//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: River // Story: In Exile No Longer // by cunning_linguist //------------------------------// Seven ponies stood in an open field. One group of five watched from afar, silently providing encouragement. A pegasus marched back and forth in front of another, a newcomer who looked neither interested or bemused by the situation. She was often asked if she was “over it”. Her reply was always “I never will be”. “All right! First, spread your wings!” The other pegasus obeyed. “Flap twice, to get a feel for the air currents.” Again, she obeyed, though her face betrayed the strain. “Oh, c’mon! You flap like my grandma!” “Rainbow Dash, you be nice to Riven! She’s still recovering!” came a supportive comment of a certain lavender unicorn. “I could fly with one wing in a cast and a brace on both hind legs! The least she could do is flap with some kinda urgency!” Riven sighed and tucked her wings back in. “This is silly. I’m going home.” “You mean my home? And how do you expect to get there without me carrying you or Twilight teleporting you?” Riven grumbled bitterly. “That’s what I thought. Now flap like you got a pair!” Riven stretched out her wings but paused, looking at her trainer with a confused expression. “A pair of what?” A chorus of groans and disappointed chides sounded from the crowd. Rainbow rolled her eyes in response. “I’ll think up a better line for mares. In the meantime… FLAP!” It had been exactly one month to the day since Nocturne’s banishment, Riven’s “death”, and the biggest threat to Equestria in recent memory was averted. Though Riven was initially quite apprehensive about her situation — violently so — nopony blamed her. Her outbursts, physical or otherwise, were tolerated and endured. Her friends reminded her that though her old life might be over, they would share their love so that what laid ahead wouldn’t be so frightening… or lonely. Riven wasn’t sure how to react to the kind of affection she received, only that throwing kicks wasn’t the proper response. She calmed down in short order and listened to Twilight’s bedside explanation, but before that… “GET OFF OF ME!” Riven was weak, frail, and could barely speak let alone fight, yet she found enough strength to not only defeat the telekinetic field of an extremely diminished Twilight Sparkle, but throw her aside bodily as well. A nurse and a doctor joined the fray, though they too were unable to restrain Riven. Applejack, however, did so with little effort. “Good… timing…” Twilight breathed, coughing and taking a sip of water from a nearby pitcher. “Ah was in tha neighborhood,” she explained cheerfully, sitting on Riven’s chest like a boulder. She looked down at the prone pony and smiled warmly. “Now Ah want to get offa ya, y’understand. Ah don’t like treatin’ m’friends in such a manner. But Ah can’t have ya throwin’ a fit and hurtin’ yourself or anypony else. Now, y’gunna behave or should Ah jus’ keep on doin’ my best impression of a mother hen?” “Can’t… breathe…” “That’a yes or a no?” “Yes!” “Good girl.” True to her word, Applejack climbed down off of Riven, who no longer struggled, either because she didn’t want to be sat on again, or because she could no longer muster the energy required. The doctor gave Riven a brief examination to ensure nothing had been injured in the scuffle, and then did the same for Twilight. Though the heroic unicorn had mostly recovered from Nocturne’s partial possession and the subsequent ordeal of having it waft through her organs like powdered glass, she was missing fur in several large patches (covered by a fashionable purple sweater knitted by Rarity, of course), couldn’t exert herself for long periods of time without collapsing in a breathless heap, and could not perform anything but the simplest of spells. Her family visited regularly, both to look after her as well as Spike, who still could not digest solid food. “Are you… *cough* all right… Riven? *wheeze*” “I’m fine,” Riven groused. She looked at Twilight now, and though she was smiling and putting on a brave face, the undeniable pang of regret struck her heart. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to hurt you.” “It’s… all right,” Applejack helped Twilight up onto the bed. She curled up less than a foot away from the mocha-colored mare. Applejack joined her, providing comforting nuzzles. It helped, they would all admit. Even Riven felt some relief whenever she was affectionately touched now. Twilight would later explain that despite millions of years of evolution, ponies were still herd animals and thus found comfort in groups. Riven now shared that instinct. “You’re… awfully strong, Riven,” Twilight coughed again, taking a deep, ragged breath before calming enough to speak normally. “Quite unusual for a pegasus.” “A what?” With great effort, Riven canted her head down. The sheets had been scattered during her revolt, exposing her body as well as a pair of feathered wings. The gasp of surprise was both legitimate and humorous, as related by the chuckling Applejack and Twilight Sparkle. “Guess ya got more of yerself in tha spell than Cream said y'would.” “What do you mean?” Twilight sighed and saddled up closer to Riven. She didn’t flinch away. “I’ll explain in more depth when you’re fully recovered. But in summary… your body was destroyed, Riven. Your human body, I mean. We couldn’t salvage it; no unicorn or alicorn present had the strength to heal you. So we did something a bit… unconventional.” “Cream cracked yer noggin open like a walnut —” “WHAT?!” “Applejack, please!” The farm pony snorted. “Well it’s true. Ah was there. Right nasty business, that.” “There is a more tactful way of explaining then ‘we cracked your noggin open like a walnut’!” “Can one of you just continue, please?!” Riven was practically hysterical. Fearing she would become unruly again, and thus require Applejack to possibly hurt her again, Twilight nodded and rephrased Applejack’s earlier explanation. “We had to preserve your brain, Riven. It was the only spell Cream had the energy for. After a night’s rest, he took a… uh… sample… of you… and grew a new body.” Twilight gestured haphazardly at all of Riven. “That’s the result.” “I was cloned?! But… how?” Riven was frantic; stuttering. She demanded an explanation but her wild mind couldn’t process the words to just simply ask. Instead, she cycled through a million insane scenarios of pony mad science and grotesque experimentation. “If you cloned me, I should have been a human!” “The preservation spell was failing; the genetic samples we needed were decomposing and we had to find a substitute. So… we asked for a volunteer… to make up the difference.” Riven stared at Twilight with wide eyes for only a moment before grunting out her epiphany: “Rainbow Dash.” Twilight and Applejack both nodded. “She gave a sample of her blood and one of her primaries to grow you a body. The spells we used prioritized your genetic code so that you weren’t just a duplicate of her with your brain. Essentially, you look like yourself if you… well… were born a pony instead of a human.” “This… is… crazy…” she spoke in ragged breaths. “Riven, I know this is a lot to take in, but please, don’t strain yourself. You need to rest; it’s absolutely crucial. Your body, though physically of a mare in her early twenties, is as frail as a newborn foal. I’m frankly shocked you didn’t break something in our earlier scuffle.” “I can think of a few things I want to break right now…” she snarled. “Whoa now, missy.” Applejack interjected, stepping between the two mares. “Ya’ll need to corral that attitude, y’hear? A lot was done fer you. Would ya rather be dead? No hope of ever seein’ yer precious Knockers ever again?” “Noxus,” Riven corrected, her voice a low growl. “Noxus then. Ah know yer scared and worried. Frankly, Ah’d be too, which is why Ah ain’t sittin’ on ya again. We’re gonna help you through it, sugarcube. Everypony is worried sick about ya, includin’ the princesses. Ah know ol’ Rainbow is especially interested in seein’ the result of what pourin’ her blood into that jar did.” Riven was so bewildered that she couldn’t see straight. Applejack spoke as if she would one day go home, but she’d already been told that was impossible because no one knew how the hell she arrived in the first place. And now she wasn’t even the same species, for Pete’s sake. That combined with the creaking of her rickety bones and the pain in her heart, and Riven could do nothing but bite her covers and roll over, hiding herself from view. “Please… just leave me be…” “C’mon, Riven! You can do it! FLAP!” “Flap, girl! Ah know ya can!” “You’re doing it, darling! Just a little harder!” “Yay!” “NO PARTY IF YOU CAN’T GET IN THE AIR!” Everypony looked at Pinky Pie with wide eyes and slack jaws. “… OK, maybe a little party.” Riven was sweating bullets. Her body felt like a ton of bricks attempting to get off the ground with a beanie propeller. Everything hurt, right down to the soles of her hooves, which Rainbow Dash insisted should stay flat and widely spaced. After several minutes of exhaustive flapping, Riven let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding… and rose just a foot. She collapsed back to the ground, but nopony cared about that. They swarmed her with hugs, nuzzles, and congratulations. Even Rainbow Dash was impressed, not because of the end result, but because Riven was stubborn and never, ever quit. “Did… did I do it?” she asked deliriously, looking up at her friends with the salt of her perspiration stinging her eyes. “You sure did, sugarcube! We knew you could!” “Well, Pinkie? Aren’t we going to go celebrate?” Rarity wasn’t one for physical exertion of any sort, but she couldn’t help but express her delight at how far Riven had come since she left the hospital. “Of course we are, silly-billy! Pssh, duh! What kind of a question is that? River did soooooooo good!” “Riven,” Fluttershy corrected, though she was silenced with an outstretched hoof from Riven herself. “I… don’t mind it. I don’t feel like my old self anymore.” Riven shakily rose to her hooves, aided by each and every one of her friends. “River works.” “Oh, Riven, don’t say such things,” Twilight sighed, looking sad. “You’re still you. Just… different.” “River works,” the mocha pegasus insisted, stepping away from her support once she felt sturdy enough to walk on her own. “But… I still want to say goodbye. Can we go before the party?” Solemnly, they nodded. They had promised, after all, and River had expressed apprehensive interest since the day she was told. The walk to the cemetery was silent but not slow. River’s pace denoted eagerness, but also fear. She wasn’t sure how she would react, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to leave that old life behind if she couldn’t stand before that headstone and see for herself what everypony had been telling her since she first woke up. When they arrived, River walked ahead; her friends stayed behind but always within sight. She approached a fresh grave marked with a marble headstone yet untouched by the weather. She stopped at the base of the burial plot and winced as if struck, but she didn’t dare look away. She owed herself more than that. Buried there was her body — her human body. At the time, River had yet to awaken from her coma. Her pony body was still small and slick, as if just born. In a way, it was, though from a magical test tube, not a dam. The citizens of Ponyville had been told of her heroism and felt it only proper to give their final respects to what remained of Equestria’s one and only human. The turn out was small, but everypony of note was in attendance: Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, princesses Celestia and Luna, Cream, Shining Armor, his lovely wife Cadence, and Spike. They all owed her a great deal, and even though she wasn’t truly gone, the service was still a melancholy affair. Now River stared at her headstone and felt an odd sensation, one that was hard to identify. It was notably surreal, to be looking at her own grave, but it wasn’t sad. In fact, she felt a warmth blossom in her chest. She was alive. Different, but alive. She smiled. River, however, could not bring herself to say any final words to… herself. It just felt too weird. So without a sound, she turned and galloped back to her friends, and they embraced her as if welcoming home a long lost friend. Here lies Riven Beloved human, hero May she herself tell her story