A Shadow of Myself

Empathy knew he wasn't a smart elephant, but it didn't take a smart elephant to know that things weren't right with someone. It took feeling, and when it came to feelings, Empathy was very smart.

Something was not right with Miss Ami.

That was nothing new. Miss Ami had been hurting since he first met her. She had a sister die, then a nephew and her other self. Empathy still didn't quite understand the whole other-self-thing. He had assumed that it was just like when intuits had new intuits, a perfect little copy that came out of their bellies that would grow to replace them, but Miss Charlotte said it had nothing to do with reproduction. This left him very confused, but he didn't need to understand the details to know that the feeling for the other self was the same as like a baby intuit and their parent. No parent wanted to see their baby die. That was a horrible thing, especially if they hadn't made any new baby intuit. That would mean the end of a line.

He wondered how many of those bears had their lines ended. He feared the bears, but the idea of a line ending was as bad a thing as you could do to an intuit. He didn't think Miss Sunset understood how bad a thing it was. Lines could be replaced. Once they were gone, they were gone, and no new line would come.

Would his line pass away if he didn't get back home? He had thought about that many times in the last month, and it worried him. He wanted to serve, but he needed to make sure his line and Heavyheart's line continued. Heavyheart could possibly find another to continue her line. It was unusual, changing who you were bonded to, but it had happened before, but that requires another unbonded intuit. There were some, the bears had seen to that, but still, he and Heavyheart were supposed to be together. He wished Miss Sunset would say she would bring all the intuits to this place. It was so nice.

He really didn't think any of the humans or ponies here understood. They reproduced weirdly. They didn't make perfect copies, they didn't know who they were supposed to be with from the start. They had multiple siblings. It was all very strange, very alien.

Still, the way Miss Ami felt was neither strange or alien. It took him a while to understand the way families worked here, and he was still learning, but he still understood her grief, and she was hurting so bad that it made things wrong. He didn't know what to do.

They had been walking through the park, and he stopped to look at some shiny flowers that were all kinds of different colors. "Look, Miss Ami! These flowers make a rainbow on the ground when the light hits them. Isn't it pretty?"

She had stopped walking because he had stopped. She didn't look at the flowers. She started down at the ground. "They're nice, dear."

He'd learned that earth ponies liked pretty flowers alot. Flowers, trees, vines, grass, and every kind of plant. Maybe it was just a generalization, but it seemed like Misd Ami should like all the things in the park. She didn't seem to care. She didn't seem to care about much at all. She did what she was told. She responded to questions. However, she would just sit around doing nothing if you let her, and she never started a conversation herself. Everybody had said she liked to talk.

This wasn't a job for him. Miss Ami had a heavy heart, so he needed Heavyheart. This was what Heavyheart was meant for. He was empathy, but he had never lost a loved one. He didn't understand the feeling like someone who had. He could sympathize, but that wasn't the same as empathizing. Miss Sunset and Miss Charlotte needed to help get Heavyheart here so he could help Miss Ami.

And so he could have Heavyheart with him again.

An old crystal pony mare, also strolling in the park, took interest in them. She blinked in confusion at the sight of him, so he waved. Waving was a great way of saying that he wasn't threatening, not that anybody tended to think he was threatening. They just thought he was weird, even though they were the weird ones. They walked on four legs and had no arms, and they tended to pick things up with their mouths. He picked things up with his trunk from time to time, but never his mouth. Old Empathy and Old Heavyheart would have scolded him if he did something as disgusting as that; Heavyheart probably would too.

The old crystal pony lost interest in him and turned her attention to Miss Ami.

"Is something wrong?" the mare asked Miss Ami. "You look very sad."

Miss Ami looked up and her lip quivered. Someone had asked her a question. She had been answering questions when people asked them of her. This was a question most people who knew her knew better than to ask.

Empathy hurried over and put a protective hand on Miss Ami. "Miss Ami is having-" He was going to say bad day, but this whole past month had been bad for her. "Miss Ami is having a hard time. Several people who were very close to her died recently. She has a heavy heart."

The mare's ears sagged. "I'm very sorry to hear that. losing several at once is devastating. When I was a young mare, I lost many friends all at once, it took me a long while to get over it."

Empathy did feel sad for the mare's loss, but he also felt excitement. This was someone who had experienced something similar to Miss Ami! Miss Charlotte, Sunset, and Andrea all had the same experience, but it was still fresh for them. They barely could stand talking about it. That made it hard for them to talk to Miss Ami.

He clasped his hands together. "I'm very sorry to hear that, Miss Crystal Pony. What happened? How did you recover?"

The mare sat down and sighed. "This might seem strange to say, but I'm older than I look, all of us older crystal ponies are. We were all born before King Sombra came to power. That means that we were born more than a thousand years ago and suspended in time for so long."

Pointing to her mark on her flank, a train, she continued. "I was one of the ponies that helped build the railways. It saddens me they haven't done much to expand them in all this time, but it also makes me happy that they survived all these years and were maintained. When the Sisters' reign was young, most of those lands were very rural, ponies practically living in hovels– although many had been reduced to that before the freeze; things had gotten so bad after the unicorns accidentally destroyed the Sunstone. Anyway, the old kingdoms were buried under snow, and they were starting over from scratch. The Crystal Empire had survived the great freeze from the wendigos due to the Crystal Heart, and when the new lands were settled by the lost kingdoms, we were quick to offer aid to help get them on their hooves. The railways were critical in that, and I traveled all over Equestria helping construct them. I made many friends from outside the empire when doing so."

She looked off into the distance. "However, after the empire went away for over a thousand years, I found myself in a new time, and all those friends I had made had been dead for centuries. It was like several dozen people died all at once to me and the other workers who had helped with the railways. I don't even know what became of them; the records from the south from back then are so poor. There had been a stallion that I liked…." The mare fell into silence.

"How did you cope?"

They both looked at Miss Ami, who was now looking intensely at the crystal pony mare.

"A few things helped," the old crystal pony replied. "Time was the biggest factor."

Miss Ami hung her head again. "I'm not sure how much of that I have left."

The crystal pony frowned. "They aren't burying you yet. Other things that helped were the fact that we're the fact we were all so overjoyed to be finally free of Sombra. We also focused on the loved ones that were still with us. Finally, the Crystal Heart helped some."

"How does the Crystal Heart help?" Empathy asked. "What is the Crystal Heart?"

"What's the Crystal Heart?" the old crystal pony responded in disbelief. "Do you not know where you are?"

"It's a magical artifact that keeps the snow at bay," Miss Ami explained to Empathy.

"It is more than that. You two must be from Earth. That's the only way you wouldn't know," the old pony said thoughtfully. "The Heart is the focus for all the love and good feelings in the empire. We periodically renew it whenever there is a new foal born in the city, and we renew it during the Crystal Fair each year. I'm not aware of anypony about to have a foal, not for a few months anyway, but the fair is only a few days away."

Empathy patted Miss Ami on the side. "That's good news! Just a few days! That is something to look forward to!"

"Maybe," Miss Ami muttered. "I'm not sure how this heart can help. It seems far-fetched."

"It won't take all the pain away,but it will help you feel more of your joy again," the mare assured them.

"We'll have to see," Miss Ami said, not seeming so sure. Empathy wished she was more enthusiastic about this, but at least she was talking. That was better.

He wondered if the heart would help him feel better about missing Heavyheart.

Flurry Heart guided Sunset into a private room, not unlike the one she had brought Charlotte to. Sunset went in obediently and immediately headed over to a couch. Celestia followed her in.

"This room is soundproof. We can speak freely," Flurry Heart informed them as she shut the door.

"We hope young Charlotte is feeling better after your talk," Celestia said as she took a seat on another couch. "She seemed quite distressed."

"We're all getting through things day to day right now, and she has other dysfunctions she is working through," Sunset replied. "She's young. She'll bounce back from this. It will just take her a while."

Celestia gave her a sad smile. "Losing loved ones doesn't get any easier with age, and I have buried my fair share. It never gets any easier."

"At least Andrea seems to be more resilient than the rest of us. I haven't seen her break down yet," Sunset sighed. "Hopefully that isn't just building up for an even bigger breakdown later. Charlotte can't afford Andrea losing it at an important moment, and I don't want to lose Andrea because she chose the wrong time to let her grief out."

Celestia nodded. "I knew there was something involving Charlotte and her magic that you weren't telling us earlier. Something you don't want her to know yet."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Was it obvious? I thought I was doing a good job of keeping that to myself."

"I don't know the two of you well, but when you have been around as long as I have, you get to where you can pick up on a lot that is unsaid. Call it intuition."

Sunset looked away. "I am trying to find a workaround, but my ability to duplicate her portals has a limitation– her."

Flurry Heart had taken a seat while they were talking and raised an eyebrow. "You assured us you could get a scout team to this other universe."

"I can."

"But you say there is a limitation," Flurry Heart prompted.

Sunset laid down and cradled her head between her forelegs. "The armlets I have in mind will bring everyone back without any issue if certain conditions are met.Those conditions are I need Charlotte to get them over there to begin with and I need her present and within a certain range for the armlets to work."

"The girl doesn't have command of her magic yet. That seems to be a serious limitation," Celestia said gravely.

Sunset sat back up and shook her head. "No, I can make her magic do what I want, even if she can't. It wouldn't be pleasant for her, but I know how. It has to be her magic. I haven't come up with a way to replicate it."

Celestia's brow narrowed. "Using another's magic against their will treads dangerously close to dark magic."

"An archaic term, but, you are correct, it is magic that is easily abused," Sunset said in response. "It isn't an option I want to go with. I am still studying her and am hoping to crack the code to being able to open a similar portal using my own magic. No Heart apparently figured it out, and in no time at all. It infuriates me that I am running into a wall with this."

Celestia didn't seem assured. "Where did you even learn how to do such magic? Such magic existed in our antiquity, but I worked hard to stamp out all traces of those spells."

"The Dreamwardens," Sunset answered in a flat tone. "What do you think those unicorns who are going to die distracting the Devourers are going to be doing? I thought I made the details of the gambit very clear in my report."

That brought the eldest alicorn up short. "We don't know if that will be needed. The initial distraction could be enough. We also don't know if they are actually using a pony's magic."

Sunset shook her head. "I believe they are, on both counts. Tell me that you will keep your promise and assure that all of my family is evacuated to Equestria with the rest of the refugees."

Flurry Heart's feathers bristled. "You don't have faith that the wardens' plan will work? Should we be worried?"

"We wouldn't be evacuating people if it was sure to work," Sunset said in a tired voice. "It is our best chance. It has a chance of working, but we are employing something that even Triss doesn't fully understand, despite spending literally tens of millions of years studying it. There are a lot of variables that I don't have answers to or begin to understand. The spell is designed to do something that is flat out impossible. The spell will fail, that is for certain. It's trying to do something that even all you alicorns and Triss couldn't accomplish if you combined your powers, and leave you just as dead as those unicorns will be, but I'm hoping it will work just enough to hold those mechanical monsters' attention."

Flurry Heart's ears sagged. "Hundreds of lives…for a distraction. I can't believe it comes to this. The moral implications of what we are doing make me want to cry."

"Better than billions dead because we didn't try," Sunset whispered. "Whether we can live with ourselves after doesn't matter. Better to have history judge us harshly than have no future to judge us. I will take the blame if we make it through. I'm already viewed as a villain by a significant part of the population. The spell was my design, and I don't even have the courage to stand among those casting it. You can claim you didn't know."

Celestia shook her head. "No, we shall not lie. You shall not shoulder all the blame. All the alicorns, all the Dreamwardens, all the governments, we all are involved, and all carry the burden of the outcome, no matter what that may be. May Harmony present us with a victory over the Devourers, whatever consequences we must face after don't matter unless there is an after "

"For Earth. For Equestria. For Life," Flurry Heart chanted slowly.

"For life," Sunset Blessing repeated. "May God forgive us."