BREAKING MY SOUL

I stare at the door of the vault, still locked shut, and for the first time I understand.

An overwhelming wave of magical power rips through the walls as Other Twilight’s and Star Swirl’s spell goes off, and it feels like it rips something intangible out of me as well. I gasp and fall to my knees, squeezing my eyes shut as the veil I've had wrapped over them is torn away.

Finally. Finally it’s almost over. “Thank you!” I call out to her, hoping she’ll hear me. “Thank you, thank you, thank...” I trail off. I feel like I’m seeing things clearly, more clearly than I have for a long while. This awful, wonderful clarity as I review with fresh sight everything that I’ve done to the ponies I professed to love. I can’t believe what I was almost about to do. I tried to rip her mind away from her, torture and kill her, when all along she was only here to give me something I haven’t had for a very long time, and haven’t deserved for even longer: Hope. Real, genuine hope. I need to capitalize on this moment of lucidity before my mind sinks back into the miasma of delusional insanity that's been poisoning me.

I walk slowly down the hallway towards a balcony that overlooks the city. It’s destroyed. I took something beautiful, and given the chance to remake it in my own image that’s exactly what I did. No wonder it’s a ruined, hollow shell of itself; It’s a perfect reflection of its Queen. I squeeze my eyes closed and try to cry, but no tears come. That’s not fair. I shift back into the little unicorn I used to be, hoping its just a quirk of changeling physiology, but still nothing. How am I supposed to prove how sorry I am, then?

I call out to the swarm, and give them one simple, final command: Up. They stop what they’re doing and lift off, soaring higher and higher into the sky as I watch. They’ll obey for as long as they can, rising until muscles, wings, or lungs give out. Maybe if they’re lucky a few of the strongest will somehow rise high enough to get just the tiniest glimpse of the same thing I just have, even if there’s no way they’ll fully understand. Even I don’t really understand, but at least I understand enough to realize how little I do know.

I know exactly where I want to be for this. I swing by the armory to grab a dagger, rusty from neglect, and descend down the stairs into the dungeon headed for Luna’s bedroom one last time.

“Finished with those two already?” asks Chrysalis. “You’re slipping. I figured you would take at least a few years breaking each one of them.” I just glance over at her, saying nothing. Of course she expected me to. She probably understands what I really am better than anypony. I continue on, making a concerted effort not to look into the cell across from hers. I don’t need to see my five friends to picture, vividly, everything I’ve done to them.

I walk into Luna’s bedroom and close the door behind me. “Luna? Sweetheart?” I ask, knowing it’s futile. I rest the dagger on the nightstand and climb into the bed where her body still rests, the vertebrae in her twisted neck jutting out at an unnatural angle. Thanks to the blankets, her body hasn’t begun to cool yet, and when I close my eyes I can almost imagine that I feel her breathing. I nuzzle the back of her broken neck. “I am so sorry, Luna. I am so sorry for everything. I know you probably can’t hear me anymore, but... please don’t think less of me if I pretend you can. Not that you could think much less of me than you already do.”

When I finally open my eyes and stare into her lifeless gaze, I find myself thinking about how lucky she is. I stay there like that, a little ball cuddled up between her slack forelegs, for a long while. “You know,” I eventually begin, “I never really studied much theology. It seemed like a waste of my time, to worship anything I couldn’t perceive. The closest I ever came was my faith in Celestia, but even that wasn’t the same thing, not really. I do know the basics, though, of a couple of the major monotheistic traditions.”

For a pony who prides herself on being smart, it all took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out. But then, maybe resisting truths this unpleasant is just everypony’s basic nature. “I thought I was a good pony, Luna,” I whisper into her ear. “I made mistakes, but I tried to be good. A good daughter. A good student. A good friend. But... even though I tried, I think that underneath everything, so deep I couldn’t see it for a long time, I’m just bad. If I really were good, I never could have done this to you. I don’t think I’m in a time loop, not really. I think I died and... and I think I went to Hell. I think I’m in Hell, and I think that I’m supposed to be here. Because I don’t deserve to go with you, or my friends, or Celestia. They’re all good, and I’m... I’m not. Maybe you’re supposed to be here too, for all the Nightmare Moon stuff. Maybe I’m your punishment.”

Still no tears. Damn it. I’m trying to be penitent, trying to prove that I understand. Do I not even deserve that? Not even that tiny release? “There’s good news, though,” I say. “Whatever higher power that guides our lives and decided that this is where I was supposed to go, I think... please don’t laugh, but I think that He or She or It sent us a pair of angels, Luna. I think now that I know how bad I am, now that I hate myself as much as I deserve to be hated, I think It might have forgiven me. I don’t deserve to be, but I think It sent that other Twilight and Star Swirl to save me from this. They closed the loop. It’s over. They promised me that when I die it’s over. You just got to go a little sooner than I did.”

I shift my weight up onto my side so I can run a hoof through her mane. Even in death, she’s beautiful. “What’s it like?” I ask. “I know I’m not going to Heaven or Elysium or Paradise or wherever you are now, and frankly after all this I don’t really see the appeal of eternal life. If only one of us gets to be happy, I'd rather it were you than me. I just want this all to stop. I want it to finally stop.”

I close my eyes again and try to imagine what the best possible thing that could be waiting for me would be, then after a moment I smile. “You know what I hope it is? I hope... I hope it’s just like this room. I want to end everything and then wake up in a bed just like this one. I fell asleep here so many times, after spending a loop making love to you, but I always woke up in the library afterwards. And then after the changeling queen thing I stopped really sleeping entirely. I want to wake up from this nightmare, all gross with a messy mane and tangled up in your sheets, and while I’m waking up I'll roll over and find you watching me. Not saying anything, or even touching me, but just watching me sleep. I want my eyes to meet yours, and I want the last thing I feel to be realizing that you love me just as much as I love you. To believe that somehow there's still something inside me worth loving.” I look up at the ceiling, plaintively. “Could I just have that for a few seconds? Please?”

My eyes go wide and I cover my mouth with a hoof. What am I thinking? “I’m sorry!” I cry out as the atmosphere in the room grows foreboding and disapproving. “I’m sorry! I don’t deserve that, and I’m sorry I asked for it. I know how bad I am, I really do. I understand that I’m not supposed to be happy. Please still forgive me, I promise I understand that I don’t really deserve forgiveness, or love, but please don’t take it away now.”

The room is still silent. Whoever or whatever sent those two to close the loop, they have to see that I’ve learned my lesson. “Please don’t punish me anymore.” My eyes dart around the room and settle on the dagger. I need to finish this before I do anything else that makes them change their mind, makes them think I need to suffer more. I snatch the dagger up in my magic and roll over on my back. “I’ll punish myself, see? So you don’t have to. Bad Twilight.” Without any more hesitation I plunge the dagger into my own side, and cry out in pain. Finally, the tears start but now I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. Am I supposed to take my punishment in silence? Why won’t they just tell me what I need to do?

“I’m bad,” I gasp, yanking the now-bloody dagger out of myself and plunging it into a new spot. “I’m bad. Bad. Bad.” Each word is punctuated with another thrust. The blood starts to bubble up from the wounds, and I roll over away from Luna. I’ve already dirtied her enough, but at least I can spare her from this one, last indignity. I don’t deserve to look at her anyway.

“I’m... I’m bad...” I repeat, but the words are getting harder to form. The dagger slips out of my magic, and I can’t channel enough to grip it again. I fumble for it and manage to get it into my hooves, awkwardly stabbing it into my chest. The familiar sensation of death begins to creep up on me. Maybe I should have picked a more painful way to kill myself, to atone for the unimaginable suffering I’ve caused. The best I can do now is make sure the pain lasts as long as possible. Won’t that prove that I’ve learned my lesson?

As my eyelids droop another unforgivable betrayal slips into my head. Doubt. I try to speak, to admonish myself for even daring to question whatever it was that decided that I deserved this. Of course I deserved it. Bad ponies are supposed to suffer, and I’m bad. “What do you want?” I ask the empty air around me. “I don’t understand what you want from me. I’ve tried everything I can think of. Please let me rest now. Please. Pl...”

The world around me goes dark. Just like every other time, I’m hovering alone as bits and pieces of myself fade into blackness. There’s nothing left of me but yearning for the embrace of the void, and then not even that.

And then in a blinding flash, I’m wrestling with a terribly familiar headache. I feel the solid floor below pressing into the unbroken skin on my side, as wisps of magical power all around me begin to fade into the nothingness I’ve been denied.

Please. Please, no.

I open my eyes, and sure enough I’m back in the library again. Back in the the spot that no matter how far I run I’ll never truly escape. Spike’s standing nearby, looking at me with concern. Time slows for me as he opens his mouth.

No. No. Please no. Please. No. No No No No NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

“Well that didn’t work.”