Chapter 17 – The little orange filly, with two lives
This evening, I find myself relaxing in a small hot spring with Fluttershy. She found this place just behind her cottage, and so she wanted me to accompany her here. I don’t have any plans today, and neither does anypony else, so why not unwind even more? The chirping of the songbirds in the morning soothed my mind while the cool breeze flicked my mane ever so slightly. This is the calmest environment I’ve ever been in.
“Say, Blue, I was just wondering why you and Glais don’t like each other. Why is that?” Fluttershy muttered with a whimper at the end of her sentence.
“Ah, that guy… he tried to rule my other home world and enslave anyone who opposed him. He was bent on world domination, and as usual for our world, the good people of Earth rebelled against him. Some of us succeeded oppressing him, but the rest of us had perished under his iron fists. Somehow, I became the leader of the main band of freedom fighters. It turns out that this main group had been wiped out, and I was the last one on the run directly from Glais. Remembering my spells, I transported myself to the safest world, and so I landed in Equestria.” I gloated about my escapade, and sunk a little lower in the water.
“He sounds horrible…your world doesn’t sound too nice…”
“Hmm, it used to be, Fluttershy, it used to be. There were green trees that towered over everyone, huge open meadows with tall grass and beautiful flowers, awe inspiring buildings that were so precise and accurately designed. As well as people, they were all wonderful to each other. But one day, it all turned into…ash, and…and a burning red sky.” I quickly dunked my head under to soak my mane in the warm goodness of the water, and raised myself back up before Fluttershy could reply.
“Oh my…” Fluttershy murmured under the shock of my fallen planet’s ruins.
“Before that happened, extremely explosive bombs raged across the skies. When they landed, everything was set to be wasted by the blasts. My…parents didn’t make it out of the explosion’s range. They let me go out of our house first, but a quake trapped them inside. I looked back while running away as fast as I could, and just saw the cloud brush over the house as if it was paper. I have since forgotten what happened after that, but that particular memory is burned into my mind. I…saw their faces…they…” My bottom lip was trembling so badly I wasn’t able to speak anymore.
“Please, don’t say anymore Blue, it’s hard enough for you to explain all this to me.” Fluttershy swam over to comfort me some more.
“I’m…sorry I had to…tell you all that…” the repressed tears fell from my eyes, so I closed them to stop the tears from flowing so heavily.
“Please stop crying Blue, I don’t want to break down too…” Fluttershy’s voice quivered as she had never seen me cry this severely before.
“I’m…so sorry Fluttershy…I didn’t think that memory would come back…” I started breathing irregularly and coughed a little.
“It’s okay, it’s okay Blue, you’re safe with me now; I’m here to console you.” Fluttershy hugged me tighter than ever before, as she knew too well of my pain. She dried my face so I was able to open my eyes again.
“Th-thank you Shy…I owe you a lot. Please…would it be alright…to take a little walk alone?”
“Of-of course Blue, I’ll wait here for you. You just need some cool air, that’s all.”
I slowly dragged myself out of the water filled crater, and strolled away, still dripping. I wanted to revisit my old tree house again, and so I went in the general direction. It was just as it was before Applebloom’s cutie mark, good as new. I trailed up the ramp, and entered the small shelter. The desk was still there, so I opened the draw under its surface, and took out the diary that I had secretly placed there while redecorating. Flicking through the pages, I came across the certain memory again, written in full. Hopefully there would be the events after that occurrence written down, on the next page I presumed.
Dear diary,
Don’t have much energy to write down what I found, but I managed to find a small camp of runaways. Nice people; gave me food and water. I’ll be staying with them for a while I guess, since I have nowhere to go. My parents just died, so I won’t be sleeping tonight. Excuse the wet paper.
My life was utterly ruined. Well, the life I used to own anyway. I felt intrigued, so I kept reading. I turned the page carefully as the page was thinned from the dried up tears. I saw an intricately drawn picture on this side. It was a handgun I think, with a caption below it. The caption read: “The best thing mankind ever made, and also the worst.” I didn’t much understand what I was relating to, but it must have been significant if this gun was drawn that well.
Just then, I heard a rustle from behind me. I immediately shut the book, and turned to face the noise. The little rabbit creature with the skull head was standing in front of me. Didn’t we get rid of this pest? I wanted to bolt out of the doorway and escape before I came to harm again, but I seemed to be paralysed. My brain started hurting, and I fell to the floor, suddenly weaker than usual. Fortunately, the rabbit-thing disappeared soon after I collapsed. My throat felt dry, and I tried to stand up. Although, my efforts were futile, as all that did was make me drop on my side. Again, I was helpless and paralysed. The sky was turning black, and I felt sleepy, so all I could do was fall asleep for now.
“Blue? Blue! Wake up! We have to get you home! You shouldn’t be here!” A familiar voice called to me, and I was very gently dragged out of the tree house.
“What…Fluttershy? How did you find me?” I replied sleepily. I knew I had regained my function, so I stood up hastily.
“You were gone for a while, so I looked around the forest. I never knew you owned a tree house!” Fluttershy returned, with some surprise as I never told her about what I had here until now.
“Oh yeah, heh, this place is old, but it was mine and Destiny’s when we were little fillies. Yeah, that was my past here, if you still wanted to know.”
Fluttershy had offered for me to stay at her place once again, and so I accepted, seeing as I was still slightly stunned by that…thing. I refused any food, and went straight to sleep regrettably.
I groggily awoke to the sound of birdsong surrounding me, and Fluttershy’s warmth relaxed my nerves. I had Destiny in my mind though. She’ll be alright, I just know it.
“I’m sorry Bluey, but I have to go somewhere right now…” Fluttershy had gotten out of bed to go for the door, in a small rush.
“Wait, where do you have to go, Shy? Please tell me…” I replied, obviously wanting to know where she is about to head off to.
“Oh, well, I have to go and meet the girls for a picnic, and…”
“I understand. You go on; I’ll lock up for you.”
“Thank you Bluey, I’ll see you later.”
I stretched my legs as I shifted out from under the covers, said good bye to the animals that were awake, and shut the door to Fluttershy’s cottage. Wait; there’s no lock on this door. Why did I even say that? I shrugged off the thought and headed home. I didn’t know what else to do, as I had nothing planned. Maybe I’ll pick up some supplies from the market…
“That’ll be twenty bits please.” Ordered the grocery seller.
“Here you go sir.” I handed over what I had in my bag.
“Wait, what do you call this?”
I examined what I gave to the colt. Were these…dollar bills? I took them back, and gave the right currency.
“Thank you, please watch what you’re giving out next time, miss.” The colt’s advice struck me.
“Sorry about that, won’t happen again.” I turned with my new grocery bag and thought about those dollars. Why would I still have them? Did they…have blood on them? I got back to my house, opened the door to see only Twisha sitting on the sofa, and put my bags on the nearest surface.
“Hey, how come you’re the only one here?” I asked the lone mare.
“They left the house for a colt’s day out, apparently.” Twisha answered to me, hinting some envy.
“I suppose we all should get to know each other better, so that might be why they went to do whatever they were going to do.”
“I guess we should find out more about each other too, hey?”
“Alright, that’s fine with me. Let’s start with you, Twisha. What’s it like in Trottingham?”
“Well, they have tall, tightly packed houses all neatly together in a row, overlooking a huge market square, and you can always here the commotion of ponies running around, working and shopping. My family had one of those houses, which was very stylish and full of expensive stuff. I didn’t really have friends, and my family didn’t like me being round them much. So I was sat outside my door most days, watching all kinds of mares and stallions shout and buy stuff and talk to me…”
“You definitely have a lot of social experience then. But how come you acted pretty mean to us?”
“I don’t know…I’m sorry, maybe it was just how I took my personality from everypony else.”
“I see, and perhaps your personality changes from time to time?”
“Something like that. I wish I didn’t have different sides to me…”
“I think all of us have different sides of ourselves.”
A silent moment of thought passed.
“Say, how do you know Destiny already?” I asked her, bringing back up that subject before the silence became awkward.
“Well, we used to be the best of friends, and we went to see each other every day on our own personal cloud, that stayed where it was. But she stopped coming to that cloud one day. I became lonely again after that, which also made me bitter.” Twisha replied, visually showing her true emotions.
“Well, I’m sure you aren’t that bitter…” I came closer to Twisha for her comfort.
“I am, I disliked everypony that went near me after that, and it’s too late to change my opinion on anypony else.”
“It’s never too late to warm up to us all. You never know, it could help you out a lot, like it did for me.”
“Wait, you used to be bitter too?”
“Yeah, I was pretty evil in my human life. I killed a lot of people, and I was on the run from everyone basically. So that’s why I came to Equestria, to forget about my past sins and become better than I used to be.”
I couldn’t believe what I had just blurted out. Was that my real intention? Was I evil as a human? Why did I even say that? In a blind panic, I rushed out the door, to the tree house, picked up the diary, galloped as fast as I could back, and started reading thoroughly. Here we go, “How I am hunted” was the entry title.
“That gun proved to be better than I expected. So many dead people. I wanted my revenge on the world to be sweet, and so I got what I asked for. I’m laughing so heavily right now, I can’t stop myself. Another one bites the dust! I never want to end this chain of murder; I love it so!”
I didn’t want to read any more. Was this really me? I looked at the back of the diary, and found a slightly singed page titled: “Apology number twenty five.” I read on, hopefully to see something better about Anne.
<i>“I can either destroy myself, or make a new life. I want to forget it all. My family are long gone, I’ve killed so many, I’m the only friend I know, everyone wants me dead, and I just can’t take it anymore. That’s it; I’m going to use my abused magic one last time to transport me away from this place. I’ll start again; I’ll have a total change of heart. I’m sorry world; I’ve done too much to hurt you even further.”</i>
And that’s how I got here, I presume. So I shouldn’t be alive right now. I want to end it all, knowing that I did something as unspeakable as that. I had visions of everything burning, as well as blood spattered everywhere. I was in that burning forest again; the one from my nightmare. Glais was there, with a gun in his hand, aiming for me. There was a knife at my foot, covered in blood too. I was back to my human self, and everything seemed more real than ever before. This wasn’t a dream any longer, this was real life. Without hesitation, I picked up the knife and charged at Glais.
*Azure Spark’s POV*
A ringing tone pained my ears for a second.
“Are ya alright Azure?” Braeburn held me before I stumbled any further.
“There’s something deeply wrong. Quick Braeburn, we have to get back to Blue’s house!” I replied, composing myself and dashing back to where I came from. Braeburn tried to finish the rest of his cider as he followed me out of the bar.
Running as fast as I could, I reached the house and burst through the door. Only Twisha was standing there, dazed.
“She-she disappeared…” Twisha whispered in shock.
“No…no! She couldn’t have! Not already! This can’t be happening!” I was more afraid than ever before.
“What can’t be happenin’?” Braeburn enquired, trying to catch his breath.
“She came back…she woke up!”
“She seemed pretty awake to me…” Twisha replied.
“No, not like that. Something must have triggered her to wake up as a human again.”
“What!? How is that even possible!?” Twisha and Braeburn looked at each other in total confusion.
I sighed sadly. “I suppose I’ll have to explain it to you. Blue was in a coma. In this coma, she created a world. This world, to be exact. As long as she was in the coma, this world would exist only. And now she’s woken up…”
“But, how are we still here?” Twisha questioned.
“I’m not sure. I made a machine that could tap into machines, and knowing that Blue was out of consciousness; I managed to connect to the coma. If I’m still here, then this world still stands. Unfortunately, the world we’re in will start deteriorating soon.”
“So…what can we do then?” Braeburn couldn’t help but look around in fear.
“There’s nothing we can do. We all just disappear…”
“But what about you? Ya weren’t born here!”
“True, but I can’t be in two places at once, so I can’t escape from this if Blue isn’t here.”
None of us had any hope in mind. We were all doomed, and time was wasting away.
“Can we at least go and see Destiny?” Braeburn requested.
“Of course, we should be together for this.” I dropped my head, and walked out of Blue’s home, the rest of us following me. I looked up, and noticed the environment becoming distorted. Trees started flying away, houses started crumbling, and the sky turned red, just like back on earth. We hurried ourselves to the hospital before the path in front of us vanished. There was Destiny, in the same position as before.
“I hope ya feel better now Destiny.” Braeburn said deeply as he moved close to Destiny.
“Hey, what’s gotten into you all? Don’t look so glum! I’m getting out today!” Destiny replied with her usual happiness.
“You see, there won’t be a today for much longer.” I came out with it, and explained the whole situation.
Destiny looked out the window and said, “Is this what it’s come to? I’ve only lived for fifteen years, and this is it…”
“And nopony can do anything about it. Blue is gone, and so will we be soon.”