~^~"As you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you...."~^~
~^~
~^~When you stare into the mirror, do you like what stares back?~^~
Sweetie Belle sat morosely outside the palace chambers awaiting her turn in court. The filly started to sing a tune in her head but stopped when a flash of emotional pain tore through her like a shard of plate glass through a ponies throat. Reaching up, Sweetie felt along the thick ropy scar that led from one side of her throat to the other.
The doctors had said it was a miracle.
A miracle it had missed her arteries.
A miracle she hadn't suffocated.
Looking down at her cutie mark, a song note for a singer, she wasn't as thrilled as the doctors had been. The accident with the crusaders had sent her through a window, and the window through her. The result was a filly with a talent for singing, but with no voice for said talent to shine.
Tears were just beginning to build in her eyes when the doors opened to the throne room and the 'Upper Echelon' Canterlot stallion stepped out, meaning it was Sweetie's turn. The filly wiped away any moisture from her eyes as she stepped inside.
Surely if anypony could help her it would be an alicorn!
~^~^~^~
"Girls, I know I told you I'd stick with the both of you until you got your own cutie marks, but I don't think Cutie Mark Crusader Wagon Chase Scene Stunt Doubles is such a good idea..." Sweetie Belle worried as she started thinking of the many ways something like that could go wrong.
Scootaloo just shrugged and pushed Apple Bloom and Sweetie up into the cart before strapping her scooter to the front and taking off.
How were they supposed to know that the wagon had a loose wheel?
~^~^~^~
Celestia worked and reworked the assessments of the damage to the filly's throat, vocal chords and trachea multiple times, but kept coming back with the same conclusion. For all her power, for all her abilities, there was nothing she could do...
With a sad look the Celestia explained the problem to Sweetie Belle and the child just nodded, staring blankly, before turning and walking out.
Celestia would have felt better had she atleast cried. That would have meant the filly had atleast had hope.
~^~^~^~
The wagon wobbled and tumbled to the side as one of it's two wheels flew loose. The wagon dropped to the side and flipped, the resulting motion sending Sweetie Belle hurtling towards a nearby store window.
The filly heard a crash.
Felt a stinging burn.
Couldn't breathe.
Couldn't breathe!
Everything went black.
~^~^~^~
Sweetie Belle hadn't even bothered for home, hay, she hadn't bothered to let anypony know she left. If anypony gained from her pain and suffering it was her sister. Sweetie had alsways wanted to be like her sister, so she asked questions, and then Rarity would get mad. After the accident Sweetie swore her sister's productivity shot up, meaning that without a filly to bother her she was doing much better.
Sweetie didn't know whether to be sad or happy at that.
The filly was only shaken from her thoughts when she bumped into something.
~^~^~^~
Sweetie awoke slowly with a feeling of pressure on her throat. She saw there was a drink on the bedstand next to her, but still hadn't figured her surroundings yet. Faintly she icked up the tune of a song she knew and loved and began to sing it...only she couldn't!
Try after try after try Sweetie Belle attempted to sing, or scream, or laugh, or wail, but no noise would come from her throat save the sound of her breathing.
Sweetie was mute!
~^~^~^~
Sweetie landed on her rump with a muted thump and quickly looked up to see none other than Prince Blueblood glaring at her angrily.
"Ugh, a commoner! Filthy beast, you will apologize for sullying my hooves with your....Ugh....presence."
Sweetie just sat there, trying to figure out what to do next.
"Foal, I said apologize!" Blueblood roared, his anger enough to shock Sweetie into movement. The filly gestured up to her throat with a hoof, but Blueblood, arrogant as he was, took it as the filly flipping him the bird!
"Insolent trollop!"
*Smack*
Sweetie's eyes filled with tears as her cheek almost immediately began to sting painfully.
"Now, mayhaps that knocked some proper etiquette into your feeble commoner mind. Apologize!" Blueblood sneered again.
When Sweetie began to back away fearfully, unsure of how to deal with the situation Blueblood knocked her over onto her back and stomped a hoof down on her chest alighting the filly's nerves with pain.
"Insolent little brat, what is..." Blueblood trailed off as his eyes took note of the hairless ropey scar that went across the white fillies throat, and immediately a whole new emotion filled his body. "Ugh! By the stars in Luna's sky, what is that hideous thing on your neck?! No wonder you're running around without family, I'll bet they're happy to not have you around!"
Blueblood then kicked the filly away from him and turned to leave.
~^~^~^~
Sweetie Belle wanted to melt into the floor and cry. Her cheek hurt, and her chest hurt, and her side hurt. Her entire being was racked with pain, both physical and emotional. And it was all is fault.
Not hers.
Why couldn't they just try to be nice to her, to smile when she walked in?
Why couldn't they talk around her, rather than stare at her as if she was plagued?
Why couldn't they just be nice?
'Why don't they just love me?!' the filly screamed in her head as anguish, sorrow and pain filled her mind. In a fit of uncontrolled magic, the filly lifted a full size mirror and hurled it after the retreating form of Blueblood, where it slammed into a wall not two feet from him.
Sweetie froze.
Blueblood froze.
"Guards! Guards, come quickly, I have been assaulted!" Blueblood screamed suddenly.
Now filled with fear, Sweetie tried to get up and run, but her rapidly bruising ribs hampered her movements and she fell back down. As her breathing laboured in pain, as every breath shot lances of agony through her chest, the guards Blueblood had called surrounded her, Sweetie just wept.
*Swfft* *Thud*
"What, oh Celestia! Gale!"
*Swfft* *Swfft*
"Fallback, get the wounded to safety! Run!"
Still with her eyes closed in pain, Sweetie Belle didn't bother looking up once until a hoof patted her comfortingly on the back. Opening her eyes slowly, the first thing she noted was a speckling of blood on the floor before her, but that wasn't what drew her attention the most.
Instead Sweetie found her eyes drawn to a colt just a little bigger than herself smiling at her.
"They are gone, I chased them away."
'I need to thank him somehow, I was so scared!'
The colt just wrapped Sweetie in a loose hug before pulling away.
"No thanks are needed Sweetie Belle. I am just happy that you are safe."
Sweetie did a double take.
'Did he just hear my thoughts!?'
"Yes, and I think your voice sounds beautiful. My name is...um... its....well, I don't have a name at the moment, but I'm here to be your friend for as long as you want me!" the colt grinned. It wasn't until now that Sweetie got a good look at 'him'.
The colt had a metallic look to his pristine silvery coat that Sweetie swore was reflecting light, and on the note of reflections, he also had wings that were made up of shards or mirror held together with constant flowing magic. There was also a mirror shard, broken and edged, protruding from his forehead like an alicorns horn.
'What happened to you?!'
The colt winced slightly and lowered his gaze.
"You...don't like me?"
Sweetie floundered for a moment before taking into account that despite the odd look of the colt, he was actually very very cute.
And blushing.
"I can hear what your thinking....thank you though!"
This time it was Sweetie's turn to blush furiously as she mentally berated herself only to have the soft fur of the colt's cheek brush against the side of her neck comfortingly.
"It's ok Sweetie. I'm here because I'm going to be your new friend, and nothing you say or do will ever change that!" the colt beamed as Sweetie began to feel a lot less self concious.
'So, you said you didn't have a name?' Sweetie asked.
The colt just shook his head, light reflecting in a beautiful pattern off of his mane coat and horn. That's Sweetie noticed it. In the Colt's mane, which was style like a wide set mohawk pulled back into a ponytail, there were a few braids with different coloured shards of mirror in them.
'What about Shard? That isn't a bad name, is it?' the filly offered in earnest.
The newly dubbed Shard just grinned widely. "That sounds like a wonderful name. Thank you Sweetie Belle!"
Sweetie just smiled in return, happy that he was happy, which in turn was because she was happy. Sweetie just had one final thing to ask.
'Umm, where did you come from Shard?'
~^~^~^~
"-and I'm sure she is still roaming the castle at best and at worst, sadly, crying somewhere. I am truly sorry Rarity, I know how much she means to you, and how much a cutie mark can mean to a pony." Celestia sighed as she led Rarity through the castle.
Rarity had actually showed up just under half an hour ago after Twilight tracked her to the castle. The unicorn had promised to bring her sister here to see if Celestia could help once the weekend came, but Rarity hadn't been surprised to find that the filly had left out on her own early.
"I just feel dreadful though. I'm terrible with stress, so I threw myself into my work, but I piled my workload too high and got more stressed, then started working harder, and the poor dear must have thought I was absolutely ignoring her!"
Celestia was just starting to comfort the mare when she opened the door to the next room to find the remains of an acient mirror shattered before the door and two foals inside. As the Princess focused harder, she realized that one was not a true foal, but one of the sgàthan, an old Coltic spirit being.
The sgàthan were created by a very isolated village who'd had nothing but fillies for two years straight. Fearing the worst, that they would all die out, one of the mares, a mother who was dying, cried out to the gods for aide. This aide came in the form of the sgàthan. There would come through the mirrors and become the perfect match for whomever they were summoned for, being Caretakers when their charge need it, brothers or sisters or just best friends when the time called, and mates as their charges grew older. In return the sgàthan gained mortal life and happiness as well as the ability to die and move on to the Summerlands.
The that had resided in the now shattered mirror had been the last of its kind.
But two words slipped from her mouth.
"The mirror!"
Just then a score of guards began to gather behind the Solar Diarch. One of the older soldiers pushed his way through to the alicorns side before narrowing his eyes grimly at the 'colt' that sat in the room with the filly staring at them.
"That's the pair of criminals! Arrest them!"
~^~^~^~
Shard could garner almost nothing from his new and only friend's mind as the guard charged in and leveled a spear at them. There was nothing decipherable, nothing that made sense, just an all encompassing sense of fear...
They were scaring Sweetie Belle! They must have been a threat!
Determination filled Shard as he sent a piece of mirror straight at the first guard, slicing deep into the stallion's jugular and sending him crumpling to the ground. Immediately the other guards rushed forward and Shard cut them all done until he began to grow tired. Then he did the only thing he could. Grabbing Sweetie Belle, the colt smashed through the nearest window and flew away.
~^~^~^~
After hours of trying, Celestia had just managed to calm Rarity down and explain to her what the 'colt' in the room was and it's origins.
"You can't possibly mean Sweetie told it to kill-"
The Solar alicorn put a hoof up for silence.
"I have no doubt that Sweetie did not ask it to kill, but the filly was clearly scared out of her wits, which the sgàthan took as a cue to eliminate all threats to his new friend."
This did little to calm the unicorn.
"Well we need to go save Sweetie Belle! That killer has her and could hurt her next!"
Again Celestia silenced the mare.
"Rarity, I understand your concern, truly I do, but I cannot. The sgàthan has flown away with no way to track it, and even if we could, you saw what it did to those guards. We will have to wait for Sweetie to return on her own."
Rarity did see what happened to the guards, and bile rose up in her throat at the thought of it.
~^~^~^~
Sweetie Belle had slowly drifted away into slumber as Shard flew through the skies upside down, allowing him to secure the slumbering filly that he knew he had to protect. As Shard continued his flight different things began to flash through his mind, scenes of his friend's life that were playing more prominently in her head and leaking into his.
Shard saw Sweetie's Sisterhooves Social with her Sister, then the joy as Sweetie discovered her one true special talent, and the pain when cruel fate and jagged glass stole it from her. Pain as the filly endured torment at the hooves of two horrible fillies, and sorrow as everypony she knew began to drift away from her.
Shard say everything he'd need to know to be the best thing Sweetie needed when she needed it.
~^~^~^~
Eyes fluttering slightly, Sweetie Belle slowly began to awaken from her slumber, memories of the day prior flashing through her mind almost instantaneously. What she also immediately realized was that Shard was holding her close to him as he slept. It didn't embarrass or bother Sweetie though, as it reminded her of how her sister used to hold her when she had nightmares. Snuggling into Shard's chest further, Sweetie began to replay everything from the day before from start to finish, barring no detail.
And it didn't worry her...
Shard had killed ponies, and now laid next to her, holding her near so she wouldn't worry, and she wasn't scared.
Those guards had sided with Blueblood, and that stupid prince had hurt her, and then treated her terribly and said horrible things! They were no better than he was, but Shard stopped them, and Shard protected her! When everypony else she'd known forgot about her or stopped caring, he showed up just to take care of her, and the feeling sent waves of warmth through her body. Squirming around, Sweetie Belle turned to face the colt as they laid on there sides. With a content sigh, the filly wrapped her hooves around him, carefully avoiding his shattered shard wings and tucked her head into the crook of his neck, falling into slumber again.
~^~^~^~
Shard woke up still feeling Sweetie Belle in his hooves, which immediately comforted him. But something was different. Giving himself a minute to wake up all the way, he found that at some point the filly had turned about and hugged him back, tucking her head in under his. Smiling at the fact that the filly had found comfort, Shard laid awake waiting for Sweetie to arise, not wishing to disturb her.
Turns out the colt didn't have to wait long because Sweetie started shifting about not long after he awoke. The first thing she did was nuzzle deeper against the colt's neck, causing him to giggle a bit due to a ticklish spot she'd found. The second thing she did was pull back, mentally note that Shard was cute, blush about how they were laying, then blush harder when she remembered that he could read her mind, then felt really stupid.
Shard took in each thought and feeling before smiling warmly at the filly.
"Sweetie, you don't have to worry about anything. I'm here to be whatever you need me to be. If you need a friend, I'm here, or a brother, or a crying shoulder..."
Shard stopped for a moment before nuzzling against Sweetie's cheek for a moment.
"...and yes, even that. Like I said , I am here for you, and only for you."
Sweetie started to get up and Shard was doing the same.
'I should probably go back to Ponyville. Not to stay, but I wouldn't mind getting a couple of things.' the filly noted.
Shard smiled and nodded.
"That will be fine, but what will you do then?"
Sweetie just shrugged, nonchalantly thinking of the thousands of towns they could visit.
'We could go anywhere, and I might even find ponies that don't care that I can't talk! We should probably avoid Canterlot though. I don't think you'll be welcomed there too well.'
The two sat pensively for a long time, bouncing ideas off of each other they finally settled for Appleloosa and then headed for Ponyville.
~^~^~^~
Sweetie Belle and Shard landed just outside the Boutique, quickly realizing that Rarity hadn't returned from Canterlot when they found the door locked. Not worried in the slightest, Shard took a piece of glass braided in his mane and inserted it into the key slot, quickly managing to pick the lock. Thought how he did it, he had no idea, but Sweetie needed him to do it so he did.
Once inside Sweetie packed a small bag of personal items before leaving a note telling Rarity not to worry. Once that was done, she met back up with Shard downstairs with a second note in her mouth.
'We need to go to my old clubhouse. I want to at least leave a note for my old friends.'
"Sounds good to me!" smiled Shard as the two set out through Ponyville.
As they went Sweetie recounted numerous tales of her exploits with the crusaders as well as the exploits of the Elements of Harmony. As they continued, Sweetie realized that they were being followed.
'Oh great. Why do those two have to be here?'
Noting Sweetie's question
