Twilight stared at the full moon, her essence itching. Something about tonight was wrong. The fields of stone around her were still, but when she looked closer, they sent chills down even her spine. They were in mourning over a tragedy that was still not over. A tragedy they wished could forever end. A tragedy that Igneous had refused to tell her, lest she know too much and be incapable of ending it.
The wraith shut her eyes, taking in a deep breath as she tried to calm down. The Pie family was sleeping, and she had no reason to fear what may come. Even if something did come to attack them, they would have to get past her, and she was primed for a fight. She focused outwards only though, and missed the gray ghost behind her, hesitating before it floated downwards.
Thus, Twilight was left alone once more, and the minutes dragged on, giving the misery that gripped this night time to slip into her essence and muddle her thoughts. She did not see the pain building within the house, nor did she stop what Igneous had wanted her to. The wraith was only notified of a problem when a scream ripped through the air. A scream from the friend that had trusted her, but not enough to tell her what she needed to.
Twilight flew through the house in a flash. When she stopped within Pinkie’s room, her very presence dropped the temperature by almost twenty degrees. Frost was soon covering the sparse furniture, and Twilight searched for her friend. She saw Pinkie on the bed, crying, holding her hooves out to a gray spirit, who merely stared back, floating in the air and saying nothing.
Twilight lowered herself, her eyes narrowed as the dread and misery of the room shifted her essence. Holes tore themselves open in her cloak, and begged for her to attack the pain. Rid the house of the thing that had haunted this night for ten years. A black icicle formed in the air, glowing with green, necrotic magic as she scowled. “Leave this place, poltergeist.”
The gray mare looked at her with one eye, the other covered by her mane. There was a spectral tear there, but she only put her head down in response to the command. It would have been so easy. So easy to give the ghast a matching hole through her skull as the one through her esophagus. It was only the continued crying that stopped her. The cries that ignored her having even come in.
“Please Marble, just… just tell me you hate me! Tell me it was my fault! Don’t… don’t just stay there. For once, please just speak. I… I didn’t mean to.”
Twilight hesitated with the spike, before pushing it beneath Marble’s neck. The mare didn’t even raise her head, but instead tried to pull the spike forward, to which Pinkie screamed, “No!”
Twilight rose the spear away from the spirit, her magic going out of control as the room got colder and colder. She had no idea what was going on. Pinkie acted like she herself was the enemy, but this ghast that only appeared now was obviously the cause of the pain. Wasn’t it? She put her hooves to her head, her brow furrowing as she tried to think.
“Please Marble. She… she can help you. Let her speak for you as I used to do. Please, just… just let me make this right! Let me find you peace!”
Pinkie’s howls shook Twilight’s core, and she felt like she was trying to pop her own head as she ground her teeth. Her eyes popped back open as she felt the other spirit slam into her, forcing her out of the room as Pinkie howled again. The two were soon out of the house, and black ice pillars raised from the ground to separate the two.Twilight set down on her pillar, staring down at the other ghost, the fear of the night channeling itself through her. Influencing the naive wraith, and trying to get her to do what it desired.
Twilight summoned her spear again and threw it without hesitation. The mare did nothing. She didn’t throw up her hooves, float away, or scream for mercy. She simply stayed there, crying. The question ‘why’ kept forcing itself into Twilight’s mind as the spear began its deadly arc. Ice beneath her cracked and groaned as random spikes grew from the freezing ground, and Twilight’s mind finally slammed into the misery of the night, freeing itself from the emotion that ruled this place, and replacing it with reason.
It was only now that Twilight realized how cold it was, and thought of the ice that had been forming on her friend. She had allowed herself to get so wrapped up in helping Pinkie and doing as Igneous said, that she had come a hair’s breadth from killing Pinkie. The only reason she hadn’t, was because of the mare who now would be killed by her own spear. Regret paralyzed Twilight, as she was powerless to stop her own projectile.
A crash resounded through the night, and Twilight looked down. She met Marble’s eyes, and they were still there. Still intact. Instead, the spear had slammed against one of the sudden spikes from her unstable magic, and now sat obliterated between the two. Twilight shed one tear, and floated down to Marble, her head hung low. “I… I’m so sorry. With how Pinkie was acting, I did as what everyone seemed to want. What all of this negative energy wanted. I’m… I’m sorry.”
Marble blinked a few times at her, before turning her head to the side. She said nothing, and for a few moments, Twilight waited, her shame growing. It did not last, as the shame grew into anger. The very least Marble could do was respond. Looking back at Marble, she found herself gazing at the hole in her neck… a hole in her essence. She pushed a hoof against her own neck, thinking about it for a few moments. She had no reason to know, but it was possible that it would stop the other mare from speaking. It would even explain what Pinkie had said earlier. Twilight could only imagine the pain her friend must have gone through, if every year this mare came to her, unable to respond to Pinkie’s questions that she seemed so desperate to have answered.
Twilight wrapped the mare into her hooves, snuggling her for a moment, trying to get it across that they were no longer enemies. Marble did not reciprocate, and Twilight nodded her own understanding. They had more important things to take care of first. She floated away for a moment, staring at Marble, desperately wanting to help her. Needing to, if not just for Pinkie. The deepest pits of her essence called to her, the same pits that had beckoned when she had seen Sunset so near to death, offering her power to fix this mare now.
Once more, the wraith touched those depths, not peeking into the secrets that lay beneath the top layer, but letting her instincts take over for just a moment, and let the energy flow through her. Twilight’s horn glowed gray for a moment, before black and green magic flowed into the hole within Marble’s neck. The other spirit’s eyes widened, and she tried running from the energy. A small squeak escaped her as the hole closed, and she hid behind a rock.
Twilight floated over, her essence feeling torn apart. Her worries had tired her enough to leave herself vulnerable, and fighting off misery had left her exhausted, even before she had done whatever it was she had to Marble. She still would see the night through though, and looked over the rock. There lay Marble, cowering, with only one eye showing. “Please, I only want to help you and Pinkie. I don’t want to hurt you, I Pinkie Promise.”
Marble looked back up just in time to see Twilight perform the necessary gestures, before floating back to her. She nodded for a moment, and the two went back into the house. Entering Pinkie’s room, the party pony lay still on the bed, her vacant eyes looking at nothing. Twilight floated to the floor first, and put a hoof against Pinkie’s head. “Your sister is safe, I promise, and she has something to tell you.”
Pinkie’s eyes widened as Marble came down. For a moment, the two just stared at each other, before both turned away. Pinkie was the first to speak. “Please, just tell me you hate me. Tell me that I killed you and that I deserve all of this.”
To this, Marble did not respond. Twilight waited a few seconds more, willing to be patient as the other spirit had only just gotten her voice back. As the minutes passed though, and Pinkie began shuddering, she felt her essence tensing with anger again. “Come on Marble, tell Pinkie what you think of… whatever happened.”
Marble glanced back to Pinkie, but then shook her head furiously, and put her head between her hooves, her essence shaking. Pinkie climbed over, and whispered, “Please. Just… just do what you need to be happy, even if it means finally tearing me apart as I know you want to.”
Marble looked back up, and a spectral tear fell as she shook her head, and her neck pulsed with black energy for a moment. “Pinkie… do you think I hate saving you? Saving the one of us who would ever live?”
Pinkie stopped, staring for a moment before shaking her head. “I-I don’t understand. We both would have lived if I hadn’t been such a stupid little filly.”
Marble shook her head. “Pinkie… I did nothing with my life but stay inside and hide from everypony else. Even Maud did more than me when we were kids.”
Twilight swallowed hard, her mouth becoming dry, unaware that her horn was glowing, using the repair she had given Marble to help the shy spirit say what she needed to. She was currently facing her own past though, and how it compared to her present. How it compared to having friends to be with and hang out with, instead of a dark hole and books. The thought terrified her, and she put a hoof to Pinkie’s muzzle. “Pinkie, don’t argue with Marble on this one, please.”
Pinkie looked between both of them, shaking her head. “But… but I killed my twin.”
“No you didn’t. You were trying to get me to live.”
“But that doesn’t stop that you died, and that I had to watch you for ten years try to figure out how you should look when you grew up! And yes, while you look super cute now, you should have gotten this way living beside me, not as some ghost!”
Marble shrank back at the yelling. Twilight herself was only now realizing that Marble should look like a filly, but most certainly did not. She pursed her lips, and put a hoof onto the other spirit’s shoulder. “Why did you keep changing yourself to grow with Pinkie?”
“Because otherwise… otherwise I would have no connection to her left. I couldn’t talk to you, I couldn’t say that I wasn’t mad… I couldn’t be your twin, something I barely was in life. The only way I could come up with to not entirely lose the only part of my identity I was proud of was to try to keep up with her, and stay the same age.”
She put her hooves to her face, her spectral tears coming down much harder. “I’m… I’m sorry Pinkie, I just didn’t want to lose you. Why do you think I threw myself in front of that spider? If you had died, my life would have stopped too. But you,” she pointed a hoof at Pinkie, and then at Twilight, “kept going. You made friends, moved away from the farm, and made the most of everything you could. From how I was, honestly, can you tell me I would have done the same?”
Pinkie stared for another moment, before trying to wrap her hooves around Marble. Twilight’s magic dispelled itself just as a second attempt was had, and the sisters held each other. “I guess not, but I still wish it had never happened.”
Marble tried speaking, but without the help, and after so long, could only muster an, “Mhm.”
For another moment, the two held each other in peace, before Marble lost tangibility. Pinkie flopped onto the bed, before looking up, and seeing her sister beginning to fade. Her eyes widened, and she slammed her hooves down. “No! I just got you back, so you can’t just go!”
Marble herself looked mortified as her hooves faded. Even though what kept her to this place, this night, was over, she did not want to go either. And Twilight wouldn’t let her.
Another bright gray glow erupted from Twilight’s horn, just barely not forcing her into the very pits she feared of her essence, and she solidified the hole in Marble’s esophagus, binding the mare’s soul to her own so that she could only be released from this world when Twilight decided so. She was now Twilight’s ‘minion’.
None of the three knew this, but they did know one thing. Marble was still there, and now entirely there, as a specter. Pinkie held her hooves up to her face, before tackling her sister again, and then being caught by Twilight before she slammed into the floor. A slight giggle escaped Marble, and Pinkie beamed at both of the spirits.
The two sisters hugged one more time, with Pinkie whispering, “I’m so happy you’re back, and I’m never letting you go again,” to which Marble responded with a sweet, “Mhm.” Pinkie then looked to Twilight over her sister’s shoulder, and mouthed, “Thank you,” before shutting her eyes, and enjoying the cold of her sister’s body.
Twilight soon left the room, wanting to give the two mares some time to themselves.