“Crystal Empire?!” I asked, “What the hell is Crystal Empire? What do you mean last son?”
“What I mean is, that you are one of the last surviving crystallion.” Uncle Disc sighed as he sipped from his cup. I just sat there and stared at him for almost a minute.
“Ok.”
“Ok?” Uncle Disc said, confused.
“You have to tell me.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What do they put in this stuff? It is like pure crack.” I said, pointing to the IV giggling.
“What?!” Disc said, snapping his coffee away.
“This is a massive hallucination from the loss of blood, the trauma or the drugs. My hand is just shiny for some stupid reason. There is magic literally everywhere. How do I know that this is not some hallucination. I hallucinate all the time apparently. This isn’t new to me.” I began laughing slightly hysterically.
“I’m dreaming still. I am going to wake up in my bed, with the worst hangover ever because I’m obviously still in a coma.” That comment received a swift jab to battered side from Rarity. “I mean, what the hell did you expect? I supposed to just accept the fact that I am a whatever the hell you said-”
“A crystallion”
“What the hell is a crystallion?”
“A crystallion was a race of equines indigenous to the Crystal Empire, which was located in the north. They were defined by a gemlike coat. Which would explain why it is almost impossible for your skin to be cut-” Twilight quipped up.
“I did not ask for a damn explanation, Twilight!” I growled, sitting there barely able to absorb the avalanche of information. After a second or two of silence, I registered one thing that Twilight said. I have a gemlike skin? What the hell. Is this shit permanent? Am I going to glow in the sun like that character in Trixie’s books? “Why does my skin look like this?”
“I will get to that soon enough,” Disc calmly stated, twirling the shard of stone inbetween his long fingers.
“No!”
“No? No?!” Disc stood up at his seat, his eyes ripping into my body.
“You said you would tell me what the hell was going on! Why is it that I have giant slashes all over my body even though you said I can’t be cut! Why can my bones break if they are made out of stone?! What the fuck am I?!” I replied, fiercely. A little too rough unfortunately. My body heaved against the stress and I succumbed to violent coughing.
“Everything has their breaking point. Bodies, minds, friendships and even the very earth. Stone breaks just like bones Crisp.” Disc stated, pushing me back down with a snap of his fingers. “I need you to calm down. You suffered catastrophic injuries. Just lay down and breathe.” Disc looked over at the dean, shaking his head.
“He shall never accept what he is, will he Discord?” Luna questioned as she walked back from my side over to her chair in the corner. “It seems as though thou has, once again, not thought this completely to the end.”
“I honestly thought that the hand and the shard would be enough. It reminds me of the night I met him in that music hall,” he sighed, “Crisp has never been one to believe what he is told. From what I have witnessed, his belief lies within actions and not words. Just as it was when I taught him to play piano, he may need a more involved display.” He put his hand into his pocket and pulled a small blade out. The blade shimmered in the bright fluorescent lighting of the hospital room, coated in blood. My blood...
“Where the hell did you get that?!” I almost screeched. I backed up as well as I could, trying to put as much distance between me and that damn blade.
“I picked it up when we found you. It is a very interesting metal this blade. Silicon Carbide.”
“Silicon Carbide?” Rarity said, sitting up on the bed. “You must be joking. He had his hands on a silicon carbide blade?”
“What is silicon carbide?”
“It is a compound one uses to cut gemstones. It is a very strong metalloid. It rates a 9.5 on the Mohs scale, which means it is very sturdy. Almost as hard as a diamond. They are very hard to get a hold of. You need a special permit even to own one.”
“How is that going to prove anything?” I asked her.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.” She replied.
“Oh it’s very simple. I’m just going to cut you.” Uncle Disc calmly stated.
That comment was met with a less than welcome response. Rarity and I scooted ourselves as far away from the blade again. The Dean, Twilight and Luna all shot up and slammed against the walls of the room. Uncle Disc just looked around the room at the reaction.
“You didn’t let me finish.” He stated, brandishing the knife. “I’m going to cut him twice.”
“Are you kidding me? I don’t want to get cut...again.”
“I’m not going to stab you. Just slide the blades across the back of your hands. Just to show you that you are, in fact, a crystallion.” He snapped his hand and a scalpel materialized and landed in his hand. “This test will prove that only the silicon carbide blade will be able to cut your skin.”
“Bullshit. How do I know that the scalpel isn’t like a butter knife, or you are gonna enchant the blade so it cuts me and the other one doesn’t.”
“You bring up a very excellent point. How do you know if I’m not just pulling a little prank? How about a little side by side comparison.” He stated, levitating both blades in front of his right hand. With a quick snap from his left, the blades sliced over his hand, creating a x shaped gash in the skin. Blood seeped from the wound, dripping down onto the floor beneath him.
“There,” he chuckled, wincing at the pain, “and I don’t even get the benefit of a morphine drip.”
I stared at the cross on Uncle Disc’s hand for what seemed hours. I watched the blood trail down his hand and onto his sleeve, finally landing with a soft plip down on the ground. The sound echoed in my ears, just as it had in the snow.
“I promise you this. That if this indeed is false, then you will never hear of any of this again and you will continue on your life as normal.”
“What if you are right?” I asked, staring at the blades and squeezing the hand in mine tightly. The room waited on baited breath as Uncle Disc’s and my eyes locked. His yellow and red to my lavender.
“We will get to that in a bit.” Disc finally replied.
The blades slowly turned midair, dripping blood and floating closer and closer to my right hand. Reluctantly, I took my hand out of Rarity’s and held it out. The blades danced around my hand, eventually stopping just above the skin.
“Now, first I’m going to use the scalpel, which is one of the sharpest utensils available.” He said, touching the scalpel to my skin. “Are you ready?” I breathed in deeply and pressed the button for a quick shot of morphine. After feeling the drug kick in, I nodded to him. I closed my eyes and held my breath. The scalpel dragged along my skin. I could feel the pressure, the cool metal pressing down onto my flesh as it ran along the length of my hand.
My mind was racing. If there was a cut, then whatever they were saying wasn’t true and I would be able to go on living a normalish life. My only worry would be if I could tackle stairs or not.
I felt the pressure leave my hand, but no pain. Maybe I shot myself too full of painkiller. I would never find out if I didn’t just look. Slowly I opened one eye and stared down at my right hand. I was dumbfounded, alongside Twilight and Rarity. There was no cut, no blood. The only thing that appeared was a slim red line of where the knife had pressed down onto the skin.
“And now the other blade,” he stated, slashing the tip of the blade like a pendulum across the back of my hand. I felt the tip rip at my flesh, digging into my hand and slicing it up. Blood trickled from the gash and dripped onto the sheets. “There,” Uncle Disc said, “does that help prove it?”
I couldn’t make out anything, all I could do was stare at this trail of blood from my hand. We sat in that hospital room for a couple minutes in silence.
“So…” I finally said, breaking the silence “This stuff is really good,” pointing to the morphine drip.
“Yes, you said that.” Rarity said muffled from my side.
“Does that mean you understand what you are?” Dean Celeste spoke up.
“Kinda?” I answered after a couple of seconds.
“Good enough for me” Disc said, snapping his fingers and bandaging both of our cuts.
“Still doesn’t answer why my hand looks like a diamond?”
“It’s not a diamond…” Twilight said.
“Crystal, whatever.”
“We actually do not really know why your body is reverting to its original makeup,” Dean Celeste began, “but there is a theory behind it. Crystal mares and Crystallions were creatures ruled by emotion. The thought is that your body reverted due to your emotional state during the attack.”
“Which is why,” Uncle Disc cut in, “we need to know exactly what happened.”
“I still don’t understand what this has to do with the fight.”
“Were you not paying attention just now?” Rarity said, slightly perturbed.
“Not really. Just pumping the painkillers into my body.”
“Crystallions are creatures of emotion.” Luna finally spoke from her corner of the room, “Back in the olden days, their powers rivaled that of the unicorns. Most were not able to tap into the full potential of their magic. In fact, only two crystal casters existed in the records. Like you, most drew their power from emotions.”
“What does that even mean?”
“How did you feel when Ridger attacked the two of you?”
“Ummmm…. well let me think about it. Or wait, let’s not, because it really doesn’t need to be thought about. That shithead attacked us. How do you think I felt? I was fucking furious.”
“Did you feel anything else?”
“What, you mean besides anger?”
“There are a myriad of emotions that I am assure you are aware of. Anger is a strong emotion but I feel there was a stronger one in play. Did Ridger say anything, anything at all that would have made you feel anything else.”
I thought back to the last night I could remember, back to the snow starting to stain red from blood. Panic seeped in from the walls of my mind as I saw Ridger holding the blade to my face.
“He said… he said that he was going to kill Rarity… his part of a bargain of some sort,” the words flooded out as the memory of my conversation with the sadistic bastard became clearer. “He said I was meant to watch her die, knowing that I couldn’t anything to save her.” My breathing became labored, the pain in my leg and wing rose with my blood pressure. I felt a hand wrap around my right, squeezing it comfortingly. “I felt desperate to do anything.”
“Desperation is indeed a powerful motivator,” Disc said, smirking a little bit.
“So my body did this because I was desperate?” I asked staring at my hand and then to the shard in Disc’s possession.
“That is the theory.” Disc said, resting back into his chair for a moment, before standing up quickly, “Did you say something about a bargain?”
“Yeah. He said that he was doing this because if he did, then they would get him out of prison.”
“Did he say who?” Disc said, his eyes growing wide.
“He didn’t say anything, just that they were powerful.”
Disc sat back down in his chair, swearing under his breath. He looked over to the other three standing and sighed as he looked back to me.
“Are you sure?”
“I mean, if he did, I can’t remember it.”
“No, no. It’s quite alright. It just seems strange that he would have a blade made specifically to cut gemstones. I thought it might have been connected but it could just as easily be that he wanted it to fight Miss Filigree here. She did tell us a bit about how she slammed a gem into his side and it would make sense. A earth unicorn that would use gemstones as projectiles,” He smirked to himself. He mumbled something to himself that I couldn’t hear at all.
Disc stood out of his chair, stretching his long arms in front of him. He snapped his fingers and his chair morphed into a cane. It had a reddish brown tint to it, but it was only really a long slender stick. He took the crystal rod that he said came out of my hand and slid it into the top and morphed the exposed part into the topper. After he was finished, he placed it next to my bed.
“My gift to you. Hopefully it will serve you well. Now seeing as it is getting closer to five in the morning, I believe it is time we take our leave.” He motioned to Twilight and the two sisters to follow him out. He picked up his cane and made his way towards the door.
“Hey Uncle Disc?”
“Yes, Crisp.”
“Two questions.” He lifted his head, sighing, and smiled towards me.
“What is it?”
“First,” I started, “what do I do about my hand? Is this permanent?”
“To tell you the truth I have no idea. I am not a crystallion so I have a limited knowledge of all the ins and outs. My suggestion is to keep it wrapped up for now. Hopefully it will be gone soon.” He chuckled in response to my low grumble at the news.
“Now, what was the other thing?”
“What does my being a...crystallion have to do with anything?”
Disc shifted uncomfortably in the doorway, rubbing his hand on the doorknob. His eyes shifted from me to Dean Celeste. She nodded towards Luna on her right, and then conjured up a couple scrolls into her hand and passed them over to her sister. After the Dean grabbed the scrolls, Disc conjured up a few more scrolls and a large tome.
“Nothing. I just thought you should know about the world and your heritage.” He smiled as he levitated the book and scrolls over to me. The gift landed with a small thud on the bed next to my left hand
“What am I supposed to do with these?” I asked him as the other three passed behind him.
“Do what you see fit.” He said as he turned his back towards me. Uncle Disc stopped just shy of the threshold. He looked back to me and Rarity and smiled. “I’m glad that I didn’t have to bury another one of my friends. Amber would have been proud of you.” And with that he turned and closed the door.
I sat there in my bed, listening to the sounds of the machinery beep and whirl as they pumped and hummed along. I picked up a scroll with my left hand, catching myself looking at the now shimmering appendage.
“Ten bits says this shit is permanent.” I chuckled to myself.
“It would not be the worst possible thing to have happen darling,” Rarity softly cooed from my side, “and I must say, what a lovely finish it has to it.”
I laughed a bit harder, looking down into the purple hair of the girl now curling her body into my lap.
“How long have you been wearing my coat?” I asked, running my hand along the thick fabric.
“Three days.” She replied. “It was the earliest the hospital would allow your garments to be released from custody. They were absolutely filthy, drenched in blood, sweat and all other matters of fluid.”
“Was the coat the only thing that made it?”
“No, your scarf is being cleaned as we speak. Your uncle used it as a bandage for your hand.”
“So my pants?”
“They had to cut them off.”
“And the turtleneck?” I asked, to which I received no response. I felt her shift around underneath my arm, crossing her own arms and shaking angrily. “I ruined the turtleneck, didn’t I?”
“Let us not discuss of that turtleneck again. Or what remained of it after you and Ridger were through with it.” She scoffed at me as she lifted herself up and placed her head on my shoulder.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. I won’t lie to you, I was lucky to be alive from what everyone had told me. But I wasn’t going to be able to do things for myself for a while, hell I wasn’t going to be able to walk right. I turned my head towards Rarity and softly pressed my lips against her hair. She didn’t react. She sat there with her arms wrapped around her knees.
“Is there something bothering you?” I asked her.
“No, I was just thinking about Hearth’s Warming Eve. How dreadful a night that was.”
I pulled my arm around her shoulder and squeezed her into my side. “Yeah, it wasn’t a good one.” was all I could say.
“Crisp,” she started.
“Yea?”
“Promise me that next year we will have a proper Hearth’s Warming and New Year’s this year?”
“Yea, barring any surprise visits from psychotic ex boyfriends, I’m sure we will have a good one.” I said, feeling the exhausting start to wash over me. My body was too lethargic from being asleep for a week and it was feeling heavier by the minute.
“Is your last name really Lulamoon?”
“Yea. It’s an adopted name. I can’t believe I have know you girls for a couple months and now you finally realize you never asked my last name. Why?
“Well, I remembered the name. A certain traveling illusionist goes by the name of Trixie Lulamoon. I was just wondering if there was any connection.”
I felt my face turn slightly red, “ummmmmm…. no?”
“Liar!” She stated, quickly shifting herself from my side and sitting herself on top of me. She scrunched up her nose, beginning to channel her magic.
“Wait!’ I laughed and panicked, “you can’t hit me! Trixie isn’t that bad, and she was the one that helped me pick out your present?”
Rarity smirked at me, “I know. Trixie was here a few day ago. She was your only family member to come by. She had to leave a couple days ago when the carnival left. She did, however, tell how you were panicking about what to get me. How sweet and how you. And oh, do you mean this necklace?” She said, levitating my coat off her shoulders revealing the pendant around her neck….and nothing else. I felt my face burn as the blush rapidly spread across my face.
“Now it’s my turn to give you a present,” she said, dimming the lights until the only light was from the full moon outside the window. I felt her soft skin press against mine, the heat emanating off of it intense. She positioned herself sitting on my lap, lifting my head up to meet hers.
“Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve.” she said, pressing her lips into mine.