The Crystal Empire: Staring Abyss

Brave Storm hauled herself up a ladder onto the roof of a crystal home in desperate need of repairs. Tied around her back were several planks of wood and nails wrapped in a tarp. She had helped repair roofs in Ponyville after the Cloudsdale raid, so she knew what to do for patchwork in theory. But in practice, Crystal Empire houses were giving her the slip.

She had set up the first plank of wood to nail into a sturdier bit of the remaining roof, but the nail refused to go through. At best, she couldn’t drive her hammer further down and at worst, the nail would bend. After wasting a collective thirty minutes just bending nails back into a relatively straight position, Brave Storm released a loud and frustrated sigh.

If she could just get this wood nailed onto the roof, the rest of the job would be eas-

“Need help?” a voice spoke up, startling Brave Storm and making her swear. She whipped her head to see who spoke and standing on the roof with her was some creature she would impulsively describe as a void monster. They had a dark-colored face and mane with multiple sets of intensely colored eyes peering through. As Brave Storm’s gaze traveled down their body, their coloring had transitioned to a color so bright she would be amazed to hear that they didn’t glow in the dark. After a quick inspection, it would turn out this entity was really just a young unicorn and not some cosmic avatar.

“Sure?” Brave Storm hesitantly answers after a moment of being stared down by the colt. She had been waiting for him to offer an apology for spooking her, but clearly, it wouldn’t be coming. It’s not like she needed one, but she would have expected it out of every other pony.

“Just be careful,” she warned, backstepping as the unicorn approached her position, “I’m infected.”

The colt looked unbothered as he grabbed a couple of nails and a plank of wood using his magic. Carefully, he began tapping on the roof with his hooves, making them resonate slightly. Each tap would produce a certain tone and when he found one that was satisfactory to him, the unicorn got to work. He laid down the board, lined up the nail to the tone, and drove it through the wood and crystal with ease. 

“Want me to do the rest?” he asked, looking over his shoulder to Brave Storm who caught herself being slack-jawed.

“Uhm, yeah. Yes, please.” she accepted. As the unicorn walked away to create more anchor points between the planks and the crystal roof, Brave Storm set to work on filling the hole. 

“I’m Hevel. You’re Brave Storm, right?” the colt asked, laying on the roof after had finished his portion of the task. Brave Storm felt him staring at her as she worked and she’d be lying if she said it didn’t make her hairs stand on end.

“I am,” she confirmed.

“I saw you at the festival. I was there with my mom.” he casually told her. “She was going to compete against you, but she got disqualified.”

“Aw. Why?” Brave Storm asked, both to be polite and because she was genuinely curious.

“She was the giant mare that couldn’t fit into any of the carts. Wabi Sabi?” he told her. “Congratulations on taking gold, by the way.”

Brave Storm felt her ears get hot. By his tone, he didn’t mean to attack her, but Celestia- the words sure did. She found herself wondering if she had even deserved to win. If Wabi Sabi had been able to compete with her, she certainly would have performed well. And now that she was thinking about it, she remembers seeing the earth pony stallion that took silver rubbing his fetlocks after the challenge. And he was also huge. Maybe he would have placed over her if the carts were better sized for him.

“What do the crystals feel like?” Hevel asked when Brave Storm decided to take a break after getting the hole halfway patched. “Do they hurt?”

Brave Storm had been doing her best to ignore the growths on her chest. They weren’t exactly comfortable and she often found herself getting distracted by them. And now she felt them rubbing against each other through her hide.

“Have you ever touched something with a stick?” she decided to answer. Brave Storm didn’t want to talk about it, but any information she had could potentially find a cure.

“Yeah.”

“You know how you can feel the thing you’re touching with the stick even though you’re not directly touching it? It’s like that,” she answered. “They don’t hurt normally. They’re uncomfortable because of where they are. They rub against each other when I walk and I don’t like the feeling. It’s only painful when they dig into my muscles.”

There was more silence. Brave Storm tried to ignore the feeling of the colt staring at her while she caught her breath and rested her muscles, but it was difficult. She started to wonder if the unicorn had even blinked during this whole interaction. As Brave Storm stood up and stretched, preparing to finish the job, Hevel asked another question.

“Did you also come from the Mirror Tree?”

“Hey, why don’t you see how your mother is doing? I bet she’s worried about you.”

 

As Brave Storm finished pulling the tarp over the patchwork hole, she felt as though the crystal growths around her neck might have spread further up her shoulders. She had difficulty getting to sleep that night.