//------------------------------// // Entries 171-182 // Story: A Long Journey Home // by VashTheStampede //------------------------------// Entry #171 I have got to stop almost getting myself killed for these ponies. Entry #172 It’s been five months since the night of the attack. I’m barely able to write with magic; I couldn’t lift my arm to write manually even if I wanted to. I guess I have some catching up to do. Entry #173 So… looking back at entries… after I saw the demon leave my room. After that, I… it’s a bit fuzzy, but friends are helping me remember what happened. I remember teleporting into the tower (teleport within and out of Canterlot, but not into the city), and I remember the Royal Guards… what was left of them, anyway. The two that weren’t dead were dying quickly, bleeding out from what looked like sword wounds. Luna and Pip were huddled together on the bed, covered in blood, and, thankfully, I recall thinking, it wasn’t theirs. Both had been infected with the stigma, though. Pip’s normally patchy coat was almost completely covered in the lesions and Luna’s coat was mottled and black. At that moment, I remember feeling more pure hatred than I ever had before, and immediately dashing out the window in pursuit of the demon. I know it sounds cliché, seeing my wife and son dying and going berserk, but… I never imagined it would be such a true thing. Entry #174 Twilight tells me I met the demon in Ponyville, only moments behind, but it had already killed most of the citizens. I remember seeing Rainbow Dash and Applejack’s mangled corpses pasted on a wall, and a hulking, headless red mass that couldn’t have been anypony but Big Mac. Pinkie Pie’s deflated form was draped over Fluttershy’s body, a last ditch effort to save her that only got both of them killed. There was a commotion in the town square, I remember Twilight fighting the demon. Considering this creature had murdered entire cities full of ponies and nearly killed Luna, I remember her holding her ground shockingly well. I remember she was losing, though – her horn was cracked and she was covered in cuts and lesions. I remember… I remember starting to perform an incendiary spell, to distract the demon, get him away from her… when it broke her defenses and jammed a magic katana through the top of her skull. Magic takes a moment to prepare, just a split second, but that was all it took. That moment of forced inaction and one of Equestria’s finest was gone. Entry #175 Hate. All I remember is hate. After it killed Twilight, I remember nothing but hate. Something changed. It was terrifying. The only thing I could liken it to is the stories Luna told me of what she felt when she was Nightmare Moon, the evil that took over her soul in her hate. Perhaps it even was the same evil. I don’t know. But it wanted everything to die – I wanted everything to die. And so I tried. I used that spell, that last, ultimate spell – Be No More. Entry #176 It worked, in the simplest of terms. Everything that was supposed to happen happened, except for one part, obviously. I’m not dead. The demon is back in Tartarus, the populations of Las Pegasus, Dodge Junction, Canterlot, and Ponyville are all back to their living states. The key being the populations – Las Pegasus and Dodge still need to be rebuilt, since the demon didn’t destroy the cities, I did. I suppose I’ll have to oversee construction and aid the rebuilding process since I’m responsible. Anyway, the populations – all are living again and cleansed of the disease, even the Royal Guards and that first mailmare and her foal are back. Twilight, RD, Big Mac, everypony is alive again. All except one. There’s a local superhero of sorts, called Mare Do Well, who’s kind of like Batman it seems. The one pony who didn’t come back was a lone unicorn in a Mare Do Well costume. Twilight told me they kept her masked for the sake of respect. I do remember something, after the spell, after I slipped into blackness; I remember somepony saying something to me. Something along the lines of, “The something-and-something Mare Do Well owes this world more than you. She thanks you for your effort but cannot let you make this sacrifice.” Twilight teared up a bit when I told her that, so I’m guessing that clued her in to who it was. At any rate, while I was asleep – well, comatose – I still felt hate. These burning, awful nightmares and dreams that just… seethed would be a good word for it, just seethed hate. I’ve never been happier to wake up. Entry #177 Dash and AJ got married a couple months ago. Twilight wanted them to wait until I woke up to get married, but after three months of me being comatose, she was forced to agree with Dash that I might not wake up. She apologized profusely for letting that happen, but I understand. Five months. I mean, damn, I would have thought I wasn’t going to wake up. That’s not the only thing that’s changed, with relationships – Twilight and Big Mac are dating, as are, shockingly, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. Twilight said she and Big Mac took dying as a lesson that life can be unfortunately short and that they should live it, and that since they already had feelings for each other, it just took a traumatic event for them to realize it. Fluttershy was just so touched by Pinkie trying to save her that she didn’t know any way to express thanks aside from love. Oh yeah, and I’m a pony now. Entry #178 Nurse Redheart tells me that the main reason for this is that my human body got wrecked after I used the erasing spell. She said that, while it wasn’t beyond repair from magic, she, Luna, and anypony else that could have helped just didn’t know enough about my human body. Which, the more I think about it, makes perfect sense. The most obvious changes are physical. My skin, well, now my “coat” is a soft, vibrant blue, as are my eyes. I’ve got a shaggy brown and tan mane and a matching fluffy tail. The star-and-wings cutie mark that adorned my shorts is now actually my cutie mark. Though I’m not a unicorn, or an Alicorn for that matter, I can still use magic to the same extent that I could before. Twilight is amazed by this, thinking perhaps magic can be opened up to the other races than just unicorns. I’m a Pegasus, actually; apparently Luna had some say in my new body (which may explain some other things… I’ll just say the phrase “hung like a horse” comes to mind), and knew how much I loved flying. I am a very large Pegasus, though, only slightly shorter than Luna, so even though I look like them, I still tower over most ponies. I feel somewhat like a foal, though, even with my matured body. Walking on four limbs and maintaining coordination between them is a lot more difficult than walking on two legs. The fact that I’ve been in a coma for five months and am very, very weak probably has something to do with it, but being barely able to walk is kind of embarrassing. I can, thank Celestia, use my wings just like I did with the spell, a sort of rolling motion with my shoulders that rotates and flaps my wings at the same time. Like with walking, though, I can barely fly. There are mental changes too. My mind feels more free, faster, and more creative. My imagination is more colorful, new concepts come easier to me, thoughts are clearer… Maybe this was the blessing of Night Wish and Solara gave us… something that keeps Luna and I from getting killed. Looking at my track record here, that will be quite welcome. Entry #179 Luna has been by my side since I woke up. In fact, she’s been feeding me energy to help write these journal entries. When I asked her why she couldn’t just heal me, she said it was because the darkness that made me hateful was the same thing that turned her into Nightmare Moon, at least by Nurse Redheart’s diagnosis, and just giving me an instantaneous hit of vitality could easily trigger it again. Luna said that as much as she’s helping me with energy to write this, she’s also been sapping energy from me to keep the evil from taking hold again. Pip has been with me, too, which has been incredibly helpful. He’s incredibly energetic and happy all the time, but can calm down just fine and help me get rest. Nurse Redheart said she’s willing to let me leave the Ponyville hospital (this little town is bigger than it seems), provided Luna keeps using the draining spells and that she be constantly prepared to fight me. It’s… it’s almost like the beginning again, being feared, yet somehow different. The ponies here don’t look at me in fear like they used to, but there’s a sort of… passive fear, I guess, that I can sense in their minds, a fear of what I might become. I just hope this goes away eventually… Entry #180 It’s been another month or so… back living in Canterlot, life is mostly back to normal. I’m still a little weak, from the draining spells, but Redheart and Luna have let me up to about 90% of what I would have on my own. The evil is still there, but I think it’s going away. I get angry faster and I can feel it when I’m angry, a sort of burning sensation deep within my chest. And… thinking on it… it’s something I haven’t felt since I left the human world. When I first got here, I felt fear, but not hate. Right up until the demon, I’d never felt hate, or even that much anger. Even with the Manticore, I didn’t hate the creature, I just didn’t want any harm to come to the fillies; I was mad at what it did. I don’t like it. I’m mostly used to my Pony body now – stairs still trip me up (literally) every now and then, but most of the time I fly up them anyway. My wings are stronger now, I can stay idly floating for quite some time. One thing that surprises me is how slowly I need to flap my wings to fly; perhaps a better way to say it is how not-fast my wings need to be going. Another thing is that my wings seem to display my emotions. They flare out involuntarily when I get angry or excited… it’s kind of embarrassing sometimes, but I suppose it does add to the intimidation factor if I’m yelling at somepony. Entry #181 … I’m back to full strength now; I’ve been weaned off the draining spells. The hate is still there. I still get angry easier than I used to, and I yell a lot more than I want to. I think, though… I think this journal might have something to do with it. As I’ve been here longer and longer I’ve let go of my humanity more and more, and with it went my bad feelings. Nopony here hates anything or anypony else. Heck, most of the time nopony is even angry at another pony. I knew that, as a human, I bloody well didn’t belong here. As a pony, even though I still stick out like a sore thumb, it’s a lot easier for me to fit in. I’ll try to stop making journal entries now… this may actually be the last, unless something significant happens. Which, given all the wonderful, amazing, random inhabitants of Equestria, is more likely than it ever would have been in the human world. Entry #182 I’m not sure how long it’s been since that last entry. A month, maybe two. Stopping with the journal definitely helped the hate in my chest decrease, but I can still feel it. But, like I said, something significant has happened. Something very significant. Something worthy of picking this thing up one last time. One thing I overlooked with my transformation was that the biological barrier I mentioned prior to this, the barrier from Luna getting pregnant… well, that barrier went away with my old body. After my, well, I guess transformation is the best word for it, neither Luna nor I were really thinking about pregnancy, since… I suppose it’s best to be frank. After I became a pony, the sex got a lot better, for both of us, and since we never really worried about pregnancy before, we didn’t think of it now. But you know what? I’m happy. I’m beyond happy. My perpetually flared wings and Pinkie-Pie-Smile are evidence enough of that. Family makes a house a home. I know I’ve said it a bunch before, but I am home now. It’s been a long journey, but I am home.