Author's Note
Hey, I'm not dead!
Anyway, ~~no long-winded note this time, and~~ hopefully this goes over better than my other interquel one-shot (I doubt it, since I seem to be terrible at hitting the popular themes, but still).
There are some story points in here that deal with an aspect of the fan culture that I felt was prominent enough to justify working in. This is one of those rare things that (Like Past Sins) permanently altered my worldview for the MLP universe. play it here, or read it here. Personally I recommend both.
One set of questions I want to just answer up front. There are a number of secrets about the current set of Ponyville foals being kept from said foals. For the most part, you'll find out what these secrets are when the kids do.
Also, yes, I know its short. There wasn't quite as much story as I thought there was, but it still needed to be told and it didn't fit anywhere else.
Just a second, need to make one last edit to this note.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
~NPP6
Act II, Scene II
Y’know, I uh, think I can find it from here.”
Applebloom shot the colt a glare. “If’n you think I’m lettin’ you go in there alone, you’re crazier than I thought.”
“Indeed.” Both foals looked up to see that Mitta had manifested next to them. “Ruby is currently ensuring that Applejack remains distracted. While she’s been doing that, I went ahead and made sure that the two you need are near the entrance and the rest are on the other side of town. Even so,” She focused more directly on the colt. “You are mortal now. It would be best for at least the time being if you were to stay near Applebloom at all times.”
“You, Ruby, and Midnight ever gonna tell me why that is?”
“…In time. For now, you should make haste. I don’t know how much time you’ll have.”
“Alright then.” And with that, Applebloom took a breath, set her shoulders, and led her nameless husband who she’d decided to at least befriend into the last place in Equestria she had ever wanted to return to:
Sunny Town.
“Of course we’ll take you! Just come home with us, and—”
“No! You don’t understand! I’m not asking you to adopt me, or take me in, or any of that! I… I’m already your son… If… If the town hadn’t killed Ruby, and cursed itself… just one more night mom, you’d have been pregnant with me… I just…”
“You need a home, and we’ll give it to you, just stay with us, so we can pro-tect you.”
The colt looked up at that, blinking the tears out of his eyes. Shit. He shouldn’t have mentioned the curse, that was how the trap was activated. When the townspeople were forced to confront Ruby’s murder once more.
Something was… off though. With the way Roneo and Starlet were acting that was. “I… I can’t. I don’t belong here and you know that.”
His not-mother twitched, like a robot with a short in it. “But-but-but stay with us.”
It was tempting. It was so very tempting. He had been wanting this for hundreds of years. He almost said yes.
But…
It wasn’t Applebloom. Whatever their relationship, she wasn’t quite that important to him. It wasn’t the Apple Family, or Midnight and the Rangers, or any sense of debt from what he’d done – though each of those did cross his mind.
No, it was ultimately the rest of the Unfoals that helped him decide. He was the oldest, the leader of the group. Sure, some of them had their not-parents as parents now, but others didn’t. Over a dozen weren’t able to be with those who could have had them. And… they still needed him. It would be one thing if he could have made plans for it, but this… this would just be abandoning them.
And they’d all had entirely too much of that.
“I’m sorry.” There was a strength in his voice and he had no idea where it was coming from. “I can’t stay. I’ll visit when I can, but this isn’t where I belong. I just need a name.”
It was as if something broke at that moment. Like the puppet strings had been cut. For an instant, Roneo and Starlet looked at the son they could have had with warm parental pride…
And then the dam broke. An eldritch wind began to blow from the far side of town, the illusion started to crack and flake away in places, caught halfway broken.
Roneo looked at the colt sadly. “Go… just go.”
The colt could only stare as the ponies who might have been his parents turned and walked away. He might have sat there for hours had his companion not grabbed his hoof and pulled. “C’mon, time to go.”
“Wh-Wha?”
Mitta rolled her eyes. “They know you’re here and they’re coming for you. I’ll buy some time, so get out of here before your stupidity gets Applebloom killed.”
“But… I don’t get it. I thought it meant love and stuff.”
“It does and it doesn’t.”
“So why did it change the contract then?”
“Because you were an absolute idiot and bastardized Alchemy, Zebra Shamanism, and Unicorn Ritual without having any idea the forces you were playing with. And you were fool enough to think Applebloom would be unable to counter.” Honestly it should have killed them both, but Midnight didn’t need them trying to figure out why it hadn’t just yet.
“In any case, that’s how it works in Alchemy because that’s how it’s used most often in the present day. Which means that’s what ponies associate it with, so that’s what they’d expect it to do. It really doesn’t exist in Zebra Shamanism, to warm for it to grow. In Unicorn Rituals, as well as in what little I know of the rune-based magic a few of the yaks use, it means something else entirely.”
“What?”
“That’s the thing, it’s actually a bit of a wild card. You see, it gains the magical properties of whatever tree it grows on, which can actually be quite useful if you can keep it under control.”
“What happens if you lose control.”
“The parasite kills the host.” Midnight gave the colt a look, that one that meant he was expecting to deal with an adult for at least a few moments. “You should know I have no intentions of letting that happen.”
“I understand Sir.”
“Good. Now then, did you get a name?”
“I…” He almost said no, before he realized something. He had in a way gained a Name. A Name was an Identity after all, and he had definitely gained that when he decided that the others still needed him. “I have sir.” But what was it? What should it be? Unbidden, a memory flashed through his mind.
“…Darkness trying to take your heart?”
“I can sense the burning…”
“Excellent! What is it?”
The words were calling to him, almost as much as his cutie mark had. Heart… Burning… Burning Heart? No, not quite right, almost…
The word fell from his lips even as it occurred to him. “Burnheart.”
“Very well then Burnheart, welcome to the present of Equestria.” Midnight’s horn glowed as he used a quill made from one of his own feathers to calligraph the name on the form next to the sketch he’d already made of the mistletoe adorning the colt’s flank.
