Chapter 48
"Right. We can do what they are asking, we knew they were going to ask for this." I say once we get back. Nothing else happens, except that I am tense the whole way home.
"Yes. The second papers are a list of the names of the ones that did not return with them, and a formal demand for retribution." Luna sounds anxious. She feels that way too, a struggle for something, her emotions all torn up inside.
"Do they want a literal blood payment?" Alexander asks.
"I think so, but the elixir might satisfy them as well." Luna wonders. "Seeing as it is designed to punish a pony based on his or her crimes to the fullest extent that they truly deserve…It would be plenty of retribution, probably more fair than anything they could ask."
"Yes, yes. We will comply with what they asked as far as their fallen. We will leave them with a letter stating that we plan to punish the two generals with the atonement elixir. If they know their history, they will know what it is and that it is adequate." Celestia says. She produces paper and quill from nowhere, and begins to write. She writes quickly, and passes the letter to Luna. "Add what you wish, for you have as much say as anypony in this."
Luna takes the paper, reading it quickly, and jots down her own thoughts. They both sign it and Celestia places the paper somewhere to wait.
"Their fallen are being prepared, yes?"
"Yes, though I believe that was finished a while ago. I will teleport them to the location, along-" I interrupt Celestia.
"I would like to.. to see them before you do so. I… want to apologize." Celestia looks at me strangely.
"There is nothing to apologize for."
"There is everything to apologize for. Their lives are gone because of me, their loved ones left behind.. because of me." I feel so heavy.
"You were not responsible for all of their deaths, Knights, I am to blame as well." Alexander scoffs.
"It doesn't change how I feel." I shake my head. "I want only a moment, for them to hear me."
Celestia pauses, thinking. She looks to Luna, who nods.
"Very well. I will teleport you quickly, and then I will send them away. No pony should dwell too long on this, Knights, else it would tear them apart." Celestia casts her magic, and I find myself somewhere else. I look around, finding a hallway and a door. The sign above the door says mortuary. I walk in, to find nopony, none, that is, alive. Five dead ponies lie on separate tables, and tears fill my eyes seeing them.
I did this. I walk over, see their faces, feel so heavy and drained. I did this. Me.
"I.. doubt anypony can hear me. I hope though, that somepony can. I want you to know….I want you to know that I didn't want this. Death to anypony was the furthest thing from my mind, but… my mind wasn't there last night. And I guess that's why you are lying here, now, because my feelings got in the way. Because I couldn't keep hold of them, and the worst part of me got out. I'm so very sorry. I wish I could tell you how awful I feel, how much I hate myself for what happened. I wish so badly that I could bring you back, or turn back time, or something. And it isn't guilt that weighs me down, so much as it is that it wasn't fair to you, it never was, and now you'll never have another chance to live, to breath, to spend time with your families. I destroyed something precious, and… and I'm sorry." I shake my head, feeling hopeless. Part of me wants to believe that I'm being heard, but what am I talking to? Corpses? Air? The feeling of hopelessness only deepens. A sense of awkwardness washes over me too.
Time is up, Knights. Stand back from them. Celestia speaks into my mind. I nod and step back. Blinding light fills the room, and the six are gone. Now for you. I find myself back with the others soon after she finishes speaking. Luna looks at me. I look back. I feel no better.
"Knights, I want you to forgive yourself. We will not let the past weigh us down. It is not our past, but how we move on from it, remember? That is what you have told me." Luna looks at me desperately.
"I know, and I'm trying. It is not easy." Luna nods at my response.
"Let us prepare the elixir, and be done with it." She says. She teleports everypony in the room to a basement-esque place, full of herbs and plants and other strange things. "Celestia and I will make it. Jasmine and Maclura will stand as witnesses." She says, and she and Celestia begin taking all sorts of things from all sorts of places, pouring them into two separated bowls, adding and mixing like experts if I have ever seen them.
"Alexander, how does this work? Do you know?" I ask, curious.
"All of the things they are putting in are relatively harmless but nonetheless magical items. The overlap of magic in all of them has a strange and varying effect, until you add four things. There is one plant that unifies the magic under a single purpose, which is judgment and punishment. Next added is hair from the mane of the one to be punished, then from a witness or more than one witness, then from the brewer or leader, in this case, both. The elixir knows which are which, somehow, but that isn't what's really special about this. The elixir, based on all three samples, will judge the pony drinking it on their crimes, and deal out an equivalent punishment in pure pain. It is universally fair, to an almost unbelievable point. You will be punished for the death of one pony, and I for four."
"Amazing. It's a little frightening."
"Don't worry. It will judge you fairly, and deal out only what you deserve." Alexander pulls out a knife from his armor. "Here, they'll be needing a lock of hair soon." I nod and take the blade, and cut a bunch of hair from my mane, holding it in my hoof. Alexander takes the knife back, and cuts some of his own. Luna and Celestia don't even look our way when their respective magicks grab hold of the bunches and levitate them into the brew. Alexander asks Jasmine and Maclura for a lock from them, and they agree, and their bits are added, Jasmine to mine and Maclura to Alexander's.
Luna and Celestia then take a clump from their own manes, and I see that the clumps turn from oscillating masses to bits of hair, Luna's light blue and Celestia's light pink. Then that is added to the mixes, and is presented to us.
"Before you take this, the recipients must swear that this is all willing. The witnesses must swear to observe everything, to the last minute. The brewers must swear to just punishment." Luna looks at everypony, and we all nod. "Knights, repeat after me: I willingly take this punishment as a just action and to atone for my heinous crimes committed by my own self and by my own hoof."
"I willingly take this punishment as a just action and to atone for my heinous crimes committed by my own self and by my own hoof." I hear Celestia say the same to Alexander, and him to her.
"Jasmine, repeat after me: I swear to observe and witness the dealing of punishment and atonement on the guilty pony, no matter what I may witness."
"I-I swear to observe and w-witness the dealing of punishment a-and at-t-tonement on the guilty pony, no m-matter what I may witness." Jasmine says nervously. Maclura does the same. Luna nods. In unison, she and Celestia say:
"I swear that this elixir is made in order to deal swift and just punishment, to save a broken pony's soul, and to keep harmony within the kingdom. There will be pain shed to make right the wrong committed. Let nothing interfere." As soon as they are done speaking, red words appear on all of us, like living and bright colored ink across our skin. I can't read them, but I think it's a binding of some sort. Luna gives me my cup, full of my punishment. I take it in hoof, close my eyes, and drink it all in one swift swallow. I barely taste anything, but before it crosses into my stomach, I briefly taste something sweet, like warm honey. My vision gets hazy, and I see Celestia hurriedly move everything away from us.
I feel woozy, and my breathing becomes shallow. I gasp, not knowing quite what's going on. The feeling of my legs goes numb and tingly. I shake them out, but the feeling gets worse, like pins and needles, like they've fallen asleep. I struggle to take in air and sink to my stomach, to the floor.
"Oh my…" My vision goes out completely, and the needles transform into brands, burning me. I can't feel the world around me after that, as if I am in a void of just myself and the pain, which steadily and increasingly more quickly gets worse. Before long, or, I think it's before long, my world is consumed by unworldly pain. My eyes turn to fireballs, my bones to blue-hot irons, my blood to molten lava, my skin to tanning leather. The only thing that exists is pain. I don't even feel real anymore. I'm nothing. I don't exist. I am the pain, the pain is me, eternity is hell and hell is existence itself. I stretch, on and on, immortal inside this pain, and watch as my body falls apart before my sight, falling into ashen wind-strewn bits, and still pain persists within me, perhaps because I am the pain, and the pain is me.
And it continually gets worse, ever on and on, without limit and boundary, it just grows and grows and grows, like a mammoth dragon consuming the world itself, and I grow with it, until my sight encompasses more than the world I once knew, which feels now lost to me. Until I am brought to a separate plane of existence altogether, and even outside my own reality the pain persists. It cannot stop, will not, as if it is answering a call. I let is sweep me away, because I am it, and to deny myself is insanity.
The pain doesn't stop or ease, but I hear a voice through everything else. It is immense, pressing, like something utterly dense speaking, dense like all the knowledge of the universe converged into a single being. This is the call the pain was answering, that I am answering. The immensity speaks:
Dark Knights, Knight of the Moon, the Valiant, hear me, and know freedom. Let not your soul be tied back with regret and guilt. You are needed yet, and your pain will only slow you. You play a crucial role in several stories, my little pony, and the deeds committed, while indeed disheartening and otherwise immoral, must not hold you. Remember what happened, but never lose your sight. Now, I have a gift for you.
I don't understand, but I hear the voices of something less… immense. They resemble mortal ponies, and their voices are drowned in the sound pain, which sounds like silent screaming.
These are the ponies you blame yourself for. They forgive you Knights. They forgive you. They heard your speech, your lament, and understand. May their words reach your ears one day, as yours did theirs. They have heard you, and they forgive you, Valiant. Now, you need to forgive yourself.
Suddenly everything falls away, snaps back, and I am alive again, a flesh and blood pony, something that is tangible and can feel. All I feel is aching. When the aching disappears, I find myself confronted with numbness. When that dies down, I feel something soft and cold, and I recognize Luna's hooves around me. I open my weary eyes, to find hers above me. I fall asleep, safe in her hold, a truer pain finally receding inside of me, vanishing altogether.
They forgive me. I can forgive myself. Even in sleep I can feel tears of joy fall from my eyes, slowly, like sweet, warm honey.
