The Company We Keep

by Ice Star

Chapter 13: Destruction of the Self

I shifted as much as I could, cold crystal pressing against my throat. It's hard to breathe.

"How am I supposed to walk through solid rock? I may be an alicorn but I can't do that especially not without my magic-"

She frowned slightly, unmoving and then there was a faint crunching sound like somepony stepping on ice and another stab of cold running through me.

The next thing I know is that I could hardly feel my torso, and the base of my wings were pinched in place.

Opal Charm smiled "Use his," she said as she walked over to a nearby rock, sitting on it and propping her forehoof under her muzzle. If it weren't for that stupid, smug, deranged grin of hers she could have passed for a freaking philosopher. I just wanna wipe that stupid look off her face-

Wait, did she just flinch? Why I'm not doing any-

I squinted and focused my vision a bit more, although not on her it was hardly difficult to see how her face went from crazy sadist to kicked puppy in an instant, instead I was looking at the area right in front of my muzzle which ad taken on a misty greenish purple tinge, like smoke.

That's what she was afraid of; she can probably petrify my in an instant with those crystals but she's still afraid of the magic itself...

I blinked and the fire-to-be vanished. This I could use to my advantage. I went back to surveying the stone before me. How was I going to make this work? I needed to turn things in my favor, and fast, before something goes wrong, but how am I supposed to walk through stone? She thinks that there is a secret chamber of dark magic just lying on the other side and that I can just activate as easily as I could lift a pen, but there isn't anything on the other side of this mountain face.

Unless I could make one... a false chamber, to throw her off long enough to find a way out of this and head over to Mount Opaline fast enough... oh, but can't she control my magic?! I'm pretty sure she can, which is how she is able to crystallize me if I do something she doesn't like.

I really hope she didn't see me gulp just now.

It looks like I'm going to have to resort to making that hidden chamber, using somepony else's magic.

I have to carve an entire chamber into a mountain using a magic that might be killing me.

And if I don't? Well then, Shining Armor is going to come home to a corpse sitting on the throne, the most angry teenager in the history of the known universe running about probably screaming something incomprehensible about angst, crystals, or both. Then there'd be how Shiny finds his wife as a crystallized statue while Opal cackles like a total bully. It can't get any worse then that, right?

Wrong. It does.

In this hypothetical reality that Celestia forbid from ever happening, Statue Me ends up with bird poo on her eye.

And she can't blink.

Forever.

I'd be silently screaming for all eternity on top of it.

Am I getting carried away? I think I am.

As best as I can, I do my breathing exercises, wishing all this stress was something that could float away like a feather.

After that, I stand in front of my obstacle with as much determination as I can muster and try to charge my horn with magic as effortlessly as I normally do; at first it works and I maintain a faint, flickering dark aura before it goes awry and the magic probes something in my head, giving me a skull splitting headache I barely fight through as I sink to my knees. Even the worst hangover delivered tenfold would be better than this, I swear to the gods!

The magic ignites twisted emotions I've never felt: burning hatred, bitterness, and wrath I don't recognize as my own. It courses through me and I feel as if all my blood is afire.

Desperately, I try to focus on a simple, almost cliche, image of a monolith alone in a dark room. But the magic has other ideas, ripping through me and turning things in my head, and creating a chamber in a way all its own, as if the magic itself were not merely part of life, but alive on its own, and it hurts so much.

My teeth hurt, I can feel them changing shape and growing slightly more pointed. My vision is too unfocused by layers of colored magic pouring forth, and clouding it, but I can glimpse my mane shift from glittering Alicorn majesty back to a version of my own, the edges thick and smoky and color drained by a greyscale hue.

My horn is pained worst of all, racked with what feels to be strikes from a hammer but within.

Soon, if you can call it that, the magic is done, as are the transformations although it feels as if the dark magic carved a jagged piece of myself out along with it.

Finally, feeling the slightest bit of defeat, I opened my mouth to scream, only to find all that came out was a trickle of blood.

The gate I created lay before me with a foreboding air. The mountain had pulled open, by what looked like an artlessly directed blast of magic that had left the rock torn, damaged and the splintered-looking edges were covered in scorch marks. I couldn't see inside the cave I had created, and deep down inside past the sick, twisted feeling after effect creeping through me, I knew I didn't want to. My coat paled at the thought, and I felt cold.

No, I can't go in there! It isn't right!

Behind me, Opal Charm was giggling once again.

"Go on, dear. Mares first after all, and as this wretched mess I don't consider myself to be one anymore. Not after what happened to me."

I didn't budge.

"Oh, if it helps dear, I'll just kindly remind you that you won't have to suffer much longer if you keep using that energy, sooner or later you will destroy yourself, shatter yourself and be some sort of eternal agony as you constantly rip yourself apart, as he said to me. Is this not of some comfort to you? He told me that, the one who smiles as he wields the knife, the one who calls himself king."

I still refused to move and even though it wasn't snowing I still thought it was freezing. A part of me wanted to believe that if I held still it would be warm again.

"Birds love statues," Opal Charm whispered behind me, although purposely at a volume which I could still hear easily. "You can't hurt them, they are regal, whole things. You can't harm them, for they are unflinching. They don't scream..."

I gulped as she trailed off and braced for more crystals.

"...Although, if you don't comply with my every wish like a good filly, I'll do to you what your monstrous friend did to me before I petrify you and make sure you're caught in an agony worse then I was, you may scream forever and ever and ever but nopony will hear you, as nopony heard me."

I blinked my teary eyes and took one step forward into the darkness.

Author's Note:

This was one of the few chapters without a title of any kind, much less an idea for one. When I looked back at what Opal said, my mind went to this really good story I read and when I thought about it, the theme of that story extended to some of the subjects in here as well. And, well like magic I had a title name.

Comments

[Word Worthy]

The idea ... that immense expenditures of powerful energy can destroy one's very being ... impressive, isn't it?

Opal's remaining remnants seriously deserves destruction at this rate.

[Kaleido]

Unless I could make one... a false chamber, to throw her off long enough to find a way out of this and head over to Mount Opaline fast enough... oh, but can't she control my magic?! I'm pretty sure she can, which is how she is able to crystallize me if I do something she doesn't like.

ooh, already pulled a fast one, and working on another
is she even crafty enough to accomplish this? she's definitely dedicated enough

I have to carve an entire chamber into a mountain using a magic that might be killing me.

eh, you'll get better (probably)

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

This is quite intense.