• Published 22nd Jul 2019
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The Life of Penumbra Heartbreak - Unwhole Hole



The seven-month life of Penumbra Heartbreak, the alicorn daughter of the King Sombra

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Chapter 83: Cadence

Starlight Glimmer once again emerged from the void. The world had grown silent and cold, and before her she could see the enormous crater where the center of the Crystal Empire had once stood. It had been cast across time and space with a powerful curse and Starlight knew that, one day, it was sure to return.

She collapsed to her knees, grasping her stomach in agony as her organs began to exist on different timelines from the rest of her body. She had jumped too many times without her suit, and this timeline was beginning to reject her.

Not that it mattered. Her nanites would keep her whole for the most part until the job was done. She stood up and ignored the pain, activating a spell to find what she had lost.

Detecting Cadence was not hard. Even dormant, she emitted a distinct signal, one that could be traced from the far side of a universe if necessary. In one reality, it even had been.

The princess was found lying in a snow bank, half buried as the wind began to pick up. Hyperborea was beginning to swallow what had once been the Crystal Empire. Storms were approaching on the horizon, slowly approaching to bring snow and ice that would bury the ruins and all signs of the war until the day the Empire rose again.

Starlight pulled her out. The princess was cold and pale, and the prognosis was not good- -but Starlight figured that if Silken Dream had managed it, so could she.

She opened her mouth and coughed out the strange of luminescent black fluid. Taking it in her magic, she inserted the end directly into Penumbra’s neck.

“Let’s hope for all our sake this works.”

She pressed the trigger, and the fluid bubbled and hissed violently as it was forced into Penumbra’s body.

Starlight was not sure what to expect. As the nanotech venom entered her body, though, the princess began to convulse. Her gray coat assumed a slightly less gray color, and she sat up suddenly, her eyes flying open as she gasped for air.

“Who what when why where- -I will EAT YOU!”

She turned to Starlight and fired a badly weakened magic spell. Starlight deflected it easily with a smile on her face. It seemed that the drug had worked.

“Penumbra, it’s me!” she said, trying to stop Penumbra from attempting to resume fighting.

Penumbra seemed to at least distantly recognize the voice, although at first she could not place it. Then her eyes widened.

“Thirteen?!”

“My name is actually Starlight Glimmer NX2.3712’XNJ 47b8g 10.7’00fn-87- -never mind. Sorry. You don’t need to know the nomenclature, it won’t make sense to you away. Force of habit”

Penumbra reached up to her neck and winced. “Did you give me the poke?”

“No,” lied Starlight.

“Yes you did! What did you do to me?!”

“I cured you.”

Penumbra appeared exceedingly confused. “Cured me? Of what?” She gasped, momentarily filled with joy as she looked at her back- -but that joy faded when she realized that they were still there.

“If you really want to know? Nanites programmed with the genetic sequence for your daughter. Ignore the bootstrapper paradox, your head will literally explode if you think about it. It’s happened to me twice. Pinkie was there once. I had to deal with fifty years of ‘splitting headache’ jokes...”

“I have a daughter?” Penumbra looked around, half expecting to see her wandering around. “How long was I out?”

“Not that long. I’m a time traveler. I was hired by your daughter, the Crystal Empress Queen Sombra II. She wanted me to come back in time and make sure that she actually gets born. Which is a whole separate type of paradox…”

“Wait. Wait, I don’t understand.”

“I know. Time travel can be very confusing. Don't even ask me if this is really my own timeline, I have no idea at this point.”

“No, not that, I already knew you were a chronoplexer, it’s not a big jump. But I named my daughter...after my FATHER?”

“Um, no. She named herself that. You named her ‘Flurry Heart’.”

Penumbra winced. “Oh no...that’s a stupid name! Why would I do that?”

Starlight shrugged. “I always assumed it’s because your husband is kind of a moron.”

Penumbra jumped up and gasped. “I get a HUSBAND? Do I also have a pile of stallions to sleep on top of every night?!”

Starlight grimaced. “I don’t know. I don’t want to know. That’s future-you’s problem.”

“Do you have a pile of stallions?”

“Um...no? But sometimes me and the other Stalights sort of clump together when we’re sleeping to conserve Starlight energy- -”

She cried out as part of her body phased out of time with the rest of it. She dropped to her knees and Penumbra moved to help her- -but Starlight waved her off.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried. “If you do, it’ll peel you apart! Ugh...” She held her stomach. “It’s already peeling me. On a cellular level. Mane does this hurt...”

“Then we have to get you inside, we can help you if- -”

Starlight smiled. “No. There’s nothing you can do. Without my Xyukan armor, I can’t stabilize in your reality for very long. I have to leave soon.”

“Is it the paradoxes?” Penumbra gasped, remembering the reason why Thirteen was never supposed to speak. She clapped her hooves over her ears. “You can’t tell me things! If you do, I’ll have foreknowledge! You’ll ruin the timestream!”

“Ha. Please. I’ve ruined the timestream sooooo many times. And that was even before I was thirty. Trust me, you don’t have to worry.”

“Really?”

“Of course not. Because I’m going to wipe your memory anyway. You won’t remember any of this. Or anything at all, really.”

Penumbra took a step back. “Wait, what? No, you can’t do that! My friends, my kingdom- -HERK!”

Starlight’s magic passed through Penumbra’s head, instantly erasing every memory contained therein. Penumbra collapsed to the ground, her mind completely reset to null. No part of her personality remained, or any memory of her life. She was inert and completely blank.

“Well, that was easy,” said Starlight, standing. “There wasn’t all that much in there to begin with.” Her ears pricked at the sound of heavy hoofsteps. “Don’t worry, Cadence,” she said, looking into the blank and empty eyes of the shell staring at her but seeing nothing. “This will work out just fine. And with any luck, we’ve stopped this reality from creating its own Thebe.”

Then, in an instant, she was gone, having departed from Penumbra’s universe for the very last time, never again to return.

As she departed, Celestia crested one of the icy hills, shivering badly in the growing cold.

“We need to get back,” said Nightmare Moon, close behind her. “Celestia, the weather is growing too cold.”

“We have to find her, Nightmare, I know she’s- -there!”

Celestia bounded down the ruined stone and crystal to Cadence’s side. She picked up the small, thin alicorn.

“She’s cold,” she said, casting a restoration spell to protect the child- -and even though Cadence did not move and did not react, Celestia still held her close. “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “You’re safe now. Everything is going to be okay now.”

Cadence’s empty eyes blinked, and slowly turned to Celestia- -and then looked past her, to Nightmare Moon. They were the first thing she had ever seen, and a thin, difficult smile showed on her face.

And so began the life of Princess Mi’Amore Cadenza, on that day in the shadow of the lost Crystal Empire.

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