Chapter Nine
Later that afternoon, several ponies were gathered in Sugarcube Corner, a Pinkie Party in full swing. The guest of honor was chatting awkwardly with a few ponies, but she seemed to be doing fine, nothing unusual.
Meanwhile, in one part of the room, six mares were gathered, waiting for a seventh.
“So, girls,” Starlight asked as she finally managed to make her way free of the crowd and approached the Bearers. “What do you think of our guest?”
“She was nice,” Fluttershy said. “A little nervous, but nice.” She smiled. “We’re having tea again next week.”
“I think she’s the cat’s pajamas,” Pinkie grinned. “Look, she’s getting along just great with Maud!” And indeed, the alicorn and the older Pie sister did look to be having a good conversation.
“She seems okay,” Applejack said. “Certainly has good taste in apples.”
“She’s kinda weird,” Rainbow Dash put her own two bits in. “Reminds me of Twilight when she gets all sciency. No offence, Twilight.”
“None taken.” Twilight raised an eyebrow at her.
“You girls didn’t see what she did in the Boutique,” Rarity said with a shudder. “That… oh, I haven’t been that traumatized since the Diamond Dogs!” She swooned a bit.
Rainbow Dash quirked an eyebrow at her. “And she did something freakier than Chrysalis and Tirek and-” she paused for a moment, clearly not wanting to mention Discord’s first run-in with them in front of Fluttershy. “Well. You know. All the bad guys we’ve met before. So what did she do Rares?”
Twilight looked nervous, and her horn glowed as she put up a quick sound-scrambling field around them. “Er… well, I know at least some of you know she came from a different version of Equestria,” she said. “Apparently, she was sentenced to a very, very long time in prison there, and to make sure she served out her full sentence, the government made her immortal somehow. And she demonstrated exactly what that meant to us.”
“Meaning?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Meaning that she broke her own bucking neck in front of us!” Starlight hissed. “And then she healed and came back to life!”
Four sets of eyes widened and stared at her.
“She… did what!?” Applejack sounded disbelieving. “How in tarnation is that even possible?”
“I don’t know,” Twilight said with a sigh. “Every immortal I know, like the Princesses and Discord, was born that way - there are some who’ve tried to find some way to make themselves immortal, but they never succeeded.”
“And she said she used to take a lot longer to heal from that kind of injury,” Starlight added. “I’m guessing she’s died and gotten better more than a few times if she’s so inured to it now.”
Fluttershy looked to be trembling nervously. “Oh the poor dear…” she whimpered. “What kind of ponies would do such a thing to somepony else?”
“You didn’t hear why she was in prison,” Starlight said in a disgusted tone. “She was a war criminal. Says it’s just because she was working with the rebellion, creating cures for the biological weapons being used against them. But mark my words, she’s hiding something. Something big.”
The others looked nervously at one another, but before they could respond, Twilight looked up and quickly canceled her spell. Rainbow Dash looked like she was about to ask why, but Twilight held up a hoof for silence.
“Ah Twilight, there you are,” a voice called out a moment later, causing the others to look up in recognition as Spliced walked over to them. “You’re surprisingly hard to find despite being the only other Pur-alicorn here.”
“Uh yes, I guess I don’t stand out that much here,” Twilight said nervously. “What can I do for you?”
“I would like to speak with you for a moment in private,” she blinked, staring at the mares around the table.
“Okay,” Twilight said, steeling her nerves as she stood up and walked to the back room. While she didn’t trust the mare and knew she would just come back, Twilight was positive that she could handle the mare if Spliced tried anything. Creating a smaller version of the sound-scrambling field, she looked at the mare who was examining the shield with fascination on her face. “What do you want to talk about; we won’t be overheard.”
“Thank you,” Spliced said as she brought out something from her saddlebag, and held it out. It was one of Spike’s scales. “I am concerned about your dragon associate, Spike.” She held up the scale. “How much do you know about dragon biology?”
Twilight frowned. “I know they’re extreme omnivores and obligate silicivores, and that when they get greedy, they go through massive growth spurts that can make them act crazy… also, they live an extremely long time and can nap for a thousand years without any trouble, unless their snoring puts out enough smoke to cause trouble for nearby settlements. And of course, they breathe fire and can survive lava with no problems.” She frowned. “Spike’s the only dragon I’ve ever seen, at least that I can remember, who doesn’t have wings though… I’ve been meaning to ask Ember about that.”
Spliced frowned with a hiss, shaking her head. “Not as bad as I feared, but you are still very ill informed,” Twilight was about to object to this when the mare brought the scale onto the counter and waved Twilight close. “Tell me what you see here?”
Twilight leaned in and saw that there were rings on the scale, fifteen to be exact. “What does-”
Spliced then reached into her saddlebag and pulled out more scales, with the same number of rings on it. “It looks to be similar to that of trees.”
“It is that exactly, and that is what has me concerned,” the mare said. “If my knowledge is correct, Spike is about to enter puberty.”
“But he’s a child,” Twilight started but the mare cut her off.
“Dragon biology and equine biology is far different,” Spliced said. “I was greatly alarmed to learn he has no hoard which explains his current infantile physique. I do not know what could lead to such behaviour but-”
“The last time Spike started hoarding, it made him grow huge and go crazy,” Twilight interrupted. “He completely lost his mind, attacked ponies and even kidnapped Rarity and dragged her off to a cave. Fortunately, he came to his senses and turned back to his normal self after he got a reminder of what he used to be like.”
The alicorn across of her facehoof and sighed heavily. “Twilight, as his guardian, you were supposed to monitor his hoard, just like any other dragon’s parent or guardian as to prevent that from happening, as well as make sure it grew at a slow, but steady rate - how long did it take before he went crazy?”
“Well, he did get a whole lot of presents in just one day…” Twilight blushed. “It was his birthday, after all. He’s been careful not to get too much at a time ever since.”
Spliced growled out in frustration, shaking her head. “You are aware of the differences in dragons and equines, correct? Because you cannot expect to raise one the other way and for them to be perfectly healthy if you take none of their species’ special needs into account; you do know that, correct?”
Twilight let out a snort at this, feeling her anger rise at the other mare’s presumption. “Spike is half my age, and I’m in my twenties; I know dragons grow a lot slower than ponies do. I thought he was at least another ten or fifteen years minimum from that point, if not a lot longer!”
“Then next time do your research,” Spliced shouted back. “His breed of dragon is one of the few that grow quickly; they are usually either elite warriors caste or high ranking nobles due to this factor. But the abuse you did in your ignorance is not important at the moment, what-”
“My what‽” Twilight yelled, causing the mare to tumble back in the shield from the sheer weight of her voice. “How dare you accuse me of abusing my son!”
Spliced winced as she got to her hooves. “Your… son?”
Twilight nodded. “I hatched him the day I got my Cutie Mark, I’ve raised him practically since birth. He’s… he’s my son, and the only child I’ve ever had.”
“I did not know that,” Spliced said calmly. “And to continue what I was trying to say, what we need to do is figure out how to instill the proper mindset into Spike as he is currently headed to enter puberty with an adolescent mindset and a infant’s body.”
Twilight blanched at that and shook her head. “You think we can, if you are correct, get his body to be the correct… state you claim he should be now?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It takes time for the body to grow once introduced to correct mental stimulus with the body requiring time, in the span of years.” The pony sighed, shaking her head. “It is the best we can achieve, with him having a preadolescent body for when he begins puberty.”
“I suppose you are right,” Twilight said reluctantly. “I just wish we had more information on dragons so I could be su-” Twilight froze in horror, then facehoofed. “I knew I should have asked Ember about this a lot sooner,” she moaned. “She could have told me I was doing something wrong, if only I’d thought about it!”
Spliced looked confused. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that name,” she noted. “Who’s Ember, and why would she know about dragons?”
Twilight looked confused back, then sighed as she realized something. “Right, from a different universe. Ember is the newest Dragon Lord - her father’s term in the position ended a while back, and technically Spike won the Gauntlet of Fire to be the next Dragon Lord, but he decided to abdicate in Ember’s favor since she’d done just as much to help him win, and he didn’t want to take the job anyway. He only participated in the challenge for it to keep some of the nastier dragons, like Garble, from winning.”
Spliced raised an eyebrow. “And by nastier, you mean by equine standards or dragon standards…”
“He wanted Spike to smash a defenseless phoenix’s egg, just for fun, the first time they met,” Twilight snarled with a flash of annoyance that she’d brought up the issue again. “Somedragon like that shouldn’t be anywhere near any throne.”
“I’ll concede that point.” Spliced sighed, appearing very tired and old. “Look, I can tell you meant well, but the fact is, you made mistakes as far as Spike’s biological welfare is concerned. But it’s not too late to fix them. We can begin coming up with plans in how help him.”
“Before we start, I want to know why,” Twilight would normally believe that it would be second nature for anypony to want to help another but Spliced was unlike any mare she knew and Twilight highly doubted she was being altruistic.
“If I were honest, I was originally going to stay silent on the matter and observe Spike’s development for future data but I realized that my silence could be viewed as means of harm against you and your friends by witholding my knowledge, and given the beings I’ve met since I got here… I really don’t want to risk that. I’m immortal, not unkillable, and besides…” she shuddered. “You’d be surprised what you can live through, even without my kind of immortality.”
Twilight’s ear twitched. “I’m sensing there’s a story there.”
Spliced nodded. “Short version? Discord can be scary when he wants to be, even if he didn’t lay a claw on me.”
Twilight shuddered. “Scarier than the time he managed to manipulate us in ways that completely inverted our personalities so we’d be out of the way and he could turn Equestria into his own personal playground?”
Spliced’s face went white. “He can do that? And you don’t have him locked up?”
“He did it before, the first time we met him,” Twilight confirmed. “Back when he still thought it was funny to play games with ponies’ minds for his amusement, before he realized the value of friendship…” She shook her head. “Look, we may not have been through a direct war like you did, but my friends and I have been through a lot of horrible stuff here too, thanks to monsters like Chrysalis, Tirek, Sombra and others. But we do everything we can to make sure nopony gets hurt. And…” Her ears flattened. “And I can’t believe I’ve been accidentally hurting Spike all this time.”
Spliced felt her heart skip a beat, and she knew it was out of character for her, but she couldn’t help it. “You did what you did out of ignorance, not malice,” she said softly. “It’s not too late to fix your mistakes.”
Twilight looked at her gratefully. “Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate that.”
Spliced nodded. “It’s the least I can do.”
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good so far i am really enjoying it.
8516422
thank you
Complete idiots, thats who
And her sentence made no real sense. I mean the whole "isolation on the moon for 1000 years" part, i get, making her immortal so that she can actually live that long, i get (sort of), making her forget who she is, why she is in isolation, what her crime was, and forgetting much of, if not all, of the punishment, makes no sense at all
8518066
My theory, based on what I know of the situation? Vindictiveness probably played a large role in deciding her sentence, given what she remembered of her past at the end of the first story... her actions during the war and after affected a lot of people, and I expect they wanted her to feel just like her victims, who suffered and died without ever knowing why. It was the survivors' way of lashing out against one who'd caused so much pain, motivated by pure spite and bitterness.
Until next time...
Anon e Mouse Jr.
8518132
That makes sense
8518132
Sadism.
Consider: the "Pures" were not only the slavemaster/ruling class, they were the ones who used biological warfare FIRST. These were not noble, good, or decent souls. SG's punishment was simple sadism and vengeance... think about it. They had cameras watching her. They took turns watching while she died. They planned to monitor her... and routinely kill her in horrific ways... for a thousand years. So that their children's children's CHILDREN would get to watch her die in horrible agony over and over.
Not exactly an Empire of Light.
If Celestia and Luna ever meet the "Pures," I suspect they're going to be a lot more sympathetic to Spliced Genome.
8721814
Maybe not sympathy, but they would probably not send her back, even when they learn of the full extent of her crimes