Live A Life, or Forge It

When we finally exited from Spoon's house, thought, I noticed that the Sun was going to set soon: since it was likely that the Library was already closed, it was unuseful do other three kilometers of walking towards the Library, only for find it closed.

And so I said it to Applebloom:

“Applebloom... the Sun is almost setting... maybe the Library is already closed... we will visit her tomorrow”

Applebloom watched me:

“Tomorrow ? Do you have ANY idea about where he is ?

And if he in danger ?

If he in the hoofs of weird cultists, or something like that ?

We can't postpone it !”

I said timidly:

“Venicio had passed the Hell, when he was on Earth... I'm certain that he is capable of taking care of himself for a while, of course, he can't stand forever, but I still suggest to wait the next dawn... if it's ok for you...”

The yellow carpenter pony put a hoof under her chin in a thoughtful move.

For few minutes, she stood still and perfect silence.

Then she said:

“Bernarda, you are right: the distance between us and the Library is too big. It' better to come back home, and wait”, then she moved towards our home.

The dinner was tensed: the dialogue was reduced by an incoherent series of thoughts about Venicio's position; what he was doing that time; what the captors wanted from Venicio...

Big Machintosh theorized that Venicio was took away for a sacrifice for some kind of cult sacrifice.

Basically, he believed that Satanists had kidnapped Venicio,and wanted to use him as victim.

Highly unlikely.

Applejack thought that the kidnappers simply wanted money.

Seems legit. But why they would target a farmer's house in the first place ?

But, since it was needed to left them unaware of the truth, we didn't spoke our mind, and instead pretended to approve one point, or another.

Then I and Applebloom went to bed together: ahead of us, a long day awaited.

Since the next day was a free day for Applebloom, as soon I and Applebloom went out of bed and finished the hasty breakfast made by Applejack, we exited, and headed towards Twilight's Library, where, hopefully, Venicio's real position will be revealed.

When we finally reached the Library, a sense of anxiety filled me: what if Twilight didn't knew where to find Venicio?

What if she didn't knew how to reach him ?

Since Venicio could be everywhere, that meant that he was also in danger.

And that made me feel a knot in the throat; a weight on the stomach... something of invisible, and yet heavy, oppressing me.

Applebloom opened the door, stepped in along with me.

In front of me, shelves, and shelves, and shelves full of books stood proudly on the walls; while a layer of scrap paper covered the floor made of stone; the empty ink pots were everywhere.

Overall, the whole building was a total mess: clearly, the genius is in the chaos of the place where it lives.

Anyway, while I was looking around me, the yellow pony faked a cough, causing a small echo.

When the echo dispersed, a faint flapping was heard, and the purple shape of Twilight appeared in my peripheral vision: as soon I noticed her presence, I turned my face towards the one of the purple princess.

Twilight Sparkle said:

“Applebloom, Berndarda, who brings you there ?”

Applebloom said with a tone slightly more “hammy”:

“A grave thing happened: Venicio disappeared two night ago without leave traces. Since we didn't found anything about him in these last days, we hoped that you have some ideas about where he is...”

Twilight got pale in the face.

Two long minutes of silence followed.

The silence was broke by Twilight herself, who said:

“Alright, calm down, clam down, get back to the logic part. No one would kidnap him for get the ransom, since he lives with farmers.

No cult would take him away, since they only pick foals between the age of one and four years.

The only reason for why he disappeared, is for his human heritage.

So far, the only ones aware of humans are me, you, Silver Spoon, the princess, and some hired mouths.

Now, said hired mouths aren't there; so, only the princess might know something about him.

I hope that Celestia didn't sent Venicio back to Earth already.... I think we need to send a letter to Celestia, in order to check if she knows something, and, if the response is that she knows something, visit Canterlot for have more infos...”

Without thinking twice, Applebloom said:

“Spike ! Get over there, we need your services !”

Some heavy steps were heard and, slowly but relentlessly, a big purple shape went down the stairs.

Yep, Spike had changed quite a lot, in just a month by my visit: he had something resembling a beard, but made of scales and loosened skin under his chin; his overall body was bigger and bulkier, denouncing a feel of brutality that you would expect mostly from old dockers, rather than from scribes; his eyes were a bit dull, and, overall, Spike seemed under the effects of a terrible hangover.

Then Spike said with his deep and daunted voice:

“What do you want, Twilight ?”

Twilight Sparkle smiled to her assistant:

“I need your abilities of writing for...”

Spike moved away, again with his heavy steps, and said:

“Twilight, I'm under the effects of an hangover, how I am supposed to write ? I'm returning back my bed, goodbye, folks”

“Spike, you need to do this !”

“You are not a six years old filly that has to learn to write. You are a fucking Princess now: you should be more than capable of write something on your own”

Twilight rolled her eyes, and said:

“Even the Princess needs assistants for their jobs”

Spike deadpanned:

“Not for clean their asses”

“Spike, if you keep doing something like this, I will be forced to kick you out”

“Whatever you want. I auto-fired myself three years ago, but you never let me leave this place, since you feared that I would get in trouble”

“You still will”

Spike face palmed:

“Many things have changed, Twilight, since I was hatched for accident by you.

I was a small and weak dragon, a shame for my race.

Look at me now ! I am big, muscular, and strong: what kind of brain dead dickhead pony would attack me ?

Also, all I need is some food, and a cave.

My food is gems, and, as you estimated, the 20% of this planet is made of gems: I cannot starve !

The caves are abundant, so no problem.

And yet you still see me as a baby”

Twilight said:

“This because it already happened in past ! You left this house for envy towards an owl.

You left this tree for see what you were, and realized that your race is mostly composed by hot heads with vandalistic attitudes, attitudes that disgusted you.

And yet you want to try them again.

If you leave, you might return in the same situation of before, but, this time, no one will came to save you.

Plus, I'm still your legal guardian: you can't leave this place without my consensus until the age of seventeen.

So, take quill and paper, and write down”

Spike took the ink pot, the quill, and the paper, and sat down on the floor grunting and moaning about his boring life.

After sitting down, Twilight started to dictate the letter... but Spike didn't write: instead, an evil sparkle appeared in his reptilian eyes: it seemed that he had a pal for Twilight.

In fact, when Twilight bow down for check the paper, the purple alicorn noticed immediately that the paper was blank like the snow.

Twilight, smiling nervously, said:

“Spike this letter is white: could you please write ?”

The purple dragon said:

“I have a faster way to tell to Celestia what happened...”

The purple princess looked quizzically to Spike, confused about what he said.

Soon after that, Spike inhaled, and breathed fire on Twilight, making her frantically shake for the fear while she burned away.

The last words from Twilight that day were:

“Spike, you were the worst co-workeeeeerrrr....”

Then sh disappeared.

Then the purple dragon told us to leave, since he wanted to do a “special process” to Twilight's books... supposedly, burn them down

In Canterlot...

I was explaining to Indiva the Present of the First Declination, when I heard a scream, and a loud thump coming from out the room.

Now, I might seem paranoid, but, since Fate now knew my position, and maybe Celestia didn't covered the whole Palace, it was likely that another of my brothers came for my head.

But who caused said noise could be anyone, spacing from a drunken guard to a clumsy servant: still, I was too curious to not go to see what happened.

I said to Indiva, who was repeating the first declination:

“Five minutes Indiva, I want to check something”, and I exited from the door, towards the source of the noise.

It seemed that every other pony in the Palace had the same idea: a small flood of guards; servants and the like went towards the source of the noise.

When I finally saw where all the ponies were going, I realized that something must have happened to Celestia: in fact, the noise came from the Throne Room.

Thanks to my little size, I was capable of slip past the bodies of the other ponies struggling to enter in the room, and see what happened.

The scene that I had in front of me was... uncommon, to say at least.

On the throne, a confused Celestia was watching a unconscious  Twilight Sparkle with several burnings.

As everyone there did, I wondered what just happened to Twilight; why she was in the middle of Celestia's throne room with many burnings; and what caused such situation.

For a long time, there was only an awkward silence.

After that time, Celestia finally spoke up:

“Pick her, and put her in the Diplomat's room: we will figure out what just happened later”

Two Earth ponies servants nodded, and took her on their backs: I followed them back to my room.

After that the two servants placed Twilight on my bed, and went away, I placed myself near the purple alicorn, and awaited her response.

Response that didn't came much later.

In fact, as soon I put myself near her, Twilight moved a bit, and bumped on me: as soon she did that, the purple alicorn blinked her eyes, and said tired:

“Where I am ?”

I answered:

“Diplomat's room, Canterlot”

Suddenly, scare jumped, and said:

“Venicio ! What are you doing in Canterlot ? Why I am here ?”

I placed a hoof behind my head, and said grinning:

“It might seems weird to you, but... basically, one day. I had a nightmare, and  Princess Luna entered in one of my dreams. Up to this, all normal.

But, when she asked why I was dreaming so much death and blood, I said about my human origins.

I thought that, since she was very lonely, she wasn't going to tell it to anyone; plus, professional secret about what's in ponies's dreams.

But no. As soon she learn that I was a human turned into a colt, she had an attack of fangirlism, and decided to kidnap me another night.

At first, since a letter for a fake 'Royal Bureaucrats School' arrived to Applejack, I thought that Luna was going to do it more subtly.

Turns out, she kidnaps me anyway in the middle of the night, and carries me to the Palace, and it's a miracle that only Luna knows that I am a human, in the Palace: the situation where I was put in stress-tested my lies.

About how you arrived there, no idea.”

Twilight said:

“Understood, Venicio. Well, prepare yourself: we come back to Ponyville this afternoon”

I nodded.

Then I realized something...

My fight with my  brother Franco.

I have beat him during the night effortlessly, and talking with him.

Alright.

But how I could explain to Celestia, and the guards, how in the Hell I was capable in order to:

1 Foreseen the arrival of a unknown bipedal creature with foalcides intents in that night, at that hour

2 Not get  scared by it

3 Beat it effortlessly

4 Talk with it .

Cover all these points would be hard for a normal adult pony, imagine a frigging' colt ! I should have been aided by external powers.

Which I was, since a mind choir woke me up, and I was a human arrived in Equestria by the means of a portal made by a child god.

For now, Celestia didn't asked me anything, but that's maybe because she wants to know the answer in private.

And, since Princess Celestia didn't wanted humans in her country...

I talked about this issue to Twilight:

“Twilight... I fear that we can't do it: in the night between this day, and yesterday, I knocked out and imprisoned Franco, one of my brothers.

How this halts our return, you might ask.

It's simple: since I stopped Franco all by myself, in the middle of the night, armed only with a paper knife, I did a feat that's outright impossible for a colt.

For now, Celestia and the other ponies didn't thought too hard about that.

But they will ask me how I was capable of doing such a thing, once the zenith will arrive.

And so my castle of game cards will crumble, they will find out about my origins, and send me back to the Earth.

Now, since you arrived there and know about my whole story, you can prove my point, and succeed to save me.”

Twilight said:

“Uhu, well, this was a really big problem.

Fear not: I will talk to Celestia for make you stay”

That begin said, a small bell rang twelve times, telling the hour: 12 o' clock, hour of lunch.

I and Twilight went out, heading for the dining room where our lunch awaited.

Following Twilight, I reached the Dining room; sat between Indiva and Twilight, and, since I was very hungry, I went in a polite eating spree.

Well, at least, compared to the eatings sprees at Applejack's house, at least what entered in my mouth never exited, and I used the cutlery, instead of my hooves.

But, still, I tucked over the food, terminating something like...

-Two plates of six of what resembled the greek δδολμάδες, but bigger.

-An entire bowl of vegetarian Trabaccolara (admittedly, it was utter crap, since it was only seaweeds).

-MANY dishes of Pan Carusau

-Standard issue salad.

And many other foods... look, the only thing that I didn't touched was a mishmash of herbs; salad and eggs that looked like the vomit of a vegan without teeth and weak gastric fluids.

And maybe I was right to not touch it, since Indiva, who ate just a spoon of it, did several disgusted faces before swallow it, and, from that moment on, never touched again that.... theoretical food.

Anyway, while I ate, I listened to the conversation between Celestia; Shining Armour; Cadance and Twilight.

Nothing special, really: they just talked about the everything and the anything; and Celestia dismissed Twilight's arrival as “accident with Spike”.

Indiva just ate, and looked at me smiling, and purring with the eyes: it seemed that she had deployed a sense of admiration for me.

Or she had an accidental inter species crush, like the (non-mutual) relationship between Rarity and Spike.

Only, Indiva wasn't aware of my true status, and I was more than ready to have a future relationship with her .

The “chitchat” between Twilight and the two princesses slowly died down, leaving silence behind.

During this silence, some more hot coffee arrived from the kitchens: Cadance and Twilight served themselves, and started to take slow sips; while Shining Armour tried to drink it.

Tried because Indiva wanted desperately to wanted to take a sip of the coffee, and, since Shining wanted to avoid the clear problems resulting by having a kid under the effects of strong caffeine, he said that  Indiva could not drink it, but in vain: the lilac unicorn kept begging.

Since that the little arguing was bothering me, I poked Indiva's back, and said:

“Don't do it: it's quite bitter, and, for some minutes it gives you a very strong boost in energy. But, when it ends, you will feel VERY weak, and I guess that you don't want to feel weak later on, right ?”

Indiva rotated her head, and said closing her eyes and grinning:

“And why I should feel weak, if this gives me energy, as daddy and you says  ?”

“Well, the sheer energy input is big enough, and, likely, the physical activity you did while under its effects, that, once the caffeine effects runs out, you will feel deprived of energies, since until a moment ago you could, figuratively, pull a train; and the next moment you return to your normal sense of strength.

Which seems nothing compared.”

Indiva nodded, but still kept going: sighing, I gave up to help Shining Armour, and returned to look at the princesses, who now were back to talk.

Not for long, thought: as soon Celestia saw that  y attention was back to her, she said:

“Now, Venicio, I want to ask you something in private. Would you mind come with me in my chamber ?”

Alright, the time had come.

It was the moment to say all the truth to Celestia, no matter what.

I knew that I needed to do it.

But I still had some doubts about saying that, since I wasn't sure about Celestia's reaction to the reveal of my true form: I might seem repetitive, but, again, every destiny was better, than going back to my brothers.

Since I wasn't sure about how to tell it to Celestia, I said “What ?” for take some time, and find an explanation

Celestia sighed, and repeated:

“Venicio, now, I noticed some events happening lately. Said events are, somehow, connected to you.

Since said events might threat the life life of somepony, and you seem perfectly aware of what's going on, I wished to ask you some more questions about you.

Don't worry, it isn't a full-force interrogation... or an interrogation at all.

Just some random information that I'd wish you share with me”

Well, that was long enough for think a coherent speech.

But I still needed some help.

I nodded to Princess Celestia, and asked her politely to guide me to her chamber: she stood up, and moved towards the door, saying to follow her.

And I did.

Not before winking to Twilight, for remind her about her role in avoid my return to Earth.

Anyway, I followed Celestia until her chamber, in a series of hallways that made Caserta's realm pale in comparison, in terms of sheer size, but not in terms of aesthetics.

Celestia's chamber was guarded by two black guardsponies with elaborately-sculptured armors, and halberds on their sides.

As soon they saw Princess Celestia, they did the military greet, and opened the door, and didn't let me in, saying that no visitor could come in the private chambers.

Celestia explained that I was carried there because I was wanted by her: one of the guards slightly jumped back, while the other just gave the sign of come in.

Celestia's room was... impressive, to say at least.

The handle was shaped like a sun, and was made of bronze; a very big door-window, with the “glass” made of a sheet of white alabaster between two thin glass panels, giving the sense that the Sun was always rising, all day. Out of the window-door, a big balcony facing the from a part of the city near the palace, and, on the other side, the steppe near Canterlot.

The bed was a round mattress with red sheets made of silk, and, on the borders of said bed, there were a little bronze chain that had a small decoration each ten rings of the chain.

Several portraits of, supposedly, past students, and, overall, servants, hanged almost everywhere on the wall:  Hemlock Drinker; Senica; Bug Transfigurator; Dripping Face... they were quite everywhere on the wall, both in solemn (especially the older) or more relaxed (mostly the earlier ones) attitude.

I wandered for a while with my eyes around the room, before Celestia reminded why I was there:

“Enjoying the sight of my chamber ?”

I answered:

“Yes. But I know that I came here for another reason”

Celestia nodded, and started to talk:

“Venicio, I've heard of your feat of bravery that you have shown last night, byttaking down an aggressor who was endangering the life of one of my hosts.

That is a very remarkable act by your part, and it shall not be discussed.

However, your doing is ridden with several questions.

Questions that I want you to answer sincerely.”

I nodded, and said:

“Go ahead”

“First, some guards that had the task of  guard the dungeons have heard several times your name called by the creature you defeated.

Said creature spat several times on your dignity, saying things that must not be repeated.

Now, I don't know if you have answer for this, so you are allowed to stay in silence, if you lack of ideas about why the creature knew your name”

Oh boy.

The moment arrived quite fast.

I'd expected some questions like “Why you did that ?” and such.

Clearly, Celestia's priorities were asking me how I knew the creature, but, actually, ask it had  sense: after all, who knows who I really was, before coming to the Palace ?

For all Celestia knew, I was capable of beating Franco because I was a great monster hunter, regressed to the age of a colt for whatever reason.

As you know, this wasn't my case.

Since, sooner or later, I was going to reveal my identity, I said directly:

“Because I'm his brother. Yes, I am human. Better, I was a human, before arrive here thanks to the stupidity of the Eternal Toddler Fate”.

Celestia looked me with the same gaze that, one day ago, did to me.

I felt again shame on me, but this time I didn't lost faith in me, and explained the whole thing:

“You might ask who is Fate, since you never saw him in all your long existence.

Well, it's simple: it's the higher force that rules without begin seen the worlds. He decides the course of life of everyone in every dimension... unfortunately, begin a toddler, apart from few lucky exceptions, most of the toys who play with are made of wood, lead, or copper, materials that tends to broke easily, meaning that they are destined to be forgotten soon after their death.

One day, maybe in an attack of boredom, he sent me in Equestria as a foal.

At first I tried everything in my power to come back to Earth, thinking that my destiny lied there.

But, when I was going to leave your kingdom, the Great Ferryman,  tasked to carry the living things between dimensions talked with me, and told about what the Fate was doing, and said that, lately, he was playing mostly with the toys that represented me as a pony and human.

And so I heard that my destiny on Earth was the one of despair and oblivion, while here, in Equestria, it was one of fulfilled life and great legacy for the future generations.

The Fate decided that I was going to come back home.

I decided to stay here.

And now, it seems that Fate wants to kill me.

He made a deal with my brothers, telling them about their bad fates, and saying that they could avert them, if they carry to his feet my head.

For five years, they never found me.

But one week ago, while I was sleeping, Franco, the one imprisoned, tried to attack me, but to no avail, since I pushed him back.

Now, the rest of the story that I told you yesterday is true, only, Luna kidnap me because I was human.

That's it, magna Caelestia.”

The white alicorn looked at my sideways for a little more, before going out, and saying:

“Well, that explains a lot. But, how you could cover the fact that you were a human yesterday, when I looked in your mind ?”

I pointed to my head, then smiled:

“I have an almost full control of my mind, and I am capable of lock down some parts of the brain for a purpose. And when I mean 'lock up', I mean 'block the access to everything from the outside'”

Princess Celestia started to play with the decorated chain attached to the bed, and she did so for a while, leaving me in a tense silence.

Then...