Act I: Chapter I
Bad Memories & Failing Strengths
~&~
She was having another of those moments. The ones where haunts from your memory slip through your mental blockades and remind you of all the terrible things you've ever done. The ones where you watch yourself pave the road to Tartarus with your good intentions. The ones that brought tears to Twilight Sparkle's eyes as she watched the sky's violet and pink hues herald the sun's setting.
The sun. Celestia. More tears. She knew she couldn't return; she didn't want to see another friend hurt by the demons she chose. Her tears turned to sobs.
Rainbow Dash gave a furtive look to the silently sobbing pony, feebly wrapping a shivering wing around the lavender mare, who dejectedly rested her head in the crook of Rainbow's neck.
"I'm so sorry." Twilight sobbed, hardly containing the resurfacing memories. Why couldn't she have resisted? Kept caution close when it was most important? She failed, not herself, but everypony around her. That was her sin, that was her demon.
"Shhh... it's gonna be okay Twi'. We'll fix this." She breathed, soothing voice calming the torrents of Twilight's mind. "If it'll help you feel better, you can have a sip if you want."
"But, y-you need your strength." She objected, worry etched upon her dulled features. At least it was better than the absolute depression she normally felt. She knew there had to be a way to make it right. There was always a way. She just needed to remember, to dive through her mistakes and pierce the shadow she wove behind her.
"So do you." Twilight retorted. She knew the cause, it was the same one that haunted her before her life was lost. Recklessness. She couldn't afford that. Not any more.
"Pfft, I'll be fine." Rainbow said, rolling her eyes and gently flicking her tail. Dash's gestures had been a pale shadow of her usual flamboyant nature, the nature she had drained with so many drops of velvet heaven.
Twilight couldn't say no. She desperately needed a drink after their last encounter. Sighing, she tilted her head, lips brushing the fur of Rainbow's neck, sending shivers down the mare's spine. Tracing the fresh scabs hidden by fur, she steeled her will for the plunge. As gently as she could, Twilight pierced Rainbow's skin with her fangs, allowing small pools of blood to well up from beneath. Tentatively she sipped on the crimson nectar.
It wasn't lying to say that Twilight had improved her self control since her first experiences with the liquid, one could hardly make out the flash of red behind the purple mare's irises as she asserted control over herself. Reluctantly, she withdrew from the neck, lapping up the last drops and helping the blood to clot anew. Rainbow sighed.
"Feeling better?" She inquired, fighting waves of dizziness brought on by Twilight's feedings, even as small as she kept them.
"Much. Thank you Rainbow... I-I wouldn't have survived this long without you." It was true, their expedition had been slow and fruitless, the frozen wastelands offering little to the unfortunate explorers.
"I wouldn't be much of an element of loyalty if I didn't come with you. Besides, this is kinda like a Daring Doo story." Rainbow quipped, no small feat from the self labelled invincible mare.
"Except one of the protagonists is a monster." A tear streaked down the well worn path of her cheek, matting violet fur and melting the local sheen of ice.
"Don't say that." Rainbow asserted. Features hardened in determination. "You're still my best friend, and no monster could ever say that."
"Regardless, you should get some rest, the cold's coming in." Nights in the wastelands would have been infamous if anypony ever lived to speak of their drastic temperature drops. Thankfully only one of the two were negatively affected by the cold, and being a pegasus meant Rainbow was conditioned to sub-zero temperatures, having often soared where the Equestrian air grew thin.
Twilight watched as Rainbow Dash nodded and curled up, removing her wing from her cold form. Twilight missed being able to curl up with Rainbow, but knew that she would only make Rainbow's life harder. Her unbeating heart would've panged as she watched the colourful mare begin to snore, blissfully content with dreams of home.
She sighed. Standing on all fours, she dragged the nearby blanket over Rainbow's sleeping form and made for the exit of their temporary shelter. Having no need for sleep, Twilight decided to take a walk.
-&-
Gentle flurries of snow danced and weaved around Twilight, sometimes landing on her form and sticking to the befrosted mare. She paid them little heed though, as she navigated through the night, punching deep holes in the permafrost. The cold would not halt her; she held Rainbow's needs above any of her own. That need was sustenance, especially fresh water, which was surprisingly scarce in the ice covered plains. Rainbow needed fluids if she were to survive Twilight's nightly feedings.
She had made a habit to scavenge resources from the dead land, hunting out the few plants which dared grow in the eternal winter, and capturing the few sources of pure water the drowned continent could offer. Tonight she was having no such luck, the roaring blizzard shrouded the world beyond a few hoofsteps.
No mercy was provided by the wastelands.
Twilight felt like she deserved it, the little pain she felt from the frozen daggers aiding her atonement for the sins she committed. She knew it would not be enough, it would never be enough to replace the life lost, but it helped anyway. Without Celestia as her moral compass, Twilight felt lost, floating aimlessly through the void of infinite choices, and as of late making many of the wrong ones.
She shouldn't have fed off Rainbow tonight; the mare was hardly clinging to consciousness, despite her objections. Twilight could've waited another night, held off the burning thirst those few twenty four hours more.
The blizzard picked up, unnatural weather building itself as the temperature plummeted. The usually blazing glory of Luna's night feebly filtered down upon the formerly living unicorn, reminding her of the few good deeds she did. Her mentor had been so happy to see her sister again, Twilight couldn't imagine what it was like to be without your loved ones for so long. She probably would find out though, her body showed no signs of decay, and without the usual biological processes degrading its genetic information, she could theoretically live forever.
Live forever as a monster. Twilight corrected herself. There was no mercy with her curse, no beauty to the parasitic nature it enforced upon her. She was a leech, a pony pony who stole the life of others, something so evil that it even burned in Celestia's day.
No. There was no beauty in the curse. Only regret for all the wrongs she committed. If it wasn't for Rainbow Dash, she would've disposed of herself a month ago. Made good riddence of an abomination of a forgotten era. No, she stopped herself, she pinkie promised she'd never have thoughts like those again. Breaking Rainbow Dash's trust would be the fastest way to lose her remaining friend. The howling winds carried no cry of "FOREEEVERRR!" on their screaming lips, only the pervasive feel of death permeated the wastelands.
Twilight looked down through the meagre parting in the blizzard to watch as the aperture of miasma revealed the bone white ribs of ancient pillars, jutting from the corpse of civilisation. This was probably another settlement, the marble architecture putting shame to even modern Equestrian building, a far cry from the rehearsed tales told at Hearth's Warming Eve.
There would probably be some non-perishables to scavenge, made doubly so by the crippling temperatures. After eating food older than the nation of Equestria for a month, one gets accustomed to such meals. Besides, it was hard to taste anything with the oppressive cold, at least, that was what Rainbow had told her.
Sighing, the frozen mare trekked towards the ruins, calmly fighting the howling shards of fury that attacked her. Glacially crumbling architecture engulfed the mare as she navigated the winding cobblestone streets. Here and there, one could make out a fairy light, still shining with the power of countless thaums of magical radiation. Not that Twilight cared, most of it was harmless, she just had to watch out for when her horn started glowing without her permission. That, that was bad.
Fortunately, Twilight found her horn to be quite dormant. All clear, she picked a marble structure at random and approached it. The building gave an impression of regality with its intricate carvings and geometric design, most likely a home of some noble. One of many in the previously prosperous province. The door was a faded oak, ancient designs beckoning her to open it.
Twilight steeled herself. Lighting her horn with violet fire, she punched a leyline through the aether, linking her magic to the door. Carefully trading small amounts of mana for momentum, she opened the door, all the while ready to weave a spell matrix without a second's notice. The door revealed a grand foyer devoid of any ice, apart from the snow that had accumulated beneath the shattered window's gaze. Lazy motes of dust, born from long dead aristocrats, hovered in the air, gracefully twirling about in the sparse rays of moonlight.
The moth eaten purple carpet beneath her hooves lead to a small circle, only to branch off in a multitude of directions. Now, if I were a kitchen, where would I be? She asked herself, smirking at the childish question. However, there was a sense of solid logic to the question. Many of the ancient homes were laid out in a similar fashion, with dining rooms being large and easy to find, usually by windows, and kitchens hidden away, below ground to remain out of sight and warm.
The first step was finding the dining room. The arch to her right looked ever so slightly more elegant than the others, a nod to more public areas of an aristocrat's dwelling. Slowly she plodded along, all the while ensuring her horn remained fluid with energy, ready to neutralise anything threatening.
The dining room was oddly lacklustre, far removed from many of the other he had encountered. Perhaps this was intentional? With great prosperity came great deviation for deviation's sake, much like many modern Equestrian artists worked passionately to build statements, the ponies of the past too worked towards such goals. Regardless, the almost hidden door in the corner of the room was all the that unicorn cared about.
True to the hypothesis, the experiment revealed the same results. An ancient fireplace slowly crackled with blue sparks as random waves of thaum struck it, mocking the warmth of a regular fireplace. A wooden and granite island floated in the middle of the room, surrounded by cabinets and other assorted clutter. All of it wasn't edible, at least to Dash.
However, a small portal of a door suggested the pantry was not far. Upon closer inspection, the hole in the wall revealed little but darkness, even to Twilight's hypersensitive eyes. To the side, evidence of some form of wooden staircase revealed that descending to the floor would involve falling.
Twilight sighed; without a visual reference, she couldn't calculate the correct rune for safely traversing the aether with a regular teleport. She wished she was at the library, she could probably cobble together a quick runic positioning matrix to a mana projectile, but without her books she couldn't guarantee a safe passage through the aether.
She had to jump.
So she did.
*Crack*! Kneeling to recover from her descent she lit her horn, channelling mana into visible light. The room was lined with cobwebbed shelves, stacked to the brim with random consumables. Water tanks, wine carafes, wooden beer barrels, glowing red eyes, bread loaves, honey jars, -her mind was sent reeling as a blast of concussive force threw her into the wall. Before her, the red eyes approached the light, squinting at the brightness. Then stopped. Twilight's heart would've thundered if it still beat; her magic was blocked.
"Who are you, she who would approach our resting place?" It asked, voice reverberating across the small room, deep voice rumbling through her bones like waves upon a shore.
"What is it to you?"
It roared laughter. It once again approached the suspended mare, revealing sickly blue flesh weakly clinging to shattered bones. "We are Harmony. We are interested in learning about this interloper before she joins us."
It was an amalgamation, drifting scraps of consciousness and corpse, given life through the pervading thaumic radiation. It was obviously an old one; its voice reverberated at least 4 times, and its speech capability was surprising to the mare. Still, it was a monster. A threat. She had to see to it before it saw to Rainbow Dash like it inevitably would.
"I'm sorry then, because I have no interest in joining... you." Using her lower body as a fulcrum, she peeled herself out of the simple binding spell, subsequently allowing her horn to rekindle. Without pause she formed a basic concussive matrix, weaving her magic into its form and slinging it from her font. The blast struck true, knocking the creature over, preventing it from retaliating. Smirking she began weaving a dispel matrix, it took longer than a concussive one, but would hopefully break the creature's animation enchantment, effectively killing it until one randomly formed again.
It was not to be, however, as it began to suck the room's ambient heat through its appendage, spreading frost like crystalline mould across the floor. Aiming an appendage, the creature sent daggers of ice hurtling towards the pony. Forcing her to shift and bring up her pink shield. A second too late, the ice tore through her sides, splitting dead skin like tissue paper.
Blood seeped from her wounds, sap like in its reluctance to leave. Already the blood was restoring her, mending together dead flesh with the life she had taken from Rainbow Dash. Twilight grimaced, she didn't like wasting Rainbow's blood on her foolish recklessness. From her pink barrier, she charged her horn for a second attempt, warily examining her opponent as it attempted to flee the deconstructive matrix.
It failed miserably. A pulse of energy signalled the release of the spell, rushing towards the creature, its shrieks failing to save it from a painful death.
Twilight's business was done.
Calmly, she collected what she could. Extra water for the anemic mare, some bread that had kept, honey and a small flask of beer. It would be sufficient for her friend.
With a flash of power, Twilight disappeared.