The Fractured - Farcture-verse

After two more months of intense experimentation and design alterations, I carefully closed the lid on a long box with my magic. I closed my eye and let out an exhausted sigh. I looked to Pyrus who stood looking over our incredibly clean workbench and gave him a smile. Pyrus, being his usual stoic self, nodded once in return.

“Ready to show them what we made?” I asked.

Pyrus nodded again.

Cradling the box in my magic and floating it beside me, it was a little longer than my body, I started out of our forge, saying, “I’d like to see what Celestia and Luna think. We’ve probably kept them all in the dark longer than intended.”

I know it wasn’t his fault, but when he nodded slowly so many times in succession, Pyrus reminded me of a big, flaming drinking bird desk toy from the human world.

We left the forge together; Pyrus keeping a pace behind me as usual. After so many months, it no longer annoyed me with how protective of me he seemed to be. He really took his self-imposed guard role very seriously. Him working with me on our little projects probably made it easier for him to keep me safe.

First stop, the throne room. It was decently empty, other than the usual guards of course. Next was the dining room. The chairs were empty and the serving staff were busy making sure everything was perfectly clean and presentable for whatever the next meal was. Stepping back into the corridors of the castle, I frowned to myself. I know I’m not the greatest at keeping track of time, especially when I’m busy, but I was sure I hadn’t missed that much of the day.

Frowning with thought as I walked, I wandered the stairs and corridors of the castle, moving higher and higher in search of the other princesses. When I was about to give up and go look for Aria instead, not a wise thing of late, her pregnancy was getting to her, I heard a heartbreaking sob.

I instantly halted, my ears twitching every which way until they honed in on the sobbing. Moving as quietly as I could with hooves on such hard floors, I crept up to one of the nearby doors with a sliver of light coming from a narrow gap alongside the door handle. Not daring to announce my presence just in case this was no one I knew, I turned my ears to listen in.

“Oh, Lu-Lu.”

All of my attention snapped to the door. I knew that soothing voice. After all, it had been used on me many times since first meeting Celestia in the Ponyville hospital. It was just as comforting now as it was back then.

The sobbing continued.

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Celestia’s voice soothed from beyond the mostly closed door.

The sobbing eased enough for another voice, one which rasped through a throat aching from the throws of emotion, to pass through the fractionally open door. “A thousand years, sister.”

My head darted back and my eye grew wide. The voice belonged to Luna.

“We have shed our tears over countless days with little sleep,” Luna continued, struggling to fight back her sobs. “Stared at the stars of our sky night after night. We have mourned an eternity. To see her once more, we were so over-joyed, we could not think. We saw, we hoped we had been granted a second chance. But, she does not know us. Each time we pass we do so as strangers, the sting to our heart is like a spear. Were we not punished enough in our banishment? Are we to live forever alone, never to share life with even our progeny?”

If Celestia answered her sister’s pleas, I didn’t hear her. I backed away from the door, my breath catching in my throat. Even my damaged eye was open wide with what I had heard.

Luna…

I looked to the door again. My mind whirled with the memory of our every interaction. My aggressive nature to her upon first encountering her. Yes, my mood at the time was warranted by the attempted attack on Aria. But not at Luna. That was Twilight’s fault, with maybe a bit of Aria thrown in. They had a history which Aria was still unwilling to fully share.

Luna, on the other hoof, when she looked at me that first time… Yes, she had been shocked, but not by my injuries. She was seeing one who so greatly resembled her long-lost daughter. It took a journey inside my mind with both her and Aunt Celestia to ascertain the truth.

My head drooped as my mind followed a tangent, as was its most frequent wont. Celestia. I had my head around her. It felt comfortable to consider her as an Aunt. She just felt so accepting and kind and warm and caring. I had never had a bad interaction with her; not that I’d had any with Luna. It was just easy to think of Celestia as an Aunt, maybe even every pony’s Aunt.

But Luna. I can’t deny her being very similar to Celestia in many ways. Especially towards me. She had shown me kindness and compassion. She was the one who had lashed out when seeing my wounds and scars for the first time. It had been an abrupt, abrasive change. Looking back on it though, I could see how, as a parent, her reaction could be justified.

Abrasive was a good description for Luna. Whether she intended it or not, she often came off in such a manner to the ponies around her. Not just to me. But, watching her, it was possible to see how she was struggling, with the world around her as well as my presence.

I had learned the tale of Nightmare Moon. Not from Celestia, but one of the guards. They liked to gossip just as much as the castle maids. Knowing that, it helped to appreciate Luna’s actions. She and I were very much alike. We were both suddenly thrust into worlds we didn’t fully understand. Simply left to flounder as we struggled to find our place.

That was probably why she was so quick to try and thrust her love onto one so similar to herself. But was that to me? Or, was it to the daughter she saw me as? Selene. The body I was still not exactly comfortable with. A filly a thousand years misplaced. One so struck with pain and grief, she had made a wish to leave this world behind.

Her memories still lingered. Initially locked away, I can now call on them when needed. It wasn’t something I enjoyed doing. Her memories came wrapped in the raw emotions she had yet to tame as one so young. And anything to do with her mother… with Luna…

I shook my head. It was always the most difficult to deal with. The huge part of my waking self which was Monochrome, a male human, often swamped and overwhelmed the remnants of Selene, the young filly. This mind and body had been through a lot since it had been in its original form. Now, neither form felt at home in the skin of this, I’m guessing, young adult mare. It was one thing both of my selves had in common. They were both very out of place.

My gaze narrowed with that thought. My two selves.

If Selene had awoken in Monochrome’s body, undoubtedly, she would’ve felt out of place. Or would she? If she had never been shunted aside in order to live as a human male, then my memories as Monochrome would have been her own. And, whatever form they had reached by the time she had returned to this world, would they be any different from Monochrome’s if she had been unable to remember the hundreds of years she had lived in my place?

My eyes widened again. Was Monochrome really a shell for Selene and not, as I had assumed without access to our shared memories, the other way around? Were Monochrome and Selene really so different?

I grimaced at the thought, not the topic exactly, but the fact was making my head begin to hurt. I eyed the box still floating in my magic. I would try to talk these thoughts through with somepony later. There was something I still needed to do. I nodded to myself, turned and headed back down the stairs.

* * *

Arriving at the hospital with Pyrus in tow, I want to say Doctor Stitch was happy to see us, even eager to comprehend the amazing creation we had birthed into the world. That was far from the case. Apparently, he had never expected me to make good on my proposal from a few months ago.

Seeing this, I took it as just one more challenge to face. One more mind to convince.

I opened the box. There were the carefully drawn diagrams and instructions on several pages of paper. Each one was sequentially numbered. I lifted the papers with magic and set them aside with reverence. Everything in this box was so very important. With the papers out of the way, the box’s velvet inner lining came into view along with the prototype.

It looked like a thick black centipede. Its length was made up of several individual solid blocks, reminiscent of vertebra. They were linked together by a black conduit and had four thin, needle-like legs jutting out underneath each segment. Every constructed vertebra was backed with a small, empty slot designed to fit some of the smallest magical capacitors Pyrus and I had crafted.

Lining the length of the box, either side of the prototype, were a series of magical capacitors held in their very own soft slots to keep them safe. Everything was here. I set about explaining how it was to work.

Some of what I said clearly interested Doctor Stitch. The more radical parts, however… Let’s just say he was deeply concerned. He made his concerns very clear. And trust me, I shared them. After all, in order for this completely unproven, highly theoretical system to work, it would need to be grafted to the back of a pony. The needle-like legs would be burrowed deep into their vertebrae where they would tap directly into the pony’s spinal cord.

Considering it would run from the base of the skull to just above the tail, if it failed to work as planned, the pony would, at best, be incapable of moving ever again. At worst, damaging the spinal cord even further. I knew the risks. Whoever was to have this done to them, it could very well kill them. They could go under the knife and never wake up.

Unsurprisingly, Doctor Stitch rejected the proposal outright.

I was crushed to say the least.

I returned to my room with the prototype and, against Aria’s previous threats, slipped into melancholy once more.

Four days later, there was a knock on my door. Truthfully, I was expecting Aria to enter and chew me out again. That didn’t happen. Instead of Aria, it was Celestia who came to see me. I braced myself for a discussion about Luna. After all, it was the only reason I could think of for her visiting me. That also didn’t happen.

What she said left me in a strange state. She had come to speak with me about my prototype. I showed it to her and explained how everything was to work. She listened intently, taking in everything I had to say, even the risks I had taken into account. With everything disclosed, she sat for a while in quiet contemplation.

When she next spoke, she did so with very measured tones. She also explained why this had all come to her attention. I won’t deny that my discussion with Doctor Stitch earlier in the week had been heated. Apparently, trying to argue the merits of what I had made with Doctor Stitch in the observation room of the wounded soldiers’ ward wasn’t the smartest thing to do when our passions and concerns took hold.

The ponies of the ward had overheard us. And then Celestia dropped her bombshell. One of the ponies, a soldier who had been crippled in a changeling attack, one with no feeling below his shoulders, had made a request of the hospital staff. The request didn’t sit easy with the staff, so they said the former soldier would need higher approval for such a procedure than they could grant.

Well, this pony had connections to the former Captain of the Guard in Canterlot who was married to the Princess of the Crystal Empire, who so happened to be the adopted Niece of Princess Celestia. Funny how things work sometimes. My mind didn’t exactly grasp the reality of the situation straight away. Instead, it focused on the fact that this all meant I had a cousin.

Huh. I would have to look into that when I had a little time and better focus.

Seeing I had missed her point, Celestia moved to make it very clear to me. The former soldier was requesting that he be allowed the chance to have my prototype attached to him. I blinked at Celestia many times. I was dumbfounded. Celestia explained that the pony in question was aware of the risks. He was also aware that, without something as drastic as this experimental surgery, he was staring down the bleak path of a short miserable life.

Celestia allowed me to think things over. Even if the pony was fully accepting of the risks, I still understood that this was his life my prototype was going to affect. My agreement was somewhat reluctant. My mind from that moment until the day of the surgery, even up to the final minutes before, was constantly going over every detail of the procedure, making sure I had truly thought of every possibility.

Thankfully, Doctor Stitch, who had agreed to perform the operation personally, also drilled me on every aspect. He even advised on a few tweaks, specifically the permanent magical removal of any and all hair along the patient’s spine. Considering my prototype was a mostly external device, it was probably best for it to not have fur between it and the skin. Also, the prototype would be thoroughly sterilised using magical means.

There was one condition, however, that I had to agree to. I was not allowed to view the procedure. After all, I was not a certified medical professional. But, as luck would have it, I would be visiting the hospital that very same day. Not for myself, but in support of Aria. Her pregnancy was moving along and she was starting to show. I was probably the closest thing she had to a family member while her sisters remained somewhere in the human world.

Aria wasn’t enthused about her situation. There was no way anypony should dare to question her on it, not like one attending nurse did. In the nurse’s defence, he wasn’t privy to the cause of Aria’s pregnancy before hoof. Once Aria was done with him, however, he clearly knew. In great detail. Perhaps he would be more sympathetic to patients in future?

Sitting with Aria gave me a chance to settle my nerves. I also became her sounding board for whatever was on her mind, not to mention her proxy when she became too difficult for the staff to handle. This did mean I was in the room and at her side when Aria learned more about the foal growing within her. One of Aria’s rarely spoken of fears was put to rest as a result. She was having a foal, not a human or some hybrid thing. A genuine foal.

We would have to wait and see if it would be a Siren, but at least Aria was able to relax a little after that. She was still abrasive, but that was just a part of her personality. A part that I was very used to by now.

We left the hospital not knowing how the procedure had gone for Lucky Buck. That was the former soldier’s name by the way. Yeah, I know, very ironic to be called lucky with his injuries. To ease my worries, I spent more time with Aria, Pyrus and Sickle. It was good to know that our little group of lost ponies was still able to draw strength from each other when needed. Even if that meant being yelled at by Aria to keep us on track.

It wasn’t until two days later, when I returned to the hospital for one of the regular examinations of my left eye’s deterioration that I learned of the results regarding Lucky Buck.

While walking to the examination room, I happened to pass a nurse who was busy moving alongside a white-furred Earth Pony stallion in a hospital gown. The Unicorn nurse attending him was giving the stallion lots of encouragement and praise for each, admittedly shaky, step he was taking.

Initially, I passed it off as yet another patient undergoing physical therapy. It wasn’t until I caught a glimpse of a familiar black spinal replica running from skull to tail with a border of exposed skin that I realised what I was seeing. I stopped dead still and stared. I know Lucky didn’t deserve the gawking nature of my gaze, I just couldn’t help it.

Doctor Stitch found me in that very same spot. Apparently, I was now late for my appointment. When he saw what had kept me, he didn’t seem annoyed but ushered me to the examination room anyway. I was virtually speechless for most of the appointment. It had worked. It had actually worked. Sure, Lucky was now beginning the process of learning to walk again, but he had the chance to actually do so compared to the bleak outlook he was previously facing.

Pyrus, Doctor Stitch and I had succeeded. For me, the feeling was indescribable. Probably why I struggled to speak. Doctor Stitch, however, was not so lost for words. I doubted he ever would be, even if some of them he would now have to eat. I didn’t lord it over him, I didn’t see the point in being smug. In any case, it was Doctor Stitch who summed the situation up best.

“Your first miracle, Princess,” he said, smiling at me. For once his use of my title didn’t sound condescending, or pitying. “Any others you have in mind?”

My mind, always working, turned its focus to the other former soldiers of the ward. And, perhaps, even a little wider afield. I cleared my throat and forced myself to speak. “I have a few ideas.”