Sing Out My Soul

Some things never change.

If magic were water then this world would be a desert. Any magic that existed here had sunk deep into the earth a long time ago, and was, consequently, almost impossible to touch.

But the people? They still remember. Ancestral memory is a tough thing to kill off.

There are bits and pieces of true magical knowledge among humans, even if they don’t realize it. Certain things held just as true here as they did in Equestria.

Blood, for instance.

Every culture across every continent on Equus shared that native recognition that blood equals power. The sacrifice of blood—the representation of life spilled for a greater purpose—was one that every species on that world, and this one, accepted.

Maybe that’s why I wasn’t surprised when my blood turned out to be the catalyst for calling Wallflower back. Even just this much of her.

It had seemed so natural, that first time. It had just…made sense. When blood spilled as I was forcing power from the stone so desperately that it bit through flesh with my grip, I didn’t question it.

A few drops of blood called her up. It was a small price to pay. A worthy price even.

But I guess someone must have gotten the memo that Sunset Shimmer’s blood wasn’t worth much.

“FUCK!”

I collapsed in my den, falling hard on my knees and only avoiding slumping over fully by propping myself up on the coffee table. Sweat matted my hair to my scalp, neck, and shoulders in pallid streamers of red and gold. I felt sticky.

When was the last time I showered?

Fuck it. That’s irrelevant.

I stared balefully at both of my hands. Treacherous things. They weren’t obeying me lately. My right was curled in an arthritic claw around my geode, and spatters of blood occasionally dripped from between my fingers. My left ached abominably. The rope was digging into the skin bad enough to draw blood as well and the parts of the rope that were touching my arm had started to take on an unpleasantly brown tinge.

“Not working…why aren’t you working?” I growled at the geode as I blinked salty sweat from my eyes.

A month a half. Was that really all my magic was worth? All that my blood was worth? Shit, maybe that was my problem. My blood probably wasn’t worth squat except in bulk. Filthy, selfish blood from a filthy, selfish girl.

What was I doing again?

Right. I took a deep breath, and—

“WHY WON’T YOU WORK?!” I shrieked at the geode which, predictably, didn’t answer.

Nineteen times. Nineteen successful conjurings. I’d managed to call up Wallflower successfully nineteen times. Most of the time she was here for a day and a half. On the ninth conjuring, we managed to push it to forty-two hours. The longest streak, and one I’ve never managed to replicate. Probably a fluke or something. A confluence of stars. Alignment of leylines.

Shit, maybe the dense matter that made up my fucking skull was just in retrograde that day and that was enough.

Every time I called her up, I asked her—begged her to stay—and she always stayed with me for the night. Sometimes she’d stay through the next day. But no more. I asked her, every time, to stay forever.

She always said no.

But I’ll keep asking.

Staggering to my feet, I trudged towards the bathroom. It was hard to focus. When had I slept last? Actually slept, I mean?

Conjuring…sixteen? I think we took a nap together. Those few hours of real rest had been like clear water to a parched throat. I’d woken up feeling like I could take on the whole world, but all I ended up doing was cuddling with Wallflower for something like seven hours.

I shouldered the bathroom door open and dropped to my knees by the toilet. My hands were still curled uselessly around the geode and the length of rope that fit around my palm, respectively. The cramped, seizing muscles in them weren’t listening to me either.

“Fuck you,” I spat, and brought my hand up to my mouth, bit down, and pulled my grip open one blasted finger at a time.

The geode fell from my newly bloodied hand to hang loosely from its leather strap as I did the same to my left. Finger by finger, I freed the rope. I didn’t have much range of movement in my fingers, but I didn’t need much. I’d make do. Reaching behind the toil, I pulled out the little metal box. It seemed like the right place to keep it so I’d left it there. I’d made use of most of the bandages and swabs, I was running low though, and I had no idea when I’d find time to replace them.

Or money.

Did I have the money to? I couldn’t remember. Whatever. Irrelevant. It was all irrelevant.

Cracking open the box, I clawed the disinfectant spray out and went to work clumsily spraying down my wounds. I barely felt the sting anymore. I dropped the half-empty can back in the box, and went to grab the bandages only to stop as my eyes lingered on the little box of razor blades. I hadn’t opened them since Wallflower had stopped me in her bathroom. I hadn’t even wanted to. I still didn’t. It wasn’t about that.

“Blood.” I nudged a fresh razor from the box with shaky fingers.

It was a massive effort of will to get enough strength into my finger and thumb to clutch the blade and hold it up to my faltering vision. It was still sharp. Shiny and new. What a good little razor. It was all ready to go to work. Not like my stupid hands, the lazy bastards.

I frowned as I turned my hands over and scowled down at the ruin of my palms. My right hand was a network of a thousand tiny notches. There probably wasn’t an unmarked inch of skin left. I’m pretty sure the scar tissue killed any feeling I had in that hand even without Wallflower’s influence. I could still feel the pins and needle when I touched her though, so that was good. My running theory was that she affected my nerves in a similar way to the electrical wiring in my apartment up until most of it blew out.

My left hand wasn’t much better. From my forearm to my palm, then around the back of my hand and back down, there were long, rough, tracks of abrasion and raw, red skin. Scars barely had time to form before being rubbed away by the rope.

They did their job, though.

The rope rarely left my arm anymore. It was easier to leave it on, frankly, and besides, I wasn’t sure I trusted my right hand to tie it on properly anymore.

Moonlight from the window glinted off the razor and focused my wandering mind back on the task at hand. I needed to conjure her again. I needed to see her and feel her and kiss and touch her.

And she needed me, too.

She…She needed me. Wallflower needed me because she would always need me so I had to be there for her no matter what.

I eyed the blade and forced myself to stand and walk back into the den.

“No matter what,” I hissed.

Sucking in a hard breath through my teeth I braced my foot against the side of the coffee table that occupied the true middle of my den and kicked it hard away crashing it against the wall as I took its place and dropped to my knees. I stared down at my hands and at the blade clutched in my trembling fingers. That was no good. I’d just end up mauling myself.

Flipping it over, I gripped it by the blade, brought it up to my mouth, and took the razor between my teeth. My hands were shaking. They were no good for anything but cradling the necessary tools to bring her back. I had to bring her back. If a few drops could do it before, then I just needed more, right?

Blood equals power. Pain and life, laid on a sanguine altar and burned for a greater purpose.

I did my right hand first, putting my palm to my mouth and dragging the blade in a hot, red line across the flesh. Warmth spilled out, soaking the leather cord and the geode as I clenched my fingers closed. Now the left one. I was careful to aim around the rope but it took up a lot of space. There wasn’t as much surface area as my right, but I made do.

‘Mmph!” A pain grunt groaned my throat as I pushed the blade deep until the blood welled up.

I tasted iron that had nothing to do with the stainless steel I was biting down on.

“Now,” I spat as the bloody razor fell from my mouth, “come on…”

Raising my fists above my head, I let the blood run from my palms along the wells of my wrists, and down to soak into my rolled-up sleeves. My body is a temple and these arms are the pillars that hold up its rotting roof. Neglect may have robbed it of anything beautiful, but it was still standing. It was still useful. The timbers that bore its weight were bowing at the middle, but for now…yeah…for now it was still standing.

A rotting temple to a Scribe that had stopped writing my story a long time ago.

“Come on,” I repeated bitterly. “COME ON!”

This time, the light that spilled from my geode was stained an ugly red as the amber light shone through its drenched coating. It was like holding a wildfire in my hand, but I knew instinctively that it wasn’t enough. Not yet. More. It needed more, and I had plenty to give.

“COME ON!”

The light burst brighter, and yet, despite that light, I was sure that the den grew darker than before. The moonlight that I’d been working by was suddenly so much dimmer compared to the ruddy light I was calling up.

“Wally, please,” I sobbed. “I…I need you…”

I could barely hold up my arms up anymore. The strength was leaving them. My strength was bleeding out all over my arms. Would it be enough? Fuck it. It had to be enough. Even if it took all of it. It had to be enough!

“WALLY!”

Static hissed and spat from the little clock radio by my bed as it crackled to life. It was one of the few pieces of electronics in my apartment that still worked. Most of the outlets were dead by now. Nothing in the kitchen worked anymore and hadn’t for at least a week. My television hadn’t worked in twice that.

But that stupid radio.

It still worked!

I chased that static wash, pushing harder, gripping tighter. If this altar needed more, then more is what it would get!

A ragged sob wrenched its way out of my throat as the light of my geode erupted even more brightly and then suddenly flared out of existence as the static hiss began to settle, and when I looked up, it was with a breath of weary relief.

Pale green gravelight resolved in front of me, suddenly she was there, stepping out from around that invisible corner.

“Wally.”

Her name left my lips like a prayer as I smiled up at her. It didn’t even matter that her eyes were growing wide with horror, or that her mouth was falling open. I was past the point of caring how she looked at me. All that mattered was that she was here to look at me.

“Sunset…” Wally knelt in front of me and took my bloodstained hands in hers. “Oh…Sunset, what have you done?”

Her touch soothed the pain away in a wave of pins and needles, and I sighed in relief. The soreness was gone. The simple absence of pain of euphoria in and of itself. I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to hers as she took me in her arms.

“I’ll be fine,” I muttered faintly. “Just…took a bit more this time to get you here, that’s all.”

She pushed me back a little and shook her head.

“You have to stop this, Sunset, please!” The radio above us crackled and snapped with every syllable she spoke.

“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “If I stop, then…then you’ll be gone.”

“I’m already gone.”

“No! You’re not! You’re here!” My breathing was turning ragged as she cradled my cheek in her numbing palms. “You’re here…” I repeated weakly.

She shook her head again. “Stop this, Sunset, please,” she stroked my matted hair from my eyes and kissed my forehead gently. “You need to stop.”

“I can’t stop, Wally,” I replied quietly. “You need me.”

There was a flash of something that crossed her features in that moment. It happened so fast that I couldn’t make out what it was. Grief? Pain? Something adjacent? I don’t know. I saw in the widening of her eyes and in the way her teeth grit together for a moment. I saw it, too, in the way the muscles moved beneath her softly glowing skin, turning her gentle features granite-hard for a brief moment before it faded.

The expression that was left behind in the wake of that flash was something truly different. It was flat and almost…angry, and then—

“No,” she said flatly. “I don’t.”

The numbness that sluiced through me then had nothing to do with her touch. It didn’t even leave pins and needles behind. It was just a cold, hypothermic ache.

“Stop this, Sunset,” she said for the third time. “I don’t need you anymore.”

I worked my jaw a few times, trying to find the words I needed to change her mind. To make what she had just said not true. I just needed her to understand. To understand that…

“B-But...but what if I need you?” I sobbed.

She leaned in, then, and kissed me, and it was without a doubt the worst kiss of my life. It was soft, and even past the pins and needles it was still warm. Her hands cradled my cheeks, and her thumbs traced the lines I’d worn under my eyes as she held me close, and I couldn’t help but start crying.

Because it felt like a kiss goodbye.

I was inconsolable as she drew back, and no matter how many tears she brushed from my eyes, there were more to replace them, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that there always would be.

“I need you,” I muttered.

“You won’t always.”

“Liar!” I hissed, and she flinched back. I regretted both the word and my tone instantly. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly, “I just…I love you so much and I can’t just…not.”

Wally moved closer and pressed another kiss to my forehead.

“And you’ll love someone else just as much, one day.” Her words put a thorn in my heart.

The mere notion of that was revolting. The idea that I would, at any point, feel the way I felt about Wallflower towards someone else was so repellent that I almost gagged. It wasn’t even the base-level rejection of something I knew was impossible. The real bile-inducing horror was couched deep in the gangrenous bones of that suggestion that whispered faithlessly into my ear: What if she was right?

What if, one day, I did fall out of love with Wallflower, and in love with someone else? Someone different? Someone who didn’t have beautiful, morning-glory hair that fell over freckled cheeks and veiled warm brown eyes, and who didn’t have a smile that was a thousand times brighter than any other, because it always grew out from a little frown?

Could I really be that shallow?

I knew the answer to that question without voicing it.

My stomach twisted and I staggered to my feet as I felt its meager contents go into full-blown revolt. Wallflower cried out my name in a wash of static, but I didn’t even make it more than a few steps before my vision doubled, then tripled, then pitched and yawed violently as the blood loss finally hit.

I staggered another step, then another, then tried for a third but missed, twisting on my heel and sending the den spinning violently around me as I collapsed with a bruising thud to the floor.

“SUNSET!”

Wallflower was suddenly at my side, but I could barely focus on her, her body was fading in and out, and wondered if the difficulty of calling her had also shortened the duration of the conjuring.

Would she still be here when I came to?

Would I come to?

That last thought came on the heels of darkness, but before the depths of unconsciousness took me, I couldn’t help but wonder…

Would that really be so bad?