//------------------------------// // 23. Silver Spoon // Story: A Kingdom Divided // by Samey90 //------------------------------// The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers. Carl Jung Silver Spoon thought that all the suffering she’d endured and witnessed made her immune to pain, both physical and emotional. When she was being levitated through the dungeon and, what was worse, saw Twist being levitated next to her, she realised how much Twilight Sparkle wanted to prove her wrong. The corridor was dark; the only source of light being the almost burned-out torches and Twilight’s magic. Silver Spoon saw Twist shuddering and sobbing. Her vision was still red – not as red as when she’d attacked the guards, but still she felt that she’d kill Twilight with her bare hooves if she had a chance. And it’d be her second kill she wouldn’t regret. “Do you want to say something?” Twilight Sparkle asked, looking into Silver’s eyes. “You’d better hurry – I don’t think you’d be able to speak coherently once we arrive to the chamber…” Silver Spoon only gritted her teeth and said nothing. She didn’t want to show Twilight how scared she was. “And how about you?” Twilight asked Twist. “Well, assuming that you’re able to speak coherently in the first place… Maybe I should let you go? Take somepony else instead?” “I won’t beg you…” Twist said in a weak but determined voice. Silver Spoon looked at her with admiration. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, filly,” Twilight replied coldly. She walked up the narrow staircase. Silver Spoon started to count the stairs, just to keep her mind occupied. Yet, she couldn’t help but think about her parents, who probably had long come to terms with the fact that she was dead. She started to wonder what they’d do if they learned that she survived only to be slaughtered by the insane princess of Equestria in some dark basement. Would they start to mourn her again? Or maybe they wouldn’t care? In fact, Silver Spoon didn’t believe they’d ever heard about her fate. Now, when they ended up in the dungeon, she understood what had happened to Rarity, who, according to Twilight was in the asylum. She shuddered when she thought about the implications. They’d never be heard of again, just like the ponies in scary stories told around the campfire. Except that, unlike those stories, this was real. They finally stopped in front of another large metal door. The walls there weren’t as moist as on the level their cell was. The corridor was a bit lighter and Silver Spoon thought that they were probably close to the surface. Maybe Celestia was somewhere near, not knowing what her student was doing? Or maybe there was somepony else there? Silver Spoon looked at Twilight, who was examining the locks, and an idea came to her mind. She inhaled as much air as she could and shouted. Or rather tried to. Twilight’s magic around her darkened, choking her immediately. Then she was thrown at the wall. The impact knocked the wind out of her. She slid off of Twilight’s magical grasp and fell down a few stairs. With a groan, she raised her head and looked around. Everything was blurry; her glasses were lying a bit below her, one of the lenses cracked. She felt blood flowing from her nose. Some of her teeth were moving. “One more stunt like that, and I’ll throw you down the staircase,” Twilight said. Her magic engulfed Silver Spoon again and put her glasses on her nose forcingly. “You’ll need them,” Twilight said. “You don’t want to miss anything, do you?” Twilight opened the door with her magic and levitated Twist and Silver Spoon inside. The room was brightly illuminated and it took them a while before they got used to it. Not that it made things much better. In the middle of the room stood two metal tables with straps, surrounded by various devices. Silver Spoon, who expected saws, knives or hoofscrews, was a bit disappointed by what she saw. The devices looked inconspicuous; they were just machines in metal or plastic casings, with some tubes or sensors protruding from them. She was about to comment on that, when she saw Twist’s terrified expression. She started to wonder if her friend knew some of them. “Please, make yourself comfortable,” Twilight said, levitating them on the tables. The straps wrapped themselves around their hooves. “You know, your highness, it’s kinda hard to get comfortable on that cold table…” Silver Spoon replied. She laughed, but it quickly died down when Twilight looked into her eyes. “Defiant to the end…” Twilight muttered. “Or just tries to play it cool… We’ll see…” She turned to Twist. “How about you? Still too proud to beg?” “What would it change?” Twist asked. “You’ll kill uth anyway…” “Wrong, my little pony.” Twilight shook her head. “I’ll give you a chance. Say one word, and I’ll let you go… But you’ll never see your sassy fillyfriend again… You’re a clever pony, I know that… I guess you’ll agree it’s a fair trade.” Twist said nothing, looking at the machines around her. She was sweating profusely and began hyperventilating. “Don’t believe her!” Silver Spoon shouted. Twilight disappeared in a flash of magenta light, appeared next to her and smacked her with her hoof. Silver felt blood running down her cheek. “Did I ask you something?” Twilight grinned at her. “It seems that your little friend is too afraid of me to think straight… Too bad. So, maybe you’ll accept my offer?” “I won’t leave her with you…” Silver Spoon muttered through the gritted teeth. “Oh no…” Twilight cooed, shaking her head. “That was my offer to her. For you, I have a different one… Well, technically, it’s not an offer. Offer would mean that you have some possibilities to choose from.” “Give me a break… your highness,” Silver Spoon replied. Her vision was getting dangerously red; yet she felt some kind of an inner force preventing her from losing herself in insanity. Just a minute before, she was at the verge of panic. Now, once she was carried inside, everything changed. She checked her restraints, but they were holding her firmly in place. “Just tell me your not-an-offer instead of trying to talk me to death…” Twilight sat between her and Twist and levitated a scalpel to her. It stopped only a few inches from her hoof. “There are two paths, leading, in fact, to the same place,” she said in a lecturing tone. “Path one: I’ll untie you and give you that scalpel… No, don’t even think about killing me… I’m giving you an opportunity to end your friend’s suffering quickly. Don’t look at me like that, I saw what you did to those guards… I know you’re good with knives… Even your cutie marks suggests that playing with cutlery is your thing…” Twilight chuckled. “So, you want me to kill Twist? I’m sorry, your highness, but that’s fu–” She was interrupted by another teleportation and a wave of pain when the scalpel pierced her ear. “Language, filly, language!” Twilight scolded. “I’d advise you to think about my offer, because the second path involves you watching me using my equipment on her…” She looked at Silver Spoon closer. “Or maybe you’d actually like to see that? I knew it. Do you remember Sleepwalker?” “Who?” Silver Spoon asked. She shuddered, feeling that blood from her ear was staining her mane, dripping down her ruined braid. “White unicorn, blonde mane, blue eyes. One eye, in fact. Rings a bell? She told me how you attacked her when she hit your little friend with a sleep spell. From her story, I deduced–” She leaned closer to Silver Spoon, their noses were now almost touching. “–that you’re just like me…” “I’m nothing like you!” Silver Spoon shouted. “Oh really?” Twilight asked. “Both you and me would do absolutely everything to save our friends… or to avenge them. I can see what’s going on in this little head of yours… You’re planning how to get out of there… Catch me off guard and stab me in the back like you always do…” “Shut up! I’m not like you! And I’ll never be!” Silver Spoon’s scream echoed through the room. She closed her eyes and began muttering “I’m not like you” over and over, before another punch brought her back to consciousness. She coughed and spat some blood mixed with saliva. “I’m afraid you’re leaving me no choice…” Twilight said. “But… Oh, I forgot…” “Forgot about what?” Silver Spoon asked, her voice faint and shaky. She was watching Twilight as she spun around, waving her hoof at the devices surrounding her. “Informed consent!” she shouted. “Judging by her behaviour, your friend obviously knows about those machines and what they do… But you don’t, do you?” Silver Spoon said nothing. At first she wanted to tell Twilight that their definitions of consent weren’t exactly the same, but she didn’t want to upset her more. Meanwhile, Twilight disappeared again and appeared next to something that looked like a normal microscope, but with a monitor and a black box attached to it. A long piece of optical fibre was attached to the box. “This one is my favourite,” Twilight explained. “It was only recently invented and it’s too expensive for anypony in Equestria to have… It’s called two-photon microscope. See this fibre? Well, we can put it anywhere, but the best thing about it is that we can put it into the brain, while the subject is alive… Who knows how many discoveries we’ll make with it? Just a small hole in the skull...” She levitated a drill and put it a few inches from Twist’s head. “You know, there’s only one problem… If the subject move too much, or if the operator’s magic falters, it can reduce a normal pony to a bumbling idiot… assuming that your friend isn’t one…” “Don’t you dare talking about her like that!” Silver shouted. She tried to break her restraints, but they only tightened, almost cutting the blood flow in her hooves. “Oh, don’t worry,” Twilight rolled her eyes. “She’d still be alive, after all. And some ponies like changing diapers, though I guess it doesn’t float your boat…” She levitated the drill back to its place. Twist sighed with relief, but froze again when Twilight looked at her. “I guess you’re curious what else I have here for you…” she said. Twist’s lips moved for a moment before she finally spoke. “I… I wanna go home…” “Really?” Twilight smiled widely at her. “Such an intelligent little filly? I guess you’re excited to see it all…” Twist shook her head. Twilight approached her with an annoyed expression. “Then you don’t have to see anything!” she shouted. In one swift motion, she took off Twist’s glasses, threw them on the floor and crushed them with her hoof. Then she levitated a pair of scissors and a forceps. “You know, I was in a lab once…” she whispered. “There was a worker there, who could remove a dead mouse’s eye and clean it without damaging it in less than five minutes. Using only the scissors and forceps, mind you. It’s important to be quick, especially when you remove the remains of the muscles from the eye – when it dries, it’s prone to damage. But if you’re not careful, you can accidentally cut off the nerve… It’s important to leave at least a piece of it, so you know how to cut the eyeball later, after you process it…” “No!” Twist screamed, seeing the scissors hanging millimetres from her eye. Twilight’s magic forced it to open wide, holding her head in place. “Pleathe! I’ll do anything!” “Anything?” Twilight asked. She released Twist from her magic grasp and watched her as her breath steadied. “Well, my offer still stands… with a small change.” She levitated another machine, a kind of pump with a pipe ending with a needle, and placed it next to Silver Spoon. “What… what does it do?” Silver Spoon asked. Her throat went dry and her voice was now raspy. “Oh, it just replaces blood in your system with formaldehyde,” Twilight replied casually. “It’s used to preserve bodies, though it can be used on a living pony, you know. Usually it’s connected to the carotid artery, but I think I’ll do that the less popular way… Twist, sweetheart, do you know how liver looks like?” Twist nodded, too horrified to say something. When their gazes met, Silver Spoon saw tears in her eyes and her lips whispering “I’m sorry.” To her surprise, she realised that she was crying too. Twilight didn’t notice that. “So, as you know, the liver is usually dark red. That’s because there’s always lots of blood in it,” she said, again in the same tone, resembling a teacher showing their students something really interesting. “Soon, I’ll cut your friend open and connect the pump directly to her heart, so you could see an interesting thing… When the blood in the organism is replaced with formaldehyde, the liver actually turns white…” Silver Spoon froze. She looked at the needle in front of her and her eyes widened in fear. She thought about the ponies she’d killed. How curiously she looked into their eyes, watching as the last spark of life left them. How she observed their chests, trying to catch their final breaths. She thought about Sleepwalker and how she taunted her before attempting to kill her. Now, she was going to die too, with Twist and Twilight Sparkle watching her liver slowly turning white; her heart beating slower and slower, not realising that the liquid it was pumping through her body was no longer transporting oxygen to the tissues, but rather drip into the cells, killing and preserving them. It wasn’t, however, the worst thing. Silver Spoon wasn’t afraid of death; in fact, since she first saw a pony dying, she came up to terms with her own mortality. She was ready to embrace death anytime. The fact that was petrifying her was that Twilight Sparkle was right: they were both the same. She looked at Twist who was so pale that probably only Twilight’s magic was keeping her from passing out. Silver Spoon knew that Twilight wouldn’t kill her afterwards; she’d rather let her live knowing that it was her lack of courage that’d caused Silver Spoon’s death. Maybe she’d even bring the rest of their friends there, killing them one by one and making Twist watch. Silver Spoon shuddered, thinking that it was exactly what she’d do to some ponies, if she had a chance. The scalpel hung above her chest. She could see the reflex of light on the blade as it lowered slowly. She tensed her muscles and gritted her teeth – she didn’t want even the quietest sound escape her lips. She looked at screaming Twist for the last time and closed her eyes. An explosion echoed through the chamber. Silver Spoon felt dust falling upon her. Twilight released the scalpel from her magic grasp – it hit Silver Spoon’s chest, leaving a small scratch. Something exploded again, this time a bit further from them. Silver Spoon hear some frantic hoofsteps outside of the chamber before someone knocked at the door. “Your highness!” It was a deep male voice. “Are you here? Luna just broke Shining Armor’s shield! We’re under attack!” Twilight cursed under her breath. “Don’t go anywhere, girls,” she said to them. “I’ll be right back.” She teleported away from the chamber. They heard her muffled talk with the guard outside. Suddenly, the sound drowned in another explosion and they heard some ponies outside running away. Then everything went silent. Silver Spoon sighed with relief. She tried to free herself again, but the restraints held her firmly in place. Her hooves were getting numb and her back started to ache. She heard a loud cry. She raised her head and saw Twist, her eyes closed, thrashing against her restraints, but with no effect. “Twist!” Silver Spoon called. Twist didn’t hear her; she was whimpering, trying to catch her breath. Silver Spoon called her again, this time a bit louder. Twist stopped thrashing and looked at her, hyperventilating. Her pupils were shrunk to pinpricks and she was avoiding eye contact with Silver Spoon, throwing nervous glances at the door. “Twist, honey…” Silver Spoon said in the calmest and softest tone she could muster. “I’m with you… Everything will be all right…” She could hardly believe her own words. Her throat was dry and her heart was trying to break her ribs. She still felt dizzy from the beating she had received from the guards trying to capture her and Twilight’s punches. Finally, Twist spoke. “Silver Spoon…” Her voice was a faint whisper. “I’m tho thorry… She… she almotht k-killed you b-because I–” “Don’t worry about that,” Silver Spoon interrupted her. “It’s not your fault… Everypony would be afraid in your place.” “I’m utheleth…” Twist hung her head down. “You… You’re not afraid of her. And I freaked out when I saw scissors…” “Twist… The princess of Equestria just tried to bleed me out to death… I’m scared as hell. I’d be as crazy as her if I weren’t.” She paused to catch her breath. Her voice was unnaturally high-pitched and fast. “You… you’re not useless. You’re the reason I keep it together. Without you, I’d be dead long ago…” Their eyes met. Twist’s breath was now slower and calmer. She was still shivering and her coat was drenched with sweat, but she seemed to regain her composure. “But I’m not ath brave ath you…” she said. “You’re far more brave… I’m only resisting because you’re here, Twist… Without you, I’d already be a hysterical mess...” Twist looked at her unsurely. They heard an echo of a distant explosion and somepony’s slow hoofsteps on the corridor. “She’th back…” Twist said in a high-pitched voice. Her muscles tensed, she was trying desperately not to move. Silver Spoon gulped. There was no saliva in her mouth, but she felt that she was going to throw up and she didn’t want Twilight to see this. The hoofsteps were getting louder. They looked at the door, then at each other. Finally the steps stopped when the pony stood in front of the chamber entrance. “Twist,” Silver Spoon said, trying to keep her voice still. The unpleasant cold feeling was spreading from her stomach, radiating on the whole body. “This may sound melodramatic, but… I want you to know that I love you. And I’ll always do.” They heard the rattling of the key in the lock and the door was pushed open. Silver Spoon closed her eyes, unable to look at the pony who came in.