II.6 - The Dark Into the Dawn
Twilight and I started walking back a little while later once the purple alicorn had decided that I had learned the lesson she wanted me to have while walking through the Everfree Forest. Once again, Twilight led the way with the light on her horn and I followed her as we walked through the dark forests along the path back home. We left the castle and crossed the bridge one by one before heading back into the forests until the bridge at the river, where we again crossed and went back into the darkness of the forests, neither of us saying a word to the other; Twilight was too focused on trying to make sure we got out okay, while I was too busy thinking about what I had seen and heard.
I asked Twilight if she could at least try flying me out since it hurt to walk so long a way, but she was hardly able to lift herself a few inches off the ground before she had to settle right back down from the stress of my weight. I had slimmed down a bit and even gained some muscle in the eighty-something days I had been in Equestria, but even then the fact remained the extra weight was too much for the inexperienced flyer and we were forced to walk. Which was fine; I wanted the time to think, both about what I had seen of Luna and how those perceptions had changed over the last month. For starters, I was a little bit more aware of the differences between her and Nightmare Moon, the latter being her jealousy and hatred being taken out of control while the former was a younger princess who wanted friends and respect but became overshadowed by her older sister. I sometimes felt that way about my little sister, how she was always the star of the family while I went and became the one that no one cared about.
The night wore on and eventually Twilight and I had made it back to the clearing where Twilight and her friends had encountered the manitcore. It was here I hailed Twilight again for a rest; I couldn’t walk another inch and the soles of my feet hurt.
“Your hooves are harder than my feet,” I told Twilight as I found a broken stump to sit on. “No matter the types of shoe I wear.”
Twilight nodded. “That’s okay.”
We sat in silence for a minute.
“If you stayed, would you turn into a pony?”
I looked at Twilight. “There a particular reason you ask?”
“It seems like it would be a waste if, as soon as you get approval from Luna, you leave.”
“Her approval wasn’t what I sought. I just had to endure. Look, it’s nice to know that I finally got her to understand that I’m not from here and how hard it is for me to fit in, but it’s still not home.”
“Maybe you just needed to settle down.”
“If I stay here, my humanity is all I have left. I’d be starting here with nothing to my name. Heck, I didn’t even know my own name until recently.”
“I’m sure someone would take you in. I’d even do it myself until you got yourself up and running.”
“Twilight, I do appreciate the offer, but I have no talent and I have no skill. If I had one of those cutie mark things, I suspect it’d be a pair of tennis shoes because I would just constantly be moving about from one place to another. But that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to keep wandering around, but that’s what I’d be doing if I stayed.”
“But what about Luna, and Shining Armor and Cadence, and Princess Celestia, and Revenant Wings, and everyone else you’ve met? We all would be sad if you left, even me.”
“I’d be sad, too. I’d be leaving ponies I’ve come to know as friends. But I have a feeling that wouldn’t change anything. Staying in one place only prolongs my leaving.”
Twilight sighed. “I’m sorry, Lucas. I didn’t mean to be so hard or so pushy.”
“It’s fine,” I told her.
I looked up and saw a pair of shooting stars across the sky. They passed the moon and continued downwards, leaving little streaks across the sky. The moon itself had waned.
“Twilight… what do you know about the kindred bond?”
Twilight thought. “Well, from what I’ve read, only ponies can feel it. Ponies who make kindred bonds with those from other races will have ponies feel the bond but the other race won’t feel it happening to them.”
“So even though Shining Armor has a bond with me, I don’t have a bond with Shining Armor simply because I am not a pony.”
“That’s about right.”
“…I kind of feel bad for him.”
“That would be guilt.”
“I know what the emotion is called and I know why I’m feeling it. It’s all this stuff with magic I can’t understand.”
“If you stayed, I could teach you.”
“Twilight…”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” But inwardly I was irritated.
We stayed in the clearing much longer than I expected, mostly because I spent a few extra minutes calming down after that conversation. Twilight didn’t say another word and simply kept watch while I sat on the stump trying to collect my emotions and make sure I didn’t burst into anger. To be sure, I did feel bad about leaving the ponies behind I had made friends with, but they were all just so insistent. Even if they weren’t part of Celestia’s wanting to keep me here, they all seemed so intent on making me stay. When would they
“Lucas,” Twilight said, suddenly very serious.
I was startled out of my train of thought and nearly off the stump. “What is it, Twilight?”
“There’s something coming,” the alicorn said. “I don’t know what it is, but we have to get moving.”
I waited and listened for a little bit but didn’t hear anything. I did feel the ground begin to shake, little at first, but soon the shaking extended into a steady rumbling and became harder and less time between shakes until the ground was no longer steady. I jumped off the stump and shouted, “Lead the way!”
Twilight wasted no time. She didn’t ran, but went at a very fast walk so that I was able to keep up. Off in the distance, I could hear trees being torn apart and the trunks being broken in two but I didn’t look behind me.
“Whatever it is, it’s huge,” I said.
“We need to keep moving,” Twilight said. “No matter the size; at this time, the forest is filled with dangerous creatures.”
Eventually the ground shook so hard that we were both thrown forwards. I got up and helped Twilight up before we both broke into a run. It wasn’t long before our follower revealed itself: a giant brown arachnid that reminded me of a tarantula but was taller than most of the trees. “That is what you mean by the stuff that lives in Everfree!?”
“That is why no one likes going in here!”
“I thought you said everything was normal in here!”
“You said that was normal back on Earth!”
“The weather patterns were, but I’m used to a spider that can maybe get as large as my hand at the worst!”
“We can argue about the semantics later, just run!”
Twilight didn’t need to tell me twice. While she kept the lead and I still followed behind, neither of us wasted any time in following the path through the forest. But the spider, with its long, hairy, spindly legs, was catching up with us faster than we could run.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
“I could probably teleport us out of here…”
“Why didn’t you do that in the first place!?”
“We were too far in! I couldn’t teleport us without the possibility of us landing somewhere we wouldn’t know and would get lost in!”
“We haven’t got much choice now!”
“Alright. Come over here and hold on.”
I ran over to Twilight, who stopped and began charging the magic in her horn. I began to feel a vague tingling sensation that I had felt before the first time I had been teleported somewhere, and began to worry about if I fell into a coma again like I had upon arrival; I didn’t tell Twilight about that during my stay but even I could acknowledge there wasn’t another solution.
But before the magic could finish, the spider had caught up with us. With the wave of a single leg, it knocked against us and swatted us down, bowling us over and knocking Twilight into a tree, causing her to let out an ear-splitting scream of pain that dulled every other noise. Looking over at her, it didn’t take long to realize that the top of her horn had chipped off and was now flat-tipped instead of pointed.
“Twilight!” I called. “Can you walk?”
Twilight was screaming and crying in pain. “My horn!” she cried. “I broke my horn!”
“Twilight!” I called to her. “We need to get out of here. I’m not leaving you behind; we need to get you to a hospital! You need to get up and keep running!”
Twilight stumbled to her feet and we began running in the direction we had been originally, but with the spider knocking us off the path, the ground was overgrown and it was hard to maneuver, not to mention not knowing if we were headed the right direction. We continued ahead all the same, still doing our best to get ourselves out.
I turned around to see the spider lingering overhead. I could see the glistening fangs descending down on us… on Twilight. And so I did what came to my head first.
“Lucas, no!”
Twilight’s plea was too late. I jumped and pushed her out of the way of the spider’s fangs, but one of them glanced my arm in the process. “Go, go, go!”
“Don’t run!” Twilight said. “You’re poisoned!”
I looked ahead of us. “Look; it’s not far now. The exit is right over there. If it doesn’t like leaving the forest, it won’t. We need to get there before we have any other injuries. You hear me!?”
Twilight nodded and we started running. The spider, having missed its target pursued us past a few more trees then stopped suddenly; as I suspected it didn’t want to leave the bounds of the Everfree Forest.
As soon as we exited the trees, I felt a fever and a cold sweat come over me. I flopped down on the ground, unable to move and coughing violently. Twilight collapsed next to me.
“No… no, no, no… Lucas, you… you shouldn’t have…”
“Twilight…”
Twilight looked up to the sky and shouted, but I was losing my hearing now, too, in addition to the skin around my gash becoming a disgusting green hue. I weakly motioned with my hand for her to go, but Twilight didn’t move. Things began to fade as Twilight continued to call for help. With the last bit of strength I could muster, I placed a hand on Twilight’s hoof and clenched tight as I could to hang on for
* * *
I was in the throne room of the ruins of the olden castle. It was the one place where darkness could not consume it all as there were too many cracks and holes and broken walls and lack of roofs to sustain the darkness. Even so, I waited for my usual assailant to arrive.
“You sure can face death with dignity, can’t you?” came the voice of Nightmare Moon as the midnight black mare with her dark blue armor came out from Luna’s chambers. “And you haven’t kept me waiting very long this time, either.”
“You don’t understand,” I told her. “I don’t belong here.”
Nightmare Moon laughed. “Belong or don’t belong, I can invade the minds of all.”
“You’ve invaded,” I said, firmly standing my ground. “But this time… this time you’re not controlling.”
Nightmare Moon lowered her head to charge, pawing the ground with a hoof and flaring her nostrils as she snorted at me. When the display of intimidation didn’t work, she began to charge me from across the room. However, the space was large enough that at the right moment I jumped to the side and watched as she ran harmlessly past. She turned around and prepared another charge.
“Before I came here, I got bitten by a poisonous spider as big as this room,” I said.
Nightmare Moon charged again, and again I jumped out of the way.
“I knew it was going to harm me, but I jumped in front of it anyways to save Twilight.”
Nightmare Moon charged at me, but took to the air instead of charging. Almost immediately, I ran for one of the walls and she realized as quickly as I did that she couldn’t dive-bomb me without ramming herself against the wall. Growling, she hovered and lowered herself back down to the floor.
“I had to put off fighting for myself in order to save Twilight. Now… now I’ve realized something. I am not fighting you to save myself. I’m fighting to save Luna.”
“I am Luna,” Nightmare Moon growled, as she readied herself for another charge.
“No, you’re not. You are the hatred and jealousy that consumed her before. But now… now she has friends and respect. And she has those that will stand up in her defense. You aren’t Nightmare Moon if you don’t have the armor, the jealousy and the hatred blocking who you really are.”
Nightmare Moon charged at me again, and for a third time I stepped out of the way. Nightmare Moon turned to face me and prevent from hitting the wall, but before she could act any further I reached for her helmet and pulled. The stupid thing didn’t want to come off no matter how hard I pulled, during which time Nightmare took her chance and threw me off her and across the room.
“I knew I’d be able to defeat you some time. All I needed to know was when you were ready to stop fighting. I came before you with a peace treaty to stop the violence between us, and you took it with open hooves. So… let’s see you without the armor for once.”
I was ready for the attack, though, and rolled harmlessly before picking myself back up in one of the corners of the throne room. Nightmare charged again, but I was ready for her and moved out of the way. When she was again struggling to turn around, I charged her and slammed into her side. She pounded against the wall with a grunt and I could see her armor beginning to crack. Before she could recollect herself, I backed up and charged her, slamming her into the wall again. This time her head also whipped into the wall and both pieces of armor had cracks on them. I took advantage of her delirious state to go around and grab her head in my hands.
“Because if I’m going to die, at least I’m taking you down with me.”
As hard as I could, I gripped Nightmare Moon’s head slammed her one more time against the wall. With that final slam both pieces of armor shattered. Nightmare screamed as the armor broke off and disintegrated around her, and soon even the inky black coat of the mare was dissolving away.
But the mare didn’t completely dissolve away. Instead, it dissolved into a dark blue mare with little armor but a crown with the moon on her head and the black shoes of royalty. Instead of the light blue eyes with reptilian slits, there was a pair of deep blue eyes that looked like those of a normal pony. Instead of the malice that was present in the darker alicorn, there radiated a strange sort of warmth and protection like that gained from a good night’s sleep. She looked at me with those eyes for a moment with fear, but that soon changed into affection as she jumped up and wrapped her hooves around me.
“Thank you…” Luna said. “Thank you for…”
I stroked her soft blue fur. “You don’t have to tell me. Really, it wasn’t that much.”
“If you hadn’t come along, who knows how long I would have stayed angry. If it stayed like that too long, I may have turned into Nightmare Moon again, not just in your dreams but in Equestria as well.”
Luna pulled away.
“You saved my life, so I guess it’s time I saved yours.”
“You did once already, so I would be in your debt.”
“For breaking Nightmare Moon’s influence, I’m in your debt.”
“Fair enough.”
Luna took her horn and rested it to my head. “Just relax and don’t worry about a thing.”
Everything in my vision turned white, and I was suddenly treated to a familiar beeping sound. There was a ringing in my ears as my vision returned to me once again, though this time it was in different circumstances. A white pony with a white cap with a red cross and her pink mane tied into a bun was watching me as I woke up. She tapped a button on the wall next to the hospital bed I was laying in and started to speak into a speaker nearby.
“Doctor Stable,” the pony said. “This is Nurse Redheart in Emergency; the patient Lucas is waking up. I repeat, Lucas is waking up and the effects of the poison are going into remission.”
“Give him another injection of the medicine and get some more meat tenderizer on that arm,” came a male voice through the speaker. “I don’t want that poison in remission; I want its effects gone.”
“Yes, sir,” the pony said, then went off to a side where a needle was sitting with a green fluid. I managed to move my head around to see a large gash on my arm that was discolored to a sickly brown and green combination. The nurse pony brought over the needle and walked over to where the gash was on my arm. “Just keep calm. The medicine in here will reduce the chance of infection and reverse the effects of the poison.”
I braced myself as the nurse pricked the skin and placed the medicine into my veins. She calmly pushed the needle and the medicine in with her hoof and pulled out the needle, taking a cloth in her teeth and using her hoof to clean the injection site.
“Thank Celestia, you’re the easiest patient I’ve ever had to deal with. You’re lucky; not many survive a bite from an Everfree Forest spider.”
I looked at the nurse. “How long have I been here?”
“Oh, let’s see… I’d go with nearly two days since you were brought in. It’s early evening now, so we’ll be bringing you some food.”
I looked at the nurse. “Is Twilight Sparkle okay?”
The nurse sighed. “Her broken piece of horn was found and reattached safely and securely. It will take some time, but it will reform and she will be able to perform magic again. She’s already been released. As a matter of fact, she and the Princess have wanted to see you. They’re both worried about you.”
“Can you call them in, please?”
“Certainly.” The nurse pressed the button. “Doctor Stable? It’s Nurse Redheart again. Lucas says he wants to see Twilight Sparkle and Princess Luna. Send them up at your earliest convenience.”
There was a minute of silence before the speaker crackled to life again. “They’re on their way. I’m going to be tending to another patient now, so please direct all your concerns to Nurse Tenderheart until I’m done.”
“Yes, sir.”
The nurse pony turned to me. “If you need anything, just press the speaker button over here and call for me; my name’s Nurse Redheart. In the meantime, I’ll be heading to the kitchens to see if they can prepare some soup and bread for you and get you some pain medication from the pharmacy.”
I didn’t have to wait long. Twilight came rushing down the hall so fast I heard Redheart complained of being knocked over before she came over and hugged me so tight I thought I would choke. The top of her horn had been reattached and was held on by a cast that covered the top of her horn except for the very tip.
“Thank you so much!” Twilight said, seemingly on the verge of tears. “Thank you…”
I hugged her back. “You’re a princess. Your life was more important than mine.”
“Even so, I’m so sorry for putting you in danger. I really should have thought to have more ponies with us to go that deep into the Everfree.”
Princess Luna came walking in later and went to the opposite side of the bed from Twilight. She walked to me at first with a stern look on her face and I was afraid of more insults being slung at me, so I lowered my head in shame. However, when she spoke, her voice was gentle and kind, and when I looked up she had an approving smile on her face.
“It seems I misjudged you, Lucas,” the alicorn said. “I was wrong to think of you as merely another liability. You saved Twilight, one of my few friends, from death by placing yourself in harm’s way and didn’t care for your safety so long as it meant she was okay. In addition to the memories I have seen from you, I must apologize for my behavior and making things hard on you.”
Almost as soon as the alicorn had finished speaking, she wrapped her hooves around me and was hugging me along with Twilight. “I… I hope you’ll forgive me.”
I hugged Luna back. “Thank you for saving me. Again.”
Luna chuckled. “It’s the least I could do to make up for how I treated you.”
The mares were still hugging me a few moments later when Nurse Redheart came to check in on me. At first we were both shocked and looking at each other; I started to protest that it wasn’t what it looked like as Nurse Redheart gave a small wink and closed the door with a laugh.
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quick fact spider bites in most cases do not cause blackouts instead they cause high fever dissolving of the flesh, and or rashes. also making anti-venom is actually a very expensive and cruel process for both the spider/snake and the horse/cow/large mammal chosen to produce the anti-venom. for spider bites meat tenderizer with papaya extract in it can counteract even the most deadly of spiders, due to the fact that spider venom is a protean based chemical and meat tenderizer is a protean breaker so they counter act each other.
Did the dream sequence actually happen? Like was Luna actually there? Or was it just a dream? I'm slightly confused.
You write so fast I don't know if I can keep up!
2622007
For the bite: I specifically meant for the toxin to be a sort of CNS-toxin that took out his motor skills and got him near death. For the bite cure: That I had no idea.
2622009
Anything that is heavy in italics is a dream sequence. These scenes take place inside of Nemo's/Lucas' mind, however he tends to have something that wakes him up in the middle, hence the stopped italics. Luna, however, is an odd case in the fact that she both is and isn't in his mind due to it being part of her abilities.
2622234 anti-venom is very ingenious in its production. first the species in question is "milk" for its venom which is then concentrated and stored until production is needed. the concentrated dried is then deluded and injected into a large mammal over several months until it has created the anti-bodies needed to fight the venom. then the animal is drained of a large amount of blood witch the anti-bodies are collected from the animal lives to do it all again at a later date.
I like the fast updating! Even if it makes the story finish faster.
The story line is really coming along.
It is also good that you don't rush the 'romance' for most writers want to have it done early on in the story.
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Lucas seems to me that he would be better off as a human. You shouldn't have to change who you are to be accepted by friends.
He's going to pussy out from the spell isn't he?
awwww that's such a sweet and nice ending i loved it