//------------------------------// // 16. They'll Need a Crane // Story: Your Own Worst Enemy // by Distaff Pope //------------------------------//         I stared up at the ceiling. Again. Ever since I’d woken up, spending nights staring up at ceilings or out windows had apparently become my favorite thing. “Psst, Sweetie, are you still awake?” At least tonight, I had an excuse for not sleeping.         “Yeah,” I said, rolling over to look towards my half-sister's bed. I could have had my own room or the couch tonight, but no, I had to be nice and say sleeping in a sleeping bag for the sake of sibling bonding and kind of making up for ignoring all her letters was just fine. What would I have wanted if I was in her shoes, right? “I didn’t fall asleep in the last thirty seconds.”         “Do you have any more cool stories to tell me about being famous?” Dulcet asked. Didn’t she have school in the morning? Or was she old enough now that she didn’t have to go?         “No,” I said. None that I could tell her, at least. I had maybe five stories from Manehattan I could remember that didn’t involve sex or drugs in some way, which… Expanding my interests probably wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, especially since drugs were out.         “Ooh, maybe you can explore your new interests with Scootaloo,” Bright Lights said before I banished her.         “Well, is there anything you want to talk to me about? I’m a really good listener, and can you believe we’re sisters? It’s like I won the world’s best lottery,” she said. I tried to make myself comfortable in my sleeping bag. Years of sleeping in super-silk sheets on luxury mattresses kind of made everything else feel odd. So, two reasons I wasn’t sleeping. I tilted my head. Make that three.         “Not unless you want to hear me talk about marefriend issues,” I said. It would be miracle if I got more than thirty seconds of what passed as sleep for me. Luna was probably getting worried.         “I’d love to listen to your relationship problems,” she said before dropping her voice. “I mean, yes, I’d be happy to listen if that’s okay with you.”         I exhaled my breath, feeling my stomach crumple into itself as it deflated. I really didn’t expect her to say yes. Maybe I could just take it back? Or maybe it would be good to get it out? “Okay, so I have a marefriend, and we love each other, but we don’t love each other the same way.”         “What do you mean?” Dulcet asked. Not even a sentence in, and I was already hitting trouble. This was just going to be the best.         “Well, you love your friends differently than you love your parents, and you love your parents differently than you’d love a special somepony, right?” I said.         “Sure, but it’s not like she loves you like a friend is it? Or do you love her like a friend? Please don’t say you love each other like a parent,” she said from her bed.         I gagged-laughed at that. “No, definitely not,” I said. “But… couples can love each other in different ways too, and I guess they express their love differently, too. Got it?”         “Kind of,” she said. Going better than expected, then. Plus, I hadn’t said anything really mind-scarring.         “Okay, so she loves me one way, and I love her another way, and I need her to love me my way, so I’m doing what she wants to maybe make her love me my way, and I kind of like doing what she wants, but at the same time, I want more than that. Like, I just want to feel loved, is that so bad?” I asked.         “Maybe? I don’t really understand,” she said, “but why don’t you feel loved? You said you know she loves you,” I blinked as I followed her statement. Maybe I’d said love too much in that last sentence.         “I know she loves me. Like, I know she’d do anything for me, but I don’t feel loved. That sounds so stupid, doesn’t it?” I said. And here I was, telling a pony I’d just met a few hours ago all the things that were bothering me. How was that for openness, Dr. Hooves?         There was a pause from her as she tried to answer my question. “Maybe not? I don’t really have all your relationship experience, but…”         “Okay, so, I know she loves me, but I guess I don’t feel like she wants to be with me like I want to be with her.” It would be a lot easier if I could just say she doesn’t want to have sex with me instead of trying to create a bunch of different definitions for love. “But it’s okay, because she kind of does want to want to be with me, it’s just hard for her to get in the same frame of mind as me, and I’m trying my best to convince her, and she really likes how I’m convincing her, but it’s not actually convincing her. I think it might be making things worse.”         “How could you be making things worse?” she asked. How to explain that without talking about sex? Could I talk to her about sex? Like, she’d read the articles about me and heard about the birds and the bees, but…         “It’s…” I sat up and tried to think. “How…” The perfect metaphor popped into my head. “After the penthouse, I had this vision of a relationship, and it was basically… I was in a bad place when I had it, and it felt like I was drinking the purest, most refreshing water out there. Like, it invigorated me. Made me feel almost good for the first time in way too long. That’s what I want, okay?”         “Okay,” she said. Good enough for me to keep going.         “But what she wants is kind of like alcohol. It makes you feel really good for a bit, and it’s fun every now and then, but that can’t be what you drink all the time. If you do, you’ll get sick and die, but it’s all she wants from me, so I keep doing it, because it’s what she wants, and when I try to get a little sip of water for myself, she freaks out.”         Also, you’re addicted to it.         Yeah, that didn’t help things. “So, why can’t you just tell her?” Dulcet asked.         “Because if I tell her, she’ll think she’s hurting me or something stupid, then she’ll break up with me, and I just… I can’t have that happen. I owe it to her,” I said.         “So what are you going to do?” That was the big question, right? How was I going to fix this? How could I spin this so she’d forgive me? Bring up Bright Lights? Start crying so she’d pity me?         You know how that works out.         “Are you sure you can’t tell the truth? Dad always says that a hard truth’s better than an easy lie,” Dulcet said. I sighed and shook my head, tossing around again in my sleeping bag. As nice as getting to know new family was, sleeping in a real bed was also kind of fun. Of course, I could’ve slept in a bed tonight, but…         “Maybe,” I said. “It’s hard, though. Like, I want her to be happy, and I’m afraid if I tell the truth, it’ll hurt us both, and why should you be honest if it’s just going to hurt ponies?”         There was a little pause. “Because lying hurts them more?” she said. “Because maybe the truth will hurt for a little bit, but a lie just… Dad says lies just warp your view of the world, and when the lie’s found out, it just makes it hurt twice. Once for what you lied about, and once for the betrayal.” Yeah, and he knew about lies right? Still...         A longer pause. “But what if they never have to find out you lied to them? What if you can just get them to see what you want them to see and make them happy all the time?” Then you’re just like Bright Lights. Could the stupid voice in my head stop comparing me to her?         Only when you stop making the comparisons so easy.         “Look, maybe truth will work later, but right now… I don’t know, it won’t help me save us, and that’s my number one goal,” I said. Maybe once we weren’t fighting all the time, I could start doing truth in small doses. Or one big dose. Once things were perfect, maybe she’d appreciate everything I did for her?         “Okay…” Dulcet said. Did that break my promise? I said I wouldn’t do anything to mess her up, but here I was, talking about how awesome lying was. “But… can I ask a stupid question?”         “Sure,” I said.         “You want her to love you, but…” There was a little pause. “I don’t know, it seems weird, like she can’t really do that if you’re lying to her. If she can’t see you who you really are, how can she really love you?”         I didn’t have an answer to give her. ♪♪♪         Getting ready the next morning was easy without my makeup, special shampoo, or any of the other things I used to make myself look presentable. I didn’t look awful, but I didn’t feel like me without all that stuff. At least not having it let me stay in bed and pretend to sleep for a few more minutes.         “Are you sure you have to leave so early?” Artie asked as I did one last inspection of myself in the hall mirror. “I don’t have to be at work for a few more hours, and–”         “I’d like to stay, but I have to deal with Scootaloo, and if I’m going to get ahead of last night, I have to hurry,” I said, running the borrowed comb through my mane one last time, and giving one of the balls at the end of my mane a little bounce. Not as good as I liked, but decent. “I’ll try to be back later today, though.”         “I’m looking forward to it,” he said.         Dulcet piped up next to him. “I’m going to spend all day thinking up more questions for you, and you have to tell me how things go with your marefriend.”         “I can’t wait,” I half-lied. Okay, trying to be honest was one thing, but telling my half-sister that another round of questions was probably the least fun thing I could imagine still sounded mean. What was I supposed to do?         “Great!” she said, jumping into the air for a second, like a younger version of me. Or like a version of me that didn’t feel so drained. “Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to tell everypony I know that you’re my sister. Wait, but I bet they won’t believe me unless you’re there with me. Do you think you could come back early so we can talk to my friends?”         “I don’t think that’s the best idea,” I said. “Mom’s still not ready to tell everypony the… uhmm… truth about me, and I don’t think your friends will keep my secret.” I didn’t think she’d keep my secret, but without any evidence, they’d hopefully just chalk it up to a hyperactive imagination. Unless her younger sister backed her up.         Dulcet looked down, disappointment written on her face. She’d live. “Look, I’ll try to get Mom to make the announcement soon, and after that, you can tell everypony you want,” I said. Of course, how soon my soon was was probably a lot longer than Dulcet’s soon.         “Alright,” she said, like the word had been dragged through a bunch of those thorny scratchy plants. “I guess I can wait a little bit. Have to figure out how I’m going to tell everypony. Ooh, maybe we could do a party? You know, when you come back to Hoofington.”         “We can talk about it later,” I said, turning to the door. I waved a hoof and looked over my shoulder as I trotted out. “I’ll see you two when I get back.”         “Good luck, Sweetie,” Dulcet said way too loudly, causing me to do a quick check to see if anypony was around. Thankfully, they weren’t. The really early birds were at work already, but Scootaloo was probably just getting up now. If she was me, I’d get there before she finished her bath, but – I picked up my pace – Scootaloo didn’t take her time with a lot of things.         Thankfully, the walk was quick, and I managed to get there just as the door to our cabin opened. “Oh, it’s you,” Scootaloo said, trotting past me.         “So, I’m guessing you’re still mad,” I said, catching up with her. “That’s totally fair, but you have to understand that–”         “You didn’t trust me,” Scootaloo said. “After everything I’ve done for you, you still didn’t trust me enough to tell me why you really wanted to go to Hoofington. Instead, you made me think… I thought you wanted me to come here because you supported me.”         “I do,” I said before taking a few deep breaths. Was I really having a hard time keeping up with a brief trot? “Obviously, I support you. I want to do everything I can for you.” Like ignore all my desires to give you what you want. “I just had an extra reason for wanting to go.”         Scootaloo stopped. “Sweetie, I want to believe you, but you lied to me. Maybe you’re telling the truth now, but I can’t be sure. It’s like, if you lied to me about this, what else are you lying about?”         That was a question for another day. “I’m telling you the truth now,” I said. “And can you honestly say there aren’t a few little things you’re keeping from me? A few secret orders from Mom or some secrets about Rusty?”         “No!” she said, raising her voice and earning a look from a pony walking by us. “Sweetie, I haven’t told a lie to you ever, and ever since I pulled you out of the penthouse, I’ve been doing my best to tell you every little thing that happens to me, because I know how important trust is in a relationship. You know everything your Mom’s told me – and why do you care so much about me and Rusty?”         Fine, that wasn’t working, time to change tactics. And seriously, why did she think I was so hung up on her and Rusty? “Well, can you blame me for having some trust issues? You know who the last pony I trusted was.” Technically, the last pony I trusted was Mom, but that didn’t help with my point.         “I do, but in case you haven’t noticed, Sweetie, I’m not her. She left you in the penthouse, and I pulled you out from it, but for some reason, you seem intent on going back there.” The penthouse. She’d mentioned it twice, and that’s what it all came down to, wasn’t it? Because she pulled me out of there, because she saved my life, I’d have that hanging over my head forever – and why did I resent her for saving my life?         “Yeah, well done, you saved me.” I balanced on my back legs for a second to clap my hooves. “I get it, I owe you everything I have, but you don’t have to keep holding it over my head. You don’t have to keep reminding me how awful I was.”         “I'm not holding anything over your head,” she said, digging her hooves into the ground and spreading her wings. "How many times do I have to say I just want you to be better? Me caring about you isn't some debt I want repaid, but if all your 'gratitude' has just been lip service, if you're going to keep running back to that penthouse, then... ” There was a pause, and then Scootaloo said something stupid. Stupider than her usual stupid stuff, even. “I love you, but if you’re just going to keep thinking about yourself, then you know what? I’m done.”         My left eye and ear twitched in perfect harmony, and if Scootaloo had any sense, she would have gotten on her scooter and driven off as fast as she could. “Oh? I’m selfish? I’m selfish? After everything I’ve done for you? Ever since I woke up, I’ve been doing my best to be the pony you want me to be, to be the pony you can love, but have I gotten any gratitude? Have you even once said ‘Hey, thanks, Sweetie’? No, you haven’t. It’s just been you, you, you, you, and I’ve been Miss Supportive Marefriend all the way, because I owed it to you, because – as you keep reminding me – you saved my life, and you say you aren't trying to hold it over my head, but if you're not, then why do you keep reminding me of it?” I stomped my hooves in the ground and took a step forward.         “But you’re the one who’s done, because I lied, because I manipulated you. Well, guess what, Scootaloo. If it wasn’t for me lying and manipulating and doing everything I can think of to keep you happy, we wouldn’t be working at all. Every happy moment we’ve had, every little bit of pleasure you’ve gotten out of us, that’s me, that’s me working my butt off and not asking for anything in return.”         Scootaloo opened her mouth but I cut her off before she could say another stupid word. “Let me finish. You want honesty? Well, you’re getting it. Since we started dating, I’ve been doing what you wanted and asking for nothing in return. You couldn’t get enough of our little games, but did you stop to think what it felt like for me? To humiliate and degrade you because that was the only way I could make you happy?” I laughed. “No, of course you didn’t, because I didn’t bring it up, I just did my best to love you like you wanted to be loved. Who cared that you had me turning to freaking Bright Lights for inspiration? Taking up every move I could from her playbook? Yes, I liked it, but liking it made me feel awful, and the more I liked it, the worse it made me feel, because… because being what you wanted me to be – being what I needed to be for this relationship to work – made me just like her.”         She stared at me dumbly, apparently not able to handle 100% honesty, because she didn’t know what 100% honesty was. “And I tried to make peace with that fact, because acting like her was the only way I could make you happy. The only way I could give you what you wanted. And maybe I could live with it, if that was just how you worked, but it’s not. It’s how you work with me. With Rusty, you’re completely fine, it’s just with me that you want to feel all shamed and degraded, which guess how terrible that made me feel?”         I paused for a second. She didn’t have an answer for me. Who would’ve guessed? “Awful.” Something wet stung my eyes. “I want to love you. I want you to love me, but every time I try to touch you like a normal pony, I feel you tense up, like you’re fighting the urge to recoil.” I sniffled as the anger faded. “I could live without the sex, I think. Like, if you never got to the point where you could reciprocate, that… I don’t know, I could deal with it, but is it too much for me to want to feel desired? To be able to just hug you? To love you without you wanting to recoil?”         The anger in her own eyes softened, she was going to apologize and ask my forgiveness, and then we’d probably get stuck in the same stupid cycle we’d been stuck in, and… suddenly, the idea of spending some Scootaloo-free time in the castle didn’t sound awful. Of course, if I walked off now, she’d follow. I had to break her. “But you’re right, I manipulated and lied to you. Whenever you did something I didn’t want you to do, I played to your weaknesses, made you feel that shame and helplessness so you’d drop it, and I enjoyed it. It gave me a rush like no other drug had. You want to know what the worst thing I did to you was, though?”         I stepped forward, muzzle just an inch from hers as I did my best to look angry. Good thing lying and manipulation came easy to me. “I wasn’t having a freak out when I ran in front of your scooter. I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew you were about to figure out all the ways I’d been trying to control you, so I stopped you. I ran in front of your scooter and made you hate yourself. It was cold and calculating, and another awful thing done in the name of making 'us' work, but… it’s like you said: I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. I’m not going to spend another evening miserable to try and coax some tiny scrap of love from you that doesn't exist.” I turned my back on her and trotted to the train station, ignoring the way she seemed to be crumbling into herself. She’d bounce back. She’d hate me, but she’d bounce back. “I’m going back to Ponyville. Good luck with your race, Scootaloo.” ♪♪♪         Scootaloo didn’t try to follow me, and Bright Lights and the usual suspects were quiet as I left Hoofington and bought my ticket to Ponyville. Broken and defeated, Sweetie made her grand homecoming, slipping into safe harbor like a battered ship seeking refuge from the storm. I stared up at the ceiling as the train wheels clacked below me, my eyes growing heavy. Had I even gotten an hour of sleep last night? Definitely not enough, and – I dabbed a few tears out of my eyes – after my big breakdown, I wasn’t just physically exhausted. Not every day you air all your dirty laundry with your marefriend in public and leave her behind.         Ooh, just like Bright Lights.         Yeah, just like Bright Lights. Maybe we did deserve each other. My eyes shut and I felt myself drift off, my mind drawing into the Dreaming. What did it feel like for normal ponies to go to sleep? I’d forgotten. At least I’d have the place to myself at this time of–         “Ah, good, you’re here,” Luna said, as my eyes snapped open. I stood firmly in the Hub, and Luna was dressed up in some silver armor with a sword floating next to her. “You’re arrival is quite fortuitous, and… are you crying?”         I nodded. “Scootaloo and I… I think we’re done.”         Luna frowned as she put a helmet on her head. “Most unfortunate, Sweetie, and on any other day, I’d listen to all your woes, but I must make ready for battle. A large host of Night Terrors approaches, and I need to make haste if I wish to engage them by nightfall.”         “Can I help?” I asked, wiping the tears from my eyes. “I’d kind of appreciate a diversion right about now.”         “I will need your help overseeing the Dreaming tonight while I make battle, but at the moment, there’s very little you can do.” She paused and looked at me. “How are you feeling, though? Do you feel like you might…”         “No,” I said, shaking my head and staring at the ground. “I feel awful, but at the same time, kind of relieved? Does that make any sense? Like, I’ve been crying because I love her and she’s gone and it’s all… almost all my fault, but I don’t have to pretend anymore. I don’t have to twist myself around and keep sacrificing what I want for her or… I don’t have to act like her anymore.” I sighed and slumped to sit on the ground. “It’s confusing.”         “Most breakups are,” Luna said, nodding her head. “But you did what you felt necessary and can now grow as a mare. You learned there are lines you won’t cross to make your beloved happy, and I think that a vital lesson.”         “Yeah,” I said, looking up at her. “So… Night Terrors?”         “Oh, yes,” she said, lighting up her horn and conjuring a landscape. “Have I told you of them before?”         “A little, I think,” I said. Maybe when we were fighting? Right, that’s why we did that combat training, and she had to fight them the night I started looking for my dad. “Yeah, you said they were weird dreaming monsters.”         “Born of equine fears in the heart of the Nightmare Lands,” she said, moving the landscape to show a bleak wasteland. “Every nightmare a pony has creates a snarl in the fabric of the Dreaming, and that snarl eventually ends up there. It’s why I do my best to keep the Dreaming tranquil.”         “So, then, the snarls…” I looked at the landscape, and could see a distortion in the air growing.         “Quickly solidify and develop into Night Terrors. Most of the time, the horrors are content to aimlessly roam the Nightmare Lands, but they are like locusts,” she said as a few shambling pony-shaped monsters formed on the map and started wandering around. “When a Night Terror encounters another Night Terror, the two form a group. As they wander, more Night Terrors join their group, and sooner or later, they leave the Nightmare Lands to feast on the dreams of my wards.”         “Why do they do that?” I asked. “If they’re fine just wandering around the Nightmare Lands, why do they want to bother us?”         “I know not,” Luna said, shaking her head and shifting the map to follow the Night Terrors as they walked, their party growing as they moved. “Sometimes, I think it pure luck, a group or twenty or so happen to leave the Nightmare Lands and come here. Other times, it seems a malign intelligence controls their actions, gathering them up in a host with the sole goal of devouring the dreams of ponies. Today, it’s the latter.”         “Are you sure you don’t need my help?” I asked. “Because if there’s a whole army of these things…”         “I’ll be fine,” Luna said, shaking her head. “I’ve made war with these horrors countless times, and today is no different. I’ll get ahead of them, rearrange the landscape to my favor, and when they arrive, I will destroy them. Still…” She paused. “I suppose I could teach you the spell to destroy them to further your training. Just learn quickly. Now, unlike most of the other spells I’ve taught you, this one requires you to use your own magic and not that of the Dreaming. It’s difficult to bring it in here, so listen closely…” ♪♪♪         A few hours later, I stepped off the train knowing a spell Twilight didn’t. Not that I could show her. It was only really good for ripping apart the snarl in a Night Terror’s heart, but it was still something she didn’t know. I looked at the sun hanging low in the sky. If I was going to do Dream Warden duty, I needed to get to the castle soon. Luckily, it was still super easy to find, no matter how much Ponyville had changed – and it had changed. I hurried past buildings that looked closer to Manehattan than Hoofington; big blocks full of businesses, apartments, and everything else you could need. Old Town was still around, but all around it, the city had transformed, growing around the poles of Twilight’s Castle and Princess Luna’s Academy. It wasn’t the village I grew up in anymore.         Two guards flanked the entrance to the castle and crossed their spears as I approached. “Sorry, miss,” the guard on the left said. “Court’s closed for today, if you wish to–” He paused, eyes going wide, then dropped to his knees. “Lady Belle, I apologize for not recognizing you immediately. Please, go in, and… if you wouldn’t mention my failure to your sister, I’d greatly appreciate it.”         “Uhmm… sure,” I said as the doors opened. I wasn’t used to ponies bowing to me.  Not to say I couldn’t get used to it, but – I saw an orange mare prostrating herself before me, and shook my head as I trotted past. Nope, definitely didn’t want to get used to it.         “Wait,” I said, stopping before they could close the door on me. “Do you know where M– my sister is?”         “Princess Rarity and Princess Twilight usually head to their library after court closes. I’m sure one of the staff will be happy to escort you,” an identical guard at the stairs said. Did all guards look the same? Was that a requirement, or was there some enchantment on them? Maybe it was an identity thing, so you wouldn’t know what a guard looked like when they were off duty?  But Twilight’s brother didn’t have that, but he was also Captain of the Guard, so…         “Excuse me,” I said as a maid trotted past. “Hi, I’m Sweetie Belle, you know, Rarity’s sister. Is there any chance you could help me find her?”         “Right away,” the maid said, curtsying. Yep, definitely didn’t want ponies grovelling before me today.         Either the maid wasn’t talkative, or she could see from my expression that I really didn’t feel like saying anything, so she just led me to the library, opening the door as Mom looked up from a desk, quill just inches from the paper. “Sweetie,” Mom said, getting to her hooves and trotting around the desk, passing a few familiar books. Must’ve been from her own personal library. “How fortuitous that you’re here, I was just about to write you, and…” She paused, reading my face and immediately sending the maid away. “What’s wrong? Where’s Scootaloo?”         “We kind of had a fight,” I said, trotting over to the couch and slumping onto it. “So I’m here, and she’s in Hoofington.”         “Oh, dear,” she said, trotting to sit next to me on the couch. “Can you tell me what happened, Sweetie?”         She looked down at me as I rested my head on her knees, like we did when she was comforting me from a bad day from school, and she just looked at me, not demanding I say anything, but giving me the opportunity to say what was on my mind. “We… I was trying so hard to be what she wanted me to be, and… I kind of enjoyed it too, but whenever I… I’d touch her, and she had to try not to recoil. I did everything I could to get her to love me, but it just… I wasn’t good enough.”         She wrapped me in a hug without a second thought and held me close to her. “Shh, shh, Sweetie, of course you’re good enough. It’s Scootaloo’s loss for not seeing that.”         “No, it’s not,” I said, fighting tears back as Mom’s scent wrapped around me. “She was right, I was lying to her and manipulating her, but I was just trying to get her to love me. You know, love me like I loved her, not like… Yes, I manipulated her, but it made her happy, and it was the only way I could get her to love me, so how is that wrong?”         Mom just sighed and loosened her grip on me. “Sweetie, love can’t be coerced or compelled. You can’t trick somepony into loving you.”         “Yes, you can,” I said, earning me a look from Mom. “What? Bright Lights manipulated me into loving her, and I manipulated Scootaloo.”         “But that’s not love, Sweetie,” Mom said, shaking her head. “It’s…” She trailed off, train of thought changing tracks. “I love Twilight because I see her, the good and the bad, and… I won’t say I choose to love her, that makes the whole thing sound entirely too rational, but I see the beautiful soul dancing inside her and I love her for it. It’s my… I put the word ‘decision’ in quote marks, but it’s my ‘decision’ to love her. She doesn’t force it or compel it, and if she ever tried, she wouldn’t be getting my love, she’d be getting something sick and corrupted: a gross mockery of the sublime. You can’t love someone unless you can also not love them, I think. Does that make sense?”         “Maybe,” I said, looking up past her to the huge vaulted ceiling.         “Alright, how would you feel if you were forced to love Scootaloo, if you didn’t have a choice in the whole matter?” Mom asked. I just laughed.         “That’s kind of where I’ve been the last few weeks. Like, she saved my life, so I owe her everything, and I do love her, so I just…” I shook my head. “Not good.”         “But it’s not just that,” Mom said, stroking my mane. “When you manipulate a pony, you take away their ability to perceive. To even sense the world around them properly. At the best, you blind them. At the worst, you turn them into a thrall.” Huh, did that come from her time with Artie? Did she get it from him or did he get it from her?         “Isn’t that a bit overdramatic?” I asked.         “It’s what I turned you into,” Bright Lights said, suddenly appearing next to me. I poofed her away.         “Fair enough,” I said, earning a look from my Mom. “Nevermind, you’re right. That’s… I just wanted her to love me, though. Is that so bad?”         “There’s nothing wrong with wanting love, Sweetie. We all crave it. But I can promise you, the affection gained from trickery and manipulation won’t sustain a soul like true love can. Again, I make love sound far too rational, but it’s a hard concept for me to convey.” Not that hard. It was the difference between my dream in the hospital and the nightmare of the last few weeks.         “It’s fine,” I said, shrugging. “I think I get it, I just… I need some time to think.”         A hoof stroked my mane. “You’ll have as long as you need, Sweetie. Just promise to tell me if you need anything”         “Yeah, I promise,” I said, sitting up. “So, you were about to write me about something?”         “Oh, yes,” Mom said, looking back at the desk, her eyes narrowing. “We were having the rugs in the library cleaned today, and while Spike was doing some sorting, he tripped on this gouge in the crystal, and he fell into those old journals of yours.” My stomach dropped. “The time-locked journals. And wouldn’t you know it, the lock’s expiring today. The first one’s unlocking in just a minute, actually.” A little pause. “A truly unbelievable coincidence.”         Her tone made it clear just how unbelievable the coincidence was, and I clenched my jaw before sitting up and floating the seven journals from her desk and rotating them around my head. Six were due to unlock in a few hours, but the seventh – the blank journal. My journal – was set to unlock in…         “Fifteen seconds,” I said. It was going to open in fifteen seconds. Smartie'd timed it all it down to the minute. Four years of decisions all leading me to right now and whatever was in that journal.  I sat down and stared as ten seconds that felt like four years ticked down.         Ten…         A kiss with Diamond Tiara         Nine…         Accepting my selfish side         Eight…         My first drink.         Seven…         That stupid party where everything went wrong.         Six…         Bright Lights and easy offers of happiness.         Five…         Joy held in a hoof.         Four…         Empty years of hedonism and dependence.         Three…         Scootaloo saving me at just the right moment, leading–         Two…         The whole of the relationship that followed, the good and the bad, which ended with–         One…         Spectacular fight  where I walked away and headed back to my Mom, who’d just found–         The journal unlocked and played a cheap little fanfare, because of course she’d enchant it to give it a little fanfare. I ripped the journal open to see just what was so important that she’d spent the last four years puppeting me around to get me to this moment and…         I laughed. There wasn’t a single word in it. She’d hollowed the whole thing out and put a gem inside. “That’s it? Everything?” I asked, whirling around to look at my mom. “Everything! She did all this just so she could give me a stupid emerald?” I reached out to grab it with my magic and show just what I thought of Smartie's emerald as a terror ignited in Mom’s eyes.         “Sweetie, don’t–”         I was gone before she could finish.