The Wastelands Sacrifice to be

The pieces of my life had fallen away so long ago, so much so I am picking up the pieces to this day. I wanted to tell everyone that I wasn’t okay but how can I when no one really cares? Or rather, that’s what I thought. I was surrounded by so many people who cared for me before I left to find the one piece of me I could not live without. I had to find her as fast as possible and I would tear down the wastes to find her. She was my sister but I couldn’t leave her like this anymore.

So I struck out to find the piece of me I needed desperately as my system’s tracker had led me to a town. I found her in New Appaloosa with a slight fear she was captured by these earth ponies. Instead I find out she had lost her memory and was afraid of me. I was crushed as I hid in the mountains for fear of making her scared again. Little did I know, a storm rolled in washing a phoenix to my cave. I blocked us in so I could sleep at night.

With nightmares or rather visions of my sister falling to lightning, I had shot awake in fear. Retching tears and shaking consumed me as I just felt I needed to check. She was at the base of the mountain I lived on surrounded by other ponies and Sheriff Apple Miles. He let me carry her back, even helping me dig her grave. I saw the moon shine through to show its rays upon her grave as a last gift. I just left in tears to find somewhere to rest. That’s when Sheriff Miles told me of his hunt for the elements. He spoke of how he was loyalty and I was one but he couldn’t place it. I told him I’d agree to help him, finding a friend in Apple Miles. So now we wake in his house after we drank cider and talked about our lives with my sister all night.

My less than graceful wake up as I had to walk to his trash ca to get sick. After emptying the little content in my stomach, I found myself looking at what could have been a laughing Saphire. I just sighed and sat back in the small one room house, nibbling on an apple from his food crate. I just hated feeling like crap as I stared at my armor across the room with a hateful look, knowing it is the reason this whole mess started. Though one good thing came from this mess because I got to meet Miles, who is a genuinely kind pony to me.

He got up with ease, showing almost no hangover, his jovial smile as bright as usual. He walked over to me with a soft look to him. He accepted our predicament but also only saw the element I could be behind my mask of tactics and war. He sat beside me and pulled me into his chest for a hug. Letting this happen, he just held me like that, “You didn’t sound too good this morning. Can’t handle your cider can you, Miss Knight?” He laughed the idea off a moment as we sat like that a little while. Peaceful was the right word to think of as his warm frame made me feel like I had a heart left in me. It wasn’t completely pieced together but it was good enough.

Less graceful sounding than wanted, I spoke with a grumbled speech of a filly who was too sick to go to school, “I just… Feel like crap. How do you drink that much Cider and feel nothing? How is that possible at all? I had less than you and I still feel like a gryphon beat the tar out of me.” I leaned my head onto his chest as I had lost all boundaries between him and me since last night. He was like my knight in shining armor rather than me being his. I just knew that I was needed again and that was all. Miles needed me to help him and that was all that mattered to me.

Miles let me out of his grasp to find his cowpony hat and his holster. He played it over his flank and tied it with ease. With a worried gaze, he turned to see me wobbly on my feet. Though I felt fine, his look told me something wasn’t right about what he saw. He trotted over to me with look of fear instead of worry now. I just saw him try to shake me a bit in whatever realization he had made that something was wrong with me. He spoke but I never heard his words at all.

Just out of the blue, my world no longer looked like a very small house. It was like I was being brought to another world or plane of existence, or rather to the moon. That’s when I saw her, Luna herself, standing there with a cold look towards me. Her eyes spoke volumes that this was to be a grim warning not a good one. She spoke to me with a tone of stern command, like an order, “Leave this stallion now. Turn back before it’s too late. You cannot succeed in what you think is the right thing to do. Only something that wants to be cured can be. Don’t force others to die for something that will only try to kill you. Leave it be…”

Just like that, Luna was gone. I saw the moon, in detail, around me with all of Equestria and the planet below. I was brought down to the Equestrian wastes to see all of these ponies dead. That’s when I saw my body was being pulled out of the armor. I was bloodied and beaten from who knows what. Miles was carrying me almost as beaten as myself. He pulled me from a nearby pile of dead ponies in a savage battle. I watched as he fell beside me just near some shining object with a star on it. Not just any objects, the elements from the ancient lore in the vault. I saw myself lay a head on Mile’s hoof before slowly dying. He just nuzzled me until the bodies were motionless.

“Luna, why is this happening? Why are you showing me all of this? Please?!?” I called out to her as she came to stand in front of me once more. Her expression was grim and dark with the knowledge she knew I now had. She walked to me and showed pity now. She just put a hoof around me with tears streaming from her eyes. Why was she sad about this? I died didn’t I, I thought, why did it upset her.

Luna just spoke out of pity to me with a small smile, “I know it’s hard to do. Tell him you won’t find them. Let the two of you live together in the future I know you can have. Leave the wastelands as they are. You have such a beautiful future without this journey you two want to go after so badly.” She was sad that I could die, let alone die by Miles side… She knew that I wouldn’t survive this journey but how? I just shivered in fear until she spoke again, “Take what I said to heart. Leave the wastelands be. I know a filly who watches your dreams each night wanting you to live happily.”

With that Luna faded from view until I saw only the bodies of Miles and myself. I just cried, tears flowing like a river until I felt my world break down on me. I saw the fear of it all collapse on me. The dark world around me was beginning to move. I raised my head to see the house I knew from before. I was laying on the blankets he used as a bed, even covered up. Questioning the current situation, I saw Miles sleeping on the bed beside me. What happened to me, I thought. I was talking to him and then I saw… No I didn’t see her, I thought, it had to be a dream. But I felt the rock of the moon under my hooves, I knew was real so why did I want to deny it.

I must have startled Miles as he looked at me with a weary smile. He reaches a hoof up to check my temperature as relief coats his tired features, “Well you’re fever is gone. I was afraid for you. You seemed to be mumbling in your sleep though like something was wrong… I’ve only ever seen unicorn’s magic provoke an illness like that. So what unicorn did you see? Why were they trying to contact you?”

“It was… It couldn’t have been her. No. I want to believe she’s real or alive but how? I just…” my memories were playing with me as they showed Luna back to me. I just shook my head as her words seemed to echo in my head. It was time to think on this though, “Miles… It was… A spirit of the moon… She told me we need to leave the Wastelands be… She has to be wrong. But Miles I saw these ponies dead beside us. I saw us die together inches from the Elements of Harmony… We shou-“

Miles nuzzled my head with a soft smiled as he smiles softly, “It’s okay. We won’t die. I won’t allow it. I’m here to protect you. I won’t allow you to be harmed. That goes for any friends we make. Remember, loyalty or not, I was a sheriff… As for us together, I won’t allow us to die.” He stood not wanting me to move yet. He looked back down at me, trying to avoid the subject, “You should rest another day. We’ll leave when you’re well again.”

He seemed to be bothered by something. I just stared at him and thought how to word myself without me seeming like I’m prying. Unfortunately there was no other way to word it. My voice was slightly hoarse as it came out with curiosity coating it like rain coating Equestria in waves, “What’s wrong? You’re bothered and I know it. What happened that you are so clearly worried about?”

“It’s just… You glowed for a moment. Like you were using magic but that’s impossible right? I mean you are a bat pony. It just can’t be imaginably possible…” he really seemed bothered by this as if something else was on his mind. He sighed and laid beside me once more. He was warm to my cold form as I realized he had taken my armor off. Staying like that for a long time that day, I let my head rest on his hoof as he let his own head rest on me in return.

Knowing the fever was there, resting was the best option that day. So today we rested until the fever was gone. Later on the Doctor pony came and told me that I should be fine by tomorrow. He left me canteen of good water to drink and a grass sandwich. With his leave, Miles and I slept like that all day. That was when that night he had passed out finally. I got up and walked outside to see the clouds. I knew the moon was above it as I focused my mind. Flying to the sky, I climbed the altitudes to the cloud cover. I kicked a small hole in the cloud cover. I flew into the sky above the clouds towards the moon. I knew I was hidden well in the night so the pegasi would not see me. I got close to the moon until I was teleported there.

Making a second appearance, Luna stood there with accusatory eyes. She knew what I had to say already but I needed to say it. I raised my voice to a determined point, “I will find them. The Wastes do not seem to have the will to be cured but it is because they are as corrupted as the psycho ponies that live in it. This corruption can be changed if you try. If you are here you could have done something about it. So let me do so in your stead. I can save them all. Equestria can be as it once was in the legends. I won’t accept that this place is to remain a blood bath of corruption and hatred.”

She seemed shocked by my words but watched my every expression as well. With a nod, she smiled, “As my sister once did, I found a pupil in you at a young age. The moon has always come to remind you that you are truly gifted. You will replace me as princess to save this land. I remained in spirit to guide you. So please confer to the moon if you ever need me. For now, I want you to see what you have truly earned in your efforts in life.”

Like an explosion of light around me, I saw the phoenix of my cutie mark come out and surround me in blue fires. My eyes blanked as they seemed to white out. My body was changing but what was going on with me. I felt my wings seem to shift as my world began to blank. With that Luna left me with one last phrase, “Follow the rays of the moon that guide you and you will always succeed. Good luck, Cryo.”

The earth came hurtling towards me, I could hear it. Still blinded, my body had allowed me to black out. I woke as the ground around me was burned with marks of a magic implosions. My body felt stronger than I ever have before as my vision finally returned. I turned to look as my mane was like Luna’s but it gracefully flowed down. My coat was the beautiful blue-grey of before except it almost shined. I saw my tail flowed around my hooves as there was a faded starry blue where the center of my mane was a solid blue that shown like the night. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I caught a puddle. I had a horn like a unicorn… No… Like Luna herself. What had happened to me?

I looked back at the puddle after hearing Miles call out for me. He was coming but I couldn’t let him see me like this. I focused my mind believing in myself as I thought of at least looking like I was before. Like that, I saw my old self in the puddle as I realized it was a simple transformation spell but I could still use magic for now. I saw him come towards me as he sighed relief. I spoke up, “Sorry. I wanted to take a walk in the moonlight. It calms me…”

Lying was hard but he seemed to accept it. Like he knew I had a reason, he left it alone as he put a hoof to my head. He smiled, “Hey your fever is gone. You’re all better now thankfully. Let’s get some rest before we leave at dawn shall we?” He led me back as I just simply let it happen. He can’t know yet. So we fell asleep on the bed till dawn. I got up last unfortunately as I saw him staring at me with a shocked look.

“What happened last night?” he seemed shocked as I could only guess why…

It’s going to be a fun day…