Alienation

by Longtooth


Harmony

Two days passed without any incident worth speaking of. I used a bit of magic to speed my healing, a spell thankfully still within my capabilities. I spent a lot of time studying the crystal core of the sky-kraken and working out new and better techniques to fight with. Rarity came up with the gemstones I had asked her for, and we found a couple that worked within tolerances I could use, so I put together a few of my staple weapons. I also upgraded my costume, finally finishing a few of the enhancements that I hadn’t had time for in my initial attack on the black crystal addicts.

All of this is to say that I did practically nothing of substance. My trips to Canterlot were short, and only for updates on what Octavia and Vinyl had discovered. Nothing useful came up then. Well, nothing that would play out for a while, so it doesn’t need to be mentioned now. I didn’t make any more attacks, didn’t bother hunting down any more low-level dealers. I couldn’t afford to be caught in another situation like at Jack Trade’s.

That particular incident had only made things hotter in the burgeoning gang-war in the city. Killing a good sixty percent of the underworld’s leadership left power vacuums that just begged to be filled. The warning given to me by the scarred unicorn would prove true. The situation was escalating, the thugs had heard of what I had done and were going to get mean in the vain hope that cruelty would save them from the fate of their predecessors. I would show them different.

But none of this is important. Not really, not in the grand scheme of things. Not in the sequence of events that led me here. No, the important things didn’t start until the third day after the picnic. That was the day Celestia finally revealed the task she had for me.

The letter that Spike belched up was astoundingly uninformative. All it said was to be out in the park with Twilight’s friends to wait for the Princess herself, and that she was bringing a very important visitor. That lack of information should have been a tipoff. It was uncharacteristically secretive, deliberately vague. I should have been more suspicious. I should have considered… no. I couldn’t have imagined what was coming.

Not that I was in any shape to be thinking clearly in the first place. Celestia was going to be there, and I was going to have to put on my best Twilight Sparkle act. I couldn’t hide behind panic or some ill-defined mental breakdown. I was supposed to be better, I had no excuses. The terror of that was… distracting.

When Spike saw her coming, and what her guards were towing behind her, I didn’t believe it. My shock at the reality of it all was… well, very well contained, I think.

“Why did you bring Discord here?” I asked her, trying very, very hard to think of reasons. Sane reasons. Reasons that wouldn’t immediately out me as the imposter that I am. It’s telling, I think, that I completely forgot to address her with the deference Twilight would have used.

“I have a use for Discord’s magic if it can be reformed to serve good instead of evil,” she said. As if that made sense. “I believe you are the ponies who can help him do just that.”

I can see you laughing. I know, it’s ridiculous, right? I would have laughed myself, if I wasn’t forced by my fear to react as Twilight would have, and she would have taken it all seriously. Instead I had to stand there and act like it was all possible, like I didn’t know where this was going. Condemning myself with silence.

Spike went into adorable panic, immediately grasping all the problems with this plan. “This will never work! This is a disaster! We’ll never be able to control him!” He looked like he wanted to run away, but his body was too recently healed for that. He was as stuck as I was.

“Need I remind you that you are the ponies who turned him back into stone?” Celestia asked, as if we could have forgotten. I should have said something then. I knew what was coming. I couldn’t, though, I had to focus all my efforts on keeping an outward appearance of calm. “If he gets too unruly, you will use the Elements to return him to his stone prison, and I believe the threat of that should be enough to keep him under control while you work to reform him.” At her nod a chest was brought forth, opened to show the gleaming forms of the elements within. “I have cast a spell on them so that Discord can’t take them and hide them again.”

I wanted to ask her if this was similar to the ‘lock only I can open’ that worked so well last time. I wanted to know exactly what uses she had in mind. I wanted a lot of things. Mostly, I wanted that crown gone. I wanted it as far away from me as possible. It sat there, innocuous in form but so laden with meaning and power that I felt its presence like the heat of a furnace. It frightened me, in the same way that Celestia frightened me. I knew that if I was discovered, it was very possible that this crown would be the instrument of my ultimate destruction. It had killed before, after all.

“Where is Fluttershy?” Celestia asked. “I believe she may know best how to begin reforming Discord.”

That set off a round of questions from Rainbow Dash and Rarity, which I paid little attention to. I was still fixated on the Element of Magic. I was somehow more aware of it than Twilight had ever been. Maybe it was just my fear. Maybe it was what I was now, whatever that is. I don’t know, but I could feel it. And it nearly made me sick.

Strange, isn’t it? I love the feeling of power, of strength. I love to be able to manifest my will however I deem fit, with no limits. Here, in front of me, was the greatest power known to ponykind. The Elements of Harmony, able to bring down gods and reshape the world. Yet… I didn’t want that power. I didn’t want anything to do with it. Can this make sense to you? Can you understand why? I can’t describe it, can’t seem to grasp it. My relationship to that crown is so tangled and incomprehensible… maybe you’re the only one who can understand it. I certainly can’t.

Eventually Fluttershy and Applejack were located. I had been so caught up in my terror that I hadn’t even noticed they were missing. Celestia had decided, somehow, that Fluttershy would be taking the lead role in this task. Not that I would have minded, anything to keep Celestia’s spotlight off of me was good. For an even greater stroke of luck, she didn’t stick around to watch us work. I don’t know what would have happened if she hadn’t left. She would have seen through what I did, I’m certain.

Once she was gone, though, all eyes turned to me. I desperately tried to think of an excuse, some reason to put this off or reject it. I could have done it, but Twilight Sparkle? She wouldn’t have. She would have wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. She wouldn’t shirk from a task Celestia gave her, no matter how much she feared it. So how could I do any different?

“All right, lets… let’s do this,” I said, unable to keep the quaver form my voice. I passed out the Elements, feeling a strange resonance from them every time my magic touched them. I hesitated over the crown, but finally put it on my head. It felt heavy, in a way that was different from Twilight’s memories of it. Psychosomatic or actual change, I couldn’t tell you. All I can say is that it felt a lot more solid, more real than it ever had before. Finally, with no excuse that would seem plausible coming from Twilight, I activated the Elements of Harmony.

I don’t know what I expected to happen. I can’t remember if I had thought that far ahead or if I was so focused on my immediate fears that I was ignoring anything else. I know… I think I was hoping it would just fail. I was hoping that the Element of Magic would shut down and we would be left standing around a statue wearing dumb bits of jewellery and confused frowns. I was hoping I could spin it somehow, make it seem like I was devastated at the failure. I could buy a lot of sympathy with such an act.

Instead, it worked. The Element of Magic shone with a blinding light, and we were lifted from the ground, floating. That’s actual floating, not feeling-of-floating, and I know the difference well. The Elements chimed, bursting with magic. A rainbow stretched between Twilight’s friends, reaching out to me, enveloping me.

I could feel them, her friends. For an instant there I knew them. I knew them. Like Twilight had, like they knew each other. As friends. As loved ones. Like pieces of myself that slotted in perfectly. I could see their hopes and their dreams and their fears and their faults, and I could see mine through their eyes.

Twilight never understood what the Elements really are. I don’t presume to know, either. They didn’t reject me when I was sure they would. They didn’t even seem to judge my worst actions, and offered their full power to my desires. But not for free. I can’t guess at why they do the things they do, at what secret intelligence must drive them. I just know that for me, in that moment, they held the mirror of friendship up to what I was, and what I was becoming. I saw it all. They offered me everything, and the only price I’d have to pay was to accept the friendship of these mares, to fully and completely give myself to them as they were giving themselves to me.

I recoiled.

The power of the Elements shut off with a flash of blinding light, and they went quiet. They weren’t completely dead, and I could feel that their offer was still open, but for now they would not work. We were blasted back from our floating circle, falling to the ground. My ribs screamed in pain at the impact, but I was too shocked to care. The things the Elements showed me… they haunt me. Even now… even here.

For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to be trapped, to be unable to move and unable to scream. If I had my choice, even if I could have, I wouldn’t have gone through with it. You’re too dangerous to let loose, for any reason. But still, I’m sorry.

I lied to them. I told Twilight’s friends that the spell had simply failed. They hadn’t seen what I’d seen, hadn’t felt what I’d felt. They knew something wasn’t right, but they trusted Twilight. They accepted what I said, and believed me when I told them we’d have to tell Celestia that we’d failed. Spike was relieved, as was Dash, I think. They knew the fire we’d been playing with.

I barely paid attention as we went back to the library to compose our apology letter. Too wrapped up in what I had seen. Too lost in my own thoughts. The day passed in a blur, and I locked myself in my bedroom as soon as I could, then teleported out to the old castle.

I spent hours destroying things. Trees, mostly. I ripped through the thick foliage around the castle with a maniacal determination. I needed to scrape what the Elements had shown me away, to dull its wicked edge with time and exhaustion. I let loose my rage and my fear, screaming at the uncaring forest and pulping anything that seemed remotely alive.

It didn’t work. I couldn’t forget, and in the end I was left a wreck, sobbing to myself on the cold stone floor of the ancient castle and desperately promising myself that it would get better. It was… not one of my best moments. Ironic, in a way, that to have this breakdown I went to the very first place Twilight had used the Elements. In a way, they have ruled my life as much as hers. In a way, I think, they are the reason for all of this.

Eventually, of course, I managed to control myself. Either I had successfully exhausted all of my raging emotions or I had managed to contain them. I honestly don’t know which it was, or which I want it to be. Either way, I was able to transport myself back to Ponyville. The sun was already down, and Spike was already in his basket. He’d left a few letters out. One was from Twilight’s friends all trying to encourage her. They knew how she would react to failure, and were all adamant that they didn’t blame me for what had happened. As if I needed their reassurance. The second was from Celestia herself, expressing her disappointment, but also saying she didn’t blame me. The last letter was from Spike, and… and he must have worked very hard to get the courage to say the things he did. I don’t think I’ll repeat them here, they were too personal, for him and for me. Suffice it to say he did not join in the chorus of not-blaming me, but he didn’t exactly lay fault at my hooves either. It’s complicated.

I got something to eat, and I was about to head to bed myself when I was stopped by a knock on the door. As I have said, it was late, very late. Past midnight. Nopony should have been trying to get into the library, but since I was up and I have no fear of any potential aggressor, I went and opened it.

Gale Force stood there, looking huge and terrified. We stared at each other for a long, silent moment before he spoke. “Yes,” he said. “Damn you, my answer is yes.”