for the continually heralded 'tomorrow?!' He'd tear them apart!
...Tomorrow. Today was a bit full up.
Bon Bon had come right after him as he stepped with trepidation over the grassy corpse onto the ashen circle: standing at the edge of the fire-marked land as he shuffled his hooves in the dust of greenery. Staining his already green-and-red stained hooves with new, grey colors: all of it clashing horribly like a terrible art project on his fur.
Not a horribly large mark, but not terribly small, either. He'd angrily denounced a noted individual for doing this, but he really had no idea who'd vandalized- brutalized his lawn. Well- 'lawn.' It was about twenty yards away, so it wasn't really his lawn.
He was still furious, though, since it was probably on his property. This was property damage, plain and simple. He'd have to- He could probably get compensation for this!
Oh... He could get compensation... There was a thought.
A thought that would have to wait for later, as Bon Bon called out to him. "It was probably Nightmare Moon. It seems like something She'd do."
Her quick response weighed onto his brow, and he let the dancing bits in his eyes dance away as he turned to the mare that had... answered a little quickly, and without his asking. The mare who wasn't daring to step into the burned clearing: her normally agitated face almost unnaturally neutral.
He squinted accusingly at her, and her stare back was almost- it was very nearly too innocent.
He supposed he could take it up with the court in eight to twelve months.
They'd left the leafless tree and its adjunct crater behind: heading for the tiny, detritus-marred building that he defiantly declared to be his home. He'd actually missed it a fair amount in the time he'd been gone, especially considering that he'd rarely ever left it in his life before. What memories that weren't dark and scratching and full of ink and pain were comforting to reflect on, even then, as they approached his front door.
His front door whose surface had been forever marred by a jagged, splintering crack blistering out from the unassuming focal point of his doorknob. A once-intact doorknob that was no longer all there, because it had seemingly been mostly obliterated by a great impact.
He pushed the defamed door aside with a heart-wrenching creak of damaged wood, and ran his hoof along the edge of the splintered frame that had once had a lock on it. Were those the metal shards of it on the grass, there? Oh, what a tragedy...
"...Will you... at least pay to have my door fixed?" he murmured to the mare standing behind him, whose presence was a very heavy reminder of the foggy memory he had of hearing the door splinter.
He'd... not been himself at the time, but he could still remember sitting at his desk reading a book when it had all happened. He- they- She had just told the mare- Bon Bon to go away because the foolish agent was clearly trying to trick them. Tenses... were very strange in that period.
They'd grabbed a knife from his kitchen counter as they'd- She'd returned to his desk- but the audible memory of that crack was still clear in his then-addled mind. Wood snapping under a tremendous force. Sense rushing away as She took control.
It... was so hard to focus on that far-off memory. He could barely grasp at its fleeting tail, like he was trying to see the pictures of it from ten hoof-lengths away. Faint echoes of half-lived memories, like he was remembering it from somepony else's memory. Seeing through somepony else's eyes.
He supposed he had been. He'd really not been himself. He'd been... Her.
His reverie broke as the tail end of a sentence probed at his awareness, and he internally cursed himself as he stopped inappropriately caressing his door. Bon Bon had responded to what he'd said, but he hadn't heard, and it probably wasn't important enough to ask again. He really hoped the government would be paying for his door; he... really couldn't.
He sighed heftily: a forlorn sound of inward acceptance that, somehow, he would be taking responsibility.
The government may have owed him an incredible debt- including but not limited to his very life- but what kind of government ever paid up? Not his government; Light doubted he'd ever see any sort of restitution for the grief the Princess and Her relations had caused him. Not bits nor apologies.
He pushed the broken portal open further, wincing at the awful creaking sound, and walked across the threshold into his home.
His home that- by the Moon! Er- no. He had to dedicate some time to coming up with new curses; it wouldn't do to invoke that name. Felt vile on his tongue.
Light stepped forward: his mouth gaping open as he tried for any spoken words to object to the scene. His hoof came down on something springy, and he gasped as he hurriedly stepped off the poor book laying on the floor- like- like trash! He was so sorry, he didn't mean to!
But that wasn't the only one. Books. Books everywhere. Scattered all over the floor in any imaginable states. Closed, open faceup, open facedown, spines bent in half, pages ripped out, his bookcase tipped over- his desk in disarray- a bent knife stuck in his wall- what-
A hoof came to his mouth automatically, because a very sick feeling had risen up his throat as he'd stared at his life in ruins. His things were most of what he cared about in life, and there they all were: scattered. Broken. Disarray.
It was chaos. True chaos. Had a tornado ripped through his home?!
A different hoof laid over his shoulder, and it took longer than it should've to realize that it wasn't his. "I was only responsible for the door and the knife," said the mare who he wished he could blame. He shook his head in silent denial as that hoof rose and fell: a disquieting pat. "It was already like this when I breached. Whatever happened here happened before I subdued you."
He... barely remembered; it was all such a blur. He could recall the moment she'd broken in; the rising fury as they'd reached for the knife they'd hidden, but the surroundings were... foggy. The background was shrouded in an inscrutable mist, as though it hadn't been important.
It was like that in all of them. Every memory of Hers. Nothing was important except the goal. Nothing remembered besides the focus.
Those weren't his memories.
A tired, shuddering breath rose in his chest, and his hoof fell to carry him forward. He embraced the melancholy of a deserved grimace as he carefully stepped through the minefield of books laying in every discernable corner. Trying in vain to catalogue which were ruined and which were still moderately okay and readable.
A bunch of them were laying face up, so he couldn't see their spines; all he could do was hope they weren't important to him. Others were broken at their spines: bent in half by... something angry. There was an okay one- 'A brief history of the wagon harness.' A dull title for a fantastic journey through the history of an equally dull object. He was thankful for anything that hadn't been destroyed.
He winced away: his gait faltering as he caught sight of something recognizable. A library book with its cover irrevocably stained in gloopy black. It was a concerted effort to not imagine what its pages must have looked like.
What if they banned him from the library? Was... was life even worth living anymore?
Eventually, though the most painful journey he'd ever made, he made his way to the other side of the book-strewn room. There before him laid his poor bookshelf that he'd brought from his mother's home: tipped over onto a... a small mound of books that... probably weren't okay. It's okay... don't cry...
He really tried very hard not to cry, staring at the besmirched artifact of his past. The bookshelf that had sat in every room he'd ever lived in: all both of them. Other than its downed state, it seemed mostly alright. Who knew if it'd been stained, though? The whole thing was already black.
This entire debacle was so difficult for him, after an entire night's worth of layered difficulties. The growing warmth of memories past was singing a very intoxicating siren's call to him, and the longer he resisted the grasping weakness the more he just wanted to mourn.
A single tear may have escaped. Nopony could say for sure.
His horn lit with a thought, and a dull sense of weight settled over his mind as he grasped the corner of the fallen furniture. He had to stand it up; start containing the damage. He was home, no matter the circumstance, and there was nothing more important than the sanctity of his home. He had to make it tidy.
He braced; heaved- his horn blinked out as something shorted and his vision darkened; very suddenly, he was sitting down. Odd.
He didn't remember sitting down and his butt sort of hurt: with those details noted, the most likely candidate seemed to be that he'd overexerted his magic and lost consciousness for a second. Oh- and there was the headache. Yes, it did appear as though he'd fallen unconscious. He loved falling unconscious.
Light pursed his lips: staring troubledly down at the bookshelf that he'd never actually had to move, before. It had been Applejack and her brother who had brought it in from the cart when he'd first moved, and it had already been upright by the time he'd staggered in with his box of books. It had sat in its place ever since then, and he'd taken for granted that it would stay.
How fickle the impermanence of furniture.
He didn't think he had the power to lift it. Nevermind that he was running low on mana and he still felt the strain from the operation an hour or more ago: he didn't think he would be able to muster the strength on a good day. He'd never had the most developed arcane potential, owing to his life spent abstaining from practicing for... some stupid reason he couldn't remember through his new headache- which all left very few options.
This was going to hurt.
He turned his attention to the mare at the entrance sitting with her hooves rifling through her saddlebag. Oblivious and uncaring to his entire struggle: the de facto norm for her.
"Hey, um... Bon Bon?" He cringed at the sound of her name coming out of his mouth for the first time, but her eyes caught his all the same. He jerked his head towards the bookshelf in front of him: trying to plead through his expression. "Could you... help me get my bookshelf off the floor?"
It did hurt: a deep feeling of sordid embarrassment somewhere in the backs of his eyes. He so badly wanted to poke his impertinent corneas out, just so he didn't have to stare at the stupid grass-covered mare with her raised eyebrow who probably knew he was too weak to ever do it by himself. He loathed her, and himself. He hated every second of his stupid life that had brought him to this moment.
He really needed to come up with a derogatory nickname for her, fast. He wanted to keep her filthy name off his tongue at all costs.
It felt like liquid mortification was running through his veins, and he was sure his head was about to explode as the mare let her saddlebag's flap close, and she began walking across the room. Nothing was okay; everything felt twitchy under her annoyed gaze.
Her hoof- her dumb, clumsy hoof- came down on one of his books. Suddenly, Light didn't feel so embarrassed.
"Be careful! Don't step on my books!" he cried: scooting around to point accusingly at her. Her head whipped up from where it was scrutinizing her path: an indignant anger in her eyes- but she was the one in the wrong! What in Cerberus' good name was she mad at him for?!
"I'm trying!" she snapped, and he sputtered an affront to the mare that was yelling at him for her mistakes! Her hoof rose to her chest, then swept out across the room with a swish. "It's practically pitch black in here! It's not my fault you can't keep your stuff off the floor!"
Was there blood running down his ears? "It's not my fault, either!" he screamed furiously: a sound that might've been too loud for his very tiny cabin. It rang off the walls and returned to viciously attack his ears with karmic retribution, but the pain was pretty negligible because he really only felt the anger!
"I never would've done this to my own- to any books! Ever!" He stomped his hoof, wishing he was stomping her incredibly stompable face, instead. "How do I know that you didn't do it when you broke in!"
Bon Bon- the ugliest mare he'd ever met- made her way across the rest of the room in a huff, thankfully not trampling all over his property. It was probably pretty hard for her- grossly uncoordinated and feeble as she was. She came to his side with a fire in her eyes that he could say, without a doubt, was a dull ember next to what he'd endured! Try harder, Bon Bon! She was competing with some pretty devastatingly withering stares!
"I didn't break in," she hissed at him: scathing reproach in her voice. She poked a hoof into his chest, which he tried and failed to bat away before it retracted. "I was authorized by the Crown to enter your home and subdue an intruder. It was all above board."
An 'intruder,' she said. Sure, she could call it anything she liked.
He sneered back at her, and matched her low tone right down to the tremoring insult. "You literally broke down my door." He pointed to the side, to his poor, brutalized door. Cut down in its prime. "That feels a little under board to me."
Bon Bon's eye noticeably twitched. "I said I would pay for it," she growled: her teeth grinding in barely suppressed rage- but so what? She'd have to breathe fire to intimidate him. Literally.
He only needed another moment to process a response, and then the most spiteful sort of peace wormed its way to sit snugly next to the burning heat in his chest as he smiled scornfully. "So you're taking responsibility for your actions, then?"
For a second, he was sure Bon Bon was going to hit him; her hoof wound up and her breath stilled in violent anticipation. He even braced for it: knowing that the vindication would be all the better with a little bit of sting added- but then, she didn't.
Sure, she raised her shaking, banded hoof up like she was going to, but it only hovered in a very threatening point as she seethed in anger. Just by the time the thought crossed his mind to smack his own cuff against hers to see whether it caused any kind of painful feedback, the impetuous mare pursed her lips, and lowered her eyes to the ground.
Her hoof fell as she shook her head, and one deep breath later she turned on a bit to his bookshelf: her ears folded down and her gaze sullen. "Let's just get this thing up so I can interrogate you..."
The muttered response of a mare filled with total resent.
He stared at her side-profile of restrained irritation for a moment as she bent down to work her hooves under the bookshelf's edge: a smile working its way onto his face as he lit his horn. The slight pain didn't seem so bad, even accompanied by its annoying companion, dizziness.
Because he'd won.