Interlude: What Terminus Saw
“No,” Terminus moaned as soon as he saw the starry path. As soon as he saw the images of his life, just like Emberglow had described. As soon as he saw her. Tears filled his eyes, and he turned his back on the butter yellow mare with the pink mane. “No!”
“You knew this was coming,” she said gently. Her voice was perfect. Beautiful. Soft and sweet and kind. It made his fur crawl.
“Please don’t,” he whispered. He felt a hoof on his shoulder, and it felt both solid and ethereal at the same time. He tried to ignore the images that floated about him. Images of his empathy. His understanding. There was the time in the reeducation camp, where he went hungry so he could share some food with the sick stallion in the bunk next to his. There was the time he helped a young mare and stallion grieve after he was unable to save their parents from an unjust execution.
Writing the five rules. Teaching them to dozens of ponies who were stumbling their way blindly into a new life.
There were images of all the times he’d stood up to Heartwing, trying to convince Heartwing to relax, to not take so much on himself, to slow down. It was all just pain and hurt and broken, useless effort. Heartwing would never change. He would never forgive himself. He would never fully belong to Terminus.
“I hate you,” he whispered to the mare behind him.
“I know,” she said gently, and he felt her hooves circle around him in a warm embrace. Terminus was shaking, he realized. Quivering with body-wracking sobs. He couldn’t breathe. The fur on his face was matting with the tears that streamed from his eyes.
“I hate you,” he hissed, though he knew, somehow, that she knew it was a lie.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and he jerked out of her hooves, spinning on her with fury.
“Don’t you dare,” he rasped. “You’re too perfect. How can you be so perfect that I can’t even hate you properly? Don’t you dare apologize for something that’s not even your fault!”
“But you’re upset,” she said. “I-I know it can sometimes be hard to…”
“Stop. Just stop, please.” He was weeping. Shaking and sobbing and completely falling apart. Slowly the mare embraced him again, and this time he didn’t jerk away. He cried, his tears soaking her mane.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “He’s a fool to not see what he has in front of him. You know why I chose you?”
“No,” he whispered.
“Because you’re worthy,” she whispered back. He shuddered, and she squeezed him tighter. “You always put others before yourself. Especially your beloved.”
“He was yours first,” Terminus gasped.
“But he’s yours now.” She put her hooves on his shoulders, pushing him back so her teal eyes could gaze into his pink ones. “You need to stop living in my shadow, Terminus Flash.”
“This is supposed to make that easier?” he screamed, his voice tinged with panic.
“No. It will make it harder,” she admitted. “But you were never one to shy away from hard things, were you?”
“I…”
“What about when you decided you wouldn’t let them beat you, change the pony you were, back in that camp?”
“But…”
“Or all the time you spend with every single new pony that washes up in Angel’s Rest?”
“Of course, I…”
“Or what you did when you decided Heartwing would be yours to hold, yours to love?”
“… I made it happen,” he breathed.
“Because of all the ponies out there,” she said. “You are the only real choice for this. You’re going to be amazing, Terminus Flash. You’re going to be remembered for centuries, and you’re going to surpass my legacy. Because it’s the pony you are, Terminus. I am so proud of you.”
“I’ll take care of him. I promise.”
“I know you will, Terminus,” she said, and her smile was so bright it could have drowned out the sun. “It’s the pony you are.”
Surprise interlude! With art! Isn't Cyonix amazing?
If you wanna know about some of the floating 'scenes' here, the one on the right comes from the side story, A Word for Ponies Like You.
Heart wrenching, heart-warming, lovely and bitter at the same time and all of the above.
Also Terminus's name is Flash? Any relation to any other Flash we know? Or knew?
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It's likely. Realistically, everypony now is related to everypony in the past. It has been over a millennia, after all.
Yay, finally, art! It's been done since like, Chapter 34 or something, haha
Anyway, I personally love this chapter, it's emotionally charged and complex in all the best ways! Guess there's a reason there's art for this chapter specifically, haha
Yay new chapter! *cheers* And such an emotional one. Wow.
Such beautiful detailed art by our dear Cyo, This chapter wouldn't be quite as perfect without it. <3
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RIGHT?!
So the story is, I actually asked Cyonix to pick which chapter he'd like to do a picture for when I commissioned him, and he picked this one. I figured that it would mean the artist was more emotionally invested, right? And look how it turned out!
Mother of god, that art-
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Makes sense to me *nods* and yes indeed, you can clearly see how emotionally invested Cyo was with the art. The art itself just radiates with emotion!
Top 10 story of all time
Great chapter and art!
My dude.
I'm shooketh. What a fuckin' ride it's been so far. I hate that I caught up before the story was finished, but I don't regret reading this before it's finished one bit. It's been a wild adventure, and every single character stands out on their own, with enough personality and growth to sympathize even for the completely brainwashed. And the Discordant- So varied and full of personality, and the canon characters- Hella accurately portrayed.
Can't wait for more, d00d.
It seems only right and proper Terminus and Fluttershy had this conversation in just this way. Because making peace with a memory is the hardest thing to do.
All the warm and fuzzies I'm supposed to feel... and most of my attention is caught on how, again, the OCs are pushed to be greater than the characters from the show itself by the story. Through the mouth of Fluttershy, but still.
Still catching up on this fic, it's been a great ride. It's great to see a late fandom epic with this amount of detail in the world building and character work. Reminds me of of my introduction to MLP through Fallout Equestria. And this doesn't have the crutch of being a crossover.
Just pausing here with with the brief interaction with Termie and the memory of Fluttershy. Good talk about being her successor in more ways than one, though I am slightly disappointed with one aspect. Termie mentioned in the last chapter that Shy's never had to kill anyone. I would have loved to see a reference to the more tragic side of being an animal caretaker, ala Five Hundred Little Murders. It's one thing to mercy kill a monster, putting down a beloved pet is a whole other issue. I don't know if that would undermine the message here, but once I saw all that Termie was going to be Kindness I was hoping that would be brought up.
Then again, I'm still reading, so it might show up later on. Only one way to find out!
No... I can already feel them. They're wet and many.
I'm nnot crying you're crying! How is this so good!?
I got really close to crying with this one this story is beautiful so far