Reward Prefers Risk

by AltruistArtist

Ar Jivel Thral se Stygian (A Wicked Slave to the Deepest Darkness)

“Are you comfortable with a spoken interview?” Sunburst traced the gilt spines on his office library shelf. “I swear I’ve got a spell for recording speech in here somewhere.”

Stygian had taken a seat on the same stool Sandbar perched upon the day prior. His slender forelegs were pressed tight together, neck tipped back, as though attempting to balance an invisible object on the tip of his nose. “Perhaps… we could forgo the aid of a spell. It sounds like a bit of intriguing new magic, but I’d feel comforted to only preserve my words in writing.”

“Not a problem! You talk, and I’ll write.” Sunburst took a formal position behind his desk. A supply of fresh parchment enough to bind a full book was at the ready, his quill hovering above.

Stygian didn’t speak. His tendinous throat quivered with an abrupt swallow. His eyes landed anywhere but on Sunburst.

The office was a modest size, but the shallow depth of space behind Stygian appeared to expand. His gaunt, gray figure was pronounced in this room bedecked in shades of pedagogic pale, like a stick of charcoal left in a box of pastels. The ticking clock was strident. Under Stygian’s cloak, his narrow chest bobbed with rapid breaths.

Sunburst set down his quill. “Is there anything I can do to help you feel more at ease?”

Stygian’s eyes squeezed shut. “In your letter, you spoke of writing my truth. What does that entail?” Sunburst opened his mouth to respond, but Stygian continued, “This is still my book. I decide what it contains.”

“Of course you do.” Sunburst’s ears lay flat. “Stygian, I can’t force you to disclose anything you don’t want to. I can’t force you to do any of this. Nopony can.”

“I want to.” He massaged the side of his neck, below his jaw. “It feels necessary.”

“All right.” The quill lifted in a golden nimbus. “How would you like to start?”

Stygian began from a place of stilted formality. He described the name and location of his village of origin, its general air and populous, and date of birth, like dry recitations from a history book. As Sunburst copied this, he snorted under his breath.

Stygian paused, lifting a hoof to his chest. “Is something amusing?”

“You just sound like one of my professors back at Celestia’s school.” Sunburst suppressed a giggle.

Stygian sighed. “I’m sorry. I struggled with this the first time around. When I lived, we were not thinking about whether those who would go on to live after us would take any interest in our personal lives. Writing about oneself was kept to the form of journaling. The information within was practical, offering wisdom on subjects of magic and monsters to the next age. That is why Star Swirl filled many such tomes.”

Sunburst recalled the day he pried the lid off that fated barrel to uncover the sediment-crusted book within. He never imagined who it would reward Equestria with. He smiled. “I’m glad he did. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here in this room with me.”

Stygian’s chin jerked upward; his ears tilted forward. His lips parted, but stalled with a pensive pause. “How would you begin the tale of your life, Sunburst?”

Sunburst was charmed by the enunciation of his name. There was an airy sibilance to Stygian’s voice which caused each consonant to be struck precisely. This was bolstered by his Old Ponish accent, a lilt that was easy to mistake as Trottish. But Sunburst’s ear was keen to the subtle differences.

“I’d probably start with my foalhood.” Sunburst twisted the quill in his magic at a rhythmic pace, the plumy feather swirling. “Not just the name of my hometown, but personal stories. Like, for example, my parents divorced when I was a colt and I was raised by my mom. Ponies are usually interested in facts like that. They imply ideas about your life. Though, not all of them are exactly favorable. Like how much I resent the suggestion that my mom's ‘overbearing personality’ had a negative effect on how I turned out.” He clicked his tongue. “My mom is a character in her own right. She’d require at least several chapters to cover her role in my life. And she would probably love that.”

With no gradual buildup, Stygian said, “My mother died as I was born.”

The twirling feather halted. “Oh.” Sunburst lowered the quill tip to the paper, his glasses sliding below his line of sight. Stygian blurred.

But, he continued. “I never knew what she looked like. No photography then, and only nobles commissioned familial art. But I knew her name. Hweit Storra. You would refer to her as Bright Star.”

In careful script, Sunburst wrote down both her Old and New Ponish name.

“My father kept her possessions in a chest in the room they once shared. I was forbidden from entering. But there was a time I transgressed. Inside the chest, I discovered many things, yet one caught me in the heart. It was a shawl, woven with lamb's wool. It had been my father’s wedding gift to her. It smelled like sweet herb and something warm that I ought to have had a name for. It smelled like her.”

Stygian rose a tremulous hoof to his cheek. “Each night, I slept with it pressed under my nose. Until, it ceased to smell like anything.” His lips parted, drawing in a breath at the memory, a millennium behind him.

“My father was enraged when he discovered this. Not merely for my trespass, but because a colt should not pitifully hold tight to his mother’s affects. I was perhaps ten at the time and far too old to demonstrate such weakness. At least, so he claimed.”

Sunburst kept writing, his jaw tense, hoping his silence may continue to coax him.

“This was not the first time my father laid his hooves upon me. It would not be the last. What I did next was reckless, I admit to that. A local wizard sold me a spellbook. The bits I traded, I stole from my father. I was never a remarkable spellcaster. Not then, or now. Certainly not one who could traverse the veil of death. But that is what I attempted.

“I exhumed Bright Star’s grave. The sight of her bones will never leave my memory. Nor will their unwillingness to be filled with her long departed soul. My attempts at necromancy all failed.

“My father found me lying in the hole I dug, curled beside her. I cannot tell you the number of invectives he cast down on me. Thouth ar jivel thral se stygian. That, I remember with clarity.”

‘You are a wicked slave to the deepest darkness.’ Sunburst’s mouth was dry.

“That was the day I received my cutie mark.” Stygian swallowed. “And my name as well. As was tradition, then.”

All this, Stygian said in distant, flat tones. Sunburst pressed his glasses to his eyes again, banishing the image of the little gray colt shivering at the bottom of a pit of turned dark earth, his mother’s ribcage casting a claw of shadows over him.

“I’m sorry,” left Sunburst’s mouth like a hoof had been driven into his gut. He set aside the quill, nearly spilling the inkpot.

Stygian blinked; his pupils contracted. “I have disturbed you.”

“No — I mean — I am. But that isn’t a bad thing!” Sunburst crossed out from behind the barrier of the desk, coming to stand before Stygian. “Do you want to take a break?”

“Do you?” Stygian looked up at him. “This story is old. It doesn’t hurt me anymore.”

“It’s okay if it does.”

An oppressive silence came down upon them. The clock ticked.

“Would you like to take a walk around the school with me?” Sunburst asked outright. “The students aren’t supposed to leave their rooms after curfew, not that all of them uphold that rule. The library is closed though, and I go there when I need to clear my mind. Which may seem ironic, since it holds so much thought provoking material.” He took a deep breath. “But the space is calming.”

Stygian came down from the stool. “I’ll take you at your word.”

Before they left, Sunburst caught Stygian pause. Hoof raised in a half-step, Stygian’s head turned to observe something behind Sunburst’s desk. His eyes moved laterally, reading with perfect fluency.

Sunburst willed him to say something, any remark on the scroll fragment, whether in solidarity — or derision. His heart squeezed. An answer would be enough.

Stygian didn’t offer one. He followed Sunburst toward the door. He was quiet.

—

Past sundown, the silence of the library was voidlike. There was no rustle of turning academic texts or gentle tick of hooves and claws across the tile floor. Only a pair of steps rang out, eliciting a faint echo. Above, the second floor curtains studded with stars were a washed-out mimicry of the night sky outside.

Sunburst lit a single sconce so as not to disturb the atmosphere. A little ball of light appeared at the tip of Stygian’s horn. It streaked through the dim space as his head pivoted before the shelves.

“You have an incredible collection here.” Undisguised awe was in those words. “I could spend hours, no, days in this library!”

“Well, you now have a connection at the school if you ever want to visit!” Sunburst laughed, the tension in his chest easing at the way Stygian had brightened. Stygian trotted alongside a long spanning shelf, mouth agape with a grin curling at his lips.

“Is your love of books what inspired you to write?” Sunburst asked, following behind at a slow pace. “Or, rather, present yourself as a writer?”

Stygian turned, smile fading. The light from his horn spotlighted his face in the murky room, as though it were floating free of his body. “In essence, yes. In my time as a strategist, I wrote often, a demand of the work. With that skill no longer needed in this world, it was a fitting secondary option. Besides, writers spend most of their days alone.”

Sunburst frowned, catching up. He walked in step with Stygian. “There are so many possibilities beyond that, though. If you’re not entirely happy with being a ‘writer,’ well, what about a teacher? A researcher?”

“Two things I considered.” Stygian ran his hoof along the ornate spine of an older work. “The reality of me being accepted into either profession? Dreadfully small. Each position requires immense trust. I don’t begrudge ponies who aren’t ready to offer me that.”

Sunburst didn’t give up. “If you don’t mind me asking, what does your cutie mark represent?”

This got his abrupt attention. Stygian closed the light of his horn, dimming the immediate area. Sunburst squinted.

“My talent lies in being a scholar,” Stygian said simply. “In discovering what is yet to be known. That’s how I interpreted it. As did my father. He was a blacksmith with an anvil mark. And he was always disappointed I did not attain a mark representing a more… rugged affinity.”

At that detail, a fleeting wonder crossed Sunburst’s mind. Was it Stygian’s father who crafted the dagger?

Sunburst didn’t linger there, offering a stiff frown. “Well, who was he to argue with destiny?”

Stygian stared ahead. “A very stubborn pony who bent the world to his will just as easily as he bent iron.”

Sunburst tried not to linger here, either. Instead, he asked, “Could I see it?”

Stygian’s eyes flicked. “See what?”

“Your cutie mark.” Sunburst lifted his cloak, revealing his sparkling sun mark for emphasis.

Stygian took a step back, his short tail swishing to wrap over his flank. “I’d rather not. I know this is yet another subject of change in this time, but cutie marks were revealed with great discretion in my era.”

“I know,” Sunburst sighed. “That’s all right. I got excited thinking about how its description might make for a compelling detail in the book. But as I said, nopony can force you.”

It was unclear what prompted Stygian’s change of heart. But he began to dither, muttering in fits and starts, “I… well…” Finally, he said. “Over here, where there’s light from the window. I’ll show you.”

Stygian crossed the floor to hop onto the plush window seat bench. Sunburst joined him. They cast a pair of long, twin shadows on the floor, breaking up the squares of cold blue light cast between the broad window panes.

Sunburst did not expect a shy undressing from the stallion opposite him. Stygian’s horn glowed azure and the thin loop at his throat came unbound. He pulled the cloak over his head, ruffling his bobbed mane, and deposited it to the floor. Bathed in the pale moonlight, the revelation of his body was stark. His lowest ribs pressed tight under his hide, shadows pronounced beneath them. His flank was smooth, an unblemished gray coat — absent of a mark.

“You’re—” Sunburst’s sentence did not begin. There were so few kind words to use. To utter ‘blank flank’ felt vicious here.

Nonetheless, Stygian supplied, “Yes, I am unmarked. But that was not always the case.” He cupped a hoof over the bare place on his body, bereft of its iconography of purpose. “I did not deceive you when I told my story. When I rose from my mother’s grave, I bore the mark of a blank, unrolled scroll and black feather quill. It had no other identifying characteristics, none at least that I can remember. That event defined me as a scholar.”

“What happened to them?” Sunburst asked gently, yet could not prevent the slight echo of his voice. “Your marks, I mean?”

“They disappeared after I departed Limbo. Perhaps the Shadow took them.” Stygian brushed the fur backward from the grain, revealing a part of pallid skin beneath. “As far as I know, the Pillars retained their marks. All of them, whole. I did not reveal my condition to any of them.”

It was a frank contradiction, a blank flank on the body of a grown stallion. Like a foal wearing the clothes of his grandfather — the same image evoked by Stygian’s home. His lissome, hungry build let off a slight tremble, as though desperate to be concealed once more by his cloak. Sunburst beheld him anyway. That gray coat was silver under the light of the moon. The Old Ponish word for ‘gray’ was synonymous with ‘venerable’ for the way one's mane frosted with age, but Sunburst always connected that dual translation to the precious metal.

Stygian shifted as the silence prolonged, tucking his tail close to his haunches. He looked at Sunburst with his woebegone azure eyes, trying to tease out an explanation for his scrutiny. A sharp indentation was pressed between his brows as though by a sculptor. Quickly, his nerve broke along with his stare and he inclined his head toward the window, assuming a curiosity about whatever lay out in the school grounds. This exposed a view of his slender neck and Sunburst saw something he had yet to notice.

A fine, silvery line of bald flesh ran across Stygian’s throat. The mark was just below his jaw, a few inches in length, and imperceptible in most lighting. Sunburst imagined all the Pillars had scars from their questing. It wasn’t unusual for Stygian to bear some of his own.

“Sorry. I was lost in thought,” Sunburst said, consciously. He pulled himself a fraction closer to Stygian, feeling the anxious warmth radiating from him.

“And what was the nature of those thoughts?” Stygian asked, the corners of his lips creasing.

“That you experienced something very unfair. But realistic for what you went through.” Sunburst met his eyes. “I’m not sure if you know this, but in the last century, ponies have extensively studied the mind and its connection to the body. There are accounts of this absent cutie mark phenomenon happening to other ponies. After a traumatic event, one’s marks might recede. As far as I read - and I read a lot on the subject - it isn’t permanent.”

Tension left Stygian in waves. “Oh,” he breathed. “That’s reassuring.”

“And—” Sunburst’s eagerness grew— “here’s another neat trick I learned.” He lifted the hem of his starry cloak, rummaging in the pocket to retrieve a wrapped candy. “Trixie keeps these in her counseling office for the students. She says if you’re feeling detached, a strong flavor can perk you back up!”

Stygian took the candy in his magic, and Sunburst cautioned with good humor, “I’d be careful with it though. Knowing Trixie, it could very likely have an enchantment on it.”

Unconcerned, Stygian unwrapped the vivid green hard candy and slipped it between his lips. An almost instantaneous paroxysm took hold of him. His lips pulled back to reveal clenched teeth, his eyes rolled upward, and it appeared, for a moment, that his soul had departed heavenward into Celestia’s divine firmament.

“Is it good?” Sunburst asked nervously.

Stygian spat the candy onto his hoof. “It bathed my tongue in acid!” he sputtered, and at Sunburst’s worried gawking, amended, “Figuratively! It’s like biting into a thousand lemons. I’ve never tasted anything so sour.” Stygian blinked, eyes watering. He chuffed out a laugh. “And I suppose it succeeded in banishing my detachment, along with a few taste buds.”

Stygian shook his head and Sunburst giggled. There was something rewarding in seeing him emote with his whole face, free of malaise. Sunburst said, “You look good like this.”

The openness in Stygian’s face closed off. He blinked, placing the candy back in its wrapper. “What do you mean?”

Sunburst scraped the plush cover of the window seat. “I mean, just as you are. Without your cloak. You look good.”

The aforementioned article of clothing was enveloped in Stygian’s blue aura. He lifted it before him, preparing to don it once again. “I look unhealthy.” His eyes were downcast. “I am unmarked. I am a nonsense.”

An exasperated laugh left Sunburst. “You are not! You’re… Stygian. To me, you’re a pony who looks — who looks like my friend.”

The shimmering blue magic released its hold. The cloak crumpled to the bench.

Sunburst cleared his throat. “Let me tell you something.” He unclasped his wizard’s robe and held it between them. “I love this robe. I bought it for myself the day before I left for Celestia’s school, thinking if I looked the part of a great wizard, I was sure to become one. It was far too big on me then, and I had to grow into it, but it was one of the first things that was truly mine. I wear it today with pride… but also a little guilt. Sometimes, I like that it hides my cutie mark.”

“Why?” Stygian murmured. He gestured to Sunburst’s side. “You’re… complete.”

“I wouldn’t use that word to describe myself.” He kicked a hind hoof off the bench, dragging it back and forth along the floor. “My cutie mark unintentionally caused my dearest friend a lot of hurt. It’s not to blame, of course. I had no control over the moment it appeared. But sometimes, I feel more relaxed when it’s hidden, knowing it can't ever do any more accidental damage.”

Appearing to process this, Stygian ran his hoof along the robe’s turquoise sunflare clasp. “Your candor is admirable. I’m sorry you too are burdened by guilt. I would never guess somepony like you…”

Stygian went quiet. Sunburst perceived, from the minute dart of Stygian’s eyes, that he was being studied, from the tips of his ears to the trailing ends of his unevenly cut tail. He drew his hind hoof back underneath him, closing his posture. “What is it?”

Stygian averted his gaze. “Just lost in thought.”

Sunburst showed a wry grin. “And the nature of your thoughts?”

When Stygian summoned the courage to look at him again, his wet eyes were wide and filled with fear, pupils dilated like the space between stars. He spoke his next words as though they foretold his ruination.

“You look good like this, too.”

Comments

[Bicyclette]

“Perhaps… we could forgo the aid of a spell. It sounds like a bit of intriguing new magic, but I’d feel comforted to only preserve my words in writing.”

relatable

Stygian sighed. “I’m sorry. I struggled with this the first time around. When I lived, we were not thinking about whether those who would go on to live after us would take any interest in our personal lives. Writing about oneself was kept to the form of journaling. The information within was practical, offering wisdom on subjects of magic and monsters to the next age. That is why Star Swirl filled many such tomes.”

and again, the cultural drift in how biographies are self-conceived and told between ancient times and now is also a thing i think about and i love to see it here!

They imply ideas about your life. Though, not all of them are exactly favorable. Like how much I resent the suggestion that my mom's ‘overbearing personality’ had a negative effect on how I turned out.” He clicked his tongue.

oof and so true

With no gradual buildup, Stygian said, “My mother died as I was born.”

also oof. it would have been so much more common in the old days, of course Stygian would say it so matter-of-factly…

“That was the day I received my cutie mark.” Stygian swallowed. “And my name as well. As was tradition, then.”

oh wow! this being Stygian’s cutie mark story is just so Early Middle Ages in contrast with the idyllic, sanitized, modern Equestria i love it

Before they left, Sunburst caught Stygian pause. Hoof raised in a half-step, Stygian’s head turned to observe something behind Sunburst’s desk. His eyes moved laterally, reading with perfect fluency.

Sunburst willed him to say something, any remark on the scroll fragment, whether in solidarity — or derision. His heart squeezed. An answer would be enough.

Stygian didn’t offer one. He followed Sunburst toward the door. He was quiet.

now this is definitely coming up again!

Stygian took a step back, his short tail swishing to wrap over his flank. “I’d rather not. I know this is yet another subject of change in this time, but cutie marks were revealed with great discretion in my era.”

love this bit of worldbuilding, which i stick to as well! 

Sunburst did not expect a shy undressing from the stallion opposite him. Stygian’s horn glowed azure and the thin loop at his throat came unbound. He pulled the cloak over his head, ruffling his bobbed mane, and deposited it to the floor. Bathed in the pale moonlight, the revelation of his body was stark. His lowest ribs pressed tight under his hide, shadows pronounced beneath them. His flank was smooth, an unblemished gray coat — absent of a mark.

the contrast with most ponies being nude all the time and this carrying a very charged air of intimacy and trust is just great stuff

It was a frank contradiction, a blank flank on the body of a grown stallion. Like a foal wearing the clothes of his grandfather — the same image evoked by Stygian’s home.

nice callback

That gray coat was silver under the light of the moon. The Old Ponish word for ‘gray’ was synonymous with ‘venerable’ for the way one's mane frosted with age, but Sunburst always connected that dual translation to the precious metal.

love this

A fine, silvery line of bald flesh ran across Stygian’s throat. The mark was just below his jaw, a few inches in length, and imperceptible in most lighting. Sunburst imagined all the Pillars had scars from their questing. It wasn’t unusual for Stygian to bear some of his own.

this brings to mind Sunburst asking if Stygian ever stabbed any monsters with that blade…

“That you experienced something very unfair. But realistic for what you went through.” Sunburst met his eyes. “I’m not sure if you know this, but in the last century, ponies have extensively studied the mind and its connection to the body. There are accounts of this absent cutie mark phenomenon happening to other ponies. After a traumatic event, one’s marks might recede. As far as I read - and I read a lot on the subject - it isn’t permanent.”

love this bit of pony physiology

Unconcerned, Stygian unwrapped the vivid green hard candy and slipped it between his lips. An almost instantaneous paroxysm took hold of him. His lips pulled back to reveal clenched teeth, his eyes rolled upward, and it appeared, for a moment, that his soul had departed heavenward into Celestia’s divine firmament.

“Is it good?” Sunburst asked nervously.

Stygian spat the candy onto his hoof. “It bathed my tongue in acid!” he sputtered, and at Sunburst’s worried gawking, amended, “Figuratively! It’s like biting into a thousand lemons. I’ve never tasted anything so sour.” Stygian blinked, eyes watering. He chuffed out a laugh. “And I suppose it succeeded in banishing my detachment, along with a few taste buds.”

ahahaha the florid prose ending up being a description of someone eating one of those very modern super-sour candies, oh that is good

“I wouldn’t use that word to describe myself.” He kicked a hind hoof off the bench, dragging it back and forth along the floor. “My cutie mark unintentionally caused my dearest friend a lot of hurt. It’s not to blame, of course. I had no control over the moment it appeared. But sometimes, I feel more relaxed when it’s hidden, knowing it can't ever do any more accidental damage.”

augh yeah! Sunburst definitely stands out as a modern pony who is clothed all the time and this is a great explanation why

Stygian averted his gaze. “Just lost in thought.”

Sunburst showed a wry grin. “And the nature of your thoughts?”

When Stygian summoned the courage to look at him again, his wet eyes were wide and filled with fear, pupils dilated like the space between stars. He spoke his next words as though they foretold his ruination.

“You look good like this, too.”

auauaugh love it