Each breath came out of my chest ragged, short. We were almost done. The drawing has been completed. All the runes were finished, to the finest detail. All that remained was the well of power.
That seven pointed star in the sand was slowly becoming the geometric form I hated the most.
Staring at it, gritting my teeth to kick myself into bearing the burden, I just could not help but think of a blood transfusion. It prickled just beneath my skin. Every passing second made me dizzier. I only wanted it to be over soon.
This was like looking at a bath being filled drop by drop.
I dug my hooves deeper into the sand. Steady. Magic trickled down the air over the well, a stream of golden sparks. It was not at all like pulling teeth. I could tell myself that. Not like pulling teeth and gums and jaw together at all. Steady.
A gasp to my right pricked at my focus. Something else I would have ignored, but I knew his voice too well.
“Eric,” I called when he stumbled to his knees. The light on his horn fizzled out, and I rushed to his side. “Eric, give it a rest!”
“I can still...” he mumbled, but his eyes were unfocused.
“Buck that.” A hand of air gently cupped his chin and lifted it. Yeah, he wasn't doing too hot. Drool dripped from the side of his mouth. He didn't even seem aware of that. “Take fifteen or twenty, whatever. You look about to pass out.”
“But I...”
I shot him a stern look. “Eric.”
With a sigh, he relented and let himself drop down unto the sand. The very small smile that inched on his face while his eyes closed made my chest pang with envy and worry both. Damn, I hoped he hadn't pushed himself too far. We'd be going back together, or not at all. That much I swore.
I waited until his breathing stabilized, slow, steady, before turning back to fueling the spell.
The star laid completely inert. My head swam underwater, my body ached all over, but there had barely been any reaction yet.
This isn't working, I realized with a gulp. We wouldn't finish it in time at this rhythm. Tom might...–- Somepony would be chasing after us. Celly's wards kept me off the place they held the meeting, but as soon as they came out, the Mane Six started talking. Until Twilight told them not to speak of it.
There wasn't anypony for five miles around this beach. That much I knew, but the Everfree had been a pretty big forest too. And there had been distraction in there. Here? Not so much.
I had to try something else. The safer option wasn't one any longer. A grimace on my face, I rose my hoof to the clasp that held the cape on my back. With all my heart, I focused on the warmth of memories from that starry realm.
They were fake, but every actor involved knew them. Shared and accepted by everypony as truth, did the lie really hold no value?
Father. I imagine you have been informed of who we are by now. Maybe you even hate the idea of us, changeling children, creatures of Chaos nested in your heart and memories. But… but I would beg a favor of you.
He had been smiling. When Tom had rushed to see him, he had grinned just like we usually did.
He had looked heartbroken when I rejected him.
I let out a shaky sigh. If I could take that back… J-just to spare Father the pain, I would. It had helped nopony then. Just gave the poor stallion more pain to deal with. He hadn't deserved it.
Father, give me strength. It is my first and last true request out of you. Give me strength to overcome the veil between the worlds. Give us a choice.
Under my hoof, the fabric shifted. Its ends curled, tightened into knots. Ripples of brighter red ran across its surface, like pulses of blood. It ran through me, a jolt of power, and a wave of unease gripped at my throat.
“You would ask this of me?” it seemed to ask.
“It's a form of love.” I strained to smile as the magic seemed to clamp down its grip on my veins. “Wasn't I always this insolent, Father?”
It came flooding. The weight brought me to my knees; burning, seething power forced itself into my body. Furious. Impetuous. It was not a tame strength given. It asked, Are you able? Are you willing? and it raged at the doubts in my mind.
I spat out blood.
Are you willing?
One look to Thadal dozing off sufficed.
The floodgates closed, and the cape lashed back. I smirked. A brush of my hoof wiped the blood from my chin. There was a spell to fuel. There was power to give back, and I did so wholly.
I poured in the lies, the words that had rewritten the laws, the words that had twisted the world into this, the words that had imprisoned us, the words that had been the stallion this Equestria knew. I poured in the very essence of Chaos through the well, into the spell, into the gateway home. I poured, and poured, until Father's presence became faint. Until the world felt distant, hazy.
A thought passed by. A memory as fragile as a flower's petal, drifting to the wind. There had been flowers, bushes and hedges. Grass and stone. Water. There had been laughter.
Gone. A hole in my memory. A day in Canterlot, some part of it, blanked out. An emptiness to gnaw on the back of my head, with mandibles of unlight.
I snarled. Almost!
This had to be done! No matter what was taken, I would give until its impassive stomach burst and we were shown the way home! I would not–
Water splashed into my face. The sudden cold snapped me out of my concentration, and I could now feel the hoof pulling at my shoulder, and Eric calling my name, “Sam! Sam, they're here!”
When did he…? And the thought was pushed down, as I felt six more ponies breathing, close by.
Buck!
I whirled on myself, twisted to face the Mane Six, glaring down, their Elements shining like stars in the dark of the night. My mind turned blank. Clop! There'd be no time.
The colors of the rainbow gather as the mares lifted into the air and stared us down with eyes that were stars in the night. My heart pounding in my chest, I attempted to gather the power to snatch Thadal and Calx away in a breeze. I fell to the ground with a cry, my body rejecting my effort to abuse it further. There was nothing I could think of that would save us now.
Yet the magic stuttered and fizzled.
Not all six of them were ready.
Under mine and Thadal's baffled eyes, Twilight broke apart from her group of friends.
She shook her head. “I can't… Not like this.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“Twilight?” Rainbow Dash said, echoed by the others.
She stayed steady against their questioning looks. Her hoof went to her chest, then she repeated a familiar gesture. Her heartbeat slowed even as I could feel her feathers shake on her wings.
“Ventus, tell me.”
I clenched my jaw shut. Too suddenly, I wanted to see the rainbow of ultimate doom strike me down instead. It'd scare me less than the doubt in her gaze. The affection was still there, Elders be good and cruel – they alone knew how much I longed for her still –, but the hint of steel in her poise promised me it could change.
I did not want to hear it, she did not want to speak it. “What are you doing? Why do I need to treat the stallion I love like Nightmare Moon or Discord?”
I sighed. Beside me, Thadal stood tense. The other mares waited but a signal to fight.
They jumped, one of them yelped, when I appeared right in front of them, my hoof outstretched to touch the necklace before me.
The Element of Loyalty came ablaze like a second sun.
I stared right into Rainbow Dash's eyes, the crimson light obscuring half her face and mine. Her startled look morphed into a glare and she suddenly pushed me back, her head just under my horn. “Get back!” she hissed.
With a gust of air, I reappeared in my original position on the beach. But now the mares looked at me with doubts in their eyes.
“That's the gist of it,” I said with a falsely nonchalant shrug. Inside, my muscles screamed at this abuse of power. It'd take a few minutes to replenish my magical reserves at least. Unless I felt like bursting another few vessels through Father's cape.
Judging by the cyan mare's glare, it might become a necessity. Her back already began to arch, like an animal ready to pounce. What had it felt like for her, to have me touch the Element of Loyalty and making it shine so? From the way she bristled, I guessed Rainbow Dash sincerely felt the need to kick my ass now.
She might have, if Twilight's wing hadn't suddenly stretch across her path. Blinking, Dash silently mouthed a question to her friend. But Twilight's eyes hadn't left me yet. She searched over my mask, through it, what was the truth this time.
“Why?” she rasped, her voice scratchy and lost. “That wasn't an answer. Don't hide, tell me.”
Every instinct in my body screamed that I gallop to her side and swoop her off her hooves into a gentlest hug. How the impulse felt sweet, as my mind provided me with memories of our time past in the library, my sides against hers while we read the cheesiest adventure novels.
The thought to deny it all flashed to the front of my mind.
“We’re doing this because to do anything else is to abandon the ones that need us most,” I said, and every word was clawed out of me. “I… I can't not do this, Twi.”
Her crown came alight and died out in the next beat. It had been a soft pulse, almost a heartbeat, seconds before it had shattered. Twilight's eyes misted over.
My legs started shaking.
“Who needs you that badly, dear?” Rarity asked suddenly.
Yes, I thought. Anypony. I'd answer anypony, but Twilight. “The very sames I've nearly forgotten. My parents. They need Tom and me back. Tom… misses them too.”
Pain flashed on Applejack's face. For the briefest instant, it was painted as clear as day, but soon nothing of it was left. She, as well as the others, looked at me with a hint of pity, and confusion.
“You forget them?” Pinkie tilted her head to the side, and her tone, though innocent, made me flinch.
“B-but...” Twilight suddenly stuttered, her eyes going wide. “That would mean… Only what isn't real… the spell is filling in...”
You would understand, Twilight. It never takes long, you clever mare. Now, if I could tell her that without choking...
“Sam...” Thadal stepped forth and motioned for me to let him. I gave a quick nod. “Girls. We weren't always alicorns. We used to be something else, and we didn't want to come here in the first place. Tom used something no one could have predicted would be genuine, and he disappeared from our world.”
I averted my eyes, lest the girls decide to show compassion. The knot in my throat was already too big to risk kindness breaking down my barriers.
“Sam… Sam saw it first hand, the despair and the agony that it was for his family, so he decided to go after Tom and bring him back. He didn't plan for things to escalate, but they did, and the spell nearly tore him apart. When I came here, I had trouble recognizing him, and his appearance was the least of it.”
My head split apart as memories flashed before my eyes. A moment on the streets, just before our new home in Ponyville, when Thadal had been disguised and he had first asked, 'Sam?'. Colors, less vibrant, leaping out of a rift through a world nonsensical. Brown feathers on a solid wing, brushing my mane out of my eyes as I struggled to breath. Cool water, washing off flakes of my own blood off my coat.
And looking up, I could see the ghost of those memories in the strong posture he had, in the absence of those little twitches that betrayed human habits. Thadal looked the part of an alicorn as he talked to them.
Quietly, I said, “I'm sorry, Eric.”
He startled, and looked back to me with wide eyes, almost guilty. “You… Sam, you don't have to apologize. I really get it.”
Not for long, I hope. You'll be fine soon. “I'd wish for you not to… It should not have been necessary for you to help me.”
His expression turned playful. “Well, you do have me. So it works out in the end.”
I doubted that. With a shake of my head, I gestured toward the heroines still waiting for their leader to decide whether to magically blast us or not. It could, I'd like to say, go better.
“This is all done in devotion toward your parents, Ventus Vinco, yes?” Rarity cleared her throat, a quick gauging glance toward Twilight. “What will happen if you succeed?”
The other mares turned a curious glance toward her, as if they wondered about her motives, or her reasoning. Rarity herself didn't seem overtly curious about the answer, only my own.
Smart. And if I had had the guts for it, I would have lied. But Twilight still stared, and with her gaze alone, demanded honesty.
My head hung lower.
“We'll be gone, forever,” I said in a hushed whisper. “There's probably gonna be a big backlash. Like trying to separate colors when paint has already been mixed. Maybe it'll screw up absolutely everything. I'm not sure. It might happen or not.”
Thadal's heartbeat accelerated. I could hear the sand shift underneath his hooves as he tried not to squirm. My wings clamped against my sides. The idea did not sit well with him, clearly.
Nor with anypony. Rightly so. They all looked varying degrees of sick, shocked or disgusted.
“What? You think we deserve it?!” Rainbow Dash asked, her temper flaring. “Is that it?! Somepony pissed you off?!”
Oh wow.
“No…” I chuckled, yet it was the furthest thing away from funny. “Not even close. Ponies aren’t evil at all. The most you get are a few jerks here and there. No, it’s just me.”
The mares stared as if I'd been particularly melodramatic. Even Rarity seemed carefully dubious, and Twilight… the less said about the typical sarcasm she held, the better.
Right. They had trouble buying it. Apparently, the storm clouds ahead didn't do the trick. Not when faced with us.
Something like a smirk wormed its way onto my lips, and I turned my thoughts to the cape on my back. Its fangs still sunk into my back, the power still poured into the open wound, but it was not nearly enough…
Yet.
“Don’t be fooled, girls. Us two?” I pointed my hoof at Thadal, then toward myself, ignoring the look of unease that twisted his expression. “We’re Evil. With a Capital ‘E’. I get that this is unusual for you. Hay, civil discourse with the guys you're supposed to bring in can't be too common, but I'm telling you the truth. It’s not the cackles, the depravity, or even just the scary looking part, though I guess I can have that last one down,” I added as I unleashed just a bit of power into the air.
Lightning crackled at the tip of my feathers, white cold streaks running on my golden fur as traces of cold. My sight became veiled by a pale grey filter. Burning ice crawled over my skin.
“It's a bit more simple than that. What we’re doing…” I let out a low sigh, a cold cloud bursting out of my mouth. “We’re putting our needs in front of the lives of millions. That, ladies, is the root of evil. That is why I am a villain. I'm selfish.”
The air around me settled, and my coat returned to its usual golden color.
The ice merely sank in under my skin though. I was struggling not to throw up. “Celly and Luna probably told you the truth... It really is that monstrous to go back the way we are hoping to.”
More than anything else, my nonchalance set them off. They glared at me in outrage, all of them.
But none of them harder than Rainbow Dash. Applejack and Twilight together barely restrained her. “You would sacrifice us all for your sake?! You'd destroy thousands of families just like yours so you can be safe?!”
Cannot hesitate. Cannot falter. Not anymore. If it is not now, it will be never. “Yes. That is what I will do, and that is why you are here to stop me.”
“You bet we're gonna stop you! All this time, you were playing us? Playing Twilight?! I can't believe any of us ever gave you the benefit of the doubt!” She snarled, and nearly struggled her way out of her friends' grip. “We should have sent you packing on the very first day! You don't deserve her, you never did. You're a monster!”
There was a moment I could not reply to that. A silent moment, where it was easy to accept Rainbow Dash's accusation. I'd thrown it at myself often enough.
But it wasn't time yet. And, thinking on Thadal or Calx, the fires of anger stoke back my strength.
"Then say it."
The mare frowned, suspicious. “Say what?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Say what you ask me to do. Say: 'Ventus Vinco, I want you to sacrifice the lives and the happiness of your loved ones for us'. Come out and look me in the eyes while you give me that order. Tell me I'm a monster for wanting them happy and safe!”
The girls paled under their fur. Even Rainbow Dash backed up a step, a pained grimace twisting her mouth. Oh, she still had thunder in her eyes, and soon, likely, she'd gather her wits to buck my rump. But put on the spot, asked to defy the very element she embodied for what was right, it shut her up well enough.
I scanned over the rest of them. Twilight and Rarity looked torn. The want was there. The impulse nearly ran through their legs, through their lips to form the words, but they couldn't. The very idea seemed abhorrent to Fluttershy and Pinkie, who refused to meet my eyes, their ears drooped to the sides of their heads.
And then... then Applejack stepped forward, a resolute expression on her face.
“Yeah, okay. Ah’ll do it.” She gave me a long, knowing glare, the green of her eyes a harsh unmoving emerald. “Sounds like you need to hear it.”
It knocked the wind out of me. What…?!
“You need to let go. If there ain’t any right way to save ‘em, if yer just delaying, it’s never gonna help. After, well… then what? Goin’ on your merry way, knowing what you did… Ain’t so easy, let me tell ya. Ah’ve been there when t'was my turn too.” She chuckled. “Okay, maybe not that far, but give me credit, Ah was just a filly back then.”
I was shaking my head, denying, refusing to hear this. It couldn't be possible. Applejack had to be lying. That thought made a bitter laugh rise from the depths of my lungs. The Element of Honesty, right. She... she had to be lying.
“There is no way,” – I stomped, angrily, hastily, twice, thrice, the cold whispering again – “There is no way you can be saying that! You can't mean that!”
Why did my voice sound so broken?
Applejack grabbed her hat and brought it to her eye level. A very small smile tugged at the corner of her lips then. She looked back, sadness evident in her gaze, but not overwhelming. “So… sorry, sugarcube, but yeah, Ah’m gonna ask you not to risk a world to save yer parents. Ain't right, no matter how much you missed 'em and the other way around.”
For a split second, for the moment I stared into the saddened indulgence of Applejack, I felt all the air leave my lungs, as if forced out by the strongest kick in all the realm.
Honesty.
The orange light burned at every strand of fur it touched. I felt as if stripped of my every reason, every thought. The masks cracked and broke, splinters falling to the ground. And Greater Magic refused me the comfort of this lie. Not one broken through Honesty.
Even as I backed away from her, from the necklace she wore, I almost chuckled.
It's always been this way in Equestria. Honesty scared the crap out of me.
A hoof snaked around my own, forcing me to lean on the shoulder of this taller stallion. I wouldn't have fought it. I didn't. I... Thadal's presence glued together the broken pieces.
It is wrong, and I knew it before! The thought came with renewed anger. She smacked the Truth into me… The cape on my back clamped on my shoulders, the power at its command forced me straight up. But it doesn't change anything. I cannot falter now.
“Thanks for that,” I whispered. As Applejack leaned in further to better hear me, a glimpse of hope in her eyes, wind blasted her back.
The girls jumped into actions, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flying in to cushion her fall while the rest stepped between me and her. Applejack shook her head, unarmed, a bit dazed, but ready. Twilight looked back to her just for a second, and when she turned to me, her glare shone in the darkness.
And still, I could detect hints of unease in the twitch of her legs or her tail. Anticipation, perhaps? Or, hopefully, hesitation.
“It’s okay,” I told her with a half-smile. “You tried reasoning with us. You shouldn’t be ashamed to jump into battle when the peaceful option failed.”
“Yeah?” Rainbow sneered. “Your pal doesn’t look so hot about that!”
I froze, and my attention turned to him. “Eric?” I called.
He quickly looked away, then back to me, his feathers ruffled.
“It's... nothing, just stuff sinking in... I never really figured I'd be one of the villains, you know?” Thadal chuckled, but everypony could tell how forced it was. He turned to the others, still wearing the same sheepish smile. “But, I know what isolation does to a pony, no one could deserve... and... and in the end, he's my friend, you know? I've known him a lifetime and less than a hundredth of that as well, and... he is my friend. Even if... if that's wrong... Somepony's got to be in his corner, somepony's got to stand by him. Ventus isn't that bad of a stallion.”
“That one’s a lie,” I pointed out. No use in lying about that now.
A hoof smacked the back of my head. Ouch. I did not protest however, not with how he glared.
“Stop. Hurtful words are not a small matter!” he hissed, and something deep in his eyes shook me. For that skip of a single heartbeat, Eric never looked less like my alicorn friend. He blinked back faster, his cornea reddening, and his words now strained, “If you hear them all the time, you'll start to believe them. Especially if you're the one saying them.”
My mouth closed. There was no lying to that, not in front of this… this hurt. It made my heart swell with rage, it made me want to hurt those that had dared, but mostly, it turned the anger inward. I hadn't noticed. When had my best friend become so unhappy? “...Eric? Who did that to you?”
He winced, as if he had not meant me to understand. He shrunk on himself. This was not Thadal. This was Eric, and the through struck me, what did a return to Earth really mean to him?
“Eric, you can t–”
A wave of warmth washed over my fur and plucked the words out of my mouth. Twice now tonight, the light of a rainbow had filled me with dread. The Mane Six stood in half a circle, their Elements piercing through the night with insolent ease.
Smart. We stopped paying attention to them too long. Nothing could really stall the girls any longer. They'd only tolerate so much when Equestria was at stake. Now that we'd shown we weren't going to falter, that we were set in our way… well, the only rational response to that involved the Elements of Harmony when the enemy looked elsewhere.
But what could we do? I might manage to transport both Thadal and Calx away in short order, might even manage to make the trip myself if I acted fast. The spell though… we'd have to start over from scratch, and I could not afford that much power drained so quickly. Twilight had already proven able to detect me in a certain radius, and Celly and Luna would have worked enough with all the diplomatic envoys to send at least one of them to hunt us down with the guards. This one was our one and only shot at this.
But what could I do then?
“Stand back!” I flung Thadal back with a snap of my wing, but he snorted and pushed back.
“You think I'm letting you take the blame alone?” He grinned, wild like his father. “Think again, Ventus! We're in this one together.”
“No, we're not! You're only doing this because I asked you to. It was my idea!”
Not quite, but nopony needed to know Thadal's actual level of involvement. If this failed now – and it couldn't –, he'd have a chance to get away with it. He could… hay, he could apologize to Luna. Court her, if he felt suicidal. He'd have a life, whether we'd fail or succeed.
So, with still a flicker of hope in my heart, I focused and threw half of my strength at the core of their power. The brilliance would have blinded me, had I had eyes this way. The light alone would have seared my shadow off this plane of existence. But I became the air swirling near the Bearers. I conjured a trick so cruel it left me near sick. And I needed only two words.
“Twilight, please...”
The Rainbow shattered. The prism of light fell into pieces, chunks of each color disintegrating. A shockwave pushed both us stallions a couple of feet back, its power rippling over my fur. It was done. Twilight's Element refused her. On top of her head, the crown emitted naught but a faint glow.
Thadal stared, his jaw nearly touching the sand. “Huh?”
“That's not possible!” Rainbow cried out.
“Something must have gone wrong,” Rarity said at the same time.
“I… it felt just like before...” Fluttershy mentioned, glancing at one of them.
She got the right idea too.
“Your heart wavers, Twilight,” I said, and her face went chalk white.
Her crown floated down from her head, glowing a familiar shade of pink. Twilight's eyes reflected the star atop the Element of Magic, and she stared deep into it. Silent questions danced behind the faint stars in her gaze. No answers were given. The Element stayed inert, and Twilight swallowed back the betrayal of her own nature.
The sight of her this lost pulled the words straight out of me. “You don't actually want to do this, do you? Twi, to use the Elements of Harmony, you have to make that choice. You can't be forced to use them against your will.”
Twilight's head snapped up, her mouth hanging wide open in disbelief.
Well, it was not everyday somepony told you why you failed to use some holy artifacts, for sure. By all the Elders, I should keep my mouth shut, but there was more time to buy, and I just could not help show a smile as sad as fond to her. “You still care, don't you? Us meeting was a special thing, I realize that. Elders, I still love you… We've… we've worked through some heavy baggage to be together, didn't we? And the result, Skies Above, we knew it worth the pain. As if… as if there was some greater purpose to us getting stuck in Equestria…”
The words brought a blush to her face.
Had it been in our letters to one another? Had it been a conversation? She had looked to me for guidance, on a subject I was wholly inadequate to guide anypony. But, as anyone – especially a company marketing toward children – would know, you could teach through showing bad examples.
The smile turned bitter. “But alicorns never get what they want in Equestria. All this power at the tip of our horn or hooves or feathers, and what did it bring? More duties. Maybe I was intended as a lesson for you. I don’t care enough about 'our' subjects. All those citizens that call us princes, none of them have a clue. Royalty lives a life of luxury wrapped in sacrifices. Celly gave up a thousand years with Luna in order to protect their subjects. I don’t have that courage; I won't give my soul to the dual throne of Canterlot!” I shouted, anguish too transparent in my voice now, too real. They had dismissed me before, on those grounds. “My family’s the most important thing to me, and nothing will push me to sacrifice it!”
“But…” Fluttershy cut in gently, “they are your family.”
She was not Kindness. I would have laughed. No mare could ever be called kind after saying that. No mare had the right… in so few words, to make the world spin and my guts churn. She threw me in a lake of ice, struggling, drowning. Guilt. The emotion at the center of it all, the thing that came to mind when I recalled Celestia's tears and her body wrapped flames. It was a nameless, gnawing, snarling guilt.
I don't have a right… The thought came laden with fury. Not them. I'm Samuel Miller, an imposter, a changeling child, a fake! My duty is to others!
“THEY'RE NOT!” I roared, every hidden hints of rage exploding outward. My voice echoed over the beach and the in-lands and the seas, thunderous, murderous. They cowered. “DON'T YOU GET IT?! I HAVE TO CHOOSE WHOM TO LOVE AND WHOM TO THROW AWAY! CELLY, LUNA, MOTHER, FATHER... THEY DO NOT NEED US! THEY CARE, BUT IF THEY LEARN…. IF THEY REALIZE WHAT WE ARE… THEY...”
I faltered. The thought crashed on me with all its weight.
“They'll be able to throw us away.” I laughed. I could do nothing else, lest I cry in front of them all. “It's fake...”
It all started in that throne room, with a slip of the tongue, a passing resemblance to the one we could call Father now. The tabloids could have speculated forever about our relations to the Princesses and never get it right. The whole thing was a lie shared throughout the world.
“Keeping this charade… how many are hurt just by its presence?” Thadal's hoof tensed against my shoulder. “It's better if we're gone...”
They might leave. Coyote and Raven, Cernan, Minos… Those diplomats would return and report that words of our stay were exaggerated, merely a visit and nothing more. Tensions would be allowed to fall after a brief moment of fear. Better a false alarm than an escalation.
The others stared, rendered silent. It had not been defused. They stared at one of their own, their desire to help blatant.
“So... that's it then?” Twilight asked slowly, her tone strangely even. “You picked your friends and... your family?”
She paused, her breath itched and shallow.
She steadied herself, as I did. “Fake.” And then, then she looked me in the eyes, truly, with those beautiful purple irises wavering with tears. “Did... did it really mean so little?”
Her bodies racked with sobs. It left her stumbling, it left her to near fall in the hooves that went to support her, but she tried so hard not to. Her face betrayed her focus. She would not be a slave, not even to her heart.
Her friends looked as righteously pissed as they should. I could feel the Elements on their necks blazing and pushing to be unleashed.
Well, I hadn't reached this clusterfuck by doing the thoughtful thing. And the sight of Twilight, my poor mare, crying so? By my own doing? They could not have expected me to stay away. The distance between us vanished. My cheeks brushed against hers, still so wonderfully soft. Twilight tensed, in surprise rather than fear, then she leaned against me. We could pretend, maybe, for a few precious seconds, that nothing threatened our relationship. Not my screw-ups, not her friends looking ready to bite my head off.
And on my back, the cape twitched, not with power, but with a warning. I ignored it. I ignored all those signs, for nothing truly mattered outside of her.
“Little? It meant the world to me. You made me happy, Twilight. Even when this place brought me to the lowest, you pulled me back. Do you understand that? I don't want to leave you…” And the thought, as wild as sudden, struck me. Fervently, I pulled back to fully gaze upon her, and hope. “If I asked you… to follow me, to come blazing through the barrier of worlds and to make me yours forever… Would you?”
Everything shifted around us. Neither Thadal nor the Bearers understood what to make of that. I could tell some of the latter already reconsider what they knew, at least in part.
But that barely registered. I looked only at Twilight.
And never before had she looked so frightened. Not in front of the Nightmare, nor the Elder of Chaos… not before Sombra and his mastery of fear itself. Those were different and their grip on the heart were loose when one was surrounded by friends. But this?
It was the look I saw in the mirror. The fear of one terrible thing: choice. I'd turn it on her, with just one sentence. Now, the break-up relied on her, and it shook her to be the one to pick.
“Will you follow me?” I whispered, our mouths nearly close enough to touch. “Please…”
Sam, you heartless bastard. You spineless swine.
I did not deserve her. I never did. Everything had been a manipulation, everything still was. Even when she pulled me in, when she managed to conquer my heart in truth, how could we ever be sure it wasn't still manipulations on my part? I did not even remember how not to.
But I wanted Twilight to be with me. I wanted to share my life with that silly mare. I wanted to wake up to the smell of pancake and old books, and kiss her over the maple syrup. I wanted a cool night, the two us cuddling under a blanket and observing the stars. I wanted her so badly...
If there had been one pony able to convince me to stay…
Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn of Friendship, librarian-extraordinaire, and the one mare I had come to love purely, turned away. “No.”
There goes my heart. But even inside my head, that joke sounded hollow. Twilight's rejection felt like a blade of ice lodging itself in my chest. Expecting it only made for a bitter aftertaste. I could only barely keep my expression neutral while she pushed me away.
“I can't!” She shook her head, and her horn lit up with a blinding strength. “This isn't about just you and me, Ventus. This isn't even about my friends or my family! This is the lives of everypony, and everyone, that lives in Equestria and beyond. To turn my back on all those innocents is wrong!”
“Well...” I swallowed, my breath a shudder. Right. Right, wild fever dream. No way to even know if it had been possible. And, for fuck's sake, I just couldn't help the sheepish, foalish smile on my face. “I did say I was evil, Twi...”
She stomped. “There can't be a compromise on this, Ventus. You must stand down! This is too much to even risk!”
“Yeah!” Pinkie jumped in. “Think about it! Bladey wouldn't want that, would he?”
The others added their own pieces, but I barely heard beyond Pinkie's words. I risked a glance back to the spellcircle, and saw him turn over in his sleep, a leg kicking in the air. He looked better.
Earlier, he was crying.
Ice crawled over my heart. He had been crying in his sleep.
I spat out the words as if they were venom. “Be silent for a moment, will you?”
Blissful silence fell over them. Their mouths still moved – Pinkie's at a breathtaking speed –, but they might as well be gaping fishes. I was not in the mood to be lectured about what my family would want. Scowling, I leveled a challenging hoof at them.
One answered. A burst of purple light broke the spell apart, and Twilight turned a defiant glare to me.
“You showed me a lot, and I studied the rest, Ventus.”
My tail flicked. All too true. It went both way.
For me, at least.
“Thadal! Call on the little ones!”
“Got it!” he nodded, and the sea behind us rose.
Water slid off the shells, washing off algae and sand off the creatures that came forward with the clicks of armored legs. One struck the sand next to me, and I glanced at the spike of white shell still glistening with sea water. The others looked up in horror, Thadal with fondness.
Five more clicked their way around us.
Giant crabs. The smallest looked as big as a house.
“That’s the ‘little ones’?!” Rainbow Dash cried out, her face the very image of indignation.
Thadal pulled a sullen face. “The ocean's a pretty damn big place, you know...” he muttered under his breath.
“Of course they are, Rainbow Dash! You should see the kind of gigantic horrors he’s got in his body!” I said with a gigantic grin, poking his shoulders teasingly. “Hay, the Leviathan’s pretty much the world’s biggest tapeworm!”
Thadal jolted, and turned on me, his horn dangerously pointed. “What?! Like you’re any better, Ventus!”
I laughed, daring him. If he wanted to play that game, fine. With one wing, I gestured for him to bring it. And so much levity just vanished for those few instants of bickering.
Thadal snorted. “Ziz more or less bitchslapped you the last time you tried to contact it!” The bastard smirked. “And it made you cry!”
For a split second, I felt my head burst into flames, images and sounds replaying as if I'd live them. When I came to, beads of sweat pearled over strands of my fur.
I held back an incredulous scoff. “Did you just twist reality to humiliate me?!”
Oh, the grin on that jerk's face. “Yup. Made you cry.”
I spluttered. “I was just forty! That doesn't count! Besides, what kind of King of all Birds says neigh to a little colt that just wanted to play?!”
“No idea,” he said with a not-so-innocent shrug. My hoof twitched with the desire to punch his face.
...Okay, so maybe this wasn't very serious, but you do not pull that shit in front of somepony's marefriend!
My gaze slid over to them, the silly worry itching at the back of my head. I just knew I'd die of embarrassment if she laughed or something like that. Somepony was giggling.
My ears folded on top of my head, as I hid a wince. Pinkie Pie held a hoof to her mouth. Thank the Elders the others weren't affected. They blinked.
“They’re just trying to distract us!” Rainbow Dash shouted.
They broke out of their daze at the command, now posed for battle.
Well, damn, I was hoping for a couple more minutes without fighting. The weight of the cape on my shoulders had not lessened yet. This wasn't going to be a fun struggle.
“True,” I sighed, “but if you're so eager to fight a bunch of giant crabs...”
Dash sniffed, then launched herself at the nearest crustacean in a burst of rainbow colors. I did not have time to react. Neither did the crab as she bucked it right under its mandibles. The strike nearly lifted its legs, its body falling back with an ominous sound.
Oh, right, she bucked a dragon in the jaw too...
Dash's celebratory cry cut short when a pair of pincers swung at her. As she dove, it sliced into the tip of her tail, strands of rainbow hair struck on the pincer.
The second one froze before it hit her.
“I'll cover you!” shouted Twilight, her horn shining.
“Gotcha!” Rainbow replied and zipped around Thadal's creature. The others did not join in.
Seven at once? My eyebrows disappeared under my mane. That was quite a feat, to perform a telekinetic paralysis on that many giant creatures. She would be that good. Of course, I thought with a puff of pride.
“Eeyah!” cried out somepony, and I snapped back down to earth in a panic.
The white hoof brushed off against my mane, just barely.
She's fast! I thought as I jumped back with a strong flap of my wings. I'd hope to put back enough distance without using up any magical power. But to my dismay, Rarity charged right through the sand cloud, her right hoof pulled back for another strike.
It flew forward. Instincts pulled magic into my horn for a blasting spell. It'd be too late. I watched as the white hoof struck, and sunk into a floating ball of liquid.
“Huh?” We blinked.
The surface of the water shimmered, then turned to steam. With an ominous whistle, it splashed us with the strength of an explosive.
Thadal stepped beside me, his face illuminated by a grim blue glow. “It's the two of us, Rarity.”
“We're four, silly!” Pinkie giggled as she hugged him from behind.
He neighed in shock. Again. And it sounded suspiciously like a filly. I would not let him let this live down. That was a promise. Made me cry, my plot!
Rarity paused, then rubbed a hoof against her cheek. She took in the sight of the smear of make-up on her leg with a frown. “Oh, I don't think I'm going to like fighting you, darling.”
Pinkie either thought he had been tortured enough or that he was just not comfortable. Regardless, she performed a perfect flip and landed into the sea under the applause of an invisible crowd.
No clue how she did that.
But once she was off, Thadal stopped panicking like a bronco horse, and aimed a pained look at Rarity. “It's… kind of a mutual sentiment.”
And with a dainty laugh, she charged, “believe me, you don't have a face for make-up, darling!”
Thadal spluttered some more, and the sea suddenly rippled with higher and higher waves.
“Is this all an act?” questioned Applejack while Fluttershy helped Rarity dodge a crashing wave.
Looking back, I smirked. “No, but I’ve been told actions can have more than one purpose.”
“Like?”
I shrugged, and cautiously circled around Applejack, just as she tried to do with me.
The important thing was that neither of us got knocked out before the spell could be cast. That was, if they didn't choose to use the Elements after all. There was no way I could keep Twilight from picking the right option in the end.
Unless I could fool the girls in how much time left there was.
I dodged the first tentative buck she aimed at me, and jumped back before the Element of Honesty became burning again.
I could do that. I had a lot more mobility than Applejack, wings oblige. She wouldn't catch me.
So long as Eric's fine too… And just as the thought came to me, I caught wind of a cry of panic, so close, and so familiar even AJ's head snapped around.
Fluttershy's legs were reaching out of a receding wave, and both her friends were rushing into the water after her. Her image was already hard to make out from this distance, but I heard her clearly, and the moment she broke out of the surface.
Her words were small, quick and frantic. "Help!" she begged. "Pinkie! Ra--..." Gargles.
Alone, in the dark, with the waves about to carry her off? I'd panic in her place too. My heart had gone up in my throat at the broken shout of her friends.
Only Rainbow Dash had a good chance to catch up to the fast rip current. She was also trying to get out of the grip of a crab. The light surrounding it had flickered and faded at the panicked cries from every one of their friends.
And still Fluttershy fought desperately to get her upper half out of the water, to spread her wings before she was carried out too far to regain any footing.
I heard her cough out water.
I heard her calling help too weakly for her friends to hear, even as they tried to swim close enough to catch her.
I heard her cough “Oh Ce-... lestia...” as if falling into despair.
But the waters stilled around her. When one moment she had been struggling against the current, now Fluttershy's body rested on a fine
film of solid water.
“Huh?” She blinked at her hooves.
Thadal looked down, gritting his teeth. The waves almost seemed to freeze in place. He did not react as Rarity's blue magic mixed with another, purple, and carried Fluttershy out. Even his breathing had stopped.
“Fluttershy, dear, are you alright?” she called, her mascara running over her cheeks.
The worst part…? Thadal looked as green as her. A fleeting moment, his eyes wandered back to meet mine, and he winced.
“Don't worry about it. It's fine,” I told him over the distance. “Just stall them as long as possible.”
He nodded, but as he turned, Pinkie's party cannon blew up in his face.
...Sorry.
The stray thought helped me, at least, as I heard the galloping hooves on the sand just in time. Snarling, I whirled around and stood tall enough to stomp my attacker.
Applejack met my blow head-on, rearing just in time to catch my hooves in hers.
I glared daggers into her eyes, pushing as hard as I could, feeling her legs shake but not giving in. Applejack could have been a tree stump rooted into the ground for all the difference it would have made.
But her lips pulled into a snarl, and she hissed over her tears, “It’s a show…”
“What…?” I grunted and willed my legs to freaking overpower her already!
Applejack wasn't budging an inch. “Twi's on the money. Yer putting on a show. S’all a lie.”
I felt a block of ice fall into my stomach.
“We ain’t the ones yer tryin’ to convince with all this 'woe is me and Ah'm evil'.”
Growling, I felt power crackle at the tip of my horn. “And who else is there to convince here?!”
The pleasant, familiar warmth of Twilight's magic washed over us again. The gust of wind that had been on the verge of sending AJ flying spluttered and died. In my chest, my heart skipped a beat, and frustration turned into a new fire. I would get that mare to shut it!
With one wing, I struck at her exposed belly. The wind nearly knocked out of her, AJ sidestepped.
Just as I tried to pursue, two orange hooves flew toward my face.
They grazed me. Applejack's blow carried a lifetime of applebucking on its back, and I could only phase out of the way too late. The hit rang through my head like a bell, muffling sounds around me a second too long. Dizzy, I only noticed her again when she rammed into me. Pain arched throughout my right shoulder.
“Ye don't believe it. Not that much.” She jabbed with renewed strength, so much I felt myself fall back. And her eyes stared through me, piercing emeralds that pulsed with Honesty's light. “Come on, the girls and me? We saw the big leagues. Yer heart's really not into it. Even Ah can think up better ways to fight back. He just pulled Shy OUT! This thing's not a little temper tantrum though. If it works, s'all on yer head, the people that suffer. And they're not just shadowy things to imagine. They're very real ponies, that don't deserve this none!”
Her words baffled me so much I nearly gave out.
“Do you honestly believe I'm not aware?!” I shouted, pushing back in a frenzy. “Me? Of all ponies?! I hear them! I hear them all!”
My horn pierced into the rims of her hat, and my glare bore into her. The fur on her forehead crackled with ice, crawling near her shocked eyes as I showed her who I was.
“I hear them in their beds, on the streets, in the air, between the trees and under the mountains. Everyone. They mumble about the fear of a night terror that Luna's too busy to stop. Right this instant. The evil in the air's clinging to their skin, even if they don't get it. They whisper their love to one another, thinking that no one hears them in their bedchambers. They cry in their cradles. They make so much noises, how could I ever forget that they are all alive?!”
In spite, I reached deeper inside me, and caught a few words mid-sentence.
“I love you so much, Peach,” came out of my mouth with another stallion's voice. And higher, “No more than I love you, Crops.”
Applejack blanched.
“Mama, I had a bad dream...”
Her face contorted in fury.
“Oh, Shield Breaker, will you ever look my way?”
The Element of Honesty lit up, casting the sand in its eerie orange glow.
“We'll manage, Blossom, we always do.”
My hooves slammed into the ground, and a shockwave ran across the beach. Applejack skittered back, but I was already there, behind her, gusts of wind slamming into her legs.
“Big Mac snores a lot, doesn't he?” I spat, just for her to hear. “Like thunder in the house. But Bloomie's just always turning and turning, and the bed creaks over Granny's head. Her stories are even more interesting when she's asleep!”
Cold wind pushed against her. Her teeth gritted together, Applejack slid on the sand, but still pushed forth.
“Did you know your granny once threw an apple so hard at a manticore it ran away screaming? Because I do!”
Blood trickled down her chin. Her teeth had sunk into her lower lips, and the look she sent me screamed of murder. Every step she took thundered; my most violent blasts did not throw her back. She grunt and stumbled but ever still closed the distance between us.
The words were spat in between gritted teeth, “Yeh don't have the right to know that.”
“Well, I bucking know, Applejack! I know, I know, I know! THEY ARE ALL ALIVE AND THIS IS GOING TO KILL THEM AND NOPONY KNOWS THAT BETTER THAN ME!”
The wind howled. Cold northern air took on the shape of a timberwolf and threw itself straight at Applejack. She would not have the time to dodge.
But there was a brilliant flash of purple light, and to my horror, Twilight jumped out, her horn pulsing with power.
The wolf died out with a whimper, killed by two alicorns at the same time.
“If you do know, Ventus...” Twilight whispered, her voice burning and her tears searing, “if you do know, then please, remember.”
The beam hit me straight on the horn.
My sight flashed white-hot. The magic speared through me like a bolt of lightning, spreading to every inch of my body, and my legs gave out. I would have fallen if not for three pegasi suddenly helping me stand.
That wasn't possible. No, literally. They wouldn't have known about this, and even less wanted to get involved in this.
But I still saw what I saw.
“Thunderlane? Cloudkicker? Flitter?”
My coworkers laughed at my confusion. “Come on, Cloud. Don't be such a drag. We've snuck in a little liquor behind the boss' back. It'll be fun.”
“You're not here.” I closed my eyes and shook my eyes. “This is a spell. This is not real. This is a spell, it’s not real.”
The voice that replied wasn't theirs. It was haughtier, with a faint accent, close to Celly's. “Of course not, then you'd have to take responsibilities, right?”
The unicorn that turned his head away with a scoff of disdain could not be here. He'd never… if only because it was me here.
“Blueblood?”, escaped my control regardless.
The saddened blue eyes weighed on me, just the span of a heartbeat. Then, they morphed into something icy, and he strutted away.
My legs carried me despite myself. I chased after him, even if he'd already faded into nothing. I ran as if I was in a dream – I had to be, right? – and I came upon a hill favored by the afternoon's sunlight.
There was a filly.
“Violet…”
She hugged a little alicorn doll closer to her chest. “You're gonna leave too, aren't you?”
All air left my lungs. “I… it isn't like that. There… there will be other ponies, I promise...”
“But you're gonna leave like they did. I'll be alone, right?”
The ground opened under me. I was falling, their faces swirling around me, laughing, accusing, longing. I was falling.
I was Fallen. The orphan leaving orphans behind.
“ENOUGH!” I shouted, and the world around me shattered into glass. The sun disappeared and hid behind the familiar darkness of the storm. I wasn't staring an orphan in the eyes, admitting my cowardice and my betrayal.
But they stayed with me all the same. Elders, that terrible guilt had wormed its way to my heart, and now my ribs contracted with each breath. Erratic. Irregular. Shallow.
Oh, this one reeked of Celly. Maybe not her order, but maybe an idea planted in Twilight's head. T-then again… she did have a tendency to try to undo brainwashing this way. Was that it then? A desperate attempt to purge the bad out of me through happy, happy memories?
It was so hopelessly naive, kindly so, but Twilight looked at me not three paces away and I could tell from the way she bit her lips, she did hope that. I'd seen the same expression, when she had been experimenting and doubting her success. But here and now, it was me, fighting against her alone. Applejack appeared in the corner of my eye, rushing to help a pinned down Rainbow Dash, while the crab itself stood frozen in a purple aura.
The last of Twilight's memory spell faded. “Ventus...”
And she asked with her eyes, stop, come back to me now.
“I can't!” I shouted and stomped. The cape lashed so hard my knees buckled. “I can't let them down!”
The power snaked out of me, siphoned straight into the circle. Joy and panic struck me in equal measures. A shiver ran down my spine, as the weight of my body seemed to increase drastically. My head hung low, fatigue covering me in chains of lead. The pained grunt that escaped me betrayed too much of my physical state. Anyone but the girls would have taken advantage of that.
Not Twilight. Not even if we hadn't been dating, she still wouldn't have. It was written all over her eyes. And it chilled me to the bones. Would another enemy take advantage of this in the future? What would she give to save everyone?
“You can barely stand.”
The circle began to glow with an unearthly sterile light. The sight filled me with a strange sense of dread. Soon, it would be time.
I glanced back at my marefriend, putting in more bravado than I felt. “You're not even trying, Twilight.”
She stepped closer, her eyes pleading, her words coming with a conviction and a faith that made me hesitate. “You won't do it, Ventus. I know you won't. You haven't gone crazy, you're not a different stallion than a few days ago. You showed me the truth about you last night.”
I shrunk back. We had said a good deal of things then. We had confirmed that we had both been fools playing with an emotion far stronger than our rationalities. And, the alcohol helping, I had stripped away a layer of Prince Ventus.
...She would forgive me, wouldn't she? If I stopped here. Twilight's gaze promised me that. It'd be such a sweet thing.
“Twilight,” I growled, and forced myself to glare. “I loathe myself because, in spite of knowing how wrong it was to manipulate you, I still did it all. This is not different! Don't be a blind fool! You're smarter than that! You've always been smarter than that!”
“That's it!” she shouted back. “You're always telling me to think for myself!”
Snarling, I took off. A beat of my wing swept the beach with a gale. Sand rose up, covering the land with a small sandstorm that hit every one of the Mane Six. Their cries intertwined, fast enough that I could not tell whom had been thrown off their hooves.
A sizzling, shimmering glint pushed the air behind me in a sudden burst. Twilight's breath tickled the back of my neck.
“Even when you are manipulative, you sabotage yourself when it comes to me.” Her legs closed around my shoulders, so very gentle, so loving that I stilled. “You told me. You still love me. You do this despite your true feelings on the matter, Ventus. But you don't need to.”
Twilight's legs held nothing.
I reappeared mere wingspans to her left, shaking.
My voice broke. “I have to! It's what a good brother does! It's what a good son does! What I want doesn't matter!”
Twilight shook her head. It wasn't true. Not to her. Perhaps not to the others either.
She circled around me, flapping her wings fast enough to react at a moment's notice. What other spell was she preparing behind that calculating gaze. I could feel the energy gathering near her horn.
I could feel my muscles ache almost painfully.
“It does matter, Ventus. And I will show you, and convince you before this ends!”
But the threat that came next wasn't hers.
“Out of the way, Twilight!”
We turned, and I saw beneath me the cone of air surrounding the flyer. A spot under my skin tensed, as if stretched. Dread only flashed at the center of my mind while the colors of the rainbow burst through the night.
A blade of nothingness cut right through my right shoulder, just before Rainbow Dash barreled into my sides. I felt my body nearly fold against her hoof, the sudden acceleration shuffling my insides around. My wings couldn't stop the fall. Winds wheezed at my ears, mere seconds before the world exploded into the cold water of the sea.
Bubbles escaped my mouth and my nostrils by the dozens. My body seized under the agony it was put through. I flailed, digging through the currents uselessly. I had no idea where up and down could be. A veil covered my thoughts.
But at some point, the water stilled around me. A familiar power animated it, and an invisible hand lifted me upward. For a split second, I felt almost calm, home-bound. For a split second.
I broke through the surface roaring. She had dared! The thought burned at the front of my mind. She had used the very magic that allowed pegasi to fly to strike at me. She'd use my blood to hit me!
I was above her, looming. Icy winds swirled at the tip of my feathers.
“Flight is done by my will, Rainbow Dash.”
Her strike passed through a ghostly image of me, almost looking green through the golden shade. She twisted around, wild looks searching for where I'd reappear.
The cold reached her wings first.
I hissed the word, and carried it throughout the skies. My will reached into the currents, into the winds and all heard the order and faltered. “Fall.”
Rainbow Dash bucked, exactly where I would have been, had I been of flesh and blood. The momentum near pushed her into me, but she suddenly sensed the wrongness. Her eyes widened in panic. The ground began closing in. Her wings still beat.
Rainbow Dash fell. Inexplicably, she fell. She did as she had done most of her life. She tried the postures, the gestures, the tricks, perfectly even. None of it mattered. Even she could feel the missing piece that had been stolen from her.
There was nothing she could do. In the last moments, she closed her eyes and winced.
I almost laughed.
Light surrounded her and cushioned her fall.
Twilight landed right next to her. “Rainbow! Are you alright?”
But the pegasus flailed out of the magical grasped, not even reaction as her body fell to the ground with a dull sound. She already stood up. Her wings flapped frantically. What little her body lifted only came from her own jumps.
“I… I can't fly!” she rasped, her face crumbling into fury and despair.
It was my turn to land. No matter how delicately though, it still felt like murder on my shoulder.
“Not as long as I still draw breath in this world!” I sneered, then grinned. “Do you want me to leave now?”
“No, but I sure want you to die right now!”
The words that should have been my reply drowned out in coughs of blood. The mares flinched. I could only stare at the spots of red on my fur.
That… that wasn't Father's power.
With a gargled shout, I crumbled to the ground. Pain had speared through my back, and grew stronger every second. Muscles in my body seized, and spasmed, and convulsed. Fears screeched at the front of my mind, but only one rang through.
This was not an attack on me.
The waves froze. Gushing water, sea foam and droplets, all of it captured in perfect stillness. I could not remember a wronger sight. This… this was a form of death. The world was movement and this was the sight of a corpse. In horror, I stared and fought against the unbearable pain that nailed me here.
“E… Eric...”
Thadal pawed at his chest, his mouth wide open in a silent cry of wordless agony.
Stop…
I could not move a muscle. Every inch of me could have been of stone, and still capable of moving more than me.
Briefly, I could feel nothing of the power bearing down on me. It felt as a cut. A strike of a scalpel. There was a wet, sickening plop, something to fall on the beach.
My wing… I thought numbly at the sight of the golden feathers floating down. The cross-shaped scar on my chest ached. Such a familiar sense of dread.
“Ventus!” Twilight's horrified scream hurt me more than impending doom could have.
I'm not what you should turn your eyes to.
Wounds of that nature spoke of a rift into the skies.
The blanket of storm clouds had as gaping a hole as the joints that used to attach my wing. But above us shone a white radiance that struck terror in my mind. For where the sun was the warmth of life and day, this was a sterile light. A ray that accepted none but itself and that cast a shadow darker than night of everything it touched.
And at once, it came ablaze in flames of azure blue. At the center of it all was a shadow of light, nearly a familiar shape.
Blood sprayed from my mouth in a red mist. Oh, I definitely had something broken in my lungs. Perforated, maybe?
The shadow in the flames moved.
And we were so close too… I struck the sand. Damn it all.
I felt the pressure built into my throat, as a hoof pushing on my trachea, right the very second He came through the Veil.
He spread his wings and covered the skies with the sight of a thousand feathers. Each one the size of a cloud. Each one promised a vision. I saw and felt and lived a thousand punishments and a thousand rewards through the sight of him.
I laid panting on the ground, sweats pearling to the ends of my fur, and my chest rose greatly with each too short inhalation.
His head peaked through the cloud, and he lowered it to bestow us with a gaze that was fire and ice. The whitest snow held not the purity of his fur, nor the shimmer of light that pulsed in his blood. His fury restrained, his jaws tensed, Judicium held the traits of a stallion, truly, but I had never seen one less remarkable. His head alone could have eclipsed the celestial bodies in the skies, and even at this size, I could see nothing of imperfections or crooks or irregularities. I would not be able to recall it later, I knew.
Judicium took his first step.
His right front leg majestically landed on the frozen sea, and violently slipped left. The fiery titan stumbled face first into the water.
The explosion of steam was something to behold as well. Not nearly as majestic however.
Now, the eight of us remained perfectly silent.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!”
Couldn't have said it better, Eric.
I would like to have a clue about what was happening indeed. My brain was just now starting to catch up with the fact that Judicium had tripped during his grand entrance and it did not compute.
“Ah! Good one, Dissy! A classic!” Pinkie howled between two bouts of laughter, waving around a giant yellow thing.
That is a banana peel.
I felt, in the back of my head, the new rip in the air that formed, and so clearly, I heard the sound of a zipper opening swiftly.
Had my mouth not already been half-full with blood, me biting my cheeks so hard would have done the same. Of course, he would be here too now.
“I did say I would repay you, didn't I?” rang his hated voice.
I stubbornly looked away, refusing to even glance where I knew he was floating, arms crossed, a third hand stroking his beard and a fourth, a fluffy cat. Discord's timing could not be a coincidence.
That smug bastard… I couldn't even wheeze out that much, and the thought fled from my mind as fire flashed before my eyes.
A white hoof came down on the sand, and every grain froze so completely they remained in midair. Even the voices that I heard seemed to dampen in his presence.
Judicium stood near us, exactly as tall as Discord.
“Lord of Chaos.” His voice rang out in perfect monotony, every syllable, every sound, even. Toneless. I'd never heard heard anything as alien as that, a voice like a machine, through the living. I would probably freak out more if Discord hadn't made him look like an idiot a second ago. “You will step aside and deliver the false children to our custody immediately.”
Discord threw his arms in the air, all four of them. Somewhere in the distance, a chunk of earth shot straight into space.
“Oh my Me, are you always ON, Judy? I mean, of course you are, but why? Old friend, it's just sad.”
“I care little for your opinions, Chaos.” White flames reduced the fake arms into ashes. The Elder of Order did not react to Discord's indignant cry. His icy blue gaze drifted aside. “Your time will come. Mortals shall not suffer your madness much longer. For now however, there are greater concerns than your petty behavior.”
I was frozen. My heart hammered in my chest, faster than ever. I had no doubt whose behavior was worth Judicium's time and I wanted nothing more than to disappear, to fade into the air and leave. But… Thadal… Calx…
I'd rather confess myself a monster to the Last Judge than even entertain the thought of leaving them.
And Judicium had pierced through the Veil to bring back balance to the land.
He had the power to do so.
The air near him rippled, unstable, shivering as if steam erupted from his very skin. It was not so. Judicium Frigus's mere presence broke apart the world as easily as Discord's. The spasms of my muscles were the wind currents coming into contact with him, and stilling.
“Ventus Vinco, Samuel Miller, I have come for you and your kin. Justice calls your name.”
It brokered no protest, no reply. It was as much a statement of fact as calling the sky blue. I envied and feared that confidence in equal measure. Would the girls listen to him?
And through that terrible fear, I chuckled. Spittle of blood flew out of my mouth, and if I had had the strength, I might have even stared the Elder in the eyes. The errant thought had seized around my heart like a balm. “Don't you know? I have no name.”
On his face, near his mouth, the highest I could look up to, I saw flicker something ugly. The strangeness of his body language faded. He seemed to become alive… and shaking with rage. The pressure of his gaze lessened, but only as the proximity of a hoof would, drawing back as if to smack me. Each of my remaining limbs flattened against the sand, and all that I was felt minuscule, truly insignificant in the face of his power.
“You have already usurped the alicorn legacy!” His voice thundered beyond the skies and the seas, and I could hear nothing else, no matter how strongly I wished it. “Do not presume to reject it as you would a clothe you no longer fancy!”
In spite of that, I mustered a grin. “Was it a lie though?”
On my neck traced a phantom line, and my chin felt as if resting on a block of wood. It would take an impulse. The guillotine would chop my head off.
Phantom, the line, for it never came to pass either.
Twilight had stepped forward. “Please, wait! I… there is still–”
“Twilight Sparkle,” he said, and with that alone, she started to withdraw. “You have been a just and worthy mare for much of your existence. It is no time for you to fall prey to the Chaos of Pandora. You know what must be done. And if your hooves falter, your next duty is to let another do what is necessary.”
A giant red mallet hit him square in the muzzle.
“Oh no, this is much too interesting for you to interfere. The drama, the heartfelt declarations, the boldness, the heartbreak! This is where life goes out in its glorious gritty greatness. When Acheron bargained with Vitam, it was all for THIS!” Discord spread his arms wide, gesturing toward Twilight and I, toward Eric, toward the unconscious crabs on the sand. His grin seemed truly joyous then, but it shifted with a new sharpness. “And You. Will. Not. Interfere!”
A brilliant flash of white light blinded us, and when I could blink away the dots floating before my eyes, neither Elder remained.
All of my strength left me. I was so fucking tired of this crap. Could I not hop on the road to damnation without a thousand ponies lining up to smack some sense into me? I…
I just wanted to go home. No more.
No more fear for my life or that of those I care about.
No more ancients beings that chose our lives for us. No more.
No… more...
“Well, that was…”
Trying to stand was a bad idea. The blood squirted out of the gaping hole where my wing had been connected.
“Fuck, Sam.” Thadal grunted, his left hind leg slipping into the sand as I nearly collapsed on him. “Let... let me, I'll stop you from losing blood.”
“D-don't...” I tried to push myself off him, but his wing firmly kept me in place. “Keep your strength, we'll need it soon. We're almost done, Eric...”
“You're almost done for. That wound will kill you,” Thadal whispered, his voice rumbling with anger. “You're half dead already!”
“Doesn't matter if we cast the spell in the end.”
His grip on my shoulder tightened, and I let out a strangled cry. Blue light surrounded my wound. “We won't get to that point at the rhythm you're losing blood. Hold still!” he hissed as I tried to get free. “Is this your way of giving up, Sam? I'm not letting you die that easily!”
I bit back a scathing reply. Giving up?! I'd… after everything… after rejecting every offer of redemption thrown our way…
Power came surging from the wound, and the wind danced. Every crook, every joint, done through the curve of the air. A cool feeling settled over the wound, before I stumbled against Thadal, imbalance by the new weight on my side.
“There...” I panted. “Good as new.”
Thadal grinned despite his anger. Yeah, that might have been his aim. When the light from his horn got to the rest of my injuries, he almost hummed to himself.
“Have you forgotten us?” Rarity asked, unimpressed.
The rest of them had begun forming a half-circle around us.
Eric flushed beet red. “Huh-well...”
“To be honest...” I snorted. “...can you blame us?”
I laid my head back into my friend's shoulder. Just for a second. I'd be able to… Soon, I would be...
“Why aren't you taking advantage of this?” I asked.
“You're injured...” Fluttershy was the first to say.
“Super badly. Blood loss is no joke, Sammy. When my Papa Pie got injured in the rockavalanche of last summer, my sisters had to donate some of their blood to help him survive!”
“Well...” I let my gaze wander to their forms. “It's kind of the point of fighting us, isn't it?”
“Not this,” I heard the whispers, and winced. “Not this way, Ventus.”
It was all Twilight could do to stop herself from treating the rest of my wounds on the spot.
I wanted to laugh, to let out all that bitter venom out in as derisive a sound I could make. Those girls. Those precious, kind-hearted heroines. They didn’t get it, did they?! They pitied and cried over me... They thought me too little a threat to seriously consider. Would our bonds of friendship and love not suffice to stop me?! I'd never dare, right?! If not the goodness of my heart, then the wounds I'd just gotten?!
There was so much MORE I could do.
For each things I couldn’t do – save them –, there was – nothing that matters – five more I could. A bit of diverting to make the clouds overhead strike them with lightning. A wall of air completely impenetrable to keep them away. A solid, invisible construct of air to snap bones and nerves... If I had wanted it, it would have been foal’s play to
Kill
Kill.
Twilight.
Kill.
The Bearers.
Kill.
Kill the Equestrians. Thunderlane. Blueblood. Violet. Celestia. Kill the others. Kill Order and Chaos. Kill the threats.
Kill.
Them.
All!
It’d be easy, said the voice that was cold and darkness in my head. Finish one of the mares off. The one I liked the least. A good molding of air to snap somepony's neck. Swift, before anyone could react. Then cast the spell. The imbalance would do the rest. They’d be unable to use the Elements. There’d be nothing to stop me, us.
It’d be easy.
“Prince Ventus, please don't. You're almost dead on your hooves!” exclaimed Rarity.
“Let us help.”
Fluttershy.
“Come on, we'll forget it if you just surrender and give me my wings back, deal?”
Dash.
“Hey, Prince of Water over there... don'tcha think ye'd be a better friend by letting us help him the right way?”
Applejack. Honest, down to earth Applejack, her words enough to make Eric flinch strongly.
“Come on! We'll take care of big meanoe pantso over there too. No worries!”
Easy. Easy. EASY!
“It's not too late,” Twilight said softly.
I could hear Caelum's laugh, his glee, his triumph, when he had looked down on the frozen corpses. And he had felt free. Free!
...But I hadn’t even tried yet.
Why does it matter? Why do you hesitate, Sam?
“I...” the rest of the answer drowned out in another cough of blood.
The voice did not relent. If you aren’t prepared to kill them, why do this at all? Do you think they’d survive what you want to do? Do you think they’d survive an Unraveling?
In that instant, their fates flashed before my eyes. What would it be like, if the laws of the sky, land and sea suffered a backlash of pure Chaos? Blueblood trapped under a mudslide. Thunderlane sucked into the winds of a tornado. Twilight–
The air ignited. Dust covered the beach from one side to another, as I screamed and trashed and refused, forever refused, to consider how Twilight...
I could not bear it. I could not bear to see them dead. Not any of them, least of all her.
Then how will you ever save Mom and Dad, Sam? How can you ever do it without the proper sacrifice? What was the point of all this?
“...Do it.”
Thadal’s eyes bugged out of his skull, and so did those of the others. With two words, I had cast silence upon them as surely as with any spell. More so. They could not weave a counter to that.
“What?!” came the strangled cry of one Twilight Sparkle.
It should have wrenched my heart out of my chest, but I did not even react. I had died on the inside. This… this whole madness, it needed to end. No more masks. No more faking. There needed only a cold hard truth.
“Blast me. Do it, use the Elements of Harmony and defeat this threat like you did the others.”
The shout came with a staggering force. “Sam! You can't!”
The very ocean shivered on the impulse, and I looked back to the one that deserved to hear this the least.
“That's it... I... I just can't… Eric.” I closed my eyes, struggling to keep my breathing even. The words carried to him and him alone, hushed, shameful. “I can't kill them. This is what it would take to succeed. I can't kill them.”
Thadal stepped back, his eyes glazed over in sadness, and understanding. He would not intervene. He would let me make my choice. To him, this might have been the point all along.
I still didn't have a clue on what I'd done to get as good a friend as him. If the Elders were good, he'd find somepony worth the friendship the next time.
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself for what was coming. It'd probably hurt like Tartarus. I might never be freed from whatever imprisonment it'd unleash on me. That thought made me flinch, but it was nothing to fight against anymore. There just wasn't a place for a monster like me in this world.
The Elements were slow to activate this time…
Puzzled, I looked up to them, all six of those radiant mares, bathed in the morning light as even my curse to Luna faded away. They remained immobile.
“What are you waiting for?” I demanded, a spark of anger igniting in my chest. “Why are you hesitating now of all times?! This is it, you've won! Do it! ...DO IT!”
...And they still didn't gather with the Elements. For a split second, Rarity diverted her gaze away from Thadal and Rainbow Dash urgently called after Twilight, but the mares still didn't gather.
The crown on Twilight's head laid dormant and inert.
Fluttershy's and Pinkie's necklaces were flickering with a dying light.
Still the Elements didn’t ignite. Still they refused, they pitied and did nothing!
The skies above roared as the dark clouds seemed to reach for the ground. In that split second, lightning struck, and my voice bellowed above the thunder. “DON'T YOU REALIZE WHAT I JUST ASKED YOU TO DO?!”
What I hadn’t realized before however was that my storm clouds had gradually dissipated – not reaching, breaking – , blown away or dispersed by the explosions and the lack of power I could afford to put in them. It had made the beach bathe in new light. It had allowed somepony to stir from their slumber.
The bubble should have silenced most noises.
I still should have heard the bed creak and the puzzled groan that came out. I should have heard the mumbled noises, the incoherent grunts that came with his awakening. But I hadn't.
“Sam?”
The crimson eyes that stared at me burned me worse than Judicium ever could.
“Tom...” and I could not say anything else.
Did he hear everything?
Did he hear me say I wanted it to end? That I could not do it, even for him?
Traitor.
My breath itched in my throat, and I backed away. I scrambled away from my worst fear coming to life. I had done it. In a moment of weakness, I'd given up on them for my own selfish needs.
In the back of my mind, I heard something crack.
How dare you? growled the man I used to be. HOW DARE YOU?! YOU PROMISED HIM!
I promised to take him home. Did I forget his sadness? Did I forget his tears in the dark, his cries for our parents to be back? “What would you do if his happiness was at stake?” I had asked, and the answer had been clear as day. Anything. Everything.
Too weak.
A true big brother would have done it. Someone who cared about him would have. Thadal had followed me down this path of Tartarus without hesitation. Why… why hadn't I been able to do the same?!
Because I could remember a lost filly smiling at me. Because I could remember the pride in my chest when a silly prince felt unworthy despite saving a whole town through his bravery. Because I had found love and friendship with too many ponies not to care.
Because I could not kill any of my family, and this silly, stupid stallion had a bigger family than he had dared admit.
Betrayer. Oathbreaker. It was all your parents asked of you. Just to be there. And you couldn’t even be bothered to care. You gave it to strangers! See that? See that in Tom’s eyes? It’s his trust being betrayed. It is everything you promised not to do, not to be.
The crack spread from horn to hooves. With a low hissing screech, it widened through the corners of my mind. I had failed him. I had failed him so thoroughly. The promises made struck, the oaths, the sworn words, struck and struck again until it all came crumbling down.
Traitor.
I wasn't good enough for you, Tom.
“Sam?”
Thadal – Eric – my friend – looked at me in concern, but without judgment. Perhaps it was hope, the sliver of light that seemed to gleam in his eyes then. His hoof brushed against my shoulder, tried to support me, but he retracted it, uncertain.
He didn't judge... that was the worst part. He didn't begrudge how utterly I failed everyone that mattered.
Father, you must be so ashamed...
Hot molten magic poured into my veins, gathered at the tip of my horn. Thadal's body vanished and reappeared in his place in the circle. The words died on his lips. He merely looked down at himself, at his new position, and the question came from Tom.
“What's going on?”
Lightning struck, its light blinding and its noise so loud as to shatter everypony's trance.
The girls broke away from their puzzlement. They gasped. They saw, and the realization was terrible, the proponents of the ritual almost completed, missing but one thing.
Me.
Grinning, my eyes cold.
I sprinted. My hooves beat against the sand of the beach, each step bringing us closer to Equestria's devastation. The girls gasped again, a second shocked enough to freeze, and so much time in just that.
I galloped. I ran, because I could not turn to air. They truly might not have the time to react. It was all so clear to me.
Rainbow Dash's wings flapping uselessly, her first instinct to block my path herself. Rarity calling the others to use the Elements, true panic oozing from her voice void of its usual accent. Fluttershy closing her hooves over her necklace, praying. Pinkie and AJ holding Rainbow back, so the Elements could be used. And Twilight, crowned, crying.
Her Element ablaze.
A rush of warm air washed over me when the circle in the sand was but three steps away.
Something like a smile twisted my lips.
Twilight and the others were finally ready to use the Elements. They would do what was necessary for their own, just like I had wanted – and failed – to do for mine. Each shade of colored light cast their power over the beach, glowing as would a second sun in the middle of the day. They wouldn’t be able to stop anymore.
But I could.
There wasn't time for the ritual to trigger. I'd have needed to put down my hooves in the circle and speak the spell. There would never be enough time for this. All I could do was stop outside the barrier we had erected ourselves.
At the very least, I wouldn’t endanger anypony else if I was turned to stone. I alone deserved that fate.
I cast one – last? – look to my little brother, whom upon sight of the rainbow light had jumped off the bed and galloped to the wind barrier. His hooves beat upon the frontier between us, his calls for my name tearing off something inside me. That much, I never wanted him to be made a witness to. I'd dry his tears, I'd make him smile again… I'd give him our parents back, if it hadn't been linked to so much bloodshed.
“Close your eyes, Tom…”
My hooves dug deep into the sand when the Elements struck. It didn't hurt. I could even manage a smile, strained. That little lie turned the light harsher, burning. The fragment that was Father in the cape seized, its power rushing in a desperate, futile, effort to protect me. Still now...
“I… I…” Gritted words, half chopped by the effort to hold it back, just for a few more seconds. “Sorry. I failed you. I failed everyone.”
The mask broke apart, splintered from top to bottom, and the power of the cape vanished. Father's voice became quiet to me.
The light surrounded me.
I saw a shadow.
And knew no more.
--
Father? Came the first thought, and together with it, Mother?
There had been an alicorn. My consciousness clung to the image that had been shown to me. A little colt, staring up a tall and regal alicorn. Their coat had been a piece of the clearest day sky, covered in stars as if night had fallen over it. Their mane and tail had been light, broken down. Their mane had been the light.
A name flashed in my mind, and I awoke with a gasp.
“HARMONY!”
My cry echoed through nothing. Black emptiness stared back.
A point twinkled unto the horizon. The most meager of light, a flickering flame atop a candle. And from it span everything. Waves upon waves of colors flooded my sight, washed over me. First yellow, then red and orange, violently shoved aside by blue, overtaken by purple.
Shapes formed by their clashes, joining in on the violence, sometimes
For a split second, the colors merged together, stopped their senseless fighting, and the shape almost looked equine. I stared as a horn formed at the tip of a forehead the color of a clear blue sky, and from it, the whole color spectrum emerged. The explosion rippled through the air, the land and the water, and blasted apart the Chaos.
I fell backward, suddenly aware of silly things like balance and body. The world of Chaos tilted under-over me, until I collided knee first into a solid bloc of violet.
A groan escaped my mouth as I remembered what pain felt like. And quickly, memories of mere moments ago came flooding back.
Sorry, Thadal. I really hope they don't blast you too.
“You wouldn't deserve it,” I sighed, disheartened, before letting my gaze wander to my surroundings. “Why am I back here? Why did Harmony…?”
Well, I have just been hit by their holy artifacts in the mortal world.
It figured that I would be left stranded somewhere like this. Back to where I came. The place of birth of the Ventus Vinco side of me. The Chaos Realm.
...And in my birthday suit too.
I had no clothe, but I wasn't quite furless either. Patches of golden hair covered some of my limbs, some spots of skin while other remained naked. A small tingling spark seemed to just run over my skin, itching like mad.
But try to scratch with a fingerless hand. Or a fingerful hoof.
The grimace that naturally came to me stopped when the twist of my lips sent a jolt of pain through my cheeks. The bones weren't aligned right. Elders… running my palm over my face felt like a bumpy ride. A very bumpy one. Hard to tell where the nose started and where the muzzle ended.
A shape on the ground took on a reflective silver for the briefest moment, to be helpful. I winced at the image it gave out, and a sordid laugh echoed around me.
Alicorn-human hybrids were by far the most hideous creatures I had ever seen. Yeah, I could see why even non-sapient colors would mock me. There was sin against nature, and then there was what I was. Some bone structures, some organs and some colors just did not agree with one another.
Eh, I did consider myself to be neither one or the other. Guess I was more right than even I had thought...
“Hello, little cutie,” said a voice like the chime of a thousand bells.
My tail twitched, and I whirled on myself to face the voice. I fell flat on my face, quite at the right moment to see how the power of those few words carried through a dimension as alien as this one.
A rush of colors, beneath me, changed through pulses, flowing as fluids despite not existing as matter. Slowly, they slid off the surface I was standing on, revealing a sail of leather the dimensions of a house. Despite myself, my legs moved to carry me away from this sudden change.
But five pillars, bone-like and linked between each other by barriers of the same material, rose from the sea of colors and cut off my escape.
It would have been futile, regardless of my lack of coordination. The skies tilted sideways, then back into places. With one thing different, beneath the massive rising columns of colors.
That was a head.
Blue, but a luminescent, pale shade. Translucent, allowing glimpses of a skull too perfectly round for a truly living creatures. And eyes, eyes that were suns, or stars, two circles of yellow light. They rose as the head rose, beyond my perch, looming over me with all the weight of their radiance.
A leg-arm tried to shield my eyes, but the sheer volume of matter displaced by the giant's stand forced it away.
Beneath the jellyfish-like head hung a reptilian jaw, a forked tongue slithering out and back in in a blink, enough to lick the air – and it sent a pang of pain throughout my limbs, as if a cold and slimy thing had seeped inside me.
I… I could barely see under its giraffe neck. The thought to lean over the edge of its palm where I looked no bigger than a bug did not register. Even holding onto those towers – fingers –, I could not...
In response to the giant's appearance, my mind abruptly shut down its higher functions, leaving a single intelligent reply. “What.”
“What a sexy creature you are, Ventus.” A thin bat-like finger ran up my chest to just under my chin, while a shiver went down that height till it reached my feet. And yet, the great glowing eyes betrayed nothing of the discomfort they could witness. Rather... her voice seemed filled to the brim with amusement. “You wouldn’t consider staying in the Chaos Realm with me, would you?”
“You being…?” I let my voice trailed off, racking my brain for more information on this… well, being, but I came up with nothing. My guts were screaming, my instinct was flaring into high alert, yet I could not tell why I felt suck familiarity toward her.
“My name is Pandora Chaotix Elena Relentel Schpritza Ragnarok Nana Ot.”
Something went off in my brain.
“You just strung a couple of names along, didn’t you?” I deadpanned.
A strange sound echoed, and to my shock, I didn’t feel the familiar sound waves running through my body. The noise echoed, somewhat strangled and highly crystalline, with even a metallic taint to it. I… that was the closest my brain came to associate it.
Another shiver went down my spine.
The serpent jaw moved again, and the chime of bells suddenly resembled a whale's melody. “Shouldn’t you be too worried about the fact that a goddess of chaos holds you in her paws to be a smartass, little alicorn?”
Yes, intellectually, I should have been terrified to be at the mercy of the being who had started the whole ‘Order vs Chaos’ conflict. But somehow, in my heart, there was nothing but a sea of peace at the thought of her power over me. The core of the spell hadn't disappeared. I was still, deep down, a child of Chaos. The truth however was that it wouldn't have mattered regardless.
I had tried. I deserved whatever I would get for that, whatever they decided it to be.
But I had tried, and the thought was equally comforting and strangling.
Raising my deformed arms up, I made a show of putting them well in Pandora's line of sight. “You know, I didn’t think I still qualified as an alicorn.”
“That’s an interesting question, Samuel.”
Perhaps. I could admit the hideous reflection I still had in mind did make me curious.
“Who…” No, no that wasn't quite right, now. “What am I? Everything I’ve ever heard or seen tells me that I’ve gone against everything alicorns are meant to be.”
Her head tilted, just a hint, but at her size, the whoosh of air threw me back several feet back.
“Are you so sure?” she asked, and in my mind conjured the image of a mouth full of fangs. “The spell my little brother used creates an alicorn and retroactively modifies history to fit its target in the books and memories of the world. Once it is done, the spell integrates itself into your very soul, and fades off. What of it doesn't qualify you, your brother or your friend?”
An ancestral indignation rippled through me, and my words seemed laced with a fire not my own. “Alicorns are creatures of Order!”
Pandora gave pause. Her soft luminescent eyes bore into me, seeming to ponder the sincerity of my statement, or my knowledge of the truth. “They’re creatures of duty.” She spelled out the word as if foreign to her. “Of a single-minded goal that they all chose, if only by their conditioning. And you chose differently. You lost your grasp on your True Name, and you rebuilt yourself into this shadow that clung to what you were perceived as. You chose a duty unlike any alicorn before you. Because you used to be human.”
“Do I really qualify as that?” I bit between my teeth.
She spoke slowly, “Do you?”
I frowned. Parts of me thought she was simply curious, but something in her tone made me lean toward a sincerity unlike her brother's. Truth never befell Chaos. Compassion and sympathy however had been born from her actions.
The reflex to lie returned, but I refused. Not here, not after everything. “I’d… I’d like for my parents to see both their sons come back as what we were before we left. I don’t want the changes be nothing but a reminder of our disappearance to them.” The idea pushed a laugh out of me. Had I not told the exact opposite of that to Eric? “So I guess the answer would be... I don't know, but I hope so. Enough for them to be appeased. Let them think me changed by the experience, but still their son. I know Tom still can be, given the chance.”
“But not you?” She asked, and when I shrugged helplessly, the lightness of her voice left. “So you do not care to be human for yourself.”
“I was willing to become a monster for this – and I’m still not sure I haven’t become one just because I failed. It’s why I could risk Reality itself to bring us back to them. I threw that all away for their sake. It’s all that matters to me anymore.”
Pandora became silent. For a time, if such a thing mattered in her realm. I could not feel my heartbeat nor my own breathe in this place. But she paused and the skin on her head took on a purple hue.
“Is it?”
Two insidious words. Doubts.
My last moments in Equestria forced themselves back to the front of my mind. The defeated confession, the bristled anger, my last manipulation. And the lie came with such ease, “Yes.”
The sting of the orange light ran across my skin and my fur. Was there no rest for me, not even after I had been exiled through Harmony's power?
“What of your alicorn parents?” asked Pandora with a wry tone. “Are they not worthy of your devotion as well?”
“Of course they are.” I rolled my eyes at such an obvious question. “They put up with me for four hundred years, give them a medal.”
“I would, but I have a feeling that they would not like a medal given to them by me.”
“...Please don’t make puns,” I deadpanned. No, this was just too surreal. Beings as vast and unchanging as Eternity should not be making bad puns.
Pandora raised a delicate eyebrow she didn't have, somehow, the resemblance in that gesture with Celestia's startling me silent. “Joy and laughter are mine to do with as I please, Samuel. It is my present of Harmony, as Honesty was Judicium's.”
I did not see that... “Please, no more of this regardless.” I gave a helpless shrug. “Not everyone has the same idea of what is funny. You made sure of that, didn't you?”
At this, Pandora seemed thoughtful, and, if her jaw had not been a snake's, I could have sworn it would have formed an incredulous smile. “You have quite refined your manipulations, haven't you, Samuel?”
I gave a mocking bow and lost balance as my hoof failed to fold as my foot did. There, splayed in the palm of her hand, I sighed and rolled onto my back. “You made it possible. I played on what emotions I knew were in some ponies, hid my own under facades and the like until there was nothing behind my own face, Great Mother.”
The great pillars of leather and bone shivered, the vibration reaching my bones, and a single one slowly folded. Its shadow first obscured my chest, then my face and I stared as the lone digit delicately pushed the tip of my muzzle-nose. “You truly are a child of mine. My little brother gave me a truly heartfelt present in this.”
The corners of my mouth twisted into the beginning of a snarl. “Do not...” I choked and the words came again in a lower, darker growl. “Do not praise him for this.”
This time, I was certain she had smirked.
“Should I praise Magnus and Atonie for raising the shadow in your memory?”
I almost felt them, lingering over my cheeks, the nuzzles they had given to the little colt I had been. Perhaps it had been real. The Spell had always only followed the most probable path. It would have happened.
Yes, Pandora, praise them. They deserved better of me.
“They are pained about this, Samuel.”
The muscles in my jaw tightened. I know.
“Why do you call me that?” I looked back to her, seemingly calm.
“Are you genuinely curious or do you simply wish not to delve on certain things?”
It reminded me of Celestia, the curt cutting strength of her words. She was not afraid to demand that I look through my own heart. She knew it better than I did.
I shrugged as if that was not the most insolent thing to do to your literal deity and liege lady. “Both, I’ve learned there is often more than one reason to do something.”
Her reply was short and unforgiving. “Ignoring pain does not make it go away.”
I hid the pinch of my heart with a clumsy grin. “But it does make it easier to deal with.”
“No. It doesn't,” she said, her voice harsh and colder than the heart of the windigoes' power.
The ground beneath me shook, her palm trembling with the root of Anger that birthed within the Elder of Chaos. The colors of the realm stilled, and turned from the most vivid and explosive colors to a grim gray. And they darkened further, from the gray of steel into the shades of the storm brewing within and without Pandora.
The realm of madness, of change, immobile through the will of Emotions.
The shine of her eyes pierced right through me. My knees gave out.
And she spoke further, each sound sharp as if trying to claw at my skin and strip me bare. “Had you succeeded, the tear in the fabric of that realm would have caused serial earthquakes, tornadoes, tropical storms, sandstorms and tsunamis. Fifty-two towns would have been at a direct risk of being destroyed. Twenty-six more would have been at risks of collapsing in that vacuum. The instability could have caused an economical crisis in the four dominant nations, Equestria included. The ripples would have carried throughout the rest.”
I know. Stop talking, please, I already know.
The immensity of it had been laid bare to me before. I did not need the details on how and when. The bottom line had been that any number of innocents could be stricken dead purely because of me. The names had not mattered.
“I could hear them, Pandora,” I whispered. “I told Applejack the same thing. It's as if no one believes that I grasped what I was doing. I could feel them breath. I could differentiate each one by scent alone. Most thinking creatures lives within my true form.”
Even that, Pandora took away. “You did not grasp what you were doing until the very end. To bring any soul to Vitam Mortem is an act beyond pure rationals. You must come to term with the primal emotions within you first, one way or another, and you refused.”
The sight of her blurred, and a choked sound was all I could form. I should have been able to. They needed us to come back. If it meant killing
Violet.
Twilight, Celestia, Blueblood, Thunderlane.
Luna, Rarity, Applejack, Rumble.
Spike, the Cakes' twins, Scootaloo.
Anypony, anygriffon, anything, anyone.
I should have been able to do it. Caelum had it right. Fracture your soul, then assassinate the obstacles without hesitation.
But he lost, didn't he? replied the part most me.
“When he cried, when he said he missed them… I just could not ignore that. I never could. My memories were in shambles, our past was a guideline at most, but Tom... Tom was the one person I swore I would never let down. If it had been his survival on the line–” Equestria would be ashes.
“You would have gone ahead.” Why that part alone seemed not to displease her, I would never understand. “The core of Chaos, the part of the spell fused within your soul, it would have been consumed. You were right in that. You would have lost most of the parasitic memories, as well as those they had latched onto. On the other hand, your friend and your brother would have reached your world mostly intact, though I believe Calx Iugum would have been rather distressed by your state of being. His memory would not have failed him. You would have saved him indeed. He would have hated it.”
I could not even begrudge the sarcastic bite in her words. The horror behind her words had struck me speechless. It would have been as I had promised, saving him regardless of what it would do to me. But the cost of it, shoved onto Eric and Tom? My atrocity, their burden?
The thought sickened me.
“Sending him alone or with Thadal Fragor,” Pandora added in the tone of musing, “well, he would have made the trip. You, however, would never. And he would understand why. The glimpse of the mortal world still slip throughout the frontiers. He would have been witness to your demise.”
How many times would she force me to imagine Tom's sorrow? “Why… why do you keep telling me this?”
She went on, dismissing my question without a notice. “You could have spent more time gathering power, extracted a promise out of a centaurian warlock to siphon chaotic magic out of my brother and fueled the Spell. Judicium would have stopped you before you could do anything. Or your marefriend, whichever found you first.”
The world shook again as her right shoulder turned, and within view came the arm of a dragon ending with a hand like the one holding me. I stared, my guts twisting, as the impending shadow blotted out much of the sky, and one bone-like appendage closed the distance between us.
Pandora's voice rang like a chime again, and it was not without pity, “You were right. There was no path that led to a victory. Not from that point on.”
The tip of her finger plunged into my forehead.
I felt no pain.
I blinked and saw Pandora's misshapen face still looking down, a hint of melancholy to her gaze. Her right arm had fallen to the side.
Wait, why do I think it's 'fallen'? She only used the left to hold me so far, there's...
I…
She was talking. Pandora had been talking to me. When did I fall on my ass? I was standing, and we were…
Words failed me. I could not find any, and I shot a puzzled, baffled look to my patron deity. Pandora remained silent, for a time. Her serpent's jaw lowered, and out came a sigh. Little of her was known to me, but I could recognize the look of the guilty. What did she do?
“Pandora,” I called again, wary.
The tall tower-like fingers around me clenched slightly. “...I have had a talk with Harmony, Samuel. And though it saddens me to admit it, we agreed that some feelings must run their course, then be calmed down. Doubts and guilt have been guides to you. No more.”
And on the cue of that solemn declaration, the air shifted. Chaos subdued, subject to the greater will. It required nothing but a thought of her, and the towers that were her fingers tilted inward. The colors parted at the tip of each one, yellow breaking for the trails of sky blue. Shades within shades swirled, and spread beyond their place into the rest of the realm.
A shiver made every hair on my body stand straight up. “W-what are you doing?”
“You've lost doubts. There is still another. I take no pleasure in doing this…” Her eyes narrowed. “...But there are no other options for you. Alicorns were not meant to be like you. They should not be of Chaos. There is too much turmoil in your soul, Samuel. Human or alicorn, of harmony or of chaos... it should never be so. This conflict is tearing you apart, and innocents you should safeguard with it. One side must run its course, then fade.”
Her leather skin rose up around me, walls of flesh to ensnare me. The second my naked wing brushed against it, fear burst through my mind. She wouldn't kill me, but she would kill a part of me. She said she would force me to be at peace, to forget one side… but which?
Would I stop caring about Tom? He stood at the root of this, but I couldn't! I had to look after him! It was my responsibility, he was stuck in Equestria without our parents. She couldn't make me abandon him! ...Could she? That sliver of doubt alone crushed the remainders of acceptance I had toward my fate. But my frantic, panicked looks around gave me no way out. Pandora held me in the palm of her hand. I never had the option in the first place.
“Pandora, don’t do this!” I begged. “Please, stop!”
The last of the light faded out as her hold closed over me with a deafening thunderclap.
And in the encroaching darkness that soon engulfed me, a part of me noticed the great irony that even Pandora herself could be made to act against her feelings. It was the last conscious thought I had before I heard her voice echo and fade.
“Good luck.”
--
What took hold of my senses first was not the sudden anchor to my body, the feeling of standing on solid ground instead of the maddened realm's liquid land… it was the plain-looking bed right next to me. It wasn't a bed for an alicorn.
I let out a quiet chuckle, half of it sobs… Are you so cruel, Pandora?
She sent me back on Earth.
And not just anywhere either. This was our home, our fucking home!
Things blurred for a moment, vertigo pulling at my head and my arms. This was way too much… after everything… This was too akin a dream, it couldn't be real. Not Tom, not Eric, but me?!
I lost my balance, the floor seeming tilted suddenly. Purely on reflex, I put my hands in front of me, but I needed not bother.
My whole body went straight through the wall. The room slid past my eyes as I stumbled into the hallway, one knee to the floor. Slowly, I brought my hand up, and stared. Was that… a trace of green over my palm? Right… right where the motif was green, on the wall behind my hand.
A bitter taste filled my mouth. I was not home. Not truly. An apparition, perhaps?
Of course not… Why would I have been rewarded?
I took one good look around me, and with it, absorbed everything about the sight. There was nothing to my eyes that could confirm this was indeed home, if not the longing feeling that had seized my chest.
Is this my punishment? To live home as a shadow and see what I failed to save?
Or a breeze. Maybe. It seemed the kind of irony – the poetic justice – brought about by the Elements of Harmony. A moon for Luna, a statue for Discord. Air for me. But there lacked something… something disquieting, I could not put my finger on it.
But I forgot about it on the spot as my ears caught the noise of dishes dropped in a sink. For a moment, I stared ahead, down the hallway – left, I remembered that much. A strange apprehension ran through my veins, my heart thrummed to disbelief and hope. But my legs carried me there all the same, running.
I had had a dream of this kitchen. A figment of memory, of the same narrow chairs, of that big brown wooden table, of the counter and the dripping of black coffee into a heavy cup. And my presence then had felt less a dream than this was. At the table sat one that had not turned at my approach, lost to her woes.
A figure shrunken on herself, black of hair, a raven black, the same as Tom's. She looked so small, so unlike the last of what I remembered. Before the loss had set into her as lines carved on her face. I did not remember so many wrinkles near her eyes, around her mouth.
“...Mom?” I croaked, and the word died out without an answer.
No, she would not have heard me. I sat down through the chair's back, looked at her and she didn't notice. Her eyes merely fixed her trembling hands, and the little white bottle in their grasp. I swallowed at the sight.
The cork unscrewed with a loud 'pop'. A round green pill fell into her hand.
Mom frowned.
Another pill fell off the shaken bottle.
Three or four or five or six. She tilted her hand and the bottle toward one another quickly, her brows furrowed together, her gaze steely and focused entirely on those little things in her palm.
How many was she taking?
“Mom… Mom, please...”
I swallowed thickly as I stared at this shadow of my mom. Even with so little left of her image, I knew... I just knew how low she had fallen because of our disappearance. She'd never been the sturdiest, what's with her petite frame, but there had been strength in her.
What strength she had took on the form of little green pills.
I couldn't… I could never accept that! Not for her or for him. I did this to them.
“Mom, Dad, I… I’m really sorry. You must think I’m the most unworthy son to ever walk down the earth. I wanted… I wanted to glue our family back together, but I ended up destroying it beyond repairs. I… I tried. I know it means very little, but I tried my very best. It just… wasn’t something within reach. I'm sorry. We're not coming home.”
My words fell in silence. I would have spoken more, if I hadn't needed a moment to push down the knot tying my throat.
Dad's back remained facing me, his large arms describing slow motions as he scrubbed plates in the sink. Nothing changed. Dismay gripped me. So this was how things would unfold, eh?
Pandora, you cruel bitch.
“It’s the last time we talk; I think I know why too. I… well, I may have gotten into trouble to do the right thing and it completely backfired on me. Remember the frog incident? Well, yeah, sorta like that, but with less fire-extinguishers and more evil from beyond the stars.” Feeling like such a little kid again, I just couldn’t help scratch the back of my head. Could ghosts blush? “Long story short, I made a really big mistake to help Tom – and Eric too, though that part you might not care as much –, but I probably just ended up putting myself in real danger.”
A knot of pain tied up my tongue. How gentle the words I used, so little like the true horror of my choices. I had… I had tried to get us back here by risking the lives of every single living being in a whole dimension. W-what kind of… of person was I?
A monster… And an idiot who wanted his family back.
“This… I got hit by the Elements of Harmony, sorta like the Death Star of the pony world, except with less death and more friendship. There was this thing in the middle of the rainbow – it looked like an alicorn, but I don’t think you know what that is – and I got to see you too…”
Invisible tears started drizzling down my eyes.
“It’s kinda easy to see why, too. Gotta give some people closure, that’s what Pandora meant. Make it a bit more attuned to Harmony. And… and… it’s pretty damn unfair that I’m the one that gets this chance. Out of everyone? Really? I-it should have been Tom…”
My body felt so heavy. My head hung low, too low for me to see them. All I could see was the lines of dark and light brown wood that made up our dining room table. And even those had started to blur.
Tom… What would happen to him now? He had centuries of foalhood ahead of him, and it was impossible to send him back on the Astral Planes with Father and Mother. Though not as strong, the Chaos within him would block his way back to them. The Elders would see to that.
This was our only chance to be all reunited. And it wasn't going to happen.
Because I failed. Because I gave up.
And the thought came to me, unbidden in self-loathing, that I had traded my family's happiness for those of strangers. A bitter chuckle rose from my lungs, and I stretched my neck against into the chair's back to look at the ceiling. For all those lives. Isn't it the better thing? Wasn't it right in the end?
The memory of Twilight's smile brought forth a twitch of pain in my chest. It was something empty, tasteless and Elders, I didn't want it. Remembering what couldn't be led to this disaster. For a split second, it was almost enough to make me want a second chance.
“Bladey wouldn't want that, would he?” repeated Pinkie's shaking voice.
“Of course not,” I growled, dropping my head into my hands. “The little brat would never accept harm on the innocents. Why do you think he hates bullies so damn much? He's just that kind of boy. I didn't want to tell him, because I didn't want him hating me!”
You'd burn every bridge, lil' brother. You'd hate me and yourself for letting it happen, if you're feeling down. And that, I won't allow. Not for you... nor them.
I cast a solemn look over my parents. “I love you.” They did not react. “I-I love you all s-so much! Please... please, listen. Just this once...”
Cold started to seep through my feet. And it was climbing up my body.
“I can’t tell you two enough how much I love you! I was trying… Sometimes I lost sight of this, but I really was doing everything I could think of to get Tom safely back here, s-so we… we could be a family again.”
Nothing. The clock kept on ticking, tick, tock, tick. The water fell lazily into the sink, rinsing a plate of its bread crumple. Dad didn't look back. No word. Silence. And the sensation struck me at my soul; it was the first time, since becoming an alicorn.
My eyes fell on my right hand, which I turned and rose over my head. It shielded me not from the kitchen’s light bulb radiance, my hand’s transparency more than enough of a reminder of what I was. Who would look at a ghost?
It finally hit me in full. I barely resisted the urge to sniffle, to sob and just cry for them to see me, hear me, touch me. They were there, right in front of me, I could feel the heat of their bodies, but a wall stood between us, unbreakable. I wanted to hear them one last time, to replace that memory of their screams with something peaceful, something… something happy…
And they would never even know I’d been here…? This was too cruel. Their one chance! And they would never realize.
Pandora, more time! Please, give me more time!
I stood with such strength my chair fell backward, and I drove my fists into the table with a burning desperation. “Let them know, Pandora!” I struck again, harder, the table shaking on its legs with the blow. “In the name of children lost and families shattered, for broken love and lost chances, I will become your servant now and forever if you do this for them!”
The clock ticked, the dour morning songs faintly echoed from the living room, and I sank to my knees. What little courage I had summoned broke apart again.
“…Please, I'll give you everything,” I begged. “They never deserved this despair.”
But I did, whispered a harsh voice in the back of my head. This is my punishment. The last chance thrown away, the last of my hopes crushed.
And gently, I began to drift away, the feeling of my body already dulling. The shape of my hands wavered as ice crawled upon my legs. I could not find the will to fight it anymore.
It was alright.
I deserved this.
“Samuel?” said a voice to shatter that idea.
The voice of a woman, but not Pandora's.
She... she was looking at me.
Everything came pouring out.
“I’m here, Mom! I’m so sorry I was so harsh to you! I should have been stronger! Instead, I ended up blaming you! But you’re not at fault! I never thought that for more than a second when I was the single most self-centered piece of trash on the planet! Tom longs for you every day and so do I! You’re our mother and we’ll never stop loving you! I just hope you can one day forgive me for doing this to you! So please, please, don’t give up now! Forget the lies I was weak enough to speak and fight. You can’t give up! You’re stronger than that!”
There was a scrambling noise, small and barely worth notice, but in the oppressive silence that reigned upon the house, it felt the crackling of thunder, cascading in the bouncing of half a dozen pills.
Mom let out a short cry of surprise as she stood, her eyes wide – and so shortly brimming with light. Her bottle of pills had fallen to the side on its own.
From her perspective.
I nearly didn’t hear it, frozen as I was, with one phantom hand lying through the bottle and the table. That word. Broken. Hoarse. Asking so many things.
“Linda?”
Dad had turned and I saw what he had become, what our disappearance had done to him in turn. His cheeks were marred by an unkempt beard, eating at the roughness of his traits. Bags dug dark lines under his eyes, but the ones he trailed on Mom at the moment were vivid, alert.
Hopeful, as they flickered to the spilled medication on the table, and Mom’s lack of attempts to get them back. The hint of a smile that nearly came to his lips broke something in me.
I can't stay. A precious too few seconds were given to me – them –, but no longer.
The coldness was already reaching my waist. My limbs were gone beneath that point. I would fade away, I imagined.
I didn’t want to leave them! Not again! Not so soon! My hands kept going through their bodies. We were literally inches away from each other and they were still beyond my reach!
I'd be gone, and they would never know we were alright. They'd never see Tom again. He'd never...
Tom's tears-stricken face flashed into my eyes and I fell onto my knees screaming. Why?! Why couldn't I have done it?! It should be him here!
“Sam…?”
I looked up so quickly I felt pain spear through my neck, above the faint lullness that was reaching my shoulders. He had stumbled on the word, alert as if he had heard me.
“Dad, you can’t blame yourself for this! Not even gods could bring us back and you were a goddamn better inspiration for me too! When I needed to be strong, it was you that came to mind! You were the best father we could ask for! I’ll make sure Tom grows up into the kind of man you can be proud of!”
His eyes flickered to me, the last of sleep fading away as my ghostly presence seemingly affected him.
“I'm so sorry... I failed you both. I failed Tom and Eric and you and... and this is goodbye.”
“James...” Mom called, as if needing help believing.
My senses dulled and my parents’ forms became blurry, but my heart was burning with a mad hope. I had to say it; I had to get through to them! “Be happy! Please, come to love and appreciate life again! We’ll be fine! We’ll keep each other safe and happy! I’ll do everything in my power so he remembers you, so he grows up like he would have with you! And he’ll be happy! Just promise me you’ll do the same! Promise me you’ll try!”
The cold crawled up my eyes. Things were fading into the darkness. I could no longer see them.
I fought against it, struggling like a madman for just a few more instants with Mom and Dad. A sense of weightlessness hit me, my feet no longer touching ground, a pair of claws around my midsection pulling me back.
I threw my arm forward, just for one last chance to reach to them. “WE LOVE YOU!”
My hands brushed against nothing, the cold reaching the tip of my fingers with one last tingle, one last sensation before it ended.
And in the boundless abyss that swallowed me, the miracle happened, in but the echo of a few words whispered together.
“We love you too.”
Light came.