My boot slid against the marble stairs, leaving a trail of red across the ground. I quickly averted my eyes from the sight, though I could not identify that reason myself. Something in me wished not to be reminded of the dirt crusted over my skin or the dirty green and black rags thrown haphazardly over my body.
Rays of dark red lingered over my skin and clothing, shining in the shades of the eternal sunset on my right. Always on my right. It never changed.
I could not imagine it changing. Nothing ever changed here, and -- the thought jolted through me with a spike of worries. Why had I stopped climbing? Restlessness already crawled up my limbs as would insects. But for once, the thought of moving up gave me pause.
Marble steps stretched ahead of me, circling the great pillar I was leaning against. I could not see how many more there were. They disappeared into the clouds above, likely far higher than that, in truth.
I have been walking up those stairs since I got here.
I have been here from as far as I could remember.
Had there ever been anything before the tower? It must have started at some point. What had there been before that first step? I wondered.
The palm of my left hand twitched, my fingers itching to curl over a solid… something. I gazed on my right, and it was so red… covered in red, blood pooling at the center and cascading onto the steps.
Images flashed before my eyes. I caught but a glimpse of the shadows of sunset spreading over fields of overturned soil, of the flickering flame of a tinder over before a tightly clutch pipe. Cold seeped into me. Why could I not remember? There had been something to remember. Why couldn’t I remember?!
I shot a wild look to the spiralling stairs above, willing myself to remember, and all I could think of was the moment I would finally reach the top.
And that thought, the simple act of wishing for the future, created a great shift in the air. For at first, I shivered and turned around, as if someone had just looked over my shoulder. Then, the steps under me trembled. On my left -- always my left -- the central pillar suddenly split open on a crystalline blue door.
I stared.
“What in the world...?”
Slowly, the door turned on its hinges and opened unto a sea of light.
When I could finally see again, I could not feel the steps beneath me. This floor was flatter, and its marble white color had turned into shades of dark grey and blue.
And I wasn’t alone.
There was a horse. A mare, from what I could tell, but I wasn’t certain if I should trust my eyes yet. Her fur clashed greatly with the darker shades of the room, bright pink as it was. That, I could forgive my brain for. But my eyes glided over the typical parts of a horse to linger over the horn on her forehead and the wings attached to her back.
“Hello, Philippe,” rang a melodious voice.
I froze. Had she just…?
The mare rose her muzzle a little, her lips stretching into some equine version of a smile. “My name is Cadence. I was hoping you would get here soon.”
Here. What was here though?
My gaze scanned the various delicate pieces of furniture, the drawers and the silky drapes hanging from the pillars and the ceiling. Near this ‘Cadence’ mare stood a bed. A large crimson bed, the thing of… I-I had seen something like this before. Following a woman droning on and on, a large group of teenager on her heels, we walked into an ancient room… I...
I brought a hand to my forehead, groaning as pain pounded into the sides of my head.
The world seemed to disappear behind a flash of white-hot radiance. I was on my knees, blood seeping through the cuts on my right side. Burning heat licked at the wounds, as if I had only been dulled to the pain.
Gulping, I gave a confused glance to the room, and something clicked inside. “What is this place?”
Here, the room, the stairs outside. This was not normal. I couldn’t… I hadn’t been able to ask before. Not until I had met her.
“My bedchambers, as they were a long time ago...”
Idly, I noted she had dodged the question, or at least deliberately answered next to it.
“You should not think too hard on it, Philippe,” she said as if reading my thoughts. “This is only a place for you to rest on your journey.”
My journey… And I could almost feel the familiar motion of going up the steps again. How long had I been doing it? I could not even remember why I had been doing it. But if this was not the end of it… what was?
A deep sigh left my lungs, and I looked with envy at the royal bed. “When will I reach the top of the tower?”
“Once you understand why you are here.”
Something about her tone of voice ticked at my ears there.
“Why am I here?” I gestured to the crystalline furnitures, and after a second, lifted my gaze to the ceiling. Why was I in this tower? How had I even gotten here?
A small giggle flirted past Cadence’s lips, and she eyed me with a strange fondness. “Nopony can tell you this, Philippe. You have to find out yourself.”
Gritting my teeth, I threw my arms in the air, fixing her with a dirty look. “How can I ever find it if I know nothing about this place?”
She was not fazed. She waved it off with a small wave of a gilded hoof. “Oh, it’s not that complicated. You simply have to ask yourself the right questions.”
“But I don’t know what to ask!” I spat out in a burst of anger. “I don’t understand why I’m here, why you’re here or what is even happening! I don’t get it! What can I even ask that would help me understand something like this?”
“Why did she do it?”
Time stood still. I couldn’t find my voice, nor my thoughts. Eyes wide, I stared at the sudden solemnity carved upon Cadence’s every features.
“I… I don’t...”
She closed her eyes, her breathing slowing down. She spoke again, her voice clear as crystal and twice as cutting.
“You wanted to know what questions to ask. This is one. Why did Daisy carry you to your death?”
All sounds faded into a high-pitched buzzing noise. The word that burned at the front of my mind was “death”. Slowly, I raised a hand to my chest, and felt nothing. My skin was ice, cold as the earth under the autumn rain.
Cold as a corpse. Mine probably decayed in a ditch somewhere, all I was now, little more than a bone of bone and flesh. And low in my stomach, I could almost feel something churn. A somber mood befell me. Twenty was young, still too much ahead of you to meet a fair end.
What little I had… I snorted, impressed at my own temporary naïvety. The war had taken it all straight from my hands. It would have already been a miracle if there had been something to be given back once the fighting had ended.
I grew sober though, once the memories of the ranch came back in full. Those times I missed dearly, a ache pulsing in my chest. The green of the grass over the hills, the smell of the forest and the animals carried on by the wind, Mister Dubois, his eyes hidden behind half-moon glasses, who placed his strong wrinkle hand on my shoulder and saying “I trust you.”
My friends neighed as they chased one another, while I carried a ball of hay toward their manger. Daisy was the only one to nuzzle me before digging in.
My legs gave out under me, the military backpack I carried spilling onto the ground.
“Philippe. Philippe, can you hear me?”
I jerked at the feeling of someone touching my back. For a split second, for all this terrifying instant, the carnage rang again to my ears in a cacophony of whistling steam, of whirling metal, of pained howls. And pink, and soft strokes of feathers suddenly broke the nightmare apart. Like a madman, I clung to the sliver of hope opened to me.
The memories started to fade, my sight coming back into focus. The crystalline structure still dug into the small of my back. The mare in front of me was pink. Not that pale brown I knew. Pink, with wings and a spiralling horn. Had I truly never left this room?
“You need to rest,” Cadence said with a stern tone. “Sleep, I will watch over you.”
She did not give me time to protest or even consider the idea. Blue light shone over my face, its source unknown to me. My arms hung limply at my sides, and soon the whole of me was too heavy to even sit straight.
My eyelids closed to the present. My mind opened to the past.
I would awake, tears rolling on my cheeks, curled into my bed, to the sound of my squadron mates doing the same. We’d ignore each other, salvaging what little dignity we still had, and when the sun came up, we would wish, deep down, that we had reached for one another.
The same eyes that had stared at me in panic would then look at me unblinkingly, till I had to close their eyelids and pray, pray for the end and the Black Death to spring from Hell and sink the enemy’s forces.
How many hours did I spend alone in that ditch, imagining the worst tortures to inflict on the men on the other side? The next day, every trigger of my fingers felt like a oozing mixture of glee and horror to me. The running figure I had aimed at fell with a cry buried by gunshots.
I went without sleep that night, one more empty bed near me.
But my eyes flickered open, not to the sound of shouting and running in the mud, but that of a gentle melody. Clear notes hung near my ears, soft as a woman’s comfort, and I turned around under the comfortable nest of warm sheets covering me. Sleepiness lingered, my limbs heavy, but light still filtered through my eyelids. I felt through my hair the light touch of a hoof.
And that detail had my eyes shot open. The bedroom. The tower!
Cadence’s singing slowly faded away as she noticed my staring. I wished she hadn’t stopped. Just a moment, I’d been able not to think back on the comrades I’d lost.
Perhaps it was intentional. Her words had helped me remember.
“Are you feeling a bit better?” she asked softly, the blankets over me animated by the light of her horn.
“A little.” I closed the blankets over me. I hugged myself underneath. “I had forgotten so much.”
Cadence’s lips brushed my forehead, exactly as my mother used to. “The ones like you often do, Philippe.”
“Like me...?”
There was something of pity in the look she gave me. “You still don’t know.”
No. Not really. That dark place, I didn’t want to return there. But her question... it hadn’t been about them. Not about Francis, Gabriel or Jonathan. The name she used had been Daisy.
That small ray of hope near the end.
They’d given the order. Vital, they’d say, and repeated, and went on about the consequences of desertion.
I had not been able to speak. Just a nod, and my heels digging into Daisy’s sides.
I had not answered, had I?
Cadence still waited patiently for my answer. Pink feathers stroke my back as an older sister would, a soft lullaby hummed at the tip of her lips. It carried gently through the air and gave the crystallic bedchambers a warmth of home it did not have before.
My head lulled to the rhythm of her voice, as another sound, a growl from a beast of metal and oil, slowly came to me.
The rumble rose from over the hill. There was still time to direct Daisy the other way.
We stood atop the hill just as a line of tanks rolled on the hill below. The whistling of rockets soon followed.
I stared ahead blankly, trying and failing to grasp the enormity of my fate. I was dead. I was dead and this was the next step. And God, I clung to the blanket as I did when but a child. I nearly hid beneath the covers, away from Cadence, away from the stairs, from it all… but what was left of the man I had been refused to give in again.
Sighing, I finally sat up and looked the Cadence in the eyes. “I asked her to. I couldn’t keep going.”
For the briefest moment, her hooves stilled. I might not have been able to notice, had she not been in the middle of comforting me. But I did, and my brain wouldn’t let me forget it.
“I see.” She smiled as she would have before, but there was a strain to it. “You best go on your way now. You still have a long climb waiting for you.”
With a sigh of regret, I disentangled myself from her embrace and her bed. She was sending me on my way, I had no clean view of her face and yet, the impression lingered that I had disappointed her.
“Keep going, Philippe. There is nowhere to go but up.”
***
This time, the doors were oaken and plain. They opened with a rusty creak, and I carefully stepped into a warm wooden room filled with bookshelves.
I had not managed three steps inside that an excited voice called to me from behind.
“Philippe, I was waiting for you!”
I jolted and twisted around in a spin, my hands going to my waist. My fingers searched for the familiar -- hated -- weight of a weapon. Cold sweat dripped down my neck at the realization that I had none with me.
“Retreat!” shouted someone, before getting torn apart by a volley of shrapnel.
I could not move.
My fist was thrown forward, nearly touching the muzzle of another horse quite like Cadence. I could feel the twitches of my muscles as I struggled to wrench myself free of the pink glow surrounding me. The very same that shone from the lavender horn.
“W-whelp, shouldn’t have snuck up on you, right?” she said with a sheepish tone of voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you like that. I… I was just excited to meet you after you talked to Cadence.”
I swallowed, my senses coming back to me. She was a friend of Cadence. Not the enemy. NOT the enemy. I could get along. I would have to.
“My fault. I thought... ” The words refused to come. “I remembered.”
At that, the mare sent me a look full of pity, and the hold on my body winked out. I stumbled, but she supported me without visible effort. My frame did look a bit thin compared to hers.
“Careful,” she reprimanded without heat. “I don’t want you getting more hurt because of me. You’ve already, well, I know it was pretty bad.”
Despite the memories prickling at the back of my mind, I managed to keep my focus on her, mainly through a stupid bout of curiosity.
“So…” I trailed off and rubbed the back of my neck. “Who are you?”
She went beet red.
“Oh my Gosh! I can’t believe I forgot to introduce myself, again!” The mare hid her face behind her wings, using them as surprisingly convincing makeshift hands. “Ohhh, they will never let me hear the end of it.”
Bemused, I stared as the mare paced back and forth in the middle of the room, bemoaning how much of a disaster this was turning out to be, and how that was perfect proof that checklists were always essential. At first, I just stayed silent, wondering how long she could keep it up.
When her trotting had worn an actual circle in the floor, I snapped out of my daze. Kneeling, I waited for the mare to get closer, than gently scratched behind her ears. The effect was instantaneous. Her hooves stilled as a shiver ran over her skin. And then she melted against my hand.
Works every time.
“Better?” I asked after a minute of helping her relax.
Timid, not unlike the foals on the ranch when they got embarrassed, she nodded. “Well, anyway, I’m Twilight Sparkle! Twilight, or Twi, if you’re feeling friendly and I’d be honored to be your friend. And, I’m sorry about this. I can get a little frazzled at times.”
“Nice to meet you, Twilight.” I chuckled. That hadn’t been anything like what I expected. “You already know who I am. And well, you didn’t have to get so worked up over this. I didn’t really mind, it was more confusing, really.”
She nodded, giving me a friendly look, her cheeks flushed red. “Before you move on further, you should take a moment to rest. I know my hooves would be killing me if I were in your position.”
On that note, Twilight turned around and trotted in-between the shelves, with the implicit intention of me following her. To my surprise, I didn’t even hesitate. There was something about the mare that put me at ease. Her smile, perhaps, or maybe the friendliness of her, the confident bounce of her steps as she navigated her domain of books and scrolls.
“What would you like to read?” She gestured to the shelves that stretched as high and as far as the eye could see. Her expression turned a tad smug. “Without bragging, I think I have one of the greatest collection of books that exist. So you have all the choice in the world.”
I glanced at the volumes, pulling my face into a thoughtful frown. Then, with a weak whisper, I shrugged. “Anything that ends well.”
“I think you will like this one then.” She gestured toward a red book floating down from the shelves. Just as I was about to pick it up however, another, bigger one fell on top of it. “And this one afterward, and this one, oooooh, this one I know you will like! And --”
A minute later, I was lying in a bookfort, wondering how it had happened.
“I’ll leave you to it, Philippe.” She giggled. “I’ll be back with some hot chocolate in a few minutes.”
“Alright...” I whispered, still not quite sure how to react. Hot chocolate sounded pretty good right now.
Sinking into the newly christened fort, I grabbed one of Twilight’s many suggestion and allowed myself to be lost into the world of fiction.
The books with the most intricate covers also had the most fantastical stories. They told me of unicorns, pegasi and horses fighting together against dragons, griffons, mad tyrants and succubi. But… they weren’t like back there, they weren’t tales of despair and grim violence. They were about the simplest things: friends. ‘Friendship conquers all.’
‘Friendship is Magic!’ said the mares in unison. And their very last challenge perished to the might of their bond.
A grin plastered on my face, I downed the rest of my hot chocolate. It was incredibly cheesy. I couldn’t possibly want anything else.
I set the book back in the pile with a content sigh. “I think this one was the best.”
“Was it?” my friend asked, amused. Twilight’s gaze subtly had returned to me every so often, as if to gauge my reactions to the fairy tales they span. I might have said similar about the last five adventures that had ended with good triumphant.
“Yeah. That’s how things should go. All those books really are the kinds I needed.”
“I’m glad you liked them. I used to be a librarian, you know?” she admitted with a shy grin. “It was kind of my thing, knowing what ponies would like to read. It’s always fun to know I haven’t lost my touch and that grown men can indeed like children’s stories.”
I blushed at her teasing. Awkward. “Well, they were impressive tales. ”
“Oh, I would know. But enough about books -- and that’s something you will not hear from me often!” she jokingly warned. “You’re here for a reason, Philippe, but you can’t stay.”
The last of my grin slipped off. With a sigh, I looked down. The empty cup lingered, grainy traces of chocolate glued to the insides of it. The books remained, but I would not open them again. It had been nice while it lasted.
The words forced themselves on me. I had no choice but to speak them.
“When will I reach the top of the tower?”
“When you accept what you did.”
It felt like a punch to the stomach. All that sweet liquid goodness I had ingested before churned in my stomach, twisted and wavered with an intense bout of nausea. What I did...
Twilight seemed sorry, really sorry, but that did not stop her. Her eyes brimming with sadness and anger, she shattered me with a few words.
“Why did you kill her?”
I welcomed it. Even as the pain shredded my left side to pieces, even as I tasted iron and copper in splashes, I only wanted to thank the cannoneer and close my eyes.
Daisy’s screams of agony ripped apart what little serenity I had.
“She was in pain.”
Her high-pitched neigh had devolved into pitiful, quiet whinnies as the fear shone through her eyes. Pulling myself through the grit, I ran a hand through her mane, with one final whisper to her.
“She was in pain,” I whispered, feeling the weight of the knife in my hand. “It was my fault she was in pain. I had to help her. She was my friend.”
The blade sank into the flesh, the noises quieted, became gurgles of blood in the mud.
I stared at nothing. She was gone. I had killed her twice.
Gasping, I fell to my knees, my fingers digging into the flesh of my arms painfully. The bones underneath seemed on fire, twitching madly as I clenched my jaws not to scream. Tissue tore into pieces, my muscles bulging. The hairs on my skin grew thick. The nails in my fingers widened. My hands numbed till I could feel nothing.
Eyes wide in horror, I stared at where they used to be. And an insane part of my brain thought this familiar, if only for how often I had looked the underside of hooves to clean them up and adjust the horseshoes.
But those black limbs were attached to my shoulders. I could not feel my thumbs, not my palms, not my fingers. Just one on each arm -- front leg --, flexed at impulses I sent.
“Do you regret this?” asked Twilight’s voice.
“...They were the hands that took Daisy’s life,” I said, my tone flat.
It was fine. Maybe, in a big cosmic, divine way, that was just payback. The hooves I cost her replaced the hands that killed her. It was appropriate. I should not feel lost or horrified. I had no right to.
Yet, two more hooves intruded into my sight. I looked up to see Twilight’s wing just as it brushed a tear on my face, and her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Do you regret this? Philippe, do you need my help?”
I said nothing.
“...Go on then.” Twilight helped me stand. “You still have a long journey ahead of you.”
I knew. And the thought filled me with unease.
***
The first sign this time around came not from the tower, but from my left. I had been walking slowly, my hooves held against my chest in quiet disgust, when the path ahead of me darkened. Red light ceased to shine, with one fell stroke of a brush.
I let my back slid against the tower wall as I stared into the broken sunset. Beyond the clouds and the rays of red brightening the last of the day, a great gaping void had opened unto the night sky. The hand of God Himself must have descended to split the horizon in two. Night slowly threatened to take over in its starry multitude.
Something shifted against my back. I did not have time to realize, to move, that the stone gave out and the tower swallowed me in a pit of darkness.
And, just as suddenly, I landed heavily on my back against a hard surface.
For a time, I remained curled on the ground, calming my fears of divine retribution. One had already taken my hands from me, I felt understandably worried. But nothing came, no booming voice of angry creators, no sound breaking thunder; the quiet of the night waited.
Struggling, I got myself up, and realized I had landed on the balcony of a castle of sort. An attempt to grasp the stone railing had me stumble. My hoof could not hold it. With a scowl, I walked up to the telescope sitting just near the entrance.
The casing seemed old, the lense dusty and the foot frail. For some reason, its sight made my mood plummet. It seemed such a lonely thing.
On the other side of the balcony, someone had left a bucket of paint open. The brush that laid on top was tainted with the colors of the night sky. I could find no canvas, but the vastness above.
And as I turned to greet the sound of clopping hooves, I felt in my guts that this impression had been right.
This new mare had a mane like the constellations and the nebulas. It wavered by itself, as if blown by a wind no other could feel or hear. When she spoke, more so than either Cadence or Twilight, I felt the lifetime of power radiate from her person. “Greetings, Philippe. My name is Luna and I awaited your arrival.”
Three in three, I thought. This pattern just made something tick in my brain. I was glad for their presences, of course, but some part of me, some cynical cold part of me needed more. It had to know.
“Why?”
Luna paused and her brows lowered delicately. “What are you asking?”
I bit my lips. “Why were you waiting for me? How would you even know I was there?”
“We know of the deceased, and their quests.” She pointed her silver horseshoe right at my chest. “We know of you, Philippe, and all you are. We have seen the past that guided you. If you are here, then you will meet us all eventually. There is no time to run out in the White Tower.”
I gulped, my mind reeling to accept her words as true. I knew, deep down, that every part of it was true.
“Are you… goddesses?” Old shards of me burned in shame at the framed thoughts and stuttered quickly at the lowering of the mare’s brow, “I-I mean… guardian angels, kind spirits, just… someone to watch over me?”
“Celestia and I were once considered goddesses, though that was neither true nor false, even at that time. We were born immortal to fulfill a purpose, and we added another later as well.” Her lips pinched together as her coat seemed to darken. “My sister took to it with more ease than I, at first, but that is irrelevant. In our time, we did become the guardian entities of ponykind. When even this task came to an end, we were allowed here, alongside our nieces, until...”
Her voice trailed off, an awkward silence of sort falling between us.
“I suspect such tales are of little interest to you. They speak of times you will never hear or see of, from a land you will never be aware of and that is long gone.”
Those words made something pinch in my chest. “I’m sorry.”
Luna rose a delicate brow in response.
“Are you? It is generous to think of our possible suffering when you still struggle with your own.” The words were sincere but probing as the dark mare rose from her seat. The teal of her eyes became mirrors for my own closed expression. “They haunt you. The faces in the bloodied mud.”
Gabriel, half his face gone, naught but squeamish liquid oozing off the wounds where his eye and cheek used to be. It was all I had to stare at in the coming twilight, as footsteps and whizzing machinery vibrated through the earth and the mud of his trench. They’d find me soon. Perhaps. The cooling hand holding my wrist had already hardened with rigor mortis.
I heard the sound of Gabriel’s bones breaking every night, until I saw Francis’ guts spill to the ground. Then, it was just the frantics whispers, the slow, bemused words asking me if those were his guts or those of the guy to their left.
“His,” I choked out. “Not… not yours, Francis… you’ll be okay...”
My scraped knees hit solid ground, cold marble.
But I was swimming in the mud and the blood, crawling under the bodies of my comrades while bullets flew overhead. The muffled sobs felt like thunder in my ears, as I recalled everyone lost. I didn’t want to be here! I never asked! They came for me, one morning and took everything and put a gun in my hands. I never wanted this!
I struggled against the weight on my body, screaming. They would not take me! I’d seen what would happen. I didn’t want to go! I’d see them die! They would all die, afraid, on their own, and I would be left to find their corpses!
Something connected to my fist. Or the opposite, I did not know. But at that moment, when the bone gave out with a crack, what flashed before my eyes were not the faces of the recruitment agents. It was a dark blue mare glaring at me.
“I… I’m sorry. I didn’t… I forgot you were there. I didn’t mean to punch you.”
Luna examined the teeth floating in the small cloud, then sniffed and threw it over her shoulder into the abyss.
“Tis fine. We knew of war and warriors, we have seen it before many times, especially when the end became inevitable. Every nation rose in an attempt to delay it, battlefields became second homes to us, and in the end, none of it made a difference.”
I saw their faces, in life and in death. I saw the battlefield, the reports from someone who had overheard an officer, we had managed to capture a bit of terrain. They were pleased.
“Did I make a difference?” I asked in a tiny voice.
Luna scoffed, amused, and I noticed the teeth I had knocked out had already been replaced. “Of course. Every living being makes a difference, Philippe. But which one did you care to make, truly?”
“We did it, guys! The position is ours! The operation was a success!”
The men around me cheered, briefly, their voices hoarse. I didn’t join the chorus. All I could think of was Jonathan’s locket slipping out of his hands at last. The woman pictured inside stared into empty eyes.
“I… I just wanted it to mean something. Them. I talked to them and now they’re dead.”
“So are you,” Luna replied.
A bitter laugh echoed through the night air. I didn’t want to stay with her anymore. I wanted to leave and go back to… to what exactly? My endless task?
“Ask. I can feel the question burning at the front of your mind.”
I spat it out, my fists clenched tight. “When will I reach the top of the tower?”
Still, she remained calm and collected. It killed me inside. I was burning, I was shredded and I couldn’t even tell if she noticed.
“You can only know the future by knowing the past.”
“What is there to look for in my past? I already know, I’ve remembered. My name is Philippe Lafontaine. I’m twenty, I died in the war others stared and I lost far more. ”
“Yes, but war did not come to you in one day, Philippe.”
The biting snark never made it past my lips. I wheezed out a feeble noise, my throat suddenly too tight to let out any air. Her words had thrown me into a frozen lake.
“Please… don’t...”
“Why did you stay?”
Why did I stay? I asked myself, curled under my sheets, hiding from the pale light of a candle. The ranch was so remote from the village. They would only know we existed if they looked through the records. Eventually, eventually, they did, and they found Mr. Dubois and I sitting at the table.
Two empty glasses and one empty bottle.
War had been long to come, swift to draft us. They screamed it in the streets, they printed in black all over the newspaper. For so many of us, it was unnecessary. We all knew it was coming.
I had been sitting on the edges of a box, breathing in the smell of hay, musk and droppings. Romeo had stared at me hopefully, his head and its zigzagging white streak of fur leaned toward me. No treats for that young glutton. None for the others either.
The keychain dangled just over the door to the stables. The night’s cool air mocked me with the clink of metals, and every one was a call to temptation.
And I needed only look at one of them to think, “No, I can’t leave them behind.”
I chuckled mirthlessly. “Because I could never flee with all my horses. It would have only been one at most, two if we were really lucky. I couldn’t choose to leave some behind, I couldn’t choose which ones to save and which ones to leave at the army’s mercy.”
Luna stared at me in silence. Minutes ticked by, as the teal of her gaze washed over me, searched me. If she did find what she wanted, she never told. With a sigh, she stood and walked to the edge of the platform.
“Refusing to choose is a choice as well, Philippe.”
“I know.”
It struck me like lightning. My forehead banged against the marble floor, pain erupting through my skull at once. I had fallen, the agony had sliced at my waist and claimed everything underneath. I could not think, for that brief flash of pain, I could not even form a thought, but as quickly as it came, it left me further away from the man that had died.
An odd feeling of peace took hold of me. I did not know -- did not understand -- why this was happening. And yet, gazing upon the twisted horse legs attached to my hips, I only shrugged.
There were still more stairs to climb.
Luna merely glanced at my passing figure as I left her observatory.
***
The task had become tedious. Each step unsteady, each movement awkward as the wrong bones brushed against my hips. My progress slowed down until each step was a work of labor.
I could not help but want, ill thoughts aside, to drop on all four. Some old part of me, the Philippe that had worked side-by-side with all those horses, that guy felt that it should be the next step of this. Hind legs, front legs, four hooves, no hands or feet. The only natural conclusion...
But my spine hadn’t agreed with it. It had shot a spike of fiery pain through my lower back, and I cringed to think about it again. So, misshapen, my hips screaming at me, I wobbled till the tower showed me a door of stone.
Beyond it though, was a garden. A beautiful garden of a soft shade of green that made my eyes water. I swallowed the staggering wave of nostalgia down, slowing my breathing to normal. The smell! The fresh smell of grass and dew had awakened me every morning for years.
I walked further in, taking in the sights of roses growing into the hedges, of beds of lilies welcoming insects of all kinds, of the familiarity of nature so long gone from my memories. Kneeling as best as I could, I grabbed a daisy just like those that grew next to the stables. This time, I didn’t have a bunch of horses to offer it to.
“Hello, Philippe. I was expecting you.”
Maybe I had walked into that. At this point, I would have been more surprised if I hadn’t met with a horned mare again. This one felt different. It wasn’t the coat of a pure shining white, nor the multicolored mane waving as Luna’s had. There was something to her knowing eyes that made me apprehensive and curious.
“I have prepared a good cup of tea and some biscuits to share.” She motioned to a blanket spread on the grass. “You must be famished.”
For a moment, I stared at the plate of old dry biscuits, next to a platter of butter and a tea set. I swallowed as my mouth watered, but I still held back.
“If I talk to you, will I change even more?”
She held back a smile. “That, Philippe, will depend entirely on you.”
It took a second to register.
I let myself fall on my haunches, the soft grass cushioning the impact. I could not help notice the comfort such a simple contact made. But anything would be heavenly after the hellish climb up here. I had given up counting the time or the steps. At some point, I just felt that it would stop me from getting further.
With something of a grunt, I looked at the treats splayed over the bicolor blanket. My front hooves twitched against my sides, warmth washing over my face in anger. Yeah, no way I could pick anything up without fingers.
Distantly, I wondered if this Celestia had planned this or if she hadn’t thought of it. The way she held herself, the subtle questions in her gaze, it was like being in front of an old school teacher.
I spoke, raising my hooves into view, “This is not a punishment.”
“No.”
“It’s not a reward either.”
Celestia looked at me from over her teacup. “No.”
I felt something twist in my still human stomach. “What is it then?”
The cup floated down to the table and hit it with a small clink of porcelain. Celestia gazed into my eyes, a sliver of an emotion old and unknowable nailing me into place. It reminded me of old Mister Dubois. “It is you.”
Really? This? Those changes, the loss of my limbs; that couldn’t possibly be what I was in truth. I’d… I had only spent my life around them. I had lived amongst my own little herd, most of those horses raised by my care and Mr. Dubois’.
Home. Home had been with them.
With them… the thought carved its way through my mind. Could it be…? My eyes widened in realization.
“When will I reach the top of the tower?”
“When you choose to take the last step.”
I felt a chill. It was the simplest answer, the least telling of them all as well. It made my heart skip a beat all the same.
“Will… something prevent me from taking it?” I motioned to my hooves, an uncertain grimace twisting my lips.
A gentle warmth brushed my front hooves. Pure white ones covered my own, dirty brown, and the look in Celestia’s eyes felt like that of a mother. “You are the only one that can stop you from reaching the top of the tower, Philippe.”
“Why would I do that? I’ve been doing this since the moment I died. I’ve been at it for what feels like years!”
“The matters of heart are never simple. You will know what awaits you, and you will choose. There will be no one to force you, one way or another. Perhaps, when you look at yourself, you will think this is not what you deserve.” Her eyes briefly went away, the very first time she had been the one to break eye contact. I could see memories etched onto her small grimace. And a fraction of second later, her glance bore into me. “There is something you must understand however, before you may proceed out of my garden.”
I steeled myself as best as I could. I knew this would hit me hard. They wouldn’t ask if I didn’t look away on my own.
“Why did you choose her?”
My gaze fell to the moving grass while a hand of ice gripped my heart. I had babbled an asinine reply back then, just the first reason to come to my mind.
They needed someone to joined the mounted cavalry. Some paper-pusher remembered me.
And later in that little corail, I should not have grinned so hard to recognize either her bay coat or his jet black. Daisy. Cowboy. I never thought I’d see them again.
My long time friends neighed softly, and trotted closer to meet my outstretched hand. The poor things looked desperately thinner. Their fur had lost its luster, care for them had obviously slipped into lower priority with every bombing. Their wounds, at least, had been treated halfway decently from what I could tell with a cursory glance.
Cowboy was first. He pushed his muzzle against my hand, seeking scratches as I used to do on the ranch.
Daisy whinnied, and violently shook herself away, her eyes wide, her barrel moving quickly with panted breaths.
“It’s me, Daisy. Philippe. Don’t you remember me?”
Celestia’s voice rang hollow. “You were asked, you answered that you were the fastest on Daisy. The choice was given to you. Which of your horses should be your partner? And you chose her.”
I rested my head against her barrel, stroking her neck and her ears until the strong, pulsive beat beneath her skin grew slower again. We fall asleep soon afterward to the gentle hum of our own breathing.
“I needed her. ”
I hummed as I brushed the filly’s mane. She jumped and jolted every time lightning struck, the poor girl. She hadn’t learned yet that the thunder wouldn’t hurt her, not in the stables with me. But I could teach her.
“Easy, girl.” I shushed her. “You’re safe here. There’s no danger.”
That night, I would not return home to sleep. The next morning, I would wake to the joyful whinnies of an hyperactive filly.
And how I beamed in pride, when Mr. Dubois saw the easy bond that had been forged between us.
My front hooves tapped against the ground, not unlike Cowboy when the poor stallion grew nervous.
Celestia had never stopped staring. Her face remained carefully blank.
My words came out as a plea. “Was I wrong? Was it wrong of me to pick her? Would it have been different if I had picked Cowboy instead?!”
Daisy cried out first.
The tears gathered in my eyes. I could not wipe them out with my hands gone.
The stump where her leg had been jerked. My grip on my knife tightened.
Celestia still didn’t speak.
“It had to be her! It had to be Daisy! I… I thought I could get through it with her, but when I heard them over the hills, I… I couldn’t...”
I had laughed at the sight of so much reinforcements coming to the enemy’s aid. I had laughed, and tears had rolled down my cheeks.
Tears pricked at my eyes now. “I killed us both...”
Celestia said softly, “She forgave you. She always forgave you.”
“It had to be Daisy, she was my best friend. I thought it might be enough. I --”
The rest died in a gurgle of pain. My body seized and my back arched. The world flashed white, blinking out of existence before my eyes while I fell backward.
I writhed on the grass, unable to scream as my innards shuffled and scrambled into places. My chest and shoulders broadened, thickened, almost inflating like balloons, and the only thought in my mind was “Let it end soon, let it end. The rockets hurt less than this.”
When finally, covered in sweat, my limbs like wet cotton, I could breath, I knew the change had been complete. Standing proved difficult. An encouragement from Celestia reminded me to roll on my sides and try what I had seen the Cowboy do many times after playing.
Panting, I stared at the ground, my thoughts in shamble. Looking up proved hazardous. The muscles in my neck were neither as strong or as long as necessary for that to work more than a few seconds. The only thing human left of me was my face.
I didn’t want to see my reflection in Celestia’s eyes.
“Where… where to go now?” I asked in dishevelled grunts, dodging her gaze.
“There is still something for you to do.”
The legs that came into view in the corner of my eyes struck me with their familiar shade of pink. The memories flooded back to me, and the question flashed in my mind. Things seemed to click together. I had met four of them, but changed only thrice. And I knew now, Celestia’s words too fresh and haunting to ever leave me again.
“She always forgave you.”
“I answered wrong the first time, didn’t I?” At Cadence’s silent nod, I sighed. Of course. The right answer back then... “Does that mean I won’t reach the top of the tower?”
She gave me an indulgent look. “No, it means you have to try again. Do you know the answer this time? Do you know why Daisy carried you to your death?”
“Yes,” I whispered, the words choked by the emotion while the bones in my neck began to creak.
The change was not long to come, nor to complete. Yet, in that one moment, the last of the man I had been became lost. My face, the part most me, shifted. My nose and my mouth stretched, my ears moved atop of my head. The unkempt beard on my cheek grew and covered the last of my naked skin in fur.
The shiver reached past my spine, and I shook, the answer clawing so deeply at my mind that tears slid down my face. “She did it because she loves me.”
And at once, the torment stopped. With a soft neigh, I stood and realized the change had been complete. I was a horse. A stallion, much the same as in the dreams of my childhood -- and near adulthood, when the ranch truly swallowed my life. The neigh that passed my lips reminded me entirely too much of Romeo, when he wanted to be let out of his box.
I really wished there was a mirror in this garden. The curiosity burned at the front of my mind. I was used to telling breeds apart through sight, but never from this perspective. Maybe a Percheron? It’d be fitting, considering, and I was black furred.
I stretched my neck, to a view of my backside and my back. Decent enough. Definitely all horse too. My tail flicked to the side as if to snipe an offending fly.
Ah! A fly, here. The thought could have made me laugh. The tower wasn’t a place for them.
But it was a place for those like me, and their guides.
All four of them looked at me calmly at Cadence’s sides, a glint of amusement in their eyes. And in the smiles they showed, I read pride. I was reaching the end of my journey.
Wordlessly, Celestia gestured to the arch in the between the hedges. Where there had been nothing before, a flight of stairs, much shorter this time around, stood waiting for a lost soul.
I could hear the wind and the voices beyond.
“Are they all...?” I paused, my hooves digging into the stone as shame and desire burned through me. “Cowboy, Romeo, Princess… Are they also…?”
The air behind me shifted, something of it cooler and gentler, its wings wrapped around me.
With a glance, I saw all four mares standing at my sides, with me.
Twilight stepped forth, a gentle smile on her face. “Not all of them. Not yet. But they will find you in their times. We promise.”
The first of my hooves landed on the steps. This was it, the top of the tower, the next adventure. As a horse this time. Eh. Maybe I would finally know if they had been insulting me behind my back when I got them separated during the mares’ heat. Would they all be pleased to see me return? Would any of them be? I had only seen Cowboy and Daisy; the others, I had not seen again. What did they think of me?
“They are waiting for you,” Celestia said softly.
The wind caressed my face and my hair as Lightning sped up. The reins jolted in my hands with each steps on uneven terrain. My heart threatened to give out from sheer excitement. Alive. That grizzling feeling, that was what it meant to be alive.
Whinnies rang from over the hill. Cowboy stood there, challenging, and I felt with a reckless glee Lightning answer that.
“Thank you. Thank you all.”
A sob racked my throat. I did not know if I was laughing or crying, but the horrors that had pursued me from life quieted. The faces grinned bright, the eyes were shining. The screams and cries simply left.
The arch passed by me, each impulse travelling my legs moving me closer to the end of my journey. Now I understood. It had been laid out before me. It was no punishment… it was me. Me as I had been before the pain had taken over. The simple childish wonder of a man that had friends waiting for him to come back to them.
Light shone at the end of the path, and I took the final step without hesitation.
My hoof landed in a patch of grass. For a second, I marveled at the sensation, the delicate brush against the bottom of my hoof. It felt true. As it should have been all along. Right. My blood hummed. It felt right.
Laughing, I jumped and neighed and bucked. The world was before me, at my hooves, ready for me. I stretched my neck, my ears twitching on top of my head to catch the faintest song in the wind. Was this how the others had felt the whole time? In another life, that might have made me envious. Now, I smiled, my chest warm at the joy my friends must have experienced on the ranch. When I met them, I’d tell them as much. For one final time, I glanced back to where I had come from.
The path had disappeared, gone in search of another lost one. I was no longer in need of it.
In the distance, I saw a herd, and one bay mare looked up. Her head turned to me.
I ran to join them. I had found my place.
Author's Note
This was an entry for the Transformation group contest. Write a 3 to 15k words transformation story using three tropes of your choice. Without further ado, there they are.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StairwayToHeaven
(with a dash of Absurdly Long Staircase)
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BitByBitTransformation
(fairly obvious)
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArcWords
“When will I reach the top of the tower?”
