Fulfillment

by Amaranthine Thought

Chapter 5

I woke that morning to find Emptiness staring down at me.

“I hurt you.” she said. “I…I never wanted to hurt… I’m sorry. I’ll make it better.”

Potion is strong stuff, and Emptiness knew how best to use it. A little on my leg and lots for her so she could magically mend my broken bone. And she… she kept telling me that she was sorry, and was gentle and careful as she worked.

Once she was done, she picked me up and hugged me and… and told me that she loved me and that she’d never hurt me again.

She’d do that a lot. It happened all the time. She’d get really mad out of nowhere and really hurt me, only to quickly calm down, tell me that she was sorry and fix it. It was a pattern she never broke: anger, hate, pain, sorry, tears, healing, love, promise to be better.

I left her soon after, and went back into town. I found that a lot of ponies were looking for me; recognizing my mane and realizing that I’d stolen a lot of stuff. So I had to sneak around town, hiding, hoping I could find Sweetie without having to ask anypony, which is how I’d been managing to.

I found her the same alley we’d met within before. I noticed that she’d been crying, and that she was hiding herself for some reason as I went to her. I sort of surprised her when I called, “Sweetie?”, but she seemed happy to see me.

“Gentle I, I did another one.” She told me, her eyes red, and though she smiled, I noticed the mark on her.

“S, Sweetie, what happened?” I asked her; Emptiness had told me what she’d done, but I didn’t know what came of her destruction.

Sweetie’s smile slowly faded, and after a moment, she told me, “She broke a lot of things last night. And she tricked Rarity; she, she doesn’t want to even see me anymore.”

I got mad as Sweetie sniffled; Emptiness had done it before and she was doing it again and I knew that there was little that I or Sweetie could do to beat her favorite tactic.

I tried to encourage her, telling her, “You only have three more nights; just three nights, and you’ll be free of her. And, and then you can tell everypony what really happened.”

“…You think they’ll believe me?”

“I know they will; Emptiness can’t hide all her tracks, and if you’re alive at the end, you can point them all out to everypony. You just have to hold out, Sweetie.”

Sweetie nodded, and she seemed better as she took a breath. Then she asked me, “Does Emptiness do anything different in a library?”

“…Not really.” I told her. “It’s still the same rules and still the same tactics. She can’t hide in a shelf though, and won’t climb up anything to jump down on you. You could use the books to try and trip her up, but a library isn’t the best place to try and fend her off; you’ll have to watch your back and front, and that’ll slow you down.”

“What if I’m in a room where somepony else is also sleeping?”

“…Don’t. Emptiness won’t and maybe can’t wake them up, but you can, and if they wake up, The Game is over. Even if they’re not a unicorn, Emptiness will kill them if she sees them.”

“What if they’re a dragon?”

“A, a dragon?” I asked, confused.

“Just a little one, about this tall.” She told me, holding a hoof up. “His name’s Spike, and he lives with Twilight in the library.”

“I… I, I really don’t know.” I told her, baffled by why a tiny dragon was in a library in town and trying to figure out how Emptiness would react to one. “But, but it might work the same as with a pony, so you shouldn’t be in a room with the dragon either.”

“What if somepony doesn’t go to sleep until late or even stays up all night?” Sweetie asked.

“Same thing as if you woke somepony up.”

Sweetie looked concerned at that. Then she told me, “Twilight sometimes doesn’t go to sleep until really, really late.”

“Well… you can always use the potion.” I told her, and then informed her how she could use it differently:

Boiled, it would put nearby ponies to sleep really quickly, and deeply asleep too. She could dance on Twilight as she wouldn’t wake up if she got her with it, and potion could be boiled with just a candle. She just had to drip a drop on a candle, light it, and get away before she got affected by it.

“Just a drop?”

“It only takes a little, but it needs to be close; it won’t put a whole big room of ponies asleep.”

“Does this work against Emptiness?”

“…You shouldn’t try, in case you get put to sleep instead.” I told her. “Besides, you’re only going to have enough of this stuff to finish the nights. I can’t give you much more than I have.”

I noticed the longing look Sweetie gave the potion she had; but she shook it off quickly, and asked, “Three more nights?”

“Three more nights. Emptiness won’t be much worse that she was last night; keep focused, keep alert, and blind her good.”

Sweetie nodded with confidence. “I’m going to prepare.” She told me. “Thank you, Gentle.”

“You can do this, Sweetie.”

Sweetie hugged me real quick again, and then hurried off. I watched her go, turned to leave, and found Diamond blocking the other way out of the alley with a cat’s grin.

“I knew you were working with the blank flanks.” She said. “Think you can hurt my friend and steal my tiara, and get away with it? Oh, no, you’re going to get a nice, dark, wet, rat filled dungeon and get your own special chains to wear. And the blank flanks aren’t going to get away with it either.”

I glared at her, thinking she was about to attack me, but no. She instead screamed at the top of her lungs, “HELP, help, I found the thief! She, she’s attacking me, help, help!”, rolling onto her side while she kept screaming.

I turned and ran as ponies reacted; even if she was lying, I was a thief and I wasn’t about to be listened to. Most ponies were too surprised to react to me quickly, but if I wasn’t small enough to go underneath most ponies, I’d have been in real trouble. But this blue pegasus started chasing me, and she just wouldn’t get shaken like everypony else.

She almost got me several times, and I only lost her because I ran into this place that smelled really, really nice. She was right behind me, but where I could get underneath the stallion holding the really big cake, she couldn’t. I got out the back in the chaos and found a nice empty box just my size, and used that to hide.

Then I stayed in town, despite ponies searching and the night coming soon. I was too worried about Sweetie, unsure what Diamond might do to her, and so I stuck around, finding the library and hiding where I could keep an eye on the rather odd place.

I never saw a library that was also a tree.

Once night came, and the streets were empty, I noticed something heading to the library. Too small to be Emptiness, whatever it was went to a window, opened it, and climbed inside.

I hurried to the same window, terrified that the library was being robbed and that Sweetie was in danger of having Emptiness stop playing The Game. Using the box to let me peek in, I… I didn’t really know what I was seeing, at first.

Somepony was sneaking around the place, but they had this black cloak covered in colorful, limp spikes made out of cloth. Dim light helped me see color, and I saw Sweetie, nestled underneath a curling staircase, a lantern left in the middle of the room, along with lots of marbles covering the floor.

Whoever it was seemed to notice her too after a moment, and adjusted the weird cloth. It stepped into the light of the lantern, and then it yelled, in a weird voice, “There you are! I’ve come for your horn, Sweetie Belle! Fear me!”, fluttering the weird cloth thing.

“D, Diamond?” I heard Sweetie ask in complete shock.

“N, no, I’m Emptiness, the horn hunter, here to take your horn!” what I then realized was Diamond, wearing a black cloth covered in colorful cloth spikes, parading around near Sweetie.

The story of Emptiness did have a chance to be known by ponies other than unicorns. But seeing Diamond, dressed up like that, I really didn’t know what to think, and I think Sweetie was the same.

But then I saw Emptiness. Standing at the top of the stairs, looking down below. I think Sweetie was trying to get Diamond to go away, but Diamond kept being loud and I was terrified that Emptiness was about to call The Game off. More so, as she silently descended the stair case.

Sweetie saw her and froze, but I think Diamond didn’t notice until Emptiness was right next to her.

“T, Twilight, is that,”

Emptiness grabbed Diamond and I heard her choke as she was held up. “You dare pretend to be me?” I heard her hiss. “You think you can intrude in The Game, and make a mockery of me?”

Diamond grabbed at Emptiness’ hoof, struggling, but she didn’t make a sound; I think Emptiness was choking her.

“You’ll suffer for this.” Emptiness growled. Then she threw Diamond against a shelf, and went towards her, taking a big book from a near shelf as she went.

I couldn’t keep watching. It took a while before Diamond stopped screaming, and the thuds and thumps continued for a while after that. then I heard Emptiness speaking:

“I’ll leave you be tonight; I’m in no mood for games. But next night, I’ll stop going easy on you, and play in earnest. Try not to disappoint me.”

I startled when she came out of the same window Diamond had gotten in from. I just stared at her as she looked at me; waiting for her to get mad and kick me or something, but she didn’t.

She just threw Diamond at me, and then told me, “Grab her, and follow me.”

I didn’t question her or disobey; I’d never heard her sound so angry before. I grabbed Diamond, got her on my back, and hurried after Emptiness.

I’d seen Emptiness kill lots of ponies before. Rarely, she’d kill a pony not a unicorn, and Emptiness had always been brutal and merciless alike.

But she’d never done anything so horrible as what she did to Diamond. I, I thought that Emptiness abusing Diamond to the point of death only to bring her back just to do it all again was the worst thing ever. I thought Emptiness would just forever hurt and heal Diamond, until the terrifying anger she showed finally stopped.

But then Emptiness forced Diamond to drink potion until she couldn’t force anymore into her.

The things that did to her… I, I might never forget.

Diamond got to scream a few last times, and then she stopped making any sounds. Her eyes had been dull when Emptiness abused her, but then they were empty; like they were made of glass. She didn’t react to anything anymore; she could barely even breathe, but Emptiness was satisfied, and finally let her be.

---

Rarity looked ill as Gentle spoke, though hearing Gentle’s pain coughing slowly recaptured her attention. By the time she looked, Gentle had stopped, and took a somewhat rasping breath.

“I, I think she had wanted to scare Sweetie. But I don’t really know what she intended or why she’d done it; nopony can know anymore.”

“…Is she… gone as well?” Rarity asked.

Gentle nodded, which had Rarity close her eyes in mild grief. “That poor filly…” she murmured.

“She was important in the end; if she hadn’t of been there, Emptiness would still be alive.”

“Was she? How?”

“That’s for… later.” Gentle said, her voice pained. “I, I’ll get… get to…”

Gentle coughed again, and Rarity watched in sharp concern as the filly coughed more, each cough clearly agonizing her. Then her worry turned to sharp fear when Gentle coughed blood.

“Gentle, are you,”

“F, f, fine!” Gentle managed, her coughing ebbing, though the filly shook in clear pain. “I, I’m fine…”

“You are clearly not fine.” Rarity told her, greatly concerned. “Gentle, please, let me,”

“N, no!” Gentle yelled, heaving herself away. Another cough produced more droplets of blood, “S, stay away from me!”

Rarity had never felt so terrible as she did, watching Gentle cough and heave, droplets of blood scattering in front of her. Even as it stopped, Gentle watched her with deep suspicion and fear, and Rarity knew why.

Because she’d acted just like Emptiness had before.

In sudden rage, she hurt the filly; acted uncaring and cold towards her. But that terrible, numb rage had slowly left her as Gentle told her the true story of what had happened that strange, deeply upsetting week. Rarity had realized what she’d done, and deeply, dearly wished to make it up to her.

Just like Emptiness had, she’d hurt her, then told her sorry, and wanted to make it better…

She might never have had the filly’s trust, but her own actions seemed to have assured her that she’d never have it.

Even if she ignored that though, Gentle was clearly hurt worse than she first imagined. Coughing blood was a serious indication of something very bad.

But what could she do? Any attempt at apology only furthered her resemblance to the horn hunter, any desire to help only made Gentle fear her more. Even if she forced it, Gentle would just think Rarity the same as Emptiness, and Rarity could not accept such a result. So she struggled, trying to think how she could break free and make Gentle rethink herself.

And then it suddenly came to her.

Rarity took a breath, sat straighter, and then took long and slow breaths. Dispelling any care or consideration she felt towards Gentle; it was hard to do so, but after a moment, she managed it.

As Gentle watched her, she picked up her tea, and without even looking at her, told her, “Continue.”

“…Wh, what?”

“The story isn’t over, is it?” Rarity asked, looking at Gentle, and Gentle stared back confused, seeing no emotion in Rarity. Then she frowned a little, glaring just a touch; silently challenging Rarity.

Rarity didn’t respond at all, beyond asking her, “Will you continue now?”

“…I, I will.” Gentle said, still suspiciously watching her.

“Go ahead then; I’m listening.”

“I’ll tell you everything.”

“Do try to breathe carefully; your coughing is ever so distracting.”

“F, fine. No, no mistakes.”

“Much better.”