Second (or Third) Chances

Chapters

Memory I - Waste
Memory II - Walk
Memory III - Sick
Act I - Lied

Memory I - Waste

"Where do you want me to start?" a powerful voice boomed from the very air.

Celestia looked around, and down, at the seemingly endless heights of the shelves around her, each nearly overflowing with books, and the red carpet that was just a few centimeters too thin to reach the bases of the shelves. The carpet snaked its way from side to side as it stretched up and down the thousands of rows of bookshelves.

She had enough space between adjacent shelves to move around in with comfort, and she could tell simply from looking at the books which ones she had so carefully crafted and placed atop their shelves. She had never felt at ease with herself for doing it since then, but it had to be done.

Better a new subject be conjured from nowhere than an unstable, arrogant, narcissistic prince who thought he was entitled and capable enough to rule Equestria by himself.

She looked up and down the hall of bookshelves, setting off to find the end of the shelves that flanked her on either side, and said, "Wherever you can start. Just look around for a memory that you believe wasn't synthesized."

"With all due respect, your highness, I have a lot of questions, and I'd like some answers. That's why I agreed to let you inside my head. I don't let just anyone inside my head without expecting something for it," the voice said. It was nervous, and clearly less confident in its ability to force her back out of its domain than it let on.

"The sooner we start, the sooner we can have a real discussion about them. But until such time, I can either follow you to the memories you believe, or I can start poking around in the less public ones," she answered. Rounding a corner, she trekked past a seemingly endless forest of shelves.

"Um... Gimme me a moment," the voice said, and then left her to walk in the silent library of its mind.

Finally coming to an open study area, Celestia sat down at a large wooden desk, and hemmed thoughtfully as she awaited the voice's response.

"Ah. I'm pretty sure this one's real," the voice said, and a single book flew down from above her. After landing softly on the desk, it opened, and released a flash of blinding white light. The light consumed the room, and Celestia felt her senses being redirected as the memory enveloped her.

"How wasted can life leave you?" a voice asked, one that through the crowd of drunken friends and coworkers cut. It sliced through the clamor of laughter and jubilation, and drilled itself into my mind.

I frowned, lowering the octagonal prism of a mug, made of chilled glass and dripping with condensation, onto the bar. I felt my ears standing up and my wings rustling beneath my cloak. I probed my not nearly drunk enough mind for an answer, casting aside notions of context or intent.

How wasted... The thought buzzed around at the back of my skull, thrashing about, shaking loose other thoughts, ones I'd come to the bar in order to expel. I bit my lip, and lifted my mug to my lips, tipping it back, gulping down the apple cider. My throat burned, not because the liquid was warm, it was frigid, but because the ethanol lowered the activation temperature of thermoreceptor cells in my throat, tricking me into believing that my own body temperature was too hot.

I coughed, wondering why nopony had even noticed a teenager drinking his mind out.

Maybe I didn't look like a teenager. Maybe, after all of the wasting life had done to me, the world recognized that I wasn't a kid anymore.

Yeah, I scoffed, like the world recognized anything.

Someone, much larger than me, brushed past me, almost knocking me out of my stool, and didn't bother to apologize or consider me in the least.

I turned around, and blinked.

The bar and tables were empty, the sounds all vanishing, the party having passed. Its attendants having all gone home to empty their stomachs or make foals of themselves.

I sighed, and turned to face forward. I looked down at my empty mug, and muttered to the bartender, "How much do I owe you?" I looked up, and then straight down.

One of my policies stated that I wouldn't look at any part of anypony's body unless they gave me permission to do so, aside from the eyes. I'd made this rule to compensate for my lack of social experience, along with the fact that I wanted to be polite, and would lose every fight on purpose before hurting someone else.

I had a bit of an empathy problem, but not the kind that comes to mind with that phrase. I didn't lack empathy, and most of the people I knew would say that I had the opposite problem. I cared too much, no matter how little sense it made. I couldn't just look away, and I couldn't stand for something that I knew was wrong.

This quirk of mine had earned me a few black eyes, bloody noses, and scars. Most of these injuries had healed quickly, often without much medical attention, a few stitches on the worst of them, and I'd be fine by the end of the week.

The bartender said, "One and a quarter dozens."

I sighed inwardly, glad that I hadn't gone too overboard that night. It wasn't that I had an addiction to alcohol, so much as a terribly inefficient digestive system. I wasn't a normal bat pony —if such a creature existed— and had hematophagy, a blood based diet. Such ponies had been considered special before Nightmare Moon, super soldiers, even.

Now, that was a long time ago, and vampires weren't really revered for their skill in killing so much as their fabled abilities in bed. Nopony had ever been able to explain the origins of such a myth to me, probably because I didn't know any other bat ponies, and the nearest vampire bat pony lived a long way away.

I hadn't had any blood in a while, not that I would complain about ponies not walking up to me with the intention of letting me bite them. I couldn't imagine that the concept of such a thing seemed appealing to most ponies. It just made things difficult for me. And anypony in their right mind would simply run away if I asked them, "May I drink your blood?"

I shook my head solemnly, and dug through a pocket in my cloak, producing fifteen gold coins. I set them down on the counter, and said, "I'd give you a tip if I had any money left on me. Your job can't be easy, but it's a job, so you're stuck with it." I looked down at the shimmering marble floor between my stool and the counter, and frowned as I tried to recall the date.

"You can't be doing any better, given your age and all," her deep voice answered.

So she knew that I was underage, but had sold me the cider anyway. Perhaps she hadn't been the one to give me the drinks. Actually, no, the bartender had been a stallion when I was last given a mug. "Speaking of time, do you know what day of the week it is?" I asked her.

"Friday," she said.

I sighed, and shook my head, as I often did after a long night of drinking. I wasn't depressed, at least, as far as I could tell, but the fact that I was already hooked on alcohol and just out of school still irked me. And even the very thought of school drew me back to memories.

I smiled for a moment, remembering what delight I had felt upon receiving my schedule during my freshmen year. I had already taken biology and advanced biochemistry in middle school, a feat to which I had often subtly drawn attention, so as not to brag per say while simultaneously showing everyone up.

I had been so excited about being applied to the advanced chemistry courses. How grand that day had felt. I had rushed to my parents' bedroom to show them, and they had been proud. They had never been prouder of me, of their son, of what I could do, of what I was doing.

They also hadn't been as proud since. Then again, I suppose none of that pride was real to begin with. Heck, that memory probably isn't even real, knowing what I do now.

In any case, I remember that, in the first four years to follow that day, my life had been one great thing after another, achievement after glorious achievement. But my parents had never been present enough to be proud, to spend time with me. I had still managed to get by with my classes, along well with my peers, and good grades.

I had attended the University of Canterlot in my final two years of high school, taking classes under the best science professors the world had to provide, and I had loved to be there. So, since I liked it so much, and I was a rising wunderkind, I applied to enter college. The board gave me an incredibly useful scholarship, along with a discount for financial aid, as my family was simply struggling to pay the bills.

I got a major in applied chemistry, and took to schooling like nothing else. I was the big nerd on campus, and told myself that everyone who didn't like me was just jealous of my success.

You're probably wondering where the depressing great tragedy is, right?

Just hang in there.

After two years of college, I was given the axe for drug charges.

Post graduation life had done me in. Hard.

All of the skills and hopes and dreams that naïve colt had gathered during his education had only brought me into a world of pain.

It had started with a few other students knocking on the entrance to my dorm room, which had bothered my roommate to no end.

If you wanna know who he was —and, you don't, let's be honest— look up the EUP Guard, and just look for the bulky one with a flowing blue mane and a princess for his bride. He's that one. Sometimes I thought about checking in on him, but his wedding had just been in the news, and I didn't wanna compound his use as a food supply by a changeling. Besides, he was on his honeymoon, and the last time I'd seen his wife, well...

Let's steer away from that. It wasn't good. In my defense, the song had been his idea, and I was the only sensible person performing it.

Where was I?

Right.

So, as it turns out, the ponies who kept knocking on my dorm room were a part of some coalition, and all wanted the same thing from me. They had decided that a nerd with a chemistry major was the right sort of person they needed in order to kick off their drug business.

I, being a sensible person, not interested in losing my scholarship, dignity, or rapport with the university, said something along the lines of, "It's the middle of the night. I have studying to do, a career ahead of me, and a serious disinterest in helping you with your opium business. Now why don't you get outta here before my roommate's marefriend has you all beheaded?"

In my defense, I hadn't known that they were serious.

So yeah, the next year, when I had no roommate, they started showing up again, in groups, with weapons.

And so, with more leverage over me than a full grown adult on a seesaw, they turned my dorm into their production center, from which they directly sold small quantities of illicit drugs contained within stolen lab glassware. When I fell behind on production, or didn't come to my dorm for the night —both because I was staying in a friend's place to study— they'd track me down, inject me with whatever they hadn't sold enough of, and drag me back to my dorm.

Needless to say, someone called for an investigation. I'd pled guilty to the judge, told her that the gang had forced me to synthesize, process, sell, and take drugs on school property. The judge had appealed my case, and I had been released on account of my victimization.

I was just glad to get off on the whole thing without losing my scholarship, until I began to show symptoms of withdrawal. Those gang members had gotten me hooked on a lot of things, and I do mean a lot.

While they were sitting in jail, I was trying to get help handling my addictions, but I couldn't get off of the one thing so difficult to get that I started dumping what remained of my savings into the lap of a big cartel. Aurora isn't especially detrimental to one's health, which is why it's so dangerous. There is no way it can kill you.

I could have replaced every drop of blood in my body with aurora, and I would only die because I didn't have any blood. As long as enough of the fluid in my veins was blood, I could take as much of the stuff as my body needed.

The bartender's voice bounced off the walls, echoing back to my sonar ears, shaking me free of my reverie. I blinked as my mind gathered the sound, and constructed the room around me. I found myself sitting at the bar, looking up at her, forgetting for that moment why I hadn't looked at her.

I blinked, my earthy brown eyes dilating, as if I were a bit awed by what I saw.

Keep in mind that I hadn't looked at anyone directly for a long time. My ears let me know where everyone was, and what shape they were in, even how fast they were moving, and in which direction. So when I laid eyes upon the pegasus, with feathers well preened and aligned to perfection, something inside me snapped awake.

My heart threatened to burst free of my chest, and my eyes fixed on hers. I tried to keep my mouth closed, but I don't think it worked. My ears spun from the sides of my head to point directly at her, and the right one flicked a bit. The only thing that could have made my reaction any more obvious would be if my wings stiffened.

"So how drunk are you? I'm not that attractive," she said.

Fiddlesticks, every last word.

Her eyes, her eyes alone drew my attention more than anything else.

My wings shot out at my sides, and my cloak did nothing to contain them, because of course it didn't. I gulped, looked back down, and said, "Well... You have to understand, I don't look at people."

Great, and now I sounded like I was absolutely drunk.

"It's always a bat pony," she sighed.

Biting my lip as I collected my thoughts, I wrapped my wings around my own chest, keeping them mostly out of sight, and said, "I'm used to using my ears. I just... I figure nopony wants a vampire staring at them, like I'll steal their soul if they look me in the eye."

She raised her right eyebrow at me, and said, "I know some other bat ponies. And I know that they don't drink blood."

I figured she deserved an explanation, after I'd stared at her. I finally closed my eyes, and looked away. "To be more specific, you know some fruit bat ponies," I said, and folded my wings at my sides, calming down a bit. But an afterimage of her stuck inside my head. "I'm what some other bats refer to as a hex-bat, a subspecies of the common bat pony."

I don't think she took me seriously, not that I could blame her. I wouldn't have taken me seriously, after downing five mugs of cider.

Now, the reason I can still remember what happened that night is this; my digestive system is really terrible at its job. I wasn't absorbing nearly as much alcohol as a normal pony would have after drinking that much.

She leaned forward, and said, "Listen, Rad, I gotta close up shop sooner or later, and I can't do that until you leave."

Had I told her my name? I didn't remember telling her my name. Why had she called me by that nickname? I hadn't gone by that name in forever. Wait a minute.

I looked back up at her, and quickly glanced between her and the mug she had in front of her. The mug was steaming from the top, and I could smell catmint in the air, a smell that drew me back to high school. I had a friend er... former friend, who had loved catmint in her tea. I narrowed my eyes at her, and asked, "Holy shoot. Firefly?"

Oh wow. She hadn't changed a bit. She'd grown taller, and I swear that I could see real muscle in her shoulders, but she had barely changed at all.

"Look who's forgotten who?" she said, rolling her eyes. "I really wanna go home and unwind, so move along to the next bar, if you don't mind."

"I haven't forgotten you. I just didn't recognize you. I don't like looking at people. I worry about what they think of a guy who just stares at all the mares at a party, so I don't look at people. I've learned to use my ears since we last spoke, and I've been using my eyes less and less," I said. "Dang, I can't believe you're working in a bar."

Then I remembered what I'd said when we last spoke, and bit my lip. I looked down, and said, "Sorry to bother you. I... I wish I hadn't said what I did, and I know that I should have been less of a jerk..." I shook my head, and slipped off the stool, turning around to leave. I slowly trotted towards the door, and, as I pulled it open, said, "I... If it's any consolation, my life's gone to shit, and I'm in a right state. Maybe that karma you always talked about is real."

And, just like that, something in my head clicked into place. Something fit where it hadn't previously, and, as I stood there, I glanced at the window, catching sight of her reflection in on the glass. I could see her smiling at me, and she said, "I've gotten over it, you know. I'm not gonna hold a grudge against you for something you said when you were still going through puberty. Odds are, you've changed since then, and I'm sure you're only telling me that your life is bad because your professor doesn't have enough time for you."

I bit my lip, and, basing my decision on information collected several years ago, about a person that basically didn't exist anymore, who had probably been worn away by life after school, told her, "I... got kicked out."

She lifted a hoof to stop me, and said, "Wait up. You have a story to tell, and I'm still here for you."

Still there for me. She was still there for me. That phrase meant a lot to me. After everything that had changed since we were in school, since we'd been kids, since that awkward moment at graduation when I'd shuffled past her while pretending to have never met her, she still cared.

But, hey, that was Firefly.

I had to wipe my eye with a hoof to keep a tear from showing. I was just happy to have someone to talk to again. I hadn't reached out to any of my old friends lately, and she had been my marefriend for a couple of years. I wasn't looking for a second chance, which would have actually been a third, given our history. I just wanted somepony to care for a bit, even if I was still working to get over her in the long run.

Memory II - Walk

Celestia blinked as she emerged from the memory, and watched as the book in front of her closed, then floated away.

The voice came from one particular place this time, though it still felt more powerful than her own, and carried through the air until it may as well have come from everywhere at once, "How much of my previous relationship with Firefly... didn't happen?"

She sighed, and admitted, "I can't tell you that yet. Please, do your best to focus."

"I... I just..." It sounded pained now, hurt, even, but quickly compised itself, and said, "I think there's a bit of a communication problem here. You see, I don't know how much of my life is real, and whether or not you believe me, it's terrifying. And, when you speak like that, all cold and calculated, I feel like you don't understand. I know that you care, but I don't know how you can get your around the magnitude of the existential crisis I'm going through.

"Heck, less than a month ago, I was told by the two ponies who'd raised me that I wasn't their son, that I wasn't even a teenager, that they were hired by the government to lie to me. Do you understand how much stress that put me under? I sometimes wish that I'd let Fantasma out," it said.

She nodded slowly, and said, "I can understand that you feel scared. You don't know if you can trust anyone, even yourself, or the second mind inside of your head. Try to take a deep breath, and let it out, like your concerns are just more thoughts, because that's exactly what they are. I've been in your position before. I know how it feels when you can't tell what or whom you can trust."

There was a long pause, before the voice told her, "I... I'm sorry, your majesty. I... I hadn't considered that."

"You're forgiven," she said, waving the subject away with a hoof.

"Hm... This is why I didn't go into neuroscience. These memories aren't even in order. Half of them are so closely linked to something else that they're basically inseparable," the voice told her. "Ah, here it is."

Another book floated down from above, and opened itself as it softly met the desk, displaying its pages of pure light and thought. The raw weight of this memory bogged her down as she became a passenger on another person's ride through life.

Why hadn't I told her? Why hadn't I just told her?

It was all I could think about as I stood still, holding my breath, scanning the surrounding area with my sonar ears. Hunger had gnawed at my stomach for a full week, and all of the stray dogs in this part of the city had learned not to approach me. Then I had scared off all of the cats, but they had been so difficult to catch that they were barely worth the trouble.

The frantic skittering of short claws on the pavement tickled my senses, and I had to force myself not to lick my lips. It drew closer, and closer, and then stopped. The animal was lightweight, small, and the constant thrumming of its little heart caused me some confusion about its direction of movement.

I managed to calculate the net movement of the creature, and the clacking of its claws over a nearby piece of scrap metal allowed me to properly locate it again.

Firefly would have killed me if she could have seen what I did next.

That was why I hadn't told her, why I couldn't tell her, why I had let her believe that I was cheating on her rather than explain that I wasn't even attracted to anyone else. None of the other ponies in the world made me feel anything akin to attraction. I wasn't attracted to anything.

Anything but her.

It had been two years since junior prom, when everything had collapsed around me.

I hadn't moved on, and I would never get over her.

I winced, and let a small puff of warm air from my nostrils into the coolness that so closely represented my current state of mind.

The animal froze, and, in a split second, I made my decision.

Before the little thing could do so much as turn around, I had its tail pinned beneath my hoof.

It released a myriad of timid squeaks, each of which chipped away at my resolve, as it tried desperately to scramble away.

While it managed to appeal to my conscience, I was too hungry.

I couldn't keep living like this.

Why hadn't I just told her?

The mouse froze when my nostrils flared against the back of its head, and the near constant thrumming of its little heart shook the fur on my nose.

"Sorry," I whispered, wishing that I could speak in a language it could better understand, that I could make it happy, that I didn't have to do this in the first place. I flicked my tongue over the top row of my teeth, mixing the drops of venom that had collected on the ends of my fangs with my saliva. "It won't hurt, I promise."

It squeaked in protest, entirely unconvinced.

I opened my mouth, and roughly stroked the fur behind its right shoulder with my tongue. I waited for a moment, allowing the first few venoms to seep through the skin, which would block its nociceptors, preventing it from feeling pain. I gently swept the tips of my fangs over the rodent's right shoulder blade, and lapped at the blood that immediately rewarded my efforts.

The mouse could still tell that something was wrong, but it didn't struggle anymore, and resigned to simply drawing slow breaths as its precious blood filled my stomach.

It didn't help me feel any better just because it didn't die panicking. It still died because of me, and that was going to haunt my conscience for as long as I remembered it.

I'd take some aurora when I got home, and then wake up to find a sticky note stuck to my face. It would inform me that I had fed, but not tell me where I'd gotten the blood from.

I always did that, and I might have left some advice on the note if there were any new difficulties in hunting. But this had been an easy catch, even though I'd needed to stand still for an hour or however long it had taken me.

The sound of heavier footsteps caused me to look up, and I took a moment longer to estimate the size of the approaching creature.

I cocked my head to the side, and closed my jaws over the mouse's midsection, by which I lifted it off the ground. I turned around, and was about to take flight to avoid the incoming pony, when my stomach rumbled.

I didn't care who saw me. It was probably just some crazy tourist with trouble sleeping in their perfectly clean hotel room bed.

I set the mouse back down on the ground, and lay down, holding it still despite the lack of a pulse or attempt to breathe. I continued to lap at the wound, and glanced up as the footsteps stopped.

It was a pegasus, a mare, from what I could tell. She was a bit older than me, from what little information I could gather. While sound was often helpful, it didn't tell me everything. The thing that really bothered me though, was the direction in which she was looking.

Her head was pointed straight at me, and she wasn't even moving.

She was looking at me.

Her breath caught, and I snorted, before returning to my meal.

Her hoof brushed away something on her cheek, and she took a step towards me.

I rolled my eyes, and decided that she simply couldn't see that I was licking a dead mouse, or she would have run away already. I positioned my lips in such a way to make the sound of my tongue darting in and out of my mouth more audible, and pointed my eyes at the deceased rodent, though I kept the cups of my ears pointed at the pony.

Her hoof landed just a few centimeters away from my nose, and I jumped onto all fours, with the mouse held between my teeth, weight shifted back so I could take a hit or two.

A pained, aching sound jumped from her throat, and I found myself caught between a rock and a hard place.

Why did she have to take this route home? Why was the party tonight? Why hadn't I hunted somewhere else? Why?

Before she could say anything, I was already gone, and she was left alone in the alley, staring into what I could only imagine was complete darkness to her useless eyes.

I had trailed her despite myself, just gliding from rooftop to rooftop, making sure she made it home.

I hadn't taken the aurora that night, and I hadn't slept well either.

Maybe she had seen me, but maybe she had just followed my scent, and come to the conclusion that I had left the alley long before she got there.

Heck, it probably had nothing to do with me whatsoever.

But, for whatever reason, that was where I had started the story. That was what I first told Firefly on that walk, because that was when I had last seen her.

I didn't say it with the expectation that she'd believe me. I assumed she'd just dismiss it as a drug induced dream, or a crazy fantasy, or an excuse for stalking her.

As we passed by a broken street light, the silence of the night was broken by her question, "So... Do you actually drink blood?"

"You're not gonna believe me no matter what I tell you," I said, and glanced over my shoulder as a small animal darted across the sidewalk behind us.

Before it could pass me, I was upon it.

It squeaked madly, as though for the sake of making me look even crazier.

I licked my lips, and froze when I felt a warm hoof on my shoulder. I looked at Firefly, whose eyes were filled with a veritable concoction of understanding, disbelief, and pity.

She glanced at the poor rodent, and asked, "This is why you never let me give you lunch money?"

I nodded, and said, "I... I can leave you alone, actually eat somewhere else. If don't wanna see this, I get it."

"When did you last eat?" she asked me.

"A fortnight ago," I told her, and lowered my head towards the ground.

"So you don't just snap its neck, get it over with?" she asked, which stopped me from gripping the scruff of my prey's neck.

"I don't remember," I said flatly. "Knowing me, I try to make it as painless as possible, but I don't remember. I take a shot of aurora after I hunt, keeps me from losing more sleep than I already do."

I waited for another question, which she was clearly working herself up to ask, judging by the way her facial expression changed.

"Have you... ever had pony blood?" she asked.

My wings stiffened at my sides, and I had to tell myself not to think about all of those cheap adult vampire novels —which I had read for uh... research purposes... yeah.

This was not a clichéd romance story, and this was not going to end the same way as all of the dreams I'd had that started like this. I was not going to get a nice meal, I was not going to have any fun with this question, and she was not offering me an opportunity to try her blood.

I had imagined such a thing happening, but I'd dreamed that dream until it died, and I had to get real now.

"No."

"Oh..."

"I... I wondered what it tasted like, but... ponies aren't very comfortable with the idea, y'know..." I admitted, and stomped my hoof down on the tail of the mouse I'd already caught, which had managed to free itself.

"Is there a way you can... let it live?" she asked me, clearly trying to both better understand my reasoning and bargain for the poor thing's life.

I could respect that, her sympathy. It was one of the reasons we had ever met, and part of why I had been willing to throw away her trust in me for the sake of not telling her about my diet.

And, dammit, it was part of why I still hadn't gotten over her after three years.

I tried to hide my frown, but knew that she could see right through any poker face I could muster. "I..." I began, before looking down at the pinned mouse.

It was still panicking, clawing desperately at the ground for traction, squeaking pathetically.

I bit my lip, and closed my eyes. My stomach grumbled, and my fangs had the distinct sensation of filth on them, like they might feel after eating one too many cheap, stale cookies.

I glanced up at her, and, like I had so many times before, got lost in her eyes.

Those eyes must have looked so normal to anyone else.

It's sappy, I know, and almost laughably clichéd, but I thought them spectacular.

Those earthen brown eyes, like the richest soil, from which the most beautiful poppies could grow, and the small spots of light that her corneas reflected were like the finest opium.

Had anyone else ever loved them? Had anyone loved her better than I? Was I still so hopelessly addicted to her?

I could smell the aerosolized hormones and dissolved gasses in her bloodstream on her breath.

Had she seen anything special in my eyes, in my abnormal, strange, and longing eyes?

Did she still love me?

Could she still love me?

Did the namesake of my race still draw her in?

Or did the six pointed stars of my pupils appear to her more like asterisks, denoting complexity and confusion?

Though I knew that I would regret it, and my stomach protested audibly, I lifted my hoof.

The mouse scrambled away, and skittered off into the night.

I released a heavy breath, and hung my head low. "It's fine," I said, and closed my mouth, gulping down what venom had remained inside my mouth rather than dripped onto the concrete.

"Sorry," she whispered.

I wiped away more of the fluid that matted the fur around my mouth with a hoof, and said, "Don't be. I'll see if I can... find a dog. Dogs can lose a lot more blood, and live... 'cause they're bigger, y'know? Later, I mean. I'll hunt later."

Her muzzle brushed against the side of my neck, and I froze.

My blood turned to ice, and I glanced at her, the irregular hexagons formed between the points of my pupils shrinking as they narrowed.

She said, "I wish you had just told me."

I gulped, and said, "Well, I figured you wouldn't believe me, because, well, other hex-bats don't even have hexagonal pupils anymore. Evolutionary, it's a really bad thing, because any prey could easily tell a normal bat pony from a vampire. The trait was filtered out after Princess Luna's banishment, and I-"

She placed a hoof on my mouth, shutting me up completely, as well as starting a war in my head.

If I just bit her hoof...

I scolded myself. I was hungry, but the last time any vampires had turned to cannibalism had been a thousand years ago, and it had happened after two months of starvation, not half of one.

If you want to know how it went for them, look up "mad bat disease". It's like mad cow disease, but with vampire bat ponies.

If they had held out for two months, I could stand to wait another few hours without attacking my only friend.

Were we friends?

I pushed her hoof away, and asked, "How are... How are Pixel and Vinyl doing?"

Firefly said, "Vinyl's living with her sister in Ponyville, and I think Pixel is running an arcade."

Good job, Blade, you diffused a potentially cannibalistic hunger by asking how your old friends are doing.

I just had to finish walking to her home, and then I could sink my teeth into something juicy.

I motioned a hoof in the direction of her home, and allowed her to get a head start before falling in stride with her. "They still haven't hooked up?" I asked.

"I don't know. I haven't seen them in a while. I did see them chatting at a party last year, and I think someone may have spiked the punch," she said.

I felt a thin smile forming on my lips, and tried to picture my old friend waking up in a disheveled bed next to his crush. I chuckled, and asked, "You remember when he got fed up with the terrible cafeteria food, and convinced me to help him blow up Scone Jones's terrible spaghetti?"

She snorted, and said, "Yeah, and the look on his face when the principal thought it was funny."

We laughed for a bit, talking about all the good times we'd had as kids, until, finally, we made it to her apartment building.

She smiled at me, and dug through the small bag she wore around her shoulders. Pulling out a key, she said, "I'm glad you ran into me today. It's nice to see that you're still alive."

I frowned, and wanted to tell her that I wasn't alive, because that implied that I was living, which I wasn't. I was just surviving, trying to scrounge by, and somehow maintain my unsustainable habits.

But I didn't want to upset her, so I waved goodbye as she closed the door behind her, and smiled faintly as I turned around to leave.

Tired though I was, I managed to catch a cat that night, and a mouse while I was at it, before dragging myself home.

As the sun rose, and the mildly lessened ache in my stomach subsided, I rolled over in my bed, groaning.

Again, I didn't take aurora that night, because I couldn't bring myself to forget the first good night I'd had in a long, long time.

Memory III - Sick

"Does it feel weird, being inside someone else's head with them?" the voice asked as the book hovered back to its shelf.

Celestia considered this question for a minute moment, then said, "The first time I tried, I fell terribly ill. It does take its toll on the mind, but I've had a lot of practice with it. After my sister..." She went quiet, her mouth still open, the words sitting on the end of her tongue.

"Your highness?" the voice prompted nervously, a clear edge of concern in its tone.

The princess took a deep breath, then let it go, closing her eyes as the air she blew carried away the weight of her own thoughts. She shook her head, and said, "Unimportant. When did you next see her?"

A book was already sitting on the side of the desk she sat before, though the voice's choice of words gave her the idea that opening it without hearing its thoughts first would be unwise, "I think... I was... Can you feel the things I felt when you're inside the memories?

Celestia cocked an eyebrow at the book, and said, "Yes. Why?"

"You ever been high before?" it asked, in such a way that she could almost feel its source smiling, though it had no solid form in the plane they existed on.

"I don't see how that's relevant to the subject at hoof," she said flatly.

"Well... I was preparing for another sting with the traders, and they tended to be violent, so I... took some aurora, to keep the edge off," it explained.

"I doubt that a little bit of anesthetic will cause any trouble," she assured the voice.

There was a brief pause in the conversation, during which Celestia slid the book closer to her over the desk. Then the voice told her, "I didn't say a little bit, your highness."

She froze, hoof already hooked around the plain black cover of this book. She sighed, and said, "I appreciate your concern, Radiant Blade, but, even if it can hurt me, I must understand the events I am looking for, even if my own health shall take second priority."

The voice didn't respond, and she took this as an indication that everything was understood, but the book wouldn't open. It was clamped shut, and flipped over as she tried to open it. After she attempted to pry the covers apart with her hooves, the voice complied, "Okay. It's your funeral."

Addiction was like an ailment, a symptom of mistakes previously, and continually made. Just when I thought the worst of it was was over, it'd get worse, demonstrably worse.

Every tremble, every glance at the mirror was a reminder, an apparition of who I should have been, what I would have become, if I had only ratted out the drug dealers sooner. I could have been someone, doing real good in the world, saving lives, living my dream.

But that person was dead now, and I was alone. I was alone as I stared at the cracked, partially rusted mirror.

I could have had everything. I could have been known. I could have gotten out of this stupid city and left my parents alone.

I could have had a life, one free of all this pain.

I looked into the reflection's star shaped pupils, and the longer, vertical slits narrowed as the pair of roughly perpendicular lines did the same. The whites of its eyes were bloodshot, not so much from lack of sleep as the aurora surging through its veins.

The numbness was just beginning to fade, and the awkwardly bent extremities of my right wing were starting to ache.

Or was that my left wing?

I couldn't tell through the thick haze of empty senses, of my absentminded nervous system. Deprived of pain, I stood there, waiting for something, anything to happen.

The whole thing was more frustrating than the pain itself would have been, because at least pain served a biological purpose, whereas the lack of it almost always led to problems.

I could recall one story of a pony born without the ability to perceive pain, who had once walked on a broken ankle for three days, bitten her tongue until it had almost fallen off, and stepped in a pot of boiling water.

Pain was important.

I hated anything that took it away.

I hated feeling like this.

I hated myself for doing this.

An alarmed shout cut through the air, and I sighed heavily.

It was that day of the month already.

I awkwardly staggered out of the messy bathroom, and, by the time my guests found me on my bed, held the top of a burlap sac in between my teeth. I dropped it in front of them, and groaned in acknowledgement of their frustration.

They were using the usual insults; easy, useless, et cetera.

I wasn't even gonna humor them this time.

"Daggertail wants the load of opium you didn't give up last time," the leader said.

"Because the poppies hadn't grown yet. I'm not a gardener, but I'm pretty sure that plants take time," I mumbled, almost groaning.

"How much have you got?" he asked me.

"Half of the last order," I told him.

The stallion standing behind the ring leader spat at me, "That's more than enough for you to feel when I shove it up y-"

I rolled my eyes, and made my way to the closet. I fiddled with the padlock holding the slatted wooden doors closed, which was there to keep ponies from messing with the intricate series of plastic tubes and loose wires within. I dug through the contents of the bottom shelf, where a tray of small seedlings and a few red flowers in individual flowerpots was illuminated by a fluorescent lamp.

I produced a small wooden chest, which I opened to be sure was the one I wanted, and turned around, closing the closet as I did. I set down the box next to the large bag, and said, "There ya go."

The ring leader motioned towards the box with a hoof, and told the stallion next to him, "Open it."

The large brute stepped forward, and sat down in front of the small chest, which he then pulled open. He took a moment to examine its contents, before sorting through them with a hoof. "One, two, three, four..." he counted under his breath.

"Twenty nine," I told him, trying to get this whole process over with so I could go back to bed. "I had enough for twenty nine pipes."

"Let 'em count," the first stallion said.

I put my wings in the air defensively, and waited.

"Twenty nine," the stallion declared, before the third pony lifted the box and bag in her magic.

"Well then, we'll be on our way," the first one said, before turning around to leave.

I waited for their footsteps to fade into the street, before walking up the hall to check on my parents.

My mother was standing in the kitchen on my right, and frowning her disapproval in my direction. Her horn was surrounded with her pinkish magenta aura, which was being used to levitate a rolling pin. She always went for a rolling pin as her default weapon of choice, not that I could explain why.

She was always aloof these days, now that she was aware of my illicit activities.

And then she started talking, in the only way she ever did. "Trrrixie is not pleased," she stated, rolling over the r in her name, speaking in the third person.

I was just glad she hadn't used the title "The Great and Powerful" this time.

"Love you too, mom," I spat back, slowly turning my head to face the living room.

My father was sleeping on his back, snoring. He was snoring quietly, almost too quietly for anypony else to hear, but I was a bat pony, so I heard it loud and clear. His light brown coat practically blended in to the couch on which he slept, and his dark brown mane covered most of his face.

I often wondered how they had met, fallen in love, and gotten married to begin with. They hated each other in daily life, almost never spoke to each other in a volume below shouting, and generally did what they could to avoid conversing with one another. Their bedroom life, which I could almost describe as violent, was a very different story.

Don't ask how I know that. I was, like, fifteen at the time, and really didn't know what I was getting into. Look, the point is, it was the only time I didn't enjoy the learning process.

It often seemed like they only stayed together for me, like I was the only reason they put up with one another, not that I was happier for it.

They should have parted ways long ago, but they just kept putting up with life for my sake.

So it really bit me that I was being such a burden to them. I looked ungrateful. They had once possessed such high hopes for me, and tolerated each other for years, and I had repaid them by getting kicked out of college, high, and filling their backyard with unlabeled popsicle stick graves for the animals I hunted.

In hindsight, they really were only a couple to raise me, with the whole thing about them being assigned to it by the government. I suppose it could have been worse, and that I can't complain too much. At least the princess gave me parents, whereas Firefly's left her before we graduated.

There was a loud knock on the door, and I rolled my eyes as I dragged myself towards it. I paused at the door, and looked over my shoulders to check on my wings. I reached a hoof over whichever shoulder, and pressed my corresponding wing forward against it, popping the mangled bones within back into alignment, which sort of hurt, but negligibly.

They hissed, and thin tendrils of black smoke billowed from the fur on my wing where the broken bits were. Within moments, I simply folded the limb at my side, and pulled the door open.

I didn't really know why the smoke was there, or how I could heal like that, but I wasn't really into looking a gift horse in the mouth, and besides, nopony cared.

I lifted a foreleg to shield my eyes from the sun, and squinted at the visitor. I clicked my tongue at them, and allowed the sound to roll off of her soft fur. A greyscale, panoramic image filled my mind.

I smiled at Firefly, who pushed her way inside so she could close the door, and said, "I... What're you doing here?"

"Friends visit one another," she said, though she wasn't smiling as much as one might expect. She had an expression that kind of said, "I have a point to make and you are not going to stop me from making it. *grumble grumble*"

The very sound of her voice cut off my dad's snoring before I could respond, and I heard my mother stop whatever she was doing with that rolling pin. For a brief moment, even my parents could have heard a pin drop from a kilometer away, but Firefly didn't let that slow her down.

"Which is why I've arranged for us to meet with our old friends over lunch," she said, already opening the door.

I managed to grab my cloak from the coatrack before she yanked me into the outside world.

I should probably mention that she never really liked my parents, in case you couldn't tell.

Author's Note

Look, I found a reason why Trixie wasn't around. She was being paid by the government to take care of their problems. Why Radiant Blade is a problem, is... Well, I'll give you a hint.

Radiant. He's not the first character to have that name.

Act I - Lied

Celestia's head spun as the book's cover choked the blinding light of the memory, and her stomach was busy tying itself into knots. She covered her mouth with a hoof, and swallowed down whatever it was that had decided to escape her stomach.

"Are you alright, your highness?" the voice asked.

She didn't answer at first, though, if her host could see anything, her face was answer enough.

A plastic garbage bin, appropriately colored green, floated towards the princess, who grabbed it between her forehooves just in time.

The voice was silent for the duration of her retching spell, and busied itself with locating the next memory of relevance to the solar monarch. The book took its place at the edge of her desk, and then just sat there while Celestia emptied her stomach.

After a while, the princess gathered herself, and sat up, anxiously running a hoof through her ethereal mane to straighten it. She glanced at the next book, and asked, "Will this one make me ill?"

"You tell me. After all, you've been such an accurate judge of your stomach's metal."

Celestia sighed, and said, "I believe I owe you an apology. You did warn me."

After a few seconds of listening to the princess's heavy breathing, the voice said, "That's not an apology, your highness."

Celestia narrowed her eyes, and wrinkled her nose. "How's this? I've kept you long enough from your lover's bed. You are free to go." Her horn glowed, and the library dissolved around her, leaving nothing but a soft whiteness, which soon enough faded away.

She watched as the pony in front of her throne blinked, gradually coming to as the princess dismissed the spell connecting their minds.

Radiant Blade bowed, and turned to take his leave, when the princess opened her mouth to speak. He paused, looking over his shoulder at her, curiously tilting his head.

Celestia waved the thought away with her hoof, and said, "It can wait 'till morning. Bring Firefly with you tomorrow. This concerns her."

He nodded, and the sound of his hooves on the polished stone floor echoed throughout the castle as he left.

The grey stallion marched through the gates of Canterlot Castle, holding up in his mouth a signed copy of the letter Celestia had sent him so the guards would let him through. His brown eyes boiled with rage, the kind of rage that can only be born of a despair and confusion no pony should have to experience.

He stormed into the throne room, his eyes fixed on Celestia, who sat calmly in her throne, signing papers from a large stack with a magic quill, and so caught up was she in her work, that none of the guards bothered to announce her guest's arrival.

Too late did they realize their mistake.

Radiant Blade launched himself at the princess, tackling her to the ground with all his might, eliciting a startled yell from the monarch. His eyes locked on hers as his hoof moved to the front of her horn, snuffing out her magic before a spell could be called to her mind.

All that mattered to him was the truth now, and Celestia, he knew, had it.

Guards from all over the room ran towards them, but not before the ireful bat pony could snarl under his breath, "Care to explain why I just woke up with a changeling in my bed, who swears on her life that she is Firefly, who can answer me questions that only Firefly would know, who can't stop crying from the sudden shock of realizing that she is a changeling?"

Celestia held up her hoof to stop the guards, and sighed heavily as a knowing look crossed her face.

This only made him all the more angry. He hated that look. He hated the princess. He hated the lies she'd planted in his brain where a life should have been, and now how she took this information as though it was old news to her. He pressed his nose against hers, eyes narrowed, wings stiff at his sides, and shouted, "I don't care if you're the princess, and I don't care if I lose my head! I couldn't care less about your status! You're not sacrosanct until you tell me the damn truth! All of it!"

Celestia blinked, and found herself staring into a very different, and terrifyingly familiar pair of blood red eyes, the corners of which were giving off faint trails of purple smoke. His curved horn was spotted with red circles around the tip, intensifying the resemblance to his father all the more. She opened her mouth to speak, but the pony above her vanished, replaced by a cloud of black smoke. It poured over her, clumping around her horn, and she screamed.

After a minute, the stallion was being held down by a pair of guards, and Celestia was prodding her horn with a hoof, feeling over the dark grey crystals that had protruded from its keratin surface. Her expression was sober, calm even, not a trace of fear or confusion to be found.

The restrained stallion spoke in a rough, ghostly voice that seemed to come from three people at once, "As little as I've enjoyed this boring game, I must thank you for aiding my escape."

Celestia closed her eyes, then wheeled around to face the mass of violent, undiluted rage that she had tried so hard to keep under wraps. Her lips curled back in a snarl as she faced the monster in front of her. "You're a damned foal, Blade. If you hadn't reacted so aggressively, he wouldn't be in control," she growled at him.

He threw his head back, and laughed a laugh so thick it may have actually dimmed the room a bit. "You little twit, you don't understand. It's your fault he's been feeding me so well. Where do you think all of his rage is being directed? Why, do you think, he's simply letting me have my body back, like the little wimp you made him?" he asked Celestia, grinning widely.

Celestia's glare faltered a bit, and she looked away as his intended meaning hit her like a fully loaded carriage.

"It's all because of you," he continued, "It's all thanks to you that I have such a compliant host. It's your fault he's not gonna lift a useless wing to stop me from ripping that tail off your sorry plot. It's your fault he doesn't give a flying flank about what happens to you, or your sister, or your damn plaything of a student."

Celestia's eyes snapped open at that, and she snarled at him again, returning to her previous position. "Twilight," she growled, "is..." She bit her lip, and turned around, taking a deep breath.

"Ah," he said at length. "Now this is a game I can play. It's easy, sometimes, but it's the sore loser I play with that makes it all worthwhile in the end."

Celestia didn't move, though her eyes shot from side to side as she tried to think of a way out of this.

"Your move," the stallion challenged, and squinted. His ears perked up as a low, feminine voice bounced off the walls, though his shock was short lived, and a smile formed on the left corner of his lips, his eyes narrowing as he thought to himself about how all too perfect this was.

Celestia glanced over the stallion's shoulder, and, waving away the guards pursuing her, said, "She is needed at this moment."

Firefly froze dead in her tracks at that, and looked over her shoulder. Realizing that the princess was referring to her, and that she had effectively just been told to approach, continued on her way towards the back of the throne room. She bowed to Celestia when she was but a meter away, and glanced at the grey form of who she had thought to be Radiant Blade.

"No need for such formalities," Celestia told the yellow mare with a wave of her hoof. "I'd like to apologize for the whole... mess you've found yourself in." After a few seconds of avoiding Firefly's look of skepticism, she reiterated, "That I helped arrange..."

Firefly glanced at the restrained stallion to her right, then back at Celestia, who sighed and held her head low as she finished weighing what limited options she had.

The princess groaned, and said, "No, he's not someone you would know. I guess Radiant Blade didn't explain this to you, but I'm backed into a corner, so I have no choice. This is Penumbra, a particularly... malicious individual. He takes after his father, a former dictator I defeated a thousand years ago."

Firefly blinked, and, again, cast a glance in the direction of the aforementioned male.

Celestia moved to return to her throne, and continued, "He is an umbra, a creature of shadows and ego. They feed on hatred and anger, the ultimate example of the expression: 'don't feed the troll.' He was one too few apples away from a bushel when I overthrew his father, and his mother and I collaborated to construct a series of false memories and personal history. When she disappeared, I implanted those memories into a new mind that I'd layer atop the old one."

"And... That was Radiant Blade?" Firefly asked.

Celestia nodded slowly, rubbing her forehead in circles with each of her front hooves. "That he was," she sighed, her voice, and indeed, her whole being weighed down by thoughts of the mare's potential reactions. She hoped, at least, that Firefly would be sympathetic.

Penumbra had been eyeing Firefly's behind for the duration of this conversation, and, deciding that he liked what he saw, said, "Nice flanks, darling. I'll give Blade this much: he has good taste."

Firefly glared at him over her shoulder, and said flatly, "Yup, that's not Blade."

He grinned, half at Celestia, half at Firefly. "Oh c'mon. The camera ought to turn away from the cheap mannequin. The jacket looks so much better on the original model," he sneered, slowly licking his lips.

Celestia's only response was rather restrained: simply giving the brash prince a look of disgust.

Firefly, on the other hoof, spun around, and struck the stallion across the face with the front side of her hoof. She stood for a moment, hoof raised slightly from the floor as she watched the stallion recoil from the blow. After that moment had passed, she exclaimed, "That felt good." She didn't know exactly why. The metaphor had been misogynistic, yes, but she'd tolerated worse comments from her boss and customers.

At the exact moment she spoke, Penumbra made a particularly chilling face at her, and said, "Harder, pretty please."

Firefly's blood seemed to freeze. Something about that reaction felt sorely out of place in the world, especially in the presence of the reigning monarch, and wouldn't even have felt appropriate to her in the bedroom. She could only shudder.

His smile seemed to be widening with each moment that passed, even more so as Firefly's hoof rose of its own volition.

Celestia tapped Firefly on the shoulder, and said, "Remember, the more you express resentment in his presence, the more easily he feeds on your anger."

Firefly slowly lowered her hoof, and stepped to the side. Taking a seat two meters away from Penumbra, she gently massaged the hoof she'd struck him with, and said to Celestia, "So... are..." She gulped. "Are all of my memories of hi-I mean Blade... synthetic?"

The alicorn sat down again, and said, "Many of them, but not all. It's safe to say that no memory after your breakup is synthetic. That night did happen as you remember it. And everything that transpired afterwards is real."

"My parents," the mare muttered.

"They quit too late in the project for me to alter your memories of them into a new pair of suitable guardians," Celestia said, frowning. "I am sorry."

Penumbra pitched in with a scoff.

The princess sighed and said, "As for your origins; you-" She turned to Firefly, and held her gaze for a few long, nearly uncomfortable seconds. "-were an orphaned, abandoned changeling. I found a changeling wandering the Everfree, crippled, beaten, and frightened. I took her in, and, when she said that she wanted to start over, I offered her one such chance. She thought about it for a long time, and didn't change her mind at the many opportunities to do so that I provided."

Firefly looked down at the floor, and muttered, "So... I'm just as fake as Blade is?"

Penumbra cast a smug look at Celestia and said, "Doesn't it hurt, knowing that everything you thought you were is a lie? Everything you know your parents told you never happened. They never even cared about you. They left you because they weren't satisfied with the money carrying your weight brought them."

Firefly just stared at the floor, eyes glassy, ears pinned back, mouth half open.

"If only Blade had never been so damn curious about this whole thing. You'd never have learned. You'd still be a content, helpless mare, with your beloved knight in shining armor. Well, perhaps beloved is a strong word. I've actually had real sex before, whereas that one time you remember is just as fake as you."

Celestia winced, looking down. "Firefly, don't listen to hi-"

She slowly lifted her head, letting her soft wings go limp at her sides. "I-I don't know who else I can listen to. Certainly not you," she told the princess.

The restrained stallion made a mock expression of sympathy towards the princess, and recoiled as he said, "Ouch."

"Shut it," Firefly snapped at him, not looking away from the princess.

"But this conversation is so beautifully juicy," he protested. After a moment of smiling, his expression went flat when the mare he'd answered turned to him. "Yes, ma'am." He looked away, which was unlike him enough that Celestia raised an eyebrow.

"How do I even know if what you claim to be the story of how I came to be is true? What reason do I have to believe a word you say?" the mare continued. "I... I might as well be a stallion. You may as well tell me the sun isn't real, or that the sky is orange. I'd have just as much reason to trust you."

Celestia sighed, and hung her head, aware that Firefly had little reason to trust her, and that her resistance to doing so was understandable. "Well, and you may have noticed this, your changeling form isn't unambiguously female," she said, trying to collect her thoughts into something comprehensive to say.

Penumbra shuddered.

Firefly folded her wings at her sides, stammering, "Th-that's not an answer."

Celestia said, "I would show you my memories of this changeling, but..." She looked up at her horn and the crystals jutting out of it. "I can't exactly use magic at the moment."

Both mares turned to Penumbra, who was already looking at the ceiling with intense fascination, and whistling. When a guard elbowed him, he simply said, "No."

A smile slowly emerged from Firefly's facial features. "I'll hit you again if you do it," she offered.

He narrowed his eyes at Firefly, and said, "And then she'll smite us both. Neither of us have any family, friends, or attentive coworkers. The only reason she wouldn't kill me is because you'd miss Blade, get angry, and start telling people that the princess murdered someone. The same thing for Blade. But now we're both in the same place, and no one would notice our absence. Do you really think she has a reason to not wipe us off the face of the planet?"

That made too much sense to Firefly, enough that she stood up, and began to slowly back away from the princess.

Celestia shook her head, no longer quite so composed. "I wouldn't do such a thing," she said, holding one hoof up and the other over her chest.

"Circumventing the judicial system to execute someone is exactly what you did to my father," Penumbra said.

Celestia leaned forward and said, "That was self defense. That was war. Different rules apply in war. You both are citizens of Equestria, and thus are guaranteed the right to a fair trial. But I have no reason to suspect that you have committed a crime."

"What war exactly are we talking about?" Firefly asked, now standing, but no longer making an exit.

"One that I..." Celestia began, and then gulped as she realized what a rhetorical corner she'd been backed into. "...erased from the historical records."

Penumbra smiled at this and said to Firefly, "The princess who lied to the whole world about something that cost the lives of your own soldiers and citizens. What a headline that would be. If only you hadn't been so rash, Celestia, to resist transparency. I believe my people had a word for that sort of ruler."

"What's that?" Firefly inquired aloud.

"An authoritarian dictator."

"Like your father was any better to his subjects, your mother, or even you," the princess fired back, throwing herself head first into another flurry of rhetorical swings of the sword.

"Ow," Penumbra said, throwing his head back in mock despair. "Oh, right in the sense of familial connection that I don't have. I distinctly recall that it was you who banished them beneath the ice. It was you who left my mother without a home. It was you who acted rashly. My father was a better king than your Princess Amore ever was a princess. He got stuff done. He united the people and the workforce-"

Celestia said, "Through mind control and slavery, respectively."

"As if your manipulation of my and Firefly's memories is any less oppressive and barbaric," he answered.

"It's hard to take ethical criticism from a creature who attempted to murder his own mother," she said, parrying his oratorical strike expertly.

"She was weak," he declared. A blunt and cowardly defense, he knew, a simple wooden shield thrown up in a time of desperation.

"You mean she never fed you hatred, because she loved you too much," the princess answered, metaphorically driving her saber through his shield, piercing his armor. She didn't know quite where she'd struck him, but knew that even he had vulnerabilities.

Penumbra growled, and looked away, muttering as he pinned his ears back, "She sure loved me. I can tell because she gave me to you."

"She never let me have custody of you while she breathed. She left me as your guardian in her will. She parted with you, literally, over her dead body," Celestia snarled, effectively twisting her blade by the hilt. She stood up, and the crystals on her horn began to fade, as though they never existed.

He winced and blinked. When his eyes opened and he looked up, his irises were brown, his horn had vanished, and his eyes were tearing up. He sniffled, and wrapped his leathery wings around himself. "H-Hope... My mother's name is Hope."

Celestia leaned down, and lifted his chin up with a hoof so she could look into his eyes. "Radiant Hope. She chose your name. She made your memories. All I did was adapt them to fit the modern world."

"B-but why did she..." Blade asked and screwed his eyes shut.

"She wanted you to be happy, something that Penumbra never was," she said, and dismissed the guards who had been holding him still with a nod.

Firefly placed a hoof on his shoulder, and then slowly wrapped her forelegs around his chest. "I'm happier with this you," she murmured, nuzzling his cheek.

He nodded, and wiped his nose with the back of his hoof. "I remember her. I remember the palace. I remember the mines..." he trailed off, and leaned back into Firefly's embrace. "My father isn't dead," he realized.

Firefly blinked, and asked, "And that's..."

Blade gulped audibly, "Bad. Very very bad." He turned to Celestia. "How long ago did the empire fall?"