//------------------------------// // (Act I) Chapter 7: What A Father Would Do // Story: Temporal // by FaleYur //------------------------------// Nightlight hurt. It wasn’t just a normal, ‘burn your hoof on the stove’ hurt, or a ‘stubbed your hoof on a stool’ hurt. It was more like a compressing, burning, all-consuming hurt. Not that he even comprehended the pain. Beneath his closed eyelids, he could hear screaming, and something akin to explosions, but that couldn’t be helped right now. Not when he was this sleepy. He lazily dragged his front hooves over the rough surface of his bed, subconsciously noting the little cuts that appeared in his fetlocks as they dragged across tiny, sharp bits of something. His hoof landed in something by his waist. He could feel whatever it was soaking into his fur, but he just snuggled farther into the hard mattress, not caring about anything in particular. Until something soft poked into his side. He stiffened reflexively. Velvet usually slept on the other side of the bed. So why was the poking coming from his left? There could be only one answer. “Twily?” The name came out as a wet mumble. Something was tickling the back of his throat, and he fought the urge to cough as long as he could, knowing it was a fruitless effort. All at once, the coughing started, a coarse rasping that hurt his throat, scratching it raw. And it didn’t stop. Over and over he coughed, convulsing and hacking as he writhed on the ground. And suddenly, he was aware of the pain. He slammed his hooves into the ground, whipped his head around, and did anything he could to distract himself from the awful, awful sensations floating through his senses. He yelled as he brought his hoof down again, cracking the appendage. He almost passed out. Nothing he had ever felt, not the crushing force of his blanket around his back legs, not the pounding, pulsing headache that wrought hell on his thoughts, could have prepared him for the splintering, nerve destroying pain that coursed through his hoof as it broke. Nightlight screamed, he cried, he begged for it to stop, to leave and never come back. He held his limb to his chest, fully aware of the grinding agony that swept through him as the two ends of bone slid along each other, ripping muscles and popping cartilage out of place. Distantly, he could hear another voice, heartbroken and crying above him, but he didn’t care. The pain was taking over, driving him to the brink of insanity. At the edge of the cliff he perched, waiting to be thrown off into unthinking oblivion. He never did. Instead, a warm, smooth feeling spread though his limb, caressing the shot nerves and splintered bone. He could see a bright mulberry light shining through his closed eyelids as he slowly stopped writhing, allowing the feeling to sweep through his arm and set the bone, sealing it with an inaudible crick. Nightlight gasped, free of his agony. For a few more blissful seconds, he pressed his eyes closed harder, resisting his rise back into the real world. The world that had become his nightmare. When he finally snapped his eyelids open, everything came back to Nightlight in a rush of colours and emotions. He saw he and his wife duelling Icani Lulamoon in their kitchen. He saw Twilight huddled under her bed, tiny hooves pressed resolutely over her ears in a futile effort for silence. He saw the devastating wave of power, the building falling with him and Twilight still inside. He saw the globe strike the back of his daughter’s head. And then nothing but pain. The soft thing poked him again, this time connected to a whimpering voice. “Daddy?” Nightlight tilted his head to the left, almost crying with relief when he saw his foal, covered in dust and with a large bump protruding from the back of her head. But alive. “Twily…” Nightlight’s voice cracked with joy as he reached for his daughter. “You’re okay Twily…” Twilight let the dirty, blood spotted hoof touch her with a rush of revulsion. But when she remembered who it was connected to, she leaned into the touch, new tears streaming down her already matted cheeks. The hoof stroked her mane, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear lovingly. “I… I told you it’d be okay, right honey?” The stallion asked rhetorically, a small smile splitting his features. “And it’s okay… you’ll be okay…” Twilight clutched at her father’s hoof with both hers, pressing it into her chest possessively. “Y-yeah. I helped you daddy, I-I did it, and we’ll both be okay… right?” Nightlight chuckled, despite the inane amount of energy it seemed to expend. “You sure did Twily. Y-you did it all by yourself, just like I knew you would… my talented little filly…” The purple foal held back a loud sob, gripping her father’s hoof tighter. No more words were said, and the only sounds that were heard seemed distant, surreal. With his free hoof, Nightlight dabbled in the wet pool at his waist, his mind slowly beginning to make the connection. He followed the pool to where it sprung from his body, and stopped when he felt the solid mass of concrete pressing into his waist. Tears escaped from his own eyes as he averted his gaze to his lower body. He didn’t see it. All that confronted his vision when he looked for the source of bleeding was a large slab of his house, jutting out of the pavement where his back legs were supposed to be. He sighed and laid his head back, allowing his hoof to fall back into the pool of blood with a small splash. He finally realized his predicament. No amount of healing magic from his special little filly could help him now. No matter how many bones she mended, he knew that the growing puddle of his blood was far too much to fix. He was dying. And his daughter was watching him. Enriched with a new sense of purpose, he lifted his head up and looked Twilight straight in the eyes, tears blocking both ponies from seeing fully. He started to pry his hoof away from his daughter gently. “Twilight.” He whispered. The filly pulled herself after the retreating hoof, grasping it again just over his chest. Nightlight didn’t get an answer. “Twilight. Let go of my hoof.” She shook her head, letting a choking sob pass her lips. The sound was heart-wrenching to Nightlight, and he brought his other hoof up to push her off of him. When he started to apply pressure, Twilight collapsed, crying into his fur, never letting go of her captive limb. If she did, then her dad would leave. And he couldn’t go. Not yet… not ever. Nightlight felt his energy quickly leaving him. But he wouldn’t let Twilight see him like this anymore. If he could spare her the hurt, he would. He would do anything for his little filly. He was about to plead with her again, when he heard hurried hoofsteps behind him. He twisted his head uncomfortably, and looked into the shining eyes of his wife, beholding the scene with a hoof clapped over her mouth in horror. “Velvet…” it was getting harder to talk, something Nightlight was very aware of. His wife stepped lightly over, as if the slightest disturbance could kill him. Which, at this point, it very well could. He reminded himself analytically. “N-Night?” she began, stuttering through her tears. “Night? …Oh Celestia, Night. Oh my Celestia… No. Nonono-” “Dear,” Nightlight interrupted weakly. It was enough to stop Velvet in her tracks, staring in wide-eyed disbelief at her husband’s mangled body. “Velvet… please, you need to take Twilight and-” In turn, he was interrupted by Twilight, who shot her head up, glaring at him through her tears. “No. No, I’m staying with Daddy. ‘C-cause you’ll be okay.” She turned her attention to her mother. “He’ll be okay right? Tell him he’ll be okay!” Velvet was trapped. She looked undecidedly between her pleading daughter and her desperate husband, both telling her different things with their wide eyes. Help me with him. Don’t worry about me. Please! Take her and go! In the end, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then, she walked forward, toward the two. She leant over Nightlight, touching his face before pulling him into a kiss. When they broke away, their locked gazes told each other everything that had never been said, everything that now could never be said. Velvet looked up at her tear-stricken daughter, who was watching and analyzing the scene in rapt attention. Twilight’s eyes widened as she realized what her mother’s decision was. A light-purple haze surrounded the filly, lifting her into the air kicking and screaming. Twilight held onto her father’s hoof for as long as she could, ignoring Nightlight’s pained expression as his daughter was yanked away from him. “NO!” she screamed, her little hooves slipping on the blood-coated fur on her father’s arm. “NO! I CAN HELP HIM! LET ME GO! DADDY! DADDY!” Nightlight choked on his reply, only partly due to the blood filling his throat. His heart broke as he watched his daughter, his Twily, be taken away from him. It’s for the best. “It’s okay Twily.” He managed with a smile, although he doubted she heard him over the sound of her yells. “I told you it’d be okay… I didn’t lie. You’ll be okay.” Twilight stopped flailing, holding onto only the very tip of his hoof now. She looked into his guilty expression with a look of rage on hers. “IT’S NOT OKAY! IT WONT BE OKAY! I CAN HELP YOU!” Nightlight closed his eyes, trying to stop the cascade of fear and pain from leaking around his eyelids. He breathed, calming himself for what he was about to do. He opened his eyes again, staring at his daughter coldly. “No Twilight, you can’t. Stop trying to help me.” It was like watching the air deflate from a balloon. The grasp on his hoof relinquished immediately, and Twilight was levitated, sobbing brokenly onto her mother’s back, all her rebellious energy sapped from her bones by one statement. Stop trying to help me. “Daddy?” “No.” the tired response came, erasing all doubt. “No more. Go with your mother. Don’t argue with me, just go.” “B-but, Da-” “I said GO!” Twilight stopped pleading, breaking down into the small comfort of Velvet’s back. Her daddy yelled at her. He never yelled at her… Nightlight turned his attention to Velvet, resolutely demanding her understanding. “Velvet… go to the castle. If anypony can keep Twily safe, it’ll be Celestia. Make sure Shining's okay at Victus' sister's place, and go, f-fast as you can, and don’t stop for anything. G-got it?” Everything was quiet for a moment. Then, the crumpled, forgotten flyer enveloped itself in a blue glow, levitating and tucking itself snugly into the crook of Twilight's arm. The filly looked at it with a quivering lip, then at her father. He smiled weakly at her, an act which only served to increase her tears. Velvet was still floored by the anger behind the yell, but nodded her head in understanding of his plan. As long as she had known Nightlight, she had only seen him raise his voice twice before now, once at Icani Lulamoon, and once at his own parents when they objected to him marrying a ‘commoner’. This revelation shook her to the core as she saw first-hoof how protective a father could really be towards his children and those he loved. She cried openly, but quietly as she turned away from her beloved, her husband, her Nightlight. She knew that if she looked back, even once, that she would lie down next to him and snuggle into his broken body until it was cold and stiff, rotting in the middle of the streets of Canterlot. She noticed Twilight looking back at her father’s body, and turned her daughter gently around on her back so that she was facing forward. The action brought out a little bit of a struggle from Twilight, but it was quickly forgotten in the new flood of tears escaping her. Twilight burrowed her face into her mother’s mane, voicing her sadness unabashedly in wails of anguish. Velvet wanted to do the same, but she had to stay strong for her filly. Her tears dripped off her chin silently, leaving an indistinguishable trail back to the one pony she had ever loved. The stallion who had sacrificed everything for his family. Nightlight watched the retreating figures disappear down the street, and raised his gaze to the gleaming towers of Canterlot Castle in the backdrop. He let his head flop back finally, looking up at the beautiful blue sky, only marred at the edges by towers of black smoke that drifted up from the city. He let his eyes drift closed, covering everything in a dark, inky blackness. The only thing he was aware of was the terrible sounds of dying ponies and burning buildings in the background. That, and his own ragged breathing getting slower and slower. The last thing he heard was the heavy, scraping footsteps of three separate creatures, each of them not quite equine. They snuffled around the scene, and broke out into the keening wail of a predator stalking its prey. And Nightlight knew no more.