“My husband was not the pony that I thought he was.”

When Dim glanced over at Short Stitch, there was a growing sense of annoyance and he wished that the mare would just shut up. “Why do you tell me this? I don’t care. He died as a craven coward, begging and pleading for mercy.” When the mare turned to look at him, there was a profound sadness in her eyes and Dim saw her ears go limp.

“I was married to a stranger,” the grieving widow said to Dim as she mashed something in her mortar with her stained stone pestle. “I feel as though I owe you some gratitude—”

“Why?” Dim now felt more curious than annoyed and he rubbed at the bandages wound tight around his throat. “Why would you owe me any gratitude?”

“I thought my husband was a good pony,” she whispered and there was a wet squelch as she continued to pulp the root in her heavy stone mortar. “I thought him to be honourable. I believed that he was good… but for him to have gone along with Snowbird’s plan… for him to betray Commander Starhammer… all for… money.” She spat out this last word and it appeared as though it had left a bad taste in her mouth. “In the past few days, I have grown to hate him. Whatever love I had for him has died and my respect for you has grown.”

Something in Dim’s cold, bitter, cynical nature gave way and these words rent a terrible tear somewhere deep inside of him. He understood betrayal, perhaps more so than most others. He started to say something, but the words got caught in his swollen, aching throat. There was anger in Short Stitch’s teary, bloodshot eyes, but also something else, something that looked an awful lot like relief.

“So, I owe you some gratitude for revealing to me that I lived among strangers… ponies I thought I knew to be good ponies. But they proved to be greedy liars, betrayers, and cutthroat psychopaths. As painful as it is, I would rather know the truth than live a lie. So… thank you.”

Unable to be sardonic, Dim found himself apologising and he was quite surprised by the words as they came out of his mouth. “I’m sorry, Short Stitch… I know what it feels like to be betrayed and then to learn the truth about somepony that you loved”—he was forced to swallow and the sudden lump in his swollen throat made it almost impossible to breathe—“and that you thought loved you in return.” In the back of his mouth he tasted blood and there was a cold prickle in his stomach when he realised that he was bleeding again.

“I would imagine that you do,” Short Stitch replied and she nodded while she pestled the fibrous root in her mortar. “Sometimes… sometimes a pony hates a healer for slicing open a cyst to let the infection out. They curse and shriek and kick and fight and they wish the healer dead… I’ve been the target of this sort of resentment many a time. You…” The mare’s words trailed off and her pestle ceased its quick, furtive movements.

Dim watched as the mare’s ears stood up.

“You came along and revealed a cancerous growth in this town. Many a wife and husband found they were married to strangers. I can’t hate you for this… I just can’t… but I do find myself hating my husband a great deal, and this hurts my heart more than anything.”

“I really am sorry, Short Stitch… betrayal hurts more than anything else.” Dim had a desire to say more, but he had no idea what to say, and comforting others was not his forte. The sound of his own gurgling voice worried him, and Short Stitch seemed concerned as well.

“Sounds like you’re bleeding again,” she said as she resumed her task of grinding up the bulbous, fibrous root. “I don’t understand how you’re even alive right now. Hemophilia is an awful thing to try and live with. Getting shot in the throat tends to kill even healthy ponies.”

Closing his eyes, Dim recalled the bullet grazing him and opening up the wet, sucking wound. The memory was every bit as fresh as the injury and he shuddered, unable to cope with the pain of either. He was still alive because Chantico had sustained him—it was odd for him to have faith in anything, because for so long he had believed in nothing. His life had been defined by his nihilism, his hedonism, and his cavernous emptiness. Now, there was purpose, there was meaning, and perhaps most importantly, there was a powerful desire to live.

While she was still mashing the root, Short Stitch began mixing the ingredients for the elixir that would help Dim’s throat. One eyebrow raised and her bloodshot eyes had a curious gleam about them. Staring at Dim, she said, “I heard you mentioning Chantico to Brand”—with her hoof, she gestured at the spear that stood in the corner—“tell me about her. I’d honestly like to know.”

Dim found that he didn’t know what to say.

So much has changed, Dim, the pink voice said between his temples. I’ve struggled to make sense of it, but all of this is beyond my experience. I’ve never seen such betrayal… such open animosity. Being connected to you has taught me much. I think that I take my fair home of Equestria for granted.

Distracted, Dim did not reply, but continued to study the strange bit of parchment in his telekinetic grasp. What strange magic needed blood to activate? This was new to him, unknown, and he was tempted to experiment. How might his mother be surprised should he contact her? He could gloat—gloating would be satisfying like nothing else right now—but that would destroy the precious parchment and his chance to study it.

It is good that you have made peace with Short Stitch. The pinkness inside of his head had some sense of affection to it now, and even though Dim was loathe to admit to it, this affection was every bit as comforting as it was distracting from his studies. She trusts you, you know, even with her foals. Even after the awful, awful, shameful thing you said about harming them. She is a good and forgiving pony, Dim. You could learn from her and you would be a better pony for having done so.

Rolling up the parchment, Dim slipped it back into the protective wooden scroll tube and gave up on trying to study it. Melancholy had set in, and with it came a strange need for morose musings. Redemption was about being a better pony, right? The pinkness was seeping through his brain like groundwater through porous rock and in the most curious twist of all—even in light of the current events—he was in no mood to resist. There was no strength left in him to defy.

Turning his head, he glanced over at the sleeping form of Blackbird, feeling envious that she was in a place that was beyond pain and suffering. There was something there now, he could feel it when he looked at her, but this feeling was something new… something good… something that terrified him and made him want to run away. It felt like weakness and he didn’t want to enjoy it as much as he did.

Is love really so awful, Dim?

To this, he had a susurrate response—a correction that had to be made: “Infatuation.”

There was now a smug pink silence in his head that Dim did not much care for, but had no means to get away from. Yes, he called it infatuation, but he had just razed an entire city for reasons that went beyond mere infatuation, and he knew it. He hadn’t just killed, no, he had been cruel, merciless, and he had made others suffer exquisite agony for trying to take something from him… something that was his. Dim knew himself well enough to recognise his own selfishness when he saw it, and he knew the dangers of giving himself over to his own cupidity.

He had behaved like the world’s most terrible toddler who had just had his toy taken.

It is called ‘growing up,’ Dim, and it is a dreadful time when we start taking responsibility for our own actions. It comes in phases. You left your home and you went through a period of transition where you learned how to take care of yourself. You did a lousy job at that, giving into your hedonism and satisfying every crass desire that you had. This is pretty normal, Dim, so don’t feel bad. When we are young and taking our first few steps, we stumble. It is how we learn to walk.

Closing his eyes, Dim did something extraordinary: he listened.

It is easiest to make mistakes when it is just us by ourselves, on our own, and we go through an extraordinary phase when we try to figure out what sort of lives we want for ourselves. Life has introduced a complication, Dim, as life tends to do. You now have something that you care about, something that you don’t want to lose. Something that would be unbearable to be without. You have been introduced to meaningful consequences. You have something that can be taken from you and this scares you just like it scares everypony else. Welcome to the race, Dim. You stumbled out of the gate and you dragged yourself around the first few laps, but now the stakes are real. If you want to keep what you value, you’ll have to run a better race, Dim.

Rather than sneer in contempt, Dim weighed everything that bounced around inside of his head and then asked, “How?”

Chantico is a good start, Dim. Each and every one of us needs a cause, something that is bigger than ourselves. You struggle with morality and purpose. You want morality like a thirsty pony wants water. You’ve done something extraordinary, Dim, in that you’ve gone thoroughly, totally morally bankrupt and you haven’t even hit your second decade mark yet. Your debauchery, your hedonism, your total and complete selfishness, your self-centeredness, your inability to do anything other than slaking your own lusts… what has come of it?

The question was almost too much to bear and Dim sat with his eyes closed hating the voice in his head that had just ripped the scab open. While he weighed his potential answers, he thought about what Short Stitch had said to him earlier, about hating the healer for slicing open the wound and letting the poison out. No, he couldn’t hate the voice in his head for pointing out the obvious—he couldn’t hate the healer trying to save him.

It galled him more than anything, but he mumbled, “You’re right.”

After a short time of silence, he added, “I didn’t ask for this to happen. I didn’t ask to be born this way, or to have this purpose, or to have my destiny corrupted. My life was already beyond my control… but at the same time, I have made it worse, haven’t I?”

Many try to shy away from their madness… you embraced it, Dim.

“At the time, it felt like strength.”

When you felt so weak and powerless? There was a long, pregnant pause inside of Dim’s grey matter and he wondered if the pink presence was judging him. I can accept that, coming from you. You and your bloodline, even the progenitor of your bloodline, all of you struggle with the darkness—

“You speak of Luna,” Dim whispered in a low croaking gurgle.

Yes. Each of you deal with it in your own way. Luna embraced a nightmarish aspect, thinking it would give her strength. All of you, all of her distant offspring, each of you in whom Luna’s blood runs strong, I have found that all of you bear a shadow… a nightmare… each of you have such strength, but also much weakness. It troubles me and it is something that I ponder a great deal. Luna left you all a great and terrible legacy. Of course it pains her and she is riddled with guilt. So few live long enough to see how one bad decision, how one poor choice can affect their entire bloodline. She waits for you, Dim. She longs for you to come home so that she might comfort you so she can appease her own guilt. Do come home to us Dim, so that we might cure your tainted soul.

He started to reply, but he felt the presence in his mind leave him. Frustrated, he had things he wanted to say, questions he wanted to ask. There were things he wanted to sort out. He wanted to be angry, to be foalish, and throw fits… but he knew that magic could be tiring. Magic could be exhausting and the voice, whomever she was, had said much. Reaching across the vast distances had probably drained her in some unbearable way.

Left with nothing but himself, Dim continued his lonely vigil through the night, watching over his sleeping companion.

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the delay, but I was a bit paralysed by this chapter.