Old Wounds, New Scars

by CoverArt

Hopeless Horizon

I wake up in my bedroom gasping. I look around, searching for her, for Chrysalis. Thankfully, I’m completely alone. It must have been a nightmare. That’s good I guess. I can have other nightmares now too… great. I sit up and quickly put my hoof to my head, feeling slightly lightheaded. The door opens and my aunties both walk in, strange.

“Cadence, I’m glad you’re awake, you gave us quite a scare,” Aunt Celestia tells me with her usual calm smile.

“Yes, the way you shook and twitched was rather fun-scary,” Aunt ‘Luna’ adds. I narrow my eyes at her slightly before I address Aunt Celestia. Celestia had looked at ‘Luna’ while I did, looking back as I spoke up.

“What happened Auntie? I had another awful dream. Chrysalis came back!”

“Well, Cadence… it wasn’t a dream. She came back, but she actually came to arrange peace between our nations.”

“Are you kidding? After everything that parasite did? You should have locked her in the dungeon. Or better yet, to save on the taxes, just execute her!” I nearly shout, my anger taking over. Celestia gasps hearing this while ‘Luna’ glares. ‘Luna’ is the first to respond to me.

“Don’t call m- them parasites. They only do what they need to survive. Perhaps an invasion wasn’t the best way, but I did what I thought was best for my hive!”

I knew it. I glare at the imposter and immediately send a magic bolt at her. It nearly got to her before it impacts a golden shield, cracking it slightly.

“Cadence! There was enough power in that bolt to kill a normal pony! I know you dislike Chrysalis but this is not the proper way to act, especially for a princess,” She nearly growls at me. Her tone and glare causes me to shy back a bit, my ears flatten against my head.

“I do believe we’ve seen what we came here to see sister, even if it’s disappointing,” ChryssaLuna says to Celestia, much to my confusion.

“Wait, isn’t she Chrysalis?” I question them, both angry and confused.

“No Cadence, she isn’t. We just wanted to see your reaction to her being in the same room as her. Admittedly, we’re disappointed but we understand.”

“How dare you trick me! Do you really trust that monster over me? Your own niece?”

“Cadence, you know it doesn’t have anything to do with that. You have to understand this is a time where we can’t afford anything to go wrong. A peace treaty with the changelings is important for the safety of Equestria.”

I groan in frustration and stamp my forehoof. I would be lying if I said I didn’t understand. Peace with them would be beneficial, seeing how they are the only faction Equestria is at war with. But I know them, they can’t truly be wanting peace, there has to be some sort of plan. Of course, Aunt Celestia and Luna don’t think the same way though. They’re trusting to a fault at some points. I sigh and look down at my hooves.

“Yes, I understand, I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

“It’s alright, we understand, we hope you’ll come around but until then, Luna will stay with you until dinner.”

My ears perk up, unsure if I heard that right. I know I shouldn’t complain, it makes sense really. I’m a threat to the peace conferences, better to politely ask me to just stay in my room than risk something happening. That still doesn’t detract from what this really was.

“House arrest? Really? You can’t trust me that much?”

“Please Cadence, it’s not house arrest, you know that. You can still have people visit you, still send letters and what not, and after the conferences are over for the day you can venture wherever on this side of the castle. It’s hardly house arrest.”

Again, I sigh, knowing she’s right, it’s best for everyone that I stay away.

“You’re right… again. Fine, I’ll stay here. This is all just really hard for me.”

Celestia drapes her wing over me, reassuringly.

“Thank you Cadence, Luna is going to talk to you about your feelings towards changelings, if all goes well, you might be able to come to a couple of the conferences. Believe it or not, Chrysalis wants to apologize to you for ruining your wedding day.”

“Not for kidnapping and mentally scaring me?” I raise an eyebrow at her. Celestia sighs and frowns slightly.

“She deemed it a necessary evil to help her hive. For all she’s done, she has claimed most of it as ‘for the hive’s survival.’”

“Oh ‘for her hive’s survival.’ Right. And I’m the Queen of Great Bittain.”

Celestia sighs again and begins to walk to the door, “Hopefully, we can work this all out. Unfortunately, I have to go to the peace conferences, I’ll talk to you later, I love you Cadence.”

“I love you too…” With that Celestia leaves and leaves me and Luna to ourselves. I take a deep breath and begin to pace a bit. I just need to get my head around things. I know the changelings are up to something, they’re masters of deception and lies, they can even fool Celestia and Luna, but not me. I know not to trust them.

“Cadence, would you like to talk about all this? I might not be Celestia, but I can still help with your feelings,” Luna speaks up, looking at me with a look of concern. I turn to her and give a glare.

“No, you’re not Celestia,” She visibly flinches, “In fact, I’m not even sure if you’re Luna, how do I know you’re not a changeling or even Chrysalis in disguise?”

“That was extremely rude Cadence… As for your other concern, I know that you’ve been having nightmares every other day for two years, involving Chrysalis disguised as Tia ruining your wedding and capturing and killing your loved ones. All of this we only found out fully today, as before I was never able to see your dream. Does that satisfy you?”

She says the last sentence with a bit of venom, my temper seems to be doing wonders for me today. I slump down onto my belly, as my ears flatten against my head.

“Yes, I’m sorry Auntie. I shouldn’t have said that…”

“No, you shouldn’t have, but I understand, this is a lot for you.”

“I think I should probably rest, try to calm down before I do something we all will regret.”

“Wouldn’t you rather talk this through Cadence? It’s important that you talk about your problems so you can start to overcome them.”

“I’m sorry Auntie, I feel I should just avoid all of this until after they leave, then I really can’t worry about anything,” I say, though in the back of my mind I know that the bugs are trying something. Just what that is I have no clue of yet, but I’ll find out, “Besides, with the nightmare last night I didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

I go over to my vanity, where I keep most of jewelry and makeup. I slip off my crown and place it down right next to the box where Shining and I keep our wedding rings. Luna gives a small sigh and nods. I start to get into bed as Luna heads for the door.

“Have a nice rest Cadence, I shall talk to you soon.”

“Thank you, Auntie, I’ll talk to you later.”

I pull the covers close as she closes the door. Unsurprisingly, as soon as my head hits the pillow I am out like a light.

---

I fly high above Equestria. I miss doing things like this, flying above everything, my problems becoming as small as the ponies below me. Ever since becoming a princess I haven’t been able to do this without having a fully armed escort. It really ruins the point of why I do it. But somehow I managed to get them to back off for now, which is good because I need some ‘me time’. I seem to be flying over Ponyville today, hmm, that’s odd, I don’t feel like I’ve flown that far. I shrug it off, it isn’t really important now. Though what is important is the cloud heading for me. It looks like it drifted from the Everfree forest if the wind was to be believed. Thankfully it wasn’t a storm cloud, those could be dangerous, no this was just a normal wild cloud, meaning while I couldn’t break it I could fly through it easily enough.

I enter it, keeping my ears listening for any sign of another pony who might be flying by. While I don’t hear anything, it does seem to be a lot bigger of a cloud than I thought it was. Already half a minute in and I’m still not out. I speed up to get out of the cloud faster, no pony should be in a cloud like this for too long, or they might become disorientated. Thankfully the cloud seems to be thinning out, letting me see the beautiful-

Fire!

Ponyville was engulfed in flames. Huge plumes of black smoke filled the air. The sound of the wind is replaced with the sounds of screams coming from the small town. My eyes widen and I swoop down to try to help any way I can.

As I got closer to the town the heat came close to unbearable, almost every house and building was on fire or crumbling. In the streets ponies run about, looking for safety, and some running away from black forms with bug-like wings and horns… changelings. I squint my eyes in anger, how dare they attack Ponyville? How dare they think they could get away with this? No, they weren’t going to get away with this. I swoop down into the street and light my horn. Good thing Shiny taught me some offensive spells. I start to launch bolt after bolt at the changelings, knocking them away, probably killing some, but at this point, I was past caring.

After a few moments of this, it seems they finally take notice of me interrupting their attack and they shift their focus to me. A few fly up towards me, sending beams of magic at me. I easily bring up a shield and block the blasts. I send two bolts at the ones that fired at me, sending them into the fiery remains of a house.

I feel something brush against my wings. My eyes widen and I spin around to face the changeling that somehow got behind me. Something seems wrong though, like I’m lighter, or just off balance or something. I look over my shoulder and my pupils turn to pinpricks. I don’t know how I’m even flying. It’s not like I even have half a wing or one wing, they’re just gone, completely. Of course, because the world hates me, as soon as I notice this I start falling. I scream as I look down to the fireball below. I can feel the heat intensify as I approach. I close my eyes tightly.

“ENOUGH!”

The heat disappears and I feel myself stop falling. I slowly open my eyes, confused as to what happened. I find myself in a twilight void. I look over my shoulder, and to my relief, I see my wings, completely intact. I sigh loudly.

“Do not worry Cadence, it was all just a dream,” A familiar and regal voice soothes me. I turn around, a mix of gratefulness and anger. I’m thankful she rescued me from the nightmare, apparently, but why was she spying on me?

“I’m sorry, did you think you could escape from talking by sleeping?

“No auntie, I was just hoping you wouldn’t come into my dreams this time.”

She rolls her eyes, “Well it’s a good thing I did, wasn’t it?”

“Perhaps…” I sigh. Luna tilts her head slightly, looking for more from me.

“Thank you, Aunt Luna,” I say as if I am a foal who was forced to apologize for something.

“Now, is this what you fear? The changelings will betray this peace and attack our little ponies.”

I huff and look away a bit. Of course she would think of the most obvious thing, not what’s important here.

“Please Cadence, tell me, what is important here? I want to understand.”

“Them…” If the dream world works the way it seems then I just think of the scene and…there. The void disappears, returning to the scene of a burning and destroyed Ponyville. Now, however, Luna and I are at the edge of the town, in front of the Castle of Friendship. It matches the town in destruction. The entire world shifts, moving us almost instantly to the castle’s map room. Inside we arrive at my worst nightmare, frozen in time.

Twilight, her friends fighting Chrysalis and her drones. And losing. Applejack is on the ground, several drones pinning her down, the look on their faces showing how much effort they’re putting in just to keep the farm mare down. Her face, however, is similar, the main difference is the look of desperation. If she didn’t get these changelings off her, more would come and overwhelm her. Unfortunately, more drones were feet away, none of them playing for prisoners.

Rarity is in the far corner, several changelings closing her in. She holds scissors, knitting needles, books, it seems like whatever was in the room at the time, in her magic. She’s in the middle of tossing one of the books at one of the drones. It might slow it down but it wouldn’t stop any of them, and she knows it. The look on Rarity’s face was pure terror, plain and simple. Tears and mascara run down her face. As far as she was concerned, she was going to die, afraid and away from her friends.

Rainbow and Fluttershy are together in the opposite corner to Rarity. Fluttershy has her back to the fighting, bawling her eyes out. She should never have been in this situation. Rainbow stands in front of Fluttershy, trying to defend her friend as a group of magic bolts are a mere moment from impacting her. She has her eyes closed, her mouth open in a scream, defiant till the end.

Pinkie is the saddest sight. She lies against a wall, a scorch mark on her chest. She shows no sign of movement, even in the frozen time. It seems she was taken by surprise when Chrysalis came in. Even now she was smiling, staring off into space.

Twilight is on the table, her face filled with anger and sadness. She is face to face with Chrysalis, their horns locked together. Chrysalis has the same snide, manipulating smile she always has, though it seems this time there’s a reason for it. While she keeps Twilight busy with her horn she is bringing a knife to Twilights chest. Just like that, Chrysalis wins.

Luna looks around the scene, her ears flat against her head. Not much can phase my aunts, but this is definitely one of them. After a few moments, she looks to me.

“I think I have some understanding, I’m sorry these are in your thoughts Cadence.”

“I know it will happen if we don’t act Luna, I just know it,” I turn to her tears in my eyes. She puts a wing over my back.

“It won’t Cadence, Tia and I won’t let it happen.”

“How do you know Chrysalis isn’t tricking you?”

“Cadence, we-“

“She’s done it before! She can do it again!”

“You’re right Cadence. Tia and I got fooled. But we’re not the same ponies we were. We know she can trick us now and we’re on full alert.”

I sigh, of course I trust my aunts with this, but what if they can’t see it in time, it already seems like that, that means only I’ll be able to see the ruse, which I can’t do from my room. As much as I hate the idea, I have to play nice with the bugs while I find out their plot. I don’t want to have to lie to my aunts, but what other choice do I have? It’s in everypony’s best interest.

“You’re right auntie, I trust you and Aunt Tia,” I wave my hoof across the room, “You can see why I might have doubts, but I know you two are smart enough to not be fooled again.”

She smiles and gives me a hug, I didn’t realize it until now but I really wanted one of them.

“Thank you Cadence, with luck, this will end smoothly and we’ll be able to show you that the Changelings can be reformed.”

Fat chance. I give a smile.

“Hopefully Aunt Luna.”

“Now why don’t we return to the waking world and put this,” She motioned to the room, “behind us, it’s close to dinner after all.”

“Of course Auntie, I’ll see you soon.

With that I closed my eyes, ending the dream.

Comments

[Razzy]

Paranoia, paranoia, everybody's out to get me!

[CoverArt]

8077743 Paranoid? Who's paranoid? I'm not paranoid!!!!

[Putainnn]

Please continue this, I love it and it's really well written