//------------------------------// // Act 3 | The Night Mare's End // Story: To Cure Deception // by LegionPothIX //------------------------------// The eerie silence deep in the Everfree forest was broken by a sob. "Alalia... I... I..." There were no more tears and Deception collapsed into the dirt from whence his form came. Lucas could finally begin to grieve. "I'm proud of you." As she stood over his broken body Alalia Witchwild let out a final breath of relief. "... I'm finally free." "But I-" Lucas started but was cut off by Alalia. “No!" The authoritative syllable came with an explosion of force. "She! She did this for you. I'm not proud of helping her but my mentor died that day!" Alalia haphazardly tossed Zecora's potion into his lap. "Drink it. Or don't. I don't fucking care anymore," she admitted, "If you can't see she did this for you. Then I'll..." The mare shook her head when her bluff was called. "You'll what?" Lucas cried out. Alalia loosed a single introspective laugh, as though she learned something about herself. "I'll do nothing. I mean, I'm the goddamn Dissonant of Friendship after all. So go ahead. I taught you all the magic I can. Use it. Mix up whatever shit you want. I won't stop you from killing yourself on this fucking stupid quest for perfection." The form of the rabid zebra disappeared in a flash of green light leaving only the sandy-tan unicorn. As she began the walk home Lacus's thoughts turned inward. Not to his own mind, but those gifts left by another. Latere's dream that HK so vehemently defamed on his own death bed. It always came back to that. To what motivates. To dreams. It was never Lucas's dream to become a better pony, that must have been a remnant of Latere, instead his only desire was to be the best version of himself he could. A sentiment he learned of himself in his first hour. From the moment he made a promise to a mad mare whom saw through him more thoroughly than he could see himself. That, and to know whom that pony was. Who he was. A crestfallen grin crossed his face as he soon realized the clumsily phrased idea could literally be any of the mares in his life, from Screwy to Madness, Alalia to Luna, and back to the Queen of the Changelings herself. "To mothers," Lacus said as he raised his glassware in salute and, when he lowered the emptied bottle, he added: "and sisters." *** The evening was growing late, and the last train north had just pulled into the station. A solidary sandy coat stood on the platform, her shale hair swept back from her face, carried away with her a memento of her mentor. Having placed the gold hairband on her head, she pulled it back, so that it rested on the base of her skull. As Lucas Greymane helped Habré Kadabré load her things onto the train, the awkward silence was filled when she blurted out: “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone!” This caused Lucas to smile. Though he was no longer Deception he could still recognize a lie when he heard it. “Yes, you will.” His tone was one of freedom not heard since Madness had asked why the form had to mean anything because, now that he had the answer, he was at peace. “You won’t be able to avoid it. I’m living a documented alias, and I’m not going to change my name after fighting so hard to earn it.” It was a sad truth that he knew she needed to hear. “I’m going to be on the watch-list now, and you will be questioned. I've taught you all that I know, and hope you can find some use of it.” A look of shame crossed Habré's face for her inevitable betrayal, then she glanced back to Lucas Greymane. “I’ll... I'll never forget you.” Lucas said his goodbyes with a wry smile: “What a fucked up thing to say, Alalia.” The doors to the train closed as the undercover changeling hung her head in her hoof. After the train pulled out of the station Lucas headed home to get some rest. He had a big day tomorrow—the first one of his new life—and thought it would be best to turn in early. While passing his mailbox he considered taking her name down, but instead left it as it was. She would always be welcome in the changeling house so long as it was his. He returned to his room and took a moment to clear the to-do board before crawling into bed. *** "Ideas." "Dreams are ideas." "... Nightmares too!" "And ideas only hurt when they're somewhere they're not supposed to be." An equine lie in the fetal position on the abstract plane. No name. No face. No facade. It was neither Lacus or Latere. Not Lucas or Deception. Just a bundle of frayed nerves that came ever closer to unraveling completely; save only for the knot in its stomach. Lacking any traditional ascription of form, these loose ends tightly grappled something more important than life itself. A fact made all the more evident by the response given to a motherly concern voiced from across the endless expanse. "Tis a poison, child." The call came from the princess of this domain. A call not well received by the creature that could only be described as a consequence. "It's mine," it said unmoved by the princess's warning. "It is my nightmare." The precariousness of the situation demanded delicacy as to not disrupt the tethers of the knot tied by chance. A knot that frayed into a central nervous system, as if blown together by the winds of fate, and formed a changeling from the strands of manifest destiny. Luna hesitantly confronted the pony with the face of deception and eyes of madness: one in the past the other in the future, both unable to see the present. "Then," she protested, "thou must see it will be thy undoing. Thou wilt surely die." "Yes," The voice of dissonance returned, "but before it is, and before I do, it will give me strength. It will motivate me. It will be my nightmare until it is just my dream." The Night Princess watched helplessly as the form turned Canterlot Black at the embrace of inner darkness. Different than begrudgingly accepting the Nightmare held in the orb on high, every fiber of this entity’s being willfully became a bar in its own personal prison. "Entrust in me, child, some spark of thy light. That it may be preserved should thee ever desire it again," Luna begged but changeling shook its malformed mind. Only one could be trusted with such a task. "I am the cage, and the bird inside," Latere Vesco cited, "My wings keep me confined. So I will break them and walk free." A sad contemplative look filled the redeemed light of Luna's countenance as each hole in Latere's legs filled with misery. With grief. So too did the opposite radiate from the patron saint of Nightmare Night and, from within her, an aura of harmony and love spilled out. A peace that was drawn from her memory of the twice damned Elements themselves. The phantom rainbow washed over the Dissonant of Honesty to no avail as there was no desire, nor even the shadow of such an inclination, to let harmony into her soul. "Call them," Latere ordered. The visage of another alicorn, or nearly such, whipped into existence and Luna regrettably connected the facsimile with the Queen of the Changelings that it represented. "The other one too," Latere added, "the stallion of dirt and grass," but this only drew a blank from the princess. "You dare summon me?" Chrysalis barked at the pair of mares, her indirectness indicated a lack of clarity regarding whom was to blame. "My queen!" Latere subordinated herself in the presence of her ruler. "I have come to know the true nature of Honesty, through its dissonant: Deception. Though I have no Element to show, I think my work will speak for itself. I humbly ask–" "I have no need of reminders," the queen remarked, which caused the visage of Latere to shimmer, before the real Luna interrupted the scene, and dispelled the illusion of one changeling in favor of the other. Deception's eyes were still on the queen when it broke, and Lucas Greymane stepped out from under it. He stood and questioned Chrysalis as an equal: two changelings with real names. "Does your decision still stand then?" As Luna stood far away from what was not hers to interfere in, Chrysalis eyed the insolent insect and proclaimed: "You will never be one of them." Lucas frowned at the half-truth and obvious non-answer. "And I can never again be one of ‘us’. With them I am free to be myself, but I need to know where we stand." It was fitting that the memory of his first meeting with the Light of Moon would be his last under the shadow of the swarm. He turned and walked away from his queen, knowing full well that Chrysalis could strike him down at any moment. Each step toward a new ruler was filled with dread anticipation. He felt like a moth being called to the flame, and awaited the final release that never came. It had, after all, never been done before… it was impossible. Yet it was permitted. This much Lucas knew: that for good or ill there was still so much that a patient queen may learn about ponykind, especially if a changeling though himself among them. As he reached the hoof of his new princess, he uttered a final word for both regal mothers so that they may pass along given the opportunity. "Thank you... for keeping this dream safe for me when I couldn't, Alalia."