Becoming a Monster

by Telgin

Chapter 10: Full Circle

Becoming a mother had given my life new purpose, and for the next two months I felt better than I had since before Antic died. Not everything felt so heavy and lifeless anymore, and I no longer felt like I was just going through pointless motions to keep my body alive despite an increasing amount of apathy in my mind. Everything I did had reason to it again. A goal. Something to aspire to. Caring for my whelps was rewarding and fulfilling in ways that I couldn't have begun to predict when I was still warming their eggs.

Which wasn't to say that it was all easy. Fortunately, Zeal had been right all along, and it didn't take me long at all to pick up on their little cues when they were hungry or needed attention for one reason or another. Even better, they happily nibbled away on just about anything I gave to them, which meant we weren't hard up on food. But, while that much was simple, I found myself constantly nervous or worried about one thing or another. Sometimes one or two of them didn't eat anything, or would make little chirping noises as they wanted something, but I never could figure it out. So far everything had worked out, but I couldn't help but fear that wouldn't last forever. Especially now that they were getting old enough to start moving around a bit more, and while they didn't stray far from each other I'd occasionally find one out of the nest trying to explore a bit more than I liked.

One night in particular I recall having to go retrieve Fealty from wandering away no less than five times, and that on top of keeping an eye on his four siblings and working on refreshing some protecting spells for the cave meant that I was exhausted. I was dreading what the nights would be like once they started learning how to use their magic...

There was still the matter of feeding them all before bed though, so I was busy fighting off yawns as I cut off tiny little chunks of boar meat to present to each of them. That night at least they all accepted their food and ate without any fuss, so I just sat and watched, content to have a little break for the day. They were all starting to finally lose their egg teeth, with Antic and Tenacity being the last two with the little bony protrusions at the ends of their snouts. All five had grown an astonishing amount in those two months, and for a while I had to question if perhaps draconequus whelps grew faster than pony foals. Maybe hatching from eggs gave them a head start?

With that business concluded, I chewed thoughtfully on my own share of meat and inspected the back room of the cave. I'm still not quite sure how I ended up claiming the whole thing as my rookery considering I had a barely used room of my own just down one of the tunnels. The endless supply of mana had been useful in securing the nest I guess, and once I'd established myself there, there wasn't a whole lot of reason to move. Six months of lying around in it had given me a lot of time to look at it, but not until my whelps had hatched did I really pay it a lot of attention. There was a lot that could be done to improve it. The most obvious thing that came to mind was that I really needed to replace the nesting material, since six months had not been kind to just adding more leaves on top of the bed of battered and torn material. With that thought aside, I began questioning how safe it was for my whelps. Or the entire cave, really. There were a lot of places for them to fall into water and drown, and once they really got mobile they could easily wander down the path with the underground river. None of us had really explored it even still, and I really didn't want my whelps being the first.

I flopped back against the cave wall and watched them finish their meal before crawling atop each other and finding a cozy place to bed down. I was too tired to really think about all of that right then. Something to think about the next day.

“Hey, Cantrip, mind if we talk about something?”

My eyes fluttered open and I searched the room for Zeal. I'd completely forgotten he was still in there with me. “Sure, what is it?” I said, finally finding him sitting on a natural shelf in the rock facing.

He glanced around the chamber and let his eyes rest on the exit for a little while before saying, “It's about Revelry. Have you talked with her much recently?”

“I... no. No, I guess I haven't. Why?” Truth be told, I hadn't spoken with her much at all since Antic died. A terrible thing to realize, but it seemed any attempts to really chat were almost entirely one sided. I wasn't sure if it just me or not. She'd never actually accepted my apology...

Zeal crossed his arms and laid back. “Well, I've tried. As far as I can tell, she doesn't want to talk to me. It's starting to worry me.”

“You too?” I asked. I had noticed before then that her mood hadn't made much of a recovery, even after my whelps hatched, but if Zeal was seeing the same thing that meant she must have been worse off than I ever realized. Then again, the two of them had never been too close.

“Yeah. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I can do anything to cheer her up, but I hate to see her like this.” He sighed and shook his head. “Do you think she's still this upset because of Antic? Or Fealty?”

“I... yeah, I think so,” I said. I bit my lip and tried to think of what else to say. Nothing great came to mind, so I just settled on the natural path of thought. “He was closer to her than either of us. Antic, I mean. I... I don't know. I guess, well... after what I said to her, I guess she just feels like she can't talk to me. I tried telling her I was sorry, but I don't know if she really believes it.”

Zeal sat silently for a while, flicking his tail and staring at the exit again. Finally, he said, “I don't know why she won't talk to me. Same thing maybe. I... haven't always been the nicest brother to her.” He placed his face in his hand and sighed again. “Which is going to make it even harder... but I'm going to try to get her to stop drinking. Maybe forcefully if I have to. It's killing her, even if she doesn't see it. I think it might be a big part of her depression too.”

Which certainly made sense to me. I'd been terrified to upsetting her again to the point that I never brought her drinking up with her, but he made an excellent point. “I think you're probably right. What can you do though? She knows magic to make it out of just about anything edible.”

“I know, I know.” He grunted and shook his head. “So, I don't know. I just... I wish... it's been what, five months? Six? It still hurts when I think about Antic too, but this can't go on forever.”

I had no idea how much it still hurt Zeal, or even Revelry, but I could sympathize with her a little. If I wanted to feel downright awful all I had to do was dwell on him or Fealty for a little while. It wasn't always easy to come out of the funk either. “I know, but, what can we do?”

“I don't know. I think I've run out of things to say to her.” He locked eyes with me. “Do you think you could try talking to her again? I think we both know why she's depressed, but maybe she'll open up to you?”

Oh, probably not, but I couldn't deny it was worth trying. “I...'ll try. She's on watch tonight, right?” He nodded. “Okay. Yeah, I'll try talking to her in the morning.”

“Thank you.” He slumped into a lying position and flicked his tail again. “Can't lose her too,” he said quietly, maybe quietly enough he didn't think I could hear it.

I didn't want to lose her either. I could say with absolute certainty that losing anyone else in my family would have completely broken me at that point. Maybe the same was true for Zeal? He'd never show it, but even if it wasn't true, he'd shown over and over again how much he cared about us regardless. For him and Revelry, I'd do whatever I could to help her. Trust me when I say that living a hollow shell of an existence dominated by depression wasn't much better than being dead.

I wasn't going to just willingly let her go on like that. I was tired, but first thing in the morning I'd see what I could do. Maybe she'd talk over breakfast?

As it turned out, I should have gone to talk with her right then. Has anything bad ever happened to you because you put something important off? It has to me.

---

If I dreamed that night, I don't remember what it was. All I remember was bedding down for the night around my whelps and shutting my eyes. I really must have been more tired than I realized, since even their fidgeting and chirps didn't keep me awake long. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath...

...and awoke to screams.

Mental fog swirled and abated to bring the same cave I'd fallen asleep in back into view. Everything looked fine. What was going on? I sat up and panned my ears around the cave. It sounded like-

“My wing!” Revelry shrieked. More pained cries echoed through the tunnel. What happened!?

Zeal was already up and flying toward her voice before I could even get up. I stepped over my whelps, took one last look to make sure they were all present and in place, and bolted after him. When I arrived in the main chamber, I found him bent over Revelry, who was on her hands and knees and doing her best to avoid screaming again.

“Her wing's broken,” Zeal told me when I reached them. He didn't really need to. I could see that one was folded up correctly, but her right wing was lying at her side and twisted around in a way that shouldn't have been possible.

Revelry balled up a fist and whimpered, “It huuuurts....”

I didn't doubt that for a moment, and wasted no time by helping scoop her up. “Come on, get her to the back room, I can fix it.” The glint of shattered glass reflecting moon light caught my eye as we went. What, had she gotten so drunk she fell through the hole and broke her wing? I didn't know whether to feel sorry for her or not at first, but guilt almost immediately overtook me. We were going to help her with that...

“Nnng... no!” Revelry blurted out between her sharp breaths and gasps of agony.

“Hold still, this won't take but a second!” For the life of me I couldn't figure out why she was fighting us so much, but Zeal was so much stronger than her that her struggles didn't get her far. When he placed her on the floor and held her still, I set to work on the healing magic. “Hang on, let me help with the pain first.” Her ragged and desperate breaths instantly leveled out as the gold-white aura covered her. She blinked the tears out of her eyes and struggled again when I started manipulating her broken wing back into shape. It would never heal properly if I got this wrong, so she needed to be still!

“Wait, n-no! We've g-got to get out of here!” She tore out of my grasp effortlessly and scrabbled backward. Her limp wing caught her eye, prompting a startled gasp.

Zeal turned back to the entrance. “What? Why? Let Cantrip fix your wing!”

“It'll only take a minute,” I assured her. “The pain spell won't last long...”

She shook her head furiously and pointed at my nest. “Grab them, quick! We've... we've got to leave now!”

A sensible person probably would have just done as she said, but I stood there dumbfounded. Zeal stamped a hoof. “Why? What's got you so spooked?”

She thrust a talon upward. “P-ponies! They saw me!”

...which explained a lot. She was at least a little buzzed, but she didn't fall into the hole because of that. She was frightened into it. I swore and moved to obey her. “Through the illusions?”

“Yes! H-hu-”

Her sentence was cut off by an overwhelming pressure building in the air, followed by the distinct crack of something teleporting, except magnified a dozen times over anything I'd ever heard. I was thrown from my hooves by the wave of air to land in a heap next to the nest, but to my immense relief none of my whelps were dislodged. Their terrified eyes peered over the edge of the nest at me.

“Well, looks like you were right, Bone Chips,” a female said.

I rolled over to face the source to find five ponies now occupying the center of the chamber where we all just stood. The pony at the center, a white unicorn mare with a black mane and tail and with two spell books in a bag on her side, stepped forward and surveyed the room. “You didn't say that there were three of them.” Her eyes met mine, then settled on my whelps. “Oh, or even more.”

Gut wrenching terror filled me, and I leaped up to place myself between the ponies and my children. Over my dead body were they going to touch any of them!

A pus colored unicorn stallion grumbled and tossed his mane. “I didn't know. For that matter I thought there wouldn't be any left after those stupid griffons killed the last one.”

They knew about Fealty? Who were these ponies? Were they responsible for his death? Or Antic's? I began gathering mana silently from the basin. It was difficult but not impossible, and I wanted to be ready the instant I figured out what to do. I actually had a pretty good idea what I was going to do this time.

Zeal crashed into one of the other ponies, tossing the pegasus stallion from his hooves to skid along the slick floor. I didn't even see him slink away to grab his sword, however he got it, but he slashed it twice at the ponies nearest to him. The blade caught a tail and drew a shallow cut on the unicorn mare's side, eliciting a sharp gasp. He pulled it back overhead, ready to bring it down with both hands, and shouted, “You're not going to kill anyone else!”

What would have been a crushing swing of the weapon was stopped short when an earth pony mare bucked Zeal aside. He flew back and slammed into the wall with two successive grunts, but through some miracle kept hold of the sword.

“I'll torture you for that...” the mare hissed, lighting her horn with a swirl of purple and green.

I have no idea what spell she was planning, and I didn't care. At that moment I took all of the mana I'd accumulated and dumped it onto her with a swipe of my hand. I hadn't cast a stunning spell in a long time, but even I was astonished at the scintillating shower of gold and blue flashes from the raw power of it. She gagged and instantly fell to the ground. Yes! There were just three... wait, the one Zeal knocked over was getting back up...

My plan at that point was to teleport all of us to safety. I hated the thought of abandoning our home, even temporarily, but I wasn't going to repeat my mistake that led to Fealty's death. I was not going to watch any more of my family die. That was my plan.

What actually happened, was right as the first pony got back up, Revelry lost it. She whimpered something and ran for all she was worth for the exit. Her wing might have still been broken, but there was nothing wrong with her legs, and she wove between and jumped over the interposing ponies to get to safety. But she couldn't fly! How was she going to get out? The underground path we'd never explored? She was going to get killed!

“After that one!” the unicorn stallion shouted, flagging some of his subordinates over to take care of her. He and two earth ponies galloped through the exit to the tunnel, shouting things that echoed and overlapped too much to comprehend.

That just left two ponies to Zeal and me, one of which was incapacitated. I liked those odds a lot better, but the crossbow armed pegasus clearly didn't. He backed up a step and swept his weapon between the two of us. We had to get past him to help Revelry! Two on two odds didn't make a bit of difference when she was out there with three chasing her!

Zeal obviously agreed. Without warning or even a glance to me, he flared his wings and flew overhead, drawing a poorly aimed shot that spanged off of and shattered a stalactite. “Leave her alone! Revelry!” his voice carried through the tunnel, growing fainter as he repeatedly called to her.

I... I was alone. Just me and my hatchlings. They left me.

“Ugh...” the mare grunted, dragging herself back to her hooves. “You... you'll regret that...” She glared and started toward me, lighting her horn again. “Die, creature.”

Her spell passed by ineffectively as my whelps and I were yanked in a direction I didn't know existed. The six of us flopped to the floor somewhere, driving the air from my lungs and confusing my sense of direction. My whelps chirped frantically and scrabbled over each other, and ultimately behind me as I leaped up to my hooves. The world spun and swam for precious seconds, and I whipped my head around to orient myself. The mild headache I attributed to the fall began to grow, and intuitively I knew where I was.

“It's up there!” the pegasus shouted, raising a hoof in our direction, then his crossbow.

A sharp whistling tore through the air, followed by a crossbow bolt detonating in a shower of splinters against the magical shield I erected. Oh, the teleport might not have taken us to safety, but with all of mana of the basin at my hooves, these two ponies were dead. I sneered and gathered up enough to recharge myself completely. The mare was probably responsible for arranging Antic and Fealty's deaths, and she and this other idiot were between me and my two siblings. I was going to kill them, and they were powerless to stop me! Trying to fight the griffons while tired and out of my element was a mistake, but they were the ones to make the mistake this time!

I raised my hand and speared the air with a flurry of beams of hard light. One caught the pegasus on the wing, and he yelped and threw himself to the side. Two more crashed into the unicorn, splashing into swirls of ebbing energy against her own shield. She was skilled. I should have expected no less. Ponies were usually terrified of us, so one that came looking must have known what to expect. She grinned. I put more energy into my shield.

A razor the size of my fist ripped through my chest.

Utterly confused, I blinked and looked down to see the feathered tip of a crossbow bolt jutting from my body. Unbelievable amounts of blood began pouring from the wound, and within seconds I felt light headed.

“Foal. You tried to stand up to one of the most skilled mages in history in a magical duel? Did you not think I could feel that mana source too?” The mare grinned wider and cocked her head to the side. Her horn stopped glowing orange, and I felt the magic return around me. Wh-how did she do that?

The shield spluttered back to life for an instant before going out again. My legs felt heavy... too heavy to lift. I couldn't breathe... I tasted blood.

But, there was no fear. I gripped the bolt sticking from my chest and fought to concentrate enough to heal the wound, but it was pointless. I felt no fear, because I felt nothing.

My head lolled involuntarily, and I collapsed to the side. Everything sounded so distant, and the fall felt like it took hours. I heard muffled chirps and whines, and the sounds of pony hooves against stone. I felt... cold. It took me several full seconds to realize I was in the water, but I couldn't breathe anyway, so that was okay. Everything... was... just.... okay...

I shut my eyes, and let the sleepiness take me.

'Over my dead body...'

Comments

[Anonymoosh]

Shit hit the fan.....again.

[Iceblaster]

3613876

Don't ask