Shadow's Note: I completely apologize for the inconvenience. In my OCD stupor of having everything in order, I had to switch the chapters. If you've read this chapter, than skip it. If not, then read on, my dear reader.

XXI - Painful Bonding

Praxis Arc: Part I

The shock of my words were vicious hornets to Jace, stinging him with deadly speed and potency. Celestia’s old and healed wounds of emotion appeared to have reopened at the memory of the incident, and my words were salt in the incisions.

“Well, this only happens in the nighttime, right?” Jace asked me. I nodded in response “Then keep the sun up all the time. I know the panic that will ensue across Equestria, but if we don’t, the world will be destroyed. If it’s this bad already, think of what will happen in two months.”

“Pfft, too late.” I was skeptical as I continued. “The latest my death will happen will be a little bit before the Apocalypse, by maybe a couple of days. Earliest? Half of that. And if I don’t follow through with your plan, Jace, and we don’t stop him, then we can kiss our asses goodbye.”

“And besides, if I leave the sun up for far too long, ponds will evaporate, crops will die, and soon, everything will just die faster,” Celestia argued.

“Damnit....” I could read Jace’s emotions as he swore and muttered under his breath. I knew he was nervous. Scared. Frustrated. Infuriated. He was many things, a huge melting pot of innumerable polar emotions. I could barely decipher all of them. But I knew how he felt currently, for his troubles are like mine. He lost Coal, I lost `Emad. He was going to lose me, and I, him. Vinyl would lose us, and us, her. And on the day the Moon of Destruction comes, we were all going to lose... everything.

I gave off a yawn, covering my widely-opened mouth with my left hand. “I’m beat, man. I tried to sleep last night, but because I was a weresatyr, I don’t get tired. I don’t know why... ‘creature of the night’ status?”

“Indeed so.” Celestia walked back into her palace. “I believe that Praxis earned some sleep today.” She rounded on Jace. “Do you agree, Jace?”

“I... yeah. You go get some sleep. Tomorrow, when the Calling Card is fixed, Zeke will tutor you in the ways of the Reaper.”

I climbed into the huge bonsai tree that I had raised with biokinetic magic. I laid down into the huge bush of its pink leaves that saved Jace from an imminent death.

Death...huh. A funny concept, really. Simply an exhalation, a final heartbeat, a shut of the eyes, and then... what? You just drift away into the nothingness that welcomes you with open arms? And there, God simply decides whether you go to Heaven or Hell, depending on your deeds, good and bad. Even if one side is an atom’s weight more than the other, God would still decide your fate in the afterlife.

That’s kinda what I like about God the most. He’s fair in your judgement, making sure everything is accounted for. But I think He and his angels are gonna have one hell of a day when Insanity wipes us all out. The residents of Equestria and Markarth were lambs for the slaughter.

But that’s the thing about death. Normal people, or ponies, in this case, would be frightened out of their wits at the thought of dying so soon. Me? I’m an entirely different story. I feel so... indifferent. All my life, I was taught to not fear death, but to welcome it with open arms, like a brother of some sorts. I’m sure that death would’ve been a damn sight better sibling than the others that I was plagued with. The taunts, the ignorance, the arbitrary consequences... I could still hear them ringing in my ears, replaying over and over again, a single phonogram playing a broken record that no one had bothered to remove and replace.

I tentatively placed a hand on the spot where that sniper rifle bullet had ripped through the flesh of my hip back in the revolution. The actual wound had healed, of course, yet... like the wound that Rainbow Dash had inflicted upon my head, it is, has been, and will stay, a scar. It will never vanish entirely, but instead choosing to linger, forever to mar the surface of the unfortunate victim. Yet in all honesty, I don’t want these scars to fade. They are reminders. Reminders of the hate, prejudice, and greed that flows through everybody. Because whether one knows it or not, there’s always at least one of the three in someone, if not all of them.

I don’t know how long I laid there in my comfortable bush, but I had this weird inkling it had been several hours. I sat up to check the time and sure enough, the sun was slowly sinking below the horizon, finishing its solar trek across the sky. Princess Luna came out of her monolithic bedroom tower and stepped onto the adjacent balcony. She pointed her horn at the sky, and the moon rose into view, shining brightly upon the land. I saw the Curse Seal beginning to pulsate again, and I became a weresatyr once more, a black and dark purple flame shrouding me from the prying eyes of somepony as I turned over. I grit my transfiguring teeth as they became sharp again. The flames faded away, the pink leaves uncharred from the eerie magical blaze. The process seemed to be less excruciating than before, not like when the first time had resulted in me acquiring the most tremendous of migraines and the sorest of muscles and joints. Maybe an immunity to the pain of turning over has developed. Maybe I’m far too numb from the discovery that I will die to even care about the pain. Or maybe this is just Insanity’s sword, Dementia, trying to give me mercy, or false hope that I will be alright in the end, that I won’t die, that Insanity won’t eradicate us.

I was so submersed in thought and a faux pas of philosophy, that I was unaware of my singing.

“White walls surround us...
“No light will touch your face again...
“Rain taps the window...
“As we sleep among the dead...

“Days go on forever...
“But I have not left your side...
”We can chase the dark together...
“If you go then, so will I...

“There is nothing left of you,
“I can see it in your eyes,
“Sing the anthem of the angels,
“And say the last goodbye....”

I jumped at the noise. Of course the Old Equestrian Speak and the voice told me that it was Luna. Who else spoke the archaic tongue other than she and I? But she still took me by surprise, as I didn’t even hear her descend. Damn crickets... always have to be loud as humanly possible.

“We- erm, I am sorry to have startled you,” she apologized, her O.E.S - Old Equestrian Speak - abandoned as she converted to normal speech.

“You need not apologize, Princess,” I told her, turning around to face her as she landed on the soft, brightly colored leaves of the tree. She looked into my eyes, the irises as gradient and bright as fire, yet everything else doomed to be shrouded in cold blackness. She was staring deeply into the eyes of a monster. I gazed back at her eyes, instantly mesmerized by the blue irises that were as tranquil as a stream. Yet when enraged, they are as powerful and wrathful as a maelstrom-cast ocean. “And... thank you.”

“Praxis, my sister has informed me about what will happen,” she told me. “I am so sorry.” She nuzzled my cheek, her midnight blue fur stroking my heavily-marked flesh.

“Please, call me Luna.” She pulled away and sat down in a prone position next to me.

“Very well. Thank you for your sympathy, Luna. But there’s not enough sympathy in the world to stop this spiritual, physical, and mental decaying.” I looked away from her, a difficult task, to say the least. Something about those eyes just painfully reminded me of Fluttershy’s Stare, except her eyes didn’t expand and I didn’t feel every iota of me shrieking in fear. It took every fiber of my being to look away.

“Huh?” I was inwardly confused, yet I could tell by her tone that she was concerned and curious at how bland I was sounding about my death. I glanced back at her, raised eyebrow at the ready.

I let out a sigh before speaking, “I’m not afraid to die. I’ve seen so many people die, I knew that it would soon be my turn. There were times where I was actually PRAYING for death.”

“Why?” Luna put a hoof on my shoulder. “You should enjoy the very earth you walk upon, yet you wish to leave it. I don’t understand.”

“Oh, Luna.” I chuckled darkly. She didn't retracted her hoof from my shoulder, yet she seemed to be disturbed. “You don’t have to understand. You’re immortal, as is your sister. Not only that, but you two are powerful deities. If you saw my life through my own eyes, wouldn’t you want to end it all? Wouldn’t you want to do away with it if you were suffering from many prosecutors and under the rule of not one, but several older siblings?” Luna was about to retort until I cut her off. “Think about it. A flick of the knife. A little drop of poison. A spark near a gasoline pool. Only a few moments of pain and then... sweet oblivion.”

“Praxis...” Luna was past concerned and was now downright scared for me. “W...why?" I looked back into her eyes. A tear had begun welling up in her right, cornflower-blue orb.

“Believe me when I say that I know how you felt, Princess Luna, when your sister Celestia banished you to the moon for a millenium. Lonely, cold, perhaps even racked with guilt for what you’ve done. But she did it for your own good. She actually CARED for you when she did the deed. Me? Next to no one did jack shit whenever I got beaten, bullied, had things stolen from me, shot, chased, run over, aaand abused by almost all of my siblings for about half of my childhood.” Luna was appalled by how I was informing her of my misfortunes. “And that’s just the tip of the slowly growing iceberg.”

“Goodness....” Luna stared in fascination and sorrow for the creature before her. To her, history practically flowed through his veins and swam in his eyes. “Um... Praxis?”

It was not long after I started to hear sniffles from behind me that I realized something was wrong. I glanced back to see a silently crying lunar deity. Tears streaked the sides of her face, making her cheeks shine in the moonlight. I got up, and, as tenderly as I could without cutting her, gave her a hug. I held her head right underneath my neck, which was the highest her head could reach. Her horn gently nudged my fang earrings as she quietly sobbed into my chest, her tears softly landing onto her fleshy pillow. I sat down again, and she followed suit with me. She wrapped her forelegs around me. I could smell her ever-flowing mane. Black, rimmed with navy blue, containing millions of unformed constellations. It smelled pleasant... like the smell from a fully blossomed flower on the beginning of spring. “Why are you crying, Luna?”

“Why not?!” she snapped, pulling away from me as she got up. “You’re going to die soon! We befriended you, and you get taken away! Is that not true?!” I didn’t need to read her emotions to see that she was in detrimental emotional pain. She was angry, she was sad... she was like Jace, undecipherable emotions festering around inside of her.

"I dunno what I would like.... but... I’ve been thinking of this quaint little pagoda in Ponyville... exotic flowers on the entrance, paintings of my friends and I all around the walls... maybe a little portion of the roof above my grave being made of glass... so that no matter what time it is, the light will shine upon my grave. Let anypony that visits, even at night, know I’m there. I think it’d be nice if someone could sing at my funeral... a song with meaning, a song that will forever affect one’s heart for a long time.... If I could have something as nice as that... I don’t know how grateful I would be to the ponies responsible.”

Luna got awful close to me as she looked at me with a smile. "Consider it done," she whispered as she rested her head precariously on my shoulder, taking caution not to gore me with her horn. We gazed up at the moon. Already, a face had shown up. Wide and empty eyes, sharp-toothed and open mouth smile. This was the face that Jace told me about when he was taken to the Graveyard of Dreams.

“So... it begins,” I huffed. Luna grunted and nodded, her eyes leering at the abomination that Insanity had created in her beautiful lunar surface.

I begin to quiver as a gust of wind breezes by. Luna is lucky enough to have her fur. But I was fleshy...

Instinct told me to pull a SpongeBob and rip off her fur. Logic told me that if I so much as accidentally pluck one hair, the princess would vaporize me without warning.

Luna noticed me shivering. She inched closer to me again, radiating warmth and washing it over me like an electric blanket. “Would you like me to bring you something warm to wear, Praxis?” she finally asked.

“Yes, please. Thank you, Luna.” I stretched in my makeshift bed of pink leaves. Luna took to the skies towards her tower. I only had to wait a few minutes before she returned to the bonsai. In her magical grip was a small bundled pile of cloth. The actual fabrics were stacked in two rows, accompanied by a nice little black sash and a quartet of small black belts on the top. I examined it more closely in the moonlight. The top fold of fabric was also a shade of the dark and dusty tan, and the bottom cloth was black, trimmed with gold.

“I was rummaging through the old archives when I found these. You seem like such a dark creature, so I figured that this will suit you well, especially since it’s Shadow Fiber, like your jacket and muscle shirt.”

“Not when it was created eleven hundred years ago~,” she said in a singsong voice. “It was for my old general for my assassination squad, the Silent Knife. He was, as you can guess, the silent type, for the group was named after him. He barely ever talked. He was always more of a thinker and an actor rather than an actual talker.” She shook her head from how intensely she was digressing. “Well, go on. Try it!” She levitated the cloth over to me. I caught it. But my brain was shouting something was really off about this world, not like what I usually saw in the cartoon.

I blinked. A millenium-plus old piece of cloth? I don’t care if it was the nigh-indestructible Shadow Fiber, it must’ve fed billions of moths in its lifetime. And I don’t want to begin on how much dust it collected. And assassination squads? That’s what sent my opinion of Equestria being an innocent land tumbling right into the incinerator.

“So let me get this straight: in the beautiful land of Equestria, where there’s supposed to be innocence, love, and tolerance, there’s...” I paused for dramatic effect (Thank you, Rainbow Dash!) before I started ticking off Equestria’s faults on my talons. “...alcohol, mares wearing panties, and prejudice. That’s easy to shrug off. An evil god that wants to annihilate all life in this world is gonna be hard to ignore... but ASSASSINATIONS SQUADS? And the Princesses importing COSMAREPOLITANS and VODKA?” Luna was red with mortification at the mention of the two items. I got up, and looked up at the sky, my back turned to Luna. “Dear God, something is horribly, horribly wrong.”

“Just put them on.” She was laughing a bit harding, but I could detect a hint of annoyance in her tone.

“Alright, MOM. But turn around and don’t look.” She craned her head away from my general direction, giggling a little . I began removing my undershirt before my bandages. They were tinged with blood, which had dried and crusted over. A single stroke of a talon, and the bandages fell away from my body. They drifted in the wind, white long leaves tainted with brown fluttering in the breeze.

“Nothing!” I fibbed nervously, using one of the robes to cover my rear side. Luna narrowed her eyes and encased me in her blue magical aura. She used her magic to shine just a little more light out of the moon, throwing my back into relief. She turned me around and moved my arm. She gasped at the sight before her.

Scars. Scars almost everywhere. They criss-crossed, ran in parallel lines, and curved. The faint, marred flesh was shining in the intensified moonlight. Only few spots on the skin were untainted by the hideous and healed incisions.

“Praxis... please answer me!” There was force in Luna’s command. I turned around. Tears were accumulating in her eyes. I’m not sure if she really cares about me, or if she’s emotionally sensitive. As much as the former option is an enticing thing to think about, the latter was the more appropriate choice.

I unfolded the robes that Luna had given to me. The dusty tan robe shifted and twisted, welding into a wearable material for me. A large, artistically frayed flap existed on the front of the robe. One long, left sleeve was available; the other one for the right arm was vacant. It was possibly designed that way. Catching on quickly, I wrap the sash around my waist, letting the loose tied ends dangle. Luna used her magic to place the small belts around my sleeved arm. She tightened them just properly before levitating the final garment over to me. The cloak had a chained clasp located in front of where the throat would be. Like the robe, the cloak shifted and bent until it reached a spot just above the second kneecaps. The cloak came with a large hood, pointed down the middle like Ezio’s assassin robes. I pulled the hood over my head. The Shadow Fiber seemed to melt away at the spots where my horns and pointy ears were located as I brought the rim of the hood towards them. When I had pulled the hood low enough, the fabric reconnected itself, leaving clean holes were the horns and half of my ears protruded. I looked into Luna’s shining eyes, my reflection rebounded off of their reflective surfaces. The hood seemed to have some sort of magic, because the top half of my face was covered in opaque shadows. Only my orange irises shown through the deep blackness.

But alas, I could not let this new fashion statement get to me. Luna wants to know what happened. I couldn’t keep a princess waiting for an answer.

Luna hesitated before she answered. “Yes,” she finally said, giving a gulp.”

“Please sit down. But are you sure you want to know? This tale is not for the oversensitive.”

I would've begun my tale to how I had survived the hellish planet known as Earth.

I would have told Luna the terrifying tale... if Jace hadn't plowed facefirst into the bonsai tree.

Not only was that a brilliant entrance, but I was grateful. It delayed me from having to tell scary sob-stories.

Horns, Hooves, and Fur

by Deyeaz

XXI - Painful Bonding (Praxis Arc: Part I)