As Pennington's eyes slowly slid open, he was surprised to discover that he was no longer in his home, nor was he laying on his couch. Looking around at his surroundings, he couldn't gather much. All the lights had been darkened, it was sometime in the night, The only light in the room was a faint red glow keeping him suspended in the air.
"Aaaaaand... I've been captured. Great." Somehow, he didn't feel so afraid as much as he felt exasperated. It made little sense, but his aching stomach rendered his concern at the situation irrelevant. "Well, this rebellion went swimmingly didn't it?"
"I don't understand, Pennington..." Trixie's voice wound her way out of the darkness, impossible to place in any one location. "I could have given you anything you wanted! But still, you choose to fight me!"
Pennington looked around, trying to determine where he should direct his reply. "Of course I did, Trixie! You're hurting my friends-"
"Friends? Since when do you have friends in Ponyville?" She retorted, interrupting him. "You never left home except to get supplies and to go on some kind of mad quest! Ponies rarely dropped by for just a personal visit! It was just you and I!" Her tone was one of scorn and derision, with more sting to it than Pennington had expected to hear.
"Well, being walked out on didn't help that, either... But Twilight's friends are my friends! I-" He was cut off as the field holding him in the air suddenly applied a strong force to his throat, cutting him off in mid-sentence.
"You will not bring up Twilight Sparkle. She's gone. Forever." The pressure released again, allowing him to fall into a fit of coughs. After almost a full minute had passed, he was able to speak again.
"Does she make you nervous, Trix?" A small ripple ran through the energy keeping him suspended in the air, and he could tell that using his old nickname for her had struck a nerve. "It makes me nervous, not knowing what's going on outside that precious dome of yours... Because if there's one thing that I know, it's that she isn't going to take something like this lying down! She could have won that duel, she simply doesn't know it."
Out of the darkness came a huge, guillotine-like blade, dyed red by the light and flying upwards towards his throat. Pennington cringed and turned his head away, refusing to look at his own demise. After a few seconds, he hesitantly opened his eyes again. The blade had stopped just short of his throat, and he was staring at his own reflection in the surface. He was shocked at his own appearance, eyes sunken and dark, looking as if they were on the verge of tears from the fear of death. His mane was ragged, and the ink was beginning to fade in places.
"Twilight wouldn't have won! No pony is stronger than the alicorn amulet! Twilight couldn't even finish an age spell, which I can do with ease!"
As Pennington opened his mouth to speak, Trixie brought the edge of the blade against his throat, momentarily paralyzing him with fear. After a moment to gather his nerve again, Pennington spoke.
"Twilight's probably stronger than any pony on the planet, Trixie... She just doesn't know it. I've felt her power once, when we were in the darkest of hours, both about to die. I tricked her into sending herself away with all of her might. Even when she was exhausted, beaten, and scared, she was able to teleport herself at least a dozen miles, probably more. At her full strength, she could even rival Celestia. I know it." Pennington was pleasantly surprised that Trixie hadn't decided to remove his head by now. "Even that amulet has its limits, as far as they may be. Twilight's potential is nearly endless. She holds herself back, but she doesn't know it..."
"So... You chose the more powerful unicorn? Is that why I'm not good enough for you?" She hissed.
"Trixie, if you hadn't left, I probably never would have never met Twilight... I was planning on moving to Canterlot, just the two of us together. I even got a job as a guard! I was going to stop going on those ridiculous trips!" The blade slowly eased away from his throat. "But when you left, I was more betrayed than I'd felt in my entire life. I tore up my letter of acceptance..." He shook his head. "Twilight never wanted to leave my side, even if it meant her own death... She'd never admit it, but that's why she followed me into danger in the first place!" He shook his head. "I'm not making a choice. How could I ever choose someone who hurt me so badly over a pony who would have done anything to stop me from being hurt? I owe her my life!"
There was a beat of silence, and the enormous blade disappeared into the darkness again.
"... I want to know where you got those wings."
"I kept a few secrets, even from you." He shook his head. "I've had them since before we met, along with a few other things I'd never let fall into the hooves of somepony who's lost their mind so thoroughly as you."
He felt the magic tugging at the wings, which had been unfurled fully from his body.
"I want those wings, Penn." She whispered.
"What? No! What did I just tell you? I'm not giving something like this to you!" Pennington felt slightly more worried as she continued tugging at them with more and more force. Ripping them out of his body would be lethal. With his denial, a new sharpened edge came out of the darkness: a large scimitar that pressed itself against his throat.
There's that sense of irony, again... He thought as he did his best to swallow his fear. But with the amulet AND the wings, she'd be near-unstoppable!
"If you kill me, you'll never know how to get them off!" He shouted, hurrying to make all of his words heard before she decided to follow through on her threat. "You'll just have a winged corpse!"
There was another beat of silence, and Pennington wondered if she knew that killing him would cause the wings to separate again. To his relief, the blade vanished into thin air again. For the first time, the lights in the room were allowed to shine, and Pennington could see that Trixie had taken him to the town hall. Looking around, Pennington could see that the room was full of ponies, all doing some kind of service. It was like Moonstone had described: Trixie had turned the town into her personal workforce. Obviously, the ponies had been threatened into silence, judging from the way that they only stared in silence. He felt his face flush as he realized that he'd just confessed his love for Twilight in front of the entire town.
It's a good thing that Trixie didn't bring up Scorching Quill... He thought quietly.
"Behold, Ponyville!" Trixie's voice no longer held the ethereal quality that had made it so hard to place, and spoke loudly from behind him. "This pony thought that it would be wise to attack me! I offered him a generous forgiveness, and he has spat in my face! Now, watch in horror at what will happen to those who oppose Trixie's rule!" His body was slowly turned through the air until he was facing his captor. His eyes were invariably drawn to hers, and scowled in disdain. Throwing his own well-being to the wind, Pennington finally gave in to his reckless instincts, staring straight into her eyes in rebellion.
"You're nothing but an interlude, Trixie! A short hiccup in this town! As long as you take away their choices, ponies are going to fight you!" Gathering up a good wad in his mouth, he spat on her hooves. "If you kill me, I'm just going to be the first martyr! Others will come!"
Trixie looked down at his spit on her hooves, slowly and deliberately drawing out the action. When she looked back up again, her eyes were glowing a bright red. Staring at her, Pennington immediately felt his body grow numb and cold. At first, he felt a paralyzing fear that she had killed him with a single glare, but the familiarity of the sensation quickly drew his mind to another solution.
No, no! Please, not that! Anything but THAT!
(Once again, we'll be skipping what we all know happened. Twilight returned to Ponyville with Zecora, defeated Trixie with her clever tricks, and managed to get the amulet off of her.)
As the citizens of Ponyville all began to crowd in around her in joy at seeing Trixie's defeat, Twilight was overwhelmed with questions and gratitude.
"Where were you?"
"How did you do that?"
"That was amazing!"
"I can't believe you tricked everyone!"
Among the flurry of praise and inquiries, however, Twilight saw two of her friends standing off to the side, not joining the crowd. One was giving her a forced smile, trying to cover up some kind of sadness, while the other was outright depressed, staring down at the ground. Forcing her way out of the mob, Twilight made her way over to them.
"Applejack, Moonstone, what's wrong? Everything went perfectly!" She looked between the dragon and the pony, trying to determine what was going on.
"That's right, sugarcube! It sure did!" Applejack continued trying to smile, giving Moonstone a gentle nudge. The dragon, however, made no change.
"Moonstone? What's the matter?"
After the dragon refused to speak, Applejack let out a long sigh, dropping the facade. "You'd probably better see for yourself, Twi... It's Penn."
Twilight's heart skipped a beat in fear. "Pennington? What happened?"
"He tried to fight back..." Moonstone muttered, leading the way with her tail dragging drearily behind her. "We all did. But Trixie got him..."
"What? Where is he? What happened?"
"Trixie put him where everypony would see..." A single claw pointed up towards the town hall. "She made him the new lightning rod."
Without waiting for Moonstone to explain, Twilight was gone, teleporting herself up to the roof. Looking around to get her bearings, Twilight tried to find Pennington. Looking up towards the top of the metal tower that pointed upwards from the building, Twilight saw a black figure standing at the top, but it didn't look like Pennington at all.
The statue was extremely heavy, seemingly made out of dense, solid stone. The stone itself was black, giving the entire statue a more gargoyle-like appearance. There were a large pair of wings protruding up from the back, both pointing at the sky, and seemed to be covered in some kind of armor made up of plated metal.
"Well, this doesn't make sense! Pennington's a unicorn! Did Moonstone not catch onto this, herself?" Twilight shook her head, continuing her investigation. Yanking it off and bringing it down to her level, she began examining it more closely. Her breath caught in her throat as a familiar face met hers. It was almost definitely Pennington, eyes screwed shut in a grimace of fear.
B-But how do you have wings?" She whispered. "It looks like that will have to wait..." Looking down into the town square, Twilight spotted Trixie, who had slipped away in the attention that Twilight had been getting after winning the duel. Mustering up the energy with ease, Twilight teleported herself and the statue in front of Trixie, stopping her short. Trixie was fearful when Twilight appeared out of thin air, but at a glance to the statue standing beside her, she was shocked.
"Trixie... Fix it. Now." Twilight's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"I- I can't! Without the amulet, it's impossible!" She shook her head in denial. "It's like a cockatrice's spell, but ten times stronger! I can't even reverse a normal one without that amulet!"
"Why would you do this? Don't you know about what this does to him?" Twilight felt her temper quickly flaring up. "This is the absolute worst torture you could put him through!"
"Yes, his phobia! His sleep paralysis! Of course I do! Did you seriously think I wouldn't?" She shook her head. "Who did you think got him to see a doctor about it in the first place? We both know he wouldn't do that on his own!"
There was a beat of silence between the two before Trixie spoke again.
"The first time it happened, I was so scared, I insisted that he go and see somepony for medical help. I know about his problem every bit as much as you do! I couldn't think straight because of the amulet, and I decided to just lock him up somewhere and let him sit while he thought about what he did!" She shook her head. "But I can't fix it! We'd need a spell stronger than anything I could cast on my own!"
Twilight looked at the statue, then back at Trixie. She was about to say something, but let out a long sigh, instead. "You'd better pray that I can fix this, Trixie..." With another flash of her horn, they left Trixie alone again.
In a flash of light, Twilight and Pennington's statue were in the library.
"Twilight! You're back!" Spike, who had been hiding under the stairway, immediately jumped out and ran to her, wrapping his arms around her in a tight hug. Despite the urgency of the situation, Twilight took a moment to appreciate having him there. She'd missed him while she was gone, but seeing him alright after so long made her feel much better. She gently wrapped a hoof around him and returned the hug.
"I missed you, too, Spike! More than you can imagine!" She grinned as they held the hug for a moment, the dragon burying his face in her chest.
After a few minutes, he finally let go, staring at the statue that she had brought with her.
"So... you found out about Pennington?"
"Not everything I want to know, but the questions are going to have to wait until we get him unfrozen..." She shook her head. "I think I know a few spells for curing petrification, but this isn't going to be easy..."
"I'm sure you can do it, Twilight!" Spike chimed, giving Pennington's leg a knock, then cringing at the resulting sound. "When Trixie started casting the spell, I ran here... I didn't want to watch. She did it in front of the whole town, too!"
Twilight shook her head. "Look, Spike, I don't want to hear anything more about Trixie right now than I need to... I think you should stand back." Stepping away to put Pennington dead in her sights, Spike ran out of the way as Twilight readied herself. Closing her eyes, she mustered up the energy to start the spell, thinking through the different parts carefully. Applying it to Pennington's body felt like throwing herself at a brick wall. Trixie hadn't been joking when she had claimed that it had been strong. Twilight cringed as she continued with the spell, feeling layer after layer of magical barriers peeling away under her barrage. Every second that passed, she could feel the spell growing easier and easier to shatter. Finally, with one last burst of effort, Twilight finally eliminated the last wisps of the spell, and the stone encasement around Pennington shattered.
Pennington stood for a moment, dazed and barely conscious, then fell to the ground, his wings splaying out and away from his body, nearly flattening Spike.
"Pennington!" Twilight ran forward, inspecting him for any kind of injury. He seemed to have several burns over his body, most of which had been well-bandaged, and he was now simply sleeping. She tried shaking him awake, but he was completely unconscious. It was only now that Twilight could devote her time to inspecting his wings. Now that she could see them without the dark coloration of the stone, she could see that they were made completely out of tempered metal.
"It looks like they're cast with a bonding spell... That's how it's a part of his body." She shook her spell. "But bonding spells are dangerous! If not used properly, they can create a parasite-like object that just feeds on the user until they're separated again!"
"Uff!" Finally, Spike managed to pull himself out from under the wing that had fallen on him, shaking his head. "Pennington said he was desperate... That he needed to fight Trixie. He took her coming back really personally."
Twilight shook her head. "Great, so he decided to throw caution to the wind in a vendetta... That sounds about right. Spike, could you grab a book on bonding spells for me? We need to get these off of his body before something bad happens."
With a quick nod, the dragon disappeared up the stairs, knowing that the best of the magic books were in Twilight's private collection in her room. While he was gone, Twilight sat down next to Pennington's unconscious body.
"I swear, I leave for a few days, and you manage to get yourself nearly killed again! You need me more than you think, don't you?" Looking at his darkened mane and coat, she rolled her eyes. "And you decided to dunk yourself in ink as a disguise?"
When Pennington woke up, he and Twilight swapped stories about what had happened while the other was gone, there had been an emotional reunion with Moonstone, and in a remarkable turn of events, Pennington and Applejack didn't exchange a single hateful word. Together, they had walked back to Inkwell Commissions, with Pennington explaining where he had gotten the wings, though neither he nor Moonstone would tell them where he had been keeping them. Something about the way they suggested at the fact that there were more artifacts hidden in the house had left Twilight feeling slightly uneasy.
"So, why didn't you ever use these before now?" Twilight asked, nodding towards the wings. After she'd removed them from Pennington, they'd reverted back to their original appearance of being pulled straight out of the scrap heap, and he had insisted on carrying the weight back to his home himself. Twilight had, of course, cast a silent spell or two to ease the weight, but let him have his wish. "From what Rainbow Dash said, you could have crossed the desert in just a few days with them!"
Pennington shrugged with a grin. "You know, the normal stuff: not having the provisions to carry them, the difficultly of putting them on, the risk of starving to death..."
Twilight chuckled as his twisted humor seemed to finally return.
"Don't you worry, Penn! I told Granny Smith about what happened, and she sent me back with a big ol' jar of applesauce!" Applejack laughed. "It's waitin' for you in your fridge! You won't be starving to death on my watch!"
As the two cousins laughed together, Twilight scratched at her head. "It's still uncanny to me to see the two of you actually getting along!"
Pennington turned to her, a carefree smile still on his face. "You know, it's pretty weird for me, too! But fighting and risking your lives together on the field of battle does something to a pony... Gives you that deeper connection."
"But don't worry, the truce was only temporary!" Applejack grinned. "We'll be right back to fightin' once everything's settled down again!"
"Though maybe not so harshly."
"Are you kiddin'? Now that I know you've been going easy on me?" Applejack laughed.
"So, Penn..." Moonstone finally spoke up, having been walking in silence nearly the whole time. "Are we going to write about this one to Luna? The Alicorn Amulet?"
"Of course we are!" Pennington laughed. "There isn't a pony I'd trust more than Zecora to keep it safe, but there's no reason not to!"
Twilight smiled, happy to see the two continuing to get along. Their initial meeting seemed a thing of the far past, now, and she could easily imagine the two of them becoming as close as she and Spike had.
"Ya know what, Twilight? I think we should have some kinda celebration or something, since you're back in Ponyville!" Applejack thought for a moment. "What about a picnic? We could bring all our favorite foods, I could even bring some fresh apple juice!"
"Oh!" Pennington seemed to become excited at the idea. "You, I know the perfect spot a few hours out into the Everfree... forest..." He came to a stop as the three girls all turned to stare at him as if he'd grown another head.
"You know what? I bet there's a nice spot in the orchard, right, AJ?"
This "spontaneous" change of heart prompted laughter from all present, and Twilight finally felt that everything had returned to the way that they belonged.
Sitting in his study, Pennington was working on a full description of the Alicorn Amulet. Luna hadn't provided him with any kind of format for the entries, so he was working off of what he could remember from the entries he'd read out of transcriptions of the original beastiary. Moonstone had discovered his small stove in the corner with ease, and had climbed into the flames with startling ease for a nap. A loud knocking on the door startled them both from their restful moments. Exchanging a quick glance, Moonstone stretched in the embers before rolling out of the fire.
"I'll get it..."
She slowly walked to the door. Just like they had been changed to do, the locks unclasped themselves at her touch, allowing her to open the door. There was only a split moment between the door opening, Moonstone recognizing the visitor, and the door slamming shut.
"Who is it?"
"Three guesses, and they all should start with 'That rotten little-"
"Pennington!" Trixie's voice hummed through the door, struggling to make herself heard. "I just wanted to talk!"
Rolling his eyes, Pennington got up from the desk and opened the door, himself. Trixie was indeed there in his hallway. Pennington let a beat of silence pass, then gave his reply.
"No."
Slamming the door shut yet again, he could hear Trixie groaning in the hallway.
"Look, then just let me do the talking, okay?"
"How did you even get in here?" He shouted back as he walked behind his desk again.
"You still keep the key in the same place! You changed the locks on your study, though!"
This, of course, caused Moonstone to give him an exasperated glare. "Really, Penn? The same spot?"
"Shut up, it's a good spot!" He replied before returning his attention to the door. "The locks were always changed! I put them back so that you'd think I was being sentimental! It was a trick, Trixie!"
There was another beat of silence.
"And when I came to visit you? The kiss? That moment of-"
"A trick! A facade! A mere act of theatricality! Simply trying not to get on your bad side before I was capable of fighting you!" Though she couldn't see, he punctuated each statement with a flourish of his quill.
"So, you never hoped I'd come back?"
Pennington seemed to struggle for a moment, then began working on his project again. "The key was in the same place, wasn't it? The top of the door frame in the back door, just like I always told you! I didn't move it during the first few months after you left because of hope. The rest, laziness."
Moonstone gave him yet another frustrated glare. "You left the key where the thief knew it was?"
"Pennington, I didn't come here looking for anything more than to apologize!"
There was a soft clatter as the quill dropped. When Moonstone looked from the door to Pennington, she saw that he looked genuinely surprised.
"Apologize? Apologize? After you stole my novel, my bits, my heart? After you banished the mare I love from town? After you placed the entire town under your absolute tyranny?" He stood up from the table, his outrage rising to a boil. "After you put me through the most excruciating pain of my life? After you used me and walked out?" He strode across the room, nearly knocking Moonstone over in his fury. "After you hurt my friends and tried to barbeque a member of my family? After you locked me in stone and forced me to live my worst nightmare-" Reaching for the knob, he pulled the door open with so much force, Moonstone doubted that the locks would have stopped him, even if they had still been engaged. "After the HELL you put me through, you're here to APOLOGIZE?"
Trixie looked up at him, her eyes full of tears. "I don't deserve forgiveness, Pennington... I just wanted to let you know I was sorry." She whispered the words, bringing a stark contrast to Pennington's rage. For Moonstone, it was like seeing someone throw a bucket of water on a fire. Immediately, Pennington seemed to deflate, and an air of hopelessness settled over him.
He's seriously not going to- is he? Moonstone thought to herself.
"Trixie... A word in private? I'll walk you out..." He turned to his assistant. "I'll be right back, Moonstone. Would you mind double-checking my work?"
The dragon cast an uneasy glance between Pennington and the desk, but eventually nodded and flew over to look at his paper.
"And don't get any soot on the chair!" Pennington shook his head and stepped out into the hallway with Trixie. Swinging the door shut behind him, he turned to the blue mare.
"The Great and Powerful Trixie never says 'sorry' except to ask when someone else is going to say it to her." He scowled, turning towards the stairwell, rather than the path to the front door. Trixie seemed confused, but followed him up into his home.
"Well, I never did anything quite so terrible as what I did to you, did I?" She asked quietly.
Pennington paused again at the top of the stairs before walking through into his main living room.
"Did your traveling stage survive this visit to Ponyville?" He asked quietly.
"Well, yes... I'm leaving tomorrow night."
"Good, you won't be on the streets again." Pennington muttered. "And you didn't blow all that money on the amulet, did you?"
Trixie blushed, looking down in embarrassment. "Well, I can't pay you back, if that's-"
"It's not. I want to know if you'll be able to buy yourself meals until you can get back on your hooves. Again."
"W-well, yes! I can. Why would you ask me something like that?" She shook her head in confusion.
"Because it's going to take me a long time to forgive you." He growled, looking around the room as if he were trying to find something. Shaking his head, he quickly walked towards the door to the single bedroom in the house. "You're going to have to stay gone for at least that long."
When he opened the door, he blinked rapidly in a flurry of dust. "It's just how it was the first time you came here... I liked sleeping in there even less after you left." Stepping inside, he looked around, then seemed to find what he was looking for. When he stepped back out again, he was rubbing something with his hoof. "With the amulet gone, I'm guessing you'll be wanting the old fastener for your cape?" Pulling back his hoof, he revealed the old-but-familiar gem that Trixie had realized was missing some time ago. Without a word, her tossed it to her. Trixie fumbled for a moment, but caught it in the air with her magic.
"So... You're going to forgive me?"
Pennington shot her a glare that quickly extinguished Trixie's hopes. It faded after a moment, but it was still enough to knock her back down a few pegs.
"I'm not making any promises. And there's not a chance of our ever working together again..." He walked back out the door to the stairwell. Following him, Trixie stashed the gem in her saddlebag to affix to her cape later on.
"So... It's possible?"
"Trixie, don't get your hopes up about ever coming back to this place again." He muttered as they walked back down and through the house. "But... I rarely can hold a grudge for a long time, as much as I'd LIKE to."
While Trixie smiled, Pennington retained his grimace all the way to the front door. The two stood face-to-face in the doorway, giving each other one last stare.
"And if you do forgive me someday?"
"Then you might have a friend in Ponyville again." He let out a long, melancholy sigh. "But if you want a clear sign... I'll never ask you for help until I've forgiven you. If you get a letter asking for your help, know that you can come back here."
Trixie's smile grew wider, and she gave an understanding nod.
"I'll always be a letter away..." He pushed the door open, and Trixie started to step through, but stopped again. "And is Twilight really all that? So amazing? So much better than I was?"
"She's everything I said and more... But don't judge yourself so harshly. You made a long line of mistakes." Knowing that those were the last words that he wanted to leave with her, Pennington let the door swing shut. As it fell into place, he locked it tightly, then pulled down the blind that was always over it when the shop was closed.
Walking back to his study, Moonstone was sitting on his desk, having obviously been waiting patiently for him to return.
"Tell me that you didn't let her suck you into that."
"How was I supposed to say no to a face like that?" He shook his head. "I told her not to come back, though, and that she couldn't expect any favors from me."
Moonstone let out a long sigh, shaking her head. "Pennington, I really have to admit: you're much less prone to pain than I am..."
"Oh, it hurts like HELL every moment I have to look at her... But I don't blame her completely. That makes it easier." He shook his head. "And just because I may or may not have forgive her doesn't mean that she has to know that! As long as it takes me to sort out my own feelings about it, I want her to believe that I still loathe her."
Moonstone thought for a moment, then grinned evilly.
"Oh, that's cruel."
"That... is how you deal with problems when you grow up: throw everything into the grey area."
"Like the morality of your little vault?"
"Shut up."