Mirrors

by Talguy21

7: Our Reflections

Chapter 7: Our Reflections

Emotional hunger is something no changeling ever wants to feel. It's like conventional hunger, but magnified several times. Another key difference is it worms its way into your head if it gets severe enough. Crippling headaches, nausea, some cases of amnesia. I've come up with a magical substitute during my time in Ponyville. It tastes vile, I'd rather feed on fear, even, but it holds me over during times my clinic didn't get much business. Of course, Entropy had no such remedy, and he'd seemed disgruntled when we'd camped for the night. I didn't think much on it, because if it had advanced to any worrying degree, he'd be practically too weak to move. I awoke to his pained groans. As I opened my eyes, I saw him nearly doubled over by the fire's remains. He was clutching his head. He turned his head towards me as I stirred, and against the rising sun, his silhouette cast its shadow back to the tip of my hoof. His eyes were aglow in the low light, though something was off. The eyes, usually the light blue typical of changelings, were tinged red at the edges. This isn't good. He's progressed a lot farther than I thought. He stood up, and rotated the rest of the way to face me. He choked and stuttered his words as he spoke:

"L-llovely... Morning... Isn't it...? Just makes you wanna cry tears of joy, don't it? Huh, Scape? Thought'cha loved the sunrise!" his eyes twitched, and an odd grin adorned his face. Something's definitely off here. He's not like this.

"Didn't you name yourself after it? Huh, Dawn? 'Cuz this one's great, right?" he rambled, making a sweeping motion towards the admittedly beautiful sunrise before flinching and grabbing his head. "Oh, that's right... You're our fearless leader now, right? Gotta get us back to pony-land! Home of the-" he's interrupted by his own grunt of pain. Gripping his head tighter, he struggles for a moment, eyes closed. As they reopen, they are much more tinged. "-Prey..." he hissed. My blood ran cold. Jumping up, wings flared, I locked eyes with him.

"Entropy, snap out of it! Don't let your hunger cloud your judgment!" I hiss, trying not to wake the sleeping ponies. He takes a step towards me.

"And what exactly makes you queen?" he growls, the distortion in his voice much stronger. "I don't want to die because I let a nymph lead us!" He's now glaring at me, fangs bared. He sweeps his gaze to the ponies. "Leaders must use every resource at their disposal." He then groaned in pain again, and nearly fell over. He fell to a crouch as he gripped his head in both forehooves. It was clear he was biting back screams of pain. He clenched his eyes shut, and bit his lower lip so hard that a thin stream of green blood trickled out. He shook his head vigorously, and reopened his eyes, which were now fully red. I step between him and the ponies.

"They're our only hope for survival! If you feed like I think you plan to, you might kill one of them!" I say. He smirks.

"And just how do you plan to stop me?" He rumbled. "You're a puny little Infiltrator, and I'm a Warrior in his prime!" He winced, and grabbed his head again. "Even starving to death, I can still crush you." In a spatter of green embers, the scar over his eye reappeared, and a flickering green light from behind me meant a pony's disguise had faltered. He can't keep his disguises up, and his magic probably doesn't work either. I might have a chance.

"Try me. You can't even see straight." I chide. If he's that hungry, there's no way he's seeing less than five of me right now. That thought came to a screeching halt once a hoof slammed my face like a speeding carriage, sending me sprawling to the ground. Looking up, he stood over me, a smug grin on his muzzle.

"What's wrong Scape? Not seeing straight?" As he spoke, I cast my copy and invisibility spell, releasing Twilight's disguise, as well as my own in the process. I simultaneously turned invisible and rolled to the side. As he lunged for my duplicate, I rushed him from the side, brandishing my knife, and smashing the handle into the side of his head. With a startled cry, he crashed to the ground. I jumped on top of him, beating on him with the hilt. He roared and threw me off, but I flapped my wings, and hovered mid air, the knife floating by my side. He jumped up at me, fangs glinting in the sunlight. I swung the knife in front of myself, deterring his charge, before rushing him myself. I pushed him into the ground with a bolt of magic, then tackled him again, pummeling him with the hilt of the dagger. Once he was stunned, I cast a gentle green fog over his head. It did nothing at first, but then Entropy's horn lit, and began draining it. Then, a beam of energy locked our horns together, and I felt lightheaded. I felt my consciousness fading as every drop of my magic was ripped out. It released me, and the world faded to black.

---

After floating through the darkness for some time, I began to hear echoes... Ponies or otherwise calling out to me... Slowly, the blackness gave way to a colored fog, and the echoes began to take shape.

"~a~Wn?~"
"~ake--"
The fog began to swirl into blobs of color, slowly forming into shapes I could recognize. A yellow blob was beside me, while purple and white ones were... standing.. I think, what must be further away. I tried to move my head, but all I got was a piercing pain in my skull.

"Dawn? You awake?" I know that voice... It's Entropy. I raise a hoof towards the now pony-like yellow shape. A hoof that was green. I groan aloud as a response, unable to quite form the words. Suddenly, he moved towards me, and I felt his forelegs wrap around my neck. Then, something warm dripped onto my cheek. "I'm so sorry... I can't believe what I did... I nearly..." His sorrow pierced the air like the sound of thunder would, and I rested my hoof onto his shoulder, which was beginning to come into focus.

"Entropy... not your fault..." I croak, my head throbbing. "How long... Was..." This is the worst headache I've ever had, no contest. Entropy stepped back, and Twilight moved forward a bit.

"It's been a couple days, Dawn. Entropy carried you all the way here on his back." she said. Looking around, we appeared to be in a hospital room, if all the curtains and beds were any indicator. Twilight and Rarity were radiating sympathy for me, and I carefully sapped at it, until my headache was more manageable. Raising my head up, and looking around some more, I ask the obvious question.

"Where exactly is here?" I look out the window, and see what appears to be a decently sized city.

"We're currently in Baltimare, dear." Rarity answered. She was sitting on a small couch nearby. "It was the first settlement we ran into with a hospital."

"The doctor said you were suffering from severe magic draining." Twilight said. "Do you know how that happened?" She looked to me with obvious concern. Entropy's eyes pleaded as I glanced at him. Looking back to Twilight,

"I guess the past few days have been harder on me than I realized." I said. To test what she'd said, I tried to channel a pinch of magic into my horn. The tiny spark I produced was rewarded by a stabbing pain in my head. Twilight frowned upon seeing this.

"You shouldn't be doing that." she scolded. "It might put you out again." She turned to another bed beside mine. It had its curtain drawn, so when she produced a carrot from the other side and gave it to me, I was fairly surprised. "I know you must not usually eat carrots, but they're great for recovering from burnouts. Trust me, I speak from experience." She levitated it over, and I took a bite from it. She then set it on the side table. "Now, Rarity and I have some errands to run in town, like getting us train tickets." She turned to Entropy. "Make sure if she needs anything-"

"Don't worry, Twi," he said. "I'll take care of her." He grinned gently to accompany his statement. With a nod from Twilight, both of the unicorns left the room. After the door thunked shut, he said, "I owe you one, Scape. I don't think they'd let me stay in Equestria had they known." I have a theory...

"Do you have Alphoris Syndrome, Entropy? Did you know?" I asked. He shook his head.

"This is the first time I've known about it, but the symptoms are pretty much black and white. Trust me, you'd have been the first to know. I'm just sorry it blew up in our faces." He turned, putting a hoof on the back of his neck. "I can't help but wonder if I'm dangerous... I mean, I nearly killed you! What if next time we aren't so lucky and somepony dies? I can't help but wonder if I'm a threat to our new home, Scape. I'm a monster." He plopped his rear down on the floor, and examined his front hooves intently. I crack a small grin.

"I don't think you're a monster, Entropy." I say, and he looks up at me.

"How am I not? I'm a time bomb!" he exclaims.

"No, you're not." I insist. I roll over onto my belly, despite my headache, and turn around to face him. "Alphoris symptoms only manifest when you're practically starving to death, and I'll make sure that doesn't happen. Besides," I rest a hoof on his shoulder. "Monsters don't carry their victims hundreds of miles on their backs to save their lives. Monsters don't release their friends from the clutches of a tyrant queen, then come back years later to tell them they've been discovered! You might have nearly killed me by mistake, but I'd have been dead years ago were it not for you." He stands back up, but doesn't seem convinced.

"Look, I get you forgive me, but what if I-"

"You won't." I state. "You've gone your whole life without this happening, right?"

"Well, yeah, but--"

"Then it won't happen again. I won't let it happen again. I owe you at least two. Don't worry, you're not going to hurt anypony. That's a promise." I say, and he relents, smirking slightly.

"You know, I can see how ponies believed you were a trained counselor." he says.

"It came with practice." I laugh. "Ponyville certainly has its characters."

Over the course of the day, I slowly regained my magic. With a little patience, (and a few carrots) we were on our way to Ponyville the next day.

Author's Note:

I kinda did a half-baked attempt at voice-acting part of this chapter. You can find it here.

I'm going to credit the 'carrots fix magic' thing to a fanfic called One in a Million, which is a sad but good story. A bit heavy for me, but it had its moments.

Hope you guys enjoy the chapter updates. We're nearly at the end, this being the second-to-last chapter, after which I have a short Epilogue. As always, any and all criticism is highly encouraged!

Comments

[Darkus Relling]

Gonna cry now.
'Kay, I'm all better!
Great read so far, can't wait for the end and epilogue!

[Talguy21]

4691899

Glad you've enjoyed it so far! Kind of helps justify me getting off my lazy plot and typing it up.

[tsaukpaetra]

Hrm. They better feed soon. Artificial meal replacements can only go so far.....