Corruption and Loss
Spike screamed as a blazing pain shot through his skull, he writhed and felt around his face, finding something missing that sent what was left of his rational mind into a frenzy of desperate patting and searching.
"My eye! What did you do to my eye!" He screamed, clutching his fist against the now concave socket, too revolted by it's unnatural feeling to care about the pain he was causing.
Fido looked down at him with a look of pity before looking back into the newly extracted organ. The white of the ball was slowly turning red from the salt and dirt on his paws, and the pupil was stuck in a permanent half stilted state. "Geko wanted to be held accountable, than he was." He placed his paw over the mangled scar on his face. "An eye for an eye."
The dog turned away from the withering mess back to his clan and raised the organic sphere to his pack, basking in the looks of admiration and fear they gave him. Slowly, he clenched his didgets around the eye ball until a small splat echoed from his fist, small bits oozing between his fingers. "Justice!" He declared triumphantly.
His pack erupted into a chorus of cheers and jeers. Most offering words of praise and encouragement, but there was no shortage of critics either. It didn't matter though, vengeance was his, justice had been served and he was victorious.
"SPIKE!" Cried Twilight as she jumped down to the floor and charged to wrap her friend in an emotionally charged embrace, clutching his form to her chest. Completely uncaring for the small tickles of blood from his numerous cuts, as well as the stream coming from his left eye socket. "You stupid, stupid idiot! Why did you have to do it."
Sin quickly slung his bow across his back and followed suite, joining the others whom looked down upon the drake in concern and worry. Celestia pushed passed them all and used her magic to teleport the troop out of the cave. Not before giving one last icy glare to the adjudicators whom started the whole mess.
As soon as they winked into the throne room, Celestia barked at the stunned guardsponies to inform the infirmary of their arrival and to prep for the mangled patient. She lifted both her student and the injured in her magic and made way for the medical wing, following the much more quickly moving guards.
The rest were about to follow, but the solar princess requested that they not, too many distractions and stress.
Reluctantly, the four of Twilight's friends, Shining Armor, Valiar, Sin, Uppity, and Mac stood in silence. Each considering what they'd just seen and the extent of the damage to not only Spike, but themselves. The girls looked pretty shaken up, especially Fluttershy, who was crying into Rarity's shoulder, the alabaster mare desperately trying to comfort her.
Pinkie and Dash were both a mixed bag of relief and numbness. Both glad that they didn't follow through with the plan, but still disturbed about the merciless display they witnessed. Uppity was shaking and looked sick, her breathing was labored and eyes wide. Valiar and Shining stood stone faced for the most part, but small glances betraying just how terrifying the ordeal was.
"Is it over?" Pinkie asked to no one in particular.
"Yes, Pinkie. It's over." Luna said, placing a wing around her. The party mare pressed her face into the lunar alicorn's neck and sobbed gently.
Both Sin and Mac stood in a silent seething, wishing they could do something. Even after the trial, both felt extremely helpless.
A few minutes passed with no words spoken, and only the gentle sobs of loss and sorrow to fill the void of silence. Eventually, Luna offered to house the ponies for the night, dismissing both Valiar and Shining from duty for tomorrow, and promised to inform all of them should Spike's condition improve enough for them to visit.
It was an emotionally exhausting day, and as much as they all desperately wanted to see how their friend was doing, worrying wouldn't do any good. The needed rest, and Luna adamantly pushed to make sure they got it.
Luna traveled through the dreamscape, checking on each of her subjects dreams, paying close attention to the ponies she'd seen to bed. As expected, each were having nightmares of their friends torture, some finding blame in themselves for not acting to save him or help at all.
He used her magic to sooth their minds, sending images of herself into their minds to fight the trauma. It wasn't a well known fact, but since her return, Luna had taken to influencing other's dreams in an effort to heal mental disorders and traumatic events. She studied psychology, hormones, and neuron patterns at length to try to understand what needed to be done to help atone for her actions a thousand years ago. The fruit of her labor showed with resounding success.
Yes, there were problem cases, one Diamond Tiara in Ponyville being a prime example to her failed manipulations, but for the most part, she brought happiness and healing to those she touched in the dream world.
Having checked on the Elements and Macintosh to satisfaction, Luna moved to a new pair of windows. These two belonging to Spike and Uppity. Spike wasn't dreaming, the anesthetics erasing all traces of subconscious operations, but Uppity on the other hand was having a terrible nightmare. One her image was having trouble dealing with.
With a heavy sigh, Luna used her magic to numb the neuron pathways that lead to the memory and implanted one of her DA's more pleasant reoccurring dreams. It was an ethical conundrum, repressing memories for another, but Uppity was more in tune with emotions than most. She had a tough exterior, but that was built to protect the sensitive and vulnerable mare within.
Nodding in approval of her work, Luna decided to try one more time to enter Sin's mind and see his dreams, though, his occlumency was in full effect as it usually was. It infuriated her to not be able to see into somepony's dreams, especially a pony like himself who was in desperate need of her services. But she wouldn't give up on him, nor would she give up on Diamond Tiara, or Silver Spoon, or Trixie or any of them. The lunar alicorn was determined to help everypony and any way she could.
Though, as determined as she was not to help others and not fall from grace again, she had made quite a few mistakes. And even worse, hidden those mistakes with even more mistakes, telling lies and using her powers not for the greater good, but for her own benefit.
Her eyes were drawn back to the window of Big Macintosh's mind, observing her image attempting to comfort the stallion. The lunar goddess closed her eyes and uttered a silent apology. "I'm sorry, Macintosh. I'm sorry for what I've put you through, I hope that you can forgive me."
What she'd done was terrible, forcing herself on him as she had in an attempt to wipe his mind of the memories of her involvement with Triple M. Saying she wanted a foal with him, manipulating and throwing him on a guilt trip. All for the sake of saving herself from her sister's wrath. She was a terrible pony, a terrible pony unfit to rule her throne.
"Well, at least you realize how terrible you are." Eyes shooting wide open, Luna turned around to find a small black cloud that resembled her mane floating a few feet behind her. "About time too, your self pity party was getting a bit old, Lulu."
Luna skuddled backwards, the voice emanating from the cloud all to familiar. The Tantabus, a spell driven by guilt and remorse, a constant reminder of what she'd done and what she never wanted to do again. It was a mechanistic demon she'd conjured upon herself a few weeks after her return from the moon, a measure to make sure she never became nightmare moon again.
Yet she'd never given the thing a voice to speak with. It's entire purpose was to punish her and keep her in line by inducing terrible night terrors. The voice it had, it was... No, it couldn't be...
"How many times must we go over this?" The Tantabus sighed, floating lazily around her. "You know who I am, you just don't want to admit it to yourself."
Unable to accept what she was hearing, Luna slammed her hoof on the ground and woke herself up with a start.
Shooting up in her bed, Luna shivered as she finally couldn't deny what was happening to her, Nightmare Moon was with her once more, and what's worse, she was growing powerful enough to infect the magics within the younger Alicorn's mind.
Blinking into wakefulness, Spike felt absolutely numb throughout his entire body. He heard beeping to his right, but couldn't find it in him to care what it was.
He lay there on the hospital bed, attempting to clear the fog of chemicals from his mind to figure out where he was and what had happened to him. No matter how much effort or concentration he put forth, nothing but the constant beeping besides him entered his thoughts.
Hours passed, or maybe it was just seconds, time was hard to tell, but eventually a new idea pushed itself into his mind. It was dull at first, barely even a registered feeling, but as more time passed the more pronounced it became.
Pain.
Pain that radiated from his face, his body, his legs, arms, claws and feet. Along with the pain came a clarity that allowed the drake to recount what it was that placed him here.
With sudden realization, Spike shot up right, a flaring of searing hot lancing hurt quickly putting the dragon on his back again with a yelp. The trial, Fido, his eye...
Slowly, Spike lifted his claw to his face. It was a painful process, both in speed and feel, but eventually the drake finally reached the bandaged socket and pushed in to find that he had, infact, lost his left eye.
It was gone, he'd lost his eye to the dog who's eye he'd taken. One would expect him to be angry, to feel despair or to depressed. Yet he didn't feel anything of the sort. Aside from a nagging bit of sadness and loss, the main emotion Spike had felt was relief. Relief that he had done what needed to be done, and paid for the crimes he had committed. Relief that his guilty conscious and fear that had been building up over the last few days was finally gone.
He exhaled heavily as he heard a door open. "Spike? Spike are you awake?"
Spike opened his mouth to reply, but what he intended to be a "yes" came out as a pathetic groan. He opened his remaining eye to look and find Twilight's face looking down at his. Her eyes had the worst puffy redness he'd ever seen them, or maybe there was red lip stick around them. His vision and mind were both still a bit fuzzy.
Twilight brought forth to his lips and told him to drink. As the cool liquid of water made contact with his parched throat, Spike greatfully sipped down the glass in a hurry so much so that he got a little down the wrong pipe and began coughing. He didn't even register how thirsty he was.
"Easy, easy." Twi cooed, gently stroking his bandaged spines. "How are you feeling?"
"Better than I look." He tried to laugh, his voice hoarse and scratchy. It wasn't a lie, the drugs were wearing off, but they were still potent enough to keep most of the pain away. "Speaking of, how are you Twi? How's everypony else?"
The lavander mare set his mind at ease, informing him that everyone else was fine. He'd been out for a few days now, but the doctors were confident that he'd make a complete recovery. Apparently dragon biology made for quite an impressive healing factor, but with all of his broken bones, a punctured lung, damaged kidney and three points of internal bleeding; he'd be off his feet for a while.
"Is that all he did? Wow." The drake commented absently. "Here I thought he broke every single bone in my body."
"Why did you do it, Spike?" Twilight asked softly, garnering his attention. "Why did you stay when they told you you could leave? Why did you put yourself through this?" She emphasized by placing her hoof beside the one spot that would never heal, the one thing that he would never get back.
Spike looked away. "Because Twi, I deserved it." He stated simply and matter of fact.
The librarian didn't seem to like that answer and frowned, arguing sternly that he could have been killed. Spike nodded in the affirmative and admitted the same, but he couldn't have just left things as they were. She saw what he'd done to Fido, she saw the maiming he'd given to the dog as clearly as he had. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he had left without giving the dog what he was entitled to.
Sighing, Twilight ended the argument before it began. She didn't want to be angry, and neither did Spike. She gently placed her forelegs around him, working slowly past his hissing and held him. Glad that he was finally safe and home. He could win this one.
"I'm sorry, Spike..." She said as she held him. The drake accepted her apology, not knowing for what though. "No, Spike what I did, what I said, it wasn't alright."
"What are you talking about?"
Releasing her son-by-right, Twilight recounted the conversation she had with Sin, as well as connecting a bunch of dots about the past. His initial departure, the dragon migration, his first rampage through Ponyville. All of it occurred long before the Federalist arrived, she couldn't blame him for those things. "You needed something else, something I couldn't give you." She confessed. "I treated you like a child, always wanting to keep you safe and never get hurt. I didn't realize how overly protective I was being, how helpless you must have felt because of it."
Spike didn't know what to say, he was more than a little miffed with the aforementioned stallion spilling the beans on the things he'd said in confidence on top of his slavery suggestion, but maybe it was for the best. Twilight seemed as though she finally understood where he was coming from, and now... now maybe they could finally work their problems out in a way that actually changed things between them anddidn't leave him uncomfortable around her.
"I promise, Spike. From this day forth, I'll start treating you as the dragon you want to be." Twilight smiled, "Well, once you're better, anyways."
Spike chuckled. "Yea, I guess I could use some motherly love right about now."
The two shared another laugh and talked at length about possible futures for him. Where he could live, jobs he could apply for, of course Twilight would have to help work something out past the labor laws, but if it meant never having to lose the one she'd come to love so much, she'd be happy to fight that battle a hundred times over.
Despite the past few days of his life being probably the worst in his entire life, Spike finally found a soothing calmness that he hadn't felt since the snowball fight a month ago. For the first time in a long time, he was genuinely happy, he finally saw things getting better for him. Though, as Twilight gave him one more hug, the dull pain that emanated from his missing eye brought a dark cloud to his thoughts. Things may get better and he may move forward, but there would always be a reminder of what he'd done, and the price he paid for it.