Incarnated
Amber gulped as she sat up, sweating and gasping. Another nightmare. She didn't know why, but it was always the same nightmare. She was in a forest, and there was fire all around. Then, after taking a step, the fire would engulf her and disintegrate her, before she woke up. But after a few minutes of thinking, she would forget all about it.
She sighed and turned her light on, looking around her cell. For all her life, she had known only this scenery. A bed, with a nightstand, with a clock on the wall, and a pile of books in a corner with a pillow she had gotten from one kind Lunar Guard. She looked at the time on the clock, using her hoof to wipe away the sweat on her face.
2 AM... She was so early, and she didn't think she could ever fall asleep again tonight. She grumbled and her horn started to glow with a dark, baleful aura and bubbles of dark magic energy. The brush next to her, on the nightstand, would start to levitate, surrounded by the same magical aura as she started to brush her main calmly and idly.
As she looked at the front of her cell, on the other side of the bars, she saw the Lunar Guard looking at her intensely. She knew him. Nightingale, one of the most hard-working Lunar Guards assigned to her. He always made her uneasy. She turned around, looking at the reading corner, smiling. Most of the times she had woken up like this, in the middle of the night, she would put her muzzle into those books and start reading until the sun rose through her window.
She stood up from her bed, and Nightingale stood up from his chair, frowning and using his horn to make his sword levitate, always on high alert. Amber rolled her eyes and started walking towards the corner. "Nightingale, I'm not a danger. I'm not gonna assault you, and I'm not gonna try to escape. I tried a long ago, it ended in this." She then looked at her blank flank, seeing the large sword scar that traversed her body, from her left back thigh, through her back, to her left front leg.
Nightingale frowned and sat back, as Amber plopped down onto her pillow, using her magic to effortlessly lift up a book. Among all of them, she had chosen to read about the bad guys tonight. During her entire childhood, Cheerilee had told her about them. She had known her since the beginning of her teaching career, and she had always been the slight favorite of the teacher. Every second they spent together was happy, and that's all that mattered. Every day, she endured the pain of her life just to savor the few hours she had with her teacher every evening.
She opened the book, as she put her brush aside on the ground, and the book randomly opened at the page of King Sombra. From what she had been told, this man was the worst of the worst, the cruelest, and most maleficent creature in the entire realm, whose anger and passion for death didn't know any limit.
She started reading through his information and his history, when he was first exiled, when he came back to the Crystal Empire, and when he came back to Equestria... Weirdly, she envied him. Why, as a villain, he was freer than she had ever been trying to be the best version of herself.
She put her book down and sighed. Even the most horrible people in the realm could do stuff. Discord had been reformed, Thorax, formerly a member of the Changeling army, had become the King of them all, Princess Luna had turned good, and even Starlight Glimmer, who was quite the bad girl, had turned into one of the most important ponies in Equestria. Everyone had had a shot at redemption... Why not her?
"It's time to go, Amber." It wasn't Nightingale's voice this time. She stood up, shaking her head and looking up at the clock. 6 AM?! She had been reading and thinking until then?? She sighed and turned around, seeing the first Solar Guard of the day.
"Yeh, yeh. I'm coming." She frowned and sat down in the center of the room, as the door of the cell opened. "Don't worry, I won't bite. I never do." She said to the entering unicorn. He was one of many who had tried to help her by ridding her of her dark magic by fighting it with his own, inside her body. But nobody really cared that it didn't work. At least someone did something to fake a chance at curing her.
"Don't move, or I blow your head off." the Wizard frowned and started to levitate anti-magic chains onto her horn and hooves. He didn't want to take any risk with one of the most powerful beings in the princessdom. After having chained her, he stepped back and started focusing his magic in his horn. "I hope you are ready."
Suddenly, his magic blasted at hers, both of their magics fighting in her very horn and sending shocks of pain and magical induced lighting through her body, putting her in agony as she fell flat onto the ground, twitching and yelling in pain. She hated this moment. It always felt more painful than the last time. She had endured this pain for years since she was 5 years old, and at first, it felt uncomfortable without any pain. But now, every time she went through the magic curing session, she hoped to die. And every time, she lived.
It lasted 5 minutes of pure pain. In the end, her whole body convulsed and twitched, as lightning didn't finish to course through her. After 10 seconds of lonely spasming, she gasped and coughed, closing her eyes as she tried to calm down.
All of a sudden, something that had never happened occurred, to the mischance of everyone in the room. The horn cuff broke, and her magic raged through the room, sending spikes of ice and stone all around, piercing through the wizard and the Solar Guard that was inside the room too.
She was aware of what was happening, but she couldn't do anything to stop it. She had realized at some point that her magic was becoming increasingly unstable. But she never told anyone, thinking it would be alright and stop with time. But this time, she couldn't go back. She had killed two people...
And as she thought, her horn still raged with the dark, evil magic that coursed through her body, she still sent spikes through the room, sticking into the walls and creating a quite smaller cage for herself in the process. It was only a few minutes later that her horn calmed down, and she sighed in relief, looking to the two corpses she had made. "I..."
Quickly, she realized the situation, and suddenly leaped away, starting to cry. She didn't want to kill people, she didn't want to be a killer, to be a monster. She didn't want to be like one of those monsters who hid and run until their end...
Then, what she feared happened: she heard hoofsteps outside of her cell. A lot of them. Guards swarmed the cell and pointed swords and spears at the sobbing young mare.
"Well, it seems you have finally done it."
The sobbing instantly stopped. She opened her eyes, looking directly at the mare that had put her inside of this cell. She frowned, and her horn started glowing.
"You... You put me in there! You made me kill these people!" She growled and stretched her wings, trying to take off towards the girl with her horn used as a piercing spear. But before she could do anything, she was crushed by a magic shield summoned by the mare. "You can't even face me, uh? You can't fight me face to face, Princess Celestia!"
The princess rolled her eyes and turned around to leave the cell. "Clean up this mess, she will be executed tomorrow at 6 AM. Prepare yourself, Amber. You have never done anything in your life, and you will die forgotten."
She smirked and left the cell, as the Guards surrounding Amber left with her, locking the cell again. Amber slipped into her bed, closing her eyes and trying to stop thinking about what she had just done. She had killed two people, two innocent people who had lives, families, friends... She felt horrible, and she was going to die with this guilt. She closed her eyes for a few minutes, and without even wanting it, she fell asleep.
And that nap, would be the most important of her life.