New Wings

Note: this contains minor amounts of gore. The story was made as practice for gore writing for another story.

Twilight walked the streets of Canterlot late that night. Her steps were sure, steady, slow, her journey driven with purpose. Her wings were fully unfurled, and yet she kept her hooves planted on the ground. She was still unable to use her wings properly. Anything beyond very slow flapping was still beyond her abilities, considering she only got them recently.

The ponies of Canterlot were ones who thrived on gossip and such other pointless activities, and this night was no different. Each of the ponies she passed by whispered something in hushed tones, eyes on her. They were passing on rumors, no doubt about her new wings. They were magnificent, were they not? Lined with only the finest feathers and the fittest muscles, and with her horn they were indeed regal. Something was different in their eyes though. What was that she saw in them? Fear? Yes, fear, as it should be. A princess still had to command some degree of fear no matter how kind she was, or she would lose power over her subjects.

She’d learned that about her mentor a long time ago. Celestia always was the kindest, the most altruistic pony around, and she’d been around for millennia. It was hard to be the single most perfect pony in the world, and she’d pulled it off for so long. Luna was also kind and worked for the good of all, or at least she was once harmony cleansed her. However, she was far from perfect, with her social ineptitude and tendency to go about things the wrong way.  Luna was far from her mentor, the mentor that she looked up to and loved ever since she was young.

Love. Yes, love was what she had in her heart for the princess up in her castle, and she had harbored it ever since she was merely a little filly. Every day the kindness of the majestic alicorn made her heart grow that much fonder. She didn’t take well to having to leave Canterlot and by extension the princess – no, it was the other way around – but she did it anyway because the princess told her to. She could never say no to her, no matter the request. So why was it that the princess could do it to her?

“Twilight. I am your mentor, and I know I have looked after you as a second mother, and I love you, but not in that way you do me.” Princess Celestia turned her back on her most faithful student. It wasn’t as though she disliked her – quite the opposite actually. She simply could never love her since they were so different; Celestia would live on centuries after Twilight died, and she couldn’t simply have her death weighing that much more on her heart for that much longer.

“Please try to understand. I can’t give half of my heart to anypony when it is all already given to everypony in Equestria.” That was also true, but she could break that. No, it was the inevitable pain of separation that made her so unwilling.

“Of course, princess. You can’t focus on just me when the whole world needs you. And you just can’t have any pony being too important to you when you live on forever and the other dies.” Twilight smiled, and there was nothing on her face – literally no expression, as if she felt nothing. No pain, no sadness, but no happiness either – a perfect poker face, a mannequin of sorts. Celestia was a little surprised at Twilight’s second reason. She always really was a sharp one. She liked that about her.

“Thank you for understanding, Twilight. I will always love you. Always, but just not the way you love me. Maybe someday you’ll find some other that you can truly give your heart to.”

“That won’t happen, princess,” said Twilight, still expressionless, emotionless, and unsettling. She bowed low and said, “Sorry to have wasted your time,” walking backwards with her head down low.

“Nothing you say is a waste of my time, Twilight.”

Twilight walked out of the castle, heart not heavy in the slightest. No, it wasn’t weighed down. It was as if it disappeared entirely. She just couldn’t feel much anymore. She felt numb, number than that time she was accidentally sent hurtling into a frozen lake. Empty. Like something was gone in her life. Was it hope that disappeared? Or something else?

The night was dark, and the alley even more so. Luna had decided on an eclipse and worked with her sister to make it happen. The only light came from the dim stars behind clouds and the lamps littered on the streets, all of which were not present in this alleyway.

“Wh – what do you want?”

“I just want a word...”

“There are plenty of other ponies you can talk wi – AAAAAH!”

The act was sloppy. As expected, as this was the first time. The cuts were crude and imprecise, letting out too much of the insides than they were supposed to. The entire floor was drenched in crimson. That wasn't good, and neither was the pony being able to scream. That would attract attention, and leave little time to extract the prize. It took a few more crude chops to get what was desired, and the pony hid the knife in a bag, along with the prize in a bigger bag, and left the alley, blood trailing behind.

Twilight was now at the space in front of the palace staircase. The princess was further up ahead, no doubt lounging, night as it was. She never was one that took to sleep – perhaps a thousand years of continuous vigilance had exercised the need out of her. She would be up in her room, at the topmost of the castle, observing the beauty her sister created.

She took in the evening breeze. It was a chill one, and she wished she could be a little warmer. She couldn’t close her wings, after all. Seconds of deliberation made her decide to use magic. She cast a spell on herself, her horn glowing magenta, slowly enveloping her entire form. The glow gave her warmth, and the need to fold her wings abated, leaving her free to walk slowly onward with her full figure standing tall. The guards were nervous as she walked past them, even if they made no motion to stop her. They did know who she was, and seeing her with wings was probably a bit more of a shock than they would have admitted.

Unchallenged, she slowly trotted up the stairs, adjusting her wings when they started to fall. It wasn’t usually in her nature to walk so boastfully like tonight; that usually was Rarity’s thing when she had a new dress. But she wanted to show that she wasn’t the same Twilight anymore. If the guards saw it, then it might reach the ears of the princess she wanted to speak with.  It might help her reconsider her decision years ago. She was also an alicorn now, and thus the issue of outliving wasn’t much of an issue anymore.

It was a different dimly lit alley this time, in a different city. The night was cloudless and bright, and only the overhanging roof of the nearby manor had kept the alley dark and dim, along with the lack of foresight that the owners had that made them not put lighting of any sort in the back.

“Couldn’t outrun me... You won’t do...”

Blood dripped from a knife and a pony lay on the dark street, eyes wide open in shock and terror. Another pony left the scene, face disappointed. The pony on the street was bleeding profusely, his hind legs cut at the knee, incapable of moving or even feeling anything. The forehooves were a few inches away from the forelegs, and his sides bore two long scars, making him look as though there was a slit cut through him.

She was at the courtyard by now, and the ground was level beneath her hooves. There was no longer any need to adjust her wings – they would keep in the upright position properly here. She thought back to how she worked so hard to get them. If only she could modify the spell she’d used on Rarity and turn it permanent, maybe she wouldn’t have had so much trouble. But that simply wouldn’t do; all it would do was give her flight, not access to the innate magic of pegasi. An alicorn had access to not merely unicorn magic and Pegasus flight, but also Pegasus magic – the sort that allows them to so efficiently use the skies and its elements – and earth pony magic as well. The earth pony magic was simple enough – it was the Pegasus part of an alicorn that gave her trouble.

Flight was beyond her so she trudged on, careful, taking time to not mess up her wings. They were after all the most obvious indicator of her transcending the limitations of a unicorn. Satisfied with her wings not being that messed up, her journey continued up a smaller set of stairs to a pair of big doors. It would have been much easier had she simply teleported, but she figured that teleporting directly to the princess would be rude and cause complications with her wings.

“Hmm... Too small.... Too big... Color is off... Which one?”

The pony paced around a clothes rack. The pony had walked around it so much that the feathers on it were getting ruffled. No worries. That could be remedied in time. The main problem was that none of the items fit.

“Looks like I need to get more...”

A knife was pulled out from a case, followed by an opening and closing of a door. The pony had to leave now. It was getting dark, and thus the perfect time to hunt again.

Twilight thought of her friends when she entered the castle. They had demolished the place years ago – and never had she hated them more than that. Princess Celestia said that it was fine and that she actually liked it, but those words stung her as well. Her words meant that she expected them to fail. She had low expectations of her, and her friends. And her friends accepted that. She harbored hatred for all of them since then, waxing and waning, until her rejection, and her subsequent leave of Ponyville for a nomadic quest to transform herself.

She hadn’t seen her friends for a while. Maybe when she was finished speaking with her love she would pay them all a visit. Surely they would gawk in shock when they saw her wings.

Closer and closer she had come to the room where Celestia was, likely still unaware of her being in the castle. She hadn’t seen any of the guard ponies leave their posts, and there were no messages passed around that she saw. Celestia’s room had a view of the entire castle grounds, but Twilight took care to stay to the path that wasn’t visible from up there. She wanted the wings to be a surprise.

“Look... They’re my color!”

“Th – they are! It – it’s a nice c – c – color, but I ha – have to go now –“

“Don’t worry, it’ll just be a second...”

“N – no, this is importa –“

The sentence was never finished. It was suddenly cut off, like a good chunk of his purple neck. The corpse was just there, lying, unknowing in the town square. The night was bright and the square well lit, and had there been residential houses near it they would likely have seen the pony cut down, and they would have seen the other pony leaving with a prize.

In the morning the panic spread, as they had in the other towns. A pony lay dead on the town square, his head kept on his body only by a half - inch of flesh and skin. Blood painted the town square in abstract blotches - a gruesome painting on a publicly displayed canvas.

There Twilight was. She had gotten to the doors to Celestia’s room uncontested. After all, who would argue with an alicorn aside from another alicorn? The guards certainly wouldn’t, and neither would the townsponies. She would meet no resistance.

The doors never seemed so imposing in all her life. She’d been through them many times, but only now did the ornate gold seem to be so terrifying. The marble pillars beside it felt like they were sentinels judging her and watching her. The carpet was red. Blood red, like most of what haunted her thoughts regularly. No matter – it would all end today. Determined she brought up a hoof.

She knocked on the doors.

A few seconds of silence were immediately followed by a certain beautiful alicorn’s beautiful voice asking, almost singsong, “Who is it?” Celestia was more laid – back in the off hours, and much more approachable.

“It’s me, Twilight, Princess!”

“Twilight?” Even through the door she sounded shocked. “I haven’t heard from you in so long! What happened? Wait, let me get the doors –“

If Celestia was shocked at hearing Twilight’s voice, it was nothing compared to what she felt when she saw her student. Her number one student had wings. She was no longer a mere unicorn. Twilight looked expectantly into her mentor’s eyes, seeing how she would react. There was shock. What was it changing into now? Was it pride? Happiness?

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” Celestia had used the royal Canterlot voice, which meant only one thing: anger.

“B – but you said we couldn’t be together because I was just a unicorn! Now I’m an alicorn, and you don’t have to worry about me dying before you do, and you being sad for so long!”

“YOU ARE NOT AN ALICORN, YOU ARE A MONSTER!” Celestia had never been like that before. Her top student doing this had pushed her way beyond her limits. “IT WAS YOU THAT KILLED THOSE PEGASI AND TOOK THEIR WINGS? I NEVER TAUGHT YOU TO BE LIKE THIS!”

The shouting was so powerful that Twilight’s wings fell off from their stitches, leaving two horizontal slits on her sides. How could it have been like this? Wasn’t Celestia proud of her for transcending the limits of a unicorn? Wasn’t she happy that she could now have an alicorn to share half of herself with?

Celestia was furious. Seething beyond imagination. And above all else, she was curious. Horribly curious as to what turned Twilight like this – from a sensible pony to a murderer, an abomination. Feeling that something else was in play, she cast a spell on herself to scan her memories with efficiency. Attempting to remember manually a specific incident among millions in her thousand years would take forever.

“- did you hear about the fire?”

“Bloody shame, that was. Entire family turned to ash except for that lucky young girl, only getting out with a couple of burns...”

Celestia was walking around town, and she overheard a conversation that sounded bad. Very bad indeed, and it didn’t help that only yesterday she had to reject her personal protégée. This was one of the problems of not being omniscient – she usually had delayed reactions. And now the blood of this family was on her hooves.

“Excuse me.”

“Your Highness?” The two ponies bowed low. “Is there anything you need?” The two were nervous, but they appeared capable enough to hide it.

“Tell me about the fire.”

“Of course, your Highness. It was a family of unicorns at the west of the house. They were apparently sleeping soundly, and something caught on fire. Minutes later, the place was burning, and they were all out cold from the smoke. Only the daughter survived. The parents were dead long before the fire got them.”

“If I was there... Can you tell me who the survivor was?”

“I’m afraid we don’t know the name, your Highness. You see, we just moved here... She was a purple unicorn.”

A purple unicorn. Living west of the palace.

Celestia snapped back to reality, her spell having given her what she needed to know. She put together the facts. Twilight was depressed beyond belief, and somehow her house burned, killing her family and saving her. That would have driven any single pony insane, but it appeared that Twilight snapped worse than most. Now that she thought back, the Pegasus murders started a month after the fire. She had done her best to attempt consoling Twilight of course, as did her friends and her brother, but that was simply too much for her. That was when she left Canterlot and wandered around Equestria, and around the same time that pegasi started dying in various towns, their wings gone.

“Twilight,” Celestia had lowered her voice now. “I’m very sorry for your loss, and I’m very sorry that I wasn’t able to do anything to help you. But no matter who you are, you have killed many ponies, and I can never let that slide.”

Twilight’s head was lowered now, even more. She had reattached the purple wings she procured from that unfortunate Pegasus that had the exact color she had. Magic put the stiff appendages back in place and they were stitched again as she listened to her mentor. Celestia did nothing to stop her from suturing the wings – the act was done and nothing would change it.

“I’m very sorry to do this, but I simply must, for the good of all of us. Especially those who are now dead by your hooves. You are hereby banished from Equestria.”

Celestia was sad that she was forced to resort to such an ultimatum, but Twilight was too far gone. Only a lifetime of intensive therapy had any hope of snapping her out of her madness, and after that Twilight would collapse into a deep guilt trip which would probably kill her. And keeping her in Equestria while she recovered could cause a few more murders.

Twilight, meanwhile was smiling. She was smiling as she accepted Celestia’s punishment, and she was smiling as she stood back up to full height. “I guess I’m not going to see you again then, princess.”

“Probably not. It hurts me to do this, but I have no choice...”

“Don’t worry about it, princess. I’m fine,” she said, smiling and giving a short goodbye, taking in the features of the pony that had captured her heart and twisted it. Although the twisting part was mostly her own fault. She closed her eyes and let magic build in her horn. She was an alicorn. She could do this.

Suddenly there was no castle. There was no ceiling, no blood – red carpet, no beautiful princess. There was just sky. Sky, and the infinite freedom it brought to those with the gift of flight, and her wings refused to move as she hurtled downward to the streets of Canterlot, to the place where she once left a wingless Pegasus dead - her first victim, the first poor sod who crossed her misguided and twisted path to ascension.

And then she was dead, the streets painted with a mush of purple and red.