From Ashes, Acid, and Absinthe

by Hope

Chapter 8. Hopeless Dreamers

“One room, three meals, one prayer a day,” Starlight explained to the sleeping form of Sunset as tears streamed down her cheeks. “How could I be so naive… I just… Everything felt good for a bit there.”

It was nearing the end of the second day and the moment of their freedom, assuming that Marcus was telling the truth. Sunset had passed in and out of consciousness during that time, and had not spoken once.

Starlight thought about what she was saying as she looked over the empty church for the thousandth time, the evening light fading into the dark of night around her, the calls of owls in the distance echoing through the trees.

“I felt… like I was finally doing something that didn’t have bad parts to it. Count on Marcus to prove me wrong,” she sniffled, as she brushed Sunset’s hair out of her eyes and reached out to test the magical barrier around her yet again.

“Fine mess I made of things. Now we’ve got to save the whole world, not just my little cult,” she said with a soft laugh, and a hiccup.

There were small piles of dirt where she’d dug down, trying to see if the barrier could be circumvented, but they were basically trapped in a clear egg, through which no living thing could pass. She could certainly toss little bits of dirt through, but it was solid as stone to her hand.

“Fuck, I’m hungry,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I wonder if Claire’s okay… She always bruised easily…”

Starlight fell backward as the barrier suddenly vanished, causing her head to bump against the ground. She slowly rose to her feet, her muscles unsteady after going so long unused.

She was startled when Sunset suddenly and loudly gasped. As she watched, Sunset dug her hands and feet into the dirt. The air seemed to thin, and for a moment she couldn’t see the trees or the brightening stars. And then everything was back to normal.

Sunset coughed twice, and then sat up. “That bastard!” she screamed. “He completely blocked our mana intake!” She spent a few moments taking some deep breaths. “And now I know that that works the same way as home. Good to know.” She looked over at Starlight. “So, how screwed are we?”

“We haven’t eaten in two days, around this time the first of the corrupted will be reaching rural towns, and I’ve spent my octarine, assuming Marcus used all three bottles, I’m a useless human woman who can make her eyes glow,” Starlight said softly. “I’m debating whether…”

She paused, she couldn’t even say it.

“I had been considering ending the lives of my flock, to save humanity, but I can’t. I’ll have to find a way to free them from his influence…” she finished.

“That’s way too many words on an empty stomach,” Sunset said. “Come on, there’s food in the cabin. If there’s one thing I know about megalomaniacs, it’s that they always stumble on the details.”

Starlight led the way to the cabin, and opened the cabinets, finding the canned food they’d picked up on the last trip to town. Soon enough they were both eating undiluted Campell’s chicken noodle soup, in between drinking gulps of bottled water.

Sunset was filled in on the details of Marcus’ plan that she missed.

“Wow,” she said as she sipped some more soup. “That sounds just like the nuts the Princess and I had to deal with on a regular basis. If this keeps up I won’t have to come home.” She immediately grew serious. “I have no idea what he did in the church, but somehow Marcus got up to an incredibly high magic level. He didn’t just absorb what his daughters had. I think he used that to tap into something much bigger. Something cosmic.”

Starlight slurped the last of her soup and stood, grabbing another can and looking at the door.

“I’m going to go into my church,” she said with as much bravery as she could muster, before using the can opener to pop a triangle of the can open, and slurp some of the broth.

She then started out the door with a flashlight in hand.

Sunset followed closely. She stopped at the spot where the bubble they had been trapped in had sat, staring down at the disturbed dirt. “Hold on a second,” she said to herself, kneeling down and passing her fingers through the soil.. She walked over to the leftover building supplies, and returned with a stake and a hammer. She then hammered the stake into the ground, marking the spot.

With this accomplished, she walked up to the doors of the church. This time, she was distracted by seeing the empty blood vial that Marcus had discarded—she put this in her pocket. Finally, she tried to step into the church, but stopped as Starlight walked out.

“It’s gone,” Starlight informed her. “All three bottles of Octarine. He had enough power to… to get you home, probably. Assuming we could have found it.”

Sunset looked back at the stake. “We don’t have to worry about that anymore. What could he do with it? Tear the world in half?”

“No, the bottles are there. Empty. He used them.”

“Oh,” said Sunset. “So, sort of good news...and bad news. The fact that he needed the octarine on top of his daughter’s absorbed powers tallies up with what I got from the spot where that body disappeared. He got basically unlimited power from my world. ...Or an alternate universe version of it. So...this is really, really personal now.”

“What power sources would be available in your world which would respond to him?” Starlight asked, sitting down on the steps of her church.

Sunset sat down beside her, trying desperately to hide her nervousness. “Well, what he got he shouldn’t have been able to access. Yet another reason why I want to know the terms of this ‘bargain’ of his. Basically, it’s Magic Source # 3 of my world. The one we know the least about. Chaos magic.”

Starlight turned to face Sunset.

“Chaos magic.”

“Yeah,” Sunset said, trying to sound sarcastic. “Because that was definitely what your world needed more of. Chaos.”

“So… I had a theory when I found magic,” Starlight said as she turned back to the cabin, remembering her past. “I found this… painful magic, I call it Nature Magic, you call it Dark Magic. But I had a theory because every legend, every old Tale from the ancient races has a higher form of magic based on self sacrifice and emotion. I called it Chaos magic because… Well, I didn’t feel emotions were stable enough to be used by any caster who wanted to have a predictable result. It’s just a funny coincidence.”

Sunset smiled. “Congratulations—you telling me that just doubled what I know about chaos magic.”

“That’s frankly terrifying,” Starlight admitted. “I’m hardly a… Well… I’m being mean to myself. But I don’t think I know that much anymore.”

“Now don’t say that, Starlight,” Sunset assured her. “Your pharmaceutical skills are second to none.” She stood up and looked around. “But right now we need to get back to the cabin.”

Starlight stood as well, sweeping her flashlight around to illuminate dozens of pairs of eyes in the distant trees by reflection. By their height, they were surely human. “Al...alright.”

“Play it calm,” Sunset told her, gently taking the flashlight from her hand.

Starlight picked up her soup can and followed Sunset, lost in thought, barely noticing the stake in the ground and not commenting on it.

They locked themselves into the cabin. Since it had been built with storms in mind, there were pre-made boards which could be put over the windows. They were supposed to be nailed into the outside of the cabin, but inside worked well enough.

Sunset waited until Starlight was asleep to get the flashlight, go into a far corner, and examine the blood vial. Marcus’ story was suspicious—who keeps donated blood around for eight years? But a sticker on the vial provided the answer: the blood was marked as experimental, to be studied by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. It must have gotten lost in transport after that. There was no longer any trace of blood inside, so Sunset discarded the vial.

Starlight had only pretended to be sleeping, and had watched Sunset’s actions with one eye open. She did nothing to reveal herself as Sunset returned to bed.

It turned out that neither one of them got much sleep that night. The howls were too human.

---

As the sunlight poked through the cracks around the window, Starlight spoke for the first time all night.

“Do you think I’d be a unicorn?” she asked quietly.

“Does it sometimes feel like your thoughts are running so fast they’ll escape out of your head?”

“Yeah,” Starlight nodded.

“Unicorn,” Sunset concluded. “Definitely a unicorn. Welcome to the club.”

“What would I look like? My hair is dark brown, but you looked… Your hair was multi-colored,” she rambled.

“You’re being racist again,” Sunset said lightly. “Colors don’t matter. Your...uh, personal symbol—that’s the important part.” She summoned up a spectral version of her own. “That’s mine. And this is yours.” A second symbol appeared, showing a swirl emerging from a star shape. “Now see, the star is a symbol for generalized magic. Most unicorns only know a single spell, tied to their destiny. The swirl...well knowing you, I’d say that represented mysticism. But don’t quote me—I didn’t know that many mystics before you. I’d say Marcus’ little symbol was another swirl, annihilating his brain.”

Starlight chuckled a little. “He once told me his symbol would be every religious symbol, overlapping, or something like that. He made it sound cool at the time.”

“Yeah, I don’t know the symbol for pretentious twat.”

Starlight sat in silence for a bit, quietly chuckling at the joke. “So I was wondering: is Pony a different language from English. Because I notice you having to change your words sometimes.”

“No, not really. Or, to be more accurate, the same spell that turned me into a human also gave me Star Trek’s universal translator. I do sometimes swap out the more technical terms, though.”

“And what was the ‘more technical term’ for ‘personal symbol?” Starlight asked

Sunset said nothing.

“Pony Pic?” Starlight asked, her smile slowly growing. “Spirit Horoscope?”

“You know what? Both of those are perfectly acceptable.” Sunset said quickly.

“OK, you know what? You’ve been showing off your magic all this time. Now it’s my turn.” Starlight leaned over to face Sunset, and stared deep into her eyes, before she started laughing. “‘Cutie mark’? Seriously?”

Sunset groaned. “And I’m one of the Princess’ top diplomats, so of course I’m the one that has to explain that term to all of the non-ponies. With a straight face. It just wouldn’t do for one of Princess Celestia’s diplomats to laugh at what we call our special little butt tattoos.”

“No, no, it’s totally dignified,” Starlight said with a smirk. “I mean, originally ‘cutie’ was a word meaning ‘of culture’ and a ‘cultural mark’ is very accurate, and in no way is ‘cutie’ a word that has evolved into something completely different in the modern era!”

Sunset sat up. “Do you hear anybody outside? I don’t hear anybody outside. Now is a perfect time for us to get going, and to never, ever continue this particular conversation, ever again.”

“Lucky you,” Starlight laughed as she got out of bed, rubbing her eyes as she tossed everything she could into her backpack.

Despite Starlight’s grin, they were both wary as they finally stepped out of the cabin, backpacks loaded down with all the supplies they could take, and the green bottle of absinthe, Starlight’s only remaining source of magic, clutched in one hand like a weapon.

Of course, Sunset was holding a water bottle in her hand, much more realistic as to what they would need to survive.

The church still stood, empty and half-finished, with the planting beds of crops meant to feed Starlight’s followers in the future now untended, the soil starting to dry up, the little divots that contained seeds now up to the fate of rain to survive.

The bus was gone, and Starlight looked up and down the road, trying to remember any other houses but couldn’t think of any before they started walking.

The pine trees loomed far overhead, old growth trees that shaded the entire road even at noon, in the middle of undisturbed wilderness among the mountains.

Starlight held her green bottle closer, eyes darting from shadow to shadow, as Sunset walked confidently with her head held high.

“This is all my fault, right?” Starlight muttered.

“No,” Sunset said simply.

Starlight was quiet for a while, but she couldn’t let go of it.

“Why not?” she asked, adjusting the straps of her backpack.

Sunset sighed, looking over at her briefly before resuming her steady walk, eyes on the road ahead.

The trees would feel protective and beautiful, if it weren’t for the fear of what could be hiding behind them, but the birdsong and calm breeze tempted Starlight with a false sense of security.

“Do you think you’re the only person on this planet that Markus could have found who would figure out blood magic like this?” Sunset finally asked her.

“It’s unlikely,” Starlight nodded. “Three and a half billion people, there must be more out there like me.”

“So sure, part of it is on you,” Sunset shrugged. “Don’t be evil. Don’t trick people into your cult. Don’t be cruel, but you were already learning those things when everything went sideways. So—”

A howl that devolved into a laugh signaled that they had been spotted, and they broke out into a jog, spotting a field that rolled down to the freeway, their path to town.

But as they broke the cover of the trees, the howls multiplied into dozens, maybe a hundred or more, pouring out of the ditch on the other side of the freeway, the trees, the broken windows of a cabin just off the road.

Like a wave they couldn’t outrun, the wild frantic humans surrounded them as Starlight held out her bottle like a weapon, Sunset standing tall and glaring at them all while the circle closed in bit by bit.

“You all followed me!” Starlight shouted, though she wasn’t sure of that anymore.

There were too many of them. Her panicked mind could admit there was nowhere near a hundred, but still there were faces she didn’t recognize.

“You were my family!” she still insisted, finally spotting one she did recognize. “Benjamin! You love movies, you love—”

He laughed, like a hyena, looking up at the sun before shuddering. His whole body shook, and then he reached out towards Starlight, gnashing his teeth.

Starlight whimpered, her back against Sunset’s.

“Stop,” Sunset commanded Starlight, who recoiled, suddenly not knowing if she could rely on her friend either.

But Sunset stood tall and glared at each person surrounding them. Meeting their gaze one by one as they looked away and faltered.

Then Sunset pointed at the forest, jaw set firmly before giving them a command so loud, so confident and sharp, that Starlight winced, looking up at her in awe.

“Begone!”

They all fled. As though scattered on the wind, the crowd of feral humans ran away from them, leaving the women alone in the field of grass.

“Wow,” Starlight exclaimed. “What exactly was that?”

“Ponies are cute little herbivores. In a world of fire-breathing dragons and cunning, intelligent carnivores. This is how we survived, how we took over an entire world that thought we should have been the main course.”

“By… yelling at them,” Starlight stated flatly.

“By asserting dominance over them,” Sunset explained. “Haven’t you ever owned a dog? Too bad it won’t work if we get anywhere close to Marcus.”

“So…” Starlight stared at the ground, appearing to have a crisis of faith. “So ponies are basically capable of acting as higher-power figures to any other creature,” she said with dawning horror.

“It’s not like we put them in concentration camps. Or even run their countries. We just draw the borders.”

“I wanna be a pony,” Starlight declared, shouldering her backpack. “Let’s get to town, and see if we can corner one of them to experiment on.”

Sunset put her hands in the air in exasperation as she followed. “What part of ‘we don’t put them in concentration camps’ did you not understand? I did see Judgment at Nuremberg, you know.”

“I meant ‘experiment’ as in ‘try to free them’, not as in ‘see what other horrible things I can do to them’, Sunset!” Starlight told her, raising a hand to point upward, as if marking her declaration in midair. “My blood-magic domination requires a certain level of coercion! With pony command influence, I could bypass that when needed! Not that I would or anything, I’m totally reformed now.”

“I’ve noticed that you can’t make jokes about Abraham Lincoln,” Sunset said, seemingly out of nowhere. “I will now add ‘concentration camps’ to the taboo list.”

“Alright, fair enough,” Starlight nodded. “So you think you could command Marcus’s influence out of a captive feral though?”

“Well, I couldn’t, but you could, if I gave you a little ‘help’,” Sunset answered.

“Like…” Starlight walked for a bit, thinking, smiling a little. “Like, no joke giving me a pony aura or something? Not joking, I could be pony-like?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I still have to find a way to build up that much energy myself. Although…” She looked back towards the church. “I’m not quite sure what I did to revive myself when that bubble burst. By all rights, I should have been lying there helpless for hours.”

“You dug your hands and feet into the ground as though trying to reach through it to the earth below, and you pulled in all the magic around you, I could feel it fade and the air get pulled out of my lungs, and then you were better,” Starlight recounted. “It was… awe inspiring.”

“No,” Sunset said, shaking her head. “That’s impossible. You’re describing earth pony magic, and I’m a unicorn.”

Starlight didn’t reply, walking in silence for a bit before they got to the top of a slope and could look down on the small town that she’d sent Rogers and his dog back to a week before, about a dozen miles distant. The town was eerily still, with no signs of cars or even lit street lights visible.

“If they catch us, do you think they’ll be able to corrupt me too?” Starlight asked quietly.

“No,” said Sunset. “Not with that piece of me inside of you. You still feel that, right?”

Starlight put one fist to her chest, and closed her eyes.

Deep within her, despite all her pains and fears, she felt something, a tiny little spark within her that didn’t hurt or tear her heart open, it was just good.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Yeah, it’s still there.”

Comments

[redandready45]

Can't wait to see where this goes.