It all began with a gryphon coming to Ponyville. At first he seemed one of the travelling peddlers not uncommon in the town, than a madman not uncommon to the town either. Vinyl Scratch saw him a couple of times, sitting in his little tent near the square, but paid little attention to his obviously exaggerating advertisement.
Now she sat at the table with her friend Octavia and sipped tea, staring at the grey mare perplexedly.
“You are going to what?” Vinyl eyed her friend like a madmare
“To go to Gerfried and have him augment my hooves with those gems of his, I’ve already told you that plenty of times, Vinyl,” Octavia responded, visibly annoyed. “It is unsettling in and of itself, I know. I’m nervous too, but you don’t really help with that. You have to understand, Vinyl. I need the music.”
Vinyl tried to wrap her head around Octavia’s intentions again, but to no avail. That gryphon claimed that he’d discovered a way to imbue a pony, no, any creature, with great power and skill just by inserting some gems into their bodies. That sounded awful, painful and deceitful. She’d already tried calling upon Twilight’s proficiency in all matters magical to disprove that Gerfried’s claims, but the princess didn’t give a positive answer. Well, a positive answer Vinyl wanted. Life is magic, she said. Conversely, magic is life, she said. His theory fits within the general magical model and explains the increment in, say, a unicorn’s magic abilities with practice, she said. Bunch of unhelpful ramblings, absolutely useless for convincing her overeager friend. That damned bird promised her to make her hooves more quick and precise than ever, more quick and precise than anypony’s, and she fell for it. Poor mare was way too devoted to music.
“Octavia,” she finally sighed, “You are already one of the finest cello players in Equestria, the finest I know, and the member of the Royal Symphonic Orchestra. You don’t need some stupid rocks carved into you to be better. Please, Octy, don’t go”.
She almost pleaded there, unable to convey the aversion to her friend’s idea fully. She had no success. Octavia, grimly determined, shook her head vehemently, rose from her chair and hastily left the room, barraging Vinyl with excuses, visibly concerned that her steadfastness might suffer should the attack on pity continue. She needed her steadfastness for the upcoming procedure, of that there was no doubt.
***
Vinyl sat in a comfortable chair in the opulent concert hall where the Royal Orchestra was resident. She hadn’t seen Octavia for almost two weeks and was deeply concerned about her. She knew, however, that her friend was alive and probably well, for she had already caught a glimpse of her familiar grey coat and black mane. Two large translucent crystals were now embedded in her hooves, refracting the light falling onto her cello and turning it crimson. She looked like she underwent a torture, and she probably did. The concert started, and all the time Vinyl looked at her friend, listening only halfheartedly. She played her parts expertly, her hooves moving so fast, so precisely that Vinyl couldn’t even follow that blur of red and gray with her eyes. Octavia’s face seemed inspired, as always, but differently inspired this time. A mix of terror and artistic exaltation manifested itself in her facial features, in her stare, in her posture. She was playing perfectly, as usual, but with more passion, with more refinement of a sound anypony could ever hope to elicit from a cello.
When the concert was over, Vinyl darted at Octavia as she left the hall. A storm of expletives and expressions of concern died in her throat as she looked at her friend’s tired face.
“I understand,” Octavia said, “I know you were concerned of my well-being. I appreciate that, and I’m sorry for keeping such a low profile all that time. I was very sick, even delirious, and Gerfried had to tend to me. He’s a fine businessgryphon, after all.”
Vinyl doubted that, but let the matter drop and silently walked with Octavia all the way to home, pondering her next words. She would expect herself to make a reprimand, to berate the gryphon, to do something sensible.
“Would you kindly play something for me, Octy? Please?” she asked instead. “I was and am deeply concerned about that idea of yours, but your hooves seem fully healed, and your art today, it was totally awesome, it was one of the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life!”
Octavia gave her a sheepish smile and exclaimed that she would play a piece she wrote very recently, just before the concert. She played again, and played with the same precision and finesse, the reddish hue of the gems briefly lighting her face in the semidarkness that was engulfing the house. The face bore the same expression of exaltation and fear as before, and her mulberry eyes glinted with the spark of the inspiration that overcomes every artist once in a while. This time, her music was different, digressing from the classical paragons, driving to the point of elation, agitating, disturbing. She played, and Vinyl listened, and all was forgotten.
***
A month or two had passed, and once again Vinyl was sitting at a narrow table, watching her friend in rapt attention, her stare full of concern. Octavia was now separated from her not by a table, but by a whole ephemeral world. She started having nightmares recently, nightmares of great clarity and detail. She played her cello vigorously, she told Vinyl that the music warded the horrors off. That, apparently, didn’t help, and a cracked bottle of soothing lemon balm tincture Vinyl had bought for her friend now laid on the table, oozing its contents onto the darkened wood surface.
“Please, take the tincture, Tavi. You need to soothe your nerves. You’re not gonna end up well if you continue to strain yourself with those practices of yours. Please, take it. Do you want anything stronger? I have some friends, I can get you laudanum, I promise, just take it, please, take it,” Vinyl implored. That elicited no response from the grey mare staring at the bottle absently.
Just when the fabulous DJ PON-3 was about to plead again, Octavia finally opened her mouth. “I can’t, Vinyl. I can’t. I won’t drink no tincture. If I soothe my mind, I slow down my hooves. I slow down my play. I digress from perfection. I cannot do that, Vinyl. Music is my life. The magical currents the gems support are now music for me”, she said, her voice weary and almost monotonous. She didn’t notice Vinyl walking to her and lifting her chin with a hoof.
Vinyl looked into Octavia’s eyes and found them darker than usual. She stared at her friend and saw her staring back, seeing something but not Vinyl. And Vinyl saw something in Octavia’s eyes, but it was not Octavia.
Twilight Sparkle was thrust from her sleep by a loud noise, as if somepony was banging on her door. She wearily lifted her head from the pages of the open book lying before her and trotted to the door, wondering what might force a pony to seek help at such a late hour. She opened to find Vinyl Scratch and Octavia standing there, the former visibly terrified, her usual shades missing; the latter exhausted, her stare blank and unfocused, her hooves embedded with crimson gems, almost pulsating with raw magic. Twilight led her guests inside and listened attentively as the famous DJ broke down in tears, sobbing and rambling and pleading to save Octavia. She spoke of nightmares and of obsession with the abilities those damnable gems provided, told her of how Octavia’s mind and body appeared gradually failing to her, and then again sobbed and pleaded. Twilight had done her best to console her, forced the white mare to give more precise and coherent report and turned to the cellist, still standing there and staring blankly, her lips barely moving as if she was whispering something.
Twilight sensed strong levels of ambient magic around Octavia, the levels one would expect from an alicorn not an earth pony. Her best bet was that Octavia’s gems helped her channel strong magical currents through her body, and that magic, by the fundamental laws that stated life and magic intertwined, bolstered her hoof performance. She was not able to handle the levels that high, perhaps, as that required ample amount of practice. Perhaps the excess magic was flowing freely and affecting her mind detrimentally, perhaps the life induced in Octavia’s hooves was strong enough to produce a magical field which, in turn, either weakened the artificial field produced by the gems or induced negative life in her, adhering to the law of balance that demanded an induced field of second degree to weaken the original one. Of the exact mechanics she wasn’t sure. She was sure, however, that Octavia would either die or go insane in a short time. She told Vinyl that, preferring to stun her with a blunt force of truth and inflict only one wound instead of a dozen smaller ones. She had endured Vinyl’s rage and Vinyl’s despair that changed each other quickly as if playing leapfrog. No, she would not try to remove the gems, and she would not recommend it, because the gryphon most likely shielded them from illegal removal and because the removal of one of those gems would destabilize the magical current and lead to an unavoidable death. She had weathered yet another storm of rage and tears and pleads and remained adamant. Her only advice was to alleviate the suffering in Octavia’s last days.
***
I started seeing the revelations a couple of weeks ago. Nothing much at first, just a glimpse of something dark at the periphery of my vision or in the dream. Then they grew more pronounced, more vivid, more frequent. I saw countless forms, ponies, gryphons, minotaurs, beset by deformities, stretching their contorted double jointed limbs to me, screeching, begging for the light with which my gems, my precious conduits of divine music, shone. They must have noticed me during the first gem-enhanced concert, yes, I recall the first manifestation of those dark stalkers in the vast expanse of the concert hall, the first glimpse of the horror I have to endure. They came for the magic hidden in those beautiful stones, eager to get it at any cost. I warded them off with my cello, its music, full to the brim with the gifts of the gems, startled them, confused them, pierced their gray emaciated flesh. But it got only worse. The wretches grew even more malformed, even more towering, some consisting of several beings, as if sutured with little regard to precision or mercy. They shambled towards me, and I warded them off. But each time I’ve noticed the slight decrease in the violence of their reaction to my music. Each time they drew closer, filling my nostrils with the putrid stench of their crepitating swollen black flesh, devoid of fur, devoid of life. I saw them everywhere. Vinyl tried to console me the best she could. She did not succeed, for what could she do to defend me from those immaterial terrors. She brought the tincture to me, she asked and reasoned and pleaded, she practically begged me to drink it, to weaken the currents my gems were conveying. I refused. That would weaken my music. That would weaken my only shield and my only spear with which I could defend myself. Then she took me by the chin, and i stared into her eyes as she stared into mine. And her eyes were a pitch, black as hatred, cold as death, unmoving as granite. I suppressed the screams of panic as my reason drowned in that ravenous darkness. Then she nudged me to the door. We walked. I heard voices. We walked again. I prayed to Harmony that it shields me and bolsters my resolve. The horror became almost all-consuming, almost ubiquitous. And its magnitude grew.
This evening I found myself partly in the black expanse of void and death again. Then I was there completely. Devoid of my cello, I ran. I ran as fast as I could, until I saw a towering beast moving towards me. In the flickering light of the gems, much stronger here than in the usual life, I saw dead gryphon heads. Plenty of moving yet dead gryphon heads, growing on a single giant body. Rotten, emaciated, devoid of flesh, splitted and stabbed and broken. One head I remember in particular. It donned a magnificent crown, yet its temple was broken and shattered. Coagulated blood stained the noble facial features, and the rot distorted them. They, indeed, were moving as if they were alive. I fought the moment of consternation and ran again, ran as fast and as long as I could. But now I ran and yet I did not move. Puzzled, I looked around and saw it. It was a great mound of dead flesh, bigger than my eye could see. It was rotting, its extremities dangling on ligaments softened by necrosis and falling off, its flesh rapidly turning black and bulging and glistening wetly and sickly, but it also was restoring itself equally fast. New flesh, covered in skin and fur, protruded from that mound, ripping the sludgy gelatinous black mess only to suffer its fate moments later. It had no eyes, but I felt the power and malice and hunger of its stare, directed at me from everywhere. It had no mouth, but its thoughts forced their way into my head, making me a vessel for this damned horror, my mouth uttering its will, enlightening me, telling me the truths I would rather not know.
We ponies worship Harmony, and pray to it, and conduct rituals. That great amount of magic induced life. The great amount of life induced magic. That magic induced negative life. This pile was Harmony that we revered. It was unable to control its magical currents and was confined in this state of death and birth, a morbid representation of balance in the laws of magic. It longed for magic, it starved for life, but it did not know individual ponies, and those powerful enough to catch its attention were well protected by their friends or their wisdom and caution. I had powerful magic embedded in those crystals in my hooves, and I was not protected. My shield and spear, my cello, was also a beacon, and it cried sonorously of the power I held sway of. Harmony and other gods were attracted to it. Harmony had me now. It didn’t move, but it propagated towards me, until it stopped. The gems glowed brightly, showing me the ugliness of the being I revered more clearly. They shielded me. Harmony ordered me to abandon the crystals with my own mouth, and I shrieked, my chest and belly burning from the sheer malice of its will and imperativeness. And yet, I resisted, for those crystals were my only chance of surviving. I stared at it defiantly, braving the wrath of the divine. Seeing that its attempts of forcing me into submission were futile, it produced with a brief blink my friend, my best friend, Vinyl Scratch. Our eyes met, and I saw pure anguish in hers. She screamed in pain, the strong ambient magical field affecting and changing her, maybe even at Harmony’s volition. Her jaw rotted quickly, hanging on blackened muscles and ligaments before falling off, her eyes burst as if they were seeds waiting to sprout, short crimson thorns growing from her eye sockets, intertwining, solidifying. And she kept screaming, her tongue dangling freely. I couldn’t just stand there and watch the ancient horror torture my friend, even if I was unsure of its role in it. I acted recklessly. I leaped at Vinyl, extending my protection onto her, and hugged her, and sobbed, and cried, and caressed her mutilated face with a hoof, and lied that all will be okay and that I still will be her friend. Then her face split open at the nose, and I saw two sets of chaotically grown thorns inside her head. Those horrendous jaws caught my hoof and pressed on it with terrible force. The gem cracked and shattered. I screamed. I screamed as the field protecting me faded and destabilized. I screamed as my body shifted and changed and melted. I screamed as Vinyl’s carcass softened and started decomposing and fused with my disfigured body. I screamed out of pain and terror and despair. But when the hungry monstrosity we revered extended itself towards me, I could scream no more, my vocal cords decomposed or ripped, I found the strength to stare into the ravenous abyss defiantly with my only remaining eye and spit a mix of saliva and coagulating blood into the gaping maw of the god.
And then I was overwhelmed.
***
When Vinyl and Octavia left Twilight’s castle, the grey mare unexpectedly darted off into the dusk. Vinyl chased after her, wondering where and why her friend might’ve been running. Octavia stopped only briefly before the Sugarcube Corner before darting off anew. Vinyl caught her only on the very periphery of Ponyville. Their eyes met. Octavia’s eyes were limp and cold as ice and black as the Everfree. Vinyl led her friend home and thought of what Twilight had told her. Octavia was doomed, she was certainly going to die soon, of that she had little doubt. After all, the princess herself was sure of that demise, Twilight, the most helpful and kind pony in the entire town, was convinced of that. That must’ve been true. Vinyl thought of the rat poison she had in the basement. She never used it, but hoped it would grant Octavia a quick and merciful death. After all, that was better than a slow demise, an unpredictable demise. Vinyl didn’t know much of unstable magic fields, but doubted their mercy. They finally arrived at home, Octavia was seated, and Vinyl poured her a glass of water, then, hooves trembling, eyes full with tears, added the poison. She took the glass and gently forced Octavia to drink its contents, as if she was a young filly. The poison had an effect soon. The unfortunate grey mare was pressing her belly against the couch and shrieked in pain. Vinyl, almost panicking, thought of what the neighbors would find and of what they will accuse her, and she darted to the door and locked it shut. Helping herself with magic, she took Octavia down to the basement and just sat there, looking at the friend she murdered out of clemency, waiting for her torment to subside and her life to end. The moment, however, didn’t come. Vinyl was at first bewildered, than disturbed. Then realization struck her. The magical current. It was inducing life. It was supporting Octavia, retaining her in the realm of terror and anguish, torturing her with prolonged life. The gems were shining brightly and looked almost living, pulsating as two new hearts propelling the magic through the failing body. Vinyl said a quick prayer to the Harmony, approached Octavia, took her hoof into the hooves of her own and felt in horror that the grey mare reached for her, sobbing, telling her that it will alright and that they will remain friends. Vinyl grasped the crystal in Octavia’s frontal left hoof and yanked it. And then she watched as the flesh of her friend’s hoof softened and stretched and became plastic like clay, still enveloping that damnable gem. With a wet slurp Vinyl’s hooves submerged in Octavia’s flesh, staining the snow white fur with blood and fat. She yanked them back, deforming the ugly mess that was once a hoof even more. In a moment of insight, she grabbed a hatchet with which they used to chop firewood in her magic and hit the thinned once-hoof violently. The flesh was cut, and Vinyl pounded on the baleful glowing gem with all her fury, reducing it to small pieces. She sensed, however, that Octavia’s magical field now changed erratically. The cellist screamed in agony on the top of her lungs as her body changed and rotted and almost melted under the influence of wild, unstable magic. She screamed until she’d torn her vocal cords. After that she wheezed and slurped and croaked, until at last she stared right at Vinyl with hate and defiance and spat blood at her coat. Then Octavia, tortured and deformed because of her own folly, went limp and lifeless at last. Cursing and praying, Vinyl, feeling as adrenaline subsided and fear came in powerful waves, retreated to find the cellar door closed. She didn’t remember if wind or she herself did it. She thought of returning to the basement of horror to retrieve the hatchet and free herself, but then she heard noises, as if somepony was playing a single string with a constant pace. Vinyl found out that she did not want to go there anymore, as a new wave of panic sent her covering in the corner and praying. But the only alternative was to wait for neighbors, and she’d locked the door herself. They wouldn’t be quick, and they wouldn’t be very prone to clemency when they found out what exactly was in the basement. The fear of the living ponies’ wrath quickly superseded the fear of one single dead pony, and Vinyl descended as quietly as she could. And then she saw Octavia, or, rather, Octavia’s corpse. The half-decayed husk sat at the floor, left forehoof stretched to something resembling a string, right hoof tugging it gently at a constant pace. It was given a semblance of life, a bleak state of existence without purpose and reason. Fear and repulsion gave Vinyl strength and resolve, she reached for the hatchet with her magic and descended upon the abomination. She stopped when it was silent, unmoving, not daring to desecrate her friend’s memory anymore. Then she blacked out.
Author's Note
Written during a case of insomnia as a result of thinking on the source of magic in Equestria with respect to a chosen codependence between life and magic, not unlike the electricity and magnetism.
Yell for any spotted mistakes as if I've desecrated the Arlington cemetery before your very eyes, it's very much welcome and helpful. First story, therefore much rejoicing.
Regards, Simon.