//------------------------------// // Unfair Payment // Story: Aria of the Abandoned // by AliziaRoElier //------------------------------// AN: Thanks to blackice and MyWorld93 for proofreading and pre-reading this story. Aria of Abandonment – Chapter 2 – Unfair Payment Sweetie’s eyes opened to bright, painful sunlight shining through her curtains. She tried to raise a hoof to her forehead, but found she couldn’t move. For some reason, this did not bother her in the slightest. Sweetie turned her head to where she remembered her pink alicorn alarm clock would be only to freeze in revulsion. Where her usually cheerful clock usually stood, a bloody and smeared hoofprint trailed its way across her bedside table. With horrified eyes, she followed the trail of blood over the edge of the table and down onto the floor. Sweetie Belle tried to scream but found herself unable to make even a whisper. She tried to get out of bed, but felt a sluggish resistance and found her body would not comply. Determination graced her features as she felt the resistance increase as she got closer to completing her task. With a final effort, Sweetie yanked her back legs out from under her blankets and swung them to the floor. She heard a wet plop as they touched the ground. Fearfully, she looked down. The bloody trail from her bedside table ended in a small pool of blood at her feet. A pool of blood she was standing in. She learned she could finally scream when her loud screeching burned through the perfect silence of the room. Almost as if her mind were waiting for this to occur, the walls of her room disintegrated at her scream and she found herself outside. She looked down to see that the bloody pool had disappeared along with the blood on her hooves. When she looked back up, there were five ponies in the distance. Sweetie felt horror welling up inside her as they came into focus and hurtled toward her. The scene stopped a few feet before her and she paled. Four fillies were fighting. Sweetie recognized Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. She cringed. The one pony at the edge of the scene scrambled between Scootaloo and the other filly. The pony turned to Scootaloo, trying to speak, when the other filly sent a vicious buck toward her head. The filly took it square in the forehead and was knocked to the ground with a thud and a sickening crack. Suddenly, the pony was at her feet and bleeding from where her horn was supposed to be. The bleeding slowly stopped flowing from the pony on the ground and started running down Sweetie Belle’s eyes, obscuring her vision. Tears began to mingle with the blood as she realized what would happen next. With a soft thud, a bloody horn landed at her hooves. The filly on the ground stared up to her with a smile that curved wider and wider and wider until the mouth opened. The music began to play… Screaming filled the ward like bright lights. Nurses rushed from every station to the room they knew the screaming would be coming from. Sweetie was sitting up in the bed, eyes filled with terror and tears streaming down her face, trying to regain her bearings in the unfamiliar hospital room. Once the first nurse had entered the room, Sweetie’s screaming began to subside into a tired sobbing. The little filly’s tears fell down her muzzle as the memories of the fight filled her mind. The scene burned itself into her mind: her desperate scrambling between Scootaloo and Silver Spoon, her intervention, and her horn. They all jumped at her, begging her attention. The group of nurses left the room slowly until only one remained. “There, there, Sweetie. It’s okay. You’re safe here.” The Nurse said kindly, sitting on the bed and pulling Sweetie Belle into a gentle hug. Sweetie’s crying slowed and softened as the nurse continued to hold her. Outside the occasional doctor would look in to check on them and leave quickly. They thought it would be best to leave the pair alone. Sweetie on her part was oblivious, slowly fighting her sniffles and calming down. She knew what she had to do next but she was scared. She didn’t want to know. “Thank you.” She said quietly. “Of course, Sweetie.” The nurse replied, “I’m Nurse Fluff. I’m in charge of the filly ward of the hospital.” Sweetie nodded into her chest and tried to gather her courage. She took a breathe. “What happened?” Sweetie asked. “Cheri brought you here as quickly as she could. Your friends followed too. She said that there had been a fight and you’d been caught in the middle…” Fluff slowed down. “What else?” Sweetie asked, knowing what was coming. “When you got here, you were nearly dead. We just barely managed to keep you stable but…” Fluff looked away, “we couldn’t re-attach your horn. It was broken at the base. We tried Sweetie, we tried. But we couldn’t. We had to make a choice – your life or your horn.” Sweetie nodded slowly. She had known. She had expected it. She had expected to be torn apart and start crying again but she couldn’t. She forced herself to remember what had occured and imagine what her life would be like. She couldn’t shed a single tear. She considered herself for a moment. It was almost as if she were too tired to care, she just wanted rest. “Your family is waiting to see you, dear.” Fluff interrupted the filly’s self-reflection. “You’ve been asleep for quite a bit.” Sweetie looked up at her - two questions were burning in her mind. She quickly decided their importance. “How long was I asleep?” “It’s been almost two weeks, dear. It was very touch and go for a while. You only just became responsive a few days ago. You were in a coma.” Sweetie nodded and fidgeted nervously, “Could I have a mirror? Before they come in?” Nurse Fluff nodded reluctantly. She was disconcerted by the filly’s reactions or rather, her lack of reaction. Sweetie was exceedingly calm. A child her age should not be so… calm and collected after her trauma. Fluff forced herself to ignore the feeling, Sweetie was just a child that had gone through extreme trauma and - everypony reacts differently to this sort of thing. Fluff reached over to the bedside drawer and opened the drawer to retrieve the standard mirror stored inside. She handed it quietly to Sweetie and watched her for her reaction. Sweetie stared at herself. There were bandages wrapped around her head, covering her ears and hair. Where her horn used to be, there was only a faint pink stain in the gauze. Nurse Fluff watched her and her feeling of unease grew more profound. Sweetie didn’t react in any of the ways she was expecting. There were no tears. No sobbing. No real reaction at all. She tried to come up for an explanation but couldn’t. Sweetie just continued to stare at her reflection with all the passion of a pony examining a puzzle. It scared the nurse. Sweetie didn’t dwell on her lack of a horn. She just felt tired. She had expected the lack of horn, but she hadn’t expected the patch of pink on her forehead. She thought she would have stopped bleeding by now. Any other time she’d been to the hospital, a more common occurrence since she’d started crusading, she’d been healed almost instantly. The unicorn doctors were always fast. She turned to ask Fluff why she wasn’t healed when she realized the nurse’s expression, one caught between unease and outright fear. Sweetie’s expression didn’t change, but her heart crumpled a bit. She knew her appearance would be disturbing but she didn’t expect the Nurse to share the opinion, especially after the nurse had comforted her. Before Sweetie Belle could speak, the door burst open and a mass of ponies clambered in loudly. “She’s awake!” two high pitched voices yelled simultaneously. Sweetie found herself buried under two excited, compulsively hugging fillies. Fluff quickly backed out of the room; she didn’t want to stay near Sweetie Belle. She felt something was wrong with her, very wrong. Sweetie was temporarily stunned by her friends’ the strong embraces, but hugged them back weakly. Her friends began to babble to Sweetie about how they were sorry and hadn’t meant for anything to happen to her. Sweetie had trouble following their frantic explanations and unbidden, a picture of Pinkie Pie jumped into her mind. She smiled and felt a bit of her energy return. “Stop. Stop.” Sweetie yelled over them. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t hurt me, Silver Spoon did.” At the sound of her name, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo scowled. “She’s not even gettin’ punished!” Apple Bloom yelled angrily. “Neither is Diamond.” Scootaloo muttered, “Miss Cherilee explained to the policeponies what happened but somehow, their daddies found out before them. They forced the policeponies to leave them alone.” Sweetie shook her head angrily and immediately regretted it when she felt a wave of nausea and almost passed out. She groaned quietly and quickly laid back down. “What’s been happening?” Sweetie asked, hoping to distract them before they could notice her distress. “Scootaloo’s expression cleared quickly, “Well, we still don’t have our cutie marks yet but we…” Cherilee, Rarity, and Sweetie’s parents sat side-by-side in the waiting room outside the foal ward. They’d heard the fillies call out to them that Sweetie was awake and would have rushed to her room had they not been forbidden to see her. They glared at the pony that was stopping htem from seeing Sweetie with venom only a basilisk could match. Twilight Sparkle sat across from them, speaking determinately, refusing to back down in the face of their combined glares. “You can’t see her yet. Princess Celestia gave me specific instructions. Princess Luna needs to see her before you all can. I’m sorry but I can’t allow you to disobey their orders.” “But why can th-“ “Because neither Apple Bloom nor Scootaloo were mentioned in the letter. I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair, but please. The Princess knows what she’s doing.” “What could Nightm- Princess Luna, possibly do? Why is she interested in Sweetie Belle? Rarity was the only one who could speak remotely politely to Twilight and so had been elected spokesperson of the group by the scowling ponies beside her. Her distress, however, forced her to revert to more informal speech than her usually regal tone. “Celestia didn’t explain very well. She wrote that Luna had experience with this kind of injury before and that she knew how to handle the situation.” Twilight pawed the floor nervously. “She wrote something cryptic though, something about protecting her from herself…” Rarity shook her head angrily, “What does she mean by that?” “I don’t know.” A sudden burst of sound from outside the hospital doors, a rather loud boom, snapped all their attention to the window. Princess Luna walked toward the hospital doors slowly, reluctant to enter the undoubtedly unpleasant place. Even a thousand years of solitude on the moon could not dull her distaste for places like hospitals. They were places of death; sad gathering places for the souls she conducted to the afterlife in her kingdom of stars. She entered the hospital and took in the ponies collective stares. She ignored them as best she could. They were easier to ignore every day. It seemed as if her reintegration into pony royalty had not been completely accepted all ponydom. Luna could not help regretting her distance from her little ponies. They were her charges and she’d failed them. For the hundredth time since she’d been released from the Nightmare’s influence, she vowed to never again fail them. “We have come to speak with the filly, Sweetie Belle.” Luna spoke clearly, unconsciously reverting to Royal Canterlot in her unease. Twilight Sparkle trotted over and bowed deeply. The rest of the room hastened to do the same, save for the few ponies that refused to bow. “Twilight Sparkle, you do not have to bow to US. Of all ponies, you We are most indebted to.” Luna said before bowing to Twilight in return. “Thank you, Princess. It was habit, nothing more,” Twilight replied formally. She slipped into a more informal tone. “Rarity and her family would really like to see Sweetie Belle now. Would that be alright?” “We must see her first. We will speak with her as quickly as possible. We can imagine how difficult this must be for her family.” Twilight nodded and turned to the family before Luna said, “Would you please accompany Us, Twilight Sparkle? We think you should see her as well.” Twilight turned around and looked at Luna incredulously. “Why can she see her and not US?!” Rarity yelled angrily unable to stay quiet despite having such respect for royalty. Luna looked at her quietly, weighing her response for a moment. She decided that telling the family the whole truth would serve her purposes better than hiding the truth from them. “Because if you approach her in the state she is in, she could be killed. This kind of injury is very dangerous. She may appear fine, but she is far from safe yet.” Luna sat down heavily before sighing and breaking down into a more informal tone. “A few years before Our… possesion… We had a unicorn student, just as Our sister has now.” Luna motioned in Twilight’s direction with a hoof. “She was… brilliant. Talented. Everything We could wish for in a student. But she had an accident one day. She was out wandering in the old castle at night. Crumbling masonry was a fairly common occurrence in the old castle. Some fell from the parapets just as she was walking underneath.” “What castle?” Twilight interrupted. “You have visited it once,” Luna sighed, “It was the castle where you freed Us from the Nightmare’s control.” Luna paused as she remembered the night. It had been very cold, she remembered that distinctly. The ground had been hard and had refused to soak up the blood flowing from her student’s forehead. Luna shuddered from the memory and continued. The others waiting in the room had fallen silent and were beginning to listen as well, realizing this was likely the only time they would hear such a story. “She survived having her horn broken off, just as Sweetie Belle has. However, she fell into a deep depression after regaining consciousness, refusing to eat or sleep. She withdrew from Us.” Tears formed in her eyes and she let them fall freely. Even after a thousand years, her grief for Song was immense – impossible to ignore. “We tried to find out what was wrong. Her behavior was extreme, even for such an extreme injury. You see, losing a horn happens often enough that it is a well-documented occurrence. It was the extent of the damage that was unique. Her horn had been completely snapped off, there was nothing left at all not even a stub. She had no outlet for her magic. “It kept building up and We didn’t know how to stop it or help her. We threw Ourselves into trying to help her. But the harder We worked, the worse she became.” Luna paused again and forced herself to regain a bit of control. It would not do for her subjects to see her so distraught. The ponies in the waiting room could feel waves of sorrow emanating from their Princess. Even those that had refused to bow when she had entered could not resist feeling for the Princess. Instinctively, they all crowded closer to try and provide some kind of comfort. The bonds between the alicorn and her subjects ran deeply through all of ponydom despite her banishment and nopony could resist the urge to comfort her. “She died of course, otherwise We wouldn’t be telling you this. We discovered too late what had been happening to her. She had been building too many emotions inside herself. Not many unicorns know this, but emotion is the driving energy force used in magic. Twilight, I know you’d disagree,” Luna preemptively stopped Twilight’s half-formed comment, “but We shall prove it to you in a moment.” Luna continued, “Without her horn, the magic Sweetie generates is trapped, but that isn’t the only problem. The loss of her horn makes her extremely sensitive to negative emotions like anger, anxiety, or worry. They build up inside her as well, accelerating the process of energy growth. That is why I said you cannot see her. In the state you are in, you could kill her outright.” Luna paused for breathe and collected herself. “As to why We are here, the reason should be obvious after Our story. We said We were too late for Our student, however, Our research was not in vain. We eventually discovered a spell that could counter the effects We described… but there are side-effects.” Rarity broke her silence and regained her regal tone, “Whatever do you mean by side-effects? I can assure you, no matter what they are, to prevent such a terrible fate from befalling my sister, we would gladly choose to save her.” Luna stared at her sadly, “Do not be so sure.” “First, she cannot be acted upon by magic under any circumstances. It would make her very, very sick. For all intents and purposes, she would be allergic to magic. We know it will be especially difficult for your family to restrain yourselves. Magic is part of who you are. However, you must for her sake, never use magic on her. “Second, her personality will change drastically. She will become a different pony. She will be your daughter of course, but she will also… well… not be…” “We know this is difficult for you to understand right now. We know that Our explanation does not even begin to cover the complexities of this spell, but we do not have time to waste. We are sorry that this is the way things have happened and it isn’t anywhere near fair to your family to ask you this after waiting and hoping for her to wake up.” Luna stared directly at Sweetie Belle’s and Rarity’s parents and her expression crystallized into determination. She did not want to lose another subject to such a painful injury. “You must choose now - before she starts sliding into a state We cannot return her from.” “Save her life and lose your daughter. Or lose her as she is and leave your memories of her intact.” Her next words were like iron, binding them into a decision. “Choose.”