Twilight stormed through the hallway, sending more than a few royal Guardsponies scrambling for cover while simultaneously trying to maintain their posts. Her wings fluttered and twitched at her sides, a large manilla folder floating beside her as she glared at the particularly unfortunate pair of guards at the door.

“Hello. I’m here to see 1127.”

The poor pegasus glanced at the door behind him, before looking back at her with a loud gulp. “The captain said–”

“The captain will explain why he thought he had the authority for such a decision after I’m done here.” Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Personally.”

The guard muttered a hasty apology, his companion unlocking the door with a spell and opening it for her without a moment’s delay.

The glare she wielded these days was not to be trifled with.

As she walked inside the concrete box, the first thing Twilight noticed was the shabby, yet strong built table set in the middle of the room. In the middle of the table was a vase holding a small assortment of flowers: a sprig of elderberry blossoms sat next to a pink rose and a white heather, which had been twisted together until the two blooms met in what could only be described as a loving kiss, and these three had been surrounded in a massive bouquet of orange mock, sunflowers, evening primrose and moon-vine blossoms.

Set up on the side closest to the door was the normal plate and cup assigned to such a cell—with beaten pewter glistening dully beneath the veneer of who knew how many meals—set in front of a single, empty chair. She’d have to see about getting those dishes washed after she left. They were absolutely revolting to look at. Across from the spread was another setting, made of even worse conditioned pewter, giving Twilight yet another browbeating the captain was going to receive when she was out of here.

The final thing to see was the ancient unicorn sitting at the table behind those nasty things, his elbows helping his hooves to prop up his head. He looked over towards her, his ears perking at the squeal of rusty iron, and a smiled cracked his face as he gave a small little wave with one hoof.

Colored the dark gray of thunderclouds, the unicorn’s coat was worn and thin over his prominent ribs, and his wispy mane of dirty white looked very brittle, like a doll that has seen little affection over its lifetime.

His body was almost emaciated, the thinness of his legs igniting a burn of anger through her chest. The captain was going to have some serious explaining to do. This was not how they were going to handle things, and she was not going let that pompous loudmouth out of her sight again until she was sure that this fact was leaking out his ears. Prisoner or not, she wasn’t going to keep somepony in these conditions. There were limits.

The mark upon the unicorn’s flank was an upside down crown, the tips each bearing a single drop of different colored liquid, such as green and blue and black and red. An entire rainbow of something flowed down, stemming from some unknown source and each drop bearing a cloudy mixture of another separate color in their centers.

As bad a condition as his body was, it was his horn that drew the eye the most. The shattered thing projected from his head like a craggy mountain, sharp and jagged as a broken tree trunk, and she saw his eyes flick up to it with a tired sigh.

“A pity, isn’t it?” he rasped.

His voice was like the grave: a dry thing which still somehow managed to ooze and slither and squirm into her ears until it almost made her want to retch. However, she kept her stony countenance, glaring at him and refusing to let a single emotion show other than sheer contempt echo across her face. He wasn’t going to get any reactions out of her. No matter what, she had to keep this situation firmly under her control. She was here on her own reasons, not because she had to be.

“There is no need for such ceremony, Miss Sparkle,” the unicorn chuckled, leaning back into his seat so he could look her up and down. “Because there are never second chances at first-impressions.“ He cocked up a single eyebrow, one corner of his lips following along for the ride. “Though I admit I do find your second impression very flattering. All that restraint, just for this old nag?” Dipping his head in a shallow bow, he grinned wide. “You are far too kind, my liege.”

She resisted the urge to sock him, strong as it was getting, instead flicking her head so she could get her mane out of her eyes.

“Would you mind if I sit down?” she asked, pointing at the empty seat.

“I would be more offended if you didn’t,” he said, waving a hoof over the table as he again propped his head in the other. “It took a good deal of work to get these in here.” A dramatic sighed boomed throughout the cell. “Even then, I couldn’t procure the proper utensils.”

“We both know why nopony would trust you with something like that.”

“Because you really think I’m utterly helpless with access to cups and plates?” He rapped a hoof on the table with a dangerous smirk. “Or such lovely pine?”

For a brief moment, Twilight froze, her eyes glued to the dangerous furniture and table settings, before he laughed and again waved for her to sit down.

“Because you’re right.” His eyes practically sparkled with mirth as he snickered at her. “At least for the moment. Such things would take proper preparations, and you caught me with my saddle off today.” He cocked his eyebrow again, tutting her like some small child. “You clever girl, you.”

Resisting the urge to grumble, Twilight let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding and quickly sat down. Finding that continued mocking grin on his face more than just a bit infuriating, she also purposefully leaned her neck out over the food, as if daring him to try something with the bits of hay and globules of grit.

He simply continued to smile. One of her eyelids twitched, drawing yet more laughter out of him.

“So,” began Twilight when his cackles had finally died away. “Since you’re so smart, you’ve probably guessed why I’m here.”

“I can guess why, Miss Sparkle,” he said, shrugging his shoulders with a slight tilt of his head. “What I can’t guess is what’s going to happen next.” A shiver ran up and down her spine at the look he gave her, the way his teeth flashed in a much more unsettling grin. It was almost predatory now, that smile. “Hence my interest.”

Twilight tossed the folder to the table, ignoring her churning stomach. “Starting from the beginning would be a good idea.”

“The ball is in your court, Miss Sparkle,” he said, waving a hoof permissively. “Begin whenever you’re ready.”

Twilight cradled her head in her hooves, copying his stance as she leaned forward with a scowl. Closing her eyes, she allowed her breath to flow in and out, in and out, in and out. Her blood pressure slowly dropped, the fire in her heart gradually dissipating until nothing but a hollowed icicle sat in the place it had once occupied. When she finally felt nothing but emptiness, she open her eyes again and stared directly into his own. They were the color of old hay, and had about as much life inside them. Yet there was a spark somewhere deep in their cores, like a flame just before it ignites, which belied the dangerous mind she knew hid in that feeble-looking frame of his body.

“Good morning,” she mumbled in an unemotional monotone, allowing her lids to sink until her eyes were about half-closed. “My name is Twilight Sparkle.”

He smiled leaning in closer as well until only a couple inches separated them. “Good morning, Miss Sparkle. How are you doing today?”

“You missed a step.”

A brief flash of confusion crossed the unicorn’s face and he leaned back, looking at the ceiling for a few moments as his lips moved in inaudible chatter. He soon sighed, shaking his head and rubbing at his face with one hoof in what she could only assume mock embarrassment.

“Oh, wherever are my manners? Forgive me, Miss Sparkle, my memory is a little spotty these days.” He closed the distance once again, his nose almost brushing her own. His breath smelled like his voice. “Good morning, Miss Sparkle. You may call me Wet Works. How are you doing today?”

“I didn’t sleep all that well last night.”

“What a shame.”

“How about you?”

“Quite well, actually. The beds in here are very comfortable when you find the proper sleeping position.” He gave her a coy little smile. “Are there any other games you would like to play, or should we cut to the heart of the matter before our nosy friend falls asleep on the job?”

Twilight heard the sound of somepony tripping over themselves right outside the door, a tremendous bang swiftly followed by the sound of curses and the clank and clatter of some armored pony trying to stand back on their hooves. She sighed, rubbing her eyes with a foreleg.

“Alright, you have me. How’d you know he was doing that?”

“I’m old, Miss Sparkle, not deaf.” He dropped one hoof to the table, letting out an amused snort. “Plus, a truly scintillating conversation like ours just can’t be missed for the world. I would easily give up a leg to be a fly on the wall for something like this, if I had such an opportunity.” He shrugged. “One and one make two.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Twilight was too busy trying to find some way to ask what had nagged at her since this had all started, and the reason she had come here before she lost her chance at talking with this creature, while her associate did who-knew-what in his own head. She  really didn’t want to know what was inside such a pony’s soul, but whatever it was, it involved making her take the initiative at this moment. So, after a couple centuries of more silence while she fought for the words, she obliged him.

“Why?” she asked softly, the one word leaving her mouth like a punch in the gut.

“You’ll have to be more specific, Miss Sparkle.”

She grimaced, glaring up at him. “You know what I’m talking about.”

He smiled. “I can assure you that I don’t.” His shoulders lifted in yet another small shrug. “Oh, I can guess at what you’re talking about, but I certainly don’t know a single thing.” The unicorn leaned in again, obviously repressing some childish giggle as he whispered, “So tell me, Miss Sparkle: what is it that you want to know?”

It took Twilight a few tries before she could spit it out.

“Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

Her hoof slammed on the table, her eyes flashing white with gathered magic as she bellowed like a thunderstorm, “YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!”

He just snorted at her outburst, rearranging his tousled mane with a tired sigh. “Didn’t we just go over this?”

Only through strength of will did she resist the urge to throttle him right there, instead pressing her hooves against the table until the wood began to crack and splinter. However, she resisted the urge to smash it into oblivion like some child in a tantrum, instead clenching her teeth as she settled back into her breathing. In with calmness, out with rage. In with thought, out with instinct.

“A nice technique, isn’t it?” he asked.

She ignored him. In with reason, out with images of his head five feet through the concrete wall behind him. In and out, in and out, in and out.

“Learn that from your teacher?”

In-and-out-in-and-out-in-and-out.

“It’s rude to not answer somepony when they’re speaking to you, Miss Sparkle.”

With a scream, Twilight rocketed from her seat, a flap of her wings propelling them both bodily into the far wall and sending the dishes and vase flying off the table to crash onto the floor. The folder also flew off the table, spilling its contents and sending papers flying through the air in a chaotic rain.

Her foreleg smashed into his windpipe, pinning him high on the concrete until his hindlegs dangled off the ground, and his eyes shot wide as he tried to force air past the new obstruction. However, it was hopeless, he couldn’t force anything out other than a tiny burst of shocked air.

“SHUT UP!” she screamed pressing even harder when he dared to try and hit her, the edge of his hoof raising a large welt on her cheek. “RIGHT NOW!”

Hatred unparalleled ran rampant as her blood boiled and frothed wildly, and she smiled as she watched him squirm like a trapped bug under her leg. His eyes were rolling back in his head now, a blue tinge working up his face. It was only a matter of time.

Then an image of Fluttershy flashed through her head, the kindly turquoise eyes reddened as she wept and sobbed at Twilight’s side. Just like the rest of her friends. Applejack held Pinkie, who was practically beside herself with grief, weeping and sobbing uncontrollably. Rarity wept with only a touch more dignity, dabbing at her eyes with a growling snarling Rainbow Dash at her side, the redness of her eyes the only other thing besides the bared teeth that betrayed the depth of her rage and sorrow.

Two caskets rolled past them, Twilight herself remaining in stoic silence amongst the weeping throngs. She didn’t cry. She hadn’t since Luna was taken. There were simply no more tears to shed. Even though of all of them, these were the two she should have cried for the most.

Twilight pulled her hoof away, listening to the wretch gasp and hack as he fell to the floor like a sack of soggy laundry. Without a word, she returned to the table, sitting at her place and returning to her calming breaths. She waited for him to climb back into his own seat, which he did by crawling over on his stomach like some verminous cockroach. When he’d finally made it back to the table, he dragged himself up so he could rest his head upon the surface of it, gasping and coughing as he fought for the sweet, life-giving oxygen she knew he didn’t deserve.

Then she heard him laugh. He cackled, and giggled, and snorted, resting his forehead against the table while his broken horn gouged a trough into the knotted wood as he simply shook with his disgusting laughter.

However, her breath now consumed all, and she simply waited for him to finish. After what felt an age, he’d finally worked it out of his system and fought for breath again, head falling limply to the side so he could rest his cheek against the cool wood. He glanced up at her, grinning wide.

“What stopped you?”

“It won’t bring them back, and they wouldn’t want me to. Your life is still precious, however despicably it has been used, and I will not take it from you if I have any other choice.” She opened her eyes half-way, staring completely through him. “That is the difference between us, and I am not going to cross that line. You won’t make me do it.” She allowed the smallest of smiles on her lips. “So don’t even try. It’s a losing battle.”

He lifted a hoof to whatever he chose to call that hollow space behind his ribcage. “I’m truly touched, Miss Sparkle,” he said, eyes sparkling. “You are wiser than your years suggest. Vengeance never–”

“Can we get this over with please? I have other business to attend to.”

“Of course, Miss Sparkle.” The unicorn sat up, wincing as he rubbed at the large bruise now forming on his neck. “I think you’ve made your point.” He then looked behind her. “Don’t you agree?”

She flicked a glance back, finding the terrified stares of her three guardsponies as reward. Not a solitary drop of blood looked to be in a single one of them, and when they saw her gaze, they quickly stammered an apology for the interruption and slammed the door shut again. Determined to worry about it later, she ignored the disturbance of their fearful looks—and the rapid clatter of hastily thrown locks—and swung her attention back onto the unicorn in front of her.

He’d propped up his head in his hooves again, smiling a little wider. “So, might we start from the top?” he muttered, rubbing at his neck again. “You’ll forgive me, I hope, but I’m suddenly feeling a little muddled as to where exactly we left off.”

Twilight sighed, a magic aura pulling up the sheaves of paper lying about and resettling them into their designated folder. On a whim, she also replaced the vase and its bouquet of flowers—which had remarkably not shattered on its journey to the stone floor—and set them directly in front of his face. Not looking into those eyes of his was doing wonders for her stomach.

“I was asking why you chose to do it. What did any of them do to you?

She flicked the folder open with a hoof, a few strands of magic shuffling through the numerous papers and bits of information until she found what she wanted. She pulled out two photographs, tossing them on the table.

“Neither Chrysalis nor Discord deserved to go that way.”

“I’ll assume you just put something on the table, Miss Sparkle, but I have not yet developed the ability to see through solid objects.”

She leaned forward with an aggravated grumble, tipping over the vase with a hoof. She hadn’t felt like eating today anyways.

It rolled about a foot, threatening to go over the edge, before hitting a small flaw in the rickety table and stopping. It was enough for him to see the photographs, and so she didn’t bother to do anything else. He glanced at the photographs, snorting in disbelief.

“Neither did they do anything exactly stellar with their lives, Miss Sparkle,” he said, glancing up at her as an eyebrow arched with surprising delicacy. “I hope you do not expect me to believe you cried much over their loss.”

“No, but they were living creatures, and you had no right to decide how it ended for them.”

“I think you had better find a stronger reason, Miss Sparkle.” The unicorn sighed, reaching into the vase with his nose and pulling out a single orange mock and primrose to lay them upon the two photographs like a mourner at the grave. “You are not here because of them.”

Twilight tossed out the next two.

“If you think you’re some vigilante, then why did Celestia and Luna have to be next? What possible evil could they have done to you? They never hurt anypony.”

Out came a sunflower and moon-vine blossom, falling to obscure the two alicorns’ glazed faces.

“It had nothing to do with them being evil, Miss Sparkle.” Twilight’s head cocked, and he smiled a little wider, leaning in close. “I am not a force of evil, as you would like to assume, for I did not hate Celestia or Luna. Nor am I some misguided zealot of good, as I had no noble purpose for when I removed Discord and Chrysalis. I am merely a force of change: an emissary of time.” He flicked his eyes back to his mark. “I am the collapse of kingdoms and the destruction of dynasties. Every beginning must have its end, and I am but a harbinger of the end for those who would imagine themselves endless.”

“You’re insane.”

“My kind have had many titles throughout the eons, Miss Sparkle.” The unicorn shook his hoof at her disapprovingly. “But we simply know nothing lasts forever. So, we come for you when it is time, wearing different faces but speaking in the same voice. We are what your kind has learned to fear, for as surely as the tide ebbs away the stone, so do we show the supposed eternal to the final journey, making way for the newest generation in the process.” He smiled a little. “And all while waiting for the day when you’ll finally thank us for it.”

“I think I had a little crazy in my ears. Mind running that last part by me again?”

He sighed, before it devolved into a weary chuckle. “Only through appreciating the moments of life you still have will you find that life is worth living at all, Miss Sparkle. Immortals with no knowledge of what it means to be afraid of the end do not appreciate the mornings, or see beauty in a butterfly’s wings, or find joy in the touch and voice of another.” He pulled out the two entwined blossoms, the pink rose and heather clutched in his teeth, and laid them on the table. “And only through such fear is true love given its ultimate test.” He nosed the blooms towards her. “You should be proud. They both passed with flying colors.”

Twilight’s heart sank, but she shoved the pain back. She hadn’t cried then. She certainly wasn’t going to cry now, not when this lunatic could possibly get even an ounce of enjoyment from it.

“And Fluttershy?”

He frowned, pulling the last flower from the vase. He set it on the table in front of him, taking a deep sniff of the the elderberry blossoms before also setting them in front of her.

“The six of you should not have cornered me like that. I know what the Elements of Harmony look like, Miss Sparkle, and I could not allow you to use them to try and simply wish me away like so many other obstacles you have faced over the years.” The unicorn then flicked up a glance at his broken horn and gave another weary sigh. “Especially after your brother did such a number on me.” He shrugged. “So I made an assessment and took a chance. Tragedy is a part of life, Miss Sparkle, especially when you chose to fight the noble fight, and you will see plenty more of it as time goes on.”

A bitter flame kindled in Twilight’s heart, though she suppressed the raging lion clawing to get out. For the moment.

“That’s all it was to you? Just removing the weakest link?”

He smiled sadly, giving a gentle puff of breath to ruffle the blossoms and send a whiff of their fragrance up Twilight’s nose. “Weakness of body does not mean weakness of soul, Miss Sparkle. We both know that. And it is only through the loss of something so precious that anyone discovers what they are truly capable of.” He sat back, running a hoof along the purplish blotch on his throat. “You made a choice because of them, Miss Sparkle. And though you wished for the simplest solution to your pain, you decided to follow a much more dangerous path. So, know that a little piece of their true strength shall now reside in you for all time.” He flashed some teeth, chuckling as he bowed his head. “And I am grateful to have played a part in that.”

Twilight pulled up the folder, shuffling the papers around a bit before turning for the door. “You’re a monster, Wet Works, and I will look forward to watching you rot.”

“I will be whatever you need me to be, as I am here to help your kind grow, Miss Sparkle. As I have always been. I am now the darkness you must overcome, the hatred you will fight to keep away, and the grief which will give you empathy for another’s sorrow.” As she knocked on the iron portal, trying to keep the desperation out of her rapid bangs, she heard him laugh. “I am now the face to your pain, your reason to act nobly, and you have been forever changed because of me.”

Twilight could hear the lock being opened, and her knocking grew a little faster.

“To no longer feel the hurt, you must let your own life, and your own needs, surpass their memories and so abandon them completely.” His teeth gleamed bright, gleaming within their withered face. “And that is why, Miss Sparkle. I am your final instructor, who is here to teach you the greatest lesson you shall ever learn.” Renewed laughter rolled through the chamber, maddened cackles and shrieks bouncing off the walls to attack her from all sides. “I show you who you really are.”

She flicked a glance back as the door was flung open with a loud crash, catching his toothy grin as she was quickly hurried outside. He waved waved at her as the door closed upon his cell, the final whisper of his voice barely catching her ears before he was drowned out with a resounding bang, the door slammed shut and hastily bolted.  

The captain of the guard was waiting for her, his normally grey face almost pink with outrage. The guards rushed her away, the captain bellowing for a medic to check the welt upon her face and promising dire consequences to the guards that had disobeyed his direct orders. However, all Twilight could hear over her captain’s loud bellows and trumpeting was Wet Works’ final words, echoing through her mind in an endless loop.

It is only when you have finally forgotten my lessons, Miss Sparkle, that you’ll see me again; when I come to remind you.

All of you.