Salvation | Rebirth

The train was moving at a good pace now, picking up speed to go through a vast length of wilderness with no stops or train stations to speak of. The train rocked ever so slightly as it moved, and there were dim lights turned on in the corridors as the sun set. The noises of the people on the train gradually died down, turning from regular conversations to murmured talks.

Each train cart had two bathrooms, one at each end, and Wild finally had his turn. Some ponies went in together with their loved ones or friends, and Wild did the same with Artful. While the bathroom wasn’t exactly spacious, they made do. They even managed to fit in the shower cubicle together. As the water cascaded down on them, Wild used his magic to scrub both himself and Artful. He could readily admit that showering with someone together was still somewhat odd, but he trusted Artful, and so he was slowly getting used to it. Not that it was even unpleasant or too awkward, simply unusual, and being unusual was a property of things that Wild could apply to many, many things in Equestria. He was baffled less and less as time went on, but he imagined it would take a number of years before he was truly, unthinkingly comfortable with many of the things considered normal in Equestria that were, to the best of his knowledge, not normal on Earth.

Wild scrubbed Artful’s back, making sure to be gentle yet thorough. It wasn’t like Wild hadn’t heard of couples bathing together, though his previous knowledge of it came mostly from half-remembered pornography he looked up when he was younger. And, of course, there were the most recent memories, memories of when he did that sort of thing with Artful.

It still remained surprising how much his life his changed to the point that even normality itself was now different.

Wild moved on from Artful’s back to his belly and inner sides of his legs, pausing but for a moment to consider how different it was compared to how things were for him even before this autumn. He finally realized that he had been lonely and in denial about it. He thought he would do just fine on his own, that he didn’t truly need companionship, but this, this was so much better to a degree he couldn’t find a way to properly express it in either words or actions. It was as if an unseen and unnoticed emptiness inside of him was finally filled, a missing piece of a puzzle slotting in where he didn’t expect an empty space to be.

Finally, Artful was thoroughly soaped up and cleaned, and so Wild directed the shower head to wash it all away. It felt... mundane, somehow. Homely, perhaps? Simply put, it seemed as if it was always supposed to be this way, somehow. Not that Wild could or even wanted to deny that this was a good thing, but it still made him think. At least those thoughts were less negative and more... somewhat confused, maybe.

Wild and Artful soon finished showering, turned off the water, and Wild used a spell to dry both of them off. Magic, he found, was coming easier and easier to him the more he used it, which, of course, made a good amount of sense. Using it for daily practical things also helped to make it seem less like something fantastical or imaginary and more like something that was simply a part of everyday life much like electricity and internet were back in his life on Earth. Wild had been vaguely aware of magic just being as common as, say, air, but he only started to really understanding it when he used it for more than just telekinesis. His magical hands were close enough to his human hands that they didn’t truly register as ‘real’ magic, as dumb as he thought it sounded, so using something more complex helped to normalize not only the idea of magic but its practical application as well. It wasn’t all about enchanting things or throwing fireballs, after all.

“Mmm, that’s nice,” Artful commented on the drying spell Wild had used, “I think we should shower more together if it ends this way.”

“Maybe,” Wild chuckled.

With those words exchanged, they silently made their way back to their cabin. They barely spoke as they prepared for bed, folding the table away and putting their beds together. They snuggled close together and, within minutes, fell asleep, smiles on their faces.

***

Princess Luna had explored every millimeter of the Throne Room, and yet she couldn’t find anything that would shed light on where Sombra might have hidden the Crystal Heart. She could feel that something was ever so slightly wrong, just subtly off in some way she couldn’t describe with words. It was just an itch, barely more than a nudge, but she knew that something needed to be uncovered. The question was, what was it?

The feeling of wrongness wasn’t exactly unusual. The entire Crystal Empire didn’t feel exactly right, and Luna didn’t know whether that could be attributed to the lingering traces of Sombra’s curse, the misery and depression of so many ponies in one place congealing into an almost tangible force, or something else entirely. There was, of course, an option to quickly discover what they were searching for, but Luna was reluctant to take it. Dark Magic was not a force to treat lightly, and she had already walked the road once from which she was very lucky to return. She was not eager to repeat the experience.

Princess Luna exited the palace, leaving the guards to secure what had already been combed through. Tomorrow, she would return and explore the private chambers at the very top.

She returned to her own tent - not a proper building like her stature technically required, but then she wasn’t supposed to be overly notable, as much as it could be done when she was an alicorn and a very recognizable Princess of Equestria. She settled down at her personal table, grabbed what she needed, and started writing a letter.

Dearest sister,

I am stumped. The Crystal Palace is wreathed in darkness, and I fear it is Dark Magic that must be used to discover the location of the Crystal Heart. As much as it pains me to say, I cannot be of use in this endeavor. You know best of all my own experience with darkness and the price I paid for my stubborn foolishness. I shall disregard no warnings, and so I request your assistance. You have always resisted the temptation of power far better than I.

With love,

Luna

If there was one thing Princess Luna was certain, it was the fact that she didn’t trust herself with power. Her sister had always been better at handling it, at using it, no matter what it was. Luna had done her best to be like her, to be as good at her, but... in truth, she was growing more and more certain that the weight of royal responsibilities would eventually crush her and grind her to dust. She was not made to be a princess, which was a thought that continued to nag her time and time again no matter how much she had been pushing it away. Unlike her, Celestia somehow managed to juggle all the responsibilities and then some on top seemingly perfectly, always having everything scheduled as perfectly as it could possibly be. She had been ruling for centuries, never taking more time off than was publicly reasonable, and she even managed to do it all by herself while Luna was... gone.

Now that Luna was back, now that she had been rediscovering her duties and growing used to them, she had realized that it was not what she exactly wanted. Celestia could revel in her work no matter how bad it got, but Luna often thought it of too monumental, too thankless to handle. She simply didn’t have the fortitude for something of this magnitude, she had to admit that to herself.

If she were completely truthful with herself, she would finally admit that, most importantly, she couldn’t feel like she could trust herself with this much power. She had tried to do things her way, and it had resulted in her imprisonment. Her own judgement had then been compromised, and she wasn't sure she would ever truly be able to recover from it.

Princess Luna locked those thoughts away, reminding herself that she would deal with them... later. For now, she had a job to do. She signed the letter she wrote, sealed it, and then put it in a bottle of dragon fire that Twilight Sparkle’s assistant Spike so kindly provided. Luna briefly wished to explore this ability that Spike had, considering that it was the first time she ever even heard of dragon fire being used this way, but it was not the time. Perhaps later, when all difficult things were resolved and she could, perhaps, afford to rest for... a week, at least. Perhaps a month. Maybe she would don a disguise and work as a simple cook in the Royal Orphanage. Or she would become a teacher, in actual official capacity and not just in a general sense. She would have that sort of life... someday.

***

Wild stood alone by remains of the train. Frosted over, cold and dead, the shards of glass in its broken windows resembling ice in a way that felt unreal. The train tracks were dusted with snow, yet the skies were cloudless, entirely clear and black as pitch, starless and moonless. Only a small dim light, dark orange like a shade of flame, illuminated the frozen wasteland around him. Not a bush, not a tree, nothing but ice and snow as far as he could see. The air was still and stale, each inhale chilling him to the bone, biting his nostrils. He shivered, but it was not the cold - it was the eyes of someone else, someone out of sight, yet someone who could see him.

Wild woke up, his eyes shooting open. His heart beat faster than usual, and it took a few moments for him to come to his senses even as he lay entirely still, not moving a muscle in fear of... what?

Something was wrong. It took him a second - the train was not moving. However, there was no silence, the train vibrating ever so slightly, and a quiet murmur of voices was audible. Wild carefully extricated himself from Artful’s sleeping embrace, to which the pegasus only huffed a breath, mumbled something indecipherable, and wiggled around for a bit before settling down again, not once opening his eyes. Wild made his way to the door of the cabin and opened it.

“...malfunction,” was a word he heard. Then his ears twitched in a different direction.

“...this blizzard’s unnatural, I tell you.”

True to the words he heard, there was a blizzard right outside, surprisingly barely audible. The visibility was maybe a couple of meters, though it was hard to judge, considering how dark it was. This almost made him shiver, a dream of lying on a sofa in front of a fireplace appearing in his mind. Of course, with Artful. A couple cups of hot tea wouldn’t go amiss either. However, the idyllic picture in his imagination was pushed away by worry. Was the train stuck? Was the engine broken? Was anything else that was important broken? How much longer will they have heat for? As good as the insulation on this train apparently was, without proper heating they would all freeze to death, especially in a blizzard like this one. Wild knew precisely nothing about about winter survival.

He paused to think. If they were stuck, what could he do? He was no engineer, so he wasn’t likely to fix if anything important broke, certainly no better than the engineers already presumably on board the train. That most important thing was out.

Then he nearly facepalmed when he realized a big detail he missed. A detail about himself, to be more precise. To be even more accurate, it was his ability to teleport, especially teleporting long distances by memory. While he didn’t know how far away from the Royal Orphanage or Ponyville the train was, he could half-remember seeing a train station not that long before he went to bed, so he could likely teleport there if the distance wasn’t too much. However, doing it alone would hardly be of help - unless he then brought help, assuming there was no radio on the train itself to call anyone for help. Or, perhaps, he would be able to evacuate everyone as long as he had enough stamina. If everyone got together in one train cart, making sure to share body warmth, and also disabling heating in other carts, then it was likely that everyone would survive long enough for him to teleport everyone back to civilization.

The train suddenly lurched and started picking up speed again. Wild sighed in relief when none of his thoughts were needed to be put into action, relaxing minutely. After waiting for a few more long minutes in case something changed again, he pulled back into his cabin and softly closed the door.

“Mmmh, what’s going on?” Artful muttered, blearily blinking from where he lay.

“Everything is fine,” Wild told him quietly. He got back in bed and hugged his lover close, eliciting a sleepy groan as he cuddled him. Hugging Artful close, Wild buried his muzzle in the side of his neck, “Go back to sleep.”

Artful didn’t need to be told twice, falling asleep soon after, his breath evening out.

Wild lay there, eyes open even as his breath was calm. The train moved with a certainty Wild no longer felt was there, and he listened to its rhythm, looking for clues to the next possible breakdown and malfunction. If he strained his ears, he could imagine hearing it, the almost angry whistle of whipping wind as snow swirled all around the train, darkening the night sky into complete and utter blackness.

If something broke again, Wild would be out there doing his best to fix it. He could almost feel it, the train could not stop again until it arrived to the next station, or else... something would happen, something that would put everyone in danger. He knew he should not have volunteered, should not have come on board the train. However, even as his anxieties rose, he knew that his presence could at least be helpful if things went terribly wrong. He could already imagine the headline in the newspapers if he decided not to go.

Train vanishes on the way to the Crystal Empire.

He shivered involuntarily. All those ponies had friends, family, relatives. They had siblings, children, parents. If the ponies present would simply disappear, what would others think? Would they search day and night, hoping to find them? Would they hold hope that they would one day reemerge, alive and whole? Or would they give up all hope when it became clear that the ice and snow became the final destination for them all, a place where they could find no rest but the cold embrace of death?

He hugged Artful close, nuzzling him affectionately, feeling a wave of happiness rolling off Artful even in his sleep. Wild would make sure that, no matter what came next, everyone would be safe. Wild had the power to make it so, and so he would do it if needed. He would very much hope for it to not be needed, but one never knew, and so he would be prepared.

A part of Wild wished he would stay awake until he saw the train safely arrive at its destination. Another part, however, recognized that him being tired would be of much less use compared to him being as full of energy as possible in case something unexpected and dangerous happened. So, despite the anxieties swirling in his brain, Wild managed to doze off into uncertain, light, and yet surprisingly dreamless and restful sleep.