//------------------------------// // All That Is Good // Story: Legends Never Die: Friendship is Magic // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// “Wait! Stop!” Comet suddenly slammed on the breaks, the Marestream shuddering to a halt, and Misty nearly flew into the windshield. She stumbled and nearly fell. “What? What?” “Down…” Misty winced, rubbing her head, the buzzing noise now a blinding humming pain. “Down there. I think. I think it’s down there…” Comet brought the Marestream down so suddenly that both ponies went weightless for a moment before he corrected himself, once again bringing them to a screeching halt. “Sorry!” Misty wobbled on unsteady hooves. “It’s… it’s okay,” she muttered. “It’s okay, Comet, no harm done.” She gently massaged her forehead with her hoof. Well. No major harm, anyway. She was beginning to have second thoughts about this while finding-things spell. She decided that she would never use it again unless she really, really needed to find something. And, unfortunately, this constituted as something she really, really needed to find. Comet brought the Marestream down more slowly, and he found a place to park it amongst the dense trees that completely obscured anything hidden below. They were farther to the south than Misty had ever been in her life, south and a little to the east of Bridlewood. She had no idea what was lurking in this part of Equestria, but apparently the Elements of Harmony were there somewhere. And she needed to find them. “Stay here and guard the Marestream,” Misty told Comet as the door slid to one side and opened. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Comet asked, stepping out of the cockpit and taking a few steps toward Misty as she trotted out of the Marestream. He stumbled a little and nearly tripped again, but managed to catch himself. “Very,” Misty said seriously. “I don’t know what I’m going to find, Comet, but I’m afraid it’s going to be dangerous. If I don’t come back, then get out of here as fast as you can. I don’t want to put you in any danger.” Comet swallowed. “Yep, got it,” he said nervously. Misty nodded and stepped off into the trees. Her horn continued to pull her in the direction it wanted her to go, and Misty found her hooves quickening as she went. She could feel excitement and fear mixing together to create adrenaline in her blood. Her head pounded as the spell kept directing her through the twisted trees to her final destination. Which turned out to be very underwhelming. There was a small clearing ahead, with the smoldering remains of a campfire in the center and a small patch of flattened, dead grass off to one side. A few of the trees had scorch marks on them, and if Misty looked at them closely enough, they vaguely resembled a pony face, but they were like no ponies she had ever seen. They looked like a cross between a pony and some evil, ancient, fossilized bug. The ringing in her ears was getting unbearable, and Misty started scanning her surroundings for anywhere that might house the Elements of Harmony. “What are you doing here?” Misty gasped and spun around to see a tall, thin figure stepping out from the trees, her tall, crooked horn alight with a sickly green light that looked unnatural and evil. Her eyes were narrowed into thin, menacing slits that positively glowed with malice. Everything about her was wrong, incomplete, messy. And yet, while her appearance could have almost been comical, there was nothing funny about the way she stared Misty down, as if she was contemplating the most messy way to dispose of her. “I…. uh, I… um…” “I said,” the creature hissed menacingly, “what are you doing here?” “I was - I w-was…” The creature suddenly leaped forward until she was right in front of Misty, towering over her. The glowing green light of her horn reflected in Misty’s wide, terrified eyes. “What do you want?” she snapped. “Speak quickly before I obliterate you.” For the first time, Misty saw that the creature was wearing a saddlebag with the faintest corner of something golden poking out. The buzzing in her head increased into a high-pitched whine, and Misty pointed desperately at what she hoped were the Elements of Harmony and said, “That! I’m looking for that!” She threw herself on the ground and covered her head with her hooves. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered. Nothing happened. Misty opened one eye to see that the massive creature was no longer towering over her with evil intent in her eyes. Instead, there was a strange look on her face - one that looked like regret, almost, or even concern. The creature lowered her head and looked Misty in the eye. “Who are you,” she said in a soft voice that still carried a bit of menace, “and how did you get here?” “I… I…” Misty stammered, close to tears. She shut her eyes and blurted out, “My name is Misty Brightdawn and I’m looking for the Elements of Harmony because my best friend Sunny Starscout told me to find them because these shadow wolves came in the night and kidnapped our friends and this might be the only chance we have to stop them, so I hurried back home as quickly as possible and found a magic spell that would lead me to where they were and then my friend Comet and I have been flying around in the Marestream trying to find them and I just want to help my friends before all of Equestria is consumed in darkness and it’s all my fault!” She clamped her hooves over her mouth and waited for something - anything - to happen. “Sunny Starscout…” the creature whispered. She took a step back, a look entering her eyes that Misty couldn’t interpret. It looked like regret and anger and confusion all at once. Her gaze snapped back to Misty’s with a kind of new intensity. “You know Sunny Starscout.” It was less of a question than a statement, but Misty dragged herself back onto her hooves and nodded. “She’s my friend. One of my best friends. She… she believed in me, even when I… I did… awful things…” She swallowed. “Sunny gave me everything. I need to find some way to help her like she helped me. And all of my friends.” The creature shook her head, an almost incredulous look on her face. “Why would you do that?” she asked. “What if… what if they’re wrong?” The question was like a slap to the face, and Misty was stunned into silence for a moment. She had been wondering the exact same thing, she had been thinking about that even when she still lived with Opaline. What if Opaline was right, and Sunny and her friends really were wrong? Or what if they were lying? What if she would never find a place with them, and the only thing she could do was go back to Opaline and bow her head when she yelled and do what she was told, because that was the truth, that was reality, and she needed to accept it? When they had stopped Opaline, Misty had allowed herself to believe that Opaline was wrong, and that her friends were right, and that she had a place with them. That they cared about her and maybe even loved her. Zipp and Pipp especially… she had started to feel like they were family. But then came the letter. Misty had followed Izzy around all morning as Sparky coughed up scroll after scroll after scroll, waiting for one that would be missed, and finally she managed to get her hooves on one and opened it and read it, and as soon as she had her heart plummeted. All of the names and meanings of certain words were alien to her, but one thing was clear: her friends were still keeping secrets from her, really big secrets that they surely would have told anypony trustworthy. And the thoughts had begun to creep back into her mind, the doubts had come back stronger, and she didn’t know if all of the feelings she had felt had been real, or not. She had to make a choice. A choice for what to believe. She couldn’t keep just stumbling around in a daze, unsure, her own mind at war with herself. “I’d rather have them be right.” Misty looked the creature right in the eyes. Strangely, she didn’t feel scared anymore. “I’d rather believe that they’re right and live that way than spend my whole life running away from ponies who really care about me. If they’re wrong, and friendship doesn’t last, or if they’re not really my friends, then fine, but I’ll deal with it then. Right now, they are my friends. They’re my family. They’re my whole world, all the good that is left in the world. And right now, they need me. And I’m not going to let them down.” There was a brief pause, and then the creature spoke. “You cannot choose what is true and what is not, little pony.” “Maybe,” Misty said softly. “But I can choose what I’m going to do about it. And if something should be true and it’s not, then I can choose to make it true.” Feeling emboldened, she stepped forward and lifted her chin slightly. “Evil isn’t the only power at work in the world.” The look in the creature’s eyes intensified, and she suddenly backed away, turning towards the trees that pressed in on all sides before she began to walk into the forest’s embrace. The whining sound in Misty’s head grew stronger as her prize disappeared into the trees, and she felt her legs go weak as the splitting pain erupted in her mind. She collapsed, her knees giving out, and she felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyes- Something was thrown to the ground at Misty’s hooves. Her eyes snapped open, and she gasped; the obnoxious humming and buzzing sound had evaporated. Finally able to think clearly, almost relishing in the peace that stole over her and carried her worries away, Misty looked down, barely able to comprehend what she was seeing. A brown sack was sitting on the ground, and inside was the faint glimmer of shimmering gold. Misty stood up and eagerly dug inside, pulling out a golden crown with a lavender five-pointed star in the center, surrounded by golden loops and arches. She held it in her hooves reverently, and as she did so, as she gazed into the depths of that purple gem, memories of Sunny flashed before her eyes, and a warmth kindled in her heart and spread from her hooves to the tip of her horn. She looked up, and the creature was standing just inside the shadows of the trees, and for the first time, she looked as if she belonged there. The green in her eyes and in her wings and her mane looked natural, like it fit, instead of standing out in that awful way like they used to. The look on her face was sad now, the kind of sadness that Misty had glimpsed only once before: with Opaline. It was the kind of sadness that had existed, weighing down as a burden, for centuries longer than it should have. But there was also a glimmer there of something new. Hope. “Take them, little pony,” the creature said. “Go help your friends. Rid the world of this evil.” She turned to leave again. “Wait!” Misty cried, reaching out. “What’s your name?” The creature stopped. Then, without turning her head, she said quietly, “They called me Chrysalis. I was a queen once. Now… I don’t know who I am.” There was a shimmer that briefly rippled across her wings, and a column of light abruptly appeared, surrounding the creature. When it disappeared, she had vanished. Comet was sitting at the wheel of the Marestream, his head propped up against his hoof, bored out of his mind. He wanted, more than anything, to chase after Misty, to see if she was okay, to help if he could. He wanted to be helpful. But he was so clumsy… Sometimes he was the opposite of helping. That was one of the reasons he had wanted to leave Starlight Ridge. Without ever saying it, he knew that the other Auroracorns were growing tired of his constant slipping and sliding and dropping everything. He couldn’t even walk, for stars’ sake, without falling head over hooves! He didn’t belong there. He never had. And so he had spent his Starshine Time reading, which none of the Auroracorns understood, either. He read all the books and scrolls and ancient texts that they had. There weren’t many of them, so he had memorized all the ones that they had. They told of a far away place, a city made of crystals, and a big palace in the center, and a magical heart that kept them safe. They told of a Crystal Princess who would ride out with a shining crystal sword to defeat the shadows and keep light in the world. Until one day a storm came that even the Crystal Princess couldn’t fight back. The city began to freeze, and the Princess ordered everypony to leave. She stayed behind, but sent her subjects onward. They boarded a train and were fleeing the icy wind and snow when the train derailed, and then crashed. The ponies were at the mercy of the elements. But somehow, they found a place where the snow and wind had stopped. The stars shone bright in the sky. There were crystals everywhere, and whenever the ponies touched them, they were safe. The cold wouldn’t bother them. The storm would never enter that place. So the ponies settled down and built a town there. That was the legend of how Starlight Ridge was formed. Comet had always wondered what it would be like to go back to the old crystal city, to see what it was like. To see if the Crystal Princess was still there. But he had never been brave enough. Until six ponies had stumbled into Starlight Ridge, from another world, and Comet had wasted no time in joining them when they returned. One of those ponies was now walking towards him out of the forest. Comet gasped, sitting up so fast he almost knocked his glasses off his face. “Misty!” He dashed out the door and skidded to a halt in front of her, overwhelmed with joy to see her back safely, but he instantly noticed that there was something wrong. Her expression was too heavy. “Misty? Is… is everything okay?” Misty nodded. She was holding a brown leather sack, and she held it out to him now. “We got what we came here for,” she said. “Come on. Our friends need our help.”