My Little Poem

Chapters

Sleepy, Rainy Poems and Sunburst Graduations
Parenthood and Fires to the Brain
Thoughtful Dreams and Painful Day—Mares
Healing a Heart to Uncover Truth
An Intruder Exposed by Bickering
Heaven Sang, and I Fell Apart
Prologue

Sleepy, Rainy Poems and Sunburst Graduations

I was asleep. I knew this. I dreamed, and I was aware of the dream. In the dream, I was standing in that Nightmare-damned room from eight years ago. The whirring of the ventilation motor was the only sound as I looked through that giant window that overlooked the containment ward, my heart dead, no longer alive.

I stared through the window at the four corpses. They lay in their hospital beds, all the restraints designed to lessen their agony now limp, no longer pulled taut. Their faces showed the serenity of that final sleep that had evaded them due to that terrible disease, their eyes closed, their heads limp. Their bodies still showed the scars from the straps designed in the vain hope of keeping them in their beds. The straps were a last-ditch effort to give them peace.

The straps didn't work. They just fought them, which tired them out even more than before. At least, that is what the doctors had told me.

They fought that disease to the last. They fought it because I told them to fight it. I had hoped that a cure was near. I had hoped that they could at least tell me what it was I needed to do next, about the child Baby Doll, about my… encounter, with Venusia, about my own life.

They had died two days ago. I had reappeared after a month-long disappearance yesterday. They had left me nothing. No instructions, and I doubted that their will would make my life easier or give me direction. I couldn't even touch their corpses as a way to pay my final respects. They had to be cremated because of the disease that killed them.

Venusia had to have made this happen. She must have timed it this way. There was no other explanation. A month-long tortuous ordeal had ended simply because she must have wanted me to suffer in a new way. She must have known that my guilt would crush my soul, since I wouldn't be there to be with my parents and Baby's parents the night they slipped away. I wasn’t there for them because of her. How in all the Nine Hells did I think that Venusia was not evil?! She, she fucking—

“Um… sir?” I did not look to the side; I knew that the lawyer was there.

I could see my face in the reflection of the window glass. My face was flush with emotion, primarily sadness, with hints of depression and fear. This was strange, because I felt nothing. I thought I had the complexion of a robot, not of a grieving loved one. I didn’t understand this strange disconnect I felt, even though I wanted to understand it.

I turned to face the lawyer. He used his magic to crack open a file in front of him, although his eyes stayed on me.

“It is time to read the final Will and Testament of your parents, Lilywhite and Lickety Split,” the lawyer said. “However, their will is a little strange; it is a joint will not just with them, but with Ms. Doll’s parents as well, Shutter Snap and Sassafras.”

They were close, I thought. This is surprising, but not by much.

The lawyer motioned to the hallway. I turned on my heels and walked out the room, away from the room that overlooked the four corpses. I felt nothing, yet I could see tears dripping from my face to the hospital tiles below.

I crossed the threshold, and found myself walking through my bedroom door, one year after the death of my parents. I was unable to sleep that night because of some reason that escaped my memory. I hadn't slept for the past week, my mind was frazzled and upset for reasons I couldn't remember, and I just wanted to drink some milk and eat some cookies… if I could find any. I wasn't above baking cookies just so I could eat them by myself. I was that desperate for a midnight snack. I had a dim hope that it would settle me down and lull me to sleep.

I knew I was still dreaming, but I could not determine why these events of my life were now being brought to my attention. If I remembered this dream, then I might wonder about it later, but for now my mind observed things as they unfolded in my dream-state.

As I walked to the kitchen, I heard a knock at the door to my house. It was well past midnight. I was surprised I even heard it, especially given my near-manic status. By the time I got to the door, I heard a foal bawling its heart out.

I froze.

How long has it been since Venusia, well, did what she did? A year! W-what if she’s here? What could she want? Could she really have a foal, would the foal be mine? Why now?! Why would she even—

A green glow appeared beneath the crack of the door. My thoughts took a more dramatic turn: C-could she… hurt a foal? Maybe her own?

I sighed, knowing the answer to that. I rushed to the door, closed my eyes, opened it, grabbed whatever was on the doorstep, tossed it inside, and slammed the door shut.

When I opened my eyes again, I was laid out on the couch in the foyer. The book in front of me was about the origins of the sonnet. Heartbreak often motivated art… except it never motivated my art. Why was I reading this book again?

“Panty, I want to change my name,” Baby Doll told me. I glanced up, to find her about four years younger than how I knew her today. I was still aware that I was dreaming this, and that this wasn't real, but a vision of how things had happened in the past.

It took a second for the request from her to register in my head. I nodded and said, “Alright, I guess we can go down to City Hall tomorrow and get the paperwork all sorted out.”

“I thought you’d say no,” she said. She walked up to where I sat on the couch, and put her face right in front of my own, jerking my head away from the book I was reading.

“Why would I say no? It’s your name, not mine,” I said, trying to gently push her head away so I could continue reading. She persisted, forcing me to sit up and look her in the eye.

“You said that my name reminded you of my parents.”

I had to think about that statement. Did I say that? When, where? Under what context? My confusion must have been apparent on my face, because Baby’s face scrunched in annoyance at my reaction.

She face-hoofed. “You’re hopeless sometimes,” She said as she shook her head.

I sighed, not sure if I should be relieved or worried at her words. “Well… at least I’m trying to move on now.”

“Taking a walk around town is hardly what I would call ‘moving on’,” she said, as she waved one hoof in the air to emphasize her sarcastic quote.

“It’s better than nothing.”

“It’s stupid compared to what I did.”

I rolled my eyes. “You got selected by that agent, which kick-started your modeling career. The stars aligned and made you a star.”

“The same thing happened to you yesterday.”

“The Principals of the School of Rhythmics are a bunch of well-meaning, very talented ego-strokers. I’d rather be in the thick of the world doing something with my writing ability.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And that is lazing around the house reading books?”

“It’s research.” I don’t know why I said that, but it seemed plausible enough.

“It’s laziness.” Her expression became serious. “You could go out for another walk while I change my name to Barbara.”

“Don’t you have a modeling career you need to get to?” I wanted to end this conversation before we started to accuse each other—

“Shouldn’t you be a better husband?”

Everything inside of me tensed. I stared at her with every mean emotion that I had bottled up over the years. Her eyes widened with shock when she realized what she said.

She stammered, as she backed away: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean, I know you don’t like talking about what was in the will—”

“Shut. Up.”

I stormed out of the room, making sure not to touch Baby or go near her. It wasn’t her fault. She was an eight-year-old filly at the time her parents and my parents died, and that damned joint Will and Testament lumped us together in an arranged marriage. Forget that I was sixteen at the time, it was wrong and stupid for our parents to even entertain that notion.

I slammed the door to our house behind me, fuming, angry as hell for reasons I sort of remembered. I made it to the front gate before I started to sob.

Baby and I had every option to say “no” to the arranged marriage. Baby wanted to do it, because she thought it was the best way to respect our dead parents’ wishes. I didn’t want to make her cry. I didn’t want to leave her alone to face Celestia-knows-what. Then again, I didn’t have to marry her, I could have adopted her, it would have been easier, why didn’t I just... I wish I had changed my decision.

It had been three years since the day I had come back. We spoke to each other, but we didn't touch each other. I made it clear that I did not like our situation and wanted to change it, but she kept refusing to let go. And now she wanted to change her name. Fine by me. The only thing I would have wanted from her is a divorce, but that can only happen once she has reached the Age of Maturity, sixteen. The law’s the law. She has to be old enough to make her own decisions before I kick her out of my life.

I have to be fair, even though life is never fair.

I collapsed by ground before the front gate, crying my heart out at the injustice and stupidity of both myself and everything in this world. I hated my dead parents, I hated my arranged marriage, I hated my child, my life, everything. It all went to Tartarus, and I felt like the remaining pieces fell through my hooves, like sand through an hourglass.

“Pantrostic….”

I turned back around to the house. Baby—no, Barbara—stood there. Her mane hid her face, which was quite the feat considering how short it was.

I couldn't look away from Baby—no, Barbara—Use the name she wanted, for Celestia's sake! She grew up in front of my eyes into a beautiful mare. All of a sudden, I could feel an urge to have her in a way I never expected.

Then, she changed. Her Pegasus wings shrank and a Unicorn horn sprouted from her head, all while her coat and tail had their colors washed away. I still could not look away as she transformed into a mare who haunted my nightmares and daydreams. I could feel my entire body shake as I tried to pull back from this monstrous mutation. Her hair parted, to reveal her face morphing from worried normalcy to manic insanity, her blue eyes transforming into a fearsome brown, a green fleck in the bottom right corner.

“Come to me… I can make everything better again….” That voice was not Barbara's. It was a pony's voice that I never wanted to hear again.

Venusia, having finished her transformation, lunged at me—

*PLOP*

GAAH! I brushed the water droplet off my face, as the dream melted away into the silent reality of my room. My movement sent my bedraggled mane every—which—way, including into my eyes.

I opened them a little, and saw that I had curled around my two pillows. Again. Damn that nightmare, it always hurts to wake up from—

Another drop of water slapped my eye, which made my face twitch in annoyance. I turned over, and looked up at the leaky ceiling, another reminder of my failure to maintain the family home. As if I needed reminders; there were days when my guilt would run through my comically long Checklist of Shortcomings. Those were also the days where I would be so depressed, I wouldn't get out of bed without some outside influence, usually Barbara.

I wish Barbara was here. I had to be alone for so long, even though we were married. Under the same roof, with the same person that I love with all my heart, and I have to keep my distance. Anyone else would have run. There were times when I wish I did run. It was just the right thing to do, to let her grow up so her body would be ready for, well, the acts that came with being a wife.

Another drop of murky rainwater landed on my pillow. A sudden thought came to me: Wait! That could make for a great poem!

I rushed over to my notebook, which I had put by my bed out of habit. Glad I bought that waterproof paper! I thought to myself as I pulled out my waterproof pencil. I love it whenever I get my rump in gear and actually prepare!

I levitated the pencil to the paper and began to write:

Sky
Heavy, Raining
Rooftop, Tumbling, Sliding
Crack, Insulation, Dust, Animals,
Ooze, Dirty, Dripping,
Pooling, Falling,
Face

I put the pencil down, my body already tired from the effort to maintain the simple levitation spell. Stupid allergies, messing with my magic—I sneezed, snot spraying onto the paper— gonna have to go to Nurse Care Stare for another tablet of Pollenborne, but what about what I just wrote? I took a good look at my little poem.

...huh, a few too many words that sound the same, but it gets its point across. I dunno, it needs to be more like the middle line. Let’s see now, how could I inject some needed word variety in a revision....

I tore the page out of my notebook, letting it float to the floor along with the stacks of other failed literary works. Why the hell do I do that? I mused. I always lose my drafts that way.

I tried to lift up my pencil again with my magic. It jumped a little, but settled back onto the bedside. I tried again; the pencil didn't even twitch. Hell, it didn't even glow to indicate that it was the target of my spell.

....

DAMN ALLERGIES!

My temper began to swell as I picked up the pencil in my mouth. I struggled with getting the stupid piece of lead and wood to make contact with the journal in my lap. I finally managed to touch down by hunching over, which made me cramped as well as angry. I was pretty sure that my stomach hated me right then.

I took as deep a breath as I could, and began to scribble:

Sky
Condensed, Heavy
Falling, Tumbling, Rooftop,
Crack, Insulation, Dust, Animals,
Ooze, Dirt, Pooling,
Hole, Dripping,
Face

I straightened up, my back feeling stiff like my sinuses, and my sinuses sore from another sudden sneeze which ejected the pencil into a dark corner and made me feel so gummed up in my throat and mouth that I just threw the stupid journal against my window, which cracked as the spine made contact with the old and yellowing glass.

My guilt shot through me once again; How could you do that?! it shouted. This place is at least several centuries older than you, how could you disrespect that? What would your Ancestors say, you ugly son-of-a-mule!

I turned around and brought the edge of my blanket to my face, trying to sleep despite the emotional anguish that I knew was about to trigger in my head-space; just part of the routine of being pathetic me. Thankfully, my ego began to spin out of its mental orbit, and the distraction it gave my mind was enough for it to realize how late it was and how tired I felt. I closed my eyes and let my inner child whine like the little jerk it was:

I gotta get some sleep! Being the Poet Laureate for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns means I’ve got to recite that one poem of mine tomorrow for the after-graduation show, even though that poem was written when I was seven years old and I think it's the most embarrassing thing in the world but ehh, whatever, if people like it, people like it. Certainly wasn't my fault it won that poetry contest and turned the Foal Writer's scene upside down because nobody expected a foal to write something that complicated, but now I'm just tired and rambling and muttering and Oh come on just shut up and shut down....

My body let out a yawn as I shifted myself again, using my movement to heat up both the rickety bed and the blanket. It wasn't much, but it was better than a cold bed. I fancied the squeaking would make ponies think dirty thoughts, if there were other ponies in the adjacent rooms of this nearly empty and derelict house. It helped keep me warm when the cold of the storm outside could just waltz in from the spaces where the roof toyed with the wall. I closed my eyes and... just...

Relaxed….

...........

I woke up with a bloody nose as the early morning sunlight penetrated my eyelids and triggered the biological alarm clock everyone has to some degree or another. I lunged out of bed, grabbed my fanciest clothes including my favorite red vest, and charged into the bathroom, knowing that I could have overslept.

I couldn't do that. Not today. Today was the Ceremony. I had to be at school, on time, for once in my life.

Right as I entered the bathroom, I sneezed, spraying blood all over the sink. I realized, to my horror, that the spray had hit my red vest as well. I dropped the clothes on the floor and rushed to get some tissue into my nose before another sneeze would ruin this morning more than it was already ruined.

I felt relieved when my nose was plugged and the blood flow had stopped. I washed away the blood from the sink and my face, double-checking my appearance in the mirror as I did so.

My dark-green coat needed a serious brushing, which I figured I would not have time for. My purple mane was worse. I had no idea why Barbara wanted to put bleached speckles into it, but it made an already disheveled mane look even messier. A part of me didn't want to forgive her, when another part of me knew that I would.

Come to think of it, where is she?

I slipped all my clothes on, and double-checked the appearance of my favorite red vest. Thankfully, the red velvet had not changed color although its front had been hit by the blood spray. I sighed, a little relieved, but then I realized that although it didn’t stain the color, it still matted down the fabric, making it as visible as if I had spilled water on it.

Kill me with Celestia’s forehooves! Of all the days to look like I was careless with a glass of water!

I pushed my pessimism thunder-crashing against my emotional state out of my mind when I thought of the time. I made a mad dash for the door, grabbing my backpack from the couch. I blasted out the door, nearly tripping over my own hooves as I pivoted back around to lock the door. After much panicked fumbling, I finally managed to get the stupid key in the stupid lock and get it turned in the correct direction.

I hurdled my way over the gate and barely managed to keep myself from spilling into the street. I dashed to the bus stop as fast as I could, praying to Celestia that the bus hasn’t gotten there yet.

The next thing I saw was an elderly mare on a walker, right in the middle of the sidewalk. There was no easy way around her, with a wall to the left and the road to the right. I was moving too fast to stop. I couldn’t just plow through her. I didn’t want to hurt her.

I grit my teeth, and tried to dash into the road, despite how busy the traffic was. My rear hoof caught a piece of cobblestone that happened to jut at just the wrong angle, which caused me to trip and fall head over heels. I careened right into her walker, and sent it flying after my legs got tangled up in it.

I came to a stop a few feet away, everything sore from the trip and the fall. I managed to pull myself upright, and found myself looking away from the elderly mare. I found where her walker was, and walked over to it. Once I picked it up with one foreleg, I looked back and nearly had a heart attack.

The elderly mare had collapsed on the ground, right where I had barely managed to avoid her at the cost of her walker. I dashed over to her, every possible worry running through my mind. I brought the walker to her, and knelt down by her face.

“Ma’am, I’m so sorry, are you alright?!” I could hear the panic in my voice.

The elderly mare looked up and glared daggers at me.

“Watch where you’re going, you dumb colt!” she spat at me. She didn’t move though.

I brought the walker to the front of her, and got right by her side. “Here, let me help you back up to—”

“Get your hooves off me, jackass!” she yelled at me.

I ignored her, grabbed her gently about her midsection, and heaved her upright. She put her hooves on her walker, which allowed me to let her go and adjust the walker’s position. When she lightly slapped my hooves away, I backed away, and let her stand.

She was breathing hard, but she didn’t look hurt, just a little disheveled. She glared at me, but she didn’t wince or look like she had been seriously smacked. In short, she was okay, which prompted a sigh of relief from me.

“Ma’am, I am so sorry for that,” I said, raising my hoof in apology. “If there’s anything I can do for you, just—”

She knocked my hoof away. “Go away, you crazy stallion! Go give someone else a heart attack!” she shouted at me. She looked away, ending the conversation before I could even try to complete my apology.

I then remembered the bus stop, and turned back around. I broke out into another run, although I was slower and more deliberate this time, partly because I didn’t want to repeat that disaster with the old mare. I still ached a bit from the fall I took.

When I got to the bus stop, Barbara was there. She wore a no-nonsense cloak-and-blouse combo that complemented her bright green coat and feathers. Her mane and tail, on the other hand, was a near-offensive neon pink. How many dye jobs did she subject the poor strands to? I thought as I rushed across the sidewalk.

“That tissue is bad for your nose, you know,” she said when I just about collapsed in a heap next to her. “It stops the blood but makes things worse with your hay fever.”

Stupid, stupid, she’s right! As if on cue, a sneeze welled up in the now-plugged nostril. My sinuses felt like they were on fire as my body heaved, trying to eject the wadded-up tree pulp-turned-fabric that was the only thing preventing the sidewalk from becoming a monochromatic fractal painting.

As it built in intensity, I decided to try the only thing I could think of: I let it all out through my mouth.

“AAAAACBBBHHBHBHHHBPPPHHBHHOOOO!”

Everyone on the street heard my outburst. By Sweet Celestia, I was embarrassed. What was worse was that my body realized that I was trying to manipulate it and decided to punish me by reloading my protesting throat for several more heaves:

“AAAAACBBBHHBHBHHHBPPPHHBHHOOOO!”
“AAAAACBBBHHBHBHHHBPPPHHBHHOOOO!”
“AAAAACBBBHHBHBHHHBPPPHHBHHOOOO!”
“AAAAACBBBHHBHBHHHBPPPHHBHHOOOO!”

“Here,” I heard Barbara say, “use this to hold that thing in your nose, and to keep the bleeding down.”

She pulled out her white handkerchief from her purse with her mouth. I grabbed it between my hooves and quickly relieved my eviscerated nostril with it. I used one side to wipe as much of the blood away as I could, and plunked the cleaner side against my poor bleeding-but-now-grateful snout.

The bus finally came, pulled by a team of ponies that looked like they didn’t care. They had no qualms about spreading the exploits they saw while off break, though. I should know; I went among them for a month for a school project. Lots of interesting stories came as a result.

I rode next to Barbara, who was strangely silent, down the road to Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. I guess I could make a few couplets about the soaring architecture of the place, which was crafted specifically to Princess Celestia’s directions, although a poem of a famous landmark is SUCH a cliche, but I digress.

I thought about poor Barbara. I looked at her with the saddest face I had.

“I’mm sorry honney,” I said, wincing a little at the nasal sounds, “I couldnn’t help—“

She kissed me before I could finish. “It’s okay,” she said. She slid over, sat on my lap and leaned her back against my body. “Judging from the small rock I must be sitting on, I’d say you’re happy to have me here.”

By Princess Celestia herself, I love that mare. I don’t care if she’s a constant cock-tease, I love her.

I held her close as the bus trundled along its planned route. I could make out the smell of rotted beans; one of the teamsters that pulled the bus must have had a chili breakfast.

Barbara and I got the odd stare or two; after all, most Pegasi do not ride buses when they could easily fly, or ride a fast-moving cloud. I knew Barbara rode with me because I would be lonely on the ride to school. It allowed us to stay together a little longer before my classes and her modeling career would pull us apart for the day.

I thought back to when Princess Celestia paid my broken family a visit, shortly after I rejected the offer to join the School of Rhythmics. I remembered how she had phrased her offer: she wanted to “sponsor” my writing career, by admitting me to her School for Gifted Unicorns. I did not understand her motives at the time, and to some extent I still don’t. I’m not that magical. Why put me in a school whose most prominent graduates are savants in magic?

I learned quickly exactly how I could fit in with the school, and I have been a student ever since. She never did consider the fact that I was almost twice as old as the other students. I never intended to have much of a social life anyway, so I—

“Hey!” the bus driver yelled. “We’re at the School fer Gifted Unicorns! You gettin’ off or what?”

I startled from my musings and stood up with Barbara. We walked to the exit, where I paid her fee; students at Celestia's School rode the buses for free, although the tuition could be horrendous, depending on the needs of the semester. Mine was waived, though. The Princess saw to that.

I slipped through the glass gate to the School after waving goodbye to Barbara, who took off through the air. As I walked through the door to my Nonfiction Workshop class, I realized that I didn't have my journal. The same journal that still sat in the same puddle of putrid rainwater from last night in my room. Barbara’s gonna throw a fit at that; we had just conquered the mildew in the bathroom, and if more gunk like that ends up in my room... I shook my head to eject that train of thought as I sat down.

The classes today were formalities. You see, the graduation ceremony was today. Unlike other schools where all the students graduate on a specific day, the students in Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns graduate when they complete individual and specific tasks that utilize their talents to their fullest. Once their tasks are done, their graduation is fulfilled. Thus, there’s a graduation ceremony that means nothing, and a “full” graduation that means everything. This task is often begun on the day of the graduation ceremony, although there was rumored to be a student who fulfilled his/her task before setting foot in the school.

I was to be assigned my task right after the ceremony. I had hoped to postpone it, though. There was the graduation party to organize, and I got roped into it several months ago.

These thoughts shambled through my head when my third, and last, class, one on the Equinian poetry style of the Changelings, finished for the final time. I made a quick stop to the infirmary before heading to the central plaza. I opened the door to find the Nurse, her aged and wrinkled face smiling as a packet of Pollenborne hovered in the air.

"Well well," she said, "Right when I expected you!" I smiled and gave her a little hug.

"How are you doing today, Care Stare?" I asked as we pulled away.

"Oh, nothing too unusual," she said as she opened the packet and plunked the two oversized tablets into a waiting cup of water with her magic. "The fighters were doing live weapons practice, so there were a lot more cuts and bruises, but being busy keeps the old hooves from getting moldy."

I had written a creative nonfiction piece about the Infirmary as my end-of-year project for my second year here. It was quite the success, or so I thought, but no one appreciated it more than the head Nurse herself, Care Stare.

I gently swished the cup around, a little impatient for the tablets to finish dissolving and turning the clear water a weak orange color. She noticed that I was using my hooves and not my magic.

"You know, I'm sure a doctor could help you figure out specifically what you're allergic to," she said as she picked up the glass with her magic. "If it's messing with your magic, you should get it analyzed."

I sighed, tired of this argument. "If I had the time, I would, but unfortunately I don't."

I could hear her 'tsk-tsk' of disapproval, but I was adamant. I snorted with annoyance. There were just way too many things to worry about than my convoluted magic problems!

I snatched the cup out of the air and drank the mixture in one gulp. Relief flooded through my sinuses as the magical alchemy in the Pollenborne made its way through my body. I sat back, and was finally able to take a deep breath since yesterday.

"By the way, I cleaned this off," she said as she flopped Barbara's now-clean handkerchief across my face. I jolted out of my minor reverie and felt guilty for brushing off her worry.

"Look, once I get time, I'll get my magic analyzed," I said as I stuffed the handkerchief back into my pocket. "It's just, I'm at a very busy time in my life, and I just don't have the time to take care of myself like I should." I sighed as I stood up. "I know I should make time... but I don't know how to do it right now."

I walked over and hugged her. "Thanks for everything. I'll make sure to visit when I come back."

She hugged me tighter than I thought she would. "Don't be a stranger," she whispered into my ear.

Every warning siren went off in my head, and I had to spend a second to calm myself. She just appreciates that you take the time to talk to her and ask her about her day, you know. I mean, how often to people actually appreciate the work nurses do, especially school nurses? Just calm down, smile, and get to your graduation!

I took a deep breath, pulled away, smiled, and left. Her smiling face hung in my mind as I trotted to the courtyard.

The ceremony started in a few minutes. I shuffled into a line with the rest of my graduating class of about a hundred or so unicorns as we filed into the central courtyard, chairs waiting for all of us. Excitement rippled through the crowd. My ears overheard a rumor that Princess Celestia herself would address us. Just because this school has her name doesn’t mean she’s around all the time, which made her supposed appearance today something truly newsworthy. If she even shows, which I doubt.

I was involved with a lot of the planning for the after—graduation event, and not once did any appearance by the Princess ever come up, but then again, nobody can predict exactly what the Princesses plan—

The central courtyard bell rang, and everyone fell silent. Then, one of the most stunning sights to see appeared in front of all of us. I suddenly remembered how much of an honor it was to be a student at this school; no pony else got to see sights like this. Except for family... of which I have two shreds left.

The sun, directly overhead, pulsed with a wave of almost overwhelming light. The wave generated by that pulse radiated from the sun towards the dais where a microphone had been set up. Some ponies off to the side sprayed a fine mist into the air, which refracted the wave of light into a massive rainbow that spanned the courtyard. And at the apex of that rainbow was Princess Celestia herself.

The crowd was stunned silent by this display of solar power. Not a single shuffle broke the awe as Princess Celestia descended to the dais and spoke into the microphone:

“Today, we celebrate the most talented unicorns to grace Equestria!” she proclaimed. “And that is the truth, because life moves forward, allowing us to build on the successes of the previous generations to reach new heights of talent and prosperity! As you all go out on this day and accomplish the tasks set in front of you, you will discover new techniques, fresh ideas and innovative truths that will make your mark on our fair world!

“The advances you will surely bring to every pony’s lives could not come at a more fortuitous time. I have never seen so many crises and trials within one decade that I have seen in this present one, and I fear that they may even increase in the immediate future. We all will be tested, and you, the vanguard of our future, are the most effective weapons against the tribulations that assail us now and in the years to come. Good luck to all of you, and may the light of Equestria shine even in the most desolate of hardships!”

A bright flash appeared, blinding me. When the spots cleared from my eyes, I could see that the Princess had disappeared. Couldn’t stay for the after-graduation ceremony, huh? I thought as the Headmaster came up to the dais and began to call out the names of my fellow graduates. They came up, one at a time, shook hooves with him and either received a diploma lucky dogs! or received a flower. The diploma was for those who already accomplished their tasks for full graduation. Those with their cherished documents stood to the right of the Headmaster, and those with flowers stood to the left.

“Pantrostic!” I heard him call out, and I walked up to take my flower. When I shook hooves with the Headmaster, though, he slipped some piece of paper into my hoof. I quickly put it in a pocket so I could read it later as I picked up the flower with my mouth, although I dreaded to see what was on the note.

The Headmaster and I... we didn’t get along very well. He distrusted me because of some beef he had with my father, Lickety Split. Yes, that was his name. My dad was famous for his parkour skills, and had often competed in extreme urban sports, much to the chagrin of the Canterlot Rooftop Patrol—

Dammit, I let my mind wander. I quickly shuffled back to my place with the other flower-bearing pseudo-graduates, conscious of both the curious stares and the rolled eyes. As I stood in line in the clear and bright noon, the mist from Princess Celestia’s rainbow settling on my mane, I thought about her speech.

“... the most talented unicorns to ever grace Equestria!” Hah, I wish. But still, interesting word choice there. Indicates that she does show some level of formal respect for us, especially considering all the talk on “hardships” and “trials” and “crises”. Hinting at some looming apocalypse, eh, Princess? Or maybe it’s just that Equestria needs to expand or we’ll all start to crowd each other out? Could she have been referring to new social change as a result of the populace centralizing in main cities like Canterlot? Definitely a vague but honest-sounding and motivational speech, with a focus on the basic idea of perfection through suffering due to the trials of life. Just the right cliche-ridden, ego-pandering words for your “most talented” subjects, huh?

I snapped out of my musings when the Headmaster spoke more than three or four syllables in a sentence:

“—heard what the Princess had to say today, and I can tell you that she did not exaggerate in her urgency and her emphasis on the needs of Equestria. However, I cannot tell you specifics due to the sensitivity of these issues, but they could change our fair land forever. We may or may not want that, and even the Princess Herself is unsure of the right path. Her hopes lie on all of you to find that right path and guide our fair nation into it. Go with the grace of the Sun.”

He put his hooves together on the dais in a gesture that screamed reverence and respect, and then left the dais, ending the formal ceremony. Way to state the obvious, Headmaster Daric, like you always do. Everyone milled around to either chat with each other or leave. I took the opportunity to sit down, pull out that paper the Headmaster slipped me, and read what was on it:

Dear Pantrostic,
I wish to apologize for my personal behavior towards you. I was in love with your mother, Lilywhite, though she had eyes for that damned ruffian Lickety, the one who spawned you. You managed to inherit her love for the arts which did give me hope that you would exhibit the natural grace which she blessed the earth under her hooves with every step.
However, you developed your male parent’s rigid view of right and wrong. Because of that, he led her down a path that destroyed her, which you know more of than I, and in fact personally admitted to be true once if my memory serves me correctly. He saw me as nothing but a lecherous lover, when in fact the opposite was true. I wished the best for her, I truly did, and your father wasn’t the best. Not by all the evils in Tartarus or the wondrous stars in the heavenly sky were they ever meant to work well together, but she was hooked on him and wouldn’t let go.
It pained me when she died, and it pained me that you suffered as a result. Perhaps I should have challenged Lickety to show how he would make a good home for Lily, and... well....
….
(I couldn’t even make out this section, it was all smudged, scruffed and crinkled... from what, though?)
....
I... I have a bias. You were right to call me out on it when Princess Celestia brought you to the school, but I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to admit it, and... I am sorry that your time here suffered as a result. I should have put that bias aside to ensure that you developed in the best way you could and....

I had to stop reading.

I crumpled up the paper and put it back into my pocket. I sat down on one of the chairs, the event organizers working around me to clear the other chairs out of the courtyard. I could feel the blood rush to my face as I just about stomped the ground in anger.

I really wish the Headmaster would just let the past die! It's not like the past isn't important, it is, but not if it leads to self-obsession on this level, where you try to get on the good side of a LOVER YOU NEVER HAD, BY GOING AFTER HER KID. Seriously, just leave me alone and let the pain of her death die already! And Dad, I know he wasn't that bad, he would never have been jealous, he had his reasons, I know he—

“Excuse me, are you Pantrostic?”

I looked up, to see a strange unicorn speaking to me. It took a second for me to realize that, for one, the unicorn had wings, and for two, she was not pink so she wasn't Princess Cadence, and for three, she had no regalia or jewelry to mark what should be her rank as an Alicorn. Her purple coat and cutie mark gave her away, however; she was Twilight Sparkle. And she was talking to ME.

I took as deep a breath as I could, trying desperately to calm my shock at seeing her in a place like this, especially on this day. I stood up, stuffing the paper away and awkwardly straightening my still-bedraggled mane. I could barely make eye contact with her, I was so stunned that she had come up to ME of all people... although, I probably looked like I needed someone to talk to, considering what my facial expression must have been, but why her?

“Er, yes, that’s me,” I answered. I could see her look of curious disapproval. “May I ask what this is about?”

"You do remember your meeting with Princess Celestia to determine what your Task for full graduation will be?" Her cocked eyebrow spoke volumes of how unreliable I must have looked to her. "You are Pantrostic, right? Not just some pony who looks like him?"

I finally remembered the letter I had gotten from the Princess about three days ago. I also remembered that I had stuck the letter in my journal, where chance-knows-where it must have ended up. I silently cursed my lack of organization; my concept of a filing system was a box for "important papers".

"Oh, that!" I said at length. Twilight Sparkle sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, did she get my request to reschedule? I am an organizer for the after-graduation party, you see, and since it starts at—"

“The Princess told me to tell you and the other organizers of the party that it has to be cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control,” she said.

I stared at her.

“WHAT?!”

“Look, I know it’s a break from tradition, and she said she’ll explain why once we meet with her, okay?” she pleaded. “I didn’t want to tell them that things had to be this way, and neither did the Princess, but it has to happen. She didn’t even tell me why, so I really want to meet with her before much longer so I don’t have to feel more like a heel and a party pooper.”

I was taken aback by Twilight’s speech. I took a deep breath and held out a friendly hoof.

“I’m... I’m sorry, it’s just that this was something we had been planning for several months, and then for it to fall apart like this is just, well, sudden,” I said, doing everything I could to keep anything negative from my tone. “It’s not you I’m upset at, it’s the situation, so don't worry, I don't blame you or anything like that.”

She smiled, and shook my hoof. Both of us started to walk out of the courtyard. I saw Twilight glancing at me as I walked ahead. Why is she looking at me like that? Did she not expect me to apologize?

“We need to go to the Headmaster’s office,” she said. “And... thanks for apologizing. The DJ went on a shouting spree when I told her, and I barely managed to get out before losing some hearing.” She sighed. “Being a messenger is worse than being a hero sometimes.”

I nodded. “It is a different set of challenges,” I said. I hope that was enough to calm her down some. “Vinyl Scratch was looking forward to the party. She was so excited at the lyrics I wrote that she made an entire album around my poetry. It isn’t released yet; tonight was going to be that album’s premiere.”

I heard Twilight take a sharp intake of breath so I quickly added: “But it’ll be okay, we’ll figure out what to do with the stuff later, so don’t worry, okay?”

I turned to look at Twilight. From the look on her face, I could see how torn she was at being the bearer of bad news. I put a gentle hoof on her shoulder.

“It’ll be alright, you’ll see,” I said, hoping that would cheer her up. “When in doubt, try a platitude.” Thank you Dad for your insights, no matter how sarcastic they were.

She sighed, and moved my hoof away. “Again, thanks, but it still hurts a little,” she said.

“I'm sorry I couldn't help more,” I said. I turned down a hallway. “Headmaster’s office is this way.”

“Really?” she said as she turned with me. “Gosh, it’s been a while since I was here.”

“Yeah, the old Headmaster’s office had a large amount of Magi-Flex fragmentation for some reason, so it was moved to a new room,” I explained.

I led her down a couple more corridors until I came to the all-too-familiar double doors of the Headmaster’s office. The Headmaster was just leaving when we came up.

“Oh... Pantrostic.” he muttered when he turned and saw us approach. “I... I take it you are here to speak with the Princesses?”

I nodded. “Can we talk, afterwards?” I asked.

“Is it about that note?”

I nodded. He sighed, and nodded back.

“I will be in the library,” he said. He turned around and left.

I didn’t need to see Twilight’s face to feel her curiosity perk up. “It’s something personal,” I said. “I can’t really talk about it." I opened the doors to the Headmaster's office.

The place was a model of immaculate cleanliness. The square corners and near-straight lines clashed with Princess Celestia’s naturally curved form, which sat in the Headmaster’s long couch seated against the right wall, with the Headmaster's desk framed along the far side of the room. She turned her head at the sound of the door opening, and her face appeared... tired? Exhausted? It was hard to say. It was a peculiar kind of weariness that I did not recall seeing before.

“Good, you’re here,” she said. She sat up but didn’t leave the couch. I bowed as she levitated a document over to me and set it at my feet. “I need you to do a quick translation of this page before we continue.”

It was my turn for my curiosity to be piqued. I spread the document open with my hooves. The Princess noticed the action. “Are you sick?” she asked.

“I have seasonal allergies, milady,” I explained. “They mess with my magic a lot.” I looked at the text and recognized the symbols. “The symbols are some form of Primitive Ponyese,” I said. “I assume this was copied verbatim from its original rock?”

“This is an exact duplicate of the symbols, yes,” she said.

“The reason I ask is that Primitive Ponyese uses a circular form of grammar, designed for the symbol at the top of the rock to circle back onto itself,” I said. “This means that the placement of the symbols on the rock matters just as much as the subject of the text.”

The Princess looked thoughtful, as if she hadn’t considered that possibility. Huh. Didn’t think she wouldn’t know how to read Primitive Ponyese, I thought. I would think that she would know how, due to her being so old and all. Better make sure not to bring THAT up, though; that would be rude.

“Here, let me see the paper, then,” she said. I stepped off the paper as she levitated it. She folded the paper into the shape of an interestingly—shaped rock, with all sorts of bits sticking out of... a crescent? Something told me that this was no historical record she wanted me to translate. It’s probably some kind of poem, I thought. Figures.

She finished folding the paper and held it in the air with her magic. “Can you translate it now?” she asked. I sighed, nodded, and looked around the paper rock, following the symbols as they snaked around the shape.

“It’s most likely a poem, probably a fable or folk tale,” I said. “Here, symbols for the words ‘Single’ and ‘Peace’ flank the top, which has a pictogram of the sun, which could represent either the Royal House or—“

I stopped and looked at the Princess. “Is this an old record from your personal library?” I asked.

“We found the rock when I searched through some of her old documents from long ago,” she explained. “Luna remembered seeing the rock before, but we could not remember how to read it. We think it has something to do with the Elements of Harmony. We hoped that you would have further insight into the contents of the text.”

“This might be something personal instead,” I said. “You sure you want me to continue?”

“Yes!” she said. I didn’t understand why she was so insistent, but I looked back to the paper-rock model. Okay, the top is the sun, which indicates that this has to do with the natural order, followed by the Single-Peace couplet. What follows is... huh, that’s interesting....

“Twilight? Can you write down the following words?” I asked. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

Twilight levitated a pad of paper, a quill pen and ink from the Headmaster’s desk. “Ready!” she said. I took a breath, and started:

Sun
Single
Order
Royalty
Family
Three
Sisters
Magic
Vessels
Forge
Castle
Forest
Trees
Leaves
Light
Sky
Peace

“Can I take a look at those words?” I asked. Twilight put the pad of paper by my feet. Princess Celestia set the paper-rock mould down, which allowed me to double-check the actual glyphs with the words I translated. Then, it hit me. I knew what kind of beast this literary work was.

I smiled.

“This is a poem that has a deliberately vague meaning,” I explained. “I wondered why there was nothing to indicate the direction in which to read the text on the rock, and that was why. It’s quite devious, really. Only the original author, which I assume might be Luna, knows how this poem is supposed to be read and interpreted, so unless she remembers how to read it we are left with two vague and general translations, which could be incorrect.”

“The first general translation is as follows: ‘The sun, the single element that determines the natural order, shines on a royal family of three sisters, whose magical power is contained in vessels forged in a forested castle, the trees stretching their leaves towards the light from the peaceful sky.' The second translation reads as the reverse of the first, but again, the proper translation could start or end on different symbols."

I sat back and looked at Princess Celestia, and was surprised at the look on her face. It was one of shock. I surprised the Princess? Holy crap!

Princess Celestia stood up and levitated the paper-rock and the pad of paper into a bag by the side of the couch. “Thank you for those clear translations,” she said. “It helps explain something critical to your task, which must not be repeated to anyone else besides us three.”

"Clear" translations?! How was that clear? Okay Princess, what's going on?

She walked to the Headmaster’s desk, and looked out the window at the far wall. She sighed.

“Everyone assumes that just because Luna and I are old, that we remember every moment of history,” she began to say. “The truth could not be further from that assumption. The furthest back I remember is about a thousand years, and that’s only after an entire day’s worth of meditation.”

"It's alright if you don't remember," Twilight spoke up.

Celestia turned back to Twilight and I. “This rock was dated as far back as fifteen thousand years ago, which was when, as folklore tells it, Luna and I came to Equestria. This stone could be the only record as to how Luna and I found the Elements of Harmony."

Princess Celestia looked at us with such seriousness that I think my knees began to knock together. I felt genuinely afraid to be in that room, yet unable to look away from that face as it stared at me, expecting me to obey no matter the demand.

“You can see why this is critical to us,” she continued. “If the method by which we gained our powers, or the method by which we crafted the Elements of Harmony is floating around somewhere in Equestria, which this forge might be—"

“Then anybody could gain those same powers!” Twilight exclaimed.

My brain went blank as it struggled to comprehend the impact of that last sentence. I slumped onto the floor. not really thinking, trying to get a grip on my own psyche before I lose every semblance of emotional control.

I breathed deep, closed my eyes, and stood back up. I still swayed, but I was standing. Someone grabbed my shoulder and steadied me. I leaned on that person’s leg, breathing hard, but I was regaining control, channeling that fear and weight into a more mature response.

When I opened my eyes, Princess Celestia’s worried face stared back at me. Seeing her concerned expression helped calm my nerves some more. I continued to breathe deep, doing my best not to hyperventilate. When I felt steady enough to speak, I did so:

“Sorry for that, I... I got overwhelmed. The thought that such a powerful forge exists caught me off guard. I’m alright, just need some time to calm down.”

The Princess smiled at me. It felt very gratifying for her to care about my well-being, somehow. Twilight led me to the couch, which I gratefully sprawled myself on, my chest heaving with the effort to try to relax. Princess Celestia spoke again:

“I apologize for being so intense, I didn’t expect you to nearly faint, Pantrostic. I just wanted to impress upon the both of you how serious this could be.” She turned to Twilight, “Twilight Sparkle, I want you and your friends to investigate the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. It is a castle in the middle of a vast forest, and it is roughly connected with mine and Luna’s past, which matches with both interpretations of the poem.”

She turned back to me, and I suspected I knew what task she would give me for my full graduation.

“Pantrostic,” she said, “I want you to accompany Twilight and her friends and record their journey. You will also serve as a translator for any ancient writings your group may find. Make sure the translations are a part of said record. It will become a part of the Royal Canterlot Library, considering the high historical import of this task. Your full graduation will be contingent upon your success.”

The Princess walked behind the Headmaster’s desk and pulled a box out from under it. She levitated it to Twilight Sparkle. “Twilight Sparkle, I want you to have this,” she said. “Open it when you feel it is safe to do so. I pray that you won’t have to use it, but you should keep it to do with as you see fit.”

Twilight levitated the box to her back. “I will do my best, Princess Celestia,” she said. “What is in it?”

“I cannot say here,” The Princess said. “You should recognize it when you see its contents.”

I took an extremely deep breath.

“This... is a little much,” I managed to say. “I didn’t expect to be sent to the farthest corners of the world to chase a poem on some epic quest. What good would I be out there?! How are we getting there?! What are we even looking for?! The... well, the thing we talked about—“

“I sound—proofed and magic—proofed the room,” Princess Celestia said. “Speak freely.”

I had to take another deep breath. I’m pretty sure I was hyperventilating something fierce, but I couldn’t really tell, I was that out of it. My face felt like it was going numb as I held it in my hooves and breathed with all my might.

“Alright, well, the Forge could look like anything, be anything, or it might not even exist! The poem could have simply been Luna’s musings on your relationship to—“

“There are other sources that confirm that we came to Equestria about fifteen thousand years ago, and that the Elements of Harmony were found or created then as well,” The Princess interrupted in an even voice. “Yes, this was the only evidence pointing to a possible location of the Elements’ forging, but think of this: How WERE the Elements made? There must have been some kind of process at work. But what? We should at least check this lead out, since as of right now it is our only lead to the Elements' creation.”

I felt really dumb. But there was so much worry pulsing through my mind that I could barely keep my thoughts together. Would we succeed? Would we fail? What are the steps of the journey? Where are we going to get supplies? HOW THE FUCK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET THERE?

I felt a hoof on my shoulder. I looked up. I caught a glance of myself in the small mirror on the Headmaster’s desk. My sweat had added to the matting on my fancy coat caused by my morning nosebleed, and my face was all brown with the blood that had rushed to my face because of my hyperventilation. I looked like the day my parents had died.

I looked pathetic.

“Pantrostic,” Celestia gently spoke, “I have every confidence in your abilities. I know that you have been through a lot of personal troubles, but time and time again my confidence in you was not wasted.

“I want you to do this, Pantrostic. You are the pony for this job. It is what I had hoped for you to do. Please, if not for duty, then for your personal sake. Go with Twilight. Make your own mark on history.”

She had knelt down. She hugged me, then stood up, leaving me on the floor. I, well, I didn’t know how the heck to feel. Sad? Happy? Relieved? Upset? My heart felt like a crazy mish-mash between my subtle self-loathing and my attempts to recognize that, hey, she hugged me! She does care! Even though she’s the de-facto goddess of an entire nation, she cares about me! As my brain worked its way through all this emotional turmoil, I had calmed down. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and stood back up.

“I... apologize, for my dizzy spell. I was overwhelmed, and I did not handle it well.”

Twilight was still in the room. I turned to her. “When are you leaving?”

“I’m leaving tonight,” she said. She looked away, awkwardly rubbing one forehoof against the other. “Ten o’clock Pegasus Transport. Red-eye flight. I’ll be leaving for Ponyville, which will be our first stop for supplies and for my friends. Are you going to come with me? Or will you come later?”

“I’ll need to talk to my wife... and to my son. I do not know how he will take it, especially considering his... condition.”

“Oh, you have a son?” Twilight asked.

I winced. “It’s... complicated. I’ll fill you in on the flight tonight.”

“So I should expect you?”

“Let’s hope so. If I’m not there, leave without me.”

Twilight nodded, and left the room with the box from the Princess. I bowed to Celestia, and left the room.

I remembered the crumpled note from Headmaster Daric. Crap, I was going to talk to him. Am I up to it?

I sighed. Better now than later.

Parenthood and Fires to the Brain

There is something about wood that librarians are just fascinated with. I honestly don't know if it is because ponies used wooden shelves to hold their literary material for thousands upon thousands of years which creates a universal symbolism, or if it is merely an aesthetic choice, but I have never seen a library with metal, stone or other forms of material to hold their books. I read in the school's history that when the head librarian Nautilus Bookhoof demanded wooden bookcases, nearly every other member of the faculty objected; after all, it was the inauguration of the school, and the administration had wanted to show off the Magi-Flex construction in all its glory. Perhaps they were worried that wood would steal their thunder, somehow.

Sir Bookhoof nearly sabotaged the construction of the school when the decision came down that the bookshelves would not be wood. Princess Celestia had to intervene, and she decided against the majority of the school and let the wooden bookshelves be incorporated into the design of the library. Why she did that, I never knew or bothered to figure out. Pondering the past only does so much for a pony, after all.

If only Headmaster Daric understood that.

I had to steady my nerves as I entered the library, where I knew the Headmaster probably waited in that favorite corner of his. I bit my lip and peered around the corner, and sure enough, I found him staring at his yearbooks as he sat at a round table. I remembered that he liked to keep his mementos and photos in the library for curious ponies to take a look at during school, to see if they were clever enough to figure out what they were and what they signified. It usually brought him delight when a student would come to some revelation about the Headmaster as a result of intelligent and thorough study. I remember the look of shock that came over his face when I pointed out my mother's picture in his graduating class, shortly after the Princess had enrolled me.

Dammit, he looked up. "Pantrostic, I'm not sure what you have to—"

"Save it." I sat down next to him, fished his note out, and slammed it on the table in front of him. Daric jumped at the noise, then looked at me as if I had taken a foal and bashed its head in.

"Look, I've been nice," I tried to say in a calm and even tone. "I tried to keep details vague no matter how much you asked. I tried to tell you that you didn't want to hear the full truth about my mother."

"Pantrostic, you're yelling—"

"I KNOW!"

I bit my lip, took several deep breaths, covered my face with my forelegs, and hyperventilated to my heart's content.

I felt a leg drape over my shoulder. PLEASE don't try to give me a freaking pep talk— "Pantrostic, look, I wish you would just trust me to bear whatever it is you are burdened with!" Daric continued to stroke the back of my neck, and as much as I just wanted him away from me and out of my life, I had to admit that a comforting hoof from a heartbroken idiot is better than no comfort at all.

Scratch that: a soon-to-be-heartbroken idiot.

I needed to break it to him. I didn't want to drag my mother's name through the mud, but I had held back long enough. I sat back up, put my legs back into a proper sitting position, and motioned to the year book.

"You know that she didn't get her cutie mark until late in life, right?"

I could see Daric's eyebrows furrow; he had to think about that. "If I recall right, she still had not gained a talent of her own by the time she had graduated. I managed to stay in touch with her for a while longer, but then—"

"She disappeared. You never found out what really happened to her."

"Until you came to the school, I had not heard anything else about her, you are right about that."

"I didn't want to tell you. I thought you would hate me even more if I told you, and that you would blame me even more than you did."

"That's ridic—" Daric turned away, and I could only imagine that he was biting his tongue. "I... was hot-headed. I told you that I loved your mother because of her gentleness and kindness, and to hear that a commoner had robbed her of her nobility—"

"And that's where you are wrong."

I had to look away as Daric stared at me.

"Look, I'm sorry I kept stuff from you, alright? I didn't know that you had a connection with my mother, I thought maybe you were just some high-school crush or something like that—"

"We were more than that, we were friends!"

"And I'm sorry, okay?!"

My hoof was waving in the air as I punctuated my sentence. "I had my mother, my father, and my SPOUSE'S mother and father, DIE ON THE SAME DAY. THEN, I had to take care of a foal that resulted from a weakness brought on by my grief. It didn't help matters that I was taken advantage of."

Stop this RIGHT THE FUCK NOW, dude. You're going manic. You need to slow down, or he won't get what you're trying to say.

I shut my mouth, and found that I was crying again. I always cry, no matter how many times I have to tell the Nightmare—damned story of my Nightmare—damned life. I wish it was easy to just spit it out and walk away! I had to wait a minute before my breath was even again.

"And, well, when you demanded to know every single thing about my mother, and you were a total stranger at that point if you recall, I just, well, I fought back. Then I figured out that you had cared about her." I put my head on the table, the polished wood cooling the blood that had rushed to my head. "I didn't know what to say."

"It had to do with her talent." Daric's voice sounded hoarse.

Bingo. "Yes... the reveal of her talent is what conceived me."

Daric's leg was still on my back. I felt it lift off, which allowed my neck to cool. I heard a whuff of breath as he sat back, probably pondering the tidbit of information I had just given him. He wasn't headmaster of this school for nothing; his ability to put together logical outcomes was one of his qualifications.

"You... you were worried that I would have thought that you were insulting your own mother, just to spite me. Because you didn't know me."

I nodded, my cheek rubbing against the polished wood of the table. "Her life as a Noble of Canterlot was over once she found out her talent was having satisfying sex," I said. "The Old Houses are fine with concubines and illegitimate foals, but a Mare of the Manor House whose talent was promiscuity? Blasphemy, indeed." I sighed, both relieved and worried about Daric's reaction to what I was saying. "She managed to find work as a relationship therapist, with an emphasis on sexual satisfaction."

I sat up, and almost laughed a little. "Sex ed for me was definitely strange. Mom just about took over my classroom when she found out that our sex ed teacher advocated 'solo experimentation' at a young age. The poor stallion was almost fired over the lawsuits that came pouring in; turns out it was a legitimate misunderstanding, though."

"So... Lickety did not take advantage of your mother?"

And thus the coffin on his perception of Mom is about to have its last nail hammered in. "I was conceived when she lost her virginity and earned her cutie mark. Dad said that she had approached him, wanting a fling to celebrate independence, and to get 'experienced' before finding a special someone. He stayed by her side and helped her transition to both motherhood and common Canterlot life, even though neither of them were truly in love with the other. That's why I was an only child."

I stood up, turned away from Daric and began to walk away. "That's all in the past, though," I said over my shoulder. "What matters is that we move forward and grow and develop based on what we have now. That was the greatest advice Mom has ever given me. Take it to heart."

I walked away. I had had enough.

I had had enough of ponies poking their noses into my life simply because I had suffered crap they hadn't. I had had enough of ponies thinking that they were doing a good deed reopening those old wounds again and again and again, as if there was any more dirt that needed to be cleaned out of my system. Aaaaand there's another item to put on my checklist of guilt. I blitzed like a Bat Pony out of Tartarus away from the library, away from the school, and on and on and on.

I had to stop when I realized that I had almost overshot the turn to my house. I didn't think about anything as I shuffled along with the masses of Canterlot towards my destination. It was only when I was standing in front of my house, with its boarded-up stained-glass windows, its half-bald slate-shingled roof, its creaky timbers on a weathered masonry foundation, and the yellowing weeds that made up the lawn, when I realized I had left Daric alone after I had crushed his spirit.

HOLY FUCK that was a mistake!

I bashed the door to my home open, glad in the knowledge that nobody else was here; I still needed to pick up my kid, and Barbara wouldn't get back until five thirty or so. The backpack slumped to the floor with the rest of the wrinkled jackets, scarves and weather gear strewn by the front door. I hooked the errant door and slid it shut hard enough to feel the mini-gust from the slam tussle my hair. I dragged myself to the nearby couch and threw myself on its cushions.

My eyes flooded with tears.

The sight of our house didn't help my mood. I looked up to see a spider on the windowsill. I did not dare risk finding out if I had the energy to squash it as it sunbathed in the intense light of the afternoon. I looked around the room and saw the mountain of bills and paperwork that spilled over the living room table, and saw at least six different handles from spatulas, pans and serving spoons as they stuck out from the kitchen counter, where I knew the sink waited with at least a week's worth of dirty dishes. I looked down and shivered at the pebbles, dirt, sand and food crumbs that had wormed their way into our carpet, and I could smell the cheese residue from those Chutos brand chips on the cushions I cried on.

Our home was a mess, and my life felt the same.

Time passed. I kept an eye on the clock hung from the ceiling yes, it is an odd spot, but it actually drew the eye and kept us all on time over the years and did everything I could to let the emotion drain away. I remember the last time I was this upset. I couldn't move for a week. I didn't have that kind of luxury this time; I had to get my things together for my trip tonight.

*DING DONG* the front door bell went.

Oh Gods, who could it be now?!

I heaved my body up from the couch, extricating my legs from the couch cushions that I had snuggled up with. I stumbled a little when I stepped out on the floor as the blood rushed away from my head. I went to the door as the bell went *DING DONG* again, which was when I opened it.

It was Twilight Sparkle at the front door, covered from prying eyes via a plain grey cloak. My face almost went brown from embarrassment.

"Hey," she said, "I saw how, um, emotional you got today, and I thought I'd come by and see if there was anything I could do to help you get ready for the trip." She looked away from me as if she was the embarrassed one, which I almost took offense at. She even pawed at the ground in a manner that just about shouted embarrassing goodwill. I should be the one who is embarrassed, not her!

I took a deep breath, and spoke in as even and calm a tone as I could: "Well, I have not yet made any preparations." I checked the time on the clock hanging in the main room. "I actually need to pick up my son in about fifteen minutes."

I stepped to the side and opened the door all the way. "Would you like to come in? Please, keep your hoof boots on; we don't have any hired help to maintain this place, so the floor gets fairly dirty."

She came into our dirty home, and I was surprised when she gasped. What could have surprised her like that? I hope it wasn't the mess—

"Wow, the place really is dirty!" she chirped, then put a hoof over her mouth as if she was shocked at stating the obvious. I didn't know what else to say, so I kept my mouth closed while she looked around the room, as if desperate for some new topic of conversation to save us from the—

"What's that over—oh wow, a painting!" she said as she pointed with her hoof. She trotted over to the hallway that led to the bathroom and bedrooms, right up to the Family Portrait that hung on the wall opposite the massive stained glass windows, which were boarded on the outside to protect them from ill-wishers and curtained from the inside to keep the carpet from fading. Sure, it was just our family from my mother's side, but it had most of my ancestors from her side, which would be interesting from a guest's perspective, I guess.

I decided to indulge her fancy and walked up alongside her.

"That child over there is my mother," I said as I pointed my hoof, "she was named Lilywhite for the white lily that bloomed when she was born. The person holding her is my grandmother, Countess Margeron, and her husband Count Mantu is right beside her—"

"Wait, is that Starswirl the Bearded?!" Twilight exclaimed.

I sighed. Always the first thing they note about the painting, I thought. "Yes, that figure at the top of the crowd is Starswirl the Bearded," I said, hoping my tired condescension didn't come through too much. "My mother's family hails from a bastard daughter he fathered in his youth, before he earned the majority of his fame."

"Oh," she said. "A lot isn't known about Starswirl's early days. I guess he could have done anything and history wouldn't remember it."

She gasped again and looked away from the painting and I. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I'm sure that having him as your ancestor is something you are very proud of—"

"My grandmother was the last living member of my family to give a rat's tail about our ancestry," I interrupted, my tone even. "When she passed away, my mother wanted nothing to do with any form of ‘nobility’ or ‘ancestry’." I waved a hoof in the air to emphasize my sarcastic quote marks.

I sighed. I put that hoof on my mother's image in the painting. "She never liked the past, my dad said. She wanted to look forward, to the future, without the baggage the past can burden you with. In fact, Dad was the only one who would even talk about our ancestry. My mother never said a word."

Twilight turned back to me. "Are you," she began to say, but then she turned away again.

"Am I okay with the fact that my father and mother are dead?" I asked, sure that that was what she would have asked.

I heard a little intake of breath from her, which could mean that I was right. I waited for her to respond.

"Well, I mean, I, I know that if I lost people who were close to me, I..." her breath almost caught in her throat, "I wouldn't be alright for a long time."

I sighed. "It is something that changes you," I said. "Then again, if you throw a boulder on top of a sapling, it will grow around the boulder eventually, if it has the strength. Over the centuries, it will break down the rock until there is no more evidence that the boulder was ever there."

"So, you'll be alright with time?" she asked.

"If I get the chance to have that time," I answered.

The air felt muffled, accentuated by the constant mumble of passers-by on the street outside. I felt that if I spoke, she wouldn't hear me, despite the fact that she is right beside me. I shuffled in place, and started to sweat again. Come ooooon, say something, break the ice, throw the narwhal, put the foal in the kitchen sink and set it on fucking fire, JUST SAY SOMETH—

"Well..." she turned to me. "Will you be ready for the flight tonight?"

I sighed. "Yes... I will, barring some nut-job trying to kill me for writing about ponies with cutie marks that could only be used for evil." Twilight stared at me. "Oh come on, not you too!"

Twilight looked away again. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"

I sighed, put a hoof on her shoulder. "It's a reflex of mine; I know a lot of ponies really don't want to know about some of the terrible things some ponies did with their cutie marks." I looked away. "It was a series of biographies, too. They were real ponies. Of course, nobody read the damn books, but somebody HAS to talk about the manipulators and the cruel ones that blend in with the crowd. Otherwise, they win and we lose."

I put my hoof down. I took as deep a breath as I could, and said, "Thanks, I really needed that."

"No problem," she said as she walked over to the door, "Remember, ten o'clock sharp!"

"Pegasus Transport, Red-eye Flight!" I parroted back as she slipped out to civilization.

And all was still again.

The silence depressed my spirits against the floor. I sighed, and checked the clock. It chimed right on the hour at four p.m.

Time to go get Asura, I thought.

As I tiptoed around the crumpled pile of weather gear by the door, my mind wandered. How long would it take to do this... this insane task? Find a forge powerful enough to create “the most powerful magic in Ponydom?” How the heck would you even BEGIN to record an adventure like that?! What good would I be, beyond bait/starvation insurance (read: cannibalism under extreme duress)/flowery words that mean nothing? Yeah, that’s right, words ain’t nothing like deeds, now THOSE define—

I lightly tapped the center of my forehead against the corner of the door as I opened it and went through. “We’ve been through this before,” I muttered to myself as I turned around to close the door. “Just because words are a candle and deeds are goddamn suns to other people doesn’t mean that words are useless, they can be really powerful if used right—”

—which is a deed. You’re USING words. The words mean nothing; it is HOW they are used that mean everything.

I froze, my hoof on the doorknob. My unbalanced weight pitched me forward, which opened the door further instead of closing it.

"How the fuck did I not see that?" I said to myself. I laughed, the sound echoing through my mind. I caught the door before it slipped beyond my hooves, closed it and locked it with my mouth, the brass handle of the deadbolt leaving an acrid taste behind.

I glanced around the sidewalk and across the street to see if people were staring at me. No one paid me any attention, thank goodness; there were times when a random idiot in the neighborhood would come up and curse the ground my family and I walked on. The crazies had to be dealt with by the Canterlot Patrol horses, partly to keep Asura from killing them and partly to keep me from killing them. Not really of course, but I do get emotional under certain stressors.

I don't like people making a fuss over nothing. If someone does, I try to tell them why they could be wrong, and ask them to at least think things over before they open their mouth and espouse the exact same stuff without considering the points I might bring up. It's damn hard to just get people to TALK in a calm and collected manner some times....

I didn't think of anything else as I trudged on passed the familiar landmarks: The minaret on Mr. Shetland's house Funny guy, shaggy and short beyond belief, the change from cobblestone to poured concrete blocks that marked the end of the Upper Class district My mother's family was VERY influential... emphasis on "was", the colorful lanterns and electric lights of the club district *shiver* Bad memories here, wish I had chosen a different route, and finally the central Station for Law Enforcement here in Canterlot.

The building's simple cubic design and brick-red color combined with the solid brick walls made it clash with the more fanciful curves and elegant shapes of the houses and shops around it. There were no windows; the only entrance is a door with a single candle-powered lantern over it. The place radiated no-nonsense, and whatever guilt I felt during the day seemed to magnify whenever I came here. It would be kinda funny if that was caused by a spell made by the inventor of the Ponygraph, I thought as I went through the front door. I wouldn't be surprised if it was; that stallion was crazy-good at his job.

I walked past the front desk to a side door marked with colorful, crudely drawn rainbows and ponies. I walked up to the door, and sighed; this was never easy, picking up Asura from here, but there wasn't any other place for him to go during the day. The alternatives scared me more than what could happen to him here.

I went through the door, and noticed how thick the atmosphere became.

It wasn't the thickness of embarrassment or awkwardness. This thickness was one of sweat mixed with hot breath, one of the hard work of the body in the pursuit of physical perfection. The room itself helped further this attitude: it was lit with soft yellow lamps hanging from the walls, the wispy smoke from dust that had settled on them flowing up through small holes in the ceiling. The lamps showed a room lined with all sorts of training apparatus: protective gear, body dummies, and a giant multi-sport ring in the middle of the room. It was slightly elevated and well-lit despite the flickering of the candles, with ropes covered in foam marking the outer boundaries of the fighting area.

Two ponies in full protective gear, a colt and a stallion, wrestled with each other in the middle of the ring, their forelegs interlocked in a struggle to try and overpower the other. The colt shifted under the stallion's weight, which pitched the stallion head first onto the ground. The stallion detangled his legs from the grip, twisted around and used his hind hooves to propel his hind knee back into the colt's protected midriff. There was a loud *OOUF*, and the colt tried to struggle around the stallion's knee. The stallion's weight kept the colt pinned no matter the force the colt exerted, which resulted in the colt tapping the stallion's foreleg as a gesture of defeat.

The stallion and the colt separated from each other and went to opposite corners of the ring, the colt to the far left corner, and the stallion to the near right corner next to me. The stallion put his hooves on either side of the corner post, breathing deep and fast, and looked at me.

"Yer son's taking a shower," he said. "He did well today; kept his head a little longer than before. He still lost it, but he woulda had me pinned if he'd been thinking about what he was doing."

I nodded, glad that Asura finally made a little progress towards controlling his... condition. It's always so difficult to explain why I would let my son learn any form of martial art this young... but if they met him, they would know why.

"Is there anything I should tell him about how he did?" I asked.

"Just that if he kept his head, he woulda gotten me," the fighting instructor said. "I'm just about tapped dry with what I can teach him at his age. I'm glad he's moving on; he's going places in the fighting world."

I must have made a shocked face, because the fighting instructor laughed at me. "When he's old enough, of course!" he said. "No way I'd pit real fighters against Asura, that'd be suicide."

"For Asura?" I asked, immediately relieved.

"For the fighters," he said. He smiled, and turned around to face the colt in the corner, who stood at the ready. "Alright Wayne, let's try that again, except try to move once you're under your opponent!"

The fighting instructor and Wayne, the colt, lunged at each other and locked their forelegs against each other again. I turned away; I had seen the routines plenty of times when I would spend the evenings here with Asura.

I sighed as I lay down on a nearby bench. Letting Asura stay here for more intensive training was the hardest thing I ever had to do, I thought as I waited for Asura to leave the shower for the last time.

Yeah, his year-long intensive training ended earlier today. There was a small tournament a couple weeks ago between the six or so colts that had undergone the training with Asura, and Asura placed first. Just about stunned the audience too, at least for what I saw; I had to run straight from classes to the Station, so I missed out on a lot. I remember bursting through the door, Asura in his corner and another colt in the other corner, getting ready for another round. I had run straight to Asura, so that he could see me and know that I was there for him.

Asura turned around and signaled to the instructor that he was ready; I wasn't sure if he had seen me or was just ignoring me. The instructor was refereeing, so another parent with tattoos all over her neck and shoulders told me that Asura's hot-headedness had been getting the best of him for most of the bout. Asura and the other colt closed quickly, then something amazing happened.

Asura slid under the other colt face first, then raised his hind legs and connected with two powerful hind kicks to the other colt's groin. Asura then pushed with all his might, which sent the other colt blurring into the ropes at the edge of the ring. The ropes strained to hold the other colt as Asura got up to face the inevitable counter-attack as the ropes launched the other colt back at him.

The ropes propelled the other colt with more force than normal. Asura jumped into the air at just the right instant to sail above his opponent as he came whistling by, the opponent's forelegs extended in an attempt to flatten Asura, yet close enough for Asura to send a one-two downward foreleg kick to the other colt's.

The other colt hit the ring hard, and bounced and tumbled head over hooves right under the ropes and out of the ring. Asura rolled on his landing, and stood up as the entire room went silent.

"Good Job Asura!" I shouted. I turned to the parent with the tattoos and said, "I didn't know they taught fancy combat like that here!"

The other parent shook her head and said, "First time I've seen anything like THAT in this place!"

Then I understood why everyone went silent. Asura wasn't taught a move like that; he had come up with it on the spot!

I smiled, basking in the glow of that memory. I was never as proud for Asura than on that day. Asura had sprained his legs with that stunt, so he had to recover. Which is why he was leaving the dojo now, and not immediately after the tournament was over. After all, the fighting instructor knew how to recover from fighting injuries, and I didn't.

"Daad, hellooo?!" someone said to me. I snapped out of my reverie, and noticed a familiar flaming red-gold-orange mane and tail connected to a pale white coat that housed the biggest brown eyes you ever did see... one of the few things he picked up from his mother.

"Hey, Asura!" I said, and we hugged for a while. "How was your day?"

"Oh, not bad, still didn't pin the teacher," Asura said. "Was your day good?"

"Oh, it was... alright," I said, "Some very important things happened today."

"Step-mommy took me to see your graduation!" Asura said. "It was awesome, with the rainbow and the water and the sun and the Princess—"

"Wait, you were there?!" I said, caught by surprise at this fact I must have overlooked earlier today.

"Yeah! It was amazing!"

"Huh."

I laughed, Asura laughing with me. Funny how things tended to happen together, even if you're unaware of it.

"So, ready to come home?" I asked.

"Yep! Just gotta get the other bag," Asura said as he turned around and bolted towards a door in the back room. Wait, he only had ONE bag of clothes when he came here, since when did he get another— Asura burst back out of that door with another bag strapped around his shoulder that had strange bumps and lumps poking out of it.

"Can't forget my training gear!" he said. "Gotta stay in shape!"

I smiled, my questions answered. I slipped the first bag that Asura must have brought onto my right shoulder, not my left. I didn't want to trigger another episode from my old shoulder wound, considering what else happened today.

"You okay Dad?" Asura asked. "You're moving funny."

I looked at him, amazed that he could tell that I've been through a lot today. "I'm okay now, but I got into an argument with someone," I explained.

"Why?" Asura asked.

"Because I needed to tell him something that was hard for him to take." I walked towards the door and opened it. "Let's get going home, we'll grab a bite to eat on the way, if you're hungry."

"Can I get ice cream?"

"Do you need ice cream?"

"But I WANT it! And you said you'd take me after the tournament, remember?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I remember. Sure, why not?"

"SWEET!"

I walked out the door, Asura right behind me. I walked out of that Station with Asura for what I sincerely hoped was the last time in my life, and in Asura's. I hope never to have to put him through that kind of intense fighting ever again. I know it can't be good for him, not in the long run.

I felt... strange, almost as though this is exactly how I was supposed to feel all day every day. It's a weird feeling because I had never felt quite like it before. I looked back at Asura as we walked to the Hay Flats Diner, right on the edge of the club district. Maybe... it's because....

"What?" Asura asked.

I smiled, shrugged and said, "Nothing."

"It's never nothing," Asura said. He trotted in front of me, turned around, and trotted backwards to maintain pace with me. "It's always something with you. So what is it?"

I really didn't know how to answer. "Well, maybe I'm just happy to be here with you," I said.

"Really?" Asura asked, his brown eyes just about piercing my heart with how big and cute they are. "You must have been very lonely, Dad."

Asura turned back around and walked forward. Aaaand here comes the inevitable "Why'd you put me there, Dad?" "Don't you like being around me, Dad?" "Aren't you happy around me, Dad?" "Why were you away from me, Dad?" "What if something happened to—

Asura stopped. I stopped alongside him.

"Daddy...." Asura muttered.

"Yes, son?" I responded, my gut clenching in response to the flurry of questions to come.

Asura reached over and wrapped his forelegs around my shoulder. "I'm happy you're here too."

And my vulnerable, emotional heart kicked into overdrive. I sat down so we could hug each other right there on the street. I could have sworn I hear someone say "Awww!" some distance away, but I didn't care. I held my kid, and damn the pony who tries to interrupt!

"Weren't we getting some ice cream, Dad?" Asura asked.

I laughed again. "Yes we were, son." I stood up.

Some instinct told me to look in the general vicinity of our house. My throat just about choked when I saw the unmistakable plume of smoke rise up next to the street lamp right by were we live.

"Dad, what's wrong?"

I broke out into a trot, my mind whirling like a trapeze artist as I tried to pinpoint the source of the blaze. The more I jogged, the more I realized that the smoke was coming from our property, so I broke into a full-on run.

Why now why does crap always have to happen to me why is this stuff making my life more miserable every time I turn around what the hell is wrong with this day WHY AM I NOT ENGAGING THE SAFETY FEATURES?

I bit my lip and concentrated, fully aware that the magical fire suppression system Princess Celestia had installed would be harder to trigger the further I was away from the house. I tried anyway, and somehow the adrenaline caused my will to surge into my horn. Next thing I knew, I could see a blueprint of my house in front of my face. I stopped my running so the translucent blueprints wouldn't make me lose what little stuff was in my stomach; I realized that I haven't eaten a single thing all day.

The blueprint glowed red where the suppression system detected heat and fire. I noted that the windows somehow didn't show up; perhaps someone smashed them open to feed the blaze? I was also surprised to find that the fire was located in an out-of-the-way corner of the basement. Definitely a strange place to start a fire, but what worried me was that the smoke could get into the ventilation; one of the many modifications Mom made after Grandma Margeron passed away was to update the key systems of the house for modern times.

I knew how to turn the suppression system from detection to full-on extinguishment, but it would take as much concentration as I could muster. Considering my track record from last night and this morning, I was surprised that I was able to even call up the house's blueprints. I was scared that I could screw this up and lose the family home.

I took a deep breath, and focused on the red spots. I thought about the red spots disappearing, and being replaced by the calm blue of the rest of the house. I closed my eyes and willed with all my might to get the system to do what I wanted it to.

I felt a surge of energy from something deep inside me. There was a flash of energy right in front of my face, which startled me enough to almost lose focus on the spell. I tried to salvage my efforts, but the magic just wouldn't flow again. I cursed my ineptitude, and opened my eyes.

The red was gone, replaced by a happy blue.

"Dad, what happened?!"

I realized that my chest was heaving. I looked to the side; Asura's worried face echoed my own panic.

"Son, a fire started at the house," I said. "We need to get there and make sure nobody got hurt."

His eyes went wide. "But, what could start a fire? Didn't the Princess protect us with that spell?"

"What do you think I was doing?!" I yelled. "I was triggering the spell right now!"

"Oh... so all those red dots are fire?"

My head whipped back to the blueprint, and I realized that more fires had somehow appeared in a cluster around the base of the blaze I had managed to put out. My entire body ached with my previous attempt to stop the fire; I knew I couldn't put the flames out from here.

"We need to get home, now, or we could lose the house!"

"But couldn't you do what you just—"

"No son, I can't!" I surged forward in a full gallop, the blueprint moving to my peripheral vision so I wasn't blind to the world as I charged to my flaming home. I could hear Asura screaming after me; I wish I could stop and let him catch up, but dammit I needed to get home!

I kept glancing at the blueprint as I ran, and couldn't believe it when even more fires popped up around the basement, as if the blaze had more than one source. By the time the fifth red dot became large, I realized that the fires were being spread in a line and not an expanding sphere, as they should if the fires were sparked by natural causes.

Arson. I shivered at the thought that some pony hated me that much to burn down my house. I damn well hope Barbara didn't make it home—

I ran faster than I ever thought I could run, the flabby muscles I had built when my dad forced me to train in Parkour with him straining to limits they had not felt in a long time. The world slowed down as I skidded to a halt in front of my house. The billowing smoke made things worse than I knew they were, and I heard a sound I dreaded to hear:

"HELP! SOMEBODY, HELP!!"

BARBARA NO CELESTIA BE DAMNED WHY IS SHE STILL IN THERE SOMEBODY HELP PLEASE SOMEBODY—

I bashed my head against the ground, which jerked my body out of its panic mode. I brought the blueprint back to my full field of vision; now that I was on the property, I should be able to put the fires out with a minimum of effort.

I took another deep breath, focused on replacing the red with the blue like before. Thankfully, my magic came through again, and with another burst of energy later, the red was gone. I breathed a small sigh, but realized that Barbara could still die from smoke inhalation. I turned off the fire suppression blueprint, and saw something strange.

A pony stood framed in one of the broken windows, a whip wrapped around his forehooves. His coat looked as grey as the smoke that billowed around him, and I couldn't see a cutie mark; I realized the pony probably painted over the tattoo, to hide whatever his talent was. Before I knew it, the pony leaped out of the window, a crack of his whip aimed at my face.

I ducked and rolled away quick enough to see a glint of metal as the stranger landed. What the hell was that metal? Where was it, a pocket, a saddlebag, his hooves— The stranger shifted towards me, and I shivered when I realized the glint was blades attached to the leading edge of his horseshoes.

The stranger kicked; I could barely do anything more than flail as I tried to back away from the blades. Sparks flew as the metal edges clashed with my weathered horseshoes. I knew better than to try and seriously fight this pony; I'm no fighter, even if I know a technique or twoNightmaredamnit if you KNOW a technique, TRY IT DUMBASS!

I realized what my subconscious was telling me. I calmed down, and waited for his next strike. As expected, my attacker went for my neck for a clean kill. I hooked his hoof with mine, pulled it over my right shoulder, and spun in place, throwing every ounce of muscle and weight I had on that hoof.

I could feel something pop in both his hoof and mine, and I was elated when he sailed past me onto the grass. Whatever pride I felt was quickly dashed when the stranger quickly rolled into an upright position, and I found myself tackled to the ground, him on top. I kicked as fast as I could, but my hind legs were pinned and my forelegs could barely angle the hoof blades away from my chest or neck.

The stranger slumped forward, which caught me off guard. Next thing I knew, both my hooves were against his left foreleg trying desperately not to buckle under the blade pointed at my throat. I felt something slam my right shoulder, and I cried in pain when I realized the person had stabbed me with his other hoof blade. I could feel his left foreleg slip closer to my throat, and I was about to beg Celestia for a miracle.

A flaming-white blur careened into the stranger's face, knocking him off me and causing him to roll several feet away. I lurched up, looked over and saw that the blur was giving the stranger a serious run for his fighting prowess; I could barely see either of them as sparks flew from their fore-hoof parries and blocks. I got back on my feet and looked back to the house.

Barbara wasn't yelling anymore. This worried me; she could be unconscious. "BARBARA!!" No answer was there to allay my fears. I rushed to a smashed-open window and leaped right through the smoke.

I coughed and sputtered as the smoke and the ash gave my lungs the conniption fit of their lives. I dropped to the floor, where the smoke would, hopefully, be the thinnest, and crawled along the floor, my eyes already smarting from the ash in the air. I thanked the Princesses that I was anal about knowing where the cardinal directions were in relation to my current position, because I wouldn't have been able to navigate the house half as well if I hadn't.

I worked my way over to Barbara's bedroom, coughing up a storm and trying not to strain my eyes. My ears perked up when I heard something that made me both happy and sick to my stomach:

"h-help-p-p-please-hel-llp-p-m-mmee...."

I crawled right to the source of the moaning. "Bar*cough*Barbara, I'm *hack* here, wh*wheeze*where are you *cough*?"

I felt a hoof brush mine. I grabbed it in my teeth, and was relieved to feel a response of some kind as she tightened around my jaw. I dragged her over to where my directional sense told me was a window. I snaked up the wall and was relieved to feel the broken glass at the window's moulding. My body heaved as I slipped Barbara onto my back, and was scared to find that she didn't breathe although her snout was right next to my ear.

I gathered what strength I had left and lunged out the window. The ground was closer than I thought; I barely managed to skid to a halt, letting Barbara slip to the earth in the same motion. I knelt down by her and tried to check her vitals; I'm pretty sure I could hear a heartbeat, but she wasn't breathing.

I had read a booklet about CPR. I knew the steps, knew what to do. But I was never certified, and I was never in a position where I had to do it. As I put my mouth over Barbara's and tried to pinch her snout shut with my hooves, I couldn't help but remember that if I pushed too hard with the chest compression, I could break her rib cage because she was smaller than I was.

I lifted my head, took a deep breath, and immediately coughed it out; smoke was still in my lungs. I tried again, and once my lungs were full I immediately smothered her face with my lips and exhaled.

Barbara coughed right into my throat as her eyes shot open. I backed away onto my rump so she could see who was in front of her. I could barely remember the last time I felt this grateful to see someone's chest rise and fall in some kind of regular breathing pattern; I think it was when our parents were sick.

"Pan*cough*Pantrostic!"

She lunged at me, wrapping her legs and wings around my body in a massive bear hug. I held her there, both of us crying and coughing on each other's shoulders. I was so happy she was okay, and content with simply holding her close, that I nearly startled out of her grip when a painful scream ripped through the air.

Both of us looked up to see the fiery white blur that had saved me bending the stranger's right foreleg behind his back. There was a crunch as the leg broke under the strain, and the stranger screamed again. The stranger's other legs splayed out in awkward poses; the blur must have broken them too.

"You DARED to attack my dad!" The blur said as it began to drag the broken stranger away.

"AaagughnopleaseletmegoIsurrender—"

"You TRIED to burn down my home!" The blur came up to a lamp post, and readied the stranger for a throw.

"NONOPLEASEAAAAHHHAHAHAOWWPLEASENOMORE—"

"THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO BAD GUYS LIKE YOU!!"

"NOOOOO—"

The blur threw the stranger at the lamp post, which the stranger wrapped around like a rag doll made of rope, and then unwrapped, and collapsed in a pile of broken legs and broken body.

The blur remained a blur, although he was stationary. I smacked myself on the forehead, hoping that would clear my vision. I looked back up to see Asura where the blur was standing. I stood up to walk towards him.

"Please, just leave him *cough* alone, stay with me—" Barbara grabbed my left shoulder and squeezed.

I had to bite back the scream of pain as the old wound did its dirty work on my nervous system. I could feel my entire left foreleg go numb. PleasepleasePLEASE don't trigger the hallucinations, PLEASE DON'T— I blinked, and almost swore out loud.

Changelings, everywhere, biting at buildings, swarming around other changelings, filling the air and most every aspect of my vision. I knew they weren't real, but they were there, and dammit they kept me from getting to Asura. I limped in the general direction I had seen Asura, and came upon a small foal-sized changeling that stood still. I put my right front hoof on his shoulder, and thanked Celestia that the shoulder was solid.

I hugged it close. "It's alright, Asura, it's over, we're safe." I blinked again, and the Changelings disappeared, with Asura in my embrace. I could feel Asura shaking from head to tail, so I just held him to my chest as he began to cry.

"Daddy you just took off and left me alone you didn't explain anything and then that bad guy was killing you I just I couldn't stop I was so mad and angry and Oh Sunny Day I'm a bad pony I killed him I killed him I hurt him I made him hurt waaaaaaaaahhhh!"

I could feel my entire body come down from the adrenaline high it had been on for the past Oh Lunar Eclipse, how long DID this ordeal last? which meant that I began to shake as the stresses finally made themselves known to my brain. I did everything I could to hold Asura close, but I could see the world start to tunnel around Asura.

"*sniff* Daddy? Daddy, you okay?"

"Y—yes, Son, I'm okay, just... just a little... worn... out...."

I could hear Asura scream my name as blackness engulfed my vision.

Thoughtful Dreams and Painful Day—Mares

As I lay here, dying with every breath, I wonder what the outside world is like. Here, in my bubble, I am frozen from time, suspended from all sensation. Separate from the birth and the living, the death and the dying. Apart from the cycle. I wondered what it would be like to move from this state of nothingness back to that somethingness that used to define every aspect of my existence.

I know I am being morose. It is a habit of mine when I collapse in a heap of bones, flesh and spiritual soul. While a part of me urged to return to the circumstances that led to that failure, the dominant part of me suggested time to think. After all, I am only equine. There is only so much I am destined to withstand before I, too, succumb to the cycle and move to the next stage of my evolution. Then again, the fact that some part of me is thinking about all this means that some part of my body must still function. And as I continue to think and ponder, a question occurs: how long have I been like this?

In a world of dreams and thought—projections created by one's imagination, one could move through any portion of time they want in as slow or fast a period as they are capable of setting. I was aware that, when and IF I awoke, I could very well be several hours or several years into my future, with no shred of concept of what I went through in that interim. Part of me was scared; the rest of me simply slept, and let time do what it was destined to do.

Whatever that was.

I had to ask myself: when was the last time I truly rested like this, simply let everything fall apart and damn the consequences to Tartarus? It always seemed like life had forever destined me to a life of sorrow and hardship. But why? Why the constant battering and hammering? Why the white-hot emotional turmoil of the forge? Why the pain?

Why was there ever a need for highly tempered hearts? Why was I being pushed into a certain pattern of development? I couldn't fight it; life will turn me into what it wants me to be regardless of my choices; but how could that be, since I have the free will to decide how my life will turn out?

Ah, there's the rub, as that old saying went! We can choose the paths our life takes, but does that actually lead to different consequences? As free as our wills are, there are other patterns in our life that are consistent. In the heat of the moment, free will may reign, but over time the patterns emerge.

"Doth thou see it now?"

SOMETHING was in my nothing! And GOLLY GEE I was excited!

I thought of a plain room with a couple couches. The SOMETHING sat on one couch, while I lay on the other.

"Yes, I see what you want me to see, but what is the specific pattern that you wanted to point out?" I asked.

"Thy perception is what matters, not Ours," the SOMETHING said.

I tried to wrap my head around the SOMETHING, to give it shape and form beyond the nebulous concept that it was. At first it proved elusive; the barest hint of a mare's body, rather large, combined with a strange characteristic; it was an alicorn, horn and wings to prove it. Yet I could not imagine a color or so much as a black-and-white outline of a cutie mark. It remained a blank object in three-dimensional space, and yet it acted with the agency of another spiritual soul. I could tell, because it refused to obey my mental commands.

"Is it the fact that I have been through a lot of stressful situations, and that is why I am where I am?"

"Yes, thou hast led a truly stressful life."

I furrowed my brow; something told me there was more to this than the mare was telling me.

"Well... I have tried to keep moving despite the stress."

"Indeed, good stallion, indeed."

I just about bit my mental lip as I furiously worked through as much of my life that I could remember. Was it the rape from that strange unicorn that did me in? Was it the shock of not only my parents' death, but Barbara's? Was it the stress of not only raising Barbara, but falling in love with her? Was it the tension that came about when Asura plopped on my doorstep? WHAT WAS THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE PONY'S BACK?

All of these things, and MORE, SO MUCH MORE, swirled in my head so fast that I closed my dream avatar's eyes to prevent them from bugging out with the frustration. The pressure was intense, so intense that I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. Except I wasn't the Legendary Ippos, the Strongest Earth Pony. I wasn't Douris, fated to forever maintain the framework of the stars on his feathered wings.

Oh dear Celestia, I so wanted to just shrug and say "To HELL with all this crap, I'm gonna do what I want!" but I could not stop thinking about the things I wanted to not think about.

It hit me. Right then.

I was the one who broke my back.

Why do I push myself so hard?

Why do I try so hard?

Why do I try and keep my engine revving twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week?

BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID OF WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.

I wanted to replace uncertainty with control. And instead of my life getting better, it got worse. If I was calm, I might not have collapsed.

"Ah... that is what We found interesting," the SOMETHING said.

A light, shining straight in my eyes, pierced my foggy and overworked brain.

Next thing I knew, I was in the hospital.

It was late at night when I woke up. The hum and rhythmic beeping of the many different machines overloaded my ears. It didn't help matters that I was alone in the room, no other soul to welcome me to the land of the conscious. The bland, white walls and ceramic tiles on the floor made the place look brighter than I thought it would.

There was nothing else to do, and I didn't feel like trying to signal a nurse or doctor, so I just fell back to sleep. I was sure that the professionals would know if I was alright. When I would wake up the next day, people would actually be awake to seriously discuss whatever was coming next for my apparent treatment.

Sleep was dreamless. As tempting as it was to over-analyze that other dream, I resisted and simply let my mind do whatever it wanted. It decided to do nothing. When I woke again, one of the nurses approached my bed with a bedpan.

"Good morning," I mumbled. "What day is it?"

The nurse did not say anything. She slid the bedpan underneath my rump, then leaned forward over the bed. She put both her hooves on my right shoulder, and I felt a sharp pain unlike anything I had felt in a long time. It was a peculiar ache, one felt from both the strain of sitting in one place for a long time and the weariness of repetitive movement.

Then the room turned red. The beeping of machines morphed and warbled into something oddly familiar yet still disturbing, almost like the chirps and whistles of a songbird. The light went from sterile white to angled, shadowy orange as the room expanded into an arched space, the source of light melting away from the ceiling to reform by an entrance that bucked and swayed. All the walls had the visual texture of canvas, and everything shook and jostled as if I was in some kind of old-time wagon, bouncing over terrain to some unknown destination.

Before I noticed the nurse again, something told me that something I had experienced, or may be experiencing now, was simply a nightmare, some abstract representation of the torment I had gone through. Part of me wondered if this moment in time is the point where I mind will snap, so that now my life will be full of delusions that I would be unable to distinguish from the reality of everyday life, as if the Changeling hallucinations were not bad enough.

I pitied Barbara. She has to put up with a lot of crap from me already; she shouldn't have to shepherd an insane and love-sick husband on top of that. If I could move, I would cry.

Right when I had those thoughts of Barbara, I noticed the nurse again. Her eyes were bloodshot, a wet cloth over her front hooves... or was that a single, solitary hoof? There was a sad desperation in her bloodshot blue eyes, one born from the pain of losing another loved one. My right shoulder stung from the hot water in the cloth, but she continued to massage it over the wound.

Her uniform was also gone, along with her original mane, coat and eye coloration. I suddenly realized that the washing motion of her hoof was far more gentle than the matter-of-fact strokes that would go with the nursing profession. She was whispering something softly in my ear, her quiet rasp recognizable from somewhere in my foggy brain.

I suddenly realized that there was a gap where her left shoulder and leg should be. Combined with the dark orange appearance of the coat, I knew who was standing over me.

Weasel! Dammit, gotta wake up now, gotta get up now, COME ON DAMMIT WHY CAN'T I GET UP?! WHERE THE HECK AM I, HOW'D I GET HERE, WHAT'S THE FRIGGING DEAL, WHY IS SHE HERE AND WHY—

I could feel my blood boil, and I tried to shove Weasel off of me with all my remaining strength. It must not have been much, because she barely rocked in place. Her eyes went wide when she felt my movement.

"A-are you, are you finally conscious?!" Weasel's face was inches from mine, as if her hot breath could bring my faculties back quicker than otherwise. "Please, just, say something, anything!"

At least I could turn my head, which I did. I took some deep breaths, and somehow a yawn escaped my lips.

"W-what the... where are—"

"Barbara! Asura!" Weasel shot up and ran to a shadowy part of the canvas-covered wagon that I wasn't looking at. My heart went in my throat when I heard those two names. "Wake up, wake up, Pantrostic's coming around!"

"Great! Amazing! Now we just need to OUTRUN THESE NIGHTMARE DAMNED KILLERS, and we'll be PEACHY!" I heard Barbara's voice come from the front of the wagon.

I chuckled to myself; for all I know, this whole situation was one big fat delirious fantasy that I had finally become conscious of. Next thing I knew, my sides were splitting with laughter that hurled out of my throat. I continued to puke guffaws well past the point of hyperventilation. I saw Weasel's face contort from exhausted glee to scared concern right before she threw herself on top of me. The wind was knocked out of my lungs, leaving me gasping for air.

"W-we-weas— g-getoff—"

"You're weak. Stop laughing so hard. You'll exhaust yourself again and pass out."

I couldn't believe that Weasel was stupid enough to believe that knocking the wind out of a pony would stop them from hyperventilating. No, I KNEW that Weasel wasn't that stupid. Hokay, something's wrong here in the State of Weasel, better calm down so that she calms down. Then again, why is she shivering?

I could feel every part of her body trembling as she lay across my stomach. Her breath was also shallow and uneven. I twisted around a little and saw that her eyes twitched in a random pattern. I could not for the life of me figure out why she was this exhausted; surely caring for an invalid wasn't that demanding... was it?

Something flashed across what looked like the wagon entrance. My heart raced from a sudden jolt of fear, panic and general hysteria that briefly crossed my mind, and vanished just as quickly. Then, I swear that my fur stood on end and I just about trembled as hard as Weasel.

The entire wagon roared. The canvas sky ripped open as a bright bolt of neon light split the fabric down the middle. The bolt of light maintained its position, as if it was some kind of spell, and flew right past my right forehoof, shaving a tiny sliver of metal off my horseshoe and blasting through the wagon wood with ease. The now-split wagon separated itself, and I was somehow launched through the other half of the wagon's remaining canvas roof and tumbled outside onto some dirt.

The entire world swirled around my vision, and every instinct I had said that there was danger all around me, but I couldn't focus worth two bits. Time slowed down for me, as if something momentous was about to happen.

That inner voice I argue with on a constant basis spoke up: Are you really this weak? Is this really the end for you? Will this be all you accomplish for all your hardships and troubles?

I could feel the ground beneath me as I closed my eyes. I held my breath, my body wanting to shiver, but somehow unable to. I broke the silence:

"No."

I remembered a brief moment of blackness.

I opened my eyes, and found myself sprawled on my back, staring up at the clear blue sky. Barbara hovered over me instead, and for a moment I wondered if I had merely imagined Weasel's presence, if she was some manifestation of my surely fractured psyche. Weasel did factor into some of my research for a series of books I did, but I could not think of a good reason for her to be here at this present point in time. Guess I really have gone insane, eh?

"He's coming around!" Barbara looked over her shoulder. "Weasel, Asura, he's waking up!"

So much for the insanity plea.

Their three faces hovered over mine, showing varying levels of concern. Weasel's eyes were still bloodshot, but the sadness and desperation were... hidden? There was no indication of any kind of loss that I had noticed before, but there was a glint in her eyes that told me where the emotion had disappeared to. Barbara was on the verge of tears; I just about cried myself, seeing her eyes well up with concern that always triggered guilt in me. Asura, however...

His eyes shone with emotion, but his face was static. No quiver of the lip, no water at the eyes, no worried crease on his forehead. I couldn't help but stare at him as I tried to think of events that could have made him so... withdrawn? Was that the word? No, it was worse than that: something clearly bothered him, but I know him. He would have brought it up if something had bothered him. He's not one to keep to himself, after all.

I realized that my fixed stare had drawn the others' eyes to Asura's. The air was still as Asura stared back at us, his eyes burning though his face remained chiseled in stone. The tension became thick again, and I somehow imagined some kind of tug-of-war between Asura and the rest of us; ropes where the lines of sight connected and made contact, pulled taut by the sudden intensity.

I do not know who won or who gave up or who lost, but I could feel a clear sigh of relief from everyone when the moment passed, the imagined ropes vanishing as fast as they had formed. I myself took a deep breath and tried to roll over, so that blood could flow in a somewhat normal fashion.

I was not prepared for the screams of pain from every nerve ending that made contact with the ground. This was worse than the pins and needles that would come when waking a leg from numb sleep. It felt like every cell of my body was getting pinched and twisted.

I blacked out again, and once again my mind was silent. Perhaps it was too exhausted from whatever the heck it was that I did to overcome... whatever it was I just experienced. How else could I have fallen asleep again? Fear created adrenaline, the arch-enemy of restful sleep. And I had managed to at least relax somewhat before my brain went into hibernation. That meant that the—was it danger, or some kind of pursuit? I had forgotten—had vanished, which allowed me to sleep again.

I woke up again, this time in some kind of cave, and like in the hospital, no one was awake to notice me. I tried to sit up, and was surprised at how easy the action felt. I took a deep breath, and smiled at how much I could fill my lungs. I passed a hoof over my right shoulder to confirm that a bandage had been put there. I managed to stand, and made my way to the cave entrance, taking care to pick my way around the sleeping forms of Barbara, Asura and Weasel.

It was night when I exited the cave. The silence made my heart beat loud against my chest, although I was calm. There was a small pile of moldy bones, none of them bigger than the delicate structures of a songbird's skeleton, a few feet away from the entrance. I was surprised at this, for an obvious reason: why would the skeleton of a small animal be so close to the entrance to an inhabited cave? Wouldn't Barbara or Weasel clear out such debris before bedding down?

I knew that the presence of those bones may attract undesirable creatures or spirits, so I looked around for a good spot to bury them. It took a bit of pawing the ground to find a patch of reasonable dirt, but I managed to find a small hole underneath a nearby tree that could be covered by loam and moss.

I must have worked for a couple hours, because the cloudy sky began to brighten a little by the time the bones were interred. It always felt good to get my hooves dirty with honest labor. I went back to the cave entrance, where I laid down and watched the early morning dawn.

The grey clouds dominated the sky, which dulled the varied green and brown hues of the forest beyond the cave. The lack of blue turned the entire scene into a murky mosaic as the black from the shadows and the outlines of thin branches blurred in the grey-filtered light. It was quite calming, and yet I did not feel the need for sleep. Perhaps I had been asleep for weeks, such that I would be fully rested when I would wake up.

I heard movement in the cave behind me. I glanced back to see Barbara sit up and look at me with a sleepy expression.
"Good morning!" I said. "Sleep well?"

She smiled wide and joyful as she stood up, stretched and yawned. She trotted over to me and sat down beside me. She plunked her head gently on my right shoulder and looked out at the dawn with me. I looked back out as the grey day deepened in its soft grayness.

We said nothing for quite a while, both of us soaking in that calm spectacle of boredom usually found on a rainy night or a sweltering, clear day, brought about by the understanding that weather kept folks cooped up and they have nothing better to do than stop and stare at the state of the environment. I can't remember the last time we had this kind of a relaxed moment; there was always something to do, some problem to solve, some crisis to try to avert. I was pretty sure that I was in heaven right at that moment.

"Weasel had come by right as you collapsed back at the house," Barbara said. "She said she knew a safe place to take you where no one else would try to kill you. She said she worked with the Canterlot Patrol."

She sighed. "That black-coated stranger had stalked me for Celestia knows how long before he went down to the basement to smoke me out. I didn't want someone else like that close to me again, so I went along with her. She smuggled us way out here."

"And where is 'here'?" I asked.

"Somewhere in the Everfree Forest. That's all I know. Considering Weasel didn't try to kill you at first sight, I figured it would be okay."

She turned to look at me. "Did I do the right thing?" she asked.

"How do you feel about your decision?"

She looked down, as she thought about my question. "I... I think I did the right thing, but that could have been the fear and smoke and panic influencing me. I guess I got lucky."

"Well... we are alive, and Weasel is a very good ally to have," I said.

"How do you know her?"

"I came to her, actually. I was researching material for those books on evil ponies and was coming up empty. I got a break when someone sent me a letter with her then-current contact information." I sighed, uncomfortable with divulging what came next, but I knew I had no choice at this point.

"That was when our inheritance dried up." I could feel Barbara's eyes on me, and felt too guilty to match her gaze. "I spent it all to get the information for those books. Which proceeded to sell at a snail's pace at first, then die off altogether."

There was no sound, no movement as Barbara registered the information I gave to her.

"I... I knew that you had spent the inheritance," she said, "but I had no idea it was for those books."

She reached out to my face, and turned it to look at her. I was surprised that she did not show any anger; her expression was more like some form of pity.

"Please," she said, "talk to me when it comes to things that affect our family in that way." She kissed me, which almost startled me out of her grasp. She gently snuggled back up to me, which put a little pressure on my right shoulder. It twinged a little, but it wasn't too serious. I happened to glance back out to the forest.

My breath just about choked in my chest at the sight that glance contained. Barbara noticed my distress and looked at me with a worried face.

"Barbara, you do remember that I hallucinate Changelings if my left shoulder gets squeezed?" I asked.

Barbara stood up, checking her position. "Did I pinch your shoulder?"

"Just... look out there and tell me if you see that assassin from the house." I pointed with my hoof.

He stood in a clearing, his whip held in his mouth and the business end wrapped around a hoof. His coat was a dull charcoal black in the grey light, and his lack of a cutie mark bothered me to no end. I could see the metal blades on the leading edges of his horseshoes shining the dull sheen of steel. What stood out the most, however, was the assassin's eyes. They were a frighteningly familiar piercing brown.

They were Venusia's eyes. The eyes of Asura's mother. The eyes of that... that insane creature... the one who raped me.

"Pantrostic, all I see is forest."

I took a deep breath, and blinked. The assassin disappeared, just like the changelings did. I shivered a little at the unsettling memory of seeing that pony again.

"Well... that's a new wrinkle," I muttered. "Press left shoulder for Changelings, pinch right shoulder for the assassin."

I looked away as Barbara snuggled back up to me. I didn't want to look in her face; I was sure that I would see that guilt-triggering concoction of pity, sorrow, love and caring, and that I would probably overreact if I looked at it.

"You always suffer for us," she said, her soft tone barely disguising her emotions.

"Damn right I do," I responded.

"You should be the one getting breaks, not us."

"Damn right I deserve one."

"You're always ready to respond, even if you're a mess."

"Damn right I am."

"Why won't you let us shoulder some of your burden?"

"Because that's not who I am."

I turned to see the pained expression on Barbara's face. I brought her lips close and planted a long, wet kiss there. Our first full kiss, I realized. We grasped each other and kissed like star—crossed lovers on the verge of being torn apart by the cliche demands of destiny. We parted lips for a second, and time stopped as we stared into each other's eyes.

I realized why those who kiss are so focused on the eyes of the one being kissed; the eyes dominate your vision, and every little fleck of color in the iris becomes as visible as the Morning Star. So much detail is found in the partner's eyes that it becomes easy to believe that they really are windows to the soul. I saw that she was excited, but apprehensive; ready to plunge into an abyss, but scared of the rocks below, to use a strained metaphor.

I hugged her close, just about on the verge of tears.

"Barbara... I love you."

She squeezed against me, her heart beating through both her chest and mine. The water loosed from our eyes and trickled down our necks, where it seared lines of cool on our overheating hides. There were no sobs, just tears. I wondered if sobs only happened if the tears were of pain or anger.

"Pantrostic, I am tired of you taking point on family matters," she spoke in an emotional tone. "I am tired of being benched while you beat back the other team single-hoofedly."

"Single-hoofed," I corrected out of reflex.

"Whatever." She rolled us over so she was on top of me. She lifted her upper body just enough to look into my eyes.

"I want to help," she said, still crying. "I have always wanted to help."

"And you have. Over and over again. Every time I needed you, you were there to help."

"It's not enough." She collapsed against my chest, her breath betraying how intense this was for her. "You are the one who always gets hurt. Y-you, you are th-the one who a-always s-suffers." She sat back up, her eyes glowing with some emotion I couldn't place.

"It's not fair," she said.

"Barbara...."

"I am your wife, Pantrostic!" Her breath grew more ragged as she spoke. "I can do so much more than I already have! We need to be a unit, working as one!" She fell back on my chest again. "You can't go through life alone, and for the life of me I can't figure out why you act so lonely!"

She squeezed me tight, her grip on my heart both literal and emotional. "I failed you!" she sobbed. "I want you to be happy, but either you wouldn't let me or I would be too much of a coward to step up for the sacrifice! 'You're just a foal, Barbara,' I'd tell myself! 'You can't make him happy, Barbara!' 'You'll never make time for him, Barbara!' 'You'll make him hate you, Barbara!'" She took a deep breath, sat up again, and looked me in the eye. Her determination pierced my bleeding heart and left me breathless before her gaze.

"No more," she muttered. She positioned herself in a strange way, and it took me a couple of minutes before a suggestive motion from her alerted me to her intention.

"Barbara, that's—"

"—exactly what I need to do," she muttered. I wanted to pull away just a little bit, calm the both of us down so we could think about this... but some part of me knew this wouldn't happen. I thought back to my dream, shortly after my first collapse from the assassin attack.

I sighed, and held her close.

"Being a wife is more than being a mate," I said. "Working as a unit means making sacrifices for the well-being of the other. You're right; I have sacrificed a lot. But you have too, in more ways than one."

I looked into her crying face, and used my cheek to brush away her tears. "You chose the most difficult path for your modeling career because it paid the best. Without that money, we would have lost our family home."

I gripped her tighter as she sobbed on top of me. "You kept your distance after the... the rape, so that I could have time to work out all the crap running through my heart at the time, even though you needed someone to talk to after our Moms and Dads died. You were only nine going on ten years old, and yet..."

I throat almost choked with emotion, and I knew I couldn't complete that sentence. I began to cry as I continued:

"Y-you have always supported me and my own career as a student of Princess Celestia. I, I wouldn't have lasted nearly as long if you were not there to keep me on task, to force me to move forward, to challenge what I could do."

I kissed her again, both of us crying. "I would not be half the pony I am today if you were not there to help me. And that help always came at a cost, one you always paid without hesitation."

"We have each other," I said, "and as long as we can work together, we will not only survive, but thrive." I kissed her again, and then my mind realized that I could ask her a certain important question:

"What day is it?"

"The twelfth," she answered, smiling a little before she kissed me again. "Did you have something in mind for my coming-of-age birthday present?"

My heart did a nearly-infinite number of joyous conniption fits as the reality of that answer entrenched itself in my awareness.

Someone tapped me on my shoulder before I could answer Barbara. I looked up to see Weasel with a bag over her shoulder, standing right next to Barbara and I. Barbara noticed Weasel's presence, and I swear I could feel the heat from the blush on her cheeks.

"I, uh, need to change your bandage," Weasel said.

Barbara and I looked at each other, and sighed the biggest sigh of our marriage. Before Barbara could move out of the way to let Weasel do her thing, I kissed her again.

"Tonight," I said to her. "I won't screw that up."

I could tell Barbara was a little disappointed, but she smiled, got up and kissed my forehead. She then went back into the cave, my heart aching as she walked away.

I took a deep breath, trying in vain to calm the storm of emotions that battered at my mind and vied for my attention. Weasel came up and started tugging at the bandage on my right shoulder, but I didn't look at her. I looked away, trying not to bring my feelings to her attention, hoping that she would focus on changing the bandage and not my face.

"So, why did you save my life?" I asked as she worked on me.

I glanced a little smirk on Weasel's face, something I didn't expect. "Because you saved mine."

I thought back, trying to remember exactly how that could have happened. All that I did with her was get info on the criminal underworld's key figures, so I could write those books on them. I paid a fortune for that information, and got in trouble with Celestia over it at the time. Could it be something connected to that? I doubt it; I hardly think that hardened criminals could be defeated by a series of biographies.

"You were not aware just how secretive the smuggling cartels and thieves' guilds were when you bought that info on them," Weasel said as she finished stripping away the old gauze. "When those books showed up in every public library from Canterlot to Neighbraska to Saddle Arabia, power struggles happened everywhere."

She looked down at the ground, as if choosing her words carefully. "I... owed some of those ponies and organizations a... a large fortune in bits. None of those ponies or organizations survived the underground wars. Without the debtors, my debt... disappeared."

She shook her head. "I bought and sold information for a living because of... past mistakes. My life was on the edge of falling apart when the war solved my problems. A war that you started."

I took a deep breath, determined not to overreact to the information Weasel just told me. No wonder I got attacked by an assassin. Every criminal in the world now has a grudge etched in blood against me.

"I... I am glad that you benefited from that," I said, doing what I could to pick the right words. "It must not have been easy to separate yourself from that lifestyle."

"I managed." She patted a hoof on the new strips of gauze she had wrapped around my shoulder. I was surprised at how dexterous she was with her single forehoof. I did not think I had the courage to ask how she had lost her entire left foreleg.

"We cannot stay here," I said as she worked.

"Do you have a death wish?"

"I have a task to do."

"Safety first, saving the world second."

"A saved world is a safe world."

"As if you would survive the attempt."

"Everyone else would. That's what matters."

She said nothing as she finished wrapping and tightening the bandage onto my right shoulder.

"Not too tight, I hallucinate when it's too tight."

"Do you want it to fall off?"

"Of course not, but," I sighed, unable to make an effective response.

"I'll see what I can do," Weasel said. She finished tying the last strap, and stepped back. I craned my neck to check her work.

The bandage was solid, allowing enough flex to give my shoulder room to move, yet firm enough that dirt and debris wouldn't get in the wound. "Thanks," I said.

"Least I could do," she said. She walked around me and out of the cave entrance.

"You buried the bones?" she called back.

"Yeah," I said. "Didn't want a wraith terrorizing us."

"A wraith?"

"Yup."

It was a few seconds before she spoke again. "I... I thought our beds were far enough away, that some minor spirit would keep other ponies away."

"Wraiths feed off certain emotions. They magically force ponies to feel those emotions so that they become stronger. So wraiths start weak and become overpowering as they gain in strength. Besides, in the Everfree, if that is really where we are, there is no such thing as a 'minor' spirit."

I heard a sigh. "The things you learn."

"Yeah."

I stood up and followed Weasel out the cave entrance. She was sitting in the middle of the clearing, her head angled up as she searched the cloudy sky. I sat down beside her and looked up as well.

"I wasn't kidding when I said we couldn't stay here," I said.

"We are safe here. We move, we expose ourselves to danger."

"I'm on a secret mission from Princess Celestia."

"Nice try."

I stood up, and started to walk into the forest. Weasel followed me, grabbed me by the rump and tried to pull me back. I shook her off and kept walking.

"Pantrostic, hold up, let's talk about this—"

"Then stop assuming you know everything about me."

I turned around, and faced her from the other end of the clearing. "Why else would a wet-behind-the-ears, pretentious, and unknown writer pay a fortune in bits to get information on the criminal underworld? Why else would I be going to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, with all my schooling fees waived? Why else would I be a basket case with everything I do?"

She was about to speak, but then she stopped. She looked away, her intense expression betraying how hard her mind was working.

"That fortune was every bit I had, and included my inheritance from my dead parents," I continued. "Nobody bought or so much as borrowed one of those biographies. I wrote those books as a public service to Equestria. So how else could I have stayed in an exclusive and expensive school? Princess Celestia paid for it."

"I... see."

I sighed. "I know how crazy it sounds, but it is true. She had assigned a mission to me the day I got attacked. So I need to get back and do what I need to do."

"Do you need to go to Canterlot?"

I remembered Twilight Sparkle's travel plans. "Just to Ponyville."

She furrowed her brow in thought. "The little village at the edge of the Everfree?"

"I guess so. That's where Twilight Sparkle was going to stop for supplies and crew. I'm supposed to meet her there, if she hasn't gone on to our objective already."

She sighed. "If you absolutely have to, then I guess I could take you, and keep Barbara and Asura here—"

"No. Not only will they want to come, but they'll be left alone in the middle of this forest." I sighed. "I understand the logic, but the drawbacks are too big."

"I can make this place safe for them."

"They would be safest with us."

She bit her lower lip. I could see her frustration. "I never thought I'd be out-thought by you."

"It's not me. It's the situation. Sometimes, things are hard to avoid."

"Tell me about it."

I smiled and walked back to Weasel. "We don't have to leave now. When's the soonest we'd be ready for travel?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"Sounds like a plan. Besides," I said as I walked past her, "I don't think living here for the rest of our lives is an option."

I heard her chuckle as she turned around with me. She went into the cave, and I laid back down by the cave entrance. The midday pure grey was as relaxed as the morning's dirty grey, and I almost fell asleep again before I heard someone else walk up from the cave.

"Hey Dad."

I turned around and saw Asura looking at me. "Hey Asura. How are you doing?"

He looked away, and started to turn around. I stood up and put a hoof on his shoulder before he could walk back into the cave.

"Tell me what's bothering you, because I'm your Dad. It's my job to help you."

Asura shivered a little. "I'm fine."

"Oh? You've been through a lot. You sure you're okay?"

"It's not your problem."

"I'm your Dad. Your problems are my problems."

"Really?"

"Absolutely."

He looked at me. He was crying. "I almost killed a pony."

I lay back down, my hoof still on Asura's shoulder. "Talk with me about it."

He lay down with me, his body shivering as he cried.

"He was trying to kill you."

"Mm-hmm."

"I would have killed him."

"Uh-huh."

"He was evil."

"I guess so."

He laid down, his head resting on his forelegs. "Then why do I feel so bad about that?!"

"Because you're not him."

He looked up at me.

"He tried to kill because he wanted to," I continued. "You tried to kill because you were protecting me. That's something that makes the two of you different. There's also the fact that you are worried about what you almost did. He probably never gave it a second thought."

I put my legs over his shoulders, pulling him a little closer to me. "That's what makes you a good pony, and him an evil pony."

He sobbed into my chest. "It still felt bad. I could have killed him, and that would have made me bad." He looked in my eyes. "It was so easy, too. Just a twist of the neck." He shivered and put his cheek at my neck. "I... I could kill any pony. No one could stop me."

I took a deep breath, and held him close to me. "Asura, there are a couple things I will tell you right now. One, do you feel how your body is right now? When it's like that, it's harder to think straight. So just breathe with me, and we'll calm your body down so we can think about that problem."

I took a long and deep breath, held it for a second, then let it out slowly. I could feel Asura trying to do the same. I continued that pattern of breath, Asura struggling to match it. A few minutes later, he finally managed to have an even breath, which made me smile a little. After a few more minutes, Asura had stopped crying and was breathing better.

I lifted Asura's head to mine and asked, "How do you feel now?"

"A LOT better. Thanks, Dad." He smiled at me. "Is that really all it takes to calm down? Just breathing easy?"

I smiled a little, and looked up, wondering where to start with that subject. I decided to start with a story I liked to tell.

"Well, breathing helps. But there is more to it than that. And if you'd indulge your father, I'd like to tell you a story."

I saw his eyes perk up, and I knew I had his attention. I smiled, and began:

"Many centuries ago, there was a Lord in the country of Tramplevania. He ran his country well, but he always felt sad for a reason that he couldn't figure out. His sadness began to absorb his thoughts, and he turned away from his subjects and towards a way to cheer him up, so he wouldn't be sad anymore.

"As he was desperately searching through his Royal Library, he came across a note from his father, the previous Lord. Among the other things on it, it mentioned a ring that could make a sad person happy, and a happy person sad. By this point, The Lord had tried everything else to cheer him up, from jesters and clowns to comedians and even some honest hard labor at one point."

"He must have been really sad," Asura said.

"Very sad, indeed. The Lord was at his wit's end, so he called his smartest advisor to his side and gave him the note. 'Find me this ring,' The Lord told the advisor, 'and I will reward you with whatever you desire.' The advisor not only agreed, but left that day to search for the special ring.

"The advisor looked up and down Tramplevania, from the windiest, iciest peaks of the tallest mountains to the deepest bed of the deepest lakes, and everywhere in between. No matter what he tried, he could not find the special ring that The Lord needed. Oh, he saw all sorts of rings; enchanted rings that made people stay awake, some that made people sleep and never wake up, others that could shoot fire and lightning and others that protected ponies from fire and lightning. But none of them could make a sad person happy, or a happy person sad."

"Not ONE ring could do that?"

"Not that the advisor found, yes. The advisor began to feel sad himself, because he had failed his Lord. His Lord was counting on him to find this ring, and he hadn't found it. The advisor had looked everywhere, too. There was nowhere else to look. The advisor started to make his way back to the Lord's castle when a dirty old peddler came up to him."

"What's a peddler?"

"Kind of like a shop keeper or store owner, but without a shop or store. They sell their stuff in the streets or wherever they can find a good spot."

"Oh."

"Anyway, the peddler came up to the advisor and said, 'Hullo there, guvnor! I'd wager ya'd like a bauble or two from me wares! Cheer ya right up, they will!' The advisor considered just walking away, but something told him to take a look at the peddler's stuff. When he did, the advisor saw that the peddler had necklaces, earrings, all sorts of jewelry. The peddler had only one ring, though, and the moment the advisor saw it, he knew that it was the ring he was searching for. The advisor bought the ring right away and ran straight to The Lord with his discovery.

"The advisor presented The Lord with the ring, who picked it up. The Lord looked at it for a while, and something magical happened. He began to cry."

"Wait, why is he crying if the ring is supposed to make him happy?"

"Happy ponies cry sometimes too."

"Huh."

"The Lord came down and hugged the Advisor. 'You did it! You did it! The ring, it works, it works!' The Lord shouted for the whole world to hear him. The Lord danced up and down the hall in his castle, happy for the first time in a long time. He glanced back at the ring as he stopped to catch his breath, and he began to frown. 'Ah, but it was so fleeting," he muttered as he became sad again. He looked at the ring a third time, and smiled again. 'Yet the same must be true for sadness, with this ring at my side,' he said.

"The Lord turned to the advisor. 'For your loyalty and your cleverness, I shall grant you anything you want. Name it, and it shall be yours,' The Lord said. 'I desire to travel beyond the country, Sire,' the advisor answered. 'Then travel to your heart's content! There will always be a home here in Tramplevania for you, should you ever desire to return!'

"The special ring did not have any enchantments or any gemstones or anything like that. It was simply a small loop of solid copper. What made it special was four words that were written on it:

"This, too, shall pass."

I looked back to Asura, where I saw the confusion in his eyes. "Emotion, like being happy, sad, upset, giggly, whatever you may feel will pass away in time. That's how emotions work. You can't stop yourself from feeling whatever you feel, but you can be patient and wait for the feelings to pass. By treating your feelings like that, you can think and stay focused on what you need to do."

My heart soared as Asura's eyes lit up with understanding. "So THAT's why I kept getting beat by my teacher! I never focused, but he did!" He looked away, his face worried again. "But how do you handle the feeling that you've done something bad?"

"How can you do something good if your mind is stuck on the bad thing that was done? Just let the feeling pass, because you will stop feeling bad if you relax and let it pass like it is designed to do."

Asura stood up, pushing me aside as he did so. "I gotta try something," he said as he ran out of the cave. I got up and followed him, curious as to what he was going to do.

When I had walked out to the clearing, Asura had assumed one of the most impractical fighting stances I had ever seen. He was balanced on one hind leg, his forelegs and other hind leg extended out to his sides and in front of him. He made a tiny jump, kicked with his supporting hind hoof and planted his other hind leg to keep his balance. He brought his forelegs into a guard position in front of him. He remained balanced like that.

I heard something crash in the forest. I looked over the forest at the other edge of the clearing, and saw what made the noise; a branch had fallen down. Because of how it fell, I could see the break. Except it didn't look like a break. It looked like a cut. And no part of the cut indicated the tooth of a saw or the sliver of a knife blade.

I looked back toward Asura. I noticed that his eyes were closed. Asura took a deep breath, and made another strike at the air. This time, I saw the shockwave extending from Asura's hooves out to the forest, and couldn't believe it when the shockwave neatly cut another branch off of a tree.

Asura repeated these actions of deep breath/air strike/shockwave cut for a few minutes, before he sat down and crossed his hind legs under him, putting his forelegs on his knees. He became so still, I thought for a second that he had overexerted himself again, but he wasn't shivering with the effort of that feat I saw him do. He was simply breathing in a long, deep pattern that barely betrayed a hint of life. Not once did he open his eyes.

I walked over to the branches Asura cut to confirm what I saw, barely able to believe it myself. Sure enough, all the cuts were smooth and straight, even one or two of them which had sliced knots in the wood. Asura had wielded the air around him to cut the branches. Without opening his eyes.

"It's about being calm," I heard Asura speak. I looked back to him. "The more calm I am, the better I fight. But more than that, the better I understand how to fight." He took a deep breath and stood up, opening his eyes.

"Dad, I promise you that I will never try to kill another pony again. I don't have to go that far, no matter what's going on."

A light shone on Asura's haunch which made me hold my breath. Is now the time? Is this his talent? Is this the moment that will define him for the rest of his life?

The light faded, and Asura looked at his haunch. He looked away and chuckled. "Well, what did I expect?" he muttered.

I walked over to him, and saw a tattoo square on his haunch. I was so excited that the mark had appeared that I grabbed Asura in a giant bear hug and swung him around above my head. I laughed and laughed, probably sounding quite manic. I hadn't even gotten a good look at the cutie mark, I was that excited.

I let him down gently, and was grateful to see his smile. I still held him close, and as I did so, I got a better look at his cutie mark.

It was a pony with another awkward, bipedal fighting stance. Wavy lines swirled from fore-hoof to fore-hoof. The mark seemed to represent the coiled anticipation of the snake and the calm patience of a predator. It radiated control and focus.

I thought that I couldn't be more proud of my son than when he won that tournament. I knew how wrong that assumption was as I held him in my legs, his cutie mark visible for the world to see. I found myself crying as I held him.

"Hey, Dad, let's go see if Weasel needs help."

I took a deep breath and held Asura out from me. Both of us were smiling, and I was crying.

"Yeah... let's go see. And if we ever get near civilization again, I will buy an ice cream shop in your name, Asura."

He laughed and rolled his eyes. "I don't think you need to do that, Dad."

Healing a Heart to Uncover Truth

When I woke up, I felt very hot and sweaty. The surrounding air was cold, which made me shiver like a hummingbird's wings. My left foreleg was pinned under something warm and heavy yet soft, and had gone numb from the pressure on the blood vessels. I wriggled my leg out from under the object, grimacing as the nerves screamed with that familiar tingly sensation. For some reason, I hadn't yet opened my eyes. The air smelled like a stall that hadn't been cleaned out in a while, but my nose wasn't offended by the scent.

Then the object that was on top of my leg moved, and I heard it breathe. I opened my eyes, to find myself next to Barbara, still asleep. Last night came rushing back to me. I felt myself blush when I remembered what the two of us did before falling asleep.

I looked around, but couldn't find a blanket nearby. I didn't want to just leave Barbara to freeze in this cave... and then I noticed how dark it was. I wondered if it was night time, since we couldn't have been too far from the entrance. The cave wasn't as big as I had originally thought. I remember that we had to ask Weasel and Asura to sleep outside, so that we could have some privacy.

"You hallucinated last night."

I didn't realize that Barbara was awake. She turned around and kissed me on the lips. "Did I pinch a shoulder?" she asked me.

I... remembered last night. She hadn't seen my face... but she must have felt my rhythm change.

I kissed her back. "It's alright," I said. "I remembered that what I saw wasn't real, that it was you I was with."

She frowned a little. "Then... what did you see?"

I sighed, and put my cheek against hers. "I really don't want to talk about it."

"It WAS her you saw."

I pushed her away, just a little, and turned my back to her. I didn't move further away, since I knew I wouldn't be able to avoid her questions for long.

"You saw her in my place."

"Mm-hm."

"While we were—"

"Yeah."

I heard her sigh. She put her forelegs around my shoulder as she cuddled up to me.

"I knew we couldn't avoid her," she whispered into my ear. "She really did a number on—"

"I... I just, I thought that if I—"

"Shhh," she cooed in my ear. "It's okay. Although, I think we should increase your therapy sessions to once a day when we get back home."

"If home is still there."

"Then when we get back to civilization."

I sighed, and felt tears getting squeezed out of my eyes. "Look, Barbara, I... I'm ashamed."

The tears began to drip down my face, and I couldn't stop them. I didn't want to dredge up the past, I didn't want to bring up what happened, I just wanted to move on, move forward, like Mom said, just find a way to keep going, don't stop—

"I don't want to deal with it; it's too painful. Sh-she manipulated me, m-made me believe that w-we were l-l-lovers—"

I stopped. I could hear my breath, but I couldn't move. No, that wasn't right; I WOULDN'T move. My words rushed back to me: I don't want to deal with it; it's too painful... I'm ashamed... I don't want to talk about it....

Is that truly what I want?

"I... how does anyone deal with pain that huge?" I said.

I didn't turn back around, and Barbara placed her face next to mine. The heat from her body was reassuring, but uncomfortable, since it made the surrounding air as cold as winter by comparison. I wondered where the blankets had disappeared to... and I remembered that I had placed them on the ground, to make up for the lack of a soft bed for our first time.

I jerked my brain out of its distracted musings. "She had total control over my physical interactions," I continued. "For a MONTH. Endless, unprotected debauchery that never let up. I couldn't even tell night from day; there were no windows. Just her... her groaning and... how she made my body feel."

"Didn't you say that the body feels whatever the heck it wants to feel, even if it's morally wrong?" she asked.

"The thought didn't occur to me at the time," I answered. "It was only when I was at a somewhat healthier emotional state a couple years later that I realized the truth of that fact."

I shivered a little, which Barbara must have noticed, because she tightened herself around me more than before. Did I shiver from the cold... or from remembering all of this stuff?

"She never spoke a word, and rarely looked me in the eye. In those rare times when I did see her eyes, I was surprised at how dead they seemed. Sure, some part of her was into it, but her eyes had no spark to them, not even a glimmer of insanity, like when she kidnapped me. It was like... it was like her... her assaults... were her job, and that she had to perform it or suffer, somehow."

My gut clenched when I remembered what the next part of this story would be. If my heart wasn't so strong from all the exercise my dad drilled into me at a young age, I swear I would be having a heart attack right now. I could only guess at Barbara's expression, which didn't stop my mind from imagining anything from kind and patient listening to disgusted and shocked horror.

"At some point later... I woke up, to find her asleep on top of me. I thought that, even though I was bound to a table and gagged, I could defy her just a little. I tried to shake her off of me so she would fall onto the floor; it was the only thing I could do. It didn't work, though; a couple of shakes was enough to wake her up. I remember staring into her eyes, with no idea what I should feel or how I should react.

"Then... she cried."

I closed my eyes, and remembered every detail on that mare's face; the masculine chin, the brown eyes with that fleck of green in the lower right corner of the iris, the lines in the pale fur that formed from her tears, how her entire face would shiver whenever she sobbed.

"Her tears led to an emotional wail that left me more confused than ever. It seemed to go on for hours; I had lost all track of time at this point. The worst part about seeing this... is that I felt sorry for her."

I clenched my legs into a fetal position, about ready to bite my lip to the point of blood.

"Yes. I felt SORRY for HER. Forget the fact that I was the VICTIM, some part of me just wanted to comfort her, or at least make her stop crying. I wanted to make that evil, cheating, twisted, insane might-as-well-be-escapee-from-Tartarus feel better.

"So... I nuzzled her. And betrayed you. I betrayed you, myself, the memory of my parents, and Princess Celestia and everyone else I knew or may ever know. In time, she let me go, and instead of trying to take advantage of that privilege, I obeyed her every—"

Barbara pushed me away. I tumbled away from her, and ended up face-to-face with a very angry face from Barbara.

So... this is it. She now knows what I went through. She knows how I let her down, and why I keep letting her down. I couldn't avoid it. Whatever she may have thought of me, that view is now shattered forever.

Barbara stood up, her eyes pinning me to the floor. I began to feel uneasy at the intensity of her gaze. I wanted to back away, run, but I couldn't look away from her gaze. I didn't even feel her hoof on the side of my face until she began to put a little weight on it. My fight-or-flight instinct roared to life and I started babbling:

"Barbara, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, you have every right, believe me, but at least please tell me why before you—"

"Pantrostic, when you get cut or hurt in some way, what do you do?" Barbara asked me.

"I, uh, I would probably bandage it—"

"Why?"

"So that it can heal?!"

She took her hoof off of my face, and knelt down in front of my eyes. Her face dominated my vision. Her face didn't seem so angry, just worried. I could only assume that my facial expression was one of abject terror.

"Exactly," she said. "You were hurt; I am surprised that your heart and the core of who you are wasn't destroyed by her. However... what did you do to help you heal?"

I didn't know how to process what had just happened. I shuffled backwards a little, unsure of what to do: keep talking to her, or run? Am I safe now, or was I ever in any danger? Why in all the Nine Hells of Tartarus did she try to hurt me?!

"What did you do to heal from your wounds?" she repeated.

"I... why the hell did—"

"I am mad at you... and I want to show you why. Best way is with an example—"

"That stupid 'example' makes me want to run away from you!"

I sat up, gently running my hooves over my face. There wasn't even an imprint from her hoof... but the sensation remained. My lungs chugged air in and out of my lungs as I struggled to gain some level of control, before I said or did anything that might turn this fiasco into something destructive.

"Y-you can't just smash your hoof into my face without some way to explain! Look, I love you, I really do, but that wasn't smart, I know you said you were angry at me, and I get that, maybe not why but I can guess, and... Wait... what have I done to heal?"

Barbara nodded, and I could see her start to cry.

Damnit, now I've made her cry, I thought. I bit my lip, and I crawled back over to her. I brought her into my embrace, and held her as tears went down her face. She struggled against me, and managed to squirm out of my grasp. I didn't understand why; she shouldn't be doing this, I'm just trying to comfort her, cheer her up, stop her tears, why—

Barbara stared me in the face, which silenced my mind.

"Pantrostic, this isn't something you can kiss to make better," she said. "You have such a giving heart, so willing to look beyond your own self to others, even when you're so utterly destroyed. But you can't help anybody when you can't help yourself."

She looked away, keeping her small, established distance. "You are sick in the heart," she continued. "To really show your love again, you need to work on clearing out the infection that mare forced upon you. And that's something you haven't done."

She looked at me again, and I saw a hint of the anger she had showed before. "You never tried to heal. You kept running, even though your legs were broken."

"It's not like I had much of a choice—"

"You always had a choice," she retorted. "You have a choice right now. I overheard you talking with Weasel; I know why we're in this mess we are in now. A mess you made for yourself, that you can't fix because you're too injured to deal with it. Why do I keep trying to take control of our family? Why do I keep bringing this stuff up? Why do I keep worrying about you? Because I want you to get better, and you won't if you don't make time for that!"

How dare she do that?! I don't care if she is my wife, she has no right to tell me what to do with my life when she doesn't even know how the hell I live it—

I bit my lip. Look, I thought to myself, I know she doesn't know what she's talking about. But you are not feeling well right now. You're upset, kinda crazy, and very, very confused. I need to stop as much as she does.

"Barbara... I know that I've hurt you, and kept you at leg's length," I said through clenched teeth. "I... I have been trying to heal, by putting a cast around the part that was broken."

I put my head on the floor, breathing, chest heaving, not looking her in the eye, and keeping my distance.

"Someday, I don't know when, I'll be able to take the cast off, and my heart won't hurt anymore," I said. "But until then, I need the distance. I need to be able to let my heart work through all this crap and put the broken pieces back together again."

"But your heart wasn't just broken," Barbara interrupted; "it was infected. She destroyed what it meant to love someone, what it meant to have a family. She, she took total advantage of you and manipulated you into feeling that love had happened, when the opposite was the truth. You hate her. You hate everything she stands for, everything she represents, whatever that may be. How can a cast clear an infection?! You need medicine, now, before it corrupts you into something you are not!"

The more I thought about what she said, the more it made sense. The hallucinations, the outbursts, the constant lack of energy. I didn't think to blame anything else on it, because I was always worried about everyone else, rarely about myself. I didn't reach out for help, and received none in return.

Careful now, I thought, I am really upset right now. I could easily take this revelation too far, and start blaming the mare who raped me for every problem in my life.

I sat back up, and looked Barbara in the eye again. "So, what do I do? What's the medicine?" I asked.

"Talking about what bothers you without me prying it out of your shut-in personality would be a good start," she responded. "Knowing when to outright say 'I've been through some soul-crushing personal crap that makes it hard for me to do X or Y at this time' would be outstanding. If not that, then letting others do something rather than trying to do everything yourself is a good substitute."

I took a very deep breath and closed my eyes as I contemplated what she was asking of me. When I opened them, I knew what I needed to say.

"I'm not perfect," I began; "it'll take time for me to recover, to do the things you're asking of me. But I will try, and I will listen in case you see me slipping. You're right, I can't do this alone. I tried to heal myself, because it didn't seem fair for me to push my problems on others, causing more work for everyone around me as a result. My life is my own, so my problems should be my own as well, right? But that doesn't work when my problems start affecting others, which is something that I've been blind to lately."

I stood up, and walked back over to the bed. I didn't look at Barbara. I re-arranged the blankets to smooth out some of the wrinkles and rough spots, and laid back down.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with my crap, and thank you for helping me realize how out-of-whack I was. I have a long way to go before I am worthy to be your husband, much less the father of your children... but I'm not going to give up."

Barbara laid down next to me, held me close and kissed me.

"Every day," she whispered in a quiet voice, "I thank Celestia that you're in my life, that you think so highly of me, and that you want so many good things for me. Celestia actually told me: 'If Pantrostic ever disappoints you or makes you cry, give him time. He'll find a way to make it up to you.'" She cried as she put her head near mine, her breath loud in my ear. "Every day, I see her wisdom in saying that."

"I want you to promise me something," she continued: "if you ever see me get impatient, or jumping to some kind of conclusion, please stay calm. Give me some time too. Help me as much as I help you."

I turned around, and kissed her. "I promise. Always."

As the night wore on and we began to tire, I half-expected to hallucinate again. Some part of me held its breath, knowing that my mental state was weak enough for anything to happen. When I saw sunlight streaming from the cave entrance without seeing a single transformation in Barbara's appearance, I began to wonder if there wasn't some other action that triggered the hallucination the first time.

I sat there, my legs around Barbara as she slept, and mentally compared our first and second mating, trying to find anything different about either experience, to try and explain why I hallucinated the first time and not the second. We were in the same general space, in very similar positions, had the same time between our climaxes, kissed the same areas of our faces... why'd she turn into that psycho the first time, and not the second?

My thoughts were interrupted when I looked up to see a Changeling staring at me. Its dark green carapace was framed in the light streaming from the entrance to the cave. It simply stood there, and stared at Barbara and I. My left shoulder felt fine; it wasn't numb or pinched. This meant that the Changeling was real, and wasn't a hallucination.

I glanced around the cave, always bringing my eyes back to the insectoid in front of me. My glances did not reveal more Changelings inside the cave, although that did not reassure me. If there were more, they would likely have blended into the wall as the best disguise.

Wait... can Changelings imitate objects? I thought. They can copy the appearance and sound of a pony, but could they copy the rock of the cave?

I slipped out from under Barbara, who still slumbered. As I stood up, I kept my eyes on the Changeling. It did not blink, nor did it seem to react to my movement. I took a few steps forward, knowing that anything could set off a fight... or worse. Still the Changeling did not move.

The Changeling opened its mouth. I stopped, bracing myself for some kind of bite. Instead, it spoke in a voice that I recognized, with an added rasp that made me shiver:

"I am sorry for the deception... but it had to be done."

Who had come to my family's rescue back in Canterlot? Weasel.

Who had promised us a place of safety? Weasel.

Who had led us deep into the heart of the Everfree Forest? Weasel.

Who was hesitant to leave isolation? Weasel.

How many legs did this Changeling have? Three.

"Weasel... what did you do to Asura?" I asked, a sense of despair creeping on my mind.

"I did nothing," Weasel stated. "The Forest will change him when you and your wife are gone."

Weasel lunged forward and slammed into me, the only noise being the brief thrum of her Changeling wings and the thud as she pinned me to the floor. Before I could react, I felt Weasel's teeth bite into my neck.

My entire body went limp as the bite broke my skin. The Changeling's bite injects a paralysis agent into the body around the area of the bite, preventing them from struggling against the attack. Since she had bitten my neck, my spine had been paralyzed. My breathing nearly stopped as my brain struggled to get a nervous signal around the paralyzed area.

Then came the Un-Feeling. Every Changeling bite feeds off not just the body, but also the soul. Many victims expressed an incapacity to feel any emotion, instinct included. The condition became described as the "Un-Feeling," since those who experience it are unable to determine their emotional state for a period of time: they literally cannot tell if they are happy, sad, shocked or more. Recovery is possible, but always lengthy.

Unlike the paralysis, the Un-Feeling could be resisted to a certain degree. A few claimed to be immune to it, although this has never been proven. As such, I knew that the Un-Feeling had advanced through me quite a bit, because my mind had gone into detail describing this sensation in a logical and emotionless manner despite the fact that my survival instinct should have repressed all rational thought due to the fact that I was on the verge of death.

As I lay on the ground, most likely dying from the paralysis agent, I remembered what happened when Asura had showed up on my doorstep, many years ago. I had almost abandoned him, closed the door to the basket that held him. I was about to call for the Patrol to come pick him up, when I noticed a green glow coming from the door. Paranoid about shenanigans involving Venusia coming back and wrecking my life again, I almost ran under the table to hide. Then, I heard Asura's wail.

My worry over the child overcame my fear of Venusia. I rushed to the door and opened it. I grabbed the basket and rushed back inside before I could see what was happening outside. When I looked in the basket to make sure the foal was alright, I found him in a state I could not adequately describe at the time.

The world around me dimmed a little as my brain struggled to continue remembering my first meeting with Asura. I could tell the paralysis was spreading, and that I had at least a minute, if not more, of consciousness. I decided to try and summarize the remainder of that event as best I could, because I needed to reach the conclusion I knew I would infer from remembering this event.

Asura was in the middle of transforming into a Changeling. At the time I did not know what a Changeling was, but hindsight is enlightening. Half his body was consumed with the dark green chitin characteristic of the Changeling, while the other half remained Asura's normal self. He screamed at me, and somehow I inferred that he was screaming for me to help him.

So I tried to use my magic to reverse the transformation. The transformation reversed before I could do anything, however. Asura continued to scream; I took him in my embrace, changed and fed him as best I could, then laid him down for a nap. I saw, as I cared for him, the little green fleck in his eye that reminded me so much of Venusia. I had put two and two together: Asura was my son, Venusia his mother.

So... what did I learn from that encounter? I thought. I struggled to find a way to express the answer; the world around me became more fuzzy, signaling that I was about to pass out. Weasel put her weight on my chest, forcing the air out of my lungs. I couldn't stop her due to my paralyzed spine. As that last breath wheezed out from me, I used that air to whisper:

"To cure the Changeling state is to care for and love the Changeling as the Pony they really are."

The Un-Feeling stopped its advance. Weasel withdrew from my neck, her Changeling mouth dripping with blood. Changelings are not blood-suckers, but the bite can be quite messy despite its usual non-lethal nature. I knew my jugular hadn't been torn out due to that logic; Changelings kill their victim through a prolonged bite, not a quick or merciful strike.

Without the continued injection of the paralysis agent, feeling began to return to my neck. It receded enough for my spine to regain some level of functionality. My body shivered as blood began to pump and the lungs gasped for air. Weasel stared at me as the world warped and waved in front of my eyes.

I tried to stand up, and regretted that effort as I vomited onto the floor... or at least, I thought it was the floor. Everything was topsy-turvy: left was up and so was down, and every direction seemed to change on me from instant to instant. Simply trying to focus my eyes was an effort-and-a-half, but I knew that I wanted to stand up.

I managed to roll onto my belly. I snaked one leg of mine, then another, under me and heaved myself upright. My brain thought the floor was a wall, which made me trip and fall down. If I had not emptied my stomach before, it would surely have emptied now. That did not stop it from heaving again, although nothing was left to evacuate.

I tried to focus my eyes on Weasel again, but the world was still a swirling kaleidoscope of sunlight, some dark green color and the gray of stone. Every part of my body ached, my neck burned like fire, my mind had lost all sense of physical space, but I knew I needed to speak. I had to talk to Weasel, it was more important than resting, I knew I could push myself to talk if I could just muster the concentration to do so, My mind even yelled at myself: Come ON, you son-of-a-mule! Get your throat in gear and say what you need to say!

I closed my eyes, stayed on the floor, and didn't try to get up again. By not exerting my leg muscles, I managed to give myself a couple of seconds to catch my breath. After a few seconds, something grabbed my shoulders and lifted me into the air.

"I should not have let you go," Weasel growled at me. I could feel her breath on my face. "You're unconscious now, and useless to me."

I took a deep breath, and said:

"Wh-what's you're f-f-first m-mem-mory?"

"Why do you want to know?" Weasel hissed. "There's nothing you can do!"

"A-as-sura al-lm-most became one of y-you—"

Weasel's breath paused when she figured out what I said in my stuttering speech.

"I... I kn-know... what y-you've been th-through...."

I was dropped. I didn't try to stop my body from slumping to the ground. I had to keep speaking; my eyes were still closed, but I could feel myself beginning to lose some energy.

"S-sorry, I... know in general wh-what happened, b-but no det-tails.... Sorry f-for—"

I heard the sound of Weasel crying. I felt bad for dredging up what must be a painful memory for her, but she needed to know that I understand. She needs to know that a part of me cares.

I gritted my teeth, and lifted my left foreleg in the general direction of Weasel's voice. My hoof made contact with what felt like her shoulder, so I rested my leg there. I was surprised that she didn't try to brush my leg aside. After taking a few more seconds to catch my breath, I summoned the last bit of strength I had, and said:

"Go ahead... if y-you're hung-gry, eat... eat y-your f-fill...."

I did not remember what happened next. I had passed out.

I woke in a kaleidoscope of colors. The dream was familiar to me; it is this reoccurring dream where I am tumbling over and over, never touching the rotating walls, ceiling and floor of colorful light, but never caring that I could not touch the ground. I often dreamed this when I was in very deep sleep, on the cusp of the dreamless state needed so much for my body's rest.

This time, the dream changed. The walls began to move inwards, shortening the space I floated in. I did not feel panic as the walls moved in. Some part of me was aware that this was a dream, that nothing here could hurt me.

The walls ceased their encroachment inches from my eyes, then rotated around the axis of my line of sight. My dream body's brain felt dizzy from the pinwheel of colors that stayed in front of my eyes, no matter where I looked. Left, right, up, down, didn't matter; the rainbow vortex kept pace with my head no matter how fast I moved it.

I decided to wait and see what would come of this new development. I closed my dream-state's eyes, took a deep breath, and simply floated.

A very long time passed in utter dreamy silence.

I woke to find Weasel's Changeling body not far from mine. My head pounded, my neck ached. Was it still bleeding? I thought, as I touched a hoof up to it. The wound is still open from what I'm feeling there, but at least it's not bleeding too bad... I think.

I heaved my body forward, not wanting to try and stand and trigger a dizzy spell or another up-chucked stomach. I crawled alongside Weasel to try and get a look at her face. I could only assume that she's asleep or—

I almost screamed in fright. Her Changeling eyes were wide open, and clouded over. Her mouth seemed frozen, the tongue slid awkwardly to the side, its tip resting on the stone floor of the cave. To all appearances, she seemed dead.

Dear Sweet Celestia, what have I done?! I killed her!

I bowed my head, unable to believe what I saw in front of me. It doesn't make sense! The transformation should reverse, not cause mortality! This can't be happening, m-maybe my theory was incorrect, maybe adult Changelings are irreversible, could I have missed something, anything?!

Weasel's body twitched, around her midsection. I could hear strange, muffled sounds coming from her belly, almost like—

"Waaaaah!"

C-could it be?!

I shuffled over to the sound of a foal's wail, which emanated from Weasel's belly. I had to turn her body over so I could get a better look. Her body began to splinter, the shards of her chitinous body crumbling to dust. Seeing this, I frantically tugged at her midsection, hoping that I could free whatever was inside her with little fuss or fanfare.

The belly ripped open and dissolved as I shoved my hooves in, trying to find the source of the wail that I knew I heard. After panicking by finding more disintegrating pieces of Weasel's Changeling body, I found the piece that stayed solid and I wrapped my hooves around it.

I pulled it out, and there it was. A foal, with Weasel's dark orange coat and her signature missing foreleg. The thought had not occurred to me that Weasel's missing leg may have been a birth defect; I had assumed that Weasel had lost it due to some tragedy or accident, or maybe even a tragic accident. It wailed pitifully, begging me to help it like Asura did when he showed up at my door all those years ago.

I picked it—no, her—up, and stared at her, my heart feeling all a-flutter as I sat up. I cradled her in my legs, rocking her gently. I cooed at her, soft and low, every emotion on overdrive in my mind as the reality of the situation dawned on me:

Our guide just transformed into a foal who can't speak. Thus, our family is now lost in the Everfree Forest because of what I did.

The foal began to root, a common action where the baby seeks the mother's nipple for a meal of milk. It distracted me from my thoughts as a shadow passed over the front of the cave. I looked up to see Asura, who stared at me, his face doing little to hide his confusion.

"Pantrostic, what in all the Nine Hells of Tartarus is this?"

I turned around to see Barbara, her face both furious and scared. I must have looked a sight: a torn-up neck, a disintegrating and fading corpse in front of me, and now she could see the foal cradled in my grasp. I could think of no words to speak, and I hoped that the scene in front of her was enough to show what had happened.

Barbara’s face did not change. She walked up to me, her eyes switching focus from my face to the foal. She sat down, lifted the foal from my hooves, and placed it near one of her nipples. The foal instinctively latched on and sucked with all its might. Barbara’s facial expression did not change as she did this, and I did not resist her intrusion into our space.

“Asura,” Barbara said, her voice deadpan, “get some bandages, water and hydrogen peroxide from the supplies.”

My eyes followed Asura as he walked past us into the rear portion of the cave, and came back with the materials balanced on his head. He put them down one by one at my side, and looked at Barbara. She nodded at him.

Asura put a hoof against my shoulder, and spoke to me: “Dad, please lay down so I can clean up your neck.”

I lay down as he requested. I knew that my windpipe and my jugular vein had not been broken. With some deft hoof-work, Asura had soaked a cloth in the hydrogen peroxide, and began to clean away the blood from around the neck wound. My body couldn’t help but twitch whenever the cloth made contact with the bite mark, the hydrogen peroxide making those sections sting.

Asura set down the cloth, then looked at me. He said: “Dad, you may want to bite your hoof. This is gonna hurt.” Asura lifted up the bottle of hydrogen peroxide in his hooves, balancing expertly on his hind legs. I closed my eyes, and waited for the stinging to start.

When the first splash hit, it felt like my neck was being attacked by a swarm of bees. I knew what being stung by a swarm of those insects felt like due to not wearing proper protection as I went to interview a honey maker. I would have screamed, if my teeth had not ground shut from steeling myself for the pain and I wasn’t weak from Weasel’s bite. Asura poured a few more drops as I did my best to not curl around the wound to try and keep it from stinging again.

There were a few more splashes that did not sting; probably the water that Barbara had told Asura to get. My eyes were still closed as I felt a cloth drying out the wound and the area around it. A few bandage wraps later, and Asura tapped me on the shoulder.

“You can get up now, Dad. It’s done,” Asura said.

As I sat up, I opened my eyes. Barbara had looked away, the foal still sucking madly at Barbara’s nipple, desperate for food and attention. I looked away; I did not want to stare at Barbara, and instead turned to face the cave’s entrance. One thought ran through my head, which kept my mind focused on my surroundings and my brain working as fast as it could to try and answer it:

How in the bloody hell do we get out of this situation?

I closed my eyes, the familiar desire to simply not deal with the problem right now threatening to put me to sleep. I had to stay awake, though, I knew I had to, I needed to help get us all to safety—

“Pantrostic, rest,” Barbara said. “You’ve done enough already.”

I opened my eyes, tired enough to lay back down and take Barbara’s advice. I did not miss the clear anger in her voice. I couldn’t blame her; after all my talk last night at not throwing myself into danger, here I was, sacrificing my life yet again when there may have been a different option. As if I had the time to figure out what that option was, I thought. That doesn’t mean she’s wrong, but neither was I, I guess.

I sighed, and laid down, my eyes still looking out the cave entrance towards the blue sky. I saw a rainbow, which cheered my spirits somewhat—

There was something strange about the rainbow. From where I was, it looked straight as an arrow as it grew across the sky. All rainbows, whether they be sun-dogs or sprouting from the clouds, are curved in nature, and no rainbow grows or shrinks in a linear fashion; they fade in and out of the visible spectrum, never looking like the contrail of a passing Pegasi weather team. Everything about this rainbow sparked a memory in my mind that I never expected it to trigger, but it gave me a small bit of hope.

I heaved myself up, and nearly toppled over from a dizzy spell. Asura and Barbara jumped at my movement, but I ignored them. I lunged out the cave entrance, my eyes smarting as they adjusted to the bright afternoon after all that time spent in the cave. I looked up at the sky again, and my hopes soared in recognition at what I saw.

“Barbara, bring the foal out here!” I shouted back into the cave. “Asura, help her! Get out here NOW!”

I walked into the clearing at the entrance to the cave and stared up at the sky when I realized that I had no way to signal the distant dot at the tip of the rainbow. Barbara stumbled out, the foal tucked under one leg as she hobbled on the other, leaning against Asura for support.

I gotta make a signal somehow, and fast! I thought. “Barbara, do we have any flares, any way to signal the sky?”

“Pantrostic, what the hell has—“

“Do we have signal flares?!”

“Er, not that I saw—“

“DAMMIT!”

I pointed up at the sky with my left leg, doing my best to keep it steady. “What celebrity Pegasus do we know that can create a rainbow out of thin air?!”

Both of them looked to the sky. Asura’s face was furrowed in thought as he tried to think about my question, while Barbara’s eyes went wide with shock as the nature of the answer registered in her mind.

“W-we could make a fire, or something—“ Barbara stammered, glancing around the clearing, her eyes darting in panic.

“That’d take too long, she’ll speed over us before we get so much as a wisp of smoke!” I interrupted.

If only I could use my magic, I could shoot some alchemical lights into the air with a sparkling trail, like the fireworks manager at that traveling company of performers taught me! But my magic has not been reliable lately, and I doubt the adrenaline from my panic would allow me to—

Give it a try anyway, another part of my mind thought. It won’t hurt anybody, and it could save all our lives right now.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm down as I remembered the basic fireworks spell that I was taught. I closed my eyes, doing what I could to focus my mind inward, to find that inner fire of life that every creature had.

An inferno of emotions greeted me the moment I looked inward. They shouted all my doubts, fears, and nightmares at me wherever I looked. Nowhere was the blaze a controlled flow of magical energy; it burned with a passion that I didn’t fully understand.

I don’t have time to be picky! I thought as I grabbed the closest set of emotions and pulled them into a mental place that represented the physical space of my horn. The moment I pulled one, the rest tried to follow suit. I had to exert my focus to stem the flames before they spiraled out of control. I could feel my mental state shake with the effort, but I had to continue with the spell.

The emotional fire was unruly; I didn’t have time to smooth its eccentricities away as I worked within that mental space to create a transparent barrier around the fire. Once the barrier had finally managed to fully surround the flames, I opened my eyes to sense my handiwork.

My body shivered as my horn pulses with a fiery red glow. I knew that if I didn’t release the energy now, it would explode in my face, possibly breaking my horn and crippling what little channeling ability I had. I furrowed my brow as I forced the energy out of my horn and into the physical world. The amorphous blob of crimson white fire wriggled and tugged, before it finally squirted out my horn tip.

All my concentration and focus was on the blob of energy. There was one last step to complete the spell. I hope that the unpredictability of the magic doesn’t send the Element of Loyalty to the wrong target, I thought as I approached the now-floating blob.

I poked the underside of the floating blob with the tip of my horn.

The barrier that I had created burst, sending the energy screaming into the air with a high-pitched whistle. My heart soared as the energy flew straight and true, with only a couple slight twists left or right, and was ecstatic that the energy left a sparkling trail that led right to the clearing where Barbara, Asura, the foal and I were. I waited with bated breath for the final part of the firework spell to trigger.

Then I remember what the fireworks manager had told me: ”Do not try the spell whenever you are in an emotionally vulnerable state, or else you risk blowing out the eardrums of every pony in the audience.”

I sincerely hoped I had not screwed up.

I put my hooves in my ears at just the right time when the remaining ball of energy exploded into the sky, sending flaming streamers of light everywhere and a BANG that startled my already panic-strained nerves. I collapsed to the ground, wanting to stay put and wait for the panic and the emotion to pass as it gripped me.

I found myself repeating the phrase “Please see us please see us” to myself over and over again, as if my pleas would somehow twist fate. Within seconds, a technicolored blaze of light plummeted from the sky and landed right next to Barbara and I. Half-expecting a pot of gold and a leprechaun, and half-expecting the savior I hoped had created the rainbow, I looked up.

I was not disappointed.

It was the same Pegasus that created the victory rainbow over Canterlot after the Changeling Invasion several years ago. Her rainbow mane and tail and sky blue coat and feathers were iconic in ways modern day poets struggled to give due justice. Famous for performing the Sonic Rainboom when just a foal: The Element of Loyalty: it was Rainbow Dash.

She glanced at all of us and seemed to recognize the impact her presence had on everyone in the clearing. Her face grinning with confidence, she said, “Don’t worry folks, I’ll get you all to safety!”

She tapped something inside her ear and said, “Twilight, I found them! There’s four total, and one of them’s really hurt, so get everyone ready for some serious first-aid!”

I began to cry. It worked. It really worked. I didn’t screw up. We’re saved. The ever-worsening nightmare has finally passed—

I must have blinked, although instead of the dull red glow that people see when they close their eyes in sunlight, the glow was neon purple. The cave had disappeared, replaced by a simple campsite in the middle of a run-down cobblestone courtyard. Beige, unmarked tents were placed in the courtyard as well. I glanced around to see that Rainbow Dash, Barbara, Asura and the foal were with us as well.

Twilight Sparkle, a purple magical glow fading from her horn, stood in front of one of the tents. Her concern was evident in her face the moment she opened her eyes to see me in bandages. Several other ponies rushed out of the tents, three of them in the lead.

I no longer cared what was around me. The last thought that ran through my head as I closed my eyes was: I can rest now.

I fell asleep.

Author's Note

While I did present the scene that starts this chapter in a non-explicit manner, I know that it has the characters talk about some serious adult themes. None of it is described in detail, although if there are enough folks saying that what I wrote belongs in mature and not teen, then I will switch the story over to "Mature" so that my I's are dotted and my T's are crossed. Let me know either by PM or in the comments below what you think of this.

An Intruder Exposed by Bickering

My neck itched. I wanted to scratch it, but something held down my forelegs. I stretched the rest of my body, to find my hind legs restrained as well. I opened my eyes, to find my head gently placed upright between two cinder blocks.

To say I was confused would be an understatement.

I wanted to speak, to ask questions about why I was held down and restrained, but a cough ripped through my throat without warning. Twilight Sparkle’s concerned face moved into view above me. I saw her cast a spell, and next thing I knew I was sleepy again. I dimly remembered the sensation of something cool and wet on my forehead before I fell back to sleep.

As I walked around the cave entrance, back in the Everfree Forest, I looked at my surroundings and pondered why I was dreaming about this place. Surely, there was no reason to think about this place again, was there?

I walked by the tree where I had buried the small pile of bird bones. I could see the little bird’s spirit nibbling away at the leaves and loam. It looked up at me as I approached, and I could feel its gratitude, even though its expression never changed. I smiled, and bowed to it as it fluttered off to the murky sky of what I could only believe to be the afterlife.

The forest maintained its murky mosaic of brown wood, green leaves and black shadows as I walked the rest of the clearing’s edge. No hallucinations marred the scenery, although I could feel the presence of unseen conscious thought, clawing at living things, trying to gain some kind of foothold to prevent its passage to the unknown worlds beyond this one.

I looked over to the cave, and stopped my gentle pace. Something about the cave was off. It took a moment to realize that the cave entrance was a solid black, rather than the gradient of shadow formed from angled sunlight diffused through the foggy, cloudy day.

I then realized that the entrance was not a solid black. Two pin-pricks of light shone from the jet black hole in the scene, and I realized that the color they sparked was red. This was new for me; never before had I encountered such a sight in a dream.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to move forward and approach these two red glimmers in the unnatural cave darkness. I walked right up to the edge of the cave, and stopped at its midnight boundary. I then waited, my eyes fixed on the two red sparks that continued to glow.

I felt hot breath on my face. I did not flinch; this was just a dream, nothing more. I did not know yet if it was a nightmare or not, but I knew that if I did not explore, I would never find out. I realized that the two red dots in the darkness were positioned where another pony's eyes would be, if they stood right in front of me.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, a hair's-breadth thick white line began to draw itself on the solid black cave entrance. My eyes followed it as it drew the outline of a pony, with the accuracy of an experienced artist. I marveled at its fidelity, and briefly wondered what kind of pony it was going to portray.

I stepped back as the line criss-crossed over itself, using hatching and multiple lines to give the illusion of three-dimensional space to the pony drawing. As I had suspected, the red dots had been the eyes for the drawing. I saw it draw the unicorn horn with its common spiral pattern. I had seen smooth horns and at one time a horn shaped like a curved blade, but this horn was as common as the dirt under my hooves.

As the drawing sharpened in fidelity, I was able to make out features that began to trouble me. I saw heavy bruising over by the ankles to each hoof. The mane and tail were ragged, mangy, uneven and tangled, as if someone had taken a haphazard, rusty pair of scissors to it after several months of not washing it. There were patches of light bruising elsewhere on the drawing, but the eyes drew most of my attention: the red lights spider-webbed out from their sources, giving the striking visual of hellish, bloodshot eyes.

"Why do you ignore me?"

The voice startled me, causing me to step back a bit. I looked around, but saw no one but me in the clearing. I looked back to the drawing, and found myself startled again.

The drawing had changed.

Not only had the head moved, but the body had shifted. It was crouched, like a cat ready to pounce, when before it was merely standing at attention. It may have been a trick of the light, but I could have sworn the drawing swayed on the black background. I then noticed its cutie mark, which was the last thing to be drawn in.

It was an open book, opened to a picture of six colored gemstones inlaid in a golden compass. There was a quill, hovering by the right page.

It was my cutie mark.

The drawing lunged out of the black surface of the cave’s shadow, and I was too caught off-guard to stop it. It slammed into me, and knocked me on the ground. Its hooves slammed into my throat. I choked as it began to throttle me.

“Why do you hurt me?!” the drawing yelled at me. The white outline contained the blackness of the cave’s shadow, giving the drawing contrast against the otherwise natural-seeming surroundings.

“What have I ever done to you?! WHY?! WHY?!”

The surroundings and the tormented drawing of myself blurred together, as a bright purple light blasted into my eyes. I could feel hooves trying to hold me down, and something in my throat, choking me, trying to eject itself from my body.

I opened my mouth and my eyes, and chaos engulfed my surroundings.

I hurled whatever may have remained in my stomach as I sat up. Strange ponies were thrown back as I threw off their hooves. I was surrounded by ponies I didn’t recognize and one pony that I did recognize; Barbara was near.

My forehead throbbed as my body caught up to my physical position. My stomach had a very, very sharp pain that made me double over. I tried to look around, but could only see that I was in the middle of a large purple tent. My stomach heaved, and I vomited over my legs.

Everything burned and ached, as if I had run seven marathons before passing out. I flopped back, the sudden pain making me shiver.

“Ma’am, please, you need to go!” I heard someone say before I lost consciousness again.

I found myself walking around a space that had no light in it. It did seem like I was emitting light; I looked over myself, and saw that I was glowing a weak, off-white light. This was another dream, so I decided to shrug and keep walking around. There was nothing much to see: pitch blackness for the sky and the area around me, and a solid white vinyl floor was the extent of my surroundings, and my glow wasn’t strong enough to reach the extents of whatever this space may be.

I began to notice something: the light I emitted flickered. The moment I noticed the flickering, I realized how cold I was. I could imagine cold winds blasting me in the face, freezing me completely. I had no protection against the ambient temperature, and the sudden breeze that followed my imagination made my position very dire.

I immediately hugged the ground, and curled up into a ball. I still felt very cold, my hooves going numb. The light inside me dimmed and flickered more than I expected. Something about that light fading made me panic.

Don’t fade, I thought, I’ll be alone in this darkness, I’ll die, I can’t die, not like this, I have to live!

I stayed curled, and tried not to notice the cold around me. The light dimmed to a candlelight’s flicker… and it stayed that bright.

I breathed a sigh of relief, but I didn’t move, even as the cold continued to gust over me, tugging at my mane, trying to tease my body apart so it could freeze the rest of me. I resisted, held my ground, and stayed tangled up in my own legs, hugging myself for what precious little warmth I still had. I closed my eyes, and waited, my head tucked up to my chest.

I did not know how long I lay there; it could have been hours, maybe even days, but the light that emitted from me, and the meager warmth it provided was all the motivation I needed to stay where I was. The cold was merciless in its attempts to try and end my existence, but I wouldn’t let it win.

After much time in the darkness, wondering if this would be all I ever experience again, something happened that gave me a little hope. I felt a little warmer.

It wasn’t much, but I could feel the extra warmth coursing through my body. I didn’t move, didn’t respond, but my spirits rose immensely at the presence of the heat. If I had dared, I would have smiled.

The warmth built up over time, and I began to feel my legs again. I still didn’t move; I didn’t want to tempt my good fortune. Soon, I felt as warm as I was at the start of this nightmare. I decided to risk opening my eyes.

I was glowing brightly again. The wind still howled at me, trying to cool me down, but I closed my eyes again and remained calm.

Within minutes, I felt like I was sweating under a hot summer day, but from the inside out. Things got hotter, and more hot, and more hot, and more hot-

I snapped awake, drenched in sweat, my body burning with what felt like a massive fever. I looked around; it must have been night-time, because there was no light around me. I was swathed in blankets, a damp cloth on my forehead.

So I was sick, I thought. Makes sense. A Changeling bite probably isn’t the cleanest thing in the world, I guess. That fireworks spell didn’t help matters either; magic takes effort and energy from the body to use.

I felt my neck; I could feel stitches where the bite had happened. I checked my right shoulder, and felt stitches there too. I sighed, and shifted the blankets a little, trying to let a small amount of air dry out my sweaty body before I snuggled back into them. It helped, but not by much.

I snuggled back into the blankets, closed my eyes, and slept. I had no dreams this time; if I had dreams, I wasn’t sure I would be able to handle them. So many nightmares in a row… for what purpose? Especially that last one, what was the deal with that?

I didn’t have an answer, and none came to me while I slept. I awoke still pondering my other dreams and what meaning they may have had. Sunlight dully filtered through the purple tent fabric onto my face, which made me open my eyes. I sat up, yawned, stretched, and took in my surroundings.

Everything was purple-colored or purple-hued. Even the tent floor was sturdy purple canvas. I was on a small camping cot, a large number of blankets surrounding me. I pushed them back, stretched my hind legs, and stood up.

My legs felt a little wobbly, but it felt like the result of the bed rest rather than illness. I otherwise felt okay. I chuckled at how my coat looked a muddy blue in the purple light. I struggled a bit to open the tent flap; the zipper was so tiny it took a minute to get my teeth on it. Once I opened it, the bright sunlight nearly blinded me.

My eyes ached as they adjusted to the sudden intensity of light. When my eyes didn’t hurt so much, I stepped out of the tent, squinting as I went. My eyes went wide when I realized where I was.

I was in the middle of a massive courtyard, which held several small tents. The tent I had come out of was the biggest. A broken stone fountain with empty pedestals was the central feature. Vines covered all the worn-down stone work, giving the place a silence that unnerved me. It must have been early morning, since no pony was up and about, doing whatever the morning routine was.

I realized that I needed to relieve myself, and quickly. I turned and walked out of the courtyard, and was met by a path that was flanked by dense, thick woods on either side. In the distance, I could see a cavern, a rope bridge across it.

I zipped into the nearest bushes, took care of my business, and walked back to the courtyard, this time taking a closer look at the stone work. I noticed that there were words carved on some of the stones at eye level. The symbols were of a language nobody spoke anymore: Ancient Equinian. This intrigued me, so I decided to try and translate them, speaking aloud what I could understand just from reading them.

“Soror… est castrum regium... equis. Ite in pace... Sed in pace morieris-”

I had to stop, to ponder the last bit of that fragment:

Did that really say “Die in peace”?

I looked back over what I had already read, and double-checked my translation: Okay, so I may have mis-read the symbols to start with; Soror actually isn’t at the beginning, although it is near there. So, if I remember my vocabulary….

I read aloud the result of what I thought would be a good translation:

“Caeli regia soror equorum huius castri ex lapide sua. Et hoc, castellum in intraveritis. Tu hoc castrum in obitum. ‘This castle is owned by royal pony sisters from the sky. Enter this castle in peace. Enter this castle in death.’”

I still wasn’t satisfied. I can’t believe that I had almost forgotten Equinian’s archaic sentence structure! It is always subject, THEN stuff, then verb, at least in simple terms, and of course there are more complex sentence structures just like in any other language-

“Um, a-are you okay?!”

I looked up from the carved symbols and looked around. I noticed a yellow pegasus with a pink mane, who startled when my eyes focused on her.

“Um, hi,” I said, as she shrank away from eye contact. “Are you with Twilight Sparkle?”

She stopped, looked to the left or right, then nodded in my direction.

The awkward silence that followed made my own social ineptitude look outgoing in comparison.

“So…” I trailed off, trying to think of something to say, “you… you’re one of the ponies who are taking care of me?”

She sighed, stood up a little, and said, “Yes.”

“Well, I feel fine,” I said. “I woke up last night feeling okay, so I slept until this morning.”

Her eyes betrayed a hint of confusion. “Are you, are you sure it was last night that you-”

Her eyes went wide as she stared at me. I looked myself over, and didn’t find anything wrong or out of place. Celestia knows that I was feeling fine.

Then I noticed blood dripping from my nose. I touched a hoof to it to confirm that it was there. Sure enough, I saw and felt blood.

“Huh,” I said out loud. I looked up to find that the yellow pegasus had disappeared. I put my hoof up to my nose to stop the bleeding. Within a few seconds, the yellow pegasus had re-appeared, with what looked like a very tired Twilight Sparkle right behind her.

As soon as Twilight got a good look at me, she sighed and turned to the yellow pegasus. “It’s just a bloody nose, Fluttershy,” she told the yellow pegasus.

“Are you sure, Twilight?! It could be-”

“His nose is probably just reacting to all the medical spells I had to cast on him. He’ll be fine.”

“Pardon me,” I asked, “but… how long was I sick, and how bad was it? Am I still sick?”

The two of them looked at me, and Twilight sighed.

“Fluttershy, can you explain it to him? I’m exhausted.”

“Um, well, okay Twilight, I was just-”

“I know, Fluttershy. I know.”

Fluttershy hugged Twilight, and said, “I’m sorry. Go get some rest.”

Twilight returned the hug, then walked off to one of the smaller tents. I could see just how sorry Fluttershy felt from her facial expression. I didn’t want to press her, considering her reaction to just me talking to her. After a mildly uncomfortable minute, I finally asked:

“I, I don’t mean to press, but, well… can you tell me what happened?”

Fluttershy sighed, but she didn’t look away from Twilight’s tent. She started to speak in a very soft tone.

“Well, I can tell you that when you came here by Twilight’s teleport, you fell down. It was like you were a stuffed doll: you were really pale, and you were covered in bandages. The others who were with you tried to wake you up, but you didn’t respond, even when your wife shook you. Twilight and the others had to step in and split them up.”

A thought occurred to me: Barbara had the most important people in her life die from a disease when she was a filly.

“Your poor wife was hysteric. It was everything I could do to calm her down. I stayed with her most of the time, reassuring her, helping her cope with what had happened.”

I couldn’t help but feel guilty, even though I knew there was nothing I could have done.

“As soon as she let me know that you had been bit by a Changeling, and had been stabbed by an unknown hoof-knife, Twilight tried some poison-cleansing spells. You… well, they worked, but it was a little… exciting. Your reaction surprised everyone.”

“Did… was that when I threw up, and pushed everyone away?” I asked.

She looked at me, her eyes wide with surprise. “Yes, that was it.”

“I see. Barbara, my wife… did she-”

Fluttershy looked away again, a pained expression on her face. That was all I needed to know.

I felt even more guilty than before. This pony, Fluttershy, had to endure something she really shouldn’t have. I felt on the verge of tears, just thinking about it. My feelings must have shown on my face, because she looked at me again with a questioning expression, and then a sympathetic one.

I said, trying not to cry, “I am so sorry that you had to deal with that. If there is anything I can do, just ask, I’ll do it-”

“Oh no, it’s okay,” she said, very quickly, “we all were under a lot of stress, and she needed someone to help her, I was happy to do it-”

“But-”

“It’s fine!” I was surprised how definitive she sounded, even though she had not raised her voice.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she continued, “and to be honest, I’m not even sure we can blame anyone for what happened. You were sick and needed help, she was upset and needed help, so I just helped where I could.”

She blushed and turned away. “Besides, I wasn’t alone. I had help from my friends.”

I didn’t know what to say next. This was the first time I had really met a pony who selflessly helped another pony. What do you say to the pony who kept your wife from going insane while you were unconscious?

You say thank you.

I took a deep breath, held out my hoof to her, and said, “Well, thank you and your friends so much for being there when my family needed you.”

She smiled, and shook my hoof with her own. My stomach grumbled very loudly right at that moment, which caused the two of us to giggle.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” she exclaimed. “I was supposed to get started on breakfast! Excuse me!”

She flew away to the other side of the courtyard before I could respond. I smiled, and walked towards the direction Fluttershy had flown. I frowned a little when I thought about seeing Barbara again. I had no idea how she would react to my being well. Something told me that I would need to be careful-

“Pantrostic?!”

I turned around to the sound of Barbara’s voice, to find her right inside the entrance to a tent. I had barely noticed her hair while on this crazy adventure; the fluorescent pink dye job was showing cream-colored roots, her mane’s natural color. It was in disarray, which made her tear-streaked face even more noticeable.

Asura stood to her left, and I was surprised to see the foal standing to her right. Asura was on the verge of tears, much like Barbara, while the foal simply sank into Barbara’s space, as if she were unsure of my presence.

I walked up to them, and hugged them all.

We all started crying, even the foal, who clung to Barbara’s flank and wailed to try and get attention. I picked the foal up and hugged her with the rest of us. We swayed and sobbed, all of us cheek-to-cheek.

“Glad ta see ya up an’ about, Pantrostic!”

We glanced up to see an orange mare with yellow mane stretching and doing exercises in an open area of the courtyard. She smiled and waved at us. I smiled, and continued to hug my family.

What broke us apart was the squirming of the little foal. We had to separate so Barbara could calm her down. We stood near each other while Barbara nickered and gently rocked the foal back and forth. If I wasn’t starving at this point, I would have loved nothing more than to just sit here with my family.

My stomach growled, though, which Barbara and Asura must have heard. Barbara picked the foal up, put the foal up on her shoulders, and started to walk towards Fluttershy’s general direction. I stood up and walked with Asura, who followed behind Barbara.

As we walked, I saw a couple more ponies exiting their tents: there was a pink pony with very curly magenta hair, a white unicorn with ridiculously well-maintained purple mane and tail who somehow seemed familiar…. and Rainbow Dash. Everyone was headed to the same place Fluttershy went.

We came to an open-air tent with a series of camping stoves underneath it. Fluttershy was flitting back and forth over a series of pans, each with frying slices of bread. I smelled the scent of sizzling vegetable oil, which made my stomach growl again.

Fluttershy made a little peep as soon as she saw how many ponies were headed towards the tent. She was flipping slices like mad on the pans, getting finished slices onto plates laid out nicely on a nearby table. By the slices was a collection of greens that made my mouth water: daisies and cucumbers.

“I’m so sorry everypony,” she said in between flips, “I got distracted and-”

“It looks great, Flutters!” Rainbow Dash interrupted as she zipped ahead, grabbed a plate, and put together a delicious daisy-and-cucumber sandwich. Everyone lined up to grab a plate and make their own sandwich.

Once everyone had grabbed their sandwiches, they lay down on the ground to eat, chat and talk with each other. My family followed suit, everyone sitting nearby each other to facilitate conversation.

“I am definitely glad that you are feeling better Pantrostic,” the white-and-purple unicorn said. “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Rarity, and the orange pony over there is Applejack, the pink one is Pinkie Pie, and the yellow pegasus is-”

“Fluttershy, yes, I talked with her earlier this morning,” I interrupted. “And the blue one is Rainbow Dash- wait… THE Rarity?!”

My brain finally connected the dots, and I realized that I was talking to the most promising fashion talent in Equestria. Why in all of Equestria is Rarity of all ponies out here on a top-secret mission from Celestia with Twilight Sparkle?!

I must have let my confusion show on my face, because Barbara said into my ear: “These are all the Elements of Harmony, you know.”

I then vaguely remembered the award ceremony after the… craziness that happened a year before the Changelings attacked. I remember seeing a poster that had the images of the six ponies that had defeated Discord. Sure enough, the five ponies around me matched the images on the poster, minus Twilight Sparkle of course.

“Wow, I am legitimately honored to be with you all-”

“Hey, we’re just Twilight’s friends,” Applejack interrupted me. “Whatever she needs, we’re here to help. And lemme tell ya, you were quite a handful when ya got here-”

“Applejack!” Rarity said. “Talking about a pony’s illness doesn’t make for proper conversation!”

“Aw, she didn’t mean any harm by it Rarity!” Pinkie Pie said, her hoof shooting into the air to emphasize her sentence. “It’s over and done with, right? Why shouldn’t we talk about it?”

“No offense, Pinkie, but some ponies can have a hard time with remembering some stuff,” Rainbow Dash spoke up. “We’ve all got stuff we’d rather not talk about, and, well, I don’t think Barbara’s liking how the conversation’s going.”

I looked over to Barbara, and I saw that she had not just stopped eating: she was staring at her plate, as if the plate was something that scared her far more than it should. I put a gentle hoof over her wings and hugged her close.

“It’s okay honey,” I said to her, “it’s over.”

“Will it ever be over?”

“Will… what be over?”

Barbara sighed and turned to me. “You didn’t die this time, but that just means you’ll die another time.”

I furrowed my brow as I thought about that. “Well, sure, but that goes the same for you too.”

“You know what I mean!” she said at me. I could hear her voice waver.

“Yes, I do. But that’s life, and it isn’t fair.”

“Why?!”

“Because it’s up to us to make it fair.”

Barbara stared at me, as if she wasn’t looking at the same pony anymore.

“Barbara, I love you, but I’m not perfect. I’m doing everything I can to be there for you when you need me-”

“I needed you to not get sick!”

“And I got better, and I’m here right now!”

”Do you even KNOW what it was like, just, just standing th-there while-”

“I’ve been through that before, Barbara, with our parents.”

”You weren’t THERE WHEN THEY DIED!”

I bit my lip, using the pain to keep my mouth shut.

“Which made it much harder to deal with,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

The foal began to cry, as Barbara’s breath became very loud. Her eyes burned with pained emotion. Tears ran from her eyes. No one else spoke, and I could only imagine that they were all looking at us. I have to defuse this, now, I thought.

I stood up, picked up my plate with my magic, and looked at her again. “Let’s talk in private.”

Barbara looked like she was going to murder me, but she slowly stood up, grabbed the rest of her sandwich in her mouth and walked away from the group. I followed her, trying not to glance around to see if anyone was staring at us. I needed to focus on Barbara, and how she is feeling.

Barbara walked over to the tent that she, Asura and the foal came out of this morning. She snagged the zipper with her horse shoe, opened the tent flap and walked in. I followed behind her. I set my plate down and used my magic to close the tent flap behind me.

She flopped down to the larger camping mattresses. She must have eaten the rest of her sandwich while she was walking, because her mouth didn’t hold it anymore and I didn’t see her set it down.

“So, we gonna fuck and call it an ‘argument’?” she spouted in my direction. She didn’t look at me.

“No,” I said. I flopped down on the other side of the tent, and looked at her furious face. “I’m gonna sit right here and let you start the talking.”

The two of us stared at each other, the tension thicker than it had any right to be. I didn’t dare break the silence, though; I continued to look at Barbara, waiting for her to speak up and get this discussion started—

“What the hell can we do about death?” she blurted.

I blinked. “Resist to the last, and pray that we get done what we need to get done,” I responded.

“There’s gotta be a better way, an easier way, one that doesn’t drive you insane once you face it.” She glanced away, then back at me.

I raised an eyebrow. “Life is hard, Barbara. Like all things, we get better at it the more we live it.”

“But I just screamed in your face!” She closed her eyes, put a hoof on her forehead, as if she wanted to keep from screaming again.

I felt pity for her. “And I understand why. Believe me, I do.”

“How?!” She put her hoof back, and stared at me with an interrogating glare.

“Because I could never scream like that.”

Barbara gave me a look, which made me fidget. “Oh, you did scream, I remember—”

“Always when there was nobody in the room, and I always ran the moment someone came,” I clarified.

“It was the most frustrating thing about that time, because you wouldn’t even talk about it!” She shook her head and looked away, her lip quivering with unspoken mutterings of anger.

I frowned, feeling the sting of her accusation. “I was afraid I’d hurt you, or worse! I couldn’t do that!”

“Yeah, I know that, but I could have at least been there and helped!” She kept shaking my head, which made me bite my lip to keep from raising my voice.

“You could hear in the other room,” I managed to say around pressed lips. “That was enough.”

“It wasn’t enough,” she said, lost in thought and barely even paying attention to me.

I almost reached out to grab Barbara’s face to make her look at me, and stopped myself in the next half-second. I put my hoof back before she noticed.

“Look,” I said, “Barbara, it was worse than dealing with pain. The anger threatened to consume everything about me that was good. I had—”

“And I could have taken it—”

“It wouldn’t have been fair!” She shot a look at me, one of suspicious surprise. “You were a foal!”

I couldn’t tell if that was a yell. I hoped it wasn’t.

“Oh, so you’d just ‘make it fair’?!” Her eyes glared daggers into mine.

“Yes!”

“Well, fat lot of good that did!” she growled.

I was mad as hell and didn’t care what she felt anymore. “Actually it did a lot of good for us. At the very least it kept us off each other’s throats,” I spat at her.

“And it crippled your magic.”

I blinked, wary of this new attack against me. “We don’t know about that—”

Barbara cut me off with a waved hoof. “Pantrostic, it’s obvious. You started struggling with basic spells the moment you turned all your pain inward.”

I had to stop and think about what she said. That wasn’t all that happened, you fucking jackass! I mentally fumed.

“I asked the Princess to check on your magic,” she continued, since I didn’t jump on her throat for that accusation. “She agreed with me; you’re ruining your own magical capacity.”

I blinked in surprise. “Really?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t know how to respond. An accusation was one thing: someone stating a professional opinion based on study, fact and experience was another.

“Uh… well, did she say what I could do to—”

“No, she didn’t,” she interrupted. “But as far as I’m concerned, I don’t want you so focused on yourself anymore.”

I furrowed my brow. That last bit of her sentence didn’t make sense to me.

“I never was focused on myself—”

“That’s a rationalization, an excuse.” Her interruptions began to irritate me.

She then adopted a crude expression, and spoke with her tongue hanging out, waving her hooves to emphasize her quote marks: “‘I’m focusing on myself so I don’t hurt others—’”

“Barbara, don’t start this.” There was the attack, and I was having none of it.

The mocking expression vanished from her face as she glared at me.

“No,” she said. I could see her breath increase in its pace, a clear sign that she was losing hold of her emotions. “I’m tired of it. Just let it out for Celestia’s sake! You’re so backed up your own mental butt-hole, you can’t even—”

“Barbara,” I said firmly, “I’m going.”

“No you’re not. I’ll stop you.”

I had almost sat up, as preparation for getting on my hooves and leaving, when her statement stopped me in my tracks. I had only one thought, and I voiced it:

“Why?!”

“Because I care, I want you better, and you can’t keep doing this.” She looked on the verge of tears, although there were no sobs… yet.

I was still confused, and it must have shown on my face. “But… why?”

“Didn’t you hear me?!” She looked at me like I was an idiot. “You’re worth it!”

“Since when was I ever—”

“Okay, never mind,” she said, face-hoofing and breathing hard. “This isn’t going anywhere.”

I mentally agreed with her; this was a waste of time. “That’s what intense emotion does: it runs around and tries to find crap to blame all its problems on,” I said.

“That’s not all it does, Panty.” She had not looked at me as she said that stupid fucking nickname she gave me when she was four Tartarus-damned years old.

I sat up, fed up with this farce. “Okay, that’s it, this conversation’s over—”

“Not until you apologize.” She looked up from her hooves as her accusation sank in.

“For what?!” I spluttered.

“For not trusting me.” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Since when did I not—”

“Since you fell in love enough to mate with me. Since you fucking married me. Since you still treated me like a foal who didn’t understand even after that.”

I didn’t know how to even respond. “Barbara, I—”

“Just admit it,” she said, stamping a hoof in front of her. “You love me but don’t trust me. You think it’s not your fault, and it’s probably useless to try and figure out whose fault it is, but it affected what you did.”

She wasn’t right, she couldn’t be right…. “Barbara….”

“Just, trust me, for once in your life.”

I still didn’t understand what she wanted me to do. “With what?! How?!”

“Does it matter how, what, when where or why? All that matters is ‘who’.”

“Barbara, of course I’d—”

“You felt like you had to play ‘the grown-up’ so that I’d have a ‘childhood’,” she interrupted. “Thing is, my childhood died when our parents did.”

I turned away, every word she had uttered swirling in my head, trying to make me understand some greater meaning that I simply didn’t get no matter how hard I thought about it.

“No, Barbara, that’s not true-”

“You may not see it like that, but that’s how it was.” I heard her sigh, most likely in frustration at my lack of understanding.

Maybe she hasn’t stated her thoughts in a way I could understand, I thought. “Barbara, whatever you’re doing, I don’t think it’s working,” I said, as calm as I could make myself.

“So you’d rather just give up, then?” she asked. I saw her wave a hoof out of the corner of my eye. “Divorce, go our own ways, split whatever income we have left?”

I closed my eyes, cursing my own inability to explain that I was asking her to rephrase her original point. “No, Barbara, I didn’t mean—”

“Look, you care about me,” she interrupted for the next Nightmare-damned time. “I get it. You love me now, you loved me back then enough to stay with me.”

“Look, I didn’t love you that way back then, okay?!” I caught myself before more of my exasperation could escape. “I just want that clear!”

I heard her take a deep breath, which was a good sign; she was calming down some. “Yes, Pantrostic, you’re right,” she said in an even tone. “But you loved me enough to stay, and you still love me now.”

I almost laughed at the irony. Her statement was obvious, and yet she felt like she needed to spell it out and explain it. “Well, yeah,” I retorted. “Why else am I still here getting interrogated by you?”

“Because you need it,” she answered. “I’m no foal, and I’m beginning to wonder if I ever was.”

“Oh, you were a foal, Barbara,” I responded, a small smirk on my face. “That period of your life existed. I clearly remember it—”

Barbara shifted over, placing her face right in front of mine, gently moved my face to hers, and kissed me on the lips.

“Whatever I was, that’s not what I am or what I want to be,” she said, her breath washing over my face.

That one action shattered the tension that was in the room. It left my mind blank, with no immediate retort or response. After a minute of both of us just staring into each other’s face, I mulled over everything she said.

The more I think about it… she’s right, I thought. I did screw up.

“So… what now?” I asked.

She sighed, and backed her head away, her eyes focused on her hooves.

“I don’t know.”

I sighed. I rubbed my head with my hoof as I tried to fight the cavalry of emotions that threatened to overwhelm my mind so I could think of a solution. I wanted to be mad, I wanted to bawl my eyes out, I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to kick her, I wanted to kick myself, I wanted to run, I wanted to stay, I wanted—

Shut up.

I took a deep breath, and knew that I needed to not do any of that. What good would it do at this point? It’s too late to fix this mess with emotion; we needed to figure out a plan, Barbara and I, together, and we needed to figure it out now.

“Well…. okay, here’s what I think, if you’re interested,” I said, doing what I could to keep the emotional war in my head out of my speech.

She did not even look up to acknowledge that she had heard me. I knew she must have heard me; there was no other sound, besides the buzzing of an insect against the tent wall.

I bit my tongue, so I wouldn’t yell at her. I wanted her to listen, but I knew yelling at her wouldn’t help if she wasn’t listening. Then again, has she ever done this? Does she even realize what listening means? I’ve always tried to pamper her and not hurt her, I never took my hoof to her, I couldn’t do that now, no matter how frustrated I might be right now with her.

“I’m… I’m stuck here until I finish this task,” I began. “Depending on how long the Elements of Harmony need to spend here, I could leave in a day, a week or a month. I have no idea when I’ll be able to depart.”

“You… would have just taken off to go do this, without even talking to me?” Once again, she didn’t look at me as she spoke. I took a deep breath, and did what I could to not force her to look at me. She was at least talking to me, which was enough for now.

“At the time, things were relatively stable,” I answered. “I had the evening to work this out with you and Asura. The only time this became a problem was when that assassin attacked.”

“Because you pissed off every single criminal who ever existed because of those Nightmare-damned biographies on notable criminals,” she monotoned.

“Well, not quite every criminal, thanks to Weasel,” I clarified.

“Who was a Changeling who tried to kill you,” she dead-panned.

I sighed, and rubbed my head with a forehoof, trying to see her statement as one of fact and not an accusation.

“I don’t know how to detect a Changeling from a real pony, you know,” I replied. I hoped I didn’t sound too defensive.

“… Yeah, good point.”

Some relief came into my mind. This is good, I thought. She’s talking the situation through with me, rather than getting caught up in the frustration and the emotion—

“So what’s your big plan to magically fix everything?” she asked, without moving her head or shifting her focus off of her hooves.

I took another deep breath, and did what I could to refocus my mind off of the sudden frustration at Barbara’s doubting response.

“I, I don’t think I can fix everything, but I did have some thoughts, if you really want to hear them,” I said, trying not to speak through gritted teeth.

“I’m all ears.” I sighed, and began to explain:

“Alright, we know that spending time on this crazy stuff that I have to do puts me at risk for Celestia-knows-what. So what I can do is simply tell Twilight that I need to get back home to sort out all the crazy stuff that happened, like the assassin attack and the Changeling abduction.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Barbara mumbled, still not moving from her passive position.

“Well, it has to,” I retorted, my voice seeming louder than it should. I stopped myself, bit my lip, and tried to calm down again so I wouldn’t yell again.

“Well, I mean,” I continued, “Twilight doesn’t seem like a heartless pony. We’re… not exactly stable right now as a family, because of all the crap that just happened.”

“Were we ever stable?” It took every bit of self-control I had to forgive her monotone response and lack of engagement, beyond doubting and depressing statements.

“In a way, we were,” I said in my own defense. “Of course we weren’t perfect, or even that solid, but at least we weren’t yelling at each other, at least for the past couple of years.”

“Well… yeah, you’re right.”

She finally looked up at me. I was surprised to find tears coming from her eyes. Not only that, but her tears had matted channels of water into the fur on her face, making it look like she had been crying the entire time she had turned away.

“I would love nothing more than to get away from all this and just be safe again,” she continued. “I… I’m sorry for yelling.”

She reached over, and hugged me. I held her as she cried. She didn’t sob. She just had slow, deep breaths. I felt terrible for thinking that she was attacking me again. Tears came to my eyes as well, although I barely managed to stop them from falling.

“I’m sorry for getting defensive,” I apologized. “I… guess I was trying too hard to get this thing done, because, well, my diploma for school depends on it.”

“Well, fuck school then.” She didn’t move or otherwise respond.

“Celestia will be disappointed,” I noted, “but yeah, we have bigger problems to worry about.”

“I’m glad you agree.”

I thought back on the past couple of weeks… or however long this bloody ordeal has gone on for.

“If that assassin hadn’t attacked, at least you wouldn’t have seen me come close to death over and over again,” I said.

“I’d probably just go mad thinking of all the ways in which you could die, and maybe even have nightmares of ponies coming to my door to inform me that you had died.”

I felt myself choke up at the intensity of her words. “Really?”

“Really.”

I shut up and held her as she continued to cry. As her tears wetted my neck and threatened to cause tears of my own to spill onto her neck, I began to think of something completely unrelated. I had no idea why this suddenly came to my mind now, but something told me that now was the time to ask Barbara about it.

“Barbara… do you remember what happened, after the wagon got attacked?”

It was a minute before she responded.

“The… wagon?”

“Yeah.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I… I remember looking up, after the wagon got ripped in half,” Barbara continued. “Pieces flew everywhere as more magic beams sliced through it. I almost got my head zapped off.”

I realized that I was holding her uncomfortably tight. I shifted a little, tried to relax, and listened as she continued:

“Then there was this big explosion of green magic, which swamped everything in the immediate area. Then, it was like I had blinked, and the magic was gone, along with the killers.”

This was news to me. I did not remember that at all.

“Barbara, all I remember is blacking out right after the wagon got hit,” I pointed out.

“Well, I guess that makes sense,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You were unconscious and had just woken up.”

I gently grabbed Barbara, and pushed her back so I could look at her face. She looked worried, the fur on her face messed up with all the tears she had cried combined with her face being pressed into my neck. I must have shown concern on my face as well, because her eyes went wide with fear.

"What's wrong?" Barbara asked. "Why did you ask about the attack?"

I took a deep breath, and spoke:

"Sometimes, when a unicorn is really stressed out, they can, well, lose control of their magic.”

Barbara's face froze in horror.

"It's really rare," I assured, "and usually happens in life-or-death situations. Control tends to return once the danger or stressor has passed."

Her face showed confusion on top of fear.

"The danger," I continued before she could ask questions, "comes when the pony loses control over and over again. It can be a sign of worse problems."

"We're taking this straight to the Princess," she blurted out, "now."

"She's resting, Barbara. Let her rest."

"And risk your magic running away from you?!" She looked at me like I was crazy

"Barbara, yes, you're right,” I said in a pleading tone, “but the Princess will be able to help better when she's fully rested."

"How can you be so calm?!"

I felt bad for making her worry, but I knew it wasn’t as serious as she feared. "Because this was the only time this has happened."

"B-but you said it could get worse!" I wanted to shake her to put some sense into her scared brain.

"If I lose control again, then yes, it will get worse!” I yelled. “But it hasn't happened again, so I should be fine! I just need to have her double-check me and see if it could happen again—”

"PANTROSTIC! BARBARA!"

We snapped our heads up as we heard our names yelled out. I rushed to the tent entrance flap, and almost ripped the zipper off the tent while opening it. We burst out and nearly stumbled back into the tent, when we saw what was outside

A circle of magic had formed around the tent where Barbara and I were. The other ponies, the Elements of Harmony, were around us, staring with surprise and fear at the circle. It pulsed with a dark light, with a slight hint of violet to its hue. I ran up to the circle in the hope that I could figure out more about it. Barbara grabbed me from behind and tried to pull me away from the circle, but I threw her off and went back to the circle.

I put my face as close as I dared, and finally found what I was looking for: a series of tiny repeating runes, running along the edge of the magic circle’s line. After studying them for a bit, I managed to find where the runes repeated.

This was where my writing abilities came into play, why Celestia wanted to “sponsor” my attendance at her School for Gifted Unicorns. These circles and wards are only as powerful and useful as the runes you use and how much magic you put into them. As intelligent as powerful magic casters like Twilight are, it is a great help for someone to intimately understand what runes, and thus words, best create the desired magical effect, and who better for that than a writer?

I began to translate the repeating runes out loud:

“Let’s see here: ‘Detect’, ‘Danger’, uh, oh what the heck is that one, ‘Help’, that’s it!”

“Pantrostic, what the hay are ya talkin’ about?!” the orange one, Applejack I think her name was, shouted.

I didn’t look up from the runes as I yelled back:

“This is a magical ward, and it uses a rune-word to give instructions to whatever magic is powering it! I’m decoding the runes so we know what the rune-word is, so we can figure out what in all the Nine Hells it is doing!”

“Will you be okay?!” Fluttershy asked.

I sighed, and shouted: “Until I decode the runes, I don’t know if I’ll be alright! Now, let’s see here, where was I?”

I found where I left off, and continued to translate:

“Okay, so it started ‘Detect’, ‘Danger’, ‘Help’, then what follows is…. Okay, that rune’s ‘Alert’, then, now is that ‘Grab’ or ‘Pull’? Wait, that’s right, it’s actually one of the more complicated runes, with two words to one rune! Damn, that’s advanced! So it’s probably “Grab and Pull”, based on the two possible interpretations. It would make sense for the spell to have a target for it to grab and pull, but it’s interesting that it’s grabbing and pulling before it targets something, so there must be a clarifier coming after it, and that is… ‘Alicorn’?”

That wasn’t quite the end of the rune-word, but that was enough for me to worry that Twilight was going to be pulled into the circle with Barbara and I, where Celestia knows what would happen. The worry remained as I looked at the last rune word.

“The last word is… ‘Execution’.”

I sat back, almost scared out of my wits. I could see most everyone around me. Their faces showed shock and fear; I could see one of them running over to Twilight’s tent, to try and bring her over here. They may not have to do that, if the spell does its job. I couldn’t see Asura; I wondered where he was, and immediately wanted nothing more than for him to not see what might happen. Barbara must have been behind me, but I could only imagine her fright.

Alright, I thought, there’s gotta be some kind of source for the magic, otherwise the circle wouldn’t have activated. Interrupt or stop the source from powering the circle, and the circle can’t finish its effect. Or I can try and drain the magic from the source, but I’m not even sure that’s possible. I mean, I’ve heard stories of desperate ponies doing exactly that, but I don’t think I could even do that. Maybe Twilight, but… now hold on, why is ‘Execution’ the last rune in the rune-word? Execute what? Why? How?

You know what? The circle isn’t stopping me from leaving itself, as long as it thinks I am not a danger. There was no ‘Barrier/Self’ rune combo, or anything similar to that. Barbara and I can just leave and let it do its thing.

The circle pulsed with darkness, and next thing I knew rays of violet-black energy shot from several points on the circle up to the apex of the tent. There was a sudden blast of wind, which threatened to blow me away from the ground. I crawled over to Barbara, and grabbed her foreleg with mine.

”Pantrostic, what are you—”

I pulled with all my might, and threw her as hard as I could. The wind caught her wings and sent her flying into another nearby tent outside of the circle. I leapt after her, but something caught me in mid-air.

It was like a thousand tiny hands had reached into my body, grabbed my spine, heart and brain, and then pulled on them, as if it expected my body to follow suit. I halted in mid-air, and was thrown onto the remains of the tent inside the circle. I looked up, and was horrified at what I saw.

Twilight Sparkle was caught at the center of the beams of light. I did not even see her get pulled there; it must have happened when I tried to escape with Barbara. I could feel panic within me, afraid of what I knew could happen.

For what it is worth, Twilight Sparkle put up one hell of a fight. Her eyes blazed with her trademark purple magic, and had already put up a shield against the dark magic beams that tried to reach her. However, magical energy blasts blurted out from her at regular intervals; she must have been dragged from her bed when this had triggered. Her expression was one of absolute control, but I could only imagine how desperate and tired she must be.

I didn’t know what to do. If the magic circle completes its spell, then either Twilight or I will die… or so I believed. I didn’t doubt my translation skills, but I have misinterpreted spell intent in the past. I hoped that I was wrong this time as well. To be honest, though… I didn’t want to find out the truth.

I got back up, fighting the gusts of wind as I dragged myself back to the edge of the magic circle. An experimental poke at the circle with my horn was greeted with a stinging blast of magical energy. I backed away, shivering from the attack’s effect. I looked up again; Twilight was still desperately holding off the magical beams, though I did not know how long she would last.

I have no choice, I thought. I have to try to siphon away at least some of the magic. She can’t keep this up.

I did my best to focus, despite the howling of the wind in my ears and my shivering from the magical blast. My mind turned inward, and tried to find the source of my magic.

It found darkness.

I knew I was looking in the right mental and magical place. I looked around again; there was none of my familiar green magic. Panic welled up within me as I scrambled around the space, finding nothing but emptiness.

This is bad, really bad, what do I do what do I do?!

I then remembered how brightly my magic had burned mere days ago, after I had been magically drained of emotion by a Changeling. I remembered that I had used basic levitation and telekinesis spells mere hours ago without thinking about it, when Barbara and I went to talk in private.

My magic could not have disappeared that fast without myself feeling it disappearing. Something was wrong, and I had an idea to try:

Light banishes darkness, so all I need is a little light—

Something crashed into my mind, blinding my inner sight. I looked around, and tried to remember what my last train of thought was.

Something about light and darkness, maybe?! Come on, what hit me—

I was hit again, this time from another angle. These attacks made me mad.

Damn you, whatever the hell you are! Get the fuck outta my body you—

I was hit again, but this time I could feel something about the object that had struck me. I felt a unicorn’s horn, and a pony’s legs, chest and head. It rushed away before I could figure it out.

I had had enough.

I’ll light up this whole goddamn area, right the fuck now!

Even though I could not cast a spell in the traditional sense, that did not mean I could not generate magical energy within myself. Every living thing has enough magical energy to sustain themselves, even when they are disconnected from their unique way of expressing that energy. The only way this… thing... would be able to stop me from pulling on my own life-force for a spell would be by killing me, and it would have done that already if that was its goal.

The thing attacked again, trying to distract me, but I simply rolled off of its body and maintained my focus. Once I had enough energy for a basic light spell, and felt sick to my stomach, I immediately cast it.

The darkness in my immediate area vanished, replaced by the weak but familiar green glow of my own magic. It was timed perfectly: the attacker was right at the edge of the light’s glow when it was cast, so I got a good look at the intruder in my psyche.

While I could not be certain of the color of its coat, I was able to confirm that the attacker had the mental form of a unicorn judging by its general body-shape. Not only that, the attacker was female. It was the eyes, though, that gave me pause. Not only was the general shape familiar, but the pattern on the iris matched the eyes of someone that haunted my nightmares for the past several years.

The flecks of color on the iris were identical to Venusia’s, and they remained a bright, vibrant green in the green light that I cast.

The attacker immediately turned around, and ran from me. I pulled more energy from my life-force connection to brighten my magical light. I felt light-headed, but I put that aside as I chased after the enemy, more motivated than I had been in a long time.

Hold it! I thought, which caused me to stop my chase. Reconnect to the rest of your magic, doofus! She won’t stand a chance if you do!

I looked around in my mental space; I still couldn’t see where my magic had gone. I then had a crazy idea.

I looked down below my mental avatar’s feet, bringing my light closer to the floor’s surface. The ground responded with a dull glow of the same color. I could see the veins of a shadowy membrane try to block out the light.

I had no idea how I was going to get to the source of that glow. My magic had to be down there, but I had no idea how thick the membrane was or if I could even get through it in my current state.

Well… I have to try something, or else something bad’s gonna happen.

I tried to paw at the membrane; my avatar’s hoof couldn’t dig through it. It was as hard as stone to my touch. The next best thing I figured I could try was a magical shockwave to try and crack the membrane, but that would require a lot more energy than I had right now. And the only way I could get more energy was to siphon more of my life-force. Plus, if I didn’t gather enough energy when I do the shockwave and it doesn’t at least crack the membrane, then all that energy would be wasted.

I didn’t have a better idea. So I steeled myself for the worst, and began to re-direct my life into my mental space.

At first, my muscles ached, as if I had run a marathon. Dizziness followed, threatening to destroy my focus, but I held on as best I could. I laid against the ground as my vision blurred and lost focus, but I kept building energy from my own life force. I had to. I couldn’t skimp.

When I felt short of breath and could barely move my head, I realized that I would need to fire off the shockwave now or die in the attempt. I did my best to haul myself back upright, and point my horn at the membrane. I fell forward, too weak to stay upright, but I took it as a blessing in disguise, because it made the next step easier.

The moment my horn hit the membrane, all the magical energy I had stored was instantly blasted into the hard substance with as much impact as I could muster.

For a moment, everything was still. Then, the energy rippled through the membrane, rolling away from the place of impact. The membrane wobbled up and down, especially right where I was. I was thrown away, bounced and smacked around by the vibrating ground. If this wasn’t a mental space, I probably would have died to a crushed skull.

The membrane held, though. I hadn’t broken it. I was weak, bounced around and very, very sick due to the stunt I tried to pull. I half-expected my attacker to come up to me and snuff out my consciousness, so she could take control of my body.

Then I saw a green glow over by the point of impact, out of the corner of my eye.

I blinked, and everything roared as the membrane burst like a volcanic eruption. The familiar magical green fire swarmed my entire surroundings and rushed into my conscious space. With what energy my mental avatar had left, I threw myself into it as it consumed its former container.

The magical energy felt so good as it poured back into me, replacing all the energy I had spent trying to free it. I flew through it, marvelling at how willing it was to obey me and my commands. I frolicked among the flames, laughing with joy as I finally felt a measure of self-control I would have killed for years ago.

I happened to look above me, towards my mental portal to my physical senses. I found the attacker trying to build another membrane to try and shut me out of my own body. I began to wonder if she knew how bad a blunder she just made. I blasted off, arrowed right towards her, and kicked the membrane just as she shut me out.

The membrane dissolved without a fuss. She stood fully exposed to my magic. I could see the fear in her eyes, and I did not care. I grabbed her by her midsection, and rushed for the portal, and back to conscious awareness of my physical surroundings. As my mind went through the portal, I threw her out of my mind as hard as I could.

The moment I did so, my body convulsed with intense pain. Imagine a magical knife that can neatly slice yourself in half, down to the tiniest cell. It can neatly split all your body’s resources in two, from the tiniest vein to the most sensitive neuron to the hardest bone in your body. Now, imagine it did so without any thought to how much pain your body would go through if it began to slice you, and you might come close to how I felt in that moment.

What made the pain so intense was that it was not quick. At least, it did not feel quick: I could feel my body split from the hairs in my mane to the nerves in my spine, all the way to my brain and back, all in that order. The pain was far beyond these pitiful attempts to describe it. If my body wasn’t magically possessed, I would have fainted clean away.

When the ordeal was over, my remaining half collapsed like a rumpled coat onto the ground. It felt like my entire soul ached. I couldn’t focus my eyes, all light that came in through them caused splitting headaches, and I didn’t have the energy to close my eyelids. I couldn’t tell if my lungs were breathing or if my heart was beating. I could have died and not known it, though I suppose I felt way too sore to be dead.

I glowed with a bright green energy that seemed to radiate from my body. It began to twitch, as control slowly returned to my muscles. I gasped, barely able to speak, but I could breathe, and that brought me a strange feeling of satisfaction. I still ached, but the energy cut through the pain to give my body ways to function. I felt my pulse beat in my ears as loud as a drum set.

Within a minute, I was able to lift my head and focus my eyes, even though the light still caused massive headaches as it came through my eyes. I shivered, feeling the cold air around me more than ever before, which made my muscles protest more than before, but somehow they still did what I wanted them to do. I looked around me.

The circle of magic was gone. Twilight Sparkle was at ground level, no longer fighting for her life. Her chest heaved with deep breaths, though; I couldn’t blame her for being breathless. Her mane was a frazzled mess as the Elements surrounded her. I wondered why they didn’t approach me, when I remembered that I still glowed a bright green. However, they were not looking at me.

I followed their line of sight, my neck screaming with pain as it twisted around. I didn’t let that stop me from looking at what they looked at. Once I found it, I was very, very confused at what I looked at.

A young filly lay sprawled on the ground, the horn on her head showing that she was a unicorn. Her eyes were closed, her breath even, as if she was asleep. She was no bigger than Asura, and even shared the same white coat color, although her mane was jet black. From the position of her body, it looked like she was pointed away from me.

I thought back to the mare I forcefully ejected from my consciousness. Could this be her?

I looked back to Twilight Sparkle, who turned to look at me. Her expression was one of stern surprise. I began to wonder if she thought I was doing some kind of illegal magic that just blew up in my face right at this moment.

“Pantrostic,” she said, “you and I need to talk.”

Heaven Sang, and I Fell Apart

The entire world shivered. I couldn’t feel my legs as I flailed around the ground. A vague outline of someone shouting at me was in my vision, but I couldn’t hear anything. My head pivoted upside down, yet I wasn’t disoriented. My muscles felt like taffy, as if they could be stretched into strips that lose their form the more they are pulled. I felt like I was melting, and couldn’t do anything about it.

Next thing I knew, I was surrounded by a warm sensation that contained the soup of what was left of my body, confirming what I thought I had experienced. The sensation comforted what was left of my conscious mind, while it did everything it could to make me absolutely still. I couldn’t fight it, and in all honesty I did not want to fight it. There was no pain from its manipulations, so why bother?

I lost all sense of space and time as the all-encompassing warm feeling worked its design on my mess of a body. It stretched me into the shape and outline I used to have but a few moments ago, always in a gentle manner. I couldn’t see anymore, as my eyes had clouded over and disappeared. The sensation cobbled together the semblance of my eyes, although I couldn't use them again.

Then, the sensation stopped, and simply held myself in place. I wasn’t concerned, though I was curious as to why it ceased to mess with my physical remains. Then, a voice, a conscious voice penetrated my entire being and echoed into my mind:

“This will hurt like nothing you have felt before. I am sorry.”

The warm sensation rumbled, a foreboding vibration that would usually precede an avalanche if it was felt on a mountainside. The sensation then rushed into the space of my body, causing the primordial soup to convulse with shock at the intrusion. Intense pain followed as the sensation turned its attention to every atom of my being.

Then it began its true work.

It forced every single molecule of my being to operate according to the will of the sensation itself, even if my being did not want to do what it wanted me to do. It stirred the primordial soup of my body and forced it into ordered cellular structures that bonded together to form cellular tissues. It imposed painful order on the comforting chaos I had sunk into.

I thought the pain I felt at the separation of the intruder from my body was the most intense pain I would ever feel. This pain was worse, not in magnitude, but in how it was prolonged over the course of several agonizing moments as the sensation essentially rebooted my body’s processes, from the lowliest cell to the most complicated interactions of organs.

I was tortured this way as my body was forced to coalesce back into its original shape. Moment after horrendous moment, it imposed the order that my body once followed before this mess undid it. When I thought that it couldn’t torture me further, the warm sensation voiced itself again:

“This next part requires you to take charge of your body. You might die, but you will likely come back to the land of the living. I’ll try to keep you alive for as long as I can.”

The sensation then did something that I did not think was possible: it grabbed my consciousness and mashed it into every inch of my body. It forced me to feel every single cell crying in pain at being forced to operate again. It threw me the reins of my reconstituted body and left me to figure out how the hell to control it.

My brain fumbled, trying to put together the required routines and little quirks I had learned over the years back into use: this neuron connected to this part of the heart but not that part which was connected to a second neuron, and it needed to use both those neurons to beat in a certain rhythm, but what was that rhythm?

I couldn’t keep up. I did everything I could, but I could feel everything slip away. The warm sensation did nothing as I floundered, slowly dying an effective second death. If I could figure out how to scream for help, I would have gladly done so.

Then, there was a light. Some part of my mind noted how cliché it was to see a light, but I had to admit that I did in fact see a light, some distance from myself. It drew me closer, ever closer, until I realized that I had moved towards it.

My conscious self looked back and saw my dead body. I could see Twilight Sparkle, haggard, exhausted, on the verge of bawling her eyes out, a twitch developing in her right eye, hovering over me, her horn ablaze with magic that reached out and enveloped the dead husk I had escaped. I felt pity for her, but the light was too strong. I had to look at the light again. It intrigued me far more than the scene currently in front of me. So I turned back around.

As I did so, I noticed completely new surroundings. There were others around me. Most of them had their heads down and eyes closed like they were asleep, while others looked around, some scared out of their minds, others in the throes of wonder. They were all shapes, sizes, species and temperaments, ranging from Changelings to Griffons to Dragons to every variety of Pony, Bovine, and even the Diamond Dogs. I was surprised to even see the God of Chaos himself, Discord, slumbering in a snug corner of the expanse laid out before me.

They all had one thing in common: they were bound to the ground. It mattered little the method of binding, but they were held in place as they sat around and either slept, or looked around with whatever expression best suited their fancy. Some fell asleep again, others stayed awake for quite some time as I looked around at everyone.

I then noticed something strange: all those who looked at the light that had drawn me into this state glowed with an ethereal light of their own. The longer they stared, the brighter they became. Those who looked at the bright ones became bright themselves. This formed a network of brilliance that fluctuated with an otherworldly pattern and design. On the surface, it had no symmetry, but closer inspection reveals a unique mosaic in whatever part was examined in detail. The entire area pulsed in an erratic yet pleasing signal, as if by some grand design beyond my own understanding.

I took the liberty of looking at my own self as I noted these things. To my surprise, I was almost completely unbound from the ground around me. There was one small vine wrapped around my right hind hoof that was the only bond that kept me on the ground in this world. I found the rest of my body floating, moving with the pulsing light waves. I was a free-floating part of the pattern, or at least as much as I could be. And the sensation of being that small part of the patterns of light was a wonderful experience.

I desperately wanted to rip the vine off my leg, to propel myself among the light waves and lose myself in the glorious pattern I found myself a part of. The grief I felt at being tied down was overwhelming. I could experience so much more if I could only be free of this shackle!

As I floated and felt terrible for being rooted, I noticed something else I had not noticed before. There was music. This music was unlike any music I had heard. It was ominous yet comforting. It was sonorous, yet delicate. It felt burdened by the weight of time beyond time, but surged with a youthful vigor. Its melody line was intricate and complex, yet was easy to learn and master. Its harmonies incorporated every possible note on the musical scale which should have led to a discordant mess, but every part supported the other in a work of pure yet simple genius. It was a melody of kings that could be chanted for a peasant. It was perfect for gatherings and for private meditation.

The best I could call it was aural perfection, as hyperbolic as that seemed to me. And I found myself singing along with it, the melody and the words coming easily to me. I tried to memorize the lyrics and the melody as I sang it, but every attempt revealed an intricacy or a set of notes that I had missed in the previous attempt. I threw away any notion of trying to preserve this experience in any greater detail.

I then noticed the other singers of the melody. Some of them were of sentient races that I was familiar with, such as the various Ponies, but there were other races that boggled my mind. Some were entirely hairless, others were overgrown with hair. Some had appendages whose function I could only guess at, while others had maybe one appendage for their head, if they had a head. It mattered little if they were familiar or not, they were all singers in this otherworldly choir, all in perfect harmony regardless of their unique quirks. In fact, their differences made the song even better than it could have been if it was limited to only the races I was familiar with.

I then saw four ponies among the choir. The sight of them made me want more than ever to be free from my earthly bond. Lilywhite. Lickety Split. Shuttersnap. Sassafras. My parents, and Barbara’s parents. Their faces shone with a bright light, their expressions sheer ecstasy, their eyes fixed on the source of the light that drew us all together in glorious music.

I cried harder than I had ever cried before. They didn’t even notice me… or so I thought. Before I realized it, they were around me, their hooves around me in an embrace that I never knew I had missed. I cried as they held me and comforted me, and in unison they pointed to the source of the light.

As I stared at the source, it grew in intensity, the melody along with it. It was almost blinding, the Melody deafening my hearing, but my conscious self’s eyes and ears felt no pain. As I stared, it became the sole focus of my mind. I found myself staring through it, trying to see beyond it but finding nothing but more light. It was like staring into infinity, if such a thing were even possible.

Then, I felt something.

A heartbeat.

Mine.

My body was alive.

It was alive, and it was functioning. It kicked into gear, remembering how to do all the functions that I had taken for granted. My physical eyes shot open as my lungs figured out how to breathe again, throwing up a chunk of phlegm from my throat in the process. My entire body shivered as it lay encased in Twilight Sparkle’s magical aura.

I glanced up, to see Twilight’s face go from the verge of insanity to exhausted joy. She turned away, and collapsed not far from my twitching form, her aura disappearing from around me. Familiar ponies rushed in from the edge of my vision and took me away from the ground I had fallen on. I found myself inside a camping bed surrounded by blankets before I could blink, exhausted and very confused.

My mind was still reeling with the song and the encounter with my parents and Barbara’s parents combined with the sudden shock of realizing that I may have had a legitimate near-death experience. It was so vivid, so powerful. I felt like my entire conception of reality was rocked to its core, and that I was unceremoniously dumped into the backwater of reality which is this physical world, at least in comparison to the perfection I had so briefly experienced.

I found myself sobbing into my pillow. I wanted to experience that song again, to feel that perfection ripple through my conscious self like it did in that wonderful moment. A back corner of my mind firmly believed that I would never experience that glorious melody again, not in the way that I had just experienced it, and that corner refused to give way to the exhaustion and sudden soreness that spiked through all my muscles as I lay in bed.

I was tired, depressed, sore, angry, and more distraught that I had been in a long time, which was a feat in itself. I missed my parents, I missed their presence, their touch. That brief moment of contact felt so right, so perfect, I wanted desperately to be back in their embrace, for them to hold me tight and comfort me at this life-threatening point in my life.

I knew that was not possible, not in this physical world anyway, if what I had seen was indeed a glimpse of the Afterlife. And that fact made me sob beyond what I thought was my physical capacity for sobs.

There was a weight that settled next to me on the bed. I didn’t even realize it was there until I felt two hooves gently massaging my back. I looked behind me to find Barbara on top of me.

Her expression was one of exhausted dread, but I saw her bite her lip before she gently laid me back down so that she could continue to massage my back. Her hooves were physically soothing, but the ache in my heart could not be assuaged by her touch.

She’s trying to be the wife she thought she’d be, bless her heart, I thought, but there’s nothing she could do or say to make me feel any better about what happened. I wish I could tell her that without breaking her heart, but I really, really do not want to talk to anyone, most of all her right now.

“I… I told her to let you go,” Barbara whispered.

I didn’t move. I didn’t want to deal with this. I couldn’t deal with this. I didn’t have the energy or the heart to even respond to her words.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she leaned in close.

I felt her kiss the side of my neck. She moved on from my back to the rest of my body, the physical sensations paling in comparison to the memory of the song of pure harmony. She pressed against my backside, a desperate bid for physical intimacy that was nothing compared to the ethereal contact I had in that world of pure light and sound.

“I forgive you,” I said, without looking at her. She did not seem to alter her behavior, as she gently rubbed her body against mine. As she kept up her suggestive actions, I could feel tears trickle down onto my mane from her face as she pressed against the side of my neck.

“I wished for you to be dead,” she whispered again, a quiver in her voice. She held me tight as she began to sob herself. “I wanted you gone.”

“Barbara,” I said, tired and aching in every fibre of my body, “I-”

“Pantrostic, I do care for you, and I wanted you to die!” she wailed. She continued to bawl on top of me, as I was unwilling to move her or deal with her emotions.

I sighed. I didn’t want to leave Barbara this distraught. If I can calm her down enough, maybe we can get some sleep and come at this tomorrow, I thought.

“Look, Barbara, I honestly forgive you,” I said, trying to not sound condescending. “You probably had a good reason to say those things.”

I closed my eyes as the relevant memories rushed to me. “It was… painful. You had every right to try and let me go, to… to end the pain, especially at that point in time.”

“That doesn’t make it right!” Her breath came in ragged bursts right by my ear as she continued to sob.

I turned around, and brought her face to mine. I didn’t kiss her, or otherwise hold her body to mine. I just stared into her face and into her eyes. I could see the trauma that her decision had wreaked on her heart on every line of each iris. The rivulets that formed down her cheek and onto mine brought lines to her face that so perfectly reflected a face of mine from years ago, one that I never expected to see again, much less on her face.

She almost lost someone close to her. I knew what state her heart must be in, as mine had been like that for a longer period of time than I had ever wanted. I gently brought a hoof to her face, and stroked her cheek.

“Barbara, I truly do forgive you,” I said. I brought her forehead to my lips, and gently kissed her. I gently moved us away, and found that I was smiling.

She cared for me. For all our recent arguments and all our frustration and disappointments and life-threatening situations, I still cared for her and she still cared for me. And we could see that care on both our faces.

She broke our eye-to-eye connection to furiously kiss my face. I responded in kind. Before I knew it, we were physically entwined in each other’s embrace, in love and desperately, maybe even furiously, expressing that love between the two of us. About an hour later, we uncoupled, taking a much-needed break to catch our breath.

“Pantrostic,” she said, breathing hard, “wow, that was, well….”

“Yeah,” I breathed, as I rolled over and brought her close to me again. I saw her smile as she brought a hoof between us.

“Seriously,” she said, “that was fun, but I’ll be honest, it’s totally unlike you.”

“Well, we did have just one night, you know,” I said as I smiled, waiting for her to move her hoof. When she didn’t, I raised my eyebrow, expecting something cute to lead into some more intense expressions of love.

Her eyes did not reflect my desire back to me.

“Pantrostic, you’re tired,” she said. “I could feel it. You need some rest.” She moved her other hoof to me, and placed it on my cheek. “Your eyes are drooping.” Her hoof moved to my chest. “Your breathing is deep, and is getting deeper.” The hoof went over my rump in a suggestive manner. “You took quite a while to get going.” She leaned forward and kissed me. She drew back, a knowing look on her face. “You don’t tremble right before we kiss.”

As I realized what her words meant, my muscles remembered how much they ached before our love-making. They had the added burden of our passion on top of that ache, which dropped my desire to continue mating to almost nothing. I felt bad, because I wanted to continue despite my pain, but I could feel myself falling asleep during the lull Barbara had made.

I found myself crying. “Barbara, I don’t want to sleep!” I said. I leaned forward to kiss her, but she put a hoof between us.

“Barbara, I want to help you feel good!” I said, a pleading tone in my voice.

“And you did!” she said. She rubbed my cheek in an effort to calm me down. “It was amazing, remember? But you’re tired now, and I don’t want you throwing yourself at me if it hurts you!”

I didn’t want to listen. But trying to fight her wouldn’t work, I reasoned; that would just make her mad, and would ruin the mood. I closed my eyes and nodded in agreement with her, ending the potential fight before it happened.

“Alright,” I said, “I am glad you liked it, I just, I-”

“I get it,” she said. She kissed me, and brought me close to her body. “I don’t want you thinking I’m trying to stop that. I’m just trying to look out for you here.”

She was right. I embraced her as she embraced me, and fell asleep moments later.

Sleep was dreamless for a while. I woke up, to find myself in a very familiar place.

The wide range of sentient beings were around me again, some of them awake, some of them asleep, all of them bound to the earth. I looked at myself, to find myself wrapped in familiar vines sprouted from the ground around me. I looked into the sky to find the same light as before, although it was much farther away than I remembered. Although I couldn’t float in the waves of light like before, my heart soared at being back in this place. I stood up, to find myself able to walk around. The vines moved with me, the roots tracking my position as I walked around the area I found myself in.

It wasn’t the same as floating with the pulsing wave of light, but it would do for now. I looked around, to find myself face-to-face with a very awake Twilight Sparkle. She and I startled, backing away from each other.

I took a deep breath to calm my sudden nerves. I looked back up at her, and nearly blinked in surprise. She blazed with light, almost as bright as the light in the sky. I was taken aback at how resplendent the light made her look. I found myself bowing before her without realizing that I was doing so. When I looked back up, she blushed and looked to the side.

I remembered that of all the ruling Alicorns, Twilight Sparkle often refused to wear her regalia or try to stand apart from her subjects outside of rituals and ceremonies. It must embarrass her to see me bow before her. I smiled, stood up, and reached out a hoof to her.

She eyed the hoof, looked back at me, smiled, but didn’t shake my hoof in return. She opened her mouth, and spoke:

“This is a magical place. Contact here binds individuals together for the rest of their lives.”

Her words made me understand the refusal of my hoof. I put it back down, blushing myself. Then I looked back at her and asked:

“Wait, this isn’t a dream?”

She shook her head. She looked at the sky, which caused me to look up as well. There was the Light, blazing with the strength of the physical sun, pulsing. I could hear the faint strains of the Melody as well, though I was surprised at it being a faint whisper rather than the triumphant roar I had experienced. The decrease in volume did not diminish its majesty nor its impact on my mind.

“That Light up above is the source of Magic itself,” she said. As we looked and the gorgeous Harmony I had heard before surged toward us from on high, she continued: “The source itself is too powerful to come into direct contact with us, at least not at first. We need to build our own abilities up before we can directly experience true contact with it.”

“So that’s why there’s the song and the light,” I muttered. “It affects us without direct contact, and gives us a chance to be ready to experience it.”

“So many people want to just rip themselves from the ground and throw themselves at the source once they see it,” she continued. “They don’t realize that they are hurting themselves when they do that.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Look to our right,” she said.

I looked over my right shoulder, and at first didn’t see anything. Then I saw someone struggling against something.

A pony was fighting with something on the ground. The mare had a rope of some kind around her neck. The rope was firmly fastened to the ground. The more she fought, the more the rope gave way. But the more the rope gave as a result of her struggles, the less bright she became. She darkened to the point of being a mere silhouette against the waves of light around her. When the last strand of rope parted, she lost all physical outline and became an amorphous shadow that stood out from the light like a spot on the sun.

I could hear a loud wailing that sent pangs of sorrow through me. I realized the words that were in the howling sound:

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know! Please, don’t let me die! I won’t do it again! Please!”

I didn’t realize that the wailing came from the cloud until Twilight spoke:

“She will be alright… but not for a long time.”

I looked back to her, and saw her crying. She looked away, obviously embarrassed at the fact that I could see her cry. I looked away out of courtesy.

“So… you need to live your life before you can move on to this place… permanently.”

“Yep.”

“So… is this the real life? Or is this just some kind of subconscious fantasy that sentient beings have constructed to characterize life after death?”

“It’s kind of a mix of both. Different people see it differently.” I heard her sigh. “There was a Diamond Dog who visualized this place as a combat arena, in which all the warriors who passed on could fight forever for glory.”

I was surprised at this. “So, what I am seeing is merely how I interpret this place?”

“Yep.”

I smirked a little. “It’s almost too perfect,” I said. “How convenient that the afterlife takes whatever shape I want it to have.”

“Well, it’s not quite like that,” she answered. "You have heard the Harmony, yes?”

The hairs in my mane stiffened in surprise at the question.

“The Harmony is the common element in every interpretation,” she continued. “It is the one element that everyone interprets the same way, regardless of species, gender, background, culture, you name it.”

I didn’t know what to say, at least for a few minutes. I collected myself and asked:

“So, you’re saying that this is not a near-death experience that I had and am just dreaming about, and that the original experience wasn’t a hallucination that I had in that state.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Then how do I know if that is true?”

“Because I’ll remember.”

I snapped my eyes open, to find myself back in my bed. Barbara slept beside me. I backed away gently, and sat up, my mind still vividly remembering the dream… or, at least what I thought was a dream. I had to get some fresh air to clear my head and try to process what I just witnessed.

I wanted to say that I carefully exited the tent I had slept in, but that would be something of a lie. It felt more like I ran out of the tent in a desperate dash for the night air. I didn’t remember if I closed the tent flap behind me. I stumbled into the clearing in the middle of the tents.

I then heard something that froze my blood. Someone hummed a melody. The humming person wasn’t humming the melody as perfectly as I had originally experienced it, but I could tell that the melody that was hummed belonged to the same melody that I had heard in a very recent and vivid dream.

I turned towards the source of the humming. Twilight Sparkle was sitting close to the edge of a cliff near the campsite. The humming came from her as she stared up at the moon as it passed through the night sky.

I couldn’t believe it. She turned towards me, her face exhausted, wrinkles around her eyes prominent in the moonlight. I trembled as I found myself moving towards her.

“You… we… w-we talked-”

“Yep.”

“Ab-bout, about the afterlife.”

“Mm-hmm.”

My eyes were wide. She was right. She remembered. One question was on my mind:

“How?!”

She looked back out to the half-moon. “It’s a mystery, but stranger things have happened the more I learned from that place,” she said, in a resigned tone reserved for those who desperately want sleep but know they won’t get it for some time.

I shook my head, barely able to believe that we just communicated via dreams. Much less that we both had similar visions about the afterlife. It was even less likely that she knew the exact same melody that I had heard in that abstract dream-realm, and could produce an imperfect version of it whenever she wanted. I found myself laying on the ground, my head in my forehooves, as if the act of cradling my head would somehow help me deal with the impossible experience I just had.

“Pantrostic,” I heard Barbara say. I looked up, to find her sleepily staring at me from the edge of the clearing. “What are you doing out here?”

I looked away, trying to find the words to tell Barbara everything that was crashing through my mind. She walked up to me and put a hoof around my shoulders.

“Come on, it’s late,” she said as she gently tugged at me. “Let’s go back to sleep.”

I put a hoof on her chest to signal that I didn’t want to move. She noticed, and lay down beside me. I looked at her face to see her worried expression.

I took a deep breath, and would have tried to use clumsy words to try to express everything I was thinking about, when Twilight Sparkle hummed again.

Barbara’s face lit up in recognition of the melody that Twilight hummed. From the direction of the sound, it seemed that Twilight was headed to wherever her tent was. I heard a tent unzip, then zip back up. The silence of the night the absence of the humming caused made the confusion of my dazed mind louder than I wanted. I was on the verge of screaming just to try to shut out all the conflicting voices when Barbara clamped a hoof over my mouth.

I looked at Barbara, and saw the saddest frown I had ever seen on her face. The guilt I felt was overwhelming. I was becoming my worst nightmare: an absolute basket case that Barbara would have to take care of for the rest of our marriage, and that one expression showed the toll my behavior was having on her.

I began to cry, turning away in shame as I did so. If all my mistakes up to this point wasn’t failure enough, then that expression was evidence that I had failed her completely.

I couldn’t leave it like that. I needed to be strong, somehow. There had to be some way that I hadn’t screwed her life over, and I needed to find it, before this insanity got worse.

“Let’s… get some sleep,” I managed to say, trying my hardest to keep myself from bawling.

I heaved myself upright, and walked over to my tent, barely aware of the tent wires as I stumbled in the dark to the open tent flap. I fell through the opening, and crawled back to my bed. My body warmed the cold sheets, the insulation of the blankets making the air around my body warm enough to lull me to sleep despite my aching head.

My dreamless sleep did not calm my raging mind. I still felt like a complete failure who snuck a glance at Eternity in a near-death experience when I woke up with nature calling something fierce. I sat upright, and found myself crying again. I left the tent, glad that nobody else was in the tent to see my emotional state, which persisted as I went outside.

Fog shrouded the camp site. Good, I thought; it’ll be harder to see my tears in the mist. Those tears continued to pour as I went off in the woods and took care of my business. Feeling my physical body take care of itself drained away some of the emotion, but I could still feel the tears on my face as I walked back to camp.

Someone had placed a mirror against their tent. I walked past, and screamed at what I saw.

I did not recognize myself… that is, I did not recognize my current self. This self reflected in the mirror was someone younger, someone who had not endured years of emotional torture. This self did not let himself become a slob because he did not have the energy to clean house or prepare healthy food. This self had not missed the death of his parents because of a forced imprisonment. This self once had a bright future ahead of him, unbowed by personal trauma.

I saw myself as I was almost eight years ago. The lean muscles my father had insisted I build so he could drag me along for his parkour runs were just as lean as they were back then. I didn’t have a large belly, rump or bowed back; I was skinny, due to not having a healthy appetite in my younger years, which changed after the family tragedy. My knees were not bowed to my midsection to handle a sudden increase of body fat.

Someone touched my shoulder. I looked, and saw that everyone in the camp was here… except for that foal, that filly who was the intruder in my psyche. I pointed at the mirror and said:

“That reflection is not me.”

Twilight Sparkle pushed through the others, and came up to me. She did not look sleepy, but her expression had a different kind of exhaustion. It seemed like she was annoyed at me, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she was probably sick of dealing with my problems.

“That reflection is you,” Twilight Sparkle said. “It may not be the most current version of yourself, but it was the only form I could give you without everything falling apart.”

I was speechless. I knew that she had reconstructed me, somehow, but that didn’t explain how she did it or why I was left like this.

“You should still have all your memories,” she continued before turning away, “and you should take things easy until you get used to your reformed body.”

I stared at her as she walked away, still speechless, still confused, still upset. After Twilight turned a corner and disappeared from sight, the other ponies who were the Elements of Harmony quickly huddled and began to whisper to each other. Before I could ask them what the heck they were doing, they zipped off, the pink one, Pinkie Pies I think was her name, in the lead.

Barbara, Asura and myself were the only ones still in the area. I looked back at the reflection. Whenever I moved a hoof, the younger version of me in the reflection moved with it. To call it weird is an understatement. No matter where I touched, I felt physical sensations that coincided with the actions of the reflection. I sat down on the ground, stunned from this further development.

Barbara walked up to me. I didn’t look at her, but kept my eyes on the mirror and its reflection. Barbara looked at the reflection, her eyes wide with shock.

She must not have seen exactly how I had changed last night, I reasoned. What rotten luck for both of us.

I saw her face break out into a happy grin.

That’s… weird, I thought, and my confusion at her expression caused both of us to break eye contact with the mirror and look at each other.

“Barbara, why are you happy about this?” I eyed her, further weirded out by the joy I could see over her face.

She looked at me like I was crazy. She grabbed my shoulders and shook me, her face bright with excitement.

“Pantrostic, this is a younger you!”

I grabbed her legs to try to steady her excitement. “That’s not a good thing, Barbara—”

“Not a good thing!” She wriggled out of my grip and smacked my left shoulder. I recoiled and backed away. Asura jumped between us, a scared look on his face.

She had smacked the spot on my shoulder that triggers my Changeling hallucinations. I let myself fall to the ground, dreading the numb feeling that would creep over my leg right before the world around me would swarm with the insectoid hallucinations.

The numbness didn’t come. The spot still smarted where Barbara had hit it, but there was no corresponding loss of feeling. Not only that, but as I waited for the hallucinations to trigger, I saw Barbara’s triumphant look become more intense. When the pain started to fade without a single imagined thrum of Changeling wings, I realized what she had done and why.

I stood up, amazed at what just happened. I hadn’t hallucinated, even though Barbara had tried to trigger the blasted things.

“See? You’re healed!” Barbara tried to get around Asura to me, but Asura kept his position between us.

I rushed over and grabbed for Barbara. Asura backed out from between us, a confused look on his face. Barbara and I embraced and fell to the ground. We tumbled for a few feet, holding on to each other as each person’s momentum continued the roll whenever the other came to a stop.

I finally managed to halt us. I pulled her upright, my mind spinning as much as my vision. I felt a giggle escape my throat, which Barbara reciprocated. Her laugh spurred my body to break out in laughter that left me breathless. We grasped each other as we guffawed like mad ponies, ignoring our surroundings in order to experience the hyperactive sensations of unfettered laughter.

Then I saw the colors of the world around me warp for no reason I could identify. Green was black, orange was teal, and the lines holding the colors together vanished, turning everything into a soup akin to a toddler playing with water colors in his or her favorite coloring book. I need to breathe, I thought as I started to rock back and forth, gasping around the bellowing laughter that still wracked my lungs.

I fell to the side, and felt Barbara topple over me. I could hear her still laughing her heart out, although I could no longer tell her apart from the rest of the scene. My body began to heave as I tried to stop my hyperventilation and not throw up at the same time.

After several minutes of gasping, I finally managed a slow, controlled breath, which led to some more slow, controlled breaths. As I got my lungs under control, the world began to melt back into place. However, only the colors matched up with their corresponding objects; their outlines seemed out-of-place, like a comic book that was poorly inked. This remaining distortion did not clear up when I saw Barbara lean over in between laughs to see my face.

Something about my expression must have been alarming, because she got off me. The world around me stabilized some more, bringing the defining lines closer to their proper places. The effect was similar to double vision, and just as disorienting. I felt dizzy, and laid my head to the ground to try and regain a sense of balance.

While my head laid on the ground, I saw several ponies enter the clearing. From their colors, it looked to be Twilight Sparkle and the other Elements of Harmony. Twilight had a glowing box suspended in front of her via her magic. It was difficult to make out their expressions, but I felt a shiver down my spine nonetheless.

The words Twilight Sparkle said justified my shiver:

“The Council of Harmony is now convened in the informal trial of Pantrostic, who stands accused of using black magic.”

Prologue

A stallion walked down a quiet, still street, the clip-clop from his hooves rippling along the causeway. The stallion passed a quiet, closed club, which the stallion thought was odd, considering this was the Tourist district of Canterlot. Wasn’t it evening? Then why wasn't the club open? The stallion had no answer to these questions, but he walked on anyway. Curiosity would not get the better of him, not after events earlier in the day.... the guilt began to twist his stomach—

“Excuse me, might I ask you a question?”

A mare stepped out of an alleyway in front of the stallion.

The stallion did not respond for a couple seconds. He noticed some of the salient details of the mare: no wings, no horn, but she was tall. Very tall. It almost embarrassed him how small he felt in comparison to her size. He looked away, but the mare stepped forward and into his personal space.

“Excuse me, it won’t take long,” the mare insisted. The stallion heard the eager tone and wondered what her intentions were. He sighed.

“Sure, what is it?” he asked.

“What do you think about having children?”

The dead silence turned from breezy normalcy to thicker than concrete for the stallion. He shook his head to try and clear the sudden buzzing of mental questions, who was this strange pony?! being the main one.

“What about having children are you interested in?” he asked, hoping to gain some insight into this stranger’s mind.

The mare stepped forward, her face inches from his. “I am interested in having one! Do you know a good mate?” she asked.

The stallion backed away. Fast. He turned around and began to run—

And stopped as soon as he started.

The mare was in front of him.

“Wha-but-I-howdid-Ididn’teven—” The stallion noticed a glow coming from the mare's forehead. “Bu-wha-glow-magi-bu-doesn—”

The stallion froze. Not of his own volition.

The mare squealed with delight. “Excellent response! You will be a wonderful parent!” she exclaimed as the glow from her forehead levitated the frozen stallion to her side. The mare hummed a merry tune as she went down the dark alleyway, the horn on her head phasing into the visible spectrum of light, the frozen stallion bobbing alongside her.

The streets were quiet once again.