Ponest Dungeon

Chapter 10: Hopeless Horror

Week 6, Day 2, Noon

“Where is it?!” Amethyst spun in circles, unable to get her bearings in the infernal gloom.

“I don’t know!” Shining yelled as he bumped into her. His horn was lit, as was hers and Lyra’s, but the light they gave off, even combined, was pitiable at best.

They’d only seen a glimpse of… it. When it had come, the light had fled, as if radiance itself could not bear to exist in the same space as that shambling horror.

Lyra released a hideous scream, which startled the others. They watched her vague silhouette as her hornlight evaporated and her body distorted into her monstrous, possessed form.

Despite the horror closer at hoof, Shining squinted into the blackness. He slowly turned his head, scanning for any sign of movement. He finally pointed his sword at a gleam which reflected off of a multitude of what could only tenuously be described as eyes. “There!”

“Fire in the hole!” Everypony shielded their eyes at Bon Bon’s warning, but they were still able to see a blinding flare of light around the edges of their vision as the flash-bomb explosion sounded.

The noise unleashed by the stricken creature was indescribably horrible; it was a keening ululation that spoke of untold aeons of slaughter in the name of uncaring omnipotent masters. The suffering demise of entire civilizations could be boiled down into a single syllable of that vocalization, if it could truly be called such.

Everypony threw their hooves over their ears, straining in pain as they tried to muffle the assault on their aural senses—

Everypony except for Amethyst.

“No,” she whispered. She’d heard that sound before, back when she’d peered into Blueblood’s eye. “No,” she said again, louder this time.

The shambler ceased its screeching and turned its eyes upon her.

She could… see in its eyes: it knew her fear; it knew that she had heard it before; it knew that she’d seen her own death; and it knew that it was going to help bring about that finality.

“NO!” Amethyst screamed as she turned, tears of terror trailing from her eyes.

Shining watched in abject disbelief as she bolted. “Amethyst! Where the Tartarus are you going?” He raised his voice to call after her retreating form, “Amethyst!”

Amethyst could only wail again in denial as her body galloped blindly down the hallway, the terrible sounds behind her testament to the shambler giving chase. Her ears became deafened by the pounding of her own heart and she couldn’t hear the warnings from the others as the shambler reached out with a clawed pseudopod of malign intent.

A fiery pain raked across Amethyst’s stomach and she tripped as her hind legs suddenly became entangled in something.

Struggling to regain her hooves proved futile, as her legs were hopelessly snared in something sticky and wet. She resolved instead to turn onto her back, waves of pain radiating from her gut as she moved, only managing to get to her side. Daring to light her horn, she saw it. Mere hooflengths from her, it opened its maw wide as it advanced to consume her.

“No.” The word was meaningless, pathetic in the scope of its own inadequacy in the face of this thing that had been since the cosmos was young.

“N—”

A large bipedal monstrosity tackled the shambling horror, slamming it into a wall. Lyra turned to look at Amethyst as she grappled with the shambler. “Amethyst you need to get—oh, horseapples.”

Following Lyra’s gaze, Amethyst looked down at herself and gasped—or tried to, at least. Her abdomen was rent open, a ragged, meaty chasm bordered by blood and bone. Her intestines had spilled out upon the floor, trailing behind her and having intertwined with her hind legs like the twisted roots of some macabre tree. She felt suddenly cold, shivering as her hornlight sputtered out along with her hope.

Shining galloped into view and flared the light from his horn, illuminating the shambler for just long enough to see it as it bit deeply into Lyra’s neck. The mare-monster’s scream turned wet as blood burbled from her ruined throat.

“LYRA!” shrieked Bon Bon as she arrived. She laid into the horror with her axe, severing one of the clawed pseudopods. The fleshy appendage dissolved into thin air, and a replacement swiftly formed from the stump of the original.

Shining screamed as he swung his sword into the thing’s back, slicing through multiple layers of gelatinous putrescence. He ducked as a series of tendrils whipped out to strike at him.

Amethyst listened as the fight raged around her, brief flashes of light occasionally allowing her a glimpse of Shining and Bon Bon’s desperate struggle. She whimpered as she tried to untangle her guts from her legs and stuff them back into herself, but the act was as impossible as it was absurd. Trying to call upon her healing magic proved as futile as trying to shove her insides back where they belonged; the numbing agony made her unable to concentrate.

This was what she’d seen, what she’d felt. The only thing remaining—

“Hello,” a mare’s voice said.

Amethyst’s blood turned to ice when she heard it, but she still held out hope as she tried to turn her head to see the mare. She opened her mouth to speak—no, to beg. But she only succeeded in coughing up blood.

“Stay still, let me help you there,” the mare said as she lit her horn with a purple glow, levitating a heavily-inscribed pony-skull in her magic. The kindness in her smile and tone belied the burning hatred in her eyes.

As Amethyst watched with great trepidation, she saw a series of… holes open in the air. Her eyes widened as blood-red tentacles slithered from the portals, wrapping around and grasping the shambler’s bulk, holding it fast.

“What the—” Turning his head, Shining’s eyebrows rose when he saw the new arrival. “T-Twilight?! What are you—”

“No time for a reunion, B-B-B-F-F,” Twilight managed, grunting with exertion and holding her eyes shut against the strain. “I can’t hold it much longer!”

“Where do I even hit it?” Shining yelled. “It doesn’t have organs!”

“Nnng—there!” A spot on the shambler began to glow brightly and Twilight shuddered as her hornlight started to flicker, the overexertion from the second spell having brought her to her limit.

Shining aimed his sword carefully and thrust it with all of his might into the mote of lavender luminescence. His blade bit deep into the inky, foul-smelling flesh of the beast until the tip of the blade struck something solid—

And the shambler was gone, vanished without a trace.

Twilight fell to her knees, struggling to catch her breath as her hornglow faded.

Igniting a torch, Shining jammed it into a crack in the wall. The sight that greeted him was grim; Lyra had returned to pony form, and was sputtering in a growing pool of the blood gushing from her neck. Amethyst had been eviscerated, and was swimming in her own entrails. “Celestia above… my healing magic isn’t nearly powerful enough to—”

“Allow me, then,” Twilight said, levitating the skull again and turning to Lyra.

Bon Bon had removed her helmet and was cradling Lyra’s head in one forehoof, the other pressed hard against the neck-wound. “Don’t leave me, best friend,” she said, as tears ran down both of their muzzles.

Lyra couldn’t respond, her throat was nothing but a mangled ruin; it was a miracle she was able to breathe at all.

Twilight’s hornglow flared in intensity—

Lyra screamed in agony as the flesh all over her body split in several places, especially in the region of her neck, which came apart and spattered Bon Bon with her “best friend’s” blood. Just as quickly as the wounds had opened, they knitted themselves back together, leaving Lyra gore-stained but otherwise unharmed.

“Sweet Celestia,” Shining swore.

“Celestia has nothing to do with this power,” Twilight boasted. “Shining, I’ve found a source of magic more powerful than anything Celestia—”

Shining cleared his throat and gestured to the weakly writhing puddle of Amethyst on the floor.

Gritting her teeth, Twilight briefly looked at Shining before turning to look at Amethyst and then at the wall. “Oh, right, sorry—I’m… I’m not healing her.”

“What?!” Shining’s brows raised. “Why not?”

“She wants to ruin you,” Twilight said. “If I don’t heal her, she can’t hurt you.”

Struggling to raise a hoof as Twilight backed up, Amethyst only managed a strangled groan. She couldn’t even summon tears to cry at her fate, the fluid loss she had suffered leaving both her eyes and her throat dry. Amethyst refused to shut her eyes, though. She didn’t want to face her end with them closed.

“Please, save her Twily,” Shining said. He was looking at Amethyst, his face bearing a pained expression.

“But… Shiny... you said she was going to lie about you. That she—”

Shining placed a hoof on Twilight’s withers. “Everything she said is true, Twily. She’s right—I… I need help. I’m going to check into the sanitarium when we get back. I know it’s going to be trouble for me, just… please, don’t let her die.”

Watching as Twilight stood silently for a moment, Amethyst’s vision began to darken and a feeling of sleepiness began to wash over her. When she saw Twilight’s horn ignite, Amethyst’s eyes closed as the last of her strength drained away.

Her horn’s glow flaring in intensity, Twilight directed the powers of the void towards Amethyst.

Just as with Lyra, Amethyst was wracked by the eldritch energies being channeled into her body, her skin splitting and weeping blood as the spell did its work. Mercifully, she had lost consciousness, and could not feel the tremendous pain as her already mangled form was further damaged by the initial phase of the healing magic.

Twilight levitated her magically inscribed skull into the air, using it as a focus to repair Amethyst’s wounds. Unexpectedly, she noticed a strange reaction between her own void-based energy and the harmonic magic that Amethyst was infused with—

Without warning, Amethyst exploded in a shower of gore and bone shrapnel, covering everypony in a disgusting mixture of blood, various chunks of organs, and new wounds where shards of shattered calcification had penetrated their hides.

Bon Bon slowly removed her helmet, revealing wide eyes and clenched teeth. Using one of her forehooves, Lyra wiped blood from her shocked face and brushed away a piece of intestine that hung from one of her ears.

“What the Tartarus just happened?” Shining struggled to frantically rip his own helmet off. When he finally succeeded at freeing his head from its red-spattered prison, he pointed an accusatory hoof at Twilight. “Why did you do that?!” His face contorted in anger. “You didn’t have to! If you didn’t want her to live, you just had to wait!”

Twilight, who had just brushed a bloody flap of furred skin from her own muzzle, had twin lines of tears cleaning the blood from two very narrow portions of her face. “I… I tried to save her!” she wailed. “I—I don’t know what happened!

I… know…A familiar voice resounded through the room, speaking haltingly, completely devoid of emotion.

Shining looked around, his face a mixture of confusion. “Blueblood?”

...Yes. I’m here, now.

“What—”

The energies… they were of… opposing types. They… combined… violently…

His look morphing from confusion to anger, Shining paced, looking up towards the ceiling as if Blueblood were hovering above them. “Sir, where were you?”

That… hardly matters right now, I wasn’t there when you needed me—and Amethyst…Several moments passed. You all must return safely—gather what you can, and return…

“Sir…” Shining looked to the ground. “How much… did you overhear about—”

I already knew, Shining. Follow my orders and we’ll speak further when you’re all safely back here.

“Sir!?” Shining yelled at the ceiling. “SIR!!!”

Week 6, Day 2, Afternoon

Sitting back numbly, Blueblood ignored Shining’s demands for his attention and closed the viewing window back to a pinprick. Turning a defeated eye to Zecora’s unmasked face, he stared for a moment at the eerily silent zebra, hopelessness etched across his own features.

“I killed her, Zecora. Just as surely as if I’d been the one to gut her and detonate her myself.” He turned back towards the faintly glowing pinprick of light. “I acted as a foal; my carelessness and lack of self-awareness killed her.”

“About her death, I will offer a thought,” Zecora said in a soft tone, placing her forehooves on his shoulders and beginning to knead them. “The monster killed her, your fault, it was not.”

Grunting in pain as she pulverized a knot in his neck, Blueblood tried to relax and allow her to continue. “But I could have done something—”

“There was no way for you to know.” Zecora slid her hooves down, past his neck, and to his chest. “Which way, that things would go.”

He closed his eye as his breathing became heavy in response to her hooves as they rubbed across his body, working slowly downwards. Reaching back with one hoof, he gripped her neck and pulled her forward, gasping as he felt her teeth clench down on his ear. “But I—”

“For this, yourself, you choose to hate,” Zecora whispered into his ear. “But self-loathing is selfish, and will not change her fate.”

His mood suddenly shattered, Blueblood opened his eye to stare at the dormant spell, a frustrated and exasperated expression etched across his muzzle. Pulling himself away from the caressing hooves and playful nibbles, he waved his forehoof dismissively at the zebra. “No offense, Zecora, but get out of here. Now.”

After waiting a few moments in silence, he heard her hooffalls as she left the room without another word. Silently cursing himself for allowing her to get him so worked up—in more ways than one—he stood to his hooves and tried to walk off his arousal. Briefly thinking of visiting the brothel later himself, Blueblood dismissed the idea as he realized that the only place which was warded against the undead was his room—he didn’t even want to think about the explanations and, most likely, bribes that would be required if one of Berryshine’s whores saw or was injured by a walking corpse.

He would just have to live with being pent up.

“Dammit,” he swore.

Week 6, Day 2, Evening

The fire was blazing away, keeping the chill from the four ponies as they rested under the shadowy boughs of the Everfree.

“—so, after I ‘failed’ the entrance exam to Celestia’s snob-school for wealthy and privileged unicorns, I realized that her way couldn’t possibly be the true path to magical greatness,” Twilight said. “So I left to pursue magic my own way.”

“You ran away,” Shining clarified, mainly to exposit for the two mercenaries present.

“If I had passed the exam I wouldn’t have been living at home anyways,” Twilight argued. “And you were already off training with Celestia’s Courageous Crusaders. I see that worked out well for you—bodyguard to a Prince, can’t get more important than that—so it’s not like you or them were going to be missing me.”

Shining’s expression turned sour. “Mom and Dad were worried sick about you. They spent every bit they had to hire private investigators to look for you, even after the authorities declared you legally dead.”

Her eyes turned down, and Twilight shook her head. “I couldn’t go back, Shiny. It broke my heart when I saw their expressions after the test. I know they said that they weren’t disappointed, but I saw how upset they were. I wasn’t thinking really, I just wanted to get as far away as I could.”

“How did you even survive?” Shining asked. “You weren’t exactly fillyscout material, so I doubt you just trekked down the mountain and travelled cross-country.”

Shrugging, Twilight held her forehooves towards the fire and rubbed them together. “At first, I just galloped away as fast as I could. While I was pausing for a breather in one of the markets, I thought I overheard a donkey saying something about going out by Manehatten. I figured it was far enough away from Canterlot, so I hopped in the back of his wagon while he was distracted.”

Lyra cocked her head. “How did he not notice you?”

Twilight waved a forehoof. “Oh, he found me as soon as he set up camp the first day after we left Canterlot. His name was Cranky. He wanted nothing to do with me, and wanted to take me straight back, but luckily I’d spent the entire trip to that point making a list of reasons why he shouldn’t.”

“You told him that you’d say that he foalnapped you if he brought you back, didn’t you?” Bon Bon deadpanned.

Twilight blushed. “How did you—”

Lyra and Bon Bon broke into a series of chuckles, causing Twilight to redden further. The much-needed levity relieved a small amount of the tension that they had all been feeling since Amethyst's untimely demise.

“Well,” Shining said. “Then what?”

Twilight lit her horn and picked up a stick to poke at the fire. “Well, Cranky said he wasn’t actually going to Manehatten, seeing as how he’d just come from there; he was actually traveling all over Equestria, and he begrudgingly decided to take me along. He taught me how to camp and survive in the wilderness, and whenever we did wind up in town, he let me study magic at whatever local libraries were available.”

“So,” Shining said, “you just travelled around Equestria with someone whom you basically reverse foalnapped into taking care of you until now?”

“Of course not,” Twilight said, knocking over a log with her stick and eliciting a column of sparks to fly upwards from the fire. “I left Cranky after I was old enough to look after myself—poor old guy actually seemed sad to see me go…” She paused for a moment, a wistful look on her face. “Well, then I went to Manehatten. When I finally did get there, I met another unicorn mare in the public library. She was a few years older than me, but she was really smart, and had an innate knack for magic like I did.”

“She loved books too?” Shining barked out a single laugh. “I bet you two hit it off.”

Blushing again, Twilight reached a forehoof back to rub at her mane. “Actually, we got into a lot of fights at first.”

Shining’s eyes widened.

“Yeah,” Twilight continued, “we were both hungry for knowledge, and we both wanted to read the same texts. One day, they kicked us both out for making a ruckus over Clopcraft’s Treatises on Extraplanar Entities.”

“You got kicked out of the Manehatten public library over a single book?” Shining’s voice was incredulous.

“It wasn’t just any book! Wait—that’s not the point anyway! So… we started arguing in the street, yelling our reasons for who deserved the book more at each other. We started arguing our research, our theories—”

“And then you started making out furiously—OW!” Lyra rubbed the back of her head, Bon Bon having hoof-slapped her. “What was that for?”

“Rude,” Bon Bon said, waggling her hoof back and forth at her “best friend.” Looking back at Twilight, who was blushing again, she gestured with a forehoof. “Ignore Lyra. Please, continue.”

“Uh—umm,” Twilight stammered. “Right. We started to realize that we were the only two ponies who actually knew the material in the book; we’d both originally supposed that the other didn’t actually know the subject matter at all. So, we went back the next day and tried researching together. We started making significant progress, more than we would have alone. Before we knew it, we’d exhausted Manehatten’s entire library of magical texts, and then we started traveling Equestria to uncover more knowledge.”

“So she’s here too?” Bon Bon looked around warily.

“Oh, no,” Twilight chuckled. “Starlight hates nature; she’s in town.”

“But,” Shining said, “it’s no coincidence that you’re both here, now.”

Twilight moved the stick again and it snapped, falling completely into the fire. “No,” she said. “It’s not a coincidence at all. About six weeks ago, we both sensed an unprecedented surge of magic from this area. The only time we’d ever felt anything remotely close power-wise, was when we happened to be in the same town as Celestia during a Summer Sun Celebration. We’re pretty sure we’re the only ponies who detected it, since we’re the only ones who’ve shown up. Nopony seems to really bother to check for eldritch energy, probably since it’s so rare; normally ponies only divine for harmonic and necromantic signatures. ”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Shining gestured back towards the ruins. “This whole place radiates strong necromancy; I can feel it in my bones, and I’m not even trained in detection magic.”

“Yes. Yes it does,” Twilight said. “The catacombs radiate energy consistent with a powerful necromancer; and those energies have begun to seep into the surrounding acres.

“However,” she gestured to the Castle of the Two Sisters, then angled her hoof downwards. “From the divinations I’ve conducted, I’ve discovered that beneath the castle, farther down than the catacombs, there is a power which gives off an eldritch signature which is orders of magnitude greater than our necromancer friend. Multiple… orders; so at least one hundred times worse than a necromancer who is more potent than anything me and Starlight have ever previously encountered.”

Shining would have paled if he weren’t already white. “And the surrounding—”

“This whole region is infected with it,” Twilight confirmed. “Including Ponyville. We’re in the belly of the beast, so to speak.”

Flitting his eyes back and forth as he thought, Shining finally settled them on Twilight. “We need to warn Blueblood.”

“I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it,” Twilight said with a dismissive hoof-wave. “Whatever it is, it seems to be a passive entity, like most of its kind. This kind of power spike is probably just it stirring in its slumber. As long as nopony has experienced any direct manifestations, then Blueblood should have nothing to worry about.

Week 6, Day 2, Evening

“Hello, Blue.” the Amethyst-thing said, its voice rough and wet.

Blueblood recoiled, falling out of the bed. The only consolation he had in falling head-first onto the floor was that Amethyst’s corpse had the decency to not be in bed with him when it woke him up.

He looked across the bed at something that—at least vaguely—resembled Amethyst. It was as if somepony had chopped her into pieces, and then tried to put those pieces back together again… poorly.

“No—NO! You said that the wards would keep—”

“Out the undead, I know,” it interrupted, looking around at the various sigils and runes Amethyst had inscribed around the room. “The wards look intact, Blue, so what stands before you now… whatever I am, is not undead.”

Warily rising to his hooves, Blueblood eyed the grotesque amalgamation of pony parts. “Why aren’t you trying to taunt me, or attack me, like the others?”

It shrugged. “Maybe it’s because I harbor you no ill will? Unlike the others, we were friends in life. Plus, I knew that I was risking my life working for you; even if I was scared of the foretelling of my own death, I’m the one that chose to go face it.”

Finally perceiving the complete lack of aggression, Blueblood shifted his feelings from outright fear towards morbid fascination. “What are you?”

The expression the Amethyst-thing managed with its patchwork face was one of thoughtful contemplation. “I am not entirely sure, though I think I remember coming from someplace… dark; someplace… that wants you to be a part of it. Yes. Yes, that’s why we were sent. But… I wasn’t Amethyst—no, not Amethyst at all—not until I met you.”

His eyes darting around, Blueblood forced his mind to dwell on the implications of the Amethyst-thing’s words. “You’re some kind of… what then? A psychic imprint?”

“...Does that make sense?”

“Maybe? Yes? No? No it doesn’t,” Blueblood said, waving a hoof dismissively. “None of this makes sense; you’re dead, but now you’re here—sort of—but how did you even get here this fast? It’s miles to where—wait… Shining burned your body. I didn’t see him do it, but he told me he did when I checked in.”

“So I’m appearing to you as I did when you last saw me?”

“No,” Blueblood said, fixing it with an intense gaze of understanding. “You’re how I see you—” he tapped his own head with a hoof “—here.” An idea, which the rational part of his brain told him was pure folly, formulated slowly in his head. Despite the risks, his heart implored him to try.

Scrunching his eye shut, Blueblood thought, hard. A disgusting squelching noise came from across the bed, and it was all he could do to keep from opening his eye until he’d pictured her… just… right.

“Huh,” she said, her voice sounding significantly more like Amethyst’s than before. “Not bad, Blue.”

Opening his eye, he saw Amethyst standing there. She was perfect—just like she’d been after he’d seen her come out of the bath—and just as unclothed.

Blushing a deep shade of red, Blueblood quickly turned away. “Sorry, I should have pictured you some clothes.”

“We’re ponies,” Amethyst said flatly. “Nudity doesn’t really matter if half of the species walks around completely unclothed, now does it, Blue?”

Frowning, Blueblood turned back to look at her. It doesn’t change the fact that you’re attractive, or that I’m in need of a good— “No, I suppose not,” he said, the expression on his face becoming pained. “You look like her… but do you—”

“Think like her?” She paused, seemingly in thought. “Hard to say—I’m more convinced now that what I am is a reflection of what you knew about your Amethyst; I’m like a copy, colored by your recollections. I… am flattered that you took the effort to make me look… nice.”

His eye passing over her, Blueblood scrutinized Amethyst in a desperate attempt to find some imperfection or blatant deformity that would show that she was still… a monster. “I just wanted to see you… in the flesh again, so to speak.” He paused. “Even though you’re not like the others, you’ll be gone after tonight anyway, won’t you?”

Amethyst nodded. “I can't properly explain it, but I… know that I have to return. But not until… I’ve gotten a piece of you.”

“A piece?” Blueblood cocked his head.

Taking a cautious step towards the foot of the bed, Amethyst slowly began to circle towards Blueblood, eyeing him with obvious curiosity. He responded by stepping towards the headboard, aiming to keep as much of the mattress between them as possible.

“Again, it’s hard to explain. It… wants you here, Blue. It… wants to make you a part of this place. To do that, It needs to sample you, your memories, your body, so that It can adapt itself to you. It will also corrupt you, given time, so that you adapt… to It. The best way It knows how, is slowly, gently—like a death, by inches. Just like Celestia, It will integrate you, piece… by piece.”

His eye widening further at the mention of Celestia’s name, Blueblood quickly moved around the bed, sat on his haunches, and grabbed Amethyst’s withers with his forehooves. “Celestia—do you know where she is?”

“No,” Amethyst said. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

Furrowing his brow, he stared hard into her right eye. “You said ‘It.’ What is… ‘It?’”

A look of horrified recollection appeared on Amethyst’s face and tears began to stream down her muzzle. “The Darkness—” She shook her head as she wept. “Oh Blue, the Darkness—”

Blueblood found himself wrapping his forelegs around Amethyst in a tight embrace. As she sat and sobbed against him, he realized that it didn’t matter that she was likely some monster spawned from whatever… thing lurked in this place. She’d become Amethyst the instant she’d entered his presence. As he rubbed his hoof along her back to calm her, a steady increase in his heart rate, along with increased blood flow to a particular area of his body, made him painfully aware that he was becoming aroused.

But his thoughts dwelled on other questions: How much of her was the Amethyst he thought he knew? How much of her was the real Amethyst? Any part at all? Was any part of her still part of the darkness that she claimed wanted to devour him, body and soul? He’d changed her… could he change her further? Should he?

All he knew, as he held her, was that he didn’t want to let go. If he did, he would lose her again: her, their blossoming friendship, and everything that he’d hoped would come from it. He scrunched his eye closed as he focused on that hope—

Amethyst started to rub his back with one of her forehooves, and she pulled away slightly, allowing both of her eyes to meet his one. “Blue—”

“I… don’t want you to leave, Amethyst.” He stared into her eyes as he moved a forehoof to rub her shoulder.

She eyed him worriedly as she divined his intentions. “You... you shouldn’t do this,” Amethyst said, placing her other forehoof on his, as if to remove it—

—Just wanting some companionship, Blueblood wished for her to want that from him as well—

—and she allowed him to continue.

“I shouldn’t?” He teased. “You don’t want it? You seem like you do.”

“I do… no—I don’t… I don’t know. Not before—but now… I feel my heart aching for it—”

Blueblood silenced Amethyst by pressing his muzzle into hers. Her expression slowly melted from one of surprise to one of contentment as she returned his kiss and she wrapped her forelegs around him and pulled him close.

As their forehooves began to explore each other’s bodies, Amethyst pulled away again, her face contorted with conflicting emotion. “I want this,” she said with uncertainty. “But I don’t know if it’s because of me, or you, or… It. I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Blueblood said forcefully, his voice filled with a surprising amount of need that even he hadn’t realized he possessed. “Does it?”

“It—” Amethyst paused for a moment, her eyes fluttering in a peculiar fashion.

“Doesn’t matter,” Blueblood said again, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“It… doesn’t matter?” Amethyst’s voice was uncertain.

“Does it?” Blueblood’s words were less a question and more of a punctuation of a statement. Sweat had beaded on his forehead, and he shook slightly with effort.

“It doesn’t matter,” Amethyst said, more confident this time. “It doesn’t matter at all, does it?”

They fell back into a passionate kiss, pressing and rubbing their bodies together, their forehooves now groping desperately at each other.

Blueblood moved Amethyst to the bed, where she fell onto her back. Swept up in the moment, he nickered as he surveyed her supine body with unrestrained animalistic desire. As he moved to mount on top of her, he saw fresh tears streaming down her face.

“I’m a holy vestal,” Amethyst wept, otherwise unmoving. “I’ve taken a vow of chastity; I can’t want this—how can I want this? My body is screaming yes… but Blue—I’m terrified, Blue. It’s like I’m not controlling myself at all.”

A hoof impacted Blueblood’s face, the force sufficient that when he finished shaking his head, he felt swelling and blood in his mouth. He spat onto the floor and heard a click-clacking as one of his teeth bounced out of the gob of blood, to skitter across the hardwood paneling. He looked down to realize that he’d hit himself.

This is wrong, his mind screamed at him.

As he felt the incredible desire deflate within him, he beheld Amethyst’s sob-wracked body, splayed out across the bed. The sight nauseated him—what had he almost done? “It was me,” he gasped, as he fell backwards onto his haunches. “Celestia above, it was me.”

Sitting up, Amethyst looked at him with a peculiar expression, which alternated between sadness, relief, and anger. “I… don’t want this,” she said. “You stopped—I’m so glad that you stopped. But… damn you for starting.”

“I’m sorry, Amethyst,” Blueblood said in a despondent tone, shaking his head from side to side. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

“I do,” she said. “You’re lonely, and you needed something to take you away from the horror of everything that’s been happening.”

“How—”

“I know,” she said spitefully, “because you made me feel the same way.”

“I’m sorry,” Blueblood repeated, looking down to the floor.

“I don’t want your apologies,” Amethyst said as she rolled off of the opposite side of the bed, rising to her hooves. “I want your help.”

“Anything,” Blueblood said, on the verge of tears.

“I… I don’t want to go back,” Amethyst stammered. “I won’t go back.”

“We’ll figure something out then.” Blueblood said, “Maybe Celestia had a spell or some—”

“No.” Amethyst looked more certain in that moment than Blueblood had ever seen from either her or the original. “If I try to stay, It will just force me to return.” She looked to his fireplace. “You’ve denied It your body and mind for all except the first time It came for you. If I return, It will have more of both than It could have hoped to gather with all those that came before me.”

“No!” Blueblood’s vision blurred, and he felt hot tears rush down his face. “I know what you’re going to suggest—I refuse! I won’t do it! Even if we… never had something, and even if it’s wrong for me to want more now, there’s still a part of me that does! A part of me that can’t bear losing you again—not after having just gotten you back!”

“Blue, I’m not her; I’m just a copy. I’m no more real than the painting of Celestia over your fireplace, or the statues of her in the garden. I’m just painted on a higher quality canvas.” She looked directly into his eye. “Let’s be honest now, Blue: if this fantasy you just tried to act out with me was what you thought of her, then you never had her in the first place.”

Gritting his teeth, Blueblood stood, and forced himself to return Amethyst’s gaze. “What do you want me to do?”

Looking down at his bedside table, Amethyst opened the drawer with a forehoof. She looked at what lay within it for several moments before looking back up at him, her own eyes refilling with tears. “I can’t even use my horn to lift it, Blue—I’m not a real pony… so I don’t even have any magic…”

Blueblood felt like somepony had attached a leaden weight to his heart. He walked over to Amethyst, and embraced her again. “...I’m sorry, for all that I’ve done to you,” he said as she closed her eyes and buried her face into his chest. “You may not have been the real Amethyst, but you were real enough… to me.” The sound of Blueblood’s horn igniting almost drowned out his own whisper as he stroked Amethyst’s mane; “Shhhh, everything’s ok now; I’ll make sure you can’t go back.”

Amethyst held him tighter, pressing her face further into his fur. “Thank y—”

Her forelegs went limp and fell to her sides as Blueblood thrust Cynic’s knife into the base of her skull.

“No,” he gasped through his tears. He held her tighter, ignoring as her muscles relaxed in death. “Thank you, for everything.”