Raindrop kept her head lowered and her eyes on the ground as she walked through the castle, ears splayed back in apparent shame. She didn’t want anyone to see her eyes. Her demonic eyes.
keeping her gaze on the floor, she meandered throughout the castle and to the female toilets, locking the door after her and hurrying over to the sink, placing her forehooves on the edge of the sink and staring at her reflection. A pair of green eyes stared back at her, and her ears splayed backwards. She was turning into a demon. First had been hurting Shine, and now, she was actually physically changing. Her eyes, and her entire musculature earlier.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, she leaned in until her nose bumped the mirror, leaving a small smudge, and stared into her own demonic eyes.
“Change,” she whispered commandingly, staring deeply into her own gaze.
Her eyes remained resolutely green.
“Change,” she murmured again, resting her nose against the cool glass, eyes narrowing further.
Again, her eyes remained the same.
“Change!” she hissed, banging her hoof against the glass.
And still, her eyes did not change.
Raindrop began to breath harder, gritting her teeth, her expression turning dangerous.
“Change!” she screeched, her next hoof strike against the mirror causing it to crack across its length, sending a jagged black line through her reflection.
The young pegasus stared into the cracked mirror, banging her hoof weakly against it a few times, feeling a lump rising in her throat. Her voice was broken as she murmured helplessly, “Change...just change back...please...”
Tears brimmed in her eyes, and she took a deep shuddering breath, trying to fight them down, swallowing thickly and composing herself, closing her eyes and calming her breathing. She wasn’t a cryer. Crying wasn’t something she did. It just wasn’t.
Her eyes opened, and stared into her own cracked reflection, and her own green eyes. Her changeling eyes.
Raindrop slumped, meandering over to the cold, tiled corner of the room and sitting down in it, crossing her forehooves and resting her chin on them. She needed to think. Needed to compose herself before she went back out there and faced the world as Raindrop, the untouchable pegasus.
Her breathing stuttered and she took a shuddery inhalation, holding it for several moments. It was a few moments before the tears began to spill down her cheeks from her closed eyes. It wasn’t fair. She had been going to get married. And then something she couldn’t even control had come in and taken everything away from her. She didn’t have a family any more. Shine was gone from her. She couldn’t even be near him without magically hurting him. It was something inside her. And the one way she could fix it had been robbed from her by Discord.
It wasn’t fair.
And so Raindrop left her head on her hooves, and cried quietly to herself. She didn’t sob. She didn’t make a noise rather than the increased intensity of her breathing. She wasn’t one to make a scene. But the sheer unfairness of it all just stung.
And she was turning into a monster. Soon, she wouldn’t even be able to fit in with other ponies. She’d have to find a cloud to live on. A cloud far, far away from any other pony who could see her.
Alone.
Forever.
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It took Raindrop a good hour to get over her tears. Luckily, no one had come to the door hoping to use the toilet. She wouldn’t have opened the door if they had. She wasn’t going to let them see her tears, wasn’t going to let them see her hurt.
And once she fought down her tears, she rose shakily to her hooves, and then stepped back over to the mirror, resting her nose on the glass and staring into her red-rimmed, puffy eyes. She set her jaw, concentrating and whispering, “Change...”
Four entire hours later, Raindrop emerged from the bathroom, looking exhausted and drained, but now with a pair of vibrant purple eyes. It had taken her a while to get the colour just right, but it was close enough to her previous eyes for them to be passable. She was happy. Proud even. She had fixed her eyes.
There was a bounce in her steps as she made her way up to the stairs leading to Celestia’s rooms. By the time she got to the stairs though, she was huffing softly, breathing heavier. Her legs were already shaking like she had tried to run a great distance. It seemed as though her recovery would not be as fast as she liked.
Wrinkling her nose, Raindrop leaped out a window and instead winged her way up to Celestia’s tower, entering through an open window and backwinging to a stop.
She was in Celestia’s memorial room. Pictures of previous students littered the walls, varying in sizes and greyness of age. The table in the centre of the room now bore the Element of Loyalty on a pedestal, grey and lifeless. Five gems nearby sat next to it, each of them with their own pedestal. They were all different colours, but they were familiar to her. Seeker Stones, if her assumptions were correct.
The door opened, and Raindrop looked up guiltily, as though caught red-hooved. Celestia stood in the doorway, giving her a patronising look.
“Given your previous violent interactions with my guards, do you think it wise to make uninvited entrances through my windows?” she asked calmly, stepping over to the table, pausing in front of it and resting a hoof on the Element of Loyalty.
Raindrop looked chagrined for a moment. “The stairs looked endless when I was at the bottom of them. I doubt the guards would have carried me.”
“Indeed. Mind that you inform the guards before you do it again. They were ready to break the door down before I stopped them,” Celestia stated, shaking her head.
“My apologies, Princess Celestia,” Raindrop said with a gentle incline of her head.
“Do you remember what I told you last time you were here?” Celestia asked, raising a brow.
Raindrop blinked once, thinking. “Uhhh...which thing specifically?”
“I asked you to call me Celestia. The ‘princess’ is unnecessary.” Celestia said with a wave of her hoof.
“But...” Raindrop trailed off for a moment, raising a brow, mystified. “With all due respect, Princess Celestia, you never said that to me.”
“I didn’t?” Celestia asked thoughtfully, staring into Raindrop’s eyes for a long moment, searchingly, before saying suddenly, “Welp, I guess I didn’t. Disregard that.”
Raindrop stared at the princess, confused. She was acting very strangely.
“Your eyes are pink now, did you know?” Celestia asked, raising a brow.
Raindrop nodded. “I spent a good four hours in the bathroom staring into the mirror trying to figure out how to fix them.”
“I am pleased you succeeded,” Celestia said, looking up again, staring into her eyes probingly.
The pegasus stared back for a moment, before averting her gaze uncomfortably.
“I know you put on a brave face, Raindrop. But it’s okay to let people see you when you’re not at your best. You’re only a pony after all,” Celestia said, examining the Seeker Stones.
Raindrop balked at that, snorting once. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Celestia shook her head slowly. “Take it from someone who’s been wearing the same painted face for near two thousand years...let the mask down once in awhile if you can.”
The young pegasus regarded the princess for a long moment, her ears splaying backwards. “I...I’ll take that under advisement...but you said something about the next step?”
“Ah, yes,” Celestia said, lifting a hoof and stroking the Element of Loyalty. “Given your serendipitous find of the Element of loyalty, we now have one of the Elements in our possession. We also know they’ve split them up. I was developing these Seeker Stones to try and react to the Elements. I think I’ve got them fixed now...but they’ll only work if the Elements are active.”
Raindrop looked at the stones, reaching out and touching a purple one with a hoof. It was glowing and throbbing just faintly. But the orange one beside it was mostly dull, a faint glimmer visible in it.
“As you can see, the Element of Generosity is active. But the Element of Truth is not. You can use one of these stones to find your way to one of the Elements. It’s a very...general directional magic. It’s not precise. But it’ll give you a ballpark area to search.”
“So...just pick one and away I go?” Raindrop asked, raising a brow.
“Indeed. Any you’d like to start with. And while you’re doing that, I’ll experiment some more and see if I can find a spell that will help you find the new bearers.”
Raindrop nodded, picking up the Seeker Stone for the Element of Generosity, slipping it under her wing. “I’ll be back when I find the Element then, I guess.”
Celestia nodded, inclining her head towards the pegasus. “Hurry back.”
“And uhm...something I didn’t mention. I heard a female voice while I was in the Diamond Dog tunnels...and it...kinda sounded like Spike was there with a girl,” she admitted, her ears splaying back slightly.
“Spike was in the tunnels? With a girl?” Celestia asked, confused, before a slow look of dawning realisation came across her face.
“You just figured something out, didn’t you?” Raindrop asked accusingly.
“Find the next Element, Raindrop. I have to investigate some things,” Celestia stated, waving a hoof.
Raindrop nodded, and sighed faintly. “Very well.”
Celestia watched as the pegasus bounded to the window and then launched herself out of it, spreading her wings, before the princess turned to the door, her horn glowing. A pair of guards arrived momentarily.
“Sentinel, follow her,” she stated, pointing at the receding speck of the pegasus. Sentinel nodded, and then galloped to the window, leaping out it as well.
“Damascus. Organize the guard. I want you to sweep the entire castle from top to bottom. Send a search party into the gardens, I want to know what happened to Discord. Look for clues on how he escaped. And rouse Luna, I have business to attend to.”
Damascus nodded, saluting, before adding a querying, ‘Princess?’ in referral to the rousing of Princess Luna.
“I have to go to Ponyville,” Celestia explained, her eyes narrowing. “I need to visit the gravesite of a pony named Cee.”
