Twilight is attacked by a familiar stranger, who has a terrifying tale behind him.
When Twilight is attacked and nearly killed by a madpony claiming to be her brother, she, the Princesses, and the rest of the Elements of Harmony find themselves saddled with a shellshocked soldier who would like nothing less than to end her life. While they help him adjust to normal life, he makes his story known - and what he claims causes them no end of worry.
Twilight Sparkle awoke with a snort as the library’s door rumbled. The sun was close to being set, just starting to touch the horizon. A candle on the desk she sat at had burned down heavily, a small flickering flame quickly blown out by the pony’s movement. She glanced down at the book that had served as her pillow – Pony Politics Throughout The Ages – before shaking her head to remove any lingering sleepiness. That’s odd. I was really interested in this book; how could I have fallen asleep? Was Spike right about mixing coffee with one of Pinkie Pie’s Rainbow Cakes? Before she could ponder this question further, the door rumbled again, unmistakably the sound of someone urgently requesting entry.
“Coming!” Twilight called, rushing to the door. Nopony had come by in the last few days, so she was eager to help this one, whatever they needed. Quickly composing herself, she opened the door, letting in the waning sunlight. A pony she didn’t recognize stood in front of her, a stallion in a tattered cloak with a hood over his head. “Welcome to Ponyvi-“
She was cut off as a hoof slammed into her face; not gently, to prevent talking, but instead a violent action that knocked her down and sent her sliding across the floor. She sat dazed for seconds that felt eternal, trying to piece together what had just happened from the fragments of senses that she could recover. These unconscious but important efforts were put on hold as she realized two, more important things.
She was being lifted through the air, floating back towards the library door.
And she couldn’t breathe.
The stallion was a unicorn, and she could now feel the magic that he was wrapping around her neck as he dragged her back towards him. Her hooves came up, vainly tapping at the solid magic. She tried to say something, but the grip was tight enough that she couldn’t even exhale. Her vision started going dark, and she looked in terror as her murderer’s scarred face came into view. His mane partially hid a patch over one eye, but the other was clear and coldly focussed. She felt an odd familiarity with the pony, like she had seen him numerous times before.
Then he was on fire.
Twilight dropped to the ground as the stallion’s cloak went up in flame. She sucked in a breath painfully. Looking up, she saw the stallion rearing, shaking his head to try to fling a small green and purple mass from on top of it. Spike clung on, fangs dug into the pony’s scalp and claws tearing into his cheeks. The stallion roared, and Spike was lifted in a light-rose-coloured blob of magic from the pony’s head, then flung into a bookshelf. The baby dragon fell to the floor like a rag doll. He groaned.
“SPIKE!” She screamed, rushing to her fallen assistant. He looked up at her, obviously in pain. An arm was bent oddly, and he gasped as he tried to push himself up with it. Twilight glanced at the stallion, currently busy stomping out his flaming covering, and turned back to Spike. Her horn glowed as she performed the only spell she could think of, and Spike disappeared in a pop as he was teleported far away from the madpony, to Fluttershy’s cottage. Twilight took two more deep breaths as she turned to face her now-unoccupied assailant. As she looked over him without his cloak, she felt her throat close up again. This time however, there was no magic.
The stallion had a blue mane and a white coat, crisscrossed with scars that could only have come from nonmagical healing. One blue eye stared at her with more malice than she had ever thought could be contained in a single pony. On his flank, a shield with a star much like her own made up his cutie mark, cut cruelly in half by a jagged scar.
“Shining Armor?” She heard herself ask. His eye narrowed.
“Hello, Rising Dawn.”
“No. No. You aren’t my brother.” Twilight shook her head, trying to see past whatever illusion the pony had active. “My brother isn’t all scarred up like that. He still has both eyes. He wouldn’t try to kill me.” Her brows furrowed, terror being replaced by anger. “You aren’t my brother. If you’re going to kill me, do it without hiding.”
In response, a magic ring popped into existence around Twilight’s throat. She once again found herself unable to breathe. The crazy stallion that looked like Shining Armor spoke.
“I’m disappointed, Dawn. You really can’t tell that I’m your Big Brother Best Friend Forever? Like two peas in a pod, we did everything together?” He shook his head. “Not that it matters. You just have to die. Then she won’t.” Twilight’s heart stopped as her vision darkened once more. She looked down with fading sight to see the tip of a magical barrier sticking out from her chest, just about where her heart would be. Looking back up, she saw a tear flowing down the stallion’s face. When he spoke, his voice was hitched. “I am sorry, little sis.”
Then he was sent flying by a pair of cream-coloured hooves.
Twilight’s lungs once again began doing their duty. Her heart, thrown awry by the shield around it, did not. Her vision still darkened, bloodflow being nonexistent to her brain. Her last memory before everything went black was of a brown-and-cream stallion running up to her. A spot darkened the area around one of his eyes.
“Twilight? Come on, Twi. Wake up.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Hearing came back first, quickly followed by touch. Twilight lay on something soft, in a very quiet room. A familiar claw held on to one hoof. Spike’s voice overtook the beeping of a machine close by.
“Please, Twi. You need to wake up. Please.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
A door opened and closed.
“Spike…” a drawling mare’s voice softly spoke. The young dragon sniffed. “Spike, it’s only bin three days. Doc’ said she’d undergone a whole hay’a trauma. She’s just gonna take time ta’heal, ‘s all.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“…I know.” The dragon responded. His voice turned from sad to tense. “Has he talked yet?”
“No more’n th’other one. Keeps sayin’ he’ll only talk t’the Princesses, an’ that what he did was nec’sary.” Applejack made a small shuddering noise. “That’s what scares me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Spike… he’s bein’ honest. He completely an’ truly thinks that killin’ Twilight is somethin’ that needs ta be done. Mix that with how much he looks like her brother, an-“
BEEBEEBEEBEEBEEBEEBEEBEEBEE
The machine blared as Twilight’s eyes shot open. She stared at the ceiling for several seconds before her head fell to the side, allowing her sight to fall upon the shocked faces of Applejack and Spike. She flicked her eyes around, recognizing the room layout of Ponyville General Hospital Intensive Care Ward.
“TWILIGHT!” Spike leapt at the hospital bed from his chair, only being stopped with a lurch when Applejack grabbed hold of his tail. He looked back at her with confusion. “Applejack, what the-“
A stampede of ponies in varying medical uniforms cut him off as they rushed into the room.
“Heartrate spike! Check her levels-“ “Eyes open, need to-“ “Breathing normal, get those tubes out-“ “-129/80-” “Healing rate normal-“ “Never gonna give you up-“ “Squee levels acceptable-“ “Magic pool still functional-“ “Palette colours still within-“ “-over 9000! She’s good, ponies! MOVE OUT!”
The horde of scrub-and-white-coat-wearing ponies exited the room as quickly as they came, leaving a confused Twilight laying in the bed with many less tubes surrounding her. Applejack let go of Spike, who promptly completed his jump and hugged Twilight. (Well, hugged her as best he could with one arm and her neck in a brace.)
“Honestly, when did ‘Ensure good care’ change meanin’ inta ‘Pit stop speed’?” She shook her head before sticking out the door. “Hey gals, Twi’s awake!”
Almost instantaneously, four ponies appeared in the room, worry, relief, and joy warring for supremacy on their faces.
“TWILIGHT!”
“Oh, I hope you’re okay, Twilight.”
“Yay! You’re awake! We can finally have your Yay-You’re-Awake party!”
“Darling, I do hope you’re feeling alright. This bed seems awfully thin for a recovering pony…”
“What happened to him?” Twilight asked, her voice raspy, but still audible over the din. “Where’s-“
“The prisoner has been taken into custody by the Royal Guardsponies, at the request of Princesses Celestia and Luna. Milady’s brother, Shining Armor, has headed the interrogation, as Princess Celestia wanted to ensure Milady’s health before speaking with the prisoner.” Twilight turned her head to look for the source of the voice, settling on the one pony in the room she didn’t know; the stallion that had saved her life. Everypony else also faced the strange stallion, who looked over them passively.
“Well dang, that’s more’n he’s said the last three day’s put t’gether!” Applejack noted. Twilight coughed in an attempt to clear her throat.
“Thank you. For saving my life, I mean.” The stallion looked at her with the same passiveness. It sent something of a chill down her spine. He looked like he was sleepwalking.
“I was only doing my duty as First Guard, Milady.”
“Who the heck are you, anyways?” Spike piped up. Twilight and the other ponies watched the stallion’s reaction, which was to reach up and scratch part of the brown circle around one of his eyes.
“Remember Nightmare Night? The one where Luna came down and scared the hay out of everypony in Ponyville?” He looked Twilight in the eyes, and for a moment she could see something behind the dull brown spheres. Some kind of memory of an emotion. “It was my first. I found it to be… scary, but fun.”
Nopony moved. Spike, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were all struck into confusion at the stallion’s non-sequitur. Twilight was frozen with a terrified recognition.
“Pipsqueak?” She finally choked out. He blinked.
“At your service, Milady.”
“…okay, let me get this straight.” Rainbow Dash glanced between the two ponies occupying opposite sides of the hospital room. She faced Twilight before continuing. “That stallion standing there is that little colt Pipsqueak that Luna’s been foalsitting occasionally, except this Pipsqueak is from an alternate timeline that’s ahead of us?”
“As is the stallion that assaulted her Ladyship. The mage that cast the spell on me was killed while casting, and as such I arrived several minutes later than the other.” The stallion replied. Rainbow turned to face him.
“That’s another thing! What the buck happened to make that guy wanna kill Twilight? And why do you keep calling her ‘Milady’ and ‘her Ladyship’ and all of that?”
“I call her Ladyship her Ladyship because her Ladyship is her Ladyship’s proper title.” Pipsqueak stated. Rainbow blunk several times in confusion. “As for his assault of her Ladyship, he is the leader of the ponies who have remained loyal to the Princesses in opposition to her Ladyship’s popular revolution.”
“Who is he in this timeline?” Twilight asked. Her voice had become better after several cups of water, and she sat up in the bed, trying to keep as much focus on the stallion as possible. She had been thinking on her question during the entirety of Rainbow’s repetitive interrogation, and was sure enough of the answer to already be showing a heartrate anomaly. Pipsqueak exhaled – not a sigh, that would require emotion – before responding.
“Shining Armor. Though he prefers to go by Broken Shield, now.”
Had Twilight still been hooked up to the heart monitor, it would have noted that her heartrate had tripled. Everypony (and the dragon) in the room talked at once.
“Shining Armor tried to kill Twilight?”
“What the hay? That makes no sense! Even to me!”
“Why would he do that?”
“Oh my…”
“Did he go loco or something?”
“What in Tartarus could Twi ha’done t’make her brother wan’ta kill her?”
Once more, Pipsqueak exhaled. “Simply? She killed the Princesses. Celestia in battle and Cadance in execution. I killed Luna at order of her Ladyship.”
Silence. Had Twilight still been hooked up to the heart monitor, it would have shown a flat line. Two small whumps sounded as Fluttershy and Rarity fainted.
Broken Shield sat as well as he could in the dank dungeon under the Royal Palace. Being chained to the ceiling by his forehooves, and having an ever-increasing weight hooked on to his back legs, had resulted in a situation where none of his four walking appendages could really hold him up. He would be lucky if he could walk again within the week. It was truly the worst form of torture in the Guardsponies’ Big Book of Interrogation and Information Extraction Methods.
Broken Shield had requested that they add balehooks and branding irons to the routine. “Give me a challenge.”
Now, however, he was on the floor, released from his bindings, awaiting the entrance of the Princesses. The very ponies he had once sworn to protect, had seen murdered, had done this timeline-destroying jump to ensure the survival of, were coming down to interrogate him personally. How fun.
A voice sounded from outside his little cell. “The Princesses are really coming down to interrogate him? Personally?”
Another voice, very similar to Broken’s, but with less years of wear and tear. Shining Armor. “That’s right. All they were waiting for was my sister’s recovery. Now that she’s okay, they’re gonna make this pony wish he’d never been born.”
She’s alive? No. No no no no no
“Hey!” He called to the younger, stupider version of himself. “Shiny, you white-livered blue-brained rose-sniffing gelding! I have some information I’m willing to share!” A laugh greeted him from the other side of the two-inch steel. He raised his voice. “Come on, Polished Closet!”
There was silence for several seconds. Then an ear-bleeding screech signalled the opening of the heavy door, with a blue-maned whitecoated stallion quickly slipping through the opening and shutting the door behind him. He glared at his doppelganger with barely contained hostility.
“Where did you learn that name?”
Broken Shield laughed. “And he’s not deaf anymore!” He giggled insanely for several seconds before resting his eye on the younger stallion. “Well, Polished Closet, I know that as a colt, you heard about how Prance was known as the Land of Love. So, in the infinite wisdom that comes with being a colt, you decided to make your name more like the Prench, and called yourself ‘Shining Armoire’. It took you two weeks and several adults laughing their flanks off at you to realise that an armoire is a storage unit for clothing, not the Prench word for armour.” He giggled again at Shining’s befuddled expression. “I also know that you’re married to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, also known as Princess Cadance. She likes to be called Candy in private, especially when you’re nibbling-“ a swift buck to the face cut off Broken’s description in a mess of blood and pain. He coughed up globules of bloody mucus and glared at his enraged captor.
“How. Do. You. Know. This?!” Shining Armor reared up to send a forehoof into the pony’s damaged snout, and Broken spoke quickly.
“I know that your first kiss with Cadance was the last night she foalsat your sister. I know that you keep a picture of her hidden somewhere on every piece of armour you own. I know that you and her have been trying for a foal since your wedding night, and that she wants to name the baby something so complicatedly Neightalian that you just end up referring to her as Dazzle, after the great-grandmother of Cadance’s that died a week after she was born. I know that you mixed as much hate as you could into the Love Beam that defenestrated Chrysalis and sent the Changelings out of Equestria in an effort to poison them, and I know that you followed this up with a vigorous secret investigation to make sure that there wasn’t a single living Changeling within a five-hundred kilometre radius of Equestria. I know this because I. AM. YOU!” Broken roared this last line, muscles in his neck straining as he thrust his head towards his stunned interrogator. The younger stallion stumbled over several words before finally settling on one.
“…how?”
“Someone mark this occasion down! ‘The day Shining Armor got a bucking clue!’ What you should care about is not how the buck I got here – it’s a modified time-copy alteration spell, by the way – but that should you not get your flank in gear and that little lavender harridelle into a six-foot-deep hole in the ground with her head separated from the rest of her, CADANCE IS GOING TO DIE!” Broken threw his head into the ground, sending a splitting bolt of pain through to the top of his spine. He glared once more at Shining Armor, this time with tears streaking down his face. “And you will be forever graced with the memory of watching said lavender harridelle kill her.”
Shining Armor stared, eyes wide, at the weeping figure of Broken Shield. The madpony curled up into a small lump on the floor, shaking with a mix of sobs and maniacal laughter. Shining opened his mouth to say something, caught, tried again, and succeeded in releasing a small peep before turning and walking to the armoured door. Only when he was partially out of the room did he find the words he sought.
“And if I believe you?” Broken Shield looked up at his double. The stallion’s face was torn between stoicism and fear. Broken laughed, a hard, dry laugh.
“If you believe me, with all that entails… then Twilight falls, and Dawn never rises. You die disgraced as a kinkiller. Cadance is safe, as is everypony that was killed during the Revolution. Your life for theirs. One for many, yes? The Guard’s Final Duty?”
In answer, the steel door slammed shut. Though this time, it was a gentle slam.
Princess Celestia looked down at the stalwart stallion. He gazed back up at her blankly.
“And that she kills me in your timeline is the reason she is unwilling to see me in ours?” Celestia continued. He nodded.
“It appears that way, Princess.”
Celestia blinked. “Well that’s just silly.” Quickly and gently removing the stallion from her path, the Solar Princess opened the door and trotted into the room. Pip blunk once as the magic on him dissipated. He turned to look at the door, reaching a hoof out to open it and gain entrance.
“We would not do that, were we thou.” Princess Luna stepped from a shadowed corner of the hallway, seeming to materialize from nothing. Pip blunk. “Tia can be… quite impertinent when interrupted from matters she hath deemed important.”
“In my timeline, Luna used modern Equestrian while she foalsat me. Am I to assume that you cannot speak as I do?”
“You speak in a more formal tone than what could be called ‘modern’, Pipsqueak.” Luna sighed. “But nonetheless, I can speak normally. I just prefer not to when I speak to ponies I am unfamiliar with.”
“You wound me, Princess. I retained a deep friendship with you until you attacked her Ladyship. Made it difficult for her Ladyship to trust me.”
“Was that why you killed me? To gain her trust?”
“No. I killed you because you needed to die to ensure the Revolution was successful. If any royalty had survived, it would have undermined her Ladyship’s claims of victory over the oppressive diarchic regime that was formed by you and your sister.”
“Were we really that bad? Did we change so much between now and then that we had to die?” Luna asked, curiosity clear in her voice.
“No, I cannot say that you have changed much at all.”
“So we are an ‘oppressive diarchic regime’ already?”
“In a sense. Already, you surround yourself with nobility and only on special occasions ‘grace’ the common pony with your presence. You listen to their complaints only when they come to you, a task that is arduous at best and for most ponies impossible. This lack of practical approachability is exacerbated by the extremely common belief that you and Celestia are omnipotent beings, which, to many ponies, makes you appear as though you are aware of their troubles, when you are actually not, and thus gives them the belief that you either are already working on a solution to their particular problem or simply do not care. The ponies who feel the latter are afraid to speak their discontent due to your guards and the fact that they think that you are omnipotent, and thus could quite easily destroy them. I have personally observed you and your sister be notified of this attitude, and dismissing at as ‘cute’ without noting the obvious ramifications.” Pip took a breath, face still maintaining the same blank expression. “As well, many ponies feel unworthy to speak to you, given your regality and the surroundings in which you have immersed yourself, and thus are unwilling to speak to you in an attempt to avoid offending you. Many ponies will also avoid complaining around those who know you, such as the Elements of Harmony, and only in the direst of circumstances such as the Appleoosa-Buffalo conflict will negative situations be brought to your (or their) attention. This leads to situations such as that in Trottingham, where on your first visit after befriending my younger self, almost everpony I knew there tried to stay away from me lest they offend me, and by extension you, by the fact that they had a miserable existence.” Another breath. “Newspapers are commonly censored to avoid reporting negative occurrences, lest they offend you by saying you aren’t doing a perfect job. The homeless and needy are thrown into prison-like ‘common-houses’ to avoid their appearance on city streets, while nothing is done to actually help them. Celebrations and holidays occur weekly to draw attention away from dangerous working conditions, inadequate healthcare coverage and worker numbers, an economy that prevents advancement, regular instances of apocalypse-level events, and numerous other problems that are part of the common pony’s life.” Third breath. “All the while, you and your sister stay here in the palace, unaware of these problems because you can’t be bothered to listen.” Pip finished, eyes still locked on Luna, who was struggling to keep her jaw from hitting the floor.
“We… we were not…”
“I can assure you, Princess, that I personally have nothing against you or your sister. But should you want your head to remain attached to your neck, I would suggest that you accept the conditions of the Charter this time.”
“The Charter?”
“The document which forms the basis of the Pony’s Democratic Republic of Equestria Constitution. Its rejection by you and your sister directly led to the formation of the Pony’s Democratic Front, which was the organization that overthrew the royalty and formed the first government of the Pony’s Democratic Republic of Equestria. It was written by her Ladyship Rising Dawn, formerly known as Twilight Sparkle, who also became the First Pony and head of the government during and after the Revolution.”
“…and Applejack said that you didn’t talk much…”
“I didn’t. Now I do.”
Luna sighed. She seemed to be doing that a lot, she noticed. “So this Charter’s rejection was what caused the Revolution, correct?” Pip nodded. “Well, are you aware of the reasons we rejected it?”
“No, Princess. Her Ladyship stated that neither you nor your sister gave her reason for the refusal, only stating that such a document was unacceptable to you.”
Luna rubbed her forehoof between her eyes. “Can you give a summary of the Charter’s contents, then?”
“I can give the Charter’s entirety, should you wish.”
“How long is it?”
“The current one, or the one you rejected?”
Luna was about to reply when the door shot open. Pip immediately leapt at the open space, but was once again caught in a gentle glow of magic. Celestia parked him beside the door as she slowly exited the room, a peacefully prone purple pony laying on her back. Luna raised an eyebrow at her sister, who gazed back and barely stifled a giggle at the younger’s bemused expression.
“She no longer thinks that she’s a risk to me, at least.” Celestia shifted her wings as Twilight snuggled into her back. She glanced at Pip, whose gaze repeatedly shifted between the Princess and her passenger. “Don’t worry, she’s safe.”
“In my time, if her Ladyship were in such a position, she would have put her horn through your spine.” Pip stated blandly.
“Then it’s good that this isn’t your timeline, isn’t it?” Celestia replied. Pip blinked. “Now come, I wish to have a chat with this ‘Broken Shield.’”
Broken Shield tapped at a loose masonry block under his hoof. There had been no further communiqués between him and his younger self, so he occupied his mind with the various ways he could escape the cell and kill the little purple plot that was once his sister before he was stopped and executed.
She should be in the hospital, extra security there should be maybe ten ponies between me and her when I get down there. Slip by them, exploit inherent training flaws when needed, find her room. Stab with scalpel? No, low chance of being in room. Brain with bedpan? Too slow and loud. Crush her heart with magic? Tried that, too much concentration needed. Maybe if I could sharpen my horn I could-
Broken’s musings were cut off as the hallway outside his cell echoed with a cacophony of hooffalls. Mutterings were heard in several distinct but muddled voices, and suddenly the heavy door to his cell swung open as though it was made of linen. A familiar white alicorn stood in the open doorway, her wings partially opened and her face a solid mask of serene stoicism. Broken’s heart leapt at the sight.
“Milady Princess!” The former Royal Guard brought his head to the floor in as close an approximation of a bow as he could in the circumstances. “I heard the guards discussing your imminent arrival, but I did not actually expect-“
“Broken Shield.” The alicorn said softly. Memories of a happier time hit Broken faster than a Rainboom, and he couldn’t help but grin as he looked up at her. “You seem to have been through quite a trial, my little pony. Your wounds speak of much suffering, and your mind appears clouded and fragmented.” She walked further into the room, her wings coming further up as space allowed them and the door swinging shut behind her.
“Right on all three, your highness. I can’t rightly say I’m of the most solid sanity. Having your wife brutally murdered in front of your recently-singular eye will do that to you.” He began giggling again, though he tried to stifle it as he remembered that he was speaking to his Princess. “Much snnk apologies, your highness. I hehehe shouldn’t have brought that up herk hehe to you, should I?”
“No, no, feel free to do so. I need as much information as I can in order to help you.”
“Princess, if I may, the best way you could ‘help me’ is by strapping that little purple nag down and-“
“Twilight.” Celestia said. Broken shifted his brow.
“What?”
“Her name is Twilight Sparkle.”
“Where I’m from, she’s a genocidal plothole named Rising Dawn.”
“Then it’s a good thing we aren’t there, isn’t it?” Celestia asked. Broken noticed a slight edge to her voice. “Here, she is and always has been Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, my personal protégée, and brother of Shining Armor. You used to be him, correct?”
“Well, yes, your highness, but-“
“Then you should be able to call your sister by her real name, yes?”
“Ah-“
“Then do it.”
Broken Shield stared at his Princess for several seconds, his mouth moving in an attempt to form words that the lack of air movement through his throat wouldn’t allow. Celestia still watched him with a stoic gaze, but he could see the little glint in her eye as she caught him in a trap that he had no chance of escaping.
“Go on, my little pony. Say ‘I want to kill my little sister Twilight Sparkle.’ If you do, I might let you.” Celestia’s horn glowed, and a yawning purple pony lifted off of Celesita’s back and into Broken’s sight. “I’ve even brought her in so that you can say it right to her face.”
“Princess… where are…” Twilight yawned again as she looked around the dark room.
“Hush, my faithful student. This pony wants to say something to you.” Celestia turned Twilight to face Broken Shield, who couldn’t bring himself to look away from the sheer shock that currently petrified him. She squinted her eyes at him and yawned again.
“Shiny? What do you want, big brother?”
Had Broken Shield’s eye widened any further, it may have popped out of his head. Instead, it focussed on the sleepy eyes currently watching him confusedly and unaware of his intentions, the eyes that had haunted him since they had been lost to him. Then it shut itself as he brought his face into the stone floor again, tears – and no laughter – escaping despite his greatest attempts to contain them. He gasped out a single, tortured word before losing his ability to speak to sobs.
“Twily…”
Celestia emerged from the room with a still-disoriented Twilight on her back, the tortured cries of the prisoner becoming muted as the door closed. Eight pairs of eyes trailed her in shock, another without outward emotion. She gave each a passive glance before speaking.
“As a ruler, one learns certain techniques. His reaction is very valuable.”
“Might I ask how, sister?” Luna questioned. Her eyes flicked at the door, where another pained sound emerged. “You claimed to wish to aid him, yet you appear to cause him more pain than the guards.” Celestia slowly set Twilight on her hooves, ensuring the pony would not collapse, before turning to answer her sister.
“Simple. He wanted to kill her. Now he doesn’t.”
“And how can you be sure of this?”
“I can’t. But listen to him, Luna. When given the chance to kill Twilight Sparkle, instead of Rising Dawn, he refused to even try. Because she’s Twilight. His sister, in his timeline and ours.”
“What?”
All eyes turned to the Captain of the Guard, whose back legs had failed him at some point, leaving him sitting on the floor in shock. His eyes flicked several times between the door and the Princesses.
“Oh, er, yes. That pony in there is a… version of you from an alternate and future timeline. One in which it appears that some very disharmonious events have occurred.”
Shining nodded numbly. He stood up, though his legs maintained a subtle wobble. “B-by your leave, your Highnesses, I would request-“
“Go, Shining. You’ve guarded him for days. I’m sure you need the break.”
Once more the guardspony nodded, mixing in a salute before walking past the group of watching ponies. He jumped when he felt a tug on his tail, trying to reign in the odd feeling of dread he developed when he turned and saw his sister.
“He’s not you, Shining.” She said, staring deeply into his eyes to reach the special well of emotion that only family members could access. “He might have been you, but he’s not anymore. You aren’t responsible for him, BBBFF.”
“…Thanks, Twily.”
Celestia once again opened the door and slowly walked in when she heard the cries cease. Broken Shield lay in a small puddle on the floor, shivering and coughing with the last fits of sadness.
“You’re still the manipulative troll I swore fealty to, your Highness, I’ll give you that.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Broken Shield. And you should know that-“
“The actions you took were not intended to emotionally destabilize me, but rather gauge my reaction to being forced to see my sister rather than my enemy. I recognize that, Princess.”
“But?”
“But you can’t expect me to just… give up! Do you know how many hours were spent, how many resources consumed, how many ponies killed just so that I could come back and get rid of her?! I can’t just throw their sacrifice away!”
“I don’t expect you to. But we both know that killing Twilight is not the best way to solve your dilemma.”
“ ‘Not the best way’?! You think I’d have done all of this if there was a better way?!”
“Yes.” Her answer caught him short; Celestia gazed down at him passively. She turned back towards the door. “Call me when you’re ready to-“
“Wait!” Broken yelled. Celestia turned back to him, one eyebrow raised. He drew himself up as much as he could, staring Celestia as straight in the eye. Several muttered curses later, he began, acid laced clearly through his speech but not affecting what was said. “I hearby swear upon my life and the lives of every guardspony, upon the grace of Princess Celestia, the duty of Princess Luna, and the love of Princess Cadance, that I shall not harm the unicorn mare Twilight Sparkle.”
“Thank you, Broken Shield. Though the part about Cadance was unneeded.”
“My Celestia said that too, until I threatened my resignation if I was disallowed from saying it.”
At this, Celestia chuckled, and Broken gave a sort of wry grin. A knock on the door stopped both of them, and when the Princess drew it open, a cream-coloured stallion popped his head in.
“Princess, your sister wishes to notify you that the sun is supposed to rise within twenty minutes.”
“Thank you, Pip.”
“It was no problem, Princess. Her Ladyship requested that I maintain civilites with you, so I am attempting to. Oh dear.”
This last bit was said in response to the sharp, jagged chunk of stone that was on a collision path with Pip’s head, launched by and with a trail of rose-coloured magic. He tried to draw his head back behind the door and dodge the projectile, and succeeded in moving it about three inches behind.
Then the rock lodged into his eye.
The gasp of Celestia and screams of several mares accompanied the sound of tearing flesh and some unknown fluid violently hitting the floor. Pip blunk several times, his right eyelids futilely trying to do their duty and remove the invading particle. He drew his head fully back into the hallway, turning and levelling a blank face at the other, horrified, ponies.
“I believe I may require medical attention.”
A damaged cackling started from inside the cell, accompanied by a shrill mocking call.
“Eye for an eye, Pip ol’ boy! I told you I’d get you back one day! EYE FOR AN EYE!”
Celestia had been quite angry at him. That was to be expected.
He hadn’t seen anypony in well over twenty-four hours. That, too, was to be expected.
Everything was, so far, going to plan. Now he just had to wait.
“I am a Free Pony And I am here to say I’m going to free Equestria, and bring down the tyranny-y-y It doesn’t matter now If you’re under abuse ‘Cause sparking an uprising is what I am here to do ‘Cause I want to make you free, free, free Yes I do-“
Broken continued to hum the tune to the odd song even as the door dragged open to admit Shining Armor and two other guards. He flashed them a toothy grin, winking at the Captain, who glared back in response.
“So how’s Pippy doing? Did I manage to carve up any part of his brain? Though I’m damned proud I got his eye, that’s a hard shot to make with no depth perception.”
Stone-faced silence met his mockingly-cheery words. Broken’s grin slipped to a smirk. He narrowed his eye, clicking his tongue as he switched tactics.
“Oh, is that what you came down for?” Broken laughed again. “No need for that, colts, I got these off hours ago.” True to his word, a shake of his barrel slunk off the chains that should have fastened him to the floor, with the leg irons following suit as he stood uneasily. “You should really invest in better equipment, Polly, ‘cause these things were easier to get off than Candy’s fuzzy sto--“
The buck sent his head into the wall, though when he stopped seeing spots none of the guards had moved. He spat out some blood and laughed.
“Right, right, I get it. No talky about the plot--“
This buck made a dent in the wall, small chunks of rock falling around Broken as blood dripped onto his muzzle. The guards remained stock still. He gave each of them a grimaced glare.
“Now that was uncalled for, you Changeling-mounted—“
This buck made him see sunshine and several cross-eyed little pegasi.
“And why is the prisoner injured?”
“He was uncooperative, your highness. We were forced to subdue him.”
Celestia levelled a raised-brow appraisal of the three guardsponies in front of her. The two regulars shifted a bit, but Shining met her gaze evenly. She sighed as her eyes flicked to the blood-caked mess of a pony in front of them.
“I accept your justification. But if it happens again, and you three are once more spotless from injury, I shall assign all of you to the inside of Luna’s private chambers for the week before the next Summer Sun Celebration. Is that understood?”
Now all three looked rather mortified, though Shining at least attempted to maintain a straight face. Celestia smirked and waved them off with a hoof.
The second the door closed, Broken let out a groan, quickly followed by two coughs. An eye appeared out from under his matted mane, and he gritted his teeth as he drew himself up to bow to his princess. Then he fell over again.
“Strip my hide if that bucker can’t hit. I don’t remember being that strong.”
Celestia stared at Broken for a time, simply watching him shift around in an effort to reduce the pain to as small an amount as he could. When he stopped, she began.
“She wishes to help you.”
“What?”
“Twilight Sparkle. She wishes to help you recover from the trauma you’ve been forced through.”
What.
Broken laughed again, this time with genuine entertainment at what was obviously a rather odd joke at his expense. He tapered off slowly as he noticed her silence. The stallion watched her, looking for any sign of a fib. Celestia had always had a tell, but if she was lying now, she was hiding it extremely well.
“You’re serious, then. Why the buck would she want to help me? Is she suicidal? Did I do more damage to her head than it looked?”
“My student is fine, Broken Shield. Apart from some strained muscles in her neck.”
Broken was minorly surprised to feel a small relief at the news. “Then why in Faust’s name would-“
“‘Love and Tolerance’, Broken. Many ponies, including your sister, live lives almost completely free of resentment and hatred.”
Broken was silent for several minutes. He mulled the news over in his head. Giggled occasionally as he thought of something that he found entertaining, but mostly he remained rather stoic.
“…Does she truly think I can be rehabilitated?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, my little pony.” Celestia watched the disturbed stallion; for the first time in her observance, he looked… confused. Unsure. Scared.
“I’ve… your highness, I’ve lived the last decade of my life fighting the being that she became. I’ve lost everything to her, friends, allies, family. I’ve been tortured, starved, mentally raped, all at her order or by her hoof. I have tortured, starved, and destroyed the minds of her allies and helpers. I don’t remember the last day that I’ve not killed somepony out of necessity, or excessive assault, or simply because they were the enemy. I have ten years of memories of things that many ponies here could never comprehend. I’m not sure I can recover from that trauma.” His eyes were dry; Broken was speaking not as a madpony, but as a truly broken individual.
Celestia sighed. She walked forwards, standing within hooflengths of the old soldier. She laid a wingtip on his shoulder, drawing a confused stare.
“I, too, do not believe that you will recover from what has occurred. To ask you to would be foalish and a futile effort.”
“Then why did you-“
“Because you can be helped, Broken Shield. You may never recover, but you do not need to remain broken. I want to see you come back from the brink that you stand upon. I want to see your scars faded, your injuries mended, your traumas healed. What I want, my little pony, is for you to live the life that all ponies should be allowed to live.”
“And Twilight?”
“She, too, sees little difference between herself and Rising Dawn. She feels a horrible guilt over what little she knows of Dawn’s actions; it is my hope that she may help you to heal from your past, and that you may help her to realize that she is innocent of any evils Rising Dawn may have committed.”
“And how, precisely, do you expect this to happen?”
“Simple. You shall be set free, with Twilight acting as your legal guardian. At regular points in time, you shall give a narrative, to Twilight, and her friends should they wish it, of what occurred in your Equestria. Everything that you can remember that is relevant to how you came to be here, I want you to tell her. That way, you can relieve yourself of the burden of carrying those memories silently, she can see just how different she is from Dawn, and with Spike recording, we can get a clearer timeline of the events, so that we may learn from them.” Celestia gave a small smile as Broken’s brow furrowed.
“Say I agree to this. Where would I stay?”
“Twilight has offered room and board.”
“And I’m supposed to assume nopony has a problem with that? Her friends, her dragon, Pol-er, Shining Armor? You?”
Celestia merely shook her head. “If anypony has a problem, they can voice it to Twilight. It’s her decision.”
“What about me?”
“Do you have a problem living with her?”
Broken snorted. “Would you want to bunk in with a pre-insane Discord?” When Celestia gave him a slightly sheepish look, he specified. “Yes, I do. I’d much rather live in the Everfree, your highness. Less dangerous.”
“You can speak to Twilight about it.”
The stallion just sighed. “What would I do, when not regaling her and her ‘friends’ with tales of torture and misery?”
“I would presume Twilight or one of her friends could use the aid of a former Royal Guard in some fashion. And before you ask,” she added, as Broken opened his mouth once more. “No, I’m not letting you anywhere any weapons or instruments of violence. Twilight is under strict orders to prevent you from harming anypony, as well.”
“Princess, I highly doubt that she or you could keep me away from anything that could be used as a weapon. I’ve had to learn to use any possible item to my advantage.”
“Like the floor?” Broken’s eye flicked up at Celestia, who met his stare with a mild chill.
“I swore not to hurt Twilight. Technically, I’m still at war with Pip.”
“He was not attacking you nor acting aggressive. You had no reason to attack him.”
“No reason?! He’s responsible for the deaths of more Royal Guards and Loyalists than I can count, as well as Princess Luna, in case you forgot-”
Celestia’s eyes popped open fully. Her mane seemed to inflate, and it was suddenly very, very hot in the chamber. The Solar Princess’ voice took on a timbre; not the Royal Canterlot Voice, but the voice of any channelling extreme power. “I would not forget such a thing, Broken Shield. I remember any and all threats to my people, especially my family. You would do well to remember that.”
“I meant no offence, Princess. But he is my enemy, has been for almost ten years. I will not simply brush off a decade of death, pain, and loss at his hooves in a day because you’ve asked me to.”
“You’ve done so with Twilight-“
“I HAVE NOT!” He roared. Celestia’s mouth closed in astonishment at his vehemence. “I have not, I will NEVER forget what that thing has done to me or to Equestria.” He took in a few breaths, ragged growls coming from his throat as stood up in an attempt to meet her eye. His voice grew icy as he spoke. “Your trick worked earlier because I saw Twilght and Rising Dawn as one in the same already. But as she is right now, she’s nowhere near the level of evil that Rising Dawn ruled over. I swear to you, Princess, and to Luna, and to Cadance, the second I see anything of Dawn in Twilight, I will kill her. Because she won’t be my sister anymore.” Then he began laughing again; it was a low, breathless laugh, one that failed to distract from the small tears running down his cheeks.
For the first time in several decades, the Solar Princess found herself at a loss as to what to do. She watched the madpony shake slightly as he curled into a ball, his forehooves covering his ears as he seemed to stare through the wall.
After several awkward minutes, the damaged unicorn seemed to calm enough for Celestia to approach, Before she had taken two steps, however, he launched to his hooves, stumbling slightly as he made for the door.
“Do you think the guards shall let you leave without me?”
This brought Broken Shield up short. He turned to face Celestia, his one eye matching her two in the intensity of his glare.
“Inform Twilight Sparkle that I accept.”
Then he vanished in a pop of rose-coloured magic.
The ride back to Ponyville was rather quiet.
Normally, they would have taken one or two pegasi chariots for urgent or official visits, or the train for regular, more relaxed trips, both to Canterlot and back. These modes of transportation would easily allow for conversations to form between the friends, lending to a more relaxed and fun atmosphere during the ride. Such talk would typically entail information on what each pony planned to do in Canterlot, or what each pony had done in Canterlot. Normally, the carriage they were in at the moment should have encouraged even more conversation than usual, as it lacked the noise of the train and the wind of the chariots. However, on this trip between the town and the city there was a problem. A large, scarred, one-eyed, possibly-extremely-dangerous problem.
Broken Shield sat on the rear bench of the carriage; the sides belonged to Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie on one and Applejack and Rarity on the other (the former of each pair having volunteered to keep watch on him), with Twilight, Fluttershy, and Spike seated in front, facing backwards. The majority of the time, all eyes were on the lone stallion. His eye flicked between his two ‘guards’ and Twilight with an erratic regularity. At one point, he noticed the seating arrangements, and precisely which looks were passing between which ponies and when. From his angle, he could also see certain telltale signs: reddened cheeks, small giggles, shifting tails, stiffening wings-
“I have a question, Rainbow Dash.”
Seven heads whipped fully to focus on him, some eyes widening while others narrowed. The prismatic pony, most surprised out of the entire group at having been addressed, gave a small grunt that Broken took to mean ‘Go ahead, you magnificent stallion, ask your question that I may answer to please you and make myself joyous at being useful to your flawlessly astounding mind.’
“If I wasn’t here, would you just be making out with Cotton Candy over there, or is your sense of public decency so hyracotheric that you would have your head past her cutie mark already?”
Had the air been as still outside the carriage as in, you could have heard a feather drop in Appleloosa.
A wet, muffled sound akin to a slap preceded a more definite thump as Broken’s muzzle met Rainbow’s hoof, a direct result of which was the back of his head introducing itself to the armoured panelling of the carriage wall. He blunk several times to clear the stars out of his vision, and when the last little lights winked out of his sight, he found the carriage one pony roomier. Out the barred window, a multi-coloured trail sped through the clouds.
“I’m surprised she can fly with her wings like that.” He chuckled to himself, purposefully refusing to notice the several glares that were directed at him. Glancing over at the pink confectioner, he grinned. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“That was rather uncouth.” Rarity finally said. The stallion levelled a glance at her.
“And? Public displays of ‘affection’ like that annoy me. Besides, you wanted to bite their heads off just as much as me for doing what they were doing.”
“And just how would you know that-“
“Because your idea of a romance is a privately passionate but publicly prude and prissy affair, like what you’re doing with Applejack.”
This time, the air was still enough for one to hear a feather drop all the way from Gryphonia. No glares were issued; instead, four sets of eyes turned to watch the two ponies on the left side of the carriage, whose faces had lost enough blood for there to be an observable difference under their coats. Their eyes were almost entirely white, taking up the majority of the front of their heads with pinprick pupils, and focussed on the scarred stallion seated to their right. Broken could have sworn there was a mirroring magic at work on them; both opened their mouths simultaneously, tried to talk and instead emitted strange squeaks, turned their heads to face each other, then faced forwards and gave an unfocussed, still-huge-eyed-and-small-pupilled stare at the floor. Broken stopped smiling.
“Buck me, that was still a secret, wasn’t it.” Two faint nods. The stallion’s face went blank.
Then he started roaring with laughter.
“Ah buck me hahaha I’m really pfffft haha really sorry about that hehehehehe I th-hehe thought you two were already out! Hahahaha!” He brought his forehooves to his sides as he fell off of his seat. The three ponies that weren’t in a state of shock (as well as the dragon) watched as he rolled to the front, knocking up against the panelling under the seat. His eye opened, and he and Twilight locked gazes.
Several things happened in quick succession.
Broken’s horn glowed. The carriage jerked sharply upwards. Twilight found herself falling towards the back, on top of Broken Shield. Then they hit the back, Broken impacting the wall while Twilight impacted Broken. The carriage righted itself, and Twilight fell to the floor, Broken landing on top of her, his legs braced to catch himself and avoid crushing her. She began to spin onto her belly so that she could crawl out, and found that Broken’s horn was digging into her neck. She glanced down, and froze when she saw him glaring back.
“One.”
Then he slid backwards off of her, dragging himself up and settling in the back seat in much the same position he had held before his laughing fit. Twilight scurried back to the front, her eyes matching everypony else’s (as well as the dragon, excepting Rarity) as they gave a terrified stare at the stallion. He greeted Twilight’s with a blank stare.
“That’s one time, one really bucking good opportunity I had at killing you. But I didn’t. Because I swore not to.”
Then he moved his head, greeted each of the others with the same stare. He finished with Rarity and Applejack, the latter of which had recovered enough to meet his gaze.
“I am sorry, by the way. I was not aware that you two were still private about your relationship. Had I known, I’d not have revealed it.”
The door opened, and a pegasus guard stuck his head in. “Our apologies. There were some unexpected hazards that necessitated a rapid course change. Is everypony alright?”
“I’m fine, thanks. Though I believe the Elements here would appreciate if you brought the sixth back?” Broken looked at Twilight again, who gave a small nod. “See? Go get her for them, will you?”
The guard, for his part, gave a confused glance around the carriage before nodding and leaving. After a few stiff, quiet minutes, the door reopened, and Rainbow Dash slipped in. She and Broken glared at each other.
“For a guard, you’re rather easy to distract, you know that?”
Rainbow growled, deliberately turning away from Broken as she sat back down.
“I’m not trying to be rude. If my guards or I had left a prisoner simply because he insulted us, the dungeons would have been empty ten times more than they were. I nearly killed Twilight while you were gone, by the way.”
This got her attention. Her eyes shot open, her head whipping first to him then to Twilight, as if to ascertain that he didn’t have the unicorn’s beating heart impaled on his horn as he spoke. He waited until she turned back to him before continuing.
“I didn’t, obviously, because if I did I’d have broken my oath to the Princesses. Which brings me to my second point: Twilight doesn’t need guards. I’m about the biggest threat to her that’s going to be a constant occurrence, and my oath prevents me from harming her, so I’m basically hobbled on that front. Pip and her magic should be able to handle anything else, and you ponies just being around helps reduce the remaining threats immensely.” He glanced up at Twilight, who met his gaze uneasily. “That reminds me. How is Pip?”
“He’s… okay. I guess.” She replied. “I mean, he didn’t even seem to care that there was a rock in his eye, nor that the eye had to be removed.” She shivered, and Spike wrapped his arm around her neck. “It was scary, just how… indifferent he was about the whole thing.”
Broken nodded. “I can understand that. First time I saw a Risen guard charge at me with his lower jaw and most of a foreleg missing… heh. Didn’t sleep right for a week.”
“Were… were all of my guards like that, then?” This question came in a small voice.
“Yes. Rising Dawn believed that emotion stopped a pony from being effective in their duties, especially when such duties regularly involved dying or getting close to death.” He coughed, noticing that all eyes were on him again. “You wanna know the really scary part?” He looked each of them in the eyes (except Fluttershy, who had turned away every time his gaze came upon her) and spoke in a hushed voice. “He’s not even a stallion yet. Fifteen years old, and he’s personally killed a Princess, over a hundred Royal Guards, and I don’t know how many Loyalists. All because Dawn told him to.”
“No.” Everypony in the carriage looked at Twilight, who was shaking her head as her pupils shrunk. “No, no, no, that can’t… I’d never… not… never that young...”
“No, you wouldn’t.” Broken replied. He caught her eyes and tried his best to hold them. “Rising Dawn would. And did.”
“Hold on. I thought Twilight was Rising Dawn? In your timeline-dimension thingy?”
“She was. Is. It’s complicated.” Broken waved a hoof. “Princess Celestia sent me down here because she couldn’t keep me in the dungeons for some reason, and Twilight volunteered to take care of me (something that I am still uncomfortable with, by the way) and Celestia saw that as a golden opportunity to get a record of what happened as well as ‘Showing Twilight that she’s different from Rising Dawn’ or some crap like that.”
“You don’t think she is?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t’ve tried to kill her, now would I?” Twilight shrunk back at this, and Rainbow growled. “Again, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Twilight isn’t Rising Dawn. Yet.”
Pinkie Pie. “But she could turn into mean ol’ Dawny later?”
“Easily. If I thought that my intervention would have removed the chance of Dawn arising, I’d have killed myself already.”
That bit of information seemed to catch the other ponies in the carriage off guard. Yet again, Broken Shield found himself subject to shocked stares.
“Ki…kill yourself?” Fluttershy squeaked.
“Yes. What, you think I’d hang around after murdering one of the Elements of Harmony, the sister of the Royal Guard Captain, Celestia’s personal student? Buck no. If I could definitively destroy any and all chances of Twilight becoming Rising Dawn right now, the first thing I’d do afterwards is jump out of the carriage and give myself a brain aneurysm and heart arrhythmia. Then I’d probably pop my lungs, put bubbles in my spine, so on and so forth.”
“But that’s…” Twilight trailed off. Broken raised an eyebrow at her. She swallowed and continued. “That makes no sense. Why would you kill yourself rather than explaining your actions? Is death really preferable?”
“I’d rather be dead right now. But I still have some things to take care of.”
“Things?” the studious unicorn asked.
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
Before any replies could be made, the carriage hit the ground, bouncing everypony but the stallion up in their seats. Within seconds the door slid open, and Broken found himself being roughly wrapped up in the chains before being bodily dragged out into Ponyville.
There were only three ponies anywhere near the library, and the presence of the Royal Guards sent them scurrying off. Broken was rather unceremoniously thrown into the library, sliding into a bookshelf with enough force to send a few books – heavy ones – falling onto him.
By the time he had escaped the chains, his six travelling partners (and the dragon) were all occupying spots in the room. He eyed each one, noting that they were all, once more, watching his every move.
“Er…” Twilight began. “Would you like to… get started, then?”
Broken simply glanced at her before pasting on a grin. He began strutting around the room, draping himself lavishly across furniture as well as the occasional pony. “Well, since you’re so eager to begin, I need to set some ground rules. No biting or crushing the merchandise. I don’t do pain play, so buck off if you wanna get bloody. I can only handle four of you at a time and still do a good job, so I’d suggest two of you get busy doing something else until one of my occupants decides she still needs to use her legs the next morning. The dragon needs to go, I’m not a specist or anything but I don’t do minors. If anypony’s into workhorsing, I’ve got the chains already. Oh, and my rate is twenty bits an hour. Right, I’ve had my shots, so let’s get going!” At this, he flopped onto the couch, laying on his back and spreading himself as long as he could go.
After about eight seconds, Broken opened his eye, glancing at the confused looks of everypony. Sighing, he turned himself until he was sitting properly. “Nevermind. What’d’ya want to know about?”
“Oh! Er, um, well, I guess we could start at when the, um, rebellion began?” Glancing behind her to verify that Spike had a quill and stack of parchment, Twilight turned back to the stallion and nodded. He sighed again, bringing up a hoof and rubbing between his eye and eye socket. The other ponies had formed a loose semicircle around him, each a mix of eager and nervous to hear what he had to say.
“Right. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Sure. Okay.” Broken took in a few breaths. “Okay. Twilight had just presented her Charter – basically, a document that supposedly ‘greatly expanded the rights of the common pony to help alleviate the plight of the populace’ or something like that…”
“Dammit!” A vase flew into the wall. “Dammit DAMMIT DAMN IT!” A bookshelf fell, its contents already strewn around the room. “Bucking flaming horseapples IN TARTARUS!” A table upended, pasting the fruit and glass upon it into a spiky mush.
Shining Armor watched as his sister vented. The meeting with the Princesses hadn’t gone as planned; she had stalked up to her reserved room the minute the doors had slammed open, a fire in her eyes threatening to burst forth any moment. She was very rarely in such moods, and the best he could do was to observe and make sure she didn’t hurt herself. Her horn glowed again, and the portrait of Celestia that graced the area above the mantel was ripped from its fastenings and brought in front of her. Twilight glared it down, apparently expecting the image to try to either calm her or make her angrier, and when it stayed the same as it always had, she threw it into the fireplace. Shining’s eyes were not on the rapidly-carbonizing painting, however: They were watching the steam rise from her ears.
“Oh, here we go.” He muttered.
Then Twilight was on fire. Floating in the air, coat turned white, expression pure rage as the flames of her mane set the chandelier’s candles aflame for a few brief seconds before they completely melted under the onslaught of heat. Shining had seen this before a few times as well, and he knew that she could only keep it up for a short while before –
Foom “Ungh…”
Ah, there we go.
“Feeling better there, Twily?” Shining asked, stepping around the floor’s debris to reach the singed unicorn in the room’s center. She glanced up at him, tears in her eyes, before flinging her forehooves around his neck and crying into his shoulder. He sat down beside her, bringing one forehoof up to calmingly brush her mane as she cried herself out.
“I just don’t know what went wrong…” she muttered after several minutes.
“What did the Princesses say?”
“Say? They didn’t say anything that justified their complete rejection! Celestia was worried about how the Draconic Kingdom and Gryphonia would deal with the changes to the political system, and how much of a fuss the nobility would put up! The nobility, the very ponies that the Charter is designed to limit the power of to prevent her from needing to worry about appeasing them!” Twilight snorted. “And Luna? Luna basically said ‘It’s a nice thought, but it seems like you’re trying to limit our power.’ Which is a completely unfounded fear, she would have seen that if she had read the thing! Then she said that the wording of the document seemed to exclude non-pony races from having any equality rights!” Twilight took in a breath, trying to remain calm. “ ‘We fear that the election of representatives by the citizenry, and the varying causes behind them, will cause unneeded chaos and disharmony under our rule,’ Celestia said! How can giving the downtrodden a voice in how they’re governed be a bad thing?!”
Shining sighed, running through her rant in his head. “Twily, you know that the Drakes and the Gryffs are both breathing down our necks over which side we support in whatever brouhaha they have going on over there, if the nobles get peeved then half the workforce goes unemployed before the Charter can take effect, putting more ponies into governmental positions will limit the power of the Princesses simply through increased gumming of the works and ‘interpretations’ of their orders, and having five-hundred ponies vote on every single issue that passes to the Princesses, even if they just have suggestive ability and no actual say in what happens, is going to make the bureaucratic process more complex and chaotic. The equality thing probably just has to do with a wording problem.” He watched as she blunk at him several times. “I like what you’re trying to do, but you’re going for too much too fast. Give Celestia and Luna a little bit to mull it over, then send them a letter requesting another audience to discuss their grievances with the Charter. See if you can’t modify it to something that you all agree on without compromising too much. It’s been done before.”
“Since when did you turn into Mr. Political Analyst?”
“I ain’t so dumb as you think I look, sis.” He said. Both chuckled, then were silent for half a minute.
“Ugh, I know you’re right about all of that, and most of it I should have seen coming, but it’s disappointing getting the big red X right out the gate, you know?” Shining nodded, and Twilight continued. “I mean, I have almost all of Ponyville supporting me. How do you think they’re going to take ‘Hey, they didn’t like any of it, so I’m going to go back and talk to them for who-knows-how-long and cut who-knows-how-much out so that they don’t have to worry about the nobles throwing a fit’?” She shook her head. “By Faust, so many ponies are going to be so sad. Lyra and Bon Bon – they’ve been together for eight years, not able to get married because the nobles think ‘the gay’ is bad, and I come back and tell them ‘Sorry, we’re probably going to need to cut out the Civil Marriage section so the rich ponies don’t turn into a bunch of nags’. Pinkie and Rainbow, and Rarity and Applejack, too. Four of the bucking Elements of Harmony can’t be legally happy together because some blueblooded soft-hoofed ingrown-horned MORON thinks two mares kissing is icky.” Another sigh. “So many of them were so excited, and now this… I’m worried about how they’re going to take it.”
“Don’t be, Twily. Sure, some folks’ll take it hard, but this is Equestria. They should know how to deal with themselves, and if a few get rowdy, just send for the guards.” Shining stood up, patting his sister on the back. “This isn’t the end of the world, sis. Everything’ll be fine.”
---
“…and then you packed the things you brought and went back to Ponyville.”
“That’s how this whole thing started?”
“That is the absolute beginning, yes, unless you want me to delve into the writing of the Charter, a process that I have no knowledge of other than that it took about two years.”
“That sounded like it ended peaceably, though. What happened that, um, kicked off the Revolution?”
“The Ponyville Riot.”
“…Can we hear about that, then?”
“It’s not a nice story.”
“The Princess wants a full record, Broken. That would include the… not-nice stuff.”
“Just warning you.”
---
The chariot hit the ground hard. Shining didn’t notice. He leapt from the vehicle the minute it touched dirt, quickly followed by the rest of the squad. Behind them, the second chariot and the pegasi guards landed. Shining didn’t notice. Smoking piles of burnt flags and wooden detritus sprawled around a charred tree. Elsewhere, larger plumes of smoke billowed into the clouds, and the low roar of a violent mob could be heard. Shining didn’t notice. He bolted from the landing zone, towards the tree, bucking the door open and nearly off, to see a scene of chaos inside; books littered the floor, several standing bookshelves had been tipped, broken glass lay in scattered groupings near the empty windows.
And a purple mare sat in the middle of it all.
“TWILY!”
She looked up, at and past Shining, her eyes unfocussed. Strips of parchment lay at her hooves. A small gash left a red line across one cheek. Then she blinked several times, and her eyes found his. He trotted up to her as she slowly stood.
“Are you alright?! Did they hurt you? Where’s Spike?”
“They, they were angry, I told them and they got so mad, and they started throwing things and breaking lampposts and burning the flags…” She shuddered. “They were shouting things, horrible things… they were all angry, they didn’t listen, they started running to the Town Hall…”
“Twilight!” Shining yelled. She looked at him again. He repeated his questions.
“Spike went to try to control them, AJ and Rarity went to the Boutique and Pinkie went to Sugarcube Corner in case the mob tried to break in…”
“Are. You. Okay?”
“They tore up the Charter… they wanted to hurt the Princesses…”
“Dammit!” Shining turned to his two lieutenants. “Charge, find the mob and try to work with Spike to herd it. It’s probably split up, try to keep them separate but get them to one area! Cloud, grab a few unicorns and pegasi, try to put out any fires the mob started.” The two nodded and ran off. Shining turned back to Twilight. “Twily, Twily, sis, I need you to come back, okay? I know you’re freaked out right now, I am too, but I need you for this.”
Twilight actually seemed to focus on him while he was saying this, a small recognition in her far-away eyes. Then the earth shook, some more books fell to the floor, and he lost her to staring at the floor. Shining cursed, about to simply pick her up and drag her to the mob so that she could try to calm them down. Then he noticed that her eyes were moving, very quickly, looking at each little piece of parchment haphazardly spread around her. Her lips moved, almost imperceptibly, forming small shapes that, had they been given voice, would have formed small words.
And he made what he would later decide was the worst mistake of his life.
Turning and walking out of the library, he gathered two of the ponies left behind and ordered them to under no circumstances let Twilight out of their sight. Then he ran off to help his guardsponies.
“Please remain calm. This is a guard action. Do not attempt to assault the guards or anypony else. You will be allowed to go free when it has been determined that you have performed no illegal actions. Violations of the law within the perimeter will be dealt with forcefully and swiftly. Please remain calm…”
The Standard Riot Action Detention Speech. Shining had been forced to memorise it during training, but it hadn’t been used in over thirty years when the instructors brought it up. Actually having to perform the speech, and with the required tone and magical accompaniment for those ponies that relied on sight more than sound, was a more daunting task when faced with five-hundred passionate and angry ponies rather than three instructors.
That said, the twenty-foot long dragon helped to keep things calm quite well.
“Twilight tell ya what happened?” Spike asked. Shining kept his eyes on the crowd.
“I got a bit of it. She was really out of it, Spike. I’m worried about her.”
“You’re telling me. After we landed, everypony was in front of the library within minutes. She actually had to get me to say what happened, there was so much buzz.” The adolescent dragon ran a claw along his neck spines. “Everypony went quiet for about ten seconds, then… it was like a roar. Just this giant sound of anger and letdown rolled into one wave. Ponies started knocking over lampposts, grabbing the flags and tearing them up, I saw two Earth Ponies just straight up kick a cart through a window. There was a whole bunch of shouting, me and Twilight just trying to calm things down, then some moron decides to rush the stage and bring along ten friends.” Spike’s eyes took a glint. “That wasn’t very smart. They got the Charter and tore it up a bit before I… waved them off, but I managed to get Twilight inside. Then I wrapped myself as much as I could around the library to stop them from burning it up, because setting fire to the Charter’s author’s house totally makes sense when you’re angrily protesting the Charter’s refusal, right?” He sighed as a few more ponies were allowed out of the perimeter. “Anyways, that’s when they started migrating to the Town Hall, so I coughed a message up to Celestia and tried to hold them back a bit.” His eyes flicked to the smouldering crater that had once held the government of Ponyville. “Didn’t work so well.”
“Don’t beat youself up, Spike. Celestia knows I’d’ve had about a tenth of your results if I’d been working alone. So long as nopony got hurt in there, it’s an easy fix.”
“But ponies did get hurt.”
Shining stiffened. His eyes turned to the dragon, who was busy glaring at a cobblestone. The stone appeared to blacken under Spike’s stare.
“Yeah, ponies got hurt.”
“How many?”
“…five dead, including two young fillies. Twelve injured. Most after the Hall got set on fire, from trampling during the whole big stampede away from the heat and flames.”
Spike slammed a claw into the ground, sending several sharp stone fragments flying as the road gained deep fissures under his fist. A tear flowed out of his eye and hit the ground with a boiling sizzle. He glared into the crowd, smoke rising from his nostrils.
“Hey, hey! Calm down, Spike. We don’t need an angry dragon after all this…” Shining cautioned. Spike turned his glare towards the guard.
“Calm down?! Five ponies, innocent ponies, were just killed in my town, and you have the ponies that did it right in front of me, and you want me to calm down?!” Despite the barrier separating them, the ponies nearest Spike began to shuffle away. “I could probably smell the blood on their hooves… if you let me in there, I-“
thk-BOOM
All eyes, pony and dragon, guard and rioter, turned to face the direction of the massive sound. Spike’s eyes widened, his pupils pinpricking.
“That’s Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie Pie. The Cakes. Not again. No more!” Spike bolted off, claws making deep grooves in the road before he leapt and let his wings catch him. Shining wondered if the dragon had run anywhere before when he was this size; none of the roads had been damaged before today.
“Dammit!” Shining spat again. “Cloud, are you sure we got everypony?!”
“Yessir! I had my best spotters do three flyovers after we gathered these ponies. If any rioters are left, they’re very good at hiding, sir!” Shining gritted his teeth.
“Charge, keep the ponies moving. Cloud, you’re with me!” The unicorn and pegasus sped off after the dragon.
Left, right. Three blocks, left. Around the curve. Right. He dashed up the street, Thundercloud behind him. Right. One block.
As Shining ran, he observed. No fires, graffiti, broken windows or torn-down flags. The street, every street they’d been on since leaving the square, had had no signs of mob activity. The rioters had apparently avoided any paths that directly lead to Sugarcube Corner. There was no sound of a mob, either; the low din that marked a large group’s presence anywhere was absent.
Thk-Whum-krsh
“RAAAGH!”
Another gigantic sound, as though thunder was setting off at ground level. A huge plume of dust and smoke shot into the air as the roar came. Shining ran faster.
No rioters, what the buck was that then?
As this question ran through his mind, a purple mass flew from around the corner of the street and hit the building across with a wet crunch. As the purple dissipated, Shining found himself staring at a stallion in gilded armour, his head turned backwards, shocked but dull eyes looking over his back and tail at the guard captain. It took Shining a few seconds to notice that the stallion wasn’t breathing, that his neck had actually been broken rather than simply turned around.
Thundercloud vomited. Shining kept moving, rounding the corner to see what could have done such a thing to a guardspony.
The first thing he saw was a wall of dust. As this cleared, however, he began to make out shapes. He saw a mound of something, rubble, only discernable due to its lower height compared to the surrounding shadows. The dust cleared more, and he saw a group of pony-shapes on the ground a distance away from the rubble, one of them rising higher than the others, discernable in the sea of dusty brown by her bright pink coat. As he walked further into the cloud, details began to be easier seen. He saw a red streak painted across several buildings, ending in a crumpled mass. He saw a long purple and green mass winding from out of the debris. He saw a purple unicorn digging frantically at the rubble, magical bins reaching in and moving huge mounds of wood and stone.
These last two signs set off warning bells in his head and froze the lump in his stomach.
“Cloud, see if the survivors saw anything!” He yelled, not bothering to see if the guardspony had heard him. He bolted straight for the rubble pile, horn already alight. The guard captain slid in beside his sister, lifting away huge chunks of detritus. Here and there, purple scales and green spines began to show through. Another ten seconds, and a snout came into view. Shining tossed some plaster dust in front of it; the powder fell without much deviance. He began working faster, but soon stopped; Despite how he wished it wasn't, Shining knew it was a lost cause.
“Spike, Spike, you’re gonna be okay, Spike, I’m here, you’re gonna be okay…” The purple unicorn muttered in a somewhat sing-song voice. She had ceased lifting massive piles of rubble when the snout came through, instead brushing debris away from the rest of the dragon’s head in an almost gentle fashion. When the entire head was in view, she stopped using magic entirely, simply wiping the remaining dirt and dust from around his spines and protruding scales. She rubbed along his brow, his loosely-closed eyes opening very slightly as the skin pulled up. “I need you to wake up, okay Spikey? Little Spikey-Wikey, Twilight needs you to wake up, okay?”
Shining had never seen his sister mourn before. She had been too young to remember when her grandmother and partial namesake had died, and since then she had never lost any family or close friends. He watched, uneasy, as Twilight slid herself partially under Spike’s head, shifting herself back and forth in an apparent attempt to gently rock the dragon awake. He was about to do something (though he had no idea what to do) when a slightly greener-than-normal Thundercloud trotted up to him.
“The, ugh, the ponies over there ar-er, were, that is, the owners of this building. The Cakes, Cup and Carrot, and their two foals are the ones that are huddled together, and Pinkie Pie – Element of Laughter, I believe you two have met, sir – is the one who’s watching… this.” He gestured broadly to the scene in front of them. “All three adults say they were inside the shop when a bolt of magic shot through the window and exploded inside. The building began to rumble – a load-bearing wall was apparently damaged in the explosion - and they heard yelling outside, and then the dragon leapt into the building and began holding it up so that the ponies could evacuate. The Cakes went up to grab the foals, then another bolt shot into the building, apparently hitting the dragon. He roared, the ponies ran, and the building collapsed behind them. Apparently Twilight and the guardsponies were in a physical engagement when the building collapsed, though the Cakes lost sight of them when the dust hit both groups. And yes, sir, the streak over there leads to the other guard. Dead, sir.” He coughed.
Shining let out several curses under his breath. “They didn’t see any altercations?”
“Beyond the guardsponies attempting to restrain Twilight? No, sir.”
“Do they know why she was restrained?”
“No sir.”
Shining sighed in frustration. He turned to his sister, who had stopped moving, simply laying her head across Spike’s brow.
Gentle, Shining. Remember how to handle guard widows and widowers. Gentle, firm—
Then Twilight lifted her head, her eyes open and gazing into Shining’s.
They were dead eyes.
“Twily—“
“Out.”
Shining blinked. Twilight’s voice had been heavy, but not in grief; it was a timbre, one caused by heavy magic usage. As he looked higher on her head, he realized that he couldn’t see her horn. There was an extremely bright light blocking his view.
“Twilight, what are you—“
”YOU KILLED SPIKE! YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE! GET OUT!”
Then Twilight exploded.
A great burst of magic shot out in all directions from her horn. A barrier, much like the one Shining had used with Cadance to remove the changelings, began to balloon out from the unicorn. Shining stood, stupefied, until the barrier reached him.
“When I awoke, I was about twenty kilometres away from Ponyville city limits. I was in a makeshift hospital, set up in a clearing near the edge of the Everfree Forest, just outside a solid purple magical barrier. Apparently Twilight had formed a Magical Perimeter that had pushed every guardspony out of Ponyville. Violently.” Broken unconsciously shifted his shoulders a bit; a burn mark on his left leg was a reminder of that day. “Other guards had come down, gathered us all up, and soon enough we were on our way back to Canterlot. The barrier was still going strong, and nopony could get in or out. It was like that for three weeks.”
His audience stared at him, transfixed. The only sound was Spike’s rapid scribbling, though the dragon, too, had eyes only for the stallion. Broken coughed.
“Oh, I’m sure you know – Revolution, murder of the Princesses, years of tyrannical rule under yonder bitch.” He waved a hoof at Twilight, who shrunk back a bit. Everyone in the room started glaring at Broken. “Or Rising Dawn, then.”
“Yeah, but-“
“Ah ah ah! Does Daring Do describe her daredevilling deeds ten pages in? Or does she spread her tale across a series to keep the readers interested?” Broken’s eye spastically flicked to one side as he said this. “Even if you know what happens, the devil is in the details. And although I adore this attention almost as much as the memories of the Princesses’ mortal moments, Celestia has ordered me to tell this tale, so say my story I shall.” He stood up, stretching his legs and pushing himself slightly higher. “But not all at once.”
“Might we be able to get some clarification, then?” Twilight asked.
“Clarification?”
“I mean, can we ask about certain things that we want to know more about?”
At this, Broken raised his brows. After a few seconds, he spoke. “I don’t see why not.”
“Alright, then! Who would-“
“Where were we during all of this?!” Rainbow interrupted.
“As I said, Cotton Candy was at Sugarcube Corner, Applejack and Marshmellow there were at the Carousel Boutique, and Twilight was, well, I told you about that. Fluttershy was at her cottage. I have no bucking idea where you were.”
“But-“
“Next!”
“How did you know about Applejack and I?” Rarity asked. Broken stared at her, surprised at the question.
“You were together in my timeline, you sat together, and you were radiating love whenever you looked at each other.” He shrugged at her confused expression. “Marry the Princess of Passion, you pick up a few things.”
“But we-“
“Wait, you and AJ are dating?”
“That is none of your business, Rainbow Dash-“
“But you just said-“
“Cotton Candy, what’s your question?” Broken asked over the din.
“Who died?”
Silence. All eyes turned to the pink party pony, who had on her face one of the most serious looks any of them had seen her produce. Broken sighed.
“The adults were Tarot, Greenleaves, and Tip Top. Guards were Tailspin and Night Shield. The foals…” He sighed again, a small cough following. “Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.”
The silence became a force of its own. It wrapped around the throats of everypony, locking them down. Surprise had been a common emotion that night; it now hit everypony with the force of a downhill train. Once more, Applejack and Rarity found themselves too horrified to do much of anything but sit stock still.
“If it makes it any better, they died protecting each other.” Broken continued. He coughed again, louder, with several smaller ones following. “They were – cah cah – hugged together, wrapped around each other – hack hee cah cah - each trying to take as many blows as she cou- cough cough hee hee could to stop the other from getting hurt.” He bowed his head, apparently gritting his teeth and gaining a sort of grin. “You know khhkt, if either one of them had been just a cah ha heh a little more selfish, just let the other take the trampling, theh – heh - then they’d’ve survived! They both died, two little fillies, just barely with their cutie marks, just because they wanted the stop the other from getting hurt!” Broken began shaking at this, little hitches at the shoulder as he faced the floor. “Ain’t heh heh hee ain’t that just hee hee ha just bucking CLASSIC?!? AHAHAHAAHAAA!” The stallion began roaring with laughter, shaking his head and slamming a forehoof into the floor.
Twilight and the others wore looks of varying horror and confused disgust as they backed away from the madpony. Broken looked up, catching each of them with a pinpricked pupil. His face looked painfully contorted, his grin almost literally splitting it in half; Twilight figured that if it was wider by five degrees, skin and muscle would begin to tear. He kept laughing, taking in laboured, hitching breaths in the few spaces where he could, even as tears began rolling down his cheeks. Then he slammed his face into the floor.
“NO!” He roared. Another laugh, another meeting of floor and face. “NO! It’s not funny! It’s never been funny! Ponies, little foals, died! AHAHAAAAAARGH!” Broken slammed his head into the wooden walking space several more times, drawing blood from his snout on the second, his mouth the third, and, with a crack that set Twilight’s and Rarity’s teeth on edge, from the base of his horn on the fifth. Then he simply slumped onto the floor, shaking a bit as he cried.
Fluttershy, after a few seconds, moved. Without a word she slowly flew to a space beside him, brushing a wingtip gently along his back as she leaned in and mumbled small words of comfort to the stallion. He stiffened when he first felt the appendage, but soon seemed to relax into the embrace. Gradually, his shaking softened and his tears dried, and the library sat in silence, six staring at two from across the room. Broken shook his head and stood.
“Sorry about that. Happens sometimes, not much I can do.” He shrugged, tongue lapping out to lick at some of the blood trickling from his nostril. “Can we take a break? Just give me a few minutes, I should be okay after that.” Twilight nodded slightly, and Broken briskly brought himself up the stairs. A slammed door and running water were heard before anypony let out the breaths they hadn’t known they were holding.
“So, anypony else really bucking uncomfortable with letting this guy be anywhere near us?” Rainbow asked, hoof raised. Four others and a claw matched it; Twilight was the lone dissenter.
“Oh, come on, girls! And Spike.” She tacked on at a level stare from the dragon. “He’s been through a lot, that much is clear, and both Princess Celestia and I want to find out the full extent of what happened to him. He might be a little… abrasive, let’s say, but he’s already sworn not to try to kill me again.”
“An’ what about the rest of us?” Applejack countered. “D’ya think he’s just gonna sit around an’ do nothin’ between tellin’ us how his universe-time-thing got all feathered up? I doubt y’could keep him locked up in here if you tried, and then we got a madpony on the loose in Ponyville!”
“He hasn’t acted aggressive towards anypony except me and Pip, and you saw how he treated the Princess even after her trick. He still seems to think of himself as a protector of Equestria, so I doubt he’d be willing to hurt other ponies without a really good reason. Besides, he wasn’t very cooperative in the dungeon, so we figured that he may be more open if he was placed into a more relaxed environment.” She moved over to Spike’s notes. “And look at this! Twelve pages detailing the start of the Revolution, the event that led to the Princess’ murders, the action that made Shining Armor into Broken Shield, the thing that I started… because I thought that I could do the Princess’ jobs better than them…” Twilight fell to her haunches at the last statement, staring at the words on the parchment as they became blurrier and blurrier, washed out of her vision by tears. A few seconds passed, and Twilight found herself wrapped in five pairs of hooved appendages.
“Twilight, darling, you must realise that we would never think of you the way that ruffian does.”
“Yeah! Even if Dawny was a meenie-weenie, you’re still Twilight, and you’re the most smartest, helpfulest, librarianest pony I know!”
“Like the Princesses said, Twi, y’ain’t responsible for what that stallion says y’did. You’re you, an’ the Twilight Ah know wouldn’t ever do somethin’ like that!”
“So what if his-Princesses didn’t like what his-you wrote? There’s a whole bunch of lame laws that are really outdated, and if you wanted to fix them then the Princesses should be begging for your help!”
“What the others said…”
Spike clambered onto the counter the ponies were huddled against, placing his good claw against Twilight’s cheek. “Twilight, I don’t care what he says you did, what you think you did, what happened to me, any of it. I don’t care. You’re my sister, I love you, and that’s never going to stop being true. You didn’t do anything to make him what he is, and everypony but you knows that. So please, please, stop beating yourself up over it. Please, Twilight?”
Twilight stared, wide eyed, at the heartfelt little speech from the normally anti-sappy dragon. She started shaking again, tears still falling, but this time with a smile on her face.
“…thank you, everyone…”
A voice from beside her. “What, did the orgy start without me?”
It was as if a cockatrice had materialized on the floor below the group. Six ponies sprang apart from each other, Spike falling back behind the counter, as Broken Shield descended the ladder and walked slowly, deliberately, to the couch. It was only at the sound of springs compressing that the ponies relaxed, each turning to watch and as the scarred stallion made himself comfortable upon the furniture piece. Rainbow and Applejack glared, and Rarity was muttering under her breath about inappropriateness and crassness. Broken laughed.
“Throwing your voice is a valuable skill for a soldier to have.” He levelled his eyes at the butter-yellow pegasus hiding behind a potted plant. “You were next.”
“Oh! Um, okay, um… was Dawn really that bad?” Fluttershy shrank back as the room’s attention swung to her. “I mean, I know she ki…killed the Princesses and a whole bunch of ponies and all those terrible things, but Discord tried to do a whole bunch of mean things too, and we just turned him into a statue. Chrysalis tried to take over Equestria and drain everypony’s emotions and Shining Armor and Princess Cadance just kicked her and all of the changelings out of Equestria. Was Rising Dawn really so bad that she needed to, um, die? That you’d be willing to die if it meant that she got stopped?”
“Yes.” Broken, though surprised again at the timid pony’s longwinded question, didn’t hesitate. “Rising Dawn… You know Nightmare Moon? Evil, malicious monster born of Luna’s jealousy and anger? How she wanted to bring in eternal night? Didn’t even think about how the lack of sunlight would kill all the plants, how the drop in temperatures would freeze ponies in their beds. She would have destroyed Equestria, completely accidentally, had her plan gone through.” He took a breath, glancing at Twilight. “I think of Rising Dawn in much the same way. There’s something in Twilight Sparkle that’s just itching to come out and make things the way she wants them to be. The difference is that with you, Twilight, when Dawn… took over, I guess, you’d already gone through the disaster scenarios. You knew exactly how bad things could have gone, how bad things were going to go, no matter how nice you tried to be. And you still let Dawn through. There’s only two reasons I can think of for that. Either you didn’t care about what might happen, or you wanted to see things go bad. And judging by how Dawn handled most things, it looked a lot like you just wanted to see the world burn. Nightmare would have destroyed the world unintentionally. Dawn – and by extension you - seemed to want to destroy it for kicks.”
“But I’d never-“ Twilight began. She was cut off by her own voice.
“’No, no, I’d never, not, never that young.’” Broken made the words, but they came out of his mouth sounding exactly like Twilight. His voice took on its regular guttural tone afterwards. “That’s what you said when I talked about Pip. Not ‘I’d never do that to a pony’ or ‘I’d never tell a pony to do that.’ ‘Never that young.’ Meaning that of what I listed, him killing ponies, guards, a bucking Princess, it was his age that you were shocked at. I ask you how that sounds, that the only surprise you felt when I was speaking about the atrocities you ordered a pony to commit was that you ordered him to do them when he was a colt.”
Twilight’s mouth moved, and air came out, but any sound she attempted was reduced to a squeak that would have made Fluttershy proud, had the demure pony cared for such things. Rainbow, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Spike were all staring at Twilight in a mix of shock and mild, suspicious apprehension, though they were quick to hide both and shift their attention away. Applejack, however, laid both of her narrowed eyes on the stallion on the couch.
“How d’we know that y’ain’t just makin’ all this up?” She asked. Broken’s eye locked onto hers and narrowed.
“What?”
“How do we know that you ain’t just some crazy pony that’s used magic or somesuch to make himself appear as Twi’s brother? That you ain’t just inventin’ this tale to try to get us to do something for ya, or that y’ain’t just completely off your rocker and thinkin’ that this happened when it didn’t? Y’sound like yer tellin’ the truth, but the Element of Honesty ain’t foolproof.”
“For one, the Princess-“
“Has also bin fooled before. Ah want more than her say so.”
Broken glared at the farmpony. He vaguely noticed that the room’s attention was on him again. He sat for a few seconds before uttering a simple phrase.
“Uncle Orange is in the pantry again.”
Applejack paled through her coat. “B…beg pardon?”
“Oh, come on, you know how this goes. ‘Uncle Orange is in the pantry again. Lock up the fillies, the colts and the hens.’ A little rhyme your grandmother taught all of you Apple foals in case-“
“Enough!” Applejack hollered. Broken cut off, a small smirk curving up one side of his mouth. The farmpony took in a few breaths. “How. The feather. Did you learn that?”
“You used it as a code during Dawn’s reign. The response was to ask how many of each ‘he’d already gotten’, with fillies being captured, colts being injured, and hens being killed in battle against Dawn’s forces.”
Applejack still stared at Broken, though astonishment had replaced her anger. Without a word, she stiffly walked out of the library. Rarity called after her, eventually saying hasty goodbyes before running off after the farmpony.
“Damn. Didn’t want her to do that. She’s the only one of you I actually like.”
For the final time of the night, all the library’s eyes turned towards Broken Shield. As he often did, he ignored them. He stood up from the couch and started walking towards the stairs.
“Welp, that seems enough for tonight. I’m gonna tuck in.”
The eyes followed him until he ascended the stairs, opened a seemingly random door, flung the contents from the closet behind it, stepped in, and closed the door behind him.
“Are you sure you’re gonna be okay with him here, Twilight?” Rainbow asked.
“No.” Twilight answered, voice somewhat shaky. “But he’s my responsibility. Even if I… didn’t do anything to him, I want to help him.” Rainbow nodded, and both she and Pinkie Pie left.
After negotiating Spike into going to bed on his own, Twilight found herself standing in the middle of a scattered pile of cleaning supplies haphazardly thrown out of her broom closet. Muffled sounds of movement came from the closet itself, and Twilight was arguing with herself (rather stupidly, she recognized) over whether or not to open the door and grill Broken on the questions she had wanted to ask. Then the movements stopped, and in their place a faint sound began. It was a heavy voice, wet with tears.
“Hush now, Dazzle, don’t you cry Daddy’s going to make sure that you fly Up in Auntie Luna’s sky Hush now, Dazzle, don’t you cry…”
Twilight decided to leave him alone for the night.
She didn’t remembered actually going to bed. She did remember leaving the stack of books by her desk, flipping through them and marking off anything that might help her with her projects. A huge pile of psychology books, texts to studies to observational journals, lay haphazardly arranged on one corner of the worktable, with numerous little notes sticking out from between the pages. The candle had burnt down to the nub, so she had likely been working until well past midnight. She decided to wonder about the details later, pulling the blanket further up around her head and snuggling her back into the warmth behind her.
The solid, muscled warmth whose center was continuously expanding and contracting, with a constant beat underlying it, and who was wrapped around her in such a way that personal areas were easily discernable. Twilight’s eyes shot open, her head whipping around. Her vision was filled with a one-eyed stallion’s head.
“Good morning, Mila-“
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!”
thum shff SLAM whump
Pip shook the books off of himself and stood as Twilight scrambled to put the bed between them.
“Is something the matter, Milady?”
“You! In bed! With me!”
“I ask again, is something the matter, Milady?”
“Why the buck were you in my bed?!”
Pip blinked. “That is usually where I stay the night, Milady, unless you have Lady Gaia, Sir Crimson Lash, Pet, and/or one of the trainees bedded.”
Twilight stared at the stallion. “You usually sleep in m-er, Rising Dawn’s bed?”
“No, Milady. I usually rest while guarding you in the Senate or Parliament, where there are numerous other guardsponies that can defend you. I usually stay the night in your bed.”
Twilight could have sworn the stallion had emphasized the ‘rest’ and the ‘stay the night’, but he said them as blankly as he said everything else. Before she could ask for clarification, her door was bucked in.
“Is somepony killing Twi-“ were the words that left Broken’s mouth before he saw Pip. The rest of his breath was released in a wordless roar as his horn glowed and several of the quills on Twilight’s desk launched themselves at the stoic stallion. These quills proceeded to embed themselves in a purple magical wall three inches in front of Pip’s face. Broken simply growled, and suddenly the desk itself was floating.
“Broken!” Twilight yelled, her horn glowing slightly brighter as she reformed the barrier. He ignored her. “You swore not to attack anypony!”
“I swore not to attack you! I promised not to attack anypony! NEITHER of those apply to HIM!” The desk launched; quills, books, and parchment dropped to the floor as the heavy wood struck the barrier. Twilight gritted her teeth as several cracks formed. The desk drew back, then shot forward again. More cracks.
“Would Milady like me to incapacitate the aggressor?” Pip asked. Twilight’s gaze shot to him.
“NO! No, don’t-“ SLAM krkt “Just run!”
Pip nodded. “At once, Milady. I shall return.”
Then he was gone. Twilight had seen a small flicker, and suddenly there was no pony where one had stood moments before. She let the barrier down, and the desk fell with it.
“DAMMIT!” Broken roared. He screwed his eye at Twilight. “Why did-“
“Because I’m supposed to stop you from doing that!” She yelled back at him, frustration beating over the fear and anxiety she held about the stallion. “Celestia wants you to become a normal pony again, and normal ponies do not try to kill other ponies!”
Broken glared at Twilight, teeth bared and breathing heavy, loud huffs. Then he closed his eye, shook his head, and turned, stalking out of the room. Twilight let out a sigh and set about gathering the spilled contents of the desk. A small groan caused her eyes to flick towards the box that a certain young dragon slept in. Spike was sitting up, rubbing one eye with a claw, the other still half-closed from sleep.
“Whazza? Whahappened?”
Twilight was standing in front of the closet again.
She had exited the bedroom after meticulously resetting everything on her desk into its proper position, including the desk itself. The closet had been thumping when she had passed it on her way downstairs, so she had presumed Broken was simply sulking in there. She had ignored him as best she could, going through the normal preparations of her day: Brushing mane and teeth, grabbing breakfast and coffee, organizing the bookshelves, so on and so forth. Two hours after the bedroom incident, everything she had to do in the library was done.
Broken still hadn’t come out of the closet.
“Broken Shield?” She called through the door. It thumped and rattled a little. “Broken, listen, I can… well, no, I can’t, but I understand that you really, really do not like Pip. I think he understands that too. Next time he comes around, I’m going to get him to promise to avoid you as much as possible, okay? But I need you to promise that you won’t try to kill him whenever you see him. I know that he and you have a… history with one another, but like I said earlier, Princess Celestia wants to try to rehabilitate you, and part of that process involves you not killing anypony. Or trying to kill anypony. Can you recognize that, Broken?” Another thump. A small noise came through the door. Twilight leaned in. “Broken?”
“Hoo.”
What.
Twilight opened the door. She was faced with a rather annoyed owl that had a hammer tied to one claw. He flew back a bit, and the hammer swung, hitting the closet’s back with a thump.
“Owlowiscious, what are-“ Twilight started to ask. Then something ran through her head.
She had absolutely no idea where Broken Shield was.
This realization came in three points: Recognition, Comprehension, and Reaction.
Point 1. Broken isn’t in the closet. I don’t know where he is.
Point 2. Wait. I don’t know where Broken is. Broken, the mentally unstable stallion that could pose a great threat to his surroundings at the slightest provocation. The pony that I’m supposed to be keeping tabs on for Princess Celestia.
Point 3. “OH CELESTIA’S FLAMING PINFEATHERS!”
All reassurances to Applejack forgotten, Twilight shot down the stairs and out to Ponyville, shouting a rushed “NeedtogolookforBrokengetthehammeroffofOwlowiscious’slegthankyou!” at a very confused Spike before she exited the library.
“Okay, okay, stay calm, he’s only been gone for two hours, average hoofspeed of a pony with Ponyville’s area means that he could be bucking anywhere by now – No, no, stay calm, Twilight…” The unicorn found herself galloping past a bench. She stopped and trotted back to it, sitting down and thinking through what Broken might have done while she was unawares. This complicated process of considering every possible factor of Broken’s past experience with the town, his mental state, the reactions of the populace to a pony with his appearance showing up out of nowhere, etcetera and so forth, was interrupted by a distinctive yell.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DESTRUCTION CREW YAY!”
Oh dear Faust no.
Suddenly, Twilight was running again. The yell had come from the park. If she got there in time, she might be able to-
What?
That caught her up short. Her brain continued. The CMC are doing one of their cutie mark adventures again. You know nothing really bad has ever happened with that. What about the cockatrice? Or Gabby Gums? The former was only tangentially related to mark persual, and the latter didn’t cause any lasting harm. May have even benefited everypony in the long run. But- No. We’re – I’m – looking for Broken. W-I keep looking for Broken. The CMCs become a problem, then I get involved. Deal, panicky me? Deal…
Twilight shook her head. She slowed to a walk, once more attempting to calculate the many different possibilities of Broken’s travel path.
Once more, she was interrupted by three filly’s voices speaking in tandem.
“Hey, Twilight!”
“Gah!” Twilight slammed a magical barrier between herself and the noise, twisting around with horn blazing. When she saw the source was three rather-startled fillies, however, she relaxed. “Oh. Sorry, girls…”
“You’d better be!” Scootaloo responded, appearing to be trying to look angry while sporting a gigantic grin. “How come you never told us about your awesome uncle?!”
“My what?”
“Y’know, Broken Shield!” Apple Bloom cut in. “Looks like yer brother, but with an ahpatch an’ a whole buncha scars on ‘im!”
Twilight was befuddled. “Wait wait wait. My uncle? Broken Shield?” Then her eyes widened. “Wait, you saw him?! Where?”
“Jus’ down in the park. He was goin’ fer a swim. We wanted t’see who he was, an’ when we talked t’him he gave us a great idea for cutie marks!”
“Destroying things! We do it anyways, so we’re already good at it!” Scootaloo stuck her chest out proudly before Sweetie Belle poked her in the back.
“But he made us promise to be safe and only destroy things that were definitely thrown away and otherwise useless.” Sweetie stipulated. Scootaloo grumbled something under her breath, not understood by anypony but herself. Apple Bloom cocked her head at Twilight’s expression.
“Are you alright, Twilight? Y’look like somethin’ spooked ya.”
“Oh, no, I’m… okay...” Twilight shook her head. “It’s just that Broken’s been through a lot, and he’s still a little jumpy from his ordeals…” She trailed off, trying to come up with a story the fillies would accept.
Fortunately, Scootaloo supplied it for her. “Oh yeah, he told us all about how he was in Gryphonia for a really long time. Said he had to deal with some unsa… unsol… bad guys on his mission for the Princess and that’s where he got all of his scars!”
“Yes! Yes, Gryphonia! Anyways, he’s not supposed to go wandering off by himself in case somepony spooks him and he accidentally hurts them, so I would really appreciate it if you would tell me or one of my friends when you see him alone outside of the library, okay?” The three fillies nodded, giving Twilight an affirmative before they headed off on their latest cutie mark hunt. The unicorn watched them go for three seconds before teleporting to the lake.
A large splash and a drench of water hitting her back were the first things Twilight was aware of when she landed at the body of water. Turning, she found herself watching a tumult of whirling water as something twisted and thrashed beneath the surface. Then the tumult stopped, and in its place a more controlled water displacement began. Within seconds after that, Broken’s head broke the surface, a large fish clenched between his teeth. He swam to shore, apparently not noticing Twilight as he brought his catch to land.
“Broken?” She asked. He grunted, dropping the fish on the ground. “What are-“
Her question was simultaneously answered and cut off as a magical ring formed around the fish’s head. Broken’s horn flashed, and the head tore away from the body, bringing the spine and several organs with it. Dropping the head, Broken formed a bowl inside the body, scooping out the rest of the fish’s organs and dropping them in a pile, on top of the head, between him and Twilight. For her part, Twilight felt bile begin to rise.
“What in Celestia’s name are you doing?!” She groaned, placing a hoof over her mouth. Broken flicked his eye up at her before tearing the fish’s body in half.
“Eating.” He answered, before bringing one of the halves to his mouth and tearing off a chunk of the flesh. He watched Twilight slowly turn green as he chewed, before swallowing and repeating the process. When most of the meat was gone, he flashed a smile at her, rubbing his tongue along his pinkened teeth. “Too bad this one wasn’t female, fish eggs are surprisingly-“
“Hurk!”
Broken watched as Twilight emptied her stomach, stepping slightly away to prevent his meal from getting contaminated. He finished off the first half while she was still retching, and was about to start on the second when a purple rope of magic tied his mouth shut. Glancing up at Twilight again, he saw a red-eyed mare with a glowing horn, appearing to be attempting to glare a hole in his head.
“Wmmph?” He questioningly sounded. Her glare became harder.
“Why the buck did you do that?!”
Broken blinked. “Mm wmm hngmm.”
“No, no, if you were hungry you would have gotten food.”
“Thmm wmm fmmd.”
“That was a fish! Ponies don’t eat fish! Or any animal!”
“Mm dm.”
“No, you don’t! Not anymore!” Twilight stalked past him. Broken felt a tug on his tail, soon finding himself dragged along the path behind Twilight. He gave a blank glance at a tree as he slid, gaining a smirk as a green-faced Rainbow Dash fell out of it. Feeling the rope around his snout disappear, he laughed.
“Might we wait for the spy to catch up?”
Twilight stopped and turned around, first looking at him in confusion before her eyes moved to the sick pegasus.
“Rainbow?” she asked. The prismatic pony looked up, eyes swimming as she tried to stop herself from vomiting. She groaned. Twilight glared at Broken, who gave her an insolently innocent look.
“The fish was food, not a show for either of you. But this is still funny.” He laughed a bit as Twilight’s glare narrowed, his brow raising at her. “Getting a little less scared of me, are we?” More laughs.
Then he disappeared, and Twilight felt a horn dig into her chin. Eyes flicking down, she saw Broken’s head, his eye cold. “Bad mistake, Twily.”
Time was still as Twilight’s body froze, not willing to move and give the crazed pony any justification to raise his head. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but watch as his eye narrowed, growing ever colder as he began to force his horn upwards, tearing through her skin and starting a trickle of blood down the pointed bone as she began to silently scream-
Twilight blunk, and Broken wasn’t anywhere near her; he was walking towards Rainbow Dash, who was attempting to stand as he simply stepped beside her, leaning down to put his head near hers. Twilight, for her part, sat down and tried to stop herself from shaking and crying.
Just a dream, some kind of imagination spot, a hallucination, calm down Twilight…
She heard Broken whisper something about “roasting”, and then Rainbow began to retch her breakfast onto the ground. Broken came back with a smirk, trotting around to stare at the mare.
“So, where in Celestia’s mane were you dragging me off to?”
“…market…”
“Ah. In that case, unless you want me to go back and finish eating my fish, I suggest you get your flank in gear. I’m hungry enough to eat an earth pony.” He turned, flicking his eye around his field of vision as Twilight stood. Then he let out a small comment. “Might want to get a bandage on that chin.”
Twilight froze. She slowly brought a hoof up and tapped at the area directly under her forward lower jaw. It came away with a wet red spot about the size of a bit. She looked at Broken again, and he gave a small smirk. Then he trotted away.
“Dear Celestia, I had forgotten what bread tasted like…”
With this statement, Broken Shield proceeded to tear into his fourth loaf of Ponyville Grown, pausing only to take a mouthful of cider before shoving half of the bread down his throat in one go. Twilight watched in mixed fear and discomfort as he ate, staring over the massive pile of fruits, vegetables, and grain products she had bought. Usually this would last her a month; it might last Broken the week. She shook her head as he tore at the bread again, the motion reminding her of the fish. With her little episode, she had been knocked back into the state she had been around him before that morning, and she didn’t want to risk interrupting him and having him choke her or stab her or turn her brain to mush and strangle her with her entrails or-
“Hey!” Twilght jumped, knocking her chair back and leaving her to fall to the ground on top of it. Broken watched as she righted herself and the furniture before he spoke again. “You alright there? You were kind of… spaced out, a bit.”
“Oh, no, I’m okay, I was just-“
“Thinking of the ways I could kill you?” Broken asked. Twilight froze again, eyes wide as Broken rubbed his chin. Then he grabbed another mouthful of bread and cider, watching her as she drew back from him. He sighed, swallowing. “Listen. I’m going to say this one more time.” He stared her in the eye. “I. Will not. Kill you. I will kill Rising Dawn. You aren’t Rising Dawn. Yet.” Another swig, and he ate an apple whole. “When you become her, my oath to the Princesses becomes moot. So unless you start feeling like overthrowing Celestia, or gain a massive megalomaniacal complex, don’t sweat it.” He grabbed a banana, eating it without peeling.
Twilight risked a reach. “You seem… calmer now. Than this morning, with the fish or with Pip-“
She cut off as he brought a hoof into the table. His eye was screwed shut, grimacing. Twilight feared she had brought the angry Broken back, but the stallion simply swallowed a few times and coughed.
“Suppose I should explain this…” He took another chug of the cider. “I have… massive amounts of brain damage, from numerous sources, mostly Dawn and her affiliates. Somehow, some part of my grey matter was poked in such a way that I fluctuate between violently mad and maddeningly depressed. I can control these swings, but doing so isn’t very easy, especially when I regularly run on no sleep or food. Usually I just restrict myself to small outbursts to vent the pressure, like those little jibes at Rainbow, or the whole orgy thing yesterday. Right now, though, I’m in control. Don’t get used to it.” He drew in a breath before biting an apple in half. “Some things, though, they just… set me off. Pip is a walking one of those. I can talk about him, but actually seeing him makes me want to tear out his eye, shove it up his plot, and make him watch as I disembowel him with a pear.” He glanced at Twilight, who had turned slightly green again, before biting into the pear he held. “Dawn is, too, and I’ve had to try very hard not to attack you every time I look at you. But you’re different enough from her that I can force my brain to calm down. Mostly.”
“So it’s like Bipolar Disorder? Manic-Depressiveness?”
“Buck if I know. Only Loyalist psychologist was more touched in the head than I am.”
“But if we can fix the damage, we might-“
“NO!” Broken slammed his hoof down again, this time undoubtedly angry. He glared at Twilight before putting a chunk of bread between them, and was thereafter distracted by the baked good. Both were silent for a few minutes before he spoke again. “No. Nopony is touching me with any kind of doctoring stuff unless it’s a matter of life or death and you aren’t dead yet. Dawn isn’t, I mean.”
“O…okay…” Twilight squeaked. Broken huffed. Her mind flung about wildly trying to find a topic to move to. “Um… how did you get here?”
Broken’s brow raised. “Well, going backwards, I sat down, walked into the kitchen, walked into the library, walked down the street-“
“No, I mean, how did you leave your timeline? To get to ours?”
“Oh. I teleported.”
“That’s it?” Twilight cocked an ear.
“Yep. Just, you know, across universes instead of a pond.”
“Could you explain how?”
Broken sighed. “Do I need to? Star Swirl the Bearded killed himself because he couldn’t fully understand it, just look at his research and you should-“
“Star Swirl didn’t kill himself.”
For a moment, two equally-confused unicorns were staring at each other across the table. Broken’s jaw hung open, paused in mid-sentence at Twilight’s announcement. He shook his head.
“Okay, minor alteration, acceptable error margin…” he mumbled, before shaking his head again and addressing Twilight. “So, you wanted an explanation, right? Of how I time jumped?”
Twilight nodded. “Er, yeah, but-“
“How did you?”
“What?”
“You jumped backwards in time once. How did you do it?”
“Well, um, I just, um, I mean, Pinkie found a spell in Star Swirl the Bearded’s wing in the Canterlot Library that allowed me to go back in time a short amount-“
“Right, so I just took his research on that and its extensions, how he developed the Primary Line and Branching Action theories-“
“The what?”
Broken stared at Twilight again. “The Primary Line theory of time? Branching Actions? The things that made Star Swirl revered among mage circles as one of the greatest minds of history? Any of those ring a bell?”
The unicorn mare shook her head. “No, Star Swirl is revered, as you said, because he developed over two-hundred spells, including pioneering the amniomorphic spell branch, and created the first spell that could be directly used to heal ponies!”
“YOU HAVE HEALING SPELLS?!?” Broken bellowed. Twilight pinned her ears back as he approached her with a wild look. “You, magic, you can actually heal ponies? Reversing cell damage, knitting torn flesh, the whole twelve furlongs? Dear Faust’s downy subplot!” With that last rather drastic curse, Broken actually began to smile, genuinely and without an insane cast to his features. His back legs gave out, and he sat on the floor, staring blankly into space, mouth moving and occasionally laughing but never audibly talking, as Twilight recovered from his rather sudden excitement.
Then his face shattered into dawning horror.
“Wait…”
Broken stood, sweeping most of the foodstuffs off of the table with a magical line. He reached another, smaller line of magic under his eyepatch and pulled out a piece of heavily-folded parchment, rapidly unfolding it and laying it out on the table. Twilight noted that it was a map.
It was a map she couldn’t understand; one part looked like a tree, but it blended into a blotch of seemingly random dots, each one a different colour pattern and with small notations marked next to them. Other sections held lists, columns of indecipherable code with what looked like distances and other values marked next to them. Broken ran his hoof down one such list, tracing a line between it and a dot before moving to another dot and tracing a line from it to the list. He stared intently at the map, flicking his eyes over various parts of it and muttering under his breath rather constantly, before taking a step back, shaking his head, and folding it back up again. He gave a low laugh before repositing it under his eyepatch and turning to an even-more confused Twilight.
“Um… I’m presuming that you don’t have healing magic?” She asked hesitantly. He grimaced.
“HAH!” The stallion barked a laugh without changing his facial expression. “Oh no, we do, but only after Dawn decided to do some ‘experimentation’. Every little spell that helped a pony seal a cut, or reattach a limb, came at the cost of dozens test subjects, all of whom were supposedly dangerous criminals.” He gave a rather odd look into Twilight’s confused one. “Dawn actually cured cancer by forcibly growing tumours in her captives, then vivisecting them to track how they grew.”
“Vivisecting…?” Twilight was decidedly worried about the ominous tone of the word.
“Oh yeah, strapped them to a table, cut down from their collarbone to their pelvis, peeled back the flesh, observed the organs as the tumours slowly grew and spread, aided by magic. All while the subject was alive and conscious, of course-“
Then Twilight was vomiting again. She managed to get to the sink before coughing up what little was in her stomach, and so she found herself dry-heaving into the metal basin for several minutes. When she finally ceased and turned back to Broken, he had a rather malicious grin on his face.
“You did that on purpose.”
“You asked. And you did say that you wanted to hear the not-nice stuff.”
Twilight just groaned. “What happened to not-mean Broken?”
“Oh, my little revelation there made my sanity leave me.”
“What rev-“
Then Broken roared, rearing and crashing his forelegs onto the table. It pitched towards him, only to fly back at a buck. Twilight froze. The stallion breathed, slowly, and his eyes focused on her again. He grimaced. “Okay. Time is arranged like a tree. My Equestria is a branch. Your Equestria is a branch connected to my branch, slightly less grown out and thus at a point in time further back than mine. I basically opened a portal between our two branches and hopped through. Do you understand that?”
Twilight gave a small nod, rapidly moving her head up and down. Broken sighed, grabbing one of the remaining small barrels of cider as it rolled past him and opening it. He then dunked his head into the drink, sitting for several seconds before emptying the container and going to his closet. Twilight watched him leave, then busied herself cleaning up the mess he had made.
Broken stared at the building in front of him, mouth pulled back in distaste. Twilight flicked an eye at him worriedly. He hadn’t been willing to leave the closet until the morning after, and even then he hadn’t mentioned his outburst at all; she had avoided it out of fear of causing another, letting him stay in the library under Spike’s watch while she arranged things outside. She eyed his body language – not tense or angry, just uncomfortable in a calm, less-likely-to-kill-ponies way – before answering.
“Because Rarity asked first. After this we go to Applejack’s, and then Sugarcube Corner. Then Rainbow Dash wants us to watch her test out some new tricks.”
“Right. So remind me why we’re doing this again?”
“Because part of the reason Celestia was willing to let you come down here instead of keeping you locked up was that you accepted my offer of guardianship, and part of that offer included your being a constructive member of society. Which includes finding something for you to do while here.”
He turned to her, his mouth a thin flat line. “The convincing reason is supposed to come in the third set, not the second.” At her confusion, he sighed. “Just… forget it, alright? Let’s get this over with.” His horn glowed, and the door to the Boutique flew open, followed closely by the stallion.
Rarity’s voice trailed in from the back of the store. “Welcome to the Carousel Boutique, where every garment is chic, unique and magnifieeek!” The small scream at the end came when she came into view and realized just who had entered her store. She was slightly placated when Twilight entered behind him, but still watched the stallion warily as he snorted and walked past her. Turning to Twilight, she gave a low hiss. “I thought we agreed to arrange a time?”
“Sorry, Rarity, but he wasn’t willing to leave the library until now, and this morning he was ‘eager to get whatever idiotic ritual you have planned for me done’, as he put it.” Twilight led the white unicorn back to the innards of the building, where Broken was staring at a roll of silk. Then his horn glowed, and the fabric rolled out. He washed a look over it.
“Burnished gold, type three, Sun’s Glory, correct?” He asked, eye flicking to Rarity. She nodded, brows raised. Broken’s eye moved to Twilight. “Dawn – still you, at the time – was wearing this when she started the damned Revolution.” His eye went back to the fabric. “You wore it during the Declaration, the Campaigns, the First Battle of Ponyville, the Fall of Canterlot… you wore it when you killed the Princesses…” His horn glowed again, and the fabric rolled up with a sharp snap. Twilight and Rarity both jumped. He sighed. “So, where do you want me and doing what?”
“Hmm? Oh! Well, as I presume that you cannot sew-“
“Do sutures count?” He interrupted. Rarity gave him an odd look. “Guess not. Carry on.”
“…as I presume that you cannot sew,” she repeated, “I was hoping that I could use you for a model. Princess Celestia mentioned that she wanted new dress uniforms for the guardsponies, and seeing as how you fit the general description, I was hoping that you’d oblige?”
Broken for his part, gave a snort and a half-grin. “Ah, what the hay. I aim to please.” He said the second sentence in such a voice that he seemed to be mocking Rarity, servants, and general politeness all at once. The white unicorn simply tsked, motioning him up to the central display platform. Twilight found a chair and sat down, flicking through one of the magazines Rarity had placed on the table beside it. None of her attention was on the gossipy articles or ‘scandalous’ pictures, however; it was split between Rarity and Broken’s interactions and her own little thoughts.
“Right, so, if you would just stand square – no, straight legged, I mean–“
“That’s about as straight as I can keep them.”
“Oh, well, I suppose I could measure like that…”
Something happened with that outburst. Broken realized something, something big, to him at least.
“Alright, then, if you could put a foreleg forward?”
“Straight out, or…?”
“Straight will be fine. If it’s more comfortable, you could keep it at a lower angle.”
What could he have noticed? It had to do with that map, I’ll have to ask him later.
“O-kay, that’s good, now for the back leg. Extend as though you are bucking.”
“What type of bucking? Tree, or pony?”
“Er, tree, please.”
At least I got something out of it. Now we know he can control himself. We just need to help him stay in control.
“Good! Now for the midsection. If you would just…”
“Want it sucked in or let out?”
“Let out, please. I need both, but I prefer to get the larger first.”
I wonder what happened to Rainbow? I shouldn’t have just left her there, I know, but Broken was going and I needed to watch him…
“Broken Shield, I said to let your stomach out first.”
“I am letting it out.”
“You… you are… Twilight!?”
The purple unicorn jumped, her head shooting up to look at a bored Broken and a rapt Rarity, whose voice had cracked slightly with her call. The unicorn was staring at a long yellow strip, which revealed itself to be a measuring tape as she walked closer. Twilight stared quizzically at the tape before Rarity hissed an instruction into her ear.
“Look at the length around him!” Rarity tapped a number on the tape. Twilight looked at it, still confused.
“Rarity, I don’t-“
“Think about it! How thick is the average stallion around the waist?”
Twilight thought, her mind backing a bit to her biology books. The average stallion was about thirty hooves, give or take based on his diet and natural variation, though anything less that twenty-five or more than forty was considered unhealthy. Her eyes flicked over the measurement again, the number thirty still fresh in her mind, and rested on the one in the tens column of the number she was looking at, and the other, very low number in the ones column.
Then it clicked.
The tape was pulled from Rarity’s grip, wrapping around Broken’s barrel once more. The measurement was the same. Twilight took it off, used the other end, counted backwards. Still the same. Broken shuffled around a bit.
“Hey, what’s with all the checking? Shouldn’t one be enough?”
Twilight’s brain was sprinting. He can’t be that small. Can’t be. Just look at him, he’s built like Big Macintosh! He wouldn’t be able to stand if he was this thin! He’d be…
“Broken, dear,” Rarity spoke. “We need you to let the illusion go.”
Both he and Twilight stiffened. He turned his head, began to speak, but Rarity simply put a hoof on his side. It sunk in like it was a cloud wrapped in pony skin.
“I knew it wasn’t working right…” he muttered. Then his horn flashed, and everything on him shrunk.
Twilight gasped as he stood there, legs shaking slightly. He was nearly a skeleton, with a thin layer of muscle under a faded coat holding his tired bones together. His ribs and hips showed themselves plainly, and they held between them a sunken-in mass of organs. Twilight noted in uncomprehending horror that his ribcage ended about five rows too early. His legs were knobbed and bony, with joint and tendon movement quite clear as he swayed slightly. His tail and mane were missing clumps of hair, and his coat was thinned anywhere bone decided to bend flesh. The thin scars that crisscrossed his form became much more prominent against their pitiful background. Up on his skull, his cheeks held little flesh save the small amount keeping his jaw and lips from falling off. His eye was sunken in, yellow and bloodshot as he looked into hers. He opened his mouth, and his teeth were tarnished, gaps clear between them.
“The word you’re looking for is ‘emaciated’. You won the Fifty-Ninth Annual Canterlot Foal’s Spelling Bee with it.”
Twilight gaped at his broken form. “But… you...” any argument died in her throat as her brain comprehended his corpse – odd, that that was the word she thought fit it best.
Broken seemed to catch her meaning from the two words. “Magic can go a long way, Twilight.” he said softly. Then his horn glowed again, and he gained back his more healthy appearance. He tapped a line of magic onto his side in curiosity.
“Right. It should hold up now. Get your measurements, Marshmellow.”
Nopony moved. Broken turned back to the other unicorns, who were still staring at him in shock. He sighed and nudged Rarity with a back hoof.
“Oi. Marshmellow. Measurements.” Her brows furrowed in confusion, so he took the tape from Twilight’s grasp and wrapped it around himself. Rarity glanced at the number and wrote it down before turning back to stare at the stallion.
“Why did you call me that?” she finally asked. Both Broken and Twilight turned to her.
“What?”
“Marshmellow. You called me Marshmellow.”
“Oh. Codename. Had one for everypony but Applejack.” He shrugged.
“Might I ask why my particular ‘codename’ was Marshmellow?”
“Applejack suggested it. Pinkie Pie was Cotton Candy, Rainbow Dash was Cinnamon, Fluttershy was Taffy, Twilight was Lollipop, and you were Marshmellow.”
“I see…” the white unicorn trailed off. She motioned for Broken to step off of the stage, which he did with a clear relaxation. “Well, I have all of the necessary measurements, so you two may leave. I apologize, but I have several orders to fill besides the Princesses’ and must get to work.”
“Actually, I was wondering if I might be able to place an order.” Broken said. “An overcoat, thick and durable materials preferably, that can cover me mane to tail.”
“Might I ask why?” Rarity replied. Twilight stared at the stallion quizzically, though her mind was still mostly occupied with his non-illusion form.
“Think about it. Average pony sees a large stallion walk by with an eyepatch and numerous scars, holding himself like a guardspony, but without the armour. What explanations for my appearance run through their head? If you didn’t know me and I walked in here alone, what would go through your head?” He snorted.
“Point taken…” Rarity admitted. “I’ll… see what I can do, Broken Shield, but-“
“I’m not expecting it done anytime soon. I’d just rather walk around covered than naked. Call it paranoia.” Broken shrugged, walking past Twilight. She quickly said goodbye to Rarity and followed him.
“Why didn’t Applejack have a codename?”
The two ponies were walking along one of the paths around Ponyville, Twilght slightly ahead of Broken. The stallion flicked his eye at Twilight.
“Because she was the only one of you that wasn’t a psychopathic murderous nag with delusions of grandeur.”
“I’m sorry?”
Broken facehoofed, growling slightly. “Applejack was the only Element of Harmony that didn’t betray the Princesses. She was one of our main assets against Dawn’s rise, and she served as Second Guard of the Loyalists after Canterlot’s fall.”
“Oh.” Twilight said blankly. Broken snorted. “Wait, AJ was the only one that didn’t join me? Why?”
The stallion flicked his eye back to the road ahead. “You did something that she really, really didn’t like.”
“Do you know what that was?”
“Yes. It’s one of the reasons I want to kill –Dawn.”
He hadn’t said it, or even started to, but the pause told Twilight that he’d needed to think about which name to use. She shuffled away from him a small amount, and their conversation ceased.
Before long, however, a small tune faded into existence. Twilight raised her brow at Broken, who had begun humming a tune as he walked. He noticed her attention, ceasing the song.
“What?” He asked.
“That was ‘Hush Now, Quiet Now’. A lullaby.”
“Your point?”
“I didn’t expect a grown stallion to know the tune to a lullaby, is all. Seems more a thing for younger generations.”
The stallion snorted. “How somepony acts bears nothing on their interests. Besides, you try singing it every night for two years and see if it doesn’t get burned into your memory.”
Twilight gave a light chuckle at this, remembering her own dealings with Spike as a hatchling. For a few seconds, the two ponies laughed together, a shared nostalgic comedy tying them together. Then, at once, both stopped, as if remembering their travelling partner. Another length of silence slid into place, leaving only the sound of the pair’s hooves hitting the ground. Twilight began to get anxious.
It wasn’t that she was worried about the lack of talking between them; while she would rather him explain his home universe more, silence was better than the stream of veiled threats and insults that he regularly doled out. But silence also gave her time to think about everything she already knew about him and where he came from. None of which was good.
While Twilight was busy with her thoughts, Broken was scanning the road ahead. He’d seen a small, irregular lump a distance away, and soon a rather pungent smell began to just barely register in his nostrils. He turned to Twilight.
“Just warning you, something up there died.”
“I’m sorry?” The unicorn shook her head.
“There’s roadkill up ahead. Don’t be freaked out by it.”
“’Roadki-‘… you mean Pinkie?”
Broken’s eye screwed at Twilight in confusion, then turned back to the road at her gesture. Sure enough, a pink party pony was huddled over the spot where Broken had seen the dead animal. Broken’s mind registered that she was doing something to it.
“HEY!” Twilight jumped back at the stallion’s roar. He began to gallop, rushing along the road towards Pinkie. The hyperactive pony appeared not to notice him, continuing her actions on the animal even as Broken got closer and closer. Twilight watched him stampede towards Pinkie, stunned, before her brain kicked into gear. She tensed, horn glowing for half a second before she warped to a spot in-between Broken and Pinkie.
A spot that was entered moments later by a pony that was around one-and-a-half times Twilight’s mass, and going a great deal faster than her immobile form.
Twilight was bowled over, airborne for a few seconds before crashing roughly into the ground. The wind was knocked out of her, and she spent the next half-minute coughing as she tried to get her lungs working properly. The pony had landed next to her was trying to stand, though he appeared to be having a small difficulty getting his hooves under him. The third pony present continued her strange acts before turning around and apparently noticing the other two for the first time.
“Oh! Hi Twilight!”
“…and then I was like ‘But if that happens then the plot doesn’t work!’ so I went back and rewrote a whole bunch of lines to fix it! But then that rewrite didn’t make sense, so I had to write more! And that just made it more confusing! So I went back and rewrote more to try to make the part that was trying to make the first part make sense make sense, but I realized that the entire situation was just too muddled up! And then I thought and I thought and I thought and I ended up burning all of the new pages and starting the chapter up again!”
Pinkie bounced along, rapidly explaining a convoluted series of events that had something to do with writing a play for invisible ponies, with Twilight in tow and Broken limping along behind them. He had twisted a hoof in the collision, and had vehemently refused her offer to see if she could heal it. The two unicorns held a low-voiced conversation as the pink pony continued her speech.
“Why in Celestia’s cutie mark did you do that? If I’d had my horn down you’d have a hole in your neck!” Broken hissed at Twilight.
“I didn’t know what you were going to do to Pinkie! I couldn’t let you hurt her!”
Broken growled. “So trip me! Blast a hole in the road, make a speedbump, shoot a bolt at my plot, cut my leg off! You don’t need to jump in front of somepony to get them to stop moving!”
“It was the only thing I could think of!”
“Then learn to think faster!”
“I still don’t see why you were charging at her in the first place!”
“Because-“ He cut off, wincing as his injured hoof hit the ground a little hard. He took a breath, and was a small bit calmer as he addressed Twilight again. “Because where I’m from corpses have a tendency to explode.”
Twilight turned her head to stare at him, almost certain she had misheard. In doing so, she didn’t realize that Pinkie had stopped moving, and ended up with the side of her head in contact with Pinkie’s backside. She jumped away as Pinkie squeaked and Broken barked a laugh.
“Sorry, Pinkie!” Twilight quickly apologized. The party pony shrugged.
“Don’t worry about it Twilight! I only stopped because you said that you were headed to Sweet Apple Acres and now we’re at Sweet Apple Acres and that means that you’ve gotten where you set out to go and-“
“Shut up, Cotton Candy.” Broken groaned. Pinkie closed her mouth, but gave a glare at the stallion. He responded with a grimace.
“Anyways, I have to go! Bye Twilight! Bye Grumpy McMeaniepants!” Then she disappeared behind a fencepost. Both Twilight and Broken brought a hoof up to their heads and rubbed the space between their eyes (eye and eye socket, in Broken’s case). They glanced at each other, realizing their mirrored actions, before Broken coughed and began walking into the farm proper. An orange farmfilly came out to greet them, and Twilight noticed that Broken’s entire body relaxed a small amount at her appearance.
“Y’all okay there, Twilight? Ah saw y’walk in with Pinkie, there. Everythin’ go alright at Rarity’s?”
“Everything’s fine, AJ.” Twilight responded. Applejack levelled a stare at her, flicking her eyes to the side, seeming to point at Broken. “He didn’t do anything. Rarity’s okay.”
At this, Applejack let out a breath. “Thanks, Twi.” She turned to Broken. “South orchard needs some cursory buckin’ done t’get the bad apples down. Y’think y’can do that?”
“Sure. You mind if I eat what falls down?”
Applejack’s brow raised, but she nodded. Broken grinned and teleported away. The farmpony setting a leisurely pace towards the south orchard, jerking her head for Twilight to follow. “Ah want t’hear what happened, if y’don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry?”
“When we were gettin’ this whole rodeo arranged, y’said that he… escaped, or somethin’? An’ that’s when he talked t’Apple Bloom?”
Twilight winced. Applejack had been rather frustrated when Twilight had come over, bucking dead apple trees straight out of the ground while both muttering and yelling about the Cutie Mark Crusader’s attempted destruction of the old plow by way of old explosives. When Twilight confirmed their story that they had gotten the idea from Twilight’s “uncle”, she had kicked a tree so hard the next three snapped in half. Twilight had tried to be very clear that she had gotten him under control quickly, but the claims failed to mollify the farm pony. She vented on the trees for a few hours before she was even able to plan Broken’s visit, leaving Twilight with the assurance that she wasn’t mad at her. Just Broken.
“He’s not that bad, really…”
“Twi, he tried t’kill you. That’s somethin’ he ain’t made up for yet, and probably never will in mah opinion. Whether or not he thinks he has a good reason for wantin’ you dead.”
“Applejack, you need to understand that to him, I’m the pony that killed the Princesses! He’s not a danger to anypony that isn’t a threat to him!”
“Ah know that’s what he thinks, but that don’t excuse what he’s done. Ah’d rather not risk him hurtin’ somepony that ain’t done nothin’ here but who, say, destroyed Canterlot where he’s from. Just b’cause they did it there don’t mean they’ll do it here.”
“And that logic doesn’t apply to Broken?”
“He’s from there, Twi. Nopony but him an’ us is even aware that another version of them exists somewhere else. He is that pony from somewhere else.”
Twilight sighed. “You wanted to hear what happened, right?” Applejack nodded. “Okay, then, first off…”
And so, Twilight related as much as she could about what had occurred between the night Broken told them of his Equestria and the present. Applejack had actually supported his attacking Pip, though likely for different reasons than his own (“Ah’ll be damned if Ah let some stranger sleep in mah younger sister’s bed with her.”), but her mood soured as Twilight related his actions afterward, and this attitude only worsened as she heard about his freak-out with the healing spell revelation. She stopped Twilight only once, for clarification on a certain point.
“Wait. Rarity’s codename was Marshmellow?”
“Yeah. She was surprised by it too. Is it, like, a thing between you two, or…?”
Applejack left the question unanswered. “Why the feather did Ah get t’pick the codenames, anyhow? Was Ah runnin’ with him against you?”
“Acutally, yes.” Applejack’s brow raised, but she motioned for Twilight to continue.
As Twilight’s retelling wound down, Applejack got more and more perturbed looking. When the unicorn finally stopped, the earth pony clicked her tounge.
“So, basically yer sayin’ that he tried to kill somepony other than you, left the library without yer knowin’, killed animals for the purpose of eatin’ them, went all crazy when you told him that we can stop ponies from bein’ hurt, an’ tried to attack a friend of ours for no real reason? An’ you say he’s less dangerous than Ah think he is?”
“He wasn’t attacking Pinkie, Applejack! He said that dead things blow up in his Equestria, and Pinkie was… doing something with a dead thing, I guess, and... he was trying to protect her?” she weakly offered. Applejack barked a laugh, in a manner that Twilight noticed was very similar to Broken’s.
“Twi, if he said that Ah’m the only one of us that he likes, and that Ah’m the only one of us that didn’t go against the Princesses, then don’t y’think he might have a grudge against Pinkie just because she supported Dawn? An’ knowin’ that, why the feather would he stop her gettin’ blown up?”
“I really don’t know…”
“An’ what was Pinkie doin’ with a dead thing anyhow?”
Twilight let the question hang. The two mares entered into the section of land invisibly marked as the south orchard. Following the sound of grunts, cuss words and thumps, they eventually found Broken attempting to balance on one forehoof while bucking a tree.
“Why y’tryin t’do a balancin’ act, there? Ah though Ah asked y’to buck trees.” Applejack said, leaning against the tree beside Broken’s target. He grunted.
“I have been. Can’t you see all the clean trees with your earth pony magic plant vision?” He lifted his back legs again, wobbling and kicking the air beside the tree. “Bucking Celestia’s tangled mane!”
“What Ah see is a pony that could do a lot better if he’d let somepony heal his hoof.”
Broken stiffened, and he turned his head to glare at Applejack. “No.”
“Aw, come now. It ain’t weak or anythin’ t’acknowledge an injury. Mac had t’take Applebuckin’ Season off a while ago b’cause he injured himself.”
“I acknowledge the injury. I’m not letting anypony heal it.”
“Yer a guardspony, right? You know not givin’ a hurt a rest only makes it worse.”
“I am resting it. It’s not touching the ground right now.”
“Applejack, I think you should just let it go.” Twilight cautioned. Applejack stood up, walking around to face Broken.
“Broken Shield, this is mah land and yer workin’ it as a favour t’me. Ah must insist, as your host, that y’sit yer plot down and let me take a look at yer hoof. Please.” She put a forehoof on his shoulder and began to drag it down his leg. He slammed his back hooves into the ground and shoved her, sending her rolling over onto her back.
“NO MEANS NO! I don’t want anypony, anypony, healing me, or touching me, or anything like that! Get that through your thick skull you bucking FLATHEAD!”
Silence. Twilight and Applejack stared at Broken, jaws loose. He huffed and snorted a bit, then seemed to calm down enough to realize what he had just said.
“Oh, buck this.”
Then his horn glowed, and he vanished in a flash of magic.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack paced angrily in a small semicircle around the door, which shook constantly due to unknown actions from the stallion within. The other four were placed around the room, Twilight serving as the midpoint between the door and the remaining three. She watched it cautiously, wincing every time another loud crash signalled more damage to the interior of the closet.
Rainbow Dash flew up to the door and banged on it, eliciting a temporary end to the many sounds emanating from within. When her demands were made, however (“Get your powdered plot out here so we can kick it back to the Canterlot Dungeon!”) the sounds resumed, many of them sharper and more grating, as if to spite the prismatic pony. Applejack turned to Twilight.
“Y’sure y’can’t get him outta there?” she asked. Twilight shook her head.
“If he wants to stay in, he’s staying in. I tried to get him out for quite a while last time, and he ended up blocking the entire area with a barrier to get me to leave.”
Applejack cussed under her breath and returned to her guard of the door. Twilight sighed and flicked a glance at the others of their group; Fluttershy looked worried, as usual, Pinkie was staring intently at her hoof, Spike was seated near Rarity, glaring at the closet door, and Rarity was watching Applejack with an almost fearful look on her face.
“Rarity? Are you alright?”
The white unicorn didn’t answer. Twilight poked her, causing the mare to jump. She repeated the question.
“Oh… I… I’m not sure, darling.”
“What’s the matter?”
In response, Rarity nodded slightly towards Applejack. “I’ve never seen her like this before. She’s always been the most gentle pony around me, allowing me to set my own pace, never rushing me or roughing me, apologizing repeatedly for slights against me real or imagined…” she sighed. “Seeing this, now, I’m reminded that behind everything she puts up for me is still a mare capable of the negative elements of life. I’m worried that one day I may do something to earn her ire, and that I shall be the one on which that rage is focussed.”
Spike stood up and rubbed a claw on Rarity’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Rarity, Applejack would never do that to you. You would never do anything bad enough to get her that angry at you.” Rarity turned and gave a small, grateful smile to the dragon.
“Thank you, Spike, but I-“
“I would recommend that you voice your concerns to Applejack, so that she is aware of how her actions affect you, then work together to determine a suitable course of action in which there is a net benefit in the relationship.” A masculine voice intoned.
Everypony froze, heads swinging to a shadowed corner of the room, out of which a one-eyed stallion stepped. Twilight found an odd relaxation hit her as she recognized the pony; the others all stiffened, unsure how to treat him as he walked up to take a place slightly behind the purple unicorn.
“Er…” Applejack broke the silence. “What were y’sayin’ about me back there?” Pip turned his eye to her, and Twilight noticed a small shiver as his gaze met hers.
“Rarity has voiced concern on your aggressive qualities, and how she may affect them in future interactions with you. I was attempting to provide counsel to her.”
“Wait, you heard us talking from over there?” Twilight blurted. “Applejack was way closer than you, and she apparently didn’t hear a thing.”
“You were talking very quietly.” Fluttershy mumbled. “Even I was having trouble hearing you…”
“Milady saw fit to imbue all Risen Guards with advancements to accentuate our capabilities in the expedient capture and destruction of all forces that posed any palpable menace to the new leadership of Equestria.” Pip stated. “Elements of these advancements include sensitized eardrums and increased ocular photosensitivity.”
“…and that means what exactly?” Rainbow Dash gave the stoic stallion an odd look. Twilight picked up her question.
“He can see and hear very well.” She clarified. Rainbow nodded, then shot her head around at a new, vigorous pounding on the closet door.
“Would Milady like me to remove the aberrant from the storage space?” Pip asked. Twilight’s brow furrowed, but she gave a small nod.
“Just don’t hurt him.”
“I shall avoid all physical actions likely to lead to his injury, Milady.”
With that, Pip walked up to the closet door, eyeing Rainbow Dash out of the way (Applejack, Twilight now noticing, having retreated away from the door, to Rarity). He stared at the door for several seconds before turning his head. “Milady and guests may wish to evacuate the area directly in front of the door.” When the ponies had all moved to either side, he gave a sharp knock.
The rumbling from inside the closet ceased. Pip leaned slightly into the door, his words sounding quite loud in the tense silence.
“Timber Field.”
There was a second of silence. Nopony moved. Then, a low sound seemed to emanate from the closet. It grew, at first a slight whine that roughened into a dull roar. Pip turned to Rainbow Dash and Applejack.
“Be ready to-“
The door exploded outwards, and the stallion was launched back through the air, large splinters piercing his side that were only further stuck into him as he hit the wall, with the main bulk of the door crushing him into the hard wood moments later. He slid down from the wall, leaving a wide streak of blood, as the dull roar became a tenor shriek. A white blur shot from the closet, rushing towards Spike and Twilight, who threw up a barrier on impulse. The blur smashed through it, staggering the purple unicorn, but slowing enough for her to see the mop of blue hair in its mane.
Then it was past her, and Twilight spun to find Broken Shield maddenedly pounding on Pip’s form with his forehooves. She sent a line of magic around his hind legs, tugging him to the ground, and before he could recover his two designated guards were dragging him back. He struggled and thrashed in their grip, leading Applejack to buck him in the head. With that, he stayed still long enough for her to tie him up. Twilight’s focus turned back to Pip, who remained unmoving on the floor, Fluttershy hovering over him worriedly.
“Is he alright?” Twilight asked, then smacked herself for the question. “Is he going to-”
“I don’t know…” Fluttershy mumbled. “Only a few of the splinters look big enough to go in dangerously deep, but he’s still losing a lot of blood, and he probably has some broken bones from the impact…”
“LET ME GO!” The other stallion in the room bellowed, apparently having regained enough wits to speak. “He’s not dead yet! Let me finish him off before-“
Pip gasped and coughed, a large glob of blood and mucus hitting the floor in front of him. Fluttershy, Twilight, and Spike backed off as he stood on wobbling legs, shaking himself and sending shards of door falling from his side onto the floor. His eye opened and fixated on Twilight.
“Are you injured, Milady?”
Twilight, for reasons she didn’t precisely understand, found this question funny. She gave a small laugh, though she strangled its continuation under a strange look from Fluttershy and Pinkie.
“I-er, I’m fine, Pip. Are you going to be alright?”
“I shall be back to proper condition in several minutes, Milady.”
Twilight nodded, once more turning to Broken, who was being stared at intently by both Rainbow Dash and Applejack. She walked over, and his eye, red and watery, focussed on her.
“Y’just couldn’t lemme kill him, could’j’a?” he slurred. Twilight stepped back a bit; his breath was rancid, and had a strong overlay of some scent she couldn’t place. His two guards noticed as well, both retreating away from his mouth. Applejack leaned in again to sniff, then shot him a disgusted look.
“Dangit, are you drunk?!”
Broken looked at her. “No.” He shook his head. “I’m plastered.” He began to laugh. “I’z whackin’ my head on d’closet wall t’knock some plaster off, but it was just wood ‘in sap. So’s I guess I’m wooded? Sapped? Barked?” His voice gave way to a set of inequine giggles.
Applejack sniffed the air again, then growled. “That’s hard apple cider! Mah cellar is the only place in Ponyville that has any this time’a year!”
“So he’s a tribalist and a thief, huh?” Rainbow Dash glared at the tipsy unicorn. Broken gave her a glazed look. His horn lit up, sending Twilight skittering away from him and putting a barrier between him and the rest of the room.
“Twi, what-“
“Drunk magic! Unstable and lack of control! Very bad!” Rainbow Dash and Applejack looked at each other, eyes wide, before quickly shifting away from the barrier. Through it, Twilight could see Broken’s magic reach under his eyepatch, pulling out a small metal disc. He then swung it into the barrier, and seemed surprised that the magical wall existed. Tapping on it confusedly, his eye moved to Twilight.
“Why’zis here?” His tapping became more urgent.
“Broken, I need you to stop using magic. Then I’ll let the barrier down.”
“Zis shuddn’t be here. Why’zis here?!” He began slamming his hoof on the barrier. “Let! Me! OUT!” Twilight watched warily as he brought his horn to the barrier, ready to concentrate her magic should he attempt to force his way out.
One small black spot later, she was admiring the grain of the ceiling wood.
“Hold on, Ah think she’s wakin’ up…” a voice drawled. Twilight’s vision was filled with concerned pegasus mare and stoic earth pony stallion, both of whom started talking at once.
“Ohmigoodness, are you alright? There was a bright flash and then you were out cold and Broken was yelling and-“
“Is Milady injured? Do you require medical attention?”
Twilight sat up, waving a hoof to get both ponies to back away. She rubbed her eyes and yawned.
“I’m okay, I’m okay… what happened?” She swung her head around the room. Broken was huddled in a corner, Pinkie and Rainbow Dash watching him while Rarity had several bands of magic around his legs and horn. Applejack stood closer to Twilight, watching her as if she expected the unicorn to fall over any moment. Fluttershy and Pip were the closest to her, and it was Pip that answered.
“Broken Shield performed some action upon your magic that resulted in its rapid retreat back to your horn. The shock from this apparently rendered you unconscious for several minutes. During this time, Broken Shield began making numerous threatening remarks and gestures, and was only stopped when Fluttershy performed ‘the Stare’ on him. After this, he was restrained by Rarity and has been guarded since.”
“Oh, for the- He backwashed me?!” She groaned.
“I tried to explain it to them, darling, but Fluttershy remained unconvinced.” Rarity called. Spike rapidly nodded.
“Yeah. We told you, Fluttershy, it doesn’t do anything.”
“But-“
“Fluttershy, I’m fine. This happens to unicorns sometimes, intentionally or not. It basically just makes us fall asleep.” Twilight shook her head, beginning to walk towards the room’s captive (who had gotten to the other side, meaning that she had to walk back across the room to her original position), who glared at her sullenly. “Are you calmer now, Broken?”
“Y’shuddna locked me up.” He slurred, appearing to still be hammered. “I don’ like bein’ locked up.”
“You were drunkcasting. Every unicorn knows what a bad idea that is!”
“I was tryin’ to pay Applejack back for her booze. An’ her lock. An’ her door. I thought you wanted me t’play nice with ever’pony.”
“Do you count trying to stomp somepony to death as ‘playing nice’?” Twilight asked. She felt Pip step in slightly behind her. Broken’s glare deepened.
“He ain’t a pony. He’s a buckin’ rabid thickskull flathead that needs t’be put down like any other dangerous animal. Quickly and mersh…mercil… messily.” He hiccupped, apparently not noticing the looks of shock that were on everypony else’s faces (except Pip), and the mix of confusion and surprise on Spike.
“So, wait, what does ‘flathead’ mean?” the dragon asked. Rarity coughed.
“That term, Spike dear, is a very, very offensive term against the earth pony tribe, used only by those most vulgar ponies who still think like Commander Hurricane or Princess Platinum.” She added this last part with a glare at Broken, who simply laughed.
“Y’expected t’pay me back with one bit?” Everypony’s eyes turned to Applejack, who was carrying the disc that Broken had removed from his eye socket, glaring at the unicorn. “The lock’d cost more than this, let alone the cider an’ the door. What, y’think Ah’m stupid, too?”
“That is not a bit, Applejack.” Pip stated. She turned to him in confusion. “That is a piece. It is made of platinum, and is worth approximately five-hundred bits.”
The farmpony stared at him, wide eyed. “Five hundred, y’say?”
“At the time it was minted, yes. With supplies of platinum as low as they were at this time in my Equestria, that much platinum may be worth up to two-thousand.”
Applejack suddenly became much more interested in securing the coin in a small pouch hidden under her hat. Broken laughed again, and she returned her glare at him.
“Even if y’paid back what y’stole, yer still a tribalist. Among yer other offences.”
His laugh stopped, and he stared her in the eye. “Can I ask y’a queschin, Applejack?” The earth pony tensed, but nodded. “Y’know what branchbite is, right?”
“A’course Ah do, every tree farmer does. It’s just about the worst thing that can happen t’an orchard.”
“Yeah. So, so, answer this. If you have one tree tha’s showin’ branchbite infection, whaddya do?”
“Well, y’cord the area off and cut down all the trees in a radius around it. Usually the closest ten or twenty trees.”
“An’ why d’you do that?”
“Because branchbite’s infection only shows when it’s ready to spread. If one tree shows, ninety percent around it already have the disease.”
“Right. So say that almost every tree in the orchard is sitting beside a tree that’s showing infection. Whaddya do?”
Applejack shuddered. “Celestia forbid, but you destroy every tree in there. The uninfected ones are too few an’ far between to worry about.” She watched as his brow rose, a mild confusion feeding into her face. “What?”
“Broken… are you trying to compare the earth ponies and the trees?” Twilight asked. Broken grinned.
“Ding ding ding! Y’win the prize.”
“Ah still don’t get what’s goin’ on.” Applejack said. Spike and Rainbow nodded, while Rarity and Fluttershy shared Twilight’s worried look. Pinkie simply bounced.
“It’s easy, silly! Us earth ponies are trees, and almost all of us were infected with something bad, so Broken’s saying that he couldn’t worry about the earth ponies that weren’t bad because… almost all of us were.” She stopped bouncing as she heard what she was saying. “Oh. Oh, that’s not fun…”
“That’s right, Cotton Candy. As of the latest poll, eighty percent of earth ponies supported the Revolution and Rising Dawn, compared to sixty of unicorns and fifteen of pegasi. It was around ninety-five percent during the Revolution itself.” Broken fixed a now-paled Applejack with a glare, breaking her own and shrinking her down. “So I’m sorry for my choice of words, Applejack. It’s kind of hard to care about the feelings of the food-growing tribe when the majority of them are either willingly letting you and your children starve or actively poisoning their fields to try to kill you. Or just plain trying to stomp you to death.”
“…y’don’t sound drunk anymore.” Applejack managed to say. Broken barked a laugh.
“That ‘Stare’ of Fluttershy’s is a potent sobering agent, when mixed with a certain cocktail of brain chemistry.” He glanced around the room at the clear discomfort of everypony, resting with a murderous eye on Pip. Twilight quickly stepped between the two.
“No, Broken.”
He stayed glaring. “If you knew, if you had any idea what that thing has done-” He cut off, putting his head to the floor and breathing deeply, growling as he exhaled. When he looked back up, his eye was much colder. “You wanted to know what you did to make Applejack fight against you, right?”
Shining Armor watched in amused exasperation as his daughter peeked out from the top of a Celestian banner. She waved at him before darting away, her small wings seemingly working with the power of a full-grown pegasus as she shot down the tall hallways of the castle, her father charging along behind her in an attempt to keep pace. Shining had no doubt that any other parent would have run out of steam long before he did, but few other parents were as fit as the Captain of the Royal Guard. His horn glowing, he built several layers of barrier beneath his hooves, lifting him up to within wingspan of the filly.
“Can’t catch me, Daddy!” zot
Then again, no other parent had a foal who could both fly and teleport. In tandem.
“Aw, horsefeathers…” Shining mumbled, still wearing a warm grin. He let himself slide to the ground, walking slowly as he listened for the telltale giggles of mischief that any small foal got whenever they believed they were bending the rules in some way. A tittering laugh brought him into one of the larger chambers, overlooking the area outside of Canterlot. His ear immediately focussed on a suit of armour, which shook slightly when his gaze fell upon it. As the giggles ceased, he began emphasising his steps, placing one hoof in front of the other theatrically as he looked around the room for his ‘hidden’ daughter.
“Let’s see… not in the plant pot… not behind the bookshelf… I wonder if she’s… no, no, she wouldn’t do that, only the most brave and fierce Princesses ever hide out there…”
The armour wiggled. Shining’s grin took on a stronger edge.
“I mean, the balcony’s such a dangerous place, so high up, with nothing around it, all open air and sky... no, the Dazzle I know plays it safe.” He began tromping towards the armour, still acting as though he was thinking of where she might be hiding. “And armour is certainly a safe place to be.” The armour’s movement ceased. Shining posed like a cat, ready to pounce. “So that means… hya!” He leapt at the armour, crashing into it just as a small pink and blue blur shot out from it, beelining towards the balcony.
One short teleport later, and he had Dazzle in his hooves.
“Aw, Daddy!” She pouted, though the sad face gave way to giggles as he nuzzled her. “You tricked me!” Shining’s face took on a mock indignation.
“What? Trick you? Young lady, an honourable noblestallion would never trick such an innocent filly as yourself!” He set her down and began strutting, stiffening his upper lip as she watched in glee. “To insult my honour in such a fashion is a duelling offence!” He declared, lifting a hoof up high before bringing it down to tap on his chin. “However, you are both too innocent to duel and a member of the Royal Family! I cannot honourably challenge you! As such, in accordance with noblepony law section one, subsection one, article two, paragraph three, line five, (starting from the eighth word, of course) as your father I must duel myself in your stead. Have at thee!” An ethereal form of Shining appeared in full duelling regalia on the opposite end of the room. Shining cantered into place, his every move mirrored by the magical copy. The two stallions charged at each other, leaning away and missing each other at the last second. They turned and charged again, this time scoring a small blow on each other. Once more, Shining spun, facing off against his doppelganger, charging at the magical pony form, letting go at the last second and rushing through the resulting mist as though he had destroyed the construct with his charge. “Haha, victorious! And yet defeated at the same time…” He shook his head, turning to face his daughter and bowing. “No matter! The important thing is that the young lady of the event was entertained! Were you not, Milady?”
“Yay! That was really cool, Daddy! You must be the greatest unicorn ever!”
“Alas, I cannot lay claim to that title. It belongs to your aunt-“ He caught himself, but not before that word was out. Unfortunately, Dazzle’s foalish attention span chose that one word to latch on to.
“Auntie Twilight? Is she okay again?”
Shining sighed. “I… I’m not sure, sweetie. I haven’t seen her for almost as long as you.”
“But the barrier’s gone! You said she’d be back when the barrier left!”
Shining’s brow furrowed. He turned around, looking out past the balcony at the spot where for three weeks a large barrier sat, impenetrable to any and all attempts to access the inside. His gaze fell upon the Ponyville clocktower, the charred remains of the Town Hall, Sweet Apple Acres, and a large tree that sat near the centre of the town and served as its library. None of them were blocked from sight by the barrier.
“It’s gone…” he breathed. Picking up his daughter, he galloped off to the throne room.
---
“Wait, why did you need to put that part in?”
“Because the rest of this is fairly bucking depressing to me. Excuse me for trying to remember happier things.”
---
Shining watched as the carriage descended. An eye flicked, on instinct, at the two pegasi drivers – they weren’t guardsponies, that much was obvious from their size, but they nonetheless wore what appeared to be guard armour, coloured tan-black-gold instead of the usual gold-gold-gold, which set Shining Armor on edge a paltry amount more than he already was. He caught a driver’s eyes as they landed, and he could see her tense, the steady guardspony attitude momentarily replaced by anger and anticipation. He smirked inwardly; these weren’t guards. They were foals playing pretend.
His visit to the throne had been brief – he hadn’t been the only pony made aware of the barrier’s absence, and amidst her sending several waves of heavily-armoured guardsponies to awaken her sister, Celestia had quickly made him aware of the letter that had been sent by his sister.
“She sent it in dragonfire.” She had stated. He glanced at her in confusion while taking the letter.
“But Spike…” he began. Celestia nodded. Shaking his head – how Twilight had found another dragon so quickly, he couldn’t figure – he began to scan the contents of the letter.
Then he blinked, and reread the letter. And again.
“This… isn’t this what she sent you when she submitted the Charter?”
Celestia nodded. “Very close to it.” She sighed. “Did Twilight ever fail at anything when she was a filly, Shining?”
The stallion thought. “Only once, though I can’t precisely remember what it was…”
“And how did she deal with the failure?”
“She freaked out. Got really angry, then really sad, so on and so forth, and eventually just resubmitted the fixed project. Then she passed and everything was fine.”
“That’s what I feared.” Celestia said. Shining cocked an ear.
“Wouldn’t it be a good thing, Princess, if she went back to normal?”
“Yes, Shining, but that is impossible. This was not merely a school project, as the Riot and Spike can attest. Her Charter has had an irreversible effect due to those events; even if that effect may be healed over in time, the scars will remain.” The solar princess shook her head. “With the submittance of the Charter for rereview, in the same manner as it was before, she is appearing to show that she either doesn’t care about the ramifications of its rejection, or that she does not recognize them. Neither of which are acceptable, for her safety or that of those around her.”
Shining found himself nodding. “So what do you want to do, Princess?”
“We listen to her. We see if she’s still rational, or if her mind is clouded by anger or grief. We take steps to ensure that nopony more is hurt than already have been.”
Shining blanched. “Princess, you can’t-“
“I hope I’m not.” She said, gently cutting him off. “But I don’t want to risk any innocent ponies getting hurt. If Twilight is lost, I need you to be sure that you can treat her as anypony in her situation should be treated. Understand?”
“Of course, Princess.” Shining said after a small silence. Drawing himself up, he took in a breath. “I hearby swear, on the grace of Princess Celestia, the duty of Princess Luna, and the love of Princess Cadance, that I shall ensure to the best of my ability the safety and protection of all innocent ponies from the unicorn mare Twilight Sparkle.”
Celestia had nodded and waved him away.
Now he stood in the centre of the courtyard, three guardsponies – real guardsponies – behind him, two dozen more around the yard. The carriage skidded to a halt halfway between him and the entrance, inch-deep furrows cutting the ground apart. The drivers unhitched themselves, quickly running around to the side of the vehicle to open the door. Shining spread his legs into a more battle-ready pose as the first head emerged.
Two brown-maned, orange-coated earth ponies stepped out first, wearing smatterings of guardspony armour, again recoloured from the radiant gold of the Equestrian National. They quickly stepped into place around the door, blocking any sight from the sides. The next head to emerge was rainbow-maned – Dash, Shining recalled. Rainbow Dash, element of Loyalty. Then was a purple and white unicorn – Rarity, Generosity – and a pink and pink earth pony – Pinkie Pie, Laughter. Rarity looked almost afraid, and Pinkie appeared to still be slightly out of it from the Riot. Dash simply glared at Shining. All three were decked out in the same colour scheme as the armour, though they wore cloth instead of steel. Dash and Pinkie wore some odd hat that appeared to be a small boat turned upside down; it took Shining a few moments to place the design, from his dealings with the Gryphons. Military officer’s caps.
All three of them walked forward, clearing the space in front of the door. A purple-coated, dark-maned unicorn stepped out. Shining’s heart froze.
Twilight wore on her face a steeled determination, her eyes flat above the large dark furrowed bags that hung above her cheeks. She kept her expression controlled, neutral, betraying no emotion; it left her face empty and cold, eyes levelled at Shining Armor without apparent recognition. Shining shivered. Twilight shouldn’t look like that.
In terms of coverings, she wore an outfit similar to the rest, with the addition of a cloak being the only major difference. One side of the cloak rested slightly away from her back. Either the Charter or a weapon. Shining thought. Then he realized that he had just thought of his sister as a possible enemy.
The six ponies walked forwards, the earth ponies on the sides, the Elements in the centre, and Twilight in the middle of them. Shining noted that the drivers continued their station at the carriage, ready to hitch up and lift off quickly. The group walking towards him walked slowly, deliberately, clearly focussed on a mission and drilled for such an event. They halted about five metres from the trio of guards.
“Shining.” Twilight said stiffly.
“Hello, Twilight.” The stallion responded, screaming at himself inside his head. Keep it professional, keep it professional, she’s not special, she’s your sister dammit… Twilight made a show of looking around him for something.
“I thought petitioners dealt directly with the Princess.” She said. It was a statement, not a question.
“Normally, they do, but… Celestia wanted to make sure that you were okay, sis.”
She snorted, a small frustration breaking through her mask. “Okay?! She wants to know if I’m okay?!” Then she caught herself, taking in a few breaths. Her face was carefully blank again when she continued addressing him. “I could be called ‘okay’, I suppose. Having your brother murder your best friend can set you off a bit, though.”
“Excuse me?!” Shining coughed. “I didn’t kill Spike, I was nowhere near the area when-“
Twilight waved a hoof, stepping around Shining’s group of guards. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Come. I’ve made some changes to the Charter that the Princesses can’t refuse.” The rest of her group moved to follow her. Shining stepped forward, followed by his guards.
“You go in alone, Twilight. I don’t know why you brought these ponies with you, but your Charter only needed you last time.”
“I brought these ponies with me to bear witness to history, Shining.” Twilight answered. “And if the Princess is truly so afraid of her ponies as to isolate me, then-“
The wind spoke. “I fear no pony, Twilight Sparkle.”
Everypony turned to watch the rulers of Equestria appear. Celestia and Luna both stepped from air, Celestia out of the sun’s glare and Luna from her sister’s shadow. Celestia’s eyes met Twilight’s. “I am curious, however, as to why you felt the need to bring a guard with you, my faithful student.”
Rainbow Dash spoke up. “Because last time she was alone, your guards killed Spi-“
“Quiet!” Twilight hissed. The prismatic pony shut her mouth.
“Ah, yes…” The Princess said. “I do not know if you received my letters of condolences, Twilight, but I assure you that any actions the Guard took against Spike were within what they believed to be necessary.”
“But Princess-“ Shining began. Celestia raised a hoof, and the stallion stopped.
“Necessary?! Spike was trying to save ponies’ lives, after your guards attacked without reason!” Rainbow blurted out. Celestia levelled a gaze at her, while Luna turned to Pinkie Pie.
“Element of Laughter. You were present for the event spoken of. What is your recollection of it?”
Pinkie cantered back a bit, wilting under the Princess’ stare. “I… I couldn’t really see, I was just trying to keep myself busy and then a bolt of magic launched through the window and went boom and the Corner started shaking and Spike jumped in and we went up and got the foals and… and-“ She started hiccoughing, turning and pressing her face into Rainbow’s shoulder.
“It. Doesn’t. Matter.” Twilight repeated, bringing both Princesses’ sights back to her. “We’re here to present the Charter. Edited to ensure fairness of justice.” Her horn glowed, and a roll of parchment emerged from her cloak. It floated towards Celestia, who took it in her own magic, rapidly unrolling it and reading alongside her sister. Their expressions darkened as their eyes descended.
“This is outrageous!” Luna bellowed, blowing the hat off of Rainbow’s head. Celestia rerolled the document, dropping it beside her.
“Twilight, it appears as though you simply emphasised the areas of the Charter that we took issue to upon its initial submission. You’ve written that the government must be immediately torn apart and replaced with an elected body, without any attempt at transition or integration? You’ve required every guardspony to be dismissed to ‘eliminate the pervading corruption’ in our justice system? You’re now demanding that Luna and I, as well as every noblepony, immediately rescind our titles and ‘face judgement for the exploitation of the underprivileged’? Do you know what would happen if we gave up rulership of Equestria, even without setting anypony of noble blood including ourselves up to be prosecuted? There would be chaos!”
“What would happen is that those of us not lucky enough to be born into fortune would be able to affect what their leadership does to them. What would happen is that anypony, regardless of their social station, would have a choice in the range of their lives. What would happen is that the common worker would find himself at eye level with the pony supposedly superior to him. What would happen is that ponies would rise and fall based on their actions, not the endorsement of the upper class. What would happen is that ponies could decide how their lives were lived, who they met and loved and married, and not have their choices be strangled by a force that doesn’t even care for their existence. What would happen is that those born into stature would be treated as they deserve to be treated rather than superior based on the size of their bank. What would happen is that every dressmaker, every confectioner, every weatherpony, every farmer and caretaker and doctor and guard and student and teacher, what would happen is that everypony, no matter their tribe, gender, love, would be equal.” Twilight breathed, taking in the wide stares of Luna and Shining. Celestia merely blinked.
“I am sorry, Twilight, but I cannot accept this… proposal. It asks for radical changes that would only lead to disharmony and chaos throughout Equestria. I ask that you let this topic go, Twilight, as it appears that you have been deeply affected by the events of several weeks ago. You are not in any state to petition us, and we must request that you undergo examination to ensure that you are not suffering from permanent trauma.” The Solar Princess nodded at Shining Armor, who stepped forward. Several other guards near the group stepped closer to them, forming a loose circle. Twilight simply laughed, turning to face her allies.
“You see? She is unwilling to allow her ‘little ponies’ any freedom in their own lives, and when it is demanded she accuses mental illness! The ‘Princess’ is nothing but a false representative, one who claims to love all ponies but is a willing slave to her precious nobility. She is unwilling to allow the common pony power, power that will allow them to see her corruption and infection plaguing their lives and decide for themselves how to treat it! She swats down any attempt by lower ponies to aspire to her level, and why?” Twilight’s horn glowed, and a spark shot up into the air. She levelled her now-burning eyes at Celestia. “Because she is afraid. Afraid that they will find that she is nothing more than a pony like the rest of us. Afraid of the threat we pose when we choose our own path, outside of her dominance.” The ground rumbled. “Well, Princess, let’s see how you deal with two threats at once.”
A great dark shadow appeared in the sky, accompanied by a damaged but nonetheless terrifying roar. It shot up from under Canterlot’s edge, one wing enough to cast half the courtyard in shadow. Twilight’s group broke into a run for the carriage, barrelling through the barriers set up by the guardsponies behind them, followed quickly by the guards themselves. Shining moved to block them from it, but his attention was soon drawn back to the shadow in the sky, rapidly growing larger as it descended towards them. He brought a barrier up around the entire yard, strengthening it to a level that could give pause to an Ursa Major. The shadow hit the barrier, cracking it and pushing through, landing with one huge claw crushing the fountain in the centre of the courtyard, the other three forming holes deep enough to become ponds. The creature had colour now, its purple scales offset by its green belly and spines. It looked down at Shining and the Princesses, all rooted into place from identical shock. Its eye was clouded and dead, no intelligence left behind it.
“Spike…” Celestia breathed. The dragon cocked an ear towards the sound. A low growl formed in its throat, and it leaned down to face the alicorn. Another growl set the ground rumbling again.
Then a piercing whistle, and the dragon leapt, its great wings catching it and sending huge winds down. Shining looked down from its ascent, and the carriage was gone.
“Then how’d he come an’ pick them up? That don’t make sense.”
“Nonsensical I’ll agree with, but it happened. And it was Spike, before you ask.”
“So what? Did Spike just go into some kinda magical dragon healin’ hibernation or somethin’?”
“Nope. He was dead.”
“Then how—“
Silence.
“No.”
“Yep.”
“No, y’can’t… yer lyin’, it can’t…”
“I am, am not, and it is.”
“Wait, what the buck’s going on?”
Two voices in tandem. “Quiet, Rainbow.”
“Twilight’s not that stupid, even if she went nuts she wouldn’t-“
“Are you sure she wouldn’t? Her mind, addled in grief, anger, already confused and overwhelmed by events, you don’t think it would do something drastic to restore some semblance of normalcy to its routine?”
“No! Twilight, you wouldn’t-“
“Of course not!”
“I still don’t-“
Four voices. “Quiet, Rainbow!”
“In any case, since I know you’ll ask, that wasn’t what made you turn against her. Not totally.”
“Then what was?”
“Her offer.”
“…offer?”
A sigh. “You came to Canterlot after… Spike’s visit, and gave us more of an understanding on just what Twilight did under the dome. Among your explanations was what, precisely, she had done to get you to turn your back on her.”
“An’ just what was this ‘offer’?”
“I think you can figure it out.”
Silence. A sigh.
“Fine. I’ll tell you what you told me.”
---
Applejack padded slowly into the barn, the eastern sun striking her shadow against its wall, rounding the ajar door and taking a breath of the air. There were the typical smells; dirt, hay, sawdust, animal smells left from years ago. Still, despite there being no real difference from the normal, it simply smelled wrong in the barn. It sounded wrong as well, the silence having become heavy and foreboding. The echoes were off, bouncing back to her at odd angles that somehow reminded her think of a filly’s laughter. A tear began rolling down the farmpony’s cheek.
Dangit, girl, stop cryin’. Apples never cry. Gotta set a good example.
Applejack forced herself to tear her eyes from her hooves and look at the stack of logs arranged in the barn. It wasn’t just any pile of timber, however – each log had been an apple tree, purposefully cut short of its life, and placed to form a small platform. An Apple family tradition, whenever an Apple died. Another tear. Applejack’s eyes rose, and rested on what – who - lay atop the apple trees. A small, frail thing, yellow coat freshly washed, mane and tail combed clear of knots, eyes closed and face blank as she faced upwards. Apple blossoms, in full bloom, surrounded her, with one gently placed atop her forehead and another on her chest. Despite her sadness, Applejack smiled, walking up to Apple Bloom.
“Hey, sis.”
Silence.
“Ah went into town this mornin’. Everypony was talkin’ about ya, sayin’ how brave you an’ Sweetie Belle were for tryin’ t’protect each other. Cheerilee told me her whole class wanted t’spend the next day just writin’ goodbye letters t’you and Sweetie. Those two fillies y’were always complainin’ about even came an’ said they wished they’d been nicer to ya.”
“Look, sis, Ah got my cutie mark! Ah finally found my special talent!”
“Ah know how excited y’were t’be fixin’ up this barn here, movin’ the animals back into it an’ all. Seems like every day y’were out here measurin’ or hammerin’ or sawin’…” Applejack swallowed. “Me an’ Mac, we… we agreed that y’should get yer spot here, when all’s said an’ done.”
“Ah was thinkin’, maybe Ah could fix up the barn? Y’know Granny wanted it done, and Ah might as well get some experience with fixin’ things…”
“Scootaloo’s still in the hospital… Ah’m not sure if she knows what happened yet… but hay, she’s gonna recover, so there’s some good news…”
“Why would Ah want to stop helpin’ my friends? We made a promise to get our cutie marks together, an’ that’s just what we’re doin’!”
Applejack brought up a hoof, brushing her sister’s face lightly. She tried to speak again, but her voice caught. She sat with Apple Bloom, in silence, for several minutes.
“Y’know, me an’ Mac were so proud of you when y’found yer special talent. Ma an’ Pa would’a been jumpin’ off the walls for ya, Ah reckon.” She took in a shuddering breath. “But you, y’never let all the congratulations distract ya. Y’just kept on helpin’ yer friends until they got theirs too. Then all three a’ya celebrated. That’s the magic of friendship right there, sis.”
“Ah don’t care if you don’t like it! Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo are already there! Ah’m goin’ to the rally, with or without ya!”
Small drops began to impact the dirt below. Applejack stepped away a small bit, rubbing her eyes. She looked at Apple Bloom again, taking in another shuddering breath.
“Ah’d do anythin’ t’have you back, sis. Ah love you so, so much. Ah just… Ah hope you know that.”
Applejack turned, taking slow, steadied steps towards the door. She rounded the edge, taking one step away from her sister’s rest. Two. Three.
Then she found herself sitting on the ground, staring at the dirt as it darkened under her eyes. A light stomping came from ahead of her, and soon she was shrouded in a large shadow.
“Hey, Big Mac.” She said tonelessly, not looking up to see her brother. He simply walked closer, sat down in front of her, and placed a hoof on her shoulder. Then he wrapped that leg around the back of her neck, drawing her in and resting her head on his shoulder. He placed his head on her shoulder, and she could feel the wet streaks left by tears.
Mac’s cryin’? That ain’t right. We’re Apples, we… we ain’t supposed…
Then she felt her own tears, the dark wet lines cutting down her face, and she stopped thinking, allowing herself a moment’s freedom.
When she stopped crying, the sun was touching the tops of the apple trees. She slowly leaned back, slightly out-of-breath. Big Macintosh simply rubbed her shoulder a few times, then stood, shook himself, and walked into the barn. Applejack watched him, trying to focus her extremely blurred eyes on something, and then slowly stood on numb legs.
Southern orchards need some clearin’ done. Might as well…
She began to stumble off in the direction to the left of the setting sun. She felt what could probably be described as better, but it was closer to a relief of pressure: It left her feeling deflated. Every kick she sent hit home, just like any other day, but the shocks of each impact felt different than they usually did. She tried to feel angry, or satisfied, or even sad again. There was nothing.
She barely feigned caring when Rarity showed up. All of the normal emotions of her lover’s arrival were present in full force, but they slid around her mind as if they were covered in lard, and left behind about as scuzzy a residue. Even the urgent worry that tore through Applejack when she saw the distraught lines in the fashionista’s face, as well as the conflicted smile, was somehow detached.
“Rares? Y’all okay, hon?” The farmpony asked, walking towards Rarity to meet her. The unicorn absently ran a hoof through her mane and gave a small laugh.
“Okay? Darling, dearest sweet Applejack, I’m more that simply okay. I have news that is cause for celebration!” She gave Applejack a kiss, which the earth pony returned after a mild hesitation. Enough emotion stuck to pull the corners of her mouth upwards.
“Well, Ah do suppose Ah could use some celebratin’…”
“Excellent! You recall how Twilight has been… rather hermetic, as of late?”
“Ah guess…?”
“Well, only this afternoon she has emerged from the Library and sent out messages for the entirety of Ponyville to gather near the remains of Sugarcube Corner. She’s promised that she can restore everything, everypony, back to the conditions before the Riot!” Rarity grabbed Applejack, hugging her tightly. “Don’t you see? Everything’s going to be back to normal!”
Applejack kept her smile, but she lost the reason for it. Oh, dear Faust, don’t let me lose her too…
“Rarity, Ah… Ah don’t think everythin’s gonna go back t’normal, sugarcube.”
The unicorn pulled back, her smile faltering as she stared into Applejack’s eyes. “No, no, you misunderstand! Please, Applejack, come with me. Twilight shall be able to better explain it than I.”
And so Applejack found herself being brought back into Ponyville, picked up and dragged several times when Rarity became impatient at her sluggishness. The streets were deserted, but mostly cleaned up of any trace of the Riot; they had been packed earlier in the day with cleanup volunteers and other ponies simply making out their daily lives. Though Applejack was surprised that there apparently wasn’t anypony that hadn’t gone to Twilight’s show.
Slowly, a din rose from closer to the town’s centre. The two ponies began to hurry, coming around a corner to see a sea of ponies crowding around Sugarcube Corner’s former standing place. On the rubble, covered by a gigantic white sheet, a wooden platform held a purple unicorn.
“…and why is it that we are not allowed to question? Why is it that we are ignored by our ‘almighty’ leaders, our grievances unaired whilst we are forced to suffer through constant threats?”
Applejack and Rarity cut through the crowd, a small part forming when the townsfolk realized who was pushing past them. The two Elements of Harmony joined their friends at the front of the crowd. Applejack, as with the others, had her eyes locked on Twilight, who was pacing from one end of the platform to the other as she gave her speech.
“It is because they are afraid!” A cheer rose from the crowd. “The Princesses, the royal family, neglect us because they know our power! They allow us to suffer because they wish us to remain fearful and indebted to them! They stop us from innovating, from creating ways for us to survive and thrive for longer than they wish! For millennia, Celestia has sat atop her throne, supported on the backs of countless generations of common ponies, and only listened to those who have no concept of our struggle!” Another cheer, this one echoed loudly by Rainbow Dash and mutely by Pinkie and Rarity. Applejack turned to find the other three enraptured by Twilight’s statements, only now noticing Fluttershy’s absence. “And when we try to throw off the shackles they have forced on us, they strike against us! They attack, they destroy, and yes, they kill!” A glow of her horn, and the sheet disappeared. Spike’s head came into view, causing everypony to stumble back in shock. “They took from us our homes, our friends, our families, our foals, because they want us to fear them!” Twilight leapt from the pile of rubble, landing near the dead dragon’s head. She glanced at it for a moment before tearing her eyes away. “But I’m here to tell you that we do not need to fear! I am here to tell you that there is nothing that they can do to us that we cannot recover from!”
Her horn glowed again, and a scroll flew from the platform down to her. She unrolled it, showing the strange sigils on it to the crowd. “This is a spell that Celestia and her ilk demanded destroyed when they realized what it would mean for ponykind! It was locked away because they feared allowing the common pony to become as they are!” Her horn glowed again, a lance of magic striking the scroll. Black and white lightning shot out from the parchment, the symbols glowing as the scroll became enveloped in a purple vortex. “With this spell, they can strike us down, they can poison us, break us, end our lives, and we will keep fighting! We may die, but we will show them that they are not the only ones who are immortal!” Loud thunderclaps began accompanying the lightning, rocking the ground as the runes on the parchment glowed brighter and brighter. Applejack watched in unconscious horror as the scroll was enveloped in light, before one helix of black-and-white lightning splintered off and struck Spike. Twilight began laughing maniacally, throwing her hooves up as one last thunderclap accompanied the lightning strike. “Witness now the fear of the alicorns!”
Everything became silent. Twilight breathed heavily, panting as her eyes fixed on Spike. The parchment stopped glowing, falling to the ground in a pile of ash. Nopony noticed, every eye watching with rapt attention on Twilight and Spike.
Suddenly, the dragon’s body twitched, small piles of rubble rolling off of it. A gasp ran through the crowd as Twilight galloped the short distance to her assistant’s head.
“Wake up, Spikey-Wikey. It’s time to wake up.”
At her words, the dragon twitched again. Slowly he rolled onto his belly, his arms stiffly lifting him as he rose to tower over everypony. His wings spread, locked joints giving audible cracks as they loosened. His eyes opened, passing over the crowd, before moving to Twilight, whose horn continued to glow and crackle with energy. He held out a claw, and she stepped into his grasp, allowing him to lift her high above the other ponies. Applejack felt a very solid spear of terror pierce her heart.
No, she can’t… she wouldn’t…
“You see what the Princesses have denied us! Imagine how the assault by the guardsponies might have gone had we access to this power! We were too scared to use it then, too fearful of their power to embrace our own! But are we now?”
There were a few shouts.
“Are we now?”
A more solid chorus of voices. Applejack turned to see Rainbow Dash shouting. “No!”
“Are. We. Now?!”
Every voice but one answered. “NO!” Twilight laughed, and Spike roared his support, illuminating the evening sky with fire. The unicorn began calling out again.
“We will rebuild! We will reform! We will be reborn! We shall! Have! Our Revolution!”
“REVOLUTION! REVOLUTION! REVOLUTION!” The crowd roared. Rarity turned to face Applejack, her face filled with unmasked elation and reverence. Applejack’s terror turned ice cold.
“Come on, darling! She said she wanted to speak with us after the demonstration!”
“Rarity, Ah-“
“Oh good, you made it!” the librarian’s voice cut in. Applejack turned to face her just as she was stepping off of Spike’s claw. The dragon seemed to sag as her attention left him, only giving further confirmation to Applejack’s fear. “I wanted to ask you both something.” At their silence, she continued. “I am aware, of course, of your sisters’… fates in the Event and the subsequent assault by Celestia’s guardsponies. But as with Spike here, I think I can help both you and them.”
“You… you don’t mean…” Applejack breathed. Twilight turned to her, and gave her a look of pure friendship and sympathy.
“I can bring Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom back!”
Rarity shrieked in excitement, jumping on Twilight and wrapping her hooves around the purple unicorn. Applejack stood, thunderstruck.
Resurrection death rotten Sister alive happy smiling Wrong evil shell dead Apple Bloom
A vision appeared to Applejack; her sister, smiling, laughing, living. The young filly growing into a strong young mare, an Apple through and through. Finding her special somepony, raising a family, growing old alongside her siblings and foals. Applejack reached a hoof out, trying to catch the vision. Her hoof simply passed through the air, and a small rumble led her vision to the dragon seated in front of her, head bent downwards, as if he were asleep. The eyes stared blankly at the farmpony. Her jaw set.
Twilight smiled at Applejack around Rarity, clearly proud at her declaration. That smile faltered at Applejack’s expression.
“…No.” The farmpony said.
“Wh…what?”
“No. No no no no NOOOOOOOOO!” Applejack roared. Twilight and Rarity both shrunk back, and Applejack rapidly spun and shot through the remains of the crowd, bowling over anypony unlucky enough to be in her way.
She had been afraid when she had recognised what Twilight was doing. She had noticed the insurrectionist rhetoric the gathering had been bathed in, obviously, but she forwent the worry about that topic for the more immediately dangerous one. Twilight’s use of the scroll had set Applejack completely on edge, and Spike’s resurrection had sent her over into full-blown terror. She couldn’t believe that Twilight could have been so stupid as to forget why that spell was locked up, why there were never any resurrections performed no matter how desperate or rich the requester. What happened to the resurrected. And then the offer.
It didn’t matter whether Twilight knew why resurrection magic was banned. It didn’t matter that she had gained access to a resurrection spell out of nowhere. It didn’t matter whether Twilight was ignorantly trying to help or cunningly manipulating support.
What mattered was that she’d offered to bring Apple Bloom back, and Applejack had nearly said “Yes.”
That made Applejack very, very angry.
It only took three minutes for Applejack to reach the farm, but the sky had darkened away from the town. The farmpony charged up to the house, barely stopping as her brother stepped out.
“Applejack, what in the hay-“
“That roar you heard earlier? That was Spike.”
Big Macintosh’s eyes shot fully open. “But he’s-“
“Yeah. He was.”
And with those three words, Mac realized Applejack’s anger. He set his teeth.
“What did she do?”
“Exactly what you think. We need to set up the pyre now.”
Mac simply growled, rushing back into the house. Applejack bolted in the other direction, grabbing as many old lanterns and bundles of dried hay as she could find. She threw them around the barn, opening the hay bundles and letting them cover the ground. Every few piles, a lantern was thrown against the barn wall, coating the area with a thin spray of oil. She had just gotten back around to the front as her brother rushed out of the house, carting four barrels of hard apple cider with him. He rolled one over to her, which she quickly opened and bucked into the barn, leaving a trail of the alcohol soaking into the dirt. The same action occurred with the other three, each sent flying into the barn at different angles by the farmpony.
“Y’got the lantern?” Applejack asked. Her brother nodded, setting it down beside her. He turned the cart on its side, ducking behind it. Applejack lit the wick, letting the flame grow before picking it up and looking into the shadowed barn. “Rest in peace, Apple Bloom.”
Then she flung the lantern at the open door and jumped behind the cart.
foo-BOOM
The sound was much greater than the actual explosion, Applejack knew, but she still half-expected to see the entire area around the barn completely blackened and burning. Instead, the barn was the only thing on fire, the hay and oil eating its outside wall as a white-hot inferno immolated everything within. She turned to her brother, breathing heavily as the air came back.
“Get t’Fluttershy’s. Make sure they ain’t gonna try anythin’ with her.”
Mac nodded, getting up and galloping away. Applejack simply sat, catching her breath for the first time since Ponyville. She leaned her head back, resting it on the cart and watching the sky. Two shooting stars streaked across the sky, shortly followed by a smaller, fainter one. Applejack couldn’t help but smile for a second.
Then she heard hooffalls coming up the road, and she gained an angered grimace.
“Dear Celestia…” Rarity breathed, slowing as she came closer to Applejack. “Darling, isn’t the barn where-“
“Shut it.” Applejack barked. She turned to the second unicorn, who was staring at her in something resembling fear. “Get off of mah farm.”
“Applejack, what have you done?” Twilight asked, a small amount of despair in her voice. “You’ve… you’ve killed Apple Blo-“
The first buck knocked the wind out of the unicorn. Her eyes bulged as Rarity gasped, legs falling out from under her. Applejack spun and bucked again, sending Twilight flying through the air. The unicorn gasped in a breath just in time for the earth pony to deliver a third, even more vicious kick. Twilight flew again, impacting a tree with a loud crack. She coughed out her breath, accompanied by a small amount of blood. Rarity rushed to her side, only to be shoved away by Applejack. The farmpony took her rope out from her hat, rapidly tying a lasso and placing it around Twilight’s neck. She drew it tight, eliciting weak struggles from the disoriented unicorn.
“You listen.” Applejack said, leaning into Twilight’s ear. “We are not friends. We are not acquaintances. We do not have any sort of relationship from this point on. If Ah ever, ever, see you anywhere near mah property again, Ah’ll put this rope back around your neck. Then the apples won’t be the only thing hanging from this tree.” She jerked the lasso back harshly. Twilight whimpered. “This is your only warnin’. Y’have three minutes. Go.” She loosened the rope, pulling it back. Twilight twisted, and the lasso came off of her. She slid up against the tree, staring at Applejack in shock.
The farmpony turned to Rarity. “Applejack, what in Faust’s name-“
“You have a choice. Her or me.”
The fashonista blanched, becoming even whiter as the blood left the skin beneath her coat. “Wha…”
“Either you run with her or you stay with me. It’s your call, sugarcube.”
Rarity sputtered, her eyes rapidly darting between the unicorn and the earth pony. She stared at the ground between the two for a minute, before bringing her tear-filled eyes back up to Applejack. “She’s… she’s my sister…”
Applejack gave a growling huff. “Fine. If you’re so monstrously selfish that you don’t see what’s wrong with doin’ what Twilight’s offerin’, then you ain’t welcome here no more.” Rarity flinched as if struck. Applejack felt bile rise in her throat. She turned away from both ponies. “Y’have one minute. Then Ah’m takin’ a new scarecrow.”
Applejack didn’t turn as the white unicorn scrambled over to the purple. Nor did she turn when a teleport sounded. Only one minute after they were gone did she allow herself to look back. Nopony was there.
For the second time that day, Applejack cried.
---
Everypony was looking at something, Broken noticed.
Rainbow Dash and Pip were both looking – glaring, really, but it was hard to tell with Pip – at him. Spike, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were looking at Applejack and Twilight, glancing between the two intermittently. Twilight was trying very hard to look like she wasn’t staring at Applejack. Applejack was staring at the floor.
“Twilight…” the farmpony began.
“Y…yes?” the librarian squeaked.
“Y’wouldn’t… y’wouldn’t happen t’have a scroll, like the one that Broken there just described, in the library right now, would’ya?”
“Um… I don’t-“
“Lyin’ ain’t doin’ ya any good, girl.”
Twilight shrank back a bit, aware of everypony’s eyes on her. “I… um… it’s only for reference! I would never-“
Applejack slammed a hoof into the floor, startling everypony but Pip and Broken. She looked up at Twilight.
“Bring it here. Now.”
“Applejack-“
“NOW!”
Twilight stood stock still at the earth pony’s outburst before slowly moving towards the stairs. Then she hurried down them, and the basement door could be heard opening and closing.
Applejack gave a mix of a sigh and a growl. She stood, stiffly walking towards the closet. She ducked her head in, emerging with two of the intact bottles of cider. Walking back to her spot at much the same pace as before, she set the bottles down in front of her. She opened one, wrapping her mouth around it and knocking her head back, downing the bottle in one go. Her eyes screwed shut, slightly reddened when she reopened them and fixed them on Rarity.
“Y’didn’t…huh…y’didn’t know about the scroll, did’ya? Please?”
Rarity cantered back slightly. “Dear Celestia, no! Those…things… are only supposed to be in Canterlot, from what little I’ve heard of them.”
Applejack nodded. “Okay then. Thanks, hon.” She cracked the second bottle open, taking a swig as Twilight ascended the stairs, a black case in tow.
“Here it is.” She said, setting the case on the ground. Two clasps flipped open, and the top swung back to reveal a rather ordinary looking scroll. Applejack sighed again. Leaning her head down, she gingerly grabbed the scroll in her teeth before rapidly removing it from the case and placing it on the floor. She took another swig of the cider, as if to wash the taste from her mouth. Then the earth pony upended the bottle, pouring its contents over the parchment.
“Spike, burn it.”
Twilight’s eyes went wide as her pupils shrunk, and she shot a horrified stare at Applejack. The dragon simply looked at her confusedly, as did most of the others.
“What?”
“Burn it. Real fire, not letter-sending fire.”
Spike turned to Twilight, who gave a tight-lipped, almost imperceptible nod. Then he shrugged, drawing in a breath.
“Wait!” Every eye turned to Broken. He glanced at Applejack. “The cider’s not the right kind of alcohol to-“
“We water it down with Stalliongrad 180 Proof vodka. Apple family secret, don’t tell anypony.”
“Oh. Complaint withdrawn.” Broken nodded. Spike blew a small flame at the soaked scroll, jumping back as it eagerly caught fire. Applejack stared at the flames; Twilight stared at her.
“Applejack, I-“
“Save it. Ah need t’calm down a bit.”
Twilight closed her jaw, flicking her eyes to the happy flames. A few sparks shot up, rose-coloured magic swatting them out of the air before a small barrier arose around the fire. Applejack and Twilight both glanced at Broken, who shrugged.
“Don’t want the library catching fire.” A side of his mouth pulled back. “Yet.”
Several minutes passed as the flames burned down, ponies casting uneasy looks between each other all the while. When the flame sputtered out, Applejack sighed, standing. “Ah,” she announced to the group, “Am gonna go make sure mah sister knows how much Ah care about her. G’night.” Then she walked, very carefully collected, down the stairs and out of the library. For another minute, there was silence.
“Okay,” Rainbow Dash spoke. “What the buck is going on?!”
Broken brought a hoof up to his face. “I just explained it…”
“No you didn’t! Why was Applejack so angry? What was that scroll there? How the hay did Twilight bring Spike back from the dead?!”
Broken stared at her, blinking. He leaned forward as if to get a better look at her. “…by Celestia, you’re serious.” He laughed. “You’ve lived here how long and you’ve never heard of necro-“
“AH!”
The simultaneous yells of three mares cut him off. He turned towards the glowering Twilight, noting the similar looks from Pinkie and Rarity. Fluttershy was simply looking worried.
“What, I can’t say nec-“
“AAAAH!”
He pulled his mouth back, bearing his teeth. “Nec-“
“AAAAAA-“
Three ropes of magic appeared around the ponies’ muzzles, a shield popping up between the group and Rainbow Dash. Pip moved towards Broken, meeting the shield, which sent him flying back into the wall. Broken smirked, turned his gaze back towards Rainbow.
“Nec-ro-man-cy,” He said, emphasising every syllable, “Is magic centred around life and death. Its basic form, resurrection magic, was developed in an attempt to foster better relations between earth ponies and unicorns, back when tribalism was still fairly entrenched in the culture but after unification and the Princesses taking power. Unicorns could revive crops destroyed by wild animals or pegasi stupi-er, ‘unintended weather side-effects’, which means earth ponies could grow more food. Everypony wins.”
Rainbow glowered, but kept her attention on the stallion. “So why’s it bad?”
Broken sighed. “Basically, they tried resurrecting a tomato plant that was completely dead and shrivelled. Just a dab of magic and BAM! Instant, giant, juicy, delicious and healthy-looking tomatoes on a thriving vine. But when they bit in…” he shivered almost imperceptibly. “The tomatoes looked good, sure, but inside they were completely bad. Blackened and oozing some sort of rotting goo. Everypony who tried one – about twenty ponies, ten earth and ten unicorn, all of them bit in at once ‘in a show of solidarity’ or some horseapples like that – got extremely sick. Some died.” He shrugged as Rainbow sat down heavily.
“Woah…” she muttered, then shook her head. “Wait, that was a plant. Spike’s a dragon.”
“Yeah. The spell works on all living things, as it turns out. A few minutes after the sick ponies were carted away, one of the ones who remained saw the mostly-deteriorated skeleton of a mouse claw its way out of the dirt.” Broken sniffed the air. “Actually, if you’ll give me a moment…” He turned away from Rainbow.
“O-kay…?” she gave a glance at the others, now unshielded, all of them (sans Pip) casting worried looks at either her or Broken.
Broken padded his way to the wall, leaning against it to look behind a bookcase. He searched a moment before letting out an “Aha!” and drawing out a dead mouse. A small eek emitted from Fluttershy. Broken turned to a wide-eyed Spike. “Tell your pet phoenix to stop playing with its food, will you?” Shaking his head, he brought the mouse back to Rainbow, setting it on the ground. “So, what basically happened was that a mouse like this“ he motioned to the corpse on the floor “started doing this.” Small strands of magic wound themselves around the mouse’s legs. The mouse stood up on wobbly feet, its legs quivering and head lolling downwards. One more strand wrapped around the neck, and suddenly the mouse was giving a dead-eyed stare at Rainbow. She grimaced.
“But mice are animals… does being smart do anything?”
Broken gave a huff. “When creatures of intelligence – ponies, dragons, gryphons, diamond dogs, and so on – are resurrected, it seems that a large amount of brain damage occurs in the area of the brain that tracks a pony’s personality. They become husks, puppets on strings. Totally locked into the wills of those who brought them back.”
“So nothing’s left of the old ponies? Who they were before?”
“Well, I’m certain some memories are retained, so long as the chemicals are still there, but…” Broken gave her a look. “Listen. If I slit Cotton Candy’s throat right now, and brought her back in five seconds, she’d probably remember everything about you. But that wouldn’t stop her from slicing, dicing, and making cupcakes out of you if I wanted her to.” He grimaced at her horrified expression. “I’ve met a few resurrected ponies in my life, and all of them were puppets. Even if a unicorn thinks that the pony they’ve resurrected is back to normal, they’re wrong. It’s just subconscious magic. We cut off magic flow, and the things drop like the corpses they are.” He gave another shrug. “In any case, the whole thing is still a really sore point for most earth ponies, especially farmers. Best way to piss them off is to talk about bringing somepony back.”
Rainbow sat, continuing to watch the now-inanimate mouse. “I… I need…” She stood stiffly, and suddenly Pinkie was there beside her. The two walked down the stairs together. Fluttershy quickly followed, mumbling something about giving the mouse a proper burial before grabbing it and rushing down the stairs. Broken turned to the two remaining ponies, ignoring Pip as best he could.
“Rather odd, nopony warning her about that…”
“It’s not something most ponies need to know about.” Twilight said, giving him a slight glare. He simply stared back at her.
“I’m presuming none of you have questions?” He asked, including Spike. He and Twilight shook their heads. Rarity spoke up.
“Actually, I was wondering…”
“Yeah?”
“What did she look like? Dazzle, I mean.”
Broken stiffened. He quickly looked at the floor, resting his eyes on the charred remains of the scroll. “She… she had wings. And a horn.” He coughed. “A powder blue mane and a dusted pink coat. A perfect smile that lit up any room she entered, blue eyes that would pierce your soul. Just as a baby she made the finest art look like mud-splattered rags. When she spoke… it was bells, thousands of little glass bells, making the most perfect sounds. Her laugh… dear Faust, her laugh…” Broken began to shake, little droplets falling from his face onto the floor. He brought a hoof up to his eyepatch, rubbing it before a hiccough sent the hoof back down to the floor. Rarity and Twilight exchanged a look, but before anything could be done the stallion had leapt to his feet and stumbled into the closet. The shattered door flew at the open space, forming into a jagged wall in place of any sort of mobile length of wood. A few thumps, and a keening sound began.
“Trust me, it’s best just to let him go.”
Rarity bit her lip. “I didn’t mean for him to-“
“Don’t worry about it; he’ll act like nothing happened later. Until he’s willing to confront it, I’m not willing to push him on that particular subject.”
Rarity nodded. “Well, I must be going. Farewell, Twilight and Spike. And Pip.”
Twilight gave her a wave, watching as she walked down the road into the evening town. She spun to find Pip behind her.
“Where would Milady wish me stationed?”
She gave him an odd look. “Where were you these last few nights?”
“The Everfree. If you wish, I could return there.”
“Oh, no no no. You can… stay in my room, if it makes you feel better. Just don’t get in bed with me.”
Pip nodded. “As you wish, Milady.” He turned, and Twilight had a thought.
“Wait, Pip.”
“Yes, Milady?”
“You aren’t… um, you… you’re still alive, right?”
Pip nodded. “Milady refused to employ undead ponies in her guard. Too great a waste of resources.”
Twilight gave her own nod. “Good. Could you get Spike to go to bed, please? Tell him I said so.”
“As you wish, Milady.” The stallion walked to the stairs, ascending them as Twilight watched. She waited a minute for the sound of a door slamming shut before scrambling for a blank roll of parchment. Finding one, she quickly brought it up the stairs, towards the pile of ash and the still-present scroll case. Setting the parchment down, flattening it with her magic, she gently blew on the pile of ash, sending the little particles flying in a cloud. A few more gentle brushes of air, and a burnt edge of parchment emerged.
“There you are…” she mumbled, drawing the piece out of the pile. She glanced at the symbols in order to make sure they were intact, and succeeded in giving herself a headache. Rubbing between her eyes, she carefully transferred the runed page onto the new parchment. She slowly rolled the parchment up, feeling the spell’s magic pulsate through it, and gave a grimace as she placed it back into the case, completing the dirty business.
“Sorry, AJ.” She muttered, before teleporting to the basement and replacing the case in its hiding spot. “I just can’t risk it.”
Then she shook herself, turned, and ascended the stairs, leaving the spell where it belonged.
When Twilight entered the kitchen, light from the morning sun providing a slight natural illumination, Broken was asleep in the sink. Water rushed from the faucet, flowing over the stallion’s horn before draining away. Twilight shook her head, gingerly leaning over to turn the tap off.
Then she had a horn in her throat.
“I don’t give a damn about the ration, Jackie, my horn’ll burn off if I don’t cool it down…“ The stallion groaned. He opened his bleary eye, dully focussing it on the purple mare frozen above him. “Wh-oh, right.” He brought his head back down, replacing his horn under the water. “Whadd’y’a want, Twilight?”
The mare jumped back, placing some distance between his horn and her neck. “Um, Pip mentioned that you were unconscious in the sink, and I wanted to make sure that you were okay.” She gave a small grin as the stallion lifted his head in surprise.
“That flathead bastard snuck around me? Damn, I’m off my game.” Twilight’s smile slid off. Broken shook his head before turning the tap off. “Your healing magic wouldn’t happen to do anything for hangovers, would it?”
“Um, no, not really.”
“Ah, for Celestia’s…” he trailed off, walking to the table and laying his head down on it, eye closed. “Y’know, we pinheads have it the worst? Even those bucking airheads have a better alcohol resistance than us.” Twilight frowned.
“Could you please stop that?”
“What?”
“With the, the ‘flathead’ and the ‘airhead’ and the ‘pinhead’. They’re really offensive.”
“So? Ponies react. It’s funny.” Broken turned his head, laying his eyepatch upwards.
“But it’s-“
“Wrong? Disgusting? Hyracotheric? An outdated method of tribal identification?”
“-not okay.”
Broken lifted his head, opening his eye into a slit. Even through the small space, Twilight could see the eye rolling. He affected an old mare’s accent. “Oh dearie me, I’m doing something that’s ‘not okay!’ The world’s gone crazy to allow such an atrocity! My oh my, is that chocolate rain I smell?”
“Listen, Celestia sent you down here so that I could help you readjust to regular pony life, and-“
“And that’s peachy, but you’re doing something that’s putting a major block on my progress.”
Twilight furrowed her brow. “What?”
“Your lungs are expanding and your heart’s beating, does that clear it up?” The stallion grinned as Twilight blanched; then he winced, laying his head down on the table again. Twilight put her hooves on the table, leaning forwards opposite Broken.
“I would really appreciate it if you would stop saying things like that, as well.”
“Good for you.” The stallion answered. Twilight blinked.
“Broken, I know that you’ve dealt with a lot, but when somepony asks you to do something, unless it harms somepony or puts you in an uncomfortable situation, the proper thing to do is to-“
“Do as they ask? That happened quite a bit a few years after the Revolution. ‘Ma’am, could you come here, please…’ then they’d crack you in the back of the head and cart you off to the dungeon. Or a prison camp.” Broken raised his head to stare at Twilight again. She brought a hoof up to rub between her eyes.
“But that won’t happen here.”
“It might.” The stallion mumbled, laying his head back down. “When Dawn comes in, if she isn’t stopped, it will.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed again. “I actually wanted to ask you something about that.”
“Huh.”
“Well, I was wondering if you had considered your effect on this timeline.”
“Huh.”
“I mean, with you coming in and telling us about what happened with Dawn in your Equestria, don’t you think that it would be less likely for Dawn to show up here at all now? She’d need to deal with the Princesses, the Elements of Harmony, and you, all already knowing what her plans are. Now that I know the warning signs, I might be able to stop her from taking me over in the first place!” The unicorn mare gave a slightly triumphant grin at her statement. Broken huffed.
“You aren’t that stupid.”
“What do you mean?”
Broken sighed. “Okay, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I have drastically altered this timeline simply by existing in it, let alone interacting with you. Things aren’t going to play out the way they did with me, and I recognize that. But the thing is…” He exhaled, taking in a new breath. “Dawn is you, just older and probably omnicidally insane. You, and thus her, are not stupid enough to allow your plans to come unravelled by some pony coming in and planting a couple of caltrops on your running path. When Dawn comes out, she’ll have modified her plans to adjust for my interference. Maybe she’ll be more subversive, get a large base going around Equestria in secret before doing anything officially. Maybe she’ll be more direct, get all of the Elements of Harmony together and blast the Princesses to the sun before anypony knows what’s happening. Maybe she’ll wait, keep herself under wraps until I’m dead and everypony’s forgotten about her, then spring out and start her assaults. She probably won’t call herself Dawn anymore, but it’ll be the same monster.”
“But that’s still presuming that she’ll come out at all!”
“It’s not a presumption if it’s going to happen.”
“And how do you-“
“Just trust me on it. The only way Dawn won’t come out is if you’re dead.”
“Bu-“
A loud burst of water silenced her, and when she looked at the sink she found Broken holding his horn under it again. She gave a growling sigh, exiting the room.
The door to Sugarcube Corner jingled slightly as Twilight and Broken Shield entered the shop. Broken’s eye flicked to the bell above the door, tensing up as the sound faded. Twilight simply walked past him, giving a small amount of ignorance to his discomfort.
“Hello, Twilight! Are you here for Pinkie?” Mrs. Cake asked, bringing her head up and placing a freshly-filled platter on the counter. Twilight nodded, and the confectioner turned her gaze to Broken, who had quickly trotted up behind Twilight. “And who’s this? I haven’t seen you around here before, mister…?”
“Broken Shield, ma’am.” The stallion replied. Twilight’s eyebrows raised; his voice was rather smooth and a fair bit higher pitched than the usual guttural growling that he gave voice to. He actually sounded like Shining Armor, albeit slightly deeper and rougher. “Twilight’s uncle.”
“Pleased to meet you, Broken. What brings you to Ponyville?”
Broken gave an actor’s grin that would likely have made Sheepspeare proud. “Well, I’ve been in Gryphonia for the last decade or so, so I haven’t exactly been ‘up to date’ on Equestrian happenings. I’ve gotten a few letters for the major stuff, like Princess Luna’s return or the Crystal Empire’s reappearance, but apparently my sister failed to mention all the ‘little’ happenings, like Sparky here saving Equestria numerous times! And lest I forget Shining marrying into royalty, that slipped Velvet’s mind too…” he gave a small chuckle before turning to Twilight. “That reminds me. Sparky, could you get your dragon to tell Shining to send my badge back? Now I’m back in Equestria, I think I can hold on to it.”
Sparky? “Er, sure, ‘Uncle Broken’.” Twilight replied awkwardly. Broken lifted a hoof and gave Twilight a small slap on the back.
“Aw, come on Sparky, none of that ‘uncle’ stuff. We’re both adults, ain’t we?”
Before Twilight could reply, Mrs. Cake spoke again. “Gryphonia? Really? I heard that no pony ever went there, what with all of the gryph… er, that is to say, the constant… what I mean is...”
Broken waved a hoof. “Trust me, it’s a dangerous place. Gryphon culture is basically a meritocracy with institutionalized violence. If you aren’t willing to do some pretty mean things, you won’t last long over there.”
“I see… so why did you go?” Mrs. Cake was leaning over the counter, clearly interested in Broken’s story.
“I was ordered to. Princess Celestia sent me over, officially, to help the gryphons design land-oriented buildings. In actuality, I was investigating corruption in both their government and their labour unions.” His grin widened with her eyes.
“You were a spy?”
“In a sense. I was actually supposed to help with the buildings, but the Princess asked me to watch out for any signs that the gears were being oiled in a certain direction, if you catch my drift.” Mrs. Cake nodded. Twilight rolled her eyes, stepping between the two.
“Mrs. Cake, sorry to interrupt, but if you could tell me where Pinkie is?” The confectioner blinked in surprise, and she gave a slight blush and an apologetic smile to Twilight.
“Oh, yes, of course, dear. She’s still in her room, but I’ve never seen her sleep past six in the morning, so she’s probably just doing some party planning. I’m sure she won’t mind if you say hi.”
Twilight gave a smile and nodded in thanks before walking to the staircase. She heard Broken begin to continue his tale, only losing track of it when she rounded the corner on the second floor.
“So I get to the Emperor’s palace – they had a president at the time, but I’ll explain that later – and the first sight I’m greeted with is this giant gryphon…”
Twilight walked up the hallway, eyes searching for Pinkie’s room. Let’s see… brown door, brown door, blue door, brown door, pink door with balloons attached to the knob and numerous stickers adorning every inch, blue door…
Approaching the party-fied door (the only way Twilight could think about it), the purple mare gave a quiet knock. “Pinkie? It’s Twilight.”
No answer. She knocked again, louder.
“Pinkie? Are you awake?”
Still no answer. Twilight’s ear twitched, hearing what sounded like pipes clanging together. A small worry began to root in Twilight’s mind. She gave another knock.
“Pinkie, is something wrong?”
She heard a muffled voice, followed by something sliding and a door closing. A few seconds later, the door swung open, revealing a normal-looking Pinkie Pie. A pencil hung from a ringlet in the party pony’s hair.
“Oh, hi Twilight! What brings you here?” The pink earth pony stepped aside, allowing Twilight entrance into her room. The unicorn took a few steps in before turning back to Pinkie.
“I just wanted to apologize for yesterday. For Broken Shield. And the whole ‘resurrection magic’ business. I mean, I knew how touchy a field it is, and-”
Pinkie waved a hoof. “Don’t worry about it, Twilight! It’s not like you have some magical control over what Broken says anyways. And I really don’t care too much about the magic stuff.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope! The Twilight I know isn’t mean enough to bring somepony back, even if you have a really really really really really really good reason.”
“But Broken-“
“Pff! Don’t listen to that Meanie McSourpuss. He’s just trying to make you feel bad for things that you didn’t even do! Well, you did, kinda, but not you-you, the meanie-you from another dimension!” She stood on her hind legs and wiggled her forelegs in the air to emphasize the last two words. “Woo-ooo-ooh!” Twilight found herself chuckling at Pinkie’s theatrics. “Anyways, you don’t need to feel bad about the magic thing. Whatever you were doing with it, I’m sure it wasn’t something bad like trying to raise an army of zomponies. Or zomdragons. Or zomticores, or zomdrakes, or zomcatrices, or zomdigos, or-“
“I get it, Pinkie.” Twilight said. The party pony grinned and nodded before hugging on to the unicorn. She left her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders as she leaned back, giving her a more sombre look before speaking again.
“I am worried about Dashie, though.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. “Rainbow? Why?”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her. After we left she said she was okay, but she was still all mopey all last night, even when I got the socks out.” Twilight’s rapid blush went apparently unnoticed by Pinkie. “She kept just staring off into space and blinking, and then when I gave her my what’s-wrong-tell-me-so-I-can-make-you-happy look, she hugged me and kissed me and kept saying she was sorry, that she didn’t know, but I don’t know what she was sorry for or what she didn’t know! So I got worried for her and then she saw that and she just started apologizing more and then she just got up and flew away and now I don’t know if I did something wrong and urf Mmm m nnmm?” Pinkie allowed herself to stop talking as Twilight’s hoof covered her mouth. A few breaths, and the hoof was removed.
“Okay, so what you’re saying is that, after you went home last night, Rainbow seemed emotionally distant and was apologizing for an offence that you are unaware of?” Pinkie nodded. “And she started doing this right after Broken explained resurrection magic to her?” Pinkie nodded again, more vigorously. “Do you think that his explanation may have had something to do with it?” Pinkie started nodding, then caught her head. She turned it to one side, eyes flicking to the ceiling as she thought.
“Oh… oh! Oh oh oh oh! I get it!” The party mare began bouncing, a wide smile breaking her face. “Dashie’s being silly! I just need to go talk to her! Thanks, Twilight!”
“It was no problem, Pinkie. I’m always happy-“ The door slammed behind Twilight, cutting her off. “-to help.” The unicorn sighed, shaking her head. Her gaze landed on Pinkie’s closet, and in doing so noticed a small strip of something black and shiny leading out from the door.
Curiosity overtaking her, she walked over to the closet, leaning down to examine the strip. It was some thick material, not rope but certainly not lace or silk. She’d seen it in Rarity’s shop, but couldn’t place a hoof on precisely what it was. The edge of the strip was darkened with some dried substance. She looked up at the door’s handle, hesitating for a second before pushing it down and opening the closet.
The strip led from the door to a panel in the floor in the side of the closet, wide enough for a pony to fit into. A small rope loop was attached to the panel’s edge, with hinges on the opposite side, turning the plank of wood into a downwards-facing door. A hook descended from the ceiling above the panel. Twilight, quickly gleaning the operation of the panel, opened it, wrapping the rope around the hook. Then she lit a ball of magic, hovering it down into the hole the panel covered.
She saw a black, ornate saddle, numerous ropes, several balls of various sizes, and one quartet of socks.
Nope.
This four letter word formed the entirety of Twilight’s thoughts as she slammed the panel back down, backed out of the closet, shut the door, and walked briskly out of Pinkie’s room and the horrible, horrible secrets contained within.
“So, in any case, the Gryphonian Emperor – this is number three, before the one with no wings but after the one with a feather growing out of his eye – decides that he’s going to try to build a waterfall that flows upwards using the money allocated for number two’s gilded roadways. When I tried to explain to him that such a thing would be Discordian in nature, and idiotic besides, he-“ Broken’s speech cut off as his eye caught Twilight descending the stairs. His gaze narrowed, but his voice maintained the pitch used for the Cakes. “Hey, Sparky. Something wrong?”
“NOPE! Everything’s a-okay! We just need to go. Right now.” Twilight’s eye twitched, an attempt at a reassuring smile plastered on her face. The Cakes – Carrot having joined Broken’s audience at some unknown point – stepped back a bit, giving her cautious stares. Broken coughed and extended a hoof over the counter to them.
“Well, it appears that I shall need to finish my story at some other time. Somepony needs to keep an eye on the crazy ponies, after all.” He gave a wink and a smirk, allowing the Cakes some unsure laughter before turning and following Twilight out the door. When outside, his voice returned to normal. “Right, so what’s wrong?”
“Nothing!”
“Tell me, Twilight.”
“Nope! Nothing wrong!”
“Twilight…”
“I said-“
Very suddenly, Twilight was in a dark alley. She blinked, about to turn her head when she felt a trickle of wetness slide down her face. Raising a hoof, she poked at the wetness, bringing the hoof back into her vision to examine it.
Blood.
Twilight heard something crack, echoing off of the alley’s walls. Turning her head slowly, she found Broken standing five feet away from her, his mouth spread in a wide grin, his pupil pinpricked even as his eye widened. Broken moved his hoof, grinding something into the ground. Twilight’s gaze fell on the object, a length of purple tapering to a point on one end and a strange grey mass on the other. Feeling a strange twinge of pain, she raised her hoof, intending to rub at her horn. Instead, her hoof pressed into a small wet pit in the middle of her forehead.
Without movement, Broken was upon her.
“I need to know, Twily…”
His horn glowed, and Twilight’s legs gave way. She couldn’t move, forced to watch as Broken leaned his head down, his horn pointed at the place where her horn should be, and soon he pressed forward and there was nothing in her sight but his eye and the empty blackness of his eye socket and her head hurt so badly and she screamed-
“TWILIGHT!”
Twilight jerked her head back, gasping and bringing her forehooves up to protect herself. Broken leaned away from her, confusion and anger plain on his face. She stared at him for a few seconds before bringing her hooves up further, feeling along her (still there) horn for cracks or other damage. She slowly calmed down, taking heavy breaths as Broken growled in frustration.
“Twilight.”
The purple mare flinched at his voice. Broken sighed.
“Twilight, I need you to tell me what the buck is going on.”
Twilight whimpered, the image of him crushing her horn still fresh in her mind. They stared at each other for a length of time before Broken reared up and kicked the wall behind him.
“Listen up! If you don’t tell me why you were looking like you forgot a friendship report to Celestia, I’m going to assume that it was Dawn coming out! And if Dawn’s come out, that means that I am under no oath that stops me from killing you! So if you don’t want to die, I recommend you start talking.”
Silence. Twilight’s eyes greatly widened, her pupils shrunken to granules of sand. She opened her mouth, tried to say something, but the words caught on her tongue. A thousand thoughts ran through her head on what she should do, but all fell dead as she attempted them. Broken’s eye twitched, and his horn began to glow.
“SOCKS!” Twilight finally managed. Broken’s face gained confusion and lost anger.
“Socks?”
“Pinkie! Socks! Closet!”
Broken blinked. “You were freaked out because you saw Cotton Candy’s sex toys?” At a luminescent blush from Twilight, he laughed. “You pfft- you… ahahahahaha!” His horn ceased glowing as he began to slam a hoof on the ground, lying down to stop himself from falling over. Twilight watched him with worried eyes as he calmed down. “Next time, heh, next time bring me. You might be surprised.” The stallion got up and started to walk to the mouth of the alleyway.
“Wait!” Twilight managed to croak out. Broken turned, giving her a look. “You… did you… how did we get here?”
“Well, our parents-“ he cut off as he saw her face. “Oh. You kinda… stopped moving in the middle of the street, just staring off into space. Dragged you back here to stop ponies from staring at you.”
“Did you make me…” she swallowed. “Did you make me see… that?” She brought a hoof up again, feeling at her horn. Broken’s eye narrowed.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Then he stepped around the corner, and Twilight was alone.
Broken brought a hoof to his face, stretching his skin down in frustration. “Time could be like a tree, or it could be a series of waves, or it could be a cloud of particles, or it could be any number of different things. That’s the first thing I said.”
“Actually, the first thing you said was that time was a tree, and that you jumped across branches…”
The two ponies travelled at a leisurely pace, walking through Ponyville along one of the more main pathways. Twilight had intended the trip for Broken to get used to (somewhat) large crowds of ponies again. However, he seemed to be at ease in public, at least compared to when he was alone with her. The two had ended up walking in awkward silence for several minutes before Twilight had asked for clarification on how the timeline system worked.
“Did I? Oh yeah.” Broken shrugged. “I was lying, then. Star Swirl developed the tree model, but sometimes the different possibilities didn’t fit on an always-forwards-moving path, so they got the particle model in where every time two ‘particles’ of possibility strike each other, they create different timelines that shoot off in random directions.” He snorted. “And that one flies in the face of the Primary Line theory, which is about as integral to chronology as 2+2=4 is to mathematics, so there was a whole new argument about that…”
“But what is the ‘primary line’?”
Broken levelled a glance at Twilight. “The Primary Line is… well, it is. It’s the big one, the main deal, the be-all-end-all. The Primary Line is the timeline shaped by Faust herself.” He laughed at her widened eyes. “Everything in it was as Faust intended. Nothing went without her supervision, ensuring through the good and the bad that her ponies would survive and become better than they were before. There was no deviation from the path she had set; even accounting for the ‘free will’ of every pony, the Primary Line maintained its solidarity and integrity.”
“So what happened?” Twilight asked. Broken blinked.
“Well, they never quite figured that out. Somewhere along the Primary Line, other little lines began to peel away, and Faust never fixed them. These lines grew in length, running for the most part alongside the Primary, but with that one difference that separated them.” Two young colts ran around the corner in front of them, and Broken paused to watch them gallop past. He gave a few blinks before continuing. “But those smaller lines were more unstable than the Primary Line, and their splits happened quicker, more little lines forming from different possible paths ponies could have taken. And eventually, those lines had their own little frays, and the lines from those frays frayed themselves, until eventually every tiny little alteration created its own little timeline all to itself.” He coughed. “Chronologists gave three classifications to the splitoffs: First, the Major Lines, which are the ones that split from the Primary. Second, the Minor Lines, the ones that have split off from the Majors, and the first twenty or so splits from those. Last, the Threads, the extremely tiny timelines that cover every possible way anything in a timeline can go.”
“Every possibility? That’s rather hard to believe.”
Broken stopped and gave Twilight a glare. She leaned away from him a small bit.
“I’m not exaggerating.”
“I never said that you were, I just meant that it seems… too complicated. To cover every possible way something could go.”
“Neither nature nor Faust is bound by our silly little concepts of ‘complication’, Twilight. Do you wish to know just how many Major Lines there are estimated to be?”
“Um, sure?”
“Four hundred nineteen trillion seven hundred sixty seven billion nine hundred and three million. That’s a four, a one, a nine, a seven, a six, a seven, a nine, a zero, and a three, followed by six zeroes.” He grinned as her jaw hit the road. “Minor Lines are somewhere in the ten-to-the-googolplex range. As for Threads, well…”
Broken’s eye remained locked on Twilight. He raised his hoof and knocked it on the road three times.
“I have just created an infinite-minus-one number of different Threads, all based around the fact that I stopped here, lifted my left forehoof a certain height into the air at a certain speed, brought it down at a certain speed, tapped in a certain rhythm on a certain stone with a certain part of my hoof-”
“Okay, okay! I get that part of it.” She blunk, trying to comprehend what she had just been told. “Four- How did you even estimate that number?”
“I didn’t, the chronologists did. They just mapped out our Line through its splits back to the Primary, counted the different pathways, and gave a relative size measurement compared to the Primary. No bucking idea where the Minor number came from.”
“But… wait, if every possibility is mapped out already, then-“
Broken raised a hoof and placed it on her muzzle. Twilight gave him a confused glance.
“I know exactly what you’re going to say. And you’re wrong. What we decide to do still does matter, because the little Threads are all based on what we didn’t do. Our Lines are still affected by what we choose to do, no matter whether or not there are other Lines created for how we didn’t do them. Depending on what we do or don’t do, we could end up creating innumerable other Lines, simply because we chose to go one way over the others.” He brought his hoof down and gave a small, practiced smile, as if he had just comforted her away from some terrible revelation. “So don’t bring up all of that ‘life is meaningless because nothing we do is of our own will’ or ‘it doesn’t matter what we do because somewhere else we won’t have done it’. That kind of talk doesn’t help anypony.”
“Actually, I was going to say that your jump across timelines shouldn’t have affected anything, because this ‘Line’ would already have accounted for your interference.”
Broken gave her a confused stare, one eyebrow furrowing while the other lifted. “Wait, what? No, no no no no no. The Lines aren’t all already there, with every little detail preaccounted for; Every Line is at a certain point in time relative to the Primary Line, and nothing after the current point is developed. Sure, it could theoretically be said that you could simply use what happens in the Primary as a base, but you’d need to account for every possible difference that’s been racked up between this Line and the Primary. With how far out we are, that’s going to be pretty bucking hard.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. “But when I went back in time-“
“-you did so within your own timeline. It’s a little failsafe that seems to have been built in. When you go back in time within your own timeline, you can’t affect anything enough to actually change future events; otherwise, you might never get the chance to go back, which would mean that the changes would never be made, which would mean that you’d go back and make the changes, and so on and so forth until your brain implodes.” He tapped his hoof on the ground again, and began walking. “When a pony from outside the timeline is introduced, however, his existence does not depend on past events remaining the same. I can tie this timeline into a neat little knot and I won’t be affected by it.”
The mare shook her head. “Shouldn’t all of the Lines be at the same point in time, though? Regardless of how you affect it, I can’t see any reason why you going sideways between Lines puts you at a time further back than the one in your own Line. Why is my timeline behind yours?”
Broken shrugged. “Buck if I know. Like I said, not everything fits onto the always-moving-forwards tree model. I just learned how the things worked, not why.”
Twilight nodded, slightly disappointed. “Um… what was with that whole little speech back there? About life not being meaningless?”
Broken’s eye flicked upwards. “Something the chronologists kept saying. Apparently a bunch of ponies kept getting into ‘existential crises’ or some such over the numerous Lines accounting for every possibility. They made anyone who worked with them memorise that feel good crap so that they wouldn’t go crazy.” He gave an odd laugh. “At least, not in relation to the Line thing.”
There was silence for a few minutes, the two ponies simply walking along the road. Twilight tried to digest the massive drop of information Broken had given her. A thought occurred to her, and she gave a small laugh. Broken turned his head slightly, flicking an ear back.
“What?”
“Well, I was just thinking. All of the information you’ve given me… if I turn into Dawn, then couldn’t I just use it to travel across time and ensure that Dawn takes over in other Lines? It seems rather odd for you to tell me all of this, is all.”
Broken coughed. “Two points. One, you couldn’t ‘just’ travel across the Lines: It takes a very specific spell, performed by one of a select few unicorns. Neither of us can do it.” He gained a smirk. “Secondly, you’re presuming I’m going to let you survive long enough to put this information to any actual use.”
And with that remider, Twilight’s relaxation evaporated. Her steps faltered for a second, though Broken didn’t seem to notice or care. The silence came back, louder than before. Once again, a few minutes passed before Twilight broke it again.
“Are you depressed or mad right now?”
Broken’s brow furrowed, though he didn’t turn to look at Twilight. “What do you mean?”
“Earlier, you said that you were either ‘violently mad’ or ‘maddeningly depressed’, and that I shouldn’t get used to when you were in control of yourself. But you’ve seemed remarkably… well, normal, for the most part. Like with the Cakes.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Broken gave a breath, then shrugged. “I think I’m depressed. Madness is really hard to control.” He chuckled. “Then again, I might not be in control at all.” His eye flicked upwards, then back down at the road. His residual smile melted into a grimace. “Pip is following us.”
Twilight blinked. “He is? How-“
“Rooftops. He’s been keeping watch since we left.” He gave a growling huff. “Surprised he didn’t try to kill me in the alley…”
“I’ve told him not to hurt you…” Twilight replied, giving a slight trail-off at the end. Broken blinked.
“Bad luck on him, then.”
“…and I would like it if you promised not to hurt him.” Twilight continued. This gave Broken pause, and he once again stopped walking, turning to glare at her.
“No.”
“Broken, he isn’t going to hurt you if I say not to. You’ve known him longer than us, you should know that.”
“It’s because I know him that I want him dead! You aren’t Dawn, not yet, but he is the Pip that murdered Princess Luna, killed dozens of innocent ponies, and destroyed my life! I don’t give a damn whether or not he did it at Dawn’s order, he’s still the one with the blood literally on his hooves!” Broken slammed a hoof into the road to emphasize his point, cracking a stone beneath. Two passing ponies turned to stare, going slightly wide-eyed as they took in Broken’s appearance. Twilight stepped back a bit, readying her magic to restrain him and bring them back to the library in case he lost control. Broken took a few breaths, then continued. “I’ve sworn not to harm you, and I’ve sworn to protect Equestria from you. I can keep to both, it’s just going to take some wiggling.” He gave a nod to the building they had just passed. “But I’ve sworn an oath to kill him, Twilight. And I plan to keep it.”
Very suddenly, he spun around and shot a beam of magic at the building’s roof, causing a loud crack as it broke one of the wooden slats.
The few ponies that shared the street with Twilight and Broken screamed and ran. A dark shape launched away from the building, only to be caught as another beam from Broken changed direction and struck at it. Broken and Twilight watched as the shape fell onto a nearby roof, rolling down and slipping into an alley. Broken took off towards it, Twilight frantically following.
Okay, okay, he leapt off of that house, was hit in the air, which pushed him west about the length of a building, meaning he fell into… there! Twilight rounded the corner at the same time as Broken, but teleported to the mouth of the alley instead of running. She heard Broken curse as she galloped down, headed for the misshapen lump leaned up against the wall.
“Pip!”
The mottled cream-and-brown earth pony lifted his head at her voice. A small trickle of blood led from his mouth to his chin, though it appeared to be less lung damage and more a split lip. His eye was as inexpressive as ever.
“My apologies, Milady. I did not properly anticipate a shifting attack.”
Twilight ground her teeth, turning as Broken entered the alley, horn ablaze. She yelled, creating a rapid echo. “Stop!”
“Why should I?!”
“He’s not going to harm anypony!”
“Present calm does not excuse past atrocities, Twilight!” His horn glowed brighter, and Twilight had moments to draw a shield before a large mass of magic shot down at Pip. The barrier broke, but the other magic dissipated as well. Broken growled and tried to set up another spell, only to be cut off as Twilight slammed a shield around his horn. He blinked in surprise, feeling at the miasmic barrier. His gaze shifted from Pip to Twilight (not a big movement, given the alley’s width), his jaw slightly agape.
“I need you to calm down, Broken.” Twilight said in the sternest voice she could manage, trying to mix together both her mother and Princess Celestia. Broken stared at her for a few more seconds before he began to laugh. This action surprised Twilight, though such a minor feeling was quickly forgotten as she felt herself be picked up. Looking down, she found herself caught in rose-coloured magic. “Wha-“
Then she heard the sound of something wet splattering onto a solid surface. She turned her head, craning to see Pip crumple to the ground, a pool of blood forming around the gash in his neck. Twilight’s stomach turned to ice.
“He’s not dead.” Broken blandly stated. “It’s just the body responding to something that should have killed him. Give me a few seconds and we can play volleyball with his head.”
“Broken, please…” Twilight struggled in the magic, but to no avail. She released the shield around his horn and instantly felt one slam around hers. She gave him another look, authority replaced with a try at pity. Broken simply snorted. His horn glowed, and Twilight closed her eyes, awaiting a sound similar to the fish’s head being cruelly torn away.
She did not expect to hear another voice enter the situation.
“My oh my.” Discord intoned. “This is quite an interesting development, isn’t it?”
The alleyway had gone unnaturally quiet, without even the muted hum of active magic reaching Twilight’s ears. Her eyes shot towards the source of the new voice, and she found herself staring at a piece of graffiti. It bore the shape of a draconequus, and Twilight instinctively waved it off as a foalish attempt at supporting Discord.
Then the graffiti moved.
“This is an interesting event, I must say…” Discord said, leaning out of the wall, paint bending into a third dimension. Both misshapen eyes focussed on Broken, who wore an expression of unbridled shock. Twilight felt the magic holding her dissipate, her horn freeing from the shield, and she hit the ground just as Pip began standing up again. She glanced at Broken again – still frozen in place, staring at Discord – before moving as quietly as she could to Pip. The stallion gave a glance at her, void of fear or pain, but when he attempted to talk his speech quickly degenerated into a sputtering of blood. Twilight held a hoof over his mouth, silencing him as she tried to examine his wound. Behind her, Discord spoke up again. “Well, Shining Armor, what have you done to yourself?”
“…How?”
“And scaring poor Twilight like that, oh, how dreadful. I say, you really must learn some manners, sir.”
As Twilight watched, Pip’s neck was healing. She’d assumed that he had healing enchantments on him in the same way as his sensory enhancements, but actually observing the flesh knit itself back together was a whole other race. The muscles above the esophagus had already reunified, and the veins and arteries were steadily dropping in expelled blood amounts. Twilight was aware that she should be disturbed by the violence of the injury, but her conscious thoughts were entirely on the perfection of the healing spell Pip had been imbued with. Its careful manipulation of his damaged body was beautiful, in its own way.
“Every little spell that helped a pony seal a cut, or reattach a limb, came at the cost of dozens of test subjects, all of whom were supposedly dangerous criminals.”
Her mind stuck at that. “Supposedly.”
“I mean, really, Shining Armor, I didn’t think that the Captain of the Canterlot Guard would stoop so low as to try to murder somepony in a back alley. It’s positively… mundane.” Twilight’s sight went back to Discord, finding him in a much more familiar form. Broken stared up at him, eye twitching.
“You… we killed you…”
Discord’s eyebrow rose at this, and he gave a laugh. “Kill me? No, Celly and Lulu just locked me in a statue for a thousand years. You really need to brush up on your basic history, Shin-“
Then his voice caught. His grin faltered, and he gave the stallion a more critical eye. Broken’s shock and wide-eyed stare had given way to a teeth-bared glare. His eye flicked to Twilight, his voice colder than she had ever heard.
“What. Did. You. Do?”
Discord leaned back, blinking. His grin returned.
“You’re not Shining Armor.” He twisted around Broken, leaning in close to his ear. Broken’s glare transferred to Discord, and his horn began to glow. “Which only begs the question of who you really-”
Then his head exploded.
There was a pop, then numerous small and large splatterings, followed by the sound of something wet-yet-solid hitting the ground. Discord’s entire body went limp, Broken quickly shrugging it off and letting it fall to the stone below. He stepped away from the body, eye still cold and refastened on Twilight.
“Broken, what did-“
“Shut. Up.” He took a step towards her. “I want to know why the fuck he was still alive.” Another step.
“Princess Celestia released him and-“
“LIES!” Broken roared. A third step, and a fourth. Broken’s eye was still cold, but his face contorted in rage. His voice flared between gravelled ice and burning fire. “The Princess would never be so idiotic as to intentionally release that MONSTER!” Five, six steps. Halfway to Twilight now. She hadn’t noticed how close they were before. “You released him, that I’ll believe, but how did you trick the Princess, stop her from sensing his presence? ANSWER ME!”
Pip stepped into the space between Broken and Twilight. Broken didn’t seem to notice. “Milady, would you wish me to-“
“SHUT! UP!” Broken’s horn glowed, and Pip flew upwards in a cast of rose-coloured magic. Broken swung him into the walls of the alley, each impact met with a sickening crunch of shattering bone and tearing flesh. Twilight watched, frozen, as Broken’s horn glowed brighter for a second, and every part of Pip’s body seemed to twist in a different direction. Broken’s horn stopped glowing, and Pip dropped to the ground with a wet slap, twitching slightly as his body attempted to respond to the trauma.
Twilight gritted her teeth, preparing to try to overload Broken’s senses and distract him enough for her to escape with Pip, when a shield once again slammed onto her horn. Broken stepped over Pip’s form, eye still cold.
“Broken-“
The slap caught her off guard; he had somehow bridged the distance almost instantaneously, and before she had said anything but his name he had brought his hoof to meet her face. She blinked, stars popping up in her eyes, and she realized he was talking again.
“I don’t give a damn what your reasons are for bringing him back. You’ve helped a monster. That makes you a monster. What I want to know now is what you did to the Princess.” Twilight opened her mouth again. “Ah-Ah-AH!” Broken bared his teeth in what appeared to be an attempt at a grin. “I don’t want your words, Dawn…”
He took one more step, lifting his head to stare down at Twilight, and already she could see in his eye, past the frigid cover, a manic glee at being in such a position against her. He brought his head down, the tip of his horn poking directly at the base of her own, and as she stared into his eye she saw a flicker of some other emotion, quickly smothered but still present. Then she closed her eyes, and waited for oblivion.
And waited.
And waited.
Slowly, she cracked one eye open. Broken still stood there, horn pointed at her, eye glaring. But nothing happened. Twilight carefully moved her hoof up, pushing Broken on the side of his head.
He fell over, stiff as a board, revealing a headless Discord standing behind him.
“He’s rather annoying, isn’t he?” Discord’s voice said. “I’ve never had a pony blow my head up before.”
Twilight’s eyebrows warred between furrowing and shooting up past her hair. “Wha buh heg amb-“
“Please, Twilight, let your mouth catch up to your brain.”
Twilight closed her jaw, took several deep breaths, then tried again. “What just happened?! Why is Broken frozen?! Why did you show up all of a sudden?! How are you talking without a head – wait, how are you alive without a head?!?”
Discord brought a claw up, rubbing it along a non-existent chin. “Well, I ‘showed up’ because I was visiting Fluttershy and I sensed several stray strands of chaotic energy coming from a hugely chaotic source: this little cycloptic unicorn on the ground here. ‘Broken’, was it? Broken is frozen because I removed all of the potential chaos from the area immediately surrounding him, inherently preventing him from making any changes to it. I am alive because I am a god, and it is very hard to kill a god, especially one as interesting as me. And I’d rather not explain how I’m talking, because that would likely be more embarrassing than funny. As for ‘what just happened’, my bits are on the probability that he was going to try to tear your mind apart to find the memories of you tricking the Princess into allowing my release.” He leaned over as Twilight blinked, seeming to watch her process the information. When she was able to focus on him again, he continued. “My turn. Why in Faust’s glorious flank does he look so much like your goody-goody spoilsport brother?”
Twilight answered rather detachedly, the majority of her brainpower still overpowered by adrenaline. “He’s from another universe. He used to be Shining, but-“
“Ah! Say no more. I’d much rather find out from the source.” Discord’s torso bent, leaning over Broken’s prone form. “Wakey wakey, whiney-Shiney!” He snapped two claws, and Broken exhaled, then took in a deep breath. Discord’s body leaned back a bit as the stallion coughed and gasped for air. “Oh, that’s right, mortals need to breathe.”
“Let me go!” Broken’s head moved, but the rest of him stayed prone. “Release me, you abomination! I need to help the Princess, we can kill you later!”
“Oh, but killing me would make everything so boring.” Broken’s eye twitched, and he began to swing his head around even more. “Besides, Twilight here tells me that you’re from another universe, and I’m ever so curious to find out just what occurred over there to make you willing to risk tearing apart the entire time-space weave just to do something about.”
“FUCK YOU!” Broken yelled. Twilight heard several sets of hooves galloping towards them along the road. Discord appeared to notice as well.
“Ah, Ponyville’s Finest make an appearance. Quite a response time they have, don’t they? No matter.” Discord raised an arm, slamming his palm into Broken’s head. It struck the alley floor, and Broken stopped struggling. “That problem’s done for now. If you’ll give me your hoof, Twilight, we can alight and escape the feathery pillows of the Equestrian justice system.”
Twilight raised her hoof, then brought it back down as Discord reached for it. “Wait. Pip.” She looked past Discord, at the stallion’s still-twitching form. “He needs help.”
“Who? Oh, that… thing. I suppose we could bring him as well.” Discord slid over, lifting Pip up under one arm, then moving back and doing the same with Broken under the other. “Now please, Twilight, I’d rather not explain to Celly why the guards found me in the same area as a pony with life-threatening injuries.”
This time, Discord grabbed Twilight’s hoof the moment it was off the ground, and she only had the thought when it was safely in his grasp. “Wait, where are-“
Then she was falling.
It felt to Twilight as though she was being rolled in a barrel, down a hill, during a hurricane, an earthquake, and a volcano eruption. With somepony shaking the barrel for good measure. She tried to move her hooves, turn her head, open her eyes, breathe, but she couldn’t do anything. She stood helpless for several seconds before the tempest passed, and she found her hooves on solid ground again. Opened eyes found her in a cottage filled with various animal paraphernalia.
“Fluttershy, dear!” Discord called, throwing Pip onto the couch (the impact of which caused a very-unsettling-to-Twilight series of wet crunching sounds) and nonchalantly dropping Broken onto the floor. “We have a patient here for you!”
“Oh my, what happened? Did somepony- oh my goodness!” As Fluttershy rounded the corner, her cautious worry gave way to open concern. She rushed over to Pip, gently prodding at every injury. He twitched again, and Fluttershy sighed.
“Discord, wherever did you find him? He needs to go to a hospital!” The pegasus turned, and by the way her eyebrows moved, she noticed Twilight and Broken for the first time. “Twilight? What are you doing here?”
For some reason, Twilight found this question funny. She began to giggle, struggling to get an explanation out through the laughter. “Hee hee Well, Fluttershy hehehehe ha ha I was taking Broken out for a walk when he hehehehehe ahaha he just started launching magic missles at a roof, and ahahahaa then Pip showed up and they got in a fight and Discord showed up and Broken blew his head off and then tried to ki-hehehe-hill me and why is the room spinning so slowly?” Twilight blinked, trying to make Fluttershy’s cottage stop moving (or go faster, she couldn’t really tell), and very suddenly she became aware that her head felt like a sack of rocks. She heard Fluttershy yell – well, talk sort-of loudly – but then her head hit the floor and she stopped being able to sense anything.
Twilight awoke to a white rabbit prodding at her snout. Blinking at Angel’s glare, she slowly sat up, bringing a hoof up to rub at her aching head. Angel leapt off of her, climbing onto the space of the couch she cleared and attempting to push her further forward. She turned, letting her back hooves dangle off of the couch. Sighing, Twilight began to think through everything that had happened.
Broken explains timejump. States Pip following us, launches magical projectile at Pip, knocks Pip into alley. I try to stop him, but he bypasses shield and injures Pip. Discord appears. Broken and Discord converse, Broken injures Discord. Broken injures Pip further, attempts to injure me. Discord freezes Broken, converses with me, knocks Broken unconscious, teleports us to Fluttershy’s cottage. Okay.
Twilight took in a breath, satisfied that she had recalled enough of a basic timeline of the rapid series of events to avoid being overwhelmed again. She shifted off of the couch fully, stretching her legs and looking around. Red light fell into the room from the window, and there was nopony else in the room with her, though there were several odd sounds coming from the upper floor.
Climbing the stairs, Twilight noticed a lack of animals. There were none of the events that typically occurred when Twilight or one of Fluttershy’s friends visited, no cautious squawking or pattering of rodents as they avoided ponies’ hooves. No animals rushing every which way as they lived their lives independent of the machinations of anypony.
Then the sound occurred again – a kind of wet cracking – and Twilight became focussed on finding out its source. As the upper floor entered her sight, one door rumbled slightly. Twilight stepped lightly towards it, quietly opening it and sliding her head in.
She was immediately struck with a gush of blood.
Twilight leapt back with a strangled cry, rapidly bringing up a hoof to wipe the offending fluid off of her face. As she rubbed her head into her foreleg, she heard the door slowly close again. A soft voice froze her movements.
“Oh dear, I’m sorry, Twilight.”
Twilight’s eyes shot to the speaking pony. She was a pegasus, yellow with a pink mane, three butterflies for a cutie mark.
She was also covered in blood.
“Fluttershy?”
The mare gave a serene smile. “I didn’t mean to get any on you, Twilight. Here, let me clean it off…”
Somehow Fluttershy was beside Twilight, and she began to run her tongue up along the unicorn’s face. Twilight blinked, unable to process what was happening.
“Wha… buh…”
“Oh, did you want some?” Fluttershy asked, her voice as soft, as kind as ever. She brought a bloodsoaked hoof up to Twilight’s mouth. “Here you go, there’s plenty more coming.”
Twilight took a step back, her hoof landing in something wet. Looking down, she found the floor slick with blood, a trail leading from under the door straight to her. She stepped away from it, and the blood moved, following her. She heard Fluttershy’s concerned voice.
“Twilight? Are you alright?”
“Twilight?”
“Twilight?”
“AAAAAAAH!”
Twilight gasped, her eyes shooting open. She tried to sit up, tried to get up and get away from the blood and the not-Fluttershy, but she found herself being held down, forced to stay still as the blood pooled around her, dragging her in, drowning her-
“Twilight!”
Twilight’s eyes found focus on two worried eyes, sky blue and framed by a pink mane. She blinked, her breathing fast and shallow, and she felt the couch’s cushions beneath her. She washed her sight over Fluttershy, and, finding no evidence of blood, proceeded to hug the pegasus tighter than she had anypony ever before. She heard a hitching sound, and Fluttershy began to slowly rock her back and forth. It took Twilight a moment to realize that she was crying.
“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay, shhh, it was just a dream…” Fluttershy whispered. For some reason, this served only to make Twilight cry harder. The two ponies held each other for a piece of time, until Twilight’s sobs lessened and her breathing slowed. Fluttershy gingerly extracted herself from Twilight’s grip, though she made sure to still match Twilight’s gaze. “Are you alright? Feel any better?”
“Y…yeah. Thanks, Fluttershy.”
“Oh, I really don’t mind. But would you be willing to explain what that was all about?”
Twilight’s mind flashed several scenes – Blood Fluttershy Tongue Blood – and she winced, rapidly shaking her head. “I think I was just… overstressed. An enormous amount of... stuff, for lack of a better word, in such a short time, I think, just kind of put me out of my limits of comprehension.” She blinked, mirrored by Fluttershy. The pegasus gave a small smile.
“Oh, alright. So long as you feel better.”
“And I do. Thanks, again.” Twilight screwed her eyes shut, rolling onto her side and opening them to stare at the door. Orange light came in through the window. “Wow. How long was I out?”
“Oh, just a few hours. You really seemed like you needed some rest, so I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Hours? Really?” Twilight rubbed her head again, sitting up (An admonishment, “Careful, don’t take it too fast”, from Fluttershy) and stretching. A thought occurred to her. “Wait, where’s Broken? And Pip?”
“Oh, Broken’s still asleep. Discord said that he was easier to deal with when he couldn’t say naughty things.” Twilight gave a small snort, but caught herself before it could go further. Fluttershy glanced at her clock. “Oh, and I need to go break Pip’s legs again.”
And Twilight’s stomach caught a ball of ice.
“Wait, what?”
“Um, well, I’m sure you’ve noticed that Pip heals very quickly, and when Discord brought him in his bones were already starting to fuse back together, but they were in the wrong spots so I had to break them again and move them back to their proper positions, but I can’t move them too much at once because that could cause even more damage, so I’ve been needing to move them a few centimetres at a time and then letting them rest, but while they rest they re-fuse again so I need to keep breaking them again… again.”
Ice ball melted. “Oh. That makes sense, I guess.”
“He’s awake, if you want to talk to him. He’s very polite, and he’s even willing to help me with the bone resetting. I was worried about hurting him, but he said that he didn’t mind pain so long as you were okay.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty single-minded in that regard…” Twilight shook her head. “If he’s okay, I don’t need to see him, but tell him that I’m alright and that I want him to rest for a while. That should stop him from trying to come down and protect me.” Fluttershy nodded, quickly flitting up the stairs. Twilight gave another small stretch, then turned and walked into the kitchen.
Broken was asleep on the table. His hooves twitched slightly as she entered the room, though he didn’t wake up. Twilight looked around, but Discord was nowhere to be seen.
“If you’re sneaking up behind me, I’m not in the mood.” Twilight felt Discord stiffen as she spoke, then a sigh, and suddenly he was in front of her, head having apparently reappeared during her respite.
“Pooh-pooh, Twilight. Can’t a draconequus have a little fun?”
“Answers first. You said something about ‘stray strands’ around Broken? And him tearing apart the universe?”
“Oh, that. Pff.” Discord waved a claw through the air. “Me, Faust, and a few other beings exist in every universe simultaneously, independent of the differences between the universes. We’re the only beings that are allowed to do so regularly, because we technically live outside of the different universes. If a mortal tries to hop timelines, it’s supposed to cause his universe to implode from the pressure of… timey-wimey stuff trying to rush in to fill the hole he created, and to implode the universe he’s entering due to his presence being completely foreign to the timeline’s structure. Judging by the fact that this universe still exists, he’s found some way to subvert that system.”
“And the ‘stray strands’?”
“That’s part of why the universes are supposed to go away. Everything in a universe has its own spot in the universe’s pattern. Tear it out, and there’s a hole. You can try to sew it on to a different pattern, but it’ll look all out of place and probably do more harm than good. Broken there is basically a piece of a pattern that’s trying to be sewn onto a different one, and as such he has a different… stitch, let’s say, than ponies like you. Some of the ‘strands’ happened to wiggle away and bring themselves to my attention.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. “Wait. Do you know about the Primary Line thing he was talking about?”
Discord laughed. “Of course. It’s wrong, obviously, but it’s closer than most guesses are.” Broken stirred, mumbling, and Discord’s eyes flicked at him. “Oh yes, I meant to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Well, given that Broken here was probably planning on destroying your mind to take your memories, I was wondering if you would mind if I did the same to him.”
“What?!”
Discord smirked at her incredulous stare. “I want to take a peek at what turned Shining Armor into Broken. Would you mind if I did that?”
“Yes! I mean- wait! Memory stealing is banned for a reason!”
“Yes it is. But I’m not stealing, just borrowing. They’re not even going to leave his mind.”
“But you’d still cause massive trauma to his psyche!”
“Oh, come now, Twilight, an extra kick isn’t going to make the clockwork thing that is this pony’s brain any more busted. He’s already been psychologically destroyed; I’d merely be… surveying the damage.”
Twilight stomped her hoof into the floor. “No, Discord. Remember your promise.” He blinked at her, then gave a theatric sigh.
“Fine. I respect your wishes, Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight nodded and gave a small grin. Discord returned it.
Then he placed his claw on Broken’s horn, and there was a spark between them.
Both stallion and draconequus stiffened for half a second, then Discord pulled his claw away and Broken rolled off the table. Discord closed his eyes and brought his paw up to his head.
“Discord!” Twilight yelled. “I told you-“
“You said you didn’t want me to. I never asked if I could.” He held his claw up at her when she tried to speak again. “Shut up, I’m reliving a lifetime of memories in one minute. I need to concentrate.”
Twilight gave a small growl, but turned away from Discord and moved towards Broken. He lay prone on the floor, wide-eyed and blinking every few seconds, staring into nothing.
“Broken, are you alright?” The stallion blinked. His eye moved to her, but didn’t focus. He blinked again. “Broken?” Two more blinks. His eye seemed to focus slightly on her. She leaned in closer. “Bro-“
“Touch me and I’ll flay you alive.”
Twilight very quickly scampered away from him, watching with wide eyes as he slowly stood up and shook himself. He gave a quick glance around the room, focussing on Discord. His mouth twisted into a hostile grimace, but he made no move to attack the distracted god. A few tense seconds passed, then Discord sighed and opened his eyes. He glanced at Twilight.
“I must say, I’m rather impressed. And slightly terrified.” He gave a stretch, pointedly ignoring Broken Shield. “Those first two years look fun, but after that… yeesh. You have problems, Twilight.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, Discord.” Twilight and Broken both said. They glanced at each other in surprise, though Twilight recovered faster. “Broken was already dealing with… a delicate mental situation, and you tearing up his mind like that-“
“He’s been mapped before.”
This caught Twilight up. “What?”
“He’s had his memories checked before. I just followed those paths. No extra mental damage, I promise.” Discord blinked, and he gave a grin at Broken. “I must say, rather inventive way of getting rid of me. Kudos.”
Broken gave a dry laugh. “I want to know why that didn’t happen here.”
“Well, for one, these ponies aren’t crazy-“
“Excuse me for treating a murderer like a murderer should be treated!”
“I’ve never killed anypony, nothing’s less fun than a dead body.”
“Ponies have killed for you, that’s close enough-“
“If they have I’ve not been made aware-“
“That’s a load of horseapples and you know it-“
Discord bowed his head towards Broken. “If you want to check my memories, go ahead. I assure you that you’ll be seeing things in a whole different light.”
Broken took a step towards the draconequus, then backed away again. “Yeah, right. Take in a god’s memories, that totally won’t backfire.”
“Then I guess you’ll simply need to take my word for it.”
“Well, there are other memories that I could get…”
Broken’s grin rose as Discord’s fell. Discord’s eyes flicked to Twilight. Broken shook his head.
“I swore not to harm her. Never said anything about the other Elements.”
Discord bared his teeth. “Touch her, and I’ll make sure Dazzle has some extra fun to deal with while she’s growing up. Lots of it.”
This cut Broken’s grin. The stallion turned, walking out of the kitchen. He reached the front door, then turned to glare at Discord.
“If you need me, I’m going to go kill something.”
A pop of rose-coloured magic, and he was gone. Twilight turned to face Discord, who appeared to be deep in thought.
“What. The buck. Just happened?”
“Broken and I just reached an agreement. He doesn’t harm Fluttershy, I don’t harm his daughter.”
“Oh.” Twilight blinked. “And before that?”
“We were debating whether grinding my statue into powder, moulding that powder into a perfectly uniform cube, and then teleporting said cube into the centre of the sun was an overreaction to my actions whilst in control of Equestria.”
“Oh.” Twilight blinked again. She thought about it, and decided that she would rather avoid anything that could knock her out again. “I’m going to go see how Pip’s doing.”
“Have fun.”
Twilight walked out of the kitchen. She pretended not to hear Discord slam his head into the wall.
“You may utilize whatever methods you wish, Milady.”
Crack “Just… tell me if you need me to take a break, okay?”
“I shall inform you if the pain becomes unbearable, Milady.”
Another muted crack followed this exchange as Fluttershy shifted Pip’s legs. Every time, Fluttershy would mumble an apology, and Pip would blandly state his lack of concern. Every single time. Twilight was almost tempted to go back downstairs, but she preferred mild annoyance to whatever Discord might be cooking up to vent his frustration. Plus, everything except the legs was back in proper position, so it wouldn’t be too much longer before the repetitive back-and-forth would end.
“Pip, would you mind answering some questions?” Twilight asked. Pip twisted his head as far as he could, attempting to meet Twilight’s eyes.
“Of course not, Milady. What do you wish to know?”
“Well, everything, if you can do it.”
“I shall try, Milady. In the beginning, there was nothing but a ball of matter similar to an egg-“
“No!” Twilight cut him off. “I mean, everything to do with the Revolution.”
“As you wish, Milady. The Revolution began in direct response to the rejection of the Equestrian Charter of Equality and Freedom, later to become the Charter of the Pony’s Democratic Republic of Equestria. During a protest in Ponyville against the Charter’s rejection, the Princesses dispatched several groups of guardsponies to suppress the protestors. These guardsponies performed violent actions against the peaceful protestors, including assaulting and causing the deaths of two stallions, one mare, and two fillies, as well as the purposeful murder of your Ladyship’s assistant and confidant Spike the dragon. Your Ladyship heroically expelled the guards from Ponyville following the latter event, and erected a shield around the town to prevent any more governmental aggressions. During several weeks of the shield’s erection, your Ladyship secluded yourself inside of your library, while the ponies outside cleaned and began rebuilding the structures damaged or destroyed by the violence of the guardsponies. After two weeks of study and experimentation, your Ladyship invented a method of necromancy that allowed for the return of the majority of mental faculties to a dead organism, and demonstrated this brilliant invention in your Ladyship’s resurrection of Spike the dragon. Armed with the knowledge that the Princesses had been distorting their views on the world through oppressive laws and media manipulation, as well as directly and deliberately shortening their lives through the control of necromantic magics, the ponies of Ponyville became the first to throw off the shackles of diarchic oppression and declare themselves Revolutionaries. In the week and a half that followed Spike’s resurrection, your Ladyship began training the Revolutionaries into a force that would be able to resist the machinations of the Princesses and their guardsponies.”
Twilight and Fluttershy both stared with unblinking eyes as Pip finished his monologue, Fluttershy with her mouth ajar. Pip simply stared back at them both, moving his eye from one to the other every five seconds.
“My, that doesn’t sound like Broken’s explanation at all…” Fluttershy finally said. Pip exhaled.
“I would imagine not, Milady. Broken Shield suffers from mental damage that has caused his memory to become inaccurate in its recollection of events pertaining to the Revolution. Even if he remembered the true events, I hasten to remind you that he would lie about them without hesitation, in an attempt to cover up the truth and wash the guardsponies of any wrongdoing.”
“But what about you?” Twilight asked. Pip blinked.
“Milady?”
“Well, how do we know that you aren’t lying to make the guardsponies look bad? It’s more than likely that you’re more biased than Broken is.”
“I swear to you, Milady, everything I have said to both you and Lady Gaia is true.”
Twilight blinked at the familiar name, but filed the question away for later. “How do you know that? Were you present during the riots, did you see the guards attack?”
“No, Milady. My parents stayed in the house for the majority of the protests, and ensured I remained as well.”
“Then how do you know that you’re telling the truth?”
“Your Ladyship stated that the events occurred as such, and your Ladyship has no reason to lie.”
One of Twilight’s eyebrows raised. “You’re going by what I-er, what Dawn said? Pip, she’s probably the most biased source that was actually there.”
Pip tried to flip over, but an admonishment from Fluttershy stayed him. Still, he appeared to try to draw himself up higher, even upside down. “I cannot allow you to slander yourself, Milady. You are the only unbiased source in Equestria.”
“How is Dawn unbiased? She led the Revolution, for Faust’s sake!”
“Your Ladyship can only speak the truth. You stated that you were unbiased.”
“And how, precisely, can Dawn only speak the truth? Does she have some kind of enchantment that stops her from lying?”
“You have never needed to lie, Milady. Truth has belonged to you since the Revolution began. It was your word against the Princesses, and yours was the word that spoke true.”
“Whether or not I was telling the truth that one time, that doesn’t mean that I’m always going to be telling the truth! There are plenty of times in my life that I’ve lied, or that others were saying things that were more accurate than I was. The truth doesn’t ‘belong’ to anypony.”
“As you say, Milady.” Pip nodded. Twilight brought her hoof up to rub between her eyes. Fluttershy looked between them before speaking.
“Um…”
“Yes, Milady?”
“Well, I was just wondering, um, who is Lady Gaia?”
“You are, Milady.”
“Oh.” Fluttershy blinked. Twilight kept her eyes on Pip. “Um… why?”
“Milady?”
“Um, why am I Lady Gaia?”
“Lady Gaia is your name, Milady.”
“Um, sorry, but it isn’t. My name is Fluttershy.”
“And you are to be addressed as Lady Gaia by all ponies not on the Elemental Council in respect for your station as an Element of Harmony, Milady.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Wait, the Elemental Council?” Twilight asked. Pip turned his eye back to her.
“Yes, Milady. The Elemental Council was the official governmental position of the Elements of Harmony, formed to aid in the transition from a tyrannic diarchy to a democratic republic. It was comprised of you, Lady Theia, as well as Lady Gaia, Lady Iris, Lady Cytherea, Lady Thalia, and Lady Tellus.”
“There should only be five, shouldn’t there? Applejack was a rebel, wasn’t she?”
“For a large amount of time, Lady Tellus was in rebellion against the Revolution, Milady. However, she began to appear on the Council after the second escape of Broken Shield from custody.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she come to the Council at all, presumably in the heart of Dawn’s territory, let alone if Broken had just escaped?” Twilight left the “again” alone.
“Your Ladyship stated that, eventually, all rebels would see the futility of their terrorism and recognize the glory of the Revolution. As you always spoke the truth, it makes absolute sense that Lady Tellus would return.”
“But I just said that I don’t always tell the truth.”
“Yes, Milady, but at the time you had said that you did always tell the truth. As such, you have been entirely truthful in all of your statements up to and presumably including the statement in which you stated that you do not always tell the truth.”
Twilight blinked as she attempted to comprehend what Pip had just said. “You’re saying that… everything I’ve said is true… up until I said that I’ve said things that aren’t true?”
“Yes, Milady.”
“But that would mean that I was lying when I said that I’ve said untrue things, because everything I’ve said before then was true, including saying that everything I say is true, right?”
“Yes, Milady.”
“But if I was lying when I said that I had lied before, then… but that’s…” Twilight shook her head. “But that’s a false presumption in the first place! I would have been lying when I said that I was always telling the truth.”
“As you say, Milady.”
“So that means that I wasn’t necessarily telling the truth when I said that ‘all rebels will eventually join the Revolution’ or whatever I said, right?”
“Right, Milady.”
“Which means that Applejack coming back still doesn’t make any sense, correct?’
“Correct, Milady.”
Twilight let out a breath, having gotten through to the blithe pony. “Okay, then. Can you think of any reason why she may have come back?”
“You said she would, Milady. At the time, you always spoke the truth. Thus, she could not have not come back, because then you would have been lying, and such an action would have been impossible, because you always spoke the truth.” He watched passively as Twilight’s face slowly melted through a mix of confusion and frustration.
“Buh… wha… didn’t I just say that I lied when I said that I always told the truth?!”
“You did, Milady.”
“You just said that I was always telling the truth!”
“Because you were, Milady.”
“But I just said I was lying!”
“Yes you did, Milady.”
“So you acknowledge that I was lying when I said I always told the truth, but you still think everything I said was true?”
“Yes, Milady.”
“And you don’t see what’s wrong with that line of thinking?!?”
“No, Milady.” Pip cocked his head to one side at Twilight’s expression. “Are you well, Milady? Lady Gaia, I would request that you attend to her Ladyship should she require-“
WHAM
Fluttershy jumped in surprise as Twilight’s head hit the floor. The unicorn began to grind her skull back and forth along the wood, putting several small grooves into it with her horn.
“Twilight, are you-“
“Give me a minute…” the unicorn growled. Fluttershy meeped and nodded, moving back around Pip.
It took several minutes for Twilight to stop grinding her head into the floor; long enough for Fluttershy to set Pip’s legs the final time. The stallion flipped onto his hooves at nearly the same time as Twilight brought her head up. Pip walked over to her, slightly unsteady.
“Milady, I fear that my explanation may have been inaccurate, and that this inaccuracy may be the cause of your present frustration. Might you allow me to clarify?”
Twilight sighed. “If it’s not completely illogical…”
“As you wish, Milady. The inaccuracy comes in my claim that your Ladyship never lied; that was not necessarily true, as though your Ladyship was always truthful, you sometimes manipulated your statements in ways that could be constituted as lies. These situations were, of course, to benefit Equestria, and were never used against Equestrian citizens.”
“Of course not.” Twilight muttered. Pip didn’t acknowledge the statement.
“What would be perhaps more accurate to say is that your Ladyship is never wrong.”
“Never wrong.”
“Correct, Milady.”
“So I could tell lies, but those lies were always accurate anyways?”
Pip blinked. “Of course, Milady.”
“And I suppose I was the one who said that I was never wrong.”
“Yes, Milady.”
“And you don’t see anything suspicious about me telling everypony that I was always right? Nothing about that screams ‘mad with power’ to you?”
“Of course not, Milady. Lady Cytherea may have gone moderately insane following her sister’s death, but your Ladyship remained a paragon of sanity and rationality even through your grieving and the subsequent Revolution.”
“Alright then.” Twilight blinked several times. “Pip, would you be so kind as to go climb that mountain over there, find a nice cliff, and-“
“Twilight!” Fluttershy gasped. Twilight blinked again, turning to her. “I know that you’re frustrated, but please, think about who you’re talking to.”
Twilight stared at the pegasus for a few seconds, then turned back to Pip, who continued to stare at her emotionlessly. She thought for a second.
“Pip, what would you do if I told you to go jump off a cliff?”
“I would endeavour to locate a heightened plateau with an edge far enough from the ground to be called a ‘cliff’, then I would jump off of it.”
Twilight blinked at him, this time in surprise rather than frustration. “You… you would jump off, just like that?”
“Yes, Milady.”
“Why?” Twilight knew the answer, but she still wanted to hear him say it. He didn’t disappoint.
“Because you ordered it, Milady.”
Twilight simply stared at him. She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a muted squeak. Pip cocked an ear.
“Pip, I think Twilight needs to think things over. Could you maybe go downstairs and see if Discord is ready for our picnic?”
“Of course, Milady.” Pip promptly marched out the door, leaving Twilight to stare at the lines she had ground into the floor. Fluttershy simply watched the unicorn, allowing her time to sort herself out.
“Dear Celestia…” Twilight finally said. Fluttershy moved, her mouth starting to open, but she rested back as Twilight continued. “He’s… I mean, I could tell that he was devoted to me, Dawn must have done something to him, that much is obvious, but he… he didn’t hesitate, he didn’t think, he just told me that he’d kill himself if I told him to…” She coughed, and felt a tear fall down her face. “What kind of monster would turn a pony into that…?”
“The kind of monster that you would never be.” Fluttershy said. Twilight turned to her in confusion. “Twilight, look at Broken. Do you think that Shining is responsible for who he is?”
“No, of course not, but-“
“Then why do you think that you’re responsible for who Dawn is?”
“Because I started the whole Revolution in the first place! If I hadn’t gotten everypony riled up, then everything would still be okay over there!”
Fluttershy sighed. “Twilight, I don’t know much about politics, but I know animals really well. It’s in my cutie mark.” She twitched her flank out to the side as if to emphasize her point. “And I’ve seen a few cases where a bear, or a manticore, or another big, scary animal is acting all mean and angry, going around roaring at everything and making all the other animals all scared. And it’s never just because his favourite berry bush was empty that morning. There’s always a buildup, always a whole bunch of things that go wrong and put that bear in a really foul mood, and then one thing that just makes him go over the edge, stops him from calming himself down. But he never gets so angry over one berry bush. Those ponies that Dawn riled up, not you, must have already been really angry. Even before the guardsponies came in, even before she started telling everypony about the Charter, those ponies must have been very angry over something. I don’t know what would make them mad enough to overthrow the Princesses, but it wasn’t just because Dawn started saying mean things about them.” Fluttershy gave a small smile at that, but her smile faded into a worried look as she saw Twilight’s gaping mouth. “Oh, but I don’t mean that you’re wrong, you just need to stop making yourself so sad over things that you can’t have done anything about and I didn’t mean to sound like I was telling you to do anything and ohmygoodness I’m so sorry…”
“No, no, Fluttershy, it’s fine! I’m not mad!” Twilight quickly walked over to hug the panicking pegasus. “I just… I’ve never heard you talk like that before.”
Fluttershy took in several breaths. “Th-thanks, Twilight. Discord’s been helping me learn to make big speeches like that. I think I might be ready to start thinking about maybe talking to ponies about not disturbing the wildlife in the Everfree Forest if they ever decide to go in or near it.”
Twilight nodded, laughing. “Well, if you ever need help with what to say, just send me a message, alright?”
Fluttershy laughed at this as well, and the two friends took a moment to forget the recent tumult of their life to simply laugh at something that really didn’t need to be laughed at. For the briefest time, Twilight put Pip and Broken and Dawn away, and found herself with a clear mind for the first time in several weeks.
Then the door swung quickly inwards, allowing entrance to a one-eyed stallion.
“Your Ladyship, there are several armoured ponies marching up the road. They appear to be holding a prisoner, and one of them bears Captain’s plumage.”
Twilight turned to face Pip as he spoke. “Guardsponies? Why would they- wait, Captain’s plumage? A prisoner?!” Her horn glowed, and she teleported down to just outside the door of the cottage. Several gilded ponies were making their way up the road from Ponyville, two struggling with a heavy load, the one in front with a blue-fur-crested helmet. She ran down the road to meet them, soon hearing two ponies following her.
The guards stopped as they noticed her approach, the one in front taking a few steps away from the main group. He removed his helmet as she approached, allowing Twilight to see Broken’s face – before it was scarred and with both eyes present.
“Twilight!” Shining called. The unicorn mare slowed slightly as she got closer to him, allowing Pip and Fluttershy to catch up. Soon, the guard captain stood only feet away from the group.
“Shining! What are you doing here?” Twilight asked. Shining barked a laugh in a way that reminded Twilight too much of Broken.
“Well, we had come down to see you when we received reports that there was an altercation earlier in the day that involved a pony suspiciously similar to my appearance. After checking with the rest of your friends, I figured that Fluttershy’s was the most likely place for you to be. We found him-“ he nodded back to the load, which from up close appeared to be a pony in a large sack with several ropes tied around him “-on the way here. He was… eating… a manticore.”
Twilight blanched, and she heard Fluttershy emit a small scream. Fortunately, the pegasus remained upright. “Dear Celestia…”
“Yeah, actually, she wanted to talk to you.”
It took Twilight a few seconds to process his statement. “…she did? Are you down here because she ordered you to get me?”
“No, actually, I’m down here because she came down here, and-“
“PRINCESS CELESTIA IS IN PONYVILLE?!?” Twilight roared. Without thinking, her horn glowed, and she was quickly back in her library. She turned around, and was immediately greeted with a faceful of white feathers.
“Oh, hello, Twilight.” Princess Celestia said, smiling and turning to face her student. “I was just thinking about you.”
Broken awoke to a spinning room. Streaks of white and purple lay in the middle of the otherwise rather brown wash of colour, warped sounds penetrating through the drone in his ears. He tried to blink, but when he opened his eye again everything decided to be bright and painful. He groaned, shifting his shoulders but finding his forelegs immobile. His eye closed again, and he figured if he lay there long enough he might be left alone so that he could escape-
Then somepony threw a bucket of ice water on him.
Broken gasped, thrashing as the sudden wash of freezing cold hit him square in the face. He felt his horn make contact with another for a brief moment before both moved away. His eye jumped open again, and he realized that he could see properly again just as the droning sound melted from his ears. Blinking several times on instinct, he realized that he was being held in the library, with Twilight Sparkle and a stone-faced Princess Celestia immediately in front of him. Several other ponies were behind him, small sounds of metal indicating guardsponies.
“Princess…” he muttered, still slightly shocked from the blast of cold. Shaking his head, he tried to articulate a better statement. “Princess, please, you must be careful! Dawn has freed Discord-“
“I am well aware of Discord’s release, Broken Shield.” Celestia replied. Broken relaxed immediately; not totally, but he wasn’t straining against his bonds with the entirety of his might anymore.
“Then, Princess, might I suggest that I be released to aid in his capture? Dawn has him holed up just outside of the Everfree, but if we hurried we might be able to detain him!” Broken’s eye flicked over to Twilight, gaining a minor confusion at the lack of physical bonds keeping her restrained.
Celestia sighed. “Broken, Discord does not need to be detained. He is no longer a threat to the safety of Equestria.”
At that, Broken became even more confused. “Princess, what are you talking about?”
“I was the one who ordered him released, my little pony.”
Broken stared, frozen once more, at his Princess. His eye flicked once more over to Twilight, and confusion gave way to rage.
“What have you done to her, Dawn?!”
Celestia frowned slightly, one wing opening to separate the two ponies. “Twilight Sparkle has done nothing to me, Broken Shield.”
“I apologise, Princess, but you must be under some kind of external influence to have allowed Discord’s release, and Rising Dawn is the only pony I know of capable of such an act!”
“I gave over Discord as a statue to Twilight and her friends in order for them to release him. I hoped that Fluttershy would be able to reha-er, rather, habilitate him into normal Equestrian life.” Celestia’s mouth drew down on one side. “It was successful, and he has not shown any signs of going back to his harmful ways.”
“Princess, if you were in your right mind you would recognize-“
“Enough, Broken Shield!” Celestia’s frown was openly worn now. “I can assure you that I am not under the influence of any foreign power, nor that Twilight Sparkle has in any way manipulated me into releasing Discord. My choice to release him was based on the ideals of Equestria: that any pony, any body, can come to aid his or her fellow beings in tolerance and harmony. It was on these same principles that I trusted you, out of hoof, to come down here and attempt to fit in with society again.” The Princess drew in a breath, restoring her calm visage. “You, however, have proven a greater problem than the god of chaos.”
“Princess, as Captain of the Guard I swore to defend Equestria and your Highnesses the Princesses against any and all threats, foreign or domestic, commoner or royalty. It is only out of concern for the well being of Equestria that I have taken any action against the threats put forward by Dawn and her monster, and such threats certainly include doing whatever she did to you to make you willing to allow Discord’s release.” He shook in his bonds again. “Please, Princess, if you allow me to help you-“
“Examine me.”
Broken’s brow furrowed. “Your Highness?”
Celestia began stepping forward, her pace controlled and steady. “You seem confident that my willingness to allow Discord’s freedom is caused by manipulation from an external source, namely my student Twilight Sparkle. I am confident that it is not. I ask you to examine my memories in order to demonstrate your evidence that I am being manipulated.”
“Princess, are you sure-“ Twilight began. Celestia raised a wing to silence her.
“I will not be harmed, my dearest student. That goes for you as well, Shining Armor.” A clink of armour behind Broken indicated the relaxing of a guard’s position. Celestia turned back to the one-eyed pony. “Well, Broken?”
“As you wish, Princess.” He replied. The Princess leaned down towards him, bringing her horn within easy range of his. His horn glowed for half a second, then he moved his head, and the horns touched a half-second more.
Both ponies stiffened, eyes closing as information transferred across the magical bridge. Broken jolted back from the contact; Celestia maintained herself and stepped back normally, heightened breathing the only indicator of the ordeal she had gone through. Broken’s eye rapidly darted around behind his lid as two months of deliberation, debate with her sister, self-investigation, and decision moderation played out within several seconds. Nights spent sleepless weighing the positive possibilities against the negative certainties, how Equestria would react, what everypony would think of her should things again turn wrong, why she was even doing this in the first place. All of it was clear and sharp, bearing only the signs of being copied memories rather than the originals. None of it was marred by alteration or suggestion.
Their eyes opened at the same time, merely seconds after their horns touched. His eye was pinpricked in horror; her eyes filled with a righteous satisfaction tempered in pity.
“No…”
“Yes.”
“No, no, that can’t- you must have, you can’t- just, you can’t just have…” The stallion trailed off, staring not at Celestia but somewhere past her.
“Broken Shield, I know that you have gone through-“
“You aren’t my Princess.”
Celestia’s ear flicked forward. “I’m sorry?”
Broken shook his head. “You… you aren’t the Celestia I knew. She… if she went through those same thoughts as you did… she figured them out differently.”
“Yes, I suspect that there are differences in everypony between here and where you came from, Broken Shield.”
“No, no, it’s not…” Broken blinked, clearing afterimages from behind his eyelid. He glanced up at Celestia. “How would you have handled a, a town, let’s say, that just up and said ‘Hey, we aren’t going to obey your laws anymore’, and kicked out all of your guards and officials? Caused some injuries and deaths?”
Celestia stared back at him for a moment before speaking. “Firstly, I would ensure that all my ponies were safe. Then, I would attempt to engage in civil discussion with those in charge of the insurrection. Should they prove violent, I would incapacitate them, separating those ponies who wished to harm others from those simply expressing their opinions or caught up in the excitement. I would do my best to ensure that order was restored and that those responsible for any harmful actions were brought to justice.” Broken began to laugh, and one of Celestia’s eyebrows raised. “Is there something amusing in my statement, Broken Shield?”
Broken stopped laughing, but maintained his grin. “No, no, Princess; that was exactly what my Celestia said she would do. ‘Civil discussion, incapacitate the violent, restore order and ensure justice’ and all of that. But I don’t think you and her would agree on what that entails, Princess.”
“And by that you mean…?”
Broken brought a hoof up, rubbing a scar that stretched from his ear to his eye. “If I’m going to be telling a story, Princess, I think the others would like to hear it as well.”
Celestia stared at him for a few more moments, then nodded. The door opened with a knot of magic around the handle, and five ponies quickly filed in. Broken noted with a smirk that Applejack sat as far as she could from Twilight without actually leaving the semicircle around him, though her glower was aimed directly at him.
“If you would, Broken?” Celestia said. The stallion swallowed.
“Immediately after Applejack’s information was obtained, Celestia began preparations…”
---
When the carriages touched down, Shining did not emerge first because he feared for his sister. He did not emerge first because he hoped that his presence would calm any rioting ponies near the library. He did not emerge first because it was his duty to do so.
He was the first out of the carriage because he wanted it over with.
“Right, squads of six, as trained, two front one back, scan for ponies on the streets. Detain and bring back to HQ if found. Once the roads are secure, start breaching buildings. Move it!”
His sergeants took the orders, grabbing their ponies as the exited the carriages. Soon, only twenty-one ponies remained in the gig ring around the library.
“Sir, scans don’t indicate any major life inside the building.” A unicorn guard trotted up to the captain. “Should we enter?”
“Fast as you can, keep it clean. We want any questionable documents secured, not destroyed.” Shining took in a breath. “And sergeant?”
“Sir?”
“Twilight Sparkle has murdered two guardsponies, encouraged violent rebellion, and committed necromancy. She is to be regarded as hostile and extremely dangerous. If she is in there…” Shining swallowed, and his eyes began to sting. “If she attacks you, don’t bother trying to capture her.”
The stallion blinked, but nodded. “Yes, sir.” Then he saluted, quickly stepping away after Shining gave a weak return. The guard captain turned away from the library as the guards got into position, walking towards the medics and remaining guardsponies. Nodding at the sergeant, he addressed the nine red-crossed ponies.
“You’re going to set up shop in the library’s main room. The guards currently securing the building will act as your security and escorts. Pegasi teams will bring the injured to you; you don’t leave the library unless absolutely necessary.”
“Aye, captain.” One of the medics responded. “Might I ask why we’re bein’ put in the middle of the prison?”
“The library is the HQ; other guard squads are coming in after us with more supplies. The detained ponies are being put in a specific section of the gig ring, with special carriages and a squad assigned just to keep an eye on them, and after they’re processed they’re being moved to the former Town Hall site. You should be perfectly safe.”
“Ah. Thanks fer the explanation.” The mare turned to the other medics. “Right, lads, ge’ the lead shoes off yer hooves, we gotta ge’ ready fer casualties!”
“One more thing.” The apparently-head-medic turned back to Shining. “You give the detainees minimal medical treatment, enough to keep them alive. Save the actual healing for the guards.”
“Sir, that’s no’ exactly up to medical code-“
“Orders of Princess Celestia herself.”
That caught the mare up short. “Right then. If she says so…” She frowned. “I ain’t gonna let a pony suffer, though.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.” Shining turned at a call, seeing the library squad signal an all-clear. “Right, go get set up. Sergeant, shall we move?”
“On your orders, sir.” The unicorn replied. Shining nodded.
“Let’s go, then.”
Soon the squad-plus-one was trotting up the central street, eyes narrowed and carefully scanning their surroundings. Every window was shuttered, doors closed and on occasion barred on the outside (And all barred on the inside, Shining figured). About one in twenty buildings had a solar banner hanging from a window or on the door, tattered and torn. The sergeant spat on the ground when the squad passed by one of the flags covered in an odourous brown substance.
“Makes me sick, what they’re doing here…”
“How’s that, sergeant?” Shining replied. The olive stallion flicked an eye at him.
“Going rebel, burning the Town Hall, desecrating the flag, that doesn’t set you off, sir?”
“Of course it does, sergeant. These ponies need to be brought to justice.” Shining scuffed his hoof, scraping off a rotted piece of fruit. “But I’m not angry at them. That’d just be distracting.”
“Point taken, sir.” The sergeant blinked, watching as several pegasi flew overhead. “You think the flagged houses might be loyalists?”
“Maybe. Could just be trying to trick us into letting our guard down around the ponies that come out.” A magic flare went up, and the pegasi turned towards it. “We’ll get some information soon enough.”
“Aye, sir.” The stallion’s ear flicked, and he turned his head towards an alley. “Movement!”
Immediately the squad halted, crouching down, several barriers popping up courtesy of Shining and the other unicorns. They moved to the alley, pulling out several dumpsters to expose nothing but a scraggled cat. A few small snickers set the sergeant’s face dull red under his coat.
“Sorry, sir…”
Shining flicked an ear back, setting magic bonds on the refuse bins. “What for? We’re supposed to investigate any possible pony positions. You’re just following orders, sergeant.” Shining began to slowly walk up the alley, motioning for the sergeant and another guard to follow. A barrier brushed the debris from the alley ahead of them, leaving the alley floor exposed.
“I know, sir, I’m just… on edge, a little.”
“We all are, sergeant. Comes with the territory.”
“Yes, sir, but… I’ve been to Ponyville before. It shouldn’t be like this, everypony hiding from the bucking Guard. They used to like us, and six weeks later we’re practically needing to invade them.” The sergeant took a step forward, slipping slightly. “It ain’t-“ He stopped speaking. “Sir?”
“Sergeant? What did you find?” The guard captain turned, heading back towards the sergeant. The olive stallion poked his hoof at the puddle he had slipped in.
“This water, sir… it’s sewage. How’d sewage get on the street?”
“Fell out of a dumpster? Maybe somepony didn’t tie a diaper right.”
“No, sir, there was a bin near this spot, but this didn’t come from it.” A green ball appeared in the air, tapping at the stones around the puddle. One of them shifted slightly at the contact. “Aha!” The ball grew in size, crashing down into the stone. It and several others around it fell, clanging against a wooden ladder descending into the sewer below.
“Hidden tunnel? They work fast.” Shining peered down into the hole, noting dark stains on the ladder’s rungs. He stepped back again as the smell met his nose. “And if that puddle’s fresh…”
“…then somepony just got out! I knew I saw something, sir!” The sergeant gave Shining a quick grin before masking it again. “Think they might be in the bin, sir?”
“Might as well check. Good work.” Shining nodded at the sergeant before turning to the regular guardspony. “Put a barrier on this, stay and guard it until we get a relief squad.” The guard nodded, and Shining followed the sergeant out into the street. “What’s your name, sergeant?”
“Jade, sir.”
Shining gave a small laugh. “Right. I’ll remember that. Sergeant Jade, if you would?”
Jade nodded, turning to his squad. “Shore, Stal, we need these bins scanned. Easy, give a couple of kicks on whichever one has a pony in it. Everypony get ready to jump on whoever comes out.”
The slightly relaxed atmosphere given by the guards left as soon as Jade had addressed them, and the dumpsters were with great efficiency scanned for life. The one that tested positive was brought towards the centre of the street. Jade nodded, and a large, burly earth pony guard gave several quick bucks to the side of the bin. Shining let the bonds go, flicking the lid open; after several more kicks, a small mass leapt out from the rubbish inside, quickly caught by the waiting guards.
“It’s a colt, sir.” One of the guards said, horn glowing. The other two backed off a moment later, revealing a small blue pegasus covered in grime, his hooves tied together and pointing straight into the air. Shining walked up to the colt, meeting the young pony’s glare with a simple look.
“Kid, what were you doing in there?” The colt tried to twist his head and spit at Shining, but ended up simply trailing saliva from his mouth.
“I was helping the Revolution stop evil ponies like you from trodding on the downtroddened common ponies like me! So let me go, you big meanie!”
“Hey now, didn’t anypony teach you to respect your elders?” Shining tsked at the colt. “Do your parents know you’re out here?”
“Duh! They’re in the Revolution too! Everypony is!”
“Really? Everypony? Even the ponies in the houses with the flags outside?” Shining flicked an eye at Jade, who sent up a flare.
“No, those dummies are the ones who want you bullies to come back! No real Revolutionary would ever be in those dumb places!” Shining had to bite back a grin at the youth’s mouth.
“Well, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Do you know where your parents are?”
“No! Regus Eunt Domus!” The colt strained to rise at this statement of defiance, succeeding in lifting his head a few centimetres off of the ground. Shining snickered, as did several of the guards, and Jade brought his head into his hoof. A pegasus touched down and quickly checked in with the sergeant.
“No? Well, don’t worry, we’ll find them soon enough.” Turning, he walked over to the pegasus and Sergeant Jade. “How’s the rest of the operation going?”
“Fairly well, we haven’t found many ponies, but none of them have put up much of a fight. Think our worst injury was stepping on broken glass, sir.”
“Good, good. Well, be careful with this one, he’s a real tough fighter. Smells bad, too.” The pegasus glanced behind Shining, catching his grin when he saw the ‘prisoner’.
“Oh, don’t worry, sir. I’ll have my guard up for this one.” The pegasus trotted over to the colt, grabbing the rope between his teeth and lifting off. The weight seemed to unbalance him slightly, but he quickly stabilized and rose to roof height.
Then something launched from a nearby roof, slamming into the pegasus and sending the tangle of three ponies into a building wall before tumbling to the ground.
“AMBUSH!” Shining roared, throwing up a barrier just as several windows shot open. Bottles and buckets of rotting food pelted into the barrier, and before Shining could retaliate the windows shut and locked again. Cursing, the guard captain turned towards the fight.
The pegasus guard was on the ground, wings splayed and hooves pushing upwards against his attacker. Jade was holding the colt in magic, pulling him away from the madpony. The four regular guards were all trying to restrain the attacker, who slashed at the pegasus on the ground with something in his mouth. The pegasus screamed, and there was a sickening tearing sound. Blood spurted onto the wall, the attacker shouting something unintelligible as he was pulled away and slammed into the road. Shining quickly sent up emergency flares before wrapping the madpony up in numerous magic bonds.
“I have him, you three help the guard! Easy, check on your friend in the alley!” The large stallion nodded, rushing with surprising speed to the alley as the other three tended to their injured comrade. Shining grimaced as he walked towards the struggling pony, giving the restrained stallion a strong buck to the head.
“What the buck is wrong with you?! You bucking idiot!” He lifted the rebel, slamming him into the wall. “Why’d you attack him?! He was carrying a foal, you could have killed them both!”
“Better the child die than be forced to live under tyranny!” The stallion yelled back. Shining’s eye twitched, and he slammed the pony into the wall several times more.
“You manure-bucking bastard! You think he’s better off dead than living with the Princesses?” Jade came up behind Shining, watching as the stallion struggled to speak.
“Yes! Death before diarchic tyranny!” The stallion shouted, slightly strangled under the pressure of Shining’s hold. Shining raised an eyebrow, turning to the sergeant.
“’Death’, huh? Sergeant Jade, what do you think?”
The olive stallion gave Shining a grim grin in reply. “Well, sir, the code does state our duty as ‘To serve all Equestrian citizens’. What kind of guards would we be to deny him his wishes?”
“My thoughts exactly.” Shining turned back towards the stallion on the wall. His horn glowed for a second.
“Wait, what are-“ the stallion began. Then his head exploded.
---
“Stop. You killed a pony-“
“I was merely giving him what he wished, Princess. All ponies under arrest are entitled to one request. His was to be killed.” A laugh. “Actually, it was a surprisingly common request that day, now that I think back on it…” More laughs.
“That is a gross misinterpretation of the guard’s code-“
“And completely irrelevant, given that assault with intent to kill on a guardspony is punished by death anyways.”
“I-“
“Before you start, I want to elaborate on the injuries that guard received. The attacker sliced his primary flight tendon in half, along with several major arteries. He nearly bled out, and by the time our doctors brought him back from the brink of death, he was out of the time limit for fixing his wing. We had to scramble to find a rather-uneducated pegasus guard a job that didn’t involve flying and didn’t lower his pay to a degree that he couldn’t support his wife and four foals, and that was after his physical rehabilitation, psychological monitoring, moving the entire family down into Canterlot from Cloudsdale…” A breath. “It was rough, Princess, losing a guard like that, knowing that his entire career was gone in an instant because some bucking idiot that we’d gone down there to help tried to kill him. Sure, it was better than dying, but Steel Wing wasn’t really the same afterwards.”
A crash. Heads turned towards a shocked stallion.
“I… we only have three foals…”
“Well, you’re getting a fourth. A filly, if I remember right.”
“…Petal always wanted a filly…”
“Yeah, you said that after she was born. Congratulations, sergeant.”
“I’m… I’m a private, sir…”
“Then congratulations twice over.” A head turned back. “If you would allow me to continue, Princess?”
A sigh. “First, I want an answer.”
“I’ll do my best, your Highness.”
“How often did you… utilize that particular piece of Equestrian law? To kill ponies that tried to harm you?”
“Guards only killed when the attacker tried to kill them, Princess. That happened, on average, once every two months in Canterlot, typically in the poorer areas. Total self-defense executions usually hit around fifty or sixty per year in Equestria. Why do you ask?”
“Because in this Equestria, nopony has been killed by a guard in over one hundred years.”
“…Well, that’s interesting.”
---
The stallion’s body slumped onto the ground, blood beginning to pool rather quickly under it. Shining spat on the cutie mark before turning away from the corpse, eyes meeting Jade and resting on the colt he held. The small blue pegasus wasn’t moving, and Shining’s breath caught.
“Is he-“
“Unconscious. I’ll make sure the medic pegasus takes a look at him.” Jade carefully set the colt down near the wall, motioning for a guard to keep an eye on him. The captain and sergeant moved towards the centre of the street. “Nopony else got hurt.”
“Good.” A loud trot brought his attention to Easy. “Is the alley secure?”
“Bolt is fine, sir. He heard the commotion, but didn’t encounter anypony.”
Shining let out a breath. “Tell him to keep an eye on the tunnel the hole leads into. They’re probably going to try to move ponies out of these buildings.”
“Sir.” The large stallion nodded, moving back to the alleyway. A multitude of shadows came overhead, and Shining raised his eyes to the sky as four pegasi landed a carriage on the street, followed by several more freeflyers clad in medic gear.
“Ah, Faust…” the first medic muttered, moving with his comrades over to the injured pegasus. He looked at Shining as the other two cleaned the injury. “Any idea what did this?”
“It looks like a knife.” Jade answered, floating the instrument over. A rather long, curved blade on one side, the other covered in small spikes. Shining whistled, the medic cursed.
“That’s a Gryphonian hunting knife. Looks old, probably a family heirloom.” Shining said. The medic angrily snorted.
“That is a serrated edge, which means more flesh damage, more bleeding, and a higher chance of complications.” He quickly turned to his fellow medics, spouting off a series of rather complicated-sounding commands. The two nodded, wrapping the injury in a large set of bandages, then even more bandages, before grabbing a unicorn guard to shift the pegasus into the carriage. The medic grimaced as the pegasus moaned in pain. “Any other injuries?”
“Guard was carrying a colt, he’s unconscious now.”
“Concussion?”
“They hit the ground rather hard, so probably.”
“Where is he?”
“Over there. Guardspony Stalwart Hoof is watching him.”
“And the attacker?”
At this, Jade hesitated. “Well, most of him is on the ground, but there’s some on the wall too…”
The medic shook his head, muttering under his breath as he moved to the colt’s location. Shining felt a tap on his shoulder, turning to see one of the carriage’s carriers.
“Sir, the main forces have arrived, as have the Princesses. They wish you to come back to Headquarters to receive updated information. Would you like to ride with us?”
“I’ll teleport. Thanks for informing me.” The guard saluted; Shining returned it and looked at Sergeant Jade. “Think you can handle the rest alone?”
“Pah. Don’t worry about us, sir.” Jade waved a hoof dismissively. “You might want to get moving, though. I’ve heard the Princesses want this done fast.”
“No horseapples.” A quick shine of Shining’s horn, and Jade was standing alone.
“We’re still clearing out some of the buildings in the southern quarter, but we’ve accounted for 95% of Ponyville’s population, 8% of which have apparently remained loyal to you, your Highnesses.” Shining brought out another scroll, laying it out over the map on the table around which he and the Princesses stood. The sun shone in orange from the west, a contrast to the straight above noonday sun that he had first met with the Princesses under. “By the last censuses, that leaves about nine-hundred rebels, give or take the ones we had to execute.”
“So many…” Celestia sighed.
“Will they all fit within the town square?” Luna asked.
“They have so far. Doesn’t your magic work better when it’s less spread out?”
“Yes, but we don’t want any of our subjects to be harmed too greatly. How many casualties are there?”
“None of the Guard was killed, your Highness, but we’ve had about twenty serious injuries, four critical. We’ve had to execute twenty-five ponies, along with seventy injuries on the civilian/rebel side. No loyalist was harmed past the injuries they already had when we entered their residences.”
“Five and twe- excuse me, twenty-five dead? That seems high for a security operation…”
“I’m sure the Guard is doing the best job they can, Luna.” Celestia’s eye flicked to Shining. “Is the square secure?”
“We have twenty unicorns on barrier duty, thirty pegasi in the sky, and ten squads patrolling the sewers and other tunnels in the area under it, with double each number in reserve.”
“Would they be able to stand up to a dragon attack?”
Shining and Celestia both blinked in surprise, eyes flicking to the Princess of the Night.
“Do you think she’d attack her own supporters, sister?”
“I don’t know what she’d do. We should be prepared for anything.”
“She has a point, Princess. Few of the Guard have had any significant anti-dragon battle training. Most of them know to just keep moving in different directions and hope he doesn’t breathe on you.” Shining sighed. “And that’s presuming that she doesn’t just stay hidden. It’d be smarter than trying to take on the Canterlot Royal Guard and two Princesses.”
“Undoubtedly, but I fear that her… condition may be clouding her judgment. She likely feels that she needs to show her supporters that she isn’t just empty words when she promises to ‘free’ them from oppression under our rule. We’re arresting them, for my sake; if she breaks their containment then she’s freed them in the most literal sense.”
“In that case, would you like to move out to the square and perform the spell, your Highness? To lessen the chances of her causing an interruption?”
“It would be better to wait until the entire town was secured, so that the most ponies can be exposed. Still, I find this library to be…” Celestia struggled for a word.
“Ominous?”
“I’d prefer ‘nostalgic’, but it does have a rather foreboding air, doesn’t it?”
“It is sending spiders up my spine as well. Shall we step outside?”
Shining and Celestia both nodded, and the three walked out into Ponyville with a simple salute from the guards.
“Down with the royalty!”
And straight into a band of prisoners.
The group of ponies each wore a headband of tan and black, their legs chained together and to each other at the elbows. Some of them appeared almost shocked at Shining and the Princesses’ appearance; others glared, and one pulled himself towards the three as far as he could, dragging two other ponies along with him.
“You think you can just come down here and arrest all of us? It doesn’t matter how many ponies you murder and maim, we’ll still fight against your tyranny!”
Shining stepped forward, horn ready to knock the prisoner back into the line. Then he felt a wing brush his side, and he stepped back as Celestia stepped forward. She regarded the vociferous rebel with a narrowed eye and stolid face.
“And what do you call my tyranny, my little pony?”
The stallion blinked, taking a step back. “Y… your tyranny?”
“Yes. What have I done in the past that was tyrannical?”
“Well, you, you… what do you call this?” The stallion swung his head, apparently indicating the group of ponies he was in. “You’re taking us prisoner, attacking us, just because we’re not putting up with you anymore! Your guards have killed a bunch of us, innocent ponies, without reas-“
“I do hope that you were not about to say that my guardsponies have killed without just cause, my little pony, because I have seen guards be brought in here whose lives have been nearly stolen from them by your ‘innocent’ confederates. Many of them shall never fully recover from their injuries.”
As if on a cue, an anguished scream erupted from the library. It broke off into a hitched sob before the door quietly closed. The stallion’s eyes widened as he stared around the Princess at the building. Celestia didn’t move, maintaining her stare at the pony.
“If it helps any, the stallion I killed – nearly tore a guard’s wing off, by the way – said that he’d rather die than go back to living under the Princesses.” Shining said towards the rebel. “So have most of the dead, last I checked.”
“In any case, our actions today are irrelevant to your charge of tyranny. To have made that claim with any accuracy, you would have needed evidence of cruelty and oppression from before today’s restoration of peace.” Celestia drew in a breath. “So I ask again, my little pony, what tyranny?”
“Ah, uh, the… the Charter! You didn’t even look at it, and when we protested against its refusal you sent guardsponies down to attack us! Two fillies died!”
“As did three adult ponies. All of whom died from trampling, did they not?”
“I… I don’t-“
“They did.” Another rebel spoke up. “I was one of the ones that brought them to the hospital. They were all crushed.”
“Thank you. Now, Captain Shining Armor, when was the last time the Guard has used trampling as a means of crowd control or execution?”
“Never, Princess.” Shining answered. “Crowd control is barriers and wedges to force the crowd into small groups. Execution is destruction of the head or a broken neck.” Shining stared the rebel in the eyes. “Trampling is too messy. Only happens in riots.”
Celestia turned her eye to the mare who had spoken up about the protest deaths. “Where did you recover the bodies from, if I might ask?”
“Er… the, the road, in between the library and the Town Hall, and some from around the Hall itself.”
“And was the Hall not already aflame by the time the guardsponies appeared? With the majority of the protestors gathered at a ‘safe’ distance around it?”
“Yeah…”
Celestia raised her hoof to her chin, tapping at it as if in thought. “So, from the information I have, it sounds like those killed in the protest over the Charter’s refusal would likely have died by the protesters’ hooves, wouldn’t they? Crushed under angered and overenthusiastic hooves eager to vent their frustration on the representation of my presence in Ponyville.” She stared back at the stallion, whose eyes had pinpricked. “And I can assure you, my little pony, my sister and I did not turn down the Charter without careful consideration of every small niggling detail present within. There were several parts that we would have supported, had they been resubmitted separately, but the document as a whole was rife with holes that could easily have been exploited by ponies with less-than-admirable goals in mind.”
“But why?” The rebel mare asked. The stallion shrunk back into the group of rebels, though the others appeared to be trying to avoid him. “Why would us common ponies having a say in what happens to us, having more freedom, be a bad thing?”
“It wouldn’t, my little pony. I endeavour to allow you to choose what occurs in your lives already. But what Twilight Sparkle had proposed would not allow the ‘common pony’ to have a choice, not one that matters.” Celestia sighed. “I have seen the ‘democracy’ she proposed be put into action in Gryphonia. It was less than two years before there was a king again. Do you know why?” The rebel mare shook her head. “When the gryphons first voted, the leader they elected promised change from the dictatorial rule of his predecessor. His government enacted sweeping changes, all of which were supposedly to expand freedom in all of its forms. Within a year, unemployment was at forty percent, riots over access to food were commonplace, and crime rates had skyrocketed, with the police force essentially becoming just another gang. The leader they had elected was found to be taking bribes from the ‘former’ nobility to encourage him to favour them in his legislative decisions. So they caught him, executed him, and had a new election. This second leader pledged that she would not repeat the old mistakes of the one that came before her.” The Princess took in a breath. “She was out within three months. The third, two. The fourth lasted three days. For a while, it was chaos, gryphons committing horrible acts over the most trivial of matters. The military took over eventually, killing everyone who ran against them and installing their highest ranking general as king.” Celestia shook her head, giving a controlled look to the rebel mare. “Thousands dead, their country socially and economically ruined, and in the end, nothing changed for the better. All in the name of freedom.”
“…but we’re… we…”
“I sit with my sister as ruler because I have seen the alternatives to my rule, and in my millennia of observation, none of them have satisfied me as better for my ponies than my own leadership. I can acknowledge that I may sound despotic in that statement, but please, trust me when I say that I only remain in power because I do know best for how to ensure that my- no, that you as ponies live the greatest, fullest lives that you can.”
None of the rebels responded, each staring at the Princess with shocked eyes. She smiled at them, and then at Shining’s signal they were started moving again. Luna flicked an ear back.
“Was that really necessary, sister?”
Celestia shook her head. “No. But I figured that a natural progression towards recognition of what they have done wrong might aid with the spell, and-“
“DRAGON!”
The three turned just as a jet of fire burned the sky above. A giant shadow shot past, shaking the library and nearly knocking several guardsponies off their hooves. The shadow slowed to turn, and its purple and green colouring became clear.
“Princess, should I-“
“No. I shall handle this.”
The Princess launched into the air, great wings spreading and lifting her higher and higher, until she was level with the dragon’s path. The dragon roared, a ball of fire larger than most Ponyville buildings erupting from his mouth. It shot towards Celestia, quickly followed by its sender. The Princess held firm. Her horn began to glow, and the sun turned from orange to red.
Then she was awash in light, just as the fireball hit her.
The flames smashed into the light, curling violently in a ball around the Princess’ form. Shining could feel the heat from hundreds of feet below, but Celestia didn’t appear to acknowledge it. The dragon growled, pulling upwards. A beam suddenly pierced through the back of the flame, hitting the dragon square in the chest and pushing him back. The dragon roared again, his wings fully spread as he tried to stop himself, but the beam simply grew in size and intensity. The dragon fell, down and backwards, into a group of buildings across from the library. Shining raised a hoof to protect his face from the shockwave, and when he could see again he quickly joined the Princesses (Celestia having come down immediately after subduing the dragon) in approaching the rubble. As the dragon attempted to right itself, a relatively small purple form, clothed in a tan uniform, leapt down from its head and approached the three.
“Twilight!” Celestia yelled. “Twilight, please, give up!” Cords of purple magic erupted from the road, tearing up the stone as they shot towards the Princesses. Celestia’s horn glowed, and the cords vanished into mist. The two sides continued approaching each other.
“Twilight Sparkle! Surrender yourself to our custody or face the consequences!” Luna shouted. Spears of purple shot forth towards them, cut in half by dark blue blades. Shining could see his sister’s face, contorted in rage.
“Twilight! Please! Don’t do this!” Shining called. A gigantic ball of magic formed in the sky and plummeted towards him and the Princesses. Three horns glowed, and the ball dissipated into nothing. Shining stopped, Celestia and Luna halting with him. Twilight continued to approach, and Shining could hear her laboured breathing, could see into her maddened eyes. “Twily… sis, please…”
Twilight screamed, and then she and the dragon disappeared.
“Citizens of Ponyville…” The Princess began. Luna stood beside her on the platform overlooking the town square, a small window being opened through the opaque barrier to allow the ponies inside to see and hear her. On the ground, Shining waited for his signal. “You have been gathered here today because you believed that violent defiance of my and my sister’s rule would be tolerated. You believed that you were encouraging us to see that our choices in governance were incorrect. You believed that you were beginning a better life for yourselves and your foals away from our rule. You believed that your leader would be able to overcome us, and bring you to a time in which we were not the rulers of Equestria.” Celestia paused for several seconds. “You were wrong.
“We do not tolerate violence. Our choices were not incorrect. Your lives would not have been bettered. The pony whom you have chosen to support has abandoned you, and we continue our undefied rule of Equestria. I had hoped that, as citizens of Equestria, as ponies, as intelligent beings, you would see the futility in your actions.” Celestia sighed, tapping her hoof on the platform once. Shining began barking orders, his unicorns forming doubled lines, horns pointing towards the barrier. He could faintly hear the order being echoed by the sergeants on the other sides of the barrier. “However, it is clear by the anger and hatred I see in so many of your faces that I was wrong to expect this. As such, it is my duty as your ruler to ensure that you understand precisely how why you were wrong in attempting to rebel against us.” Celestia’s hoof tapped twice, and the barrier fell. The ponies inside, still chained to one another, stared in confusion at the unicorn ranks surrounding them. Celestia took in a breath, then uttered a single word, one echoed far louder by Shining Armor.
“FIRE!”
Eighty horns cracked with magical discharge as bolts of energy were fired into the crowd. The ponies hit immediately fell, unmoving, and those behind them screamed in terror before they, too, fell to the magic bolts. Pegasi tried to fly away, but they were either immediately picked off or unable to detach themselves from the panicking crowd. Shining sent up a flare, and the ranks began moving inwards, stepping over motionless ponies while they continued to fire into the remaining crowd. Within thirty seconds of the first bolt being fired, the last pony fell. Shining looked up towards the Princesses. Celestia nodded at him.
“Okay, turn and search your quarter! We don’t want anypony with their heads upwards!” The guards nodded, forming much looser lines as they searched the ponies at their hooves. Shining moved towards the centre, meeting with his sergeants. He noticed Jade among them, not least because the pony addressed him almost immediately.
“Sir!”
“Sergeant Jade?”
“Sir, I was wondering… you don’t think they thought we were killing them, do you? Like, the shots were making them dead instead of unconscious?”
Shining snorted. “Don’t be stupid. What kind of sick bastard would do that? Killing unarmed civilians… rebel or not, they’re still ponies, sergeant!”
“Right, sir. Sorry, sir.”
Shining shook his head, turning a mare lying in the centre of the square onto her stomach. A dark mist suddenly appeared at his hooves, spreading slowly outwards to cover the entire group of rebels. The mare he moved began to whimper, hooves twitching slightly as though she was running from something. Shining looked up at the Princesses again, seeing Luna’s horn glowing darkly.
“Sir…” Jade spoke up again.
“Sergeant?”
“What’s Princess Luna showing them? With her dream mist, I mean.”
The mare began coughing, and Shining lifted her head with magic just as she gagged and vomited. He moved her over, away from her mess, before looking up at Jade.
“She’s showing them what would happen if they won.”
---
“…and somehow I doubt that you’d’ve done the same thing, Princess.”
Broken rotated his jaw, staring at the Princess, who still wore an emotionless mask. Broken could see past it, though, into the horror that gripped the part of her mind still accountable to emotion. Beside her, the six mares present each looked at each other uneasily, confusion mixed with shock mixed with a dozen different, terrible emotions. Broken yawned. “Anyways, Celestia somehow figured that Twilight had probably teleported into the Everfree, given that that place is generally very hard to traverse, and thus very, very good to hide out in. In addition, fifty or so ponies were still missing from Ponyville’s population, leading the Princess to believe that Twilight had found a hideout inside the Everfree. She dispatched several squads to search, and they confirmed her…” Broken trailed off, eye widening as his memory focused on a long-forgotten piece of information. “Oh, Faust…”
“Broken?” Celestia asked. The stallion looked up at her, blinking, then began to giggle excitedly.
“I forgot, how in Faust’s flaming subplot did I forget…” his horn glowed, and suddenly his bindings fell away from him. Stepping forwards, apparently ignorant of the guards approaching him from behind, he addressed Celestia. “Princess, I know that we aren’t on the best te-he he terms right now, but if you’d just leave me alone for the next little while, I’d be ever so grateful.”
“And why, my little pony, should I do that?”
“Because I’m going to do something that you won’t approve of now but you’ll love me for later, Princess.”
Celestia blinked once. “I think we both know the answer is no, Broken Shield.”
Broken giggled again. “Well, I asked nicely!” Then he spun, grabbing the nearest guardspony and roughly bringing their mouths together. The guard froze just long enough for Broken to pick him up in magic and throw him through the window, a muffled whump indicating the guard’s contact with the ground below. Broken cackled madly at the shocked faces of everypony else in the room, giving a special eye at Twilight before following the guard to freedom.
There was silence as everypony stared at the jagged hole in the window that had provided Broken’s escape. For several seconds, everypony mirrored everypony else; loose jaws, wide eyes and small pupils, frozen as their brains attempted to understand precisely what had just happened in the second immediately after Broken grabbed the guard.
Then Celestia spoke.
“Well, that was unexpected.”
Immediately, the four guardsponies bolted out of the room, metal clanging and loudly-muttered cusses indicating their positions as they ran down the stairs and out of the library. Twilight and the other mares ran towards the window, looking down to see where Broken might have gone… and finding him lying on top of the defenestrated guardspony.
“Broken!” Twilight found herself calling out. “Are you alright?” The stallion grumbled an unintelligible response, standing up and taking several swaying steps away from the guard. The other guardsponies rushed around the corner, tackling the scarred unicorn to the ground.
“Don’t harm him, Captain.” Celestia called down. Shining nodded, bringing a glowing horn to his double’s head. The unicorn stiffened, then went limp, held up by two guards and dragged back around the tree, out of sight. “Is the guardspony injured?”
As the question was asked, the guard stirred. Shining crossed the distance between them, giving the pony time to stand up before examining him. The guard captain shook his head, pointing the guard down the road and speaking to him in a voice too low for the window ponies to hear. The guard nodded and began slowly walking up the road, shuffling his hooves a small amount. Celestia sighed, leaning back into the room and taking a few steps towards the centre. Twilight turned to face her.
“Princess, I-“
“I’m sorry, Twilight.”
Twilight blinked at the Princess, and the rest of her friends turned around to look at the alicorn. “You’re… sorry, Princess?”
“Yes. I was foolish in presuming that Broken Shield would have been so easily convinced of your innocence. In his own world, he spent a decade fighting you; the mindset he must have put himself into will not be easy to remove him from.” Celestia shook her head. “To think that a simple talk would break him of it… I should have known better. I should have come down here and retrieved him the moment I read Spike’s first letter describing his behaviour.”
“Where is Spike, anyways?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Asleep. I’ll record this one myself.” Twilight answered, before turning back to Celestia. “But Princess, I was the one who asked to take him; if anything this is my fault.”
“No, no, Twilight, I am supposed to protect my subjects, and no matter your wishes, he is a clear and present danger to you and everypony else.”
“Actually, he isn’t.”
Celestia glanced at the purple unicorn. “What do you mean, Twilight? From what I’ve heard by Spike and the rest of your friends, he’s attempted to kill you several times, he’s nearly killed Pip twice, he’s made numerous non-physical threats on your life, he’s been verbally and emotionally abusive towards you-“
“Yes, towards me!” Twilight spoke up. “Princess, the only ponies that he’s harmed or attempted to harm are me and Pip. Otherwise, he’s just… rude, and even that seems to be a response to what he sees as annoyances. The second he met Mr. and Mrs. Cake, it was like a switch flipped; he didn’t curse or growl or do anything bad while he was talking to them.”
“Sociopaths are often good in social situations, Twilight. That does not make them any less dangerous.”
“But he’s not dangerous! Not to other ponies, at least…” Twilight trailed off at Celestia’s stare before regaining her words. “Princess, he still views himself as a guard, that much is clear, and he’s never shown any sign of being willing to harm anypony unless he thinks that doing so will keep others safe.” She and Celestia both glanced at the broken window, then back to each other. “Honestly, Princess, I don’t think that anypony is in danger from him except for me.”
“Didn’t he blow up Discord’s head?” Rainbow piped up. Twilight facehoofed.
“His Discord didn’t get a chance to reform, Dash. He thought that Discord being free meant that something was wrong, that the Princess was hurt-“
“Which provided a convenient excuse for him to throw away his oath and try to kill you.” Celestia finished. “Which is precisely why-“
“-Which is precisely why what needs to be done is to have him provide a more… comprehensive and precisely worded oath that stops him from trying to kill me. Or Pip.” Twilight responded. “I’m not saying that he doesn’t need help, Princess, from someone who actually knows how to handle traumatized ponies like him, but I think that the more he’s near me, the more he can see that I’m not a threat, the more likely he is to at least tone down his viciousness, and maybe give up on the whole ‘killing me’ thing. I mean, he’s shown me that he can be reasonable, even when it’s just us, and he’s admitted that just his being here has lessened the chances of my turning into Dawn by extreme degrees.”
“Nonetheless, Twilight, I cannot view him as anything but a bomb waiting to be set off. He needs to be controlled and contained, not allowed to roam free to the degree that he can right now.”
“Princess, I do not in any way mean to be rude, but I doubt your deepest, most secure cell could hold him in place more than I could. You yourself saw that he could work around a magical cap, even one held by an extremely powerful unicorn… or alicorn, as the case may be. Without that, and with the magic power I’ve seen from him… he’d probably just teleport out and back down here the second he went into the cell, if he didn’t decide to tear a hole in the mountain to teach you a lesson.”
Celestia thought about this. “I must admit, I could easily see him doing such a thing…” She shook her head. “But I cannot simply allow him to continue to roam free, Twilight! Spike has mentioned several times where he’s disappeared from your supervision without any noted difficulty. If you lose track of him while he’s not… stable, what happens if somepony else – Rarity, Pinkie Pie, some random pony on the street – reminds him of a violent event of his past?”
Twilight winced. “That… that is something that needs to be worked on. But I honestly don’t think that you should bring him back to Canterlot, Princess. Down here, he’s able to ‘keep an eye on me’ and not deal with large crowds of ponies that might not interact with him very well.”
“Plus, he’s not near any actual weapons or giant Equestria-destroying spells.” Rainbow Dash mentioned. Applejack scoffed.
“Yeah, or spells that could raise the dead or anythin’… oh wait.” Celestia and Twilight both glanced at the farmpony’s visage of dull anger.
“Oh, yes. I believe I owe you an apology as well, Applejack. I should never have given Twilight the necromantic scroll without informing you-“
“It’d be warnin’ me, Princess, an’ everypony else here. There’s a reason that stuff’s been banned, and it ain’t cause it makes the clouds rain chocolate.”
Celestia put on a wry grin. “Believe me, Applejack, I am well aware of necromancy’s negative aspects. Twilight was actually working on a way to reanimate plants without causing catastrophic damage to the organism.”
“I never got anywhere near actual experimentation, though. That’s for the Canterlot scientists.” She gave Applejack’s glare a small, sorry grin. The farmer sighed.
“Listen, Twi, Ah ain’t… Ah ain’t mad at you. Just the whole not knowin’ that that magic was goin’ on somewhere near me an’ my family, an’ you bein’ a party to it, ‘s all.” She shrugged. “Not that it matters anymore, what with the scroll destroyed.”
Celestia glanced at Twilight, who shrunk back a small amount. “Yes, I suppose that would end your worries, wouldn’t it.” She took in a breath. “Nonetheless. Twilight, I cannot in good conscience allow Broken Shield to continue as he has been. While I can recognize that attempts to contain him are likely to fail should he decide not to co-operate, I see no other way to ensure the safety of Ponyville, and the rest of Equestria at that.”
“But-“
A knock at the door, followed by its creaking open, interrupted Twilight. Shining Armor leaned around the door’s edge. “Princess, the prisoner is coming to.”
“Thank you, Shining. We will be down shortly.” Shining nodded, backing out from the door, though the lack of hooves tromping down the stairs indicated that he was staying close. Celestia turned back and stared Twilight in the eye. “Twilight, stay here a moment. The rest of you may go; I wish for a private discussion with my student.”
The other five mares gave a collective concerned glance at the purple unicorn, but obeyed their Princess’ wishes. The moment the door closed, Celestia let out a breath she had held since first coming to Ponyville.
“Twilight Sparkle, what am I going to do with you?”
“Princess?”
“First, I want the scroll. The new one, wherever you transferred the spell to.”
Twilight stepped back in surprise, but a raised eyebrow sent her teleporting down to the basement and back into the second-floor room within a second. She dropped the black case at the Princess’ hooves, wincing as Celestia tapped it with her horn and sent it away in a bath of magic.
“Princess, I-“
“You were going to keep it so that you might continue your studies on it. It is an admirable dedication, Twilight, and I do not mean to dismiss your contributions to our understanding of necromancy, but we have dozens of researchers working on properly fixing it. We only have one working in friendshipology, and I value her and her research too highly to risk losing them to an avoidable situation.”
“Princess, friendshipology isn’t a word.”
“Really? Maybe that is why the Canterlot University has been resisting my move to make it an official field of study.” The two mares stared blankly at each other for a moment before giving in to a small, mutual set of laughs.
Twilight was the first to recover her composure. “Princess, are you sure that I can’t get you to reconsider about Broken? I can’t help but feel responsible for him, the way he is right now.”
Celestia gave Twilight a look that would likely be best described as pity. “Twilight, do you hold my sister guilty for the crimes of Nightmare Moon?”
A corner of Twilight’s mouth drew down. “Let me guess. ‘She’s not the same pony, she knows better now, what the bad one did isn’t the good one’s fault’?”
“Just answer the question, Twilight.”
The unicorn mare sighed. “No. No, Princess Luna isn’t responsible for Nightmare Moon’s actions. And by the same principle, I’m not responsible for Dawn’s.”
“Thank you. Now could you please tell her that?”
Twilight blinked at the unexpected question, glancing at Celestia. The Princess still held a pitying look, but it was held in front of saddened eyes. “What?” The mare finally managed.
“Twilight, when Luna was returned to us, she refused to sleep anywhere but the dungeon for three months. She insisted that she be ‘treated as any criminal would be’ for her actions; she ended up directly ordering the guards to chain her up and not follow any orders that made life easier on her. I had to continue raising the moon for several weeks before I could convince her that she wouldn’t go powermad from embracing enough magic to do it herself. I had to spend fifteen straight hours talking with her before she was willing to move up to the chambers I had maintained for her. Everything she did that I didn’t tell her to do was prefaced by several dozen apologies and requests that she be constantly monitored, then apologies for the requests and apologies for the apologies. It was night after night and day after day of constant arguing and pleading with her before she was even willing to look me in the eye.” Celestia drew in a breath, a small hitching undercurrent to it that was barely noticeable even to Twilight. “She felt so guilty about Nightmare’s attempt to overtake me, what could have happened to Equestria had she succeeded, every emotional scrap of hatred against me that that conniving bitch had forced my dear sister to feel-“ Celestia let out the rest of her breath in an angered snort, giving Twilight enough time to comprehend that she had just heard the Princess curse for the first time in recorded history before continuing.
“It was only with my constant praises that she emerged from her shell of self-loathing, and even then the smallest gesture could send her spiralling back into it. The Nightmare Night event was largely due to me locking her in her room with your letters and yelling encouragement through the door for six hours. Though what happened there has helped shore her up considerably, Pipsqueak’s friendship not being the least of the aid, she still has pieces of time where I need to suspend my duties and assure her that she is not Nightmare Moon.
“I am asking you, Twilight, to not allow yourself to fall as far as my sister did in her anger against herself. Luna has memories, tainted but still strong, of the actions Nightmare Moon committed and wished to commit; you have nothing to base your feelings on but the claims of a maddened pony who has freely demonstrated his bias against you. The Nightmare is a fact, something that happened in Equestria’s past; Dawn is something that has not come, a claim of a possibility of Equestria’s future. Neither you nor Luna should be bearing the weight of neither Dawn’s nor Nightmare Moon’s actions, and yet you hoist their troubles onto yourselves as though you had purposefully cultivated them for the task of causing you guilt. And while Nightmare Moon may be seen as accountable for Luna’s guilt, I cannot help but see Broken as the main cause for yours.” Celestia drew in a breath. “So no, Twilight Sparkle, you cannot make me reconsider removing his taint from your presence any more than you can convince me that cancerous tumours should be left to their own ways. Neither is a sensible decision, and I fear the consequences should I allow them.”
For a short length of time, there was silence. Twilight sat reeling from the mass of information Celestia had given her; Celestia sat waiting for Twilight’s response. The unicorn’s mouth opened.
“I can understand that…”
Despite the weakness of Twilight’s tone, the Princess nodded, giving Twilight a smile that the mare could not help but return. Both teacher and student stood at the same time, and Celestia let Twilight leave the room before her. The Solar Princess gave one last look at the shattered window before steeling herself and moving out the door.
“That isn’t Broken Shield.”
The entire room stared in bewilderment at Twilight when she said those four words. The mare stood still, inches from the door she entered through, staring into the eye of the one pony in the room that sat under guard. The stallion bore scars and burns across his entire body, his blue hair lay lank, his cutie mark of a star-within-shield cut cruelly in half by a jagged scar. One (former) eye was covered by a dark patch, the other stared at her, half lidded. In that eye, however, was not malice or aggression, nor fear or anger or confusion.
It was nothing.
“Twilight, what are you talking about?” Shining asked. He nodded his head towards the bound stallion. “He looks exactly like him, he smells exactly like him, he wouldn’t say much but he sounds exactly like normal too. By Tartarus, we checked his magic and it’s as close to me as we could measure.”
Twilight ignored her brother, stepping up to the restrained pony. His eye blinked slowly, and he swung his head away from her lethargically. Twilight’s brow furrowed, her horn glowing. A few thin whisps of magic rode up the stallion’s body, checking against every scar and imperfection, mapping their way to his horn. Nothing was out of place, nothing was different from Broken’s form.
Except…
“Perhaps he was simply dazed in the fall, Twilight?” Celestia suggested. The unicorn’s ear twitched, and she gave a look at a confused-as-everypony-else Rarity. Twilight prodded the stallion’s side, and a small light shot on behind the fashionista’s eyes.
“Twilight, you think-“
“He’s an illusion. A very well crafted, well rooted illusion.” Twilight stated. She turned to Celestia. “Princess, check him.”
The alicorn gave a wary eye at Twilight, but still stepped forward. Her horn glowed brilliantly, performing the same action as Twilight’s had earlier.
“I sense nothing different than when I first examined him, Twilight.”
“Did you feel at his horn?”
Several of the non-unicorns in the room snickered. Celestia stayed serious. “Yes, and his magic felt exactly the same-“
“Check inside the magic.”
Another odd stare, but the Princess again acquiesced to Twilight’s command. Her horn glowed again, and this time her eyes opened in shock rather than confusion. Her horn began to glow brighter, her wings unfolding slightly of their own accord as she brought it into contact with the unresponsive stallion.
There was a sudden flash of light, and when sight returned to everypony, Broken was gone. In his place, occupying the same position the scarred stallion had, was an unconscious unicorn.
“That’s Long Haul. That’s the guard he threw out the window!” Shining breathed. The stallion twitched at his name, raising his head and giving a distant look at the ponies arranged around him. He mumbled something unintelligible before lowering his head down again. “How did we-“
“It appears that Broken tied the spell around the root of Long Haul’s horn. The magic that emerged for the illusion itself would have appeared to be Broken’s.” Celestia cut him off. Twilight noticed that she actually looked angry for the first time that day. “To the best of my knowledge, such an action should be impossible.”
“But if it did happen…” Twilight started, waiting for Celestia’s attention to focus on her. “If it did happen, it would be similar to all cases where a unicorn’s magic is disconnected from their mind – severe lethargy, confusion, unresponsiveness, general unawareness of their surroundings. I only saw it because he stared me in the eye and didn’t seem to care.”
Celestia sat for a moment, her closed eyes only seeming to emphasize the rage that had slightly broken through her mask of stately calm. She took in several breaths, then opened her eyes and looked at two of the lucid guardsponies.
“Take him to the hospital.” She said, motioning to the again-unconsious unicorn. They nodded, quickly lifting him and rushing out of the library. The Princess’ eyes turned to Shining Armor. “Where did you send the injured ‘guard’?”
“To the local barracks, your Highness. I thought it best-“
Once more, Shining was cut off. Celestia’s horn glowed, and in an instant the room of ponies vacated the library and appeared in front of the Ponyville guard’s outpost. Several of the ponies stumbled as the ground beneath their hooves shifted in orientation, and Applejack was forced to take several rapid steps backwards as the doors to the barracks shot open. An armoured stallion emerged, bowing when he saw the Princess.
“Princess Celestia! It is an honour, your Highness.” The stallion turned to Shining. “And Captain Armor. Did you forget some supplies?”
“Supplies? What are you talking about?”
The stallion tipped an ear back, flicking his eyes confusedly around the group. “You came by earlier, sir, and gathered up a kit for traversing the Everfree Forest.” His sight landed on Celestia. “Is there something amiss, your Highness?”
“Guardspony, were you not aware of the fact that there is a pony that is in almost every way identical to Captain Shining Armor being held in Ponyville on probation? Likely extremely dangerous, with extensive military experience?”
“Yes, your Highness, but Captain Armor – the one that came here, at least – provided the necessary identification, including a magic test, dental check... he even presented this.” The guardspony’s horn glowed, and a small slip of parchment slid out from under his armour. It floated over to Celestia, where it was caught and opened by her magic. Several seconds later, the parchment burst into flames.
“Princess, what was-“
“The Royal Seal. ‘Ponies who hold this document are hereby representative of Princesses Celestia and Luna, and all orders issued by them are to be obeyed unless directly counteracted by the Princesses themselves.’ They’re supposed to be issued exclusively to Royal Guards, and have an enchantment on them that causes them to violently explode if held by anypony else.” Celestia took in several rough breaths, and the sunset darkened slightly. It lightened again as her breathing calmed. “It appears that Broken Shield was able to remove Long Haul’s while unobserved, and his relation to Shining was enough to fool the Seal.”
The guard spoke up, considerable nervousness audible under his voice. “Your Highness, are you saying that the sealbearer was not Captain Armor?”
“Not exactly, my little pony. There was almost no way for you to tell, so I would ask that you calm yourself.” She paused for a moment. “What, exactly, did the sealbearer take as supplies? And did he mention where he was going?”
“He said that he was the ‘surveyor’ for a reclamation of the Castle of the Pony- er, that is, the Everfree Castle, your Highness. Besides the regular rations and equipment, he mentioned that he was supposed to be ‘solidifying the path’ in several areas; clearing rubble, destroying loose cliffsides and the like. Magic is… spotty in the Everfree, as I’m sure you’re aware, your Highness, so he packed a large number of conventional explosives. Dynamite, black powder, several vials of diamondmaker…” the guard trailed off as he noticed Celestia’s increasingly tense posture. “Princess?”
“You’re saying… that he brought explosives… to the Everfree Castle…” She took in several more breaths, each harsher than the last, and the sky darkened enough for several stars to be seen. Twilight and Shining both stepped towards her, but before they could manage more than a few inches, the Princess’ eyes shot open. Her horn glowed brightly again, and once more the ponies around her found themselves suddenly standing on different ground. Twilight and several of the others looked around; the gnarled trees and confused sky clearly indicated that they were in the Everfree Forest. The remains of the castle, however, were absent.
“Princess?” Shining’s voice brought Twilight’s attention to her mentor. The alicorn swayed, her wings opening slightly, but she stayed upright. She shook off Shining’s hoof, stepping out of the group and beginning to walk along the path. The others hastened to follow her.
“Princess, are you alright?” Twilight asked, coming up beside Celestia. The Princess gave her a small smile.
“As much as can be in these circumstances, Twilight. I hope you realise that once I hold Broken Shield again, I will not be taking my grip off of him for the conceivable future.” Her grin widened slightly at this statement.
“Right now, that makes perfect sense, Princess.” Twilight muttered sheepishly. “But, if I may, why did we not simply teleport to the Castle?”
“Two reasons. One, there is a shield, set up in elder times, that prevents direct teleportation to the Castle, unless the pony is extremely strong, such as myself or Luna. It was put in place to prevent easy attacks, while still allowing my sister and me to maintain a presence in several areas when needed. It was deactivated when the Castle fell, but Broken appears to have drawn it up again.” She took in a breath. “Two, Broken has timed his escapade perfectly to match with when I can draw the least amount of energy from the sun, and I have already expended much of my magic reserves in teleporting everyone from the library to the barracks to here.” The alicorn snorted. “One might think this situation was purposefully designed to make me unable to simply overpower Broken and be done with it.”
“Why would he need explosives, though? What at the Everfree Castle is worth blowing up?”
“In all likelihood, the Castle itself.” Twilight gave the Princess a look, and she continued. “I would imagine that Dawn set her hideout at the Everfree Castle, due to its isolation and the difficulty there would be in assaulting it. The symbolism is probably important as well, being ‘ever free’ and other such words that appeal to those who believe themselves righteously rebelling against corrupt authority. If Broken were to destroy it, then this timeline’s Dawn would need to scrape up a likely-less-secure base of operations.”
Twilight simply nodded at this, and the group walked largely in silence for the majority of the journey. Shining and one other guard fielded ahead of the others, occasionally conferring with Celestia (and Twilight) when they returned. At one point, they halted the group for several minutes, claiming that they needed to ‘clear an obstruction’ from the path; when Twilight asked for clarification, an ‘inside-out manticore’ was mentioned. She decided not to prod them further, instead returning to her friends. Rarity and Applejack were huddled together; Rainbow Dash was sitting with Fluttershy, watching Pinkie Pie bounce around the entire group.
“So how’re we handlin’ him, anyways? When we catch up t’him?” Applejack asked. Twilight shook her head.
“I don’t know. He’s delaying us on purpose, that much is obvious. I’d suggest that we simply stand back and let Shining, the guards, and the Princess handle it.”
“Yeah, right.” Rainbow scoffed. “Why can’t we help?”
“Because Broken is extremely unstable right now, and we don’t know if he’s set up booby traps that might blow a careless pegasus’ wings off.” Twilight replied. Rainbow’s fifth and sixth limbs twitched involuntarily, and she lost some of her bravado. “That’s not likely, but it’s possible, and it’s why we need to trust the Princess and the guards. They know what they’re doing. We… don’t, exactly.”
“Are you kidding? We took out Nightmare Moon, Discord, the Changelings, King Sombra, and you think the guys who couldn’t beat them know better than us?”
“Nightmare Moon wanted us as subjects, Discord just wanted ‘fun’, the Changelings used overwhelming force and nonlethal methods in order to keep us alive as food, and Spike was the one who allowed us to defeat Sombra. Broken Shield is a pony who wishes to kill me so that I can’t become like them, which basically means that he’s an extreme, proactive version of us. So yes, I do believe that Princess Celestia, with her ages of experience and knowledge; my brother, who should have extremely similar if not identical thought processes to Broken; and the guards, who are literally trained to handle this kind of situation, know better than us on what to do.” With that, Twilight turned and walked back towards Celestia. Rainbow Dash seemed ready to argue more, but Pinkie picked that time to jump on her back and wrap herself around the prismatic mare, specifically covering Rainbow’s mouth with both forehooves. By the time the pegasus had detangled herself from the hyperactive earth pony, the group had begun moving again.
It was once more a silent trip, punctuated only by the guards’ scouting. An occasional muttered curse as a pony tripped on the uneven path did little to alleviate the Forest’s natural blanket of foreboding, a light-yet-heavy sensation that Twilight felt crawling up her back whenever her gaze slid into the trees alongside the path. She was almost relieved when small pieces of construction began to appear intermittently, and a low fog rose around the ponies’ hooves.
“Princess, we’re getting close…” Twilight’s horn glowed, cutting through some of the closer fog. A wing in front of her stopped her from stepping forwards.
“I am aware, Twilight. I did not remember the moat around the castle area being this wide before.” A ball of magic formed around the Princess’ horn, lifting off and providing a closer light source than the ever-setting sun. Twilight found herself standing at the edge of a sheer cliff, unable to even see the other side. The ground beneath her hooves gave the signs of being freshly turned.
“He blew up the bridge?” Rainbow asked.
“It’s more likely that he simply tore out the ground in the surrounding area and sent it falling into the crevasse.” Celestia gritted her teeth. “I may be able to teleport us-“
“Princess, if I could interject?” Celestia and Twilight both turned to Shining. “I was thinking that if I put a barrier down there, we might be able to use the top of it as a bridge across. Wouldn’t be surprised if Broken did the same thing.”
Celestia nodded. “Do it, Captain. We haven’t a moment to lose.” Shining nodded back at the Princess, his horn already glowing. The group crossed hastily, not wanting the unicorn to expend more energy than necessary.
Broken had left the majority of the area in front of the Castle intact, and the guards quickly got into position around the entrance. At a nod from Celestia, the doors exploded inwards, quickly followed by the guards and the Princess. Twilight and her friends followed more cautiously, giving wary looks around at the familiar structure. The group as a whole stayed by the door, Shining and the other unicorn guard sweeping the area with magic.
“We must be careful, my little ponies. We do not know where Broken-“
Celestia’s speech was cut off at the sound of several explosions. The entire ensemble of ponies turned their heads towards the sound of the blasts, watching in shock as one of the remaining intact buildings – the one that held the first use of the Elements of Harmony in a millennia, against Nightmare Moon – crashed in upon itself. The telltale sound of a teleportation almost went unnoticed, though the voice was what gained the ponies’ attentions.
“Quite a shame, isn’t it?”
Again unified, the group turned to face Broken Shield. He was scuffed and dirtied in several areas, a small trickle of blood flowing from a fresh gash above his eye. His gaze was no longer crazed, as it had been when they saw him last; it was cold and calm, and focused on Twilight. He opened his mouth and began speaking again, never taking his eye off of the purple unicorn.
“I’d love to leave it here, maybe gather a team later on to recover it all, but I’m too much worried that Dawn would get to it. So here I am, doing all of you a favour.” His horn glowed, and he disappeared from sight. Twilight suddenly felt a presence standing around her. She stiffened, her tail shooting between her legs as a head leaned down, whispering into her ear. “Too bad for you.”
Then Twilight felt herself drawn into a teleportation, and found herself facing everypony else from fifty feet away. They were quickly cut off by a thick rose-coloured barrier, Broken stepping from around Twilight and positioning himself slightly between her and the rest of the ponies. Celestia began yelling unintelligibly at Broken, her horn glowing and sending a beam into the barrier, aimed directly at him. The stallion called out to her.
“I apologise for the security, Princess, but it’s necessary for what I’m trying to do. I would recommend that you cease your attempts to set me aflame, as you’ll likely boil everypony in the barrier alive before breaking through it.”
In response, Celestia began yelling louder, and Twilight blushed at some of the things it sounded like her mentor was calling Broken. He simply shook his head and turned back to Twilight, regarding her with a cocked head. A small pebble bounced towards the two.
“Well now, what t-“
Within that moment, three things happened.
Twilight became aware of Pip’s presence.
Broken became aware both of Pip’s presence and the fact that Pip had Broken’s horn gripped between his teeth.
Pip twisted his head, ripping the majority of Broken’s horn from his skull, at the same time as the back half of Pip’s body slammed hooves first into Broken’s midsection.
The resulting force of impact sent Broken Shield flying into a column, causing the damaged pillar to collapse on top of him in a shower of heavy rubble. Pip landed solidly in front of Twilight, spitting the disembodied horn onto the floor beside him before addressing the shocked mare.
“My apologies, Milady, but I cannot fulfill my duty as First Guard while still allowing Broken Shield to remain unharmed. Please excuse my actions in the immediate past and future.”
Twilight stayed staring at him until he turned and trotted towards Broken. Her gaze shifted to the horn, and she felt a dull horror begin to rise with the bile in the back of her throat. A loud grunt of pain shifted her focus back to Pip.
The earth pony held Broken against what was left of the pillar, one leg pressing him up to the stone while the other roughly kicked his barrel. Pip seemed almost mechanical, his leg following the same movements repeatedly, giving Broken a small chance to breathe between strikes. Broken bit his lip to prevent another indication that he was suffering, but the repeated kicks quickly took their toll; his lip bled as his teeth tore into it, and eventually one kick landed that caused him to cry out and cough up a splatter of blood. At this, Pip released his hold on the stallion, only to buck him into the pillar with both legs. Broken collapsed onto the ground, curling up into a ball before Pip issued a one-hoofed buck to his spine. The unicorn straightened out on reflex, and Pip kicked him again, sending Broken roughly tumbling across the floor.
He landed within two metres of Twilight, giving her a chance to see that his illusion had fallen: he was the same pitiful, emaciated pony she had seen in the Carousel Boutique, with the addition of numerous cuts and bruises across his entire form. Pip suddenly appeared behind the broken stallion, pressing a hoof onto one of Broken’s hind legs. The unicorn opened his eye, allowing Twilight to watch as it rolled around, disoriented.
Broken’s vision focused on her a second before Pip snapped his leg.
The stallion screamed, blood dripping from his mouth as he attempted to bring the limb closer to him. Pip continued placing pressure on Broken’s leg, causing Broken’s attempts to draw the limb to safety to simply further rip the bone and flesh apart. He screamed louder, clearly in pain, and for the first time, Twilight saw genuine, unbridled fear in Broken’s eye. She looked up in horror at Pip’s face, and found it as impassive as it was whenever he spoke to her.
“STOP!”
Twilight hadn’t intended to say anything; her brain was trying too hard to comprehend the terrifying scene in front of her to devote any conscious thought to such trivial matters as speech. The word still rose from her lips, somehow, and it was loud enough to momentarily drown out Broken’s agony. Pip immediately complied, jumping over the damaged stallion and beginning to step towards her. Broken immediately began to try to drag himself away.
“No! Pip, hold him down! If he moves, he’s just going to hurt himself!”
The stoic stallion nodded, turning and placing his forehooves onto Broken’s shoulders. He sat on Broken’s hip, both avoiding the snapped leg and immobilizing the stallion. Broken began rapidly shaking his head, continuing to cry at every small movement he was allowed. Twilight stepped towards him, intending to grab hold of him as gently as possible so that he wouldn’t be further injured. Broken stopped shaking his head, his eye finding focus on Pip’s face. His cries ceased, and he was suddenly completely still, sending an icy pit into Twilight’s stomach.
Oh dear Faust, please don’t let him be-
Then there was a bright flash, and Pip was sent flying into the wall. Twilight blinked the afterimage out of her eyes as Broken’s head lifted, and she saw a trail of magic coming from the former site of his horn. The small remains of the horn left on his head were not jagged, but smoothed, as if they had healed before.
“Broken?” Twilight asked incredulously. The stallion’s head turned towards her. “Broken… your horn…”
“It’s… okay.” He slurred, a spittle of blood and saliva rolling onto the floor. He was breathing heavily, and didn’t appear to be fully conscious; Twilight felt a part of her brain notify her that he was likely in shock. “I don’t need it... Done good… work without it.”
“Carus Faust…” Twilight looked up to find Celestia (and everypony else) staring at Broken’s body in unrestrained horror. Broken turned his head towards her as well.
“Princess!” Broken groaned, one hoof twitching. “Shining Armor… reporting for… guard duty. Highness.” Twilight could hear an almost childlike worry enter his voice. “You safe?”
Celestia looked down on him, her previous anger forgotten, her voice gentle. “Yes, my little pony. I’m safe.”
“That’s good…” Broken blinked, his eye half-lidded. It slowly closed, and he fell unconscious.
Twilight stared at Broken’s form for a few moments, before another explosion tore her attention away. She turned to watch as a giant fireball consumed the sky, burning the dust left from the tower’s collapse. More explosions began sounding further away, more sections of the castle falling in on themselves. A large detonation from somewhere close to them rattled the entrance building, sending dust and chunks of stone falling from the ceiling. A few of the columns rattled ominously.
“We need to get out of here!” Shining yelled over another close explosion. “If he set any bombs-“ Yet another explosion; this time a column toppled, close to the entrance. “-that could happen.” Shining finished. Celestia nodded.
“Do not wait for my command. Move!” The guards nodded, herding the others back to the entrance, moving carefully around the collapsed pillar and outside. Shining carefully lifted Broken in a bubble of magic, following the others. Celestia and Twilight remained in the building.
“Princess, you need to come with us…” Twilight said. Celestia gritted her teeth.
“I lost this castle once, Twilight Sparkle. I only left because I knew I could return to it one day. I will not let it be destroyed!” Celestia’s horn began to glow, threads of magic flying out the window.
“Princess, please! There’s nothing we can do!”
Celestia ignored her. The lines of magic whipped back and forth as more explosions sounded. The building shook again, another column falling. The floor caved in as it hit the ground, an echoing crash being interrupted by a torrent of flame. Sparks flew high, some drifting and landing on the Princess. She didn’t appear to notice, and Twilight watched in shock as dark spots began to appear on Celestia’s coat. She hurriedly brushed the burning particles off, but the damage remained. The Princess exhaled, the magic strands thinning or disappearing entirely, but still she would not move.
“Princess-“
“Would Milady wish for assistance?” Twilight turned her eyes, seeing Pip come up beside her.
“Assistance?”
“Yes, Milady. Broken Shield likely placed his explosives in areas that, should they be damaged, would cause catastrophic failure of the castle’s supports. I could check areas that have not already detonated to see if the explosives planted there could be disarmed.”
Twilight flicked her eyes back to Celestia. The alicorn’s horn was still glowing, and she was muttering something under her breath. The magic was strong, but clearly weakened from its normal state. Twilight bit her lip.
“If you can’t get to it without being hurt-“
“I shall place my bodily health at a higher position of importance than the castle’s structure, Milady.”
“Then do it.”
Pip nodded, and he suddenly wasn’t there anymore. Twilight turned back to Celestia.
“Princess! Princess!” The unicorn yelled, as another explosion rocked the building. One of Celestia’s eyes opened, focussing on Twilight. “Princess, Pip is stopping the bombs! We need to go, NOW!”
Celestia’s eye shut again, but her posture relaxed. The threads whipped back into her horn, and Twilight felt magic wash over her. Almost instantly she was standing outside, Celestia beside her. She felt a weight on her back, turning to find the Princess resting one wing on her.
“Princess?” Twilight and Shining asked simultaneously.
“I’m alright, my little ponies… just… a little tired.” The alicorn stood straighter, but her head fell slightly. Twilight noticed that her mane was sagging, coming close to actually obeying gravity.
“Princess, what was that back there?” Shining paced around to the front of Celestia, his brows furrowed.
“I… I was-“
“She was trying to stop the explosions, I think.” Twilight interrupted. “She said that she didn’t want the castle destroyed.” Shining nodded, thinking for a moment before turning back to Celestia.
“Princess, I’m invoking Labores Solis.” The other guards immediately snapped to attention. Twilight and Celestia both stared at the stallion.
“You can’t… I’m not…”
“You’ve clearly pushed yourself past what you can handle, Princess. For fear that you may harm yourself, and with you Equestria, I am placing you in custody.” Shining nodded at the two other guards, who quickly took up positions beside the Princess. She glanced at them through half-closed eyes before sighing, raising her head to give Shining a tired smile.
“I am at your mercy, Captain.” Her head lowered again. Shining nodded, flicking an eye at the unicorn guard. The stallion nodded, moving from Celestia’s side towards Broken. Shining took his place, his horn glowing. Celestia was lifted slightly off the ground, a floor of magic beneath her that quickly grew walls, encasing the Princess.
Shining sighed, turning to Twilight’s friends. “I’m in command while the Princess rests and recuperates. We need to get out of the forest.”
“Hold on now. What the hay is ‘lay… lah… whatever y’just said?”
Shining flicked an eye at Twilight. “You didn’t tell them about it?”
The mare shook her head. “I didn’t think we’d ever need it!”
“We’ve never needed the Hobble Protocol, either, that doesn’t mean guards don’t spend three weeks learning to untie ropes with their gen-“
“Ahem!” Applejack interrupted. The siblings turned to her again. “What. Is. It.” Both ponies coloured under their fur, though Twilight offered the answer.
“Er, Labores Solis is the order that can be issued by the Royal Guard Captain when one of the Princesses is acting in a way that is dangerous to themselves or to Equestria.”
Applejack’s ear flicked back, and another explosion occurred in the close distance. “That sounds rather worrin’ly vague…”
“It’s more complicated than that!” Twilight hurriedly said. “It is reserved for periods of extreme danger…”
“…such as the Princess exhausting her magical ability and herself while refusing to leave a collapsing building…” Shining muttered.
“… and there are a whole bunch of different criteria that need to be met, and there need to be several witnesses to see the Princess acting dangerously...”
Another explosion. Shining gave a near-glare to Twilight. “And we can do this later because I’m trying to keep everypony including the Princess alive here…”
Twilight tried to respond, but a third explosion rocked the doors of the entrance and sent flames bursting from the windows. After that, she simply nodded, beginning to quickly walk to the edge of the remaining ground.
The return walk, much like the trek to the castle, was mostly silent.
The earth pony guard walked in front, Applejack and Rainbow Dash a small distance behind him. Twilight had taken over carrying Broken from the unicorn guard, and she and Shining walked in the middle of the group with their burdens. From there, it was Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy, with the unicorn guard taking up the rear. Shining bore a determined face, his expression clearly brooking no discussion or distraction. He didn’t appear to notice the now-faint explosions that sounded in the distance. Twilight flicked her eyes to his doppelganger – the damaged stallion was still unconscious, his breathing faint but steady. His horn lay lengthways between his teeth; the guard had placed it there to avoid losing it, and Broken’s jaw had locked around the appendage immediately. His leg still lay bent, but the platform she held him on remained stable even on such riotous ground as the Forest’s path.
The guard in front suddenly stopped, his ears flicking towards the right side of the path. One hoof rose, flashing through several complex movements. Shining stiffened, and the rearguard silently ran forward to stand beside his compatriot. Twilight glanced worriedly at her brother.
“Large animal. Probably a bear or a manticore. We need to move quick and quiet.” He answered the unasked question, raising his voice slightly so that the others could hear. AJ and Rainbow nodded, as did the guards. The two armoured ponies began to step forwards-
“RAAAAAAAAAA-gghg!”
A loud roar sent Twilight’s hooves to her ears, though not quickly enough to block out the offending noise. Her magic faltered, and she nearly dropped Broken before fixing it again. The roar cut off in a strangled choking noise, and after a moment faint sounds of tearing and wet smacking could be heard. Everypony looked at each other, forgetting silence and simply running as fast as possible.
A minute of sprinting was followed by two of rest. Twilight and the mares behind her gasped in breath, Rarity panting in a rather-unladylike fashion. The guards (and Rainbow and Applejack) breathed heavily, though they were more controlled than most oxygen-starved ponies.
“Well, looks like he found something else to eat.” Shining said. Twilight winced, and a tree branch rustled slightly as some animal moved from it. “We need to keep moving, no telling what might sne-“
“The task is completed, Milady.”
Shining and the other guards rapidly turned to stare at a point just behind Twilight’s shoulder. She turned her head, already knowing that she’d see a large, one eyed, cream-coated stallion with a completely unfettered expression.
The blood was new, however. He wore a bib of it, a stain of red covering from around his mouth to his collarbone.
“By Celest- Pip, are you alright?!” Twilight quickly checked his neck for wounds. “Where did this blood come from?!”
“There was a manticore lying close to the road a small distance behind us, Milady. I saw you approaching, so I disposed of it.”
Twilight sensed Shining begin to approach. “What do you mean ‘disposed of’?”
Pip blinked. “I dropped onto its back from the tree above it, breaking its spine and rendering it immobile. I then gripped its mane in my jaw as it roared, pulling it back before kicking it in the neck and severing its spinal cord, destroying its nervous system and killing it.”
Twilight heard Fluttershy whimper. “And… and the blood?”
“After confirming that it was deceased, I proceeded to tear out its throat with my teeth. I removed everything but the musculature around the spine before rapidly twisting the head and removing it from the body.”
Twilight heard Fluttershy crumple to the ground around the same time that she felt the vomit rise out of her stomach. Shining spat, and the guards began to approach Pip. He gave all three blank looks that came across as almost dismissive. His eyes returned to the now-green mare.
“Milady, I would recommend that we continue travelling. I highly doubt that the Everfree Forest is cognisant of the Princess’ and Broken Shield’s delicate conditions, and given your focus on maintaining their survival, it is unlikely that remaining here would be beneficial to you.” He turned to the guards again. “I hasten to remind the guardsponies present that should they make any aggressive move towards her Ladyship, my duty as First Guard requires me to subdue them.”
Shining held a hoof up, and the other guards halted. “What do you mean ‘subdue’?”
“At minimum, render them unable to perform any action that may lead to her Ladyship’s injury, up to and including removing their horns, legs, eyes, and teeth from their bodies, as well as simply killing them.”
The guards’ eyes widened at the same time as Shining’s narrowed. He turned his eyes to Twilight, who was raising her head back up. Upon Pip’s words, she gained a rather frantic look.
“No!” She shook her head rapidly, shakily walking up to stare Pip in the eye. “No, Pip, I don’t want you hurting anypony, okay? Don’t ‘subdue’ them or kill them, or, or anything like that!”
Pip blinked. “As you wish, Milady. How would you wish for me to deal with violent aggressors such as Broken Shield?”
Twilight brought her head back at the question. “Oh. Um… okay, if they’re trying to hurt you, not defend themselves or defend their friends or family or anypony, if they’re just coming out and attacking you for no reason, then… you can stop them.” She paused for a moment. “But try not to hurt them! Don’t kill them or hurt them, just make it so that they can’t hurt anypony.”
“As you wish, Milady.” He turned his eyes back to the guardsponies. Twilight was close enough to feel the wind shift as he moved – the space he left actually sucked some of the air out of her lungs – but before she could breathe in again he was back in his position, three clumps of hair clutched in his teeth. Twilight heard her brother and the other two guards curse in pain. Pip dropped the hair onto the ground before speaking again. “That was a warning. I can do far worse without causing permanent injury.”
Twilight sighed, turning around to face Shining. He had a hoof rubbing the back of his neck, and he stared at Pip with a mix of suspicion and surprised respect. “He’s not bad, really…”
The stallion scoffed. “Well, he hasn’t tried to kill anypony yet…” Shining shook his head. “We don’t have time for this. He stays in front of us.” Pip looked at Twilight, who nodded.
“As you wish, Milady. Would you like me to carry Lady Gaia?”
Twilight’s brows shot up as she remembered Fluttershy’s fainting, turning in alarm to check on her friend. Though the mare was conscious again, her legs still shook, and she leaned on Rarity for support.
“No, Pip, I think she’s fine without you.”
“As you say, Milady.” The stallion disappeared again, reappearing at the head of the group. He began trotting down the road, leaving the entire group staring at him for several seconds before they, too, began to move again.
The trip once more reigned into silence. Shining’s eyes were constantly narrowed, flicking between the sides of the path, Broken Shield, and Pip with regularity. Twilight felt that she should speak up in defence (of Pip certainly, and of Broken possibly), but whenever she tried the words locked up in her throat. She found herself hanging back from him, still holding Broken in place but moving further and further towards Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie.
“Is everything alright, dear?” Rarity asked, then tsked at herself. “Oh, of course it’s not alright, we’re wandering through the Everfree Forest at night after pursuing that ruffian into it, only to have him nearly collapse a castle on us and force Princess Celestia to overstrain herself. When he wakes, I shall have some sharp words for him…”
“Get in line.” Twilight snorted. “You’ll get him if Celestia and my brother leave anything behind to gnaw on…” Fluttershy whimpered. “Oh, sorry, Fluttershy.”
“No, it’s okay, you didn’t mean it, it’s just…” the pegasus shuddered. “Rainbow Dash mentioned that Broken was taking fish out of the pond and eating them, and Pip just said that he… killed… a manticore, and it’s just so wrong and ponies aren’t supposed to eat other animals and-“
“Fluttershy!” Twilight said, catching the slightly-panicking pony’s attention. “Fluttershy, I’m grossed out by it too, but… well, that’s how it is for them. Pip’s obsessed with keeping me alive, and I’m sure Dawn specifically told him to… do that, let’s say, just to make sure that the manticore couldn’t harm anypony. Does that make it any better?” Fluttershy rapidly shook her head, hitting Twilight in the face with her mane. The unicorn spat out several long pink hairs before continuing. “No? Okay, then, um, for Broken, he said that the earth ponies didn’t let the rebels get any food, right? So maybe eating meat was their only option during times when they couldn’t grow anything themselves, and he just needs some time to remember how to work with a proper pony diet.” This statement gave Fluttershy a confused look, but she slowly nodded.
“That does kind of make sense…”
“I still don’t like it.” Rarity huffed. “There were some designers who would hurt innocent animals just for their fur – they called them pelts, just because it sounded nicer than torn-off skin – but they’ve long gone. If he needed food, I can almost understand it, but he has easy access to grass or wild plants. Those fish, and all the other animals he’s no doubt harmed while here, did nothing to him. No pony should kill for such trivial reasons as ‘they might’ve hurt somepony’. And that goes for Pip and Broken.”
Pinkie, Twilight, and Fluttershy all stared in surprise at the fashonista for her diatribe. Twilight coughed.
“Rarity, didn’t you kick a manticore in the face when we were trying to get the Elements of Harmony?”
The white unicorn blushed slightly. “That’s different, dear. He was observably threatening us. Before anypony did anything he tried to hit me with his claws! What that might have done to me…” She shivered.
“But he was being manipulated by Nightmare Moon!” Fluttershy protested.
“He still tried to cause me severe harm, dear. It doesn’t matter the justification to me, if you’re trying to hurt somepony before they try to hurt you, you’re in the wrong.”
Twilight nodded, turning to Pinkie. “How do you feel about this whole thing?”
“Well, I’m kind of wondering what manticore tastes like now.”
The pink pony continued her bouncing step, unaware or uncaring of the horrified looks that followed her. The three mares she left behind stood shocked still until the guard reached them and ordered them on.
After that conversation, there was little speech except between the guards until the group reached the edge of the Everfree Forest. At that point, they were accosted by several Night Guards accompanying the second diarch of Equestria.
“CAPTAIN SHINING ARMOR!” Luna roared, Royal Canterlot Voice in full effect. The stallion stepped forward, and the Princess spoke in more-hushed tones.
That is to say, she stopped yelling as loud as she had been.
“Might I enquire as to why my sister was unable to lower the sun herself this evening?!” Luna’s voice was terse; Twilight couldn’t tell whether she was angry or scared. Or both.
“Your Highness, Princess Celestia expended much of her energy attempting to secure Broken Shield, who escaped from custody while under the Princess’ eye.” Luna’s brow raised. “He was either able to overpower or work around the shield she placed on him, Princess. We can detail it later, when she’s in a… safer location, perhaps?”
Luna blinked at Shining before walking past him and to the platform containing Celestia. She rested her horn on it for several moments, taking a breath before turning to Broken’s. Luna exhaled as she saw his damaged form, then turned back to Shining.
“Did you-“
“Pip took his horn off. The rest…” Shining shrugged. Luna turned to stare at Pip, who had materialized behind Twilight. The Princess’ gaze rested on the unicorn mare for a moment before she turned back to Shining Armor.
“Is there any business left unattended in Ponyville?”
Shining shook his head. “Three guards at the hospital, but only one might need to stay. Just send one of yours, have them head back in the morning?” Luna nodded, turning to the Ponyvillians.
“I shall be bring my sister, as well as Broken Shield, back to Canterlot for healing and monitoring. In the morning I shall dispatch guardsponies to retrieve you to Canterlot for the day.”
“In the mornin’? That’s a little short notice, Princess.” Applejack mentioned, Rarity and Fluttershy both nodding in agreement.
“Nonetheless, I wish to gain a full perspective on the events that led to Broken’s escape, as well as the destruction of the Everfree Castle.”
As if activated by her mention, there was a faint boom in the distance. Twilight’s ears perked in memory, and she turned to Pip.
“Did you manage to stop any of the bombs?”
“I prevented seventeen explosive devices from activating, Milady, out of twenty-five that I was able to observe. Any explosions that may have occurred after my examinations were too dangerous to access. My apologies to the Princesses and to you, Milady.”
Twilight sighed. “Seventeen less bombs means seventeen less damaged areas, Pip. You did fine.” The stallion nodded. “What did you do with them after they were disabled?”
“I placed the dynamite and black powder in an area where it is extremely unlikely that they shall be able to be reassembled and reactivated. I was unable to safely access any of the diamondmaker, Milady.”
“And where, exactly, did you put them?”
Pip flicked his eyes at the guards and the Princess before responding. “Milady, I must ask whether you intend to expose the location of valuable supplies to those who may use the information to counteract the Revolution.”
Twilight’s brows furrowed. “Counter- you mean Princess Luna? Pip, there isn’t going to be a Revolution here.”
“Nonetheless, Milady, I must-“
“Pip. Tell me.”
The stallion stiffened, drawing himself taller and staring off into space. He spoke in a tone that managed to have less inflection than his regular one. “Approximately 452 metres south-southwest of Everfree Castle, 18 metres underground, in a tunnel marked by three oak trees and a dragon’s lower jaw.”
“That’s Diamond Dog territory.” Shining noted.
“Pip, didn’t you say the explosives were somewhere they couldn’t be used? Diamond Dogs might be able to do something them.”
“Highly unlikely, Milady. I disassembled the dynamite into its base components, the black powder has been mixed with dirt, and the entire stash has been watered down. Even if the Diamond Dogs manage to overcome their racial handicap and properly assemble the explosives, the resulting devices would be so unstable that they would be more liable to explode while being carried and placed than at any other time, thereby removing the threat of the Diamond Dogs and disposing of the explosives without any casualties.”
Luna, Shining, and Twilight all gave the same look at the stoic stallion. “’Racial handicap’?” Shining finally asked.
“Yes, the mental retardation inherent in Diamond Dog biological development that comes from their inbreeding and lack of proper nutrient intake, as well as the natural degeneracy and savageness inherent in all non-equine species and non-pony races.”
Twilight’s mouth fell open in shock, and the quiet conversations that had sprung up in the background ceased instantly. She turned to look at Luna and Shining, who both wore faces tinged with disgust. “Pip, you can’t just say that all non-ponies are savages!”
“My apologies, Milady. I was unaware that the natural superiority of ponies has not been commonly recognized yet.” The stallion blinked, and the entire group waited in silence for somepony to speak. Finally, Applejack coughed.
“Ah need t’ get some things set up if Ah’m gonna be gone for the day.”
“... I should probably set up the food for the animals a little early…”
“I need to get some rescheduling in…”
“Cakes are going to want to know…”
“Something about clouds, gotta fly.”
Within thirty seconds, Twilight was the last civilian present. A guard took over carrying Broken, and she found herself facing Shining and Princess Luna once more.
“Do… do you want us to take him?” Shining asked hesitantly. Twilight thought for a second, then shook her head.
“He’d just come back anyways. I can handle him.” Shining nodded, turning and walking back towards the guards. Twilight looked at Luna.
“I have seen… disharmony… in your dreams, Twilight Sparkle. Such images may be idle thought, but if you would acquiesce to a discussion…?”
Flashes of Fluttershy and blood appeared under Twilight’s eyelids. “That might be good, Princess.” She mumbled. Luna nodded. Her horn glowed, and everypony but Pip and Twilight disappeared.
The library’s door creaked open, Twilight tiphoofing in with Pip close behind. No words had been spoken since the Everfree, and in the time between Twilight had been mulling over Pip’s statements.
“I’m the one who said that, aren’t I?”
“Said what, Milady?”
Twilight waved a hoof. “That… that non-ponies…” She couldn’t bite the words off. Pip turned his head.
“It is the official position of the government of the Pony’s Democratic Republic of Equestria that ponies are superior to all other races and species due to our close physical and mental similarities to Faust; it is acknowledged that we are essentially ‘designed in her image’, and that we have received the most of her attention, as is befitting her true children. Non-pony equine races such as zebras and donkeys are simply mutations or experiments on the pony design that Faust allowed to survive. Inequine life is not inspired by Faust, leaving them without her grace and thus unable to hold on to a proper mental state that is not corrupted by selfishness and degeneracy.”
“But there are really kind non-ponies in the world! Pinkie’s friends with two donkeys, they act exactly like any pony their age would! Zecora might not act like a typical pony, but that doesn’t make her ‘savage’ or ‘degenerate’! Spike, he’s still young, but he’s a kind, caring, loving dragon all the same! And there are really selfish and evil ponies too, like the Flim-Flam Brothers, or Sombra!”
“As is common in nature, aberrations against the normal form exist in everything. Lady Thalia’s donkey friends were both raised in urban pony areas, and thus were inundated with proper perspectives on the world from an early age. Spike has lived essentially as a pony from birth, and has had to forcefully overcome both his natural selfish instincts and the pressure from other dragons to act like them – completely focussed on power and wealth, with no care for anyone but themselves. Zecora’s habits of living in the Everfree Forest and refusal to accept modern medical practices in favour of naturalistic poultices and remedies point to her refusal to join proper civilization, nearly a textbook example of the definition of savageness.” Pip took in a breath. “While there are obviously ponies who reflect negatively on the race as a whole, the simple fact that they are so widely recognized and reviled points towards the fact that the common pony has a moral compass that is inherently pointed towards goodness and harmony, a fact reinforced by the Elements of Harmony themselves.”
“How do the Elements make ponies better than the other races?” Twilight asked, her morbid curiosity outweighing her attempts to respond to Pip’s claims.
“Simple, Milady. The Elements were designed by Faust herself, an alicorn, who represents the three tribes of the pony race united in one being, and passed along to Princesses Celestia and Luna, both alicorns. They were then passed on to you and your friends, Milady, all of you ponies; two unicorns, two earth ponies, and two pegasi, representing the three races doubly, as the Elements did when wielded by the two alicorns. At no stage were they ever affected in any way by a non-pony race or a non-equine species.” Pip took in another breath. “Their being designed purposefully by the Creator to maintain the world’s peace and harmony, and her entrusting of these most powerful tools to one specific race – the pony – points towards our natural state as inherently more peaceful, more harmonious, more deserving of power, and more able to handle and use that power for common good rather than selfishness and evil. This unassailable line of thought points towards the fact that ponies are inherently superior to other races, as judged by Faust herself.”
Twilight blinked at Pip, her mind flashing through a dozen different rebuttals to his claims, none of which lasted long enough to say out loud. She closed her eyes and rubbed between them, trying to focus on one vein of thought long enough to form a coherent argument from it. She could easily see why the idea would sound solid and appealing to most ponies – the idea that they were favoured by Faust herself, that they were simply naturally better than other races, would certainly feed both the egos of individual ponies and those of pony society. There was even a voice in her head that popped up between the flashes of arguments that said “He’s right, that makes total sense…”. Such thought scared her, and she purposefully quashed it down, unwilling to go down such a self-pandering line of logic. She grabbed an idea at random and threw it out of her mouth.
“Dawn said this stuff, right?”
“Of course, Milady.”
“Why did she say it?”
“Because it’s true, Milady.”
“No! What was going on, what was happening in the world? Did she just wake up one morning when everything was fine and say ‘Hey, I just realized anypony who isn’t a pony sucks!’?”
“When you first publicized the logic of pony superiority, Milady, the Draconic Kingdom and Gryphonia had recently declared open war on each other. Simultaneously, Gryphonia invaded Zebrica in an attempt to gather resources for the war. Refugees were attempting to enter Equestria at every border, with crime becoming rampant amongst the chaotic hordes gathered along the land borders and on their ships as they docked in the ports.”
“Aha!” Twilight seized the thread Pip had let loose. “So Dawn said that non-ponies were bad at the same time that a huge amount of them were trying to-“ Twilight blinked as she processed Pip’s statement. “Wait, ‘refugees’? ‘Trying to’ enter Equestria? We have an open border, especially for civilians escaping conflict.”
“Incorrect, Milady. One of the laws introduced soon after the Revolution was to completely cut off immigration into Equestria until the social and economic problems left behind by the Princesses and the ruling nobility were eliminated.”
“So, what, she was trying to justify leaving innocent beings in the border territories? Those places haven’t been settled, Pip, they’re almost as bad as the Everfree! How long were they there for?”
“If I remember correctly, Milady, the last stragglers exited our borders approximately six months after their initial attempts to enter. Those on the boats who had refused to sail back to their nations of origin had typically starved to death by that time.”
“We… we let them just sit there and die?”
“Of course not, Milady. There were labour and education camps set up for those who could properly contribute to Equestrian society without bringing their corrupting influences near our citizens. Only those who refused to go to the camps were left on the boats or border, and even then they were never restricted from leaving our shores and returning to their proper places.”
“At least you let them in…” Twilight muttered, before shaking her head. “But they don’t have a ‘corrupting influence’, Pip! Different cultures and races aren’t bad just because they’re different!”
“Of course not, Milady. They are ‘bad’ because their existence threatens the peaceful harmony and order of Equestrian society. Their ‘difference’, when compared to our culture and society, shows their inherent disharmoniousness; the majority of interactions between ponies of Equestria and races of other nations are tainted with a mutual distrust of each other, and friction between our views and their views on what is proper and right in a society. As we ponies are inherently the most harmonious and peaceful, it stands to reason that their views, being different from ours, are more disharmonious and violent.”
Twilight managed to form solid thoughts as Pip spoke, recognising the chinks in his speech’s armour; his entire position hinged on ponies being the most ‘harmonious’ race, a claim that was far from demonstrable no matter the anecdotal evidence, and the idea that harmony was inherently good and favoured by Faust. She realized, however, that she couldn’t ‘win’ the argument with him. The Diamond Dogs were regularly inbred and didn’t eat well, which (coupled with a lack of formal education) did contribute to lower average IQs in comparison to ponies amongst those of them who had joined pony society. Other than that, the claims were philosophical and subjective, not scientific. She could argue against their use as justification for actually treating beings differently, but she doubted that his mind would really be changed on the matter.
Unless…
“Milady, are you alright?”
Twilight blinked, coming out of her revere. “Hmm? Oh, yes, Pip. I have a question for you, though.”
“Milady?”
“Why do you believe that ponies are inherently superior?”
“As I explained earlier, Milady-“
“No, Pip.” Twilight raised a hoof, silencing the stallion. “I don’t want Dawn’s explanation. I want yours.”
Pip blinked. “Milady, I-“
“No, don’t ‘Milady’ or ‘your Ladyship’ me. I want a straight answer. Why do you think that non-ponies are naturally ‘worse’ than ponies?”
The stallion stared at her. He stood in silence for a minute, taking steady breaths in and out. Then he swallowed, and his mouth opened.
“Because you said so, Milady.”
“And what if I said that non-ponies were the same as ponies? Or better?”
“Then non-ponies would be the same or better than ponies, Milady.”
“And you don’t have any problem with saying that? Not after your longwinded speech not a minute ago extolling the greatness of ponydom in comparison to the non-ponies? As soon as I say so, all of your claims instantly become wrong, and you have no trouble admitting that whatsoever?”
The stallion blinked. “No, Milady.”
Twilight stared at him. She slowly walked forwards, closing the distance between them until their snouts touched. “What do you really think, Pip?”
The stallion swallowed again. “That non-ponies are inferior, Milady.”
“And why do you think that?”
“Because you said-“ He cut himself off at her look. “Because of what I saw in the camps, Milady.”
“And what did you see in the camps?”
“Fighting. Theft. Murder. Crime was rampant amongst the detainees, despite the best efforts of the guards to maintain peace. Several had to be cleansed because the situation simply spiralled out of control. All of which demonstrates how chaotic and disharmonious the non-ponies inherently are.”
“But weren’t we in charge of the camps, Pip? If harmony and order failed in the camps, was it not because of us?”
The stallion blinked again, this time deliberately. His eye searched hers. “No, Milady.”
“Oh? So the ‘detainees’, the aberrations that Faust never deigned to touch, managed to gain power despite the ‘superior’ guards’ best efforts? Doesn’t that mean that the non-ponies were better in some way than the ponies were, better organized, better inspired, better fighters, better in their… Revolution, lets say, against our rule?”
“Of course not, Milady.”
“So then your answer should have been ‘yes’, the camps failed because of us, correct?”
“Yes, Milady.”
“But if we were so superior, so much greater, more intelligent, more civilized, more peaceful, more harmonious than the non-ponies, then how could we have failed? How could we, superior beings that we are, fail to control the obviously inferior beings held at the camps? Why was there still crime, why could the guards not handle it, why were the detainees able to beat the guards, why did we fail, Pip?”
Twilight knew her argument had holes in it large enough to ride a dragon through; she had purposefully structured it to sound like the kind of argument Pip might make if he had visible emotions, and that meant fallacies and leaps in logic galore. She was banking on the idea that his pony-supremacy idea was universal; that there was nothing non-ponies could do that ponies couldn’t do better. He had been kind enough to provide an example where that wasn’t the case: Ominousness of the term ‘cleansing’ aside, his words made it clear that the non-ponies in the camps had somehow beaten the pony guards.
Pip remained still, his breathing almost a metronome.
“I don’t know, Milady.” Throughout the entire debate, his voice had not changed from its regular pattern. Now the lack of tone remained, but the stallion sounded out of breath.
“I want you to tell me why, Pip. We both know that there’s only one possibility that makes logical sense.”
The stallion remained still. After another pause, he said one word.
“Please.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. She lost an amount of her smug satisfaction at having backed the pony into a corner. “What?”
“Please, Milady, tell me. I can’t understand it.” His voice remained monotone, yet now the breathlessness was somehow added to by desperation. “I can’t, I don’t, I-“ His speech cut off. Twilight looked into his eye again, and saw it blossoming pink; every blood vessel had burst. His eye stayed flat, his voice stayed calm, and yet she could hear how horrified he should have sounded, she could see how this contradiction in what had apparently been a fundament of his ideology was affecting him. She placed a hoof on his shoulder and spoke gently.
“The non-ponies were better than us, Pip. Non-ponies are not inferior, and ponies are not superior. And that’s okay.”
There was no actual shift in Pip’s demeanour, but Twilight felt him shift back into his regular pattern. He blinked.
“The non-ponies bested us, Milady.”
“Are non-ponies inferior to ponies, Pip?”
“No, Milady.”
“Are ponies superior to non-ponies, Pip?”
“No, Milady.”
“Good. I’m glad that you recognized that, Pip.”
“Thank you, Milady.”
Twilight should have been happy that she had changed a pony’s mind for the better, that she had managed to help Pip realize that his ideas were wrong, and now he could look upon the world with a less tainted eye. Instead, she felt like she had just told a young foal that the Tooth Fairy didn’t exist, and then mocked them for believing in it. There was a satisfaction, but it was hollow, and she felt worse for its existence. Sighing deeply, she turned and ascended the stairs. Pip followed a few seconds behind her.
Spike was not happy to have been left out of the previous day’s excitement.
“By the time we figured out something was up, everything was happening rather quickly.” Twilight explained to the sulking dragon. “I know you went to bed after Celestia arrived, so you didn’t miss that part.”
“What part? Where Broken talked about how he got here? Where Broken tried to kill you? Where Broken tried to kill Pip? Where Broken blew Discord’s head off, nearly killed Pip, and tried to kill you again?” Spike laughed, sounding disturbingly like Broken for a brief moment. “Because I wasn’t there either. At least three times he nearly really hurt you, Twilight, nearly killed you, and I was either asleep or stuck in the library doing stuff that doesn’t really matter.” He growled. “Some assistant I am…”
“Oh, Spike…” Twilight grabbed the dragon, hugging him despite his protests. “You aren’t a bad assistant for not being there. In fact, I’m glad that you weren’t; I don’t even want to think about what Broken might have done to you if you had come with me.” Spike growled again, though it was softer than before. “You need to remember, he’s… well, he’s dangerous when he’s agitated. I would much rather have you somewhere safe than near him at those times, even if you could help deal with him. Otherwise, he’d probably hurt you just to get to me.” The young dragon seemed to think about that implication before nodding. “You are my number-one assistant, and nothing that happens is going to change that. I’ll cut you a deal – I’ll make sure to take you along whenever I go somewhere with Broken, but if he gets worked up, you get ready to bolt for help. I don’t want you to get hurt, and you still get to help me deal with him. Alright?”
“Okay…” Spike tenuously agreed. “I think you should just let the Princesses handle him, though. Didn’t you say first thing this morning ‘Yes, Spike, I know I’m not responsible for him’?”
“And I know that I’m not. Fluttershy and Celestia managed to be… fairly convincing with some thought.” Twilight shook her head. “I don’t feel like I, myself, need to help him because I made him that way. I want to help him because he needs to be helped. He’s like… like a puzzle, now, instead of a puppy.”
“You thought he was a puppy? What kind, a Rabid Sociopath? That breed has problems, I’m warning ya…”
Twilight gave a small laugh at Spike’s joke, one that was quickly overwhelmed by three loud knocks on the library’s door.
“That’s probably the guards… who else knocks on the door of a public library?” She turned towards the entrance, only mildly surprised that Pip had materialized in front of it.
“There are three guardsponies outside, Milady, as well as a carriage carried by two additional pegasi guards.” The stallion blinked. “Milady, I presume by your recent discussion that you will be bringing Spike along to Canterlot?”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
“Of course not, Milady. Would you like me to secure the premises before we leave?”
Three more knocks. Twilight’s ear flicked back. “I think we’ll be good, Pip.”
“As you say, Milady.” The stallion leaned down and opened the door. Twilight gave a polite nod to the guards, who quickly moved to allow the trio to reach the carriage. Two of the guards climbed onto the roof, one following Twilight, Pip, and Spike into the coach. Pip quickly sat down beside Twilight, leaving Spike and the guard the other seat. Twilight gave Pip an appraising eye.
“Are you okay, Pip?”
“I dislike being trapped in a small space with a guardspony, Milady. The lack of room makes defensive strategy planning difficult.” The carriage lurched as the pegasi took to the air. The guard blinked at Pip before turning to Twilight.
“This one’s the less crazy pony from another universe, right?”
Twilight stared at the guard in surprise. “You know about it?”
“All the Royal Guards do, ma’am. Captain made sure to inform us so we didn’t get facts mixed up.” He waved a hoof at her next question. “We’re bound to silence on it, don’t worry.”
“I was going to say that you seem fairly relaxed for a guard.”
“Well, it wouldn’t do to be too stiff with this guy. I heard he took off a manticore’s head with one kick.”
Twilight went slightly green, and Pip answered. “Incorrect. I snapped its neck with the kick, then removed the head with my teeth and forehooves.”
“Huh. Still, pretty impressive.” The stallion cocked his head. “What’d’ya have against guardsponies, anyhow?”
Pip exhaled and inhaled, and Twilight saw, for the second time since his arrival, a memory of an emotion, this time looking almost like anger. It was quickly smothered, replaced by a void. “You opposed the Revolution. That is reason enough.”
The guard leaned forward, and Pip leaned back an equal amount. One of his hooves moved towards Twilight. The guard leaned back, and Pip returned to his previous position. The hoof remained.
“I guess so.” The guard shrugged. Pip blinked.
“Might I ask why Shining Armor felt the need to assign somepony to attempt to disrupt her Ladyship’s protection? Unless he views her as a threat, in which case I shall be required to kill you and remove her Ladyship to a safer location.”
“Pip!” Twilight cried, as both Spike and the guard’s eyebrows shot up. “I said I didn’t want you killing anypony!”
“I am well aware of your order, Milady, but I received orders before my transfer to this timeline that I was to ensure your survival paramount to any orders that your Ladyship may place upon me.”
Twilight thought for a moment. “Was Dawn the one to give those orders?”
“Yes, Milady.”
“Then why can’t I counteract them? Why can’t any of my orders supersede hers?”
“Because you are at that time Lady Theia, Lady Rising Dawn, Leader of the Revolution and head of the Pony’s Democratic Republic of Equestria. You are currently Lady Twilight Sparkle. Your Ladyship Dawn’s orders are higher in rank than your Ladyship Twilight’s orders.”
“But I am Rising Dawn.”
“It is good to hear you realize so, Milady. Would you wish me to snap the guard’s neck before ejecting him from the carriage?”
The guard snorted as Twilight rapidly shook her head. “No! No neck-snapping or carriage-ejecting or anything that gets anypony killed!”
“Thank you…” the guard muttered, his full attention on Pip. Twilight continued speaking.
“I meant that Rising Dawn and I are the same pony, right?”
“Yes, Milady.”
“Then why don’t our orders carry equal weight?”
“For the same reason that I did not kill Shining Armor the first time I saw him, Milady. You do not yet know enough of the injustices of current Equestrian society to realize the need for radical alteration. Shining Armor has not yet undergone the experiences that will lead to his attempts to murder you. Neither of you are, as of yet, the ponies that you shall someday be.” Pip took in another breath.
Twilight brought a hoof up to rub between her eyes. The guard seemed to be appraising Pip.
“That’s some pretty heavy stuff for a, what, twenty year old?”
“Fifteen.” Twilight immediately corrected. Pip blinked, and the guard whistled.
“You’re big for a teenager, kid.”
“Her Ladyship aided my growth so that I could provide better service.”
“Service… like guarding her, right?”
“Primarily.”
The guard nodded, glancing at Twilight. “Well, good to know.” The guard glanced out the window. “Huh. That was quick.”
Twilight was about to ask when the carriage yawned down, jarring the ponies inside as it hit the ground. The carriage rolled lazily for a few moments before the drivers and friction managed to stall it. The guard quickly opened the door, stepping outside to meet with the two that had ridden atop the coach. Pip moved to the door first, giving the external environs a cursory assessment before exiting. Twilight and Spike followed him, much less worried about possible threats given their landing place.
The courtyard of the castle was sparsely populated; the main presence was the guardsponies who patrolled it, aside from the three that had retrieved Twilight and stayed with her after the pegasi lifted off, and the occasional gardener that could be seen tending the flowers or maintaining the lawn. Nopony else was there.
“Are the others not here yet?” Twilight asked. The guard that had ridden with her shook his head.
“We were sent out to get you first, ma’am. Captain Armor wanted you here before the others.”
“Did he say why?”
“No, ma’am. He said he’d be here before we arrived, but that obviously isn’t holding up.” Pip’s ear flicked, and both he and the group of guards swung their heads to the side, scanning the sky. “Looks like one of your friends is showing up.” Twilight looked at where they were staring, seeing both a carriage and a streak of rainbow heading towards the castle.
Rainbow Dash landed ten seconds later. The coach touched down twelve seconds after that, a hyperactive pink blur shooting out of it and quickly latching on to the pegasus. Several quick kisses later (and a gag from Spike), the two turned their attention to Twilight’s group.
“Hey, Twi. Spike.” Rainbow said, Pinkie hopping onto her back and flopping down, laying her head on Rainbow’s. The pegasus gained a nearly-invisible blush, but otherwise affected not to notice.
“Hello, you two. Glad to see everything’s okay.”
Rainbow cocked her head, Pinkie’s rotating in the opposite direction. “Wha- oh, yeah, right. I was just being stu-“
“Silly!” Pinkie interrupted. “You were being silly¸ Dashie.”
“Right. Silly.” She shook her head, sending Pinkie’s mane flipping around. “I just thought she’d be mad at me for something I said before I knew what necornmancy was.”
“Necromancy.” Spike and Twilight said in unison.
“Whatever. Anyways, I was just practicing some moves when one of the other weatherponies comes by and tells me that one of the Wonderbolts lost her sight in an accident.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard about that… the doctors couldn’t even heal it, could they?” Spike asked. Twilight nodded – she’d heard about the attempts to heal it, through Rainbow and newspapers.
“Nope, too much damage. I was talking about it to Pinkie that night, talking about how awesome it would be to have magic that could have healed her…” Rainbow swallowed and pawed the ground. “Or if they could bring dead ‘Bolts back to show the newer ones the classic tricks…”
“Oooh…” Twilight and Spike both winced. Pinkie wiggled her head.
“But…”
“…but Pinkie’s now reminded me – repeatedly – that she’s not bothered by that kind of stuff.” Rainbow gave a small smile, and turned her head up to peck the party pony’s chin. “So everything’s good.”
“Great! I would have hated to have done anything to harm your relationship, even indirectly.”
Rainbow waved a hoof, Pinkie’s loosely following her movements. “No worries, Twi. Little bump like that ain’t doing anything, ‘specially not with Pinkie being Pinkie.” The pegasus sat down, sliding Pinkie off of her. “Now, if I tried to leave her…” she shuddered theatrically, but grinned at both parties, and Pinkie started giggling.
“My apologies, your Ladyships, Rainbow Dash, Spike, but it appears that another carriage is arriving.” Twilight nodded at Pip, while Rainbow swung her attention to the cycloptic stallion.
“’Your Ladyships?’ Who’s the other lady, now?”
“You have always been a Lady, Rainbow Dash, as has Lady Thalia. Your title is Lady Iris.”
“So why am I ‘Rainbow Dash’ and Pinkie’s ‘Lady Thalia’?”
“You, Rarity, and Applejack insisted on being addressed by your given names. Lady Theia, Lady Thalia, and Lady Gaia preferred their titles.”
“Yeah, right. Rarity didn’t want to be called a lady?”
“I believe it had to do with her indecisiveness over which title to choose; she shifted regularly between Cytherea, Kypris, and Aphrodite.”
“Oooh, those all sound nice…” A carefully cultured voice intoned. Twilight and the rest of the group turned to see Rarity and Applejack walking up to the group, a carriage lifting off a small distance behind them. Twilight noticed distractedly that the number of guards with them had tripled. “We’re discussing pre-Equestrian names, I presume?”
“Incorrect, Rarity. We are discussing title assumption by the Elements of Harmony after the Revolution.”
“Ah. Well, in any case, I like all of those names. I presume that they’re mine?”
“Yes. Pinkie Pie is Lady Thalia, Rainbow Dash is Lady Iris, Applejack is Lady Tellus-“
“Hold on now. Ah thought Ah was a rebel?”
“You were, Applejack, but you joined her Ladyship as a leader of Equestria after Broken’s second escape from governmental custody.”
“That don’t make much sense…”
“The names don’t make sense, either. The rules around them, at least.” Rainbow retook the conversation. “Seems like Pip is covering for something to me.”
“I endeavour to provide full transparency in my explanations, Rainbow Dash. What part are you having trouble understanding?”
“Ahem?” A guard interrupted the conversation. “Apologies, but we’ve received a message that we are to bring you to the prisoner. The Princesses and Captain Armor will meet you there.”
“Lead the way.” Twilight motioned. The guards moved into a circle around the group, marching forwards at a steady pace. Rainbow didn’t continue the conversation; she stared at Pip’s blank eye before scoffing and flying to the opposite side of the group.
“Princess!”
Twilight ran to her mentor the moment she saw the alicorn; Celestia leaned down to greet her student, and Twilight could see the exhaustion in her eyes.
“Hello, Twilight. How are you faring?”
“I’m fine, Princess. Are you alright?”
“Twi, she looks worse than you during finals week- OW!” Spike rubbed the back of his head as three small swats struck him almost immediately. Celestia laughed.
“I’m… tired, I’ll admit. I fear I may have overexerted myself during the retrieval of Broken Shield. Luna had to help me with the sun, and I’ve suspended the Day Court while I recover.” Celestia turned to the door. “This, however, was quite important.”
“Princess!” A voice called from behind Twilight. She turned to see her brother running up the hallway, and within seconds he had skidded to a stop beside her, panting. He threw a hoof up in salute. “My apologies, your Highness… Cadance was… ill…”
“Is she okay?” Twilight asked. Shining nodded, his breath levelling.
“Just a little nausea, seems she caught the bug that’s been going around.”
“Hmm.” Luna motioned to one of the guards. “Have Princess Cadance attended by a doctor. I want him ensure that she has simply ‘caught the bug’.” The guard nodded, running off. Luna shook her head. “Honestly, some modern euphemisms continue to escape me…”
“Do not worry, Shining. I am fairly sure that ten guards can compensate for your absence, if only minorly.” Celestia gave a grin at the captain. “Nonetheless, I feel undoubtedly safer with your presence. I was just about to show Twilight and her friends Broken’s condition.”
“Is he awake?”
“Not yet; the doctor has been keeping him unconscious for his health and safety.”
“Broken’s or the doctor’s?” Spike asked. Celestia didn’t answer; instead, she opened the door and walked into the room, Luna and several guards following her. Twilight’s group followed her, Twilight hanging back.
“Are you alright, Shiny? I can’t imagine…”
“I’m… I’m handling it, Twily. He’s easier to deal with when he’s not awake, that’s certainly true.” The siblings shared a small laugh. “Honestly, I’m worried about what would’ve happened to do that to me.” Twilight winced, and Shining backtracked. “Not that you’re at any fault, Twi, it’s just-“
“I know, Shining. I’m not the pony that did that to him. Just like how you’re not him.”
They shared a grin tinged in sympathy before Twilight turned to enter the room. An eye flicked back just as she passed the threshold, catching Shining and the guard from her carriage beginning to converse.
The room was a mixture of a care room and a cell; the padded white walls, lined floors, and hospital bed were offset by the lack of a window, the triple-locked steel door, and the several straps that tied the bed (and whoever occupied it) to the floor in the centre of the room. Other fixtures – a heart monitor, trolley with some medical supplies, IV drips – surrounded the bed, leaving only the left side open. Celestia and the doctor were already talking as Twilight entered, the other ponies arranged around them.
“...and it’s frankly remarkable that he’s survived this long, Princess, even with medicine. He nearly died just fixing the cuts and bruises, so we haven’t had time to fix his leg or any internal damage that wasn’t life-threatening.”
“Will he be able to talk soon?”
“Honestly, your Highness, he shouldn’t be moving until he gains about twenty pounds. And you said he conducted a shield that even you couldn’t break?” The doctor shook his head. “Bucking- er, I can wake him up, but only for a few minutes. He does need his rest, and in here my authority trumps yours. Your Highness.”
“Of course, doctor. I simply need to ask him a few questions.” Celestia gave a serene smile at the medical pony. He sighed, but turned to face Broken, his horn glowing. A few moments later, the monitor’s speed picked up. Broken groaned, his legs curling up towards him.
“Don’t crowd him. Let him come to his own senses before trying to hit him with yours.” The doctor stated. He held everypony back for several minutes, waiting until Broken was mostly still again. Celestia, Luna, and Twilight approached, Pip slightly behind.
“Broken Shield?”
“Muh.”
“Broken, we need to ask you some questions. Can you speak to us?”
“Hi… hi-ness?” The stallion asked. He turned to face the Princesses, eye widening when he saw Twilight. “Pincess… stop her…” His hoof pulled up a half-inch before the harness stopped it.
“Twilight is under control, Broken. She poses no danger.”
“Okay…”
“Why’s he talking all weird?” Rainbow asked. The doctor scoffed.
“He’s has severe physical trauma, Rainbow Dash, and is only just awakening from protective unconsciousness. Most ponies don’t recognize their own existence for a while, let alone be able to place voices to individual ponies.”
Celestia continued. “Broken, I want to know why you were trying to destroy the Everfree Castle. Can you tell me?”
“Wasunt.” The stallion mumbled. “There’s books an’ stuff unnerneath. I was making that go away.”
“’Books and stuff?’” Twilight asked.
“The Everfree Castle had a large archive underneath it, but everything historically important was removed centuries ago. The only things left were damaged copies of political manuscripts, old maps, occasional statistical-“ Celestia’s eyes widened. “Of course.”
“Princess?”
“Broken wasn’t trying to destroy Dawn’s hideout, he was getting rid of everything she could have used from there to help her overthrow us. He probably wanted to have her go there anyways, just so he knew where she’d be.”
The stallion gave a groggy nod. “Don’ want bad ponies getting smart, Princess…”
Celestia nodded back. “I can understand that, my little pony. But I have another question.”
“Yeah?”
“Why do you look like this?”
“Like wha- oh. I don’t have a horn.”
“I know, Broken, but I’m wondering why you are so…” The Princess struggled for a word.
“Corpsey?” Broken suggested. The alicorn blinked at him.
“…I suppose so…”
“It’s cause I don’t have a horn. I have a horn, I look normal.”
“So the illusion is tied into your horn?”
“Not an illusion. I’m not supposed to look like this. Dawn did something t’make me look starved. Other than starving me.” Broken was articulating more, but he didn’t appear to be fully aware of anything. Twilight pressed in.
“I noticed that some of his ribs are missing…”
“No, that was Cotton Candy.” Twilight’s stomach dropped through her hooves. She gave a quick glance at a wide-eyed Pinkie before returning her attention to Broken. “Dawn did something else. I can’t-” He winced, very suddenly, his head jumping up and his entire body tensing. The heart monitor spiked, recording a giant leap and several small rapid bumps. Before the doctor could get near him Broken relaxed again and continued as if uninterrupted. “-remember. Sorry, Princess.”
The doctor pushed forwards between Twilight and Celestia, washing over Broken with a diagnostic spell. The stallion closed his eye, shuddering.
“That’s really cold, doc.”
“Cold? Hmm.” the doctor muttered. He adjusted the lines leading into Broken’s arm before turning to Celestia. “Visit’s over, I’m afraid. I need to examine him again.”
“If you insist, doctor. I just have one more question.” The stallion bit his cheek, but nodded. She turned back to Broken. “How can you use magic without your horn?”
“I just… do. Horns don’t make magic go, they just keep it going straight.”
“But nopony has ever channeled any significant magic without their horns intact, Broken.”
“I know. It’s weird, isn’t it?” Broken appeared more generally cognisant, now, but he maintained a detachedness from the current situation. “I couldn’t, for a while. Dawn just had to kill Cadance and suddenly I can make ponies explode.”
Nopony gasped, but Twilight felt a familiar emotion crawl up her spine; it wasn’t shock, anymore, but there was still an obvious unease at hearing a pony speak so casually about violence. The Princess nodded, stepping back and allowing Broken to see behind the Princesses. Twilight had about a quarter of a second to realize what was about to happen.
Two ropes of magic erupted from under the straps of the bed, cutting Broken free and setting the mattress aflame. Everypony instinctually stepped back except for Pip, and it was at the stalwart stallion that Broken launched himself.
Pip grunted – more released air than an expression of discomfort – as the unicorn slammed into him. He ducked a swing of magic, returning it with a headbutt that sent Broken sprawling. Before he could recover, the four guardsponies in the room pounced on him.
“Stop!” The doctor shouted. “He’s in a very delicate condition! If you-“
The mattress fire spread onto the cotton and wooden items on the cart. Twilight quickly extinguished the flames before they could damage something dangerous, their last flicker cutting out just as she heard some amount of fluid hit the floor.
“Shit!” The doctor cursed. His horn glowed, and there was very suddenly a flashing blue light in the corner of the room. “Step away from him, he’s dying!”
The guards moved back, revealing a convulsing Broken with a spatter of blood on the floor near his mouth. The doctor ran to him, motioning for the two unicorn guards to restrain the damaged stallion. His horn glowed for a moment before he touched it to Broken’s chest. Broken’s body jumped, and when it went back to the ground it stopped moving. The doctor bit off another curse as the door burst open. Two orderlies rushed in, bringing a wheeled stretcher with them.
“He needs a general stabilization and intensive support! Bring him to the DO room, tell them to hold him up until I get there with somepony that can perform open body surgery!” The doctor ordered. The two mares nodded, taking over Broken from the guards, lifting him onto the trolley and rushing him out of the room. The doctor grabbed a non-burnt cotton swab and dabbed it in the blood on the floor before throwing it into a container and following the orderlies.
Everypony (and Spike, except Pip) stared at either the open door, the blood spot, or the burnt bed. Celestia cleared her throat.
“Well, that was surprising.”
Celestia had moved the group to one of the royal apartments after Broken’s removal. Within minutes, the news had come that he would survive. Along with the news that he was being kept in intensive care (with heavy guard) for a week. Luna had dragged the others away to get their information on Broken, and now Celestia willingly subjugated herself to the doctor pony’s criticisms.
“Are you aware of what might have happened, Princess?! If I hadn’t been in there, if the patient had been launched an inch further, if the orderlies weren’t fast enough, if the surgeon hadn’t just been coming in from her lunch break, we’d be dealing with a fu-bucking corpse right now! I know you prefer to have a rather relaxed atmosphere, but in situations like these we need control. Broken should never have been woken up, but I admit that’s as much my error in judgement as yours. And on that note, why in Tartarus aren’t you in bed right now?!? You have orders, signed by me, that say you need at least eighteen hours rest and no strenuous activity during your six hours up. THIS COUNTS AS STRENUOUS ACTIVITY! Why I didn’t send you back to your chambers the minute I saw you I have no- hey! Where do you think you’re going?”
Celestia flicked her mane out of her face as she walked to the door. “To bed. Doctor’s orders, right?”
“Oh, fuc-shi-bucking horseapples, no, you aren’t getting out of this by following my directions now! Princess! Get back here you harride-insufferable patient! I mean your Highness!” The doctor bolted out of the room, trying to both keep up with the Princess and continue lecturing her. Pip, Twilight, and Shining were left in what Twilight guessed would be her temporary residence.
“I didn’t know anypony was allowed to talk down to the Princess.” Twilight said.
“She hasn’t been acting like an ingrown unicorn up until now…” Shining muttered. Twilight gave him an offended look. “What? ‘Ingrown unicorn’ means really stupid.”
“You know that’s not-“
“I’ve never heard it used to describe an actually disabled pony from anypony worth mentioning. Just ponies who were being really stupid.” He gave her a saltlicker’s grin, and her glare lessened. Shining shook his head, glancing at Pip before facing Twilight again.
“So that’s your guard, huh?”
“Yeah…”
“He’s the same one that was there with you in the dungeon, right?” Twilight nodded. “The one who lost the eye after I left?” Another nod. “The one who disappeared from the Canterlot hospital after breaking a doctor’s legs for trying to stop him from leaving?” Twilight’s brows furrowed at that claim, but she looked at Pip, who nodded. “The one who’s admitted that he views all non-ponies as inferior, supports a secessionist movement, and wants to kill Princess Luna?”
“That is incorrect, Shining Armor.” Pip spoke up. Shining and Twilight flicked their gazes to him. “I do not wish to kill Princess Luna. I have never wanted to cause any pain, suffering, or death, especially not to a pony who I was a close friend to for several years.”
“From what I’ve heard, the ‘Revolution’ involved the deaths of every member of the royal family. Including my wife.” He stepped towards Pip. “Princess Luna was said to have been killed by you. So my question is, if you didn’t want to kill her, why did you?”
“Because her Ladyship ordered it.”
“And you expect me to believe that? You weren’t angry or happy or anything about it, it was just ‘orders must be obeyed’?”
“Yes. Have you never carried out an order that you had no emotional investment in?”
“Of course I have. But it didn’t involve killing somepony, and you’d have been five years old.”
“Seven.” Pip corrected.
Shining laughed. “Right, that makes much more sense…” He quickly looked at Twilight before putting his vision back on Pip. “So you’d do anything that my sister tells you to, right?”
“Correct.”
“Even if it’d kill you?”
“Correct.”
Shining glanced at Twilight again. “So if you told him to jump off a cliff-“
“No.”
“Bu-“
“No! No, I’m not going to order Pip to hurt himself just to prove a point to you!”
“Milady, I would request that I be allowed to harm myself just to prove a point to him.”
Twilight turned to Pip, brows furrowing. “What.”
“Shining Armor appears to be fearful that I am going to attempt to harm you as Broken Shield has. While such a claim is ludicrous, I would be in support of your ordering me to do ‘anything’ so long as such a demonstration would quickly and permanently assure Shining Armor that I am wholly dedicated to your appeasement and protection.”
Both Twilight and Shining stared at the stallion. He remained unemotive. Twilight turned to face Shining.
“If he does this, you leave him alone.”
“Guard’s honour.”
Twilight took in a breath. “Are you sure, Pip?”
“Completely, Milady.”
Another breath. “Pip… stop breathing.”
For the first fifteen seconds, nothing appeared to happen. Then Pip swallowed. The muscles on his neck strained, and his pulse became somewhat visible. He blinked. Another swallow. His midsection began to shrink in, pulling up towards his back, pushing his chest forwards. The ribcage and muscles atop it pushed outwards, pulling in again quickly, then out again, a rapidly repeated motion in, out, in, out, in, out. He swallowed again, his pulse easily visible and quickening.
“You can’t be serious…” Shining muttered. Pip continued, his legs beginning to shake. He was blinking almost every second now, his pupil dilating but maintaining its stoic sight. One of his hind legs curled upwards, and the lack of support led the other three to give out. He fell harshly to the ground, beginning to twitch as his muscles protested the lack of oxygen. The rest of his legs curled closer into him, his head joining them. Shining and Twilight heard, rather than saw, his trachea move up and down his throat a third time. He began to shake; rather, his body’s quivering became observable.
“Dear Faust… Twilight? Twilight, I believe you!”
Twilight stared at the pony on the floor, her eyes wide and her own breathing quickened. She had reduced Pip, an unbending, unyielding golem, to a shaking, dying ball with two words. Her eyes raced around his form, noting every one of his muscles as they writhed under his skin, the way his neck arched and the vertebrae showed themselves, how his chest pushed and pulled as his lungs in a vain attempt to force them to take in air. “Pip…”
“TWILIGHT!”
“Pip, breathe!”
A loud gasp immediately emanated from the stallion on the floor. The following exhalation was complimented by a pool of bile as Pip’s stomach voiced its discontent at his attempt to kill himself. Another breath in, and its exit was accompanied by retches and a coughing fit. Twilight didn’t bother with physical movement; she immediately teleported behind him, lifting him upright and rubbing along his back in an attempt to aid his lungs. The stallion took several more deep breaths before he appeared to regain control of his respiratory system. Twilight’s eyes shot upwards to face Shining, finding his face a mirror of her own horror.
“He’s currently suffering from a broken left metatarsal (not helped by his theatrics yesterday), dislocated right shoulder, compound fractures on his skull consistent with three severe concussions, seven fractured ribs not counting the ones that have been completely removed, horn amputation, pierced lung, ruptured stomach, heart arrhythmia, multiple fractured vertebrae with possible spinal cord damage, and severe internal haemorrhaging. Plus the extended conditions of missing eye (with a patch haphazardly sewn into his face), ten missing ribs, cirrhosis of the liver, heart strain, swollen adrenal gland, scar tissue on his brain, muscular atrophy and tearing, roundworm, tapeworm, and gingivitis.” The doctor glanced up from the clipboard to give a look to Princess Celestia. She blinked as the doctor finished his list; The others (Pip, Shining, Spike, Twilight and her friends) simply stared. The Princess opened her mouth, but the doctor cut her off.
“Princess, please know that I have full respect for you and the fine guardsponies that protect our fair nation, but you are all being a BUNCH OF FAUST-DAMNED-“ He cut off at raised eyebrows from Shining and the Princesses. “Ahem. You have been acting very unintelligently in dealing with this pony. His injuries are severe enough that he’d be a DBT in triage. I’m left wondering how the f-buck he was cleared to go anywhere but the emergency room.”
“DBT?” Rainbow and Spike asked in unison. The doctor sighed, leaning against the door to Broken’s room.
“‘Don’t Bother Trying’ or ‘Dead Body Twitching’; basically, the pony who’s going to die 99% of the time even if you put full effort on him. Which you can’t do in an emergency situation with a dozen other critically-injured but possibly-savable ponies. So we stuff them with painkillers and leave them in a corner.”
Fluttershy whimpered, and Rarity gave a shocked look at the doctor’s bluntness. “Why in Equestria would you just allow a pony to die?!”
“I just said why. If there’s twelve ponies with fifty percent survival chance, they’re more viable for healing than one pony with one percent. I’ll do my damndest to save everypony, of course, but I’d rather save ten than one or two.”
There was silence for a moment. “If Broken was already so bad, how didn’t he get noticed during the medical check the first time?” Twilight asked. The doctor coughed, turning a mild glare at Shining.
“That is something that I’m very interested in finding out.”
“We examined him!” Shining claimed. “He checked out fine! Check your records-“
“My records have ‘suspicious magical levels’ stamped on them in a dozen places! Standard procedure is to remove any chance of magical interference from scans, and SML is an indication that the medical examiner suspects that magic is being used to modify the results! You should have shielded him and tried again, but according to the ME on call the minute he gave you a tenuous clear you went straight to tying anvils to his fetlocks!”
“We couldn’t find any magic to block!”
“What kind of incompetent-“
“He channels magic using only the root of his horn.”
The doctor looked like he’d been punched in the face. His remaining breath fell out of his body, and he stared at the Princess in shock.
“He does what now?”
“He doesn’t use his horn to conduct magic unless he wants to. The magical interference was from the spell he used to make himself look closer to Captain Armor’s physique, channelled directly over his body from his root, possibly using the scars as leylines.”
“…huh. That, that, um…” The doctor blinked. “Damn. That’s not supposed to be possible.”
“Neither was using magic at all with a broken horn, but he did so.”
The doctor scribbled a few things on his clipboard. “That’s true, Princess… hmm. Maybe he’ll acquiesce to tests when he’s further healed?”
“I doubt it.” Twilight answered the stallion. “He said ‘No doctoring stuff unless it’s life and death’, and that’s only supposed to count when I’m alive.”
“Damn. He could be valuable, especially if his brain-“
There was a loud shout from inside the room, followed by several large flashes. The doctor instantly bucked the door down and ran inside, the others following him and finding Broken Shield lying unrestrained on his bed, three apparently-unconscious guardsponies piled in the corner, a nurse held down by a magical barrier. Four horns glowed, then cut out as their shields failed to find anything to latch onto. Broken began to giggle.
“Yeah, that’s a bitch, isn’t it?” The stallion rolled out of the bed, apparently not noticing as the tubes in his arm ripped out. A small trickle of blood coursed down his leg to the floor. His legs wobbled, and suddenly there was a spiderweb of rose-coloured magic wrapped around each limb. The one that was broken got considerably more strands around it. Spike stepped defensively in front of Twilight, but Broken paid him no notice. The stallion stepped forward, the magic strands brightening as their respective hooves impacted the ground. “Still, I’d like my horn back, Princess.”
“We shall see, Broken. Let the nurse go.”
“What? Oh, right.” The barrier lifted, and the nurse immediately sprung towards the group and away from Broken. A magical pulse cut the air, and the guardsponies slid over to the door. “I didn’t hurt them or anything, just paralysed them for a bit. They’ll be walking again in an hour.”
The doctor and nurse began removing the guards. Broken flicked his eye at the doctor before grimacing.
“Bloody traitor…”
“Broken Shield.” The stallion swung his attention back to the Princess. “When we first spoke, you seemed interested in the possibility of returning to a normal life. Is that not true?”
“I would love nothing more than to live as a normal pony again, Princess.”
“And yet, you have seemed oddly resistant to any attempts to aid you. You purposefully chose to sequester yourself in a broom closet, and were only willing to leave the library on select occasions.” Celestia’s wings fluttered a small amount. “On the first, you not only left without supervision, but you proceeded to kill several animals and consume parts of them as sustenance. The second ended in a drunken diatribe on necromancy. The third…” Her wings fluttered again. “When I first released you, you swore to me that you would not attempt to harm Twilight Sparkle.”
“I have kept that oath, your Highness.” Spike coughed a laugh.
“Oh? Then would you care to explain the several times that you threatened her whilst in her care, or your attempt to kill her?”
“I never threatened her, Princess. As far as I’m concerned, Twilight is dead.” A strange look crossed his face, and he shook his head. “Was dead, rather. I’m hoping you aren’t stupid enough to let the bitch in here unless my sister’s still in control.”
“So you recognize the folly in your presumption of Dawn’s presence.”
“I recognize that she wasn’t there. Yet. I maintain that killing Twilight is the best option for stopping the Revolution.”
“Do you not recognize how your simply being here lessens-“
“He does, Princess.” Twilight interjected. “He said so himself.”
“Then you have no excuse! If you know that your presence here has already radically deviated this timeline from yours, why do you insist on your sister’s harm?”
Broken flinched at ‘sister’. “It’s a near impossibility that Dawn will emerge and do the damage she did in my Equestria. ’Near’, Princess. Meaning that there’s still a chance. Not one I’m willing to take, if it means losing Ca- Equestria again.”
Luna spoke up. “Do you know the extent of your actions, Broken Shield?! Your attempts to save Equestria have only harmed those ponies dedicated to protect it!” Her gaze swept between him, Twilight, the guards, and her sister before she continued. “Should you have succeeded at any time in your goal, the effects-“
“I know exactly how terrible they would have been. Cotton Candy’s party cannon would not have been enough to express my joy at seeing the life torn from her eyes.” He wasn’t laughing anymore, and Twilight suspected he had shifted into depression again. The claim he made came not with a grin or smirk but a resignation. Behind Twilight, Applejack shivered. “The fact is, Princesses, that I simply do not care. Dawn needs to die because she will destroy Equestria. Twilight must die for Dawn to die. It’s not something that I want to do, but the simple assurance that Cadance will survive, that you and everypony else who will die when Dawn rises will live to what your lives should have been, is enough that I’m willing to risk the loss of the Elements of Harmony.”
Celestia and Luna regarded Broken with cooled eyes and blank expressions; Twilight recognized Celestia’s face from when she dealt with particularly aggravating diplomats. She was trying to discern a way to open him up without directly attacking him. Her eyes flicked to Pip before she addressed Broken again.
“So far, you’ve put me in more harm than he has.”
Broken blinked at this, his face gaining a kind of blank surprise and horror. “I’ve never tried to harm you, your Highness-“
“Pip injured a doctor on his escape, two broken legs that were easily and quickly healed. You have attempted several times to bring harm to the Element of Magic, and in doing so have injured several guardsponies and destroyed a building of extreme historical importance; my attempts to prevent the latter were the catalyst for my exhausted condition. In point of fact, Pip has done more to protect Equestria than you have-“
The floors raked up, loud pulses of magic forcing the tiles from the stone beneath them as Broken released some of his magic. The floor beneath him darkened, almost looking burned. Shining stepped towards him, stopping at Celestia’s hoof. Broken’s eye wrenched open, glaring at the Princess with unbridled fury.
“Don’t you dare claim that that monster has protected Equestria from anything!”
“Why? He’s several times prevented you from harming Twilight. That alone places him as having protected more of Equestria than you. Couple that with his aid in stopping the Everfree Castle’s destruction, and he’s rather deserving of a medal.” Celestia gave a tired smirk. “Ironic, really, that the former guard proves more dangerous to his Princesses than the pony who has killed one of them.”
Broken clenched his jaw. Several small pops sounded, and he opened his mouth to spit out a mixture of blood, teeth, and torn flesh. He tried to speak, but what came out was a mixture of growls and small screams. His face grew red under his fur, and his eye pinpricked as his gaze began to twitch between everypony in the room. Celestia spoke again, her voice less edged.
“I do not mean to injure you, Broken Shield. I am trying to get you to recognize that you have gone too far. ‘Protecting’ us in the manner that you wish to is not going to help anypony. What I want, what we all want, is for you to understand that you are not going to be able to help us until you calm your mind and reign in your malice.”
Broken continued to sputter, his eye twitching as it wheeled around. Twilight kept her eyes on him, barely noticing as the room’s shadows began to darken. A low, blurring fog rose from his small pit in the floor. Broken’s eye fixed on Celestia, and he gained a manic grin.
There was a burst of magic, and Celestia disappeared. In her place the fog had grown, reddened in the exact shape the Princess had occupied. Twilight felt something slide down her face, and she brought a hoof up to wipe it off. The hoof entered her vision, and on it was a smear of blood and a clump of white fur.
Broken’s gaze shifted to Twilight, and Celestia’s body – what remained of it – fell from the ceiling. Pinkened feathers and a small length of her mane were all that were recognisable in the lump of flesh that hit the floor without a sound. Twilight tried to scream, to hit him with magic, to turn and run, to teleport out with all of her friends and Shining and the Princess, but now everything she did came so slowly. She pushed as hard as she could, and her head turned an inch over what felt like a minute. Her eyes were in the furthest corner, and soon she would be able to see Shining, see him casting a spell that would save everypony and make everything okay-
Then she saw the red fog, in the shape of a male unicorn, his mouth open as if he was screaming. Out of the corner of her eye, just under where her vision had been fixed moments before, she saw a small dragon shape in the red mist, one of its arms extended towards her, its claw futilely reaching to grab hold of her.
Her head was suddenly facing forward again, staring into Broken’s eye. His grin had somehow widened, spreading off of his face and exposing a blackness behind his swollen gums and rotting teeth. He stepped forward, as slowly as Twilight had turned her head, but suddenly he was ten feet closer to her, and his hoof raised and he was in front of her. He didn’t breathe, but she felt sickness wash over her, spreading from him and trying to take her in, strangle her, turn her into a sick pastiche of herself as Broken was Shining-
Magic sprung from her horn, striking Broken in the mouth, in the blackness. He disappeared, and Twilight barely managed to recognize that her magic had been in some way abnormal before she felt a large weight press into her back. Another wave of the sickness washed over her as Broken leaned closer to her face.
“That wasn’t nice, Twily…” The words entered her head without Broken’s mouth moving. The shadows crept around Twilight, the fog spreading up to her neck, barely leaving her head exposed. “You need to die. It’s Celestia or you. Cadance or you. Dazzle or you. You need to die.”
“No…” Twilight whispered. She felt the shadows, the fog, creep further.
“You need to die.”
“Please…” The sickness swam in her mind.
“Die…”
“I… I need…” The fog, the shadow, the sickness, each growing.
“Die…”
The fog enveloped her, the sickness took her mind, the darkness took her body, and the three forces grew around her, coalescing into a thing that hanged her over an abyss by her horn. She could see Broken’s face, even further deformed, leaning in, his breath not rotting or disgusting but in some way generally wrong, like it was something that simply should not exist. He was still speaking, a raspy whisper that she couldn’t hear but could still understand.
“…need to… d-“
“BEGONE, ABOMINATION!”
A voice tore through the void, tore through everything. Broken gave a many-voiced roar of anger before he was swept away with the darkness, and Twilight was suddenly free and falling to the floor. A cool magic stopped her, holding her gently, enveloping her in calm and safety against the fog’s coldness and aggression, its glow destroying the shadows, its warmth erasing the sickness. Twilight’s eyes opened – she hadn’t closed them, but she opened them nonetheless – and saw Princess Luna, blurred and fading. The room began to melt as Twilight’s eyes lost sight.
“Twilight? Twilight…”
The voice came into Twilight’s mind, then faded away again. She sighed as she began to awaken, curling her hooves further close to her. The substance beneath her was some sort of soft fabric, and Twilight rubbed her head into it. It felt rather nice, warm and clean, not a dense, cold, warped, cloying fog that grew up her legs an-
Suddenly Twilight was very wide awake, rapidly sitting up, her heart audible in her chest and her breathing quickened. She sensed a large wing near her, and without thinking wrapped both forehooves around it, nuzzling into the familiar, safe feeling.
“Princess…” she mumbled. Regardless of her wakefulness, she was still oddly exhausted. Her thoughts moved cloudily (not fog not fog not fog) and her brain was scattered besides.
“Er… I was unaware that Celestia was so… physical, with you, Twilight…”
Twilight’s eyes opened enough in shock that she could see the deep blue of the wing she was cuddling. She quickly let go of it and slid away, blushing through her coat while giving a guilty look at Princess Luna.
“I-I’m sorry, Princess-“
“Do not fear, Twilight. I was rather unnerved by your dream as well.”
Twilight blinked, patches of her episode coming back to her. “What… what happened?”
“Broken calmed down and spoke properly, muttering an agreement with my sister that, perhaps, he had gone too far. Shining noticed that you seemed distant, and when he tried to gain your attention you began to scream. Loudly.” Luna rubbed a hoof between her eyes. “Everypony was alarmed, of course, and even moreso when you collapsed and began shaking. The doctor examined you and claimed that you were in no apparent harm, that you appeared to simply be sleeping. ‘Having a bad dream.’ he said. I entered as quickly as I could, and came across you.” The Princess paused, clearly trying to articulate the rest of the explanation. “That dream… you’ve had it before, yes? Similar ones, at least?”
Twilight nodded. “A few times… once when Broken left the first time, then when we had just left Sugarcube Corner. And once with Fluttershy-“
Luna shook her head. “The last was simply a nightmare, Twilight, as far as I could view it. The two – now three - with Broken were not.”
“Princess?”
“There is something different, something off, about those dreams in particular. Obviously, they are odd in that they occur while you are awake. But there’s something more to them.” Luna thought for a moment. “I was only able to observe the last few moments of the first two of the… the ‘events’, let’s say, before they ended naturally. Can you give me any information on them, anything that seems unique to them in the nightmares that you can remember having?”
“Besides Broken?” Twilight asked, a weak grin pulling at her lips. Luna nodded gravely.
“Yes. Can you tell me how these ‘events’ often begin?”
Twilight thought back. Her mind still felt sluggish, but she managed to pull up the relevant memories. “With both of the other ones, they just happened. One moment normal, the next I can’t move and Broken’s got this… this evil look, and there’s always just this underlying sense of dread, and he’s always doing something, the one by the lake he was trying to push his horn through my jaw and the one in the alley he’d taken my horn out and he was trying to push his horn into my brain and-“
“Twilight!” Luna yelled. The purple unicorn snapped her jaw shut, only now realizing that she had begun to panic again. Luna gave her a few moments to calm herself before pressing her to continue.
“Er, but yeah, um, there wasn’t any buildup with the first two. The first one looked normal the whole time, which is what scared me so much, and the second was just instantly darker and more shadowed. With this one, the fog and the shadows happened… they were only a few seconds before the ‘event’, but it wasn’t instant.”
“I see. Were there anything about the first two that stand out to you? Moreso than the events themselves?”
Twilight’s chin throbbed. “In the first one, Broken – the one in the dream – he was pressing his horn into my jaw, to go through to my brain. When the dream stopped, the normal Broken pointed out that my chin was bleeding.”
Luna nodded, like a mystery had just been solved. “Let me see.”
Twilight lifted her head, and Luna leaned down. She touched the tip of her horn to Twilight’s jaw for a second, quickly withdrawing it and nodding again.
“Princess?”
“I was simply examining the wound. At least, where it was.” She smiled at Twilight. “It appears that my worst fears were likely unfounded.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Twilight, many nightmares are constructs designed to help a pony work through a stressful situation, such as when they are extremely afraid. Such nightmares would be perfectly understandable for a pony placed in your position. However, these ‘events’ you have had are unusual in two ways. One, they have happened exclusively while you were awake, and do not last particularly long. Unless interrupted early, of course.” She paused a moment, making sure Twilight was still following her. “Second, they appear to be… more solid, let’s say. The first two were over before I could properly observe them, but the third…” she paused again. “With the third, I was able to observe something extremely unusual.”
“Which was?”
“Magic. Not the magic you casted in the dream, mind you, but the entire dream was threaded through with magical energy. It seemed to be maintaining the parts of the dream that you had lost focus on, parts that would normally simply fade away. Your jaw wound holds traces of the same magic as the magic that seems to be strengthening your ‘events’; I would wager that it was magically torn during the first ‘event’.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. “So, what, has somepony been making me have these? I mentioned one to Broken, but he didn’t take credit for it.”
“Actually, Twilight, I fear that the pony responsible for the magic is you.”
“Oh.” Twilight blinked. “How?”
“That is something I am still unsure on.” Luna admitted. “I worry that it may be a side effect of your loss of Princesshood.”
“You mean my turning back into a unicorn?” Luna nodded. Twilight thought. “Princess Celestia did say that she didn’t know if everything would instantly go back to normal… maybe my horn’s trying to get rid of some of the extra magic that it can’t handle anymore?”
“Perhaps. I would hope that ‘extra magic’ would quickly release, given the effects that it can have…” Luna blinked, raising her head and twitching her ear. “It seems that my sister has finished her discussion with Broken Shield.” Her tone was neutral, and Twilight winced – Luna probably disliked not having been there to see Celestia lay into the scarred stallion. The Princess of the Night turned back to her sister’s student. “I would request that, the next time you have an ‘event’, you weather it as best you can and report as many details as you can recall.”
“’Weathering it’ won’t exactly be easy, Princess…”
“I shall aid you should it prove too great a risk to handle alone, Twilight. In my knowledge, however, it is always beneficial for a pony to heal herself as best she can before obtaining aid to fully eliminate her ills.”
Twilight nodded, not wanting to delay any further. She went to the door of the room (only now noticing how opulent the furnishings were – Twilight realized that she may actually have been in Luna’s private chambers) and opened it.
She was immediately pulled out of the room and crushed in the centre of five ponies and a dragon.
By the time she had finished assuring everypony (and Spike) that she was perfectly fine, giving them a general summary of what had happened, Shining had already come to retrieve them. They quickly made their way back to the medical wing, the high distance confirming to Twilight that Luna’s talk had occurred in a room close to her actual chambers if not actually them. Celestia, Broken, and the doctor (as well as several guards, different from the ‘paralysed’ ones) stood outside of the hospital room. Broken laughed when Twilight was close enough to hear him.
“If you’re gonna keep doing that, do me a favour and just have an aneurysm already.”
If you’re going to keep crying at night, do me a favour and find a whorse to do it with. The words leapt unbidden from her mind, causing her to stumble in shock. What in Faus-
“Twilight-“
“I’m fine. Just… thinking.” Twilight sat down across from Broken and Celestia. She felt a small rush of air from behind her, and was actually grateful for the somewhat-familiar presence of Pip. Broken growled, but didn’t otherwise move. Twilight figured that this was promising.
“I have come to an agreement with Broken Shield.” She cast an eye over everypony (and Spike) before continuing. “He has agreed not to harm anypony without my or Twilight’s express permission, unless he is expressly defending himself or an innocent party from harm. He’s also disallowed from damaging anypony’s property.”
“So you’re basically just askin’ him to follow Equestrian law?” Applejack asked. “Not much of a punishment.”
“I’ve sworn an oath over this, Applejack.” Broken responded.
“Yeah, that really helped yesterday…”
“Yesterday, my oath was to not harm Twilight. Now, I can’t harm anypony, including Dawn, unless they attack me.”
“But y’did harm Twilight-“
“Not from my view, I didn’t.” Broken shook his head. “This doesn’t matter. Princess, if you’d-“
“Jus’ hold on a minute! What’s t’stop y’from breakin’ this ‘oath’ this time ‘round?”
“If I tried, my brain would tear itself in half, liquefy, and ooze out of my face.”
Applejack froze, her mouth open in a now-dying retort. Everypony (and Spike, save Pip) wore masks of horror, the guards doing an admirable job of remaining stoic but nonetheless unable to totally hide their shock. Celestia did considerably better; her eyes merely widened an inch, turning to watch Broken.
“Is that true?” She asked. Broken coughed.
“We took our oaths very seriously, Princess.”
“Oathbreakers here just fall unconscious.” Shining mentioned, slightly detachedly. Broken blinked.
“Hmm. I wonder if that means…”
He very suddenly gained a grin, his eye flicking towards Twilight. She immediately threw a shield around herself and her friends. A bolt of rose-coloured magic still shot towards her, slicing though the shield and nearly meeting her head. Instead, it simply grazed her cheek before moving behind her.
There was a small zap, and Twilight both heard a wheezing cough and felt a splatter of blood hit her in the back. She turned, the useless shield dying as she saw the crater in Pip’s chest.
“PIP!” She screamed. The stallion blinked, a trickle of blood snaking down from the corner of his mouth. He opened his mouth again, emitted a wet growling sound, then closed it again. He continued to stand there passively, his eye blank, his breathing steady, even as the wound began oozing blood.
Twilight heard several voices from behind her, as well as something large and soft hitting the ground. Then she was shoved roughly out of the way by the rapidly cursing doctor.
“Sonofabitching whorsemonger Faust-bucking psychopathic hayplaying ingrown BUCKING FAUST DAMNED-“ The rest of his diatribe was cut off into a frustrated roar as he clenched his teeth, his horn touching to the wound and brightly glowing. He stiffened, staring at the already-clotted bit-sized hole in Pip’s chest, then up at the stallion himself, then back at Twilight. “He has a healing spell on him already.”
“Yeah.” Twilight heard her mouth mumble. “He heals really fast.”
“By Faust, does he…” The doctor muttered. Pip’s wound had already began shrinking, dried blood falling off, skin and fur somehow regrowing instantly. “This is-“
“Doctor!” Celestia spoke loudly. The stallion turned, beginning to curse again as he moved back to the Princess. Twilight glanced over, noticing that Broken appeared to be convulsing on the floor, held down by Shining and another guardspony. Twilight turned back to Pip, somehow unsurprised to see no trace of the wound on him save the blood that had fallen onto his fur.
“Pip, are you alright?”
“I am perfectly fine, Milady.”
“You just got shot in the chest.”
“I have suffered worse injuries, Milady.”
Twilight was about to rebut that when she realized that he had, undoubtedly, suffered worse than a hole in his chest. She shuddered at his blasé expression, turning her eyes to the rest of the group. Fluttershy had shrunken back towards Rainbow; the latter and Applejack were watching Pip with slightly wary expressions. Spike, Rarity, and Pinkie seemed more interested in Broken’s condition, while Luna directly walked over to commune with her sister.
The doctor pulled away from the scarred stallion. “An aneurysm, he had a fuc-BUCKING aneurysm…” His eyes found Celestia. “Princess, if this kind of shi-cra-stuff keeps happening, he’s going to die.”
“I am aware, my little pony.” She leaned her horn down, touching the bridge between Broken’s horn and his skull. The stallion shuddered, his eye opening only to roll back into his head. After several seconds, Celestia raised her horn, and Broken rapidly sat up again.
“Whatza hooza what the buck just happened?!”
“You had an aneurysm.” The doctor said.
“I locked your magic.” Celestia said.
Broken blinked, glancing between the two before apparently deciding that Celestia’s statement was more important. “What do you mean, ‘locked my magic’?”
“Simple. You can’t do magic until I release the lock.”
“And that will be…?”
“When you stop trying to kill Pip.”
Broken blinked again. “So I’m a flathead forever, eh?”
Luna sucked in a gasp, but Celestia’s eyes simply narrowed. “I do not understand why you cannot accept that Pip is to be included in your ‘don’t harm anypony’ oath.”
“Simple. He’s not a pony.”
Celestia glanced over at Pip. “He certainly looks like a pony, Broken Shield.”
“Looks aren’t everything.” Broken responded. “That thing murdered Princess Luna, alongside a hundred guardsponies and-“ the stallion stopped speaking. Twilight could almost see the light go on behind his eyes.
“Broken?” Celestia tapped him with a hoof. He gained a manic grin.
“You know what? I’m tired. I want a story. Pip!” the pinto stallion didn’t appear to acknowledge Broken’s call. “Pip, you little bastard, you, why don’t you tell us what happened at the Cutie Mark Freedom Movement?”
“Cutie Mark Freedom Movement?” Twilight said, her brows furrowed. “Was that a resistance group?”
“Oh, it was a very special resistance group. Just ask Pip there.”
Twilight turned, regarding the stoic pony with worried eyes. “Pip… what is Broken talking about?”
“I believe that Broken Shield is referring to the raid on the CMFM headquarters that was initiated to investigate claims that the group was harbouring fugitives and weaponry that could be used to violently rise up against the rightful democratic government.”
“Tell them what happened, you sack of-“
“Tell us what happened, Pip.” Twilight cut off Broken’s growl. Pip nodded. He did nothing for a moment, then Twilight noticed that his eye had dulled even more; he stared into space in much the same way he had when recalling where he had placed the explosives.
Very quickly, Pip opened his mouth and began to speak.
---
“Attention. All non-Guard ponies are to clear the area immediately. This is a Guard action. Please clear the streets until notified. Attention…”
The day was bright, the sun just creaking into its peak as Pip surveyed the building. It was in the standard Ponyville style; wood framed, multiple large windows, large door, thatched roof. These latter traits created a welcoming atmosphere the majority of the time. They also made the building extremely easy to forcibly enter, especially compared to the stone and hardwood of Canterlot.
“Sir?” A guard spoke. Pip turned, staring at the stallion. “The streets around the CMFM headquarters have been cleared, sir. Sewer teams have blocked off any possible escape route, and the shield unicorns have telebarriers in. Pegasi are ready for your order.” Pip nodded, turning back to the CMFM’s headquarters, watching the shadows pass by behind the glass.
“Go.”
A flare shot up from the unicorn beside him. Ten pegasi silently emerged from the roofs of the buildings around the CMFMHQ, five pairs each carrying a unicorn. The unicorns lowered their horns and fired bolts in unison, each magical missile blasting a window’s glass into the building. They aimed higher, again firing in unison and blasting holes into the roof. The pegasi leaned up, throwing the unicorns through the now-clear windows before alighting on the roof and diving through the thatch. In the same moment, unicorns on the ground began peppering the lower floor with bolts of magic, destroying the windows and sending the doors flying into the entrance room in splinters. The shots abruptly ceased after ten seconds, giving way to a wave of earth ponies followed by the unicorns. Pip waited thirty seconds – ordered delay for ponies in command of a particular operation – before walking into the building himself, flanked by two Risen unicorns.
The interior was slightly smoking from the assault; Pip noticed that a guard was stamping out a fire in the corner of the room, and ordered one of his unicorns to aid the pony. She startled as the fire suddenly smothered under a magical block, but gave him a grateful, and respectful, smile and salute when she saw him. Pip nodded at her, walking past and entering into the main hall.
The detainees currently captured were held here, a group of thirty or so lined against the walls in one corner. They each had small damages, from either the initial barrage or their arrests. One pegasus glared at him from behind a swollen eye and cut nose, though most either cried or stared into space. The more injured lay moaning in between the two lines of their able-bodied compatriots. Pip continued his travel through the building, the glaring pony beginning to yell at him. There was a crack, and the pony fell silent.
Pip ascended the stairs to the second floor, one hoof on the flat platforms and the other on the angled ramp that had taken up half the width of the staircase. The rooms up here were still being cleared; one that Pip walked past holding a resisting detainee and several guards beating him into submission. Pip didn’t fear that pony’s aggression catching; any hope of group resistance had been castrated by the initial assault’s suddenness and severity. The door at the end of the hall was the only intact one, Pip’s unicorns simply tearing it out of the way.
Another twenty-five ponies had crowded into this room, about two-thirds the size of the main hall downstairs. Window-dropped unicorns and roof-breaching pegasi held them in a circle in the centre of the room, and Pip was easily able to identify their ringleader.
“Scootaloo.” The purple-maned pegasus raised her head at his voice, her eyes widening as she saw him.
“Pipsqueak?!” She gasped. The ponies around her respectfully cleared a path as she stepped forward, the wheels of her cart squealing in protest. The stampede during the First Ponyville Revolution had left her quadriplegic, only actually able to use her forelegs; the four useless limbs did maintain some nerve function, her hindlegs and wings twitching as she moved. “Dear Celestia, I saw the pictures but-“ she cut off as she saw the look in his eyes. Remembering her position, she took in a breath. “Might I ask why the Cutie Mark Freedom Movement is being treated like we’re Loyalists? Last I checked, Twilight wanted groups like us to keep running.”
“Scootaloo. We have received information from multiple sources that indicate that you and your resistance organization are both aiding assaults by terrorist groups and harbouring fugitives. As such, you have been placed under strong suspicion of violating the Rights and Freedoms Act, charged with aiding violent action against the Revolution, and violating the Harmony Order, charged with holding unregistered non-ponies within the Equestrian border. Do you admit to these charges?”
Scootaloo sighed. “We’re a pacifist group, Pip. I lost my two best friends to ‘violent action’. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to encourage Shining and his lot.”
“And on the charge of-“
“They’re in the basement.” Scootaloo said bluntly. Several of the ponies behind her gasped, and she turned to address them. “They would’ve been found anyways, this way they have a chance of surviving.” She turned back to Pip. “Will that be all?”
Pip turned to one of the Risen unicorns. The mare nodded, walking out of the room. His head moved back to face Scootaloo. He stepped forwards, one hoof reaching into his armour to grab the hoofcuffs stored there. He quickly slapped them around her forelegs, tightening them until they bit into her flesh. She winced, and several of her ponies started to step towards her.
“No!” Scootaloo hissed. The ponies backed down, and she looked up to stare Pip in the eyes. He stared back at her blankly, and she averted her gaze. “What did she do to you, Pip?”
The stallion didn’t answer. He turned and walked out of the room, the remaining Risen unicorn grabbing the restrained pegasus and dragging her along.
Ponies were already being loaded into carriages by the time Pip and Scootaloo exited the CMFMHQ. She stared silently at the fearful faces on her ponies before shifting her gaze to Pip.
“What are we waiting for? If you’re going to arrest me, arrest me.”
“Sir!” A guard ran out of the building, his armour damaged and his face bearing several long cuts. “The basement… they have a barricade up, sir! Unicorns are keeping us held back, and whenever we get close gryphons jump out and rip us to pieces!”
“No!” Scootaloo gasped. “Dammit, no, no, no…” She shuffled in front of Pip, giving him a look that begged mercy. “Pip, please, you can do whatever you want to me, just don-“
“RAAAAGH!”
Pip’s head snapped to the side as he focussed on the source of the noise; several ponies in battered golden armour galloped down the street, the one in front bearing a mop of blue hair and a single eye, his mouth opened in wordless rage. Each was a unicorn, and they send cords of magic flying at the guards on the street, cutting through several of them at various points. The injured guard Pip had just spoken to fell with a choked gurgle, his head lolling to one side as his neck lost the majority of the tissue connecting it to his body. Scootaloo screamed, and Pip began moving towards the attacking ponies. Disorganized shots were sent back at the rushing group by guards, and Pip could hear their sergeants ordering them into proper firing formations. The Guard pegasi took flight, preparing to dive bomb the attackers, before they were hit by magic fire and formerly-hidden rebel flyers. Pip dodged around a falling leg, torn from a guard’s body by a rebel gryphon, and that movement drew Shining’s attention to him.
Shining loosed a large blast of energy at Pip’s position, hitting it just as Pip stepped immediately in front of one of the attacking unicorns. The mare reared back, and Pip took the opportunity to buck her in the stomach. She doubled over, allowing Pip to grab her head and twist it sharply around. The pony fell limp, and Pip threw the corpse into Shining before stepping just ahead of the second attacker. He kicked the stallion’s leg, shattering the metacarpal, and swept his leg up to catch the stallion in the chest just as he began to scream. Pip followed this with a punch to the mouth, and the stallion fell back with a wet sound, his lungs filling with blood and shattered enamel as he instinctively tried to draw in breath. Pip grabbed the pony’s broken leg by the protruding length of bone, tearing it off and sending his eyes rolling back into his head as the shock hit him. Pip didn’t bother stepping again; instead, he simply threw the leg at the third rebel, catching her in the neck with the sharp edge, and before she could react he had bridged the distance and bucked the leg further into her neck, the point of the bone severing her spine. He turned to face Shining as she dropped to the ground, but found that the stallion had disappeared.
Pip took a breath, hearing organized blasts of magic firing into the air, followed by several bodies hitting the ground. A few more shots up and bodies down, and the skies were clear. He began walking back to Scootaloo, stepping blithely over the fallen carnage.
The young mare sat staring at the dead guard, her eyes wide and her pupils shrunken. She didn’t even register as Pip stepped up behind her.
“Scootaloo. You have hereby been charged with aiding in the deaths of at minimum four guardsponies, coupled with the harbouring of violent fugitives and providing suspected aid to violent terrorist groups. As First Guard, I pronounce you effectively guilty of all charges.”
She didn’t move, her eyes staring past the guard, seeing some scene beyond Pip’s view. She gained a small smile, opening her mouth to speak.
“Wait up, guys.”
Pip grabbed her mane, pulling her neck straight. Then he drove a hoof into her spine, severing it at the base of her skull. She fell, her eyes glossed over, still bearing a smile.
Pip glanced at the body for a moment before turning to his remaining Risen guard.
“Cordon off the basement. When the upper floors are clear, set the building on fire. Shoot anything that tries to get out.”
The Risen unicorn nodded, holding the same stoicism as Pip. He turned and walked back into the building. Pip gave another look at Scootaloo’s body before moving on to more important matters.
---
“Liar.”
“I have endeavoured-“
“CUT THAT FUCKING CRAP!” Broken roared. He glanced around the gathered ponies, taking in their disturbed expressions. “You want to know what he really did? Princess? Shining? Twilight?”
Celestia took a moment, but she slowly nodded. Broken grinned mirthlessly.
“The Loyalist attack happened, and we were beaten back. But there were no carriages. There was no violent resistance. The guards locked everypony inside the building in the basement except for Scootaloo.” He took a shuddering breath.
“They broke her wheelchair, then set the building on fire. When she tried to crawl towards it, Pip broke her working legs. Then he stepped on her back, holding her on the ground as he tore out her wings with his teeth. He ripped out the flight tendons, tied them together, wrapped them in a noose around her neck, and hanged her after forcing her to watch the building collapse on her followers.”
Broken stood as Pinkie began to cry. Rainbow quickly grabbed her and held her close, rocking her love back and forth in an attempt to comfort her, as she gave a horrified stare at Pip. This stare was matched by everyone gathered there except Broken and Pip himself.
Broken glanced around, happier with the current reactions. As he opened the door to his room, he decided to twist the knife a little further, hoping to hit an artery.
“By the way, everypony in the CMFM was under the age of sixteen. Entrance requirement.
Pip burned seventy foals to death.”
Then he walked into his room and slid the door shut.
There was a period of time in which nopony moved. Fourteen pairs of eyes locked frozen onto the pinto stallion currently occupying a space against the wall behind Twilight Sparkle. He met each gaze evenly, not blinking as Rarity stood, took several steps away, and vomited. The last eyes he met were Twilight’s, and it was she who broke the silence of voice.
“Did… you… was he…”
“I am unsure as to your attempted inquiry, Milady.”
“Was he telling the truth?” She finally choked out. Applejack shivered, getting up and moving to hold Rarity.
“As I have said before, Milady, Broken’s rec-“
“ANSWER ME!” Twilight roared. Everyone but Pip jumped at the anger in her voice, including her, surprised at how rapidly her voice had returned. Shining whispered something to the guards, who nodded and quickly marched to the end of the hall, and then whispered something to Celestia, who nodded and whispered something back. Pip coughed before speaking.
“Yes and no, Milady.”
“Explain. Now.” Twilight’s voice was tense, even as she tried to control it.
“Broken’s depictions of events was inaccurate in the details, but generally truthful, Milady.”
“Keep going.”
Pip inhaled. “He was inaccurate in his claim that the CMFM members were locked in the basement and had the burning building collapse on them. The majority of the CMFM were arrested on suspicion of aiding terrorism; some were prosecuted and sent to the labour and education camps, others volunteered to join the Guard as recompense for their actions. About eight of the seventy CMFM members were officially unaccounted for, and it is believed that they were the ponies in the basement with the gryphons. I hasten to mention that unjustified violent action against guardsponies, which everypony in the basement was guilty of based upon the bodies of the guards that were recovered, is an offence punished by death no matter the pony.” Pip took in another breath. “He was also inaccurate in his depiction of Scootaloo’s execution.”
“So you didn’t… do… what he said you did?”
“Not as such, Milady. To execute a pony in such a brutal manner is highly impractical. Scootaloo was killed by my hoof severing her spinal cord long before the building was set aflame. However, Broken’s depiction of the actions taken upon Scootaloo’s body were accurate, save for the breaking of her legs.”
“So you did… you did tear out her wings, just… after she was dead?” Twilight asked. Pip nodded. “Why?”
“Your Ladyship had ordered me to make an example of her for the other groups that would aid terrorists and oppose democracy and freedom, Milady. It seemed effective; ninety-five of the one-hundred eight registered resistance groups disbanded within a month.”
“What the BUCK?!” Applejack yelled. Twilight turned to her in surprise.
“AJ?”
The earth pony turned, placing a hoof on the side of her head. “They’re both tellin’ the truth, Twi. Pip had seventy foals burned, but he had most of them arrested instead, an’ Scootaloo had her wings ripped off before she was dead an’ after she was dead an-“ The farmer gritted her teeth, growling as she rubbed her head. “It don’t make sense, it can’t have worked like that, but neither of them is lyin’, Twi! It’s really messing me up, here!”
“I have an idea.” Rainbow spoke up. The group’s focus shifted to her. “Just hold on a bit with me here, but what if they are both right? What if both what Pip said and what Broken said actually happened?”
“Rainbow, what are you-“
“Oh! Oooooooh! I get it!” Pinkie interrupted. “Broken came here from one timeline thingy and Pip came here from another timeline thingy!”
Applejack, Twilight, and everypony else stared at the pair, eyes somehow becoming wider. Pip sneezed.
“That is, based on the current information, a reasonable assumption, Lady Thalia, but Broken and I were sent back to this timeline by the same pony, from the same timeline. I was, in point of fact, deliberately sent back in order to retard his efforts to kill her Ladyship in the ‘past’. The possibility that I would somehow appear within minutes and kilometres of his arrival, in the same timeline, if launched by an independent source, is infinitesimally small.”
Pinkie and Rainbow both deflated slightly. “What’s your explanation, then?” Rainbow asked sullenly.
“Simple. Broken’s injuries and irrational hatred of Lady Dawn’s free and democratic governance have likely contributed to a corruption in his memory of events pertaining to the Revolution. It is probable that his memory of the CMFM raid is absent, and that he has invented memories using general knowledge from the incident in order to overcome this perceived weakness, convincing himself that the falsehoods he claimed to have happened were factually accurate in order to justify his crusade against harmony and freedom. Due to this, he would more than likely come across as telling the truth when in fact stating fabrications.”
The Princesses, Twilight, Shining, Spike, and the doctor began slowly nodding at Pip’s explanation. Everypony else gave him blank stares.
“Can you repeat that?” Rainbow asked. Twilight spoke before Pip.
“He said that Broken probably made up fake memories and convinced himself that they were real.”
“Oh. Right, that makes total sense…” Rainbow rolled her eyes. Twilight returned the focus to Pip.
“But how do we know that you haven’t done the same thing, convinced yourself that Dawn never did anything wrong when she was actually doing horrible things like what Broken said she did?” She asked. Pip blinked.
“Because her Ladyship never-“
“AH-AH-AH!” Twilight cut him off. “When you’re talking with us, Pip, just try pretending that Dawn isn’t infallible. It might do you some good. Try to convince us that your account is the more accurate one without just saying ‘Dawn said so’.”
Pip blinked again. “As you say, Milady. I-”
“Wait!” Twilight spoke up again. “I want you to swear to me that you’re going by your own memories only. Nothing of what Dawn said happened that you cannot verify from a source other than Dawn.”
“I have never intended to deliver you false information, Milady.”
“Then you should have no problem swearing an oath that ensures that you don’t, should you?”
“Of course not, Milady.” Pip took a breath. “I hereby swear upon my duty as First Guard, the greatness of Equestria, the power of self-determination, the grace, honour, and leadership of her Ladyship Theia Rising Dawn, that I shall only give information that has been demonstrated to be truthful and accurate by a source other than her Ladyship Theia Rising Dawn.”
Twilight nodded. “Thank you, Pip. Now go on.”
Pip nodded back. “Thank you, Milady. While I cannot say that I am a completely unbiased source, I endeavour to be more accurate to reality than Broken Shield has been. Firstly, I would like to point out that Broken Shield would have been unable to observe the events at the CMFMHQ, due to the massive security presence that was only momentarily overcome by a sudden, direct attack. There were no vantage points from which Broken could have determined the presence – or lack of presence – of police carriages. His charge down the street towards our location had his focus largely on the guardsponies he was attacking. After his fleeing the scene, every nearby building was combed, magic trails searched – there was no rebel presence within several kilometres.
“As such, it is impossible that he would have been able to gain information on the CMFM events except by third-hoof knowledge, through which it would have likely been greatly distorted before even entering his damaged mind. As well, the idea that all seventy members of the CMFM were burned to death in the basement, that no gryphons were present, and by extension that no guards were killed, directly flies in the face of public record. Guardspony records demonstrate the loss of life of the Risen Guard Second Lane, Sergeant Double Point, Private Stal-“
“We don’t need the names, Pip.” Twilight interrupted.
“My apologies, Milady. As I was saying, guardspony records for that day specify that a number of guards were killed in attempted breaches of the basement’s main room, as well as the count of those killed in the building’s collapse. There were eight pony bodies removed from the rubble, as well as eleven gryphons and twenty gryphon eggs – not the seventy ponies that Broken Shield claimed.
"Guardspony records also specify the prosecution of those ponies of the CMFM old enough to be held legally accountable for aiding terrorist actions, the processing of those ponies too young to be held criminally accountable into orphanage and foster care placements, which accounted for forty-eight of the sixty-two arrested, and other such documentation. Some of the older members volunteered to join the Guard rather than serve time in labour and education camps, and guardspony records had their identification and status as former CMFM members on file. Broken Shield himself killed several of them during a raid on a Ponyville Guard station.”
“It’s fine that you claim those records to exist, Pip, but we cannot access them here.” Celestia said. Pip nodded.
“I am well aware of the limitations of information forced by the situation, Princess. However, as her Ladyship has obtained my oath to informational accuracy, I would hope that you would judge the information I am passing on as more likely to be more accurate than Broken Shield’s claims.” Pip took in a breath.
“Bringing me to my second point. As your knowledge of the events of what could be called ‘the future’ are based solely on Broken Shield’s and now my claims, a certain amount of personal judgement on the likelihood of the occurring events is necessary. Which of the two claims sounds more reasonable? That seventy foals were burned to death and their leader forced to watch while she was put through an extremely brutal and painful torture? Or that eight ponies and a group of non-ponies who had murdered guardsponies were themselves killed after their leader was painlessly and efficiently executed, with the non-violent suspects simply arrested and put through proper legal channels? Which of the two claims sounds less like a sensationalist tabloid and more like realistic, factual information? Which of the two events sounds more likely for her Ladyship Twilight Sparkle to have ordered, in accordance with the pony that you have known for at least several years if not decades?”
Pip’s entire speech had been done without inflection or emotion, sounding to Twilight like an effort to reinforce its message that it was simply fact without embellishment. She took this with a grain of salt – Pip had used the same voice when talking about anything, including espousing ‘equine superiority’.
“Dawn was not necessarily the same pony that Twilight is today…” Celestia spoke again.
“I am aware, Princess, but surely you in your millennia of experience and observation can determine easily which of these two events is more likely to have occurred in reality?”
The Solar Princess nodded. “I can, Pip. You have very strongly made your case. But personal conjecture is not necessarily accurate.”
“Again, I am aware of the irrevocable limitations placed on your knowledge, Princess. ‘Personal conjecture’ is the only choice available to you that does not involve actually reading our memories.”
There was silence for a time after this. The doctor excused himself into Broken’s room “To make sure the bloody subplot didn’t break anything else trying to move without magic”, in his own words. Everpony else wore looks of silent contemplation.
Everypony except Applejack. The farmpony looked around the group with increasingly angry eyes.
“Oh, don’t tell me you all are just gonna accept this!” She finally yelled. “Sure, he might be ‘more accurate’ than Broken, but his version still has him kill eight foals and a dozen other intelligent bein’s!”
Pip spoke up. “The number of gryphons killed in the fire was one less than a dozen-“
“Oh grease it and shove it up yer plothole!” She snapped at the stalwart stallion. “So y’killed nineteen instead of twenty! Big flyin’ whoop! Ah’m guessin’ by the eggs that not all of the gryphons were full grown either, were they?”
“The probable ages of the ponies in the basement ranged between fourteen and sixteen. The gryphons were for the most part either adults or nearly full grown, with one fledgling and two adolescents.”
“Great! So yer willin’ t’admit t’murderin’ eleven young folks, then? Or orderin’ their killin’?”
“As I said before, every being in the basement was determined to have contributed to the murder of at least six guardsponies, counting only those killed attempting to enter the basement. Killing anypony without their directly attempting to kill you is a death-penalty offence.”
“How the buck can eleven CHILDREN be counted under that law?!” Applejack roared. Pip blinked.
“After age fourteen, a pony can be tried as an adult if their crime is considered serious enough. This is true even in modern Equestria.” Pip and Applejack both glanced at Celestia, who nodded. “As First Guard of the Revolution, I was given the authority to serve as judge, jury, and, if need be, executioner for crimes I bore witness to, similar to the power the Captain of the Royal Guard possesses. This power was not appointed, as his was, but instead voted upon and determined an acceptable power to be given to the station.”
“That is true.” Shining gave a sorry glance at Applejack. “If somepony performs a crime in front of me, I’m allowed to pass reasonable judgement on them. I’m supposed to put it through the courts like a regular guard, but if the crime’s something like ‘attempted murder of a Princess’, well…” he shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I’ve killed anypony, but the option is technically there.”
“Y’can’t’ve just known that everypony down there wanted t’kill those guards…” Applejack was still furious, but said fury was somewhat muted.
“Their refusal to surrender themselves to proper legal process, as was offered before the attempted basement breach, provided a convincing enough evidence of their guilt, Applejack.”
“An’ how d’you know that they were even offered a way out?”
“Simple. I sent a Risen Guard down to aid in the breach. If she herself did not make the offer, then she would have ensured that somepony did. Anypony found to have assaulted the basement without first offering a peaceful option of arrest would have been summarily executed for fifth degree protocol violation.”
“An’… an’ the gryphons?”
“The gryphons were unregistered non-ponies living in a noted resistance group’s headquarters. Even had they not been killed in the building’s collapse, they would likely have all been destroyed as dangerous animals, befitting their status.”
“Pip, we talked about this…” Twilight warned.
“Milady, the conversation that we had yesterday introduced me to the knowledge that non-ponies can occasionally overcome natural pony superiority. I have not yet received any evidence that points towards creatures such as gryphons, Diamond Dogs, minotaurs, etcetera, to be regularly on par with ponies, or even the lesser equines, in any measure of worth. While some non-pony species are stronger by nature, they are slaves to their animalistic instincts, universally less intelligent and more aggressive, unable to rise from the dirt that they spawned in. Pony superiority can easily be determined by comparing Equestria’s standard of living, technological and scientific advancement, political stability, inherent peacefulness, and other such measurements to the universally horrible conditions of Gryphonia and Draconia.”
Applejack stared at the stallion, wide eyed, as he finished his calmly vitriolic speech. She opened her jaw, but all that came out was a squeal of air. The farmmare blinked several times before sitting down heavily, placing her hooves on the sides of her head, and leaning into Rarity. Luna stepped forward.
“Whether or not you were justified in your ordering their deaths, I still do not view the initial attack on the… Cutie Mark Freedom Movement, was it? The initial attack was not adequately justified.”
“The group was operating as a front in Ponyville for two known violent terrorist groups, the Loyalists and the Shadowbolts. The raid was an attempt to destroy their capability to aid violent action against civilians and to gather evidence that could be used to inarguably demonstrate their guilt. Both goals were achieved.”
“Even if that is true, I still do not view such harsh action as necessary against foals, Pip…”
The stallion tilted his head. “Princess, I feel the need to remind you that I am currently fifteen years old chronologically. I led the raid at the age of twelve. The vast majority of Risen Guards were inducted and Raised between the ages of eight and thirteen, and it was very common for guardsponies that fell in the line of duty to be killed by foal members of terrorist organizations. A pony’s age does not lessen their capability for heroics or for villainy.”
“Is that how you view the conflict, Pip? Between heroes and villains?”
“Of course. The good ponies are those who support her Ladyship, and the bad ponies are the ponies who don’t, or the ponies her Ladyship says are bad. Any definition of friend or foe beyond those points is irrelevant to my occupation.”
Luna stepped back, nodding as if something she had been wondering had suddenly had the answer presented. Celestia cleared her throat.
“There are two terms in your explanation that I am curious about, Pip. Raising and… stepping, was it?”
The stallion nodded. “Raising is the process in which Risen Guards are created; a pony who has undergone training for a period of minimum six months takes an oath to faithfully and unquestioningly serve her Ladyship and Equestria, unto and past death. This pony is then Raised; they are granted the physiology and mental capacity of an adult pony of approximately twenty to twenty-five years of age, as well as a restriction on mental processes such as emotion that may lead to irrational decisions. Orphaned foals were often encouraged to enter Risen training to allow them to contribute to Equestrian society, though the training was entirely voluntary and could be backed out of at any time without repercussions.
“Stepping is the term used for my ability to move extremely quickly; another term is ‘flash stepping’, due to the common misconception that it allows for faster-than-light movement. The technique was taught to all Risen earth ponies by Lady Thalia.”
“Just the earth ponies?” Celestia inquired. “Why not the pegasi or unicorns?”
“Two reasons, Princess. The first is that neither pegasi nor unicorns have the proper skeletal or muscular structure to properly step without causing extreme damage to their bodies. One unicorn who was taught it lost both hind legs halfway through his two-metre step; the muscles and joints all catastrophically failed when put under the strain required. In earth ponies, our naturally-stronger body tissue structure appears to be better capable to handle the rapid movement and extreme shifts in muscular tension.” Pip took a breath. “The second reason is a matter of tribal equality. Her Ladyship believed that earth ponies needed a means of transportation unique to our tribe, as the unicorns have with teleportation and the pegasi with flight. In that way, her Ladyship ensured that there was another less reason for tribalists to view any tribe as inherently inferior or superior to any other tribe.”
“I see. You mentioned that Risen Guards are often orphans, between eight and thirteen years old?”
“That is correct.”
“So you have no objections to the use of foals as soldiers? Placing them in dangerous conditions, forcing them, apparently often, to kill other beings?”
“Again, Princess, I myself would be considered by age as a foal during most of the Revolution, and I am still not yet an adult. Yet, should you ask the doctor that has attended Broken Shield, he would likely put my physical age at around twenty or twenty-five, a decade older than what I am chronologically. Her Ladyship took great effort to ensure that no foals were entered into war situations intentionally; Risen Guards are simply ponies that grew up very quickly.”
“Thank you, Pip. I must say, you are remarkably open for a pony supposedly our enemy.” Celestia gave a light laugh.
“I am still opposed to your oppressive regime, Princess. Her Ladyship has ordered that I maintain civility with you, and in any case I do not intend for you to be able to effectively utilize this information against the Revolution before I kill you.”
Any tension that had been lost during Pip’s explanation very quickly returned at the last three words. Silence returned as ponies shifted, some to further their distance from Pip and others to better keep an eye on him. Twilight brought her hoof up to rub between her eyes. Broken’s door opened.
“We done now? Good. Waiting for a good few wasted minutes in there.” The doctor squeezed out from behind the door, closing it quietly. At the looks on everypony’s face, he appeared to go through several possible conversations in his head before discarding them. “Right. So, ‘Broken Shield’ is currently sleeping. I’m going to get him on a high energy intake diet for the next three days or so, just so we can heal the most threatening things wrong with him. He’s also going to need a good… oh, twenty or so hours of sleep a day.” The doctor flicked a glance at Celestia before returning his eyes to the clipboard. “Essentially, all of you need to leave now and stay the hay away from him for four or five days. Ah-ah!” He held a hoof up, cutting off Twilight’s protest. “Please, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t actually make me invoke patient’s rights privileges to get a restraining order on you for him. I’m not enough of an idiot to not recognize that wherever you and your friends go, things happen. And things happening is the exact opposite of what this patient, or any patient here, needs right now. So kindly go bake a giant cake, or help solve a diplomatic crisis, or save Equestria from an unspeakable evil for the, what, fifth time? I don’t give a damn. Just keep it the buck away from my hospital.”
Twilight and Shining both looked like they were going to protest, but Celestia raised a hoof. She stood, taking a few steps down towards the exit. “I believe that we can afford Broken Shield some time to recuperate, can we not?” Twilight reluctantly nodded. “Good. So let’s get out of the good doctor’s mane, shall we?”
As everypony stood, the doctor spoke again. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten your condition, Princess. You have fifty-six minutes of being up and about before I strap you into bed and start reading you The Complete Works of Soft Dreams.”
Celestia tripped, darkly muttering what almost sounded like words. Luna snorted and began giggling, but the laughs sounded slightly odd to Twilight. The rest of the ponies (and Spike) followed the Princesses, Rarity and Applejack leaning on each other for support. Behind them, the doctor shook his head and walked down the hall in the opposite direction.
Behind him, Shining slipped into Broken’s room.
Broken Shield lay with his back to the door. He despised the depravation of sight, but he could hear well enough, and if he looked asleep-
Clik creee
Well, speak of Tartarus…
Broken maintained his façade as the pony took slow steps towards his cot. He twitched slightly, groaned, and shifted a small amount. Broken felt the pony come up behind him.
“Fine.” Shining took a breath before continuing. “I, personally, think that you’re a lying sack of pony-processed hay. Pip’s… just bucking insane, I guess. I have no doubt that my sister and your Dawn – the one you saw, the one he saw, whichever one of you isn’t lying - are separate ponies. But…” Another breath. A dull thump sounded as a wrapped object dropped onto Broken’s bedside table. “I have a duty to protect Equestria. Every claim must be investigated, every threat recognized…
“Watch yourself from now on.” Shining turned to leave, adding on a final point. “I need to get back to Cadance. This won’t help you use magic again, that’s the Princ-“
“How the buck did you know that? I wasn’t even near the door, and you were unconscious!”
Broken ignored him. “Alicorns don’t get sick, boy. Cadance only ever got ill twice that I know of – once before the wedding, and once when she was carrying Dazzle.”
Shining stared at him in confusion for a moment. Then the gears clicked.
“She… dear Faust, she’s… we’re…”
Broken began muttering, apparently having lost notice of his young double. “Three years, four months, Three years, four months, three years, four months…”
Broken began to laugh, tears running down his face as he repeated himself, not caring that Shining had turned and fled from the room. He laughed harder and harder, until his breath came in gasps and left in retches. He took a moment to calm himself, and in the clarity remembered Shining’s package. He turned his head to look at the cloth-wrapped item, waiting a moment before grabbing the package with his hoof and unwrapping it.
Broken began to laugh again as his horn was returned to him.
Twilight blinked, looking up from the table. Luna had led everypony to the room Twilight had awoken in, in order to better organize how the next few days would be arranged. Celestia had only stayed a moment before departing, claiming that she was ‘going for a walk’. Pip had claimed to have heard the doctor calling for her several minutes later, though his comment had been forgotten after an hour of rather uneventful discussion.
“Twilight?” Spike again.
“Wha? Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Did he even come with us?”
“He did not, Milady.” Pip spoke. He stepped out of his corner to address her. “Shining Armor stayed behind to return Broken Shield’s horn to him.”
“What?!” Rainbow placed her hooves on the table, her wings flaring. “Why would he give that maniac his horn back?”
“While I was being questioned by her Ladyship, Shining conferred with Princess Celestia, who gave him permission to return the horn given that its presence had no effect on Broken Shield’s magical ability, nor would it affect the lock she had placed on his magic.”
“So what? He tried to kill Twilight! If it messes with him they sho-“
“Rainbow, dear, would you like me to clip your wings off?” Several ponies turned with wide eyes at Rarity, not the least the prismatic pony she had addressed. She had somehow maintained a slightly green complexion from her sickness after Pip’s story, and that colour deepened as she realized what she had said. “Oh, my, that sounded off, didn’t it? I didn’t mean that to sound like anything violent, dear, only that it would be a similar thing to a unicorn losing their horn. Horrible business, in any case…” she shivered. Applejack stood, walking towards the white unicorn.
Rarity blinked, her face continuing to green under her fur as Applejack reached her. “I… I’m not sure, dear…” She made an odd gurgling sound in her throat and suddenly lurched forward, staying completely still for a moment before just-as-suddenly standing, stepping out of Applejack’s embrace and rushing for the door. It launched open in a wave of magic, and the fashionista quickly disappeared around the corner. Applejack shot a look of mixed fear and confusion at the room before hastily getting up and rushing after her lover. Everypony stared at the door for a moment before a loud retching sound echoed up the hall.
“Oh dear…” Fluttershy mumbled. Luna brought a hoof up to rub between her eyes, her horn glowing and the door closing.
“There is a bathroom attached to this room. Why did she not simply use it instead of adding to the janitorial duties?” She shook her head. “I do hope that this ‘bug’ passes by without claiming any more important ponies as Princess Cadance and the Element of Generosity.”
“Princess Cadance’s illness is likely not caused by any viral or bacterial infection, Princess Luna.” Pip stated. She gave him a guardedly confused look, and he continued. “Given my approximation of the current time and date-“
“May 21 1002 ANM.” Spike rattled off instantly. Pip gave him a blank look before continuing.
“Thank you, Spike. Given the current date, it is likely that Princess Cadance is suffering from-“
“PREGNANT!”
Everypony (including Spike, excepting Pip) jumped as the door slammed open. Shining cantered in, a giant smile across his face. He jumped on the table, rearing and throwing his hooves into the air.
“I AM GOING TO BE A FATHER!”
Everypony (and Spike) stared at him in silence for approximately thirty seconds. His expression didn’t change even as he met their stares, dismounted the table and pranced around the group in a decidedly un-professional fashion before exiting the room; the suddenness of the captain’s entrance and exit left everypony rather off-guard. Luna coughed.
“Well, that was-“
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE A BABY!” Pinkie suddenly screeched. She appeared to be vibrating with excitement. “A BABY A BABY A BABY A ROYAL BABY! That means a royal baby shower! That means a royal PARTY!” The hyperactive pink mare’s vibrations became more extreme, her bouncing actually sending shocks through the solid stone floor to the other ponies. Rainbow was grinning as well, nodding at Twilight.
“Congrats goes to you, I guess. I need to get her out of here before she explodes.” The pegasus grabbed her marefriend, lifting off and shakily flying out of the room with her excitedly-volatile payload.
Luna spoke again, some concern in her voice as she called after the pegasus. “Wait a moment, Rainbow Dash, we have still not-“ She cut herself off as she saw the other pegasus moving towards the door. “Wait, Fluttershy!” The pale pegasus stopped. “My sister specifically stated that she wanted us to remain here until she returned! We still have not fully organized the next few days’ activities!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Princess, but I’m sure Princess Celestia wouldn’t mind us going out for just a little while, and we don’t really need to have everything on a timetable; I mean, I don’t mind if we do, but sometimes things like this just happen, and we can’t really predict them. It’s not a bad thing to have some empty time that we can use to do something unexpected.” Luna’s eye twitched, and Fluttershy sank away from her. “Oh, um, I need to go because if I don’t tell Rarity about this she’ll get really, um, not happy about not hearing about it and I’m going to go tell her now and please don’t be angry…” the shy mare rushed out of the room, closing the door swiftly and gently. Twilight blinked at the air.
“I’m going to be an aunt?” She gave a small laugh. “This… this feels weird…”
“Yeah, and what does that make me now? Step-uncle? Cousin? Family pet?” Spike joked. Twilight laughed.
“I fail to see the importance of this revelation, Milady. Broken Shield had notified you of the existence of a foal born to Shining and Cadance several days after he arrived here.” Pip stated flatly.
“Well, yes, Pip, but-“
“EXACTLY!” Luna yelled. Twilight turned to her in surprise, stepping back slightly as she saw the anger on the Princess’ face. “This shouldn’t be exciting news! We already knew about it! Why did everypony leave if we already knew the information?!” Her glare turned on Twilight, and the purple mare shrank back. Pip moved in between the two. “I had said, Celestia had said, that we were all to remain here!”
“Princess, please, it’s not-“
“DO NOT INTERRUPT ME!” Luna bellowed, Royal Canterlot Voice amplifying an already loud command. “I AM A PRINCESS! YOU WILL HEAR ME!” Twilight winced back more, Spike coming around Pip and grabbing hold of her leg. Pip exhaled roughly through his nose, putting his forehooves slightly forward and bending his back down; Twilight was reminded of the Discorded Rainbow Dash’s behaviour when she had been brought to the ground, albeit less overtly angered. Luna continued with her tirade. “I HAVE SEEN TOO MANY TIMES MY SISTER AND PRINCESS CADANCE TREATED AS COMMON PONIES! WE ARE THE RULERS OF EQUESTRIA! IT WAS NOT SO LONG AGO THAT SUCH A TITLE AS PRINCESS COMMANDED RESPECT BY ALL WHO ADDRESSED US! NOW I AM OVERRULED BY MY SUBJECTS’ WHIMS! MY AND MY SISTER’S ORDERS DEFIED, WITH CONTEMPTUOUS DISREGARD FOR PROPRIETY! WHO AM I TO BE IGNORED?! WHO?!?” She roared this question at Pip, who laid his ears back in response to the volume. He took a breath.
“You are currently acting as the pony who was banished to the moon one-thousand and two years ago.” At Luna’s shocked expression, he turned to Twilight. “Would you wish me to find Princess Celestia and inform her that Nightmare Moon has returned, Milady?”
“PIP!” Twilight shrieked. Behind the stoic stallion, Luna blinked. She began slowly stepping backwards, moving further away from him until her the base of her tail touched the table. Her expression was a mix of shock and horror, and she slid down into a sitting position, one hoof raising and feeling along her face.
“Milady?” Pip responded. Luna began taking in shallow, quick breaths, and Twilight found herself at a loss for words.
“That... just… that was… just leave!” She waved a hoof at him. “Now! Go! Get out of here! Stay away from everypony until I call you back!”
“As you say, Milady.” The stallion disappeared; Twilight heard a quick, oiled screech and clik and felt a dull wave of air spreading from the door. Twilight took a breath before turning and observing Luna. The Princess’ breaths had deepened but not slowed, and she had two hooves up, hiding her face behind her cannons. She was rocking slightly, back and forth.
“Princess?” Twilight asked. She turned to Spike, speaking as quietly as she could. “Tell Princess Celestia to get back here as soon as she can.”
“How?” Spike whispered. Twilight facehoofed, grabbing a slip of parchment from the floor (knocked off by Shining’s activities) and breathing on it. Spike took a moment before he did the dragon version of a facehoof (Faceclaw? Twilight wondered) and grabbed the parchment, as well as an inkwell and quill. He took his load to the corner and began writing, leaving Twilight to face the Princess again.
“Princess?” She repeated. Luna looked up at her through traumatized eyes. The lunar mare stopped breathing for a moment, and words tumbled out of her mouth.
“I-I… I’m… I’m not, I’m not her, not her, no, no, no…”
Twilight immediately felt a spike of ice launch up her back. She quickly trotted over to the Princess, brushing wisps of ethereal mane back into the larger mass on the alicorn’s head. Luna jerked away from the contact.
“Princess, I need you to look at me, okay?” Twilight said. The Princess didn’t respond, her breathing staying hard and fast. By the way her chest heaved, she was well towards hyperventilation. “Princess!” More force was with the word, and Luna actually appeared to hear her.
“I, I’m not, I can’t, she, she didn’t, I didn’t-“ The alicorn blathered. Twilight placed a hoof on the diarch, and though there was a recoil, Luna didn’t fully remove herself from the contact.
“Princess, listen to me. I want you to look me in the eyes, alright? Can you please do that, Princess?” Twilight made sure to put some subservience into her voice; Luna had been put into this mindset by an authoritarian tone, and Twilight acting like she knew better than the Princess probably wouldn’t work for dragging her out of it. The Princess jerkily nodded, still rocking back and forth but with calmer breathing. She turned her head, and Twilight was faced with the eyes again, eyes filled with an odd mix of terror and self-hatred. Twilight took in a breath.
“Princess Luna. That is your name.” The alicorn nodded again. “Not Nightmare Moon. No!” Twilight tightened her grip as Luna quailed, magicking a hold on the Princess and gently twisting her to face Twilight again. “You need to hear that name without fear, Princess. You are Princess Luna. You are not Nightmare Moon.” She carefully pronounced the name again. Luna winced, but everything else maintained. “I’m not going to pretend that I understand what you went through when Nightmare Moon was in control. I cannot imagine the horror you must have felt. But you can, and you need to remind yourself that you can overcome it, you will overcome it, and you have overcome it. You are in power, you are in control, you are a Princess of Equestria. If you hadn’t beaten ‘that bitch’, as your sister so aptly described her, then I wouldn’t be here, Spike wouldn’t be here, and you wouldn’t be here. The Elements of Harmony helped, but you beat Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna. She’s gone, all of her deception and hatred and selfishness is gone, and you – only you – remain.” Twilight took in another breath. “Okay, Princess?”
Luna stared at her, her eyes widened and wetted with unshed tears. Her hooves had lowered, as had her jaw, and her breathing had become almost normal again. Twilight heard Spike breathe fire, and she was glad that she’d managed to get Luna back to normal before Celestia had come.
That gladness was obliterated as the Princess of the Night brought her hooves to her face and let out a keening wail. Twilight actually jumped back in surprise, and stepped further back as Luna fully extended her wings, wrapping them around herself.
“Prin-“
“The wings!” Luna shrilly moaned. “The wings, you lost them and they were there again…” She shivered, the egg shape of her wing-barrier shaking and beginning to tilt forward. Twilight’s ear tipped back, the other one twitching forward.
“Princess?”
“I-in your dreamscape… you had wings… you were an alicorn again… and I didn’t tell you…” The Princess’ breath hitched, and she began hiccoughing. Several thin sounds, much like hooves hitting floorstones, emitted from under the door, followed by two muffled voices. Twilight ignored them.
“It’s, um, it’s really not a big deal, Princess, you don’t need to worry about it…” The unicorn tried to placate the alicorn. She was about to try to make up another longwinded speech when a very loud, floor-shaking voice punctured the door.
“BAR ME FROM MY SISTER AND YOU SHALL TREAT WOUNDS IN THE SEVENTH LEVEL OF TARTARUS.”
Everything went very, very quiet, and then there was a shuffling sound and another muffled voice. The door opened, quickly admitting a white alicorn before being slammed shut again hard enough to wrench the hinges. Celestia moved silently, sitting down in front of Luna’s form and wrapping her own wings around her sister. There was a moment of stillness, and then another cry and a sudden shift in shape of the alicorn duo. Luna dove into Celestia’s embrace, burying her face between her sister’s neck and wing. She sobbed, and Celestia began rocking slowly back and forth, whispering words inaudible to Twilight. The unicorn quickly grabbed Spike and teleported to the other side of the door.
“Oh, that figures…” she heard a voice say. Blinking, she turned around to find the doctor from before. He raised a hoof and waved it at the door. “See? This, this kind of thing is exactly why I wanted you away from the castle hospital. I don’t want to know what happened to get Princess Luna like this, but I need to know if she’s injured.”
Twilight shook her head. “Pi- somepony said she was acting like Nightmare Moon.”
“That is literally the exact opposite of my instructions.” The doctor deadpanned. Twilight blushed.
“Um, no, she’s not hurt physically…”
The doctor gave a sigh of relief. “Thank Faust… treating an alicorn isn’t exactly something I want to do anytime soon. The mixture of pegasus and unicorn and earth pony physiology…” he shuddered theatrically. “So the one-eyed guy did this? The one that managed to shrug off a punctured lung?”
“Er, yeah…”
The doctor whistled. “Wouldn’t want to get on his bad side…”
Twilight blinked, thoughts mentioning an incongruity. “Did the Princesses-“
“I know all about the timeline thing. Sounds like a crock to me, but ‘Broken’ is nearly identical to Captain Armor. Just give him an extra hundred pounds, take the scars off, replace his eye and ribs…” The stallion trailed off. “Anyways, I need to get back to my watch. Please inform the Princess that we need to discuss her recovery methods and why exactly she gave the patient his horn back.”
“Would his horn be a problem without magic?”
The doctor paused at that, blinking and beginning to speak before biting his hoof. “Oh, for fucrklegerben… yes, it would, okay? It just would.”
The doctor turned sharply on his hooves, walking away from the door almost angrily. Spike gave an odd look after him, but Twilight returned her attention to the door. The sobs had mostly ceased, and it was nearly silent on the other side. Spike noticed her and walked over, putting his ear to the door.
“Sounds like Princess Luna stopped-“
The door shook several times. A loud sigh emanated from inside, and the door suddenly jerked inwards, tearing part of the wall out as the busted hinges protested the movement. Spike stepped back as Celestia entered the hall, a wisp of magic closing the door more gently. Celestia gave a tired look at Twilight before sighing again.
“I am sorry that you had to see that, Twilight. Luna is typically more controlled…”
“She didn’t do anything wrong, Princess.” Twilight quickly stated. “Pip called her Nightmare Moon because she was yelling about everypony leaving.”
“That part is what I was referring to, Twilight. I have been trying to help her adjust, but she still holds some… classical views on relations between royalty and ‘commoners’.”
“She does? She seemed okay with me when I became a Princess, and after Pinkie stopped scaring everypony she was fine at Nightmare Night…”
Celestia gave a small laugh. “I am aware. As I said, she is usually more controlled, able to recognize when she is overstepping the bounds of modern royal expectations. Tonight, however, she seems rather stressed.”
There was the sound of a bookshelf falling. Twilight and Spike both stared at the door, while Celestia didn’t respond at all.
“Is she okay in there?” Spike asked.
“Oh, she’s fine. After such events as just happened she simply takes some time to calm down.” Another bookshelf fell. “She feels to need to reorganize as a calming mechanism. It helps to clear her mind and allow her to think things through in a proper manner.” There was the very distinct sound of a chandelier crashing to the ground, and several lengths of glass shot into the door, sticking a few inches out of the wood. Celestia’s face didn’t change, though she quickly swept Twilight and Spike up in a magical aura and walked in a very controlled manner away from the room. Celestia spoke again, her voice as calm as before.
“Lulu can get a little enthusiastic sometimes…”
“I still don’t see why we’re doing this…” Rainbow Dash complained.
Twilight, Rainbow, Pinkie, and Fluttershy travelled along the path to the Everfree Castle, the morning light of Celestia’s sun giving them some comfort along the journey. They were accompanied by Pip, whom Twilight had called back to keep an eye on, and Shining Armor, whom Celestia had ordered gone to “expel some of the ecstatic energy released by the wonderful news of Princess Cadance’s pregnancy”.
That energy wasn’t openly present anymore; Shining had quickly adopted the cautious tension needed to traverse the Everfree safely. Pip was the only pony present to appear completely unconcerned.
“I mean, the Castle’s blown up, right? The Princess should be sending a construction crew, not us.” The prismatic pegasus continued. Pip and Shining opened their mouths at the same time, taking in a breath and glancing at each other, Shining in mild surprise and Pip exactly as Pip stared at anything else. The latter closed his mouth and nodded, the former speaking.
“First, we were the ponies present there, so she wants us to see if we can remember when everything started blowing up. Which buildings detonated first, which ones were standing before the bombs, stuff like that.”
“Couldn’t Pip just tell us? He went and grabbed a bunch of the bombs, didn’t he?”
“Rainbow Dash is correct; I remember the order in which the explosives detonated, and could likely place the exact times if given a frame of reference.’
“See?”
“The second reason,” Shining continued. “is that Princess Celestia wanted to investigate herself, but Dr. Shelter’s being… difficult, so she decided to have ponies who already knew what happened and that she could trust check it out; that way, there would be less of a chance of somepony blabbing to the press that a major historical landmark was destroyed while the Princess was present. The third is so that Princess Celestia could interact with Broken without him having a mental breakdown just because somepony is in the room with him. The fourth is because she wants to keep us out of Princess Luna’s mane after what happened yesterday. The fifth is because we only arranged to have you in Canterlot for a day or two, and the Princess didn’t want you to be forced to stay there doing nothing while your duties in Ponyville go unattended. The sixth-“
“Okay, okay!” Rainbow waved a hoof at the guard captain, and he smirked. “Still don’t see why AJ got out of doing this…”
“She’s sick too, Rainbow.” Twilight mentioned. “That tends to happen when you kiss and hug somepony who has the flu.” Rainbow blushed, and Pinkie began to snicker.
“Yeah, yeah…” the pegasus muttered. “Laugh it up, Pinks. You gave her a ‘feel-better squeeze’, remember?” Pinkie suddenly stopped laughing, giving a sullen pout to Rainbow. The latter mare laughed a small amount before realizing her own fate. “And then we sle- oh, dammit…”
Everypony else quietly moved upwind of the two, hiding small chuckles and mildly worried looks (save Pip, who Twilight guessed was immune anyways). There was a small silence, quickly broken by another conversation.
“Dr. Shelter is the one that swears a lot?” Twilight asked her brother.
“Yeah. You didn’t see his nametag?” The mare shook her head. “Doctor Solid Shelter, Canterlot Castle’s Chief Medical Officer. He’s a bit abrasive, but he’s got a good head and good sense on most things.”
“Broken called him a traitor.” Twilight mentioned. Pip coughed.
“Dr. Shelter refused to vacate his position when the Princesses were overthrown. He began treating injured Revolutionaries with the same competence and care that he had previously treated Royal Guards. As such, many Loyalists and other rebels we captured viewed him as being one of those who had secretly sided with the Revolution. He was in charge of medical care for prisoners as well, and was severely injured during Broken Shield's second escape from custody.”
Shining snorted, and the trip mostly lapsed into silence. Pinkie coughed, and Rainbow gave a small groan in response. Twilight started hanging back, slowing until she was walking beside Fluttershy.
“Are you okay?” the unicorn asked. Fluttershy nodded.
“I didn’t mean for Princess Luna to get mad…”
“It wasn’t your fault, Fluttershy. The Princess… she was stressed. That’s all. Pip didn’t help.”
“I’m worried about him too.” Fluttershy said. Twilight gave him a look, and she continued. “Twilight, he’s fifteen. He shouldn’t be doing things like… killing ponies. And he doesn’t even seem to realize that hurting those ponies and gryphons was wrong! I mean, I can understand that he’s very loyal to Dawn and that she told him to, but he seems to think that it’s okay just because she says it’s okay! That outlook on life, it’s, it’s very childish for somepony in his situation.”
“Might I be allowed to ask how following her Ladyship’s orders would be morally incorrect, Lady Gaia?”
Twilight jumped and Fluttershy meeped as Pip’s voice came from behind them. Twilight turned, hearing Shining mutter a curse. He gave her a look, shaking his head as she waved him off. Fluttershy was trying to stammer out a response.
“Um, I, well, ehm, um-“
“Pip, what she means is that just because Dawn or I or anypony says somepony is bad, that doesn’t mean they’re bad.”
“Why not?”
Twilight blinked. “The world isn’t black and white, Pip. Everypony has good parts and bad parts. Some ponies are not very nice, but it’s not like they suddenly become evil if they disagree with you.”
“I do not believe that they do, Milady. As you say, everypony has good parts and bad parts. But the ponies that are opposed to your Ladyship are quite clearly bad ponies.”
“What makes them bad, though? Their actions or their view?”
“Both, Milady. By opposing the Revolution, they present the view that ponies should not be granted freedom and rights that should belong to everypony. The violent actions conducted by them against innocent civilian and guard populations demonstrates their immorality.”
“But you-“ Fluttershy began. Twilight held up a hoof.
“Pip, I want you to think from the perspective of somepony who opposed the Revolution.”
“Such an action would be incredibly difficult, Milady.”
“Could you just try, please?”
“As you say, Milady.”
“Now imagine this. Instead of being against the Revolution because you hate freedom, imagine that you’re a father, or a big brother, or somepony who has ponies he cares about and wants to keep safe.” Pip nodded. “Now, imagine that a whole bunch of ponies are going around on the street, yelling about how the government, the law, everything that keeps Equestria safe and ordered, these ponies want to change a huge part of that.” Pip nodded, slightly slower this time. “Now imagine that you want to keep everything as it is, or at least you don’t want change to happen as fast as these ponies want it to. You want things to be slower, safer, so that ponies, the ponies you care about, don’t get hurt.”
“But-“
“Hold on, Pip. Do you see where I’m coming from here?”
“Yes, Milady, but-“
“Just hold on a moment, Pip. So imagine that these ponies on the street are told ‘no’. They won’t get the changes they want, because they want things to change too much, or they want changes that won’t work. So the ponies on the street, they don’t accept that what they wanted might not have been the best thing ever. They get angry, they start saying that the Princesses, the government, they don’t need to be changed, they need to be gotten rid of. These ponies start doing things, hurting guards, rioting, stuff like that, right near where you live. If you wanted to protect your family, what would you do?”
Pip took in a breath, staring at Twilight. “I… I would… I would… keep them away from the ponies I’m protecting.”
“Right. Good. So, imagine now that you did that. You stopped them from hurting your family and some other ponies. So now, they start trying to hurt you, to hurt your family, just because you stopped them from hurting ponies. Does that sound okay to you?”
“…no, Milady.”
“Good. It shouldn’t sound okay.” Twilight flicked her eyes towards Shining. “Now imagine that those ponies, they start saying that they’re the good guys, that you and your family are the bad guys. All you did was stop them from hurting the ones you care for, and because you did that, because you didn’t support them, you didn’t riot or hurt guards, they say that you’re a bad pony. That doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“No. Milady.” Twilight saw a similar look on Pip to the one from several nights before. She pressed on.
“So, imagine, now, that the ponies get in. They bust down your door, grab everypony, drag them out into the street. They say that you, that your family, needs to die just because you disagreed with them. And they hurt you, and your family. They kill the ponies you love.” Pip had started breathing heavier, now. Fluttershy put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, but the unicorn shrugged it off. “I want you to tell me, Pip, if you could ever support somepony who killed your family; your wife, your daughter, your father and mother-“
A hoof hit the ground, hard enough to shatter the stone beneath it into gravel. Twilight yelped in surprise, she and Fluttershy instinctively putting distance between themselves and the violent action. Rainbow flew forwards at the same time as Shining ran back, both reaching Twlight and Fluttershy at the same time. All four of them stared at Pip, whose heavier breathing had become quite audible. He was facing the ground, and as he raised his head to look at her, Twilight noticed something.
Pip was crying.
“Pip?” She quietly said. The stallion stopped breathing for a few seconds before taking in a shuddering breath.
“My family was killed in the Revolution, Milady.” Twilight felt a ball of hot ice suddenly enter her stomach. Fluttershy gasped, and Pinkie covered her mouth as she caught up to the group. Pip took in another breath. “I was a foal, and they took Mo… they took my mother and father from me. I couldn’t just, just… I wanted my parents back.” His stare flipped to Shining, and it deepened into a glare. “So I hurt the ponies that hurt them.”
In the back of Twilight’s mind, something that felt very hot and heavy suddenly broke off and fell down. It hit the ice in her stomach, crashing through it and leaving a deep, empty pit. There was a strange sound, like popping bubbles, in the back of her throat as she opened her mouth.
“Pip…”
He took in another breath, holding it while closing his eye and drawing himself straight. His face fixed itself into his normal expression, and when he opened his eye and looked at her again it was without emotion.
“My apologies, Milady. Shall we continue on to the Castle?”
Twilight blinked. “Wha… but…”
“Milady?” The stallion stared at her, the small wet line in his face the only indication of his mild outburst. Twilight blinked a few times before she nodded. “Then I shall scout ahead. By your leave?” Twilight nodded again. Pip nodded back, and he was gone.
After Pip’s departure, the trip became rather solemn. Twilight replayed the scene over and over in her head, wondering what she had been thinking to push him as she had.
You just wanted him see why some ponies were against the Revolution. There’s no harm in that.
I made him cry. I should have seen that he was getting uncomfortable, I should have listened to Fluttershy-
And if you had? Guess what, sometimes ponies need to get hurt to remember things. Remember when you grabbed the stove after Mom told you not to? You didn’t touch it again after that, did you?
Well, yeah, but-
But nothing, Princess. Sure, he might have gotten some hurt feelings, but hopefully he won’t think that Broken’s Tartarus-incarnate anymore. Sometimes ponies just need to get a new perspective, even if they don’t want to. It’s better that Pip be forced to learn that his enemies are like him than keep thinking that they’re just bad because he was told so.
But that’s wrong! Forcing somepony to do something like that won’t help them or you, it’ll just make them resentful! Pip’s probably going to come back thinking that the Loyalists were just selfishly trying to keep their own lives good at the expense of everypony else!
…is that what you think?
Twilight’s mind hit a wall trying to answer her own question. Wha- but, no, no!
Then where did ‘selfishly’ come from? ‘At the expense’? You haven’t even heard what his Equestria was like and you’re already judging them! He’s told you about the start of the Revolution, and suddenly you’re an expert on everything that went on there?
Just hold on-
“Twilight?”
Twilight jumped in surprise, scrambling as her hooves slipped out from under her. A rope of magic caught her and placed her upright, and she gave a grateful nod to Shining.
“Are you alright, sis? You looked… thinkingy.”
“’Thinkingy?’”
“Whatever that word is for when somepony’s thinking about things so hard they start looking angry.”
“Pensive?” Twilight suggested. Shining nodded. “No, I’m fine, Shining. I was thinking, but you don’t need to worry about it.” She flicked an ear back. “How about you? You’re going to be a father sometime in the near future.”
“That? I’m bucking ecstatic. And terrified.” The stallion shook his head. “I mean, it’s still sometime around ten months away, but that’s a damn close time compared to when I didn’t know.” He gave a small laugh. “Cadance was kind of mad that I knew before she did.”
Twilight’s eyebrows raised. “You did? But-“ She blinked as he gave a guilty grin. “It was Broken, wasn’t it.”
“Yeah. He said something about it, then I went to check with the doctor that had checked Cadance, and she confirmed it with us.” Shining paused for a moment. “When I went back to see Broken, Dr. Shelter accosted me about giving him his horn back. Apparently when a patient suffers such a ‘severe trauma’, the doctors are supposed to see if they even can reattach it first.”
“And could they?”
“Didn’t need to. Broken reattached it to his head seamlessly, which means he’d have to have used magic somehow. That freaked the doc right the feather out, the idea that he could use magic without a horn and under a lock…” Shining chuckled. “So he ran off to see if he could find the Princess again and left me with Broken.”
“All of that happened in the three minutes between you leaving the room and Princess Celestia arriving?” Twilight asked incredulously.
“I know, weird, right? Dr. Shelter grabbed me right after I left, dragged me down to the hospital wing, and ran all the way back to catch up with Celestia. Probably tore something given how angry he looked when he came back.”
“He might have teleported…”
“Not that I saw.” The stallion snorted. “In any case, Broken just kind of looked at me before rolling over and going to sleep. That look knocked me out of my blind happiness, so I took a look at him, and…” Shining drew in a breath. “He has rope scars on his neck, Twilight. He’s been hanged at least once.”
Twilight blinked at her older brother. She felt something in the back of her mind tell her that this was horrible news, but somehow she accepted it as if she had already known. She managed a shrug. “That’s… not good.”
Shining blinked back at her. “No, it isn’t.”
“I don’t mean that I don’t care, it’s just… it makes sense. He’s been caught at least twice, by Pip’s count, so why wouldn’t Dawn try to kill him?” She shook her head. “If I went crazy and took over, I’d try to get rid of you as fast as possible, kill you or turn you to my side or something like that, I guess. I’m not really good at the whole ‘dictator’ thought pattern.”
“Did you think about taking over? When you were a Princess?”
The question took Twilight aback. She stared at her brother, his eyes not as a sibling but as a guard. “Are you interrogating me?” She asked.
“No. Just covering my bases. Broken might not be all there, but something happened to him that sent him mad, and his and Pip’s testimony point to Dawn, which means a megalomaniacal version of you. The Princesses want to ensure-“
“Ensure what? That I’m not going to go crazy and try to overthrow them? Don’t they trust me?!” Shining’s mouth drew back, and Rainbow gave the two a cautious stare from up the road as Twilight’s voice rose.
“-they want to ensure that they can govern effectively enough so as to avoid any viable justification for a Revolution. The other Celestia seemed a bit… controlling, and Broken doesn’t give me good feelings about their justice system compared to ours. Princess Celestia and Luna simply wish to account for their citizen’s wishes – Luna’s already arranged Court days, and nights, where only commoners are allowed audience. Since you’re the closest to a commoner that’s sat on the throne, they want your perspective on what they could improve on.”
“Oh.” Twilight said simply. “Sorry.” Shining gave a small smile, and Twilight continued. “I mean, letting mares marry mares, and stallions stallions, would be the first thing. We have enough couples that there’s a significant deficit-“
“We’re aware of the statistics, sis. Celestia’s working on it, but some of those bloody bluebloods are being pissy. It’s coming soon enough.”
“Okay then…” Twilight trailed off. “I didn’t really see much as a Princess, but the whole ‘voice of the ponies’ and couples’ recognition were the two major things. Honestly, I think it’s working well other than that.” She thought for a moment. “The poorer areas could probably use some development, but that’d drain the coffers, which would mean more taxes, which would get everypony riled up. Same with security increases to lessen crime.” She shook her head. “If Dawn was me, then she’d know that these things are-“
“Milady?” A voice from behind her. She quickly turned, finding Pip. “My deepest apologies for the interruption, Milady, but there appears to be an incongruity in the structure of the Everfree Castle.”
“What do you mean, incongruity?” Twilight asked. Shining stepped beside her, watching the stoic stallion.
“Several of the structures that I witnessed to have been destroyed yesterday are no longer destroyed, Milady. The tower that you confronted Nightmare Moon in, the first to be destroyed in Broken Shield’s act of terrorism, is in particular without damage.”
“Are you sure?”
“Completely, Milady.”
Twilight sighed. “Good job, Pip. How far are we to the Castle?”
“Approximately three minutes at the pace taken before this stop, Milady.”
“Thank you. And Pip?”
“Milady?”
“Are… are you alright?”
“I am unsure as to my apparent injury, Milady.”
“But it was-“
“Twilight.” Shining said. She turned to look at him, and he gave her a soft stare and slowly shook his head. The unicorn looked back at Pip before sighing.
“Nevermind, Pip. Nothing to worry about.”
“As you say, Milady.” The stallion stood until Twlight started walking again, taking a spot to her left at around the same distance as Shining was from her right. Twilight quickly told the other three of Pip’s findings.
“How in the hay did that happen?” Rainbow asked.
“I’m not sure. The Everfree’s weird, but not that weird.”
“Um, I have an idea.” Fluttershy said. The others turned to her, and she shrank back a bit. “Oh, okay, um, Pip?”
“Yes, Lady Gaia?”
“How did you know that we were at the Everfree Castle?”
“I didn’t, Milady.”
“Then why did you show up there?”
“Your last orders were to obtain Discord’s preparatory status for a ‘picnic’. I attempted to do so, but the draconequus did not appear to notice my presence. After a large period of time, he turned towards the Everfree, gained a grin, and began flying towards the Castle. I followed him to the best of my ability, and when I reached the Castle I heard Broken Shield threatening her Ladyship. My duty as First Guard overrid my orders to obtain Discord’s picnic preparatory status.”
“So you’re saying Discord led you there?”
“In a way, yes, Milady.”
Fluttershy nodded. “Thank you, Pip.”
“It was no difficulty, Milady.”
“Waitaminute. You think Discord reset the Castle back to normal? The God of Chaos making things orderly again?” Rainbow scoffed. “Sorry, Flutters, but-“
“Lady Gaia’s belief holds merit. Given Discord’s animosity towards Broken Shield from the latter’s threatening harm on Lady Gaia, I would imagine that Discord would be petty enough to reconstruct the Castle in an orderly manner simply to cause Broken Shield discomfort or anger. If we were to report back not only that explosives had no effect, but that the documents Broken hoped to destroy were unharmed, Broken would likely become very angry, eliminating any satisfaction he may have retained from the Castle’s ‘destruction’. Broken’s anger would likely benefit Discord as well, given Broken’s propensity to cause mayhem when stressed. That, and I would imagine that the expressions on your faces when you would have seen the undestroyed Castle would be quite amusing to him. Am I correct in that presumption, Discord?”
The group stiffened and turned, almost as one, to stare at a long, goatheaded creature floating not three feet behind them. The draconequus leaned down, his head going between Twilight and Shining, glaring Pip in the eye.
“Well, you’re a bit of a buzzkill, aren’t you?” Discord growled. He snapped his claws, and a large cart of books and scrolls appeared behind him. He glanced at Shining and Twilight simultaneously. “There’s your records and histories and what-have-you. As whatever-that-thing-is said, I want to piss that little pissant off as much as I can. Rub his face in them for me, will you?” The physical god pinched the bone between his eyes, grimacing before gaining a sick grin. “I’d love to come, but I need some chaos or I think my brain might just try to elope with my gall bladder. Perhaps I’ll introduce the seaponies to the concept of breathing air. Sorry for missing the picnic, Fluttershy dear.”
Discord gave another snap, and he vanished in a pink cloud. Pinkie squeed, though she quickly deflated back to her normal bounciness as the cloud dissipated without a drop of chocolate rain. The mare flicked her eyes between the cloud’s former spot, to the stoic Pip, to the wide-eyed everypony else. She opened her mouth, thought for a moment, and took in a breath.
Pip grabbed the cart right after Discord had left; he began rifling through the documents, picking up books and scrolls seemingly at random, examining them before replacing them and grabbing new ones. Shining had very quickly moved to watch the other stallion, gaining a distrustful frown when his question of “What are you doing?” was answered with “Ensuring that the records are accurate.” Twilight had moved to view the cart as well, noting that many of the books were in extremely bad condition and old enough to use real leather as a cover. She shuddered, remembering Rarity’s diatribe from two days before.
“So can we go home now?” Rainbow asked. Twilight looked at her for a moment before nodding.
“I doubt Pip and Discord would lie to us about the Castle, and we should probably get these back to Canterlot for safekeeping. Everything alright, Pip?”
The stallion nodded, coming down and stepping around to the front of the cart. “Yes, Milady. Every major document appears to be present.”
“How would you know, if I might ask?” Shining gave a slight glare at Pip. The earth pony met his gaze blankly.
“Her Ladyship brought me to the Castle for training. She made certain that all Revolutionaries were well versed in Equestrian history and battlefield tactics, though actual pitched battle only took place once.”
“When was that?” Twilight asked. She glanced down at one of the larger tomes, what was left of the title reading Re s OF ftria: Cel a’s So Rule 50-100 A . She glanced up at Pip again, hoping that the rest of the books were in better shape.
“The Battle of Canterlot was the only time in which actual military action was demonstrated to have occurred; every other violent conflict between Revolutionaries and Loyalists was performed with guerilla tactics. Canterlot was a siege that ended with severe casualties on both sides.”
Twilight nodded. A thought struck her. “What happened to my parents?”
Pip took in a breath. “Your father was a member of the Inner Canterlot Militia, and was killed in battle towards the end of the siege. It is my understanding that your mother either committed suicide or simply died soon after Celestia was overthrown.” Pip twitched his ear at her struck look. “My deepest condolences, Milady.”
“No, no, it’s… I must have been pretty bad if Dad was actively fighting me…” She gave a half-hearted laugh. Shining matched it with an absent grin, maintaining a watch on Pip while examining some of the books and scrolls for himself.
“I can assure you that you were in no way ‘bad’, Milady. Your Ladyship’s father was a noted critic of the Revolution, and vehemently refused your offers to give him and your mother protection. After your Ladyship was informed of their deaths, you went into a period of mourning before recognizing the need of the citizens for a guiding hoof into the era of the PDRE. To use a colloquialism, you ‘swallowed your sadness’ and acted for the good of the country, sacrificing your own comfort for the sake of everypony else.”
Twilight blinked at the stallion. “That sounded rather practiced…”
“I can assure you that it is truthful, Milady.”
“Hey!” Rainbow interrupted. The three turned to look at her. “Can. We. Get. Going?”
“Oh, right. Pip, can you drive the cart back?”
“Easily, Milady.” He moved a metre to the left, the cart hitch appearing suddenly on his back. He shifted it to his neck, leaning down to clip it together across his barrel before beginning to walk forwards. Twilight and Shining followed him, Fluttershy and Rainbow falling in with them. There were a dozen seconds of silent walking before Rainbow stopped.
“Where’s Pinkie?”
Everypony else stopped, giving her odd looks before checking and realizing the pink pony’s absence. Shining cursed, and Twilight glanced at Pip. He met her look.
“Lady Thalia left soon after Discord. I am unsure as to her reason, but she appeared to be travelling along the path back to Ponyville.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Shining asked, angered. “If she got attacked, we-“
The cart exploded.
Shining threw a barrier up as the front half of the transport burst into fragments, sharp chunks of wood striking the magical wall not a second after its erection. A large piece went flying up the road, tumbling several times end over end before an edge hitched into the dirt, leaving a long gash of tumbled earth and gravel. Before it toppled over, Twilight recognized it as half of the cart hitch. Shining let the barrier down as the cart rolled forwards, one wheel catching on a piece of wood. The cart tottered, books and scrolls sliding out and falling to the ground before the cart overbalanced. It fell onto its back, the documents not lost to the front now falling. Everypony stood stock still, trying to process what had happened.
A number of seconds later, Pip reappeared, a comparatively-small pink pony laying across his back. A large gash curved around one side of his neck, small trickles of blood flowing at several spots. He regarded everypony with a dull eye as he shifted, his burden slipping off and falling, barely catching herself. Pinkie gave each of them slightly concerned looks, a worried giggle escaping her.
“Sorry for running off like that…”
Rainbow began to move forward, but was knocked back as another barrier rose. The rose-pink magic separated Pip, Pinkie, and Shining from the other three, and Twilight saw a grim look on Shining’s face. Rainbow stood, her face contorted in anger.
“Hey! What’s the big-“
“Pip.” Shining spoke over her. “Where did you find her?” Pip stared at him. Shining gritted his teeth. “Pip!”
“Her Ladyship has ordered me not to say.” Pip responded. Pinkie looked between him and Shining uneasily. “She claims that her reasons may cause Rainbow Dash discomfort.” Rainbow gave an odd glance at the party pony before speaking.
“What? That doesn’t make sense. Pinkie, what were-“
“Rose garden?” Pinkie said, loud enough to be heard but quiet enough that Twilight could tell it was meant privately. Rainbow looked at Pinkie in confusion before a light went on behind her eyes and she gained a nearly luminescent blush. Shining scowled.
“Come here, Pinkie.” Shining called. Pinkie blinked at him before cautiously walking over. Shining held up a hoof when she was about four metres away. “Stand still.” Another glow built around Shining’s horn, this one far brighter than his barrier builders. He maintained his glare at Pinkie, and she shuffled her hooves.
“Are you okay, Shining?” She asked, a small lilt to her voice.
“Pefectly fine. Just checking something.” He lowered his head, and there was a vibrating sound as his horn erupted in a bright light. A length of magic shot forwards, striking Pinkie in the chest and quickly enveloping her.
“PINKIE!” Rainbow shrieked. Twilight stared in shock at her brother, the grimace on his face deepening as the magic cut from his horn. There was a large ball of magic around the spot Pinkie occupied, too bright to be directly looked at. Shining stared at it, watching for movement with narrowed eyes.
Then Pip was standing directly in front of him.
“Wha-“ was all Shining could say before Pip twisted, bucking the stallion into his own barrier. He hit the solid magic with a dull thud, an odd mixture of a cough and a small scream issuing forth. He slid down the barrier moments before it fell, landing harshly on his tail and falling onto his side. Rainbow leapt out before the barrier was fully down, rushing towards the still-flashing magical ball.
“Stop!” Shining croaked. Rainbow ignored him. “Touch it and she dies!” At that, she twisted, darting towards the unicorn. She landed heavily in front of him, charging the last distance by hoof before roughly kicking him. He rolled over in pain, and Rainbow reared, her angry eyes fixed on his neck.
“Rainbow!” Twilight shouted. Three purple ropes of magic erupted from her horn, grabbing the irate mare and pulling her prone to the ground. Fluttershy quickly flew towards Shining as the other pegasus screamed and kicked at her bonds. “Shining, what-“
The ball of light burst. Twilight flinched at the sudden brightness before Pip stepped in front of her; the light faded after a few more seconds, leaving behind a pink mare. Pinkie gave odd looks at everypony’s expressions before giggling.
“That tickled! You have to teach me that trick, Shining!”
“Sorry, Pinkie. Guardspony secret.” Shining Armor responded, standing and brushing himself off. Fluttershy turned around, and as Twilight looked at her she realized that the pegasus had meant to Stare the stallion down. Pinkie gave a mocking pout before bouncing over to a now-unrestrained Rainbow. Shining glanced at the prismatic pegasus before speaking again.
“I lied when I said touching it would kill her. If you’d interfered, I’d’ve had to do it all over again and arrest you for interference in guardspony business. That’s all.”
“Then what the buck was it?!” Rainbow growled. Pinkie rolled her onto her stomach and laid on top of her back, apparently attempting to distract her marefriend.
“I’m not legally allowed to say. I’d have to do it to anypony who ran off without me. Including Twilight, Fluttershy, you…”
“Pip?” Twilight asked. The cycloptic stallion’s ear twitched, though he appeared to recognize that he wasn’t being addressed. Shining shrugged.
“I should, but I somehow doubt that it’s necessary. Pip is… unique. The test isn’t really needed if you watch what he does for a few minutes.” Twilight thought for a moment.
“So is it-“
“Twilight. Please.” Twilight looked at her brother’s frayed expression before nodding. Shining rubbed a hoof between his eyes. “I can’t say why I did it, either. Celestia’s orders.”
“Why not? If it’s so important that you can use it without warning us…” Rainbow said, a terse anger still underpinning her voice. Pinkie puckered her lips before reaching onto Rainbow’s head and pulling her ears back, quickly planting several kisses on the pegasus’ snout. Shining stood silent for a moment.
“Rainbow, you love Pinkie, right?”
“Duh. Ask your wife.” Rainbow snorted.
“And you’d do whatever it took to protect her, keep her safe?”
“Yeah…?” Rainbow’s response was more cautious this time. She eyed Shining, examining him as if his plans would appear physically. He pressed on.
“Then can you understand me when I say that that spell is meant to protect not only Cadance, not only you or Twilight or Pinkie, but everypony in Equestria?”
Rainbow sighed. “Okay, yeah, I see where this is going…”
“Good. I admit, I’d be angry too if I was in your position. You’re just going to need to trust me, okay?”
“Sure. Alright.” Rainbow shook Pinkie off, walking up to Shining and staring at him snout-to-snout. “But if you ever-“
“You’ll destroy me, regardless of consequences, no mercy or pity, the Princesses and Faust herself combining their power wouldn’t be enough to save me?” Shining deadpanned. Rainbow’s eye twitched, but she stepped back, nodding at the stallion. He sighed. “Now, what we need to do is grab the cart and get moving again.”
There was a small silence as everypony stared at Shining. He looked around the group in confusion before Twilight slowly raised a hoof and pointed it at the wreckage. Shining looked at the destroyed cart and scattered books for several moments before rapidly bringing his hoof into contact with his face.
It took several hours for the group to reach the outskirts of Ponyville, and the sun had already begun to dip towards the horizon. Shining gave a glance at the levitating books and scrolls before turning to Twilight.
“I’m the only pony here expected back. The Princess is going to want a bit of time to get things sorted out with Broken.”
“Sorted out?” Twilight asked.
“You know, make sure he’s going to keep to his oath, get him away from being mostly dead, figure out what kind of mental damage he has. I need to give him at least a partial interrogation, as well. If he’s always able to improvise as fast as he did when the Princess came down here, we need to figure out how to counter it.”
“Not unless he tries to assault us, and even then we can’t do anything that causes real damage.” Shining blinked. “Might I ask why you’re so defensive of the pony who’s tried to kill you at least twice?”
Twilight opened her mouth, then closed it again as she tried to think of an answer. “I… I kind of feel responsible for him. I mean, I know that Dawn made him like that, not me, but I feel like I started this whole circus for him, and I want to help him finish it so that he might actually start getting better. Work through his trauma and stress, see if there’s any little bit left that’s still Shining.” The siblings stared at each other.
“That ‘Shining’ line was terrible.” Shining muttered. Twilight laughed.
“It’s what I’m hoping for, though.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t try to act like a real psychologist, alright? We’re already arranging sessions for him, don’t try to push him into anything. No big revelations without one of the Princesses present.”
“I won’t. Though I think he’ll be easier to deal with without magic.”
“Yeah, I hope so…” Shining trailed off, glancing at Pinkie and Rainbow. The pegasus glared back at him, but Pinkie simply waved. “If you want to know what the spell was…”
“No. I mean, I do, but if Princess Celestia ordered against it, then I won’t pressure you. I trust you, Shining.” The last line initiated a flick of the ear from the stallion.
“I trust you, too. So do the Princesses.” He grimaced, looking away from her. “I need to get back to Canterlot. I’ll send an escort down if the Princess wants you back up tomorrow.”
Twilight nodded. “Give my best wishes to Cadance, okay, big brother?”
“Of course, little sister.” He raised a hoof and scruffed her mane before setting off at a trot, the magical platform carrying the Everfree documents following him. Pip stepped up behind her, and Twilight turned to face him.
“Pip, we really need-“
“I must apologize again for my emotional outburst in the Everfree, Milady. I usually have a greater control over such matters.”
“You don’t need to apologize for that, Pip. I should have… I should have seen what was happening with you.” Twilight sighed. Pip’s ear flicked back.
“As you say, Milady. May I offer an observation?”
“Go ahead.”
“From my understanding of your conversations with your brother, the Princesses, and your friends the Elements of Harmony, you appear to view the Revolution in a negative light.” These last words brought Twilight’s full focus onto the stallion. Trying to pick up on any clues as to how he felt about such a revelation, Twilight could only discern what might be surprise buried in his eyes. She stared in unsure awe at his ability to be so completely, innocently, obtuse.
“Yes, Pip. In my mind, killing the Princesses is a bad thing. I could have sworn that we talked about this already.”
“Might I ask why you hold a negative view on the elimination of the Princesses, Milady?”
“Why the hay would killing them be a good thing?” Twilight asked back. “They’re kind and generous rulers, they hold extreme amounts of power, and they keep Equestria safe and secure as best they can. Their deaths would only lead to a massive power vacuum, and while Dawn’s taking their place would solve that, I, and thus she, would have had only a few months of experience kinda-sorta leading parts of Equestria as a Princess. This, compared to Celestia’s multi-millennia of knowledge and understanding on the rule of the entirety of Equestria, puts Dawn at a stupidly large disadvantage, especially when dealing with foreign powers.” Twilight scoffed. “And that’s presuming that Dawn’s version of ‘democracy’ even left her with major power, and that she didn’t actually apply real democratic process at the national level and have somepony elected into power who probably knew less than she did.
“And even that’s only dealing with the bureaucratic consequences; the entirety of the Equestrian social structure would likely be changed as well, if… what was it… there weren’t any nobles after the Revolution, right?”
“That is correct, Milady.”
“Exactly! The entire upper class was destroyed, probably meaning the academics as well-“
“Excuse the interruption, Milady, but your Ladyship specifically ordered that ponies such as teachers, doctors, and professors were to be kept safe and uninjured during the Revolution, and that all learning institutions were to be protected from harm.”
Twilight blinked. “At least she got that right…” she muttered.
“If I may address the rest of your points as well, Milady?” Twilight nodded. “Thank you, Milady. Firstly, I must hasten to remind you that the Princesses orchestrated a brutal crackdown on a peaceful attempt at initiating societal change-“
“Stop. The first time they sent guards down to stop a riot that had already killed several ponies and caused severe damage to several buildings. The second time was to reassert control after both two guardsponies were killed and open rebellion had been announced, meaning that Dawn had effectively declared war, meaning that the guardsponies had every right to use violence against ponies who attacked them. In both cases, the guards were responding to tangible threats that endangered the lives of Equestrian citizens.” The lavender unicorn’s eyes hardened, and Pip blinked. Rainbow, Pinkie, and Fluttershy had all stopped talking, staring wide-eyed at Twilight. She continued.
“I’m comparing this to your own account of the attack on the CMFM, where you violently assaulted a group of pacifist foals on the SUSPICION that they were working with other, more aggressive, resistance groups. Even if your version was completely true, that means that Dawn did the exact same thing that Celestia did during the first steps of the Revolution, except instead of attacking the violent rebel Ponyville she attacked some other, peaceful, town that had done trade with them. If it isn’t, then Dawn was objectively worse than Celestia, because she actually did perform a violent crackdown on a peaceful attempt at societal change.” Twilight huffed. Pip blinked. He opened his mouth, and Twilight heard the same breathless tone as from a few days before.
“As… as you say, Milady…”
“NO!” Twilight shouted. Pip’s ears flicked back. “No, not ‘As I say’! You shouldn’t just accept something as true just because I said it! I want you to think for yourself, Pip! What do you think about what I just said?”
“I think it…” Pip cut off, exhaling and inhaling. “I… I think… I think that Dawn is ‘better’ than Celestia, Milady.” Twilight nodded.
“Good! Now tell me why!”
“Why, Milady?”
“Yes! I want to know why you think I’m wrong, evidence and examples of how bad Celestia is and how good Dawn is!”
Pip blinked again. Twilight saw his eye flush pink, not as darkly as several nights before but still clearly losing blood vessels. She immediately took in several breaths and softened her voice.
“Pip, am I making you uncomfortable?”
The stallion swallowed, his face remaining emotionless. He opened his mouth, said nothing, and nodded quickly once. Twilight bit her lip.
“Do you want me to stop asking you about this?”
Again, the stallion nodded. Twilight sighed, turning to the other three.
“I’m going to take him home, okay? I’ll be around tomorrow to check in with you.” Fluttershy nodded, giving a worried look at Pip before quickly slipping away. Rainbow gave a cautious look instead, carefully guiding Pinkie (who was busy rambling off a dozen farewell messages to Twilight and Pip) around the stallion. Twilight stood for a moment before beginning to walk home, Pip closely following her.
The sun had just gone under the horizon when Twilight and Pip arrived at the library. Twilight peeked her ear on the bedroom door, nodding in satisfaction when she heard a small dragon-snore. She turned back to Pip, who stared at her impassively.
“Pip, can I ask you to do something for me?”
“What would you require, Milady?”
Twilight took in a breath. “I want you to do something that you want to do.”
Pip blinked. “As you say, Milady.”
The two ponies stood there, staring at each other. Twilight slowly laid her ears back as she watched Pip’s absence of movement, her small smile shriking into a neutral frown. “You haven’t moved, Pip.” Twilight said.
“I am aware of my immobility, Milady.”
“I thought I told you to do something that you wanted to do.”
“I am doing what I want to do, Milady.”
“Standing there?”
“Guarding you, Milady.”
Should have seen that coming… “No, Pip, I meant something that you do for fun.”
“Again, Milady-“
“Come on, Pip!” Twilight threw up a hoof. “Don’t you have anything that you like to do other than guarding me?”
Pip blinked, apparently taking a moment to think. He glanced at a chess set set up on the table. “We could play together, Milady.”
“Yes! Good! Let’s do that, then!” Twilight grinned, happy to find another element to Pip that made him appear less like a living statue and more like an actual pony.
Several moments later, she was wondering why her lips felt so warm.
She blinked in surprise as Pip materialized in front of her, his mouth meeting hers seemingly instantly. She tried to talk, but found her open mouth occupied with a foreign tongue. Pip stepped forwards, forcing her onto her hind hooves as her back met the wall; unexpected as this was, she slowly slid down into a sitting position, Pip maintaining the contact between them. He lifted his legs, his forehooves pressing into the wall on both sides of her head as he leaned further into the kiss. One hoof lifted and brushed along her forehead, moving the hair from in front of her widened eyes.
It was as Twilight actually saw Pip's position that she realized, fully, what was going on.
Her horn glowed furiously, pulsing out a sudden burst of magic that pushed the stallion away from her. He began to step forwards again as she gulped in a breath, though his progress was halted by the metre-thick barrier she put between them.
“Is something amiss, Milady?” Twilight stared at the stallion in confused shock, still breathing heavily. She managed to calm herself after a half-minute, taking in several controlled breaths before speaking as calmly and collectedly as she could.
“What the BUCK was that?!” She yelled. Pip blinked.
“That was what typically occurs before you bring me into your bed and play with me, Milady.”
Twilight felt a sudden spike of revulsion grip her mind. The confusion she felt began giving way to anger.
“What… what do you mean by ‘play’, Pip?”
“Typically, play involves you kneeling on the bed while I step up from behind you a-“
“OKAY THAT’S ENOUGH!” Twilight quickly put a barrier around the stallion’s mouth, cutting off his next words. She put down the barrier between them, taking several rapid steps up to stare the stallion in the eye. “I don’t want you to do that ever again, Pip. Don’t kiss me, don’t ‘play’ with me, none of it.”
“My apologies, Milady. I was attempting to follow your previous orders.”
Twilight blinked. “I thought you were talking about chess.”
Pip blinked back. “We could do that as well, Milady.”
“We could?”
“Of course, Milady. You and I regularly play in bed and/or play chess in order to help you relieve stress. I greatly enjoy both events.”
Twilight stared at the blithe stallion, one eye twitching and the back of her brain feeling like it had been set aflame. Her mind delved into itself to dredge forth an extremely powerful and dangerous spell, one that Celestia had instructed her to never use unless absolutely necessary.
She cast it without a second thought.
A small hole tore open in the air, a flat circle leading to what could be generously described as nothingness. Twilight knew that it wasn’t nothing, given that there was no massive flow of air into the hole in an attempt to equalize the pressure between the library and wherever the hole opened up to, but there certainly wasn’t anything observable on the other side. The Princess had mentioned that the space through the hole wasn’t strictly existent; anything put into it would be effectively removed from reality, unable to affect anything for as long as it stayed there. She had also mentioned that anything put into the hole would likely disappear forever, as one of her former students had learned with the loss of his entire research library. As she stared at the hole, she felt the entirety of her frustrations break forth, from Pip’s ignorant confidence and plain idiocy to Broken’s constant aggression and vitriol.
Starting with that scarred psychopath trying to bucking kill me not two weeks ago—
Twilight quickly drew the deepest breath her lungs would carry, put her snout into the hole, and screamed as loudly as she could.
Pip had taken Luna’s side without debate; he claimed that Dawn had always used white, leaving him with little choice, but at the same time declined switching to Celestia’s side. Twilight hadn’t pressed the issue, her mind occupied with more important matters. Filling part of it with something mundane like chess would give her some time to think through exactly what the buck had happened just over a minute before.
That didn’t mean she was ignoring the game, of course. She was just using it as a pacing mechanism.
First things first, Twilight. Organize.
One, Pip kissed you.
Two, he intended to… Twilight blinked, finding the word difficult. He intended to have sex with you. She shuddered.
“Are you alright, Milady? You appear to be uncomfortable.” Pip asked, moving his second pawn forward. The first one had already opened a path for one of his chargers, and he appeared to be trying to free up his second charger the same way. She set a pegasus’ pawn forward, blocking the charger’s movement.
“I’m fine, Pip. Just thinking.”
“I again apologize for any discomfort I may have caused, Milady.”
Twilight nodded. Three, he clearly doesn’t understand the full ramifications of a sexual relationship. He’s only recognizing it as wrong because I got upset. A thought struck her, and she looked at Pip worriedly.
“Pip, when did Dawn start… ‘playing’ with you?”
“Several months after the Revolution succeeded, Milady.”
And you were seven when you killed Luna… Twilight’s mind trailed off. “Dear Celestia, Pip, she’s been sleeping with you since you were just a colt! I mean, you still are a colt, but…” Pip glanced at her oddly.
“Apologies, Milady, but we weren’t sleeping during playtime.” Twilight’s mouth pulled back.
“It’s a figure of speech, Pip. But that’s still… eugh!” Twilight began rubbing her hoof between her eyes, magicking a charger forward to capture Pip’s second mage. She tsked as her charger was captured by one of his pegasi.
“My apologies, Milady. I hasten to point out that I was Raised to adulthood before your Ladyship completed the Revolution, so I am no longer a colt in any manner except chronological.”
Well, that could… kind of… justify it. The Raising is supposed to do what he just said.
But he should know what sex is, then. ‘Playtime’ implies that he views it as a game, not an intimate act. By Tartarus, Fluttershy said he had a childish worldview. He uses Dawn to justify everything, too! “Good ponies are good and bad ponies are bad because my ruler-lady-pony said so. Non-ponies are evil, same deal.” ‘Raising’ didn’t do anything for him mentally except expand his vocabulary.
We don’t really know how far gone Dawn was when she took over; at the start of the Revolution she didn’t seem to remember what necromancy actually did. Maybe the same thing happened with the Raising. Twilight scowled. And it’s not like he’s still seven years old, he’s grown up somewhat, otherwise… well, he doesn’t act like a foal. Thinks, maybe, but he’s able to control himself more than any foal would be able to.
Can he really? Raising did something to him, sure: “Restriction of emotional mental processes” or whatever he said. He doesn’t react like a foal because he can’t.
He reacted in the forest! And even if that was just a foalish temper tantrum, he got control over himself again easily! The Raising didn’t stop his emotions completely, it just helped him become more mature faster! Like he said it did!
Twilight could feel her contradictory voice sigh. Just remember, you’re the one defending the megalomaniac rapist here.
But I am you. This is an internal conversation. Both of us are me.
And we’re both decidedly off-track, aren’t we? Think about Dawn again.
“It’s your turn, Milady.” Pip spoke up. Twilight glanced at him, then down at the board, quickly blocking a route that could have lost her her Princess. She flicked her eyes up at Pip again.
“Did Dawn ever tell you why she was ‘playing’ with you, Pip?”
“No, Milady. You simply told me about it one night, demonstrated it, and we both enjoyed it. Then we repeated it every night, bar special occasions, for eighteen months.”
Twilight blinked, her jaw unhinging mildly. A pawn accidentally slipped to the row beside it, though she quickly corrected the misplacement. “Eighteen months? A year and a half?”
“Yes, Milady. You appeared to view it as a form of relaxation, despite its rather strenuous-“
“Okay, okay, hold on, Pip.” Twilight put both of her hooves up towards him, magically steadying her now off-balance chair. “You need to stop talking about me and Dawn like we’re the same pony. We aren’t, not yet, alright? You said as much on the way to Canterlot.”
“As you say, Milady.”
Twilight grimaced. Baby steps, Twilight, don’t get back on that trail until this one’s done… “Every time you’re talking about Dawn, just call her Dawn. Lady Dawn, if you want to.”
“As you say, Milady.”
Twilight sighed. There was a flurry of movement on the board, and both sides picked up several pawns and a mage each. Twilight stared at the remaining pieces.
“Continue then, please. Lady Dawn was ‘playing’ with you, but you don’t know why?”
“No, Milady. As I said, it seemed to be a method of relaxation. Y-Lady Dawn appeared to become extremely stressed around eighteen months after the Revolution, given her insistence on play during that period.”
“Any idea why?” Twilight could feel her continuing blush deepen. “Did she seem… more irritable? Frantic? Antsy?”
“Somewhat, Milady. She was acting unusually for a week, then she visited the doctor, continued her odd behaviour, went back to the doctor, and when she returned the second time she refused to play for several weeks.” Pip flicked an ear back. His voice gained a very mild undercurrent of worry as he slid his remaining charger into check against her Elements of Harmony piece. “She became slightly despondent during that time, appearing to enter into a grief stage similar to her discovery of her parents’ deaths. I attempted to discern the cause, but was rebuffed by both her and the doctor.”
Twilight frowned, her ears perking; A weakness? Ill, perhaps? Some sort of terminal disease? Even with healing magic… At Pip’s look, she slid a hoof over the side of the table. He took it, dwarfing her hoof with his.
“I’m sure it wasn’t something you could have helped, Pip. If it was, she’d have told you first thing. I have no doubt of that.”
“Yes, Milady. As you say.” He took another breath. “After about one month, you- apologies, Lady Dawn began playing again. She also appeared to begin playing with Sir Crimson Lash and Lady Gaia.”
“’Appeared to’?”
Pip slid his mage on an edge against her Elements. She quickly captured it with Celestia, pulling her Princess back as he set Luna forward. “I am still unsure as to exactly what actions were performed, Milady. Apparently they involved whips, shackles, and saddles, though somehow in a positive manner.”
Twilight began choking on the air in her mouth, her blush almost becoming luminescent. She stared at Pip, but all he did was shift a pawn forward. She glanced down at the board.
“You’ve got me, Pip.”
“Excuse me, Milady?”
“Your pawn’s on my only exit. If I take it you capture my Elements with Luna.”
“Oh.” The stallion glanced at the board with her. “My apologies, Milady.”
“What? Don’t apologize just because you beat me, Pip. It’s just a game.”
Pip began rapidly resetting the board. Twilight watched him, ears perking as she heard him muttering softly under his breath. She quickly grabbed the Luna piece, holding it behind her with magic. Pip continued unperturbed, only looking up at her when every other piece was reset.
“Pip, what’s wrong?”
“You’re holding the Luna, Milady, you can’t win unless we play again and we need to fully reset the board to play again and-“ He cut off as Twilight held up a hoof.
“Why do I need to win, Pip?”
“You aren’t supposed to lose, Milady. You got angry the last time you lost.”
“Dawn got angry.” Twilight corrected.
“Yes, Milady, my apologies, Milady.” Pip stood, beginning to walk around the table. Twilight also stood, backing up away from Pip, still holding the chess piece behind her.
“Hold it.” Pip stopped. “What happened when Dawn got angry?” The stallion stiffened, only for a moment but long enough for Twilight to notice.
“Nothing, Milady.”
“Then why the… worry? Fear? Why did you insist we play again?”
“I am the First Guard of the Revolution, Milady, I am to keep the Revolution safe and successful and if any harm came to yo- Lady Dawn then the Revolution would falter. Thus, I was supposed to keep Lady Dawn unharmed and as emotionally stable as possible so as to ensure the continued success of the Revolution, Milady.”
Twilight continued to stare at the stallion. She walked up to him, bringing the Luna out from behind her. “Would Dawn really be so harmed by learning that she could lose?”
“Yes, Milady. I can assure you that Lady Dawn did not like to feel that she had failed in a task, Milady.”
“Even a game?”
“Even a game, Milady. Please, Milady, may I have the Princess?”
“What? Oh, right…” She dropped the small figure into Pip’s hoof. Her eyes watched him turn as her mind covered the new information.
Dawn was a sore loser. Enough to get an unconscious reaction out of Pip, which means a really sore loser. Didn’t like failure, he said. Neither do I, but I’m no-oh dear Faust
“PIP!” The last word was a strangled shriek. The stallion spun instantly, his head darting around to scan the room.
“Milady?”
“Your… your cutie mark…” Pip looked at her.
“What about my cutie mark, Milady?” Pip twisted himself, glancing at his brown-and-cream flank. Twilight stared at it as well, her eyes registering something his eye apparently didn’t.
“You don’t have one.” She stated. Pip twisted back to face her, blinking.
“I am aware, Milady. None of the Risen Guards manifested a cutie mark.”
Somewhere in Twilight’s mind, a dam broke.
“None of the Risen Guards manifested a cutie mark.”
“Risen Guards are simply ponies that grew up very quickly.”
“…they are granted the physiology and mental capacity of an adult pony…”
“Orphan foals were often encouraged to enter Risen training…”
“The vast majority of Risen Guards were inducted and Raised between the ages of eight and thirteen…”
"That is usually where I stay the night, Milady, unless you have Lady Gaia, Sir Crimson Lash, Pet, and/or one of the trainees bedded.”
One of the trainees, between eight and thirteen years of age.
“..faithfully and unquestioningly serve…”
Some sick part of Twilight’s brain put the scene forward. Herself, probably dressed up in finery stolen from Celestia’s quarters. A foal, ordered up to her chambers for ‘special training’. The door locked, Twilight out on the bed, facing the confused young pony. Her voice, gently commanding.
Come now, let me show you a special game.
The scene was whisked away into mist as Twilight’s head pitched forward, her stomach’s contents spilling out onto the floor. Pip was immediately mobile, grabbing her shoulders and bringing her onto her side, away from her mess. She began blinking as a strange ringing filled her ears, Pip’s face somehow blank and concerned simultaneously. She heard him say something, but it was drowned out and far away. She closed her eyes, and darkness overtook her.
When Twilight awoke, her head was pounding. She opened her eyes, quickly squeezing them closed again as the pulse of her skull caused every line of light to shine like the sun. She opened her mouth, trying to call for Spike, but managed only a small gurgling moan. The motion of her throat, however, apparently gave her stomach cause to protest; she lurched forward with a retch, quickly slapping her hooves to her mouth and trying to scramble out of the bed. She felt something round and metal be pressed to her chest, quickly raising to just under her chin as she retched again.
“It is unhealthy to attempt to prevent vomiting, Milady. I would suggest-“
Hurk
“-nevermind, Milady.” Pip pulled the bucket away as Twilight leaned back, placing it on the floor. She placed her foreleg over her eyes, trying to block as much light as possible. She groaned as Pip gently lifted it up, only for him to replace it with a cooled, wet cloth. She mumbled what she hoped were words appreciatively, the darkness lending itself to stop her head from pounding, letting her slip into unconsciousness again.
“…nd as I told you, she’s suffering from the flu, though she’s been hit with it a little harder than most of the ponies I’ve seen. What she needs is rest.”
Twilight moaned as words punctured her comfortable sleep. The pounding head was gone, as was the feeling of stomach acid boiling in the back of her throat, but it had been replaced with every part of her body aching. She curled in on herself, trying to shrink away from the noise and dull pain.
“To my awareness, Nurse Redheart, you have access to healing magics that could aid her Ladyship in recovering from this illness. Per the Hippogriffic Oath, you are obligated to provide her with any aid available capable of lessening or ending her suffering. Combining those two leads me to claim that by refusing to heal her you are in violation of the Hippogriffic Oath and thus are to be stripped of your status as a medical pony.”
“Listen, buster, I don’t care what you think or what you claim, but if you threaten my job again, we’re going to have a problem.”
“I would not need to ‘threaten your job’ if you were to perform the actions that your job nec-“
“Pip, shut up.” Twilight groaned, turning her head and opening her eyes. The stallion-shaped blur nodded at her and stepped back, while the more defined mare-shaped blur stepped towards her. The vibrations punctuated the general aching of her body. She blinked, and the mare-blur took the form of Nurse Redheart.
“Twilight, dear, how are you feeling?” Twilight felt a hoof across her head. She took several slight breaths in and out.
“…hurty.” The purple unicorn replied. Redheart blinked. “Everything feels bruised.”
“Oh, good, you’re already there.” Redheart moved her hoof down, gently laying it across Twilight’s throat. “Well, you slept through the worst of it, and you’re in the tail end right now. I’d suggest sleeping again, but I’m not sure how tired you’d be after nineteen hours.”
“Ninteen-“ Twilight tried to sit up, pushing away Redheart’s foreleg easily. She immediately fell back into a sitting position, the ironically-named lightheadedness dragging her head down like an anvil. The motion only served to worsen the pain in her upper regions, and she began to groan again. Redheart tsked, and she turned to Pip.
“She needs rest, and you aren’t helping me check her over by getting in my way. Go, now.”
“I-“
“I have some catmint tea leaves in the kitchen, Pip. Could you go make me some?” Twilight said. Pip turned to her and quickly nodded.
“As you say, Milady.” He glanced at Redheart again before jumping down to the ground floor, walking out of Twilight’s bedroom and gently shutting the door. Redheart sighed, pressing her hoof to Twilight’s chest.
“I’m not sure what you two have going on, but I promise that you could do better.”
Twilight blinked at the nurse a few times before she responded. “We aren’t together.”
“Tell him that. He’s hanging off of you like a puppy, dragged me here when you ‘slept for too long’, as he put it. Either you two are in some sort of relationship or he’s seriously out of it.”
“Oh, no…” Twilight brought a hoof to her head. “I’m so sorry…”
“Oh please, it’s not your fault. He’s a wall when it comes to you, though; I tried telling him that, a), I can’t heal you from the flu because it’d mess with your immune system, and b), I’m an earth pony and thus can’t do magic, and he didn’t even seem to hear me!” The mare glanced at the bedridden unicorn. “Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to go off like that.”
Twilight shook her head. “He’s not good at hearing things he doesn’t like.” Her entire body shuddered momentarily before settling down again. “My friends, Applejack and Rarity, have you seem them?”
“No, I haven’t. As I was telling ‘Pip’ there, it’s just the flu, or a flu-like sickness. We’ve had about three ponies brought in with severe effects from it, but your friends probably got the normal stretch of vomit-sleep-ache like almost everypony else, and as such didn’t need to go to the hospital. You seem to be suffering a little worse, but I imagine that’s just because of stress.” Redheart winked at Twilight. “I heard Princess Celestia paid you a visit?”
“Oh. Yeah, she was just… checking in on things. Nothing that threatens the world or anything.” Twilight stared at the nurse. “Am I supposed to be seeing flashing lights?”
“Try blinking.” Twilight stared at her for another moment before the suggestion registered. She closed her eyes, opening them again after a few seconds. “Feel better?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Twilight blinked again, yawning. “I’m actually still kind of tired…”
Redheart pulled back her hoof, snorting. “Good. Go back to sleep after the tea. I’ll make sure Spike knows you’re going to recover.” Redheart turned, walking down towards the door. She didn’t blink when it swung open an inch from her face, nor when Pip walked in without acknowledging her. Twilight watched the stallion as he moved to beside her bed, remembering to close her eyes every so often. She took the tea and downed it quickly, giving him back the cup while still staring at him.
“Is something wrong, Milady?”
“Yes, Pip, something is.” She sighed, flicking her eyes to stare at the ceiling. “Did you… did you kidnap Nurse Redheart?”
“No, Milady. She was walking past the library, apparently off duty, and I notified her of your condition. Apparently my insistence gave her reason to check on you, though she claimed afterwards that you were undergoing the normal process for the sickness you appear to be suffering from.”
“Okay then.” Twilight yawned again. The pain began ebbing out, replaced with an odd dullness in her extremities; not pain, but simple numbness. Better than the bruise-feeling, Twilight thought, before her mind reminded her of the other thing she was worried about. “Pip, you’re probably not going to like this…”
“Not like what, Milady?”
Twilight took in a breath. “What Dawn did to you, that whole ‘playing in bed’ thing? It’s called sex.”
Pip blinked. “Anything else, Milady?”
“Pip, sex is… do you know what sex is?”
“An action between two ponies in order to cause mutual pleasure or for procreative purposes.”
“…Right.” Twilight sighed. “And do you know who is supposed to have sex, Pip?”
“Two ponies who love each other, Milady. Though there apparently exists an occupation known as prostitution, or colloquially ‘whorsing,’ that trades sexual acts for monetary gain.”
Dammit, Dawn, what the buck was wrong with you? “Yeah, that’s right. Two ponies who love each other. But those ponies have to be adults, Pip. Willing participants who understand what is going on.”
“Correct, Milady.”
“So what Dawn did, with you and the… the others? That’s called…” Again, Twilight’s mind stuck. She took several tries at the word before finally managing it. “It’s called rape, Pip.”
“No.” Twilight blinked at the stallion’s solid voice and tone. She looked at his eye, and found herself for the first time seeing irritation or anger, directed at her, underneath his covering.
“Yes, it is, Pip-“
“No it is not, Milady. Rape is a horrible, deplorable act, with those found to have committed it being treated like the monsters they are before they are granted the privilege of death.” Pip took in a breath. “You- Dawn is not a monster, Milady. She did not rape me, and she did not rape my unRaised compatriots.”
“Do you know what rape is, Pip?!” Twilight asked, pushing herself up to meet his stare levelly. “Rape is any time, any time, where somepony has sex with somepony else, and one of them isn’t old enough, or smart enough, or, or where one of them is just not able to understand or doesn’t want to do it. Did you know that what w-you were doing when you and Dawn were playing was sex, Pip?”
“…no, Milady.”
“There you go, then. Dawn was raping you, because you didn’t understand what was going on. I don’t even know if you can understand what was going on…” Twilight brought her hoof between her eyes, rubbing between them in the way that somehow made her less frustrated. “And the ‘trainees’? Dear Faust, I don’t even want to know how many of them there were…”
Pip sat, staring down at the shape of Twilight’s body under the covers. “…Milady, I believe that you are mistaken.”
“No, I’m not, Pip. I-Dawn raped you, and Dawn raped those poor foals, and she did… she did something to you that makes you not able to realize how horrible a pony she was.”
“No, Milady.”
“Pip-“
“No, Milady, Dawn did not rape the trainees. I am still attempting to determine whether the actions that we performed could be classified as non-consensual sexual acts, but I am fully confident that none of the foals brought in to sleep with y-Dawn were raped.”
“Pip, you said that Dawn had ‘bedded’ them, and you just said that Dawn slept with them! What am I supposed to take from that?”
“That Dawn slept with them. She brought them onto her bed, wrapped her body around theirs in a maternal gesture, and allowed them to fall asleep with her in that position. I was present for every time that event occurred, and I swear to you, Milady, that I was the only Risen Guard, pre- or post- Raising, that Lady Dawn ever played with in the manner that is apparently so morally objectionable.”
Twilight felt a slimy weight lift off of her shoulders at Pip’s words. What she – what Dawn – had done to him still had to be dealt with, but the knowledge that she hadn’t actually done anything to the foals burned up a good deal of the newly-developed loathing she had gained for Dawn; by extension, she realized that she didn’t need to caution herself around younger ponies moments before realizing that her subconscious had already began planning for foal-avoidance.
Not that it would matter terribly; most rapists are power hungry rather than actually attracted to their victims, and Dawn fits that bill well. Twilight shuddered a bit at the fact that she actually knew that, and that she could so readily bring it up in defense of herself despite her ever-fogging mind. She wasn’t feeling pain anywhere anymore, and had become even drowsier.
“Milady?” Pip asked. Twilight shook her head, yawning.
“I need to think about some things, Pip. You can-“ another yawn, and her vision blurred, “-just… don’t worry about me…”
“As you say, Milady.” Pip walked up to the bed, standing and watching for a moment before sitting and laying his head across Twilight’s chest. She mumbled a half-hearted protest before sleep overtook her.
Twilight and the others returned to Canterlot six days after they had left.
Twilight’s illness and recovery took the entirety of the second day and a large part of the third; Pinkie and Rainbow followed the unicorn, and Fluttershy fell ill just as they entered the midpoint of their sickness. Despite an offered Canterlot escort, Applejack and Rarity refused to leave Ponyville without their friends (Applejack pointing out “Twilight’s the main thing in this, sendin’ us up without her doesn’t make a lotta sense.”).
With her entire group behind her (Spike and Pip included) Twilight found herself in one of the many odd rooms that served only as a place to sit and talk, four guards posted around the entrance. Celestia, Luna, and Shining stood facing Twilight’s band, and between the two groups lay the entirety of the Everfree Castle’s recovered library.
In what could best be described as “perfect disorder”.
“So, Discord recovered the books, which probably means that everything was out of order in the first place, correct?” Celestia asked. Twilight nodded. “And the entire collection was dropped in two different piles, mixing it up even further?” Another nod. “I’d guess that the cart was rigged to collapse even before Pip unintentionally destroyed it?” A third nod, this time from Shining. Celestia sighed. “Well, he’s still the god of chaos…”
Twilight spoke up, stepping forward and lifting two of the books. “It’s not so bad, Princess. You said that we seem to have everything, I’m sure it’ll be fairly easy to organize-“
“Twilight, I do not intend to be rude, but I hasten to remind you that many of these were written when the haypenny was a measurement of distance.” Twilight gave a nervous swallow, gently placing the books back down. Celestia sighed. “I’m afraid that they will take some time to get into the proper order, especially considering their degradation.” She stared at the documents on the table for a few seconds before waving a hoof.
“A matter for later times. Dr. Shelter has requested my and Twilight’s presence in the hospital. Presumably, that means that all of us are going.”
“Not I, sister.” Luna said. “It is the ‘Citizen’s Court’ tonight, and given its newness and the protests of several noble houses, I need to ensure preparations have been properly made.” A small edge entered her voice at the last few words, and Twilight winced.
“Again, Princess, I’m very sorry-“
“Do not be. I was, myself, stepping out of the bounds of my station in my reaction. Pip’s… statement, shall we say, allowed me to recognize it. I may need to appoint somepony to follow me around and ensure my maintenance of modern decorum. In a less drastic way, of course.” She and Pip glanced at each other, neither blinking for several moments before Luna shook her head and exited the room.
“Well, then, shall we be off?” Celestia asked. Twilight was about to nod before a voice interrupted her.
“Hold on a moment, Princess.” Applejack stepped forward, taking a place between Twilight and Pip. The stallion stepped back, eyeing the earth pony. She continued unperturbed. “Ah have a couple’a questions.”
“I would answer them as best I could, Applejack.” Celestia replied. Applejack smirked.
“That’d be very nice’a’ya, Princess. Rainbow an’ Ah were talkin’ about this stuff before she got sick, so the first one’s second-hoof knowledge an’ all, an’ Ah’m mostly askin’ it because if she went an’ tried she’d say somethin’ stupid-“
“Hey!”
“-but it’s still a concern of mine. Ah’m wonderin’ exactly what that spell was that Shinin’ went an’ shot at Pinkie, the one that ‘made everythin’ all bright and stuff’, as Rainbow put it?”
“An’ last Ah checked, we, as the Elements of Harmony, probably rank somewhere between you an’ the Princesses in terms of national importance an’ power, what with our savin’ yer guardsponies’ plots more often’an not using our little magical necklaces. So Ah’m slightly curious as to how y’can justify us not knowin’ somethin’ related to our jobs as protectors of Equestria by sayin’ y’outrank us in any way other than formally, Captain Shinin’ Armor.”
Shining and Twilight both stared in shock at the orange mare; Celestia watched her with an entertained smirk. Shining opened his mouth in an attempt at rebuttal, managing several small sounds before finally speaking.
“Technically I’m a Prince…”
“Aw, don’ give me that, yer the one y’turned down the official promotion, not me.” Applejack turned to the Princess again. “As Ah was sayin’, yer Highness, I think that even if it is classified, we here in this little group kinda deserve t’know exactly what Shinin’ was tryin’ t’do t’Pinkie, in case it messes with the Elements’ functions or some such drastic side-effect.”
Shining tried to speak again, but he was interrupted by the Princess’ hoof. She gave Applejack a smile. “As you have said, my little pony, you are indeed important to Equestria’s safety, and do, indeed, deserve to know about the spell. Captain Armor?” Shining straightened at the last two words. “You are now cleared to discuss with the ponies in this room the protocols used to prevent further Changeling infestation.”
“Changelings?!” Four voices spoke up at once from behind Twilight. She herself was staring at Shining and Celestia in a mix of surprise and satisfaction.
“I figured as much, but I thought that we removed the Changelings from Equestria. Er, Shining and Cadance did, I mean.”
“We did. Mostly.” Shining took in a breath. “The way the spell worked, the large majority of Changelings were flung far away from Canterlot and Equestria, unfortunately, a significant, though not very large, part of Chrysalis’ hive managed to dip below the spell’s full effect; either they were flung downwards more than outwards, or they got trapped on some debris… in any case, a group of them managed to stay within Equestria’s boundaries. The few we found were incredibly disoriented, but when we started getting them gathered up, they got smarter. When there were about twelve of them they tried to break out again.”
“Hive mentality!” Twilight spoke up. Fluttershy blinked and nodded.
“With some creatures, mostly insects, groups behave more intelligently than individuals. There’s actually a kind of ant that won’t do anything except walk in circles unless it has a group of other ants of its kind with it. And some birds and fish can fly in great big groups and still have everyone in them avoid larger predators, most of the time even better than smaller groups can. It would make sense, I think, that the Changelings would behave similarly without the guidance of a Queen.” She glanced back at her friends, gaining a slight blush at the several raised eyebrows. Shining cleared his throat.
“Which is my second point. The changelings we found had been… disconnected, I guess, from Chrysalis. They were feral, animalistic, when they weren’t put together.”
Spike spoke up. “But you think that there’s a group that did get together, and now, without the Queen to control them-“
“-they’ve gone back to instinct patterns. Found a hive, feed, reproduce, expand, repeat.” Shining finished the thought. “We’ve managed to weed out some small, just-formed ‘hives’ of two or three, but when we’ve interrogated the members, all of them – and I mean every single individual Changeling – have, er, shown that there’s a large group situated in the Everfree, and that the ‘pull’ they felt to gather together for protection was strongest there. We’ve found evidence of Changeling activity, but haven’t found the hive even with guide-bugs.” One side of his mouth pulled up. “Hence the security with the Princess and the spell and everything.”
“But how did you know that Pip wasn’t a Changeling?” Twilight asked. The stallion in question stepped forward, bringing himself between Applejack and Twilight. His eye glanced down at her.
“If I may, Milady, it is incredibly unlikely that a Changeling could step without tearing off their legs and/or wings. Is that your view, Captain Armor?” Shining nodded, and Pip continued. “In point of fact, their exoskeletal structure would be likely to collapse should any attempt be made to move as quickly as was required, leaving them essentially a crumpled bulk of mashed flesh and-“
“That’s enough, Pip.” Twilight interrupted, watching as several of her friends were growing worried looks. The stallion nodded, stepping back a small amount. Twilight sighed and turned back to her brother and the Princess, both of which were watching Pip with unreadable expressions. Celestia noticed Twilight’s look, quickly affecting a smile.
“Ahem. Now that that’s out of the way, might I hear your second question, Applejack?”
“Yeah, of course. This one’s actually mine.” The mare stepped to the side of the room, casting an eye over the entire group. Her gaze focussed on Twilight, and she took a breath.
“What Ah want t’know is, does anypony here think that Broken should be allowed near Twilight again?”
“Appleja-“
“Twi, Ah know your opinion. Ah want everypony else’s.” Applejack turned her head to stare directly at the Princess. “Broken’s made his intentions clear. He wants t’kill Twilight, he’s tried at least three times now, an’ he’s gonna keep tryin’ no matter what we do t’stop him. Ah’ve talked t’him a few times, Princess, an’ Ah can tell you that he’s a pony possessed. In his head, he’s gonna be some big hero, protectin’ everypony from what she’s supposedly gonna turn into.” Her eyes flicked to Shining. “He’s got what he sees as his family’s safety, Cadance an’ that little one now, as a motivator, an’ Ah can assure you that he’s not gonna let go of that easy. Keepin’ you an’ everypony else alive is probably just a bonus to him.
"Fact is, Princess, Ah don’t feel like Twilight, or anypony else, is gonna be able to stay safe if he’s anywhere near us. My thinkin’ might not count for much, but my thought is that we treat him like the dangerous criminal he is. We do whatever it is to him that we do to those ponies tryin’ t’kill other ponies.” She looked at her friends, raising a hoof. “Anyone else-“
“Yeah!” Rainbow spoke, shooting her hoof up. “Banish him, or throw him in the dungeon, or put him in a dungeon in the place you banish him to! Don’t just let him sit around and wait for a moment to try to kill Twilight again!”
Celestia glanced at both ponies before looking over the rest of the group. “Does anypony else share Applejack’s and Rainbow Dash’s convictions?”
Immediately, Pip’s hoof rose to join the two mares’. “I would agree with them in this instance, Princess. Broken Shield presents a constant danger to her Ladyship. The sooner he is eliminated, the better.”
“Pip…” Twilight muttered. She blinked in surprise as a small purple claw raised from her other side. “Spike!”
“He’s not your brother, Twilight.” The dragon quickly said. “He’s… I don’t even know what he is. He can’t just get away with trying to hurt you like he did.”
“I agree.” Rarity said quietly, raising her hoof. Pinkie also raised hers, leaning against Rainbow with a troubled face. Fluttershy looked at everypony else, then Twilight.
“I can’t. Broken’s sick, not evil. He needs to be healed. If we managed Discord, why not a pony?”
Celestia glanced at the five hooves and one claw. She turned her head to face Shining.
“Your opinion, Captain?”
“Broken Shield represents a significant threat to Equestrian safety, but given my relation to his target, I cannot provide an unbiased answer, Princess.”
“Everypony else here has a bias as skewed as yours would be, Captain. I’m willing to listen.”
“In that case, I would recommend that we fully attempt to remove Broken Shield from his psychological distress before charging him with any crime. If he’s sick, as Fluttershy said, then his decisions are not his own.”
Celestia nodded. “That is my opinion as well. So six yeas and four nays on immediate punishment. Taking out Pip, who isn’t at a station to provide a valid vote, Twilight, who’s not allowed to vote given her status as the victim, myself, as I’m providing judgement, and Spike, as he’s a minor… four and two.” The alicorn closed her eyes for several seconds. “Very well. Please keep your hooves, and claw, up, everypony. I’m willing to see where this takes us.”
“Princess-“
“Hush, Twilight. Captain Armor, if you’d make the necessary arrangements?”
Shining drew himself straight. “As you command, Princess. Sergeant Hold!” The second sentence was barked at one of the doorguards, who saluted. “Send word to the armourer that we need a guillotine fashioned. We should still have the schematics on file. Corporal Line, bring the royal carpenters to my office, I’m probably going to need to find their part and explain it to them.”
At the word ‘guillotine’, Rarity gasped and Twilight’s stomach gained a ball of ice. She turned in shock to watch the two guards leave the room before whipping her head back to her brother. “You can’t be serious!” She flicked her gaze to Applejack’s hardened face. “Applejack, you-“
“Waitaminute. What the hay is a ‘guillotine’? Is it a special cage or something?” Rainbow’s brows furrowed as she looked between Shining, Twilight, and the Princess. “What’s going on?”
Celestia gave Rainbow a small smile, one that Twilight could see had no mirth behind it. “Didn’t you know, Rainbow Dash, what Broken’s punishment would be before you so hastily assigned him to it?”
“What, what’s gonna-“
“If Broken Shield had tried to kill a regular citizen, and he was mentally competent, he’d be thrown in prison for the rest of his life.” Shining interrupted. “But he’s tried to kill my sister, who as Applejack said is probably more important to Equestria’s safety than I am. He’s tried to kill her several times, which actually probably negates the ‘insanity’ defense. He’s admitted his guilt and intent, and you, Pinkie, Rarity, and Applejack have provided judgement as was afforded to you as the Elements of Harmony. Per Equestrian Criminal Code Section X Article 2, Broken Shield is sentenced to death by decapitation.”
This time Pinkie gasped, and Rainbow was left speechless. Spike took a step backwards, wide eyed. Fluttershy began to cry.
“That is, of course…” Celestia spoke, capturing everyone’s eyes. “Unless you wish to change your vote, given that the tally has not been officially recorded.”
A pink hoof and a white hoof immediately slammed to the floor, and a dragon’s claw fell with them. Rainbow’s hoof fell slightly, catching somewhere in the middle of down and up. Pinkie turned to her, placing a forehoof on the pegasus’ shoulder.
“Rainbow, please, we can’t… we can’t…” Small wet streaks began to course down her face. Rainbow swallowed harshly, her hoof falling. Applejack stayed staring at the Princess, her eyes still hardened, her hoof not wavering. Celestia made the motions of counting again.
“Five and one. Sorry, Applejack, but Broken Shield has been spared.” Her smile shifted with her eyes, and Twilight saw some sympathy behind it. “Though I can assure you that your grievances have been noted.”
The orange mare sighed, her hoof falling. “Might I ask how, Princess? Are we puttin’ pillows on his hooves from now on?”
Celestia laughed. “No, not quite.” She turned her head slightly, facing Pip. “Given that Broken is going to remain alive, how would you feel acting as a guard for him, Pip?”
“I would not be able to serve as his guard, Princess. Such a station would require me to protect him from harm, something that my orders from Lady Dawn are in direct contradiction of.”
“I’m sorry, I should rephrase. How about, you watch his every move anytime he’s not currently under guardspony custody, and even when he is if you want, with full permission to use nonlethal force to prevent any attempt he makes to harm anypony, including and especially Twilight Sparkle?”
Pip blinked. He flicked his eye towards Twilight. “With your permission, Milady?”
“It’s up to you, Pip…”
The stallion nodded. “I accept the request, Princess.”
Celestia nodded back. “As I hoped, Pip. Thank you.” She turned back to Applejack. “I have also arranged for Broken Shield to be under guardspony surveillance whenever he’s with Twilight, and for him to return to the guard barracks, or preferably Canterlot, every night. With the lock on the root of his horn, his magical ability has been docked to about one percent of his former capability. He can lift a pen, but not a pony, and I’ve gone into very specific details on exactly what his oath allows him to do and not do in relation to harming ponies and other beings; should he raise a hoof in any violent way but self defense, he’ll… be stopped, let’s say, in a manner that he won’t easily recover from.” She smirked at the slightly unhinged jaw that Applejack sported. “Are those enough ‘pillows on his hooves’, Applejack?”
“Y-Ah, er, um… Ah guess so, Princess. Sorry if Ah sounded insolent or anythin’…”
“Nonsense, Applejack. You’re trying to protect your friend; if one of you hadn’t tried something like this, I would have been concerned.” Celestia walked around one side of the table, Shining going around the other side. “Now, if you’ll please excuse us, I would like to speak to Twilight alone.”
Applejack looked between the Princess and student, her eyes watching both of their faces, before nodding and turning to the door. The others quickly filed out after her, Spike sparing a backwards glance. Pip stood fast.
“By alone, she means just Twilight and her, Pip.” Shining said. Pip blinked.
“Then why are you still present?”
“I’m doing my job by making sure all possible threats are away from the Princess before leaving.”
“I am doing the same for her Ladyship.”
“Then leave.”
"I-"
“Pip!” Twilight interrupted. “I’ll be fine. If Shining isn’t right behind you, you can come back in.”
The stoic stallion nodded. “As you say, Milady.” He quickly spun and walked to the door, Shining following right on his tail. The door closed, leaving Celestia and Twilight alone. The two mares stared at the door before simultaneously shaking their heads.
“Before you say anything Twilight, no, a verbal vote like that would not have been enough to get Broken executed. I’ve put far too much into the system for him to get off that easily.” Celestia said. Twilight flicked an ear back.
“Then why even go through all of that?”
The Princess gave Twilight a sad look; a sorry look, in apology instead of pity.
“Because I’m of the feeling that ponies should not act without knowing the consequences of their actions.” She took in a breath. “It was something of a test; the fact that they, for the most part, opposed the severity of the punishment demonstrates that they are not blind in their support of you.”
“You were testing them? Whether they’d see my safety or Broken’s life as more important? That doesn’t make sense, of course they’d-” Twilight’s eyes widened for a moment before narrowing. “You were checking to see who would support me in a rebellion.”
“I do not think that you will rebel, Twilight-“
“But you need to be prepared. In case Broken is right.” Celestia opened her mouth. “No! Princess, it’s a good idea. I don’t think, given what Broken and Pip have said, that I’d turn into Dawn without realizing it and at least trying to warn you. But I don’t want to risk you being harmed just to spare my feelings. I can recognize that I’m a threat, Princess.”
“Oh, Twilight…” Celestia quickly crossed the distance between them, wrapping a wing around the unicorn. “I would never, never, see you as a threat.”
“But Dawn-“
“Broken’s Celestia is a boorish harridelle if she thinks her people should not influence her decisions.” The Princess bit off. Twilight’s eyes widened. “No, Twilight, upon retrospection Broken Shield has revealed that his Celestia was quite different than the pony that I strive to be.”
“But still-“
“After her defeat by Chrysalis, she committed genocide upon the Changelings. Complete and utter destruction of the species. Your brother has a plan for the detainment and control of Changelings within Equestrian borders, but we would never kill them, all or any of them, for their Queen’s transgressions. After Shining revealed Broken’s claim, Broken spoke of burning their hives, their eggs and young, as if he was sweeping the floor.” Celestia swallowed. “While I cannot approve of the lengths Dawn apparently reached, I do recognize that change was necessary.”
“But you aren’t like that, Princess! We know you, I know you, and I know that you’d never be that… that…”
“I know, Twilight. I am not humble, not enough to refuse to recognize my positive traits. I would not stoop as far as Broken has casually said his Celestia had gone.”
“But this still doesn’t say anything about if I turn into Dawn in this timeline; no matter how bad his Celestia was, you aren’t bad! Objectively!”
“And I fear the same about Dawn.” Celestia quietly said.
“Princess?”
“If I am good where Broken’s Celestia was bad, if Broken was bad where Shining is good… then how can we say that our Dawn would be bad where his was? Or that she’d rise even without his influence?” Celestia smiled. “I should let Broken explain it to you, Twilight. Let me just say that on the extremely small chance that Dawn rises here as she did there, I hope to resolve our differences peacefully rather than allow our ponies to suffer.”
“’It’? What’s ‘it’?” Twilght flicked an ear back. Celestia shook her head.
“Something that may invalidate a large amount of what we’ve discussed about him.” Twilight flicked an ear back as Celestia stood. “I did not mean to upset you, or to appear as if I do not trust you. I have absolutely no doubt that you will not become Dawn, not in the way that Broken claims.”
“And I have no doubt that you’d never do anything to cause Dawn to rise, Princess.” Twilight smiled, and Celestia smiled back.
The walk to the hospital wing was mostly silent; hooffalls and ponies acknowledging Celestia’s presence represented the majority of the noise. The moment they passed through the doors of the wing, however, the group was immediately accosted by the doctor.
“I am well aware of my continued need for rest, Dr. Shelter.” Celestia gave an obviously-strained smile. “You said that you wished to see us?”
Shelter glanced over the group, holding a look on Pip for a moment longer than the rest of them. “Yes. Follow me.” The stallion twisted around and began walking down a hallway, the other ponies following him. He spoke as he walked, not turning or looking up from his floating clipboard. “Mind what you poke, most of this stuff is needed to keep ponies alive.”
“Can’t you just heal them if they’re close to dying?” Pinkie asked.
“Sometimes. Depends on the ailment; a rib sticking into a lung can be fixed, cancer’s trickier. It’s even worse if we mess with too much, because then the body’s immune system starts thinking ‘Oh, I can sod off now that I’m not needed to help keep this body healthy’, and suddenly the common cold becomes extremely dangerous, not to mention stuff like-“ Shelter blinked. “Nevermind. Healing good, too much healing bad. Most of the time.”
“Is everything alright, doctor?” Rarity walked slightly faster, putting herself beside the stallion. “You seem rather preoccupied.”
“What? Oh. Right. Yeah.” The doctor took in a breath. “You make clothes, right?”
“I’m a fashion designer, yes-“
“Have you ever had to deal with a client that just really irks you?”
“On occasion.” Rarity blinked. “Has Broken really been that bad with you?”
“What? No, not purposefully. Somewhat resistant to medical authority, but he’s not tried to reverse anything I’ve done to him, and yet he’s still maddeningly fascinating enough to keep my cursing-focus occupied.”
“What about him is so wrong?” Twilight asked. Shelter sighed.
“We’ve cleared up, or at least stalled, his most dangerous ailments; he’s not at risk of sudden kidney, heart, liver, lung, or digestive system failure anymore. The parasites have been cleared up, surprisingly quickly actually, and we’ve used Captain Armor’s dental records to synthesize a set of dentures for him. His breathing is already far less laboured, and his heartbeat is at least regular, if still fairly weak. Point is, he’s not immediately dying anymore.”
“’Immediately’ is emphasized.” Twilight stated. The doctor nodded.
“We managed to do a more intensive examination of him during treatment. His muscles are severely atrophied, as you should know, but they’ve also been damaged by extreme amounts of magical radiation. His legs especially have been essentially baked – the muscle fibres are almost nonexistent. I’m frankly surprised they didn’t tear off under his weight. What that pony’s done to himself…” Shelter shook his head. “He’s never going to be able to fully recover. Right now, a foal with leukemia could probably beat him in a hoof-wrestling match. If he reaches his physical peak, he might be able to get a draw.” Shelter’s mouth drew back. “That’s hyperbole, of course, the leukemia thing, but given his physical condition, everything he’s done – walking, fighting, etcetera – has been based around his magical strength. We did a probe, and found that the root of his horn is twice the size of Shining Armor’s.”
The guard captain blinked in surprise. “But that would mean-“
“Yeah. His magic has been so active that his horn has actually had to grow in order to compensate for the strain he’s putting on it. Everywhere else, his muscles died, but up here-“ the stallion tapped his head “-he’s been working out almost 24/7. I’m not even sure what effects that would have on one’s brain…” The doctor shook his head. “In any case, that’s the main thing I wanted to talk to you about, coupled with his organ damage. He’s smart, in a lot of bad ways, and his magic is quite powerful for a non-alicorn, but his body isn’t going to last, and it probably should already have failed. From what I’ve seen, he’s been essentially acting as a necromancer for his own body.”
Twilight gasped. “But that’s impossible! The way that necromancy works-“
“I know, but I didn’t say he was, I said he was practically. He’s able to survive without significant magical activity, but like… whatever his name is, Pop-“
“Pip.”
“Right, him. Like Pip, he has some spells tied to him, namely one tied to his central and keeping him from dropping dead from the stuff he’s been put through. Unlike Pip, his own magic’s been feeding the spells, making them stronger as he’s gotten weaker. Hypothetically, those spells may keep him animate, post natural death, for anywhere from hours to weeks to months, depending on how his magic’s fed them. Which is my last little point, actually.
“Even with his magic, and if we get him to the absolutely highest health we can… he has less than three years before his body completely fails.” Shelter looked up from his clipboard, catching each pony in the eye save Celestia. “Realistically, he’s going to die sometime between six months and two years from now. Probably closer to the former.” Shelter blinked, flicking his gaze back down. “And that’s what’s pissing me off.”
“That he’s dying?” Celestia leaned down, putting herself at eye-level with the stallion. His magic ripped a sheet off of the clipboard, crumpling it before shredding it and throwing the bits into a locked trashcan.
“That I can’t fix him.” Shelter glared at the trashcan for a moment before starting to walk again. “That he’s dying, when I got rid of as many of his injuries as I could, I put him under the optimal conditions for proper recovery, and now I’m seeing that he’s dying anyways because of something that I can’t heal. And if I tried to take the spells off that are doing this to him, he’d as likely as die from the shock of their absence as die from their continued use.
“So, I can either watch my patient die slowly and probably incredibly painfully towards the end, or I can do something that’ll have a ninety-nine-point-nine percent chance of killing him fast and painfully, a point-zero-five percent chance of doing nothing, a point zero-four percent chance of slightly slowing his death but still really doing nothing, and a point-zero-one percent chance of doing what I want it to and stopping him from dying of old age in his late thirties.” Shelter took in a breath, glancing at everypony (and Spike) again. “It’s just a little frustrating, as a doctor…”
Twilight blinked at the doctor’s explanation. “I’m sure you’re doing the best you can…”
“If I was, he’d be cured already.” The stallion growled. “In any case, I can only request that you keep him out of harm’s way when he’s returned to your custody. The safer and less stressed his body is, the more recovery it can naturally make. Hopefully, I can find some way to work around the spells on him in the meantime.”
“Do you have them recorded?” Twilight asked. “I’m not a medical pony, but I do know spells pretty well.”
“If you’d be willing, and promise not to actually try to work on him without me, I can get you a copy. Faust knows my hooves are full as-is.” The stallion stopped, eyes locking on a hallway with two stationed guards. “Ah, here we are.”
“And here we stay.” A new voice intoned. Another stallion walked out from the hall, nearly matching Shelter in appearance. “Mr. Shield requested some time alone. Greetings, Princess, mademoiselles.” The stallion bowed at the Princess, sweeping a hoof out to encompass the others in the group. Spike snorted. “And young dragon and sirs, of course.”
“Everypony, this is Dr. Long Path, of Canterlot University.” Celestia said. “He requested to be allowed to examine Broken Shield, and has discovered some interesting information.”
“He’s also incredibly annoying and prone to using big words whenever he’s flustered.” Shelter deadpanned. Path grinned.
“I can assure you, my constant positivity is as much a job requirement as it is just a good outlook to have on life, and my sesquipedalian loquaciousness is an equivocal stress reaction to your use of profanity, so let’s not have the pot call the kettle black, nor have either condition referred to in a negative light beyond our mutual inability to overcome them, hmm?”
Shelter gave a look at Path, drawing his mouth back as his eyes narrowed. Path maintained his grin. After a few seconds, Celestia leaned her head down in-between the two.
“Would you mind enlightening everypony on what you found, Dr. Path?”
“Oh, yes, of course. My apologies, Princess.” Path took a step back, encompassing everypony in his gaze. “Firstly, the obvious, though please note given my small amount of time with him that most of this is conjecture. Broken Shield has severe post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as several other conditions, namely paranoia, directly linking into said disorder, and has given several indicators of suffering from depression. He views Princesses Luna and Celestia as semi-willfully ignorant of the threat posed by Ms. Sparkle, but is nonetheless quite loyal to them, and is devoted to Princess Cadance to the point of unhealthy obsession. Congratulations on the foal, by the way!” Path nodded at Shining, who blinked in surprise.
“Er, thanks…”
“You’re very welcome. Anyway, Mr. Shield displays behavioural problems typical of post-traumatic stress. He’s generally irritable and easily agitated, quite cynical when talking about most subjects and actively antagonistic about others. Whenever Ms. Sparkle is mentioned, for instance, he displays hostility and general unease and nervousness. He has the same reaction with Pip, whom I presume is the stallion here I don’t know?” Path looked at Pip, who glanced back.
“That is correct.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you, actually, and I was wondering if I could sit down and talk with you as well? Later on, of course.”
“If her Ladyship allows it.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Shield told me about this…” Path turned to Twilight. “If you’d be willing, I think it would be best for you to come with Mr. Pip during any talks we have, at least for the first little while while we get to know each other.”
“O-kay…?” Twilight said. “I have a question, though.”
“Of course!”
“A few questions.”
“Even better!”
Twilight blinked. “First, are you even allowed to be discussing these things? Isn’t there a patient-doctor confidentiality agreement?”
“Mr. Shield waived it. His words were along the lines of ‘If it makes the, ahem, term-for-a-female-dog look bad,’ then he was absolutely fine with mention of his condition. He also appeared to think that the Princess would be more willing to ‘get rid of’ the aforementioned pony if she learned of his conditions, which displays a certain amount of egotism mixed with loyalty and trust in the Princess’ judgement.”
Twilight felt Celestia’s wing stretch out to cover its owner’s face. “Um, secondly, how did you know about Broken? To be able to request treating him?”
“Oh, Mr. Shield is known to most of the more-influential ponies of Canterlot, the ones with actual authority, anyways. The University’s upper chairs, the higher ranks of the Equestrian and Canterlotian Guard, and a few noble houses that don’t have a reputation for overreaction have all been informed at least partially about him, so that when somepony inevitably blows the cover on him the Princess can run efficient damage control with their aid. I was just told that he was a very important pony that needed therapy, everything else came later. By now I might actually know more about him than you do!” Path gave an innocent grin at Twilight, who looked at Celestia in surprise.
“I have transcripts of their interviews recorded, like you did with Spike, ready for your perusal. I didn’t mean to leave you out of anything, but I needed to get more information from him, certain things that I couldn’t ask you to pursue.”
“Don’t worry, Princess. Dr. Path just caught me a little off-guard.” Twilight gave a small, nervous laugh. Shelter echoed it with a bark.
“He does that too. A lot.”
“Was there another question?” Path asked, overtalking Shelter. Twilight nodded.
“Yeah, Broken was actually quite nice to everypony he met that wasn’t one of us here. When he escaped on the first day, he apparently met with three fillies, two of whom are Rarity’s and Applejack’s siblings, and they seemed to find him rather agreeable.”
“He also told them that blowin’ things up was a good idea for a cutie mark.” Applejack muttered.
“Sweetie Belle mentioned that he told them to be careful.”
“While blowin’ things up.”
“I would presume that Mr. Shield’s non-aggressiveness towards the foals was likely due to lingering feelings of protectiveness and a sense of failure regarding his own daughter’s death.” Path interjected. “I’m completely lost on why he would instruct them to violently destroy things, though.”
“Because he’s dangerously insane?”
“Now now, ‘insane’ has a negative connotation that we try to avoid due to its causing ponies suffering from mental health issues to feel ostracized from society.”
“That probably wouldn’t be a bad thing for him.”
“That’s a horrible-“
“Back on topic,” Twilight spoke before any more could be said. “He also behaved himself extremely well when talking to Mrs. Cake. He actually changed his voice to be more like Shining’s, he was quite polite, and he seemed rather comfortable and non-stressed.”
“Interesting.” Path rubbed his hoof on his chin. “Did you reveal his origins to this Mrs. Cake?”
“Oh, no.” Twilight shook her head. “He made up a story about being in Gryphonia for a long time, and how he just got back, to explain away his absence.”
“He did? Did he do a similar thing with the foals?”
“Actually, yeah. They said that he said he got his scars in Gryphonia.”
“Aha!” Path put his hoof back down. “Given his claims that he was the leader of a resistance organization that operated in secrecy, I would presume, all in hypothesis, of course, that he became well versed in developing false identities for his operatives. If he gave the same story to two different groups, the foals and Mrs. Cake, he may be trying to establish a false identity for himself in order to throw off possible suspicion as to his actual origins. Links with his paranoia.” Path blinked several times. “Actually, this is a good thing. Establishing a constant cover identity demonstrates that he anticipated being a presence in the community for a relatively long period of time, despite his mentioned goal of killing you, Ms. Sparkle. It is likely that he wasn’t planning to harm you in the immediate future.”
“Even though he tried t’kill her less than an hour later.” Applejack said. Path nodded, his smile fading.
“Ms. Applejack, the presence of Discord caused a panic reaction in Mr. Shield. He was completely unprepared for the appearance of Discord, and became increasingly threatened by Discord’s actions. As Mr. Shield’s mind struggled to regain control, it both sought out old mental refuges and activated his flight-or-fight response. As he was already in an aggressive state of mind following his pursuit of Mr. Pip, his instincts kicked in and he, for the most part, lost control of himself. Again, sadly, a common reaction to perceived danger among post-traumatic stress sufferers.”
“Yeah, y’keep sayin’ that, but he’s dangerous, doc. Y’can’t explain away everythin’ bad of him as the fault of some mental disease.”
“I don’t intend to. I simply wish it to be recognized that he’s not mentally stable, and can’t be fully expected to act as somepony without his conditions would, especially when he’s placed under duress.
“He may come across as abrasive and hostile, but in every session I’ve had with him, which are admittedly not many, he’s had a strong undercurrent of fear, a constant sense of unease and nervousness. He’s apparently learned to become aggressive when he’s scared, so he’s been constantly hostile towards almost everypony, only stopping when he does something he feels is familiar and recognizable as a safe action, such as being near the Princesses.”
“Ah don’t care if he’s scared, he’s tried t’kill Twilight!”
“Which was a horrible action, certainly. He’s apparently done numerous rather un-ponylike things since his arrival here. That doesn’t mean that he should be locked up and the key thrown away, it means that he needs to be helped to recognize his faults and his disabilities and to work with them in order to overcome them and regain a sound mental state.”
Applejack’s eye twitched. “You an’ Ah must see things very differently, doc.”
The psychologist’s smile returned. “I’m certain we do, Ms. Applejack.”
There was about a quarter-minute of silence before Celestia cleared her throat. “Was there something else you wished to show us, Dr. Path?”
“Oh, yes, they need to see it, don’t they?” Path reached into his coat, pulling out a sheet of paper and giving it to Twilight. “We ran Mr. Shield through a regular psychological evaluation for guardsponies, one time with his present answers and one time asking him to answer as close as he could remember to his last evaluation. These are his scores.”
The mare ran her eyes over the bars, points, and small notations. She looked at the doctor in confusion. “I don’t see-“
“Oh! My apologies. These are Captain Armor’s test scores.” Another sheet floated over to Twilight. She caught it, placing the two side-by-side. The other ponies read over her shoulder.
“So Broken’s big bars are bigger than Shining’s and his smaller bars are smaller. What’s the big deal?” Rainbow asked.
“The big deal is that in both his present responses and his recalled responses, Mr. Shield displayed markedly stronger opinions than Captain Armor. His scaled agreement responses, from one to nine, were at nine, eight, two, and one at a far higher frequency than Captain Armor. Where Captain Armor gave a four on an answer, for example, Mr. Shield gave a three, sevens were eights and nines, etcetera. Mr. Shield feels stronger on subjects Captain Armor feels strongly on, and weaker on Captain Armor’s weaker opinions. This ‘extremeness’ was more prevalent in his current evaluation than his recalled evaluation, as well, though several questions received opposite answers from his recalled test. It showed up when we discussed certain actions he’d taken.”
“There’s a correlation with his physical measures, too.” Shelter spoke up. “Broken consumes a larger amount of nutrients than a normal pony would in his condition. His magical and physical strength, normalized, are somewhere around 115% and 85% Captain Armor’s current capabilities, respectively. He’s naturally able to manipulate his magic to a greater degree than we are, but he’s generally less coordinated and physically weaker unless using magical aids. He has a stronger sensory and reactive response to pain and other stimuli than we do, and his hearing and vision aside from depth perception are more sensitive. Some of this is almost certainly training, of course, but there’s too many factors that have modified from our standard to be ignored or explained away like that.”
Celestia brought the third view into line. “From his and Pip’s testimony, the Equestria they come from is very similar to our own. However, the guardsponies are quicker to violently respond to threats that are in turn apparently more frequent. Broken has mentioned actions, movements, wars, that correlate to minor incidents and peacefully-solved tensions.” Celestia took in a breath. “Everything, it seems, is… taken further, would likely be the best description, in some way in his timeline over ours. His Nightmare Moon began a civil war instead of an attempted coup. His Discord regularly murdered ponies for his own amusement during his time in power. Chrysalis and the Changelings would routinely kill their captives. Sombra…” Celestia’s mouth tightened. “The problem, of course, becomes that his moderate may well be our extreme, in every aspect. This would apply to Pip as well.” Path coughed, his smile slipping again.
“That’s another thing with his mental state, actually. He’s jumping to the more extreme answers without even considering the moderate ones. When I talked to him about the Ponyville riot, he spoke of killing the pony in the alley without remorse or hesitation. I pursued him on that topic. Instead of killing him, I asked him about simply taking the pony into custody, and he said that he hadn’t even considered it. His mind, and I suspect Pip’s and everypony elses’ from that universe, is hard-wired into actions that are on a far broader spectrum of severity than ours.”
There was a period of silence. Twilight’s friends all looked at Celestia, the doctors, and each other while they digested the information.
“But then the nicer things are nicer too.” Fluttershy spoke. Everypony looked at her. “If all the bad things are worse, then that must mean that the good things are better. Broken just brings up the bad things more. Can we ask him about the good things?”
“But good things are boring.” Rainbow complained. “I mean, it’s not gonna do anything to hear him talk about the happy times when everything that made him, well, broken, are the bad things like Dawn killing his family. What good would hearing him talk about going on picnics with Cadance do?”
“It would give another dimension to his world?” Rarity asked. “I’m with Fluttershy here, if we can hear about something that isn’t the tragedy of Dawn’s rise, I would say that it could provide us with a better understanding of his origin.”
“But if we get more information on Dawn an’ her-“
“Dawn raped Pip.” Twilight blurted. Every eye turned to stare at her, in uniform shock, except Pip. “I was trying to figure out how I could drop that far, how I could become so evil to do that, and to kill Celestia and Cadance and Dazzle, and to just… do everything that’s turned Shining into Broken, without realizing how horrible I was. I couldn’t figure it out. But that Twilight could have been so, so messed up, so seriously affected by Spike’s death and the Charter’s rejection and however many other things influenced her, that she just snapped and went somewhere I can’t even comprehend. And that means, that means that I might not… I might not need to…”
Twilight was rambling, she knew it, and her vision began to blur as her breath began to hitch. She immediately felt a claw on her hoof and a wing around her back, and she slowly leaned into her teacher. She took a few breaths, looking up at a subdued Applejack and Rainbow Dash.
“I think I might need a nice story from Broken’s Equestria.”
“If I may, Milady?” Pip leaned down to meet Twilight’s eye level. “While I cannot give a memory from before the Revolution, I believe that I have a ‘story’ that you may find satisfactory in terms of ‘niceness’, as well as hopefully providing a clearly positive example of Lady Dawn’s rule.”
“It isn’t violent, is it?” Rainbow quickly asked. “I don’t think she’d want to hear about ponies getting hurt right now.” The pegasus glanced at Twilight, who nodded. “Yeah, no fights or anything, alright?”
“As you say, Rainbow Dash.” Pip took in a breath.
---
Pip watched as Lady Dawn awoke.
The sun shone in through the window and a cloudless sky, as had been arranged for that day. While much of the country was in limbo following the Revolution, the Canterlotian sky, and Canterlot itself, was decidedly Revolutionary. Several weeks previous, Celestia had been overthrown; only within the last few days could it be said that the city was returning to a semblance of normalcy.
“Gurgh…” Dawn groaned as the sun hit her eyes. “Stupid spell must be off-timed again… Pip, what time is it?”
“Approximately ten-oh-seven, Milady.”
“Gah…” The mare sat up, blinking a few times before flipping herself out of the bed. “Are you sure?”
“Given the large clock within my vision range, I would say yes, Milady.”
Dawn glared at the clockwork construction and its ornate hands. “Remind me to have that clock stripped of anything valuable.”
“I shall make a note of it in Lady Thalia’s schedule, Milady.”
“Thank you, Pip, I’m sure Pinkie can-” Dawn froze, looking at the clock again. “Did you say ten-oh-seven?”
“Ten-oh-eight currently, Milady.”
“Buck!” The mare ran to the dresser, quickly grabbing a brush and throwing it at Pip. “Get my mane cleaned up, I’m running late!”
“As you say, Milady.” Pip stepped to her side, strapping the brush to his hoof before quickly running it through her slightly-mussed hair. She had combed it straight the previous night, and he was luckily able to work out the few knots before she placed the Element of Magic on her head. Sighing, Dawn glanced in the long mirror at herself, straightening out a few bent edges in her overcoat. She drew in a breath and stood straight, walking towards the door with an air of authority and propriety. Pip absently remembered watching Rarity coach her through the movements in the Everfree Castle.
“I don’t want to look like I’m a royal, Rarity! The whole point of this is to make everypony-“
“I know, dear, but the Revolution is your movement; ponies will be looking to you for leadership, at least until you get everything else set up and going. So until everypony is equal, you need to show that you know what you’re doing and that you know how to lead. How you look and move is very important to that. Now again…”
For a moment, Pip wondered why Dawn hadn’t remembered, or used, Celestia’s training on the subject. Only for a moment.
The door opened, Pip slipping out quickly enough to slightly startle the guards. They saluted quickly, though, and bowed to Dawn when she exited. She glanced at the two of them before nodding back, giving a slight laugh when one of the guards’ helmets’ slipped to the side of his head. He cursed under his breath, quickly straightening the wayward armour.
‘My apologies, Milady.” the guard spoke. “The guy who had this before me had a, a larger head than I do, and the straps aren’t sized really well, and-“
“Do not fear offending me, sir.” Dawn said. The guard blinked. “I’m not so petty to expect perfection in the ponies around me. We are none of us Faust; If not for Rarity, I’d likely be walking around with my cape as a bib.”
The guard cracked a smile at the last comment, quickly nodding at Dawn and bowing again. She nodded again at both of them before continuing, her steps quick and controlled. Pip followed, maintaining a perimeter around Dawn. Ponies that they passed quickly bowed or saluted, Dawn always exchanging a few words with them before continuing on to the former throne room.
The doors opened with a push of magic, the sun shining through the large hole torn in the eastern corner. The room was bustling with ponies, cleaning up scorch marks and clearing debris, filling scores in the stone floor and replacing broken windows, as well as setting up seats and tables for the day’s major event. The large golden throne was still in place, though a significant section of the back had been sheared off. Dawn trotted towards the oversized chair and the ring of space around it, gaining a grin as the dragon occupying much of said space stirred.
“Hello, Spike, how are you feeling this morning?” Dawn asked, nuzzling the side of her head into the dragon’s snout. Spike grumbled in response, the sound shaking the room and sending a few small stone chunks falling from the ceiling. A pegasus quickly flew up to check the stones’ origin, while Dawn simply laughed.
“Your Ladyship?” A voice asked. Both Pip and Dawn turned to watch a gangly stallion step forward. “I am glad that you arrived, Milady. The cleaning and maintenance appears to be going on schedule, and bar a few bumps, everything should be proper in this afternoon’s ceremony.”
“That’s excellent news. Thank you, Writ Note.” Dawn tipped her head. “Are the ‘bumps’ going to terribly affect the ceremony?”
“Not in any major way, but you did state that you wanted it as accurate as could be, Milady.”
“That I did. What are the problems?”
“Mostly errors or delay in arrangements, Milady; one of the flower shops was broken into last night, and much of their stock was damaged. We’re investigating as to whether it was a simple robbery or a subversive attack, but the florist is unable to fill the order requested.”
“Tell them to send what they can, and be sure to compensate them for the damages to their shop. I cannot fault a pony for something outside of their control.”
“As you say, Milady.” Writ nodded. “The mason’s guild has been somewhat reluctant to put their full effort into fixing Sir Spike’s entry point given the state of many other areas of Canterlot, so we were able to stabilize the damage to the structure, but we can’t fill the hole in to be more aesthetically pleasing.”
“If they’re helping others, they are doing the right thing. I think I would like the hole to remain as-is, in fact; a nice reminder of the Revolution’s power, don’t you think?”
Pip glanced at the gaping space in the wall, blinking. He tilted his head, noting the several areas where stone hadn’t been knocked out but simply sheared in half. “Quite a testament, Milady.” He agreed. Writ glanced between both of them before nodding.
“Right, then. Third thing is ‘statue damage’.” Writ’s brow furrowed. “That’s all it says. Please excuse me, Milady, while I find the necessary ponies.”
“Of course. Hurry, now, I only have a small while before I need to attend to other duties.”
“Yes, Milady.” Writ nodded, scurrying off into the crowd. Dawn watched him until he was lost in the lake of bodies. She glanced at Pip before returning her attention to Spike. A few minutes later, several ponies broke out of the crowd and walked towards the mare.
“Milady, there are three ponies approaching you.” Pip stated blandly. The trio stopped as Dawn’s gaze fell on them, though she quickly bridged the distance.
“You’re Writ’s statue ponies?” She asked. The pony in the middle swallowed.
“Um, your Highn- I-I, I mean your Ladyship, um…”
“Do not fear me, miss. I don’t intend to cause you harm.” The mare nodded, taking in a few breaths.
“Well, um, there was a problem, with the, uh, the arrangements, your Ladyship, ma’am. We’ve been, um, there were several statues damaged in the, the battle, your Ladyship, and we haven’t been able to find anypony that can repair them. Part of the ceremony involves a dozen statues, six pairs, and, um, three aren’t in any shape to be used, ma’am.”
“Oh, dear, that’s not good, is it?” Dawn frowned, tapping her hoof on her chin in thought.
“But, um, Milady?” The middle mare spoke again.
“Yes?”
“We noticed that, um, the inventory of confiscated noblepony assets contains several sets of statues, and if we could examine them, we could replace the damaged pairs. We think. Milady.”
Dawn blinked at the trio. “Well then what are you waiting for? Go! Take Writ, he’ll be able to get you in.” The three ponies squeaked and ran, Dawn shaking her head as she watched them. “Honestly, Pip, even I didn’t expect the former servants to be so easily frightened.”
“Celestia’s tyranny fell upon all common ponies, Milady.” Pip said in agreement.
“Oh, yes, I nearly forgot.” Dawn’s horn glowed, and as she spoke her voice boomed around the room, ponies quickly stopping to listen. “CONTINUE THE FINE WORK, EVERYPONY! I ASSURE YOU THAT I AM BOTH SURPRISED AND HUMBLED AT HOW QUICKLY YOU’VE RESTORED THE CASTLE! WITH THIS ATTITUDE, WE SHALL SOON RESTORE ALL OF CANTERLOT, AND EQUESTRIA, TO ITS PROPER STATE!”
A low cheer rose from the gatherered ponies, a few “Hail Dawn” and other such celebratory phrases mixed in. Dawn bowed at them, nodding in gratefulness as they cleared a path to the door. Once outside the room, Dawn sighed. Pip heard two sets of hooves, regular and smaller, walking down the hall, quickly turning to face Rarity and Sweetie Belle.
“Rather hectic in there, is it?” Rarity asked. Dawn nodded. “Chin up, dear! This is a joyous occasion. Pinkie’s kept herself away from all of the party preparations, you know.”
“She didn’t have to do that!” Dawn said, surprised.
“She felt she did, otherwise it wouldn’t have been proper. By the way, your pocket’s on wrong.”
“Really?” Dawn tried to look at her coat, only causing part of her cape to come undone. Rarity sighed, quickly moving to fix the disarrayed clothing. Pip turned his gaze to Sweetie. The filly watched him dully, closing her eyes for several seconds before opening them again.
“There. Try not to muss anything up between now and the ceremony, shall we?” Rarity asked in a light tone. Dawn nodded, a slight blush creeping in with her grin. She glanced at Sweetie.
“Hello, Sweetie Belle. Out for a walk with Rarity?”
The filly nodded slowly. Rarity stepped back, nuzzling her head into her sister’s.
“The dear wanted to go see the topiary garden, didn’t you, Sweetie?” The filly nodded again. “Honestly, I was a little worried about her lethargy, but she seems to have somewhat picked back up again, from what I’ve seen. Still stays in her room most of the time, though.”
“She’s just getting used to being alive again, Rarity. Spike took a bit to recover fully, too. Just give her time.”
“If only she had a playmate…” Rarity trailed off, glancing down. Dawn leaned her head down, speaking gently.
“I’m sure she’ll come around, Rarity. Applejack’s stubborn, but she loves you. I’m sure of it.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right, of course.” Rarity sniffed before flicking her head back up. “Well! We shouldn’t delay you any more than we have. Come along, Sweetie.”
Dawn bid farewell to the two, turning to walk the way they came from, Pip closely following. This section of the castle was mostly deserted, until, several staircases and hallways away from the former throne room, they arrived at the former noble apartments. Four guards awaited them, as did a blue haired, white coated unicorn. He stepped back a bit as the pair arrived, clearly ill at ease.
“Hello, Fancy Pants.” Dawn said. “I understand that you’re here to discuss the capitulation of the remaining nobles.”
---
“At that point, there were several hours of negotiation between Fancy Pants and Lady Dawn. He appeared to wish to contend the seizure of 95% of every noble family’s property, though Lady Dawn assured him that it would only apply to those nobles who had exploited the common pony to gain their wealth. Otherwise it was mostly ensuring proper wording in the agreement. As such, with your Ladyship’s permission, I shall skip to the ceremony previously mentioned.”
“I’m fine with that, Pip.”
“Thank you, Milady.”
---
The former throne room was packed with ponies, every seat filled and numerous others either standing at the back or hovering in the air. Dawn and Pip swept their gazes over the crowd, Dawn holding a smile only slightly forced. The door cracked open to admit Rarity, who scurried up the single centre aisle with as much poise as she could to the former throne.
“Everything seems to be in order, Twi- I mean, Lady Dawn. We are ready for your announcement.” The fashionista stated with a flourish.
“Excellent!” Dawn stated. She held a hoof up as Rarity rushed down the aisle, waiting for silence before speaking. Her voice was only slightly magically amplified, to compensate for the echo lost to Spike’s entryway.
“Friends, family, and free ponies all. Today, gathered together in happiness and harmony, we shall make history. Never in Equestria’s past has a day like today occurred, and hopefully we shall never return to those dark times where such a day was denied. Today, we celebrate the freedom the Revolution has provided us, the equality previously denied to certain portions of Equestrian society. Though there is, in truth, only one ceremony being performed today, let not your celebration be held, nor your view tainted; each ‘small’ part is worth a day of celebration unto itself.
“Today, we welcome the unions of those who were previously denied their rights based on archaic law and bigotry. Today, we celebrate happiness. Today, we celebrate freedom. Today, we celebrate love.
“While I have put every effort in to remove reference to the previous enforcement of social stratification, I must, in this one select instance, return to former custom.” Dawn smiled. “I did, after all, promise these ponies a royal wedding.”
Several ponies began to cheer, quickly infecting the rest of the crowd until a roar of joy overcame the room. Dawn did not attempt to quiet them; she simply called over them.
“LADY IRIS RAINBOW DASH AND LADY THALIA PINKAMINA DIANE PIE, PLEASE ENTER AND APPROACH!”
The large doors swung open, admitting two mares in wedding dresses, their faces divided by smiles and eyes reddened with tears. Rainbow and Pinkie walked up the aisle perfectly synchronized, reaching the former throne at the same time. They turned to look at each other, fresh tears falling from both pairs of eyes. Dawn’s eyes shone as well, though no tears fell and her voice was unwavering.
“Rainbow Dash, your love and devotion to this mare brooks no argument as to your loyalty to her. It is clear for all to see that you shall never bring her to harm, nor shall you abandon her, on any threat or for any reason. As such, this is simple formality.” Dawn drew in a breath. “Do you, Rainbow Dash, take Pinkamina Diane Pie as your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do!” Rainbow said, drawing another cheer from the crowd. She ducked and shook her head quickly after, apparently trying to clear her eyes of tears.
“Pinkamina Diane-“
“I do! I do I do I do!” Pinkie shouted, laughing and crying as she bounced in place. Dawn nodded, her horn glowing.
The former throne groaned, and a piece of gold broke off of the top of the back. It rolled into a ball as it fell, floating in-between the loving mares before gently dividing in two, and from there shaping into two rings. Rainbow and Pinkie both held one hoof up to grab their rings, Rainbow placing hers onto Pinkie’s hoof and Pinkie placing hers onto Rainbow’s hoof.
“Then with these rings, I pronounce you mare and mare!” Dawn declared. Pinkie leapt onto Rainbow almost instantly, smothering her new wife in an ecstatic embrace. The crowd roared again as Rainbow held her lover and launched into the air, quickly exiting the former throne room through Spike’s entryway. Dawn watched them fly away for a few moments, laughing to herself before she called again.
“MISS LYRA HEARTSTRINGS AND MISS BON BON, PLEASE ENTER AND APPROACH!”
“…there were a total of eighty-six mare pairings and twelve stallion pairings married that afternoon. Aside from a few ponies who passed out from the excitement and/or lack of oxygen, the crowd never waivered in their cheering and celebration.” Pip finished.
There was a moment of silence. Pip looked at everypony before leaning down to Twilight, Spike’s claw deepening its hold on her leg as the stallion approached.
“Would you classify that as a ‘nice story’, Milady?” He asked blankly. Twilight blinked.
“Yeah… yeah, I would.” Twilight rubbed her eyes, smiling at Pip. “I think that was a very nice story, Pip. Thank you.”
“It was no trouble, Milady. So long as you feel better.” Pip flicked his eye up, glancing at Celestia. The Princess cleared her throat.
“Well, that’s a rather convincing argument for the Full Marriage Decree, isn’t it?”
“I would say so, Princess.” Shining said. Path and Shelter both nodded.
“Right then. Everypony here witnessing, I’m officially, well, decreeing, full marriage rights for every mare and stallion. Under the sun and the moon, with my full power as ruler, I’ll do the speech tomorrow.”
All six of the Elements’ eyes widened. Pinkie asked the shared question. “Does that mean-“
“Give and I can get married!” Everypony looked at Path, who had his foreleg wrapped around the back of Shelter’s neck, his wide grin contrasting with the slightly-ill look Shelter wore. “How do you feel about me as a brother-in-law, hmm, Solid?” The medical doctor’s eye twitched, and he shrugged Path off, magically flipping the other stallion onto his back.
“Princess, could you, maybe, delay the Decree for a few hours? Just long enough for me to… help my brother move into Dr. Path’s place?” The stallion threw his labcoat into a nearby laundry cart, grabbing a sterile one from the bottom rack and quickly putting it on.
“I’ll issue it publicly at noon tomorrow. Shining, send extra guards to the noble district, keep them from raising a fuss.”
“We’d probably need a few more squads there, but I don’t think it’ll get too out of hand.” Shining rubbed the space between his eyes. “If you could keep Blueblood occupied, then we’d just need to yell louder than we usually do and they’d settle down.”
“Oh, the sacrifices one makes for her subjects…” Celestia sighed. “I’ll deal with him, don’t worry.”
“Speaking of difficult ponies, Mr. Shield’s allotted break time is up.” Path had moved to the hallway entrance, giving an overly scrutinizing stare at one of the posted guards. He turned his head to smile at the group. “So Princess, Captain Armor, Ms. Sparkle, I presume you’re coming in. Nopony else, because we need this to be as controlled as possible.”
“What about Pip?” Rainbow motioned to the stallion. “He’s not just gonna wait outside while Twilight goes in to talk with Mr. Crazy in there.”
“As I said to Ms. Applejack, ‘crazy’ isn’t an acceptable-“
“Pip, would you please wait outside of the room?” Twilight said, interrupting the psychologist. Pip coughed.
“I will should you request it, Milady, but I would prefer to be as close to you and Broken Shield as possible, in case he attempts to harm you.”
“I’ll be okay, Pip. You can... take a break, out here, I guess. When was the last time you slept?”
“Approximately thirty-seven hours ago, Milady.”
Twilight’s eyebrows raised, and Shelter began choking on the air in his mouth. He quickly crossed the distance to Pip, looking over the cycloptic stallion.
“You’ve been awake for a day and a half? How much sleep do you usually get?”
“Approximately four hours, Doctor.”
“Per night?”
“Per week.”
Shelter blinked, deliberately, several times, and made a wet choking sound. Path whistled in awe.
“That’s not good for you.” The psychologist said. Pip nodded.
“The Raising process-“
“Buck that, you need sleep. Now.” Shelter looked at Twilight. “Can you just order him to conk off or something? He’s already done serious damage to himself if he’s averaging thirty-four minutes of sleep a night.”
Twilight looked at Pip. “Can you fall asleep if I tell you to?”
“I believe so, Milady.”
“Okay then… Pip, go to sleep.”
The stallion blinked several times, his eyelid slowly lowering between blinks. When it met with the bottom area around his eye, he leaned against the wall, sliding down as his legs folded. Twilight and the others watched in mild surprise as he began to gently snore. Shelter cautiously poked at him. Pip didn’t stir, and the doctor turned to the guards.
“Right, I’ll… can one of you grab a gurney? From the, no, I’d better get it myself…” Shelter muttered, apparently ending the sentence talking to himself. He began to walk away, though his voice could still be heard until he rounded a corner. “This is bucking insane, time travel and cellular-division-acceleration ‘healing’ spells and…”
Celestia motioned to Shining, who walked down the hall first. She nodded at Twilight before following. The unicorn stood, only to be grabbed by Applejack.
“Sugarcube, what, ‘xactly, did’ya mean by… what y’said, there?” The farmmare wore an extremely concerned look, one mirrored by her other friends. Twilight took in a breath.
“I mean what I said. Dawn was having sex with Pip. She never told him what was going on, not in the year-and-a-bucking-half where it happened every night. He wasn’t, isn’t, capable of understanding it; he thought it was a game, for Faust’s sake.”
“But that doesn’t-“
“Dawn performed a sexual act on a pony incapable of providing informed consent, probably using her authority over him as a coercive factor; the first part is rape, the second just makes it worse.” Twilight glanced between everypony, pulling Spike close to herself. “I don’t want any of you trying to excuse it just because Dawn shares a body with me. Please, just… let me figure this out, okay?”
Applejack seemed to stare past Twilight’s eyes for a few moments before her own refocused. She raised a hoof slightly, then lowered it, sighing.
“If y’say so, Twi.” The earth pony gave a small smile. “But if y’ever do want t’talk-“
“We’ll be here. Every one of us.” Rainbow finished. Twilight smiled and nodded, looking around her friends once more before hugging Spike again. Then she stood and moved, running down the hallway to catch up to her teacher and brother.
“I like to see you stand I love to hear you roar The breaking of your chains takes only just a little more But if the rulers strike back And you’re forced to run and hide I’ll fight real hard and do my best To bring true freedom to our side ‘Cause I want to make you see, see, see, Yes I do, See the joy, the comfort, of the tru-ly free Just come on ‘round and give a cheer, cheer, cheer, And you mark our victory-“
The voice cut out as Path swung the door open, the doctor quickly stepping into the room. Twilight, Shining, and Celestia stood a small ways back from the doorway, close enough to hear what was said.
“Hello, Broken! Did you have a nice break?”
“Nopony was talking in a forcedly happy tone, so it was decidedly better than now.”
“Oh, come now, Broken, I’m not that bad, am I?”
“…well, you haven’t tried to kill me yet.”
“Good! I like the song, by the way.”
“Cotton Candy came up with it. Stuck in my head for eight years.” A laugh, humourless. “I can remember that, but not my mother’s voice. Figure that out, doc.”
“I’ll look into it. Right now, would you be okay with a few extra ponies visiting?”
“Is Twilight one of them?”
“Yep!”
A sigh. “Come in, then.”
Path stuck his head out of the door and nodded. Shining went in first, again followed by Celestia and Twilight. The unicorn mare quickly swung her head around the room, finding the contained pony chained to a bed on the opposite side about four metres away. He nodded at Celestia.
“Nice to see you, your Highness. Come up with any more additions to my oath?”
“None that cannot be said later. I believe the mare beside me should be your current focus.”
Broken was thinner than Twilight remembered. He was somewhere between his normal appearance and his actual one, and Twilight could see the bones of his shoulder move as he turned to face her. His eye fixed on hers, and she swallowed against the dryness in her mouth.
“I wasn’t trying to kill you.”
The words came out of his mouth just before she opened hers. She stared at him for a moment before coughing and speaking.
“I was going to say that you look better than I thought you would.”
“Oh? Magic’s rather tied up, can’t do much besides stopping myself from looking like a corpse. Does it work?”
Twilight’s eyes lingered on his still-bony legs. “Not as well as before…”
“Pah. Shelter nearly blew his root about these things.” Broken raised a hoof, the shackle around it slipping off. Shining stiffened, and his counterpart stared at the offending metal device for a moment before picking it up with a whisp of magic and replacing it, further up, on his leg. “I can walk fine, just can’t do much magic when I’m mobile. That should help you keep track of me, yeah?”
“I guess so.” Twilight answered. She and Broken stared at each other for a noticeable amount of seconds before she spoke again. “I’m guessing you’re going to say you were trying to kill Dawn, not me.”
“…yeah, pretty much. Discord kind of set me off, on a ‘panic reaction to extreme stimuli’ or some crap like that. I still think you’re all crazy letting the draconequus walk free, but the Princess made it very clear that it was her decision. One that I will voiciferously object to until I die.”
“Between six months and two years.” Shelter’s voice reminded Twilight. She took in a breath. “Discord’s not as dangerous here as he was there, Broken, none of-“
“Yeah, the doctors were telling me about the ‘moderate us and extreme you’ thing. It makes some sense, by how our timelines split.”
“So you do think that Dawn might not be dangerous here?” Celestia asked. Path raised a hoof, but Broken waved him down.
“No, I’m still going to kill her. The oath’s going to make it harder, but I was planning to die anyways.”
“Would the oath kill you?” Twilight asked. Broken cocked an ear, but Celestia opened her mouth.
“The current reaction of the oath spell is to forcibly constrict Broken’s ribcage to the point that his lungs are emptied of air and cannot expand, as well as making his brain detect severe trauma to every point of his body. In conjunction with whatever effects carry over from his timeline.” Celestia stated.
“If I do anything that the oath detects as violent or threatening, I’m completely incapacitated within half a second. Unless the Princess gives permission, or I’ve been harmed by the target in proportion with my action.” He coughed. “I don’t know whether or not it would last to the point where I’d die, but unless I killed you with one shot I’d probably be too distracted to continue.” Broken coughed again, grinning at Celestia. “It’s a smart plan, if you’re trying to avoid deaths.”
“Thank you, I’d like to limit casualties as much as possible.” Celestia nodded. “I must ask why you would want to kill Dawn, if you knew that she would not kill any of Us?” Twilight could hear the capitalization; Celestia was referring to the Royal Family. Herself, Luna, Cadance.
And Dazzle.
Broken blinked. “First, I’m pretty bucking sure she’s going to be dangerous. A pony doesn’t undergo that drastic a personality change without getting fairly messed up.”
“That doesn’t mean that she’ll be dangerous, though!” Path interjected. “There are many, well, relatively many given the small number of examples to begin with, examples of ponies undergoing drastic personality alteration due to emotional trauma who don’t become violent or aggressive. And this change can actually be reversed. To a point. Usually.”
“Really?” Broken asked.
“Yes!”
“I don’t care.” The bound stallion raised his hoof again, a small magic line wrapped around the shackle to prevent it from slipping off, and scratched his head. “Dawn is Dawn is Dawn. They’re all equally likely to buck everypony over.”
“But if she doesn’t try to harm anypony-“
“And that’s the magic word, doc. Try. Dawn will harm ponies, everypony, whether or not she tries.” Broken shifted his hoof from his scalp to his eyepatch, slipping the edge under the unfastened bottom. He wiggled his hoof slightly before withdrawing a folded parchment.
“Hey, that’s the thing from the day we went to the market!” Twilight said. Broken leveled his eye at her.
“It’s a map of the timelines in the part of the branch we’re in.” He clarified. He took the sheet and unfolded it with magic, laying it out on the floor.
“What else do you have in there?” Shining asked. “We removed your eyepatch when you were unconscious, but all there was was a, well, an eyesocket.”
Broken laughed. “I have a little rabbit hole I store things in. Do something smart, I might show you.”
“And what would you count as ‘smart’?”
Broken flicked his eye at Twilight. “Nothing that I’d really want done, yet.” He shook his head. “Anyways, I’d suggest you look at this.” He tapped the parchment, waiting until everypony was following his instructions.
“I’m guessing that every dot is an individual timeline.” Celestia said. Broken nodded.
“You’d be correct. The chronologists organized everything based on the branches off of the Primary Line. Each coloured area is where the Minor-Major Lines branch off into, the little dots inside are the Minor Lines.” Broken tapped one dot, slightly off of centre. “We situated our timeline in the middle for convenience’s sake, and the scale’s slightly large for the same reason. If we were working relative to this branch’s First Major Line, the initial branch off of the Primary that all of these connect to, all of the Lines on this would be in the Everfree, if not farther.”
“Where is this timeline on this map?” Celestia asked.
“It isn’t. I wanted to get ahead of Dawn’s rise, so I shot for a timeline… well removed from mine, to account for the timelines nearest me probably already having the Revolution occur.” Broken’s eye twitched. “I was trying to get in right around the Ponyville Riot, but I overshot a bit. Hold on.” Broken stood, walking as far as his chains would allow. He squinted, his horn glowing, and a small circle of the floor darkened near Twilight’s hoof.
“That should be you, a good twenty million or so in a line away from me.”
A curved line appeared in the floor, about one-fourth the way from centre dot to the one on the floor.
“That’s a completely random guess for position, but every timeline on my side of that line is probably already in the Revolution. This timeline is steadily moving towards it.”
“Might I ask what this has to do with Dawn’s threat to us?” Celestia spoke. Broken nodded and sighed.
“In my timeline, there were royal chronologists. Ponies who extrapolated on Star Swirl’s timeline theory, examining as best they could the Primary Line and all the different branches. A few years before the Revolution, a chronologist developed a spell that would allow for a kind-of observation of the ‘Tree of Time-space’ as it was called.”
“He was able to see all of the different timelines? I would imagine it difficult to comprehend that much information.”
“It is. The spell didn’t let you see the timelines, it just… gave you a feel for them, but apparently you could feel hundreds, thousands, at one time. The only reason he could handle it, and the reason nopony had developed it before then, was because he had some… brain-thingy, I don’t remember the specific neuron function or whatever it was. Other ponies tried it and got gigantic migranes, if not worse.”
“But you could handle it, right?” Twilight asked. “Otherwise, you couldn’t have come to this timeline.”
“Buck no. I tried it, once, and woke up three days later with a nosebleed. I happened upon a unicorn who could perform the travel spell properly, had h-them do it. Anyways, the chronologists wanted to send themselves into other timelines to examine the different Equestrias, see if they could glean any information that we weren’t privy to yet. If the Revolution hadn’t happened, we might have stolen healing magic from you ponies.”
“And how did you gain access to this information?” Shining asked, his voice somewhat harsh.
“I was Captain of the Guard, nopony in Canterlot proper dropped a hayfry without my knowing. This stuff was regularly reported on to me, and all research ceased during the later Revolution. Most of it was destroyed in the fighting or to stop Dawn from getting to it.”
“But the travel spell was preserved?” Celestia asked, dubiously. “And this still doesn’t explain how Dawn is always dangerous.”
Broken sighed. He glanced around the room, rubbed his head, took in a few breaths, inhaling and exhaling. Path stood, walking over to the stallion and whispering to him. Broken whispered back, and Path nodded, turning back to the others.
“He just needs a moment.” Path walked back to his spot, keeping an eye on Broken. The stallion swallowed once, taking another breath.
“Everypony here is dead.”
Broken took in the odd looks of everypony. “Everypony in this room is dead, in my timeline. Everypony in the hall is dead. Everpony in the Castle is dead. Everypony in Canterlot is dead. Everypony in Equestria is dead. Everybody in the world is dead.” Another line cut across the floor, crossing the parchment just barely past the middle dot, curving away from Broken. He motioned to the line between the groups, then to the closer line. “Every timeline behind the line out there had a Revolution. Every timeline behind this line no longer exists.”
“What-“ Celestia began, but Broken overtalked her.
“We tested most of the unicorns in Canterlot, offered lucrative compensation to those who could perform the observation spell. We were trying to map out the timelines, get as many of them down as fast as we could, so we told them to range out, in a slowly-expanding ‘sphere’ around us. They had to jump to individual timelines and then scan as many as they could find in the vicinity before moving on. One of the observers described them as like stars, but much more populated.
“At one point, while some of the ponies began describing the stars as getting larger and closer together, the others that had gone the other way starting saying that there were less stars, and that sometimes they were about to jump to one when it just blinked out of existence. The map got a dark blob on one edge, and as the days and weeks went on the dark blob just kept growing, a slow wave moving towards us, or rather, us towards it. Universes kept dying, and nopony could figure out why.
“Then Dawn came, the Revolution happened. And it suddenly became very, very clear.”
Broken took in a shuddering breath, punctuating the sudden silence. Nopony spoke, everypony barely breathed. Broken again looked across all of them before settling his eye on Twilight.
“I’m not just trying to protect Equestria, or the Princesses, or my family. If I can stop Dawn’s rise, here, then I might stop the blob from advancing more, I might stop it forever.” He grinned. “I could save everypony, at least several billion times over. I’d say that’s worth two individual lives.”
“Egotism.”
The group had withdrawn from Broken’s room, Celestia laying her wing across Twilight’s back. Path hadn’t spoken, none of them had, for several minutes, until this one word punctured their silence. Celestia, Shining, and Twilight all glanced at him.
“It’s probably not very accurate, don’t quote me on it, but Mr. Shield views his mission as being of extreme importance; he seems to think that he is going to save everypony from… whatever fate causes a timeline to die. He’s put himself up on a pedestal, sees himself as being the only pony who understands the importance of his mission, the only pony who can do what needs to be done. He’s also completely unwilling to accept that his mission could be unnecessary, even if he recognizes the extreme unlikelyhood of its necessity. He’s displaying egotism, but it’s more out of desperation than vanity, I believe. That and extreme obsessiveness on the elimination of Dawn, to the point where he’s managed to overcome the post-traumatic-stress stigmata against speaking about what caused the trauma.” Path wasn’t smiling, and he rubbed between his eyes as he rapidly scribbled things on a clipboard he had somehow procured. “He’s also assuming that Dawn’s rise is the causation of the death of the timelines, rather than a simple correlation. It’s understandable, given his malice towards Dawn, that such a connection would be developed, but-“
“Can he be cured, Dr. Path?” Celestia spoke, her voice dry. Path flicked an ear back, and she continued. “Regardless of his justifications, he is mentally ill. I would like your assessment on whether or not he can recover from the traumas he spoke of.”
Path sighed. “The reversals of psychological damage are exclusively the emotionally traumatized. Mr. Shield has plenty of emotional harm, obviously, but a significant proportion of his current mental state is a result of his physical brain trauma. He’s likely not going to be capable of helping us place him into a more stable mental state.”
“Is he unwilling to try? He’s clearly maintained deep loyalty to me, I’m sure if I-“
“Well, no, that’s not what I meant. The radiation from the constant spell contact, as well as the growth of the root of Mr. Shield’s horn, have caused trauma to the memory and higher thinking area of his brain. He’s become incrementally more psychologically altered from Captain Armor, compounded with the fact that that Captain Armor was already somewhat different from our Captain Armor in the first place.
“While we can help Mr. Shield recover from many of his traumas, there is a significant portion that we would outright need to alter his brain to eliminate, a task both medically and ethically dangerous. As such, the best thing to do would be to aid him in overcoming what he can and help him adjust and cope with what cannot be reversed.
“As such, I would say that your idea of active rehabilitation was probably the best one for the situation as-is, Princess. Even with his behaviour, he was less guarded, emotionally, when Twilight was in the room with him than I’ve seen him before. If he’s more willing to come out of his shell when she’s around, which actually makes no sense given his view of her or at least what she’s going to become, then I’d say that it would be… more effective to allow his return to her custody than to keep him locked up here. So long as he’s under proper supervision, of course.” Path took in several breaths, apparently trying to make up to his lungs for the speech. Celestia nodded, and she leaned her head down to face Twilight.
“My little pony, are you alright?”
Of course I’m not alright, I was just told that I cause the bucking universe to die when I overthrow you.
That’s not definitely true, the other side of Twilight’s mind responded. As Path said, it’s correlation, not causation.
That’s a rationalization and you-I know it! What other major event would have happened?
Did any of us see Discord coming? Or Chrysalis? The first side of Twilight’s mind gritted its teeth, but the other side continued. Besides, this just provides a very good reason not to overthrow her, doesn’t it?
“Twilight?”
The mentioned mare jumped as her name was spoken, glancing up into the face of Celestia and Shining. She gained a slight blush as she responded.
“Sorry, I was just thinking about things. Kinda weird, being told that you’re supposed to make the world end…”
Celestia gave her a smile. “What happened there will not happen here, Twilight. I assure you of that.” The Princess stood, placing her hoof on the door. She stood still for a moment before opening it and motioning Twilight to follow.
“Something to say, Princess?” Broken asked as Twilight entered. Celestia ignored him, waving off Shining and shutting the door. She turned and closed her eyes, slowly walking towards Broken.
“As I’ve said, I do not believe that anypony deserves to die. If even Discord could be made a friend, then I have little doubt that you could as well.” Celestia leaned down, putting the tip of her glowing horn in-between Broken’s eye and eye socket. She opened her eyes, glaring at the stallion, and her voice became ice.
“I have recently ordered the construction of a guillotine. We have not had need of one in over a century. Should you attempt to harm Twilight Sparkle again, should her body or mind be in any way intentionally damaged by your efforts, even in a way that does not activate your oath, then I will bring the blade down myself, and your blood will dance across Canterlot’s archways.” She raised her head, leaving a small smoking indent in Broken’s facial fur. “Are we clear?”
“As glass, Princess.” Broken spoke. “But-“
“And,” Celestia continued. “I will immediately dissolve the royal family and place Twilight Sparkle at the head of a new government, one that she may run however she wishes.” Broken’s eye twitched at the same time that Shining’s did, and Celestia smirked. “Is that clear, Broken?”
“…crystal, Princess.”
“Then tell me what would happen if you even try to harm Twilight.”
Broken stared at Celestia. He gritted his teeth. “If I try to harm Twilight, then I would die. And you’d get rid of the Princesshood, and she would be put in charge of Equestria.”
“Good.” Celestia turned around, but looked back at Broken. “And before you get any errant thoughts, the oath applies to that mare-“ The Princess flicked her head at Twilight “-no matter what she calls herself, or what points of view she may hold.”
“Prin-“
“No, wait, I’d better make it clear. All of this applies to Rising Dawn as well.” Celestia turned her head as she walked, giving a smile at her moderately horrified student before sitting down beside the mare and looking at the very horrified former guardspony. “Everything, Broken Shield.”
The one-eyed stallion stared wordlessly at his liege, his eye turning slightly pink. He attempted to speak, only succeeding in making a small wheezing noise. He raised a hoof, bringing it to the side of his head and rubbing vigourously.
“That being said…” Celestia spoke again. “Should Dawn prove to be dangerous in this universe, in a similar way to as she was in yours, I shall alter your oath to compensate.” She gave another smile at Broken. “I’m no fool, just hopeful, Broken Shield.”
Again, Broken took several breaths in and out before choking out a response. “Understood, Princess.”
“Good.” Celestia clapped her hooves, causing both Broken and Twilight to jump. The door opened, and both Path and Shining walked in cautiously. The Princess motioned for them to sit. “With that, I’d like you to keep going from where you left off. What happened after Twilight warped herself and Spike away from Ponyville?”
Broken blinked, several times, before the question appeared to register in his mind. The took in a breath. “Ah, um, nothing much, for a few months. It was really mostly peaceful again, aside from some leftover business in Ponyville to clean up from the Riot and the weeks it spent separated from Equestria. Applejack went back down to keep an eye on everypony; apparently Fluttershy hadn’t handled the whole thing too well.” Broken blinked again, his hoof raising and rubbing his head. “I’m… she told me about it, Princess, but I’m having trouble remembering much.”
Celestia glanced at Path, who wrote something down on his clipboard. She gave Broken a soft smile. “Don’t fret over it, my little pony. What do you remember from that period?”
Broken grimaced, his eye squeezing shut. “About three months after the Revolution, we got a letter from one of the outer towns, Appleloosa. They requested the Princess’ presence for an ‘airing of grievances’.
“Do you think it’s wise to actually attend this, Princess?” Shining asked, his barrier around the large chariot keeping him from needing to yell over the wind. “We could just hammer them like Ponyville. If I threw a barrier up, nopony would-“
“We do not wish to hammer them, Shining.” The Princess cut him off. “The ponies seemed fearful of us, after our demonstration in Ponyville. We cannot allow them to view Twilight as a viable alternative.”
“You’ve ruled for over a millennia, Princess, I doubt the general populace wants to oust you now.”
“Before now, our opponents have wished ruin upon Equestria. The Ponyvillians seemed to view Twilight as a savior, not a destructor, even after they were shown the devestation that her rebellion would bring.” Celestia shook her head. “I do not pretend to understand my ponies’ view on many things, but this I can see clearly. Another violent act would only engender more sympathy for Twilight’s Charter.”
“As I’ve reminded you, sister, there are ways of weeding out insurrection among our subjects.” Luna spoke. She stood, literally, in her sister’s shadow, her eyes closed instead of focused on the barely-visible town ahead. “A few bad dreams can prove useful, but true action may need to be taken at a greater scale than you allow. We do not wish a resurgent Nightmare…”
Celestia nodded. “We shall see, sister.” She closed her eyes as well, and Shining was left to watch the two sit in silence. A memory from the morning peeked out of his mind.
“Are you going to bring Auntie home, Daddy?”
“I’m going to try, sweetie. Auntie’s very sick right now, and Auntie Celestia and Luna and I need to go see if we can make her better before we bring her back here.”
“But the castle has a better doctor than out there! Why can’t you just bring Auntie back?”
“It… It’s not that kind of sickness, Dazzle. Auntie Twilight is… she’s not seeing things right, her thinking is all fuddled. She thinks that us Princes and Princesses aren’t good ponies.”
“That’s not right! Auntie said she’d always love me, you can’t love somepony if you think they’re bad! She doesn’t think I’m a bad pony, does she?”
“Oh, Dazzle, no, no, of course not. Like I said, Auntie’s sick. She’s saying weird things that she doesn’t really mean. She still loves you, just like she still loves me.”
That last line had bile rising in Shining’s throat, both as he spoke about it and as he recalled it. Lying to his daughter was not something he was anywhere near good at, though she was still too small to openly recognize his falsehoods.
It might not be false, though. Some growling, scheming part of his mind said. If she hates you like she clearly does, she probably hates Dazzle the same. Like Celestia and Luna and Cadance and everypony else she’s foisted her own problems onto. Shining very quickly quashed the voice, though it got in a last little half-sentence before retreating to the corner of his mind that it regularly occupied. If it makes the bitch easier to kill…
Shining shook his head, opening his eyes almost before he noticed he’d closed them. Luna stared at him from the side, her one visible brow raised. He shrugged back at her, and she returned to her own thoughts.
The chariot touched down several minutes later, a reasonable distance from Appleloosa; not far enough for an uncomfortable walk, not close enough to risk a ball of liquid flame as their greeting. Twenty carriages touched down a few seconds later in a circle, guardsponies quickly filing out of eighteen and removing supplies from the remaining two. While Celestia and Luna attended the guard preparations, Shining followed his orders and promptly galloped to the second-most important vehicle present, and the two ponies it had carried.
“Ah still think flyin’s overrated.” Applejack said, sparing a loving pat for the dirt beneath her hooves. Fluttershy nodded behind her.
“We didn’t want to risk the train, it could have been sabotaged. That left a flight or a much-longer walk.” Shining explained. Applejack snorted.
“Let’s just get this over with.” She began walking to the Princesses, Fluttershy meekly tailing her. Shining stared after the pegasus; by Applejack’s word, she’d been absent from the Riot and Spike’s resurrection. Her cottage had been under the barrier, as had Sweet Apple Acres, but both claimed that Twilight hadn’t attempted any meetings with either of them after Applejack’s threat.
The little growly voice spoke up again. The bitch can’t use the Elements now, not with these two against her.
Fluttershy’s not against anypony. She’s neutral for now. Though I doubt they’ll let her stay that way…
“Captain Armor!” A hard voice spoke up. Shining turned, quickly trotting over to the Princesses and Element Bearers.
“Yes, your Highness?”
“We are ready to begin.” Luna said. Celestia nodded beside her. Shining nodded back, sending up a flare. The scout pegasi shot out, flying ahead several hundred metres. At a cloud signal, the rest of the force moved out.
The Appleloosan Reclaimation consisted of fifteen earth ponies, twenty-five unicorns, and twenty pegasi. Twilight’s forces were estimated at the fifty who had been missing from Ponyville (thirty earth ponies, fifteen unicorns, five pegasi) plus the Appleloosan population (est. one-hundred-eighty earth ponies, less than forty pegasi and unicorns combined).
Sixty guardsponies versus two-hundred-seventy civilians. If it came to it, it would be a massacre.
Spike will even those odds a bit. And the flatheads are tougher than us.
Earth ponies fall pretty easy when their legs are broken. And we have the Princesses.
Shining gritted his teeth as one of the scouts sent up another signal.
“Princess, we have incoming.” He called to Celestia, yelling over the din despite his short distance from her. She nodded, spreading her wings and bringing the group to a halt. She, Shining, and Applejack stepped forward out of the protective lines of guardsponies, standing tall as two pegasi brought the unknown pony forward.
“Well, if’n I knew ya’ll were gonna be comin’ like this, we’d’a set the carpet out.” Applejack gave an odd groan, taking a few steps forward to take a look at the escorted stallion.
“Braeburn, what in the hay are y’doin’ out here?”
“Jus’ came by t’say hi, cuz.” Applejack’s cousin gave her a grin, one that slowly slid off as he watched her face. “Ah, c’mon now, don’t be like that…”
“Braeburn?” Shining said. The Apple stallion turned to look at the guard captain, his eyes lighting up in recognition.
“Hey, Cap’n Armor!” He flicked his eyes to the Princess, bowing almost overdramatically. “And of course yer Highness. Apologies fer scarin’ y’all’s escort. Y’an’ the Guard’re still mighty appreciated fer-”
“Apparently y’didn’t hear me, cuz. What in the hay are y’doin’ out here?!” Applejack repeated, louder. Braeburn winced, turning to her.
“Just makin’ sure y’know that there’s a lot of ponies who ain’t under Twilight’s hoof ‘round these parts. I don’t know what her letter said, but most of us high-tailed it when we saw a damned dragon dragged back from Tartarus waltz int’ town a week ago. Maybe forty or fifty stayed, the ones with more’n four appendages for th’most part, an’ that number ain’t grown from my knowledge.”
Shining looked the stallion up and down. “You’ve been out of Appleloosa for a week? Twilight hasn’t attacked you?”
“No sir.”
Shining’s eyes grew harsher. “Why didn’t you send for help? A week’s ample time.”
Braeburn gave a sore grin. “Well, we don’t have many pegasi in our camp, mostly ol’ folk or young’uns born t’non-flyin’ parents. Same with unicorns, and we ain’t stupid enough t’try to trek t’the main cities with Twilight’s pegasi patrollin’ an’ with few supplies besides.”
“I see.” Shining gave another appraising glance at Braeburn. The cowpony tipped his hat at Celestia.
“As I was sayin’, Princess, we ‘round these parts ain’t given t’traitorism, an’ yer help with the buffalo put a serious gratitude inta us. We got a camp a little ways away from the town that Twilight an’ her ponies ain’t known about yet.
“Y’give us yer permission, we’d like t’help ya’ll take back our town.”
The three stared, eyebrows raised, at the rather enthusiastic farmpony. Shining flicked his eyes at Celestia.
“Check him?”
Celestia nodded, calling for her sister before stepping back. Braeburn glanced between her and Shining, his grin faltering.
“Hold on, what’re y’all chec- hey now!” His question was cut off as the pegasi grabbed hold of him, pushing him down to the ground and holding him prone. He spat out a small glob of grit, giving an alarmed look at Shining. “What the hay are-“
“Guardspony business. Stay still and you won’t get hurt.” Shining glanced at Applejack, who bore a mix of anger and surprise. “Don’t interfere in this.”
“Ah won’t, if y’give me half an understandin’ on what yer doin’!”
Shining raised an eyebrow. His horn glowed, and Braeburn stiffened for a moment before falling slack. The pegasi stepped away from him as Luna approached; she sat in front of the unconscious stallion, her own horn glowing into a small wash of magic over Braeburn. Shining turned back to Applejack, whose expression had gained far more confusion than anger.
“We don’t know if he’s telling the truth. Princess Luna is checking him.”
“Ah would’a told ya he was sayin’ right, if y’d’a let me!”
“Yes, you would. Maybe even if he wasn’t. He’s your cousin, and Apples are strong on familial integrity if my memory serves.” Applejack bit back a response, her face souring. Shining motioned to the Princess. “This is a more precise understanding of his motives, past ‘true or false’. We trust you, but-”
“-but we need as much advantage as we can get. Luna can gain much knowledge from a pony’s dreams, should she shape them properly.” Celestia finished. Applejack looked at her, then nodded, swallowing and sparing her cousin a worried glance.
“So how long are they stayin’ like that? Out here we’re like poles just waitin’ fer horseshoes t’hit us.”
“It should not be much longer; time passes as days in seconds during dreams. Luna has never taken very long to weed out guilt in those who can hold it.” Luna’s horn had stopped glowing at ‘guilt’, and she had stepped into Celestia’s shadow by ‘it’. The Princesses looked at each other for a few seconds before Luna nodded and Celestia smiled. Shining let out a breath.
“He’s clear. Bring him back, wake him up.” The pegasi nodded, grabbing the still-disoriented Braeburn and flying him to the Princess’ place in the formation. Shining turned to Celestia. “Are we letting them help?”
“We shall employ them as needed; they may hinder more than help in a battle.”
“There may be traitors within their ranks, as well.” Luna intoned. “Young Twilight is not one to ‘not know about’ such a thing as the majority of Appleloosa’s population staying in an area within hours’ distance.”
Both Celestia and Shining nodded in thought. Applejack glanced between the three before sighing and walking back into the guardspony lines.
---
“What did Braeburn mean? My guardsponies didn’t help with the buffalo. That was all on Twilight and her friends.”
“Timeline differences, I guess. In my timeline, after the train tracks got destroyed and some Appleloosans got gored, among other things, Twilight called us in. We surrounded the buffalo camps, arrested the lot of them, and sorted the criminals out of them – the ones that had attacked ponies and Equestrian property.”
“What did you do with the ‘criminals’?”
A cough. “Mostly we just executed them cleanly, that was about twelve of them, but a few tried to rush us so we had to take off their legs first. Then we had to deal with some of the other buffalo that got ornery about us killing the ones that had tried to kill us.”
Silence. Another cough.
“We ended up having to kill just about all of them except… thirteen? Fourteen? The chief’s daughter stepped in after I took off her dad’s leg, ordered the ones that were left to stop fighting. They did, we stopped defending ourselves, and it ended up with one-hundred-seventeen buffalo and eighteen guardsponies dead.” A sigh.
“You don’t approve of the toll?”
“Of course not, eighteen guards died. And we should only have needed to kill fifteen of the hairy cows, but it just… ‘warrior honour’ or some horseapples pulled the rest in. The chief was yelling about honour when he attacked his daughter, the bastard tried to kill his own daughter for stopping the fighting, but I managed to block him and blow his head up before he could do any damage. Bloody cow…”
“Buffalo aren’t cows.”
“Why should I care? They’re extinct now anyways.”
“Not here.”
“Good for you, then…”
“What happened to the rest of them in your timeline?”
“They ran off into the badlands. We sent pegasi to keep track of them, but they went far enough that they weren’t a risk anymore. Can’t remember what happened to them after that, probably starved or something.”
“Didn’t you try to negotiate?”
“We offered Equestrian citizenship, but they refused. You even came down yourself, Princess, but they bolted when they heard ‘the sun-pony’ was coming.”
“I meant initially. Surely there could have been a peaceful resolution.”
“Twilight tried, but neither side was much up for it after Pinkie’s song. Plus, some buffalo got sick and blamed it on the ponies, so they nailed the Sherriff’s head to the town sign in response.” A snort. “They left his body in the road, but the chief had cut off his cutie marks, wore them like some kind of trophy on his belt-thing. Actually, that was probably what got Twilight to call us in – there was some violence between the groups before that, but I’d think seeing a head thirty hooves or so above its body would be a pretty good indicator that she was out of her league.”
A silence.
“Did the townsfolk harm any buffalo, before you arrived?”
“Of course they did. They were defending their legally-obtained territory, though, they never went to the camp and set any of those tent-things on fire.”
“I see. Please, continue.”
“By your command, Princess…”
---
Appleloosa was barricaded on all sides, piles of stone and wood mixing with walls of cooked sand; as Shining had expected, the train station was completely shut down, the tracks cleanly removed starting four kilometres away. It was also the only way to enter the town, barring small paths to and from the apple orchards, and was guarded by about a dozen ponies, all in the darkened armour that they’d found siblings to in the Ponyville guardspony station. Each also bore some type of physical weapon, even the unicorns.
“Dang, they work fast…” Braeburn whistled. Behind him stood three other ponies from Appleloosa, one from each tribe; the unicorn was apparently the only one that had left, a fact that made Shining groan inwardly. Shining and six guards stood behind them; the party was advancing cautiously to the ‘gate’ into Appleloosa. About thirty metres away, a harsh yell from inside both stopped them and caused the tan-armours to bristle.
“That’s far enough!” The gate swung open theatrically, a blue pegasus emerging flanked by two brown earth ponies. The small group approached, allowing Shining to recognize the non-flyers as the pair from Spike’s first (re-)appearance. The pegasus’ rainbow mane, however, was easily identifiable from any distance.
“I’m guessing that you’re here to meet with Twilight? She’s been itching to talk with the alicorns.” Rainbow said, almost over-enunciating ‘alicorns’ in her attempt to speak it without reverence. Shining snorted.
“Rainbow Dash. How ironic, that the Element of Loyalty speaks for traitors.”
“I’m loyal to the one that didn’t betray us!” The pegasus growled sharply. Her guards snorted and tensed, but she waved them off with a wing. “Answer the question or leave, murderer.”
Shining took the accusation coolly. “I’m here to guard the Princesses. They’re here to speak to the leaders of Appleloosa about certain grievances that they have with Celestia’s rule and decisions relating to the town. Whether Twilight is the appropriate pony to speak to is irrelevant.”
Rainbow looked him up and down, dismissing him with a huff before turning to Braeburn. “Have you decided to rejoin your town?”
“I’m still part of my town, li’l lady. I’m only here t’get it back from the ponies that stole it.” Braeburn said, his grin not faltering. Rainbow blinked at him before muttering something under her breath. She turned back to Shining.
“Twilight wants you, Celestia, Luna, Applejack, and Fluttershy. Nopony else is allowed.”
Shining turned his eyes to the sky. Several pegasi hovered above him. He looked back at Rainbow.
“That isn’t happening. Your forces are estimated at between seventy and ninety ponies. You want the five of us to walk into the middle of your occupation without any guards of our own?” Shining’s horn glowed, and a barrier arose around the sand wall that blocked the main road. A sharper glow, and the barrier constricted on every side, lifting out of the ground and crushing the wall back into small particles. He released it, and the sand fell down into the hole, leaving a small mound. He turned back to Rainbow, who was gaping at the suddenly-open road into town. “We brought forty guardsponies. That’s what we’re bringing in.”
Her eyes turned back to him, a sudden angry fire behind them. She opened her mouth and drew in a breath, her wings flaring out to balance her from the large shout she was preparing. A voice emanating from slightly behind Rainbow froze her.
“Leave him be, everypony.”
Shining involuntarily put his attention on the voice’s owner as Rainbow stiffly stepped out of the way. A sight that still filled his veins with ice followed.
“Come in, brother.” Twilight rasped. She had deeply sunken eyes, and what little of her wasn’t swathed in a tan cloak and overcoat looked washed-out. His eyes met hers, and he suddenly felt slightly sick. She broke the look, her gaze travelling to a spot behind him. “And bring them with you.”
Twilight very suddenly turned to the side, walking around the station to the former location of the wall. She paused in front of it for a moment before continuing; the ground rumbled several seconds later, as the road was suddenly obstructed by a large purple-green dragon. Twilight nuzzled at him before levitating onto his head; the dragon growled and turned, his tail destroying a large area of the train station’s roof.
Fluttershy and the Appleloosan ponies stared at Spike in open awe and terror, as did several of the ‘guards’ in tan armour. Shining felt his back legs go numb (He’s BIGGER than last time) but made sure that nothing showed on his face. He knew from experience that Celestia and Luna were doing the same, though they had the benefit of being able to fight the dragon off – the best he’d likely be able to do would be to try to tear Spike’s head apart from the inside.
“D’ya really think that’s Spike?”
Shining jumped, slightly, and turned to see Applejack staring down Rainbow Dash. The pegasus was looking the earth pony up and down, clearly unsure as to what she was on about.
“Uh, yeah, AJ. Of course it is.”
Applejack snorted. “When was the last time he ate?”
“I dunno, it’s not my-“
“Dragon like that, he’d eat a tonne of gems a day, literally, unless he was hibernatin’.” Applejack continued, ignoring Rainbow. “He’s quite clearly awake, an’ last Ah checked, the Everfree an’ Appleloosa ain’t the best gem huntin’ grounds. So how much time did Rarity spend searchin’ fer gems in the outskirts of the Everfree, an’ how many gems did ya cart over here with ya?” Rainbow blinked, again, and her brow furrowed. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Applejack’s voice dropped to a growl. “Ah thought so.”
Rainbow flared her wings, glaring at the farmpony. Shining tensed, but Celestia raised a hoof. “Just because he’s not like he was-“
“Rainbow, Spike is dead. That’s his body all right, but it’s bein’ dragged around like a doll. Spike ain’t in there anymore.”
“But-“
“Applejack’s right, Rainbow Dash.” A softer voice said. Both mares turned to see Fluttershy. Rainbow immediately softened herself.
“Fluttershy, Twilight brought him back. He’s Spike, he’s just… he just wants to help Twilight more.”
“No, Rainbow. That roar, that wasn’t a roar of happiness, or celebration, or even anger. That was a roar of pain.” Small, dark lines cut into Fluttershy’s face. “Twilight… I can’t imagine how horrible she felt, but doing that to Spike…” The pegasus shook her head, tiny movements that were somehow even more forceful than her earlier ones. “If necromancy worked, do you think I would ever have let my little friends die, Rainbow?”
The other pegasus was staring at Fluttershy, her eyes unsure for the first time Shining had seen. “But… but he’s…”
“Have you heard him talk, Rainbow? Has he made any jokes, talked about old times? Has he done anything for Rarity that she didn’t ask Twilight about?”
Rainbow Dash was silent, her eyes on the ground. Fluttershy took in a breath.
“Has he done anything by himself? Or does he… does he…”
“Does he just sit around, like a puppet who isn’t gettin’ its strings pulled?” Applejack finished, her hard voice cutting in contrast to Fluttershy’s. “When Twilight ain’t around, how does he act? Tired? Knocked out?” Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe… lifeless?”
Rainbow’s head shot up at that, and she flicked her eyes between Fluttershy and Applejack several times. She opened her mouth, gave a sound that could best be described as a squeak, and shot into the air, flying to the centre of town, where Spike had sat down in front of (and possibly on top of) the town hall. The other guards simultaneously ducked into the station, shutting the now-useless gate tight. The two mares walked back to the main group with the Appleloosans and Shining. Applejack glanced at the still-shaky Fluttershy and sighed.
“Sorry ‘bout makin’ y’do that, sugarcube…”
The yellow pegasus shook her head. “I wanted to. Rainbow’s put her loyalty into Twilight, and Twilight’s not in a good state of mind right now. If I can get her to come back, then maybe we can get Rarity, and Pinkie, and everypony else to. Everything can go back to normal.”
Shining and Celestia shared a glance. Celestia shook her head, and Shining nodded.
“Forward march, squared formation, keep an eye on the skies! We’re in hostile territory!” Shining barked at the gathered guardsponies. They immediately jumped, forming a two-pony-thick barrier around himself, the Princesses, the Appleloosans, and the two Element Bearers. The Appleloosans shared a glance between themselves and the Princesses, Braeburn clearing his throat.
“Erm, Princess, d’you want us t’remain outside durin’ this? It seems mighty personal, now I’m thinkin’ on it.”
“Nonsense.” Celestia replied, a small smile on her face as she gave the ponies a comforting look. “This is your town, as you’ve said. We shall attempt to negotiate with her, in which case we need you to present your claims that she forcibly removed you, and if it comes to violence we need to ensure that you are within our protection so that the villainies of my former student may be related to everypony in Equestria.”
“If you’re outside, you might get attacked by Twilight’s pegasi.” Shining clarified. “With us, you’re beside the Princesses and a pony whose special talent is making magical shields. You’ll be fine.”
“A’right, then…” Braeburn said, glancing at his fellow townsponies again. One of them – the unicorn – coughed.
“Might I ask, completely respectfully a’course, what the other Appleloosans’re doin’ when we’re in there? If you dispatched those other guards to bring ‘em back, then maybe one of us should stay out t’make sure they know what t’do if something goes wrong?”
“We would like to keep the townsfolk out of harm’s way – though I know that you and your fellows are proud homesteaders, the guardsponies are actually trained in inter-pony combat. An addition of the townsponies into any fighting would simply muddle things up, unfortunately.”
“Ah. Thank y’kindly, Princess.” The unicorn nodded. Shining glanced between the ponies before nodding at Celestia, who spread her wings slighty and began to walk forward. The entire group moved with her, many faces gaining a determined look.
Every door and window was shut and shuttered as they moved up the main road; the town looked distinctly abandoned, though it was meticulously clean of debris or destruction of any kind – Spike’s tail appeared to have done the most damage to any actual building mere minutes before. The road was clear of wagons and detritus, as were the alleyways between the buildings. They, too, appeared to have gotten a fresh coat of paint, or at least a wash – there was a distinct lack of dust or dirt on the outer walls, nor were there signs that any of the buildings had ever actually been used. The Appleloosans muttered amongst themselves, their heads swinging back and forth as they surveyed their town after a week of Twilight’s rule. Shining thinly grinned as he noticed that they sounded more disturbed at the orderliness than appreciative.
The square broke as they entered the area in front of the town hall; Celestia and Luna gave a graceful flying leap over the heads of the guards in front, who opened up the square to allow the other ponies to join the Princesses; the guards at the back corners pushed in fluidly, turning the square into a rough semicircle. Shining, Fluttershy, and Applejack joined the Princesses as they walked forwards; the Appleloosans stayed slightly back, though they did stay closer to the Princesses than the guards.
Across the empty crossroads Twilight stood, with Rarity and Pinkie Pie on one side, Rainbow Dash and several vaguely familiar ponies on the other, and Spike behind her. The dragon gave an earth-shaking snarl as Shining approached.
“That’s far enough!” Twilight called. She began walking forwards, the three other Element Bearers following her. Celestia’s group stood as Twilight’s approached; the two sides stared each other down until Twilight stopped several metres from Celestia.
“Hello, Princess.” The unicorn said, her voice light but clearly strained, still rasping.
“Hello, Twilight.” Celestia replied, her voice soft. “I must ask you, once again, that you stop this foolishness and return to us. We do not wish to harm you, but you need to submit to our aid.”
Twilight gave a laugh. “And what aid would you give us? Shackles, that we may not rise above our stations again? Minds clouded to your ills and failings? An iron hoof to steer us in life and crush those who stray from your guided path?”
“No, Twilight. You have blinded youself in your anger, unwilling to see the suffering you have caused and that you will cause.” Celestia gestured to the Appleloosans. “You have forced these ponies from their homes, Twilight. They live now as those bovine tribals once did, because of your attempt to ‘free’ them.”
“I provided them the freedom to choose their path. They chose to leave. It is not my fault if they suffer of their decision.” Twilight turned to look at Applejack and Fluttershy. “Have neither of you seen the damage wrought to Ponyville and its citizens by Celestia’s attack?”
“They are not your-“
“Wait, Princess. Please.” Applejack looked at Celestia, who took several seconds before nodding. The farmpony turned back to Twilight. “Ah’ve seen what happened when everypony was under that dome’a yers, Twilight. Ah didn’t like it much.” Applejack stared Twilight directly in the eye. “Y’can blather on about ‘freedom’ an’ those horseapples, but yer doin’ more harm than good, here.” Applejack glanced at Rainbow and Pinkie, pointedly skipping Rarity. “All y’all are doin’ is scarin’ ponies an’ makin’ yer friends an’ families get worried.”
“But what Celestia did-“
“She was fixin’ the mess you made.”
“I was protecting everypony!”
“You were throwin’ a fit because you didn’t get your way!”
“Appleja-“ Shining began.
“I was throwing a fit because SPIKE DIED!” Twilight screamed. She rapidly twisted her head, as if expecting him to have disappeared with that comment. “And Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom, and… and…” The purple mare began hiccoughing. There was an almost silent period for several seconds, broken only by Twilight’s sobs. Applejack turned her head, glancing between Celestia, Shining, and Fluttershy before taking a step towards the unstable mare. Twilight turned her head back to face Applejack, and bore an expression of betrayal.
“And I know how to fix them, to make everypony happy and safe again, and you wouldn’t let me, and you told me that you hated me…”
“Ah don’t hate you, Twilight.” Applejack said softly. It somehow managed to carry to Twilight, because the unicorn gave a confused, hopeful look at the earth pony. “None of us here hate you. But we want to stop you, because you ain’t alright. You need help right now, more’n any of us.”
Twilight took in a few breaths. She stared at Applejack through drowning eyes. “I don’t need help, Applejack. I need friends.”
“An’ Ah’ll be perfectly happy bein’ yer friend, Twilight. Ah just need you t’calm down, an’ stop this.” Applejack took another step towards the unicorn.
“Why?” Twilight asked, her voice cracking. Applejack’s ear flicked.
“Because yer puttin’ ponies in danger, an’ yer scarin’ the horsefeathers outta all’a us.”
“No, no…” Twilight waved a hoof, swaying slightly. “Why did you burn the barn? I could, I could have saved Apple Bloom, just like I saved Spike, like I’m going to save Sweetie, but you, when I told you that, you said that we weren’t friends anymore. You said you’d kill me if I came back.”
“Applejack, you should-“ Shining tried again. This time it was the earth pony who overtalked him.
“Ah’ll admit that Ah wasn’t in the most calm state’a’mind when Ah said that. But, Twilight, you… you haven’t saved Spike from nothin’.”
Twilight gave a weak laugh. “Of course I did, silly. Look at him, my big dragon friend, he’s sitting right behind me.” Twilight gestured to Spike, who released a growl.
“No, Twi. He’s not. His body is there, but Spike’s dead. So is Sweetie Belle,” An odd gasp from Rarity, “and so is Apple Bloom. Just because Spike’s walkin’ around don’t mean he’s any more alive than my sister.”
“Yes, he is.” Twilight reasserted. “He’s alive, I brought him back, I saved him, and if you hadn’t burned Apple Bloom I could have brought her back too-“
“Dammit, Twilight!” Applejack yelled. “Spike is dead! You can’t just shoot magic at him an’ have him come back! What you have there is a corpse, strung up like some damned puppet show by magic that has no right to exist!”
“Spike is not a corpse! Spike is alive, Applejack, no matter what lies you’ve been fed!”
“Then prove it!” Applejack stomped her hoof. “Have Spike do somethin’ independent a’you! Show us that that dragon’s still a livin’ bein’, without yer magic helpin’ him along!”
“How about this?”
Silence. The booming timbre of the new voice echoed across the desert air. Slowly, Shining’s eyes rose to stare at the dragon’s mouth, as did everypony else’s.
Spike swung one ear forward.
“Would you call this ‘intelligence’, Applejack?”
“No…” Celestia breathed. Spike laughed, a rough, repeated growl.
“Twilight figured it out, Celestia. She’s surpassed you. You locked immortality away, and Twilight freed it.”
“This cannot be…” Celestia said. She glanced down at Twilight, whose horn shone radiantly. “If you are truly alive, then you should act free of Twilight’s influence!”
“I cannot. I am alive, but Twilight keeps me alive.” The large eyes turned to Shining. They were still dull and dead. “Being shot in the chest will do that to someone.”
“Do you see now, Applejack?” Twilight said. She wore an almost too-wide grin. “I’ve delivered us from under Celestia’s hoof! She no longer controls us, we are equal and greater than her! Can’t you see what we can accomplish?” Her gaze flicked to Fluttershy. “If you join us, we can use the Elements against her, we can remove her corruption, the festering rot of those who would oppress us, and bring all of Equestria into pure, true harmony! Nopony has to be harmed!” She turned her head slightly, staring at Shining. “Join me, Shining! You’ve been controlled by Celestia for years, but if we broke Chrysalis’ hold, then we can break hers! You and Cadance and Dazzle can live without their hooves on your shoulders, you can be unafraid of reprisal!” Her voice raised, and she suddenly, somehow, gained her youthful voice. “Please, Big Brother, Best Friend Forever!”
Shining looked at Twilight. He looked at Spike.
At Twilight.
At Spike.
At his sister.
At what she’d done.
He closed his eyes.
“Applejack, it’s a trick!” Shining yelled. “Twilight’s still-“
“Hold on a minute, Shinin’.” The orange mare said, her voice somewhat absent. “Ah’m thinkin’.”
A lump of ice landed in Shining’s stomach. He heard Fluttershy step forward.
“Applejack-“
“Ah said wait!” Applejack barked. Fluttershy shrunk back, wimpering, and Applejack flicked her eyes to Spike. “S’that really you, Spike?”
“Of course. Who else would it be?” The dragon replied. Applejack’s eyes fell to a still-grinning Twilight.
“Ah have some ideas.” The farmpony waved a hoof. “An’ a few questions, if y’don’t mind.”
“Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.”
“Good.” Applejack brought a hoof to her head, scratching at it. “So could y’tell me just what y’told me when Ah took Rarity on our first date out in the open?”
The dragon gave another rumbling laugh. “Of course. I said that while I still liked Rarity, I’d rather see her happy with you than sad alone. Though you seem to be perfectly fine with the latter.”
“Ah promise you, there’s nothin’ more Ah’d like than to sweep that mare off her hooves an’ treat her like a Princess the rest’a our lives.” Applejack said. Shining could hear Rarity give an odd mix of a gasp and a sigh, despite the physical distance between them. “But she chose t’go with Twilight instead of stayin’ with me. Ah’m not such a fool that Ah won’t let her make her own choices.”
“Then come with us, Applejack!” Twilight called, her voice elated. “You value freedom, choice, yet you remain under the repressive hoof of Celestia! Join us, be happy again!”
“Ah’d like to. Ah really would.” Applejack sighed. “But you said the wrong thing, Twilight.”
“What?” Twilight’s ear twitched, as did her smile. “What did I say wrong?”
“Well, not you, physically. But that air y’pushed up Spike’s throat, t’make him sound like he’s talkin’, y’formed the wrong words with it.”
“What?” Twilight asked again, her voice strained. Shining saw Celestia and Luna move, slowly walking sideways, opposite directions, rotating to the edges of the common area. He slowly began to walk forward as well, stopping a head short of Applejack’s position. The mare snorted at Twilight’s repeated question.
“Spike didn’t tell me he wanted t’see Rarity happy with me. That’s what he said he was gonna tell you.”
Twilight’s eye twitched, but she maintained her smile. She looked up at Spike, who shrugged.
“My memory’s mixed up, I guess. Sorry, Twilight.”
“No, no, don’t be sorry, Spike, it’s not your fault-“
“Dangit, Twilight!” Applejack shouted, stomping a hoof. “Drop the act! It ain’t foolin’ us!” Twilight swung her head back to the farmpony.
“Spike is alive, Applejack! He’s different in some ways now, but he’s still the same dragon that came down to Ponyville with me!”
“No he ain’t, Twilight! Faust-dammit, pull the hay from yer ears an’ listen!”
Shining winced as Faust’s name was taken in vain; he glanced at Celestia warily, but she seemed to have ignored the insult to her mother. Twilight placed most of her focus on the curser; there was silence for a few moments while she and Applejack stared each other down. The earth pony took a breath.
“If Spike’s alive now, if you really brought him back from the dead, then why’s he totally dependent on you for what he does?”
“Because I need to keep my magic on him, so that he doesn’t slip back; I don’t know what went wrong, but I just need to study it more, and I can make the necromancy work like it’s supposed to. I at least improved it so that his mind is returned.”
“Dangit, Twi, y’didn’t do that! The necromancy on him’s the same that Sombra was usin’! It don’t bring the dead back, it makes ‘em puppets!” She shook her head. “Earlier, Rainbow… implied, Ah guess, that Spike never talked, at least before today. That he doesn’t exactly act all up an’ about when y’aren’t around.”
“I’m big. I can’t exactly be ‘up and about’ without knocking down buildings.” The dragon’s voice came down. Applejack glared at him.
“Fine. Y’know what? Ignore everythin’ else. If y’can do this one thing, Spike, Ah’ll join with Twilight.”
“And what’s that?”
“First, lean yer head down here.” Applejack motioned to the ground with a hoof. The dragon complied, Twilight’s horn glowing slightly brighter as the dragon’s head neared the ground. Applejack waited until his neck was touching the ground before turning to Shining.
“Put a barrier around us.”
“Wait!” Twilight shouted. “I’m not going to let-“
“Y’can put a barrier around us too, if y’want. Ah just want t’make sure what Ah’m sayin’ stays between him an’ me.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed, but she nodded. Her barrier came up first, a bubble encompassing the entire area around Spike and Applejack. Shining grunted, putting a thinner barrier around Twilight’s, his magic’s colour mixing with hers into a dark purple. Applejack waved at both of them, her mouth opened wide, but nothing being heard. After several seconds of this, she nodded to herself, moving to the side of Spike’s head that neither Shining nor Twilight could see. There was a half-minute of no movement before Applejack reappeared, tapping on the barrier; both Twilight’s and Shining’s fell at the same time, and Applejack took several steps away as Spike’s head raised. The mare glanced up at the dragon.
“Go on. Do what Ah asked.”
Silence. Spike didn’t move. Twilight put on a smile again, walking over to Spike’s leg.
“Go on, Spike. Show Applejack that you’re still there.” Still nothing. Twilight twisted her head, glancing up at the dragon. “Spike?”
“Come now, Spike. Don’t y’want me with ya? Just say it, say the words I said inta yer ear.” Applejack’s gaze flicked to Twilight; the unicorn maintained her eyes at the dragon’s head.
“Spike, what’s wrong? Just say what Applejack told you to say. I don’t care what it is.” The dragon’s mouth opened. A small laugh escaped Twilight. “Come on, Spike. You can do it.”
“No, Twilight, he can’t.” Applejack addressed the unicorn, who shifted focus to the farmpony.
“Yes he can! He’s just thinking! Come on, Spike!” Twilight’s horn glowed brighter. Spike closed his mouth, then opened it again. “Spike!”
“Twilight, listen t’me.” Applejack had softened her voice, though it was still loud enough for Twilight to hear. “He can’t say it because you didn’t hear it.”
“Yes he can! Spike! Say it!”
“No, Twilight, he can’t. Ah was talkin’ t’a dead dragon, there. Spike’s body is dependent on you because without you it don’t have anypony t’pull its strings. He’s not there, Twilight, no matter how hard y’want him t’be, just like Apple Bloom an’ Sweetie Belle.”
“SPIKE!”
“Twilight, Ah swear on my Element of Honesty that Spike is dead.” Applejack swallowed, her eyes starting to wet. She turned away from the other mare, walking slowly back to Celestia. “An’ no matter how y’try, y’can’t bring him back, sugarcube.”
The air was still. Rainbow gave a wide-eyed look at Spike and Twilight, as did Pinkie. Twilight herself seemed poleaxed; her face had frozen with a smile half-faded, and she didn’t seem to even be breathing after Applejack’s announcement. Rarity wore a face frozen in shock; she was the first to thaw, however, beating a mad gallop to Twilight and turning the purple mare’s head to face her own.
“Twilight, that doesn’t mean anything, does it?” The fashionista begged, shaking the mare in her hooves. “Spike’s just… he’s just…” Rarity reached for words that weren’t there, taking in hitched breaths. Applejack took a step forward, raising her hoof, but Rarity seemed not to see her. “You can still bring Sweetie back, right? Twilight?!”
“That reminds me, Rarity.” Celestia intoned, calling to the white unicorn. “Your parents are extremely worried about you, and both yours and the Cakes are fearing for your safety, Pinkie. Rainbow Dash, there’s a young mare in Ponyville who could really use your presence right now.”
“Twilight, please. You’re not well.” Shining himself addressed his sister. “You need help, but first you need to let this go.” He motioned to Spike. The dragon had frozen with his puppeteer. “Spike is dead, and you can’t-“
“SHUT UP!” Twilight screamed. Rarity stepped back with a whinny as the unicorn exploded. Twilight’s horn cracked audibly with magical energy, small bolts leaping off of it into the air. She glared at Shining, then at Celestia. “I don’t, I don’t know what you did to him, why Spike can’t hear her, but it stops NOW!”
The guards behind Shining bristled. Spike roared roughly. Celestia and Luna lowered their horns, Luna aiming at Spike and Celestia at Twilight.
“Twilight Sparkle, I am ordering you as your ruler-“
“You do not rule me! NOPONY RULES ME!” Twilight shrieked. Her horn crackled again, the bolts arching off of it and turning some of the ground to char. Celestia’s and Luna’s horns began to glow.
“Twilight-“
The doors of Appleloosa’s town hall burst open, as did every door bordering the square. A veritable flood of ponies rushed out of each building, filling the square and easily surrounding the guardsponies, Ponyvillians, and Appleloosans. Celestia and Luna dropped their spells in shock, and Shining had to grit his teeth to remind himself of his duties.
“Princess, get back here!” He shouted over the din. Both royals responded, ducking into position as Shining raised a barrier around the guardspony group. He could hear one of the Appleloosans muttering several curses in a fear-raised voice as the sheer numbers of the ponies outside blocked the view of Twilight; only when she was lifted up on a dragon’s palm did they see the crazed, joyous expression on her face. She yelled, amplified by magic enough to be heard through the barrier.
“And you don’t rule these ponies either!”
A collective roar rose from the mob, emphasized as Spike’s other paw lifted to reveal the ponies that had gathered behind Rainbow. Two of them wore defiant expressions, the third a worried one. It was the latter that Shining recognized.
“Princess, that’s the Mayor of Hollow Shades.” Celestia and Luna both put their eyes on the stallion, who shrunk back behind the other two. Before they could say anything, Twilight began yelling again.
“These ponies of Dodge Juction, Appleloosa, Hollow Shades, and Trotown have thrown off the tyrannical cover of your royalty, Princess. They now walk in the light of the Revolution, of democracy, of freedom!” Another collective roar. Twilight reared, her overcoat’s cape flaring out dramatically behind her.
“I hereby declare the formation of the Pony's Democratic Front, to overthrow your regime and install the true government of Equestria’s citizens! No longer is anypony beholden to your oppressive regime, Celestia! We shall rise as one, a wave to destroy your grip on Equestria, and bring with us equality, freedom, and safety for all!”
A third roar from both the crowd and Spike punctuated the large ball of ice that materialized in Shining’s stomach. He vaguely heard Fluttershy crying and Applejack trying to comfort her, focussing instead on the grim expressions that Celestia and Luna wore.
“Princess-“
“Send up the signal.” Celestia sighed. “Appleloosa is lost.”
Braeburn and the other Appleloosans turned to face Celestia. “Hey now, what’d’ya mean, ‘lost’? This is our town!”
“I do not disagree, but there are at least five-hundred ponies plus a dragon outside of this barrier that would.” Braeburn blanched at Celestia’s words. “Shining, do it now.”
The guard captain nodded, his horn glowing. He held the spell a few moments before opening a small hole in the top of the barrier and shooting it through.
Straight into a pegasus.
The mare barely had time to register the contact before the ball of magical energy ripped through her barrel; Shining, and everypony else inside and outside the barrier, watched in shock as her wings gave one final twitch before her body fell, slamming into the barrier with enough force to send feathers (and most of a wing) flying through the air. The rest of her body slid down, the ponies nearest it backing away as it hit the ground in another sudden thud. Beyond anyone in town’s notice, the spell exploded, giving a vibrant blue glare to the still body and rapidly growing pool of blood.
For several seconds, nopony moved. There was a small cry, and a unicorn foal pushed its way through the crowd’s legs. The young filly stared blankly at the corpse for several more seconds, before a shriek ripped its way up her throat and out into the air.
Then several things happened at once.
The crowd gave off a scream of rage that rivalled Spike in volume, rushing at the barrier and slamming themselves into it. Twilight was yelling again, though the barrier and the crowd made her words indistinguishable, and Spike took in a large breath before spewing liquid fire across the upper part of the barrier. Shining gritted his teeth, his horn glowing harder as he poured more magic into the barrier. Behind him, Applejack started yelling.
“What the buck was that supposed t’do?!”
“The pegasus was an unintentional casualty, Applejack.” Celestia stated. “That was a signal for our reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements? Y’mean the pegasi y’sent t’guard the Appleloosans?”
“No.” Celestia gave a grim grin. “I mean the one-hundred reserve guardsponies with crowd- and dragon- control weaponry.” A small pink spot appeared in the sky, a fair distance away from Appleloosa. Celestia glanced at it. “They’ve landed. Captain Armor, I would recommend that we more out soon. I do not want you to overexert yourself.”
“I need Spike to breathe fire again, I’m not putting the barrier down until he does.” Shining replied. Applejack twisted her head, and the Appleloosans stared at Shining as if his horn had leapt off of his head and started tapdancing. Luna also gave him a quizzical stare, but Celestia nodded, glancing at the ponies blocking the road out of Appleloosa.
“I see. Faust, may you bring them a merciful end…”
There was a period of relative silence in the barrier, broken only by the thumping of angry hooves and weapons on the barrier, and the shifting of guardspony armour. Shining watched Spike, bracing the barrier as he saw the dragon’s chest expand.
“Get ready to run!” He shouted. Spike opened his mouth, and a small jet of flame cut through the air, speeding towards the barrier.
Shining’s horn glowed, and the top of the barrier dropped several metres. The dragon’s fire sailed over the new height of the barrier, crashing into the ponies on the other side.
A portion of the crowd’s roar became a shriek of agony. Shining lifted the barrier on the fired side, wincing as the screams and stench of burning flesh hit everypony. The guard unicorns held themselves together enough to begin pushing bodies, both alive and dead, away from the centre of the road and into the stunned and reeling crowd that had escaped the concentrated fire’s full force. The Appleloosans all stared in horror at the desolation, the unicorn retching his last meal onto the ground in front of him. Shining shifted his gaze to the Element Bearers, sighing in a small relief that Applejack was already running up the road with the earth pony guards and the Princesses, an unconscious Fluttershy laying across her back. He gave a telepathic push to the Appleloosans, getting them moving before the crowd’s sense returned. What was left of his barrier began to crack, and both he and the unicorn guards ran up the road, spinning on their hooves as they reached the foundations of the former sand wall.
“Ready…” Shining shouted. The guards set themselves.
“Aim…” The barrier began to crumble, small portions of magic dissipating under the repeated stress. Shining gritted his teeth, letting the magic go, his barrier fully disappearing. Several of the crowd ponies fell off balance, glancing up in surprise at the fifteen glowing horns lined up and aimed at them.
“FIRE!”
A loud unified crack was the entirety of the warning given to the crowd before blades of magic ripped through their semicircle of a front rank. More screams entered the air as ponies suddenly found themselves missing legs, wings, ears, jaws, eyes. Shining whistled, and the second rank of ten unicorns put their horns forward as the first fifteen bolted to catch up with the Princesses.
“FIRE!” Shining shouted again, and this time many of the ponies had the good sense to cringe before the unicorns let their spells fly. This second salvo arced more into the centre of the crowd, balls of magic that waited several seconds before detonating and sending ponies flying, trailing blood from various new holes and freshly-severed limbs. Shining activated another barrier, this time encompassing the entire Appleloosan town square, doubled in strength of his last one. He tied it off instead of holding it, turning and galloping as fast as he was able in an attempt to put as much distance between himself and Twilight’s dragon as he could. The first rank of unicorns ran slightly ahead of him and the second slightly behind, their armour jostling but not impeding their movement.
He and the unicorns were just reaching the undamaged rails when Shining felt the spell break. He turned and stopped, sending several blades of magic across the ground he had just removed his hooves from; uneven trenches erupted from the ground, wide enough to trip up a charge by the undisciplined horde.
The fire had burned many, but only in the centre of the crowd; the edges would likely get away with superficial burns if that. The blades and blasts were intimidating, but they’d done less damage than the fire, and once Twilight realized that she’d only lost one-tenth of her force at most…
As Shining watched, panting with exhaustion, no crowd appeared over the horizon. Just a large purple-green blur whose roar gave the ground a light rumble. Shining turned to the unicorns, all twenty-five of whom had for some reason stopped with him.
“What the buck are you still doing here?!”
“Sir, we thought-“
“GET YOUR PLOTS MOVING!” Shining shouted. They quickly glanced amongst themselves before quickly nodding at their captain, galloping as fast as they could. Shining turned to gain a quick look at Spike again before following them.
For about a minute the group of unicorns ran, the dragon easily but slowly gaining on them. Shining was panting hard enough to set his ears ringing, his hooves numb and his eyes blurred from lack of moisture. He heard Spike roughly inhale mere seconds before the ground beneath him erupted, and he was sent flying accompanied by a stallion’s scream.
Landing roughly on his side, Shining lay, a trickle of blood blurring the vision in his eyes further. He turned his head as a shriek of agony sounded beside him, seeing a blurred shape that vaguely resembled the bottom half of a pony. Shining turned towards the next sound, a wet roar, and he tried to set off a magical shot towards it before a spike of pain lanced into the root of his horn. Another scream cut through the desert air, piercing through the ringing pain.
“HEY!” Shining shouted, every word sending his head pounding. “Hey, you bucking overgrown lizard! I’m right here! I’m the one she wants!” He managed to get his hooves under him, swaying slightly before an aura of magic grabbed him. He closed his eyes, trying to get at least one clear memory of his family before Spike bit him in half.
Instead, three inequine shrieks tore the air above him, and as he opened his eyes three explosions sent shockwaves slamming into him. The magical grip tightened, and he felt himself pulled backwards.
He noticed passing a dark blue blur before the black border around his vision expanded, and he lost awareness of his surroundings accompanied by a fading roar.
“Apparently the reinforcements had set up closer to Appleloosa than we had. Celestia and Luna drove Spike and Twilight off while the others grabbed what was left of the unicorns.”
Broken rubbed at his jaw as the other ponies stared at him. Celestia coughed.
“That’s a rather anticlimactic finale, I must say.”
Broken laughed. “I apologize for my inability to sprint five kilometres in full guard armour on a forty-three-degree day after expending most of my energy on high-strength barriers without suffering ill effects, your Highness.”
“No, no, I cannot expect you to give a full account of events. That would be horribly unrealistic of me, especially given what you already have said.”
“Nonetheless, do you have anything to ask of me, Princess?”
“Only if you have any idea how the Revolution managed to spread to Trotown and Hollow Shades without your notice. Dodge Junction is rather close to Appleloosa, but Hollow Shades is…” She trailed off. Broken grimaced.
“Corruption in the guard ranks.” He said in disgust. “We found falsified reports, evidence of bribery, so on and so forth, which explains the equipment Twilight’s guards were decked out in. Apparently Twilight managed to kidnap some of the guardsponies and brainwash them, or just put enough bits on the table for them to betray their oaths.”
“But wouldn’t that have killed them?” Twilight asked. Broken shook his head.
“No. Only the higher-ups had those Oaths, these were just regular words. Ones that could be broken.” Broken sighed. “We caught most of them when we hammered down on the towns; Celestia had seen enough in Appleloosa to consider a ‘light touch’ an idiotic gesture. We completely pacified Hollow Shades, half the populace was loyal anyways and apparently the Mayor had only gone to Appleloosa because his family was being threatened. Trotown was a bit harder, had to post some extra guards there for a while, similar to Ponyville. Dodge Junction was totally gone, worse than Appleloosa, but we managed to destroy their crops and most of their industrial area before Twilight and her giant fire-breathing sledgehammer arrived.” Broken gave a grim grin and a laugh. “On the plus side, they blew up half the town along with fifty-eight guardsponies.”
Shining slammed his hoof into the floor. Dr. Path and Twilight both jumped, and Broken and Celestia raised an eyebrow at him. The stallion drew in a breath before glaring at Broken.
“How can you laugh at that?” Shining growled. “You find guardsponies that die to be funny?!”
“Of course not, Polished Closet.” Broken said. “I’ve just learned that the best way to avoid the crushing desire to strangle something when reminded of my own failure as a leader is to laugh about it. Not that I like it.” The scarred stallion gave a glare at Twilight. “Especially when the murderer is sitting across from me…”
Twilight blinked as a large white wing blocked her view of Broken. “As I have said-“
“Relax, Princess, I’m not stupid enough to actually attack her again. Hence my laughing.”
“So you consciously use laughter as a mechanism to cope with feelings of failure and resentment?” Path asked. Broken gave him an exasperated look, but nodded.
“I guess…”
“And you also use it to overcome the urge to commit murder.”
“No, no.” Broken gave a toothy grin, showcasing his new false teeth. “I said something, not somepony. It’s not murder if it’s not an intelligent being.”
“That’s beside the point.” Path clicked his tongue. “You feel an urge to cause the death of a living thing when reminded of or shown examples of what you perceive to be personal failings.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea why you might have those urges, Mr. Shield?”
Broken blinked several times. “Because I’m insane?” He ventured.
“Insane does not mean violent, and you aren’t insane. You’re mentally ill. ‘Insanity’ does not actually psychologically exist, but that’s into another subject.”
“Then tell me, oh mighty doctor, why do I feel a compulsion to watch somepony’s eyes pop out of their skull when I’m frustrated?”
Path blinked. “Judging by your statements, and the results of your tests, I’d say that you enjoy being in control of a situation.”
“Duh.”
“And when you fail to do something that you wanted to do, such as stopping the Revolution or saving your family, or you are reminded of such an event, you feel like you have lost control.”
“That sounds about right.”
“So you perform an action that allows you the ultimate control, that is control over life and death, that lets you regain a feeling of dominance and superiority over somepony or something. You hate not being allowed to do what you wish, because you feel like you are losing control over your own life.” Path finished, his smile returning. Broken watched him for a few seconds, his eyebrow raised.
“That… could be it…”
“Well, that’s a limited analysis. It’s not like I can just glance at your claims and instantly figure out your favourite colour, Mr. Shield.” Path shrugged. “Plus, your brain’s likely wired differently from ours, so you may have different thought processes on certain subjects.”
“If I may intrude, doctor?” Celestia asked. Path gave her a smile and nodded, stepping back. She turned to Broken. “Broken Shield, did you recognize how… callous, I suppose, you sounded when describing the fate of the buffalo?”
“I was telling the truth, Princess.”
“And I greatly appreciate that, I assure you. But in my observation, you didn’t appear to hold any sympathy for the buffalo, even the ones who fled after the large conflict.”
“The buffalo as a group violated the law, Princess. We negotiated the land purchases with them, and they were happy with the trade and custom we gave them, but the minute we try to take up our side of the bargain? They immediately refuse to vacate the lands that we obtained in the trade. All take, no give.” Broken huffed. Celestia turned an ear.
“Did they understand what was meant in the agreements when they signed their ancestral lands away?”
“They should have, why would they sign them otherwise?” Broken rubbed his head.
“So they may have been misled.” Celestia stated. Broken blinked.
“Possibly…” He shrugged. “Not my problem if they were too stupid to recognize a bad deal. If they’d wanted to renegotiate, I’m sure Celestia would have been willing. Instead, they started harassing us. So we responded.”
“By destroying the majority of their population and dooming the rest to a slow, inevitable death.”
Broken’s mouth thinned. “When you say it like that, it sounds rather horrible, doesn’t it?” He sighed. “Look, Princess, I’m not saying that we wanted to kill the buffalo. If they’d been willing to accept and adapt to Equestrian life, we would have let them. But they insisted on clinging to their tents and beads, so we left them alone until we needed to expand onto the land they were occupying. We negotiated a deal with them, then they broke it. After that, they were legally vagrants; we would have gone down there to kick them out even if they hadn’t been violent savages.”
Celestia’s eyes narrowed. “You call them violent and savage, after what you’ve just admitted to?”
“What have I admitted to, Princess?”
“Blindly firing magical weaponry into a crowd of civilians, one that included foals, by your own statement.”
Broken gave a dry mix of a sigh and a growl. “They were trying to kill us, Princess!”
“You have no evidence of that.”
“Actually, I need to agree with Broken on this one, Princess.”
Four heads turned to face Shining in surprise. Celestia raised an eyebrow.
“Could you explain, Shining?”
“I think that, given Dawn’s hostility in the past as well as the attacks made upon the guardsponies in Ponyville, Broken Shield was reasonable in assuming that the mob in Appleloosa was violently hostile, especially after his ‘unintentional’ killing of the pegasus mare.” Shining took in a breath. “I do not agree with his response, especially given the foals’ presence, but I cannot fault him for his observations.”
“I see.” Celestia turned to Twilight. “Do you share your brother’s view?”
“Er… kind of.” Twilight shook her head. “I really don’t think that hurting any of them was okay, not with Spike’s fire or magical weapons, but given what happened in Ponyville, I can see why Broken would do so. Especially given what we know about his timeline in general. I mean, we would never have ordered guardsponies to attack that crowd, and I don’t think that they would have done it even with orders. At the same time, I don’t think that our mobs are as violent as his are.” She turned to Broken. “How many ponies died in the last pre-Revolution riot?”
“Twenty-six dead, eighty injured.” Broken rattled off instantly. He blinked as everypony stared at him. “Some Trottingham worker’s union ponies got pissed about industrialization, started attacking the machinists, the nobles that owned the factories sent down mercenaries to ‘protect their interests’, next you know a factory’s blown up and you have street fights erupting across the city between pro-worker and pro-industry protestors…”
“I remember that.” Shining said. “The union went on strike and negotiated a guarantee that nopony would lose their jobs. We were sent down to make sure tempers kept low.”
“We were sent down to crack heads, both the strikers and the idiots that the nobles hired to attack them, but asides from a few isolated cases they quieted down pretty quickly.”
“Did you have to kill anyone?”
“Not in the riots, no. There were trials, obviously, but of the twenty-six that were killed only nine murderers could be identified, and seven of those just got life in prison.” His expression soured. “Until Dawn set them loose, anyway.”
Twilight turned back to Celestia, who wore a thoughtful expression. “See, Princess?”
“I do, my faithful student.” The Princess said, her eyes turning to Broken and ignoring the look on his face. “Though I must ask, Broken Shield, whether or not you had considered not harming the crowd at all.”
“Of course I did. I recognized that we’d be more likely to get away if they were dealing with casualties.” Broken shrugged.
“And your Celestia was accepting of this, even after her statement against a ‘hammering’ method?”
“Yeah, obviously. I’d never have done it without the Princess’ clearance. She wasn’t foalish enough to think that we could have gotten out of there safely without doing some damage.”
“So she was fine with casually destroying the lives of her ponies?”
Broken gave the Princess an incredulous stare. “I… that…” he brought his hoof to his face, pulling the skin down. “No, she hated doing it. She spoke to Faust, for her sake, that’s not something that happened very much.”
“But she still cleared you to… ‘violently defend’ yourselves, shall we say?”
“Yeah.”
There were a few seconds of silence. Path was switching his gaze between Broken and Celestia regularly, as were Shining and Twilight. The one-eyed stallion broke the silence first.
“You mystify me, Princess.”
Celesita cocked an ear, though her expression remained the same.
“Why is that?” She asked. Path quietly replaced his clipboard’s notepad.
“You…” Broken waved a hoof. “You’re angry about this. All of you are. I don’t get it.”
“About what? About the Revolution?”
“No, no, being mad about that makes perfect sense. But you seem angry that we escaped from Appleloosa.” “We’re not mad that you escaped.” Shining spoke up.
“We just don’t like that you hurt ponies to do it.” Twilight followed. Broken’s eye twitched.
“Okay, I’m going to lay this plain out for you. The ponies in Appleloosa were rebelling. Violently, at that.” He gave Shining a glare. “We knew we couldn’t beat them, so we escaped. What would you have done to ensure that you could get out of there alive, if not ‘hurt ponies’?”
“Place a larger, thicker barrier around the square, then another around the town itself, and a third at a distance around the town after you’ve left. Have the unicorns under your command push as much magic into the barriers as you can, make them as strong as possible. Keep everypony alive.” Shining stated. Broken coughed a laugh.
“Now why would Celestia want that?”
“Excuse me?” The mentioned Princess asked. Broken shifted his focus back to her.
“As I said, my Celestia wasn’t enough of a fool to presume or to expect that everypony that was following Twilight would be kept alive; Twilight was mentally ill, and Rarity and Pinkie might have been, but everypony else was a willingly violent secessionist. Why would you want to keep those traitors alive?”
“Because I value the lives of all of my subjects?”
“You view ponies that rebel against you as your subjects?!”
“How would you classify them, if not as Equestrian citizens?”
“Enemy combatants! Dangerous criminals! Target practice!” Broken gave an exasperated laugh as everypony’s eyes widened. “If I had my way, Celestia would have razed Appleloosa then and there, get rid of as many of those little thorns in our side as possible instead of letting them sit and fester.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No, she didn’t.” Broken sighed. “I didn’t want to either, at the time. This is hindsight talking, I’ll admit.” He flicked his eye between Celestia and Shining. “But I still think it’s foalish to expect that we escape without doing some damage.”
“’Timeline differences’, shall we say?” Celestia asked.
“I guess. Was there anything else?”
“Yes, you mentioned that you would have accepted the buffalo if they had ‘given up their tents and beads’. What did you mean by that?”
“I meant what I said. If they had started acting like real Equestrians, and obeyed Celestia’s laws, we wouldn’t have bothered them.”
“And what exactly are ‘real Equestrians’?” Celestia asked, her voice dangerously calm. Broken appeared to notice her tone along with everypony else, but he still answered her.
“Er, ponies, Princess. Pegasi, unicorns, earth? The three tribes of ponies that founded Equestria?”
“I see.” Celestia smiled, a small, sharp smile. “Might I ask why the buffalo would need to abandon their customs and traditions, and their entire way of life, if I understand you correctly, in order to join Equestrian society?”
“I should think that it would be obvious, Princess.,,” Broken replied. Celestia shook her head.
“Not to me. I’m sure that the Guard and other such professions could have use of their strength and ‘warrior’s honour’ mentality, and who’s to say that they could not have contributed to our scientific and scholarly pursuits with their cultural practices? You could have worked in harmony with them.”
“We were trying to work in harmony with them, Princess! That’s why they needed to give up their old way of life; the buffalo culture was too different from ours for any practicioner of it to effectively integrate into Equestrian society. We were already having problems keeping the damned pegasi in line, what with their floating cities, and those were ponies, at least. In the name of harmony and safety, we needed to keep everypony, or everybody, rather, following the same system.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “That’s… follows a kind of logic, if still horribly flawed and suspiciously motivated.”
“I’m guessing you do it differently here?” Broken flatly asked. Celestia nodded.
“We maintain and support a mix of cultural influences in Equestria, so that the groups they belong to feel welcome and are willing to work towards the betterment of Equestria and all citizens. The medicinal knowledge of the zebras has had a personal effect on Twilight Sparkle, in fact.” Celestia motioned towards the mentioned unicorn. Twilight nodded as Broken’s eye fell upon her.
“It did in my timeline as well. How’s Zecora been, if I might ask?’
“Rather well, last I spoke to her.” Twilight said, surprised. “You know her?”
“Know her? That stripy witch kept me alive after my first escape from Dawn’s custody.” He gave a small laugh. “Didn’t much like the décor, but the Everfree is a legal grey area when it comes to laws on property, and I wasn’t stupid enough to send guardsponies in to enforce what was essentially a fining offence. Lucky me, I guess.”
“Was she terribly affected by Dawn’s rule?” Twilight asked. Broken’s smile faded.
“Not initially. Dawn came to talk to her a few times, but she never searched around – which was good, because that mud hut Zecora ‘lived’ in was the initial base of the Loyalists while we dug out a more secure base deeper into the Everfree.”
“What happened next?”
Broken coughed. “The camps.”
Everypony but Twilight twisted their ears. She felt a small blade of ice form in her stomach.
“Pip told me about the camps.”
Broken’s eye widened. “How much did he tell you?”
“Enough that I can tell they’re not very nice places. He said that there were ‘re-education’ and ‘internment’ camps, for the non-ponies that were trying to enter Equestria as refugees?”
Broken nodded. “The camps were supposed to be places that would make sure no non-Equestrian cultures muddled with ours. Dawn was the same as us, same as everypony, on the whole ‘different cultures’ effect on Equestrian harmony’ thing.” He paused as Path’s note-taking became audible, waiting until the doctor’s writing had calmed down somewhat. “There were two versions: The re-education camps, where the immigrants would be brought to be learn about Equestrian life, so that they could blend in without causing too much ruckus, and the internment camps, where immigrants were held until they could be moved into a re-ed camp.
“As time went on, non-ponies stopped leaving the re-ed camps. There was such an influx of immigrants, Dawn said, that they couldn’t process them all. The re-eds turned into internments, ‘un-officially’, then more internments got built as more refugees piled onto the border, until there weren’t any immigrants trying to enter Equestria. Then Dawn announced that all non-equine species needed to go to the camps to ensure that they weren’t inadvertently messing up Equestrian life with their ‘natural inequine influences’.”
Broken coughed a laugh. “That was a crock, of course. But it was carried out, and eventually expanded to all non-pony beings, including those who had already been through. Zebras being the main target.
“That’s when Zecora got ‘terribly affected’, by the way.”
---
“ZECORA! Get your striped plot out here, NOW!”
Shining paced in front of the door to the zebra’s mud hut. The windows didn’t even have glass, so she couldn’t have missed that call, but the stallion nonetheless saw fit to start throwing rocks into the hut through said glassless windows in order to hasten her.
It was that or run out of time and be immolated in liquid flame. Given Zecora’s history with ponies and fire, Shining figured that she wouldn’t mind a few broken potion bottles.
“You need not assault my home’s interior; I am well aware what fate has in store.” A deep, rhythmic voice trailed out from the hut. Shining smacked himself in the face, feeling a slight twinge in both his horn and his eyesocket.
“Then I would strongly suggest that you get the buck out of here before your fate unstores itself!” Shining called back, gritting his teeth at the pseudopony’s speech.
“Fate shall do what fate shall will; for whom it acts is unsure still.” The door slid open, revealing a pony shape swathed in several cloaks and hoods. Corks and coloured bottlenecks stuck out of every visible pocket, and Shining could hear numerous clinkings of glass from under the cloaks. The pony shape shook its head back, sliding off the hoods and revealing Zecora’s black, white, and scarred pink face; one milky eye stuck to the side as her working one fixed on Shining’s own eye. Both nodded at each other before Zecora turned around and gently shut the door.
---
“Okay, hold on…”
“What, already?”
“What the buck happened to Zecora in your timeline?! She’s perfectly fine in ours!”
“Oh. After Zecora first showed up, Ponyville was all terrified of her, so everypony ran and hid whenever she came around. This was going on before you even went down there, by the way.”
“That happened in ours as well.”
“Okay, so when you showed up, you insisted that Zecora wasn’t evil, her odd habits were just a result of her horrible upbringing in a backwards nation, and she hadn’t received enough of an education to know how to function in civilized society. Or most likely any real education at all.”
“That’s… a bit different…”
“What, how’d yours go?”
“Er, it was less ‘She’s an uneducated savage’ and more ‘She comes from somewhere else and she might have perfectly good explanations for the differences in the way she acts, which aren’t inherently worse than how we do anything’.”
Silence.
“You ponies are weird.”
“No more than you are. Now continue, please?”
“Right. So, after your little explanation, Apple Bloom decided to go check out Zecora for herself, and when you noticed she was missing, everypony in your little group ran after her. Apparently, you were tracking Zecora until you saw her on the other side of a patch of Poison Joke, carrying an unconscious Apple Bloom on her back. Applejack freaked out, charged straight through the Joke, and attacked Zecora. Rainbow flew after her, and you levitated everypony else over.”
“Wait, how did we know that Poison Joke was dangerous?”
“Fluttershy told you on the way to the Everfree Castle; you encountered some after you faced down the manticore, but Fluttershy got him to carry everypony through after explaining what happened to ponies that touched it.”
“That’s not what happened in ours…”
“I would imagine that it wouldn’t be. So, after you got everypony over, you magically lifted Applejack off of Zecora and held her down so that she didn’t thrash herself into a broken leg. You asked Zecora what she was doing with Apple Bloom, and she responded that the filly had gone into the Joke and had some sort of abnormal reaction to it; the symptoms came on extremely suddenly, and Zecora had pulled Apple Bloom out in order to help her. Given that soon after this Applejack apparently began frothing at the mouth, made odd wheezing noises, and fell unconscious, it was apparently a familial allergy.
“With no other options in safe distance, you followed Zecora to her tree hut, where she brewed a potion and saved the Apples’ lives. You bid her farewell and went back to Ponyville, where you sent Princess Celestia a letter detailing how you learned that lesser cultures’ practices could actually be somewhat useful on occasions where access to real medicine or technology is unavailable.”
A pause.
“…So how did she get injured?”
“Oh, apparently some idiot went into the Everfree and set the Poison Joke patch on fire. A wild wind picked it up and blew it towards Zecora’s tree hut, causing it to catch aflame. It was completely destroyed, and Zecora got severely burned before Applejack and Rainbow Dash arrived and rescued her.”
“What were they doing out there?”
“Well, Applejack claimed that she was patrolling the orchard for apple-thieves when she saw the light and smoke. No idea where she got Rainbow Dash from, but neither of them was willing to say during the investigation.”
“Alright, then, did you ever find out who started the fire?”
“Nope. Zecora requested that we not pursue the investigation if it involved checking out her old house, for some reason. She was kind of… out of it, I guess, after that, sorta. I’m really not sure how much of this I’m just forgetting and how much I never learned in the first place.”
“You’ve been rather impressive in your relations of events for the most part, Broken.”
“Unusually so, in fact. Not many ponies suffering your conditions could recall these things so clearly.”
“Er, thanks, I guess. Should I continue?”
“When you are ready.”
---
“What took you so long? I thought I said to be ready to evacuate quickly.” Shining gave another look at the zebra’s coverings. “You’re lucky the bitch is running late. Can you move quietly when you’re carrying all that stuff?”
Zecora shook her head, easing the door shut with an odd amount of care. “It matters not the noise I make; I only hope it is she we take.”
Shining once again watched the zebra, noting the twitch of her dead eye. “You rigged the hut to blow up, didn’t you.”
Zecora smirked as she walked past him. “Are you requesting an answer, or stating a fact? Both are valid, one has tact.” She twitched the wisps of tail hair she bore up to hit his face; he shook the gentle touch from his cheek, scowling and complexion darkening.
“Don’t overstep your bounds, stripe.”
Zecora flinched at the word, though when she turned her face wore pity rather than anger. “I meant not offence to her memory; please see that I am truly sorry.”
Shining sighed. “Let’s just get moving.” The mare nodded, flipping her hood back up and disappearing into the brush. The stallion spared a wary glance at the former headquarters of the Celestian loyalists before following.
“Make sure you know where you’re walking, the manticores get antsy if anypony goes near them.”
“I have had my home here for years; I know what and what not to fear. And you are acting as my guide; any startled beasts are on your hide.”
“Right, yeah…” Shining shook his head. He cast a furtive glance over his shoulder; though nothing could be seen through the Everfree more than several feet away, he still had the compulsion to constantly watch his own back. Especially when an explosion was supposed to happen somewhere behind him. “When is your hut supposed to explode?”
“The blast shall come with the open door; potions shall spill on that accord. A moment they take to mix and bubble; anyone near shall be in trouble.”
“Wait, how much ‘trouble’ would you say you mixed up?” Shining asked. “How far away should we be?”
“The blast shall stay within safe bounds; the fire may spread vastly around.” Zecora gave what could have been a giggle or a shudder at the last line.
“What did you use to make the explosive?” Shining said, making his interest clearer. Zecora shrugged.
“Blasting water for a kick, fat and oil to make it stick. Black powder to gain a burn, the rest you shall need to later learn.” The zebra jabbed her head at a small opening in the canopy. Shining looked up, watching as a rainbow blur sped past.
“She has circled two times now; too close for us to talk aloud.” Zecora added quietly. Shining nodded, motioning her forward with a hoof.
The two equines walked mostly in silence, only occasional crunchings of twigs or rocks or skeletal remains making notable noise. They avoided any open areas, sticking to the thick brush; moving along the path to the Everfree Castle, no matter the convenience, would risk running into a revolutionary ‘guard’ patrol, probably including at least one Risen guard. Shining shifted his shoulders; the last Risen the loyalists had fought had killed three ponies and nearly put a hole in Shining’s neck before Applejack had kicked a rock into its spine. Then it bit its tongue off and drowned itself in its own blood.
Zecora stopped, raising her head and sniffing. Her voice was low and terse. “The air is torn; magic, be warned.”
Shining cussed, feeling the grimy aftereffects of somepony casting hard magic in the Everfree. Several trees nearby were splatted with dried blood, marking the results of the attempted spell.
Some days, he was almost glad his horn was dead.
There was a loud snap from Shining’s left; he tried to cast on instinct before pulling the spell back. Instead he ducked into the nearby brush, Zecora following close enough to put her chin on his shoulder. The two remained motionless for several seconds, before a Zebrican swallow called from their former position. Shining gave a low Equestrian swallow call back, which was returned in a higher pitch. He relaxed slightly, standing and slowly walking back through the foliage until an orange mare came fully into view.
“Your call was off. Zebricans do a shorter first chirp and a longer third.”
“Ah did what y’taught me.” Applejack shrugged off the criticism. “’Sides, yers sounded like a Canterlot bird, not a wild one.”
“You both sang like ponies, not birds. Trained, the difference would be easily heard.” Zecora shifted out of the brush as the two talked, and Applejack put her focus on the mare.
“Glad y’could make it.” Applejack greeted the zebra. “Sorry ‘bout bringin’ y’outta yer accomodations so suddenly, but-”
There was a sound like a close thunderclap, and several seconds later the ground every tree shook violently. Applejack had to spread her hooves to steady herself; Shining simply let himself shake, and Zecora didn’t seem to notice the earth’s movement. The earth pony picked up her hat from the ground and reset it atop her head before continuing.
“-what in the hay was that, if either a’ya know?”
“That was my former accommodation; I am happy to be moving to your station.” Zecora replied. Shining barked a dry laugh, and Applejack shifted her gaze between the two.
“So long’s y’took out somepony important, Ah’m happy.” She said, before putting her back to the pair. “Open entrance is this way. C’mon.” She slid into the brush with Zecora and Shining quick behind her; three other ponies greeted them, one of which Shining easily recognized.
“Captain.” Jade nodded in salute at Shining, the other two following him.
“Sergeant Jade!” Shining met him in surprise, looking him up and down. His mouth thinned, and his eye widened, as he saw the stallion’s disability. “Faust, your leg-“
“No worse than your eye, sir.” Jade responded, wagging the wooden stick that took the place of the stallion’s right cannon. “Lost it when the dragon landed on my station in Canterlot. They pulled me out and stuck this thing right into the stump.”
“You mean the rebels? You escaped Canterlot?” Shining asked. The green stallion nodded.
“I had… help, from the inside. Same as you, according to her.” Jade said. Shining blinked, but nodded.
“Well, I’m glad to have you, lad.”
“Glad to be here, Captain.” Jade stepped to the side, his eyes shifting to Zecora. “If you’d follow us, miss?”
“I should hope to enter cover from air; pieces of death shall soon fall from there.” The zebra responded. Jade raised an eyebrow at her, but she simply laughed and walked forward, following the small path Applejack had created. The two other ponies followed her, leaving Shining and Jade in the small clearing. Jade cleared his throat and was apparently prepared to speak when something crashed through the overgrowth, breaking branches and hitting the ground with a dull thud. Shining leaned down, lifting it with a weak and spotted magic, as Jade stared, moderately horrified.
“Sir, what are-“
“Bah, nevermind.” Shining let the pink thing drop. “It’s a mare’s, and the left leg besides.” He glanced at Jade, his face and tone deadpan. “It wouldn’t fit you.”
The three-legged stallion gave Shining an extremely odd look before the one-eyed stallion burst into strained laughter. Jade swallowed, but soon found himself chuckling along with his commander at the morbid joke. The two stood there, sharing an odd laughter, until another crash echoed through the forest, followed by an enraged roar.
Then they bolted through the foliage, close behind everypony else, for the safety of the loyalist base.
“Your horn was still damaged at this point? Enough to affect your magic, that is?”
“Yeah. Can’t tell you how frustrating it was. Gained a whole new appreciation for the flatheads’ methods.” A laugh. “Of course, they’re also physically stronger than us pinheads. A Risen earth pony was just about the toughest thing in Equestria to kill, after Dawn exterminated the dragons, but unicorns or the few pegasi would go down in five or six shots.”
“Er, this was soon after your escape from Canterlot, then?”
“…I’m not sure, actually. I think it was three years afterwards.”
“You were unable to use magic for that long?”
“No, I got my magic back a few days after my horn got taken off, when…”
“Broken? Are you alright?”
A nod. A cough. “…I got my magic back moments after Cadance died, Princess.”
Silence, for a palpable time. “I see…”
“I was… it…”
“Broken, you don’t need to tell us now. Wait until you’re ready.”
“Yeah… yeah, okay…” Another cough. “I… I got the magic back, but I couldn’t use it, not easily. I had to relearn most of my spells from the ground up, like a foal, and I couldn’t use my horn as a focus, either. That’s all a horn really is, a focus for magical energy, but nopony really knew that because nopony could naturally focus enough to cast effective magic without it.”
“Until you?”
“No, I just pushed hard enough that magic started coming out anyways. Took me quite a while to smooth it out.” A third cough. “You, do you want me to talk about the camps, now?”
“That would be best, Broken.”
---
“You speak to me of the horrors within; now you expect me to join my kin?” Zecora stared incredulously across the table at the stolid-faced Shining and Applejack.
“Jus’ long enough fer us t’get our ponies in there, then we can break y‘out. You an’ yer stripey ‘kin’.” Applejack replied, tapping her hoof on the map that occupied the table’s surface. “The camp’s right on the edge’a th’Everfree. We have a couple’a stallions bring you in like you’d been caught runnin’ from the trap y’set up fer Twilight-“
“Dawn.” Shining growled. Applejack blinked.
“Right, fer Dawn. They get ya in, head fer the main barracks, then hit the commanders when we stage an assault on the outside. You get as many zebras as y’can t’one spot so they don’t get hurt in the fightin’.”
“You’re a high-profile prisoner, they won’t deny you entrance, and they’ll probably be too excited to check your escort closely. If everything goes smoothly, the guards break when they figure out their command’s dead, let us round them up without much trouble. Then we tie them to the flagpole while we hightail it out of there with the refugees.” Shining added, then shrugged. “When something bucks up, we have enough ponies outside to keep the guards distracted, and we can crack them by ourselves if we need to. The only big problems could be a Risen guard, or if Dawn decides to show up herself for a surprise inspection.”
Zecora glanced between them again before nodding. “And you promise to get them away from here? Somewhere safe and free, no wars to fear?”
“We have friends in Vanhoover, they can get the refugees onto boats within hours and to Saddle Arabia in days.” Shining answered. “And don’t worry about getting them there, either. The ‘Hooves seem to think that zebras are closer to earth ponies than the pegasi or unicorns, they’ve been running a smuggling circuit for months.”
Zecora gave another glance at the map. She looked up, into Shining’s eye, before nodding.
“You know what to do. Good luck, and may Celestia smile upon us.”
The three stallions (and one mare) nodded solemnly, muttering assent as they shifted under their vandalized armour. Zecora simply sat there, lip and eyebrow freshly bleeding. She’d insisted that she bear some injury, to heighten the believability of her ‘capture’. Shining had let her smack her face into a rock a few times.
The five set off down the edge of the road. They’d move a half-kilometre down before stepping onto it and marching back up towards the camp. Shining and Applejack moved forward to start with, along with five other loyalists, watching the camp from the edge of the clearing, barely one row of trees between them and the open grass.
“D’you think this’ll work?” Applejack mumbled.
“I wouldn’t have risked her if I didn’t.”
“Ah know, but… what d’ya think we’re gonna find in there?”
Shining shrugged. “Shadowbolts said their camp was overcrowded, but the ponies in charge were keeping the peace, and there weren’t any dead that hadn’t already been dealt with.”
“They did a gryphon camp, though. The ground ones’re supposed t’be different.”
“You heard the stories, I’m guessing?”
“I heard enough from the kids t’keep me up thinkin’.” Applejack glanced at the ponies following her, as did Shining. One lanky stallion’s helmet hung slightly loose, as did the rest of his armour; a mare peeked out at them from under the brim of her own oversized helm, her horn the only part that fit to the armouring. She grinned widely at him before catching herself and adopting a more stoic expression. Shining nodded at her.
“They aren’t children.” He bit his cheek. “Not foals, in any case. And I honestly doubt the rumors are true.”
Applejack glaced sidelong at the stallion. “You’re opposin’ a rumor that makes Dawn sound bad?”
“I’m not opposing it, I just don’t think it’s what really happened.”
“How else d’you explain an entire camp clearin’ its population in a week without any influx’a zebras into the local populace? Hollow Shades should look like a wavy checkerboard right now, but our ponies’re reporting a distinct lack’a stripey newcomers.”
“They could’ve moved them, Waltz said the Appleloosan camp got an expansion recently, and we don’t know how many she’s holding in the jewelbitch mines.”
“Maybe…” Applejack nickered. “You think she’d even bother, though?”
“C’mon, Applejack. Two-hundred-fifty zebra corpses don’t just vanish into thin air.” Shining snorted. Applejack gave a half-hearted laugh and a mumble back; the beating of hooves on packed earth grabbed both of their attentions, and they were soon watching four tan-armoured ponies escort a chained zebra to the front gate of the camp. One guard came out from the small shack on the side; he conversed with the group before peeking under Zecora’s hood. Stepping back suddenly, he nodded at the lead pony before re-entering the shack. The gate swung open, and the group walked slowly in.
“Four minutes.” Applejack muttered beside Shining, quiet enough for the others to know she meant it as private. “You think they’ll need four minutes?”
“If they don’t, they send an early signal. We’ve got this planned out, worrying now’s not going to do anything.”
“You’re not worried somethin’ might feather up?”
“Of course I am, I just can’t show it. And I have confidence in them. If something goes wrong, they’ll make it known.” Shining brought up a spyglass, focusing his eye on the gate. “We just need patience.”
Time passed, seconds and then minutes without action or reaction. Applejack paced around the small patch of dirt and grass just inside the forest border; Shining stood still, maintaining his watch, punctuated by glances at the other three hidden groups of loyalists. Everypony was well hidden and stationed, not that it mattered; the guard towers for the camp didn’t even seem occupied, let alone on watch.
A bright flash above the camp set Shining’s back legs stiff. He dropped the spyglass to the ground, front hoof lifting as he heard the ponies behind him shift in their armour. He and Applejack inhaled at the same time, then he brought his hoof to his mouth.
The guard in the shack stumbled out, gazing up at the spot where the signal shone. His head whipped around when he heard Shining’s piercing whistle, standing in apparent shock as Shining and his squad emerged from the treeline. The stallion didn’t move until Shining was only a few metres of him; then he seemed to realize exactly who was galloping up to the camp.
“Hey, you ne-“ he began, before two orange hooves met his snout. The stallion was knocked back, hitting the wall before Applejack reset her hooves. The other squads quickly joined them, and there were soon forty ponies milling about outside the camp’s gate. Shining slipped into the guard shack, searching it for what would hopefully be labelled-
“Gate lock.” The stallion said, grinning at the small wheel under the sign. He withdrew from the shack, grabbing two unicorns and pointing them to the wheel. One quick instruction, and the gate swung open, Shining’s forces forming to the wall on either side of the opening. He nodded across the road at Applejack; she slipped inside the camp, four loyalists following her. Ten seconds passed.
“Clear!” The mare’s voice called. Nopony relaxed. Shining quickly motioned the other squads in, the unicorns from the shack merging with their battle-group. He moved in with the final few ponies, washing his gaze over the camp’s internal structure.
The oddly clean, completely deserted structure. The wide dirt road continued down towards the camp’s centre; a total of four dirt paths split off of it, running parallel to each other and the wall in either direction. Rectangles of grass lay between these paths, with long, low-stilted structures in ordered rows taking up much of the unpaved area. These buildings bore no sign of use, their ramps unmuddied and windows shuttered. This was normal, based on the maps of camp spies; the second wall, however, was not.
“Aw, buck, there’s another one?!” Somepony cursed. Shining glanced at the smaller version of the structure they had just breached; it stood around the centre of the camp, holding maybe as much as a quarter of the camp’s land area. The logs comprising it were thicker and slightly higher, and there was no gate. Shining gazed blankly at the structure before inhaling.
“Right! Applejack, take squads five through eight, go around the right side, look for the breach party. Squads one through four, follow me, keep your eyes peeled for movement. We’re still in enemy territory, we’re presuming they know about us, we have ten minutes. Move!” Shining finished with a bark, jumping everypony into action. Applejack trotted up to him as the squads organized themselves.
“Two-hundred-fifty can’t disappear, huh? How ‘bout two-hundred flat?”
Shining snorted at the mare. “Look at this place, nopony’s ever lived in these. If they have anybody held here, they’re in the second wall, and that shouldn’t hold more than fifty zebras.” He laughed. “Looks like we got off easy, here.”
Applejack gave him a flat look. “Shinin’, we’ve seen more’n fifty zebras get brought here, there was over a hundred in that carriage train a year ago!”
“It could have been a fake-out, AJ. Those things happen. We just need to verify the other camp intel, make sure we haven’t missed anything.” Applejack opened her mouth again, but Shining raised a hoof. “Later. We need to make sure this place is clear.”
Shining attached himself to one of the squads, led by a mare, Petal Light, who was likely born when he was taking the Guard entrance exams. She controlled her ponies well enough, as did the other leaders; two squads took each road, one advancing while the other covered them. The advance was synchronized, both pairs of squads moving forward at the same pace. The group rounded the corner in just over a minute, continuing down along the deserted outer area.
---
“I’m sorry, Broken, this is terribly interesting, but could you perhaps move it along to a point more relevant to your topic?”
“Er, I’m sorry, Princess?”
“Oh, don’t worry, you aren’t in trouble, it’s simply that some of us have a medically-mandated bedtime that is creeping ever closer. I’m sure you could summarize up to the point that illustrates why these ‘internment’ camps were the morally reprehensible constructions that you and Twilight seem to hold them as?”
“Oh, right, um… yeah. We kept moving, rounded the corner again, and met up with Applejack’s half of the loyalists, right in front of the camp’s administration building, it was a re-ed originally, which was basically a much larger version of the shack outside, with a much smaller gate to go along with it. One of our infiltrators had set a signal on the outside, and when we came in they had already tied up the eight remaining camp guards.” A laugh. “Nine guards for two-hundred zebras, can you believe it?”
“Didn’t you say that the inner wall couldn’t have held more than fifty zebras, Broken?”
“Yeah. I did.”
---
“What in Faust’s name…”
Shining’s invocation had been one of the calmer reactions to the scene inside the second wall. Several ponies had vomited, one had actually fainted. Applejack had taken one look inside, turned around, and bucked the gate-door hard enough to break the logs it was connected to.
The smell hit first; the smell of sewage and rot, pushed up by the heat that the close walls trapped at ground level. Within the walls stood eight of the stilted buildings from the outside. Unlike the outside, the buildings were extremely dirtied and lived-in; the fact that the ground was bare dirt didn’t help with the image, nor did the smearings of what Shining sincerely hoped was mud on the walls of most of the structures. With bunkbeds no inside walls, they could house ten ponies each, semi-comfortably. Subtract one that had been deigned as a school, one that had been meant for storage, and two that had been built together in order to form a dining hall, and you had accommodations for forty zebras.
There were forty zebras standing in front of him, and dozens more milling about down the small length of road or emerging nervously from the stilted structures. Every zebra he could see was covered in dust and grime, their eyes red and watching him with some kind of dull mix of fear and resignation. The general positions of their bodies implied that they were used to running away from ponies.
“Where is Zecora?” Shining heard himself ask. The zebras looked odd, their bodies warped in some way his eyes weren’t used to seeing. Zecora matched the general body shape of a pony, why did these ones look… smaller?
“She went lookin’ fer supplies in the outer buildin’s.” A drawl answered. Shining turned, fixing his eye on Applejack.
“What supplies? We need to get these zebras out of here, and I’m sure they’ll follow one of their own easier than us. We can’t have her just run off-”
“Shinin’, look at them.” Applejack interrupted. “We need t’get them outta here, definitely. But they need something t’eat first.”
Shining gave her an odd look before turning back to the zebras. Of the ones closest to him, six shrunk back when his eye fell on them. Two just stared blankly back at him, and one of these happened to be standing mostly to the side. Beneath the dirt and the matted, turned-up coat, Shining realized that he could see the zebra’s ribcage, its spine, its hips and collarbone and individual joints.
Shining had seen starvation before. He’d been starved before, everypony there had, when the Revolution was on high and flathead farmers would have burned their fields before letting a pony loyal to the crown buy any of it. It had softened in the last two years, for varying reasons, but many days consisted of one-and-a-half meals plus whatever one could scrounge on guard duty. The thinned legs, stomachs, and cheeks of many of the ponies he commanded spoke of the kind of hunger only spoken of but never really felt in Equestria.
That’s what he had thought up until now.
“… go find Zecora. Bring some unicorns with you. Tell her to come here, and them to go outside and pull as much grass from the field as they can carry.” Shining fixed his gaze on the zebra. It opened its mouth, small bulbs of blood swelling up and then coursing down its chin as its lips cracked, its empty gums curving into a disturbing smile. “Get a pegasus, no, two of them, tell them to grab some clouds and bring them here. Large ones, heavy ones, not enough to thunder but enough to rain for quite a while.” The zebra blinked, slowly. It watched him for a few seconds before turning away and staring at a point on the wall. Shining realized that he couldn’t tell whether it was a mare or a stallion.
He turned to look at Applejack, only to find her already running back out the gate. Shining gave the entire inner camp one last glance before picking up his voice.
“Hello.” He called. Most of the zebras in the area flinched; several stumbled over themselves as they jumped away from his voice. The staring zebra didn’t move. Shining put his voice a little lower. “Hello, I’m… we’re here to help. We aren’t going to hurt you, I promise. I have ponies, good, kind ponies, with me here, and we’ve come to rescue you. They’re outside now, getting food for all of you, food and water, and… and we’re going to get all of you out of here. Nopony’s going to hurt you anymore.” Blank stares met his speech. Shining swallowed. “If, er, if anypony in there understands me, can you, can you tell the others what I said? Please?” The stares continued, all incomprehensible and uncomprehending. Shining screwed his eye shut.
“I do believe that I could aid, if such a speech is to be made.”
Shining watched as Zecora walked up to stand beside him, her working eye sliding its gaze back and forth over the crowd. Most of the crowd seemed to gain some light in their eyes when they saw her; Shining tried not to think about the fact that they were less scared of a horribly disfigured zebra than a slightly injured pony.
“Faust… Zecora, could you translate what I said? Did you hear it all?”
“I heard enough to speak well and true; the ponies outside are asking of you.”
Shining nodded, once more moving his eye to glance at the zebras. The staring one still watched the wall, even as Zecora started speaking in their language. Shining tore his eye away and stepped outside.
“You.” He said at one of the gate guards. “Go inside, make sure the zebras don’t try anything.”
The mare stared at him for a second. “Sir, what in Celesta’s name would they try?”
Shining swallowed. “I don’t know. Do it anyway.” The mare took a breath before nodding, stepping stiffly inside and keeping fairly close to the gate. Zecora continued speaking, apparently oblivious to the actions outside. Shining kept walking, his face blank. He hardly noticed as a pony thum-thum-tak-thum’ed up to him.
“Are you alright, sir?” Jade asked. Shining put his eye on the stallion.
“Have you seen what’s in there, Sergeant?”
“I was helping restrain the camp guards, sir.” Jade replied. Shining blinked.
“Where are they?”
“The structure, they called it a bunkhouse, one row down and on the left side. You designated it yourself, remember?”
Shining did remember, he had simply forgotten until that moment. He said as much, and added to it.
“Listen, Jade… don’t go in there unless Zecora or the mare guarding her need help. Just stand at the gate, stick your head in. Don’t make eye contact with any of them, try to make sure they don’t notice you. Look for, I don’t know, five, six seconds. If you feel sick-“
“Sir, are you alright?” Jade asked. Shining blinked again.
“Yes, I am. Is something wrong with me?”
Jade took in a breath. “You… you looked like you were going to be sick, sir. Your legs are still shaking.” Jade pointed his pegleg under Shining; small quivers shook up from the stallion’s hooves towards his shoulders. Shining shook himself, and the shakes subsided.
“I’m fine, Jade. Just go get a look at them, then wait outside the gate for the food and water to show up. Come get me when it does.”
“Sir.” Jade nodded, giving his commander another glance before trotting away. Shining took a few breaths, leaning against the nearest bunkhouse. Celestia had debated building similar buildings in low-class areas, to get ponies off of the streets and out of even worse habitation; when the cost was brought up and the nobles got their hackles raised, she shelved the project. Twilight had seen it as a Princess, lobbied for it, and been shot down.
But she didn’t freak out. She didn’t revolt. She accepted that she wasn’t going to get anywhere with it.
Did she really, Shiny? Or was our dear sister biding her time, waiting-
“NO!” Shining shouted. He took in another breath. No, buck you. Twilight isn’t Dawn, Dawn’s like Nightmare Moon. None of this is Twilight, it can’t be.
Are you sure?
Yes! Twilight wouldn’t have used necromancy, Twilight wouldn’t have started a Revolution, Twilight wouldn’t have made these camps, Twilight wouldn’t have killed Luna or Celestia or Cada- A lancing pain beneath Shining’s horn cut his thoughts. When the pain subsided, the other voice returned.
Everypony has something, an edge they stand on, and when they get pushed hard enough, heh, well, they might just break.
Shining shook his head; he wasn’t going to keep arguing with himself. He stood up from the building, dragging his hooves to the only guarded bunkhouse in sight. Everypony gave a salute; he gave one back.
“How’re the prisoners?” Shining asked.
One of the guards spat. “Better than theirs, sir.”
Shining gave a dry, barking laugh. “We’ll see about that.” He stepped up the ramp, knocking on the door. One of the guards inside opened it, letting Shining squeeze inside before shutting the door tight again.
“Oh Faust, no…” a moan came from the corner. Shining turned; the camp guards had all been chained together, their uniforms torn away, levelling them all as captives. The one in the far right, as far away from Shining as he could be, was the outer gate guard; the one in the center of the group was far more composed, and a good deal older than even Shining.
He was also a pony that Shining recognized.
“Hello, Captain.” The stallion said.
“Hello, Long Path.” Shining replied. “You’re the leader here?”
“Yep. Got a nice, prestigious commission for my work in the Revolution.”
“You mean selling out Manehatten. And the Princess.”
“That’s the one.” Path shook his head. “If I’d known it’d be like this, though…”
“You can’t go back, you son of a whorse.” Shining bit off, his voice a rough whisper. “None of us can.”
Path regarded his former commander with sad grey eyes. “I am sorry, Shining.” He lowered his head. “You can do whatever you want to me. Just let these ponies go.”
“Sir?!” One of the chained ponies exclaimed. “Wha-“
“If you know what’s good for you, colt, shut up NOW.” Path cut the pony off before turning back in Shining’s direction. The loyalist leader seemed frozen in place on the spot he’d first seen his former subordinate. “Listen, Shining, please. I know what you’re thinking. These ponies weren’t involved, they all joined up after the Revolution ended, they’re barely out of foalhood!”
“Old enough to guard this place.” Shining put his eye on every one of them. “Old enough to do that.”
Path flinched. “What happened in there-“ He cut himself off. “I was promised a contingent of twenty guards, with one Risen. They gave me nine, plus some teachers from the former School for Gifted Unicorns. Said a large force would draw too much attention. We only had thirty… forty refugees here, including the foals, so we just kept them in the inner walls because they didn’t need the outer area. It wasn’t too bad, really.”
“For you or the zebras?” Shining asked.
“Both! They were happy here, happy to be in real beds and real buildings and getting a real education. We were doing something for them.”
“And then?”
“Then her Ladyship broadened the Inequine Security Act. We got a mass influx of zebras, with the promise that we’d get more guards to help contain them. We thought the ones that came to get the teachers back were going to help, but no. We just needed to wait, supposedly.” Path scoffed. “We couldn’t let them out, not with the ten of us. It wasn’t horrible, then, but we couldn’t risk going in, getting surrounded. We requested more rations, and we got them, until they started disappearing on the way here.”
A shock of ice punctured Shining’s stomach. “Disappearing.”
Path nodded. “It only got… bad, I guess, around six months ago, when we hadn’t gotten a shipment in weeks. We had to cut them to half rations. They got angry. Our translator, High Sight, tried to explain, he opened the gate-“
Silence, for a few seconds. Path gave a shrug.
“They let us recover his body, at least.”
Shining felt himself move. He turned to the door, saw the faces of the guards that he’d forgotten were even there.
“You tell nopony.” Shining growled. The guards both nodded, swallowing. He slid out the door, taking several quick steps down the road and going at a hard walk back towards the inner wall.
They couldn’t have known. They should have guessed, but they couldn’t have known. The shipments looked exactly like the ones they’d raided from other supply lines, no special designations, and they were going in the direction of both the camp and a known Revolutionary military base. It hadn’t been a choice so much as a need. Shining’s ponies were starving. They took the food to stop themselves from starving.
They’d started raiding that particular supply line eight months ago.
“Sir!” A voice tore Shining from his thoughts. Jade ran up to him. “Sir, they, there-“
“Breathe, Sergeant.” Shining said. Jade took in several breaths.
“Zecora, she explained what we were doing, and then we brought the grass in, and the water, and they swarmed us…”
“Is everypony alright?” Alarm crept into the captain’s voice.
“Yeah, but we had to break up some fights, get everypony ordered again. Then one of the zebras screamed, he started yelling something, and suddenly all the zebras were jabbering and Zecora was staring wide-eyed at them and-“
“Jade!” Shining barked. The peglegged stallion stopped. “What’s going on?!”
“He was asking where his daughter was.” Jade said, his voice abnormally high. “Zecora, she said they said that the foals and the teachers were all brought into the outer areas, that’s what they were told. Sir-”
Shining spun on his hooves and went back to the prisoner bunkhouse.
“Sir, is everything-“ One of the guards began, before Shining’s horn glowed and the side of the building tore off. Shining flung it into the side of the one to his back-left, his eye never straying from the faces of the prisoners.
Then his horn’s glow shifted, and the prisoners were pulled out into the road. Each of them landed roughly, painfully. Shining grimaced as Path stared at him.
“Shining-“ Path began. Shining slammed a ball of magic into his face, the small frays in the loyalist’s magic burning Path’s coat. The struck stallion fell back, pulling the two ponies chained to him with him.
“WHERE ARE THEY?!?” Shining roared. He stalked up to Path, placing one hoof between the stallion’s legs and a heavy magic on his neck. Path coughed.
“What are you-“
“THE FOALS, YOU FAUST-DAMNED SHIT!” Another magical punch. Path groaned.
“They left with the teachers… I don’t…”
“The feather you don’t.” Shining lifted him by his neck, watching his legs kick before dropping him back down onto the ponies dragged beneath him. He let them sort themselves out before continuing. “You lost one guard. How many did you take?”
“E-excuse me?” Path blinked at Shining. Shining bared his teeth.
“The zebras in there were scared of us. They thought we were going to hurt them. Directly, not passively, not like letting them starve.”
“We left the supplies in there, we let them sort them out-“
“SHUT UP!” Shining was yelling again. His head throbbed, the corners of his vision were red. He hit Path again, in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. “They thought we were going to attack them. Like they’d been attacked before, by ponies in armour.”
“They were torn from their homes and brought here by ‘ponies in armour’!” Path spat. “We didn’t-“
“You lost a stallion. You’d served with him for months, at least, before they killed him. It couldn’t have been quick, he must have been suffering under their hooves.” Shining’s voice was acidic. “He was the one that was trying to help them, to make them understand, he must have trusted them to open the gate and go inside, and they killed him for it. And you didn’t do anything? Just gave them what they wanted, no vengeance against his murderers?” Shining gave a dark laugh. “That’s not the Path I know, to let one of ‘his colts’ get killed without retribution. So I want to know; What. Did. You. Do?”
Path sat, staring in a mix of anger and shock at Shining. He opened his mouth, but another voice cut him off.
“We gave them what they deserved.”
Everypony’s head turned to a mare, right at the end of the chain, opposite of the outer gate guard. Path moved to speak, but Shining pushed him back to the ground. He walked closer to the mare, who glared him in the eye.
“And what, exactly, did they deserve?” His voice was calm, careful.
“They took my brother, one-tenth of our force.” The mare’s voice was terse, angered. “We took the same amount. One-tenth, the twenty nearest to his body, the ones with blood on their hooves.” Her voice broke, tears running down her face. “We could only recover High because they were running from us.”
Shining stared the mare down for half a minute. He saw no doubt, no fear in her eyes. He glanced at Path; the stallion returned his gaze, same as the mare.
“Please-“ Path started.
“You miss your brother, I presume?” Shining said lightly, addressing the mare. She blinked, her brows furrowing.
“Of course.”
Shining laughed, his eye never leaving Path. The other stallion’s gaze became confused, before he saw past Shining’s eye.
Then his eyes gained fear.
“No, Shining, please-“
Once more, Shining cut the chained stallion off.
“How about I reacquaint you?”
Then his horn glowed, and before the mare could speak he jabbed the tip between her eyes. There was a flash, and he pulled his head back up, his horn still glowing as he released her shackle. Everypony watched the mare, as the small point of charred fur settled. Her eyes were dull, her jaw loose. Then the charred spot got slightly bigger.
Then she began to scream.
Several minutes later, when her twisted, smoking corpse lay a dozen hooves away, he informed Long Path and the remaining conscious prisoner that the mare had gotten off easy.
---
“We ended up locking them in the inner area, chained them all up around the well. Mysteriously, the entire camp burned down a few hours later.” Broken laughed. “Apparently one of them tried to jump in the well to escape, ended up dragging everypony along with him. Path held onto the side of the well, keeping them all above the water until he burned to death. Then they fell and drowned.” There was silence for a few seconds before Broken turned to Dr. Long Path, who had dropped his clipboard and was staring at the cycloptic stallion with wide, wet eyes. “And now that I think on it, I’m willing to bet that your father is in the Guard.”
“Ah… I…” The psychologist choked out. He made several small sounds before Broken spoke again.
“In my time, he was a good stallion. I was proud to have him under my command, and I’m sure his death was an attempt to keep his ponies alive.” Broken stood and walked over to Path, placing a hoof on his shoulder. “I can only hope your father is an even greater pony here.”
The doctor stood, suddenly enough to make Broken jump back. He turned and nodded at Celestia before stiffly walking to the door, opening it, slipping out, and closing it again in under a second. Broken flicked his eye to Shining, who sighed.
“Lieutenant Long Path Sr. was killed several years ago while rescuing a foal from a burning building in Canterlot’s Third District.” The guard captain stated. Broken brow furrowed a second before his eye widened, and he slapped a hoof to his face as he bit off a curse.
“Of course he was. Of bucking course he was. Most of Third District was burned down a few years before Luna came back, of course it would just be one building here, not big enough to keep a guard from trying to do his job...” Broken put his eye back on his younger self. “Did the foal-?”
“The colt was fine.”
“Thank Faust…” Broken breathed. “We never found the zebra foals, they’d disappeared, gone without a trace. We promised we’d keep looking, but we never found anything.” He put his eye to the floor, sighing again.
Shining and Celestia regarded Broken with guarded expressions. Twilight’s mouth was tight, and a few stray tears slid down her cheeks.
“You asked why I find the camps so deplorable, Princess? There’s your answer. They brought out the worst in everyone. They made good ponies, zebras, gryphons, anyone who was trapped inside into desperate, fearful beasts, and that goes for the guards and the prisoners, given that ninety-percent of them were understaffed.” He lifted his eye to Twilight. “The other ten were the source of our healing spells, among other innovations.”
“…came at the cost of dozens of test subjects, all of whom were supposedly dangerous criminals…”
Of course, if it’s a crime to be anything but a pony…
“I’m well aware of how much of a monster Dawn was, Broken.” Twilight said quietly. Broken’s eye narrowed.
“Yet you keep her favourite little sycophant around to play with.”
Some part of Twilight’s mind broke. Heat flushed into both her face and her forehead, a cloud of red creeping in from the edges of her vision. The little other-voice spoke, and for the first time, Twilight listened.
“Pip is as much a victim as you are, Broken.” She heard herself say. She wasn’t aware of thinking it, the words just came out, the voice behind them tight with fury. “You are going to stop attacking him, and I don’t just mean physically.”
“Excuse me?!” Broken growled. “What the buck do you mean, a victim?! That thing wasn’t a victim any more than Dawn was!”
This caught Broken up short. He opened his mouth, but Twilight started yelling again, stalking towards him.
“You hold yourself up above him, like he’s some insane murderer and you’re some knight in Shining Armor!” She watched as he flinched slightly, almost enjoying the discomfort that was replacing the anger in his eyes. “But that’s not what I’ve heard! You’ve done horrible things, worse things than I can even think of, you’ve killed ponies and other beings in evil ways and you only seem to regret it when Celestia gets mad!” She pushed her face up to Broken’s, her eyes digging into his.
“He doesn’t regret-“
“CAN HE?! Did Dawn leave him the capability to show remorse, or anger, or pity or compassion or happiness or anything?! Who’s to say that he’s not tearing himself up inside his own head, unable to do anything but watch as his body acts like a puppet for whoever holds the strings?!” She slammed a hoof down. “But you! You’re your own pony, everything you do you do willingly! You have no puppetmaster, no controlling force other than some idea that killing me, or killing Pip, or traumatizing everypony, or whatever you’re trying to do now, will magically fix everything that went wrong in your Equestria! All you’ve tried is hurt, hurt, hurt, without any attempt to actually help anypony that doesn’t involve brutalizing somepony else! So I ask again, HOW MANY HAVE YOU KILLED?!?”
Broken was leaning back, his eye wide as Twilight’s tirade ended. She stared him down as his jaw worked soundlessly before turning away in disgust.
“Dawn was... was bucking Pip almost every night. He didn’t understand, he thought she was playing a special game with him. The way he thinks, what Dawn did to his mind, he’s still a foal, Broken.” Twilight could swear she heard the gears in Broken’s mind grind to a halt, and she turned her head to give him a venomous glare. “Maybe he did bad things, horrible things. Maybe he is evil, an unredeemable murderer. But even if that’s the case, there’s still one big difference between him and you.”
Broken made a noise that sounded vaguely like “What?”
“He never enjoyed it.” Twilight gave a sharp grin that did nothing to her words. “I’m sure Cadance would be proud of you.”
She didn’t bother opening the door. Her horn glowed for a second, and she disappeared with a magical flash.
Twilight’s old room in the castle had been left unaltered; aside from what she had requested to be brought to Ponyville, everything was exactly as was before she had been sent to Ponyville. Before the Elements of Harmony. Before her friends.
She’d magicked up a large swath of curtain over the windows, blocking the sun as best could be done. She needed to sit and think, away from distraction. Darkness and silence, avoidance of sensory stimulation to better encourage her mental processes.
What the buck did I just do?
That was the first thing she’d thought. It was quickly responded to.
You let loose.
I lost control.
And for the first time you might actually have gotten through Broken’s thick skull.
I should have stayed calm, yelling at Broken like that is just going to make him see me as more of a threat-
Good! Let him be scared of you! Better than letting him walk all over you!
I was giving him too much leeway, I know that. Celestia was too, she knows that. But what I said… “He never enjoyed it. Cadance would be proud.” Faust, those were terrible! He’s mentally unstable, I can’t hold that over his head, and mentioning Cadance might make him get even worse!
…would that really be a bad thing?
Twilight opened her eyes in shock. Of course it would! We’re trying to help Broken, get him out of this mindset of violence and vengeance, show him that he doesn’t need to worry about Dawn here! Horsefeathers, he might think Dawn was the one yelling at him!
The other-voice was silent for a few moments. And how has he repaid you for your efforts? Violence, hatred, trying to push your friends against you. We should just leave him here to rot, let Celestia squeeze what she wants out of him and forget about it. If he doesn’t want our help, then we shouldn’t give him any. He wants to die; I say we tell him how close he is already. Let him waste away knowing that he’s never going to stop us.
Twilight shook her head. That’s, that’s-
The kind of thought you’ve been constantly pressing down.
Because it’s horrible!
Sometimes horrible is needed. It’s nowhere near what he’s done.
That doesn’t make it okay! Why am I even thinking like this?!
Buck if I know. Broken mentioned that little voice in his head, telling him to do ‘bad’ things; maybe I’m your Broken. Except you aren’t insane, so I’m only out and about when you’re… piqued, scared, pissed off. I’m probably your safe zone, now that we’re putting some thought to it; the part of your mind that keeps you grounded in self-interest and self-defence.
Twilight blinked. …Faust, that’s it! Broken’s a safe zone for Shining’s mind to deal with trauma! If we heal his trauma, he’ll revert to Shining again!
Right, you just shower him with kindness and friendship and he’s sane again. IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT, ME.
Well, of course not, but if I suggest it to Dr. Path, if he thinks it’s viable… this just makes helping him even more important! If we get him out of Broken-mode, he might be much more receptive to the idea that Dawn isn’t going to rise here, and everything else besides!
Twilight could feel the other-voice smack itself. So we’re just ignoring all self-preservation and throwing ourself at his mercy even more, now? Were you even listening to the part of your brain trying to keep you alive and safe?!
No, Broken has the Oath now. The stringent one. We’re going to be far safer than we were.
Still not as safe as if he goes away… and what makes you think he’s not stuck as Broken? Brain damage to frontal lobe, hello?
It’s still worth a try. He’s not a bad pony, at heart – he’s just scared, and angry, like Dr. Path said. We need to let his good side come out more.
The other voice didn’t respond. Twilight heard a door creak, and the pages of an open book rustled behind her.
“Hello, Pip.” Twilight said, turning. “Weren’t you supposed to be asleep?”
“Celestia woke me up, Milady. She claimed that you were missing. That was forty-six seconds ago, and I promise that I slept for the hour and forty-eight minutes before it, Milady.”
Twilight nodded, a smile teasing at her lips. She glanced at Pip’s stoic face, hardly visible in the dark.
She remembered what he was.
“Pip, I… I need you to lean your head down and stay still.” The unicorn said, her horn gaining a small glow. Pip did as she asked.
“Might I ask what your intention is, Milady?” He asked through barely-opened lips.
“I want to check something.” Twilight’s horn’s glow grew as she moved it towards his forehead. The tip of it made the barest contact, enough to look without touching.
She felt dozens, hundreds, thousands of magical threads coating Pip’s mind. Each bore a different spell, a different effect, and they were overlapping and twisted together into a morass around the psyche beneath them (a psyche that would be incomprehensible even if no spells were blocking her view of it – if one could read a pony’s mind so easily, neither psychologists nor lawyers would need to exist anymore). Twilight didn’t press forwards – that way lay memory stealing, mind control, other things that left an irrevocable damage in the mind they were performed on. Instead, she simply ‘looked’, examined each thread, the magic that had formed it and been tied off to maintain it.
As she had expected, the magic felt almost exactly like hers.
And if I made them, I can unmake them…
“Thank you, Pip.” Twilight brought her head back, glancing at Pip’s face again as he raised his head. His expression hadn’t changed.
“Celestia requested that I bring you back to the hall in which your friends were waiting, Milady.”
Twilight took in a breath. “Was she… angry?”
“I do not believe so, Milady. She appeared moreso worried than angered.”
Twilight let the breath out. “Well, let’s not keep her waiting.” Her horn glowed, and the room was empty again.
Applejack voiced the general feeling of the room. Twilight and Celestia had just finished relating Broken’s accounts of his past, and while they had, at Celestia’s discretion, skimmed over the more ‘detailed’ parts (for both time and to prevent unnecessary reactions), there was still enough to give the others some worry. Each bore a brow-furrowed look of contemplation; Rainbow, as usual, was the first to emerge from it.
“So, wait, everything that happened to us over there was different?” The prismatic pegasus asked.
“Well, just about everything that was ‘over there’ was different from how it is here, skewed in a more extreme direction. I’m not sure that that applies to, say, the boiling point of water, but it certainly applies to such things as the opinions of ponies on species relations.” Twilight shook her head, and Rainbow was quiet for a few seconds.
“But doesn’t that mean that he’s kinda useless?” The pegasus asked. Both Twilight and Celestia tilted their ears.
“What do you mean, my little pony?”
“Well, if things didn’t happen over there like they did over here, then we don’t even know that anything he said about his own timeline would match up with ours. I mean, just the differences between our meeting Zecora and his versions of us; The Poison Joke nearly killed AJ and her sister, without the rest of us actually touching it because Fluttershy knew about it back when we were going after Nightmare Moon, and we actually encountered it then as well. That alone is, like, five or six differences that majorly affect the story.
“And Zecora wasn’t even a jerk! He killed the buffalo, he killed the Changeling Queen and all the other Changelings, I think I heard somepony say he killed Discord, somehow! Who knows what happened to Flim and Flam, or Lighting Dust, or, or Trixie! If he did something like arrest Trixie after the Ursa thing, then she probably wouldn’t have gotten that amulet, wouldn’t have come back and taken over Ponyville! Maybe the town wouldn’t have supported Dawn if they’d had Trixie’s takeover as a reminder of what happens when crazy unicorns with super-magic get into power around there!”
Both Twilight and Celestia stared with wide eyes at Rainbow Dash, as did everypony else present except for Pip.
“That is… surprisingly well thought out, Rainbow Dash.” Celestia finally said. Rainbow gave a small grin.
“You don’t have to sound surprised…”
“Yeah she does.” Applejack retorted, elbowing Rainbow in the ribs joshingly. “But y’make a good point. Princess, Ah know we settled this, but this only adds t’why Broken shouldn’t come back t’Ponyville. If he’s gettin’ everythin’ wrong, then…”
“Firstly, Applejack, even an overestimate can tell you that you have a crop.” Applejack nodded slowly, but Celestia continued for the others. “Just because the events and reactions that Broken experienced are more extreme than the ones that we can expect, they still tell us that something in that area will happen. Broken has mentioned several times the deteriorating relations between Gryphonia and Draconia; we can thus prepare for possible diplomatic fallout between the two nations, if not necessarily going so far as a war. We can also prepare to enforce our interests in Zebrica and the surrounding area, thus discouraging any violent expansionist plans Gryphonia has for the nation.
“My sister has been investigating the claims Pip made about the current conditions of Equestria; while they are not as dire as he made them out to be, there are still several points of his that we can adapt and apply to our leadership, ones which we would likely never have thought of without his observations of their possible extreme outcomes. Hence the ‘Citizen’s Court’ that she had to miss this occasion in order to attend.” Celestia turned to Pip and gave him a smile. “I must thank you for the suggestions on how to ‘keep our heads attached to our shoulders’, Pip.”
“I did not bring your failures to your attention for your benefit, Princess. My duty is to the wellbeing and safety of her Ladyship, and through her Lady Dawn, and through her all Equestrians.”
“Nonetheless, I must thank you. I hope that whatever happens in our future, we can resolve any unpleasantness without violent conflict.”
Pip blinked. “While I am aware that you likely meant that as a threat against the Revolution, I am required by her Ladyship’s request for civility to accept the sentiment and return it. May the future of Equestria be peaceful and directed towards a new, greater day.”
The two ponies stared at each other for a few moments. Twilight slowly slipped between the two.
“Er, and what was the second reason, Princess?”
“Oh, of course. The second reason, my little ponies, is that he is one of my little ponies. Just as you are and just as Pip is. He is a very damaged, very angry pony, but he is still suffering and in need of our help.” Applejack raised her hoof, but Celestia continued speaking. “I am aware of his past actions, Applejack, but Twilight has specifically requested that she be allowed to be the one to help him; with the increased security we’ve placed upon him, I believe that she can aid him without risking any more than she would with any other traumatized pony.”
“An’ y’just go ‘round grantin’ custody t’anypony who wants t’‘help’ somepony like Broken?”
“Of course not. This is a unique case, and I am simply going with my own knowledge and the recommendations of the assigned psychologist. Broken has gotten better, even in the short time he was down there before being brought back, and the rules I have placed upon him will both encourage his integration into proper pony life and lessen the probability of his attempting to harm Twilight.”
Applejack looked the diarch up and down before sighing. “Ah’m not gonna pretend t’know better than you, Princess, but like Ah said before, Ah’m just tryin’ t’keep my friends and loved ones safe. Broken… Ah get that he’s not tryin’ t’be bad, but he is bad, an’ Ah’m not gonna stand fer lettin’ him just waltz around waitin’ fer an opportunity t’kill Twilight.”
“With his new oaths, any attempts to harm her will be-“
“Sorry, Princess, but he’s already said that he’s plannin’ t’die. Even if y’don’t tell him about his condition, he’s still perfectly at peace with the idea a’killin’ himself so long as Dawn is dead. Ah know that there are spells that can cause instant death, faster than any oath can activate, an’ if he gets it in his mind t’use one…”
“Applejack, if Broken wanted Twilight to die, don’t you think he’d have killed her the second he saw her?”
The farmpony’s (and everyone else’s, bar Pip’s) eyebrows rose. “Princess-“
“Applejack, I want an answer. If Broken Shield truly wanted to kill Twilight Sparkle, especially given that he thought that she was already Rising Dawn on at least three occasions, would or would he not have used a death spell the moment he laid his eye on her?”
“Er… Ah don’t…”
“Given that he didn’t, I can presume one of two things about him. The first is that he is far more mentally unstable than my investigation, Twilight’s records, and Dr. Path’s testimony have placed him, to the point where he began enjoying the suffering and despair surrounding him in Dawn’s Equestria and has actually been purposefully allowing Dawn to survive in order to perpetuate that suffering for his own pleasure. Given his interactions with us, I do not believe that this is the case.
“The second is quite different, based on his behaviours, coupled with Dr. Path’s and Twilight’s observations: While he puts up an aggressive and callous front, he is in reality a mentally fragile, self-loathing stallion who blames himself for the death of his family and the suffering of everypony around him. His mind has desperately latched on to the idea that Dawn is the cause of all of his ills, and in that respect he is probably correct. However, his focus on killing Dawn has built her death up as the entire base of his existence. When she dies, he will have nothing left, no justification for his continued life.”
Twilight gave a small smile, somewhat glad and surprised that Celestia had come to the same conclusion as her on Broken’s mental state. Applejack continued her query.
“Given that he wants t’die, Ah’m not seein’ where yer goin’ with this, Princess…”
“In Broken’s timeline, he had nothing left; his wife and child had been brutally murdered, his parents killed, his sister gone and replaced by a madmare… the Equestria that he knew was destroyed. He had no hope, no reason for being other than to exact revenge on she who had taken everything from him. In that context, I have no doubt that he would have used a death spell should he have been able, then ended his own life soon after.
“However, it is my belief that when he discovered the capability to travel between timelines, to an Equestria, our Equestria, where everything was ‘as it should be’, a desperate hope developed in his mind, hope that he does not need to die because Dawn has not yet ruined this world, not yet stolen from him what she had in his own timeline. Broken himself likely doesn’t recognize this; he has played the role of a cruel, hateful stallion for so long that he seems to see himself as incapable of holding happiness or any truly positive emotion. While his conscious mind still tracks towards violently ending any chance of Dawn’s rise and with it his own life, that small amount of hope for a different path is stopping him from acting upon his plans. There have been three times now where Broken has held Twilight’s life in his hooves, and in each he refused the simplest, most direct path to her demise.”
When it was clear that Celestia was waiting for a response before continuing her tract, Applejack cleared her throat. “So y’think he doesn’t want t’kill her? Er, he does, but his brain don’t? Ah’m getting’ confused, here.” Applejack glanced at the others; only Twilight seemed to show any solid understanding of Celestia’s words.
“That is likely the case. I don’t think that he wants to die, not when he has me, my sister, his sister, his wife all alive, and his daughter soon to come. His death was a way of escaping from an existence where he had nothing left. Now that he has those things back…”
Celestia allowed herself to trail off, leaving the end of the statement unspoken. Once again, Applejack replied.
“Y’think he ain’t killed Twilight yet because he doesn’t want to die? What’s stoppin’ him from killin’ her an’ not killin’ himself?”
“For one, I’ve promised to make good on your wish should he attempt to harm her again, along with a few extra stipulations.” Applejack blinked, but nodded. “Secondly, he still thinks that he needs to kill himself after she’s gone. His mind doesn’t want to die, and thus, because it is also thinking under the condition that Twilight’s death must be followed by his own, has been stopping him from killing her.”
“So… Broken wants t’kill Twilight an’ then kill himself because he doesn’t have anything to live for after she dies, but there’s a part of his mind that’s been stopping him from actually going through with it because it wants him to live and see everythin’ go like it was ‘supposed’ to, even though he still thinks he has to kill himself when he kills Twilight.” Applejack asked.
Celestia nodded. “I believe that that is an accurate summation, my little-“
“Ah’m sorry, Princess, but Ah really, really, don’t get this.”
“I do!”
A pink pony appeared, very suddenly, next to Applejack. The farmpony dug her hoof into her face.
“Alright, then, Pinkie, go ahead an’ explain it. Please.”
“It’s easy, silly! Broken’s like me when I’m all frowny-face-straight-hair sad, and he has a part of him that’s like happy-bouncy-curly-hair me, but that part’s inside his noggin instead of on the outside like I am! Broken, being the frowny-face-sad part, is all mopey and sad and mad at Dawn for making him like that, so he thinks that after he gets rid of Dawn he should go away too because that way she can’t make anypony sad like him and he doesn’t have to be sad anymore because he’ll be dead and you can’t be sad when you’re dead. Buuuuuut, he doesn’t know that he still has a happy-part left, and that happy part’s trying really really hard to say ‘Hey! I’m still here! Killing yourself is a bad idea!’ and even though he doesn’t know that he still has a happy-part he’s still kinda listening to it and not wanting to kill himself, so then he can’t kill Twilight/Dawn either because both parts still think he has to kill himself when he kills Twilight/Dawn even though the happy-part really doesn’t want him to do it!”
Applejack gave a narrow-eyed stare at Pinkie before turning her gaze to Celestia.
“An’ somehow, that made more sense t’me than what you said.” When the Princess shrugged and smiled, Applejack continued. “So Ah’m guessin’ what y’were tryin’ t’say was that we don’t need t’worry about Broken killin’ Twilight cause he’s never gonna be able t’actually go through with it?”
“That is what I believe, yes.”
“An’ there’s that word again. Apologies that Ah’m skeptical, Princess, when y’can’t give me reason not t’watch him other that y’‘believe’ he won’t hurt her…”
“I remind you, Applejack, that that ‘belief’ is based on both Dr. Path’s and Twilight’s observations, as well as my own experience in… dealing with ponies like him over my millennia of rule.” Celestia gave a soft smile as the addressed mare put her ears back. “I’m not going to stop you from keeping a suspicious eye on him; to do so would be naïve to the point of likely causing harm. But my entire point in sending him back down is to grow that hopeful sense that I know he has; to be rather crude, I’m hoping to shove enough love and kindness down his throat that he’s unable to maintain his callous façade and opens up, so that we can truly begin healing him rather than dealing with his symptoms. As such, I must ask that you treat him civilly, even if you don’t trust him. He’s already going to be feeling somewhat oppressed by my conditions on his being down there, and having another pony be openly opposed to him, the one of you that he was closest to in his own world, isn’t going to encourage him to drop his guard.”
Applejack looked like she was about to say more, but a loud bang sounded from down the hallway. Everypony turned to see a rather-narrow-eyed doctor stalking up towards them, an armoured, blue-maned stallion trotting next to him.
“I kept him out as long as I could, Princess!” Shining called. Celestia laughed, waving a hoof.
“Do not worry, my little pony.” Her gaze shifted to the doctor. “Last I checked, I had fifty-seven seconds left. That was seven seconds ago… now.”
“You weren’t supposed to go for the full thing, Princess, the bucking time limit was meant as a bare-scraping-by measure, and you just…” He gave a rough sigh.
“As I have said, I am well aware of my limits, Dr. Shelter. I promise you that a few extra minutes will not harm me.”
“Oh f-buck no, Princess, you’ve been skirting just over the limit this entire week, I know how long ‘a few extra bucking minutes’ really is! It’s not like I want to keep you bedridden, Princess, but you are a pony, and I shouldn’t need to remind you that you’re just as susceptible to exhaustion as anypony else! Have you even thought about what might happen if you had collapsed in front of one of the commoners?! The whole country would be panicking about their ‘dying’ Princess within hours!”
“Shelter, your concern for my health and the mental well-being of my citizens is admirable, but-“
“The Princess isn’t an idiot, you feather-mouthed suture-sticker.”
Most eyes turned to Shining, who himself appeared surprised at the words his voice had said. Then the sound of hooves hitting tile echoed up the hall, and everypony turned to see Broken walking – somewhat shakily – down the hallway. Shelter’s eye twitched.
“Broken Shield, you are not authorized to be-“
“Shut up, doc. I’m well enough to move, I’m well enough to leave this place. I’ll come back for checkups, I promise, but right now I want to go out. Preferably to Ponyville.”
Twilight flicked a glance at Celestia. The Princess tilted her head.
“Broken, you are aware of your conditions-“
“Yes, Princess, I am, no matter how misguided I think they are. I’ll keep to them.” His gaze fell to Twilight. “And you…”
“I’m… I’m sorry, Broken, I went…” She took in a breath. “I went too far, with what I said. I mean, you did need to hear most of it, and I won’t apologize for that, but what I said about Ca-“
“Ninety-six.”
The number cut Twilight’s speech off. “What?”
“You asked me how many I killed. With my magic, my hooves, or my horn… it was ninety-six. Directly, not counting bombs or fires or…” Broken let the rest out in a sigh. “I promise you, Twilight, that there was only one death that I enjoyed. The rest were… a necessary evil.” He put his eye up to face hers. “I’m under no delusion that I’m not evil, Twilight. I’ve done horrible things in an attempt to destroy Dawn’s grip on Equestria, and none of it ended up mattering anyway.” He blinked, and there was a dull fire behind his eyes. “But Dawn, Dawn was… she was worse. I was evil, she was… monstrous.”
“I know, Broken.” Twilight said. “What happened to you…”
“It wasn’t an excuse. Cadance, she would have hated what I’ve become.” He flicked a panicked stare at Shining before shaking his head. “But I can’t, I can’t just stop, I can’t just let things happen again-“
“They won’t happen again, Broken.” Twilight said firmly. He gave a weak laugh.
“Nopony thought Pip would kill Luna, either…” His eye shifted to Pip. The latter stallion hadn’t moved, but Twilight could almost feel the tension of his muscles as he stood, coiled and waiting to spring on whatever hair Broken set out of line. Broken set his jaw.
“I’m going to go steal a carriage. Anypony coming with?”
Twilight, Spike, Broken, and Pip sat in one (Princess authorized) carriage. The other carried Twilight’s friends, and the two were coasting down to Ponyville at a steady, comfortable pace. Broken sat on one side of the transport, the other three directly opposite him and all watching him with differing levels of interest. The scarred stallion glanced out the window.
“Feels like months since I’ve been out of that place…” Broken mumbled.
“You’re spending the night in the guardhouse, right?” Twilight asked. He nodded.
“And the whole next week, bar a few hours where I’m supposed to go out and ‘experience a calm, peaceful Equestria’. Knowing you, that means a dragon’s going to come out of the Everfree and try to eat everypony.”
“The one on that mountain was, from my memory. Celestia sent down some guardsponies to escort all of you up, but when they found pony bones around the entrance… well, Celestia dealt with him rather thoroughly. And everypony got a tax rebate from the ‘newly-discovered’ pile of treasure, so there’s that.” He gave a glance and a smirk at Twilight. “Let me guess, here Fluttershy just talked him into moving, right?’
Twilight nodded. “All of our efforts failed, and Rainbow went in and just made him mad, but Fluttershy flew right up, landed on his snout, and Stared him down.”
“Oh, yes, the ‘Stare’…” Broken trailed off.
“I would point out that the ‘tax rebate’ was itself taxed. The lower classes only gained ten bits per pony.” Pip said. Broken glared at him, and a thought struck into Twilight’s head.
“Oh, I’m such an idiot!”
“No argument, but about what?” Broken asked. Twilight levelled a glare at him before turning to Pip.
“Pip, do you think you could address Rainbow’s questions, from the hospital?”
“I am unsure as to how you would wish them addressed, Milady.”
“Well… do you what happened to Flim and Flam?”
“Film Flimflam and Flam Flimflam were discovered attempting to market a supposed metal-detecting device in Hoofington shortly after their forced exodus from Ponyville. They were arrested and charged with several dozen counts of fraud, theft of property, false advertising, disturbing the peace, one count attempted illegal aqusition of a land deed, and six counts of attempted ponyslaughter from the food poisoning that some ponies developed from their ‘apple cider’. I am unsure as to their final fate, Milady.”
“They were both killed in prison, during a riot that we were fairly sure they started.” Broken interjected. Twilight, Pip, and Spike all glanced at him.
“Okay… how about Lightning Dust?”
“Dishonourably discharged from Wonderbolt Academy for neglect in dangerous weather duties, amongst other offences. After the Revolution she joined with the Shadowbolt pegasus resistance group and was killed during an attempted assassination of Rainbow Dash.”
“Pegasus supremacist, same as the rest of the Shadowbolts. She was trying to kill Rainbow because the airhead was ‘betraying’ them to the ground walkers.” Broken snorted. Twilight blinked.
“Trixie?”
Pip took in a breath. “Disappeared for approximately a year after attempting to draw an Ursa Major into Ponyville, only to call an Ursa Minor that proceeded to destroy much of the town, as well as injure a dozen ponies. Reappeared after attempting to buy an alicorn amulet; she and the dealer were both arrested, and the shop was destroyed after being stripped of anything valuable. Trixie was thrown in the Canterlot dungeons, where she remained-“ Pip blinked. “My apologies, Milady, but I can’t remember what occurred to her after her imprisonment.”
Twilight and Spike turned to Broken, who was shaking his head.
“That’s a blank for me, too. Dawn set a bunch of prisoners free, but…” He shrugged.
“Lady Dawn set free those who were unfairly confined. Any true criminals were left in or brought in to replace the innocent.”
“Right, because fighting to protect your family was a crime under her, wasn’t it?”
“Only when you murdered innocents merely trying to protect theirs.”
Broken bared his teeth, his brow furrowing. Twilight tensed, but Pip put his hoof out in front of her. Broken closed his mouth, swallowing several times. His eye locked on Pip’s.
“I’m not going to forgive you.” Broken said, towards the stallion. “And if she hadn’t expressly forbidden it, I would still be trying to kill you.”
“I cannot expect otherwise from y-“ Pip began, before Broken cut him off.
“Did you understand what you were doing?”
“I do not know what you are referring to, Broken Shield.”
“When you drove that dagger into Luna’s back.” Broken stated flatly. “Did, did you even know what was going to happen? Did you get that Luna was going to die? Could you even understand that? Faust, I can’t believe I’m even bothering with this…”
“Yes, I understood exactly what would happen when I stabbed Princess Luna.” Pip had taken a few seconds to respond, and Broken pressed.
“Why would you do it, then? If you knew that she was going to die… you were just a foal, how could you-“
“Princess Luna was the pony responsible for my parents’ deaths.” Pip said, a small edge beneath his voice. “I was avenging them.”
Twilight’s eyes widened, and she glanced at Broken. His stare hardened further, and he opened his mouth.
“Did you know what would happen to Cadance? To… to Dazzle?” Broken’s voice cracked somewhat on her name, exposing a mix of fury and pain. Pip’s ear flicked back.
“No.” he answered, another few seconds of silence preceding the word. “I can assure you, Broken Shield, that neither the death of Princess Cadance nor the death of Princess Dazzle were intended; Lady Dawn had intended to show them the glory of the Revolution and allow them to join everypony as equals.”
Broken tensed, not bothering to hide his anger. “That’s not what I saw-“
“Broken Shield, Princess Dazzle was my friend both before and after the Revolution, and Lady Dawn loved her niece despite the events that preceded Princess Cadance’s death. She constantly expressed wishes that you would return to her, and I personally escorted her to her mother’s grave every week to lay flowers, on Lady Dawn’s order and my own request. I swear, on the life of her Ladyship, that I know nothing of any conspiracy towards Princess Dazzle’s death.”
Broken blinked, his eyebrow low but his eye wide. He opened his mouth, gave a small rush of breath, then turned his head back to the window. A few seconds later, Twilight quite clearly saw a tear edge its way down his face.
Broken Shield shook himself as he stepped to the ground; Twilight and Pip followed closely after him, Pip leaving the outer deck of the Town Hall in a single step. Twilight shook her head as they walked down the road.
“We needed to do it, though. Princess Celestia wanted Mayor Mare and the local guards to at least have an idea of what they were dealing with with you other than ‘crazy violent pony’.”
“And yet that sums me up so well…” Broken snickered. “I don’t get the need for a two-hour sitdown, though. I could have just told them ‘Hey, I’m a crazy violent pony and I’m from another time-universe-dimension and I happen to be the former Ponyvillian-Princess’ brother’. What’s the problem with that?”
“For one, we can’t just tell them that you’re from another timeline, then they’d think that you really are crazy.” When Broken raised an eyebrow, she coughed. “You’re traumatized, not necessarily delusional, and you’re certainly well aware of your actual surroundings. That’s a different kind of crazy from dementia or whatever else they’d think if we told them the truth.”
“And what you came up with was better? I know nothing about this Gryphonia, Twilight, why the buck did you say I was an experienced Gryphonic negotiator and historian?”
“You did have a cover story going with the Cakes and the CMC earlier. We’re simply expanding on it.” Twilight gave a small smirk as Broken’s eye twitched. “Besides, this gives me a chance to educate you on all of this world’s history. Maybe you’ll see some key differences there.”
The stallion stared at her for a few moments before scoffing. “Of course you did that just so we could look at books. I’m pretty sure my Twilight was an honest-to-Faust bibliophile, so I’m presuming they’re at least a fetish of yours?” Twilight blushed and Pip’s mouth twitched. Broken blinked, then slammed his hoof into his forehead. “Didn’t need that mental image, thanks a lot mouth.”
“I should remind you that such speech could be counted as ‘abuse’, Broken Shield.”
“It was a joke, and I’m suffering it more than she is.” Broken shuddered melodramatically, but he gained a somewhat manic grin as the group walked over the river. He opened his mouth, and Twilight’s voice came out. “’Oh, Encyclopedia of Equestrian Economics Edition Four, your spine is so… rigid…’ Ack, ack, kill me now…” He hit himself several more times as Twilight’s blush deepened.
“One would think that you would drop the subject if it was so traumatic for you to wish your death, Broken.” Pip replied, a small edge under his voice. Twilight’s ears perked.
“Okay, okay, everypony needs to calm down.” She said, stepping between the two. Broken leaned around her.
“Trust me, colt, if you had a sister and the image of her seducing a paperback slid into your brain…” He shuddered.
“Broken!”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your socks tied together.” Broken sighed, then his ears perked as a bird sang in a nearby tree. “I’m hungry.”
Twilight took a few seconds to make the connection he’d made between the sound and his stomach – Pip, fortunately, had recognized it almost instantly, and stepped into the tree at the same time that Broken finished his teleportation. The latter stallion was apparently caught off guard, which made Pip’s brief grapple with him almost comedic; a quick shove and Broken was falling, caught in Twilight’s not halfway to the ground.
Twilight glared at the stallion as she brought him down, his face wearing the closest to a sheepish look she’d seen on him. She cut the magic about a metre from the ground, making him land with a wince. Pip appeared beside him seconds later, the tree shaking heavily as he left it. Everypony glanced at the ground beneath the branches until the tree settled. Twilight glanced at Pip.
“There did not appear to be any damaged or missing eggs or birds, Milady.”
“Thank you, Pip.” Twilight nodded at the one before turning to the other. “Now, Broken, we talked about this earlier...”
“I was going for the eggs! You eat eggs all the time, they’re just mixed in with flour and milk and other things. I wasn’t going to eat the birds.” He coughed. “They’re too bony.”
Twilight slowly raised a hoof to her face. “They’re too bony and…?”
“…and I’m not supposed to kill things?”
“Because?”
“Because when I kill things, I get reinforcement of the ‘bad’ power-obsessed aspect of my brain?”
“Right.” Twilight nodded. Broken had only been down for two or three weeks before the Discord-Everfree event occurred; in that time, he’d fluctuated between actively ignoring her orders and almost sarcastically going along with them, which she’d managed to deal with somewhat. With the newer rules placed on him, he had begun acting almost like a foal; he had several times disappeared only to be pointed out or dragged back by Pip, sullen and pouting some of the time and laughing under his breath the others. She hadn’t had any complaints (likely due to Pip’s expedient retrieval of the wayward stallion) but she still wasn’t used to his casually vanishing to somewhere that was within the confines of “with Twilight or Pip” without being easily visible.
Which makes sense, given that he’s only been back a day… give yourself a break.
“I still don’t understand how you can be so casual, about eating meat.” Twilight began walking down the path again, followed by her two (willing or otherwise) companions. Broken snorted.
“Ponies can live on meat, we just don’t get as many nutrients out of it. When your choice is between killing and eating something and starving to death, well…” He rubbed his snout. “It’s easier to think about when you’re surrounded by death on a daily basis.”
“I guess…” Twilight shook her head. “But shouldn’t you have been able to subsist on a regular diet? Even if the majority of earth ponies stopped you from obtaining crops from them, couldn’t you have grown your own, or gotten something from the Everfree?”
Broken started shaking his head, then stopped and glanced at the mare. “Growing the crops would’ve taken too long, especially in the Everfree in winter, which is when we were faced with the… the ‘choice’, I guess, in the first place. And we had to spend most of our time underground anyways, figuratively and literally, because Dawn was rather insistent about finding us that first year she was in power.”
Pip coughed. “Lady Dawn sent regular patrols out into the Everfree in an attempt to root out Loyalist bases. After losing approximately a dozen pegasi and thirty unicorns and earth ponies to the environmental threats, she pulled back and ordered a constant watch kept on the borders.”
Broken laughed. “’Environmental’ threats? We shot their wings off and you know it. Honestly, Twilight, you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to hit a flying pegasus without killing it.” When he saw her look, the smirk slid off of his face. “Not that it’s a ‘good’ thing, it’s just bloody impressive, is all.”
“The skill required doesn’t make it okay to be proud of doing it, Broken.” Twilight stated. Broken blinked.
“Oh, come on! We were aiming for the wings so that the pegasi didn’t die!”
“So then they either fell to the ground and died from that, got eaten by the Everfree creatures, or lived the rest of their lives without the ability to fly, destroying ninety percent of what makes them pegasi.” Twilight raised her eyebrow at Broken accusingly.
“…it wasn’t just for that…”
Pip cleared his throat. “While I do not wish to interrupt Broken’s continued description of horrific actions he perpetrated against the citizens of Equestria, I must warn Milady that the Cutie Mark Crusaders are approaching from the direction that we are travelling.”
Broken blinked, but Twilight nodded. Applejack had been very clear on exactly the amount of contact Broken was allowed to have with Apple Bloom, and Rarity, while less forceful, was no less adamant that Sweetie Belle be protected from Broken’s influence. Twilight had negotiated them into supervised conversation, but not for very long unless both she and one of them were present. Already she could see the shape of the scooter and riding pony, buzzing towards them at a high speed.
“Broken, you can’t do anything stupid, okay?” Twilight said. Broken snorted, but she spoke before he could reply. “I mean it. Applejack was really angry with you for talking with Apple Bloom, especially with what you suggested they do.”
“I told them ‘get permission’, ‘be safe’, and ‘don’t do anything dangerous’. Not my fault if they ignore me.”
“But they did, and Applejack blames you for the idea in the first place. Just let me lead the talking, alright?” When Broken gave her a look, she dropped her voice, letting a small amount of the thought processes that had led to the ‘Cadance’ comment guide her speech. “Imagine what might happen if Applejack joins up with Dawn just because you pissed her off too much.”
Broken’s eye widened, his entire body tensing. Pip reacted, almost casually positioning himself further between the mare and Broken, his eye fixed on the other stallion. Broken opened his mouth, a few small gurgles coming out before any of the actual words.
“She wouldn’t.” His voice cracked, becoming very close to what Twilight suspected was his natural, nearly-identical-to-Shining-Armor voice. “She’s not that stupid, not that petty. What Dawn did-“
“Is what your Dawn did. What happens if Dawn doesn’t use necromancy here? If she never needs to use it?” Twilight took in a breath. “Applejack would have a choice between one of her best friends and the pony who nearly got her sister severely injured. Not a very tough competition.”
She had to fight the insane urge to smile at him from around Pip; even a hint of possible enjoyment at cornering him would probably set him attacking her, Oath be damned. Worse, she’d said ‘joins’, and ‘doesn’t’, and ‘needs’. All of which presumed that Dawn’s rise was a definite event, and that idea coming from Twilight…
“Gah! Out of the road!” A small, scratchy voice called. Pip moved, shoving Broken off of the road before grabbing Twilight and leaping to where Broken had fallen. An orange blur shot past their former location a few seconds later, small puffs of dust and gravel flying up as Scootaloo dug in to slow down. Given her position, she couldn’t see them, but the sound of crashing metal and small groans indicated that the stop hadn’t taken.
“Are you alright?” Twilight called, climbing back to the road. Pip shadowed her, leaving Broken to stumble after them; he was holding a leg up, but didn’t seem to be in pain. Twilight turned her head, watching as the three fillies climbed out from under their transportation.
“Yeah, ‘m fine.” Scootaloo called back, shaking herself off. She blinked a few times as she noticed who she’d nearly collided with. “Sorry, I was-“
“Going a bit fast for a dirt road, lass!” Scootaloo’s eyes shot to Twilight’s left as Broken came from around her. He held a grin, and tapped at his remaining eye. “Nearly put this one out doing something like that.”
“Yeah, sorry, Mr. Shield.” Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had extricated themselves from the cart they rode in, and were staring at Broken warily; the contrast between them and Scootaloo’s obvious mix of awe and enthusiasm was a little odd. Broken noticed it as well, and his eye softened.
“Just call me Broken, Scootaloo.” When she nodded, he turned to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. “And what’s the matter with you two? Cat got your tongues? Chimera catch your tracheas?”
“Broken!” Twilight hissed. He sighed.
“Right. Your sisters.” He overemphasized the word, getting a small smile from the two. “I’ll admit, I gave you guys a bad idea.”
“It wasn’t bad!” Scootaloo interjected.
“Yeah, it was. Encouraging minors to try to destroy things? I was inviting the wrath of Faust upon us all.” He gave a laugh, but he didn’t smile again when his mouth closed. “Listen, you two. I’m gonna bet that your sisters said I was dangerous, that I wasn’t to be trusted and that you should always be really careful around me?”
“Yeah.” Sweetie admitted.
“Sis said you were a tribalist too.” Apple Bloom added. Broken blinked.
“Well, they’re right. I am dangerous, I am untrustworthy, and, buck it, I have this absolutely wrong idea that us pinheads are somehow better than the flatheads or airheads.” Apple Bloom’s eyebrows rose, Sweetie Belle’s jaw came loose, and Scootaloo looked like she’d been hit by a train. Broken sighed. “But I’m working on fixing all of that. This guy here’s supposed to ‘help’ me,” Broken gestured to Pip, “as is Twilight. I have a lot of things wrong with my head, girls, and I don’t want you to risk being near me unless one of these two is with me. In fact, if you don’t see me with either of them, run and get a guard or Twilight. I have… bad days, sometimes.”
“And who’s ‘that guy there’?” Apple Bloom asked. Twilight opened her mouth, but Broken spoke faster.
“That’s Pip. He’s crazy.” When the three stared at him, he laughed. “I was in a mental hospital for several days when I was recovered from my assignment. When I came down here to work with my niece on my ‘experiencing a peaceful life’, Princess Celestia had the great idea to send a ‘patient assistant’ with me, a kind of a joint acclimation program. Hence Pip.”
Twilight gave a sideways glance at Broken; what he was saying worked. It was close enough to the truth – it was the truth, for the most part – and somehow Broken was coming across as if he’d decided all of it.
“Princess Celestia needs Broken, as something of an advisor.” Twilight spoke, pulling the attention to her. “But with the condition he’s been in, he needs to get acclimated to Equestrian society again first. I’m helping him overcome his ‘bad thoughts’, like the tribalism. As he said, he’s not supposed to be out without me and Pip with him.”
“An’ is Pip as dangerous as Broken?” Apple Bloom asked. Twilight thought for a moment.
“Pip is very singleminded, and somewhat detached from his surroundings. He has a… a condition, where he’s blindly loyal to authority, which means me right now. We’re working to help him become independent again, but mentally, he’s very similar to a young foal. He just has a big body, and he uses big words.” In response to this blatant assault on his own claims and the certain-point-of-view truths Twilight had just told, Pip blinked.
“Is he autistic?” Sweetie asked. She was watching him, more than the other two. Twilight blinked in surprise.
“Er-“
“No.” Broken spoke again. His voice was rough, angry. Twilight gave him a glare, but he shot one right back, not stopping his speech. “He used to be a pony just like you or- well, like you. Somepony made him like this.”
Sweetie and Scootaloo both gasped. Apple Bloom swallowed and spat on the ground. Pip’s mouth thinned, but he said nothing.
Staying quiet, doesn’t want to override my story-
“Sweetie…” Broken said, warning. Twilight glanced at the filly, saw her slowly walking towards Pip. The stallion seemed slightly tense.
“It’s okay, Pip.” She said. He shifted, very slightly, enough that she could tell he was less likely to bolt away. Sweetie kept walking, stopping about one-and-a-half metres away.
“Pip?” She asked. He blinked, and she continued. “I’m Sweetie Belle, Pip. My friends are Scootaloo and Apple Bloom.” She raised a hoof, wagging it at him. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
Pip glanced at Twilight. She took a second before nodding, and then he took a step forward and met Sweetie’s hoof with his own.
“Hello, Sweetie Belle.” He glanced over her head, nodding at the other two. “Apple Bloom. Scootaloo. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Sweetie smiled at him, lowering her hoof. Pip glanced back at her before stepping back. She watched him for a few seconds before speaking again.
“Where are you from, Pip?”
“Ponyville.”
“Really?”
“I have no reason to lie, young Miss.”
Sweetie blinked at the title. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”
“I was with her Ladyship Rising Dawn for eight years prior to my placement here. Given your age, it makes sense that you would not have noticed my presence or absence.”
“Oh, yeah…” There was silence for several seconds. “Who’s ‘Rising Dawn’?”
“He-“
“Pip, I’ll answer this one, okay?” Twilight asked. Pip nodded, and she took in a breath. “Rising Dawn is the pony who… er, she was the pony that made Pip like he is.” Sweetie’s eyes widened, but Twilight pressed on. “She was a very mentally unstable pony, and claimed that she was going to overthrow the Princesses and take over Equestria.”
“Like Nightmare Moon.” Apple Bloom supplied.
“Or the Changeling Queen.” Scootaloo added.
“Yes, like them. Fortunately, we found out about her before she could do too much, and she shouldn’t be any danger to anypony now. Unfortunately…” She glanced at Pip. He blinked at her.
“She still did that to Pip.” Sweetie finished. Twilight nodded, then sighed.
“Girls, you should know that this is still very secret information. I need you to not tell anypony about it.”
“Even our sisters?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Or Rainbow Dash?”
“Oh, um, they know, already. But I think they’d rather fill you in themselves, when they’re ready to. Okay?”
The three fillies nodded, and Twilight had to supress a smile. Sweetie put her eyes back on Pip.
“Why were you with Dawn, Pip?”
Twilight bit the inside of her cheek. “P-“
“My parents were killed. Lady Dawn took me in.” His voice was flat, more emotionless than usual. Twilight eyed him warily, and Broken set his hooves, keeping his eye locked on Pip.
“Oh.” Sweetie blinked, then took several steps forward, keeping her eyes on the stallion. “I’m so sorry, Pip.”
“There is nothing to apologize for.” Pip was standing stiff, again. Sweetie seemed to notice, stepping back slightly. She glanced at her friends, turning back to Pip after a few seconds.
“I need to go talk to Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, okay, Pip?”
“I have no objections.”
Sweetie’s eyes moved as she turned, focussing on something behind him. They widened, and shot to Twilight. The older mare looked at Pip, trying to find what Sweetie-
Oh.
“We think it was a side effect of what happened to him.” Twilight said. Both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo approached, glancing around to try to locate what had caught Sweetie off-guard. Broken backed away, his brows furrowed and his mouth frowning.
“He doesn’t have a cutie mark!” Scootaloo shouted, rather tactlessly. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle simultaneously swatted her upside the head, though both of them stared at Pip with wide eyes.
“I fail to see why my lack of a cutie mark is as horrifying as you appear to believe it is.” Pip said blandly. As the three fillies’ eyes widened further, Broken slowly raised a hoof and put it to his face.
“You don’t have a cutie mark, Pip! That’s the worst poss- er, it’s the worst thing that could happen to somepony!”
“Again, I fail to see why. I have lived for fifteen years without a cutie mark, eight years past the average age for obtaining one. Never have I felt saddened or angered by the lack of a mark on my flank.”
“But how are you supposed to know what your special talent is?” Scootaloo stomped her hoof on the ground. “Without a cutie mark, you’re never going to know what you’re supposed to do!”
“Without a cutie mark, I have not been pigeonholed into pursuing a certain profession simply because the area above my stifle determined that I would be ‘best’ at pursuing that occupation.” Pip blinked, as did the three fillies. “I have thus been able to pursue my own interests, those being the protection of Lady Dawn up until several weeks ago and the protection of her Ladyship Twilight Sparkle from several weeks ago up to the current point in time.
“My cutie mark has not appeared during my tenure as her personal bodyguard, and thus I can likely say that my ‘special talent’ is not related to protecting ponies. Nonetheless, I have no desire to do anything else with my life but protect ponies, namely her Ladyship. Were I to be told that I should pursue another occupation due to a cutie mark, I would ignore that claim unless it was an order from her Ladyship herself. Even then, I would go off to perform my predetermined occupation with severe sadness and irritation, as every second I wasted performing whatever task I was determined to be best at was a second more that I was unable to protect those closest to me.”
Sweetie, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo all stared at Pip with slack jaws and eyes wider than a pegasus’ wingspan. Twilight was staring at him in surprise as well. When the three fillies retreated several paces and huddled together to discuss something in secret, Twilight spoke to the stallion.
“Pip, are you okay?”
“I am unsure as to what would be causing me injury, Milady.”
“Do you really feel that way? About cutie marks, choosing what you want to do with your life?”
“Of course, Milady. Her Ladyship Rising Dawn spoke at length about allowing higher powers license to force us into predetermined roles; she was working on a spell that could be cast over Equestria in order to dampen or eliminate cutie mark magic.”
Broken chose that point to enter the conversation. “Dawn was obsessed with that idea later on, said that cutie marks were remnants of a time where ponies were enslaved to the tasks that the powerful assigned them. She didn’t get pissed at you for having one, but she encouraged ponies to try as many things as they could in order to find something they enjoyed, rather than something they were really good at.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.” Twilight admitted. Broken shook his head.
“She had some good ideas, like I told her right before she went back to Ponyville and everything went wrong. She was a bucking psychopath nonetheless. Right after she gave one of those speeches, she had twenty rebels publicly executed for ‘subversion of the chosen leadership’. You can damn bet that any talk she had about everypony being equal and free didn’t apply if you were working against her own powerful assignments.” He scoffed. “Plus, so many earth ponies decided to avoid farming and pursue other interests that there ended up being food shortages. That pissed the pegasi off even more at her.”
Twilight gave the two a glance. “You weren’t required to have a job in your cutie mark’s field, were you?”
Pip shrugged. Broken answered.
“Dr. Shelter comes from a family of architects and interior designers, or at least he did in my timeline. Last I checked his cutie mark was a hammer and a roof, so it was less ‘you can’t’ and more ‘it’s very very hard’.”
“Twilight?”
A filly’s voice broke them from their circle. All three turned to see Sweetie facing them, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom very close behind her.
“Yes, Sweetie?”
“Well, we were talking, and we were wondering if it would be okay for Pip to come crusading with us.” Twilight must have gotten a look, because Sweetie spoke quickly. “I mean, if something happened to him like Broken said, and it made him like this, without a cutie mark at his age and stuff, then maybe if we helped him find his special talent he’d get better! He’d be happier, I mean, maybe what Dawn did to him would go away!”
Twilight blinked, biting her lip at the filly’s hopeful stance. She glanced at Broken, who gave her a mix of a warning, worried, and very-close-to-threatening look, then at Pip, who regarded her the same as he always had.
“Would you want to play with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Pip?”
“I would be perfectly fine with doing so, so long as you wished me to.”
Sighing, Twilight turned back to Sweetie.
“I’m going to have to say no. I know that you mean well, Sweetie, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, but Pip needs to stay with me and Broken for a little while, for reasons that affect both him and Broken. If he goes with you, something could go wrong, he could have a bad reaction to something that happens, and I don’t want to risk anypony getting hurt. I’m still not sure on all of his boundaries, what we can and can’t risk him doing, so it would be best if he just stayed with me.”
Sweetie’s face dropped, but she nodded. “Sorry, Twilight…”
“What? Why are you apologizing? You had a good idea, it’s just that this is a very special case.” Twilight blinked. “Tell you what, girls. I’ll talk it over with Applejack and Rarity, and if they’re okay with Pip going with you, I’ll let him go crusading with you…”
Sweetie immediately perked up. “Really?!”
“…but I need to come along as well. Just to make sure he’s not getting worked up.”
Sweetie’s eyebrows raised, but she nodded vigorously. “Okay! We don’t have a problem with that, do we, girls?”
“Nope!”
“I’m cool with it!”
“Right! So you just talk to our sisters and then we can help Pip get back to normal! Thanks, Twilight!” Sweetie ran back to the other two, and the trio was soon speeding off down the road.
“Broken Shield.” Pip said, apparently in warning. Twilight turned, facing the angered stallion.
“I know that you think I’m putting them at risk, Broken, but-“
“No excuses.” Broken took in a few breaths, trying and failing to calm himself down. “I can’t stop you. You do it on a day that I’m not here. You keep a hawk’s eye on him. You keep them safe.”
“I have no reason to harm them, Broken.” Pip said. Broken rounded on him.
“If Sweetie doesn’t die, Dawn loses her bargaining chip with Rarity. You could easily kill her and make it look… like an accident.” Broken’s voice broke on the last three words, drowning under a current of white-hot fury, and his entire body seemed to tense, as if he was fighting the urge to pounce on the stallion. Twilight watched him warily, knowing that that he probably was.
“By that logic, you should ensure that either I or her Ladyship kill Apple Bloom, so that Applejack can be secured to your side against us.” When Broken froze, his eye twitching, Pip continued in his monotone. “I can assure you, Broken Shield, that I would not harm those fillies unless ordered to by her Ladyship. As she has given no indication of wishing them harm, I can only presume that she wishes for them to be protected. Thus, any fear of my harming them is unnecessary and unfounded.”
Broken seemed to struggle with a few words before letting out a teeth-clenched growl. He took a few more breaths, calming himself enough to look at Twilight again instead of trying to bore a hole into Pip’s head with his gaze.
“I’ll keep a very close watch on him, Broken. You have my word.”
Broken nodded stiffly.
“I need to go k-“ He cut himself off, taking a breath. “I need to go break something. Can we head to the Everfree?”
“I think it would be best if-“
“It’s going to be a tree or a rock or something, I’m not killing it, just let me go.” Broken brought a hoof to his face, pressing it into his closed eye. Twilight watched him for a few seconds.
“You’ll stay in my sight? Directly?”
“Yes, yes, you can have Pip shadow me if you want-“
Twilight’s horn glowed. The three moved, from the park to the edge of the Everfree. Broken raised his head, blinking and looking around.
“Get it out of your system. Don’t hurt anything.” Twilight gave him what she hoped was a smile. He grimaced back, but nodded. Turning, he walked to the nearest gnarled tree, glancing it up and down before placing his horn on it.
The back of the tree exploded, brown and yellow flecks of wood shooting into the foliage behind it. Broken stepped back, watching as the tree slowly tipped back before suddenly snapping and falling. He shook himself, breathing somewhat heavily. He turned to look at Twilight and Pip, his eye holding a small amount of glee.
The mare in the air was working as hard as she could.
Twilight could see that easily; even as a blur, Rainbow was putting more into this routine than she had for quite a while. The trail she left behind was thinner and longer than Twilight had ever seen it, trailing for several twists and turns before the sunlight fully destroyed it. It wasn’t actually there, not like with the Rainboom, but there was a definite afterimage when she blinked. She’d been doing that a lot, Rainbow having decided to practice right on the edge of the sun’s fall.
Was that because of him?
Twilight turned her eyes, glancing at the stallion to her left. His eye was narrowed, but it followed Rainbow at every turn, every loop, every streak across the sky. He looked almost predatory, waiting for Rainbow to slip so that he could strike. Twilight shivered.
Rainbow set down several minutes later, panting but grinning. Pinkie Pie gave a whoop and ran forward, hugging on to her marefriend. Twilight smiled and clapped, Pip following her example for the latter action. Broken was still, his eye remaining on Rainbow. The mare slowly walked over to the scarred stallion (Pinkie leaving a small divot as she was dragged along) and sat down in front of him.
“So… how’d you like it?”
“Why the buck are you asking me?”
Rainbow’s grin deepened. “You’re the new guy. You haven’t been exposed to the awesomeness of my flight routines yet.”
Broken scoffed. “What about Pip? No, wait, stupid question. Why do you think I’d give you a straight answer?”
“’Cause you hate me enough that you wouldn’t pull punches. I want your hardest shots, exactly how badly I messed up and where.”
Pinkie and Twilight both blinked in surprise at the mare. She’d never actively asked for criticism, especially not from somepony like Broken. She held a straight face above her bravado, though, and Broken grinned.
“You move fast. You’re controlled, for the most part, some small slips on the smaller turns. You could probably beat any other flier in a straight flight.”
“But?”
He raised a hoof and shoved her. She stumbled, nearly falling over before Pinkie set herself on the ground and steadied the pegasus. Pip took a step towards Broken, but he stopped when it was clear that the latter stallion wasn’t going any further. Broken, for his part, had stopped smiling.
“You exhaust yourself, far too quickly. The Wonderbolts are going to be out flying for hours, in front of thousands, and if you falter it falls on the whole team. You have good endurance, but you push yourself so hard that it doesn’t make a difference. Keep going like that, you’re going to tear a flight tendon, and those don’t heal. One bad wing extension, one push in the wrong direction, and you’re lucky if you can recover enough to hit the ground softly.”
Rainbow’s lips had thinned, but she nodded. Broken blinked.
“You’re stupidly focused on making yourself look the best. That’s good for some things, not if you plan on becoming a Wonderbolt. I’m sure they went over this with you, and you aren’t stupid enough to actually sacrifice other ponies for your own benefit.” Again, Rainbow nodded. “But the thing you just showed me? The high speed, high risk manouvering? When I said you could beat any flier in a straight flight, that wasn’t a good thing.”
This got a different reaction from the mare. Her brows had furrowed, and her voice was skeptical. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it. You’re fast enough to leave anypony in the cloud-dust. That’s competitors and teammates. What happens when your body shifts into instinct during a performance and you’re suddenly out of position, far ahead of where you should be? Formation’s bucked up, your teammates get messed up, you look like a showboater, and that’s only worse if you’re the flight leader.”
Rainbow gave a cautious nod. Broken sighed.
“I’m sure they’d go over this with you themselves, they aren’t idiots, or mine weren’t at least, but it’s good to get it in your head early.” He shrugged. “My Rainbow never did. One day she was running a patrol over the Everfree with ten other pegasi. She was the head of the pack, went far enough in front that we saw her fly overhead long before her squad showed up.” Broken blinked, grinning. “She was the only one that got back to Canterlot.”
A solid silence slid over the gathered ponies. Rainbow, Twilight, and Pinkie all stared at Broken, Twilight with a modicum less surprise than the other two. She cleared her throat when it was clear that nopony would be speaking.
“Broken, if we want to get to the others’, we need to leave soon.”
“Oh, of course, of course.” He shook his head, glancing at Rainbow again. She opened her mouth before he could speak.
“Why did you give me that advice?”
Broken’s brows furrowed. “You did ask.”
“I was ready for you to call me out, just go full-on ‘you suck’. You actually helped me, even if I knew most of it already.” Rainbow shifted herself, leaning on her two left hooves. “I’m wondering why.”
Broken shrugged. “I’m hoping that you aren’t stupid enough to join Dawn, knowing that it ends up the way it does, so I’m just aiding a future ally.”
Rainbow shook her head. “That’s not all of it, though. You’ve always called me Rainbow. You call AJ Applejack, and you call Fluttershy Fluttershy. But you call Pinkie and Rarity by those codenames. Why those two? Why just those two?”
Broken stared at the mare for a few seconds.
“Applejack was a rebel, we didn’t need a codename for her. After Appleloosa and the Wonderbolts, you were actually the moderate in Dawn’s circle, and your ideas saved a bunch of pony’s lives.” He glanced at Pip. “Fluttershy was Raised into Gaia, and Big Macintosh into Crimson Lash.” When everypony’s eyes widened, he gave a small, dead grin.
“Rarity and Pinkie were the sycophants for Dawn. They weren’t Raised, they weren't mind controlled, they just supported her and went along with everything she did. They helped her.” He gritted his teeth. Rainbow spread a wing in front of Pinkie. Broken continued, his eye focusing on some point behind the mares. “Rarity organized the camps, they weren’t her idea but they were hers. Pinkie tore ponies apart, helped Dawn with the physical aspect of the healing spell experimentation.”
Pip cleared his throat. “Rarity was in charge of care and comfort for the residents of the internment camps. Lady Dawn removed her from the position soon before the camps became overcrowded and anarchic, and she was instead placed into a position to help actual Equestrian citizens who had been assaulted by Royal Guard forces during the Revolution.” Broken’s eye narrowed, but Pip didn’t seem to notice. “Lady Thalia primarily developed prostheses and mechanisms designed to aid the common pony in their daily tasks.”
When Broken moved to speak again, Pip overspoke him. “I would remind you that her Ladyship has ordered our removal from this location, and your continued efforts to converse are interrupting our exodus.” He turned to Twilight. “With your permission, Milady, I shall remove Broken in order to expediate our travel to Rarity’s.”
“I’m not done explaining!” Broken cut in, glaring at Pip. The other stallion’s eye narrowed, but Twilight moved between them.
“We do need to get going, Broken. Make it quick.”
The stallion scoffed. “Yeah, yeah… So, we used the codenames during the Revolution itself, all of them, I mean, but we kept Pinkie’s and Rarity’s because they happened to work out in a rather insulting manner. We used Marshmellow because, well, Rarity’s appearance had shifted dramatically from her former obsessively-maintained figure, and Cotton Candy was a reminder of what she used to do, used to be, and how far she’d fallen since then.” He waved a hoof vaguely in Pinkie’s direction.
“But why do you call our Rarity and Pinkie by those names?” Rainbow pressed. Broken glared at her.
“Call it a force of habit. I remind myself that they’re the most dangerous ones out of you other than Twilight, in case they need to be… dealt with… later on.”
Rainbow and Broken glared each other down for a few seconds. Pinkie slowly raised her hooves and pushed Rainbow’s wing down.
“Was Cotton Candy straight-haired when she was hurting ponies?” Pinkie asked quietly. Broken stared at her.
“She had had to cut her hair, it got damaged in some accident or something, but the inch or two that was there was still curled.” Pinkie blinked, but nodded. Broken looked her up and down before sighing and standing.
“I’m gonna start for Marshmellow’s. ‘F Pip wants to come-“
Pip stepped, and both stallions disappeared. Twilight blinked the afterimages out of her eyes before turning to her two friends.
“I’m sorry about that…”
Rainbow scoffed. “Why? We got some info out of him, didn’t we? Something happened to the Wonderbolts, Fluttershy didn’t go over to Dawn willingly and she brought Big Mac with her, Broken hates me less than you and Pinkie…”
“I turned into a mean violent pony without going Pinkamena.” Pinkie added. Both mares turned to her, Rainbow placing a wing on the earth pony’s shoulders. She shrugged, her smile staying. “I’m not worried about it; I mean, Twilight isn’t responsible for what Dawn did and she shouldn’t worry about her, why would I be worried about Cotton Candy? Doesn’t make sense that I’d take something like that to heart after I helped you get out of your funk, Twilight.” Pinkie’s eyes brightened. “Ooh! Pip said I was a prostheses maker pony! That’s why I was still curly-haired-happy-me, I was helping ponies like that!”
“I guess so.” Twilight gave a small grin at the optimistic mare.
“And even with the healing magic thing, well, I was helping make healing magic! Even if a bunch of ponies got hurt on the way, I was probably thinking ‘Hey, these ponies might be sad, but I’m making it so that a whole bunch more ponies can be happier, so it balances out’ or something like that! It’s silly, obviously, you shouldn’t hurt innocent ponies no matter how much it helps other ponies, but-“
Rainbow slipped a hoof over her hyperactive marefriend’s mouth, not stopping the speech but interrupting its capability of comprehension. She gave Twilight a grin.
“I’m gonna take her somewhere so she doesn’t explode. Keep an eye on Broken, yeah?”
Twilight nodded. “Er, thank you, Rainbow.”
The pegasus shrugged. “No problem. He might not be a bad observer, even if most of his advice is obvious.” Pinkie’s muffled voice had reached a fever pitch, and Rainbow quickly moved her foreleg to firmly wedge the mare’s head to her chest. She started flapping her wings, giving Twilight a salute before shooting off into the sky, leaving a pink-tinted rainbow trail behind her. Twilight turned, starting after the two ponies in her charge.
Pip had waited less than a block away from Rainbow’s practice site; Twilight found him and Broken glaring at each other, Broken muttering things too low for Twilight to hear. They both stopped and turned to her as she approached.
“What?” She asked, tiphoofing around them and continuing on her way.
“Broken Shield has been expressing his anger towards Lady Thalia towards me for the last few minutes, and has apparently become somewhat irritated at my explanations of her actions.” Pip replied.
“She took out my ribs because she wanted to see what would happen.” Broken growled.
“Soon after your second escape she developed segmented body armour designed to absorb hits without damaging the pony inside, as well as a new support structure for buildings that would prevent severe structural damage from high-velocity impacts by large masses. Both of these were based upon a ribcage structure.”
“She kept ponies alive while she cut them up!”
“Live feedback was required for the development of some aspects of the healing spells; most of the test subjects had been anesthetized, and all of them were terminally-ill volunteers or those who had violently resisted integration into the new Equestrian society.”
“She stuffed her own soldiers with explosives that would detonate when they were killed!”
“Based upon tactics used by the Shadowbolts in the Cloud City rebellions, and adopted primarily to prevent cannibalism of the corpses by the Loyalists.”
Twilight’s stomach dropped through her hooves.
“Cannibalism!?!” She shouted. Pip nodded as Broken growled.
“Oh, don’t get caught up on that…”
“Is he serious?! No, wait, is he right?!” Twilight had rounded on Broken, giving him a horrified stare. Broken glanced at her dismissively the three before sighing.
“It happened once. Everypony was rather desperate, rather hungry, morale was low, and a mare couldn’t handle it anymore. She killed her foals, then herself.” He put his tongue to the corner of his mouth, but brought it back before he could lick his lips. “She fell on a fire she’d built, and the smoke drew our attention a few minutes after she’d gone through with it.” Broken swallowed, his mouth tight.
“We had stew for a while.”
Twilight stared at Broken; he glanced between her and Pip, clearing his throat after a half-minute.
“So, enough about my violation of Faust’s intentions, how about Pip blatantly admitting that Cotton Candy and Dawn used live ponies for experimenting with healing spells? No? How about that the ‘violent’ resisters were those poor wretches from the camps? The exploding soldiers bit? Anything?”
“I have been well aware of Dawn’s monstrosities, Broken, for long before you mentioned the specifics here.” Twilight swallowed some bile that had been edging up her throat. “What you did, on the other hoof, has never been mentioned before.”
“I did it once, to keep everypony alive! She did it hundreds, thousands, of times, because she got some sick pleasure out of destroying ponies’ lives!” Broken glared at Pip. “Or did you not explain how the tortures and experiments continued for four years after the healing spells had been developed?”
“The healing spells were not the only reason for the brave sacrifice of the test subjects. Lady Dawn had plans far greater in scope than curing individual ponies of their ills.”
“Right, of course.” Broken shook his head, giving a rough sigh. “Dawn can’t do anything for a bad reason, can she?”
“I’m glad to see that you’ve recognized that, Broken Shield. Lady Dawn would be happy that you’ve progressed in your-“
A rope of rose-coloured magic wrapped around Pip’s midsection, jerking to the side and flipping the stallion over. Numerous other magical lengths erupted from the ground, tying Pip down as Broken approached him, horn pulsing with energy and eye narrowed. A trickle of blood coursed down over Broken’s mouth from his nostril.
“Broken!” Twilight yelled. Her own magic appeared, grabbing the other unicorn and halting him a few metres away from Pip. Broken turned to her, and his eye was the small-pupiled, wide-opened thing she’d seen a few times previously. Twilight felt a small bit of ice in her stomach as his gaze fell on her, and everypony’s shadows seemed to darken suddenly.
“He… you don’t know what he’s saying…” Broken blinked slowly. The ropes around Pip pulsed, but the stallion on the ground gave no indication of pain.
Twilight blinked, trying to clear the bizzare, light fog from her vision. “Broken, it doesn’t matter what he’s saying, you can’t hurt him. If you do, you’ll be-“
-killed. Celestia’s going to kill him.
I need to stop him.
He’s in a funk, needs a shock.
Twilight blinked again. Broken had begun to smile, a small, odd smile. Twilight stopped herself from focusing on it.
“He needs to die, Twily.”
“He’s a foal, Broken, he doesn’t know right from wrong like we do.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Broken’s smile widened, and the magic around Pip pulsed again. “You don’t either.”
The shadows deepened, the fog grew. Twilight felt something odd on her back. She ignored it, ignored the shadows and the fog. Her head pulsed, and she found herself speaking without thinking.
“If you kill him, you’re murdering him, a foal, you’re murdering a foal. Just like Dazzle, a foal like Dazzle. You kill him, you’re killing Dazzle, Broken!”
Broken’s smile snapped. The shadows went back, the fog fled, the weight lifted from her barrel. Twilight blinked a few times, found Broken on the ground, Pip standing and staring at her. She shook her head, the odd feeling disappearing.
“Are you alright, Milady?” Pip asked.
“Yeah, Pip, I’m…” she shook her head again. “I’m fine. What happened?”
“Broken Shield restrained me when I attempted to congratulate him on recognizing that Lady Dawn was an objectively good pony. As he approached, you called out something that, oddly, I cannot remember; hearing your words, Broken stopped, released me, and collapsed. I believe that he may have activated the anti-violence spells but somehow pushed through their effects, for the seven seconds it took him to stop.”
“Seconds…” Twilight blinked. It felt a lot longer than that, when I was-
A sharp shock shot through her mind as she realized what had just happened.
“I beat it.” The event. The waking nightmare thing. She’d been in one, at least partially, and she hadn’t even noticed, she’d been trying to stop Broken, she’d stopped Broken-
“Milady?”
Twilight had gained a grin, without feeling it. “I’m fine, Pip.” She glanced at the unconscious stallion on the ground. “Could you run to Rarity’s, tell her we need to reschedule? Just say that something came up with Broken, I’m sure she’d understand.”
“As you say, Milady.” The stoic stallion disappeared, a whip of air filling his former location. Twilight glanced at Broken, who would have appeared to be sleeping peacefully if not for the twin rivulets of blood streaking down his face.
I beat the dream-Broken.
Twilight was fairly sure that what she’d said in the dream had been what she’d been thinking. What she would have said in real life, then-
“You’re killing Dazzle”
-was probably a reflection of her thoughts. It had stopped him in real life, it had stopped him in the dream.
But that’s never happened before. Not like that.
So? The other-voice in her head asked. It sounded weary, almost exhausted. Broken’s down, Pip’s alive, you’re not insane. Maybe you’re just getting a better hold on your own thoughts.
But what did I do-
A sharp pain hit Twilight in the root of her horn. She sat, bringing a hoof up to rub a circle near the base. Pip appeared, grabbing Broken without being asked. Twilight stood, still massaging near her horn.
I was displeased to hear about Broken’s lapse so early into his return; I will rearrange his Oath when he awakes to account for any violent intent during use, not just with the magic itself. Also, the revelation of another of his past actions is welcome, if quite disturbing. I shall be sure to inform Dr. Path of this event alongside the regular report.
That said, I’m glad to hear that he was able to be stopped quickly, and that it took such a vexatious comment from Pip to push him into the violent mindset once again. I would suggest that you account for Pip’s tendency to ‘rile Broken up’, if I was not sure that you have already done so.
I can support your ideas for the reasons of Rarity’s and Pinkie Pie’s support of Dawn; We already know that Rarity was both bribed and coerced using Sweetie Belle, however hypocritically Broken fails to account for the love of a family member as a justification for one’s actions, while Pinkie Pie’s support of Dawn without such coercive elements can be accounted for with Rainbow Dash’s presence, as well as (as Pinkie herself noted, by your account) a warped view on sacrificing some to save others. Rainbow herself is the Element of Loyalty; I cannot imagine her betraying Dawn for anything less than Pinkie’s murder.
I wish you well, my faithful student.
Princess Celestia
Twilight Sparkle, Element of Harmony-Magic, Princess of Ponyville (abdicatio),
I had sensed your event whilst in session with a decidedly disagreeable noblepony, but was unable to away to your aid before it vanished (much to My dismay). I am pleased to hear of your conquering the event unaided, irrespective of its semipresence. Should any of these events occur in the future, the knowledge that you gleaned from this victory should hopefully aid you in fully defeating the monstrous construct.
Upon this knowledge, I believe that I may have found a cause for the appearance of the events; they share a common link in that Broken Shield is always acting in what you perceive as a threatening manner towards yourself or one of your close allies, though why your mind and magic would choose to enact such fantasies during such dangerous times as Broken Shield’s violent phases is beyond my comprehension. If you wish to avoid these events again, it would be advisable to avoid allowing Broken into threatening situations – or, in My and likely My Sister’s opinion the better option, simply avoid interaction with Broken Shield whatsoever.
Please note that I am aware that you will not adhere to this latter recommendation.
In response to your questions about Pip, I must inform you that he does not dream, or he does so so sparingly that I cannot detect even the smallest residue of dream-magic in his mind. As such, I cannot aid you in understanding his psyche (and, in response to your inquiry, I would do this only to help Pip as I have done with other such tortured souls – fear not that I would expose him so otherwise). I wish you luck and share your hope to meet a more amiable Pip in the future.
Peace and Harmony,
Princess Luna
Twilight drove her eyes over the letters again before folding them and slipping them into the desk. Both what Celestia and Luna said made sense, Celestia about Rarity and Pinkie, Luna about the events.
Twilight still had a sour taste in her mouth, and a small throbbing pain beneath her horn.
“You alright, Twi?” Spike asked. She turned her eyes to him, noticing his somewhat worried expression.
“I’m fine, Spike. Just… thinking, is all.”
“I’m wondering what you were thinking when you left me behind yesterday…” Spike grumbled. Twilight gained a small, wry grin.
“Well, I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t set my mane on fire for trying to wake you up so early.” Twilight replied, flicking the few burnt strands that had been hit by the young dragon’s sleepy snort. Spike blushed and grumbled some more, but also began smiling.
“Milady?” A voice from behind them. Spike rolled his eyes as he turned; Twilight simply stood, glancing at the stoic stallion.
“Yes, Pip?”
“There are five ponies walking up to the front of the library, two adults and three foals. Shall I greet them?”
Twilight brought her hoof to her head, rubbing at the base of her horn. A thin knocking could be heard, followed several seconds later by two louder thumps. The unicorn quickly left her room and crossed the floor to the library’s entrance. A crop of air whipped past her, and the door was suddenly open, Pip holding it with one hoof and observing the ponies standing on the porch.
“Hi, Pip!” A bright voice came from around the door. Pip glanced down.
“Hello, Sweetie Belle.” His eyes raised slightly. “Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Applejack, Rarity.” He nodded at each in turn, stepping back to allow them entrance. Applejack watched him warily before turning her eyes to Twilight.
“Ah’ve got… questions.” The farmmare said, after a pregnant pause. Apple Bloom groaned and rolled her eyes.
“C’mon, sis…”
“You don’t know the whole thing’a what went on with him, Apple Bloom. An’ you ain’t gonna know, either.” Applejack sighed. “Twilight, Ah trust you, y’know that, but Pip-“
“-could be incredibly dangerous. I know, Applejack.” Twilight took in a breath. “But this could be huge for him. He needs to be around somepony who isn’t me, and the Crusaders are just about the only ones I know of who know enough about him to get along and aren’t either suspicious of him or ponies that he’s hostile towards. Or Pinkie.” The three adult mares all shuddered. “Getting to interact with ponies who are at least close to his ‘age’, who can show him the kind of life he should have had as a colt, could be very important to his recovery.”
“Did Dr. Path send’ya a letter sayin’ all that?”
“Nope. Got it from Lost Youth: Healing Traumatized Foals. It’s a rather old tome, but you never know what’s hiding in the past.”
Applejack clicked her tongue. “Have y’talked t’Dr. Path at all ‘bout this?”
“I sent a letter... but I’m going to be there the entire time, I’ll be watching, with Spike, to make sure that they don’t do anything that could get them hurt more than sticking themselves together with tree sap, or anything that might get out of their control. Pip won’t hurt them, I’ve already directly ordered him to keep them out of harm’s way. I can do it again, if you want.”
“You’re worried about your sister. From what Shining’s said, it’s a perfectly reasonable reaction.” Twilight gave a small smile as the farmmare nodded, then turned to Rarity. “I’m presuming you have the same worries?”
“Now now, dear, I know full well that you can handle whatever the Crusaders throw at you, and Sweetie wore me down enough that I’m not going to say that bringing Pip is a bad idea for them.”
Twilight’s ears fell. “You think it might be bad for Pip?”
“Oh, it’s… you want him to become less dependent on you, move more into being his own pony, yes?” Twilight nodded. “Have you considered Pip’s opinion on this?”
“Right now, Pip would do whatever I want him to do. That’s not exactly something I want to keep going.”
“Well, yes, but…” Rarity bit her lip. Applejack gave her a soft look.
“If y’want, Ah can-“
“No, no, it’s fine…” The white unicorn glanced at the younger ponies present. “Though I’m not sure that you need to hear it, girls.”
“Oh, great. They finally remember that we’re here and it’s to shoo us away.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Crusaders.” She flicked her eyes at Pip. “That means you, too.”
“I cannot until her Ladyship-“
“Pip, do you want to go with them?” Twilight interrupted. Pip blinked.
“I believe so, Milady.”
“Then go. But I want you to stay near the library, okay?”
“As you say, Milady.” Pip nodded. He dutifully followed the trio out the door, shutting it quietly. Applejack moved to the window as Rarity addressed Twilight again.
“Frankly, Twilight, I think that he may actually want to be with you, to maintain the relationship that he has with you right now.”
“You mean the obsessively protective and sycophantic pseudo-maternal-sexual thing he has going for me? That ‘relationship’?” Twilight tilted her head.
“…I never said that it was a healthy relationship…” Rarity muttered. “But yes, that is what I’m referring to.”
“I really don’t see how getting him away from that wouldn’t be helping him.”
“I didn’t mean- oh, let me just start over. I don’t think that you’re taking Pip’s view into account as much as you should.” Rarity raised a hoof as Twilight moved to speak. “That does not mean that I think you’re doing wrong by him, dear, but from my limited understanding it seems that you’re pushing him in a direction that he might not yet wish to go.”
“I’m aware that he doesn’t want to move away from ‘Dawn is perfect and Broken is evil’ and all of that. Dawn has him too programmed-“
“That’s my point, Twilight.” Rarity quietly cut the other unicorn off. “Dawn has him programmed. You must remember, dear, she was the major focus of everything he did for somewhere between eight years and a decade. In that time she was a motherly figure, a protector, a powerful leader… she likely supplanted his actual mother in his mind, especially given his age and the probably-recent deaths of his parents. He sees her as having saved him, saved everypony, from the ‘horrible evils’ of Celestia’s leadership; she’s a hero to him, Twilight, and one that personally interacts with him and allows him to aid her in creating her ‘perfect’ world. He, and I mean Pip himself, not just what he’s been Raised to, might actually, genuinely love Rising Dawn.” Rarity tapped her hoof on the floor. “And now, being told that his entire basis for existence is fundamentally wrong, that the mare who has held him for years is irrevocably evil, even by a pony that he sees as being her equal… “
Twilight brought a hoof to her head. “He’s going to panic. Be extra resistant, dig in and try to hold on to the ideas he’s been raised with. Buck!” She cursed. Rarity gave her a soft smile.
“Well, I can say that you have made progress with him; he went out with the Crusaders of his own accord, even if you prompted him somewhat, and I’m sure that there’s been plenty that I haven’t seen. I’m just worried that you may be rushing him a bit.”
“I’ve been trying to avoid pushing him too hard, so I did know this, but it’s just… frustrating to hear it out loud, what Dawn probably did to him.” Twilight shook her head. “Spike, could you send another letter to Dr. Path, tell him we really need to book Pip for a meeting as well?”
“Got it.” The young dragon nodded, turning and moving to the library desk. Twilight turned back to Rarity, who cleared her throat.
“Well, hopefully my next concern will be less awkwardly-spoken…”
“What would that be?” Twilight asked. Rarity levelled a gaze at her.
“Twilight, I’m sure that you’re aware of the Crusaders’ propensity towards rather (unintentionally) destructive activities in their pursuit of cutie marks. With the addition of a stallion that rivals Big Macintosh in size and strength to their arsenal, do you really think the town is less likely to be damaged in some way?” Rarity wore a wide smile, clearly speaking on this in less-than-serious terms, but behind her eyes there hung a somewhat frantic worry.
“They’re doin’ somethin’ with a lamppost.” Applejack added, hastily moving to the door and slipping outside. Rarity and Twilight both perked their ears at the door, but nothing particularly frenetic- or scolding-sounding made it into the library.
“Yeah, I can see your point with that. I’m going to be there, though, and I’ve disallowed Pip from letting them get hurt, and Spike can send a letter to the proper authorities if something goes seriously wrong.” Twilight gave a wry grin at this last part, and the mentioned dragon coughed loudly.
“I don’t think Celestia would appreciate a letter saying ‘DEAR FAUST THEY GOT INTO PINKIE’S STASH’, Twi.”
“Bite your tongue!” Rarity admonished, as Twilight began choking on the air in her mouth. Spike gave her a confused look.
“What? I can’t imagine the town would do well if they found one of Pinkie’s ‘Emergency Party Supplies for Super Special Emergencies or Dashie Dates’. Those things can do some damage if you’re not careful.”
Rarity blushed, and Twilight began giggling. “Oh, I… Spike, I thought you meant-“
“What?”
“Nevermind, Spike, just…” Twilight gave a few more snorts. “…get your bag ready. We’re going soon.”
“Alright, Twilight.” Spike gave Rarity an odd look before running to the bedroom. Rarity gave a light glare at the other unicorn, who proceeded to start up laughing again. Rarity sighed.
“Well, we seem to have everything squared up about the Crusaders... Oh, when Broken comes back, make sure to bring him to the Boutique. I need a few final points for his cloak.”
“You’re still doing that? I kind of thought, after everything that happened…”
“Twilight, I may not like the stallion, but he is, technically, a customer. One who has access to a not-insignificant amount of material wealth, if his casually paying a one-hundred-bit bill with three-thousand-bits worth of platinum is any indication.”
Twilight nodded, but her brows were furrowed. “I’m not sure you should rely on him, Rarity…”
“Oh, I’m not actually expecting payment like he did with Applejack; this is as much from my Element as it is from my own interests.” Rarity tilted her head, one ear flicking towards the door. “But I’ve kept you too long, I think. We had better leave before the Crusaders get bored.” She gave a theatric shudder at the last word. Both mares laughed before they opened the door and stepped outside.
“Ready, Crusaders?”
“Ready!”
“All set!”
“I am as prepared as I can be.”
“Right!” The young pegasus clapped her hooves together. “Three, two, one, pull!”
The three fillies shot forward, each with a rope tied around her barrel on one end and an old, dead tree on the other. Each of them pulled at an angle away from the tree’s fall path; Pip, who held his rope between his teeth, stood directly in its way. His eye stared at the wobbling-yet-solid trunk before flicking to each of the fillies in turn; Apple Bloom was already digging grooves in the earth as she tugged, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo making similar efforts. His gaze shifted again, to the older unicorn watching from a small distance away. She locked his gaze with her own before nodding.
Pip took two steps back, drawing the rope taut. He looked to the sides, ensuring that the other three Crusaders were out of the range of debris, before taking another step and giving the rope a sharp tug.
There was a wet ripping sound as the ground near the tree erupted, and a mix of cracks with a deep groan beneath as it tipped over. Pip quickly grabbed the three fillies and leapt to one side, as the tree was slowed severely by several ropes of magic. Twilight’s horn glowed as she eased it to the ground, tilting it further away from Pip and the Crusaders until it impacted the ground. She sighed as she released the magic, her ear tilting towards the fillies and their larger compatriot.
“Anythin’?”
“Nope.”
“Nada.”
Pip simply blinked. Scootaloo shook herself.
“Right, CMC woodsponies is out. How about…”
“…you okay up there, Pip?” Sweetie called. The stallion didn’t respond, digging his hoof into the face of the cliff and pushing himself upwards, the rope looped around his barrel connecting him to the three fillies directly below him. The rope also stretched upwards, tied to a rock on a plateau about thirty metres above the base of the cliff. Twilight watched a small distance from the base, watching for slips with horn subtly glowing in anticipation.
“You stare any harder at them, your eyes are going to pop out.” Spike mentioned dryly.
“I promised Applejack and Rarity that I’d keep an eye on them.”
“I don’t think they meant it literally.” When Twilight huffed, he continued. “Seriously, Twilight, the CMC’s done more dangerous stuff than rock climbing. Yeah, you should make sure they don’t fall, but-“
“Spike, think about what you’re saying. You’re advocating that I keep less of a watchful eye on the Crusaders.”
Twilight watched as his face changed from mild confusion to dawning horror.
“…Faust, you’re right. I’ll help, you keep watch Pip and Apple B-“
“Too late.” Twilight nodded her head to the plateau, where Pip was helping Scootaloo scramble over the edge. The four stood in a group for about half a minute; Twilight could hear the voices, but not distinctly enough to understand them. Scootaloo was pacing and flapping her wings as she spoke; Pip carefully stepped around her to put himself between her and the edge, apparently answering a question she had posed. She stared at him and said something else. Pip shook his head. Scootaloo tilted hers. Sweetie said something, to which Pip replied. The three fillies stared at each other for a few moments before collectively nodding.
Two seconds and a small dust cloud later, Pip was standing beside Twilight.
“The Crusaders have suggested that we attempt ‘base jumping’ as our next cutie mark attempt, Milady. While I advised against it, they appear set on the activity.”
“Told’ya they’ve done more dangerous stuff.” Spike said. Twilight’s eye twitched before she closed both and sighed.
“Tell them no, Pip. Nothing that risky.”
“As you say-“
“WAAAAAH!”
The three on the ground shot their eyes to the cliff just as a small orange pegasus left the edge of the plateau, her two friends staring at her in horror. Twilight’s horn glowed as she gathered magic, her mind racing as she watched the filly fall.
Bucking Faust and Celestia’s pinfeathers she’s going to hit the ground die cripple herself can’t stop her quick break her back neck need slow make pillow grow ropes fall
In the half-second that it took her mind to run through those thoughts, her eyes had recognized Pip launching towards the cliff, jumping and slamming into a point on the rock wall just as Scootaloo passed it, twisting around and launching himself down towards her, grabbing her and pulling her into his barrel as the leftover momentum spun him around just in time for him to impact the ground spine-first. Scootaloo was sent flying a small distance as Pip’s body splayed, tumbling in the grass but leaving nowhere near the crater her protector had.
“Pip!” Twilight bolted towards the stallion. He laid still for a few seconds before coughing and standing, shaking the dirt off of himself and glancing at her.
“I am uninjured, Milady.” He coughed, wetly, and spat a not-insignificant amount of blood onto the grass. Both ponies stared at it. Pip coughed again, quietly. “I am mostly uninjured, Milady.”
Twilight sighed, turning her attention to the younger pegasus a few yards away. “Are you okay, Scootaloo? Why did you-“
“DID YOU SEE THAT?!?” The filly shrieked, eyes wide and wings buzzing. “Pip was up on the cliff and then he just boom down there and-“
“Scootaloo!” The pegasus cut off. “Are you okay?”
“Pff, yeah. Pip caught me, all I got was a scrape or two.” Scootaloo blinked, leaning around Twilight. “You okay, Pip?”
“I’m mostly uninjured, Scootaloo. I should be healed soon.”
“Good, good... That was so awesome, though! How do you teleport if you aren’t a unicorn?”
“I think a better question is why you left the plateau.” Twilight said. Scootaloo stared at her, eyebrows furrowed.
“I fell off.”
“Pip said you wanted to try base jumping-“
“Yeah, with parachutes and you or Rainbow Dash to catch us if something bu- er, gets messed up. I’m not stupid enough to just jump off a cliff like that.”
Twilight gave a relieved sigh. “Good.”
“…now can we talk about Pip teleporting?” Scootaloo asked, as the other two Crusaders ran up to the group.
“How’d you get down?” Spike asked.
“We climbed, duh. How did’ya teleport without magic, Pip?” Apple Bloom echoed her friend’s question.
“I do not teleport.” Pip responded. “I simply run very fast.”
The three fillies stared at him.
“That was you running? You ran down from the plateau?” Scootaloo asked incredulously.
“Essentially, yes. The actions that I took to travel down the cliff face are related to my stepping, though applied to the vertical plane rather than the horizontal one.”
The three fillies glanced at each other.
“That…”
“…is…”
“AWESOME!”
Pip stepped back slightly as the younger ponies rushed him, bouncing around him and chattering excitedly.
“Can you show us how to do it?”
“Does it hurt more when you hit something?”
“Do you see everything in slow motion normally so you can still see everything when you’re moving really fast?”
“How long can you run without stopping?”
“Can you run fast enough to catch stuff on fire?”
“What happens if you trip?”
“Do you have to hold your breath when you do it?”
“Have you ever run into somepony?”
“Can you run upside down, like on ceilings and stuff?”
“What happens if you run like that when you’re carrying somepony?”
Pip sent a nearly panicked look at Twilight. She slid a barrier between him and the younger ponies, a small grin at the corner of her mouth.
“Let him breathe, girls. He’s a little uncomfortable when he gets swarmed.”
“Do not worry, Sweetie Belle.” He took a breath. “No, yes, no, I don’t know, no, I fall and roll until I stop, no, yes, no, I don’t know.”
“…What?”
“You asked me a series of questions. Those were the answers.” Pip blinked, glancing at the sun. “If we are to continue Crusading, I would recommend that we do so closer to Ponyville. The sun’s fall will draw the Everfree’s dark creatures from their slumber.”
“It’s not that late, Pip. Hardly even afternoon.” Twilight said.
“I’ve been listening to a cockatrice peck its way through the brush fifty metres to the north for the last two minutes.” Pip replied.
The group very quickly found themselves heading back to town.
“…so I was thinking, if you run like that, and you tug us behind you on my scooter, then we can get a huge buildup of speed, and then you run up a ramp and let go of the rope at the top so we go shooting up into the air, and if we get a bunch of wooden planks we can make wings so that we can glide, and we might get cutie marks for speed or jumping or some other kind of stunt we could do in the air.”
Pip levelled a glance at Scootaloo as the group walked down one of the larger Ponyville streets, Spike and Twilight slightly beside and behind the others. “Would such an endeavour truly be an attempt at a cutie mark, or would it be an attempt to experience flight before the development of your wings?”
“…it can be both…” the pegasus filly grumbled.
“I did not intend to belittle the idea, Scootaloo. Such attempts simply do not appeal to me.”
Sweetie’s ears perked at this. “Oh no, that’s right! We forgot to ask what Pip wanted to do!”
“You do not need to modify your behaviours to my presence, Swee-“
“No, we do! We’re supposed to be helping you get back to normal!” The young unicorn rounded on Pip, stepping in front of him. “Is there anything in particular that you would like to do, Pip?”
The stallion blinked, not speaking for several seconds. “There is… something. A…” He blinked again. “I am oddly unable to explain it, but there is a shop in Ponyville that has stuck in my mind as particularly interesting in its focus. If we were to investigate it, we may come across possibilities for cutie mark acquisition.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed, but she simply watched as Sweetie grinned. “Good! Do you remember where it is?”
Pip nodded. “If her Ladyship would allow the excursion…”
“I’ve got no problem with it, Pip. Lead the way.”
“As you say, Milady.” The stallion glanced at the closest street sign. “This way.”
The group walked in a sort of silence as they passed through the town square, going down the main road for almost half the town’s width before Pip suddenly veered down an intersection. Several more turns followed, each road narrowing and Pip’s movements becoming slightly more urgent at each crossing, until the group reached one of the smaller trading streets. Pip stalked down the road at an ever-increasing distance from the group; Twilight wasn’t sure if the ponies in the road moved out of the way because of the group or because they took one look at him and didn’t want to risk getting in his way. Just as Twilight was going to call him back, he stopped, his head shooting to the right, the rest of him freezing in place. Twilight followed his gaze.
A small shop was nestled in-between two larger buildings, its window displaying a variety of mechanical goods. Above its door hung a simple sign
TINKER’S TOYBOX
And slightly below
Trottingham Parts at Local Prices
“Pip wants t’be a tinkerpony?” Apple Bloom rubbed her chin. “Never thought’a small mechanics as a cutie mark…”
Pip moved, after a minute of stillness, taking a halting step towards the shop. Twilight approached as well, coming up beside Pip; something was familiar about the sight of the store, and she could have sworn she’d heard Princess Luna talking to Pipsqueak abo-
Twilight’s stomach fell through her hooves.
In the same moment, the door opened, a small pinto-coated colt stepping out. As he turned, his eyes fell on Celestia’s student and the older stallion, his gaze swapping between them several times.
“Hello, Miss Twilight.” Pipsqueak said, his voice light. “Do you need something?"
AUTHOR'S WARNING: The following chapter contains a scene that may be a 'trigger' for people who have been in abusive homes. It is written from the perspective of a young child, which apparently may make it worse or better depending on the reader's experiences. I sincerely apologize to any whom this offends or hurts.
If you wish to read the chapter but want to avoid the scene, simply skip down to the Author's Note (or stop reading) at the point with the five dots. Again, my apologies.
Pipsqueak was looking at Pip. Pip was looking at Pipsqueak. Twilight was splitting her gaze between them, hoping desperately that none would do something to spook the others.
When nopony moved for half a minute (in which time, to Twilight’s relief, the mood of the meeting appeared to have driven the shopping ponies away), the unicorn took a breath.
Okay, Twilight, you have plans for this, not precisely like this but still, we just need to manoeuvre-
“Hello, mister.”
“Hello, Pipsqueak.”
-okay, okay, this can work, just need to pull Pip away somewhat, keep-
“Oh, you know my name?”
“Yes. Did your parents not inform you of the dangers of talking to strangers?”
“Yeah, but you’re with Miss Twilight and I know that she’s not bad, so you can’t be bad either or else she would have made you go away.”
“A logical position.”
-going, good, just wait for a lull like this and-
“Are you me?”
“Yes.”
Twilight swore that she could hear glass shattering somewhere. She also swore verbally. Neither Pip nor Pipsqueak appeared to notice.
“You’re older than me, though.”
“To the best of my knowledge, I am fifteen years old.”
“So you’re from the future, then?”
“In a sense, yes.”
Pipsqueak grinned. “Neat! I didn’t know earth ponies could time travel, I thought that that was a unicorn spell.”
“An alicorn cast the spell, which I then utilized to arrive in this time.”
“An alicorn? Like Princess Luna?”
“Not a princess, but ‘like’ her in that she was a unification of the three tribes, yes.”
“Wait!” Twilight finally managed to speak. Both Pip and Pipsqueak looked at her. “Pip, you- er, Pipsqueak, you’re-“
“Is something amiss, Milady?”
“Yeah, is something wrong, Miss Twilight?”
Twilight’s brain began feeling hot. “You… Pipsqueak, you don’t find it weird that you’re talking to… you?”
Pipsqueak’s brow furrowed. “You time travelled before. Didn’t you talk to yourself?”
“Well, yes, but…” Twilight brought a hoof to her head; the throbbing pain beneath her horn had returned. “I didn’t think that you’d be so, so comfortable with it, I guess.”
“Should I be uncomfortable? Old Pip isn’t a bad guy, is he?”
“Er, I don’t-”
Killed Luna guards loyalists Scootaloo Revolution hurt zebras gryphons camps Forced brainwashed ignorant thought good doesn’t understand exploited just a foal
“-he’s done some… bad things, but I don’t…” Twilight winced. “I don’t think he’s a ‘bad guy’.”
Pip raised a hoof, brushing Twilight’s bangs away from her face to try to look her in the eye. “Are you ill, Milady?”
Twilight touched his hoof, gently lowering it. “I’m… I’m fine, Pip, just a headache. Don’t worry about it.”
“As you say, Milady.” Pip blinked. “I apologize for any stress I may have caused you; I was unsure of my destination until I arrived here.”
“It’s fine, Pip…” Twilight looked at the younger colt. “Pipsqueak, Pip being from the future… it’s a secret, okay? You can’t tell anypony, not even your parents.”
“Does Princess Luna know?”
“Well, yes, but very few others do. Can you promise that you won’t tell anypony?”
Pipsqueak blinked, but nodded. “Yeah, of course, Miss Twilight. But I still don’t really get what’s wrong…”
“I believe that Her Ladyship is surprised at your lack of concern for the fact that we are the same pony.”
“Her Ladyship? You mean Miss Twilight?” Pip nodded. Pipsqueak blinked, glancing at the mare. “Um, Miss Twilight, if Old Pip isn’t a bad pony and stuff, then why would I be worried?”
Twilight silently cursed. “It’s… complicated. When I was thinking of you two meeting, I was kind of expecting you to get freaked out about the fact that you and him are the same pony.”
“Well, I’m kinda curious why Old Pip’s wearing the eyepatch.”
“A pony named Broken Shield threw a rock into my eye with enough force to destroy it.” Twilight gave a small groan, but neither pony reacted.
“Why’d he do that?”
“He and I have-“
Twilight clapped a hoof over Pip’s mouth. “Pip, hold on. Pipsqueak, there’s some things about Pip and the future that we really can’t tell you.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, it’s just that…” Twilight shook her head. “There are some things that happen-“
“Is it that if I learn about the stuff that happens in the future it could make the future go all weird so that earth ponies can fly but pegasi can’t or ponies sleep in the daytime or the Princesses can move like mages in chess?”
“…kiiiiind of…” Twilight answered. “It’s more that if somepony overhears us, it could turn out bad. I need to talk to the Princesses before we start telling more ponies about Pip.”
“Okay.” Pipsqueak turned, glancing at the door. “Mom wanted me to go get something, I’d better hurry. G’bye!” The colt hurried off, leaving Twilight and Pip there staring after him. Twilight sighed.
“Well, that didn’t go bad.”
Then she turned around and was suddenly faced with three young fillies, all of whom were staring, bug-eyed, at Pip.
Three fillies who had been standing behind them the entire time.
Three fillies who had heard everything.
Twilight’s evaluation of the situation rapidly declined.
“So what did they hear” was the first phrase out of Applejack’s mouth as she, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash walked into the library. Twilight had dispatched Pip to gather them, and she, with Spike’s help, had herded the CMC back to the library before they made a public scene. Twilight took a breath.
“They know about Pip being from the future, and that Broken was the pony that took out his eye.” A corner of Twilight’s mouth drew back. “And that Pip and Pipsqueak are the same pony. Pipsqueak knows about all of this too, but Princess Luna sent a letter back saying that she’d handle him.”
Applejack sighed. “Well, ain’t as bad as it could be…” She flicked a glare at Pip. “Y’should probably get a leash for him, though. Or have him warn ya when he’s gonna do somethin’ like this.”
“Again, I apologize for any inconvenience that I have caused. I was unaware of where I was going until I reached the location, and before I could extricate myself Pipsqueak had left the building and seen me.”
“B’fore y’could extricate yerself? You, the stallion that can run fast enough yer practically teleportin’, couldn’t move fast enough to get away?”
“Yes. For reasons beyond my comprehension, I was unable to flee the location. My hooves refused to step in any direction except towards the building.”
Applejack affixed the stallion with a decidedly unimpressed look, but didn’t continue on that line. “So wha’d’ya think we should do with ‘em?”
“That’s up to you. I didn’t want to tell them anything that you weren’t okay with them hearing.” The three mares opposite Twilight glanced at each other.
“I’m cool with Scoots getting the whole thing.” Rainbow said.
“They should hear the story, but perhaps not the adult aspects? The details of the violence, the camps…” Rarity glanced at Pip. “…the more vile occurrences?”
“Ah’m with Rarity. If they’re gonna get it, they ain’t getting nightmares from it.” Applejack said. Twilight nodded.
“Spike, go grab the notes.”
“So you’re from the future?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re Pipsqueak from the future?”
“Yes.”
“And Broken Shield is Twilight’s brother from the future?”
“Yes.”
“And Rising Dawn is Twilight from the future?”
“Yes.”
“And you killed Princess Luna because crazy-Twilight told you to, and she killed Princess Celestia and Cadance and Cadance and Shining Armor’s foal?”
“I killed Princess Luna on order of her Ladyship, who, to the best of my knowledge, did not suffer from any mental illnesses. Her Ladyship killed Princess Celestia and Princess Cadance. To the best of my knowledge, Her Ladyship had no part in Princess Dazzle’s death.”
Twilight watched as the three fillies grilled Pip, each asking a question in turn. She’d run through an abridged version of the events of Broken’s timeline with them, and Pip had volunteered to answer outstanding questions. For the most part, this meant hearing the more outlandish claims from his own mouth.
“Girls, did you have any questions on something that Twilight didn’t already say?” Rarity gently prodded the fillies. They glanced at her, then at each other. Scootaloo took in a breath, placing her hooves on the table that separated them from Pip, Twilight, and the other mares.
“Did we have our cutie marks?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us what they are?”
Pip blinked. “…no.”
“Why not?!”
“I cannot recall them.”
“Seriously?” When Pip nodded, Scootaloo sighed. “Dangit.”
“I would think that you would not wish to know of your cutie marks even if I were to remember their composition, Scootaloo.”
“Why the hay would we not want to know our cutie marks?”
“Simple. Each of you had an individual cutie mark – while I cannot recall precisely what they were, I can confirm that they were unrelated to one another. For you to know what your mark was would be to remove you from the reason of your continued activity with your friends.”
“No it wouldn’t.” Scootaloo shook her head, mirrored by the fillies next to her. “We made a pact, that if one of us gets her cutie mark, she helps the others get theirs. Then when all three of us have them, we start helping other ponies find theirs. Like you.” Twilight’s ears had perked at that pronouncement, and Rarity gained a proud smile. “And besides, it’s not like we’re gonna stop being friends just because we have our cutie marks.”
Pip simply blinked. “Nonetheless, I cannot tell you what your cutie marks were. My apologies.”
Scootaloo sighed. “Don’t worry about it, Pip.”
Sweetie Belle glanced at Apple Bloom, who shook her head. The young unicorn stood.
“Pip, why did you kill Princess Luna?”
Pip’s brow furrowed. “Princess Luna was the one who ordered my parents killed.”
“Are you sure?”
“They were murdered by Inquisition members. Lady Dawn managed to stop them from fleeing, but was unable to stop them from committing the act.”
“Hold on. Inquisition?” Twilight asked. Pip nodded.
“The name for the task force Princess Luna arranged to weed out Revolutionary agents in royal-controlled towns and cities. They were given extralegal powers, unprosecutable no matter the crimes they committed.” Pip’s stare hardened. “Lady Dawn was very particular about their capture and public executions.”
“So, ponies that Princess Luna was in charge of killed your parents.” Sweetie put the focus back to her question. Pip nodded. “That doesn’t answer why you killed Princess Luna.”
“Princess Luna was the commander of the Inquisitorial forces. Inquisitorial forces were the ones who killed my parents. As no Inquisitorial action could be taken without permission of the Princess, she must have ordered my parents to be abducted. Effectively, Princess Luna killed my parents.”
Sweetie’s brow furrowed. She watched Pip for a few seconds before speaking.
“So?”
Twilight’s eyes widened. Pip blinked, several times.
“I do not understand your question.”
“So Princess Luna killed your parents. Then you killed her. Is that why you killed her?”
“Y… yes?” Pip took a breath. Blinked. Then another breath.
“That was it? Revenge? That’s not a good reason for anything, Pip.”
“I… I’m not…”
“Did you want to kill her? Did killing her make you feel better about your parents being dead?”
“I don’t… I can’t remember…“ Pip was blinking, once every half-second. His breathing was even faster, deeper. Twilight caught Sweetie’s eye, motioning for her to back off. Sweetie nodded, sitting down. Twilight turned her attention back to Pip, trying to make sure that he was actually suffering from one of his ‘panic attacks’.
“Pip?”
“N-no, I, I can’t-“ The stallion stood, suddenly enough that everypony jumped. He took a few steps out from the table, blinking hard several times. Sweetie stared at him, a scared look on her face.
“Pip?” Twilight tried again, her voice softer. Pip looked at her.
“I- I can’t, I don’t, need, they needed, but-“ Pip stammered, staring at a point beyond Twilight as his eye went pink. The unicorn quickly crossed the distance between them.
“Pip? Pip, can you hear me?”
“M-Milady, you, I needed, you, she had to, we-“ Twilight shooshed him, raising a hoof and brushing his mane down along his neck.
“Pip, I need you to calm down. Take a few breaths, just slow and stea-“ Twilight stopped. An odd urge hit her. “Pip, put your head down.”
“A-as you say…” Pip lowered his head. Twilight’s horn glowed as she touched it to his forehead.
There were still thousands of the little threads of magic.
Two of them, however, were very much larger than the others.
They pulsed, a vivid red against the grey of the other threads (they weren’t actually any colour, Twilight knew, but that was the best descriptor that she could come up with). They were also crossed, each one’s growth pressing against the other one. Twilight felt a spell come up from her mind – a simple magical block. Useful for stopping out-of-control spells.
Before she could think, she’d cast the spell on both lines.
Pip reared back, a sharp, pained whinny escaping from him. Twilight skittered back as well, watching the stallion in shock as he collapsed, shaking. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Spike all moved the short distance to stand between him and Twilight; Rarity was watching from the far side of the table with the three Crusaders. Pip remained on the floor for several seconds before standing, legs quaking for the few seconds that they supported him. His hind legs gave out, and he sat down heavily, his eye darting in every direction.
“Pip?” Twilight asked again. Pip blinked twice before his eye focused on her.
“I… I was walking, Scootaloo, she, I was walking her home…”
“Pip? What are you-“
“I was walking her home, Miss Cheeriliee said that I was Scootaloo’s helper because she couldn’t move her legs, and the ponies in black hats were…” Pip trailed off, speaking too quietly for anypony to hear. Twilight watched his mouth move for a few seconds before turning to Spike.
“Go grab the parchment and a quill and ink. Go!” Spike stared at her in confusion before the light went on behind his eyes. As he bolted out the door, Pip’s voice became audible again.
“…and the door was broken and Momma was there but she wasn’t moving and Dad wasn’t there, why wasn’t Dad there Momma was hur-“ Pip started coughing, still trying to speak as his lungs rebelled. Twilight put her hoof on his lips.
“What the buck is he talking about?” Rainbow asked.
“He’s remembering what happened.” Twilight answered, as Spike scurried into the room. Twilight removed the hoof from Pip’s mouth. “Pip, can you hear me? Pip?”
“Milady, yes, Milady, you were there-“
“Pip, I need you to calm down. Breathe, okay?”
Pip stopped trying to talk. He took several breaths, almost comically large. Twilight put her hoof on his shoulder. He froze.
“Pip, I need you to start at the beginning. Tell us what happened.”
The stallion blinked before taking another breath.
---
“Okay, that’s the end of the lesson. Remember that you have the math questions due tomorrow…”
Miss Cheerilee’s end-of-day instructions were mostly drowned out by the sound of two-dozen colts and fillies packing up and leaving the schoolhouse. Pipsqueak wasn’t one of them; he was putting everything he needed into his schoolbag, of course, but he was supposed to wait behind everypony else. The pony he was helping had to be the last one out.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
Pipsqueak put his eyes on the filly beside him. Scootaloo’s front hooves rested on the ground; her hind hooves were sitting under the rest of her, on the small cart that the doctors had given her to let her walk around. She met his eyes, looking almost angry.
“I’m not a crip… I don’t need you to help me out.”
“I know, but Miss Cheerilee said that somepony should help you, and I said I would because we live near each other and it’s better to walk with somepony and you just got out of the hospital and your legs still aren’t better and-”
“Pipsqueak.” Scootaloo said, in the angry-annoyed tone he was already able to recognize as the ‘stop talking’ tone his Dad said mares were born masters of. The colt immediately closed his mouth, blushing as he picked up her schoolbag and put it on her back; the filly winced as his hooves went near her wings. Backing away from the low table that served as her new desk, Scootaloo quickly walk-wheeled to the front of the class. She and Cheerliee held a short talk quiet enough that Pipsqueak knew it was supposed to be private.
The walk home was a fairly quiet one to start; most of the noise was the thumping of hooves on the road, or the birds in the trees, or Scootaloo’s muttering whenever she had to stop and wait for Pipsqueak to catch up to her because he was carrying half of her books and stuff because the cart couldn’t handle too much extra weight, or when she got stuck because her cart wheels got stuck in mud or a rock got in the turning part and she had to wait for him to help push her out or knock the rock out. She always thanked him when he did that though, so he liked helping her like that better than most of the time even if she kept using bad words while he was doing it.
Then, when they got to just past the first few lined-up-houses that showed where the outer part of Ponyville changed to the inner part of Ponyville, there was a really loud, really scary scream. Pipsqueak and Scootaloo both looked down the road, where the scream came from, and then Scootaloo was running to see what happened and Pipsqueak was following her. He stopped beside where she was stopped, beside a few adults, and watched with wide eyes as two guardsponies were wrestling with a mare just outside of a house.
The mare, a green unicorn, was the one that was screaming; she was yelling at somepony inside the house about not doing something and she still loved her and she was sorry for leaving with Twilight but-- and then one of the guards hit her in the face and she stopped yelling. They tied her up and threw her in a cart, and another guardspony came out from somewhere Pipsqueak hadn’t seen and took the mare away. A few seconds later, another mare came out of the house, followed by a guard and a pony in a black hat. Then everypony started muttering and moving away because a black hat wasn’t good. Ponies always went away when a black hat pony came.
Scootaloo and Pipsqueak walked down an alley between two collections of buildings, walking down the new road for a few blocks before going back up another alley and back onto the road they’d started on. They walked another block in silence.
“Bucking stupid.”
Pipsqueak blinked, but didn’t say anything. Miss Cheerilee had said that Scootaloo might say something sometimes and he wasn’t supposed to respond because she was just letting anger out.
“Pipsqueak.”
His name was not one of those something sometimes.
“Yeah?”
“You see what they did back there? What they were doing?”
“M’hmm.” The colt nodded.
“Y’know why they did it?”
“M’nmm.” The colt shook his head.
“That mare that the guards were beating up was one of the ponies that Twilight took with her.”
“Oh.” Pipsqueak frowned. His parents and Miss Cheerilee had said that Miss Twilight was ‘sick’ and that’s why she tried to get everypony to fight the Princesses and then left after the big barrier fell and the guardsponies came back. He was still confused about it, but his parents and Princess Luna both said that Twilight-side was bad and Princess-side was good, so he could think about it like that. “Was she a bad pony, then? It’s good that we caught her, ‘cause now she’s back on our side.”
Scootaloo raised her eyebrow at Pipsqueak and gave him a weird look, and then he looked away and blushed just before Scootaloo started laughing. It wasn’t a happy laugh, but it was better than swearing.
“Bucking foals.”
Well there that went. “You’re only three years older than me.” Pipsqueak said.
“And yet I’m so much older than you, aren’t I?”
“No-“
“Yes I am.” The filly snarled. It wasn’t the ‘stop talking’ tone, but Pipsqueak was still quieted by it. He also stopped walking, staring at her with widened, worried eyes. She glared at him for a few seconds before sighing. “Look, sorry, I-“
“Why are you so mad all the time?” Pipsqueak asked, his voice low but rising as he kept talking. “You came back and everypony was happy that you were okay again, but you’re always saying bad words, and you frown and grumble and glare at ponies even if they’re nice to you, and sometimes you look like you’re watching something far away when you aren’t, and I wanted to help you because you and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were always nice to me so I wanted to be nice back but you hardly ever smile anymore and it’s scaring me and I don’t know why…” Pipsqueak tapered himself off, knowing that he’d been talking too much and he was probably making Scootaloo uncomfortable, but he was just worried about her and he wanted her to be happy again so he was sad when she wasn’t happy. Scootaloo was looking at him weird.
“Pipsqueak…” she said, her voice cracking a bit on the ‘eak’. “I…” she coughed, a wet sound “-I was hurt, really badly, and then I heard that I, that that bucking bitch ran off instead of helping me-“ another wet cough, and a sigh “-Pipsqueak, listen. I’m not… I’m mad, but not at you.” Scootaloo turned, taking a few steps towards the colt before throwing her forehooves around his shoulders, her face meeting the side of his neck. “You’re a good colt, really, and you’re gonna go places and do things and be generally awesome, okay?”
“’Kay…” Pipsqueak mumbled, his eyes wide that she was actually touching him.
“But I… things happened, and I’m trying to get used to all of them, and everypony keeps trying to act like everything’s normal but it’s not, I mean, I can’t fly, I, I lost my two best friends ever, forever, I had to, to watch-” She tightened her grip around his neck, and he gently brought his hooves up to reach around the back of hers as he felt his neck get wet. They stood there for a minute or two until she stopped shaking and stopped hugging him. She took a step away, blushing under her fur almost as much as he was.
“So yeah. Um… right, yeah, the guardsponies, they’re being stupid about who they arrest, is what I was trying to say.”
“But if they’re arresting bad ponies, then-“
“Pipsqueak, I support most of what Twilight says.” The colt stared at the filly in shock, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Almost everypony here does, or did, if we didn’t then we wouldn’t have been at the rally. The guards and the damned black-hats are being bucking morons about arresting ponies. They’re gonna arrest that mare, and arrest the mare that she was yelling at, then arrest the ponies that were watching with us and probably arrest the entire block for good measure. And it’s gonna mean Faust’s farts because the amount of support that Twilight has in town isn’t gonna do anything when she rides in here on a giant dragon. That goes for every town Luna where has those black-hats listening through walls with cups.” Scootaloo shook her head. “That’s why I called you a foal; you don’t think about that kind of stuff. You shouldn’t think about that kind of stuff.”
Pip didn’t know how to respond. They walked the rest of the way to Scootaloo’s home in silence; after he helped her inside and set the school stuff that he was carrying for her down, she nuzzled his cheek and told him to keep up the good work. Pipsqueak smiled and blushed when she did that, and he was smiling about it until he walked up to his own home.
. . . . .
The door was broken, hanging off of the bottom hinge, and the window had been shattered. A few ponies were casting sideways glances at it, but none of them ventured close; Pipsqueak was able to walk, unhindered, inside.
His mother was laying on the floor, in the middle of a bunch of broken glass. The shelves that held the mechanical toys were tipped over, and bits of glass and metal were spread all over the floor. There was a bunch of red stuff
Blood
on the floor too, wet and sticky when he stepped in it and it was all around the glass and metal bits and his Momma was laying in it too. Pipsqueak was looking at her, couldn’t stop looking at her, and she was laying on her side and a bunch of the red stuff
(blood)
was around a circle-spot on her side. She was laying away from Pipsqueak, and he couldn’t step around to her front because of all the glass, so he just put a hoof on her leg and started shaking her.
“Momma?”
Silence.
“Momma, you gotta get up.”
Silence.
“Momma, please wake up, there’s glass and stuff all over the floor, I can help you clean it up if you want.”
Silence.
“Momma?” Pipsqueak’s voice cracked. He was crying, he realized, and the tears fell down his face and into the red stuff (blood) and his hoof was covered in the red stuff (blood) and now Momma’s leg was covered in the red stuff (blood) like that pony had been when the guards came and he was watching through the window when that pony hurt a guard and the guard hurt him but Momma said that good ponies didn’t get hurt like that and Momma was a good pony so she couldn’t get hurt like that but Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo got hurt really badly and they were good ponies so maybe Momma was wrong maybe good ponies could get hurt maybe Momma was hurt Pipsqueak didn’t want Momma hurt Pipsqueak wanted Momma okay because Momma was a good pony Momma needed to be okay and Pipsqueak was crying harder and shaking Momma harder and yelling and screaming and there was hoofsteps coming down the stairs and Pipsqueak thought it was Dad and Dad could help Dad could make Momma get up and be better and then Pipsqueak could stop crying and everything could go back to normal and happy and Pipsqueak screamed for Dad to come help Momma but he said Daddin instead but it didn’t matter because the steps came faster and
The pony who stepped around the corner wasn’t Pipsqueak’s father.
“Oh, Pipsqueak…” Twilight Sparkle said. Pipsqueak glanced up at her, freezing with his hoof on his Momma’s leg. Twilight’s mouth held an odd curve to it, and her eyes were looking at something past Pipsqueak even though they were looking at him, but her voice was wet and heavy.
Pipsqueak had been scared of her at first; Princess Luna and Celestia and Cadance and Shining Armor and Miss Cheerilee and Momma and Dad and a whole lot of other ponies had said that she was a bad pony. But she didn’t hurt him or make things explode or have her dragon eat him; she lifted him in her magic, carried him over to her, and gently wrapped her forelegs around him. He was still frozen when she started shifting back and forth, but as she started singing, a soft, nice song that he didn’t really understand, he started shaking, crying again, and she held him and rocked him and said soft things that he couldn’t really hear. She just sat with him and let him cry until he stopped.
Then Twilight Sparkle explained everything.
She showed him the ponies who had hurt Momma and Dad. They were black-hats, tied up upstairs, staring at him with dull eyes when Twilight forced them to look at him. Twilight spoke to him; he hit them, as hard as he could. It made him feel better, even though they didn’t cry or apologize or anything, even when they were bleeding. They were bad ponies.
Twilight said it was okay to hurt bad ponies. So he hurt them more.
When Pipsqueak was done, Twilight smiled at him. Then her horn glowed brighter, and the black-hat ponies weren’t there anymore. She told him that she was going to bring him to her new home, away from the bad ponies, show him how to help the good ponies.
Pipsqueak heard somepony move downstairs as they left.
“Princess Luna runs the Inquisition.”
“Princess Luna gives all orders to Inquisitors.”
“Princess Luna killed your parents.”
Pipsqueak watched as the blue alicorn entered the room. She was angry, yelling at the three guards that entered with her. It wasn’t the Royal Canterlot voice, but it was still loud.
“…an absolute mockery of Us! How did the Manehatten Guard falling to Revolutionary corruption not cross your eyes, Captain?!”
One of the guards – Shining Armor – sighed. Pipsqueak bit his lip. He was friends with Princess Dazzle, and Captain Armor was her Dad. He wasn’t supposed to hurt them. He didn’t want to hurt them. Just Princess Luna.
“You can’t hurt her when you first see her. Wait for us. Then you may have your revenge.”
“Princess, we’ve been dealing with the border towns and the farming communities that she’s gotten under her sway. A trade port in a secure zone isn’t exactly on top of our list, especially when it was designated secure by your own hoof!”
“If I did such it was on inaccurate information! You must repair this fault in your methods, Captain, that would allow our eyes sullied by falsehoods.”
“Of course, Princess…” Captain Armor sighed again. Luna huffed and turned, taking a few more steps into the room. Her eyes widened slightly when they found Pipsqueak.
“Pipsqueak? Ho- When did you arrive?”
“About an hour ago.” Pipsqueak replied, his voice level.
“You cannot let her know of your intentions. However much it hurts, you must act as you were before she stole your parents from you.”
Captain Armor and one of the other guards walked around Princess Luna. The Captain gave Pipsqueak a suspicious look.
“Kid, how did you get in here? The door was secured, and-“
“I came in like always. A guardspony brought me here.” Pipsqueak tilted his head. “Didn’t you remember today, Princess?”
Luna blinked. “In all of the excitement of the previous hours, it must have slipped my mind…” She shook herself. “I apologize, Pipsqueak. In such turbulent times, it is nice to have a companion such as yourself.” Her eyes flicked to Captain Armor. “You are dismissed; attend my sister and inform her fully on the events this day.”
“Princess, I’m not certain-“
“I said dismissed, Captain.” Luna bit off. Captain Armor stopped talking, nodding and saluting at the Princess. He gave another smaller nod at Pipsqueak; the colt returned it.
“Shining is confused, as are most that the Sun and Moon have their claws in. We shall free them, but their mistresses must be dispatched first.”
“Well, Pipsqueak, what do you wish to do? I could use some distraction from… recent events.”
“I was thinking we could play some chess…” Pipsqueak gave a lopsided grin. Luna smiled and nodded.
“Yes, yes, that may do…”
The board was set up quickly (only needing to be moved to a place Pipsqueak could reach), its glass reflecting the light of the sun shining through the window. Luna opted for the darker pieces, as she always did, leaving Pipsqueak with Celestia’s side. He set a piece forward, and for the next few minutes both he and Luna were focussed fully on the game.
“I must say that I am glad to have you here, Pipsqueak.” Luna said, breaking the small silence. Pipsqueak tilted an ear forward as he moved a charger.
“Oh?”
“Yes. Twilight Sparkle’s ‘Revolution’ has been a particularly pointed thorn in our sides as of late. I fear for those who are under her sway, or who remain loyal but are caught in her web of deceit…” Luna shook her head. “I must ask if you’ve heard any talk of her supporters left in Ponyville. We recently captured a mare that had been with her from the beginning of this debacle, a ‘Lyre Heartsings’ or some such. Did you or your parents know her?”
“I don’t think so, Princess.” Pipsqueak replied, setting a charger forward and blinking as the memory of the guards and the black-hat came back. “Is she okay?”
“She and her ‘partner’ are in the care of the Inquisition; we do take care of those we apprehend, despite the rumours.”
“She will never admit it. Her Inquisition is a pure and just organization, any dissent is wrong. But you know the truth.”
“Rumours, Princess?”
“Yes, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Inquisition’s ‘brutality’ or use of torture to extract information. Lies and slander spread by the rebels, of course.”
“I saw a mare get picked up by an Inquisitor, Princess; the guards beat her up before they arrested her.” Pipsqueak was barely able to cover the anger in his voice. Luna gave him an odd look before moving one of her pieces to check him.
“They may occasionally need to use force, Pipsqueak, but I’m sure that they had a justification. Twilight Sparkle’s forces grow ever more insidious; we’ve recently needed to cleanse the Canterlotian Guard of Revolutionary corruption, and by today’s events we may need to extend the investigations…” Luna took a breath. “But that is entering the veil of that which I wish to avoid today.”
“You don’t need to worry about scaring me, Princess…”
“That is not my fear, Pipsqueak. Though were I able to prepare you to resist Twilight’s machinations…” There was silence for a few more moves. As Pipsqueak lifted Celestia, Luna spoke again. “How do your parents fare?”
Something hot and painful shot from behind Pipsqueak’s eyes into his chest. His grip on the Princess faltered, but he managed to place her down. “My… my parents…?”
“Yes. I sent a letter to your address last week, but have heard nothing…” Luna’s brow furrowed. “Are you alright, Pipsqueak? You-“
The floor suddenly rumbled, the whole room shaking. The chess set fell from the table and shattered. Luna was standing, her wings spread for balance, and she gripped Pipsqueak in magic to lift him away from the broken glass.
“What is this?!” She shouted as the shaking stopped. There were yells and muffled calls echoing through the doors; one of the guards opened his door to investigate, falling back as a flash of light sped past the opening. The other guard slammed the door shut as several more flashes lit the hall.
“Rebels!” The first guard gasped, his snout singed. Luna’s wings lowered, and Pipsqueak’s heart leapt.
“We shall assault the castle. You must get close to Luna, wait for a distraction before striking. One of the guards shall be of the Revolution; he shall provide you with what you need.”
The doors were hit several times more, both guards now putting their weight against them. A call erupted from behind the doors, and the sound of hooves hitting the heavy wood began.
“They dare attack here? So brazenly?!” Luna gave an odd laugh. “The fools! We shall crush them in their mad assault!” She set Pipsqueak down, turning him to face her. “Young Pipsqueak, you must find cover; they may damage the castle further, and I do not wish you injured by a fallen masonry.” Pipsqueak nodded, quickly crossing to the wall and ducking under the nearby table.
A crack echoed from the doors, and several seconds later the first guard’s door blew open, launching the guard with the splints of wood. As Luna and the second guard began launching volleys of magic against the invaders, the first guard rolled to Pipsqueak’s wall. He and the colt met eyes before he winked, drawing a small dagger from beneath his armour and sliding it to Pipsqueak. The younger pony nodded gravely, his breath quickening as he grabbed the blade.
“You must strike somewhere that will cause her to fall. Her neck, her eye, her heart. She will not die quickly, she will not die easily. You must steel yourself. She must know your betrayal as you know hers.”
“YOU DARE ASSAULT US, YOU FOALISH PEONS?!” Luna Voiced, blades of magic leaping from her horn and slashing through the closest rebels. “YOUR MISTRESS IS WEAK OF MIND! SHE SENDS YOU TO DEATH FOR NAUGHT!”
“We fight for freedom!” A rebel yelled. Luna lowered her horn, and the stallion was blasted back through the doors, a wet crack echoing over the din of the fighting as he hit the wall.
“FREEDOM?!” Luna laughed, her grin defying her eyes as she destroyed another rebel. “YOU FIGHT FOR PALTRY GAINS AND EMPTY PROMISES! YOU DEFY US ON THE CLAIMS OF A MADMARE!”
“FOR THE REVOLUTION!” Luna twisted as the call erupted from behind; several pegasi shot through the window, two of them hitting the alicorn, the third charging at the second guard. Luna stabbed one of her assaulters with her horn, ripping him in half as her horn raised to incinerate the pegasus still in flight. Her second assaulter caught her hoof between his hind legs, and was blown apart as her magic’s focus turned to him. Luna stood, coated in blood, and let loose a cacophonic scream towards the doorway, the rebels there fell with bleeding eyes and ears. There was a call from further back in the hall; as the rest of the rebels fled, her gaze fell on Pipsqueak.
“Young Pipsqueak, come to me. We must away while the rebels are dissuaded.”
Pipsqueak nodded, standing up before Luna lifted him in magic and carried him to her back. The colt was mildly surprised that she didn’t notice the dagger he held, even if it was hidden behind his leg. Carefully, he shifted the blade to point at Luna; his breath quickened, heartbeat rose, hoof quavered as he raised the deadly tool. His leg hitched for a second, enough for his mind to talk to itself.
She hurt Momma and Dad. She hurt a bunch of other ponies. She needs to be stopped.
We don’t need to hurt her.
Yes we do. Twilight said we do. She hurt Momma and Dad, why can’t we hurt her?
Momma said we shouldn’t hurt ponies even if they hurt us.
Momma’s dead.
Images, memories, flashed through Pipsqueak’s mind. His mother on the floor, bleeding, cold, still, Twilight Sparkle coming down, showing him the black-hats, black-hats killed Momma LUNA KILLED MOMMA
“Hey!” The second guard shouted, his eyes on the dagger in Pipsqueak’s hoof. Pipsqueak and Luna started at the sudden yell, Luna’s head following the guard’s gaze on instinct, apparently not noticing the first guard tackling the second. Her eyes widened slightly as she saw the weapon.
“Pipsqueak, y-“ Luna began. Then Pipsqueak’s hoof came down, and the blade fell in the spot between Luna’s wings. The alicorn reared in shock, and Pipsqueak tumbled off of her back as her wings shot out reflexively. When Pipsqueak put his eyes back on her, the Princess stood nearly frozen, her legs stiff and splayed like a foal’s. Slowly, she began shuffling her hooves a small amount in an apparent attempt to turn; Pipsqueak watched her, couldn’t turn away from her, as her legs began to quiver, finally buckling after several long seconds. She fell on her side, a pool of blood beginning to form, wetting and darkening her coat as it seeped from the wound in her back. As the first guard subdued the second, Luna’s head rose, the lower side black from the blood in her coat, and Pipsqueak’s stomach fell as her eyes met his. They were wet, unfocussed, dull as they passed over him, but for one brief moment he could see her, and he knew that she could see him.
In that moment, her eyes were scared. Confused. Hurt.
Betrayed.
Pipsqueak’s vision blurred. Luna’s form became his mother’s.
Then there was a loud crack, and Pipsqueak fell into darkness.
---
The room had settled into a pregnant silence.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack both stared at the floor, jaws slack, eyes wet, small tears falling unnoticed by anypony including themselves. Rarity held Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom tightly, all four of them openly weeping. Spike had set the quill and parchment on the floor, eyes closed and claws clasped as he seemed to fight against breaking down.
Twilight was the only one with her eyes on Pip. His eyes were dry, his voice and visage having slowly regained stoicism even as his tale worsened. The near entirety of her mind was focussed on grabbing the stallion, holding him tight, giving him somewhere safe that he could sit and stop and just let go of everything he was holding on to.
Unfortunately, she needed to do something first.
“Rarity-“ Twilight’s voice was wet, and it cracked as she spoke. She coughed, steeling herself. “Rarity, if you… could you take…”
“Ah, Ah got it, sugarcube.” Applejack spoke. The farmmare stood, taking a breath before crossing the room to her marefriend. She whispered something in Rarity’s ear, and the unicorn hastily nodded. She mumbled what could have been described as words to the fillies, pushing them to stand and walk out of the room with her and Applejack. Twilight nodded, took a breath.
“Spike, Rainbow-“
Spike grabbed the parchment as she said his name; he met her eyes and gave her a nod of assurance before turning and walking out. Rainbow followed him, gently shutting the door.
“Is something amiss, Milady?” Pip asked. Twilight screwed her eyes shut as she heard his voice, his inequine calm.
“Yes, Pip. Something is… amiss.”
“May I ask what, Milady?”
“You.” Twilight coughed and took in a few more breaths as the stallion blinked, his ears flicking back.
“May I ask what I have done wrong, Milady?”
“You… you just told us about, about killing Princess Luna, about your mother’s death, and you’re sitting there, acting like you read a bucking grocery list!” An edge of anger fed into Twilight’s voice rather suddenly, shoring it up against the drowning feeling that was working its way up her throat.
“I am unsure-“
“STOP IT!” Twilight shrieked. “Just stop, stop hiding, stop acting like you aren’t hurting when you are, Pip! When you started talking, you were gasping, you were in pain, everypony could hear it and then you just, you just shut it out, like you were swatting a fly! You recalled those, those horrible things, but you acted like you didn’t feel anything for them! You said what you felt, but you… you just…” Twilight’s voice hitched, a few sobs escaping. Pip reached out, wrapping a foreleg around her, pulling her to his chest and slowly rocking back and forth. The two sat in silence for a quarter-minute before Pip replied.
“I sounded like I was in pain due to the fact that I was in pain – the action you took to relieve my mind of its catch gave me a headache.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Twilight sniffled. “What you said about how you felt…”
“I spoke those feelings because they are what I felt, Milady. They are not my current feelings.”
Twilight put her hoof on Pip’s shoulder, pushing herself slightly away from him to stare him in the eye.
“What?”
“I was a foal at the time of these events, Milady, unable to properly process my feelings and the events as they occurred. With age, perspective, and Lady Dawn’s aid, I have determined a proper set of emotions to be felt towards the events as they occurred.”
“Yes, Milady. In example, when I killed Luna, I felt angry at her murder of my parents, saddened by their deaths, and betrayed by what had been probably my best friend up until that time. Looking back, I cannot feel anything towards her death and my role in it but minor satisfaction that I aided the Revolution. Whatever actions Luna took against me are irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant. You, you’re saying that you think that Luna killing your parents is irrelevant?!” Twilight gave a wide-eyed stare at the stallion, pushing away from him to stand on her own. He blinked.
“In terms of the Revolution as a whole, yes.”
“But… Pip, your parents… you don’t feel anything for them?”
“Of course I do. I am saddened that they were killed in such a brutal manner, and that they could not live to see the glory of the Revolution.” Pip took a breath. “Mostly, however, I am appreciative towards them. Without their sacrifice, unintentional as it was, I would likely not have realized Luna’s evil or the Revolution’s greatness for years to come. Their deaths, tragic as they were, served a greater end. To mourn them in bitterness or depression would be to shame their memories.”
Then Pip smiled.
Twilight saw the edges of his mouth curve softly upwards. The way his cheeks moved. The way his eye shifted.
The smile was not acted, faked, put-on. To Twilight’s perception, it was a genuinely glad smile – not happy with, necessarily, but grateful for the memories that evoked it.
The smile disappeared as Twilight’s hoof violently met Pip’s face. She hadn’t felt herself move, was as surprised as Pip was when she struck him, but before he could respond her horn was glowing and she was holding him down, a white-hot spike of rage bridging the back of her head with her horn and reddening her vision. He looked up at her in confusion; not fearful, not worried, but unsure.
“Mi-“
“Quiet.” Twilight hissed, without thinking the word. She was watching events unfold, detached, curled up and trying to make sense of what she’d just heard, felt, seen. “You sicken me.”
Pip swallowed, but did not speak. Twilight felt her eye twitch.
“I want you to think, Pip. Use what little of your mind Dawn left you to play with.” Twilight’s body shifted down, staring Pip in the eye, forcing his head to face her. “Let me ask you something. What reason, what remote advantage, could Luna have gained for killing your parents?”
“I am unsure as to her-“
“You don’t know. Have you thought about it, or did you just trust Dawn when she said Luna did it?”
“La- Lady Dawn presented the black-hats-“
“Yes, those Inquisitors she blamed for your parents’ murders. Let me ask you, Pip – was Dawn’s horn glowing at every point that you were there with them?”
“I am unsure-“
“I’ll answer. Yes, it was. Dawn had those Inquisitors killed long before you met them, Pip. They might not have been Inquisitors, she might have just taken two dead ponies, necromantized them – if she wasn’t just directly puppeting their bodies – and put some black hats on them, then presented them to you as a convenient explanation for why your parents were dead, and why Dawn was there for the fact.”
“I, I’m not-“
“Luna would gain nothing by killing your parents but a distraught foal, Pip. But Dawn, she stood to profit, she did profit, from the deaths of your parents. She gained an inside, a way to strike at Luna that would pass all checks and barriers. All she had to do was get you to believe that Luna had killed your ‘Momma’, and you were, you are, putty in her hooves.”
“Milady-“
“She truly has castrated your mind, hasn’t she?” Twilight’s voice cut Pip’s attempt at explanation off for a sixth time. “Let me spell it out for you. Luna didn’t kill your parents. Dawn did.” When Pip didn’t respond, she continued, tears falling from eyes she hadn’t noticed were wet. “Dawn murdered your mother and father, then lied to you, convinced you that Luna had them killed, just so that she could manipulate you into killing Luna. She used you, and you’ve never been able to realize it because she’s never let you. She’s been using you from day one, Pipsqueak.” Twilight’s head leaned down, and she placed her forehead on Pip’s. “I’m so sorry...”
Twilight felt her mouth return to her mind’s control just as the last word escaped. She cut her magic and let Pip free, taking several breaths as she stepped back and, consciously this time, attempted to make sense of the last minute’s events. Her eyes, again, went to Pip – the stallion was staring at the floor, his brow slightly furrowed, his jaw slightly loose. His eye moved to her as she stopped.
“Mi... Milady…?” His voice was cracked, his eye unsure, scared.
“I’m sorry, Pip…” Twilight said softly. She reached her hoof out, but Pip jerked back. He shook his head once, twice, small, jerking motions.
“If, if Lady Dawn killed my parents, then… then Luna, she didn’t…”
“Pip, I want you to think about what happened, not what Dawn said. What you saw. Why would Luna have sent Inquisitors to kill your mother and father? Why was Dawn there? If Luna did send them, and Dawn knew about it, couldn’t she have stopped them?” Twilight shook her head. “Luna having your parents killed makes no sense. Dawn having them killed, killing them herself, then blaming Luna, turning you against her…”
“No. No, that can’t be. That’s wrong. Luna was a bad pony. Lady Dawn was a good pony. Good ponies don’t hurt innocent ponies, bad ponies do.”
“Pip, Dawn wasn’t a good pony.” Pip and Twilight both took in a breath. “I don’t know if your Princesses were as good as ours are, but I can promise you, Pip, that Dawn was not a good pony. What she did, to Equestria, to the non-ponies, to you… she can’t have been.”
Pip didn’t respond. His eye was on her, confused and almost fearful.
“I’m sorry, Pip…” Twilight repeated herself. “But you needed to know-“
There was a blur of movement, a flutter of pages, a crash as the window burst outwards. Twilight took a step to follow him, however futile it may be, but froze as the door opened. She turned to see who, to tell Rainbow or Applejack what had happened. Instead, she found herself looking at her brother’s double. The stallion glanced between her and the broken glass. He opened his mouth, his eye back on her. He faltered before speaking.
“Where is he?”
Broken Shield, Dr. Long Path, and two guards had arrived just after Rainbow left the room. She and Applejack had talked to Broken. Broken had talked to Path, after the latter had talked to Rarity and the foals. Broken had gone up to the door, listening, coming in when he thought something had gone wrong. Twilight had talked to him. He’d grabbed her, surprisingly gentle but insistent, and dragged her out into the main room. Twilight had talked to everypony.
Broken and Path were discussing things. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, the two guards, watched, waited. Rarity was reading a fairy tale to the Crusaders and Spike. It seemed to be helping the Crusaders; Spike seemed to acknowledge that it was helping Rarity more than him.
Twilight felt numb.
“Miss Sparkle?” A soft voice broke Twilight from her observation. She raised her head rapidly, jumping to her hooves. Path gave a soft smile. “I need to ask you something.”
“What is it?” What are we doing here, even? I should be out there, finding Pip. He handled himself before, but he wasn’t so disturbed before, he could be getting hurt or hurting himself or “I don’t know where he might have gone, if that’s what you’re going to ask.”
“It’s not, don’t worry.” Path took a breath. “From what everypony out here said, Pip had a… breakdown, let’s call it, before he started talking about his parents’ deaths?”
Twilight nodded. “It’s happened a few times before. When I confronted him… whenever I made him think about Dawn critically.”
“I see…” Path blinked, his smile fading. “Twilight, Miss Dash and Miss Applejack said that you put your horn to his head during this breakdown. Did you cast a spell on him to cause him to react like he did?”
“I… Pip has a bunch of spells on his mind already.”
Path’s ear flicked and his eyebrows rose. “Pip is being compulsed?” Broken’s head shot towards them, and he quickly crossed the room to stand beside Path. The guardsponies shifted themselves, moving to a point slightly behind the stallion.
“What did you just say?!”
“Broken, Dr. Path, Pip’s mind is covered in spell-threads. I checked him this time, and two of them were acting up, getting giant pulses of energy through them. They’re very close to my magic, and I just cast a counterspell-“
“YOU BROKE A COMPULSION?!?” Path was suddenly shouting. Twilight shrunk back, but Path froze, took a few breaths, and brought his hoof to his mouth. “Miss Sparkle, I’m sure you intended to aid him, but to forcibly destroy a compulsive spell without warning or preparation is extremely dangerous. We are very lucky that Pip didn’t have a more severe reaction than ‘a headache’; please, never do that again without my presence and approval. And help.”
“Hold on a second. Pip was being compulsed?” Broken seemed struck. “When did this… what was going on?!”
“I, er, I was trying to get him to calm down, he was worked up after Sweetie-“
“Yes, yes, I got that part. He was freaking out about having his Dawn-worship contradicted again. When was he being compulsed?”
“That was the compulsion, Mr. Shield.” Path responded, having regained his composure. “I’m guessing that Dawn laid a spell, numerous spells, on his mind to force him to-“
“No, no, stop. Compulsion is forcing somepony to do something or think something, cutting off their will and-“ Broken cut off with a choking sound, taking a breath. “There’s a difference between that and forcing somepony to not do something or think something. Compulsion blows up every path except the one the caster wants, the other one just blows up one path and lets the victim choose which remaining one to go down. That’s totally different.”
“There’s restrictive and active compulsion, Broken, but they’re both-“
“No, they aren’t, and I don’t give a fuck about your doctorate or your research or any of that. Compulsion is what… what that Changeling thing did to me before my wedding. Whatever Dawn’s crimes, she never compulsed anypony.” Broken seemed to tense while he was speaking, his eye flicking between Path and Twilight. They looked at each other before Path sighed.
“In any case, Miss Sparkle, I would say that Pip was simply overwhelmed by everything that happened today. Having a compul-“ Broken coughed harshly. Path gave him an annoyed look. “-a spell removed from his mind would likely have caused a discharge that acted on both his physical brain and the other spells. He was recalling the events as though he were reliving them at first, but as the healing spells he holds counteracted the damage to his brain, he fell more and more into his emotionless presentation, the rote and regularity that his mind would seek against the emotional tumult of his memories. When you pulled him out of it, forcibly, and made him ‘think critically’ against Dawn while leading him to a conclusion that defied his worldview, he panicked. His fight-or-flight instinct activated, and since he couldn’t ‘fight’ you-“
“-he ran away. Scared and confused.” Broken finished. He put a hoof to his head. “Faust and all Her being, he’s still-“ Broken stopped, shook himself. He glanced at Twilight, his eye mutely burning. “We need to find him.”
“We don’t know where-“
“He’ll go somewhere he defines as ‘safe’, Risen guards are programmed to do that.” He gained a sour look. “Programmed, Faust… it’ll be somewhere he’s been, that he associates with security, probably secluded. The Everfree Castle?”
“That would make sense.” Path nodded. “We can send guards, try to flush him out-“
“No. I’m going. Twilight, you need to come too. Nopony else.”
“Say what?” Applejack’s voice cut in. Broken turned, finding Applejack and Rainbow Dash beside the guards. “There’s no way in Tartarus we’re lettin’ ya-“
“I know how to fight a Risen, if I know they’re coming. Twilight can help me better than either of you; no matter how much of a tantrum he’s throwing, he’s still got her as an ally in his head, and he won’t stop her from paralyzing him. He’s too dangerous to risk bringing anypony who doesn’t know how to fight him, which is all of you.”
Twilight spoke before the others could. “Broken’s right. He and I can deal with Pip, I don’t want to get anypony else hurt.”
“Twi-“
“The longer we wait, the worse he could be, Twilight.” Broken said. Twilight glanced at the others, at Path’s worried look, Applejack’s and Rainbow Dash’s and the guard’s suspicion. She looked back at Broken, saw his set jaw and hard eye.
Then she tackled him and teleported.
Broken and Twilight appeared in a clearing, tumbling through the grass as their momentum carried them out of the teleport. Broken stood, shaking himself and appraising the area.
“Fluttershy’s cottage?” He asked. Twilight nodded.
“Closest place to the Everfree I have a good idea of.”
Broken shrugged. “It works. We need to-“
“Oh, look what the manticore dragged in.” Discord’s voice came out of nowhere, as usual, but it was decidedly agitated. He didn’t bother with tricks; one moment he wasn’t there, the next he was. His gaze fell on Twilight. “Listen, missy, you need to fit a leash on that pet headache of yours.”
“Wha… is Pip here?!” Twilight bolted to the draconequus, grabbing him and pulling his head down to her level. “Where is he? Is he okay? What happened?!”
“My, my, he’s got you in a tizzy, doesn’t he?” Discord shook his head. “I was just visiting Fluttershy – you ponies always manage to interrupt our conversations somehow – when that thing you call Pip barrels through the front door, coated in blood and lacerations. Fluttershy of course started tending his wounds, leaving me to suffer his presence.” Discord sniffed. “Though at least he has some chaos this time, even if it is-“
Discord gave Broken a withering look, but waved his hoof behind him. “Up in the infirmary. He had a bunch of glass stuck in him, Fluttershy wanted to get it out before it got… well, stuck in him. She’s been working on him since he arrived.”
Twilight moved to cast another teleportation. Broken put his hoof on her horn.
“Hold on. I have an i-de-a.”
The last word warbled and pitched, and by the ‘-a’ Twilight’s voice had replaced Broken’s. Her appearance covered his as well; he was slightly taller than her, his horn longer and pointed.
He also had wings.
Twilight watched as he stepped towards the house, his horn glowing as he spoke. “Pip! Come out here! I wish to speak with you!”
There was quiet for three seconds. Then there was a loud thump, and Pip appeared in front of Broken. His front was covered in small cuts and what looked like bulging bruises, and his eye was wide and wild, seeming to see Broken as one might view a ghost.
“Mi-Lady Dawn?” he asked, his voice cracking.
Broken gave a small grin, then whipped his horn down and cast a spell at Pip’s foreleg. The limb quaked and twisted, a loud, wet crack audible even at Twilight’s distance. Pip responded almost instantly, twisting and bucking Broken through the air. As Broken flew, however, Pip collapsed, crying out in pain. The door to the cottage opened, Fluttershy rushing out with a panicked look; Discord appeared behind her, grabbing her and vanishing with her in tow. Broken hit the ground and convulsed, but he seemed to wave Twilight forward as his disguise dropped. The mare stepped quickly, crossing most of the distance between her and the hobbled stallion.
“Pip?” she asked, as gently as she could. Pip’s body stiffened, his head twisting to put his eye on her.
“Mi-Milady, I, wha, what-“ The stallion coughed. His eye was a deep pink, and he was breathing heavily. Twilight dug her hooves into the dirt, meeting him as fast as she could and wrapping her hooves around him.
“Pip, I need you to calm down. It’s okay, it’s okay, nopony’s going to hurt you anymore.” She raised a hoof, brushing back his tangled mane. The stallion was stiff, almost as a statue, his neck and chest strained against themselves. He opened his mouth, but nothing save a sob emerged. “It’s okay, it’s okay, Pip, you’re going to be okay…”
“Why?” His voice, strangled, emerged. Twilight squeezed her foreleg around him, keeping brushing his mane.
“Pip, Pip, just calm down, it’s okay…”
“I-if D-D-Dawn h-hurt Momma, she was a b-bad pony…” Pip stumbled over his words, letting out another cry. “If, if she was bad, then… then Luna was…”
“Pip, Pip, it’s okay, it’s okay…”
“IT’S NOT OKAY!” Pip screamed, and for a moment Twilight could hear a foal’s voice beneath the baritone he usually spoke with. He shoved her away, disappearing from the spot with a rush of air only to appear mere metres away, falling to the ground with another pained cry. Twilight followed him, staying slightly back but still close as he twisted to face her.
“Pip, you need to calm down, just stay calm and stay still. If you-“
“WHY?” The stallion asked again, fresh pain sharpening his voice. “D-Dawn, if L-l-lady Dawn was a bad pony, then I was a bad pony! I’m not supposed to be a bad pony!”
“No, Pip, no, you aren’t a bad pony…” Twilight took a step towards him, but he shuffled back, raising himself on his unbroken foreleg and kicking the dirt with his hind hooves. “Pip, Dawn tricked you. You aren’t a bad pony for that, good ponies get tricked by bad ponies, that doesn’t make them bad…”
“But, but I h-hurt so many ponies, and I thought it was o-okay be-because they were bad, but if Dawn was bad then they were good ponies! I hurt good ponies!”
“Pip-“
“What do I do?!” Pip shouted the question. “How do I know who’s good and who’s bad?! Dawn was supposed to be good, but she-” His eye focussed on Twilight. “How do I know if you’re a good pony?! You could be a bad pony like Dawn was! Just, just trying to fool me, use me to, to hurt-”
“Pip, I just want you to calm down, okay? I promise you, I don’t want you to hurt anypony, I’m not a bad pony-“
“HOW DO I KNOW?!?” Pip screamed, his voice raw. He and Twilight stared at each other for a time; Twilight watched as his working foreleg quavered under his weight, saw his entire body shaking, even as his eye held her. She sighed.
“You can’t just ‘know’, Pip.” she said quietly.
Pip’s eye widened, very briefly, before his foreleg gave and he fell fully to the ground. He shook violently for a few seconds, then lay still. As Twilight approached, he let out a wail, and she quickly got around in front of him, sitting down and laying her hoof on the side of his head. He raised his own hoof, pressing hers harder into his skull.
“Please…”
“Pip?” The stallion hitched a sob. Twilight thought, then spoke again. “Pipsqueak?”
“It hurts… please, Miss Twilight, make it stop hurting…”
“What hurts? Pipsqueak, what’s hurting?”
Pipsqueak groaned, shaking a small amount as he pressed her hoof to his head again.
“Okay, okay, Pipsqueak. Just stay calm. I’ll...”
Twilight lowered her horn, touching it to his temple. Where before there had been two burning threads, now there were dozens; each pulsed hot with magic, crossing each other, pressing each other into Pipsqueak’s mind. The counterspell readied itself again, but Twilight tore her horn away.
“Miss Twilight-“
“Shhh, shh, Pipsqueak, it’s okay, you’re going to be fine…”
“It hurts, please, make it stop, it hurts so much…”
“Shhhh…” Twilight brushed her hoof along Pipsqueak’s head, his hoof moving with hers. The grass and dirt in front of them shifted; Twilight raised her head, her gaze finding Broken Shield staring at Pipsqueak in abject shock.
“Broken-“
“I… I’ll go get…” Broken cut her off with a mumble, his eye still wide and fixed on his old enemy. Pipsqueak let out another cry of pain; Broken stiffened, then teleported away. Twilight put her eyes back to the stallion, the colt, on the ground. He was breathing steadier, tears falling without sobs.
“I’m sorry, Pipsqueak…” she said. She grabbed his hoof with both of hers, squeezing it gently in response to his grip.
It took four minutes and fifty-eight seconds for Dr. Path to appear, flashing into the clearing in a burst of magic. Broken was beside him, the scarred stallion’s legs crumpling as he landed; Path glanced at him in apparent concern, but started walking towards Pipsqueak. Four seconds later, Rainbow Dash and a pegasus guard landed, the guard moving to Broken while the rainbow-maned mare trotted up with Path.
It took the psychologist ten seconds to demand that Pipsqueak be brought to a hospital.
It took eight minutes for Rainbow to find a stretcher large enough to carry Pipsqueak. One for her, Twilight, and Path to position him and shift him onto it.
Six minutes to convince Pipsqueak to let go of Twilight’s hoof so that he could be carried. Half-of-one to convince Rainbow to fly ahead to warn the hospital.
Ten minutes to carry Pipsqueak safely to the edge of Ponyville. Six to get him to the hospital. Two to get him onto a gurney and into surgery.
A half-hour and the arrival of four Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, three fillies, one dragon, and several guards before the light went off. Two minutes for two stallions in scrubs to exit the surgery room and announce that Pipsqueak was physically safe.
All in all, it took one hour, ten minutes, and forty-two seconds for Twilight’s mind to start working again.
“…the glass was the most worrisome part, but luckily there’s no evidence that any splinters broke off and entered his bloodstream.” The surgeon was saying as Twilight actually started listening. “I would recommend that he avoid strenuous physical activity, but given how potent his healing spell is, I’d say he’ll be right as rain within the hour.”
“Is his leg in any danger?” Path asked. The surgeon shook his head.
“It was already healed by the time we got to it. Did a diagnostic, there was evidence of damage but nothing substantial. I’ve seen worse from a stubbed hoof, to be honest.” The surgeon swallowed, glancing at Path. “I’m aware that this may be classified information, Dr. Path, but that spell-“
“Going to have to stop you there, doctor.”
“Ah. Right, then…” The surgeon cleared his throat. “The anaesthetic should be wearing off fairly soon. We’re moving him to a room nearby, but I’m going to need to have everypony except his closest vacate to the common room. Can’t have this many ponies visiting a patient all at once.”
“His ‘closest’?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Er, his parents, legal guardians, siblings, spouse…”
Path glanced at Twilight. “That would be Ms. Sparkle and me. Legal guardian and assigned psychologist, respectively.”
The surgeon nodded. “Right, then. If the rest of you would follow Mr. Flag to the common room?”
Twilight watched as everypony stood. Broken left the room almost immediately, his expression blank despite his guard escort. Twilight frowned as she watched him move; he was clearly in pain, his magic not enough to overcome his injuries. Nopony else appeared to notice.
“Y’okay there, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, voicing the concern plain on everypony’s faces. Twilight blinked as she realized that she was being addressed, but nodded.
“This whole… thing just caught me off-guard. Still trying to sort everything out.”
“If y’need anythin’-“
“Don’t worry about me, AJ.” Twilight gave a small grin, which the farmmare returned. The others gave further words of support, Spike grabbing Twilight’s hoof and making her promise that she was alright. Just as they were turning to leave, Sweetie squeezed in-between her sister and Pinkie Pie.
“Pip’s going to be okay, right?” The filly asked, her voice high. “I mean, I know the doctor said he was fine, but that’s just with his leg and stuff, and I didn’t mean to make him try to run away…”
“That wasn’t your fault, Sweetie.” Twilight sighed. “This is… this was something that needed to happen. Pipsqueak’s been through a lot, and he needed help to realize some of the bad things. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Twilight gave another smile as the filly sniffled and nodded. Path coughed as the surgery doors opened, and soon he and Twilight were walking alongside an unconscious Pipsqueak.
“You’re sure that you didn’t remove any more spells from him?” the psychologist asked. Twilight nodded.
“I looked, but I made sure not to touch anything.”
Path sighed. “Good. I, um, I apologize if I’m appearing… irritated, or tense… I’ve been kicking myself in the back of the head for not seeing how much Pip was struggling with earlier than this.”
“You invited him for a talk, we just never got around to it. And that was only a few days ago.” Twilight flicked an ear. “If it helps, he seemed to respond better to Pipsqueak than Pip, after he…” she trailed off, unsure how to describe it. Path seemed to understand, giving her a nod as the nurses brought them to an unoccupied room. The conversation lulled as the medical ponies shifted the stallion into an actual bed, gave him a few final checks and attached a few monitors; only when they left did Path respond.
“It could be significant. Depending on how much the Raising compulsions affected him, we could be looking at a full regression to his seven-year-old mentality. Or ‘Pip’, the name, could have been assigned to him by Dawn, and he wants to disassociate himself from her. Or-“
“Mungh…” the pony on the bed groaned. His hoof slid around beside him on the bed; Twilight quickly put her own hoof into its path, and he groaned again, higher pitched, when his hoof found it.
“Pip? Pipsqueak, can you hear me?” Path asked. The pony’s eye screwed further shut, but he nodded. Path nodded as well, apparently to himself.
“Hey, Pipsqueak, this is Dr. Path. Do you remember me? From Canterlot?”
Pipsqueak nodded again. His mouth opened.
“M… mi…” He swallowed, wincing. “Twi…”
“I’m right here, Pipsqueak.” Twilight said, wiggling her hoof in his grip. Pipsqueak opened his eye and turned his head, squinting at the light. He looked at her for a few seconds before his eye closed again, and he took several fairly deep breaths.
Then he was suddenly sitting up, his heart monitor tipping as the wire that connected it to its patient was suddenly tugged. Twilight managed to grab it in her magic, righting it in a position slightly closer to Pipsqueak’s current location; the other wire was more lenient, but she moved its monitor to match its counterpart just in case. Path had moved to Pipsqueak almost as quickly as the pony had sat up, one hoof on the earth pony’s chest to stop him from moving further forward.
“Whoa there, Pipsqueak, we need you to stay down for a little bit, alright? There’s still a few things we need to sort out with you.” Path gave a practiced smile as the pony in the bed glanced at him.
“…‘m head still hurts…”
“Yeah, I figured that. Just lay back down, there, there we go…” Path patted the now-somewhat-horizontal pony’s chest. “Right, so according to Ms. Sparkle, you have a whole mess of spells that have been cast on your mind. Compulsive spells, we think. Did you know about those?” Pipsqueak was still for a moment, then shook his head. Path clicked his tongue. “Well, they’re what’s making your head hurt. Ms. Sparkle and I need to take a look at them, see if we can’t move them – or remove them – so that you’re not in pain any more. Are you okay with that?”
Pipsqueak nodded, taking another deep breath as he did so. Path patted him on the chest again before lowering his horn to the other pony’s head. The doctor stopped an inch from Pipsqueak’s head, glancing at Twilight. She nodded at the unasked question, and Path nodded back before making contact.
There was a bright flash and a loud snapping sound.
As the afterimage faded from Twilight’s eyes and her ears stopped their high-pitched whine, Twilight was greeted with the sight of Dr. Path slumped against the wall, the toip of his horn blackened and smoking. Pipsqueak was sitting up again, teeth bared and eye screwed shut with one hoof pressed against his temple; the other hoof was still holding her own in a steel grip.
“Pipsqueak, are you okay?” the mare asked. The earth pony nodded.
“I… am fine.” His jaw flexed between words. “Is… Dr. Path…?”
“Whaohawow!” The mentioned stallion sounded, his head whipping up to reveal widened, bloodshot eyes with pinpricked pupils. Twilight and Pipsqueak watched him carefully as he shook his head wildly, the unicorn slowly extricating her hoof from the earth pony’s grip. She approached Path as his head-shaking was slowing down.
“Doctor?”
“Ho-wow that hurt!” Path said, his eyes seeming to focus on the tip of Twilight’s ear.
“Are you alright? Should I-“
“Oh, no, no please no additional anxieties on my account, Ms. Sparkle!” The stallion stood, shook himself again, then nodded several times. His eyes were still wide as he put his gaze on Twilight. “By my own sensory input, I’m not suffering any permanent injury, but a large electrical shock as I appear to have just experienced might have triggered heart arrhythmia or general nervous system or organ damage or failure, so I suppose we’ll just have to hope that I’m not going to collapse in the near-future.” Path blinked several times, his eyes going to Pipsqueak. “That is a mighty powerful anti-intrusion spell you’re carrying around in there, if I might say from experience!”
“I… apologize, doctor.”
“Apologize? You weren’t the caster.” Path blinked again. “I’m presuming that what just occurred to me is exactly as much of a surprise to you as it was to me, Ms. Sparkle?”
“Er, y-yeah, that didn’t happen when I looked.” Twilight put a hoof on Path’s back, gently pushing down to encourage the stallion to sit. He did so, seemingly surprised that he was standing.
“Well that’s precisely the problem then! Dawn put some spell on Pipsqueak’s mind to stop anypony else from tampering with it, but your and her magics are so similar that the spell thought you were her!” Path blinked again, several times, and his eyes became somewhat normal. “Hoo, wow, that was a hit…”
“Are you sure you’re okay, doctor?” Twilight asked again. Path gave her a smile and a small nod.
“I’m sure. Didn’t really hurt all that much, just woke me up.” Path stood, moving to the other side of the bed from Twilight; Pipsqueak was still sitting, teeth still clenched and eye still tightly shut. “Pipsqueak, on the other hoof… you alright there, buddy? You’re looking not-so-okay from out here.”
“Head… really… hurts…” the seated pony bit off. Path glanced at Twilight.
“Right well, we’ll need to do this by proxy, then.”
“Proxy?” Twilight’s brows furrowed. “You want me to go back in?”
“I did mention that you weren’t supposed to do it without me. I never said you could never do it at all.” Path shrugged. “The spells are almost certainly what’s causing his pain, and we can’t do anything to help him while they’re still going.”
Twilight bit her lip, but nodded. She turned her attention to Pipsqueak. He caught her eye and gave a quick nod, lowering his head towards her. She brought her horn to his temple. Twelve distinct spells flashed immediately to her attention; she tried not to worry about the ones that had disappeared between Fluttershy’s house and the hospital.
“Twelve spells,” she said. “They’re all crossing each other.”
“Right, so, Twilight, I need you to look around for the largest spell. The brightest one, biggest one, however you’re interpreting it.”
Twilight delved. “I have two. One’s pulsing really bright, the other is steadily brighter.”
“Is the pulse brighter than the steady?”
“I think so.”
“Cut it first.”
The counterspell leapt through Twilight’s horn as soon as she called it. She caught a second of the thread’s dissipation before Pipsqueak jerked his head away, a small groan escaping his throat. Path caught him in magic before he could move too much.
“Hold on, Pipsqueak, I know that hurt but it’s going to make you better. Other than that jolt, does your head hurt less now?”
Pipsqueak was still and quiet for a moment, but before Twilight’s anxiety could grow he was nodding and taking another breath. She gave him a small smile before going back in. It took her a few moments to recognize what was off.
“Dr. Path, four of the spells are gone.”
“Gone? That… could be a good thing. You just cut the pulsating one, right?”
“Yeah, but now there’s only seven here.”
“Hmm. Gives us an idea of what’s going on…” Path muttered a few things outside of Twilight’s hearing. “Don’t worry on it yet, just cut the other one you mentioned.”
Again, the spell was instant, slicing the hot thread along its apex; this time, however, Pipsqueak didn’t move, allowing Twilight to watch as the cut thread disappeared. The other remaining threads seemed to shrink, within seconds merging into the morass of grey spells that coated Pipsqueak’s mind. Twilight leaned back, letting out a breath. She opened her eyes to find her subject giving her a dull stare.
“Thank you, Milady.”
A spike of ice shot up Twilight’s spine.
“Pi-“ Her voice cut off, strangled. She breathed, swallowed, tried again. “Pip… Pipsqueak, are you alright?”
“Yes, Milady. By the lack of a burning pain inside of my skull, I am presuming that you have succeeded in removing the compulsive spells that were causing my earlier discomfort?”
“Er… yeah…” She felt her voice go on autopilot as her brain began panicking. “When I cut the bright spell, the others just… went back to normal, I guess.”
“That’s what I thought.” Path nodded as he spoke. “Those two spells were holding the rest of them up, probably contradicting them in terms of allowances and causing a magical backup. Why Dawn didn’t put anything in to smooth that kind of thing out-“ The psychologist stopped suddenly. He stood, taking a few steps over to Twilight. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “What’s wrong, Twilight?”
The mare coughed wetly. Her brain was spinning, seeing the pony on the bed and tearing itself apart trying to sort him as ‘Pip’ or ‘Pipsqueak’. She opened her mouth, a small squeak escaping.
“Milady?” Pip asked. She blinked, trying to force her eyes to focus on him. “Milady, is something wrong?”
“I…” she managed to say, and suddenly the rest of the thought spilled out. “I thought I got rid of you!”
Path blinked. Twilight blinked. Pip blinked.
“Would you like me to be ‘gotten rid of’, Milady?” Pip asked blandly. Twilight started a nod, changed it to a shake midway, and just ended up pulling something in her neck.
“I… no. I don’t want to get rid of you, I just…” she growled, wincing as the pain behind her horn returned alongside the new neck injury. “I thought we’d gotten past this, this ‘milady’ and ‘I have no emotions’ and ‘I talk like a dictionary’ crap! You, you, were there for once, the real Pip, Pipsqueak, this, this foal in a stallion’s body who’s completely bucked over in terms of everything he’s based his life on and is willing to express how pissed off and terrified he is! And now, now I cut two spells away from your head, spells that were forcing you to, to, to do things that you shouldn’t need to do, and now you’re suddenly back to how you were before! What the buck is that?!”
Path’s eyes were wide. Pip’s eyebrow seemed mildly arched.
“If I may address your worries, Mi-“ Pip coughed. “If I may address your thoughts?” Twilight gave a small, sharp nod. Pip took a breath. “I address you as ‘Milady’ because that is the title to which, in my memory, you are assigned. If you wish, I shall avoid using the term.” Pip blinked. “Would ‘Miss Twilight’ be more acceptable?”
…It’s a start…” Twilight answered weakly. Pip(squeak) nodded.
“As you say, Miss Twilight. On your claim that I ‘talk like a dictionary’, I must remind you that I have spoken in this formal manner for approximately two-thirds of my chronological lifespan, as per Lady Dawn’s instruction. For me to begin speaking in a more informal manner except under considerable duress is unlikely simply due to the fact that I am so accustomed to this formal manner, ignoring the effects of any intrusion by compulsive spells.
“Your claim on my emotional expression is similarly explained. As the First Guard of the Revolution, I could not allow my emotional state to compromise my duties, and as such I have trained myself to suppress any emotional turmoil.”
“Er, if I could cut in, here?” Path asked. Pip nodded, and the doctor continued. “Doing that, keeping how you feel bottled up, is a really bad idea. Not good for your mental state. Among other things, it can lead to severe loss of control when you’re too overwhelmed by what’s going on to ‘suppress emotional turmoil’.” Path grimaced. “I think you’ve dealt with that first-hoof.”
“I can say with certainty that I have.” Pipsqueak nodded again. He turned his attention back to Twilight, who was watching him worriedly. “Is something else the matter, Miss Twilight?”
The mare sighed. “I… I just expected more of a change. You’re still talking like you were, you’re still acting like you were… I’m worried that you’re still thinking like you were.”
“Are you referring to my support of Lady Dawn, Miss Twilight?” Pip asked. Twilight nodded. “I have not intended to cause you to worry, Miss Twilight. While I am still attempting to fully understand everything that has happened, I can assure you that I now recognize that Lady Dawn is in no way a good pony. I have not suddenly forgotten about what was revealed earlier today, nor shall I ignore it.” He took a breath, in and out. “If you wish me to speak to Dr. Path about… what has happened to me, what has been done to me, I shall. If you feel that I-“
“Pipsqueak, stop.” Twilight raised a hoof. Pip halted his speech, his eye focussed on her. “I don’t want you to think that that’s my choice, okay? It’s not, it’s really… you’re the one who’s gone through all of that, you’re the one who’s suffered, you are the one who’s in control of how you deal with it. If you want to talk to Dr. Path, or somepony else who can help you, then you need to decide that for yourself. I’m not… I can’t make that choice for you.”
“To the best of my knowledge, Miss Twilight, given my chronological age and your status as my legal guardian, you are the one in control of my speaking to a psychological expert in a therapeutic context.”
Twilight sighed. “I still don’t think-“
“Miss Twilight?” Pipsqueak said, cutting her off with a soft voice. “Given my recent… revelations, regarding Lady Dawn… I don’t feel that I can trust myself.” He blinked, shifting his eye to stare into hers. “But I do feel that I can trust you.”
Twilight’s throat seemed to close, and she had to swallow several times in order to open it again. She glanced at Path, who gave her a sympathetic look and an apologetic shrug, before turning her focus back to Pipsqueak. She watched him for a few seconds before taking a breath.
“I’m not going to say that you have to talk to Dr. Path.” she stated. “But I think that it would be best for everypony if you did.”
Pip exhaled, giving a nod. “I thank you for your opinion, Miss Twilight.” His ear twitched, and his eye shifted to the door. “There is a guard coming down the hallway, Miss Twilight. Rather quickly.”
Mere seconds later, Twilight could hear the sound of boots hitting tile, stopping at the door. She moved and opened it, finding a somewhat surprised guardspony with his hoof raised.
“Er, ma’am, Broken Shield has requested a meeting with you. He claims that he wishes to talk.”
Twilight sighed. “Thank you, I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Ma’am.” The guard nodded, stepping back as Twilight closed the door.
“I would suggest that you meet with Broken Shield, Miss Twilight.” Pipsqueak said as soon as Twilight had turned around. “If he wishes a peaceful discussion, it would be best to go quickly. He is a fairly impatient pony.”
Twilight grinned before she could stop herself. “Yeah, he’s not exactly one to wait around… Are you two going to be okay here?”
“I’m sure Pipsqueak and I can talk some things over while you’re gone.” Path said, catching Pip’s eye. “Provided you’re comfortable with it, of course.”
“I cannot think of any objections.” Pip replied. Twilight smiled.
“I’m glad that you’re feeling better, Pipsqueak.”
“I am glad to be feeling better, Miss Twilight.”
Broken Shield was waiting outside of the hospital, leaning against the wall as five guards watched his every move. Twilight thanked them and waved them away, waiting until they had all backed up at least a pony’s length before turning her eyes to Broken.
“Is he still out of it?” the stallion asked, as soon as her gaze was on him. Twilight shook her head.
“We severed two of the larger spells on his mind. The rest went back to normal, and so did he.”
Broken stiffened. “He’s still loyal to her, then? After-”
“No! No, no.” Twilight raised a hoof. “He said that he’s still thinking things through, but he specifically mentioned that he knows that Dawn isn’t a ‘good pony.’”
Broken stayed still for a few moments before visibly deflating; all four of his legs seemed to give, his forelegs barely catching him and pushing him into a sitting position. His head stayed low, however, even as Twilight took a step towards him.
“I killed four of them.”
“What?”
“Four Risen. Maybe five.” Broken shrugged. “They were monsters, ruthless, relentless, terrifying beasts. We lost, at least, three ponies per Risen anytime we met them. I… I could never understand how foals could be turned into those things.”
“Broken-“
“We found Luna in her room. It had been torn apart from the outside, but she hadn’t been hit by any debris or magic or dragon’s fire. She’d been stabbed in the back by the same dagger that slit the throats of the two guards.”
Twilight’s stomach fell. “Pip didn’t remember anything after he killed Luna…”
“Luna was still alive.” Broken continued, still staring at the ground. “She was breathing, barely, but she’d lost too much blood. Celestia ran to her, tried to stop the bleeding, revive her somehow. Couldn’t do anything. Luna died in her sister’s lap.” Broken’s voice cracked. “Celestia was screaming for her to come back, demanding it, shouting at her in the Royal Canterlot Voice. Said that she’d lost her once, she wasn’t losing her again.” He took in a shuddering breath. “She just sat there, just… just holding her sister, for, for... didn’t move from that spot, not for anypony or any reason.”
“Broken…”
“Luna’s eyes were open before she died. I, I saw the look in them, and I couldn’t place it until that thing came to Canterlot with Dawn. She’d been betrayed.” Another breath. “I couldn’t, I can’t… Dawn didn’t compulse anypony. I know that. I watched her interrogate ponies, torture them, manipulate them, break them. She broke me, for Faust’s sake. But she never, NEVER, compulsed.” Broken had shouted the second last word loud enough that the guards all started towards them; Twilight waved them off, though they settled closer to the stallion than they’d been before. “That means that he would have had to go along with it willingly. Along with everything willingly.”
Twilight watched Broken. She took a breath, in and out, before speaking. “Yeah, he did.”
“But he was a foal. He didn’t understand, he thought that he was doing the right thing by brutally murdering everypony that Dawn pointed him at.”
“That… seems to be the case.”
Broken took a few breaths. He raised his head, and the look on his face was one of controlled neutrality. He took one more deep breath in and out.
Then he twisted and bucked the hospital hard enough to send a loud crack from the point where his hoof met the wall. He moved away from the building, cursing and limping for two steps before he was tackled by the guards. Three magics and four forehooves held him to the ground, only backing off when he didn’t move for a full minute; even then, the guards remained a single pony’s length away, far closer than they had been. Broken stood shakily, his eye fixed on Twilight.
“Do you, do you know what it’s like- no, you don’t, not even going to- grah!” Broken cut off in a growl, but curled in on himself rather than lashing out.
“Broken, it’s okay.” Twilight stepped forward and set a hoof on his shoulder. The stallion started at the contact, but didn’t move away, keeping his head down.
“No, it’s not. For nearly ten years my worst enemy has been a bucking foal. I’ve seen him tear guards in half, gut Loyalists with their own jawbones, he murdered a fucking Princess-“ Broken cut himself off, but started again a second later. “And now, now I can’t hold any of that against him, because I know that Dawn could have bucked his head over hard enough that, that nothing he’s done was really him.” Broken took a breath, raising his head and meeting Twilight’s eyes again. His gaze was angry, not at anypony but just generally frustrated.
“It can’t be easy, learning something like that about somepony you hate.” Twilight said carefully, patting his shoulder before removing her hoof. Broken barked a laugh and rolled his eye, but there was no amusement in the laugh, and his mouth was thin.
“It’s almost a relief, actually. Some stupid little voice in my head is telling me that this is a good thing, and I’m almost inclined to agree with him. That my daughter’s best friend wasn’t naturally evil, that I couldn’t have seen it coming…” Broken shrugged. “One less thing to worry about killing me, one less thing I need to kill, I guess.”
“Glad to hear you looking on the bright side of things.” Twilight gave a small smile. Broken stared at her for a few seconds before sighing, his eye flicking to the sky; Twilight followed him, watching as her namesake time melded the day into night, the sun dipping below the horizon as the moon rose-
There was a distinct screeching sound in Twilight’s head as her thoughts ground to a halt.
“Broken?”
“Hm.” The grunt was somewhat dismissive, but Twilight ignored the tone.
“If Luna had been killed… how did the sun and moon move after the Revolution?”
Broken blinked, not speaking for a few seconds. “Dawn was able to raise the moon by herself before she killed Celestia, but the effort nearly knocked her out cold. She barely had enough strength left to cut Celestia’s head off.” He grimaced as the memory struck him. “Unicorns used to move the sun and moon before the tribes united and the Princesses arose. My guess is she rounded up the ‘best and brightest’ pinheads she could find and siphoned their magic into some spell that kept everything going. Most of the unicorn nobles disappeared after the Revolution, they were probably the first ones used.”
“Dawn moved the mo-“ Twilight started to say, before Broken’s hoof shifted to catch her jaw. He shook his head slowly, the look in his eye brooking no argument. Twilight nodded, and she quietly waved off the guard that was preparing to jump Broken from behind. She waited a moment, then tried again.
“Er, could you explain why Dawn was an alicorn?”
“She wasn’t.”
“But at Fluttershy’s-“
“She was a unicorn with wings. Nothing more.”
After a half-minute of silence, it became clear that Broken wasn’t going to say anything more on the subject. Twilight moved to the last of her questions, somewhat frustrated.
“You said that Dawn didn’t compulse anypony?”
Broken nodded. “The one line she wouldn’t cross. Got me as to why.”
“Broken, I know you don’t agree, but Pipsqueak was, is, being compulsed. There are so many spells on his mind-“
“I’m stopping you there. These spells, they’re like little lines? Get pulses of magic through them on occasion?” Twilight nodded. “Those aren’t compulsions. Those are oaths.”
“What?!” The mare stared in shock at the stallion. “Oaths aren’t compulsive! You can break them, do the exact opposite of what you swore to do-“
“-and you get knocked out, right?” Broken asked, then continued without waiting for an answer. “My guess is, like everything else, my oaths are stronger than yours. They discourage an action in this world and actively prevent that action in mine, with accompanying difference in how much damage they do when you violate it. They knock you out, they kill me.”
“But there’s no magic involved! You can swear an oath to earth ponies and pegasi, they can’t cast a spell on your mind to force you to go along with it!”
“Not in oaths between ponies, no. But to the Princesses, the Guardspony’s Oath? If there wasn’t magic, then they couldn’t do anything. Pol- ehem, Shining Armor said that violating oaths knocks you unconscious. QED, magic oaths.” Broken smirked at Twilight’s look. “Simple, when you think about it.”
“But… but…”
“Listen, if you don’t believe me, check me.” Broken swung his head down. “My oaths to the Princesses should still be active.”
Twilight blinked. “You’re… okay, with me poking around in there?”
“Just look, no touch.” The stallion said. “I feel too much magic, my horn’s close enough to your eye to hit your brain.”
Twilight felt a bit of bile rise in her throat, but she nodded. Leaning down before better judgement could get its claws in her, she touched her horn to his head.
Unlike Pip’s, there was no giant tangle of threads surrounding Broken’s mind. Twelve lines coursed around the mass of Broken’s psyche, each glowing a dull red from the magic flowing through them. Twilight could feel the magic on each line, an odd feeling rolling up her back as her mind assigned each thread an owner. Four very close to Celestia’s magic. Two that were Celestia’s magic. One very close to Luna’s, two very close to Cadance’s.
And three whose magic was very close to Twilight’s.
Twilight jerked her head back, nearly falling completely over before she caught herself. Before she could say anything, the stallion stood, walking over to her with an undecipherable look in his eye. She could hear the guards shift in their armour, but none moved to interfere. He leaned his head down to an even level with hers, his voice blithe and flat, the corners of his mouth twitched up in a smile.
“See you tomorrow, Twilight.” Broken raised his head, giving her a wink. Before she could respond, he was walking away. Twilight couldn’t help but notice that, through his screen of guards, he was limping heavier than before.
The unicorn glanced at her travelling partner as she drew in another large breath; Pipsqueak blinked, giving her a stare that was somewhat disarming in its lack of clear emotion. He had refused to stay in the hospital after Path left, tolerating one last checkup when Twilight returned before fleeing from the building as calmly as possible. She coughed and blushed, suddenly aware that she’d been talking to the pony almost nonstop for the last thirty minutes.
“Oh, of course …” Twilight winced as she swallowed, her throat making its claims of abuse clear. Pip nodded.
“Firstly, I was not previously aware of the deaths of the guardsponies alongside Luna’s. Nor was I aware that she lived long enough for Celestia and Shining Armor to find her.” Pip blinked again. “I am… saddened, I believe, that she suffered her injury for so long.”
“You believe?” Twilight asked. Pip exhaled.
“I am unaccustomed to wilfully expressing my emotions, Miss Twilight. I feel a mix of pity for her and disgust at my hoof in her suffering, but ‘saddened’ seemed a better word to convey the general feeling.”
Twilight frowned, but nodded. “It works, Pipsqueak. I didn’t mean to sound rude if I did.”
“Thank you, Miss Twilight, and do not fear my offence.” Pip nodded back at her. “To continue in your inquiry, I was aware that oaths involved spells being placed on one’s mind to ensure their fulfillment. I was not aware that Lady Dawn placed so many oaths on me that they came into conflict with one another. I do not recall swearing ‘thousands’ of oaths to her, so it is likely that many of the spells present in my mind are related to the Raising process or were placed there by her through other avenues.”
“‘Other avenues’? Broken was fairly adamant that she never directly compulsed anyone, and when Broken’s defending Dawn…”
“I was not speaking of direct compulsive spells, Miss Twilight. It may be that any order I received from Lady Dawn created a new ‘oath-type’ spell, given that I had sworn to serve her ‘with full heart and mind’, to paraphrase the Risen Oath.” Pip drew a breath. “Dawn’s spells on Broken Shield can be similarly explained as her obtaining his word through force or trickery, although I cannot speak of their exact arrangement or composition.”
Twilight sighed. “I can’t really expect you to. That whole conversation threw me a bit, so finding those spells…” She shook her head. “Do you think he even knows about them?”
“I highly doubt that he does, Miss Twilight, but there is a definite possibility. I would recommend that you avoid bringing them up to him, lest he believe that you placed them there or simply lose what little sanity he has from the revelation that his most hated enemy has been manipulating him for some time.”
Twilight blinked. “Did you know about them?”
“I cannot say that I did, Miss Twilight.” Pipsqueak’s ear flicked as the two rounded the corner. “Though I cannot imagine why she would have placed spells upon him without one that prevented him from escaping custody and causing the damage that he did.”
Twilight glanced at the other pony, her brows furrowing. “What damage did he cause?”
Pip was silent for a few seconds. “I… cannot recall.”
Twilight’s frown deepened. “Are you okay, Pipsqueak? Is it-“
“No, Mila- erhem, Miss Twilight. I am not in pain, and I do not believe that a spell is restricting my memory.” He blinked. “I am simply… I cannot remember any details about his escape.”
“Hmm.” Twilight watched the earth pony carefully; the last few minutes of the walk were in silence, breaking only when Twilight opened the door to the library.
“If I may make a suggestion, Miss Twilight?”
“You don’t need my permission, Pip…”
“My apologies, Miss Twilight.” Pipsqueak blinked. “Dr. Shelter made mention of several spells enacted upon Broken Shield that he was unable to remove, and you requested a list of the spells. Mayhaps the spells that were tied to Broken’s mind are present on that list, and Dr. Shelter did not recognize the significance of them?”
Twilight blinked several times as Pipsqueak’s words filed through her head. Then she leapt at him, throwing her forelegs around him and squeezing him in a hug.
“Thank you! Faust, I completely forgot about the list!” Twilight backed off of him, leaving a slightly flustered pony behind as she trotted into the library. “Faust, I’m a moron! Dr. Shelter might have made note of the spells without recognizing them. He said that there was at least one of the spells tied to Broken’s central magic, that could make an imprint on the representation of Broken’s mind if not actually being one of the threads! What the buck was I thinking not-“
Twilight stopped herself and took a few breaths, getting away from the rather-overenthusiastic bent her mind was taking. She glanced at Pip, still standing outside and looking slightly poleaxed.
“Are you alright, Pip?”
The pony started, looking at her and shaking himself. He stepped into the library, a nearly-imperceptible colour rising tin his cheeks.
“My apologies, Miss Twilight. I-”
“No, no, don’t worry.” Twilight waved a hoof. “I need you to get a few books for me.”
“Books, Miss Twilight?”
“Chronic Medical Spells, Mental Representations, and Use of Restrictive Compulsions. And Dr. Shelter’s spell list.” Twilight gave him a grin. “We’re pulling an all-nighter.”
…of particular note as another difference between the main healing spell and modern magical medicine is its presence in a representation of the patient’s mind; while it does not appear to be acting as a restrictive compulsion, it has a ‘thread’ all the same. This may relate to the apparent failures of the spell to activate during observed periods of injury; the thread on the patient’s mind may conditionally activate and enable/disable the healing spell based on the actions of the patient…
“Oh, I’m liking this…” a gruff stallion’s voice intoned.
The next day, seated at the Carousel Boutique, Twilight glanced up from Dr. Shelter’s notes to see Broken Shield spinning in a circle. Rarity gave him a minorly-exasperated look as he stopped and stumbled, which he replied to with a saltlicking grin; the stallion shook his head and shifted his hooves, twisting his head to stare at the cloak he wore. It covered him to a foot past his tail, with a hood slightly thinner than the rest of the piece. He shifted it around, feeling the cotton slide beneath the dark-green outer fabric.
“Count me impressed. I didn’t think you’d actually go through with all of this…”
“Neither did I.” Spike called from the corner of the room. He and Pip were both staring at a chess board, the latter casting glances at Twilight and Broken every quarter-minute. On the board itself, the lighter pieces having taken significantly more casualties than the darker ones; as Spike spoke, Pip shifted a black pawn and said something to the young dragon; Spike blinked, looked at the board from an angle, then smacked himself in the head and groaned.
“Well, dear, despite, rather, because of, your… activities over the last few weeks, I could still see why you wanted the cloak. I couldn’t make it dragonproof or magic-resistant, but it should hold up fairly well against the cold or any stray hooves that may swing your way.” Rarity gave an odd mix of a grimace and a wry smile with the last few words; Broken’s smile fell, still present but more docile.
“I mean it, Rarity. Thank you.” He gave the mare a nod; Rarity blinked at the sudden sincerity, but managed to give him a polite reply. Broken walked over to the other two males in the room, appearing to stretch himself and glance at the board as Rarity approached Twilight.
“That’s the first time he’s called me by my name…” she mumbled, still watching the stallion in a mild awe. Twilight slipped the notes into her pack.
“Well, I suppose that’s a good sign.” The reply was odd-sounding, strained, even to Twilight. Rarity glanced at the other mare, her brows furrowing.
“Are you feeling well, dear? You look rather exhausted.”
Of course I’m bucking exhausted he’s had at least two spells of Dawn’s influencing him this entire bucking time and nopony bucking noticed them and “I had a late night, is all.” The librarian gave a small huff. “Trying to figure out what to do with him beyond grilling him for information about his Equestria, for the most part. Honestly, for as long as he’s been here he hasn’t had much real interaction with anypony. I have him studying Gryphonia, but we’re trying to help him get used to regular pony life again, and sitting in a library, buried in books, without significant social interactions, isn’t really ‘regular’.”
“Well, it is for you…” Rarity tittered at her little joke, getting a small, wry grin from Twilight. “Honestly, dear, he’s been through quite a bit. He may not be able to be ‘regular’ again.”
“I know, I know… I just don’t want him to spend his entire time down here divided between walking around aimlessly, memorizing obscure texts on Gryphonic culture, and being shuttled around between my friends, most of whom he has a significant animosity towards anyways. I want to help him, that’s the whole reason I asked to take care of him, and now that he’s cooperative and I actually have the chance I can’t think of anything he can do. He seems comfortable enough walking around in public, and he seems to have no problems interacting with ponies he doesn’t know, but-”
“Who says other ponies need to be involved, Twilight?” Rarity gave a half-grin at Twilight’s quizzical look. “He needs to learn that the world’s not out to get him anymore. That doesn’t mean he needs to make friends with everypony he meets.”
“I’m aware of that…” Twilight took a breath. “Even if he’s more relaxed than I thought he’d be, he’s still too caught up in the past. I’m worried that he’s going to stay down here for a few weeks, months, making all kinds of ‘progress’ and settling into this life, and then something comes up that reminds him of Dawn or the Revolution and… boom. Back to violent, manic-depressive, horrifically traumatized him.” Twilight made a sweeping motion with her hoof. Rarity raised hers, catching Twilight’s and slowly lowering it.
“Last I checked, you meant to help him through those past traumas so that he can make progress and settle in. Have you made any headway with that?”
Twilight sighed. “That’s part of the problem. Nothing that made him like he is even exists here yet. I can’t have ponies punished for what some version of them did in some version of the future, and Broken hasn’t made any suggestions for how to help him work through these things that hasn’t involved violence. I’m stuck at only being able to listen to him talk about what happened in the Revolution, and I don’t think that just listening about what happened will help him all too much.”
“You wouldn’t be just listening, dear, you’d be replying and showing him another view on things, and giving him a much-needed method of venting his feelings that doesn’t involve murdering you.”
“I know, but… gah! I want to help him here. Directly. Make a noticeable difference in his outlook, like I did with Pip.”
Rarity gave a small snort. “I would say that Pip’s problems are rather different from Broken’s, dear. You might need to just sit and listen to him speak. You said yourself that he’s too caught up in the past; if you let him run through his memories, he might lose some of those catches along the way.” Twilight gave Rarity a stare. “Oh come now, we’ve already seen it happen. You don’t need to be a psychologist to figure that out.”
“But he hasn’t lost the ‘catches’, he’s just been made aware of them. The only real change I’ve seen with him is that he’s not trying to kill Pip anymore, and that’s mostly because of Pip’s own... changes.” Twilight blinked a few times before her eyes widened.
“Something the matter, dear?” Rarity asked. Twilight shook herself, standing and shifting her bags onto her back.
“No, no, I just got an idea on something I could do. Just a test, see if it helps him. Thanks for the talk, Rarity.” Twilight spoke rapidly, ending the sentence with a nod and a quick hug to the confused mare. She turned and put her eyes on Pipsqueak; the pony noticed and nodded, standing near-instantly and moving to the door. Spike followed Pip as Broken walked back to the two Element-bearers.
“Before we go, might as well pay you.” The stallion shrugged, flipping a silver-grey coin at the fashionista. She caught it in her magic, staring at the platinum almost hungrily.
“Thank you very much, sir, and be sure to return if you need anything else!” Rarity gave him a bright smile. He returned a small smirk.
“I don’t know if it’d be traditional for you to fashion your own wedding dress, but that should be enough to get either materials or a good dress from the nobility’s tailors. Just be sure to send me an invite, I’ve always wanted to see what Applejack would look like in bridal lace.”
Twilight blinked in surprise, twisting her head back to look between Broken and Rarity. The mare’s smile had washed out to a rather uncouth gape, and she blustered as she tried to reply to Broken’s accusation. The stallion, for his part, raised a small box into Rarity’s view; she stopped blustering with a squeak and snatched it faster than she had the coin.
“If you’re going to keep the engagement under wraps, you might want a better spot to hide the ring than the main boudoir.” He blinked, and a smile suddenly split his face. “Thanks again for the cloak!”
The stallion rapidly turned and pranced to the door, cackling like a madpony as he escaped the Boutique; Pip and Spike watched him leave, taking a second before they both jumped to follow him. Twilight returned her gaze to her now-silent friend, giving her a much more solid and sympathetic hug than before.
“They aren’t getting married.” Twilight said. The group of four had walked in silence for a time; Twilight had chosen to wait until they were out of Ponyville limits before bringing the topic up.
Broken turned his head to face her, eyebrow raising. “Really.”
She nodded. “Applejack had bought the ring and was planning to give it to Rarity before the Princess’ decree.”
“Mmhm.”
“And she wasn’t willing to not give Rarity a gift just because it looked like an engagement ring.”
“Understandable.”
“And Rarity didn’t want you going around telling anypony that they were getting married. Or about the ring at all.”
“Right.”
“Because some ponies might come to the wrong conclusions like you did.”
“Sure.”
“Any questions?”
“Are you the maid of honour?”
“Of course not, Sweetie i-“ Twilight slapped her hoof over her mouth as Broken’s smirk cracked into an open grin. She glared at the stallion, and he started sniggering.
“So, wait, what’s going on?” Spike asked. Pip put his eye on the young dragon.
“I believe that Miss Applejack and Miss Rarity are to be married, but did not wish for anypony to know about it at this point. Miss Twilight is attempting to support their wishes, but Broken Shield is unwilling to.”
“Hey, weddings are happy occasions. Don’t see any reason to hide them.” Broken shrugged, then started giggling again. Twilight maintained a glower at him.
“Just don’t tell anypony. She was very clear on that point.” Twilight grabbed Broken in her magic, lifting and turning him to stare him in the eye. “Got it?”
“Got it.” Broken nodded furiously, his grin not leaving his face. Twilight maintained her hold on him.
“Are you… ‘mad’, right now?”
“Frustratingly so.” Broken’s eye twitched as he laughed breathlessly. “Had about a dozen urges to kill you since we left the Boutique. Really hard to hold them.” He barked another laugh before biting his lip. Pip positioned himself halfway between the stallion and Twilight, and Spike thumbed at the small emergency note tied to his wrist. Both stopped when Twilight waved her hoof at them.
“Broken, do you think you can calm yourself down?”
“Already trying.” The scarred stallion muttered, seeming to gag a few times after the words. He closed his eye and took several deep breaths, twitching and retching after each. Then he shook himself, breathed again, and went still.
“Broken?”
The white unicorn exhaled, opening his eye and staring at Twilight. “Feel better now.” She let him go, and he stumbled slightly as he landed. “Damn, I owe Path fifty bits.”
“He made a bet with you on your treatment?” Twilight asked, disgusted.
“No, I just said I’d pay him if that actually worked.” Broken stretched himself up and hitched his cloak around his shoulders. “Where are we going, anyways?”
“That’s up to you.” Twilight stopped the group as they reached the edge of the Everfree. Broken and the other two gave her almost-identical odd looks.
“What?”
“I want you to show me where the main Loyalist base was.”
“…What.” Broken raised a hoof to his head, glancing between Twilight and the forest. The mare cleared her throat.
“I had an idea on what to do with you while I was talking with Rarity. I want you to show us where the main base of the Loyalists was.”
“And why in Faust’s downy subplot would I be stupid enough to show you?” Broken threw his hoof from his head to the air. “The Everfree’s bucking dangerous, especially if you go off the path, and we stuck to the deepest parts because of that. You’re asking me to take you on an at-bare-minimum-one-point-five-hour-long hike through one of the most unnaturally-violent areas inside of Equestria to a spot that looks exactly like the rest of the hundred or so square kilometres surrounding it?” Twilight blinked, then nodded. “Why?”
“Because I think it’ll do you good to visit there, maybe spark some ideas or memories that you’ve forgotten. And I want to see the area for myself.”
Broken snorted. “Right, and why exactly should I show you the area that the Loyalists hid from Dawn in? So that when she comes out she knows where they are?”
Twilight ignored the ‘when’. “If Dawn appears, everypony’s going to be ready for her. I highly doubt that there’d need to be a secret hideout out here at all. Plus, I’m sure Pip knows where it is-“
“I do, Miss Twilight.”
“-and thus if you refuse I can just have him knock you out and drag you along.” Twilight gave Broken a grin, and after he recovered from his surprised look he gave her one back with a laugh.
“Right then. First we need supplies.” He glanced expectantly at Twilight’s saddlebags. The mare blinked, then facehoofed. Broken gave her an incredulous stare. “You didn’t bring-“
“Miss Twilight, I have a stash of supplies a fairly short distance from here. There is more than enough for a three hour Everfree hike.”
“That would be great, thank you Pip.” Twilight said quietly, still hiding her face in her hoof. The stallion nodded, disappearing for a minute before returning with several saddlebags and a dozen bottles of water strapped to him. Broken quickly walked over and checked the contents.
“Apples, carrots, wheatstalks, apples, apples…” Broken glanced at Pip. “Applejack know you’re poaching from her?”
“The apples here are wild-grown. None were obtained directly off of the trees of Sweet Apple Acres.”
“Why did you have a food stash in the first place, anyways?” Spike asked. Pip turned his head at the dragon.
“…My metabolic rate is somewhat lower than a regular pony’s, but I do require sustenance. Where did you think I obtained food from?”
“The library? I doubt Broken ate all the food he had Twilight buy.”
“You’d be surprised.” Broken closed the saddlebags, putting his focus back on Pipsqueak. “You bring something to mark the path?”
In response, Pip raised his hoof and placed it on a nearby tree. He shifted himself slightly, and there were suddenly several cracks and a hoof-shaped indent in the trunk of the unfortunate plant. The other three stared at the mark for several seconds before Broken laughed and glanced at Twilight.
Twilight’s ears flicked back as she took in their surroundings. The trees were dense, but scraggled; most were already dead and rotted, and the few that weren’t had withered leaves that seemed more likely to catch fire from the sunlight than absorb its energy. She ducked around a particularly sinisterly-hooked branch, the motion shaking the young dragon she’d put on her back.
“Are you sure we aren’t there yet?” Spike asked, yawning. “It’s been… two hours, at least.”
“One hour and fifty-seven minutes.” Pip said.
“Yeah, that.”
Broken stopped to swing a glare at the young dragon. “No. Like I said, it’s nearly identical to its surroundings. We might have passed it already. There was a single defining feature of it, apart from the doors and those were hidden anyways, and that feature might not exist yet.” Broken gave a mix of a cough and a laugh as Pip marked another tree, a large portion of the former plant disintegrating into a cloud of grey dust. “Faust, we’ve already passed by a few outposts, though those were just repurposed bear and manticore dens.”
“You didn’t mention them before now.” Twilight said.
“I didn’t need to. Not sure if they even were. Most of the bases had no idea where the others were; Applejack and I were the only two who knew most of them, and each of us had twenty or so locations that the other didn’t.”
Twilight gave the stallion a confused look. “Why would you need to keep secrets like that?”
Broken actually stopped walking, turning to stare at the mare as if she’d just asked him why the sun rose. “…I… in case one of us was compromised. Captured.” His mouth drew tight when she didn’t respond. “So that they couldn’t rat everypony out.”
“Oh.” Twilight blinked, her eyes softening. “…I’m sorry.” she said quietly. Broken blinked, shook himself, and scoffed.
“Nothing to be sorry about. Come on.” The stallion pushed forwards, shoving trees out of his way instead of moving around them. Twilight hurried herself, but slowed slightly when Pip appeared beside her.
“Do not worry, Miss Twilight – the base that Broken Shield was stationed at was in a small clearing with a sheer hill towards one side. We have not yet reached it.”
Twilight sighed. “I’m not worried about the place, Pipsqueak.” Her eyes shifted towards the sound of wood cracking and several half-shouted curses. Pip turned his head slightly.
“You do not need to apologize to him, Miss Twilight. You did not intend for him to become angered, thus you are not culpable for his state.”
“He’s not angry, Pip, he’s scared. And scarred…. Do you know how many of those are from, from torture, that he suffered when he was Dawn’s prisoner?”
Pip was silent for a few seconds. “If my memory serves correctly, approximately sixty percent. Forty from direct interrogation, twenty from Lady Gaia’s ministrations.” He blinked. “The majority of the rest came from his second apprehension into our custody.”
Twilight had to fight both the bile rising in her throat and the desire to violently meet her hoof to her face. “That was rhetorical, Pipsqueak…”
“My apologies, Miss Twilight.” The earth pony shook his head. “In point of fact, that estimate may be incorrect. When I think back… there are easily discernable points in my memory that I am unable to recall. Blank spots that are surrounded by clear memories.” His mouth thinned. “To think that I did not notice them before…”
“You probably did, and just didn’t realize what they were.” Spike hopped off of Twilight’s back, having to jog to keep up while he moved to poke Pip in the shoulder. “Dawn messed with you. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I am not ashamed of my lack of recognition of these areas, but my lack of relation of them to Miss Twilight. Had she been aware of them sooner, she may have been able to provide me with her aid in a more secure and sound fashion than my actions forced her into. And the information that I’ve lost from them could be greatly beneficial in ensuring that Lady Dawn does not succeed in her tyrannical attempts.”
“Pipsqueak, please don’t worry about it.” Twilight leaned so that she could stare the other pony in the eye. “I probably wouldn’t have done any better even if I had known, and there’s really nothing we can do about it now.” When Pip didn’t respond, Twilight pressed on. “How about we focus on what you can remember, then when we find a blank spot, we try to fix it or fill it in with the surrounding information. Even if we’re missing some pieces, your recollections are probably better than Broken’s.”
“Yeah. Better to have a chess set with some missing pawns than one that’s been used as a dragon’s teether.” Spike said, panting slightly from keeping up with his longer-legged companions. Twilight re-placed him on her back as Pip slowed, looking almost contemplative.
“I… believe that I understand the comparison.” he said, blinking. “Is there anything of particular interest to you at this moment, Miss Twilight?”
“Er, a few things to start…” Twilight took in a breath. “Why was Dawn an alicorn?”
Pip took several seconds to reply. “I… believe that it was due to the idea that it would be easier for the common pony to follow an alicorn during the transition from a diarchy to a democracy, as well as that the Draconians and the Gryphonians would be more willing to deal with an alicorn than a ‘common stock’ pony.” He shook his head rapidly, as if to get water out of his mane. “I recall her speaking to Rarity and Rainbow Dash about it, although I cannot recall the specific words used.”
“Do you know what she did? To become an alicorn again?”
“I do not. She performed the required actions between Luna’s death and the assault on Canterlot, but I was…” Pip blinked. “My apologies, Miss Twilight. I do not recall anything between Luna’s death and a point several days before the assault, at which time Lady Dawn had already returned to alicorndom.”
Twilight sighed. “Don’t worry about it, Pip, we can get that one later. Do you know how Dawn moved the sun and moon after she killed Celestia and Luna?”
“Yes, Miss Twilight.” Pip’s reply was quicker for this topic. “Lady Dawn, to the best of my knowledge, utilized the magic of many of the former nobility, as part of their punishments for their actions against the common pony, to power a continuous spell that regulated the movement of the moon.”
“And the sun?”
“No, Miss Twilight.” Pip cleared his throat, glancing in the direction of Broken’s cussing. “Lady Dawn stated that, especially in light of the intense magical energy required to move the moon, moving the sun would be incredibly impractical. Instead, she created a spell that would cause the planet to spin at an approximate speed to match the twenty-four-hour day-night cycle, such that it would resemble the sun’s continued movement.”
Twilight blinked. “So it was easier to just let the sun sit where it was and move Equestria instead?”
“Apparently, Miss Twilight. According to Lady Dawn, the only other option was to place a spell similar to the one between Equestria and the moon, but in reverse.”
Both Spike and Twilight gave incredulous looks at the stallion. Spike spoke up first.
“Dawn would have made Equestria rotate around the sun?”
“The entire planet, in fact.”
“Wouldn’t everypony have noticed that they were moving all of a sudden? The tides and clouds would get messed up by that, right, Twilight?”
“One would think so…” Twilight’s brow had furrowed, trying to process all of the differences in the world had such a near-blasphemic system been in place.
“While I agree that both options sound fairly unrealistic, I can assure you that there was no noticeable difference in the movement of the sun and moon after Celestia’s death.” Pip’s ear tipped. “Were there any other points, Miss Twilight?”
Twilight started to shake her head, then blinked. “Was Dawn aware of the timeline spells? What could be done with them, I mean?”
“I… believe so, Miss Twilight.” Pip took a breath. “While the modern research into the theory was kept fairly quiet, especially in regards to actual transportation between timelines, Star Swirl’s reason for suicide was relatively well-known. It is likely that the Twilight Sparkle of my timeline was tested for aptitude in regards to timeline viewing during her tutelage under Celestia, but I can assure you that she did not possess any ability herself.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Pip blinked. “If she had the ability, Miss Twilight, I doubt that she would have employed-“
The stallion seemed to freeze, cutting off his speech and stopping his step in the same moment. He began moving again within a second, stumbling almost imperceptibly as he adjusted for his bizarre action.
“Pip?” Twilight asked. The stallion blinked again, glancing at her.
“Yes, Miss Twilight?”
“…is everything alright?”
“I am… not sure, Miss Twilight.” He shook his head. “I cannot recall the last minute of our discussion.”
Twilight quickly moved over to him, motioning for him to lower his head. A quick tap of her horn showed a bright – and rather thin - thread coursing along his brain. Twilight swore rather loudly.
“Miss Twilight?” Pip asked, his ears tilting. The mare glanced at him and took a few breaths.
“I- ergh. We... might have just put another thread on your mind, Pip. Or activated an old one. Sorry.”
“Oh.” Pip blinked, then shrugged. “Do not worry, Miss Twilight. I have lived with them before.”
“Yeah, but-“ Twilight cut off with another angry growl, taking another few breaths. “Pip, you said something about why you knew Dawn couldn’t do timeline magic.”
“I may well have, Miss Twilight.” The stallion nodded. “But-“
“You said something about employing. Somepony, by how you were saying it.”
At this, Pip shifted. A small flex in his neck, a stillness beyond his normal.
“I… I may have, Miss Twilight…”
“Do you have any idea who you might have been talking about?”
Pip swallowed, his breath somewhat strained. Spike tapped Twilight on the shoulder.
“I think you’re getting into bad territory, Twi…”
The mare stared at Spike before she blinked and shifted her eyes between the dragon and the stallion. She shook herself before tapping Pip on the side of the head.
“Pipsqueak? Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to answer if you’re having trouble.”
The stallion exhaled in what Twilight could have quantified as a sigh. “Thank you, Mil- Miss Twilight.”
“It’s not a problem, Pip.” Twilight gave him a soft smile, which – much to her surprise – he returned. It fell with hers, however, as she felt an idea click.
“Pipsqueak, I’m going to ask you a few questions. Tell me if you can’t answer them.”
“As you say, Miss Twilight.”
“Do you know who Dawn ‘employed’?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me?”
“…no.”
“Can you tell me who they are if I say their name?”
Pip blinked, squinting. “I… do not believe so.”
“Are you sure?”
“Thinking about that suggestion gave me a headache, Miss Twilight.”
“Buck.” Twilight muttered, tapping her hoof to her chin. “Okay, don’t worry about that. New topic. I want you to list off everypony you know of that worked closely with Dawn.”
“Miss-“
“Ah-ah!” Twilight held a hoof up. “Don’t think, just do.”
“As you say, Miss Twilight…” Pip’s brow was furrowed, but he nonetheless followed her instruction. “There was Sir Spike, Rainbow Dash, Lady Thalia, Lady Gaia, Rarity, Sir Crimson Lash, myself, Pet, President Writ Note, Prime Minister-“
“Hold it!” Twilight put a hoof on the stallion’s snout. “’Pet’?”
“Erm, yes, Miss Twilight. I believe that I’ve mentioned her before…”
“I haven’t heard about her, though.” Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Who was she?”
Pipsqueak tilted his head. “Pet was a mare that Lady Dawn employed as a personal assistant, ostensibly to allow me to better perform my primary duty as First Guard. She typically served in a role similar to a hoofmaiden, although she also aided Lady Dawn in her experiments and was sexually involved with her.”
Twilight could feel her cheeks flush, and she heard Spike groan. She shook herself before asking her next question.
“What was her name?”
“Miss Twilight?”
“I’m pretty sure that she wasn’t actually named ‘Pet’. Do you know what her real name was? Can you give me a description of her, what she looked like, acted like, what her cutie mark was?”
Pip blinked, several times, and Twilight could see the muscles in his throat tense. She quickly put her hoof on his shoulder, catching his attention to her before his attack could worsen.
“Remember, if you can’t answer, that’s okay, Pipsqueak.”
“My… apologies, Mi-” An exhale and an inhale. “There is a… a very sharp blank spot… surrounding Pet’s identity. Miss Twilight.”
Twilight tilted her ears. “Okay, don’t worry about it, we can-”
“The buck’s taking you?” Broken’s voice called a few seconds before the pony himself appeared. He glanced at the ponies (and dragon) with a scowl. “We’ve wasted enough time-“
“Broken, who was ‘Pet’?” Twilight overtalked the stallion. He cut off with a strangled sound, his eye widening slightly before it turned to focus on Pip.
“What the buck did you tell her?!?”
“Nothing significant, Broken Shield. My memory regarding her seems to have been… censored.”
The scarred stallion let out a sigh. “Oh, thank Faust…”
“Hey!” Twilight shouted. Both Pip and Broken turned to her. “Who. Was. She?”
Pip glanced at Broken. Broken shrugged.
“Pet was the… pony, I guess, that Dawn kept around as her personal plaything. Completely broken, heh, worse than Pip, wouldn’t even talk about herself properly; it was ‘Mistress says Pet is this’ or ‘Mistress is mad that you won’t talk to Pet’ or ‘Pet isn’t allowed to do that’… Dawn had taken her and bent her, tortured, until she was entirely dependent on the bitch.”
Twilight could hear Spike give a small growl. She squared her gaze on Broken.
“Keep going.”
“Dawn ‘got’ her around four or five years in. I met her during my second stay in the dungeons, about three years later.” Broken scoffed angrily. “Dawn had sent her down as the ‘hugs and alcohol’ good cop to Cotton Candy’s ‘cut out your ribs and mark a roadmap on your hide’ bad cop.” He licked under his lips, feeling over his dentures with his tongue. “Gaia and Lash replaced her after a few months, but she came to visit every once in a while.”
“Do you know what she did?”
“Besides act as a living sextoy? She was Dawn’s guinea pig. Every time I met her she looked different. Blue coat, green coat, horn, no horn, wings, no wings…” Broken trailed off. “Her cutie marks had been burned off, but other than the scars everything seemed to be changeable.”
“She was an alicorn?”
“Unicorn with wings.” Broken corrected, almost casually. “She had wings and a horn, usually, but she was not an alicorn. The wings weren’t even functional half the time, and her magic ability was pitiful the few times it was present.”
Twilight glanced at Pip. He swallowed, blinking, but held his tongue. Broken tapped his hoof on his eyepatch, letting out a rough sigh.
“The only thing she could do properly, in regards to magic, was the timelines.”
“Excuse me?!” Twilight’s eyes bugged out, and both she and Spike were glancing between a stone-faced Broken and a suddenly-breathing Pip. The latter coughed and spoke.
“Pet was the pony that enabled Broken Shield’s, and my, transfer across the branches of time, Miss Twilight.”
“I got that, Pip, but- Ju-just… what the buck?!” The mare shouted. She could see a red haze in the corner of her eyes. “Neither of you thought she was important enough to tell me about her?!”
“In my case, Miss Twilight, you hadn’t asked about her, she was insignificant in the areas of discussion that I was involved in prior to this point, and I seemed to have been disabled from informing you on her status until just now.” Pip glanced at Broken. “Broken Shield, on the other hoof-“
“I was actively avoiding talking about her, I sincerely hoped you didn’t know who she was, and I was more focused on ensuring that you couldn’t hop to another branch over giving you information on the pony that would allow you to do so.” Broken shrugged as Twilight’s glare darkened.
“Broken, you know can’t do that.”
“Why not? Seems to be a pretty good idea to me.” Broken’s eye spasmed in Pip’s direction. “The less you two know about how to destroy this world, the better.”
“I-“
“But, given what I promised Celestia…” Broken sighed. “I’ll tell you when we get to the clearing.”
“…and how long will that take?” Twilight asked cautiously. Without taking his eye off of her, Broken’s horn glowed; the path he’d made coming back to them had a tube of magic formed through it, crushing the foliage and leaving a rather flat path to a treeless area not fifty metres away.
“Oh would you look at that isn’t that convenient.” The unicorn stallion said, monotone and grinning at Twilight and Spike’s surprise. He twirled rather theatrically, letting his cloak give a small flutter before starting down the newly-cleared path. “Come along, kids.”
Shining’s eye cracked open at the voice, sending shards of pain bursting into his skull. His first sight was several blurs of grey and black, cut across by a line of white; he could hear somepony breathing to his left, shifting their weight as he came into consciousness. There was pain – everywhere, there was pain - but not enough to matter.
Black. Screams. Red. Roar. Flame.
Cry.
Her.
Shining drew in a ragged breath, straining his neck as he did so; the wound there opened slightly, enough that he could feel the cotton over it wet within seconds. He shifted himself, curled up to the small degree that he could, felt each bandage along his corpse twist and pull as they tried to keep him still, heavier lengths above them that did keep him still. He let the breath out in a strangled cry.
The pony next to him moved, placing a wing on a shoulder that had been torn apart not two weeks before.
“Big Brother? Shiny, are you okay?”
The voice pulled him back. He uncurled, straightening as best he could whilst chained to a hospital bed. His eye opened again, fully, putting his gaze upon a purple mockery of a deceased tribe.
“Hello, Shining Armor.” Twili- NOT HER ¬– Dawn said, giving him a soft smile that was terrifying in its sincerity. “How are you feeling today?”
Shining opened his mouth. Coughed and gagged. Spat the bloody phlegm his throat spawned at her.
“Shining, please, there’s no need for that.” Dawn shook her head as if she was admonishing a foal, cutting the barrier she’d blocked the spittle with. “I was hoping that we could remain civil today.”
The stallion took in a painful breath, tried to lift himself to face her evenly; he fell back as a chain crushed against his broken ribs, breathing somewhat heavily from the effort. He kept his eye open throughout, holding her gaze with his as he recovered.
“Fuck…” he managed to say through his clenching teeth “…you.”
“Shiny-“
“Fuck. You… You murderous… sadistic… gaping… cu-” Shining coughed up another bloody clump and spat it at her hooves; several bloody spots stained her coat before she could step away. He put his head back on his wooden pillow, glaring at her through a drowning eye.
Dawn simply closed her eyes and sighed. “I’ll have Dr. Shelter increase your medication; you’ve always been irritable when you’re sick.”
“Drugs… won’t make me talk. Bitch.” Shining felt his mouth and throat get more comfortably wet, accompanied by the distinct taste of copper. Dawn stared at him, and Shining could almost see confusion in her face before she shook her head.
“This isn’t… I don’t want to drug you, Shining, I want you to feel better. I’m trying to help you, to, to show you that I’m not the monster you seem to think that I am. I’m here as your sister, Sh-”
Shining barked out a laugh, something that surprised both of them. He managed to keep it going, though, plastering on a flat smile and shaking his forelegs beneath the chains.
“My sister is dead.” He said, his eye still locked on the mare’s. “Just like everypony else you killed.”
Dawn seemed to freeze for several seconds. When she moved again, she took several breaths, increasing in depth and intensity; to Shining’s ears, there was a distinct raggedness behind them. Her voice, however, was still smooth.
“I’ve never meant to harm anypony, Shining, not since the Revolution began…”
“Of course you haven’t. I’m sure the Princesses… my wife… can testify to that.” Shining snarled.
“No! No, the Princesses weren’t willing to peacefully resign their power. They incited the violence, they brought justice upon their own heads. Cadance… she was an unfortunate accident, and I-I know what you saw, Shining,” she said, speaking over his attempted interruption, “and I promise you that it was not as it appeared.”
Shining spat another lob of blood. “And the camps? Are those ‘not what they appeared’ too? What, were you looking for a cure for cancer by starving and butchering those zebras? How to, to regrow a limb by ripping the wings off of the gryphons?”
“Yes!” Dawn’s statement was sharp, as if the question was an argument in her favour. “The starvation was due to mismanagement of supplies – the first camp you ‘liberated’ was amongst the worst in that aspect, if not for you I’d’ve had to deal with them myself - but we are studying tumour growth and cellular recovery, and those who died, be they zebra, gryphon, donkey, or pony, did so with the knowledge that their sacrifice was to help the thousands, millions, who do and will suffer otherwise!
“And there was so much else that they were used for! Such contributions they made where they would have previously wallowed in the refuse of pony society!” Dawn had the gall to go misty-eyed in her memories, gaining a smile that was equal parts inspired and insane. “Without the wing structure of the gryphons and pegasi, the bone and musculature from the donkeys and earth ponies, the horn and root samples from the unicorns, the physiological similarities of the zebras to us… there could never have been proper tests, no true examination of the effects of transplants nor the capability for growth! Through the sacrifice of those who could not meet Faust’s harmonious design, we have become closer to Her than ever before, we have a chance to truly unite the tribes in Her image! Don’t you see, Shining?!”
Shining stared at the mare in honest confusion. “…no.”
Dawn blinked several times over a frozen expression, as if she was trying to process what he’d just said.
“No? But… oh. Oh! Of course! Bah, I completely forgot!” The mare turned away and took several sharp steps to the door. She turned back to him when she reached it, fixing him with an almost foalish look of excitement.
“I have somepony very important that I want you to meet, Shining Armor.”
Dawn took several steps back towards him, her horn glowing as the door opened with a loud shriek. Behind it stood a mare, who shrank back from his gaze as soon as it locked on her. She tiphoofed into the room, crossing the short distance to Dawn as quickly and quietly as she could; with her movement, Shining could see the bandages on her flanks and the wings behind her shoulders.
Which wouldn’t have been a problem, had she not also had a horn on her head.
“Shining, I’d like you to meet Pet.” Dawn nuzzled the neck of the mare, causing her to blush through her coat and hide behind Dawn even further than she had been. “A promise fulfilled to those who gave their lives, a living proof of the Revolution’s truth and a living argument against tribal disharmony… and an incredibly attractive mare, besides.”
“Mistress, you speak too highly of your Pet…” the mare said, almost too soft for Shining to hear.
“Oh, hush, my dear. I spoke no falsehoods.” Dawn gave the mare a smile before turning back to Shining. “While I wish to see to your treatment personally, Shining, there are far too many other areas where I am needed. As such, I shall have Pet visit you in my place over the next few weeks, alongside some other… checkups and interviews, from other ponies. It is my hope that, with our aid, you will come to see the greatness of the Revolution that you have so long been blinded to.”
Shining heard the mare’s voice. The words entered his ears, and they may have actually been recognized on some subconscious level. At the moment, however, the entirety of the stallion’s conscious mind was locked on the young mare that Dawn had brought in.
The blue-maned, pink-coated, alicorn mare.
“Daddy?”
“Shining?” Dawn asked, giving him an apparently-concerned glance. “Are you-“
“Dazzle?”
Shining tried to speak, but his throat was closed. He stepped forward, his eye locked on the other pony.
Dawn and the other mare both seemed to jump at his voice. The former seemed to hold a mix of confusion and fear, as if she hadn’t expected him to react; the latter looked at him with eyes of confusion and concern, taking a step out from behind her guardian. Shining lifted himself up as much as he could, trying to get as much of her into his vision as possible.
There was a small click and hiss, and he felt himself flying, a concussion of flame and heat surrounding him.
“D-Dazzle?” Shining blinked and began to laugh, only slightly aware of the several trails of wetness coursing down his face and completely unaware of the increasing concern of both mares. “Listen, sweetie, y-you need to stay safe, okay? Daddy’s just a little banged up, but I’m gonna get better real quick and then we’re gonna get out of here.”
“Shining?” Dawn asked again, one of her wings reaching out to pull the other mare back. The stallion’s eye shifted to her.
Ringing ears and blurred vision. Smell of smoke and burning hair. Tasting blood, feeling nothing. His eye locked on the form in front of him.
“You? D-did you save her?” Shining tried to lean, to get his eye around her, but the chains held him down. His eye fell on Dawn’s wing before shooting up to the mare’s face. “I-I don’t… please, don’t hurt her, she’s not a part of any of this. Just… please, just let her go, I, I’ll stay, just-“
“Shining…” Dawn said, her voice wet. “Shining, this isn’t Dazzle. Y-you know that.”
“No, no, no lies, Dawn!” Shining shook himself, straining to break loose from the chains that held him to the bed. “I can see her! Give her back!”
She was laying there, not moving, her coat and mane stained in blood, too much blood.
“Shining, Dazzle’s dea-“
“GIVE HER BACK!”
Shining lurched forward, his chains tearing into his barrel as he swung the stump of his horn at the larger mare. He felt what was left of his horn light up, and he blindly threw several blades of magic before a shield slipped over him. His shoulders, ribs, skull all burned past the painkillers, nearly every bandaged wound had opened again, but he ignored the agony as his vision remained locked on the mares. The door opened to Dawn’s magic, a cream-coloured blur entering the room and reaching Shining nearly instantaneously. The stallion had several moments before a hoof struck his temple and forced him back into unconsiousness; several moments to watch as Dawn pulled the other alicorn through the door.
Shining heard himself scream as Dawn stole his daughter away.
“No.” A rough sound, bordered in a sigh. “No, she… she was somepony else. Too old, too… it wasn’t her. Apparently, she thought matching colours with Dazzle would be a nice birthday present.” A wet laugh. “They just… didn’t get around to changing them again, when I was captured.”
“Broken, I-“
“Miss Twilight- er, if I may…” A glance between the stallions. A nod. “Miss Twilight, Princess Dazzle… died, in the same incident that allowed Dawn to recapture Shining Armor.” A small pause. “I-in point of fact, the official claim was that Shining Armor himself had-“
A flat voice. “Dawn told everypony that I’d done it. She told me, halfway dead from that Faust-damned bomb, that I’d killed my own daughter.”
“…oh.”
A heavier silence.
“No.” A smaller voice, previously silent. “That doesn’t… why would you do that?! How could anypony believe that you did?!”
“Sir Spike, Princess Dazzle had spoken out against her father’s violent resistance several hours prior to her death. It was explained that, given Shining’s insanity and his hatred for Dawn and the Revolution, her speech had blinded him to reason and caused him to believe that she was not truly the Princess – that she was either an impostor, or under Compulsion.” An inhalation. “In hindsight, a weak excuse, but Dawn’s word and Shining’s status were such that none questioned it.”
“But… but-“
A hoarse voice. “There was a bit of a precedent that she played along with it. Your death made my sister start the Revolution. Apple Bloom’s and Sweetie Belle’s fractured the Elements. Pip’s parents led to his killing Luna. not just capture her. Luna’s made Celestia destroy Appleloosa and Manehatten. My wife’s made me want to kill the mare my sister had become. If I thought that I’d lost Dazzle … who knows what I’d do?” A shattered smile, then a hidden head. “I’m not entirely sure she was wrong, at that…”
Once more, a silence.
“Celestia destroyed Manehatten and Appleloosa?” Two heads turned, a third shaking. “Wait, no, that’s not important right now. Buck, I’m sorry, Broken-“
“No.” A quick breath. “No, you need to know. Celestia wanted everything, right? This is important.”
“But you were-“
“Please, Twilight.”
“…it’s your call, Broken.”
---
Shining Armor stepped lightly into the remnants of Luna’s rooms, making little sound even as he placed a barrier around the doorway. The Princess didn’t appear to notice him; she sat on what was left of the carpet, staring out of the gaping hole left by the dragon’s claw. Several pebbles rolled down past her as Shining moved forward, skidding down the incline that the floor had broken in half to form. Celestia remained still even as he stepped up beside her, and Shining noticed with an icy lance through his stomach that her hooves – and parts of her wings – were still caked in blood.
The two stayed in silence for some time, watching the sun slowly rise. Only when it reached its pinnacle did the Princess speak.
“Give me your report, Captain.”
“M-my report, Princess?” Shining blinked, looking the alicorn in the eye for a moment before he realized she’d turned her head to face him. She gave him a smile, a genuine, serene smile, and her eyes were dead above it.
“Of course, Captain. That is what I called you here for.”
Shining had been called by castle staff after Celestia had left her chambers for the first time in three weeks. He glanced at her again, but she wasn’t looking towards him anymore.
“Oh. Erm, yes, of course, Princess. My apologies.” Shining coughed. “There was a small insurrection in Vanhoover, but we managed to put it down quickly. The rebels seem to have lost momentum; Twilight hasn’t assaulted any towns, and we’ve managed to get several back under control. Including Dodge Junction, in fact, which should give us an inroad to an assault on Appleloosa.”
“Truly wonderful news.” Her voice was still soft, level, toneless.
“Er, yes, it is-“
“What of your meeting with the rebel leaders in Manehatten?”
The lance of ice ripped up from Shining’s belly to his brain. “The… the meeting, your Highness?”
“Come now, Shining. You must have just gotten back, I cannot imagine that you’ve forgotten so quickly. Did Twilight respond to Cadance’s pleas?”
Shining hadn’t forgotten. Twilight had sat while Cadance talked to her, and while Luna had Voiced at her. Then she’d held a hoof up, the room exploded in green flame, and every local guardspony present started trying to kill them. By the time they’d gotten to the streets, half of his force was dead and half of Manehatten was on fire. They’d fled, and Twilight – her monster - had followed.
Shining took a slow step towards the doorway, strengthening the barrier over it.
“Are… are you feeling well, Princess?”
“Of course, Shining. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Prin-“
“This is a lovely little area, I must say.” Celestia had moved her head, turning to cast her eyes over the destroyed room. Her voice remained as it was, her eyes as they were, her smile never faltering. “Such a nice view. I’m surprised I’ve never seen it before.” She exhaled. “Luna would love this view at night.”
“I- I’m sure she would. Princess.” Shining nodded slowly, his voice careful.
Celestia blinked, for the first time that Shining had seen, but her eyes stayed dull as they turned to him.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I interrupted you. What is the status of Manehatten?”
Shining stared at the alicorn. “It… it’s under rebel control, unfortunately, your Highness. We were… unable to negotiate for peace.”
“I see.” Celestia said, her voice unchanged. There were several seconds of silence before she spoke again. “There aren’t any guardsponies left loyal to my rule?”
“N-none that we’re aware of, your Highness.”
“Hmm.” Celestia put her eyes back out over the landscape. “And Appleloosa is entirely rebel-controlled as well?”
Shining was about to respond when there was a sudden darkness; he glanced up, squinting, watching as the sun emerged from behind a cloud. It seemed… different. Too dark, a sunset’s orange at noon. He blinked several times and shook his head, putting his eyes back towards Celestia.
“Yes, your Highness.” Shining took a breath. “Princess, are you certain that you’re alright?”
Celestia turned to look at him again, and he saw a flicker of something behind her eyes. When she spoke, her voice crawled, dragging something wet behind it.
“Oh, yes, Shining. I’m perfectly fine.” She turned back to the landscape, leaning forward, spreading her wings slightly. “I think I can see Appleloosa from here.”
Then the world went dark.
Shining brought his foreleg to cover his eyes as Celestia’s horn gained an instant radiance, bright enough to completely obscure the alicorn. Past his cannon and through the glare, he could see into the sky again; it was dark enough to see the stars, a purple-with-blue-spots background to a red sun. A roaring took up in Shining’s hearing, then over it an inequine wail like nothing he’d heard before.
From the red sun emerged two white lines, each three times its breadth, too bright to actually see beyond the wide V-shaped afterimage they seared behind Shining’s eyelids. He screwed his eyes shut and glanced away, throwing his hooves to his ears and his head to the floor as the shriek grew, louder and louder until it suddenly cut, small whispers marking the scream’s death. The roar crescendoed seconds later, maintaining its dull volume for several seconds before gradually fading. Shining glanced up through narrowed, stinging eyes, finding Celestia still sitting, looking out over Equestria, her gaze for the first time focussed on a single point. What was left of the carpet was being eaten by small cords of flame, but Shining’s attention was more occupied with the same view that Celestia’s was.
One of the white lines had gone on past Shining’s sight, out on an angle behind Canterlot; despite its disappearance, Shining could see a residue of it, a flat path of sky a slightly different shade than its surroundings. The other had gone straight south, its path curving downwards until it met the horizon. There, a vibrant pillar was shooting back into the sky, blasting wide holes into the clouds above it. The pillar shrank as Shining watched, becoming hair-thin before simply fading away. The area under it still shone, however; from it, a gigantic plume of ash and earth, interlaced with bursts of orange flames, rose to replace the solar ray.
Shining could feel the doorway barrier drop as his mind struggled to comprehend the scene in front of him. Celestia stood and turned to face him, her visage still serene despite what she’d done.
“Yes, I do believe that my sister would like this view.” The alicorn walked casually past Shining, stopping at the doorframe. “If it slips my mind, Captain, be sure to remind her to come here after she raises the moon this evening.”
Before Shining could respond, could hear her, could devote enough mental processes to recognize exactly what was wrong with her request, the Princess had gone.
---
Broken took a heavy breath, making the only noise of the group in doing so. He seemed to be watching Twilight, but when she didn’t move, he continued.
“There was a… about a month, between then and Canterlot’s fall. Everypony was… there were mass rebellions in every city and town with a name. Half of the Canterlot Guard resigned, half the Equestrian Guard, nearly the entire castle staff stopped coming in. Celestia didn’t notice, kept going like… like everything was normal, which only made the situation worse.” A swallow. “On the other hoof, the Inquisition evapourated overnight, so…” He laughed, weakly, before continuing.
“I had to look up the millennial histories to figure out what she did. A ‘solar flare’, the same kind that she used to weaken Nightmare Moon enough to send her to the moon. Taking a portion of the sun’s energy and bringing it down to Equestria. Enough force to turn Manehatten into a bay and the sand twenty kilometres from Appleloosa to molten glass.
“If I had known she was… if I’d known that she was going to, was able to, do something like that, I would have taken precautions. Put a shield over the hole instead of the door. A lock on her horn. More guards with me. More guards with Luna. Not allowed her to castrate Labores Solis when Luna returned. Something-“ his voice caught “-something that might have caught her up, even if only for a second, or stopped her from getting to that point at all. Then, then I wouldn’t have sent Cadance and Dazzle away, I could have kept them there, I could have protected them-”
Broken took several heavy breaths, his eye darting wildly around. It fell on Twilight as she stood; the mare slowly walked up to him, keeping his eye locked to hers. When she reached the stallion, she simply stared at him for a few moments before raising a hoof and putting it on his shoulder.
“You did everything you could, Broken.”
The stallion stared at her for a few seconds before he barked a laugh. He grabbed her hoof and shifted it off of him, shaking himself before taking several steps away.
“I think we’ve been out here long enough.” Broken turned to face Twilight. “If I’m going to keep going with Pet, I want to do it where everypony else can hear. Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack… everypony.”
Twilight gave him a somewhat confused stare. “Er, I’m not exactly complaining, but… why?”
The stallion gave an almost amused grin. “Come on now, Twilight.” he said, glancing between her, Spike, and Pip. “Wouldn’t you want to hear, first-hoof, how you died?”
Twilight cast a glance over the gathered ponies. Rainbow Dash, having asked the question, was looking at her in an almost angry confusion, while Applejack appeared closer to exasperated; Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity each wore near-identical looks of worry, though individually directed at Twilight, Rainbow, and Applejack, respectively. Twilight took a breath.
“That’s what he said. Apparently Pet and the timeline jump are ‘intimately related’ to how everypony here dies.”
“Well, yeah. Didn’t he say his timeline collapsed? I don’t really know much about this stuff, but the universe falling apart kinda sounds not survivable.”
“Oh, it isn’t.” The other five jumped as the voice suddenly appeared behind them; Twilight just blinked and turned her head. Broken grinned and gave her an almost impressed look as he entered with Pip and Spike. “I don’t have first-hoof experience, obviously, but the two leading hypotheses were ‘complete disassembly of everything in the universe at the subatomic level’ and ‘everything in the universe pulled into an infinitely small and long line.’”
“So that’s it, right?” Rainbow did a low flight over to Broken, landing a short distance from the stallion and giving him a light glare. “We either got shredded or stretched. You could have just told Twilight that, you know.”
Broken stared blankly at the pegasus before closing his eye and planting his hoof below his horn. “I said that’s what happened when the timeline collapsed. I didn’t say that you lived to see that.”
“An’ how, precisely, would you know we didn’t?” Applejack interjected over Rainbow’s attempted response. “Assumin’ y’didn’t kill us yerself, of course, which is a pretty big assumption, Ah’ll admit.”
“No, no, you’re halfway right.” Broken grinned. “I’m fairly sure that didn’t directly kill any of you, but everypony except probably Applejack and maybe Rarity would have survived without my activities. Dawn… Dawn might have made it through everything, I can’t exactly say.” The stallion’s eye twitched, and he took a breath before turning to Twilight. “I’m assuming everypony’s caught up, then?”
“As much as they can be.” Twilight replied. Broken nodded.
“Right, then. First-“
Rainbow coughed. “Hold on. I have a few more questions.”
Broken blinked. “Ask, then.”
“Are you sure you don’t know who Pet was?”
“Yes. I thought Twilight would have established that.”
“But if you tested all those unicorns for how well they could do timeline stuff, then wouldn’t it have been kinda noticeable if one of them had their special talent in it?”
Broken blinked again, rather deliberately, and brought his hoof to his temple. “…Pet’s special talent wasn’t timeline jumping. Nopony’s was, otherwise we’d’ve had lifelong blankflank unicorns up until the practice was developed.”
“But you said she couldn’t do any magic very well except for the timeline stuff. Isn’t unicorn magic power strongest for your special talent? And how did Dawn know Pet could do timelines in the first place if you got rid of everything related to the research on it?”
“First, Twilight was part of the research team, she probably had a list of the ponies who were exceptionally strong in it, not to mention copies of the reports. And I said that the only magic Pet could do properly was timeline magic. She could’ve been stronger in something else, like illusion or thermal manipulation, but…” the stallion sighed. “...listen, when Dawn hired her, or captured her, or however Dawn obtained her, she had Cotton Candy cut off Pet’s cutie marks. Just… just took a knife, skinned her flanks, burned the wounds shut. Forced her to wear covers over them so that nopony could see. Whatever Pet’s talent was, Dawn didn’t want anypony to remember it. Including Pet herself.” He shifted his hoof to his eye, rubbing it harshly. “You need to understand, Pet was basically invented by Dawn. There was, little, if anything, left from whoever she’d been before, and that includes what she knew about magic. She could do timelines properly because they were the all-but-one of the only spells Dawn had ever taught her.”
Rainbow nodded, grimacing. Broken glanced around the room; when no other questions were raised, he began.
“They gave me a week off, to recover from... our first meeting. No Dawn, no Pet, nopony except the doctors.” A grimace. “When that week was up…”
---
The door opened. Shining didn’t look; had he wanted to, the metal brace around his neck wouldn’t have allowed it. He simply listened as a pony walked, slowly, to his bedside.
“Sir Shining?” A mare’s voice asked. Slowly, the stallion’s eye turned, finding a green mare giving him a questioning look and a careful smile.
An alicorn giving him a look and smile.
Shining closed his eye tightly. He turned himself (as much as he could) away from the mare, taking a sharp breath as the chains pulled at his fresher injuries.
“Sir Shining?” The mare tried again.
Shining ignored her.
“Sir Shining, I have a message from Mistress Dawn for you.”
Shining growled, but didn’t speak.
“Sir Shining?”
Silence again. The mare stayed still for several moments before leaning in to whisper beside Shining’s ear.
“Sir Shining, Mistress Dawn told me to bring in Lady Thalia if you were bei-“
Quicker than he likely should have, Shining swung himself around, rolling close to the edge before the chains dug into his wounds to catch him; the bite of steel into flesh made him hiss. When he opened his eye again the mare had moved several steps away from him, shrinking back further as his gaze fell on her. Her wings flexed forward almost as if to block an attack; the horn on her head sputtered, but didn’t do anything that Shining could see.
Probably pegasus raised, then.
“What’s wrong? Scared of the big bad Loyalist?” The mare didn’t move beyond a slight lowering of wings. Shining gave a growl. “Tell me what the bitch wants.”
“The… the ‘bitch’?” the mare asked, her head tilting.
“Dawn.”
“Mistress is not-“
Shining twitched his bandaged ear. “If you came in to talk, you’ll need to come closer. I can’t hear much past the gauze.”
The mare stared at him for a few seconds before she seemed to remember that she could move; when that happened, she quickly nodded and took a single step towards him. Shining gave her a flat gaze before sighing.
“That’s… better…” Shining coughed. “You were saying?”
“Mistress Dawn is not a ‘bitch’, Sir Shining.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Female dogs usually just eat what they kill, not bring it back, claim it’s alive again, and use it to murder thousands of others whilst inspiring rebellion, murdering the rightful rulers of a formerly-peaceful land, and installing themselves as incompetent dictators.” Shining gained a grin as the mare’s eye twitched. “A real insult to bitches, that comparison. Now what was that about an ‘audience’?”
“Ahem.” The mare rather deliberately cleared her throat. “I-in any case, you have a busy day planned, Sir Shining. Mistress Dawn wishes for you to receive a tour of the castle-“
Shining cut the mare off with a barking laugh. “I have no need to ‘tour’ the place I raised my family.”
“There have been changes since you left, Sir Shining-“
“Unless you plan to kill me with them or let me escape using them, there aren’t any changes I give Faust’s flank about. And my spies have told me about most of them anyway.”
The mare blinked at him, then continued, sounding slightly less sure of herself. “Er, followed by sitting in on a session of Parliament-“
“I have no interest in watching that murderous whorse tell a bunch of sychophantic foals how to better exploit the country. Next.”
“A-an observation of guardspony training, particularly Risen operations-“
“If you’re stupid enough to show your enemy how your army works, then I’m rather pissed we haven’t managed to kill all of you yet.”
“With a f-final stop for a supper in, in celebration of your most joyous recovery, a-and then a private discussion with M-Mistress Dawn in her chambers.”
Shining actually took a moment to stare at the mare before he bared his teeth. “My ‘joyous recovery’? From what? The torture Cotton Candy put me through this morning? Dawn’s little ‘joke’ a week ago? The, the bomb you monsters set? You’d need a fairly bucking ingrown horn to think that I’ve ‘recovered’ from ANY of those!” His voice was rough, turning his yell into something of a roar. He didn’t mind, given that it seemed to be scaring the subplot in front of him rather effectively. “Listen up, you… you abomination against Faust: I want you to go back to your little ‘Mistress’, and I want you to tell her that if she has anything she wants ‘privately discussed’ with me, she can come down to this damned cell and blast her verbal shit at me down here! But she isn’t going to have me paraded around the castle she stole from the Princesses she murdered unless she takes my legs off and drags me along on the bloody, ragged stumps.” The stallion took in a few breaths, spitting a chunk of bloody phlegm to the floor whilst maintaining his glare at the now quivering mare in front of him. He twitched his ear, but didn’t speak, as he heard her start to whine from behind her wings. She took a few shuffling steps away, saying something unintelligible.
“Hey!” The stallion barked, making the mare jump and stare at him through wide, drowning eyes. He flicked his ear again. “I wasn’t bucking kidding. If you talk, you stay close enough for me to hear it.”
“I-I jus-“ the mare stopped and swallowed heavily, taking the few steps back towards the stallion. “I wanted t-to ap-pologize, for, for… wh-what happened a week ago. It was not meant to be a joke, S-Sir Shining.”
Shining blinked, then leaned towards the mare as much as his bindings would allow. “And just what in Faust’s name do you think you’re talking about?”
“My, my colouration, Sir Shining. Mistress Dawn planned for me to meet with Princess Dazzle and surprise her with our resemblance, as a p-present for her, to show her how beautiful she already was and would be when she was grown, b-but then, then everything happened, and Mistress was so busy, and she simply didn’t have a chance to change me to something else before our introduction…” The mare trailed off as Shining continued staring at her, his face in shocked confusion instead of pointed fury.
“Th…that was you?” Shining’s voice was smaller, closer to how he’d sounded before everything that had happened. “You, you were the alicorn? Dawn’s ‘Pet’?”
A quick nod. “I-I am Pet, yes, Sir Shining. Um, Mistress is teaching me the spell, to, to change how I look, and I’m not as good at it as she is, but I could show you! If you want, I mean…”
Shining’s eye narrowed for a few seconds before closing completely as he tried to catch the laugh that had snuck its way up his throat. He succeeded in altering a booming hoot to a coughing chuckle, which he managed to maintain for as long as his eye was still closed. When he opened it again and saw her unchanged expression, what little mirth was present dropped from his mind. The stallion blinked, hard enough that he saw stars afterwards, but he waved a hoof in what he hoped was an affirmative gesture.
The mare – ‘Pet’ – smiled, an actual smile rather than the plastered-on thing she’d worn when she’d first come in. She stepped back, spreading her wings and hooves as if to brace herself for some massive exertion; as such, Shining was rather more than surprised at the instant alteration to the mare in front of him. There wasn’t an eyeblink between her shift from a green-coated, blue-maned alicorn to a white-coated, grey-maned earth pony, and the suddenness of the change left Shining with a headache as his brain fought to keep up. Pet shook herself and let out a breath, glancing back up at the wide-eyed stallion; her smile faltered as she saw the precise shock in his eye.
She can do that she can do that ‘not as good at it’ she can do it better she can do it to others
“I-I can’t hold it, not for very long…” the mare said; true to her words, her coat was already tinged green again, and within a second she’d snapped back to her previous appearance. “But Mistress Dawn, she, she can do it so well, it’s like she actually turned me into an alicorn, or a unicorn, or-“
“St-op,” Shining cut her off, the latter half of the word yawning as his mind recovered itself enough to let him speak. He blinked, still trying to reconcile the two (three, counting her mimic appearance from the previous visit) mares he’d seen into a single pony. “St, st, jus- You can’t be serious. No, nopony can just change like that, not so…” Shining’s eye narrowed as the gears in his head clicked, and he looked the mare up and down with even harsher scrutiny.
“Sir Shining?”
“How much do you expect to steal from me?”
“Wh… what?” The mare’s voice quailed, the full word much quieter than the initial attempt. Shining bared his teeth, his voice hissing through them.
“I don’t know where you hid these fifteen years, insect, but when I break free from here I’ll make sure you die like rest of your kind.” His lips curled up at the warm memory. “Writhing on a spit.”
“Insect? Sir Shining, I-“
“No pony can just change their appearance like that, not so solidly, not without leaving something behind to reveal them.” Shining felt the venom leak through his voice. “Changelings, on the other hoof-“
“Changeli- no, no! I’m a pony, Sir Shining!” The voice was frantic as it cut off his accusation. Shining almost raised his brow in surprise at her sudden vehemence, but managed to hold his gaze on her. Her wings had spread anxiously, and she stared at him with desperate eyes. “I know that you may not trust me, Sir Shining, but you must believe that I am not one of those… those evil beings! Please!”
“Prove it.”
The supposed pony seemed to freeze. “What?”
“You say you aren’t a changeling. Prove it. Do something that a changeling can’t.” Shining closed his eye and turned himself back, taking a breath as he waited for the changeling to either flee or try to kill him. He would have welcomed either.
Though I’d have a better chance to destroy it if it tried now. Might have to track it down if-
Very suddenly, there was a muffled shriek of pain from beside him.
Shining’s eye shot open just as the first splatters of blood hit the floor, his head turning almost as quickly. Pet was holding one foreleg in her mouth, a large blob of red flowing between her teeth and down her chin. Both of her eyes were locked on the door to the cell; the metal slab shook slightly, but nopony stepped in to investigate. Pet held her gaze towards the door for fifteen seconds before slowly loosening her jaw and allowing her leg to drop. Quite quickly, a stream of blood trickled down her hoof to meet the pool that had formed from her chin.
“Bleed.”
Shining’s eye moved to Pet’s face. Her eyes were back on him, and they were disturbing in how clearly they held pain.
“What?”
“B-back when you got rid of all the changelings. You told the newsponies that there was one thing they couldn’t do that we could.”
“Bleed.” Shining said, standing on the podium in front of a vivisected larva. “No matter what stage of life, no matter what disguise they wear, changelings do not bleed.”
“You- y- g-go get that bandaged up, dammit!” Shining shouted, making the mare jump; she didn’t move far, whining as her bleeding leg tried to extend disconnected muscles. “Don’t move the damn thing! Hold it up, you can walk on three legs!”
“Do you believe me?” Pet asked. Shining stared at the mare, realization slowly winning out over anger and shock.
“Wh- oh for Faust’s sake, yes! You’re a pony, that much is bucking cle-“ she changed she changed she’s a pony and she “-eeow in Faust’s name did you do that?” The stallion managed to finish his thought, bombarded by fragments of panic that he didn’t have time to sort through. “That, that was instantaneous shapechanging, ponies aren’t supposed to be able to do that, we’ve never…” Shining’s tongue caught on his teeth. Pet’s brow had furrowed, and she stared at him in what looked like a careful inquiry.
“Sir Shining?” she asked, several seconds after he’d returned to wordless blinking and near-gagging. He didn’t answer immediately, trying to take the time to settle everything in his head down and focus on the task at hoof.
“Pet.” Shining spoke, causing the mare to jump as he used her ‘name’. “Y-you said that she can do… do that, to you, can just change you at a whim, and nopony can tell that you’ve been changed?”
Pet’s stare shifted to a more curious look, but she nodded nonetheless. Shining felt the block of ice in his chest edge ever closer to falling down through his stomach.
“Have y- has she done it to anypony else?”
“Oh, no. I’m the only one.” Pet blinked, wincing and shifting her weight further from her injured leg. “I mean, there were those zebras and other ponies Mistress tested it on, but I’m the only one who didn’t die immediately after.”
The ice disappeared as quickly as it had come. Shining didn’t bother holding back a relieved sigh; the entire resistance against Dawn could be shattered if she replaced a few higher-ups with identical spies who knew enough to slip under suspicion. If she was too proud or idiotic to realize that…
…then how would she manage it in the other direction?
Shining’s breath hitched before he could even recover from his relief, and he affixed Pet with a gaze that made her brows furrow and wings rustle.
“Pet? Pet, Pet, Pet…” Shining gave a mix of a laugh and a growl. “I have a… proposal, I guess, for you and the bitch.”
Pet’s eyes narrowed at the latter title. “What would this proposal be?”
“It’s rather simple, actually. Just go and tell her that I’ll… cooperate, to the best of my ability, with whatever the buck she wants me to do.” Shining gave what he hoped was an innocent grin. “In return, I want you to teach me the shapechanging spell.”
Pet blinked. “You’ll ‘cooperate’?”
“I won’t try to kill everypony I see and blow up the castle for good measure.”
Pet blinked again, deliberately. “I’ll… I’ll see what Mistress says.”
“Good. Now stop being a Faust-damned moron and go get that leg fixed.”
Pet stood, awkwardly limping towards the doorway. The door opened before she got there, two guards stepping in to help her out of the room. Before the metal slab could swing closed behind them, however, a bright pink hoof caught the edge and sent it swinging in again.
“Hiya again, Shiny!” A voice like the scream of a foal grated along Shining’s eardrums. “How’d you like it if I taught you a song?”
Eyes towards the voice; an unusually stoic face, giving an even stare.
“How bad were you…?”
“You said that I was the ‘bad cop’. The one who did mean things to you so that the other ponies who came in would seem nicer.” A nod. “I-I know that I was the one who hurt you really badly, with your ribs and your, your scars, and everything, but I just… I want to know what went on. Not just what I did, but why. I mean, I know that that Pinkie wasn’t really me, and I-I don’t think she was me, and I know that I said I wasn’t worried about it, but I’ve just been thinking about it and thinking about it and I am worried I’m really worried that you’re gonna hate me forever just because of what she did to you so I want to know what she did so I can help like Twilight and-”
“Pinkie.” One voice cutting another. “Why were you playing with the roadkill?”
“Wh…what?”
“The time you walked me and Twilight to Sweet Apple Acres. You were doing… something… with the dead animal on the road just before we met up with you.”
“Wh… that? That, that was for Fluttershy!”
“For Fluttershy.”
“Well, I-I mean, Fluttershy always gets sad whenever one of her animal friends dies, but she gets really worried whenever one of them goes missing, so I said that I would keep an eye out for them, so if I find one that died, I try to bring it to her so we can have a funeral and I can be there to help her be not so sad.”
A glance. “She’s telling the truth?”
“Oh, um, yes, she is… And I do, really, appreciate the support, Pinkie…”
A small shrug. “Anything to help a friend.”
A hard sigh. “That’s it, though. You did it to help a friend.”
“Y-yeah. Why else would I?”
Silence, for several seconds.
“Cotton Candy was a necromancer.”
A more solid silence, for several more seconds.
“No, wait… she didn’t bring things back, per se, so that’s probably not the right word. She was closer to a puppeteer, or a toymaker. She had this, this workshop, or something. I was never actually there, but she took dead animals there– or, by the time I found out about it, anything that was or formerly had been alive – and tear them apart to find out how they ticked. Then, usually, she’d put them together again, with a few extra bits and pieces so that they could be put into poses or wound up and made to walk around like a bloody tinker’s toy. Other times she kept the pieces, based new designs for prosthetics or armour or weapons on them.” A small, mirthless laugh. “And always, always, whenever anypony asked her why, whether they were staring in horror at her work or sc-screaming in agony while she was tearing out their ribs, she gave one response.
“‘Anything to help a friend.’”
A third silence, for a third length of time. Broken by strangled sobs.
“…Broken?”
“Hmm?”
“C-can I ask why you didn’t bring this up before?”
A blink. “I told Path about most of it. Could’ve sworn he sent you the records.”
“He did. You didn’t mention Pin-“ a cough “-what, what she said, though.”
“It wasn’t exactly important for what I’ve been trying to do. Cotton Candy was one of Dawn’s actual supporters, it makes sense that her excuse for her activities was ‘helping’ the bitch.”
“But she wasn’t just trying to help Dawn, was she? She said ‘a friend’, that could mean Fluttershy or Rarity or-“
“No, it couldn’t.” A hoof tapping at a temple. “You might not like me saying this, but you weren’t there. You never saw her, never spoke to her, didn’t spend ten hours a week having her work you over, tear pieces out of you, hook you up to a lightning cloud, take skin from your legs and sew it over burns on your neck, flay the meat off your back and keep you starved until you eat it, then cut you open and make you watch as it moves thro-“
A quick movement. A retch. The sound and smell of vomit. Sobs growing quieter alongside two sets of hoofsteps. A blink and a glance.
“Huh. Kinda thought you’d be the first to go, Fluttershy.”
A swallow and a shuddering breath. “I… I can handle it. I’ve helped quite a few animals who’ve been in bad shape; I don’t like blood, or, or gore, but I know how to deal with it.”
A shrug. “Fair enough… er, that ‘flaying’ one wasn’t me, by the way. I got it ‘easy’; they wanted… they wanted to get me on their side, and in the meantime they wanted information from me. I was never a case where they wanted to see what happened in my leg when they pulled a nerve out from my eye. Doesn’t really matter.” A shaken head. “Back to my point, she never ‘helped’ the others unless Dawn ordered her to or she was already working on something similar. Rainbow got most of her armour and weapon prototypes and special versions of the finished models, Gaia and Lash tested out every damn restraint system and non-lethal torture device she came up with… Rarity only ever asked for one thing, and that was leg braces for Sweetie Belle.” A shrug. “Apparently necromancy doesn’t stop your muscles from turning to dust.”
“How would torturing ponies help Dawn, though? There would have been plenty of ways to learn what she learned, through studying or, or non-harmful experimentation; even the information you had, she could have just used spies or traitors! How in Faust’s name did… did what you said help her?”
A blink. “…She couldn’t have gotten everything peacefully.”
“But th-“
“Twilight.” The other voice cut off. “I… buck, I’m not trying to defend her here. I… I just…” A rough breath, in and out. “Yes, you’re right. She probably could have gotten everything, every piece of information on anatomy and rebel locations and every other fucking excuse she gave for doing what she did, she could have gotten that without the torture. Same for the camps.” Another rough breath. “But she couldn’t have gotten what came with them.”
“And what was that?”
A grimace. “Control. Dawn started the damned Revolution because she felt like she couldn’t change any of the problems she thought were there. When she got to power, got the ability to actually change things to how she thought they should be… I have to imagine she enjoyed it. The camps were a response to something she couldn’t control – the refugees on the border – and expanded to control the non-pony species’ complaints about them. The experiments were an attempt to expand her control over her subjects, down to their very bodies. The torture…
“Dawn saw the Loyalists, and the rest of the rebel groups, for what we were – ponies and other beings who refused to let her control us. The Loyalists were even worse, because we were specifically fighting in the name of the time when she had no control.” A breath. “So when she captured us, she tortured us, to show us that she had the power and we didn’t. She wanted us to think, to know, that she was the one in control, that we could do nothing to stop her. That if she wanted something from us, she would get it, because she controlled us.” Another breath. “Right down to when we were allowed to die.”
---
“Come on, come on, Shiny, I know you know this one! You can do it!”
Shining couldn’t open his mouth. She was asking for locations, just like always. Bases, suppliers, homes, targets. He wouldn’t tell her, couldn’t tell her. She didn’t like that. She told him so, every time. This time, so did his two broken legs, so did the hot irons digging under his skin wherever the bone broke through – ‘to cauterize and prevent infection’, of course.
Shining couldn’t open his mouth. If he did, he’d scream.
She shoved the map back into his face, shaking it slightly as if to catch his attention. He managed to slowly turn his eye to her without more tears escaping; the look on her face was one of almost genuine patronizing encouragement. She might have looked like she was hoping he’d succeed if her smile had touched her eyes.
She noticed that he was looking at her. Her not-quite-real smile twitched just before she spoke. “No, silly, over here! I’m not the map.” She moved her foreleg, probably to shake the map that Shining couldn’t see anymore. He kept his eye on her, meeting her gaze as much as he could. Every second she looked at him, her smile got weaker, more fake; only eight seconds before she looked away, hiding her face behind a non-existent mane.
Eight seconds and she looks away. Shows guilt. Feels bad? All that she’s done, she feels bad for this?
Shining counted that as a victory. Relaxed a bit. Too much; his lips fell open, a small whine escaping before he slapped his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
She looked up at the sound, noticing his now-bared teeth and forward-facing eye. Her smile returned as she rubbed her eyes, even closer to a real grin than it had been before.
“That’s it, Shiny. Just tell me where, anywhere, one place, and we can be done for today.” She shook the map again. He saw straight lines, curved lines, letters, colours. His lips curled inwards, and he felt his jaw unhinge slightly.
Enough to send a ball of phlegm and saliva into the parchment above him. The map pulled back again as the mare sighed, and Shining knew he had scant seconds bef-
KrgCK
A third leg suddenly stopped giving him any signals except for shrieking agony; the stallion bit off the tip of his tongue trying to stop that shriek from leaving his mouth. The mare watched him for a few seconds, her hoof still holding the freshly-broken limb as she put the map before his eye once more.
“You aren’t the good guy, Shiny. You’ve hurt too many ponies, caused so much pain-“ she punctuated the word with a sharp pressure on the fracture “-and you keep lying about us. We’re the good guys, we help ponies, we stop the meanies like you from hurting Twilight, a-and Spike, and everypony else. You just make ponies sad, and scared, and angry, and if you just stopped then AJ would come back and everypony would stop fighting and Twilight could be happy again!” Another jab at the break, and the map shook. “Just tell me somewhere, anywhere that you know the Loyalists are. Just one place. Prove that Twilight can still trust her big brother.”
Anywhere. Anywhere and we’re done. Just one place.
Twilight trust me?
Shining blinked.
His jaw seemed to unlock. He felt his teeth open, his tongue fall, air moving up from his lungs and out with some indeterminate sounds attached. Shining wasn’t sure what those sounds were, what words they made, but it was enough for the pink mare to pull the map away, to pull the irons out.
Shining heard hoofsteps away, the door open and shut. Hoofsteps towards him. His legs slowly went numb.
“Bloody fucking-“ the voice descended into indecipherable growls and guttural noises. Shining felt his eye fall over, finding a familiar, grimacing face. The doctor seemed to notice the movement, meeting Shining’s gaze evenly.
“Hold still, Captain, you damned foal.” Shelter shifted his eyes as raised his hoof to push the other stallion’s head back whatever miniscule amount it had moved. Shining felt himself pulled down as his legs were presumably splinted. He felt his mouth open again, but this time he actually understood what came out.
“You’re… helping me?” The doctor gave him a quick glance before giving a rough sigh.
“Yes. I am.”
“You’re a traitor.”
“No, I’m a doctor. ”
“Y… you work for her- “
“Just like I worked for Celestia. You know, Captain, kind of a funny thing, ponies get injured regardless of whose bloody plot sits in the chair upstairs. Fucking fancy that.”
“Why?”
Dr. Shelter blinked, his horn cutting out as he turned to face Shining with a mixed visage of anger and confusion.
“Why help me?” Shining clarified. The doctor’s eyes narrowed.
“…because you’re injured? ”
“I’m an enemy.”
“You’re a patient. My patient, in fact, and because I give a fuck about what I swore to do as a doctor, and because I couldn’t give less of a fuck if you want to kill me for it, I do not give any of a fuck as to who you are. ” His horn glowed again, and Shining felt sensation return to his legs, minus the feeling of shattered bone stabbing through muscle and skin. He glanced down, shifting his visible leg to verify its continued existence before putting his eyes back on the doctor. “Only as to how I can fix you. Captain.”
Shelter didn’t speak to Shining for a length of time afterwards, not that the injured stallion prompted him. There was the occasional tug as the doctor replaced a bandage or restitched a wound, but the restrained stallion was otherwise left alone with his thoughts; something that he found to be both relieving and terrifying.
“What did I say?” Shining asked, after several minutes of deliberation. Shelter glanced at him, holding the other stallion’s leg by hoof as his magic probed a formerly-bandaged cut.
“What?”
“Ah, I, uh, asked, about… what I said to… to her.”
Cotton Candy. Thalia. Element of Laughter. Pinkie Pie.
“Oh. I’m not sure. Only listened because I needed to know when she was done fucking your legs over.”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“Nope. I’m just the pony keeping everypony here alive; they don’t let me know much and won’t let me work on non-pony patients. Fucking-” The doctor sighed. “I think you said… some kind of ‘town’ or ‘ton’. Not Trotown, started with a C or a K.”
The name jumped back into Shining’s mind, and the floor fell out of his stomach. “Cowton? I said there was a base at Cowton?”
“That was it. Never heard of the place myself, must be a fucking backwater; perfect place for rebels to hide out.” Shelter shrugged before he noticed Shining’s face. “Ah, fuck, it was important, wasn’t it?”
Shining blinked, his eye turning slowly towards the other pony. “…Important. Yes. It was very important…”
Shelter took a breath, holding it before letting it out in a sigh. “Faust, Captain, I-“
The doctor stopped as Shining began to howl with laughter.
“Ten... eleven… tw-rgh-elve…”
She had Shining count. Five inches of razor wire, slid into a wound and snaked around beneath his skin for fifteen seconds before being torn out. Repeated fifty times.
Cowton had been munitions storage. A rather important hideout, with one of the largest constant Loyalist garrisons aside from the Everfree and Vanhoover. If it had ever been found out, the Loyalists would have lost eighty percent of their capacity to develop professional explosives. Base expansion would slow to a crawl. Bombings would cease. The Shadowbolts would lose their martyrs, the Loyalists would lose the most dedicatedly anti-Dawn allies they had.
Of course, it would have been entirely cleared out once Shining was captured, its stock and garrison moved to one of the hideouts that Applejack had arranged so as to ensure that he couldn’t betray the location. Anypony breaching the locked and barred doors would find nothing more than a large, empty cave underneath an unassuming warehouse.
Within a few seconds, they would either be blown to pieces when the bombs around the door and cave exploded, or crushed as the roof of the cave and the warehouse above it fell in on top of them.
Shining couldn’t help but smile when she told him the casualties. She didn’t like that.
“Now do you see why what you did was bad?” she asked, stepping back as she wiped the blood from her hooves. Shining figured his coherence was due to either elation at having gotten as many killed as he had or the fact that he was still high off the painkillers Shelter had snuck in. He was fairly certain that he should have been in more pain than he was.
“Run it…gahgh… by me again. Maybe… the pain’s made my head clearer. Or the blood loss.”
The mare glared, but she still repeated what she’d said as she unraveled the wire. “You lied. You said there was a base at Cowton. There wasn’t.” She took a breath, one hoof pressing to the gauze and tape on the side of her face. “B-because there wasn’t, because you lied, Lady Dawn wasted time and effort a-and ponies to shut down what she thought was a dangerous rebel hideout. Time and effort and ponies that could have been spent doing good, not…”
“There was a base, though.” Shining grinned as her glare intensified. “Just not anymore, by the time you heard about it.”
“It was a lie!” The mare shouted, her screaming-foal’s voice pounding through his skull. “You lied, and Lady Dawn sent a bunch of guardsponies down to try to get rid of the base you lied about and those guardsponies all g-got hurt o-o-or-“ she cut off in a rather overdramatic sob, only to keep speaking moments later.
“I don’t like doing this, Shiny. I’m supposed to be helping ponies. Keeping them from getting hurt. Letting them walk again. Making them laugh. Even you, I’ve tried and tried and tried over and over and over to show you how bad and wrong and bad being a Loyalist is, to show you how good me and Rainbow and Rarity and Fluttershy and your sister are, but you… you… you stupid meanies just keep messing everything up…” The mare sniffled, and Shining could see her blur shake out of the corner of his eye.
“You… because you lied, the ponies in that town saw what happened, and now they’re scared that we can’t help them, that we can’t stop you from hurting them. Because you lied, we have a bunch of ponies who got really hurt, some who can’t use magic anymore, some who can’t walk or talk or eat anymore because of you! Fifty ponies died because you hate us for no good reason!”
“No good reason?” Shining growled, his eye shifting to the mare, his voice cutting out at spots as small, pained sounds escaped. “Celestia isn’t a good reason? The zebras aren’t a good reason? My wife isn’t a good reason?!?”
“Twilight wasn’t trying to hurt her! If, if you, if she hadn’t tried to hurt Twilight… i-it was an accident!”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt Maud.” Shining deliberately echoed the mare, gaining a savage grin as he saw something shatter behind her eyes. “I-if you, if she hadn’t jumped in front of that bolt for you… it was an accident.” The stallion took a breath. The mare bared her teeth. “But I bet you still cry over her every Faust-damned night, don’t you?”
There was silence. Shining was somewhat surprised by this. He’d expected violence, screams, curses and damning words. Instead she sat there, eyes wide, open-mouthed, curled mane stuck to her head with sweat, blood leaking from beneath the bandage covering her cheek. She stood slowly, taking the three steps to him in a deliberate, paced manner. When his eye managed to focus on her again, she’d closed her jaw and was giving him an almost curious look.
“Twilight told me that I only had to be mean to you until you stopped being a Loyalist, that, that I could stop hurting you, that I could start being nice and happy and try to make you laugh like I wanted to do. That we could be friends, like she and I wanted to be with you.” The mare raised her hoof, placing it on his barrel. She moved it slightly, ear twitching as he groaned in pain. “But you know something, Shiny?”
The stallion didn’t respond. He locked his jaw shut again; he knew she was going to do something, and he knew it was going to hurt. She gave him a grin, moving her hoof down his barrel, resting at the bottom of his ribcage.
“I think you might be the first pony ever that I don’t want to be friends with.”
He saw her move before he felt it, an inequinely fast jab that pulled away before the sound of his rib snapping reached his ears. Before he could so much as clench his jaw she’d brought the hoof back, this time further up, pressing and pressing and pressing until the sharp edge of bone pierced through his hide. Her hoof moved once more, faster than he could see, suddenly simply there on the exposed rib and-
Then she pulled back, and there was the familiar sound of bone being ripped free from flesh. Shining dimly noticed that he’d never actually felt the sensation that went along with the sound.
Silence. Not a heavy silence. Not a solid silence. Simply silence.
“…That was a few months in. Dawn switched my interrogators around a little while afterwards. Pet was still allowed to come see me, if I’d been ‘good’, but she wasn’t the ‘good cop’ anymore. I think Dawn was worried that she might get… disturbed, seeing what I looked like after Cotton Candy but before the doctors.” A glance. “Gaia and Lash didn’t mind.”
A door rattling, squeaking open and closed. A pony sitting down. “Pinkie said to go on without her. She needed to go… get something, I guess.” A glance. “Jeez, what’d I miss?”
“Nothing much. Just a little memory, occupying the time.”
“What wa-“
“Rainbow.” A rather shaky voice. “It ain’t somethin’ y’need t’hear.”
“You… you can look at the notes, afterwards, Rainbow. If you want.”
A sigh. “Alright, alright. So Pet had just left, right?”
A nod. “She came back a few hours later, said that Dawn had agreed to my proposal. Apparently, she – Dawn - expected that everything was going to go smoothly just because I wasn’t going to be attacking everypony I saw. Didn’t modify the initial suggestion at all; ‘Tour, Parliament, training yard, supper, meeting’. All, supposedly, to be done in one day.”
“Should I hazard a guess as to how well that worked out?”
Another laugh. “Remember the first visit to Rarity’s? Everywhere we were supposed to go afterwards?”
“I do. We only made it to Sweet Apple Acres before… things went wrong.” A nod. “And it took us a few weeks to actually get to Rainbow.” Another nod.
“Stretch it to four months, and you have the time it took to actually get to the ‘supper with Dawn’ part. She wanted everything done in one day, something to do with getting me to follow directions properly, so each buckup reset the plan. Even if I wasn’t the problem.” A cough. “Admittedly, I was the problem for a good amount of it. Turns out a lot of ponies want to kill you when you’ve spent eight years killing their coworkers, friends, siblings, parents, children…” The stallion trailed off. “Pip usually took care of them, though.”
“So they just shuffled you around every day until you managed to make it to supper without somepony trying to murder you?”
“Not every day, it was usually once, twice a week; even with the healing spells, I needed recovery time from Cotton Candy, Gaia and Lash, and, on occasion, whatever the buck I’d been attacked with. And they were trying to kill me, not murder me. They were very clear on that.”
“The difference being?”
The other stallion. “Murder is defined as ‘an unlawful attempt to end the life of a sentient being’, Miss Dash. Broken Shield was not considered an… existing party, in the PDRE. While nopony actually denied his existence, his status as a known leader and member of one of the rebel groups resulted in a revocation of his citizenship, and as he did not hold citizenship elsewhere, he was not considered an illegal immigrant. He and the other rebels were thus caught in an area outside of the law; neither citizen nor non-citizen laws covered them, so nothing done to them violated any laws. Even if they were, the destruction they had wrought would likely justify calling their deaths ‘lawful’. Because of this, he could not be ‘murdered.’” A breath. “Very few ponies were willing to attack him unarmed, as well, so ‘kill’ is the most correct term for the collective attempts on his life.”
“Wouldn’t that make them unaccountable for any of the ‘crimes’ they committed, though? If they weren’t covered by any laws, then they couldn’t violate any laws, right?”
The first stallion. “Yup. That’s… part… of the reason the conflict stayed so bloody. Neither side willing to take the chance of the other taking advantage of their legal ‘immunity’. If you got caught, you were dead, and nopony wanted to parley with the pony that killed their brother.
“In any case, I spent six months getting pieces ripped out of me, then grown back, then ripped out again. Occasionally I got treated like a conscious being. Occasionally occasionally I got treated like a pony.” A breath, somewhat tense. “I hope you’ll excuse the fact that I don’t exactly remember many specifics.”
“Y’were talkin’ pretty specific not too long ago…”
A half-grin. “Trust me, clarity like that… I might have a ‘more extreme memory’ to go with my ‘more extreme magic’ and ‘more extreme viewpoints’ and ‘more extreme muscle deterioration’, but if I do, I’ve got ‘more extreme memory loss’ with it. Plus brain damage. And repression. I remember a few things well. A lot more than that I remember fuzzily. A lot more than that, I know happened, and I know I was there, but they’re just… blurs. Feelings. The occasional total blank spot.”
Two pairs of ears perked. “Blank spot? Like a hole in your memory?”
“…yes?”
“Broken, Pip has…” A glance. A nod. “He has those blank spots too.”
“No horseapples. I’d presume everypony does.”
“No, I mean-“
“Look, we’re getting off-topic here.” A glance. “You all came to hear how you died, right?”
Two fast nods, then two slow ones, then one small one. A grimace.
“And everypony is sure they want to hear it? No matter how… brutal?”
Each nod again, slower this time. A sigh.
“I spent six months in the dungeons. Every day they tried to break me, get me to talk. On the days they didn’t torture me, they tried to convince me that I was doomed to fail. Tried to convince me to join them.” A mirthless grin. “Six months, I never broke. I cried, I screamed, I raged, but I didn’t break. Even after they stopped letting the doctors in, even after they stopped letting me out of my chains, even after Dawn stopped letting Pet come down at all, I gave them nothing they could use. Six months, one-hundred-eighty-eight days, they couldn’t break me.”
“…and then?”
A short breath. “Then they broke me.”
---
He couldn’t remember his name. He couldn’t remember very many things at all.
He felt empty. Like somepony had torn his soul out. His mind was black, an endless void that left him listlessly stranded; he couldn’t think, could barely think about thinking. Any thought he had came fleetingly, seemingly striking him at random then fleeing before he could realize what was going on. It had taken him some length of time to understand that he was awake. He didn’t know how long, couldn’t think about it. Too long, though.
He was somewhere, alone, for some reason. He knew he shouldn’t be. His being here was wrong. That needed no thought. He knew it. It simply was.
His mind returned to him slowly. Bits and pieces, fragmented, without rhyme or reason. Memories stood alone, sharp and clear and muddied and blurred and large and small and with no connection to one another. He dedicated what little thought he had to them; he recognized some faces, some places, some names, but he couldn’t shape the memories, couldn’t connect them, couldn’t make sense of them. He was hiding with a mare he’d never met, then kissing his marefriend, then hiding with Applejack again, then raiding the camp, then beating Clover to death, then launching a bolt of magic at a pink mare, then watching his drill instructor, then screaming as a stallion pushed his horn through his eye, then laughing at Clover’s joke, then watching Celestia burn Appleloosa, then meeting his sister for the first time, then kissing his wife, then watching Braeburn die, then ambushing a caravan, then helping his father clean the house, then stabbing a mare in the back, then running from Pip, then digging up Spike, then cutting carrots, then talking to Twilight, then-
A mare opened the door and entered the room. He raised his eye to her. Pink mane, yellow coat, swaying hips and tail, kind smile, dead eyes.
A name leapt up. Gaia.
“Hello, my little stalwart stallion.” her voice intoned, soft and heavy, as one wing brushed along his chest. “Lady Dawn wanted me to see if you were alright. Lash had to perform some services elsewhere, so today I have you. All… alone.” She pouted her lower lip, the curve of her mouth still holding her smile as she took a step back from him. He stared blankly at her for a few moments before putting his mouth slightly open. She giggled. “My, I see we’re eager to get started…”
Stepping forward, she reached her hooves to his shoulders, pulling herself up and wrapping her forelegs around his neck, letting out a soft sigh as his shoulders strained to hold her weight alongside his own. She held herself there, her hind hooves just barely touching the floor, her face close enough to his that he could feel the heat from her, could taste her deepening breath and feel her quickening heartbeat. She leaned forward slowly, her lips just barely brushing his before she pulled herself up further and their mouths met fully. She held herself close to him, teasing at the blood on his lips before her tongue danced into his mouth; one of her hooves lifted from behind his neck, moving to brush along his leg, his barrel, his flank, feeling for somewhere that she and Lash hadn’t yet left their mark.
He let her relax for a few moments before he bit her tongue off.
Lash and the pink one had not exempted his teeth from their work. The jagged edges on the ones that remained could easily cut flesh, as the many lacerations on his tongue attested to. They dug into Gaia’s tongue just as easily, and a few shifts of his jaw were all that were needed to fully sever it. Her dead eyes had widened when he had first sunk his teeth in, and now, as they fixed on him, he felt… something… return to his mind. Something that told him exactly what he needed to do.
He felt his hooves shift, felt them slip from the chains, and he quickly put them to her head and kept her mouth to his as they fell to the floor. The air was crushed from her lungs between her landing on the floor and his landing on her, and as she struggled to regain her breath he let her tongue fall back into her mouth. He felt himself cast a spell, and her jaw very suddenly slammed shut, nearly taking his lips with it.
He pulled back from her, watching her twitch and strain for breath as his hooves held her shoulders to the floor. He felt himself cast another spell, and very suddenly he was staring at himself, holding himself to the floor with two powder-yellow hooves. His legs felt odd and short, some odd weight was on his back, and his body twitched and strained for breath, the pained sound coming up its throat muffled by its tightly-shut mouth. His eye held on it for several moments before he felt a word coming up his throat.
“Guards!” he called, and it was her voice, Gaia’s voice, and his body heard it, stiffened, looked at him with one wide, terrified, living eye. He felt himself smile, a small, kind smile, as the door opened and three armoured ponies rushed into the room. All three quickly moved towards them, one helping him off while the other two held down the pony on the floor.
“Lady Gaia, are you alright? Did he harm you?”
He felt himself shake his head, his eye following the pink strands of mane that fell in his vision before flicking back to the guard. “Nothing to worry about. He just got out of his chains a bit early. Surprised me a little.”
The guard nodded, his face turning somewhat embarrassed. “We heard the commotion, Milady, but… er, it is, um, normal, um, for there to be-“
His hoof lifted, giving the guard a small wave. “I am not angered, kind guard. I did say we weren’t to be disturbed unless I called.”
“Er, yes, Milady. Of course.”
His body was back on the wall, the chains on its hooves tightened enough for small bits of blood to dew around them. Its nostrils flared as it heaved for breath, trickles of blood flowing down from them across its tight lips. Its eye, bloodshot and wild in terror, rolled onto him for a few moments before it began thrashing against its bonds. The two guards who’d replaced it grabbed it and held it prone against the wall, one of them giving it a sharp punch beneath the barrel when it continued to strain; it lurched forward violently once before it went still, hanging off the wall with a fresh deluge of blood flowing down its snout. All three guards watched it carefully, and only when it had hung still for a minute did the guard speak to him again.
“Are you going to want to continue, Milady? Or-“
“I don’t think he’s much in the mood today, it seems.” He stood, taking a few steps in an attempt to get used to the smaller frame, not to mention walking again. He found himself approaching the pony on the wall, looking his doppelganger up and down. “You may leave,” he said, not turning to the guards. “I shall join you shortly. Thank you again.”
He heard them mumble “happy” and “our duty” and “Milady” before they shuffled out the door, swinging it gently shut behind them. His eye never left the chained pony, and before long he managed to catch her gaze.
“Hello, Gaia.” The words came from him without thought. He felt like he was following a script. “I know you’re a little confused right now, so let me put some worries to rest. You’re trapped there. Nopony can tell who you really are. And even if you had your tongue, you wouldn’t be able to tell them what’s going on.”
He felt his grin widen as her breath grew heavier.
“Now, now, don’t be scared. They’re only trying to help, remember? And so am I.” He felt a laugh come up his throat. “What did Dawn say when she introduced us? ‘Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind?’”
He heard the door open, turned to watch as another mare limped her way in. He was able to recall this one himself. Pinkie Pie.
“Hiya Gaia!” she said, her voice sending a bolt of ice up his spine. “Corporal Sturdy out there told me that this little meanie-weenie tried to escape not too long ago!” She sent a look at the disguised Gaia that seemed to be made only crueler by the grin beneath it. “He didn’t hurt’ya, did he?”
“No, no, I’m fine, Pinkie.” he said, shaking his head. Then he put on a frown and a small pout. “I’m disappointed, though. He hasn’t even opened his mouth since those brave guards stopped him, let alone told me anything.”
“Aw, not to worry, Gai-pie! Just gimmie a few minutes with him and I’ll have him singing! And talking, too.”
“Oh, that would be so nice of you. Just make sure you don’t tucker him out too much; I’m sure Lash is going to want to see him later today.”
For a moment, it looked like Pinkie’s smile cracked. Then she shook herself, gave another grin, and nodded.
“Okie-dokie! Oh, and Lady Dawn wanted me to ask you to go see Rarity. She shut herself in her rooms, again, because Sweetie’s ‘not acting like a proper lady’, again…”
“I’ll try. You know how she gets, though.”
Pinkie rolled her eyes and nodded, giving him another grin before walking up to the pony on the wall. Gaia moaned when she saw the other mare, her lips still tightly sealed; Pinkie simply glanced at her before shaking her head.
“Silly ol’ Shining Armor, you know that’s not how you sing! Now either hush up or do it right!”
He blinked when he heard the name. Shining Armor. It was familiar, common to almost every memory. It might well have been his. It probably had been.
But it wasn’t. Not anymore. He’d died, and that name had died with him.
He put his eye on Gaia once more, watching her hang there, wearing his skin. His gaze fell upon her flank, upon the cutie mark that adorned it; a shield, cut cruelly in half by a jagged scar.
A broken shield, he thought, his voice echoing within his mind. His first thought was that it was rather melodramatic. Like it would be chosen so that anyone who said it would remind him of what he’d failed to protect.
A moment later, Broken Shield turned and walked out the door.
Broken felt around inside his head, picking out what memories he could that related to what he was planning. Rarity’s rooms were in what remained of the Royal apartments. Dawn had let her have them, opting for a former guestroom in the main body of the castle, closer to both the throne room and the libraries. The path out from the dungeons cobbled itself together within his mind, alongside the layout of much of the castle; the memories they were attached to slotted themselves into place with little fuss. Broken blinked as he checked through them, finding large overlaps with occasional whisps of unique occurrences.
Common, routine, easier to remember? He tried to think of his family. Got a brief flash of something before a lancing pain ripped from his horn to his spine. He stumbled, catching himself on a nearby banner before he could fully fall. He held himself there, his breath coming in uneven gasps, until a growing pain in his foreleg forced him to sit down.
That latter pain became more concerning to him than the former one. Each of his limbs already felt like he’d been sprinting, dull aches that flared into molten blades when he tried to flex any of his legs. He gritted his teeth; if he was this weak, he might not be able to make it to the stairs out of the dungeon, let alone reach Rarity or the throne room.
He felt a spell rise from the morass of still-unsorted memories, making itself known without trying to force itself through his horn. He allowed it a small amount of magic, felt it wrap around the leg that he’d tried to hold himself up on. The pain dulled almost immediately, and as he extended his leg he could nearly see the line of magic that covered every scar, braced each joint and tendon and added its strength to his damaged limb. He quickly strengthened the spell and copied it to his other legs; as he stood, he felt somewhat closer to how most of his memories did.
Physically, anyway. Discounting the shifted form he was in, of course.
“Mistress Gaia?”
Broken turned, more because somepony had spoken than because he realized she was addressing him. A white-maned, blue-coated mare was standing a short distance away from him, giving him a somewhat confused look.
She also had wings and a horn, reminding him of what she was. Who she was.
“Pet?” Broken asked, Gaia’s voice reflecting his surprise. “What are you doing down here? Lady Dawn told you to stay out of the dungeons, didn’t she?”
The mare rustled her wings, giving him a clearly worried look. “Y-yes, Mistress said that, b-but she told Pet to t-tell you that she needed to keep Sir Crimson for longer than s-she’d said. So Pet came to tell you that she needed to keep Sir Crimson for longer than she’d said.”
Broken blinked. His first thought was that her speech was wrong. Third-pony, repeating herself, stuttering… like a foal, or an ingrown. He remembered that she didn’t always speak like this.
He felt something twitch in his head as he realized that he had no memory of her speaking differently.
“Mistress Gaia?”
The disguised stallion jumped, putting his eye back on Pet. “Hmm? I’m sorry, Pet, I was thinking about something.”
“Oh, please don’t worry, Mistress Gaia. P-Pet simply asked if you had anything you wanted to tell Pet before Pet went back to Mistress D-Dawn.”
Broken felt something else twitch in his head, and rather suddenly he was back to reading off a script. “Actually, Lady Dawn sent Pinkie down here earlier to ask me if I could meet with Rarity. I think that it might be nice for you to accompany me.”
“P-Pet would be delighted to accompany you, b-but Mistress D-Dawn-“
“Lady Dawn has my dear Crimson Lash to keep her company; I’m certain she won’t mind if I borrow her dear Pet for a short excursion.”
The mare stayed stock still for a few moments before letting out a breath. “I-if you’re certain, th-then Pet will go with you, Mistress Gaia.”
“Oh, hush. You’d have gone with me anyways.” Broken ‘winked’, hoping that one of his diguise’s eyes stayed open when he closed his real one. “That I know Dawn won’t mind just makes you less nervous.”
“Y-yes, Mistress, Pet is sorry, Mistress…”
Broken felt an odd twinge up his back, a spark of worry or pity or regret – one of those off-sad emotions – flitting through his head before he stomped it down. Taking a breath, he started forward, motioning for Pet to follow him.
Broken stared at the space in front of him, confused. There had been a few points before then where his memories had failed him – making him take an early turn, or one in the wrong direction – but those were minor. Small things. But every single one of his memories of the area said that there should be a hallway here, one that was the only way to access the Royal apartments beyond flight or teleportation.
In not a single one of his memories did this space hold a large, flat, solid wall.
“Pet…” he said, Gaia’s voice covering his confusion. “How long has this wall been here?”
The mare cocked her ears, but her answer was quick. “Six months, Mistress.”
He felt a twitch, quite similar to the first one that he’d felt earlier. He glanced at the wall again. “There’s a hall here, isn’t there? Why is it blocked off?”
Pet’s response came slower this time. “Mistress D-Dawn o-ordered it walled off, Mistress. Mistress D-Dawn said that it reminded her of sad things.”
Broken blinked before sighing, though he managed a smile as Pet gave him a concerned look. “I am fine, dear Pet. I think I might still be rattled from this morning; I cannot recall how to get to Rarity’s rooms except through this wall.”
“Oh! P-Pet can show you, Mistress. Mistress D-Dawn had another way made, it’s just d-down this way…” The mare trailed off, blinking. “W-what happened this morning, Mistress?”
Broken’s smile shifted to a somewhat mirthful grin. “One of our special visitors just got a little grabby, dear. Slid out of his chains and onto me, though I managed to get on top of him and call the guards in before anything happened.”
“Was it… was it Sir Shining, Mistress?”
Broken raised an eyebrow. “And how might you’ve guessed that, Pet?”
The other mare stiffened, but she answered nonetheless. “Th-the last day Pet saw him, Sir Shining t-took his hooves out of their binds for a few moments – h-he was thin enough, he just slid them out – and sh-sh-shook Pet’s hoof. H-he said that Pet was very i-important to him.”
Broken blinked in surprise; that meeting was apparently one of the memories he hadn’t recovered. “Shining was able to escape his chains, and you didn’t tell anypony?”
“H-h-he asked Pet not to, he said Mistress D-Dawn already knew.” Her eyes gained a rather significant amount of alarm. “D-didn’t she?”
By Faust I hope not “I’ve never heard her mention it, dear.” Broken felt something in his gut twist as the fear in her eyes spread to her entire form; her legs tensing, hooves shuffling, wings splaying low in preparation for flight.
“Oh. O-oh, n-no, no no n-no, n-n-“ She blinked, several times, and her words shifted. “P-p-please d-do not tell Mistress D-D-D-D-“
Her mouth seemed caught on the name, and she soon lost her speech to rapidly quickening breaths. Broken moved before he knew he was moving, putting one hoof to the mare’s mouth while the other moved around her back, giving her a gentle push to a sitting position. The hoof on her back moved to her shoulder as the hoof on her mouth moved to the back of her neck, pulling her face into his shoulder. Broken heard a light female voice making small shushing noises; it took him a few moments to notice that the voice belonged to him. It was also at this point that he noticed that he was rocking back and forth, moving Pet along with him.
The entire set of movements was carefully prearranged, that much he could tell. His limbs did their parts routinely, almost instinctively, as if he’d done this innumerable times before. There were no memories to guide him, no reminders on what to do or when to do it; he simply did, without even attempting or intending to, and he felt an odd nostalgia descending on him alongside it.
Nostalgic because it reminded him of a time before all this, when he could combat his greatest fear – the loss of the one most precious to him - simply by holding her and assuring her that she’d be alright. Brushing down her hair around her horn, straightening her wings, looking her in the eye and telling her that she was his precious little girl, that he would protect her no matter what.
Odd because he couldn’t remember a single point where he’d done this for his wife.
“Pet, Pet, it’s okay, it’s okay…” Broken pushed himself back from the mare, his hooves rising and falling with her shoulders. Her eyes met his for a second before she glanced down; he tried lifting her chin back up, and had to put some extra magic into his foreleg to give it enough strength to do so. “You don’t have to worry, okay? It’s fine, there’s no problem.”
“Yes there is!” Pet moaned. “Mistress D-D-Dawn didn’t know about Sir Shining, a-and Mistress D-Dawn gets a-a-angry when she doesn’t know about things, e-especially things like this, a-a-and…” Her voice trailed off, her legs tensing.
“And what, Pet?” Broken pressed. The mare put her eyes to the floor, her voice close to a filly made to confess to stealing the cookies from atop the cupboard.
“…and when Mistress Dawn gets angry she makes my scars grow.”
Broken felt the twinge up his back again. He felt a few memories fly out of the black, of Pet limping or wincing at what seemed to be nothing during a few of their meetings. Of how careful she was about her covers. Of how those covers had grown every time he’d seen her.
Well. Another reason to kill her, then.
“Pet, I need you to listen, okay?” Broken said, Gaia’s voice still covering his every word. Pet nodded, hitching a breath in. “I promise you, I won’t tell Dawn about that last meeting. Can I get you to promise me something?”
“What, Mistress?”
Broken felt his horn light up, and very suddenly he was taller than Pet, a few strands of blue hair flipped out over his single eye. He gained a grin as he saw Pet’s face shift from fear to shock, and continued in his best falsetto.
“That you won’t tell anypony I’m not really a mare.”
Pet blinked once. Then again. And again.
Then Broken had to very carefully halt his urge to stab her as she leapt at him. He felt the lines on his hind legs fray as he caught the mare, her forelegs wrapping tightly around his barrel, and pushed more magic over them to keep them from falling apart.
“Hey! Woah there, easy…” Pet took a half step back as he stumbled back into a standing position. “I’m not exactly in the best shape here, Pet.”
The mare stepped back and caught her tongue several times before she actually managed to speak. “Sir Shining, w-what are you doing out here? Why were you disguised as Mistress Gaia?”
Broken gave a laugh as he felt the script creep up on him again. “I’m actually doing something very important, Pet, something nopony can know about, something that I need your help with. I switched positions with Gaia in secret so that nopony would know I’d gotten out.”
“Why can’t anypony know? Does Mistress D-Dawn know?”
Broken blinked. “Nopony can know because they might try to stop me; I’m the evil Loyalist leader, remember? They probably wouldn’t believe I’m doing something to help them even if Dawn told them herself.” He gave her a grin. “And of course Dawn knows. Do you really think I’d be able to do this without her?”
Pet was quiet for a few seconds before she nodded. “Okay, Sir Shining. What does Pet need to do?”
“For now, just act normal, keep acting like I’m really Gaia. We’re still going to visit Rarity; that was part of the plan in the first place. When I need you, I’ll tell you.” He shifted himself back to Gaia. “Now show me the way, dear, we mustn’t be late.” He winked at Pet, and she quickly gave another nod.
“O-of course, Si-Mistress Gaia. Just follow Pet.” She took a moment to nod again, seemingly to herself, before turning and starting to walk. Broken followed close behind her.
“Oh, and Pet?”
“M-Mistress?”
“Back then, when I said you were very important to me?” Pet turned to look at him, a small hint of confusion playing on her face. He gave her a grin. “I meant it.” She gave him a wide smile in return, and as he saw it he felt yet another twinge of regret. He tried to quash it again.
“I very much appreciate your visiting, dear, but there isn’t a problem for you to solve.” Rarity gently placed her teacup back on its saucer, the extra flesh coating her arm and cannon wobbling as she did so. She turned her head to level her eyes at the corpse standing in the corner of the room. “If somepony would simply stop acting so foalish, then this situation, such as it is, would be resolved.”
Broken nodded, trying to avoid letting his own cup slip out of his hoof. Even in the times where he had barely any access to magic he could always manage to lift a fork or plate or cup or just the food itself, but such a convenience wasn’t available to the pegasus he was impersonating. Pet had made to hold it for him, but he’d waved her away to her own tea; if Rarity and Gaia met as often as it seemed, Gaia more-than-likely held her own teacup. Doing it differently might arouse suspicion.
That, and this was the first time in months that he’d had the chance to drink something other than soiled water or his own blood, and he’d be damned if he let somepony else have control of it. He quickly took another sip, trying to not react as the heated liquid washed over the cuts in his throat.
“Dawn didn’t send me up here to ‘solve a problem’. She wanted me to talk to you, Rarity.” The mare gave a small snort, but didn’t say anything. “If you don’t want me to, that’s fine. But I want you to think about how you’re affecting everypony.”
At this, the mare laughed openly. “I think you’re greatly overstating my importance, darling. After that debacle with the internment camps, Lady Dawn has made sure I’m not in a position to ‘affect’ anypony without her direct say-so.”
“I meant us, Rarity. Me, Pinkie, Rainbow, Dawn, your friends, we all get really worried when you do things like this. And besides, I’m sure she has the others on a tight leash too.” Broken couldn’t stop himself from grinning. “I know she has one on me and Lash, after all.”
“Oh, hush, there are foals here!” Rarity blushed behind her coat, her eyes quickly flicking between Pet and the corpse in the corner. “And I know exactly how tight her leash is on all of you. You and Lash don’t need to check in with her to visit your cottage in Ponyville. Thalia has her ‘experiments’ with the captives, but half the time even Dawn doesn’t know where she is. And as for Iris, that pegasus is so flippant I’m halfway convinced that she’s a rebel herself!” The bags under Rarity’s eyes seemed to darken as she glowered at the air in front of her. Broken gently placed the saucer on the table, leaning over and offering the mare a hoof. She waved it off.
The thoughts of killing her were a lot harder to stomp down than the ones for Pet.
“Rarity, you know that’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? You know how loyal she is to your tribe. You heard what she said when Dawn ordered the cloud cities brought down.” Rarity shook herself from side to side, folds of flesh swinging with her. “Hearing her run her mouth, I can be damned sure that Dawn’s ‘leash’ on her is a lot looser than mine.”
“If Dawn didn’t want to let ponies speak their mind, then she’d not have started the Revolution, Rarity.” Broken could feel the bile rising in his throat. “If Rainbow actually did anything about the cloud cities, I’m sure Dawn would have come down on her. Probably harder than on you, even; it’s not like you were trying to let the camps get that bad.”
“Mmm!” Rarity nodded, giving an affirming sound through closed lips and a mouthful of tea. “That’s quite right, darling. If I could have given every one of those creatures three meals a day, good housing, proper healthcare and education… well, as Applejack would say, ‘you can bet the gems on my flank’ that I’d have spent every bit I had doing so.” She paused for a moment, but picked back up before Broken could speak. “Such as things were, however, it was not to be. I did the best I could with what I had, even if Dawn constantly cut it back and the rebels stole a good deal of what I did manage to send down…”
“Sometimes things just don’t go your way. It’s not your fault if somepony chooses to do something bad or stupid or wrong, no matter how much it might hurt them or how much you want them to do otherwise.”
Broken blinked, somewhat surprised at how blatant his words had been. Rarity had noticed as well, starting another nod before abruptly halting it, slowly lowering her head and glaring at the disguised stallion.
“Fluttershy, darling, I am enjoying this talk, but I’ve already told you. No.” The mare drained her cup, putting it and the saucer to the table with a loud clack.
“Rarity, I know that you love her, that you’re trying to do the best you can for her.” True. “But this… what you’re doing to yourself? It’s… it’s bad for you, very bad for you.” Also true. “I’m trying to help you.” Laughably false. “I’m not going to tell you how to deal with her, but… I just want you to think about what happened with her legs.”
The mare’s eyes narrowed. “What, exactly, do you mean?”
“We know that she’s been having… difficulties, physically. You mentioned that she’d been sluggish, that you’d had to force her to get up and move for weeks before-“ he’d watched the puppet’s strings snap tumbled and fell when the seams ripped and its parts fell off it didn’t scream as the dust came from where there should be blood “-the accident. Don’t you remember?” He waited for her cautious nod before continuing. “Well, maybe this is something like that. And you didn’t start refusing to walk back then, so-“
“There is a BIG difference between not walking and not eating, Fluttershy!” Broken cursed internally as Rarity shouted in his face. “That, that was some horrible, horrible parasite, o-or disease, that wasn’t her, that did that to her, that took her legs a-and… this, this is her, i-it’s her starving herself, deliberately, and I don’t know why she’d do it, where she got it into her head that she shouldn’t eat anymore, b-because she’s always been my beautiful sister, she, she’s…” The mare trailed off, wrapping her hooves around herself as she sent a frantic glance at the corpse in the corner. “Look at her, Fluttershy, she’s barely there anymore, just skin and bone, as bad as those striped beasts that lost me the camps…”
Broken did turn himself, his gaze brushing over the familiar furnishing and decorations, his eye forcing itself onto the corpse. It had been placed in the corner, braces holding its legs such that it could look like it was standing. Its eyes were clouded thickly enough that he couldn’t see their colour; its mane hung limp and thin, several bald spots visible even at a distance. A large, pinkish-grey gash ran from just above its hairline, crossing its brow to disappear behind one of its eyes. Its form was undoubtedly thin, though it looked closer to ‘drained of blood’ than ‘eating itself to survive’.
Broken turned back to Rarity, finding a mare that much more aptly fit the latter description. She gained a manic grin as she saw the disgust on his face.
“See? She’s destroying herself. I told her as much, I told her that I wasn’t going to let her give up, not after all I’d done for her, and I told her that, if she can’t see what she’s doing to herself, then I was going to show her.” She lifted her forelegs, the limbs quaking under the effort of moving against gravity, the empty skin sliding over knobby joints.
“Rarity, have you considered that she might not need to eat anymore?” The mare’s legs dropped, and she affixed Broken with a bizarre stare.
“What do you mean, ‘not need to eat’?! Everything eats, Fluttershy, it’s a part of being alive! My sister is alive! Why wouldn’t she need to eat?!”
For some reason, as he saw the fear in her eyes, heard the notes in her voice, Broken felt a ball of ice fall into his stomach. He licked his lips, knowing exactly what he was about to say and exactly how the mare in front of him would react.
“Rarity…” he said, Gaia’s voice cracking. “…you know that Sweetie Belle is dead.”
He was prepared for her first move, dodging the teacup as it flew at him. He jumped out of his chair just before she sent several blades of magic into it, the thin lines barely penetrating the padding before they dissolved. Then he was blocking her hooves and her horn as she shrieked, her voice hurting his ears more than her limp strikes hurt his already-injured legs. She was already panting as he backed into the wall, and he could see the few muscles in her legs tense as she prepared to leap at him; the moment she moved forward he simply sidestepped, watching almost pityingly as her horn and head struck the solid stone.
“Pet-“ he started to say, but she was already there, worriedly fussing over the now-unconscious unicorn. He glanced up, his gaze finding a corner of the room and the corpse placed there. “Get her to bed, then step outside. I’ll be along in a minute.”
“S-Sir Shini- erm, M-Mi-“
“Don’t worry, Pet. I know she seemed angry, but this had to happen. It’s all part of the plan.” He gave her a grin, which she shakily returned as she carefully lifted Rarity off the floor.
The fact that she could do so with so little effort disturbed Broken far more than it should have.
He waited for her to actually leave the rooms before he moved, giving her another smile and a nod when she sent an uncertain glance his way. He was standing the moment the door closed, crossing the length of the room faster than he’d thought he would; he found himself breathing stale air as he approached the corpse.
“Eight years.” He found himself speaking, his breaths hard around the words. “She’s been stringing you along for eight years. Lying to herself about getting you back.” His vision blurred, and for some reason the corpse gained a pink tinge. He felt a lance of pain tear through his skull, and then his head lowered and his horn began to glow. “How about I give you back to where she stole you from?”
The corpse shifted, somehow, her head nodding forward. He let the spell go, and she seemed to stiffen in the eighth of a second before her head was replaced with a spray of black and red on the rest of her body and the wall behind her. Broken felt his own legs shaking, his sight turning an even darker red as another lance of pain shot through his head and the braces on the corpse’s legs bent, the body dropping to the floor with a wet slumping sound that he couldn’t describe because he needed to leave, needed to get out of that room, and he turned and watched the door starting to disappear behind the haze of pink-red-black, and he took a step towards it, then another, then another and another on his legs that he couldn’t feel past the pain in his head as he remembered something he can’t remember why can’t I remember her pushed through the door magic-first, wrenching it off its hinges and throwing himself into the hallway, the hallway that had air and light and was nothing like that room that he used to live in with his wife and her
“Sir Shining!” He heard a voice, calling him by his old name, and he took a breath into lungs that he hadn’t realized had been empty. He blinked, several times, confused at the blue strands that covered his vision before he realized that he wasn’t Gaia anymore. He’d had to go back to his actual form to use his magic.
The voice called at him again, and as he took more breaths and brushed his mane out of his eye he realized that he was feeling much better. Better than what, better than when, he wasn’t sure of, but his current state of mind was certainly far superior to whatever and whenever he was comparing it to. He felt so good he even started to laugh. And cough, because he hadn’t genuinely laughed in probably a decade and his vocal cords weren’t used to the motions not being counterbalanced by sarcasm, bitterness, and/or pain.
“Sir Shining?” The voice asked a third time, somehow more worried and confused than it had been before, and Broken was easily able to place a name to a face as he turned towards the speaker. He felt his grin widen at the look on that face that he’d placed the name to.
“Pet! Good to see you!” He laughed again. “Thanks for that, just needed a bit to finish something up in there.”
“I-is everything alright?” The mare’s eyes shifted to the doorless doorway. “P-Pet heard-“
“You didn’t hear anything you need to worry about. Just cleaning up the mess Marshmellow left behind, sweetie.” He giggled at his little joke. “All part of the plan.” Ooh, the plan, right. Almost forgot about that. Check off Taffy, Marshmellow once she wakes up, Cotton Candy soon enough if not yet… That left two. Cinnamon and Lollipop. He felt himself shrink, his laugh getting lighter and softer as he swapped his horn for wings. “C’mon, Pet, we have a meeting to get to.”
“W-we do?”
Broken gave her a look of exaggerated confusion. “Well, yeah. We need to fill Dawn in on what happened, don’t we?”
“Ah, o-of course, Sir Shi- M-Mistress Gaia.” She gained a small smile, which widened slightly as the stallion gave her a larger one. He quickly started back down the hallway, Pet following slightly behind him.
He started laughing again when he realized how much his head hurt.
As soon as they re-entered the castle proper, Pet and Broken were set upon by anxious guardsponies.
“Ah, Lady Gaia?” There were three of them, and the question came from the one in front. Broken quickly glanced over the three of them, noting the wide eyes, flicking tails, tight legs, loose armor, death grips on their weapons. The one in front seemed the most sure of herself; one of the ones in the back was wild-eyed, the other wore a more general look of fear.
So unprofessional. Broken thought, grinning. Rebel idiots. Can’t even report to one of their own superiors. Bet they’ve never been anywhere without a Risen backing them up.
“M-mistress Gaia?” Pet turned her head slightly to give Broken a worried glance. He shook his head, barely suppressing his mirth at the guards’ foalishness.
“Oh, my apologies. What do you need, dear guard?”
“Er, her Ladyship, Lady Dawn, she’s demanding your presence in the Great Hall, Milady.”
Broken flicked an ear back. “She is? Whatever for? I was just meeting with Rarity, as she requested.”
The guard shook her head. “It’s not about Lady Cytherea, Milady. Sir Lash, he-“
“He’s gone mad, Milady!” The wild-eyed one blurted out. He took a shaking step forwards, his gaze locked on Broken. “He, he kicked the doors in, threw Lady Thalia in the middle of the room, he’d beat her halfway to Tartarus, Milady, an’ he was hurtin’ her more, a-an’ Plan tried to stop him-“
“Shut up, Cobalt!” The mare in front snapped. ‘Cobalt’ did stop speaking, but he was only shaking harder as the mare turned back to Broken. “Er, despite himself, Milady, he was speaking true. Sir Lash’s had his hoof on Lady Thalia’s neck for the last ten minutes, after breaking just about every other part of her. And he killed the guards by the door almost as soon as he stepped inside. Lady Dawn ordered us to get away from there and find you.”
That’s Cotton Candy. Probably Cinnamon too, if she was in there, saw what he’d done… Broken felt himself grinning despite his best efforts, so he compromised and tried to mould it into looking like disbelieving humour. “Lash? Killing guardsponies? This must be some kind of joke, or misunderstanding; my Lash has never harmed anypony.”
“Snapped his fucki-“
“COBALT!” The guard in front barked, silencing the traumatized stallion once more. She took a breath, then glanced at the so-far silent third guard. “Thaw, get him out of here. Take the long way back to the barracks, keep him away from the main halls until they get the blood cleaned up.” The third nodded, still silent, and reached over to his quavering compatriot; to Broken’s disappointment, the shaky stallion didn’t go completely mad over the contact, instead letting himself be supported and led away. The remaining guard waited until the other two were around the corner before she addressed Broken again.
“Milady, I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but I can assure you that Sir Lash did kill two guards in the Great Hall, and from what we’ve heard he tore through anypony who was in the way between there and the dungeons as well. Da- Lady Dawn wanted you brought there as soon as possible, to see if you can calm him down. From what I heard him yelling, he thinks somepony’s hurting you.”
“Hurting me?” Broken blinked, slowly losing the battle to keep his face from displaying cruel mirth. “That is odd- oh! Oh, oh, oh…” He lowered his head as he slowly shook it, letting his smile stretch his face while the other two couldn’t see it properly. “I think I know what’s going on.”
“Milady?”
“I was involved in an… incident, with one of the ponies chained to the wall this morning. The guards took care of the situation, but I left before Lash arrived; if he heard about what happened and rushed down there, he might think that I’m still being harmed, and that he’s being kept away from me so that it can continue.”
The guard nodded, but still looked confused. “But why would we be keeping you away from him, Milady?”
Broken shrugged. “I don’t think that matters to him. He’s a dear heart, so focused on keeping his Mistress Gaia safe…” …that if he saw her corpse chained to the wall, with the blood on Cotton Candy’s hooves, he’d tear her and anypony who tried to stop him to pieces. Broken couldn’t stop a small giggle from escaping him, but he managed to push the corners of his mouth down and affect a grim visage for the guard. “I need to see him, quickly. Lead the way, dear guard.”
“Of course, Milady.” The guard nodded, turning on her hooves and entering a brisk trot. Broken and Pet quickly followed her; the stallion could feel as the magic around his legs flared with each impact, but the spell seemed smart enough to not show through his disguise.
He heard the first scream a good deal before he saw or smelled blood, the low keening wail of a pony who was going to die but a long way from doing so. They crossed paths with two hurried nurses, a magical stretcher carrying a still pony between them; in the few seconds where Broken got a clear look at the victim, his eye locked on a gaping hole in her chest, about the size and shape of a large stallion’s hoof.
His head flared worse than it already was as one, ten, dozens of memories flooded his vision, each one showing a similar injury to ponies’ barrels, backs, heads. He felt a very sudden sense of satisfaction, so deep set that he didn’t even feel like laughing about it.
Then he had to bite his tongue as he saw the ill look on the guard’s face.
Not so fun when they’re killing you, is it?
“T-this isn’t supposed to happen…” Pet whimpered. Broken glanced at her, and she shook herself. “Risen Guards are s-supposed to help ponies, p-p-protect them. Why would S-Sir Lash do this?”
“It’s like I said before, Pet. He’s supposed to protect his Gaia, that’s his entire reason for being, and when he became unable to do that…” Broken let the words hang. He noted with a small laugh that the guard quickened her pace.
“B-but Gaia isn’t- Y-y-you aren’t-“
“No, Pet, I’m not. He doesn’t know that, though.”
The next leg of the trip passed in relative silence, save for another scream that cut off rather abruptly into a wet gurgle. The point that their path crossed onto Lash’s was marked by a large smear of blood on one of the walls that led to a crumpled suit of decorative armour. Up the hall was a similar sight; it wasn’t quite the bloodbath the guard had implied, but there was certainly enough damage and viscera to imply that a Risen earth pony had passed through. Broken wasn’t able to stop himself from giggling in glee.
“And to think that the rebels have managed to fight them off…”
“Always with casualties, Milady.” The guard’s voice was tight enough that the disguised stallion stopped his laughs. He noticed out of the side of his vision that her visible eye was glaring hard at the air ahead of her. “Always with casualties.”
Broken sidestepped a drying puddle on the floor, guiding Pet around it with a casual hoof. She, too, was staring at the air, but her gaze was soft, unfocused.
“Eyes on me, Pet.” He mumbled under his breath. “It’s going to be okay.”
The mare didn’t respond.
As they approached the former throne room, they saw more damage, more guards, more bodies. The guard stopped abruptly just past a small congregation of her still-living coworkers; Broken noted that there wasn’t anypony, living or dead or pieces of, within a dozen metres of the empty doorway.
“Lady Dawn ordered us out, as I said; we set up a perimeter, made sure nopony came up and spooked Lash.” She gave Broken a glance and nodded. “I think it’s up to you now, Milady.”
“Thank you, miss…?”
“Ah, Grown, Milady. Free Grown.”
Broken nodded as his head flared, offering the mare a hoof. Grown took it, and gave a small yelp in surprise as Broken pulled her into him.
“If you’ve been using your real name as a cover, then I’m damned disappointed that these morons haven’t caught you yet, my little FourHooves lieutenant.” He whispered lightly into her ear, giggling as one of the gaggle of guards behind them noticed the strange activity. Grown stiffened, her head turning slightly before Broken squeezed her hoof again. “I’m not going to kill you, so just leave that knife behind your chestplate where it belongs. I’m not going to ask why you were in the throne room without trying to kill Dawn. And I’m not going to ask you how the buck you infiltrated the Revolutionary Guard at such a level without Cotton Candy stuffing a heartbomb in you, unless she did, in which case I really need to ask Task what the fuck is wrong with that flat little head of his to let you go that deep. I mean, the Shadowbolts have the suicide bombings covered, thank you, no need to waste any of our few earth ponies on it…” Broken took a laughing breath as the mare stayed entirely frozen. “I am going to tell you that you need to get that pretty little plot of yours the buck out of Canterlot and back to Vanhoover before I go in there and bring the castle down around us.” Broken leaned back, letting go of Grown’s hoof to pat the mare on the shoulder. She maintained her bewildered stare, her mouth open a small degree for several seconds before she managed to unstick her jaw and speak.
Or, rather, make noises come out of her mouth.
“Hawa- what, whab, howho-“
Broken put his hoof on her lips, noting that he’d stepped in blood somewhere given the amount of it that was on his hoof and smearing onto her face.
“Just tell your boss that the forever loyal aren’t as powerless as he thinks we are.”
The mare stared at him for a few moments before her eyes widened enormously; she took one step back, then another, before spinning and galloping down the hall; the nearby guards watched her leave, looked at Broken, and apparently decided that following her was the better option. Broken turned to give Pet another glance, finding her unchanged from her earlier far-off gaze. He thought for a moment before giving a small chuckle.
“Hey, Pet?” He walked in front of her, looking up at her absent eyes with a grin. “Pet, Pet, you there, sweetie?” He saw her eyes twitch, and his smile deepened. “Listen, Pet, I know you’re scared, but you remember how I said I was going to need you to do something for me? That’s right now, okay?” The mare blinked, her eyes regaining a bit of light. Her gaze managed to focus on him after several seconds. “I need your help now, Pet.”
“…what do you need?” Her voice was small, but clear. Broken felt some odd satisfaction at her words before he felt his mouth run away from him.
“I’m going to bring you in there with me, and Dawn’s going to be in there. She might try to talk to you, to get you to do something for her.” Broken took a breath, as ordained by the script. He would have laughed, but his throat refused. “I need you to ignore her. As soon as we set hoof in there, I want you to get behind one of the big columns near the door and cover your ears. No matter what she says, I need you to not listen to her. Can you promise me that you’ll do that?”
Pet’s eyes had turned troubled, and it took a few seconds for her to find her voice again. “W-why?”
Broken felt his smile somehow widen. “Well, because it’s part of the plan. Dawn’s going to try to trick you. She’s going to test you, to try to convince you to not help me, and you need to pass by not letting her. Okay?”
Pet stared at him for long enough that he debated simply knocking her unconscious and dragging her in, but she eventually gave him a slow nod. Broken gave her another smile and a pat on the shoulder, then turned and calmly strode to the doorway.
Crimson Lash was standing about halfway between the doorway and the former throne, facing away from the door, one of his hooves planted on a pink-and-red blob that Broken figured was (or used to be) Pinkie. The bodies of two guards lay strewn around him, in pieces; by the exposed ribcages sitting at the base of a bloody column to Broken’s left, Lash had likely disposed of their heartbombs before they could explode. Immediately behind the council table stood Rainbow Dash, her wings flared and face set in a furious visage. Pip (PAIN KILL DIE RUN) stood slightly behind her, apparently keeping her from attempting a futile assault on the stallion that had so grievously injured her wife.
Behind them, the dusty corpse of a dragon lay with its head casually raised, eyes without pupils staring at nothing, its three remaining legs and one remaining wing still curled beneath and beside it. The black scar that had taken two of its limbs remained unhealed, blending with jagged edges into the darkly faded scales that held the corpse together.
And sitting above him, on the golden stool that was once a marvelous throne, was Rising Dawn. The one thing that Broken Shield had a perfect memory of. He could feel her gaze lock onto him, and for a split second every single little voice and memory in his fractured mind spoke as one.
KILL HER
He tried to. A dozen death spells leapt to his mind, his legs tensed as their support spells swelled, he planted his hooves and prepared to charge.
And then he froze as whatever force was in his mind cut through his rage and once more stuck the script behind his eyes.
He heard, rather than saw, Pet slink to the column on his right; Dawn’s head didn’t move, remaining pointed towards him. She stood, moving down the steps at a deliberate pace, stopping as Lash flexed his leg and the pink body on the ground squealed in fear and pain. The Risen earth pony still hadn’t made a sound, still hadn’t turned to see him, still, presumably, held a stoically-wrathful glare at Dawn.
“Crimson Lash, you came in here claiming that Lady Gaia had been murdered by Lady Thalia. If you simply look behind you, you shall see that that is not the case.” Broken heard her voice, her voice, and felt himself tense in fury once more. He managed to control himself this time; the script wouldn’t let him attack her, so he focused his anger towards determining the most painful ways he could leave her alive.
Wait, leave her ali-
“Gaia…?” A slow stallion’s voice pulled him out of his reverie. Lash had already turned fully around, his hoof detached from Pinkie’s neck, and he stood stock still as his eyes found Broken’s form. There was silence for several seconds before Lash’s hoof lifted, and very suddenly he was barely a pace away from Broken. He took the next few steps at a pony’s speed, only stopping when his collarbone was mere centimetres from Broken’s face. The unicorn looked up through a wave of pink hair, meeting eyes that managed to remind him of a lost puppy. “She… killed…”
Broken felt himself nod, as surprised as Lash was when he began to speak. “I know she did, my dear Lash. But as you can see, I’m standing right here. In the flesh.”
“Gaia?” Broken heard Dawn call. He glanced around the apparently-frozen stallion in front of him, finding Rainbow Dash curled over Pinkie’s broken form, Pip standing beside Dawn rather than holding the pegasus back. His gaze locked on the winged unicorn, and he could see her shift in apparent discomfort. “Gaia, I’m glad that you’re here. I need you to lead Lash away from here, get him to your rooms, keep him there until we can sort this whole mess out.” Dawn shook her head. “And where did Pet go? She came in with yo-“
“Smell… wrong…” Lash’s voice, despite its volume, managed to cut Dawn off entirely. He was still staring at Broken, his eyes now cut with concern and fear – the first emotions he’d seen in the stallion in their many weeks together. Broken felt himself smile.
“Of course I do, my dear. Pinkie did nearly kill me, after all.”
His eyes widened in the eighth of a second before he spun back around, directing what Broken was now sure was a hate-filled stare at the ponies in the centre of the room. Broken could see Dash tense as Dawn’s jaw dropped.
“Kill you? Gaia, what are you-“
“Oh, don’t be like that, Lady Dawn.” He managed to get some acid to leak through the script. Or the script left holes for it. It was difficult to tell. “Do you expect me to believe that she would do so – could do so – if you hadn’t ordered it? That Shining Armor could slip from his shackles and walk free, unmolested by the guards, without your command?”
“Shini- Gaia, please, listen-“
“Lash, dear heart, your sister told me once that you were almost as good at hearing lies as she was. So speak up if I do anything but tell the truth.”
“Yes…” The voice was a growl. Broken felt his smile widen.
“This morning, your Lady Gaia went down to ‘interrogate’ Shining Armor, alone. She did so on Lady Dawn’s order, because Dawn wanted to keep playing with you for longer than she usually did.” Silence. “Shining Armor fell upon your Lady Gaia, and when the guards came in they let him go free and chained your Lady Gaia in his place.” Silence. “Pinkie – Lady Thalia – then entered and conversed with Shining Armor, allowing him to walk out the door before she began torturing your Lady Gaia to death.” Silence. Broken turned to his gaze upon Dawn as he stepped up to whisper in Lash’s ear.
“You remember, don’t you, Lash? The Oath you swore? What you promised to do to anypony who tried to steal your Lady Gaia away from you?” The stallion nodded, his breath hard. “Then you know what to do.”
Broken had been close to a step before, had had Risen guards appear and disappear within his hoof’s reach. He was familiar with the sudden absence, how one’s mind scrambles to comprehend the instantaneous disappearance of an entire being without the tell-tale shock of magic that accompanied teleportation. He’d felt the rush of air into the where they’d been, felt the breath physically torn from his lungs in an attempt to fill a suddenly-empty space.
He’d braced himself as he’d spoken, managing to keep himself where he was as the air warped around him and the stallion beside him blinked out of apparent existence. He’d forgotten about his disguise, however, and his long pink mane was blown over his vision by the wind that followed Lash’s movement. As such, he wasn’t able to watch as Lash sent Rainbow Dash over the council table with a dismissive strike, nor as he tore Pinkie’s head from her shoulders in a casual, one-hoofed pull.
He was, however, able to see the stallion hold her head out to the side for a few moments, letting her blood trickle onto the floor with small drips that should not have been audible to Broken’s ears, before tossing it to land directly at Dawn’s hooves.
Broken heard Dash scream, the horribly familiar sound of the emotion shared between rage and agony. She shot over the table in a rainbow blur, reaching Lash in less than half a second; he sidestepped quicker than that, one hoof meeting her neck while the other met her flank, and he added his strength to her momentum as he twisted to send her into the floor.
Even as distant as he was, Broken could hear her skull pop as it met the solid stone. Lash held her body upright for a few moments, as if expecting her to struggle, to have survived the impact, before he let it crumple wetly to the ground. He exhaled, then inhaled, then turned back to face Rising Dawn.
Then was sent flying back when Pip’s hind hooves met his jaw.
Lash recovered quickly, twisting in the air to land on his hooves as Pip rushed after him, ducking under the cream stallion’s blurred strikes and returning his own. The two spent a small length of time rapidly trading blows; Broken only knew when one had been hit by the small jerks and adjustments they made to their stances. Eventually, Lash managed to get a hit in between Pip’s legs, knocking the other stallion back a few paces and giving the bereaved berserker a chance to press an assault.
Lash was visibly larger than Pip, the Raising having added to his already considerable strength, and the discrepancy between their strengths was evident now: Lash was delivering larger blows, still incredibly fast but slower than his previous strikes, and each one of them forced Pip to visibly strain in order to keep himself solid. Were he to simply stand there and wait for an opening, Broken was fairly sure he’d be in a worse position than Pinkie soon enough.
It was only after one particular hit – one that sent out a crack audible to Broken’s ears, though he couldn’t tell if it was bone or stone – that Pip seemed to realize this; one of his back legs seemed to give, and Lash lifted both hooves to bring down upon the younger pony’s skull, only to make a large dent in the floor as Pip stepped away. Lash immediately twisted towards the direction of the airflow, but Pip had already stepped again, reappearing almost underneath the larger stallion. The red Risen lurched upward from an apparent blow to his midsection, and Pip was already to his side, bucking him in the barrel before stepping away again. Lash spun around only to catch a glancing blow on one of his forelegs, and another more solid one to his hip less than a second later. He let out a pained growl, a cough of blood hitting Pip in front of him, and he barely managed to catch the blow with one hoof before swinging his other into the pinto stallion’s jaw. Pip managed to step away before Lash could get a grip on him, but unlike before he didn’t immediately return. Lash gave another growl through his teeth before he turned to face Rising Dawn again.
There was the briefest sound like something scratching a chalkboard before a large chunk of glass embedded itself in his neck.
Lash seemed to take a second to realize that he’d been wounded; when he did, blood dripping from both around the glass and between his lips, he simply raised his hoof to the offending shard and pulled it free. He did so sluggishly, in several jerking movements, and it was only as the glass fell to the ground that Pip reappeared. He stepped in front of his injured opponent, watching the red stallion for a few moments before once more bucking him in the jaw.
This time Pip was already there when Lash was nearly to the ground, delivering another vicious kick to launch the pony in the opposite direction. Lash tried to move, to adjust himself in the air as he had earlier, but the blood loss had slowed him severely, and Pip moved quickly enough to keep him constantly, uncontrollably, mobile. Eventually, Lash simply went limp as Pip struck him, and it was only at that point that the pinto stallion allowed him to contact the ground to any degree beyond a fleeting touch.
Broken was able to see the bones jutting out of Lash’s barrel and leg as he slammed to the ground and tumbled towards the nearest stained-glass window. The Risen pony curled his three currently-functioning limbs beneath him, managing to stand as he took a wet, wheezing breath. He glanced up as Pip stepped in front of him, the younger pony standing tall and stolid despite his oddly twisted leg, swelling cheek, and bleeding eye. He was posed not in defence but in authority, as if expecting the other Risen to surrender and submit simply by his presence.
Of course, this left him open to the step-tackle from Lash that carried them both through the window in a hail of coloured glass.
For a few seconds, there was silence. Broken Shield stared at the now-empty windowpane for several moments before recalling that there was somepony else left alive in the room. Dawn was looking at the corpses of her two former friends; pain, shock, and confusion warred on her face, and they all grew only more intense as they saw Broken’s grin.
“Gaia… Fluttershy…” the mare started, the corpse of the dragon behind her finally shifting its head to ‘stare’ at him, “What in Equestria is going on?”
It was at these words that Broken finally found himself laughing.
It started as small, hitching breaths, chuckles of disbelief or amazement, but quickly swelled into roaring, almost maniacal, laughter. His entire body shook, Gaia’s voice echoing around the oddly silent hall in pealing shrieks. The only thing that stopped him was the limit of his lungs; had he not needed a gasping breath, he’d have kept laughing, laughing at her, laughing about her, laughing at the pain in his head, laughing at the corpses around them, laughing-
“Gaia!” He heard Dawn shout. His vision locked back onto her as he sucked in air, his wide-open mouth still curved in a grin; Dawn seemed to stumble for a moment at seeing her apparent friend with such a visage, but she recovered quickly enough, gaining a face not unlike those of the Risen. “Gaia, I need you to tell me what’s going on. What were you talking about, why did you tell Lash that Thalia tried to kill you?” Her eyes faltered. “When you said Shining escaped-“
“By Faust and her daughters, Dawn.” Broken said, allowing his actual voice to emit from Gaia’s body. His grin became almost painful as she paled nearly white beneath her coat. “For being a murderous, insane, deicidal tyrant, you’re fucking stupid sometimes.”
“…Shining?” Her voice was soft, unbelieving. He dropped his disguise, letting her eyes fall on what she’d done to him. “S-Shining-“
The magic erupted before he noticed, a whip of rose-coloured energy snapping forth to slap her across the face. He watched mirthfully as she took several tries to actually stand back up, feeling the script slot itself behind his eyes.
“You don’t get it, do you? You don’t even fucking understand.” He shook his head at her confusion and fear. “You spent seven years up here, thinking about how much good you were doing for Equestria, how nice everything would be, how perfect you and your plans were. Everything you did was for the good of everypony, no harm was done that couldn’t be reversed, you were making everything better, so why would anypony try to fight against you?” The pain in his head started pounding. He grinned through it. “I spent seven years down in the dirt, watching you tear the country apart and burn the world to ashes around you. Seven years fighting, dying, killing. Seven years trying to find the best way to end you.” He felt a laugh burst up his throat. It burned like acid. “And to think that you were the one that showed me how. How to beat you, how to make sure that you never win.”
“Shining, please-“
“You killed all of them, you know?” He could almost see her throat tighten. “Gaia, Thalia, Rarity, Rainbow Dash. Your friends died because of you. Because you just had to break me, to see what would happen if I lost everything, to see what’s really hiding in my head.” He briefly gained a smug grin. “And because you’re a fucking whorse. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t kept Lash late. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t broken me. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t caught me. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t hunted us. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t taken over. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t rebelled, hadn’t refused to listen, hadn’t fucking murdered her!” He laughed again as he roared, a mirthless hitching of breath to cover a sudden lance of pain. “And now? Now I’m going to take from you what you took from me.”
He didn’t bother calling for her; a bubble of magic formed around her, lifting her from her hiding spot and carrying her into view. She still held her hooves over her ears, staring at the floor moving beneath her, curled into as small a pony as she could make herself. The fear in Dawn’s eyes instantly took dominance in the war of emotions playing across her features.
“PET!” she shrieked, the corpse behind her rumbling and baring its rotted teeth. Her eyes went to Broken, and her wings flitted out as if she was preparing to launch herself at him. Instead she stood her ground, legs shaking just enough to warm the cockles of Broken’s heart. “Shining, please, don’t hurt her! She’s innocent in this, there’s no reason to involve her!”
Broken shook his head. “Don’t lie to me, you gaping cunt. You know what she can do. What potential she has. How precious she is. No, I’m not going to hurt her.” He felt another grin form on his face as he pulled the small mare towards him, not a hoofwidth off the ground, popping the bubble right as she reached him. “I’m going to steal her. I’m going to keep her hidden, under protection to keep her in as much as to keep you out. I’ll let you sit, and wait, and hope beyond hope that you’ll be able to reach her again. And if you do, when you do, after I’ve used her for what I need…” Broken’s grin turned predatory.
Dawn’s eyes were wide, white orbs with small black dots in their centres. He saw her mouth open, saw it move, heard nothing come out. He saw the corpse shift behind her, pulling air into its probably-rotted lungs.
“I-I’m sorry.” Dawn finally managed to speak. Broken cocked his ears.
“Sorry?”
“For her…” Her voice was creaking. “I… I’m sorry, for what I did to Dazzle.”
The pain in his head very suddenly encompassed the entirety of his being. A flood of memories, glowing white in painful heat, burst forth from some hidden reservoir, pulling his hooves to his head as he screamed in agony. Every voice united within his mind, and together they burned away the script that was binding him; when their collective order came through, he felt no corrective urge, nothing to stop him from fulfilling his basest desire.
KILL HER.
His horn glowed hot as he pooled every scrap of magic he could into it, focussing on the mare standing frozen in front of him, so far away yet so easily within his range. A dozen spells flitted through his mind, delaying her death by a single second as they warred over who would be allowed to rip her soul from her body and send her to Faust’s fury.
In that second, Broken saw her horn glowing.
In that second, Broken saw the corpse move, chest swelling and licks of flame flicking out from between its teeth.
In that second, a thirteenth spell shoved its way through Broken’s horn, forming the strongest barrier he’d ever made and forcing it around the corpse’s muzzle.
Flame erupted up the corpse’s throat, but it could not open its mouth to let the torrent free. There was a brief moment in which it seemed that nothing would happen, that the fire would simply die away within the corpse, but the surge of destructive energy had just needed to find a less resistant path. The corpse’s eyes seemed to glow for a brief moment, the pupils made visible once more by the orange light that burned behind them.
Then they were immolated as the torrent of flame erupted through them, moments before it blew out the fragmented back of the corpse’s skull.
The gush of heat and light lasted mere seconds, leaving behind the barest, charred remnants of a skull atop the corpse. The only place that flesh remained was within Broken’s barrier, and most of that flesh sloughed off as he let his magic go, its connections to the bone beneath baked away by the sheer heat. The corpse’s lower jaw joined it soon after, the joints and few unrotten attachments between it and the corpse having been destroyed by the flame. The corpse remained entirely still throughout this, positioned as if it were spewing fiery death upon the ponies in front of it, its missing eyes, jaw, and brain going unnoticed by the magic holding its strings.
But not unnoticed by the mare holding the magic.
“…Spike…?” Rising Dawn’s voice was soft, small, altogether too close to the filly that Broken had grown up with. He’d collapsed as he let the magic loose, the spells around his legs having weakened themselves in sacrifice to the intended death of Dawn; now he watched as the dragon’s corpse turned to its mistress, its eyeless gaze finding her without delay. He chuckled as he realized that she could probably see straight through her former assistant’s head.
By the scream that tore its way up her throat, he figured he was right.
Broken twisted around before she had finished, dragging himself to Pet with legs barely able to support themselves. He managed, barely, to get a hold of her, her body still curled tightly around itself, not moving a muscle even as he pulled himself up and wrapped his forelegs around her.
Then he used what little magic he had left to shift them as far away as he could.
“…I managed to get us far enough away from the castle that we could hide until Pet snapped out of it. After that, she just flew us down from Canterlot; apparently sixteen hours wasn’t long enough for Dawn to set up tighter air patrols around the city. From there we just had to wander through the Everfree loudly enough to trip a Loyalist warning. When Pet and I got dragged into the main base, AJ just…” Broken Shield laughed, an oddly genuine sound. “She was damned happy to see me alive.”
“How’d she die, then?”
“Hmm?” Broken gave a somewhat mildly-surprised look at Applejack.
“We heard about Fluttershy, Rainbow, an’ Pinkie. An’ Rarity, Ah guess.” The mare shifted herself, levelling her eyes at the scarred stallion. “Y’didn’t say anythin’ about your Applejack.”
“…Ah.” Broken blinked, his grin fading. He raised a hoof and halfheartedly waved it at Pip; the latter stallion stared at him for a few moments before clearing his throat.
“When Lady Dawn determined Broken Shield’s intentions, she began devoting every effort she could to reach him. Once we found where he was hiding, she sent me alongside a dozen Risen earth ponies and unicorns. The resistance was fanatical, but easily dismantled; you were the last line of defence, Miss Applejack.” The stallion coughed. “At the time, I believed that you were simply a mare who had been altered to resemble Lady Tellus. I… dealt with you, similarly to how I had your subordinates.”
The farmmare blinked, but nodded. Broken glanced around the room.
“Well? Anypony else?”
Twilight tentatively raised her hoof. “A little while ago, Pip said that Applejack had gone to join Dawn shortly after you escaped the second time. Assuming that she ever even would, how could she if everypony else was dead?”
“Easy. Take four Risen mares, cast the appearance-shifting spell on them. Instant not-dead Elemental Council members. Plus one for AJ.”
“And how does that spell work, if I might ask?” Rarity spoke up. “You’ve used it regularly, at least since your arrival here, but from what happened in the Boutique, you aren’t changing yourself quite as drastically as Pet claimed she was.”
Broken’s grin returned at that. “No, no I’m not. For either of those.” He took a breath. “I never really learned the spell that changed Pet, that was Dawn’s creation, and not all of us can learn every single spell we come across. Pet had actually figured out her own little disguising spell, that’s the one she used on herself and taught to me, but she didn’t realize that it was different from Dawn’s.” He shrugged. “I’m pretty sure Dawn used hers on me to make me worse than I should be, physically. Just so that she could ‘prove’ how weak I was and promise that she could make it better if I gave in…”
There was a period of quiet before Rainbow suddenly gave a low chuckle. Every eye turned to her.
“I was just thinking. It’s not really funny, but… since your Celestia sun-bombed Appleloosa and Manehatten after she lost Luna, what did Dawn do after she lost Spike and Pet and the rest of us? If she’d already taken down the cloud cities like you said, did she start throwing pegasi in the camps? Set the Everfree on fire? Blow up Vanhoover or wherever?”
Broken sighed. “Actually, she pulled every Risen guard back to Canterlot, had them kill every non-Risen pony still in the castle, though admittedly there weren’t many left after the wall-shattering shitfest she threw, and then she locked it down for three months, her only two appearances being to announce Spike’s death – eight years and seven months after the fact, give or take – and to show off the mare she claimed to be Applejack, alongside the mares she claimed to be the other Elements. There were massive riots and looting in Ponyville and just about everywhere else, a bunch of the still-remaining camps got overrun by their own prisoners and turned into bandit forts, Vanhoover and the remnants of the cloud cities entered open rebellion for the FourHooves and Shadowbolts, respectively, and there were scattered reports that either Gryphonia or Saddle Arabia had invaded Baltimare. My money was on the bridle-biters, they weren’t the ones losing a war against the dragons, but I was a little too distracted to really give a damn.”
Everyone stared at him before slowly turning their eyes to Pipsqueak. He seemed to sense the unasked question.
“I cannot confirm or deny reports pertaining to riotous acts in major cities, internment camp rebellions, the claiming of cities for tribal supremacist rebel groups, nor the invasion of a major city by foreign powers.” He blinked. “In fact, I do not recall anything from immediately before Broken’s second capture up until my orders to prevent his destruction of alternative timelines through any means necessary.”
“That’s a pretty big span a’time, there.” Applejack noted. Pip nodded.
“I have little doubt that Lady Dawn would have wanted to erase any chance that I might remember the deaths of Ladies Thalia and Rainbow Dash, as well as whatever other knowledge of mine she thought might threaten her.”
Broken and Twilight both nodded. Rainbow glanced between them before standing.
“I’m gonna go check on Pinkie. Later, everypony.”
Scattered waves and good-byes followed the prismatic pegasus out the door. Broken glanced between everypony before his eye fell on Fluttershy.
“You got anything to ask, or…?”
The mare nodded slightly, taking a breath before locking her eyes onto Broken.
“How did Pet die?”
Broken blinked. Then blinked again, harder. Then he raised a hoof and put it against his head.
“I… actually don’t know. She was still alive when she cast the time jump spell on me.” He glanced at Pip. “Did you-“
“I and two other Risen guards breached the chamber where you held Pet. You attempted to attack us, injuring one of the others, but I stepped and kicked you into the opposite wall. Pet began to panic, and I ordered her to perform the same spell on me as she had on you. She did so.” He blinked. “The last thing that I remember before the shift between timelines was a rose-coloured spike of magic sprouting out of her temple.”
“Oh. Well, there you have it.” Broken shrugged. Everypony (and Spike, except Pip) had their eyes on him once more.
“You killed her?” Surprisingly, it was Fluttershy again, moving to stare Broken in the eye. “You… you went through all that trouble to get her out of there, you said all those things about how important she was… and then you just killed her?”
“No, I… Faust. It wasn’t a ‘just’ thing.” Broken put his head low, but kept his gaze met with Fluttershy’s. “I was planning to kill her from the second I figured out what she was capable of. If I hadn’t convinced her in the castle, if she’d tried to run at any point, I’d have put her down then and there.” Rarity and Fluttershy gasped. Applejack, Twilight, and Spike grimaced. “It’s not like I wanted to, but she was too dangerous, too important to let Dawn keep. Even after we escaped, if we got caught – or if, say, the Loyalists had been found out and a dozen and one Risen ponies were bearing down on us - I was going to put a barrier around her brain and crush it to nothing. Quick, clean, painless. Because I can promise you that it was better for her to be dead than to go back to Dawn.”
“’Cause’a what Dawn could do with her.” Applejack said, not as a question. Broken nodded.
“And because of what Dawn had done to her.” Rarity added. Broken nodded again.
“If you want to hate me for it, that’s fine. But there was no way – no way - that I was letting Dawn take her back.”
Fluttershy held his eye for a few more moments before sighing and glancing away; everyone else allowed themselves to relax as the tension diffused. Spike seemed to pause halfway to sagging against the wall, his brow raising and head snapping to Broken.
“How were you still there?”
The scarred stallion put his eyes to the dragon, confused. “What?”
“Pip said that he kicked you away from Pet, and then you killed her when she was doing the spell on him. But didn’t she send you to this timeline first? How could you have killed her if you’d already been sent over here?”
“What?” If anything, Broken was more confused. “How could- Did Polished Closet not tell you?”
“Tell us what? Spike’s making a good point.” Twilight noted. Broken glanced at her for a moment before dragging his hoof down his face.
“No, he’s really not. Pip and I didn’t get sent over here, these, we- gah!” He cut off with several mutterings that seemed to relate to Shining Armor and a severe brain injury before sucking in a breath through his teeth. “We used a modified time-copy alteration spell. Takes an imprint of your body as it was when the spell was cast, shoots it to the target timeline, builds a body based on the imprint out of nearby organic materials and magic. I don’t remember anything past when the spell completed because my brain- er, the brain in the- because for all intents and purposes I wasn’t there.” He scraped his tongue against his teeth. “I’m basically a clone of the Broken that had the spell cast on him. Whatever happened to him – me – after the spell was cast? I have no idea and it doesn’t affect me in the slightest. I’m assuming he died because of what Pip said and because I remember planning to split my root.”
Twilight, Rarity, and Spike shuddered. Applejack furrowed her brow.
“Ah’m guessin’ that’s a bad thing?”
“It’s an incredibly painful method of suicide, dear, not to mention quite destructive to one’s surroundings.” Rarity blinked, turning a pale green beneath her coat. “Though in such a situation I imagine that somepony like Broken might see the advantage in it.”
“You imagine correctly.” Broken confirmed. He pulled a thinly-folded sheaf of paper or parchment out from beneath his eyepatch, pushing it towards her.
“And that would be…?”
He flashed her a toothy grin. “Just some details you might be interested in, related to ponies of… mutual interest to us.” He gave a glance at Twilight as Rarity picked up the note. “Nothing world-shattering or mind-breaking, I swear.”
“I’m sure Rarity would tell me if it was.” Twilight replied. Rarity put on a faux-offended air.
“Well of course I would, Twilight! To think that there might be even a sliver of doubt!” The mare grinned before putting up her nose and turning to the door, walking out of the room in the stiffest manner possible. Applejack just shook her head and followed her, with Fluttershy a short distance behind. Broken seemed to loosen himself as the door closed, stretching and cracking his jaw. He stopped when he saw Twilight’s eyes on him.
“Something else?”
Twilight started to shake her head, but paused. “Just… that body’s not your original one, then?”
Broken shrugged. “It may as well be. Last I heard there wasn’t any differences. One of the ones who could check timelines even copied himself to a different timeline, then the copy sent a copy back. Supposedly that’s how they were going to keep mapping past the highest radius pony they had, just have copies send copies and the one at the end of the chain just sends themselves back up, but then they found the timeline-killing blob, and then there was the Revolution…” Twilight was almost glad that he could say the word without a growl, but a grimace still spawned from it. He glanced out the window at the orange sky.
“Damn, that took longer than I’d planned. Think I’d better be getting back to the station before they panic and Celestia comes down and smites me.” He cricked his neck as Twilight gave him a smirk. “What’s on the menu for tomorrow, my most gracious host?”
“Studying.” Broken blinked at her. “Hey, you’re the one who claimed to have been in Gryphonia for the last however-many years. I’m just making sure you can back that up.”
The stallion shrugged. “Fair enough. Might be nice to go a day or two without ending up in chains. Or a hospital.”
“Those were your largely your fault, you know.”
“Your point being?”
Twilight’s retort was cut off as the door slammed open, revealing a distraught Pinkie Pie being hovered over by a concerned Rainbow Dash. The former mare moved to Twilight, pulling books apparently from nowhere and slamming them to the floor in front of the unicorn.
“I’m not her.” Pinkie said simply, her voice strained. “I’m not her, I-I’m not-“
“Pinks, please, you don’t need to-“ Rainbow began, before the pink mare rounded on her.
“I’M NOT HER!” She pulled out another tome and swung it down; it was an inch from the stack she’d made when a rose-coloured bubble appeared in-between, the sudden solidity bouncing the book from her grasp and into the air. Another piece of magic caught it, pulling it over to a blank-faced Broken.
“Primary Structures of Equine Anatomy.” He read off the cover, before his eye flicked to Pinkie with a raised brow. The barrier around the other books moved towards him, sliding across the floor and dragging the encased texts to within hoof’s reach. He picked the one off the top. “Skeletal Formation and Structural Differences between Tribes.” He placed it with the previous one before he cycled through the rest. “Basics of the Nervous System. Equine and Other Neurology. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Digestion – Now Including Non-Herbivores.” His eye went back to Pinkie. “You’ve been reading these.”
The mare nodded her head vigorously before she froze and started to slowly shake it. “I’m not her, I’m not her, I-“
“Damn right you aren’t.” Broken said simply. The frenetic mare froze again, allowing Rainbow to catch her shoulders. “Cotton Candy was an idiot. She didn’t know anything of what she was doing – sure, it interested her, but she’d never actually bothered to learn anything about it before she started cutting things open. She ‘learned’ entirely through experience.” He held one of the books up. “You want to know these things – they interest you and you’re bothering to learn about them, with a book rather than a knife. That puts you leagues ahead of her, leagues further in understanding precisely how evil what she was doing was.” The book floated over to Pinkie, gently sliding to the floor in front of her. She managed to glance between it and him before he started talking again.
“I’d suggest you keep at it. That way, if you’re stupid enough to end up going with Dawn after all of this, at least you’ll know exactly what you’re doing.” His lips were curved upwards, but the smile was closer to a smug smirk than a reassuring grin.
Pinkie looked at him, then Rainbow, then Spike and Pip and Twilight. Then back at the book. Then she shook her head, twisted, and vanished, leaving Rainbow to fall into her former spot. There were a few seconds of silence before Broken snorted.
“Told you she could already step.” The cycloptic unicorn said, directing the comment at the other one-eyed stallion in the room. A very subtle look of confusion came over Pip.
“I do not recall claiming that she couldn’t, Broken Shield.” He blinked. “And that wasn’t stepping. A close attempt at it, perhaps, but her form was sloppy enough to slow her down significantly. I could have caught her easily had I been directed to do so.”
“You say ‘slow’, you say ‘sloppy’, we say ‘still too fast to see’.” Broken pulled the book back to him, glancing at Rainbow. “Make sure she knows that she doesn’t need to worry about it. If she’s still scared of Thalia enough to just abandon these, I seriously doubt that she’d be stupid enough to go with Dawn.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that.” Rainbow shook her head, turning to leave before glancing over her shoulder. “Er…” She moved to say something, but it seemed to catch in her throat.
“Mhmm?”
“Th-thanks. For what you said. Being all reassuring and stuff.”
Broken shrugged. “If she’s more confident, she’s more difficult to sway, and the harder it is for Dawn to get to her the better. If she knows what she’s doing she won’t be able to convince herself that it’s okay to rip apart ponies while they’re still alive.”
“Right, but even then-“
“Don’t worry about it, Rainbow. Just doing what I can.”
The pegasus gave Twilight a halfway concerned look before leaving.
A turn of the moon and sun later, two ponies held each other’s eyes over an ocean of paper and parchment.
“Gavian versus le Glide.”
“Six wars over forty-one years, fighting over a strip of land near the Grand Falls.”
“Won by?”
“The le Glides, now the la Grands.”
“How do two nomadic clans get into a forty-one year conflict over land?”
“They both cycled into the area every seven years or so, in what seemed to be a coincidence but was actually a cover for a series of illicit trysts between the two chiefs-“
“Broken!” Twilight sent a light glare over the textbook she held, meeting the rolling eye of the stallion in front of her.
“Come on, Twilight. I’m just trying to liven it up a bit. Not like I think that’s what actually happened.”
The studious mare’s glare maintained as she huffed. “I know, and I understand, but you need to be careful; this is Gryphonia’s history, and the traditions of the clans in regards to ritual warfare are still held quite dearly there even if ninety percent of the country’s moved past the clan system. Somepony who’d spent a significant amount of time there would have quickly learned not to joke around about that kind of thing.” She shook her head. “You were there for-“
“Claiming ten years, actually six months. I figure I can blame any small mix-ups between here and there on brain damage.”
“That… might work, I guess, but didn’t you learn anything about your Gryphonia’s clan warfare rituals?”
“Actually, yes. Two clans would fight until one completely demolished the other, at which point the victorious chief would rip the loser’s head from their shoulders and wear their skull whilst raping their wives or husbands. This… four-decade ‘steal-flag-bonk-heads’ thing is new to me. Besides, it isn’t like I’m giving a seminar on the intricacies of historical Gryphonian politics this evening. Unless you have some reason to hurry on this, I’m fine with taking, oh, I don’t know, more than a day to get through it...” Broken rolled his shoulders as Twilight blinked. “In fact, even if you do have some reason to hurry-“
“Alright, alright…” Twilight raised her hooves. “We can take a break. There is research indicating a certain ratio of rest-to-study that allows for optimal solidification of information in the memory, so… what time is it right now?”
“About four!” Spike’s sleepy voice emerged from under a loose pile of books. He stood up from out of it, yawning.
“And we started at seven this morning, so that means…” The purple unicorn trailed off. “Broken, when was your curfew again?”
“Before dark. Celestia wanted to make sure the guards could see me without killing their night vision.”
“Right.” Twilight was silent for a few seconds before she slammed the book in front of her shut and sent her eyes to Broken. “Well, looks like we’re done for the day. I’m fairly impressed that you managed nine hours of study with only a half-hour lunch break.”
Broken shrugged. “There wasn’t really much to do in hiding if you weren’t on watch or preparing for a raid. Admittedly those took up about ninety percent of your time, but… you learn to deal with boredom and take in information.” He grinned as his eye twitched. “That being said, I’d really, really like to go for a walk.”
“Well, it would probably be good to stretch our legs, get some energy out…” Twilight stepped away from the table, Pip materializing next to her. He and Broken stared each other down for several moments before simultaneously glancing away. Twilight glanced towards Spike, only to find the dragon already asleep again, contorted on top of the books he’d found himself piled in. She shifted him to a more comfortable spot before heading out of the library with the two stallions in tow; Broken took and held a deep breath, only letting it go a half-block away. Twilight glanced over at him.
“You seem to be feeling better. Than you did when you first came here, I mean.”
“Shelter knows what he’s doing; I’ve built enough muscle and fat that I'm close to looking like a pony in my ‘normal’ form now. All the parasites are out, I’m managing to keep the few real teeth I still have, and he mentioned something about artificial ribs before I left the last time.” He shook his head. “I told him that he shouldn’t be putting as much effort into me as he is, but he wouldn’t hear it. If he wasn’t so smart I’d swear he was some kind of mule.”
Twilight winced at the casual speciism, but put her focus on the more pertinent question. “What do you mean that he shouldn’t put ‘so much’ effort into you? You’re an ill pony, of course he’s going to try to help you.”
Broken rolled his eye. “Please. I’d rather he help ponies who aren’t going to die before my daughter is born.” He put a level glance on Twilight. “And yes, I know how long he said I have. I’d say two years is optimistic, but he’s the one who actually cares, so I’ll defer to his judgement.”
“Why wouldn’t you care about how long you have left to live?” Twilight asked, slightly incredulous despite his previous claims on the subject. “And don’t say ‘because all that matters is that I make sure Dawn is dead’ because, newsflash, you have a better chance at that if you manage to live longer.”
“See, that’s just it, though.” Broken slowed as he talked, moving a hoof in wide gestures. “You think of it as me needing to make sure that I stay alive longer so that I might make it to when Dawn comes out. I see it as me needing to make sure that I kill Dawn before I die, regardless of when that death comes. You’re a smart mare, you can understand the difference between those.”
Twilight nodded, slightly hesitant. “I’m focused on you staying alive, you’re focused on killing me.”
“I’m aware that our – me and Dawn - being alive is not necessarily a good thing, while you refuse to accept that.”
“Because you’re a pony regardless of how you feel about yourself-“
“Because you’re afraid to die regardless of who it might save-“
“Emphasis on ‘might’-“
“Emphasis on ‘save’.”
Twilight watched him for a few moments before shaking herself. “This isn’t about saving anypony, Broken, not this part of it. Do you really feel- Do you, or do you not, want to die?”
“…no, I don’t think I do.” The stallion said after nearly thirty seconds of silence. Twilight’s gaze focused more solidly on him, but he met it easily. “But it doesn’t matter what I want.”
“Wh- yes, it does most certainly matter what you want. Broken, you can’t keep thinking like that, like you have to give everything up. You’ve already beaten Dawn, just by coming back and warning us about her. You don’t need to sacrifice yourself any more than you already have.”
The stallion laughed, with something that nearly sounded like mirth. “You say that like I have a choice.”
“But you-“
“Can you heal my scars?”
Twilight’s ear twitched. “What?”
“I want my scars gone. I want them to have never existed, I want the things that made them to have never happened. Can you do that?”
“Wh- no, but-“
“I want to be back in my own timeline. I want the Princesses, my Princesses, to still be alive. I want my sister to be the little socially-awkward bookworm she always was. I want my Equestria to be whole again. I want to see my family again, to kiss my wife and daughter and hold them close and never, ever let them go.” His eye was solid and clear, his gaze locked with hers even as his breath shuddered. “There are many things that I ‘want’, Twilight. But I can’t have them.”
“…and what about what you can have?”
“I’m sorry?”
Twilight swallowed, shaking her head quickly as if to clear it. “What is there that you want that you can have? That isn’t literally unobtainable or no longer existent?”
Broken looked the purple mare up and down before he gave a hard breath through his nostrils. “Two things. First, I want to make sure that Dawn never gains power. Preferably through killing her or you, though causing enough brain damage to render you a drooling vegetable would probably work too.”
“And second?”
“I want to make damned sure that I’m not around when Dazzle is born.”
Twilight’s eyes went wide, her brow shooting to her hairline. Broken seemed to take this as a sign to continue.
“Cadance would hate me, should hate me, for what I’ve become. I’m a violent, sadistic madpony. I don’t deserve to see her or Dazzle again, no matter how much I might ‘want’ to. I’m not so monstrous as to risk destroying Cadance’s trust in Shining by letting her see the pony he’s capable of being.” A thin smile broke across his mouth. “I’ve been able to stop myself, to focus on watching you more than on seeing her. But when Dazzle’s born, when I can see them both, together, happy, safe… I have trouble trusting myself to keep away from them. So I plan to make absolutely certain that I have no chance of ruining their lives any more than I may already have.”
“You’re going to kill yourself. Even if Dawn’s not dead?”
Broken gave a small nod. “I’d planned it for when she was two-and-a-half, when everything first happened to my timeline, because if you hadn’t turned by then then I was fairly sure that I would have trained everypony enough to put you down when she did come out. But you, you actually helped me realize, o-or remember, exactly how much damage I might do if I waited that long.” He took another shaky breath. “I… I want, I guess, to be a scary story, to them. I don’t ever want to be ‘real’, not to Cadance and especially not to Dazzle. Even more so if I end up having to kill you rather than Dawn.”
Twilight was both aware that she probably shouldn’t be as calm as she was whilst discussing her own potential murder and glad that the streets were mostly empty for this conversation. “You’re talking about a lot of possibilities here, Broken. Maybe you’ll need to kill me rather than Dawn. Maybe you won’t be able to stop yourself from seeing them. Maybe Cadance will react poorly to seeing you. And from earlier, maybe you even need to worry about any of this because Dawn coming out is a very, very small possibility given the forewarning you’ve allowed us!”
“…we’re never going to agree on that, are we?” Broken moved his head as if to start shaking it before he suddenly froze. Twilight and Pip stopped with him, the latter mutely mirroring the former’s questioning gaze.
“Broken, are you-“
“That stallion.” His voice was low, but hard enough to cut her off. “I just saw him, walking in the same direction.” Twilight followed Broken’s glare, her eyes finding a rather typical stallion calmly walking down the street.
“So?”
“So how and why the buck did he get far enough ahead of us to get out of my sight, loop back around behind us far enough that I didn’t notice him come back, and then slowly walk up to pass us again, in less than two minutes, without showing the slightest exertion?”
“Maybe it isn’t the same pony.”
“They look bloody identical.”
Twilight blinked, once more glancing at the stallion in question. “…does he have the same cutie mark?”
“Ye- ah. Um.” Broken leaned forward and squinted. “…damnit.”
“I’m willing to bet that they just look alike. You might be surprised how similar a lot of ponies look around here.” Twilight walked over and gave him a light pat on the shoulder. “It’s not like Dawn’s changing ponies around yet, right?”
“Right. Of course.” Broken took a breath. “Sorry about that. Paranoia probably got the best of me.”
“Well, you didn’t jump and attack him, so you were just being observant. I’m not going to tell you that that’s a bad thing.”
A small grin formed on the side of Broken’s face, and his steps ever-so-mildly gained a small bit of energy. Pip, on the other hoof, had slowed significantly, lagging behind the both of them; Twilight let Broken trot ahead a short ways as she checked on the stoic stallion.
“Is everything okay, Pipsqueak?”
The stallion blinked, head moving as if to nod before grinding to a halt and slowly shaking instead. “I- n-no. Miss Twilight. I do not think that everything is okay. I apologize for not saying so sooner, but...”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt, is your head-“
“I am as healthy as I can be, Miss Twilight.” Pip stated before vigorously shaking his head. “But… you asked Broken Shield if those two ponies had the same cutie mark, and he answered uncertainly, correct?”
Twilight could feel a small amount of ice building in her stomach alongside a small head building in the back of her skull. She pushed them both down, not wanting what she was expecting him to say to be true. “Yes… yes, he did.”
The stallion swallowed. “I saw their cutie marks, Miss Twilight. They were identical. Which is only a part of the problem.”
“And what problem would that be, Pip?” She asked quietly, keeping as much ice out of her voice as she could. Pipsqueak took a breath before responding.
The excuse she’d given Broken for personally escorting him to the station that night was a desire to update Celestia on any unusual activity in the Everfree; the fact that she already knew about said activity simply hadn’t been mentioned. The local guard sergeant perked up considerably when she brought up the probable changeling sighting (well away from Broken’s ears, of course).
“I sincerely appreciate your informing us of this, ma’am.” The sergeant glanced between Twilight and Pip. “The changeling situation’s been rather quiet recently, but a clear case of infiltration like this… the Princess’ll be bound to send down some Royals, and no doubt we’re going to have to put out more patrols into the forest. Having a bit of a heads-up on that’s gonna save me some headache.”
“It wasn’t any problem, sergeant.” Twilight nodded. “I’m sure that Pip could give your sketch artist a more direct description if they need it, as well.”
The stallion shook his head. “What he’s said is more than enough. The colouration’s bland enough to be difficult to spot, but knowing the cutie mark makes our job a fair bit easier. We’ll track down the real pony, make sure he hasn’t been harmed, and see if we can’t snag the bug.” He gave Pip a slightly odd look. “Not meaning to be disrespectful, but how could you be so certain that he wasn’t a real pony from the distance you claimed? Sure, being a straight copy of another pony would be a big indicator, but-“
“I’ve seen many beings move, sergeant, pony and non-pony. How they walk, run, fight, flee, hide. How they might move when trying not to be noticed.” Pip swallowed. “That… I’ve never seen something move in the manner that it did, and certainly no pony. It was imitating us, deliberately, but was never quite close enough to be correct.”
“And you noticed that from an angle, across the street, facing his backside?”
Twilight cut in. “Pip has been very… well trained. He knows what he’s talking about; if he says it wasn’t a pony, then I believe him.”
“I’m not disputing that, ma’am. Just making sure you were sure.” He gave another cursory glance over his notes before nodding at the two. “Thank you again, ma’am.”
Pip let out a breath as soon as they left the guard station, the expression of relief catching Twilight by surprise. “Are you sure you’re alright, Pip?”
The stallion gave a quick nod. “Yes, Miss Twilight.” He remained silent for several seconds while her stare bore into the side of his head. “…I still feel somewhat guilty for failing to detain the changeling. The, the discrepancy between its appearance and its movement caused my cognitions to catch on themselves in regards to its classification, and the fact that it was a species that was exterminated years before I had any possible opportunity to actually observe one did not help. I… I froze, simply watching it, Miss Twilight, but now that I’ve had a chance to think on it and recognize it I believe that such a reaction should not happen again.”
So he was caught off guard for the first time in… ever? Twilight shook her head. “I wasn’t expecting it either, Pipsqueak. Don’t worry about it.” She raised her hoof before he could start his retort. “I mean it. I’m not expecting you to foresee every possible thing that might happen, and you shouldn’t expect yourself to. You know you don’t have to be the big, scary guardspony anymore.”
“I do know that, Miss Twilight. I just find myself the most comfortable in such a role.” The stallion blinked. “Though I do not think of myself as scary.”
Twilight couldn’t help but grin as she glanced at the almost-perceptibly-sheepish look on his face; it was only because of the shift in his attention that she noticed the pony approaching them.
“Cheerilee?” Twilight asked, somewhat surprised. The teacher gave her a smile and a nod as she got within conversation distance.
“Hello, Twilight. And this is Pip, I presume?” The mare turned to the pinto stallion, who took a moment before nodding. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise, Miss Cheerilee.” Pip coughed into his shoulder as Cheerilee put her attention back on Twilight.
“I’m sorry to just jump you out of the blue like this, Twilight, but I was wondering if I could maybe talk to your uncle sometime in the near future.”
“Unc- you mean Broken Shield?” Cheerilee nodded. “Er, I’m sure he’d be happy to meet you, but can I ask why? I know he’s been getting to know the Crusaders, have they-“
“Oh, no, no, it’s nothing bad, Twilight. I just heard that he happened to be rather knowlegable on Gryphonia…”
“You want me to do what?”
Broken stared at Twilight, over the same pile of books as the day before, the sunlight through the window an early yellow rather than a late orange. She could see his eye twitch as he struggled to comprehend her suggestion.
“It makes sense, when you think about it. And Celestia thinks it might be good for you. And I didn’t mean right now, but… just so you’re aware of the opportunity.” She shrugged.
“It makes sense. To put me in a room full of foals.”
“Bro-“
Broken let out some sort of dull bleating-droning noise, his mouth fixed open as he bolted over the pile of books to block Twilight’s mouth with his hooves. Pip shifted himself at the moment Broken started moving, but didn’t stop the scarred stallion from reaching Twilight, apparently realizing that he wasn’t intending to actually harm her. Broken still sent a glance his way, and the two glared suspiciously at each other for a moment before the unicorn turned back to the lavender mare. He held her mouth shut for a short time before slowly pulling his hooves away, giving a small huff as they once more met the floor.
“Twilight, in case you weren’t aware, I’m a madpony. I’m constantly having to fight the urge to start giggling and flay you alive. I have a list of places I’m not willing to go just because of the chance that I might go mad, and a schoolhouse full of foals is very, very high on that list. Please tell me you weren’t the one stupid enough to come up with this idea.”
“Er… actually, you were, kind of.”
“What.”
“Well, apparently Mayor Mare contacted Cheerilee about you as ‘somepony who might be able to foster a better understanding of an often-misunderstood non-pony race’ with the students, and she wanted to see if you had any interest in helping them expand on what they’ve learned about the gryphons.” Twilight gave a small, awkward chuckle as Broken’s eye twitched. “I promised her I’d bring up the idea with you.”
“Well, congratulations. You fulfilled your promise. The idea’s been brought to my attention. Now we drop it, burn it, bury it, burn it again, and have the Princess throw it in the sun.” The stallion turned, stepping back over the books with rather exaggerated care. “Right, where’d we leave off-“
“Broken.” Twilight pressed her lips flat as she saw him stiffen. “First of all, I’m not going to force you to do this. It is your decision. But I want you to listen to what I have to say, and not just dismiss this outright.”
The stallion stood still for a few moments before he slumped, and Twilight could almost see the petulance radiating off of him as he turned around.
“…what do you have to say?”
Twilight blinked at his lack of active resistance before clearing her throat. “Erm, well, for one, I think that you don’t give yourself nearly enough credit in regards to your self control, especially around foals.”
“Oh really.”
“Yes, really! In your interactions with the Crusaders, even if you gave them a rather bad suggestion for how to find their cutie marks, you were very civil and made sure that they knew that you were a, a ‘risky’ pony, let’s say.” Twilight waited for Broken to nod before she continued. “When you told us what Pip did to Scootaloo and her group, whichever version of events actually happened-“ Broken rolled his eye at this, but said nothing – “you made sure that we knew that his victims were foals. You left that detail for the very end and then emphasized it immediately, like you wanted to make sure it stuck in our heads.” Broken nodded again, without waiting for her indication.
“That wasn’t just because they were foals, though-“
“Ah, it wasn’t just because they were foals? That means that them being foals certainly played at least a part in your reaction, doesn’t it?” Twilight blinked and leaned back from the hunched position she hadn’t remembered getting into. “Th-that isn’t to say that that’s wrong, per se, it’s very much normal and sane to have that kind of reaction to somepony doing that to-“
“No, no, I got it…” Broken said, letting out a breath after a few moments. Twilight herself took a few moments before she continued.
“Now in regards to Pip-“ Broken took in a sharp breath, but said nothing “- I know how much you’ve hated him. When you first came here, I remember you saying that your promise to Princess Celestia didn’t apply to him, because he wasn’t a pony. You’ve tried to kill him a number of times, even when the Princess explicitly forbade it. You were entirely insistent that he could not be forgiven for what he’d done, for who he’d killed – ‘A hundred guards, countless Loyalists, and Princess Luna’.
“And yet, despite your hatred for him, despite his support of the mare who’d murdered your wife and daughter-“ another sharp breath, this time accompanied by a tightening of his shoulders and jaw, but Broken still remained silent “-the moment that you realized that he’s still a foal, you instantly forgave him. You said outright that because he’s a foal, you can’t hold what he’s done against him.”
“Well of course not!” Broken seemed insulted. “What kind of bucking idiot would hold a foal’s ignorance against them?!”
“That’s not the point, Broken. I’m telling you that even though you had a perfect justification for hating Pip – one that you used and abused, liberally, for most of the time I’ve known you – as soon as you saw him as a foal rather than a Risen, that hatred went out the window. You’ve started treating him… well, not well, but substantially better than you had been. You’ve stopped trying to kill him, for one thing.” To Twilight’s surprise, Broken smirked at this, so she decided to press her claim. “Pip, could you come here, please?”
A slight gust of air, and the stallion was standing beside her. “Yes, Miss Twilight?”
“Don’t worry, I don’t need anything. Just stand there for a minute.” Twilight turned back to Broken. “When you look at him now, knowing what he is, do you still think he isn’t a pony? Do you still want to kill him?”
Broken’s eye widened. He glanced between the two a few times, his eye slowly narrowing, before raising his hoof to the side of his head. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and a good deal closer to her brother’s than it normally was. “…no. Fuck me. I can still think of everything he’s done, every injury he gave me, everypony he’s murdered… but that little voice, that little giggling bastard… when I look at him, it isn’t there. I, I still think that he should be punished, that’s never gone away, but… Faust. He’s a stupid, ignorant, colt. What can you do to him?”
“I think you should ask youself what you can do to him, Broken. What’s the absolute worst thing you can see yourself doing to him, right now? With everything he’s done to you?” Broken didn’t answer, instead glancing at the floor. Twilight put her head low and gave him a smile. “Then why do you think that you would hurt a room full of foals who’ve done nothing to you?”
Broken stayed silent for a length of time before putting his head back up and taking in a breath. “I want both of you there. I, I’ll show you how to put a lock on the root of my horn, if you don’t already know, and Pip, he has to stay close enough that I can’t stop him from getting to me. And there should be guards. They don’t have to come in the schoolhouse, just… I want to keep as far on the safe side as I can. And we don’t do it now. Give me a couple of weeks.”
“Of course. Cheerilee knows about some of your ‘conditions’, such as they are, so I don’t think she’d object to having the guards there. Pip and I were going to be there whether you wanted us or not.” Broken gave a single, barking laugh as Twilight grinned, but whatever mirth he’d gained quickly slipped away.
“One more thing. Do you know how to make your magic invisible?”
Twilight blinked. “Er, no… is that possible?”
“It’s not easy, but I’ve done it a few times before. Just get ready for a headache afterwards.”
“And why should I be getting ready for it?”
“Because if you think that I’m going into a room full of innocent foals whom I would sooner kill myself than injure without you keeping a barrier between them and me, then you’re more mentally damaged than I am.” He raised his hoof as Twilight began to object. “Listen. There is a very, very low chance that I’ll go mad in there due to the foals, and I acknowledge that. You’re far more likely to spark it, though even that’s not a very high chance. But I’m the kind of pony who worries about very, very low chances. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here, several times over. So I’m going to make damned sure that, in the very, very unlikely scenario that I do go mad, I will have a very, very low chance of doing any actual damage to anypony. That’s how this is going to work, or this isn’t going to work. Deal?”
Twilight took a few seconds before she nodded. Broken gave her an apparently genuine grin before turning back and grabbing a tome.
“Right, so we left off at the section on the headdress that started the Gryphon-Buffalo Tribal War…”
“Twilight. Twilight!”
Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes blearily, trying to figure out which shadowed blob was calling her name. She gave a groan as she noticed the blob that her brain assigned the term ‘window’ to was pitch-black; the mystery pony was apparently in too much of a rush to wait for mor-
“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!”
Twilight’s wings sprung out in shock as somepony shouted her name through a megaphone not an inch from her ear. Her leaping from bed was a logical extension of the force they’d propelled her with, and her horn had lit on instinct, her magic ready to fight off intruders or tie their muzzles shut or when the buck did I get my wings back?
Twilight turned her head to stare at the extra appendages, flexing the muscles that had never actually gone away in order to give them an experimental flap. They responded as she remembered them doing, and she let them fold in while her brain started burning in its attempts to figure out just what in Faust’s name was going on.
Fortunately for her, the blue alicorn giving her a concerned look answered most of her questions nicely.
“Luna? Am I having a nightmare?” Both ponies blinked, then Twilight facehoofed. “Agh, no, I meant-“
“Do not worry, Twilight. I understand your meaning and your concern. And you are correct, though not to the degree that you likely realize.”
Twilight stared at the Princess in confusion for a few moments before she noticed the black borders on her vision. “Oh. I’m having one of those.”
“Indeed.” Princess Luna nodded, but her eyes were still full of concern. “This one is odd, however. You were sleeping and dreaming normally, and then, instantaneously, your dreamscape warped into this abominable construct. This would be the first time that these ‘waking’ nightmares of yours have actually happened in your sleep, correct?”
Twilight started to nod, but both ponies froze as the sound of every downstairs window simultaneously shattering reached their ears. Luna’s lips drew tight.
“Well, let us not stay here longer then we must. I would request that you go ahead of me, Twilight, so that my presence is less known to the dreamscape, and whatever manifestation ails you has less forewarning of my power.” The mortal mare nodded, quickly moving to the doorway.
The main room of the library was somehow light enough to see each broken shelf and defiled book, despite the empty windows and doorframe showing nothing but darkness outside and none of the candles in the room being lit. Twilight swept her gaze warily across the room, scanning every inch for any sign of Broken Shield.
She was less surprised than she figured she should have been when he suddenly appeared a few paces from her, a fog wrapped around his hooves.
“Hello, Twily.”
A blaze of light immediately immolated the impossibly-wide grin. Twilight turned to glance at Luna, but the other mare’s horn still glowed.
“I can still sense it. Be wary, and tell me if you start to hurt; if this truly is some malfunction of your magic, I would prefer to do as little damage as possible to you.”
Twilight nodded just in time to see the white stallion on the ceiling. A strangled shriek got him blasted to oblivion, only for another to immediately appear, standing on Luna’s back, the fog falling down along her sides. He remained in that spot even as the Princess shifted away, floating in midair on a spreading cloud, grinning and staring at Twilight with a pinpricked pupil.
“You have to die, Twily.” His voice said, so close to and far from her brother’s. “If you don’t die then she does. And she does. And she does. And she does. And she does.” A sick feeling washed over her with his words, and her head throbbed as Luna shredded him to ribbons.
“Twilight?” Luna asked, but Twilight’s throat was tight, and she managed a bare croak before another Broken appeared, in the same position as the first.
“She thinks she’s helping. But she’s not. You have to die, Twily.” Luna dispelled him, a simple pop from existence as opposed to her earlier methods, but the words still hit Twilight, and her head hurt more and her throat got tighter and she tried to tell Luna but she couldn’t because her head hurt and her throat was too tight and there was something heavy on her back and “You have to die, Twily.”
Twilight felt herself be pulled somewhere, two heavy wings wrapping around her, a warm heartbeat in her ear quieting the pounding in her head. More voices sounded, more pulses of magic, some shifts and thumps on the wings around her. She felt Luna say something, but she couldn’t hear it, and as she lifted her ear from the alicorn’s throat she saw the eye and the smile a bare inch from her.
“You have to die, Twily.” The smile grew wider, somehow, curling in on itself, the teeth stretching and becoming jagged. Sledgehammers were crushing her skull to dust and nooses constricted her throat to a pin’s width and the cloying fog was spreading and the voice was still there. Through the spreading blackness she saw his mouth open, and the hood that was his head fell back and she saw who was inside of him and she said
“If you don’t die then Twilight will.”
Then all she heard was a scream.
“WAKE
up!”
Twilight opened her eyes and her mouth simultaneously, taking in as much midnight light and air as she respectively could. Her magic found Spike before her flailing limbs did, and she pulled him to her barrel and held him tight with both hooves, her eyes still staring blankly at the ceiling, her mouth exhaling with a single repeated phrase.
The fact that she held him like that for five minutes, and that that was the only thing that she said during those five minutes, did not do much to convince the dragon that she was telling the truth. Nor did the concerned letter from Luna that he burped up a minute into the mantra.
“I’m just- Spike, I had a nightmare. A… a very bad nightmare, but it was… still just a nightmare.”
“It wasn’t ‘just’ a nightmare, Twilight, Luna doesn’t send letters for ‘just’ nightmares! It was one of those things that happened in Canterlot, wasn’t it?” Twilight gave a small nod, and his frown deepened. “Right. You need to tell me what happened, right now.”
“Spike-“
“Please, Twilight. You don’t have to try to deal with this alone, and I hate not being able to help you.” Spike folded his arms and affixed her with a glare, and only the fear in his eyes and behind hers stopped her from seeing the gesture as adorable rather than serious. She took a breath, her brain scrambling to find some way to explain what she’d seen.
“I’m now absolutely certain that it’s my own magic causing them, at least.” she started. Spike raised an eyebrow, but nodded, and as she told him what had happened her mind latched onto her own words, parading them through itself and crushing any thought that claimed otherwise.
After all, how else could she explain seeing herself beneath Broken’s skin?
Twilight’s letter back to Princess Luna was essentially what she told Spike, minus the details that the Princess herself would have been able to observe. The two sent notes back and forth until Spike objected via falling unconscious; Twilight made sure to get him to bed before taking to her own pillow.
Two weeks passed with what Twilight redefined ‘normality’: Trawling with Broken through both world history books and texts on the various aspects of Gryphonia, especially historical events and modern culture, interspersed with discussions of differences between Broken’s prior knowledge and the information he was obtaining (usually involving the line ‘if these idiots had just killed those idiots like they did in my timeline then…’ verbatim). Pip would check in every so often and covertly update Twilight on his self-ordained hunt for the changelings; despite her assurances he seemed to have taken his own reaction to them as a personal affront, and he appeared to regard the creatures as a larger threat than Broken, at least for the time being. Unfortunately, the pony they’d seen wasn’t a local and was apparently no longer around, and any evidence of changelings he (or the guards he was ‘casually’ working with) found was days old, with no trail to pick up.
Twilight was just glad he’d found something to do that didn’t involve waiting on her every whim. Even if what he was doing led her to worry about him every time he was away. On one particular morning, as she, Spike, and Broken were making their way through Ponyville, she voiced her concerns.
“I’m sorry, do you expect me to sympathize or something?”
Twilight turned a light glare onto the other unicorn, who had already fixed her with a look of supreme indifference overtop his irritation. “This is the longest he’s been gone so far. Given where he is and what we’re doing today, I think some concern is justified.”
Broken rolled his eyes. “Right, because he’s been in so much danger every other time he’s gone into the Everfree. Twilight, as a pony with years more experience dealing with him than you, I ask that you trust me when I tell you that he could do a one-pony charge into a dragon’s cave and come out carrying its skull. A little bit of ‘foreign species documentation’ – or whatever it is he’s actually doing with those Canterlot Guards that you won’t tell me about – won’t hurt him.”
“Just like you haven’t ever hurt him?” Spike asked, sarcasm laced through his words.
“Hey, I know how to injure him. Manticores and timberwolves don’t. Unless you forgot what he did to that one manticore he ‘fought’?” Broken let his breath out as Spike blanched, his brow furrowed. “Maybe you’re right, though, Twilight.”
“Oh?”
The stallion gave the mare a rickety smile. “Well, I mean, he could be in danger, somehow. And one of the requirements for my talking to the foals was him being there, right? So if he’s not with us, that means we can’t go. We should just head on back to the library an-“
“Broken.” The addressed pony cut off at Twilight’s tone. “You aren’t going to weasel out of this. Cheerilee’s already told the students that you’re coming. The guards’ve already scheduled several ponies at the schoolhouse specifically for you. You told me that you felt ready enough for today. I closed the library for this.”
Broken blinked at that final pronouncement. “Hasn’t the library been closed more often than not since I showed up? What’s so bad about that?”
“We- I- Those other times were necessary! Usually because I needed to stop you from doing stupid and/or dangerous things! This time is totally diff… well, I’m still… shut up.” Twilight’s brow furrowed as Broken cackled. “Have you at least thought about what you’re going to say to the foals?”
“Aside from ‘gryphons are bucking dangerous and you should thank Faust every morning that she deigned to allow your birth in a country that actually gives a damn about you’?” He rolled his eye as both the mare and dragon sent him another glare. “Relax. I’m going to stick to the textbooks, mostly. Particularly the ones they don’t have, I don’t just want to retread the same information they already know. I’ll sprinkle bits of my actual experiences when things start sagging.”
Twilight nodded. “And what if they ask about your… condition? Your eye and scars?”
Broken smirked at that. “Cheerilee’s probably promised them a stay in Tartarus if they ask me about them. I’ll deal with it, don’t worry.”
“And by ‘deal with it’…” Spike trailed off. Broken gave him a look.
“Nothing inappropriate. Nothing that should give them nightmares. Certainly not how I actually got most of them.” Broken took in a slightly shaking breath. “Buck me, I’m scared enough that I might accidentally hurt one of them. I’m not going to go out of my way to traumatize them.”
“I don’t doubt that, Broken.” Twilight smiled at the stallion, who gave a small return of the gesture after a several-second delay, taking in and letting out another breath before he did so.
The walk to the school was otherwise silent save for Broken’s occasional mutterings. Twilight wasn’t able to actually hear any of the words he said, but she quickly figured that he was speaking more for his own benefit than to communicate with anypony; she’d already managed to tune him out by the time they began approaching the schoolhouse proper. Unlike most days, two guardsponies were stationed at the door, one of whom stepped inside as they drew near only to emerge seconds later with Cheerilee immediately behind him.
“Hello, Twilight, Spike. Mister Shield, so glad that you could come!” The schoolteacher held out a hoof to Broken, who stepped forward and met it with one of his own; Twilight noticed (probably belatedly) that he’d ceased his murmuring.
“Oh, please, call me Broken. And I was happy to help, once Sparky here told me about your offer.” the stallion replied, his voice identical to when he’d spoken to Mrs. Cake. “Given how we’re seeing more and more interactions between Gryphonia and our own nation, it would behoove us to ensure that our foals knew more about its native people than just what they look like.” He fixed Cheerilee with a grin that mirrored her own as she nodded.
“You’ve taken the words right out of my mouth, Broken.” The schoolteacher gave a quick glance at the door. “Shall we head inside? I’ve already informed the class about you, and they seem very excited to hear from you.”
Broken gave a light laugh. “If I know foals their age, they’re more excited by the day without schoolwork than by the chance to hear from me.” He and Cheerilee shared a few innocent laughs; how genuine Broken sounded, given how she knew he felt about the situation, sent spiders up Twilight’s back. Spike seemed to share her unease, giving the stallion a suspicious look as he thumbed the scroll on his wrist. Broken glanced at both of them before he continued. “In all seriousness, though, I’m afraid that we’ll need to delay a sho- oh, nevermind.”
Only Broken’s attention and the brush of air along Twilight’s back stopped her from jumping as a voice spoke up behind her. “My apologies Miss Twilight, Sir Spike, Miss Cheerilee, Broken Shield. The latest expedition lasted longer than we had intended.” Pip stepped up on the other side of Twilight from Spike, between her and Broken. He had a few smears of dirt or sap on his forelegs, and Twilight could see his muscles tensed around his shoulders.
“Is everything alright, Pip?” She asked, carefully catching his eye. “Did you manage to find something?”
The stallion took a breath before nodding, the movement sending Twilight’s mind on a sprint of activity. “We did, Miss Twilight, though I believe that such matters would be better discussed after Broken Shield’s presentation. Wouldn’t you agree, Broken?”
“Oh, of course, Pip. Wouldn’t want to keep the young ones waiting any longer than we have to.” He nodded to Cheerilee, who quickly slipped inside and began quieting the class; as soon as she was inside he turned to them, his voice back to normal. “Twilight, as soon as we’re all at the front I want that barrier between us and the class. Pip, if I start ‘going off’, you get me out of there and take off my horn as soon as we’re out of sight of the foals. Throw me through the wall, the floor, the roof, I don’t care, just make damn sure I don’t get a chance to test Twilight’s barrier. Spike, you send that note as soon as Pip grabs me. Everyone understand?”
“A good plan.” “Makes sense to me.” Pip and Spike said simultaneously. Twilight leaned over to put her hoof on Broken’s shoulder.
“I’m sure everything will be okay.” she said, making sure to catch his eye with hers. “You’re going to do fine, Broken.” The addressed stallion let out a breath and put his forehooves to his (closed) eye and eyepatch, pressing both in for several seconds before letting his breath out and blinking.
“Faust, I hope so…” He turned to the door at the same time as it opened, giving Cheerilee another calm smile as he returned to his ‘public’ voice. “Everypony ready to go in there?”
“Just waiting on you.” the teacher replied, leaving the door wide open as the four moved to enter the building.
Thirty pairs of eyes fell upon the group as they moved through the door, the guard that entered behind them going unnoticed. Broken’s smile never left his face as he quietly walked to the front, apparently ignorant of the mass of whispers and hushed conversations that sprang up around him. He gave a quick nod to the Crusaders as he passed them; Pip giving a similar acknowledgement to the small wave his younger counterpart gave him, stumbling slightly and taking in a small breath before continuing without comment. Twilight was the last to reach the front of the room, quietly putting an inch-thick and entirely-invisible shield between them and the students. She nodded at both Cheerilee and Broken, the latter pony clearing his throat and stepping up to a short distance from the barrier.
“Hello, everypony. My name is Broken Shield, as I’m sure your teacher Miss Cheerilee has already informed you. I am Twilight Sparkle’s uncle and a former ‘liason’ to Gryphonia for Princess Celestia. While I’ve already met some of you, I hope that you can all get to know me a little better in the short time we have today. In fact, on that note and before we begin, I’m sure that many of you have questions about my appearance, specifically about these lines criss-crossing just about every inch of me-“ he raised his hoof and swept it down beside himself in a wide gesture before bringing it to his eyepatch and tapping several times “-as well as why I happen to be wearing this little patch of black on my face.” He glanced around the room as several colts and fillies glanced at each other. “I’m also sure that Miss Cheerilee has informed you, in her own way, that your questions should be about the subject you’ve been studying rather than my physical condition. Now, while I certainly appreciate her concern and have absolutely no desire to undermine her authority, I do feel that it would be best to nip in the bud any ideas or theories that may be forming in your heads about how, exactly, I got this multitude of mutilations.” Twilight and Cheerilee both glanced at each other in surprise, but before they could move Broken’s horn was already glowing.
The stallion seemed to deflate, his cheeks thinning and stomach pulling in, though unlike the last time Twilight had seen him shed his normalized appearance he still resembled a living pony by the time his form stopped shifting. He took a moment to shake himself before he turned to the mares, giving them both a smirk and a wink before turning back to the shocked-silent students. He seemed to shift his jaw around for a few moments before his lips bulged forward, a set of dentures quickly pulled out in a tight ball of rose-coloured magic.
“Tho.” Broken said, with an open-mouthed smile nearly devoid of teeth. “Who wanth to know how I got theth thcarth?”
“Did… did he run that by you? On the way here, or…”
“No, actually. I should have seen something like that coming, though.”
To the relief of both mares behind the barrier, Broken had put his teeth back in and his glamour back on before he started answering the class’ questions. To their differing degrees of discomfort, he had elected to use his scars as his primary teaching tool.
“Ah, ‘that long thin one going down my shoulder’. Now I got that particular injury during my stay in Genera, which was founded by the Genic tribe as part of the Second Tribal Settlement treaty. Anypony remember when that treaty was signed…? 292 ANM, that’s right, very good…”
“…he’s not exactly the most orthodox of instructors, is he?” Cheerliee asked quietly, keeping half of her attention on Broken. Twilight turned to face the teacher, a wry smile forming on her face.
“He’s not the most orthodox of ponies. He spent almost a decade in a rather dangerous environment; you should have seen him when he first came here.” The unicorn shrugged as she put her eyes back on the gesticulating stallion. “But he has his ways of doing things, and they’ve usually worked for him. And he cares quite a bit about foals; I’m honestly certain that he’d cripple himself, or worse, long before he’d lay a hoof on one of them. But he knows that he has problems. He said he wouldn’t do this without the guards and the barrier I have going, just in case he starts having trouble.”
“Is he really that dangerous?”
“He thinks he is. From what I’ve seen, he’s more scared of what he might do than actually able to do it.” She gave Cheerilee a look as the students feverishly scribbled down what Broken had just finished saying. “If I thought he was a danger to them, do you think I’d have even brought this up to him? Let alone actually let him come here?”
“Well, no, of course not.” The teacher sighed. “It’s rather sad, though. He’s so polite, he knows how to get the foals interested and clearly enjoys interacting with them… to think that he thinks he’s enough of a threat to them that they need to be guarded from him…”
“These claw marks on my leg? Well, in the tribes, one could, and can, challenge a chief’s leadership by trying to knock their legs out from under them, which would make them physically lower than you. That swatting at the legs eventually worked its way through their culture as an expression of displeasure, regardless of actual social status or desire to physically fight…”
The conversation fell away at that point, and for a time Twilight simply sat and watched Broken as he educationally illustrated the ‘origins’ of his many wounds. She found herself having to bite her cheek at some points, when his stories delved from the simply unlikely to the absurdly outlandish, but he never strayed out of his educational bent nor into too gory of detail. He also remained largely neutral whenever one of the students asked about the gryphons themselves, gently but firmly rebuffing any stereotypes that were brought up and simply remarking that the gryphons and Gryphonia were different from, not necessarily better or worse than, ponies and Equestria.
Given how many epithets she’d inadvertently learned from him for them, that came as a rather pleasant surprise.
“Miss Twilight?”
Twilight nearly jumped at the whisper in her ear, but managed to keep herself calm and simply turn her head towards the speaker. “Pip? Is everything alright?”
The stallion blinked, taking a moment before shaking his head. “I am not sure, Miss Twilight. It is not a problem with Broken Shield, if that is your concern.” Pip turned his head in order to glance at the class, but none seemed to notice his movement, enamoured as they were with Broken’s stories. Spike did, however, and Pip motioned for him to join them. “The guards and I encountered a very fresh trail today, eventually leading to a-“ he paused momentarily, twisting his head back to give Cheerilee a quick glance before returning his gaze to the class “-a ‘live specimen’.”
Twilight blinked. “That’s very good, then, isn’t it?”
Pip nodded. “The guardsponies captured it after I tracked it down, Miss Twilight. It had been injured previously, and there was a scent in the air, very distinct, centered on the specimen. That was the first time I had smelled it, other than on the trail it had made.”
Twilight felt her stomach bottom out as Pip’s emphasis processed, but Spike was the one to voice her concern. “And the second time?”
“In this classroom, while passing my younger self.”
Again, Twilight had to restrain herself from jolting in shock. She held herself still for a few moments before allowing her eyes to range out over the class; they locked onto Pipsqueak, who was busy staring, wide-eyed, at whatever claim Broken had just made.
“I do not believe that he has been replaced.” Pip continued. “The scent was faint, and the movements that I’ve observed of him, limited as they are in the current environment, do not deviate significantly enough from his peers to arouse suspicion. I have made similar observations of those immediately surrounding him, though I am almost entirely certain that the scent was on him. I believe that he may be in regular contact with a specimen, enough that their scent has transferred, which would almost definitely mean physical contact.”
“But given his age, the most likely ponies for that would be… his… parents.” Twilight’s words slowed as she saw Pip’s jaw tighten, his eye staring at nothing but with a visible anxiety and anger beneath it. Spike gave her a glance, thumbing at the scroll on his wrist, but she just shook her head. She took a breath and slowly raised her hoof to place it on Pip’s shoulder, drawing it down his leg to take his hoof in her own. “It’ll be okay, Pip. We know about this now, and that means we can deal with it. I know you want to protect them, protect him, but we need to stay calm, okay?”
The pinto stallion took another breath, his eye clouding over with its regular stoicism and his teeth no longer audibly creaking as he relaxed the pressure on them. “That… that is okay, Miss Twilight. I apologize for not bringing this to your attention sooner.”
“…and I know that that whole concept of killing things and eating them seems wrong, but meat is an essential part of their diet, they have to do it or they’d get very sick and die. But to answer your question, this scar is from a fight, not anyone trying to eat me…”
Twilight gained a halfway-incredulous smirk. “That’s fine, Pip. Just give me some time. I’ll figure this out.”
Broken let out a breath as he waved the students goodbye; as soon as the last of them were out the door he sat down heavily, bringing his forehooves to his face and rubbing vigorously. Instead of turning, he craned his head backwards, staring upside-down at the mares behind him.
“So, how’d I do?”
Cheerilee gave him a teacher’s smile. “I think things went fairly well; the class certainly seems interested to know even more than you talked to them about.”
“I’m surprised that you got as much detail in as you did, Uncle Broken.” Twilight shrugged. “And that you remember so much about your… erm…”
“Pah, you know not to worry about hurting this old colt, Sparky. I’ve got most of a roadmap carved into my hide, I know it.” The stallion shrugged as he turned, righting his head to address the mares more directly. “And it was a pleasure speaking to the class, Ms. Cheerilee. I might just come back next year for the new students.” He punctuated the statement with a laugh, just quickly enough for Twilight to be uncertain as to whether he was joking, and gave a quick glance at the guard by the door. “In any case, that much social interaction’s pretty much wiped me out. I think I’ll just be heading back with the guards, Sparky.”
“Really?” Twilight asked in mild surprise. “You’ve been fairly set on staying at the library for as long as you can for these last few weeks, no matter how exhausted you were getting.”
Broken had the tenacity to look affronted. “Well of course I was! I’ve been up and down from Canterlot so much that this is the first good length of time I’ve actually gotten to spend with you! Why wouldn’t I want to stick around my favourite niece as much as I could?”
Twilight found herself blushing as Cheerilee made an “aww”ing noise and Spike started laughing into his fist. “I’m also your only niece…”
“Bah, favourite foal of my sister, then. Your brother may as well be a clone of me in looks, but he’s just a wee bit too stubborn for my liking. Probably your father’s side of the family.” He paused as Spike fell over, shaking and wheezing around the fist in his mouth. “That’s another thing. Colt has no sense of humour. Ah well, at least he married someone with a good hea… ahm. A good heart.” Broken yawned, rather unconvincingly, and nodded at the mares. “Have a good day, Ms. Cheerliee. See you tomorrow, Sparky.”
Twilight bid the teacher farewell several minutes later, after Spike had recovered from his giggle fit. She, the dragon, and Pip spent several minutes walking in silence.
“Pip, can you make sure Broken isn’t following us?”
“One moment.” The stallion disappeared for about eight seconds before returning to the same position he’d left. “Broken Shield is not within several blocks of us, Miss Twilight.”
“Thank you, Pip. Had to make sure he hadn’t ducked the guards.” Twilight started off again, turning off of the route to home. “First I want to go to Pipsqueak’s house and make sure that at least one of his parents has been replaced. I don’t doubt your report, Pip, but we can’t just break in and attack them. We go in, say we wanted to chat and clear up any concerns that they may have from Luna’s explanation of the timelines. Meanwhile, Pip can see if either of them is a changeling rather than a pony.
“If we do find a changeling there, we leave without arousing their suspicion and go to the guard station. We inform the sergeant of our findings, and Spike can send a message to the Princess while the sergeant gathers his ponies to capture the changeling. Then we make sure Broken remains oblivious until the Princess arrives, at which point she can make sure he doesn’t go flying off the handle.”
“What if his parents aren’t changelings, though?” Spike asked. “Should we tell them that one’s been rubbing off on their son?”
“Er, probably not those exact words, but yes, that’s a good idea. We warn them and bring the whole family to the station, then the guards can sweep the building. If you find a scent trail, Pip, you can help them track it.”
“Would you want me to watch the building while you bring them to the station, Miss Twilight? In case a hiding changeling overheard us and attempted an escape.”
“That would probably be for the best, Pip.” Twilight sighed. “Hopefully, the guards and the Princesses can use this changeling and the one you helped them capture this morning to figure out where the main hive is. If not, then we at least know for absolute certain that they’re active in Ponyville, and the Princess will probably have us screen everypony in town to weed out any who are still hiding, as well as start up deeper and more thorough patrols in the Everfree. Dealing with Broken is going to be hard enough in the former case, if we’re still under threat from the changelings he’ll get even more paranoid a-“
“Miss Twilight, I can hear Broken screaming from the direction of Pipsqueak’s house.”
Twilight and Spike both gave wide-eyed glances at Pip, who was staring quite intently at some point they couldn’t see. Twilight bit off a curse.
“Spike, send the message now! Pip, go, we’ll catch up!” Pip stepped away as Spike bathed his upper arm in flame, the magic ash flitting away to Canterlot. Twilight took a moment to calm herself before grabbing Spike, holding him close as she teleported to Pipsqueak’s home.
The area in front of the shop-house was clear, but a quick glance up the road gave her her intended destination. She ran up to the scene as quickly as she could, one of the guards approaching her as she closed in.
“Good to see you, ma’am, I was about to send up a signal when Pip arrived.”
Twilight nodded at him and took in the scene: Pip was holding Broken to the ground, the latter stallion staying silent and still. One of the guards had his horn glowing, holding a barrier over a portion of a wall and the road beneath it. The other was holding the attention of a rather shocked and confused looking Pipsqueak, keeping herself between the colt and the barrier the other guard was holding.
“What happened here?”
“Ah, we were bringing Broken Shield back to the station from the schoolhouse, ma’am. Everything was normal, he wasn’t doing anything unusual, and then the colt and what is apparently his father start walking towards us. When they get really close, Broken goes stiff, sniffs the air a bit, then he just lunges towards the father. We grab him before he can get close, but before we can lock his root he gets a barrier up and slams the father against the wall, there. He starts screaming that ‘there’s no blood’ or something like that, and then Pip arrives, grabs him, and says you said to check the father. When we do that, well...” The guard sighed. “It was a changeling, ma’am. Broken’d killed it when he hit it with his barrier. Gilder put a barrier up around it for containment, Quartz is trying to keep the colt calm, and I was going to get Broken more properly secured after I sent up the signal.”
Twilight blinked as she took in the information. “You’ve done well for what Broken made you deal with. I need you to tell your sergeant about this as fast as you can; the Princess shall be arriving shortly, and I’m sure he’d like to be informed before she meets with him.”
The guard’s eyes widened in the few moments before he gave her a smart salute and galloped off. She raised her hoof, grinding it into her forehead for a few moments before dragging it down her face.
“Y’know, there is a bright side to this.” Spike spoke, catching her eye as he shrugged. “At least we know Pip was right, now.”
Twilight’s eyes went around the scene again, settling on the youngest pony there, reading his shellshocked expression. She grimaced at what Pipsqueak must have seen: His father crumpled against a wall on the side of the street after an apparently random attack, eyes staring blindly outwards before a spark of green flame burned away the familiar and left behind the monstrous.
Not to mention somepony he ‘knew’ being the one to attack his ‘dad’. Buck, his dad being attacked at all would have damaged him, let alone this…
Twilight cussed as she realized that Pip’s mother hadn’t been informed yet, and did so again as she realized that the mare might well be another changeling. She warred with herself for a moment before starting to move to Pip, reasoning that he would be the best pony to send in case of the latter. As she approached, both stallions turned their heads to her, and she found herself forced to a stop as they faced her fully; Pip was stoic, expressionless, as calm as was normal for him. But Broken?
In Broken’s eye, etched into his brow, his jaw, and every aspect of his appearance, was the purest expression of hatred she’d ever seen.
“I’m not angry at you, you know.”
Twilight had brought Broken to the library, the stallion following her without resistance despite the malice that twisted his features. Over the walk to the building he’d apparently regained control of himself, at least to some degree; his face had lost its edges, become stonier than even Pip was able to maintain. Only his eye kept its malevolent appearance, and it was with that eye that he’d been watching her for nearly an hour.
They sat across from each other in one of the library’s back rooms, Twilight and Spike in the centre and Broken inches away from the wall furthest from the door. Pip was waiting in the main room, by her order; she’d needed somepony to explain what was going on when Celestia arrived, and she had guessed (correctly) that Broken would need her full attention for longer than it would take the Princess to arrive. She had tried to convince Spike to stay there as well, but the dragon had flatly refused, and Twilight had simply felt that it wasn’t worth arguing with him.
Her friends had come, each notified by the guards about what had occurred; Broken hadn’t spared them a glance, not even raising his eye as they entered the room, nor as Twilight met their questions and they sat down beside her.
“Honestly, I’m not angry,” Broken continued, a small smile flitting across his features even as his gaze did its level best to set her on fire, “I swear to Faust, Twilight. I’m not mad at you.”
Applejack moved to speak, no doubt to bite off a retort to the disturbingly calm stallion, but a raised hoof from Twilight cut her off before she could begin. Twilight gave her a glance, sympathetic but level, and shook her head; Applejack’s brow furrowed, but she nodded and sat back. Twilight returned her gaze to Broken, who hadn’t seemed to notice the silent exchange.
“I… I’m just… confused. That’s probably the best word for it.” He raised his hoof halfway to his face, and then it stopped, moving up and down in short, jerking spurts before finally reaching the eyeless side of his face. He held it in place for a few moments before stopping at a corner of the eyepatch; a few seconds of minute movements, and the hoof moved again, the patch slowly falling as the string holding it around the socket was pulled out. After several seconds, the patch had fallen to the floor, and Broken broke his hour-long staring match with Twilight to pick it up and place the string into the pocket that it apparently held on its back side. His eye stayed on the small square of material for several seconds before returning to the lavender mare, this time accompanied by a blackened pit. Then he spoke again.
“You knew about the changelings.” It wasn’t a question, nor was it an accusation. It was a simple statement of fact. Twilight nodded.
“Yes.”
Broken turned his head, as if looking at the others, but his eye, and the hate within it, remained fixed on her.
“They knew about the changelings.”
“Yes.”
“Celestia knew. Luna. Shining.”
“Yes.”
“Pip.”
“Yes.”
Broken took a breath, then exhaled. It wasn’t a sigh, that would’ve required emotion.
“You’ve known for some time.”
“We learned about them after you tried to destroy Everfree Castle. The Princesses and Shining have known about them for longer.”
“You knew they were in the town.”
“Only after you pointed out the identical stallions a couple of weeks ago. Pip had seen them too, but he wasn’t sure what they were.”
“Couldn’t have expected him to. They went extinct while he was still a foal.”
“Celestia told us. You killed them all.”
“The word is genocide. And yes, I did.” Broken nodded once. “And now I’m wondering why.”
“Why you killed them? Why your Celestia ordered you to?”
“Why your Shining and your Celestia didn’t.” He raised a hoof again, this time gesturing to the empty air, and Twilight noticed that the leg he’d left on the ground was shaking. His whole body was shaking, now that she was looking at it rather than his eye, and she allowed her horn a low glow as Broken drew a shuddering breath. “I… I just can’t… I can’t understand how, how they could be so FUCKING STUPID as to allow any of those insects to survive.”
Everyone in the room but him froze as he suddenly shouted the two words, his face contorted back to the malicious visage he’d worn an hour before, and then he was quiet again, his eye once more the only sign that he was anything but calm. The room sat in silence for several seconds before the door slowly creaked open, drawing everyone except Broken’s wary eyes.
“I think I might be able to help with that.”
Twilight felt a spike of relief shoot through her at the voice, even before her brother stepped from around the corner of the door and into sight. Shining Armor nodded at her and the others before flicking his eyes to Broken; Twilight saw a half-second of some unfamiliar expression before his eyes and smile returned to her group.
“Sorry to crash the party, but I couldn’t help but overhear that little bit towards the end. Sounded like I have some explaining to do.” He lifted his hoof and tapped at the doorframe. “But before I do… Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Spike, I have to ask you to leave.”
“Say what now?!” Applejack stood and started stalking over to the stallion, but stopped as he held up his hoof.
“Please, Applejack, I know that you, all of you, want to be here to back my sister up, and I greatly appreciate that. But you still need to leave.”
“An’ might Ah ask why?”
“Because the Princess is expecting your presence outside.” Shining stated simply. Twilight felt a jolt of surprise as Broken’s gaze shifted from her to his doppelganger, she turned to watch as Applejack blinked, took in a breath, tried to speak, and then just sighed. Shining moved his attention from her to the others. “I’d advise that you all get going. Never pays to make a Princess wait.”
It took a second and Twilight’s nod at their concerned glances for the ponies to move; it took a bit longer, and Twilight’s magic, for Spike to pull his claws from the floor and follow them. As Spike passed him, Shining leaned down and mumbled something that stopped the dragon cold. They held a quiet conversation for several moments before Spike nodded and rushed out of the room.
Shining stepped into the room and kicked the door closed behind him, moving to stand beside Twilight. He met Broken’s glare evenly, still holding a small smile.
“The Princess came down herself?” Twilight whispered to her brother. He nodded, eyes not leaving his double.
“Said she wanted to oversee things. I objected, of course, but a Princess’ orders are a Princess’ orders. She’ll be here in a short while.” Shining shrugged, an odd mirth in his eyes that made them an inverted mirror to Broken’s one. Twilight tried to speak again, but Shining was already moving forward, his voice louder as he addressed the pony at the edge of the room. “Hello, Broken Shield.”
“What, no nicknames? Yeesh, you must be angry.” The unscarred stallion shrugged. “I can sympathize, to a degree. Soon as that note came up, Celestia and I both got rather miffed that you’d found another way to subvert your Oath to her.”
“I’ve done nothing of the sort.” Broken allowed a small smirk to appear on his face. “My Oath disallowed me from being violent, physically or magically, without being attacked first. To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t been violent.”
“I’m sure the changeling you killed would agree with you.”
Broken blinked, then let out a laugh that would probably have made Pinkie cry. “I’m sorry, Shining, but you must have missed the memo. It’s not possible to be violent against something that isn’t alive.”
“Your point being?”
“An individual drone isn’t alive. It’s a puppet, an inanimate object waiting for orders. The Queen that’s ordering it around, that’s alive. But its puppets aren’t.”
“You think the changeling you killed has a Queen?”
“Like I said, changelings are puppets. It wouldn’t have been walking around, let alone infiltrating and replacing ponies, if it didn’t have a Queen directing it.”
“Did your changelings never demonstrate the existence of a hive mind?”
Broken blinked again, the smirk falling off his face. “What in Faust’s name is a hive mind?” Shining glanced at Twilight, his brow raised, before turning back to Broken.
“Nevermind, it’s nothing you need to worry about. Now, I’m sure you’re itching to know why I didn’t lead a force to hunt down and exterminate every last changeling in Equestria, right?” At Broken’s nod, Shining regained his grin. “Well, that’s easy. They don’t deserve death.”
Twilight watched as Broken’s blank mask melted away, replaced with pure, disbelieving, shock. Even his eye shifted, losing some of its malice simply from the scarred stallion’s newfound resemblance to a lost puppy. The room was quiet for nearly a minute as Broken seemingly struggled to comprehend the words that had come out of Shining’s mouth.
“…don’t deserve death?” The stallion finally managed, sounding strangled.
“Nope. They aren’t a threat, not after Canterlot. We tracked down the Queen, found her in the Badlands, dead. Apparently she was going too fast for her wings to stop her, and when she hit the ground…” Shining winced.
“They don’t deserve death.” Broken repeated, his voice lilting each word as if he wasn’t aware that those particular words could be arranged like that.
“That’s what I said.”
“They. Don’t. Deserve. Death.” Broken said once more, his voice gaining an edge that immediately set Twilight’s hackles up. Shining, apparently not noticing the other stallion’s state, simply nodded. “The things that drain the love out of ponies and leave them dead inside. The things that foalnapped your wife and left her to die, then sent your sister to murder her! The THINGS that STOLE FROM YOU what you can NEVER GET BACK! THEY DON’T DESERVE DEATH?!”
Shining’s smile disappeared at his doppelganger’s outburst, and he stared wide-eyed at Broken for several seconds. Then his eyes fell, giving the scarred stallion a look of pity.
“Of course not.” He said quietly, after several seconds. “They shouldn’t have to pay for the transgressions their leader made.”
Broken stood still for several seconds, still taking heaving breaths after his eruption, but very suddenly he moved and struck Shining across the face with the back of his hoof. The unscarred stallion fell back as the scarred one crumpled to the ground.
“Shining!” Twilight shouted, bolting forward. Her brother quickly rolled into a seated position, raising a hoof to rub at his cheek. He gave her a glance as she came to a stop beside him, pulling his hoof down and probing the injury herself.
“Twily, sis, I’m fine. He slapped me, that’s all.” Shining raised his hoof again, flicking it at her as if to brush her magic away before putting it back to his cheek. “Might’ve knocked a tooth loose, but nothing worse than that.” Twilight’s brother sighed as the other stallion stopped writhing in agony on the floor. “You might want to get back, sis-“
“How dare you…” Broken’s rasping voice croaked from the floor. The two upright ponies put their eyes to him, finding his hateful gaze replaced with one of fury and pain. “How dare you claim that they don’t deserve to die… You don’t deserve to make that call… to tell everypony they’ve killed… everypony whose lives they destroyed… that they don’t deserve to be avenged…”
Broken slowly stood as he spoke, each pause a hissing breath as he pulled himself up to stand level with Shining and Twilight. He tried to step forward, only to stumble and barely catch himself on shaking legs. The scarred stallion glared at the two again, and Twilight felt more endangered by him in that momentary look than in the hour he’d spent staring at her with pure hatred in his eye.
“How dare you say that those things don’t deserve the fate they doled out countless times before…”
Shining sighed. “The Princess made that decision, Broken. I didn’t.”
“Then the Princess was a fool!” Broken bit off in a growl. Shining’s eyes darkened at the pronouncement, but he said nothing as his double continued on. “As the Captain of the Guard, you swore to protect the Princesses even from themselves! If Celestia was willing to put herself and everypony else in danger by refusing to exterminate-“
“I never said that Celestia made the decision, Broken.”
Broken’s glare somehow intensified at Shining’s interruption. “You said not thirty seconds ago that the Princess-“
“I said ‘the Princess’. I never said Celestia.” Broken seemed blindsided by the statement, his glare shifting to an angry confusion. Shining’s gaze became pitying again as the other stallion struggled to understand.
“But if not Celestia, then… who…?” His eye flicked to the side, focusing on some point behind Twilight, the anger in it freezing into what looked like fear. Twilight turned to follow his gaze, trying to see what had caused such a sudden shift.
Only to find the Princess Mi Amore Candenza standing in the open doorway.
“No…”
Broken said the word, breathlessly, as Princess Cadance entered the room. Shining and Twilight both walked over to her, the latter in a small state of shock at the presence of her former foalsitter.
Shock that quickly gave way to a warmer, more normal surprise as the Princess threw her hooves around the back of Twilight’s neck.
“It’s so good to see you again, Twilight.” Cadance said, giving the smaller mare a kind smile as she leaned back from her hug. “Though I do wish that we could have done so under nicer circumstances.”
“I-I… yes, you too…” Twilight mumbled. She blushed and shook her head clear as Cadance chuckled, the latter mare leaning over to give her husband a kiss.
“Might want to get back out there, hon. They’re all ready to go, Auntie Celestia’s just waiting on you.” She shuddered and glanced between the siblings. “Is that him? I can feel him from here; all that hatred…”
Shining sighed, but gave her a smile. “He’s a lot worse off than I’d thought he was, to be honest. Just do what you do best; hopefully, he’ll be willing to listen.” His wife nodded, and he gave her a quick peck on the cheek. He gave Twilight a quick hug before leaving, quietly drawing the door closed behind him. Cadance put her eyes on Twilight again as Twilight found her words.
“Cadance, what are you doing here? I mean, I’m glad, of course, but I thought, with the baby-“
“Yes, yes, I have three midwives telling me to avoid stress and potential danger, Twilight, I don’t need you harping on me too.” Cadance grinned at the younger mare to remove any bite from her words, but her smile quickly lost much of its mirth. “As for what I’m doing here, well… with everything I’ve heard about this pony that attacked you – where he’s from, what he’s done, who he really is – I had to see him for myself. See if I could help him.”
Twilight licked her lips. “But you do know who he is. You know how he feels about you, what he told me about you not too long ago. I don’t know what he might do to keep himself away from you out of some misbegotten fear that he’ll destroy your love for Shining.”
“I read your reports as much as Auntie Celestia does, Twilight. I’m well aware that he doesn’t want to see m- er, that he doesn’t want me to see him.” The alicorn shrugged. “And, quite frankly, I think he’s just being an idiot about it. But his reasoning for why proves that his heart’s in the right place. Even if his mind’s ranged out a little bit.” Cadance pulled Twilight into another hug, her next words spoken much quieter into the smaller mare’s ear. “I know how hard you’ve worked to help him, Twilight. If you hadn’t done as much as you have, I’d never have risked coming down here. But I spoke to Celestia and Dr. Path about this, and they both agreed that this has to happen.” The alicorn pulled back and gave Twilight another smile. “Trust me on this, Twilight. Please?”
Twilight’s brow furrowed, and she gave Cadance’s upper leg a quick swat. “Of course I trust you, you silly mare. I’m just worried that he’ll react badly, no matter what you do. Can you really blame me for that?”
“No, I can’t. But I can say that I think you’re wrong.” Cadance and Twilight stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments before Twilight glanced away and sighed.
“Just… just be careful, okay? For your sakes as much as his.”
“Of course, Twilight.” Cadance gave Twilight one last reassurance before turning to the stallion at the end of the room; Broken stiffened when she put her eyes on him, his breath coming even faster and shallower than it had been since she’d entered the room.
“No, no, no…” Twilight could hear him weakly muttering, a darkened track of fur coursing down his face from the corner of his eye. Cadance stepped forward slowly, calmly, stopping about a metre away from him as his hind legs buckled and he sat, clearly trying to restrain the shakes that coursed up his legs and through his body. Broken kept his gaze low, apparently not willing to look the alicorn in the eye. Cadance put her head low, unsuccessfully trying to catch his eye with hers, as she spoke to him for the first time.
“Shining Armor?”
The stallion froze at the name, his shaking stopping instantly, his eye darting to her face for a bare second before he tore it away from her, turning his head down and slowly shaking it, more in disbelief than denial.
“T-t-that’s not my name. Please, I don’t… don’t call me that, it’s not my name, it’s not my name…”
Cadance gave a very small sigh, and the look in his eye instantly became anguished. But he held his ground, repeating himself until she spoke again.
“You can call yourself whatever you want. But you know that I’ll always think of you as my Shining.”
The stallion took a shuddering breath, one hoof rising to pull back his mane out of his face. “I-I’m not, I’m not him, though. I’m not. Please.”
“Yes you are, Shining. You’re hurt, you’re angry, you’re scared, but you’re still my Shining Armor-“
“NO I’M NOT!” The stallion roared, his voice raised and rough in fear rather than fury. Cadance didn’t flinch, but Broken did, pushing himself back until he was flat against the wall. “I… I can’t be…” He raised his hoof again, but before it could reach his face it was caught by one of Cadance’s own.
“Why not, Shining?” The Princess asked, her voice still calm and comforting. “Why can’t you be my Shining Armor anymore?”
“Because you died!” The stallion wailed, drawing in and letting out another quaking breath. “Be-because she killed you, a-a-and I didn’t… I couldn’t save you, I couldn’t protect you. I failed you!”
“But you haven’t failed me, Shining Armor. I’m not dead, I’m right here, with you. How can you have failed me if nothing’s happened to me?”
The stallion closed his eye and ducked his head further. “No, no, I couldn’t stop her, I watched her kill you, I watched you die-“ Cadance dropped his hoof, moving hers to try to catch his chin.
“Shining. Shining, look at-”
“I WATCHED YOU DIE!” The stallion screamed. He pushed himself off of the wall, forcing Cadance to step to the side in order to dodge him, and then he stumbled forward, his head still down and eye still closed as he tried to flee, not seeming to notice as Twilight raised a barrier to block the door-
“Stop, Shining Armor.”
-a move that proved unnecessary as the stallion froze midway to it, one hoof still raised to take a step forward. Cadance’s voice had been hard, but not harsh, and she approached him calmly, her gaze still gentle and features still soft. The only thing that had changed was her mouth, forming a thin line instead of the soft smile she’d held before.
“Turn around, Shining.” The Princess spoke again, her voice maintaining the solid tone, and the stallion turned instantly, his breaths shallow and ears pinned back.
“Put your head up.” He did so, and Cadance moved to stand almost flush against him.
“Sit down.” The stallion’s legs buckled beneath him, his forelegs barely catching and holding him. Candace herself carefully sat, her eyes still fixed on him, and when she spoke again her voice was much softer than it had been.
“Now look at me.” Once more, he followed her command, his red and swimming eye shooting open to find the Princess bare inches away from him. His breath quickened again as she grabbed his hoof, not having a chance to quake simply from the speed he was drawing it.
“You haven’t failed me, Shining Armor.” Cadance gently raised his hoof to rest against her face. “You’ve fought for years. You’ve given up everything you had. You’ve nearly lost your life more times than I dare to think of. And you’ve succeeded.” The stallion blinked as the mare started smiling again. “You came here in order to protect me, to save me from a threat that nopony knew was coming. You’ve given us every warning, made every effort, and you did it. You saved me, Shining.” His eye followed his hoof as she lifted it from her cheek, bringing it down to rest against her belly, and the very slight bump nestled there. “You saved her, Shining.” The stallion’s breath ceased entirely as Cadance let his hoof go, but the appendage didn’t even slightly shift from where it had been placed. “And now you can stop. You can let yourself rest, for the first time in ten years. Because I swear to you, that for as long as you love me, for as long as you love her, you will never fail us.”
Gradually, the stallion’s eye crawled upwards, meeting Cadance’s for the first time since she’d entered the room. He took in a breath, very slowly, as if to deliberately contrast the ones he’d taken before. Twilight watched his mouth open, ever so slightly, and a small sound escape from his lips.
Then he lunged forward, wrapping his hooves around the mare in front of him and crushing himself to her as he sobbed wailing, broken cries into her neck. Her hooves rose around him as quickly as his did her, her lips already whispering wordless soothing songs to him before the first of his tears wetted her coat. Her wings slowly came forward, wrapping around the stallion in a soft embrace.
Twilight figured that that was as good a cue as any to step out of the room.
Six voices and a dragon’s hug met Twilight as she entered the main room of the library; she wrapped one leg around Spike as she sat down, casting her eyes over her friends.
“So how’s everything going out here?” the unicorn asked.
“Well, yer brother left fer the Everfree a little while ago.” Applejack said. “Said that the changelin’ Pip an’ the guards found gave ‘em enough info t’pinpoint where th’hive was, so he gathered up just about every guard around here an’ went to go root ‘em out.”
“He also said that we weren’t allowed to come kick their buggy plots with him.” Rainbow huffed, her wings beating in quick, harsh arcs. “I mean, last I checked, we’re the one’s who’ve actually fought those things before! He did that big shield-orb thing and blew them all out of Canterlot, sure, but that was a bit different from actually fighting them!”
Twilight couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Rainbow, he’s spent a good deal of time hunting down and capturing the changelings that didn’t get thrown completely out of Equestria. He probably has at least as much experience as us at fighting them, if not more. And we haven’t actually assaulted a hive before, like he and a good deal of the Royal guards that were down here have.” The unicorn blinked. “That, and this is kind of the kind of thing he and the rest of the guardsponies are supposed to do so that we don’t have to…?”
“Yeah, yeah…” Rainbow grumbled. Pinkie popped up from out of nowhere behind her, throwing herself loosely over her marefriend despite said mare being a good two metres in the air.
“Aw, Rainbow’s just a little antsy ‘cause the guard told her there were changelings around and she got all worked up for kicking their plots and then Shining said ‘Nope!’ and she complained to Celestia and Celestia said ‘Nope!’ and then Pip said that he wanted to go and Shining said ‘Nope!’ and Pip said ‘Too bad.’ and ran off and kinda left a really clear trail of hoofprints in the road leading to the Everfree Forest.”
“Pip did what.” Twilight asked flatly. Applejack gave a mix of a grin and a grimace.
“Yeah, that’s part’a the reason why yer brother’s already gone. Y’should’a seen th’look on his face when Pip disappeared an’ all those hoof-shaped holes started poppin’ into the cobblestone.”
Despite her hoof making a rapid connection with her face, Twilight couldn’t help as the corners of her mouth pulled upwards. “That… that was rather foalish of him, wasn’t it.” As everypony else (plus Spike) nodded, her brow furrowed. “Wait. Celestia didn’t go with them?”
“Nope. Said she was gonna keep a watch on th’town until the regular guards got back. Then she flew up int’the air an’ Royal Canterlot Voiced a ‘request’ fer everypony to stay indoors until otherwise notified. Less than a minute later, nopony outside but her an’ the guards.” Applejack shrugged. “Though Ah honestly doubt she’d mind if y’went t’see her.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Sorry for all of you getting brought here only to have to sit around like this.”
“Oh, please, darling. We’re happy to help in any way we can. Even if that does mean just providing moral support whilst a mentally unstable stallion stares at you hard enough to curdle milk.” Rarity swept her hoof at the other unicorn. “Go on, dear. We likely won’t be discussing anything you don’t already know about.”
Twilight nodded, crossing the room and waving a quick goodbye before stepping outside. Her eyes roamed across the empty streets around the library, feeling her brain sending up warning flags despite her mind knowing the reason for their lack of population. The only flag she actually paid attention to was the one that noted that even Celestia was missing. Putting a few seconds of thought into her potential location, Twilight decided to look up.
Ah, there she is.
“Princess!” Twilight called, magically amplifying her voice to ensure that Celestia could hear her. The alicorn turned from her vigil over the deserted paths of the town to glance beneath her, gaining a small smile as her eyes found the purple mare below. The Princess descended slowly, alighting on the ground and greeting her student with a nod.
“Hello, Twilight. I’m glad to see you unharmed.” Her smile pulled further back on one side, turning into a soft smirk. “By your escape from the library, should I assume that Cadance’s plan has succeeded?”
“I’m honestly not sure, Princess. She didn’t exactly explain much.” Twilight felt herself frown. “She certainly got a reaction out of him, though.”
“Do not worry, Twilight. Cadance would know if she was causing him to lose love – to grow hatred – for himself or others. No matter the pain he might feel at seeing her, I’m certain that, once his current feelings have settled, he shall notice that a great weight has been lifted from him.”
Twilight sighed. “I’m aware of that, Princess. I trust her to know what she’s doing, and I trust that this is going to help him. But…” Twilight shook her head. “He was terrified of her, Princess. He’d been so angry at Shining, at you, over the changelings still being alive, but as soon as she stepped in the room? It was like a switch flipped. He started crying, shaking, he wouldn’t look her in the eye, he kept muttering ‘no’ like he was denying that she was there. Just the sight of her made him break from rage to horror, and seeing him like that, seeing anypony like that…” Twilight trailed off, swallowing around the lump in her throat. Celestia leaned forward, one of her wings extending and reaching around the unicorn, pulling her into an embrace with her mentor.
“I know that you fear for him, Twilight, and that you do so after all he’s done speaks to the strength of your heart. I assure you that your concerns are understandable, but I promise you that they are unfounded. Broken Shield is one of my little ponies, regardless of his actions; if I thought that meeting Cadance would harm him more than it would help him then I would have denied her request.” Twilight felt Celestia stiffen a small amount as the alicorn’s smile shifted. “And if she does cause him harm, knowing what she knows and with her abilities… then she shall answer to me.”
Twilight blinked at the subtle shift in the Princess’ demeanour. “Is something wrong, Princess? You seem… bothered.” Twilight shook her head. “I mean, I totally understand if you’re just on edge over the changelings or-“
“Are you afraid of me, Twilight?”
The question stopped the unicorn cold. She glanced up at Celestia once more, finding that her mentor’s smile had shifted again. The alicorn’s eyes weren’t on her, having moved back to the still-deserted streets.
“I-I…” Twilight tried to move her mouth past that first sound, that first word, but for some reason her mind had locked up. Swallowing, she made to shake her head, but Celestia spoke before Twilight could start moving.
“I did not order these ponies to stay inside. There was no demand, no threat of punishment if they decided to continue along with their day. I just asked them, if they would not be inconvenienced by it, to go indoors until the guardsponies returned.” Celestia paused for a moment, a small, sardonic laugh escaping her lips. “It was as if I’d told them that anypony who stayed outside was going to be killed. There was a mad rush, ponies sprinting to and fro to escape whatever fate they imagined lay in store for them should they not take shelter. How much damage was wrought in their haste? How many sick or injured ponies are going unaided? How many were hurt in the panic itself? All because I thought to simplify my watch over the town.” The Princess shook her head. “I forget, sometimes, how the ponies I interact with are used to me, or have prepared themselves for my presence. How terrifying I must be to the average Equestrian.”
Finally, Twilight managed to get her mouth working. “But you aren’t terrifying, Princess! You’ve done nothing to make anypony afraid of you!”
“Haven’t I, Twilight?” Celestia put her eyes back on the smaller mare. “I am the ruler of the most powerful nation in the world, with much of said power being ascribed to the simple fact of my presence here. I am claimed by many to be the most powerful single being in existence. The first thing that foals are taught about me is that I control the sun. Would my presence not scare you, if you were not my student? Even as my student, are you not afraid of what I might do should you invoke my wrath?” When Twilight didn’t answer, Celestia continued. “I am not worried about the fact that my ponies fear me, Twilight. It would be rather difficult to rule if one’s subjects did not fear one’s ability to punish them. But I want to ensure that my ponies follow me out of their love for me, not their fear of my power. That my requests are acknowledged because they want to make me happy, not because they wish to avoid my wrath.”
Twilight gained a sudden suspicion for the Princess’ mood. “Did all this start because you’re worried about how Broken’s Celestia did things?”
Celestia blinked, staring at the unicorn for several seconds before she gained a wide grin. She tightened her wing’s grip on the smaller mare as she shook her head and laughed, speaking when she finished. “No, Twilight. I will admit that that madmare has inspired a great deal of introspection on my part, but this did not ‘all start’ because of her. I have been thinking on this for a very long time; seeing the response to my request has simply inspired me to actually take action. To reveal something about myself that I’ve held hidden since the day I ascended to the throne.”
“A… and what, exactly, would that be?” Twilight asked, eyes wide. Celestia’s smile shifted, though not to the distant or unhappy ones she’d worn earlier.
“I’m afraid that I cannot yet make the revelation, my faithful student. There are certain things that must be arranged first; once everything is prepared, I shall call you to Canterlot to observe it.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed, but she nodded. “If you’re sure, Princess.”
“Of course. You’ll be the first to know of it.” Celestia shrugged after a moment’s pause. “Well, other than Luna, but she’s known since before our ascension.”
“Does it have to do with her too, then? Or-“ Twilight cut off with a grunt of pain, the area behind her eyes suddenly feeling like it had caught aflame. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to cut out the agonizing light of the sun, and brought her hooves up to cradle the sides of her head. Celestia’s wing withdrew from around her, and the shockwaves of the Princess stepping around to in front of her sent incredibly unpleasant pulses up to her head.
“Twilight? Twilight, are you alright?” The Princess asked, her voice openly concerned. Twilight’s only response was to curl up, her hind legs giving way as her spine arched to push her chin into her barrel. She felt Celestia light up her horn, the magic palpable in the air around them, and then the pain behind her eyes shrieked and Twilight could feel her jaw straining as she crushed her teeth together tight enough to draw blood-
And then the pain stopped, as suddenly as it had begun. Twilight opened her eyes as she gasped in a breath, falling on her side and then rolling to her back, throwing her hooves wide and splaying out on the road. Celestia’s head, horn still weaving the magic of a healing spell, interrupted the unicorn’s view of the very-slightly-reddening sky.
“Twilight, can you hear me? Twilight?!”
Twilight blinked at the urgency in her mentor’s voice. “Ahm. Yes. I-I’m fine, Princess. Just a headache.” The unicorn blinked again, noting that she still had a dull aching around the area of her frontal cortex. Above her, Celestia’s mouth had thinned to a very fine line.
“In my many years, I have never once seen such a reaction from ‘just a headache’. Are you sure that-“
“Yes, Celestia. I promise, I’m fine.” Twilight nodded, barely noticing that she’d just interrupted the Princess of the Sun. “That was the first time that ever happened to me, I swear. I’ve had a somewhat stressful day, as I’m sure you can imagine; that might have just been my brain catching up on all the panicking I should have been doing.”
The magic slipped from Celestia’s horn, but her expression remained concerned. “Still, Twilight, such a sudden and intense pain as you apparently experienced… that is not something to simply dismiss. Have you seen a doctor since you awoke from the coma Broken placed you in? There may have been something, some injury or problem that’s only now making itself known.”
Twilight opened her mouth to reassure the Princess that she was fine, but the clear worry in the latter mare’s face, and the chance that she was correct, caught the unicorn short. “I… haven’t, actually. With everything that’s been going on…” Twilight sighed. “You’re right, Princess. A check-up couldn’t harm me; I’ll make an appointment when things get back to normal.”
“I would greatly appreciate that, my dear student.” Celestia smiled, reaching her hoof into the space above Twilight; the unicorn took it, and her mentor lifted her upright. Twilight blinked and rubbed her temple as the blood came down from the back of her skull.
“I… think I’m going to go inside, Princess. Make some catmint tea, try to head off any aftershocks from that.” She gave a halfway wry smile to Celestia, who returned it and nodded after a moment’s pause. The alicorn turned to stare at the sun as Twilight turned back to the library, opening the door as thinly as she could and slipping inside.
The scene that greeted her did not do much to alleviate her headache.
“Um, Fluttershy?” Twilight asked of the only pony not involved in what she was watching. “Why is Pinkie strangling Rarity and Applejack?” The latter two kicked their hind legs on the floor as the jabbering pink pony squeezed them tighter, Spike and Rainbow’s attempts to pull her away from them going apparently unnoticed. The addressed pegasus quietly moved to the unicorn before responding, apparently afraid that making noise might turn Pinkie’s attention on her.
“Um, well, a little while after you left, Rarity walked over to Applejack, kissed her, pushed her into a sitting position, then told her that she hadn’t proposed properly the first time and that she’d better get on with it.” Fluttershy paused as Twilight blinked. “Then Applejack sat there for a few seconds before saying some really really sweet and beautiful things about Rarity, and then she asked Rarity to marry her and Rarity said yes and they hugged, and then Pinkie tackled them and started talking about wedding plans.”
“I’m kind of surprised that they didn’t see that coming.” Twilight said, her eyes still caught on what most uninformed ponies would probably call a murder attempt. Fluttershy glanced at her.
“I’m more surprised that Rarity didn’t wait for everypony to be here.” Twilight blinked and turned her eyes to the pegasus, who was giving her a scrutinizing look. “Did you happen to know about them already?” In response, Twilight uttered three simple words.
“It’s Broken’s fault.” Fluttershy stared at the other mare for a few moments before closing her eyes and nodding. Twilight sighed, rubbing the side of her head. “Do you think you could make sure she doesn’t actually hurt them? For some reason, my brain decided to get a migrane while I was talking with Celestia, so I need to take something for it before it decides that pain is normal.”
Fluttershy nodded again, this time in affirmation rather than acceptance. “I’ll see what I can do, but I don’t really think she’d hurt them; after all, if she did, the wedding might need to be postponed.” The shy mare gave something that almost looked like a smirk at the end of her statement, drawing a quick laugh from the unicorn beside her.
“That’s true, that’s true…”
Twilight spent the next minute carefully edging her way around the fracas in the centre of the room; like Fluttershy, she wasn’t exactly keen on gaining the attention of (the still talking) Pinkie Pie, what with her headache and the inevitable strangling and shaking that such attention would bring. Soon enough, she’d made it to the kitchen door, and she took great care in opening it just enough to slip noiselessly inside.
As soon as the door was once more closed, she allowed herself a sigh and a wince at the throbbing behind her eyes. Right. Catmint, catmint, where are you? She began dully searching through the cabinets, not quite willing to work up enough brainpower to actually remember where she’d put the painkilling tea leaves.
“Upper shelf, by the sink.” Twilight’s voice intoned, slightly deeper and more tired than she remembered it being. “I always liked to keep my teas above the kettle, and somehow I doubt we differ enough for that to have changed.”
Twilight blinked, cluing in several seconds late that she hadn’t actually been speaking. She turned towards where she’d heard the voice coming from, her eyes finding herself standing there; only a few differences – slightly taller, slightly longer horn, slightly different hairstyle, the presence of wings – allowed her to safely conclude that she wasn’t currently undergoing an out-of-body experience.
Of course, such a conclusion only sent a larger spike of adrenaline-fuelled panic through her limbs and up her spine than would have been had she been somehow divorced from her physical form. She winced again as the jolt aggravated the painful pulsing in her brain, and she forced the many, many signals screaming at her to flee, to attack, to scream, to cry, and other such currently useless activities into the back of her mind. Instead, she moved to the location that the other her had specified, withdrew a bag of catmint, placed it in a cup, then filled the kettle that was sitting by the sink and set it on the stove. Then she turned, moved to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down, watching the stove and waiting for the water to boil.
In the side of her vision, the her-that-was-not-allowed-to-be moved to sit on the chair opposite her.
“I must admit, I expected a little more screaming.” Her voice, her wrong voice, spoke. “I know my brother’s told you about me.”
Twilight didn’t respond, didn’t even glance in the direction that all of her senses told her another pony was. If she acknowledged it, it would just get stronger, feel more real. She wasn’t ignorant enough to indulge a hallucination. She hadn’t thought that she was deranged enough to have one, the magically-induced ‘events’ notwithstanding, but current events seemed eager to discount her confidence in her own sanity.
Wait a minute-
Quickly, she shifted her eyes to the corner of her vision, trying to catch the encroaching darkness that seemed a constant in the aforementioned magical ‘dreams’. She cursed, silently, when she saw everything as clearly and brightly as normal. Her eyes shifted back to the stove, still steadfastly ignoring the hallucination on the other edge of the table.
“Giving me the silent treatment, hmm? Trying to ignore me, to make me disappear like I’m some bad dream of yours? Some phantasm spawned out of the darkest pits of your mind, given shape by your fears of what you’ll one day become?” Her voice laughed, a bitter, resigned sound. “Trust me, it doesn’t work. And I have a good few extra years of experience on you to be sure of that.” There was silence for a few more seconds, and then the spectre in the corner of her vision shifted away. “But if you don’t want to talk, I’m not going to make you. There are plenty of others to see around here; how do you think your friends will react when I enter the main room? Or Celestia if I happen to simply walk outside?” Twilight couldn’t stop herself from taking a sharp breath in. A small snort issued from a spot near the door. “Or, of course, I could always just head down the hall, pop in and say hi to Broken an-“
“Stop.” Twilight’s voice was harsh and hot, the pounding between her ears becoming more pronounced as blood rushed to her brain. The other voice did as she demanded, a few seconds passing before the hallucinatory mare once more appeared in the edge of Twilight’s eye. The kettle started to whistle, and the unicorn nearly fell out of her chair in her haste to reach it; she moved to fill the cup on the counter, but paused for a moment, placing two more bags of catmint in before filling it to the brim. Holding the darkening drink securely in her magic, she took a breath and turned around, allowing her eyes to fall across the table and on the pony that sat there.
Onto Rising Dawn.
“Ah, there’s the rising panic of recognition I expected.” The winged unicorn chuckled. She tilted her head when Twilight glanced at the door. “Oh, you can run if you want. Again, I’m not going to force you to talk.” Twilight swallowed an empty mouth before she took a drag of her tea, the still-scalding liquid burning both her mouth and the cloying fear that had been threatening to lock it shut.
“You’d let me go?” She asked of her near-doppelganger. “If I went out that door, I could have Celestia in here in seconds. You’d be willing to take that risk?”
“Oh, of course not.” Dawn shrugged, gaining a smirk. “If you did choose to hide between Celestia’s legs, I’d be gone by the time she got in here.”
“And if I didn’t leave? If I stayed here, and just called her in? Blocked you from teleporting, held you-”
Dawn disappeared. There was no magic, no light nor sound nor any indication of teleportation. She was simply there one moment and gone the next. And then she reappeared, as instantly as she’d vanished, the smirk still on her face. Twilight immediately lashed out, several ropes of magic swinging at the winged unicorn. Dawn didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink as the ropes phased through her as if she wasn’t there. Twilight switched tactics, forming a magical block to cut off whatever spell Dawn was using.
She felt her stomach drop out as the only source of magic the block could find was her own.
“Ah, so now you fully realize your… predicament.” Dawn clapped her hooves together, the lower parts of her limbs seeming to phase through the table. “Sure, you could try to convince them that I was here. Applejack can only tell when somepony knows they’re lying, so you being so solid in your knowledge of my presence would tell her that you think you’re telling the truth… which would only put you under further suspicion of instability.”
“’ Further suspicion’?! My friends don’t think I’m crazy!”
“You honestly believe that? That they don’t have the slightest notion that the mare whose brother came back in time to kill because she went mad might already be somewhat unstable? Knowing what they know about you, your personality, your obsessions and proclivities?” The smirk disappeared as Dawn’s eyes narrowed. “No, they might not think you’re mad, but they certainly think you could be, and they would see your claim of me as a demonstration of your fracturing mind, a warning sign of just how unstable you are now that you’ve been exposed to what you could become. One of no-doubt many hallucinations and visions you’ll be experiencing as you become further and further detached from reality.”
Twilight felt a chunk of ice break off the back of her head and slide down her spine. “You… you’re the one who’s causing those things. Those visions. That’s why Luna felt my magic in them.”
The look in the other mare’s eyes shifted for a few moments, becoming mutedly confused, before returning to a smug calmness. “Oh, you’ve just managed to figure that out? I honestly expected better of you. What else have you missed, I wonder? How many of Celestia’s flaws and lies have slipped through your net?” The mare sighed, her voice sounding weary. “I do apologize for this, by the way. I’d planned on simply watching and waiting for as long as I could, perhaps even never interfering if you managed to figure things out correctly. However, I suspect that Celestia intends to pre-empt your reactions, to control your responses by exposing herself before you yourself realize the extent of her deceptions-”
“Wait, wait, just-“ Twilight held up a hoof, taking another hard drag from her cup before continuing. “You, you’ve been watching me? How? For how long?”
“With my eyes. And from three days after Broken and Pip’s arrival.”
“But how? Broken said he’d planned to kill Pet-“ a sharp breath from Dawn caused Twilight to pause, only continuing when the winged unicorn didn’t actually speak “-and Pip saw… saw what Broken did to her.”
“Pip, as diligent and useful a tool as he is, is only aware of what occurred up to the point that his memories were copied to the body in this Line. Broken would be aware of even less than that. Neither would know the actual conclusion to the events in that room, and they are not something that I am… able… to speak of.” Dawn’s voice, for the first time in the conversation, was overtly hostile. Twilight backed down from the topic, taking a sip of her no-longer-scalding tea as she felt her headache slowly start to fuzz away on the edges.
“Alright, then…” The unicorn sighed. “What did you mean when you were talking about Celestia’s ‘lies’? What has she been lying about?”
Dawn barked a laugh. “Oh, no. I’m not going to tell you about her lies just so that you can excuse them before she even tries to. I only wanted to warn you about them, that she was going to try to justify her mendacities to you before you could fully understand how deeply and severely they affect Equestria and its citizens.”
“So you wanted to warn me that she’s going to try to make excuses for lying to me on… however many topics she’s lied to me about, but you can’t tell me what she’s been lying about because I might start justifying said lies myself?” At the winged unicorn’s blithely satisfied nod, Twilight took another swig of tea. “Okay, why? If the lies are so evil and so horrible, why in Faust’s name would I try to excuse them?”
“Because you heard them from me.” Dawn said flatly. “You can’t trust me, you won’t trust me no matter how true my claims. If I tell you what her lies are then the simple fact that I told you is going to make you think of them as less horrible.”
“But wouldn’t you telling me that they’re bad already be making me think of them in a better light, by that logic?”
“Yes, but by keeping things non-specific on my part, your shock and horror at their revelation should be enough to wipe away any blanket good feelings you have towards them.”
“And what if they aren’t as bad in this Equestria as they were in yours? The Princesses and the doctors, they’ve noticed-“
“Yes, yes, I’m aware of the three-twentieths extremity difference between our Lines. I’m willing to assume that your gentler mind will be shocked in equal measure to Celestia’s gentler-but-still-evil falsehoods as mine was to my Celestia’s, even given whatever knowledge you think you have on ‘how much worse’ it could be.” Dawn snorted. “In fact, the biggest and cruelest of her falsehoods is absolute. There’s no degree of extremity involved to affect, so it should be constant between our Lines. That one alone should convince you of her maleficence.”
“…and what if I don’t think they’re as bad as you do?”
That question seemed to catch Dawn cold. She stared at Twilight for several seconds, plain shock blasting past the visage of calm collectedness she’d held before.
“…excuse me?”
“What if I don’t think that her lies are so bad? What if I think her lying might be better than allowing the knowledge of whatever she’s covering up?” A rotten taste formed in the back of Twilight’s throat at the look on Dawn’s face; she glanced away, draining the rest of her tea before continuing. “I don’t like the idea, Faust knows, but I can think of a dozen things that Equestria would be better off not knowing about except for a few key ponies. The Alicorn Amulet, necromancy-“
“NO!” Twilight whipped her head back forward at the sudden shout, watching as the winged unicorn stalked towards her, moving through the table as if it (or she) wasn’t there. The unicorn quickly stood, her chair falling over in her haste to back away from the other mare. “You, you can’t- you wouldn’t dare- don’t you understand what would happen!?”
“No, I don’t. That’s why I asked.” Twilight answered, her voice much smarter and more confident than she was currently feeling. Dawn stared her down for a few seconds, breathing heavily, before her eyes seemed to move somewhere far away.
“…if you accept her lies, her excuses, then you’ll bury the knowledge just as you have every other flaw of hers that you’ve seen.” The apparently-incorporeal mare raised her hoof, pulling her bangs back along her head. “But these ones, they don’t just get subsumed into that morass of worship you call your relationship with her. They get stuck in the back of your mind, festering, and one of those little voices in the back of your head that you’re never, ever supposed to listen to picks up on them. That voice starts poking at them, spreading the infection as it constantly reminds you that they’re there. And you don’t have a choice to just ignore it, not once it gets so loud that it drowns out everything but your own conscious thoughts. It makes you listen, no matter how much you fight it, and no matter how desperately you try to keep your thoughts your own it warps them, pushing you along paths that you never would have gone down, and eventually it gets to a point where it is in control and you can’t even tell because it’s your own fucking voice telling you to-“ The winged unicorn cut off with a wet coughing sound, both hooves now raised and holding the sides of her head. Twilight stared at her in unbridled shock, one of her own hooves rising of its own volition, reaching for the other mare’s shoulder. It fell in what should have been a reassuring pat, but instead was a motion through the now-definitely-incorporeal mare that sent her slightly off balance. Said mare at least seemed to notice the attempt, her head rising and hooves falling. The look in her eyes was closer to haunted than anything.
“…is that what happened to you?” Twilight asked, feeling a great deal more sympathy for the mare in front of her than she would have ever believed herself capable of. The winged unicorn froze, her eyes locking on Twilight’s own. She sat still for several seconds before suddenly shouting a single word.
“PIP!”
Twilight had half a second to notice the slight brush of air along her back before everything went dark.
Miss Twilight? Miss Twilight, are you-“
“Gah!” Twilight awoke with a start, her head shooting up and whipping around the room. She blinked several times at the lack of her winged doppelgänger before settling on the pony who’d replaced her.
“Pip? What’s going on?” She winced as she felt her headache return. The stoic stallion tilted his ear.
“I returned from my reconnaissance of the changeling hive in the Everfree after reporting what I had found to Shining Armor and evading his attempts to restrain me. Once back at the library, I found Miss Pinkie Pie being held down by Miss Rainbow Dash, Miss Fluttershy, and Sir Spike after having apparently attempted to strangle Miss Applejack and Miss Rarity over their engagement.” His voice had taken a more-than-subtly confused tone for the latter part, but returned to normalcy as he continued. “Miss Fluttershy claimed that they had her under control, and that you had been in the kitchen for substantially longer than she had expected you to be. I came in here to check on you and found you seated at the table, unconscious.”
“Do you know how long I was out?” Twilight asked. Pip shook his head. “Alright. Thanks, Pip.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Twilight. Would you like me to make you a new cup of tea? Yours seems to be both cold and oversaturated.”
Twilight glanced at the cup on the table, finding it full to the brim with incredibly dark liquid. She blinked at it before deciding that that particular incongruity was less than important for the time being. “I’d appreciate that, Pip.” She blinked again as he took the cup. “Pip, was there anypony in here with me?”
The unicorn could hear Pip freeze. “Miss Twilight?”
“Just… did you see or hear anypony other than me when you came in? Any odd voices? Any evidence at all that there might have been someone else in here with me?”
“…no, Miss Twilight.” The stallion answered after a second’s pause. “To the best of my knowledge and observations, you have been the only pony in this room within the last hour. Did you see somepony before you fell unconscious?”
“I thought I might’ve…” Twilight sighed, rubbing the rising bump on the back of her head. “I thought I might’ve.”
Twilight emerged from the kitchen to find her friends gone and two of her brother staring each other down; it took her a moment, based on the less-prominent-than-normal scarring and which one Cadance was standing beside, to differentiate between Shining and Broken. The former’s visible eye was hard, not angry but certainly a good deal more serious than she was used to from him, while the latter’s held a surprisingly calm determination. Both flicked their ears in exactly the same fashion upon her appearance in the main room, but otherwise she went apparently unnoticed between the two.
“You know you aren’t going to be allowed to do that.” Shining said, seemingly continuing a conversation that had started before Twilight’s entrance. Broken scoffed, and when he spoke it was in the near-Shining voice he usually reserved for public appearances.
“I didn’t expect to be. But I warned Twilight about this, you can ask her.” The scarred stallion tilted his head towards Cadance, shifting his eye to the alicorn. “I’m not going to stalk you or anything. But he’s dragging me back to Canterlot anyway, and I just- I need to be able to see you. To make sure that you, the both of you, are okay.”
Cadance watched him for a moment before a small nod. “I don’t have a problem with the occasional meeting, Broken. Provided you keep on your best behaviour.”
Broken Shield let out a relieved sigh, though it was quickly followed by a smirk at his younger doppelgänger. Shining snorted in response, quickly glancing at his wife.
“He doesn’t know what ‘best behaviour’ means, does he?” The unscarred stallion asked. Cadance shook her head, and Shining’s mouth curved into an even more wicked smirk than the one that was slipping off Broken’s face. “Oh, well then…”
“Don’t get cocky, Polished Closet. Compared to what Dawn put me through, I’m pretty sure I can handle whatever requirements define ‘best behaviour’ to you.”
“Fair enough.” Shining shrugged. “Not like you’ve had any problems following rules since you’ve gotten here, after all.”
“Well if you’d given me a good reason to follow them before now-“
“Okay, colts, settle down, you’re both very pretty…” Cadance rolled her eyes as the stallions, mirroring each other, flicked their eyes to her in confusion. She sent her gaze past them, finally acknowledging the mare still standing in front of the kitchen door. “Hello, Twilight. Feel better?”
“Er, yeah. Seems I just needed some tea. And a nap, apparently.” The purple unicorn rolled her neck, working out the stiffness that had set in from her time drooling on the table. Her gaze went to Shining. “I’m assuming everything went well with the changelings, then?”
Shining nodded as Broken stiffened, though a quiet word from Cadance seemed to calm the latter stallion. “We managed to find and contain the hive. There’s probably a few drones that were out and didn’t come running back when they sensed the attack, but we know we got the main body of them. Luckily enough, they hadn’t captured too many ponies: Pipsqueak’s father was one of the five that were there, and it seems that he and three of the others were the only ones in Ponyville that had been replaced.”
“What about the fifth?”
“The fifth pony was the brown stallion that Broken Shield and I observed in the street, Miss Twilight.” Pip’s voice intoned from behind her.
“That’s correct. He’s already told us where he’s from, so the Princess detached a few guards to capture the changeling imitating him.” Shining’s gaze shifted to a spot behind her, a small scowl playing across his features. “As for you-“
“I did not interfere in your operation, Shining Armor, except to provide preliminary reconnaissance and removal of sentries. In doing so, I hoped to make your assault on the hive easier and safer than it would have otherwise been.”
Shining nodded, but his frown deepened. “I get that you were trying to help, Pip, but I told you not to for a reason. You don’t, or at least you didn’t, have experience with changelings nor how to deal with them. Which was rather obvious given that you apparently thought that you could kill them by breaking their necks.”
Twilight’s eyes widened, and she turned to put her gaze on Pip, who’d cocked his head and furrowed his brow at Shining’s statement.
“Only for the first one.” The earth pony said, almost petulantly. “The rest were simply standard procedure for equine-form opponents. And the damage was severe enough to cause them to expire, even if they remained alive for a short time; I would not have left them had it not been so.”
“Most of the ones that we found were still struggling, Pip. Leaves a sour taste in a guard’s mouth, having to deal with something suffering like that.”
“I apologize, Shining Armor. In the future, I shall try to kill them more efficiently.”
“Or,” Twilight said after several seconds of silence, “maybe you can stay here and let the guards deal with things so that you don’t have to do any killing or anything?”
“…that is also a possible course of action.”
“One that we’d greatly appreciate, thank you.” Shining brought his hoof to his eyes, rubbing them for a few moments before putting them on Broken. “I need to go make sure that everything’s wrapped up with the local guards. You have ten minutes.”
“Ooh, so strict.” Broken replied, rolling his eye. Shining’s glare narrowed. The two stared each other down until Cadance stepped in the middle of them and, with an eye roll of her own, started tugging her husband to the doorway. Broken sighed as soon as they were out the door. “I swear to Faust that I was never that much of a stubborn prick. Sure, he acts all relaxed, but as soon as anything comes up related to you or Cadance…”
Twilight couldn’t help but grin. “You know, given the difference between our timelines, you’re probably worse.”
“Oh, roadapples. Maybe I was more ‘extreme’ in my lack of stubbornness. Ever think of that?”
“Lack of- You’ve been constantly pushing boundaries and trying to find loopholes in your oaths to the Princess. You’ve been massively resistant to everything that wasn’t, and most things that were, direct orders from the Princess. You’ve been relentlessly fighting against Dawn and everything she’s done in every manner available to you for upwards of eight years, for the primary purpose of trying to protect your daughter, then avenge her, and then both, pre-emptively. And you think that you’re less stubborn than Shining?”
“…in my defense, I would assume that any proper parent would do that last one.” Broken’s voice was somewhat subdued, and Twilight sighed and nodded after a few moment’s thought. There was an awkward silence for several seconds before Twilight spoke again, her smile reappearing with a wry bent.
“So you’re once more abandoning your favourite niece?” she asked, one eyebrow raised. Broken snorted.
“Even if I wasn’t opting to, Celestia would be bringing me back anyways. Apparently she considers changeling drones to be alive, which means my oath should have shut me down when I took out the one imitating Pipsqueak’s father, but since it didn’t that must mean that there’s another loophole she needs to fix and so on and so forth…” The scarred stallion rolled his eye again. “It might actually be good for me, though, going up there willingly. Being able to see Cadance and discuss… certain things… with the Princesses could help me crush some of the little voices echoing around up here.” He tapped the side of his head, giving a mix of a smile and a grimace.
“What do you mean ‘certain things’? Celestia said she was planning to reveal something she’s kept hidden since her ascension…”
“Something she’s kept hidden- no, no. I don’t know anything about anything like that. I meant just… things.” He waggled his hoof vaguely in the air in front of him. Twilight decided to let the topic drop.
“Well, Celestia’s bringing me up in a few days as well, so I could probably stop by and check in on you. If you want, of course.”
“Hey, there’s a thought.” Broken gained a grin. “We could go out on the town, maybe visit Mom and Dad – ‘Hey there, I’m your son from ten-or-so years in the future! I’ve been trying to kill Twilight for the last couple months and in the meantime have been pretending to be her crazy maternal uncle! Who wants a hug?’ Gah, that’d be an awkward supper conversation…”
A small laugh escaped Twilight. “I don’t think you’d be allowed to do that.”
“True enough.” Broken nodded, standing and stretching. “I’d better get outside before Shining decides ten minutes was too long. See you soon enough, Sparky.”
Some odd feeling struck Twilight in the back of the head as Broken reached the door, and she found herself speaking before she knew what words to say. “Wait!”
“Hmm?”
“I had a question. A-about Dawn.” Broken’s eye hardened slightly, but he gave her a slight nod. “You’ve mentioned that she claimed to regret having to kill Celestia and… and everypony else, right? Do you think that she actually hadn’t wanted to? That, that something might’ve happened to her to make her do those things?”
“Yes.” Twilight blinked at Broken’s blunt affirmation. “It’s called going insane. I have little doubt that some part of you still existed in her, on some level, and that that part was utterly disgusted at what you, what she, had done.” He raised a hoof, rubbing his eye. “But that part wasn’t in control, so it doesn’t really matter whether it existed. Dawn existed, Dawn was in control, and Dawn did everything willingly, so Dawn had to die. I’m willing to bet that that remaining part of you felt the same way.”
“So there was no chance that that little part of me was influencing Dawn, even on a small level, to feel bad about what she’d done? No chance it could have regained control, even temporarily?”
Broken and Pip glanced at each other simultaneously. Twilight didn’t miss the small flit of shock – of panic - across both of their features.
“I can’t say that there was.” Broken said quietly, after a moment of silence. Twilight nodded, her throat oddly swollen. The scarred stallion gave her another nod before stepping out the door.
“If you’ll just wait in here, ma’am? Princess Celestia should arrive within the hour.”
Twilight nodded at the guardspony, stepping into one of the many meeting rooms in Canterlot Castle. Her eyes quickly fell upon the one incongruity between it and its siblings around the castle – that of the several stacks of books that occupied the table in the middle of the room – before she started towards one of the chairs that surrounded said table. She restrained herself from picking up one of the tomes and occupying herself with its contents; Celestia wouldn’t have had them placed in that particular room unless they were (at least a part of) what she wanted to discuss with Twilight, so obviously the unicorn should wait for the Princess’ arrival to look at them. Of course, this left little for Twilight to occupy herself with other than her own thoughts.
Over the last few days, such situations hadn’t been particularly welcome.
They’re hiding something. The little voice in the back of her head piped up once more. It had started shortly after Broken’s exit, and had gained a few decibels every time Pip had excused himself on some task or another. She couldn’t fault him for his growing independence, but she found herself wishing slightly against it, and mildly regretting her own previous encouragements of it, if only because his presence tended to shut up the paranoid moron occupying my hindbrain.
Right. I’m the moron. Being the one trying to keep us alive here. You know as well as I do that they’re all hiding something. Broken and Pip and Celestia and-
Of course I know that! We’re the same pony, for Faust’s sake, you couldn’t know that if I didn’t! But I can understand Broken wanting to keep secrets, even now. Same with Pip, though I doubt that he even knows he’s keeping them. And Celestia’s brought us up here specifically to reveal what she’s been hiding. You’ve just been coming up with conspiracy theories!
If we’re the same pony and we know the same things, then you saw what they did just as well as I did. Broken and Pip are colluding. Why else would they both get scared – Pip! Scared! – about the same thing? Looking at each other like they did? Not to mention how quickly they’ve gotten so friendly with one another-
They haven’t gotten friendly, they’ve just stopped threatening and trying to kill one another. Which makes sense, now that Broken knows that Pip’s just a foal and Pip knows that the Princesses weren’t the ones that killed his parents. Broken can’t hate foals and Pip has no reason to hate Broken now, that’s all. Twilight rolled her eyes as the other voice scoffed. As for that glance – I’m pretty sure that neither of them had considered that possibility regarding Dawn. They were probably just checking with one another to make sure that the other hadn’t actually seen something like what I’d brought up.
Or Pip started to get a lot more open to Broken’s ideas on what needs to happen to stop Dawn from rising here after you shifted his anger over his parents’ deaths from Luna to Dawn, and the two have been secretly working together to push you away from any chance of her coming out since then, and you bringing up that possibility – that you think you might be able to keep some control when Dawn’s around, or even regain it – set off their warning bells and now they’re working out the best way to kill you to stop you from possibly letting Dawn out.
Okay, two things. One, how could they be, together, working out the best way to kill us, when Broken’s under round-the-clock surveillance and Pip’s never been away from us for more than a few hours at a time? Two, why would them pushing us away from Dawn be a bad thing?
Because they’ve been keeping quiet about it. We’d be happy to know that they were working together on something, right? Twilight nodded, somewhat suspiciously. Right. And I, at least, would be grateful to them if they were working out ways to keep Dawn from rising. But why wouldn’t they tell us if they were doing so? What one method of keeping us from turning into Dawn would we be opposed to, thus necessitating their secrecy?
Killing us, of course. But this is assuming that they’ve started actively working together to keep Dawn from rising. For which we have no actual evidence and only the thinnest straws of circumstantial.
Exactly. Exactly. Which means that they must be working together for some other reason.
No it doesn’t. More likely than not they’re not working together at all-
Or they could have been working together before they even got here.
Twilight blinked twice at the errant thought before being overcome with laughter.
Oh come on, is it really that hard to believe? It’d explain why Broken never killed us, why he never killed Pip, how he actually managed to get to Pet-
All of which already have reasonable and sane explanations!
Do you really think that they couldn’t be lying? Broken might not even know about it, or he’s under so many oaths that he’s basically trapped in his own body-
No, no, stop. This is- the only reason you’re bringing this up is because I overthink things. We don’t have any reason to think that any of this is actually going on.
Yes we do, we have plenty of reasons, just because you refuse to actually see them doesn’t mean they don’t exist-
Then give them to me! Twilight swept her hoof out, muttering a curse as she accidentally hit one of the book stacks; it tottered for a few seconds before several of the tomes slid off the top, the rest of the stack apparently content to stay on the table. The unicorn grabbed the ones that fell, ensuring that they hadn’t been damaged before putting her eyes on the covers to see if there was any specific order to them.
It took her several seconds to recognize what the titles actually said.
Rebels OF Equeftria: Lunar Rebellions 0-50 ANM
Rebels OF Equeftria: Celeftia’s Solitary Rule 50-100 ANM Vol I
Rebels OF Equeftria: Celeftia’s Solitary Rule 50-100 ANM Vol II
The other voice had gone silent. Slowly, Twilight pulled one of the books forward, opening the cover and planting her eyes on the first page.
It took a long time for her to finish reading.
Twilight couldn’t see.
That wasn’t exactly accurate; she could see, her vision was actually quite good for someone who spent as much time as she did cooped up reading, but at this particular moment she was as good as blind for the red haze in her eyes. She nonetheless kept a strong stride down the castle’s halls, her mental map keeping her on her intended path to the throne room. The guards outside of the room where she was to meet Celestia had tried to stop her from leaving (or had tried to delay her, or had tried to ask what was wrong – she hadn’t been able to give them enough attention to determine their intentions beyond the fact that they were in her way) and were likely still attempting to extricate themselves from the chandelier she’d pulled out of the ceiling and slammed into the floor around them. Everypony else in the castle seemed capable of reading her mood, and every one of their blurry shadows had moved out of her way rather than remaining in it.
She still carried the books that had fallen from the table, a ‘bag’ of magic keeping them held to her back. The writing had been similar to most of the nonfiction she’d read – clinical, detached, arguably objective (accounting for the pro-Celestia bent that all early Equestrian histories had). There was a common format, spread over two to three pages, for each incident covered: Location, date, parties involved, pre-incident history of the area, sequence of events during the incident, post-incident occurrences, casualty rates.
That last point was a particular problem, given that Equestria had officially never had a violent rebellion. And that a number of the incidents she’d just read about were already covered during her studies, where it was always noted that Celestia had listened to the angered citizenry and worked with them to obtain a peaceful solution.
Twilight didn’t see how ‘Fifty-six dead, smote with the righteous fury of the sun’ was a peaceful solution.
She wasn’t quite sure what made her angrier – that Celestia had killed ponies, hundreds of ponies, or that the Princess of the Sun had lied about doing so. Lied to everypony. Lied to her.
The jolt of rage at that last thought – at only that last thought - stopped Twilight in her tracks. She took a few breaths, forcing the haze in her eyes to the edges of her vision as she forced herself to think things through. Blind fury wasn’t going to do anypony any good; she was going to confront Celestia about this, about everything she’d just learned, but she wasn’t going to let herself lose control. Her anger should be for the ponies who’d lost their lives and for everypony who’d been lied to about their fates, not just for her own feelings of hurt and betrayal at her mentor’s deception. Twilight could feel her wrath temper as she pulled herself away from the brink of brash action, forming what felt like a steely determination as she decided on how to move forwards.
By the time she reached the throne room, she’d gotten herself almost entirely under control. Her mouth was flat, her brows lightly knitted, enough to indicate displeasure but not to imply utter rage. Her steps were loose and solid, rather than stiff and shaking. Her tail was controlled and smooth, not flicking and frayed. She looked to those who might be watching her, such as the guards barring the door with their spears, as if she simply had some mildly unpleasant business to discuss with the Princess.
The guards were thus rather surprised when she bent their spears in half and blasted the doors open, walking into the room with a single word.
“CELESTIA!” Twilight’s voice echoed around the wide chamber. The Princess flicked her eyes to the unicorn from her position on the throne; her sister, standing on the lower dais of the gilded platform, turned to face Twilight with a much more open surprise. The younger turned back to the older as Twilight approached, and for a few moments the two exchanged words too quietly for the mortal mare to hear. Their conversation had finished by the time Twilight reached the base of the throne, and Luna gave the unicorn a glance of concern, and for some reason fear, before fading into the shadows.
“Hello, Twilight.” Celestia said as the doors to the room slammed shut. Her voice was utterly calm and collected, her face betraying no emotion beyond a small curiousity. Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “I do apologize if I was late for our meeting; Luna had some ‘last minute’ concerns about what I wished to discuss that unfortunately stretched for far longer than I’d expected them to.”
“Oh, did she?” Twilight’s voice was tight, the forced restraint clear. One of Celestia’s ears flicked. “And what, exactly, was she worried about? That I might find these a little more enlightening than you expected?” Twilight pulled the books from behind her back, laying them out on the platform between herself and Celestia. The alicorn’s brows raised perceptibly, one corner of her mouth pulling the smallest amount back.
“I could have sworn that I told the guards to bring those in after I’d arrived. How did… no, it doesn’t matter.” Celestia shook her head, lifting the tomes and reading each’s title. “How many did you read?”
“Just those three. I guessed by the titles that the other fifty were much the same.”
“Your guess was correct. Though many of them essentially cover the same events, differing only in their subtitles.” She put her eyes back on Twilight as she laid the books back down. “I assume that you’re… confused, about what you’ve read.”
Twilight could feel a burning around the edges of her eyes, the solid red ring around her vision beginning to fade back into the centre. “That might be a good word to describe it. Princess. ” She couldn’t stop the acid in her voice from coating the title. Celestia seemed to flinch, and Twilight felt the oddest thrill at the visible vulnerability. “I’m confused, as to why these books differ so much from the histories that I grew up reading. Confused at the fact that they say that ponies died in some incidents that I rather distinctly remember you claiming were calmly resolved. Confused at their claim that you, that YOU, killed howevermany of your own little ponies for, for protests and complaints and things that you encourage today! Yes, Princess, I’m rather FUCKING confused about this!”
Twilight took in a few heavy breaths, her vision starting to swim as Celestia stood and stepped down to the floor in front of her. The alicorn wore a stoic visage as her wings unfolded and wrapped around Twilight’s back, pulling the unicorn into a gentle, but unyielding, embrace.
“Those ponies didn’t deserve to die.” Twilight had started to move, to push the larger mare away, but froze as she heard the alicorn’s words. Her gaze shot to Celestia’s face, to the tears working their way down from the alicorn’s eyes. “Luna’s nights had not gone unnoticed by all. There were many ponies, so very many, who loved them and appreciated them almost as much as I. But the Nightmare blinded my sister to them, just as it blinded her to my love for her.
“Though none but I had seen her transformation, everypony in Equestria saw our battle. We sundered the skies and tore the earth apart, and it was only as a final, desperate measure, to protect our little ponies from any more harm than we had already inflicted upon them, that I sealed her away. In my grief at her loss, I became dead to the world around me; I shut myself in my chambers, deaf to the calls and questions from even my oldest and most loyal of servants, spending weeks wallowing in my agony at the hole that had been torn in my heart.
“But while I sat and grieved, our ponies were left without knowledge or direction. None knew about the evil that had taken hold of Luna, only that their Princesses had warred with one another, and that my sister had been forced away from this world, into apparent oblivion. Those who favoured the day were able to accept this, reasoning that, whatever had occurred, I would not have destroyed my sister without just cause. But those who favoured the night were left confused and terrified, unable to accept that their favoured Princess could deserve such a fate. From their fear and lack of understanding, a panicked thought took root: That I had grown jealous over those who loved my sister’s nights more than my days, and that I had destroyed her in order to become the sole object of our subjects’ attentions.
“This panic grew to disquiet, then to protests for answers, demands for an explanation that I was unable to provide. The guardsponies, for lack of my direction, sought to maintain calm and normalcy; they suppressed the protests firmly, violently, which only served to convince those loyal to Luna that I desired their extermination. The protests grew to riot and revolt, and across Equestria those who favoured the night fought and overthrew the ponies I had appointed to govern them. It was only as Equestria began to tear itself apart that I regained my awareness of the world around me. One morning I simply awoke, emerged from my chambers, and asked the first servant I came across what had occurred in my absence.
“It did not occur to me that I was the only one to know what had transpired, that I had left our ponies without any explanation for my apparent sororicide, that the ponies who were rebelling were simply scared and ignorant and trying to protect themselves. All I knew was that they had risen up in violence, attacked my ponies, accused me of the very crime that Luna had committed. I still grieved the loss of my sister, still felt the emptiness of her absence, but as I learned of all that had transpired I found my grief morphing to wrath and felt the hole in my heart fill with hatred. Those weeks of isolation had allowed me to exhaust my sorrow at my sister’s betrayal; the rebels gave me a target upon which to vent my rage.
“I exterminated them. Imprisoned those who repented and murdered those who didn’t. In a matter of months I had regained control of all of Equestria, and for two hundred years, until my rage was fully extinguished and my mind once more became clear, I continued to smite any who rose against me.”
Celestia’s wings withdrew from around Twilight, and the alicorn stepped back, putting her eyes to the floor. The unicorn barely noticed that the red ring around her vision had vanished as she stared unblinking at her mentor.
“So… so you killed all of those ponies…”
“Because I was throwing a tantrum.” Celestia sighed. “I am very, very ashamed of what I did, Twilight Sparkle. One I realized the evils I had committed, I nearly fell into despair once more; I wished my actions to be forgotten, so that my little ponies would obey me out of respect and love rather than fear. I had every library in Equestria purged of documents like these, the record-keepers sworn to secrecy, allowing only single copies to survive so that I myself might never forget my mistakes.” The Princess lifted the books from behind her, giving them another long glance before setting them down beside her. “It has taken me eight hundred years to realize that hiding these crimes is just as shameful as committing them. I had these histories, the true histories, restored, so that I might give my little ponies a chance to judge me for all of my actions, rather than only those I allow them to.” Her eyes met Twilight’s, allowing the unicorn to see the tired resignation within them. “I can understand if you despise me for this deception, Twilight.”
“No, no, Princess, I… I just…” Twilight spoke more on instinct than intelligence, trying to find some way to mollify her mentor. “I mean, I’m definitely still angry about this, and horrified, and shocked, and, and all those other things, but I… I think I can understand it. You weren’t thinking straight, you were thrown into an utterly horrible situation while you were still very emotionally unstable, and you’re obviously repentant and disgusted at yourself and-” Twilight cut off, rubbing her hoof firmly into her temple and trying to reform her scrambled thoughts into cohesion.. “Faust, Princess, I don’t despise you. You did something horribly, evilly wrong, but you’re clearly trying to make up for it, a-and you’ve done so much good for Equestria, protected us and saved so many lives that… this is all just a lot to take in.” She let out a breath. “I can see why you’d want to keep it hidden.”
The alicorn blinked, but quickly smiled and nodded. “I am glad to hear of your understanding, my dear student. I can only hope that the rest of my little ponies share your willingness to at least… accept… what I’ve done.”
Twilight gave a weak grin. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll have too much to worry about. After all, you’re still our Princess.” Celestia threw a wing around the smaller mare, and this time Twilight returned the hug.
She’s still lying.
Twilight nearly jumped at the sudden return of the other voice. What in Faust’s name are you-
She’s still LYING, you idiot! She said that she wanted to reveal something that she’s kept hidden since her ascension! How could she have hidden this since her ascension if it happened after?!
Twilight took a breath to cover up the jolt of anxiety in her stomach. Slowly, she leaned back from the embrace, waiting until Celestia lifted her head to look at her.
“Is something wrong, Twi-“
“What else is there?” The unicorn asked. She felt the alicorn stiffen. “You told me that you had been hiding something since you ascended, but this… this was long after that. You’re still hiding something.” A block of ice fell down Twilight’s back. “Faust, please tell me it’s not another-“
“No!” The word was quick and sharp, cutting off Twilight’s words. Celestia looked almost angry as she said it, but quickly regained control of herself. “No, Twilight, I swear to you that it’s nothing like what we’ve just discussed. I am just- after what has already been revealed I am not sure if it would be right to burden you with another secret of mine so soon. I was hoping that you might return to Ponyville, come fully to terms with what I’ve already spoken of, and then-“
“Not a chance, Princess.” Twilight shook her head. “Just knowing that there’s something else is going to eat me up inside. I’m a big filly, I can deal with it. I promise.” She gave Celestia a confident smile. The Princess looked lost in thought for nearly a minute before sighing and smiling back.
“Very well, my faithful student. I shall trust your judgement.”
Celestia’s horn glowed, and the two were very suddenly outside, standing on a wide balcony a great height above Canterlot proper. Twilight looked around, becoming mildly surprised at how late in the day it was.
“What can you see from here, Twilight?”
The unicorn turned to the alicorn, finding the immortal staring at the sun as it touched the horizon. Twilight had to turn from the great light after only moments, but Celestia kept her gaze locked onto it, as if expecting it to suddenly disappear.
“I can see a lot of things, Princess.” Twilight replied awkwardly. “Canterlot. The Everfree Forest. Ponyville. A number of farms and villages.”
“Anything else?”
“Er, the sky? The clouds – there’s a few that look like leftovers from a cloud city move. The ocean’s almost visible, I might be able to see it if the sun wasn’t there.”
“That’s what I was asking about, Twilight. You can see the sun, correct?”
“Well, yeah, I mean-“
“You can see the sun moving?”
Something seemed to snap in the back of Twilight’s mind. She ignored it, however, giving her mentor a somewhat befuddled glance.
“Of course I can, Princess. The same as it does every day.”
Celestia nodded, as if Twilight’s response had solved some long-unanswered question. “Good, my faithful student.” She took a few breaths, as if to calm herself before taking some drastic measure. “Now I want you to tell me how much magic I’m using right now.”
Twilight felt out before she could even think about it, and responded just as quickly. “None, Princess.” Her brows furrowed. “I’m not sure what you’re tryi-“
No magic. Sun moving, no magic. SUN MOVING NO MAGIC
Twilight whipped her head around, watching as the sun slowly edged its way down below the horizon. She turned just as quickly back to Celestia, to the absence of magic around the alicorn. She put her eyes back again, but froze when a hoof caught her shoulder, leaving her vision locked on the sun as it kept moving, moving without magic, why is it moving it can’t move without
“I’m sorry, Twilight.” The Princess of the Sun spoke.
She knew that she was speaking – she could see the alicorn’s mouth move, and she could feel the pressure waves impact her eardrums and send neural signals to her auditory cortex. On some level she was aware that she should have been able to comprehend what the Princess was (presumably) telling her. But she couldn’t.
The thousand voices in her head were making it hard to hear very much of anything.
move without magic why can possible it shouldn’t work lied to us need shut up to hear not letting us can we do how long Luna too never see who else Cadance know when did lied to us forgive her reveal this can she shut up stop her moon too every day leave it kill us gryphons dragons how many kill her lied to us ponies shut up letting her planned it get away check again make her why would lied to us shut up ponies will will they unified in does Shining know lied to us shut up when start Broken doesn’t lied to us shut up if she lied to us shut up lied to us shut up LIED TO US “SHUT UP!”
Twilight’s chest was heaving, her eyes screwed shut and legs stiff as she fought herself away from a complete mental collapse. Ever so slowly she managed to quiet the cacophony of voices inside her mind, culling the weaker ones and forcing the stronger down back beneath the surface of wherever they’d emerged from. Eventually, when all but one of her errant thoughts had been squared away, she regained awareness of the world beyond herself; she opened her eyes as she noticed that Celestia had moved away from her, feeling them settle into a narrow glare at the guarded concern on the face of the supposed Princess of the Sun.
“How long?” Twilight asked, her voice tight. Celestia had the gall to look confused. “How long has the sun moved on its own?”
The Princess watched her student for a few moments before taking a breath. “To the best of my understanding, and with what the elder dragons have told me… forever.”
“Forever.” Forever, Twilight’s other voice echoed, it’s always’s been, we’ve never needed her- “So we’ve never needed you, then? You’ve been lying to us for over a thousand years?”
“I have never lied to you about this, Twilight-“
“The fuck you haven’t!” The unicorn cut Celestia off, standing and stalking over to the alicorn. “The first damned thing any Equestrian learns about our world is that you, you, raise and lower the sun every day, that you are the only reason why the sun moves! If you weren’t there to lower it, it would turn our lands to ash, and if you weren’t there to raise it, we’d freeze just as we would have if Nightmare Moon had won! There have been countless treaties, agreements, nonaggression pacts with other nations based on the fact that they could never defeat us because your death would spell theirs! The only reason that you came to the throne at all is because you took the sun from the unicorns, because you held it in the sky against all of our attempts to pull it down, and the other tribes feared you for it!” She was nose-to-nose with her mentor now, small flecks of spittle hitting Celestia’s lips as Twilight castigated her. The latter mare swung her hoof to the setting sun, not taking her eyes from the Princess’. “So how the fuck weren’t you lying?!”
Once more, Celestia’s response was delayed. Twilight jumped back as the Princess lifted her hoof, the unicorn’s horn glowing in preparation to defend herself from an attack; Celestia’s eyes gained a pained look as her hoof wiped the spittle from her face. She set her hoof back down, staying still and waiting for Twilight’s magic to fade before she spoke.
“I have never claimed that I am needed for the sun to rise and fall. Any treaty with reference to it is hundreds of years old, and soon to be replaced; if I make mention of it in a modern negotiation, it is only because all other options have been exhausted. And I could not take from the unicorns what they themselves never held.”
Lies lies lies all of it lies Twilight bared her teeth. “And what, exactly, does that mean?”
“I told you, Twilight. The sun has always moved on its own. I have never been needed for it to rise and fall… and neither have the unicorns.”
Twilight felt a spike of ice impale her at that particular claim. Gritting her teeth, she shoved it away and immolated the panicked voices that had risen up around it. “Th-that doesn’t change what you’ve lied about. And don’t you dare say that you’ve never claimed to raise the sun! The first time that I ever saw you was when you rai- supposedly raised it at the Summer Sun Celebration! You inspired me to pursue magic with that, and now you’re telling me it was faked! That the event that set my whole life in motion was a fucking-“
The sky turned blue.
Twilight jolted as the corner of her eye was hit with a sudden flash of light; she quickly turned away, blinking until the afterimage at her vision’s edge disappeared. She slowly turned back, squinting at the light until she managed to see past it, then feeling her eyes widen as she saw the sun fully above the horizon. Her gaze went to Celestia, and she blinked again at the glow on the alicorn’s horn.
“I said that I do not need to move the sun, Twilight Sparkle.” The Princess spoke, her voice mildly strained and her eyes closed. “I never said that I cannot.” Her horn’s glow lessened, and the sky rapidly reddened again; a quick flick of her eye told Twilight that the sun was rapidly returning to its previous position. Celestia’s horn ceased its glow, and her eyes opened to fix Twilight with a cool gaze. “Do not mistake me for having no power over the sun, Twilight. I do raise and lower it, every morning and every evening, holding it on a regular path and destroying the flares it sends towards our world. Luna does much the same with the moon, keeping it from too greatly disturbing the tides.” The Princess closed her eyes again and took a breath; when she returned her gaze to Twilight it had regained a concerned warmth. “The path you chose was not based in falsehood, Twilight. That is something I can promise you.”
“I-I… that…” Twilight took a shuddering breath. The other voice had gone oddly silent, but rage and relief still warred in her mind, the runoff from their battle seeming to clog her throat and flood her eyes. Eventually she managed to choke out a few words, allowing the most pressing of her questions to escape. “…why didn’t you tell me?”
Celestia sighed. “You were not the first student that I’ve taken under my wing, Twilight. I-“
“No.” Twilight surprised herself as she spoke, her throat clearing and eyes drying somehow instantly. She stood and stepped towards Celestia again, feeling oddly disconnected from herself. “I was the one who saved your sister. I was the one that stopped Discord. Chrysalis and Sombra would have won without my efforts. And Tirek…” She trailed off, allowing her wingless back to speak for what she’d sacrificed to enable that monster’s destruction. “You may have had countless students before me, but none of them have done the things I have. None of them have been a Princess. None of them have borne the Element of Magic. So don’t you dare try to say that you didn’t tell me because I was just another student.” Celestia’s eyes were wide, an edge of panic clearly visible. Twilight kept pressing. “Now. Why. Didn’t. You. Tell. Me?”
To Celestia’s credit, she didn’t give a hint of discomfort beyond her eyes, and she quickly hid those behind their lids. After a few moments, she sighed, and her eyes were calm when she opened them again. She gave a soft smile, and her voice was warm and clear, so very close to how she’d spoken to Twilight countless times before.
“Because I knew what you were capable of.”
Twilight blinked. What I’m capable of? Does she think I’m a threat? No, no, that was her encouraging voice, she wouldn’t have spoken to me like that… Did she mean that I could have figured it out on my own? Does she really think I’m that smart? Twilight tried to open her mouth, to ask for an explanation of what exactly Celestia meant.
Instead, she suddenly raised her hoof and slapped Celestia across the face.
Twilight stared at her traitorous limb in shock for a few moments before flicking her eyes to her mentor; the alicorn blinked several times, a small trickle of blood starting to flow from the corner of her mouth. She lifted her hoof and dabbed at the blood, staring at the stain it left for a few moments before putting her eyes on her student’s wide-eyed, shaking form.
“Twilight…?”
Her voice wasn’t angry, or hurt, or disappointed. Only concerned.
Twilight felt like she’d been stabbed.
“That… I didn’t…” Twilight couldn’t speak. She felt herself start to hyperventilate, her legs already quivering, horrified tears coursing down her face; she saw Celestia’s wing reach forward, as it had done countless times before when Twilight was upset, always to draw the mare into a safe, secure embrace.
Twilight’s horn glowed, and she heard Celestia shout her name before she teleported away.
Her landing wasn’t clean. She hit the floor hard, her legs entirely useless to break her fall, and she felt her stomach contents rise as the impact dislodged the plug in her throat. Her horn was burning, her head throbbing, her ears ringing, her eyes stinging. Everything hurt.
She curled in on herself as best she could, turning away from her sick, holding herself tightly, staying as still and quiet as possible until most of her body had finished screaming in agony. She heard a door creak open, and then she was being gently lifted, one large hoof moving around her back while the other cupped her cheek and held her head still.
“Miss Twilight? Miss Twilight, can you hear me? Are you alright?” Pip’s voice, audibly concerned. “Miss Twilight?” Twilight tried to speak, but only managed an odd croak before swallowing painfully; her throat had somehow become incredibly dry. She did her best to nod anyways, lifting a hoof to her face to wipe the remnants of her tears away. His grip on her shifted, his head turning to the doorway before he shouted loud enough to rattle the windows. “SPIKE!”
There were several seconds of silence before a scrabble of claws on hardwood became audible. Pipsqueak lifted her slightly, letting her get her hooves under her, before slowly letting her back down, now holding her in a sitting position rather than laying on her side. She gave him a smile in thanks as Spike rounded the corner of the doorway.
“Twilight!” The dragon’s voice was a mix of panicked and relieved, and the mare barely had enough time to open her hooves before he barreled into her. They hugged each other tightly, holding onto one another and letting the familiar contact work away at the tension in their systems.
She felt Pip slowly ease away from her as she became more definitely able to support herself; by the time she felt Spike’s grip started to loosen he was sitting a short distance away, allowing them their space while remaining close enough to catch her if she fell. The vomit that he should have been partially sitting in had mysteriously disappeared, and the stallion had a glass of water beside him, which he pushed over to her. She lifted and drank it, giving him a quick nod and another smile, both of which he returned after a short delay. As she drank, Twilight found herself finally looking around the room they were in.
Its resemblance to her own room, and the presence of Spike and Pipsqueak, gave her a quick, unbelievable answer as to where she’d teleported to.
“Is this the library?” She asked, her voice slightly creaking but finally returned to her. Spike leaned back, his eyes a mix of concern and confusion.
“Uh, yeah. Celestia sent a letter saying that something had happened and you’d teleported away, but that only arrived a few minutes ago. How’d you get back down here so fast?”
Twilight blinked, her brow furrowing. Pip spoke up before she could work her throat into speech again.
“I believe that you have answered your own question, Sir Spike.” At the simultaneous looks of the dragon and the unicorn, he continued. “Miss Twilight teleported away from Celestia a very short time ago, assuming that one of the first actions that Celestia took after Miss Twilight’s teleportation was to compose the letter she sent you. She has arrived here, in an incredibly short timeframe and without having travelled through the rest of the library, and exhibits a number of signs indicating both an unorthodox teleportation and extreme magical exhaustion.” The stallion exhaled. “As such, it is rather obvious that she teleported from Canterlot to here.”
As if his mentioning them had caused them to appear, Twilight finally noticed the small scorch marks dotting her legs and the singed edges of her mane. Those, alongside her irritated eyes and ears, would be from the ‘unorthodox teleportation’; the headache, pain in her bones and dryness of her throat would be the magical exhaustion. The vomiting and burning horn were likely a mix of both.
Twilight couldn’t help but feel slightly mollified at the explanation for her condition, even if that explanation was impossible.
“That’s not possible, though.” Spike said, giving the stallion a sidelong glance and voicing Twilight’s thought. “Even Princess Celestia can’t teleport that far. Twilight’s tried dozens of times and she’s never been able to work up enough magic.”
“A unicorn’s root always holds out some magic for cases of emergency, Sir Spike. Miss Twilight may not have been able to teleport between here and Canterlot because her mind did not consider her sufficiently endangered to allow her access to the reserved magic.” His eye shifted to Twilight. “Though this begs the question of what exactly occurred between you and Celestia to cause your mind to feel so threatened, Miss Twilight.”
Twilight winced as Pip brought that particular topic back to the forefront of her mind. She brought her hoof up and rubbed between her eyes, blinking and taking a few breaths before lowering it and answering the stallion’s pseudo-question.
“Celestia told me some things that I found… disconcerting. Like how she killed pretty much everypony who criticized her for two hundred years after Nightmare Moon.” Spike’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Pip flicked an ear.
“That was a secret, Miss Twilight?”
The unicorn sighed. “In this timeline, yes. She was open about it in yours?”
“Yes, Miss Twilight. And it lasted several decades longer there.” Pip blinked. “Was there anything else, or was such a revelation so terrible as to incite this? I can understand you feeling endangered from being in such close proximity to a pony that you had only recently learned was a mass murderer, Miss Twilight, but your mention of it sounded like there were other things that Celestia revealed to you.”
Twilight was silent for several seconds, considering what had occurred, before shaking her head. “I… There is something else, but… it probably wouldn’t be good for me to tell you. Either of you, or anypony else for that matter.” She added the last point when Spike had looked ready to ask her himself. She felt a twitch in the back of her head, but the other voice remained silent. Belatedly, she realized that she hadn’t heard it since shortly before her little selfcentered rant at Celestia.
A rant that she’d never thought about saying, after which she struck Celestia without any desire to.
Twilight very suddenly felt like she’d been stabbed again.
“Spike.” The mare spoke softly. “Please send a letter to Celestia. Tell her I’m okay, everything’s fine, I just need some time to think things over. Okay?” Spike furrowed his brow at the shift in Twilight’s tone, but slowly nodded. She sent him off with another hug before putting her attention to the other pony in the room. “I need to be alone for a while, Pip. Just to talk some things over with myself.” The stallion flicked an ear, but nodded; within the second Twilight was alone, the slight breeze and door creaking shut being the only indication that Pip hadn’t simply vanished from existence.
Twilight let out a breath, then took in another one. Her eyes were closed, her face was blank, her form appearing entirely calm.
I know you’re in here. You’re as much a part of me as my horn. Now stop hiding.
Just because I’m silent doesn’t mean I’m hiding. The other voice responded.
Great. So you’ll be fine with telling me just what the BUCK you did up there?
What makes you think I had anything to do with it? You’ve lost control before. Given what that lying harridelle just showed us- the voice cut off as Twilight felt a flare of anger. ... what Princess Celestia showed us, then. It’s not surprising that you acted without thinking.
Did I, though? When I ‘lost control’ at Broken, you were the one who defended what happened – Faust, now that I’m thinking about it, you even gave me at least the first few words of it. You were screaming in my ear over Celestia until she showed us that she could still move the sun, and then I couldn’t hear anything from you, not even making little ‘suggestions’ to add to that rant like you’d been doing before.
I was in as much shock as you over that, given that, you know, we’re the same pony. Maybe I couldn’t think of anything to add? The voice gave a snort. And what do you mean ‘did I’? I started the one with Broken, sure, but Celestia’s just happened-
But it didn’t ‘just happen’ either, did it? Twilight cut the voice off. You’re a part of my mind, but you’re obviously independent enough to argue with me like this. You see and hear the same things I do, but I’m the one who chooses how to act, so you’re left sitting there, with your own ideas on what should happen, forced to watch as I do things without any of your input. If I were in your position, I’d be doing everything I could to take control, to do things right even if only for a few moments or one key action.
Right, because obviously I want to act in the same way that you would. Get over yourself; I’ve been here for our whole life without trying to take over. I’m just one of the many voices in your head, one of the many ways that you see things, telling you one of many ways that you could act. Just because I’m more active than the others-
But you are more active than the ‘others’. You’re the only one that I ever actually hear. Sure, I get odd urges and thoughts and ideas, but never another actual voice telling me ‘hey, you should go steal that candy from that foal’ or ‘go climb to the top of the clock tower and jump off’. You aren’t just something that suggests a possibility, you actively fight to try to convince me of it. And every time we’ve ‘talked’, you’ve always been arguing from the opposite side.
I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Everypony has an antagonist, a part of their mind they have to argue against in order to convince themselves that what they’re doing is right. How do you know that nopony else has one like me?
Because you aren’t my ‘antagonist’. I’ve had to convince myself of things plenty of times without having to argue with you about it. You never even showed up until- Twilight physically gasped, her eyes shooting open. –until a few days after Broken and Pip.
Before the other voice could give a retort, a memory echoed through Twilight’s mind.
“You’ve been watching me? How? For how long?”
“With my eyes. And since three days after Broken and Pip’s arrival.”
Twilight heard nothing for several seconds.
…no. No, no, no no no! What the- what is wrong with you?! What kind of deranged disconnect from reality do you have to have to make that leap in logic?! ‘Oh, this voice in my head disagrees with me, it must be some mass-murdering psychopath from another dimension.’ WHAT THE FUCK?!
Twilight didn’t respond. She quickly stood and walked to the door, opening it and leaning out; she found Pipsqueak leaning on the edge of the doorway, his ears perking up with her arrival.
“Miss Twilight?”
“Pip, I need you to go get the others. Rainbow, AJ, everypony. Tell them to bring their Elements.” The stallion blinked, but nodded.
“Is there something wrong, Miss Twilight?”
What in Faust’s name are you doing Twilight winced, one hoof rising to press at her temple. Pip immediately moved to catch her against a possible fall, but she waved him away, gritting her teeth and drawing a hard breath.
“I’ll tell you later, Pip! Just go!” The stallion nodded again, vanishing, and Twilight pulled herself back into her room, slamming the door shut and leaning against it.
Twilight, Faust-dammit, you need to stop and think. Remember back in the Everfree? You were getting all critical of Broken’s rebels, and I was the one who defended them? Why the buck would I defend the ponies who were trying to overthrow me?
I wasn’t being critical of the rebels, I was worried that what I’d said to Pip would make him think even worse of them. You were arguing that making him cry was a good thing.
The other voice – the Dawn voice – growled. That wasn’t my point, you pinheaded idiot! And that still doesn’t mean that I’m Dawn! I can’t be Dawn! How could I respond to your thoughts if I wasn’t literally in your head?
It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that you developed a mind-reading spell during your ‘experiments’. You’ve already shown that you have a spell to render you incorporeal, and to allow instant teleportation, and to completely hide all traces of your magic.
Oh come on, do you really think that that’s possible? You know that absolutely hiding magic is impossible! Otherwise Celestia could have just done that so that she didn’t have to explain away her lie when somepony inevitably found out about it! Twilight frowned at that actually-reasonable point. And it’s not like this even matters because I’m. Not. Dawn! Dawn’s voice paused for a moment. Do you want to know why I made us punch Celestia?
Twilight’s ears perked, her eyes cracking open. So you admit-
Yes, fine! I did it! Whoop-de-bucking-doo! Now listen to me, you ingrown foal! There was another pause, and then a memory came forth.
“Because I knew what you were capable of.”
Twilight blinked. So wha-
SO SHE KNEW ABOUT DAWN! The other voice thundered. Twilight winced again as its ‘volume’ pounded at the inside of her head. That bitch knew that Dawn was coming, she knew that we could become her, she knew what we might do if we knew that the sun didn’t need her! She knew, she fucking knew and she lied to our face about it! The only reason I didn’t do worse to her was because of how scared that little slap made you!
H-hold on a minute, how could she know about Dawn? Star Swirl didn’t invent timeline magic-
Who told you he didn’t? Celestia? The tutors she payed for? The textbooks she edited? She’s lied about killing hundreds of ponies, she’s lied about moving the sun, who’s to say she didn’t lie about gaining the ability to see into other worlds? Who’s to say she didn’t kill him to stop him from telling anypony else about his discovery?
Who’s to say that she did? We can’t assume that she’s lying about everything just because we know that she’s lied about some things! Look, I’m not happy with Celestia either right now, but-
That’s the problem! You aren’t happy with her right now! Soon enough you’ll have shunted this to the back of your mind, just like you did after Chrysalis and every other time she’s bucked up, and you’ll be back to smiling and bowing and sucking at her teat and refusing to accept that your precious Princess isn’t perfect! Don’t you remember what Dawn said would happen if you did that here?
Twilight’s jaw set. Yes, in fact, I do remember what Dawn said about that.
“…these ones, they don’t just get subsumed into that morass of worship you call your relationship with her. They get stuck in the back of your mind, festering…”
Good. Then you should know-
And I also remember what she said after.
“…and one of those little voices in the back of your head that you’re never, ever supposed to listen to picks up on them.”
So which are you? Dawn? Or one of the voices that turns me into her?
The little voice in the back of her head was silent. Twilight was willing to wait, taking the reprieve to let herself calm down. A minute passed, easily, then two, then five, then-
I’m only trying to protect us.
Before Twilight could respond, there was a knock on the door. She quickly stood up away from it, moving to the centre of the room before magicking it open. Her friends entered, alongside Spike and Pip, the latter bringing up the rear.
“Alright, what’s goin’ on that we need the Elements for?” Applejack asked.
“Yeah, the only weird thing I know about was what Celestia did with the sun a little while ago.” Twilight cringed as Rainbow shrugged. “Unless there’s something wrong with the Elements themselves. Is that it? They aren’t leaking anything, are they?” The prismatic pegasus lifted her Element up, apparently eyeing the necklace for any ‘leakage’. Twilight shook her head.
“No, no, nothing like that…” She pulled her Element from its spot and held it in front of her. She stared at it for a few moments before fixing her eyes on the only stallion in the room. “Pip, do you remember a few days ago, when I asked if anypony had been in the kitchen with me before you came in? How I said that I’d thought that there had been?”
Pipsqueak nodded, his brow furrowing a very small amount. “Yes, Miss Twilight. As I said then, I can assure you that nopony had been in that room, aside from you, for at least an hour beforehoof.”
“I know, Pip, and I appreciate that. But I did see somepony in the room with me. I, I’m fairly certain about that, now.”
“Who was it?” Spike asked, glancing between Twilight and Pip. The former took a few breaths before she answered.
“Rising Dawn.”
That got a reaction out of her audience. Everypony went wide-eyed and slack-jawed, a few making small utterances or noises of shock. Rainbow dropped to the floor, glancing all around as if Dawn was hiding in some corner somewhere. Pip went completely stiff, his eye wide and pupil pinpricked, breath caught in his throat. Twilight brought her hoof to her head, rubbing it between her eyes.
“…and to make matters worse, I’m not even sure if she was really there.”
“Wh...what’d’ya mean, y’don’t know if she was there?” Applejack’s brow was furrowed, her eyes holding clear concern.
“Well, she, I couldn’t feel any magic from her, she was able to just disappear and reappear without teleporting, I wasn’t able to touch her with my magic or my hoof, and she quite literally walked through the kitchen table. And as Pip’s mentioned, she didn’t leave a trace of her presence.”
“Only within the hour, Miss Twilight-“
“But I wasn’t in there for an hour, was I?” Twilight asked, glancing at a fraught-with-worry Fluttershy. The mare took a moment before shaking her head. Twilight sighed.
“Right. So she probably wasn’t there. Meaning that I was hallucinating her.” She paused for a moment, working her jaw as the others glanced between themselves. “Which brings me to my second point.
“For the last… little while, I’ve been hearing another voice in my head. My voice, just… separate from my own thoughts. I didn’t think very much about it at first, I just thought that it was just another one of those things that everyone gets in their own heads, something that their subconscious invents for one reason or another, but then, it started… pushing. It got louder, started talking more, started arguing more forcefully. And then, one day – that day that I told you about Dawn raping Pip – Broken made a comment about Pip, and I just snapped, I took him to task for how he’d been treating Pip, how Pip had been hurt by Dawn just like he had… except it wasn’t me talking.” Twilight took a few breaths. Applejack spoke up before she could continue.
“So this… this ‘other voice’ a’yers… it’s a strong enough part’a’ya t’take over yer speech? An’ y’didn’t think t’tell anypony?”
“I didn’t even know that it had done it at the time! Or that it was ever going to be able to! I still thought that the voice was just something in my head, that I had just lost control of my anger for a minute! And it hadn’t done anything else like that since then, until today!”
“So what’d it do-“
“Weren’t you meeting with Celestia today, Twilight?” Rarity asked, her voice in a very controlled calm. Very suddenly, every eye in the room was on Twilight again.
“…Princess Celestia told me some things. Things that I’m not very comfortable even thinking about, let alone telling anypony else.” Twilight could feel one of her eyes twitch. “B-but what she told me isn’t important, not right now. After all of this, I might tell you, or Spike can send a letter and ask or… something. But not right now.” She glanced between everyone, waiting for at least a few nods before letting out her breath. “Okay, okay. So I found something out, and then Celestia told me something else, and those things made me very, very angry with her. But she explained herself, and I was calming down, and then that other voice took over again. I didn’t notice, I thought I was just… talking without thinking, or something, but when Celestia responded to what the voice had said, and I tried to ask her what she meant, i-instead of talking, I …” Twilight’s throat was starting to swell, her vision blurring as her eyes wetted. “…I hit her.”
Applejack blinked, which was more movement than anyone else in the room. Her mouth fell open, but it took a few seconds for her to speak.
“…you hit her? W-what’d’ya mean, y’hit her?”
In response, Twilight raised her hoof, then swung it in front of her as fast and as hard as she could. The motion nearly made her fall over, the same hoof that had replicated the strike having to plant itself awkwardly to the floor in order to keep her upright.
“I-I wasn’t trying to!” she said, her voice cracking as a few silent cries worked their way up her throat. “I was in control again less than a second later, and Celestia was more worried about me than anything, but I just panicked and teleported back here and-“ her voice caught on a sob, and she had to clear her throat before she could speak again “-and as soon as I realized what had happened, I confronted the voice, and it admitted to it, it said it would have done worse if it’d been able to, a-and that’s when I knew something was wrong.”
Everypony was silent as Twilight recovered; Spike looked like he wanted to move to her, but something was keeping him tied to his spot. Twilight shot him a smile anyway, rubbing the tears out of her eyes and taking a deep breath.
“But it’s okay! Now, now that I know that this voice isn’t really me, that it’s some kind of thing that’s not supposed to be here, I know how to get rid of it!” She raised the Element of Magic from where she’d dropped it, placing it atop her head.
“Wait, so you want us to use the Elements on you?!” Rainbow asked incredulously. “I mean, yeah, you gotta get rid of that voice-thingy somehow, but-“
“I didn’t just come up with this off the top of my head, Rainbow.” Twilight cut the pegasus off. “The way I see it, this voice is something like the Nightmare – an entity that induces behavioural shifts and attempts to take control of the pony it’s inhabiting. So, we should be able to deal with it the same way.” The unicorn looked between her friends, her face falling slightly at their visible apprehension. “Come on, girls! This isn’t me! I don’t hate Celestia, I don’t think she’s a monster, I don’t want to hurt her, but this thing does and I’m terrified that it might get strong enough to start taking control of me whenever it wants! I don’t want to turn into Rising Dawn, but I’m fairly certain that a voice like this is what she started as!” The mention of Dawn seemed to stiffen everyone’s backs; Twilight glanced around again, meeting each of her friends’ eyes. “Please, please, trust me on this. Please.”
“…Ah trust ya.” Applejack was the first to speak, giving a nod and a solid stare at Twilight. The others quickly followed, each speaking and nodding. She gave them all a great, relieved smile before putting her eyes on the two non-Bearers in the room.
“Spike, Pip, you’re going to have to step outside for this. We’ve never used the Elements with anypony else around, and I’m not sure what might happen if you were in here.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever used the Elements on yourself, either…” Spike said, before moving forward and giving Twilight a tight hug. “Just be careful, alright?”
Twilight hugged her assistant back, holding him tight to her. “I promise. I’ll still be me afterwards, don’t you worry.” She felt Spike nod against her neck, and then he let her go, turning and quickly walking out the door. Pip followed him, giving Twilight a sharp nod and a worried eye before stepping out and shutting the door behind him. Twilight turned back to her friends, giving them a final nod before working her magic.
The Elements activated normally, the lights of Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, Laughter, and Kindness each sparking and bathing their owners in their power. Twilight could see the glow of Magic around herself, and as she felt its power peak the other Elements shot out, drawn towards their kin like a moth to flame.
It didn’t hurt as they hit her; it was a warm, soft, safe feeling, purely comfortable even as the light grew too bright for her to see and the roaring too loud for her to hear. The harmonic power washed through her, rejuvenating her, leaving her feeling cleaner, healthier, happier than she had ever been before. She felt her mouth open, but if she screamed it was something of ecstasy rather than pain. As the power filled her more and more, she felt something pulling at her, pulling her away from herself, and she could not find it in herself to resist.
When she returned to awareness she found herself lying on the floor. She could feel five others around her, from the heat of their bodies and the little sounds they likely weren’t even aware they were making. She raised her hooves and stretched, feeling something odd in her back, making sure they knew she was awake before she opened her eyes.
“Hey there, Twi. Y’kinda collapsed when th’Elements went back t’normal. Y’feelin’ alright, sugarcube?” Applejack asked. Twilight stood in one fluid motion, some of her other friends stepping back away from her as she did so, before fixing the farmmare with a smile.
“I feel stupendous! I don’t think sex with Faust would be that satisfying!” She giggled at the funny look that Applejack suddenly got, glancing around to find similar looks on the rest of her friends. “Thank you all so much, everyone!” They all looked at each other, their smiles weirdly wobbly.
“Um, sure, Twilight. Always happy t’help.” Applejack gave an odd-toned laugh, rubbing the back of her head.
“Er, yeah. Those nasty voices all gone?” Rainbow asked. Twilight paused for a moment before nodding, wiggling her back to try to figure out whatever was bugging her back there.
“Yep! All gone! Can’t hear a thing up here!”
Applejack grinned at her again, though the edges were saggy for some reason. “Well, so long as yer okay, Ah think the rest’a us’d better head back-“
Twilight’s eyes widened as she heard the mare’s words. “Oh, wait wait wait! You can’t leave!” Twilight’s horn glowed, forming a barrier around the door and windows. Her friends stopped smiling. “There’s still things we need to do and plan and prepare! Since we’re all already here, we might as well get it done now, right?”
“Twilight?” Pinkie asked in a worried tone. “What are you talking about?” Twilight fixed her eyes on the pink mare, causing the latter to shrink back from her for some reason.
“Why, killing Celestia, of course!” Twilight rolled her shoulders as everypony else froze, giving a small gasp as she finally figured out what was troubling her. Her horn glowed again, pouring magic on the two empty sockets in her back, buried beneath coat and skin and muscle and just sitting there. Flesh and bone quickly reformed under her direction, and within seconds she heard herself moaning in satisfaction as two new wings sprouted from her back. “Oooh, that feels better. Don’t know how I didn’t notice that for so long.” She glanced back at her friends as her wings settled, her brow furrowing at their stiff forms and horror-stricken stares. She thought for a moment, her recent words and actions replaying in her mind, before she came upon the answer. “Oh! Don’t worry, girls!” The newly-winged unicorn said with a grin. She glanced between each of her friends, to reassure them of her sincerity.
As Twilight had come to expect, Applejack was the first to respond. She gave the winged unicorn a look, up and down, her eyes shifting from horror to cautious suspicion. Twilight was mildly confused by that; after all, she’d said she wasn’t Dawn. What reason could Applejack have to be wary of her?
“So...” The farmmare said. Twilight perked her ears and waited for the rest of the sentence, but Applejack appeared content to roll the remaining words around in her mouth. Her jaw opened and closed, and her tongue occasionally ran along her teeth, but no vocalizations were forthcoming. Twilight allowed her fifteen seconds of oral/aural inanity before deciding that that was enough of a chance to freely continue.
“’So…’ what?” The winged unicorn prompted. Applejack blinked.
“So… yer still Twilight?”
“Yes.”
“Twilight Sparkle?”
“Mm’hm.”
“Not Risin’ Dawn? Or any kinda half-Dawn-thingy?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Applejack stared at Twilight for a few more seconds before slapping her hoof to her face.
“Well fuck me sideways with a rusty plowshare…” Twilight, and several of the others, blinked at the curse.
“AJ?” Rainbow asked, her eyes locked on some point on Twilight’s back. The earth pony turned her head to the pegasus, her hoof pressing and rubbing harshly against her brow.
“She’s… tellin’ the truth, fer lack’a a better term. That’s still Twilight. Er, at least, she still thinks’a herself as Twi.”
The unease in the others’ faces shifted. It didn’t abate, nor did it intensify; it just slid between two apparently equally anxiety-inducing foci.
“Is this surprising to you, Applejack?” Twilight asked, rather confused as to the earth pony’s irritation. Her friend gave a shrugging nod.
“Well, if Dawn’d taken y’over it’d explain a few things. Like yer regrowin’ yer wings. An’ yer wantin’ t’kill Celestia.” The farmmare gave a rough sigh. “Ah’d imagine y’couldn’t truthfully call yerself ‘Twilight Sparkle’ if y’d’been taken over by Dawn, though. Which means we all jus’ heard you, Twilight Sparkle, say that y’want t’kill Celestia. An’ that’s rather concernin’, considerin’ that y’said that y’didn’t want t’kill her not ten minutes ago, an’ we blasted y’with th’Elements tryin’ t’get rid’a the thing in yer head that y’said did want t’kill her.” She waved her raised hoof at Twilight as the winged unicorn’s brow furrowed. “Plus, y’know, the wings. Those threw me a bit.”
“I never said that I want to kill Celestia.” Twilight replied, one ear tilted in confusion. One of Applejack’s eyebrows rose, and Twilight gave her another reassuring grin. “I’d love to keep her alive to travel through the proper legal channels and receive an appropriate punishment for her horrific crimes, but I find it incredibly unlikely that she’d be willing to abdicate and submit to a fair trial, or that we’d even be able to arrange a fair trial for her given who she is. Trying to capture her would require an actual fight, which has too much of a risk of failure and would likely cause collateral damage, and that cunt Rising Dawn should be example enough of how horrible trying to gather popular support against her would likely go. So she won’t step down, we can’t make her step down ourselves, and rallying the populace against her has been demonstrated as a really bad idea. I’m not sure what else we can do but take the burden upon ourselves to pop her head like a rotten orange.” Twilight blinked as Fluttershy whimpered. “Probably Luna, too, given that I doubt she’d take Celestia’s death very well. Oh, and Dawn made herself wings because she claimed that she’d made herself an alicorn again; I did so because my back was itchy.”
The horror in everypony’s eyes had been halfway replaced by confusion. Twilight considered this an improvement.
“…alright, sugarcube, let’s jus’ back up a few… thousand… steps or so.” Applejack’s hoof had apparently frozen to her face, given that she had sat down and was now gesturing with her other forehoof. “Why, exactly, d’we need t’get the Princess t’step down or abdicate or die, exactly?”
“Well, it’s not like we can just let her stay in power-“
“Why not? She’s been doin’ fine the last couple millennia or so.”
Twilight stared at the other mare for a few moments before she realized what was wrong. “Oh! OH! You don’t know yet! Oh, no wonder you’re all so freaked out!” Twilight laughed as she swatted herself upside the head. “Faust, I probably sound like I’ve gone completely insane, huh?”
Pinkie, Rainbow, and Applejack nodded rather enthusiastically, while Rarity and Fluttershy were more delayed and subdued. Twilight shook her head.
“Okay, you remember how I told you that Celestia had told me some things, but that I couldn’t tell you about them yet?” She waited for everypony to nod again. “Well I was being stupid. Celestia murdered nearly a thousand ponies and lied about moving the sun.”
More improvement with their expressions; they’d lost every bit of horror and had shifted to complete bafflement.
“Ah… what?”
“Celestia killed or imprisoned anypony that attempted to defy her rule to any degree for two hundred years after she banished Nightmare Moon,” Twilight explained patiently, “and the sun moves by itself.”
The five ponies around her moved past complete bafflement; they looked like they’d just been told that the building blocks of the universe were held together by screaming, hairless primates. Twilight could see their understanding of the world around them shatter behind their eyes, and felt a strong pang of sympathy.
Of course, she’d been alone – worse than alone - when she’d undergone that. They had each other to hold on to, and her to lead them out of it.
Twilight gave them as much time as they needed to recover; she wasn’t sure of the precise time it took, but the light coming through the window didn’t dim, nor did the sky deepen in its red evening hue, so it couldn’t have been too long. When Rarity finally shuddered and started blinking again, Twilight felt it safe to address the group once more.
“So does anypony have any questions, or should we just move to brainstorming-“ she paused as a yellow hoof raised. “Yes, Fluttershy?” The pegasus cringed as Twilight put her eyes on her, but managed to steady herself and speak audibly on the first try.
“I, um, I still don’t see why we have to kill Celestia…”
Twilight blinked. Fluttershy was shaking like a leaf, and her eyes were still half-staring at a very distant point; she had, very clearly, understood and been disturbed by what Twilight had revealed.
And yet she’d still asked ‘why’.
“Wh… what do you mean why?! I’ve already explained why we can’t take her down alive!”
“Well… why do we need to ‘take her down’ at all?” Fluttershy asked, gaining some small degree of strength to her voice. Twilight could feel her eye twitch as she cobbled together a (in her view unnecessary) justification.
“B-because she needs to be punished for her crimes! We can’t let a lying murderess command the most powerful nation in the world!”
“Twilight…” Applejack started, before glancing at Fluttershy. The pegasus nodded with a small smile, and the earth pony continued with somewhat more confidence. “Ah can’t say that Ah know what y’were taught, but… it’s kinda common knowledge that Celestia’s killed ponies.”
“Excuse me?” Twilight gaped, glancing towards the others to find them nodding. “Y-you all- what- She said that she’d covered them up, she-“
“Woah, woah, there…” Applejack put her hooves up. “Nopony knew about th’whole ‘two-hundred years, one-thousand ponies’ thing. That, that’s new t’us too, sugarcube.” She kept her hooves up until Twilight’s breaths had calmed, and gave the winged unicorn a slight, sympathetic smile. “It ain’t like we definitely knew that she had killed anypony, either, but… thinkin’ about it, it’d’ve been dang hard fer her an’ Luna t’rule as long as they have without havin’ t’crack a few skulls, y’know?”
“No! I didn’t know! I trusted what the histories said, what she told me!” Twilight growled, furious at her own past naivety. “A-and even with that, you can’t be saying that you’re okay with this! Are you?!” Her heart perked up as the other five immediately shook their heads, Fluttershy and Pinkie gaining rather disgusted looks.
“No, Twilight, we are not ‘okay’ with that.” Fluttershy confirmed. Then her face softened, and she rolled her shoulders uncomfortably. “But, i-if it started right after Nightmare Moon, then I can’t imagine that she was in a very good state of mind, and once word got out about the… the first deaths, then I think that the only ponies who would be willing to speak or act out would be the ones who were willing to die. N-not that that makes killing them okay, but…”
“But it means she wasn’t jus’ killin’ folks willy-nilly. An’ she stopped, probably ‘cause she realized how evil she was bein’.” Applejack was grimacing when Twilight put her eyes over her. “Ah mean, like Fluttershy said, this ain’t something we’re okay with. But it’s literally ancient history, an’ she’s clearly changed in th’eight-hundred years between then an’ now. Ah’d bet the farm that she’s hidden what happened ‘cause’a how horrible she feels about it.”
Twilight gritted her teeth as Applejack repeated one of Celestia’s excuses. “Do you think we should just accept it, then? Let her go unpunished?”
“Jus’ ‘cause we know about some a’her dirty laundry don’t change who she is. She ain’t a different pony from who she was yesterday, an’ yesterday she was a kind, lovin’, carin’ Princess.” The earth pony shrugged. Twilight took a few breaths.
“She wouldn’t be a Princess if she hadn’t lied about the sun! Care to excuse that?” The winged unicorn gained a slight smile as Applejack’s mouth thinned.
“I don’t think we need to.” Twilight’s eyes shot back to Fluttershy, her smile vanishing. “E-even if the sun does move on its own, that doesn’t mean the Princess can’t control it. She made it come back above the horizon for a minute or so just a little while ago, so really, the only thing she might’ve lied about was her needing to raise and lower it.” Fluttershy flicked an ear at the look on Twilight’s face. “Um, did she ever tell you that she did?”
“…she let me believe it.” The winged unicorn ground out. Fluttershy and Applejack glanced at each other, but Twilight spoke before either could address her. “She let all of us believe it! Led everypony on, let us all think that our lives, the lives of everyone in the world, hinged on her remaining alive and strong enough to raise and lower the sun every morning!”
“I’m sure she had a good reason-“
“The only reason she could have had is keeping herself in power, over us and the rest of the world! The unicorns would never have accepted her rule if she and Luna hadn’t stolen the sun and moon from them, and I doubt that the earth ponies or pegasi would have either! Every treaty made with other nations up until about a hundred years ago has been based around appeasing her in order to keep her from deciding to just not move the sun, and even if she’s been replacing those, it’s only to make the ‘please-don’t-kill-us’ clause implicit rather than ex-“
“The unicorns.”
Twilight blinked as Applejack spoke. The latter mare’s voice was quiet, almost breathy, but she stared at Twilight with the light of dawning comprehension behind her eyes.
“What?”
“T-th’damned unicorns! How th’buck did Celestia take the sun from them if it moves by itself? The whole reason th’other two tribes even tolerated them was ‘cause they supposedly kept the sun an’ moon movin’, but if they do that on their own then the unicorns weren’t doin’ anythin’!”
“…Celestia did mention that the unicorns had never been needed for the sun’s movement...” Twilight admitted. Applejack’s gaze sharpened.
“So there y’go! They didn’t submit t’her ‘cause she took the sun, they submitted ‘cause she was actually able to control it! They knew the jig was up, they knew that they wouldn’t be able t’just keep leechin’ off the ponies who were actually doin’ things!” Applejack started laughing under her breath, her head slowly shaking back and forth, before she put her gaze on Twilight. “There’s yer excuse fer Celestia lyin’ about the sun, Twi.”
The winged unicorn’s brow furrowed. “Applejack, what in Faust’s name are you talking about? How does the unicorns lying about moving the sun excuse Celestia doing the same? Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
It was Fluttershy who responded. “Twilight, think about it. If Celestia hadn’t kept up the lie… if the other tribes had found out that the unicorns had been taking food for themselves without doing anything to earn it like the pegasi or earth ponies were…”
“Then the Princesses’d probably be th’only ponies with horns left alive.” Applejack allowed a few moments for her words to sink in. “An’ even if the pegasi an’ the earth ponies didn’t wipe out the unicorns, if Celestia stopped ‘em or somethin’ else happened… there sure wouldn’t be harmony between th’tribes. It’d be back t’what it was pre-unification, ‘cept the pegasi an’ earth ponies’d be gangin’ up on the unicorns the entire time, an’ they wouldn’t have t’worry about the sun not comin’ up one day.” She tilted her ear as Twilight’s face darkened. “That make sense, sugarcube?”
Twilight didn’t respond. If she did, she’d have to tell the truth: It did make sense. Celestia would have wanted to keep everything calm between the tribes, if only to lessen the risk to her rule that that instability would cause. She would have maintained the lie to keep the unicorns safe, and by the time the tribes had become too integrated for such a revelation to stir too much controversy, the first treaties with the other nations would have been written up, and it would have become safer for everypony to simply keep it going.
But she couldn’t accept it, because it was an excuse for Celestia’s lies.
But she could accept it, because lying had probably been the best option that Celestia was aware of.
But she couldn’t.
But she had to.
Twilight’s head hurt.
She felt her magic sputter as a sudden bolt of agony ripped her brain in half; the barriers around the door and windows fell as she raised her hooves and knitted her brow to try to keep her head from splitting open. She could hear the pain, an ethereal screaming that drowned out any sound anypony might have been making, and when she closed her eyes she saw red rather than black.
Twilight couldn’t tell how long it took for the pain to stop, but it ceased as suddenly as it had begun, taking with it the screaming in her ears and the blood behind her eyelids. Her eyes shot open, finding orange hooves less than a pace away from her, and she raked her gaze upwards to meet a pair of fretting green eyes.
“Twilight? You-“
“No.” Twilight’s voice was raw. Applejack blinked, her brow furrowing, but Twilight continued before she could respond. “I get it. It makes sense. But no, no no no, I can’t accept it. Can’t.”
Applejack glanced to her side. Twilight tried to follow, but found her hoof blocking her view, and Applejack had returned her gaze to the winged unicorn by the time the latter had put said hoof back on the floor.
“Okay, sugarcube, that’s fine. Ah ain’t gonna try an’ make ya.” The orange mare’s voice was carefully calm. Twilight felt her hackles rise at the affected tone. “Would ya mind if Ah asked why, though? Y’said it makes sense, so Ah ain’t quite sure why y’‘can’t accept’ it.”
“Because I can’t. It’s an excuse. I can’t accept excuses. If I do I’ll be Dawn.”
Applejack stiffened, her eyes widening slightly in alarm before she got them back under control. “Okay, then… can Ah ask why y’think that, sugarcube?”
“Dawn told me.” Applejack stiffened further, the muscles and tendons under her skin visibly tense. Twilight shook her head. “Doesn’t matter right now. Excuses don’t matter. Reasons don’t matter.” She locked eyes with the farmmare. “You know what has to happen.”
Then she spun around and bucked Twilight in the chest.
The winged unicorn barely had time to register what had happened before something slammed into her from the side. She hit the floor hard, the impact forcing out what little air she’d managed to keep in her lungs after Applejack’s sudden strike. A set of hooves wrapped around her barrel, the pony they were attached to crushing herself (and Twilight’s wings) to Twilight’s back. Applejack started shouting above the ringing in Twilight’s ears as the winged unicorn struggled for breath, telling someone to ‘get them out’, before she too threw herself on Twilight; the farmmare’s ever-present rope began rapidly wrapping around Twilight’s forehooves as she used her body weight to help hold the winded mare to the floor.
Unfortunately for her, the former Princess was more than strong enough to throw her off.
Twilight’s horn glowed as she poured magic through it. She caught both of the mares constraining her in rough grips, favouring raw panicked power over her usual controlled methods; Applejack’s weight launched upwards, the rope around Twilight’s hooves briefly lifting with her before falling loosely back down, while the other mare was pried off and thrown bodily away. Twilight could feel vibrations from the impact as Applejack fell back to the floor, but was too focused on trying to breathe again to devote much concern to the farmmare. After a half-minute of struggle, her barrel finally allowed itself to expand again, and Twilight felt her panic die as she was finally able to draw in air once more. She took a few minutes to simply lay there and exult in the ability to breathe, giving her mind a chance to go over what the buck had just happened.
She slowly stood, feeling some light aches from the several hits she’d just taken, before she glanced around for her two assaulters. Applejack laid sprawled out just over a metre away, unconscious and drawing shallow breaths as a gash on her forehead leaked blood into her mane. Rainbow Dash was slumped near the door, a small dent in the wall above her; she seemed to have been knocked out as well, a slow expansion and contraction of her barrel being her only visible movement. Twilight drew in a few more lungfuls of air, the organs still getting used to the rhythm again, when a rough voice stopped both her breath and her heart.
“Well.” Broken Shield said, glaring down at her from the loft. “I can’t really say that this is a surprise…”
For the moment, Broken seemed content to simply watch her. Twilight appreciated this; it allowed her a chance to consider the best short-term course of action, alter her long-term plans to account for his earlier-than-expected appearance, and forcibly reregulate her suddenly arrythmatic heartbeat. After about a minute of near silence (a low groan from Rainbow Dash being the sole noise to break it) Twilight frowned.
“How did you get here so fast?” The winged unicorn asked. Broken blinked. “I mean, you wouldn’t be strong enough to teleport from Canterlot even if your magic wasn’t restricted. I only had enough magic because I was panicking to the point where my body thought I was going to die if I didn’t get to somewhere safe. And it’s been, what, less than an hour? Ten minutes for Pip and Spike to find me, maybe five with them, fifteen for the girls to get here after Pip contacted them, five to convince them to hit me with the Elements, then, well, I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but it can’t have been longer than two or three minutes given that nopony’d gone for help, and then six or seven for our little discussion before your arrival. So forty-five minutes, tops, and that’s not accounting for the delay between my freakout and you finding out about it. The guard carriages take twenty if they push themselves incredibly hard, and I doubt that you heard about me, escaped custody, and then convinced a carriage team to take you down here as fast as they could in twenty-five minutes.
“So, what’s going on? Did you escape a few hours ago and Celestia just didn’t tell me? Did she just lie about bringing you up to Canterlot at all? Are you one of those changelings that escaped the hive’s capture?” Twilight’s ears flicked at the now-half-dumbfounded look on Broken’s face. “Well? I’m kind of in the middle of something.” She flicked her eyes at Applejack, idly sparking a diagnostic spell over both the earth pony and Rainbow Dash; fortunately, the most serious injury to either of them was their developing concussions.
“…I’m not a changeling. And I was in Canterlot until a short while ago.” Broken tilted his head, the anger and confusion in his eyes replaced by their bastard offspring: Suspicion. “You don’t seem particularly threatened by me.”
Twilight shrugged as she carefully moved Rainbow over to lay beside Applejack, taking care not to jostle either mare for fear of worsening their brain damage. “I have no reason to be. I’m not Rising Dawn, I’m not planning to take over Equestria, and I’m certainly not planning to kill Cadance or Dazzle.”
“Not Dawn.” Broken repeated flatly. Twilight nodded, catching his eye flicking to her back.
“The wings are a comfort thing, I can’t actually fly with them. Not enough pegasus magic left over from my alicorn days.”
“Pet could fly with hers. She just wrapped them in actual magic, increased the wingspan and strength enough to support her weight.” Broken blinked and shook his head, grimacing as he glanced at the two unconscious mares. “Not that that matters. You going to claim that you’re innocent for those two as well? They just wanted to take a nap?”
“No, no, I knocked them out…” Twilight sighed. “I don’t even know what I did! We were just talking about things and all of a sudden they attacked me!”
“Talking about ‘things’. What ‘things’, exactly?”
“Mostly Celestia being a lying, murdering nag who needs to be removed from the throne as quickly as possible. And why her being a lying, murdering nag justifies removing her from the throne as quickly as possible.”
“By which you mean killing her.”
“By which I mean killing her.” Twilight nodded. Broken’s eye twitched.
“If you’re trying to convince me to not kill you-“
“But! Unlike Dawn, I have a good reason for it.”
“…a good reason.” Broken took a breath, then let out a long, tense sigh. “Explain. Quickly.”
Twilight smiled, thankful that Broken was willing to listen rather than immediately trying to kill her. “Okay! One, she murdered nearly a thousand ponies and then covered up their deaths so that she wouldn’t look bad… though knowing your history, I’m going to guess that you don’t care about that.” At Broken’s shrug, she nodded. “Right. So, reason two: The sun can move on its own.”
Twilight expected Broken to react to that news with shock and disbelief, as her friends had. Perhaps more intensely than they, given his extreme loyalty to and trust in the Princess. Given his health and the general difference in extremity between their timelines, she halfway expected him to have a heart attack or some similar physical exhibition of the sudden trauma such knowledge would inflict upon him.
Instead, the scarred stallion blinked.
There was about a minute of silence before he spoke up.
“…is that it?”
Twilight stared at him, her smile further slipping. “Wh-what do you mean, ‘is that it’? The sun moves on its own! Celestia’s authority is based on a lie! She’s been deceiving everypony for over a millennia! How could you not-“ A spike of ice shot up her spine. “…you knew?”
The brow over Broken’s eye rose. “You’re surprised?” The stallion snorted. “Of course I knew. One of the first things I learned as Captain. The Princess needed the Guard to keep the citizenry in line should she ever become too injured to ‘do her duty’, so letting us in on that little secret would ensure that we’d remain calm enough to keep control of the lower ranks.”
“B-but, but you said, when I asked-“
“I lied. In case you haven’t realized, I’m rather good at that.” Broken cricked his neck. “And even if I’d had any desire to tell you, it’s not like I would have, given that Celestia hadn’t.”
“So… so you knew, then…” Twilight’s voice was hollow. “You knew this whole time…”
Broken’s eye narrowed. His horn glowed for half a second before a barrier appeared, barely in time to catch the spikes of magic emanating from Twilight’s horn.
“What, no more attempts to convince me? No-“ He cut off as he blocked the spikes coming at him from behind. Twilight flexed her magic, sending a third trio of magic spears towards him while shifting the first set to another angle.
He’d known Celestia’s secret. He’d helped her keep it. That made him just as guilty as her of the deception. She had to die for it. He had to die for it.
But did he? She was going to kill Celestia because she had no other option; Broken could well stand trial-
No. She had to die. He had to die.
Twilight grimaced as another lance of pain shot between her neck and her eyes, though luckily it was much milder than the previous one had been. She built up a dozen blades of magic, sending them at the stallion each from a different direction, before raising another trio of lances and shooting them straight at him. She knew that he didn’t have the attention to block everything, and that a single barrier, given the limits on his magic, wouldn’t be strong enough to bear the weight of the assault.
Broken seemed to know that as well, which explained why he teleported away before the first blade came close to hitting him. Twilight leapt up to the loft, intending to follow his magic to wherever he’d fled to.
“You know, you really aren’t doing a good job at convincing me you aren’t Dawn.” Twilight’s eyes shot towards the voice, finding Broken balancing on the balcony’s guardrail. He gave her a smug grin as her eyes fell upon him, only to suddenly pitch back from the guardrail and disappear below the edge of the balcony.
Twilight moved to the edge and glanced over, not terribly surprised when she found no physical trace of the scarred stallion. Feeling around with her magic, she quickly caught the trail of a teleportation, which she promptly followed with her own. The spell brought her to an empty sidestreet, no hide nor hair of her target to be seen; her eyes narrowed as she again conducted a magical search, the barest wisps of Broken’s magic that she found serving only to incense her.
Once more, she followed his trail, and once more, naught but magic remained. The pattern repeated itself, over and over and over, each empty landing only irritating her further. As she followed the trail, she idly noted that Broken was cutting a jagged path towards the Everfree, leapfrogging between the town’s less-travelled roads in the direction of the forest.
It took her all of two seconds after realizing this to simply cut out the middlemare and teleport there directly, picking the spot on the edge of the Forest that was the shortest straight-line path from the library. Broken appeared a short distance away almost immediately afterwards, just barely throwing up a shield to catch the mass of magic Twilight launched at him.
“Come on, what’d I ever do to you?” Broken called, a mocking grin curving his mouth despite her continued assault. Twilight gritted her teeth, launching another few bolts of magic before teleporting as close behind the stallion as she could. Before he could turn to block her she’d already twisted, adding some magic to her hind hooves as she launched them into his back. The stallion grunted in pain before he warped away; Twilight heard him land behind her, and turned around just in time to catch a large, flat wall of magic with her face.
She was sent tumbling hooves over head, her wings opening on instinct to stop her from being continually rolled over; instead, she found herself being gently-but-firmly pushed along the ground by the ever advancing wall. Her horn glowing, she did a quick teleport to put herself back on her hooves, bracing them to the ground with her magic in order to ensure that the wall wouldn’t push her further away from her target. As soon as the wall met actual resistance, it shifted, curving around and over her in an enveloping barrier. The magic tightened around her before she could simply break it, getting close enough to her that any blast strong enough to shatter it would result in a significant amount of collateral damage upon herself. Twilight gritted her teeth as Broken approached her makeshift cell.
“I do honestly wish that we could have avoided this.” The stallion said, his voice unhindered by the barrier, a hint of regret playing across his features.
“Oh, don’t give me that shit!” Twilight hissed. “You think I’m Dawn, right? Then go ahead and kill me. Get it over with.”
Broken’s eye narrowed, and the two stared each other down for several seconds before he glanced away, cursing under his breath. “…I can’t.” He finally ground out. Twilight laughed.
“What’s the matter? Scared? You say that you spent nearly a decade trying to kill Dawn, that you’ve spent almost every moment you’ve been in this timeline trying not to kill me, but when you finally get a chance to go through with it, you chicken out?”
“No. Trust me, you falsely-feathered whorse, I have every urge to crush your heart, to tear out your throat, to rip out your horn and push it slowly through your eye until your bowels loose and your brain starts leaking through your nose.” Broken let the rest of his breath out in a heated huff, drawing another in through locked teeth. “But I can’t.”
Twilight stared at him for a few seconds before the appropriate memory came to her. Then she tilted her head back and laughed.
“‘All of this applies to Rising Dawn as well.’” She quoted, giggles escaping around her breath. “Oh, you poor, poor colt. So close and yet so far.”
To her surprise, Broken’s anger vanished, his face once more gaining a smug smirk. “Believe me, you homicidal witch, I’m as close as I need to be.”
A small breeze lifted a lock of Broken’s mane. Twilight’s heart soared as Pip appeared beside the scarred unicorn, glancing between Broken and Twilight with a dull gaze.
“My apologies for the delay. It took longer than I had expected to bring Miss Fluttershy, Miss Rarity, and Miss Pinkie Pie back to the library.”
“That’s fine, Pip.” Twilight and Broken said simultaneously. Twilight’s gaze shot to Broken, bewilderment clear across her features, but the stallion gave no indication of noticing the mare beyond a small pause before he continued speaking. “I have her under control. Go to the hospital, see if you can’t convince a doctor to check up on Applejack and Rainbow Dash, make sure they aren’t too badly hurt.”
Pip, in flagrant defiance of Twilight’s understanding of him, nodded at the order. “Fluttershy was tending to them when I left. Rainbow Dash had already awoken and was complaining of many of the symptoms of a concussion, while Applejack’s heartbeat and breathing pattern indicated that she was going to regain consciousness soon.”
“Fluttershy isn’t a doctor. I want to make damn sure that they don’t have any lasting problems from what she did.” The scarred stallion sighed, giving Twilight’s increasingly disturbed form a sidelong glance. “And I’m sure you can understand that I’m reluctant to have you around for this.”
“I… I can understand that, yes.”
“Good. Now go grab the doctor, then wait there for Shining and the guards to arrive. They should be down here any minute, if Spike sent the message when you said he did.”
Pipsqueak nodded once more. “I assume you want them directed here?”
“Damn straight. Get-“
“P-Pip?” Twilight finally managed to choke out a word, her voice high and tight. Both stallions’ eyes went to her, but her gaze was locked firmly on the earth pony. “Pip, what, what are you doing? You… please, Pip, I need your help, you need to, you need to make Broken drop this barrier, okay? I don’t care how.”
Pipsqueak blinked, taking a breath before speaking. “My apologies, Milady, but your Ladyship’s orders preempt yours.” He turned to Broken as ice shot through Twilight’s veins. “Good luck, Broken Shield.”
“Just get going, lad.”
“Pip, no, wait-“
The stallion disappeared as Twilight tried to speak. Her gaze stuck on the empty space he’d occupied, her eyes wide and pupils pinpricked, mouth working without sound.
“See? I don’t need to kill you here.” Broken’s voice jolted her out of her stupor, her eyes shooting to his sneering face. “I just need to hold you down.”
Twilight stared at the stallion for several seconds before her vision went red. She crouched down, making herself as small as possible before forming a thousand separate spikes of magic around herself. She could feel the radiation hit her, the skin beneath her coat already starting to itch and tighten in the half-second before she launched the spikes out at Broken’s barrier.
As she’d expected, the shield couldn’t handle that many points of assault, no matter how individually weak; Twilight was already reworking her magic as it fell, making her own barrier around herself and pushing it as far outwards as she could in the seconds before Broken formed another barrier to restrain it. Twilight grinned; while she was still more-or-less trapped, Broken’s barrier was noticeably thinner. She could feel it trying to shrink, to collapse hers and replace the cell she’d just broken free of, and gained a smirk at how weak his attempts were. She walked up to the new edge of her confinement, barely a pace away from Broken, and stared him down through two layers of magic.
“This isn’t going to stop me for long, Broken.” she said. “You’re too weak to keep a barrier this size going. I just need to give it a poke somewhere, and it’ll pop like a balloon. Then you’re mine.”
Broken, defying sanity, gave a barking laugh. “You know, that’s something that I’m rather disappointed that nopony noticed.”
“What?”
The stallion cleared his throat, and Twilight’s voice emerged from it. “‘But Broken Shield, how could you have escaped from Dawn like you said you did? Once she figured out that you channel magic with the root of your horn, wouldn’t she have put a lock on it?”
One second passed in silence. Then two. Then three.
Then Broken’s magic flared to a hundred times its previous strength. Twilight suddenly felt her own barrier start to buckle as Broken’s pressed down on it, visible cracks forming in the solid magic shell. She barely caught it before it shattered entirely, her reserves of magic reinforcing it against the suddenly intense force that bore down upon it. She ground her teeth, glaring at the focused face of her captor.
Even at his full strength, Broken was weaker than her. While barriers were his special talent, and the one he was crushing down on her was incredibly strong, the sheer difference in raw strength between them meant that Twilight could simply pour more magic into hers and start pushing back, forcing his barrier wider and wider until it broke and left his magic exhausted. The problem with that plan was that it would eat into her magic as well; she needed to reserve as much strength as she could for her confrontation with Celestia, should worst come to worst and a protracted fight occur. And she had no idea of how long it would take to actually break Broken’s barrier; if she was going to get back to the library before her brother and his guardsponies arrived, she needed to end this as fast as she could.
So she opened a small hole in her barrier, then jabbed Broken’s barrier with her horn and gave it a quick jolt of magic.
Broken had no time to react before the shock hit him, his magic rapidly inverting and retreating into his horn. His barrier disintegrated as he crumpled to the ground; Twilight quickly dissipated hers, wrapping a cord of magic around the insensate stallion’s throat and hoisting him into the air.
“N-no…” the stallion rasped, forehooves scrabbled feebly at the magic noose. Twilight scoffed.
“No? You think I’m going to listen to you beg for your life? I remember a certain night not too long ago when our positions were reversed; did you listen to my pleas for mercy?” Twilight tilted her ears at the memory. “No, wait. I never made such a plea; you held my throat in a much tighter grip than I’m holding yours. Let’s fix that, shall we?”
“…You don’t…know…”
“Oh? What don’t I know, exactly? What information could you possibly offer that would stop me from putting you out of everyone else’s misery?”
“What you did...” The stallion ground out, his voice a bare rasp. His eye met hers, a solid steel behind it in spite of his current state. “Why I… hate you…”
Twilight stared at the stallion, her brow furrowing as she registered his words. She wanted to kill him, and could do so quite easily, but something about his words, the look in his eye, gave her pause. Her grip on his neck loosened, and he took in several desperate breaths before she spoke.
“You’ve been telling me ‘what I did’ and ‘why you hate me’ at every chance you’ve had. What could you possibly offer now?”
Broken shook his head the small amount that he could, still dragging in ragged breaths through his tortured throat. “I told you… what you did… to make me fight… Not what you did… to make me risk… coming here…”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “And how do I know you’re not simply lying again? Buying time for my brother?”
In response, Broken tilted his head down, presenting his horn to her. Twilight’s eyes widened at the gesture.
“Broken-“
“Look… for yourself.” he muttered, confirming her interrupted question. “Proof… of Dawn’s evil.”
It quite easily could have been a trap. Twilight wasn’t stupid enough to not suspect it, and she doubted that Broken was stupid enough to not try it.
But what he was offering – a glimpse into his memories, to see what he’d gone through with her own eyes – was too great a chance to pass up. And it would only take a moment in real time, not long enough to affect anything. She could see his ‘proof’ then continue with her plans unhindered. There was no real reason to refuse.
Slowly, cautiously, she tilted her horn to his, the required spell already dancing along its tip. She could hear him halt his breath in preparation for the shock, and felt herself do the same.
Then their horns touched, and Twilight’s mind was pulled into the past.
She wasn’t sure what woke her up. Nothing had changed from when she’d fallen unconscious; she was still in her cell, hanging by her forelegs from the ceiling, the rusted chains holding her against the wall digging lightly into the roadmap of lesions crisscrossing her body. She left her eye closed and kept her breath controlled; Gaia and Lash had been working on her when she’d fallen into blessed insentience, and they refused to do anything when she wasn’t conscious to experience it. Her ear twitched involuntarily, searching for the breath of her torturers, the scrape of their tools along the floor or walls, the creak of their leather ‘clothing’ as they moved to assault her from another angle. After a minute of silence, she released her breath in a tensely relieved sigh; apparently they’d decided to leave her rather than waking her up and punishing her for falling asleep during playtime. A rare mercy, that.
It just meant they’d be worse the next day.
She twitched the leg they’d been sinking their teeth into, hissing as the chains wrapping it bit into the wounds it bore. Cotton Candy had made a few new ones prior to Gaia and Lash’s arrival, leaving them open and bleeding for the pair to run tongues up and hot irons down. Grimacing, she cracked her eye open and glanced down along her figure, dully noting the spots where her coat was newly stained by blood and shit and grime. They sprayed her down whenever the stench got too much for her torturers to ignore, though the blasts of saltwater they termed ‘showers’ did little to actually clean her. Not that she particularly cared about cleanliness; her fur hadn’t been actually white in years, not since clean water had become a rarely-obtainable luxury.
What had she been thinking about? Oh, right, the missing chunks of her leg.
Her eye flicked further down her body, finding a fully formed (if lacerated) limb. There were indents and small marks around the edge of an abnormally smooth and undamaged portion of the appendage, right around the spot where they’d made her watch as they peeled off her skin with their teeth.
A healing spell, then. That surprised her; doctors hadn’t been allowed to attend her for the last few weeks, not after Cotton Candy had found Shelter giving her painkillers. She allowed herself a small shudder as she noted that the bloodstain still hadn’t been completely cleaned up.
It was a rare thing for her to be conscious and alone in her cell; she’d spent very little time awake in the last few months without Cotton Candy, Gaia and Lash, or a doctor being within spitting distance (though she was somewhat wary of actually testing that distance nowadays; Cotton Candy had sewn her lips together for a week after she’d managed to get some phlegm down the pink mare’s throat). She’d been trying to figure out her circadian-defying bouts of unconsciousness for some time, debating whether a) her body was simply shutting down whenever there wasn’t an active threat in a futile attempt to attempt to heal the damage done to her, or b) Dawn was pumping drugs in through the drain in the floor. She leaned towards the latter at the moment, given that she had (usually) been awake for the doctors and (always) been awake for Pet, neither of whom were really threats but both of whom would be affected by airborne drugs. Of course that called into question how quickly the drugs neutralized-
The faint echo of hoofsteps startled her out of her thoughts. Her eye and one ear twitched towards the door, watching and listening intently for any indication of who was coming next. The steps gained definition as they approached, forming the light taps of an unarmoured mare. That eliminated two of the four possibilities: It wasn’t a shift change for one of the guards, given the lack of armour, nor was it Gaia, given that a heavy stallion’s hooves weren’t accompanying the mare’s. She would have eliminated Cotton Candy as well, but the mare had stopped doing that hopping-prancing-thing after Cowton, so she was left uncertain as to whether it was the pink or purple bitch that was approaching.
The hoofsteps continued to the door and then stopped. The lack of an immediate entrance set her on edge; when she heard two sets of armoured hooves take several steps away from the door, her heart tried to leap up her throat. She caught her breath before it could run away from her, holding it in her lungs and using the growing oxygen deprivation to force herself to calm down and think things through in the precious little time she had.
The guards only moved away from the door for Dawn. Neither Cotton Candy nor Gaia had said anything about Dawn visiting. They wouldn’t have forgotten had they known, given how much they enjoyed the look of fear that she was never able to fully suppress, which meant that they hadn’t been informed. That meant that the visit wasn’t planned. She came to this conclusion at around the point that the blocks of her cell walls had started growing polka dots. Forcing as much air out of her lungs as she could before pulling in the same amount, she allowed herself to revel mildly in the high that her brain rewarded her with for allowing it to continue keeping her alive before moving forward with her thoughts.
An unplanned visit could either be very good or very bad. Good, because it might mean that Applejack and the Loyalists had done something spectacular enough to force Dawn to inform her of it. Bad, because it might mean that Applejack and the Loyalists had screwed up spectacularly enough to inspire Dawn to come down and gloat. Of course, neither possibility was particularly great, given that both forced her into the company of Dawn for some unpredictable amount of time, but she’d always prefer the cherry wrapped in shit over the shit wrapped in shit.
She shifted her mind from her futile musings, placing her attention on the still-closed steel slab separating her cell from the outside world. Dawn had never paused in front of the door for this long, not even when Applejack had sent in a package containing the severed cutie marks of every spy in the Loyalists. She felt herself try to grin as she remembered the vomit stains on the corner of the winged unicorn’s mouth, but she kept her face carefully fixed into a neutral grimace. She couldn’t let Dawn think that she was happy about a visit.
Then the door slowly shrieked open, and a tan-coated white-maned unicorn with wings stepped into her cell. She felt her visage slip into genuine, blank shock, both at the lack of Dawn and the presence of another pony with wings and a horn. The mare’s identity slammed into her at almost the exact same time that the mare did.
“Sir Shining!” Pet said, squeezing her tighter than the chains around her hooves. She sucked in a pained hiss at the contact and pressure, inciting Pet to step back and give her a concerned onceover. “Oh, g-goodness, Sir Shining, Pet is sorry! Hold on, hold on…” The winged unicorn’s horn glowed, and very suddenly her entire body below her neck went numb. She glanced down and sent a signal to her hind legs, letting out a relieved sigh as they twitched in response.
“Pet.” She croaked, a smile finding its way to her face. “Didn’t think I’d see you here again.”
“Ah, Mistress D-Dawn sent Pet down, Sir Shining. She’s done something i-incredible that she’s v-very e-e-excited about, and she wanted Pet to t-tell you so that you didn’t just d-dismiss her out of spite.” Pet nodded in the matter-of-fact way that foals do when they say things they don’t quite understand.
She hummed as feeling returned to parts of her (pain very noticeable in its absence) and idly noted that Pet’s flank covers had gotten larger than the last time they’d met. “Well, that’s probably the first smart thing she’s done in quite a while. Go ahead and tell me, Pet.”
The winged unicorn tilted her head. “P-Pet just d-did, Sir Shining.”
She blinked. “…you did?”
“Mistress D-Dawn sent Pet down to tell you that she’s d-done something i-incredible. And that she’s v-very ¬excited about it. And that she wanted Pet to t-tell you because if she t-tried to, you’d i-ignore her and wouldn’t want to see.”
“So she sent you to tell me that she ‘did something’, but not what that something was?”
“Y-yes, Sir Shining. Mistress D-Dawn said that i-it was a ‘f-family matter’.”
She couldn’t stop the growl that crawled up her throat at the term, but managed to strangle herself when Pet flinched. “Gah. Sorry, Pet. That wasn’t…” She exhaled, trying to carry off the heat in her voice. “Do you know what she wants to show me? Have you seen it?”
Pet stayed still for a few moments before nodding long enough to be an answer for both questions. “P-Pet can’t tell you, though.”
“I got that, Pet. Thanks.” Sensation fully returned to her body as Pet’s horn stopped glowing, and she could feel her brain shift as neural paths long dedicated to screaming about the damage to her body suddenly found such warnings unneeded. “You may as well go get her. Not like she really cares about whether I ‘want’ to see.”
“Oh, Shiny, you wound me.” She felt spikes of ice shoot from her hooves to her spine, her eye snapping to the door as the voice (that voice) wormed its way into her ears. Rising Dawn leaned on the doorway almost casually, eyes holding a deranged eagerness in them that completely defied the mare’s pout. “That hurt, big brother.”
“Glad to hear it. Loosen these chains a little, maybe I can put you out of your misery.” Dawn gained a small smile at the threat, shifting herself and walking fully into the cell. Pet quickly moved to her Mistress, tail curved ever so slightly between her legs; a kiss and a whispered order sent the smaller mare hurrying out of the cell. Then Dawn’s horn glowed, and the door slammed shut too quickly to audibly grate along the stone beneath it.
Leaving the former siblings alone.
“I’m sorry for the unannounced visit, Shining.” Dawn said, bowing in a mock apology. “I simply felt that this is too personal a matter to have allowed Gaia or Thalia to inform you.”
“So you have Pet do so instead.” She growled. Dawn shrugged. “You might want to tell her that buttering somepony up only works when you don’t tell them that you’ve been sent to do so.”
“I didn’t send her down to ‘butter you up’. I just figured you’d be more willing to listen to her.”
“If that was the case then maybe you sho-“ Her rebuttal to Dawn’s statement was cut off as she felt magic crawling across her body; Dawn’s horn was glowing again, the winged unicorn’s magic inundating every strand of fur in her coat. Her eye shot down to her barrel, trying to figure out just what in Faust’s name Dawn was doing to her.
“It’s nothing harmful, I promise.” Dawn said. Before she could bite off a response the magic disappeared, and her coat very suddenly looked very different. She was still covered in scars, both the faded grey of old wounds and the angry pink of the ones that Pet had freshly healed, but the fur between them was a startling white; gone were not only the fresh stains of blood and grime, but also the pale brown tinge that her coat had taken on over her eight years of living literally underground. She stared at her apparently pristine coat for nearly a minute, waiting for her fur to fall out or spontaneously combust or whatever Dawn had actually done to it, before whipping her gaze up and locking her eye on the patiently waiting purple mare. “I just figured that you’d want to look your best, given how long it’s been…”
“…what.”
“You know, I really should be thanking you for this.” She felt her chains loosen as Dawn’s horn glowed for a third time, slowly uncoiling from around her body and letting her slip gently to the floor. “Without Applejack’s… demonstration… in Appleloosa, alongside your constant complaints in regards to Spike and Sweetie Belle, I would never have realized that the necromantic spell design could be improved upon.”
“…what.”
“It was actually surprisingly simple, once I bothered to look at it.” Dawn continued with the nonsequitur. “The spell’s creators hadn’t known how to keep the body going after reanimation; a constant stream of unicorn magic was the best they could come up with. Not that that’s their fault, given the severe lack of medical knowledge back then, but it results in the problem that the subject ‘dies’, for lack of a better term, whenever the magic stream is obstructed. Like, say, if a barrier was erected between the subject and the caster.” Dawn’s eyes went hard at that particular example, but quickly returned to their manic glee after a moment of silence.
“Knowing what is known now, I found that with just a few tweaks, more precise magical targeting, the addition of a healing spell to more properly restore cellular function… I’ve eliminated the need for a constant magic flow. Restored the heartbeat, oxygen exchange, metabolism, proper nervous system function. Where the old necromancy restored the subject’s mind and mobility but left the body function stagnant, this new necromancy brings both the mind and body back to proper form, without the need for a constant energy transfer! Do you understand, Shining?! I no longer have to limit myself to just keeping Spike alive! Nopony has to fear death anymore! I can bring everypony back!”
She kept her eye locked on Dawn in the palpable silence that followed the ‘explanation’, re-evaluating her comprehension of the degree of dementia that the purple mare was suffering from. Her ears twitched as she heard two sets of hoofsteps echo up the hall to outside the door; she quickly recognized one as Pet, given how recently she’d heard the gait, while the other was lighter, softer, and decidedly stiffer. Dawn seemed to notice the sound as well, eyes somehow going even brighter.
“Are you ready for your surprise, Shining?” Dawn asked with a light voice. Before she could answer, the door shrieked open, and her eye shifted instinctively towards the pony standing in the doorway. A filly, with a dusted pink coat, powder blue mane, a pair of wings and a horn peeking between bangs above slowly widening eyes-
“Daddy?” Said a voice more beautiful than a thousand bells of glass.
Everything in the world came to a very sudden stop.
She wasn’t sure who moved first. It might have been her, taking slow, halting steps out of the chains at her hooves towards the filly in the doorway. It might have been that filly, stepping fully into the cell with a quick (but oddly stiff) gait.
All she knew was that she was sitting on the floor, her forelegs wrapped around the filly’s back and the filly’s forelegs hooked around the back of her neck, both squeezing tightly as her shoulder grew wet and tears fell from her eye into the filly’s mane, and everything was okay again.
“Dazzle.” She heard herself say. The name made her heart soar, and she resolved to repeat it as much as her lungs would allow. “Dazzle, Dazzle, Dazzle, Dazzle…” Her daughter reciprocated in kind, murmuring ‘Daddy’ over and over into her shoulder, the filly’s voice repeatedly proving itself the most wondrous sound in the world.
“I missed you, Daddy…” She heard Dazzle say after some unknown time, a fretful edge appearing beneath the voice of pealing bells.
“I know, Dazzle, I missed you too, I missed you so much…” Her voice cracked as another joyful sob ripped through her, and the two tightened their grips on one another. Another piece of time passed where she and her daughter simply held each other close, its length irrelevant beyond the fact that it lasted nowhere near as long as it should have.
Then she heard a hoof lightly scrape along the floor beside her, and she regained awareness of the world beyond her daughter. Her eye opened and flicked towards the noise, finding a blurry shape of purple and white and tan; she leaned herself forward as her eye tried to focus, her hooves gently pulling Dazzle even closer to her.
“My apologies, Shining.” Her vision immediately sharpened at the voice, the blur resolving into Rising Dawn and Pet, both of whom wore wide smiles as her eye found their faces. A dozen screaming warnings hit the forefront of her mind as the former spoke to her again, voice softer and warmer than she’d ever heard. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, but I realized that my presence might be causing you some unease. I’ll leave you two to catch up in your own time.” She felt Dazzle shift at Dawn’s words, the filly’s head dipping under hers to glance at the purple mare. Dawn’s smile widened further at the young alicorn’s attention. “Pet and I will be back as soon as you and your father are done talking, okay, Dazzle?”
She felt her stomach lurch and muscles tense as that voice spoke her daughter’s name. Dazzle didn’t seem to notice, instead simply giving a small nod.
“Okay. G’bye, Auntie.” The filly mumbled, eyes shifting from the purple mare to the tan. “G’bye, Pet.”
“G-goodbye, Princess Dazzle.” Pet replied, bowing slightly before turning and following Dawn out of the cell. She watched the doorway sharply until the door slid fully back into position, finally leaving her and her daughter in privacy. Then she quickly ignited her horn and slammed a metre-thick barrier around the doorway, leaving her and her daughter in proper privacy.
Locks on the root of a horn, as it turned out, were surprisingly easy to pick.
She waited in silence for a minute, her eye and ears locked on the door, keeping Dazzle tight to her. She let out a shaky sigh when the sixty seconds had passed, loosing her grip on the filly in front of her and slowly (painfully) easing away.
Dazzle was sitting in front of her. Not some random foal, abducted and altered in the same way that Pet had been, but Dazzle, her daughter. She knew her daughter, in the infinite ways that Dawn could never hope to replicate, and thus she was without any doubt that it was her daughter in front of her. This was something that she knew.
Dazzle had died six months before, a loss that had brought her to the edge and very nearly destroyed her, one that she had just barely crawled back from despite every effort to send her over. This was also something that she knew.
She knew what the filly in front of her had to be, and she was absolutely unable to believe it.
“Dazzle… Daddy needs to ask you something.” Her voice was hollow, emotionless. The logical part of her mind, falling back on the same test that Applejack had done in Appleloosa. She’d ask a question, and when she didn’t get an answer she’d have proof that-
“What is it, Daddy?”
Her mind went blank as Dazzle spoke.
As Dazzle responded to her statement.
As Dazzle did something that a resurrected pony was incapable of.
One second passed. Then two. Then three.
Then she felt a smile split her face as she pulled her daughter back to her and began to cry again.
She asked about everything. Cutie mark, friends, hobbies, funny stories, favourite books and foods and songs. Anything and everything, just to hear her daughter’s voice.
Dazzle asked about things as well. What it was like in the Everfree. How nice the Loyalists were, and how certain former royal guards were doing. Whether the other rebels were really as bad as Auntie said they were. How she got that scar, and that one, and that one.
Dazzle asked about her scars a lot.
She told the truth of some, and invented stories for the others: Tales of secret missions and high adventures, honourable affrays and daring escapes, always far removed from the cell and the weapons and the ponies that had truthfully inflicted them. Most of the time it was clear that Dazzle knew she was lying, but the filly never called her on it, choosing instead to listen intently, nod along, ooh and aah at the proper points. She could see it in Dazzle’s eye, the acknowledgement that there were reasons for her mendacity, and the unwavering trust that those reasons were good.
The two talked for hours, always one speaking and one listening as they tried to catch up on seven years of separation. They’d stopped hugging after the first hour, their hooves dropping as they chose to simply lean on one another and take comfort from the contact; from there they slowly moved apart, easing away from one another as their rationalities gradually convinced them that they didn’t have to be touching for the other to still be there. Eventually, they’d worked their way down to simply holding hooves over the distance between them.
And then Dazzle asked her a question that made her wish she’d never let them get so far apart.
“What happened to Mom?”
She felt herself tense, what seemed like every muscle in her body straining in a different direction in an attempt to escape the question. It took her a minute to wrestle herself back under control, in which time Dazzle’s face had grown even more solemn and severe.
“I just… Auntie said that there was an accident, and…” The filly took a breath. “I know that, that Auntie killed her. Auntie told me that herself, that she didn’t want to kill Mom, but s-something happened and there was nothing else she could do.” Another breath, quicker and sharper than the last. “But nopony’s been willing to tell me anything, not Auntie or Pip or Spike or anypony, a-and I just, I just want to know what happened to my Mommy-“
She pulled Dazzle back to her before the tears could escape the filly’s eyes. On instinct, she started to slowly rock herself back and forth, pulling her daughter with her as one hoof rose to brush along the back of the filly’s mane. She heard herself make gentle soothing noises, whispering into her daughter’s ear as the young alicorn shook with silent cries.
“Your mother…” She began, once her daughter’s tears had been spent. “Your mother loved you very much, Dazzle. Enough to give anything for you, to do whatever it took to keep you safe. No matter what might happen to her.
“After Da- a-after your Auntie Twilight killed Princess Celestia, she had me brought to our rooms, the ones that you and your mother and I lived in before... all of this happened. I was still unconscious, after Pip had-“ Ripped off my horn, thrown me against the wall, held me down as he slowly forced it through- “-after he’d broken my horn and I’d lost my eye. I only woke up after your mother had been brought there, when I heard her voice and felt her shaking me.” Begging through her tears, pleading with me to not be dead. “We had a few minutes alone, enough time to calm ourselves down, before the door opened and Twilight and Pip walked in.
“We… we talked for a while. Your mother and I were scared and angry and, and a whole bunch of other things, and Twilight wouldn’t answer any of our questions, a-about where you were or whether you were okay or anything.” “She’s alive.” Twilight said. Not safe. Not unharmed. Alive. “She just kept demanding that we surrender, that we go out and tell anypony still fighting against her to give up. She said that the only way she’d let us see you again was if we did. Your mother and I told her that we weren’t going to do anything until you were with us.
“Twilight didn’t like that. She pulled your mother and I apart, told Pip to make me listen.” He moved at her word, his hoof crushing my leg to the floor, Cadance’s screams mixing with mine as it snapped. “He… he hurt me, really badly, worse than I’d ever been hurt before. Your mother tried to help me, screamed at Twilight to make Pip stop, but Twilight held her down and just kept demanding that we surrender. But we never did, we were never going to, not until she gave you back.
“Eventually, she told Pip to stop and let your mother come back to me. I could barely tell what was going on, I could hardly see or hear or think because of how hurt I was, but I remember, very clearly, what happened next.”
Twilight stood there, watching me try to breathe through shattered ribs and mouthfuls of blood, watching Cadance do whatever she could to try to lessen my pain. Then she opened her mouth, and her words made my heart stop.
“Twilight told us that, that if we weren’t willing to give up, that she’d have to go visit you instead. That she’d see if she couldn’t convince you to convince us to give up. A-and the way she said it… she was telling us that that if we didn’t do as she said, she was going to hurt you. Very, very badly. So your mother… she attacked Twilight, to make sure that Twilight couldn’t hurt you.”
The iron ring on Cadance’s horn went white as it fought to hold her magic. It didn’t stop her from launching herself at Twilight, slamming the startled younger mare to the floor before even Pip could react. She brought her hooves down on the purple mare’s face, again and again and again, the cracking of Twilight’s jaw and snout and skull audible despite Cadance’s enraged scream. Pip moved behind her, grabbed her by her wings and tried to throw her off, but he had never truly fought an alicorn before, nor had he fought a mother protecting her child. Cadance barely seemed to notice him, one of her hind hooves kicking out and snapping his leg before her wings flared out and sent him flying into the wall. Her eyes stayed on Twilight as she rose up, leaning back and lifting her forehooves high to finish bashing open the skull of the one who would threaten her baby-
And then she stopped, every part of her body seeming to freeze, as a lance of light pink magic suddenly burst forth between her wings.
“…I don’t think that Twilight was trying to kill her, even now. She was trying to protect herself, just like your mother was trying to protect you. But she was panicking, and her magic lashed out, and…” She couldn’t finish, her throat swelling closed as tears burned their way out of her eye. “Your mother loved you very much, Dazzle. I promise you that.”
Her daughter sniffled and nodded against her. They stayed holding each other for a few minutes until Dazzle slowly stepped back, giving her a soft smile.
“Thanks, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome, dearheart.” She replied, leaning forward to kiss her daughter’s brow. Dazzle seemed to squirm, giving a small grunt at the kiss, and she felt a small grin pull at her lips as she leaned back upright. “Oh, come now, there’s no reason to be embar-“
Her daughter was bleeding.
A small dot of blood was slowly trickling down from one of Dazzle’s nostrils. As she cast her eye over her daughter’s face, trying to determine a possible injury, her eye noticed a faint line appear along the filly’s brow, maybe a few millimetres thick and a shade darker than the fur around it. Then another one appeared, fading into existence across Dazzle’s snout. Then another one, starting at the bottom lip and leading down Dazzle’s neck.
Then they were everywhere, coursing along Dazzle’s neck and barrel and stomach and legs without any visible origin or cause. She could see her daughter tense as the lines progressed, the filly’s mouth thinning and eyes screwing shut; the hoof holding hers began to shake terribly before Dazzle pulled it away and braced it on the floor.
“Dazzle?” Her voice was tight as she stood, moving to her daughter. The filly gave a short whine of pain, more than enough to set her heart hammering. “Dazzle, baby, what’s wrong? Do you know what’s going on, can I help somehow?”
“Everything.” The filly squeaked.
“Everything, everything what? Everything hurts?” Her heart fell through her stomach as the filly gave a tight nod.
“Everything’s hurt since I woke up.” The filly’s breath was hard. “Auntie said she didn’t know why. She couldn’t fix it. She said I had to be strong and-” Dazzle cut off, suddenly jolting as if struck in the stomach, before continuing weakly. “…it hurts a lot more now...”
The lines started turning darker.
She dropped the barrier she hadn’t realized she still held, turning her head to the door and shouting as loudly as she could. “HEY! HEY, WE NEED HELP IN HERE! HELP!” She waited for several seconds, eye and ears locked on the doorway, but no calls came from outside and the door stayed motionless. She put her eye back on her daughter, taking the quivering filly in a gentle embrace. “Okay, Dazzle, okay, just hold on, baby. I’m gonna go outside, just to get you help, I’ll only be gone for a little while and then I’ll be right back here and you’ll be okay-”
She held her daughter for a few moments more, then she was standing, stepping towards the door on legs stiff with panic and adrenaline. Her horn glowed violently, rose-coloured magic coating the foot-thick steel slab in a tight barrier. Then her horn’s glow brightened, and the barrier shrank, bulging slightly out in the middle as the door strained and crumpled within her magic. She pulled the twisted hunk of metal out of her way, dropping it to the side as she stepped forth through the doorway-
Only to find a light-pink wall of magic blocking her way. She stared at the barrier for several moments, completely unable to understand its presence there, before throwing herself at it and doing everything she could to break it down.
Her hooves were useless, and magical strikes made the barrier shake but showed no sign of actually damaging it. An attempt to backwash its caster did nothing; the magic was tied off, with nowhere to return to. She stepped back into the cell, her magic shifting to dig at the doorway itself, but the stone stayed as solid as the magic. She felt her magic falter and die as she threw herself at the barrier again, bashing her hooves against the magic in terror and fury and desperation.
“DAWN!” She screamed, hoping against hope that she would be heard. “DAZZLE NEEDS HELP, DAWN! PLEASE! I SWEAR I’LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT, JUST HELP HER! DAWN! PET! SOMEPONY, PLEASE, HELP US!” She slammed her hooves against the barrier again as her hind legs fell out from under her, her screams giving way to sobs as she slid down to the floor.
Behind her, she heard Dazzle cry out in pain.
She was standing instantly, moving without thought. The young alicorn was curled up on the floor, shaking violently, bleeding from the nose and mouth and eyes and ears. Carefully, she lifted Dazzle into a gentle embrace, slowly rocking back and forth and bringing her hoof up to run down the filly’s mane.
“Shh, shh, I’m here, Dazzle, Daddy’s here, shh, everything’s going to be okay…”
“Daddy…”
“That’s right, baby, I’m here, I’m here, shh…”
“It hurts, Daddy... make it stop…”
“Shh, shh, baby, shh, it’s gonna be okay…”
“Please, Daddy, make it stop hurting, make it stop-” Dazzle’s voice cut off with another cry of pain.
She felt a spell ready in her mind. She’d used it before, on ponies in too much pain to go on. It was quick, painless. Merciful. It would make her daughter stop hurting.
“Okay, Dazzle, okay, shh, shh…” The spell moved through her horn.
“Make it stop…”
“Okay, Dazzle, shh, I’m gonna make the hurting stop…” Her magic began to flow, her horn glowing lightly.
“Please, Daddy…”
“Daddy’s here, Dazzle, Daddy’s gonna make you stop hurting…” She felt the spell settle on Dazzle, the magic moving into position.
“…love you, Daddy…”
She felt herself smile, in spite of everything, in spite of all that had happened, in spite of what she was about to do-
“Daddy loves you too, Dazzle, Daddy loves you more than anything-“
The spell sparked. Dazzle went still.
She sat there, unmoving, eye staring at nothing, ears hearing nothing. All that mattered was held in her hooves. She could still feel a heartbeat, thumping ever so gently against her chest. She could still feel warmth, keeping her from going numb.
Then the heartbeat fell still. The warmth faded away.
Shining Armor was many things. Brother of the Bearer of the Element of Magic. Captain of the Equestrian Royal Guard. Husband of Princess/Empress Mi Amore Cadenza, and through that Emperor-Consort of the Crystal Empire and (by undesired technicality) Prince of Equestria. Somewhat giddy expectant father.
At the moment, however, Shining Armor was mostly scared out of his mind.
“So none of you know where she is right now?”
Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Spike all shook their heads. Applejack and Rainbow Dash made vague noises in negative tones from the couch; Shining’s medic had cleared them of any severe spinal injury, but insisted they keep their heads still even after a diagnostic and healing spell. Shining brought his hoof up and rubbed between his eyes, crushing down the rising pangs of panic and protective instinct that urged him to go outside and start tearing the town apart in search of his wayward sister.
He’d known that Twilight wouldn’t react well to Celestia’s admissions. His sister held a great deal of trust and respect for the alicorn, to such a degree that he knew she’d never realized the impossibility of ruling a nation, and dealing with rebellions, without getting one’s hooves bloodied. While the extent of Celestia’s reaction to those rebels had certainly unnerved him, he’d been more or less prepared to hear that she had killed before. He’d warned the Princess that Twilight was going to be rather more disturbed by that information, and as such wasn’t particularly surprised when he was finally called to the throne room to find his sister absent and the Princess nursing a swollen cheek. His concern had slowly grown as Celestia spoke of how Twilight had discovered the true histories, and how she’d reacted to the alicorn’s explanations.
And then Celestia said that she’d shown Twilight the sun, and he very nearly punched her in the face himself.
He’d turned and left as fast as he could after the first letter had arrived, only staying long enough to read what was written himself. Spike’s wording had been clear enough that a blind mare could read between the lines, and any concern he had that Celestia would deny his ‘request’ to go down there died when his trip to the barracks found two carriages and squads ready to leave on his order. He only learned of the second letter – of what Twilight had said – when Spike and the Bearers had told him themselves.
“Alright, okay…” He let out a heavy sigh, glancing at the books along the walls of the library’s central room. “Did Pip say where he was going before he left? Anything about what he might be doing?”
Several glances were exchanged before Spike coughed. “Er, after I sent the second letter up to you guys, he said that he ha-“ The rest of the dragon’s sentence was cut off as he burped up a letter from Celestia. Shining grabbed it before it could start falling to the floor, casting his eyes over it and feeling a headache form as he read the words.
“‘Captain Armor: Broken Shield escaped custody approximately half an hour ago. Guards were rendered unconscious nonmagically, keeping the escape unknown until now. Wards on door were left intact; wall of safehouse was destroyed from outside.’” He read aloud for the benefit of the other ponies. His eyes went back to Spike, who shrugged nervously.
“He said that he had to ‘get him back down here’. Wasn’t sure what he meant, but I guess it’s kinda obvious now, huh.”
“Wait. Pip broke Broken out? Why the buck would he do that?” Rainbow called from the couch, giving a glare at the medic as he stopped her from leaping to her hooves. Shining gave her a glance before shaking his head.
“The only reason I can think of is Twilight; Pip wants to stop her from killing Celestia or becoming Dawn. And if he went through the effort of breaking Broken out then he more than likely would have carried him down from Canterlot, it wouldn’t make sense for him to do otherwise. Which means that Twilight probably has Broken hunting her down, right now, with or without Pip’s help, when the last thing that either of them know she said was that she was planning to kill Celestia.” Shining ground his teeth at those last words. Dammit, Twily, what in Faust’s name is going on?
“And with that comes the possibility that they’ve been working together this whole time…” Rarity said, her brow furrowed. Applejack moved to shake her head, but caught herself before the medic could and raised her hoof instead.
“They ain’t been, hon. Leastways, they ain’t doin’ so willingly. Neither of ‘em were lyin’ when they talked about hatin’ each other, even if they’ve gotten friendlier lately.” The farmmare took in a breath. “More likely, Pip started really hatin’ on Dawn when Twi broke the magic Dawn had on ‘im, an’ he freaked out when he heard her talk about killin’ Celestia ‘cause, well, that’s what Dawn did. He thinks she is Dawn, goes t’get the pony who he knows wants t’kill Dawn more’n almost anythin’ else-“
“Sir!” The door to the library swung open, admitting the head of one of the Royal guardsponies. “Captain Armor, the earth pony suspect just appeared outside. We have him contained, but he’s demanding to speak with you.”
“Well, speak of Discord…” Shining muttered, drawing a small look from Fluttershy. They, Pinkie, and Rarity quickly moved outside, finding Pip standing in the centre of several layers of magical ropes and barriers. The stoic stallion’s eye locked on Shining as soon as the unicorn stepped into his range of vision. “Hello, Pip.”
“Hello, Captain Armor. There will be a doctor from Ponyville General arriving soon in order to check up on Miss Rainbow Dash and Miss Applejack.” Everypony blinked at the unanticipated statement, and there was a short pause before Pip continued. “I can assure you that I do not intend to harm you or anypony else. Your guardsponies are wasting their magic and attention on my restraints.”
“…er, they’re just being cautious. We know what you can do, Pip.” Shining shrugged. “Plus you’re the primary suspect in Broken’s most recent escape from custody.”
“A wise suspicion, considering that I did, in fact, break him out. He was necessary for distracting Miss Twilight from her planning and/or attempting to kill Princess Celestia, and for detaining her until you and your guardsponies arrived to formally arrest her. Now that you’re here, I am intended to lead you to the outskirts of the Everfree Forest so that you may take Miss Twilight into custody from Broken Shield.” The stallion took a breath. “Once I am released, of course.”
“You’re ‘intended’ to do so? Whose intent are you working under?”
Pip gave Shining an odd look. “Broken Shield’s, Captain Armor.”
“And why would Broken want Twilight captured alive? If he’s got her, then why doesn’t he just kill her now that she’s said she’s planning to killing Celestia?”
“His Oath prevents him from doing so.”
“He could use a death spell, kill her before the Oath has a chance to stop him. And don’t tell me that he won’t do it because ‘he wants to live’, because the Oath can’t kill him, and if he couldn’t tell that Celestia was blu-“
“I was not talking about his Oath to Celestia, Captain Armor.”
Shining stared at Pip for a few seconds as the earth pony’s words registered. Before he could ask what other Oath Pip was referring to, a memory popped up behind his eyes. A memory of a letter that detailed the magic lines coursing over Broken’s mind.
“Oh fuck. ” Shining’s eyes widened as realization came crashing down on him, drawing several glances from the ponies around him.
“I’m sorry, what exactly-“ Rarity began, before Pip overtalked her.
“I am not sure how long Broken can restrain Miss Twilight, Captain Armor. For both of their safeties, I would advise-“
“Let him go.” Shining ordered. The unicorn guards all glanced at him, but complied, dispelling their restraints on Pip. He stepped towards the Risen stallion, his voice low. “You can lead us to them?”
The stallion gave Shining a very slight nod. “Follow me.”
Shining left half of his guards at the library, alongside the Element Bearers and Spike, answering the latter group’s vociferous objections to being left behind with the simple statement of “You’re too valuable to risk.” Pip paced himself sparingly, stepping from point to point, waiting only long enough for Shining to see the street or alleyway he was pointing towards before moving. Shining kept himself and his squad moving as fast as possible, and soon enough the roads started getting rougher and the houses further apart, the small gardens replaced by tall grasses and wildflowers. Pip stopped on the very edge of town, leaning almost casually against the corner of the final building on the road as Shining and his guards skidded, panting, to a stop beside him.
“Broken Shield and Miss Twilight will be towards the edge of the Everfree, assuming that Miss Twilight hasn’t escaped.” Shining glanced at the ‘ridge’ in question, a length of slightly raised land that seemed to serve as the town limits. “Broken Shield should have her held within a barrier, and will surrender her custody to you once you arrive. I trust that you know the proper procedure for after that point.”
“What, you aren’t coming?” Shining asked. Pip gave a quick shake of his head.
“While I recognize that she needs to be placed into custody, I do still like Miss Twilight significantly more than anyone else here, and I fear that she may be capable of emotionally compromising me if I am present during her apprehension.” The stallion gave a very small sigh. “As well, I have absolutely no doubt that Dawn placed a failsafe upon me that would regress me to the state I was in when I first arrived in this timeline, and I don’t want to risk the possibility that Miss Twilight may be able to activate it.”
“That’s… an understandable concern. Both of them.” Shining let his mouth drop open slightly, then shut it with an audible clack. He felt his eyes narrow slightly. “You know, you’ll still probably have to answer for breaking him out of custody. I seriously doubt that the Princess’ll actually punish you, considering what’s going on, but it’s not like I can let you just run off.”
“I had no intention of ‘running off’, Captain Armor. I was planning to return to the library to verify the arrival of the doctor for Applejack and Rainbow Dash, and then go to Canterlot to explain the situation to the Princesses. Would that be acceptable to you?”
Shining stared at Pip for a few moments before giving a sigh and a shrug. Pip appeared to take that as acquiescence, vanishing before Shining could actually speak. The guard captain blinked, then shook his head as he turned to his squad.
“Alright, everyone got their breath back?” He glanced around the group, taking in their nods before continuing. “Wind, pop up on the roof of this building, see if everything’s as Pip said it was. It’s open field between here and the Everfree, you shouldn’t have trouble spotting them.” The designated pegasus nodded, moving as Shining addressed the others. “We’re dealing with two dangerous ponies here. Broken Shield might be on our side for this, but he’s still nowhere near trustworthy. Bark, Point, I want your eyes on him, don’t be afraid t-“
“Captain!”
Shining craned his head up at the voice. “Wind? What’s wrong?”
“Twilight Sparkle isn’t in a barrier, sir! Broken Shield’s on the ground and doesn’t seem to be moving!”
Shining bit off a curse. “Is she doing anything that you can see?”
“No sir! Near as I can tell she’s just sitting there!”
Shining moved to the ridge, getting up just far enough to see over it. His eyes roamed a bit before he found his sister; she was close enough to the Everfree that she’d be able to disappear into it long before they got to her position. A barely-visible lump of blue and white that Shining took to be Broken lay in front of her. He ducked his head back down, turning to the other guards.
“Right, new plan. I’m going to teleport most of the way there, then approach Twilight and try to get another barrier around her. As soon as I’m gone I want the rest of you to spread out and move up towards us, cautiously; I don’t know what she might do if she sees you, and I want to try to get her focused on me before you arrive.”
“What if she attacks, sir?” Point asked.
“Standard procedure for dangerous unicorns. The Princess wants her alive, so nothing lethal unless she’s clearly trying to kill us.”
The guards nodded. Shining nodded back, then pooled his magic and teleported.
He landed a short distance from Twilight, close enough that he wouldn’t have to go far to reach her but far enough that she wouldn’t be spooked by his arrival. He moved at as close to a casual pace as he could, making sure that the grass and his armour made plenty of noise. His eyes stayed locked on her as he approached, watching for any signs that she was about to move or attack.
Her horn lit up when he got within a few metres from her, several blades of magic appearing near her and pointing at him. He stopped immediately, keeping himself still as she slowly turned her head to face him.
That’s when he saw the blood.
A thin trail of it coursed down one side of her face from her ear, joined by one from her nose and the corner of her mouth. The ‘white’ of that side’s eye was entirely crimson, her iris nearly invisible between the red around it and the wide pupil inside of it. She didn’t appear to notice her injury, staring towards Shining with a dull, unfocused gaze.
“Twilight?” He said, after several seconds of silence. Her eyes sharpened, very slightly, and the blades around her horn twitched.
“…Shining?” She asked back, her voice far too close to a small foal’s for his liking.
“Yeah, Twilight, it’s me.”
“Oh.” The mare stayed still for several seconds before turning fully to him, a smile appearing on her face. It was clearly forced, but didn’t look entirely fake – like she would have been smiling naturally, if something wasn’t preventing her from doing so. “I’m glad you’re here, Shining. Is Cadance with you?”
In spite of himself, Shining felt an uneasy smile form on his face. “Ah, sorry, Twily. I’m not here for a visit.”
“Oh, you aren’t? Then why- oh. She sent you, didn’t she?” The smile twitched, as did the blades again, and Shining could see something sparking off behind Twilight’s eyes. The guard captain readied a barrier.
“Afraid so, sis. She wanted to check on what was going on down here, make sure everything was alright.”
“And she sent you?”
Shining shrugged. “I might have been… forceful, in my insistence on coming down.” Twilight gave a quiet breath of a laugh, but didn’t actually speak. Shining pressed on. “Your friends were at the library when I landed. Told me about what happened.”
The mention of her friends seemed to breathe some life back into the mare; her entire form straightened from its tired slump, her eyes sharpening considerably, and she actually took several steps towards her brother as she spoke. “Really? Were Applejack and Rainbow okay? I checked to make sure that I hadn’t hurt them too badly, but they were still unconscious when I left, so I wasn’t sure if I’d missed something- oh! Spike! Was Spike there, was he okay? He left before we used the Elements and I haven’t seen him since!”
Shining leaned back slightly from his sister’s spontaneous reanimation. “Er, Spike was fine, Twi. Applejack and Rainbow were awake, and there was a doctor coming from the hospital to make sure they’re okay.”
“Oh, thank goodness! I was just trying to get them off of me, I didn’t want to actually hurt them…” She trailed off, slumping down but not walking back to her former position. Her eyes went somewhat dull again, but stayed trained on him.
“…are you okay, Twilight?”
The mare blinked, the smile from before reappearing on her face. “Oh, I’m fine, Shining. Just… thinking about something Broken showed me.” The blades around her horn seemed to shift, inverting upon themselves, their points dissolving and reappearing on the opposite side. Towards her instead of him.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re alright, sis.” Shining replied, his eyes not leaving the blades. “Your friends said you were-“
“Did you know, Shiny?” Twilight asked. Shining blinked.
“Did I know what, Twily?”
The blades inverted again, pointing back to him. “About the deaths. And the sun.”
“Not the deaths, not until a few days ago. But I’ve suspected something for quite a while.”
“And the sun?”
Shining took a breath, feeling his muscles tense in anticipation of her reaction. “It was the first thing I learned as Captain.”
Twilight remained still for several moments, then very slowly nodded. “I see.” She spoke, her voice hollow. “Cadance?”
“…she’s known for longer than I have.” Twilight took a sudden, sharp breath, and Shining felt ice grip his heart. “We wanted to tell you, Twily, I came damn close-“
“I was going to kill Broken for that.” Twilight’s smile fractured, becoming distinctly wrong, her blades morphing to point at her once more. “I-if he knew, and he didn’t say anything, then he was as bad as h-her. B-but you? And Cadance? You did the same thing as Broken, as her, so you should face the same punishment. She has to die. He had to die. You… you have to…” Shining tensed as the blades quivered. Twilight tilted her head, her brow furrowing; there were several seconds of silence between them, the only noise coming from the approaching guards, before she blinked and spread her wings wide. “…well, that’s a simple enough solution.”
“Twi-“
The blades launched. Shining raised a barrier on instinct, ducking out of the way in case one of the shards of magic managed to get past (or through) the wall. He was already working through a dozen battle plans in the half-second it took him to remember that the blades hadn’t been pointed at him.
Then he heard Twilight scream.
One of her wings was falling as he dropped the barrier, still stiff and fully spread in spite of the fact that it was no longer attached to her body. Tears from screwed-shut eyes cut rough lines down her face as her horn flared, more magic blades forming around her remaining wing; those blades almost instantly disappeared as Shining slammed a shield around Twlight’s horn. Her eyes shot open, sharp and shocked as they rose to meet his, and then they closed again as her legs buckled beneath her. He was moving before they did, catching Twilight in his forehooves and holding her up by the shoulders as the rest of her body went limp. Twilight gave a small cry of pain, followed by a low groan.
“…nno…” She mumbled. Shining heard the other guards arrive, two of them stopping near Broken while the others moved closer to the Everfree. The stump of Twilight’s wing twitched, and he quickly magicked a tourniquet around it to stop its bleeding. “Sh-Shining…”
“Hey, hey, Twilight, I’m right here, you’re gonna be fine…” His eyes rose, searching for the medic. He found her just as she was starting to resuscitate Broken. The stallion’s barrel jumped as her magic worked through it, straining against the guard holding him down before going limp again. The holding guard put his hoof on Broken’s neck, keeping it there for several seconds before shaking his head; the medic cussed, muttering to herself as she began charging her horn again.
“…kill me…” Twilight murmured. Shining put his eyes back on her, and found her staring back up at him.
“Twilight?”
“You have to kill me…” She said, her voice rough and pained. Shining felt his blood freeze.
“W-what in Faust’s name are-“
“I-I can’t, I tried, I tried to do it myself, but my magic wouldn’t-“ she stopped with a hiss of pain. “You can’t let me go. I don’t know if I could stop myself, I-I don’t want to kill you or Cadance but you still have to die a-and please, Shining. I can’t kill her again. Y-you can’t let me kill her again.” She twisted her head, leaning it back and away from her brother.
Giving him as clear a shot as she could at her neck, her heart-
Shining did knock her unconscious, have the medic heal as much of her as possible, and bring her back to the library. Then he brought both her and her friends up to Canterlot to keep in custody and to explain what in Faust’s name had happened, respectively.
Shining may have been holding his little sister’s hoof for as long as he was physically able to.
His report to the Princess was as concise as he could make it. Guards involved, citizens involved, suspects, observed crimes, description of events. He wrote by rote, neither able nor willing to devote enough of his mental capacity to try to actually think over what had happened. He made one note, repeating the final line of his incident description in a less detached manner.
The description read Immediately after detainment, suspect requested that detaining officer inflict fatal harm upon them.
His note read She begged me to kill her.
He found himself in one of the ‘abandoned’ apartment wings less than a minute after he’d submitted the report. He couldn’t remember if he’d teleported. The whole of his attention was on the room beyond the reinforced, magic-proofed door in front of him, and the mare held within it.
Twilight was sitting on the thinly padded couch that sat in the centre of the room. Said couch was the only piece of furniture in the former apartment; Celestia had designated the entire wing a series of holding rooms, for whenever she needed to keep a pony in her grip and out of a cell; the small chance of Twilight going to a cell had vanished entirely when she woke up during the flight and tried to use the chains around her legs to strangle herself. That little incident had also led to the straight-locked braces on her forelegs, and the two extra iron rings around her horn.
Shining felt himself tense as his sister’s eyes shifted from the floor to him, somehow locking on him through the one-way mirror that served as the not-bars to the door of her not-cell. The blood on her face and in her eye was gone, cleaned up by the medic after the latter mare had sealed the stump of Twilight’s wing (why she’d been bleeding like that was something that was still unanswered; rather disturbingly, neither the medic nor Dr. Shelter had been able to find any injuries that might have caused it). As such, there was nothing to distract him from the calm, lifeless look in her eyes. It was a look he’d seen before.
He’d been at his fair share of suicide calls. Ones that were talked down. Ones that tried and failed. Ones that succeeded.
“You have to kill me”
He stepped away from the door, a hiss of a sigh working its way through his teeth. The sound of multiple sets of hoofsteps worked its way up the hall, drawing his attention from his ruminations onto the five mares currently marching towards him.
“Applejack.” He said, giving the mare at the head of the pack a nod before greeting the rest in the same manner. “Rainbow Dash. Rarity. Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie.”
“Shinin’.” The farmmare responded, a hint of weariness dulling her voice. Her eyes went to the door. “She in there?” Shining nodded. Applejack made a show of glancing around. “And yer th’only guard ‘round here ‘sides those two back up the hall?”
“Yes.” Shining replied bluntly. “We’re trying to keep her… condition… under wraps, at least for now. The only ponies who know, other than us and the Princesses, are the two squads that came with me and some of the medical staff.”
“So what happens if she decides t’break out? You gonna be able t’deal with her yerself?”
“Celestia has wards coating every inch of the room. If she tries to escape, the Princess will know, and the wards themselves should delay her for the half-second it’ll take the Princess to teleport down here.” Shining gave a small snort. “I’m here to make sure she doesn’t try the other kind of escape.”
“Oth- oh.” Applejack’s lips thinned. “Damnit, that’s... Faust, she’s yer sister. They couldn’t send anypony else t’do it? One of th’other guards y’brought with you?”
“I volunteered.” Shining replied. Applejack’s brow furrowed. “Like you said, she’s my sister. And my older-sibling-senses won’t let me trust her with anypony else.” The farmmare gave a sympathetic snort and a nod, her lips curving into a grin of understanding.
“Ah hear that, Shinin’. Don’t mean you can’t have anypony else ‘round here, though. T’help, not replace.”
“I’m a familiar face to her. You know as well as I do that she isn’t really… all there, right now. Having guards posted, in- or outside the room, might make her think that we’re threats, or that we think of her as one, both of which we’re trying to avoid.”
“An’ gettin’ held against her will in a little room with her legs an’ horn locked won’t do that?” Shining felt a sudden spike of anger, biting down several heated retorts before they could reach his lips. Applejack apparently noticed this, raising a hoof in deference. “Ah know yer doin’ the best y’can, Shinin’. Ah saw what she did t’herself, an’ Ah didn’t mean that y’should let her go. We-“ she gestured to herself and the four ponies with her “-jus’ thought it might be better if she saw some friendly faces.”
Shining blinked, his eyes travelling over the assembled mares once more. Each of the Element Bearers was observably exhausted, Applejack and Rainbow the most clearly so, but they were all still holding themselves solidly.
“Is the Princess okay with this?”
“The Princess said that we were free to visit her whenever we chose to.” Rarity spoke up. “We just happened to choose to visit as soon as we could.”
Shining let out a breath. “You don’t have to see her right now, you know. I know Celestia’s offered to put you all up for the night. You could – you should - get some rest, come back tomorrow when you’ve had a chance to recover from everything that’s happened today. She isn’t going anywhere, I can promise you that.”
There was a half-second delay before each mare’s eyes narrowed into identical determined stares. Of all of them, Fluttershy was the one to speak up.
“We’d like to see her now, please.” Shining nodded, taking a step back to position himself beside (instead of in front of) the door. Applejack and Fluttershy both nodded back at him, the former moving to open the door as the rest crowded around it behind her.
He spoke just as Applejack’s hoof fell on the door handle. “Just… be careful with her, okay?” Applejack blinked before giving him another, quicker, nod. Then she pushed the handle down and the door inwards.
“TWILIGHT!” Five voices chorused as their owners entered the room. Shining leaned around the doorframe, watching his sister stare with widening eyes at her friends.
“Girls?! What are y-uah!” Twilight’s voice cut off with an alarmed cry as she fell off the couch. She’d made to move to the floor, but had apparently forgotten the braces on her forelegs; as she’d tried to stand, they’d stiffly slipped off the side, the resulting lack of support bringing the rest of her with them. Rainbow and Pinkie moved before Shining could react, catching the restrained mare and easing her down onto her hooves rather than her face. She gave them each a nod and mumbled thanks, an easy smile forming on her face as she started speaking with her friends.
Shining tried very hard to not notice the dead look in her eyes.
Twilight’s friends were not her only visitors that night. Spike had arrived shortly after them, the young dragon barely acknowledging Shining before throwing himself through the doorway and onto the one-winged unicorn inside. His presence seemed to bring some life back to her; at the very least, she spoke of the future like she didn’t intend to die at the earliest opportunity. Shining let himself feel a cautious optimism at that, studiously ignoring the little voice at the back of his head warning him that she was simply lying for Spike’s sake.
The seven talked for as long as it took the dragon to lose consciousness, his voice gradually petering into slurred mumbles and his form slowly shifting from having a hold on Twilight to her being the only thing holding him off the floor. Rarity gently caught him when he finally slipped entirely into slumber. His nodding off seemed to signal the rest of them to their own exhaustion, and soon enough they were saying their goodbyes, each mare giving Twilight a promise (and wringing out of her an assurance) that they would see her again the next day. Shining made sure to catch his sister’s eye before closing the door; they stared at each other for a few seconds before she gave him a smile and a nod, her eyes holding what looked very close to happiness for the first time he’d seen them that day.
Their parents arrived fifteen minutes after her friends left.
They’d already gotten an explanation from the Princesses, of course, but apparently they needed to hear everything again from someone who was a) actually present for at least part of what had gone on and b) their son. Shining explained what had happened as best he could, and wordlessly opened the door when they demanded to see their daughter.
Celestia apparently hadn’t denied them that, and he was nowhere near stupid enough to.
Twilight was barely able to babble out a ‘Mom’ and a ‘Dad’ before the two reached her. They surrounded her within moments, their hooves wrapping securely around her, her sputtering attempts at speech quieting as they leaned into her. For several seconds the three simply sat where they were, the two holding the one in stillness and silence.
Then Twilight broke, falling fully into her parents’ embrace with a soft cry that quickly segued to quiet, shaking sobs. They responded by tightening their hold on her, giving the mare as much physical assurance of their presence (and protection) as they could. Shining could see his father’s mouth moving, and had little doubt that his mother’s was doing the same, both ponies doing the best they could to comfort their daughter.
They were still doing so when Shining was relieved.
“You may retrieve her, Lieutenant.”
Shining Armor let out an anxious breath as the words left Celestia’s lips. Cadance gave him a sympathetic nudge with her wing. He hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before, his mind too full from everything that had occurred in the day; she would have been up alongside him the whole night had it not been for the foal. He gave her as reassuring a grin as he could muster before turning and casting his eyes over the gathered ponies.
The two were standing at the base of Celestia’s throne, on the left side of said Princess, while Luna stood to Celestia’s right. Twilight’s friends and parents were also present, gathered in a small knot a short distance away from Shining and the three Princesses. That group was under a rather heavy guard - eight ponies for seven and a dragon. Celestia had wanted to ensure that they were safe. In both senses of the word.
A few awkward minutes passed, the silence occasionally broken by a stray whisper from the guarded group or, once, between Celestia and Luna. Shining had chanced a glance at them when he’d heard Luna’s voice; the younger sister held clear concern on her face, while the elder’s was an emotionless mask, her eyes closed and her mouth a thin, flat line that contrasted sharply with her usual graceful smile. Luna had been speaking too softly for Shining to make out the words, but Celestia’s flat reply was easily audible.
“Then her dreams are useless to us.”
Several heavy knocks issued forth from the doors, echoing through the hall and drawing Shining back to full tension. His magic was forming before Celestia could issue the order, the air in front of the four briefly wavering before returning to apparent normalcy. The Princess gave him a nod before returning her attention to the entrance.
“Open the doors. ”
Shining’s ear flicked down instinctively, away from Celestia’s sudden use of the Royal Canterlot Voice. The guardsponies at the entrance responded instantly, swiftly dragging the doors open.
Twilight Sparkle entered the throne room in silence, her stride small and her steps deliberate. She bore no physical restraints beyond the rings on her horn; Celestia had felt that the platoon of guardsponies surrounding her would serve a sufficient, and arguably less explicitly restrictive, substitute to cuffs and chains. She held her head low, keeping her face (and her eyes) hidden in her mane.
The guards marched Twilight forward through the hall, keeping her surrounded until they stopped a few metres from Shining’s barrier. Five of them broke away from the group, moving to join the eight guarding the ‘audience’ of Twilight’s friends and family; fifteen others moved forward to the barrier, spacing themselves out along the sides of the invisible wall, leaving a clear space between Twilight and the Princesses. The remaining five stepped back from their charge, arranging themselves in a half-circle to her back and sides.
Twilight’s head stayed down the entire time.
Celestia opened her eyes and stepped forward, bringing herself as close to Twilight as Shining’s barrier would allow. The stallion could see her wings twitch, even as she maintained her mask of calm.
“You may come forward, Twilight Sparkle.” His sister’s ear twitched. She stayed where she was. “Twilight-“
“I heard you, Celestia.” Twilight’s voice was rough and irreverent. Celestia seemed to stiffen slightly at the tone, and Shining felt his own muscles start to ache from the strain of holding himself still.
“And yet you remain where you are.” Celestia said, a statement rather than a question.
“I have no reason to move.” Twilight replied, still facing the floor instead of her mentor.
“It will be difficult to converse from this distance, Twilight.”
“I think we’re doing fine. But if you’re uncomfortable, then by all means, come closer. It’s not like there’s anything stopping you, is there?” Celestia stayed where she was. Shining could hear the smirk in Twilight’s voice. “Thought so.”
“If you will not step forth, then at least bear the decency to face those who address you.” Luna intoned, stepping up beside her sister. Twilight stayed still and silent for a few moments before giving an exhausted sigh.
“So be it.” She said, lifting her head.
She was wearing a similar façade to Celestia, though the resulting appearance was more fatigued than calm. She’d lost the lifeless look in her eyes, but they still held an absent dullness to them, like they weren’t actually seeing what they were looking at. They travelled up from the floor to Luna, seeming to look through the mare, before twitching over to Celestia when the latter alicorn moved.
Then all three iron rings on Twilight’s horn went white.
Had the room been darker, Shining might have been blinded by the sudden flare of light from Twilight’s horn; as it was, he merely had to squint to keep his eyes on the mare. He heard several shouts of surprise from the audience, and a few of the guardsponies made ready to charge the one-winged unicorn. Twilight bared her teeth and gave a hissing sigh, keeping her eyes locked on her former mentor even as the fur around the rings blackened. Shining saw Cadance step forward in the corner of his vision.
“Twilight!”
The addressed mare jolted at the voice, the glow of the rings ceasing instantly as her head whipped towards its owner. Cadance stiffened as Twilight’s eyes fell on her, and it only took a moment for Shining to see why.
Being husband to the Princess of Love had allowed Shining to pick up on a few things. Not all of her abilities related to romance were based exclusively in her magic; simply through proximity and observation he’d gleaned the ability to see which sets of friends could be potential lovers, the small hints of affection and amorousness between ponies that Cadance often used to inspire proper infatuation. He’d also learned (or, more accurately, been explicitly instructed) that the eyes were the best way to distinguish between friendly affection and romantic adoration.
Twilight’s eyes had sharpened, and the love they held was decidedly not in the realm of ‘friendly’.
The three of them stayed awkwardly frozen for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds; then Twilight tore her eyes away, putting her gaze back to the floor with visible effort, and Shining started breathing again before he realized he’d stopped.
“Well I guess that answers that question…” Twilight said loudly, before lifting her head again. Her eyes touched on Cadance fleetingly before she sharply turned her head, casting them over her friends and parents behind her. “I’m surprised that you brought them here, Princess.” the mare continued, her eyes dragging back over Cadance and Shining before falling on Celestia. While her horn remained unlit, the same could not be said for the glare she laid on the alicorn. “I didn’t think you’d be cruel enough to force my family to watch my execution.”
A few shocked snorts came from the guarded group as Celestia spoke. “You are not to be executed, Twilight-“
“Then you’re even stupider than I thought you were.”
“-and they are here at their own request.” The Princess finished, not seeming to have noticed the one-winged unicorn’s insult. She widened her eyes fractionally. “Why do you expect me to harm you, my dear student?”
“Because some small part of me has apparently held out in its belief that you aren’t an utter incompetent?” Twilight rolled her eyes as Luna’s narrowed at her, but kept her attention on the elder of the alicorn sisters. “I assaulted you, declared my intent to kill you in front of multiple witnesses, and killed Broken. You know as well as I do that murder’s still a capital offense, even ignoring my actual and intended acts of treason.” Celestia glanced at Shining; the unicorn met her gaze and shook his head.
“You didn’t kill Broken Shield, Twilight.” the alicorn stated, returning her attention to her former pupil. Twilight’s glare maintained its heat even as it flattened.
“I held him off the ground, by his neck, long past the point that his heart stopped beating. I’m pretty damned sure I killed him.” Shining could see the naked shock on the faces of both his parents and his wife. Twilight raised her hoof and waved it between him and Celestia. “And the whole silent ‘should I lie to her’ look doesn’t work when I see you do it, by the way.”
Shining spoke before Celestia could. “We aren’t lying to you, Twily. Broken’s alive.”
Twilight only raised an eyebrow at the corroboration, and her voice remained dismissive. “So you managed to revive him? Good for you, I’m sure he’s fully ambulatory and hasn’t suffered any neurological damage from the fifteen minutes his brain was left without oxygen, and his absence from this…whatever it is is entirely his own choice.” Shining didn’t respond, and Twilight snorted. “Besides, assuming he is alive, that still leaves me with treason and conspiracy to commit.”
“Actually, it doesn’t.” Shining couldn’t help but gain a small smile at the bafflement on his little sister’s face. “Treason requires you to be acting against the state, not its leaders. It also requires corroborating witnesses… none of whom were willing to step forward.” Twilight’s head whipped around to stare at her friends, none of whom bothered to hide the conspiratorial grins on their faces.
“I- you- do you have any-“ The mare choked on her words for a few moments before catching herself. She quickly turned back to Celestia, her glare somewhat more alive and significantly more furious as it fell upon the softly grinning alicorn. “Fine, then. Moving on. I’m here, as you ‘requested’. What in your mother’s name do you want?”
The gentle smirk on Celestia’s face faded. She took a moment before responding, her eyes searching Twilight’s face. “…I want to know what happened to you, Twilight.”
“After assaulting you, I discovered that I’d been suffering a progressively worsening mental breakdown for some period of time, unintentionally accelerated said breakdown in an attempt to fix it, announced my intent to kill you, assaulted two of my friends for trying to restrain me, attempted effective fratricide, attempted suicide, cut my own wing off, and then attempted suicide again.” Twilight popped her tongue, her glare remaining violent. “I think that covers the major points vis-à-vis ‘what happened to me’.”
Celestia’s visage stayed stolid. “That is what has occurred, Twilight. It is not what you have experienced.” Celestia softened herself, letting the edges in her face and her form dull. “Please, Twilight, I want to talk with you. To gain an understanding of what you’ve gone through in the short time since we last met.”
Twilight’s glare deepened. “Well, I discovered that the closest thing I have to a mother who isn’t her has been deceiving me my entire life. That stung a bit.”
“Twi-“
“No, don’t you dare try to excuse yourself again! They were your lies, you let me believe them, you might not have spoken them but you never spoke against them either! You aren’t fucking innocent in this no matter how much you twist your own words!” Luna and the guards both shifted as Twilight’s voice and gaze grew even hotter. The mare caught the movement and herself, closing her eyes for a few moments and drawing a shuddering breath. “I trusted you more than just about anypony else in this world, Princess. I dedicated my life to you. Idolized you. Worshipped you. Loved you. I hope you know how much it hurt, learning that you aren’t worthy of any of that.”
Celestia took in a sharp breath at the words. “I… I cannot say that I do, Twilight; I myself have never been betrayed in such a manner.” Twilight’s eyes flicked to Luna momentarily. The dark alicorn visibly bristled, but remained silent as the unicorn spoke.
“So you admit it was a betrayal, then.”
“I do. I would not have revealed it had I not realized that I was betraying you, betraying everypony in Equestria, by keeping it secret.” Celestia paused for a moment, her voice softening. “And while I will not pretend to know the pain you felt, I hope that you can believe me when I tell you how sorry I am for causing it.”
Twilight blinked, her eyes going wide, and for a few moments Shining saw the filly he’d always known, staring innocent and awestruck at the mare who ruled the sun-
-and then her eyes slipped away from the Princess, narrowing in something closer to resignation than anger.
“I wish I could, Princess.”
There were a few seconds of oppressive silence before Luna quietly cleared her throat.
“If you would be willing to speak on what happened in Ponyville, now? From the accounts of your friends and Captain Armor, and from your own summation earlier, your actions and motivations seemed to shift rapidly and wildly between several extremes.”
Twilight muttered something unintelligible before turning herself slightly to face Luna. “I’m assuming they told you what I told them? About the voice, Dawn, trying to get rid of her with the Elements? I figured she was trying to do to me what the Nightmare did to you, because the only way for me to process how much I’d started hating Celestia was to convince myself that I was under the influence of an omnicidal madpony.”
To her credit, Celestia didn’t flinch at the statement. She leaned towards her sister slightly, enough to catch Twilight’s eye, before speaking. “I believe it’s safe to assume that that wasn’t the case?”
Twilight snorted. “Not the way I was thinking. Turns out I was just going insane in probably the exact same way Rising Dawn had: Slowly building resentment and increasingly strained denial of your faults festering in the back of my mind. Faust, learning your little secret with the sun might’ve been what caused her to snap in the first place, that last little push that inspired her to write the Charter. Wouldn’t that be ironic? Your trying to prevent me from becoming Dawn making me become her?”
“I did not reveal my folly with the histories and the sun in order to manipulate you, Twilight. As I said before-”
The one-winged unicorn interrupted Celestia with a scoff. “Right. You were totally preparing this since long before you learned about Rising Dawn.” She shook her head. “In any case, I’m not sure exactly what the Elements did to me. My best guess is that, since they didn’t have any disharmonizing thing to excise from my mind as they did the Nightmare from Luna’s, the magic simply attacked the most disharmonious thing it could find.” She raised her hoof and tapped her temple, an odd smirk quirking the side of her mouth. “Do you know what that’s like? Some overwhelmingly powerful magic forcing its way into your mind, washing itself over every part of everything that makes you you, smothering all of your thoughts and bending your very soul onto whatever path it desires?” Shining felt himself stiffen, and saw Luna do the same. Twilight simply shrugged. “It feels fantastic, actually. I compared the sensation to fucking your mother, and I can’t say that hindsight has changed my opinion on that particular aspect.”
Cadance started choking on the air in her mouth, while most of the others in the room simply stared in shocked silence at the unicorn. Twilight seemed to notice her sister-in-law’s distress, sending a concerned gaze towards the coughing mare for a few seconds before her eyes dragged back to the wide-eyed Princess of the Sun.
“Ah, yeah. My guess is the Elements stripped away or severely disabled the parts of my mind that were causing the most conflict with the other parts. You know, like my conscience, what with it fighting with the Dawn voice and all of the other dozens of horrible little impulses telling me to murder you in various horrible ways. And whatever part of my mind let me censor out cussing and less-than-appropriate analogies. And whatever part of my mind let me keep my mood halfway stable, given how quickly mine’s been swinging around.” She shrugged again as Celestia regained her composure.
“I… I must admit that I find it hard to believe that the Elements of Harmony could produce such effects, Twilight.”
“So do I, but I know they did something to my mind, made me…“ She trailed off somewhat suddenly, her eyes flicking to Cadance before returning to the mare in front of her. “Okay, listen. All I know is that when I came to I literally couldn’t think of any reason not to kill you, and I was very suddenly lacking the little neurotic feelings that made me quintuple-guess literally everything I ever did. So I shared my plans with my friends, because obviously they would agree that you had to die once I explained everything to them, and regardless of what they might claim they did hear me and they did try to stop me. And then Broken showed up just as I tried to kill Rainbow and Applejack-“
“They tackled you and you threw them off. That hardly constitutes attempted murder.” Shining interrupted, amidst the more vulgar retorts of Twilight’s words being shouted by the supposed victims themselves. Twilight rolled her eyes.
“Semantics. He appeared, we talked, and then I started trying to kill him because he admitted he knew about the sun, which meant he’d been lying about the sun, which meant he was just as guilty as you, which meant he was just as deserving of death as you. Which is to say not at all, but try convincing me of that. So I chased him to the edge of the Everfree, we fought, he trapped me, I escaped and started strangling him, and then…” she paused, her eyes shifting to Shining.
“…and then he showed you something.” He said, recalling her words from the previous day, before continuing to the point he thought she was leading to. “And that’s what made you like this?”
She nodded, a heavy breath escaping her as she dragged her gaze across Cadance and back to Celestia.
“The Elements of Harmony… they made me very literally single-minded. I used to have to think, to consider what was going on, weigh my options, figure out what to do. Now everything’s just there. It’s just, here’s what happened, here’s the response, and there’s no thought, it just goes from one to the other. I can’t think about things anymore, and whenever I try, whenever I try to see things from a different angle or come up with different ways to solve my problems, it feels like my mind is being torn apart. I can’t filter my own thoughts anymore, there isn’t any way for me to tell whether what I’m doing is rational or insane, so I’m left with my mind telling me that killing you is the only possible response to what you’ve done, and I can’t even conceive of the possibility that I or my friends or anyone could see things another way because I don’t have any thoughts to tell me that other ways exist.”
“You mentioned this earlier, in not as many words.” Luna said, her brow furrowed. “What does it have to do with what Broken showed you?”
“Because memory spells work by creating a copy of the one pony’s memories - their thoughts, perceptions, and emotions - from the desired time frame and placing that copy into the mind of another.” Twilight gave a short set of manic giggles at the confused stares she was receiving. “Funny thing is, that can really fuck you up if your mind can’t separate your own memories from the ones the spell gives you.”
The room was silent as everyone processed Twilight’s words. She seemed content to wait, watching the dawning comprehension - and horror - on her former mentor’s face before she spoke again.
“Dawn brought Dazzle back. She brought them together again, let them believe that they were safe, let us be happy for a moment, and then…” She drew in a breath and held it for a moment, her eyes shifting from Celestia to Cadance and settling heavily on the younger alicorn. “I got to feel everything that Broken felt, all the pain and fear and rage at having my daughter stolen from me again. And now every time I look at myself I see the mare who murdered my wife and child, and somehow seeing them right in front of me only makes me hate myself more.” Shining could see Cadance tense at that; she took a half-step towards Twilight before catching herself, and he could feel her trembling as she leaned into him. The one-winged unicorn blinked, her eyes seeming to soften for a moment, before her gaze moved once more onto Celestia.
“So I’m sitting here, with one set of memories that should be two, wishing myself dead over murders I’ve not yet committed, not knowing whether I’m going to keep talking to you or start trying to murder you or stop bothering to breathe in the next second, and with only a weak and slipping awareness that this state of affairs isn’t normal. That, Princess, is what I’m ‘going through’.” Twilight paused at that pronouncement, letting her words stand for a few moments before she spoke again.
“Now can you please stop dragging this out and just kill me already?”
Every eye that had been on Twilight shifted to Celestia. The Princess of the Sun remained still and silent for several seconds before turning to face her sister. Luna met her gaze evenly and gave a grave nod, and the two rulers of Equestria returned their attention to the mare in front of them. Twilight closed her eyes and lowered her head in apparent anticipation of her fate.
“Now why in my mother’s name would I do that?”
Shining felt himself let out a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding as Twilight’s head shot upwards. Celestia met her student’s shocked eyes with a gentle gaze and a soft smile.
“As my sister stated earlier, Twilight Sparkle, she has no intention of harming you.” Luna had tilted her head, and was giving the sputtering mare a mildly confused look. “This is an interview, not an execution. Your presence here was requested so that you could provide your perspective on certain events, just as your brother and the other Elements of Harmony did.”
Twilight raised a hoof to her head, one of her eyes fluttering shut as the other shot between the diarchs. “B-but, but you- I- didn’t you hear me?!” she shouted, a desperation in her voice that made Shining’s heart ache. “You can’t- you-“
Celestia spoke, her voice cutting off Twilight’s fractured protests. “Believe me, Twilight, I’ve heard every word you said. While you may have wished me dead not two days ago, and while you yourself clearly still feel that you are a threat to my life, it is clear to me that you no longer hold such desires-“
“YES I DO!” Twilight shrieked. Everypony in the room froze as she took a panting breath. “I do still want to kill you! I want to kill you, a-and I’m not sure why anypony wouldn’t, I c-can’t think of any reason why anypony wouldn’t!” She made a noise, some odd whining, strangled sob. Shining could see a line of red trickling down around the hoof she still held just beneath her ear. “That’s not normal. I-I remember that that’s not normal, I remember having to think about what to do, what was right and what was wrong. Now I don’t, and I know that’s wrong, I know that that’s wrong and I know that wanting to kill you is wrong but I can’t figure out why.”
Twilight took several heavy breaths, her eyes focusing to lock her gaze onto Celestia. “I would have killed you, earlier, if not for the rings on my horn. It would have made me happy to do so, even knowing everything that your death would cause. My mind is convinced that you have to die, and the only thing stopping me from agreeing is the memories of what happens if I do. And those are fighting a losing battle against my knowledge that things can’t go that way, that I could kill you, I could save everyone I love from you, and they wouldn’t have to die like my memories say they do.” Her voice broke in a sob, but her gaze remained solidly on the Princess of the Sun, and she continued before anyone else could speak up. “I plead for your mercy, Celestia, and for the safety of everyone gathered here. Kill me, before I can no longer remember why I shouldn’t kill you.” She closed her eyes and spread her hooves and wing wide almost theatrically, as if welcoming the blow she’d just called upon herself.
Celestia stared at the mare in front of her, her expression once more held under a mask of calm. Slowly she turned her head towards Shining, her gaze betraying no emotion as it fell upon him.
“Lower the barrier.”
Shining blinked, putting his full attention to Celestia. “Princess? Are you-“
“Lower it.” Celestia’s Voice echoed through the room, and there was a brief flash as the invisible shield surrounding the alicorns vanished. The elder alicorn closed her eyes and faced forwards. “All guardsponies present, aside from Captain Shining Armor, are to stand down and disperse. Now.”
That final word spurred the guards from their uncertain immobility, and they vacated the room with drilled precision. Only when the doors had closed did the Princess of the Sun move, quickly stepping forwards to stand within bare inches of her trembling student. Twilight’s forelegs had fallen but were still outstretched, and she flinched as Celestia laid her wings upon them.
“Twilight Sparkle. My dearest and most faithful student.” The Princess’ voice held an audible warmth, and Shining could see his sister’s form quake with quiet sobs. “Through your words and those of your friends, it is clear that you have suffered greatly in these last few days. You’ve spoken of your supposed crimes as if you were a repentant convict confessing her guilt. You’ve claimed yourself as insane and unable to control your own actions in the same breath as you made it clear that you would die by your own hoof before you’d risk harming those close to you. You call yourself a traitor for desiring my death, and yet you place yourself before me, begging me to take the most drastic of measures to ensure my protection from you.
“You are not evil, Twilight. You are not dangerous, nor villainous, nor monstrous. You are a mare whose understanding of the world was shattered by the very pony she trusted most, and whose attempts to return herself to a stable state of mind only served to further disturb her. If there is any blame to be laid for your current condition, it belongs at my hooves and mine alone, for allowing you to place such trust in me, and for allowing you to believe my lies for so long.
“Nonetheless, Twilight, I do not believe that you are as lost as you claim to be. Despite your fears and your perceptions, I can see through your words and your actions that you have maintained control of yourself to a far greater degree than you realize. That, and the mere fact that you are capable of recognizing that something is wrong, puts you that much closer to recovery. The effects of the Elements may complicate things, but I have no doubt that they can be accounted for just as Broken’s memories can; it is my belief that, with proper help and the support of those closest to you, you can recover from this terrible state, and you can return to a normal life.
“So no, Twilight Sparkle. I will not kill you, not while there is still a chance that I can help you heal from the wounds I so carelessly inflicted upon you. Instead, I ask that you allow us to help you recover, that you give yourself a chance to regain the life you lived less than a week ago.” Twilight’s eyes opened as Celestia leaned in towards her. The alicorn gave the young mare a gentle smile. “Can you do that for me, my faithful student?”
Twilight blinked once, twice. Her hooves fell to the ground and her wing folded back to her side as she met Celestia’s gaze.
Then she lunged forwards and threw her hooves around her mentor. A long, keening cry issued forth as Celestia wrapped her wings around the younger mare; the sound seemed to cure everyone else of whatever spell had held them still and silent while Celestia was speaking, and within moments Shining saw his parents, Spike, and Twilight’s friends rushing towards Celestia and Twilight. He saw Cadance step forward and felt himself start to move as well, feeling the need to provide whatever comfort he could to his sister, to assure both her and himself that things were going to be okay.
He’d barely taken a single step when a lance of light pink magic burst forth from between Celestia’s wings.
The lance vanished before Shining could fully register what had happened. He saw a flash of light from beneath Celestia’s wings just as her eyes shot open in shock and pain, and barely a moment later he felt somepony tackle him from behind.
Then, less than a second after the lance, just as Luna began to scream, Shining Armor felt himself dragged into a teleportation.
Shining hit the ground hard, momentum carrying him down into the stones of the floor of wherever he’d been brought to. His head impacted the floor shortly after his hooves did, and as he was blinking spots out of his vision for a few seconds before he became aware of his surroundings.
“You alright, Shiny?” His eyes moved to the voice as he stood, finding his sister sitting in the centre of the cell she’d teleported them to. Trickles of blood were issuing forth from her ear and nostrils, and one of her eyes was starting to tinge pink.
“Twilight? Your magic-” he cut off with a grunt, his head throbbing slightly at the noise of his own voice. He heard his sister laugh as a healing spell settled over him.
“Yeah, funny thing about memory spells. Turns out that, when your mind can’t separate your own memories from the ones the spell gives you, it's really easy to remember how to do things you’ve never actually done. Like hornless magic.” She seemed to twitch. “Or murder.”
Shining gave a grunt in response, feeling his head clear as the healing spell worked through him. Then her words and the events of the last minute caught up to him, and stared wide-eyed at his sister.
“Twilight, what in Faust’s name did you do?!”
The mare rolled her eyes. “Oh, calm down. I made sure to avoid any organs, major veins or arteries, her esophagus and trachea… I pretty much just gave her a bit-sized hole in her chest and back. An earth pony could survive that, let alone an alicorn.” She clapped her hooves together before standing and walking over to him. “Moving on to more important matters, I need you to kill me. Right now.”
Shining stared at Twilight, barely believing his eyes and ears. “Twi, you can’t- No, I’m not going to-”
“Why not?!” his sister shouted back at him, her magic suddenly gripping him and pulling him nose-to-nose with her. “I’ve proven myself a madmare in front of multiple witnesses! I baited Celestia into lowering her defences and tried to murder her as soon as she was most vulnerable! I foalnapped you and brought you to a secluded location for unknown ends! You have every justification for killing me in the name of justice or self-defence or whatever you damned-well-please!” She loosed her grip on him, letting him fall back as she brought her hooves to her head.
“I don’t want to kill you-“
“Then do it to protect them!” Twilight growled. “Do you think I’m going to stop at Celestia?! That I’ll just let Cadance go after I’ve murdered her aunts and her husband?!” She drew a shuddering breath as a pit formed in Shining’s stomach. “I don’t know how much longer I can control myself. I barely managed to keep from actually killing Celestia, and even now I’m just barely stopping myself from going back to finish her off. You can stop me, right here, right now, before I hurt anypony else. Before I hurt her.”
“Twilight-“
“Please, Shining.” Twilight’s voice was wet with unshed tears, but it held a desperate urgency beneath it. “Don’t let me kill her again. You can’t let me kill her again.”
Shining felt something shift within himself as she repeated her plea from the previous night; the certainty of his sister’s words settled in his mind and tipped the scales of an argument against himself that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He drew a breath slowly, his gaze locking with Twilight’s as an odd calm settled over him. She saw the look in his eyes, her own widening slightly in realization; then she nodded, a relieved smile appearing on her face as she bowed her head and presented her horn to him.
He felt a spell ready in his mind. His horn glowed as he anchored a barrier around the root of Twilight’s horn; with that in place, he could shift and shape the barrier to surround the whole of her brain before he sent enough magic to actually solidify it. Her death would be utterly painless, an instant slip between consciousness and oblivion.
“Thank you, big brother.” he heard Twilight whisper.
He was standing on a balcony on one of the residential towers in Canterlot; the Princess had given him a room there while he recovered from his ordeal, to give him some distance from prying eyes and ears while staying within the confines of the castle. He wasn’t confined to the room, and on occasion the Princess or her sister or her niece or some other pony came to visit and talk. He enjoyed the visits from her niece the most; the last time she’d visited she’d let him listen to her belly, and her baby had kicked him in the ear hard enough to send him sprawling on the floor. They’d both started laughing at that.
Then a little while later she’d told him it was a filly. He’d started crying at that.
He heard, rather than felt, somepony teleport into his room. He didn’t bother turning around.
“I was expecting you earlier.” he said.
“I apologize, Shining.” the ruler of Equestria replied. “I… found myself forced to attend to other matters.”
The stallion simply shrugged. After several seconds of silence, the other pony - if she could be called that - stepped out beside him.
“Do… do you know what happened?”
The stallion nodded. “The root of her horn had grown, rapidly enough to tear through her magic membrane. The pressure and radiation hitting her frontal lobe would have done enough damage to cause poor judgement, mood instability, amorality, severe shifts in personality and temperament…”
“Everything and more to turn her into Dawn.” the ruler of Equestria said.
“Or push her in that direction, at least. She was never the most stable of ponies, and I can’t imagine that she’d ever react well to those revelations; she might not have gone Dawn’s route, but there still would have been… problems.”
“Admittedly so. Have they found a cause for her initial condition? The inflammation of the root of her horn?”
“…they think it might have been a complication from her becoming a unicorn again.”
“…I see.”
There was silence for a time. Eventually the ruler of Equestria spoke again.
“It’s beautiful. I had forgotten what it truly looked like after all these years.”
The stallion didn’t immediately respond, instead glancing down towards the main courtyard of the castle. A grin formed on his face as he saw who was entering it.
“You might want to cast your eyes a little bit lower.”
She gave him an odd look for a moment before following his gaze. She watched as five ponies and a small dragon travelled up to the centre of the courtyard, each showing clear signs of excitement and agitation. Her brow furrowed in confusion.
“What are they-”
“Just watch.” the stallion interrupted.
She watched as the castle doors opened, and an alicorn and a guardspony stepped out. These two also walked to the courtyard’s centre, stopping only a short distance away from the first group. They stood facing each other for some time, holding a conversation that neither pony on the balcony could hear. The first group grew visibly more agitated, and started walking up to the doors, the two newcomers following a short distance behind them. The ruler of Equestria glanced at the stallion once more, her wings shifting anxiously.
“Shining-“
Then the doors opened. Two alicorns slowly emerged, taking small steps to keep pace with the uncertain stride of the pony between them.
A purple unicorn mare, with a single wing folded at her side.
The ruler of Equestria stopped breathing.
“The local Shining Armor put a barrier around her root at the size it was supposed to be. The doctors found the swelling and the damage when they were making sure he hadn’t done anything else to her; they removed the excess and healed the membrane, and all of a sudden she was a lot more rational when she woke up.” He glanced at the mare frozen beside him, watching as her eyes started to shimmer. “She has some motor function damage, a bit of memory loss, and she’s never going to be able to do magic quite the same way that she could...”
The group in the yard had frozen, and the unicorn stepped out from between the alicorns, her stride growing longer and more confident as she got closer to them. Then they too surged forwards, meeting the mare with an enthusiastic cry that easily carried up to the two observers.
“TWILIGHT!”
“…but she’s alive, sis.” The stallion broke into a smug grin as the tears began to flow down his sister’s face. She turned to him, fear and relief warring in her eyes.
“D-did it work? Is the timeline-“
“We don’t know for sure. Pip’s still looking for the traverser; she’s a little tricky to find, given how little we know of her, but I’m sure he’ll be able to track her down.” The stallion popped his tongue, her eye sliding over to meet hers directly. “But Dawn isn’t going to rise. Celestia isn’t going to die. I’m pretty damned sure we did it.”
“Oh, thank Faust… I’ll be the last…” The stallion’s sister gave into her sobs, letting her tears flow freely for the first time in nearly a decade. He watched in silence, suppressing the urge to wrap a leg around her and provide what little comfort he could to the mare. He wouldn’t be able to touch her in any case; intangibility was an unfortunate side effect of the translinear projection used to observe timelines. Her cries ceased eventually, and when her eyes returned to her they held a calm resolution.
“When’s the execution date?” the stallion asked. His sister took a breath.
“Tomorrow. They intend to hang me from the highest tower, such that the whole of Canterlot can watch me struggle, then dismember my corpse and carry a piece to every city, town, and village in Equestria.”
The stallion flicked his ear at the tone in her voice. “…but you don’t intend to let them to do so.”
The mare nodded once.
“I have given up many things in these last few months. Most of them did not rightfully belong to me. Some of them did, and I accepted their loss as my punishment.” She took a breath. “But my life? I think I’ll be a little selfish and keep that for myself.”
Her horn glowed, and a line of magic appeared around her neck. She closed her eyes for several seconds, then opened them again, giving him one last look-
“Goodbye, Big Brother, Best Friend Forever.”
-and then she was gone.
The stallion’s eye roamed the empty space beside him for a few moments before he turned it back down to the courtyard. His gaze falling upon the mare sitting on the grass below, surrounded by her friends and family. Smiling, laughing, and alive.