LII - Goodbye Forever
LII
Goodbye Forever
Everfree City’s palace gardens were, at least in those days, home to the single most pleasant, gentle grotto that a pony could ever ask for. It was a hidden place, hidden on one side by the tall hedges of a flowering maze, and on the other by the expansive white stone walkways of the flower gardens. I plucked a lilac as I walked; it reminded me a touch of Gale’s coat, and I imagined it would look wonderful in her mane.
Celestia had pointed me to the hidden path after I doubled back, realizing that it would be hard to talk to Gale if I couldn’t find her. At the base of a statue depicting Hurricane as he led the divine sisters into Equestria, a thick thorny rose bush moved in my magical grip to reveal a narrow path. With Star Swirl’s enchantments, I hardly had to worry about my coat, but I ducked as best I could to spare Graargh any discomfort.
Behind the bushes, one could hear the faint trickling of water—quiet enough that one could hardly call it a waterfall, but present enough at least that it might be dishonest to call it just a water feature. Ahead, the narrow winding path cut through thick flower bushes until it came to the side of a small pond. A natural stone wall four or so feet above the surface of the pond released a steady stream of gentle water from some spring, or perhaps an ingenuitive enchantment. Overhead, a massive willow cast its limbs over the whole space like the gossamer curtains of an elaborate bed. The air was rich in the smell of flowers and a subtle cool breeze carried it up to my face.
Gale sat facing away from me, quietly reading from a book she held in her magic. Beside her, Silhouette and Blizzard lay on the wide smooth stones beside the pond, speaking in gentle tones that were washed away by the pond before they reached my ears. Blizzard had donned a simple silver-gray tunic, and Silhouette was garbed in her black leather armor, just as I had last seen her—complete with her quicksilver prosthetic that, blissfully, had settled into the form of a natural hoof.
Gale, however, had obviously not been lucky enough to come out of the aftermath of our battle in simple garb She wore a dress whose golden fabric looked so soft I almost might have sworn it was made of gossamer. It was cut low enough in the collar that at least it wasn’t tugging at her neck, though the elaborate triad of golden necklaces hanging from her neck certainly seemed to be ruining that advantage. Though she faced away from me, I could see the spurs of a likewise gilded tiara on her neck, and the glistening of an amethyst in the crowning point that occasionally sparkled in the beams of light slipping through the willow overhead.
In case I have failed to emphasize this enough in my story, let me say it once more in these parting chapters. Gale was startlingly beautiful. I might have sat there, oblivious to both Silhouette and Blizzard looking up at my approach—and certainly oblivious to the hushed whispers they offered Gale—had the substantial weight on my back not shifted suddenly.
Graargh scrambled off my back urgently, digging his claws into the walkway for enough drive to break into a sprint. “Gale! Blizzard! Shiny bad! Look! Morty is awake!” That introduction was all the warning he gave before Graargh tackled Gale with a hug.
Sighing at the absolute devastation of a perfectly good introduction, I resolved to pacing forward and catching up to the little bear.
Gale’s horn first pried Graargh off her, then lowered her book, placing a small ribbon between the pages before gently resting it on the stone at her hooves. Then, still facing away from me, she rose and adjusted the fabric covering her flanks and hind legs. By that time I was nearly beside her, and I donned my friendliest smile. “Good afternoon—”
She led with her right hoof when she turned, and caught me straight in the side of the cheek, bowling me over completely.
“You fucking idiot, Morty!” she roared.
“Holy shit, Gale,” Silhouette whispered. “Did you kill him?”
“Gale!” Graargh shouted. “No hurt!”
“Shut up, Graargh.” Her horn lit briefly, pulling the little cub away from her side. Graargh floated, kicking and roaring, into Blizzard’s grip. Only then did Gale return her attention to me. “You didn’t think to give me any fucking warning?”
“Well, at the time, it seemed—” midway through the thought, I remembered Celestia’s lesson. I rubbed the sleeve of my jacket across my muzzle to clean off any dirt I might have found when I hit the grass. “Gale, I’m sorry.”
“Well, that’s great now, isn’t it?” As I started to stand up, Gale punched me square in the face again. “No, you can stay down there until I’m fucking done. Did it not occur to you that I would have cared about you going and letting him kill you?”
I coughed. “In fairness… I actually killed myself.”
A third blow from her hoof met my face. “Is that supposed to be better?”
“Gale, don’t you think—”
“Can it, Blizzard,” Gale snapped, not even looking back. “Well, asshole?”
I nodded. “If I wrote down that I was planning on tossing my body into the Summer Lands and then possessing it, he might have found out. And… I couldn’t let you know ahead of time that something was wrong, because I needed your reaction to be genuine.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I needed Wintershimmer not to realize you were part of my plan. And finding me ‘dead’ was a surprise to help with that.”
“So it was planned all along? You knew were going to be alright?”
I responded with silence.
Gale glared. “Did you know you were going to be okay?”
“You never go into a wizard’s duel knowing anything with certainty.” When Gale groaned in exasperation and turned her back to me, I swallowed a growing knot in my throat. “If I thought there were another way, Gale, I would have taken it. I promise.”
“You’re such a…” I heard Gale’s voice hitch on a word. “A jackass, Morty.”
“Gale, not cry.” Graargh slipped out of Blizzard’s relatively limp grip and stepped forward, wrapping his tiny form around one of Gale’s forelegs.
“I’m not… I’m fine, Graargh. Let me go.”
“No,” the stubborn cub replied. “You and Morty be better. Make family better.”
I stood from the grass and dusted off my jacket. “Gale… I don’t have a better way to say this, so please understand this isn’t an attempt at being romantic. I think I love you. That’s the only reason I can imagine that explains why I feel so bad to hear how I made you feel. And, honestly, I don’t have a clue what that means for me, or for you… or for us, I suppose.”
Gale shook her head, lifted the leg that Graargh hadn’t restrained, and dried her muzzle. Then, finally (with Graargh’s consent, as he released her), she turned to face me again. She was smiling, and her magenta eyes sparkled in the rays of the sun that slipped through the walnut tree.
“I… fuck, I’m not gonna be that sappy, Morty. I’m not gonna do it.”
“You don’t have to say it,” I told her, stepping close enough that I could feel her breath on my lips. “I can read it on your face.”
“Says the illiterate wiza—”
I pressed my lips against Gale’s. The experience was certainly different. There was no raw lust. No tongue exploring my mouth (or horn). We held one another for just a moment, and then stepped apart.
“Thanks,” she said.
I chuckled. “Really? Who says ‘thanks’ after a kiss? I enjoyed it too.”
“Yucky,” Graargh offered from nearby.
“You’re welcome to leave, Graargh,” Gale prompted. “We might do it again.”
The cub made a revolted face, turned, and ran back toward the palace.
“Clever,” I whispered as Gale turned back to face me.
Gale waited a moment to answer that. Instead, she turned and nodded to Blizzard and Silhouette. The unspoken request seemed fairly obvious; both mares turned to follow Graargh. Over her should, Blizzard called back “Come find us later, Morty. We’ll probably go to the kitchen.”
“Supposing the Butcher doesn’t kill you for this,” Silhouette added, before likewise disappearing into the gardens.
Gale rolled her eyes, but then she looked up into mine. “I figured you’d want them away before I asked this…” Gale swallowed nervously. “What happens now?”
I shrugged. “In terms of what? My studies? Making a living?”
“Silhouette said you were going back, since Jade was wrong about you. You’re going to take over for Wintershimmer, right? I thought—”
I scoffed. “Jade can reach me by mail if she wants a word, but I’ve spent the last seventeen years of my life squinting just to look at the architecture. I’m sure as Tartarus not going back there.” I turned my attention to the pond before us. “Celestia offered to teach me magic. So I’m staying for that.” I smiled, not turning back to Gale. “Among other reasons.”
Gale grabbed the side of my face and turned it back toward her. I felt the sting of her earlier blows, though the new pressure was surprisingly gentle.
She kissed me. Fierce and driving, open lipped, and with a passion that I fear describing would threaten the publishability of my story.
As she pulled away, eyes half-lidded, Gale frowned. “Morty… I need to ask you something serious.”
I waited for a moment, watching her eyes watch mine. But she said nothing, until at last I extended an upturned hoof. “Hit me.”
“I… Will you marry me?”
I sputtered in shock. “A-already? Gale, I think we might want to—”
Gale slapped me, even if it was lightly. “Nevermind, you arrogant—”
With a bit of sense having been literally knocked into me to restart my brain, I kissed Gale again. I really didn’t want her to finish that thought. After a couple seconds I pulled away, a feat made surprisingly difficult by her trying to follow my motion, before answering. “Absolutely, Gale.”
I leaned in for another kiss, but she put a hoof on my lips and shook her head. “Morty, it’s not that simple. Remember, I’m a— I’m the Princess. This isn’t about romance. I need your help.”
I swallowed. “Okay. Are you cursed or something?”
“What?” She practically shouted back. “What the actual fuck would make you ask a question like that?”
“You must know the stories. ‘If the Princess is not wed in the embrace of true love by her twenty-first birthday, the kingdom shall crumble’ or what have you.”
“Fuck that, no. It’s not magic. Just… Mom picked out all these assholes as suitors, because they’re politically convenient or some bullshit like that. But when I think about being married to them… fucking them…” The thought ended not with words, but the sort of gagging noise that one imagines might come from a chicken being fed neck-first into a laundry wringer.”
“I see,” I noted. “So what you’re telling me is that you’re proposing to me not out of love, but because you want to get out of trouble with your parents?”
Gale rolled her eyes. “Look, I like you Morty, okay? I really do. Love, I don’t know. I had a hell of a lot of fun out on the road, but that’s not really… you know?”
“It isn’t real life?” I offered. “You might be surprised to hear this Gale, but for me, that isn’t too far off. The last few months have certainly been one of the more dramatic adventures of my life, but that’s more or less what a wizard is supposed to do. Travel the world. Help ponies. Protect them from monsters and evil—”
“A hero,” Gale offered.
I winced. “Well…”
“I’m game,” Gale answered. “Like I’m trying to say, Morty. I don’t know if we’re a perfect fit. But I really don’t have a lot of time to choose. Mom’s been on my case about settling down since we beat Wintershimmer. And I’d take you a million times over Mom’s pricks.” She frowned. “Unfortunately, I don’t just get to pick you. You would have to win my parents approval too.”
“Both of them?”
Gale nodded. “I know it sounds impossible, but I think if we work together—”
“Are you joking, Gale? A challenge that doesn’t involve the risk of me getting accused of murder or hunted by an undead archmage? I’d take that on just for the fun of it.” I smiled. “Though I admit the prize seems good too. Besides, what more can your dad do to me? I’ve already been dead once.”
“There are things worse than death, and he’s been through most of them. But he’s not the one you should be worried about.” Gale smiled in a disturbingly wicked yet sexy way before continuing. “My mother loves politics, and she hates you…”
As that lingering threat faded into the smell of flowers and the trickling of water, I turned my head back to the path toward the gardens proper. “Well… shall we go find the others? And for that matter, do you know where Angel is?”
“Oh, sure.” Gale nodded. “Come on.”
“Master Coil! Mistress Gale!”
The voice, which called out to us as we entered what looked like a workshop in Diadem’s ivory tower, was mostly familiar. What I definitely did not recognize was that rather than a rock, the voice came from a face.
“Angel…?” I asked the candlecorn on the left. In total, there were two, presumably restored from the puddle of wax we’d left in the ruins of the tower upstairs. One stared forward, blank faced and with no spark on the slender candle of its horn. The other had donned what I will call a loose interpretation of a pony. Both appeared trapped in elaborate six pointed ritual circles that glowed with purple magic.
Seated on cushions on opposite sides of a wide wooden table nearby, Luna and Diadem shared tea from what looked to be a pair of potion flasks. Both had looked up at us, but neither had spoken.
“I’m glad you recognize my voice, Master Coil. And I am glad you’re awake. Hopefully you are also still alive?”
I extended a hoof and bowed, earning a strike over the ears from Gale for my effort. “I’m fine, Angel.”
“Then could you perhaps convince Archmage Diadem that these bodies aren’t going to engage in a murderous spree without Wintershimmer’s input? Much as I have some appreciation for Silhouette’s body—”
Gale stifled a snort of laughter.
“—I find this wax form to be less than pleasant for long durations.”
“Nopony put you back in a rock?” I asked.
Angel shook his head. “Apparently, and I am quote Archmage Star Swirl, ‘this stars-forsaken ancient necromancy is too complex.’ He and Lady Luna had a very long debate about whether or not, as a learning golem, I counted as a ‘real person’. I do rather wish they hadn’t done so right in front of me. It was a rather demeaning experience.”
“Ouch,” Gale muttered, before patting me on the shoulder.
“In the interest of defending my honor, I should note that it was I who defended the golem’s personhood,” Luna noted, standing up from her seat. “Morty. I am glad you’ve recovered.”
“Was there really any doubt?”
“Quite a bit, actually,” Diadem chimed in. “Morty, your wounds were not by any means trivial. You probably shouldn’t be up after what you went through, and Meadowbrook told you—”
“I know,” I interrupted. “Remember, I had to live through it. And, I suppose, die through it. But in my experience, ponies tend to be a lot happier and a lot less psychologically scarred when they aren’t constantly reminded of past injuries.”
“I see you’re fully recovered, then.” Luna noted dryly. Then, without any particular lead in, she frowned. “I hope you aren’t expecting some further apology from me. If I had been anything less than thorough in my prosecution, ponies would suspect you of being nothing more than my sister’s pet.”
Gale smiled with a knifelike expression. “Oh, so that’s why she asked you to stay. Is Morty’ Aunt Celestia’s type?”
Luna rolled her eyes. “This scrawny stick? No, she prefers a more seasoned, stronger stallion. Like your father.” After two seconds of mirth, Luna realized what she had said and wrapped a wing over her muzzle. This, of course, only made Gale break down into a fit of laughter. “Gale, you shall not repeat that! Am I understood?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Gale managed through her laughter. “Her secret’s safe with me. Oh, Commander—”
“Gale!” Diadem exclaimed, earning her punctuation. “Don’t say things like that!”
“Ahem.” When Gale failed to go quiet, I actually coughed. “Look, I only actually came here to check on Angel. Do you think you could let him go? The Candlecorns won’t do anything without Wintershimmer.”
“Are you certain of that, Morty?” Diadem asked. “They did quite a bit of damage in the course of—”
“Sit,” I ordered. One of the candlecorns sat. I turned slowly, then raised a brow at the body Angel was actively occupying.
“Master Coil, I am not a dog.”
“Fair enough, but I am trying to get you released.”
Angel sat.
I smiled. “Down.”
“With respect, Master Coil, I think I’ve proven your point well enough,” Angel noted, just as the other candlecorn had flopped onto its belly.
“Fair enough.” I turned to walk toward the door, only to be stopped by a disgruntled gurgling voice.
“Very well.” Angel lowered his wax body to the glowing runes on the floor.
“Great.” I nodded.
“Have we finally proven—”
“Play dead.”
“With substantially less respect now, Master Coil, I don’t think so, no.” Angel turned to Diadem. “Has our point been proven now?”
Grudgingly, Diadem lit her horn and the two glowing ritual circles vanished. “I’m trusting you’ll be taking those back with you to the Crystal Union then, Archmage?”
“I’m not heading back,” I told her. “I’m going to be studying with Celestia here.”
“Oh.”
“Sister did what?” Luna almost, almost shouted. “Gale, praytell Morty is joking?”
“Nope,” Gale answered.
“Then am I to stay here as well?” Angel asked, walking over to my side. The other candlecorn remained on its back, playing dead in obedience to my last order.
“No, I’m not going to… Well, no, I shouldn’t just say. Angel, do you want to go back?”
“Master Coil?” Angel asked.
“We’ve all but proven that you have real free will, Angel. I can make more golems if I need an assistant, and my jacket should store more than enough magic now that Star Swirl and Diadem have worked on it. I welcome your company if you feel like staying.”
“Perhaps giving me orders like a dog was not the wisest lead-in to this offer, sir.”
“Probably not,” I admitted with a shrug.
Despite not needing to breathe, Angel let out a sigh. “Are we honestly pretending there is any doubt that I’ll stay, Master Coil?” Angel reached forward, placing a leg over my shoulders and dribbling candle wax down my coat.
“We should get you into a better body,” I noted, brushing myself off with simple magic.
“Oh, I couldn’t agree more, sir. Archmage Diadem, could you perhaps lend Master Coil a stone for me?”
Diadem shook her head. “If Angel fit into just any stone, I’d have given him a new body myself. But I don’t just have a sorcerer’s grade geode laying around.”
“Sorcerer grade?” I cocked a brow. “What are you talking about? Angel just needs an craftspony’s geode. That’s what we used to make him all those years ago.”
“Well, I don’t know what you call this, then.” Diadem’s horn tilted toward a shelf on the edge of the room. In her grip, the shattered pieces of Angel’s original rock floated toward us, and she dropped them at my hooves.
The insides sparkled with an unbelievable brilliance.
“Master Coil, is it possible you mistook the quality of my stone?”
I shook my head. “I think it’s a lot more likely that Wintershimmer and I misunderstood just what sort of a creature you are, Angel.” I smiled, patting a hoof on his shoulder as firmly as I could manage without getting wax all over my foreleg. “And if you really do reform your gem as you learn and grow, I expect I know exactly what my thesis is going to focus on.”
Gale coughed into her hoof. “Evil cult robes.”
“What?”
“You just made a big deal about how Angel counts as a person, and then you turn around and talk about experimenting on him?” Gale rolled her eyes. “Whatever you wanna do, just stop muttering about wizard crap and do it.”
“Fine…” I lit up my horn and winced at the pain of the motion. “Well, that isn’t going to work. Sorry, Angel.”
“What were you going to do?” Luna asked.
“Just a simple illusion. I figured I’d make him look less like wax and more like a marble golem or something. That way at least he isn’t terrifying ponies as he walks around Everfree.”
Luna’s horn swirled, and her blue magic swept over Angel’s form. In a moment, a slim body of polished white with faint gray veins stood before me.
“Well, that is some improvement. I suppose I would prefer to wait for a better geode than try to rush it with a subpar gem. Where shall we be going now, Master Coil?”
“Find Celestia,” I told him, picking up the shards of his former stone and tucking them into my jacket. “Have her point you to somewhere for you to stay and make yourself comfortable. Gale and I have a few last things to take care of, and then I’m back to bedrest.” I turned to the door again, gesturing with a hoof for Gale to follow.
“Don’t forget when you wake up, Morty,” Luna called as I left. “You still owe me a geas.”
But that’s a story for another day.
The palace guards were more than open with Gale, and it didn’t take us long to track down where Blizzard and Silhouette had slipped off to. Gale led the way into the comfortable sitting room—one of what I would eventually learn were uncountably many such chambers in the elaborate structure. I followed behind her, lured by the scent of baked nuts and rich cheese.
Thus, it came as no small shock when something grabbed me by my collar and tore me into the room without so much as a moment to think. The door slammed shut, and I slammed against it, raised up on my hind legs.
When my sense of equilibrium settled, Silhouette was leaning against the door with one hoof beside my neck, her freakish metal ‘hand’ holding onto my jacket’s collar. “Hey,” she greeted me.
“Well… that’s a greeting.,” I answered. “What’s the occasion?”
“I know what it means when two ponies sit in a quiet garden like that and send all their friends away,” Silhouette answered, her voice deep and husky. “And I still want a taste before she runs off with you.”
“What—mmmph!” Silhouette’s lips were softer than I had expected, but only in the sense that they were gentler than her hooves when she had punched me so often in our past. She tried to force her tongue into my mouth after that, which I responded to by lighting up my horn.
The pain from my sore horn was worth it when Silhouette lightly cracked the plaster of the wall on the opposite side of the room.
“Damn,” Gale whispered.
“Hot,” Silhouette contributed.
“Oh please, no. Can we not—” Blizzard desperately tried to protest as Silhouette rose.
Silhouette’s quicksilver ‘hand’ lifted off the ground, and its fingers turned into something much more like talons.
“Morty! She attac!” Graargh warned.
“I think she mostly wants to fuc,” Gale noted, at once being completely accurate and even further developing the level of discourse in the room.
Graargh leapt between Silhouette and I, but he turned to me. "No, Morty. Bad shiny not fuck. Gale fuck. Fuck lots. Fuck you."
I winced as Graargh continued to swear, and Gale collapsed onto her back in a fit of laughter.
Silhouette’s claw pinched the base of her muzzle. "Ugh, Morty, I thought you said you weren't excavating her yet."
"I'm not!"
Graargh turned to Silhouette, eager to correct the misunderstanding. "Morty not fuck! Gale fuck! 'Fuck Morty, you is asshole. Fucking hell, Morty! Morty, you stupid fuck!"
Silhouette raised a brow. "Graaaagh, do you think that 'fucking' somepony just means cursing at them?"
I chuckled nervously. "Of course that's what it means. Right, Silhouette? Nothing else!"
Graargh shook his head, then burst into green flames. A moment later, a second Gale stood in the center of the room. Gale thought it was immensely hilarious when the cub-turned-doppleganger issued a few pelvic thrusts in her form. “Graargh am bear. Graargh know birds and bees. Good for food. Good honey.”
I stifled a laugh, reminding myself of the example I was no doubt failing to set for Graargh.
Silhouette, however, raised a brow. “Wait, kid, you can turn into other ponies? That wasn't Morty's magic?”
“I pretend,” Not-Gale answered.
“Even hotter,” Silhouette announced.
“Please no,” Blizzard whispered, mostly to herself, folding her wings tight like a blanket around her shoulders.
“Silhouette, he’s a kid. He’s like eight!”
“Out of ten, at the moment,” she replied. “What are you, kid?”
“Luna called him a ‘changeling’, whatever that means.”
“Am bear!” Graargh stubbornly contributed, only undercut in this instance by the fact that he was still Gale.
“Okay… okay.” Gale managed to breath enough to recover her composure. “We’re fine. Holy shit, Graargh, you are going to be a fucking kick around here. We are gonna fuck with my mom so hard.”
“He’s not coming back to the Union with us?” Silhouette asked.
“I’m not going back to the Union,” I told Silhouette. She stared at me with widened eyes. “I’m going to stay here. Study magic with Celestia. Get married.” I gestured a horn toward Gale.
“Oh, okay!” Silhouette slapped her ‘hand’ on the floor. “That’s a good one. You had me going…” As she saw me shake my head, her laughter stopped. “You’re serious?”
“Sorry,” I told her. “But yeah.”
“Well…” She was quiet for a long few moments, and then smiled. “Congratulations, I guess? You two are seriously—”
“I have other suitors,” Gale interrupted. “Because being royalty is bullshit. It’s gonna be a pain in the ass to convince my parents, but hopefully dealing with Wintershimmer is enough. Keep that quiet for now, though. I think it’s probably better to wait a few days until this whole thing with Wintershimmer is dealt with and things have cooled down.”
“Fair enough.” Silhouette shrugged. “Well, let’s be honest, Morty. I’m gonna be glad not to have you lingering around, getting in my way all the time.”
“And I’ll enjoy the lack of bruising.” I nodded. “Tell Jade I’ll be glad to come up if she has any issues she needs a wizard for. Monsters, curses, that sort of thing. But otherwise, I’ll stay here. I’ve got promises to keep. I have to be here for Graargh. I owe Luna a favor. And I still need to help Blizzard find her mom.”
Silhouette shrugged. “Fair enough.”
“I don’t think we need to keep looking,” Blizzard told me. “What Grandfather said… I’ve been thinking about it.”
“You don’t want to know?” I asked.
Blizzard shook her head. “I wouldn’t mind. But I don’t need to know her. Family is the ponies who are there for you. Like you and Graargh and Gale. I’ve never met my mother. She’s gone. I can accept that. What I needed was a family. And I have that here.”
Once again, Blizzard proved the wisest of my friends. Everypony sat in silence for a few moments. Then Graargh rushed forward, still ‘wearing’ his copy of Gale’s appearance, and wrapped his—her?—forelegs around the pegasus mare. “Family!”
“Thanks, Graargh.”
I turned toward the door at that, and I had nearly slipped out it when Gale spoke up. “Is something bothering you, Morty?”
“Just one last thing to do,” I told her. “Alone.”
“Morty—” she protested, but I closed the door before she could finish.
Nopony followed me on the slow, lonely walk to the dungeons.
“By order of Commander Typhoon and Lady Luna, the dungeons are closed to—” Tempest’s commanding, irate tone wilted as I stepped fully into the dark hallway. “Morty? You’re up?”
I nodded. “For the moment. What are you doing down here, Tempest? Aren’t you a scout?”
“Mom was mad about paperwork,” Tempest answered, his tone rather curmudgeonly for a stallion of his age.
“The fish thing?” I asked.
Tempest glared, ignoring the question entirely. “Wintershimmer’s in the back, on the right. The guarded one.”
I glanced down the hall, but wanting for lit torches, I only saw the silhouettes of two ponies by the door. “Key?”
“You don’t just want to talk through the door?” Tempest asked, but he offered me a heavy steel key on a thread anyway. “Mom and the Queen and Puddinghead already sentenced him. You know you don’t have to talk to him, right?”
“I do,” I told him.
I had walked the better part of halfway down the hall when Tempest called out to me again. “Morty?”
“Yeah?”
“I was wrong about you. Sorry.”
I waved backward with a hoof. “Forget it.”
Tempest nodded, and slipped back to his post by the door of the hall.
Wintershimmer’s cell was guarded by two very strange pegasi. One a mare, the other a stallion, they watched me with yellow slitted eyes narrowed, and kept leathery, bat-like wings folded at their sides. Neither carried any obvious weaponry or wore any armor, nor clothing at all. And neither spoke.
“I’ll just… let myself in?” I offered to their fierce glares.
With a sigh, a familiar voice from inside the cell called out. “They don’t speak, Coil. They’re undead. Don’t waste your breath.”
“Undead?” I asked as I looked up at the glaring creatures. They certainly didn’t look like anything I had ever studied. Still, I slipped between them, my key clicking in the lock of the cell door and swinging it open.
“Luna’s creation,” Wintershimmer observed as I stepped into his cell and gently closed the door. He still wore what was left of his jacket, frayed and tattered to the point that it was barely recognizable. His wounds from our battle had been cleaned, but bruises still showed through his thinning coat. The stump of his horn had been bandaged, for what little difference it would make. He reclined on a bed of straw, and beside him, a metal tray held the crumbs of bread and a large spill of water. It seemed that after so long with his magic, arthritic hooves lacked the dexterity to drink.
We stared at one another for a very long time. Silence suffocated the air. I don’t know what held Wintershimmer’s tongue, but I simply didn’t know what to say.
“Thank you,” he finally told me.
“For what?”
“For coming,” he said. “I had hoped to talk once more before they disperse my soul.”
“About what?” Without really thinking, I sarcastically added “Are you going to apologize?”
“Would you honestly believe me if I did?” Wintershimmer slowly shook his head, not sadly but dismissively. “I wished to speak to you about your future, Coil.”
I sat down on the cold stone floor of the cell and nodded. “Worrying about your legacy?”
“There is nothing I can do to influence it anymore. You can tell the truth and admit that you were once my student, or you can write me out of history. With my soul dispersed, I will never know what you choose. I have no illusions.”
“Then what difference does it make to you?”
Wintershimmer answered me with a sigh. “When I go to my final death, I will have failed at immortality. Star Swirl’s useless, academic view of magic will have triumphed over the old ways of the past. After what trials I’ve put you through, I can hardly blame you for doubting me, but I do believe in those causes. Magic is the means by which the best of unicorn kind survives. It is how we defend ourselves, and how we better ourselves. It—”
“Stop.” I held up a hoof, and for the first time in my life, I can say that Wintershimmer silently heeded me. I massaged a temple with that same hoof, then shook my head. “Wintershimmer, I have heard all your lectures before. I know what you think.”
“You disagree?” He asked.
“I didn’t beat you with magic. I beat you because I made friends.”
Wintershimmer scowled, opening his mouth to chastise me, but it seems he thought better of it. “You bested me in battle,” he noted. “So it would seem you are the authority on that subject. But from my perspective, you bested me because you saw a weakness in my position. You exploited my pride.” Then the old, tired wizard gave a small shrug. “I will dare to caution you this, Coil. Do not rely too much on friends over the strength of your horn. A horn is far harder to remove.” He closed his eyes and added “Before you contribute some quip, I will observe that the irony of my advice is not lost on me.”
“So what do you want to know about my future?”
“There was something else I did not lie about, Coil. When I told Jade you were behind my supposed murder and drove you away from the Crystal Union, I was telling the truth. You aren’t ready to take my archmage seat.”
“I know.”
Wintershimmer quirked a brow. “Did Star Swirl offer to teach you? Or did he get one of his lackeys—”
“Celestia,” I told him.
Wintershimmer smiled. It wasn’t a terribly comfortable expression, and it did not last very long. He closed his eyes and nodded. “I am glad to hear that, Coil. Then I assume you will pursue taking the title of Prince Consort?”
“Prince Consort?” I asked.
Wintershimmer snorted derisively. “When the monarch by blood is a queen, her husband is not called ‘king’.”
“Then I think I’ll go by ‘archmage’,” I told him.
That earned me another slow nod. “Best of luck, Coil. You are strong, and canny. You will do well.”
“You’re honestly saying that?” I asked, raising a brow. “After I beat you? After I destroyed what you fought for?”
“What good would being angry at you do me? You defended yourself, and proved you were a better student than I gave you credit for. The failing is mine. As I told you, I have no illusions. If you are hoping for me to curse your name, and go to my grave swearing revenge, then you’ve once again let your desire for fairytale heroism overtake reality.”
I nodded. “I probably did.”
“You finally admit it?” Wintershimmer’s rather uncomfortable smile turned into a rather uncomfortable, if muted, laugh. “After all my years trying to make you see past petty morality, now you understand?”
“Better than you do.” That won me a frown, which I promptly ignored. “I was expecting a fairytale before I left the Union, you’re right. Quips met with applause and laughter. A hero’s welcome in every town. Warm beds, hot meals. Respect. And it’s none of that. Heroism isn’t…” I waved my hoof in a loose circle. “...fame and fortune and glory. It isn’t really any of the things you told me I would need to use my reputation as a weapon to get my hooves on. It’s a burden, and its own reward. You only get what you want out of being a hero when you stop expecting a reward.”
Wintershimmer was uncharacteristically quiet, raising a single brow judgmentally.
“Real heroism is the difference between helping a lost colt find his family because you want their thanks, and becoming his family when you realize whoever his parents were is long gone. It’s when you stop looking at your oldest companion as a plucky sidekick or a servant and start recognizing them as a person…even if that is an ongoing process. It’s the difference between trying to save a filly from an evil usurper and realizing that you need to step back and let her save herself.”
“Your dichotomies are very sagacious,” Wintershimmer muttered. “But spare me the metaphor. Even if I did embrace your lesson, it would do nothing to change my fate.”
I scowled at his callousness. “No. But I still want you to hear this, Wintershimmer. This is why I won. So, to take a page from Gale’s book, how about you shut the fuck up and listen for once in your life?”
I could not have bested Wintershimmer more thoroughly if I had struck him. His eyes widened in a shock the equal of any trick from our duel, and they stayed widened for a very long moment. Finally, they narrowed, and wandered down to stare at the far corner of the room. He was avoiding my gaze. “Go on, then.”
“You taught me everything I could get from building a reputation, Wintershimmer. You are the reason I know all those stories that you call ‘fairy tales’. Years and years you gave me lectures, anecdotes… every mystery of magic explained in the stories of the wizards who solved them. But you never really understood why ponies tell stories. It’s because we want to make heroes. We know that ponies desperately want that fame, or fortune, comfort, love… whatever it is. Stories are how we turn those desires, those vices, into something good.
“All you taught me in your stories was how to cheat and get those rewards without earning them. How to fake the burden to get the fame and glory. And I saw where that led. Instead of helping fix Silhouette and her guard, I made her more and more of a villain to press my own ego against. When I met Gale, she was a mystery to be solved. I didn’t treat her like a pony. I treated her like a challenge. I may not have played the role of the villain overtly, but I was a miserable, awful pony. And even if that falls on me, Wintershimmer, it also falls on you.”
Wintershimmer waited for some few seconds for me to continue before he drew in a terse breath through his nostrils. “Then I am glad you have found your fulfillment.”
“Not yet,” I told him. “But this isn’t about being a hero. Wintershimmer… you made me that pony. But you also gave me what I needed to become the stallion I am now. Even if it wasn’t out of selfless generosity, you still chose me as your student, in spite of my horn. You taught me magic. And for nearly all my life, you gave me a home. Blizzard—Cyclone’s daughter—said family is the ponies who are there for you. And I realized that means you are more my family than anypony else. So there is something that I wanted to offer you.”
“What could you offer me now?” Wintershimmer asked, his muzzle wrinkling in disbelieving scorn as I reached into the breast of my jacket. When I produced half of Angel’s golem core, he raised a brow.
“What is this?”
“Angel’s geode. We didn’t give Ouija enough credit; his learning golem spell did let Angel get smarter. It just took more time and more investment than we were ready to recognize. But right now, it is simply the most complete and largest gemstone I have easy access to. It represents something else entirely.”
“And what is that?”
“You taught me a great deal about dueling. By right, I haven’t yet beaten you in a duel.”
Wintershimmer frowned momentarily, and then his eyes widened. “You’re offering—”
“Dignity,” I told him. “The opportunity to die an archmage, succeeded by his student, instead of a prisoner on the scaffold.” When Wintershimmer’s golden eyes closed, and his head dipped into a nod, I stepped forward. “Hold it against your chest.”
Wintershimmer took hold of the geode in shaky gray forelegs. “The Equestrians won’t be mad at you?”
“They might,” I noted with a shrug. “I don’t really care. I already saved all their lives. They’ll get over me going behind their backs.”
Tired, sunken eyes opened again. “Thank you, Coil… Morty.”
“Goodbye, Wintershimmer.”
Though it hurt to cast, my horn flared easily. Wintershimmer’s soul was a frail thing in my magical grip. I had just enough time to bind it tightly to the gemstone before his body dropped it.
The sound of crystal shattering on cold stone rang in the cell. Wintershimmer’s body slumped forward. With a push of telekinesis, I wrapped my magic around his spine. It wasn’t magic one could do with somepony even casually walking, but the body was soulless now, nearly comatose. One subtle snap and it was over. No blood spilled, no hooves dirtied. Just shards of shattered geode spread across the floor.
I might have thought that was the end of my story. That last act of closure. But the truth is, for a pony who is both a mage and an aspirant for the title of ‘hero’, endings are rarely so neatly tied. By the time one door closes, another has already opened.
I turned and walked out the door past the two bat-winged sentinels. The stallion of the pair immediately slipped into the cell, while the mare fell into step behind me in the dungeon hallway.
I’d made it most of the way back to the stairs spiraling up into the castle before I realized the creature wasn’t just seeing me out of the dungeons.
“So,” I began. “Since you don’t talk, just nod if you’re following because you want me to go see Luna and get chewed out.”
“We can speak,” the creature answered me. “We just didn’t see any point wasting breath on Wintershimmer.”
“Oh.” I stopped in place and turned back, taking in the mare-thing. She was a sort of gray-pink, with a harsh forward mane and sharp red eyes. “Well, alright… what’s your name?”
“Mistress calls me Second Sister,” the pegasus mare answered.
“‘Mistress’ is Luna in this case, right?”
“I thought that was obvious,” Second Sister answered. “Yes, Morty.”
“So where is she?”
Second Sister frowned. “This isn’t about Mistress. I doubt she cares you killed Wintershimmer either.”
“Alright. Then why are you following me?”
“I wanted to ask a favor.” Second nervously glanced over her shoulder, but the other creature of her kind had not emerged from Wintershimmer’s cell. Only when she was sure she wasn’t being watched did the slit-eyed mare return her focus to me. “When you spoke to Wintershimmer, you said that Blizzard had told you about family?”
I nodded. “May I ask why you care?”
Second glanced back nervously again, then stepped past me up the stairs. “Tell her to expect a word from her mother.”
In the split second it took for my mind to connect the dots, the creature who went by ‘Second Sister’ vanished up the stairwell.
I reflected, in that moment, on what I had gotten myself into in the span of a mere few hours. I’d turned down an archmage seat. I had become the personal student not of an archmage, but the living goddess of the sun. I’d been proposed to, and accepted, the hoof of the heir to the the unicorn throne—even if I was going to have to fight tooth and hoof up the aisle past her other suitors to get there. And to top it all off, I’d discovered that my hypothesis about Blizzard’s mother was right, and that Luna really was keeping a secret army of undead.
In a display of what most ponies might call outright psychosis, I grinned. I had been worried that after my adventures, Everfree City might be boring.
Here, an author would normally impart some trite parting, like a plea that I sincerely hope you enjoyed my story. However, I think we can both agree that if you have gained anything less than life-altering satisfaction from this story, it is because you are a fundamentally flawed pony (or other creature), and not that there is any issue with my tale.
Instead, I will part with this. One last summary of my one grand lesson.
Heroism is a grand paradox. A hero might gain any number of grand rewards: the love of princesses, the company of family, the teaching of incredible mentors, or whatever lesser wealth and fame your heart can imagine. But seek the appearance of a hero first, and those things will ultimately sour and turn against you.
I wanted fame, and at first, I fought to win it directly, for its own sake. I tried to make myself a hero by force, and I nearly lost everything. It was when I gave up on fighting for that fame, for its own sake and just did what I felt was right that I literally saved the world. And if that last sentence fails to remind you, you need not be a perfect, selfless paragon to do what you feel is right. You can be a foul-mouthed princess, or an incredibly horny corrupt guardsmare, or even an egotistical (if incredibly handsome) necromancer. You can want the rewards. You just can’t put them first.
So if you’re pursuing fame, or glory, or even the Equestrian throne, remember: those things might come to you if you do the right thing first. But if you put those desires ahead of your conscience, you’ll lose both.
Celestia has kindly suggested that I warn you about ego, but since she has obviously never experienced it first hoof, and I am obviously the expert on the subject, I’ll simply relate to you: that’s another story.
Specifically, it’s another story named Tales from Everfree City, or the Courtship of Princess Platinum III.
Sincerely yours,
Archmage Coil the Immortal
Father of Necromancy, Pale Master, Defender of the North, Jeweler of the Crystal Heart, Sentinel of Tartarus, Piscine Swashbuckler, Champion of Silk, Spider-slayer, Walker of the Gray Woods, Horizon Strider, Court Mage Emeritus of Equestria and of the Crystal Union, Lawspeaker, M.D., Ph.D., D.Lit, etc. etc.
-Morty
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Noice
Morty has grown so much. He's still an ass, but he's getting better.
But mostly, she protect.
After all this, courting, fighting regular monsters, reuniting undead parents etc is going to be down right slice of life. Can't wait
Ooooo, Silhouette got to keep the fancy hoof.
Nice.
He's doomed.
Doooooooomed.
Hey, that went fairly well.
It's time to fight the seven evil suitors.
Angel does not like being a wax pony.
You can't say that out loud, Luna!
Ehh, yeah, probably.
If Angel improves the quality of the geode as he develops, and subsequently can't be put back into an equivalent original quality one, I wonder if he will get to the point where his geode cannot be replaced without bankrupting Equestria.
Hahahahaha
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Huh, she let go of that pretty easily.
I wonder if he sees this as a chance for his philosophy of magic to win out even with his loss.
I like it.
Welp, so much for Wintershimmer.
Oh shit.
That's a lot of titles.