The Tale of The Stone-turner

I was screaming. The process had begun simple enough, after placing myself on the bed Celestia talked of each step she was performing. She magically began to work with my mind, not touching anything already in place but forging new connections and feelings that would link into and manage my power. Apparently if I became skilled enough at using it I would even be able to turn plants and objects to stone, that's kinda neat I guess. I didn't feel the least bit comfortable with how she had to do it but she assured me she would not be reading any of my memories or tampering with who I was and I really had no other choice than to trust her on that.

Then Luna began her part of this operation. She would use her magic to restrain me and my petrification power and then draw it out to the full extent so that she could work with it and form the bonds that would link with Celestia's work in my waking mind. I did not realize that this was what she meant when she said it being linked with pain would make it unpleasant.

It started at first as a slight tingle itching at me, then it rapidly began to grow in discomfort until I felt as though my bones had set themselves ablaze and my skin would rip itself off my body. I had begun screaming in agony within the first five minutes of Luna's phase. She did not let my screams of pain break her concentration, but I could feel the sympathy from her and Celestia. Sympathy does not block out pain however. My body tried to spasm free and throw itself away from the alicorns, but magic held me firmly in place. My vision had been completely red since just before my screaming began and I could feel pulse after pulse try to force its way out but get stopped just at my skin. I felt like the entirety of the world itself was trying to rip me apart. I screamed loudly and unable to even try and hold it in I kept screaming until my voice had broken and nothing more than a pained hollowness and tears could leave my body. Yet still the pain was there. I felt like eternity had passed by me twice when I began the uncontrollable laughter. I knew there was nothing funny about any of this, that the pain was necessary and yet I couldn't stop it. I laughed with my shattered voice like some kind of broken hyena. And I kept laughing until after hours of intense pain it all just stopped and I felt nothing at all. Surprised at the sudden ceasefire of sensory input I tried to lift my head up and found I could look at the alicorns. They both seemed to exhausted and sweat ran down their coats. I began trying to croak out words.

“I- I- Is...... I- It” Celestia stopped me before I could hurt myself speaking.

“Yes, we believe the task has been properly completed, but please lie back and rest yourself now, this has been a taxing procedure for all parties involved and we shall discuss it after all of us have taken some time to regain our strength. I nodded and fell back against the mattress and they made their way out and locked the door. Then I began chuckling to myself as I fell asleep.

When next I awoke I made a discovery. My bladder was in dire need of relief and the rest of me was in equal need of rest. A compromise had to be made. Rolling over I let myself drop onto the floor and pulled my body along to the bathroom. Once in there and after much consideration and planning I decided I would not be able to make the shot from floor to toilet and pulled myself into a stand to complete my task. With a yawn I finished draining the tank, so to speak, and turned to return to the bed when something caught my attention in the cabinet mirror. Returning to face the mirror I started scrutinizing myself, something seemed out of place. Then I noticed it, my eyes had changed. The brown to match my hair had vanished and in its place was a deep blood red with a slight glow, I knew this color, it was the color my vision would fill with whenever I was about to pulse.

After commanding my body to not change anything else without my consent I threw myself back onto the bed just before there was knocking upon the door. I let out a groan and muffled my permission to enter.

“Good morning Stone, I hope you are feeling up to some tests to ensure that your power has been properly dealt with.” I sat right up and looked at the two alicorns entering my room.

“You don't have to.... Go back in there do you?” I motioned towards my head as I spoke.

“No not for these tests, we would only have to repeat the procedure if the changes made did not take hold and you were still a risk to our citizens.” I relaxed a little.

“So how do we test if the changes worked?” As I finished speaking Luna slowly walked towards me, rested her left foreleg on my shoulder, and slowly leaned towards me before bringing her right hoof right across my face and forcing my head to snap to the side. “Ooooooowwwwww!” I didn't see red at all.

“It appears your power no longer responds to pain so our part of the operation was successful.”

“You could have warned me!”

“But then you may have braced yourself to lessen the pain.”

“Still, that fucking hurt!”

“That was the point of it.”

I sat there and grumbled for a second, stupid Luna, that really hurt.

“Well, it seems Luna's enchantment to separate your power from pain worked.” All Celestia got was more grumbles from me. “Perhaps we should see if you can control the use of this power now?” With that she levitated a pillow from the floor and set it in front of me. “Try turning this to stone.”

“Didn't you say it would take practice and skill for me to change plants and objects?”

“Yes, but we can't exactly test your power on a pony now can we?”

“Good point, here goes nothing.” And that is exactly what happened, nothing. I tried glaring, I tried yelling at it, I even tried informing the pillow that its dreams were meaningless and it would never be more than what it was. It still remained fluffy and defiant.

“Maybe it is for the best you cant activate this power, it will make it easier to trust you around my little ponies.” I gave her a hurt look.

“You've been inside my head and you don't trust me?”

“Oh it's not that, I did take a tiny peek at your moral values to ensure I could trust you.” Now I just felt violated. “It's just that you don't seem the type who makes the best decisions.”

“You looked at my memories!”

“No, but when you're as old as I am you get very good at telling these kinds of things.”

“I'll take your word on that, but what now?”

“Now, since we no longer have to worry about you accidentally turning ponies in the palace to stone, how about you come down with us for breakfast?” This got both mine and my stomach's attention.

“Would that cause a panic if anypony saw me?” Celestia gave a slight smirk.

“Rumors spread fast enough it is already common knowledge that you were brought here and kept in this tower.” Damn they work fast. I looked towards Luna as she began speaking.

“And we might have started a rumor that The Elements of Harmony had rehabilitated you rather than done nothing.”

“And they'll just accept that?”

“Probably not. But it should make them feel slightly more at ease and reduce any panicking to a minimum.”

“Oh, well that's good then, I guess.” Luna then turned and began to walk towards the door.

“Come now. Let us go have breakfast so that I may get to sleep before midday.”

Celestia smiled and followed Luna and after I realized I was suppose to be eating breakfast outside this room for a change, I hurried along to catch up.

We walked down the stairs of eternal suffering in relative silence and made our way thru the palace towards, and this is just an assumption regarding where breakfast would be, the dining hall. I turned on the grin of stupidity as we walked and waved to anypony we came across. The guards seemed unimpressed... Or maybe just emotionless, while any other members of staff found excuses to use other hallways. After I had just decided this palace was made of one hallway that would repeat itself until it felt you deserved to be at your destination we walked into the large room where we would be dining.

The room itself was grand, high ceilings, enough space to play any sporting event of your choosing, and plenty chandeliers and candelabras to keep the entire thing lit nice and bright. Looking around from the doorway I noticed the large dining table in the middle was already occupied. And then my grin got nice and wide, for it was occupied with six ponies I had already met, all of whom had their backs to the entrance... Perfect.

Walking ahead of Celestia and Luna I quickly turned to them both and put my fingers over my lips with a gentle 'shh' and began to tip-toe towards the center table. Now the seating order on this table is as follows, Rainbow Dash was seated on the far right end and moving leftwards and ending at the middle of the table was Applejack, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and finally Fluttershy. Two things made it nice and easy to do what was I was about to do, the first was that all of the ponies were either deep in conversation or intently focused on eating, and the other was that instead of chairs ponies had essentially short but wide padded stools. This meant that I was able to stealthily move right up next to Fluttershy and lifting my leg over the stool settle down with as much silence as possible. I turned towards the ponies, rested my elbow on the table then my cheek on my fist, and made my smile as big as I possibly could, letting all of my teeth in on it.

After a few seconds of waiting, Rainbow Dash was the first to notice my presence, her eyes grew to the size of saucer plates as her head slowly turned to face me, mouth open in shock. That reactionary process pretty much jumped from pony to pony in order until Fluttershy was the only one still eating. Slowly the pony seemed to notice something was amiss as she looked up from her plate towards her comrades and then ever so slowly turned to face me, her eyes almost completely filling her face. I then spoke just barely above a whisper.

“Boo.”