The right to choose the path
Chapter 1 : Lula the unicorn
« Lula, I just don’t know how you’re able to do your job so well ! »
Her boss always seemed amazed by Lula’s work. This time, she had to correct twelve years of an absolute chaos that was the accounting of their new client. She didn’t even find it difficult. There had been some little tricks here and there, as the fiscal laws of Equestria aren’t the easiest one to apply, but altogether it had only be a journey in well known territory for her.
She was the very best accountant there was. She was first in her class to get her cutie mark, two books with numbers, and could begin to work even before she had finished the obligatory school.
However, she took no pride at all at what she was doing. She tried to smile to her boss, but in reality, she just felt empty. The task had been a boring one, like every other one she had to accomplish in her life. Feeling her boss wouldn’t let her go away with just a smile, she said to him:
“Well, it is my special talent after all, no big deal.”
“It sure is!” Answered her boss. “You’re really incredible.”
This was taking too long for Lula to endure. She found a pretext and went back to her home, leaving her boss behind who was still going on cheering for her. He was a very nice and gentle pony and one of the most supportive sort. She liked him a lot. In fact, he was probably the only reason she kept on doing her accounting job.
Ponies follow two rules. First, everypony has a special talent that is represented by his or her cutie mark. Second, once a cutie mark had appeared, it would lead the pony’s life until the very end. There was no way to change it. It felt unfair to the unicorn.
She hated being an accountant. Oh, of course, at first, she found some pleasure in it, because it was very easy and consequently made her life just as easy to live. But on the other hoof, she soon began to notice that accounting wasn’t what she was interested in.
She loved magic.
And because life is the biggest troll of them all, she just was terrible at it.
She was able to perform spells. In fact, she was able to perform a whole lot of spells, as she had passed almost all of her free time studying books and watching other unicorns perform their tricks. Lula’s problem with magic was her absolute incapacity to keep her spells under control. Every time she had tried to train would it be the simplest type of magic, something would go wrong.
She tried to go in a school to learn and improve. She hold out two long and painful years, before her teachers told her she had to give up before they would kick her out. She had done more damage to the school and injured more ponies with all of her mistakes than the sum of all of the other students.
Nonetheless, Lula wasn’t the kind of mare to just give up. Forced to forget the student path to master the magical art, she decided to learn it as a self-taught pony. It didn’t go well. In the end, it was the family house that couldn’t hold all the ordeals Lula was giving it.
She had to leave the house and even if she didn’t lose the love of her family, she understood it would be best if she took some distance with them. She also promised herself to give up on magic, forever.
But since some months now, she had the growing feeling that she was just giving her life away, losing the only chance to have the existence she really wanted. She had decided that, now that she had grown up, things would probably be different. Not that she actually really believed it, but she just agreed that it was, at least, worth a try.
She arrived in her home in the suburbs of Canterlot and went straight to a mirror. She then looked at herself. She had grown up since the last time she tried. Her mane was longer, her head larger. But all her attention was on her horn. That little thing that made her different from the earth ponies and the pegasii. That petty little thing that granted her the natural ability to do magic.
“Let’s do this.” She told herself, with determination.
Chapter two: One step further
She was calm. Everything around Luna had been removed from the room. She felt it would be good for her concentration.
“One simple spell.” She thought.
She was going to light the room. Nothing too difficult. As she had read, it was only a concentration of basic magic in the horn which power would provide the light source. The second level of the spell was to create a magical orb of light with the basic magic energy. She tried to convince herself she was sure everything was going to be okay. But she was sweating already. Her breath had accelerated. All of her four legs were shaking a little.
She felt like she was just a little filly about to consciously do a big and stupid thing. For a moment, she thought of giving up on her idea. It was the wisest choice. But the idea of going on with her current life, the boredom, the eternal burden of doing something she didn’t like, all that convinced her to stay determined and make the try.
She closed her eyes and the magical energy began to concentrate itself in her horn. Slowly, it grew in power and some light began to be emitted. It felt just so good. Lula, as every unicorn, was born to grow with magic and as every unicorn was naturally having pleasure performing spells. Other unicorns didn’t felt it as much, because they used magic on a daily basis. For Luna, it had been so long that the emotion was overwhelming. All her previous attempt came back to her. Everything she felt before. She was doing magic. And more importantly, for maybe the first time, she felt in control.
One more effort and the light flooded the room. It was truly magnificent. Every corner, every little part of the walls seemed to shine with colors Lula felt she had never seen before. And nothing went wrong. She had to concentrate to maintain the spell, but it held on. No explosion, no problem, nothing but the heartwarming light of her spell. The joy that invaded her is just too much to describe.
She decided to try just a little further. In case anything would go wrong, she could just stop. After all, it was just some light.
She closed her eyes once again and began to forge the orb with the magical energy she had gathered. It was way more difficult than she had imagined it would be, but she could feel the magical energy, she was able to manipulate it. And slowly but surely, an orb was forming itself at the extremity of her horn. It only needed a little more power.
Lula went inside her to find all she had to give. She found more energy she could have even dreamed of. She opened her eyes and it was like the whole room was filled with magical energy floating everywhere in strange patterns. She just had to collect a tiny bit of what was at her disposal to finish the orb. And she did it.
Feeling that the spell was complete, she went one step behind to observe her very own creation. Right in front of her was the magical light orb, floating above the floor. She just couldn’t stop watching it in pride. Nothing had gone wrong. She hoped once again, for the first time since her long past childhood, that she could live her dream. She felt free.
And then, she noticed that her mane was attracted by the orb.
Chapter three: Some paths need you to run
The magic ceased, but the orb stayed. The joy was gone and the fear had taken its place. Lula couldn’t explain why the orb seemed to attract her mane. But she knew it wasn’t supposed to do that. It was also very clear that the attraction of the orb was growing, as she felt the need to place her hooves in a holding position.
She had failed. But it was a different type of failure than before. The other times, her spells just went out of control. There were explosions, fire, crash, but nothing like that attractive orb. She didn’t know what was what she had created, or how to stop it.
As the attraction grew even further, she understood that the orb had become very dangerous. Not only for her, but for everypony. She might be bad with magic, but she was smart enough nonetheless to understand that if nothing stopped the orb, it could become a very destructive force..
So she tried to gather her power to stop it. She did it once, without success. Once again, with the same result. The orb was just too complex for her to influence. She began to panic.
She was afraid because of the danger the orb was putting her into. She was afraid because of the danger the orb was putting everpony else into. She was afraid because of the idea that after such a disaster, nopony would ever let her practice magic ever again. But even more, she felt guilty. She just wasn’t sure of what.
It didn’t matter. She had no time to think about all that. She had to flee. Flee from the orb and flee from the reaction of everypony. She rushed through the door without even closing it. As fast as any pony could have, she went outside and glanced quickly at her house. Some fissures were beginning to appear on the walls and on the roof. Noises began to be heard that were announcing everything but a good time to come.
Lula looked around. Everypony had stopped to watch her house. They didn’t know the danger they were in. Lula thought of warning them. Telling them to run, but it would have meant telling everypony she was the cause of it. And she wasn’t prepared to assume the consequences.
As the roof began to crumble, she fled as fast as she could away from the scene of her failure. Everypony soon followed her example because of the light that was emitted through the crumbling building and the fact that they began to feel something attracting them towards what was left of the house.
Lula was crying. She kept running, because running was the only thing that still made sense to do. It didn’t matter where. In fact, she thought more than once to go back and let the orb suck her up. She just was too afraid to do it.
One last glance behind her finished to terrify her, as a big bowl of light was growing, surpassing the house’s roofs in height. The sounds of buildings torn apart and sucked up were incredibly loud. If hell had a music, it should have been this one.
Lula went back to her flight. She didn’t see what happened thereafter. She learned only a while after that princess Celestia had been able to come in time to stop the orb from destroying the city and that only one pony was counted missing, an accountant whose house seemed to be the heart of the crisis.
Chapter four: Don’t give up
Lula had been able to take a train which was leaving Canterlot. When inside, she finally calmed down and began to consider all what had happened. It was a lot for one pony to accept. She had destroyed her own house, endangered and probably destroyed a part of Canterlot, fled from her responsibility in the accident and to top all of it, she felt at the very same time guilty and no regrets whatsoever. That observation frightened her a lot. She was actually enjoying the thought of what she had done.
Not that she took any pleasure in having jeopardized the lives of others. Lula wasn’t any sort of monster. But somewhere in her mind lied the thought that she had have the right to do what she had done, because it had been the only thing to be done. She wasn’t the one who decided she wouldn’t be able to do magic. She was a unicorn for pony’s sake. She was born to use magic. Destiny had chosen her to be an accountant and even if it turned out very bad in the end, Lula enjoyed the thought that she was just that close to beat her own destiny.
The spell almost worked. She remembered how easier it had been. Something had been completely different as when she was just a filly. Cutie mark or no cutie mark, she had been able to play with the magical energy, to see it and manipulate it. Destiny was unfair and cruel, not Lula. She had never had the intention of hurting anypony. All her life she had no intention to cause any grief to anypony. It was destiny that decided to stop her from reaching her goal. Why should she accept to bow down and ignore what she really wanted? What would she give up on her right to happiness?
One more try. She only needed one more try to succeed.
But the train wasn’t the place to perform magic. She needed a calm spot, where she could concentrate and, most importantly, would be sure not to be interrupted by anypony. If possible, she would like a spot away from civilization. The image of the big orb sucking up the buildings was too much to consider risking jeopardizing the others one more time. But before she could try another time, she would need to study what happened and why it happened. It would be wiser.
Lula then remembered of the existence of the Everfree forest and a little town founded right next to it. It was perfect. Her mind was set and she looked at the scenery by the window with confidence in her future.
Chapter five: Ponyville
Ponyville was everything Lula could have wanted. She could see the Everfree forest not far away and she quickly found out about the existence of a library. As she went inside, the view of all the books about magic just let her speechless. She was sure to find what she needed in there.
“Can I help you?” asked the librarian, a purple unicorn with stars as her cutie marks.
“Uh, yes.” Answered Lula. “Actually, you can. I would like to read some of your books.”
“Oh, really, for real?” Answered the librarian. “You can’t even imagine how hard it is to get somepony to read around here. It’s like they don’t know how much fun it can be. But I fear we don’t have much books about accounting.”
“Accounting?”
Lula didn’t understand immediately. But the look of the librarian over her cutie marks gave her the hint she needed.
“I’m not interesting in accounting!” Lula said, maybe a bit too loudly. “I hate accouting.”
“But your cutie mark…” said the librarian.
“It is NOT an accounting cutie mark.” Answered Lula with some rage in her voice. But she quickly calmed down, understanding it would get her nowhere to make a scene right there. “My special talent is… hum… reading. Yes, that’s it, reading. That’s why I have books as a cutie mark.”
“Really? But there are numbers on your books…”
“Well, it’s to remind me that numbers also need to be read sometimes. That’s all. But my special talent is reading and that’s why I came in this library.”
“Wow” said the librarian. “I never encountered a pony whose special talent was reading. I never imagined it would exist. Oh I envy you so much. I’m quiet the reader myself, but I spent so much time for every book, I just wish I could be faster.”
Lula went on playing the game. After all, the only thing important was to get to the magic books of the library. That’s when she heard the librarian saying:
“By the way, I’m Twilight Sparkle and my special talent is magic. What’s your name?”
Lula froze. Her brain went into a loop, repeating over and over the phrase to try and understand all that was wrong with the statement. Multiple emotion began to flood Lula as she slowly understood what was going on. Jealousy, anger, bitterness, hate and deep respect all at the same time. It was like a cacophony in her mind where no sound would take the lead over the others. She didn’t know how to react.
“Are you alright?” Asked Twilight. “You don’t seem well.”
Lula quickly answered that she was fine. She used the train journey as a pretext for a little time out and began to ask questions about Twilight’s magic. What she learned convinced her that she hadn’t met that strange librarian just by coincidence. It was fate. Lula was looking at Twilight’s cutie mark with envy. What she would have given to exchange it with her own. Even more, just to take it as her own.
The thought frighten her. No, it wasn’t right to think such things. Twilight was good with magic and that was all for the best. Lula would become good too, with time and the cutie mark she was wearing wouldn’t change that. She then heard Twilight say:
“I have something to ask you. As your special talent is reading, I could really use your help here. You see, princess Celestia has asked me to inquire about a certain spell that almost wrecked a part of Canterlot. Luckily, nopony seems to have been hurt, but she wants to make sure to know where it came from. Maybe we could study my books together to see if we find something about it. Would you help me, please?”
Fate. Fate was so cruel and yet so kind. Lula couldn’t have hoped for a better proposition. She accepted and after Twilight explained what the princess had told her, and, by the way, explained why the princess was directly communicating with her, which made Lula even more envious and respectful of her, they both began to read.
Chapter six: One more step into the unknown
The life in Ponyville was great. Lula got to work every day with Twilight in the library, reading books and books and even more books in the search of an answer that seemed to never should come. But it gave Lula the impression to practice magic, because she was studying it. And with such a talented unicorn nonetheless. Twilight and her quickly became very good friends. Twilight introduced Lula, who had given them the pseudonym “Moonlight” to limit the chances of being related to what happened in Canterlot, to her friends in Ponyville. They all were very interesting ponies and Pinkie Pie even gave Lula her very own welcome party. That one was probably the most incredible night Lula ever had in her whole life. Too much fun, too much friendship made Lula almost forget about her goal.
But as time passed, she understood that Twilight would soon cease to search for an answer and pass to something else. And even without that, everyday that was passing saw the danger of Lula being revealed growing. She decided that she couldn’t just wait to understand what had happened back there. She had to make her try, even if it had to be the last thing she would ever do.
One day, at the end of a reading session, Lula asked Twilight:
“Say, Twilight, what was the very first spell you ever practiced?”
Twilight began to try and remember. She had performed so many that she wasn’t sure which one she had begun with. And suddenly, it came back to her.
“Oh, it’s a little special. You see, I used spells when I was a little filly. And I don’t really know what was the very first one I did. But I know I really knew magic was my destiny at the entrance exam of the royal school for gifted unicorns. I had to perform a hatching spell. It was Spike’s egg. After I pulled out that spell, I feel like my relation to magic had changed, that I had really begun to improve. Does that answer your question?”
It did, but not for the best. Lula had hoped for a simpler spell. One she could copy. After all, if Twilight had succeded with a certain type of spell, it was logical to try and take the exact same path as her. But a hatching spell wasn’t easy to pull out. Lula had tried it, and destroyed a lot of eggs in the process, but never successfully done it.
But the hatching spell had one advantage she saw immediately. It was limited in the time. She was afraid that, if she tried another light orb or anything of the same type, she would just recreate the same horror she did back then in Canterlot. Hatching an egg sounded way less dangerous.
“Thanks, Twilight. Thanks for all.”
Twilight looked at her with the look of somepony who doesn’t quite understand what somepony is telling her. It didn’t matter to Lula. She would act that very night. She saluted Twilight and went out of the library. She then went in the direction of the Everfree forest. The forest was full of birds, she was almost certain to find some eggs to hatch there. And nopony could get hurt if she failed again.
She couldn’t see Twilight watching her depart and call to Spike.
“Spike”, she said, “Take a letter.”
Chapter seven: Choose your path, whatever the cost
Lula had lost her way long ago since she entered the Everfree forest. She didn’t mind that much. All that mattered was to perform one single spell and prove her destiny wrong. Even the fact of being in such a dangerous environment didn’t scare her that much. It was frightening and all the shadows were giving the impression there was a cruel wild beast around every tree ready to attack her, but it was a small price to pay in the eyes of the unicorn.
She finally found some eggs. They were very small. All for the best, the spell would only be easier that way. She heard a noise behind her, one more, but saw nothing. She reassured herself by the idea that a wild creature would have already attacked. It was probably nothing. However, she still felt the need to hurry things a little bit.
She was as ready as anypony could be. She knew what she had to do. Concentrate the magical energy around one egg, and then let it penetrate the egg to ensure what was inside would survive. That was a tricky part. And one reason not to practice such spell. But done correctly, the magical energy would be separated between some row energy to break the shell and some alternate form of magic, way more subtle, to let the living being free and ready to live his live. Creating the alternate form of magic probably was the trickiest part. But it clearly wasn’t impossible.
What a filly would have had a lot a difficulty to do, a grown up unicorn could accomplish with enough concentration. So Lula was pretty optimistic.
She closed her eyes and, once again, felt the magic power invading her body. The pleasure came as well. Overwhelming, terribly addictive. She needed time to obtain enough control over the magical energy to begin the spell. The ray touched the egg once, then retracted to her horn. Too soon.
She tried it once again, with more power. And once more, and on more time, again and again, until she eventually succeeded in establishing a link between her and the egg. Then began the process of entering the shell and separating the two form of magical energy. At that moment, the rest of the world ceased to exist for Lula. She could feel every little thing, every perturbation in the magical flux, every part of the egg and even hear the living creature inside. Everything was going way more than just fine. It was like she was only one with the egg. Once again, she knew she just needed a little more power.
She went inside her to find it. She knew what she would find and even so, it was still pretty amazing. With one thought, she developed and entire wave of energy and began to change the way the magical impulses were working. She could literally see it. The energy was changing its pattern and color. Everything was changing. The whole world began to turn around Lula, slowly at the beginning, and then faster and faster until Lula realized her fear had found their reason to exist. She was losing control of the spell.
She instantly tried to cut the link between her and the egg, but the energy refused to obey her command. She felt like she was drained through her own power, like she was being absorbed by the magical link in direction of the egg. And she heard the sound of the living being that had changed. It was something totally different, something dreadful.
She panicked. She felt the living being growing and growling as more and more magical power was put into it. Scared to death by the sound of what was in the egg, Lula tried, in a desperate attempt, to stop fighting and, on the contrary, sending as much energy as she could in one powerful magical blast, even if it meant perishing with it at the same time.
She gathered what energy she had left, and felt like time had stopped. Her life went before her eyes. How she got her cutie mark, how she enjoyed, at first, being an accountant. How she envied all the other unicorns and their magic. How she had to leave her parent’s home, how they said they still loved her even after what had happened. How she jeopardized everypony’s life in Canterlot, and how happy she had been in Ponyville, with Twilight and the others. At that moment, she felt it wasn’t worth it anymore to try and become what she wanted to become. She could find happiness, even if she wasn’t going to live the life she would have wanted.
Still, it was too late for that thought to really matter. She sighed over her life and her mistakes, and then shot with rage at what she had created with her magic, as she would have shot destiny herself if she had been able to.
Another magical ray appeared at the exact same moment, and broke the connection between Lula and the egg which hatched, freeing a big giant monstrous mutated bird. Lula fell on the ground as the bird was taking off and flying away in a direction that Lula ignored being that of Ponyville.
She just heard one voice before she fainted and recognized Twilight.
“Lula, you okay? Lula?”
Lula, thought the so named pony. How does she know my name she asked herself, before all went black.
Chapter eight: When there is no good choice
When Lula came back to her, she was lying against a tree in the frontier of the Everfree forest. She took some time, but finally remembered all what happened. She understood Twilight must have had transported her out of the forest to protect her. But why protect her, she couldn’t even guess, just as she couldn’t guess why Twilight was there in the first place.
She began to move. Her body was intact and most of her strength had come back. She approached Ponyville as discretly as possible, fearing that the monster she had created would have caused some harm to the ponies. She arrived just in time to see a crowd of ponies surrounding the giant mutant bird who was staying quiet as Fluttershy was petting him. Princess Celestia was present and, using her magic, she transformed the mutated creature back into the small bird it was supposed to be in the first place.
Lula was relieved and confused at the same time. Relieved, because everything had ended pretty well. Confused, not because of the presence of the princess, but because of the doubts she had about what she should do at the moment. In her mind, fear, guilt, sadness and joy were battling in a savage and chaotic cacophony. But her heart said only one thing:
“It has to end.”
She wanted it to end. Her madness, all the danger she put the others into. She wanted to make sure she would never succumb once again to her sin. Determined to do what needed to be done, she went into a near building, knowing she would find the tools for her penitence and liberation.
Chapter nine: Just Lula
The crowd of ponies surrounding princess Celestia and Twilight was overjoyed to have been saved from the giant bird. But both the princess and Twilight knew one more thing had to be taken care of. The others were pressing Twilight with questions, but all they received as answer was to go and seek for Moonlight, alias Lula. They didn’t quite understand. Why Moonlight, or Lula, had two names and why they had to go seek her in the first place. But even before Twilight convinced them to go, Lula appeared, slowly approaching the ponies.
“I’m here” she said, “I know you must be angry for what I did. I’m sorry. I can’t change the past, but I can assure you it won’t ever happen again in the future.”
At that moment, all the ponies let escape a sound of disgust and horror. And rightfully so. Even the princess couldn’t hold how horrified she was by what she was seing.
Lula’s head was covered in blood and her horn had almost completely disappeared from her front, wouldn’t it be for the basis of the horn which was still there. Lula had found the tools and cut her horn, making sure she wouldn’t be able to practice magic ever again.
“Why…” Twilight tried to begin to say, but sadness stopped her a moment. “Why did you do that?” She asked.
“I had to, for you, for all of you. I’m so sorry.” Said Lula. “I just wanted to be happy, but I put all of you in danger. Happiness isn’t worth of your safety. I prefer to be Lula, just Lula.”
Twilight, not knowing exactly what to do, just grabbed Lula and hugged her as hard as she could while letting all her tears pour. Not understanding what was going on, but feeling sorry for the hornless unicorn, the other ponies also came to comfort her. In the back, princess Celestia kept her distance, knowing it was best to let the ponies handle it, but couldn’t hold back her own tears.
Chapter ten: Some last word
The story of Lula the unicorn may not provide with all the answers that could be expected, so it seems correct to quickly add that, after some time had passed, Twilight explained that she had made the connection between Lula and the accident in Canterlot a few days after her arrival in town and that the princess had asked her to watch over Lula to try to understand what was really going on and, if possible, help her in case she would need it. That’s what Lula didn’t know. That everypony who asks for help in Equestria will get it, no matter if the help is deserved or not. No matter the mistakes and no matter the difficulty.
But more importantly, It seems important to add that the author cannot in any way caution Lula’s final act as a valid resolution solution. The act was desperate, foolish and, in that perspective, the story almost couldn’t have ended worse than it did, even if, in the very end, they all found a way to find happiness in their lives.
But the author must recognize, at his own disgust, that Lula had, at least, the right to choose her own path, which she did to the very end. It might be good to notice that Lula became an editor, because a big part of her job was about reading stories. She never went back to accounting.
But if there is a moral in here, the author fails to see it.
That was the story of Lula the unicorn, how she tried to fight an unfair destiny, how she succeeded and failed and how it ended for the better or the worse.
THE END.
Author's Note
*found the option
Love that story. Badly written, maybe, but it's about a subject that I like. The idea is simple:
* I'm good at something I dislike
* I'm very bad at what I would like to do
Well, of course it's a real story. I just made the consquences bigger. And I'm not a mare. Obviously.
