Psychotaxis
The excuse she’d given Broken for personally escorting him to the station that night was a desire to update Celestia on any unusual activity in the Everfree; the fact that she already knew about said activity simply hadn’t been mentioned. The local guard sergeant perked up considerably when she brought up the probable changeling sighting (well away from Broken’s ears, of course).
“I sincerely appreciate your informing us of this, ma’am.” The sergeant glanced between Twilight and Pip. “The changeling situation’s been rather quiet recently, but a clear case of infiltration like this… the Princess’ll be bound to send down some Royals, and no doubt we’re going to have to put out more patrols into the forest. Having a bit of a heads-up on that’s gonna save me some headache.”
“It wasn’t any problem, sergeant.” Twilight nodded. “I’m sure that Pip could give your sketch artist a more direct description if they need it, as well.”
The stallion shook his head. “What he’s said is more than enough. The colouration’s bland enough to be difficult to spot, but knowing the cutie mark makes our job a fair bit easier. We’ll track down the real pony, make sure he hasn’t been harmed, and see if we can’t snag the bug.” He gave Pip a slightly odd look. “Not meaning to be disrespectful, but how could you be so certain that he wasn’t a real pony from the distance you claimed? Sure, being a straight copy of another pony would be a big indicator, but-“
“I’ve seen many beings move, sergeant, pony and non-pony. How they walk, run, fight, flee, hide. How they might move when trying not to be noticed.” Pip swallowed. “That… I’ve never seen something move in the manner that it did, and certainly no pony. It was imitating us, deliberately, but was never quite close enough to be correct.”
“And you noticed that from an angle, across the street, facing his backside?”
Twilight cut in. “Pip has been very… well trained. He knows what he’s talking about; if he says it wasn’t a pony, then I believe him.”
“I’m not disputing that, ma’am. Just making sure you were sure.” He gave another cursory glance over his notes before nodding at the two. “Thank you again, ma’am.”
Pip let out a breath as soon as they left the guard station, the expression of relief catching Twilight by surprise. “Are you sure you’re alright, Pip?”
The stallion gave a quick nod. “Yes, Miss Twilight.” He remained silent for several seconds while her stare bore into the side of his head. “…I still feel somewhat guilty for failing to detain the changeling. The, the discrepancy between its appearance and its movement caused my cognitions to catch on themselves in regards to its classification, and the fact that it was a species that was exterminated years before I had any possible opportunity to actually observe one did not help. I… I froze, simply watching it, Miss Twilight, but now that I’ve had a chance to think on it and recognize it I believe that such a reaction should not happen again.”
So he was caught off guard for the first time in… ever? Twilight shook her head. “I wasn’t expecting it either, Pipsqueak. Don’t worry about it.” She raised her hoof before he could start his retort. “I mean it. I’m not expecting you to foresee every possible thing that might happen, and you shouldn’t expect yourself to. You know you don’t have to be the big, scary guardspony anymore.”
“I do know that, Miss Twilight. I just find myself the most comfortable in such a role.” The stallion blinked. “Though I do not think of myself as scary.”
Twilight couldn’t help but grin as she glanced at the almost-perceptibly-sheepish look on his face; it was only because of the shift in his attention that she noticed the pony approaching them.
“Cheerilee?” Twilight asked, somewhat surprised. The teacher gave her a smile and a nod as she got within conversation distance.
“Hello, Twilight. And this is Pip, I presume?” The mare turned to the pinto stallion, who took a moment before nodding. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise, Miss Cheerilee.” Pip coughed into his shoulder as Cheerilee put her attention back on Twilight.
“I’m sorry to just jump you out of the blue like this, Twilight, but I was wondering if I could maybe talk to your uncle sometime in the near future.”
“Unc- you mean Broken Shield?” Cheerilee nodded. “Er, I’m sure he’d be happy to meet you, but can I ask why? I know he’s been getting to know the Crusaders, have they-“
“Oh, no, no, it’s nothing bad, Twilight. I just heard that he happened to be rather knowlegable on Gryphonia…”
“You want me to do what?”
Broken stared at Twilight, over the same pile of books as the day before, the sunlight through the window an early yellow rather than a late orange. She could see his eye twitch as he struggled to comprehend her suggestion.
“It makes sense, when you think about it. And Celestia thinks it might be good for you. And I didn’t mean right now, but… just so you’re aware of the opportunity.” She shrugged.
“It makes sense. To put me in a room full of foals.”
“Bro-“
Broken let out some sort of dull bleating-droning noise, his mouth fixed open as he bolted over the pile of books to block Twilight’s mouth with his hooves. Pip shifted himself at the moment Broken started moving, but didn’t stop the scarred stallion from reaching Twilight, apparently realizing that he wasn’t intending to actually harm her. Broken still sent a glance his way, and the two glared suspiciously at each other for a moment before the unicorn turned back to the lavender mare. He held her mouth shut for a short time before slowly pulling his hooves away, giving a small huff as they once more met the floor.
“Twilight, in case you weren’t aware, I’m a madpony. I’m constantly having to fight the urge to start giggling and flay you alive. I have a list of places I’m not willing to go just because of the chance that I might go mad, and a schoolhouse full of foals is very, very high on that list. Please tell me you weren’t the one stupid enough to come up with this idea.”
“Er… actually, you were, kind of.”
“What.”
“Well, apparently Mayor Mare contacted Cheerilee about you as ‘somepony who might be able to foster a better understanding of an often-misunderstood non-pony race’ with the students, and she wanted to see if you had any interest in helping them expand on what they’ve learned about the gryphons.” Twilight gave a small, awkward chuckle as Broken’s eye twitched. “I promised her I’d bring up the idea with you.”
“Well, congratulations. You fulfilled your promise. The idea’s been brought to my attention. Now we drop it, burn it, bury it, burn it again, and have the Princess throw it in the sun.” The stallion turned, stepping back over the books with rather exaggerated care. “Right, where’d we leave off-“
“Broken.” Twilight pressed her lips flat as she saw him stiffen. “First of all, I’m not going to force you to do this. It is your decision. But I want you to listen to what I have to say, and not just dismiss this outright.”
The stallion stood still for a few moments before he slumped, and Twilight could almost see the petulance radiating off of him as he turned around.
“…what do you have to say?”
Twilight blinked at his lack of active resistance before clearing her throat. “Erm, well, for one, I think that you don’t give yourself nearly enough credit in regards to your self control, especially around foals.”
“Oh really.”
“Yes, really! In your interactions with the Crusaders, even if you gave them a rather bad suggestion for how to find their cutie marks, you were very civil and made sure that they knew that you were a, a ‘risky’ pony, let’s say.” Twilight waited for Broken to nod before she continued. “When you told us what Pip did to Scootaloo and her group, whichever version of events actually happened-“ Broken rolled his eye at this, but said nothing – “you made sure that we knew that his victims were foals. You left that detail for the very end and then emphasized it immediately, like you wanted to make sure it stuck in our heads.” Broken nodded again, without waiting for her indication.
“That wasn’t just because they were foals, though-“
“Ah, it wasn’t just because they were foals? That means that them being foals certainly played at least a part in your reaction, doesn’t it?” Twilight blinked and leaned back from the hunched position she hadn’t remembered getting into. “Th-that isn’t to say that that’s wrong, per se, it’s very much normal and sane to have that kind of reaction to somepony doing that to-“
“No, no, I got it…” Broken said, letting out a breath after a few moments. Twilight herself took a few moments before she continued.
“Now in regards to Pip-“ Broken took in a sharp breath, but said nothing “- I know how much you’ve hated him. When you first came here, I remember you saying that your promise to Princess Celestia didn’t apply to him, because he wasn’t a pony. You’ve tried to kill him a number of times, even when the Princess explicitly forbade it. You were entirely insistent that he could not be forgiven for what he’d done, for who he’d killed – ‘A hundred guards, countless Loyalists, and Princess Luna’.
“And yet, despite your hatred for him, despite his support of the mare who’d murdered your wife and daughter-“ another sharp breath, this time accompanied by a tightening of his shoulders and jaw, but Broken still remained silent “-the moment that you realized that he’s still a foal, you instantly forgave him. You said outright that because he’s a foal, you can’t hold what he’s done against him.”
“Well of course not!” Broken seemed insulted. “What kind of bucking idiot would hold a foal’s ignorance against them?!”
“That’s not the point, Broken. I’m telling you that even though you had a perfect justification for hating Pip – one that you used and abused, liberally, for most of the time I’ve known you – as soon as you saw him as a foal rather than a Risen, that hatred went out the window. You’ve started treating him… well, not well, but substantially better than you had been. You’ve stopped trying to kill him, for one thing.” To Twilight’s surprise, Broken smirked at this, so she decided to press her claim. “Pip, could you come here, please?”
A slight gust of air, and the stallion was standing beside her. “Yes, Miss Twilight?”
“Don’t worry, I don’t need anything. Just stand there for a minute.” Twilight turned back to Broken. “When you look at him now, knowing what he is, do you still think he isn’t a pony? Do you still want to kill him?”
Broken’s eye widened. He glanced between the two a few times, his eye slowly narrowing, before raising his hoof to the side of his head. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and a good deal closer to her brother’s than it normally was. “…no. Fuck me. I can still think of everything he’s done, every injury he gave me, everypony he’s murdered… but that little voice, that little giggling bastard… when I look at him, it isn’t there. I, I still think that he should be punished, that’s never gone away, but… Faust. He’s a stupid, ignorant, colt. What can you do to him?”
“I think you should ask youself what you can do to him, Broken. What’s the absolute worst thing you can see yourself doing to him, right now? With everything he’s done to you?” Broken didn’t answer, instead glancing at the floor. Twilight put her head low and gave him a smile. “Then why do you think that you would hurt a room full of foals who’ve done nothing to you?”
Broken stayed silent for a length of time before putting his head back up and taking in a breath. “I want both of you there. I, I’ll show you how to put a lock on the root of my horn, if you don’t already know, and Pip, he has to stay close enough that I can’t stop him from getting to me. And there should be guards. They don’t have to come in the schoolhouse, just… I want to keep as far on the safe side as I can. And we don’t do it now. Give me a couple of weeks.”
“Of course. Cheerilee knows about some of your ‘conditions’, such as they are, so I don’t think she’d object to having the guards there. Pip and I were going to be there whether you wanted us or not.” Broken gave a single, barking laugh as Twilight grinned, but whatever mirth he’d gained quickly slipped away.
“One more thing. Do you know how to make your magic invisible?”
Twilight blinked. “Er, no… is that possible?”
“It’s not easy, but I’ve done it a few times before. Just get ready for a headache afterwards.”
“And why should I be getting ready for it?”
“Because if you think that I’m going into a room full of innocent foals whom I would sooner kill myself than injure without you keeping a barrier between them and me, then you’re more mentally damaged than I am.” He raised his hoof as Twilight began to object. “Listen. There is a very, very low chance that I’ll go mad in there due to the foals, and I acknowledge that. You’re far more likely to spark it, though even that’s not a very high chance. But I’m the kind of pony who worries about very, very low chances. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here, several times over. So I’m going to make damned sure that, in the very, very unlikely scenario that I do go mad, I will have a very, very low chance of doing any actual damage to anypony. That’s how this is going to work, or this isn’t going to work. Deal?”
Twilight took a few seconds before she nodded. Broken gave her an apparently genuine grin before turning back and grabbing a tome.
“Right, so we left off at the section on the headdress that started the Gryphon-Buffalo Tribal War…”
“Twilight. Twilight!”
Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes blearily, trying to figure out which shadowed blob was calling her name. She gave a groan as she noticed the blob that her brain assigned the term ‘window’ to was pitch-black; the mystery pony was apparently in too much of a rush to wait for mor-
“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!”
Twilight’s wings sprung out in shock as somepony shouted her name through a megaphone not an inch from her ear. Her leaping from bed was a logical extension of the force they’d propelled her with, and her horn had lit on instinct, her magic ready to fight off intruders or tie their muzzles shut or when the buck did I get my wings back?
Twilight turned her head to stare at the extra appendages, flexing the muscles that had never actually gone away in order to give them an experimental flap. They responded as she remembered them doing, and she let them fold in while her brain started burning in its attempts to figure out just what in Faust’s name was going on.
Fortunately for her, the blue alicorn giving her a concerned look answered most of her questions nicely.
“Luna? Am I having a nightmare?” Both ponies blinked, then Twilight facehoofed. “Agh, no, I meant-“
“Do not worry, Twilight. I understand your meaning and your concern. And you are correct, though not to the degree that you likely realize.”
Twilight stared at the Princess in confusion for a few moments before she noticed the black borders on her vision. “Oh. I’m having one of those.”
“Indeed.” Princess Luna nodded, but her eyes were still full of concern. “This one is odd, however. You were sleeping and dreaming normally, and then, instantaneously, your dreamscape warped into this abominable construct. This would be the first time that these ‘waking’ nightmares of yours have actually happened in your sleep, correct?”
Twilight started to nod, but both ponies froze as the sound of every downstairs window simultaneously shattering reached their ears. Luna’s lips drew tight.
“Well, let us not stay here longer then we must. I would request that you go ahead of me, Twilight, so that my presence is less known to the dreamscape, and whatever manifestation ails you has less forewarning of my power.” The mortal mare nodded, quickly moving to the doorway.
The main room of the library was somehow light enough to see each broken shelf and defiled book, despite the empty windows and doorframe showing nothing but darkness outside and none of the candles in the room being lit. Twilight swept her gaze warily across the room, scanning every inch for any sign of Broken Shield.
She was less surprised than she figured she should have been when he suddenly appeared a few paces from her, a fog wrapped around his hooves.
“Hello, Twily.”
A blaze of light immediately immolated the impossibly-wide grin. Twilight turned to glance at Luna, but the other mare’s horn still glowed.
“I can still sense it. Be wary, and tell me if you start to hurt; if this truly is some malfunction of your magic, I would prefer to do as little damage as possible to you.”
Twilight nodded just in time to see the white stallion on the ceiling. A strangled shriek got him blasted to oblivion, only for another to immediately appear, standing on Luna’s back, the fog falling down along her sides. He remained in that spot even as the Princess shifted away, floating in midair on a spreading cloud, grinning and staring at Twilight with a pinpricked pupil.
“You have to die, Twily.” His voice said, so close to and far from her brother’s. “If you don’t die then she does. And she does. And she does. And she does. And she does.” A sick feeling washed over her with his words, and her head throbbed as Luna shredded him to ribbons.
“Twilight?” Luna asked, but Twilight’s throat was tight, and she managed a bare croak before another Broken appeared, in the same position as the first.
“She thinks she’s helping. But she’s not. You have to die, Twily.” Luna dispelled him, a simple pop from existence as opposed to her earlier methods, but the words still hit Twilight, and her head hurt more and her throat got tighter and she tried to tell Luna but she couldn’t because her head hurt and her throat was too tight and there was something heavy on her back and “You have to die, Twily.”
Twilight felt herself be pulled somewhere, two heavy wings wrapping around her, a warm heartbeat in her ear quieting the pounding in her head. More voices sounded, more pulses of magic, some shifts and thumps on the wings around her. She felt Luna say something, but she couldn’t hear it, and as she lifted her ear from the alicorn’s throat she saw the eye and the smile a bare inch from her.
“You have to die, Twily.” The smile grew wider, somehow, curling in on itself, the teeth stretching and becoming jagged. Sledgehammers were crushing her skull to dust and nooses constricted her throat to a pin’s width and the cloying fog was spreading and the voice was still there. Through the spreading blackness she saw his mouth open, and the hood that was his head fell back and she saw who was inside of him and she said
“If you don’t die then Twilight will.”
Then all she heard was a scream.
“WAKE
up!”
Twilight opened her eyes and her mouth simultaneously, taking in as much midnight light and air as she respectively could. Her magic found Spike before her flailing limbs did, and she pulled him to her barrel and held him tight with both hooves, her eyes still staring blankly at the ceiling, her mouth exhaling with a single repeated phrase.
“I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay...”
The fact that she held him like that for five minutes, and that that was the only thing that she said during those five minutes, did not do much to convince the dragon that she was telling the truth. Nor did the concerned letter from Luna that he burped up a minute into the mantra.
“I’m just- Spike, I had a nightmare. A… a very bad nightmare, but it was… still just a nightmare.”
“It wasn’t ‘just’ a nightmare, Twilight, Luna doesn’t send letters for ‘just’ nightmares! It was one of those things that happened in Canterlot, wasn’t it?” Twilight gave a small nod, and his frown deepened. “Right. You need to tell me what happened, right now.”
“Spike-“
“Please, Twilight. You don’t have to try to deal with this alone, and I hate not being able to help you.” Spike folded his arms and affixed her with a glare, and only the fear in his eyes and behind hers stopped her from seeing the gesture as adorable rather than serious. She took a breath, her brain scrambling to find some way to explain what she’d seen.
“I’m now absolutely certain that it’s my own magic causing them, at least.” she started. Spike raised an eyebrow, but nodded, and as she told him what had happened her mind latched onto her own words, parading them through itself and crushing any thought that claimed otherwise.
After all, how else could she explain seeing herself beneath Broken’s skin?
Stats
Page generated in 0.021 seconds
Total duration
1,076 users online
1,938,085 hits today, 2,814,898 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
So he's going to give a lecture on a version of Griffon culture that's significantly worse in every way than the one that the native Griffons have, seen through a lens of his exaggerated racism?
5799360
Well, he has been studying pretty hard with Twilight, so I think he should be able to get a relatively accurate depiction of this world's griffon culture.
his
5799423
If the italicized word is what you're referring to, then no, it's right, he wants to kill her.
5799360
Basically what 5799383 said. He's well aware of his own bigotries, so he's going to try to keep to what he's been reading in this Equestria as much as possible, because he knows that trying to push his views of the gryphons (which admittedly aren't entirely inaccurate... for his gryphons) would warp their fragile little minds and get Celestia pissed with him. And neither of those appeals to him.
Though he is going to blame his scars on the gryphons. "As you can see, it's a very bad idea to get in a fight with them, so you're going to want to make sure that you don't do anything to get them angry. It's not like they'll jump on you for no good reason - trust me, I earned every one of these - but they are more likely to claw you than get into an argument. It's just a part of their society; a gryphon raised in Equestria will be as nice as any of their pony neighbours."
Wait, what? I thought Twilight was a unicorn in this story.
5807534
That was in the nightmare/Dreamscape/Whatever it is.
5799568 On the other hand, now that I look at it, shouldn't it be "who would like nothing more than to end her life"?
Oh I get it. So Broken killed Spike in a fit of insane rage, having deluded himself into thinking that the resurrected dragon was a zombie, and Dawn then killed him on accident, in her grief, but since she is a pure, innocent soul who would never hurt anyone, her act of killing drove her to suppress the memory of it, and deny what she had done. So she stripped off the skin from Shining Armor's body and brainwashed herself to think that she was him, wearing his skin like a suit before fleeing the destruction of her world by travelling across the dimensions. And all this time we thought that Broken really was Shining Armor! Good dream deduction, Twilight!