Mirrorflesh
i
Shakily, she brought her hoof to her neck.
The weight still hung around her. She could feel it, clinging tightly to her crystalline flesh. She could still feel the way it dug into her throat when she swallowed. When she walked, she could still hear the gentle jangle of heavy, oily chain, grinding against her back and pulling her forwards.
And yet when she brought her hoof to her neck, there was nothing.
She breathed out a steely sigh. In front of her, the mare in the mirror did the same.
Arctic Lily. That was the mare's name. It was her name. The one her parents had given her, and told her to cherish, and hold close, and not ever let it be taken from her no matter what happened.
Yes. Arctic Lily. It was coming back to her, now.
It was uncomfortably quiet. Her window was opened, and it carried with it a still, uncertain silence. The ever-present blizzard she'd been so used to hearing... she couldn't hear it, when she perked her ears in the direction of the outside. And yet, still, sometimes she felt as though she could. When the chains around her neck felt heavier, when she caught herself hobbling along from room to room, moving with the lethargic, trained muscle-memory of a pony in bondage...
Only to look down, and see that there were no chains clinging to her hooves, or to her neck. She would look around an empty room, devoid of any line of ponies before and ahead of her. No sad, stretching display of her former friends and family, stripped of their pride, their hope, their dignity, their agency...
She should have felt relief. She should regard the empty room with jubilation, knowing it was hers. She should throw open the window and scream out her delight at being able to do so and not face a flurry of wind and biting snow.
She should be happy. She tried her best to make herself feel so, as her hoof continued to rub and prod at that same spot on her neck.
Arctic Lily felt like crying, instead.
ii
A princess, they'd called her.
She was their ruler now, they'd been told.
The reigns of their fate had been hoofed over to their liberators. The ponies who had finally broken their chains... they held control over them, now.
Lily knew better than to be bitter. To think such thoughts, of their rulers... she knew better. She knew the consequence of disobedience. She'd been taught it, again and again.
She knew better than to wish that they'd been given a chance to control their fates. To wish that a Crystal Pony--like her, like all she had known, had stepped up onto the throne. She knew better than to buy into the delusion she'd heard others like her flaunting...
'We'll never truly be ruled by one of our own.'
'We've traded one chain for a looser one.'
Foolishness. She told herself it was, and nobody told her otherwise, and so it must have been true.
Princess Cadance was their ruler now. And she ruled them with kindness, and with a smile, and that was all that they needed. Did it matter that she wasn't a Crystal Pony? Did it matter that she had learned their culture through history books and museum pieces?
Did it matter that they'd been assigned to her? Like a project?
How could any of it matter when nopony would ever say it to the Princess herself? A Crystal Pony ruler? Ridiculous. If they were all like Lily, spending hours staring fearfully at their own reflection...
Perhaps it was for the best.
iii
Commotion outside. Hushed, whispered voices, of ponies talking and walking past Arctic Lily's window.
A fair.
That was the word, weaving its way through the Crystal Empire. A crystal fair. The sort of thing that Lily had sometimes heard whispering of, punctuated by the clanging of pick-axes and the jangle of chains. Nostalgic remembering for a time that none of them really recalled. None of them were even convinced had ever existed.
Arctic Lily had wanted to feel excitement so much, when the news had continued to spread. When the tents were pitched in the square, when the sounds of laughter had percolated to her ears...
She'd cried. It had been too much. She'd wanted to run outside, and scream at them to be silent. To cease their silly games and their grasping of traditions. To fall into a bow before their King...
She returned home, and closed her door. She had no place in an optimistic Empire, she supposed. She lay against it and sobbed openly to an empty room, and the chains around her neck felt heavier. Her eyes closed, and she could see his, peering back at her. They carved a path through her mind, through her soul. They burned away her being, they emptied out her worth. They reasserted her role as a link in a never-ending chain of her kind, existing to satisfy the whims of their tyrant king.
Even free of her chains, even after they'd been liberated, she could still feel them, clinging to her so tightly. For Sombra's mastery of her people hadn't been achieved simply through the physical binds he'd placed on them. He had enslaved their minds, he had sealed their Heart, the source of their hope, their joy, their brilliance, their warmth...
She lay there, sobbing in a pathetic heap, feeling her warm tears streaking down her mirror flesh. She lay for what felt like hours.
Until a gentle rapping on her door bode her rise.
She knew she looked miserable as she opened it. She didn't care.
She couldn't remember the name of the pony who was standing on the other side. Her coat seemed brighter, somehow. And her smile felt real. A friend, maybe. It felt possible.
"Coming to the Fair, Lily?"
Arctic Lily stared, for what felt like forever.
Shakily, she nodded. "Okay..."