Timeless Harmony

by Barrier Pavise

Why The Barrier Glows Blue

Chapter 3 : Why The Barrier Glows Blue
(O.C. P.O.V.)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TuRtYTAupraUuH9VfN7Z5ssBr3zQgItB0yk7bKUxR88/edit (Pictures Needed This Chapter)

The cool evening air surrounded a large hut outside the great walls of Canterlot. From within, two adult unicorns could be heard, talking to their young child.

“Listen Darling,” began Barrier's mother, Haven. “We understand you want to live within the city, but it's just too dangerous.”

“Your mother's right Bare” added Guard, Barrier's father. A young Barrier looked up at her loving parents. Her eyes were full of want, but she knew deep down that she couldn't have it. She loved her parents, insanely so. But why wouldn't they grant her this one wish?

“Now listen Darling,” started Haven to her beloved daughter. “You are always more than free to roam inside the walls of Canterlot during your studies but-”

“Once your classes are over, you are to return home” finished Guard. The two elder unicorns had been married long enough that they tended to simply finish each other's sentences.

“But Dad!” argued Barrier. “Silver's School Of Protective Magic is just barely inside the city! That gives me almost none of the city to explore!” Barrier's parents exchanged a look with each other. They knew where this was going. Their daughter was an adventurer, this much was clear. She always ventured outside the range of the protective shield spell that her parents had placed over their home. And now she wanted more. Much more; To actually live within the city walls

“C'mon Mom!” pleaded Barrier to Haven. “You know I'm the top of my class in ALL of my spell lessons.” Barrier's mother let her gaze drift away slightly as she pondered the thought. “Besides, why do we even need to live outside the city!? I mean, what could be so bad about living inside?”

“Now Bare, you already know the answer to that” stated Guard.

“He's right Darling. It's like your father and I always said; The best protection is isolation.” Both of Barrier's loving parents recited the last part in unison. Barrier grunted with distaste and stomped a hoof on the hut's wooden floor. The unsatisfied unicorn then stormed upstairs to her room, leaving her parents to stand in the living room and hear the loud bang of a slammed door from above.

“Don't worry, I got this one” offered Haven as she snuggled up on her life partner's neck and proceeded to head upstairs to comfort her daughter. Guard looked over his wife's body as she headed up the stairs. He admired everything about her. From her flowing silver hair, to her pure white coat, to her cutie mark of a Diamond Shield that rested on her flank.

“I am one lucky guy” thought Guard to himself as his wife left his field of vision.
---

“Barrier, you know your father and I only want the best for you” comforted Haven to her angered child who sat next to her atop her bed. Sadly, she got no response. Barrier didn't feel like talking to her mother.

“How could she not let me go and see the world?” thought Barrier. Luckily, Haven knew how to get her daughter to talk. The elder unicorn lifted her horn up and placed a very odd spell around both herself and the blue unicorn next to her. A thin smile spread across Barrier's face as she looked at her hooves. They glowed a shade of silver that Barrier had come to love.

Then, as Barrier looked up at her mother, a powerful hoof came swinging and knocked Barrier dead in the face. The blue unicorn went flying across the room and hit the wall behind her. Haven giggled as Barrier bounced off of the wall laughing. 'The Spell Of Painless Rubber' worked like a charm. Barrier then charged over to her mother and tackled her. There were punches being thrown, kicks being lashed, and the occasional horn jabs everywhere, but they laughed and giggled as the blows just bounced off of their bodies.

Barrier loved spending this type of time with her mother. Almost as much as she loved going into the woods and turning everything she could find into metals and jewels with her father. Barrier loved her parents. And she loved her life.

Haven's laughing had slowly ceased once she had realized what happened. “Good job Darling. You are really becoming quite the fighter.” Barrier breathed heavy from her mighty post. She looked down on her mother who lay beneath her. Barrier felt insanely proud as she removed herself from atop one of the most important ponies in her life.

Haven raised her horn again and removed the fun spell from the unicorns' bodies.

“You have to teach me that one some day, mom” said Barrier, smiling strongly.

“I'll tell you what Darling, considering you managed to be the best of me this time, I'll teach you on one condition; You stay home from your trip to the woods today with your father. I think it'd be good girl time.” Barrier smiled. She really like the idea.

“Alright, you got it mom!” The two unicorns smiled deeply at each other. Their love was strong. It was the love only a mother and daughter could share. Sadly, this moment of pure happiness was short lived...

From down below, sounds of a tremendous battle broke though the silence of the house. Massive amounts of running and pounding footsteps boomed through their home. The sounds of shattered glass and breaking tables worked its way through the floorboards into Barrier's room.

“WHERE ARE THEY!?” screamed an evil crackly voice. “WHERE ARE THE GEMS!?”

“Get out of my house you beasts!” Haven easily recognized her partner's voice. Then, immense sparks of magic and lightning lit up the hall and stairs that led to where the battle must have been unfolding. Barrier clung to her mother's tail behind her and whimpered, “Mom, what's going on? Is Dad okay?”

Haven looked at her daughter. Tears developed in her eyes. She knew what was happening, and feared for the safety of her child. Barrier was her world. She was her everything. And she was not going to give it up. “Barrier, I need you to listen very carefully.” The tears were rolling freely now from Haven's face as she looked upon her daughter. Barrier had no idea as to why her mother was crying, but she was sure it had something to do with the continuous sounds of destruction coming from downstairs.

“Barrier, I love you. And I want the world for you. So you need to do exactly as I say, understood?” Barrier nodded her head in confirmation. “Good.” Haven lowered her head to a point where her horn just barely had a light touch on the floor. The blue unicorn watched in wonderment as her mother focused intensely with magic as some form of object began to form in the room. The elder unicorn showed slight struggle in this conjuration spell, but it wasn't nearly enough to stop her.

At the point where her horn touched wood, four sets of light blue bangles began to form and solidify from the dust they had began as.

“Barrier, Dear, I need you to wear these.” Haven levitated the objects to her daughter. Barrier simply looked at the items floating before her. “Uh... mom?”

“Just do it Barrier!” demanded Haven, crying very hard. Tears ran down the unicorn's entire face as Barrier also began to shed tears. The sounds from downstairs still blasted throughout the house and it made things all the much harder, but Barrier did as her mother commanded and placed the new jewelery on each of her hooves. By the time she tried to look down at her hooves, she realized they weren't there! At least, it didn't seem like they were.

“Barrier, no matter what you hear, no matter what you see, do NOT take those off.” And before Barrier could respond, Haven ran out of the room in full tears, heading for the battle below. Barrier tried to follow, but deep down, knew she couldn't. So she waited a few moments before slowly creeping out of her room and down the hallway that led to the stairs. As she took the first step down the staircase, some type of creature was thrown against the wall at the bottom of the stairs with such force that it spewed blood on impact. The creature was clearly dead.

Barrier made a slight squeak at the sight in fear. She had never experienced a death before. “Who could do this to somepony?” thought the young unicorn as fear gripped onto her with its dark hold. However, she carried on and continued to walk down the stairs. Loud cracks of thunder boomed through the house and large flashes of light lit Barrier's home everywhere. Through her emotionally draining descent, she reached the bottom of the staircase where she could easily make out the horrific scene that lay before her. Her father stood in the middle of the living room, surrounded by piles of dead and bloodied bodies. The mounds of corpses seemed to be individual shapes of humanoid dogs. Guard was breathing insanely hard from exhaustion. There were at least 50 hounds that lay dead by his hooves.

Barrier couldn't believe her father could do such a thing! Guard took a few painful steps forward, clearly taking a brutal beating from the battle. Barrier wanted to run up into her father's arms and hold him tight, but before she could even process the thought, her father collapsed. He fell atop a pile of bloodied beasts revealing a massive gash that spread across his back. The fatal wound had found its way from the piece of chest armor that was labeled as his cutie-mark on his flank, up to the back of his neck. Blood gushed from the horrific slash as Guard took his final breaths.

Barrier wept. She cried so loud it may have caused the Gods themselves to feel her eternal sorrow. Barrier watched as tear drops seemed to appear from thin air as they left her invisible face and landed on the cold bloodied floor. It was impossible for her to ever be able to truly express the pain she felt at the sight of her beloved father lying face first in a pool of blood.

Barrier's heartfelt tears were cut short, for out of the periphery of her vision she saw something that might as well have taken her heart and stomped it into nothing. Just a few feet to her right, Barrier's mother crawled toward the center of the room. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was her body, or what was left of it. Haven had thousands of tiny cuts and slice marks across herself. The only part of her that didn't seem to have cuts was her left hind leg, for it was no longer attached.

“MOM!” cried Barrier as she ran into her mother's crawling arms. Haven gave slight shock at what seemed like a force from nowhere, but eased herself into a sorrowful smile upon the realization it was her daughter, still under the shroud she had placed on her. Haven rubbed her hoof across her daughter's face, stroking her short mane lovingly. “Barrier...” began the fatally wounded unicorn. The tears were back again, in both of their eyes. “Listen...you need to.... stay hidden.” Haven had to stop and gasp for breath with every few words, her time was coming. “Run away....from here. And don't...ever come back.”

Barrier began bawling. She hugged her mother so tightly, never wanting to end this embrace for fear it would be their last. Haven returned the movement given by the unseen force and cried. Suddenly, Haven's body jolted. A quick bolt of movement through the unicorn's body. Barrier looked up to see what she had learned to be a Diamond Dog. The beast held a steel cutlass that was currently plunged deep into Haven's back.

Barrier made a slight squeak before she managed to shove both her hooves on her mouth to silence herself. Barrier slowly back toward the door, leaving behind her home. Leaving behind the life she loved. And leaving behind her parents bodies to an army of Diamond Dogs.
***

Barrier's depressed state of extremely slow trudging had quickly been discarded as she broke out into in all out gallop. She didn't know why she was running. All she knew was that she wanted to put as much distance between herself, and the place she once called home, as she possibly could. The world around her seemed to be melting away. The forest trees she was running past toppled over and disintegrated as they hit the ground. The sky turned pitch black and the moon shined a menacing red. Yet on she ran. But she couldn't go on anymore as the entire forest floor beneath her opened wide and swallowed her whole...
***

“AAAHHH!” screamed Barrier as she burst upright in her sleeping bag. A small fire crackled by her feet with Stalwart sleeping opposite of it. Well, he wasn't sleeping anymore due to Barrier's shouting.

“Barrier! What's wrong!?” cried Stalwart, tumbling around in his sleeping bag from shock. Barrier breathed heavily and looked around her environment. She was in the middle of a forest with camping gear lying around her. In the near distance, a humongous castle could be seen hanging on to a mountainside. She was exactly where she had fallen asleep.

“Bare, are you okay?” asked the concerned earth pony again.

Barrier looked at her friend. Sweat dampened her face. “Um, yeah. I'm fine” she lied. “It was just a bad dream.” Stalwart looked over his companion in suspicion but dismissed any need to push on.

“Well, if you say so” accepted Stalwart to Barrier's lie. “Must've been a really bad nightmare to wake you up like that.”

Barrier gazed into the crackling fire and muttered nothing more than a simple “Yeah.” She knew deep down it wasn't just some nightmare. This was real. It was her past. The past just before she met Stalwart, the pony who would save her life only moments from fleeing her house. She glanced over to her lifelong friend who returned to getting comfortable in his sleeping bag.

“C'mon Bare, get some shut-eye. We got a long journey ahead to get to Princess Celestia.” Barrier returned her gaze to the fire and let her mind drift. She thought about that day when the Diamond Dogs showed up. She wanted to tell Stalwart about what happened before he met her, right then and there by the campfire. But all that came out was “Yeah...”