Don't Stop Believing

by Seer

Living Just To Find Emotion

It couldn’t be.

“Is someone there?!” Twilight cried, lighting her horn to try to pull the rocks away.

“Y a-t-il quelqu'un dehors?” the voice called back.

Twilight’s horn flickered and her grasp hooked onto the rocks, but fell away just as quickly. She wasn’t strong enough.

She’d never been strong enough.

“Twilight, you can’t just do science lessons,” Celestia said, her laugh betraying how charming the tiny indignant filly was as she puffed her cheeks.

“But languages aren’t even useful!” she said, not noting the irony of her myriad mispronunciations as she tried to convince her teacher, “I can just cast a translation spell! But I’ll never learn how to do that if I don’t focus on science and magic!”

Celestia stuck her tongue out in mock thought, and found herself strangely compelled by the child’s argument.

Of course, that was the memory she came to now. Of course, that was one of the few her mind had decided to leave her intact.

Twilight tried to cast the translation spell.

She wasn’t strong enough.

She slumped to the ground.

Sit there and listen to a voice she couldn’t understand nor save? And knowing her weakness will only continue?

Okay.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you,” she said, her voice wobbled and only her exhaustion stopped her from crying.

“Je vous comprends! Je suis désolée, mais je ne parle pas la langue!” the voice cried back, sounding desperate to be heard.

Twilight scrunched her eyes and rubbed her temples and it felt like her brain was going to explode. The effort required to do the slightest amount of critical thinking was agonising.

The word ‘comprends’ sounded like its Ponish equivalent.

Did that mean the voice could understand her?

“Can you understand me? Can you understand what I’m saying?”

“Oui! Oui!”

Even Twilight understood that one.

She flapped her wings and the lift was nigh unnoticeable. But Twilight had always had a keen eye for detail. The second keenest eye she’d ever known, in fact.

She reached her forelegs up, and with a flap, pulled herself up one of the rocks.

“Are you safe in there? Do you have food?”

“Oui, mais nous n'en avons plus. Il y a de l'eau ici, mais la nourriture ne durera pas longtemps."

Twilight scrunched her eyes and bit her tongue. The frustration was killing her, the effort was killing her, needing to think was killing her. She flapped her wings again, and up another rock.

“I’m sorry, could you say it more simply?!” she called back.

“L'assistance,” the voice said, before repeating it several times. Twilight felt like she had a good idea what she was being told.

Another flap, another couple of feet higher, all heading to the top of that pile, all to that crack in the rocks.

“Are you alone?”

“Nous sommes nombreux. Ils sont plus bas dans les catacombes de cristal,” came the reply, sounding buoyed as Twilight assumed her voice got louder and louder. Another beat of the wings, another tiny amount of lift. It was lift enough.

“Could you stick with yes or no answers?” Twilight said, hoping the exertion in her voice would quell any disagreement from within, “Are you alone in there?”

“Non,”

“Are you in charge?”

“Non,”

Twilight scrambled further and further, the aperture tantalisingly close. She licked her lips, the promise of the smell of the stink and musk of other living beings, stale and stifling, it sounded like the closest she may ever feel to being home ever again.

“Who is?”

“Mon amie, Rarity,”

Twilight nearly fell from the rocks.

Another flap, another desperate scramble to get to the hole. She couldn’t fall now.

Surely it couldn’t be possible.

But Twilight wanted to just believe.

“Did you say ‘Rarity’?”

“Oui,”

One final, agonising flap of her wings. They burned, her muscles were on fire, her whole body screamed for something, anything other than this. Her body wanted her to lie down and sleep and never get back up. Her mind wanted her to just rest for a while, she wasn’t any good to anyone like this.

“Can… can you go get her?” Twilight said, ragged breaths giving way to wet, heaving sobs as tears streamed down her face.

“Oui! Un moment!”

Twilight got to the hole, it was bigger than expected, she could have easily gotten her head through it. She looked through, catching the back end of the pony she’d been speaking to heading through a darkened threshold. The room seemed to be a guardpost of sorts, a sharpened stick lay by an old chair she imagined the pony had been sitting on. Glowsticks littered the ground, giving the room a warm ambience that offered a pretence of safety amid the silent world.

From the glance she caught, the pony looked to be a turquoise earth pony with a purple tail. Her cutie mark was a cluster of ornate looking shells, it was beautiful, being honest.

She was the first pony Twilight had seen since waking up to find Ponyville completely deserted, and Twilight could barely summon the energy to pretend to care about her.

Something greater was yet to come. Twilight had to believe.

Her forelegs begged for release, her wings were trees on fire, each branch a new line in a poem of vitriolic agony.

The pony returned.

She wasn’t alone.

And the second Twilight saw her, somehow still the beautiful grey of a winter’s sky, untouched by the chaos, she felt less weak.

Considerably less weak.

Rarity listened to some hushed report offered by the earth pony, but her attention seemed divided. She didn’t seem right. And then she grasped the side of her head like she was in pain.

And Twilight felt stronger. And she looked at Rarity’s horn and licked her lips like she was a timberwolf stalking a lost filly, adrift in the everfree with no one to protect them. Rarity had no one to protect her, she was in charge, the guard had said.

Twilight must have really loved Rarity, she was noticeably stronger just by looking at her, looking at her horn, looking at her aura.

Rarity fell, some far part of Twilight told her she should care. Twilight oddly didn’t.

Rarity rolled over, Twilight saw some gash on the inside of her foreleg she must have gotten sometime after coming down here. It must have been recent, it wasn’t properly healed. Twilight looked at Rarity’s horn, Twilight felt stronger, Rarity convulsed, the wound reopened.

Twilight saw the blood.

Blood.

Luna cocked her head, and cut open her own cheek, and stood silently as the blood poured down her face.

The memories returned to Twilight like a being in the centre of a tsunami, rushing with all the power of the vengeful, spiteful earth. Twilight threw herself from the rocks as fast as she could, and she didn’t stop running until the sound of her hooves were fully stolen by the never-ending whispers of the silent wind.

Author's Note:

Sooo congrats to anyone who didn't read the spoiler in the long description, this is actually also, and arguably much moreso than a sequel to The Silent Wind, a Shadow Within sequel.

Comments

[Bicyclette]

“Y a-t-il quelqu'un dehors?” the voice called back.

but why would the French of a matriarchial Equestria not use “quelqu’une” as the default, huh? immersion RUINED

“But languages aren’t even useful!” she said, not noting the irony of her myriad mispronunciations as she tried to convince her teacher, “I can just cast a translation spell! But I’ll never learn how to do that if I don’t focus on science and magic!”

in this age of effortless AI translators, commentary!

“Oui, mais nous n'en avons plus. Il y a de l'eau ici, mais la nourriture ne durera pas longtemps."

pourquoi cette jument parle comme un livre

“Mon amie, Rarity,”

j’aime ma femme

And the second Twilight saw her, somehow still the beautiful grey of a winter’s sky, untouched by the chaos, she felt less weak.

Considerably less weak.

extremely relatable thing to feel upon seeing Rarity

Rarity fell, some far part of Twilight told her she should care. Twilight oddly didn’t.

Rarity rolled over, Twilight saw some gash on the inside of her foreleg she must have gotten sometime after coming down here. It must have been recent, it wasn’t properly healed. Twilight looked at Rarity’s horn, Twilight felt stronger, Rarity convulsed, the wound reopened.

ooooookay this is certainly getting unsettling! i didn't mean it that way!