Little Problems

by Starscribe

Chapter 4: Splinters of Something New

Author's Note:

Last of the repeat chapters.

Avery felt… less.

For a long time it was all she could manage to lay in bed and try to figure out what was different. Except her bed didn’t feel like a bed at all, but like a slab of something rough and rigid, grating against her coat. She belonged somewhere else, but she couldn’t name the where.

I tried the ritual last night. I agreed to pay… something… for Julian. He should be cured. What had the night matron said? “I will take away your hoofprints from fate, so you can slip through its clutches.” She could remember her voice clearly, just like some other things remained clear in her mind. She had studied a great deal about magic in the last few days, and when she opened her eyes she could still see her horn poking out from her forehead. So that seemed to still be working.

But something wasn’t right, something obvious—she could hear voices. It didn’t sound like Julian had come in to wake her, after his miraculous recovery. The voices sounded familiar. They sounded like her.

“I think we should work together. I bet we could open the door with all of us pushing at once.”

“That’s stupid. We should pass a message to Julian.”

“He can’t get up,” argued a third voice. “Don’t you remember?”

“Except we cured him!”

So many voices, all sounding exactly like her. Avery winced, and finally opened her eyes the rest of the way. It was very dark, so she lit her horn instinctively—the magic came more easily than she remembered—actually, it came right to mind without effort. Her glasses were beside her, and she levitated them back into place. Wasn’t there something strange about that?

She could feel the uncomfortable surface beneath her in more ways than she should be able. Like huge sections of her skin were rubbing up against it, grating on her and causing a persistent discomfort.

The colors were wrong too—her pale coat was gone, replaced with bright pink with a blue mane. And there were lumps in front of her, lumps emerging from her forehead that danced through the air as though they were tasting for something.

And they were. With a sense she had no words to describe, Avery could taste exactly thirteen people nearby, including herself. Thirteen people that smelled surprisingly different, for all they seemed to smell alike and sound alike.

“Woah, look. The one in the diagram knows magic.”

“I used to know how to do that.”

“No you didn’t, you don’t have a horn.”

Avery looked up, eyes widening as she finally saw where she had been brought.

It wasn’t a fresh alien world, as she had briefly wondered. It was the bed, grown so tremendously that its surface was larger than most rooms. She wasn’t on a flat slab of concrete—she was resting on a sheet of paper, the same one she’d ripped to make her spellcrafting diagram the night before. She was resting in the very center of the diagram.

Stranger still, the creatures around her could fly. Well, some of them could. They landed beside her on the diagram, light enough that their hoofprints didn’t press the paper down. They were in many different colors—this one peach with an orange mane, that one pale like her old self, that one purple. They were different sizes too—but they all seemed bigger than her. A crowd gathered around the light of her horn, and Avery felt like the shortest pony in class. What was a class? She remembered… she’d been to a class before. When she was younger?

She couldn’t remember.

They looked like ponies, kind of. Ponies that had been shrunk, and given transparent wings that were wide and delicate. They glittered in the light from her horn.

“We need to act rationally here,” said the only pony who was as short as she was. The one with the orangish mane and skin-colored fur. She didn’t have a horn, which was even stranger to her. Come to think of it, none of them did. Avery was the only one. “You’re Avery, right?” She was addressing her.

Avery nodded. “Y-yeah.”

“So are we,” said a taller mare with an athletic build and a confident smile. “So are all of us. Maybe we should fight over it.”

“Maybe shut up,” hissed the peach one. “Your proposal isn’t rational at all. We’re too delicate and we don’t know Julian’s condition. Maybe he’s still infected and he needs to be taken care of. We won’t know until we find him and check.”

The longer Avery stayed standing the smaller she felt. The ceiling was so massive it was lost to sight above her, a blur her eyes couldn’t comprehend. All these ponies looked so different—some of them looked mature and confident. A few, like the peach one, looked confident but not mature. Then there was her, who felt like neither.

“It’s just turning the lock, right?” asked another one. Avery couldn’t keep track—they all sounded the same! “Pink one, you’ve got a horn. Can’t you do magic to get it open?”

“I, uh…” she hesitated. Her wings spread when she thought about them, but they didn’t want to flap for her. How the hell was she supposed to know how to use wings? “I can’t fly.”

“You don’t have to fly,” said peach. “You can see the door right there, right? Light coming in from under it. Turn the knob. Everyone who knows how to fly will all push on it at the same time, and we’ll open it.”

“I, uh… okay.” She winced, pawing nervously over to the edge of the bed. Well, as close as she dared to go. The drop off the side of the blankets was certain death—like standing atop a skyscraper. Nothing should be this big nothing should be this big nothing should be this big.

But another part of her—the part of her she would expect to be angry—wasn’t. If Julian is okay, it’s worth it. She had said she would pay any price for his life, and she meant it. Even this. Whatever… this even was.

“O-okay, everyone. Get… into position.” They didn’t move.

Peach took to the air with a confident burst of speed. “You heard her! With me, everyone!” And most of them did—except for two—one with a gray coat, and one she hadn’t noticed in back. This one actually looked like a child, though she wasn’t sure how she could tell. Something to do with the size of her head?

“Now!” called peach from the door.

Avery winced, and cast her levitation spell. She expected something terribly difficult—the knob was now bigger than she was, after all. But to her surprise, it twisted easily despite the distance. It didn’t open quite so easy—so she pushed on the door too. Harder than she was probably intending, because the vortex of air sucked the little ponies through with squeals of surprise as they tumbled through the air.

Like my magic hasn’t realized I’m smaller. She would have to be careful if she ever tried to interact with anything her own size. A push like that against a pony instead of a door could’ve killed them.

Sunlight illuminated the top floor as brightly as ever, though it was so large and distant to Avery that she could only make out the general shapes. Like the door to Julian’s bedroom, already open. The flock of little ponies seemed to see that as their target, because that was where they went, with peach’s voice shouting commands to be calm and orderly fading into the distance.

That left the three of them. Avery glanced down at the drop, spreading her wings—but just wanting to go with them to check on Julian wasn’t the same as actually knowing how to fly.

“You two stuck too?” she asked, sitting back down on her haunches with a sigh. The cloth wasn’t as uncomfortable as the paper, though she still didn’t like the feel of it. Too dead, too fake. It wasn’t where she belonged.

To her surprise, both of the others shook their heads. The one who had the same pale color as her old self rose into the air to demonstrate. “Are you sure you can’t do it? Flying is… so easy. It’s like swimming. You just have to push.”

The child nodded in agreement. “I dunno how. But it’s in there. Everything is in there.” She tapped the side of her head with one hoof. “Not much of everything, but it’s something.”

“Uh…” Avery rose, walking a little ways away from the edge. Until she was so far from it that she no longer felt like she was risking falling by attempting to fly. She moved her wings, but the new limbs didn’t seem to work right. Worse, her tail and mane seemed to be larger—when she leaned forward, she tripped on her mane, and ended up planting her face in the giant blanket.

At least it didn’t hurt to fall.

“That’s weird,” said the child, lifting up beside her. “You think it’s your horn? We don’t got those, maybe it’s too heavy.”

“I don’t think it’s her horn,” said the gray one. “Though it might be… magic-related?”

A bright green pony flew in through the now-open door, looking slightly out-of-breath from the trip. “He’s okay! Julian is cured! There’s just one of him, but… he’s not sick anymore!”

“We should help,” said gray, taking off again. Even the child followed.

“Sorry,” she said, with one last departing wave. “This is what we wanted. I wanna see it too.” And they were gone.

Avery kicked at the empty bed, grunting in frustration. But there was nobody to hear her—her voice was too small. She could barely make out a chorus of excited voices from down the hall—her own, though they all had slightly different ways of speaking. Their own unique tones and emotions, blurring together in the distance. She found she suddenly didn’t care.

“What the hell even am I?” Avery moaned, all alone. She could hear so much happiness coming from down the hall, but she couldn’t share it. She couldn’t even get to him.

Something moved on the bed with her. Near the pillow, she saw the massive tome that was the survival guide snap open. The ground shook underneath it, and the air began to billow as the pages turned. Avery crouched low, keeping her wings close to the ground so she wouldn’t get swept away. She might not know how to fly, but they could still act like sails.

The book stopped moving a few moments later, open somewhere near the middle. From her size, the walk looked like at least a block away. She started her trek.

A few minutes later and Avery arrived at the base of the tome. She adjusted her glasses, then walked around to one of the sloped edges. The curve was gentle enough where the pages leaved out that she could walk up onto the surface, and look down at what the book contained.

She only got a few steps before the floor was yanked out from under her. She flopped onto her face again, even as the book retreated from in front of her.

Avery squealed in fear—she might not remember much, but she knew how important this book was. She got up and galloped after the book as it began to fade, trying to get a grip on the pages.

She needn’t have been so worried. Though it was barely a speck compared to its previous size, the book settled onto the sheets in front of her at exactly the size a book should be.

Avery approached it slowly this time—cautious for more magical effects. The magical senses she had tried to cram in the only clear days of her memory were working better than ever before, and she could feel power swirling about this point. It wasn’t really a book, that was just the shape the magic had taken here. It looked like that so she could understand it.

But now it melted, forming a sliver of crystal about the same size the book had been, with a polished surface like a mirror. It lifted up in front of her, and a face appeared in the surface.

It was a pony—a pony made entirely of white crystal. The most perfectly-carved statue in the world, with eyes that glowed with green and purple.

“This is… peculiar,” said the voice. “I have never observed this before.” The crystal shot forward, until the pony’s face was hovering right in front of her. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “If you are trying to steal my master’s power, it will go badly for you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Avery squeaked, her little antennae drooping down to cover her face. “I’m not trying to steal anything!”

“Then explain to me,” said the carved pony. Avery could see the world behind her now, though it was hazy. She seemed to be standing in a library, the biggest and grandest library that had ever been built. “Explain to me how it is that the connection this artifact made with a unicorn is now made with a breezie. This requires powerful magic—and breezies are not general spellcasters. How does a nature spirit reweave sympathetic connections?” Purple energy glowed out from the edges of the crystal. “Do not think because the Alicorns are distracted preserving this planet that their creations rest idle. Tell me the name of your master, and she will be punished. Who robbed the unicorn mare?”

“I am the unicorn mare,” she said, fumbling over that last word. It still felt strange on her tongue, for more reasons than one. Though now that she thought about it, most of her discomfort with it had faded. She knew she ought to be bothered—but it didn’t feel like she’d been the one to keep that emotional turmoil.

Avery felt a little anger entering her voice. “You’re Mercy, aren’t you? The pony who wrote the survival guide?”

“I didn’t write it,” said the crystal pony, glowering at her. “I maintain it. There is a difference. The original was written by Archive, but much has changed since then. She’s too busy fighting monsters to write these days.” She glared through the glass. “Your answer does not make sense, nature spirit. This artifact reads as genuinely connected to you—explain your forgery.”

“No forgery,” she practically shouted. “I made a deal with the Matron of Nightfall. Your fucking book taught me how to do it!”

The creature made from crystal stopped glaring. “One moment,” the image faded, and for a few seconds it only showed Avery’s reflection. A frightened, animal face, though the glasses and tightly braided mane both didn’t belong. Without even thinking, Avery lifted the glasses off her face, and found the whole world turned blurry almost immediately. Since when am I so nearsighted?

The shard of crystal that had been her book became a screen again, with the same imperious face behind it. “Yours is the second case I know of where a non-bat has managed to attract her attention. I would need to examine you personally, but… I am satisfied with your explanation.” Her horn glowed, and a notebook and quill appeared beside her. “For my records, what was your boon? The curse is obvious.”

“My friend,” Avery muttered, “was infected with a… fungus. I wanted him cured.”

“I notice you still have your horn. Does it… still work? Your curse didn’t include making you into a true breezie, then. I suppose I’ll make sure your guide retains access to unicorn magic in addition to breezie wyldcraft.”

“I… the curse wasn’t just being this,” Avery croaked. She felt suddenly self-conscious, but would she ever get another chance? “It’s becoming a dozen of them. It feels like… I don’t remember very much. I think the others must all know different things. Maybe if you put us all together we’d be the person I should be…”

“Oh.” Mercy’s tone became solemn. “That’s… extreme. I can only guess at her purpose. Regardless, I have some advice for you. Do not attempt to reverse the process. A price paid to creatures like the Matron cannot be stolen back through tricks. Either you will fail, or she will revoke your boon and your friend will die. You must make due with the life you asked for.”

“O-okay.” She shivered. “I… I understand.” She wanted to ask for more, but suddenly she found she just couldn’t muster the courage. Avery had been a brave… person, who could fight monsters and never look away. That part of her must’ve ended up in someone else.

“And since I spent the glamour to make this connection, one more thing. Don’t wander too far. Breezies are delicate creatures ill-suited for life outside their… well, you can read, it’s in the book. Just know that the world has become a dangerous place, for all creatures but especially for you. The minor creatures of the rot will make short work of you if you provoke them now. You must not become a threat, or you will be destroyed.”

The pony didn’t wait to say more, not even a farewell. The crystal went reflective again—and a few seconds later, it had changed back into a book. Though it remained at the convenient size.

Avery levitated it over to her, and found the gesture as effortless as before. So long as she was careful enough not to smack herself with the tiny book like a bullet, anyway.

It was still opened to where it had turned when she spoke before—the page about breezies. I wonder why the others didn’t look this up before I woke up. They would have known all about themselves.

Avery could still hear the excited voices from the hallway behind, and other motion. Those massive hoofsteps would no doubt be Julian, a pony so large now that he shook the whole house through her hooves.

It was worth it. I won’t get to have him, but at least he’ll live. I kept my promise.

Avery might not have kept her courage, but she had kept the determination that had prompted her to study magic with such vigor. She didn’t get to be a part of the celebration with the others, at least she could learn what they had become.

Breezies were described in far less detail than unicorns. The survival guide mentioned they were extremely rare, surpassed only by dragons in terms of “refugee conversion ratio.” Physically they were the weakest intelligent species—there were no others of this size and frailty anywhere in the spell.

The book went on to discuss their role as nature spirits—ageless beings of the oldest and most dangerous forests. Apparently their presence was enough to bless the land so thoroughly that they were actually a threat to civilization. They didn’t just bless the crops, but make everything grow out of control wherever they lived. Their magic was so strange and hostile to other kinds that they were often hunted.

The book’s short description of them closed with a recommendation to any refugees with that form to find larger allies to protect them and to never gather in groups of more than two or three. This would prevent their magic from interacting with the natural world, and keep them from threatening civilization. With just a few together at a time, they were no danger to anypony and thus would probably not be hunted.

“I will use you to remake the smallest fraction of the phenomenal world, so that my war drums will sound again in the hearts of men.” She made thirteen of us. Made them from us, somehow. She wanted us to be together.

Maybe Avery would have felt bad about that. A part of her probably would have, anyway. But this Avery was too small to be bothered about changing the world when the outside was nothing but rot and putrescence. Rot that had almost killed her best friend. Rot that had cursed her with… smallness. Of all kinds.

Something huge rumbled nearby, and the massive door shut. Avery squeaked pitifully, and her horn went out, plunging her in darkness. To Avery’s surprise, an outline stood in the doorway. A familiar outline, though she’d never imagined she would see it from so small.

Julian was an impressive and frightening creature now. She could see the individual hairs in his coat, feel the bed shake under her. And he couldn’t see her at all.

He sat down just behind the door, and she realized now there were no more of her little clan of breezies to be seen.

Julian was healed. True to the price she’d paid, there was no trace of the suffocating fungus on his body anywhere. He didn’t even seem to have the scars the book had suggested would linger for life, or the stunted muscles that the fungus had fed upon. He looked as though he’d never been infected.

He also looked overwhelmed.

“I can’t believe what you did for me, bird,” he whispered, to nobody. He made no glance at her—didn’t seem to even realize she existed. “I don’t know if I can face you. So many little voices…” He shook his head, shivering all over. “I told you to let it happen. It wasn’t your fault I was dying.”

Avery made her way along the bed, getting closer to Julian. She tripped a few times as she made her way down, but it didn’t hurt. Falling never seemed to hurt at this size.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you,” he muttered, voice as downcast as before. “I guess I’m a zookeeper now. Or a babysitter.”

Avery was as close as she dared to the footboard. It was too high up for her to climb. “You could’ve left me behind after the car crash,” she called up to him, as loud as she could. Her voice seemed so small by comparison, she worried he wouldn’t be able to hear her. “You didn’t. How could I leave you behind?” She lit up her horn just in case he couldn’t see her—she might not be able to get out of the way in time if he decided to try and sit down on the bed.

“Oh.” The glow from her horn was as bright as it had been before, yet somehow it didn’t hurt to look at. She could see Julian’s expression fall as he saw her. “There’s another one in here. I just… I just wanted a few minutes alone.” He rose, and made for the door again.

“Hold on!” Avery squealed after him, tugging on his tail with her magic. “You can’t just say things like that and walk away!” Where had that courage come from? Avery could hardly believe it. It’s how I used to talk. It was as though being near him was reminding her of things she’d forgotten.

To her surprise, Julian did stop. He turned, making his way to the edge of the bed, and glaring down at her. “Alright, bird. What do you want?”

She whimpered, wiping away tears with the back of one leg. She’d almost never seen him this upset—but she couldn’t back away now. “I-I… I dunno. Just don’t… I still want to be your friend, Julian. I’m sure all the other bits and pieces of me want the same thing. It’s the one thing we all seemed to have in common.”

His expression softened. “It’s not fair having this conversation like this. You’re adorable and I’m not. Did you make those glasses yourself?”

“No,” she whined. “Stop trying to distract me! I went to the edge of hell for you, Julian! I went to the Morpheans and demanded that you be cured! Doesn’t that say how much I care about you?”

Julian nodded, then sat down on the bed beside her. His weight made the whole floor sweep down towards him, and Avery tumbled, sliding and smacking into his leg. Still didn’t hurt, though it was incredibly embarrassing to be sprawled out in front of him like this. Avery was enough of herself to remember the nudity taboo.

Julian didn’t help—he lowered one hoof, lifting her up as delicately as a butterfly. Which was good, since anything more would have crushed her. “You’re easier to deal with when there’s one of you. I don’t like crowds.”

That’s probably gonna be difficult, since all those fairies think you’re their best friend. But she didn’t say that part just yet. She couldn’t help but see the fall waiting for her if she tumbled off his hoof, and so she clung to it desperately. “Why aren’t you… flying?”

“Can’t,” she whimpered, shivering. “Dunno how.”

“That makes two ways you’re different than the others,” Julian said. “Are you the original? Are you the real Avery? Maybe the rest are clones…”

Avery nodded. “I’m the real one—but they’ll think they’re the original too. I don’t think it was a copy thing. I think it was more like… my life was a big Hawaiian pizza that got sliced up into thirteen slices.”

Julian shrugged, holding his hoof as rigidly as he could. “Well, you must be the slice without any pineapples. You didn’t attack me like a swarm of glass butterflies.” He lowered his hoof to the pillow, slowly enough that she didn’t go flying. She scrambled off quickly, rising into a standing position and looking up at him.

She should probably feel bad for all the other little parts of her that weren’t in here. But considering how much they’d overwhelmed Julian, she found it hard.

“While I was studying… trying to learn the spell that would cure you… I used to drift off… plan out what we’d do once I did it. Burning back the fungus for miles around, planting some crops. We could make a home out here. Maybe if we really worked at it we could get the power back on. Then maybe in a few years if it seemed like things were staying safe we would maybe have a few kids, and start chopping up the ruins into a castle or something. It would be such an awesome place to grow up, and none of them would get sick and…” she trailed off, realizing what she’d said. Her ears flattened and she squeaked pitifully. “Uh… pretend you didn’t hear that last part.”

Julian wasn’t very good at pretending. “Might have a hard time with that one now, bird. You’re… what, three inches?”

“I’ve been reading all about magic,” she said, before she could stop herself. “There are transformation spells. I could—” But she stopped, remembering what Mercy had said about trying to get around her curse. “I can’t make myself bigger. But I could make you smaller.”

Then she realized what she was saying. Avery whined, covering her face in her hooves and making a pitiful sound. A little like the videos of moths she’d seen once or twice.

Julian had been the shyer of the two of them once. That seemed long gone, lost to his size advantage. He leaned down over her, looking sympathetic. “I’m not committing to anything, bird. But it would be nice to be able to hug you properly. For saving my life, I mean. Not that having those little ones land all over me wasn’t sweet of them.”

And every one of those little ponies would probably want the same things from Julian that Avery did. They were all her, after all. Some parts of what they’d taken were exclusive, but others overlapped, and she suspected Julian was that constant.

“Well, come on.” Julian reached down for her again. “I’m not facing the mob without you. You can ride on my back.”

“Wait!” Avery squeaked, gesturing to where he had picked her up before. “I dropped my book! I don’t want to lose it!”

“Oh… hey, there is something there.” Julian bent down, though he frowned at his hoof. “Too small for me. You’ll have to get it.”

Avery concentrated, and the book shot back across the room towards her. Not too fast that she couldn’t stop it. She kept it moving over to the bedside table, where she set it just beside the lantern. “Don’t spill anything on it! I’m not gonna ruin my wizard’s manual before I read it!”

“I’d have a riot on my hands if I did,” Julian muttered. “I guess you’ll have to figure out how to distribute book privileges. And… lots of things.”

“I don’t think so,” Avery muttered, clambering up onto his offered hoof. He moved her to his back, and she climbed down again. It was surprisingly easy to hang on—she probably could’ve climbed up to his shoulders. But she wasn’t brave enough for that yet. “The others can’t do magic. Or… not unicorn magic. I think they have another kind… wyldcraft? I haven’t looked it up yet.”

“You all can work that out,” he said. “But… thanks, Avery. For saving me. I’m sorry I… I know how much this cost you. I’ll try to make it worth it for you. For both of us.”

“Open the door slowly!” Avery squeaked. “They might be waiting on the other side. Don’t squish me!”

“Oh, right!” He did open it slowly—which was good, since there were three breezies waiting in the air just outside it, watching. Julian’s slowness meant that they only went spinning through the air, instead of getting crushed between the door and the wall.

Their hideout didn’t seem that different. Aside from everything being impossibly massive, the world was the same. It was only Avery who had changed.

Well, all of the Averies.

I said I’d pay any price, Avery thought. I did mean it. Julian’s back. It’s worth it even if I never get to be with him. Even if none of us do. Even knowing the price, she would’ve done it again. That was what love was about.

Comments

[mycutiemarkisagun]

This premise is amazing, how do u keep doing this Pony Asimov 😭

[Lightwavers]

This story makes me happy. :)

[SolangeEggbert]

Excellent, awaiting more eagerly.
I note 'make due' -> do.

[Halira]

Okay, after reading the first chapter I really want to know why there wasn't a breezy death match for the name "Avery" since they are all technically Avery.

[Jordan179]

This is perhaps the strangest Harem scenario I've ever seen written. And it makes perfect sense. Well done!

[Zanec]

Well, you must be the slice without any pineapples.

sanctorum.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Heresy-detected.gif

[Helium]

dawww. Totally worth exploding for it seems
Neat seeing mercy again. Though the years and isolation seem to not have been kind on the bit of personality that he had