A Kindled Change

by Darkevony

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Original Character, Queen Chrysalis, Adventure
Length: 30051

A small changeling takes her first steps towards changing her life.

Taking that one necessary step forward to begin changing our life for the better requires a lot of courage. We must hold out our hearts and open up to others who will help us, even if we're scared of getting hurt. Life will not wait for us, so we must chase after it with all we've got. No matter how hard, how far, or impossible it may seem. We've got to find our happiness.

This is the story of one such changeling as she takes those first steps forward, her whole world changing right before her eyes.

((Cover art drawn by the fantastic Little Tigress.))

Published 2022-08-14 18:50:00 UTC
Last updated 2022-09-26 23:35:59 UTC

Chapter 1: Blind

Author's Note

This story was first conceived in early 2012 and takes place after Queen Chrysalis' initial appearance (and defeat after the royal wedding) in Friendship is Magic. Recently changed the cover art, but I felt it was important to preserve the art of the original character that inspired this story, so it shall remain here at the start of this journey.

Chapter 1: Blind

It’s dark, so very dark. I walk through the dim corridors of a cold, unforgiving cave. My feelings for this darkness are conflicted. It is comforting. It brings security and protection. In the dark, I go unnoticed. Yet, it is a somber veil of loneliness. These damp and ancient tunnels have rarely seen another soul.

These walls and ground before me are as familiar to me as my own limbs. I recognize the musty scent of water dripping from the ceiling. It falls from above, but even what is above me I cannot clearly picture, for everything sits still in the pitch black. This is the way it has always been since I can remember.

I cannot use my eyes in the darkness, but I can hear, I can smell, and I can feel my way through it. They are my sight. The echoes of water drops. The walls that guide me when I’ve lost my path. The cool breeze of wind that waft through the hollow corridors... They are my everything. They are my friends, my home, and they protect me from the dark.

I fear the dark as much as I love it, in truth. It holds me close when Fate comes to reap, and yet it leaves me distant and empty.

Fate? What of Fate? Fate is faceless, senseless, and uncaring. In this darkness, I hide from it. For I've seen what Fate is capable of. I've seen its victims... destitute creatures with small fires in their souls.

I see what Fate has done to them. I see how their fires are reduced to nothing but ashes time and again. Fate is ruthless, and it has proved it many times. This darkness, solemn and lonely as it may be, is my only protection from it. I must love it more than fear it, or it cannot protect me.

But the dark does not love anyone, as I've come to know. It does not pick a side on whom it chooses to hide. In the murky darkness, something begins to stir. Something sinister.

Something I wish to escape. I fear it. I feel only pain when it draws near. Cowardice from seeing those small fires to ashes and sadness from not being able to change them, plague me. In this, it has always remained the same.

I do my best to lie still in the dark. Not a word, not a peep, not even a breath. I do as I have done so often before and wish with all my might to avoid the oncoming storm, hopeful that it will end soon. Yet a cold chill crawls down my spine when a deafening voice fills these halls. It is a maddening rallying cry full of everything awful.

I move towards the voice unwillingly, Fate guiding me onto a path once more at the beckoning command. Despite my fears, I fear more what Fate's Mistress is capable of.

In walking towards it, my conflicted feelings on this darkness grow. It's quick to pull away when Fate swallows me whole. The earliest memories I own are alongside it. I have only fragmented memories of things besides its all-encompassing nature and of the things that exist within its grasp.

After all, what is darkness if not the absence of light? The dark is not all that I know, truthfully. In my life, there is light, if it could be called that. It is a serpent-green glow that guides the weary flames to them. A light so vile that, in ways, is darker than the darkness. It is a light born from large crystals. Massive pillars of luminescence that adorn what could best be described as the gates of hell. The sickening din and glow of their power fill a long winding corridor, and a new one decorates its walls every time the Mistress calls. Their hue intensify at her presence, growing brighter and more sinister as I approach. They match the color of the fire in her soul.

I've no choice but to walk before them in continuing on. The unnerving, twisted reflections on their glass-like surface haunt my dreams so I try to avert my gaze. They show no end to Fate's vile, spiteful, hateful nature. They picture so many different faces that contort into hatred and malice.

But they also show a single face… weary and distressed, full of sadness and yearning. This face is unfamiliar. Distant. I hate it. I wish I could scream and it would go away. I wish I could cry and it would vanish. But when I do, it only grows worse…

As I look upon that face, grief overpowers me. It shapes me into something different. At that moment, something pulls me out from my sadness. The Mistress's voice. It stings the air and pierces the darkness. The voice is cold, sharp, and unforgiving. It calls out a name. This name is unfamiliar. I don’t know who this name belongs to.

The voice calls out again and again, more and more impatient, and yet I still don’t know who she calls out to. But I follow. To see who it might be. I follow through artificial paths carved out of the ground. I follow... and blindly, I am led to my despair.

The deeper down I delve, the stronger an unnerving din and buzz in the air like a sickening ambiance become. The chanting of many different voices begins to grow louder. They are all different, but they do not speak words. Their chant sounds like nothing more than hissing. Their voices are filled with hateful frustration and unquelled anger. Their droning becomes too much to bear when I arrive at the room they vacate and a prickle of fear runs through my body.

It's them, the minions of hell. Mistress's followers, the Formless. None of them turn to look at me as I approach. In this dim light, they cannot see my form. They do not have much of a mind so they cannot see in the darkness the way I do. Yet even with the glow of the crystals, their eyes cannot pick up much for they do not have irises. They are dulled, dead. Too poor to know what is in front of them, or behind them.

In the center, sitting on a throne of green glowing crystals rests... Fate's Mistress. She is the only soul to turn her gaze toward me. The irises in her eyes are snake-like. Pure green, greener than the crystals could ever be. They are dark and scary, filled with more anger than all the other Formless creatures in that room combined. I freeze up in fear. It was a mistake to have come here, but there was no hiding from those piercing eyes regardless. She slowly rises from her crystal throne and the formless begin their chant of mindless praise. She silences them with one loud, echoing boom from a strong stomp of her foreleg.

I dared not look away. Looking into them is like seeing an evil untold, and looking away felt akin to turning your back to a predator. They showed something so fierce that they could cause pain onto the beholder simply from a stare. Strangely, more than the fear that gripped me, those eyes also captivated my attention. Her eyes hold a glint of beauty. Their deep vibrant emerald greens shimmer in the dark. Yet they only spit back venom when trying to look into them for too long. Like an abyss, their end felt infinite, as though they were always looking at more than what was in front of them.

Fate's Mistress was truly a sight to behold standing above the Formless. Her mane is a darkened mixture of mystical royal blue with a blooming green. Her wings are like that of a dragonfly carved from bright green crystals, delicate and almost ethereal in appearance. She could be mistaken for a fairy of legends were it not for the vile air that surrounds her.

I am different from them. I am different from her. Yet I do not remember what I truly look like. I've become the shadows themselves and I've lost sight of my own appearance, but I know I'm different.

Still... standing before her... I realize that being different does not change Fate's design. Being different does not let me escape her grasp.

I stopped breathing almost entirely, somehow believing I could still hide in the dim light of the darkest corner of the room.

(Illustration by SkyeyPony on Deviant Art.)

In the silence of her commanding presence, my breath finally returned and I felt my throat tighten, a small noise escaping me, one of fear. My voice… I'd forgotten what it sounds like. I've become mute over so long. It almost feels like I've forgotten to speak. I've gotten so used to lying in the shadows, the silence, that I've become part of them. It is why I hide as a shadow. A shadow amongst shadows and no one but her is able to see me. It is as if she feels my presence and sees through my form, my art.

Finally, the silence is broken when she begins to speak. “My dear, do you know what day it is? The time is near for us to take our chance and reclaim what was once ours. I, no we, will take our rightful rule once and for all!” Shouting this, the chanting of hissing noises began again, louder than before and more excited. Her words are like heated daggers; they cut through the soft flesh and leave behind pain and suffering. Her voice is sharp, regal, and frightening. The cacophony of the reverberation in her tone is horrifyingly unnerving. Just like her appearance, that duality makes her seem more unnatural, with one voice sounding loving and calm while the other plainly showing the vitriol of her hate. Her influence is unmistakable, as her words instill both loyalty and anger in her minions without effort. She is a terrifying force. One that I dare not speak back to. "You will have a good view of our new kingdom, sitting next to my throne on one of your own." Her words are almost sickening.

In her words are remnants of what I still have yet to lose. What is there to lose? Nothing really. All I have is shadows. Grim solemn shadows that have been my treasure since I was small. They keep me safe under their coat. I've known nothing more than darkness, and truthfully... that is all I've learned to wish for. She speaks of her wishes as though they were mine. She talks of reclaiming earthly things I have never seen before. I cannot wish for something that I do not know of, so I remain silent in the dark. Of the things she says, however, what catches my ear is her claims of dominion over the stars.

The sun and moon... All I own are vague memories so far and forgotten that I cannot hope to remember, for memories like that dull in time. My memories can only paint a sloppy picture of their image. In my heart, hearing those words gives me an intense longing. I try to stop myself. I fear to hope... strange as that may sound. I fear hoping to one day see the night and day again, for I wish strongly in my heart that it is as perfect as my mind sets it to be, unclear and foggy as those memories are. In truth, I fear disappointment.

This paradoxical turmoil consumes me, but it keeps me busy, it keeps me sane, if it is sanity at all. It helps me to look forward. It is a sense of hope strong enough to pierce through my fears. If I am conflicted to this extent, it becomes easier to understand that what I truly want is to be able to hope. My hope is to see the stars again.

Reaching the end of things she wanted to say, the Mistress finally broke her unyielding gaze, freeing up mine as a result. There was a horrible sense of foreboding in my stomach after listening to all of it. It had been so long since I'd been spoken to, I'd forgotten what most of it even meant. In truth, I could piece very little of it at all.

My attention finally my own, I notice the eyes of every formless in the room now on me. Their stares are many and their cold, unfeeling eyes are heavy. The Mistress sat back onto her throne and turned to look at me once more. Now all eyes truly were on me.

"Equestria will be ours." A dark smile formed on her face having said this. A glowing green mist began to pour out of her horn to fill the room and bleed into the tunnels outside.

Every part of me was now screaming at me to run away and hide. Together with the feeling that her command and conversation with me had finally come to its conclusion, I sprinted as fast as I could out of that room and back into the sinking darkness.

My panic grew fever-pitch in feeling that the darkness was shifting all around me. The walls, the ground, and the entire cave were beginning to change. My breathing became more erratic, stumbling onto every obstacle before me. I know I'd felt this panic before, from the time when I first awoke in the darkness. The hands of lady Fate herself were now forging the path before me. In their absolute power and their ability to rewrite my life, they were destroying everything I had finally become familiar with, comfortable with. They were deconstructing my life as I knew it. And in that uncertainty, there is only one emotion.

Fear.

As if proven right, my running finally met its end. The cave lead me into a new area I had never been to before. A vast, vast room with seemingly no end. An area with a bright light so powerful, darkness all but vanishes. I desperately closed my eyes since the light was too much for me to bear. A strange warm feeling enveloped my whole body, one that intensified as time passed. Where was I? I could not see a thing.

My eyes still firmly shut, just as suddenly as I had arrived at that place I heard the hissing of the Formless all around me frantically flying past me in a fervor. My panic immediately turned into absolute terror and I held onto the ground with dear life.

Then I heard her voice once more. In a shout, happy and gloating, "Soon they will all know the name Queen Chrysalis."

Chapter 2: Lost

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 3: Alone

Chapter 3

Alone

The rain finally begins to slow until it stops altogether. The creek now bursting with water causes a small torrent along its bed. My hooves have not stopped moving, for I feel if I stop moving forward, I'd truly be lost forever. In unison, the woodland critters begin to stir again sensing that the rain had come and gone. The very air around me bustles with life. From the chirping of crickets to the croaking of freshly soaked toads.

I follow the sounds, the sights, the smells. I follow the colorful birds in hope that they'll take me away, take me somewhere, wherever that is. I did not care so long as I was lost within these wonders. Lost, yet not truly lost perhaps. For now, I had my direction. It was a heartening feeling. A sense of freedom I could never feel within the darkness of my old home. So many new wonders to behold. A new discovery at every corner, at every turn of the trees, or even the simplest rocks. My only fear now was not finding the appropriate words to describe it all.

My eyes catch notice of something in the creek as the waters slowed into a sense of calm; a figure gently flowing through the cracks of mossy rocks. I dip my face beneath the still turbid surface and I feel the chillingly cold of the water rush by me. Unprepared for it, I slowly force my eyes to open underwater, and there I catch sight of some many fish swimming against the current, their silver-blue scales gleaming like gems in the water. Content, I pull away from the water and catch my breath. I redirect my attention to the sky at the sight of two majestic birds with wonderfully bright red and orange hues as they flew around each other in some form of dance. The bigger of the two started to chirp a tune with the other joining in shortly after. Together they crafted a beautiful harmony, a lovely little song meant for each other. A melody of hearts.

Sensing my gaze, they darted back to their nest that sat not too far from where they were courting. It was far too high up for me to see anything within that nest, but I could tell that there was something truly special in there. Something I really wanted to see. But how? A thought appeared in my head. I have wings like birds do. Not bird wings, but wings all the same. I had never even entertained the thought of using them before this having no place to use them within the darkness of my old home, but here and now there was nothing holding me back. I try and motion my wings as hard as I am able, to no avail. Over and over I try my hardest. In the end, I accomplish nothing but exhausting myself. Somehow, I start to feel incredibly disappointed in myself. Not being able to get up there was leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

My frustration was causing me to tear up again. Why? It wasn't as if it was the end of the world if there were something I could not do or see. It was hard to understand my own feelings, but internally it felt like I was comparing my inability to see that nest with my life in the darkness. Being outside now felt so... wonderful, that it made me sad that there were still things I could never reach out to even though I'd tried so hard. I steeled myself. I was determined to see what was in that nest no matter the cost. I don't want anything holding me back anymore.

I shifted my eyes towards the trees that surrounded the one with the nest, scanning for one with a good vantage. It was simple, if I could not fly with my wings I was sure I could climb to it. I struggled up a tree that I felt had good footholds at first, but I continued onwards and saw progress. Halfway up the tree, a wave of exhaustion hit me. I was tired, deadly tired. It had been a long day. I’d been walking for hours and the rain had soaked me till I shivered from the wind. I’d been too distracted by everything around me to notice until now. My body was forcing me to notice by trembling from the effort as I kept climbing upwards. I wasn't about to stop now though. I couldn't. This is something I had to see through.

In my haste, I kept slipping down the bark of the tree trying desperately to climb up and scraping the skin underneath my coat in the process, bruising and only very slightly tearing at it. I fought back tears now that the stinging pain filled my wounds, but as my mind raced with all sorts of thoughts on the way up, I thought that this pain really was nothing compared to all the awful things I'd experienced in the darkness. In fact, it made me feel very much alive. Of course, I disliked the burning sensation left behind by the wounds but it felt great to feel that pain in service of something I really wanted to do. It was that sense of freedom swelling up again.

Finally, I reached the top of the tree and caught a very clear view of the nest and the two birds. They were on alert of me, and I knew all too well why. It was my appearance. Even if I didn't look much like the formless, I was one of them... I knew very well why they'd feel that way. As soon as I shifted my form, however, it seemed like they finally relaxed a bit.

Looking at them closer, they truly were incredibly majestic. Like living fires, their plumage danced and swayed as they moved. Their wingspan was something to behold, having uncurled them to their full length around their perch. Beneath their wings was something far more special. Three newborns who’d finally grown their plumage. They were like miniature versions of those birds and they were doing their best to catch their attention by chirping some desperate cries in their direction. I forgot all of my weariness and stared at the scene in front of me in wonder. I had a strange feeling in my chest when the two bigger birds began to nuzzle up against the smaller ones in an affectionate manner. I noticed from the corner of my eye that the clouds were finally beginning to part, but I was far too concentrated on the birds to shift my attention.

Just as suddenly as it began, the two bigger birds took flight. Where were they going? I wondered. My chest tightened when I noticed the three hatchlings jump onto the very corner of the nest. In a horrified panic, I watched as one of the small birds jumped straight out of the nest and plummeted toward the ground.

The pit in my stomach from first having seen that to the relief of it taking flight mid-fall left me nerve-wracked. The other two followed his steps and in seeing them fly away and towards the two bigger birds, my heart began to ache.

At that moment, however, a truly incredible spectacle unfolded before me as I looked on towards their figure. The skies parted to give way to sunset, enveloping the birds in a warm light that made their fiery plumage truly shine. I held my breath at the sheer awe of it all. It had been so long since I last saw the sun. Now here it was, in all its splendor and creating the incredible image before me.

(Illustration by WolfieDrawie on Deviant Art.)

Then it happened. Before my mind could be lost in that scene for too long, it felt like I was forced outside of myself. My body finally gave out from exhaustion and I felt myself fall. I hadn't realized how far up I was. I could not anticipate how much hitting the ground would hurt. As I hit the ground, a shock ran from my brain down to every corner of my body almost instantly. I hadn't even the chance to compose my thoughts before the pain surged throughout every inch of me and I was gasping for air, back first against the ground. It took a while to regain myself. I couldn't truly tell how injured I was, as nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

"Nooooooooo!!”

An unmistakable, blood-curling scream filled the valley. It all had felt too good to be true. All those wonderful emotions felt like they were not being paid in full. Instantly I was overcome with fear. There was no denying it. Something truly awful had happened. The very world around me knew it. And Fate's Mistress was at the center of it all. That foreboding sense of dread I had felt back when she spoke to me last should have been a real warning. Now, I could only wait and fear for the worst to come...

Yet, nothing came. Several moments passed, and nothing happened. Still, something was definitely off. Everything around me was nearly completely silent. No wind, no animals... nothing save for the rushing of water from the creek. All the birds were nowhere to be seen, the fish had all swam away, and the woodland creatures were probably in hiding. They must have been scared off... My mind was racing, and I could only think to dip my head in the creek to cool my head off and regain my composure.

The scenery around me was still beautiful in its own way, but now there was a noticeable void in the very air around me. The beautiful harmony of nature that gave me that warm feeling from before was replaced with melancholy. It felt like all the animals had taken that feeling with them and left me behind. My chest tightened. More than my physical wounds, I felt a much worse pain coming from my heart. I could hardly even stand but I toughed it out and continued down the creek, trying to distract my thoughts.

The moon was now in view bright and clear as it rose to meet the night sky. It showered the land with its mystical silver light. It had been so long since last I saw it. Yet even under its gentle gaze, or perhaps more so due to it, I felt incredibly... lonely. Not a single soul could be seen or heard anywhere. I had spent so long in the darkness that loneliness had felt like such a fair-weather friend. I had come to appreciate its loyalty when the alternative was to stand before the Mistress, but it had never stopped being bittersweet. And now, after having been met with my first experiences of the outside world, it only felt bitter. I wept quietly to myself, trying my best to hold it all in.

I noticed my steps were now beginning to slow. For many a reason now no doubt. But the emotional toil of today had been so much to bear, I had become numb, so I could not diagnose what ailed me. What little left I had of my right mind I distracted by looking up at the stars. There were so many of them. An ocean of absolute beauty and wonder. A nebula clustered with stars was the most fascinating and I tried counting each one of them slowly while I walked. This world truly was filled with many wonders.

I felt myself stumble against a few small rocks that normally I'd be able to walk over with no problem, but I was no longer all there or even in fine control of my body. My mind was no longer working properly so to me, it felt as though the only thing pushing my body forward was my soul. But the feeling of loneliness never left me. It constantly made it harder to walk as it blurred my vision, and the knot in my throat made it harder to breathe.

Finally, I collapsed on the ground. Even my soul could do nothing to combat the exhaustion now. If there was a tomorrow, I promised myself I'd continue moving forward, even if I had to face the Mistress again. Even if I had to challenge fate. If there was a tomorrow, I'd try to find those birds again. I'd go swimming in the creek. I'd find where it ends.

If there was a tomorrow, I would live with all my might.

"Sleep now, my dear."

That voice... a strange warmth slowly wraps around me. From the corner of my eye, I see a distant purple silhouette before I feel my consciousness begin to fade. I am slipping... slipping back into a darkness. From the bottom of my heart, I am truly afraid. Never had I been more terrified of anything, not even Fate herself, or her Mistress. With the darkness all around me now, I can say it clearly in my head one last time.

I'm afraid to be alone.

Chapter 4: Restless

Chapter 4

Restless

I am restless. In the murky darkness of my mind, I am taken back to a time long lost. As I come to, the night sky is replaced by thick dark clouds of smoke with embers dancing all around me. Ash is being swept up by the wind creating a black and grey rain. A malicious orange light fills the darkness. It flickers violently, creating monstrous shadows. My lungs are consumed by heat as I gasp for air. The wooden ceiling of the small house I'm in creaks and shatters as it falls around me in every direction, giving way to the sight of a living hellscape.

(Illustration by LuckyEd on DeviantArt.)

My world is burning. The fire rampages on top of everything it touches. The words they whisper are filled with violence and turmoil. They know no morality, and they scream out into the night in a deafening roar, taking the stars away with them. The ground is covered in coarse black ash and it burns to the touch. My legs become singed with the dormant embers beneath the powdery layer.

My vision is blurred by the elements. I become blind. Truly blind. I can hardly see the vague outlines of those dancing fires, and slowly, my vision fades altogether. My eyes are gauged by the flames and pain constricts around my body in a deadly hold. I want to scream, but my chest hurts when I breathe. I want to run, but my legs won't work. I want to cry, but it is drowned out in the chaos of my plight.

I am filled with despair.

"Hurry! She's got to be here somewhere!"

I awake short of breath, panting for what air I can fill my lungs with. Warm tears roll down my cold numb cheeks. It had been so long since last I had that dream, that my tears now felt hollow and devoid of feeling. It was hard to think that it was me in that picture, for if it had actually happened, then I have long, long forgotten. Yet there was real fear in those images and trying to remember anything about that dream had become physically uncomfortable to do.

The moon had now moved to the center of the sky. I cannot tell how much time I've been out. If it was before, I could've told the time from the frequency of water dripping from the ceiling of the cave. At night, it seems as though water pooled above the surface, and during the day it slowed when drying up. There was not much for me to do within the darkness, so perhaps in an effort to stay entertained, I found myself counting the drops and learning the patterns and motions of my home. But now there were no such indicators. I couldn't understand the passage of time very well, or how much left there was in the night. The best I could do was guess and hope that it had only been a few hours.

However, right now, I am devoid of feeling. My body is exhausted and I can only move it ever so slightly. I can only shift my head sideways to see the waters of the creek beside me. I feel like I am made of nothing, strange as it sounds. Perhaps because I've become numb and slow, or maybe because I can hardly move my limbs much. It felt as if I were just a pair of eyes with the only tether to the physical world being my mind.

"You seem to be awake. What a relief. You wouldn't wake up no matter what I did. I was worried sick." A voice appears from nowhere, and I instinctively freeze from traumatic shock. It is smooth, gentle, and almost motherly. A part of me feels like running away with all my might and another is curious to see where it is coming from, but with my addled body, any effort I try to do to sit up is met only with weak writhing. I have nary even the strength to move my head, but my eyes meet two new ones regardless. They are unlike anything I'd ever seen. Intensely violet, glimmering, calm, and gentle. "Are you alright?" They spoke once more, a hint of emotion in them I could not understand at this moment in time.

I can't respond to them. Not with my words or even my actions. Paralyzed both physically and emotionally, I can only stare back at them wide-eyed in a panic. The eyes pull back from their distance to me and reveal the shape of someone similar yet so different to the formless. Instinctively I realized that this was not one of the formless at all. She didn't have the same flame in her soul. Its light was pleasant and bright, without that familiar green tint to its hue. "Oh, it's okay, sorry I didn't mean to scare you." She voices out carefully and slowly, more gently than she did before. My fear abates at this, and warmth fills my face and chest. My breathing calms and I am left unsure of what to think of the creature before me. Noticing that she would not get an answer out of me and seeing as how I had calmed, the creature moved away from my peripheral vision to continue something that it was working on.

"You are pretty hurt. Some of the wounds were too severe for me to use magic on, so I had to use a little concoction to heal them up. You're lucky I found you out in these woods when I did. It isn't safe for a pony so rarely anyone comes by here." I don't understand much of what she is saying, but I seem to have a recollection of some of the words she speaks far within the recess of my mind. 'Unsafe for a pony' she had said. What little of my memories I could piece together were telling me that this was a pony, a race of sentient creatures, and my intuition had already guessed that it was a mare at that. "You regained consciousness a couple of hours after I began treatment. I'm not sure how long you've had those injuries, but it seems I found you fast enough to prevent infection in the wounds. I'm sorry about this but I'm not entirely done with disinfecting them just yet. Hold on tight for a second, I'm not going to lie, this will sting very badly for a while. Here it goes."

The devoid and numb feeling all over my body started to lift and gave way to an incredibly sharp pain in one of my forelegs. After only a few seconds the pain had become unbearable. Fear instantly filled me again. What is going on? What is happening to me...? Having regained some sense in my limbs, I manage to writhe with more force than before, albeit not by much to have made a difference. A soft and sturdy force holds me down in my attempts to pull free.

The mares' eyes return to my peripheral to speak to me once more. They are filled with concern and uncertainty. So much so that it influenced my own thoughts, and I began to tremble in a panic. Why was she showing me this concern? How truly hurt was I? Did she know? Was she mourning for me? I hadn't even given my injuries a second thought until now, but now that was all that I could think about. What if I could not use my body anymore? What if I really had become nothing but a pair of eyes left to spectate the world around me like an unfeeling ghost? Was I destined to be alone forever? It was too much for my tired heart to handle.

"Oh, please don't move. Just a little longer. Don't worry, please. It'll be fine." The mare... was she trying to comfort me? It was as though she could sense my uncertainty, my feelings, my fears. It took moments before the pain finally died down, yet I could still feel the audibly loud sound of the beating of my heart in my ears. "Does it hurt still?" I realize then that the stinging pain from before was entirely gone, and a soothing cold feeling had replaced it. It seems she truly was trying to help me. "Can you talk? Are you hurting anywhere else? I did my best to fix you up where I could." she asked inquisitively. I felt myself wanting to respond. I felt my mouth move open but nothing came out. Sadness overtook me. I could not muster the two words I tried so desperately to utter at that moment. I gave up and shook my head in a 'no' trying as hard as I could to convey the direct response to that question.

The mare collapsed onto the ground, relieved by my answer. "Thank goodness." Her voice shook with worry. She stood back up after a while and regained herself with an awkward cough. "Well, at least I know you can understand me. It's okay if you don't want to talk right now. I'm sure you're scared and exhausted." She ran her hooves down my hair gently, patting me on the head. My heart eased at this, and my relief was immeasurable. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, by the way, a pony from Ponyville. You know, strange things are always happening around me, but this was the first time I've had such a scare. Never expected another pony to be out here like this and a young filly like you at that. I couldn't help but panic thinking that I wouldn't be able to save you."

This feeling inside of me was new. Old perhaps? I couldn't quite piece what it was, or if I had even felt it before or not. But it was warm. So very, very... warm. My heart began to ache. Somehow, this too was a feeling that I had, had a longing for. For a very long time now. It reminded me of that dream from before... It reminded me of the Mistress... it reminded me of that single face reflected on the crystal's surface back in the darkness of that cave...

"Don't worry about a thing alright? I'll do my best to help you out no matter what," she said again as though she were somehow peering into my mind. She motioned over to me and held me gently from behind so that she could sit me upright in order to help me drink. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was. I practically inhaled the water when it touched my lips and ended up spluttering, choking in my haste. Before the mare had a chance to reach into her bag to get another waterskin, I lowered my head into the creek beside me, terribly thirsty and not thinking straight. I noted Twilight Sparkle's disapproval when I had finally gotten my fill. What caught my attention at that moment was the reflection in the water. It was the image of another mare, much smaller and younger comparatively. A white one with a yellow mane and the same bright amber eyes as mine. A lot of things clicked in my head right there and then, remembering back to when I had changed my form atop the tree.

How I wished I could do away with my emotions at that moment because yet again I was filled with uncertainty and sadness. I hated the questions that popped up in my head as I looked back to this Twilight Sparkle. My very existence was a sad thing it seemed, but in my selfishness, I thought to keep this form for a while longer. If there was one being I could not lie to, it was myself. I wanted to take advantage of the kindness that was being offered to me because of this form. I did not see an alternative. My injuries, a home, even just something to chase after... But more than all that... I didn't want to be alone...

"You sure you're not hurting anywhere?" Again, it felt as if she could read my mind. Like if she somehow understood my guilt. Sheepishly, I shake my head. "Well uhm... let's start with something else. Where is your home? Do you have any parents or family around?" These are questions I do not have the answer to, for I do not understand them very well. Parents? Family?And a home...? Huh. I had worried about it not long after I lost the darkness of the cave, but I had forgotten about it for a while. In the time that I was out for the count, life had returned to the woods around me even on this sleepy night. If I had to think about it at all, then this was probably my home now. All the same, I shook my head in response.

"Well uh... uhm I'm sure we'll find them, don't worry. When you are ready, we should get out of here. It isn't safe in the Everfree Forest. You know, I was only out here because something happened recently that needed me to investigate it." Her words were as warm as they had been, and the guilt inside me grew with each one uttered. "It feels like fate that I managed to find you."

Fate? No, it couldn't be. I knew better than anyone. Fate could never be so kind. Fate had never been, so why would it change now? If this was Fate's design, then that was all the more reason why I should not let my guard down even for a second. I promised myself... if there was a tomorrow... if Fate were to intervene again... that I would go against it.

Without warning, the purple mare draped my still-exhausted body over her back. "I can see it in your face you know. You should just sleep if you need to. You're gonna need all the rest you can get to recover. Like I said. Don't worry about a thing. I'll take care of you." I felt an indescribable amount of comfort and relief in hearing her words. As she paced, the warmth of her back and the rocking of her steps were lulling me into a deep sleep.

At the very least now, it felt like I was no longer alone. I had seen so much of a new world; I knew I was no longer blind. I was going somewhere and with someone, so I was no longer lost. And I could finally rest easy in this nurturing warmth.

I was no longer caged by the walls of my old home or the darkness of its embrace.

Now, I felt... that maybe I could start my life anew.

Chapter 5: Found

Chapter 5

Found

In the distance, a gust of wind shakes a rigid windowpane open. I've awoken to another sleepy night. Still feeling groggy, I feel myself yawn from within. I can't help but sigh in relief. It seems however much time I spent under, I’d not been plagued by those dreams from before. I had regained full control of my body now and could motion out whatever shape I tried drawing in the void before me. Despite that, I do not feel like getting up at all. I'd succumbed to the softness that surrounded me, and the warmth that my own body accumulated in the blanket that was neatly wrapped around it. Yet I also didn't feel like going back to sleep just yet, as something was still bothering me.

I quieted my thoughts by fixing my gaze on the moonlight pouring from the edge of the windowsill. Shadows occasionally broke the clearness of the circle that it drew on the floor, creating patterns similar to that of leaves on a tree swaying in motion with the wind. The only other light in the room is a soft orange and red glow from the candle sitting close to me on a desk opposite of the window. I lose myself almost entirely when I turn to look at it for a while. I can feel the pangs of fear welling up in my heart at the sight of it. Yet, I am unsure how to respond to that fear. In ways, it is beautiful. It's so gentle and warm. The way it flickers and dances in the wind causes a strange array of light, and along with the dim glow it gives off, it creates a slovenly atmosphere that begins to lull me again. However, deep in my subconscious, I am afraid to sleep under its light. I try my best to stave off its effects.

(Illustration by Rutkotka on DeviantArt)

Staring into the flame's light had made it harder to see my surroundings under the veil of darkness, but my eyes seemed to have no problem adjusting to the little light reflected from the surfaces it touched, slowly but surely painting the rest of the room. It is a rather surreal sight. The room is unlike anything I can match in my memories. It was as if the room itself had been carved from the inside of a tree. The shelves adorning the walls are lined with more books than I could've thought to exist. The musty smell of ink and weathered pages in the room were most likely from those tomes.

Scanning the room, I notice that the mare from before is nowhere to be seen. Twilight, was it? I couldn't tell at the time because of all the excitement and emotional conflict I was under, but she had really helped me out a lot. It was hard to imagine where I would've ended up had I not met her then. I felt like I really needed to tell her those two words I tried to voice out before. It had been so long since I'd last spoken a word to anything or anyone, even myself, that I began to practice in shame that I might mess them up. Yet even in the quiet solitude of this darkness... I could not. Nary even a peep. My heart sank at the thought that I would never be able to express myself to her...

Brooding comes in pairs, or so I'd heard. For one thought led to another, and I began to contemplate what would happen from now on. I remembered the questions that I had asked myself in my head when I first realized that I was not in my original form. Why was there another soul helping me? Ah, because I'm not formless... Is this pony's kindness sincere? What would she do to me if she found out? Would she eventually come to hate me too...?

I truly hated how I'd come to think. I could think of no one but myself. Living in the darkness, under Fate and her Mistress... To me, life had become simply self-preservation. So as the night grew older and I started feeling lonely that Twilight had not returned, I swallowed the emotions that had pooled in my throat. I understood very well that I would have to leave this place at some point in the near future. I could not afford these feelings even if I wanted to. I couldn't even talk. What hope did I have for a life filled with companionship?

It took moments more before the quiet of the night had been disturbed by the sounds of a door opening in the distance. It is faint, but now I could hear and feel the light, slow footsteps of another soul traveling on the wooden floor of this house. I could feel unnerving anticipation, sensing they were coming toward me. Instinctively my body shifted to the image of the pony I was hiding as up until now, since I had undone it when I'd awoken, but the nervousness of the moment had scared me into hiding my identity again. I shied away under my covers right when the door to my room was quietly pushed open. Then, I heard a familiar voice sigh in relief and I slowly peered outside of my quilt. Twilight's eyes drifted silently into view. She wore a smile on her face that was trying hard to hide a small hint of sadness in her expression.

"It's good to see you're finally awake. You slept through the entire day." She looked into my eyes warmly. I am still tired at this point in time, and it seems she is able to read me all too easily, her expression shifting to one of slight worry. "Looks like that wasn't enough though. You should get some more rest. You're still recovering after all." She began stroking my hair again. Embarrassingly, she smiles at me as she notices something on my face while doing so. I realized that I had become weak in more ways than one after having lived on my own for so long, considering I was finding it hard to hide my own smile from the happiness of that act.

The candle flickers in the wind as a gust blows through the open window, threatening to put out the flame. The cold of that night bleeds into the room all at once. The blanket that shielded me is not thick enough to protect me from it, and I find that I begin to shiver. I hadn't spared much of a thought for the temperature outside until that point.

"Oh dear, I'd forgotten how cold it was out tonight since I've been out since noon," Twilight said at the sight of me. "I'm really sorry I didn't notice it earlier. Unfortunately, I don't have more blankets to spare either." Another gust blows in through the window more aggressively than before and I find myself curling up and shivering uncontrollably. Twilight closes the window at this, but the cold air had already done its damage. The room felt like it was now freezing over. She walks back over to me and begins by apologizing again. "Hopefully it gets warmer in here with that. Well, I'll let you sleep now. We can discuss more tomorrow if you're up for it." She says as she starts to walk away.

She stops at the sight of me holding my foreleg out to her, sensing my worry and my loneliness welling up. No doubt she could also feel the shivering in my body through our contact. She ponders about what to do for a little bit.

"Well, I hope you don't mind if we bunk together tonight. I was gonna take the couch but this way we can both be warm. I'll do something about the blankets tomorrow, promise." She says, slipping into the same cover as mine. She turns to look at me, noticing I was still falling asleep.

That layered smile from before begins to cloud her expression again. She sighs a rather heavy sigh. "I have a lot to apologize for today." She says sheepishly. "I'm sorry, little one, I was out and about all over town asking everyone I knew to find out about your parents, but not a single pony knew a filly like you at all." Her brows furrowed, the sadness in her smile now unmistakable. It's obvious that she was putting on this front for my sake. "I promise you I won't stop trying, okay? I'll work twice as hard tomorrow." She patted my head gently, but unlike the times she did it before, the sadness in her expression kept me from feeling happy about it. "For now, you worry about getting some rest." She said, turning to her other side with her back towards me.

Her words prey on me. That word again... Parents? What did it mean? What was she looking for? There was one thing I could understand, however. She was trying to find someone who knows of me, who I am. I felt my mouth open to tell her I was sorry, and unsurprisingly nothing came out. Oh how I wanted to apologize to her at that moment... because for my sake, I could never let her know who or what I was.

Perhaps because I had grown so sensitive to sensations when I lived within the darkness, I could still feel the chill that lingered in that room. Coupled with my growing regret, I shivered in my moment of weakness. However, I felt something else within the bedsheets in front of me. It wasn't just me who could feel the stinging cold of the air around us, but Twilight too as she shivered albeit more faintly. In that moment, I felt so strongly about wanting to help her. She had done so much for me already, I wanted to return that kindness back with however much I could. I gently placed a hoof on her back believing that I could somehow transfer the heat I had accumulated. Yet, I pulled away almost immediately after I felt how utterly cold she was to the touch.

"Huh?" Twilight immediately noticed what I was trying to do and turned back to look at me. "Oh, heh, sorry. I was out all night talking to the townsfolk. Forgot to take my scarf so I pretty much returned icy cold. Don't mind me. I may not look it, but I'm as reliable and hearty as any adult my age. I'll warm up in no time."

Her words fell on deaf ears because, at this point, I was already beating myself up over it. I felt it after all. My weakness. My cowardice. How quickly I was to give up on the things I wanted to do. How pathetic I must have looked, not even being able to help the one soul that had given me a chance. I could only grit my teeth in anger and disgust at myself. I had told myself countless times now in my head... I would not let anything stop me anymore.

I dove into her chest, wrapping what I could of my upper body around hers in my feeble attempt to warm her up. The cold stung. I teared up at the sensation the longer I held on, but I would not let go. What a strange sight I must've been, hanging on desperately and shivering like mad. Right now, this was all I could do to help, and I was determined to see it through. As her body warmed, I felt my own warm up more from the interlocking hug. It was then I could sense the conflicted emotions in the mare. What were they? Embarrassed, apologetic, confused maybe? I understood that what I had done was strange, but I was not about to make any excuses for my inaction anymore.

In the awkward silence, possibly misunderstanding the intentions of my actions she finally spoke up after she hugged me back. "There there, it's alright. Nothing bad is going to happen to me, I'm not going anywhere." She pat my back with one hoof while petting my hair with the other, easing my distress. "At first, I tried giving you some space. You must've been in a scary situation back in the Everfree Forest to be that hurt. You had a real look of fear in your eyes when we first met. I thought that maybe you'd still be afraid of me since I'm a stranger considering how you haven't said anything yet. I know I'm not as gentle and motherly as my friend Fluttershy or as homely and reliable as another of my friends, Applejack, so I was worried about how I would interact with you. You're sure you're not scared of me?"

I shook my head vehemently. Perhaps I was afraid of her at first, but not anymore. She had shown me nothing but kindness up until now after all. It was sad to know that my inability to speak was the cause of this.

"That's a real relief. You have no idea." I felt her tension diffuse in my forelegs. "I hope you're not disappointed in me just yet now that you know I'm not made of sterner stuff." She laughed meekly. I replied by shaking my head again. "Just trust me when I say, I won't rest until I do right by you."

After a while of comforting silence in that embrace, finally, I felt my consciousness begin to fade and slip into sleep. Our warmth had reached all around me now, and as she continued stroking my hair, my tiredness overtook me. She smiled sweetly at me as my eyes started to droop. Finally, my defense was broken altogether when she broke out into a hum, and I could do nothing to hold back the call of dreams.

"Thank you." That voice... Was it from Twilight? No... that voice was gentle and frail, small and tiny. Almost inaudible. It sounded so familiar and distant... a voice that I hadn't heard in so, so very long...

It is my voice.

Chapter 6: Kindled Change

Chapter 6

Kindled Change

A week passed by without incident. The times before Fate and her Mistress seemed so long ago now, I had almost lost sense of my own moral obligation. What kept me from forgetting was a self-reinforcing cycle of thoughts. The thoughts of who and what I was. Even after I'd recovered and could get out of bed, I had not left Twilight's room in the entire time since I had arrived. The door of that bedroom seemed insurmountable in my mind. All I could do in my own capacity was to look through the window and peer at the pastel-colored world outside. All the camaraderie, all the gentle nature of those creatures... every pony helping one another, supporting each other in an effort to live happily. Creating, playing, and living their lives...

In truth, it was impossible to forget myself. The more I watched, the more distant that view became for me. The more I looked, the bigger the anxiety and sadness of my reality grew.

I would not let it show. I could not, for Twilight was perceptive, and I wanted nothing more of making her worry. She was too kind for her own good. I could see in her eyes just how much the stress of my situation was weighing on her. She was doing her best to balance the time she spent in her search for my identity with trying to keep me entertained and comfortable. It hurt her to see that I did not have the courage to even take a step outside, and it hurt me just as much to see the pity in her expression. Simply by existing, I was hurting the ones I cared for the most.

But I already knew that. Since I was born, it always seemed like that was the nature of my existence. Living with Fate and her Mistress... perhaps that was my lot in life.

She had tried so hard to hide it too. Always smiling, always reassuring me with white lies that they were making progress in finding my home. Efforts that were being wasted on me. She'd come home late every day with the bags under her eyes growing darker. Her body, expressions, and very soul could not hide her exhaustion or her sadness at her failure, as she'd slump into bed every night defeatedly. It was clear to see what my presence was doing to Twilight, and I was more mindful of that fact than anyone.

Twilight often consulted with her closest friends by asking for their advice and for help in her search. They would speak in hushed whispers from the living room, trying to be mindful of me and keep me from overhearing. But my hearing had been honed from a lifetime of living in the darkness, so her efforts were useless. She had tried only once to get me to meet them, but the involuntary traumatic terror and panic in my reaction to them made her reconsider. The very atmosphere and conversations they had after that were plagued with an air of futility.

Other than them, there was also Twilight's loyal scribe and friend, Spike, who would often deliver meals to my room and who most likely had received strict instructions and warnings on how to handle me. I had not overheard those conversations if they had happened, but it was plain to see how careful he was trying to be both in his words and in his demeanor, and it had taken a while for me to get even a little bit used to him in that weeks' time. Still, Twilight and I had made that effort since it would've been unavoidable in her home otherwise. Especially with her gone for a good part of the day in her search.

Even with that, however, our interaction was slim if any. Spike, much like Twilight, could not hide the emotions in his soul. I could read that little dragon's heart all too easily. He was obviously not happy with my arrival. Not only did my existence spell more work for him to do, but it also worried him endlessly about the effect I was having on Twilight. She'd told me about how Spike had been with her since he was first hatched. It was obvious how much he cared for her too. Even in his eyes, I could see the annoyance it brought him to have to be so careful around me despite all the negative changes I'd brought into his home.

It frustrated me not being able to apologize to them as sincerely as I wanted to. Beyond my voice being so inaudibly small and frail, I could not string the correct words in my heart into my speech. My voice and my thoughts would not match at all, no matter how carefully I tried constructing a sentence. I'd spent so long in complete isolation that it felt as though it had permanently damaged my ability to speak correctly. Even with Twilight's help, it had been a real process just to formulate a coherent string of words, let alone a sentence.

"Soup. Warm. Tasty." Was the first expression I was able to construct on the fourth day of the week since my arrival at Twilight’s home after having practiced extensively with her and on my own. Twilight's beaming smile had made me too embarrassed to say another word for the rest of that day, and I felt the turmoil in her soul lessen. But as the rest of the week dragged on and things only became that much more grim with time, that small moment had become like a raindrop in an ocean.

The turning point finally came on the final day of the week when the wear and tear of Twilight’s worry had become painfully obvious to everyone. That afternoon, her friends spoke to her with all the sincerity and seriousness afforded to them by their friendship. They sat Twilight down and began to reason with her about the things that worried her. They spoke about leaving for a city nearby to further their search. A place called Canterlot. The trip would probably last a length of time. Days or even a week at most by the sound of things. Twilight stuttered while she tried to rationalize it. More than anything, it hurt me deeply to hear the wavering in her voice when she teetered between going and not going. She was afraid to leave me on my own... As though my fears, my anxiety, and even my happiness were somehow her responsibility now.

Again, I was utterly disgusted with myself. As they spoke, I could only think of myself. I didn't want her to leave, even if it was for a short while. However, I’d felt my heart drop to my stomach the moment Twilight denied going. At that moment, I came to the realization of the week that had transpired and everything that happened during that time. I trembled and held back sobs at the thought that because of me... I had caged Twilight...

Much like I had been, back in the darkness...

A singular thought filled my mind then, echoing and repeating throughout almost every second of those days. The same thought from that first night I’d awoken in Twilight’s home. The same thought that had haunted me all throughout my stay. My moral obligation.

'I have to leave.'

For what had to be the first time, I added after that the three words I felt like I always wanted to say in my head but never could.

'For her sake.'

What a breath of fresh air that trifecta of words were. How heartening and bittersweet they must've been as they added to the knot in my throat and the welling up of sadness in my eyes. Oh, how they’d taken me back to the sight of those two birds springing into a flight and leaving the three young behind. It had always been as simple as that. The truth of this world. The truth for every living creature within it. We are all born to be free.

The timing could not have been worse, however. Twilight had walked into the sight of me struggling to keep myself together at that moment. I cursed how smart she was, as she quickly surmised that it had been caused by the conversation I was not meant to hear, and I cursed at my inability to communicate better when she misunderstood the origin of my sorrow. She hugged me tight and patted me on the back in her attempt to make amends for something she didn’t owe me.

"Sorry," I heard myself whisper. "So sorry," I repeated louder, doing everything in my power to not break down. "Twilight go. I... fine." I struggled as hard as I could against my brain and my voice. I struggled and struggled and struggled, but all I could say was sorry. Twilight didn't say anything at all while I labored to speak. She just patted me on the back and held me close.

"It's okay, it's okay. Don't worry. I'm not leaving you behind. I'd already decided that we'd go only once you were ready." She spoke gently and warmly in the silence that followed. Her voice had begun to waver towards the end of her sentence. "If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me. I said I'd find your home soon, but all my efforts weren't enough. I should've tried harder."

I shook my head with all of my might. "Mistake... mine. I... sorry." My words at that point had already fallen on deaf ears, and I could not say more. I’d felt a faint trembling come from Twilight's embrace. If I had, had even a shadow of a doubt before, it was all but gone then. If Twilight, her friends, and her town had taught me anything, it was that I no longer wanted to live just for myself. I didn't want to be a burden on another pony's life, to make others feel as I had felt in the disparity of my old world. Somehow, I had begun to rethink Fate's design. My very existence as a formless brought with it misfortune wherever I walked. If it had been Fate's will to keep me confined from the rest of the world... then in a twisted sense, I could finally understand its faceless and cruel nature.

With the emotion of that day finally dying down, we lay down to rest for the night for what felt like the final time. My thoughts were filled with plans for the future. Now it all seemed so muddy, so grey. The irony of it all was that I had once escaped what felt like a prison at the time, only to cage myself again once I'd found a place where I felt safe in. I realized that not only was I hurting Twilight by doing this, but also myself. To that end, I was no different than the creature I was yesterday. I had not changed even one bit. But now a fire raged within me. Like the one from my dreams, it is a violent flame that stirs at my very self. I want to change. Not for me, but for those around me. Not just my surroundings, but my very being. I want to change.

I fell asleep that night in a cold sweat as I thought of what I needed to do. I felt my heart hesitate at the answer that concluded every single question in my head. My now warring mind, body, and soul began to wrestle with that single answer I could only come up with as a solution.

I would go back and live the remainder of my life in the darkness of my old home. For everyone's sake... except mine.

That night, I had that same dream again. Surrounded by a hellscape and facing off against a turbid, powerful fire. I felt everything I'd felt before. The fear, the burning sensations, the elements blinding me and making it hard to breathe, everything. Yet this time, I felt the fire of my own soul light up and burn fiercer and stronger than those around me. I felt myself absorbing those very flames, heat and all.

I became an effigy of flame.

As I burn, I felt myself fade first into embers, then into the pitch-black all around me... into a familiar darkness.

I awake in the middle of the night feeling like I had not woken up at all. My whole body is sweltering hot, and I felt every inch of me burning up with a fever. My throat stings when I try to swallow my own saliva, and even moving my eyes hurt. It was hard to breathe altogether, and my mind was foggy and heavy. I felt as if I were being swallowed by an invisible monster, and the thought terrified me. Instinctively I mustered what little strength I had to reach out to Twilight only to be met with nothing.

She was not beside me. Far from it, she was tense, stiff, and looking into my eyes from the corner of the room as I turned to look at her. Immediately, her stare hit me with a sense of dread unlike any other. There was a sort of fear, distraught, concern, even disgust in her gaze. An unsettling intensity in her eyes, as though there was no end to internal conflicts in them that only adults could know. Although I could not recognize the emotions within them, I was very familiar with the look in her eyes. The same kind as Fate's Mistress...

The only thing in that room is an intense silence as her stare pierced right through me. I had been before the Mistress so many times that I had gotten used to the fear that, that kind of glare instilled in me. But perhaps because of my weakened state, now that glare felt unbearable. It felt like it had undone every good feeling I'd had in my life. As though this was the end of the world, in every sad, conceivable way. And all I could do was hide beneath my bedsheets and hope it would go away.

My body tensed up and began to ache. My throat tightened and my teeth pressed together, chattering with force. What was this feeling in my heart? This... solemn and overwhelming sadness... It did not feel like the time I was frustrated with myself when I couldn't reach that bird's nest. It did not feel like the time I’d prayed for a tomorrow, not knowing if one would come. It did not feel like any of the kind of sadness I felt all that week long.

This felt like true sadness.

What was happening? I can’t understand it. Why am I so distressed about the way Twilight is looking at me? I thought it was something I could handle, as I had bared it all before. But then... why was I so afraid, so frightened, so sad?

Suddenly, a small sound filled the silence. A small ringing that grew larger and louder in my ears. A voice. My voice. It sounded so distant from me, as though I was hearing it from so far away. My throat shifted and expanded to allow myself to breathe between all my tears and quiet sobbing. The tremor from my throat shook my bones until it reached my ears.

This sound... To hear it now... It only made me that much sadder, and I could not stop it now. My cries are so faint by how much I hadn't used my voice, barely even a squeak, but it was getting louder with each passing moment. I wanted it to end... I wanted it to end so badly. The more I cried, the more it felt like doing so would help, but crying only lead to more sadness in me, as if the sadness that plagued me were my tears themselves.

After many moments of crying, suddenly I felt my head be pulled onto a warm, familiar surface. Twilight's hug was gentle, and she held my head while I poured from my heart every awful feeling I’d swallowed in all that time. At the end of it all, my face was smitten with tears by the time I hiccupped the last of my cries.

"I'm so sorry little one." Her voice was shaky as though she had teared up as well. "I should have never thought of you as a monster," Twilight’s hug became tighter in her remorse. "How scared you must have felt meeting me and my friends... why you didn't want to go outside... It must have been too much to bear alone. I'm sorry I pushed you to this point."

I shake my head with all my might, struggling against my fever as it spun the world around me. "No... I am... mistake... I'm, sorry... So, sorry." I felt my words become more concise as I reached out to hug the purple mare back.

Twilight sniffed and she pulled back to meet my eyes. "You aren't a mistake. If you could cry like that, then you're no different from me." Her words comforted me to no end. I felt the weight in my heart lift a bit at her words. It’d been the first time I’d ever been told something like this. She finally smiled my way and laughed a bit weakly. "I really should've noticed it sooner. Guess I was busy with my own conclusion about things, huh? But a Changeling? A whole lot of weird stuff happens around me, doesn't it?"

A changeling... I knew the name. I had heard it many times from the Mistress before... That is what I was. I looked down to see my coat.

It is a pale black, like the time I had seen my reflection in the pool of water. It seems that whatever form I had changed into had vanished as I slept with fever. Formless... a race otherwise known as Changeling. I finally understood the way Twilight had looked at me earlier. It was the same kind of scared, confused conflicted emotion like with the two birds. My original form was reminiscent of Fate's Mistress, so it was no surprise that a single look at me in my true form could fill someone with that kind of emotion.

At this, I could finally piece together why I had felt the way I did before. About what I saw in Twilight's eyes, and why it struck me so frightening and so sad... I was afraid, truly afraid, and truly sad to think that she could come to hate me... She was reading me like an open book now, as it likely showed on my face that I still had that lingering doubt in my heart. Her embrace got a little tighter as if trying to ease me out of such a notion.

"It doesn't matter what you are. I'll take my chances on you, no matter what comes our way."

(Illustration by DamayantiArts on Deviant Art)

Author's Note

Welp, that's it, folks. This is where the original 2012 version of the story ended.

I did want to speak a bit about this chapter, as it was the whole reason I wanted to rewrite my story. It's a magical moment for a writer when they're able to laugh or cry at their own story, especially after a decade of honing their craft. Having gone back to re-read and re-write it, it was hard to get this one done because I actually found myself tearing up at times.

Even though I'm far removed from the time in which I wrote it, I like to think that I was speaking about the human condition of children growing up. Like how changes in their life affect them. What they feel when faced with traumatic experiences. How they're quick to blame themselves when faced with cruel situations outside of their control. To that end, I've been rewriting this story in that sense. I also rewrote Twilight to be more vulnerable in this version to show that adults are not infallible with their own feelings, and how life for a kid and a parent is all about learning to grow together no matter your age.

If you notice a shift in past and present tenses, that’s entirely intentional and consider it a feature of the story! I would’ve wrote it in somewhere, but I wanted to preserve the original first 6 chapters as best I could and doing so for the newer ones didn’t feel right, so I gradually shifted the story to be past tense for a good reason you’ll find towards the final, extra chapter.

Chapter 7: A Future in Fate's Hands

Chapter 7

A Future in Fate's Hands

My moral obligation remained the same. Twilight spent all of that night trying to convince me of a future together by voicing her thoughts out loud about her plans moving forward as if it were only natural that I would live my life alongside hers. Having seen the world of ponies and thinking more of my memories of the past, I'd come to realize that my ability to see the fire in everyone's souls was unique to only me. For if she or someone she knew could see them too, then she would've known to be more careful with her words as they did not reflect what I could see as reality in her heart. Her once steady bright flame had begun to dim and waver. I knew even before she had even said it...

The one she was actually trying to convince was herself.

Having been left to rest my illness away, I could not imagine myself going anywhere just yet considering my addled body. It was the first time I could ever remember getting sick. Despite the pit in my stomach, I could not get myself to eat any of the food offered to me. My thirst was insatiable, but I could only drink a bit at a time since it hurt my throat to swallow. The whole of my body felt heavier than I had the strength to carry myself with, and all my joints ached. It was unnerving, as though I were being crushed by an invisible force and being consumed from within at the same time. In my desperation, I couldn't help but cry all that while long. Thankfully Twilight had been around to comfort me each time, having redoubled her efforts to take care of me after having paused her search for my home.

She was naturally inquisitive and her curiosity was plain to see, even without having to look at her soul's flame. In taking care of me, I would often hear the start of many questions she wanted to ask me. I was thankful that she was thoughtful enough to stop herself from pressing them further as she likely understood that it would've been a bad idea to ask me while I fevered and struggled to communicate properly. I dreaded the moment I would have to answer those questions since even I did not have the answers to them. It dawned on me then that I did not even know the full extent or nature of the life I had lived until now. The darkness, the Mistress, Fate... and myself. I hardly knew anything about any of them. I never tried understanding my place within them or even their purpose.

Only now was I slowly starting to see the world for what it really was... and what Fate had orchestrated for me as destiny. I was still doubtful of its intentions, but I could finally begin to understand the machinations of its design. Of why it was that I was caged within that darkness nearly my whole life alongside the Mistress and the formless. Our very existence was a danger to the world above, doubly so for the ill-intentioned of my kin. It was a very saddening thought that I could not escape from so long as I stood by Twilight's side, even as she assured me of the opposite with her words. Her flame told differently. Tried all I might, I would be reminded of this my whole life so long as I tried to live it in this way.

Even so, I wanted to enjoy the remainder of my time here with Twilight. The way she looked at me with such gentle eyes, the way she cared for me so tenderly... I wish I could've lied to myself right there and then, for my most heartfelt wish was the selfish desire to stay together. But my moral obligation still stood stronger than anything else in my heart. The things I wanted to do and things I needed to do...

"Wait, seriously Twi!?" A familiar little dragon's voice had said from the opposite side of the door in a hushed but surprised whisper. It was the dawn of that first day Twilight had seen what I really was. Now I could hear her explaining the situation to Spike from a distance that she still believed to be out of my earshot. No doubt, he got a proper scolding for that outburst. "If you're not playing with me, this is a very serious matter you know! Shouldn't we report this to Princess Celestia?"

"N-no not yet. I need time to think and find out everything I know about her. Besides, she's really sick right now and can't really talk well just yet." She stammered through some of her words. It was evident that she was still severely conflicted about how to handle my situation. It had all been too sudden for her to process correctly, no matter how smart she was. Feelings are not so quick to change overnight, after all.

"But it's a changeling! We only recently had that incident at Canterlot! She's a real danger, Twilight." The little dragon huffed and stood his ground. He was right. Much as his words stung me, I couldn't help but think he was a real voice of reason that Twilight would've been wise to have listened to. Unfortunately for the little dragon, she was playing it strictly by ear on this one and would not be persuaded out of her intuition.

"I know, Spike. Believe me, I know. But I can feel it. She's a good kid deep inside." It seemed Twilight had already prepared herself for any sort of resistance from her friends, having said this almost like she knew that this rebuttal was incoming. I’d lowered my head to no one in particular, deeply moved by Twilight's trust in me. Naturally, that feeling only brought me closer to my moral obligation. I didn't want to have to betray that trust.

"What about on the outside then? She's already practically lied to us this entire time by taking another form, hasn't she? Whose image do you think she stole?" Twilight was silent on this. I could feel her soul waver. The little dragon sighed, perhaps at something that he saw in her face at that moment. "I'm not cruel enough to tell you no on this, Twi. I... just want you to be careful, alright? You said you found her hurt in the Everfree Forest of all places, yeah? It's hard to think that this is anything but a trap by her. I'm warning you now. If you see me and I sound at all different from my usual... suspect the worst."

The little dragon went about his day at this, and Twilight was left to pick up the pieces of her wavering trust in me. It must not have been easy to be chewed out by the ones you loved, and by such inarguably sound and serious retorts. I had not been able to improve my ability to hide my emotions, for she surely noticed them in my expression then as she comforted me once again when she came back to tend to me. After the pat down, she turned to leave the room to meet the rest of her friends who had arrived at her summons.

"I..." I had heard myself say somehow wanting to explain myself and finding no concrete answer in my head. Though it wouldn't have mattered if I’d found them, for my voice was too small to reach Twilight. I felt helpless to help her.

She must've finally gotten a good sense of the range on my hearing since I could not hear their conversation as well as I had with Spike, but every few moments or so I could hear the audible astonishment in their voice and the heated rise of a few select words. I could tell that she was reliving Spike's conversation, the flame in her soul dancing between a dim and bright glow. Between my fever and being unable to pinpoint the nature of Twilight's talk with the rest of her friends, my anxiety grew. When she finally returned, her expression was a mixture of so many different and complex emotions I could only guess at. The flame in her heart reminded me of the little wick from the candle of the first night I'd spent here, as it teetered at the brink from a strong gale.

In her face, I could read what looked to be intense anger, deep sadness, painful frustration, disappointment, and some resentment of some kind. Perhaps to the average creature, the only thing showing on her face at that time was a simple, quiet smile. But I could not be fooled by words alone. It was just another reminder of what I was causing by being here. Maybe it was simple superstition, or perhaps there was a deeper truth to it, but it definitely felt like all these negative swirling emotions were affecting me. I woke up in even worse shape the next day as I had barely even the strength to breathe it felt like.

Twilight was beside herself. She had paced up and down all night even when not tending to me in her worry. My condition was getting worse, and she did not know why. To someone like Twilight, the aspect of 'not knowing' terrified her. At first, she had felt confident that this was something she could handle after having lived with Spike for so long. Try all she might, none of her usual home remedies were helping this time. My physiology as a changeling was alien to her. She alone could not find a solution. After having that argument with her friends earlier, she was hesitant to call on them for help. But come the next morning she caved and brought into the room two of her friends. I'd seen them only once before, but in my moment of panic, I had not engraved their names into my mind. It was a yellow one with a long pink curly bang, and an orange one with a peculiar accent.

"I'm sorry about what I said to you the other day." I heard Twilight lead into the room with that apology. "I admit I'm not big enough to know everything. I admit my intuition is not always correct. And I admit I'm not perfect but please... I'll swallow my pride if you please help me out on this. She needs you." I could feel Twilight's strong emotions. The heat emanating from the fire in her heart was overwhelming. So much so, it physically hurt to be in the same room together. I could feel my throat sound off on my pain.

"Come off it, Twi. You reckon we need your apology to help you out? 'Course not. It's why we're here in the first place." The orange one had walked up to me with no problems to begin inspecting my symptoms. The fire in her soul was rigid and strong, like a big hearth in wintertime. "Ya, seen it before. Apple Bloom had a serious case of it too when she was younger. Though she got better after some grub Granny cooked up. I'ma go borrow your kitchen if ya don't mind."

"Thank you, Applejack, this means the world to me." I could hear the relief in Twilight’s voice and a sense of ease wafting over her soul.

"Don't thank me yet. Gotta get the little one up and running first." Applejack had said as she walked out of the room. It was now or never. I would commit their names to heart for Twilight's sake.

"You too, Fluttershy, I'm glad you came on such short notice."

"I-It's okay Twilight, I don't deserve your apology. I um, should've spoken out for you back then... but I'll do my best to help you now that I'm here...though I-I don't know much about them so don't expect too much from me." Fluttershy's timid voice was almost as quiet as mine, and there was a soothing calmness to it. Unlike Applejack, however, there was hesitation in her steps in being slow to approach me. But just like Applejack, you could feel how much they both cared for Twilight and what their friendship meant to them so she no doubt braved this experience for her sake. Yet, upon getting a close look at me it was as if she’d transformed into a more confident pony. "Oh! Poor thing. She must be hurting a lot inside."

Fluttershy drew two concoctions from a pouch she had brought and poured them onto my chest, head, and back. She then fed me another one that tasted like a mix of many different herbs. She stroked my hair gently as my breathing finally slowed and a soothing cold fought back against the burning fever. Her soul's fire was very much the opposite of Applejack's, but it was very warm and nurturing.

"It looks like she is doing better already." Twilight's voice wavered while looking on at her, from a mix of relief and a hint of sadness. I could feel her disappointment in herself for not having been able to help me. It really hurt her, it seemed. But she had already helped me so much and was helping by having brought those two here. I couldn't quite speak up yet due to the fever, but I finally had the strength to reach out to her, hoping to convey my feelings of gratitude even somewhat. She hugged me there and then thinking I had motioned for one, which caused Fluttershy to smile sweetly at her. I could feel Twilight's embarrassment in her cheeks as they warmed up in contact with my own, but she refused to let go. It seemed Twilight had already abandoned her pride in front of those two with this incident.

"Oh um, I guess I should mention, it's not really a cure. I just used the remedies I use to relieve similar symptoms when my animal friends are sick."

"Bet you the orchard that this is though. I'm certain of it." Applejack said walking in with a gruel made with apple chunks and rice. With not much strength in my chewing, Applejack held me up while she fed me. Warmth filled my empty and icy belly almost immediately and I could feel myself relax even with a few bites. I couldn't finish it in one go which worried Twilight a bit. "Given time anyways. Granny reckoned that it's your own body that fixes you right up. She says all you need is to give it a bit of easy-process, nutritious fuel." She smiled with all the confidence in the world, which eased everyone in the room.

The room went very silent when everyone noticed that Twilight had teared up a bit and was drying her eyes as she held back from sniffling. "Sorry, I'm just relieved. These are some happy tears, I promise." She spoke up after seeing the three worried stares on her.

"You know, sugarcube, I should've told you this sooner..." Applejack responded a bit despondently. "I'm sorry for making light of you and this little one yesterday. Seeing you like this is like looking into a mirror with me and Apple Bloom. You've definitely sold me on her, that's for sure." She got a nod of approval from Fluttershy at these words.

"No, please, don't be sorry. You guys have no idea how much you've helped me." Twilight meekly added continuing to exchange apologies until satisfied. With the fervor in the room finally dying down, the conversation eventually shifted toward the rest of her friends and what she would do about talking to them again. "I guess you're right. I should go apologize to them anyways. They're all my important friends.

"Right you are. Except for maybe Dash. Far as I'm concerned, she earned those words." Applejack huffed, making the other two laugh heartedly. "She can be blunt, but you know she meant well, right?"

"Yeah. We all do at this point. Can't be honest with herself." Twilight looked over my way to see if I had finally looked calmer among her friends. "Can I ask you guys to look after her while I'm gone? I'm gonna go fix things with the others."

"Don't worry about a thing, Twilight. She's in good care." Fluttershy spoke up, occasionally brushing my hair with a comb she'd produced from her bag. With that, Twilight walked out of the room.

Perhaps if it’d been under different circumstances, my heart would've been racing with panic. But by then, it’d felt truly comforting to be around those two. Applejack fed me the rest of the gruel for a while and told me stories about her orchard, while Fluttershy continued to take care of me in various ways, petting me and comforting me with some lullabies.

"I'm surprised you're okay with her, Shy. I'd’ve thought you'd be more on guard, considering the whole incident recently. Not to be rude but we all know you're careful about who you cozy up to."

"O-oh, um, you know, I thought so too at first. The ones in Canterlot were pretty scary. It's probably what stopped me from speaking up for Twilight." Her words showed how much she brooded over her failure. Fluttershy really lacked the confidence to be open about her thoughts it seemed, but her efforts were endearing in their own way. "When I took a look at her, she looked so much like a baby bird I guess I couldn't help but forget my worry."

"I get what you mean. First impression when she was a pony didn't really strike you like much, but her now..." They’d turned to look at me. It’d then occurred to me how embarrassing it was to have someone talk about you while in front of you. Their smile when they noticed that my face was flushed made me dip for cover under my sheets. "Or maybe it's because we finally got a good long look at her ey?" They laughed and spoke merrily with the day continuing as it were until Twilight finally returned with two more ponies in hand.

"Well? What is this? My oh my! What an adorable little thing!" An elegant voice spoke from a white unicorn with stars in her eyes that strutted up to my side. Her fire was a stunningly pure and beautiful hue of purple and it showed how sincere and passionate she was. She’d placed a careful and calculated hoof onto my arms, then my torso, then on my head in an attempt to scan my measurements. "Twilight, what an absolute gem you've dug up.” The fanciful mare had turned to Twilight and bowed her head curtly. “You know, I never really minded your idea darling. My... ‘strong words’ from before back in our meet came in part from my own envy. You could say I was just a bit beside myself at this little treasure you'd found. If there was anything I was envious of her kin for, it was their lustrous wings and particular style. I couldn't have expected how dazzling she'd be, though. Makes the others look like rabble in comparison."

"Rarity!" A hushed but intense whisper from Twilight followed. The air tensed up with those present in the room. It seemed everyone had been careful to not mention what I was near me. Not that I ever minded it to begin with, but it seemed the adults thought it had been an eggshell topic. Every pony save for one eased up when they noticed that I was not fazed by it at all. That one was a bright pink pony with large poofy hair. She’d stayed in place since she had first entered the room just staring at me with wonder and was rather violently trembling in place.

As if she'd been locked in time and building up a lot of kinetic energy through sheer excitement, her overflowing happiness released all at once and nearly downright tackled me had it not been for her on-a-dime stop near my bedside, her two hooves pressing my cheeks together. "OH. MY. GOSH. What a cutie! A new friend! Please be my friend!" It seemed like her excitement had been building up since she first heard of my existence and was eagerly awaiting this moment, probably further compounded by when she’d first seen me that initial time. Everyone in the room immediately made the effort to pull her off of me.

"Pinkie!" Twilight shouted with no end of frustration in her voice.

"Pinkie Pie, sit down in front of me right this instance! We talked about this. You can't be doing this to others." Rarity's commanding voice immediately sat her down while the others sighed in their relief, though I could still see the shivers of excitement in the flame of her soul despite the ongoing lecture. They were both quite the character. Their antics were incredibly amusing to me at this point, and I couldn't help my voice ring in a fit of an expression I hadn't made before.

(Illustration by Koviry on Deviant Art.)

What a strange sound it was. Just like the rest of what came from my mouth, it was so quiet, you could hardly hear it in the busyness of the commotion. But in the silence of an awed room where you could hear even a heartbeat, it was deafening. It felt like my fever had returned momentarily when everyone turned to look at me, my whole body burning with embarrassment, such that I could only look down to avoid their gazes. Twilight was particularly weepy at this expression with tears forming in her eyes, again feeling the weight of her stress and worries lift from her shoulders as she smiled the widest smile I'd seen of her yet. She’d made no attempts to brush them off this time. Perhaps it was Twilight's turn to be embarrassed, with most of her close friends shifting their smiles at her. The atmosphere in the room had definitely improved. Up until the point a fifth new pony showed up.

Her fire was a particularly turbid one and it carried with it a lot of pride, to an extent that any other time I would've been scared of its presence under normal circumstances. Her expression did nothing to alleviate the air of distrust and anger that she’d bred. Her brows had creased into a frown while she looked at everyone from a distance. But these were not normal circumstances. I’d finally gotten used to the presence of others besides Twilight. More than that, I was awe-struck at her image. The patterns in her coat were absolutely astonishing. A bright blue hue accompanied by a mane sporting a symphony of colors. What was more inspiring than that, as if not to complicate my feelings on her further, was the pair of strong, graceful wings behind her which allowed her to hover in the air while she scowled at everyone else, particularly at me.

Almost immediately I was taken back to the time when I’d tried and failed in vain so many times to fly with my own wings. I had not seen a Pegasi up until that point, and I hadn't noticed Fluttershy's wings either despite being so close to her. Perhaps because she had little use for her own wings and always kept them close to her body, always beneath her bag's strap and behind her hair. So it had come as such a surprise to see them in their full glory right before me.

"You can all play buddy-buddy if you like, but I know where I stand." Her hoarse, tomboyish voice spoke up. She was definitely crude in her demeanor. Everyone else turned to frown at her all at once, save for me.

"If you were gonna be like this Rainbow Dash, I shouldn't have included you," Twilight retorted, sounding irritated and even angry which only provoked more angry concurrent remarks from everyone, earning them the ire of the rainbow pegasus. It would have been the first time I had heard that inflection in Twilight, and it would've caused me a number of negative thoughts in my head, but at that point, I was deaf and blind to the rest of the world.

I’d felt every pony's attention shift to me when I slowly ascended from my bed. It had been a long while since I'd used my legs effectively, and perhaps because I was still sick I couldn't keep them straight, but regardless, I made the effort to walk up to Rainbow Dash. No one tried to stop me as I approached her. They’d likely been too afraid to reprimand me due to my first panicked reaction to them all and were curious to know why I was trying so hard to meet her upfront. From behind me, I could feel Twilight hold her breath, wanting to say something but not finding the words to do so.

Rainbow Dash descended down to the ground to meet me eye to eye once I’d stopped in front of her, as she somehow thought that I was trying to provoke her in this gesture. She opened her wings in an attempt to intimidate me, but again, that all flew right over my head. Instead, I mimicked her with my own, somehow believing I'd be able to learn to fly by replicating her movements. As she did more elaborate gestures with her wings, I did my best to follow suit. I could see a wrinkle of a smile forming on her face as I followed along. After who knows how long, I finally collapsed on the floor when my legs gave out, still weak from the fever. I was carried back to my bed by Twilight who I could only see such a bright smile on.

“Well, that was fun. She reminds me of when I first met the Wonderbolts.” Rainbow Dash could not help remarking that statement out loud, earning her mischievous grins from the rest, seeing that she was now more willing to cooperate. After a bit of silence, she finally caved. “Argh. Fine. I'm fine with it. With her, I mean.” Rainbow Dash struggled with her emotions, rustling her own hair in frustration and no hint of defiance left in her tone. "Just uhh... call me if you need anything." She flew over to the window instead of the door to make her exit but stopped just short of leaving to turn around to look at Twilight. "And Twilight?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry, alright? I gotta get a better grasp on my outbursts."

Every pony could feel Twilight’s immense relief when she’d gotten floored by it all, collapsing into a sit beside my bedside and laughing merrily at the joy that came after. But none of them could understand her much the way I did, watching her heart light up with happiness at that. How she’d gone from a shattered heart to a mended one in her gratitude, amidst her broken pride.

She smiled again and nodded toward the pegasus. "Of course, Rainbow Dash, I know. Oh, but before you go, I wanted to thank you all for being here for us today." She said as she searched for something over at a corner of her bookcases.

It had been a very strange day for me. It's a day I fondly look back on every now and again. For a moment, it had taken my mind off my plight all at once and it had given me many new, wonderful feelings in my heart.

But the forces of destiny, as I'd learned, never stop moving. The future was held hostage by a cruel reality. And for me... well there was no escaping it, no matter what I did.

When Twilight had produced her gift, like some truly awful premonition of the future, I felt time stop altogether in my sheer terror. I felt chains begin to form in my heart again, shackling me to the ground. Every fiber of my being had begun to scream, as they had at the start of this journey of mine.

I wonder what I must've looked like at that moment. Pitiful, strange, perhaps even dangerous? I can't speak for others, so I'll never get to know and they would never have another chance to tell me.

With Twilight's horn lighting up in a mystifying purple glow and the objects before her lifting clean off the ground by an unknown force, reality set in all at once as though it were the end of my world.

It was lady Fate herself, with her hand grasping strongly at my future.

Chapter 8: Unspoken Farewell

Chapter 8

Unspoken Farewell

The whole of my body erupted into a crimson flame. Yet this was no dream. In my sheer panic, I thrashed about in a wild fury as I heard concerned yelling all around me. But my agitation could not be abated this time. Fate herself had reared her cruel, faceless self right before me, and I could do nothing to stop this torrent of absolute terror within my very soul. In a quick flurry, I broke free from the gentle restraints of those around me and flew out the open window with wings made of familiar shades of reds and yellows that shone like a dancing fire in the sunlight. I could not control my forms, changing rapidly and involuntarily mid-air, although not without purpose when I’d begun to plummet to the ground having not been able to sustain a consistent glide in my inexperience. First, I took the form of a cat midfall and landed on my feet, then into a rabbit to dive for cover and hide from would-be pursuers, and finally as a deer with considerable speed to run all the way as fast as I could towards a familiar forest.

All I could do was run. How weak I was... how helpless... I cursed myself from the deepest reaches of my heart.

However, while I ran, I could feel my memories finally falling into place. In my mind, I was taken back to before all of this... to my life before the caging darkness.

With them came a deeper understanding of myself as a whole. Fate... the name I had given to Magic itself to better understand it from within my incomplete mind... That invisible, unknowable force that had gripped at my destiny all my life. I’d called it such that it was befitting of its effects, as it had been fate that had allowed me to meet Twilight back in that forest when I was injured, curing me of my wounds. It was fate that I had been delivered and kept in the darkness for so long by the forces of magic, and fate that I was freed by it as well.

Perhaps it was also destined fate that a natural cataclysm had wreaked havoc throughout the kingdom of the Formless. The magical energies of this very world had sundered the earth as they sprouted upwards to the surface... My home from so long ago. In the end, it had been a shift in the tectonic plates that had caused the massive magic vein underneath the kingdom to erupt. Almost overnight, the Formless were left with nothing and lost so many loved ones.

Was it fate for the Formless to have had their ire and pain bring them to madness when the ponies had arrived too late to save them? With no real outlet to direct their overwhelming grief, they blamed anything and anyone they could... Was fate truly this horrible, this cruel? Could that have been called fate? Or was life just an undetermined series of events and circumstances? The Formless were not always this way... In my memories, they had lived gentle, peaceful lives.

But their broken hearts and unfettered rage drove them into fiercesome revolt against the rest of the world, and as that instinctual hivemind directive replaced their minds, I questioned whether this could've been called 'fate' at all. Their rampant destruction led to a scarred world, and it only ended after the eventual, unavoidable confrontation between the Sun's ruler, and Fate’s Mistress... Queen Chrysalis.

My mother...

To changelings, however, perhaps it was more accurate to call her my 'predecessor'. For we are born and given life through the magical power of those who wished to hand down their life. Since I was her one and only direct descendant, no doubt I had inherited her unique abilities and power as royalty to the Formless. Yet, that was the funny thing about family. To our race, we were all connected by blood, so parental endearment did not exist for us. Blood means nothing to our kin, and no doubt the Queen had made no distinction of me in that way.

What connected us in the end, and the reason why I felt like I could call her my mother lay in my memories as I relived them, scene by scene. In them, I saw that she had acted as loving as a real mother had. In my memories, I could remember her in my first moments after being hatched, teaching me to brave the outside world.

"Feel the world around you. Hear the sounds it makes. Take in the smells, the scents of this sweetened earth. Open your eyes and see what only you can see with them. Experience it all. It's pleasant, isn't it? This is our kingdom. One day you will take my place. That's why, while you're still able to, you should experience everything you can." She would often say as she made time for me in between her royal duties. Every day since I had been born, despite her obligations and the scolding of her advisor, she came to me in any spare time she'd find. Every night she’d see me to my dreams and would whisper lovingly the same words that lulled me to sleep each time. "Sleep now, my dear."

Every memory was so wonderful and warm... they etched away at my heart. I’d asked myself how I could have ever dared to forget them. Then, I remembered what she had become...

After that unforeseeable mass incident that ruined the Formless Kingdom, her madness had all but consumed her entirely. She had assumed responsibility for that tragedy. She had accepted every ounce of anger and sadness from her people in trying to save them from it by consuming those emotions. All of their indescribable hatred and all of their overwhelming grief, having welled up over time into a massive frenzy. But you see... feelings were the source of magic for changelings. We could only harness the incredible power of Fate herself if given shape by our own emotions and the emotions that others gave to us.

She alone was at the center of all of that malice... She alone was left to fight the physical manifestation of that overwhelming power... The inevitable result was the birth of the monster that now held dominion over her body.

But she was still in there, I knew that she was. I had observed it so many times before... Why it had struck me so odd that she could look so terrifying and so beautiful at the same time. Even the reverberation of the two voices as she spoke was proof that there was a bit of her old self in her soul. Why had I never noticed all of this before?

I got my answer when I began to remember the last of those events. After the tragedy of the Formless had happened, the Queen was in a private audience with the Sun's ruler, a white alicorn of royal descent. Strangely, my memory of their conversation while they talked was shrouded and blurred, as though I were blind. Queen Chrysalis... it seemed like she could feel herself slowly losing her grasp on reality and in her desperation, she confided her plans to the regal pony.

She warned her about the changes that were beginning to happen to our kind, and how she could not stop the storm anymore. How she was losing herself too... In quiet, hesitating agreement, they made a promise of sorts. Only now did I realize that this promise of theirs... the conflict of the Formless and that of ponies... the darkness that had sealed us away... They were all connected.

In the final moments of that memory, I could feel the Queen using powerful magic on me... A spell... a one-of-a-kind to be used only once. A spell only born from the most powerful of emotions. And she had used it to protect me. She had sealed away my memories and even my very sense of self. Even though she could've used that magic on herself... Even though that might've been the right path to take as a ruler after she had sensed that our kind would be lost to madness... It was no exaggeration to say that she had given the last of her right mind to me.

The weight of my reality was overwhelming. My old self would've been crushed by what it had all meant, no doubt. But I had grown a lot as an individual, and I was thankful for what the Queen had done for me. I understood my purpose in this world better now and what I had to do to protect everyone. It seemed my moral obligation had been right from the start. I would have to seal us all back into the depths of that darkness and lead the Formless into a deep, unbreakable slumber. To do that, I would have to face off against the Mistress and her mastery over Fate.

That prospect absolutely terrified me as the thought alone had made my stomach drop. My paltry attempts to convince myself were not reassuring while I repeated in my head unconvincedly that I had inherited her powers and could stand to reason there was a chance of me winning that confrontation. But even just wielding Fate myself for my own purpose felt like an impossibility as I could not even control my deeply rooted fear of it.

The veil of night had finally arrived when I reached a familiar pond, collapsing in front of it in my emotional exhaustion. The stillness in its glass-like surface was unmistakable. My body still fevered and ached all over, but it had considerably improved since earlier that day. I looked upon my reflection in wonder of myself. Even with all my memories returned, it seemed I didn't know the full extent of my past. I’d begun to question why it was that my eyes were not the same shade of green as the rest of the formless, as even the Queen's eyes, both past and present, were that color.

(Illustration by Spirefall on Deviant Art.)

My life had been just one big mystery after another for so long, it exhausted me to think about these things. Perhaps I would get my answer if I'd asked the Queen directly, but it was no easy feat, even in my thoughts. For one, I still labored to speak clearly.

To no one in particular, I began to recite the vocal lessons that Twilight had tried to get me to go through. I practiced and I practiced, but my voice shook while a steady stream of tears disturbed the pond's surface. To the point that nothing could be heard but the whining and wailing of my cries into the empty night sky. I had long made up my mind even before the events of today. But having just been separated like this did not make this any easier whatsoever.

It hurt. It hurt so very much. It hurt more than I could fathom. More than I could describe with simple words alone. As I cried my heart out, it felt like I understood the plight of the Formless of the past. The loss of their loved ones. The rise of their mindless madness. Their ire at destined fate and Fate's design. The more I thought of my time with Twilight and my memories of the old Queen, the more I felt as though my heart would break and shatter.

"Why?" I’d asked myself out loud. "Why me? Why us?" Those must've been the very same questions my kin had asked themselves. The same questions that they'd repeat over and over, becoming ever angrier at questions with no answer.

Truthfully, they did have an answer, just not one we could accept. No reason in particular. That was the truth of this world. Of ANY world no doubt, not just this pastel-colored one. The immutable fact of life itself. We were all born to be free. And freedom, as it turned out... did not come cheap.

Being different did not change the past. Being different did not change the truth. Being different did not change Fate's design. Being different did not change the cowardice... the pain. I struck at the water with my foreleg near the reflection of my eyes, frustrated to no end. Where was I to direct this seething frustration? The answer was obvious. At myself for my own powerlessness. But what could one little changeling do in the storm of these events?

I was left in shambles. It had been the longest ten days of my life... My tattered soul spread across the cosmos while I gazed into the stars defeatedly, feeling emptier than I had ever felt before, burnt out from the flickering and wavering of my own soul. I distracted my mind by counting each individual dot. Eventually, I moved on to making drawings in their connected patterns. I drew first Twilight, then Spike, then the rest of her friends. From there I drew the baby birds and their parents. Finally, I drew the Queen in her prime as well as her present. I remembered the monologue she had given me before I was cast out into the outside world, and I smiled and laughed at the thought we were all one and the same, all of us trying to help one another regardless of intentions. All connected.

As twisted and selfish as her mind had become, it seemed the Queen's intentions were still very much to elevate me to a throne of her own design. Her wish was still, somehow, to create a world for me to live in. One unbound from that sad, unnatural pitch-black darkness. Perhaps the lights she grew in the form of crystals deep within those cavernous corridors were her way to stave off the darkness for my sake, unbeknownst to her how much I'd come to fear them. How could she have known? I actively did all that I could to show no resistance. No complaint. Not even a second thought for her or the rest of my brethren. Even though she had bid her time for so long to pool enough magic to free us from that darkness...

My conscience stabbed at me at that thought. Even incomplete as I had been, how could I have been so thoughtless? To live for only yourself was such a lonely and harrowing existence... Amidst all my strife I felt that I had finally found meaning in my life. I'd found self-acceptance in purpose. Slowly but surely, I unshackled the chains of fear that bound my heart against Fate, against magic.

With lady Fate's power, I tore away the blackened gunk around the flame of my own soul. The suppressant I had subconsciously created against the commanding, controlling siren call of the Queen's magic to her kin. I could feel the explosiveness of my own magic as it poured out uncontrollably. At this, her song had finally reached me, and our Fates intertwined. We were both made very well aware of each other's intentions in that connection.

I stood to cancel everything she'd done in the name of creating a world for me. And she... she would destroy the world if it meant seeing her plan through.

I couldn't be sure that answering that call was the right thing to do there and then. I could only feel like I absolutely needed to move forward with my life in some way shape or form, even if I had to, in this case quite literally, move backward to meet my fate dead on. I was more or less ready to challenge destiny. Walking down those first steps to the mouth of an unnervingly dark and familiar cave, I was filled with uncharacteristic confidence.

If a person's life could be read like a book, I wonder what it would say about me and my kind?

What would it say about Twilight and her friends?

For whom was that story meant for? Of course, I knew the answer to that. With a big smile and overwhelming pride in my chest, I yelled into the cave with all that I could muster my unspoken farewell to every soul that had helped shape my life.

"For everyone's sake!"

(Illustration by JodTheCod)

Finale: Chapter 9: The Story, as it went.

Finale: Chapter 9

The Story, as it went.

It was dark, so very dark. I walked through the dim corridors of a cold, unforgiving cave. I was no longer conflicted over that darkness. It might have felt comforting before, but now it just seemed like an awful excuse I had used to hide from everything and everyone around me, including myself. Finally, I knew the full extent of what I was. I understood my responsibilities and my purpose for being there. And I was not about to hide from it all again.

The power I called forth from my heart drove the darkness away as the golden glow of my magic surrounded me. The shadows could not so much as reach me anymore. It felt empowering. Like if I had overcome the shackles that had existed in my heart since the very start. It felt like I had defeated adversity itself, in every sense of the word. But that feeling was short-lived.

I looked around me to see the walls that had remained in complete darkness for as long as I could remember, and I felt an indescribable melancholy. Were the walls always that shape? Was that really all there’d been inside the darkness? Had my cage truly always been that tiny? Even just being in the first room after having entered, with the outside world right behind me... it felt so small.

It felt like I had entered the mouth of a giant snake, and the little space before me was trying to crush me in its efforts to reduce me to its food, my magic seeping into its walls. At that moment, I remembered the promise that had been made between the Queen and the Sun’s ruler. I remembered the stories that had been read to me by Twilight. A chill ran down my spine when I thought back to the book she’d once read to me on the mythical creatures of Equestria. Of golems made from living stone and stories of snakes that had been large enough to threaten to swallow the world. She’d always ended those tales in that book by explaining it was just conjecture, over exaggerations from overly imaginative ponies. But like many things in life like I’d come to realize... perhaps there was truth to the stories we told.

I would not let myself get distracted by my own escaping imagination. I did not have the luxury to be unnerved by something that might have had no bearing on my purpose in being there. I kept walking towards the pull of the Queen’s Fate upon mine. If there was one thing that hadn’t changed since I’d left, it was the sense of dread I felt in my heart while I walked toward that voice. But that dread did not come from the same fears from before. I wasn’t scared of what could happen to me anymore. What I was afraid of... was failing in doing what I needed to do and hurting everyone else for it.

Two different Fates were guiding me down those cavernous, winding paths. That of magic, and destiny. The wind wafted through those halls, eventually fading altogether as I traversed deeper down the length of them. The further I walked, the more the outside world seemed to drift off into distant memory. Even the echoes of water dripping from the hanging stalactites faded into an uncomfortable, unnerving silence. All I could hear was the din of an empty cavern and the loud thumping of my restless heart.

Reaching the crystals from before, I could see their light had dimmed considerably, weakened into disrepair. They were now almost as pale tan as the cavern walls behind them. The transparency on their surface had lost all the emerald green luster from my memories. Walking in front of all those crystals, I could no longer see those twisted reflections staring down at me. Not even the single face that had filled me with such sadness from before. I remembered the thought I had earlier when I gazed up at the stars... how I’d come to realize that these crystals had been placed there for me... that they might have been there to stave off the darkness for my sake, despite the fear I had grown for them. It hurt my heart to see them so dim, still struggling to keep alight. The cruel irony is that I had not been here until now to witness their light and purpose.

I had noticed it in the Queen’s magic too, the two of us having been connected that entire time by our Fate. Her magic was much weaker than it had ever been, and the effort of its pull was almost non-existent. I was a mix of emotions. I was afraid of having to fight her. I could already tell that my memories of the past would get in the way of my goal, with my concern for her growing with each step.

Yet her call was desperate and sad. So... lonely. It was as if she was asking to be saved. With each step, I felt a rising conflict in my soul grow. The Queen... she knew what I was there for, and it felt like she was begging me not to do it. Reality had never felt heavier. It was hard just to keep putting each foot before the other.

It took all that I had not to break down when I walked into her throne room, nary a soul but her within it. The fire within her had been the smallest I had ever seen from any living creature, teetering on the verge of becoming ashes... In my outpouring concern, I could not even see the monster inside of her as she turned to look at me from where her body lay on the floor before having reached her throne.

What had happened to her?

All at once, my troubled soul gave rise to the turmoil in my heart. In the silence, I remembered when I was up at the top of the tree when I’d felt my consciousness split from my body. It hadn’t just been my tired, ailing body that had made me fall then... Truth was, I had been connected to the Queen that entire time. And as she was defeated and lost her powers at the time of her invasion, our connection had been cut.

She had always been looking out for me... until the point she could no longer.

How lonely must it have felt then, that even after she’d regained even a small amount of her magic back that I was not answering her calls? How sad must it have been to know that I was actively rejecting her? And only now that I was there to cast her down could she be able to see me again... My guilt was immeasurable, and the monster within her could sense it.

Like a predator on an ambush, the Mistress saw her chance. Changeling magic was emotionally driven after all, and I’d inadvertently delivered her meal on a silver platter. I was driven to my knees while she weakly stood up at first, her composure becoming gradually steadier with my magic being drained from me. I struggled for dear life just to keep myself from collapsing onto the floor entirely. With my legs giving out at that moment, I only had a single thought in my mind.

’Ah... I’ve... already lost.’

This monster... It preyed on negative emotions. It hunted the overwhelming sadness in my heart after I realized I had so quickly allowed it to defeat me. It feasted on my regrets at having not been able to do more for the Queen. And it only grew stronger as I began to fear for the safety of the ponies.

And then... the monster reached critical mass, far outgrowing its power from at any point I had ever seen it when I despaired at the thought of Twilight and her friends being met by the harm that I had created in my foolishness, my powerlessness, my cowardice... my pain.

The green of her magic had been replaced with eldritch shadowy tendrils of pure black in her power, and they consumed the remaining light of the room, with the only glow remaining in her eyes and the ever-dimming one of my own magic as she absorbed it.

(Illustration by LuckyEd on DeviantArt)

“Ah, my sweet, sweet little dear. How lovely you are. You’ve come back to help me despite everything. How proud you make me, even if you had some less-than-savory ideas in your head. It disgusted me, you know. To let that other side of me say and do as she pleased. Try all I might, I could not break her. Always using her magic for stupid little things like trying to save you or making those useless light crystals. But I’ve got to admit... it worked in the end. That vulnerability of hers allowed me to convince her to pool our powers in order to gain freedom into the outside world, at the cost of breaking your spell. At the time, I believed it was a waste of magic. Why waste years of work for one miserable little bug? Still... it was the only way to influence her into my goals, and thanks to that, I was momentarily free at last and had more control than I had ever in the past." Her tone became darker as the monster began to recall the events of her failed invasion. "However, In our folly, we were defeated by love of all things. I thought we were done for! And then... you strolled right back in, at her call. To save us. But it's too late, you know. Because I no longer have to suffer that fool. It’s all just me now. Funny how the puzzle falls into place.” Her face contorted into a twisted smile, and the reverberation in her voice was now completely gone. I could no longer hear the gentle tone from before mixing into her voice... All that was left in it was the vitriol and cruelty of the monster within her, the Mistress...

“Mom...” I heard myself say quietly in tears, powerless to get off the ground. It hurt me to hear the monster talk about her that way. To imagine that she was no longer there...

“Now aren’t YOU funny. What a joke. You think she was your mother? You forget what you are, yeah? I’ve been inside of her head all this time. So I can personally tell you... the only way she saw you was as a convenient vessel. An amusing little toy.” The sadistic reveling in her voice made me grit my teeth in frustration. All the evidence pointed to the contrary, but I couldn’t help listening to the monster. What if it was right? I understood it was just trying to provoke more negative emotions from me to consume them, but it hurt so much to imagine that there was a possibility of its words being true. “What. a. catch. I thought I’d struck gold with that royal couple, but you’re something else. Don’t worry dear, I’ll be your mother if you despair for me like this.” She cooed with disgusting sarcasm.

“Twilight...” I mustered what little strength I could to reach out into the nothingness around me, imagining I was still lying down in that familiar bed and looking for her in my desperation. At this, it was like the monster had been slapped in the face, having recoiled with disgust. She clicked her tongue, her irritation and anger growing doubly so.

“You want to run that by me again? What did you say?” She walked up to my body and stomped her foreleg loudly next to my face, sending a shiver of fear down my spine. “There’s a few worthless ponies I’ve got at the very top of my list of creatures I’d really like to get my hooves on, and you’ve just named one of them.” I felt my whole body freeze. Was this true? Would she personally go to hurt Twilight? “I knew I saw something awful coming from your magic. Now I understand where you got those dumb little ideas in your head.” Her eyes lit up with sinister excitement. “Oh, but what fun is it going to be to see the lot of you suffer.”

My lungs hurt in taking in air harder and faster than I had ever done before in my panic. I struggled to get off the ground with every fiber of my being wanting to stop her. I couldn’t have foreseen this. The absolute worst possible outcome. Was it my fate for this to end this way? Why... why... why...?

She only laughed at my plight, feeding on more of my negativity. “Don’t worry about a thing... or you know what, maybe do worry about everything. After all, I’m going to burn down that world you love so much.” She stooped her head towards me so that she could whisper into my ear. “Just... I'm not going to do it for you.” A pit of anger exploded from my heart as she used the Queen’s old feelings against me. Even if her intentions had been twisted and corrupted prior to this... they had always been done with some love for me and her kin. Now, there was none of that in this monster.

Others would often say that when you ask for help in a desperate situation, and help arrives, you’d feel elated afterwards. It was only natural, right? To feel relief at the thought that you were not on your own when facing off against the odds. But I couldn’t feel that way. I couldn’t feel that there was any one pony that could fend off the monster before me. So when a familiar voice appeared behind me, I could do nothing but despair.

“You think we’re going to sit quietly and let that happen?” It was Twilight. It wasn’t hard to guess how she had found me. No doubt, she had probably been searching up and down for me, especially within the Everfree Forest since she was astute enough to know that’s where I’d run to. When I first unlocked my magic and it surged everywhere around me, I could’ve imagined that it looked like one massive beacon for the magically gifted. I should’ve been more careful in covering up my steps. Inadvertently, I had led Twilight to the snake’s den. I had done everything wrong, right from the start...

“What fun would there be in it for me if you did?” The Mistress responded with all the cruelty and confidence in the world. “I want to thank you all for saving me the trouble of going out to find you.” She addressed Twilight and... all of her friends. “Especially this wretched little thing here that has given me the opportunity to repay you in kind.” I tried to shake away the hoof she used to stroke my hair in that empty expression.

“What did you do...?” There was a growl of anger in Twilight’s voice.

“No no. It’s what SHE did for me. Now look at me. Can’t you tell? How sweet her sorrows are. How much she cares about you. Disgusting really. Sigh. But those emotions are quite strong so I guess I can’t complain.”

“Get away from her you vile beast!” Rarity exclaimed, annoyed by her gestures.

“From WHO? My daughter? Why should I?” Despite her words earlier, now she was using that word to toy with them, making a show and a mockery of their concerns. It was infuriating to hear it come from her mouth.

“You’re not fit to be a mother!” Fluttershy’s voice boomed with uncharacteristic heft and indignation in her tone.

“Big words from a couple of ponies with no kids.” She laughed and she laughed, all while Twilight and her friends hesitated to fight her. They could sense it too... how powerful she’d become. “Well, if you really think so, you should try to stop me then.”

“You reckon we can’t?” Applejack’s usual confidence had been shaken.

“I know you can’t.”

Twilight looked over at Rainbow Dash and gave her a small nod. It seemed they understood each other even without words, as Rainbow Dash zipped over to me to rescue me and laid me down behind them. The Mistress was not fazed by this at all, and she only smiled her usual sinister smile.

“It’s fine. It’s better if my little battery is away from the crossfire. I hope you realize that distance doesn’t matter on whether I can take from her power or not.”

Despite Twilight having illuminated the room with magic, the room was still covered in complete darkness. With one stomp of the Mistress’s foot, the pitch-black darkness all around us unweaved into a mass of tendrils which coiled around every pony’s legs, holding them in place. Rainbow Dash did her best to evade the creeping darkness, having not been caught immediately since she’d been hovering in the air when it had happened, though with those tendrils on every wall, floor, and ceiling it was inevitable that one took hold of one of her wings and damaged it, grounding her as a result.

She yelled out in pain and fell to the floor, the shadows quickly rooting her to the ground. “I’m okay, don’t worry. My wing is just a little busted up.” She said, responding to everyone’s concern. “Twilight, we have to do it again! We have to use them.”

Twilight looked to me at that moment, unsure if she should continue on with what Rainbow Dash was asking for. But seeing me struggle to get up and fight back likely told her all she needed to know then. “Y-yeah okay.” She magically produced six golden accessories.

Twilight’s magic burst forth into the room as everyone began to shine from an incredible power. Their light staved off the dark tendrils, shredding them and illuminating the cavern walls and floor. Within their magic, I could feel everyone’s emotions and desires, their hopes and dreams, and their very personalities. At that moment, I remembered when Twilight had read to me a story about six powerful artifacts that embodied particular characteristics, and how she mentioned they were only ever used in dire times to protect all of Equestria. I could not have imagined that she’d be the one to wield such powers...

But even with their power, it had not been enough. The Mistress remained after the blinding light from their magic died down. In their surprise, the Mistress gloated her victory over the elements, laughing maniacally at their resounding defeat. The tendrils lashed out from her again, and this time, everyone could feel that there was no escaping it anymore. Even while they struggled, they did so less and less in feeling that they were becoming more lethargic from their effects. The magic tendrils were draining away at them.

“We’ll... stop you... no matter what” Twilight said, struggling to stay awake.

“Your little stones couldn’t, so then what can you do?” She laughed in Twilight’s face with a hoof underneath her chin. Letting her slip intentionally, Twilight grunted in pain as she collapsed onto the ground, defeated.

Was this truly the way of life? Were we to struggle everyday for the rest of our lives just to find even a hint of happiness? I couldn’t say what I was feeling at the time. A large veritable mix of things no doubt. Mostly negative, some positive. That’s the thing about thoughts and emotions right? You can’t really lie to yourself. You can’t help feel what you feel, or think what you think. You can try to change slowly, but the process is an eternal endeavor. Even if we somehow reach the point that we’ve changed considerably, we’ll always have stressful moments where we’ll revert and act irrationally.

Yet...

In that moment, I felt the most rational I had ever felt. As I had seen everyone fight for my sake... having felt all of their emotions and their concern for me... Witnessing their anger in the fire of their souls when I was mistreated... And still defiantly trying to fight back when all seemed lost... Even then, I could see how selfish I was being.

All my life... even when I tried to convince myself of the opposite... I had been running away from it. From the cowardice, the pain. From my fears, from my hurts.

From me.

We are Changelings. We feed on emotions, become more powerful because of them. Our own, and those that others give to us.

From the very start, I hadn’t fought back in the way I should have. I hadn’t taken up the responsibility of my position as princess to my kin. I hadn’t harnessed my powers in the way the Mistress did...

It took seeing Twilight fall to understand all of that. My utmost selfish desire. The corner of my soul I’d denied myself. The feelings I had swallowed and spitted out, not wanting to feel them. But those emotions... They were me. All of me. What I couldn’t help in feeling. What I couldn’t help in thinking.

And my suppression of that part of me is why I myself hadn’t grown more powerful from my own emotions.

My teeth trembled and tears streamed from my eyes. As I took it all in, I remembered the old Queen in the time of the tragedy of the Formless. I remembered the moment she stood up in front of the ruins of everyone’s home to speak to her people. How the defeaning silence of their grief shook her to her core. I remembered how she took in all their sadness and all their madness. Accepted it. Consumed it. Took responsibility for it. And how in her love for them and me, she bargained for the future in our name.

Now, it was time for me to do the same. Every awful emotion. Every ounce of sadness. Every laugh of joy. Every bit of love that I had ever felt...

“No more.” I heard myself shout, enveloped in a blinding golden hue, my tears burning away in the light of my overwhelming magic. “Please. No more. Hurting.” My light tore away at the darkness surrounding Twilight and her friends who were still weak from the draining tendrils, being left behind as nothing but spectators.

“You insolent little bug, you dare?!” The Mistress recoiled, holding onto her throne with her forelegs and becoming shakier with each moment, the source of her power now cutoff and being redirected to its original owner.

I ignored her and talked directly to the one inside. “I’m... fine. I’ll be... fine.” I smiled at her direction, tears still streaming from my eyes.

The Queen slumped to the floor again struggling to keep upright before succumbing, the madness fading from her eyes. With no strength left in her, she could only stare defeatedly at me. I brought my forehead to hers and I whispered multiple times...

“It’s, okay. I’m, okay. We are, okay.”

And finally, she closed her eyes to fall into a deep sleep of my own design.

“Pumpkin?” I could hear Applejack ask from behind me.

It had occurred to me that I had never given them my name. Well, I hadn’t known my name until very recently so that checked out. They looked at me with confusion all over their face when I began to giggle at this prospect while stemming and brushing my tears.

“Chrys. My name. Chrys.” I gestured to myself. I walked before all of them and bowed my head as far as I could towards the ground. “Thank, you. Everything. For me. I’m... sorry.” I said with mist still fogging up my eyes, trying to look strong by holding my tears in.

With my head still to the ground, I felt a great big warmth all around me. The group of friends had all thrown themselves into a hug for me. Looking up, I could see Twilight’s neck in front of me, and her friends to my sides.

“Not... mad? No... hate?” The doubt in my voice was unmistakable, shaking from the emotion of the moment.

“No, never. Never ever.” Twilight said, in the most childish way she could think to reassure me. I sniffed back my tears while I hugged her back.

“Don’t think anyone one of us could ever hate you after all of this, sugarcube.” Applejack followed suit.

They had some pretty bright smiles as they pulled away to see Twilight still hugging me with her eyes closed. She backed off quickly in her embarrassment, which made her double back thinking she’d hurt me with that gesture. I couldn’t help but smile in this moment of levity and warmth I’d finally been afforded.

“Of all things, being the Princess of the changelings... I don’t know if I could’ve foreseen that.” Rainbow Dash mused to herself.

“Well obviously, don’t act so surprised, Dashie. Could this pretty little face have been anything less than special?” Rarity said while she put a hoof gently to my cheek, which flustered me to some extent.

Pinkie Pie walked up to me sheepishly, which was unlike her usual self. “Do we still get to be friends? We only just got to know each other...” She asked sadly, touching upon a question that they were all waiting to ask, now focusing on me.

“Mm,” I nodded and hugged the excitable Pink one until she tossed me into the air in her happiness.

“I’m so glad everything turned out okay.” Fluttershy beamed.

“Between you and Twilight in your worry, I thought you guys would tear down the whole forest just to find her.” Rainbow Dash jabbed making the two flustered.

“Says you, I don’t think I’d ever seen you fly through those trees faster than you did then.” Twilight retorted.

“Hey!”

The jubilant conversation lasted for a while as every pony felt the relief that came after that harrowing experience. It wasn’t until Twilight finally asked a very important question that the mood changed.

“So, what happens now Chrys?” She’d said, worriedly. I hadn’t thought that far ahead, having basked in my joy of having all my loved ones in the same room after they’d come to my aid. My heart was practically overrunning with my love and appreciation for them, and I had not spared much of an effort to think of the future... Of my moral obligation.

Perhaps fate and destiny really did exist to some capacity, as in that moment, a tremor began to shake the world around us. Just as suddenly, the cavern was filled with the noise of the tunnels within it collapsing. Immediately everyone had begun to panic.

“What’s happening, Twilight!?” Rainbow Dash yelled between the sounds of crumbling earth.

“I don’t know! My best guess is all that magic from earlier has destabilized the underground structure of the cave! But that doesn't matter right now! At any rate, we need to get out of here!” Twilight looked over at me in concerned panic when I walked over to the Queen to sling her over my back. I’d secured her long legs with my magic while the rest of the girls hurried me out of the room. We all ran together as fast as we could through those corridors and I could feel their panic rising by the second while I was beside them. But why was it that I did not feel the same? Why did this pattern seem... familiar to me?

The walls themselves were shifting and changing again, and none of the halls were how they were before, just like the time when I had first been cast out. Fate’s doing? Who knows, but it made it that much harder to locate the exit. Finally, we reached the first cave that went out into a clearing and everyone exited to the outside world successfully.

Everyone save for me.

I had not once forgotten it. I fully understood what all this meant now. What my purpose in the world was.

Twilight looked at me with horror in her expression since she could easily read my mind by this point.

But as the mouth of the cave closed, I only looked back at her with the widest smile I could muster, tears streaming down my eyes while I said the final of my farewells.

“Thank you, for, everything.”

“And that’s the story, as it went.” A weathered old Mrs. Cheerilee said, closing the cover of a rather old book. Her class of small ponies and a few changelings groaned in their displeasure.

“No way that’s the end! What about the happy ending?” Yelled out one of them.

“What? This is not a fictional tale, you know. These are the memoirs of the changeling princess. Besides, not every story is going to have a happy ending. You kids better start learning this now before life comes at you fast.” She exhaled.

“Okay, but what about her eyes, what was up with them?” Asked another.

“Why are there still changelings on the outside, if they were supposed to be sealed in?” Asked a studious looking changeling.

“My dad said he saw the changeling princess once! He said he saw her at the castle in Canterlot next to Princess Twilight!” The class got rowdy at this revelation, and they began to jeer at the story.

“Alright settle down, I’ll tell you what happened afterward.” Mrs. Cheerilee sighed. “Well, it turned out that the cave the changelings had been sealed in was actually a really big legendary golem snake!” The kids oohed and aahed at this. “Twilight never forgot her old friend. She got to studying about the incident that had happened to the changeling kingdom so long ago. Her tireless efforts eventually lead her to her mentor at the time, Princess Celestia, and they discussed the fate of the Formless. It so happened that this snake had always slumbered throughout its life, and it had only awoken to the powerful magics of the rulers of yesteryear to keep a promise with them to hide away the madness that consumed the changelings. Only with incredibly powerful magic could the beast be woken from its slumber.”

“Oooohh, so that’s why the walls inside changed! Was it the Princess’ magic that made the snake wake up and what caused the ground to shake at the end?”

“Bingo, right you are.” She cleared her throat. “Well, in any case, Twilight saw to wake the snake again in order to release the changeling princess after she’d obtained more magic when she herself became the Princess of Friendship. But woe is her, for her friend did not want to be saved from her cage even after she had been freed. Her ultimate goal was to tend to the old Queen and the rest of the changelings she ruled over. It would take many, many years before her work concluded and she would eventually drive away those nasty feelings that plagued them. Still, Twilight visited her many times after that, and sometimes here and there she got to enjoy the outside world with her. The two became much closer after that. As close as any family can get.”

“So is she still in the cave?”

“No, not anymore. The changelings who lived through that time, now being freed from their madness made their lives under the rule of Princess Twilight and so the changeling princess was finally free to cast away her royal status. Though, as you kids can probably tell, she rarely makes an appearance.”

“What about her eyes?!” Chimed in the now exasperated student who first asked that question.

“Oh, that? Apparently, the old Queen had said something about her eyes being a gift. A replacement for the ones she’d lost in the incident from the past. Eyes made of the purest magic said to be able to see even the souls in living things.”

Finally satisfied, the kids left the classroom when the bell rang to signify the end of the school day. After class, while Mrs. Cheerilee packed her belongings to leave herself, another pony entered her classroom.

A second Mrs. Cheerilee. One feeling relieved and rested, smiling contentedly.

“With these old bones, I can’t tell you how much I needed that rest, thank you for the help, Chrys.” The second one said while walking in.

“No problem ma’am. I had fun too. The kids are a blast.” The first Mrs. Cheerilee said as her body quickly transformed into the image of a matured, pretty changeling with distinct amber eyes. “Though, if I can ask you for anything for next time... Can you please not make me read that story to the kids again? It’s mighty embarrassing.”

“What, why not? You wrote it.” She laughed. “Alright, I get it. It was unavoidable this time since it was part of the curriculum that we hadn’t done. Consider this payback for sleeping in my class so often all those years ago.”

Chrys sighed and admitted defeat. “Well, I've got to run. I need to go get my mom ready for the Royal Gala tonight. She still gets antsy being around so many ponies.”

“Going to spend some time with the Princess?”

“You know it.” She said as she smiled from ear to ear.

Fin

Author's Note

Hope you enjoyed my story!

Extra Chapter: To love, and be loved.

Extra Chapter

To love, and be loved.

The final excerpt of her royal highness, Princess Chrys’ personal memoirs.

I had really done it... I could feel it now. The truest sense of freedom I had ever felt. From the very inner reaches of my soul, I could feel the absolute happiness of having done the very thing I'd wished to do from the bottom of my heart. That incredible sense of control over myself, as if born anew.

I had won over the Mistress. I had wielded the powers of Lady Magic herself and overpowered the madness within her. But most importantly... I had saved Twilight and her friends from the misery of the Formless.

My mind wondered how an unstricken Queen Chrysalis would see my actions. Would she have disapproved of sealing us all back into the darkness of that cave? Would she have wanted for me to cast her down like this? As I looked at her unconscious body, I was reminded yet again of who she was and what she became.

"I’m, sorry. Mom..."

My words go unheard by anyone who could listen. In the somber quiet of the lonely dark, now I was truly on my own. No glowing crystals. No billowing winds. No conscious flame to be afraid of. Nothing save for the dancing of my own flame as it swayed to and fro, from the happiness of my decisions and loneliness from my new reality.

The silence was deafening, and the dark was unwelcoming. How had I ever felt comfortable with it before? Now I could not stand to sit within it for long. With Fate's powers, I was able to illuminate those old caverns with the same dulled crystals that were left behind. Yet as they cast the warm glow of my magic to stave off that darkness, there was now a much more somber atmosphere. The shadows the stalagmites and stalactites cast looked like they were reaching for the bigger darkness, hoping to be reunited. The imageries those barren halls created... I was reminded of those fiery birds once again. I pictured the three smaller ones flying off to join their parents, flying off into the setting sun.

And I remembered the scene outside Twilight’s window... Those bright-colored ponies all going about their day in the life and freedom afforded to them by their love for one another. Did they know how blessed they all were? Did they know how lovely a single photo of that image could look? The smiles, the camaraderie, the unspoken unity in their hearts as they rely on one another to make their worlds go round. Even the playful teasing of the children was a wonderful sight, annoying the grown-ups with their play. They were eventually met by those same kids running to their mothers and fathers with all the trust in the world in their tiredness, and being gently carried off on their backs. There is true magic in those scenes.

I'd definitely grown weepier than I used to be. In allowing my emotions to affect me, I couldn’t help but cry at the thought of them. I'd longed for it for so long after all, even without knowing it within my incomplete mind and trapped in the darkness... that companionship. Perhaps that's what I always wanted from the mad Queen, and why it was that my thoughts for Twilight were so painful to think about.

Oh, how I missed her.

How long had it been since I'd last seen her? After going to the outside world, I’d lost my ability to read time within the cave. Even the trickle of water from the roof which had been my indicator before now streamed erratically and unevenly, with no rhyme or reason as to the noise it made. In the uncomforting solitude, it felt like I spent more time in those days, weeks, months waiting for something to happen than I had ever spent since I'd awoken within the cave for the first time in those many years.

I did anything to keep my mind busy. To keep myself from thinking and regretting my time with Twilight and her friends. I drew with my hooves what I could of the outside world, using the soft soil to paint on the cave walls. To keep myself from ever forgetting about it afraid that my mind could one day become incomplete again within the darkness. I practiced talking as best as I could, but without a guide, I found I could not improve and eventually stopped trying altogether. And I learned to wield Fate in my capacity. Remembering the techniques and the uses the Queen had used it for, I tried and tried and tried to replicate them all.

Why? Because I was in search of something very important. The second reason why I had let myself get separated from Twilight, above sparing them of our misfortune. My important duty as changeling princess. I needed to find the power to rid them of this madness. A spell to clear away those bad thoughts.

I had mimicked just about everything I'd seen of magic. From Twilight's levitating magic to the Queen's magically draining tendrils... Even in digging up my memories as far as they wouldd go, and learning to create those same crystals that adorned the walls, I was not able to find any such magic to rid them of those thoughts.

That aside, it was a bit of a funny thought. Creating crystals that is. Was that a specialty of our race? I could not know, but it made a lot of sense. What did our Formless Kingdom of old have to offer the world to even be a kingdom of its own? Perhaps that's why the Queen was named the way she was.

For within that knowledge, I was also able to find how to crystalize those transparent, translucent gems with magical power. Magical power born from emotions. Which was to say... infuse them with our thoughts and desires, our wills and our wants, our heartfelt feelings... If ever I got to see Twilight and her friends again, I knew what I wanted to give them to represent my love for them.

But that was a big if. Would I ever get to see her again? As time kept passing by and seldom even a peep of anything changing, I was left to contemplate my future and the future of the Formless. What it is I wanted for them. And what it was that I wanted for myself.

Freedom.

True freedom, for me and my kind. A reality much like I had seen from outside the window into the scene of a serene Ponyville. One of unity, love, and companionship. I would be willing to pay any price for it. Even my own body and mind.

I couldn't deny my own feelings, and my own thoughts, as I could not hold them back anymore. I would not. More than those altruistic things, I had a selfish desire. An obvious want of the heart.

I wanted to spend my life alongside Twilight. I wanted to see her. I wished every day to be able to meet her again. I yearned for it, prayed for it, and lived for it.

But in the quiet solitude of the dark, I was alone...

One would think that I'd be over the moon when the sudden shifting of those winding halls and an explosive amount of magical power filled the cavern in order to open the mouth of the cave once again to give way to the visage of a lone Twilight Sparkle finally having had the power to do so. One could even think that I'd spend the better part of an hour just hugging the purple mare in my absolute relief to see her alive and well after so long, not wanting to let go in my desperation of losing her again. And finally, it'd be safe to assume that there was nothing but the mirth and the joy of that reunion.

(Illustration by Mutter_Butter)

Of course, you wouldn't be wrong at all. Yet... you wouldn't be one hundred percent right either.

In that embrace, there was a prickly feeling that just wouldn't go away no matter what I did and no matter how hard I tried. One very strong emotion that would not subside. An emotion twisted and corrupted by time, fear, and grief. A feeling so indescribably turbid, it had been the driving force for the one that wielded it for so long.

This emotion was coming from Twilight Sparkle.

It was not an ill-willed feeling. I knew very well what it was, for I had felt it in myself too when we were reunited. The fear of losing someone... the greed in not wanting to let them go... the compounding nature of the joy in our feelings for one another making all of that much stronger.

It was that selfish desire from before, grown tenfold. The result of being separated the way we had.

But unlike myself, Twilight had not had to face that emotion before in this way. She did not have the ability to feed it to her magic as changelings did. She had not had an avenue to vent it off to, and she had let it simmer for who knows how long. It was that feeling that clung to her heart that had made a similar tarry shadow cling to it like mine had when I subconsciously denied the Queen for so long. And with the new power and strength in the flame of her soul and her magic, it radiated out to me like spears so long as I stood by her side.

Even after she came to visit me every day for hours on end trying her best to convince me to join her in the outside world, anyone could've understood the desperation in her words. I wanted anything to say yes to her requests. I wanted any small excuse to strip myself away from my responsibility and abandon my duties in order to go live by her side. Yet I could not, nor would I. Even if it killed me, my duty was something I had promised I'd see through to the very end. And each time I denied her requests, that feeling inside her grew and I could feel her heart breaking a little more each time with every refusal.

But I was slowly starting to understand that I was getting nowhere on my own in trying to save my kind in the way I truly wanted for them. Even if I did manage to cure them of their madness, for which I still did not have a plan or a spell for, how would they be able to live in the outside world? I had seen the conflict in Twilight's soul the first time she had found out about my origins, and she was far more accepting and kind compared to the rest of the pony-folk. Would all of my brethren once freed, fear that same gaze? Would they even be able to find a good home with that prejudice floating in the very air? They were not innocent, no, even if the ponies excused them for their madden, involuntary actions. But I knew they could change for the better once freed from it all, if given the chance.

And I understood, from the first moment Twilight mentioned it, even if it felt like a bad idea, that it was my duty as Princess to the changelings to give them that chance. To go to this 'school' Twilight wanted me to attend so I could work on making those roads and to better my speech. Unfortunately, Twilight could not fully understand the depths of this responsibility of mine yet.

I so strongly wished for the chance to confide in Twilight the circumstances of the Formless... I wanted to trust her with everything I had... But those feelings inside of her stopped me. I could see how restless she was from her own duties as newly crowned Princess. I could not let her know. At least not yet.

And even if I wanted to, Twilight had not been able to take a step into the darkness of that cavern with me. She was afraid of repeating the past and felt like she was constantly walking on eggshells around me. I could see it so clearly in her. We could not take that step forward no matter how much I tried. Without the clarity of words, I could not get her to understand my plight, and the plight of my kind. She would never know the gravity of what I was trying to do unless she saw it for herself.

She had likely tried to justify why I was the only changeling walking out of that cave time and again with each visit with any random excuse in her head in trying to avoid the more serious issues. She could not know the magic I had cast to render them into a deep sleep. She could not realize how deeply that madness still existed in their souls and how long it would take to rid them of it.

All the same, likely only thinking of me, she wanted to increase the changeling's reputation amongst the ponies. All so that I could live by her side. I had to take this chance even if our intentions didn't quite align because I understood that this would help me build that road. This was my out. The way forward. The excuse I needed in service of everything I wanted and needed to do.

In agreeing with her, I could see how happy that answer had made her. And I could feel how happy it had made me knowing I'd get to spend my days alongside her. But there was a new bubble of anxiety swelling up in my heart. That night, I asked her one very important request. With all my might, I desperately formulated the words I needed to say and needed to hear an answer for, hoping she would have it.

"Twilight. Please. Want spell. Make, bad thoughts. Leave."

Twilight didn't so much as question why it was I wanted this spell. She was just happy that this had been the first real request I had asked of her. She taught me how to weave my magic better around my horn, and the words needed to be recanted in order to pull it off.

"To do what we must,

and shake off the rust,

we pool our powers to cast,

a spell aimed at the distant past."

It was hard enough getting the words right, but after a long night of practice, I finally got it down. Twilight smiled the world in her pride for me as she saw me master it. But even amongst this heartfelt feeling, that fear inside her still existed. She could not shake it off. And I wanted everything to help her.

It's strange now that I look back on it, how I had come to the conclusion of being able to use this spell on others to help them. I had thought of it as a natural extension of the spell considering how I had used my magic until recently, infusing crystals and putting the changelings to sleep. Magic was sort of like lightning. A spell's effect would travel across a medium until it reached the ground and diffused into it. Naturally, I felt like this spell could work on others if two mediums were touching each other.

Much to Twilight's surprise, in wanting to help her I touched our foreheads together and cast the spell, wanting her to feel better. And while it had helped from what I could see in her soul as she was deeply touched by this gesture, the awful feeling from before still lingered heavily in her heart. If I could use this spell to clear the madness and insanity from the changelings and the Queen's overtime, so too would I do this for Twilight and eventually rid her of this turmoil in her heart. That's another promise I had made to myself.

The day finally arrived a week later when I was to debut into the world above and my first day of school started. I was joining in as a transfer student, and Twilight had been busy letting most of the ponies know that she was taking me under her tutelage. When we walked down the open roads in public towards the school, she stopped to greet the random citizens of Ponyville who would now be seeing a lot more of me in the coming days. She wanted to get them to accept me with simple pleasantries, but even as they spoke their candied words back at her, I could see the vitriol, disgust, fear, and distrust in their heart.

I could not help the hurt that came my way from seeing that, and all I could do was tremble behind Twilight's back while their gazes pierced me. I did not want to worry Twilight with my actions, so I did my best to hide the anxiety I felt in my heart. Thankfully, she hadn't given my actions then much thought, and we continued to school normally.

She walked me all the way to the classroom door, hugging me and whispering all manner of encouragements before deciding to leave. Watching her walk away and leave me behind hurt me from the deepest corner of my soul, despite knowing full well that this was only a very minor and temporary thing. But I could see how much it was hurting her too, even if she knew this better than I did.

Still, I turned to face my new reality with a kindled hope in my heart, and I stood by that door waiting to be called upon. Waiting to start a new beginning.

This is where my own story ends. My memoirs of how my life finally changed for the better after a long lifetime in darkness.

It wouldn't feel right to describe the rest of my life in the outside world alongside Twilight considering that someone else has already written about it, with my blessing of course. With more curious minds being able to see what transpired in the time after, and one fellow in particular who wished to document those events for the history of how the changelings grew past their madness, I obliged him and recounted all the parts that others were not witness to.

Together, we created the story of the time after. Of my experience going to school, learning to live in the world above, and growing up alongside Twilight, her friends, my own friends, and all the wonderful citizens of Ponyville. Of the harrowing adventures I lived through, and the emotions felt by me and everyone beside me.

And although it's mighty embarrassing having your whole life being laid bare like this, I felt it important to talk about those misadventures nonetheless. I want to help my young readers understand that we are one and the same, no matter who we are born as or what kind of difficult responsibilities we entrust ourselves with.

Life is all about growing up, and I know it isn't easy. Taking that one necessary step forward to begin changing our life for the better requires a lot of courage. We must hold out our hearts and open up to others who will help us change, even if we're scared of getting hurt. Life will not wait for us, so we must chase after it with all we've got. No matter how hard, how far, or impossible it may seem. We've got to find our happiness.

That's it from me friends. But my tale doesn’t end there. There’s more story to explore. See you all there!

EA Kindled Beginning

MLP: FiM

Adventure

Slice of Life

Changeling Princess Chrys undergoes the biggest trials of her life... School, making friends, and living in the world above. For a small girl never having known life outside of complete darkness, this is a hard task!

Alt. Universe

Twilight

Spike

OC

Main 6

CMCs

Darkevony · 78k words  ·  87  1 · 1.5k views

Author's Note

:yay: In celebration of the new sequel coming out, I wanted to conclude my thoughts for A Kindled Change! As it was one of my favorite stories to write and even re-write 8 years later. What you see written is a very part of my soul, both back then and now. A true labor of love.

Writing this one was particularly tricky tho! I remember writing most of the chapters in an absolute stupor. Not drunk stupor, but tired, exhausted, depressed, and anxious stupor. I was having a bad time at school, and I was generally doing poorly at life. Rewriting it has not been easy either, as I had to heavily rewrite 95% of it roughly.

It was also a risky way to write! Do you know how ballsy it is to leave the protagonist's name to the very end? It was basically my dumb way to show that it was much our journey as it was hers. I also don't think I'm particularly good at writing 1st POV stories, which is why I always intended to end the story as though someone had been reading it all along.

I'm not the kind of person that plans things very far ahead, if it's not evident. So it was a bit of a surprise how well everything clicked together! It did mean having to retcon all of Changeling History to fit my narrative and rewrite the chronological events happening in the show, but that's why we have that Alt.Universe Tag, haha.

Also, I don't know if anyone ever realized what I was trying to do by incorporating the fiery birds that Chrys had seen so early in the story and thought back to on multiple occasions. They were supposed to Phoenixes, and it was a very obscure way to show her 'rebirth' into a new, better life. Well, there's a lot of symbolism scattered throughout, but that was the most prominent one that no one ever commented on, both back then and now! :T

Finally, I wanted to say how sad I was getting constantly having to think of new ways of making life for my little girl worse. It's why I'm quite happy being able to change that with my new story. It was about time good things started coming her way! See you there! :heart: