An Old Friend

Reconciliation

Tempest walked directly into the low-hanging branch, expecting her magic to push it aside; the magic that she no longer had. "Ow." Even though it had been weeks since she'd lost her horn, the cyan-eyed filly was still not used to the loss of her horn. The branch had directly hit her horn, which let off a few varicoloured sparks as a response. Thoughts of her horn sparked thoughts of her friends, who had drifted apart from-No!-They had left her to die. Tempest kept telling herself that. It was the only thing that made their abandonment hurt less. And after days of constantly telling herself that, her young mind eventually began to believe it, reframing everything that had happened

“Are you sure the ball is in there?” Tempest asked, trying to hide her trembling. The dark orchid unicorn filly was standing in front of a cave, along with two other unicorn fillies standing next to her. One of them had a green coat, and the other had a blue one. The fillies were in a forest clearing surrounded by trees with large, barbed thorns that seemed to drip a viscous black sap. In front of them was a deep, inky-black cave. The cloying smell of decay filled the air, seemingly thick enough to choke the fillies.

“Yeah, go on, Tempest. Glitter Drops and I fetched the balls the last two times,” said the blue filly, hiding her own trembling. “We can’t keep playing without the ball.”

“Yeah, Tempest, you can do it!” added the green-coated filly, presumably Glitter, whose eyes were darting all over the place.

“Okay…” Tempest trailed off, her horn flickering, reflecting her agitation. She lit her horn and walked towards the cave, her movements jerky. As she got closer the darkness of the cave seemed to smother the hornlight, and the odour of decay grew stronger. At the entrance, she could hear a slight rumbling, just barely audible to her ears.

Tempest crept into the cave, trying to catch sight of the bright yellow ball that had rolled in. As she quietly tip-hoofed across the cave, she caught a flash of yellow to her left and turned her head to see the bright yellow ball near a pile of long white things she didn’t want to think about. She quickly snatched it up with a levitation field and tried to run out as quietly as possible. As she neared the entrance, she started running in earnest, trying to get back to the relative safety of the clearing.

Suddenly, the unicorn heard a roar behind her.

Tempest’s control over her horn faltered, and the ball flew out of the cave due to remaining momentum before hitting the ground with a thud. After freezing for a moment, she turned around, only to see a blue, star-covered bear that dwarfed her tiny filly body. She lit her horn to at least try to defend herself, but the bear swiped down at her. The last thing she sensed was a loud snap and a searing pain from her horn before she knew no more.

She remembered waking up. She remembered that the moon was rising. That the blue monster that assaulted her was nowhere to be seen. That no one was there to be seen... it was only her.

The dark orchid unicorn tried to light her horn to see, but only saw varicoloured sparks of light. Her horn throbbed, the pain only increasing whenever she tried to channel more mana. She slowly raised a hoof to her horn.

Tempest felt only a broken stub in place of her conical horn. As she struggled to process this new development, she saw there was neither hide nor hair of her friends. Her friends were gone, and they had taken their ball with them. How could they just leave me to die?

“...Actually, it’s…” started Tempest, before catching a glimpse of a very familiar blue coat and mane amongst the crowd. She blinked and saw the pony again. “Excuse me…” Tempest’s voice trailed off as she hurried to where she spotted the pony, gently nudging other ponies and the occasional hippogriff or Abyssinian out of her way as she moved.

Tempest cautiously weaved through the crowd, occasionally voicing an awkward apology to the creatures around her while ducking her head down as if to hide from any judgement that may come from anycreature. All the while, her mind was racing. Could it be?

Finally, the Tempest caught sight of the blue mare again, who was wearing a hat and cloak. It is her!

“Lula?”

The blue mare turned around with a swirl of her star-spangled purple cloak, revealing her cutie mark, which was only barely visible in the dim light of the Canterlot platform. “Who dares call the Great and Powerful Trixie by her childhood nickname?”

Suddenly, Tempest’s horn flared as she levelled a burning glare at the mare who was once one of her best friends. “You don’t recognise the unicorn you left for dead in a cave, Trixie?”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed before she froze and gaped at Tempest. “B-Berry?”

“My name is Tempest Shadow.” Tempest snarled. “First you leave me to die, and then you just completely forget about me?” Seeing the turning heads of the nearby ponies, Tempest lowered her voice near the end of her sentence.

“What? No! Glitter and Trixie carried you to the hospit-” Trixie exclaimed, before getting interrupted by Tempest’s expletive.

“Horseapples.” Tempest spat out. “You left me to die there, Trixie. I remember waking up there, all alone.”

“But Tri-I brou-” Trixie stammered, her eyes welling up with tears.

“Utter horseapples. I remember waking up there, all alone, with a broken horn.” Tempest snarled.

“Maybe your memories are wrong! Did you ever think about that?” Trixie yelled, tears dripping down her face. She ran away through the crowd of creatures.

But… But… How could even my memories be wrong? Tempest just stood there, her maybe-misplaced anger draining away as the surrounding ponies started loudly talking about what had just occurred. As she tried to recall the day she lost her horn, she found that some of the details were different, and slightly fuzzy compared to the perfect recollection she had all the other times. Was she really telling me the truth? “I need to find Trixie,” she whispered. She ran after Trixie, trying to catch up.

"Trixie?" Tempest quickly swept her gaze across the crowds, searching desperately for the combination of a blue coat and purple cloak, but her quarry was nowhere to be seen. Where did she go?

By now, creatures were starting to put two and two together about who Tempest really was, had started moving away from her. The space allowed Tempest to catch a glimpse of Trixie’s purple cloak moving towards the stairs near the edge of the Friendship Festival decorations. Tempest quickly galloped to the spot, everycreature hastily moving out of her way. As she reached the stairs, Tempest could hear all the loud whispering behind her.

Away from the festivities, the streets were quite dark. Tempest quickly shot a small burst of magic to light up the area, only to see Trixie running into one of the few brightly-lit stores. “TRIXIE.”

As Tempest moved closer, she noticed the large donut sign on the front, with the words ‘Pony Joe’ formed by the glazing. She walked inside, ignoring the yellow unicorn stallion at the counter, spotting Trixie at one of the corner tables. The blue unicorn had covered herself with her purple cloak, with the occasional sob coming out. “Trixie?”

“The Upset And Offended Trixie would like to be left alone right now.” said Trixie, with intermittent sobbing. As Tempest got closer, she noticed the untouched blue donuts on a plate in front of the unicorn.

Tempest carefully moved her hoof to Trixie’s shoulder. “Trixie, what really happened on that day?”

“Trixie thought you didn’t want to hear it.” Trixie emerged from the purple cocoon formed by her cloak and used her magic to remove her tears.

“Well, I do now.” said Tempest, sitting on the stool next to Trixie. Her horn let off a few sparks from the overexertion it had suffered.

Trixie took a bite of the donut in front of her and waited for a while. Tempest started fidgeting slightly. Suddenly, Trixie broke the silence. “The ball flew out, and we waited for you to come out of the cave. Then, Glitter and Trix- I heard this really loud roar, so we hid behind the trees. We heard something walk out, and it made the ground shake with every step. We were terrified.”

Trixie gulped, pausing for a moment to recollect herself. She took another bite of her donut. “After a while, we couldn’t hear the shaking anymore, so we walked out from behind the tree. Glitter found you lying at the mouth of the cave. We shook you, but you didn’t wake up. Suddenly, there was a burst of light, and we were all thrown back from the cave entrance. We strained our horns to carry you and bring you back. Every now and then, we checked on you. Halfway to the town, you were blinking, and you’d started murmuring nonsense.” As Trixie spoke, Tempest remembered more and more of her true memories.

“She’s awake, Trixie.”

Tempest struggled to open her eyes, occasionally managing to get them open enough to catch a glimpse of flashes of blue and green. She tried to talk, but all that came out was unintelligible nonsense.

“We need to get her to the hospital, Trixie. I think her hea…”

Tempest succumbed to sleep once more.

Trixie continued to talk. “We brought you to the hospital, but they couldn’t do anything for your shattered horn. Every time they tried, they were thrown back by a burst of light. One time, you started crying, so they stopped.”

“Again!”

Tempest caught a glimpse of a unicorn wearing a white coat before she felt an almost blinding flash of pain from her horn. It felt like it was being broken all over again. Suddenly, there was a burst of light, and she started crying.

“We visited you whenever we could, but we could only stay there for so long each visit. Usually, you were asleep. Even when you recovered from everything else, your horn was completely broken.”

Tempest’s recovered memories displaced her old, fake ones. “I remember! But you all didn’t even want to play with me.”

“We didn’t want you to try and hurt yourself by using your horn, and those were the only games we knew. Then one day, you just disappeared. The whole town searched for you, but we couldn’t find you. Glitter and I were really upset,” added Trixie.

“I left Equestria...because I thought you both abandoned me…” Tempest whispered.

“What? Why?” Trixie exclaimed. “Why would you do that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Lula, will you be my friend, again?” Tempest asked. Please say yes. Please say yes.

“Fear not, Berry, for the Great and Powerful Trixie will always stick by her Great and Powerful Friend!” Trixie tackle-hugged Tempest.

After a while, Trixie broke the hug. “Have you tried one of these donuts. Not many foods are worthy of the Great and Powerful Trixie, but these donuts…”

Author's Note:

This all happened because of that one flashback in the movie, during 'Open Up Your Eyes', where Tempest had two friends. One of them had the same colour scheme as Trixie and here we are.

Once again, thanks to Eikichirou, Shilic, and the aforementioned unnamed friend for pre-reading this. I don't think I could have finished without you all.

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