Waking Up (And Falling Down)
Blow after blow after blow after blow. Strike apon strike, screaming through tears. The fight with the demon had been long and arduous. She had only registered it faintly, as if watching it through a fogged screen. She kept dissociating, doubting, and then forcing herself forward, more bursts of energy spiralling from her horn just the same as how she felt herself spiralling out of control.
She had felt choked, thrown through solid earth as if it were simply more air, being pulled through mountains and ruined field alike, teleporting with all of her strength, attempting, brokenly, to fire at him. To strike him down. To stop him from ever moving again. The rage and fear she felt was unparalleled. The smoking remains of her library lay behind her.
She didn't have time to register the wounds that stockpiled. Didn't have time to care for the way her wings began to scream in protest when she pushed to keep flying, didn't care that her horn was scorched and stung worse than it ever had before, didn't care that her throat was aching so horribly, pleading for air.
And then... And then Tirek had shown her her friends, trapped. Trapped in bubbles of magic. Smirked about their impasse. And then had selfishly bargained their lives for her magic.
Weak and tired, oh so tired, tears streaking her cheeks, she had accepted, before falling, energy leaving her as he drained her of all that had kept her going, her friends free.
"Twilight! What were you thinking?!" Spike cried out in disbelief as he ran over to her barely conscious form. She lay on her side, dizzy, one side of her vision fuzzed. Without her magic fueling her with nonstop adrenalin, she could finally feel the agony across her body. Her wings felt stiff and bent oddly, the right side of her face was burning, and her throat felt like it was being clogged with hot irons.
"O-oh, sweet Celestia! Twilight, dear, your FACE!" Rarity exclaimed, horrified. The others reacted similarly, staring at her with looks of horror. She shook her head, faintly feeling blood running from her cheek, ruffling her feathers, scrambling to a sitting position. "I-it's nothing" she sniffed, feeling like her soul had been sapped. Which... It almost just had. Tirek stood above them, gaining size rapidly, at the same rate of her diminishing, almost ruined hope.
Discord stood before them, morose. "Tirek tricked me into thinking there was something more valuable than friendship" he said softly. "But there isn't anything more. I see that now. He lied when he told me this medallion was a sign of loyalty and gratitude" he pulled at the golden triangle around his neck. "But when i say it is a sign of our true friendship... I am telling the truth" he leaned forward, moving the medallion down Twilight's head, where it rested comfortably over her chest, before withdrawing.
The medallion shone the colours of the rainbow, and the light came back to Twilight's eyes.
'Maybe... Maybe there's still hope after all!' she thought desperately, with all the will she had left.
The rest of the happenings had occured in a blur, a haze. Her head began to feel like it was splitting open, and she faintly heard voices calling her name before she passed out, the magic of the box dissipating.
When she next awoke, it was to see Princess Celestia.
The first thing she noticed, however, even before the presence of her mentor, was the discomfort she felt from her wings.
She tried in vain to fold them, only to cry out in agony as pain wracked her to her core. Convulsing, she sobbed as a voice softly cooed to her, golden light channeling a warm feeling into her that seemed to wash her pain away.
"P-princess" she gasped. "Why... Why won't my wings fold?"
Celestia bowed her head in grief. "They were severely damaged in your battle. I'm sorry, you won't be able to use them for quite a while."
"Oh... Okay" she whispered, stunned. She had barely even felt it during the battle, aside from sporadic twinges of pain. And now it was all crashing into her like the waves of magic she had been bombarded with.
"U-uhm... My right eye hurts too" she admitted after a tense pause. The skin around it felt like it was cold, freezingly so, and yet burning like acid at the same time. the eye itself felt slightly swelled shut, stiff, the skin around it like rubber. It stung acutely, as if sand had been rubbed into it.
Celestia just seemed to grimace more. "You were burned quite severely by the overload of magic you both faced and wielded. The hospital staff have been working hard to heal you, but... Much of the skin, especially surrounding your right eye, will stay scarred" she sighed, guilt seeping into the sound. "And your eye will be affected for a while. The initial symptoms should only last 2 days at most. You might have some photophobia for a while, but... We... We don't know for sure yet. There's never been a case quite as bad as yours. Oh Twilight, I'm so sorry"
Twilight felt numb. She could barely comprehend it. Her eye stung again, and she sobbed, the tears coming from the injured eye feeling like they were tearing at the burnt skin below it.
She looked slowly up at the lights of the room. They had been dimmed quite noticeably, as to prevent additional pain, presumably.
It didn't matter. Her eye still teared up in the light, the feeling akin to being slowly scraped at with a file.
Celestia looked like she was being wounded merely watching her. She bit her lip, seeming to be holding back her own tears. "I'll go get a nurse. Twilight... I'm so sorry. But you have to know... I'm also so proud of you. You saved us all"
And with that, she was gone.
Twilight had never cried so hard in her entire life.
