Spite
“You do realize… if you let me go through with this, then you won’t remember me at all when you wake up, right? It will be as if you never even knew I existed.”
Rainbow Dash swallowed heavily, looking into Midnight’s eyes. Midnight stared back, her eyes narrowed with skepticism and doubt. The chilly night air felt as if it was clawing at their throats, suffocating them with tension and anxiety.
Eventually, the pegasus shakily nodded her head. “I know that… but… if it means saving you from turning into this and saving our friends, then no price is too high.”
Midnight blinked. She then huffed and stepped forward, her horn flaring up with ghostly blue magic. “Fine. Then hold still,” she instructed simply. She reached out with her magic, not giving Rainbow a chance to speak before she ensnared Rainbow’s body in a vice-like grip. Rainbow’s eyes bulged in their sockets, her mouth flying open in a silent scream.
“Wait… this is wrong…”
Midnight yanked Rainbow down so their muzzles were less than an inch apart. Her lips curled into a sadistic smirk before she closed her eyes and pressed the tip of her horn to Rainbow’s forehead.
Rainbow screamed.
“Wait, no, STOP! This isn’t how this is supposed to happen!”
Midnight couldn’t help it. She chuckled deep in her throat as Rainbow kicked and squirmed feebly against her restraints. Her smile grew when she felt Rainbow’s memories starting to trickle into her mind, a veritable flood of information about her life. There were more memories of Twilight Sparkle than memories Midnight had of anything. It was overwhelming.
Several seconds passed. Rainbow’s screams withered and died away into silence, and she fell limp in Midnight’s grasp. The Fallen Alicorn looked the body over with a disappointed frown. There was so much information she had just gotten, yet somehow, it wasn’t enough.
“Hmph… just another disappointment,” she scoffed before throwing the unconscious body to one side as if it were no more than an empty wrapper to be discarded in the trash. “I shouldn’t have expected anything else from you.”
“NO! Go back! GO BACK!”
Midnight held her head high, her wings spreading out. “It’s not enough… I need more,” she declared, emitting a low, insane laugh before resuming her slow, measured pace through the silent streets of Canterlot, leaving the body of Rainbow Dash behind among all the others.
“STOP!”
Twilight jerked awake with a barely-contained shriek of terror. She bolted upright, gasping for breath as cold shivers ravaged her body. Her heart hammered wildly against her chest like a tribal drumbeat, filling her frantically-swiveling ears with their steady, constant rhythm. Her eyes darted left and right, taking in her surroundings.
She was in the hidden room in the Castle of The Two Sisters. Spike was curled up to her side, stirring from the sudden disturbance, but otherwise remaining asleep, thankfully. Fluttershy and Thorax were right where Twilight had left them, curled up together on the pillow adjacent to hers.
A few seconds passed before a relieved sigh snaked its way out of her. “It was just a nightmare,” she thought, slumping back onto the pillows. Her eyes wandered down to find the Journal of The Two Sisters open beneath her, the current drawing depicting Starswirl the Bearded with his head held high and a stern frown on his old, wisened face.
“I must have fallen asleep while I was reading…” she thought, gingerly closing the book with her magic. She looked over towards the window, trying to gauge the time. It was dark outside; although, if she had to guess, she’d say the sun was due to rise in the next couple of hours.
With a quiet sigh, Twilight slowly pushed herself up to a standing position. Spike grumbled in his sleep as she rose, one claw limply reached out for her. She smiled down at him and gently ran her hoof along the back of his head before turning for the door and slipping out. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep like this. Quickly recovering from nightmares was always Rainbow’s specialty, not hers.
Twilight paused mid-step at that thought, her ears drooping. How long had Rainbow been suffering from periodic nightmares at this point? It felt like forever. A few years, at least. Ever since Discord.
Of course, for most of that time, Rainbow had been lucky enough to have her aunt looking out for her, diving into her dreams whenever they turned dark to chase away the nightmares. Heck, it had gotten to semi-regular therapy sessions, for crying out loud!
“Oh, how sweet,” Twilight’s voice snickered bitterly between her ears. “Rainbow Dash has a nice, loving aunt to chase away her bad dreams. Such a shame that Luna couldn’t care less about your suffering.”
Twilight grimaced, her ears drooping. She quickly slinked away from where her friends were sleeping, hopeful that Thorax’s empathic senses wouldn’t pick up the growing resentment the voice was trying to cultivate inside of her. Soon, she was out of the library and ambling aimlessly down the halls, her mind wandering while her eyes took in the moonlit landscape outside.
“Do you think your anger is something to be ashamed of?!” the voice demanded, a spike of pain tunneling through Twilight’s skull after a moment, causing her to come to a stop and clutch at her temple with a hoof. “It’s NOT! You were wronged by Luna, and you know it! You have every right to feel angry with her! Her scorn and hostility led to me, by her own admission, didn’t it?!”
“Maybe it did,” Twilight shot back, snarling deep in her throat. “But you just said she admitted it! She apologized! She knows she was wrong!”
“What good are her apologies?! They don’t make right what she did, and she has done nothing to make amends!”
“I’m sure she will!” Twilight countered, shaking her head. “Just wait. You’ll see!”
“Hmph. I suppose we will.”
And just like that, the voice went quiet. Twilight stood still, listening for it to speak again. When it did not, she gave off a sigh and kept doing. “You’ll see…”
Following her little argument with herself, Twilight continued wandering the halls of the castle. She let her thoughts drift where they may, so long as they didn’t go back to the other who spoke with her voice. To think of it would serve no end but to feed it, make it stronger, and egg it on. She had no desire to do that, and so she thought of literally anything else.
Her hooves carried her out of the corridors and into a large antechamber. Tapestries ancient and exquisite hung from the walls, each one deprived of their former majesty by the coming of Nightmare Moon and the inevitable march of time. Piles of rubble were strewn about, haphazardly stacked here and there. Holes had long ago been blasted or eroded into the walls, allowing a haunting, ghostly howl to echo through the chamber.
Once upon a time, this chamber might have been beautiful. She could absolutely see the signs, looking at it all right now. The masonry was masterful, the artistic vision of every archway, pillar, and window could not be denied, and the care and attention that had gone into the tapestries transcended even the finest works Rarity had made. Quite the accomplishment.
To see it all laid to waste like this… an old, forgotten ruin most ponies dared not even approach out of fear for what surrounded it. A historic site left to be reclaimed by nature… once, it was the capital of the entire country. Now? Little more than a waymark, a stand-out feature of the landscape to tell Twilight and her friends where the Tree of Harmony was.
“This place… it could really use some fixing up,” she thought, slowly coming to a halt. “A bit of dusting, maybe clear out the rubble. The masonry is pretty much shot, but I don’t see a reason why the tapestries couldn’t be restored with a bit of time and effort. The windows would be kind of tricky, especially with so many of them blown out, but it could be managed.
“Heh. Maybe my friends and I could do it. Fix this old place up,” she thought, a small smile spreading on her lips at the idea. It would be a nice little side project, now that she thought about it. Something for her to fill her time with, to distract her from all of this Chest stuff, especially when it really started to get to her.
There was also the detail of restoring an ancient historical site from just over a thousand years ago, with who knows how many ancient books, relics, artifacts, and secrets scattered throughout its halls like sprinkles on one of Pinkie’s birthday cakes. That was enticing, too.
A mammoth of an undertaking, but the more she thought about it, the more she began to appreciate the idea. It would take a long time, for sure, but she could already imagine the ways she and her friends could contribute.
Applejack would be able to haul the rubble and debris out of the ruins, Rarity could fix up the tapestries while providing her own artistic vision for replacements for the old windows. Fluttershy would be good for clearing out or relocating the various insects and bats that called this old place home. Rainbow would be ideal for keeping the weather clear while everypony else worked, and she could help Applejack with clearing the debris. Pinkie could be Pinkie. Add onto that Twilight and Spike working together to keep them all organized and on-task, and an impossible task would become very possible, very quickly.
She closed her eyes, imagining it. The Castle of The Two Sisters restored and renovated. She envisioned a pathway leading through the Everfree Forest, a safe route for ponies to come and see the old castle where their kingdom had once been based out of. It could practically become a museum on ancient Equestrian history and culture, with ponies shuffling from one chamber to the next, reading and studying all about their own home.
She was sure Princess Celestia would be thrilled by such an outcome. This had been where she lived when she was a foal, right? She and-
Twilight’s eyes snapped open, her pupils dilating, her enthusiasm dying away then and there.
Luna had once called this place her home, as well. And in her descent into madness as Nightmare Moon, she had reduced it to rubble…
“Why give her the satisfaction?” the voice whispered, barely at the edge of Twilight’s senses. “She broke it. Let her fix it.”
It said no more. Twilight took a deep breath before letting it out in a full-bodied heave of a sigh.
Before she could give much thought to what it had said, something else caught her attention. Somepony was coming. Twilight lifted her head and turned to look at a nearby open archway. She couldn’t see down it from this angle, but she could hear somepony trotting down with slow, even steps.
Her brow furrowed. Something was off. She didn’t recognize that pattern of steps, and the way they sounded as they clacked across the stones reminded her of Thorax’s chitinous hooves rather than hers or Fluttershy’s. Thorax didn’t walk that fast, though—not to mention he should still be asleep.
Twilight’s eyes widened, her heart jumping into her throat as a changeling drone slowly stepped into view, head held low and eyes looking directly at her. It was a female, her black chitin marked with a few small scars. A line on her shoulder, a chip off her hoof, and so on. Her wings and ears were down, and her every step conveyed an aura of submission.
Twilight took a step back, her jaw falling open. “W-what?! What are… who are you?!” she asked, immediately going on high alert. The last time she had encountered a changeling other than Thorax, she had…
The changeling slowly sat down on her haunches and bowed her head. “H-hello… you must be Twilight Sparkle, r-right?” she asked in a surprisingly quiet, timid voice.
Twilight blinked, taken aback. She swallowed the lump in her throat, slowly unfurling her wings just in case she needed to spring into motion. “That depends… who are you, and what do you want?” she asked carefully.
The changeling lifted her head, though she did not meet Twilight’s gaze. She seemed scared to look directly at her. “Um… m-my name is Spiracle. I served alongside Thorax two years ago during the attack on Canterlot…”
Twilight’s heart burned a little in her chest. She stepped back a few feet, her eyes narrowing. “...Really? And why are you here, now?” she asked.
Spiracle winced under her venomous tone before speaking. “I… I-if it would be permissible, I was hoping you could take me to speak with Princess Rainbow Dash,” she said quietly, reaching a hoof up to rub at one of her forelegs. “I’m not welcome at the Hive anymore… I’m here in Equestria seeking asylum if I can get it.”
“Asylum?” Twilight echoed, raising an eyebrow. “What did you do that you need something like that?”
Spiracle grimaced, her face contorting with shame. “...I deserted from the hive after the Queen was sealed away. When we all went home, it all just… fell into chaos. It wasn’t safe for me anymore, and without a queen to lead us, I feared my home would never recover… And so I left.”
“A deserter? Like… Thorax?” she asked slowly, her eyes widened. The heat in her breast abated somewhat as she considered that. She didn’t seem to be lying so far. If anything, she seemed like she wasn’t all that different from Thorax. A lot more quiet and hesitant, maybe, but in fairness, Thorax had gone through his own trials back then. He had grown stronger and more confident as a result.
“Who cares?” the voice asked a moment later, drawing a cold gasp out of Twilight. “Are you forgetting what happened the last time a changeling crossed your path?”
The world flickered for a moment. Twilight sucked in a deep breath, her muscles locking up as tingles began to dance across her shoulder blades. The smell of burning fur wafted up her nostrils, and her body began to feel colder than the harshest blizzards the Frozen North had ever thrown at her.
“The last time you met one of these things, they murdered you!” The voice went on. Twilight grit her teeth as her skull began to pound with every beat of her now-burning heart. “They killed you in Rainbow’s hooves! They stole away your life, and they stole your memories for two years! You have no reason to humor this creature’s ridiculous request!”
Twilight’s blood was beginning to boil. Her teeth ground together behind her lips as a fury she didn’t even know she had been suppressing slipped into her eyes. Spiracle shrank back from her, her eyes going wide in fear. “M-miss Twilight?” she asked in a jittering voice.
Twilight peeled her lips back into an ugly snarl. “Get. Out.”
Spiracle’s ears drooped, her entire posture withering on the spot. “But… But I don’t have anywhere else to go-”
“Do you think I care?!” Twilight demanded, her horn sparking to life. Some small part of her cried out that she should stop and reign herself in right now, but the memory of her own death spurred her on, silencing any dissenting voices in a heartbeat. “Why would I care about you?! Do you have any idea what you creatures have put me through?! What you put my friends through?!”
She stepped forward and shoved Spiracle back, sending the drone sprawling to the floor with a cry. Twilight went on, undeterred. “Rainbow Dash almost lost her life, and she’s still trying to recover from the psychological damage you monsters gave her! She has a permanent scar on her hoof that I see her staring at more than she should! All of my friends were forced to run for their lives from their homes across an arctic wasteland just to get away from you! And to top it all off, right at the end, when we thought we had won, I was killed by one of you!”
Spiracle backed away along the floor, visibly shaking with fear under Twilight’s rage. “I… I’m sorry-”
“SORRY?!” Twilight snapped. She threw her head back, barking out a hideous laugh before it devolved into an infuriated growl. “Who does that help?! What does your ‘apology’ make up for?! Nothing, that’s what! Being sorry won’t give me back the two years I spent without my memories, it won’t cure Rainbow’s PTSD, and it will not get rid of the voice that I have to listen to every time I close my eyes!”
Spiracle rolled onto her hooves but kept her belly close to the floor, her ears folded back. She opened her mouth, fishing for words, but nothing came out.
Twilight huffed angrily. “...Just get out of here. If you come near me or my friends again…”
She did not complete the sentence. She merely lit up her horn and narrowed her eyes. That was enough to get the message across. Spiracle, with a frightened cry, rose to her hooves and broke into a mad sprint away from the chamber, her tail tucked firmly between her legs. Twilight watched her go, staring after her until she was out of sight and the sounds of her hooves sprinting along the stones faded into silence.
The quiet that followed was deafening. Twilight was breathing heavily after her outburst. Her lungs were burning, and it felt as if the air itself was trying to strangle her. She felt heavy all of a sudden and stumbled off to one side, leaning against a broken pillar for support while her mind reeled.
“Twilight?!” Spike’s voice echoed from the way she had come, and Twilight’s heart all but stopped in her chest. How much of that did they hear? How much of that had she even said? How much of it was really her? A horrible feeling of sickness and nausea overcame her, and she slumped to the floor, one hoof clutching at her head.
“...What did I just do?” she asked in a broken, strangled whimper.
A flurry of steps entered a moment later. In a heartbeat, she felt Spike’s claws and Fluttershy’s hooves on her, trying to comfort her and pull her back. She could hear them asking her what was wrong, but she couldn’t parse the words through the ringing in her ears or the numbness in her mind.
Eventually, though, the presence of her friends won out over her horror. Her gaze lazily drifted to look up at them, and she saw Fluttershy, Spike, and Thorax all looking back at her in confusion.
Spike spoke first, his voice weak and anxious. “You… you weren’t in the room,” he mumbled, tapping his claws together. “We got worried about you, and we came looking…”
“We heard you screaming at somepony,” Fluttershy added, her ears drooping. “And we heard them running away and crying. What happened in here?”
Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She looked past Fluttershy, locking gazes with Thorax. He stared back at her with a grim frown slowly appearing on his face. “Twilight… who was it?”
Twilight gulped down another breath before speaking. “...Spiracle.”
“Spiracle?” Spike asked, confused. “Who's that? Kind of a funny name.”
“It sounds like a changeling name,” Fluttershy noted, tapping at her chin. The color then visibly drained from her face, and a tiny, strangled squeak of fear came from the bottom of her throat as the implication set in. “OIh, dear… is there another changeling here?”
“Spiracle…” Thorax suddenly spoke up, his eyes having flown wide open. He took a step forward, his expression turning urgent. “Spiracle was here?! Really?!”
Twilight shakily nodded. “Yeah… she s-said she wanted to talk to Rainbow. S-she wanted to ask for asylum… that she ran from the Hive.”
“Oh, wow,” Spike muttered, crossing his arms. He looked up at Thorax. “Guess somepony’s following in your hoofsteps, huh?”
Thorax frowned. “I mean, maybe… but…” his expression hardened, and Twilight wilted away from him. “What did you say to her?”
“I… I…” Twilight stammered, her throat constricting in a bid to keep the words in. “I… I told her to leave… I warned her to never come near me or my friends again…”
Fluttershy’s eyes widened, her hooves flying up to cover her mouth. “Oh my goodness…”
Thorax’s ears drooped, and he, too, flinched away. “Oh, no…”
Spike blinked. “So… that’s what all the screaming was?”
Twilight nodded.
A few seconds passed before Fluttershy rose to her hooves. “...And did you mean any of it?” she asked in a remarkably firm tone.
Twilight flinched as if struck. “I… I don’t know…” she mumbled, clutching at her head again.
“Lies,” the voice sneered. “You meant every word.”
“Hold on a sec,” Spike suddenly cut in, as if remembering something important. He turned to face Thorax again. “Did you know her?”
He nodded. “Uh-huh. We worked in the same unit under my brother back in the lead-up to the invasion. She was an infiltrator and spy, gathering intel for the most part. In fact, it was, uh… it was her who brought word that you guys had left Ponyville without telling anypony where you were going.”
“So she kinda caused the invasion to happen when it did?” Spike asked.
Thorax sighed. “Well, yeah… but I can vouch for her. She’s a good sort. She wasn’t all that different from me; shy, quiet, timid. Not as gentle as me, not by a long shot, but she was still nice. She was one of the only drones besides Pharynx I ever got along with…” he lifted his head to stare at Twilight. “And you sent her away? You threatened her?”
Twilight didn’t answer for a few seconds. When she did, her words were strangled. “I didn’t know…”
Thorax didn’t reply for several seconds. He grunted and kicked at the ground before turning and trotting for the nearest archway. “I’m gonna go look for her.”
“Huh?” Fluttershy called after him. “But, Thorax-”
“If she was at the hive when Pharynx went back, maybe she knows something about what things were like after Chrysalis was defeated!” he said, coming to a stop by the door. “I have to know. I have to know what’s going on back home.”
Fluttershy and Spike stared after him for a few minutes. Fluttershy sucked in a deep breath before placing a hoof on Spike’s back. “Take Twilight back to the library,” she instructed simply. “Take care of her while we’re gone, okay?”
Spike nodded. “Uh, right.”
Fluttershy stood and made her way after Thorax after that. Together, the two departed the chamber, leaving Twilight alone with nothing to keep her company, save for Spike, and the rampant confusion and dread that were raging like a hurricane in her mind.
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Yeowch. This was a rough chapter. Twilight's mental arguments are getting much worse and she just took her anger out on a Changeling who was actually looking for redemption. And, yeah, I can see Thorax's reasons for wanting to go find Spiracle and Twilight's guilt about how badly she messed up was well shown.
Still, the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up were, of course, well done in all the right places.
Great chapter!
Will Twilight’s refusal to help and threat Spiracle make her become the next Chrysalis?
Will Luna help Twilight with her problems or no?
Will Twilight ask Rainbow and perhaps the rest of her friend’s help with her Midnight problem?
Character development!
Oh yeah, get reminded of a lost idea of restoring Two Sisters.
And yeah Twilight needs therapy. Come on Celestiaassifn some one and Luna get off your ass and HELP HER!
That...was unexpected. Twilight giving into Midnight like that.....well I suppose it wouldn't be very threatening if stuff like this didn't happen. She...has a long road to recovery.
considering her circumstances this wasnt really all that unexpected, this timeline has one hell of a bad encounter situation with changelings and i cant imagine getting that close to oblivion stopped with just scrambling her memories
Well, if nothing else, Luna seems to be following in Celestia's footsteps perfectly: Perfectly capable of seeing another suffering through a crisis of action and identity, but too wrapped up in her own things to actually notice.
But you know, maybe that's fine; this event with Spiracle, even if they don't manage to find her, has very clearly illustrated to Spike, Fluttershy, and Thorax that something is very wrong with Twilight, and they might actually be in a position to do intervene before Twilight falls, and succeed at something that Celestia has never managed to do: See the signs of coming calamity and take action, rather than just cleaning up after the fact.
Just after the Little Changes crossover and Hoo-doggy, that is whiplash. But yeah, Twilight needs to tell someone about the voice in her head. Even if it gives Luna more reason to distrust her, that needs to be looked at.
Sounds like our favorite lavender Alicorn just did a speciesism.
Ok, Twilight needs help. And soon, before things get worse.
Aaaaand here we go again. Sigh. It doesn't even have the emotional impact that the other "incidents" have anymore. It's beginning to happen a little too often.