Avatar: Legend of Diamond Tiara. Book 4: Immortals

by Jeweled Pen

Chapter 10: Tincoat

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Tincoat spoke somberly. “I believed the Earth Kingdom needed one ruler. Needed one hoof to guide it. I believed my mother… she would have been a good empress, I think. At first.”

Diamond nodded, though she didn’t open her eyes.

“But the war was hard on us all. I thought I was doing the right thing, bringing the kingdoms together. One nation for all earth benders. But in the end it fell. My own mother fell. I… had no choice but to stop her and break everything I had worked so hard for, only to meet my end as well,” Tincoat said.

“Thank you,” Diamond said softly before opening her eyes. “I know this can’t have been easy for you to share.”

“It has been so long since I talked to another Avatar,” Tincoat said with a soft sigh. “But…”

“I’ll still need to go further,” Diamond said.

Tincoat nodded. “Further than any Avatar ever has, likely.”

“I will,” Diamond said before slowly opening her eyes and staring at the silver alicorn before her. He began to fade away, like wisps in the wind. With a light grunt she got to her hooves and began to walk away.

It felt so odd, this. All of it. She held none of her power. No elements. No cutie mark. She should have been cut off from the reality of the Avatar entirely. Yet she’d never felt closer. Now more than ever she felt like she understood herself less and less. She stepped out from the remains of the Tree of Harmony and started to trot away, pausing only for a moment to glance towards the only physical companion she had here. “Hey, Smooze.”

It burbled at her, like it always did.

Diamond had attained some answers, though. The Avatar… was far from perfect. She wasn’t the first to make mistakes. She would hopefully not be the last.

Twilight had made mistakes. Starswirl had made mistakes. Cadence. Clover. But she had gone back even further, now. Dug into layer after layer. Past life after past life. Though it was exhausting and, sometimes, she wanted to collapse from the exertion. Still, she dug.

There were so many lives there, watching her. Waiting for her. Each one a history in its own right. She could have spent so many lifetimes just learning about all they had done. Yet it wasn’t just what they had done that she needed. She needed to know who they had been. Why they had been chosen. Had there been mistakes or had it just been a matter of not understanding.

There had been so many mistakes from what she’d seen. She’d met Avatars who had been, if not evil, at least misguided. Avatars who had fallen for lies and trickery. Avatars who had believed in their superiority or the superiority of their people. Avatars who had been cruel. Avatars who had hurt others. Avatars who hadn’t made it to adulthood. Even an Avatar who had only in their last moments discovered their own parents were never their parents at all, instead they were somepony who had killed their actual parents in order to steal their power. The deeper she dug into her past lives, the more she discovered things were not as perfect as she’d hoped. The stories she’d been told of the past… sometimes were just stories. For every heroic and noble avatar, there were three who just did as they were told. But for every ten ponies like that there could be one who was anything but the good, noble pony an avatar was supposed to be.

But it didn’t seem arbitrary, either. Even the worst of the avatars seemed to have a purpose, a reason they were chosen. Perhaps, in the end, they had failed. But they had tried. Their ideas and beliefs at the end of their journey may not have fit what they were at the end, but they did try.

She wondered if that meant she was another failure.

Diamond idly wondered where she was, now. Traveling through the Spirit World seemed… different now. Walking for days in one direction only to turn around and cover the same distance in minutes. Yet she oddly seemed better able to handle it now. As if the world itself didn’t try to confound her, instead almost guiding her.

She idly wondered if it was because she had no cutie mark. Like a ghost moving through a haunted forest, it was almost like she belonged here now.

“Twilight,” Diamond said, feeling that oddly familiar presence starting to form.

“Diamond,” Twilight said, walking besides her now.

“He didn’t have any answers either,” Diamond said.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight said.

“What if you’re right?” Diamond asked. “What if you, Starswirl, Clover, what if you’re all right? What if Discord is entirely evil?”

“Discord is,” Twilight said.

“And if Silver is Discord?” Diamond asked.

Twilight was silent for a long moment then.

“You struck Discord down,” Diamond said with a soft sigh. “What… if I can’t?”

“You aren’t me, Diamond,” Twilight said. “Our journeys, our challenges are not the same.”

“And Trixie?” Diamond asked. “When the time came she killed you. When the time came Silver took…” She glanced back towards her cutie mark. “She took being the avatar from me.”

“Severed your connection to the elements,” Twilight said. “But there’s more to being the Avatar than that. Discord never fully understood what it meant to be the Avatar.”

“Do I?” Diamond asked. “Maybe it’s because I never really had this ability yet. I guess it was a good thing I never really got the hang of it then, huh?”

Diamond received no response. When she glanced back, Twilight was gone. She was so tired. It was different from when her cutie mark had been stolen before, though. She was still herself. Just… different. No true powers. No bending or earth pony magic. Yet, somehow her past lives were better able to talk with her than ever.

A ghost now, walking through the decaying, crumbling world of spirits. It was all frozen and collapsing. Occasionally she would see a spirit flit by here or there, but it didn’t feel right either. Something terrible had happened here.

She stopped when she came to a place she knew far, far too well now. Once a barrier had been erected here. Separating the badlands from the rest of the world. Or, at least, in the Spirit World. Now it seemed like both realms were in decay. Was this her fault? Or was it Silver’s? Was it both? Neither? Neither chaos nor harmony. Just a hollow emptiness.

Where had all the spirits gone? Where were they hiding? Would they appear again, one day? If she defeated Silver? If she killed her friend would they come back? Would it matter to her then? Was this normal for the Spirit World, a season of sorts? The rules didn’t seem to apply here in many regards, so why should the look and feel be the same?

Diamond sighed and began walking again, a ghost walking amongst the hollow, bleak wasteland of the Spirit World. Out of the badlands, further from the tree. She’d met avatars of so many different lives. She’d met one that had been a pirate, raised by a griffon. One who had lived amongst the yaks and had been a destructive force. One avatar who had wanted to write books and escape what she considered the ‘mundane adventures’ of war. But she had still only scratched the surface. She’d spent so long running towards her enemies, struggling to find and defeat them…

Now she really needed to learn who her enemy was. Who Discord was. What he was.

More importantly, she needed to know who she was.

------

Diamond lightly sipped her tea before glancing towards Celestia and Luna. The ponies-turned-spirits merely watched her. How they always seemed to be ahead of her, she’d never know. She suspected they were following her, but perhaps it was this world.

She wondered how long she had been here. Days. Weeks. Months. Time didn’t really pass the same here. She’d been traveling all over. Exploring. Searching. Connecting to her past lives.

“I met an avatar by the name of Tincoat today,” Diamond said. “He was originally from the Earth Kingdoms, tried to create an empire. It… didn’t work.”

“Very few of their empires have been successful,” Celestia said. “Most eventually fall and are either replaced or become a new fragmented land.”

“A lot like the Water Nation,” Diamond said. “Interesting that the Fire Tribes and Air Nomads don’t unite like that.”

“Sometimes I imagine it would have been better if we hadn’t,” Luna said. “Have you managed to learn anything else about… him?”

Diamond shook her head. “Not much,” she said. “After I rest, I’m hoping to try again. One thing Tincoat mentioned, though, was interesting.”

Neither of the former ponies said anything, but they stared at her, watching.

“He mentioned that, long, long before he was alive that, supposedly, the four nations were a single, united nation. If it was true, however, well…” Diamond gave a soft sigh and lightly ate a few small… well, she wasn’t sure what they were. Some kind of pastry, she imagined. It tasted well enough and it was likely best not to question what Celestia cooked with. “I’ll hopefully know tomorrow. If I can dig in deep enough to find out what happened, what Discord was like then, if he was… alive then… who knows? Maybe it’ll give me some answers.”

“Do you truly believe this will help you defeat that monster?” Luna asked.

“I don’t know,” Diamond said before giving a light yawn. “But I hope so. If it can give me the edge I need, then it’ll be worth it. I’m going to go get some sleep.”

The pair watched her leave before Luna gave a soft sigh and glanced to her sister. “Does she truly believe she will find something that allows her to avoid what must be done?”

“Of course,” Celestia said. “Discord may be a dangerous and vicious foe. But no matter how terrible he may be, I’ve yet to meet any avatar who would just abandon their friends to him.”

Luna gave a snort and shook her head. “This isn’t just corruption, though. If this Silver truly is the Avatar of Discord, then she is likely as horrible as him. Attempting to understand a being of chaos is the work of madness.”

“Perhaps,” Celestia said with a shrug. “I’d be lying if I said I disagreed.”

“Exactly,” Luna said.

“But I am not the Avatar,” Celestia said. “I just merely have to hope that whatever choice she makes, the road she walks, is the correct one.”

“And if she’s wrong?” Luna asked.

“Well then we’re all bucked, aren’t we?” Celestia asked with a shrug.

Author's Note:

And so begins the exploration into what the Avatar is up to. In this case, exploring the Spirit World and learning about her past lives. At least it seems one spirit in particular is happy, and interested, in seeing how she's doing. Also, it turns out quite a few avatars have been a lot less successful than she may have been led to believe. Here's hoping she's not added to that list.

I am now noticing how low my word counts are compared to my past chapters. I guess my writing style really has shifted. Here's hoping it's for the better in the end. I hope you all enjoy.

Comments

[Jeweled Pen]

11334817
Oh, right. Just letting you know it has started again. Hoping to get through quite a bit more in this batch.

[Eurvos Morgenbrise]

I am now noticing how low my word counts are compared to my past chapters.

Quality over quantity. While I'd be disappointed in a short, awesome chapter, I'd rather read that than a long, boring one.