Chapter 123: Realm of the Real
Astral woke up hurting.
It was dark outside, and his ruined sleep schedule was not exactly doing wonders. At least he could see for the most part. Despite wanting to sleep, the steady ache in his side and chest refused to let him drift back off.
And, naturally, the pain medication was maxed out.
Sassi let out a yawn, Astral looking at her as she woke up.
“Y’know, this hive mind thing is kinda fun,” she mused, scooting closer to lay her head on the hospital bed. “You wake up, and I can sense it. So, I do too.”
“That can be a good or bad thing, Sas.”
“Eh. Maybe. I’ve been pretty out of sorts these past few days,” she shrugged. “More time to talk with you, the better.”
“Are you d-doing ok now?” he asked, unable to stop a pained hiss from leaving his mouth. “Ok. Maybe not much talking.”
She immediately checked the drug system, frowning at seeing the timer.
“Less talking, more resting,” Sassi said firmly.
“Can I get a hoof?” Astral asked. The pain gnawed at his mind, and he could barely lift his forelimb. A turmoil of emotions abruptly cascaded over his mind and heart. He knew it was a side-effect of the surgery and trauma. And, well, everything. But the fact it hit so fast and heavy sent fear zipping through his being.
“P-please?” he whispered. There was an irrational fear that dug into his heart. Being helpless in a hospital bed, at the mercy of-
Sassi gripped his hoof, curling up on the chair next to him.
“Always. I still feel bad I couldn’t do this in that Silo. So, I’ll make up for lost time,” she said firmly. “A hoof you will always have. And so much more.”
His only audible response was the sniffle, the stallion closing his eyes and holding Sassi’s hoof tight.
“Thank you, Sas. I didn’t blame you back then. Still don’t. Never will.”
“Doesn’t mean I still don’t feel bad about it.”
The shocked look the two shared made the Thestrals immediately grin in unison.
“This…is going to take some getting used to.” Astral couldn’t help but let out a soft huff, then a hiss of pain as a headache threatened to emerge. “Ok. Peaceful thought-talky. Nothing crazy.”
“It’s us. How crazy could things get?”
Astral managed to control himself from laughing as Sassi’s voice echoed in his mind. The fear was gone, now only replaced by a warm glow of affection.
What would he do without this mare?
The stallion didn’t even know when he dozed off. Sassi had been telling him about the news, their celebrity status…
And the next thing he knew, it was bright outside. He really couldn’t wait to get back to his usual nocturnal schedule. It just felt wrong to be in the sun.
Sassi was curled up on the chair next to the bed, dozing peacefully. Apparently, they had missed breakfast, judging by the clock. Or rather, Sassi had missed it because a mound of meal-replacement shakes were piled next to the door.
Ugh.
The medications thankfully had kicked in, because his torso just ached in the background, far better than the gnawing pain from before. So, that was a plus.
There was a soft knock at the door, and a brightly-colored head poked its way in with a cheerful smile.
“You’re up!” the green and purple changeling nurse said, thankfully not too loudly. “Just need to check some things.”
She trotted over to the monitors and let out an approving hum. Pausing, the changeling then blinked in genuine confusion, staring at Astral.
“Uh, everything good?” he asked, the mare shaking her head.
“Sort of! I mean yes! Well, for you. But-” she stammered, looking at him a bit closer. “Whoaaaa. Weird.”
“I mean, no need to point it out,” Astral grumbled, the nurse giggling.
“Oh! Sorry. That was rude.” she waved a hoof, taking a step or two back. “My name is Sclairy. They said you had some sort of modifications done. I didn’t know you were part of a hive mind. As a pony that’s-well, that shouldn’t happen.”
“Well, getting put into a blender with the DNA from a creature in Limbo would do that,” Sassi said with a yawn. “So, you can sense it?”
“Mmhmm!” Sclairy said with a happy nod, then appeared to glare at someone outside the door. “Oh, just come in already! And introduce yourselves!”
Two more rather-embarrassed changelings filed in; a darker blue and green stallion, and another teal and pink mare.
“Sorry. Just, we could sense something all night and we had no idea what it was,” the stallion said with a meek smile. “Sorry again for intruding. Sensing another hive mind just makes us all jittery if we don’t know if they’re friends. My name is Jerti.”
“And we can’t sense anything about you,” the other nurse piped up. “It’s just a fuzzy “there” sort of thing. Oh, and I’m Imly!”
“We can’t sense you guys,” Astral admitted, “we’re still figuring things out on our end.”
“Speaking of which, that thing is like our hive healing balls!” Sclairy exclaimed, looking at the glowing metal egg. “Well. Sort of. We just have little crystals we use. This is like, a super-charged version of it-oooooh.”
“Oh?” Sassi said, stretching as she got up. “Is that a good “oh” or a bad “oh?”
“It’s an “oh, it’s absorbing love” type of “oh,”” Imly said with a smile. “Powerful stuff. I’m not surprised he’s bouncing back.”
“Sas is a giant ball of deadly love. Mostly deadly, but lots of love too,” Astral said cheerfully, making his marefriend abruptly turn a bright red. “What? It’s true!”
“Glad to see the painkillers are kicking in,” she muttered, Astral laughing.
“I mean, yeah. But remember what I said back in the Silos? Best. Romance. Novel. Everrrrr!”
The nurses were trying to suppress their laughter as Sassi pouted, the mare gesturing to the monitors.
“When can he stand up? Or even leave?”
Sclairy took another look, then examined his chart.
“While he’s improved a ton, he’s only been on the up and up for a single day. He’s got at least another two days in the hospital,” she mused, glancing at Astral. “You can probably stand up tomorrow. Considering that healing device is working around the clock, the usual recovery schedule doesn’t apply.”
“And that’s on top of being like, a super soldier,” Imly chimed in.
“I can stand up tomorrow. Well, gotta appreciate the little things,” Astral sighed. “In the meantime, I have to down a ton of those meal replacement shakes. Oh boy.”
Sassi trotted over, hauling over a few boxes of them and sampling one. After a swig, she stared at the cardboard container, and shrugged, testing the contents.
“Eh. Not bad. Vanilla, chocolate, and coconut flavored,” she said, finishing the shake as Astral sighed.
“Well. Could be worse.”
The changelings waved, Sclairy shaking her head as the other two left with a brief goodbye.
“Thanks for tolerating the intrusion,” she said, Sassi waving a hoof dismissively.
“Eh. Don’t worry about it. Honestly, we might come to you for some advice about hive mind stuff.”
“Anytime!”
They were then left alone, Sassi snagging a few of the shakes and settling back down next to Astral.
“Welp. Time to eat. So, bottoms up!” she said, smirking as Astral glared at her.
“I can feed myself,” he grumbled, the mare looking at him with a bit of mock incredulousness.
“Oh, can you?”
She placed the shake in his hoof, the stallion glaring at the offending item.
“Ok. Not fair. This thing weighs a ton!”
“Yeah, ok,” she sighed, taking it back. “Maybe another few days in the hospital. But, to be fair, you’ve barely had a day from being basically dead.”
“Hey, they can work with mostly dead!”
The mare couldn’t help but giggle at the reference, helping him drink down a shake.
“Ok, that actually tastes really good,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s the diet of military rations, but it’s not bad!”
“Another?”
“Yuuup!”
Astral looked over to his marefriend, a bit of a blush flaring up on his cheeks.
“Thanks for this,” he said softly. “I mean, this. Everything. I’d be very, very dead without you.”
“Yeah, well, ditto,” she said with a wave, “but you’re welcome.”
“I’ll make it up to you somehow? Maybe?”
Sassi snorted, shrugging as she helped him drink another shake.
“Eh. Once we get married, just lock yourself in the bedroom with me for a day, and we’ll call it even.”
Astral nearly choked on the shake, glaring at Sassi as she cackled.
“Not fair!”
“Totally fair. Now drink up!”
He did so, glaring at her the entire time.
“How about we do that anyways?”
Apparently his mental teasing got through, because Sassi’s face turned a rather adorable shade of pink to match his own. She was close enough that as soon as he was done drinking, he reached up to kiss her.
She pressed her lips back eagerly, the mare sniffling as she wiped her eyes.
“I’ve missed this,” she whispered, Astral’s ears perking up.
“Me, kissing, or the teasing?”
“Yes.”
She managed to find a way to carefully give him a half hug, the stallion nuzzling into her fur. Just her familiar smell, knowing she was there…
It relaxed him in a way that the drugs just couldn’t touch.
I’ll be ok.
Twilight trotted the halls of the hospital, checking in on the various patients. It was a new goal she was trying to hold to; visiting those that already were down on their luck.
Sure, Sassi and Astral were her primary objective, but the Princess already had plans for other hospital visits across Equestria.
All part of showing that I care, not just saying I do.
As for today, she had another meeting with Tanzil. He was supposed to be here at this hospital visiting a few wounded gryphons from the Silo containment encounter before finding her by wandering the old-fashioned way, visiting more creatures as he went. It was another gesture that only made Twilight’s view of the gryphon more favorable.
As if she wasn’t biased to begin with.
However, first things first.
She found Sassi meandering the halls, the Thestral waving to Twilight as she approached.
“Hey, Princess. Any big news I need to know about?” the mare asked, Twilight shaking her head.
“Nope. Just thought I’d check in the normal way, as opposed to teleporting into your room.”
Sassi giggled; a genuine sound that made tension bleed out of Twilight’s shoulders. The Thestral was happy. She hadn’t seen Sassi happy like this before. It was rather adorable.
“Well, Astral is awake, and already complaining constantly about a liquid diet. But that’s just for today, and maybe part of tomorrow,” Sassi said, rolling her eyes. “He’s going to be ok. No long-term damage either.”
“That’s fantastic! Did Joro’s device do that?”
Sassi blinked, her head tilting in confusion.
“She didn’t tell you? Harmony?”
Looking around awkwardly, Sassi scuffed the floor with a hoof as Twilight stared.
“I’ll…uh, take that as a no,” the Thestral muttered. “She visited me. Basically, she wanted to make things right for not being there. So, Astral won’t have any long-term physical damage.”
Twilight opened and closed her mouth a few times, sentences starting but then being redone halfway. The Alicorn motioned with a wing to a spare room, the two of them walking in for some privacy.
“I haven’t heard of Harmony visiting anyone outside of a few specialized moments. I mean, I’ve been out of touch with her for a while until recently. But she doesn’t just do that lightly.”
Sassi sat down with a shrug.
“I mean, I understood why she did it. Felt guilty and stuff, for not helping. It’s a unique thing for me, though. Apparently, someone else stepped in when she failed. Harmony looked pretty miserable about it all.”
“I certainly feel guilty about everything,” Twilight admitted, looking up at the mare as tension gripped her chest. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for failing you, for not helping. I hope you can forgive me someday, if such a thing is possible,” she shook her head. “I trusted that systems I made would work and keep ponies safe and make Equestria, and the world, better. I was wrong. I honestly didn’t know. But that’s on me.”
Sassi didn’t say anything for a few moments, her eyes drifting down to the floor. The mare finally sighed, shaking her head. When she looked up, there was a bit of confusion in her gaze, but also a fair deal of exhaustion.
“Harmony said something similar, that she just didn’t know. She said she was sorry and would have helped and all that stuff,” Sassi explained, her demeanor sagging. The mare just looked tired.
“Just like with Harmony, I don’t hold anything against you, Princess. There’s nothing to forgive. You didn’t know.”
The shock must have written itself across Twilight’s face because a slight smile twitched at Sassi’s features before fading.
“You didn’t know. Whether that’s due to some failed system or government, it didn’t really matter to me back then, and it’s irrelevant now. It’s just how it is. I never had any preconceptions that you could or would help me. I didn’t see you as evil or good. Nothing existed outside of the Silos. Nothing could. There wasn’t any existing bad blood, is what I’m trying to say.”
A vice began to constrict around Twilight’s heart at Sassi’s words. They weren’t spoken with malice, just a blunt honesty that was absent in most of the Princess’s conversations.
“I just assumed you didn’t know about me or didn’t care, just like the “Harmony of Equestria.” Whatever the reason, I was on my own. That turned out to be true until now. So, there’s really nothing to forgive. We’re good.”
The mare’s eyes then narrowed, Sassi blowing out a frustrated breath.
“Maybe I should be angry at you, about why you didn’t know and all of that. But I never trusted a government to care about me anyhow. I never really saw Equestria as different from any other nation. So, it doesn’t shock me. It just confirmed what I assumed. Even if I wanted to be angry, the creatures directly responsible are either dead, captured, or eventually will be one of the two,” Sassi looked up at Twilight, and it shocked the Alicorn to see peace behind her eyes.
“I’m just tired of it. I want to move on to a better life with Astral. That’s possible in part due to you. So, thank you,” she said, getting up. “I probably should get back to him.”
“That you should,” Twilight managed to say with a smile, nodding to the mare as she left.
When she was alone in the room, Twilight hung her head and let the tears fall.
I failed.
Sassi hadn’t been meaning to condemn; she could have said far worse. But her stating of how Equestria was just the same as all other governments, that they just were “there,” it punched Twilight in the gut. They should be better, or strive to be.
It meant my systems failed. And because of that, creatures suffered and died. And somehow Sassi doesn’t hold any ill will against me.
She thanked me. Tens of thousands of creatures died because of my misplaced trust. This mare grew up in an environment of pain and suffering…and she thanked me.
I don’t deserve it.
That spoke far more of Sassi than Twilight presumed the mare realized.
The tears continued to fall, Twilight trying to not spiral into a depressive echo chamber of her own analytical and overly-critical mind. Yet all the evidence pointed to such a thing being deserved. The room seemed to constrict, the light fading as darkness settled in. The mare’s chest tightened, Twilight forcing herself to breathe-
The soft sound of claws on tile made the mare’s ears perk up, the atmosphere snapping back to reality in an instant. She was about to turn around, but just from the weight and gait, she knew exactly who it was.
Of course, he overheard that.
A familiar wing gently spread over her shoulders, a comforting voice reaching her ears.
“The knowledge that you failed a voice you never knew existed is one of the many agonizing burdens a ruler must bear. All we can do is try to hear every voice, no matter how small, and no matter how deep it’s buried. All we can be is better than before.”
Twilight’s shoulders shook, the Princess letting herself cry for a bit longer. As she wiped her tears, the wing on her shoulder vanished, the gryphon making his way back to the halls to “officially” meet up with her.
Thank you, Tanzil.
x2
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Sometimes being forgiven actually hurts more, you feel like you don't deserve it and that they're just lying to you to spare your feelings. I know self depreciation well, it's an easy mindset to fall into.
Waving to THE Twilight. The one and only. The best. Lol, I can't tell if that's a typo or not.
11658704
There's always something. Thank you!
11658703
And in this case...it's just a neutral dismissive nature. "I never thought you cared. So...we're good." Poor Twilight has enough self-doubt as it is....so...yeah.
Man Tanzil Is the absolute Goat.
As we are nearing the end here but I still feel like there is so much more going to happen.
No shooty stuff but various emotional things and meet up still need to happen.
11658831
He's awesome.
Safe to say, there are a few things that are going to happen, but we're in the last arc, as things are winding down.
11658936
I wonder, does the Idol have life-extending abilities? It would make sense as to why it was the cornerstone of the griffons Tanzil is most certainly like Sombra an extra long-lived being I think that could explain it.
11659046
While Astral and Sassi will be in the sequel, they'll be yielding the spotlight (in part) to a few familiar faces...
I can confirm it doesn't have anything due to the Idol (it was canonically lost, as far as I know.) He is, however, clearly not normal
Another slice of humble pie for Twilight, but thankfully she still has a friend to help her through it all. ^^
Also love Sassi and Astral getting time to relax and heal. Thank you so much for this story.
11659515
Most welcome! I'm just glad you, and so many others have enjoyed the ride!
11663144
.......
"If I don't survive, tell my wife hello."
Right! Caught up after.... 4 days of reading! Alrighty... How many chapters are left?
11663940
Glad to provide some amusement!
Not including the Epilogues? 4