Equestria's Ray of Hope

by The_Darker_Fonts

Alone

Twilight paced back and forth in front of her throne, a thousand thoughts racing through her head every second. Every situation was dire, every thought painful, and every guess a terrifying one. It felt impossible in these hours, knowing what should be going on, but being completely unable to do anything about it. There wasn’t even any way of knowing that any part of the plan past the embarkment had succeeded, a fact that had kept her from sleeping for days on end. For all she knew, if she fell asleep, she would awaken to a world of blood and fire.

Her stomach rolled at the memories of the future she had seen, dug up from the back of her mind by the thought. There was still time for that future to be fulfilled, a few days now from the date she foresaw the invasion coming.

She took another shallow, shaky breath, circling back on her steps.

What if she hadn’t prevented it, but instead promoted it, sending Ray and soldiers preemptively and instead starting the war rolling through Equestria? The question had crossed her mind every day since she had brought Ray to Canterlot. She had asked herself that question over and over these past eight days, restless thoughts of the blood on her hooves. It seemed like a cruel irony that after all of the threats she and her friends had faced, it would be one that meant the death of ponykind the Elements of Harmony could not erase.

The Elements changed things, growing the seed of good in an individual to help them achieve harmony with themselves and those around them. She had seen the horrors and atrocities the minotaurs would do to her people, the horrible fate of what they could do to them all. It was something none of them had ever imagined, even underneath the subjugation of Discord, Christalys, or Tirek. Death was something that only happened in a pony’s sleep, not on a blade and not in such a bloody and brutal manner.

Another turn in her steps, wearing down another layer of the marble in front of her throne.

Perhaps they had made it, landing on the shore and fighting through whatever they faced there. What if they charged through enemy after enemy winning the day and saving Equestria. What if the enemy had far greater numbers than they, whittling them down in a long and arduous battle, until everypony was dead. They wouldn’t know for almost a week, until the lack of Ray’s appearance at the full moon informed them of his passing. Twilight’s heart stopped, the very thought sending a piercing bolt of regret and guilt through her. If he didn’t return as he warned he would, she didn’t know if she could ever face herself… let alone her friends.

She let out a ragged sigh, shaking her head as she turned again.

A short scream escaped her as claws suddenly grasped her shoulders, breaking her nervous reverie. She hit her head on Spike’s chin as she attempted to look up at the one who grabbed her, sending them both apart. Twilight reached up and rubbed her sore forehead while glancing sheepishly at the drake, who was rubbing his chin with a pained groan. Twilight opened her mouth to apologize but went completely stiff as a small drop of purple blood rolled out of the corner of his mouth. The drake stretched out his jaw, opening it widely and letting the droplet roll down his chin and drip from his scales.

“Jeez Twi, that horn is something tough,” Spike groaned, closing his mouth and swiping away the little trail of blood. Twilight didn’t answer, staring at where the small drop had collided with the silver and blue tiles of the throne room, an inkblot of Spike’s interior. Her legs begin to quiver and her eyes begin to lull, her vision quickly becoming tunnels at the sight of her closest companion’s blood.

As she was about to fall sideways, however, Spike yelped and reached out to catch her, managing to cup both arms beneath her. Realizing his mentor was passing out, the drake scooped her up, shouting, “Twilight! Hey, back to the real world!”

Her head still spinning, the alicorn blinked several times, trying to orientate herself from falling to being picked up. Groaning, she came to the embarrassing realization that she had almost fainted in front of her throne. In spite of herself, though, the combination of days without sleep, endless worries, and shocking embarrassment, Twilight wilted in Spike’s grasp. For the first time in what felt like forever, she broke down crying, softly whimpering into her dragon’s shoulder as he stood there, unsure of what to do.

Twilight’s guilty conscience only grew as she realized the situation she was putting poor Spike in, but there was nothing she could do to stop the crying. Awkwardly, the drake began to pat her on the back of the head, looking around for any sort of help with the unprecedented scenario he found himself in. Unfortunately, as was habit with the alicorn, she had dismissed all of the guards to allow herself to pace and talk to herself without judgement. Knowing he was on his own, Spike took a deep breath and slowly sat down, holding Twilight as she had once held him. Stroking her mane as he’d learned ponies liked, he gently began to hush her like a baby.

“Twilight,” Spike began, stopping because he didn’t even know what to say. Hoarsely, he asked, “What are you thinking about right now that’s making you cry?”

The question gave Twilight pause briefly, as if making her brain work on anything but what it was feeding itself gave her solace. The mare sniffled, glancing up at Spike with teary eyes as she murmured, “Everything. It’s all going wrong, isn’t it?”

“No, Twi, it isn’t at all,” Spike reassured her, drawing upon every happy memory he had with her to prepare himself. Celestia, all he’d come in here to do was get her to eat. Twilight was prone to the occasional nervous breakdown, but something of this level… even he hadn’t seen this, not in all of their years together.

“Everything is going wrong,” Twilight insisted, shivering. “Ray and the Fallen are all going to… to… Sweet Celestia, I can’t say it, but they’re going to! And then all of my friends who are alive will hate me and know I doomed us all and got someone as great as Ray killed. Celestia and Luna will hate me for dooming their ponies, everypony will die, and you’ll hate me because I hit you all the time!”

“Twilight, you tapped me once, I’m not gonna hate you,” Spike replied bluntly, dealing with the most obvious first. Luckily for him, Twilight’s self-destructive rant wasn’t too different from what she went off about during her nervous breakdowns. Deciding to fall back on a tried and proven method of comforting the mare, he lifted her up and set her on the ground. Well, that part was new thanks to his growth now that he had been spending some more time with other dragons, but the rest was the same.

“Twi, what made you bring Ray here in the first place,” he asked.

As with before, the mare’s pout became a frown as she thought of a response, finally muttering, “Because we needed him…”

“Wrong,” the drake answered, giving the suddenly bashful princess a firm stare. “That’s why you brought a human to Equestria. Tell me why you brought Ray to Equestria. I want every fact, feeling, and hunch that made you choose him out of literally infinite possibilities.”

“Well, the possibilities weren’t infinite,” Twilight began shakily, sitting back on her haunches. She seemed to be coming more to her senses, hinted at by her blush and refusal to look up at Spike. “There were only so many universes that actually worked with ours given their different cultures, environments, biologies, ideologies, and so on. There were roughly seven thousand, eight hundred, and thirty with inhabitants that would coincide with Equestria’s atmosphere, and it just so happened that humans were the most common sentient species that could inhabit Equestria. Unfortunately, they exist in only some four hundred universes, and of which, three hundred and seventy were either too advanced, too violent, or too dissonant for habitation. That whittled it down to twenty-eight universes.”

“And why did Earth call to you,” Spike goaded, reaching out and resting a claw on her shoulder.

Finally, she looked up, biting her lip as she recalled her choice from three years ago, the fate she decided was Equestria’s best hope. “Earth was a perfect mix, violent but with the hope for peacefulness, advanced but not to all consuming levels, and its people strangely adaptable. I still don’t know why, but I think Earth was made to host and raise Ray, to prepare him in one way or another for something. The people around him were all that failed him, really. Not his family, but the people around him, the people in his city that refused to look twice, the people of his nation that refused to understand, and the world that wasn’t fond of forgiveness. Earth was a contradiction of itself.”

“And Ray,” Spike pestered, leaning in.

“I mean, where do I begin,” Twilight laughed nervously. “He was raised to be a kind, loving, caring older brother who was responsible. Then, he raised himself as the one issue in his family’s lives. He took the burdens, mistakes, and hopes of his family on himself and used it as fuel for himself to become the best he could to repair that. Someone with that level of determination only comes about when their heart is stoutly in the right place but their mind tricks them into the wrong lifestyle.”

Twilight paused, her eyes going wide as she stared at Spike, a smirk escaping the drake. With a huff, the alicorn grumpily admitted, “Alright, you tricked me. I’ve now said what I needed to hear.”

“Yes and no,” Spike replied with an even smile. “Let’s be frank with each other; what just happened has never happened with you before, not even with your most intensive and desperate inquiries. That was something that was as heartrending as it was scary to deal with, Twi, and I can’t imagine how it’s still tearing you up on the insides. So, I want you and me to hear why Ray will come back next week.”

“Well, okay,” Twilight sighed, taking a deep breath in. “I saw enough in him to know he was a potential choice, but it wasn’t until I saw his past, the things he’s done to survive and the things he has survived, that I realized he was the one. He’s fiercely intelligent, but like with every good thing about himself, he’ll never acknowledge it. He also has a hidden strength in him with his sharp wit, though I don’t think either of us have seen the full of it like the others have.”

“Remember day one,” Spike reminded with a short chuckle, remembering a smaller him shriveling before the menacing human.

“Well, that was more raw rage,” Twilight deflected with a shrug. “That was another thing; he’s almost unstoppable when he’s enraged, something both his past and present has revealed. He’s fiercely loyal, refusing to acknowledge any wrongs with those around him, even when there are some… glaring ones. He’s not quick to forgive, not nearly. I know he’s forgiven me, which is flattering because I know he believes solidly in what is undoubtedly right in his mind, even if it means setting aside the past. He was always stubborn, but we were shown the harsh side of it with his complete takeover of these past few months, everything going his way and his way only.

“Then there’s the one I was most concerned with. It could be a strength and a weakness, but his need to connect with something, to give him purpose and not leave him free to act. However, he fears himself and the agency of freedom, which is something we both need to allow and control in measures for a general. He needed to be able to connect with the ponies of Equestria, but he also needed to be able to learn to become his own person at last from them. I was worried he would latch onto them and become their beneficiary and nothing else, enslaving himself to the labor instead of liberating himself to work with it. For a few months, in the beginning, it looked like it. Then Skalos changed it. I may never know how, but we received the general we needed from it. Funny he wasn’t at all how I thought he’d become.”

“Is that better or worse,” Spike questioned softly, finally hearing the full of Twilight’s thought process.

“It means that he will save Equestria,” Twilight acknowledged glumly, “but he will never save himself. In this world, he will never find something that he truly needs, even with all of my assistance and Equestria’s resources supporting him.”

“And what is that,” Spike asked, afraid to know the answer.

“Something that nopony realizes until they cannot have it,” Twilight muttered, her head staring down. “Someone to share the burden with. Someone to live and love with. A spouse.”

Author's Note:

This is where the romance tag comes into play in earnest. The idea of love of a companion/spouse being vital to Ray, but his inability to grasp it. You really though pony x human was gonna be the key romance? Anyways, as always, questions, comments, and concerns welcome and wanted. Also, happy New Years!