A good meal helped, but Tarnish lacked courage. His stomach was full and the nagging empty ache was gone. It seemed that everypony was feeling better after a real meal. Tarnish had read somewhere that condemned prisoners got a final meal before being sent off into the great beyond and for some reason, this knowledge plagued him right now.

Staring into the mirror, Tarnish saw his own chocolate brown face. His nose and his lips were a little chapped from the cold, but there was no sign of frostbite. He looked pretty good for a stallion that had fallen out of the sky. The mangling had not happened yet, but Tarnish was certain that it would happen later.

Without warning, the mirror was snatched out of his magical grasp by Rainbow Dash, who held it in her fetlock and glared at Tarnish through narrowed, aggressive eyes.

“Gimme that, noodle-brain!”

Rainbow, the brash one, was going to fix their problem, and Tarnish was inclined to let her. He did nothing to stop her, and even gave her a nod of consent. If she could face down this situation, if she could deal with the million questions, if she could handle whatever it was that was about to happen, more power to her.

“Twilight Sparkle! Hey, Twilight Sparkle!”

Holding the mirror, Rainbow waited.

Almost holding his breath, Tarnish waited too. A quick glance at Daring Do revealed that her eyes were not in her book, but on the mirror. Even Vinyl had looked up from the mechanoid arm cannon she was studying. The mirror remained silent and Tarnish feared that there would be no answer.

“Twilight?” Rainbow’s voice sounded a bit more subdued this time. “Rarity… Rarity! Come on, Rarity! You’re always near a mirror!”

“It’s not even lighting up,” Tarnish said in a low, calm voice. “Perhaps the fall damaged it somehow, or maybe it can’t reach beyond the fog.”

“Twilight!” Rainbow gave the mirror a little shake. “Princess Celestia? Princess Luna?”

Daring Do closed her eyes and let out a sigh. Vinyl did much the same, only she returned to her work, focusing upon understanding the arm cannon. Tarnish reached out and placed his fetlock over Rainbow’s foreleg that was holding the mirror, and he gave her a gentle squeeze. Turning her head, Rainbow looked at him, and he saw tears in her eyes.

“This is worse than the time when I learned that Tank had to hibernate,” Rainbow said as she began to sniffle. “I can’t fly, I can’t talk to my friends, I can’t say goodbye, and I can’t even go off alone somewhere to sort myself out and have a good cry. This really sucks.”

A drop of water dripped from the ceiling and hit Rainbow on the nose.

“This place is too humid… you made it too tight, Tarnish.” Reaching up with her other foreleg, Rainbow wiped the wet from her nose. She then passed the mirror to Tarnish, shivered, fell over, and curled up into a fetal position. “I wish Fluttershy were here,” Rainbow murmured to herself as she squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face into her forelegs.

Blinking, Tarnish looked down at the mirror he held in his magic. The glass remained dark and all he saw was his own face looking back at him. No warm glow emanated from the silver, no thrum, no words came forth. Sighing, he pulled his saddlebags to him, opened them, and tucked the mirror away. Seeing a glint of pink, he pulled it out, and then a bittersweet smile crossed his lips as he held up one of Octavia’s bowties.

Vinyl, pulled from her work, stared at it, scarcely blinking.

“I just keep stealing them because it gives her conniption fits,” Tarnish admitted as he held the evidence of his crime. “I like hearing her when she slips into that lower working class Grittish accent. I could listen to her chewing me out all day. All those times she’s chucked something at my head have also really improved my evasion skills.”

There was a loud gulp when Vinyl swallowed, and then she nodded her head.

Sighing, Tarnish passed the pink bowtie to Vinyl, who took it, wrapped it around her foreleg, sniffed it, and then hugged it to her barrel. “Keep it, Vinyl, I have more in my saddlebags.” Grinning, Tarnish found that he could smile through the pain, and so could Vinyl. Knowing what he had to do made the pain all the worse.

It was time to swallow his pride and go crawling to Princess Celestia to beg for help.

It was supposed to be as easy as breathing, but it didn’t seem to be working. Tarnish had tried and failed multiple times to eject himself into the astral plane. It seemed as though it was blocked to him. He kept his eyes closed and remained calm, as he did not wish to alarm the others.

In and out. It was easy as breathing. Breathe in, feel the life inside of you, breathe out, and let slip your astral presence. It was one of the things that Tarnish was truly good at, and took pride in. He could slip in and out of the astral plane as good as any zebra. It was just breathing, not a magic that you tried to shove out your horn.

It was as easy as breathing…

Tarnish found himself someplace else and this place felt wrong. Blinking, he had a look around and saw gravestones all around him. He was in a very large cemetery. Overhead, there was a sky that appeared to be made of black velvet, a thick, impenetrable darkness, and there were no stars or moon.

This was the astral plane, or was it? Tarnish didn’t know. The tombstones all had a faint silver glow to them, and so did the cobblestone path beneath his hooves. He felt quite peculiar, light headed, and cold. This was not a friendly place, it was not a happy, magical kingdom full of sunflowers. No, it certainly wasn’t. Tarnish saw a pale pony approaching, an alicorn, but not the alicorn that he was hoping to see.

“Who are you to try and escape what I have sealed away?” the pale pony demanded as he drew nearer.

“I don’t even know who you are,” Tarnish replied as he drew himself up to his full, impressive height. It didn’t matter, the alicorn stallion was quite a bit taller. “Who are you and what is this place?”

“My name is Pale, and this is my place of rest.” The pale white alicorn looked into Tarnish’s eyes with a gaze of infinite sorrow. “Foolish little pony, poking your nose where it does not belong. I have sealed off Skyreach, as I have deemed that it is a dead place, best left forgotten. Even the memories of that place should die.”

“But we’re very much alive,” Tarnish argued, becoming angry.

“For now. But not for very much longer. Skyreach conspires against you.”

As Pale spoke, two ravens—or were they crows, he had trouble telling the difference—landed in a nearby tree and Tarnish eyed them with a wary glare. Tarnish wasn’t even sure who he was talking to, his significance, or his purpose. He didn’t know what this place was, or how he had even come to be here. This was a cold place, and he felt the chill in his heart.

“I was trying to contact Princess Celestia—”

“Give up,” Pale demanded in a sepulchral voice, and his words had the finality of a sarcophagus lid slamming shut. “I have blocked that filly’s view into this place. She already knows too much and her mind has been infected with the knowledge of this wretched, forsaken place. Now, every time she turns to look in this direction, every time she tries to pierce the veil, I show her things, terrible things, I fill her mind with images of death, yet she still persists. She is young and foolish, that one, but I admire her pluck.”

“You’re a bastard!” Tarnish cried.

“Chronos and I both. We never knew our father.” Pale’s ears drooped and he bent his pale alabaster neck. “You are dead as dead can be. When I return you to your friends, go and live whatever life you have left. Make the most of it. Indulge in the flesh of mares, for it will bring you happiness. Make lots of little bastards, just like my brother and I. Accept your end.”

“NO!” Stomping a hoof against the cobblestones, Tarnish let out a defiant snort. “I’ve already spat in the eye of one god, don’t make me spit in yours!”

“Your bravado means nothing, Dead-One.” Pale drew in a deep breath and his wings fluttered against his sides. “Keep flapping your meat together if it makes you feel better though. I admire your persistence, foolish though it is. And pointless. And meaningless. Really, there is no meaning to anything at all. There is only death and it awaits each and every one of us.”

Deep inside, Tarnish felt something break. Something burned inside of him with all of the flaming ferocity of the sun. A vivid blue mist began leaking from around his eyes, and he felt something terrible welling up inside of him. Along with that terrible feeling, there was pain.

Two wooden branches sprang from his back, seeming to grow out of his spine, just behind his withers. They gained length and girth as more branches sprouted, and a rough pair of almost skeletal looking wings formed. Leaves began growing like feathers, and Tarnish let out a gurgled moan. Two antlers began to grow from his head, and root like growths burst from his legs and grew downwards, making his legs longer.

The transformation continued, with Tarnish growing taller. His tree-like wings filled in and gained size. The deer-like antlers gained length and deadly looking points. Dangerous blue flames flickered from his eyes, and he glared down at Pale with a horrendous, awful expression of feminine fury.

“Why, Terra, I did not recognise you in a male body. I bet that feels weird. What’s it like, suddenly having a penis?”

“He has learned to respect the female form,” a female voice coming out Tarnish’s mouth said. “He worships it and holds it sacred. It should be remembered, Pale, that while the female form is the vessel of creation, the male form is a fount for creation. I treasure both.”

Pale somehow managed to look even sadder. “Terra, you know I can’t release them.”

“Yes you can. I have brought my champion here to make right these dreadful mistakes.”

“Terra, I’m sorry—”

Pᴀʟᴇ, ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴇᴍᴘᴛ ᴍʏ ғᴜʀʏ, ᴛʜᴇ ɢʀᴀᴠᴇs ʏᴏᴜ ᴅʀᴀᴡ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ ғʀᴏᴍ ʟɪᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜɪɴ ᴍʏ ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ. I ᴡɪʟʟ ᴄʀᴜsʜ ʏᴏᴜ, Pᴀʟᴇ, ᴀɴᴅ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴏɴᴇ ᴏғ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴏᴡɴ ɢʀᴀᴠᴇs ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ɢᴏ.

“Still a bitch, I see.”

“What you call bitchiness I call the exquisite life-giving magic of the female form.”

Sighing, heaving a sigh that carried eons of ennui, Pale looked up at the avatar of Terra Firma. There was something almost like a contest of wills that took place, but Pale didn’t try very hard and looked away after a few seconds of staring. Extending a wing, Pale began to rub the back of his head.

“The land cries out in pain, Pale. How could I not answer? I gave my body to the land to keep it alive, but I still feel things! I feel pain! This place is a boil that needs lancing. Do not stand in my way, Pale.”

There was another sigh from Pale. “I should have known. He bears your cutie mark. Very well, Terra… let us make a wager and see what comes from it…”

Author's Notes:

A lot was answered in this chapter...