His books had been cleared from the floor: the many tomes both ruined and reparable stacked on and around his one bookshelf. A few scarce moments spent in quiet toil between enemies giving each other frequent death glares over cold shoulders.
The things on his desk had been carelessly cleared with a swipe before it was pushed to the center of the room; they'd both elected to ignore the faded, black stains on its corners.
His mangled door had been shut: a rudimentary latch tied by a length of twine to a popped nail in the wood all that protected them from somepony barging in. He held confidence that nopony would look twice at the dilapidated shack by the Everfree, much less knock on the smashed-in door.
His chair had been pulled up, and somepony had realized that he only owned the one. Many recently returned books had then been pulled off his shelf, much to his frustration.
It'd taken him until then to realize he'd really never entertained company, before.
A candle had been lit. The knife had not been removed from his wall. His sitting room smelled like dust and sick. He wished he could clean a bit more.
Hidden in the dark carcass of his previous life with the orange candleglow cast harshly against their grim faces, Light Flow sat across his desk from the mare who had helped to rob him of everything.
As she oddly sat on a wobbly stack of his books.
"Please state your full name," Bon Bon intoned dully as she peered down at the odd, boxy device she'd pulled from her saddlebag: the device itself giving an odd click and emitting a subtle glow at the sound of her voice. A simple notepad, a rubbery black band and an innocuous pencil sat aside it. Her saddlebag removed: sitting somewhere behind the swaying stacks of his books.
He'd crinkled his nose when she'd first dropped the foreign object onto his cleared table, and the ill feeling in the back of his throat only grew as Bon Bon then forcibly attached three suction cups to his chest without asking. His privacy was in shambles.
One over his heart, one in the center of his chest, and the last laid on the lower part of his stomach. He had no idea why, but he had about as much ability to object as she held an overwhelming ability to do whatever she wanted. Feeling powerless sucked; he wished he really was as blasé about the law as he so often claimed, so he could just sock her.
The little rubber cups on his body were attached by short wires leading into the machine's stocky grey back: a plain contrast to its open, glass-covered front protecting a labyrinthian mess of glowing gems and interconnected metal wires. No discernable structure to its inner structures; though it sort of looked like a metal bread box, he was assuming it was a bit more complex than that.
The many pear-shaped gems within were set into small, perfectly molded divots in the metal casing: the gems themselves wrapped around their geometric edges with silvery metal wires, and tangibly glowing with some sort of ambient magical effect.
He didn't hold the most confidence about its purpose. Aside the general sense of professionalism pervading the mare's every action in setting it up, he was bit afraid to ask...
He warily eyed the mare, who seemed too concerned with her fancy tech to look at him. "You know my name," he retorted: outwardly puzzled and inwardly trying to gauge what his response would do to the machine.
Nothing immediately evident from where he was sitting, but it did react to him. If the intermittent, colorful flashes of the numerous gems inside the machine were at all decipherable, then they weren't to him.
Bon Bon tapped her cuff-bound hoof, which she had similarly attached two cups to, against the machine's glass exterior: her brow furrowing as an odd, pitched warbling rose from it. "It's procedure. Please state your full name in a clear and concise voice."
His attempt at drawing anything critical from the situation momentarily thwarted: Light leerily eyed the machine he was connected to for a moment before sighing, and speaking in a reserved drone. "My name is Light Flow. I... don't know my family name... if I even have one."
A long standing point of boredom on his part. Some families- like the Apples- were important enough to have some real heft to their family name, but nopony in his family had ever done anything meaningful except die, and even that was a grand mediocrity. If there was an addendum to Light Flow, then he had no interest in seeking it out.
The mare nodded: her eye flicking sporadically around as the array of gems inside the machine flashed and lit randomly. "That's fine. Now, I need you to verify your mental competency, so please state your age, your area of residency, and your current career status."
He sucked in a short breath, then let it out slowly as he slumped back into his chair. Ouch. She was really going right for the jugular, wasn't she? Was asking personal questions really necessary for determining if he was a traitor to the state? He'd been expecting more off the bat intrigue and accusations.
Though he really wasn't sure if this was any kind of 'procedure' or if she just wanted him to say he was a jobless bum, Light spoke; though, he couldn't quite keep his lip from curling. "I'm eighteen years old, I live in... I suppose I live near Ponyville, and I'm... unemployed."
He stared down at the table for the moment, silently regretting most of his life that had brought him here as the machine they were both connected to emanated a soft hum: bright lights flickering across the otherwise orange-lit table.
More green than anything. Some yellow, and one blinking blue; that could've been sporadic, though... Urgh. What in the vast hells was it saying to her? Was green as good as grass or bad like celery? Was blue a good sign, or just the calm before the murky storm?
A sharp rap on the table brought his attention back up, to Bon Bon's watching eye that quickly fell to her machine. "That's good. Now I need you to definitively state for the record that you, Light Flow, are of completely sound mind and body," The mare's gaze firmed onto the machine as something within gave a soft click. "-that you are free of any kind of extant corrupting influence, and that your following testimony is being given under no coercion beyond that of the lawful Holy Crown of Equestria."
....What?
Light's jaw flapped loosely on cut strings as he stared, fish-eyed and dumbstruck, at the nonplussed government agent who- along with possessing nonchalance enough to watch the machine rather than him- had just blatantly admitted to unlawfully coercing him.
That was why she'd shoed-in that garbage about 'the holy crown-' because besides whatever special privilege she'd received from their grand, all-powerful government, this was unlawful. Cruel and unusual treatment at the least, not to mention that she'd hooked him up to a strange machine with no explanation or assurance that it wasn't going to kill him!
He was- honestly, he was speechless. He'd always sort of harbored his cute little grudges against the crown because it seemed like the rebellious thing to do and he'd thought anarchy in the streets would be fascinating to watch, but now- and with everything that had happened- he could say with the utmost certainty that he'd been wronged. He was angry.
And he felt violated.
Bon Bon's eye flicked up to him: apathetic and critical for as long as she cared to stare at him. "Please try to stay calm, your accelerated heartrate may skew the results." Her eye returned to the machine as she tapped its side and it hummed at her. "We'll have to start over if I don't receive accurate transcriptions."
Oh... She didn't say..?
That was fine, he'd stay calm. It was perfectly within his ability to keep his heartrate on the level, and to keep his rage smoldering. He'd had practice; he knew how to contain himself.
The machine was taking some sort of transcription of the conversation, according to the mare. It was taking his heartrate, too. Measuring his emotional state; likely gauging his sincerity on any number of phenomena. She wanted accurate readings- well, he could give her plenty. Keep it level. Keep it measured.
He could feign apathy. He could do better- he could feel it for her. If she needed him to act like this situation wasn't distressing, then he could very well embrace the depths of chilling umbrage he felt, instead. She was making it easy for him.
Whatever she wanted.
His jaw was firmly set- no matter how much he wanted to snap obscenities. His gaze was darkly shaded- no matter how much he wanted to unleash wrath upon her. He sat straight up: his back rigid like an arrow.
His voice was even, slow, and temperate. Unwavering. "I, Light Flow, do hereby swear with the utmost sincerity and the most heartfelt meaning, that I am fully, and completely lucid."
No matter how he wanted to scream, he would remain calm, and negotiable. He would play along with her interrogation. He would field her questions, tell her exactly what she wanted to know, and let her cart him right off to whatever hellish pit of Tartarus they'd reserved for him. He wouldn't struggle. He wouldn't run.
Light Flow laid his hooves gently onto the table to press his weight slightly forward: keeping his smoldering glower firmly on the mare opposite him. Memorizing every detail of her busied expression, and imagining what it would suddenly twist into if he were to plunge a dagger into her bleeding heart.
It was only confinement if he kept idle.
His oath to one day see the government burn must not have shown up on the machine, because the mare only seemed ambivalent to whatever results it flashed to her. Frowning- but not in any way that said she was fearing for her life.
"That's not quite explicit, but I suppose it's decent enough," Bon Bon affirmed noncommittally: turning her attention to the notepad aside the machine. The machine that wasn't outright reading his mind- that was good to know.
She leaned down to take the black band in her teeth, then let it rise over her totally unadorned hoof. It fell with a snap onto her recently wounded flesh, then the mare similarly took the pencil and guided it firmly into an invisible loop in the rubber.
A writing tool for non-magical creatures and for ponies who were too refined to write with their teeth. Nothing interesting, but it helped cement his impression of the mare who'd likely come from Canterlot or somesuch place. Prissy.
The wave of intense hatred he felt was more difficult to weather in that moment, and by the time he seethed out a controlled breath and raised his head from where he'd been glaring at the floor, the mare had already jotted some kind of note down.
She scanned over her work, before returning to the beeping, glowing machine. "Let's move on, and I'd like to remind you that your compliance may be rewarded in this investigation, so long as you present a wholly truthful testimony."
Her eye flicked up to him, and he met it with a glare. "If you do lie, then I'll know. Do you understand?"
He didn't bother giving her an answer. It wasn't really a question.
With his tepid silence, Bon Bon moved on, anyway. "I'll go ahead and skip the pretenses of determining your collusion, if that's alright with you," The government mare murmured flatly: alternating between scrutinizing the page and the machine before her. "Please tell me about your first contact with Nightmare Moon, in as much detail as possible."
He'd... expected a different question, but alright.
Though he remained cogent enough in the moments after to count the first minute passing by, it was difficult to really tell exactly how long it took him to think of an answer. Two or ten or twenty minutes: he was too concerned with sifting through the faded memories of black silhouettes and dark, terrified nightmares to really pay too much attention to reality.
He... sort of had a general idea of when they'd first met? They'd first spoken in his dreams, he knew, but... there was something before then...
Light hemmed with his hoof on his chin and his eyes firmly on the table before him, trying to guess through the dancing candle glow whether the leaping shadows were growing eyes or forming sharp, liquid tentacles.
Had it really been back then? Had that truly been Her doing?
At least Bon Bon- was sugar a good ironic nickname for her?- didn't interrupt his thinking. She was normally uniformly harsh and disagreeable towards him, but for her credit as his interrogator, she really was letting him think about his answer.
She only sat, and stared, and scrutinized. Narrow cerulean eyes reflecting the glow of the candle intermittently broken by the colorful flashes of her machine, and that ever-present stoic frown.
Mirroring his.
"I... think the first time I came into contact with... Her was..." He chewed on his lip for a moment: lowering his hoof from his chin to tap restlessly on the table. After another moment, he nodded. "-I think it was when I was ten, just before I got my cutie mark."
The mare's intense stare did not waver, even as the machine's interface went wild. "Describe the encounter."
He blinked bemusedly: his frown rising into a disgruntled pout as he wondered why, exactly, he was being punished for his sins. Hadn't he redeemed his lifetime of being snarky and socially difficult by saving the land from lifetimes of tyranny? He'd literally sacrificed his life for the greater good- didn't that waive the question of his loyalties? Even a little?
Though he felt very much like he should've been given some sort of special treatment for his heroic sacrifice, Light begrudgingly set his jaw. "...I was standing on a hill overlooking the Everfree forest," he intoned blandly: feeling the rising sickness of the memory beneath every monotone syllable. "I was about to enter the forest on a stupid dare when I..."
He faltered for a moment, gaping for the next embarrassing word before he closed it with a sigh, and quietly began to mutter: his eyes sullenly on the table. "...I started hallucinating that the- the shadows were attacking me."
He averted his gaze from even the judging table: his splayed ears burning with the memory of describing the experience to Applejack and getting a very strange look in return... that lasted the duration of their encounters for the next few weeks. His best friend had never been- call it receptive to his enjoyment of the macabre, or his infrequent encounters.
Light murmured discontentedly as he reluctantly returned his gaze to the mare with a prominently raised eyebrow- whoa. Deja vu. For a split second, he'd been reminded of both of the other two mares who would frequently raise their one eyebrow like that. Was it a trend? Were all mares skeptically disappointed when faced with absent-mindedness and embarrassment?
Talk about overbearing.
He shook off the memories of disappointed emerald and cyan gazes, and resolved himself to ignore the timid past and focus on speaking. "The experience ended pretty fast, and She didn't speak to me at the time, but I think what I saw might've been Her doing."
In the moment between his answer and her diligently writing it down, he busied himself with trying to decipher the varied flashes coming from the mare's mystical machine, to... basically no avail.
He counted the number of gems first- twenty-seven- then identified which gems would blink which colors; that, at least, seemed to remain consistent. Otherwise, though, they didn't present any sort of uniform pattern. Nothing flashed twice, or concurrently, and when something did blink rapidly, it was totally incongruous with any pattern of flashing he'd noted before.
There were just too many factors working against him, not the least of which being himself. If he believed what Bon Bon said, then the machine must've been monitoring his responses and his emotional state. That meant any sort of fluctuation in his mindset would skew the results and ultimately prevent him from working out what was being conveyed.
Objective observation was frustrating.
Bon Bon- Bitter Chocolate?- didn't seem to share his difficulties, damn her. It didn't take her long to transcribe the machine's output to paper- if that was what she was doing- and by the time he gave up analyzing it himself, she'd already turned her apathetic attention to him.
"You're obviously unsure." she stated, to which he bristled slightly. His glaring objection aside: Bon Bon continued to speak at him. "Had you experienced any other periods of notably strange activity before or after then? Is there any memorable point in time that things began to feel odd on a daily basis?"
She tapped her pencil to her paper. "I need to know exactly how far back your contact goes- or at least an approximation of when it began."
Light leaned back on the tail end of her incessant nagging, to just... process what she was asking of him, which happened to be a whole lot in comparison to the relatively relaxed last few hours. They'd not even stopped for a break since he'd woken up- unless they were counting standing on a hill and getting depressed.
Didn't she understand that he'd recently had amnesia, been forced to fight for his life against a Goddess, then failed and died?! The day-to-day minutia of his life over the past eight years hadn't really come up anytime before or during the time in which he'd been a corpse!
"Your heartrate is rising, please try to-"
"I'm trying to remain calm!" he jerked forward and snapped at the unsympathetic mare he'd cut off, who, again, only passively raised her big dumb eyebrow at his outburst. He blew out an aggravated breath as he kicked his legs forward and sank back into his chair. "I'm... trying to remember, alright? Just... just give me a minute," he muttered, hugging his hooves close around his barrel.
He'd missed his chair, and all his fond memories of it. All those late nights spent reading and procrastinating anything meaningful... Delving through tomes of whimsy and relatively archaic knowledge alike... He'd always had such a passion for whittling his time away with the benign and the ultimately useless. Just like his chair.
Hard and uncomfortable, but solid enough to not strike the fear of falling into his usually sleepy mind. It was a bit unconventional, as ponies didn't usually care much for chairs designed for leaning- but what did Light care about the conventional?
He'd long since become accustomed to leaning back and letting the backs of his hocks touch wood, and he sort of actually enjoyed the numb feeling he got in his legs after a while. With this chair, he didn't have to worry about leaning to the side and falling out, or leaning back and tumbling head-over-tail to the floor.
It was painful enough in any position to keep him sharp and antsy, but it was very dependable for that. It was consistently uncomfortable- and that was something that meant a lot to him.
He'd used to have a big problem with falling off chairs: that was why he'd had to get rid of his old, backless stool. It wasn't as though he was inept or anything, it was just... he'd been very unwell for great swathes of his life; so much so and at such varied points that he really wasn't sure if he could ascribe it all to Nightmare Moon. Even less so that particular terror.
The day he'd gotten his cutie mark. The day he'd felt fear.
The boundless terror rising in his chest as the shadows had crept from their dimensionless pools up from the ground: snuffed in a gradual second as he was left to feel nothing while the inky tentacles sliced through his flesh. His skin ripped away and consumed by the dark: his organs yanked from their places moments after- and he felt nothing.
His body left a standing husk... The shadows crawling up his skin... His teeth yanked from his gums and his tongue slashed and torn from his jaw as his mouth filled and overflowed with a sickening river of choking ink.
He didn't remember his nightmares anymore, but he'd never forget the nights he'd woken up still tasting it.
...He'd hallucinated last night, too. Not very long after he'd woken up, Nightmare Moon had- it hurt to remember, especially with all that had happened after... but She'd made him see Her cut a hole in Her own chest... That bloody little heart...
For no reason. She'd done it just to... prove Her dominance... To make him feel weak...
He'd tried so hard to see past everything She'd done to him in Her madness, and for what? What had he achieved in his forgiveness besides... making a smear? Leaving Her to Her fate?
His hoof came to rest upon his forehead, and he didn't realize how hot his head had become until it was being soothed by his cold hoof, and his eyes were fluttering; pinching with painful tightness that spoke of a long-suffering weariness. He was more tired than he'd realized... When had he last slept..?
...Yes, Nightmare Moon had made him hallucinate, but no, he didn't think that had been Her doing. Her hallucination had made him feel like there were worms under his skin, while the one he'd had as a foal had completely lacked any sensation while things actually tunneled into his warm, bleeding flesh. That was a big enough difference that he wasn't comfortable smudging the details.
Maybe his hallucination back then, coming just before one of the biggest events of his life, had really just owed to his own, twisted mind. It was what he'd assumed for most of his life, after all.
Maybe for now he'd just return to that assumption, and hopefully leave the memory in the past, where it belonged.
When next had he felt unlike himself, outside of his dreams? He knew for a fact She'd begun coming to him while he was sleeping pretty soon after his cutie marking, but...
Did he really have to tell Bon Bon that? Not for nothing: what he could remember of his dreams had been just as unimportant as they were uncomfortably intimate. He didn't really want to have it on file anywhere that he'd repeatedly made cozy with a foalhood monster as She taught him how to use etiquette as a weapon.
If he just bent the truth a little... say something that wasn't technically a lie...
He might just be able to feed Bon Bon a little false information.
He eyed the machine carefully: sorting through the best way to approach the lie. If its readings were based on heartrate alone, then he knew he'd be okay: Nightmare Moon had taught him how to lie. All he had to do was think as little as possible about what he was saying- or focus on something else.
He had problems with thinking too hard, but he didn't think it'd be too hard to distract himself. With what he was about to say, he'd be lucky to even remember he was trying to tell a lie. Or to breathe.
Here went nothing. "I think... um, I think the only other time... before it became- well, obvious, was..." Yep, it was already just as hard as he'd thought it was going to be. Could he get a single sentence out without tripping over it?
He leaned forward, using the table to steady himself as the words bunched in his throat- stupid, uncooperative tongue. He swallowed heavily and shut his eyes: forcing himself to speak in a nervous rush to get it all out at once. "-was when my mom- um- died. That was around the time She might've... spoken to me."
He slumped back into his chair: holding himself firmly as he took deep, calming breaths. Well- he was trying to make them calming, but then he'd gone and admitted the thing, so breathing techniques only helped his uncontrollable anxiety so much.
He hated thinking about it. He didn't want to think about it, just- no more thinking about it. Focus on Bon Bon- Candy Flank? No, too close to Fluttershy's- and on the way she was writing. Focus on the machine, and the way it was blinking. Was there anything erroneous? He'd technically told a lie, but it was truthful in that it was his first conscious meeting with Nightmare Moon. That might've been a close enough technicality to fool whatever method it was using.
Watch the patterns. Green. Green. Yellow. Blue. Yellow. Blue. Green. Yellow. Blue. Blue. Green. Yellow. Yellowbluegreen- he blinked, and there went his concentration.
He needed to work on his observational method; he was really failing to internalize any workable hypothesis. Maybe understanding the output was based on her connection to the machine? She did have two cups linked up to her hoof, so maybe she was influencing it with her mana or something.
The mare cleared her throat, and he was brought back to attention and a critical cerulean stare. "If that was the first time you heard Her voice, then what did She say to you?" She rested her knee on the table and cocked her pencil-bound hoof towards him: her attentive gaze making his stomach twist. "Was it an incitation? Did She tell you anything shocking or seditious at that time?"
Her hoof flipped and fell; she tapped the edge of her heel against the table impatiently. "I need to know if your collusion began on a basis of treachery to the Crown, and whether you ever acted on Her behalf."
It was a very concerted effort to not flinch. He hoped she didn't notice how his jaw clenched onto his tongue- he knew he would've.
It was almost like she knew what happened that day. Well, maybe she did know- he didn't know how long she'd been watching him- and maybe this was a targeted attack against his psyche. Her smarmy, apathetic, dull cerulean eyed way of winking and whispering in his ear that she knew about his special talent.
...She did know about his special talent, though, and he knew that. She was his government-appointed stalker; she probably knew everything about him. He didn't know why the thought of just... saying that Nightmare Moon had asked him to steal a soul was so... frightening.
It wasn't as though he'd done it, and she must've known that. His heartrate shouldn't have been raising, because he wasn't guilty. His breathing shouldn't have been quickening, because the truth was so benign. He shouldn't have felt so sick at the prospect of just coming out and saying he'd nearly taken a soul!
He wouldn't be. He'd- he'd say it! He'd just go ahead and say it. Right then and then. There. There and then.
A slick and subtle dryness in the air met his tongue as his mouth opened- like fire burning him because he'd spilled his secret- and he was forced to close his mouth and swallow. He tried to wet his tongue again- tasting vibrant red like the curtains of a stage show- and he blinked the memory away. It was fine. He wasn't... sitting at that cafe. That pony had long since moved on, soul and all. He hadn't stolen it. He hadn't. He hadn't.
He just had to say it. Close his eyes if it helped. Take a deep breath: luxuriate in the familiar dusty scent of his home. Keep himself in the moment. He was safe. Everything was okay.
Say it. Say it. Calm, and peaceable. Clear and concise. The bare minimum, then just shut up.
"At the time... Nightmare Moon had asked me to take a pony's soul."
In a breath, and out. In, and out. All at once, and he was over the hill.
Peace. Focus within. Find his peace. Remember the flame. Forget the outside. Warmth within. As within; so without.
Light was okay.
But something was wrong.
Light's eyes fluttered listlessly open: the cream-colored, blurry caricature of the diligently recording mare meeting him. Feeling disconcerted, he tried to blink the smear out of his vision, and in the second that he was blind, he could feel it so clearly.
The warmth was wrong. It was... less.
And he couldn't figure out why.
"Is that all?" The mare's voice was a dreary pull back to the physical: away from the inner peace wrapped around the inherent wrong, and back to Bon Bon's droll degree and her glare down at her paper. He almost felt displaced, sitting stilly in his chair and holding his hooves to his erratically rising chest. Staring widely back at the frowning mare with a leering mistrust in her eyes. "There wasn't anything else She said to you? That entails your entire first contact with Her?"
She sounded disbelieving, but- just shut up for a moment... couldn't she see there was something wrong with his souls?
He was only silent for a moment: a moment spent trying to cast his mind across the rapids to find the wrong- discrepant- error- but it was a single moment too long. There was no time to probe his internals. There was no time to sit and meditate; the mare sitting across from him apparently just didn't have any patience. He watched through unfocused eyes- in between the warmth that felt so much less than his memory- as the interest in her gaze faded and died.
Like a ten-year old who hadn't yet learned that patience was a virtue, Bon Bon sighed, and resignedly flipped her notepad to a new page. "Let's move on. I'm more than certain you're telling the truth of your encounter, and I've got more important questions to ask."
He was sure he mumbled a complaint through the fact that he was trying to focus... what was wrong inside? If Bon Bon heard it, then she ignored it. Also rather like a child. Or, more plainly, like a jerk. He knew she was that, at least.
He was forced to focus back onto her face as their eyes met: hers thoroughly scrutinizing every detail of his while he just stared blankly. Her voice coming as a shock to his constantly fuzzing ears as he tried- he was trying so hard to remember what it was supposed to feel like, but...
"From then on, what did your contact with Nightmare Moon entail before the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration?" He tried to shake off the discontent that he now knew there was something wrong, as Bon Bon put a hoof to her machine and frowned at it. "I'd like to go over your recent actions as well, but there are a few special points of inquiry I'll need clearing up, first."
His eyes fluttered- the cold behind his lids- and he blew out a short gasp. "Like- like what?" he murmured on autopilot- there was something so much more important- keeping his eyes low on the table and trying to imagine that the machine's flashing lights could take him there- but he still couldn't see what was wrong.
The mare's hum- the rivers rushing- the shuffling of pages being flipped then let go- the off rhythm beating of his four hearts. "For instance... were you ever told of any explicitly classified information pertaining to Her Highness or the Crown's institutions? Anything potentially harmful to the public's safety?"
The chair under him- the world within- Light's breathing ramped: his lungs feeling heavy in his chest. "I- I don't know... can... can you give me an example?"
His mumble was met with a dull stare- it was easier to focus on. "No," she stated, very simply. A neat little bow.
Bon Bon tapped her pencil against her paper again- and he could feel the warmth slipping away. "I believe if you were ever told anything explicit, then you would find it immediately obvious." Her hoof, bound by metal, rose to steady itself on the side of the machine as she peered into it. "Tell me now if you're either unable or unwilling to answer."
Her eye flicked up to his, and the promise within was very explicit. "No matter what you say, I'll know if you're hiding something."
Light blinked, and there was no warmth behind his eyes. His every attempt at casting his mind within to figure out what was so very wrong bore only rotten fruit, courtesy of the mare constantly spraying his searching eyes with a very bitter medicine.
He had no choice but to welcome the weight of the air back onto his back, and to let the lull of his inner peace wash away. He had to forget it. He had to leave it for later.
But now that he knew, he felt it. With every short breath, there was something lacking. Every second spent staring was marred by a blurry little stain at the corner of his eye. Leaning back into his chair and feeling the wood scrape against his fur only made something shift inside him.
Nothing they were talking about was important. Not as much as the feeling of taint.
His gaze felt shallow and unfocused as he returned it to the mare berating him with a vengeance, for whatever reason. For the short time they'd been together, she'd only yelled and done mean things to him. Was the clandestine government so secretive that they would go to such lengths as very rude badgering? Apparently so, and he would not be inviting Bon Bon back anytime soon. What a horrible houseguest she was. What a... What a big...
...What a big brownnose.
-Oh!
He blinked lethargically, and sighed. "...No, Brownnose, I was never told anything about the inner workings of the government." He coughed out a humorless chuckle, and tried a tired smile as he crossed his hooves amiably over the table. "She slandered Princess Celestia a fair amount while I was with Her. Does that count?"
Bon Bon- Brownnose- immediately reacted at her new nickname, but for her credit as a professional, she only wore a confused squint for as long as it took her to scrutinize the machine's output and write something into her notepad. Then, and only then did she turn irritated eyes back to his.
"What did you call me?" she retorted, to which he allowed himself a glorious little smile. Ah, how sweet the taste of a new nickname.
"I would've thought my propensity for derisive nicknames would've been in that file you've probably got on me," he taunted with growing smugness, and it nearly made up for the oddity in his chest to see her face scrunch up in objection as he grinned. "You don't like it?"
First came anger, then an internal upset about his jab, then...
"...Whether or not I have a file on you, I would advise you not to call me that."
...denial. So predictable.
Light leaned back into his chair: feeling overwhelmingly pleased by the rediscovery of his constant traveling companion of annoyance. "Sure, whatever you say, miss agent. I obey your command." He flicked his hoof forward to point at her. "You're probably gonna wanna wash that stain off your face, by the way."
Her eyes immediately crossed- he got her! Ha! He snickered into the crook of his hoof as a look of realization dawned over her still expression- faster than he would've thought- and the mare's face instantly twisted into a pocked crater of stoicism. All at once- the death of expression.
It was still pretty funny.
"I would like very much to resort to less civilized methods of interrogation, now." The mare placed her hooves onto the table and leaned forward in one slow, smooth motion; not until her chest was well over the machine and her hardened eyes were fully lit from the flame of the candle did she speak again. A low, short tone. "So I think it is pertinent to once again remind you that I have been expressly told to avoid harming you in any way."
Her jaw clenched- and his breeziness swept away in a moment of sweeping enormity as that intense stare pierced through him, and he could so clearly see the flaming debris of his toppled home reflected in those cerulean depths. An unspoken promise in the glint of her eye that they'd never find his body.
"You, are, lucky."
The mare leaned away, and the feeling of sudden danger that'd gripped his heart fled like a free bird generously let loose from its cage. He was no longer smiling, and for his own sake, he straightened his relaxed posture.
Just because he'd seen worse didn't mean Bon Bon wasn't dangerous. Once again: he was angry, not stupid.
Light sat in silence for a moment of contemplation on past lessons of never making mares angry, as the mare he'd angered flipped a note on her pad. "Let's continue," she stated blithely without looking up, and because he really did have an incredible grasp on social niceties, Light nodded back.
Never upset your tailor. Never upset the testy government agent in charge of your interrogation. Golden rules of life.
Bon Bon cleared her throat, brought her hooves together onto the table, then fixed him with a piercing stare- though not nearly as dangerous, thankfully. "Now... I'm relatively certain you weren't made aware of anything beyond your station, so let's focus on something more relevant."
Her head dipped; she stared at him up through her bob of purple-and-pink mane. "I'd like to determine the depth of your wrongdoing, and whether you're guilty of any additional crimes beyond seditious conspiracy- of which I am certain you are guilty."
Light's lip curled, simply at the sheer sound of those negative words. "Can't... aren't you more curious about the things that happened last night?" he protested, pressing his hooves onto the table as he leaned into it. He tried to express his total lack of guile through his wide, pleading eyes. "I haven't committed any crimes, alright? She never asked me to do anything like that!"
Beep.
Two sets of eyes flicked to the machine as the gems within its display simultaneously lit in a fantastic array of bright yellows and a very concerning core of moody orange. Clicks and a whir; a single, noticeably louder beep.
Something felt very very stuck in his throat. He didn't have to read a manual to identify a warning.
Light eased himself back into his chair gently, staring stock-still at the flashing lights of the machine: all of which dimmed in an instant as a creamy-brown hoof depressed a subtle button on its side. That was interesting; he'd not even noticed it until then.
But it was very difficult to similarly ignore the way Bon Bon stared at him. Hooded eyes without a single word on her lips: the hard edge of wariness cut by a razor-sharp thread of knowing accusation.
He'd lied. Without even realizing it, he'd lied to her.
His shocked state of staring was broken as he blinked listlessly, and he lowered his gaze to the edge of the table as he chewed on his lip. "...I didn't..." he tried, then fell silent. He tried again: feeling the nausea simmering in his throat against his quiet words. "I didn't... mean to... admit that..."
The machine's output reduced to a subtle clicking in the background as it resumed its flashing; the mare's silent, judging vigil on his mistake was finally broken as her hoof moved minutely to scratch a note onto a crinkled page.
"...How comforting," she murmured tonelessly: her reduced gaze's flicking about the page coming to a stop as she finished her note; then, it returned to him. Not a glower, but glowing with a dread knowing. "Why don't you tell me about it?"
In the dim light from the candle, he could almost swear the bags under her eyes were growing darker.
He'd expected her to be more gloating in his admission. Didn't she find her victory sweet? She'd caught him in his very deep grave, with something nopony ever wanted come to light, come to light. For all intents, he'd just confessed.
The urge to slump back into his chair, cover his tired eyes with a hoof and fall into a selfish fit of sobbing was nearly overpowering in that anxious moment of self-pity. The siren song of misery- so familiar to him- was just as intoxicating as it always was. Oh, woe was Light Flow.
Except... there was an very nearly equally vocal part of himself that... knew there was more.
He could give up, admit to the fact that he'd technically murdered somepony, and allow Bon Bon her citation and paycheck as he was carted off to jail. Resign himself to his cold, concrete fate, knowing that justice had been done to the deserving party either way, and just forget all about the wonderful things he'd dreamt of in his future. He could do that.
...But it wasn't his fault.
That was the sole thought brimming in Light's overtired mind as he bit his lip, and stood up straighter in his chair. The solitary back forgotten for his posture; his hooves flat on the table. His gaze never left hers: his expression within a growing, needy objection.
He could see, as he was watching her so closely, that she was growing more tense, too. In every still muscle of her body was it obvious she was waiting, even as she idly tapped her pencil to paper. Dot on inky dot onto the sheet: Bon Bon's eye never left his.
Light sat across his desk from the mare with a firm grip on his future, whatever it may be; the heavy weight of his confession sitting as a constant reminder in the stagnant air. Neither of them wanted to know what came next, and neither knew the other was thinking the exact same thing.
It wasn't his fault.
He didn't want to let go of his future.
"It was the day you and I met," Light started at once, and at his sudden declaration a flash of confusion crossed over the mare's face- snuffed as quickly as it'd come by a realization.
A very clear recognition as she remembered the meeting he'd meant, and all at once did the mare seem so much more intent. No noticeable shift in her body, even as Light couldn't stop his traitorous hooves from shaking in nervousness, but it was clear in their unbroken gaze. She had an idea, now.
What must she have been thinking? Surely she must have known what had happened that day?
What if she didn't? What if he was about to truly reveal one of his deepest secrets?
Light shook off the moment of heady nausea that washed over him at the thought, to instead stare down at the machine. "I went into the Everfree forest that day to meet Zecora after I overheard you at that table- and I know that was what you wanted." He found it was easier to speak his mind while staring at the flashing lights of the device; it gave him the courage to add a little bitter note to his tone.
It let him wear the emotion as he raised his gaze. "The things I went through..." He screwed his eyes shut tight: seething in tightly held anger as the phantom pain of poison hit his tongue again. "The pain I suffered..."
The memory passed in a moment, and he set his suddenly fierce gaze back to Bon Bon with a restrained snarl. "What happened that day was Nightmare Moon's fault, but I will never forget that it was you that lead me there," he hissed: leaning low over the table as he tried, in every hatefully spat word, to convey the growing fury he felt.
"It all happened because of you."
He was hoping for a flinch. A dramatic denial; perhaps a flash of agony over her face as his words hit her with the unexpected weight of hard truth. But there was nothing. No noticeable reaction. Nothing, besides her unwavering stare.
No regret, nor shame in her voice as she spoke. "Please, refrain from mentioning me in your testimony," she uttered monotonously. "It needs to be objective as possible, and it complicates the events if I'm apart of them." Her dull cerulean eyes with nothing behind them.
It was too much. In a single moment, it was too much.
Light's hooves slammed into the table as he pushed himself up: his voice tearing in a furious shout. "You don't even care, do you?!" he yelled: the sound reverberating harshly through his tiny cabin. He didn't let the pain in his ears reduce his anger, even as the mare tensed: obviously ready to react if he turned violent. "That was the day that everything started going wrong in my life- and it was because of you!"
Smacking his hoof into the table again didn't help the heat in his chest, and Bon Bon- stupid, calamitous Bon Bon- only steadied herself with a hoof on the shaking table. One hoof steadying herself, and the other on the rim of the wobbling candle base. Like she'd care if his house burned down.
He'd given so little thought to it before- seething hot rage caught between his teeth as he heaved flushed breath- but it had been Bon Bon's fault, hadn't it?! If she hadn't led him to the Everfree in the most obvious ploy of all time, then he wouldn't have been poisoned! Nightmare Moon wouldn't have spent the next two years wreaking havoc on his mind!
Zecora wouldn't have died.
The corners of his vision were fuzzing over with red, and all he could hear was the machine's beeping output from the stupid cables on his chest! His eye flicked down to them- don't go overboard- then back to the mare: baring his teeth at her stupid expression of waiting anticipation. Did she really think he would attack her?!
It was just like how Zecora had looked at him.
He wanted that expression to break. He wanted her to break. He wanted to break her, and to see the apathy fade from her eyes as they filled with despair. He wanted to see her fallen at his hooves. He wanted to see her left with nothing.
Why couldn't he just snap her neck, too?
But he knew that wasn't an option.
He'd never be able to overpower her.
Light took a deep breath- hot like coals on his tongue- and eased himself back to sitting. Even though every part of his body felt like pinching nervous energy like he was on fire- he knew very well how to ride that energy. He knew how to use the anger- to keep it simmering, and to keep his hooves steady on the table as he rested back on his haunches.
The deep depths of his newfound hatred, on top of the bedrock foundation of antipathy he'd already had, was more than enough to fuel his new, hopefully permanent glower towards her. He could barely remember why he'd restrained himself from scowling at Bon Bon all the time- she certainly made it easy by daring to look at him like he was the monster. Like he was the dangerous one.
She was capable of doing so much more. She'd done so much worse. She disgusted him.
"Do you want to know what happened out there? What happened when I met Zecora? The fruits of your lying labors?" he hissed fitfully at the mare who still, even as he sat trembling with rage in front of her, couldn't muster an outward ounce of shame. It made him furious. Even Nightmare Moon, in the depths of Her insanity, could still recognize that She was guilty. How could somepony mortal be so egotistical?
The grinding of his teeth sparked faded worry that he'd chip a tooth- but it was worth it for the rage. The tight-wound tension in his bunched muscles was beginning to hurt- oh how he wanted to rip forward and tear her apart. Not even the wisps of deep, royal purple at the corners of his vision worried him. All he wanted then was to make her regret what she'd done.
And when Light jabbed his hoof forward, he felt the crushing weight of his words on its back. A weight that broke through the apathetic mare's defenses, and finally, finally broke that dull stare.
"The day I met Zecora- the day that I met you was the first time Nightmare Moon stole my body. The first time She trapped me in my own mind," he slowly spelled out, syllable by syllable, and in that single, sweet moment did gleam the smallest hint of worry in that cerulean eyed stare.
And with the sentence after, it grew, and shattered, and washed over her.
"She forced me to watch as She used my own hooves to snap Zecora's neck."
And then, Bon Bon grew very still.
As he relaxed into his chair with his smoldering stare taking in every detail of her face, it was a frozen expression of disbelief he scrutinized. Wide eyes, with a deep shock reflected in the slowly shrinking black. A rictus jaw half-open, as if to somehow object. The wrinkles and the dark shadows on her cheeks becoming so much more pronounced.
A hint of regretful blue through the muddy brown, and there was a sadness in its depths.
He let a spiteful smile come to his face: the boundless heat of his anger welling in his cheeks as he slid his hooves across the table until they met the back of the machine.
"What's wrong, Brownnose? Nothing to say for yourself?" he taunted as his hooves crept up onto the cold metal sides of the box: feeling his delighted expression creep perhaps too far into the realm of manic.
Whether it was or wasn't his most insane expresiion, he wore the emotion with welcoming vigor as he bent low over the machine's flashing display: his twitching stare at the mare remaining unbroken. "Shouldn't you make sure I'm telling the truth? What if I'm just lying to you? Doesn't that seem like something a criminal like me would do?"
He could tell by the way her pupils slowly expanded through the contracting blue that her attention was returning to reality, and even more so when they moved minutely to watch the machine. Her pencil sat uselessly in her hoofstrap as the flashing lights shone over her vacant stare- and Light could feel his smile grow ever wider as he, too, let his eyes fall. "Why don't we see what it's saying, hm? Maybe you'll get lucky," he whispered delightedly.
"Blue. Blue. Yellow. Green. Blue. Green- oh, no orange that I see," he recited gleefully as they both watched the innards of the magical machine, though Bon Bon, for whatever reason, stayed so quiet. Didn't she have anything to say?
Nothing. Not even as he laid his hoof down over the machine's glass cover: leaning into it and obscuring its face as he smiled toothily at her. "Are you seeing anything that I'm not, here? I think everything looks well in order."
It was as he spoke that her expression began to slowly morph. Gently at first, then all at once like a falling curtain did a quiet intensity replace the shock. Her eyes, though still wide, were wide with a quiet sense of ferocity that didn't show anywhere else in her body language: underscored by her hard, furrowed brow. Now, she was glaring as well.
"...Did you let Her?"
The question nearly didn't register- what with how wild the pounding drums were in his ears- so his first, stupid response was, of course, to make further fun!
He turned his head, perked his ear, and brought a hoof to it as he leaned all of his weight onto the machine's glass exterior. "I'm- I'm sorry, could you say that again? I didn't quite catch it through all the blood on your hooves?"
That was the wrong thing to say, he realized in the proceeding moments. Maybe, if he hadn't been drunk on the intoxicating warmth of manic rage and spiteful snark, he would've seen how she was expressing her rage- because she was angry, too.
It wasn't as pronounced or as borderline insane as his was, but it was there. Stewing behind the tight lines of her heady glare that fell so low as to almost seem comical; he didn't pay any notice at all to how her muscles began to twitch at his mocking. He didn't see how the anger in her eyes grew to mirror the mania in his, yet so much quieter.
He didn't see how she covertly slipped off her band, and popped the wires off her hoof.
He didn't see a single sign, until the exact moment after her eye rose to his.
"I asked if you let Her!"
But he did hear her scream, just as much as he heard the scraping of his table, the thunking sounds of his books rescattering over the floor, and much more than any of that did he feel the weight crash into him.
Something knocked into his head as he was thrown backwards by something catching him around the stomach- and then everything blurred as his head received another, much more painful knock from the floor. There was a muted clattering of wood, followed quickly by the heart-stopping crashing of breaking glass- and if there were any more sounds, he had no idea.
Not just because his ears began to ring from the pain of having taken two semi-serious blows to the head while having all the air forced out of him, but mostly from the furious cerulean eyes dominating his pulsing vision and the shrieking scream suddenly pushing through the fuzzy deafness in his ears.
"Despite what you may think, I do not want to see you spend your life in jail for a crime you may not have committed!" Bon Bon screamed at him from her vantage sitting directly on his stomach- and her hooves jerking him forward by his neck. Not to strangle him- please Moon above don't strangle him- but to bring his limp head closer to hers. Holding him up against her red, manic face even as he weakly battered her hooves with his.
Screaming directly into his eyes, and all he could hear beyond the pounding and the ringing was the desperation.
"If you let Her into your mind so She could kill that mare, then there is nothing I can do to help you, Light! You will be found guilty of assisted murder if you gave Her your consent, so I need you to tell me right now-" Her tirade faltered for a split second as her voice thinned and broke, and she heaved in a fresh, gasping breath before her hooves were suddenly shaking his vision up and down and up and down so he couldn't focus on anything but the pain in his jaw and the panic in her pitched voice.
"-did you let Her in?!"
Her weight settled into his chest as the pressure on his jaw loosened- and he could breathe again. And only in that first shallow breath that he greedily gulped in, after he'd begun to think he wouldn't ever get another chance to, did he realize that his vision was blurring. He'd not even noticed- not through the shaking.
Light's unblinking eyes stared unflinchingly forward from his position with his back to the floor: an equally exerted mare sitting on his flushed body as his head filled with too many thoughts to support with his limited oxygen.
He'd been in such a possessed trance processing the depths of terrified fury in Bon Bon's voice- and even then her gasping breaths were peaky and pitched as the rushing noise in his ears flushed out. Now that he could swallow the iron backwash in his mouth and fill his brain with air, he could say with dizzy certainty it was jarring to hear so much concern in her voice, none the less for anything else that'd just happened.
She'd tackled him- knocking over his table and his chair and by the sound of it breaking her machine- and screamed in his face as she shook him back and forth: choking him to near-unconsciousness by seeming accident.
He'd apparently made her blindingly angry with his taunting- which... he couldn't deny made him just a little proud. An odd, warm contrast to the cold sensation of having his life threatened. He was glad he could still look on the positive side in the aftermath of trouble.
There was a lot to think about, staring up at the dark recesses of his ceiling. He could only do so, of course, because Bon Bon had leaned back out of his vision, which also happened to mean she was kneeling on his chest.
All of that and besides the adrenaline from being in danger, the predominant thought on his mind was... that had been the first time somepony had tried to shake sense into him. Not even Applejack in all her rough-and-tumble glory had ever gone that far- and he couldn't remember many times he'd been this close to anypony.
Not since his mother had held him as a foal had a mare pressed her body against his like this. Even then, as her entire body was seemingly on top of his, their back hooves were still marginally entwined: fur brushing against dirty fur. He could feel how her weight shifted with his every unsteady breath- up and down and up and down against that constant pressure. Exhilarating in one sense, but exhausting in every other.
He was aware what the normal response of a colt his age would be, having a mare pressing her body against his. Arousal, explicitly, even besides the fact that she'd physically assaulted him. Not quite his thing, but he wasn't one to judge. Or think about that sort of thing. Or aggrandize it.
...He didn't really... feel that way, ever. Not in a long time, and not since he was coming into pubescence had he felt anything but sick in the pit of his gut in response to... thinking about it. He just didn't... like the thought of being that close to a mare... or, at least, no mare except...
...The scent of apple blossoms and faded sweat... warm fur against his, and a peace in his chest...
The setting sun... and knowing he could just be happy...
Bon Bon wasn't giving him any of that, and he could confidently say that she was a terrible cuddling companion. He really wished she'd just get off of him already- and there was nothing funny about rearranging that sentence for the double entendre! There was an entire mare sitting on his stomach, and it hurt, darn it!
That was the first, delirious train of thought through Light's head, for whatever reason. Probably because body-to-body contact made him very uncomfortable and it was basically all he could think about.
Just as soon as he'd wrapped his feelings in a tight little bow and internalized him, he was then able to think about the actual things Bon Bon had screamed at him, and why she'd tackled him.
He supposed it was alright to have some mixed priorities: he had taken two blows to the head.
He coughed out a ragged breath- it was hard to breathe with an entire mare on top of him- and scrolled his vision down until he was looking at the mare oddly kneeling on his chest: propping himself up as far as he could on his shaking hooves.
"Do you really- really think I would- would ever submit to Her?" came his raspy voice- too raspy- and he swallowed as the watched the alert expression on her flushed face: speaking raggedly again as soon as the saliva cleared his tongue. "Do you even... do you even know why you found me dead on the castle grounds? Did you ever even think about it?"
He didn't bother to scrutinize the mussed curls of her mane matted against her forehead- or the near-rapt attention on her exerted face- or the heaving of her upright chest, because his hooves were getting tired, and he'd rather lower his head to the floor than let it fall again. It hurt enough as is.
He barely seethed as the stinging back of his head touched wood- which he considered a great achievement in tolerance. What was less tolerant or admirable was the melancholic way he sighed: moreso the ragged way he coughed spittle onto his chin before he began to mutter.
"It wasn't because Nightmare Moon pushed me out a window or anything so dumb. I can only imagine that's what you assumed- despite the fact you know nothing about Her or anything that happened last night..."
He luxuriated in what scant comfort he could glean from the floor- because everything else about the situation was just so demeaning- as the memories reeled between blinks. "She needed me. Nightmare Moon needed me to stop the Elements of Harmony- She told me so Herself." He took a deep, throaty breath, which was so much harder than it should've been. "I was- She never would have done anything to me."
If Bon Bon reacted at the mention of the Elements- he figured she might- he didn't really care, so he didn't try to look. He kept his tired gaze firmly on his beautifully plain ceiling as he spoke, which he'd never really taken the time to admire, before. "She told me that She'd... read a prophecy in the stars that I was 'Her only way out.' That I would stop the wielders of the Elements from defeating Her."
He coughed, and added an afterthought after a moment of thinking. "I figured it was probably because I knew all of them... I sort of... endlessly dwelled on whether it was because of my special talent for a while, and She... shot me down pretty hard."
His tirade ended on a breath he found he'd forgotten to take, and he gasped for its absence as he tried to bring a hoof up to cover his face. Metal scraped against wood, and he flicked a grimace to his tag-shackled hoof before he groaned and threw the non-manacled one over his stinging eyes.
Something that felt like a loose wire tickled across his chest, and he idly wondered if he was still plugged into the busted machine. Probably not: the length of wire on his stomach felt like there was a twisted little knot at its end- its very definitive end. Oh well; he'd never know how it worked, now.
He was just sad about the machine breaking: that was why his voice came out clipped and warbly. Not for anything else.
"In the end... She needed me to win, so I... I made sure She couldn't."
Certainly not.
He bit his lip: glad he was covering his pinching eyes so he could force the warmth down easier. He wasn't exactly sad that he'd died- he was alive now, wasn't he? It was just... different, hearing the words in his own voice, even in the coy way he'd described it.
He'd killed himself. Suicide, in the face of letting his friends die, instead. For his entire life passed with so much on the horizon... and all his promises left unfulfilled... he'd still willingly stepped off the edge.
How had he ever found the courage?
A weight pressed onto his chest, instantly squeezing his lungs in the worst way and forcing another ragged cough through his throat. The pain in his head flared up, and he softly groaned as he tried to levy himself up enough to see what the mare was doing, then.
She'd placed a hoof onto his chest, obviously. Leaning forward and onto more of his body: her face a surprising shade of... sadness. He couldn't help the slightly incredulous expression he managed to force through the weary pain. Bon Bon? Showing an emotion for him?
The wild ride of incredulity in his head continued as the mare glanced away from a long moment: biting her lip as her wavering, cerulean eye returned to him, and- was her face more flushed, then?
"I... had no idea," she murmured in another moment of hesitation that she took to stare down at his body. His skin may have crawled where her gaze landed, but his face felt flush with more than enough confusion as she raised it again. Deeply furrowed brow, and eyes lidding low with a knowing, and a regret.
"You're a hero, Light."
His acid reflux immediately kicked in and he suppressed a throat-burning gag that he only barely swallowed back as the mare sighed: closing her eyes and letting her hoof creep up his chest as she... lowered herself? What was she- oh no.
He watched in horror as the offending limb climbed higher and higher and closer and closer to his bewildered face, until...
-well, until her hoof had crept past it and onto the floor, and her head was rested sideways under his chin.
"I'm... sorry, for everything that happened to you, and for everything I did," she whispered thickly: her cheek pressed against his now extremely tight ribcage. "I know none of it was your fault."
What was happening? Why was she apologizing to him? Why was she just taking his word for it after being so skeptical of his every action? Why- oh why was he subject to the sensation of another pony's breath fluttering across his cheek: feeling her take the breath through his own chest?!
Had he died? Yes, he had, and clearly this was actually Tartarus and he was well and truly being punished for what he'd done. His own personal hell: he finally had a clear picture of what it was, and there was no need to make random guesses when he was in distress anymore. This was it. His worst nightmare.
Light swallowed- and he hated that she probably felt him swallow- and gingerly, ever so gingerly raised his hooves against hers on either side of his head, until his were uncertainly but firmly wrapped around her back.
This was awful. By the Moon's terrible grace, this was so deeply unsettling to him on a very personal level that he knew he had to invoke that name, just to really emphasize to himself how twisted the situation was. Minutes ago, he'd been hellbent on hating her and hoping he'd one day see her dead. Now, he was hugging her!
And he didn't know why. He had no clue why his first instinct had been to return her embrace.
He needed help.
Her heavy sigh was his reward for returning her hug- back hooves pressed against his and all he could think about was the feeling of her breath- and the top of her mane tickled his chin as she shifted. "I'm going to recommend your full pardon, Light." she murmured, again, into the crook of his neck, and his fur stood on end wherever it wasn't smushed down. "You were victimized in every situation, but you still- you gave your life for Equestria."
His heart leapt into his acid-washed throat as she shifted again, and her whispered voice washed directly over his chin.
"I think that's very admirable."
He could hear the lingering traces of disbelief in her voice- but it was entirely overshadowed by the very clear regret tinging her tone, along with the growing appreciation. She clearly believed him when he said he'd killed himself to stop Nightmare Moon, and she very clearly respected him for it. She was grateful.
Was that what this hug was for? An... apology? Even further- a thank you?
He didn't think he had the heart to tell her he'd only done it to save Applejack.
Light shifted uncomfortably, trying not to disturb the mare too much as he tilted his head down as much as he could without putting it directly into her mane. He didn't want to extend the intimacy by internalizing the very likely earthen scent of her mane. "Hey, Brownnose?"
Her body shifted on his- ouch, his ribs- and her voice sounded: a familiar exasperation edging into the numbing exertion and mutedly-present approval. "Please, don't call me that."
He blinked, and rolled his head back until he was staring at the ceiling. He spoke: his tone as candid as he could make it. "I'm actually gonna keep calling you that, because I really do hate you for everything you've done to me, and I don't think that's ever gonna change."
Her response was a resigned sigh, and that was that.
It was a long moment of... strangely growing content he felt, holding his arch enemy in a hug. An uneasy contentment, to be fair- and he didn't dare to move his hooves in any way along her back- but it was relatively simple, and peaceable all the same.
He still had a lot to think about, staring up at the dark, wooden ceiling. But... at least he didn't have to think very hard about how he felt.
If only he could snake his hooves up to her neck... feel her body go limp against his as the floor ran slick with red... listen to the last, fluttering breath in her chest go still...
How sweet it would be to hold her cerulean-blue soul in his hooves.
The quiet peace of plotting his hugging partner's death was shattered in an instant, and two independently relaxing heads flew up at the sudden sound: red and blue eyes alike flying in a very real panic to the source- the eventuality- the one thing they'd both hoped beyond hope wouldn't happen.
There was a knock at the door.
Followed by a voice.
"Light? Are y'all... wait- what in tarnation happened to the door..?"
There had been very few times in his life that Light had been so afraid to hear Applejack's voice.