The Darkness among the Stars

by Haseo

Chapter 24 - Sentence of a Mortal

Chapter 24
Sentence of a Mortal

Stillness had turned in, both on the outside and inside of Twilight and her friends. For a couple of hours they just watched the black stallion sleeping. A shadow hung over them after Soul got struck, and the Princesses teleported instantly to the castle and let a doctor check him. He wondered how Soul had survived such an impact. Soon, they stopped hoping that Soul would wake up soon.

Applejack sat the at the edge of his bed. “What do ya think happened?”

Princess Celestia sat at the end of the bed and stared at him, her emotions split between care and worry. “This is the sentence of a mortal. This is the difference between a unicorn and an alicorn.”

Twilight's ears perked up, and she sat down next to her mentor. “What do you mean by 'this' is the difference?”

The Princess carefully wrapped her wing around her student and nuzzled her motherly. “It isn't entirely impossible for a unicorn to be stronger than an alicorn. Despite of our appearance, there is only one major difference.”

Fluttershy quietly whispered behind them. “Immortality.”

She shied away under her wavy mane and hid behind Rainbow. Princess Celestia turned her head and nodded at the timid pegasus. “Yes. Alicorns are free from every mortal burden and restriction. While an Alicorn can use magic frankly without any restrictions, an Unicorn is bound to their mortality. Both kinds of ponies can use the same sort of magic, the difference is their payment.”

Twilight looked up to her mentor with huge eyes that told her that she was eager to learn more. “Payment? In what way?”

Princess Celestia looked strained at the black stallion inside the bed before her. “Every spell you cast costs a small amount of magical energy every time. When a Alicorn hits their border, it is able to drain energy from other sources and get away with this without any consequences. But if a unicorn steps over this border and drains energy from something different than… you end up like him.”

Twilight jumped up and looked Princess Celestia directly into her eyes. “But how? Didn't he use this spell before without being struck?”

The Princess put Twilight gently on her plot again and stroked through her mane. “You're right. Before today, he was able to use these kinds of spells without suffering from a magical recoil. Actually... this was one of the reasons I've feared him so much. Since the first day he came to the castle, he had grown. His strength grew to an unbelievable amount. He is the rightful specter of space, but I think that the divine power of Chaos he took from Discord made him so strong in such short time and even prevented him from the magical recoil.”

The ponies looked at each other in concern. Twilight cuddled closer with the Princess. “Was he really so much stronger than you and Princess Luna?”

Princess Celestia squeezed her a little bit harder now. “You saw what he had done to Radiant Flare, Nightmare Moon, and Lunacy. He was well aware that he would get struck. If he still inherited the power of Chaos, the attack would have been much stronger. I'm more than relieved that he fought on our side... The other way round, he would have died for sure.”

In horror Twilight looked at Soul breathing calmly in front of her. “I see... .”

The door behind them unlocked magically and Princess Luna entered the room. She didn't pay much attention to everypony around. She went directly to the unoccupied side of the bed and nuzzled her kind of son. “Did he wake up yet?”

Her sister shook her head carefully and with a sad frown, the unicorn under her wing tightly pressed to her flank, said. “I'm sorry.”

Princess Luna sighed in defeat. She turned around and changed her frown to a well played smile. “I'm sure everypony is hungry after such an exhausting day. I would like you to follow me to the Dinner Hall.”

For a short moment they didn't know what to do but quickly they agreed and turned their backs. Applejack nuzzled Soul quickly and took off as well. The only pony remaining was Princess Celestia. Twilight looked behind and puzzled her mentor. “Don't you want to eat something, Princess?”

Princess Celestia didn't turn around. She still laid her eyes upon the sleeping stallion. “Thanks your your concern, Twilight. But I will stay with him in case he wakes up.”

With concern, Twilight watched Princess Celestia sit there with sorrow in her eyes. “Okay. I will keep something for you if you change your mind.”

The door closed after Twilight, the Princess and Soul were alone. For minutes, absolutely nothing happened until she decided to speak. “I know what you did there for us and I'm really grateful for that, but please stop acting like you’re sleeping.”

His lips formed to a small smile. “Attentive like in the past days, Sun-butt.”

Such an insult would cause a normal pony to go to the dungeons, but the Princess didn't bother in this moment. “This is the first time we’ve talked for a thousand years... You simply left after you turned me.”

Silence turned in for a moment until Soul finally opened his blue eyes. “This country seems to be populated by such happy ponies. It is nice to see that her death wasn't in vain after all.”

The eyes of the Princess widened by the mentioning of Harmony. “I can't verbalize how sorry I am, but you have to believe me. This was the only way to bring the world back into balance and create this land of love and peace. I understand...-”

Soul jumped up from the bed and shoved his hoof up her mouth. “Be quiet!”

A small tear ran down his left cheek. “While I was in my self-chosen exile, I've thought so many times about that, but just recently, when I learned what these six ponies are, I could finally understand.”

Princess Celestia stepped back to flee from his grab of silence. “You do understand why I had to do this?”

Soul nodded, his eyes were forcefully shut to imprison every tear. “I understand why you used Harmony to stop Selene, and I can deal with it for now, but you don’t understand this situation at all. You don't understand what I have done for you!”

Soul approached her with furious steps. The Princess had no other chance than to back away. “Tell me, Soul, tell me what you have done.”

The Princess reached the wall behind her and pressed herself as hard as she could against it. Soul stopped mere inches before her. “I broke the rules of time! I changed your destinies!”

The eyes of the Princess widened. Since Star Swirl obtained the ability to travel through time, she spend endless hours of studying around this matter. “This is not a bad thing! One of the things that Star Swirl had told me over and over was that time can be rewritten! You saved us!”

An ear-splitting sound stunned the Princess for a moment. Soul had hit with both his hooves next to her head. With a hoof on each side, he caught her. Fear was rare to be seen in the eyes of the Princess, but this was a very well chosen moment for fear. She made herself as small as possible while his shadow nearly completely covered her. “No, I didn't!”

Princess Celestia sank even further down while Soul's face grew darker. “When walked through the void, I saw your fates! Radiant Flare and Nightmare Moon were supposed to extinguish your lives! I've interfered and changed a fixed point in time! This event had to happen. There should’ve been no possibility of rescue. I had to damage the fabric of reality itself to prevent your deaths!”

His breath stocked for a moment before he continued to breath again. “I altered the timeline. Lunacy wasn't supposed to appear. He is a direct consequence of my actions. Instead of the death of you, your sister, and Applejack, and her friends, I've doomed the whole world... What kind of monster am I? What have I become?”

His hooves slipped further down. At the point his hooves hit the wall were small cracks. Small sobs escaped him through his sternness. Princess Celestia carefully raised a few inches in height. She laid her hooves around him and pulled him into a motherly embrace. “You are not some kind of monster. You have always fought for what you have loved. At first there was my sister, for whom you would give everything. Then Harmony came into your life. You sacrificed so much after her death to create peace. And now you're fighting for Applejack and every living creature in Equestria.”

Princess Celestia could feel the rising tension inside Soul. “Why do you think that I'm fighting for Applejack?”

She didn't let him go, instead her hooves tightened around him. “Applejack had told us how she feels about you, and after with what you told me just now, I think that you might care for her as well.”

Soul's ears perked up, but he didn't look at the Princess at all. She knew that he was hiding something. “Usually a pony would refer to a group of ponies by the name of the pony he had met first. But instead of saying 'Twilight and her friends' you said 'Applejack and her friends'. So you do care for her, even if you don't like to admit.”

Gently Soul pushed against Celestia's chest. She weakened her grip and could look now directly into his eyes. They were watery and weak. She hadn't seen him like that since his foalhood. “So did you forgive me? Are we some kind of… friends?”

Soul turned his gaze away from her and struggled entirely free of the embrace. “Forgiveness? You are asking me for forgiveness? After you threw this country into war and committed murder on my beloved Harmony? After you had betrayed your sister and me!”

Soul turned away and magically opened the door. In the middle of the doorway, he paused. “Listen, Tia, I won't forgive you for what you've done, but I will give you some advice. Watch your student carefully. I'm sure you felt the same strange magic around her in the Colosseum. So don't let her slip, don't let her become… like me...”

He left the room and turned around the corner. Princess Celestia waited a few seconds until he was far enough gone. “Thanks for your advice, Soul. I won't let her down.”

She halted for a second and took a deep breath. “Even if you don't admit it, you just called me by my nickname... You're opening up… even to me.”

Soul's voice rang from down the corridor in a little cheerful sing-song voice. “Cheeky as ever, Sun-butt!”

Princess Celestia smiled in delight. “Just like a thousand years ago...”

She dived into her memories and revelled in them. She finally left reality and entered the world of her memories as she heard the door of the Dinner Hall open in the distance.

Soul entered the room gracefully with a raised head, just like in his old days. He paid Princess Luna and the others no attention as he walked to the opposite end of the long wooden table and halted in front of the last big chair. He tilted his head a few inches and ignited his horn.

The chair began to glow in the same sapphire-blue aura as his horn and slowly began to change. The wood became deep black and ornaments of stars and a dragon head carved themselves into the chair. He proceeded to sit down and levitated a slice of bread to himself and began to butter it.

He was now facing Princess Luna directly but didn't pay her any attention. Everypony stared at him in amazement. Twilight levitated a piece of cake in front of her opened mouth but didn't dare to move further. Princess Luna finally got her lips moving. “Incredible to recover so fast...”

Soul turned to his left side were a servant waited with a silver tray on his back. “Excuse me my dear servant. Would you mind if you could serve me an Earl Grey tea?”

The servant stumbled, startled, a few inches backwards until he touched one of the curtains. “Of course, Sir!”

The servant took of instantly as Soul lazily continued to butter his bread with his magic. The seven mares were just staring at him. Nothing happened for minutes, so Pinkie got bored and jumped out of her chair onto the table. “Time for a comeback party! I've never seen such an epic comeback since ever! I...-.”

Pinkie was stopped in her tracks by a sapphire-blue magical aura that surrounded her. Soul's eyes met the other ponies’ eyes for the first time since he entered the room. “Calm down, Miss Pie. It isn't the time to celebrate, we have to preserve our strength. This isn't some sort of game where everypony lives happily. The enemy could be everywhere and could attack us.”

He gently levitated Pinkie back into her chair. She frowned and looked at him with big, begging eyes. Soul looked at her for a few seconds until he took a deep breath. “But I promise you, as soon as everything is over, I will dance with you again. Alright?”

Her eyes lit up and a small smile formed on her lips. “Do you Pinkie-Promise?”

Soul narrowed his eyes and asked hesitantly. “What is a Pinkie-Promise?”

Pinkie Pie rose from her chair again and presented her chest proudly. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. This is the oath of my unbreakable promise. When you Pinkie-Promise something, you have to full fill it.”

Soul weakly smiled at the bubblegum-coloured mare. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

She beamed with glee at him and let herself glide back into the chair. One slice of bread after another levitated to his dish. But as fast they came they are gone into his mouth. Rarity watched every movement. “I'm sure you are very exhausted judging from the mass you are eating.”

His eyes shoot upwards and met Rarity's. She was startled by the sudden movement and jumped a tiny bit in her chair. He began to smile, it seemed that her reactions pleased him quite well. “Do you expect me to lay quietly in my bed? I've just used one of four sacred spells and even had to protect my own life with a recovery spell. I've used in these few seconds more magical energy than you will probably in your entire life. Moreover, I've lost a part of my power due to the distinction of Lunacy. So yes, I'm very tired and more importantly, very hungry.”

Rarity slipped down in her chair to hide her face. Soul noticed that his might was a little bit too harsh the the fine fashioner. “No no, you don't have to fear. I didn't mean to insult you. I just wanted to make it clear, and I want to beg you for a little favour.”

She raised to her original height again and propped herself with her hooves on the table. Rarity leaned eagerly forward. “And what do you beg for?”

Soul looked seriously at Rarity he didn't even twitched slightly. “I want you to patch up my armour I wore when I arrived in Ponyville.”

Rarity looked at him rather confused. “Me? Work on armour? No no no, I'm a fashioner and not a mere blacksmith!”

He smiled at her gently and continued with a calm and collected voice in the manner fathers tell their foals a good night story. “I want you to entrust with this task, because you are the only one who can satisfy my requirements. You are the only one that can do it!”

She threw her head back in this weird fancy Canterlot manner and stroked her fabulous looking mane. “Of course, I am the only pony who can do it. But in exchange, you have to model for me! A stallion with such a marvellous body is rare to be found.”

A hilarious laughter escaped his mouth. He couldn't resist to laugh when he imagined himself as model. “Oh by the sake of time, if we are really able to stop Lunacy, I will be your model as long as you please.”

He squeezed his eyelids tightly shut. A loud thud on the table let him open them again. Rainbow Dash lifted off and landed on the table again. She stood directly in front of him with a challenging expression written in her face. “If you are starting to make promises then you can make one with me as well. I want a race against you! You overtook me in the air, I want to prove that I'm faster in the air than you!”

The servant from before entered the room again and placed carefully a cup of freshly made Earl Grey between Soul and Rainbow Dash. He bowed to Soul who returned it with a appreciating nod. Then the servant left the room, slowly walking backwards. Soul levitated the cup carefully to his mouth and sipped a tiny bit of the delicious liquid joy. Rainbow raised an eyebrow, she hated it when ponies made her wait. She took a deep breath and already wanted to burst out in impatience, but a blue ribbon wrapped around her snout. Soul looked at her with a pleased expression. “Contain yourself, Miss Dash, didn't you learned from our encounter before?”

Rainbow gulped as she remembered their last flight. Soul laughed faintly and continued. “Unfortunately, I've lost along with the aspect of chaos, the ability to form these wings. It is really a shame. I really liked to use them and soar through the endless skies.”

Soul could see the disappointment in Rainbow, but today he seemed to be in a good mood for promises. “When I settle the things, then I will begin search for a new way to gain myself wings. We will see who is faster than.”

A massive wing flap took Rainbow into the air and she landed in her chair with a backflip. Twilight observed Soul's way of speaking carefully and looked how he moved. She couldn't find any indications that he had lied to them so far. “So you used really 'Urano Metoria'. The Princess didn't underestimate this spell. It is really powerful and scarring. But I want to know one thing. You said, over and over, that you will settle this matter. What about us? As Elements of Harmony, I think that we have the right to fight for our sakes and that of the whole of Equestria.”

Soul's breath halted for a moment. “Harmony...”

It was barely audible for the audience, but they still realized what Twilight had said and what this meant to him. “You're right, as Elements of Harmony, you should have the right. But as coltfriend and father of our unborn daughter, I prohibit you to fight at all.”

Before Twilight could respond, a pair of powerful hooves met the table. Applejack couldn't bear it any more. She had to speak up. ”This is ridiculous! We won't take orders from ya like that! We will fight alongside ya, with or without your permission. We will stick to ya like flies to the cows.”

Once more, Soul broke down within his own laughter. “Oh my, I already counted the minutes until she would finally speak to me. It seems that you hadn't only inherited the honesty of Harmony, but her temper, her insularity and some of her emotions as well. That would explain quite well why you were acting like that back then.”

Applejack gave in and slipped her hooves from the table. “Ah wasn't acting, these were my honest feelings towards you, just like your actions back then were honest. But for now we have to push that aside and fight for our future. Maybe for a future where you and Ah can be together.”

Soul looked at her with widened eyes. “This is a very mature and wise attitude of you, Miss Applejack. But still I won't allow you to fight. Like I've already said, this isn't some kind of game. This is war. There will be blood and loss everywhere. I don't want any of you to suffer or even to die because of me. This is my fault, and I will correct it.”

The orange farmer shook her head. “Ya aren't alone. The six of us are your Harmony, and we have the pants on in this relationship, and we want to fight!”

Soul rocketed up from his chair and let the cup fall down to the table. Luckily, it was already empty and didn't shatter. “No! You aren't! You six aren't even complete anymore. The Element of Magic has shattered. It is gone! And as long as I don't know why, you six go nowhere!”

Curled together to a ball, a butter-coloured mass peaked up from under the table. “Uhmm, sorry, but don't you think it would be a good idea to ask the Princess for advice? If you don't mind, of course...”

With her last words, she submerged under the table again. Soul looked at the empty chair were Fluttershy was visible just seconds ago. “You six! Out of here, and get me the Princess!”

Rainbow Dash saluted, and took the others shoving them outside. The only ones left were Soul and Princess Luna. Soul turned around and now faced the window where the gardens laid underneath.

Princess Luna followed his steps and halted a few feet behind him. “You sounded quite confident. I assume you do have a plan my faithful student?”

Soul's head turned around. He flashed Princess Luna a wicked grin. “Demon's Run.”

The eyes of Princess Luna widened in shock. “Impossible!”

Comments

[Shirley Not Serious]

That description gave me chills I'll have to read this sometime.

[Haseo]

2656631

I promise, you won't be disappointed.

[Wannabe Scholar]

I've the story so far and it's enjoyable. I do like how you have Soul Terror in the beginning and his relation to the princesses, and I found the story so far to be interesting. However, I'm not too sure about Applejack's character in the story. I do get how she can relate herself to Soul, since they both lost their loved ones but I think having Applejack have such strong feelings may have been a bit of a stretch.

Also, am I seeing Doctor Who references in this fic? Demon's Run, "time can be rewritten," time-lock, etc. Are those actual references or am I seeing things? I mean no offense, I'm just curious.

-W.S.