Unforgiven Memories

by Hidden Brony

4.5 Oh Pagemaster, My Pagemaster

Disclaimer: I do not own Hasbro, My Little Pony or any characters, places, or events in the extended cannon, although it would be awesome if I did.

In His Memory Chapter Five:
Oh Pagemaster, My Pagemaster

To say that conditions were unfavorable was a severe understatement. A glance behind me showed me that I really shouldn’t be doing experimental magic during rush hour. A crowd easily the size of the one in front of me had gathered there, and they hardly looked any happier. “Strike,” I said, “I don’t know how we’re getting out of this if they don’t leave soon.”

“We aren’t,” he said simply. “I don’t have the strength to teleport one of us if things get ugly, let alone both.” His eyes swept the crowd. “C’mon, get bored and wander off. Go. Shoo.”

Twilight stepped forwards. “Just some experimental magic, nothing to be worried about. Please, go about your business.” That seemed to have done the trick and the crowd began to disperse.

Until a voice yelled out, “You were Celestia’s right hoof! Why should we trust you?” I couldn't quite place it, but I recognized it. The crowd stopped moving and began to speak up, some in confusion, the rest in anger.

“Hey, he’s right!”

“She’s lived here for years!”

“That just makes it worse!”

The crowd very quickly turned into a mob as it started advancing. They became an undulating mass of colors and voices that only seemed to grow with each passing second. I don't know which one of them thought rocks were a good idea, but I was barely able to deflect it. "Not good," I decided. "Not good at all."

Right as the first of the mob started to run at us, a blur slammed down into the ground, knocking him back and causing the rest of them to falter. Rainbow stood next to us while growling at the assembled ponies. "What is wrong with you?" she shouted. "Look at yourselves! That's Twilight, right there. Sure, I don't like her and we've had our share of fights, but she has been one of us for years." She pointed at Strike and me. "And there! That's Star! She's not only one of your neighbors, she's Streak's daughter. Is what he did for us worth so little that we're going to assault her out of fear of things we don't understand just a week after he sacrificed himself to save thousands?" She looked at Strike, thinking for a second. "And I don't know this guy, but based on the whole getup and the company he keeps, he's one of the good guys."

Her eyes twitched to the side just long enough for her to catch a rock that someone threw at us, her hoof whipping in one solid motion to catch it and return it, bouncing it off of the thrower's head. "Put your rocks down, and stop panicking over someone trying to help us!"

The mob calmed down, having the decency to look ashamed at what they were about to do. "Why should we trust her? She was one of the ones to let Celestia go the first time!" the same pony called out, trying to rile up the crowd once more.

An attempt that backfired as everyone backed away from him, staring warily. Rainbow's eyes narrowed as I tried to place the brown stallion that now stood alone. She tackled him to the ground fast enough to leave an afterimage, and she growled, "Get the hell out of my town, you changeling bastard."

He sighed as I recognized the favorite disguise of the changeling that I first met on the train to Canterlot. "Looks like we're doing this the hard way."

Four of the assembled ponies were consumed in green fire, leaving black chitined bugs in their place. That started a panic. Most of the ponies started screaming as they ran in the direction of “right the fuck away”. However, a few of the ponies set their hooves and prepared to kick some ass. Rainbow immediately picked up the disguised insect underneath her and threw him into a building, turning and tackling another as it tried to pass her. I leaned my back into Strike as we did our best to look intimidating. We were screwed the second one of the bugs got to us, and we knew it. Twilight popped a shield around the three of us, glaring at the two bugs hovering around us.

Wait, there was supposed to be one more.

The final bug was getting its ass handed to it. There was no other way to put this. Big Mac had its tail in his mouth and threw it directly down into the ground. As it tried to stand up, he whipped around faster than I thought possible and bucked it in the chest with unerring precision. The thunderous crack of chitin splitting around his hooves was music to my ears as it flew across the street. The two Twilight were fending off were giving him glances as he trotted over slowly.

“Ignore him! We’re here for the filly,” the leader said as it picked itself up off the ground, casually dusting off its shoulders, leaving it unmarked from its unplanned flight. “I can deal with the big one.” It launched itself into the air, being consumed with emerald fire as it charged.

“Nope,” Mac said, bracing himself and stopping the charging bug with a grunt.

“Heh, you’re good,” the bug said.

“Eeyup,” the large stallion said, swinging one of his hooves around at it. The insect was sent tumbling to the ground with a crack.

It lifted one hoof up to its cheek, feeling the slight crack that appeared. It seemed stunned that it could even be hurt. “Retreat!” it exclaimed, launching itself backwards. “Leave the wounded and get out of here!”

The two bugs looked at each other, shrugged, and vanished with their leader in a flash. Rainbow drug over the cracked and unconscious bug she had been fighting, meaning that we had an account of all of them.

Rainbow nodded to Mac. “Thanks for showing up. I didn’t expect to have to use you to fight changelings, but it was good to have you.”

“Eeyup,” he said with a nod, turning around to go plod back to his stall and keep selling Sweet Apple Acres’ harvest.

“Well that was exciting,” Strike quipped. “Let’s not do that again, if that’s okay with everyone.”

“More than.” Twilight sighed. “They picked the most inopportune moment possible, didn’t they?”

“If you want to kill someone, you don’t hit them when they’re at their strongest,” I said. “You wait and watch, striking the second they’re vulnerable.” I cleared my throat. “Now if you don’t mind, the War Mages need to take a rest or three.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “It’s not all that far to your house. I can make up. . . the extra bed for Strike.”

I could see the hurt in her eyes, a hurt I knew well. My house had two bedrooms in it, so only Dad's bed could be extra. Strike must have seen the pain on our faces, because he quickly said, "I can take a couch, or even a patch of floor that's more comfortable than the others. There's no reason to go through the trouble just for me."

"I said I was going to do it. Are you calling me a liar?" Rainbow stepped forward. He raised his hooves in surrender, nearly falling over. I just avoided being knocked down with him when I braced him.

"It looks like someone used too much magic," someone said. I nearly tripped over nothing as I looked over at her. A white pony, pink hair pulled into a bun, was standing in the road. A red cross adorned her flanks, making me think she was a doctor or nurse of some kind. She had a knowing smirk on her face. "Looks like two someones. I'm afraid I missed the excitement."

"Just a few bugs," I said, indicating the bug that Rainbow had beat up. "Nothing overly hard."

"As long as you don't use all your magic before running into them, I would agree." She shook her head. "But that's not why I'm here." Her eyes locked onto Rainbow. "You have a check up scheduled in a half hour that I bet you forgot about. When you're done getting him tucked in and comfortable, come on down to the hospital."

Rainbow frowned. "I just had my yearly checkup three months ago. I should be good for the next nine months."

Redheart shrugged. "You've had this check up scheduled for those three months. I get the feeling that it'll be important, so I wouldn't skip it if I were you."

Rainbow opened her mouth to reply, but I cut her off with, "Rainbow, she's the nurse that knows things she shouldn't. If she says to go, go."

She sighed. "Fine. I'll go to your little check up. I don't know why you don't just tell me now what you would have found and just get it over with rather than going through the motions."

"You wouldn't want me telling these three," Redheart said. "Plus, you wouldn't believe me without a thousand and a half tests. We'll be in there quite a while."

Rainbow gave her a look, but went along with it. I have to say, my first encounter with the nigh-omniscient nurse wasn’t nearly as strange as I thought it would have been. “Anything major involving the rest of us, or can we go to sleep soon?” I asked.

“Just Rainbow,” Redheart replied. She turned to Twilight. “Your yearly is coming up in a month, though I doubt I have to tell you that. We’ve got the dragon specialist from the frontier along the dragon lands coming then as well, so Spike can start having his own check ups.”

“Thank you,” the unicorn said. “He’s not going to be happy about it, but the rest of us will.”

The nurse looked at Strike. “Hey, I ain’t in your books.”

“Correct,” she said. “However, your next check up is tomorrow.” He winced as she mentioned it. “At noon.”

“Okay, how do you know about this?” he exclaimed.

She went with her usual reply. “I know many things I shouldn’t be able to.”

“Let’s just get some rest,” I suggested.

Not too long later, I was listening to Rainbow and Strike making the first noises that room has had in a week. . . Not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Pervert.

"Will you need anything else?" Rainbow asked.

"No, I'm more than fine," Strike replied. "The real question is are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" There was a pause. "Okay, stupid question."

"There are no stupid questions."

"Except for that one."

". . . Except for that one," he conceded.

"I'll be fine," she said. "It's just. . . I miss him. He was always right there when I needed him, but now? Not anymore."

"You can't hide from everyone. It isn't fair to them. Especially Star."

I could almost feel her wince through the walls. "I know, I know. It took Cloud Chaser threatening me to get me out of the house, at first."

There was another pause, this one much more palpable. "I don't think anyone else saw that, somehow."

"I fully expected them to. I guess mobs and changeling attacks aren't conducive to observing those around you."

"It's beautiful craftsmanship."

"I don't care about that. It was his. That's what matters to me."

Once more, a silence reigned. "You should get going. Don't want to be late. We should be getting to sleep anyway."

—*~*~*—

I opened my eyes to see books. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves of books. I looked around, but the row of books I was in seemed to go on forever. I looked up and couldn’t see the top of the shelves. Looking at one of the thick bound tomes on the shelf, I saw words written on the spine. They read:

Sunny Smiles, Day 9826, Hours 0–12

Curiosity overcame me and I pulled that book out. Placing it on the ground, I opened it to a random page about halfway through. It appeared to be a very detailed accounting of Sunny eating cereal for breakfast while tapping his rear hoof.

Heart beat in. Heart beat out. Lips part three-fifths of an inch. Jaw down two inches. Heart beat in. Heart beat out. Right forehoof up seven inches, left half an inch, and back seven inches. Heart beat in. Heart beat out. Lips close two-fifths of an inch. Right forehoof forward two inches. Heart beat in. Heart beat out. Rear right hoof up one inch. Jaw up two inches. Jaw down an inch. Right rear hoof down. Heart beat in. Heart beat out. Jaw up an inch. Right rear hoof up one inch. Jaw down an inch. Heart beat in. Right rear hoof down one inch. Heart beat out.

Flipping a few pages later, I found that it was written like that for nearly a dozen pages. Who could have the patience to write something like this?

“Me, not that I have a choice,” a voice said from behind me. I turned around to see a white alicorn with crimson hair and mane, and blue eyes. Her horn was lit with an aura to match her mane as if casting some spell eternally. "You mortals would call this deja vu, I believe."

"Who are you?" I asked. "And where am I?"

"I have had many names. The Allmother, Faust, meddling bitch. I prefer my given name: the Librarian."

"Your name is a title? Forgive me for saying so, but that seems hard to believe."

She waved a hoof dismissively. "I care not what you think. I brought your mind here because it has been too long since I had a direct hoof in the goings on of the world, and I now see what a mistake that was."

"What do you mean?"

"Of the many pieces. I placed on the board these thousands of years, two have been able to go against the Tapestry of Fate," she continued, not caring that it was the exact opposite of explaining, "your adoptive father and Starswirl. With one of them dead, I'm forced to break the rules."

"All you're doing is confusing me further," I said.

"The success of my plan does not hinge on you understanding it," she dismissed. "What does matter is that you don't kill Starswirl."

"Fuck no."

"This isn't a request. If you don't give up your hunt for Starswirl, you will regret it. He is worth more than an infinite number of you."

"How about this counterargument? Take a massive dildo, roll it in glue, then put it in sand. Shove that up your ass, and let it dry before yanking it out."

All I got for my troubles was a cocked eyebrow. "Angry, irreverent, and stubborn. Just like your mother." She cut off any reply I might have made by turning around and walking. "Follow me, we don't have much time."

I narrowed my eyes at her but followed instructions. We walked not even ten feet through the seemingly-endless aisle way before she turned and walked right through the books. I trotted forward quickly, only to be floored as an intersection I couldn't see before appeared before my eyes. I cautiously stepped in, only to jump as I felt something press up against my rump and push. I whipped my head around to see a bookshelf advancing behind me with no intention to stop just because I was there. "I said we don't have much time," the Librarian said from ahead of me.

When I caught up, she was standing before a massive wall with no books on it. It was a scintillating, prismatic thing, and looking at it hurt my head and eyes. Threads of color twisted and turned around each other and—in rare cases—themselves. "It's such a shame that something so beautiful causes so much pain," she said wistfully.

"What is it?" I asked.

"This is the Tapestry of Fate. Every major event from the creation of this universe to its destruction is in there somewhere." She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. "Do you want to see your part in it?"

"Something tells me this offer isn't out of the kindness of your heart, but why not?"

Her smirk is all the answer I needed. "In this entire plan, you show up all of zero times, and none that do are required to be one of your descendants. You are easily replaceable, as far as the universe is concerned."

"Which will make it all the more embarrassing when I kill your little pawn." I shrugged. "You said that Starswirl and Dad could go against this fancy carpet, and I bet you that things that were supposed to have happened didn't already. They've been changing things for two and a half years, after all." Her grin fell, and the ensuing silence said more than words ever could. "This means that fate is mutable for now, doesn't it? That's why you're trying to scare me off."

"If threats against you don't work, maybe threatening those you love will prove more fruitful." Her smirk returned, this time with a hint of malicious intent. "A loosened scooter wheel, a crack in a support beam in a barn." The hint of maliciousness became much more than a hint. "All it would take is an awkwardly placed piece of cereal for me to kill someone. I might start with your neighbor's sister and go from there."

Fire washed across a pale red shield as I lashed out at her. Her grin widened as I stumbled. "Low on magic, dear?" she mocked. "Not that it matters, you wouldn't be able to—" My next blast cut her off as it washed through her shield, engulfing her in fire. My vision spun and faded to the pleasant backing of her screaming as I passed out.

"Take that, bitch," I muttered right before everything went black.

—*~*~*—

"Star," Strike said, shaking my shoulder. "Time to wake up."

I waved my hooves, pushing him off of me. "Five more minutes, I just lit a bitch on fire."

"You have strange dreams," he commented, replacing his hooves and shaking me again. “Wake up. It’s nearly noon already.”

I groaned, rolling off the side of the bed and onto my hooves. I levitated a glass of water over to me, wincing at the pain in my horn as I did so. So it looks like that whole thing with the Librarian actually happened, then.

“Are you okay?” Strike asked. “You shouldn’t be that low on magic after a night’s rest.”

“Like I said, I lit a bitch on fire,” I said, stretching. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the Librarian, would you?”

“I’ve heard the name before, but I know nothing of him,” he replied.

“Her,” I corrected. “She decided to have a conversation with me. A bit of threatening me, a bit of threatening those around me, a bit of demanding. She’s not all that good at asking nicely.” I looked at the clock. Ten minutes til noon. “Well, I’ve got a meeting to attend, and you’ve got a doctor’s visit to get to.”

Strike groaned. “You’re just like my mother, you know that, right?”

Author's Note:

So was frustrated that I couldn't give you a chapter when I should have and I forgot that I had this. Awkward. Here ya go. Have this gift from me. Huzzah!

In other news, I've tentatively restarted work on this story. Muses are a fickle thing.

-HB

Comments

[The Serpent Mage]

I have a theory:

Nurse Redheart is secretly a benevolent God in hiding.

[Gskar]

Love the changeling fight scene. The scene with the Librarian was really well written.

Also BIG MAC ATTACK

[Hidden Brony]

4808801

Different strokes for different folks. Thanks for giving this a read anyway.

-HB