From the Ashes

by Dark0592

Chapter 18

The Ritual was today, but Twilight was worried. Not for herself, she had been mentally preparing herself for this for weeks, if not months. She was worried about Crystarium. The converted royal had isolated herself from the hive mind almost completely. While her old ties as a queen weren’t strong enough to fully sever herself, it was enough to reduce her connection to that of a Harvester. With that limited link Twilight knew she was in the palace, but finding exactly where was becoming increasingly frustrating. She had hoped that Crystarium’s offer was genuine, but the longer she hunted for the Cerulean Royal the lower her hopes sank.

She finally checked one of the last places she expected, the sealed ritual room beneath the Palace. Her last options after this were the Celestia and Luna’s rooms and she dearly hoped she wasn’t in those. She dearly hoped she wasn’t here either, but as she made her way down the stairs as quickly as she could the voices echoing from the rocky stairwell confirmed her fears. She recognized Crystarium’s voice as well as both of the princesses.

“...And she’s already found us…” Crystarium said lowly just as Twilight entered the room proper. It was a large room, two stories high and about 100ft by 100ft in diameter. She was stunned to see that Celestia had already finished preparing the ritual and looked like she was getting ready to start it. Crystarium was in the middle of the ritual circle. There was a palpable silence for what felt like hours, but was only a few seconds.

“Why?” Twilight simply asked, looking at all of them. The princess’ involvement meant this wasn’t just Crystarium betraying her again, this was something else entirely and she intended to find out just what was going on before she started coming to conclusions. Celestia dropped the magic she was gathering to begin the ritual and gave her an apologetic look.

“You know I don’t like going behind your back, about anything… but Crystarium may be right.” She said. Luna was silent, she had little to add to this conversation.

“Right about what? We’ve talked this over, the experiments concluded that the hive mind would be severely muted but still intact.” Twilight retorted. Crystarium stepped towards Twilight, then.

“If you must be angry then be angry at me, I am the one who convinced them to do this. I was hoping the ritual would have already reached the point of no return by the time you found me… I apologise for the secrecy, but I felt you would never allow me to do this for you.” The ex-queen said, her tone soft.

“Do this for…” Twilight started, but then she realized just what was happening. “You were going to go alone… That’s why you said you wanted to go with me.” She concluded.

“This is not an idea I have had for long, I had fully intended to join you. But after the experiments, I questioned the Princesses and the hive mind about what happened last time the hive was muted to their queen. Dawn has never commanded more than a handful of drones, and even then they were mine. Yours are so much harder to direct without hte hive mind, and I still don’t understand how it works. The shock of being severed, or even just muted from you would be bad enough, but then nearly two hundred thousand minds coming to her at once? Your hive would have frozen again, and for how long I don’t want to know. All of our progress, YOUR progress, would be halted or even lost. I have survived long enough just by myself before, let me do this for you. For your hive, for our hive.” Crystarium explained. When she finally finished she couldn’t help but hold her breath in anticipation for her queen’s response. Twilight seemed to be in deep thought, looking at the ground, but before long she looked up and stared Crystarium directly in the eyes.

Seeing the conflict in her yes, Crystarium released her mental isolation from the hive mind. She let her emotions and feelings flow into her queen to show just how determined she was. She could have sworn she saw Twilight’s eyes water up for just a second.

“You really want to do this... “ She said softly before looking over to Celestia. “And I suppose I can’t blame you for trying to keep me safe…” She continued to the Princess.

“You know how much I despised the whole idea… I was only going to do it because you felt you needed to.” The Princess said, scuffing her heel on the ground a bit in a rare show of nervousness.

“You saved me from myself, Twilight. You could have just killed me, and you probably should have… but instead you gave me a second start. Another chance at a happy life. Let me repay you, let me give your… no… OUR hive another chance. We may even be able to extend that to our entire race.” Crystarium said, bringing Twilight’s gaze back to her. Right when she thought Twilight was going to refuse, the Royal felt something that almost brought her to her knees. It was small, but it was powerful.

A small wisp of love, intended specifically for her. It filled her with bliss. Not only was this love intended for her, though, it was from her queen. The love of a mother is one of the most potent types, and it was something Crystarium has never felt.

“You really want to do this… no, I already said that… You really feel that you need to do this. Alright, Crystarium… I will not stop you.” Twilight said softly. Crystarium let out the breath she forgot she was holding and was about to turn to Celestia to ask her to start the ritual, but was shocked as Twilight slowly closed the gap between them and embraced Crystarium. The arms around her neck and the Queen’s head nestled against her cheek barely registered, though, as the thin wisp of love was replaced by an opening flood gate.

“Twilight, if I am to begin the ritual then you must exit the circle.” Celestia said softly, the magic of the circle growing slightly unstable the only reason she wished to break the moment. Twilight just looked over and nodded, though before she stepped away she put her head against Crystarium’s and concentrated.

“I’m proud of you, Crystarium… I don’t know if this will work, but maybe it’ll be strong enough to reach you.” The Queen said. This was the second time she had connected someone else to her mental forest, even Dawn had been slowly weaned off of it in time. Crystarium was left speechless as she saw what would have been her own forest was a single cerulean tree, but it was large as an old oak. She turned and almost fell to her knees as she saw the scale of the other two forests now in contact with hers.

On one side was the ashlands, not even a trunk sticking out of the barren grey, of Chrysalis’ forest. On the other, however, was a forest so vast she couldn’t see past the tops over the horizon. She saw an empty spot every now and then, and she realized that must have been the spaces of her dead drones. But then a young changeling girl walked over to her and offered her hand.

“Follow me.” The girl said with a smile. Crystarium paled at realizing who it was. Stella was her name, a young girl who died during the initial attack by Crystarium herself. She had avoided the guardian’s ‘living’ manifestation like the plague, but she seemed happy to see her. She cautiously took the girl’s hand and was whisked away through the trees, to the center.

“Thank you sweetie.” Twilight said from where she was kneeling in front of a very young tree with teal leaves. Crystarium turned to see the girl give a salute before disappearing once more. Crystarium walked closer, but froze when she was what Twilight was crouched over. She was gently stroking the hair of Chrysalis’ sleeping manifestation. The Royal had seen the woman sleeping in the physical world many times, but here it felt different. It felt like she didn’t belong here.

“The Guardians you see would keep the hive alive and functional, even if I were to sever myself completely from it. The reason I am allowing you to do this was because of how strongly you feel you must do this. That kind of determination is how we’ve survived and evolved, and why we’re still here. I can’t help but love you like one of my own, now… hopefully that’ll last long enough. I know you won’t go feral, but love starvation will certainly drain you if there are no sources in the Abyss.” Twilight said, not looking up from the sleeping queen. Cautiously, Crystarium stepped closer and crouched down on the other side of Chrysalis.

“I will do what needs to be done, or I will die trying. That’s what convinced the princesses. My success or sacrifice would redeem me, I should think.” She said softly, not wanting to disturb the sleeping queen.

“I hope with all of my being that it will be the former… We should return, the ritual will destabilize if it is not started soon. Celestia is getting nervous.” Twilight said, finally looking over to Crystarium. The royal nodded and they were back in their conscious bodies. Twilight stepped away and moved towards the Princesses. She nodded to Celestia and, as her brands lit up, she helped supply the magic for the ritual to help stabilize it as Luna did the same. Celestia nodded and spoke with enough power to make Crystarium want to shrink if this was any other situation.

“Crystarium, you are hereby sentenced to one year’s duress in the abyss, should you survive. The single condition of immediate redemption is to gain the means to save your hive or your entire race. Completing this condition will return you to this place when ready, you will know how to do so if the time comes. May you find redemption swiftly, Crystarium.” She said. It wasn’t exactly how the Ritual was supposed to be worded, but it would serve its purpose as the magic surrounded Crystarium. There were no theatrics, no flashy singularity to suck the punished into oblivion. There was a flash of light and she was gone without a trace.

Twilight took a deep breath and focused on Crystarium’ presence in the hive mind. It was even weaker than when she was isolated, but she could just barely tell that she still lived. She focused on their personal connection and was troubled to see that Crystarium’s tree was gone. Or at least at first that’s what she thought. As she focused harder and looked closer, she could barely make out tiny flickers of what looked to be the single tree with blue leaves. It looked as if an astral projection was destabilizing and could only maintain itself for milliseconds at a time. With enough focus on both ends, they could probably repair the link- or at least temporarily stabilize it. She was dragged out of her thoughts by Celestia.

“Is she gone?” She asked simply, a little worry in her tone. Twilight shook her head.

“Not entirely.”

Author's Note:

We're getting close to the end of this one. It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally getting back into the groove of things to get this out. There will be a sequel, and an irregularly updated sidestory detailing Crystarium's adventures in the Abyss for when I can't focus on another project, but it will ultimately be secondary. Unless it gets a ton of attention, then it might gain more priority.
For now, though, hopefully this isn't too dry.

Comments

[Razzy]

Wow, she's really changed.

[HeartfireFirebrand]

8515956
Yep