Reflection
A Price of Loyalty Story
By Loyal Liar
Edited by
DarkPhoenix, The 24th Pegasus, Ruirik, Keyesty, and SatoshiKyu
“Are you hungry, Teatime?” A box of biscuits, as the ruler of Glasgallop called them, levitated in my general direction in an envelope of his golden mana.
I peeled Teatime’s cheek off the window of the lush, expensive ski lift gondola and donned a smile. “No, dear, I’m feeling quite full.” He’d been keeping me well fed for months now, though I couldn’t blame him for not recognizing the thin, syrupy strands filling the air between us. Lady Image had been lucky to have a stallion like him. Now…
Now she understands that happiness like that never lasts.
A little bundle of mane and skiing clothing pressed up against my leg, stabbing me rather painfully with her stubby little horn. “Can I have them, mum?”
“Oh, I suppose,” I muttered, feigning hesitance, as my own green aura took hold of the little tin and brought it into reach of the filly’s stubby legs.
Her underdeveloped magic fumbled with the lid of the tin for a few moments before she lost what little patience she had and pushed it back toward me. “I can’t get it open, mum!”
Before I could offer any words of encouragement, a burst of pale blue magic popped the lid open and flipped it onto its side on our seat. “You’re going to have to use magic yourself someday, Reflection.” The scornful voice belonged to the filly’s older brother, a blank-flanked eight year old suffering all the delusions common to young nobles. “We won’t be there to hold your hoof forever.”
“Nu-uh, Mirror,” Reflection snapped back without hesitance, nuzzling closer to me and shakily lifting a cookie with her magic. “Mum’s always gonna be there.”
I could have vomited at the sappy wad of love I felt in that moment. Reflection’s love for her mother was so raw, and so unfiltered, it was almost too much to digest. Really, the only thing that saved me from turning Teatime’s face an awful shade of green was the comfort I got from the filly’s coat nuzzling my leg. After regaining my composure, I turned back to the window of the little ski gondola and stared at my reflection in the glass.
Lady Teatime wasn’t a terrible looking mare, all things said and done. She was certainly old for a noblestallion’s ‘common’ wife, lacking the unbridled beauty that made for a good trophy. The fact that he actually loved her told me there was something else going on between them, but I couldn’t bring myself to care what it was. All I needed from the late Lady Teatime was the love of her family, and her access to the inner circles of Equestria’s nobility.
The ski lift gondola began to slow on its cable, approaching the first stop on the way up the side of some Bitalian mountain I hadn’t cared to learn the name of. I felt Reflection’s weight shift off of my side, spilling crumbs onto my coat. The tiny filly scooted toward a pair of miniature skis, with tiny hoof braces in her size.
“You’re not gonna do one of the big runs with Dad and I?” Mirror Image pressed his little sister. “Still too scared, Reflection?”
Reflection’s tongue darted out of her mouth in her older brother’s direction. “I don’t need to impress you, Mirror.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at her spunk as our lift lurched to a halt, and the mare manning the first of the lift’s stops opened the door. The poor worker barely had a moment to pull herself aside before Reflection darted out the door, a cannonball of skis, scarf, and enthusiasm. “Come on, Mum, let’s go!”
I got one hoof out the door before another on my shoulder stopped me. Spitting Image pecked me on the cheek. “See you at the bottom, dear.”
I didn’t feel like coming up with something to say back, so I gave him a quiet nod and pulled myself out of the ski lift car. My skis followed in my telekinetic grasp, floating clear as the doors were shut. It wasn’t more than a moment later that the lift shuddered to life and my ‘husband’ and ‘son’ began their journey toward a higher, harder slope.
Standing on the crunched-down powder, I afforded myself a moment to stop and watch Reflection struggle with the little boots on her skis. She’d gotten her forelegs into position just fine, but her magic was struggling to finish the straps on her right side. Time and again, her little lavender aura wrapped around the straps and pulled, but each time, she couldn’t quite pull tight enough. Her teeth clenched together, and she huffed in the cold, releasing a small cloud into the Bitalian mountain air.
“Would you like some help, Reflection?” It wasn’t my usual way to encourage weakness with aid, but something in the little filly pulled the words out of me. “You’re grabbing the wrong strap, and―”
“No, Mum, I’ve got it!” Squinting, the little brown filly yanked the bootstrap with all her might, pulling it across to the wrong buckle, but nevertheless keeping it on. “See!” Beaming with pride, the filly jumped from ski to ski, sticking her other two legs out to her sides. “I did it, Mum! Now you need to hurry up and do yours!”
I found myself chuckling as my magic made short work of my own gear. Even at her age, foals were so desperate for approval. The hearty dose of love for her mother did nothing to assuage my strange fascination with the way she looked at me.
We lined up at the edge of the tall slope, where her heavy winter coat and her little puff of messy brown mane rubbed against the fabric wrapped around my legs. “Ready, Mum?”
I nodded.
“Race you!” she announced, and then without giving me a chance to agree, she leaned forward and started her way down the mountain.
I didn’t mind the filly beating me down the mountain, but I didn’t want her to get too far out of sight. I pushed off and let the wind rush through Lady Teatime’s aqua mane. The sensation of the cold wind was brutal for a cold-blooded body, but the tingle of my nearly-overflowing pool of love picked up the slack. Soon, I was gliding the powder’s curves and coming up tight on Reflection.
She caught a glance of me on a turn, and twisted her head back to flash me a quick smile. Then she was off again, blazing carefree down the snowy slope. She left too fast for me to warn her about the little strap flapping loose on her boot.
It was just a foal’s mistake, and as much as I despise poetry, I wish it could have meant something more. If she’d tumbled on a hill as some metaphor for pride, I could have caught her. If she’d kept going, driving her face into the snow just shy of the finish line, I would have had a chance to fix the strap. If it had somehow been her fault, I wouldn’t have done what I did that day, or felt how I did for that filly. But that snowy December, I watched a foal’s little slip-up unfold.
The little strap came loose from the force of another turn, and her leg popped out of the boot entirely. Distracted, she missed her turn. I watched her bounce up the side of the curve and disappear from sight. I’m sure my imagination gave me some vision of a hundred foot rocky drop, but today, all I can bring myself to remember is the sudden chill in my chest, as if a drop of water had hit the narrow space between my neck and the collar of my jacket.
I turned my skis into the curve, kicking up a bit of snow as I stopped at its crest. On the opposite side, I saw a short path of bumps in the snow, where Reflection had tumbled. Then, a dozen feet away, I found the drop my mind’s fiction had conjured, stripped of its impossibly steep ridges and unrealistically jagged rocks, in favor of the far greater terror of reality. I moved to the edge, and glanced over. It was a drop of ten feet or so into a muddy snowbank, with a frozen creek too shallow to sink into. I could tell it’s depth because Reflection was laying, unmoving, halfway submerged in its waters.
I broke my only rule in that moment. I didn’t look around; didn’t check my shoulders and scan the world around me. It was a ridiculous mistake, but in that moment, I cannot claim I was thinking as myself. I leapt off the edge even as I discarded Teatime’s appearance in a flash of emerald fire. My wings spread quickly enough to slow my fall, bringing me to Reflection’s side in an instant.
“Reflection?” I asked, my vibrant green mana sweeping over her body to look for wounds. “Reflection, are you awake?”
“M―mmm.” Her collapsed lung and cracked ribs wouldn’t let her finish any more. I laid a chitinous hoof on her brow; the chill I got in return told me everything I needed to know. There wasn’t time to carry her back.
I turned my horn to the face of the icy drop, and released three blasts. Shards of ice bounced off my carapace and skittered across the snow, until a little cave was left in their wake. The sheer force dug into the love I’d been taking in for months, but I knew I had more than enough left to get back to Lord Image. All I had to do was make sure Reflection was there too. Gritting my teeth, I lifted the limp foal as gently as I could manage, and brought her to a resting place in my newly crafted cave.
As I had her laid halfway down on a drier surface, I saw the first little drop from her underside. It wasn’t the presence of liquid that stopped my heartbeat, but the crimson color. I ripped off her coat, already soaked beyond use from the creek’s waters, and turned her body over slowly in midair. My fears were confirmed at the tiny stub of bone jutting from her side.
I lowered her down gently, without so much as a gasp of pain. I wish I could have claimed it was my skill with magic, but really, shock had already taken her. My horn free, I had to consider my next move.
The really smart thing to do would have been to leave her. Teatime could have been in tears, burying her face in her husband’s shoulder as she struggled to explain the tragedy. I couldn’t claim to know how it would play out, but it would take a monster to accuse a mother after a tragedy like that.
Even easier would be to abandon my disguise here with the filly. There were plenty of other nobles in Equestria; it would be the easiest thing in the world to give up on Teatime and become the Duchess of San Palomino, or take over the name of the Cloudsdale councilor’s son, who died fighting dragons. Any one of them was a better position, worth my attention instead of one of my subordinates. And yet, somehow, the price of the little filly was just too great.
At the same time, I knew I couldn’t heal her. It would take up too much of my stored love, but even worse, it would bring questions. Teatime, by all respects an average unicorn, could never heal wounds with her magic alone. Keeping Reflection quiet about her injury would be next to impossible, and I didn’t want to waste my magic suppressing those thoughts.
I turned to look at her, amethyst eyes half-hidden behind golden brown lids. I can’t tell you why, but I felt her legs clench tight around my side, though I could still see her laying limp on the far side of my makeshift cave . It must have been the cold getting under my carapace. What I do know, what I remember better than anything else from that day, is the choice that came forward in my mind in that moment. It was cruel, in a sense, but far kinder than condemning her to such an early grave.
My first ball of magic became a shell of green slime against her side. A second, third, and fourth encased her lower body. One more spell, and the cocoon would be finished. I took a moment to walk forward and shut her eyes. “Just a little while,” I told Reflection, though I knew she couldn’t hear me. For whatever strange reason, the words made me feel just a bit warmer.
The last bit of my magic wrapped around her head and became solid. My work done, and my magic feeling woefully low, I laid down on the floor of the cave to wait and watch. The transformation is a boring show, though certainly much less painful for me than laying eggs to make my nearly-mindless drones. I settled myself down and closed my eyes. As always, sleep came easily, and passed without dreams. I had long since blocked myself off from Luna’s realm.
I woke to a faint tapping, and smiled at the sight of a black leg stirring inside the gel of my cocoon. Why I should feel happy for spending so much mana, I do not know. I can tell you, though, that the emotion persists. I decided to spare undue trauma on Reflection’s young mind, and once more donned the form of Lady Teatime. And then, with a mere three steps, I came up to the cocoon.
It peeled apart with little resistance to my magic, revealing the shiny newborn changeling inside. She reached up at me with her stubby arms, desperate for my embrace. I reached into the goo without hesitation, pulling the little creature up and holding her against my chest.
As I sat in that cave, staring down at my Reflection, I realized something else very strange. Though I could smell love flowing in the air, I found myself suddenly hungry.
