Smart Cookie walked into the chamber to find it exactly as she had left it. The ring of enchanted candles still burned, yielding a sickly yellowish light in a poor mockery of the sun shining in the morning outside. The candles had burned for months and lost merely inches from their original height. In the center of the eerie space, sagging upon the mattress - the description doing honour to the poor heap of cloths and fibres - was a quite unmoved Clover the Clever. Clover’s horn, as it had continuously for over a year, glowed intensely with her magic.
"Smart Cookie," came a voice. It was a very peculiar voice, not greatly unlike the chiming of dozens of crystal bells. As if to spite the analogy, it had become easier for Clover to set a crystal to vibrate in tones of speech rather than exercise her diaphragm and vocal cords. Clover had abandoned speech shortly after deciding to close her eyes and not open them since – what could mere eyes reveal to her but this sad room that was at once both her throne and her prison. Neither of them knew now what they would find if those eyelids parted.
"It is morning, already?"
"It is, Clover. I have your meal."
Smart Cookie entered the room fully, the two pony-like figures that had accompanied her remaining to stand near the entrance. They never moved unless it was required. For her part, Smart Cookies was grateful when they didn’t move - their actions were clunky and awkward, as if their limbs fell into each step, rather than flow as legs should. They didn't breathe, they didn't shuffle – they became statues the instant they ceased to move. She could never quite evade the palpable wrongness that lingered about them, but it was less when they were still.
Smart Cookie sidled up to the bed and slipped the bowl from her back onto the impromptu mattress near where Clover’s head lay. She did her best to ignore the state of Clover's body. Smart Cookie wanted to remember the mare she'd become friends with – very dear friends – in the weeks following the cave. Despite her wishes, the reality of each day whittled away at that memory.
Clover's coat had turned almost a slate shade of gray, the only hints of its original color remaining being a slight tinge of lavender clinging desperately to the tip of each strand. Clover's mane was no better, having become very thin, the latest inch of its growth becoming devoid of hue to the quality of glass. Her skin was stretched and brittle over the framework of her bones underneath. Clover's muscles had been the first thing to deteriorate as she began channelling every shred of her life's force into her magic – the magic that had beyond all doubt sustained all their lives.
"I’m going to open your mouth now, Clover," said Smart Cookie, and she did shortly thereafter. Tipping the bowl, she slowly portioned its contents into Clover’s mouth, methodically closing it and massaging her throat to send it into her stomach, repeating the actions until the bowl was completely emptied. Clover had abandoned the ability to properly swallow months ago. Smart Cookie wished she was only imagining the sensation of vertebra beneath her hooves.
As for the brew itself, between herself and Clover, Smart Cookie only trusted it to keep Clover alive and functioning with no allowance for any other redeeming quality. It was the pinnacle of desperation, made from bizarre cultivars of grass and weeds, vivid berries, and mushrooms few sane ponies would approach for daily nourishment, all mushed together to a foul, near-toxic slurry. There was simply no other concoction they could devise that held the required nutrients in sufficient density to keep Clover's body and magic functioning.
Their first attempts in consuming the brew had promptly triggered Clover to spew it across the mattress, forcing them to become creative in circumventing that particular reflex. After a few weeks, Clover’s body had ceased to care, or perhaps given up entirely in its endeavors to control motion of material through itself. Smart Cookie didn't know which was true, and Clover never said if she did.
"You’ve taken it all, Clover," said Smart Cookie.
"Thank you, Cookie," said the voice that Clover used. Smart Cookie was grateful that the crystal-voice was very poor in conveying emotion. She didn’t want to know if it would have sounded grateful or desperate these days. She chose to believe it would have been the former.
"Will… Will that be all, Clover?" Smart Cookie stood, not wanting to be near the cold, wraith-like form that had become Clover’s body any longer than absolutely necessary.
"Three more golems have failed."
Smart Cookie started and, despite herself, sagged.
"You knew about that?"
"I am the golems, Smart Cookie. Every step they take, every building they erect, every trough and furrow dug is my doing. Of course I know."
"We don’t need them, Clover. We have dozens as it is, you don’t have to replace those three."
"They were early, clay versions. I’ve come a long way since then. There were a few stones taken from the quarry this week in particular that would last much longer. Easier to work with, more durable, will hold the enchantment longer."
"But we don’t NEED them!" Smart Cookie stomped a hoof. "What we need is you! Look at what you’ve become, Clover! You’re a broken, decaying, corpse of a body, the only thing you are anymore is your magic!"
"That is what a unicorn is, Cookie. Magic."
Smart Cookie knew Clover well enough that, had she been using her own voice, her real voice, it would be raised now. Probably quite sad, too.
"I’ve given of my body," continued Clover. "We all have. We have children to show for it."
Smart Cookie shifted on her hooves, discomforted. Clover's 'clever' solution to six mares beginning a society had been at best unpleasant. Smart Cookie would be the first to herald the joys of having foals, but she would never call their genesis 'birth.'
"All I have left to give," Clover continued, "is my magic. If my body must diminish because of this magic... then so be it."
"They've grown, Clover. They’re fillies and colts, now. They can share in the work."
"I will not have our children become slaves, Smart Cookie."
"That’s not–"
"They deserve a foalhood, Cookie. They deserve a full life. If it is in my power to give them a future that holds both survival and fulfillment, I will give it to my last. You tend to my physical form, and I tend to us all."
"And what of Platinum?" Smart Cookie growled, waving a hoof. "She just gets to lounge in her throne room?"
"No, please understand. Former Princess Platinum has… different perceptions of sacrifice. She views herself as generous, and in troth she has been. Even with the Stellar Ring I have erected to aid in the movement of the Sun and Moon, she is strained and weakened. Weaker than you could know. She will never reveal this to you, nor any pony, but she is not a high and mighty ruler as in her bygone life."
Smart Cookie groused, scowling first at Clover and then at the golems standing near the exit. Those statuesque, eyeless, inequine, innately wrong golems.
Those statuesque, eyeless, inequine, indispensable golems.
"Is that all, Smart Cookie?"
"Yeah…"
Smart Cookie release a resigned, exhausted sigh and returned to Clover’s side, instinctively putting a hoof to her faded, thin, glassy-maned withers.
"Yeah, I guess that’s all."
After a moment, Smart Cookie removed her hoof and trod towards the exit.
One of the golems awkwardly lifted a hoof, causing Smart Cookie to freeze, startled and not a little afraid. It drew its hoof forward, and slowly, carefully, gently curled it around Cookie’s shoulders. Her skin shuddered as rogue granules of sand crumbled from the leg and danced upon her coat.
"I love you all, you know," said Clover’s voice. "I love you all so very much."
Shaking, Smart Cookie slipped beneath the thing’s hoof and escaped through the door, back into the daylight.