Azure Edge

by Leaf Blade

94. Blood in the Snow

Rarity left the burning library behind and raced toward the foothills surrounding Canterlot. The dragon she had seen flying away from her home looked as though it was having trouble keeping itself airborne; it was likely injured, or exhausted, and those foothills were uninhabited and made a good place to rest. She learned that from talking with Tw—

…

Rarity wondered if running into the mountains in the middle of the night all by herself was perhaps too foolish, but she couldn’t contact Rainbow Dash or Celestia for help. Or anyone else for that matter; this was her dragon, and she needed to kill it. Or die trying, at the very least.

Honestly, she wasn’t sure which outcome she preferred.

But the thought of Twilight motivated her onward, and Rarity knew that Twilight wouldn’t want Rarity to die for her sake. Though thinking of Twilight instantly brought to mind the horrifying idea of what must have happened to her in that library when the dragon attacked, and what happened to Spike for that matter.

Rarity had seen families—children and parent alike—screaming in agony and despair as their homes burned around them and they couldn’t escape, and Rarity was having a great deal of trouble not picturing Twilight and Spike in that manner.

It was curious though, wasn’t it? Rarity hadn’t thought to question it when she saw the burning library, but as she drew near the foothills she started to wonder, had anything else been destroyed? Rarity saw the dragon flying over the city, yet other than excreting some kind of seemingly harmless rainbow fluid, it didn’t do anything but fly over.

Why destroy the library?

Unless Twilight engaged the dragon before it could attack the town, and injured it badly enough for it to flee. Rarity wasn’t sure she liked the idea of Twilight dying a hero’s death, because she was certain the librarian she met those months ago would never have been so brave; and the idea that Rarity’s influence led to Twilight’s—

It didn’t matter now. Thinking about Twilight wouldn’t bring Rarity anything other than pain. She needed to focus on the task at hand.

Which became all too easy once she found it.

There it was, the dragon who had killed Rarity’s darling, lying in the snow at the foot of the mountains, clawing at the snow-covered rocky face, desperately scratching at it in an attempt to climb, or perhaps use it as leverage to become airborne again.

It didn’t matter. When Rarity got close enough to see the violet monstrosity, she could tell it was indeed injured— or at least weary, for despite its apparent lack of energy, and the ragged, coarse breathing she could hear from the beast, there were no visible wounds on its body.

Either way, it was weakened, and would be far easier to kill in this state. Perhaps Rarity wouldn’t have to die for her revenge after all.

Though she had no use for the thing during the Baltimare battle, Rarity was still armed with a bow and several arrows from Celestia’s armory, and she notched an arrow and took aim. The dragon may have been weakened, but it wasn’t harmless, and Rarity wasn’t about to rush into a battle against a dragon without caution.

Rarity fired the arrow, and it pierced straight through the scales on the dragon’s shoulder, tearing through the beast until it ripped a clean hole right through to its other side, Rarity letting out an unladylike cackle at the enchantment’s effectiveness.

The dragon didn’t roar or hiss as Rarity anticipated; it merely threw its claws on the ground and glared in the direction the arrow was fired. It stared right at Rarity with the conviction of a beast cornered, prepared to defend itself to the death, but Rarity was not intimidated and notched another arrow.

As Rarity prepared to fire, or to dodge the dragon’s counterattack, the dragon’s gaze softened. It suddenly looked less like a cornered animal and more like it was… pleading?

Perhaps it wants to beg for its life, Rarity thought with disgust and fired the arrow right the creature’s shimmering, violet eye.

The dragon caught the arrow in its claw and crushed it, though when it opened up its claw, Rarity could see the arrow’s enchantment had still torn apart the scales on the beast’s hand, leaving a bloody gash in their place.

The dragon looked at the wound for a moment before slamming its hand on the ground, and while Rarity at first presumed this to be a fighting stance, the dragon retching rainbow fluid with a horrid groan quelled that notion quickly.

Rarity fired another arrow, and as it soared through the sky—only to be swatted away by the dragon—Rarity tossed the bow aside and charged. She still had some defensive spells she could cast if things went south, but the dragon’s wounds—whatever they were—looked bad enough that Rarity could end this quickly, and she saw no reason not to do so.

She drew Celestia’s onyx blade and screamed an enraged battle cry, and as she moved to plunge the weapon into the demon’s forehead, she saw its eye leaking with what looked like tears. At the last second, Rarity instinctively flicked her hand, thrusting her sword deep into the back of the dragon’s hand, but something prevented her from activating the sword’s enchantment.

The dragon gave no roar or scream or shriek; it gave nothing more than a pitiful whimper as Rarity’s blade penetrated its soft flesh. The creature’s face was drawn into a frown, and its pleading violet eyes—each nearly half the size of Rarity’s body—locked onto her.

Rarity felt a twisting in her gut. Something wasn’t right here.

The dragon opened its mouth—just barely, not enough to breathe fire but enough to try and speak—but all that came out was more of that putrid-smelling liquid.

Of course it’s sad, Rarity argued in her mind, it’s about to die! That doesn’t mean I show this demon who destroyed my home any mercy!

The dragon blinked, and tears fell down its face. Rarity found herself staring directly into the dragon’s eyes, and now with the moonlight shining down on them, without the haze of bloodlust and vengeance clouding Rarity’s vision, she was able to get a good look at the wounded beast for everything it was.

It looked familiar.

The lavender scales, the indigo mane, the violet eyes; they were all too familiar.

“No,” Rarity whispered to herself, retracting her sword and stumbling away from the creature.

She froze for half a second, stunned by the farcical scenario her mind was beginning to conjure, and once she realized she had paused, she jumped away from the monster, counting herself lucky that it didn’t kill her as soon as she was vulnerable.

But then she noticed; the dragon wasn’t fighting back.

Rarity shot it with two arrows, fired a third, and stabbed it with a sword. Yet it just sat there, staring at her. She wondered what it was thinking, then considered herself crazy for even entertaining such a ridiculous notion; it was a dragon, it was thinking about how to kill her… right?

Then why wasn’t it doing anything?

Rarity pooled magic in her horn—enough for a makeshift teleportation spell if this plan went awry—and slowly walked toward the dragon, sword drawn. She raised her weapon to the beast’s face and stabbed it right in the crease below its eye, blood spurting from the injury.

The dragon winced, gritted its teeth, and whimpered. It tried to open its mouth again, but only colorful vomit came out yet again.

And a faint, guttural noise, that Rarity almost swore sounded like the dragon was saying her name.

“NO!” Rarity shrieked, pulling the onyx blade from Tw—the dragon’s eye and stabbing it through the bridge of its nose, and again in the cheek, and again just below its eye, then just above.

She kept stabbing the sword into the damn creature’s face, over and over, until blood covered nearly every inch of the right side of its face, and not once—not a single goddamn time—did the dragon react with anything more threatening than a pained, pitiful, tearful whimper.

Rarity threw her bloodied sword onto the ground and backed away. Perhaps she was getting ahead of herself to let her guard down, but what did it matter? She would be dense to not realize what was going on here, to think that this dragon would attack her now.

“Why aren’t you fighting back?” Rarity said coldly, not expecting any answer.

She already knew the answer. She knew why the dragon looked so miserable, so beat up and drained. It had magic exhaustion.

Rarity put her hand across her face. She still couldn’t accept what was rapidly becoming clear. How could she? How could she face the idea that everything she had done for the last several months— everything she thought she knew about the best thing to ever happen to her— was a complete lie?

“Stop!”

Rarity nearly felt like throwing up when she heard Spike’s hoarse, desperate voice. She turned her head to see him running through the snow toward Rarity, but he passed right by her and, before Rarity could stop him, ran to the dragon and put his hands on its muzzle.

“Rarity! Please, stop!” Spike said, fighting through tears to string together strained sentences. “It’s Twilight! You’re hurting Twilight! See?!”

Spike held out a tiny doll, one that Rarity had seen countless times. It was a dragon doll, Spike slept with the thing and claimed it to be his protector. Rarity always found it odd, even a little morbid, that Spike thought a dragon would protect him, but now she was seeing the doll in a much different light.

Because it was exactly identical to the bloodied dragon lying before her.

Rarity said nothing; did nothing. She simply stood and stared in complete silence, her face an icy mask that betrayed nothing that she was feeling. How could it, when she couldn’t feel anything?

“Please, Twilight,” Spike begged, pushing his hands into his mo—into the dragon’s bloody wounds, “you’ve gotta get up! You’ve gotta tell Rarity that it’s just you, that she doesn’t have to be afraid of you!”

“Afraid?” Rarity wanted to laugh, but there was certainly no humor to be found in Spike’s terrified face. “Why would I fear a dragon that can’t even defend itself?”

Rarity grabbed the onyx blade from the ground in her magic, gripping it tightly in her hand as she slowly marched toward the injured dragon.

“Rarity, no!” Spike said, trying to cover the dragon with his tiny body. “You can’t do this! It’s Twilight! Why would you wanna hurt Twilight!?”

“Move out of the way,” Rarity said flatly, slinging the sword across her shoulder, “I have to complete my mission, and slay this dragon.”

“No! I won’t let you!” Spike yelled, and he put up his tiny fists.

Rarity looked down at the bloodied face of a half-dead dragon and the tiny pegasus child who was willing to fight a Slayer to the death in order to defend her.

She couldn’t look at Spike without thinking about the times she spent eating ice cream with him, or when she first comforted him after he got jealous, or how he always wanted to impress her but got too embarrassed every time, or the book readings he put on with Rainbow in the library.

And she couldn’t look at the dragon without thinking… of how everything she thought she knew was wrong, and how she wished that her life really had been burned away with that damn library, because what the hell was she supposed to do NOW!?

The dragon grabbed Spike in its clutches, but he didn’t appear worried. Rarity flinched and readied her sword, but a gust of wind from the dragon’s wings disoriented her, and once she had gotten back her bearings, the dragon was airborne.

Rarity grabbed her bow with her magic and pulled it over to her, firing an arrow into the night sky at the dragon, but only managing to graze its tail. By the time she fired a second arrow, the beast and Spike had disappeared behind the mountains.

Rarity fell to her knees, Celestia’s sword falling out of her hand into the snow. She stared blankly into the mountain’s face, unable to move or to think or to do… anything.

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.

Comments

[Zeprto678]

Looks like Rarity has learned the truth.

[Captain_Cosmos]

PLEASE TELL ME THIS STORY HAS A HAPPY ENDING!!! I NEED TO SEE RARITY AND TWILIGHT TALK THIS OUT AND MAKE UP AND BE TOGETHER FOREVER!!!

I’m a sucker for Raritwi so I always want to see happy endings with this ship.

[Leaf Blade]

9983838
yes absolutely there is! i am extremely not into doing sad endings. there's still alooooot of story left tho, and i'm gonna wring this situation out for as much juicy angst as i can during the next few arcs :3c

[ValNitak Choas]

wow just wow, those two are going to need so much therapy and many long talks

[Captain_Cosmos]

9983844
So Rarity seeks twilight out and they talk it over?

[stillinbeta]

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!

😣

[Leaf Blade]

9983923
well it won't be that simple, but they'll work things out... eventually. you'll just have to wait and see how it all shakes out tho :3c

[WanderingMelody]

I've cried on more than one occasion reading this but this is by far the most emotional scene for me so far.

i love how you write all the girls and their interactions with one another.

[Timuri]

I have been looking forward to this chapter. Because of how I learned about this story, I'd already known Twilight's secret thanks to the wonderful cast pic by Earthsong.

These next few chapters should be very good.