An Old Tale in a New World

by Impossible Numbers

Day 0

The cloaked unicorn lay on the bed, breathing slowly and weakly. She was sprawled on her back.

There were other beds, but they remained empty mattresses on frames. Only one table had been left behind. Nothing moved; even the spiders avoided the stone here. The healers had slid the oak door shut on their way out, but the silky echo still haunted the room. Everything from the slopes of the roof to the bloodstained blocks of stone beneath the beds was either gray or brown. This was a room where colours went to die.

Sheets crumpled at the foot of the bed. Her horn flickered, but the silver light inside died. A corner merely wafted in some unseen breath of air.

A red glow spread the sheets over her. A second glow adjusted her head so that it was dead centre on the pillow.

“I can’t do this,” whispered Selkie, kneeling next to her.

If she strained her ears, she could just make out the whisper of the gust of a breath from those fair lips. She swallowed something trying to claw up her throat.

“Don’t die. Don’t die. Please, I can’t do this…”

The room was silent. There was only a travelling cloak laid down on the table next to the bed. It was all Augur had ever needed. Selkie was just an aquamarine mare standing over the bed.

“I’m not even a real pony, for goodness’ sakes. How can I be the Enchantress?”

The body said nothing.

“Look at what I did with this.” Selkie held up the chain. Beneath her hoof dangled the ruby. “So many screams and outcries – I still hear them when I sleep. I just wanted to help, and then I just wanted some time to myself, and then I… I don’t know what happened. They just made me so tired, so angry. And when they banished me… I nearly did worse.”

Her hoof glowed white as it clenched harder.

“I wanted to do worse! I wanted to take down that shield and let those wretched ships crush every last one of them! Augur, what if I had? How can I be an Enchantress? I’ve only been at this for a year. Why did you give me this? I can’t do anything you can.”

Still, the body said nothing. Selkie peered at the window, which showed nothing outside and just made the entering light as brown as the room. She turned back to the body.

“I know what you want me to do, and I’m here to tell you… to tell you…” She tried looking at the eyes, but they were closed. She wasn’t used to seeing those brilliant red eyes closed. “I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I can’t take your place. I’m not going to. You’re going to be fine. I promise. You’re going to be fine. Here.”

The ruby glowed, and a wave of red washed up and down the blanket and across Augur’s face. Selkie frowned. A second wave washed up, faster than the first. She nearly creased her brow into her nose. The third wave was a bar of blood bulldozing up the bed, compressing the blanket as it went and sinking the head slightly into the mattress.

The glow vanished. Selkie couldn’t stop staring at her.

“Why did you go up against those monsters?” she whispered. “Why? You knew they were gods, and you still did it. I could have done it.”

And when I failed, no one would have missed me.

Once more, the body said nothing. Selkie held back a grimace.

“At least let me be myself. Here and now. I owe you that.”

The red wave washed over her body. The forelegs shrunk, but as it washed over her back legs, they faded away. A spine-like tail curled and lowered towards the ground. She was a tripod on shaking limbs.

The sea pony stared at the bed.

“Just like when you found me, huh?” she murmured. “When I almost drowned on air, beaching myself to reach you. I never forget that day. You… You were so beautiful. Even with the scars, I couldn’t look away from your face. No wonder they still tell tales about you.”

She let one chuckle pass, and it died as it fell from of her lips.

“Thank you,” she whispered, touching the ruby. “Thank you for helping us when we asked. And thank you. For helping me… when I asked. You forgave me even when my tribe didn’t. Heaven knows why. But you did what you had to do. I guess.”

The tail faded away under the red glow, and four legs stood up again.

She paced the side of the bed, trying to control her breathing. She took a breath, and stared at the face, but something tugged inside her, and she paced again. Several minutes passed.

“I…” Selkie sniffed and wiped her face. She gulped, her heart pounding at her ribs. She tried to stand still, tried to stand authoritatively, like an enchantress. “I never… told you my real name, did I? Augur? Augur?”

She stopped and strained her ears. Augur’s chest was still. The breathing was gone.

“No… No, you can’t go. Wake up!”

A red light beamed from her horn and passed over the chest. She listened.

Selkie lunged at the shoulders and shook the body. “No! No, this isn’t happening! Wake up! WAKE UP! I need you! Don’t leave me here! PLEASE!”

Realization hit her, and it twisted her insides, letting Augur fall away and forcing Selkie to the cold stones below. She was howling, trying to force it out as hard as she could, trying to hold Augur together in her mind even as the thoughts and daydreams and words fell apart. This was worse than falling into fire.

She tried to rip herself out of her own heart, make it stop, make the world say it was just a dream. Everything crushed her face and burned her cheeks and eyes, and she gritted her teeth, trying to bite through her own skull. She smothered her nose and mouth with her hooves and tried not to breathe, because every time she did, her whole body quaked and it had to stop.

She lay there for a long time, still throbbing in every pore. She refused to get up and face the bed. She tried not to think of the bed.

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” She thumped a slab. It stung, but at least it wasn’t this.

Hours must have passed. Vaguely, she was impressed no one had come in, for all the screaming. But then, they always did what the Enchantress said.

Enchantress…

She took several deep breaths, letting the sweet air wash in like it had the first time. She breathed out gently, enjoying the calm warmth over her tongue.

She wiped her eyes, letting a sob burst out. The ruby glinted, and the red glow washed over her. She forced herself onto all four hooves. Her shoulders wouldn’t stop shaking.

The bed glowed. She turned to the wall, tapping at a random stone. A slab rolled back into darkness. Augur had chosen this room specifically.

Selkie waited until the sob left her throat free.

“Siren,” she whispered to her hooves. “My real name is Siren.”

Selkie shuffled through the gap, ducking to avoid the ceiling, and lowering Augur so that she could glide through. She suppressed a sob. There was work to be done.

Not once did she look at the body.