• Published 5th May 2013
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Triptych - Estee



When a new mission for the Element-Bearers (from an unexpected source) arrives three weeks after Twilight's ascension, she finds herself forced to confront a pair of questions: what truly makes an alicorn? And what happens if it goes wrong?

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Presentation

Faith had so many sounds and often, they came within the music of desperation: a voice would call out one final invocation, praying for intercession to save them from fast-approaching death -- a prayer which Twilight now knew would never be heard -- and any words which followed were generally spoken in the shadowlands.

But at other times, there was a contented smile lurking within the notes. Reassurance, created by the speaker and then delivered to the same pony via the circuitous route of belief. Hope, frantic hope staring at her from a birthing table while preparing to falsely assign all credit in the event of miracle.

Faith had many sounds, and the one which described its shattering was a soft dual whimper.

"No," Pinkie whispered. "No, no, no, Sun and Moon, please, please no..."

Twilight could hear Fluttershy's breathing, abruptly accelerated until each exhale emerged as a series of trembling shudders. Looked to her right, saw darkening --

-- was it always that shade? Is it the lighting in this room?

-- mane hair starting to fall across blue eyes, and not enough of it to hide the welling tears.

She had thought something was wrong, after meeting the older stallion in the tower. Upon hearing the words which had come just before his departure, the strange questions which had seemed so off. But... this?

...not Coordinator? Or he could still be involved, there's so many ponies down there, 'somepony else' is a plural and...

Pinkie. Fluttershy.

What's it like to be them right now? To look down and see your first friend standing there, with all those ponies facing him, waiting for him, to know that the pony responsible for your even being alive just might be responsible for so much else...

There were words to bring comfort, gentle sentences which would reassure, rebuild, perhaps provide the first step towards healing. There had to be.

"I..." Twilight tried.

And so she learned there were none which ever would.

"I can't," Pinkie softly wept. "I can't... I don't want to believe, I don't...."

And then there was Quiet, also one of his. Quiet, who had taken a single sharp breath, followed by dipping his head until the small grey chin touched illusion-coated floor, his eyes half-closed.

"I never thought..." The words were the barest waft of breath against stone. "To look down and see him like this, with his features and fur alone in exposure to the world..."

And on his left, Fluttershy. The eldest. One eye squeezed shut from pain, the other hidden behind a manefall of coral, a small portion of which was beginning to darken. But that was a familiar sort of change, produced by nothing more than tears soaking into the strands.

From behind them, a soft "Oh," and then Rarity's words accelerated. "I am... dearest ones, I cannot pretend to understand everything you must be feeling, but we are here with you: know we are right here..."

Applejack audibly swallowed. "Everypony... Ah know you've gotta want t' get down there and face him. We can't. We've got to listen. We need that evidence." And with a fierceness muted only in volume, "But when he's done talking -- that's when you just might get to say something of your own. We'll be there when you do. Pinkie -- breathe slow, breathe steady. It's what Rarity said: we're right here. We're all right here and we ain't going nowhere."

Twilight heard claws scrape against stone, forced herself not to look back at Spike. Listened to Rainbow's tail lashing increase in frequency and strength, to the point where it seemed as if the next sound to come would be the crack of a whip.

"I'll kill him," the pegasus softly stated, the words far more even than they seemingly should have been. "I'm gonna kick him into --"

Spike's half-whisper cut her off. "-- there's a line."

Pinkie sobbed. Fluttershy trembled. Quiet simply stared. And Twilight, still without words, forced her gaze to shift until she was once again looking at the unicorn on the stage.

I curtsied to him. In recognition of his contributions to Equestria, I bent my forelegs in the presence of...

While they had been talking, he had made his way towards the forward edge of the raised platform, moving far too slowly for even the injured hind leg to explain away. Forcing himself forward, visibly marshaling inner resources along the way. But now he was close to the drop, standing near what appeared to be a rotating mobile blackboard, one set into its frame on a central pivot. There was also a small stack of papers next to it, some larger than others: she'd missed both things during the initial survey of the crowd.

His horn ignited: just a basic partial corona. A thin shimmer of silver coated the door through which he'd arrived.

"Twi... Twilight?" Pinkie, words forced to emerge between little gasps. "What... what did he just cast?"

The spell hadn't been that powerful, nowhere near enough for her to get a true feel for the working through stone. But there were other ways to determine what a spell had done, and Twilight spotted the little shiver along the glow's borders, the way sparkles seemed to be pushing against the heavy wood...

"It distorts sound," she softly answered (and hated herself, because for that, she had been capable of speech). "Not much. Just enough that if you were on the other side, you'd know someone was talking and how loudly, but you wouldn't be able to make out the exact words. It's like a really weak version of Lyra's trick. I've been trying to learn it since the reporters showed up, but..." Well, at least that meant she'd known what a successful casting was supposed to look like. "But who is he trying to keep from overhearing?"

Which was when she finally shifted position on the floor, moved until she was pressing against Pinkie. Hated herself all the more for having taken so long to move, for not having offered presence first...

The baker's body trembled against her own. Vibrations traveled through fur and feathers, began to set up tiny unknown echoes near her core.

"Basic security measure?" Quiet offered, with a different kind of pain audible in his voice. "It won't stop us, though."

Two mares, with no other outlets available for their emotions, wept. (Spike shifted his own position, went to Fluttershy, pressed scales against fur and refused to leave.) And all looked down at the floor, one illusion which had shattered another.

Waited for him to speak.


He looked at the shrouded walls first, then the shifted furniture, and finally at the covered forms. Ponies gathered from across a continent.

"Before we begin," he steadily, almost softly told them, "I would like to apologize. None of you were originally expecting to be here tonight. The speed and urgency of the summons, along with the lack of full detail as to why... well, even when sending by the most private of couriers, there are things nopony can trust to put in a letter. I know you have many questions, and some of them have been born from dream. But when you knew I truly needed you, everypony here left their homes and came to me. I thank you for that. Your attendance, your contributions to our Great Work, and your hope. Ultimately, it is hope which brought us together. Which kept us on the path, and holds us here."

(Above him, at the moment he named the Great Work, for the two mares which were his, the last portion of desperate doubt collapsed into shards of sorrow.)

He took a slow breath. Bodies shifted in the audience, making it easy to look beyond the garments to the impatience within. Here and there, the fear, which was almost strong enough to scent. But yes -- look upon them all and see the little vibrations which indicated desperate hope.

"Before we disperse, I will answer at least some of those questions," he continued. "And even so -- I still wish to apologize, because a number of you have been part of this for a long time. You heard me speak, you listened, and thus you joined me in hope. But there are also those here tonight who are new to our gathering. They have heard just enough to come... but perhaps not enough to believe."

He didn't look up: there was no need. Instead, he briefly, visibly focused his attention at a little group towards the center of the room, for a very few on the floor level would be listening for the first time. There normally would have been a slower feeling-out process added to a much more personal approach, but... well, perhaps some part of him had known it would come down to an all-or-nothing wager all along.

"So before I reach the new," he told them, "I must return to the beginning. Most of you have heard me speak of it before and to those ponies, I am sorry. For making you wait. For forcing you to live through an old stallion's past once again." A weary, pained half-smile. "And... his nightmares. You've heard my words, but there are those who have not, and... it hurts me, to speak of this. It hurts all of us. But where so many can only make their way through life by choosing to block their pain -- by forcing it away from their nightscapes, so as to relive it no more than they absolutely must -- tonight --"

His eyes briefly squeezed shut, opened again.

"-- it is necessary for me to suffer," he finished. "So that nopony else ever will."

Silence. Waiting for him. Waiting for news and knowing it had just been postponed, but also knowing that waiting was all they could do.

"We do the needful," he told them. "We do what we must, in the name of that Great Work. But for a long time, I did... nothing."

His head dipped, the soft red mane depressed down by the weight of shame.

"Did you know," he quietly asked the room, "that all pegasi, given any choice, any at all... will give birth on the ground?" Still looking at nothing more than the edge of the stage. "It was news to some among you. Others were taught it early on. But I would appreciate it if, as you listened, you kept that fact in mind for a while. Because I had to learn it, and did so after it was already too late."

He raised his head. Warm orange eyes steadied their gaze, looked out over the group.

"I was given a choice early on, of what to do with my life," he told them. "And I did nothing, for I had no need to do anything at all. Not yet. My parents were wealthy, you see... well, that is hardly a rare statement for this room." A few chuckles worked their way through the robes, and he managed a smile. "They weren't nobles: I belong to no House -- although I've assisted a few towards seeing their next generations." Fabric shifted again: multiple ponies nodding. "They simply had the luck to inherit funds which others had accumulated over centuries, enough of a collection to allow one a comfortable existence on the compound interest alone. When they passed into the shadowlands, I then inherited that wealth -- and decided that all things considered, the bits were doing enough work on their own. I had no need for anything so draining of time as an occupation. I had my mark. I knew what I was meant to do. And I simply waited for the opportunity to arrive. It didn't seem to be so long a wait..."

And now he had to will his eyes to stay open. To let them see the here and now, when every other part of him was already looking back. Going back.

"But until then, I used my time for pleasure," he quietly told them. "The joy of simply being. And then..."

A small breath, for with the past having arrived, there was no room left within him for anything more.

"How many of you remember her?" he softly inquired. "Only a few. But that is for lack of opportunity. If you had met her -- you would remember. I saw her one night, and she became all I could remember. I thought about that first meeting until the review took me all the way back to Sun. How I'd ruined everything in my life by not going up to her immediately and asking her to become part of it, because surely everypony else would recognize the opportunity I'd failed to seize. But as it turned out..." a tiny smile "...my settled zone lacked for bravery in more ponies than myself, for when Sun appeared, she was still available for courting. She was even still there two weeks later, when I finally found the courage, and after a time, she was with me at the first touch of dawn, with Sun shining from her..."

The first tear fell.

"Her name was Primatura," he told, taught, reminded them. "And no time spent basking in her light was ever wasted."

It was possible to identify the elders of Trotter's Falls simply by their dipped heads.

"We freed each other," he made himself continue. "She gave me the rare honor of allowing me to perceive the world from a perspective other than my own, truly seeing. A gift she wished to grant to so many, freely offered to me. All I could contribute was resources: the chance for her to listen to the whispers of her mark without worrying about mere survival. No price at all. She gave me love and hope and dreams, and all I could give her was mere love. I often felt as if I was failing to make it an even bargain, and when I told her so from within her radiance, she would laugh at me. She said I was spending my life in underestimating what I could bring to the world, what I was already bringing to her, but she simply gave and in time..."

He had said the words so many times, in trying to make ponies understand. And whenever he reached this stage, they had to be forced.

"...she told me that she would be giving me... my destiny."

A slow exhale, one which failed to carry any of the pain away.

"A few of you remember her," he said. "Given the sheer number of empty bottles and fallen forms, I doubt anypony truly remembers the announcement's celebration party."

And finally, somepony, brought back to half-assembled fragments of revelry, laughed.

He smiled. Paused, gathered strength. And still did not look up.


"His spouse..." Twilight whispered. "But... what does he mean by destiny? What did he think he was supposed to...?"

Pinkie simply shivered. Twilight tried to press more tightly against her, loathing the spy perch which would not allow them to fight the pain with the warmth that came in the center of a ponypile. Felt the wing getting in the way.

There were words coming forward now, but they only sounded within her own mind. They repeated themselves, moving in a circle.

Somepony else.


"Well... she did," he ruefully added. "As she was the only one who wasn't drinking. But she never told me the details, other than what might have been suspected through responding to seeing certain ponies with a sudden burst of giggling. I suspected she might have... recorded a few portions, but if so..."

A slow head shake.

"We made plans," he went on. "We postponed others. We divided the world into the things we could do before, and those which would come after. We... were going to attend the Games, in the moon immediately following. We'd been talking about it before she'd told me, and it didn't feel like something we had to change. We were going to Baltimare first: we'd planned that for the dividing line. But afterwards, there was going to be a moon for adjustment and after that, surely we'd be ready to travel. She had no great love for the Games, but she knew I did and so she indulged me. It would be our first time attending together, the first time for all of us, and..."

The breaths hurt now. Every one kicked at his ribs from the inside, and he once again distantly wondered if this was how his most devoted felt all the time.

"...I haven't been to the Games in more than two decades."

And finally, he looked up.

But that gaze did not go to his, not in the place from which they were watching. He made no attempt to view the Princess through what, on his side, appeared to be a simple ceiling. He wasn't looking at anything which existed in the here and now. Instead, he looked up simply because of where he was. As the last thing required to place him at the true beginning.

As a reminder that when it had happened, they had been underground.

Surrounded by stone.


The estate is an old one, nearly matching the local castle in years, and so there is a part of it hidden from view: more than mere basement, but slightly less than full retreat -- although given those centuries, it was built to provide a means for that. But in this part of his life, their life, the now of memory brought into the present, his distant spoken words only providing the faintest echo of events, there was no true need for those rooms -- until the day she'd married him.

So there is a wine cellar now, because they have parties now and again: it's best to both attend and host such things with company. (Admittedly, it's more of a wine about-twenty-percent-of-a-very-small-wall.) And there is her place.

He doesn't entirely understand her process (although he's now capable of appreciating the results, and is studying on the sly so that he can appreciate them with a more appropriate vocabulary). He's not certain he ever will, and so he had questioned why she'd asked to lock herself away from natural light. She had simply jested about not needing to factor certain things out and besides, if he was going to keep saying that Sun shone from her, then clearly she was up to any need for emergency illumination.

(There are devices in the ceiling, newly-installed ones, which shine with an oddly white sort of light. The results take some getting used to.)

She's working when he comes in, because the desires of mark and pony aren't going to be stopped by anything so simple as a bulging belly, one which has occasionally produced questions about twins. He likes to watch her work. Again, he doesn't fully understand it, but -- he loves her, and this is the other great love of her life. Hours which he might wish for are expended down here and... well, spending time together as a threesome should, in theory, help to cut down on the jealousy.

He watches in silence. This is a holy place of sorts, and to speak out of turn would feel very much like a sin.

Finally, she pauses, sets everything down, turns to look at him.

"Hello, you," she smiles. "I heard you come in. I think. I was... well, you know." A small nod towards her work. "How long were you there?" A pause. "Actually... what time is it?"

"Sun's just been lowered," he tells her.

"Oh," she considers. With just the slightest note of false concern, "In which moon?"

It makes him smile. "The same one. Are you coming up to dinner?" It's a frequent question: when she's truly within the heart of her mark, she takes her meals here -- and only does so because he finally recognized that the best way to keep her eating regularly was to provide a way of doing so with no distractions. He still considers it to be a rather fine feedbag, although she keeps telling him that they have to work on his taste in hues.

And much to his surprise, she nods. "Yes -- but in a few minutes. I just want to check this last portion again."

Which means possibly redoing that section, and likely requiring repeated reheating of the okra. "Do you mind if I watch a little more, then?" Solidarity in appetite.

"If you must," she smiles, and turns back towards the newest piece. Her horn exerts, and things move just so. He often marvels at her precision, the dance created while legs remain motionless and only eyes shift from place to place. The complexities of the movements and all the wonders which they birth.

They are together in that room for perhaps twenty minutes (and now the okra is cold) as she works. He watches. He is starting to truly feel the hunger now, and he does not care.

Her field flickers. Something slashes to the right. Purple eyes wince shut, just before that movement would have prevented them from seeing the marring.

It gets his attention, all of it put together, and perhaps nothing does so more than that cruel mistake. "Are you okay?"

"I just..." She's breathing too hard. "...I think I just felt --"

The next moment remains with him for the rest of his life.

Her horn goes dark. All four of her knees buckle. She starts to fall as instinct flares, makes her almost fling herself to the left, to land on her side instead of her distended belly. Protecting, to the very last.

The dropped items, released just before she began to plummet, hit first. They clatter on the floor. Two hit with softer sounds. Things roll and bounce and scatter. Her impact, which has somewhat more weight, moves them a little more. A few other items vibrate. His world begins to crack.

And then liquid emerges from her, from two places in three gouts. The first is vomit. The second emerges as something which is only referred to as 'water' because he has yet to learn the proper term for amniotic fluid. The third comes from the same place, and the only word needed to describe it is 'blood'.

He is at her side in an instant, dropping to her level. (She is writhing, twisting, with spasms of agony sending her legs into involuntary kicks.) And his horn ignites. He can teleport: that working became his shortly after coming into his magic. He can go for help --

-- but he does not. He can't leave her, not with sweat coating her body, rapidly heading into the danger of froth. Not upon seeing her pain, not... he can't, and he does not.

It's too early. She wasn't due for another moon. They were going to travel to Baltimare for the birthing, because there is no true hospital in their settled zone and he doesn't think much of the local midwife, while none of the doctors specialize in deliveries. It's too early and something is wrong, horribly wrong, he can't leave her and so his corona surges, he pushes because he knows there is a way to teleport with another, he probably can't reach Baltimare but he can at least try to get her to any help, normal movement could make things worse and while he'll be risking recoil and all the dangers therein, he's not really thinking about that. It could be argued that he's not thinking at all. There is a stallion next to his helpless mare, and silver light builds, surges, temporarily distorts everything in the room as he fights, he fights to find a way to bring her into the between, he tries to teach himself the means of escorting another with heartbeats in which to do so and --

There are so many things to remember. So many which cannot be brought back as part of the memory, for within those moments, he never thought of them at all. That he could have tried to appear in a physician's home just long enough to scream alarm and location, then returned. That he might have attempted to use whatever strength he possessed to levitate her, keep her perfectly still within the bubble: perhaps he could have reached town before fainting. But he could not leave her. He would not. He did not.

-- he does not know how long he has been trying, praying, for while caught in its grasp, there is no true way of measuring eternity. She is screaming, screaming and it just keeps coming, no words within the sounds, she screams so much that it seems as if it must be keeping her from taking any breaths, she kicks out and her right foreleg slams into his ribs. He barely notices. He is fighting against the fabric of the world, something which will part for him alone, he needs to bring them both, to bring them all and so he fights for that, he is pushing and knows that a miracle will come because this can't happen, not like this, not to her and --

-- her right foreleg comes up again. Touches his face.

He looks down as his corona surges, the primary layer twisting in shape with every moment, silvering the world. And he sees the pain in her eyes. He sees helplessness. He sees everything except the soul which rests within that agonized form, for its last act under newly-risen Moon was to reach for him. There is no heart, no mind, no Sun shining from within.

What remains screams again and the sound shreds memory, makes the whole of their lives together into a single instant in which the only thing which has ever existed is that scream.

The joints of her foreleg tighten, then go limp.

The sound stops.

His forelegs are resting within vomit. His vision has been blurred by the drain from his failure. Weakness and tears combine, leave him barely able to see her. To see anything. There are two ponies buried within the stone and the one who is still breathing regards his living state as a rather temporary formality.

He could not. He did not.

There is no movement within what had been her place of dream. There is a corpse, one he cannot look away from, and things surrounding them which he will do his best to never look upon again.

(He will fail. Even for that, he will fail, over and over, until he finally blocks them from his sight. And even then, he fails to close the very last way in.)

The truest part of her is gone. He cannot leave what remains. Perhaps they will simply decay together.

And then she moves.

Part of her moves.

It catches his attention. It makes him hope, just for a moment, that a miracle has been granted. He looks, and -- it's a shift in the skin, a tiny poke pushing against the inside of that distended belly.

Then it stops.

The words tear through him.

mother dead, foal might still be alive, mother dead

He tells himself there is no time, and perhaps that is true. (He will, hours later, find a clock and finally make his best guess as to how long it all took, from beginning to end to beginning. He will never allow himself to believe it.) He could not leave his spouse: he cannot risk so much as a second away now, not while there's any chance. But his horn is not a sharp one. Even if it was, he wouldn't be sure just how deep to cut, and the thought of doing that to her body --

-- he would, if it was possible. There still might be a life there, the last of her, the last there will ever be, and he will do anything to save that life, anything. But he doesn't know what he can do. He cannot push on her belly from the outside, guide the foal with hooves. There are no living muscles to contract, push, aid in a final effort. There are knives in the kitchen and perhaps some could cut into flesh, but it would be the same issue: a tail strand too deep and there will be two bodies. And yet that seems to be his only option, but just the time to find something he can use...

mother dead, foal might still be alive, mother dead

To cut is to risk another death. To leave is to miss the only chance. The foal cannot be reached. Cannot be moved. Can't be --

She had said it: that she would be giving him his destiny. And in that moment, with everything else having failed, with no true thought to block the way, that which defines him speaks without words. It has happened to so many ponies over the centuries. She claimed it happened to her every now and again. That when the time was right, when guidance was needed, when you were acting within the heart of who you were meant to be... there would be communication. A upwelling of instincts, all leading to direction.

His mark whispers to him, and his horn ignites.

A partial corona at first. Then the full single. Double, as the field surrounds the corpse, pushes at cooling fur. Triple, everything he has left to give, effort until exhaustion or success. Possibly until death or success, for he had been trying to move all of them for so long, those attempts cost him, and he doesn't know how much strength he still has. But there is a triple corona, and light warps around him as he gives everything he has left of himself for the last of her, payment for a scant period of happiness rendered in full, his vision is going dark and he can't sense the air against his fur anymore and there was nothing to hear but his own final scream to begin with, the scent of blood and vomit is fading away as the room narrows down to the last thaums he can commit, with his only remaining sensation of the world as the feel which slashes at what had been perceived as an unbreakable law of magic and tries to create a wound large enough for a single exception --

-- there is a tiny hoof.

He can feel it. He can...

He can pull.

There is blood, and then there is more blood. (He continues to fight. He does not look, never sees the sparkles vanish from his corona's light.) Dead muscles cannot assist: he is forcing the foal to move through the birth canal. But he can't think about what he's doing to the interior of his spouse's corpse. He can only fight, try to retain that tenuous new feel, believing that a single second of lapse in his concentration will take it from him forever. He can't watch the distortions under the corpse's skin as they slowly (too slowly) travel in the right direction, he can barely see at all, he may be screaming or there may be nothing left for such pointless expression, he can only fight until there is nothing left which can fight at all.

Blood. So much blood. And then a sickening sound, one which forces his ears to work simply to include that detail in the replays which will rule his nightscape for moons until the right working is finally found to block them. The sound of flesh tearing due to pressure from within, a wound they had been told might come naturally, something minor which would readily heal, but this is nothing normal and that which has died will never recover.

There is that grotesque sound, and it goes on for something just short of forever.

And when it finally stops, he hears the tiny cry.

His horn goes dark, all at once. He nearly falls into darkness, might have plummeted into the shadowlands immediately after if he had. But he forces himself forward, towards the last of her, the last there will ever be. He is not thinking about what he just accomplished. (It will be some time before he sees it as any kind of accomplishment at all, and it will forever be tainted by what came before it. Failure and success: the themes of his existence.) There is death in the room, and so much of his heart can be counted among the lost. But there is also life, and that tiny cry has created something he can live for. He will protect her final gift to him. He will devote his existence to that. And so he pushes forward without ever quite managing to stand, fur scrapping against the floor, moving through blood and vomit and fluids he has yet to learn names for, a single body length to cross, a literal body length which takes so long to journey through, he forces his eyes to focus and sees the foal, the filly, her body anointed in the residue of life and death, fur stained by that and one other thing, for the smaller items dropped first and so there is an additional source of discoloration available.

He sees her fear and confusion: no comprehension of the world she has been pulled into, the stench of death forcing terror onto a newborn who knows nothing of how to resist her instincts. He sees that --

-- and then his eyes are pulled towards vacuum.

Absence.

The last joke which can be played by a world which extracts a price for every gift.

He was granted a partial miracle, life within death, and in exchange...

There is no horn.
There is no horn.
There is no horn.


There were no words. Not in the room, not from those watching from above. There were no words at all, until he raised his head again. Blinked away the tears, even as so many of those who believed themselves hidden did the same, along with a few in the much lesser audience. And then he spoke.

"I have shared my nightmare," he softly stated. "And now, for the unicorns in the room, those hearing this for the first time -- I must ask you to share another. To, for a moment, imagine that you are a pegasus, one about to give birth. That there is no time to move you, that labor ends within mere minutes, for such can happen. So your newborn foal's first sensation of the world is the floor of your cloud home..."

He took a slow breath.

"...and the next is the plummet."

Gasps, added to a tiny, quickly choked-back scream.

"Given any choice," he quietly told them, "all pegasi will give birth on the ground. Because some of their foals will not be pegasi. Unicorns and earth pony foals come into their families and for those newborns, a single moment of resting upon a vapor surface may kill."

He looked away from the audience. Began to pace along the edge of the stage, the injured hind leg dragging.

"There are ways in which I know very little about the mysteries of our blood," he admitted. "But in that, I am just like everypony else, for we all learn the same chant eventually, do we not? Even if it takes so many more school years before we understand what it truly means. 'An earth pony and an earth pony make an earth pony, a unicorn with a unicorn is a baby unicorn, pegasus plus pegasus equals pegasus -- but add any other --'" and the last words were just a little louder than what had come before, which still provided enough contrast to make it arrive as something close to a shout "'-- even once...'"

Moving a little faster now.

"I had thought myself pure," he told them all. "I never asked her, because I loved her and so she was pure to me. Perhaps it was her. But it could have been me. Both of us? It's possible. I could have researched both of our family trees until I reached the Discordian Era -- and then there would be no going on. But ultimately, it would have been pointless. I would have been shouting at the shadowlands, and I would hardly expect to receive an apology, much less restitution for the crime. For it was theft in the end, was it not? Children are robbed of their heritage. They are helpless to stop it, they will never be repaid, they enter the world broken beyond all repair...!"

Another breath, followed by a visible centering.

"She was broken." Almost a whisper. "It was nothing she did. Nothing she ever would have done. Somepony sins but once, and that sin is visited onto the innocents of our future."

He stopped moving. His head dipped again.

"A moment," he quietly asked. "Please." And those within the room waited for him.


There had been times when reactions came to Twilight later than they should have, emotional responses arriving after what she now felt was a shameful delay. The gap had lessened over the years, occasionally vanished entirely, but there were cruel moments when it exerted itself and placed a wall between her and the world, leaving her desperate to find some way of breaking through. The surest weapons she had in that effort were formed from ink, scrolls, and those who helped her find the words.

Those friends were with her now. All of them were, along with somepony new. But it wasn't helping, and perhaps that was because this problem was also new. It wasn't being late to an emotion. Simply not knowing what to do was already present, and felt as if it might never leave.

She was having an emotional reaction. She was having several of them, and she didn't know which ones were supposed to be there.

Part of her wanted to grieve, for she had heard his pain and knew it was a true agony, one which would never fade. But then words had come after it and hate had surged, a cold fury which was trying to ignite her horn, send bursts of field into stone until the true view had been opened and she could reach him. Underneath that, a trembling fear, anticipation building into terror as a deep portion of her mind realized that the story could only worsen. Helplessness, for Pinkie was shaking, crying, and there was nothing Twilight could do to help, no way to fix things, no words or actions or...

Within her, the conflict raged, beat against internal barriers which had already been disturbed by echoes, mission, and the moon which had passed since the change. Fresh cracks appeared in inner barricades. One storm howling outside, another within.

Somewhere in the room, hooves scraped against stone, then forced themselves to be still: Applejack, perhaps, fighting back the urge to charge. Quiet was simply watching, listening: it seemed to be all he was still capable of. Fluttershy... the tears had never stopped, and perhaps only dehydration would end their flow. And from behind her, a voice normally filled with brash confidence began to brim with fear.

"I..." Feathers softly rustled as cyan wings trembled. "...I never thought about that," Rainbow whispered. "About having a kid, and... if they couldn't fly, if I didn't reach the ground in time..."

She wanted to say something. To find any way of bringing comfort to anypony.

But then he began to speak again, and all of the storms raged on.


"My world had been shattered," he finally went on. "Shattered beyond all repair. I looked at her corpse, then at what we had produced, and... I thought about it. Just for a moment, I thought about sending on. But... it was the last of my spouse. The last there would ever be. I looked at the filly, and I realized... it wasn't her fault."

He started to move again, heading for the blackboard.

"She had a right to her heritage. To her magic. Something which had been torn from her forever. A choice she had not made, would have never made, and... it was too late. The sin had been in the blood, and now that sin was expressed as unchanging flesh. A punishment for a sin which had never been hers."

Stopped, his forelegs near the papers.

"My world had been shattered," he repeated. "I could see no path forward. And so I did... something small. Something I could still do. I found what little remained of my strength, and took the filly away from her mother, for she didn't understand what had happened. She was trying to nuzzle against a cooling body when I carried her away, still crying for a parent she would never know. I took her --"

Upstairs. I took her upstairs.

Even without what had happened both before and after, it would have remained distinctive simply for its singularity.

"-- to a bath," he continued. "I washed her. She was covered in blood, and then she was not. That much I could control. I washed her, and looked at where her horn should have been." A pause. "Primatura had talked me into -- saving the cap. Not that she'd really had to try."

His eyes closed, remained so for three breaths, opened again.

"The gift was her life," he finally said. "And the price for that gift was the death of my spouse, the theft of her heritage, and... I couldn't send her on. Even broken by sin, she was the last of Primatura, and to give her up... I couldn't. But she was broken, and I could barely stand to look at the unhealing wound which the world had inflicted upon her. So I cleaned her, I fed her, I calmed her, and I brought the bassinet into the lower level, as far from her mother's corpse as possible. I ate, because I had realized I needed to live. And then I began to think. That she had been robbed of her heritage --"

Which was when that warm orange gaze began to grow bright.

"-- but that did not mean she had to stay broken."

His spine went tight. A soft red tail held steady.

"I had done the impossible. I recognized that. Differentiation, the law of magic which no unicorn had ever violated, an unbreakable wall between us and whatever may lie within -- wounded by my horn, enough to let a single ray of light through. And once the impossible has been done once... you start to feel like so many other things could be accomplished. Breaking through differentiation was impossible: I had done that. Everything else might simply be a matter of finding the way. And so I began to do the needful."

They were listening, all of them. Admittedly, there were postures which told him a few were now doing so in light boredom: they had heard this part years ago, they had been convinced, and they were just waiting for him to reach the new. But those ponies weren't important and in some ways, neither were the new arrivals on the ground level. Ultimately, he was speaking to six.

He wished he could see them before him, in that moment. Answer their questions immediately. Watch their faces in anticipation of that instant when they would truly understand, for he knew that such would come.

Soon enough.

"I hid her away before I notified the authorities," he calmly stated. "Before the body was removed. I told the doctors that I didn't want an autopsy. I barely managed to get through the funeral, and I thank all of you who were there to give what support and comfort you could. And nopony asked about what had happened during the birth, because the assumption was that I had... sent the foal on. But she was still there, being tended to within stone. I went back to her regularly: teleportation provided that much comfort. But most of my time was being spent away from my home. I needed to do research, and some resources were close by. I had, in some ways, already started on the path. Certainly in one way, for I had not named her. Some might choose to see that as simple luck, but with what came after... that was the assistance of destiny. The first of her two great moments had passed: she had been born. But a lesser? Avoided. Without a name, the future granted to her could be shaped. I researched, and in time..."

His horn ignited, and the silver field surrounded the papers. Began to separate the topmost sheets, move them towards the board.

"I still had these," he quietly said. "The notes I wrote on the night when the Great Work truly became my life."

The first sheet of parchment was placed against the dark plane. There was but a single line of writing upon it.

A cutie mark cannot be spontaneously created.

"'Cutie mark'," and he chuckled. "There's a story in that, actually: one hardly anypony alive knows. I'm not certain I've ever told anypony here about how 'cutie' came to be part of the term. Perhaps this might be the night for it, or it could simply frustrate those who feel that tale is lengthening the delay. But once you know the story, you may find yourself simply calling it a mark. In seeing the full term here, please forgive my relative innocence of youth." A small smile. "But this is something you all know, I'm sure. Some of you -- of us -- all right, the number includes myself -- did foolish things in our childhood while attempting to create the marks of our personal choice, and the stories of failure could be told for a thousand years and more -- but then, our destinies had been set."

The next sheet floated up.

A cutie mark can be temporarily concealed, albeit with great effort.

"And may Sun and Moon help the pony who tries to make it permanent," he wryly added. "So many criminals have assigned themselves to, if not a life in prison, then one in pants. But it is part of what we all know: that the mark itself is inviolate. Or... is it something we only told ourselves we knew?"

And on the third sheet:

A cutie mark can be transferred, but only the mark itself moves: not the talent it represents.


He -- he couldn't have known that. Not that far back. Only two living ponies should have known that, could have known...

"Twilight?" Pinkie, even while steadily sinking into the depths of her own pain, was still capable of sensing the shock. "How... how can he..."

She didn't know, and so said nothing. Her eyes simply widened, and she watched.


Shockwave. A small one, confined only to those ponies who had never known it -- but a shockwave all the same, one he was entirely used to seeing.

"A few of you are currently fighting to believe that," he observed, "and in doing so, are largely fighting against yourselves. For now, I ask that you simply accept it as true. It can be done. But there are many problems involved with the incomplete version which is all that exists of that spell, starting with the fact that simply exerting one's true talent will begin to unravel the entire working. Destiny reasserts itself. The working is not worth learning, and given the identity of its original creator... well, if he couldn't finish it, then I doubt it can ever be fixed." A small shrug. "But we will reach that. The next fact --"

A cutie mark can be delayed, sometimes indefinitely.

"There are many means of doing so," he stated. "Every last one of which, if known to the authorities, will place the delaying pony in prison. But it seemed to me that I had little choice in the matter, and so I turned to the surest method. Within the first moon of her life, she had her first... jewelry. Something which became more complex over the years, but the heart of it was always there. Training had to begin early and so even as an infant, she was taught to never remove the snitcher. She wasn't told what it did. Simply that it had to be worn at all times, until the Great Work was complete."


"He stopped her Surges," Applejack half-hissed. "No earth ponies in this town, nopony to hear her, and then he went an' tore out her throat! Her whole life without magic, because he'd decided she was broken! And what in Tartarus is sending on? Ah think I've got an idea, but if I'm right, ponies have been --"

She stopped, all at once, as her ears dipped and even her breaths became momentarily silent. Twilight simply continued to stare down, as the colors began to leach from the edges of her vision.

And then the fifth sheet came up. Waterstained parchment, and something within her recognized that the discolorations had been produced by tears of joy.

A cutie mark can be manipulated...

The world went white.

She wasn't aware that she'd almost started to scream until she felt Quiet's field desperately clamp around her jaw, and still the sound pushed against Twilight's teeth, demanded release as the horrors of what a filly's life would become presented themselves before her and sought a way into the world. She was struggling, she was fighting as deeper cracks appeared, a simple effort would dispel the other field and then she would

she saw Quiet's face. The sudden fear, and perhaps it was a terror of her reaction giving them away, the knowledge that he'd never be able to hold her if she found a moment of focus, or it could have been fear of --

-- the scream, so pure and pained, continued to echo in her mind. But to gain strength for that assault, it had to abandon the attack on her throat. The fear (his, and the much more experienced army of her own) was immediately recruited as an ally and together, they relentlessly battered the inner defenses.

The white faded. Color returned.

"Easy," Quiet whispered, his field releasing its unsteady grip. "Easy, Twilight..."

She forced herself to nod.

"I..." The word barely made it through the storm. "I'll be careful."

He nodded.

And she watched.

It would be hours before she realized he'd reached across Pinkie to stop her. Intercepting from the wrong side.


"Many ponies try," he said. "Of course, some of that is simple parenting: we feel we know what's best for our children, after all, and there are certainly marks we would prefer them to have. But in the end, we are fighting destiny. Among the earth ponies, I would imagine that a farming family might wish for every generation to contain farmers, but... there are times when the world chooses something else. Again, some forms of manipulation would bring punishment from those who discovered them, but... I had already acquired a snitcher and placed it upon the filly in my basement." Not without a touch of wryness, "Going forward from that seemed to be something much less than impossible."

He resumed his quarter-limping pace, with his field still holding the sheets against the blackboard.

"At the time I wrote those words, I had already learned a few things," he told them. "It was... surprisingly easy to learn more, and I started to wonder how much of that might have been destiny -- although finding some of what I initially needed within trotting distance hadn't hurt. But then I was ranging farther and farther away. I learned to keep multiple safe points open, so that I could return to the lower levels at any time: there was nopony taking care of her other than me, after all. And the things I then learned..."

He paused, took a deep breath.

"There have been times when I have wondered," he declared, "if anypony could have learned it all. Because we've all asked the questions, haven't we? When we were very young, and foal questions were all we had. But we never acquired the answers. We were only taught to stop asking. But I had so many questions, and the truth could not hide itself from a determined mind. I sought truth, and this is what I learned: our world is a lie."

The last five words resounded, and echoes did their share of damage within a place he could not see.

"One alicorn did not wield six Elements," he told them all. "Nor did two. Six Elements were matched to six ponies. Destiny then provided them with a protector, and seven went out into something so much worse than a wild zone to try and save the world. They succeeded -- and paid a price for that gift. But among their wielders, there were no alicorns at all -- at least, not at the start."

More gasps, from that same little section. He ignored them.

"I needed to learn about ways by which a broken pony might find what should have been their magic," he continued. "And so I asked myself a foal question: where do alicorns come from? In searching, I found a partial answer: those who so many see as deities incarnate began their lives as normal ponies." A brief pause. "And they were not unicorns. Their magic was granted, created, and gifted by the Elements themselves. I now knew that it was possible to make a pony into an alicorn."

A small smile.

"I could," he stated, "settle for that. So I --"

And from that tiny portion of the audience which held the first-time public attendees came the first shout.

"I know what you did!"

It was a west coast accent, from a very specific region, and it was somepony he'd never had the chance to directly speak with. That narrowed down the possibilities to one, and he momentarily considered Coordinator's priorities in searching for assistance. How they so frequently seemed to locate those who would only want the power for themselves, mostly because such ponies typically possessed a wealth of blackmail material.

"Do you --" and he couldn't resist "-- Duke?"

A gasp of terror, quickly suppressed, which still left the overweight body shaking under its damp robes. "I-- I was told there would be no names!"

"It's not a name," he calmly stated. "It's a title. There are Dukes all over the continent, and so much else, depending just what titles the House insisted on retaining for joining Equestria during the Unification. And I was told that you have an odd insistence on being properly addressed, if not necessarily towards arriving on time, or at any point while the desaturator still had any portion of its charge. I think you're the only pony here who went directly from entrance to conference. And what was it you were told I did?"

"The..." And now the body was shaking with outrage. "The hybrids!"

There was now a degree of confusion before him. (So much more above.)

He simply sighed. "Well," and added a small shrug, "at least you were mistakenly gossiped to with the polite term. Very well. We move forward, then, in the name of providing you with correct information."

Back to the blackboard, which rotated under the prod of his field. The blank surface came around, and an ancient scrap of paper was pressed against it.

"I realize that's hard to read," he said as more scraps came up. "You could have said many things about the writer, and none of them would be that he had excellent fieldwriting. But the exact horribleness of it would be familiar to many scholars, even those too far away to make out exactly what he wrote. You are looking at --"


"-- Star Swirl," Twilight just barely whispered. "Those are Star Swirl's personal notes..."


"-- or at least a fraction of the incomplete portion which survives." A small sigh. "He hid copies, and others were passed on -- or perhaps acquired and then passed on. Some were left in their original locations: I didn't feel it was safe to move the ones with the strongest lingering protections, and perhaps others have read them in the time since I did. Others are missing, and I suspect the Princesses destroyed whatever they could. But I took a few, if only as proof of both what I had read and who had written it. And I recognized what would have to be written in the absent sections. So as I have experience in deciphering his writing, allow me to both translate and educate."

An equally ancient sketch was levitated into view.

"These are the Elements themselves, as they existed in Star Swirl's time -- yes, I know they don't look like the sketches you've seen in the newspapers, and that comes from something other than inaccurate reporting. This is how they looked then." Casually, "The central jewel reflects the mark of the Bearer, and those of you who have devoted even casual study to astronomy should now be asking yourselves some interesting questions regarding the constellations within The Barding Of The Ancients. As for there being a pair of crowns, count the members of our Diarchy."

He looked at the images for a moment.

"They were six," he softly said. "Because it requires six." And turned back to the audience. "And Star Swirl, as their Element of Magic... he believed it should have been him, as the one -- and likely only -- who changed. But he had lost the opportunity. His moment of destiny had passed, and with the war against Discord ended -- as far as he knew, the path of the Elements had been closed for the rest of his lifetime. I doubt learning that he was right about that aspect would be any comfort to him."

A small sigh.

"As it was closed to me," he sadly admitted. "I found where they should have been. Where, as it ultimately turned out, they were all along. But they did not reveal themselves to me, and in his case... an incomplete set. But he still wished for power, and so he began to search for other means of acquiring it. He found one."

More notes, all illegible from more than a few hoofwidths away.

"Some of you have heard of essence," he noted. "Most likely from me. It has been referred to as the shadow cast by a soul and for those of you new to the idea, try to start there. It may be that, and it could also be so much more. Even Star Swirl only began to tap into its possibilities, and I have not advanced his studies as much as I might wish. For now, know that it is something close to the heart of us. Something which helps to define us. Something which, unlike the soul, lingers after death, and the proper working can harvest it. But your own essence is safe, because in the course of a normal life, there are only three times in which it can be reached -- and two where it might change. Star Swirl had missed both of those opportunities. Still, he tried..."

A long pause.

"At first," he admitted, "he did not travel that road. Instead, he attempted to use a spell which would grant Princess Luna's mark to him, in the belief that gaining her icon would also mean acquiring a stallion's version of her form." And just for a moment, he chuckled again. "I have wondered if he would have been content should it have worked in all aspects but his hoped-for gender... but it did not function. He gained her mark, but neither her form nor talent. Additionally, multiple marks were transferred, something he had not intended -- and there was some confusion of memories to go with that. But the working quickly fell apart, and he was able to convince the Diarchy that it had been an accident -- to a degree. From what happened afterwards, it would appear they retained some suspicion. But with that having failed, he turned to essence, for it was what he knew. And he began to experiment."

"He," declared that shaken Duke, "made monsters."

"No," the older stallion stated. "Try to listen..."

Another sketch.

"Some of you," he dryly said, "are undoubtedly wondering why I'm showing you a drawing of an oyster. Are you aware of how pearls are made? A grain of sand gets inside the shell, irritates the flesh. The oyster secretes a substance which builds up around the grain, isolating it, creating a surface which the oyster can bear. And our world... is, in one way, very much like that simple creature. It knows what hurts it, and it will do its best to protect itself by isolating the source. Only in this case, the irritant, or perhaps the poison --"

And the time had come.

"-- is chaos. The chaos of Discord."

Other than the increased scent of fear in the room, nothing changed. He exhaled, went on.

"In the time of his rule," he told them, "chaos randomly battered the land. When that attack became most intense, it took the form of a storm, one which remade -- and sometimes unmade -- reality itself. But when the storm passed, some of that power would remain behind, soaked into the very soil. The changes created... those tended to linger, and they are the reason for those places where even wild zone explorers fear to tread: the patchwork nightmares we call chaos terrain." Some notes came down: in their place, three maps were pressed against slate. "But the world tried to protect itself from that power, and so it built up layers around its core. Ultimately, this created what the earth ponies have termed the perpetually-changing jewel of deathstone. The rarest of gems, in no small part due to the risk inherent of going to where one might be found. But a more appropriate name might be chaos pearl. Each contains a portion of Discord's released energy -- his signature, if you prefer, only with very little fading. They encapsulate the potential for, and power of, change."


It was just barely possible to hear some of Pinkie's words between the soft sobs.

"The places where bad things... are still happening..."


"In Star Swirl's era," the older stallion continued, "some unicorns would, for their own protection, learn to sense the energies of chaos. It is... not a kind learning process. Disorienting at best, and I recommend not eating too much before or after an attempt. I went to the only source which might openly exist in our time: the statue in the palace gardens. Arriving when nopony would see me, staying for as long as I could, trying to feel any traces that might be within. And within that statue... power was still present. Confined, weakened, but power. I had the feel for chaos, and so I sought it out within its own terrain. With that new sense as my guide, it didn't take long to acquire the first pearl -- and then to use it as Star Swirl had. For the pearls could hold more than chaos. They were also capable of retaining essence. And thus I began to harvest." More quietly, "The first stop... with the first of my pearls... was a grave. Because you must harvest from the dead, or the dying. To possess any strength would resist the process, and if somepony chose not to resist... the harvesting might be fatal. I asked the dead for their help, and the shadowlands gave their only response: silence. But still -- help was there."

Back to that slow, pained pace.

"I was uncertain as to how much essence would be required," he admitted. "But one pearl, one -- harvest... I knew that wouldn't be enough, and so I began to acquire more. And I also knew that in order to understand what would ultimately need to happen, I had to experiment. I would have to take things further than Star Swirl ever had, to understand the effects on a pony before the true attempt was made --"

"-- you created monsters!"

It had been a scream, and the portion of silver field which coated the door shivered.

"I," Doctor Gentle softly stated, "saved lives. And the lives I saved... are the reason for your life, Duke. Whether you wish to acknowledge that or not. Very well. I will move ahead, if only to make you understand."

To make them understand what they truly are...

"In the course of a normal pony's life," he continued, "there are two great moments of destiny. I had already commenced my public studies, because the singular trick I had acquired was something of worth to Equestria. I became a midwife, and that allowed me to have a presence at the first of those moments: birth. The time when a new life makes itself known to the tapestry of the world. Star Swirl had experimented with essence, and found that because he missed those moments, he could not incorporate it directly into himself. Even if he had somehow managed to make it enter his form, he believed there would be displacement. But it was a theory untested, at least on ponies. And so I waited for what every midwife sees: the dying. The foals who cannot be saved. It... turned out to be a rather short wait. The very first mother to be brought into my new facilities had been in labor for far too long. Her filly was dry in the womb. Was dying, and should I have done nothing, even with the Exception in play, she would have been stillborn."

(She was somewhere above him. She was hearing all of it. He so wished he could look at her, meet the gaze of that sole visible eye as he spoke words of destiny...)

"As a race," he quietly said, "at best, we can only trace our ancestry to the Discordian Era -- and there the trail vanishes. Nopony can truly know whether a sin lurks in their family line. I had a dying filly within the womb, one who would never know any time under Sun. A filly who could have been born as -- anything. And so when I reached out to her with the Exception, I opened a channel. I sent the energies of change to her, along with the essence that pearl had also been asked to contain." Ruefully, "I had meant to use unicorn essence, but it was my first birth and... frankly, in the panic of preparing, my field lanced for the wrong chaos pearl. I wished to see if she would be born as a unicorn. And if it failed... if it hurt her..." His eyes briefly closed. "...then she was already dying."

Opened again, looking at past and present superimposed upon the world.

"Instead, it saved her life. For Star Swirl had written of something which I didn't truly understand until I saw it. He called it hybrid vigor. All of the animals he experimented on came into the world with a determination to fight for every breath. Those who should have been stillborn lived, thrived -- as did what was, in truth, the second pony I ever brought to Sun. And as I had become somewhat attuned to essence by that time, I felt something happen within her. The earth pony essence was incorporated into her form. But there was a price to pay for that: the displacement which Star Swirl had feared. And I was unable to change the whole of her: no matter how much essence I channeled, something of the original was retained. Not an issue when changing a pony into an alicorn, but..." A small, almost casual shrug. "Well, in short, a portion of her natural essence was lost, and the earth pony essence replaced it. And it was my first use of the pearls during a birth. I didn't know how much to use, what was safe, where the limits were... but she lived. She thrived. And... she was born as a pegasus -- although it took a few hours before I checked my stock and realized that another part of the failure was my fault. I was unable to transform her in the womb, and that failure has lasted throughout my career: I never changed the species of a single newborn. But I discovered that the essence infusion granted strength. Those who stood on the border of the shadowlands could be brought to Sun. And so I continued to experiment upon those who would have been lost. Discovering what happened when chaos met essence and they both merged into the shadow of a soul..."

His head dipped, very slightly.

"It was... a learning process," he softly admitted. "I count my true failures in the numbers of those I could not save. Some were too hurt for my efforts to bring them back -- but I made sure their essence lived on. And there was one time, a year into my career... a breech birth, the most difficult I have ever dealt with, what I felt was purely a chance encounter from hearing a scream at the exact moment I was about to use what I thought was a barren land of rocks as a teleport relay area. Given what became of her, I believe I can call that destiny now. But at the time... unicorn essence didn't seem as if it would be enough to save her and in my fear, I used a second pearl, for its potential to change alone. The imbalance... nearly killed her, along with almost taking the life of her mother. I never tried that again. But she lived, and..."

He looked up. Found his gaze going too far aloft, brought his attention back to the audience he could see.

"...even with no changes visible," he went on, "I felt it was worth it. Fillies and colts lived. If nothing else, they lived, and so I continued to use the pearls to save those who would have otherwise been lost. But as they aged... I began to hear of what I felt were side effects. None of them had visible Surges. Some of the parents felt that was due to the difficulty of their births, that their magic had somehow been impacted, and I could hardly tell them what had truly happened. All were slow to come into what should have been their proper magic, and when it did appear, that power was weak. A pegasus child confessed to me that she could barely tolerate the sensation of standing on clouds: that they felt tacky beneath her hooves, as if she was slightly sinking. But every affected pegasus could fly. The unicorns would muster sparks, and the earth ponies didn't seem to have sacrificed any of their physical strength. Still... the loss of the original essence had done something..."

He sighed.

"I had given them their lives..."

And then came the true smile, the beaming of purest pride as his voice swelled with joy.

"...and I had created a miracle. Because their marks began to appear. Their talents manifested. And where some of their original essence had been lost, the new had been fully incorporated into their very souls! They were the proof that the Great Work could succeed, that transformation was a matter of power and essence added to the proper mindset and moment! You wish to call them monsters, or warped, or any of the other terms which fearful ponies whisper into what they hope will be receptive ears? They are miracles one and all, Duke, and two of them saved your life! They saved the lives of everypony here, they are the reasons why we still have lives...!"

Silver flashed, and the pictures were taken from the pile, brought into full view.

One at a time, so he could speak about each miracle in turn.

One by one by one by one by one by...


There is a pegasus whose wings lacked their birth caps, who had fragile bones irreparably shattered by the pressures of labor, whose second experience of pain was the emergency partial amputation which shaped what remained into something which could pass for wings -- ones which were forever stunted. He should have died within a day, was given a name which reflected ultimate fragility, and he lived. He flies, for an unexpected kind of strength substitutes for lost surface area and magic and everything else. His sheer determination to live still pushes him forward and when the muscles behind that power slam a hoof into dirt, the earth reverberates at his touch.

There is an earth pony who has spent her life dreaming of the sky. She has never been content to rest upon the silent soil: her childhood was mostly spent in attempts to get above it -- but ponies make poor climbers. Still, she hiked to ever-greater heights, she learned all she could about methods for parting hooves from land, and when her mark came, it was for aeronautics. She pilots her own balloon, scouting wild zones from overhead, and those around her marvel at her luck in somehow always encountering favorable winds when outside the realm of control. None of them, not even her, have recognized that the winds do not merely favor her. They love her, and make sure nothing ever happens to their wayward daughter.

There is a pegasus who was always fascinated by devices. She spent her childhood taking apart the creations of unicorn enchantments, and found her mark manifesting at the moment she finally reassembled one in working order. She has no talent for wonders, the creations of pegasi which channel that form of magic. But with that made by unicorns... she understands them, on the level of the mark which no other pegasus has ever possessed, and this has allowed her to open a repair shop, one where nearly everypony has to adjust to the strangeness of the proprietor. For she has no ability to cast, and so some things are forever beyond her -- but there are times when adjustments to the physical aspects of a device suffice. There are also times when she knows how to proceed because upon her touch, the device just might whisper to her soul -- and at the moment the doctor speaks of her, she is minutes away from learning about the power which truly flows through her blood.

There is a unicorn who studies botany. His field is weak: he struggles to move the heaviest of flowerpots. But he gains some benefit from his personal trick, one he has yet to discuss with anypony other than his first friend. That to simply focus his magic upon a plant is to understand some portion of what that plant does: whether it's edible, where it can thrive. There are times when he begins to recognize medicinal benefits, and always knows what has to be avoided. He keeps that secret (on the friend's advice) because he feels other will think less of him if they see magic instead of knowledge. And because there are times when he's among his charges when he thinks he hears something very much like music. The trees await the day when he finally and truly listens.

There is an earth pony who understands workings. It's not the education of a dedicated scholar (although he's studied whatever he could): it's instinct, an understanding which comes from the core of him. He will never cast a single spell, and yet his comprehension is so complete as to make him capable of teaching them -- if only anypony would accept his tutelage, and that acceptance has never come, not when ponies can see what he is. So he left his home, went to where nopony knew him, and never takes off the hat. He sometimes claims disease keeps him from casting, the world's most persistent victim of Rhynorn's Flu, and has assembled a list of other excuses to be brought out at need. But it doesn't always work. He has been exposed, had to move on -- but his mark has told him what he is meant to do, and so he continues to travel, tutors whenever he can. And through all of the lessons given to the young, all of the little accidents so common to those trying out their fields and tricks for the first time, he has never been hurt, not by their magic, for he dispels every spark which comes too close, and doesn't know he's doing it at all.

There is a unicorn who yearns for the sky. She lacks the field strength to levitate herself, tried to master the spell which would grant temporary wings and didn't have the power for that either. She looks at clouds and sees not just shapes, but a home denied. In her dreams, she swoops over the land, flying through loops and spirals which few pegasi could ever manage, and so she tells herself that those dreams torment her. She both longs for and loathes the release of sleep, for it is the only time when she can truly be herself -- and yet she must always wake. She has yet to realize that the night is when her soul flies, projected into the sky to soar as it will. That everything she sees during those dreams (and she always remembers them) is real. Nopony has told her of the pegasus made of shimmer and desire who sometimes appears over her newest settled zone. So she's saving up for a trip to Cloudsdale and the casting of the spell which will allow her to visit at all. She thinks it'll wear off in, at best, three days. She doesn't know it isn't needed at all.

There is a pegasus, and she was the first. Her flight is typically slow, her maneuverability poor, and she fears using even the most basic technique within a group effort, because she can hardly ever get anything to even partially work and believes her mere presence could sabotage everything. Her parents were strong, she should have been destined for weather college... it takes very little before she starts to resent her weakness. She begins to hate herself. She retreats from the world, and there are times when she thinks about leaving it. But then her mark comes and the world reaches out to her, accepts her in a way few ponies ever will. Ground calls her, and she descends. The natural inhabitants of the land come to her, provide the support and love she so desperately needs. She understands them, as they understand her. She feeds some of them with plants which have no right to grow on her property, located just behind the Cornucopia Effect's true border. And when something less natural approaches, when the anger which one of her many fears has driven down into the darkness starts to surface, her fear of herself -- that is when the monsters see what lurks within her eyes. A shard of chaos stares them down, and so many will do anything to make it stop.

There is an earth pony who should have died, and spent much of her youth wishing that she had. The chaos within her interacts with the unicorn essence which displaced nearly all of who she could have been and finds strange ways of emerging into the world -- but she longs for the acceptance she never found in her birth home, and the thought of being seen as too different, strange enough to trigger rejection, terrifies her. That fear has created a near-constant aspect to her abilities: that nearly all simply see it as just her being herself, and prevents them from thinking anything more of it. It takes a particularly questioning mind to maintain focus on what's truly happening, or one so hidebound as to never be capable of conceiving that the supplies which went into that first party were conjured. The accusation of theft ultimately drove her to Ponyville, where the happiness she found allows her magic to bring laughter for so many -- but only as long as she herself can be happy. She is the experiment never repeated, the first known to create miracle -- but her mark, her magic, her existence is tied to her emotional state, and to lose that inner joy leaves her as nothing more than the adult version of the filly hopelessly pushing the rock along the furrow, forever alone.


He spoke, and the barriers crumbled.

His words reached her ears, and walls which she hadn't known existed simply dissolved.

He educated, and the final divisions fell.

She lived in a world of order. One which had begun as a place where marks had never moved, ponies didn't agonizingly shift between the races, where the appearance of a monster would match its soul. And one by one, all of those rules had been broken. But she'd felt herself to have weathered the storm -- until the words joined everything which had happened, the things which were still happening, and the next thing to break would have to be her because the world was chaos, discord, nightmare from which nopony could ever awake and

they were around her. Everypony was. But she no longer fully recognized that. They were all reacting to the words in their own ways, and those ways would not truly reach her for some time. As far as noticing what was happening to them was concerned, she could have been alone within that high perch. She felt as if she was.

The words crashed through her, leaving very little intact. And the final rule broke, a law so fundamental that she'd never had to think about its existence.

A unicorn is a unicorn.

An earth pony is an earth pony.

A pegasus is a pegasus.

Except when they were not.

Picture after picture, and a shred of sanity realized that he was only showing some of the adults. That there were those who were younger, so many who had yet to manifest their marks, and...

...one who had just been born.

Dawn Sky. He changed her, right in front of me. He made her into...

The words had led her to the familiar. The pictures confirmed it. Images rammed into her skull, joined the howling storm, twisted...

...the trembling forehoof touched her shoulder.

Later, she would recognize it for what it had been. A desperate attempt to reach out. The simple act of asking somepony to acknowledge them, to see them as nothing more than themselves. That in the time of greatest pain, of an inner agony she could barely stand to imagine, that pony would be still be with them. As a friend.

But she looked at where that darkened hoof was touching her. Realized just how much they were touching.

And she screamed.

Her eyes did not go white. Her horn remained dark. But she screamed, and nothing could have stopped it. A moon of chaos broke free, a lifetime only it was somepony else's lifetime, the world was wrong and the only way she could deal with it now was to scream and scream and scream --

-- the restraint slammed onto her skull.

She instinctively recoiled, hooves scrabbling at stone, trying to get away. But it was too late: the straps were under her chin, had somehow gotten there without her ever noticing, and the other thing she hadn't noticed until it was too late was Quiet standing over her, his field just now winking out as the door slammed open, ponies flooded the room --

-- there was no space in which to fight. There was barely any chance to fight. The sound of a net (registered immediately, acknowledged far too late) landing on Rainbow, tangling her wings. A red unicorn field lashed out with a length of cloth, wrapped around coral mane and covered eyes. She would later learn that Applejack had been hit by shackles which locked themselves around all four ankles, ponies were going after Rarity, more were closing in --

-- there was a burst of space-clearing flame, followed by a pony scream as claws swiped across a sensitive snout. Scrabbling noises, something more than keratin on stone, walking claws fighting for purchase and then --

"-- he's getting away!" somepony shouted. "The dragon is getting away!"

"Stop him!" another yelled. "Go up the passage! Don't let him --"

And from Applejack, just before her jaw was bound, "Run, Spike, Sun and Moon, run --"

But Twilight, restrained and broken, could do no more than to look past Quiet, who had just silently stepped aside. She didn't truly register the now-opened box behind him. Instead, she looked at nearby dark pink fur, utter rejection writ large in devastation. The only emotions that entity, who had never been able to raise a single hoof against those who were now binding her, was now capable of experiencing.

An entity who had been her friend.

Her friend, who had never truly been a pony at all.

She screamed. And she continued to do so until the fourth pony to try finally managed to place the gag.