//------------------------------// // That Which Cripples For Good // Story: Utaan // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// “I gotta hoof it to ya,” Rainbow's voice rasped through the bars. “What you did up there? Pretty spiffy.” Keris' eyes fluttered open. Wincing from his bruises, he turned and gazed across the dilapidated corridor separating their cells. “I beg your pardon?” Her figure shifted in the shadows of her prison. “You put your neck on the line for a bunch of noponies... all because you knew there were innocent lives worth saving, even in a heartless floating dump like this. That's kinda awesome.” Keris sighed out his beak nostrils, gazing back into the shadows. “You know nothing of my failure...” “I know that a bunch more ponies would be dead now if it weren't for you.” “Hrmmfff...” “... … ...tricking a bunch of murderous seaponies into leaping on dry bulkheads? That's pretty clever.” Keris' eyes narrowed. He turned to gaze past the bars once more. “How... do you know about that? You weren't even there?” “Dude. Like... how many times do I have to tell you? It wasn't my eyes. It was—” “Eughhh...” Keris dragged a talon over his beak and face, sighing. “I've had about all I can take of your seasick delusions.” “Then how can you explain what I know?” “... … ...” “Can you explain it any better than the stuff you saw at the Quade?” “What I saw at the Quade...” He lifted his gaze up, sneering. “...needs no further explanation.” “You have to see beyond the blood, dude.” “Spoken like a true sociopath.” “Will you just hear me out?” Rainbow shuffled closer to the bars. “Did the Luminards have any explanation... any answer whatsoever for why that metal tower was always hiding there beneath the Reed?” The Lieutenant sat in silence, saying nothing. “Any explanation beyond... y'know... 'Oh! It was the evil, sinful vagabonds of ancient Luminar! The godless metal built by their hooves!' Feh... or whatever?” “They gave me nothing,” Keris muttered. “Hrmmff... they barely even acknowledged its existence.” “Don't you find that a little... I dunno... weird?” Rainbow Dash breathed. “Or the fact that the thing opened up to let me go straight through it? That it reacted to me and me alone and to nopony else?” Keris blinked into shadow. His beak moved. “The symbol...” “You saw it too, huh?” Rainbow Dash chuckled bitterly. “To be honest, I was a bit too busy... y'know... being a public menace at the time to see if it stayed there on the side of the tower after I exited.” “Did...” Keris hesitated, but ultimately blurted: “Did you know that it would open for you ahead of time?” “Yes.” He frowned. “And it didn't occur to you that explaining such a thing to the Luminards would be paramount?” Silence. Keris blinked. “Well?” “I should have explained it to them from the get go,” Rainbow Dash said. “That... is my biggest mistake.” Keris smirked bitterly. “Heh...” “But if you knew what I knew... and you were facing the monks in the Quade... how would you go about explaining it to them?” “It doesn't matter,” Keris muttered. “I simply would. They deserved no less, Miss Rainbow Dash.” “... … ...how do you plan to explain it all to your Commander?” Keris blinked. “Or all of this, for that matter? How you got here. What you've done since?” Keris shifted where he sat. “You see... doesn't matter how awesome you are. How many medals you've got. How much of a hero you've been... or you think you've been.” She sighed. “At some point in your travels, you run into the truth. And the truth cripples. It's bigger than mountains... denser than any ocean. Pffft... anypony can say that they'll be absolutely truthful. Only a seldom few of them are willing to go the distance. Me? I thought I could go the distance. But then, when push came to shove, I did the cowardly thing. It seemed the kind choice at the time. But it was a useless... stupid choice. And when it came time to backtrack... well... the time for kindness was over. I was too late to confront the truth at the Quade without suffering for it. And now...” A long, winded exhale. “...that truth burns night and day... stabbing me and my insides. I... can... c-can hardly sleep to it. Not that it matters. Heh... all I have when I fall asleep are the same old nightmares... twists and turns...” “Do you expect me to pity you?” Keris muttered. “No. I'm hoping that you can learn from this. That you... that I can teach someone else a thing or two. I never wanted to be a bad guy. But sometimes, to do important things, you gotta be bigger than the obstacles you're facing. If I had prepared better... if I had been truthful... and shared the truth with my friends... like a real hero... then maybe... j-just maybe I'd be out of this mess by now.” Silence. Rainbow sighed again, drawing Keris to crane his neck and listen harder. “They say that 'the truth will set you free.' Hrmmfff... that couldn't be any more bogus. It's lies that make us free... that give us the liberty to do whatever it is that we want... or that we please... or that we feel comfortable with doing. Have you ever flown out this far before, Lieutenant Dude?” “Erm...” Keris cleared his throat, hugging his bruised limbs to himself. “I have... r-rarely had the chance to do so...” He exhaled. “Despite my better wishes.” “So something's drawn you out here, huh? Something... like conviction?” “It matters little,” Keris muttered. “Doesn't it?” A pair of ruby eyes glinted in a sliver of sunlight. “I bet it's a heck of a lot easier believing that all you've gotta do is protect Rohbredden proper, huh?” She gulped. “That there's nothing innocent or worthwhile about the seven seas that you gotta break your back over the 'heathens' out here? So long as you just worry about the goddess-fearing populace of the continent, then the rest of the world can suffer for its own sins... huh?” Keris shivered slightly. “I have... n-never sat well with that presumption.” “That's a shame. I've seen a lot of miserable places in my journeys... and many of them east of the Blight.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “The world could use more griffons like you, dude.” Keris' eyes darted left and right. Eventually, Rainbow's voice rattled through the bars again. “Verlax has built an entire kingdom on lies. It's a very comfortable kingdom, but one that's based on total-pretend all the same. So long as everyone believes what she's established for years and years, then it doesn't matter what the rest of the world goes through, right? Well, how else have monsters like Revan or Jeryn or Skagra come to be?” Silence. “And you know? For all intents and purposes, the big lie works... but only for so long. The monks of the Quade? Yeah, they were happy with their life. They were content with meditation and scripture-keeping. Nothing wrong with a peaceful life. But the fact of the matter is that Verlax orchestrated their entire culture as an obstacle for something far bigger... far more important and epic to move on through. Are they better off without the lie? I... I can't say. Heck, probably not. But being happy or not doesn't change the fact that they were victims for eons. They were victims ages ago when Luminar first sank in the ocean... and they were victims long before me.” “You sound so sure of this,” Keris muttered. “Tell me, Lieutenant, is there anything you would not do if it meant saving your entire continent?” “If it meant saving all of Rohbredden?” “How far would you go to make sure it didn't sink into the ocean or get burned to ashes by pirates or whatnot?” “Well, I would sacrifice my life, of course,” Keris said firmly. “I have sworn my allegiance, after all.” “Uh huh. And would you sacrifice your principals?” Keris grimaced upon hearing that. “Would you curse yourself? Shred your name apart? Even become a monster if it meant that the continent that means so much to you prospered in the end?” Rainbow Dash cocked her head to the side. “And what if you knew a far more cold-hearted truth? Hmm? What if you knew that you had to sacrifice yourself for something even bigger than Rohbredden? Bigger than twelve Rohbreddens stacked against one another in a row? Or even twenty-four of them?” “Are you trying to legitimize what you've done in the Quade?” This elicited a heavy sigh from the pegasus across the way. Keris turned to gaze at her directly. “Dude... I've spent hours... days... restless nights trying to excuse what I've done,” Rainbow Dash muttered. “And after all the circles my head has flown, there simply is no denying the fact that... th-that I've done a horrible... terrible thing.” She gulped. “I did terrible things to innocent ponies. I betrayed everything I believed in... shredded apart my own moral code. It wouldn't be the first time I sacrificed my own ethics... but never before have I done something... mrmmff... on th-this scale. It's not something I'm proud of. But...” “You wouldn't take it back,” Keris said. He craned his neck to look. Indeed, the mare was shaking her head. “I've learned to live with a lot of awful things about myself before,” she muttered. “That isn't the hard part. What makes it difficult this time is my friends.” “I fail to ascertain what you mean by 'friends,' Rainbow Dash,” Keris remarked. “Heh...” She exhaled. “I don't blame you one bit. You know... they're invisible to me too. All but one. I mean... I'm glad that Fluttershy still sticks around, but somehow... it almost...” A shuddering breath. “...it almost makes it worst.” “Was what you believed in worth sacrificing them?” Keris asked. “Ethics and moral codes aside... I think I'm starting to understand the true fabric that was ripped asunder.” He arched an eyecrest. “When you attacked the Quade, you stopped being the pegasus from beyond the Blight and became the Rainbow Rogue of the seven seas. And these... these so-called friends of yours... they could not handle that, could they?” She did not respond. “How terrible it must be,” Keris remarked. “To be loathed on both the inside as well as on the outside.” Eventually, she murmured back: “I... h-hope you never have to f-find out what that means, dude.” She cleared her throat. “Even still... it doesn't matter.” Keris blinked. “Even now, you can say that?” “I may have sacrificed them... but that... th-that's fine.” She took a deep breath. “If it means saving them along with everything else, then... th-then that's what I'm going to have to deal with.” Keris sighed. “Well... it does not appear as though you'll be dealing with it very easily.” “Hmm?” He waved an aching talon at the surroundings. “You are stuck here, much like me,” he said. “With friends like those... the very focus of your otherworldly powers...” His hawkeyes narrowed. “...I imagine you could find a way out of this prison in an instant.” “Not a second goes by when I don't think about that, dude.” “And yet, you don't strive to make an escape from this place,” Keris remarked. “Huh?” “Well...” He shifted where he sat, sighing. “Correct me if I'm wrong... but if what you believe in is so grand... so epic that it necessitates wrecking the Quade and betraying your friends' trust... then what's stopping you from making every attempt to break through your shackles and these bars?” He glanced at her cell. “Your cosmology is evidently so superior when compared to Verlaxion's, that it hasn't stopped you before.” “I... I-I can't...” Rainbow gulped. “I simply can't escape from this place, dude...” “You're not liberating yourself this time,” Keris said, shaking his head. “There's no point in lying to me, Miss Rainbow Dash. I know you're capable of overpowering your bonds. After all, you did it before,” he said. “When the nasty individual known as Monket first captured you.” “Dude, don't...” Rainbow groaned. Keris blinked curiously. A cold voice rattled across the brig: “There is no way in Tartarus I am letting that happen. Never again.” “Even if an incalculably important fate hangs in the bal—?” “When I let loose... it's more than becoming a monster... or a wrecker of the Quade.” Rainbow shuddered. “I lose all that makes me who I am. I become death itself. Chaos incarnate. If I do that... if I give in, then... then...” “Then what?” “... … …I become what Verlaxion desires. And you, Lieutenant? You might think you want to see Verlaxion's will manifested.” The petite shadow slowly shook its head. “You don't. You don't at all.” “I see...” Keris' beak nostrils flared. “And what of your friends?” “... … ...I would lose them for good. I... I'm afraid they'd never be able to come back. Even... even if th-they actually wanted to.” Keris leaned back against the wall, his gaze quiet and contemplative. “...does the Rainbow Rogue think she can complete her journey without her friends? Even after all the sacrifices made?” “... … ...truthfully?” “Truthfully.” “... … ...no. Not... not anymore. That's... mmmm... what really cr-cripples me. That's what cripples this entire world...”