Streak’s eyes snapped open to be met with a complete blackness. He was laying on his back, his throat was dry, and his whole body ached. His lips cracked as he opened his mouth to speak. His voice came out hoarse and weak, turning his shout into a wheezy whisper of a stallion on his deathbed. “H–hello?”
“Ah, you’re awake,” a motherly voice said.
“Where am I?” he croaked.
“Shh,” she shushed him, pressing a glass into his hooves. “Don’t talk. You’re weak and need to drink. Magic can do many things, but you need to put some real fluids inside yourself.”
“I can’t see,” Streak stubbornly pressed on.
“You have a blindfold on,” the voice answered, “and that’s not being quiet.”
“Who are you? Where am I?” Streak kept on going.
“If you drink, I’ll answer your questions,” she said. “Not until then.” Streak grumbled but drank the cup of water—slowly, at her urging. When he was finished, she pressed another cup into his hooves. “One more, then we’ll talk.”
After drinking the second cup, Streak sounded much more equine when he spoke. “Okay. Now, why am I blindfolded?”
“The light is bright,” she said, “and you have been in the dark for a long time.”
“Can you take it off?” he asked. “I much enjoy seeing.”
“Of course,” she said. Streak closed his eyes and braced himself for something, but he only felt two hooves press on the sides of his head and gently pull off the blindfold. “Better?” she asked as he opened his eyes. Everything was dim, but he could make out a black-coated, red-maned earth pony in front of him. Behind her was a room built completely of wood. It was no more than ten feet square, and was adorned with only a bed and a mirror on wheels on the wall nearby. One door stood in the wall opposite of the mirror.
“Much better,” he said, nodding in thanks. “Now I have more questions.”
“Of course you do,” she said. “Ask away, and I will answer what I can.”
“Who are you?” he asked bluntly. After a slight pause, he tried again, “Sorry. What is your name?”
“I am called Ladybug,” she said. “And don’t worry too much about being rude. After what you went through, I don’t think anyone expects you to be polite right away.”
“I still can’t be rude,” he said. Getting back on topic, he asked, “Where am I?”
“You are in Hive. It’s a small village nestled in the middle of the Everfree,” Ladybug said. “We don’t much care for outsiders, but we made you a special case.”
“Special case?” he asked, scratching his head with his right forehoof. “What made my case special?”
“Besides the fact you were being eaten alive by timberwolves?” she asked wryly. “I don’t think we need much of a reason to keep you until you felt better, and most of us even want to ask you to stay. You don’t have to answer now, but you would not be treated as an outsider.”
“I–I have to think about that,” Streak said. “I feel like I have to return to Equestria. I’m a royal guard, and we don’t abandon Equestria.” His expression darkened. “Our friends are apparently a different story.”
Ladybug winced in sympathy. “As I said, you don’t have to answer. I assume you have more than two questions?”
“Many more than two,” he replied. He looked at his leg. “Didn’t I lose this? I remember losing this.”
She guided his eyes to the base of his leg, where an irregular ring of white dissected the fur on his body. “You most definitely lost that leg.”
“So you found it and reattached it?” he asked. “That’s impressive.”
“It was carried off by one of the fleeing timberwolves,” Ladybug said. “We weren’t able to recover it.”
“How did you–not even the Princesses could create a new leg from scratch!” Streak exclaimed.
“It wasn’t from scratch,” she said. “Leave that topic alone, please. At least for now.”
Streak sighed, “I owe you at least that much. You guys saved my life.”
“You owe us nothing, young one,” Ladybug said.
“That’s crap and you know it,” he said. “What about my other leg and chest? What happened to them?”
She sighed, “I guess I won’t be able to stop these questions. Look at your body. Do you see anything different?”
Streak examined his body. He saw nothing unusual, besides his right side being slightly smaller than his left. That was to be expected, though, especially since he lost the whole right side of his body not too long ago. “I see nothing unusual.”
Ladybug silently pulled up a mirror and positioned it so he could see himself. He looked into it. “See? Nothing’s. . . different. . .” His face was the same as it always was, save for the spike of grey sticking out of the middle of the rainbow streak down the center of his mane. That was a horn. He had a horn. “Why do I have a horn?”
“There was no way to save you,” Ladybug said. “There was no way we could have possibly put you back together and kept you alive for any length of time.”
“But you did,” Streak said. “I’m here, talking with you.”
“We didn’t,” she said. “You were found by Aphid and Moth, one of our many teams sent into the Everfree to cull the predator population and keep Hive safe. Aphid was great with combat magic and Moth was a healer.” She sighed, looking down. “Aphid forced Moth to do a ritual, one that would combine you two physically and use her to heal you. After the ritual, Moth brought your combined body back to heal what the ritual didn’t.”
“So you’re saying that my leg is not my leg,” he said. “You’re saying that my leg is actually Aphid’s leg?”
“Both your right legs are Aphid’s,” Ladybug corrected. “As is most of your stomach and internal organs.”
“I—” Streak shook his head. “Why? Why me? I’m a nobody. I don’t have a cutie mark, I have no close family. I don’t even do anything besides sit around at the bar and drink water!”
“She could tell that it took many minutes for you to get to where you were. Many minutes of agony. She didn’t know that that agony was both physical, due to being eaten alive, and mental, due to being abandoned to that fate by a comrade. She said that if anyone deserved to live at that moment in time, it was you.”
“You said earlier that I don’t owe you guys anything,” Streak said. “I think I owe you everything. Not only did you save my life, but you lost one of your own to do so.”
“You owe us nothing,” she reiterated. “She made this decision on her own volition. It was not us that saved you, but her.”
Streak looked back at his legs and stomach. “What color was her fur?” he asked.
“Black,” Ladybug said. “Same as everyone else’s in Hive. Why? Do your fur colors not match? I just assumed wherever you came from was a village of grey-furred ponies.”
“No,” he said. “We have blues, greens, purples, browns, whites, greys, and any other color you can imagine.”
“That is quite peculier,” she mused.
“If her fur was black, how come the parts of me that are her are my normal fur color?” Streak suddenly asked.
“We enchanted you to make your fur a uniform color,” she explained.
“Get rid of it,” he demanded.
“What?” she asked, shocked.
“Get rid of it,” he reiterated. “She died to save me, the least I can do is not hide what’s left of her.”
“Before we do this, I have to warn you,” Ladybug cautioned, “the merging was more complete than it needed to be. We never use this spell, so it was cast without practice.”
“I assumed when I had a horn,” Streak said. “I refuse to hide her, even if my whole body becomes pitch black.”
“Alright,” she said. She turned to look at the door. “Moth! Get in here!”
An annoyed but familiar voice grumbled as its owner walked through the door. He was a black unicorn with a light grey mane. “What?”
“Take down the enchantment,” she said.
“Do you really want me to?” he groaned.
“Yes,” Streak said.
“Ah, so he’s finally awake?” he asked. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Streak,” he said. “Now if you would?”
The unicorn grumbled, “Kids and their patience.” Despite his grumbling, his horn flashed green, and a wave of green raced across Streak’s body, reverting colors back to their originals.
Streak looked down at himself. His entire right side was black, as well as most of his stomach. The black ran up his neck, and he could see it on part of his nose. He looked into the mirror, and was surprised by what he saw. His face was half black on the right side, nearly perfectly split down the middle. The eye on the right side was a vibrant blue, like that of Mite’s mane. His mane was also changed. The rainbow streak was unchanged, as was the black on the left side. However, on the right side of his body, his mane matched his new eye. As if it didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity, his horn was hemisected as well. It took half a glance to confirm that, yes, his tail had joined in the dimidiation.
The duo misinterpreted his silence. “We can put it back on,” Ladybug suggested.
“No,” Streak said. “It’s weird, I’ll admit, but it’s something I can get used to. She died to save me, I refuse to just hide her because I dislike change.”
“If that’s all you need me for?” Moth asked. “I have to deal with Beetle again. He never seems to understand that allergies aren’t curable with magic. Comes in every spring.”
Streak froze. “Spring? It’s summer.”
“No, it’s spring,” Moth said. “Ladybug, you deal with this one. I have to get back to my patients.” As he left, he grumbled, “ ‘No open partners’, my flank.”
“What does he mean it’s spring?” Streak demanded. “It was late summer when I went into the Everfree.”
Ladybug sighed. “Look, Streak,” she started, “you took a lot of damage. If you’ll pardon my bluntness, you had half your body ripped to shreds and replaced magically with another pony’s. You took a while to recover fully.”
“But did I really have to be out for over nine months?” he asked.
“Did you want to die?” she asked. “We kept you magically sedated for six months, and you were able to wake up for the other three at any time. You didn’t, so you needed to be out.”
“Nine months, though?” he asked.
“Nine months,” she confirmed. “I hate to be the bearer of this news.”
Streak scoffed. “Ponyville probably thinks I’m dead right now, since Shield abandoned me to return there.”
“Then stay here,” she suggested. “We have the open space, and I’m sure we can find someone to teach you how to use that horn.”
“No,” Streak said, shaking his head. “I know somepony that can teach me magic like none other. I also have to make sure ponies know what Shield did.”
“What exactly happened?” Ladybug asked. “I want to hear every detail.”
Streak spent the next few minutes retelling the story, starting at the guard station and ending with his mauling by the alpha timberwolf. Ladybug hummed in thought at the end. “It seems like this filly you were sent to rescue is more than she seems. On top of that, Shield didn’t abandon you without good reason.”
“But he left me to be eaten alive in the Everfree Forest,” Streak argued. “What kind of pony can do that with a clear conscience?”
“What if he doesn’t have a clear conscience?” she asked him. “Think about it. He was forced to abandon a friend to a gruesome death to avoid the same fate for himself and a filly he was sent to retrieve. He was faced with a lose-lose situation, and he made a choice.”
Streak sighed. “Logically, I know that. Emotionally? That’s a whole other animal. I know I shouldn’t hate him, but I do. Am I a bad pony, Ladybug?”
“You aren’t a bad pony,” she said. “You’re a pony. We are—at our core—flawed. Does that make you right? It certainly doesn’t make you wrong. That is all I can say. You need to find the truth for yourself.”
Streak groaned. “I hate when ponies tell me that I need to figure things out for myself. Let me guess, if you tell me then I lose the point of it gained by the act of learning?”
“Yes,” she said with a wry grin. “Heard this before?”
“Too often,” he said. He looked at the door. “Am I ready to head back?”
“It will take a few days before you can walk unassisted, and about a week before you can make the trek through the Everfree,” Ladybug said. “Of course, we will provide a guide and guards for you.”
“I don’t think that’s needed,” Streak started to argue.
“If you die on the walk back, then Aphid’s sacrifice was for naught,” Ladybug said bluntly. “I won’t let my daughter’s death mean nothing.”
Streak gaped at her. “Aphid was your–and you’re okay with–I don’t even know how to start telling you how confused I am right now.”
“Then don’t,” she said. “You gave my daughter a chance to have a meaningful death, something many ponies hope for and live their lives looking for. She got hers, and it was because of you.”
“But I’m the reason your daughter died!” Streak exclaimed. “Do you not hate me for that?”
“Hate you? No,” Ladybug said. “I don’t hate you. Am I saddened by my daughter’s choice? Yes. Am I proud of her for making that choice? Yes, I am. Would I kill you if it meant bringing her back to me? No, I wouldn’t. She was a grown mare that made a choice. I have to let go at some point and stop trying to control her life.”
“You are a better pony than I am,” Streak commented.
“It’s funny you say that,” she chuckled. She ignored Streak’s look and continued, “As I said, you’ll be here about a week. Take some time to get to know the ponies if you wish. If you don’t, we hold no grudge against you.”
“If it’s alright with you, I’d like to devote my time to getting better,” he said. “Nothing against your ponies, of course.”
“Of course,” she said with an understanding smile.
—*~*~*—
“Here we are,” a green-maned unicorn named Ant said as the group pulled up to the border of the Everfree. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay?”
“I’m sure,” Streak said.
“The offer is always on the table. If you ever need a place, we’re always watching the Everfree. If we see you, we’ll grab you,” Ant said as he turned around. “C’mon, Dragonfly, Cockroach, let’s head back home.” The blue and pink maned pony guards, respectively, nodded and followed the guide back into the forest.
As Streak walked into the town, he was spotted by a certain berry-red pony. She approached from his left. “Hey, is that you Streak? Shield told us you were reassigned.”
Streak looked at her. “Yep, it’s me. No, I wasn’t reassigned. Do you know where Shield is at this time of day?”
Berry gasped when she saw the other side of Streak’s face. “What happened to you?” she asked.
“Long story. If you want to hear it, feel free to follow me. Where is Shield?” he repeated.
“He should be in the guard station,” Berry said.
“Thank you,” Streak said. As he started walking past her, he paused. “Berry, why aren’t you in the bar?”
She blinked slowly. “It’s the week before the Grand Galloping Gala, Streak,” she said. “Nopony’s business is open. It’s a kind of unofficial tradition here in Ponyville.”
“That’s an odd tradition,” Streak commented, “but I’ve seen weirder places.” His piece said, he started walking towards the station again. Berry was on his heels as he walked.
“Hey, who the hay are you?” a voice Streak would never have missed—no matter how long he was away—said. He stopped in the streets and looked over at Rainbow.
“Has it really been that long, Rainbow?” Streak asked. “Or are you just that stupid?”
She growled. “Now I know for certain it’s you. What did you do to yourself? What kind of demented things did you do to give yourself a horn?”
“To myself?” he exclaimed. “Do you think I enjoy this?”
“”Wait, you have a horn!” Berry exclaimed. “How did I miss that?”
Rainbow snorted. “Of course it would land on Streak to decide he wasn’t good enough as an earth pony and elevate himself above us commoners.”
Streak’s—Aphid’s, he reminded himself—hoof went flying out and slammed into Rainbow Dash’s jaw, snapping her head to the side. “Don’t you dare compare me to those pompous nobles up in Canterlot,” he growled.
“You remember how this worked for you last time?” she growled.
“I got a job,” he said as he settled into a fighting stance. “I am in no mood to deal with your pettiness today, Rainbow, but maybe this time I’ll get a house out of kicking your flank across the street and back.”
Rainbow growled and started lunging, but Berry stepped between the two. “Stop this. Now.” She turned on Rainbow. “He’s goading you, Rainbow. Don’t keep falling for it. Be the better pony.” The barmare whirled around and looked at Streak. “And you. I don’t care what you went through, that is no excuse for picking a fight in the middle of the street.”
Streak calmly pointed at the irregular seam around his right foreleg. “You see this?” he asked.
“I just said I don’t care—” Berry started.
“This happened when I was getting mauled by a timberwolf. Pulled it right off.” He pointed at Rainbow. “She is currently between me and the pony responsible for causing this. I will not suffer delays.” Berry and Rainbow gaped at him at the casual way he described getting a leg ripped off. While they were distracted, he walked right past them and continued his walk to the station. He didn’t have to look behind him to know he now had two shadows.
It didn’t take Streak long to find his way to the station. The door slammed as Streak stormed into the building. “Shield!” he shouted. “Get out here!”
The sound of hoofsteps echoed throughout the building. “What do you want?” an annoyed sounding voice called out as Shield walked into the room from Streak’s left. “You could at least–no.”
“Yes,” Streak growled, turning to face him. “You abandoned me, Shield.”
“I had no choice!” the guardspony defended himself. “The rest of the pack was going to reform within minutes, and then all three of us would have died.”
“I was being eaten alive, Shield,” the hemisected blank said, “and you walked away without raising a hoof to save me.”
Berry gasped from her position behind the two. Rainbow next to her had a glare leveled at the senior guard.
“It was you, or all three of us,” Shield said. “I made my choice.”
“Do you know what that felt like?” Streak asked. “Do you know what it feels like to have your leg ripped off? To have another one eaten while attached to your body? To feel the muzzle of a timberwolf rooting around in your gut for the tastiest bits?”
“No, I don’t,” Shield said. “I had no choice, Streak. Nothing you say will change that.”
Rainbow stepped forward. “You didn’t even attempt to help him. That was a choice.”
“I don’t see how this involves you, if you pardon my frankness,” the guard said.
“I am the Element of Loyalty,” she growled. “You abandoned a friend to be eaten alive without even attempting to help him. I think this involves me.”
“I thought you hate each other,” Shield said. “Why are you coming to his defense?”
“Because I’m the Element of Loyalty,” she reiterated. “It doesn’t matter that I dislike him.”
“That isn’t even why I’m as mad as I am, Shield,” Streak interrupted. “I’m mad because you caused the death of a good pony.”
“I caused no such thing,” the guard said.
“Her name was Aphid,” Streak continued. He lifted a leg. “This was hers. So are most my organs, my horn, and half my body.”
“How—” Berry started.
“She died to save me,” Streak said, stepping towards his former friend. “She died because of you.”
“I had no choice!” Shield shouted. In the silence that followed his outburst, be continued. “Yes, I abandoned you. I. Had. No. Choice. It was either abandon you, or let Mite and me join you. Did I enjoy it? No!”
“You lied,” Berry said. “You told us he was reassigned.”
“It’s what the guard does sometimes when somepony dies in service and we can’t recover a body,” Shield said. “If they have no loved ones, we sometimes don’t say that they died.”
“Ah reckon that is the stupidest freaking thing ah’ve ever heard,” a voice said from the back of the group. Streak turned around to see Applejack adjust her stetson on her head at the front of a small crowd. The yelling must have attracted more than a few spectators, it seemed. “That seems a mite bit dishonest, don’t ya think?”
“It’s like telling a foal that their mother is gone and not coming back rather than telling them she’s dead,” he reasoned. “It’s left up to the highest ranking officer to decide.”
“We tell that to foals because they don’t understand death proper,” Applejack said. “Ah do. So do the rest of his friends. Ah am mighty disappointed in you, Shield.”
He sighed. “Okay, I made some bad decisions. None of them are unforgivable, though.”
“Logically? Yes,” Streak said. “Realistically? I don’t think we’ll be working together for a long while yet.” He turned and looked at Berry. “I’m going to go talk with Change and Twilight. I’ll see you around town.” He glanced at Rainbow. “You seem to have gotten your head out of your plot. Not more than a few inches, but it’s an improvement.”
With those words—and a nod to Applejack—Streak pushed his way through the small crowd that had formed and left.