//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Alone // Story: Remnant // by preaplanes //------------------------------// Fluttershy's eyes cracked open, as they did at this time every morning, though perhaps it would be better to say every night. The moon had not yet sunk below the horizon, still wrapping the world in its gentle light for a short while longer. As such the term "morning" was somewhat debatable. The yellow pegasus quietly yawned and stepped out of bed. She was still a little sleepy, having stayed up so long after the wedding before coming back home, but she didn't mind. It was nice to see everypony so happy, especially after such a scary day. She took care of herself as usual, taking her morning bath and brushing her teeth; taking care of her mane and having a bowl of breakfast oats. She then walked outside, taking care not to wake any animals up. This was the time she would take care of the night time animals. She couldn't stay up all the time, so she just woke up and went to bed a little earlier than most ponies. It wasn't terribly early, usually Applejack would get up even earlier and go to bed even later than her. Tonight she had found that two racoons had been arguing over food again. Fluttershy gave them some nuts and berries, splitting them as fairly as she could. The larger one began to protest, but sheepishly backed down when she gave him the stare. With that matter settled, she turned her attention to the toads. A few minutes later, the moon dipped out of sight, and the nocturnal animals had been taken care of. They did not rely on Fluttershy's help unless they needed it, because she simply didn't have the time, and the number of problems usually worked itself out to be solvable in the half hour before she would take care of the daytime animals. She made her way to the chicken coop, expecting to hear the roosters crow any second now. Then, Fluttershy heard somepony scream nearby, though she was not sure that that was the best word for it, or if a good word for it existed. A female voice. It was loud, enough that it would probably wake up a lot of animals, but more importantly than that was that it sounded so awful. There was just so much pain and sadness in that voice. It was one of the saddest things she'd ever heard. The pony took off looking for the source. Somepony, or something, needed help. She dashed towards the noise. She was very worried and tried calling out to her. "Oh my goodness, is somepony there? Where are you? Do you need help? Hello?" she asked, calling out in the cry's general direction, only to hear no reply. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a quick flash of light coming from the fish stream. She moved to take a look down and gasped at what she saw. It was a unicorn. A young mare with a medium blue coat, whose mane was a dark gray with a trio of turquoise stripes. She was lying sprawled out on the bank, plastered with mud, her coat covered in splotches of bright crimson and ruddy brown. Her front left hoof was bent out at an unnatural angle, with a terrible gash showing white bone, bleeding into the soil. A somewhat small diagonal crack showed in her horn, running parallel to the spirals, and she was covered in tree sap. Her eyes were shut. Fluttershy carefully flew down next to the poor thing, walking down a slick muddy slope sounding like a poor idea to her. From here she could see that the unicorn was sobbing quietly, tears leaking from her eyes, and yet she wasn't awake. The element of kindness had to help her, had to, but how? Fluttershy weighed her options. Calling the hospital was an option, and undoubtedly a good one, but the mare would need help in the meantime. She had helped with the injuries of animals many times, including ones as large as or larger than herself, and knew how to treat a compound fracture. It was usually best not to move somepony who was hurt, though. Fluttershy was about to go get Angel to help her, (usually he was reading the newspaper at this time each day, provided that the mailmare hadn't gotten turned about that day,) when the mare mumbled in her sleep. "Don't go... please don't leave me alone... I don't want to be...", she said, choking on her words. That settled it. It went against her own logic, and Twilight would be furious if she found out, but Fluttershy's heart told her that she had to take her to her cottage and treat her there, and quickly, even though you're not supposed to move anypony with a broken bone like that. Rationalizing that being stuck on a slope of cold mud warranted moving, fluttershy hefted her onto her back, being careful to move the injured leg as very little as possible. Normally she wouldn't be able to fly very well while carrying somepony, or at all for that matter, but whenever somepony was in danger or something made her mad, Fluttershy's strength and speed increased to decidedly above average. This was one of those situations. She took off, flying as swiftly and steadily as she could back to her cottage. Silk's dreams that day were horrifying and uninterrupted, as there were no changelings to dream and break up her terrible imagery with their own. She moved through shadowy halls and saw Skitter, but as she flew to him he turned away and disappeared. Silk fell, her wings suddenly gone as she tumbled through the floor, level after level of cold brick below until she found herself standing in the swamp, the faces of the swarm all around her. She ran to them, but she could not reach them, their likenesses ever moving further away, until they were gone. Over and over the dream taunted her, moving every face away, ever out of of her grasp, as she was powerless to get to them, crying out for them not to go. She could not tell how long this went on, but it felt to her like an eternity. Eventually, she felt she had reached forever and a day, and she turned to see her queen behind her. Silk ran to embrace her, but the queen was soon wrapped in a tingling green fire, and scowled at her as she turned to ashes. "Useless" the embers whispered, as the winds blew them away. Silence. Fluttershy worriedly watched the blue pony sleep. The pony was bandaged in several places now. Fluttershy had noticed that the broken leg had been a compound fracture, but oddly the pieces just slid right somewhat back into place, no jagged edges to be found, acting almost like a dislocation. Although not officially such, Fluttershy was the closest thing to a veterinarian in Ponyville, not to mention next to the Everfree forest. As such, she had the basic tools she needed. The very simple x-ray that Twilight had (a little unnervingly) happily built her for her animals showed a pair of full cracks running on a gently curved perpendicular to the direction of bone. It also showed an odd, spiderweb-shaped series of fairly harmless, hairline surface cracks. Bones didn't break that way, did they? The wound had stitched up pretty well, and the foreleg was now being held stiff in a simple plaster cast. The wound was disinfected and carefully bandaged beneath it to prevent the cast from interfering with the healing, and to counteract any further bleeding. Fluttershy had done her best to clean her guest up, using several towels to remove the mud, sap, and blood from her coat as best as she could. She had placed a small bandage with sticky sides over the crack on her horn, that was simple enough as far as she knew, not having any experience with them. Unicorn horns were different from animal horns, after all. Animal horns were often shed at some point, and most certainly didn't have magic. There was a pair of fairly fresh injuries on either side of the pony, which had apparently been bleeding before Fluttershy found her. Fluttershy had bandaged these by wrapping a length of cloth around her chest a couple of times, tying the two down at once. The thing that worried her most was just how much blood the pony had lost, but aside from her slumber, there wasn't any indication of anything too scary. She had sent Angel to take care of the animals for a while. He wasn't as gentle or as large as Fluttershy, and he certainly couldn't fly, but Angel Bunny had a certain no-nonsense attitude that few animals ignored; he even gave the larger predators pause. It wasn't "the stare", but he was still pretty good at it. When she had given the task, he had actually put on a metal bowl as a hat, and grabbed a carrot and rested it on his shoulder like a rifle, saluting her and literally marching out the door. It was actually really cute. The injuries Fluttershy was a little worried about, but the thing that concerned Fluttershy the most was the way the unicorn kept crying even in her sleep. If a pony cries him or oneself to sleep, he or she usually stops crying and forgets why they're so sad while they dream. The tears had run out a while ago, but she was still quietly sobbing. She kept asking somepony, or maybe several ponies to come back, and not to leave her alone, and even though Fluttershy knew she wasn't talking to her, she couldn't bear to leave her. A number of hours later, the unicorn began to stir. Silk woke up to a blurry world. She could see warm browns above and mint greens below, but everything was in a haze. A voice quietly made a presence known to her. "Oh thank goodness, you're awake! I was so worried." The world came into focus. Silk was in some kind of building, wooden judging by the ceiling, which was the only thing she had a great view of at this angle, her world at the moment hardly qualifying as a panorama. What appeared to be several straw nests and wooden bird houses dotted the rafters. She sat up, even though as she did so she felt a strong dizziness. Silk wouldn't let something so trivial keep her down. "Oh, um, be careful. You were hurt... but uh... you probably knew that... but don't rush yourself... if that's alright with you, that is." Silk turned her head towards the female voice. It was coming from a pony. She was a pegasus, which was blatantly obvious from the presence of wings. She was a pale gold pony with an equally pale, rosy mane and cyan eyes. Adorning her flank was a trio of pink and cyan butterflies. She was smiling gently. Silk still could not hear the swarm, their absence leaving her feeling hollow. Where a lively cacophony of voices once was remained nothing but an empty ringing, as if Silk had an eternal case of tinnitus in her head. Silk looked at her leg, which had some sort of plaster wrapped around it. It itched, and so Silk tried to slowly nibble her way through it, her teeth clacking a couple times as she picked at it. She had been told that Pony medicine was as likely to kill you as not, and she didn't trust this strange casing. "Oh, um, don't do that, please, you're still healing." the pony said. Silk looked at her captor for a moment and relented. Pony house, pony rules. The pony shyly brushed the floor with her hoof. "So, um... what's your name? That is... uh... if you don't mind telling me that is," she asked in a barely audible whisper. She did mind, but Silk wasn't going to be going anywhere for a while, she knew that. Escape was not likely, nor a good idea at the moment. She would cooperate, to a degree. She looked at her flank, not remembering what had gone through her head during the actual casting of the spell. A bed. Ah yes, of course it was a bed. The transformation had taken the last of her energy, of course she had been thinking about sleep when she had cast it, so that cutie mark matched. "Silky Sheets" she replied begrudgingly with the first name she could come up with. Silk's eyes widened and shut in less than a second, cringing after she realized her mistake. What's wrong with me? I just used my name in an alias! she thought, mentally kicking herself. The pony just kept smiling meekly. "Hi Silky, I'm Fluttershy." Silk's stomach growled. She could taste something coming from the pony. At first she thought it was pity, but that was a bittersweet emotion, a mixture of caring and looking down upon others. This was sweet, more akin to... relief... and compassion. Silk fed on these emotions, and gained a little of her strength back. She had been starving, so hungry for so long. Still, she restrained herself from gorging on them, lest she give herself away. Fluttershy heard Silk's stomach rumble. "Oh, um, are you hungry? I'll go get you something to eat if that's okay with you." She trotted out of sight, the clip clop of hooves going down stairs following her departure. That's odd. Why didn't she just fly down? Silk shrugged inwardly and looked around herself. It was always so weird, transforming into a pony. Everything was all outside in, though she knew that most creatures were like that and thus it was the Changelings who were inside out. Still, that was from a global perspective, not hers, and her perspective of it was what mattered here. This coat of fuzz all over her body was a little disorienting itself. It was much brighter than her mostly black shell, and it offered such little protection. Even something as little as a rose thorn could hurt her like this. And there was the need to do without her horn or wings. She remembered how badly her wings were damaged at that point. I guess I'll be without them anyway. She couldn't have transformed into a pegasus if she tried. Fluttershy came back into the room carrying a tray with a bowl on it in her teeth, setting it down. "Here, have something to eat. Um, unless you don't like it, that is, that's okay. I could make something else..." Silk did not reply, instead turning her gaze away and just staring down at the bowl of vegetable soup. She kept thinking of the events of yesterday, and the previous night. She would never wake up from this, this was real. She was alone, the queen had left her personally, and she would never see another of her kind again. Silk made sure she did not cry, misery was a lot more painful than meditation and objective perspective. She wasn't completely successful, but she had managed to suppress the misery into simple sadness. The changeling in disguise didn't hate pony food, it was certainly interesting and sometimes things tasted good, but to her body it had the nutritional content of air. She did need to drink water, but food to a changeling was positive emotion, not this stuff. Silk could tell that Fluttershy was growing concerned, and debated with herself whether or not she should eat this stuff to keep in character. There was a knock on a door somewhere downstairs. "Oh, I, um, should probably answer that. Uh... I'll be right back, sorry," Fluttershy stammered in appology, leaving the room once again. Silk couldn't make heads or tails of the mustard pegasus' motivation. She highly doubted that she knew she was a changeling, but that would be one heck of a skilled, cruel facade if she did. She wouldn't put anything at all past her own misfortune at this point. A more likely scenario is that she was scared of her suing or something like that. She had tasted a little fear from her, and she seemed pretty timid. Still, there was something... different about her that she couldn't put her hoof on. Fluttershy opened the door to see her lavender friend standing there. "Hi Fluttershy, what's going on? You missed our Pony Pet Playdate." "Oh, uh, I forgot, I'm sorry, Twilight, I've just been really busy, sorry" she apologized, not having intended to hurt her friends' feelings. Twilight looked over her shoulder. "About that... why is Angel marching a family of ducks out of the chicken coop?" "Oh, the ducks have been trying to eat the chicken feed for the last couple days" Fluttershy explained. "No, I meant why is Angel taking care of it instead of you? You said you're busy," she reminded. Twilight suddenly felt like she was pressing somepony for lying despite her intentions. She decided she'd drop the subject after this. Fluttershy understood what Twilight meant now. "Oh, I needed him to take over while I took care of something else." "Is an animal sick?" Twilight asked. Damn curiosity always got the better of her. "No, it's not an animal." This piqued Twilight Sparkle's curiosity more than before, now she HAD to know what had Fluttershy so distracted. "Is it a coltfriend?" Fluttershy blushed. "No, uh, nothing like that." Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Fillyfriend?" "What?! No! Oh goodness, no, Twilight!" Fluttershy squeaked defensively, waving her hooves in a frantic negative gesture, shaking her head and blushing furiously in embarrassment that her friend would jump to that conclusion. Twilight was stumped. "Okay, okay, Fluttershy, I'm sorry, calm down. If it isn't a romantic thing, then what is it?" Fluttershy stopped her flailing, though plenty of color still remained in her face. "I'm taking care of somepony. She was hurt really bad," she began. Fluttershy explained to Twilight what happened, how she found her on the bank, what her injuries were, how she had slept, and what her name was. Twilight shook her head. "You should have taken her to the hospital, Fluttershy." "I know, but I just couldn't leave her alone, she sounded sooo sad! She kept crying and saying not to leave, and even when she woke up she's so quiet and melancholy. She's hungry but she isn't eating." Twilight sighed. This was just like that time she found Fluttershy trying to help Philomeena. "We'll take Silky there together, carefully. We'll be there with her the whole way there." Fluttershy nodded that she would comply, and the two element bearers walked up the stairs and into the guest bedroom where "Silky" lay. Twilight spoke up first, giving an uneasy smile. "Hi, Silky, I'm Twilight Sparkle," she began. "Now that you're all patched up, we're going to take you to the hospital to recover, okay?" The name sounded vaguely familiar to Silk, and she knew she had heard it somewhere, but she dismissed it easily. The news about the hospital, however, sent a wave of fear through her. Here, she had a chance of recovery without discovery. She wasn't being scrutinized by highly trained doctors who might be able to spot something off about her hastily performed transformation spell, which she was not sure had worked perfectly yet. If she was caught, she dreaded to think of her fate. Possibly they would torture her for information, she was the final source of the intelligence of the Changelings, and as a member of the scout class, she certainly had her fair share of it. They might simply kill her, making an example of her to any race who dared attempt to rise above the sun and moon. Or they might decide to send her down into Tartarus with the rest of her kind, forcing her too down into the unknowable fiery pit of evil. She could not decide which was worse, but none of them were good. "N-no," she started with a quiet stutter, "no, please don't send me there. I don't want to go..." Silk was crawling out of the bed and overturning the still scalding bowl of soup onto her, falling to the floor in what looked like a clumsy bow when her cast hit the ground, her hind legs standing strong. She felt the pain of the first degree burns, but she ignored it completely, as she was in a much greater pain. Twilight was shocked at this reaction. Such a little thing, a simple suggestion trying to help had set this pony off. From what Fluttershy had said, she hadn't said a word but her name. Fluttershy's hooves were at her mouth from a gasp. "... I don't want to go, no! I won't! I won't go, please don't make me!" Silk cried, losing control of her emotions. She wasn't even talking about the hospital anymore. "I don't want to be alone! I don't want to go! I want to stay! I want everypony to stay! Just... just please, please don't go, I don't want anypony to leave me... again..." She was sobbing, bawling like a little foal. Something was different, even with all that had happened, controlling her emotions shouldn't have been this hard. She could taste her own bitter tears as she wept for all she had lost, and the one thing she had left, her life, which she could still lose. And here she was, the useless, broken scout, groveling for mercy from the very creatures that she had always been told were her enemies. Silk felt a pair of legs wrap around her, and her sobs let up for just a moment. She looked up to see Fluttershy hugging her, tears streaming down her face. "I won't leave you, Silky, you can stay here, okay?" she asked gently, like a mother soothing a foal, the sweet taste of sympathy coming from her. Tears once again welled up in the changeling's false blue eyes, from where she did not know, as Silk threw her hooves around the yellow pony and cried on her shoulder, her emotions finally let go, as the kindness of this young mare drew the poison of her sorrow as she let it out. The overwhelming positive destroyed the negative, Silk's soul being cleansed for the first time in far, far too long. As Twilight left she apologized to her quiet friend for her interference, who insisted that it wasn't her fault, and that she had just been doing what she thought was best, which comforted her. On the way out, Fluttershy asked her to dispose of a container of bloodstained towels and sheets. Magical fire was the most effective way to dispose of such materials, after all. Twilight opened the container, only to discover that the first cloth was covered in a patch of dirty green. She thought nothing of it; Fluttershy had said that Silky had been covered in sap, after all. But as she went through the bin, levitating and incinerating each one, she noticed that there were no patches of ruddy brown, only brown mud, amber and mossy green. She got to the last contaminated towel. Still no reddish tint. She looked around, and saw no other boxes of cloth which she might have mistaken this for. Following her intuition, she took the cloth for herself, deciding to analyze the strange green residue, having no idea what it meant, or what it might have in store. The day ended as Celestia's charge once again kissed the horizon, setting in the west. Fluttershy had asked Twilight not to tell anypony about "Silky" without her permission, and the purple mare had performed some strange little ritual which Silk figured was a form of more iron-clad verbal contract, albeit an eccentric one. Silk had eaten the second bowl of vegetable soup to cooperate with Fluttershy, functionally pointless or not. As she looked out the window at the shrinking orb of light, she had several questions. She wondered why she had been told that the ponies were evil and cruel. Her queen... no, Chrysalis had always insisted that positive emotions were rare and hard to find among these wicked creatures. Silk's own scouting had always been of other lands, keeping an eye on the long-term picture of the Dragons, which hardly changed at all. Their long term was much longer than she would live, after all, but that had been her job so she had always done the best she could. Such a task would never have had her interact with the ponies, and now she began to wonder whether this was a coincidence or not. If kindness, sympathy, and caring were this easy to find, what about other positive emotions? She hadn't had enough experience to even touch this one. Silk couldn't hate these ponies, especially Fluttershy. They were... good, but that word did not do them justice. But if they weren't her enemy, who was? The sun dipped below the horizon and the moon crested. Silk glared at the white disc in the sky. The moon. She would hate the moon, and all who followed her.