The Gift
In. Out. In. Out. In...
He paused in his thoughts. Slowly, his eyelids began to open, before being hastily slammed closed again.
No! No.
In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. In...
Perhaps...
No, you fool! No. You will not.
In. Out. In. Out.
You have to open your eyes eventually.
A grumble of frustration burbled up his throat as he opened his eyes, looking out at the bars before him, and the dim cavern beyond that. He immediately swiveled his head to the side, looking off at a spot a short distance from one of the corners of his cage. In that spot, lying on its side on the stone, was a small box wrapped in colored paper and tied with a bow.
He stared at the thing, for how could he not? In another setting, such a mundane object might have gone as unnoticed as the air, or the ground, but there, in the depths of Tartarus, surrounded by nothing but varying shades of stony gray, that little cube of black and red stood out as much as a full moon on a starless night. He watched it unblinking, as if he expected the thing to suddenly leap up and attack him. Of course, the box remained where it was, seemingly unperturbed by his piercing gaze. After several moments of this, he grumbled again, facing forward and clamping his eyes shut.
In. Out. In. Out.
Foolish ponies. Foolish holiday. Foolish tradition. Did they honestly expect to gain my submission with such a petty gesture? Only they would try such a thing.
In. Out. In. Out.
Antique shop. Bah! As if I would ever want some dusty old knickknack from some pony's storeroom.
In. Out. In. Out.
Probably some rusty horseshoe...or perhaps a moth-eaten rag of a hat.
In. Out. In. Out.
Some tarnished silverware...a garish vase...a faded painting...so many possibilities.
His eyes unthinkingly drifted open, and his head began to turn.
I wonder...
His eyes had almost reached the box when realization struck him.
No! No!
He forced his head back to its previous position, clenching his eyes shut with all his might.
Whatever it is, it is as worthless as they are. You do not need it. You do not want it. It is nothing to you.
So he had been telling himself ever since the two little ponies had walked back through the gate of Tartarus, leaving him alone with the accursed box. His stubborn refusal to even acknowledge the thing had led to it sitting untouched ever since. His mental effort had been successful initially, but even his disciplined mind had been incapable of completely ignoring such a glaring change to an environment that had gone unaltered for a thousand years. Still, he was nothing if not persistent, and so resumed his meditation.
In. Out. In. Out.
A far-off noise reached his ears, one which he was so familiar with that he did not even need to open his eyes to know what it was. Across the cavern, Cerberus was waking, slowly rising from its resting place and stretching out its ancient bones. Its three monstrous maws opened wide and sounded out a three-part harmony of yawning that filled the silent cavern.
Morning already?
Entombed beneath the earth as he was, the internal clock of his guardian was the only visible sign of the passage of time he could rely on. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough to let him know that a new day had come, and according to his most recent visitors, that day in particular had special significance for the little ponies of Equestria. He tried to slam the breaks on this train of thought before it could lead him to an undesirable place, but was not quick enough to prevent the image of the box from appearing in his mind.
He snorted angrily as his eyes flew open. He quickly rose from the floor, stamping off towards the corner opposite the one nearest the box. He crossed his arms, breathing a few more heavy snorts as he defiantly stared through the bars before his face. Eventually, however, his head turned once again, and he looked back at the box.
It is nothing to me. It is worthless.
A spark of inspiration was kindled in his mind, and his eyes slowly drifted across the little plateau where his cage sat, over to the edge of the bottomless chasm beyond it, just a stone's throw away.
So why not dispose of it?
His lips stretched into a wicked smirk as he turned and crossed his cage, carefully lying down at the spot closest to the box. He raised his hand, briefly pausing to inspect it. The preservative magic of Tartarus had healed his bones and broken skin, yet his hand still felt a bit stiff, and likely would for a while longer. Still, it would be enough for the task at hand, he thought as he flexed his fingers.
Looking back to the box, he slid his arm through the bars and reached out towards it. His long fingers slowly approached the box, then suddenly stopped as his torso touched the side of the cage. His brief moment of spiteful glee quickly faded as he pressed himself more firmly against the bars and stretched his arm out as far as he could reach, yet found the bow on the nearest side of the box still out of reach. Realizing that he had misjudged the distance between his cage and the box, he tried again, adjusting himself and making several more unsuccessful grabs at the thing. As the seconds dragged on, panic slowly seeped into his mind, the prospect of the infuriating box sitting just out of his reach as the long years passed becoming an increasingly real possibility. If his cage had not been a part of the same stone that made up the floor, he might have been able to shift it and gain himself a few more precious inches. As it was, all he could do was squish his body ever harder against the bars, ignoring the resulting discomfort. Fortunately, both for his aching body and his threatened sanity, one final thrust of his hand hooked a loop of the bow with the tip of one of his long, pointed nails. He froze, so as not to jeopardize his precarious position, then slowly, with the precision of a surgeon, tugged on the bow. The bow was pulled closer, and with it the box, soon bringing it comfortably within his reach. Allowing himself a triumphant chuckle, he seized the box and dragged it all the way up to the side of his cage.
He grinned down at it, savoring the small victory as he adopted a more comfortable position. Reaching through the bars with both hands, he grabbed the box, lifting it up off of the ground. The box, he realized, weighed almost nothing. He glanced back towards the chasm, judging the distance. Even with his frail arms, he estimated, he would have no trouble hurling the box over the edge and into the abyss. Chuckling to himself, he looked back down at the box.
It won't trouble me down there. Out of sight, out of mind. Whatever worthless trinket that little pink fool put within it, I'll never have to know.
His grin faltered.
I never will know.
His eyes slowly widened as he realized the great folly of what he had been about to do. Throwing the thing into the chasm would not solve his problem, merely transpose it. Out of sight, yes...but not out of mind, so long as he knew that it was still there. It had been a challenge to ignore the thing for even a couple of days; he wondered what effect the thing would have on his psyche over the span of a year, of a decade, of a century. What would happen on the day his iron will finally broke, and he simply needed to know the exact nature of the insult that had been delivered to him? What would happen on that day if the object of his obsession was at the bottom of the darkest hole in the world, where he could not even have dreamed of reaching it?
Fear for his mental state quickly turned to anger, anger at the control the box exerted over him, the control the little pink pony exerted over him by extension, and the control that the little princess had exerted by bringing them there in the first place.
No. I will not be made a puppet by those miserable ponies. I will not play their game. They brought this thing here to demean me, to torture me with its presence, but they will not succeed. I shall open this “gift”, but only to confirm what I already know. I will see what form their insult has taken, and then I will cast the worthless thing into the depths where it belongs...and I shall sleep with a smile on my face as I dream of it rotting down there.
Anger turned to sadistic glee as he pictured himself following through with his plan. He quickly set down the box, then slipped a sharp nail beneath the ribbon that bound it, effortlessly slicing through it. He made short work of the colored wrapping paper as well, and soon, the only thing standing between him and the unknown gift were a couple of flaps of cardboard. He seized the flaps, roughly pulled them back, and looked down into the box.
He had never believed in fate. Fate was a delusion used by the weak to comfort themselves in their failures. People did not succeed and fail because the universe decreed it to be so. The strong triumphed because they were strong, and the weak suffered because they were weak. Empires rose and fell by the hands of conquerors, of kings, not by the invisible hands of unknowable beings. Everything happened because someone, or something, made it happen. Miracles did not exist, except in the minds of half-wits and madmen.
So he had always believed. He had believed it firmly, unwaveringly, unquestionably, for over a thousand years. And yet, as he sat there in the center of his cage, his trembling hands held before him, staring down at the small sphere of wood they held, he found himself, for the first time in a very long time indeed, doubting.
It was smaller than he remembered, or was it merely that his hands were bigger? Its surface was worn, scratched, and pitted, a trifling amount of damage, considering its age. The lines that ran around its surface like those of a globe were still there, dividing it into what looked like five parallel rings that lay adjacent to each other. Each of these rings was inscribed with a series of markings that ran around its length, markings that would have been meaningless to any other creature within a thousand leagues.
He felt its weight. His fingers caressed its grainy surface. His eyes saw the markings, and he heard their sounds in his mind, yet for all this, he would sooner have believed that the thing he held in his hands was merely a product of his imagination. Perhaps he was hallucinating it? Perhaps he had hallucinated the whole thing, ponies, present, and all? Perhaps his mind had finally broken, and he was actually lying on the floor of his cage, gibbering and drooling like a madman, dreaming the world around him? It would be a far more likely explanation than the alternative.
Whatever the true reason, the fact remained that the thing still sat in his hands, patiently awaiting his touch. It knew what needed to be done; the question was, did he? He swallowed, an act made difficult by his dry throat, then moved one of his hands across the sphere's surface. He felt the etched markings beneath his fingertips as they moved to the uppermost ring, gently taking hold of it. He paused, taking a deep breath, then carefully applied pressure to it.
His heart jumped when the ring did not immediately budge, but after a few moments of increasingly forceful pressure, it finally shifted, breaking through whatever ancient dust or gunk had impeded its movement. It moved smoothly after that, the ring rotating around the surface of the sphere under his touch, moving its markings along with it. His eyes scanned those markings, tracing the lines and loops of them, until at last they fell upon the one he had been searching for. His fingers stopped and released the ring again when the marking was before him.
For a moment, he paused, considering whether he truly wished to proceed. In the end, the fear of continuing proved lesser than the fear of not doing so; the fear of knowing lesser than the fear of ignorance. One by one, he pressed his fingers against the rings, and one by one, the rings turned. He found the second marking, lining it up with the first. The third was quickly brought into line as well. The fourth came next, and then, when the fifth had found its place in line, he pulled back his hand and looked down at the name of the one who would someday be lord of much more than an ancient castle in a faraway land a thousand leagues away.
A moment passed...and then another...and another. All was silent, all was still, the cavern, the cage, him, and the gift he clutched in his hands. He waited, the tension weighing more heavily on his mind with every passing second. The tiny glimmer of hope that burned in his heart gradually diminished, growing weaker, smaller, fainter. Just before that little flickering candle was snuffed out by the wind, however, the wooden sphere suddenly erupted with bright white light. He let out a grunt as his eyes were assaulted by the illumination, reflexively turning his head away and clamping his eyes shut. He waited as the light gradually diminished and his eyes slowly adjusted to its intensity. When he felt he could stand to risk it, he cracked one of his eyes, then the other, then carefully opened them fully. He looked back down at the sphere in his hands, which was glowing with a soft, warm light that caressed his skin lovingly. His jaw hung agape, and his breaths grew shakier as he beheld it, its warmth seeming to seep into his cold, trembling flesh. He beheld an even greater sight when his eyes drifted upwards and gazed upon the ceiling of his cage.
Stars. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. A spectacle of sparkling lights hanging right over his head, filling his vision. His eyes darted to and fro, drinking in the starscape with a mixture of eagerness and awe. To some, that sight might have been beautiful, those tiny points of light shining through the gloom of Tartarus as if they were the real thing; to him, it was much more than that. To him, those stars were not just pretty lights to gawk at. There was meaning to them, there was history, and there was identity.
The serpent. The hydra. The manticore.
Those ancient faces stared down at him, those and many more. He saw monsters, and heroes, and villains. He saw kings and conquerors. He saw their stories emblazoned in the stars above him, stories from the distant past, and from a distant land.
His land.
Confusion flashed through his mind as those stars began to blur, followed by realization as he felt the warm liquid welling up in his eyes. He clamped his eyes shut and hung his head as his chest began to shudder and heave. His lips trembled, so he pursed them tightly and clenched his jaw. When he began to fall forward, he placed a trembling hand on the floor to steady himself. With the other hand, he clutched the gift tightly, holding it close to his chest.
He could feel its warmth, and feel the warmth of the one who had fashioned it all those years ago. He could feel her hands upon his face, hands gentle enough to caress the most delicate butterfly, and strong enough to tear down the tallest of mountains. The hands of a mother, the hands of a protector, the hands of the most powerful sorceress in the world.
His eyes slowly opened.
The most powerful sorceress in the world.
He looked down at the gift in his hands.
More powerful than even an alicorn princess.
It was not merely light that thing emanated; there was something else as well, something softer, subtler...yet unquestionably more powerful.
Magic.
He could feel the magical presence of the thing as surely as he could feel its touch. It was faint, puny, almost nonexistent, but it was there nonetheless. There was energy within that sphere, energy...and power.
A power crystal.
How else could such a device have been meant to function? How else could it still posses the magical energy needed to produce its breathtaking display, if it did not contain such a device? A simple thing, that crystal, but useful for such minor purposes. It could absorb the ambient magical energy of the world, store it, then deliver it to whatever...or whoever...had need of it.
As the wheels in his head turned, the gentle warmth that had been filling him up slowly receded, replaced with the cold fire of ambition. The power of that crystal was trivial compared to that which had once flowed through his veins, but it was still more than he had had access to in a long time. With it in his possession, it might take him years, decades even, to accumulate a significant amount of magical power, but time was the one resource he had in great supply. With enough time...
A wicked smile stretched across his face as a myriad of possibilities opened up in his mind. Plans and strategies discarded centuries ago for lack of viability resurfaced, suddenly not seeming so outlandish after all. His eyes pored over his surroundings, taking in every familiar detail as if seeing it for the first time. In his mind, a great plan slowly took form, and then two, and then ten. In fact, there were few options he could not imagine going in his favor, now that he possessed the key to enacting them. He could already see the little princess lying at his hooves, her and every other creature who had ever dared to stand in his way.
He looked back down at his gift, still resting innocently in his hands. All he needed to do was crack the thing open, rip it apart and tear the crystal from within...and the rest would be child's play. He chuckled as he grasped it firmly with both hands, slid the points of his nails into the seams, and then...
His smile faded as his fingers sat there as still as stone. He commanded them to obey him, yet they refused. Frustration bubbled up inside him. He knew what needed to be done. He knew what he needed; he knew what he wanted...so why was he unable to take it?
Cursing his disobedient fingers, he raised the gift high above his head, preparing to dash it upon the stone floor. A moment passed, and he realized that his arms, too, had betrayed him, refusing to carry out his will. They trembled as he fought against them, his features clearly showing his mental strain.
Why? This is what I need. This is what I want. So why can't I...?
A roar echoed through the cavern as his will broke, and he pounded an empty fist onto the floor. He breathed heavily as he sat there, clutching the gift to his shuddering chest. He clamped his eyes shut, but was unable to contain the streams of tears that issued forth, running down his long face before dripping down onto the cold stone.
He stayed like that for a long time, just him, his gift, and the watchful eyes of the stars above him.
In. Out. In. Out.
He waited.
In. Out. In. Out.
He wasn't sure what he was waiting for, yet still, he waited.
In. Out. In. Out.
An opportunity? A chance? A miracle? He couldn't say.
In. Out. In. Out.
He had waited a very long time. He could wait a little bit longer.
In. Out. In. Out.
In the meantime...
He opened his eyes, looking out at the bars of his cage, and the gloom of Tartarus beyond. He looked down at the floor before him, where a small wooden sphere sat, glowing with a warm, gentle light. He looked up at the ceiling of his cage, where a thousand points of light were scattered, looking back down at him. He grinned, then closed his eyes once more.
In. Out. In. Out.
He was in no rush. After all, he had everything he needed right there.
In. Out. In. Out.
He would see those stars again someday. He would make sure of it.
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A little slow in the beginning, but that's my only complaint.
Surprisingly emotional work here. You write all of these characters perfectly.
It probably helps that I consider both Pinkie Pie and Tirek underated, and your portrayal is spot on for what I could want for both of them, Pinkie Pie especially.
Even knowing what the twist was going to be, your execution of the story still filled me with genuine emotions.
One of the most moving stories I've read on here in a long time. Excellent work.
Bravo! Superb work.
He should've mentioned Sombra, she'd have a hard time coming up with a response to that.
11452231
I agree with you in principle, but there's a couple reasons why I think that wouldn't/shouldn't have happened:
1. Twilight and the M6 didn't really have any choice about what happened to Sombra. In the end, it was the Crystal Heart that decided to just obliterate him instead of depowering him a la the Elements of Harmony. You could argue that they are indirectly responsible for that, but you can't say that it was their intention all along to destroy him, rather than potentially reform him.
2. While it was never really explained in the show, Sombra is heavily implied to not just be a normal pony, at least not by the time we see him in S3. My interpretation has always been that he was some kind of lich i.e. a creature whose continued existence is inherently unnatural and evil. This would explain why the Heart does just destroy him, as he would have technically already been dead in the first place. Yes, this is headcanon, but I don't have much else to go on.
Sombra was a very special case, so I don't think there would have been a point in me bringing him up in this story.
11452268
Fair enough.
That was a good story.
This was a really interesting story, I don't see many Tirek stories out there so this one caught my eye. I love how you portrayed the characters in a seemingly realistic way and gave us a look into Tirek's mind. Any chance for a sequal? Maybe one where Pinkie actually visits him for Hearths warming? It'd be interesting to see if she can slowly chip away at his walls and let him regain some humanity. But that's just wishful thinking. It's all up to you
Great work!
11452682
I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed my work. Like you've said, I did make an effort to portray the featured characters, specifically Tirek, as real people with realistic thoughts and feelings. One of my biggest complaints about FiM is that it tended to portray its villains as mindless obstacles that existed to force the main characters to go through character development, rather than as people who could be understood and reasoned with. There were a few exceptions to this (Starlight, Stygian, Discord the second time), but these cases weren't executed very well, in my opinion. With this story, I wanted to focus on a villain that I do think could have gone a different way, but was never given an opportunity to do so by the show.
We know very little of Tirek's backstory from the show, but based on the way he is portrayed, I think he is the villain that stood the best chance of being reformed. He is not crazy like Chrysalis, he is not a child like Cozy Glow, and he is not some sort of undead abomination like Sombra; he is a rational adult that presumably has some sort of rationale for his actions. It is possible that he could be reasoned with and perhaps shown the error of his ways, but that would be a huge what-if largely dependent on who he is and where he is from.
In this story, I deliberately invented a backstory for Tirek that could conceivably leave him open for reformation, while also leaving the possibility that he might just stay as he is. For this reason, I don't think I would want to write a sequel to this. I left the ending of this story somewhat up to the reader's interpretation as far as how Tirek's experience affected him. As annoying as it is, this story was meant to get readers thinking about a question, rather than provide a straight answer to that question, that question being "could Tirek have changed?"
11453090
Glad to hear, shame there won't be a sequel but after hearing your reasoning for it I do agree leaving it ambiguous was a pretty clever call. Personally, my opinion on the matter is all three characters had the potential to change if they were given the right circumstance. If the writers haven't done a character assassination on Discord with the (IMO) really stupid Grogar disguise instead of Grogar actually being there, there was a really good chance they could have reformed in their own way.
I'm thinking along the lines of Grogar putting in a fail safe for the bell and making sure only he could use it and the bell would drain the magic of anyone who tries to use it. This way Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow would have no choice but to team up the Mane 6 and Princesses to fight him,
But hey, at this point it's just wishful thinking. At least you, me, and many other people on this site can make our own versions of how it should have ended. And this story was still a solid 10/10 to get you thinking about the character.
11453090
It interesting that when ever someone does a backstory for tirek it always his father who responsible for how he turned out, regardless thanks I always hated how in canon no attempt was made to reform the villian three at any point, honestly final villian of mlp is bad writing. enjoyed this and consider it canon
11454675
I'm glad you enjoyed my story. I can't speak for all authors/stories in the fandom, of course, but I would imagine that most stories that do place the blame for Tirek's emotional issues on his father do so because it feels more fitting to an audience. Tirek is physically aggressive, domineering, and is prone to anger, but is also cold, calculating, and emotionally distant. I feel that most people tend to associate these traits more with masculinity than with femininity, which makes it easier to imagine a father-figure imparting these characteristics onto their child than a mother-figure. That is not to say that all men are aggressive and domineering, of course, but that is a cultural association for many people. I leaned into this perception while writing this story, but I could have easily subverted this expectation and had his mother be the "corrupting" influence, and I don't think that doing so would have changed much as far as this story is concerned.