Hard Landings
Chrysalis was not having a good day.
First, that wretched Twilight Sparkle had forced her to reveal herself before the planned time. Second, she brought that cursed Cadance back up from the caverns with her when she returned from the depths below Canterlot. Third, her mind control was broken and she and her changelings were thrown from the city! And the last portion of the horrible day that she had experienced was that she hit the ground. Hard.
Laying on on the black stone as some of her green blood oozed out onto the rock, she groaned in pain. Chrysalis figured that it would have been a mercy had she died on impact with the ground.
She was unsure whether her wings were torn off at some time during the flight due to the velocity far surpassing what they were made for or if they had been torn off upon her impact with the ground. Given that she landed on her back before bouncing, flipping, and coming to a rest face down on the smooth black rock it seemed quite likely.
As her vital fluids continued to leak out through the holes in her chitin she let out a deep, shuddering sigh. It seemed to her that she had gone into shock, she didn’t feel the pain nearly as much any more.
It never occurred to her this would be the way that she went. Her mental image of her end depicted her burning only as the world finally became dust once more at the end time, or bleeding out in old age after banishing the last of her enemies. The emptiness that nipped at the edges of her vision told her otherwise, though. The hungry darkness promised that this was her end.
There would be no funeral. There would be no weeping changelings remembering all that she had done for them and all the food she brought them. She would not even have the pseudo-hive mind that changelings had to comfort her. How it was going to happen was that she was go out all alone with only the cold, merciless wind as her companion to the afterlife. Her eyes closed, she was intent on just lying to herself and imagining she was back in Canterlot castle, ruling from there as the seat of her power. It would make her passage over so much easier.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Is that any way for one to think? There is always an outlying situation in which one has the possibly of surviving in,” a faint, whispering voice echoed in her head.
She couldn’t find the strength to speak, so instead Chrysalis elected to simply think her response to it.
“I answer your question: Yes, seeing that my mind has apparently begun conjuring voices just so I don’t leave this world alone,” she thought, letting out another deep, shuddering sigh.
The voice chuckled at that, amusement radiating off the presence before it said “Au contraire my dear… whatever the hell you are; I am someone who can help you, granted you have the ability to help yourself, of course.”
Chrysalis decided that she would humour the voice and go along with it. After all, even if it was just her mind playing tricks on her dying self, which it probably was, things couldn’t possibly get worse for her than this. “Fine, what do you need me to do in order for you to save me?” she responded.
“Glad you are willing to give it a shot. Anyhow, about four feet or so in front of you there is a handle sticking out from under a rock. Grab it,” it commanded. While she didn’t like its tone, she decided to go along with it.
Using quite a bit of her strength, she lifted her head. Sticking out from a rock a small distance away from her, as the voice promised, was looked like the dark blue hilt of a blade sticking out from beneath a rather large rock.
It was true that she had nothing to lose by trying, so she labouriously lifted one of her damaged front limbs and placed it on the ground, dragging herself forward and ignoring the noise of her chitin scraping against the ground as the movement the darkness around the edges of her vision crept in just a little more. It was just a tiny bit further…
She lifted her other limb and placed it in front of the first, dragging herself further, trying not to not think about the streak of blood that she was leaving behind her and failing.
As Chrysalis got within grabbing range she reached out with one of her limbs and grabbed onto the grip of the blade, bracing for the disappointment of her brief fantasy of survival ending. It was fun while it lasted, at least.
A strange tingling crept up from where she grabbed the blade, spreading up her arms and then further throughout her form.
She closed her eyes, counting herself glad that she had at least managed to go out trying to find a way out rather than in a depressive mess.
The end never came.
Instead, she felt feeling slowly come back to her body as both the numbness and the tingling started fading away into nothing more than a memory. In confusion, Chrysalis opened her eyes.
In front of her, she saw the proof of her survival. The cracks in her limbs had disappeared and, experimentally, she tried to stand up. Much to her surprise, she was able to do so without a hitch. Although her wings were still missing, she was very much alive and well once more! A wide smile crept across her face as she looked back down to the blade. So it was-
“Now, was that so hard?” the voice questioned, sounding much more present and real. Now that she could hear it fully, the voice sounded quite obviously male in nature.
As much as she was grateful for being helped, she had to know who or what this voice was. “No, thank you for the help, but I have to ask: who are you?” she mentally questioned the voice.
She felt the voice contemplate something for the moment, all the while muttering to himself. “No, that won’t work. Neither will that. Nor will that,” he mumbled before coming to sudden revelation “Ah, that works! Anyhow, just call me… Sabre.” The being paused for a moment to take an almost alarming amount of amusement in the name it gave itself before continuing “And I’m the creature currently stuck inside the sword that healed you! Well, I actually healed you and I just used the sword as a conduit to channel my powers.” Ignoring most of the babbling and picking out the important parts Chrysalis puzzled out that this creature was either ‘just’ a mad spirit or actually in the sword as he described.
While it was not unheard of for one to be bound to an object, it took immense power to do so and such events were almost always well remembered history. The largest example that jumped to mind was the binding of Nightmare Moon to the moon to prevent her from wreaking havoc in her physical form. This sword, however, was part of no legend she ever heard of.
“What exact manner of being are you, Sabre?” she mentally asked him, cringing internally at saying the name which he decided to give himself while at the same time wishing for an answer without babbling this time.
Her desire went unmet as he started muttering and babbling again, which she just tuned out this time until she felt him come to a conclusion “I don’t think that there is any words for what I am in this language, I’m sorry.”
Chrysalis sighed in mild annoyance as he said that. Couldn’t he just have made something up? She decided to not press it, though, as she looked back down to the hilt sticking out from beneath what she now recognized as a piece of rubble from a building which was now long gone. “So, why did you help me?” she flatly questioned. In the legends that existed, there always was a catch with these artifacts.
“Hmm, that is the question, isn’t it? Well, let us just say that sitting here bores me and I am, as you already know, stuck in a sword and not as strong as I used to be right now. Imagine my delight when you fell out of the sky! I just had to save you if only to have someone to talk to for a while,” Sabre said rather happily.
“You saved me because you were lonely?” Chrysalis queried, finding that a very odd reason to save another. He could have said it was out of the goodness of his heart or that he couldn’t stand watching another bleed out when he could have saved them. At least she knew that it probably was an honest answer.
“Yeah I know that it sounds idiotic, but it is the truth. In addition, I think that we could also have a symbiotic relationship come from our little chance encounter,” he said.
She raised her brow at that and looked down at the hilt before asking “What do you propose?”
“Quite simply, I wish for you to take the blade that contains me with you. This would benefit both of us. You get use of my abilities and I will regain power from you using them,” Sabre said.
Chrysalis wasn’t quite sure about doing that. He was an entity of unknown origin lying wait inside of a blade in a completely abandoned area.
If that didn’t scream ‘absolute evil’ she didn’t know what did. Part of her mind screamed that she would be something far beyond what the word idiot could encapsulate for bringing him with her.
However, another part of her mind thought that if he actually were some great evil from ages past he would have been spoken of in history rather than just being a blade laying out in the middle of nowhere.
In addition, the promise of power was incredibly tempting to her. If that was what he could give her without all of his power, what could she gain if he were to become strong? “I accept, on the condition that you heal my wings as well,” she simply said.
“Good! Simply remove the blade and its scabbard from beneath that accursed piece of rubble and I can seal the deal. The wings will have to come later, though, I don’t think I have the strength to repair them right now,” Sabre told her, still sounding quite happy.
Chrysalis crouched down and used her magic to gently tip the stone off of the blade, it falling beside with a heavy thud. What she saw beneath was nearly breath-taking. Now that she saw the scabbard and took a closer look at the hilt, she could recognize that it was a work of art.
The sword had a slightly curved guard and at the base of the hilt was a crescent, which was extremely similar in design to a crescent moon albeit rotated so the opening of the crescent faced downwards. The grip of the blade was wrapped in some white material that looked like leather. Intricate patterns of a lighter blue which she immediately identified as magical in nature were all over the hilt of the sword, although she could not divine their purpose by the shape of their curving lines. They were too irregular for any normal spell to flow properly through them.
The scabbard seemed to be made of more of same material that the grip was wrapped in and it had another similar set of light-blue lines going along it, once more fulfilling a purpose unknown to her. There was an adjustable strap attached to the scabbard which looked like it was added on later by someone other than the initial craftsman as it was made of regular leather.
Knowing what needed to be done, she slipped the strap on and adjusted it to fit her body. It was lucky that the strap did not decay over however long it was out there and crumble at her touch, as that would have made carrying the sword far more annoying.
“Now what?” she asked the voice.
“I’ll give you one guess,” he flatly stated, no longer sounding too terribly amused.
Now that she looked back on it, it seemed quite obvious. Slowly, she drew the sword out of its scabbard using her magic.
It was a double-edged sword, made of the same blue material as the hilt but a few shades darker and had the patterns of unknown nature continuing along its length; however, what caught her eye almost immediately was the gap in the middle of the blade. For about a third of its width was a perfect gap, going all the way up to the end of the blade to where its end would normally be. Instead, the sword ended up ended up having two points, one at the end of each side. It was hard for her to comprehend why a blacksmith would EVER forge such a monstrosity. The logic of the design was just beyond her.
Sabre, emanating a surprising amount of shame, explained “Listen, I know how fucking stupid it looks, alright? I didn’t design it. It is bad enough I got bound into a sword anyhow, the flashiest of all weapons, but I made an escape attempt during one of the moments the binding spell was weak enough for me to at the very least try something. The end result was part of the blade only existing to the rest of the sword and I’ve had to deal with it ever since.” He paused for a moment before continuing “Now, I just need you to recite something to seal the deal. Think of it as an activation phrase.”
Chrysalis sighed, at least she got an explanation for the poor design of the sword. “Very well then. What does it contain within it?” she replied.
Sabre’s presence radiated a tiny bit of happiness as he said “Good to know you don’t sign things without reading them, as the saying goes. Long form short, it works in by trimming around the edges of your magic. In the place of that small amount of power the new magic is attached. This is a one way thing, a nonreversible process. You lose a bit of your power, and gain more of a different type of power which can then be modularly expanded from there. I can’t force you to take this deal, of course, but I recommend that you choose to take it. After all, think of what you could do if I were to share my power while at full strength. If I could repair your wounds in the state I am in right now…” he trailed off towards the end of his sentence.
Chrysalis mulled over the offer. If she accepted it she was trusting the thing that was in the sword to cut off part of her magic and replace it with the magic of his own in a fashion that can not be reversed. On the other hand, the offer of power was very much tempting, and she did need more power. If her plans ended up being going to war with Equestria once more she would need to rebuild her swarm as well as have a strong counter to the love magic that Shining Armour and Princess Cadance possessed.
On the other hand, she did not know exactly what the being could do once it was more powerful. He could turn hostile if his powers grew to a point which he no longer needed her, and with her using his powers that could be a dangerous vulnerability. Did the benefits outweigh the risks? Even being powered up by love she suffered defeat, and those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The temptation was too much, she had to try something. “I accept if you go along with two additional conditions. The first of which is that you repair my wings and the second of which is that you do not use your powers in a way which would harm me for the duration of the deal and going beyond that,” she said.
She felt the presence begin channeling some sort of alien magic and the sword began crackling with a small amount of white with a tinge of blue energy. As the words needed flowed into her mind.
Chrysalis repeated them out loud as they came to her, chanting “I give of my power to the Aether, and I understand that I shall in return receive its power through the creator of this pact to help me achieve my goals. I understand that this is a path with no exits and that though the circumstances may change, the changes received will never leave me. Through day, night, and all the times that neither apply I shall not waver in my goals.”
“And I, Sabre, promise to repair this being’s body to my utmost ability as well as protect her from harm by my own hand,” he completed, the magic cutting off and sealing the deal.
A shiver crept down her spine as he finished saying that, her body feeling different in a way that she could not place. Her magic too, as expected, felt ever so slightly different, once more in a way that she could not place.
Frowning, Chrysalis asked “Did you really not know my name all this time?”
“Correct,” he replied.
“And you never thought to ask?” she questioned incredulously.
She felt as if he could shrug, he would as he declared “I forgot to ask when we first met and I thought I could just ride it out until it came up in conversation.” Before she got a chance to tell him how stupid that was, he spoke “Now, shall we walk? I remember a river about thirty kilometers to the west from when I was free.”
Chrysalis sighed, slightly annoyed at the rapid change of topic but understanding where he was going with this. Ponies liked to settle on rivers or otherwise around water. If they were to follow the river downwards, even with the possibility of not hitting civilization on the river itself and having to trek some distance down the coast, they would come across civilization soon enough. “We shall walk,” she said before checking the direction with a quick glance towards the now setting sun and starting her march back towards civilization once more.