“No.”
That single trembling word was more than just the trembling pain it overflowed with.
“No... No, no, please no...”
It was begging. It was a desperate, weak plea for this not to be real, and to hear it come from her Princess’s mouth was an abomination that pushed away Velvet’s own despair and rekindled the anger that had momentarily been lost.
“This can’t be happening.”
Velvet’s eyes flickered from the slumped, shivering form of the alicorn who had fallen to silent tears, to the pale seamstress who had just spoken. Rarity matched her gaze, and gave her a terrified, timid smile.
“It can’t be. We are clearly all just having a terrible nightmare,” Rarity said primly, trying to force confidence into words that were still quivering with fear.
Velvet held her gaze until the other unicorn looked away, eyes brimming with tears and lips pursed. No-one seemed willing to meet her eyes, not even the pegasi that were gently hovering in the air above them.
“Now, girls, just, just calm down, alright?” The gentle southern twang of Applejack’s voice cut through the growing cacophony of noise from outside, as well as the stifling silence that surrounded them. “Ah’m sure... Ah’m sure there’s a way outta this mess. We’ve been in plenty of awful situations, every bit as bad as this, and we made it out just fine all of those times so... So we’ll figure this out.”
“Every bit as bad? Every bit as bad, Applejack?” Rainbow Dash growled, her voice clearly cracking as she slammed back down to the ground, stomping over to go nose-to-nose with her friend. “No. No we have bucking not been in any situation this bad. This is as bad as it gets AJ. We have an entire freakin’ army outside, a mad monster Queen back at the castle, a missing princess, and no Elements. Unless the Princess has some amazing plan to fix this.... This bucking disaster- We. Are. Screwed.”
“Why do you have to start bein’ a realist now of all times.”
“The buck is that supposed to mean?!”
“GIRLS!” Fluttershy crammed herself between them, wings spread and eyes pleading. “Fighting isn’t going to solve anything, so stop, please, it’s only going to make things worse.”
The two looked away from each other. Applejack turned and walked over to Pinkie, running a hoof down the shaking mare’s back and trying to assure her that things were going to be alright. Pinkie’s shoulders only shook a little harder at the hitch in her friend’s voice. Of course she didn’t believe her. Applejack always had been a terrible liar.
Canterlot was burning. Ponies were screaming. Velvet hadn’t heard chaos like this since an era gone by, back when she was a soldier with darkened armour and a special title under the Solar Princess, the only ruler they had ever known. The elements were something lost to time back then, something that most ponies didn’t even believe existed.
“I don’t know!”
-Back before they were Equestria’s one and only last resort.
Fluttershy staggered a step back from Celestia, fear dawning in the timid mare’s eyes at the madness barely hidden in the alicorn’s. It occurred to Velvet that the timid mare must have asked her Princess what they were to do next. After all, the Princess always had a plan, right?
“I don’t know,” Celestia repeated, her wings twitching as the royal demeanor shattered altogether. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what comes next- I have nothing. This wasn’t supposed to happen... None of this was supposed to happen! I’ve planned for hundreds, thousands of scenarios, I considered every possibility I knew, I thought-“
Celestia’s voice hitched, broke into choked sobs, something visibly snapped, and before their eyes their goddess fell. A sobbing, frightened mare slumped in her place, mane as unmoving and dim as a mortal’s, and any illusion of divine strength altogether gone.
“I thought that I was enough... And I’m not. I’m still not enough. I’m sorry. I’ve failed you and I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t solve anything.”
It took exactly five seconds for them to all process who it was that had spoken, and who she had dared spoken to. Rainbow Dash was, unsurprisingly, the one to get into Velvet’s face about it.
“Sorry doesn’t solve anything? The buck is wrong with you?!”
The pegasus's anger sputtered out in confusion as Velvet sneered at her, effortlessly pushing her away with a brush of magic to walk past her.
“Absolutely nothing,” Velvet replied quite easily, “and you can look at me with righteous indignation on the behalf of our beloved Princess all you like, but it doesn’t change the blunt reality of where we are right now.”
The last of the warmth Twilight Velvet held in her voice as a mother and a professor dropped away, and instead she felt the comforting coldness of the iron she’d wielded so proudly as a soldier that had never truly left.
“Canterlot has fallen. There’s no changing that. You can beg, you can plead, you can hope to wake up, but us standing here throwing a pity party for us and all of Equestria and her future will accomplish exactly nothing for our benefit. It’ll help the enemy out plenty though, I assure you of that- So if you’d like to see what a changeling-crafted battering ram looks like, please continue. I’d bet you ten bits that it’ll be a lot more magically enhanced than the usual sharpened logs we bother with.”
Velvet enjoyed watching the seven seconds it took them to realize she was genuine about the little gamble. The look of confusion spread across the room at the bits jingling in her aura, before slowly turning to annoyed anger that only grew over the next five seconds.
“Do ya really think this is the time for games?!”
So it was Applejack that got up the fire to admonish her. Good girl.
“Hmph. Nighty would have taken me up on it,” Velvet mused, and was rewarded with the anger sparking up higher as she calmly dropped the bits back into her wallet. “And no, Applejack, I don’t think this is the time for games, but if it gets you doing anything but sitting here and mindlessly waiting for our future role as slaves, food sources and/or cadavers, I’ll take what I can get.”
Confusion was beginning to replace the anger again, and Velvet strode forward before she lost the fire she needed to forge them.
“Princess, am I correct in assuming that the last resort has indeed failed, and we are, as Rainbow Dash so eloquently put it, screwed?”
Celestia stared at her, surprise clear at the calm tone, before breaking their gaze and nodding sadly, “The Elements have abandoned us.”
Velvet nodded once, sharply. She had figured as much, but it was best to make sure anyway. No point in writing the eulogy before checking the pulse, after all.
“This is horseapples!”
Rainbow Dash again. Not surprising, she’d shown herself to have quite the temper, and certain ponies found anger their only solace in times of trouble. At first Velvet only raised an eyebrow at the outburst, fully intending to ignore what was no doubt going to be maddened ramblings, but then stopped. Anger was a force that could move ponies forward, even when there was nowhere left to go forward to. It would be rather foolish to waste such an important fuel.
“And how's that, Rainbow?” Velvet asked nicely, fully aware that her tone had somehow managed to skip “pleasant” and jumped straight to “mocking” halfway through her own question. Oh well.
“This! This whole, bucking, mess!” Rainbow Dash spat, wheeling around to glare at her. “The Elements’ rejecting us, that freakin’ bug ruining everything, Twilight ditching us, this is all horseapples! This shouldn’t be happening it’s a whole load of dung and you all know it so why are you all just sitting there accepting it?! How can they do this to us? We’re not dishonest, or cruel, or selfish or any of the nonsense they spewed so how dare they-“ Tears were biting at the corner of those burning rose eyes, and her voice cracked as she snapped, “How dare they judge us-“
“For being equine?” Velvet finished, allowing the pegasus to snap her jaw shut and nod before the indignance of a sob slipped out. “Because, rather simply, they are not. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Elements are essentially the distilled magical essence of what they represent. They synchronize to you due to each of you having the trait that they hold in highest regard, the “element” they themselves represent. In contrast to that, however, is the fact that each of you are indeed equine, not god, nor abstract- As such, you are each flawed, not perfect. It is our flaws that allow us to grow, but it is also our flaws which make us fall. We are all selfish, cruel and dishonest, Rainbow Dash, and ignoring that fact will only make you stumble more.”
Velvet paused, frowning, as she stopped to think of how to explain what she had theorized from what the Element of Loyalty had allowed her to hear, without revealing everything she knew.
“What are you getting at?”
Velvet looked up at Rainbow Dash’s question, but her gaze quickly switched over to the mare beside her instead.
“Pinkie Pie? If I’m recalling correctly, you said that the Elements were, to quote, judging you the way you judge yourselves. Is that right?” At the nod, Velvet continued, “Am I correct in assuming that there was a time where each of you rejected the Elements due to something you did? Any time, or moment where you lost your connection to your Element for a time because you simple believed you didn’t deserve it anymore?”
Five ponies refused to meet her gaze.
“Well?” Velvet prompted, taking a step forward in quiet emphasis.
“Yes,” Fluttershy said quietly, and when she caught the hopeful look Velvet shot her at the squeaked reply, she folded her wings tightly at her side and struggled to explain;
“I was tricked into hurting Twilight.”
...Tricked?! It was all Velvet could do not to say, ‘That’s it?’ and instead she blinks, stunned, before sliding her gaze over to where Applejack is fidgeting with her hat.
“I... Ah told a lie. At the time Ah told maself just the once would be okay because it was to protect my friends, but then Ah couldn’t stop telling them. And twisting the truth into something it ain’t for any reason just isn’t right.”
“A lie told to protect someone isn’t something to be ashamed of, and neither is making a mistake you are tricked into,” Velvet said softly, as was a little surprised to find a gentleness slipping back into her voice. When had the mother in her begin to over-rule the soldier?
“That’s not the point!”
The snapped reply in two voices is enough to make Velvet jerk her head back for the split second it takes her to notice the tears budding at the corner of the young mares’ eyes.
“Then, what is it? What detail am I missing that shames you two so?”
Applejack and Fluttershy share a look, and through some unspoken agreement, Fluttershy speaks first.
“I still hurt a friend. It doesn’t matter that I was tricked because I should have been strong enough not to fall for it. Being cruel is far easier than being kind, you simply don’t have to care about what your actions mean. I’ve made that mistake too many times and I can never forgive myself when I make them. So it doesn’t matter if it was a trick. It was still me that did it.”
Those words, although different- Although stubbornly, naively idiotic- sounded almost hauntingly familiar as well. They sounded like a stallion general who had patted her head and praised the path she had chosen, but had one very important lesson to teach her. “Remember, my love, that above all else, the easiest thing to do is to let go. To let go of everything to the exclusion of one thing, that is the easiest thing you will ever learn to do. It’s holding on that will be hard. Holding on to those things such as kindness, empathy, patience, those very important things that make a soul equine and not monster. Remember that.” Velvet had promised back then that she would, and she always had.
“...And Applejack?”
The cowgirl twisted her hat in her hooves before plopping it roughly back onto her messy blond hair and sighing. “It doesn’t matter that it was a white lie, because it was still a lie. Ah promised my friends to always be honest with them, to never twist the truth when I’m speaking to them, and yet Ah did it anyway. Ah knew what was gonna happen, and when they asked me about it Ah told them something else entirely. They deserved to know what Ah did, what the risks were, and Ah kept it from them. And that ain’t right. Ah ended up needing Twilight to remind me that our friendship was more than that, and of course it is, but Ah still broke that promise.”
“I don’t remember you making any promise like that...” Rainbow Dash grumbled and Applejack turned and glowered at her for a moment, before replying stiffly;
“Ah said Ah’d do it, and that’s the exact same thing. A promise isn’t made by the words it’s said with, it’s made by the meaning behind it. When Ah say Ah’m gonna do something, Ah’m giving my word that Ah’m gonna do it. It’s as simple as that.”
Velvet nodded. It was almost ridiculously upfront, but she couldn’t think of anything more fitting for the earth pony.
“So that’s why the Element’s rejected us. Because we’ve already done this once.”
Several surprised gazes looked up at Rarity, who gave them a bitter smile in return.
“We promised we’d take her fears and concerns seriously, and we didn’t. We told her we’d value her above all else and we didn’t. We said we’d chose her above all else and then didn’t. We’ve hurt her so bad she’s... She’s turned away from us. It’s not right. It’s completely and utterly not right...But I suppose that’s just how things are now.”
“HORSEAPPLES!”
“Rainbow!”
“I’m not going to stand for this! Just how things are now?! What a load of dragon dung! I’m going to do something about this mess if it’s the last thing I do!”
“Good.”
It was all Velvet could do not to laugh as they all turned to look at her once more in stunned surprise. If the situation wasn’t so dire it would all rather be quite comical.
“Good,” She repeated, rewarding them with a proud smirk, one that grew as she seen a drop of steel settle into each one of them. “Don’t stand for it. Don’t stand still. When there’s nowhere left to go, go forward. It’s the only choice you have, well, aside from rolling over and dying.”
“You- you honestly don’t think we have a-a chance, do you?” Fluttershy asked timidly, and winced as Velvet snorted loudly.
“I think we approximately have the chance of a snowball’s in Tartarus. Since we’re all, inevitably, going to die, regardless of whether we make it out of this in one piece or twenty, I have decided that if I must go out, I’m going to do so with a fight they will remember.”
Velvet smirk grew downright cocky as from behind her she felt solar magic sparking into fire as Celestia rose to her hooves. The alicorn was no longer trembling, or crying, was no longer cowering weak and lost without her chessboard, but rather standing tall and strong. The divine strength pouring off of her was no longer nothing but an illusion.
Something defiant was definitely taking root now. Velvet could see it in each girl’s eyes. Fluttershy had stopped hiding behind her mane, and although her wings were still twitching, she seemed ready to stand her ground. Rarity’s lips were set in a thin line, but there was steel there now where there used to be nothing but fear. Rainbow was grinning like a mad pony, ready it seemed to dash headlong into danger. Applejack sighed and met Pinkie’s gaze, the two of them sharing a grim smile as they took a deep breath- And let go. Velvet’s eyes widened, first in surprise and then in wicked pride as she felt the shift in the magic surrounding the two. Applejack had potential, she could sense that, but it was nearly drowned out by the raw empathic magic that was suddenly surrounding Pinkie like a protective cloak. Steel and ice, hatred and despair, defiance and a desire to protect that she hadn’t seen in a long time. There was nothing warm in the blue eyes that met her questioning look, and it made the older mare grin.
To speak within the realm of reason was to admit that they didn’t have a chance. Each and every one of them knew it well.
“I’m going to return to Canterlot Castle, and there I will stand by my sister and we will take our palace back. If Luna has fallen to the Changeling Queen’s tricks, then I will face Chrysalis by myself, and drag that cursed bug into Tartarus with my final will. She will not harm my little ponies any further.”
“Sorry Princess, but you’re not going to do that, not by yourself. I’m with you.”
Celestia blinked, a flicker of surprise crossing her face as she looked down at the proud pegasus that had spoken. Then she smiled, a tiny, mirthless chuckle escaping her as she swept a wing around the smaller pony. “How silly of me. Of course, Rainbow, how could I have ever thought otherwise?”
Pinkie’s ears twitched at a dull thud.
“Beats me, Princess, let’s go kick some changeling flank!”
“Well if you’re going to do it, I suggest you do so quickly,” Velvet said lightly, knowing full well that she was interrupting and not caring in the least. “I dare say we have perhaps three minutes before they come barging in here and flood us. By the sounds of it they even have that battering ram all set up.”
As if punctuating her statement, a second loud thud echoed out, and a chorus of excited buzzing drifted through the walls at the answering creak of splintering wood.
“Mm. Perhaps two minutes,” Velvet corrected, eyeing the barricaded doors with more boredom than wariness.
“Are we still taking bets on what it looks like?”
Velvet beamed. “Why yes we are, Pinkie! Thank you for reminding me, care to make one?”
“Yep. Ten on it being drilled full of holes.”
Velvet laughed and swiped the tossed coins from the air depositing them safely in the between. “That would completely compromise the ram’s structural integrity, it would break twice as fast!”
“So in other words, I’m so, totally on?”
Velvet only grinned. “That you are sweetie. My money’s on black, at least one illusion charm and two strengthening.”
“Is this really the time?” Rarity asked timidly, and Velvet only turned her lazy grin on the other unicorn instead.
“Would you rather us sit and strategize for the next forty seconds? We could probably accomplish the same effect by running around yelling random letters as we do whatever comes to mind, because let’s face it,”
Another thud, louder this time, and the wooden doors groaned-
(Perhaps this was all nothing but false levity. Perhaps every moment spent right now was done so in complete futility. In all likelihood there no point at all in what they were doing right now, it could all just be the last few moments before the end... But perhaps, just perhaps-
What they held right now was the spark of hope that dared to defy the inevitable.)
-and shattered inwards as buzzing filled their ears.
“We’re out of time darling.”