Morendo
Perhaps it is no more than dream.
For every moment since that just before she approached him in the market square to have been nothing more than the longest of nightscape journeys, something where a surprising coherency of the impossible has been cemented by the steady rise of terror... that seems best. It never happened. None of it ever took place. He will wake soon, he will be a pegasus again and always, one with a pair of near-sisters and a hare who needs feeding and what's probably more laundry to do. It's all he has, all he can ever have and at this point, it's the most he could ask for.
But he drifts through strata of unconsciousness, with what little awareness he still retains carried along by distant fading notes. There was a song (the true song), and a song doesn't just imply singers: it suggests an audience. In the logic of dream, he should just know what that means, but nothing about this dream
let it be a dream
has been normal and he doesn't understand...
There was a song. A sound which took all other sounds away, masked every remaining sense, and now he is simply drifting
but then there is a touch.
There are ways in which it is not gentle: the talons have odd ridges along their outer edges, something which can't quite cut while remaining fully capable of rasping against the world. The palm (if it could be described as such) has similar surfaces poking into his chin as that which is not quite a hand cups it, raises it slightly away from the soil. There is nothing soft about that touch, not when it comes to the contact itself -- but it is also making no attempt to be harsh. It's more like something opposite, something... other.
He opens his eyes (just for a few seconds, the longest period of consciousness he will have for some time), and the first thing he sees, that which looks back at him, bears a brighter red than his own.
Too tired to fight. To fully react, and so he is also too tired for fear. All he knows of this entity is that it is here, the elder of his near-sisters treats it as a friend and if that should ever change, there is nothing he could ever do to stop it. It is standing on a strip of earth which bears strange colors, something which further changes hue in its presence. It has hoof and claw on the ground and yet it looks directly at him on his fallen level, and he distantly recognizes that every vertebrae in the horribly-curved spine should have shattered.
He is regarded by the worst smile in the world. And then there's something which joins the song as he slips back into darkness, something to carry into the true nightscape. Three words which follow him for all the days and nights of his life.
"You're not boring..."
She wouldn't let them approach.
All of them tried, in turns and then in small groups. But the dirty forelegs would pause in their inwards scooping to kick out at them, and then Akane returned to the mindless gathering.
Her head was dipped now. She crooned to the little pile of bloody pebbles, and wept when they did not answer.
She would allow no Apple nor Advocate to approach -- but after too many eternities had passed, once the drizzle started up again and began to further muddy the residue in her coat... that was when her father emerged from the fosse.
He was filthy (as was Applejack). Covered from snout to tail-tip in the blood of the earth, with little coagulated pieces falling away at every hoofstep. He didn't seem to notice.
"Get away from my daughter," he softly ordered, and they complied. It gave him a clear passage for approach.
"Akane?" (There was a brief glimpse of moist eyes as he passed Applejack, and then all water was absorbed by the coating of embedded stone.) "Look at me."
Her head slowly lifted.
"It's gone," his daughter whispered. "It's right here and it's gone. That's wrong..."
Rocksteady took a shaky hoofstep forward.
"I know you don't want to hear this right now --" was the wrong choice of words -- but then, there were no right ones.
"-- I don't want to hear anything from --" the parent harshly whispered.
"-- but the fosse has to be sealed." Softly, "Before anything else happens, to keep anything else from happening. I need your voice, Elstar. And then we can take her inside."
Silence, under weeping sky on silent land.
"I'll place my vow," Elstar finally said, still standing over his daughter. "They can close the pit on their own."
Granny risked a hoofstep, fought back the wince as the increasing dampness added to the protest from her bad hip. "We'll do that. And she needs t' get cleaned up, Elstar: jus' about everypony does. We'll help her get washed --"
"-- hospitality," the stallion half-spat. "Tell me what to sing, Advocate. The exact notes." He wasn't looking at any of them. At nopony except his daughter. "Tell me what to place in their soil."
She has sung these notes before and the last time, it was a song of victory. Of triumph, with reverberations of joy and fading echoes of what had been righteous rage. Her second performance, when most earth ponies go through their lives without getting to sing once.
She sings, because that is the only way to end it. But she barely recognizes her soul's voice, not when every note is choked by regret. By a self-hatred which shouldn't be there and still finds a place within every quaver, because while the mind might recognize the truth of events, emotions can be the last refuge of a personal lie.
She sings her victory, because it's what must be done. But as her family listens, with the notes so close to becoming the first ones her little sister will ever clearly hear, she also sings her pain. And so that too goes into the land.
Forever.
They'd gotten her up in the end, and it had been 'they' because her father had finally recognized that his own pressure against her body was just tilting her over. She was being led towards the house, and the process was conducted by rope. (One of Applejack's, that which generally bound her tail.) One end clenched in Elstar's jaw and the other looped carefully around Akane's head, passing into the mouth and through a gap which everypony possessed in the line of their teeth. Reined.
"We... we need to close the fosse," the Advocate told them. "And then I can shut the rod down."
The Apples silently nodded. (Applejack's hat, still on her sister's head after its return had been postponed, lightly bobbed.)
"I'm just glad you showed up when you did," he added, tilting ears towards the oldest of the siblings. "If you hadn't intervened..."
Macintosh blinked. Granny remained silent -- but the base of her tail quavered. Apple Bloom was still softly weeping, and so it took an extra effort for the youngest to force words into the world.
"It... it woulda been both of 'em, wouldn't it? If he hadn't stopped it..."
The Advocate hesitated.
"It's a hard tool to control on a small scale," he finally said. "I don't know how skilled she was with it, and I was focused on listening to the two of them, Apple Bloom: I never heard her full measure. I doubt she meant to -- bury her fa --" and stopped, because he was speaking to a filly for whom there had been nothing left to bury.
"Does she know?" the youngest tremulously finished. "That she could've hurt him?"
"I... don't think she knows much of anything right now," the Advocate wearily replied. "And when it comes to what might have happened to him, I doubt her father will ever care."
The youngest shuddered. The older sister stepped forward.
"Got somethin' Ah have t' ask," Applejack quietly requested. "Ah... figure you're the pony who might know."
"If it's about a third duel," the stallion tightly declared, "you'd better be sure it's worth --"
He stopped, took three slow breaths as they stared at him in shock and self-loathing.
"-- no," Rocksteady softly finished. "This wasn't your fault, Applejack. Not for what she did, not for what happened. I'm sorry." The weary head slowly shook. "And I already know what you want to ask, and why you're asking me."
Grey eyes closed, and remained that way for some time.
"Because Advocates have their own tales," he finally said as inner vision continued to gaze across centuries. "But the ones you want... they've gone beyond stories. You're looking for legends, and that means things so old that even with the words repeated across the generations -- we don't know the full truth of them any more." And followed that with a sigh which threatened to crack his ribs from the inside, something which failed to shift the weight of the world. "I'll tell you what I can. But it's not going to be enough."
He did, and it wasn't.
They were washing her.
It had taken some time to get that far. Closing the fosse... Mac's voice made up for the loss of Elstar's, but they were still down by one singer
(forever)
and so it had taken longer. They hadn't even been able to start right away: her brother had told them that he'd left something outside the Acres and it had to be taken care of quickly, he'd go do that and come back as fast as he could -- but it had been nearly half an hour before he'd returned, moving in the slow head-lowered tread of a pony who'd already pushed himself too far. And when he did rejoin them, he stood slightly aside from the rest of the family. Just enough to be noticed, and also just enough that Applejack could never completely manage to stop.
(She still hadn't asked what had happened at the police station, whether he was home due to bail or freedom or -- anything else. She couldn't even manage a question about why he'd taken the trouble to don his yoke before returning, and simply assumed that he just associated its presence with unrelenting labor.)
But eventually, it had all gone back together, if never quite the way it had originally been. And now there was another angry voice sealed within her land. The voice of a loser, and all she could do was think about how much had been lost.
It was dirty work, being in a fosse. The first one... a warmer day, and she'd done the initial stage of her washing in a stream before risking the house. This time, there was too much of a chill, the humidity merging with the mud which had soaked into her fur to send pinpricks of ice towards weary bone. She'd tracked mud into the house, and her Mommy's voice resounded within memory: a combination of chiding and laughter to go with the directions toward a hose which Applejack could never quite control.
But her Mommy was dead. And Akane was in the bathroom, with Elstar lurking in the hallway.
Washing... that could be a social occasion. It was the reason Ponyville had a bathhouse: the chance for friends to relax together, along with allowing an extra set of eyes to spot that one patch you'd missed. She'd bathed with various Bearers on multiple occasions, had been through a few collective sessions in Quiet's castle. It could be a time for splashing, giggle-triggered foreleg sweeps across the surface sluicing soapy water towards the vulnerable. Or it might serve as a period of reflection, allowing the events of the day to soak in.
But after the fosse had been sealed...
They were washing Akane, older sister and younger. Guiding her to the soaked panels of sponge which were built into the walls, rubbing her fur with the smaller ones which were held against their foreknees with elastic. A body was made to lower itself into the tub with simple pressure, for few words brought any degree of response when spoken to a mare who had been found staring into the mirror without seeing anything at all.
And they spoke to her, hoping to reach something which might still hear.
"We talked t' Office Rocksteady," Apple Bloom quietly began, moving toward a brush which had been placed on the rim of the huge half-sunken wood tub: the blue-black mane and tail needed grooming. "Applejack wanted t' know what we could do for you..." Her head dipped towards the brush, went too low as tears threatened to return. "...if'fin that was anythin' at all."
"There's special hospitals," Applejack softly said. "Ones with nothin' but earth ponies on staff. They... take care of the ones who can't be treated by anypony else. Ah..."
She hesitated, and Akane didn't notice. The mare simply stood in place, staring forward. Looking at nothing.
"...nearly wound up in one, after mah Mommy an' Daddy died," she finally went on. "Ah... found a way of lyin' to mahself, an' it nearly cost me everything, Akane. Almost took me."
Her little sister fumbled the brush. Silently lowered her head, went underwater and fetched it again.
"An'..." The stronger mare forced herself to push the words out. "...Ah've been where y'are right now, Akane, 'cause it happened t' me. Someone took mah voice for a while, an' it nearly broke me. Might have done that all by itself if he hadn't found a way t' finish the job for a while. Y'can talk t' me 'bout it, an' Ah'll know. Jus'... jus' so y'understand that. Y'can talk t' me..."
The body breathed. Nothing more.
"We were talking to Rocksteady," Applejack continued, knee-mounted sponge absorbing a little more of the coating. "Because we had to. An' he said... well, fosses don't get dug out too often, not these days. Less there are, less chances y'get for somethin' t' happen. But close as two generations back, there was... somepony else who interfered. Happened here -- well, in Ponyville: not on the Acres. An' another one, a while before, an' so on goin' back down the line. What happened t' me... that was almost unique, at least these days, an'... mah answer don't apply t' you."
The words had arisen from something deeper than instinct. That it wasn't a matter where she couldn't ask, but rather one where she should not. He had rectified a situation which he had created, and nothing associated with the contract could be resolved by an entity whose existence was based in the shattering of rules.
"But yours," Apple Bloom hastily said (and in doing so, dropped the brush again), "that's different. 'cause it's the same thing which happened t' other earth ponies, an' the stories say... there's places in the world which are kind of -- listening. Land that's jus' waitin' for somepony t' speak, an' it listens so hard, it can even hear the ones who... can't sing any more."
"Places which listen," Applejack softly added. "That's what the legends say, Akane. That ponies found where they were, an' told the earth they were sorry. They admitted t' makin' a mistake. They atoned. And when they did that... they were back in the contract. They could sing again."
She watched her cousin's face. Looking for any sign of presence, any reaction. But there was nothing. One mare and a filly, standing within increasingly-fouled water, talking to a statue made from flesh.
"Jus' legends," Applejack made herself go on. "But if there's anythin' Ah've learned from bein' a Bearer, it's that legends can have a grain of truth at the center. An' even so --"
Honesty is the worst Element t' be.
"-- maybe it was jus' ponies wishin' they could be whole again, an' they wished so hard that it turned into a story. Ah won't lie t' you 'bout that, Akane. Ah can't. But there could be somethin' true there. An' Ah can talk t' ponies, we both can. Ask for the oldest stories. If those places are out there, Ah think we can find 'em. We take y'there, y'say you're sorry, an' --"
"...you..."
Dirt fell away from their cousin's jaw, dissolved into the increasing sludge of the tub.
The sisters froze. Waited for the ghost of a voice to say more. And after it spoke again, the sisters continued to try. They had to, because they wanted to bring some level of comfort in the face of tragedy and when it came to their own pain, the voicing of hope brought a personal torment. They spoke of the potential for miracles, of holding out for a last chance. That there was a mare they knew who'd been deaf and mute for her whole life, somepony who would welcome their cousin and try to guide her through a new world.
But Applejack knew that was pointless. There was a difference between living within a song which you could never hear and having the music torn away from you. Pinkie would do her best to help -- but in the end, their experiences would be too different. And when it came to the seeking of miracle, the quest for the last chance, a dream of atonement -- Akane told them everything they needed to know. A personal lie which might hold its false reality until the end of the contract, or simply until the end.
Rocksteady had told them everything he knew, and not all of that had been legend. He had known of the last few ponies to have the penalty invoked upon them: that was simply fact. It was why he had told them to have her watched closely. Somepony supervising in every minute, so it wouldn't happen.
But it almost always happened. It nearly happened then, as she threw her body into the water, put her snout beneath the surface and tried to let something which was half-earth flow into her lungs. But they got her up, forced her from the tub, held her down until the struggling stopped, tried to tell her about miracles and last chances, and all she would do was repeat the same words.
"...you cheated..."
"Y'can stay," was how Applejack began her final offer in the house's sitting room, with just enough of the desperation touching her voice to let Elstar (clean again, at least as far as he ever could be) know it was sincere. "She ain't ready t' travel, nowhere near. A few days, an' maybe if she's a little better --"
Her reined cousin, flanked by grandmother and little sister near the largest of the benches, responded to none of it.
(She didn't know where her brother was. She hadn't taken her hat back. She had washed herself for as long as she dared, and found that cleanliness never went past the skin.)
"She needs her family," the stallion flatly declared, with all emotion trampled by internal stampede. "Her real family."
"Ain't sure that's the best thing for her. Ah know your oldest is gonna do whatever she can, but --" Applejack hesitated, because there was no good way to tell Elstar that his middle daughter was the only pony on the continent capable of making Flim and Flam look like models of ethical restraint. "-- there's problems with keepin' her at home. Even takin' shifts, y'all gotta sleep sometime. The special hospitals --"
"She'll go to the hospital," Elstar cut in, "when I say she does. As her father."
Y'say a lot.
Y'said who she was gonna marry, an' Ah ain't sure that's gonna hold up any more, not with her... the way she is.
Y'said y'raised her right.
The same way y'wanted t' raise Apple Bloom.
"You won't interfere," the cold voice continued, cold in a way which echoed across the years. "You don't want us interfering in your life. You won't be part of hers. We're leaving on the next train out. I can tell ponies she's sick: that'll get us home."
"Ah can --" could she? Applejack had never asked before -- and asking now would tell the palace just how important it was. "-- at least try t' get you two an air carriage. Ah jus' need a little time t' get the word out. Maybe two hours. It ain't nowhere close t' Sun-lowerin' yet, barely afternoon. So y'can at least wait that long, right? Please --"
He turned, and his tail whipped across her face.
She stood in place. Took it, watched as he marched towards his daughter, and his jaw took custody of the rope --
-- dropped it again.
"You don't want the family to interfere in your lives," he softly said with eyes fixed on the glassy ones of his daughter, refusing to face any of them. "That nopony says different when it comes to the Maluses. And you won, didn't you? So I have to give you exactly what you wanted. Family won't interfere -- because you're not family any more. Not to us, not to anypony I speak with, not after I tell them what you did, how you cost Akane her voice --"
Which was as far as the youngest let him get.
"-- they know!" Apple Bloom cried out, almost screamed as angry forehooves stomped against ancient carpet. "Mr. Rocksteady told 'em already! Went an' told all the ones in town that Applejack won, that they could go home! Posted ponies at the station t' say the same t' anypony who came in! An' he left carryin' scrolls, we can send more scrolls telling' all the details, an' everypony's gonna know the truth!"
He stopped. Looked down at her, his left foreleg went up and back and --
-- Granny's right forehoof was pressed against his throat.
"It's already been a bad day," the elder softly told him. "Want t' go for 'last'?"
Slowly, the alkali foreleg lowered again and in time, so did the green. There was no second attempt at kicking, not physically. The words did that on their own.
"The truth," Elstar half-whispered, "is that Applejack Malus wants to date a pegasus. Was willing to open a fosse for that. I can plant a seed on that truth. And when the roots force their way into the earth... we'll just see what they split."
He took up the rope. He led his daughter out of what could never be his house and Akane followed, unresisting, unthinking.
Applejack managed to hold off the collapse until the moment she heard the door slam. And then she was on the floor, her tears soaking into ancient threads, and her sister was pressing against her and her grandmother was carefully lowering an ancient body to match, something which had to hurt and she had hurt them and she hurt everypony and everything hurt and they were together and
she'd gotten what she wanted
she had been left alone
alone
but they were still there...
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Wow.
And it resonates with him forever!
----
So, it all depends on what Elstar's tales vs. Applejack, and Applejack is Honesty + Palace Power + Winning the Fosse, etc...
Hmmm...
Hope Akane doesn't... well, you know.
Discord was semi-present... What does he know??
And who else has he met?? Rachette??
What would Akane's Essence be like now??
What would happen if she got a transplant? ... Oooh... Those speaking places... Earth Ponies put their Essence in the ground???
Questions, questions.
In the end he chooses the silence.
His pride, still refusing the cost it paid in blood not his.
Pride and hate running to look high and see the clouds, all the while the hungry earth burns about him.
C'est la vie.
No, no, boring's fine! Perfectly fine, can we go back to the boring?
Not for nothing is it a curse to live in interesting times.
It’s “That time of the month” again. No, not THAT time.
The time when Estee updates! YAY!
A nickel’s worth of free advice for AJ
If AJ is to have ANY hope of saving her relationship with Big Mac, she needs to apologize
To admit that she spoke in anger & didn’t mean it but just said it because she knew that it would hurt.
That the law be damned, it’s his home too & he can stay as long as he wants to.-
I’m not sure even that will help, but I’m pretty sure that nothing less will do the slightest good
Their arrival was ugly, their visit was ugly, and their departure was ugly. And neither of them learned anything. Such a waste.
Now to find out what became of Snowflake, and settle things with her true family.
That actually went much better than I thought it would. Very disappointed with Akane, though maybe she's hear something one day. Wonder which is harder, restoring her ability to Listen or getting her to listen...
I wonder what got discords attention. Aside from all the chaos I mean.
It also feels... Weird?
That didn't feel like discord?
I think that was more Bulks imagination than discord himself.
God, Akane would be better off with a freaking Genma Saotome-esque pony than she would be with Elstar. I refuse to call him Akane's father, as a father actually gives a damn about your well-being over his own pride. Elstar's just the one who inseminated Akane's mother.
Elstar ruined Akane just as much as Akane's own pride did.
I don’t think Elstar will ever understand why he lost and he will double down when his daughter takes her own life. I just can’t see her growing enough to save herself. Now I wonder how the rest of the family took the outcome?
God, what a maroon. He just doesn't know when to quit. Any more stubborn and he'd be a pegasus himself: the bluish-gray one with 40 gigabytes of attitude on a 10 gigabyte hard drive.
I love how the words "You're not boring." almost seem to be a death sentence from Discord.
9905754
Yeah I'm not sure what he intends to claim. That Applejack somehow tricked the rules? Anyone who hears the story will only ever be able to know that Akane was the one to break the rules, that Akane brought it on herself, that the earth had judged. What exactly can he claim?
9905832
Could be a memory from Discord's first appearance. After all, he described discoloured land that seemed to change beneath Discord, where as modern Discord seems to take joy in the disconect between him and a perfectly normal backdrop.
Discord just told Bulk something interesting. Discord just noted that Bulk created Chaos. His actions and inactions created Chaos with repercussions beyond what any pony normally could achieve. So of course he isnt boring. And now Bulk has Discords attention. Not sure if I feel sorry for him or not.
As for Akane and her father. I think the news will spread, the family will take sides. The extended family will enter there own chaos. And I honestly think most will take Applejacks side. The fight was fair. And someone interfered and took the consequences.
Gosh, this story is worse than junk food. I just can't put it down!
Also damn, I guess they all share that same omega-dominant stubbornness gene through and through. I have bad feelings about Akane mostly now after that tub stunt.
Boy howdy am I powerfully curious as to Snowflakes predicament right now. And getting some niggling thoughts about what Celestia and Luna think/feel regarding the portion of them that can hear and sing the song...if something hasn't happened to disconnect them at some point in their long lives this far.
Also kinda wondering what Discords experience altogether is. We had to cram a lot of senses into twilight in the last story when she was touching the Pegasi traits and when the secret was touched upon. But to Discords noodleyness, I wonder just what goes on for him and his senses.i know they used him as a disturbance/magic balance radar during Tireks first appearance in the show.
...anywho, random though vomit over! Looking forward to more of this Duet!
I fear what that may entail in the long term. I suppose we'll see.
There's none so deaf as those who won't hear. And that applies to father and daughter both. At least Elstar never learned Applejack's going to teach a unicorn how to sing.
As for atonement... Well, for one, I owe Toast an apology.
And it certainly seems possible. Just not for Akane. Not unless a real miracle occurs.
This was ugly in just about every possible sense. Applejack could really use the kind of ugly she doesn't mind looking at, but goodness only knows what Discord's done to him. And Mac is notably, worryingly absent. We'll see what happens from here.
9905936
I think so too: AJ won fair and square, the Earth itself judged the actions taken that day (would they dare question the land itself?), and not all of the Apple Family is rooted in the 'pure' tradition. It's not AJ's fault, Rocksteady said as much and he'll say it again to as many family members as he has to, so will Apple Bloom and Granny. Akane broke the rules and interfered, almost burying her own father as a result, that's got to account for something when it comes to deciding sides.
That being said, I don't think Elstar will ever let this go. He's too traditional, too narrow-minded, too angry and grieving at the moment to really care what the whole truth is. And Akane? I may not have liked her, but I'm sorry for her loss.
But Apple Bloom is still with her (real) family and that's something that I'll take as a win.
9905809
Likely to wake up at his near-sister's place, courtesy of chaos, one suspects.
9905832
Estee's Discord occasionally sheds the jester's mask and lets the ancient and terrible elemental being of chaos peek through. He can be abjectly terrifying.
Celestia's PTSD was come by honestly.
There's bigger things going on here, but part of me is wondering about the prevalence of canines and wolf teeth in Equestrian ponies.
And here we have Elstar moving straight on into terminal stupidity, stopped by the badass old lady. pretty clear he hasn't bothered to learn anything here. guess it's time to see how many of the apple clan are hidebound idiots, and how many are more flexible and understanding.
At this point i sort of feel sorry for Akane - it seems that any chance she has of changing is going to require separation from her "father" as a first requirement.
9905904
Funny thing is, in his mind it's the highest praise he can give.
"lie which would might hold"
"would" or "might" but not both meant?
That's interesting. In Triptych, Discord stated that he feels that all the ponies with their essences swapped are essentially his children due to how they were made with his chaos essence. And he was really nice to Trish. I look forward to seeing what he'll do with Snowflake and how he'll with another one of his 'kids'.
Poor Akane. She's a product of her environment in many ways and while it was still her who took the action, I feel pity for her being raised into what she became, and all the pain that brought her. Her life was never hers and now on top of the freedom to make her own choices, she has this taken from her too. No wonder she makes an attempt at her own life honestly. I dread to think what it'll be like to go back to her family like this, without even stabilising first.
On one hand, Elstar still insisting that he knows better for her after all of THAT is astounding. On the other hand, I'm also not surprised at all. I've met traditionalist idiots like this and... yeah, their bullheaded, arrogant insistence that they're always right and always know better really does go that deep.
This was absolutely ugly, and painful to read. Great job!
Born with the aid of a chaos stone. Able to fly when physics and magic say it should be impossible. Sibling of the soul to Fluttershy. And his first true experience of the song of the earth was shouting down a second who was trying to kill a combatant in a fosse. Not to mention that Applejack asked him on a date.
Does that compliment from Discord potentially indicate status as (for want of a better term) favoured son?
It’s going to hit Snowflake like a tonne of bricks when he figures that out...
And the Wheel of Time vibe only gets stronger. While I'm sure other stories induce suicidal tendencies in magic users who lose their ability to wield magic, it's the first and only example I can think of.
Everything hurts. And yet I want more. Why do you do this to us?
Damn it all! Best I can hope for is that the splintering of the Apple clan isn't too bad, and the collateral damage is kept to a minimum.