FOTC: Chapter 1 - A small adventure

Tell me, what do you think is the most destructive force you know?
For me, it is time.

Time destroys friendships, destroys relationships, purges emotions, crushes kingdoms and commits suicide. Nothing can persist in the face of time. Right now, life is slowly fading away into the past. What meaning does anything have in the face of time?

Sunken into deep thoughts I stumbled through complete darkness. The darkness made it incredibly hard to make out any details, leaving me defenseless in this unknown forest. I should have arrived long ago and yet I was still here, lost in the woods. If my body had not been completely exhausted, I could have illuminated the dark forest with my magic, but for now I would have to deal with my situation.

More than one time I felt like being followed, although that would be completely ridiculous. The darkness was just playing tricks on my mind. From time to time, it seemed as if shadows were crawling through the woods, waiting for lonely pray just like me. Any second now, one of these shadows would rise from the ground and devour me instead of disappearing again.

A deep voice echoed through the forest, calling my name. I turned around, trying to make out anypony else in this forsaken forest, but there was no pony. When I turned around again, two giant red eyes were glooming at me from inside the darkness. I shuddered, as those eyes seemed to stare directly into my soul. The deep laughter was continuing to echo through the forest. Suddenly something grabbed my hoof, not letting go of it. I cringed in horror. I was alone here. Nopony here to help thousands of hooves around. Nopony to even hear my last screams. A claw or something seemed to cut through my intestines, at least it felt that way. I could have puked, if I was not scared so badly. I tried to turn around, away from those eyes, but they were following me.

A sudden flash of blinding light lit up everything around me, causing me to blindly stumble backwards. It took a bit of frantic blinking and eye-rubbing to finally be able to see again, but the eyes seemed to be gone. Or were they? A feeling of uncertainty was left behind, the eyes still seemingly lingering behind every tree. Had it really been an illusion or had it been something more than that? I tried to stay calm, tried to think about what was ahead of me. The last thing I wanted to be in this forest was being lost. That is… if I wasn’t already. Although I had tried to keep my orientation over the entire trip, the dark forest had made it more and more difficult to keep track of where I was actually going. It looked all the same: dark and spooky.

From my own velocity I fell over down right into the thick autumn leaves. It tasted cold, dirty and wet, which is not something you want to have inside your mouth. I spat out a couple of times, trying to clean my mouth from whatever disgusting bacteria lingered in these leaves. They always say a bit of dirt cleans your stomach, but I believe a bit of contaminated dirt rather makes you sick.

The ground was soft, but also wet and cold. I tried to get myself up again just before jumping two hooves into the air. A shudder ran down my spine as I slowly turned around, a grim feeling lurking in the back of my head: What had grabbed my hoof? I had almost forgotten that. I looked around, but there was nothing but a traitorous stick next to a shabby stone. Sticks and stones… Luckily they had not broken my bones. Instead, I turned around again and decided to continue my journey, not without a bad bad feeling in my stomach.

Actually, referring to my stomach: I haven’t eaten in days - or at least feel just like that! I could eat like a full stack of hay right now. I would start lightly, maybe that delicious carrot soufflè we had yesterday, a huge stack of sugarcoated oats, a giant.... I shook my head; this wasn’t the time to think about food, it was time to finally get home.

The howling of wind through the dark leaves of the tree above me stopped my thought in an instant. Maybe I should turn around? It was not too late? No! Who am I kidding? It is already way too late. If I turn around right now, everything I have done to get here would be lost. This was only one way to go: Forward, through the dark forest. I actually tried a couple of other paths, each abruptly ending in vast nothingness, leaving me no other choice but to turn around and trotting all the way back. Each and every time I came to such a dead end, I damned the whole forest, and whoever had made these paths. Which animals actually made these paths? Foxes? Badgers? Squirrels? Again, I had to stop myself from going off a tangent about something I had really not wanted to think about in the first place.

From one moment to another, the world turned dark. I fell somewhere, screaming out my soul. A hole in the ground or something. Complete darkness and the feeling of falling. My scream echoed after me, while the wind sped up, swishing by my ear. Then, a sudden thud. For a time I just lay somewhere, feeling nothing. It was all dark and I didn’t even know if I was still conscious. At some point, there came pain. Of course painful, but it was still bearable. I got up again, having landed on something muddy. My whole side was glued together by … well, something. It was still complete darkness. Maybe that mud had just saved my life. Holy mother of Celestia! This was great! Well, not really great considering where he was… Considering where he was, this was actually quite the bucked situation. Horsapples, this stupid dark old forest and its holes in the damn ground.

A bit of my magic might help me out here, illuminating the dark. As soon as I had created the light, I immediately stopped the spell again. Had I just seen that? Disbelief was my first reaction, natural considering what I had just seen. The contents of my stomach suddenly developed the urge to somehow escape my body. Had I really just seen that? I had to make light again. Sometimes you know you shouldn’t do it, but you just can’t stop yourself. The light of my spell emitted once again, shining brightly onto the sea of bones and skulls and blood. This cave was most certainly not an amusement park. I was not amused. Not in the slightest. I felt a wave of nausea overtake me, and I closed my eyes again, knowing I would never forget that image. My whole body tensed up in my pathetic attempt not to throw up. There was no uncertainty anymore. My intestines seemed to have declared war on each other and a stomachache was the inevitable result. My brain however, commanded me to march on. There was a war to be won against those traitorous organs, who seemed to have united in some kind of major rebellion against the forces of logic and reason. The battle commenced and the war field was my stomach, being bombarded again and again, until the pain was excruciating. The eviction of the forces of the rebellion was my last resort. This brew couldn’t be made much worse anyway. A bit of puke would fit just fine. This was horrific and terrible and terrific, but it was not the end of my journey.
Was my mind now joining that rebellion? I had to make a stop to this all, shaking my head almost as if that would shake out those gruesome images. I would have to banish them somewhere so I would never have to remember again. This was neither the time nor place to give yourself in to grim thoughts.
I stepped backwards from the scene of disaster, until I was painfully reminded of whatever was on my side. I had assumed it would be mud, but now…

I started galloping away from this cavity of horror, just... far, far away. I didn’t know where I was running as it seemed there were only walls all around me. Maybe I should have not run, maybe I should have better remembered my way back, maybe I should have not crossed the cave randomly. In the end, I was stuck somewhere deep inside, not knowing where to get back or where to get forwards. I just trotted along unknown paths. Unknown paths which would lead me into the future. It still is strange how on a single day, fate can change everything, yet months can pass by without anything worth mentioning.

I had wanted to get back to my family, to celebrate my son’s birthday. I had wanted to bring my present - A silvern statue of Soarin, the wonderbolt. I had wanted to be there as fast as possible. I had taken short-cuts, I had taken unknown ways. I wonder, what would have happened if I had taken the long route, coming minutes too late, but still arriving at home, not in this forsaken cavity. What would have happened if I had already bought that present the day before and had not been so tardy? Would I still sit next to my loving wife and son? I tried to remember their faces, but my brain hindered me. It stops me every single time and I hate it for doing that. I have forgotten them, my wife and son. There is nothing left but the knowledge that they once existed. Their names, their voices, their faces. All is lost.

In these caves, I found something that not only changed my fate, but the fate of Equestria. To this day, I regret taking a shortcut, regret not having the time to take a longer path. Time is a brutal force. It takes away what you had and it doesn’t give you anything in return. You have to work for what you want and time is going to steal it from you no matter how hard you fight.

It was a day or two, in which I mindlessly stumbled through dark caves, dried blood in my coat. You lose the feeling of time when you have nothing to remind you. In every second I thought about my family, how they would be disappointed when I would arrive there so very late. If I had known…

My magic faded at some point and after that I stumbled through complete darkness. It was then, when I found it. I could have never known, how should I? Nothing but a mere necklace, shining in the dark. It was beautifully ornamented, probably just beautiful enough for my special somepony. She always wanted new jewelry. She loved the way that rubies sparkled, but she preferred topaz. Sometimes, she would decide for an emerald and sometimes, if it fitted her outfit, she would take the sapphire. Why can I remember which jewels she picked, but not what she looked like? My pain is deep and my sadness bitter, but I have cried too much. Back then, I thought nothing when picking it up. A necklace, what should be wrong about it? Back then, I didn’t think about it. I was foolish and young and stupid. Maybe this is all a punishment for my stupidity in those early days.

I touched the necklace, felt the cold, flat ruby gliding under my hooves. Then, suddenly something struck me down and changed me forever. I could have known. I should have known. It was a necklace found in a cave of death and darkness after all. It felt like a lightning echoing through my body, tensing up all my muscles, rendering me unable to move. I cringed, tried to scream, but my mouth was sealed shut. The pain only grew and grew and grew until I lost my consciousness and the calming darkness awaited me.

When I got up again, I could make out rhythmic echoes of a drop of rain impacting on a puddle. A sound so quiet, it had been unhearable under the heavy clopping of my hooves before. Now, in this complete silence, I could hear it. I got up, confused and unsure. I looked around me: The necklace was gone. Even after I used my magic to illuminate the darkness, I could not find that shining ruby anymore. I gave up searching for something that would not get me out of there anyway, and started listening to the distant droplets. With every step I took, the sound got a bit louder. Soon a very distant trickling mixed with the sound of the drops, creating an unlikely symphony. When I found the puddle, I knew I had found my way out. The droplets of rain were falling from a stalactite up above the puddle of water.

When I already thought I had only found a way deeper inside, a distant thunder interrupted my grim thoughts. It had to be rain! I decided to climb up to the stalactite, to see what was up there. The climbing was hard and nerve-wracking, as the stone walls were mostly covered in moist moss. More than one time, a hoof of mine lost its hold, but luckily you are not born with one or two but four. ( hopefully ) I found my way up onto a ledge. That was about as close I could get to the stalactite. My efforts didn’t go in vain. Up there, I could make out a slight shimmer of light penetrating the darkness of my cave. The light came from across the room and was just bright enough to see from up here. It would require a leap of faith, but I was willing to do it. I would have done anything at that point just to get out.

I took a few steps back and hesitated for a moment. Was I really going to do this? This was crazy! I could never do it! It’s impossible. You are going to impact down there, break your bones and die of starvation. Don’t do it!

I started galloping, not even listening to my own speculations, not listening to what was reasonable. I jumped, giving all my strength. With this jump, I could either reach my family or fail and die. I did not die. A heavy weight seemed to be lifted from my shoulders, but the danger was not resolved yet: Barely, by a hoof or two, my front legs grabbed onto the ledge. It took me all of my strength to pull myself up onto it, but I had done it and I felt a fire burning inside of me; A fire of pride and relief. I had done it! I am the best pony! I should really run for mayor next time… Stopping my usual trailing-off-topic process once again, I started to evaluate the situation. The hole in front of me was most certainly too small for me to fit through, but the stone seemed old and fissured. With the right dosage of magic at the crucial spots, I would be able to cause it to break apart.

My magic blasted the thick stones in front of me apart, revealing more of the light of the sun, blinding me. Although a couple of clouds were dropping their freight upon what seemed like a mountain, the sun just above the horizon seemed to shine directly into my face. I had to close my eyes and I took a deep deep breath in. I had freed myself. I yelled and screamed and jumped and… realized that my journey was not yet complete. I had to get home before the sorrows would rip my wife apart. She always worried about everything and everypony. It almost seems as if she is made of nothing but worries. She never wanted to let my son stroll outside as he could cut himself with the gras or fall down and break his neck. I always laughed about her worries and never respected them. I hate myself for never having told her, but I secretly kept an extra eye on our son, just for her.

I was there, on top of the mountain of Canterlot, able to see my home from here. If my wife looked up here right now, she would see a small figure between the mighty rocks. I made my way down, driven by the need to see them again, to reunite with my family, to get home. I started to gallop, started to give all that I had. Of course it was a risk to foolishly storm through the rest of the forest, but my mind could not take the seperation much longer. The trees flew by, left and right, but I only had my home in mind. The ground flew by, sticks and stones, but I only had my wife in my mind. The clouds passed by, but I only had my son in my mind. When would I see them again? After a while, I stumbled across the road leading me home. My steps sped up, faster and faster. The desire pierced my brain. I needed to get home again. It was a small village, but that only made it much more appealing to small families like ours. You know everypony in your village and you do not have to fear any murderers or thieves or similar ponies.

When I finally arrived in the village, I noticed that it was completely empty. I was unable to find even one pony! My home would be down the third street, then in a couple of hundred hooves on the left side. A beautifully ornamented little house, painted in light blue colors, with dark blue curtains to give a certain contrast to it. The natural green surrounding served as an icing on the cake. At least that is what my wife had used to say.

I reached the front door and stepped inside. After looking around, I had a strange realization: My home was very much similar to the village: It was small… and empty. Neither my wife nor my son were waiting for me. The party was already over and the house felt empty without them. My stomach reminded me that there were other things than a family to embrace. Food would be very nice now, so would be water for my dry throat. I decided to just take out the old hay from yesterday and drink whatever was left. Although my stomach cried for something to eat, I could not get down any hay. I tried everything. I tried to force it down. Nothing, nothing eased my hunger. I hungered for something, but for what?

FOTC: Chapter 2 - Old friends

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Lightning shattered through the landscape below, illuminating it just for a moment. A vast landscape made of stones, a couple of burnt trees. Our lands had been befallen by many plagues and our magic had not been strong enough to save what we had held dearly. My mind flashed back to the past. This valley once has been the definition of bright and colorful. The trees had bloomed and giant fields of flowers had delighted our broken hearts. It pained me to see my land having fallen so far. It was time to…

Suddenly everything was bright. Confused I tried to get back from whatever emitted the light, just before realizing that I was lying on a bed. Through my pathetic attempts of evasion I only got myself to fall out of the bed onto the cold wooden flooring. How had I ended up here? Where was here? It took a moment just to sort my mind. Yesterday… I have fallen down… I cringed when thinking back at that awful image. I had known I would never forget it. I stopped myself from thinking about it before the emotions would follow. What had happened afterwards? I had found a way out and then I had galloped home as far as hooves could carry. Then, I had ended up in… I looked around…

Yes… Yes! I knew this place! But why…?! It was not the place itself that made my whole body tense up, but the inability to recognize it. It scared me to the bone not having recognized this place at first. Maybe it was just because I was still so tired. But even though my consciousness tried to build new excused, my subconsciousness cringed with the bitter truth. I had not recognized my own home. My heart was already pumping as if I had just run a fifty miles marathon and my breaths had receded to occasional panting. I tried to tell myself this had just been an unfortunate mistake but deep inside a fear grew. The fear of losing my mind. STOP! This is all just my tiredness, nothing more and nothing less.

I slowly got up and trotted towards the door, pushing my heavy body forward every single inch. My gaze slowly flying over the spare furniture. The small old wooden chair we once bought an eternity ago because we actually thought we could need such a small chair. Turns out it doesn’t even take the weight of our son. The huge shelf. It had been a pain in the behind getting that thing here. We could not even get it through the normal door, so we had to take it apart first and rebuilt it once all parts were inside. That strange zebrican statue my wife adored. I hated it but it would have broken my heart to tell her. Sometimes you have to make compromises to make a relationship work, especially if that relationship will last until the end of your life. I had never been able to deny her wishes anyway. I had to smile as I remembered her comment about the modern interpretation of the ear rings as symbols for the hunger of foals in zebrica and how it was all overinterpretation. She had always said that the only thing the zebras had wanted to express was beauty. Lastly the mir…

A giant insect-like abomination stared at me out of empty eyes, looking deeply into my soul. A big grin slowly rose over its sharp teeth. Unable to move, I stood there watching gloomy eyes taking apart my soul. I stopped breathing and my heart stopped beating. It was a moment of complete fear and angst. Nothing moved except the mouth of the insect beast slowly opening as if to speak my name. I closed my eyes, unable to comprehend. My heart started beating again, but it seemed as if it tried to make up the missed beats. My breath turned into irregular panting. What was going on here?! I feared opening my eyes again, but I even more feared being attacked while having my eyes closed. When I opened my eyes, the beast was already gone, but what I saw in the mirror now wasn’t much better.

I looked at me, but there was something different with me. My legs… It was a strange mixture of disgust and disbelief. That could not be an image of me. That could not be a mirror! This is all wrong! My breathing sped up again, my heart pumping adrenaline through my body. I looked away, looked back at it but the image didn’t change. Nothing changed except the expression on my face. From sheer shock to fear. Fear of what could be real. Slowly my head tilted down getting slower with every hoof, not wanting to see what was down there. Fear of what could be down there. I forced my head further and further until I saw the truth with my bare eyes. This had to be a nightmare! This was all wrong! The legs I saw were pierced by holes over holes, making it possible to see right through them. My fear drove my body to move away, but how can you run from yourself?

What in all of Equestria had happened to me? How…? Why…? The questions in my head didn’t add up and each and every time I tried to answer one, already ten new questions buzzed around in my mind like a swarm of angry bees. However, soon questions arose which could not be overwhelmed. As if the swarm of bees tried to fight a herd of angry elephants. What had happened? How had it happened? Then, the questions started to get worse and worse.

How can you change what you are? How would anypony ever look up to me like this? What would I tell my wife, my son? Are there even words to tell your wife…? Would she understand? Would she continue loving me? Questions rumbling inside my head, each trying to gain predominance over the others. All the while, my face staring at what has once been my legs. The need to touch it growing with every single second.

It was so wrong but I couldn’t just not touch it! The curiosity slowly growing like the pain of a splinter. Like the itching of your nose when you can’t scratch it. You know it is wrong but the desire outgrows reason... I touched it. My skin felt like metal, like a carapace of some kind of insect. A cold smooth surface, completely stripped of any fur. My hoof slowly wandered down further down towards the gaping hole inside of my foot. The sharp border and then just nothing. A gaping hole in my foot, almost as big as the ball of fear that stopped me from breathing, from even comprehending what was around me.

No! This was all just another nightmare, another illusion of my sick mind created to torture myself. I stumbled backwards, trying to escape the image, but it was burnt into my mind. Wake up! Please, wake up! I didn’t wake up. Every single second going by was another second in which the realization sunk in deeper. Each and every single second I got a bit more desperate. I was almost thankful that I had found no one home. What in Equestria was happening? I sat back down onto my bed, not able to take my gaze off the mirror. I stood up again, unable to sit still while my legs were… like this. Imagine, your legs would turn into swiss cheese. How bucked up is that?

I was not sure what to actually do. What do you do in that situation? There is really not an answer to that. I was sitting on my bed unable to accept whatever that was. I was imprisoned in my home, not allowing myself to step a hoof outside. What if anypony saw me? That would be terrific! No, I would stay in here. However, what should I do? I decided to do the only logical thing: Waiting until I would wake up. This was all just a nightmare anyway. Holes in your legs, what a nonsense right?

I waited. And with every second of my wait my hopes dropped a little further. I got tired of waiting and yet I forced myself to stay calm and collected. Maybe if I would sleep, I would just wake up in my bed completely normal. Or maybe somepony had dropped something on my head while I had been in that shop. Maybe I was unconscious and they mugged me right now, right in that dodgy corner shop where I had found the statue of Turn Star, the best flyer in Equestria - The birthday present for my son.

It had smiled at me. I had never seen such a beautiful statue of Turn Star - the best flyer in Equestria in our time - ever before. It was so beautifully colored that the statue almost seemed to live and fly through the display window. It could have been the perfect toy! It would have been the best one in his whole collection. Never before had I seen such a majestic statue. Yet, it had been in some forsaken corner shop. An old shopkeeper had greeted me, one of the kind you immediately like. A bit rusty and slow but incredibly likable. He stuttered a bit when bringing out the words through his old lips, but his voice was deep and clear. He had only half of his mane left and everything was already desaturated. The desaturation of the color of your coat is quite a normal thing when growing really old. It is a slow process but a process nonetheless. This pony had to be hundreds of years old - well, not literally of course. Why the actual buck do I remember that old pony better than my own wife?! I hate my brain. I HATE it. I HATE HATE HATE… Okay. Calm down. Hush now, quiet now, it’s time to lay down your sleepy head. Okay. I think I am calm again. Let us continue:

I had dropped into my bed trying to deny all of what had happened, trying to forget it all. As you might have already have guessed, it didn’t get much better after burying my head in my blanket for some time. At some point I was startled by the sudden sound of a loud noise. It took me almost half a minute just to realize that I had fallen asleep at some point and the loud noise was actually a door opening and ponies coming in. My wife! My son! They couldn’t see me like that! No! I had to do something and I decided to do the only option I had in that moment: Escaping out of the window. Any other possibility would have lead me downstairs first and then they would have seen me. Right now, I could hide upstairs. But how long could I hide here? I couldn’t hide from them in their … our own home. I made the decision.

My heart was pumping and I felt like I had just broken into a bank or something. Although nothing of it all was my fault, I couldn’t get over it. I could never let them see me like this. My legs had not become any better. I made the leap of faith into the tree right next to our window in the first floor, hanging there by the tips of my hooves. As you might know, hooves aren’t really the best tools to grapple upon small wet leaves or thin flat branches. I fell down but luckily there is a bush right under the tree. Of course it hurt but at least they had not seen me. The small branches of the bush were covered in small thorns. Not long enough to cause any serious injury but enough to hurt like holy mother of Celestia. I wanted to scream and cry at the same time and yet I had to stay completely silent. I couldn’t risk anypony looking for me because they heard my screams or sobbing.

When I finally got out of the bush, I had to pull every single thorn out. Luckily I have magic for that! I cannot even imagine how it would have went if I had not had magic. Your mouth can only reach so far after all. Anyway, I made my way through the backyard of my house, just trying to get further away without getting seen. While still unseen I actually managed to make my way out of the village. I had to climb over many fences into many backyards. I made my way back down the street through the backyards until I finally arrived at the first houses. From there, I made my way into the bordering forest. The climbing was probably the most difficult task as some ponies were really distrusting each other. From small hedges to giant walls with barbed wire on it. Well, to be honest the fence with barbed wire happened to be the one dividing the garden of Sunflower Garden - That’s her name - and the grumpy old Deaf Smile. He was actually not deaf and he didn’t smile much either. I guess you could interpret the grimace he did, when finding you did something wrong, as a smile. And you could call him deaf since he never listened to anypony anyway. Sunflower Garden had some sunflowers in her garden, but not as many as you would actually expect from her name. Where was I again before going off tangent on names? Ah, yes.

I found myself in a similar situation again: Stumbling through a forest, although this time it wasn’t totally pitch black. Where should I go? What should I do? My stomach turned around as those questions returned. I felt anger and disgust, not sure how to cope with the situation. I was torn between those two feelings, unable to decide which one dominated. Where should I go? Over all the other feelings slowly arose one more terrific than any other: I felt lost. Not the meaning of lost as in not knowing where to get home, but actually lost in a way that I had lost my place in this world. I was displaced, disgraced. I could not return like this. I could not do this to my wife. I know she loves me and I know she would do everything to help me. And yet I could never stand her disgust when looking at me. It would crush my soul to see my love looking at me in disgust. And my son? How should I explain it all? No. There was no way for me home. I almost broke down in depression as I had that one idea: What if I could actually cure it somehow? Maybe it was like a disease? If it was just a bit similar to a disease, there would be a cure.

So how do you find a cure to something that you do not actually know? You go to a library and look it up of course. Except that it would be impossible to go to a library like this! So what ways are left? Well, my idea was going to a good friend of mine and asking him. And you may now ask: Why didn’t you tell your wife and decided to tell it your friend? Well, me and my wife have a different connection. A much closer one. I could have not told her even if I had wanted. I could not have taken the look on her face, forcing her to stand by my side even though her disgust would only grow. I could not do it. Not to my wife. However, my friend would just take it easy. Disgusted of course, but he didn’t love me. It was just a different connection.

So I turned back after stumbling through the forest for a while and went straight towards Silver Coil’s house. He was a brilliant engineer, creating fantastic contraptions you would usually only find in your dreams. He also had some mighty friends… For example a stallion called “Star Swirl the Bearded”. The “the Bearded” is not really part of his name, just something people are used to add. He is quite bearded after all, probably more bearded than anypony else. I had the pleasure to meet him once. Well, it was less of a pleasure and more of a meeting with some cranky old professor. Anyway, Silver Coil was really a great guy. He used to build engines of unseen size and complexity. Once he showed me a wheeled cart that could drive if you powered it by magic. Of course, the magic had to be conjured by 5 unicorns combined, but holy horse apples! A machine that drove only by the use of your magic. Magic, this ungraspable energy converted into actual rotation energy of the wheels. A conversion of magical energy through a machine - Something you didn’t see every day back then. I think he was one of the greatest engineers of his time. He would certainly find an answer.

“There is no answer, at least not from me. I have never seen something like that before. You should rather visit a doctor. All I could do would be to create something that would cover it up. Actually, just give me a minute.”

This was not what I had expected. Actually, I don’t know what I had expected. I had just come to his house, knocking on his back door. Luckily he had opened it and his first reaction had been instantly shutting the door again. Only after a minute or so, he opened again stuttering something about being sorry. He had been deeply disturbed but so was I. After a short introduction of what happened to me, I asked him what could cure this disease. No answer. Such a depressing thought. What if there was truly no answer? No! There has to be one! He said he had no answer, but that didn’t mean there was none at all.

“Here you go!”

He held some sort of shoulder pad up.

“What? What is that supposed to be?”

His expression changed from pride to mortification. Maybe I should not have asked…

“Well, those were supposed to be shoulder pads redirecting any surge of magic. The plating inside of them is made of heavy iron and I just cut off the conductors. Like this, they could just cover up…”

He began to work around my legs which was mostly uncomfortable. He accidentally poked into a hole which caused my leg to recede in reflex. Imagine there is a spider crawling INTO your leg. Now you know how creepy that feels. It is the most disgusting and disturbing thing to happen.

“I just don’t know what to do with this.”

He looked up to my face! No! Nonono! Nooo! Pushing him aside I made my way through his living room and into the kitchen. No! No! This was my nightmare! This was all just a nightmare! Oh no. I closed my eyes, waiting for the image to disappear. Yet, when I opened them again the same monster stared at me. He looked like an unicorn, only his horn… I closed my eyes again, a tear slowly dripping down. Why on Equestria me? Only because I had been a bit tardy when buying the present of my son? Was this some cruel joke of fate? I had tried to deny it, tried to keep it away from my mind. However, with every single second it just kept crawling a bit closer into my consciousness. Now, it reached a point where I realized, that it wasn’t all a nightmare. It was all real! I tried to contain my tears. Not here and not now. I turned around, Silver Coil staring at me in pity. I didn’t need his pity! Yet, I felt the shame slowly crawling into my face, making my eyes wet. I started walking in circles. One one hoof, to bring my thoughts into a clear direction. On the other, simply to calm me down.

“You will have to go to a hospital. There is just no way around it. For now, let me just cover it up.”

I did not even answer, not knowing how to react. My mind was turning and turning and turning. My wife returned and then my son and then the thorns and the image of skulls in blood. I stopped.

“Stop acting like a foal and let me patch you up. The doctors will know a cure. I am sure. Actually, I am going to just get Star Swirl here.”

I blinked. Had I just misheard that? Star Swirl here? Why in Equestria would Star Sw…

“Of course he wouldn’t come for no reason. You would have to allow him to study it. However, then you could be sure for him to find a cure. If he doesn’t find it, there is none.”

That actually sounded reasonable. For as long as ponies knew, there had not been such a genius as Star Swirl. He had created the amniomorphic spell, the creating of impulse through use of magic and discovered the elemental field of magic. Furthermore he had created the general theory of supra-interaction. If he did not find an answer, truly nopony would. I was still not fully convinced, but the idea did not let go of Silver Coil. He called Star Swirl in an instant. They had actually developed a device that would make a light blink in each other’s house from their own home. We waited for almost a minute, when our light began blinking too.

“Usually this is for great new inventions. He should be - depending on his interest - arrive in today’s evening or tomorrow. He usually doesn’t want to wait to see new inventions.”

“Since when am I an invention?”

“Well, your state is certainly out of any ordinary, isn’t it? There is no way this is normal or even discovered. We might be on the brink of discovering something completely new here. Imagine all of the possibilities this could bring!”

“What should anypony get by having holes in their legs?”

“Well… That is not the matter. The matter is the research of a new phenomenon. Did you know that you can actually create medicine from a fungus?”

“What?”

“Yes! Not everything that seems wrong has to be necessarily be bad. We could find a new armor plating. Just look how hard your hooves are.”

To my great displeasure he had to kick against them with his hoof, making a dull clang sound, almost like ringing a bell or hitting against heavy armor.

“Just look at that horn of yours. Not only is it covered in a similar substance as your legs, but it seems to also have grown bigger.”

I looked at the mirror and could only make out the same monster staring back at me. Some monstrosity, not a pony anymore but a mishap of nature. I wanted to say something and yet no words came out. It was my only chance after all… The research would be terrible, they would not let go of me. However, if that would mean being cured, it would be well worth it. I moaned, but I didn’t talk back.

“We should test it right now! Has your magic also grown? Or is that shell preventing you from casting?”

I almost answered: “I am not in the mood”, but then I remembered the desperation. What would I do without their help? Stumble through dark forests until the end of my life? No, I had to do this even if it would mean a painful time. I decided to just give it a go, even though I was not in the mood for it. A little bit angered by his pressure, I created a small charge of electricity that should shock him for a good laugh. Instead of a small charge, nothing came out. I tried again with more magic and yet there was nothing. Suddenly, it all bursted out. A giant discharge or electricity, surging through the room and finding the path of least resistance, which happened to be Silver Coil. I was shocked for a moment, unable to move. Silver Coil slowly fell down almost as if in slow motion. After the initial shock had passed, I galloped towards him. He was still breathing. A sigh of relief slipped my lips. I only now noticed that I had held my breath for the entire time. My breathing was heavy and discontinuous. I had nearly killed him! Holy horse apples! This was not a state to experiment on. This was not simply a sick joke. This was dangerous.

FOTC: Chapter 3 - Just an accident

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Silver Coil slowly fell down almost as if in slow motion. After the initial shock had passed, I galloped towards him. He was still breathing. A sigh of relief slipped my lips. I only now noticed that I had held my breath for the entire time. My breathing was heavy and discontinuous. I had nearly killed him! Holy horse apples! This was not a state to experiment on. This was not simply a sick joke. This was above what should be handled by one pony. This was dangerous.

A terrific noise startled me. It sounded like a mixture of chalk on a blackboard and two cogs trying to turn into opposite directions. It took me a moment to process the whole situation. What I had just heard had not been a terrible accident outside, but instead the bell of this godforsaken house. I already wanted to open the door, when Silver Coil flew down the stairs in a hurry I had never seen before. He literally jumped down from the top of the stairs, landing just in front of the door, while almost toppling over and breaking all of his bones. Yet, he managed to avoid a catastrophe and opened the door with such a force that it almost flew off the hinges. He sure was excited. His visitor, however, had a resigned expression, almost expecting Silver Coil to act like that. Maybe I didn't really know Silver Coil as much as I had thought - It was quite uncommon for him to be so electrified. Then again, we are speaking about the creator of the theory of supra-interaction of magic and the genius of our generation. His theory was the biggest breakthrough at that time, almost like the discovery of fire once again.

Star Swirl slowly trotted through the small entrance, being embraced by the rhythmical buzzing and whirring of machines. Something I was already quite used to, but might seem strange to new visitors. Silver Coil was always testing new inventions, always creating machines that might come in handy some day. He loved every single machine. That is something you cannot really say about every inventor. It was almost morbid to see him caring more about his machines than his social life. Maybe his obsession with his inventions was what stopped him from ever having a special somepony.

As Star Swirl looked around, he managed to get a glimpse of me. I will probably never forget the look on his face: A bit of repulsion, a bit of fear and a lot of forbidden interest. He knew he should be utterly disgusted or cringing in horror, but he was not. Instead, his eyes were rejoicing in utter interest in what had happened to me. I definitely felt awkward being searched by his eyes almost as if he was trying to find something on my body. I tried to hide myself from the gazing eyes and stepped a few steps back, just enough to let the doorway cover my feet. Why did he have to stare like that? Even now his calculating eyes were making out every detail of my horn. It was mostly uncomfortable to say the least. However, I had to endure this if I wanted him to create a cure. He was probably my only help right now. Finally, after what had seemed like an eternity of just awkward silence, he began to speak:

“My my. What a peculiar situation. I had not expected this when you alarmed me. A pony with holes in his legs and a deformed horn. Both showing astounding similarities to the physical composition of insects. A hard basis, covered with what seems to be cohesive chitinous plates. We will have to start testing right along.”

My stomach wanted to turn around as Star Swirl the Bearded slowly trotted towards me with that look on his face. I knew it was only scientific interest, yet I hated - HATED - him to look at me like that. It felt almost like he was trying to see what was under my skin. I shuddered at that thought, which Star Swirl instantly interpreted as a sign of some sorts.

“For the record: The subjects shows a lack of social behaviour. Those effects should be investigated later on.”

Star Swirl hovered his backpack in front of him, pulling out a quill and a piece of paper. He wrote down a couple of sentences, then resuming to the conversation.

“Does the subject agree on being tested by the order of SCAO paragraph five to sixteen and thirty five?”

What exactly...? Scao? From the corner of my eyes I could make out a slow nodding movement of Silver Coil’s head. I could not agree to something I didn’t know, could I? Then again it was my only hope. There was in fact no pony with more knowledge than Star Swirl. I took a deep breath before releasing it for my answer:

“Yes.”

The grumpy miene of Star Swirl instantly changed to a happy smile, almost like a kid who had just been given some toy to play with. I didn’t like the idea of being his toy to play with. A mad scientist doing some crazy experiments on you? Hay no! The only reason for me not aborting the whole idea was my desperation. Desperation combined with initial shock drives you to do the most stupid things. I should have told my wife, should have gone to a doctor and should have tried to get over it as a family. Now I was stuck here with mister madmachine and mister weirdbeard.

Star Swirl actually told me to go have a bit of free time on the couch, while they would prepare everything. “Prepare everything” sounded more like a horror movie than anything else. When the mad doctor wants to murder his patients or do some crazy experiment on them, they also prepare everything. I am overreacting. I know. How am I supposed to deal with it? While my thoughts kept on turbulating, I finally had some rest on the couch. To my great dissatisfaction, Star Swirl came back after a couple of minutes already.

“Okay. Follow me…”

Really, this was getting out of hand. I felt more and more like an animal that was being observed. Couldn’t they at least act as if I was still a pony? I am still a pony! Or not? I slowly followed Star Swirl down a steep staircase, leading into the secret basement of Silver Coil. This was his experimenting cellar, where most of his inventions happened. This was the center of his creativity and it filled me with pride to finally being able to see it. I was probably the second pony seeing this place, after Star Swirl of course. Silver Coil would have done anything for that grumpy old professor and I have no idea why. For him, Star Swirl seemed like the ideal of a scientist. I couldn’t fault him for that, - Star Swirl was the best scientist - but did he have to be so obsessive about him?

The room was filled with hundreds of clicking and clacking inventions, gears turning and electricity buzzing. It was crazy. Every single wall was covered with an arsenal of mechanical complexity that you have never seen before. Each wheel and each and every gear had some purpose. Thousands of screws and bolts and nuts covered the walls. It almost looked like the walls themselves were moving. The middle of the room was comparatively clean, only a steel table and a couple of spare parts lying around. The table had obviously just been cleaned up, which made me feel even worse. Now they would take out handcuffs and shackle me to the table, then pulling out some crazy machines and cutting my body open. I knew it was all nonsense, but the thought didn’t leave my mind. I breathed in deeply once again, trying to convince myself that everything would be fine.

I was ordered to sit down on the table, which I did after a short time of hesitation. I forced myself to endure this and to ignore what sick ideas my mind was creating. As I heard the metallic clacking of handcuffs, I jumped up into the air, turning around and running for my life. However, a magical wall held me back from escaping.

“The subject seems to be extremely nervous and we are going to have to use item 3 of paragraph 7 in the SCAO. This Scientific Collaboration and Associated Orders paragraph allows us to use of anesthetics if the subject is too nervous.”

Anesthetics? Hell No! My worst imaginations seemed to have manifested in this very moment. The way outside was cut off, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t fight. I turned around and tried to conjure a bolt of fire. What came out was nothing but a couple of sparks and a lot of hot air. Nonono! Not now! Damned chitinous plating! With this … thing on my head I was clearly inferior to the combined power of the most innovative pony in Equestria and the master of all forms of magic. I would have to surprise them or their knowledge would doom me to fail. I looked around, trying to find anything that could help me in my trouble. While Star Swirl stood still with his eyes drilling into my skin, Silver Coil slowly compassed me. The gears! Maybe if I could throw something into all those gears covering the walls, I would distract them just long enough for me to escape this madness. My breathing was fast and rhythmic, my body was all tensed up and I could hear the blood rushing through my veins. It almost felt as if my body was ready for this. I found myself a suitable object: A screwdriver which had been thrown carelessly onto the floor. Now I would only have to…

A sudden feeling warned me of incoming danger. The expression of Star Swirl’s face had only changed by a bit, and yet that had been enough of a message for my brain to warn me about an incoming attack. I just blindly jumped towards the screwdriver, just barely evading the sharp ending of a syringe Silver Coil had just pulled out. My hoof slid far enough to reach the screwdriver and gave it just a little nudge. I was watching the screwdriver slowly rolling towards the wall, almost as if watching a slow motion movie. His own momentum had betrayed Silver Coil and had caused him to fall over. However, Star Swirl reacted without hesitation. He used his magic to stop the screwdriver from causing a chain reaction. At that point, I had almost wanted to take my hoof and throw it into my face. Seriously, why had I not thought of that? I guess using magic isn’t the most reflexive reaction. Then, I remembered that using magic would not have worked anyway as my horn seemed to be very dysfunctional.

After my initial plan failing horribly, I decided to think of a plan B. A bit late of course, but better late than never. While my mind was rumbling to find a solution for my situation, both of my enemies seemed to be way more prepared. Star Swirl used a magical surge of direct electricity. For a second or two I did not feel anything but the pain. A fire burning inside of my body, cramping all of my muscles together and finally causing my mind to just shut off as the pain became unbearable. It is actually strange how that all works: Weren't you supposed to be conscious in such dangerous situations? Being knocked unconscious doesn’t seem like the kind of response you would expect when dealing with massive pain. I guess it could be less of a self-defense mechanism and more of an unwanted side effect or something like that.

When I actually regained my consciousness, it was already too late. I found myself shackled to the steel table in the middle of the room. I tried to move my legs, but each one of them was held by a single chain. My horn wasn’t much of a help right now either. I still tried to magically remove the chains - to no avail of course. From the corner of my eyes I could make out Star Swirl, slowly approaching the table. My mind, although still a bit jumbled, instantaneously filled with hundreds of questions: What is he going to do to me? What does he have in his hooves? Is he going to use magic again? Where is Silver Coil? What is their evil plan? How can I escape? I tried to move but the thick chains kept me down. It was impossible to gain more than one inch, even with greatest effort. He stopped right in front of the table, doing something with his hooves. I tried to lean over to get a glimpse of what was happening, but the chains were relentless. My struggle actually caught his attention and he shook his head disapprovingly.

“Just calm down. We are not going to do anything to you. We just have to make sure you won’t attack us again. No more aggression towards us, do you understand?”

Calm down? Was he kidding me? He was holding me on a table with thick steel chains and he expected me to calm down? And that promise: “We are not going to do anything to you”. That is what the bad guys always say before ripping their victims apart. If he thought that I would take that bait, I would have to reconsider my opinion about the state of his mind. And what about the part of “attacking them again”. Was he kidding? I had not attacked them. They had attacked me!

“What are you talking about?! You attacked me! I am the one shackled to a bucking table, not you.”

At first, Star Swirl seemed slightly confused, but then his expression changed. Slightly amused, he replied:

“So Silver Coil electrocuted himself, huh?”

He couldn’t be serious! That had been an accident. Silver Coil should have told him it had been one. Then again, he would never object against anything Star Swirl said.

“It was an accident!”

Star Swirl just laughed and I realized, how stupid that sentence had been. Anypony would say that, especially those who had planned it. Star Swirl hovered something into the air. It took me a second to process what I saw: A giant serrated blade reflected the light of the lamp above my head. No! No! NO! I don’t care what that pony had said about “not going to do anything to me”. This pony was obviously insane and not to be trusted with giant blades.

I tried to escape the chains but steel is actually much stronger than a pony. There was only one thing that could possibly help me out here: Magic. This time, I put everything into it. My heart was beating like a crazy colt testing out his new drums. A simple spell to take apart the chains by an inner force. To my great surprise it actually worked. Although, to be completely honest with you at this point, it did not quite work as I had expected. Instead of simply taking the chains apart and allowing me to escape, the whole room started to turn into some fiery hell.

Within seconds my entire field of vision turned into a bright mixture of orange and yellow. Every breath of mine turned into another fire inside of my lungs. My skin turned into an outer layer consisting of nothing but pain. My body instinctively tried to flee from the source of the pain. I threw myself to either the right or left, I don’t even remember anymore. All I wanted to do is to escape. To my surprise it actually worked. I dropped down from the table, landing in a pit of burning wood. My body screamed in pain, but my lungs were so burnt that I could not bring out a sound. Somehow I began moving again. I don’t even know how I took the power to do that. Step after step I made my way through the wall of fire. It was impossible to see where I was going, but soon I arrived in front of a giant cog. I remembered it being part of the wall right next to the staircase and decided to turn left. The smoke started to fill out my lungs, leaving me no air to breath. I started panting for air but it seemed as if there was no oxygen to breath. However, before I reached the stairs, Star Swirl suddenly appeared from the smoke. He laughed while the fires of hell were burning right behind him. My brain seemed unable to cope with what was happening and I stumbled further. Then, my memories seem to fade. I can’t tell you what exactly happened that day down there as I cannot remember. The last image I can remember is the image of a laughing Star Swirl in front of a wall of fire, casting a spell that would change my life.

It was a dark and rainy day. Usually I would have stayed inside of his small, cozy home, but this was an occasion I could not miss. I had been called a couple of hours earlier by the hospital. They had said that Star Swirl had finally awoken from the coma.

For a couple of days now, I had been wondering what had happened down in his own basement. I had been upstairs getting the test tubes which should have allowed us to test for acidic solutions, when I saw the smoke coming from downstairs. I just dropped the tubes and jumped down the stairs. I turned right and saw him lying there. Star Swirl seemed to be heavily wounded but his chest still went up and down rhythmically. That brought me to a very serious question: If there was a fire in the basement, what had happened to Ethereal Tear? Star Swirl had told me to get everything ready right after he had shocked Ethereal Tear. I still don’t know why he had been overreacting like that, but I guess seeing my friend like that must have scared him.

I jumped down further stairs until I reached the basement. Fire and smoke were coming from everywhere, trying to hold me back. Through the bright wall of combustion, I could make out a scheme of a pony lying on the ground. I took all my willpower together and jumped through it. I landed directly in front of Ethereal Tear, who seemed to have some sort of metal attached to him. I took him by his mane and pulled him through the burning debris. My whole body started aching under the pain and everything screamed to let him go, but I couldn’t just let him die down here! I pulled with all my power and yet I only moved him for a hoof or two. After what seemed like an eternity to me, I finally managed to get him to the staircase and out of the fiery hell down there.

I still don’t know why there was a fire in my basement or why Ethereal Tear had molten chains on his hooves. Today I hoped to find an answer.

The hospital doors were way too heavy. How should weak, wounded ponies get through them to acquire help? As most doctors were unicorns anyway, it did not really matter to them. Sometimes we forget to care about each other and may it be when doing such simple things as designing a door for a hospital. The warm air washed over my body, brushing off the cold air of the late night. My coat was still wet from the rain, but the warm air would dry it out soon enough. The receptionist was already expecting me as it was too late in the night for usual visitors.

“Are you Silver Coil?”

The receptionist had an incredibly deep voice, something you would not expect from such a flimsy unicorn.

“Yes.”

He smiled as he saw my wet coat, almost as if to rub that fact into my face. He seemed to enjoy the dissatisfaction of others, which was quite a strange characteristic for a receptionist from a hospital.

“Just follow along then. Usually we don’t have visitors in such late nights anymore, especially with that kind of weather outside. I hope you didn’t have to walk too far.”

Rubbing it into my face! I am calling it! He is doing that because he likes others being miserable.

“Actually I am from Neighengrade.”

To my great pleasure, his meine actually changed from that nasty grin to a considerate smile.

“I am sorry about that. I guess you really are a good friend, traveling so far and so late just to meet your friend.”

I decided to just say nothing. I didn’t know how to answer on that. The receptionist seemed to be not such a terrible pony after all. Or maybe he was just luring me into a trap. I snapped out of it as I knew where that was going. Somehow I tend to be very paranoid around hospitals. I just dislike the thought of other ponies cutting you open and staring into your body.

We walked for a couple of minutes. It seemed like this hospital was built as a maze. We climbed up long staircases, turned around four corners and suddenly stood in a completely different room, taking the next backdoor and suddenly having to climb down stairs again, just to arrive in unknown parts of the hospital. After a while I asked myself whether we were actually still in the city or the strange maze had led us to a different dimension. Just as I lost the hope of ever arriving, the receptionist suddenly stopped and turned towards me:

“Here you go! Room 22.5.4 in corridor 24§6.”

There was nothing to add to that statement. Did they seriously run out of numbers and used a bucking “paragraph” in the midst of their names? Or did they just dislike normal numbers? If somepony tells you that where you are is corridor 24 paragraph 6 and then leaves you standing in front of a small door, you know something is wrong in that hospital.

I opened the heavy door with a small window inside of it. The window was actually so opaque that it was impossible to take a glimpse of the inside of the room before entering. Why was there a window if it was opaque? That didn’t make much sense. The room was actually quite small. The first thing I noticed was the huge, comfortable looking bed with the old professor inside. Oh, what would I have given to have a bed right now? I had been traveling the whole day and now it was about midnight or possibly already early in the morning. A table, a pot with old flowers inside of it and a shelf with a couple of books on it. If you’d look up “spare” in the dictionary you’d find a picture of this room.
I trotted towards the bookshelf to look at the books they had prepared for Star Swirl. Childish lectures. The general theory of relativity by Albatross Einstein, a brief history of time by Stephen the Hawk, Philosophiae naturae of Isaac Neighton, and similar literature. Before I could take a book out, Star Swirl began speaking:

“I don’t know whether…”

He stopped there, leaving the sentence unfinished. Before I would ask him whatever he meant, I should probably greet him first. At least to give a bit of politeness to this conversation.

“Ahh. I see you have woken up, Star Swirl. Have you had a capable service? I hope that bed of yours is comfortable enough for your liking. I know how you always complain about the one at your home.”

Star Swirl stared at me for a second, completely confused about my attempt to make a nice conversation. I gave up on that end and just blatantly asked right out:

“So what happened down in my basement?”

Now, he was even more confused about the whole thing. He mumbled a few words into his beard before he finally make up his mind.

“I don’t know how to tell you… The whole situation got terribly out of hand. He attacked me and I had to use my newest spell…“

FOTC: Chapter 4 - A friend

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“No, this is not one of your games! This is your son, in Celestia’s name!”

I had never seen her this angry before. She showed nothing but a distorted grimace of what had once been her beautiful face. In her eyes was not only anger though, but also a deep sadness that was causing my legs to get weak. How can I stand upright while she is falling down because of me? It had been my fault. Almost like a broken record, I tried to ensure her that I would fix it all.

“I am going to get him a present, I promise.”

A tear slowly formed on the bottom of her eye. It gained weight until gravity’s pull was strong enough to let it drip down. She just looked at me and I wasn’t sure anymore if I could stand it. Her eyes were showing me a hole in her heart almost as big as her love for me had been. Had it grown bigger? Had she forgotten all these years? Have I forgotten? I am the one who has forgotten. The birthday of my own son and no present to be had.

“Go. Just go.”

“You can’t do this. You know me. I always forget things.”

“This is not a ‘thing’. This is your son… I don’t know, Ethereal. I don’t know if I can still continue trying to love you when all you do is giving me a reason to hate you.”

A shudder ran down my body, but my brain could still not realize the importance. My smile I had tried to keep up all the while turned into a terrible grimace. Suddenly everything was silent and my thoughts seemed to try to scream it away. Yet, there was not a word spoken. Then, she just turned around. Everything inside me wanted to scream and yet there was only silence. My heart felt as if a dagger was sticking inside of it and with trying to remove it, I only pushed it deeper. Tears slowly made their way down my face and waited at my chin until the gravity would find them too. It had been all my fault. All of it. I closed my eyes in a pathetic attempt to blend out the images, but the images were burnt into my mind. Her eyes were still looking at me even though she had already left. I was alone now and that feeling slowly crept into my mind, consuming every other thought. I was alone now and she was gone.

No! This is not how it ends! No! I refuse to believe it! I am going to get a present even if I have to go through storm and thunder. My hooves slowly gained momentum as I walked out of the house, the clear image in mind. I would get a present no matter the cost.

I opened my eyes. The tears were still there. My mind was tired, not willing to get up. Slowly the schemes around me formed in unity and revealed a white ceiling. Even slower, my thoughts and memories were returning. My wife? I had dreamt of her again, I had dreamt of our last words again. My mind didn’t seem to want to work today, everything seemed to stretch out like rubber gum. It still didn’t made sense. Where was I even? My head slowly turned to my side but the images just distorted again. Everything blurred into many strange shapes, curling around each other. Why did my head feel so numb?

It took me a couple of seconds of staying completely still until the colors finally rearranged. My whole body felt like a sack of potatoes. I could hardly move around as my muscles seemed to just not respond to any of my commands. As I slowly regained the control over my limbs, I also started to feel incredible pain. Everything felt as if it tried to cramp together. Only slowly the pain declined and I was finally able to get up. My mouth opened and out came a long yawn...
and to be honest: I was really as tired. Almost as if I hadn’t slept in days… or months… or even years.

The room had resumed to natural order in the meanwhile. It seemed like it was one of these typical hospital rooms. The bed I was lying on, a shelf of books and a small nightstand with a bowl atop of it. Something was terribly off about this room though. Everything was muggy and dusty. It almost seemed as if the walls were falling apart. Pieces of paint seemed to crumble out of cracks in the wall. How could I have not noticed it before? Where was I? The first question easily resolved in my mind: If you consider the rambling of my dreamy thoughts and the blurry effect when I had moved my head just a bit, it was almost logical that I had failed to see the desolation of this place earlier. The second question was a lot harder to answer as I didn’t have the necessary information yet. I decided to explore further. This door was nothing but a blockade between me and a world out there. It was time to see what lay beyond this room.

The door was actually so brittle it instantaneously collapsed as my hoof touched it. I peeked into the dark corridor that seemed to have collapsed at one end. It was filled with debris and as it seemed it had been pure luck that there had not been a huge pile of debris right in front of my door preventing me from getting out.

“A nice day to wake up.”

Who said that? I had not said it. I looked around. Nothing but rubble and debris. There was no location where one could hide. However, if there had nopony been hiding, who would have said that then? Was I going insane? No you are not. Wait, what? You heard me. Who did I hear? What the actual buck?

“Hello? Is somepony out there?”

The empty corridor did not answer his question. Instead, he heard the wind howling outside of the window. Window. Does that remind you of something? There! Again!

“Who is that? Stop that at once!”

Wait! If there was anypony talking to me, how had she known what I had thought? I have not said anything about a window… The sudden realization ran through my whole body, slowly causing every single muscle to tense up. Was this a ghost? Was this some kind of strange hallucination? Or was I still trapped in a nightmare? Don’t fool yourself. You can’t deny my existence. Who the…? This… This… I started turning around, frantically looking for anypony who was hiding there. There had to be somepony, there had to be somepony. No. This was all a dream. Haha. I love this part. Stop! There is no voice! I waited. No answer, no voice. Maybe it really had just been a creepy illusion. My mind didn’t want to realize what had happened. It was too unreal to be true. I just tried to ignore it.

However, the idea with the window was still not a bad idea, even if developed through a strange illusion. The whole corridor was filled with debris and it seemed as if there was no way through at all. So the window would be a logical alternative as an escape route. At first I tried to just pull it open, but I soon realized that it would be impossible. The window seemed as rusty as you’d expect in a ruin like this. However, there were about a hundred loose pieces of rubble outside of the room, so that shouldn’t be the biggest problem. I pulled a random piece, a particularly heavy part of what had once been the ceiling, out of the huge pile of rubble.

The window completely burst apart upon the impact of my projectile. Well done. At least you are not as stupid as I had thought. No! Not again! This voice is going to drive you insane? You are insane already. No I am not! Stop this! This is crazy! … or insane? No!

“Stop!”

My own voice echoed through the empty halls of the hospital, leaving me behind in a depressing silence. I decided to go on and find out what was wrong here. There was most certainly something wrong with this whole situation. I looked out of the broken window. A tree, moving with the slight breeze. Everything seemed too desaturated to be real. A bad movie where somepony had played with the buttons and modulators of the colors, turning up the grey and turning down everything else; A bleak world. With some momentum, I would be able to get out through the window. However, the broken pieces at the edge of the window were still worrying me. Worrying? You should worry about other things. Not again. Of course I am here again. I will not just go away because you scream at me.

“But I am not insane!”

Of course you aren’t insane. Nopony ever is. No! No! Without thinking about it, I started moving. My legs started walking, then running and I jumped. The sharp edges of the broken window scratched deeply into my flesh, but I was free. The whole thing did not work out as I had thought. As you might know, ponies are not designed to climb trees. Instead of landing on that particularly thick branch right next to the window, I landed on the cold, hard ground. The impact pressed all air out of my lungs. For almost a minute I could not do anything but pant for air.

When the pain finally started to recede, I tried standing up. Although my hooves still felt weak, I managed to keep my balance. Dizziness amplified the effects of gravity, pulling me down. Around me the word seemed to bend to my every movement. Before me was the gigantic building I had been in. I actually seemed to have dropped out of a front window. The shield above the entrance had lost its anchorage on the left side, but by turning my head a bit, I was able to read what was written on it.

Neighengrade Hospital.

No. NO! This… How… This… I stumbled for words. I was shocked to say the least. It seemed as if I was only falling further down into madness? Insanity? Haha. I really love this part. Not now! This was already bad enough. Do you still not realize it? Can’t you see the simple truth? This is not your world anymore. This IS my world. And I am not insane! You can’t lie to yourself forever. Just embrace it! There is nothing to embrace! This is all not real anyway. Don’t you even try denying it. If you won’t voluntarily accept the truth, I will have to force you to. As if you could? Who do you think you are? I am stronger than you’d think. Don’t try me. And what if I want to try you? What if I think that you are a filthy lying voice I am just imagining in some kind of sick nightmare? Haha. Do you really think you could evade the truth? Just accept it. What are you even talking about? Can’t you remember? Remember what? Holy Celestia, what are you talking about? You know what? Don’t answer that. Just

“Shut up!”

This time however, the voice was relentless. Oh, I can’t just shut up if you deny the truth. What bucking TRUTH? You can’t just say I shouldn’t deny “it” if you never say, what “it” actually is. Do you really want to hear the truth? If that means this bucking voice shuts up, yes. Yes, I want to hear your bucking truth. The truth may be uncomfortable. As I know you, you will have problems with it. Just stop bantering me and finally start talking. Okay, okay. Fine. This has taken way too long already. Maybe if I listen to this crap, the nightmare is finally over.

It is not a nightmare. Stop telling that to yourself. As long as you are here, I am going to be stuck with you, so you better make this easy for us both.
Let me explain to you as you don’t seem to understand: This is not a nightmare. This is not an illusion either. This is all real. You seem to not remember what had happened. So much time has passed. You look a lot different now. What? What do I look like? I tried to turn myself to see how I looked like but of course that was a bit difficult. I noticed my legs, which were still pierced with holes. However, there was also something else on my back. Some kind of … knitted foil? That is not everything. You should definitely go to that window over there and check yourself out. You will be surprised. If there is a strange voice in your head talking about going to windows and checking yourself out, you know there has to be something wrong with you.

I slowly trotted towards a nearby window in which I would see my reflection. My legs did not want to move but I forced them to. On the one side, it was just this incredible exhaustion. On the other side, it was the fear of what I could see in the broken window. Would I be able to bare what I was about to see? Step by step, I closed in on the window. Suddenly a … thing walked into the image. Out of the pure inability to understand, I turned around, trying to see what monster had crept behind me, showing in that window... There was no monster lurking behind me. Actually, there was one. The bitter truth was that the monster was… me.
A giant insect stared back at me with its cold, dark eyes. How could I not feel like I was supposed to? I was supposed to fear what I saw. I was supposed to recoil at the mere sight of that… thing. I was supposed to feel sadness or fear or anger or disgust or ANYTHING. And yet I stood still and my head was calm. They often say that the window is the door to one’s soul. If that was true, this thing could never have a soul. Maybe that is why I didn’t feel...

Or maybe you just have to look a little closer. Sometimes, the outward appearance is not everything that defines us. Look at it! It is disgusting! Has no one ever told you not to judge the book by its cover? Just look at it! You can’t deny that you are disgusted by it! It is a horrific abomination. I believe that what I had hidden inside of my complaints was my fear of what I had become. I was such a fool back in those days…

My horn was a giant black spike, sticking out of my agglutinant hair. It was by far bigger than my horn ever had been, probably even surpassing the size of the horn of an alicorn. The cold, yellow-greenish eyes were staring back at me, mustering my body. The thing that differed the most were these two transparent things on my back. It almost looked as if I was a bug having it’s wings retracted. However, there was no possibility for me to move those strange things. The shock slowly converted into the strange feeling of acceptance. I couldn’t continue denying my form forever. Of course, I could never approve of the change or embrace what I had become but I couldn’t spend my life hating it either. I closed my eyes once again, repeating that thought, almost as if I could not believe myself thinking that. Now that is a good behaviour. This is who you are now. This voice however, was something I still could not accept. Oh, you can’t accept me? That is truly a revelation. It couldn’t have been any more sarcastic with that statement. If this voice could have just been able to shut up instead of bothering me. A question slowly rose in my mind: How long was this going to last?

Do you still not realize it? This is not what you may think it is. This duty of mine has no end. What duty are you speaking of? Do I really have to go through all of it? If you want me to stop bothering you. As I thought that sentence I realized that the roles somehow had changed here. Indeed, the roles have changed. You are not the one stuck in some foolish pony’s head though. You seem to have forgotten so much…

Allow me to start where your own story began as you seem to have forgotten it. Before the voice could start, I decided to sit down onto the broken stairs, getting into a more comfortable position. I hope you remember the day we met. My mind rambled, desperately trying to find the memory. There was nothing. He had just woken up, which was just after the spell had been casted by Star Swirl. I remember it like it was yesterday. Although back then I had been weak, not able to formulate my thoughts into a voice like this. Its thoughts? How could a voice have thoughts? Who are you? I am not just a voice. I am VULCRIM, although nothing but a part of myself. The way the voice stressed its own name gave it the sense of being something far more important than could be understood.

You have seen my prison, you have touched it, you have freed a force beyond your understanding. You don’t need to understand me for us to create something wonderful. Something wonderful? A world of unity. The voice left me breathless. The prison? I had not been at a prison… for my entire life I had never gone near one. Not a prison as you might have imagined. A smaller one, one which refracted my spirit into many parts. One of whom you are talking about right now. What? Are you even trying to make sense? For Ostia’s sake! A small amulet in a certain cave! Don’t you remember?! For a moment that seemed like an eternity for me, my brain was unable to realize what had been said. The amulet… My thoughts started to swiftly swirl in circles, not coming to an end until a certain voice stopped it all. So many years have passed by… What do you mean? Make bucking sense! I don’t care who you are or what you are or where you came from, but SHUT UP and never speak up again! Only now I felt my heart racing, my breath coming out in sharp pants. My horn was glowing and my whole body was tensed up. That anger. We will fit well. I wanted to scream, to howl in anger, to rip that voice apart. However, that was just what it wanted and I would never allow to fulfill its wishes.

I decided to just turn around and deny it. It was all just a dream anyway. All a dream. The whole world seemed so dark, the clouds were blocking out even the slightest rays of light. I tried to walk forwards, towards somewhere where I was not reminded of the past. Everything was so incredibly silent, so incredibly calm. It helped to be alone with my thoughts and not being forced to do anything. Trotting along this road however, was simply disturbing. Fallen buildings to my right and left, almost like ancient ruins. I stepped along the cobblestone who were already overgrown with moss. They seemed old and broken. The buildings however, were even worse. Most of them were completely collapsed and everything that was left were piles of debris. The cold air rushed through my lungs. Had it been so cold before? With each and every step I got a bit closer to a truth that I still did not want to accept.

Each and every ruin had a story to tell. Sometimes I could hear laughter coming out of a pile of debris. I knew it couldn’t possibly be real and yet I had to check whether it was. What if there was somepony still alive? More than one time I even thought I had seen a small filly around a corner just to discover that it had been a piece of cloth in the wind or an old toy that somepony had played with once. The whole world seemed so… forgotten. Only slowly I got closer to that one realization that lingered in my mind for the whole time. I had known it from the very first moment and yet I had ignored it just to have a bit of happiness before it. Seeing now that there was nothing to gain from denying it I finally embraced it. This was not any ruined city, this had once been my home. Something had pulled me to this very building at which the sharp truth finally pierced through my thick layer of lies. My old home. “Old” I laughed out loudly. How could I call it old if it had just been one day? And yet, the ruins around me told another story. I heard the laughter of my son inside, was he still celebratng his birthday? Most certainly not, but it felt good to tell myself those stories. It feels good if you hide the truth, doesn’t it? For once, I could agree with the voice. It really did feel good to hide the truth. However, there was something I had to do.

My whole body was forcing me to discover what was left of this building, of my home, of my life. Everything had fallen apart and I couldn’t help myself from trying to pick up the shattered pieces. The old door hinge. A part of the lovely decorated lamp. Of course overgrown by weeds and covered in dirt. I even found the statue I had bought my son on his third birthday. He had always been a flyer. His mother, the most beautiful pegasus in our entire town, had made me the happiest unicorn in all of Equestria when our son had arrived. He had loved flying from the very first day. Each and every birthday he had had just one wish: To get a statue of one of the flyers in the equestrian Olympics. Every time he unwrapped the thick layers of foil of one of these half-heartedly packaged statues, the joy in his eyes had given me the strength to continue with my life. Even as I couldn’t afford to buy him the more expensive statues anymore, he had still loved them like any other. I climbed the steep hill of bricks and wooden planks. Having to balance myself on the wet mossy surface was hard enough, but I just had to visit his room one last time. He was long gone. I am not that delusional. However, I at least had to say my last goodbye.

Again, I hated myself for not feeling as I was supposed to. The sadness couldn’t pierce the thick layer of chitin around my body. I felt so cold, so heartless and I hated myself for being that way. Even today, I cannot forgive how I had felt.

I only found pieces of cloth where once had been his bed. Most planks were already so rotten that I had to wonder why they had not fallen apart already. I could still see everything. The light-blueish blankets on their white throne. We had painted Turn Star on his walls. I think it had been one of the happiest moments in my life seeing him come home from Flight School and seeing his room like that. I will always remember the argument that had led to this painting. She had screamed at me, throwing these searing words into my face which burnt deeply into my mind.

“Your son! When will you finally stop ignoring your own son?”

Silence. Not a word left my mouth. How could I answer to such claims? I searched for the right words, the words that might fix her broken heart. I knew I wouldn’t find them tonight. I had searched years after years for them and I had only ever found a way to make her angrier. It always made me cringe to see her this angry. In these moments, I always went back to the memories of her smiling at me. Her voice always pulled me back, forced me to face the consequences of my thoughtlessness.

“ANSWER! You can’t stay silent forever. I hate it. I HATE your silence. I hate you…”

The last words almost went down in her sobbing. I hate you. Three simple words which can ruin worlds. My mind desperately tried to come up with anything, anything to ease her pain. I hate you. Three quiet words which hit harder and resonated louder inside him than any painful word of hatred, any tirade of grief and any scream of pain ever could. Three simple words which shatter your illusion of happiness forever. The simple worlds who can set your entire world on fire. Three simple words you cannot give an answer to.

“I am NOT doing it on purpose!”

My hoof raised itself without any permission from my side. I still remember the sound of the impact...

Every single piece of furniture was burnt into my mind and I will probably never forget it. Some things are too important to be forgotten… A certain pain still pierces my heart when I think about that sentence. My wife is too important to be forgotten and yet she is lost in the past. I have killed her by forgetting who she was…

A dull statue caught my eye. I started to laugh because I didn’t want to cry. The tears still came out without my permission. I tried to blink them away but it didn’t work. They had found it. I don’t know how or when, but they had found the statue of Turn Star. I must have lost it somewhere in the forest and they must have found it on their search for me. It was a bitter laugh, knowing that everything was gone, seeing how they had tried to find me without success. A senseless struggle to find somepony they had once loved… How had they lived on without me? They had probably forgotten me after the first month… I had never been anything but a burden for them anyway! I stopped laughing as the tears overwhelmed me. Everything turned against me. My body collapsed under its own weight, the warmth around me faded into a cold breeze and the hard impact caused pain to rush through my side. It was all lost. Everything.

Why did I still live on? Telling yourself that everything is lost is the first step to losing everything.} “Hah!” I was surprised about the bitterness with which those words left my mouth. Should I tell myself that everything is just fine then?! My body shook slightly as I started to sob. Should I tell myself that my wife is still alive? Look around you! Do you think anything is still alive here? No! Everypony is dead! I am all alone. My life is over! My body stopped me from going any further with my thoughts. The heavy panting for air left me breathless. My tears made their journey down my chin, just to splatter into thousand pieces upon the impact on the cold, wet stone. Everything is lost.

“A stray one!”

Was it that nerve-racking voice of Vulcrim again? My eyes slowly opened again. Had I drifted asleep?

“That’s impossible. We didn’t have a stray one for… I don’t even know when we had the last one.”

This was clearly another voice. A much darker one. Slowly I raised my head. Just in front of a shining orb were two shadows.

“We should take him to the hive.”

“Agreed.”

The two shadows finally descended from the burning orb that seemed to be the sun. Had the sun risen already? Every movement of mine seemed so incredibly slow. I brought my hoof to my side and tried to push my body up, but the wet surface of the stone made that impossible without collapsing in the very next moment.

“He doesn’t look too good. Are you sure we should take him?”

Were they talking about me? I tried to look at myself, but the muscles in my neck felt like they were frozen in place. The pain stopped me half-way.

“He is a stray one. We have no idea what he could be. The hive will.”

“The hive will.”

A stray one? The hive? I couldn’t decide whether I was just thinking too slowly or whether I had really never heard of those… Suddenly I could feel the force of a hoof pulling me upwards. I didn’t resist. I was just too tired to resist. The force didn’t stop as it had lifted me onto my own hooves. Instead, another force joined it and together they lifted me up. Slowly, the painful reminder of gravity faded and turned into the lightness of flying. Down below I left all my sorrows, bound by gravity. For now, I would let myself being carried by that strange force.

“Are you sure we should do this. He is heavy.”

“Are you going to tell her that we have ignored a stray one just because he was too heavy to lift?”

“We should at least get some shoooo…”

The voices slowly faded into the howling of the wind.

FOTC: Chapter 5 - Halls of the Past

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“Are you sure we should do this? He is heavy.”

“Are you going to tell her that we have ignored a stray one just because he was too heavy to lift?”

“We should at least get some shoooo…”

The voices slowly faded into the howling of the wind. The cold air surrounded me, leaving my body no choice but to shudder uncontrollably. I opened my eyes once again. It almost seemed as if the cold air had purged all tiredness out of my miserable body. Everything was white and cold. A snow storm as it seemed. The cold tingling on my hooves told the same story. There was nothing but a white wall of everchanging masses of snowy flakes crushing down onto the earth, leaving me blind to see the world behind them. It was impossible to see further than I could stretch out my own hooves. Still, I began moving. I moved to maybe find a reason to move. There was no reason to stay anyway.

It was hard to move forwards. Not only because of the wind trying to push me aside but also because of the deep snow, clinging to my hooves, almost as if it couldn’t let me go. Suddenly, the snow that had repelled my every moment seemed to suck me in and I fell into an icy world. Then I was standing right before my old house, hearing the laughter from inside. The birthday decoration looked just wonderful. The statue was right by my side. I wonder how my son would react this time. Would he be able to contain his joy or would he burst out in laughter? Would tears of joy get him in the end or would he have that certain spark in his eyes? I knocked on the door, listening to the distant echo of the wood. Somepony was coming down the stairs. It was her. She always took her time coming down the stairs. And each time she arrived at a stair with a painting on the side, she waited for just a moment. Too short for anypony to notice - anypony but me. My heart began pumping again as it had in the very first days. She would be so proud of me. She would see that ”I CARE ABOUT US!”

“I think he woke up.”

“Lucky fool! You were the one dropping him. She would have ripped you apart if he had not woken up again.”

The whole world was gone in a matter of seconds, leaving me alone in darkness. The searing pain rushed through my entire body. Was this real? Was there even the possibility for something still being real after what I had experienced?

“Get up!”

“How is he supposed to get up when he is as heavily wounded as that?”

I pulled my hooves down under my body and pushed as well as I could. The ground below me was cold and wet… and sharp. My whole body felt like it had been pierced by thick daggers. When I looked around I noticed that that wasn’t so far from the truth. Maybe not thick daggers, but instead giant spikes. Luckily I had not fallen directly onto one but instead in between them. Down here however, were thousands of smaller spikes, almost as if they were waiting for the pray their big brothers left them.

“How are we supposed to get him to the hive now? He is practically dead.”

There was so much anger and accusement in that voice. It reminded me of that one last conversation with his wife.

“Why? See, he stood up again.”

“Argh! You idiot! Why do I have to work with the newlings? You see those spikes down there? Each and everyone of those is alive. Upon impact they release a toxic venom in the wounds of their prey. The bigger animals are a feast for those giant spikes, while small animals fall down further, being pierced by smaller representatives of their species. When the prey finally dies, the spikes slowly suck in the blood and intestines. You don’t want to fall down there.”

Suddenly my whole body tensed up. No! They wouldn’t get my intestines! Not as long as I had a bit of power left in my body.

“You also dropped him!”

“What am I supposed to do? Carry him all alone? You should have never let go of him.”

“Hey! I couldn’t see that breeze coming. Let’s just get him to the hive. Maybe the hive will.”

“The hive will.”

The hive will?!

“GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

My voice sounded so strangely unforgiving. Maybe it was just the pain of my wounds or maybe it was something much deeper.
The two schemes seemed to quietly converse for a second, then one rushed down here like a bolt of lightning.

“Scrift, to your rescue!”

The shadow pulled me up, but with every meter he gained, he lost more and more of his velocity. After a short amount of helpless pulling and desperately flapping his wings, he slowly descended again.

“Flap your wings for the hive’s sake!“

Anger rose inside of me to a point, where I couldn’t keep it contained anymore:

“I can’t!”

My cold, dark voice still surprised me. It seemed as if my anger had found its way into each word that left my mouth. It felt good to finally let it out.

“What? You can’t?! What is that supposed to mean?!”

There was a certain disbelief in that voice that let me only grow angrier. It felt good to let anger rush through me, it distracted me from the vast hole inside of my heart.

“Scrift, you FOOL!”

With that scream the second shadow finally came rushing down to us. The combined force of the two ponies managed to pull me above the spiky hell. I wanted to thank them, but my tongue was suddenly so very tired. As was the rest of my body. It became harder and harder to breath.

“Quick! We are losing him!”

Muttered fragments of words found their way into my thoughts. Not that I understood the meaning behind any of those, but they were still there, bothering me by their sheer existence. I wanted to be left alone in my darkness, but the words seemed to drag me back into that horrible dream of mine. A flickering light lingered somewhere behind the thick layer of darkness before my eyes. I couldn’t feel my body, couldn’t move any part of it. Only the shattered fragments of voices kept me from drifting away.

After an eternity of not doing anything I decided it would be time to get up. School would be soon anyway. School? For just a second I was completely confused by my own thoughts. Then I smiled. It had been some many years since I had left school. Since I had left my friends to find a new life out there. I had found a life… and lost it again. I forced my heavy eyelids open. I had lost the life I had found myself but that didn’t mean it had to be over! Of course the pain would remain, but I am stronger than this.

With much caution I slowly pushed myself onto my hooves again.

“Woah there. Careful!”

The voice seemed strangely distorted and yet I instantly knew it was the voice of Scrift.

“You have just been dropped into… Errm… I mean you have just been rescued from a pit of toxic spikes.”

Toxic spikes? What was he… As if my thoughts had been made of honey, they moved so slowly through my mind. The memories of what had happened took their sweet time to finally come back to me. I let my gaze wander through the room, scanning every inch of it. The whole room seemed to be a construct of green goo or something similar. Otherwise there was not much to lay my eyes upon. There were a couple of gooey shelves and…
Within a fraction of a second I found myself crashing against the ceiling. After crushing painfully onto the hard ground, I found myself with two questions: How in Equestria had I collided with the ceiling? And the second question, being a bit more severe: Where the hay was I? There was a bucking … thing right in front of me. No. Not just a thing. An insect being much similar to…

“What are you?!”

“What do you mean? I am a changeling, just like you? I think that crushing-into-the-ceiling part was a bit too much for you… That brings me to an interesting question:
Why haven’t you just flown before?!”

Silently, the other pony… thing added a sentence whose true meaning was hard to grasp.

“You could have died.”

Was he… caring about me? It felt weird - No, that is an understatement. - The weirdness was above describable levels. A monster caring for me? What was that supposed to tell me? That only insect-thingies can love me?

“Err… well… Mister insect-pony… Where am I?”

For a second, the other pony… thing just glared at me.

“It’s ‘Changeling.’ ”

Changeling? Where in all of Equestria had I landed?

“The question remains, mister Changeling. Where am I?”

“Why do I always have to end up with the strangelings?”

Strangeling? Had he not just said that they were called Changelings?

“Oh well. Call me Scrift. And you, mister stray one, are inside of the hive.”

Aha. That one point has come. That one point where you know that you have entered a place beyond reason. This was all a little too much to take in. ‘The hive’, ‘Chaneglings’, ‘Stray one’? Where did that … Changeling get his words from?

“Since you are the first stray one for about 15 years or so, you’re going to be taken to her. Ostia stand by your side.”

Okay? This was truly getting weirder with every second passing by. For the first time I asked myself where this was going. I had just lost it all, and now I was supposed to attend a meeting of some sort? A meeting with a mysterious ‘her’? For the first time in my life, I felt helpless. This was all so very wrong, so very unknown. I should still be crying and not thinking about a meeting. Don’t let your past pull you down in your future. Although your past may seem like a shadow, your future can be a bright light, piercing through that shadow. Don’t let the past be the chain keeping you grounded. The voice! I had almost forgotten about it.

“Hey, come on. I don’t want to pull you out here myself.”

I had not even noticed Scrift going ahead into the corridor. Hesitantly, I stepped forward. Not really a conscious decision, but the inability to stay calm. No! NO! I had come to a decision. My past wasn’t something I would simply leave behind. My friends, my family, my entire life. I couldn’t just leave it all behind.

“No… I am not going to come.”

“Err… What did you just say? I don’t think you know…”

“I said no!”

There was just too much I could never forget, should never forget.

“Listen up!”

The harsh voice did not take away my disagreement, yet it made me shut my mouth.

“Finally! If you don’t come, they are simply going to kill you. Come on. I don’t want to be the assling. Just follow along.”

It had not only been the threat of death that had caused me to move with him, but instead also his compromising voice. He would probably get in trouble if this was his assignment. I sighed.

“Fine! Just make it short.”

“Sorry, but I can promise nothing. Stray ones always get judged by her. The hive will.”

My agreement caused his face to light up and he brought out a smile. I could never have thought to see a smiling monster at some day. There was just one thing still bugging me…

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“What?”

“The hive will… What does it mean?”

He just laughed, obviously amused by my lack of seemingly common knowledge.

“Oh, I like you stray ones. You will find out soon enough…”

Although that practically cleared nothing, I decided to stop the attempt of getting an explanation for what was going on. Instead, the giant halls caught my eyes. We were walking through black corridors and giant black halls, yet everything was covered with spots and smears of a green, gluey substance. It did not directly disgust me, although it made the whole atmosphere of this ‘hive’ much darker and gloomier.

As soon as we reached the next corner, a bunch of heavily armored monstrosities joined our little walk. It was an awkward feeling to be followed by some hunky … things with their insect wings and fangs. Then again, I looked just like them… and I hate it. Upon noticing my disgusted stare, one of the guards snarled and came a bit closer.

“If you stare at me a little longer, stray one, I will be the first one to rip your head apart and feast upon the remains.”

I cringed upon imagining the horrific scene and quickly walked ahead. Suddenly, I wished I had stayed in the room,where I had at least been alone and not surrounded by … those.

When we finally had moved through the long, empty corridors, we arrived in front of a heavy metal door, impregnated with figurines that looked just like the hideous guards. In the middle of the door was one giant carved image of a bigger monster. I didn’t have much time though, as it was already being pushed open. The hall lying behind it was truly massive. To each side were hundreds of marble pillars, holding up an elliptical roof on which artistic mastery was displayed.

The images were telling stories of victory and defeat, of battles and coronations. Proud pony knights swinging heavy swords against giant dragons, breathing their fiery breath down onto them. There were scenes of coronations, heroes being praised, ponies receiving knighthood. The whole ceiling was filled with the faded echoes of the past. It made my heart cringe to be reminded of what I had lost. I have lost so much… I hate the inevitable pain of remembering the past…

Looking beyond the pillars, I found myself staring at a huge landscape, burnt and dead. The ground itself seemed blackened, covered with vegetation that had died a long time ago, turned into dark brown specks of color in this blackness. It was a crass difference to the white marble pillars and ground. When my eyes slowly moved along the ground, I noticed strange pattern to be engraved into the marble. Lines flowing artistically from each pillar to another, in hyperboles or swirls, branching off into little spirals from time to time. Although it should have seen chaotic with this many lines, it still had a calming effect. When my gaze slowly wandered upwards again, I noticed the giant throne in the back of the room. Sparkling lines were flowing towards it and on top of it sat a… a… well, an insect queen I guess. She was just so big, almost about 3 times as big as every other… insect guard I had seen. Of course you could say it was the throne, but even when subtracting the throne’s size in my head, she still had to be at least 2 times bigger. Nothing but the title of a queen would have fitted her.
She glowed in a mystical aura, catching my attention. Her eyes were going from a yellowish green into a dark green, her hair looked much similar to my own, as did her horn, her whole figure however, was much more graceful than mine.

A sharp pain in my back startled me, and when I looked to see where it had come from, I noticed the guards staring angrily at me. To my great pleasure however, Scrift quickly pushed through and started to explain:

“This is her. Stay calm, don’t look her into the eyes, don’t make her angry, better not speak at all except she asks you to. Bow before her or those guards here will … “

The guards intensified the pressure and I had no other option but to move along. What did she want from me? Why was I even here? Shouldn’t they have at least explained SOMETHING, before sending me to … her? Whatever that ‘her’ meant…

“Ahh. A stray one. Who has found this beautiful example?”

“I did, my queen.” Scrift answered.

The queen raised her eyebrow, but quickly turned her attention back towards me. I remembered what Scrift had just told me and bowed. This much closer to the ground I actually made out why the lines to her had been sparkling. The light seemed to reflect upon some substance that was flowing along it. The light-green tone made obvious, that it wasn’t water.

“Stand up, Stray One. Tell me, how are you called among others?”

I hesitated for a moment, unwilling to follow her every command like her personal pet. As the guards started to move somewhere behind me however, I quickly stood up and replied.

“Ethereal Tear.”

The queen blinked a couple of times, almost as if she was surprised by what I had said.

“Not only a stray one, but a firstling. This is going to be rather interesting. Tell me your story, firstling.”

The commanding tone in her voice and the threat of the guards behind me made it quite hard to deny my reply. I decided to tell her what happened, but while leaving out details she didn’t have to know. Careful not to look her in the eye, I began to explain my story:

“It began when I had lost myself in the deep forest…”

When I had finally finished my story, she looked a lot more interested. She stared at me for a long time in awkward silence, until she finally opened her mouth again. Her voice was arrogant and yet soothing.

“Tell me, when exactly have you encountered the jewel of Ostia?”

Jewel of Ostia? I have not encountered any jewel… The amulet?!

“I don’t know. A long time ago.”

I couldn’t help but to let the bitterness sink into my voice. It had only been two days to me. It has been 936 years. What? What do you mean ‘936 years’ ? That’s how long you were gone. Are you bucking kidding me? Are you “bucking kidding me? What is that even supposed to mean? 936 years?!” I can “bucking” lie to myself, no “bucking voice” needed.

The queen looked at me as if I had just… Had I really just? No! This is far more than embarrassing. I mean, I shouldn’t care about what strange insects like this thought of me. Far more disturbing was the apparent lack of self control that I had just shown. Usually I have enough control over myself to not burst out like this, but then again I usually haven’t got a voice in my head either. This all was just too much to take in…

The queen just started to smile now. It was even more awkward than a harsh reaction of her would have been. It was impossible to say if she was just generally amused or if she was laughing about me.

“This is going to be interesting. 936 years you say? My, my that is quite a long time. You truly are a firstling. You will serve the hive well.”

Serve the hive? They had never said anything about serving. I am not here to serve anypony.

“What do you mean, serving?”

The expression on the queen’s face abruptly changed from slight amusement to a harsh tone. Her eyes still told of interest, but her face showed that she had taken her commanding stance once again.

“You will serve the hive or die. Ostia may judge upon your mortal body. The meeting is dismissed.”

The sudden sting in my side startled me. Two guards had already advanced and were ‘leading’ me back. Well, they were poking me often enough with their sharp lances to force me out of the room. When we left the giant hall, one of the guards started speaking. Guessing by his heavy armor and his grand appearance he should be a captain or leader of some sort. His voice was incredibly deep, unexpected for such a … small insect. It was strange to actually notice it right now, but I was about a head or so taller than anypony… anything else.

“You, firstling! Come with me. The hive has decided that I should be your mentor.”

He didn’t seem to be too proud of that last statement. Being the mentor to some strange pony must definitely be something very undesired in their ranks. Then again, being mentored by a small insect wasn’t what I had imagined either. Still, I decided that mutual distrust would only worsen my future time… I was still feeling very uncomfortable, not knowing what would happen to me. I could have run or tried anything but to be honest… There is nowhere I could go, no home to retreat to, no loving wife waiting for me.
My mind started drifting back into the old times while I was still following the captain.

The sun shone brightly on this beautiful day. It was the day when we first met. I remember it like it had been yesterday. The old lady Cremore had been talking crazily about the seven seals of sins. I had listened to her frantic stories for a bit, just for my own enjoyment. I couldn’t help myself but to chuckle over these stories, even if she really meant what she said. After a while I decided to treat on anyway, since there was a beautiful day to explore. The summer this year was one of the warmest summers we have ever had. Not the kind of sweaty-hot-and-humid summer though. More like warm and cozy and cuddly.

I actually had some free time for once. Usually I would have been working all day in the factory. Not the rainbow one of course, but our own small factory close to town. We produced parts of small machinery, usually cogs and mainsprings, escape wheels, pinions, sometimes winding keys or pallets. The reason why normal smithies do not create such delicate creations is that the harshness of a hammer compares badly against the fine grab of magic. Cooling down the liquid while holding it with your magic though is the difficult part. Mostly we use water for the smaller parts. The bigger parts tend to deform on microscopic level when simply dipped into water, which is why we have to use advanced cooling spells, cooling them from the inside to avoid the tension created by the hot metal pressuring from inside. I could have gone on that topic for hours, if there had not been a certain mare catching my attention.

I remember it to this point. I remember her beauty in the sunlight, her mane shimmering in the soft rays of light. Well, I don’t remember how her mane looked like… I can’t even remember her appearance. It is all just a blur of emotion and memory. However, I still remember the pain in my heart of each and every time she had screamed at me, causing my mind to retreat to happier moments… like this one. I can’t help myself but to drift back to our arguments, our unhappy times, even if I want to ignore it all. The thing I probably best remember of her was the angry shouts, her voice almost breaking under the pressure of her hatred she tried to load onto it. It makes me sick to remember it all...

The harsh sound of an old metal door squeaking while being opened pulled me out of my thoughts. The guard had just lead me to some forsaken corner of their ‘hive’, whatever that was supposed to mean. It seems as if they adopted more from insects than just their appearance alone…

“Here we go, firstling.”

The way he said firstling really bugged me. At first I had thought it was just hatred, but there was something more into it. Maybe ignorance,maybe arrogance or maybe even jealousy. Although I could have let my mind further go on about it, there was a giant room in front of me which caught my attention. The entire room was filled with hundreds of statues of highly ranked ponies. Every single one of these marble statues was meticulously worked, details showing as clearly as they would in reality. It made me wonder when or where such a castle had existed. I don’t recall anypony having lost even a word about a wonderful castle like that in my time. So either it had to be long forgotten then already, or just newly built after my … unfortunate timeout.

“I am ordered to teach you about our proud history so you can soon become a valiant servant to the hive. The hive will.

After me, Captain Lorewing will take over with your first flight lesson. As you seem to be a firstling, it is quite possible for you to have no knowledge of using your wings correctly.”

Tell me: What did you happen to be before Ostia has touched your petty soul?”

This Ostia once again… We just treaded through the third row of statues. The reflections were amazing, but so were the expressions on the statue’s faces. They were so incredibly detailed, all looking into some unknown world before us. There was one question slowly arising in my mind though: Why were all the pieces of art and majesty in this castle made from ponykind and not from … insectkind?

“Well?!”

“Ermm… I … I was just an ordinary factory worker.”

“Are you kidding me? I asked what you WERE, not what your pitiful society assigned as task to you.”

The sudden outburst caught me offguard. I had not expected this much anger to come so overwhelmingly abrupt. From harsh but calm to angrily shouting in less than one second, that had to be some sort of record. And what did he even mean? Who I was? Well, who WAS I? I was a factory worker, a loving husband, a friendly neighbor and a chaotic tinkerer. Still, I felt that this was not what he was asking about.

“Your race? Your gender? Anything? Were you outfitted for war? Do you know anything about flying?”

If he had asked this all along, he could have saved us both from much trouble. I sighed as I gave my response:

“I was an unicorn … once.”

It still felt strange to speak of ‘once’, when it really had been just a couple of days. 936 years, not a couple of days. Admit it. This voice again! Are you switching on and off or something like that? For hours you are completely silent and then you suddenly come back?! Time always fools those who fail to look behind it. And what is that supposed to mean again? This voice is nothing but a bothersome parasite. Be careful who you call parasite, my little pendant. The assimilation will be soon and then you will be able to see. The hive will. The voice started to bucking laugh! Inside of my head! You can’t imagine how creepy THAT is. Imagine standing alone in a giant dark hall and somepony is laughing. You don’t know where it comes from, but the laughter goes through your entire body.

“An unicorn you say? This is indeed going to be annoying. At least the unicorns are said to be the most studious ones.”

Studious? If he expected me to be studious, this really could require a loong time. Studying has always been one of the hardest things to me.

“Although I can’t see why our queen would demand singled training for you. Learning with others will only help you, especially in what Captain Lorewing and Captain Incrim are going to teach you.”

Names… I am really bad with names. Sometimes I keep them for a week or so, but I always remember them. Heck, in his first years I even had some moments where I had forgotten how my own son is called. You can’t imagine anything more awkward than calling your son “son”, followed by a glooming stare of your wife.

“If the queen is right with these 942 years, you are going to need a lot of recapturing. The ancient lore is dry history, hard to learn, but worth knowing about.”

Dry history? Really? The first thing he had to endure in this ‘hive’ was the dry history of a thousand years? For my entire life I had shown a certain ‘resistance’ to education, especially for dry lessons.

“Let me begin.”

“Right now?!”

“Of course. There is no time to waste. The queen has her plans. And the hive will.”

The tone with which he spoke this recurring phrase made it obvious that he had far more belief in it. He spoke it like something to be proud of, not just like a repetitive mantra one was supposed to repeat after each sentence.

“The history of the changelings begins with the touched one. The first changeling. We will find him right over there.”

“What?!”

The first ‘changeling’ to be found somewhere in this room? How could that be possible? Then again, how should it be possible for 936 years to have passed by?

“Yes. The first changeling. The most majestic statue of all… Our own creation.”

The statue he presented was… ugly.There is to my knowledge no word to better describe how the statue looked like, especially when comparing it to the others. Simplistically said: It was ugly. If you want to let me explain that further: It was ugly because of two reasons: The first reason being just the crass contrast between the way it looked standing alone, the other being how it looked compared to everything else in this room.
The statue was made of the same gluey substance that the walls were also made off. For the statue however, it was less transparent and much less... fluent, I guess. The walls all seemed as if they were made of a fluid that had cooled while running down. You could clearly see the streams of substance inside of them. Looking at this statute however, it was completely solid. That didn’t improve its look however, it just made it more comparable to bogeys or snot. So, let me add ‘disgusting’ to the plain ugliness. The details were tediously engraved, but what they formed didn’t look like a pony, not even like a ‘Changeling’. It looked more like a grotesque painting that a dying cat had drawn while someone had puked over it after eating too many cupcakes, then tried to erase that mistake with even more puke and just given up on it and put it in the dump, then it had somehow landed here in the end.
Comparing it to the other statues of pure majesty only made the appearance even more repelling. Instead of light reflexes playing around on its body, there was just this semi-transparent substance. A clump of snot, really. I guess Changelings aren’t into art.

“A majestic statue, isn’t it? Back in the time, we had another one, which was a bit… less pure.”

How was it even possible to have an uglier statue than this?

“The first changeling, the touched one...”

I realized that this would be a long, tiring day…

FOTC: Chapter 6 - The first days

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“... and that is how the first plague had begun. Next lesson will be tomorrow, early in the morning. Now head off to Captain Lorewing. He will teach you about the art of flight”

Slowly I got out of the trance-like state I had been in for the last couple of hours. The lecturing had been boring, to say the least. It seemed as this Captain Whateverhisnamewas had tried his best to bore me to death. There had been a moment where I had just slipped into dream just to wake up to his glooming stare, almost as if he wanted to rip my body apart with his eyes.

“You are dismissed.”

With that, he just turned around towards a smaller door I had not noticed before in the back of the hall and left. I thought about following him, but then I just shrugged and turned towards the huge doorway we had entered through. If they just let me wander around like this, I might as well find my way somewhere else. It’s not like I wanted to serve their stupid cause or anything like that. I wanted to go home… And I hate myself for allowing myself to keep coming up with it.

“Oh, you thought you could simply trail off like that?”

A deep voice coming from behind me startled me. If I guessed correctly, it was the voice of that particularly angry guard from earlier today. His angry snarl destroyed my thoughts of simply wandering off into freedom. Well, there was nothing to find in ‘freedom’ anyway. I didn’t even know where I was. Still, the thought annoyed me to be forced to participate in this society of crazy ‘Changelings’ if that really was their name. They haven’t shown much ‘changing’ in the last hours. Everything I had learned about them so far was that they have a long and boring history, beginning with the prime example of boredom: The first changeling. He had apparently been the first one to come in contact with the amulet. It had granted him this … ‘majestic body architecture’, which was nothing but the dark shell that I now carried around with me too. Furthermore, he had been granted ‘great power’. Then he had done a bunch of nonsense, fought with a couple of mythical creations and finally brought the ‘plague’ - I was still not sure what that was actually supposed to mean.

“It is quite interesting to see you standing there, ignoring me. If however, you are not going to obey my command I think I will have to execute you on the hive’s behalf. The hive will.”

No patience, these changelings. Only slowly I started following the heavily armored pony. He gave his best to disappear behind every corner, so I had to stumble through this castle almost alone. Whenever I decided it had been too much though, he came back to prevent me from just wandering off. I wonder if he was playing some changeling form of hide-and-seek with me or whether they had an universal pony-detection sensor in their ‘hive’ or maybe it was just my luck to be caught every time.

“Here you go. Have fun...”

The ‘have fun’ sounded much more like ‘go die’ than anything else. Clear annoyance, distrust, arrogance and hatred. You have got to love those ponies because otherwise…

“Ahhh. Hello ther’ . Are you the young fella that is shupposed to be my trainee? Look at those wings! Have you even used shem once?”

The heavy accent made it hard to fully understand what he was saying, especially when his voice started to fade out in his excitement. However, from the first moment I had seen that pon… changeling, I had started to like him. He was friendly beyond mere reason. This contrast to every other changeling was quite impressive, but as was his strange voice deficiency. He seemed to have problems with his ‘s’, sometimes letting the air just flow out of his mouth and sometimes adding it where it isn’t needed. The way he spoke his ‘r’ also reminded me a bit of a scottish accent.

“Now come witsh me and let’s get ready for takeoff.”

He took me through further halls, but this time the journey ended very soon. He opened just another door, but this time searing light streamed through the opening. I had to close my eyes from the intensity of the sunrays burning into my eyeballs. For a minute or so there was nothing but the sharp pain in my eyes and the feeling of having become blind. For the last days I had not seen the sun, but had it ever been THIS intense?

Everything seemed of sudden, unknown brightness. Even the time I had met queen Chrysalis in the giant marble hall it had not been this intense. I slowly stumbled forward, but just to lose my ground. Everything suddenly turned upside down as I felt the well known pull of gravity. I couldn’t even make out where I was falling, just that everything was shining in unnatural light. The impact however, was not what I had expected it to be. Instead of a hard, bonecrushing percussion, I actually felt a soft fabric below me. From somewhere above me I could hear the laughter of captain Lorewing echoing down.

“Heheh. I shee you have introdushed yourshelf to the flight hall already.”

The flight hall seemed more like a gaping abyss hall. Looking up to the ledge I had fallen from, I could guess the height to be about a hundred hooves or so. The irritating light seemed to come from… Well, it was actually quite strange to see where it was coming from. Looking directly at it was impossible due to the sheer intensity, but I could very well see the green gluey walls containing dark lines that lead up to the point of light. However, I still had no idea what those actually were.

“Now come bach up her’ and let me fix your wingsh.”

It took me some time to actually regain my orientation. Obviously, I was lying on some fluffy fabric at the bottom of a high pit. Instead of practicing flying in freedom, this was an enclosed hall with artificial lighting. I wondered why they wouldn’t just practice outside, but before I could even ask, Captain Lorewing already answered that question:

“We used to train outshide, but there had been inshidents wish the stray animals.”

They were seriously not training outside anymore because of stray animals? Where in Equestria have I landed here? Still, it was probably for the best. If I had fallen somewhere outside, I would probably have found myself pierced by spikes once again. This fabric had also helped greatly in reducing the severity of the impact. Getting up to Captain Lorewing, however, would be another task. There were no stairs anywhere around, not even a ladder. Was I supposed to magically lift myself up there or what? I still was unsure how my horn would react to my commands, especially considering the recent events with Silver Coil.

“Flahp your wingsh boih!”

“But I can’t! I have no idea how!”

“You musht be kidding meh!”

Without leaving me time to respond, he opened his wings and slowly descended to me. There was a certain grace in the way he flew down that did not match up with his voice. While his voice showcased his messy character, the way he flew was completely different, almost as if he had become a different pony. He even made a loop and a couple of helices, not to brag off or anything, but because he enjoyed the flight so much. When he landed there was an unignorable expression of sadness in his face, but just for a couple of seconds until the awkward smile reappeared.

“Well, boih, how often have yoush ushed there wings of yoursh?”

It took me a second just to realize what he had actually asked. Well, the answer was pretty easy to give though. After the initial disaster, I really hadn’t used them at all.

“To be quite honest: I didn’t know these were wings for quite a long time…”

“Oshtia! Ish that true?”

“I have no idea how to use these… plastic wings.”
[
To be quite honest, I had a firm grasp on how to use them in general, just not how I could use them. While tinkering around, I had actually created small winged creatures. I had attached two feathers onto a small mechanical device that basically just flapped its tiny arms up and down. At first, the device completely failed, not even rising an inch or so. With further improvements and further feathers, I actually created a suitable mechanical bird… sort of. It took a lot of studying wings, which is the main reason for my knowledge of flight. However, the flight of insects always fascinated me: Instead of having feathers, which allow aviation by their sheer design, insects have to deal with their chitinous layout. Feathers actually bend the streams of air around them in such a way that there is low resistance when flapping up and high resistance when flapping down. Insect wings, however, are stable. They don’t bend air around them and thus should theoretically be impossible to fly with. Studying insects for hours and even working with biologists had not solved that problem. And now I was to fly with these? I didn’t even know how to move them!

“Just shpread thosh wingsh.”

“I would love to SHpread SHoSHe wingSH!”

Although I had not intended to sound this harsh, it had to be done. This accent was getting more annoying by the second. And the inability to move those darn things on my back didn’t help my calmness either. This whole thing was just ridiculous!

“Ish… I hust wantshed… wanted to shelp...”

For a moment, I stood there gazing. I was not sure how I should react to this. Had I gone too far? No. This is just what they all deserve. These changelings, these monsters! Their feelings were none of my business. He was a captain for Celestia’s sake. Captains are not supposed to be muttering weaklings. Captains are supposed to be strong leaders, harsh commanders and ideal examples for their fellow comrades. This was all just a bunch of ridiculous nonsense, and nothing I wanted to be a part of. I used levitation, the spell I could most easily access, having had to lift thousands of screws, cogs, and other small, fiddly parts in the factory. It had required much concentration, and over the years I had mastered the concept. What I had not expected though, was the reaction of my horn to the command. Instead of simply lifting me up onto the high end of the cliff, something went wrong with the spell. The world below me suddenly retracted with incredible speed, while the air just gave a quick sizzling sound. Like a cannonball fired from some forsaken cannon, I crashed into the ceiling. If I hadn’t had this shell, I would have probably been nothing but bits and pieces by then. However, if I hadn’t been in this shell, the whole problem would not have even existed…

Before Captain Lorewing was able to react, I already fell down again. Luckily the angle I had taken proved to be sufficient to reach the edge of the cliff with my hooves. Slowly, and still a bit taken by the hard impact, I pulled myself up again. Meanwhile, Captain Lorewing thrusted himself into the air right below me.

“Now come back here!”

The anger had purged any accent he may have had. I gave my best to run as quickly as I could, since I did not want to end up on one of the lances the guards kept carrying around. Unoriented, I drifted around random corners, not sure what would expect me behind the next one. Even though I had thoroughly expected it, I didn’t encounter one guard. I just followed ancient halls, all stuck up with that disgusting green snot. I burst through the doors, trying to find a way to escape.

When I looked back, there was nopony following me anymore. Still, I felt the need to run, the need to escape from this horrible place. I didn’t care about it anymore. Of course there was nowhere to go, but everywhere would be better than here…

I can’t remember what door had lead me to freedom, but I can very well remember how surprised I had been. I had almost thought myself lost, when there had suddenly been a hot sun burning my skin. I stumbled a couple of steps forward, completely without orientation once again. This time however, there was no abyss to fall into. When my eyes had finally accustomed to the bright lighting, I found myself in… a dead valley. There is not much more to say about it. The same black earth, the same burnt shrubbery that I had seen before. Nothing lived out here. The vast emptiness reminded me of the emptiness of the ‘hive’. From out here, you could clearly see the shape of the castle, although distorted through the vast amount of green, gluey gunge on it.

I ran further down, further into the valley. There was really nowhere to run to, just a general direction: Away from the forsaken castle inhibited by monstrous creatures. I may now look differently, but I have not changed! I am still the same pony! The further I ran though, the harder I could force myself forward. Slowly, I saw the reason fading why I should move forward. I had escaped, there was nopony following me anymore… If there ever had been anypony, that is. It was weird to realize that they had not chased me for some reason. Maybe they knew that this vast emptiness was no place to escape from or maybe they had more important things to worry about.

I didn’t know where to go and that was probably the worst part of it all. I have heard of people getting lost on simple tours because of a lack of orientation. Luckily I knew how to interpret the sun’s altitude in the sky to my advantage. By the direction where it was rising, I would be able to see where east was. By the route over the sky, I would be kept reminded on where to walk. However, I had no idea in what general direction civilisation lay. Would I have to trott northways? Should I try to find cities further south? Or maybe I could follow rivers? Rivers always lead to civilisation as I was told. However, this land didn’t seem like there were many rivers around.

So, where should I head? There were some simple signs I had to pay attention to:
This climate seemed far too hot to belong to either polar region. It had to be a hotter region, somewhere close to the equator.
The vegetation suggested similar, however what was left of the actual vegetation couldn’t tell much. This land was completely burnt down to the last bits and pieces.
I decided to seek my luck further in the north until I would be able to find a suitable river to follow. Ahead of me lay a shattered landscape, filled with rocks and burnt ground. So… The sun was somewhere in the sky right now and I couldn’t tell yet if it was still ascending or maybe already descending. I guessed on ascending and decided to just take the easy path downhill.

It was all burnt. All of it. There was not a single bush or tree down here, that was still alive. I wondered how that could have happened. I mean, Celestia is careful enough to prevent deserts from spreading too far. Of course, Camels, Zebras and others still have to live somewhere.. but this? This was not a place where anything could possibly live. And now I was out here, stepping forward through these black valleys. I started to wonder: Why would it even be black out here? I had tributed it to the ground being this burnt, but as I looked closer, it seemed less and less like it. What would even be burnt, the rocks? I have never seen burnt rocks, maybe because that is actually quite hard to achieve. It wasn’t covered with burnt vegetation either. It seemed to be just black stone, small pebbles with lots of holes inside of it; Dragonstone, named for its usual occurrence close to dragon hives.

I had never personally seen this kind of stone, only heard of it by explorers and adventurers. Those ponies who just set out into the world to find themselves. I never needed it, never wanted it. I knew how the world worked, by books and experiments. I taught myself everything that there was to know. So why would I want to get out there, where I would only miss what I had? And yet I could have used the knowledge right there, among the dragonstones in some forsaken land. I would have known how to react, how to cope with the situation. Now I was stranded in a dead valley that probably was inhibited by mighty dragons. GREAT! A good start to this epic adventure. Still, I trotted further. Not in the hopes of finding anything here, but hoping to find something that would just lead me away. Away from the castle, away from this new strangeness, away from what or not I was supposed to do. Not only that, but also away from my old life. Away from harsh memories, away from what I have used to be. Away into an unknown land that held new memories, new exciting experiences and maybe new love. I could still feel my heart burning in the well known pain. I had already lost my life long before this all had happened. I had CLINGED to it, not realizing it was long lost. My whole life had been the lie I had been telling myself. NOTHING BUT A LIE! It’s all lies. I have never been loved, I have never loved. I have… I can’t… My legs just gave in and my body toppled over. Although I had expected a harsh impact, there was just nothing. I have lost everything. I have even lost myself…

The depression and bitterness in the following days was even worse than sunrays relentlessly burning down onto me, the lack of food and the dehydration. Even though my stomach was constantly rumbling and my throat had dried out, it were still minor tortures compared to the unrelenting torment of my own thoughts. I could not bring myself to burst out in tears, instead the sorrow was eating into my flesh. I have lost everything… I still can’t cope with that thought. What was I supposed to do? Being in the castle had distracted me from the realization and before that, the shock had protected me. Now I was all alone in some desert, left with my thoughts.

It was the third day... or maybe the fourth. I could not really tell anymore, I did not care anymore, night being as indifferent to day as my heart from a cold, black stone. My mind had given up to measure time as it had lost all meaning. Why would you count the days if there is nowhere to count towards? If there is nothing to look forward to, why would you even think about time? Time becomes nothing than an abstract thought, not bothering you in your sorrow.

A nice day to be spending alone, out in the desert isn’t it? The voice, once again. I had not actually expected it… again. The voice seemed to have the habit to start speaking in the strangest moments. Oh, I am just being kind to you. We don’t want you to go insane, do we? Well, hearing a bucking voice is quite close to insanity already. Yet I think it is time, time for me to start the convergence. You had your fun long enough, and now we can begin. It is going to be fun… Well for me, but not for you. Convergence? What the actual buck are you talking about? The convergence… It is the most wonderful thing you could imagine, it is a life changing experience. Every sad moment is purged by the sheer greatness of your new life beginning. You truly become a better pony. Just shut up, please! I don’t need to hear, I don’t even want to hear. Well, it is inevitable. You won’t be able to stop it anyway. You have lost the ability to stop it. Go tell yourself it is all a dream, because isn’t that easier than remembering? Remembering what she looks like? Stop it! This is none of your business! Oh, I know how she looked like. Her beautiful blue mane. Stop it! Stop it! Her beautiful green eyes. LIAR! STOP IT! Oh, and the way she moved. So elegantly. Shut up! Oh, but I haven’t told you about her cutie mark yet. You are lying! You couldn’t have known her! But I am in your head, am I not! “STOP! JUST SHUT UP!” I am not going to shut up, especially not when I can remember so well how she looked. Oh, she really was a beauty. Just… shut… Oh, can you remember how her eyes entranced you, her beautiful green eyes you could lose yourself in. Just… I… Don’t be silly. I know all about her. I am your only connection to her. You are… right. Of course I am. I know who she was. Tell me about her … NO! “What am I doing?! You are just a voice. JUST A VOICE! JUST A VOICE!” JUST A VOICE … I am more than … JUST A VOICE … Keep telling y… JUST A VOICE … Now liste… JUST A VOICE … Are y… JUST A VOICE … JUST A VOICE … JUST A VOICE … JUST A VOICE … JUST A VOICE … JUST A VOICE … JUST A VOICE … J- just … just a … just a voice. She never loved you.

...

Back then the voice stopped, once and for all as far as I can tell. The only problem was that I had changed due to its influence. I guess it was right, when it had talked about the convergence. Although it was not really a change for the better, it was most definitely a change of my very self. I can’t exactly trace back what had happened to me. I became hard and distant, became somepony I had never wanted to be, I had felt my life slide away and it had driven me to a point where I couldn’t take my old self anymore. I changed. Today I often say it was the magic of Vulcrim, the name that the voice had given itself. I like to say that because it is easier than those other explanations. Those other explanations involving my own weaknesses, my own anger and my desperation. Those other explanations involving the inevitable truth. It was not or not only Vulcrim. The voice may have made it easier, but in the end, it was only myself who broke down. To this day I cannot even say if Vulcrim existed or was just an imagined voice in my head. Maybe I had been insane all along or maybe I had only turned insane after Vulcrim had left. Maybe I had only turned more insane after I had not been able to calm myself with a voice anymore, or maybe it really had been convergence. I don’t know and honestly I do not care anymore. I am only glad that I did not commit suicide in that time of self-hatred and anger. Maybe Vulcrim was something that lead me to insanity, maybe it held me away from insanity; in either case, I changed when it was gone.

To whom did I change? That is a question even harder to answer, but not impossible. I think it is easiest to explain by telling my story further…

Author's Notes:

And you might be asking yourself: Why is this chapter so late?
And you might ask yourself: Why is the end of this chapter so crappy?
And you might ask yourself: What is wrong with you?
And all of those questions have the same answer:
The last part of this chapter really really really really was a point of no return for me. Staying up until 2 am or later, I was still not able to find an end to it, since I had bucked it up, Yes, I have bucked it up. Don't worry though, this is the best solution I have found for myself, Ethereal tear and FOTC.
I hope you were not too bothered by this chapter --- although that is very possible.

Well, to make it up to you, here is a small raptorrhyme I came up with while writing (You should really see the conversations of me and Enderblaze, 90% fun, 10% work, Me gusta :D )

RAPTOR RAPTOR RAPTOR DISRAPTOR DISRUPTORRAPTOR!
It’s the disruptorraptorrap!
He’s distruptoruptoring!
He is the raptor. He disraptors. He is the disraptorraptor and this is his disraptorraptor rap! Rap for the disraptorraptor so he keeps dirapting the raptors, the disraptorraptor, don’t disrupt the disraptorraptorrap, or else it will be the disrupteddiraptorraptorrap! Dis is the disrupteddisraptorraptorrap!
There is even a voice version of that (hilariously funny, which I might or might not post in these authors notes at some time)

FOTC: Chapter 7 - A new beginning

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The sound of hooves had disrupted him in his thoughts. That strange sound of hooves, a sound he had almost forgotten. A sound like no other, calming as the neverending noise of rain drops impacting on cloth. He loved the rain because it had always helped him to keep calm, soothed him into sleep, even in the worst times he ever had. He had embraced not only the calm sound but also the predictability of rain. You knew that it would never just stop abruptly, it would go on for hours and only when the time was right, it would slowly fade into the noise of the world. He took a deep breath in as the memory of the soft massage of thousand drops returned. The image of a light curtain made out of millions of small droplets, each and every one finding their way down to earth. Landscapes drenched in water, grass overwhelmed by its weight and bowing down, trees waving in the heavy storms and clouds hushing through the sky. Rain was much more than a simple phenomenon, but a symphony of nature, a composition of each amazing note.

So, how came it to be that such a strange sound had entered his ear? This question plagued his mind as he was unable to find a suitable answer. They had given up the search for him, hadn’t they? Then who was it to disturb his slumber with such elegant and yet misplaced sound? Who was it to bring his mind into unease, a state it had not been in for a long time?

“Down there! There is something down there!”

An unfamiliar voice, sounding like a young mare. A soft, a soothing and pacifying voice. A voice that everypony should have heard once in their lives so they could immerse themselves in that heavenly bliss which was her voice. A voice as comforting as angels singing sweetest songs for mortals to be heard and hearts to be moved. A voice of such magnitude and yet sweet and calm. Nothing could have ever compared to such a voice, nothing could have sufficed to stand in its place.

“I think it is a pony! We have to help her… or him!”

The same voice. Other words, soothing words. Wonderful words, new words. He could listen to that voice for days, for years, for the rest of his life. His own voice had become so very deep, so very raspy. The softness of her voice was such a beautiful contrast to his own harshness. What sweet angel spoke these words that he would never forget? It had been an eternity since he last had pushed his body up, or at least it had seemed like one. His legs seemed to tremble in the first moments, but as soon as he was able to stretch them out a bit more, his standing was as strong as ever. How long had he been down there? He had forgotten time and its necessity in his isolation.

The hooves slowly closed in on him, slowly descending down into his cave. How would they react when they found out he was not a pony? Would the voice just leave? He didn’t want the voice to leave him alone, to leave him alone in crushing solitude once again. Too long had he been absent of its sound and too long had he been alone in his cave. Would they try to attack him? They could judge upon appearance rather than his actions, quickly ending his fate. The bigger question was, whether he would actually care about being attacked. Would he? He wasn’t sure. The primal instinct kept telling him to run or hide, but his mind was too broken to react. He had stopped reacting a long time ago…

Suddenly, he heard somepony screaming and the unnerving sound of the pebbles rolling down the hill, taking a body with them. This time, however, it wouldn’t be prey for him to feast upon. Would it really be a pony, or had the voice led him to false conclusions? He walked slower as he heard other hooves quickly approaching.

“Fluttershy! Fluttershy! Are you okay?! Are you hurt? Fluttershy?”

The sweet voice didn’t answer their call. He was almost there, almost able to see the pony. He continued to hear the ponies speaking, but he didn’t listen to their shabby voices anymore. For what beauty entered his eyes rendered all other senses useless. What meaning was there in feeling, tasting, smelling or even hearing, when before him was all the beauty of the world. It had all been darkness, all isolation, and now there was… A pony. Not just any petty pony though, but a true beauty. She lay on her side, all four legs stretched out as the desperate attempt to catch her had failed. He could see the bleeding wounds on her legs, but he did not have time to give them further attention. He had to spend every single moment gazing upon her beautiful face. It was covered with strains of bloody hair, but he could still make out every detail. The pink mane was more than just a beautiful contrast to the yellow coat, it was much more than he could have ever dreamed upon meeting a pony again.

Her face told stories of incredible sweetness, loveliness and kindness. It told stories of a shy pony, one that always valued others higher than herself. It told stories of a friend to everypony. He could not imagine that she would or even could hate. He trotted ever closer to stare deeper into those eyes. Those skyblue eyes which stole his senses, stole his time and stole his memories. He lost himself in them, unable … no, unwilling to look away. He had not known that such beauty had ever exist-

“A MONSTER!”

What had been sweet background noise before, now had turned into a shrill shriek as a white unicorn had discovered him. Her purple mane was curled in unusual matter, almost hypnotising. The strange unicorn was being followed by three other ponies. Not only would he meet one pony, but five of them? A pink earth pony mare was bouncing around the corner, but there was a deep determination in her eyes, below the layer of superficial happiness. There was an orange farm pony, a southern mare of incredible strength, but not only on the outside. Her eyes showed more than just determination, also anger, hatred, pain and fear. The mare however, that caught his utmost attention was the purple pegas… Alicorn. He had not seen an Alicorn before and the stories had only rarely reached his ears, stories of the two aspring princesses defeating evil again and again. A true alicorn! The way she marched forward made it obvious that she was the leader of the group. Her eyes were flaming in anger and hatred. This one would not hesitate to attack. Again, the question crossed his mind if or how much he would care. He couldn’t help but feel no importance to this topic that everypony else would have given their highest attention to.

The shadow had betrayed whomever had tried to approach him from behind. However, the betrayal didn’t weigh much as it was already too late to evade the imminent attack. The pain of a hard impact entered the corner of his mind, but it was quickly pushed aside by the ignorance he had learned in his loneliness and the newfound ecstasy about meeting other ponies. At first he thought he had indeed hit his head, but while time marched on, the image didn’t change. There was a rainbow colored mare standing above him. Although he admired the colors, they could not compare to the simple beauty of the mare he had seen first. His eyes glanced over to the body, still lying there unconsciously, but obviously still breathing.

“Oh no you won’t.”

The rainbow colored pony hovered her hoof and let it slide right onto his face, pressing his face to the ground.

“Just as nasty as the other ones. Oh, I hate these changelings!”

The alicorn stepped forward, something he could only make out from the edge of his eyes. She was slowly trotting, but there was more weight to her steps than he had expected. Most ponies - like that farm pony - simply walk. The alicorn however, had a weight in her steps that was unmatched. The ground itself seemed to tremble under her hooves, or maybe he interpreted too much into it.

“Let me have a look at it.”

He had thought not to be able to feel anymore, yet the last word still struck him. It. He was no pony anymore, he was simply an ‘it’. As the alicorn approached, she slowly slipped out of his field of vision, which was bound to the hundreds of dragonstones around him. While she was also increasing the pressure onto his head, the rainbow colored mare started speaking again.

“Guys! Did you see how I got this one singlehoofedly? You can thank me after we’ve squeezed everything out of him!”

“Look at his mouth! A beast! Poor Fluttershy! What has that foul monster done to her? I can only imagine the horror that Fluttershy had went through, the drama, the incomparable torment!”

His mouth? It took him longer than it should have to remember what could possibly be so upsetting about his mouth. The last prey had only been a couple of days ago and since then it had not rained. And this is how the circle closes, all turns back to the rain. The wonderful, most delightful rain. For days it had been amiss now, and he had missed the sweetness of its sound. Now he had found something of so much higher beauty, of so much more importance.

“Has he bitten her?”

This was going too far. Even though his mouth was pressed against the smooth edges of the dragon stones, his voice still came out clear, although wrought with the deep harshness forged in his solitude, echoing from the hills around them.

“I am not a barbarian, nor am I a cannibalist.”

Stating that he was, in fact, not a Changeling would just be foolish as it would simply grow their distrust. Maybe with the right words he could get a little bit more time to revel in her presence. The alicorn continued speaking with that voice that pierced through the landscape like a sharp blade.

“He can talk?”

“Isn’t it normal to talk? Everypony talks…”

“You are not a pony! You are a monster and you tried to eat her!”

The lavender alicorn punctuated this painful accusation with a stomp of her hoof, causing the earth to vibrate. Her eyes seemed to burn in some unholy fire, her anger spreading throughout the world like a dark aura.
The words themselves, however, were piercing his heart like a fiery dagger, but he knew the pain too well already. He had had his time to deal with the devastation, now he had emptied himself. There had been a time where he had sit in his-
The sudden change in lighting stopped his thought. There was only so much that could have caused it and the glowing purple reflection on one of the stones gave the presence of magic away. His reaction was almost primal instinct, turning his body to the side, taking the surprised rainbow mare with him through the momentum. While he was still turning, he pushed himself up, lifting his heavy, chitinous body a couple of hooves into the air, rotating until he finally landed on all four of his hooves. The spell fired onto the black stone, throwing him a couple of hooves back. This Alicorn was a huge threat, something well expected of such a divine pony.

The rainbow mare agreed and instantly thrusted towards him, leaving him no choice but to counteract. He would have refrained to use magic as he had involuntarily burnt every single prey to crisps, but he had no choice. The spell he channeled to defend himself was a simple levitation spell, but once again it turned into something completely different. Instead of stopping the rainbow colored mare in the air, it rammed her right into the dark stone below. She bounced and slid over the ground, until the wall brought an end to her motion. Her blood drenched body had stopped moving. He had not intended to hurt anypony, but looking at the red substance flowing out of her body, he knew that he had undeniably broken that promise he had tried so hard to keep. Never hurting anypony else was a goal that had always been unreachable. Sometimes, you inflict pain without even knowing it, or as in this case without even having the intention to do it.

The rainbow mare roared in anger, jumping high up into the air and flapping her wings two times. Any normal pony would have been unable to even move, while she was already behind him again. Although he disliked the thought of having to use his magic once again, especially after seeing the devastating results it could have, she still gave him no real choice in that matter.

“Oh, you want to put up a fight?! I am going to show you how real pegasi fight!”

foalhood. Without hesitating much further, he let the magic flow through his body, streaming through every limb, assembling his strength and binding to his will, until he finally released the finished spell through his horn.

The shield seemed to work at first... until the rainbow mare actually reached it. When her hooves touched the smooth magical surface, the shield burst apart in flames. A giant explosion not only outwards, but also going inwards. It threw him off his hooves, down another hill of dragonstone, down into another black cave. The Alicorn howled in anger somewhere far in the distance. He came crashing to a halt, and after a moment of pain, managed to stand up, even though his hooves were still aching from the explosion. If even he had been hurt so badly from that distance to his shield, how much pain had he inflicted on the pegasus?

Suddenly, he stopped, as he had just laid his eyes upon something that could very well mean his salvation. A cave to hide in, a cave to forget the whole story, a cave that would let him escape from this unpleasant surprise. He hesitated. Right in front of him was the end to this all, the ability to just end this chapter. Right behind him was an angry alicorn and an even angrier soldier of her’s. However, he still hesitated. What was actually holding him from the escape, what weighed more than his wellbeing? It was … the mare. It was impossible to just go his way without her, without the possibility to ever again have a glance at her beauty, to hear the voice that would never leave his mind again.

He waited. The alicorn came closer and closer, followed by some of her friends. He couldn’t hear the light flapping of the wings of a certain pegasus anymore... But that didn’t have to mean he had killed her! He had never killed anypony…

The distant thunder of the alicorn’s voice interrupted his grim thoughts.

“We are going to find you and you are going to rue this day! You will regret ever having done this to Fluttershy!”

There was one question he could not solve, a riddle that kept him busy, this problem he could not work around: How would he get to that sweetest of all mares, the mare of dreams, the mare of angels, the mare of purest beauty? How would he get to her, when there was an angry horde of ponies chasing after him? He would not be able to win against five ponies, especially not if one of them was an alicorn. There was only one way to see her again: To get captured. What would make them keep him alive though? Fear of wrath? Seeing worth in him? Having a hostage? There was really nothing valid enough to stop their lust for killing.

He would have to fight them somehow, pulling a trick from under his mane, or taking another dice out of his tail to weigh his fate anew. Only a miracle would help him now and that miracle would need to be his own hoof’s work. To fight a superiority was to use their weakness as your own advantage. He just had to create a situation where they would hinder each other, a situation of chaos … and his environment was the only thing that could help him with it. There was nothing inside of the cave, nothing hidden within the impenetrable darkness. There was only the cave itself, the cave and its gloom. His eyes knew the darkness, he had become used to it. They, however, were proud ponies, proud to walk on their bright soil, to bath their bodies in the sun above, to seek their fortune, while he hid in the shadows.

There was a way. Yes, he could already see it. It would require his utmost attention, it would be a highly difficult task with this horn of his, but it could very well pay off. There was no other choice anyway, so there was nothing to lose. To see her again, he would have to imprison the alicorn and her guards in his darkness.

“There is no escape for you anymore. You are trapped.”

“Come out!”

They were screaming, but soon their stubborn mind would force them inside.

“He won’t come out…

It tastes so sweetly to watch your plan being fulfilled, the sweet taste of victory. He always won over his prey, no matter how strong it was. He was the one who lingered in the shadows and he would be their demise. The sound of their hooves clopping on the hard stone ground was like the seconds counting down in a mighty clock.Their seconds were flowing away and they didn’t even know it. They couldn’t feel it, not the way he could. They couldn’t see it, they didn’t have his eyes. They couldn’t smell the smell of danger that lingered heavily in his shadows, something that would cost them dearly.

“I can’t see them. Twilight?”

The dim glow of purple magic swept through the cave; A sign. Like a giant clockwork tower, the wheels started turning, a simple gesture having initiated something far greater. Wheel after wheel was set in motion and his horn started glowing dimly. He took in the deep breath, letting the magic once again stream through his body, taking his energy with it, being formed to his will, being bent by his mind, until a cracking noise arose. The spell left his horn and spread quickly into the ceiling of the cave, into every crack, settling in every unseen fracture in the smooth skin of the soft stone.

But even before the alicorn had been able to charge her magic once again, his magic did its work. The stone had been weakened and now it collapsed. A sound of thousand thunders, a roaring cry of collapsing stone, trying to hold itself in position just to be crushed by the pressure of the rocks further above. The darkness filled every part of the cave, a darkness carrying thick air and dust with it, making it hard to even breathe. He had imprisoned them, now he only needed to use his advantage.

“Two little ponies in my lair. Tell me, what do you think is the most destructive force you know? Do you even know whom you have awoken?”

His voice echoed from the smooth surface of the dragon stones. However, there was something else howling back at him. Something from deep inside of the cave. Warm air was streaming towards him, flowing over his body. The ground started vibrating, as something seemed to have awoken. Something far more terrible than him.

A distant light, almost like a star twinkling in deepest night. A small, beautiful distraction somewhere in the distance. For just a moment, it seemed as if it would remain as small as it seemed, but then it quickly grew in size. A wall of fire burnt through the entire cave, illuminating the scared expression on his persecutors’ faces. It was the last image before the blinding light made it impossible to see anything. Within seconds, there also came an unbearable heat, consuming flesh and bringing piercing pain to him. The sheer force of the fiery hell forced him off his hooves, throwing him against a hard, burning surface. The impact almost deprived him of his consciousness, but he stood strong. What followed was a thick darkness, filled with hot smoky air that burnt the lungs whenever one tried to breath. Even worse than that was the pain when the dust reached the eyes, making it impossible to open them for much longer than a couple of heartbeats. It was a chaotic mess, an overwhelming disability of senses. He stumbled forward, just to instantaneously be rewarded by massive pain upon colliding with another wall and collapsing down to the ground.

A roaring scream followed the wall of fire, echoing through the cave. It seemed as if the whole world had started to blur in this darkness. There were ponies lying on the ground but it was impossible to count their number. Their bodies were covered with red stains, in which the black dust of the cave had accumulated. His own body hurt as if somepony had scraped his very skin off. He would have screamed if the impact had not pressed all air out of his body, leaving him panting in these burning ashes in the air. He had trapped them, but also himself. Their demise would now be his, so unless he would fight the beast alone, he would have to keep them alive until they had recovered from the burning breath of the monster deep down in its lair. He had disrupted its slumber and this was his punishment.

He took one last deep breath before finally channelling the spell he had failed to complete before. The shield would protect them all from further damage. Although he disliked the idea of saving his prosecutors, it was his only option to defeat the beast. He took his time with the spell, trying to perfect their only defense. He slowly absorbed the magic from around him, letting it flow through his body. Although the mind is the biggest contributor to form the magic that is lead into the body, the body itself still forms the spell the most, it gives it the essence and the characteristic aura. The mind only directs the spell, directs in what form the magic should manifest itself.

He had learned so much about magic by Silver Coil. He had been taught everything, from the way magical spells work to the finest controls over their exact execution. Silver Coil had obsessed about him learning every single piece of information about magic. Maybe that had been Silver Coil’s way of dealing with the inability to ever cast it himself... Silver Coil had always pushed him a bit further, to observe the spells that Starswirl himself had taught in praxis rather than just in theory. To some degree, he had been a protégé of Star Swirl, although a very indirect one. All the knowledge he had acquired from Silver Coil, however, would not help him fighting off a fully grown dragon.

Usually he wouldn’t have feared a dragon like this. While it is true that there are some frightening beasts out there, normal dragons can usually be defeated by a single magically advanced unicorn. A mistress - or master - of magic if you will. This however, wouldn’t just be any kind of dragon. Guessing by the traces he had seen during his desolation, this would be a shadowborn, a distinct race of dragons known for their resistance to magic. Furthermore, these dragons were often much more astucious than most other conspecifics. The harsh landscape and the constant lack of food had forced these dragons to adapt to the rough conditions.

A groan filled with pain startled him and he nearly let go of his spell. The ponies behind him seemed to have returned from their unconsciousness just to find themselves painfully burnt in a dark cave. He couldn’t even imagine what pain they were feeling as his own shell had mostly prevented heavier damage. They had nothing but their coat to save them, which is probably why they had fallen into unconsciousness unlike him. Without leaving them much time to react, the dragon seemed to have made its way further through the cave. Although he could not see the dragon itself, he could hear the deep vibrations of its heavy claws impacting on the hard ground again and again. A bright light suddenly flashed as the alicorn had pressed herself against a wall, unable to stand without the additional support. Her light did not only reveal the dragon slowly sneaking closer, but also the horrific wounds that the wall of fire had inflicted. They were much more than wounds, it almost seemed as if their whole skin had been peeled off, cut in pieces and then glued back on them. His last meal almost came up again, and it probably would have, if there had not been the steady treading of the heavy beast.

As soon as the dragon had realized that he had been discovered, he jumped towards the shield. The impact almost broke the magical surface, but he held strong against it, not letting go of his spell. The following roar almost shattered his ears as it came from just a couple of hooves in front of him. The gaping mouth of the beast was filled with razor sharp teeth and a blue slimy substance that one could only guess to be saliva, if not sevendayed ooze - and no, you should not ask about that, for your own sake. The teeth were arranged in three rows, each tooth having some sort of hook on their end to make it impossible for prey to escape once bitten. Not that the bite itself wouldn’t kill everything the dragon decided to push its sharp teeth into anyway. From inside the deep throat a fountain of fire spread over the entire shield, blinding everypony inside. There was nothing but a fiery hell around them, nothing but a dead-end with an especially painful death at its end. How would they escape from this predicament… if their escape was even an option?

The dragon seemed to realize that the fiery breath was doing nothing, and quickly changed its tactic. Instead of wasting its burning breath, it started to circle the magic shield, examining any weaknesses that it could possibly posses. While the farm pony slowly pushed herself up, the alicorn was already channeling some sort of spell. Within a moment, she was gone and with her was the earth pony. The darkness once again filled the cave, leaving him alone with the dragon...

FOTC: Chapter 8 - Predicaments

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The Shadowborn dragon didn’t seem amused, disturbed in its own lair by its own prey. It should be glad that the prey had actually found its way into the cave alone, but after two of the delicious snacks had just disappeared in a glowing orb and the other one, who had caused a cave-in before, was now hidden behind some darn magical shield, it could not bring itself as far as to enjoy this interesting turn of events. It would have probably taken it with amusement, if it had not been for the disturbed slumber and the lack of food in the last days.

The whimsical pony before him seemed to have created some sort of barrier, keeping itself safe. He had not seen this kind of pony before, as it seemed to be some mutant hybrid between these nasty insects with their hard-to-open shells and the rare travelers, which most of his conspecifics liked to feast upon. Although their taste was much more refined than the insects’, the often did not put up much of a challenge which he favored over simple slaughter. This one, however, would be different. It would put up the well known challenge, but its taste would most definitely be a new experience.

The question however remained, how he could destroy that magical shield. His own body would prevent any magical tricks that this pony could try to pull on him, but it would not help him simply getting through the barrier. If he could startle this pony, there were good chances that it would just let go of the shield in shock. He had revealed his graceful body already and the cave itself was not much to work with. He had to do something that the little pony would not be prepared for, something that the tiny pony would never expect… An idea formed in his mind, a simple trap, but maybe just enough to get more. He could simply wait out the pony’s magical strength and consume it at the end of the week, or month, or year. Would it even matter? There was something much more appealing than that though. Why should he be content with one little pony, and why not three of them? The other two had escaped, but his mighty wings were stronger than those stumpy things they call legs. To get those other ponies though, he would have to open the cave. And that is where this little unicorn could come in handy. Of course he could have done it with his own mighty claws, but then it would have taken an hour maybe, too long for his prey to escape. Maybe, if the unicorn would see no other choice than destroying the wall behind it…

The dragon seemed to pander about something, not having moved for almost a minute. Its empty eyes just stared at him, almost as if the pure act of staring could bring it prey. Surely it was thinking about a way to destroy that shield of his. He had put a lot of effort into the spell, but he could already feel his powers being drained. It was wonderous that the shield had even worked, as for the entirety of his desolation every spell he had tried to cast had failed horribly.

Suddenly the shadowborn dragon started moving again, but neither in a defensive stance nor really emitting raw aggression. It definitely had something - The first hit caught him off guard. With incredible velocity the Shadowborn had stopped moving and sprung towards the shield. The impact thew him off his hooves as first holes appeared in his shield. He intensified the effort, but the dragon was already attacking again. This time, he was prepared and instead of taking another serious hit, he evaded a bit backwards, just for his hoof to collide with the heavy pile of rocks. Slowly he started climbing upwards, which was a really difficult task without leaving the shadowborn out of sight. Maybe that is what the cunning dragon wanted: If it could bring him to fall while pushing him back into the pile of stones, it would have an easy meal. If however, he could reach the top of the pile without falling, he would require much less energy as his sides would be safely covered by rocks.

Another strike fell down from up above, almost bringing him out of balance. The top half of the shield had broken apart and he would not be able to fix it fast enough. He desperately tried to climb further up, where the ceiling would cover that weak spot. The dragon roared, showing off its giant teeth once again. He was almost at the top, just two more stones… and done. The shadowborn however was relentless. It jumped towards the small sphere, pushing its teeth deeply into the magical barrier. At some spots, the barrier just burst under the pressure, letting the sharp teeth come closer and closer. With every spot breaking, the teeth gained an inch, already eagerly eying thier precious prey. He gave it all, trying desperately to repel the mighty beast, but his abilities were limited. From one predicament, he had come into the next. Down there, he could have run. Down there, there had not been sharp teeth closing in on him, inch after inch. One already touched his leg and he could feel the blade slowly cutting it open. Another one had reached his flank, also sinking into the hard shell of his. The teeth seemed to simply push through the hard shell, almost as if they were snapping through air. There was only one way left. The sharp teeth didn’t leave much of a choice, neither enough time to properly decide. Either inevitable death or the chance to live on.

While the sixth tooth found its way inside his body, he started to channel what could be the last spell. The pain was unbearable, but he did not allow himself to think about it. Either life or death. While the spell was far short of being finished, he had to let it go. The eighth tooth was already scraping at the surface of his neck, while the first one was already pushing out through the other side of his leg. It would be a mighty explosion, split into two parts. One would hopefully open a hole in the wall behind him, potentially pushing him into the teeth by the sheer shockwave. The other one would hopefully catapult him away from the dragon. There was no time left. It had to be done…

With a mighty roar the tiny pony closed its eyes. The dragon already thought he had accidentially gone to far, when the wall behind his little snack burst apart in a magic aura. What he had not expected was the second explosion following shortly afterwards. The explosion deafened his ears and blinded his eyes, but the pain it inflicted was even worse. The heat as nothing but a well known feeling, but the incredible pressure almost ripped his mouth apart. He could barely see the prey flying through the small hole behind it, leaving a trail of blood behind. Slightly overwhelmed by the sheer intensity, the dragon had to take a step back. For a second it seemed like his stomach could empty, but he quickly regained his senses. Even though it had been a painful exercise, the hole was open and there were still some ponies to be crushed. It took him not more than half a second to push his mighty body through the small hole. Bits and pieces of the stone wall were thrust into the air as his muscles tensed up to make his way into the much deserved freedom, taking half of the wall with him.

Out here was the burning sun again, the hot desert air and the black ground beneath him. It had not always looked like this, but in his young days he had liked to watch the stones burn and with them everything that those ponies had held dearly. It had been better days, more prey and less effort. Now the landscape had been declared hostile and the amount of ponies traveling through his lands had dramatically decreased. Right now, there were two ponies on the loose.

It took him not more than one mighty flap of his wings to burst highly into the sky, letting out a roar, vibrating through the vast emptiness below him. He quickly found what he had been searching for. While a couple of hundred hooves in front of his cave lay the prey he had found, not only two, but five ponies were another hundred hooves away. There was another, particularly strangely colored rainbow pony lying very closely to the group. Seven ponies… What a feast on this bright day.

“A dragon?!” Pinkie Pie screamed.

Twilight cringed, not only upon seeing the giant beast having freed itself from its prison, but much more because of the expression of Pinkie’s face; The fear in those eyes which were usually bright stars of joy burned into Twilight’s mind. While she could understand that feeling - seeing how her own legs had began to tremble - , she still hated to see Pinkie Pie experience it. Her friend who had always stood strong against any threat, laughing into the face of evil, was now cowering behind her. She couldn’t explain how the dragon had escaped the cave after that damned Changeling had caused a cave-in. It should not have been possible and yet the dragon’s shadow was blocking the sun above them. Rainbow Dash had somehow managed to come closer to Fluttershy, both only slowly recovering. Twilight wished she could have taken the advice and made a pause from her training. Now she was exhausted, especially after performing that teleportation spell. She had not eaten for two days now and her body reminded her painfully of that fact. If that damned Changeling had not lured them into a dragon cave like a madpony, it would have all been fine. This Changeling had brought nothing but trouble. As the shadow quickly grew bigger, Twilight knew that the dragon had started its attack without having to stretch her neck. The shield she created was a simple shield, but it should be enough to stop a dragon, even one this big. She had seen bigger, but the black scales reflecting the sunlight made it impossible to stare at it longer than just a moment.

Before the dragon would hit the shield, Twilight quickly performed a magical ice bolt. A very difficult spell which she had found in the Canterlot library in “Advanced Masteries of the Art of Magic” by StarSwirl himself. It had taken her years to perfect the spell, but she had never given up. The small snowball didn’t seem like much of a threat, but as soon as it impacted on the dragon’s skin, it quickly spread its freezing power. Within seconds, the entire dragon was frozen in its motion, falling down from the sky like a stone. She already wanted to scream in delight as the ice vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The dragon quickly corrected its angle and just burst THROUGH the shield. No, really. A dragon penetrated her shield. To be honest, it was a simple shield, yet it should still not have been possible. Was she really this tired?

Instead of crushing to the ground as she had planned it to, the dragon softly landed a couple dozen hooves in front of her, only barely catching itself. Without losing any time, it just jumped towards Twilight, opening its mouth broadly. A mouth filled by hundreds of sharp teeth, even with a Changeling leg stuck in between them. If she had fought alone, Twilight would have just jumped to her side. Here she was not only protecting herself though, but also her friends. For them, she would have to stay strong and she didn’t plan to disappoint them. A giant chunk of the ground before her slit upwards as her horn had barely started to glow. She had indeed become faster than her magic aura. The time it took for the visual light to be emit from the magic was longer than it took the magic to actually reach its target.

The dragon crushed into the stone wall, ripping it apart with its heavy body, then flying just over their heads, its angry teeth snapping for anything in their proximity, and finally landing far behind them. When the dragon jumped up for another attack, Twilight had already created another shield. The sharp teeth dug deeply into her magical barrier, slowly ripping it into pieces. Any normal dragon would have lost its teeth by this time… Either she was much weaker than she had thought to be or this dragon as not just a normal dragon. With a last effort, she created a magical spear and accelerated it towards the dragon. It flew like a bolt, simply piercing through the dragon’s neck, and stopping before it could leave on the other side. The dragon, however, took its revenge before Twilight or anypony could have possibly reacted: The huge tail swung like a whip and crushed through the shield, digging its spiked end into the only ponies still standing.

The world seemed to disappear so incredibly fast. There was so much to still be done, so much she had not said. This couldn’t just be it. It was not suposed to end like this. Her entire life, those years of studying. Every second she had spent, every moment she had enjoyed, every heartbeat she had despised. All of this ending here, with a small mistake? There was another explosion, or maybe she dreamt that. A burning pit of fire and thousands of pillars. Celestia talking to her about studies, her mom and dad looking at her with that certain spark in their eyes, the spark of loving parents. Was this really it? She felt a tear running down from her eyes, followed by another one and yet another one. Soon she could not decide if it were her tears or the rain coming from empty clouds. A hellish nightmare of a pony laughing maniacally, a night as dark as no other. Chaos and disruption, anger and distrust, hatred and betrayal, Discord and Chrysalis…

Was this the end?

Scrift laid down into his soft, comfy bed and let the events of the day pass by again. They had been ordered to search that newling he had rescued. By now he was almost sure he should have never saved Ethereal Tear as that ling had not brought anything but troubles. Neither had the rescue been recognized nor had the newling proven very useful. And now Scrift was seen as the fault for all the unnecessary searching, just because of this heroic sacrifice. How could a newling even be able to evade the entire hive like this? He moaned as he moved just a bit further under the blankets, a bit deeper into the comforting warmth. A strange tradition, these beds. He would have usually preferred the sleeping chambers and not these beds, but since they had started the search, he had felt uncomfortable sleeping at their side. Sleeping while having to worry about some sort of vengeful strike just wouldn’t work.

Before he could drift into sleep though, the small wooden door was burst open. It was strange to have a door, such an inconvenient little thing. Why would you make it difficult to get into your own room by putting a wooden board in front of it? It was so much easier to just leave an entrance open, because that is what an entrance is supposed to be: Open! How could you even think it would be beneficial to put a board in front of it? What had the person inventing this “door” thought? ‘Oh, I am just going to put this wooden plank here to make it difficult to get into my own room.‘ The door could not even keep any unwanted visitors out, as the guards had simply knocked it down. Now it was nothing but a pile of rubbish anyway, so there was nothing to complain about anymore.

“You! Come with us! The queen wants to see you for some reason. I guess, the hive will.”

The guard with that incredibly deep voice. There was something about that Changeling, but Scrift had never cared or dared to ask. Whom would he ask anyway? The leader of the guard? Probably not, he wouldn’t be too excited about some strangeling asking him about his guards.

“Are you deaf? The queen wants to see you!”

Scrift quickly got out of the comfy blankets and followed the growling guards. Even through their aggressive appearance, he could still make out the excitement in their eyes. Or could it be mischievousness? The guards seemed to be a lot hastier today; There was definitely something going down...

As Scrift began to wander alongside the guards, he began to wonder: What could be the premise of the guard’s escort in this late hour? And where were they heading towards? A real escort only made sense if it would either lead to the hall of the queen or to the grand entrance. So either punishment by the queen herself would await him or his exemption from the hive. Neither of both alternatives sounded too delightful…

The heavy metal doors opened very slowly and with a loud screeching sound. They should really get the thing fixed at some point, or maybe it was the sound to prepare one before meeting her. A screeching sound, much like the promise that something terrific would await you, beautiful and vengeful at the same time. A queen like no other before her, ruling her fellow Changelings with incredible might and cruciality and yet caring for every single one of them.

“Ahh, Scrift.”

For a moment he was just completely perplexed. Not only had she spoken before he had bowed to her, but she had also mentioned his name. Had he become famous over night or what was this supposed to mean?

“Your majesty!” he quickly added with a deep bow to her. He kept his eyes down on the ground, not daring to look up to her legendary beauty.

“I have decided to promote you.”

What? So he was getting promoted now? This would be too good to be true, there had to be some trick to this, some veiled agenda.

“I promote you to leader of the search troup delta. Your assignment is to search the newling. And now get out of my sight, I have more important business to deal with than the misfortunes of single Changelings.”

With that, she pointed her hoof towards the door again. Scrift had no real choice but to turn around again, not really having fully arrived. Why was the queen so busy? And more importantly, why would she promote him to a search troup leader? He had not done anything showing leadership qualities except saving a random newling, which shouldn’t be considered as anything important anyway. Either this was some totally inconceivable plan that only such a genius like the queen herself could create, or it was some kind of hidden punishment. Or maybe she just had to promote someling and he was just the one in her mind at the moment.

Each option had its own weirdness inside: If it was a genius plan, how would a search troup partake in it? If it was some veiled punishment, why would she punish him with a promotion? A promotion was furthest from the idea of ‘punishment’ he could possibly think of. So it had to be some random promotion… Yes. The most probable thing was that it was just some kind of weird randomness going on right here, a machine set in motion by the throw of some dice. Then again, why would the queen ever rely on randomness? Every plan of hers was cunning and ingenious and she never relied on such things as ‘luck’. Leader of the search troup. That actually sounded quite nice and a promotion was something he most definitely deserved after that most epic rescue of his, raining down from the sky into a deep pit of dangerous, giant, ling-feasting spikes and helping that poor firstling out of his misery. What if he could actually get a bit further? What if he could become squadron leader? Or the queen’s personal guard? Finally, after years of being ignored, he had found his way up the ladder of success.

The silent darkness surrounded her, leaving her no place to hide from her own fears. The picture quickly changed into that of the strange amulet that she had seen in her dreams. The amulet that was the sole reason for their adventure and the sole reason for what had happened. Shortly after having her first dream interrupted by the ruby encased in a golden necklace, she had sent a letter to Celestia asking about the strange amulet. Celestia’s answer though was disappointing: Under no circumstances should Twilight try to find the amulet and Celestia herself would deal with it. The visions didn’t stop occurring though, and as dream after dream kept stealing her nights, she had to start researching. She couldn’t just let her nights vanish into these weird nightmares, which kept waking her up.

The problem to the whole thing was just that she didn’t know where to search. She had searched about a red amulet, but there are hundreds of red amulets and thousands of stories about amulets in dreams. It was plain impossible to find out what those dreams were all about. She had almost given up when she had noticed something more in the shadows than just the amulet itself. There was a figure back in the shadows, a figure with holes in their legs. She could not make out much more than that, but that was already enough for her to make her way down - Not without her friends of course.

Once again the picture changed, showing the unholy darkness behind the amulet, filled by a deep laughter echoing from unseen walls. She tried to move backwards but there was only darkness left, only the cold, wet wind blowing into her face. Suddenly it was the first day of their journey again, a stormy day, thunder and lightning crashing down onto the earth again and again, making it impossible to sustain a good mood. Only Pinkie’s entertainment package made the whole excursion bearable.

The picture in her mind almost seemed to react to her thoughts, as the sudden sound of the train whistle startled her. She was still encompassed by the darkness, only hearing the sounds of a busy train station in her thoughts. The train station in Ponyville maybe, or the one in Appaloosa, guessing by the path of their journey. They had decided to ride the train from Ponyville southwards without waiting for further confirmation of Celestia. The problem had to be dealt with as she had started to accidentally misfire her spells in her tiredness. The victims of those unfortunate accidents had been a certain musician pony with three hooves, a stallion crushed by a giant deformed apple, and another stallion transformed into a mare after startling her. To reverse the spells had actually been much more difficult as she could often not remember what she had actually cast in this state of fatigue.

The picture changed again, turning into a bright, blinding light. Suddenly her body was being thrown to the side, then up and back down again while lines were forming around unrecognizable schemes. With time flowing by like honey, the blurry lines started to turn into a more recognizable figure: It seemed as if Rainbow’s head was hovering somewhere in a black sky.

“Twilight?”

Even though it was nothing but a distorted echo, she could clearly make out Rainbow Dash’s voice. As she tried to move her body however, she could feel nothing but an overwhelming numbness in her limbs. She was barely able to hold her eyes open as another sudden rush of fatigue pulled her back into darkness.

“Twilight! Don’t leave us now!”

Why was Rainbow Dash so upset? She wasn’t going anywhere, just allowing the comfortable blackness to surround her, sheltering her from the harsh light of the desert. However, There was something about Rainbow Dash’s voice that kept her awake. Dash was just too upset for her to simply ignore the pegasus. Don’t leave us now. Could that be…? This darkness… A lie! This all was a lie, the comforting darkness was a sweet angel of death, whispering softly into her ears. She had to get up and escape from this darkness. Almost overhastily, she pushed her body into the air.

“What are you doing?”

When she finally opened her eyes again, the whole world was blurry, but at least it was not the dangerous darkness anymore. While the world slowly started to deblur, she could make out more and more. It wasn’t only Rainbow Dash standing in the darkness, but six ponies and a small dragon. While Rainbow Dash was still standing very close to her, the others sat around a burning tree. As she started to slowly step towards the fire, Rainbow Dash quickly rushed to her side, holding her up. Even though her expression showed concern, she didn’t say anything. Instead, Twilight had an important question:

“Who is that other pony over there?”

Rainbow’s mien seemed to darken a lot upon hearing the question. Either that, or the fire’s shine had suddenly changed, letting dancing shadows hush over the pegasus’ face.

“The Changeling. Fluttershy decided we should keep him after he… well… he saved us. I had everything under control though!”

It was almost painfully obvious that the inability to help her friends tormented her. Twilight wanted to say something, anything, but what do you actually say in such a moment? It isn’t your fault? Of course Rainbow Dash would always see it as her own fault when her closest friends were attacked. You couldn’t do anything? She would never be contempt with that, as she would always tell herself that something could have been done. Furthermore, it would seem as if Twilight believed in the incompetence of Dash, not trusting in her awesome abilities.

Twilight wasn’t sure as how to react to the appearance of the Changeling. On one hoof she absolutely hated those nasty creatures whom had almost took her brother. She would never be able to forgive such crime, even though it had been the queen, not her subjects committing it. On the other hoof however, the Changeling supposively saved them. She shouldn’t even think like this. If Rainbow Dash said that the Changeling had saved them, the Changeling had saved them no matter how despicable and cruel and monstrous such a beast was. Then again, how could a Changeling save them? Changelings had almost killed Princess Celestia and had tried to steal her brother. It was far beyond unforgivable and they should suffer!

Her anger resided though as she got a bit further towards the campfire. What she had thought to be just an illusion of the dancing shadows was in fact not an illusion. The Changeling… His front left leg was just… missing. She quickly looked away as the Changeling seemed to have sensed her glooming stare. With a mixture of disgust and pity, she couldn’t get it over herself to sit down next to him. Instead, she decided to squeeze herself in between Applejack and Spike. All of her friends seemed to be horribly wounded. Either burnt skin or deep flesh-wounds were covering everypony, definitely painful but never mortal. It was absolutely horrifying to see her friends in such a state. Once she would regain her strength, she would be able to care for their wounds, but for now she would have to watch their pain without the ability to help them. This feeling of helplessness… She suppressed the anxiety as she looked down at her own body and noticed some sharp bruises, and one or two deeper wounds. Although the wounds seemed quite painful, she had not yet experienced any. She should rather be grateful for that fact instead of complaining about it. Spike once again used his fiery breath to keep the fire going.

“This is not going to hold for long. The wood is just too burnt already.”

There was this… heavy atmosphere spread over everypony. Pinkie “the happy party pony” Pie herself was just poking holes in the ground. Applejack was staring into the fire as if there was the entire Apple Family orchard, a beautiful sundawn above the field of thousands of apple trees, all ready and ripe to be bucked down, to make some sweet cider together as a family. Rainbow Dash sat down next to the Changeling and started to stare into the distance too. Rarity however seemed to try to get her hair into order again, which seemed quite difficult without any professional equipment. To see Fluttershy like this was unsurpassable by any horrible emotion. It ripped her heart apart. The fear and sadness in those eyes were worse than anything she had ever seen. Twilight quickly looked away into the fire again as she could not stand it any longer. Fluttershy had always been the definition of innocence, but now it was so obviously missing. She knew it would never come back and that was a burning dagger in her heart.
Oh, Fluttershy…

FOTC: Chapter 9 - United

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The cracking noise of the fire slowly eating through the thick bark of the tree was the only sound in the next few minutes. When a single tear started to run down Fluttershy’s cheeks, a fire slowly started to build up in Twilight’s body. A fire she had never felt in this intensity. She had known rage, she had known anger, but this was something deeper. A deep underlying hatred against the harsh world around her, something she had never thought to experience. Her whole body slowly started to burn up in that feeling, slowly creeping into her thoughts. She quickly remembered the lessons taught to her by princess cadence. Although they seemed to work quite well against anger, they couldn’t extinguish that fire burning inside of her. Instead, her breath only started going faster and her heart became more of a series of rapid earthquakes shattering through her body than the steady drum she was used to. There was only one thing needed to turn those earthquakes into a giant volcano spewing her fire throughout this dark night… Something like a certain Changeling leaning in towards Fluttershy and whispering into her ear.

“Stop that!”

“But Twilight, he is just -”

“That is none of your business, Fluttershy! Let it answer...”

“I am not an ‘it’. I am just like you.”

There it was. The searing dagger quickly piercing through her heart, releasing all the sadness, anger and hatred she had tried to keep contained. She felt her own body burning in unnatural heat as she spoke all the unspoken words she had tried to imprison deep down in her mind. All the images she had tried to ignore. Her poor brother trying to clear his mind, but forced into submission by an unnatural being. A fallen princess - a fallen mother - before her hooves. A laughing demon looking down on her, surrounded by the flames of her dark magic.

“NO! You are not simply going to come here and act as if your life was worth ANYTHING. I should have killed you when I first had the chance to!”

“Twilight! He hasn’t -”

“I don’t care what he has or hasn’t done! He is just as monstrous as they all are!”

“I am not like them!”

“You will be. You will be dead!”

Twilight jumped up, pushing Spike and Applejack aside. Even though one of her wounds had started bleeding again due to her sudden movement, she still could not feel the pain. She could only feel the heavy quakes in her chest, hear the adrenaline rushing by her ears and sense the overwhelming anger almost ripping her body apart. It was the first spell that came to her mind, a simple transformation spell, but as she felt the magic, she just threw every bit of hatred into it, turning the very essence of the spell around. She had known how to cast the magic of shadows, magic only allowed to alicorns, and yet it had been nothing to this sudden rush of power she could feel. She wasn’t forming the spell anymore, the spell had started to take her with it into a world of harsh, uncontrollable power beyond any imagination. She could see the dark purple mixed with an even darker green which surrounded her horn, but it didn’t matter anymore. It almost felt like watching a movie of herself. When the spell had finally consumed all of her power, it burst from her horn towards the Changeling.

Even though the Changeling was able to evade the direct hit, he still did not go unharmed. The black and purple bolt of magic landed only a couple of hooves behind him, suddenly exploding in dark flames. It did not only thrust the Changeling dozens of hooves into the air, but also took Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy with him. What remained was a crater burning in dark flames and pain. As if her body had decided it had been enough, all the wounds that had almost been idle, suddenly started the bring a piercing pain with them. There was another kind of pain though, the pain of regret. Now that the hatred had subsided, it made room for the knowledge of having hurt her friends.

She just stared at her own hooves, unable to fully understand what she had just done, what she has become. The anger and hatred had overwhelmed her in a moment of weakness and taken her beyond her own morals and thrown her into a deep pit of helplessness.

“Twilight? What have you done?” screamed Rainbow Dash saucer-eyed, her mouth widely spread open, painting an image of confusion.

“Oh my! What happened to you, Twilight?” echoed Rarity, equally as much confusion flashing across her face, but also mixed with worry for Twilight.

The concern in their voice made it even worse, almost a nightmare to be lived through. To be honest, she had no answer. All that was left was the inability to comprehend what had happened and the regret for her inexcusable outburst. Everything had turned against her, suddenly she was the monster now. How could she judge anypony? How could she dare to show the audacity to judge a living thing? Something so far beyond any imagination and any power in this world, the value of life and she had dared to judge. No.

“Twilight! Are you alright?” the sweet voice of Fluttershy rang in her ears like a soft bell.

“Hey! I know you are angry and all…” The voice of the Changeling was a crass contrast to Fluttershy’s voice, so much deeper and rougher. “I am sorry. I don’t know what you might be thinking about me, but I am not a monster.”

Twilight looked up again, tears blurring her vision. When she met his eyes however, she quickly burrowed her whole head between her hooves. There was a certain sincerity and forgiveness in there that she had neither expected nor deserved.

“You may only see the Changeling in me and I can’t fault you for doing that after what your friends have told me and what I have experienced myself. I am more than just the Changeling and even though I don’t know … I don’t know what I am, I know that there is more to me than the monster you might see every time you look at me. I just hope … I hope you can forgive me for whatever I might have done.”

An apology? Why did he have to apologize? Out of everything he could have said, an apology probably was what she had least expected. To be quite honest, she didn’t even know how to react to it. She should have been the one apologizing. It only made this whole situation so much worse. She was the princess, a role model for all of her subjects, her actions would be followed by thousands of ponies. The only thing she had just proven was not that Changelings were evil but instead that she had so much to learn until she could really be the princess she was supposed to be. It was never too late to start.

“Listen…”

“Ethereal Tear.”

His smile made this even more uncomfortable. Couldn’t he just… stay expressionless? This smile made it all feel so wrong, as if she was apologizing to some devilish demon.

“Listen, Ethereal Tear, I still don’t like you. However, I am not a mare who would simply ignore the truth. Instead, I see that I was wrong to prematurely judge you and I guess… I am sorry.” It felt so incredibly wrong. She already regretted even having said it, even though she didn’t know why she should regret it. It was the most logical thing to do, but her heart seemed to just not comply.

“I am sorry too. I didn’t mean to trap you but you didn’t leave me a choice.”

Such a liar! No choice? Maybe he could have not tried to trap them in a bucking dragon’s cave… Dragon?

“Where is the dragon?!”

She had almost forgotten about the dragon!

“It’s dead.” Applejack answered quickly, yet her voice was almost crumbling as if she felt some sort of pressure. Was the Changeling threatening her friend? Was there some conspiracy behind this all, just a giant illusion to fool her and to stop her finding out about this Changeling amulet? Oh, she would smite this small insect if she only got one small hint for supression.
“I think… I… Phew… I think it’s time to sleep. I just can’t hold on much longer.”

Spike seemed to be at the border of exhaustion. Had the Changeling forced him to keep the fire up at any cost? Maybe he needed the fire so the other Changelings could find them easier. This was all such a big mistake. For now however, Twilight felt the warm feeling of tiredness slowly creeping up her legs and with no imminent threats - the Changeling. How could she sleep with such a thing around her? Would he take control over one of his friends? She couldn’t allow it, no matter what the cost was.

When everypony went to lay down on the cold, hard ground, Twilight got slightly confused.

“Why don’t we use normal beds?”

The sad expression in everypony’s face that followed answered the question already, but Rainbow Dash still brought the crucial words out:

“That damn dragon burnt our supplies.”

“We are going to have to get back to the village.” answered Applejack, but not without letting out a yawn afterwards.

While everypony cuddled together before the remains of the fire, the Changeling laid down on the opposite site. He just wanted to escape without her notice, but Twilight wouldn’t allow it. She positioned herself on the far end of the cuddly furball that were her friends and tilted her head just a bit up to watch over the Changeling. It was her duty to protect her subjects and she would not allow anypony or anything to hurt her friends again.

Even as the fire slowly faded into a cloud of black smoke and glimming pieces of the tree, Twilight didn’t allow her eyes to close. Even as the snoring of her friends became louder than the eventual bursting of small pieces of wood in what was left of the fire, she did keep her watch. And even as the moon shone brightly on the sleeping Changeling, she did not let her dreams catch her. She was the alicorn princess and she would protect her friends no matter what.

The stars twinkled so high up in the sky, so unreachable from anypony. Some black shadows were slowly flying over the immeasurable beauty that was the night’s sky. She could almost hear Luna laughing somewhere in the distance, watching over her and every other pony. She could hear a distant whisper, pulling her deeper and deeper into a trance, until her eyes could not resist anymore and the watch of the Alicorn Princess ended.

Fluttershy was frightened when Twilight erupted into a giant ball of flames. She had never seen Twilight this angry before and she wished she never had to experience something like this again. Twilight, covered in flames that didn’t seem to harm her, slowly walked towards an unseen foe, burning down the forest around her with every step she took. Fluttershy, although terrified by this image, brought herself to move to the side a bit just to get a glimpse of whomever Twilight was fighting against. If Twilight continued to burn down the forest, Fluttershy would have to intervene, she could almost hear the small birds crying in their nests for a mother that would never come home. She could almost taste the disgusting taste of burnt flesh on her mouth, the burnt flesh of all these innocent creatures. Worst of all, she could almost feel their pain in the flames, slowly consuming their tiny bodies, innocently searching for a reason for why they deserved this; a reason for this madness.

“Twilight, stop!” Fluttershy screamed once again, and once again Twilight didn’t even hesitate moving onwards.

Now, a couple of hooves further on the left side of Twilight, Fluttershy could finally make out her enemy. The Changeling, eyes widely opened in fear, trying to hide from the overwhelming fiery force that was her friend.

“Twilight, please stop!”

The purple unicorn still showed no reaction to her screams, pushing the Changeling further into a corner of trees that had started to burn behind him. The fire was quickly spreading, bringing pain to every creature that could not run fast enough. Even for herself it got too hot to bear much longer.

“TWILIGHT!” she yelled again before galloping towards the purple alicorn that was destroying everything without hesitation. The Changeling was already cornered in and Twilight slowly increased the size of the ball of fire around her, slowly pushing out towards the Changeling. His painful screams mixed with the screams of the dying animals and the burning trees.

“TWILIGHT, STOP THIS MADNESS!”

And the alicorn didn’t stop. Fluttershy galloped across to the Changeling, trying to save the only life she possibly could.

“Twilight, please…”

When the fire touched her body, she felt it consuming her flesh, making it impossible to resist the necessity to scream. Her very tears vaporized before landing on the ground and her entire body was nothing anymore, nothing but a world of pain. And she screamed.

A sudden force shook her body violently. The burning hell quickly faded into the blurred image of Rainbow Dash, looking down at her in concern.

“Fluttershy?”

It took her mind a while to realize that it had all just been a horrible nightmare and the friend she knew was still the friend she knew and had not fallen for madness.

Fluttershy got up onto her four hooves again before calming the cyan pegasus down: “It… It was just a dream.”

Even though the concern remained in the pegasus’ eyes, she backed off a bit, allowing Fluttershy to orientate herself. Twilight was sitting on a stone together with Applejack, who had spread out a leg of hers. Healing magic slowly flowed into the wound and Fluttershy’s memory returned. She quickly searched for any bruise or wound on her pegasus friend, but found Rainbow Dash to be in perfect condition.

“It is still twitching a bit, but Twilight did a fine job. I already flew a few loops without a problem.”

Fluttershy sighed in relief as she had not even realized she was tensing up this much. Her relaxation quickly disappeared again as she lay her eyes on the Changeling, still having only three legs, and confusion took its place. Before she could even ask, the rainbow colored mare had already read her expression and answered the inevitable question:

“Twilight said she didn’t know how to fix such large wounds, especially without the required knowledge of the Changeling anatomy. And before you ask: We are going to head back to Browndawn as soon as your wounds are healed.”

Although that was an explanation for why the Changeling still had one less leg than expected, the answer still caused another question:

“Why doesn’t he get a bandage then? What if he gets a terrible infection or something?”

“Yeah, then he would be nothing but dead weight, you are right.”

Although Dash had failed to understand her logic, she was still glad that there would be help for the Changeling. She knew not to trust their enemies, but there was something good in everypony. Discord was the living proof to show the world that there was more to such “monsters”. If they all just understood her way of thinking better, maybe they wouldn’t have to fight this much…

“Fluttershy?” Twilight’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts and she slowly approached the Alicorn, who seemed to be finished with her last patient.

“Yes?”

“You are next.”

Although she felt bad for taking Twilight’s help before the Changeling would, she still did obey the commanding tone of Twilight’s voice. Even though she would not have admitted it, her wounds were really hurting badly and she needed the healing. A couple of steep flesh wounds covered her feet. It had probably been only a couple of dozen hooves, but the sharp stones below had dug deeply into her hooves. If the Changeling would have wanted to kill her, that would have been the best moment.

The healing magic felt so good, she could barely contain sighing in relief from the pain and stress of the last hours. Now they would finally head back from this dragon-cave-filled deadland. Only a few animals lived here, save for the dragons obviously, and those who did had become harsh in this unforgiving environment.

“Come on, y’all, it’s time to head back!” yelled Applejack when Twilight’s magic faded again.

“Okay, Fluttershy, I think it’s okay now.”

“Twilight, you need to heal the Changeling too.”

“I would if I could. I have no knowledge of Changeling anatomy though.”

It was obvious that she had lied, but Fluttershy wouldn’t care about that as long as Twilight was helping him in the end. Of course Fluttershy could have agreed with her, but it was important to care for the well-being of everything and everypony, not only for yourself and your friends.

“At least give him a bandage-”

“Or he will become nothing but dead weight.” interrupted Rainbow Dash who had listened to their conversation.

Twilight groaned, but brought out a quick “Fine!” in the end. After pulling out a bit of string and a couple of bandages, she began quickly covering the Changeling’s wounds. It was more than obvious that she didn’t care much about his health as she repeatedly brought him to cringe in pain and the final result was still more of a mess than a professional bandage. Although Fluttershy still wasn’t satisfied with that, she didn’t want to risk Twilight getting angry. Somehow, the image of the burning nightmare slipped into her mind once again and she couldn’t help but to step back a couple of hooves from Twilight. There was no reason for it and yet the image didn’t leave her mind.

Even as they headed off, the image remained.

The strange Changeling had fallen behind quite a bit and Fluttershy already worried about his well being. The wound seemed to be quite deep and an infection could be lethal. She had only seen such a deep wound once, when a small duckling had fallen into the streaming river. His mother had tried to save him but the river had taken her too. When she found the little duckling and his mother, the mother had already passed away. She had cared for the duckling as much as she could have, but at some time it had just given up without a mother to care for it.

“I think we should help him,” she finally brought out after being plagued by the images again and again. While everypony seemed to just ignore what she had said - No, they had probably just not heard it - Twilight groaned loudly.

“I have already helped him. He is fine. Look at him.”

was obviously distorted by the pain, but she couldn’t hear a sound. Maybe that was because of the distance that had kept on growing. He already lacked a couple of hundred of hooves and guessing by the volume of the sound of the forest, he wouldn’t be able to hear them over it.

“Twilight! Our little adventure in this uncivilised land does not have to mean that we become uncivilised ourselves. Be a deary and help the poor thing.”

Fluttershy was surprised by the sudden help from her elegant friend, who had taken special shoes with her which would prevent the dirt to creep up her hooves. Fluttershy didn’t mind the dirt, instead it was quite a comfortable feeling after having trotted around on these black sharp stones for so long. The small dirt roads laid sparsely in this deserted land. She had thought that maybe the construction ponies didn’t have enough time to complete them… But now that she thought about it, there had probably never been any construction ponies here. Maybe some exotic animals had made their paths to transverse through the lands easier. That theory was underlined by the fact that those ways most oftenly went from oasis to oasis. She had thought the roads to be constructed by the few villagers that had settled down at the oases, but the roads went much further than any settlement had. That again was a big problem now that they were trying to head back.

“Rarity? You too? Imagine we would help all of our enemies!”

“Like Steven Magnet?” Rarity quickly asked, followed by a “Like Discord?” from Fluttershy.

“Like Sombra!” Twilight screamed, getting louder than any of them had expected her to.

Fluttershy couldn’t help but to turn her head again and look over to the Changeling. Either he hadn’t heard it or he was sunken into his own thoughts too deeply.

“Calm down, y’all. It ain’t like the end of the world here. I agree, though. We should help that poor fella.”

“Twilight, you got to stop only thinking about your fears and your dislikes! It is going to bring you down.

Baaaack in the days of the-”

Pinkie Pie was suddenly stopped as Rainbow Dash quickly pushed a hoof in front of her mouth, cutting her off before she could continue with her melody. A disgruntled stare followed the gesture as the pegasus didn’t seem to be in the mood for entertainment.

“I think you are right, Twilight. He is just playing the wounded lamb until we decide to help him. Then he will show us his teeth.” with that, Rainbow Dash slowly approached Fluttershy, building herself up and blocking out the sun. Fluttershy couldn’t help but to cringe a bit at the frightening sight, and Dash seemed to be contempt with that reaction and turned around again.

“We can’t just leave him like this. If we are to be social ponies, we are not to succumb to such barbaric measures as to let somepony die in our presence.”

“If we help him, he is going to turn on us!” Twilight said angrily. The expression on her face reminded Fluttershy of the dream she had had. “It is his own fault anyway.”

Fluttershy closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the two bullies from her school. They had said the same thing when ripping the wings of one of the geese peacefully flying through the air. “It is its own fault anyway.” Such ignorance! The goose had been a mother, three little eggs, not ready to be born into the world and surely doomed for death without the care of their loving mother. “It is its own fault anyway.” Nothing but an excuse for brutes to get away with whatever cruel thing they wanted to do.

“It is not his own fault. If he dies, Twilight, you killed him."

Even though her voice had not become any louder, the expression on Twilight’s face was utter shock. Fluttershy couldn’t help but to look away, trying to evade the thought that she had hurt Twilight with her words.

“Twilight… I…”

The shock in the purple alicorn’s face slowly turned into something else, but not into regret or agreement or even sadness as Fluttershy could have expected, but instead into rage. Twilight’s eyes started to burn and she screamed out:

“WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING HIM?!” and staring directly at her with a glooming glance that Fluttershy would never forget, she added: “I thought we were friends.”

Fluttershy stopped, her mouth open in shock and confusion. Why? Twilight’s reaction did not make any sense, none at all. There was a poor innocent creature getting hurt and instead of showing anything like pity, Twilight’s rage burnt like the sun itself. Not only she was now frightened, but everypony had taken a couple of steps back from Twilight and suddenly there was the image of her nightmare again. Twilight burning down entire forests like a fiery demon, consuming life itself, grown mad with her new power. Maybe she wasn’t ready for her ascension…

“Twilight?! You are scaring us.” Rainbow Dash slowly approached Twilight who had alicorn magic streaming from her eyes, reminding them all of the horrific events that had happened with King Sombra, the lord of shadows. If an unicorn that had gone mad could survive thousand years of banishment, what could a mad alicorn do?

“Twilight, please calm down,” added Pinkie Pie, also starting to approach Twilight, not looking all too happy anymore.

“We are all more than just friends, we are a family!” Applejack brought up, then proceeding to follow their example.

Fluttershy couldn’t move a step as Rarity also started to step towards Twilight:

“Don’t let the brutality in this land overtake you. We are all here together and as friends we will get through any trouble at our hooves.”

And still, Fluttershy stood as an immovable object, wanting to follow their example but rooted by the fear of the demon she had once called Twilight. Only when the dark magic slowly faded, Fluttershy’s legs allowed her to move - And even then her steps were still slow and hesitant.

“Twilight, please don’t let him die.”

The words were almost too quiet to be heard, but she could see a fire in the alicorn’s eyes, just for a moment, but long enough for her to catch it.

“Fine!” With that, Twilight turned around to the Changeling, who suddenly seemed to have disappeared. It took Fluttershy a second to make out the Changeling, lying next to the road, fallen in exhaustion. Why couldn’t Twilight see his innocence? What else would he have to do to prove that he meant no harm to them? To her great relief though, Twilight approached the fallen Changeling. Her magic quickly lifted the poor thing up and hovered him over to them.

“How are we going to get it to the next village?”

It wasn’t concern in Twilight’s voice but instead she seemed to be talking about an annoying duty like taking out the trash on a rainy day.

“Ah’ll take him. He is not that hard to carry and I am the strongest of us.”

With that being said, Twilight didn’t make much effort out of hiding her anger about the whole situation and simply dropped the body on Applejacks back without saying a word.

“If you decide otherwise, just drop him. He is dead weight anyway.”

With that, Twilight just turned around again and started trotting away. She didn’t even give a second glance back. What would Fluttershy do if Twilight really had gone mad? Would she stand by her friend’s side or would she fight for the right thing? What was the right thing in such a situation? Why was Twilight even forcing her to think about such terrible thoughts? If only this whole accident had not happened… I thought we were friends. What if their friendship would not survive this? A friendship forged in the darkest hours, a friendship going through the darkest days of demons reigning the world, a friendship bringing them closer than ever had been thought possible. Their friendship alone had defeated every danger they had encountered… and now it was about to break apart on a Changeling? No. It wasn’t the Changeling, they had fought thousands. It was Twilight… A hatred that goes beyond what is right or ethical, an anger that would crush their friendship. The only possible way for a friendship to die is starting to drift away from each other...

Not even Discord had managed to bring such devastation to them. Now Discord was reformed, a friend of theirs. He had had his own reasons and maybe Twilight had them too. While Discord had had a grief in his heart, being so friendless, the same could not possibly be true for Twilight. So what was it? What was that spark igniting Twilight’s flame of hatred again and again? What had the Changelings really done to her?

Fluttershy suddenly stopped as the realization hit her. It couldn’t be true, could it? Why would Twilight have never said anything? But the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. It connected all the pieces, it brought it all together… but why? As unbelievable as it was to her, as much it made sense. It was something - Fluttershy was not certain what exactly - in Twilight’s family. The Changelings had attacked the wedding and while it had seemed so easy to think that Queen Chrysalis had been the true reason for Twilight’s anger, what if there was something more to it? How was it possible that her brother had asked her so late? Maybe Twilight just felt left alone by her own family… and maybe seeing a Changeling was nothing but a reminder of the pain she felt. Twilight had thrown herself into her studies, trying to impress her family who had not paid enough attention to her. She had searched a new idol in Princess Celestia as her own mother had always been distant. It all made sense… but what if it only was speculation? What if Fluttershy was overseeing some crucial detail here? She could never bring it up… and yet the idea did not leave her mind. The questions just kept on returning… What if?

FOTC: Chapter 10 - Lessons

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“
We’re trotting along our way, we are trotting night and day!
We’re feasting on swell hay, goin’ wherever the wind may sway.

We’re strolling around lovely fields, see what our adventure yields,
We’re bringing the strongest shields, feel how our marching feels,
We’re galloping on ancient rails, swinging our brightly tails.
We’re gonna tip the mighty scales, following these nightly trails.
We’re climbing mountain’s height, pushing through the cloudy white.
We’re gonna rest in the night, until it’s morning’s bright.

And in the morning, we are going to bath in light.
And in the evening, we watch the coming night.
From the mountains, far and high.
From the valleys, deep and wide.
Our hearts are beating, to the drum’s old chords.
We are marching, with our silvern swords.
“

“Pinkie, deary, in all honesty. I don’t think that is a very fitting song.”

Although the song was an old classic, Rarity didn’t want it to spoil the atmosphere. Now that she thought about it though, it was awfully silent without it. Well, it wouldn’t be that much of a difference, now that they were almost in the village. It had been almost half a day of walking and Pinkie had sung songs for the entire day. It was incredible how enduring Pinkie was with singing. Although her own voice was a bit more professional with her singing, even she could not sing that long, but Pinkie’s many talents had long stopped surprising her.

Even more impressive was Applejack’s durability though, as she was carrying the heavy Changeling for the entire day without even falling behind. Nasty beasts, those things, yet still not as infuriating as they seemed to be for dear Twilight. No, her alicorn friend seemed to almost rage against those things and she could partially understand that, but the amount of hatred that Twilight expressed was just too much.

It was a good feeling when the first houses passed by on their way. This village was slightly bigger than most others, but still small compared to any other big city. The people here were all more like Applejack, unappreciative of the beauty that nature can contain within. They were just trying to get whatever they could out of the earth around them and use it to their advantage. Drinking clear water was nothing that she could condemn though.

It would be so wonderful to have a nice, clear, cold, lovely glass of water right now. She could almost imagine the wet liquid running through her dry throat, spreading refreshment throughout their entire body. Just a teeny tiny glass of water, dripping and dropping and trippling and troppling down, droplet after droplet.

“Rarity?”

It seemed that without even having noticed it, Rarity had entered some state of dehydrated trance and stopped in her tracks. While the others had decided to just move on, Fluttershy had turned around and was now staring at her in confusion. Slightly ashamed of her own behaviour, she decided it would be best to play it down.

“What is it, sweetie, have you discovered something of importance?”

“Ermm… No… Not really… but-but-but I justwantedtotellyouwearemeetinginthdncnmanticr”

The “Dancing Manticore”, at least Rarity hoped that was what Fluttershy had said, was a small village pub in the middle of this small oasis town. They would probably discuss what to do with the living sack of old potatoes that was currently being carried by the only pony strong enough to carry such a heavy weight. Without losing further time, standing around in the middle of the street like a dumbfounded maniac, contemplating whatever incredible new nonsense could be applied to their unbelievably inconceivably well thought out master plan. It was simply time to drink a bit of water. Or maybe, if they were lucky, even cider.

The place was great and so much stuff was happening and everypony laughed and drank and made a giant party and it was probably one of the best times of my life! It was one giant house made for parteys, and everypony was in party mood. The beer maidens danced on the tables, the pegasi made an air show, the unicorns projected dancing colors into the air, filling the room with the super-duper-awesomeness that was this giant party. Everypony in this pub was partying… well, except for her friends. Even though the sweet melodies of fast rhythmic music swept through the air, her friends voices were cold and hard when speaking about the broken Changeling.

The broken Changeling, at least that is how I like to call him, had been the cause of our distraction and misery. We weren’t even participating in this giant party just because we had to argue about the Changeling. To be quite honest with you, I have no idea why the whole thing even had to be discussed. We had met another pony, the pony felt threatened and made wrong decisions, and when we needed his help, he helped. And now, because of this help he is hurt rather badly. So why was there even a discussion about helping him back? Well, Twilight couldn’t bring it over herself to simply help him. Usually Pinkie would have just laughed and shrugged at the ignorance presented to her. She never made much of ignorance and just tried to avoid it wherever she could. Life is about fun, not about having some stupid stereotype and following it all your life, making you hate other ponies and unable to experience the fun of difference and getting to know other styles of life, other ways to achieve the only true achievement in life: A happy life. Of course some can’t be just happy like me, that is my own special talent, but with enough effort, you can make everypony smile! The thing about stereotypes though is, that it is much harder to get rid of them than to acquire them. Twilight couldn’t enjoy the happy atmosphere due to her hate towards Changelings… and now she was spreading the unhappiness throughout their entire corner. Everypony seemed so angry and it made me sick.

“Cheer up, everypony. It’s not the end of the world if we don’t agree on all things.”

I just threw it in there to stop the silence that had ensued after Twilight had screamed at Applejack to be too caring when dropping the poor thing into a bed.

“Not now, Pinkie Pie!”

The sharp response came from Rainbow Dash, not from Twilight. It seemed as if the disease of anger had spread throughout them all, leaving nopony untouched, no happiness left inside. It was a dangerous virus, a terrible harbinger of misfortune. An infection anchoring so deeply into ones mind that it changes their life. Nothing can come from it but unhappiness and disharmony.

“Let’s just leave him here, then we won’t have to argue about it anymore.”

This time, it was Rarity stating this preposterous idea. She had also become infected just like everypony else. I couldn’t just let her idea stand in the room like that.

“We can’t just leave him here. He helped us and now we should help him!”

“He helped us by luring us into a dragon cave, nearly killing us all?! He is nothing but a monster! For one second in your entire life, be reasonable! He wants to kill us all, no second in his life has he been truthful, no second in his life has he been doing something right, he is just fooling you all, trying to make you comply with his false ideals, lure you into trusting him and then he is going to backstab you. He is going to try to kill us all. HE IS INSANE!”

Twilight had caused almost the entire room to go silent. When she noticed the reactions to her outburst, she just stormed out of the pub, screaming: “DO WHAT YOU WANT!” Within seconds, she slammed the heavy wooden door behind her. Shortly after the loud sound spread through the pub, the musicians started playing again. Everypony wanted to go after Twilight, but somehow no pony could bring themselves to get up and face her anger. Something had to be said.

“Girls… I know that nopony wanted this to happen and we are all just tired. But please, be true to yourselves: Can we just let an innocent die because we’ve had bad experiences with others from his race?”

Although the expression on their faces didn’t change, it was obvious to me that they were thinking about what I had just said. Hopefully they would come to the same conclusion as I had… And then we could have fun together again.

It had been just an average conversation about some boring stuff like food rationing and such, when for some reason somepony had mentioned flying. Probably wanting to express the possibility that they could send her to the next village to grab some food or something like that. From that moment on, Rainbow Dash had listened a bit more closely, up from a rather comfortable cloud. The clouds in these lands were rougher since they had been given more time to develop, but this one was perfectly fine. Twilight had calmed down a bit, and she seemed far more relaxed than before:

“...and if Rainbow Dash can’t carry it all, we -”

“Hey! Of course I can carry it all!”

“Okay. In the hypothetical scenario that there was an overwhelming enemy in the air, for example a dragon and you would be limited in the capability of fighting the dragon and carrying the supplies at the same time, it could be good to send more than one pony, just to help you along a bit. We could send Fluttershy… and Ethereal.”

It didn’t even surprise Dash that Twilight would try to spend the least time possible with Ethereal and get rid of him whenever she could. Man, she really hated that guy for some reason. Of course she wouldn’t need the help in the hypothetical scenario and they both would be dead weight to her, but as long as that could prevent conflicts, she was fine with it. Preserving the friendship was much more important than her own pride.

“Sure. As long as they don’t hold me back too much…”

“I can’t fly.”

Wait, what? Had Ethereal just said he couldn’t fly?

“You got wings, dude. Of course you can fly.”

“No I can’t, I have no idea how to use these.”

Rainbow Dash couldn’t stop herself from giving a glance over to Twilight, who she had helped to learn to fly just a couple of months ago. Of course, Twilight’s flying ability was still more than lacking, but Dash had done wonders on a lost cause. Maybe she could… Of course she could! She was one of the strongest and best flyers in all of Equestria. If she couldn’t teach this Changeling how to fly, nopony could. She would prove herself, show that she was not only among the elite flyers in all of Equestria, but also one of the best flight trainers. Something that would only be fitting for the lead pony in a Wonderbolt’s flight squadron.

With a single, fluid movement, she jumped into the air, her wings tightly by her side, then with one big burst opened them both up, flapping one time to propel herself backwards, causing her body to rotate two times, before softly stopping her momentum by turning her wings in a particular manner, that allowed them to catch the air. A double backflip was one of her favorite choices as it was both quick and incredibly stylish.

“Ethereal, come over here.”

Even though his expression showed confusion and just a bit of awe, he still reacted quickly and without unnecessary motion. It was important to have the full control over one’s body when flying and this one seemed to be fit for the task as his wing muscles were strong and his mind seemed clear.

“Okay, now open your wings.”

While he seemed to try to make his backbone jump a salto and his legs tangle themselves, her friends turned around and resumed their boring talk. Seeing how it was obviously not necessary to participate in the conversation anymore and the obvious struggles of the Changeling, she decided it would be best to find a place for better training.

“I can’t do it. I have no idea how.”

“It’s… not a problem. Let’s just go somewhere, where not the entire village is watching your… attempts.”

The Changeling started blushing and quickly followed her lead. Of course she glided through the air instead of using her hooves. Flight was such a wonderful thing, to be able to just roam freely and go wherever you might want to without much effort. To simply feel the airflow around oneself when diving into the deepest cavities, to feel the sun burning brightly and yet feeling the cold air rushing by you at the same time. To hear the roaring thunder of a mighty storm and still feel powerful enough to conquer the winds themselves, to fight a battle of superiority, always with the possibility to fall and yet risking it every time. To sense the world around you and to sense yourself, that was the art of flight.

“Okay, here is fine.”

Although they had not ventured too far, this area still seemed to be fine for training. There was a steep cliff before them, just some hundred hooves, but enough for a good flight lesson. All of it behind a ‘wall’ of big black stones, aligning perfectly to hide them from the village, if they didn’t fly up too high.
“So, you are telling me you have no idea how to flap your wings?”

“Yes.”

This would prove difficult, but it wasn’t the first time that she had met somepony with supposedly paralyzed wings. It was all about the right feeling.
Without saying a world, Dash rushed towards the Changeling, quickly pushing herself into his side. The reaction went just as she had expected. He almost lost his balance, desperately trying to change the center of mass, spreading limbs and … his wings. It was a basic test to verify if wings were really paralyzed or if the pony was just unable to control them properly. A truly wing-paralyzed pegasus wouldn’t have been able to move their wings to balance themselves. It was a basic reaction to tense all of your muscles in face of the danger of falling over, so the spreading of his wings had been an instinctive reaction.

“See, you can flap your wings.”

She couldn’t help but to put more pride into those words than she had planned to. If she could get him to make his first flight on this day already, she would prove her skill!

“Okay, so let me just…”

With these quick words, she approached Ethereal again, but not to throw him over, but instead to touch his wings. They were well cared for, in excellent shape, at least as far as she could tell for non feathered wings. She slowly moved his wings around, inspecting them carefully. Then, suddenly she pushed it as far upwards as she could.

“OUCH! Why?! Argh!”

Exactly the reaction she had hoped for. She quickly released the pressure and the wing snapped back into its original position. He definitely had a feeling in his wings!

“Okay, so where does it hurt?”

“In my back, because you nearly ripped my wings off!”

“No, where exactly does it hurt?”

Surprised by the question, Ethereal took more time to contemplate about the possible meaning of it. She could see him concentrate on where the pain might come from. After a short moment of hesitation, he finally answered.

“Right under my shoulders.”

That was actually quite interesting. Unlike pegasi, who had their flight muscles attached right on the connection of wing to body, this Changeling seemed to have his muscle strings attach inside of his body. That was probably the reason why they could switch between the state of having their wings attached to their body and the state where they could fly easily.

“Okay, now try to tense up your muscle on that particular spot.”

“But my wings are much further d-”

“Just do it!”

His face changed into an image of ambition and quickly after that into exhaustion, but with feathertip after feathertip he pushed his wings… backwards for some reason. After about 5 feathertips, his wings suddenly pushed outwards with one rather nasty noise. It sounded as if Ethereal had just broken his bones or something, but he didn’t make any sound.

“Ethereal, I think you can stop now.”

The confused Changeling turned around, then screamed in shock. Yes, he literally screamed in shock of his own wings. Don’t ask me why. He just did.

“Okay, now, see if you can… I don’t know, move your muscles up and down… I guess.”

It was much harder describing the whole process than just doing it. What were you really doing when you were flapping your wings? You push them up like you push your hand up. I mean, could you describe how eating works if they didn’t know about their own mouth muscles? It is so weird even to think about it, that somepony with wings couldn’t simply control them. I mean, she had seen it before, but it still weirded her out.

The sun had almost sunk behind the horizon, when his wings finally opened on his first try. The thick air quickly slowed his downward motion and allowed him to push himself up further. Then, he quickly pulled his wings upwards, slightly tilted to the side so that he wouldn’t push himself downwards again, pushing his wings down again, which in turn lifted himself up, just to repeat the whole process again and again.

It was an incredibly difficult task to just keep on flapping without stopping for a second, as the deep valley below him greeted him with death. He gave it all, slowly crawling upwards hoof after hoof. His teacher, the rainbow colored pegasus was flying saltos and barrel rolls in the air in the meanwhile. To see the ease in her flight made him a bit envious, seeing as he could only push himself up with greatest efforts. Still, that was a giant leap from yesterday, where he had not even known that he would ever be able to fly. Now, he still couldn’t really fly well, but he could move those wings. It was freedom, even if under such a big price.

“Don’t worry Ethereal,” Rainbow Dash yelled down from her height “training makes mastery. Just keep on trying and maybe one day you will be able to fly properly.”

He once again doubled his efforts and gained height more quickly. He had trained the whole process of flapping his wings for the entirety of the noon and afternoon, until in the early evening, they had started to try out the cliff. The first try had run horrible, just crashing into the walls and barely able to stop himself. As the hours went by though, he quickly got the hang of the basics. He still had major problems in tilting his wings to let the air pass by in the right moment, but holy Ostia, he was able to fly! A flying unicorn, that’s not something you see every day!

With the quick succession of three particularly strong pushes, he gained enough momentum to barely reach over the cliff and land on the side, exhausted, but also proud. He had mastered flight! He was the master of all elements now, defying the very nature of gravity, controlling the forces around him, doing the impossible! He had done it! Take that, mother nature! Take that, you damned winds! Take that, you damn desert! Either it was this feeling of ecstasy and pride or it was the simple fact that walking on three legs painfully reminded himself of what was missing, but he decided to fly the way back home.

Of course Rainbow Dash always pushed ahead, giving him always just enough time to barely catch up, until she zoomed through the landscape again. Her Rainbow Mane was shining brightly in the red light of the descending sun, giving it an almost ethereal look. Her eyes were filled with pride and joy and ambition, so full of life like he had never seen before. She was… beautiful.

The early sun had just risen over the horizon and yet Fluttershy noticed that the Changeling was already missing from their room. For the entire last day he had been training with Rainbow Dash and it seemed as if they both were out again. She would probably be able to find them at the cavity later, but for now there was a journey that had to be prepared. It would be an act of kindness to just let them both train, while she and her friends would care for everything else. The Changeling really seemed to quite enjoy flying… and for some reason she could understand that, even though she would probably never enjoy it that much herself. It wasn’t the fear from the past… not anymore. Still, every time she flapped her wings, it seemed as if she was stuck in some sticky goo, struggling for her life to get up. She was strong enough to defy gravity, to freely roam through the air and yet it all presented no joy to her.

Fluttershy decided to meet up with the others outside, but when she opened the door, she realized that Twilight had already prepared everything over the night, assembling hills of food supplies and gadgets to be used right in the middle of the road, blocking several villagers in their way to work. Twilight had shown her overly punctual behavior before, but this? She probably just wanted to get this all over with. Still, that would leave a question for her: What was she supposed to do now? Well… There was one thing she still wanted to do: Meeting the rare desert animals would be a fantastic way to start the long, lifeless journey. To find the small critters however would be a rather difficult task as most animals had adapted to the desert so well that they were almost impossible to see - which was something she had read in books about exotic animals. Fluttershy could only wonder about the inhabitants of this black desert though.

Without even venturing out too far, Fluttershy noticed a rather strange creature cowering between the rocks. Although she had trained eyes when it came to small critters, this one had almost been squashed by her hooves. Much similar to a tiny snake, this black cuteling had no legs, but due to its black dull skin, it was incredibly well hidden in the rocky area. Fluttershy decided to pull out some of the leaves she had gathered a couple of days ago. By now, the beautiful color had faded anyway. Nature’s beauty can’t last forever, nothing can. Still, it was a shame to have lost such beauty. Now it would serve as possible food for the little thing. Fluttershy was quite surprised when the small black creature jumped up to her saddlebag, starting to feast upon the entirety of her assemblance. All the wonderful things she had gathered throughout their journey were lost in a matter of seconds. The earth from Ponyville, the dust from Appaloosa, the stones from the macintosh hills, and the dead wood from the Lycantare jungle was all that was left after the little guy was done with the contents of her bag.

“Quite hungry, are we?” Fluttershy couldn’t help but to smile at the insatiable hunger of the little thing. She had seen lots of wild creatures, but never one this… strange.

It got even weirder when the creature seemed to make some kind of… nest inside of her bag. Being quite honest though, she really didn’t mind it, as it was an excellent opportunity to study the lifestyle of these animals. The way it quickly crawled around in her bag made her wonder how it could move like that. Of course she knew how snakes moved, but she had never seen one this quick and agile. Its body seemed to unnaturally just go wherever it wanted, defying every law of physics. Something about it though was cute. In a way she would never be able to explain, she adored the little thing. Then again, she also adored cutesy little spiderses, so why shouldn’t she adore this? For it to come with her though, it would need a name… While Fluttershy’s mind rumbled like an ancient mechanism in mossy stone that would unlock doors to tremendous treasury, she slowly made her way back to the village. They were all probably already waiting for her so they could finally begin their journey.

FOTC: Chapter 11 - The journey begins

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Once again Twilight regretted not having allowed Spike to come along. There were several reasons that had spoken against him coming along, most prominent being the dangerous situation they would find themselves in. It’s not like he hadn’t been in dangerous situations before, but if something would happen to him, could she live with that? Now, she felt nothing but the searing pain of regret as Spike would have been a wonderful help in organizing this journey. While she had been able to finally assemble everything, the lack of her companion had eaten at her the whole time. Maybe it was more than just the organization… Maybe his grounded way was more important to her than she had ever recognized.

Now she was standing in the middle of the road, left alone by all her friends who had turned against her again and again. Their oblivious minds would be their demise if she could not help them… but how could she actually help them see the danger they were throwing themselves into? To openly accuse the changeling would bring nothing but further disapproval, so she would have to somehow get him to show his true self before it would be too late for them. A trap! There had to be a way to lure him into giving away his secrets, but what could it be?

“Twilight?” As she heard the soft spoken words, Twilight turned around to see that Fluttershy had come back. Since everypony was finally here again, they could finally start their journey. Rainbow Dash and the thing had flown ahead to scout their path since there had not really been anything else for them to do after they had finished their training. Well, the ‘scouting’ was probably just a different word for training in this case. That would only leave the location of Rarity unknown as Applejack had challenged Pinkie Pie to a game of cards. For hours on end they have both been sitting in the same tavern, trying to defeat each other. The last time she had checked, it had been 25 to 34 for Pinkie and Applejack had asked for a rematch.

“Fluttershy, can you get Applejack and Pinkie Pie? I’ll go see if I can find Rarity.”

Without giving Fluttershy the time to speak up, Twilight turned around to find Rarity somewhere in this village. It shouldn’t be too hard to find her somewhere on these sandy streets, jammed between the rusty old houses. She was still not sure what kind of city Rarity had expected, but this would have probably not met those expectations. It was, like most villages around here, a random assembly of wooden barns and small market stands than anything that could be considered a proper city. Twilight started to arbitrarily trott throughout the streets, crossing to the right or left from time to time. Before she had reached the fifth corner, she had already found Rarity talking to another pony in a small market stand. Only when getting a bit closer had she realized that, somehow, Rarity had found another ‘fashionista’. The stand was tiny and the dresses were randomly strewn throughout it, yet Rarity seemed to be quite interested in the style of them. And to be quite honest, Twilight could see where she was coming from. These oriental designs were really a wonderful sight, but it was not what she had come here for.

“Rarity, we want to head off now!” The tone in of her voice conveyed the sense of urgency, or at least she hoped that it was conveyed correctly. Rarity at first didn’t seem to be bothered, but after Twilight repeated herself, now in a much angrier tone, the mare finally complied and turned away from the small stand. When Rarity walked by her, the disappointment was obvious in her eyes:

“Couldn’t you have left me just one more minute? She was about to reveal the technique to those wonderful designs!”

“It was your own decision to come with me. Now you’ll have to bear the consequences.”

With a bit of muttering, Rarity complied and started trotting alongside Twilight towards the stack of supplies the librarian had assembled before. In the meanwhile, Fluttershy had somehow managed to get Applejack and Pinkie Pie to end their game and come out as well. Rainbow Dash wouldn’t need to be informed as she had probably kept an eye out for the village the whole time. The amount of time that the Changeling spent with Rainbow Dash was in fact slightly worrying, but on the one hoof that meant that he wasn’t spending time in her proximity, and on the other hoof Rainbow Dash has proven her loyalty often enough and even a sly Changeling wouldn’t be able to change anything about it. But just to be sure she would keep an eye out for her unsuspecting friend…

“It’s impossible!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, almost too loudly.

It was nothing unexpected to hear the pegasus call out like that, since the situation really seemed hopeless. The towering castle throned up high above the long decline in front of it, watching out for anypony or anything to approach. The landscape gave them nothing to work with, no place to hide behind. It seemed really impossible to somehow sneak into the castle unseen, yet it was no reason to give up their hope. While on this side of the castle there was just the plain open. On the other side were thousands of boulders and steep cliffs, spikes and strange deformed parts of landscape that had seemed like the idea of a storm that an ingenious engraver had depicted. It would surely be a rough and a dangerous climb, but they would be rewarded with an unseen entry to the castle. Although Ethereal Tear still did not like the idea to take such a dangerous path when the sky above them was open, it still made sense after all.

“It would indeed be impossible to just straight up rush towards their hideout,” he carefully placed his personal pronouns knowing that the purple alicorn was still staring at him “but there is another way we could take. Before you consider it though, I must warn you: The path is dangerous and steep, yet unseen from most castle windows and definitely not patrolled.”

“Yeah, and you said it was a bad idea to take him with us!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, already having decided they would take the dangerous route in her head.

While most of what he had said had been nothing but the truth, one word was painfully a lie: Definitely. It was nothing more than a wild guess that the backside of the castle was unpatrolled. He had never seen somepo-... someling walk towards these parts, and it seemed as if no pony ever talked about them either. His logical conclusion had been the abandonment of those parts, but what if there had been something different? Well, either possible way would result in either being caught or not. The one was easy but would lead to definite discovery, while the other one was extremely difficult but would have decreased chances of being found, especially since one could hide behind the strange formations. Now that he thought about it, they kinda reminded him of the holes in the legs of the Changelings, almost as if nature had copied the design from them... Or maybe the other way around?

“Then what are we waitin’ for? Let’s go. Yehaa!” It had been the farming pony yelling a bit too loudly for his taste but he had heard worse. Old Mrs. Winneehbee had always screamed at anypony crossing “her” street. A demented old lady, whom time had taken the talent of logical thought from. Often her words were general mumbling, sometimes she screamed for no reason, but never ever did she answer a question given to her. Her reactions generally had been slow and even though it always had pained him to talk about such a topic like this: She was probably going to die very… She was already dead… Like his wife and son. Even though the pain had not lost a bit of strength, he tried as hard as he could to not give a single tear a chance to escape as it would only lead to more pain explaining his company why a Changeling randomly started to tear up. Yet he could not stop the memories rushing through his brain, the light laughter of his wife came out of some distant world, trying to remind him of what he had had… and what he had lost. To ignore his memories was incredibly hard but there was a task at hand that had to be completed, there were ponies staring at him.

“Why don’t we simply send the Changeling? I mean, it could get into the castle without being noticed…”

Of course it had been the purple alicorn, who else could it have been? Always complaining and relentlessly whining about every little detail.

“Well, excuse me princess, but Changelings know themselves well enough to notice an intruder like me and they would not appreciate my sudden appearance.” Again, partially a lie since they would probably appreciate my appearance, just sadly in a manner that would not allow him to leave again. A rather strange escape, now that he thought about it again… It really had been too easy.

The purple unicorn just groaned and without even trying to converse, she simply started to trot through this far end of the valley where there were still enough boulders in addition to the distance to make it hard, if not impossible, to be spied upon. Quickly, they started to follow the annoyed mare through shadows and stone sculptures. While the front of the castle had a gently declining slope, the back of it revealed a mixture of broken boulders and bizarre formations on an incredibly steep slope. Interestingly enough, the color also changed from the greyish black to a paler white. One could only guess that it was a result of missing dragonfire…
For minutes there was no sound except the continuous clapping of hooves onto the dark surface below them and the occasional stone being sent on a journey further down the hill. Only when the steep cliff on the backside of the castle came in sight, a sudden discussion was ignited.

“We can’t climb up there! This was all for nothing!” the purple alicorn complained once again.

And once again it were her friends, not Ethereal, being annoyed by the constant demonstration of complaint. Although it really was nerve-racking at times, mostly he didn’t mind or he could even understand her distrust as he would have distrusted himself just a couple of month… a long time ago. For some reason he suddenly felt sorry for her and the more he thought about it, the worse it got. Everything seemed to fade away except for the nagging feeling of regret and pain. He looked up again, away from the black ground below and right into the purple eyes staring at him in this very moment. This anger… It wasn’t just her…

“Twilight, I am sorry.”

In the instance of a single second, he had ten more eyes staring at him, questioning faces and an incredibly confused Alicorn.

“I am sorry for everything. I have come into your life and all I have done is threatening your friends lives whether by intention or rather by accident. Still, they have given me a chance, a sign of such forgiveness I could have never hoped for. You however were much more cautious to protect your friends from whatever harm might have come from me. I understand that. Yet, I am the reason why your anger grows, a corruptive splint in your friendship. However, I cannot change anything about who I am or what I look like. Please just accept my apology… and accept me.”

Beyond her pupils was the coming night, the sun in its dusk, the brightly colored clouds, colored in memories of the wonderful days together with her friends. Slowly, her lids closed, sealing away that world of wonders, just to then reveal the fire that could not be extinguished by such puny merits. The fire that burned down so deeply in her heart, ignited by the fear to lose what she held dearest.

“You described yourself very well, corruptive splint. You are trying to rip everything apart, aren’t you?! And then you are playing dumb, you are PLAYING them all, you are trying so HARD to fool us. They might be BLIND towards your facade, but I AM NOT.”

She looked up into the sky for a second, then brought her piercing gate down to him and added: “I hate you.”

It wasn’t the kind of ‘I hate you’ that one threw out there in anger, it was much much more painful than that. Even though - or maybe just because - he had tried to stop it, her hatred had started to consume her very core. Suddenly he realized something: It had not been his fault, nor had it been hers. It was the strength of their friendship that would have forced anypony into a fear of losing it. To cling to the most wonderful thing that had probably happened to their life would be natural to anypony - especially after what he had heard about Twilight’s past from Rainbow Dash, he was sure that her friends meant everything to her. The idea of losing what defined you was more threatening than anything else. And once again he was here, analysing their lives, almost like an outside visitor. It wasn’t a feeling of distance, much rather an absence of feelings. ‘Cold and Hard’ were the words that he found most fittingly, not only for his own state but also for the entire situation they found themselves in. Looking up at the steep wall, he found that another word could be added: ‘Dangerous’. For some reason, he felt like he had lost control over his emotions, but there had never been any to begin with. There was a question slowly growing in the back of his mind: Was he still himself? Who or what was he? There was no simple answer anymore. How could he know that he was still himself and was not somepony different? He didn’t look like himself anymore, he didn’t feel like himself anymore and he had forgotten so much about his past, almost as if he had never really lived it. Was he still himself?

“I hate you”. It was a mere whisper that came from her friend’s mouth and yet it could not have been screamed louder. Fluttershy had never before seen Twilight as hateful as the mare had grown now. The Changeling in the meanwhile seemed to be struck by a sudden numbness, staring into the black distance. This land seemed so sadly dead, and even though she knew there was life - she even had some in her bag - it still saddened her to see such devastation. She wasn’t sure whether it had been brought by the Changelings devouring much more than could be sustained, by the dragons spreading fire throughout the lands or simply by the climate, a hot sun burning down relentlessly. However, Fluttershy knew best that even though the condition seemed so horrifically dark, there was still more than the eye could see, life hiding beneath the black blanket settled over the land. One proof was right there in her bag, deeply asleep.

When Fluttershy looked up again, Rainbow Dash had already started climbing wordlessly. After a couple of steps, the pegasus turned around, her eyes calling for them to follow her. Only slowly Fluttershy’s hooves complied her command to start trotting. While her friends were still more reluctant towards that idea, soon they also followed her and Dash’s example. Soon they all found themselves trying to find spots for their hooves to properly stand on, even Twilight. It struck Fluttershy that Twilight didn’t just teleport ahead, maybe in the fear of being discovered. The more she thought about it though, the more certain she got that it was actually the solidarity she displayed towards them. She wanted to thank Twilight, but she wasn’t sure if her voice would reach the alicorn down below; and if it would it would be too loud, too dangerous, bringing them all into trouble that she wanted to avoid.

Even though she hated to admit it, the silence hung over them like a thick asphyxiant blanket, drowning out all happiness. Fluttershy, even though she didn’t allow herself to even think about it, could feel the searing pain of knowing that their friendship was slowly dying beneath it. She would have screamed out in the pain of knowledge if it was not choking her too. The deep depression was stealing her words, sealing them away beyond the darkness.

“Hey, Fluttershy, are you alright?”

Fluttershy looked up again, and was shocked to find a giant creature of darkness right before her. It took her less than a second to realize that it was just Rainbow Dash hovering before her, but her sudden expression of shock seemed to have gone unnoticed, or maybe just ignored.

“Ermm… I think I am. I mean, it’s dark and cold here and all and I hope you don’t think I would feel good when you don’t so you think something is wrong with you.” Without even noticing, Fluttershy’s voice had declined to a mere whisper, impossible to hear over the sharp wind gliding through the rocky formations. Rainbow Dash had obviously dismissed the idea of climbing at the first sign of somepony needing her help.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Fluttershy looked back sadly and Rainbow Dash opened her mouth, but without saying anything she shut it again and flew back to her position, up hundreds of hooves further. Suddenly Fluttershy’s mind got swept by a sudden wave of terrible thoughts. Should she have said something? Should she have spoken about the feelings she had or was it more cautious to have said nothing? Had her answer hurt Rainbow Dash’s trust in her honesty?

“Come on, Fluttershy, we don’t have all day.” Again, Fluttershy was slightly startled by the loud call, but when she looked up she realized why she had been called. While most of her friends were already close to the edge of the steep mountainside, she was still only a third of the way up. Slowly and steadily she increased the tempo of her steps, their stomps the only sound now that the direction of the wind had tilted just a bit.

It was a rather difficult task climbing up through the spike-filled deathtrap of a cliff. More than one time, her hoof slipped, but before the rainbow colored pegasus could dash down to her, she quickly found grip again. Fluttershy winced when she looked up to find the next spot to place her forehoof on, the image of the giant castle towering darkly over her. The castle itself was white in color, but the shadows playing around the thick black overgrowth made it a sinister play of grey and black. Were they really going to infiltrate the nest of the Changelings? Suddenly Fluttershy felt the urge to gallop back as quickly as possible, but she had learned long ago to control her fears in any kind of danger. Now she had to be strong, not for herself, but instead for her friends. Without letting further time pass, Fluttershy quickly placed her hoof on a suitable spot.

Twilight was furious, not because of the Changeling this time, though. This time it was the fear of being discovered that slowly gnawed away at her nerves. They were standing right next to the thick wall, impossible to be discovered. Fluttershy, however, was still making her last steps. The clumsy mare had somehow managed to require more than double the time everypony else had needed. More than one time the pegasus had stiffened, becoming an unmoving statue. It almost seemed like the Changeling had somehow managed to infect her, causing her to falter again and again. The little flame down deep in her heart yearned for redemption, but her friends were protecting her from burning down. She knew it would be unwise to openly accuse the Changeling again as long as her friends were in proximity.

Furthermore there were a lot of other things to do, not implying that they would be more important than saving her friends from their own naivety. Her nights were still filled with the strange image of the red amulet, haunting her dreams and causing searing pain as it started to glow. The nights had been too short and too filled with sweat to really get the rest she had needed. Her body was now slowly taking its toll, causing her legs to tremble under her own weight.

Finally the yellow pegasus took a last leap, being carried by the helping hoof of Rainbow Dash. Now her full attention had to go towards keeping them all safe while they would dive through the lion’s den. Once again, Twilight’s mind was plagued by the fear of having done something wrong. What if it had been a bad idea to take her friends with her? She needed them, but could she survive seeing her friends captured or hurt? No, and that is why she should most definitely have everything prepared. The idea was infiltrating the lower floors and exploring the castle as the Changelings were situated mostly in the upper floors. From down there, she would also try to use a certain item-searching spell. She had used it before for finding certain books by their magical signature, but she had given up enchanting every book in an own magical aura because it had only resulted in a giant cacophony of auras making it impossible to single one out. The castle would be different though; Although the dream had given her a general idea of the magical composition of the amulet’s aura, it would still require either hours of concentration, which would be hard to get right in the hornet’s nest, or a very close proximity to the amulet’s influence. The magical aura decreases with the inverse of the square of the distance between the pony sensing it and the source. She had actually conducted some very interesting experiments about that matter earlier in her youth.

“Sooooo, Twilight?” When Twilight looked around in confusion, it took her a second to realize that the rainbow colored pegasus who had just spoken to her was floating slightly above the ground.

“What is it, Rainbow Dash?” Now the pegasus rolled her purple eyes, obviously annoyed by her question.

“How are we going to get in?”

“Well, there has to be a door somewhere.” Now the rainbow colored mare just groaned out loudly.

“There is a door. A giant wooden gate with huge metal knobs and everything!” Now it was Twilight’s turn to moan.

“Then, why is there a problem?”

“It’s locked!”

“Oh well, that shouldn’t be much of a problem. Being a princess brings a lot of duties, but I still take my time to learn new spells. It is indeed a very delicate work of levitation art to exactly shift multiple objects at once, but nothing in comparison to teleporting or time travel.”

Twilight felt her face transforming into a childish grin and she quickly exchanged it for a cold smile. It wasn’t the time to have fun, this was a serious adventure and life and death could depend on her every move.

“Yeah, yeah. We all know you are great, but please get on with it.”

At first Twilight was a bit shocked at that harsh answer. Of course her answer had been a bit… overextensive, but this? This was definitely the Changeling’s corrupt influence. The way they look at her, the way they talk, all of them are infected.

“Whoa there, nelly. If you ain’t got nothin’ nice to say, just say nothin’.”

The rainbow mare grumpily dropped back onto the cold black ground, while Twilight went ahead to find the wretched gate. It wasn’t more than five steps until she reached the giant wooden door, covered with metal platings to keep it safe, even against greater force. It was obvious that the path that had once lead to it was now nothing but rubble down in the valley. The entire hill seemed to be filled with thousands of holes, causing her mind to conjure pictures of a giant mosquito sucking out the stone from underneath until this side had lost the power to support itself. A shattered, dead landscape; Just the right place for such abominations.

The door was actually quite hard to unlock, or maybe she had just not had enough training in the last weeks. The different pins often were too rusty to be moved delicately. Either the applied force was too low to move it at all or she applied too much force and the pin shot far over it’s goal. The whole thing was made worse by her blocked view. It actually took her about a minute of absolute undisturbed concentration, until, with a rumbling click, the door slowly opened.

FOTC: Chapter 12 - Inside

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With a deep howl the huge wooden gate slowly swung towards them, blocking out more and more of the spare light until they finally stood in complete darkness. The air was heavy with dust, and a muggy stench penetrated it through and through. While it finally left her the freedom to take off the ground, Rainbow Dash still felt weirdly prohibited. Not that she had never been in a closed room before, yet the complete darkness veiled any space that this room could have had. Only when Twilight’s horn started to glow dimly, Rainbow released the muscles she had tensed without even realizing. She slowly pushed her wings out, spreading her feathers to the fullest, feeling the muscles press against her soft skin. A short sigh of relief escaped her mouth before she could have stopped it. Of course she wasn’t scared of this place, nopony would be scared by shadows dancing dangerously over thick, dark walls accompanied by eerie sounds of cold air rushing through invisible shelves.

Suddenly, the light quickly galloped away, towards the giant bookshelves to each side of the hall.
It was more than just surprising to actually see bookshelves in the entrance hall. As Twilight’s light grew larger and larger as she tried to read some book, Rainbow could make out that this was not the actual entrance hall. Either they had entered through some back entrance or this castle was just not designed like normal castles should be. Twilight seemed to once again be in her element, finally having something to read. Even though Rainbow Dash had learned there could be enjoyment in reading, she would never have this obsession with any kind of book. Some were nice and action packed, but others just dull and boring. Who in Equestria needed to know the “Quantized effects of magical bursts” except for an egghead like Twilight?

“Twilight, deary, I don’t think it is the right time to be skimming through these books in such an inhospitable environment.” Rarity rightfully pointed out.

“Excuse me, but what we might find here might be of indescribable value to all of Equestria!”

Rarity groaned, but instead of further complaining, she lit her own light and started wandering off into the seemingly uninhabited darkness. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie looked at each other nervously, then followed the quickly fading shine. Rainbow Dash decided to stay even though the books didn’t really seem interesting. Maybe, just maybe, below the giant mountain of rubble a gem awaited her hungry eyes. She started opening the first book that caught her eye, which was rather old, yet it had somehow preserved its beautiful sky blue color.

She slowly pushed the heavy cover open while cursing bookmakers for using such unhandy material. Inside, she found an impressively accurate drawing of the anatomy of an alicorn, having a real one standing right behind the picture as comparison. The amount of details was overwhelming and it spurred her on to the next pages. Those however, were filled with hundreds of signs that seemed like letters of long forgotten civilisations.

“What the heck is this even…?”

When she turned the book around to look at what she had assumed to be its front, she noticed that there was no cover on either side, just the thick blank blue binder. She decided to put the book down onto her stack of supplies and maybe look into it at some point. For now, there were more important things to discover.

‘Mysteries of Magic’ goes in. ‘Seven Journeys’ stays here. ‘Dysfunctional Machines and the Complexity of Engineering.’ … goes in. Twilight quickly skimmed through book after book, either taking it with her or simply dropping it to the ground like a rotten sack of potatoes. It was a shame to drop a single one, but she had neither the capacity nor the time to store them all. ‘Ancient Brews’ … She had a very similar version called ‘Ancient Recipes’. Was that a good sign or a bad sign though? On the one hoof, the book could contain information that she already knew, but on the other hoof it could be a whole new adventure... Goes in. For just a moment, Twilight turned around to look out for her friends. Pinkie Pie and Rarity were both on the other side of what appeared to be a small library of some sorts. While normal libraries had bookshelves throughout the entire room, this one had its walls carved out to make room for these ancient treasures. In the middle of the room there was a giant globe, bigger than anything she had ever seen before. In fact, it was so huge that the architects had decided to cut a giant hole into the ceiling. Such a giant metal globe would have to be immensely heavy, considering it was a couple of hundred hooves high. Four thirds times pi times about 50 hooves cubed with an approximate density of about 7.5kilograms per hoof cubed. Hmm. Okay. That thing was really really heavy. Maybe there was a secret mechanism somewhere to rotate it, or maybe it had to be stationary due to its size.

Before Twilight could start wandering around the globe though, the traitorous sound of buzzing insect wings filled the hall. Twilight quickly let her lighting spell go and looked over to Rarity, but her friend had been even faster than her. Now, the room was filled with a depressing silence, only disturbed by the buzzing of wings. The sound of the wings intensified as a low squeaking noise echoed through the room. Light from outside fell into the room, painting two shadows onto the wooden flooring.

“Oh, come on. You know I hate to do this…”

“Yeah, but it’s ordered. Now shut up and start patrolling your route.”

“If she is gone right now, there is no one to check whether we are doing our job or not. Let’s just head back and tell them we are done.”

“Don’t you think it would be obvious that we finish our patrol half an hour earlier?”

“I hate this.”

“I know.”

With that, the two shadows started moving into the room. With a quiet clicking noise, hundreds of lights magically flashed, bathing the room in a warm light. Twilight was stunned for a second, not having expected magical lights, but quickly caught herself. Within a single heartbeat she conjured a spell and released it. In her shock, she had used the first spell that came to her mind. She watched in awe as both Changelings were catapulted into the air and immediately released again. While her reaction had come from pure shock, Rarity seemed to have thought such a scenario through already. She quickly closed the door behind the Changelings and signaled Applejack to get her trusty rope out. Applejack, not seeming a bit shocked by the sudden appearance of the two shadows - Then again, their wings had given them away really early. Even though Applejack tried to be as swift as possible, the two Changelings still screamed their souls out before she could use the thick rope to silence them. Now it was merely a matter of time until help would find its way down here.

Twilight silently cursed her ignorance of the problem at hand and started to search for that certain aura that seemed to have taken over her every dream. She found it immediately, the thin aura floating through the air like a perfume which you simply cannot forget. To locate its source was the harder part and Twilight started to frantically gallop through the room to make out the direction in which it would intensify. While there seemed to be no immediate threat, it was now only a matter of time until they would be discovered. The result, however, was confusing. The aura seemed to originate from the globe. Why would somepony put such an important amulet inside of a globe? However, the more Twilight thought about it, the more it made sense. If the whole thing was empty, it could very well hide an important secret like the amulet. Now, how would you get into such a metal structure? Teleporting was what came to mind first, but how could she know how the insides of it looked like? She didn’t want to end up half-stuck into a supportive strut. Somehow, she would have to cut through the outer shell and create a hole that could reveal the secrets inside. What spell would be most fit to cut through metal? Physical pressure would probably be less effective than intense heat, but cutting through it? That would require an immense amount of energy and time. They couldn’t just give up now.

“Applejack? Can you lock or block the door?”

“Eh, sure, but I don’t think that will stop them for long…”

Twilight simply ignored that comment and asked Rarity: “Can you try to sense the amulet?”

With that, Rarity’s horn started glowing, almost like a signal for Applejack to start barricading the door. Applejack chose to bind the leftover parts of the rope to the door, which would make it impossible to open the door without pushing the two Changelings aside. Then again she knew, that against enough force it simply wouldn’t hold up. She then proceeded to push piles of books in front of the door, slowly building up a suitable hinderance. In the meanwhile, Rarity searched around the room, until she stopped, her expression slightly confused. After a couple of minutes of further searching and stopping, she finally opened her mouth:

“Twilight, deary, if I were not as sure as I am, I would probably doubt myself, but it seems as if the amulet is actually below us.”

Twilight groaned as she realized that this meant that she had to get back to the drawing board. Her whole plan was ruined now. She had already started conjuring her first attempts at a spell hot enough to feast through the thick iron but nothing had worked. Now, with this piece of information they would have to somehow find a way down under. That, of course, would be easy if they at least knew a teeny tiny bit about this dreaded death hole, but as it stood they were pretty much done for. Now it was all her fault.

“Changeling, what is the way down?”

“Well, you could have asked me nicely… and I don’t know. I am as new to this place as you are. Having spent a bit of time in the upper etages doesn’t make this my home. It is just… I like to imagine it as just another weird stop on this strange ride. I don’t even know anymore. After all...”

“Yeah, we get it.” Twilight Sparkle couldn’t contain her annoyance. Why in Equestria did they have to pick up the only Changeling in all of Equestria that had to litter their lives with its boring story. As far as information had leaked, he had been in old Equestria and found an amulet and then he was here as a Changeling. Even Applejack could come up with better lies than that.

“Applejack, I think we need to get out there now.”

The annoyed mare stood there for a second, complexed by that sudden change of order, then contemplating if the new one would have the same result and finally just complying to it. This time however, everypony started to help her. Within less than a minute a stack of books covered two changelings in the corner of the room, while the door was finally accessible again. With this much time lost however, it was no wonder that the first armored Changelings already had made their way down. As Twilight Sparkle stepped into the hallway she was spotted immediately by a group of five Changelings in iron armor. With such heavy armor they would probably not be able to fly, making it impractical for open assaults but all the more practical for closed spaces. Their hollow body is perfectly adapted to their insect wings but that also means that carrying heavy weights during flight is rather difficult for them. Of course the same is true for pegasi, just not as extremely. Guessing by their stance they were prepared to face a group of intruders, but probably not prepared to face the alicorn princess herself. Their armor was thick, but their protection was much more physical than actually of magical kind. She could probably strike three easy hits on the foremost guards with a firebolt and would have enough time to finish the other two off afterwards.

Her plan was quickly disturbed as a small explosion shortly behind them knocked them down, throwing bits and pieces of debris throughout the hallway. Twilight quickly looked around in confusion, assessing this newest threat. For a second, just a second, she was shocked in awe as the terrifying image of a monstrous shadow with his green aura towering over her friends was painted before her, just before it vanished as her shock subsided.

This time Twilight didn’t even bother about securing the place. Either the missing guards or at least the sound of the explosion would be a dead giveaway. If they still wanted a chance on finishing this project, they would have to go quickly.

“Okay, we head over there.” Twilight simply pointed to her left, not really completely sure they would find a way down there. Then again, she really didn’t want to explore to her right as that was the direction the threat was coming from, which would be just like running blindly into their abnormal enemies’ open arms. Even though her mind was unsure, she didn’t show any of it, playing her confident role perfectly. The long corridor was mostly made of thick grey walls in which the white marble served as welcome patterns in which you could lose yourself. This castle must have been built in the times of the second architectural revolution, a truly wonderful time for complex and nifty designs. It is really a shame that most buildings have fallen to one foe or another. The complete beauty of it had probably been ruined by the Changelings in the upper levels, but it was still a wonderful sight to behold. The intricate design had the marble lines split up every so often and curl into spirals that ended in pieces of chiseled art. Each piece told a story of some sorts, mostly of famous unicorns. Although being a unicorn means being able to control levitational fields, the strength of earth ponies and maneuverability of pegasi are nowadays often preferred. Back in the days however, much more attention was given to detail and unicorns had a period of incredible creativity, which was only ended by the shadows that claimed the land.

Down. The intricate staircase was a wonderworld of most delicate artwork, beautifully crafted strings of marble dripping down from the top and flowing down deep into the depths of the earth. Even though there were multiple occasions for lamps or lanterns, none were placed. The whole staircase seemed rather mystical in the purple light that streamed from her alicorn friend’s horn. For about five minutes now they had only simply been trotting downwards, and the strong aura had only increased in strength - From the usual whispering it had turned into a manticore’s roar. It had slowly increased beyond a point where she would have to concentrate for it. For the first time, though, there was another sound aside from the steady sound of hooves rushing down a marble staircase. Now, the sound of chanting and armor somewhere in the distance above them mixed into the melodic chorus.

Abruptly their journey stopped in front of a thick marble door. Not a wooden door, not an iron door, but instead a beautifully chiselled marble door. Behind it, she could feel the aura pulsing intensely. Before they strode in, Rarity had a bit of time to inspect the wonderful carvings. It showed a circle of unicorns all standing around what seemed to be a giant altar. On top of the altar another unicorn, the carvings implying great power or beauty. With a slow rumbling noise, the door was slowly pushed to the side by Twilight’s magic. Although there had been no obvious way to open the door other than levitation magic, the sudden screech screaming into everypony’s ears made it seem as if Twilight was breaking some ancient mechanism. After the horrible sound was gone, it took a couple of heartbeats until Rarity’s hearing had returned to a point at which she could perceive the steady clanging of the Changelings’ armor.

“Uhhh, shiny!” Although what had been said had been nothing but Pinkie’s usual reaction to anything that was particularly shiny, Rarity couldn’t have said it any better. The entire room was brightly lit in red by six giant rubies hung in the ceiling. However, not just any raw rubies, but instead most delightfully carved jewels. Instead of being in one solid piece only the edges were left over, presenting the shining red outline of a dodecahedron. Inside of each jewel was a source of light, which spread the light throughout the whole room. In the middle of the room was a hexagonal pedestal made from a dark red marble. It was a room of beauty, presenting it’s core in every possible manner of design.

The entire room seemed to flow towards this pedestal, every line drawing her view in to it. At the same time as her brain was simply stunned by the visual design, the visual perfection of this room, her horn was instead drawn in towards the middle of the room. She couldn’t help but to step up the golden stairs leading to the pedestal. Her horn tingled in excitement as the source of the overwhelming aura came closer and closer with each step she took. The aura surrounded her fully now, allowing her to indulge in the wonderful tingling feeling in her horn. She closed her eyes for a minute, just going with the feeling, letting her body react naturally to the surrounding magic, drawing her ever closer. The strong aura felt like a bright sun burning before her, pleasurable warmth radiating in all directions.

When Rarity opened her eyes again, she expected to see a giant gemstone, radiating with the most wonderful aura she had ever felt. Instead, the aura came from the empty pedestal. Rarity couldn’t help but to feel betrayed by the golden plating on the marble, where clearly once had been an object of great beauty. She was strangely disappointed, almost as if somepony had denied her the great trophy, even though whatever had been there had never been hers. Instead of holding a grudge against it, though, she decided to bath further in the aura.

”It’s not here? IT. IS. NOT. HERE?!”

Twilight’s voice cracked as she screamed the last words. As Rarity turned around, she was slightly shocked at the flames of anger burning in Twilight’s eyes. The lack of sleep really didn’t do her well. After this little mission, Rarity would most definitely get Twilight a nice long relaxing mudbath.

“Well, at least we now know it was here once.” Pinkie replied, not without pulling a detective hat and a matching pipe out of her mane. Either Pinkie’s mane was filled with all sorts of junk or it was some undiscovered portal. With Pinkie’s ‘Pinkie sense’, the latter seemed awfully probable.

“Yeah, but now we are trapped down here!” Rainbow Dash replied while Twilight started searching around frantically, mumbling something into her mane from time from time. Rarity, however, continued to sense the aura, almost like a perfume you couldn’t get enough of. It was just so… good.

“Twilight! Can y’all help me with this darn door?” It was clearly Applejack’s voice, strained from the exhaustion of trying to push the marble doors back into their place. A distant voice, a voice lost in time. Rarity closed her eyes again and listened to the silence in her thoughts. The image of the radiating red amulet slowly pushed itself through the thick black fog behind her closed eyelids, its warmth encompassing her soothingly. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the sickening screeching of the marble doors, but it was all so far away. It was so bright, so warm and it only got brighter and warmer.

“We are trapped!” somepony yelled somewhere.

Rarity was at her very core now, and there was no worry to be had, everything blown into the distance by the amulet. Her body started tingling as the amulet got closer and closer, electrifying her body. She had to admit that the feeling was really pleasurable. Her breath started to come out in short, soft pants as her body seemed to radiate enjoyment. The air had become so hot though, that her attempts to grasp air only resulted in burning lungs. Her body still felt so incredibly good, but her lungs seemed to fail their purpose.

Something as cold as ice suddenly touched her body, forcing her to open her eyes. Twilight stared directly into her eyes, but the flame seemed to have made place for fear and concern. It took Rarity a moment to realize that Twilight was moving her mouth, but she could just not hear whatever Twilight was trying to say. Rarity looked around, confused as to where they actually were. The warmth of the sun warmed her entire body and it seemed to be very bright here. As Rarity looked around, she slowly realized that they all were somewhere in the black desert. The sky was blue and cloudless, but it wasn’t hot as wind blew softly over their bodies. Well, cloudless except for the strange red streak spreading through the sky above them.

“Wow, that was awesome!” burst out her pegasus friend, while Twilight didn’t seem as enthusiastic about their great escape:
“I… It could have killed us…”

“I ahm sure as hay that you just saved us, darlin’ . If those fiends would’ve gotten into the room, we would’ve had one huge problem on our hooves dealin’ with those darn insects - no offense.”

For the first time in - something above an hour - the Changeling opened his mouth to speak:
“None taken.”

Even though before she hadn’t noticed it, now the Changeling seemed strangely creepy for not having talked in such a long time.

“I would actually prefer not even being mentioned with them in one sentence, though. I … I am still not used to the idea of actually… well… being one.” A bit more quietly he added “Sometimes it doesn’t let me sleep at night.”

Now, for the first time she was eerily reminded of the fact that that Changeling had once been a normal pony. How would she feel if she would be transformed into such an… strange animal? Those Changelings… were they all once normal ponies? That couldn’t possibly be… Maybe just the big ones? Speaking of things she wondered about, though:

“Do you also see that giant red cloud above us? I…”

“A giant red cloud? Erm…” Rainbow Dash looked up into the sky and waved her hoof around. “I don’t see anything.”

“Well, it could be an aftereffect of the teleportation spell I used to get us out of there…” Twilight suggested, her voice still strained from exhaustion. “... but I really doubt it… I see it too.”

“Are you serious?” yelled Rainbow Dash.

Applejack was a bit calmer about the situation, even though her expression was still filled with concern. “Darlin’, somethin’ might have messed with ya head there…”

“Ermm… Give me a second, girls.” Without further explanation, Twilight just jumped into the air and with a couple of flaps of her wings she was gone. You could see on Rainbow’s face that she wanted to follow Twilight, but she kept her hooves on the ground nonetheless.

After soaring through the cloud for a couple of seconds, Twilight came gliding down again. It was incredible to see how fast she had mastered the art of flight, gliding effortlessly through the air. Rarity had to admit that she was a tiny bit jealous of the freedom that flight presented. Usually she would have satisfied the monster inside by telling it that she had magic. Now, that would have worked if Twilight had not been an alicorn. Now she was left with a nagging beast inside and she couldn’t do much more than to simply suppress her envy.

“Okay, almost what I had thought. It seems to be some kind of physical manifestation of the aura that has some kind of interference with our horns. I… I don’t really why it’s there and why we can see it, but it must mean something?” She ended her sentence sounding rather questioning instead of her usual determination.

“What now?”

Everypony turned around to the pink pony from whom had come this unexpected question. Pinkie wasn’t the kind of pony to ask such important question, but then again she was probably the only one direct enough to ask it this plain out.

Well, the question was actually quite hard to answer. Nopony had thought about what to do afterwards or -as it was the case- when they failed their mission.
“We could follow the crazy candy colored cloud trail…” Pinkie Pie suggested.

With no real other trace, that may be their only option. It felt weird to rely on a strange, unknown phenomenon that had just appeared seconds ago, but what else should they do? Just turn around and leave their business unfinished and let the nightmares continue to torment their dear friend until the end of time? No, they would venture out into the unknown, an odyssey of danger, a romantic adventure that would lead them to the end of the world.

FOTC: Chapter 13 - Finalizing

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Even though their journey into the hive of the Changelings had been a failure, it had somehow turned out to be quite a success. Even though they had not found the amulet itself, they had found another trace up in the sky, and what was even more important: A whole arrangement of all sorts of wonderful books in which everything was written down. There was just so much to find out about the past of the place, she could have spent days just reading; and she did. What also surprised her pleasantly was Fluttershy’s little gift for her. She had given her a couple of books, although these were in terrible condition. Almost all of them had little bite marks on them, almost as if Fluttershy had found the books inside of a mice lair. Nonetheless, most of these books still proved to be a good source of knowledge. There was one book that she liked most though, a really thick encyclopedia called "Historia naturalis”.

It described in incredible detail the history of the civilisation inhabiting the castle, starting from the very first stone that should be the foundation for their land. That wasn’t the interesting part about it, though. There was something far, far more interesting about this book, something that was completely crazy and yet it was there, present on those very pages. They had had the Changeling with them for the entire time, it could not have been him. The entire book was written by a certain earth pony engineer, Silver Coil, who had--as stated by him--been the friend of the famous Starswirl. The whole thing began with a pony stumbling through a dark forest and falling into one of the old caves, which spread throughout the entire mountain, undiscovered by ponykind.

There, the pony found something that should change history: A red amulet, later only recognized as Ostia’s amulet. One day, that pony came knocking on Silver Coil’s door and it had changed its shape. What had been a unicorn once had become something entirely different: An insect creature, only later given the name "Changeling". The pony that had once been his friend was gone. An aggressive creature that tried to burn down his house had taken his friend’s place. When the creature vanished, Silver Coil started searching for the one cave where it all had begun. Of course, as the task demanded, he gathered a small group of scientists for the search. They went out into a deep forest and searched it hoof for hoof. It took them a couple of years to find the one cave, but when they did, it was all worth it. Even though the great aura emanating from the amulet itself was tempting, they restrained each other from ever touching it.

’The gravity of the whole expenditure was clear from our very first glimpse at the red heart, yet something drew us in ever closer as time passed on. We found each other staring at the gem for minutes and hours without moving, and sometimes expressionlessly walking towards it. The necessity of a sealed room had been clear from then on.’

The book explained in detail how the marble mechanism had been created in order to protect themselves. Silver Coil's ingenuity and Seven Feather’s architectural mastery had proven rather valuable for this cause. Although the marble chamber had been designed to keep themselves locked outside, it proved to be quite good at keeping things inside when they conducted ’further experiments on the nature of the red gem by means of interaction with living organisms’.
How cruel did you have to be to conduct experiments with living organisms on an artifact that had proven itself to be incredibly dangerous?

“Twilight, come on!” Rainbow Dash yelled down from a thick cloud far before her. The rainbow colored mare had laid down in a relaxed position, yet her body was tense. It was more than obvious that she was annoyed by the slow pace Twilight was keeping. However, Twilight didn’t let that bother her. She had more important things to do than race through the desert like a crazy foal after ingesting too much sugar. Twilight had to smile as she was reminded of the last time she had seen one, racing through the park in the late evening, keeping her mother too busy to notice the stallion she then inevitably bumped into.

Everything can be fun. When going to a quiet park, you can play mime. When searching for something you lost, you can play hide and seek. When you are told to sit still, you can have fun in the lands of your imagination. It is even simpler to have fun when your friends are around. Each and every moment of laughter shared is a moment that you will never forget and a smile you can wear for days. So, you can imagine that Pinkie was quite confused about the fact that even though she and her friends wandered together through a sunny day, there was just no fun coming up. Maybe it was the heat, maybe the repetitive environment, maybe the many distractions keeping them from talking to each other, and maybe something else. I mean, it isn’t really unusual that Twilight sticks her head into some book, Fluttershy goes out of her way to find flowers and other green stuff, Rarity is completely taken over by her quest to find the beauty that was the amulet, and Rainbow Dash… well… Rainbow Dash was actually mostly training with the Changeling now that it had become obvious that the rest of the group couldn’t keep up.

All of those were minor concerns though, she was the one pony who could get through any awkward silence, bring any and every crowd to smile, and make a party out of every boring old classical event. So, what was keeping her from doing her thing? That, dear watson, that is the elementary question. Was it just this desert? No. She had made enough of worse places to be sure that it wasn’t just the desert. No, it was something worse, something that she didn’t want to speak of, yet it clung to her like a piece of icing on your nose or in your mane. They were terrifyingly and undeniably drifting apart. There had come to be a certain tension between them all, something that shouldn’t be between friends this close. Although Pinkie wanted to fix it so badly, she knew that a wrong move could be interpreted so simply as just another dumb thing she did, another typical Pinkie Pie moment. She didn’t want to be the cause for further separation. What would happen if just a little gag would lead to just a little comment that would lead to just a little argument that would lead to everything falling apart?! One single teeny tiny miniscule microscopic miniature minute minimal meager miserable inconsequential mistake could mean the end of their friendship forever.

No. Acting up in her usual manner would just lead to desperation and terror. No, she would plan something greater, something wonderful, something truly magnificent, something that would go beyond any expectations or imaginations, something like her very first party. Just when, when would be the time for perfection? When would they find time to get together and enjoy each other’s company again? Every second spent searching for the amulet was another second between them, an invisible clock ticking down, slowly but steadily. The time was running out until she would be forgotten and left alone in some forsaken alleyway. She would have to search for food on the ground and in the trash of other ponies who still had friends, who would look down at her and laugh at her and despise of her and be disgusted. The world will turn dark for her and she will never find friends again and forever be a lonely pony wandering through empty streets in dark nights and hunger for the warmth she once knew. The only comfort she will have will be her own mane, filled with the dirt and rotten garbage from the street where she would spend her final days. No, this was nonsense. There was still time, they were still friends and as long as she would not give up, it would stay that way. Their friendship was stronger than their needs… wasn’t it? So many external forces had pushed them around, and through all of that, it had never broken. Yet, it had never been tested through themselves either. They all would have to decide what they found to be more important: Their friendship or their passions? No. They wouldn’t have to decide. Friendship and passions aren’t opposites, no, they are complementary. Yes. Now smile again, Pinkie, the sun is shining brightly and the day is still young.

Speaking of which, it was about to get a bit darker. Right in front of them was a huge cliff to either side, gigantic walls looming up so terrifically high that most ponies would have probably been scared to walk right in between them, risking their lives against anything that would fall down from up there. Such chasms usually were carved by endless streams of water over thousands of years, yet this one seemed to be different. The whole landscape seemed to have been pushed upwards in some literally earth splitting earthquake. Maud would have loved to see this.

Pinkie focused her attention on her friends’ expressions, seeing if they might want help dealing with this scary environment, but she really worried for nothing. Twilight was trotting far ahead, sunken deeply into her book, only looking up when her spell warned her of some obstacle approaching. Rainbow Dash and Ethereal were flying far above the group, scouting for any and all possible dangers that lay ahead, while it seemed that Ethereal was also being taught the art of watching out while flying. Fluttershy and Rarity were a bit behind, the former humming some melody while Rarity seemed to be sunken in thought. Applejack was now trotting right next to her, obviously bored. So, what would be better than a little walking song?

“Walking through the desert land, striding through the desert's sand!
Deep beneath the brightly sun, we are going to have lots of fun.
Come on, stop your frowny face, and let a smile take its place.
Hello there, little colored stone, sitting on your big black throne.
You and your black companion, down deep in this canyon.
Down here where you feel a chill, down here where the time stands still.
"Where we now wander in our prime, down here lost in time.
Down here through day and night, down here where it is always quiet.
Where we now yearn for our home, where true thoughts are shown.
Down here in this amphibigantic superenourmolossal astromoungous immendous chasm.”

In her enthusiasm, Pinkie didn't notice that Twilight had stopped walking, and thus she almost bumped into her. Singing a song could right so many wrongs. As she could not find anything to be the cause for Twilight’s sudden stop, Pinkie trotted a bit around, looking under every stone. They had just arrived at a sharp corner to the left, the momentous cliffs blocking any light of the sun.

“Twilight? Why have you stopped? Have you found something great, something incrediblous?”

“No, Pinkie. That is the problem. I've found nothing!”

“How can nothing be a problem? If there is nothing, then there is nothing causing problems so there aren’t any problems, but then again there is nothing stopping problems, so any problem is unstopped so there are problems, but how can a problem exist in the first place when there is nothing to cause it, but then again everything could have disappeared leaving only the problem behind, but if everything disappeared then also the problem would have disappeared because otherwise not nothing would have been left over and that means that - “

“Pinkie, I get it!” Twilight started to speak up, not only irritated, but also rather annoyed by Pinkie’s words. They are breaking apart. Friendships or passion, what would you chose? The lingering seed of distrust still lingered in her, and Pinkie hated herself for even thinking about such things again. Twilight just had a rough day… there was still one question though:

“Well, is there nothing or is there something then?”

“It’s not about nothing or anything.”

“Well, then it isn’t a problem, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is. The problem is that my expectations of finding something have been unmatched.”

“So the problem was not nothing now, was it?”

“Well, it - Ugh. The problem is that I have lost track of the streak of magical aura in the sky. It seems to just disappear into the damn wall!?”
Now Twilight was really pissed. That unreasonable rage, the strangeness of this part of her character so painfully obvious...

“What if the amulet is inside of the wall?”

“Inside?! That is… That is… that is actually quite smart. I could use the wave interference pattern of the wave motion spreading through the stone. That would be rather difficult, but I might be just up to the task, having only recently read the whole Encyclopedia rerum Saxorum et Formae et siti agri.”

“You have read the whatnow?” interrupted Applejack, obviously happy to finally do something else than trotting through eversameish corridors.

“Errm… It’s a book about stones and landscapes, so nothing special. It talked about the different speeds that waves spread in those mediums though. You may also want to read it at some point, it’s quite a good book containing any useful knowledge about the earth beneath us.”

“Why would I need a book that tells me what the earth hears? I am trying to farm, not trying to play it some music.”

They are drifting apart. You see it, don’t lie to yourself. Suddenly a soaring rainbow came crashing down from the sky, landing softly right next to Twilight, quickly followed by a comparatively lesser, yet all in all impressive performance by a greenly bolt following her.

“Hey, Twilight, why have we stopped? Is there something special here?”

“No Rainbow, there is nothing. And that is why we stopped.” Pinkie threw into the mix, then giggled just a bit. A mare has to has some fun from time to time, doesn’t she?

“So we stopped because of nothing?” Rainbow asked, now thoroughly confused. Ethereal also had a look of dumbfoundedness on his face, but he didn’t seem to be as irritated by that thought as Rainbow Dash was.

“Well, yes and no. We stopped because the track is leading literally into the wall. I mean, there has to be a way to find that damn thing and if I need to rip this whole canyon apart to find it, then it shall be that way. I am fed up with this. Now, if you would please excuse me.” With that, Twilight pushed Rainbow Dash aside and pushed her horn against the steep cliff.

Suddenly Twilight’s horn seemed to explode in purple streams of magic while bits and pieces of
the thick stone burst out in all directions, some leaving red lines on Twilight’s body. What was even more shocking though, was the bone shaking ripple that pushed itself through the ground and the walls, causing the chasm to transform into a rain of tiny and moderate stones, crushing down with immense speed. If it had not been for the quick reaction, the debris might have killed them. The thin green shield was the only thing keeping the thousands of stone shards from dropping. The thick layer of debris actually blocked out the sun, only a few rays making their way through the shield.

“I… I… What?” Twilight Sparkle was more than just confused, she was overconfuzzled and hyperdisconjumbled. Pinkie giggled at her two new creations, even though the situation was certainly no fun matter.
“I mean… this should… This should most definitely not have happened. I mean… The wall is… gone?”
The wall. The wall was really just… gone. While there was nothing but debris above and behind them, encapsulating them in a tiny shell, the wall that had once been blocking their way forward, following the red streak, was now gone. What had seemed like a massive cliff was in fact a thin layer of stone hollowed out by an ancient cave. No wonder Twilight’s spell had failed - She had expected much more resistance and thus had used enough force to feel vibrations through thousands of hooves of thick stone, but was only presented with a thin layer. Like a souffle being treated with an amphibious jackhammer.

Before them a giant hole in the mountain had opened up, revealing some kind of cave behind what had once been solid walls. Thousands of dark holes of varying size scarred the innards of this mountain. To each side the cave went on forever, only held up by the millions of fragile struts. Below them was an abyss reaching down to the depths of the earth, a dim orange light piercing through the eternal darkness. The whole thing was only held up by the thicker struts as millions of pieces just seemed to have broken apart with Twilight’s magic. Only further in the distance, you could still make out the miniature struts, most of them not much bigger than half a hoof. It seemed as the amulet had also done it’s work here, or maybe Equestria actually had a different lore:

Maybe a giant rock spider had aeons ago spun her little twitchy web in the depths of the planet and as time passed, parts of her net were crumbled by the harsh surface and the dust filled the spaces inbetween. When the aeon spider tried to save her net from crumbling though, a great war was sieged and the earliest ponies began battling for supremacy on the crust. Then, lord kingray rose from the ashes of his fallen brethren and threw his mighty lance and hit the aeon spider. When it died, it fell to the very core of it’s earth and since then, its burning heart fueled the core of our world and we still wander on its eternal net. Yes, maybe she should write a screenplay about the aeon spider. Though, who would watch a screenplay about spiders?

Well, there was one mare…

Fluttershy clenched her feet together as a bone shaking sound roared through the dark and deadly cave. It seemed like a horde of undead ponies were streaming through the deepest darkness down below her very feet. At any moment somepony or something could jump out of it from any angle. The only calming thing in this cave was the little critter snuggling on her side. She still could not exactly identify his species, only that he was warm and soft despite his skin lacking any fur. A pony could describe it as feeling weirdly uncomfortable to have something moving so smoothly around your limbs, but Fluttershy loved the way that snakes moved their soft and silky skin against hers. This little critter was a bit different, feeling less silky, but still it’s warming presence was a beacon of hope here.

It’s probably the howling of the wind through the various holes that is causing this sound, Fluttershy. That’s what they said, but how could she really know? What evil may hide in these caves? There might be anything, not only a horde of zombie ponies hiding in an underground laboratory, but maybe also a giant pony-eating worm they had awoken from its slumber or maybe the spirit of darkness slumbering in Equestria’s core. Maybe it was some inconceivable evil just waiting for the six little ponies - and snakelike being - to enter its giant layer to have a feast for all eternity. It would suck their flesh off their bones an- Suddenly something grabbed Fluttershy’s hoof, an incredibly strong force holding her back. She screamed until there was no more air in her lungs, but Twilight’s light didn’t seem to even care, just flowing further away from her. Had she not heard her? Had she also been caught? Suddenly the light turned off, leaving everything to be devoured by the darkness. There was only her and the thing that grabbed her now. After catching a quick breath, Fluttershy screamed again, as loud as she possibly could. There was no one to help her. Just the darkness surrounding her, filling her lungs. She pulled her leg but it just wouldn’t budge. She tried to at least turn around to see anything there, but there was just nothing but the blackness veiling whatever foe was trying to pull her down. In her fright, she quickly pulled her second leg back and then punched as hard as she possibly could. The pressure was gone. Whatever had caught her had suddenly released its grip. Now she jumped up and started running, just to be stopped by another thing suddenly pulling her front hoof away just as it was about to touch the ground. Her head bounced against one of the thick stone struts as she fell, and with the crunching of broken stone came the warmth of a thick fluid running over her head.

There was a quiet humming in the darkness. Onto this black stage, a couple of grey dancers seemed to walk, speeding up and then turning into a chaotic mess of grey and black. Where was she? Where was anything? All relations were missing. Up and down seemed to have lost their meaning here; here was just chaos. She was painfully reminded of those who she had left behind. Not only her animals, but also Discord. Every one of them had made sacrifices, but she still did not understand. Twilight had argued that he could sabotage them at any point, but why should Discord sabotage his friends? He would have had a joke or two, but otherwise? He would have been a great help, sheltering her from whatever situation she had now gotten herself into. Now she was alone. Alone in the darkness. Alone was good, wasn’t it? It was just a bit … scary.

Was it red? Or was it just her imagination? No. There was definitely a tinge of red down below her, defining what was below and above. Just a distant image of a color, but enough to regain orientation and the strength to try and push herself up. Her limbs didn’t want to respond to her commands, leaving her staring down at the red glow. What it might be? Maybe lava had risen up or maybe it was a giant glowing monster? Most likely however, it was just her imagination. Spooky imagery as she tended to get in stressful situations. Her blood flow was probably too high, pushing too much blood into her brain and causing some hallucinations. At least that’s what Mr. Greenheart, her new doctor, had said the last time that she had had one of these panic attacks on the stage. Even thinking the word brought a shiver to her entire body. She could already see the ponies staring at her, examining her every movement, every inch of her body, sniffing around on her, touching her with their filthy hooves, licking her body with their disgusting brown tongues.

No. No, this was just a dark and admittedly scary cave but there is no one to help her now so she has to do get out alone… and if she fails there is no one to help her and she is going to be either forever lost or driven insane or worse… So what could she do? She once again tried to move her limbs but it seemed as if her legs were just stuck between the struts, inside the thousand holes. How long had she been passed out? A small tingling sensation ran along her leg. Something was touching her. It was going up further and further. Oh my, Celestia, Luna, please, is there no one to help me? No! It climbed further and further… and surpassed her bottom, slowly making its way up further and further, until a little black friend appeared in her vision. Although the shock was replaced by relief, her heart was still pounding. Her little friend had found her… yet he or she could probably not really help her out of this situation. She was still stuck… just not alone anymore. Suddenly the world started to shake, everything - everything started moving, shaking, turning, shuffling, falling, breaking and crushing. In an instant she was free, but freely falling. Down onto another, huge strut. Somewhere before her was light and she started running. There was chaos, there was noise, there was no direction. A huge stone barrier fell down behind her, crushing where she had just landed. Another one caused the ground to disappear below her. She was falling again, onto another one. From the left came thousand stones, and she jumped. She landed and held onto the short ledge from the giant pillar that reached down deep into the red glow. She pulled herself up, just to feel the whole pillar falling to its side, taking her down with it. A sharp stone hit her flank and pushed her off the falling pillar, down further and further. Another strut just crashed as she landed, this time her hooves barely able to catch her fall. And she fell further down towards the red glow. She was falling alongside thousands and millions of small sharp bits and pieces, hundreds of giant boulders and pillars and thick stone walls. Everything in this cave was falling. Another rock crushed her back, but immediately let go again as an even bigger boulder shot through the cave, the impulse taking her down with them. It was pain and fear, that cramped her body, causing every beat of her heart to shake her entire body, to make her ears only hear the screeching and rumbling of an entire mountain crashing down. There was nothing but chaos and she feared it. She was not a stranger to randomness, to the kind of chaos that discord would represent when he was near to her. But this was not just chaos, this was deadly chaos, everything tried to kill her. Another sharp edge came out of nowhere, just to scratch along her side and be gone somewhere in the distance above her in a matter of heartbeats.

Then, there was nothing. For a second. For another one. No pain, no sound, no impact. Just nothing. When Fluttershy opened her eyes she had unconsciously closed just moments before, her fear was suddenly overwhelmed by pure shock. What in all of Equestria was that?!

Ethereal wasn’t very sure as to what exactly he was supposed to do. The sun was shining down on them relentlessly while only the giant wound in Equestria’s surface really gave them a sense of direction. A giant scar stretched from just where they were to the very horizon.

“You’re like an alicorn, with those wings and your magic. I wouldn’t let Twilight try it, for one because she is a princess, and also because… well… she doesn’t fly that well.”

His teacher had leaned over very - very - close as she spoke those words. There was a moment in which Ethereal wanted to diminish whatever little distance was left between him and Rainbow Dash, but he quickly caught his inappropriate thoughts.

“And that would be?” he said, trying to sound cool. She liked cool… at least that’s what he thought. Maybe he was trying a bit too hard, but maybe this was just the right thing to do.

“Well, it’s simple. I want you to accelerate yourself with your magic. Just create a flow of air and use it like I taught you.” She grinned devilishly, almost as if she was seeing the exact image in her head already. “And, you know, we may also get the chance to do this together.”

That sounded… quite tempting. He was still not comfortable with his magic, yet it couldn’t do any harm to try, could it? He had tried some spells already with increasing success. Deep in the night, when his teacher was already asleep, he had time to try out whatever spell came to mind - Which were, now that he was going through it, not actually that many. He had mostly used levitation in any and every kind of manner, but rarely more advanced spells.

However, speeding up wind would probably be as easy as levitating a bucket… Well, except for fluid and gas dynamics being a bit more difficult, at least that is what he had learned from … old friends. He took a few quick flaps as his mind started racing back to places he thought he’d left behind. Before his mind could conjure up images that tortured him at night, he quickly released the magical energy he had built up in his spell. The hot but fresh air suddenly streaming around his body quickly boosted him into the blue sky. Within one second, every thought was replaced by the incredible sensation of speed.

From behind, Rainbow Dash caught up in a matter of seconds, and with a loud swoosh she was gone in the distance already. He accepted the obvious challenge and angled his wings. She would not get away this easily. For seconds, it seemed like she was coming closer, but then she turned her head back and simply laughed. Then with a sudden burst of energy just disappeared, leaving behind a rainbow trail. Usually he would have simply given up or made an ineffectual effort, but this time may just be the time when he could beat her.

Quickly he increased the amount of magic he was using, but Rainbow Dash simply used the wind he created for her own advantage. But not for long. If he could just … narrow the spell a bit down…. The breeze intensified and caused him to slowly catch up to Rainbow Dash. The spell was getting harder to maintain, but it was still possible. Rainbow Dash didn’t simply give up however, instead continually accelerating against all expectations. Now, this was a challenge. If he could just increase the magic a bit more… Yet his horn already felt strained through the magical expenditure. Exhausting himself right here would most likely not be a good choice. Then again, he wouldn’t always have a chance to strike victory against Rainbow Dash. He focused intensely, this time putting most effort into controlling the flow of the air instead of just accelerating it. It was incredible to be at such a high speed yet not really having the drag of air pushing you back. For a second it seemed like Rainbow Dash could keep up, but then she was gone. He decided to make sure and flew a looong victory round, before finally decelerating. When he turned around to greet his slow teacher however, she was nowhere to be found.

It took him almost a minute until he even realized what had happened. Instead of overtaking his teacher, she had probably stopped somewhere. After a short second of confusion, he knew exactly where she would be. Of course, she would have probably returned to her friends in any case of emergency, so it was about to be a quick search.

“...stopped because of nothing?” Rainbow just finished asking some question.

Twilight started some kind of explanation about their stop, then pushed herself by Rainbow and pushed her horn onto the giant stone wall. Within the tiniest part of a second, nearly unnoticeable, a deep rupture made its way through the entire wall, fracturing into thousands of smaller branches, splitting up again and again, until the entire wall was just a puzzle of tiniest pieces - and then just exploded into a rain of a million small shards of stone. If Ethereal had not learned to make his shield a reflex to danger, that might have been their end.
Luckily his control over his spells had somewhat improved. As long as he didn’t overstrain his newfound powers, he would be fine. If however, he tried to use too much magic at once, it would once again erupt randomly. He had tried now for a couple of months to control his magic, yet it seemed as elusive as in the first days he had acquired it.

After a short discussion, they decided to advance further into the cave. It was rather surprising seeing the massive mountain from the inside: It was an assembly of thousands of holes, only small struts holding the whole thing up still. There was just one direction now: down into the lion’s den. This was their only chance to finally do what they had come for… and then? What was he supposed to do afterwards? There was no back, there was no forward, there was only this mission, which was not even his mission to be exact. He had just tried to not be left to his own insanity.

It was dark in the jungle of struts, every movement a potential enemy and every sound important information. Ethereal had tried not to fall into his thoughts, but there had been no escaping it. Where at first had only been the trotting of hooves, now was the laughter of his wife, his son. They were somewhere in the darkness, trying to speak to him. Sometimes he could even see their faces. There was… more than one instance where he had nearly turned and walked into the surrounding darkness. Only the purple light floating softly before him had stopped him from going astray. A beacon in the darkness, where his thoughts roamed freely and pain tore his heart apart. The pain of loss is not a pain easily going by, there is- Suddenly the light he had intensely focussed on just disappeared, leaving them all in complete darkness. Twilight’s voice echoed softly through the cave, the first voice he had heard for hours.

“Down there! I think we found it.”

“I feel it, too.” It took Ethereal a second to realize whom the second voice had come from. But there was only one voice that graceful.

Suddenly Ethereal heard hooves galloping into the distance. Without further thinking about it, he quickly followed. He took a few steps, when suddenly the ground below him just disappeared and he fell towards something glowing in a soft red. The air down here was thick and a bit too obstructed, there was a high probability of turbulence, yet when he spread his wings, he could instantly feel his descent slowing down significantly. The red glow illuminated the entire cave, a harsh play of colors drawing in any attention and rendering it difficult to make out other schemes. Yet it didn’t take Ethereal long to notice the hundreds of Changelings assembled in a concentric circle around the red source of intense light. The closer his descent brought him to the edge of the circle, the louder a mild chanting became.

“In nomine alveare vero reginam velimus. Libera nos ab omnibus malis!”

With his black skin and the … holes, he should definitely be invisible with this background. Yet that did not ease his nerves. Any false movement could very well condemn him to death. A painfully long second passed, then another. It took an eternity to reach the ground of the giant chamber. More than a hundred changelings were assembled to chant their chorus. The walls seemed to absorb the sound; there was no echo or anything similar.

Suddenly everything turned silent. He didn’t move, his foot had just touched the ground, making a noise that could never have been heard by anypony but himself. Queen Chrysalis started speaking, her voice loud and clear.

“It is time. We have waited long enough, my dear minions. For millennia now she has been imprisoned by her own creations. But her seeds she had tenderly cared for have grown in the years of foreign reign and the land that has been claimed can finally be returned to its righteous owner. Let us finally bring balance back to this world. Let us finally free our goddess Ostia!”

The chanting had died down during her speech, but now it grew louder once again. From what Ethereal could make out, Chrysalis was slowly approaching the gem with her horn glowing brightly. When her horn was just mere inches away from the brightly glowing gem, a green surge of unnatural electricity sprung from the gem to the horn, then traveling to the ground, causing the first Changelings in the circle to suddenly jolt, as if being hit by lightning. Just before Ethereal realized the danger he was in, the electricity caught him, but instead of shocking him, it immediately sucked every bit of power out of his body. He tried to get away, but he had lost the power to stand already, collapsing to the ground like a lifeless corpse. He tried to scream, but no sound came out when he opened his mouth. There was nothing but the noise of a thousand thunders, a light so bright that it shone through his closed lids.

As sudden as the surge of electricity had ravaged through the room, as sudden had it disappeared, leaving a feeling of being drained of one’s power. His body felt empty and yet heavy, like wearing a thick piece of armor after a day of training. The shining light slowly faded, leaving a large afterimage of a giant alicorn standing atop the pedestal, an image that did not bother to leave him alone. He tried to push himself up again, but it was almost as if they had taken all power he had ever had. When he heard a metallic clang, followed by another one, just a bit closer, he opened his eyes again. Not shining brightly anymore, but all the more terrifying was her image. Her hair was a meadow, green grass and flowers covering all of it. Her eyes were as blue as the brightest summer sky, her voice carried the softness he had only thought a certain yellow pony could impersonate. Her movement was gentle, but her insane smile brought shudders to his body. The tips of her hair and tail started bursting out into flames, consuming every living thing and only leaving black ashes, from which small seedlings erupted. Where she treaded, life followed, replacing the holes with vines and moss, filling up the ground below her. Yet when she passed the circle of collapsed Changelings, their bodies burst into a thousand parts, transforming into small black dandelions.

“For so many years I have waited. This day will be the day of renewal and shall be known forevermore. Thou duties are over, my little darlings.”

A voice right from the heavens, but not able to calm the agitation in his body. His heart pumping, his brain screaming, his legs trembling, the urge to flee climbing into unbearable levels. Another voice suddenly pierces through the darkness, causing the giant figure to slowly turn.

“You were prophesied to be the solution! You were supposed to bring the Changelings to new might, not simply smite my children. How do you even dare?!”

The laughter that followed shattered through his bones, causing bits of the ceiling to collapse down.

“My silly little Changeling. Why do you think you are here?”

The Changeling princess didn’t respond, but the silence was answer enough.

“You are here because I created you as imperfectly as I did. I ask you, how do you think you lead ponies? By force? By leadership? By friendship? No. You need to play with the desires of those who you want to influence. If they think it was their own decision, they will aid your cause freely. Just a bit of imperfection can make all the difference. You were designed to seek perfection but there was nothing to grant it to you. Without others you could not live and thus you had to come to me. There was no other choice for you but you still thought it was a voluntary decision. How foolish of you. You were not made to wander in Equestria without me, so just submit to your demise.”

She almost spat out the last words, the softness in her voice fading with every word.

The queen was furious, but she didn’t let out a sound. She was just staring at the alicorn before her, almost as if her stare alone could defeat this foe. The alicorn whose mane had caught fire once again just to be replaced by another row of growing sprouts just laughed at this gesture and stepped forward.

“Do you think you could defy me? None can stand in my way. I am what becomes and I am what is undone. I am the past and the future. I am the change. There is no force big enough to stop my advance.” After a short pause, the alicorn added an inquiry: “How does it feel to have your hopes betrayed, my darling? It’s nothing personal, it’s just how the world works.”

Before she could take another step, the queen herself started glowing in a bright green light, sending a whizzing stream of magic through the air, suddenly exploding as it reached a magic shield around the alicorn. The alicorn didn’t even seem to be bothered by the vicious attack, slowly and steadily approaching the queen.

“I have created you, why would you even think you could hurt me? You still have not grasped the concept, have you? I am your goddess and either you submit in this very instance or you will face my wrath. I will be your undoing!”

Queen Chrysalis did not even flinch, didn’t show a sign of awe or dread, but instead just stood high up, looking the goddess directly into her eyes, whose hair has just grown into a jungle again. While the goddess had formed her muzzle into a devious smile, the queen just grimly watched the alicorn stepping towards her.

“So you are going to chose death, I wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.”

With that, the alicorn’s horn lit up in a sickly green, from which a cloud of dark magic erupted, spreading through the entire cave, filling up everything, crouching into every hole and… consuming it. Through the thick cloud he could hear the tortured cries of thousands of Changelings, his own scream mixed into the sound. It wasn’t the pain itself, but it was the feeling of your flesh melting, your very self being consumed through this blackest of magic. What do you become when you become undone?

It was a sudden green flash of light in this blackness, followed by laughter that quickly cleared the air. The dark magic was no longer being fed, and thus began to dissipate. The queen didn’t stop with just one attack however, but released bolt after bolt striking the alicorn before her. Her anger had finally made its way through the thick wall of calmness and now surrounded her like an aura. Her vicious attacks did not stop even once, yet within seconds the goddess had put up a mighty shield. Chrysalis quickly stopped throwing out her magic as she realized how fruitless that struggle was. What tactic do you choose against an impenetrable shield? Now with the dust settling however, it wasn’t time to ask philosophical questions but instead time to finally get up again and either flee or fight. Fleeing was the more probable option seeing how the changeling queen herself could not break through the shield, so why should he even try?

Getting up was harder and honestly more disgusting than he had imagined: The black cloud seemed to have melted his carapace, letting it drip down and when the cloud had vanished, pieces of his skin had combined with the stone around him. It was utterly unpleasant to look at, but even more unpleasant to actually stand up from. He could feel his skin being pulled apart until with a small crack, pieces of it bursted in every direction, leaving deep wounds behind. Although it was different skin now, his flesh was still connected to it and thus pieces of flesh remained bound to the stone struts.

It was painful, yet still more bearable than being dissolved into a black cloud of dark magic. When he had finally managed to free all four of his legs, he looked back up to see that the queen and the goddess had started fighting again. The goddess was now shooting her black magic through the entire cave, only closely missing the queen, who in her turn never missed a single strike, yet despite her fervor could not manage to pierce the still unharmed shield.

The goddess spoke once again, her voice filling the entire cave: “You are weak and starved. Why do you even try to prevent the inevitable? You are not going to pierce my shield and thus you might as well just give up all your energy at once. There is no way for you to win this.”

“And you are blind and foolish. I am too fast and too smart to succumb to your mindless aggression,” answered the Changeling Queen, her words only pressed through her mouth between taking short breaths. She would lose the fight if she were to just continue. She would throw all of her magic out and have none to defend her. The goddess just laughed in response to the queen’s words.

The Changeling soldiers who had now recovered quickly started to surround the alicorn and attack her from all sides. None of them could actually manage to scratch the shield, yet their attacks disrupted the attention of the goddess. With a few quick steps Chrysalis moved back and let another soldier take her place in the circle that the Changelings had now conjured around the goddess. From there, she started channeling some mighty attack, but this was not the time to watch a fight in awe, but instead the time to finally get out. He started running - well, more like limping - away from these powers which were above his level of mastery. Now there was only one question remaining: Where was the exit? There had to be one as these Changelings and the queen had somehow gotten here, it just had to be somewhere along these walls…

The queen suddenly let forth the magic she had assembled, releasing it in one vicious attack. The shockwave of the explosion threw him into the air and smashed him into the thick stone struts that made up the wall.

Twilight quickly stopped her magical light when she noticed that certain aura, the aura that had kept plaguing her in her dreams. Down there, in the deepest depths lay the secret to her nightmares. Were it visions maybe? Celestia and Luna had often talked about the ability of an Alicorn to have visions of events that were not bound to their three dimensions, but could show anything at any time. Often they were caused by a strong magic, the only energy strong enough to actually pierce through past and future to cause such dreams. Twilight didn’t doubt the possibility that if some magic was strong enough, it would actually cause visions for every unicorn, or maybe all magically adept creatures, not only including pegasi and earth ponies, but also dragons, phoenixes, mage plagues and the many others. Down there somewhere…

Twilight quickly hurried forward. “Down there! I think we found it.” Within a moment, Rarity reassured her: “I feel it, too.” Then she heard it: Distant chanting of some sort, maybe a summoning spell, maybe an ancient ritual, maybe dark magic. Whatever it was, Twilight would find it out. She started galloping quickly, just hoping everypony would follow her even though her light was now as dim as to barely cover her own hooves. As Twilight hurried around the long, drawn out 180 degree turn, she almost ran into something she had not expected here: A giant door was just inches from her face… Down here. The door was held up by two huge struts spiraling upwards, their diameter probably twice or even thrice that of the other struts.

The purpose of the heavy door, however, made absolutely no sense to her. What sense made a door, if you could as well just go around it... by breaking the smaller struts to the side of course. It must be one of these doors of aesthetics that Silver Coil so adored. Strange how unknown such a pony could be even due to such incredible findings. The amulet, as some experiments had explained, seemed to break apart whatever was nearby. In a couple of chambers - as later scientists have written down in her “Historia naturalis”, the thick encyclopedia she had taken from the Changeling library - experiments had been made on the amulet back here in the outlands where no one would notice anything. The first involuntary experiment had been some kind of poor animal that they had trapped with the amulet - Well, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie were here, but where were Fluttershy and Ethereal? If that fiend does anything to her… Maybe just a bit more time… And in the meanwhile she could already break the door or something, in the hope of not encountering a Changeling army right behind it. Maybe she could make a tiny hole to peek through first? - Anyway, the experiment. The poor little critter seemed fine for the first few days, but as time went on, the little thing got weaker and weaker, although the feeding schedules never changed. After almost a week, the thing was dead. When they took it out again, its body just deflated like a balloon. Whatever the amulet was, it was a threat to her and equestria. No matter where it was, no one could be safe while it still existed. Whatever force was in there, was definitely maleficent.

Twilight peeked through the small opening, seeing no Changeling out there, the door was completely unprotected. Her first magical spell tackled the task of analysing the general structure of the door, using some neat fluid mechanics, calculating some pressures and seeing how the whole thing reacted. To actually sense the change in your magic when you apply pressure is rather hard. You might know it from trying to lift something that is just too heavy, you feel that your magic cannot advance, that the thing just counteracts your force. It’s just like that, just much harder to actually detect. Of course she had mastered it in “Magical measurements” and “Magical finetuning”, the former one being a good book, the latter being a subject of several.
The door seemed to just be a regular door, the opening mechanism a simple bar that could be moved intrinsically with the right magic. It wasn’t hard to open it. Yet Twilight still hesitated before finally using her magic: If her friends weren’t here, they couldn’t advance and opening the door would just make it easier to be detected.

“Rainbow Dash? Could you… see where Fluttershy is? I am worried that she might have fallen somewhere.”

“It’s reaaally dark in here…” Rainbow Dash answered, insecurity in her voice, that vanished when she added: “...but I am sure I can find her. Can’t be so hard to spot that yellow flank in a black and grey cave now, can it?”

With that, she flew off, while the others waited tensely for what the door might reveal. When Twilight finally opened it though, all went to tatarus. A black cloud burst out from the inside, some trickery of black magic that she had not sensed when checking the door for hidden traps. As quickly as she could, Twilight got her shield up, but there was one pony - even two - in grave danger now: Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t pleased to not find her there. Fluttershy must’ve found some cutesy wootesy wittle itty bitty critter or something. It was dark, really dark, but it wasn’t the first time she had flown in darkness. In the deepest nights she loved to get out there and fly through Equestria. You never knew what was coming, creatures of the darkness or invisible obstacles made every flight out to be an adventure. When she had started to adapt to these nightly flights however, the sense of danger had faded with every flight. That was around the time when she had decided to try something new, something even more daring: She had decided to take on caves and cliffs and ravines, to give her the sense of adventure once again. One of her first places had been the ghastly gorge at day, just testing out the perimeters, later revisiting it at night. To be fully aware of the risk of a giant cliff eel just snacking you up due to your timing being just a hundredths of a second too late or too early, that is true adrenaline. In the second where you hear the maw just snap directly behind your tail, but you cannot even see the giant thing out there, that is when you feel alive.

This cave was nothing: Boring struts, almost no obstacles and almost as bright as day in here, at least in comparison to what she has been through already. It was a quick flight around the 180 degree turn that stretched out far too long for her liking, it wasn’t even a test of agility to get around it. Who built this place? Must’ve been some boring old unicorn wizard or something. No cool pony would build such a bor- A cold, cold breeze of wind suddenly rushed over her. It took her less than a heartbeat to realize that it was something else. A searing pain suddenly pierced through her entire body as whatever was there was consuming her body. She screamed and her wings were suddenly so stiff and she fell. In the last second she caught herself and flapped her wings as hard as she could to get out of whatever she had gotten herself into. Her eyes hurt so incredibly much as whatever was in the air tried to dissolve them. Closing her eyelids was impossible however, without risking to crash into one of these walls. Suddenly the whole cave had gone from a boredom central to death mountain. The shock was in her wings, trying to slow her muscles down, but it was also in her mind, pushing herself faster than she could’ve ever thought. Yellow fur, just… The moment of not watching ahead was the moment she would’ve needed to tilt slightly to her left to avoid the inevitable path. Of course she tried to do a quick evasion maneuver, but it was already far too late. Her entire body crashed into the wall, breaking struts apart until one was too strong. Within a moment, she was knocked out, the darkness surrounding her.

There it was. The magic, the aura. It was there, just hidden by the darkness. Twilight stepped forward, just to hesitate once again. They had to go back and get Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, but they were so close. She could feel it. The magic was everywhere. Just a few steps.

“Twilight,“ Applejack's voice sounded from somewhere behind her. “y’all need to come and search for them. We can’t go nowhere without our friends.”

“But we are soo close,” Twilight heard herself saying. Rarity agreed, but it was all so distant, behind the veil of magic that was there. So much power, so much knowledge just before her. She could become almighty and bring happiness to anyone and finally be worthy of her title. She would… lose her friends. And that wasn’t worth it.

“Alright, we … we head back.”

The dark cloud had dissipated, so why not let Applejack and Pinkie Pie head back and just go there? It’s too dangerous.

“Twilight, we could just let Applejack and Pinkie Pie search for-” Rarity began, but Twilights harsh look silenced her.

“We won’t lose anypony -” Whatever Twilight had wanted to say was silenced by a deafening sound, with which came a force so incredibly strong, just pulling them from their hooves and smashing them through the wall behind them. In a matter of ungraspable seconds came heat and pain and noise and fire and fear. It was only a second, or maybe two that their flight lasted, stopped by some of the bigger struts, but the explosion was long not settled. The heat was gone, but the noise only grew louder. From the ceiling, it started to rain. Not raindrops, but instead thousands and millions of smaller stones and pieces of the net, and the entire cave just collapsed. The shield Twilight tried to conjure for her and her friends was so incredibly slow. In every direction she looked towards was just falling death raining from above. Everywhere the stones were breaking apart and collapsing, the whole mountain dying under it’s own weight. Within seconds, the force onto her shield became unbearable, but she had to keep on. Twilight tried to move, but her right hind leg was .. oh god. What was supposed to be her leg was now just a bloody mess. Twilight’s heart started pounding so very loudly and the blood was just flowing out there and - Celestia, what had she gotten herself into here?

Darkness. A frightening darkness was surrounding Rainbow Dash as she opened her eyes. The memories she had did not match up with anything here. It wasn’t supposed to be dark and her body shouldn’t feel so immobile. She slowly tried to move her head down, but when she tilted her head further, her whole body was pulled down from whatever was holding it up. Her body just sunk into itself like a sag of old potatoes. With that movement, Rainbow Dash suddenly realized what was wrong. She wasn’t feeling, well, anything. No pain, no fear, no surprise, just nothing. Once again, she tried to push herself up, this time just a bit more successful. Around her seemed to be thousands of tiny pieces of debris: Spikes and stones of various sizes, all packed up tightly. Up above her was a particularly large strut, allowing her not to be buried alive.

Only very slowly her body followed her commands, almost as if there was a delay in the information travelling down into her limbs. At least she figured that much, she wasn’t that science-y like Twilight after all. Would probably be useful right now, but honestly, who but Twilight would sacrifice so much time for such stuff? There were so many more awesome things to be done than to spend a single day wasting it on books - Well, at least not THAT kind of books. “The Endosymbiont Theory of Bacterial Evolution” and stuff like that. Maybe she could have studied sports or something, but practicing is always more fun than learning, and sports theory is always so iffy. She didn’t love flying because she knew exactly how the air bent around her wings, but because she could feel and adapt at every moment…

What was she even thinking about? She was down in this hellhole and her mind had nothing better to do than to think about learning? No, she would have to find a way out of this, and possibly quick. There was no way to tell how long her little safe zone would remain even such. Rainbow Dash slowly stood up, noticing her body out of balance while doing so. It seemed as if… Yes. Her right wing was squished in between two rocks. The whole thing was a bloody mess, speaking of which… It seemed like her wing wasn’t her only concern as what had stopped her from immediately just falling down had been a rather nasty spike sticking out from the rubble behind her. The loss of blood was possibly what made her head so dizzy and her thoughts so terribly unconcentrated. She quickly looked around her tiny prison, although without discovering any sort of possible exit. To try and dig out could be a foolish undertaking if the debris above would just fill up the hole, suffocating her. On the other hand, it might as well be her only chance of survival.

It took her a couple of minutes or seconds or maybe even an hour - time had really lost its meaning down here - to decide that there was no other chance. Slowly, she put her hoof out to the ceiling and with a bit of force, the first stone came crashing down, not releasing a deadly shower of debris onto her. For the next one then. While Rainbow Dash started to dig her way through this ceiling, her mind drifted once again. What does time actually mean? Is it the passing of actions or is it something very intrinsically to every pony. How do we know that time has passed? She would’ve guessed it was only dependent of things actually happening, but Twilight always said that there was some kind of inner clock and that kinda made sense, too. Maybe time was a fundamental constant that Celestia and Luna had defined. What would living without time look like? That… kinda didn’t make sense, so Rainbow Dash went back to the last good thought. What if time was a fundamental constant, but that without even Celestia or Luna necessary to define it? That idea was strange, but she kinda liked it. There were foes as mighty as to fight Celestia, so why wouldn’t there be a constant that could go on without her even? But then again, it were Celestia and Luna moving the moon and the sun around, so wouldn’t a day always be as long as they liked? Well, then again, time also moved on when Nightmare moon tried to create the eternal night. Time wasn’t just gone then. Ughh, egghead stuff.

It was the 15th or so stone that actually started to get problematic. It just wouldn’t bother to move. Now, there was something special about this stone. It was strangely bright, and overall, it seemed like she had uncovered something. If she could just… Quickly Rainbow Dash descended to the ground a dozen hoof, then finally laid down. With a sharp boost from her muscles, she shot back into the air, putting her front hooves before her, and then crashing into the ceiling. Although it was rather painful, her plan actually worked the way it was intended to. With a dangerously low rumbling sound, bits and parts of debris came falling back down, making small gaps through which she could see… the sun? With a final push, Rainbow Dash burst through the last bits of debris in her way and pushed her way out.

A small glowing window quickly broadening in size almost caught her off guard. Not that she hadn’t expected it, but it still surprised her how strong her spell could be if her body was already aching with the pain. Her mind should be still screaming, but it had suddenly become so very clear and quiet. But her quiet mind scared her even more than the pain she had had. When the pain was still there, she knew how horrible the situation was, she could judge her actions well and accordingly, now she had lost the knowledge and thus was at the mercy of forces beyond her control. When the glowing light was gone again, she and her friends were facing the ruins of an entire mountain broken down to bits and pieces. In the midst of the ruins was a creature, a giant alicorn standing there with blazing hair, grinning deviously as a rather dangerous queen stands in opposition, panting strongly. It seemed as if queen Chrysalis had not taken the explosion as well as… whoever this other alicorn was. Not having heard of her before was a bad sign, but seeing as how she opposed Chrysalis, she must be a good pony. Maybe a lost princess, hidden by Chrysalis and abused for -

“Twilight, oh Goodness Gracious, what happened to your leg. It’s terrifying!” a sweet voice called out from behind.

“Rarity, it doesn’t matter! Right there, there our enemy stands. The last months would be for nothing if we were to lick our own wounds now. Also, how would you even consider not searching for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy?”

“I… I don-” Rarity started to stutter, but was suddenly interrupted by Applejack:

“Well, she is mightily right there, honey. We can’t risk losin' you too just because you didn' care for a serious injury like that one. My great aunt had broken her leg once and didn’ want to do anythin’ about it. It nearly killed her, and I don’ wanna see you doin’ the same.”

“Applejack, I am not your aunt!”

“Great aunt and it has nothin’ to do with that at all. I… I just don’t want you to be hurtin’ yourself, okay?”

“No, not okay. It is vital that-”

“Oh, a fighter, I have made you strong.” The goddess’ words were like thunder, echoing through the field of debris. “But you will fall, nonetheless.”

The queen just spat out before the goddess before growling in a deep tone: “It isn’t you who has made me strong. No, the pain and horrors I had to endure, that is what made me stronger than you could have ever made me. You think you have had it all planned out, but much has changed. Even if we once were yours, we aren’t anymore!”

With that, the Changeling queen let out a terrifying howl, followed by a blinding lightning crashing into the alicorn's shield.

“Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, try to find the others. I have royal duties I have to attend to.”

“Not with that leg of yours!” Applejack screamed into the rift of time and space that had just been created inches before her. Only Twilight knew that the words never actually reached her. Another alicorn was facing one of her biggest foes and she could not just stand around while Chrysalis, the cause of incredible pain, denunciation, hatred and spite, was just standing there, smiting an innocent alicorn.

“CHRYSALIS!” Twilight’s voice echoed through the ruins as her friends were already starting to search frantically for those still lost.

“I don’t have the time to deal with you, little brat.” the queen snarled back with anger.

“You. You came to our land, you brought your parasites, you infested our beautiful Canterlot, my home town, you abused my brother, you hurt Celestia - AND YOU STOLE MY FRIENDS.” There it was again. The rage, a flame she had thought extinguished burning up brightly again, filling her veins with power, finally able to release. All these years she had waited for this moment and nothing would stand in her way, she would smite the queen until nothing was left but a pile of ashes. She felt the energy rushing through her body, to her horn and from there, she could feel the hot air around it, the stream of magic flooding towards the Changeling Queen. She poured her hatred into it and the queen screamed. And it satisfied her.

“You. A pretty little pony princess. I shall also claim your world as mine.” the goddess’ words made their way into her ear, but they were never truly heard. Only the screams. Only the screams.

When Twilight finally stopped, her body was exhausted, and her mind was empty. In a single moment, all the pain and all the feelings swept back over her, leaving her defenseless. Her leg was finally sending signals again, but those signals were pain in its purest form. She screamed, or maybe she couldn’t. Her mind - from one moment to another - had turned into a mess of thoughts and fears and death and destruction and a burning Equestria under her own hooves.

The alicorn she had just saved however, didn’t run or flee.

“What have you done? She was mine. She was my creation! It is not your decision to kill her, it is mine! You will be the next one then…”

The alicorn slowly turned around to her, her mane now a growing forest, her smile devilishly grinning.

“But I saved you…” Twilight brought out, her mind not understanding.

“You just killed the last defender. You doomed yourself.” The goddess spread her wings and with a mighty burst got up high into the air. From there, she released a dark bolt of liquid death, but Twilight’s mind did not react. The magic immediately started feasting on the shield, bits of it leaking through, trying to touch her body to make her one with the earth. She wouldn’t win this fight. She had used all of her power, there was no backup plan. Another fountain of fire erupted from the horn of the goddess, washing over the shield, burning her strained horn. But it wasn’t enough, the heat becoming unbearable. Twilight tried to teleport away, just away, but her spell failed her. The world around her started to blur as the fire suddenly stopped. Only when it faded, she could see what had caused the goddess to stop. A rainbow colored bolt erupted from the ground, flying up high into the air.

“What…?” The goddess was confused, just for a second. Enough time to properly concentrate and - The sudden surge of magic made the world spin around and around, Twilight being a good hundred hooves away now. She had used the reserves of her magic to get away, but what now?

“You leave her alone!” Applejack yelled, while Rarity quickly galloped over to her.

“Oh, I see. You have got friends there. Well, then it will be a delight killing them first, just to give you the most agonizing renewal you could ever expect.”

They weren’t strong enough. Even as five they could never withstand that kind of power. Rarity quickly created a shield around her, Twilight, Applejack and Pinkie Pie, who had now assembled. Applejack immediately started bucking heavy bits of debris in the goddess’ direction, yet her shield simply melting it, leaving nothing but molten vapor. The goddess replied, yet not in their direction, instead trying to catch the only unshielded pony. A few quick bolts were sent out, but all of them missed. Yet, with her own wings she quickly pushed herself into the air and towards the rainbow swirl. The many loops and turns made it impossible for the goddess to hit anything, but she didn’t need to aim as she released a deadly shower of spewing fire across the whole sky. Rainbow Dash was fast enough to avoid the full front, yet the heat burnt her right wing and Rainbow immediately started to lose height. With a last effort, the pegasus slowly declined and headed… for Rarities shield, bolts following her along the path, which she could only barely avoid.

“It’s no use. She is too strong.” Applejack cried out.

“We… we have to try," Twilight replied as Rainbow Dash came crashing into the shield, the momentum breaking a couple of the struts on the ground. Now, the goddess concentrated fire onto Rarity's shield and while the first bolt was deflected solidly, with the second bolt the shield began wavering, and with the third one it collapsed completely. Death was just a hoof away, yet there was a last force stopping it. Another shield just barely deflected the last bolt.

“You? You are the one who made me into this?!”

It was… the changeling? Yes. It was actually Ethereal appearing out of nowhere, suddenly shielding them with a thick green shield, seemingly impenetrable. Yet against this alicorn, it would stand no minute. There would only be one force enough to deal with such immense power. And that force is the magic of friendship… Yet as only 5 of them were here, it would be impossible to do this greater deed. In her quest for an answer, she had lost the connection to her friends. And now, now she would pay for everything she had done. A thick stream of magic struck the shield, badly centered, yet still powerful enough to melt the stone around it. Ethereal, however, quickly swung himself into the air and actually started counteractive measures, drawing the goddess’ attention towards him. That gave Twilight and her friends the time to finally start searching again. The goddess had a much harder time hitting Ethereal as he had not only wings to evade heavy blows, but also a shield against huge but weak attacks. Unlike Twilight however, he didn’t seem as terribly wounded and he had most certainly not wasted his power on anyone else.

“I found her!” It was Pinkie Pie’s voice strangely drained of laughter, having dug down deeply into the debris, bringing out-

Twilight’s eyes opened in the sheer shock. Her body tensed, then suddenly went limp as the whole world seemed to be collapsing. What Pinkie had uncovered would probably never leave Twilights mind. With hatred and sadness combined into a stirring mixture of emotions, Twilight cried out:

“Oh no. Celestia, please no! NO! PLEASE! DON’T TAKE HER FROM ME!”

Fluttershy. Suddenly nothing mattered anymore, the whole fight was so senseless, their whole quest a stupid failure, her own pain just a minor annoyance. Nothing mattered, but Fluttershy’s open eyes staring into nothing, her leg strangely twisted, a bone sticking out of the red flesh. But the worst part about it all was the thick red hole in her stomach, causing Twilight’s brain to stop.

When very very slowly it started working again, it was like an ancient mechanism set in motion, unstoppable in its execution and deadly in its result. Twilight had stopped thinking about pain or anger or love or other measly thoughts as cold hatred replaced everything. The goddess had taken what she loved most dearly, so she would take the goddess’ life. Seeing Fluttershy like … that. It had broken something deep inside of her, and even though she had thought she was empty after killing Chrysalis, that conflict seemed so meager now. The rage, the rage had been nothing in comparison to this deep hatred. Not just stealing her friends, but killing them. That was the line. The line that should never ever be crossed. Now, the goddess had done the unthinkable and for that she had to pay.

Twilight looked up again, her mind filled with a last purpose, a green star filling the sky with light, quickly evading each major attack and absorbing the minor.

“Twilight, don’t!” Applejack’s eyes were filled with tears. Rainbow Dash, whose wings were burnt, had dropped next to Fluttershy and was now collapsed, sobbing over her body. Pinkie Pie was just lying next to her, while Rarity was desperately trying to use her magic to do something. Twilight took a deep breath, looking at her friends, wounded and hurt.. and dead. Nothing would stop her from her revenge. A last gaze at the terrible wounds, and then she turned away. Another deep breath and then she stepped forward.

Twilight’s mind was deafened by the hatred and anger and pain. At first, she could not conjure up a spell, nothing would come to her mind as it just kept repeating the image of red on yellow. Suddenly there was one spell in her mind, becoming more prevelant than any other thought. A thought of power and vengeance captured in the essence of a type of magic she would have usually refrained from. The purest and most powerful magic there was for a single unicorn: Dark magic, powered by hatred and angst. Some say it was the kind of power discord had bestowed on the world to spread his chaos. Some say it was a force created by a goddess to give balance to the world. Some say it was a fundamental force of the universe, as temperature or gravity. Twilight knew in the very moment that she casted the spell that whatever origin it had, now was the time to release it. No more trying to solve a conflict with words or simple magic, it had only lead to this.. No more games, no more half-flanked maneuvers. Every single part of her body tingled as the magic started to surge through it, the feeling of immense power. Of course she knew of the danger using this kind of power, yet she could not reason to prohibit herself from casting it. What started as a simple tingling soon became a hot fire throughout her entire body, draining and exhausting it, but also giving pleasure while doing so.

When the magic slowly faded, driven by Twilight’s exhaustion, silence started to rule the world. There she stood now, and thought about what had just happened. Shouldn’t these stories have a great ending? This story was one she had been unprepared for, a story much harsher than she could have expected. However, now that everything was done, there was no end. There was no curtain falling and ponies clapping their hooves. There was no thunderous applause or thoughtful mumbling. There was just… nothing. She had killed two ponies today. She had just killed two ponies. There was no victory here, she had fought and lost. But there had never been the chance to win in this quest. At any point this path had been set, there had not been another more logical choice, but the most logical choices still had lead to a terrible fate. A prisoner’s dilemma as it seems.

She couldn’t just go back to normality after this, could she? Only slowly, Twilight turned around. Her joints seemed to have thought to themselves to randomly stop working for some reason. The exhaustion tried to pull her down, but she didn’t give in, stepping towards her friends. But with every step she made, they seemed to be ten further away. With the third step came a feeling of numbness crawling up her limbs. With the fifth it spread to her mind, slowly drowning out the questions about the future. At the seventh step, her eyelids slowly pushed close against her will. A teary-eyed Applejack was running along somewhere. Twilight simply collapsed to her side, her breaths heavy and her body weak.

“Twilight? Twilight? Twilight?” the voice just continued echoing through her mind, like a broken record, slowly mixing with the sound of the soft breeze around her ears, and her own heart pumping blood through her body, desperately trying to balance the loss of oxygen in her muscles through the lack of blood. What a silly response of a body against losing too much blood. The vision slowly faded, as did the sounds, all making place for warm, comfortable darkness. A darkness like a soft blanket, darkness like a comfortable bed, darkness like a good sleep after a long day.

When Twilight opened her eyes again, there were books. Lots of books, as it seemed, a whole wall of books. Not only a wall of books, but a giant library. A giant window in the ceiling allowed light to softly pass through, touching the big hourglass statue; Canterlot’s library, Starswirl’s wing. Everything felt so incredibly like home, but there was one thing wrong: She wasn’t alone. Instead, there was somepony else… or rather, a changeling.

“What are you doing here?”

Twilight could have expected any of her friends here, even princess Celestia or Luna, but instead it was Ethereal, standing in one of the corridors.

“No, Twilight, what have you done? What will your friends think of you now?”

Twilight, confused for just a moment, took a bit of pondering until she was finally able to answer. She had not considered the idea that her friend’s judgement of her character could change, yet it now seemed rather plausible. Why wouldn’t such drastic actions change the way they viewed her? Would they still be able to look at her and feel comfortable? Would she still be able to look into their eyes, without seeing the deaths mirrored in them?

“What I have done doesn’t change anything, especially what my friends think of me. They know what had to be done.” Twilight finally answered, trying to sound confident, but failing miserably. She rather sounded like a small filly trying to argue about her lies somehow. Deep down, locked away by her sanity was the truth.

“Twilight. I don’t think you understand the gravity of this situation. Do you even know what you have done?”

Twilight stiffened, a bit too perplexed to answer at first. “S-Sure I do.”

“Do you understand what you have done?”

This time Twilight remained silenced by the sheer confusion… and fear of the truth.

“Twilight, can you remember your childhood?”

Warmth streamed through her body again, as the terrible after images of her spells were replaced with her parents' endearing smiles, with giant books, and the approval of princess celestia herself, giving her the worth she had never found with other ponies.

“Do you remember your friends? Do you remember all these beautiful memories?”

Of course she did. What would her life be without them? They were what made her who she is.

“They had a childhood, too. They had years and years of memories. They had their friends. They had their stories. Each and every day they could have told you a story of their lives and yet they would have not been able to tell you of all the wonders they experienced. They had ponies who loved them dearly above anything else. You have taken something that was never yours to take: You have taken their lives. Their entire existence, two lives, thousands of days, millions of hours, and billions of second, full of memories and knowledge, childhood, friendships, feelings and plans and you took it. Twilight, do you really understand, what you have done? You have done so much more than defeated enemies, you have purged the existence of two entire beautiful creations. May Celestia be merciful upon your soul.”

Now a creepy coldness was rising up her spine. The truth had found her in her hideout of denial. Yes, she had destroyed everything these ponies had known, knew and would ever be able to know. She had shattered countless memories and broken their friendships just for her personal gain. She was nothing but a selfish, insane mare with the power to let her anger be lethal for others. She was a threat, not a saviour.

Ethereal started to laugh: “Now you understand… now you do. You tried to reason your hatred with how you were hurt and through your past pain, but you know as well as me that that is no excuse. Whatever they might have done to you, it is no reason to do it to them. The first step towards change is acknowledgement.”

For a second it seemed as if Ethereal wanted to add something, but the world suddenly started to fade around her. Nothing but an illusion of the night, clear in hindsight, but incredibly real while experiencing it.

“Twilight? Twilight!” Applejack’s voice carried sorrow with it, immediately causing Twilight’s body to bolt - Well, as much as it could. Her limbs felt weak and restless, and her head was drooping with a deafening headache, pounding against her skull. Her body felt so cold, even though a blanket seemed to be pulled over her body. When Twilight finally managed to push against the two iron curtains before her eyes, the world still was blurred by the fading image of the library. To open her mouth suddenly felt like trying to teleport up a steep cliff or lifting an ursa major, not that that was scientifically accurate, seeing as it was only the weakness in her limbs.

“Where-" Her sentence was cut short by a fluid in her throat, trying to make its way out.
Applejack suddenly jumped towards her and through the thick blanket gave her a hug, that almost caused her stomach to empty under the pressure.

“Oh, Twilight! You mightily scared us out there, just collapsing and then…” The joy in Applejack’s face turned into thoughtful bitterness once again. “... and then not waking up again.”

Even though Twilight’s mind was slower than it used to be, it didn’t take a geniusgenius to guess what Applejack had meant. “How long?” Her throat achedached and her voice sounded irritablyirritably raspy, yet the strength slowly returned to her words.

“A couple of weeks. We … We were really really worried. I am so glad you are back.” Applejack suddenly pulled back again, hiding from Twilight’s impaired field of vision.

“I .. I am sorry, darling, but I have to tell the others, they worry about you just as much as I did.”

Since there was a proper ceiling here, it was most likely - given her informative point of view - that she was in some hospital somewhere. Where and why were still two questions to be answered, but she could already hear Applejack’s hooves galloping over the thick wooden floor.

Ethereal was the last one to arrive. Although he had been invited, he didn’t feel welcome… and he probably wasn’t. He would’ve liked to just not come, but maybe not coming at all would’ve been even worse, or maybe he just felt like he owed it to her. When he finally opened the door, he saw two ponies laying on the small hospital bed, while four others were captivated by the moment. Fluttershy and Twilight were hugging, both in a deep embrace. Both had - each in their own way - lost the other one. Twilight had thought Fluttershy lost to the goddess and the queen, and Fluttershy had thought Twilight lost to the coma. Even though there were still hundreds of marks on Fluttershy’s skin, bandages and sutures, the embrace was still the same as that of two closest friends. Twilight’s leg and Rainbow Dash’s wings were also in deep bandages, most of the rest only had scars or band-aids.

Ethereal felt awkward standing there like that. All of Twilight’s friend had a good reason to be there, and he.. he just did not have one. Pinkie Pie had invited him, but Pinkie Pie would have probably invited anyone that Twilight had ever met, or even complete strangers. Because that is how he felt: A stranger to this group.

Only when his eyes drifted over to Rainbow Dash, his brave teacher, his thoughts went to more welcome places. With a bit of trouble and a bit of awkwardness, he pushed himself behind the four ponies, slowly approaching Rainbow Dash. Instead of ignoring him however, the four ponies split a bit apart, giving him a place to stand.

“Ethereal!”

He flinched when he heard Twilight’s loud voice breaking the silence. She would probably scold him for coming. What was he even doing here? She had hated him throughout their entire journey.

“Ethereal, I … I don’t know how to say this… I just… I … forgive you.”

Twilight’s voice was honest and soft, yet Ethereal couldn’t help but to feel like somepony had punched his stomach. She… She just forgave him?

“It was never your wish to become a changeling, and yet you tried to do the best. I always thought you were an enemy trying to infiltrate our group, but now I know you were just searching for something that I was blessed with so easily. You searched for friendship. I now know what happened to you. You were caught by an influence you never understood or even knew about and you lost everything you held dear. I would lie if I understood how horrific that must’ve been to you. When we found you, you had become a beast in the wild, driven by the pain of your past, yet even now you still are. Ethereal, I forgive you, but you will have to forgive yourself, you will have to accept what happened, and you will have to move on. You have sacrificed so much for us - “ Twilight gazed over to his missing leg “-, and you have fought valiantly to defend us. I think you have proven yourself. Now you will have to find a way to go on. Once again, I would lie if I said that I knew how hard it would be, but I can promise you one thing:

Along the way, we will be here for you.”

[End of Chapter]

Fall of the Changelings

by Dream Whisper

FOTC: Chapter 1 - A small adventure

FOTC: Chapter 2 - Old friends

FOTC: Chapter 3 - Just an accident

FOTC: Chapter 4 - A friend

FOTC: Chapter 5 - Halls of the Past

FOTC: Chapter 6 - The first days

FOTC: Chapter 7 - A new beginning

FOTC: Chapter 8 - Predicaments

FOTC: Chapter 9 - United

FOTC: Chapter 10 - Lessons

FOTC: Chapter 11 - The journey begins

FOTC: Chapter 12 - Inside

FOTC: Chapter 13 - Finalizing

FOTC: Epilogue