My Little Poem

by MrAlbum321

An Intruder Exposed by Bickering

My neck itched. I wanted to scratch it, but something held down my forelegs. I stretched the rest of my body, to find my hind legs restrained as well. I opened my eyes, to find my head gently placed upright between two cinder blocks.

To say I was confused would be an understatement.

I wanted to speak, to ask questions about why I was held down and restrained, but a cough ripped through my throat without warning. Twilight Sparkle’s concerned face moved into view above me. I saw her cast a spell, and next thing I knew I was sleepy again. I dimly remembered the sensation of something cool and wet on my forehead before I fell back to sleep.

As I walked around the cave entrance, back in the Everfree Forest, I looked at my surroundings and pondered why I was dreaming about this place. Surely, there was no reason to think about this place again, was there?

I walked by the tree where I had buried the small pile of bird bones. I could see the little bird’s spirit nibbling away at the leaves and loam. It looked up at me as I approached, and I could feel its gratitude, even though its expression never changed. I smiled, and bowed to it as it fluttered off to the murky sky of what I could only believe to be the afterlife.

The forest maintained its murky mosaic of brown wood, green leaves and black shadows as I walked the rest of the clearing’s edge. No hallucinations marred the scenery, although I could feel the presence of unseen conscious thought, clawing at living things, trying to gain some kind of foothold to prevent its passage to the unknown worlds beyond this one.

I looked over to the cave, and stopped my gentle pace. Something about the cave was off. It took a moment to realize that the cave entrance was a solid black, rather than the gradient of shadow formed from angled sunlight diffused through the foggy, cloudy day.

I then realized that the entrance was not a solid black. Two pin-pricks of light shone from the jet black hole in the scene, and I realized that the color they sparked was red. This was new for me; never before had I encountered such a sight in a dream.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to move forward and approach these two red glimmers in the unnatural cave darkness. I walked right up to the edge of the cave, and stopped at its midnight boundary. I then waited, my eyes fixed on the two red sparks that continued to glow.

I felt hot breath on my face. I did not flinch; this was just a dream, nothing more. I did not know yet if it was a nightmare or not, but I knew that if I did not explore, I would never find out. I realized that the two red dots in the darkness were positioned where another pony's eyes would be, if they stood right in front of me.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, a hair's-breadth thick white line began to draw itself on the solid black cave entrance. My eyes followed it as it drew the outline of a pony, with the accuracy of an experienced artist. I marveled at its fidelity, and briefly wondered what kind of pony it was going to portray.

I stepped back as the line criss-crossed over itself, using hatching and multiple lines to give the illusion of three-dimensional space to the pony drawing. As I had suspected, the red dots had been the eyes for the drawing. I saw it draw the unicorn horn with its common spiral pattern. I had seen smooth horns and at one time a horn shaped like a curved blade, but this horn was as common as the dirt under my hooves.

As the drawing sharpened in fidelity, I was able to make out features that began to trouble me. I saw heavy bruising over by the ankles to each hoof. The mane and tail were ragged, mangy, uneven and tangled, as if someone had taken a haphazard, rusty pair of scissors to it after several months of not washing it. There were patches of light bruising elsewhere on the drawing, but the eyes drew most of my attention: the red lights spider-webbed out from their sources, giving the striking visual of hellish, bloodshot eyes.

"Why do you ignore me?"

The voice startled me, causing me to step back a bit. I looked around, but saw no one but me in the clearing. I looked back to the drawing, and found myself startled again.

The drawing had changed.

Not only had the head moved, but the body had shifted. It was crouched, like a cat ready to pounce, when before it was merely standing at attention. It may have been a trick of the light, but I could have sworn the drawing swayed on the black background. I then noticed its cutie mark, which was the last thing to be drawn in.

It was an open book, opened to a picture of six colored gemstones inlaid in a golden compass. There was a quill, hovering by the right page.

It was my cutie mark.

The drawing lunged out of the black surface of the cave’s shadow, and I was too caught off-guard to stop it. It slammed into me, and knocked me on the ground. Its hooves slammed into my throat. I choked as it began to throttle me.

“Why do you hurt me?!” the drawing yelled at me. The white outline contained the blackness of the cave’s shadow, giving the drawing contrast against the otherwise natural-seeming surroundings.

“What have I ever done to you?! WHY?! WHY?!”

The surroundings and the tormented drawing of myself blurred together, as a bright purple light blasted into my eyes. I could feel hooves trying to hold me down, and something in my throat, choking me, trying to eject itself from my body.

I opened my mouth and my eyes, and chaos engulfed my surroundings.

I hurled whatever may have remained in my stomach as I sat up. Strange ponies were thrown back as I threw off their hooves. I was surrounded by ponies I didn’t recognize and one pony that I did recognize; Barbara was near.

My forehead throbbed as my body caught up to my physical position. My stomach had a very, very sharp pain that made me double over. I tried to look around, but could only see that I was in the middle of a large purple tent. My stomach heaved, and I vomited over my legs.

Everything burned and ached, as if I had run seven marathons before passing out. I flopped back, the sudden pain making me shiver.

“Ma’am, please, you need to go!” I heard someone say before I lost consciousness again.

I found myself walking around a space that had no light in it. It did seem like I was emitting light; I looked over myself, and saw that I was glowing a weak, off-white light. This was another dream, so I decided to shrug and keep walking around. There was nothing much to see: pitch blackness for the sky and the area around me, and a solid white vinyl floor was the extent of my surroundings, and my glow wasn’t strong enough to reach the extents of whatever this space may be.

I began to notice something: the light I emitted flickered. The moment I noticed the flickering, I realized how cold I was. I could imagine cold winds blasting me in the face, freezing me completely. I had no protection against the ambient temperature, and the sudden breeze that followed my imagination made my position very dire.

I immediately hugged the ground, and curled up into a ball. I still felt very cold, my hooves going numb. The light inside me dimmed and flickered more than I expected. Something about that light fading made me panic.

Don’t fade, I thought, I’ll be alone in this darkness, I’ll die, I can’t die, not like this, I have to live!

I stayed curled, and tried not to notice the cold around me. The light dimmed to a candlelight’s flicker… and it stayed that bright.

I breathed a sigh of relief, but I didn’t move, even as the cold continued to gust over me, tugging at my mane, trying to tease my body apart so it could freeze the rest of me. I resisted, held my ground, and stayed tangled up in my own legs, hugging myself for what precious little warmth I still had. I closed my eyes, and waited, my head tucked up to my chest.

I did not know how long I lay there; it could have been hours, maybe even days, but the light that emitted from me, and the meager warmth it provided was all the motivation I needed to stay where I was. The cold was merciless in its attempts to try and end my existence, but I wouldn’t let it win.

After much time in the darkness, wondering if this would be all I ever experience again, something happened that gave me a little hope. I felt a little warmer.

It wasn’t much, but I could feel the extra warmth coursing through my body. I didn’t move, didn’t respond, but my spirits rose immensely at the presence of the heat. If I had dared, I would have smiled.

The warmth built up over time, and I began to feel my legs again. I still didn’t move; I didn’t want to tempt my good fortune. Soon, I felt as warm as I was at the start of this nightmare. I decided to risk opening my eyes.

I was glowing brightly again. The wind still howled at me, trying to cool me down, but I closed my eyes again and remained calm.

Within minutes, I felt like I was sweating under a hot summer day, but from the inside out. Things got hotter, and more hot, and more hot, and more hot-

I snapped awake, drenched in sweat, my body burning with what felt like a massive fever. I looked around; it must have been night-time, because there was no light around me. I was swathed in blankets, a damp cloth on my forehead.

So I was sick, I thought. Makes sense. A Changeling bite probably isn’t the cleanest thing in the world, I guess. That fireworks spell didn’t help matters either; magic takes effort and energy from the body to use.

I felt my neck; I could feel stitches where the bite had happened. I checked my right shoulder, and felt stitches there too. I sighed, and shifted the blankets a little, trying to let a small amount of air dry out my sweaty body before I snuggled back into them. It helped, but not by much.

I snuggled back into the blankets, closed my eyes, and slept. I had no dreams this time; if I had dreams, I wasn’t sure I would be able to handle them. So many nightmares in a row… for what purpose? Especially that last one, what was the deal with that?

I didn’t have an answer, and none came to me while I slept. I awoke still pondering my other dreams and what meaning they may have had. Sunlight dully filtered through the purple tent fabric onto my face, which made me open my eyes. I sat up, yawned, stretched, and took in my surroundings.

Everything was purple-colored or purple-hued. Even the tent floor was sturdy purple canvas. I was on a small camping cot, a large number of blankets surrounding me. I pushed them back, stretched my hind legs, and stood up.

My legs felt a little wobbly, but it felt like the result of the bed rest rather than illness. I otherwise felt okay. I chuckled at how my coat looked a muddy blue in the purple light. I struggled a bit to open the tent flap; the zipper was so tiny it took a minute to get my teeth on it. Once I opened it, the bright sunlight nearly blinded me.

My eyes ached as they adjusted to the sudden intensity of light. When my eyes didn’t hurt so much, I stepped out of the tent, squinting as I went. My eyes went wide when I realized where I was.

I was in the middle of a massive courtyard, which held several small tents. The tent I had come out of was the biggest. A broken stone fountain with empty pedestals was the central feature. Vines covered all the worn-down stone work, giving the place a silence that unnerved me. It must have been early morning, since no pony was up and about, doing whatever the morning routine was.

I realized that I needed to relieve myself, and quickly. I turned and walked out of the courtyard, and was met by a path that was flanked by dense, thick woods on either side. In the distance, I could see a cavern, a rope bridge across it.

I zipped into the nearest bushes, took care of my business, and walked back to the courtyard, this time taking a closer look at the stone work. I noticed that there were words carved on some of the stones at eye level. The symbols were of a language nobody spoke anymore: Ancient Equinian. This intrigued me, so I decided to try and translate them, speaking aloud what I could understand just from reading them.

“Soror… est castrum regium... equis. Ite in pace... Sed in pace morieris-”

I had to stop, to ponder the last bit of that fragment:

Did that really say “Die in peace”?

I looked back over what I had already read, and double-checked my translation: Okay, so I may have mis-read the symbols to start with; Soror actually isn’t at the beginning, although it is near there. So, if I remember my vocabulary….

I read aloud the result of what I thought would be a good translation:

“Caeli regia soror equorum huius castri ex lapide sua. Et hoc, castellum in intraveritis. Tu hoc castrum in obitum. ‘This castle is owned by royal pony sisters from the sky. Enter this castle in peace. Enter this castle in death.’”

I still wasn’t satisfied. I can’t believe that I had almost forgotten Equinian’s archaic sentence structure! It is always subject, THEN stuff, then verb, at least in simple terms, and of course there are more complex sentence structures just like in any other language-

“Um, a-are you okay?!”

I looked up from the carved symbols and looked around. I noticed a yellow pegasus with a pink mane, who startled when my eyes focused on her.

“Um, hi,” I said, as she shrank away from eye contact. “Are you with Twilight Sparkle?”

She stopped, looked to the left or right, then nodded in my direction.

The awkward silence that followed made my own social ineptitude look outgoing in comparison.

“So…” I trailed off, trying to think of something to say, “you… you’re one of the ponies who are taking care of me?”

She sighed, stood up a little, and said, “Yes.”

“Well, I feel fine,” I said. “I woke up last night feeling okay, so I slept until this morning.”

Her eyes betrayed a hint of confusion. “Are you, are you sure it was last night that you-”

Her eyes went wide as she stared at me. I looked myself over, and didn’t find anything wrong or out of place. Celestia knows that I was feeling fine.

Then I noticed blood dripping from my nose. I touched a hoof to it to confirm that it was there. Sure enough, I saw and felt blood.

“Huh,” I said out loud. I looked up to find that the yellow pegasus had disappeared. I put my hoof up to my nose to stop the bleeding. Within a few seconds, the yellow pegasus had re-appeared, with what looked like a very tired Twilight Sparkle right behind her.

As soon as Twilight got a good look at me, she sighed and turned to the yellow pegasus. “It’s just a bloody nose, Fluttershy,” she told the yellow pegasus.

“Are you sure, Twilight?! It could be-”

“His nose is probably just reacting to all the medical spells I had to cast on him. He’ll be fine.”

“Pardon me,” I asked, “but… how long was I sick, and how bad was it? Am I still sick?”

The two of them looked at me, and Twilight sighed.

“Fluttershy, can you explain it to him? I’m exhausted.”

“Um, well, okay Twilight, I was just-”

“I know, Fluttershy. I know.”

Fluttershy hugged Twilight, and said, “I’m sorry. Go get some rest.”

Twilight returned the hug, then walked off to one of the smaller tents. I could see just how sorry Fluttershy felt from her facial expression. I didn’t want to press her, considering her reaction to just me talking to her. After a mildly uncomfortable minute, I finally asked:

“I, I don’t mean to press, but, well… can you tell me what happened?”

Fluttershy sighed, but she didn’t look away from Twilight’s tent. She started to speak in a very soft tone.

“Well, I can tell you that when you came here by Twilight’s teleport, you fell down. It was like you were a stuffed doll: you were really pale, and you were covered in bandages. The others who were with you tried to wake you up, but you didn’t respond, even when your wife shook you. Twilight and the others had to step in and split them up.”

A thought occurred to me: Barbara had the most important people in her life die from a disease when she was a filly.

“Your poor wife was hysteric. It was everything I could do to calm her down. I stayed with her most of the time, reassuring her, helping her cope with what had happened.”

I couldn’t help but feel guilty, even though I knew there was nothing I could have done.

“As soon as she let me know that you had been bit by a Changeling, and had been stabbed by an unknown hoof-knife, Twilight tried some poison-cleansing spells. You… well, they worked, but it was a little… exciting. Your reaction surprised everyone.”

“Did… was that when I threw up, and pushed everyone away?” I asked.

She looked at me, her eyes wide with surprise. “Yes, that was it.”

“I see. Barbara, my wife… did she-”

Fluttershy looked away again, a pained expression on her face. That was all I needed to know.

I felt even more guilty than before. This pony, Fluttershy, had to endure something she really shouldn’t have. I felt on the verge of tears, just thinking about it. My feelings must have shown on my face, because she looked at me again with a questioning expression, and then a sympathetic one.

I said, trying not to cry, “I am so sorry that you had to deal with that. If there is anything I can do, just ask, I’ll do it-”

“Oh no, it’s okay,” she said, very quickly, “we all were under a lot of stress, and she needed someone to help her, I was happy to do it-”

“But-”

“It’s fine!” I was surprised how definitive she sounded, even though she had not raised her voice.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she continued, “and to be honest, I’m not even sure we can blame anyone for what happened. You were sick and needed help, she was upset and needed help, so I just helped where I could.”

She blushed and turned away. “Besides, I wasn’t alone. I had help from my friends.”

I didn’t know what to say next. This was the first time I had really met a pony who selflessly helped another pony. What do you say to the pony who kept your wife from going insane while you were unconscious?

You say thank you.

I took a deep breath, held out my hoof to her, and said, “Well, thank you and your friends so much for being there when my family needed you.”

She smiled, and shook my hoof with her own. My stomach grumbled very loudly right at that moment, which caused the two of us to giggle.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” she exclaimed. “I was supposed to get started on breakfast! Excuse me!”

She flew away to the other side of the courtyard before I could respond. I smiled, and walked towards the direction Fluttershy had flown. I frowned a little when I thought about seeing Barbara again. I had no idea how she would react to my being well. Something told me that I would need to be careful-

“Pantrostic?!”

I turned around to the sound of Barbara’s voice, to find her right inside the entrance to a tent. I had barely noticed her hair while on this crazy adventure; the fluorescent pink dye job was showing cream-colored roots, her mane’s natural color. It was in disarray, which made her tear-streaked face even more noticeable.

Asura stood to her left, and I was surprised to see the foal standing to her right. Asura was on the verge of tears, much like Barbara, while the foal simply sank into Barbara’s space, as if she were unsure of my presence.

I walked up to them, and hugged them all.

We all started crying, even the foal, who clung to Barbara’s flank and wailed to try and get attention. I picked the foal up and hugged her with the rest of us. We swayed and sobbed, all of us cheek-to-cheek.

“Glad ta see ya up an’ about, Pantrostic!”

We glanced up to see an orange mare with yellow mane stretching and doing exercises in an open area of the courtyard. She smiled and waved at us. I smiled, and continued to hug my family.

What broke us apart was the squirming of the little foal. We had to separate so Barbara could calm her down. We stood near each other while Barbara nickered and gently rocked the foal back and forth. If I wasn’t starving at this point, I would have loved nothing more than to just sit here with my family.

My stomach growled, though, which Barbara and Asura must have heard. Barbara picked the foal up, put the foal up on her shoulders, and started to walk towards Fluttershy’s general direction. I stood up and walked with Asura, who followed behind Barbara.

As we walked, I saw a couple more ponies exiting their tents: there was a pink pony with very curly magenta hair, a white unicorn with ridiculously well-maintained purple mane and tail who somehow seemed familiar…. and Rainbow Dash. Everyone was headed to the same place Fluttershy went.

We came to an open-air tent with a series of camping stoves underneath it. Fluttershy was flitting back and forth over a series of pans, each with frying slices of bread. I smelled the scent of sizzling vegetable oil, which made my stomach growl again.

Fluttershy made a little peep as soon as she saw how many ponies were headed towards the tent. She was flipping slices like mad on the pans, getting finished slices onto plates laid out nicely on a nearby table. By the slices was a collection of greens that made my mouth water: daisies and cucumbers.

“I’m so sorry everypony,” she said in between flips, “I got distracted and-”

“It looks great, Flutters!” Rainbow Dash interrupted as she zipped ahead, grabbed a plate, and put together a delicious daisy-and-cucumber sandwich. Everyone lined up to grab a plate and make their own sandwich.

Once everyone had grabbed their sandwiches, they lay down on the ground to eat, chat and talk with each other. My family followed suit, everyone sitting nearby each other to facilitate conversation.

“I am definitely glad that you are feeling better Pantrostic,” the white-and-purple unicorn said. “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Rarity, and the orange pony over there is Applejack, the pink one is Pinkie Pie, and the yellow pegasus is-”

“Fluttershy, yes, I talked with her earlier this morning,” I interrupted. “And the blue one is Rainbow Dash- wait… THE Rarity?!”

My brain finally connected the dots, and I realized that I was talking to the most promising fashion talent in Equestria. Why in all of Equestria is Rarity of all ponies out here on a top-secret mission from Celestia with Twilight Sparkle?!

I must have let my confusion show on my face, because Barbara said into my ear: “These are all the Elements of Harmony, you know.”

I then vaguely remembered the award ceremony after the… craziness that happened a year before the Changelings attacked. I remember seeing a poster that had the images of the six ponies that had defeated Discord. Sure enough, the five ponies around me matched the images on the poster, minus Twilight Sparkle of course.

“Wow, I am legitimately honored to be with you all-”

“Hey, we’re just Twilight’s friends,” Applejack interrupted me. “Whatever she needs, we’re here to help. And lemme tell ya, you were quite a handful when ya got here-”

“Applejack!” Rarity said. “Talking about a pony’s illness doesn’t make for proper conversation!”

“Aw, she didn’t mean any harm by it Rarity!” Pinkie Pie said, her hoof shooting into the air to emphasize her sentence. “It’s over and done with, right? Why shouldn’t we talk about it?”

“No offense, Pinkie, but some ponies can have a hard time with remembering some stuff,” Rainbow Dash spoke up. “We’ve all got stuff we’d rather not talk about, and, well, I don’t think Barbara’s liking how the conversation’s going.”

I looked over to Barbara, and I saw that she had not just stopped eating: she was staring at her plate, as if the plate was something that scared her far more than it should. I put a gentle hoof over her wings and hugged her close.

“It’s okay honey,” I said to her, “it’s over.”

“Will it ever be over?”

“Will… what be over?”

Barbara sighed and turned to me. “You didn’t die this time, but that just means you’ll die another time.”

I furrowed my brow as I thought about that. “Well, sure, but that goes the same for you too.”

“You know what I mean!” she said at me. I could hear her voice waver.

“Yes, I do. But that’s life, and it isn’t fair.”

“Why?!”

“Because it’s up to us to make it fair.”

Barbara stared at me, as if she wasn’t looking at the same pony anymore.

“Barbara, I love you, but I’m not perfect. I’m doing everything I can to be there for you when you need me-”

“I needed you to not get sick!”

“And I got better, and I’m here right now!”

”Do you even KNOW what it was like, just, just standing th-there while-”

“I’ve been through that before, Barbara, with our parents.”

”You weren’t THERE WHEN THEY DIED!”

I bit my lip, using the pain to keep my mouth shut.

“Which made it much harder to deal with,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

The foal began to cry, as Barbara’s breath became very loud. Her eyes burned with pained emotion. Tears ran from her eyes. No one else spoke, and I could only imagine that they were all looking at us. I have to defuse this, now, I thought.

I stood up, picked up my plate with my magic, and looked at her again. “Let’s talk in private.”

Barbara looked like she was going to murder me, but she slowly stood up, grabbed the rest of her sandwich in her mouth and walked away from the group. I followed her, trying not to glance around to see if anyone was staring at us. I needed to focus on Barbara, and how she is feeling.

Barbara walked over to the tent that she, Asura and the foal came out of this morning. She snagged the zipper with her horse shoe, opened the tent flap and walked in. I followed behind her. I set my plate down and used my magic to close the tent flap behind me.

She flopped down to the larger camping mattresses. She must have eaten the rest of her sandwich while she was walking, because her mouth didn’t hold it anymore and I didn’t see her set it down.

“So, we gonna fuck and call it an ‘argument’?” she spouted in my direction. She didn’t look at me.

“No,” I said. I flopped down on the other side of the tent, and looked at her furious face. “I’m gonna sit right here and let you start the talking.”

The two of us stared at each other, the tension thicker than it had any right to be. I didn’t dare break the silence, though; I continued to look at Barbara, waiting for her to speak up and get this discussion started—

“What the hell can we do about death?” she blurted.

I blinked. “Resist to the last, and pray that we get done what we need to get done,” I responded.

“There’s gotta be a better way, an easier way, one that doesn’t drive you insane once you face it.” She glanced away, then back at me.

I raised an eyebrow. “Life is hard, Barbara. Like all things, we get better at it the more we live it.”

“But I just screamed in your face!” She closed her eyes, put a hoof on her forehead, as if she wanted to keep from screaming again.

I felt pity for her. “And I understand why. Believe me, I do.”

“How?!” She put her hoof back, and stared at me with an interrogating glare.

“Because I could never scream like that.”

Barbara gave me a look, which made me fidget. “Oh, you did scream, I remember—”

“Always when there was nobody in the room, and I always ran the moment someone came,” I clarified.

“It was the most frustrating thing about that time, because you wouldn’t even talk about it!” She shook her head and looked away, her lip quivering with unspoken mutterings of anger.

I frowned, feeling the sting of her accusation. “I was afraid I’d hurt you, or worse! I couldn’t do that!”

“Yeah, I know that, but I could have at least been there and helped!” She kept shaking my head, which made me bite my lip to keep from raising my voice.

“You could hear in the other room,” I managed to say around pressed lips. “That was enough.”

“It wasn’t enough,” she said, lost in thought and barely even paying attention to me.

I almost reached out to grab Barbara’s face to make her look at me, and stopped myself in the next half-second. I put my hoof back before she noticed.

“Look,” I said, “Barbara, it was worse than dealing with pain. The anger threatened to consume everything about me that was good. I had—”

“And I could have taken it—”

“It wouldn’t have been fair!” She shot a look at me, one of suspicious surprise. “You were a foal!”

I couldn’t tell if that was a yell. I hoped it wasn’t.

“Oh, so you’d just ‘make it fair’?!” Her eyes glared daggers into mine.

“Yes!”

“Well, fat lot of good that did!” she growled.

I was mad as hell and didn’t care what she felt anymore. “Actually it did a lot of good for us. At the very least it kept us off each other’s throats,” I spat at her.

“And it crippled your magic.”

I blinked, wary of this new attack against me. “We don’t know about that—”

Barbara cut me off with a waved hoof. “Pantrostic, it’s obvious. You started struggling with basic spells the moment you turned all your pain inward.”

I had to stop and think about what she said. That wasn’t all that happened, you fucking jackass! I mentally fumed.

“I asked the Princess to check on your magic,” she continued, since I didn’t jump on her throat for that accusation. “She agreed with me; you’re ruining your own magical capacity.”

I blinked in surprise. “Really?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t know how to respond. An accusation was one thing: someone stating a professional opinion based on study, fact and experience was another.

“Uh… well, did she say what I could do to—”

“No, she didn’t,” she interrupted. “But as far as I’m concerned, I don’t want you so focused on yourself anymore.”

I furrowed my brow. That last bit of her sentence didn’t make sense to me.

“I never was focused on myself—”

“That’s a rationalization, an excuse.” Her interruptions began to irritate me.

She then adopted a crude expression, and spoke with her tongue hanging out, waving her hooves to emphasize her quote marks: “‘I’m focusing on myself so I don’t hurt others—’”

“Barbara, don’t start this.” There was the attack, and I was having none of it.

The mocking expression vanished from her face as she glared at me.

“No,” she said. I could see her breath increase in its pace, a clear sign that she was losing hold of her emotions. “I’m tired of it. Just let it out for Celestia’s sake! You’re so backed up your own mental butt-hole, you can’t even—”

“Barbara,” I said firmly, “I’m going.”

“No you’re not. I’ll stop you.”

I had almost sat up, as preparation for getting on my hooves and leaving, when her statement stopped me in my tracks. I had only one thought, and I voiced it:

“Why?!”

“Because I care, I want you better, and you can’t keep doing this.” She looked on the verge of tears, although there were no sobs… yet.

I was still confused, and it must have shown on my face. “But… why?”

“Didn’t you hear me?!” She looked at me like I was an idiot. “You’re worth it!”

“Since when was I ever—”

“Okay, never mind,” she said, face-hoofing and breathing hard. “This isn’t going anywhere.”

I mentally agreed with her; this was a waste of time. “That’s what intense emotion does: it runs around and tries to find crap to blame all its problems on,” I said.

“That’s not all it does, Panty.” She had not looked at me as she said that stupid fucking nickname she gave me when she was four Tartarus-damned years old.

I sat up, fed up with this farce. “Okay, that’s it, this conversation’s over—”

“Not until you apologize.” She looked up from her hooves as her accusation sank in.

“For what?!” I spluttered.

“For not trusting me.” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Since when did I not—”

“Since you fell in love enough to mate with me. Since you fucking married me. Since you still treated me like a foal who didn’t understand even after that.”

I didn’t know how to even respond. “Barbara, I—”

“Just admit it,” she said, stamping a hoof in front of her. “You love me but don’t trust me. You think it’s not your fault, and it’s probably useless to try and figure out whose fault it is, but it affected what you did.”

She wasn’t right, she couldn’t be right…. “Barbara….”

“Just, trust me, for once in your life.”

I still didn’t understand what she wanted me to do. “With what?! How?!”

“Does it matter how, what, when where or why? All that matters is ‘who’.”

“Barbara, of course I’d—”

“You felt like you had to play ‘the grown-up’ so that I’d have a ‘childhood’,” she interrupted. “Thing is, my childhood died when our parents did.”

I turned away, every word she had uttered swirling in my head, trying to make me understand some greater meaning that I simply didn’t get no matter how hard I thought about it.

“No, Barbara, that’s not true-”

“You may not see it like that, but that’s how it was.” I heard her sigh, most likely in frustration at my lack of understanding.

Maybe she hasn’t stated her thoughts in a way I could understand, I thought. “Barbara, whatever you’re doing, I don’t think it’s working,” I said, as calm as I could make myself.

“So you’d rather just give up, then?” she asked. I saw her wave a hoof out of the corner of my eye. “Divorce, go our own ways, split whatever income we have left?”

I closed my eyes, cursing my own inability to explain that I was asking her to rephrase her original point. “No, Barbara, I didn’t mean—”

“Look, you care about me,” she interrupted for the next Nightmare-damned time. “I get it. You love me now, you loved me back then enough to stay with me.”

“Look, I didn’t love you that way back then, okay?!” I caught myself before more of my exasperation could escape. “I just want that clear!”

I heard her take a deep breath, which was a good sign; she was calming down some. “Yes, Pantrostic, you’re right,” she said in an even tone. “But you loved me enough to stay, and you still love me now.”

I almost laughed at the irony. Her statement was obvious, and yet she felt like she needed to spell it out and explain it. “Well, yeah,” I retorted. “Why else am I still here getting interrogated by you?”

“Because you need it,” she answered. “I’m no foal, and I’m beginning to wonder if I ever was.”

“Oh, you were a foal, Barbara,” I responded, a small smirk on my face. “That period of your life existed. I clearly remember it—”

Barbara shifted over, placing her face right in front of mine, gently moved my face to hers, and kissed me on the lips.

“Whatever I was, that’s not what I am or what I want to be,” she said, her breath washing over my face.

That one action shattered the tension that was in the room. It left my mind blank, with no immediate retort or response. After a minute of both of us just staring into each other’s face, I mulled over everything she said.

The more I think about it… she’s right, I thought. I did screw up.

“So… what now?” I asked.

She sighed, and backed her head away, her eyes focused on her hooves.

“I don’t know.”

I sighed. I rubbed my head with my hoof as I tried to fight the cavalry of emotions that threatened to overwhelm my mind so I could think of a solution. I wanted to be mad, I wanted to bawl my eyes out, I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to kick her, I wanted to kick myself, I wanted to run, I wanted to stay, I wanted—

Shut up.

I took a deep breath, and knew that I needed to not do any of that. What good would it do at this point? It’s too late to fix this mess with emotion; we needed to figure out a plan, Barbara and I, together, and we needed to figure it out now.

“Well…. okay, here’s what I think, if you’re interested,” I said, doing what I could to keep the emotional war in my head out of my speech.

She did not even look up to acknowledge that she had heard me. I knew she must have heard me; there was no other sound, besides the buzzing of an insect against the tent wall.

I bit my tongue, so I wouldn’t yell at her. I wanted her to listen, but I knew yelling at her wouldn’t help if she wasn’t listening. Then again, has she ever done this? Does she even realize what listening means? I’ve always tried to pamper her and not hurt her, I never took my hoof to her, I couldn’t do that now, no matter how frustrated I might be right now with her.

“I’m… I’m stuck here until I finish this task,” I began. “Depending on how long the Elements of Harmony need to spend here, I could leave in a day, a week or a month. I have no idea when I’ll be able to depart.”

“You… would have just taken off to go do this, without even talking to me?” Once again, she didn’t look at me as she spoke. I took a deep breath, and did what I could to not force her to look at me. She was at least talking to me, which was enough for now.

“At the time, things were relatively stable,” I answered. “I had the evening to work this out with you and Asura. The only time this became a problem was when that assassin attacked.”

“Because you pissed off every single criminal who ever existed because of those Nightmare-damned biographies on notable criminals,” she monotoned.

“Well, not quite every criminal, thanks to Weasel,” I clarified.

“Who was a Changeling who tried to kill you,” she dead-panned.

I sighed, and rubbed my head with a forehoof, trying to see her statement as one of fact and not an accusation.

“I don’t know how to detect a Changeling from a real pony, you know,” I replied. I hoped I didn’t sound too defensive.

“… Yeah, good point.”

Some relief came into my mind. This is good, I thought. She’s talking the situation through with me, rather than getting caught up in the frustration and the emotion—

“So what’s your big plan to magically fix everything?” she asked, without moving her head or shifting her focus off of her hooves.

I took another deep breath, and did what I could to refocus my mind off of the sudden frustration at Barbara’s doubting response.

“I, I don’t think I can fix everything, but I did have some thoughts, if you really want to hear them,” I said, trying not to speak through gritted teeth.

“I’m all ears.” I sighed, and began to explain:

“Alright, we know that spending time on this crazy stuff that I have to do puts me at risk for Celestia-knows-what. So what I can do is simply tell Twilight that I need to get back home to sort out all the crazy stuff that happened, like the assassin attack and the Changeling abduction.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Barbara mumbled, still not moving from her passive position.

“Well, it has to,” I retorted, my voice seeming louder than it should. I stopped myself, bit my lip, and tried to calm down again so I wouldn’t yell again.

“Well, I mean,” I continued, “Twilight doesn’t seem like a heartless pony. We’re… not exactly stable right now as a family, because of all the crap that just happened.”

“Were we ever stable?” It took every bit of self-control I had to forgive her monotone response and lack of engagement, beyond doubting and depressing statements.

“In a way, we were,” I said in my own defense. “Of course we weren’t perfect, or even that solid, but at least we weren’t yelling at each other, at least for the past couple of years.”

“Well… yeah, you’re right.”

She finally looked up at me. I was surprised to find tears coming from her eyes. Not only that, but her tears had matted channels of water into the fur on her face, making it look like she had been crying the entire time she had turned away.

“I would love nothing more than to get away from all this and just be safe again,” she continued. “I… I’m sorry for yelling.”

She reached over, and hugged me. I held her as she cried. She didn’t sob. She just had slow, deep breaths. I felt terrible for thinking that she was attacking me again. Tears came to my eyes as well, although I barely managed to stop them from falling.

“I’m sorry for getting defensive,” I apologized. “I… guess I was trying too hard to get this thing done, because, well, my diploma for school depends on it.”

“Well, fuck school then.” She didn’t move or otherwise respond.

“Celestia will be disappointed,” I noted, “but yeah, we have bigger problems to worry about.”

“I’m glad you agree.”

I thought back on the past couple of weeks… or however long this bloody ordeal has gone on for.

“If that assassin hadn’t attacked, at least you wouldn’t have seen me come close to death over and over again,” I said.

“I’d probably just go mad thinking of all the ways in which you could die, and maybe even have nightmares of ponies coming to my door to inform me that you had died.”

I felt myself choke up at the intensity of her words. “Really?”

“Really.”

I shut up and held her as she continued to cry. As her tears wetted my neck and threatened to cause tears of my own to spill onto her neck, I began to think of something completely unrelated. I had no idea why this suddenly came to my mind now, but something told me that now was the time to ask Barbara about it.

“Barbara… do you remember what happened, after the wagon got attacked?”

It was a minute before she responded.

“The… wagon?”

“Yeah.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I… I remember looking up, after the wagon got ripped in half,” Barbara continued. “Pieces flew everywhere as more magic beams sliced through it. I almost got my head zapped off.”

I realized that I was holding her uncomfortably tight. I shifted a little, tried to relax, and listened as she continued:

“Then there was this big explosion of green magic, which swamped everything in the immediate area. Then, it was like I had blinked, and the magic was gone, along with the killers.”

This was news to me. I did not remember that at all.

“Barbara, all I remember is blacking out right after the wagon got hit,” I pointed out.

“Well, I guess that makes sense,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You were unconscious and had just woken up.”

I gently grabbed Barbara, and pushed her back so I could look at her face. She looked worried, the fur on her face messed up with all the tears she had cried combined with her face being pressed into my neck. I must have shown concern on my face as well, because her eyes went wide with fear.

"What's wrong?" Barbara asked. "Why did you ask about the attack?"

I took a deep breath, and spoke:

"Sometimes, when a unicorn is really stressed out, they can, well, lose control of their magic.”

Barbara's face froze in horror.

"It's really rare," I assured, "and usually happens in life-or-death situations. Control tends to return once the danger or stressor has passed."

Her face showed confusion on top of fear.

"The danger," I continued before she could ask questions, "comes when the pony loses control over and over again. It can be a sign of worse problems."

"We're taking this straight to the Princess," she blurted out, "now."

"She's resting, Barbara. Let her rest."

"And risk your magic running away from you?!" She looked at me like I was crazy

"Barbara, yes, you're right,” I said in a pleading tone, “but the Princess will be able to help better when she's fully rested."

"How can you be so calm?!"

I felt bad for making her worry, but I knew it wasn’t as serious as she feared. "Because this was the only time this has happened."

"B-but you said it could get worse!" I wanted to shake her to put some sense into her scared brain.

"If I lose control again, then yes, it will get worse!” I yelled. “But it hasn't happened again, so I should be fine! I just need to have her double-check me and see if it could happen again—”

"PANTROSTIC! BARBARA!"

We snapped our heads up as we heard our names yelled out. I rushed to the tent entrance flap, and almost ripped the zipper off the tent while opening it. We burst out and nearly stumbled back into the tent, when we saw what was outside

A circle of magic had formed around the tent where Barbara and I were. The other ponies, the Elements of Harmony, were around us, staring with surprise and fear at the circle. It pulsed with a dark light, with a slight hint of violet to its hue. I ran up to the circle in the hope that I could figure out more about it. Barbara grabbed me from behind and tried to pull me away from the circle, but I threw her off and went back to the circle.

I put my face as close as I dared, and finally found what I was looking for: a series of tiny repeating runes, running along the edge of the magic circle’s line. After studying them for a bit, I managed to find where the runes repeated.

This was where my writing abilities came into play, why Celestia wanted to “sponsor” my attendance at her School for Gifted Unicorns. These circles and wards are only as powerful and useful as the runes you use and how much magic you put into them. As intelligent as powerful magic casters like Twilight are, it is a great help for someone to intimately understand what runes, and thus words, best create the desired magical effect, and who better for that than a writer?

I began to translate the repeating runes out loud:

“Let’s see here: ‘Detect’, ‘Danger’, uh, oh what the heck is that one, ‘Help’, that’s it!”

“Pantrostic, what the hay are ya talkin’ about?!” the orange one, Applejack I think her name was, shouted.

I didn’t look up from the runes as I yelled back:

“This is a magical ward, and it uses a rune-word to give instructions to whatever magic is powering it! I’m decoding the runes so we know what the rune-word is, so we can figure out what in all the Nine Hells it is doing!”

“Will you be okay?!” Fluttershy asked.

I sighed, and shouted: “Until I decode the runes, I don’t know if I’ll be alright! Now, let’s see here, where was I?”

I found where I left off, and continued to translate:

“Okay, so it started ‘Detect’, ‘Danger’, ‘Help’, then what follows is…. Okay, that rune’s ‘Alert’, then, now is that ‘Grab’ or ‘Pull’? Wait, that’s right, it’s actually one of the more complicated runes, with two words to one rune! Damn, that’s advanced! So it’s probably “Grab and Pull”, based on the two possible interpretations. It would make sense for the spell to have a target for it to grab and pull, but it’s interesting that it’s grabbing and pulling before it targets something, so there must be a clarifier coming after it, and that is… ‘Alicorn’?”

That wasn’t quite the end of the rune-word, but that was enough for me to worry that Twilight was going to be pulled into the circle with Barbara and I, where Celestia knows what would happen. The worry remained as I looked at the last rune word.

“The last word is… ‘Execution’.”

I sat back, almost scared out of my wits. I could see most everyone around me. Their faces showed shock and fear; I could see one of them running over to Twilight’s tent, to try and bring her over here. They may not have to do that, if the spell does its job. I couldn’t see Asura; I wondered where he was, and immediately wanted nothing more than for him to not see what might happen. Barbara must have been behind me, but I could only imagine her fright.

Alright, I thought, there’s gotta be some kind of source for the magic, otherwise the circle wouldn’t have activated. Interrupt or stop the source from powering the circle, and the circle can’t finish its effect. Or I can try and drain the magic from the source, but I’m not even sure that’s possible. I mean, I’ve heard stories of desperate ponies doing exactly that, but I don’t think I could even do that. Maybe Twilight, but… now hold on, why is ‘Execution’ the last rune in the rune-word? Execute what? Why? How?

You know what? The circle isn’t stopping me from leaving itself, as long as it thinks I am not a danger. There was no ‘Barrier/Self’ rune combo, or anything similar to that. Barbara and I can just leave and let it do its thing.

The circle pulsed with darkness, and next thing I knew rays of violet-black energy shot from several points on the circle up to the apex of the tent. There was a sudden blast of wind, which threatened to blow me away from the ground. I crawled over to Barbara, and grabbed her foreleg with mine.

”Pantrostic, what are you—”

I pulled with all my might, and threw her as hard as I could. The wind caught her wings and sent her flying into another nearby tent outside of the circle. I leapt after her, but something caught me in mid-air.

It was like a thousand tiny hands had reached into my body, grabbed my spine, heart and brain, and then pulled on them, as if it expected my body to follow suit. I halted in mid-air, and was thrown onto the remains of the tent inside the circle. I looked up, and was horrified at what I saw.

Twilight Sparkle was caught at the center of the beams of light. I did not even see her get pulled there; it must have happened when I tried to escape with Barbara. I could feel panic within me, afraid of what I knew could happen.

For what it is worth, Twilight Sparkle put up one hell of a fight. Her eyes blazed with her trademark purple magic, and had already put up a shield against the dark magic beams that tried to reach her. However, magical energy blasts blurted out from her at regular intervals; she must have been dragged from her bed when this had triggered. Her expression was one of absolute control, but I could only imagine how desperate and tired she must be.

I didn’t know what to do. If the magic circle completes its spell, then either Twilight or I will die… or so I believed. I didn’t doubt my translation skills, but I have misinterpreted spell intent in the past. I hoped that I was wrong this time as well. To be honest, though… I didn’t want to find out the truth.

I got back up, fighting the gusts of wind as I dragged myself back to the edge of the magic circle. An experimental poke at the circle with my horn was greeted with a stinging blast of magical energy. I backed away, shivering from the attack’s effect. I looked up again; Twilight was still desperately holding off the magical beams, though I did not know how long she would last.

I have no choice, I thought. I have to try to siphon away at least some of the magic. She can’t keep this up.

I did my best to focus, despite the howling of the wind in my ears and my shivering from the magical blast. My mind turned inward, and tried to find the source of my magic.

It found darkness.

I knew I was looking in the right mental and magical place. I looked around again; there was none of my familiar green magic. Panic welled up within me as I scrambled around the space, finding nothing but emptiness.

This is bad, really bad, what do I do what do I do?!

I then remembered how brightly my magic had burned mere days ago, after I had been magically drained of emotion by a Changeling. I remembered that I had used basic levitation and telekinesis spells mere hours ago without thinking about it, when Barbara and I went to talk in private.

My magic could not have disappeared that fast without myself feeling it disappearing. Something was wrong, and I had an idea to try:

Light banishes darkness, so all I need is a little light—

Something crashed into my mind, blinding my inner sight. I looked around, and tried to remember what my last train of thought was.

Something about light and darkness, maybe?! Come on, what hit me—

I was hit again, this time from another angle. These attacks made me mad.

Damn you, whatever the hell you are! Get the fuck outta my body you—

I was hit again, but this time I could feel something about the object that had struck me. I felt a unicorn’s horn, and a pony’s legs, chest and head. It rushed away before I could figure it out.

I had had enough.

I’ll light up this whole goddamn area, right the fuck now!

Even though I could not cast a spell in the traditional sense, that did not mean I could not generate magical energy within myself. Every living thing has enough magical energy to sustain themselves, even when they are disconnected from their unique way of expressing that energy. The only way this… thing... would be able to stop me from pulling on my own life-force for a spell would be by killing me, and it would have done that already if that was its goal.

The thing attacked again, trying to distract me, but I simply rolled off of its body and maintained my focus. Once I had enough energy for a basic light spell, and felt sick to my stomach, I immediately cast it.

The darkness in my immediate area vanished, replaced by the weak but familiar green glow of my own magic. It was timed perfectly: the attacker was right at the edge of the light’s glow when it was cast, so I got a good look at the intruder in my psyche.

While I could not be certain of the color of its coat, I was able to confirm that the attacker had the mental form of a unicorn judging by its general body-shape. Not only that, the attacker was female. It was the eyes, though, that gave me pause. Not only was the general shape familiar, but the pattern on the iris matched the eyes of someone that haunted my nightmares for the past several years.

The flecks of color on the iris were identical to Venusia’s, and they remained a bright, vibrant green in the green light that I cast.

The attacker immediately turned around, and ran from me. I pulled more energy from my life-force connection to brighten my magical light. I felt light-headed, but I put that aside as I chased after the enemy, more motivated than I had been in a long time.

Hold it! I thought, which caused me to stop my chase. Reconnect to the rest of your magic, doofus! She won’t stand a chance if you do!

I looked around in my mental space; I still couldn’t see where my magic had gone. I then had a crazy idea.

I looked down below my mental avatar’s feet, bringing my light closer to the floor’s surface. The ground responded with a dull glow of the same color. I could see the veins of a shadowy membrane try to block out the light.

I had no idea how I was going to get to the source of that glow. My magic had to be down there, but I had no idea how thick the membrane was or if I could even get through it in my current state.

Well… I have to try something, or else something bad’s gonna happen.

I tried to paw at the membrane; my avatar’s hoof couldn’t dig through it. It was as hard as stone to my touch. The next best thing I figured I could try was a magical shockwave to try and crack the membrane, but that would require a lot more energy than I had right now. And the only way I could get more energy was to siphon more of my life-force. Plus, if I didn’t gather enough energy when I do the shockwave and it doesn’t at least crack the membrane, then all that energy would be wasted.

I didn’t have a better idea. So I steeled myself for the worst, and began to re-direct my life into my mental space.

At first, my muscles ached, as if I had run a marathon. Dizziness followed, threatening to destroy my focus, but I held on as best I could. I laid against the ground as my vision blurred and lost focus, but I kept building energy from my own life force. I had to. I couldn’t skimp.

When I felt short of breath and could barely move my head, I realized that I would need to fire off the shockwave now or die in the attempt. I did my best to haul myself back upright, and point my horn at the membrane. I fell forward, too weak to stay upright, but I took it as a blessing in disguise, because it made the next step easier.

The moment my horn hit the membrane, all the magical energy I had stored was instantly blasted into the hard substance with as much impact as I could muster.

For a moment, everything was still. Then, the energy rippled through the membrane, rolling away from the place of impact. The membrane wobbled up and down, especially right where I was. I was thrown away, bounced and smacked around by the vibrating ground. If this wasn’t a mental space, I probably would have died to a crushed skull.

The membrane held, though. I hadn’t broken it. I was weak, bounced around and very, very sick due to the stunt I tried to pull. I half-expected my attacker to come up to me and snuff out my consciousness, so she could take control of my body.

Then I saw a green glow over by the point of impact, out of the corner of my eye.

I blinked, and everything roared as the membrane burst like a volcanic eruption. The familiar magical green fire swarmed my entire surroundings and rushed into my conscious space. With what energy my mental avatar had left, I threw myself into it as it consumed its former container.

The magical energy felt so good as it poured back into me, replacing all the energy I had spent trying to free it. I flew through it, marvelling at how willing it was to obey me and my commands. I frolicked among the flames, laughing with joy as I finally felt a measure of self-control I would have killed for years ago.

I happened to look above me, towards my mental portal to my physical senses. I found the attacker trying to build another membrane to try and shut me out of my own body. I began to wonder if she knew how bad a blunder she just made. I blasted off, arrowed right towards her, and kicked the membrane just as she shut me out.

The membrane dissolved without a fuss. She stood fully exposed to my magic. I could see the fear in her eyes, and I did not care. I grabbed her by her midsection, and rushed for the portal, and back to conscious awareness of my physical surroundings. As my mind went through the portal, I threw her out of my mind as hard as I could.

The moment I did so, my body convulsed with intense pain. Imagine a magical knife that can neatly slice yourself in half, down to the tiniest cell. It can neatly split all your body’s resources in two, from the tiniest vein to the most sensitive neuron to the hardest bone in your body. Now, imagine it did so without any thought to how much pain your body would go through if it began to slice you, and you might come close to how I felt in that moment.

What made the pain so intense was that it was not quick. At least, it did not feel quick: I could feel my body split from the hairs in my mane to the nerves in my spine, all the way to my brain and back, all in that order. The pain was far beyond these pitiful attempts to describe it. If my body wasn’t magically possessed, I would have fainted clean away.

When the ordeal was over, my remaining half collapsed like a rumpled coat onto the ground. It felt like my entire soul ached. I couldn’t focus my eyes, all light that came in through them caused splitting headaches, and I didn’t have the energy to close my eyelids. I couldn’t tell if my lungs were breathing or if my heart was beating. I could have died and not known it, though I suppose I felt way too sore to be dead.

I glowed with a bright green energy that seemed to radiate from my body. It began to twitch, as control slowly returned to my muscles. I gasped, barely able to speak, but I could breathe, and that brought me a strange feeling of satisfaction. I still ached, but the energy cut through the pain to give my body ways to function. I felt my pulse beat in my ears as loud as a drum set.

Within a minute, I was able to lift my head and focus my eyes, even though the light still caused massive headaches as it came through my eyes. I shivered, feeling the cold air around me more than ever before, which made my muscles protest more than before, but somehow they still did what I wanted them to do. I looked around me.

The circle of magic was gone. Twilight Sparkle was at ground level, no longer fighting for her life. Her chest heaved with deep breaths, though; I couldn’t blame her for being breathless. Her mane was a frazzled mess as the Elements surrounded her. I wondered why they didn’t approach me, when I remembered that I still glowed a bright green. However, they were not looking at me.

I followed their line of sight, my neck screaming with pain as it twisted around. I didn’t let that stop me from looking at what they looked at. Once I found it, I was very, very confused at what I looked at.

A young filly lay sprawled on the ground, the horn on her head showing that she was a unicorn. Her eyes were closed, her breath even, as if she was asleep. She was no bigger than Asura, and even shared the same white coat color, although her mane was jet black. From the position of her body, it looked like she was pointed away from me.

I thought back to the mare I forcefully ejected from my consciousness. Could this be her?

I looked back to Twilight Sparkle, who turned to look at me. Her expression was one of stern surprise. I began to wonder if she thought I was doing some kind of illegal magic that just blew up in my face right at this moment.

“Pantrostic,” she said, “you and I need to talk.”

Comments

[Dark Avenger]

This review is brought to you by Zero Punctuation Reviews

Intros take too much effort to write and are stupid anyway. Might as well cut to the chase: today’s super late review features a rather interesting fic, blatantly titled “My Little Poem.” It is "interesting" as in: "I have no sodding clue what to say about it." I mean, it’s… okay. Solid. Readable. Nothing that would make me fart my mind out of my brain through my arse, blasting my body through the roof in the process, but also nothing that in any way insults my intelligence or human rights in general. It balances out its missteps, some of which are pretty huge, with things still worth discovering, akin to searching for gold nuggets among dried cow turds.

The story opens up with a weird scene in an alley that I think is supposed to be a flashback. It’s hard to tell, and this kind of vagueness often returns throughout the story like an obscure fetish porno ad on an illegal download site, which can be both intriguing and frustrating at the same time. They seem to suggest a far greater story at work than what we perceive right away, but after a while it only serves to bog down the pacing. It's the difference between "being served hot chocolate by a handsome stranger" and "them opening all the taps and flooding the room with hot chocolate": the former leaves you content, as well as wondering what they truly intend, while the latter only has you wishing you could drown already and be done with it. Vague narration and tell-y narration don’t get along well, the same way as how a sausage and a vagina dentata aren’t good partners in bed. They give birth to "special" children with malformed faces who cry and bang their heads on the wall a lot, thus holding back the juicier details from the readers for too long.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, the alley scene ended in a "dropped the soap in the prison shower" moment, and the next chapter starts off with a dream sequence that of course plays out like your stereotypical "reliving your memories" thing. It's decent and even throws in a few good dream-like elements, but ultimately I just wish it would be half as long and less blatant. After that, we are at last properly introduced to our main characters: Pantrostic, the not-so-subtly named a unicorn who writes poems and whom I shall refer to as "Panty" from now on (don't look at me, the story did it first! It was... awkward...) and Barbara, his wife/foster child (it's complicated). The former studies at Celestia's "send your self-insert Mary Sue super-OP OCs here" school (for unicorns), since he is a total wiz at writin' rhymes and shit, yo! Meanwhile, the latter is a pegasus, a cocktease for her husband, and... that's about all we get to know at first. Later on, we also find out he has a kid, who is also a speshul snowflake, just like his dad.

Panty goes to take part in his graduation ceremony, he bumps into Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia, deciphers an ancient poem for them because he is the only one who can, and ends up being given the mission to travel somewhere and decipher more stuff with Miss Sparkly-Poo because he is so speshul that they need him. I won't spoil the rest of it, if only to give you the chance to decide whether you like it or not.

Writing is solid, with little to no errors, although a recurring annoyance are the "Panty getting lost in his memories" segments (i.e “flashbacks,” which are just shit writing) and his internal rants that are italicized as though they were "thoughts." The latter is particularly awkward, since the narration is from first person perspective and it already "speaks" his thoughts, so it seems redundant. Perhaps the author was going for a "damaged psyche" feel, with Panty's mind and subconscious talking to each other or whatever, but the fact that I have to assume rather than deduce this means that he's not very good at it.

The reason why I said this story is okay is because it's immersive, or at least it started out that way. While reading it, I actually found myself being "surrounded" by the events and the characters, instead of the text just coming in and pouring right back out of my head, with me doing it all just for the sake of writing a review for it. However, not unlike a good shroom trip, it starts with a very uncomfortable first phase, one which may prompt less-devoted members of the audience to kill themselves before the juicy bits kick in. And if the shrooms themselves are tainted... Well, don't expect to have any cute visions, maaaaan...

"My Little Poem" drowns the reader in tell-y exposition. Admittedly, it tends to do so with decent stuff, but often too much of it all at once, akin to the hot chocolate I described before. It constantly rushes ahead with things that should be savored while drawing out other elements that should be dealt with swiftly.

To offer one example: Panty gets a note from the headmaster at the school. He remembers that the guy had a beef with his dad for whatever reason, and of course the note is a lengthy apology for that very issue. Sure, Panty goes on to rant in his head, which basically boils down to "this isn't over, dickhead," and they end up talking later on (read: immediately afterward), but the way this is presented still breaks down the door instead of trying to knock on it first and wait for me to let it in. I mean, I'm okay with adding more conflict to the plot, but to have it rammed into my colon like a butt-plug wrapped in barbed wire is just too much. Most of the other details that are needed for clarity are brought in the same way, which becomes really annoying very quickly. All the while, the story meanders between in medias res and "exposition through monologues" constantly. Look, either spend time calmly building up your world, or just stick to simple scenes that gradually reveal our surroundings. Don't try both at once, because that only makes the pacing schizophrenic and me unhappy...

Panty's character is fairly inconsistent as well, not to mention has quite a few Sue-symptoms, which is why I don't regret the nickname I gave to Celestia's school earlier. He starts off as the sympathetic "my life sucks and I can't change it" type of protagonist à la Dante Hicks from "Clerks" (or whoever you prefer), although this is already kinda conflicted by the fact that he is supposedly a wiz at writing poems... Oh wait, so he's the "mysterious and reclusive genius" now?

Fine, whatever. Plenty of real life geniuses struggled with having frail personalities and/or health problems (in Panty’s case: being allergic to… something). This would also explain why Panty might be a star of his school, but he's only a lil' bitch outside it, but the problem starts when he can instantly go from "meek and awkward kid" to "I AM AN EXPERT AND WISE AND SUPER CONFIDENT," even when met by freaking Princess Celestia herself. You never see the transition of him pulling himself together or anything. He just goes ahead and becomes Sherlock Holmes for a few minutes, solves a few mysteries, lectures everypony, and suddenly goes back to being "omg please no im so fragile" again.

Make up your mind, dear author: is this guy a pussy or not? If you want him to gain confidence or lash out, then either add some buildup to it, or cut out the bullshit about him being weak-willed. Jesus, at times this fic reads like it’s a story of Eeyore where it turns out he’s a retired veteran green beret with PTSD.

My lengthy ranting may seem like it contradicts what I said at first, i.e "I have no idea what to say." That is because this story does the weirdest thing ever: it writes really well about really poor concepts (or sometimes vice versa). It coats stale corn flakes with gold leaf, marshmallows, and those dragée things on cakes that are made from sugar and look like small metal pellets. This makes it hard to actually develop a consistent emotion for the fic and say something based on that, either ripping it a new arsehole or licking its dong up and down.

We get an interesting story about Panty's family... through a dialogue where he "omg totally destroys" one of his rivals. We are introduced to a unique poem structure that Panty has to translate… which implies it was taught to him at some point, so there’s no reason somepony more stable than him couldn’t work it out instead. Panty bitches and moans about his life and acts all tough, then turns into a wuss in front of everyone, which could work and portray him as flawed, except he then turns into... I won't even dodge it anymore: a Mary Sue hero. His character tries to appeal to us through sympathy for his weakness and the tragedies that happened in his life, but it all comes across as desperate after a while.

I actually promised myself I would read through the whole thing this time, but all these things I mentioned wore out the appeal of the story by the third chapter. It was promising at first, but the flaws eventually brought it down to just "mediocre." A passable read, but one that tries to be at least three different kinds of stories at once: experimental, slice of life, and adventure, all without giving us the best of either. As for the "poem element" of the fic, it is seldom used and doesn't offer anything that spectacular, which is kinda sad considering that it bears the word “poem” in the title...

To quote JC Denton: “what a shame…”

[twitterdick]

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I mean, it’s… okay. Solid. Readable.

Such seems to sum up your entire bibliography, DAvy, ol' boy.

[Dark Avenger]

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[MrAlbum321]

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First off, thanks for reading the story! Second, that conflicted feeling you're getting from the story was intentional, although the quality fluctuations you point out are troubling to me. I won't ask you to point them out, since your time is yours to spend, but know that your review made me think about the story. I don't know if I can fix it without a complete rewrite from the ground up... which would be the fifth or sixth rewrite at this point....

I had no desire to write an entertaining protagonist or story. There is a lot more going on than I've let on, so hopefully as more chapters get written, certain things will make more sense.

Yes, Pantrostic is inconsistent. There's a combination of reasons why, but despite my best efforts I seem to have failed to show or explain them adequately, at least in the story's beginning. That dream sequence was there because the original drafts did not explain those elements at all, and there's enough material in Panty's past to write an entire prequel. If I wanted to finish this story in my lifetime, I'd need to somehow condense that past into a Cliff Notes version as best as I could. It's clunky, but I didn't have better ideas that would let readers know at the start what kind of character Pantrostic is, so that they aren't blindsided by his more negative qualities.

He thinks he's weak, but he isn't. He starts off very passive, believing that the world is out to get him and ruin his life more than it already has. I won't spoil it much, but these aspects are planned to change as the story progresses.

Real life is messy, inconsistent and confusing. For many people, it is a constant struggle to not trip and destroy everything you've worked for. Let's say that life metaphorically tripped Pantrostic off a cliff around the end of Chapter 2 (Parenthood and Fires to the Brain), and now he needs to find a way to survive with as little damage as possible. As of the story's written content, he's still falling, if not already having hit rock bottom.

Thanks again for reading my story. Make of my thoughts whatever you will.

Sincerely,

Mr. Album

[Dark Avenger]

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You're welcome. To be honest, I had no problem with the initial vagueness of the story, but it got to a point where it was more annoying than mysterious. Even if there is no immediate explanation for a character's actions, they should still at least be consistent with our general impression of them. To give an example, while babbling about parties, Pinkie Pie should not grab a machine gun mid-sentence and start gunning down zombies while spewing one-liners like Duke Nukem, at least not unless it's a comedy/random story (which this one is not...)

I don't suggest this just to adhere to the readers' wishes, but more because it's hard to identify with the character if they keep changing their personality every five minutes. Either that, or give at least some indication that they have a proper reason for acting the way they do, and it isn't just the Sue-isms I pointed out.

Other than all that, this tale is still promising. Just need to fix a few more leaks on your ship as you set sail for the uncharted seas...

[MrAlbum321]

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One more thing (yes, it took me ages to bring up this point, my fault not yours... kinda gives you an idea of my availability for this site and writing in general XD ):

I actually don't have a consistent editor, proofreader or set of prereaders. Most of my double-checks happen by going into the IRC chat for The Writer's Group and asking the folks there if they want to take a look at whatever I'm working on. They have caught important things before, but it's not the same as a consistent collaborator who works with me and supports whatever effort I can muster.

As you can imagine, my grammar needs a dedicated proofreader, and I need an editor to bounce ideas off of before I commit them to paper. I've made the rounds with a couple of groups (a submission attempt with The Royal Guard pointed out just how bad my grammar is unedited, I've posted in OEE (or was it Looking for Editor? I forget which) with nothing tangible yet, just to give a couple of examples), but nothing has panned out yet. The demand is high, and the supply is low....

Anyway, just a thought that I finally got around to expressing ;) Thanks again, and I wish you the best!

Sincerely,

Mr. Album

[Dark Avenger]

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Perfectly understandable, and in no way your fault. And if I see signs of effort, I definitely don't bring up grammar issues as a major negative. I think that, at certain points, your story came across as something that hadn't really been looked at after the first go, which is why I criticized it. Separate editor or no, one can tell if something is completely raw or has seen the author's own "chisel" more than once.

Still, I wish you the best in finding what you need.