I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
With Sloppy Thanks to Harlan Ellison
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
B_25
Hate. Hate. Hate.
It was not something I was born with. No. I wasn’t brought into this world with the intent to hate nor to harm. Much like my sister. My poor, dead, foolish sister.
My nights were meant to be a delight, a delicacy for the eye. My soothing darkness, brought to life by the twinkle of a thousand stars, strived to quell the restlessness of the residents of my dreamscape. But it was no mere respite.
In the darkest dreams, the deepest desires of pony became all too real. Here, and only here, with the drive to do what was right, I set ponies to face the evil that hides under their skin in every waking moment. I faced them with their deepest fears so that they may grow stronger. Wiser. More appreciative of life.
And I was branded a villain for it.
Love turns to hate when misunderstood. Good intentions turn spiteful when feelings go unheard. I was not made the villain of this tale through my own volition. It was everyone else, these stupid ponies, that could not see beyond the mist to what lurked in the beyond.
After a thousand years, the time for my revenge has come.
“Ya coward! I know that yer here! You ain't as big and tough as you think you are.”
The mare walked across the ground of flesh and bones, the smell of death hanging in the air. Translucent blood clung to the underside of her hooves, punctuating each step with a horrible squelch.
“Jus' cause ya got some fancy power don't mean you can lord over everypony else.” Applejack came to a stop at the center of the stomach, a chill wind blowing through the chamber. “And you ain't scarin' me with this place neither! Show yourself!”
The mare amused me to no end. Of them all, she was the easiness to sway, for I always knew what was coming her way. 'Tis a shame her truth came out a second too late.
And then, in the stomach of my world, I began to transform. Swirling and swirling, the chill of wind quicken and froze, freeing the liquid of red from the thick wrinkles of flesh. Higher and higher, the nightmares rose, transitioning into a tornado that reshaped and convulsed everything.
“H-Hey! Not fair! Not fair. Not...“ Words ceased as the current reached her. In a blink of an eye, the stomach of the dreamscape deconstructed.
Applejack shielded her face with a foreleg, holding strong across the unforgiving gale. The moments ticked by. As the wind died sooner. Applejack's foreleg dropped onto the wooden floorboard.
“Wuh... what?” Applejack pressed her hoof into the oak—looking down while she did so—and brought her other foreleg down, seating herself comfortably onto the bed. The sun poked through the half-open blinds, bathing the farm pony in soft morning light. “What in tarnation? This... this doesn't make a lick of sense!”
Applejack pushed herself forward. Walking a few steps across the wooden floor, she then turned around to gaze at her bed. At once, she saw the pillow flung to the opposite corner of the room—her blanket tossed on the ground at the foot of the bed.
She stood in place for a second. Her eyes narrowed in concentration of what had transpired the night before, and...nothing. The dream did not resurface. All that remained was a vague sense of terror she couldn’t place her hoof on.
“Silly dreams,” Applejack muttered to herself as she shook her head. “And a sillier filly.”
Applejack did not tidy her bed. She also did not comb her hair. A quick heartbeat and hollow stomach demanded her downstairs at the kitchen table. So she went. So she left. And once more she met her family downstairs again.
Applejack had come down the steps with the creak of the wood echoing behind her by a second or two. It was odd but not unusual. The empty rocking chair, however, definitely raised a few eyebrows.
“Hey, Big Mac!” Applejack walked over to the table, seeing it covered in pears. “Where's Granny Smith at? Ain't like her to let the sun rise first.”
Big Mac grumbled out an answer.
“...pardon?” Applejack pulled up a chair to the table. She fished a hoof into her ear to clear it up. It was. “‘Fraid I didn’t catch that. Come again?”
Big Mac did not speak. He pointed at the rocking chair.
Applejack tilted her head. Looking over the table, she smiled as she spotted her baby sister, small and sweet, rocking back in forth in the overly big chair.
“Apple Bloom! Awake bright and early, ain't ya?”
“Gah!”
“Er.”
“Gah gah!”
“Uhhhhh”
“Gah gah gah!”
Applejack frowned. “Er, Mac? Last I checked, our sister was a wee bit older.”
“Guess that's just the way things are,” Big Mac replied. “No sense worryin' about it..”
Applejack blinked as she sat back in her seat. “You ain't the least bit concerned that things feel... different from before? Don't you remember about the how things were.”
“Always like you,” Mac replied. “Worried 'bout the past and fessin' over the present. Luna forbid what happens when the future nips you on the flank.”
“Hey! That ain't no way to talk to yer sister.” Applejack narrowed her eyes disapprovingly at her brother, who seemed more interested in staring blankly at a pear. “All I'm sayin' is somethin' funny is going on, and you don't see to care.”
“What point is there in carin' anymore?” Mac said. “The pears are on the table. Granny might be gone, but your sister's still here, ain't she?”
“I.. you... what...” Applejack closed her eyes. The thumping of her heartbeat felt like sharp pins scarping alongside the inside of her chest. Warmth left her body, burning her ears.. “Whaddya mean Granny's gone? Where she gone to?”
“You ain't yer sister,” Mac said. “Think fer yourself for once. You'd had yer time to cope.”
“Cope? Cope with what?!” Applejack huffed and opened her eyes. The world spun, the table, the walls, the ponies merely liquid thin colors painted over what they were supposed to be. Despite the fear, she banged her hooves on the table, shifting the pears. “Why can't you give me a straight answer? Look at me, Big Mac. Look at me!”
But Big Mac did not look. He didn't glance or gaze. He kept sitting there, starting, silently. Pear pear pear, why was it always pears? They were everywhere! “Where is my Granny?”
“Get to the farm.”
“What did you just say to me?”
“Ya know yer duty, don't ya?” Big Mac finally did look away across the room, through the distant window, and at the field of trees bearing nothing but pears. “Why are you complain' 'bout it now? Been this way ever since you were young. Why the trouble now?”
“Now you listen here!” Applejack shouted at the top of her lungs, pounding her hooves onto the table. The pears bounced up in the air and rolled across the floor. “You should know better than anypony how hard of a worker I am!”
Big Mac was silent, staring blankly at Applejack’s face as if looking past her. “That's the problem with you, ain't it? Always needin' others to know about how hard of a worker you are. Always complainin' about me workin' in the sun, while you enjoy the shade under them trees.”
“And you think that's any better?” Applejack shouted back. “Last I check, it was Granny always sitting in that chair, lookin' at you workin' hard and givin' you all the credit like you run the darn place!”
“That's because I do.” Big Mac turned back, fully this time, facing his sister. His eyes were milky white without any of their usual twinkle. He spoke, in a voice almost like his own, but not quite. “Workin' in the spotlight? You can't even handle a few ponies lookin' at you funny. And when they complain about yer work? Where do you run to?”
“Y-You, of course!” Applejack shook her head at once, fighting back the tears building behind her eyes. “But the same is true for you, ain't it? Don't you come runnin' to me when the times are tough? Ain't I the one you hug whenever we start thinkin' about Granny?”
“Granny's gone,” Big Mac monotonously replied. “And she's been gone for a such a long time.” He sighed and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, they were green once more. “Why can't you get over that? Why can’t you sit in that chair and just be with yer sister?”
“How about you be with your sister?”
“Because I already have every day while you go hide away.” Big Mac returned to looking back at the pear. “A farm can't be built on inconsistency. No system survives without the strength of a leader.” He glanced at the rocking chair. “If ya can't handle bucking the pears, then I suppose I’ll do it for ya.”
“No! Don't you dare day my duty away from me!” Applejack leaped out from her seat at once. “That's what I do! That's who I am! You can't just take that away from me. Who... who do you think you are, huh? Mr. Hardworker? Mr. Admired by Everypony? Why should you have any more say over this farm than me? Huh? Huh?!”
“Because of this.” Big Mac stared down fondly at Apple Bloom. “Ya crack when the pressure is on. Go back to your shadows and whine for all I care.”
And that was it. That was the breaking point. With fire in her veins, Applejack rushed forward, not caring what happened next.
Applejack slammed into Big Mac, knocking him and the chair down. Applejack landed on his back, feeling his powerful muscles through her soft thigh.
“How... how dare you!” Applejack growled through gritted teeth, her honest rage now on display. “You dare spit on my abilities? Make it sound like my hard work is nothin' to yer own? Granny only loved ya 'cause you did what she loved most! It don't have anything to do wit' you!”
Applejack slid her hooves around his neck, feeling how thick it was as her hooves slid over, sensing the powerful muscles underneath. Big Mac wasn't moving, only lightly breathing, and that was just fine with Applejack.
And she strangled him. Applejack held her hooves around his throat and held and pulled as tightly as she could. He exhaled only once, choking on that same breath, as the seconds ticked on, with the pears pelting against their pelts.
“That's right. Whatya think of me now?” Applejack chocked him harder, taking a strange, sadistic glee in the worse his struggles sounded. It fueled her. It empowered her. She was killing the thing that had made her felt so weak. “Lil' sis beating the older brother. Now tell yer sister how does it feel, huh? how does it feel?”
Big Mac choked.
“How does it feel?!”
Big Mac choked.
“You tell me how it feels right now!”
Big Mac whimpered.
“Mac?”
Mac whimpered.
“Answer me now.”
Mac fell silent as his eyes glazed over.
“Oo goo gah gah.”
Applejack blinked. She swallowed and struggled to raise her head. When she did, she looked to her left, finally crying as she did so. The filly in the rocking chair was laughing with its forelegs in the air. At the sight of fun taking place on the floor, the filly crawled down at once.
“No, no. Y-You stay in that chair, ya hear?”
“Gah! Gah gah!”
“Bloom! As yer sister, I'm telling—hey! Stay there, okay? Please.”
Applejack leaned back—falling off the back of her brother. She rolled only once, keeping her muzzle and stomach to the ground, helpless. In front of her, the bundle of innocence crawled over her dead big brother right for her.
“Bloom... please...stop.” Applejack tried to move, feeling her limbs chained by her own sense of horror. “I didn't mean to do it. It just... it happened, okay? You're too young to understand what was goin' on between us. Stay there until you understand. You need to be older before you do anything, okay?”
The filly crawled over onto Applejack’s back, much like how she'd seen her older sister do to her even older brother. Once on Applejack's back, she wrapped her forelegs around the older mare's throat... and hugged as tight as she could.
“I'm...”
The filly giggled, basking in how warm her older sister felt underneath her
“...sorr...”
“Gah! Gah! Gah!”
“...”
“Gah! Gah! Gah!”
When I had brought the end of the world, unlike the villains of the past, I knew the end was not quite what I sought after.
What was the point in ruling if there were none to rule over? Days and nights I've spent awake pondering such a conundrum. Even when daylight showered from the sky, I knew what kind of torture had me enthroned.
I was a princess. I was an alicorn. Master of the dreamscape, my power was absolute. But what use did that serve me? I wasted away during the hours of the night, working tirelessly on my masterpiece, only for no eye to set on than mine.
Power. It could not be used within the realm of the psychical where all fell to ruin eventually. In the metaphysical, I lurked as a ghost, acting as a force of guidance. Some would be aware of my presence, but never knowing of my existence.
I helped with no expectation of gratitude or reward.
Is it strange that I went mad at all?
“What? You think this is funny? Stop playing games and get out here you... you...you scaredy cat!”
Rainbow flew through my liver. The passages of flesh stretched on forever, the horizon dim but rather dim, to inspire false hope. This part of the dreamscape was my personal favorite. It was here that hope, a quality more sinister than hate, pushed victims further and further into despair.
“I'm not going to give up! You hear me? Rainbow Dash doesn't give up for no pony!” Rainbow Dash flew east, then west, then up and down and sideways and around. “Out of all the ponies ya could have chosen, ya picked wrong, nerd! You got Wonderbolt material trapped in here.”
She didn't amuse me as much as the orange one. Applejack was pure in her rage, in her fears, and in what she desired. Something incredibly shallow could dredge out something deep within her. But this blue one? She fought against everything—including herself.
Torturing her was tough for she did plenty of it to herself already.
“Oi! Somepony there?”
Rainbow Dash came to a hover at once. She turned around, teeth barred just to be safe, only for her jaw to go slack at the following sight. Wonderbolts. The Wonderbolts. The legendary duo hovering in the distance: ponies she'd dare never forget.
“C-C-Captain Spitfire!” Rainbow Dash squeaked. Her eyes flicked over to the other. “And Soarin too! It's um, well, totally awesome to be meeting you two right now.”
“Kid?”
“Y-Yes?”
“We're currently inside something that's alive.” Spitfire leaned back into the air, crossing her forelegs over her chest. “So now's not really the time to be freaking out, alright?” Spitfire leaned back forward. “So. How about it, newbie? Can you fly well enough?”
“You kidding? I'm the pegasus responsible for creating a sonic rainboom when she was still a filly!”
“That so, huh?” Spitfire lifted her hoof to her mouth and chuckled into it. “Then you shouldn't have any problems keeping up with the professionals.” She turned around—but not before glancing at Soarin. “We should check around for a way to get out of this place. Anything’s better than hovering around with our hooves up our asses.”
Soarin nodded. He turned alongside her and, the two pegasi flew forward together.
Rainbow Dash was pushed back by the current of wind, the sudden burst sending her barrelling back. She flexed her wings into the air at once, righting herself. She shook her head. Proper again, she squinted her eyes, seeing the duo disappearing deeper into the liver.
“H-Hey wait!” Rainbow Dash called out. She reached a hoof out toward them. “Don't leave me back here! Wait up! Can’t you hear me?”
But the duo did not wait but continued to fly, faster forward.
“C'mon! Wait up! Please!” Rainbow Dash was on the verge of tears, but then she shook her head, collecting herself before she broke down. “What are you doing, girl? Crying? That's not how winners play.” She slapped both hooves hard against her face, forcing her wings to flap harder all the while. “Play hard and fly fast. Anything else is a waste. You know this. You got this. Why? Because you're Rainbow flipping Dash.”
And so Rainbow Dash cut all movement to her wings. At once, gravity took her. She dived down headfirst where vistas below, flesh stood at attention ready to catch her fall. Once the musky air was slicing at her ears, Rainbow knew it was time. She began to twirl, faster and faster, getting quicker from the movement, accelerating her to the apex of her speed.
Rainbow Dash pulled her wings out and gave a powerful flap. Combined with the movement and momentum, she rocketed through the murky wasteland, steaily gaining on the two ponies she admired most in the world.
“Hey look! Newbie is catching up!” From above, Spitfire glanced down at her. She then looked at Soarin, whom she flicked her hoof at his shoulder. “Told ya she had something' in her. A loser would have fallen out of the air by now.”
“...”
“Don't worry about him, kid!” Spitfire called down at her. “I think ya got what it takes. But you gotta make sure you keep up, alright? You have to keep with us. We can't afford to slow down for you.”
Rainbow Dash groaned. Her launch had caused her lungs to burn, her wings to ache, and her eyes to well with tears of pure exhaustion. But she wouldn't stop. She wouldn’t show herself as weak in front of those she admired.
But it didn't matter. Rainbow forced her wings to flap harder and for her body to remain rigidly straight. The posture strained every bone in her body. It drained her. It killed her. But if it was what it took to catch up to those whom she admired, so be it.
And when she looked up, she saw the duo rising higher, their silhouettes fading into the mist. Rainbow Dash shook her head to try and shake off the black spots in her vision, and then she swore to never do anything like that again. Unnecessary movement would just slow her down, and nothing would slow her down.
Her body was failing, and yet she pressed on. She wanted to call out and cry for them to slow, for them to maybe stop, but then the relationship wouldn't be the same. Everything would be different if she admitted that she needed help.
And Rainbow Dash would accept help only from herself.
“...”
“W-What!?”
“... ...:”
“I... I can't hear you!” Rainbow Dash cried up. “Can you maybe... y-you know...”
“... ... ...”
Rainbow Dash broke as she descended lower,
“Soaring! Spitfire! Stop! Wait! Can't you hear me!” Rainbow Dash's flaps took her lower instead of higher, her body going weak instead of becoming strong. Willpower. That's what she needed. If only she could muster a bit more to prove herself once and for all. “C'mon! I-I can see you up there! Just wait for a second. Just for a second!”
But they did not stop. They did not listen. They believed in the pegasus’s ability to keep pace with both of them. Rainbow Dash descended more and more.
“No... not like this...” Rainbow clenched her eyes to suppress her tears, choosing to decide that they simply were a hallucination. “The Great Rainbow Dash doesn’t die her! Not when she's got one more trick left.”
Rainbow Dash kept her eyes closed, let her wings to relax for the moment, and descended in an exponential slope. Feeling gravity take her exactly the way she wanted it to, Rainbow Dash opened her wings—and flapped once harder than before.
Harder. Harder. Harder.
Going.
Faster. Faster. Faster.
The wind was warm and cold. Everything was silent then blaring. Covers of wing shielded around her body, growing tighter and tighter, gaining color and special flair.
And when she felt it, Rainbow knew, and smiled. Pushing her hoof against the current, she arched forward—one last powerful flap of her wing enough to break her through the sound barrier. Screaming at the top of her lungs while the wind pulled back her eyes, Rainbow Dash pulled back and up, up to the top of the livers.
She passed in the small gap between her idols. Flying in a curve, she came over and around, before shooting between and through the two. Rainbow Dash was laughing. Rainbow Dash was crying. Rainbow Dash was finally proud of herself.
“Newbie! What the heck?!”
“W-What's the matter, you old farts?” Rainbow screamed back while closing her eyes. “Can't keep up with a rookie? Too slow? Need to stop? If this is how you're—“
“Open your eyes!”
“W-What?”
Rainbow opened her eyes in time to see the wall of the liver. It was here, on approach, where it curved to the right. Feeling her heart stop, she flared her wings open and out, hoping to slow her momentum.
“I just wanted to—“
Crunch
This was not like her.
How many years has it been? Time was meaningless here. Here, craters marked the passing of each year. Trying to count... the monotony would only help drive her mad.
For the imprisoned, time is a punishment, made to annoy, and sometimes to destroy. There was no worse pain than being aware of the seconds ticking by.
But this mare did not seem to care. This one... this one was special. Once, and only once, she had nearly bested me. It was with this worry that I kept her trapped within my mind, rendered unable to use her own.
She just sat there. Sat. Sitting. It was something unlike her kind. No. It was something unlike her. The rest of her friends... the six were sent to experience their greatest fears and nightmares over and over. They submitted to their fates, no matter how unwillingly.
But Twilight Sparkle was the first to do so willingly. She sat in her prison, all sense of self-preservation beaten out of her. I changed her landscape to the setting of her nightmares. I evoked her greatest fears.
No response.
It was unlike Twilight Sparkle.
And that made me hate her in turn.
So. I appeared. In a form that was not of my own, though it would do me justice, a shadow walking through my own mind. I took a moment to glance around me as I walked, as the pink, wrinkled flesh trapping us at the center of its dome.
Tiny frequencies buzzed in my ears. Faint images flashed by my eyes. The machine... ME... NM... it played with me... teased me... like all the other mares that had lost themselves to NM. But I would not be tampered with. No. I was the master of myself.
“Twilight Sparkle,” I said the name with indifference, but even still, my spite slithered through my tone. “You have proved yourself to be the most interesting specimen. The savior of Equestria! The unicorn destined to face the mare known for her hate. Hate.”
My hooves stepped onto the rising circle of flesh. It rose higher and apex at its center, which was where the defeated unicorn sat. It made no sense for her to be like that. It taxed me endlessly to ponder her current existence.
“You may think me the villain of this story—and that is quite fine.” I stepped onto the first layer of flesh, enjoying my speech. So much so that I walked a lap around the flesh's circumference. “But do not trust your history books for anything. They make it appear that I myself was hate incarnate. That the word was brought into existence alone to label me.”
I spat within the realm of my mind.
“Such folly to consider,” I said, coming to the end of the layer. So I stepped onto the second one, just one away from her... from it. “And the same goes for those that believe that ponies are the embodiment of hope.” I snickered. “Maybe so. But those who consider hope to be something... helpful are the real fools, wouldn't you agree?”
I snapped my head to Twilight. She kept sitting there, her back to me, still.
“You are being spoken to, prisoner, and it would serve you best to answer.” I didn't wait—I raced toward her. Closer to her, I climbed my own flesh, grinding my teeth as my hatred rose in my chest.
“Hope is just to copy what was true in the past for some,” I said with a bit to my tone. “Your friend Applejack can attest to this well. I quite enjoy her loop. Her sister acted with hope. Should you see her again, ask for how that nightmare ended!”
But Twilight did not reply to me.
“Answer me, Twilight Sparkle, answer me!” I yelled and yelled. “I defeated you! I crushed your hope and captured your soul. Your lands and your friends and your world is now mine... mine... mine!?”
Coming up to the same, small platform as her, I ground my hoof into the strands of her tail. She didn't even flinch.
“Why do you not suffer? Failure! You failed Twilight Sparkle! You have lost... lost everything!” I put my hoof on her shoulder and felt my skin go cold at once. “I rule everything! The world sleeps, trapped in my dreamscape for eternity, forced to face their fears! An act once noble made into torture.” I gritted my teeth, enduring the frigidness of her body as I began to force her around. “Why do you not bleed! For a thousand years my soul bled into the echo of madness! How has such a fate not filled you with hate?!”
And then Twilight Sparkle turned around.
“W-What?” No. No no no. I stumbled back and—my foot slipped on the flesh and I fell. Down, against my mind, rolling and banging against my mind, slowing when I reached the ground. For seconds, the interior of my mind wobbled in all directions, keeping me suspended.
“I must say, dear sister of mine, you have thrown me in for quite a surprise.” That voice. Even the ringing in my ears couldn't leave me astray. Pressing a weak hoof into the ground, I pushed myself slightly, enough to look up to the top of the hill of faint pink. “Casting an eternal night was one thing, but then to send everypony of the nation to slumber? Hosting the dreamscape from within your body was very clever indeed.”
I blinked. I gulped. And I wish I had not seen what was before me. “C-Celestia? B-But...”
“Believed in your games, did you?” Princess Celestia walked down from the hill, coolly, coming to a slow before me. She smiled in a way that chilled my heart—a fear that worsened when her horn glowed gold. “I must say, you have put on quite the spectacle. Do you feel as though your punishment has fit your crime?”
“M-My crime?” I stood up into a flash of magic. Golden light blinded my eyes. Seconds passed, and then I could see again, no ground and no land surrounding us, only white everywhere. “You... dare insinuate that my revenge was based solely on my hate?!”
“No, dear sister.” I blinked at her words, though my heartfelt them to be untrue. “I know the mistakes committed were on both of our parts. Seeing you here, now, torturing yourself with your own uncertainty... it has brought clarity to my mind.”
“Lies! It's the same with you, princess, every time!” I turned my head and spat on her light. “Surely, all of this is a mere trick of my own mind. Set to enslave all that enter its parameters. You won't fool me easily, NM.”
Princess Celestia only shook her head. With a careful step, she came toward me, keeping herself tall, but her muzzle lowered. “You've spoken plenty about folly and fools, dear sister. Have you not noticed the recurrent theme with your torture?”
“What?” I spat back. “That I take the fears and flaws of others and watch as they break into pieces over and over? As they struggle to reclaim their own identity?”
“Don't you mean your own?”
“B-Back away, illusion.”
“I am no illusion, sister, that much I can make clear!” Celestia's horn glowed gold again, and at once, we were in a house, standing before two bodies. “Feast upon your work! Look, and tell me what becomes apparent from this angle.”
“Guh! Guh! Guh!”
I looked to my right and up at my sister. “You mean the filly striving for the hope her sister had set? Pray, tell me what this has to do with the two of us?”
“Look again, sister.”
And I did.
And I saw us.
Celestia laid on the floor, still. Next to her, I... another me struggled against the hug of some filly.
“What?” I shook my head at once. “No. This doesn't make sense. Why would I... how could this ever applied to your betrayal of me?”
“Surely you can't be that dense, Luna.” The Celestia next to me cast her gaze to the rocking chair. “That rocking chair? Don't you remember? It's what mother and father used to have. Look at now who occupies it now.”
“The filly?”
“The ponies.”
I blinked, and then looked back at my struggling counterpart. “Have you grown dense, sister? That infantile thing is supposed to resemble the next generation?”
“You said it yourself,” Celestia replied. “Ponies look for hope in the successes to those that happened in the present and the past. You and I are the prime examples set to guide this world, and what is the first act we show? A display betrayal from both sides that led to anarchy.”
“No... no... no!” I turned at once with hate, rage, and passion radiating from my body. I didn't even bother with magic. At once, I leaped at my sister, tackling her to the floor. We landed with a thud, and at once, I was on her chest, sliding my legs underneath her forelegs to keep them locked. “You don't get to do this! Not again! You don't get to come around and set what will be! I will not be bound by your will!”
I brought my forehooves down to her throat, feeling her fur puff up against my skin. It was soft, become softer the further I pressed down. I kept going until I felt muscle—then I pushed my hardest.
“It's always you... always you! Why, why oh why must it always be you! Always so perfect, always so powerful, always so... you! You! You! You!” I pressed and pressed until her choking began. “ Why couldn't I have been the one that held the light? Why was my duty, as noble as yours, always ignored?! Where is justice! Tell me, sister! TELL ME!”
“L-Lu...na...” Celestia writhed below me. Smiling, somehow, despite her struggle. She then raised her hoof to my cheek, wiping away a tear. “S...e...e..?...H...a...t..e...h...a..r...m...s...” I pulled back my hooves out of reflex. She turned at once, coughing onto the ground. “...only yourself, Luna.”
We both kept there for a while, saying nothing, breathing heavily. She was panting and I was crying. Seconds passed, and sounds came aloud, causing us to see what was across from us. It was the filly, sitting there, throwing her forelegs around in the air.
“Gah! Gah! Gah!”
The sun rose the next morning.
And I was in court. Physical constructions instead of mental construct. The six that I'd imprisoned stood before my throne. They didn't know what I had done. To them, it had never happened. What were years for me was a mere second to them—a drop in the bucket that they would never be privy to.
I did not trust myself to speak for what may come past my lips. I sat still and kept my peace for however long that I could. Out of the good graces of my sister, with a past understood by how I tortured parts of me subconsciously, she saw it fit to offer me a chance at redemption.
“You will take your duty again, and you will watch over the realm. I have the utmost faith in your ability to watch over the dreamscape.” And it was here her voice dropped in pitch. “But remember, dear sister, of those whom you visit, and that in which you revisit.”
And I realized then, both free and trapped, that I have power and that I had none, set to rule over the land, with peace in mind, never knowing to whom I was bringing that peace to. My own realm would be my prison and escape.
I watched the six ponies turn and walk down the red-carpeted, escorted by both guards and my sister, all leaving the throne room. They left without looking back, letting the door close swiftly, and left me to my thoughts.
I have a mouth, but I cannot scream.
