Break Down and Blossom

by GravityDefyingCoffeeMug

Rating: teen
Tags: Stygian, Tragedy, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Sad, Pony of Shadows
Length: 7372

It was incredibly rare to find a pony so pathetic and deprived of love and affection that they’d turn to somepony like him for comfort. Love, Stygian realised, and everypony's selfish desire for it, had bestowed him with a sense of normalcy.

It was incredibly rare to find a pony so pathetic and deprived of love and affection that they’d turn to somepony like him for comfort. Love, Stygian realised, and everypony’s selfish desire for it, had bestowed him with a sense of normalcy.

Note: In this story, a little bit of darkness is still in Stygian, becoming some sort of a negative second personality that influences him.

Art by some dude called LavenderRain17 on DeviantArt.

Published 2018-05-24 21:00:05 UTC
Last updated 2018-05-24 21:00:05 UTC

Break Down and Blossom

Author's Note

When the Pony of Shadows speak, it's written in quoted "italics".

When Stygian thinks in his head, it is written in unquoted italics.

Break Down and Blossom

A warm breeze rustled the sun-dried grass, cajoling the surrounding dandelion into releasing their seeds and sending the fine filaments careening through the air.

A scent of freshly dug soil mingled with the smoky effluence of burning wood, encircling the small, shaded enclosure the grey unicorn occupied. A large oak obscured him from ponies and other creatures alike, its large leaves casting dappled shadows over his still form.

Swaying, sun-dried grass tickled the underside of his hooves. Each breath infused him with a sense of peace, a sense of comfort born from the scent of natural decay—decaying wood tinged with a faint perfume redolent of irises and mint leaves.

Where bright spots of sunlight crept through the foliage and splayed themselves over his face, a pleasant, aching sort of warmth spread throughout his body, tangible kisses from the sun. A cicada rehearsed its musical rhapsodies in the distance, and the leaves above him swayed with the breeze. The soft rush of rustling foliage sounded like nature breathing a contented sigh.

The scant shadows cast by his lashes flickered against his cheeks, eyes fluttering open as the kiss of sunlight vanished behind a white cloud. A damp coolness descended on him then, and a small smile made its way upon his lips as the wetness of dawn’s lingering dew met with the tips of his hooves, cupped in tiny pools within clusters of clover.

He was miles from Canterlot and anypony he knew.

The name of the place in which he sat escaped him, though he knew where and how to find it every week. Stygian knew which trees to pass and which rivers to follow to arrive at this place, one of the very few places that made him feel natural. He wouldn’t let himself forget it.

There was nothing spectacular about the spot he’d chosen to spend his Sundays. It was a small enclosure near the backyard of a low class family, almost directly behind the jungles of untamed grass and weeds that swamped their property.

A pathetic little vegetable patch grew near the house, offering diseased tomatoes and misshapen cucumbers that now rotted in the sun, exposing their glistening innards to the hungry ants.

Where he sat, however, nature remained untouched. The grass hadn’t been mown or watered, the leaves hadn’t been raked, and the soil hadn’t been disturbed. In all its disorder and untamed overgrowth, this patch of earth was as pristine and welcoming as any home.

Stygian did not eat on Sundays. This, he decided, was the only reason the small filly who came out to play in the backyard every Sunday, was still alive.

She was perhaps four or five years old. She could have been older, but her obvious malnourishment hadn’t given her much room for growth. In that very moment as he sat in his small enclosure and watched from the shadows, she plodded around the overgrown grass, playing with a semi-deflated ball.

It didn’t look very entertaining, what she was doing. But she pursued her game with startling intensity, large eyes fixed on the ball and its predictable routes through the grass.

He noticed she was closer than usual. Then he closed his eyes once more as the sun emerged from behind the clouds.

Stygian had been there a total of seven times, and despite his non-attempt to cancel himself, the little filly still hadn’t noticed him. He was content with this, as he came to this place for nothing more than the peace it offered.

A mare shouted from within the house and a foal wailed a moment later. Pots clanged. The cicada buzzed on and the trees sighed. The little filly bucked the ball, hard.

Stygian’s eyes blinked open when the dry grass near his right front hoof bowed with a faint rustle, disturbed by the presence of some foreign, rubber object that glistened dully in the sunlight, its cracked paint wet with watery mud.

He stared at it, momentarily stunned by the sight of something synthetic and unnatural imposing on his sanctuary, before a shadow obscured the sunlight once more, dousing him in coolness.

The little filly didn’t scream when he raised his head and met her gaze, and for a moment he said absolutely nothing, gazing at her with the same somber silence she’d displayed for the past seven weeks. He kept expecting her face to crumple into an expression of disgust and horror and for her to shriek.

When she didn’t, he arrived at the conclusion that she must have been a mute. That perception was broken almost immediately.

“Hello,” she said.

The mother in the house shouted again and the filly briefly turned her head to look back at the house. Then she was staring at him again, gaze intent.

When he realised she wasn’t going to scream, he inclined his head slightly.

“Hello,” he replied.

Her coat was off-white, possibly pure white before it was dirtied and left unwashed for what looked like months. She stood perhaps no taller than the little colts and fillies he's seen in Ponyville’s Schoolhouse, and her black mane hung in thin, shining pigtails down to the level of her back, framing a heart-shaped face wasted from malnourishment. Her bottom lip seemed swollen and slightly bloody. Her eyes were large, so large they threatened to overtake her small face, guileless and wary as a doe’s.

Then she spoke again.

“Why are you hiding in the jungle?”

Stygian regarded her in silence, somewhat amused by her solemn demeanour and apparent lack of fear. Finding no harm in answering, he obliged her with a soft-spoken reply.

“It’s nice here.”

As if doubting his response, she tilted her head up to glance at the oak tree towering above him, and then glanced around to see what could possibly be “nice” about his little niche.

“There’s bugs there, mister.” she said with a furrowed brow. “Ants and beetles.”

“They don’t bother me.”

“Are you dressed as a superhero, mister?”

“No.”

“You look like a superhero,” she said with a nod, eyes trailing his cloak, dark red in colour with stars. “You wear a cape...” It was more of a cloak, similar to Star Swirl the Bearded’s, given by said old unicorn as an apology gift for his misjudgement.

Stygian said nothing.

His normal self continued to regard her, detached and contemplative, while the remnants of the darkness within him seethed with anger at the tainting of his sanctuary by this dirty little filly.

“Do you wanna…” she paused, looking somewhat hesitant when he stared at her. “Do you wanna have tea with me?”

He blinked in response, surprised by the offer. Doubting her sanity seemed to be the only logical thing to do in response. She’d just found the Pony of Shadows (to an extent) sitting in the bushes near her backyard and now she wanted to have tea with him.

Instead of answering her question, he replied with another question of his own, this time with a different side of him, his eyes turned completely white, appearing as if it was missing its pupils. The surrounding shadows casted by trees and the two ponies appear to distort, though not enough for the filly to notice.

“Why couldn’t you see me before?”

“I can’t see too good,” she offered apologetically. “Wait, I’ll be back.”

Stygian watched her leave and galloped back to the house, and the mother’s muffled shouting burst with harsh clarity as the door opened, drowning out the cicada’s buzzing. The filly returned a moment later with two wooden cups and a watering can.

She approached him almost wholly and set down the watering can before settling down on the grass in front of him. Then, she offered him a wooden cup.

Stygian took it, not knowing what else to do, not knowing whether he should leave or stay since his routine had been broken. The filly stood up to pour him his “tea”, keeping the watering can from dropping by biting down on the handle, seemingly with every ounce of strength she could muster.

Once his cup was full, she seated herself and poured some into her own cup. Stygian stared into his cup. It was full of river water.

She reverently lifted her wooden cup and took a delicate sip, pursing her swollen lip and wincing as the stream of water ran over the bloodied flesh. The foal in the house wailed again, its great hitching cries carrying through to where they sat.

“Who is that?” Stygian inquired, watching her pluck at the grass with her muzzle.

“That’s my baby brother,” she mumbled. “My mama won’t give him milk.”

He didn’t reply, and merely blinked as a soft breeze brushed up against his face. Her reply hadn’t surprised him, considering that he was in the poorer district of Equestria. But her solemnity, he found with slight intrigue, was something peculiar, even for a battered poor filly all too aware of her own poverty.

Perhaps it was the way the stars on his cloak gleamed, spotless and silken in the sunlight that made her refrain from asking why he hadn’t touched his tea. Perhaps she felt somepony like him, frail looking as he was, was already offended by this pathetic offering to begin with.

Whatever it was, it prevented her from urging him to drink the dirty river water.

It was an odd moment, peaceful and clandestine beneath the shade of foliage. After a few minutes of silence, Stygian realised her presence didn’t dampen the richness of the summer air or obscure his senses to nature. She seemed just as appreciative of it as he was.

Somewhat pleased by her reclusive nature, as it reminded him of himself, he spoke.

“Did your mother do that to you?”

The filly glanced up, touching her lip with a hoof when she found him staring at the blood.

“My mama hits me sometimes,” she admitted, without the slightest hint of resentment.

He switched again, smiling grimly, almost scathing in reply.

“Are you sad because of that?”

She hesitated, as if contemplating the question, and when she replied, she shook her head, tone resolute.

“No… My mama doesn’t like it when I cry. She hits me more.”

Stygian regarded her in silence before closing his eyes briefly, opening them again to reveal his brilliant azure pupils had returned and gazed off into the distance.

“When you’re sad and alone…” he began. “All you can count on is yourself.”

The filly said nothing, like he’d expected her to. He didn’t really expect her to understand, either, being as young as she was, but it was the only truth he discovered to be faultless in life. Ponies had scorned him despite being the Pillars' strategist, fearful of his reputation and his abilities.

His normal self had accepted it. The lingering darkness was still bitter.

Content with her silence, he endured with his own.

A few minutes later, when she finally spoke, her voice was small enough to get lost amongst the rustle of leaves.

“Are you sad, mister?”

The harsh glaze of sunlight brightened his brilliant azure eyes, and blinking against the glare, he lowered his gaze to her bowed head. She didn’t look up and continued to pluck at the dry grass, sounds of gulping can be heard when she bit off fresh ones. Her muzzle was stained with soil.

Stygian breathed, taking in once more the redolent mix of natural decay and burnt wood. He thought of where he was, how he felt, and who waited for him back at Canterlot. The thought of Star Swirl greeting him with a joyful “Stygian!” put a slight smile on his face, and the darkness in him remained placated with his last meal and the profound peace he’d found with his surroundings.

“I am content,” he finally murmured.

He doubted she even knew what that meant, but the tone he’d said it in had obviously been enough. She raised her filmy eyes and stared with slightly parted lips, her lower lip hanging with the weight of the bloody lump. She was easily the most pathetic-looking creature he’d ever seen.

“Will you come back?” she asked.

“No,” he answered calmly, without hesitance. Then, “would you like me to?”

She smiled, and he saw that one of her teeth was missing.

“You’re nice, mister,” she blurted, and then lowered her eyes, as if ashamed of her own blatant starvation for a kind word and a kind gaze.

Stygian had never really believed in pure good nor evil, not after all he’s been through, the countless betrayal he's witnessed on his journey as a wandering scholar, the betrayal he endured when the Pillars of Old Equestria casted him out, and the dumb magic of friendship that almost everypony believed truly work. Yes, he did took the path of villainy, once upon a time. But now, he was the epitome of tolerance, constantly exhibiting the one quality he’d failed to find in the ponies he’d encountered throughout his life. He tolerated those from all walks of life, and he saw no harm in accepting this little filly when apparently no one else could.

“I can…” she said suddenly, interrupting his thoughts with her hesitant voice. “I can… tell you a story my papa told me, next time you come.”

Was this her way of offering an incentive for him to visit? Stygian saw no harm in obliging her, considering how he’d be here the next Sunday, anyway.

“All right,” he said, and watched with detached amusement as her face lit up.

Sadness was a sign of need, a beacon to family members and friends, a winking, weak light signalling a need of help.

These beacons were forged from tears and sounds of grief, alarm wails broadcast in melancholy tones. Whether these calls for help—these SOS signals were answered or not, depended on others. Acceptance, comfort, love—these were all things bestowed by others. Without them, no help came to call, and no comfort came to sate the sadness.

The tears, winking weakly in the dark—they would eventually fade. And the alarm wails, gone unanswered, would eventually weep themselves into silence. And you and your sadness would be left, floating with no direction, swallowed by fog and eventually consumed by murky waters.

You couldn’t depend on others, because sometimes the others refused to come through.

Stygian couldn’t remember the last time he cried. After all he’s learned and experienced, no amount of apology can change the abandonment and the disregard, he’d answered his own calls and wiped his own tears, and it had been the same ever since.

He was his own friend, his own family.

He had no other lifeline.

The following Sunday yielded the same mild weather as the Sunday before, endowed with warm breezes and achingly warm sunlight.

Stygian emerged soundlessly from the shadows, finding his niche to be the same as he’d left it, finding the same, semi-deflated ball crushing the same patch of dried grass. He settled into his spot and took his time absorbing his surroundings.

The scents of leaves, sap, and irises mingled with the mother’s cooking, and no noise save for the faint clanging of pots and pans issued from the small house. He sat there and absorbed the smells, the sounds, and the feelings of nature for nearly half an hour, letting the blend of sensations lull him into a state of half-sleep.

When the filly arrived, he felt her hesitate near the patch of dried grass, felt her uncertainty at the sight of his closed eyes. When he opened them, slowly, letting himself grow accustomed to the bright sunlight, he found her staring at him with an almost concerned look on her face.

“Were you sleeping, mister?”

She was as filthy as last time, maybe filthier. Her lower lip was more or less back to normal again.

“I was thinking,” he said.

She nodded understandingly, unusually serious as she set down her watering can and wooden cups, pushing one towards him.

“Sometimes I think, too.”

Stygian smiled slightly, amused by her precociousness.

“What would a little filly like you have to think about?”

She cocked her head slightly to the side, glancing thoughtfully at the foliage of the oak tree.

“I think about my chores… and what time I gotta do stuff… I think about food,” she recounted, looking at her hooves now. “I think about what I wanna do when I grow up.”

Stygian said nothing, his silence giving her the initiative to continue.

“I wanna be a teacher when I grow up,” she declared, before blushing and ducking her head.

Stygian’s eyes turned white as he grinned slightly.

“The pay is lousy.”

“You mean money?” she asked, looking surprised. “But they live in big houses.”

Well, Stygian thought to himself, looking at the dilapidated shack behind her. Anything can be considered a ‘big house’ compared to that.

“Where do you live, mister?”

“Far away,” Stygian replied shortly.

“In a tent?”

“…no.”

“I wish I lived in a tent,” she mumbled.

The Pony of Shadows had no desire to try and understand the rationale behind a child’s desire to live in a house made of cloth, so he remained silent.

“Do you have friends, mister?”

Stygian thought of Star Swirl. “Yes.”

“Do you…” she paused, as if looking for the right words. “Do you have a job?”

“Yes.”

“My papa’s a farmer. Are you a farmer?”

“No.”

“Do you have fun with your friends, mister?”

“Fun?” Stygian echoed blankly.

“Yeah. Do you have grown-up games?” she questioned, looking curious. “Grown-ups don’t look like they have fun.”

“Fun is for children.”

She looked disappointed at his response, and cast her gaze down to her hooves.

“Then, I don’t wanna grow up.”

Stygian couldn’t help but be amused.

“I thought you wanted to be a teacher.”

She pouted, and finally looked like the age she was. Somehow, it was relieving.

“I don’t wanna if it’s not fun.”

A brief moment of silence followed, only to be broken by the foal’s loud wail and the mother’s subsequent shouting. Stygian noticed the shadowed look that overtook her features, and it was almost with resentment that she lowered her eyes to the grass.

“Mama has no fun,” she mumbled after a moment. “that’s why she’s mad. She only has fun when she hits me.”

The bloody lip flashed in his mind’s eye, ripe and glistening like the insides of a plum, and just as tender.

“Look,” she said, almost complacently, gesturing to a where her left cutiemark will take place in the future. “I got a scab from yesterday.”

A long, living scratch traced her flank, down her scrawny leg, in a crescent, now scabbed and flaking. She moved her hoof and glanced down her chest, shifting away fur to reveal a bruise.

“That’s a big one,” she announced, sounding almost proud for having endured her mother’s wrath and survived.

Stygian almost felt compelled to show her the scar he had obtained from once being impaled with a shovel, courtesy of Rockhoof, but desisted, content with letting her show him her badges of warfare. With every scar she showed him, she had a little story to go with it.

Within that little head was a huge imagination, because she recounted her stories with fantastic details such as giant lizards and flying cats and the like. He was amused, especially knowing that the filly had never even known that the creatures she thought up most likely existed as residents of the Everfree Forrest. Eventually, she got to the story she’d planned on telling him since his last visit, and for ten minutes, he sat and listened to her speak in hushed tones about the witch doctor who exorcised demons in her village, her version of what was probably Mage Meadowbrook helping the sick.

His detached sense of amusement only changed once she’d exhausted her repertoire of tales, and suddenly declared, with complacent surety—

“My mama says I’m gonna die.”

Stygian only stared at her, somehow aware that she was no longer spinning or recounting tales, aware that she’d accepted him as a friend by divulging a big secret.

When he said nothing, she continued.

“My mama says I’m sick and that I eat all the food. She says I’m gonna die…” she trailed off, looking off into the distance almost thoughtfully.

“I think my mama wants to kill me when she hits me.”

Before that moment, Stygian hadn’t considered the possibility of such profound words coming from a mere child. But the solemn way with which she’d said them altered that view entirely.

“I get scared,” she murmured, looking down at the ground again. “When my mama hits me. I’m scared of dying.”

“Why don’t you run?” Stygian asked, staring at her fixedly, suddenly fascinated.

You can only depend on yourself.

She shook her head, her voice a little more than a murmur.

“Nopony’s gonna take care of me.”

Don’t wait for others to answer your call or wipe your tears. You’ll only drown in them.

“Your father,” Stygian said a moment later, gaze intense. “Is he kind to you?”

The way she looked at him then, suddenly withdrawn and shamefaced, suddenly tensing the back half of her body, her hind hooves shaking, suddenly avoidant, made him drop the subject all together. The fear on her face was palpable.

“Papa loves me,” she said after a while, softly. “He says so.”

Stygian left the conversation at that.

She didn’t invite him to come back. Not directly, at least. The hopeful look in her filmy eyes said it all.

There was some kind of poetic justice, the Pony of Shadows found, in eating his victims.

Ponies took from the earth, plundered its stores and valuables and polluted its waters. They shredded its trees and left its inhabitants homeless constantly. Their daily pastime was a perpetual rape of Equestria.

When he felt the first sliver of still-warm flesh slid down his throat, he smiled with the knowledge that those who took from the earth eventually went back to it in the end.

Back to the dirt, back to their mother, back from the ground from which they’d sprung. They would decompose like all other creatures and plants, their bodies enriching the soil and returning to it the valuables they’d stolen.

And the sun would lighten their corpses, planting mother-warm kisses against open wounds, enticing carrion flies and the blossoming of bacteria, catalysing the breakdown of flesh and bone.

I am one of those creatures, the pony thought serenely, blinking hazily into the sunlight as blood ran down his muzzle. I am one of the many organisms that benefit from your breakdown. I thrive on your breakdown. There’s new life in your breakdown.

He glanced down at the corpse at his hooves, his serene smile widening as the flies begin to accumulate.

Break down and blossom.

She wouldn’t bring much back to the earth when she died, that was for certain. She had barely taken anything from it in the first place.

He eyed her thin limbs and hollow cheeks as she poured him river water from her watering can, observing the way her neck shook with effort to maintain her bite on the handle.

Lately, he’d started pouring the tea. She seemed unable to lift the watering can anymore.

She told him more stories. Most of the time, he just sat there and listened, amused by her seriousness and content with her satisfaction once she’d poured out her ramblings. She never mentioned the way he switches between two personalities; she seemed convinced that nothing, despite its oddity, could compare to the sheer depravity of her kind.

New injuries would appear with every visit, a changing style of how her mane is tied to distract from the same unmaintained coat she had every time.

“Mama bucked me yesterday,” she confided, pointing her crooked muzzle. “She knocked out a wiggly tooth. It was funny after I stopped crying.”

She opened her mouth wide and leaned forward to show him, proudly displaying the gap between her incisors. Her gums were bright pink, the only healthy flesh in her wasted face. The removal of her baby tooth left a glistening, crimson blotch between her teeth, emanating a faint scent of blood.

He breathed.

She smelled like ammonia and baby powder.

“Can I see your teeth?” She asked.

He eyed her warily for a moment before opening his mouth, letting her peer at the sharp canines that dominated the top and bottom portions of his jaw.

“You have so many bat pony teeth,” she said, sounding awed.

His dark side surfaced, founding amusement in this, and stretched his mouth into a feral grin, displaying the canines that came to be from adaptation.

“I eat lots of meat.”

Her eyes widened slightly at his words, lips parting wantonly at the sound of “meat”. All ponies are vegetarians, it was common knowledge to even improperly educated ponies.

“It’s delicious.”

“I tried meat one time,” she sounded in disgust. “It didn’t taste that good.”

“You’re missing out.”

“I know,” she said sombrely, her stomach rumbling.

Stygian tolerated many things. He tolerated ignorance, prejudice, and pretentious bullshit. He tolerated disobeying comrades and the messes they made. He tolerated a lot of things on a daily basis.

But Stygian could not tolerate wasting food.

He treated it with reverence, never failing to appreciate the silken texture of his meals, devoid as they were of coarse fur and tough hides.

There was a mare stretched out before him, eyes closed and mouth open. She looked to be passed out, with her mane fanning out on the bloodstained pavement beneath her.

His horn glowed as he magically took hold of the knife sticking out of her side and pressed a hoof against her ribs as he drew it out, careful not to mutilate the body any further. The criminal who’d done this to her had long-since escaped, leaving her dead in the shadows of an alleyway.

The familiar scent of blood had drifted to him in passing in the night, and he’d followed it to find this.

He does not know this mare. Nor does he know the motive of this brutal attack.

All he knows is that he doesn’t want her to go to waste.

Deactivating his magic hold, letting the bloodied knife drop from midair, he began to materialise sharp claws of solidified shadows around a hoof and reached forward, placing the sharp point within her coat and tugging downwards. The skin slit like paper, and before the still warm flesh from beneath was exposed, more shadow began to materialise.

The shadows spread throughout the alley walls, consuming all the light reflected by the moon, leaving them in absolute darkness and shielding her modesty as the skin was pealed back and the flesh exposed.

Consuming her is a part of nature. Preying on other creatures constitutes the circle of life.

But looking at her naked flesh would be a violation of the highest degree.

Stygian may be a scavenger.

But he is still a gentlecolt.

“Can I show you to my mama?”

“No.”

She didn’t question him, and merely lowered her eyes to her hooves. The weather had gotten warmer with his visits, and beads of sweat formed, creating wet patches of fur on her coat. Stygian sat himself where the sun bathed his front half and kept his back end in the shade of a tree, the soothing sensation of both hot and cold kept his personality in check.

Long, enduring silences encompassed most of the conversations, and what little talking they did consisted of her asking questions and him answering.

“What’s your name, mister?”

“Why do you want to know my name?”

She said nothing for a long time, and when she finally spoke, she almost sounded shy.

“I won’t tell anypony.”

Stygian said nothing.

“What does your friend call you, mister?”

He kept his silence.

“I want to be your friend.”

His eyelids flickered slightly, lashes casting scant, spidery shadows over his cheeks. The tip of his muzzle twitched, and his eyes turned white a moment later.

“I don’t need friends.”

“Don’t you feel lonely?”

“I have myself… and that’s all that matters.”

“Don’t you like ponies?”

“Ponies don’t like me.”

“…I like you.”

Stygian opened his eyes.

Selfishness was what governed a pony's need for friendship.

Ponies needed ponies like themselves. They needed a familiar face to comfort them in times of pain, praise them in times of success, and agree with them in times of debate. Friendship was merely an embellishment for self-assurance through another entity.

It was a form of give and take—you scratch my back and i’ll scratch yours.

This was his opinion, of course. He no longer feel compelled to assure himself of its validity by seeking out a friend with whom to agree. He agreed with himself and that’s all that mattered.

Star Swirl became his friend because Star Swirl needed somepony who thinks differently. The conjurer needed his opposing judgement which gives insight to how an enemy thinks and moves. It allows them to strategise brilliantly.

Stygian was a peculiar friend, because he never really asked for anything in return.

He found solace within himself, found love in the shadows with the small bit of darkness that wasn’t banished to Limbo exchanging entreaties for touch and conversation. The mere feeling of his own hooves touching his eyelids and muzzle was comforting, the sound of his own voice lulling and therapeutic.

Secrets and guilty confessions were easy to divulge to yourself, easy to share because they would be held in strict confidence.

“I killed a stallion today,” he whispered.

“He attacked you first.”

“I was distracted from my mission.”

“Nopony’s perfect.”

“I doubted myself. I am ashamed.”

“I still love you.”

He raised his hooves, gently buried his face into the flat undersides, and smiled gratefully against the soft fur.

Stygian was surprised when she revealed to him that she was nearly eight years old.

“Tomorrow’s my birthday.”

He blinked hazily in the summer sun, azure eyes glistening in the soft, yellow glaze.

“My papa gives me candy on my birthday,” she added, her smile wavering slightly. “He’s coming back from Hollow Shades tomorrow.”

The slightest flicker of recognition brightened his eyes at the name of his hometown, his mind conjuring the vivid recollections of the beautiful stone structures, surrounded by tall rocky mountains that kept the town mostly hidden from the sun.

“Can you say happy birthday to me?”

He met her gaze, unsurprised by her solemn expression.

“Why do you want me to do that?”

She shrugged, but her eyes didn’t look any less imploring.

Selfishness. Neediness. Craving assurance. The pony condition.

“It’s because you’re like everypony else,” he said softly. “That you’re starving.”

She looked as though she hadn’t even heard him, ears straining for the two, inconsequential words she craved, and nothing else.

Stygian relented, merciful towards this miserable creature, who, like everypony else, was incapable of self-assurance and self-love.

“Happy birthday.”

It was incredibly rare to find a pony so pathetic and deprived of love and affection that they’d turn to somepony like him for comfort.

When such things that constituted fulfilment and happiness were lacking, all prejudice, pretence, and superficial modes of judgement would disappear. To turn to him, and overlook his reputation and behaviour, was a testament to everypony's most basic need.

Love, Stygian realised, and everypony's selfish desire for it, had bestowed him with a sense of normalcy.

He was normal in the eyes of the deprived. Perhaps he was even beautiful.

And selfish as it was for ponies needing him to satisfy their most basic desires, he could not help but feel pleased.

He was content with loving himself, but the idea that somepony needed him elicited a euphoria he’d seldom experienced elsewhere. No longer would he go to that place for the sanctuary it offered, but he’d go to bask in the euphoria that came with knowing somepony needed him there—wanted him there.

Was he becoming like them? Counting on another pony to give him fulfilment? Hmm, was this what it felt like to be a Pillar or an Element?

“It’s only temporary,” he told himself in a whisper. “She’s going to die soon, anyway.”

The sky was cloudy the next time they met, and a pleasant coolness descended on the sun-burnt grass, holding off the evaporation of last night’s dewfall.

She ran her hooves over the bouquets of surrounding clover, peering at the wetness on her glistening fur. He stared into the distance, gazing through half-lidded eyes at the cluster of clouds obscuring the sun. He felt irritated.

“What’s your favourite colour, mister?”

He considered her question, eyes drifting over the plethora of colours splashing his surroundings.

“I don’t know,” he answered after a while, truthfully.

She looked at him in silence for a moment, before the corners of her lips twitched and she glanced back at the ground, where her shadow casted over.

“I like grey.” She glanced at him and smiled shyly. “It reminds me of you.”

He merely looked at her.

I killed three ponies yesterday, he wanted to tell her. And I ate them. Would you still like me after hearing that?

She doesn’t need to know. Nopony needs to know.

I was the Pony of Shadows. I still am, somewhat.

She doesn’t need to know. Nopony needs to know.

I’m only tolerating you because I get a selfish sense of satisfaction from being needed, even if it’s by a pathetic little filly like you.

She doesn’t need to know. Nopony needs to know.

“I like grey, too,” he said instead, and smiled.

Kindness is relative.

Friendship is a form of give-and-take.

All ponies are selfish.

Ponies need and need to be needed, some more than others.

They are pathetic.

And it feels good to be one of them.

Eventually a time came, near the end of summer, when he could no longer visit. As the Pillars of Old Equestria and the Elements of Harmony were all called by the Map for a major battle, time for relaxation was put aside.

Fall was coming, and the sun began to sink faster, the air cooling and clouds thickening in the sky. The sunlight became weaker and the colours become faded. The grass was bowing and the leaves falling, and the dew no longer felt pleasant against his fur.

When he told her he wouldn’t be returning, at the beginning of September, when the first leaves began to fall, her reaction was unexpected.

She knocked over her wooden cup of river water when she scrambled to get up, eyes wide and chest heaving.

He blinked in surprise at the look on her face, at the expression of fear that crossed her features as a chilled gust of wind blew her thin, dark hair behind her.

“You’re leaving forever?”

Even then, he found it hard to not be amused by her dramatics.

“I’m not sure how long it will be.”

His ambiguity left much to be desired, and she stared at him imploringly for a long time, a tiny, wasted figure with passionate entreaty in her somber gaze.

“You’re not coming back?” she asked, voice frail and quavering for the first time.

“No,” he answered, the darkness surfacing as the sun disappeared in the distance, atmospheric refraction casting light on the distant clouds. “I’m not.”

It was a tense moment, and he was bemused by the air of discomfort that seeped into his niche. The dried grass became sharp and the chill became bitter. He wanted to leave.

“Do you…” she said thickly, suddenly on the verge of tears. “Do you still like me?”

He gazed at her in silence, expressionless as the tears she’d withheld for weeks finally overflowed their boundaries, running down the sides of her muzzle.

Selfish. Needy. Pony.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded, voice cracking, her body tensing, especially her back half. “Please…? I’ll let you… you can…”

He stared at her, suddenly speechless when she very slowly turned around, spreading her fragile and shaky hind legs wide apart, lifting her tail.

“If I let him…” she continued, crying openly now. “If I let papa… He doesn’t go. He doesn’t leave. You can… If you want. Don’t leave.”

Stygian stared at her, and when he finally breathed, he sensed ammonia and baby powder, the smell overpowering.

She stood there and cried, presenting her flank and privates to the unicorn, looking like the most despondent and pathetic creature he’d ever seen. A cold drop of water landed against his cheek.

He raised his eyes, blinking as another drop of water landed against his forehead, shattering into droplets and expelling a fragrant burst of ozone.

Ponies are pathetic creatures.

Your father… is he kind to you?

Sometimes it feels good to be one of them.

Papa loves me… he says so.

But not this time.

The rain clung to the ends of his mane, running over his muzzle, cold and sweet against the furtive swipe of his tongue. It clung to his lashes and weighed them down, and he lowered his eyes to the filly who's still bent over before him, oblivious to the frigid drizzle.

The rainfall sounded like scattered applause on the surrounding foliage, and leaves from the oak broke under the weight of the water, covering the floor of his niche in a brown, decaying carpet. The filly’s hooves became submerged in mud, stark white against the darkness.

Somehow, he could distinguish between the rain and the tears on her face, azure eyes fixed on that weary, wasted visage.

Why she expected him to accept her offer was beyond him. Perhaps she felt that this was what grown-up games consisted of, that maybe if she partook in their nefarious pastimes, they wouldn’t abandon her. It hurt, and it was shameful, but it made her feel needed. So it was all right.

He felt inexplicably sad, then, slowly blinking away the rain as he walked around the filly to face her front.

He wasn’t sure what he was sad for. It might have been out of sheer pity for the pathetic creature before him, but he doubted that. The sadness, he surmised, came from the shame of knowing that, even if it was for a little while, he’d obtained gratification by being accepted and needed by another pony.

The sadness came from knowing he’d been right. There was no pride in depending on others, needing others—especially when ponies were as departed as they were. All he needed was himself. That should have been enough from the beginning.

She gradually relinquished her presentation, head bowing slightly under the weight of his hoof, a half-arsed attempt to comfort her. He’d given up on trying to gain love and comfort from others many years ago. But he’d never really stopped trying to give it.

He was not all too familiar with kindness. He tolerated, and he empathised. Stygian was a peculiar friend.

“When you’re alone,” he told her, voice mingling with the thrumming rain. “No one can hurt you.”

He removed his hoof from her head.

When she glanced up, he was gone.

“You look sad, Stygian. What’s wrong?”

“…It’s nothing, Star Swirl.”

The sky was still cloudy the next time he came back, and the leaves hung lifelessly on the bowed branches of the oak tree. The semi-deflated rubber ball lay forgotten in the neglected, mostly dead patch of vegetation.

He’d followed the scent of blood for miles, and it had brought him here. For a long time, he stood under the shade of the oak, knowing the filly’s mother had done exactly what her daughter had predicted.

Wordlessly, he stepped into the backyard and walked around to the front of the dilapidated shack. No foal cried from within. He continued to follow the scent of blood until it brought him to the riverside, nearly a mile from her house.

A half-starved mare stood near the water, filling a large sack with rocks. Near her laid the filly’s body.

He regarded the mare silently for a while, sparing no glance at the filly who laid motionless on the withering grass. The rocks weighed down the sack, and as the mare was about to shove her dead daughter in, she caught sight of Stygian.

Glazed, wild eyes looked up in his direction, mouth moving soundlessly as he remained motionless. She looked mad.

After a few seconds, she scrambled away from the rocks, abandoning the sack full of rocks and her daughter’s body and galloped off in the direction of her house.

Stygian watched her disappear in the distance, and then moved his gaze to the little filly on the riverside. He stepped closer, tilting his head to the side, first time examining her with a clean coat due to being partly submerged in river water. She’d only been dead an hour, from the looks of it. Blood still oozed from the back of her head, where her mother must have delivered the fatal blow.

He nudged the sack of rocks out of the way and his horn glowed blue with magic, lifting her seemingly weightless body onto his back.

Heading towards the nearest shadow casted by a tree, he trotted in silence. In fact, his mind was silent, both of his personalities stayed quiet throughout the short journey.

Casting one last glance around at his colourless, dreary surroundings, he closed his eyes and sank through the withered grass, into the shadows.

He took her somewhere where the irises were in full bloom and bees roved from flower to flower. Uncut, untamed grass brushed up against the hem of his cloak as he emerged onto the fertile land. The scent of sap and freshwater doused the air.

Stygian did not eat on Sundays.

But that didn’t mean he’d let her go to waste.

He carried her to a small, grassy knoll, setting her down near a patch of clover. Then he began to dig. The sunlight warmed his back and cast a bright light that reflected over her still wet, as well as clean, coat, adding lustre to her dull hair and drying the blood.

Blood dripped from beneath his hooves by the time he was done, but he didn’t mind. A cicada hummed shrilly in the background as he placed her in the hole, and butterflies drifted serenely over the grave as he filled it with the fertile soil.

Something resembling closure bore down on him as he patted the grave flat, running his hoof over the fragrant soil. There was no sorrow or grief at the loss of the filly who’d given him river water tea for the past three months. Only relief.

She’d been so young and insignificant that she’d hardly stolen anything from the earth that bore her. But in death, she would serve a higher purpose by enriching it. Her body would return to nature and become one part of a unified whole. She would no longer be alone, nor would she suffer. Her essence would meld and grace the earth that bore the flowers, breathing perfume into their tender petals and nourishing new life.

Stygian cast his azure gaze to the elastic hair ties in his hoof, putting it away in his saddlebag.

He could not be a friend to her in the end. Nor was he able to change his view of ponies as a depraved race of selfish creatures clamouring for assurance and love.

But he’d brought her to a better place and had given her a higher purpose. She would become part of the nature that makes up the Equestria he so loved, and he found affinity with in that aspect alone.

Stygian breathed deeply. Closing his eyes, he placed his hoof against the soft soil.

The possibility of a new life pushed ghostly warmth throughout his body, blazing with potential.

He smiled.

Break down and blossom.