Ch 82 How To Fix a Broken Heart
Despite the city-grade shield her magic supported, only a faint glow radiated from Cadance's horn. The barrier was more potent than the one she held King Sombra at bay with, and yet, if it was not for the light from her horn, she could easily forget she was maintaining it.
A little knowledge makes all the difference. It was a bitter thought, but it led to another one. How much of this suffering could have been avoided if you had trusted us, Aunty?
She only had to take one look around the crowded hall to see that this was a time of hardship. No ribs were visible yet, but coats had lost their luster, eyes had lost their sparkles, and if any of them had been on a diet by choice, there would have been reasons to celebrate their success. So, despite all the finery the hotel had offered, Cadance sat on the carpeted floor at her insistence.
Some hotel staff attempted to be unobtrusive as they lingered just out of sight. Still, their nervous heartbeats were more than loud enough to give them away, even without their supervisor's constant reminders to be vigilant to any need she might have.
Still, she was a Princess, so there were some unavoidable trappings of her position. The first was her regalia, and the second was a pair of guards.
Candace let her thoughts linger on the two. They were far too old to fight the Blighted. But a dozen great grand foals between them gave them more than enough experience to manage the endless procession of ponies that wished to ask her that dreaded question.
It seemed whenever a Princess stood still for more than a few minutes, ponies would just assume she was holding court. So they had come, and despite how much she wanted to be elsewhere, no matter how much she did not wish to answer 'that' question, they needed her. I would do the same in their place.
Even without actively using her domain, the tangled heart lines were so thick they almost blinded her. Hope, love, loss and despair of countless unique varieties all focused on her, their Princess, the one they 'knew' could help them.
This would make Thorax sick.
Cadance wore her kind words and a sympathetic expression as armour against the crushing heartbreak and loss that tried to crush her. Unlike her Aunt, she would not hide behind a mere mask. Each of these ponies deserved her full attention, but it was hard, so very hard.
So many had lost loved ones, some merely misplaced, but a tragically high number were dead. Even before any reports came in, she knew. There was no way she could not when each pony brought with them the proof of the well-being of their loved ones with them. All she needed to do was take a glance at the heartlines.
Even with her peripheral vision, she could see all she needed to for all the ponies lined up waiting for their personal audience.
There was nothing alarming for the two mares that walked up and bowed. But the stallion up next trailed too many pale translucent lines. At one time, those heartlines would have warmed her soul and brought a smile to her lips. That evidence that love transcended death now transformed from a treasured reminder to a herald of despair. Those heartlines turned ghostly because they led to those now in the Eternal Feilds.
At least there was none of her new personal nightmare fuel in the crowd. Severed Heartlines rotten and decayed. Each blackened and burned perversion marked that one more was lost forever. Ponies that the Blight had twisted then consumed their souls.
The current ponies before her asked their question. This time, for these two mares before her, their wish was true. This time she could give them the answer they so desperately needed to hear. "They're alive, and in Ponyvile, they will be safe under Twilight's protection."
Their eyes came alive, and they hugged each other. For a moment, it looked like they might hug her, but then they remembered she was a princess and bowed instead.
Some she could help... others... I could really use that hug...
As the two mares left and the next pony was ushered forward, she shifted her wings and reached for a glass of water. She did not want to risk her voice betraying her, not for this. Tea or cider would have been better, but neither would be suitable for this moment. She wanted to sigh, but instead, she just kept the calm, soothing words flowing. "Hello, How can I help?"
She breathed in, and many scents came to her, but the most important were missing. It had been so long her coat did not even carry a hint of him. I miss you.
A new guard marched in and brushed right past the long line of ponies. Their radiant golden mane and tail drew the eyes of the crowd, but it was the singular monochrome heartline to Celestia that drew hers.
"Princess." Celestia's guard said, his voice demanding immediate attention.
"One moment," Cadance commanded. How could you be so insensitive? She mentally growled before she returned her full attention to the stallion before her.
Their thick dark green coat was matted and stained. Their mane might or might not have been that medley of browns naturally or not. Their eyes were red from tears and lack of sleep. She met those eyes, those windows to the soul and even without her domain, the hope and fear blazed within them. She did not want to say the words, but a false hope could be worse than the truth.
The stallion clutched an open locket tightly to his chest. A family photo, the last one they could ever take, lay within the heirloom. He raised it, his voice wavered, and it took him a few attempts to get that dreaded question out. "Are they alright?"
This is not one of Shiny's games. I can't just bring them back. Tears threatened to overwhelm Cadance, the mare. Though she let them fall, Cadance the Princess would not drown in them. "Your sister and brother-in-law are safe... "
She did not even need to finish before the stallion collapsed. One part relief and a strengthening of his heartline to the survivors, ten parts the deepest black of grief. This was just one story, one of many she would never forget.
She tasted each of the lines, and in that moment, she knew them. Flashes of moments, fragments of emotion. Twin fillies, age six, a young colt, and his pregnant mother gone. To Celestia, each would have just been a number, a statistic. To Cadance, each was another dagger to her heart. Each time something priceless and irreplaceable was lost.
Cadance rose, her grace automatic. Each hoof step towards the stallion felt like an intrusion, but she did not let that stop her, but soon he was wrapped in her wings, sobbing into her chest.
A presence settled in Cadance's mind, a weight that both should not have been there and was fully welcomed by her magic. There was only one pony it could be, and they could wait, so she ignored them. She had something more important to do.
Her magic played along the heartlines, all merely ghostly, all led to ponies that were only dead. Only dead? What had things come to that saying a pony was only dead was a tangible relief? I can't leave him like this. I won't.
Visualise your intent. They were dead, but they still had active heartlines, so they still existed. What do I want to do? She reached out and traced the lines. They were still there, still real and still loved him, but he could just not feel it.
Give them hope. Night's quite voice said.
How? They don't have my senses. They can't know. They...
May we? Night asked the simple words, just the tip of the iceberg that was the mass of thoughts and ideas that was offered.
Our pact? Cadance asked Night as she continued to make the little caring sounds.
You are still our student. The only harm we will bring thou is that which is necessary for thine training.
I have to help him... or he will just try to join them.
The world went black.
Cadance raged, screamed, and hammered her hoof against the ancient gate. It did not even shake, not even the slightest vibration.
"Give him back!" Her voice was so forceful that it recoiled so loud her ears burst.
Still, the gate denied her. Still, she tried to force her way in. Each silent impact just pushed her. Each strike was just a bit harder than the last. Still, the gate denied her.
Hours turned to days, and days turned to moons and moons to years, yet she was still denied. Slowly her frenzy slowed. Gradually, her fury failed her. Instead of another strike, she slumped against the gate, "Please, don't leave me."
It was the first time she had begged in a very long time, and like last time it brought no mercy for her plight. Her eyes burned, but no tears fell.
Slowly she looked at her hoof. The hoof that should have been broken and shattered, turned into nothing more than a bloody stump had she been anything other than an Alicorn.
Time passed. It might have been days, or it could have been decades, but she did not move. What was the point when everypony she loved was gone? When they were forever in a place she could never follow when everything she had to remember them was burnt and gone.
The eyes that next looked up at the gate were cold, their gaze so frigid that even these potent artefacts did well not to freeze and shatter before her.
She turned and bucked as hard as she could. Her legs broke, but the pain meant nothing to her frozen heart. Just another detail to be recorded and information to be acted on.
Auras did not work here, so she pushed her regeneration to restore broken bones. In less than a second, she defiantly stood on all four hooves.
"You will not defeat us!." She spat on the ground and stalked off, she needed more strength, and she knew just how to get it.
Her rage demanded action. It was a moment before Cadance noticed what she was doing, and when she did, she carried through anyway. He was dead. He was gone, and nothing else mattered. Her hoof smashed into the side of Night's muzzle with a satisfying boom.
The impact picked Night off her hooves and slammed her into the crystal wall before she could even blink.
The space around her started to resolve itself. Memory and understanding returned. My bastion, I'm in my bastion.
Night did not even try to move. She just lay there even as armed Eternal Guards materialised around her brandishing their weapons.
"What did you do to me?" Cadacne roared past her heaving breaths. Her heart hammered in her chest as her domain flared out as she desperately sought one very special pony. The feeling of his heartline wrapped with her own soul. There! He's alive. He's alive. Cadance's legs almost gave out. He was alive. He was safe. Liquid trailed down her face. Her happy tears extinguished the fires of her righteous rage. She brought her hoof to her chest as she cradled Shining's Heartline.
Relief had drained the urgency away, and bit by bit, clarity won out.
She folded her wings. They no longer needed to be ready to launch her at Night. She sighed and raised her head so her horn was no longer levelled like a spear.
Fire still pulsed through her veins, and her heart still demanded action, even if it was no longer needed. So like she had taught Twilight all those years ago. She took a deep breath and held it. She pushed her hoof away as she exhaled and levelled her best 'I am not amused' glare at Night.
"Why did you do that?" Cadance's voice was calm, too calm, she knew that. Well, it serves her right if I'm still mad at her... With a wave of her hoof, she signalled her guardians to stand down.
Night watched the spear points for a moment, then slowly stood. With a flick of her wing, she dusted away non-existent dust and assumed her archaic regal pose. "The gate, the symbols on them."
That heart-forsaken gate, that feeling like falling off a cliff without wings, of her inside turning to ice in the worst possible way. There was no way she would ever be able to forget even a single detail. "What about them?" Cadance almost spat.
Night almost smirked. "You want to do something for your mourning ponies?"
"Of course I do." Left unsaid what this had better have been for a good reason, a very good reason.
Night's smile was warm and drenched in self-satisfaction. "Then attend me in this lesson."
She blinked. The stallion was still there, held in her wings. The ongoing sobbing let her know she was not gone for too long. That whole ordeal, that eternity of black grief, could not have been more than a few minutes.
You're terrible.
And yet I freely offer my assistance. Night's normal, frustrating facade of disdain was back in full force.
She ignored Night and turned her attention back to the here and now again. She tightened her wing around the stallion. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. I did not even listen to your name. Her nuzzle proved far more comforting than her voice could have been. His hoves wrapped around her with all his strength, and she barely felt it. Please keep your promise, Sister.
"I can't bring them back, but they still love you. Let me show you."
It was easy, really. Those symbols she could never forget, a bit of her magic, and she pushed. The ghostly heartlines flared back into vibrant colour. She gathered up a little of the slack and looped it around the locket. It needed nothing more, but as Aunty said, sometimes presentation was everything. Fine crystal scrollwork formed over its surface, coming together to form a small replica of the Crystal Heart.
With a wing tip, she turned the open locket toward him. Nothing about the picture had changed, and yet to the stallion, everything had. It hit his emotions like a hammer blow. His eyes widened, and he just stared at that tiny picture.
You're welcome.Night said as her presence faded.
"True Love lasts forever, My Little Pony." Cadance squeezed him tighter for a moment. "Never forget that."
Her mind drifted back to that gate to the hole in Night's heart she could remember with such painful clarity to that first alicorn lesson. Eternal life or oblivion. It was a simple fact and yet another thing that Celestia failed to teach, but it meant that Night and Luna were forever separated from their first love by the impenetrable gates to the afterlife.
One of the should-have-been-retired guards, Arcane Spark maybe, Helped the overwhelmed stallion away.
"This will be a short break." She glanced towards where the hotel staff were hiding. "Will you two please pass out food and tea for the ponies."
They jumped, but their training quickly kicked in. "Yes, your highness."
With a smile on her face, Cadance turned her attention to the brainwashed guard. "Follow." With that word, the guard obeyed.
The crisp clinks of his armoured hooves followed her from exactly the textbook distance away. All guards were precise with their movements, but this stallion was too perfect, almost soulless like a mindless golem.
She made her way to a side room and settled down on a couch that had nothing to recommend it in terms of comfort but looked impressive enough to be allowed in through the doors of the hotel.
"At ease."
The guard's body shifted stance, but no part of him was relaxed. It was as if it were merely a different form of attention. He just watched her with impassive eyes.
I'm the most beautiful mare in the world, and I might as well be a wall…
She examined him, opened her senses and really looked at him.
His body lacked the physical hardness and firm muscles that she so appreciated in her Shining. To her horn, it felt more like one of Celestia's spells was here and not a real living pony. Most damning of all though, were the dozens of neatly cut heartlines, each marked with the dull steel grey of utter indifference.
Mother, father, sister and even his special somepony now meant less to him than the dust under his hooves.
Brushing the severed ends with her magic, they were cold, surgical, without a single bit of texture to them that might be used to restore what was lost.
Tears threatened to fall again, but anger came to her aid. Four ponies truly loved him once, but now… What gives you the right. Aunty?
"What was so urgent you decided to interrupt such a delicate moment…" her eyes sought a rank symbol but found none. "Gaurdspony?"
He retrieved a scroll from under his armour. Again with cold mechanical precision more suited to an undead, not a living pony.
It bore a family seal. One she was used to seeing almost every day. She accepted it with her wing and, with a flick of a primary, broke the seal and began to read.
The first half page was political nothings. The sort of thing that could be recorded and filed away to meet some sort of fiction that Celestia even cared about the laws of the land.
Well-wishes and the promise of up to a dozen more of these atrocities she had crafted hit more like a threat than the offer of aid the mere written words spoke of.
You call him a bodyguard, but is spy a more apt label, Aunty?
"Do you have a family?"
"No, your highness."
"Any plans for when you retire?"
No matter what she tried, her new guard was such a thrilling conversationalist that watching paint dry seemed like it might cause heart attacks from the intensity of the excitement.
It was good to be home, even if it was like this. She brushed her translucent hoof along the simple railing and smiled as a floral pattern burst from the crystal as if true plants were in full bloom.
Crystals, once something rare, now were as common as wood or stone had been in her old life. She lifted her hoof and watched as the light played through the internal facets of its crystalline structure.
There were many questions, but decades of being under her Aunt's wing meant she was far too aware that true secrets can only exist if never voiced in the first place.
Celestia's heartline was still there, strong and true. There was parental love and a teacher's pride, but now reinforced with streaks of respect even if marred with exasperation and denied rage. You really don't like being challenged, do you, Aunty?
Her eyes followed the line to gaze at the distant Canterlot. You're not alone anymore... Celestia's great city held a lot of memories, most good, but each now had a seed of doubt. With how much Twilight's life has been controlled, how would anypony's life that came in contact with Celestia's faithful student not be equally meddled with?
She shook her head. What did it matter? The past should not be changed, so that only left the future. She turned her gaze to those ponies that were closer.
She did not focus on any one heartline. No, she more spread her senses like she might her wings. Feeling the prevailing wind and tasting the coming weather in the air.
Love for their special ponies. Love for their families. Love for her still full of gratitude for their freedom and a thick current of concern and sympathy for the Equestrians. They wanted to help.
She smiled and pushed her pride and love for all her ponies into the night. How different would you be, Aunty, if you could do this?
She turned her attention to how to help her ponies archive their will. No matter how well-intentioned the ponies are, if you don't plan the logistics, they spend half the time chasing their tails and helping Equestria is a very large problem.
A sheet of crystal formed from the wall already with the needed instructions written. Thank you. How did I even run the empire without you all?
Badly? Garnet's mental voice teased.
You're not wrong, but there are nicer ways to say it.
Not my job. I'm the action heroine you wanted to be.
With a flick of her magic, she added her royal seal to the orders. It vanished, and through her connection, she felt it materialise in her outbox to be dealt with by her staff in the morning.
Without even breaking stride, she walked into the wall and emerged into the same room, just quieter. It seemed larger, but that was because she had shrunk. She blinked and readjusted to her 'normal' size.
The physical world was still visible in the reflections in all the walls, but they were silent. She made her way back to her railing. On this side, the only ponies here were her fragments. A dozen crystal pegasi circled, ready, squads of thirty-six Eternal guards marched around, securing her bastion.
Down below in the training yard, even more guard fragments trained. "Do we really need this many?" Cadance asked as she hooked her forelegs over the railings and stared up at the night sky. It was the same here as it was in the physical world. The colourful aura and the shield's glow meant even in the dead of night, her city was never dark. Despite the Crystal Heart, this is no place for a romantic walk under the stars.
She breathed in the cool air and just enjoyed the moment alone. There were no ponies around that needed her, no disaster she needed to stop or brainwashed fanatics with orders not to let her out of their sight.
The unique sound of crystal feathers beating the air approached. Without even looking, Cadance knew Garnet had just arrived.
"We need to talk." Despite how much Cadance wished it to be, Garnet's tone was not happy.
What now?
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Again Celestia is shown she needs a major break from ruling and lits of therapy
Many here are quick to call Celestia an evil tyrant.
The truth is far more tragic: she means well, at least for the most part (though I need to explicitely exclude whatever happened with Luna here - I hope there is a well-intentioned reason there, and we just dont know the whole picture yet, but seriously, WTF!)
Still, the road to hell is said to be paved with good intentions, and she seems to lose more and more of herself to her "Mask" and her Warmind (Daybreaker) - which seems to grow ever bolder and more powerful (which is scary as it is allowed to "override" Celestia in certain circumstances)
Celestia is the textbook example of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
Cadance can see that she means well and wants to do what is right. But her actions in the name of the 'greater good' are so monstrous that it disgusts pretty much anyone else. Even if some may argue that they are facing an existential level threat with the Blight and such actions are warranted. "In the face of extinction, every alternative is preferable."
But what is going on with Cadance here? And what else has Night been teaching her?
Incredible chapter!
That was a good chapter.
11573535
The problem is she was doing these kinds of things LONG before the Blight.
11574544
True, but the Blight has just made her do worse things.
Damn, Celestia, you really don't trust her much right now, do you?
To touch on a previous comment about Alicorns being insane yeah, I still think they are all nuts in there own way. As for Cadence I don't think we've seen it just yet. But something tells me that when needed, she will tear open those gates (somehow) and let the dead come and fight to protect the living.
You know I don't think we've seen Cadence since the blight storm years ago what's she been doing all this time hopefully not just sitting around fallowing burnt out heart lines and pondering her existence. Also it was bought up a while ago but I wanna see some alicorn horn fencing that would be awesome.
Is there any way for Luna to get her memories back or are they gone forever cuz I really like to know what happened to her and this universe that is it'd be so weird if Celestia had them but I'm guessing probably night has them somehow if they can work out how to get him then maybe that would help oh great deal.
11575228
As covered in prior chapters, those memories do exist, in Night.
Just got caught up. Excellent work. Looking forward to seeing more.
11576722
You remember how Candice had that dream where Twilight and Luna were incinerated, what if that was Day Breaker's work and what do you think Celestia would do if she were to discover that Little Star is Nightmare moon's biological daughter she's probably going to kill her.