//------------------------------// // 9 // Story: Rift in Ponyville // by xnaturalblue //------------------------------// Fire Bolt paced in the darkness, anxiety hot in her throat. “Bolt, don’t worry, he knows what he’s doing!” Sapphire had found a soft spot to lay in the mossy rocks. “Don’t worry? He’s still out cold! What are we waiting around for?” She replied, hooves clicking against the floor even more quickly than before as she approached Sonar’s slumped body on the floor for the fifth time that hour. About two hours seemed to have passed since he tried the Interstellar Rift spell, and he had yet to wake up. Fire Bolt could not contain her anxiety, even as she sat down next to Sonar’s sleeping body. She fidgeted with her saddle bag strap, although no amount of fidgeting would fix it, wishing that her partner would wake up to tuck the strap back into place with his magic like he always did. Eventually, she took the saddle bags off entirely and returned to pacing.  Sapphire Swirl was still lying down, and their anxiety seemed to be spiking to a peak. “You know, we can always just wait it ou-” Dark laughter filled the cave. It bounced around the walls,  but nopony was laughing. All three of them lowered into a crouched stance, ready to take on whatever was approaching them, but it never came. Jelly Splash seemed quickly unbothered, almost embarrassed that it scared her, and sick of the trickery at this point as she listened closely to the audio spell. The base of the flower began to glow once more, its teal roots inching and slithering more and more into the hill of grass that it was perched on. The light that filled the cave was blue again, and Fire Bolt quickly noticed Sonar Moonshadow’s horn begin to slightly ignite with a periwinkle shine. “What’s happening?” Sapphire Swirl lept to their hooves, racing over to their sibling to observe Sonar’s reaction to the magic.  “I-I don’t know! I didn’t touch anything! Jelly Splash, you said that laughter was just a trick!” Fire Bolt couldn’t take her eyes off of her partner, who was now beginning to extend his muzzle wide open. “It was! It’s not real! I don’t know why that flower thing is moving!” Jelly was the only pony now who was not watching Sonar Moonshadow transform into something gruesome. His open jaw released several tendrils of light, digging themselves into the hardened dirt below his body and slithering underneath everypony’s hooves. It looked like he was gagging, choking on the non-physical material in his mouth, and Fire Bolt flew into action, her full body filled with horror. She dug at the tendrils, pulling more and more from his mouth, trying to get it all out before he suffocated. As she dug and threw the material behind her, she did not notice that the blue material was wrapping itself around her back hooves, creeping up the length of her back.  “Fire Bolt! Stop, it’s going to hurt you!” Jelly Splash was now hot on Bolt’s heels, using her own magenta magic in an attempt to separate the tendrils from her limbs. For every one bit she took off, three more wrapped themselves around Fire Bolt, who did not stop digging despite her own condition. Sapphire could clearly see that the magic was growing brighter, frozen in place but shaking like a leaf as it intensified by the moment. It grew so bright in the space between Fire Bolt’s hooves and Sonar Moonshadow’s mouth that they had to look away, and an explosion of magic burst from the glow between the two. Time stopped. Fire Bolt yawned, her jaw popping as she stretched her hooves above her head. Her wings twitched as she stretched them out, too, flipping them out from under her blanket. After a few more moments of laying, Bolt determined that she was far too awake to return to sleep, and decided to start her day. Bolt rolled out of bed, hooves thumping against the hardwood floor of her bedroom. Something about the nightmares she tossed and turned through left a bad taste in her mouth, but it was quickly ignored in favor of her hungry stomach. Opening her door, she made her way down the hallway and stairs to the living area, still yawning and groggy the entire way. “Mornin’ Fibi,” Silver Strike looked to be equally as exhausted, nursing his steaming mug of coffee and seeming to mindlessly burn himself on every sip.  “Morning, Dad,” Fire Bolt followed the sweet smell of weekend breakfast to the kitchen stove, snagging a piece of bacon from the plate of cooked food and taking a bite before her mother could swat it from her hooves. “Bolt! That was for your sister, take the rest of the plate to her.” Hyacinth scolded, nudging the full plate of food onto Fire Bolt’s extended wing. It was clear that the plate had far more food than her sister would be willing to eat, but Hyacinth was consistently hopeful that her other daughter would gain her appetite back again someday.  Bolt precariously balanced the plate on her open wing as she carefully stepped out of the kitchen and past the staircase to her older sister’s room, pausing to knock on the door quietly before entering. “Mom made breakfast, it’s Saturday already.” “Really?” Her eyes lit up. Bolt walked to her sister’s bedside with a soft smile, placing the plate of warm food on the foot of her bed. Serenade Remix weakly sat herself up, leaning in to smell the sweet, syrupy waffles and the crispy bacon. “I thought it was only Thursday, still.” Her voice always had a bit of disappointment attached, and Fire Bolt knew that her sister was constantly kicking herself for not being able to mentally and physically perform as she used to.  “Don’t worry, I thought it was still Friday!” Fire Bolt eventually didn’t find much harm in a fib when it came to her sister, but she did despise lies, and frequently found herself balancing her morals to ensure that Serenade Remix wasn’t feeling too down about herself. “Now eat up, Mixie, or Mom’s gonna skin me for having some of your bacon.” Serenade Remix laughed softly, unable to safely have a hearty laugh anymore, and dragged the plate into her lap. “Oh wait, that reminds me – I finally finished that song I showed you!” She took a pensive bite of a waffle, chewing slowly and swallowing the single bite in several bits.  “Play it, play it!” Fire Bolt stepped back from Mixie’s bedside to tap her hooves in excitement, careful not to let the vibrations disturb her sister. “Is it on the lyre? Or the piano? Oh, did you ever learn how to-” “The piano, Boltie! Can you drag that thing over here?” Serenade grinned at her little sister’s giddiness as she slid the plate off of her lap and moved her legs to dangle off of the side of the bed. She knew that Fire Bolt was always her biggest fan, whether it was her music or her new manestyle. Bolt was two steps ahead, nudging the standing keyboard over to her sister’s bedside and sitting down expectantly with a smile. “Now don’t get all excited, it’s not my best.” Bolt was excited anyway. She had always looked up to her sister, even as the years passed and she took on more of a caretaker role, and her giddiness only grew as Serenade Remix began to press on the keys. What she played was breathtakingly beautiful. It started quieter, slower, and more romantic, and then swelled and exploded into a quick chord progression that made chills run down Fire Bolt’s spine. It sounded almost menacing, heartbreaking even, and Mixie’s passion never faltered as she weakly poured her energy into the song. As it came to an end, the emotion that came from the outburst of change did not slow or quiet, but the minor keys were mixed with some major ones, making the final chorus feel complete.  “Mixie, that was… oh Celestia, it was beautiful!” Fire Bolt stood up to help push the keyboard away from Mixie’s bedside, concern washing over her as her sister burst into a fit of coughing. “Hey, hey, water? You need your water?” Remix waved her hoof in rejection, constantly disgusted by pity. “I’m fine, it’s fine. Thank you, Boltie. You know your opinion is the only one that matters to me,” She smiled, a little less light in her eyes than just a few minutes before. “I thought I could tell my story a little bit with that one. You know, perfect pretty life with a perfect pretty family, and then, out of nowhere…” She loosely gestured to her position in bed. “This comes out of nowhere.” “You did a really great job. Truly.” “Fire Bolt!” Silver Strike called from the kitchen suddenly, and she hurried to follow his voice. “I need you to make sure your sister gets her medicine today. They need me back in Los Pegasus.” “But Dad, you just got back!” Bolt complained, ignoring how whiny she sounded. “No buts, do it. Right at noon, no later,” Silver Strike may have been cold and detached from his daughter, but she could see right past his façade – he was just a scared dad, desperate to separate himself from the pain of knowing that his oldest child would soon expire. There truly was no hope anymore, and the past six months had been spent prioritizing Serenade Remix’s comfort over her care. “Yes, sir,” She glanced at the clock on the stove, which read 11:27. Silver Strike ruffled her mane with his wing on his way out in approval, and Bolt felt an uncomfortable sickness in her stomach. She wondered where her mother had gone off to already, but another fit of coughs from down the hall beckoned her elsewhere.  When she raced into the bedroom, she found that Mixie’s bed was empty. Panicked, she turned around and ran back down the hall, but she wasn’t in the kitchen or den, either. “Boltie!” Her voice rang from back in the direction of her bedroom, and confused, Fire Bolt turned around and went back, only to find Serenade Remix tucked back under her covers. “Water, I can’t reach, please-” Bolt carefully picked up the cup on her bedside stand with her teeth and placed it into her sister’s outstretched hooves, wondering where Mixie had gone as she watched her gulp the water down. “Where did you go? Did you throw up today already?” Fire Bolt grimaced, hopeful to hear that she was not yet ill enough to be bedbound for the day. Mixie furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. “I didn’t go anywhere. Mom left a minute ago, maybe you heard her.” Bolt stared blankly back at her sister, waiting for the punchline, but it never came. “Yeah, probably.”  She ended up doing some reading in the living room and cleaning up the dishes from breakfast until the clock read noon, when she walked to the bathroom to retrieve her sister’s medication. Bolt opened the cabinet that doubled as a mirror above the sink, pulling out the prescription bottles and opening each of the three. She opened the first bottle, dispensing two yellow capsules into her hoof and then onto the counter, closing the bottle and returning it to its spot in the cabinet. Next was bottle number two, and out came a blue tablet which joined the other two on the counter. When Fire Bolt picked up the third bottle, she noticed that it was… strangely full. There was a dark substance, barely visible through the orange window of the prescription, filled up to the cap. Cautiously, she uncapped the bottle, only to regret it. Dozens of miniscule spiders flooded her hoof and subsequently, the counter, causing her to let out a squeal and drop the bottle, flailing her hoof in the air. “Off, off, get it off! Ew, ew, ew!” She babbled mindlessly, sweat beading at the back of her neck as the critters fell to the tile floor. The sensation of sweat seemed to remind her body to inexplicably reach for her chin in pain, expecting to feel blood soaked into her fur. Unsurprisingly, she found none, and when her attention was drawn back to her other hoof, all she saw was her own red fur and a spilled bottle of medication all over the floor. Bolt knew that these pills were expensive, and she immediately knelt down to sweep them back up, a painful cloud of confusion plaguing her mind. Spiders? Blood on her face? Something was extremely wrong, but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. She gathered the proper amount of medication after a considerable amount of staring into the mirror and ventured back into the hallway. Fire Bolt made her way into Mixie’s room, depositing the five pills into her sister’s hoof and watching to ensure that she got them down without vomiting before wordlessly returning to the kitchen. Eventually, Bolt decided that she simply didn’t sleep enough, as she couldn’t remember what time she fell asleep the night before, and she settled onto the couch with a fuzzy blanket. She found that no matter how much she relaxed or how tired she was, though, her mind was racing so quickly that she could not fall asleep. Kicking the blanket off of her in groggy frustration, she stood back up to get some fresh air. “Mixie, I’m going for a walk!” She called out down the hallway, and when an answer didn’t come, she knew that her exhausted sister had fallen back asleep. A stab of guilt twinged in her chest at the idea of leaving her sister alone, but Serenade Remix could handle herself, so she walked out the front door into the cool Saturday air. What Fire Bolt didn’t know, however, was that although she left her sister behind…  …she was not alone.