//------------------------------// // 11. Magic of Friendship... // Story: Rebirth of the Damned // by Borsuq //------------------------------// Twilight looked at Matthias and fought back the urge to gasp. His hooves were badly burned and judging by the shallow breaths he was taking she guessed that most of his ribs were broken. "Shouldn't you go to the hospital?" she asked, wondering how was he able to stand. "They have their hooves full with the feather flu." Matt replied, shrugging. "I'm not bleeding internally, I'll be fine." After saying that, he returned to staring at his reflection. Twilight came up and sit next him. "Are you okay?" she asked, almost immediately realizing how stupid that question sounded. "Since we just talked about my physical condition, I'm assuming you're inquiring about the fact that I almost killed a bunch of kids?" he snorted, not looking at her. Twilight winced. This talk wasn't going the way she hoped. However, before she had a chance to say anything, Matthias took charge of the conversation. "Mind if I ask you something?" "Eee... sure." answered Twilight, surprised. "Have you ever done something... that at the time you were sure was a right thing to do, but later realised that it was in fact a terrible thing, and regreted doing it?" asked Matthias, visibly putting a lot of effort to formulate this question. Twilight thought a moment before she answered him. "Well... sort off. Few months ago I accidentally... brainwashed the whole of Ponyville." That finally got some reaction out of him. Matt turned his head, stared at her, surprised, and asked: "Why?" "It wasn't on purpose! I just needed some friendship problem to solve before sundown so I could write to the Princess... " "You just said a lot of words, and I didn't understand any of them." Matt said calmly. Twilight took a deep breath. "He is the one that should be freaking out, not you!" "Let me start from the beginning." she said when she calmed down. "Princess Celestia is my mentor." Matt's eyes went wide as she said that, but he didn't interrupt her. "She sent me to Ponyville to study the Magic of Friendship. I am supposed to write her letters describing what I learned. One day though, I forgot that I haven't sent her a letter since the previous week, and I was afraid that I was going to miss the deadline." Twilight decided she wasn't going to mention to him about the whole 'magic kindergarten' thing. "I started looking around town if any of my friends had some problems that I could help them solve, but none of them had, even Fluttershy. I later asked them for help, but they thought that my problem was silly, so they didn't help me. So, after a while, I might have gone a bit... crazy. I figured that if I couldn't find a friendship problem, I could create a friendship problem. I enchanted my old doll Smarty Pants, so that everypony would fall in love with it, and the next thing I knew, the whole town was put under that spell. Thankfully, Spike wrote to the Princess Celestia how the whole letter thing got into me, and she came to Ponyville in time to fix the everything. In the end, it turned out I didn't have to send her those letters every week, but only after I learned a new lesson. So... yeah, that’s it." Matthias looked at her for a bit, and then started chuckling. Twilight, who was expecting that, rolled her eyes. After few seconds Matt stopped laughing and shook in pain. "Aau... It hurts to laugh." he said in light tone, holding his chest. "It isn't exactly what I had in mind, but I suppose it's the best I can get in a world such as peaceful as Equestria's. Well, beside occasional dragon's raids or timberwolves attacks, I guess." Twiligh couldn't help but notice his choice of words. "Did Matthias just said 'world'? He must have meant 'land'." she thought, shaking her head. "Matt, could you please tell me whats wrong?" she asked, hoping that this time she could finally get some answers. "I can see that something is plaguing your mind, and I would like to help you, but I can't if you don't talk to me." Twilight for a moment thought that she could see fear on Matt's face, but she must have been mistaken. Matthias barely managed to keep his composure when Twilight said 'plaguing'. This odd coincidence had made him abandon his idea of telling her everything. But he knew he had to tell her something. For some reason, Twilight wanted to help him, and he found out that it was nice to have a somepony who cared about him. And he liked her, even though she reminded him so much of Jaina that he could feel the pain in his heart renewed whenever they talked. "Telling you everything that is wrong would take forever." he said after a moment of hesitation. "And even if I did tell you, you would either not believe me, or would get scarred mentally. Or both." Matthias glanced at Twilight. She seemed to be a bit scared after what he said, but she was still listening to him. "I've read in one of your books about what happened to Princess Luna over a thousand years ago. Since you're Princess Celestia's apprentice, I guess you are more familiar with this story than me. I suppose you could say that something similar happened to me." "You became... evil?" Twilight gasped. "Why is that such a surprise to her?" "I didn't just became evil. I was evil. I made... a bad choice, which seemed right to me at the time. I have followed a path of revenge, and it led me to the weapon of great power, which I had paid a great price to get. It corrupted me. I slowly forgot about everything and everypony I ever cared for. It wasn't until shortly before I woke up in Equestria that I returned to who I was once... more or less." "More or less?" "You can't do the things I did and be yourself after you've returned to your senses. I may no longer be the same pony I was during last few years, but I'm not as I was before, either." "Is that what Medivh has meant when he said about a 'wound that's within'?" Twilight gazed at Matthias, trying to comprehend what he said. That he was once evil, while wouldn't be shocking to her friends, surprised her. She had assumed that something terrible has happened to him, and even though she was right after a fashion, Twilight didn't think that it would be anything like Princess Luna becoming Nightmare Moon kind of terrible. However, there was something different between those two cases. While Luna had a lot of trouble to adjust to the life in Equestria, it was mostly because she was banished for a thousand years. Matthias, on the other hoof, seemed to be troubled by what he did. "What could have been so terrible?" with this thought, Twilight made a mental note to look into a mind reading spells. "I'm afraid, Twilight." confessed Matt out of a blue. "Afraid?" "Afraid that I might became evil again." And now Twilight understood why he took what happened with the dragons so badly. "Matt." she said to him, trying to get him to look at her. "I don't know what happened to you in Azeroth, or what you did, but what you did today wasn't evil. You saved Spike, and Ponyville. While your methods might be considered barbaric here, I understand why you did that. I guess, sometimes you have to step down to their level." "That's what I said to myself back then, you know." Matthias snorted. "Yes, but did you have friends with you then?" That caught Matt off guard. "I... did, for some time. They refused to help me, though." "Well, if they were with you all the time, do you think that you'd have done all those things?" "It wasn't exactly as simple as you make it sound." said Matthias, getting angry, only to be calm a second later. "But... I can see your point." "If you have your friends with you, they can tell you when what you're about to do is wrong. Being surrounded by ponies you trust and have them advising you will always make you take the right course of action." Twilight smiled to herself, realizing that when she'll write Princess Celestia a letter about Matt, she could add a new lesson about the Magic of Friendship. "My friends did tried to warn me... I just didn't listen. Guess that makes me a bad friend, huh?" said Matthias with an unhappy grin. "Well, you could try again, with new friends. I would like to be your friend, if you would let me." As she said that, she extended her hoof, hoping that Matt would do the same. What he did, however, was something she didn't expect. Matthias took her hoof, lowered his head and planted a kiss on it. While Twilight blushed with embarrassment, she heard Matt say: "It would be an honor to have you as a friend, Lady Twilight." When they eyes crossed, Twilight saw a spark of amusement in his. Realizing that he meant for her to feel embarrassed, she fought the urge to frown. Instead, she came up with an idea for revenge. "Well, we'd best be going. We have to take care of your injuries." "I told you, I'm not going to the hospital. I'm not that hurt." "Who said anything about a hospital?" Twilight replied innocently.