Chapter 27: Pen Pusher.
“So, lemme get this heterosexual;” Brash stated as she hovered above me, which elicited a stifled chuckle from Luster. “Your coltfriend asked you to check on his family, not telling you their names or anything about them other than they ‘live in Canterlot’?”
“Well, when you put it like that,” I trailed off as I put a book on the shelf, silently thanking whatever considerate stranger organized this place and made it so easy to find where things are supposed to be. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
“Why didn’t you think to ask him for their names?”
“I fell asleep.”
“Ok, but what about when you woke up?”
I pursed my lips, not wanting to tell her that I forgot in my rush to leave. As I hung my head, I skimmed over the last book in my hand: the dictionary Luster suggested. It did end up coming in useful at first, then it became easier for me to just look at the words around the one I didn’t know and try to infer what it meant. At least, for all the ones that weren’t technical terms.
“What’d you say his name was again? Shadow moon?”
Luster asked as she walked forward, interrupting whatever question Brash was about to follow up with.
“Dark moon.”
“Hm. There’s a lot of Moons in Canterlot: Moondancer, Crescent Moon, Blue Moon, Sailor Moon. Those are just the ones I know off the top of my head. If his family doesn’t have someone prominent in it, or you don’t give me something that’ll narrow it down, you might as well be asking me to find a hay straw in a hay pile.”
I tried to think back to our first date-which felt like a lifetime ago- and recall anything he mentioned about himself before he came to Ponyville, which was frighteningly little. I was hesitant to ask him too much about himself because I didn’t want to come off as nerdy, yet I started off the date talking about how Fluttershy said first dates are often about getting to know each other.
Celestia was right; you always do think about what you could have done better in hindsight.
“He went to college, and his parents are both scholars. He also mentioned he’s an only child.”
I peered up at Brash, who hovered above me in uncharacteristic silence. Eyebrows scrunched in concentration as she thoughtfully rubbed her chin. I put the dictionary where it belonged, closing my backpack now that it was empty.
“That would help if this wasn’t Canterlot, where pretty much everypony is a scholar, noble, or student. Did he happen to mention which college? There’s a handful of them.”
I slumped my shoulders. “No.”
“Of course not.” Luster deadpanned.
“Dark Moon. Dark Moon.” Brash muttered to herself over and over again like a mantra. Falling to the ground in slow motion as her wings receded to her sides. “That name sounds really familiar. Did he move away or run away?”
“He,” I swallowed my words, rubbing my pendant through my shirt as I recalled how reluctant he was to tell me. “didn’t say, just that he moved.”
“Well, assuming he ran away and his parents filed a missing pony report,” She began to trot over to the door, oblivious to my lie as she stretched her wings and looked at some index at the front desk. “How long ago did he say he dipped?”
“Dipped?” I tilted my head, perking up when I realized what she meant. “Oh, he just said a few years ago.”
“Then,” her head shot up along with her wings, opening the door and zooming out. I turned to Luster for clarification, only to get an uncertain shrug in response.
She was back just as swiftly, holding a bundle of papers with faces and words on them I couldn’t make it. Brash placed them on the desk, skimming through them and then setting them aside into a different pile.
Out of curiosity, I peered over her shoulder and tried to see what they were. All of them were the same; pictures of ponies I didn’t recognize with dates, descriptions, and a jumble of other word salad sprinkled about. Some had the word ‘found’ imprinted in big, red bold letters; They must have been the missing ponies reports Brash mentioned. Why wa-
Dark’s face showed up as one of them. Just as well, one of the ones that didn’t have ‘found’ stamped on the front.
“Aha!” Brash exclaimed, holding up the piece of paper like it was some lost artifact of a long dead civilization. “This is him right?”
She pushed it in my face, eyes wide as she waited for the confirmation she was already certain she’d get.
At a second glance, I noticed how different he looked in the photo compared to when I last saw him. Younger, but there was a prominent sadness in his features. His pupils were dulled to the point of being closer to gray than blue, and were almost obscured by the bags under them. There was an attempt at a smile, the corners of his lips tugging upward. Rather than come off as an expression of joy or even a flicker of ecstasy, it felt more like how a fish looks when it made the fatal mistake of nibbling on some bait and getting a hook curved into its mouth for its mistake.
“Yeah,” I took the piece of paper, reading through some of the description about where he was last seen. “That’s him. He ran away?”
“Yuppers. In fact, when I just started as a guard, I was mostly a bail bonds pony of sorts. Problem is, the majority of ponies in Canterlot have no trouble paying fees if they ever get any and always show up to court just to save face. So, instead I tried to help with some missing ponies cases. Almost always it's some foals that barely graduated highschool that drank too much in a field somewhere and the parents overreacted. This time though,” She flew above me, peeking over my shoulders this time as she pointed at Dark. “This was a genuine missing pony. I figured this guy left Canterlot entirely after a week of nothing; glad to know I was right.”
“Does that mean,” I gripped the piece of paper, trying to hold back a grimace. “You have to tell them?”
“Well, yeah. I’m obligated to-”
“Please, don’t.” I begged, pushing down the urge to vomit at how pathetic my quivering voice made me sound. “He didn’t leave on the best terms with them. If he wanted to let them know he was ok, he would have sent them a letter or something. Dark asked me to do this because he trusts me; I don’t want to break that.”
I couldn’t bring myself to look at her; so there I stood in something akin to shame as her hooves hit the ground. Luster took a few steps forward, crossing her arms and shifting her weight like she was trying to lean on an object that wasn’t there.
“I-”
“You know, Brash. You could just say you heard from an anonymous tip that Black Moon was spotted traveling through Ponyville, not that he’s actually living there. After all, it’s not like we can say for sure that Chara’s a reliable source,” She winked, which just came off as intimidating more than anything else. “Right?”
“Dark Moon.” I corrected under my breath. Luster didn’t acknowledge it in any noticeable way.
“Yeahhhh,” Brash drawled as her eyes narrowed, smirking in a way I could only describe as mischievous. “That’s no problemo. Only issue is I don’t recall the names of his parents; they all kind of blend together after a while. Just remember them being some kind of bigwigs in astronomy, dad in particular was some famous star charter. Something star maybe? Stargazer, Starcloud…or was that his mom’s name?” She asked herself, tapping a hoof rhythmically against the floor until stopping with a frustrated stomp.
“I’ll have to go through my old reports. Their names should be in one of them, if I can find the right one.”
“You kept your old reports? I think you’ve got a hoarding problem, Brash. It would certainly explain your pigsty of a room.” Luster remarked, rubbing the base of her neck as she flexed it. “Come on, then. Chara and I can go there with you and help sort it out.”
“Nah, you’d just get in the way really. It’s one of those things that only I know how it's organized, and it's easier if no one else messes with it.”
“That sounds like an excuse so Chara doesn’t see how much of a slob you are.”
“Psha!” Brash exasperated with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “That’s not where my insecurities lie, Lust, you yolk for brains. How about this: I’ll go to my room and find out their names and then try to find a recent newspaper on them or something, then I’ll come meet up with you and Chara wherever you guys are and we can go from there. Aight?”
She got up in Luster’s face, batting her eyelashes and beaming a grin Pinkie would be proud of. Clearly, Brash had done this multiple times, since Luster was completely unfazed. Or, maybe that was just Luster’s default expression and I was as awful at reading her as I was at lying.
“Depends. Chara, where were you wanting to go after this?”
I flinched, being put on the spot. I looked away from Luster, mind blank as I tried to form a coherent answer. The same thoughts came to my mind earlier; should I talk to Cadance and say goodbye? She’s probably in the garden. Whether she was or not, it was gorgeous and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again; Lumi might even be there.
I noticed my fingers tapping against my thigh to a silent tune. For once, my body did something for me.
“Piano.”
“Piano?” Luster repeated with a tilt of her head.
“There’s a piano at the theater. Luna told me I could go there and play it whenever I want since no one else plays it. There isn’t one in Ponyville, and I’d like to play it.”
“You can play pi-”
“You got permission from Princess Luna to go into her theater without supervision?!”
Brash’s banana-yellow eyes were all I could see. I let out a far too girlish yelp as I jumped back, only to shove myself right into a shelf of books. To my relief, none of them fell out and stayed firmly in their assigned places.
“N-no,” I wanted to shrink into my shirt. Compared to the hoodie, it felt so short and restricting. Instead I bit the corner of my lip and shirked away, unable to escape her gaze regardless of where I looked. “She said that I’d have to have my escort with me and that the guards there already know I’m coming.”
“Nuh uh, Princess Luna is super protective over that theater and everypony who goes in there. Are you close friends with her or something? She’s nev-”
“Brash, you’re being your name again.”
Luster’s magic grasped Brash and stiffened her like a doll, pulling her away from me. Brash didn’t fight it, crossing her arms as she was lowered to the ground.
“Sorry, it's just that I’ve never met Princess Luna. What’s she like?”
“She’s,” I savored each breath, the flushness in my face receding with every inhale and making my heart more like an organ than a drum. “Really formal. And polite; she tries really hard to talk to others as Luna and not as a Princess.”
At least, that’s how she came off to me.
Every interaction with her had a degree of genuineness to it. While at times I could tell there was more she wanted to say that she didn’t, it never felt like she was trying to be someone she wasn’t. Then again, I suppose the same could be said for Cadance, who I’ve spent far less time with.
“Really? That’s not what I’ve heard from the night shift at all. Huh.” When the outline of magic vanished, she began collecting the papers she brought in until they were in a relatively neat pile; doing that thing I’d seen Twilight do where she taps the bottom of the pile against something to straighten it out. “I really should go ahead to my room and find what I can. That should take me,” Brash stuck out her tongue, flicking it up and down as she narrowed her eyes. “Two hours? Threeish? Depends if this guys parents are as popular as I remember. Either way, should give you plenty of time to flex your fingers.”
“You know where the theater is, right?”
Luster asked as Brash made her way to the door.
“Yeah, I have the layout of the castle mostly memorized. If I somehow can’t find it, I’ll just leave whatever I find at Chara’s doorstep and take a nap or something. See ya.”
Once Brash was gone, Luster walked up to a seemingly random shelf and pulled one of its books off with a tug. She then began floating a pencil in that same magic and writing something out on the sheet of paper.
“Do you take requests?”
“Requests?”
“For piano. I like Beethoofen, do you know any of his?”
“Oh. I can’t actually,” I rapidly blinked, wringing my hands. “Do anything like that. There’s only a couple dozen songs I can play; anything else is out of my reach.”
“Really? Sounds like that’d get boring after a while.” she dropped the pencil, slipping the book into the saddlebag attached to her side. “I haven’t listened to piano for a while, so it might be nice to hear it again. Are you ready to go?”
She slanted her eyes as she glanced at me, standing by the door and fidgeting with her saddlebag. I slipped my hands under the straps of my backpack just to have something to hold on to, tapping the tip of my shoes against the ground until I didn’t feel uncomfortable in them anymore.
“I guess.”
--------
Entering the theater implanted an eerie dread that only grew the more I looked around.
Not that long ago it had been thriving with ponies in every seat, indiscernible words bouncing off the walls like the chirping of crickets at night. Seeing it without a single soul or sound was so unnerving, so wrong.
Luster was visibility unfettered by the devoidness of this place; walking a similar path Luna did when she brought me backstage. When we got there, it was empty of even the stagehands that feverishly moved from place to place to make each play the perfection Luna had in mind for it. Many of the props and instruments that I saw set against the wall were also absent, giving the backstage an abandoned atmosphere that became denser the more I tried to trudge through it.
At least, until I saw the piano.
With less lights on, I nearly missed it. Then its resplendent engravings might as well have sparkled when I spotted them. The cushion hardly scraped against the floor as I pulled it out, hovering my arms over the keys as I made the memories in my head converge with reality.
“Wow, that’s a really pretty piano.”
Luster’s voice sounded far away despite being the only sound in the entire theater. A tension that was condensed entirely in the tip of my fingers held it in the air like invisible strings; cutting a little deeper the more I struggled against them. Until, eventually, I touched the reassuring cold sensation of the keys. I played a short motif from the first song that came to mind, which was more upbeat than I remember.
“Yeah, it really is.” I flicked my wrist, pressing my thumb on each of my hands onto my fingers until I heard that satisfying crack. “Hopefully, I can play music just as pretty.”
That same tune from last night slid right to the precipice of my thoughts. This time, I obliged and began playing it. There was no rigidness to my movements like before, which I’m sure I could attribute to all the mental rehearsal I’d been doing and the gestures that went with it. I wasn’t nearly as fluid as Frisk had become in his strive for perfection, but it was enough to be satisfied.
If Luster had moved or made any kind sound, it was blotted out by the reverberation of each note. I didn’t play the entire list, that would take hours, but I managed the first chunk. Two of the songs, while I played them quite far apart, actually transitioned quite well into each other. I played only those two songs, finding that, if I didn’t know any better, it resembled one song.
I stayed there in tentative silence as I held down the keys of the final note, letting it draw out far longer than it needed to. Likewise, I wonder, how many more of the songs worked together rather than separate? If I learned to play them all in one go, would I tie together tunes that I never would have before?
It was a struggle not to impulsively answer that question right then; to start from the top and work down the mountain of memories melded into my mind. That would take time, however. Along with practice, and resolve. Neither of which I really had.
Not right now, anyway.
“You should smile more, Chara. It’s nice.”
The past echoed as I slammed my fingers on the keys, producing a discordant noise that was admittedly easier on the ears than the last one. My legs dug into the seat as I let up on the keys, recognizing the voice before Luster said who it was.
“Princess Cadance?” Luster said, a panic to her voice that would have gone unnoticed had I not become so used to its stagnating stoicness. “Apologies, I was told Chara had express permission to be here. Had I known you were-”
“That’s alright, I know you’re allowed to be here. And, please, just Cadance. I’m not even really the princess of anything, anyway.”
I heard the creaking of Luster’s armor as she made some gesture; likely bowing or saluting like with Celestia. Cadance’s approaching hoofsteps stopped abruptly just a few feet away. I already knew why, but some morbid part of me needed that confirmation.
It almost made me sick.
Luster was standing straight, leaning forward with a narrowed gaze. Cadence appeared stuck, slouching with her head hung and indistinguishable. Her shoulders were rolled forward and her fingers were laced together so tightly that they paled and trembled; her wings fluttered like they wanted to spread out but invisible glue was preventing that freedom.
I’d seen that same body language on Fluttershy so many times, still I could never figure out what it meant. With Rainbow, it was mostly nervousness or unease. Brash’s was always excitement, when she was actually letting her wings stay at her sides and not flying around. With Cadance, it was so disgustingly obvious I could taste it.
It was fear.
“Princess?”
“Cadance, please.” Her teeth grit together, words being forced out with a sharp note between that was similar to a hiss. She recoiled, placing a comforting hand on Luster’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I’m just-” Her constricted pupils darted to me for an instance; one I wouldn’t have noticed had I not been staring right at her. “Not feeling too well today. In fact, you wouldn’t happen to know any spells for nausea, would you?”
Past the surface tone of politeness, there was a quiver of desperation in her voice I’m certain even Luster could make out. The tip of her horn sparked with magic, resembling a dying lightbulb as it faded out.
“I do not. That would fall under restoration, which is a school that very few unicorns are particularly strong in. Forgive me.”
“No need; you shouldn’t ask for forgiveness about something you have no control over.”
Cadence retracted her hand, holding it close to her chest as her nostrils briefly flared. She turned to me, gaze dropping to the instrument in front of me.
“Could you leave us alone for a moment? I’d like to talk with Chara in private.”
Luster pressed her lips together, taking a step away from Cadance in abject silence.
“Of course. I’ll be outside if you need anything.”
Like with Celestia, she bowed and began to walk away; keeping me in the corner of her vision until I was out of sight.
“Sorry about that. Everytime I look at you, I keep forgetting. Then, when I get close,” she trailed off, sucking air through her teeth.
I closed my eyes, telling myself that the cold was the reason behind my goosebumps. As I shifted in my stool, I tried to pretend Cadance wasn’t there for a moment; strumming the keys and garnering a further appreciation for whoever had designed it with such deliberate precision and passion.
“What does,” I chewed on my tongue, part of me wishing I hadn’t even let that much slip out. I was curious of course; it was maybe my biggest vice. Right next to my lack of self-control when it came to indulging in it. “It feel like? Other than just being wrong, that is.”
More silence. Well, that wasn’t true. I’d been trying to understand the body language of ponies, and some of them made noises: clacking of hooves as they shifted their weight, clothes ruffling as they moved their arms around, it was the little things I found myself paying attention to.
“It’s like whatever I ate just suddenly spoils in my stomach,” she gulped. “And while it tries to make me throw up, it never quite reaches my throat. It just stays there and tortures me. Even my heart’s beating so fast it’s painful, and I can’t stop sweating; I regret not bringing a drink with me because of how dry my mouth gets. Of course, no matter how bad I make it sound it’ll all stop with just a few hoofsteps away from you. It’s so bizarre. The artifacts leave an after effect, but with you it's more like turning off a light switch.”
She awkwardly laughed, falling flat and into silence rather quickly. I put my hands between my thighs again, enjoying the small warmth even if it was just in my hands.
“I guess you’re relieved that you won’t be running into me again then, huh?”
“Chara, you shouldn’t say things like that. Whether you mean it or not.”
Cadance stood beside me, trying-and failing- to hide how much worse it made her feel. She stayed on the edge of my vision, putting noticeable effort to not physically touch me. Her wings held in, so firmly it must have been beyond uncomfortable, if not painful.
“Casual self-deprecation like that is one of the worst things you can do to yourself. Regardless of if you’re serious, joking about it is the first step to believing it. I’m not relieved you’re leaving so I won’t have to talk to you anymore, I’m relieved you’re leaving because you’re going back to your friends and you don’t like it here. Except for when you’re playing piano, apparently.”
She leaned forward, hand trembling as she played a few notes on it. It wasn’t on purpose, but she rubbed shoulders with me. It’d been so long since I’d touched someone that I nearly forgot that lurching terror as it gripped me, forcing me to tense up to a painful extent as I jerked away from her.
“Oh, I’m sorry! Twilight’s letters mentioned you didn’t like physical contact; I should have tried harder.” In a pitiful act of irony, she extended her wing to comfort me, and then grimacing in realization as she retracted it just as swiftly. “I-”
“It's fine.” I blurted out through clenched teeth. “Really. You didn’t do it on purpose and you and the others have been trying not to. Please, I don’t want to talk about it.”
Cadence opened her mouth to retort with something, but swallowed her unspoken words when she spotted my fingers clutching my sides. She shook her head, arms going limp.
I would have been content to lay in that stillness until she left, or I did; whatever happened first. However, I didn’t want to leave things like that. Not after she’d been so persistently nice to me, along with I’d wager being one of the biggest reasons I was getting to go back in the first place.
“What did you want to talk about?”
I broke the tension with a murmur, locking my stare on the keys of the piano. I only knew that each note had an assigned letter thanks to a couple of sections about music in the books at Golden Oak’s, but I never memorized them, since I didn’t think I’d need to. If I got the chance again, I would. For now, I had to make due with playing each note and trying to discern it from the others while burning into my memory which key played that note.
“I wanted to give you some advice on Ponyville. I’m sure Auntie told you that even if you went back, things wouldn’t just go back to normal with Twilight and her friends. Especially,” she paused. “I’ve only met her friends once, and while I liked them, I couldn’t even begin to tell you how they’ll respond to you. Twily though, I’ve known since she was a filly; I was her foalsitter, in fact. I’ve watched her grow into a mare and soar through all the expectations everypony’s had for her. ‘Proud’ doesn’t cut it.”
“Has she changed a lot?”
“Not as much as you might think.” Cadance remarked with a smirk. Her horn lit up in that light blue aura, pushing down on each key much longer than with her hands. Being so close to her, I could make out her chin trembling and jaw tightening. They eased up only when she stopped playing a note, just to tense up again when she started on the next one. “It wasn’t until she went to Ponyville and made some friends there that she really started to grow. She used to stay in her tower with Spike all day and read books; Now friendship is the most important thing in the world to her. Which is why,”
She clenched her fist, shaking her head as the magic vanished. I began counting each breath I took, focusing on the numbers instead of the growing silence as I waited for her to continue. There was a rough idea in my head of what she wanted to talk about, and I’d been thinking about it on and off since I’d got in the chariot.
None of that ruminating had put me a step closer to an answer though.
“Twilight won’t trust you. Even though she looks up to Auntie more than anypony else, you betrayed her, and there’s no sugarcoating that. She’s never been betrayed before; not like this. She’ll struggle a lot. I can’t say for sure what she’ll do, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she avoided you entirely.”
I waited for her to go on, only instead to be followed by a gradually more unsettling silence.
“Then,” Cadance wasn’t looking at me, perhaps intentionally so. “What can I do?”
“You have to convince her to give you a second chance. Not that she can trust you again per se, only that she should give you the chance to earn her trust again. However, even if you try that, I don’t think it’d work. Mm,” she let out a distressed humming noise, tugging at her mane as the skin around her eyes bunched. “I hate to bring it up, but if you and Fluttershy are still on speaking terms, that would help a lot. Ju-”
“I don’t get it.”
I didn’t mean for that thought to leave my mouth, yet it did; Much sharper and more harsh than I would have liked. I tightly gripped my knees, pushing down on them and forcing them to stop shaking. There was a heat in my chest, coiling like a snake trying to suffocate me from the inside.
“Why are you trying so hard to help me?” There was a tremor to my voice I just couldn’t shake; I hardly mustered more than a whisper. “You tried to give me advice on relationships, then I’m sure you convinced Celestia to let me go back, and now you want to tell me how to fix things with Twilight? I just don’t understand.”
She just sat there for a long time, unmoving and undeterred. Without even an utterance, Cadance stood up and took a few steps away; a tentativeness in her gait that wasn’t present before. Once she walked a few feet away from me, her wings visibly unwound.
“When Twilight first mentioned you in her letters, she was really interested. Of course, with you being a new species and having amnesia, I’m sure that was obvious to you. I’m sure it would have stayed like that, if Fluttershy hadn’t asked for Twilight’s help with you; Fluttershy didn’t say it was you, but Twilight figured it out sooner than later.” she chuckled, whispering something under her breath. “She genuinely tried to help, but it just wasn’t something she had a grasp on yet; which frustrated her to no end. It wasn’t until you and her started talking after you read books in the library that she started getting close to you herself. I’m not sure if she ever saw you that way, but you were friends. Until,”
She didn’t go on.
“Until I killed those diamond dogs?” I finished for her.
“Yes. Twilight’s never seen something like that; not even the wedding got that bad. I’m sure she’s struggling just like the others.” Cadance paused, taking a deep breath. “I won’t lie and say that helping you has nothing to do with helping Twilight. Even so, that’s not all it is, I promise.”
Her voice briefly cracked like mine often did, firm only with an underlying conviction. I finally stood from the stool, ignoring the fleeting dizziness that always came with standing up too fast.
“I know you don’t like being analyzed, but I can tell there’s good in you; it hurts to see you so unwilling to acknowledge it.” she put a hand on her chest, facing me as she dropped her chin.” I can’t defend what you did. Despite that, looking at you, I’m sure you did it because you thought you had to; yet it’s tearing you apart. I’m helping you because I want to help you! Isn’t that,” her eyes rapidly darted back forth, searching for something I couldn’t see. Eventually stiffening as she closed her eyes. “Enough of a reason?”
“‘Because you want to?’” I repeated as I turned to face her; the words foreign on my lips like a different language. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“You don’t have to say anything; I don’t even know what to tell you with Twilight. Really,” she rubbed her shoulder, breaking the eye contact I hardly noticed we’d made. “Just tell me you’ll make things ok with her. Please.”
“Well,” My body felt heavy as I moved. Not sluggish, exactly. More like the glob of emotions that threatened to spew out of my mouth solidified into some horrid metal as cold as Canterlot was at night. Every nerve-wracking second that passed without saying anything made it infinitely more dense until collapsing seemed inevitable. “I planned on that anyway. I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask.” She let out a shaky breath, clearing her throat. “I should really be getting back; Shining’s going on an assignment tomorrow and he should be done polishing his armor by now. One of these days I’ll let him know I know that’s just code for him reading comics, but tonight is not that night.”
Cadance began walking towards the exit, perking up after getting a few steps.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Do you like surprises, Chara?”
“Uhm,” I wanted to say ‘no’ outright, but I guess I didn’t find the idea of a pleasant surprise too upsetting. “A little, if it’s a good one.”
“This is a good one, I think. I have a gift for you tomorrow before you go. Until then.” She smirked, giving me a small wave.
I tried to wave back, only to realize too late that I’d never actually waved before. What resulted was some stiff, almost robotic attempt at mimicking one; made only more awkward when I saw that she was already gone by the time I finished the gesture.
The room felt just a little warmer as I breathed with every ounce of my body. Without looking, I stroked the piano, letting the random stream of notes ring out in the mostly empty hall.
I think that’s enough piano playing today.
______________
Brash didn’t bring much about Dark’s parents; just the report she gave to them after she gave up the search, which just said that she found nothing in a lot of words, and a newspaper article on them from a couple of days ago. His mother didn’t appear in it, but his father Polaris Starcloud did; along with his daughter, Nebulous Shift.
I combed through it as I sat on my bed, not even bothering to read whatever else had been going on in Canterlot that day. From what I could understand, he was being interviewed about some discovery he’d made thanks to bringing his daughter to work that day. The picture of him was the definition of proud: wearing a concerningly large smile and holding her in his lap. Nebulous herself seemed very uncomfortable and clearly didn’t want to have her picture taken.
She was so young; even younger than Sweetie Belle. She couldn’t have been older than three or four if my fragile understanding of pony ages had any weight. I rest my chin on the palm of my hand, reading the same section over and over again; scraping the pieces of information I had together until they fit.
The article mentioned that they’d never had any more kids, yet clearly they did. It’s possible Brash got the wrong pony, but considering how long she spent making sure she had the right one it wasn’t likely. Dark also said their fight was about him inheriting their legacy; something he didn’t want to do and was why he left. Come to think of it, a few years ago would have been when he left and when Nebulous was born.
A harrowing thought scampered into my mind: what if they replaced him with her?
It’d make sense. With their sole inheritor gone, they would need someone else. After Brash couldn’t find him, maybe they decided it would have been easier to have another child than t-
I closed the newspaper, cutting myself off before I divulged in my pessimism a second more. I didn’t know Dark’s parents, or really anything about them except what he’d told me about them. Not that I thought he was lying to me, just that they didn’t leave off on good terms; I shouldn’t judge them because of that.
I put the paper into my backpack before collapsing into the oversized bed; A few days of using it only slightly helped the discomfort of being given a room far more extravagant than I really needed. I thought about the music I played today, of all things. The conversation with Celestia or Cadance should have lingered more, or my worries about how things will go at Ponyville tomorrow. It was bewildering for them to be so far back, while the handful of songs I’d managed to churn out hovered around instead.
As I fell asleep, I pictured Fluttershy. It was comforting to know that soon, I wouldn’t have to picture it anymore.
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Does the next chapter involve telling somepony her secret?
I've only read two chapters and I can already tell that this is a visceral and emotionally relentless story.
Just like Chara, in certain fanon interpretations.
11498683
that is admittedly a problem with this fic. At least, for people familiar with undertale to a certain degree. For this to have any real impact, they have to see this interpretation of Chara's character as believable. Which, I think I've done a good job of so far, but there's little I can to those that see them as something else entirely and have solidified that bias.
11498687
I don't know much about Undertale, but are you referring to Chara basically becoming corrupted after learning from the player that not only that killing is good, but it was *the* purpose of her reincarnation to help the player eliminate everyone? Hence why she basically goes crazy on the player and jumpscares them when the player refuses to erase the world, which was what Chara thought was what they wanted and thus the reason she had to go through all of the monster deaths?
Chapter 28 ? What happen to 27?
11499178
Mentally, I am a goldfish.
11498954
Yeah
11499195
Yeah, she basically identifies herself as a demon, perhaps not as a purely evil entity as many say, but as your punisher for committing genocide and then wanting to go back to the world you just destroyed.
That's why Soulless Pacifist exists.
But I think you did a great interpretation of what Chara otherwise would've been had the LOVE not infected her. It's both Frisk's and Chara's LOVE that we're increasing. Maybe even just Chara! We/Frisk might be just that strong already that they simply use more of their power as they get used to killing. Chara meanwhile is the one who's mainly affected by detaching herself from others and becoming who she is.
11498687
Seems pretty plausible to me for someone who knows deeply Undertale the only thing that comes out is not Determinetion Chara's
Really excited for more, and hopefully some revelations lol.
Also Chara's corrupted form of LOVE is what comes to mind as what's wrong lol.
Thanks for this awesome fic!
Man I know all good things come to those who are patient but man does it kill me to wait but for the sake of good storytelling I shall wait keep it up bud👍
Honestly if all of this gets to a boiling point with chara I can imagine her just attempting a reset in the time loop.
Hey will there be More
11530771
yeah the next chapter is done its just currently in the editing phase. Should be out any day now, sorry for the wait.
11530772
Wow didn't expect a reply that fast but cool can't wait thought maybe you would have drop it a lot of people have been doing that no message or warning just not updating glad to know you still on it👍
This definitely puts a smile on my face.