Pain (III)
---
Silence. Not a heavy silence. Not a solid silence. Simply silence.
“…That was a few months in. Dawn switched my interrogators around a little while afterwards. Pet was still allowed to come see me, if I’d been ‘good’, but she wasn’t the ‘good cop’ anymore. I think Dawn was worried that she might get… disturbed, seeing what I looked like after Cotton Candy but before the doctors.” A glance. “Gaia and Lash didn’t mind.”
A door rattling, squeaking open and closed. A pony sitting down. “Pinkie said to go on without her. She needed to go… get something, I guess.” A glance. “Jeez, what’d I miss?”
“Nothing much. Just a little memory, occupying the time.”
“What wa-“
“Rainbow.” A rather shaky voice. “It ain’t somethin’ y’need t’hear.”
“You… you can look at the notes, afterwards, Rainbow. If you want.”
A sigh. “Alright, alright. So Pet had just left, right?”
A nod. “She came back a few hours later, said that Dawn had agreed to my proposal. Apparently, she – Dawn - expected that everything was going to go smoothly just because I wasn’t going to be attacking everypony I saw. Didn’t modify the initial suggestion at all; ‘Tour, Parliament, training yard, supper, meeting’. All, supposedly, to be done in one day.”
“Should I hazard a guess as to how well that worked out?”
Another laugh. “Remember the first visit to Rarity’s? Everywhere we were supposed to go afterwards?”
“I do. We only made it to Sweet Apple Acres before… things went wrong.” A nod. “And it took us a few weeks to actually get to Rainbow.” Another nod.
“Stretch it to four months, and you have the time it took to actually get to the ‘supper with Dawn’ part. She wanted everything done in one day, something to do with getting me to follow directions properly, so each buckup reset the plan. Even if I wasn’t the problem.” A cough. “Admittedly, I was the problem for a good amount of it. Turns out a lot of ponies want to kill you when you’ve spent eight years killing their coworkers, friends, siblings, parents, children…” The stallion trailed off. “Pip usually took care of them, though.”
“So they just shuffled you around every day until you managed to make it to supper without somepony trying to murder you?”
“Not every day, it was usually once, twice a week; even with the healing spells, I needed recovery time from Cotton Candy, Gaia and Lash, and, on occasion, whatever the buck I’d been attacked with. And they were trying to kill me, not murder me. They were very clear on that.”
“The difference being?”
The other stallion. “Murder is defined as ‘an unlawful attempt to end the life of a sentient being’, Miss Dash. Broken Shield was not considered an… existing party, in the PDRE. While nopony actually denied his existence, his status as a known leader and member of one of the rebel groups resulted in a revocation of his citizenship, and as he did not hold citizenship elsewhere, he was not considered an illegal immigrant. He and the other rebels were thus caught in an area outside of the law; neither citizen nor non-citizen laws covered them, so nothing done to them violated any laws. Even if they were, the destruction they had wrought would likely justify calling their deaths ‘lawful’. Because of this, he could not be ‘murdered.’” A breath. “Very few ponies were willing to attack him unarmed, as well, so ‘kill’ is the most correct term for the collective attempts on his life.”
“Wouldn’t that make them unaccountable for any of the ‘crimes’ they committed, though? If they weren’t covered by any laws, then they couldn’t violate any laws, right?”
The first stallion. “Yup. That’s… part… of the reason the conflict stayed so bloody. Neither side willing to take the chance of the other taking advantage of their legal ‘immunity’. If you got caught, you were dead, and nopony wanted to parley with the pony that killed their brother.
“In any case, I spent six months getting pieces ripped out of me, then grown back, then ripped out again. Occasionally I got treated like a conscious being. Occasionally occasionally I got treated like a pony.” A breath, somewhat tense. “I hope you’ll excuse the fact that I don’t exactly remember many specifics.”
“Y’were talkin’ pretty specific not too long ago…”
A half-grin. “Trust me, clarity like that… I might have a ‘more extreme memory’ to go with my ‘more extreme magic’ and ‘more extreme viewpoints’ and ‘more extreme muscle deterioration’, but if I do, I’ve got ‘more extreme memory loss’ with it. Plus brain damage. And repression. I remember a few things well. A lot more than that I remember fuzzily. A lot more than that, I know happened, and I know I was there, but they’re just… blurs. Feelings. The occasional total blank spot.”
Two pairs of ears perked. “Blank spot? Like a hole in your memory?”
“…yes?”
“Broken, Pip has…” A glance. A nod. “He has those blank spots too.”
“No horseapples. I’d presume everypony does.”
“No, I mean-“
“Look, we’re getting off-topic here.” A glance. “You all came to hear how you died, right?”
Two fast nods, then two slow ones, then one small one. A grimace.
“And everypony is sure they want to hear it? No matter how… brutal?”
Each nod again, slower this time. A sigh.
“I spent six months in the dungeons. Every day they tried to break me, get me to talk. On the days they didn’t torture me, they tried to convince me that I was doomed to fail. Tried to convince me to join them.” A mirthless grin. “Six months, I never broke. I cried, I screamed, I raged, but I didn’t break. Even after they stopped letting the doctors in, even after they stopped letting me out of my chains, even after Dawn stopped letting Pet come down at all, I gave them nothing they could use. Six months, one-hundred-eighty-eight days, they couldn’t break me.”
“…and then?”
A short breath. “Then they broke me.”
---
He couldn’t remember his name. He couldn’t remember very many things at all.
He felt empty. Like somepony had torn his soul out. His mind was black, an endless void that left him listlessly stranded; he couldn’t think, could barely think about thinking. Any thought he had came fleetingly, seemingly striking him at random then fleeing before he could realize what was going on. It had taken him some length of time to understand that he was awake. He didn’t know how long, couldn’t think about it. Too long, though.
He was somewhere, alone, for some reason. He knew he shouldn’t be. His being here was wrong. That needed no thought. He knew it. It simply was.
His mind returned to him slowly. Bits and pieces, fragmented, without rhyme or reason. Memories stood alone, sharp and clear and muddied and blurred and large and small and with no connection to one another. He dedicated what little thought he had to them; he recognized some faces, some places, some names, but he couldn’t shape the memories, couldn’t connect them, couldn’t make sense of them. He was hiding with a mare he’d never met, then kissing his marefriend, then hiding with Applejack again, then raiding the camp, then beating Clover to death, then launching a bolt of magic at a pink mare, then watching his drill instructor, then screaming as a stallion pushed his horn through his eye, then laughing at Clover’s joke, then watching Celestia burn Appleloosa, then meeting his sister for the first time, then kissing his wife, then watching Braeburn die, then ambushing a caravan, then helping his father clean the house, then stabbing a mare in the back, then running from Pip, then digging up Spike, then cutting carrots, then talking to Twilight, then-
A mare opened the door and entered the room. He raised his eye to her. Pink mane, yellow coat, swaying hips and tail, kind smile, dead eyes.
A name leapt up. Gaia.
“Hello, my little stalwart stallion.” her voice intoned, soft and heavy, as one wing brushed along his chest. “Lady Dawn wanted me to see if you were alright. Lash had to perform some services elsewhere, so today I have you. All… alone.” She pouted her lower lip, the curve of her mouth still holding her smile as she took a step back from him. He stared blankly at her for a few moments before putting his mouth slightly open. She giggled. “My, I see we’re eager to get started…”
Stepping forward, she reached her hooves to his shoulders, pulling herself up and wrapping her forelegs around his neck, letting out a soft sigh as his shoulders strained to hold her weight alongside his own. She held herself there, her hind hooves just barely touching the floor, her face close enough to his that he could feel the heat from her, could taste her deepening breath and feel her quickening heartbeat. She leaned forward slowly, her lips just barely brushing his before she pulled herself up further and their mouths met fully. She held herself close to him, teasing at the blood on his lips before her tongue danced into his mouth; one of her hooves lifted from behind his neck, moving to brush along his leg, his barrel, his flank, feeling for somewhere that she and Lash hadn’t yet left their mark.
He let her relax for a few moments before he bit her tongue off.
Lash and the pink one had not exempted his teeth from their work. The jagged edges on the ones that remained could easily cut flesh, as the many lacerations on his tongue attested to. They dug into Gaia’s tongue just as easily, and a few shifts of his jaw were all that were needed to fully sever it. Her dead eyes had widened when he had first sunk his teeth in, and now, as they fixed on him, he felt… something… return to his mind. Something that told him exactly what he needed to do.
He felt his hooves shift, felt them slip from the chains, and he quickly put them to her head and kept her mouth to his as they fell to the floor. The air was crushed from her lungs between her landing on the floor and his landing on her, and as she struggled to regain her breath he let her tongue fall back into her mouth. He felt himself cast a spell, and her jaw very suddenly slammed shut, nearly taking his lips with it.
He pulled back from her, watching her twitch and strain for breath as his hooves held her shoulders to the floor. He felt himself cast another spell, and very suddenly he was staring at himself, holding himself to the floor with two powder-yellow hooves. His legs felt odd and short, some odd weight was on his back, and his body twitched and strained for breath, the pained sound coming up its throat muffled by its tightly-shut mouth. His eye held on it for several moments before he felt a word coming up his throat.
“Guards!” he called, and it was her voice, Gaia’s voice, and his body heard it, stiffened, looked at him with one wide, terrified, living eye. He felt himself smile, a small, kind smile, as the door opened and three armoured ponies rushed into the room. All three quickly moved towards them, one helping him off while the other two held down the pony on the floor.
“Lady Gaia, are you alright? Did he harm you?”
He felt himself shake his head, his eye following the pink strands of mane that fell in his vision before flicking back to the guard. “Nothing to worry about. He just got out of his chains a bit early. Surprised me a little.”
The guard nodded, his face turning somewhat embarrassed. “We heard the commotion, Milady, but… er, it is, um, normal, um, for there to be-“
His hoof lifted, giving the guard a small wave. “I am not angered, kind guard. I did say we weren’t to be disturbed unless I called.”
“Er, yes, Milady. Of course.”
His body was back on the wall, the chains on its hooves tightened enough for small bits of blood to dew around them. Its nostrils flared as it heaved for breath, trickles of blood flowing down from them across its tight lips. Its eye, bloodshot and wild in terror, rolled onto him for a few moments before it began thrashing against its bonds. The two guards who’d replaced it grabbed it and held it prone against the wall, one of them giving it a sharp punch beneath the barrel when it continued to strain; it lurched forward violently once before it went still, hanging off the wall with a fresh deluge of blood flowing down its snout. All three guards watched it carefully, and only when it had hung still for a minute did the guard speak to him again.
“Are you going to want to continue, Milady? Or-“
“I don’t think he’s much in the mood today, it seems.” He stood, taking a few steps in an attempt to get used to the smaller frame, not to mention walking again. He found himself approaching the pony on the wall, looking his doppelganger up and down. “You may leave,” he said, not turning to the guards. “I shall join you shortly. Thank you again.”
He heard them mumble “happy” and “our duty” and “Milady” before they shuffled out the door, swinging it gently shut behind them. His eye never left the chained pony, and before long he managed to catch her gaze.
“Hello, Gaia.” The words came from him without thought. He felt like he was following a script. “I know you’re a little confused right now, so let me put some worries to rest. You’re trapped there. Nopony can tell who you really are. And even if you had your tongue, you wouldn’t
be able to tell them what’s going on.”
He felt his grin widen as her breath grew heavier.
“Now, now, don’t be scared. They’re only trying to help, remember? And so am I.” He felt a laugh come up his throat. “What did Dawn say when she introduced us? ‘Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind?’”
He heard the door open, turned to watch as another mare limped her way in. He was able to recall this one himself. Pinkie Pie.
“Hiya Gaia!” she said, her voice sending a bolt of ice up his spine. “Corporal Sturdy out there told me that this little meanie-weenie tried to escape not too long ago!” She sent a look at the disguised Gaia that seemed to be made only crueler by the grin beneath it. “He didn’t hurt’ya, did he?”
“No, no, I’m fine, Pinkie.” he said, shaking his head. Then he put on a frown and a small pout. “I’m disappointed, though. He hasn’t even opened his mouth since those brave guards stopped him, let alone told me anything.”
“Aw, not to worry, Gai-pie! Just gimmie a few minutes with him and I’ll have him singing! And talking, too.”
“Oh, that would be so nice of you. Just make sure you don’t tucker him out too much; I’m sure Lash is going to want to see him later today.”
For a moment, it looked like Pinkie’s smile cracked. Then she shook herself, gave another grin, and nodded.
“Okie-dokie! Oh, and Lady Dawn wanted me to ask you to go see Rarity. She shut herself in her rooms, again, because Sweetie’s ‘not acting like a proper lady’, again…”
“I’ll try. You know how she gets, though.”
Pinkie rolled her eyes and nodded, giving him another grin before walking up to the pony on the wall. Gaia moaned when she saw the other mare, her lips still tightly sealed; Pinkie simply glanced at her before shaking her head.
“Silly ol’ Shining Armor, you know that’s not how you sing! Now either hush up or do it right!”
He blinked when he heard the name. Shining Armor. It was familiar, common to almost every memory. It might well have been his. It probably had been.
But it wasn’t. Not anymore. He’d died, and that name had died with him.
He put his eye on Gaia once more, watching her hang there, wearing his skin. His gaze fell upon her flank, upon the cutie mark that adorned it; a shield, cut cruelly in half by a jagged scar.
A broken shield, he thought, his voice echoing within his mind. His first thought was that it was rather melodramatic. Like it would be chosen so that anyone who said it would remind him of what he’d failed to protect.
A moment later, Broken Shield turned and walked out the door.
Broken felt around inside his head, picking out what memories he could that related to what he was planning. Rarity’s rooms were in what remained of the Royal apartments. Dawn had let her have them, opting for a former guestroom in the main body of the castle, closer to both the throne room and the libraries. The path out from the dungeons cobbled itself together within his mind, alongside the layout of much of the castle; the memories they were attached to slotted themselves into place with little fuss. Broken blinked as he checked through them, finding large overlaps with occasional whisps of unique occurrences.
Common, routine, easier to remember? He tried to think of his family. Got a brief flash of something before a lancing pain ripped from his horn to his spine. He stumbled, catching himself on a nearby banner before he could fully fall. He held himself there, his breath coming in uneven gasps, until a growing pain in his foreleg forced him to sit down.
That latter pain became more concerning to him than the former one. Each of his limbs already felt like he’d been sprinting, dull aches that flared into molten blades when he tried to flex any of his legs. He gritted his teeth; if he was this weak, he might not be able to make it to the stairs out of the dungeon, let alone reach Rarity or the throne room.
He felt a spell rise from the morass of still-unsorted memories, making itself known without trying to force itself through his horn. He allowed it a small amount of magic, felt it wrap around the leg that he’d tried to hold himself up on. The pain dulled almost immediately, and as he extended his leg he could nearly see the line of magic that covered every scar, braced each joint and tendon and added its strength to his damaged limb. He quickly strengthened the spell and copied it to his other legs; as he stood, he felt somewhat closer to how most of his memories did.
Physically, anyway. Discounting the shifted form he was in, of course.
“Mistress Gaia?”
Broken turned, more because somepony had spoken than because he realized she was addressing him. A white-maned, blue-coated mare was standing a short distance away from him, giving him a somewhat confused look.
She also had wings and a horn, reminding him of what she was. Who she was.
“Pet?” Broken asked, Gaia’s voice reflecting his surprise. “What are you doing down here? Lady Dawn told you to stay out of the dungeons, didn’t she?”
The mare rustled her wings, giving him a clearly worried look. “Y-yes, Mistress said that, b-but she told Pet to t-tell you that she needed to keep Sir Crimson for longer than s-she’d said. So Pet came to tell you that she needed to keep Sir Crimson for longer than she’d said.”
Broken blinked. His first thought was that her speech was wrong. Third-pony, repeating herself, stuttering… like a foal, or an ingrown. He remembered that she didn’t always speak like this.
He felt something twitch in his head as he realized that he had no memory of her speaking differently.
“Mistress Gaia?”
The disguised stallion jumped, putting his eye back on Pet. “Hmm? I’m sorry, Pet, I was thinking about something.”
“Oh, please don’t worry, Mistress Gaia. P-Pet simply asked if you had anything you wanted to tell Pet before Pet went back to Mistress D-Dawn.”
Broken felt something else twitch in his head, and rather suddenly he was back to reading off a script. “Actually, Lady Dawn sent Pinkie down here earlier to ask me if I could meet with Rarity. I think that it might be nice for you to accompany me.”
“P-Pet would be delighted to accompany you, b-but Mistress D-Dawn-“
“Lady Dawn has my dear Crimson Lash to keep her company; I’m certain she won’t mind if I borrow her dear Pet for a short excursion.”
The mare stayed stock still for a few moments before letting out a breath. “I-if you’re certain, th-then Pet will go with you, Mistress Gaia.”
“Oh, hush. You’d have gone with me anyways.” Broken ‘winked’, hoping that one of his diguise’s eyes stayed open when he closed his real one. “That I know Dawn won’t mind just makes you less nervous.”
“Y-yes, Mistress, Pet is sorry, Mistress…”
Broken felt an odd twinge up his back, a spark of worry or pity or regret – one of those off-sad emotions – flitting through his head before he stomped it down. Taking a breath, he started forward, motioning for Pet to follow him.
Broken stared at the space in front of him, confused. There had been a few points before then where his memories had failed him – making him take an early turn, or one in the wrong direction – but those were minor. Small things. But every single one of his memories of the area said that there should be a hallway here, one that was the only way to access the Royal apartments beyond flight or teleportation.
In not a single one of his memories did this space hold a large, flat, solid wall.
“Pet…” he said, Gaia’s voice covering his confusion. “How long has this wall been here?”
The mare cocked her ears, but her answer was quick. “Six months, Mistress.”
He felt a twitch, quite similar to the first one that he’d felt earlier. He glanced at the wall again. “There’s a hall here, isn’t there? Why is it blocked off?”
Pet’s response came slower this time. “Mistress D-Dawn o-ordered it walled off, Mistress. Mistress D-Dawn said that it reminded her of sad things.”
Broken blinked before sighing, though he managed a smile as Pet gave him a concerned look. “I am fine, dear Pet. I think I might still be rattled from this morning; I cannot recall how to get to Rarity’s rooms except through this wall.”
“Oh! P-Pet can show you, Mistress. Mistress D-Dawn had another way made, it’s just d-down this way…” The mare trailed off, blinking. “W-what happened this morning, Mistress?”
Broken’s smile shifted to a somewhat mirthful grin. “One of our special visitors just got a little grabby, dear. Slid out of his chains and onto me, though I managed to get on top of him and call the guards in before anything happened.”
“Was it… was it Sir Shining, Mistress?”
Broken raised an eyebrow. “And how might you’ve guessed that, Pet?”
The other mare stiffened, but she answered nonetheless. “Th-the last day Pet saw him, Sir Shining t-took his hooves out of their binds for a few moments – h-he was thin enough, he just slid them out – and sh-sh-shook Pet’s hoof. H-he said that Pet was very i-important to him.”
Broken blinked in surprise; that meeting was apparently one of the memories he hadn’t recovered. “Shining was able to escape his chains, and you didn’t tell anypony?”
“H-h-he asked Pet not to, he said Mistress D-Dawn already knew.” Her eyes gained a rather significant amount of alarm. “D-didn’t she?”
By Faust I hope not “I’ve never heard her mention it, dear.” Broken felt something in his gut twist as the fear in her eyes spread to her entire form; her legs tensing, hooves shuffling, wings splaying low in preparation for flight.
“Oh. O-oh, n-no, no no n-no, n-n-“ She blinked, several times, and her words shifted. “P-p-please d-do not tell Mistress D-D-D-D-“
Her mouth seemed caught on the name, and she soon lost her speech to rapidly quickening breaths. Broken moved before he knew he was moving, putting one hoof to the mare’s mouth while the other moved around her back, giving her a gentle push to a sitting position. The hoof on her back moved to her shoulder as the hoof on her mouth moved to the back of her neck, pulling her face into his shoulder. Broken heard a light female voice making small shushing noises; it took him a few moments to notice that the voice belonged to him. It was also at this point that he noticed that he was rocking back and forth, moving Pet along with him.
The entire set of movements was carefully prearranged, that much he could tell. His limbs did their parts routinely, almost instinctively, as if he’d done this innumerable times before. There were no memories to guide him, no reminders on what to do or when to do it; he simply did, without even attempting or intending to, and he felt an odd nostalgia descending on him alongside it.
Nostalgic because it reminded him of a time before all this, when he could combat his greatest fear – the loss of the one most precious to him - simply by holding her and assuring her that she’d be alright. Brushing down her hair around her horn, straightening her wings, looking her in the eye and telling her that she was his precious little girl, that he would protect her no matter what.
Odd because he couldn’t remember a single point where he’d done this for his wife.
“Pet, Pet, it’s okay, it’s okay…” Broken pushed himself back from the mare, his hooves rising and falling with her shoulders. Her eyes met his for a second before she glanced down; he tried lifting her chin back up, and had to put some extra magic into his foreleg to give it enough strength to do so. “You don’t have to worry, okay? It’s fine, there’s no problem.”
“Yes there is!” Pet moaned. “Mistress D-D-Dawn didn’t know about Sir Shining, a-and Mistress D-Dawn gets a-a-angry when she doesn’t know about things, e-especially things like this, a-a-and…” Her voice trailed off, her legs tensing.
“And what, Pet?” Broken pressed. The mare put her eyes to the floor, her voice close to a filly made to confess to stealing the cookies from atop the cupboard.
“…and when Mistress Dawn gets angry she makes my scars grow.”
Broken felt the twinge up his back again. He felt a few memories fly out of the black, of Pet limping or wincing at what seemed to be nothing during a few of their meetings. Of how careful she was about her covers. Of how those covers had grown every time he’d seen her.
Well. Another reason to kill her, then.
“Pet, I need you to listen, okay?” Broken said, Gaia’s voice still covering his every word. Pet nodded, hitching a breath in. “I promise you, I won’t tell Dawn about that last meeting. Can I get you to promise me something?”
“What, Mistress?”
Broken felt his horn light up, and very suddenly he was taller than Pet, a few strands of blue hair flipped out over his single eye. He gained a grin as he saw Pet’s face shift from fear to shock, and continued in his best falsetto.
“That you won’t tell anypony I’m not really a mare.”
Pet blinked once. Then again. And again.
Then Broken had to very carefully halt his urge to stab her as she leapt at him. He felt the lines on his hind legs fray as he caught the mare, her forelegs wrapping tightly around his barrel, and pushed more magic over them to keep them from falling apart.
“Hey! Woah there, easy…” Pet took a half step back as he stumbled back into a standing position. “I’m not exactly in the best shape here, Pet.”
The mare stepped back and caught her tongue several times before she actually managed to speak. “Sir Shining, w-what are you doing out here? Why were you disguised as Mistress Gaia?”
Broken gave a laugh as he felt the script creep up on him again. “I’m actually doing something very important, Pet, something nopony can know about, something that I need your help with. I switched positions with Gaia in secret so that nopony would know I’d gotten out.”
“Why can’t anypony know? Does Mistress D-Dawn know?”
Broken blinked. “Nopony can know because they might try to stop me; I’m the evil Loyalist leader, remember? They probably wouldn’t believe I’m doing something to help them even if Dawn told them herself.” He gave her a grin. “And of course Dawn knows. Do you really think I’d be able to do this without her?”
Pet was quiet for a few seconds before she nodded. “Okay, Sir Shining. What does Pet need to do?”
“For now, just act normal, keep acting like I’m really Gaia. We’re still going to visit Rarity; that was part of the plan in the first place. When I need you, I’ll tell you.” He shifted himself back to Gaia. “Now show me the way, dear, we mustn’t be late.” He winked at Pet, and she quickly gave another nod.
“O-of course, Si-Mistress Gaia. Just follow Pet.” She took a moment to nod again, seemingly to herself, before turning and starting to walk. Broken followed close behind her.
“Oh, and Pet?”
“M-Mistress?”
“Back then, when I said you were very important to me?” Pet turned to look at him, a small hint of confusion playing on her face. He gave her a grin. “I meant it.” She gave him a wide smile in return, and as he saw it he felt yet another twinge of regret. He tried to quash it again.
It’s not lying if she doesn’t know why it’s true.
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:(
Happy to see you back in action. Missed this fic alot.
You gave me feels. You horrible, horrible person.
5464056
Thanks. I missed writing it.
5464506
Eheheheheheheheheh...
Next one's probably going to be worse.
Pet is his daughter, isn’t she?
5465053 Maybe, maybe not. Looks a lot like her, certainly. Dawn claims it's naught but a transformation, if I recall correctly, but with so many unreliable narrators involved, who can say? Odds are, we'll never get an absolute answer in story - short of memory reading Dawn or Pet herself, the information just isn't there.
5465826
IIRC, she also mentioned something about the transformation only working successfully with Pet because of something unique to her. I’m betting that the “something unique” is the fact her mother was an alicorn.
I do agree that it’s impossible to tell for sure either way at this moment. I’m not so sure we’ll never find out though; there were signs a short while back that Dawn may have tried to shift either herself or a trusted agent to this timeline. Besides which, while certainty is never something we seem to be gifted with we do seem to slowly be getting a relatively complete composite picture of the revolution and the rebellion that followed.
As a pre-reader, it's interesting seeing all this speculation.
It also kills me how close some are and having a gag order preventing me from hinting at the correct answers.
As a notprereader, it's interesting seeing how humbly prereaders like to brag about how they know stuff other people don't. I don't think Dawn would like that very much. But that's just idle speculation, right?
5473872
Eeyup.
EDIT: I actually don't know that much more than what's been posted. I usually don't get to see the chapters until a day or two before they're posted. Hell, despite having seen the original draft for the full story, there have been so many rewrites, removals, and additions that I still get surprised by a lot of this stuff.
I was trying to say that I liked the discussion and how readers were catching on to certain plot elements, some of which I hadn't caught on to myself. I'm sorry if I came off as condescending/bragging. That was not my intention.
5475762
I was just trying to use the word notprereader and sound like an idiot.
5479103
I figured as much, but I felt like it would be a good idea to explain in the event that someone actually did get pissed.
Guess the paranoia runs in the family
Odd, didn't see this chapter three weeks ago. Oh well, more for me to read