Crimson Fist

As the sun sank down to allow the audience of stars to shine forth, Twilight descended once again into the forge. Crimson had returned to his post at the forge along with his usual expression. Twilight made her way back to her makeshift bed, unusually tired from the day’s activities; she was unable to read even a page of her books before drifting off to sleep. Her dreams were few and far between but pleasant, she dreamed of herself and Crimson looking upon a barren land and helping the locals, showing them medicine and farming. Breaking the soil and leading life back into the land once more. Fire and raiders threaten but he beat them back exhausted and worn but diligent he stood a morose guard.

Outside the realm of sweet realm of dreams Crimson once again appeared under the eye of night making his way toward the towering summit. This time there waited a shade of him, a mere façade but still ready for battle. Crimson was taken aback by the shade’s presence but steeled himself and drew his sword.

“So you are finally here, you have finally tracked me down. You torment me no longer foul creature, you may have been able to best me but I have found something to put my resolve into and you shall fall!” Crimson pointed his sword at the shadow, the shadow did not respond until Crimson prepared a strike. The shadow’s blades met Crimson’s in a shower of sparks that bounced across the flat ground bursting into flames surrounding them. The two danced around their arena each blow only adding more sparks causing the flames to grow hotter and higher. The shade wore an eternal smirk as he clashed with the stalwart guard; both said nothing only using the sound of their swords to communicate. Crimson fought composed and tactically like he always had the shade came at him with flurries of devastating attacks which Crimson was able to parry but unable to respond in kind. The fight lasted for hours Crimson getting worn down as they continued, sweat formed on his brow and his limbs got heavier and heavier as his strength flowed into the shower of sparks. Eventually he started panting and the sweat had made it way to his eyes blurring his vision a little, the heat of the flames was getting close to uncomfortable and was threatening to sap his strength even more. His shade however had not waned in strength and was relentless in his assault landing several glancing blows to Crimson along his armor. As Crimson was pushed further and further back into the pillars of flame, the heat making its way through his armor he consolidated his energy for a final strike. Drawing his blade back into the flames Crimson caught his sword alight charging it with energy before bringing it to bear against the shade’s sword. Crimson’s blade flared and glowed with its new found energy it started to glow white and melt throw the shade’s sword. Crimson was straining under the force of pressing the attack his veins popping and his face distorting, he released a great cry as he cleaved through the remainder of the sword and brought it to bear against the shade’s form where a great bolt of lightning crackled throughout the shade’s form. Crimson sat down his enemy defeated and he exhausted from the struggles of the day and night. He trotted his way back to the forge through the oppressive Everfree forest a little lighter of step but still with a heavy weight.

The shade of his anger and hate was stronger than the last he had appeared, a relic of the past and a product of the present, it was the biggest pressure on his psyche. The walk back was uneventful the creatures of night afraid of his presence and dark demeanor, his head hung low until the sun evaporated the remnants of this shade from his mind and he looked toward the future; his heart finally a little lighter too match his step. He entered the forge just as the sun fully broke the horizon and began its slow course across the waiting sky. The forge beckoned to him draining his fatigue and energizing him with a dutiful spirit. He grabbed the tools and material he had been working with for days now, the smooth alloy cold without the heat of the forge. He moved more carefully than before, the pieces he was working on now requiring master precision to both attune the magic they needed to have and to make them the catalysts of powerful magic. Crimson exhaled heavily and dived into his work the fires of the forge lighting to a bright flame begging for the feel of tools of bloody work. Crimson’s work resounded with a familiar ring spreading throughout the forge, a joyous melody of steel and fire.

The sounds of the forge, now becoming a familiar reminder of morning, woke the sleeping form of the princess of friendship. Twilight stretched in her bed the gifts of her closest friends pushed on the edge of her bed requiring her to fly to avoid tripping on them. She stretched she didn’t need to as an alicorn she was always growing but her old habits had yet to die, she noticed Crimson at the forge and made her way to the kitchen and balcony to survey the Celestia blessed morning and to get much needed food to settle the butterflies in her stomach. The amber colored sunrise reminded Twilight of her friend she had left in a world beyond and how she was holding up after fighting a great evil. Twilight finished her breakfast of leafy greens and hurried downstairs to see if the book that allowed them to communicate was among the ones she had brought. Her haste in descent caught Crimson’s attention for a moment, but he returned to his work just as quickly, leaving Twilight to search among the piles of tomes for her friend’s book. She searched until she believed she was certain that it wasn’t located in the multitude of survival books she had brought, with this revelation in hand she raced back up to the open plaza of the castle. Without skipping a beat she unfurled her powerful but untrained wings and took to sky with a mighty gust of air propelling her straight into the air exceeding the recommended air speed velocity in her growing desire to communicate with her friend staying in relatively magic-threatened area. Clouds disappeared as she careened through the air fast as she could; she was compelled by a mix of fear and shame for not thinking of her. Her wings had grown stronger since Rainbow and her accident almost as if it was strengthened in response to the accident. She winced as the thought passed over, the gasps for air feeling all the more precious since they weren’t filled with blood. The grip of fear quickly passed and Twilight’s mind focused on the task at hand, returning to the crystal castle probably for the last time for a while. She broke through the cloud barrier between the Everfree Forest and Ponyville she emerged covered in water droplets, some frozen. She fully rotated, a trick she learned from Rainbow the first day she had gotten the wings, releasing a shower of water that caught the sunrise’s delicate rays, covering the clouds behind her in a beautiful rainbow, lighting up Twilight’s face with a smile. She continued dipping in and out of the clouds performing the trick lost in its simple wonderment she was almost saddened as she descended upon her castle. She landed lightly stumbling a little on the landing but keeping on her hooves, she had been working on her quick landings and she had finally got the hoof of it.

She turned her attention to the room around her and saw she was in the kitchen; her stomach quickly reminded her that she had not eaten since the night before so she quickly fetched some food from the cupboards before making her way to her personal library inside her bedroom. She laid the plates on her bed as she went to search for the book among all her ancient gilded tomes of long gone ponies that lined the bookshelves. She trotted past the colorful and vibrant covers of the countless history and magic books that she had read cover to cover no less than twice. She almost got lost in the memories of wonderment so had while reading the stories and spells contained within, but she snapped out of her daze long enough to locate the most plain book in her collection, a simple brown bounded book with the only adornment being a yellow and red sun, it glowed slightly green. She took it off of its pedestal and returned to her snacks and her bed. She laid back down and used her magic to retrieve a quill and ink and wrote an almost too apologetic apology about her absence. Twilight closed the book when it dawned on her that she had no idea when she would get a response back, however the book soon pulsed with a green hue and came Sunset’s response assuring Twilight that since the incident with her Nightmare double they everything had been smooth sailing. Twilight was relieved that she hadn’t missed some magical disaster in the other world and had left Sunset on her own like she had before. With a lighter conscious she continued the conversation going so far to mention her trip keeping a fair amount of the details a secret. After all she didn’t want to make her friends in the other world losing sleep over her. As she wrote her goodbyes she pondered on the idea of her nightmare form, it was a frightening concept and one she highly doubted would come true. She had theorized that the Nightmare comes when a pony lusts after power and is willing to take on that form to gain it, but Twilight never really considered her status of princess as a right to power more as a right to authority, which she was able to use on most occasions to help expedite the solution of problems. Despite this reasoning she still feared that if her counterpart had become a Nightmare then maybe she could too. She shuttered at the thought of what that would entail both to her friends and to her fellow princesses, then she thought of Crimson and she felt of tinge of fear about the consequences of becoming a Nightmare. This quickly cleared any thoughts of it from her head as she descend from her tower back to the kitchen as it had become lunch time and she was still hungry, not fully accustomed to the calories needed to fly fast.

The noon sun shined through the crystal skylights in the kitchen illuminating the room with an array of warm colors. Twilight felt energized and nostalgic as she walked slowly around the kitchen. She started humming a childhood song to herself as she made a sandwich, reminding her of the lunches her mother would pack for magic kindergarten. Her flight and talk with Sunset had put her in high spirits her musing on becoming a Nightmare ebbed on the back of her mind. She was lost in thought and she mindlessly started to prepare the kitchen, hoping to improve her rather weak culinary skills with pinkies recipes and cookware. She had always wanted to have a try at baking; she reasoned if Pinkie could do it she should be able to do it too. She hummed the tone swearing to herself that there were words to it and that she know where it came from, but nothing came to mind. Twilight read through Pinkie’s rather expansive pocket book of her on-the-range recipes, albeit in very small font. She picked a hardy looking and seemingly easy meal, chili. Twilight pranced on her way to the extensive castle pantry and greenhouse embedded into the elevated castle walls, the crystal windows were clear and simple and the room was heady like being deep in the Everfree Forest, Twilight came here in her downtime during the winter or after incredible high altitude flights. Although she had a staff of gardeners to choose from Twilight preferred to create a series of spells that maintained the greenhouse and collected the harvest. Twilight had left a small patch that she would take care of herself and it was to this patch that she walked down to and with delicate hooves she pushed into the soft dirt loosening the vegetable bulbs before carefully collecting them with her mouth and placing them into a wicker basket beside her. She preferred the manual labor of gardening to the magical way of doing it, reminded her of Applejack and her dedication to the land. By the end Twilight’s immaculate hooves and coat were tangled and caked with the soft and moist soil, but she had full baskets of all she needed, enough to make plenty of mistakes. Twilight returned to the kitchen and washed off her hooves and got to work, spending the rest of the afternoon perfecting her cooking method and getting more acquainted with the concept of cooking. She had prototype multiple recipes all of them far too bland to be enjoyed on the road. She ruled out the ingredients as ruining her dish, and she was stuck on what to do next until she remembered the stocks of herbs and spices. She was stunned by the realization, how could she be so thick. In her defense she had never thought of them as simply herbs but reagents in assorted potions and as catalysts for her earth magic. After raiding her impressive stockpile she set again to the labor of cooking and with a couple alchemical hints Twilight found a wonderful combination. She set up a tray and gathered together all the odds and ends of the meal. She was meddling with some cornbread when she felt the pressure room change and heard the sound of a bowl spinning on the ground. She whipped around only to find empty air greeting her, after a second she noticed splashes of the chili going down toward another wing of the castle. She ran cautiously toward the trail of stolen food going through the list of possible intruders and what they may want. She hoped it was just a homeless pegasi but she feared it might have been a more malicious entity hoping to draw her out. She blamed nerves for her more extreme fears, but she kept her guard up all the same as she galloped further down the corridors. Outside the sun was setting, casting long shadows on the walls making nightmares in Twilight’s mind. She finally found where the trail ended, into one of the innumerable bedrooms of the palace, the door was fully open and Twilight could hear the sounds of very loud eating and she relaxed a bit. She peeked around the door from and involuntarily shouted, “DASH!!!”