New Endings, Old Starts

by David Silver

95 - Fix Me

With slow steps that made the steps creak with every bit of advancement, the three pushed on despite their fear, cresting up onto the upstairs. "Hello?" called out Diamond. "You can come out now. We're not on the stairs."

But no sound came. Comforting advanced past the others. "I brought help, just like I said I would. It's alright, say hello."

Silver jumped against Diamond. "I heard something!" She pointed with a quivering finger towards the bedroom that she could only see thanks to Comforting's half-tucked phone.

Comforting sped up towards the room. "Good! Cracked, we're back!"

A heavy thump and a sharp tick. Cracked had taken one of her considerable steps. "They didn't run. I stopped them."

"You did that..."Comforting couldn't argue that logic. "But I don't think they would have. They care about me, and I said you're alright."

Diamond slid around Comforting as if to protect her from the strange sorta-woman. "What are you?!"

Cracked recoiled faintly. "What?" She seemed to consider that a quiet moment. "What... I dont' remember. Fix me." She pointed to the mirror, so close to being whole. "Blood is glue."

Comforting rushed to the mirror, sinking beside it and gesturing over it. "This is hers. She had it when she came here, but it broke, and I think that broke her. All the creepy body parts? I think that was her." She pointed to Cracked. "She can still come apart, when she wants to, but she doesn't seem to want to besides her right hand now."

Cracked huffed softly, sinking into a canine squat, but upright as any human may want to be. "I could. I don't want to. It feels... strange when my head is there instead of here." Still, as if to prove she could, she raised her hands and casually popped her head free of her neck as if nothing more durable than a building block peg kept it there. "No." She lowered it back into place.

Silver's head was at a 45 degree angle of a tilt. "Neat, but, like, also super creepy... So why were you scaring the daylights out of us before?"

It was like Cracked froze a long moment. "Ask her." She pointed at Comforting.

"I don't think she could, well, think." Comforting moved over to Cracked's side, patting gently. "She had come apart, literally. You try thinking clearly when that happens."

Diamond cringed at the proposed idea. "No thanks! Alright, second time I heard 'Blood is glue'. What does that mean? Besides being creepy, keyword of the day."

Comforting waved over the mirror. "That used to be way more broken. When I hurt myself, which was not her fault, or idea, I bled on it. It wasn't my idea either, kinda dumb... But then it sealed up all the parts that were in the right place."

Silver leaned in close towards the mirror. "I only see one part not right." Her eyes were on that last piece, lifted up and refusing to settle quite in place. "Blood may, like, be glue, but that one isn't sitting in there right. What happens if we glue it wrong?"

Diamond's eyes were on Cracked. "If I had to guess, which I do, then I'd say she wouldn't be quite right. Some part of her would be a little off kilter." As if Cracked wasn't already that. "Let me guess, you tried to get that in there."

Comforting colored as she was called out. "Yeah... That didn't work well. That's how I got hurt, trying to force that last one in there."

Silver pulled a purse from a pocket. A pocket in a pocket, ultimately. "Let's see if we don't have something to help with that."

Cracked perked as Silver and Diamond began searching their purses. "You were right. Your friends are good."

"All my friends are good." Comforting patted Cracked gently. "You're one of them. I want to talk to you after we get this fixed. You deserve more than lurking in an old house."

Diamond drew out a compact. "Mmm, no..."

Silver tossed some lipstick aside, a pair of gloves quickly following.

Diamond grabbed those gloves. "Hold on!" She worked on the gloves. "Protection!" She wriggled her protected fingers. "Now I don't feel as dumb touching broken glass." They were leather gloves, promising reasonable protection from casual contact with sharp things. "Watch me."

Comforting shrank back a step. "Be careful. I don't want you getting what I got." Her thumb still ached from the abuse it had received, reminded while thinking about it directly.

"That's why the gloves," scoffed Diamond as she pulled the mirror into her lap and began poking at the edges of that one piece and the hole it belonged in. "Just gotta get this in there, and not cut myself in half trying... Easy..."

Silver thrusted up a balled fist. "Go Diamond! You got this!"

Cracked watched unblinkingly and without word, her attention complete on the act.

Diamond began to wiggle and test the meeting. "This..." She pressed in a bit, just to pull it out and try another portion. "This..." She turned it around and tried a different angle. "Yeah..." She got one part under the surface, pressing firmly in place. "Just gotta..." She pushed down on the whole thing, but it was no easy task, her arms trembling as she pressed harder and harder. "You tried this without gloves? I'd be scared out of my mind!"

Comforting hid her injured hand behind her back, shuffling awkwardly. "I didn't think it through... sorry..." Was that a part of her child brain? Old soul or not, she had a young brain, and those weren't especially good at stopping when dangerous possibilities were presented. "You're stronger than me too."

"Thanks, but not something I was going for specifically." Still, compared to a little girl, the teen was a step stronger, grunting with effort as she managed to force it down further. "Almost! You don't have another pair of gloves in there? Gimmie a hand?"

Silver swiftly searched, but... "Nope! Sorry..." She had brought just the one pair."You're, like, so close! You got this!"

Diamond brought back a hand and slammed it down in a fist on the piece. A loud crack sounded as it sunk into place and she yelped. Her glove had turned away the worst of it, but a thin line had been cut. Thinking fast, Diamond yanked her glove free. "Blood is glue, right?" She waved her injured hand over the mirror. "Drink up! Already got the cut, better be happy!"

Comforting gasped, hands at her face. Her friend got hurt! "Are you alright?"

"Whatever." Diamond bled, but not nearly as copiously as Comforting had. "This better work!"

Less blood meant less power. The glass began to flow, but slowly, the crack sealing from the outside inwards in a slow transformation to being a solid sheet and a restored mirror.

Cracked snatched the restored mirror, hugging it close to her chest. "Yes! Ye..." She suddenly flopped onto her bottom, sitting more like a human would for a change. "Oh..."

Silver was applying a bandaid to Diamond, all that was required to tend to that far less serious wound. "Does it hurt?"

"Of course it hurts." Diamond hiked a thumb at the discarded glove. "Gonna want to get rid of that set I bet."

Comforting was torn. Old friends and new, they all seemed to need her. One was mostly alright... so she went for Cracked. "You okay?"

"No." Cracked at up slowly. "Not at all... I remember it all." A tear spilled from her left eye. "Every last little tiny bit of it..."

Silver raised a brow at the wolf-lady. "Um, isn't that good? I thought that was, like, half the point."

Cracked tucked the mirror away. in her furry form. "I remember how I got here. I remember fighting Starswirl." That name meant nothing to the teens. "I remember what I had and what I lost. I remember how long I was here, trying so hard to get... nothing... I remember."

Comforting squeezed Crack's closer arm, petting the fur of her arm, even if her hands were bare and human. "It's alright, we're here."

Cracked quirked a little smile. "If you remembered what I remembered, you wouldn't be here willingly. I earned that... Equestria is safer for me not being there. I was a monster. I am a monster." She rose up, looming over them all easily. "Blood is glue, ha... I feel like an idiot now. Of course blood would work."

Diamond yanked Comforting back behind herself. "Hey! We helped you. You better not be going all monster on us now."

"I can't 'go' somewhere I started," huffed Cracked. "I am a monster. You can see that. I can almost smell your fear." She flexed her human hands. "Starswirl is a monster, but he was on their side. He protected them by sending me far away."

Comforting tried to get around Diamond, but the teen was quite insistent on keeping the girl safe. "Cracked! The past is the past. You're alive, so you can change."

"It's not always that easy." Cracked smiled with her perfectly clean human teeth. This was only more disquieting against the rest of her inhuman form. "I'm not being dramatic... I have blood, now." She tried to detach her hand, but it was quite stuck as most hands were. "And a heart, and a stomach. That stomach needs food. Yours does too, doesn't it?"

Silver winced at the whole exchange. "So... do you eat blood?"

Cracked made quite the face. "What? No! But the rest is very tasty..."

Diamond rolled a hand. "Not to naysay the wolf lady, but why can't you just get a hamburger?"

Cracked gazed confusedly a moment. "What is that?"

Comforting slapped Diamond's back. "Genius! If you're a carnivore, that's no big deal. We all like meat." The teens nodded in agreement. "Just not meat that could ask us not to eat it."

Silver flinched. "Yeah, like, that's the line. Dinner better not try to start a conversation before we get started."

Cracked frowned. "Really? That isn't... monstrous to you?"

Diamond shrugged lightly. "I ate bacon and eggs this morning. That's pig and chicken if you don't know what that is. Tasty."

Cracked howled with laughter, equal parts both sounds. "That mad fool! He threw me out of the way, and I ended up where I'm not even a monster?"

Silver waved over Cracked. "Well... We don't have wolf parts. That's a bit odd." She turned to hike a thumb at her bottom, which had no tail. "And no fur, and no paws." She pointed to Cracked's great wolf paw feet. "So... still kind of a monster."

Comforting quickly raised a hand. "But just for looking odd, not for being a monster monster."

Cracked flexed her fingers, long nails becoming deadly claws. "I am a monster. But... maybe I could get along, if you don't mind a monster for a neighbor."

Comforting waved a hand excitedly. "The ponies--" Oops, the teens were confused. "Um That place you came from. It's changed over the years. If you promise to be nice, they'd be alright with you, even being a meat eater. Just don't eat what asks you not to. Even your furry parts wouldn't bother them."

Diamond prodded Comforting squarely in the chest. "You are such a freak." But she was smiling. "I want to know more."

Silver dared to take a step towards Cracked. "So... if you can get your food without hurting any people, you would, right?"

Cracked shrugged at that. "If I can get food without a big fuss, who wouldn't do that? I didn't hunt for the fun of it... but it was kinda fun..." She stroked her chin, thinking back on those hunts. "The chase, the kill.. Don't you ever hunt? How do you get your meat?" She pointed at Diamond. "You ate two animals just today!"

Diamond held up her hands. "Hold up. These are different times. They sell meat. You buy them, you cook them. No hunting."

Silver smirked at that. "We get someone else to do that part."

Comforting laughed awkwardly. "They are pretty rich, so they have other people do the shopping and cooking."

Cracked squinted at the two rich teens. "What decadence... I like it. How do I get someone to bring me meat?"

Comments

[redmar]

I wonder if Cracked actually explored all other options before she decided to hunt sapient beings.

[Amethyst Dragonfly]

I think that Cracked will be able to fit in either in the EQG world, or in Equestria. I wonder if she'll stay where she is, or if she'll go to Equestria when Comforting eventually returns there.

Comforting should probably sitll go see a doctor about her cut thumb. And as soon as is possible now that her new friend is okay.

[David Silver]

11489543
These were ancient times. You had ponies farming, and you want some meat. What do?

[Poparakelis]

She's kinda scary ngl

[Luckyfanisaac]

"What... I dont' remember. Fix me."