Alone in the dark

  "Well, that was an interesting experience," Spike muttered to himself inside his room. It was a cold night in Good Springs, and it's residents have been asleep for quite some time now. At least, judging by the lights. But somehow, Spike couldn't sleep. Maybe it's the fact that Twenty-one just left without him noticing, or maybe it's because his necklace has something to do with it...

  Spike tossed and turned on the bed and finally sat up. Try as he might, he can’t sleep at all. He has too much on his mind, Spike never considered Twenty-one a friend, but having someone to watch your back was kind of important to him... Needless to say, he needs someone to have a heart to heart with...

  So Spike stood up and shuffled towards the chest. Good thing Twenty one didn't steal his stuff. Then again, there was never much that was worth stealing. The dragon shook his head and let out a sigh. He took out the white blade. He had a few questions that still needed to be answered, and she's the closest to MR ‘Friend’.

  Spike looked at the blade he was holding in his hands and admired its beauty. The blade had beautiful etchings at its handle, making it easier to grip. 'Makes sense,’ Spike thought to himself, as he took a general swing in front of him, whistling through the air. A yawn behind him almost made him jump.

  "Good day, my little dragon, how are you?" Asked a female voice behind Spike, the dragon turned around to face the gray mare who was laying on his bed, looking very sleepy.

  "I've seen better days". Replied Spike automatically, as he leans back to the force field that surrounds him, putting the very sharp blade where he won't cut himself.

  "So what brings you here today?" The mare asked, giving Spike a relaxed smile as she stood up from her bed and walk towards the dragon.

  "I have a few questions, and I'm feeling pretty lonely right now..." Spike replied honestly with a sigh.

  "Very understandable, considering the only ponies you could talk to for the past few days were a grumpy pony and a changeling. Not exactly what you’d call good conversationalists." Tee closed her eyes and nodded understandingly towards Spike.

“So you can read minds like mr ‘friend’?” Spike tilted his head, looking at the mare and continued with a raised eyebrow, “presuming that you even know who he is?” Spike asked the mare with a questioning yet patient tone.

  Tee nodded again towards Spike, and said: “I call him ‘love’ to mess with ponies minds. Makes them more vulnerable to penetrate and read, but I think you are way more perspective than those ponies in ponyville. Minus Twilight, of course. To notice we are actually related as soon as you saw me… My soul, if you know what I mean.” She finished with a hint of a smile on her face.

  Spike can't say that he was surprised, almost everything she said was true, and she said it herself... That, and she can also read minds. That only further proved to Spike that the two are related, if not the same. It made sense, considering that they look and sound the same. that thought just made tee’s eye twitch a little, but she gave no emphasis on showing my emotion in particular.

  Spike then closed his eyes and rubbed his face with both of his hands and a groaned, thinking to himself: ’how should I ask her without sounding blunt? Tee, what makes you different than other blades, other than your looks?’ When he was finished rubbing his face, only a few seconds later, tee was looking at him with a natural smile on her face.

  “I heard that, and I'm very offended... anyway-” she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, putting a hoof on her chest and exhaled. Tee went through this a few more times and put on a neutral smile on her face again. Spike facepalmed because he forgot she can apparently read minds.

  Tee then opened her eyes and said, “-to answer your question before it was even asked: my job, as the blade of life, is to stop the effects of the blade of death; a single cut on a lethal wound from my blade can stop said wound from either bleeding, or by killing harmful foreign creatures like germs or parasites. Still with me, dragon?” She stopped and asked spike and to take a breath for herself.

  Spike, who was by now leaning by the opposite side of force field nodded and gestured her to continue, not a single bit bothered anymore by how easily his mind can be read by a sword on the floor next to him. Tee then continued with a nod.

“The blade of death, however, is a different story. You see, the blade was only meant to bring death, unlike regular sharp objects like a scalpel or needles, which also penetrates the skin, a single cut can bring a hundred percent death via infections or unstoppable bleeding. That’s why I was made, to stop death from killing those when they were not supposed to be killed; a cure, if you will.” She closed her eyes and nodded to herself with a proud smile on her face.

  Spike just shrugged and asked the mare, “So? It’s not like normal swords, blades and knives won't do the same thing on the person targeted, what makes the black one so dangerous?” upon finishing that sentence tee’s smile slipped away from her face as she facehoofed and groaned.

   “Yes, but normal knife wounds can be healed if treated properly. The ‘black one’s’ wound will cause death, guaranteed; no matter how you treat the wound; even if it's just a small cut.” Tee finished with a frown for the first time.

  Spike noted the fact at the back of his brain and decided to change the topic. “So what do you know about the occerina, and the torch, or the artifacts in general? Their history? Maybe where they came from?” Spike asked Tee.

The mare closed her eyes and let out a sigh. She looked at Spike in silence for a few seconds as if anticipating whether or not to tell him something…

  Tee then sat down and after a moment of hesitation, she finally said, “They're good ponies, and each other's friends. They died almost one thousand, two hundred years ago.” The mare began, opening her eyes and looking directly at Spike's, piercing into his soul, her tone turning dark.

  Spike instantly noticing the change of mood from the mare, and did the only thing that he can think of, he sat down and listened.

  She then continued, “They all had names, lives, and families once, but when they were under discord’s rule, when he had risen to power oh-so many years ago, their lives had taken a turn for the worse. They had to fight for survival with other ponies just to get a few grains to eat, and worse? It was all just for shits and giggles.” Tears are starting to form at the edge of tee’s eyes when she sniffed and pressed forward.

  “All until one faithful day where the monster that was Discord, was bored with them and left them alone. They went off to seek help and snuck away. After a few days of torturous walking through the deformed land that was Equestria, they finally found hope: a young wizard with the name of Starshine, or, to your knowledge, Star S.” Tee sniffed again and wiped a tear away from her eye.

  “When they found the young wizard he was alone and was injured badly on the edge of the forest, so the few friends brought him to a cave inside the forest itself and healed him. The wizard then told them that he was crafting artifacts to stop anyone who tried to take over Equestria to harm its subjects, but those weapons needed parts of a soul to power them. Knowing full well of the evil that once took Equestria, the survivors volunteered to be the souls that power the very artifacts you hold in your chests.” Tee pointed towards Spike’s twin chest

  “But right after the spell was finished and the now active artifacts were sealed inside the chests, Discord, who had detected the large spike of magic, laid a curse on the young wizard. He was to either be killed, or destroy the very artifacts before his eyes with his own hoofs.

The wizard chose the former, so he threw the artifacts into the sky and casted an expansion spell in the middle of the chests, causing them to fly off into different directions, lost inside the forest, and because of that, Discord made this forest into the most dangerous place in equestria, so that nopony could find them…”

  “And discord killed the wizard when he was complete with the forest and cursed his soul to roam the everfree causing chaos against his will until he could find all his own artifacts and destroy them. That’s how Discord dragged him and me into this mess,” the mare sniffed and pressed on.

  “We are not normal ponies, you see. We control bodies of corpses like a ghost, which means that we don't have a physical bodies of our own. Discord then gave the same power to the wizard’s soul and took our bodies, which we perfected in the years we traveled, we named those bodies T-XI by the way, me and ‘friend’ can always leave our perfected bodies at will but Discord prevented us from entering back to our bodies we perfected. He sealed us into the artifact chests of two random artifact, replacing the original souls with us. Discord accomplished this by tracking the fading magic, it was just enough to perform to accomplish this task, but not enough to track the Chests still airborne and flying away at high speeds, so he left the forest, having no way to track all of them by once.” When tee was finished, she lead her head down with her eyes closed and filled with tears.

  Spike had to pick his jaw from the ground for the fact that tee was technically a ghost from the past and not a cut up pony's soul who was trapped by the artifact. And as if on que the mare’s body began to fizzle and starting to fade away as she looked at spike in the eye again a final tear shed from her eye and with that, she’s gone, spike then took the time to process this information, she had never seen this side of the mare before.

  She was always seen as a happy if a little childish pony… ‘It was all just a mask to hide her emotions… her real emotions... Just like ‘friend’ who had never shone any emotion at all, the pair were constantly in pain from the loneliness inside the necklace and the knife separated miles apart. Spike finally got why ‘angry’ and ‘happy’ said those things when he played the ocarina a few days ago...  And it hurt just by thinking about it,.

  Then there were the artifacts who’ve met such a tragic past by living under Discord’s rule. Celestia’s explanation on Discord was a huge, huge understatement. In any case, Spike has to think about what to do with them. keep them, or set the soul free? So can they just leave the artifact? Too much was on Spike’s mind now, so going out for a walk was probably the best thing for him. He packed the white sword back into his chest, left his room, and slapped himself in the face, having accomplished the opposite of what he was looking for…some damn sleep...

  It’s been twenty minutes since Spike had decided to take a stroll outside at goodsprings. Spike had to admit, it’s nice out at night, alone with nothing but his thoughts, the sky was filled with luna’s beautiful stars forming constellations and wonders, the air was cool as the ocean, with a gentle breeze every now and then, and the air itself smelled like freshly cut grass in the small outcast town.

  “Do you know how much I’ve missed him? It's been a thousand years already,” a female voice said beside Spike in a sad tone, Spike jolted and jumped away in the opposite direction, surprised by the sudden intruder. When Spike had recovered from the shock, he looked around quickly, only to find no one in sight.

  “Who, and where are you?” Spike asked the voice with a slightly shocked tone.

  “It's just me, Spike. Tech…” The voice replied calmly without delay, Spike then closed his eyes and let out a relief sighed then continued walking on the gravel road.

  “Say how are you here? And why?” Spike asked tee in a casual tone. Looking around the sleeping town, thinking about his loss and enjoying the cool night sky. Spike had always enjoyed the night with the stars, them being just like little gems in the sky. So deliciously beautiful, yet so unbelievably hard to reach...

  “I can’t go back to sleep…” The voice sighed as if there was something troubling the soul, “and I can leave the artifact anytime I want, I just can't take over bodies unless my blade cuts into them…” The voice continued honestly…

  After hearing that, Spike raised an eyebrow and asked the voice with a hint of suspicion in his tone,”wait, you mean when we first met, you could actually take over my body? Why can't I see you, anyway?” The voice chuckled for the first time

  And after a few seconds it replied with a friendly tone, “you can’t see souls without assistance, spike. And I can only take over dead bodies without souls, not living bodies with souls, there’s a difference between the two.” Spike then let out a sigh and continue walking on the cold road.

  “I know it’s been rough for you to get rejected twice but when you think about it, I’ve suffered a lot worse than you. Being separated with the one I love so much, so long and so far apart, we can't even find each other when we leave the blade. And i’m still here, knowing that one day this will end, for the better or for the worst. Everything will have it’s end, Spike even your friendship, the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can get over your loss and pull yourself together… I’m going to try to get some sleep now, hope that you do too,” and with that, the voice had faded away, leaving spike in the dark with himself, the moon and the gentle night breeze...

  When suddenly a mare with a dark grey coat with long pink hair was spotted not far from Spike. When he tried to approach the mare, she just walked out of sight and disappeared right before his very eyes…”ugh. More mysteries…” Spike muttered to himself...