Page sighed as he set Frozen in his crib, tired. He hadn’t slept well at all these past few nights. Winter was off in another room, putting Gale to bed. Page leaned down and kissed his son’s forehead lovingly, looking into his face. Somehow, his son looked worried… A weird feeling to see on a foals face. “You understand quite a bit, don’t you, my son?” Frozen reached up his hooves, hugging his father’s hoof tightly. Page gently took his hoof out of his son’s embrace, looking at him with tired grey eyes. “Goodnight, my son.” Unable to look at his son any longer, Page turned and trotted back to his bedroom. I suppose he got my sense of emotions…

Winter trotted back out of Gale’s room, smiling brightly. Page smiled softly, if only for his wife. She had no idea how many secrets he still kept from her, how often he lied to her. But it was all to keep that beautiful smile on her face. “Are you alright, dear,” she asked, a small bit of concern in her voice.

Page nodded softly, nuzzling her lightly. “I’m fine, Love. I’m just rather exhausted as of late…” He sighed, rubbing his head. It had been hurting all day. “I believe I’m still recovering from Radiant’s attack…”

Winter watched him, worried. However, she knew Page would never lie to her. Not about his own health. “Alright…” She sat down on the bed, yawning.

“I’m going to go downstairs and get something to help this headache. Why don’t you try to get some sleep?” He kissed her lightly, leaning over the bed.

“Alright.”

Page smiled softly at his wife, taking in her face and how she looked. He knew he wouldn’t have time, soon. He knew that whatever Radiant was doing to him, it would be finished in two days time. He didn’t know what would happen to him, but he knew that if he was to die, he wanted his last memories to be of his wife and his family.  “I love you, Winter. More than words can describe.” She blushed lightly, smiling. “Promise me you won’t ever forget that?”

“Of course~” Winter watched him, smiling. As he leaned back up from the kiss earlier, Winter saw the faintest scar on his cheek. She looked at it, unsure of where it had come from. She hadn’t once noticed it until now.

“Alright. Painkillers.” With that, Page turned, yawning, trotting to the door. “I’ll be right back up.”

“Okay,” Winter said hesitantly, wondering for the first time now why Page had been so lovey dovey lately. She had assumed it was because Radiant had scared him with her spell, and that he simply needed time to relax. However, now that she thought about it, he had had plenty of time to relax from that experience. What was wrong with her husband?

She looked back up from her thinking to talk to him, just in time to see the door close behind him. She sighed. “I guess I can just ask him when he gets back.”

Page trotted down the stairs, feeling slightly dizzy. Maybe a bit of water first… He went to the fridge and pulled out some water, getting himself a glass. He lifted it up to his lips, then froze, his eyes wide.

Time to pay for today, Sanfero. It’s showtime.

“N –No,” he said as he dropped the glass, not even hearing it shatter. He felt his breath quicken as his blood seemed to stop pumping and his heart skipped a beat. He was frozen in place, pain tearing at his very bones. “N-No, p-please, I-I had another night w-with them…” He saw, through his watering eyes, his hooves turning grey as the veins within swelled and bubbled black. He felt something rising in him, and it was getting harder to see. It was going dark.

He managed to see Winter run down the stairs, stopping at the base of them, her eyes wide. “No,” he whispered, his voice hardly more than a whisper as tears streamed down his face. I don’t want to see her cry. I can’t stand this. P-Please, no…

But Winter couldn’t hear him. She hadn’t heard him all this time – Why would she now?

“No, no, no,” Winter said, frozen as she saw her husband changing before her eyes. She knew she couldn’t do anything, and it was worse than anything else could ever be. She was a filly again, unable to save her mother. Unable to do anything. She was helpless.

Page felt ridiculously dizzy. Time had slowed down. He felt almost like he was floating – No. He was fading. Darkness tugged around him as he realized dimly that the blackness inside his blood was spreading to his heart. He felt his heartbeat slow. And suddenly, it stopped all together.

He felt darkness. He was darkness. He did not exist in any form he recognized. His entire being had changed – and yet he was so similar now. He saw through grey eyes, dark mind and a shrouded soul. He took a deep breath and the foreign mask he now bore breathed as well. He had no speech. He had no freedom. He simply existed.

This is not life. This is simply living. He gazed through nothingness to see his wife, standing there… crying. He felt a pang of pain in his heart – But the foreign mask did not. The body around him, himself now, felt nothing for the mare. Not yet.

“P-Page?” Winter walked up to the grey pony, seeing his tan-black hair. He had dried tears on his face, although he now looked emotionless. Dead.

“And you are,” the pony said, looking at her blankly.

Winter gasped lightly, her eyes wide. He doesn’t… N-no… “P-Page, please…”

The pony tilted his head softly, staring at her as though she were an interesting spot that had appeared on the wall. “I… remember that name… It’s fuzzy, but I remember a book…” He stood up straight, thinking.

Inside, Page felt himself continuing to fade. Starting to give into the darkness and simply relax. He felt horrible, miserable, and most of all – tired. He was so very tired… It was time to sleep. With that, the inner part of the pony fled. No more pain. No more tears. All that was left was the pony who had now replaced him.

The grey pony looked around, thinking for himself, his mind sparking with new ideas. He saw a glimmering knife on the counter, freshly cleaned. Interesting… I remember, once, having thinner blood… How do I feel my blood? Oh yes… I’m not a pony, I’m a Halfling… What an ugly thing to be. I should fix that.He trotted over to the knife, looking at it curiously. My blood seems the consistency of something different… I wonder… “This is a good one,” he said softly.

Winter’s eyes widened at the pony cut his hoof, watching as dark blood seeped from the wound. The pony didn’t so much as wince. Looking closer, Winter gasped as she realized it wasn’t blood coming from the cut – it was ink.

“This is new… but it feels… powerful… just like that book I remember… I…” With a dark smirk, the pony smeared the ink on the table, forming a picture of a heart. His horn sparked, and the drawing lifted up, forming an actual beating heart on the counter space, lifted slightly by his dark magic. His hoof healed as the ink solidified around the cut, creating so thin a scar, it was as though the cut had never happened.

“O-oh my god,” Winter said as she took a step back. The sight in front of her was sickening to the core. Her husband would never do this – Page would never become a dark magic wielding unicorn. It simply wasn’t in his nature.

The pony lifted the heart to his hoof. As it made contact with his fur, he noted that it stopped beating. Peculiar… I bring death to my creations, it seems. No matter, however. After all, if I bring death, then… “On death I will survive,” he whispered as he shut his eyes. With a flash of his horn, the heart disappeared. He gasped as he felt within his body another heartbeat start, beating at an opposite pace to the other. 1, 2, 3, 4 beats, all in a row. He laughed, the feeling in his chest intoxicating. “L-Like a bloody samba,” he whispered, chuckling almost madly.

His ears perked up as he heard the pony nearby shuffle away from him. He turned to see her backing away. Her face was stained with tears, he noted, and she seemed… pitiful. Saddened by something so insignificant, it held more weight on her than anything else. As though someone had merely turned out a light, and she were a filly lost in the dark. His heart – hearts – felt a pang of sympathy for her. “Why… do you seem familiar?”

“… I-I’m your wife…” His eyes widened. “I-I’m your wife, we have 2 kids…”

“Impossible. I’m a timelord. We’re infertile, it’s impossible to have children… You must be mistaken.” He shook his head, feeling a slight headache in the making.

“P-Please, Page, w-what happened?!” Winter felt her useless tears rolling down her face, trying desperately to ignore them, not knowing who the pony before her really was, hoping beyond hope that Page was still somewhere in there.

As the grey pony looked at her, his eyes widened slightly. Inside, a single spark still lingered, a small ember of Page. You can’t get rid of the soul, Radiant. That’s why you still feel love for that pony, Chrome. That’s why I’m still here. You can’t get rid of my love for her, no matter how hard you try. In the darkness around him, a small shield of light kept Page from drowning in the shadows of Radiant’s design. In his eyes, a timelords fire burned with love for his wife. He opened his mouth, speaking from the heart.

“Don’t cry… Winter.”

Winter smiled brightly, her hope somewhat returned. But, just as quickly, the grey pony shook his head, bewildered as to where that sympathy, where that love had come from. No… I feel nothing for this mare. She is simply a crying mare.

But what if she’s more than that?

She’s not.

She is sobbing.

Winter was her name, you said. Winter, cold and heartless. She can handle it.

Names are important. What’s yours?

“My… name is Ink. Call me Inkwell.” As he spoke the words, he realized the pounding in his head and chest has stopped. His pulse had ended. He wasn’t sure where the name had come from in the flurry of thoughts and ending beats. “Your name… I-It was Winter? Winter Born?” Where are these memories coming from? How am I still alive? What’s going on?

“Yes, I am…”

Inkwell held his head, trying to sort through the fog in his head. He felt like he was being pulled in two different directions, pulled towards aloofness and love at the same time. “It’s so hard to think… So much to think about… I remember a-a fog… a mare in the shadows… She… She wa-“ His voice faltered as suddenly, images of everything hit him like a wave, drowning him in memories. He gasped slightly, seeing his body overcome by shadows, seeing a mare and their intimacies, seeing his children born, even seeing a small filly with amethyst eyes, and a lovely little pegasus mare with love in her eyes and a beautiful heart – It all was consumed by shadow, strings tearing at the memories like black thread. All of these glorious, wonderful – horrible – memories, twisted and reformed with the strings, so fragments of the past shone through. “T-this is-“ he managed to say before the next torrent of memories came to him. Gallopfrey, the moon, Nightmare Moon’s return – that and so much more was re-written for him.

All in seconds.

Inkwell began to pace, his eyes wide. “So confusing, so maddening – So many thoughts, just repeating over and over, and all at once – It’s so very confusing, maddening, too much, too much-“ He cut off slightly, hardly listening to his rambling as the pounding in his head began once more. He tapped his hoof on the floor and counted the reassuring beats in his mind.

1…2…3…4…1..2..3..4..1.2.3.4.1234123412341234123-

He laughed out loud as the beats sped up without him even realizing. “It never ends, do they, those beats? Madness is tapped out in those beats, and – god, t-this pounding-“

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

Ink spun around, suddenly silent and serious. He glared at the pony now standing in the stairwell with a smirk on her face. She was staring intently at him, and instantly, he knew who she was. “What do you want, Radiant?”

“So the corpse has claws,” she said softly. She turned to the sobbing Winter, grinning an almost fanged, hungry grin. “He did this to himself, you know… Every night, he came to visit me…” She walked around Ink once, waving her tail under his chin, eliciting a shake of his head. “So sweet of him to stay so punctual.”

“Go f-fuck yourself,” Winter said with a shaking rage in her voice. “Just go fuck yourself with a spike.”

Radiant chuckled softly, her smirk resting nicely on her face. “My my, such anger. I see where Page learned it.”

“Y-You couldn’t just drop it!” Winter, used her magic to wipe away her remaining tears, her anger taking over her emotions. “What a desperate mare… Pathetic.”

“I was only showing you the truth of all things, Winter. You should thank me~”

“The truth?”

“He will leave you, as all men do. He will always abandon you in the end.”

“You MADE this monster!”

Inkwell felt a spark within himself as he heard her say that. The memories came back… Each memory of him, walking through the fog... willingly. “She… didn’t…”

“Shut it, you.”

“But she didn’t.”

Radiant snickered, enjoying the little fight between the couple. Winter turned to him, her eyes dripping with malice. “Fine… if she really didn’t do this… Don’t you DARE come near me, or the children. You AREN’T my husband.”

His eyes widened. No, he heard, deep inside himself, something call out. Winter, please, I-

“Marry that dumb bitch that made you. Monsters love other monsters.”

“I’d rather die,” Ink said softly, feeling… emotions. Anger, denial, fear – Love. Things that were all new to him, and all happening too fast. It was as though he were two separate beings, and both had the same mindset, with different minds. It was vastly confusing.

“Then die.”

Anger. “I already have. Or didn’t you notice?” He glared at her lightly. “My heart stopped beating quite awhile ago.”

“Whatever.”

Ink shook his head angrily. “Fine.” He began to walk out, but as he reached the door, an unseen force froze him in his tracks. He heard a single memory play out in his mind. His anger melted away for an instant, replaced with another emotion. “… Promise me you’ll never forget that…”

Winter felt fresh tears well up in her eyes. She tried to hold them back, but couldn’t as she realized the love of her life, who had promised to never abandon her, had done exactly that. “That wasn’t you… that was him. He said that.”

“Then never forget he loves you.” With that, Ink – Or Page, or both ponies – walked out of the Inn. And as he stepped hoof out of the doorway, Winter felt a shift in her, and her cutie mark, the one Page himself had drawn for her, faded away ever so slightly.

Next Chapter: Faded (Part Two) Estimated time remaining: 8 Minutes