Errant Finale

by Doug Graves

57 Mawr Blaidd

March 16th, 1001 Domina Solaria

‘To me!’ comes the distorted shout of Queen Chrysalis, far too many echoes to understand without already knowing what was said. ‘Send your love to me!’

The grin on Twilight’s muzzle grows wider. And malevolent, her smirk twisting like the black being before her. She watches as the Crystal Heart spins faster and faster, then the changeling queen takes flight as a bubble expands outwards. It turns everything it touches to a sparkling crystal: ponies, buildings, even the very sky. She looks down at her crystal cage, and the terrified pony trapped inside.

All of a sudden Twilight finds herself the one trapped in the cage, a growing wave of disintegrating light rushing towards her. She screams in terror, scrambling backwards only to find herself trapped against a wall of pure void. She desperately paws with her blackened hooves, her horn useless, as the enveloping light devours her, scattering her ashes to the wind.

“GAAHH!” Twilight screams aloud, recoiling from her reading desk in the upper library. She backpedals, staring at her hooves.

Still lavender.

Twilight sinks to the silent library’s floor, her body trembling, uncontrollably sobbing. She had done that. She had killed a pony, with utterly no remorse or thought to the pain she was causing. And now he is gone, forever lost to Friendship, never again to grasp a Friend’s hoof.

It isn’t the knowledge that the mad king possessed and is now lost that grabs at her, though reading tends to trigger these flashbacks. Or that Chrysalis, the other being dreadfully afraid of the cleansing power of love, has taken up residence in Ponyville. Something about the Everfree Forest feeling ‘more like home’. But thinking about the darkness located so close also brings back the memories.

Maybe there was something else she could have done. Maybe if she let him go, he could have escaped, and realized the error of his ways. Maybe they would have needed to fight again, or use the Elements of Harmony to turn him to stone. But they would have done whatever it took to get him to see the light and power of Friendship.

A knock at the door surprises her, and not just because it is during normal business hours. For the last two weeks, ponies have been avoiding her. They know what kind of monster she is, and she doesn’t blame them. She deserves exactly the same fate as the one she condemned Sombra to.

The door cracks open, a bright yellow mane attached to a bright and cheerful young mare poking through. “Hi, Twilight!” Lemon says, her voice an odd combination of subdued and exuberant. “How you feeling?”

“Fine,” comes the immediate reply, Twilight picking herself up and walking back to her desk. “Just, um, doing a bit of reading.”

“Mmhmm,” Lemon says, her disbelief plain. “You’ve been fine for, like, two weeks now.” She walks up, dragging the nearest chair to the desk. It scrapes loudly against the floor, Twilight almost glad for the reprieve if the noise wasn’t so grating. Lemon asks, her voice chipper, “You want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Twilight says, turning her head to the side and looking away from Lemon.

“Oh, okay. We can talk about something else, then.” Lemon ponders for a second. “Were you able to see your brother when he came in yesterday? He was, like, asking about you and stuff.”

Twilight shakes her head. “No, I was… busy.”

“Oh. He should be back next week, with the tracks finished. Can you believe that?! It only took, like, two weeks for them to rebuild all the way to the Crystal Empire! You have to change over at Lower Canterlot, but still.” Lemon whistles appreciably.

“Pony ingenuity and resources combined with changeling work ethic,” Twilight says, a hint of a smile on her muzzle. “Can you believe they nearly rioted when Princess Luna tried to enforce the laws on how much they could work in a day?”

Lemon nods, “Well, I’d be in a pretty big hurry too if I had loved ones to get back to. Or, um, however changelings view the ponies in their herd.” She frowns, cocking her head as she considers. “I don’t want to, like, call us ‘food’ or ‘batteries’ or something, even if they talk about getting a ‘charge’ from us. Hey, have any of them gotten a charge from you?”

Twilight shakes her head. “No, and Ocellus has been understanding about it. Actually, she all but requested that I not, at least while I’m feeling down.”

“It’s… weird, I guess.” Lemon shrugs. “I feel down for about an hour, and I’m a bit mopey and my mane does the same thing that dam’s does when we’re sad. But then it gets better! And it’s really only like that after Daddy puts a new egg in her, most of the time it’s not bad and I barely even notice.” Lemon grins. “I think I recover faster than most. Meringue tried once, even though she’s under age, and I don’t think she got better all day. She had to get some chocolate, and even that only sorta helped.”

Twilight’s eyes narrow. “She should be very careful about that, we don’t fully know the effects of living with the changelings yet.”

“Well, they lived with us for, like, a decade without anypony really noticing, so it can’t be that bad, right?” Lemon hops down from the chair, pacing around the room. “I guess their numbers are going up like one of Applebaum’s rockets. Hey, it’s going to be so cool having a bunch of younger sisters!” Lemon walks up, poking Twilight’s tummy with her nose. “Are you excited? I’m so excited!”

“It’ll certainly be an exciting time,” Twilight agrees with a grin. “Do you want to see them?”

“Yeah! Duh!” Lemon squeals with a roll of her eyes. She backs up slightly as Twilight rolls to her side, quickly finding a pair of yellow hooves on her belly.

“Careful,” Twilight cautions as her horn lights. Lemon’s eyes go wide as Twilight’s body seems to melt away, revealing two tiny lumps of bright light.

“Wooow,” Lemon says breathlessly, carefully pushing her hooves against Twilight. She frowns as the mare’s body depresses, still in the way despite the spell merely showing the magical auras. “Which one is Dawn? Can you tell them apart?”

“I can,” answers Twilight mysteriously, “but I’m not telling just yet. Gotta leave a little mystique!”

“Aww,” Lemon moans, rolling onto her back and inspecting her own belly. “I don’t know if I could do that.”

“Well, you’re still a little young,” Twilight says reassuringly. “And you should wait until you meet the right stallion, or the right herd. No need to rush anything.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Lemon turns back to looking at Twilight. “You feel better?”

“I do,” Twilight says with a smile. “Thanks for talking with me.”

“Sure,” Lemon replies, “I’m available any time. I’ll even skip school if you want.” She winks at Twilight, who returns a disapproving glare. “But if you ever want to talk about what’s really bothering you...”

Twilight sighs. “I… you shouldn’t have to deal with this, Lemon. It’s not for the faint of heart.”

Lemon frowns. “You realize I hung out with Discord for a while, right? I don’t know what kind of horrors you saw out in the Crystal Empire, but Discord showed Meringue and me his fanfiction collection, the stuff he wrote while he was imprisoned.” She shudders, then keeps on shuddering.

“Well,” Twilight starts; she rolls to her hooves, but then sinks down against the hard floor. “We got to the Crystal Empire, and met the crystal ponies. Things were going well, and then King Sombra just attacked us, out of the blue.”

“That’s not very nice,” Lemon says, settling down next to Twilight. A pencil and paper appear from her mane.

“No, and we were able to drive him away, but not without Shining Armor being injured. Then later, when he returned, things weren’t going so well. Chrysalis and I, we were trying to find the Crystal Heart, when he attacked again. We managed to find it, but Spike was hurt getting it out of the tower and away from King Sombra. Then Spike gets the Crystal Heart into position, and the ponies release their love into it.”

Lemon nods, having heard this part of the story. “Shining Armor was saying they have that statue of Spike built. And it’s huge! Like, one to one scale, almost as big as the bottom of the Crystal Castle. Apparently his tail is a popular slide for fillies, but it’s tough riding all the way to the bottom.”

“I think he got a picture of it, and he posted it in his room at Rarity’s.” Twilight nods, then her expression darkens. “But what happened after… I don’t know if I can forgive myself.”

“I thought King Sombra was defeated then,” Lemon asks. “Did something else happen?”

“He was. It’s just… he wasn’t just defeated. He was destroyed. No chance for redemption, no last words. Just a panicked look at the incoming wave of light and he was gone. And I smiled at that!” Twilight’s last words come out as a sob. “What kind of pony does that?”

“I bet you were happy you were safe,” Lemon suggests, Twilight reluctantly nodding. “And the crystal ponies were safe.” Twilight nods again. Lemon points a hoof at Twilight’s belly. “And your foals are safe.”

“Huh?” Twilight says, glancing at herself.

“We learned about it in school, um, a couple months ago. Miss Cheerilee was talking about…” Lemon takes a deep breath, steeling herself, “predators.” She breathes in and out a few times. “And how they are really territorial, and that’s why you shouldn’t wander around without knowing your surroundings, because you might accidentally wander into a manticore’s hunting grounds.”

Twilight nods, thinking back to her encounter with a territorial cockatrice.

“But, and she didn’t really want to elaborate on this but she did because I asked- what?” Lemon looks at Twilight’s piercing gaze. “I wanted to know!”

“I guess I’m surprised you wanted to know more about a subject that’s so… depressing.” Twilight sighs. “We lose so many ponies to those accidents, when they are so easily prevented.”

“Well, sure, but that’s not where I’m going.” Lemon points a hoof at Twilight’s belly. “Miss Cheerilee said that, with some predators that live in, um, harems? If a new sire takes over, then he kills all the foals of the old sire.”

Twilight grimly nods, no stranger to that fact but uncomfortable with where Lemon is taking this.

“And so, maybe if I was a power mad pony bent on conquest, then maybe I wouldn’t be content with just taking over. But that’s neither here nor there, right? Because you beat him, and your foals get to live because you get to live.”

“That’s…” Twilight says, drawing in a deep breath. “We shouldn’t need to eliminate our enemies like… like I did! Without giving them a second chance, and a third! Until they recognize the power of Friendship, and join us!”

“Oh.” Lemon shrugs. “Well, for what it’s worth, this Sombra guy sounds like bad news. Not the kind of pony I would want to be, or be around. So if I had to choose between living with you, and living with Sombra, I’d pick you every day of the week.” Lemon nuzzles Twilight, “And I’m glad you made that choice too.”

“But it’s not a choice a pony should have to make,” Twilight says, exasperated but reluctant.

Lemon shrugs. “But you made it anyway. Because you had to, because he made you make that choice. It wasn’t your fault, Twilight. Okay, maybe it was your fault that he is gone. But, if you ask me? I’m happy you made the choice you did.”

Twilight sighs again. “Thanks, Lemon. I needed that.”

Lemon’s smile perks up. “Now, come on! ‘Cely’s going to spawn another egg in that old barn, and she’s letting any of us watch!”

Twilight rolls her eyes as she follows the excitable young mare downstairs.

Comments

[badninja]

The sad thing is as much as Twilight wants to do the right thing occasionally you must put down something becuase it is just that dangerous and trying to save it would be even more dangerous. Sombra is a lot like The Joker, he just wants to see the world burn. If he can't have the world nobody deserves the world.

[ArchAngelGundam]

9694628
Seconded.

[AuthorGenesis]

Evil is like a poison. It isn't something to be played around with or experimented on, or even tolerated. You either treat it with an antidote, or you extract the poison from the body. Life would be very different if we executed all of the rapists, murderers, kidnappers and even adulterers/fornicators.

[Doug Graves]

9924241
You're not wrong; the world would be a very different place. But why stop at murder? Why not make anger a crime punishable by death? Why stop at adultery? Why not make the simple act of lusting after someone a capital offense? Maybe they aren't as heinous an evil in our mind, but they're still evil, right? And must be treated, washed away by the cleansing power of forgiveness, or they'll be just as poisonous.

Twilight believes, deeply, that no-one is irredeemable, and this act - as necessary as it was - rocked her to her core. Because Evil, as much as we want to redeem it, must make the choice - forgiveness can't be forced onto them.

[chibilink]

And it’s really only like that after Daddy puts a new egg in her, most of the time it’s not bad and I barely even notice.”

He does what to who?

[Doug Graves]

10132707
Ocellus (Simple Eye) 'joined' the Apple herd like many of the other changelings joined other herds around Equestria. Doug is merely 'doing his duty', as it were, Chrysalis not being the only changeling capable of continuing the species.

[DarkPhoenixx]

Lemon’s smile perks up. “Now, come on! ‘Cely’s going to spawn another egg in that old barn, and she’s letting any of us watch!”

???? Doesn't she mean Chrisy? Or whatever the shortened version of Chrysalis is?

[Doug Graves]

10263391
Nickname for Ocellus (which is a more technical term for Simple Eye, the 'guard' with Chrysalis at Canterlot Castle). She was the changeling Pinkie Pie had that Doug 'picked' around chapter 53.

[Jack-Pony]

9924241
One of these things is not like the others...

[f0st3r21]

10264494
Another… how jiggy with it is Doug getting with his changeling waifu? Doesn’t that make like 11 mares now?

Death by snu-snu. The most glorious way to go.

[Inucroft1]

Surprise, cymreag is surprising. *Happy Welsh noises"