I didn't have time to turn around, to catch a look at the bastard, as I felt his fingers tighten their hold on my shoulder.
And the world around me shattered like a pane of glass as if everything in my vicinity was a two-dimensional painting, the shards spiraling into a deep emptiness beyond the broken pane.
I saw Cerberus get cut in half, no reaction coming from the large dog as his form melded into the background, ripped apart as if a knife was taken to a canvas, cutting the painting yet still keeping whole.
I wanted to throw up.
I saw Luna's body split into thousands of shards, crystalline sparks falling into the depth beyond the pane, her body as still as a statue, like a painting.
Since when did I start to give these artistic explanations? There's no way Uncle is rubbing off on me!
After a second that seemed to drag on for hours, I blacked out.
---------------------------------------
A sharp gasp left my throat as my eyes opened, my lungs emptying of air as I coughed loudly and heavily, I felt like I was drowning.
"Finally awake, Are you? Good, Depending on how this talk goes, You'll forget ever coming here, so there is no need for you to worry about any unwanted traumas," I heard Tirek's voice as I looked around where I was, and even with hurting eyes and sore lungs, I knew this place was not normal.
I was standing on a circular rock, perfectly flat on the top, with a radius of two meters, giving me plenty of room to stand, but still small enough to feel claustrophobic.
The rock jutted out of a perfectly flat plane of water, the horizon all around me in every way I looked stretched on and on, as if the entire world around me sunk into the ocean, and the rippling waves of the sea decided they no longer needed to exist.
A Perfectly flat circle above a perfectly flat ocean.
"Where's Luna?" I tried to push myself up from the stone circle, my limbs unnaturally tired and sluggish. Every little movement sends painful spikes through my body.
My breath caught in my throat as I looked at the arm I used to push myself up.
Five pale white fingers.
"You're asking of the Princess of dreams first and foremost? I expected you to ask something along of your whereabouts, or the happenings currently," I tried to turn to look at where Tirek's voice was coming from, My human body barely responding to my commands of it.
I crashed back down to the stone, more breath heavily leaving my lungs, as if I just run an entire marathon in the short few seconds It took me to attempt to stand up.
"Here's a better question then-" I breathed heavily, my body aching as I lay on my back and stared at the sky, seeing the lack of Sun in the sky yet still basking in the light around me, "-Fuck You,"
A sharp pain made itself known in my stomach, causing me to cough hoarsely once again.
"Very Funny, Your Highness, But I suggest you treat this moment with the seriousness and severity it has earned," Tirek's voice seemed to come from right behind me, something which should have been impossible seeing the size of the stone circle, and that I was laying on my back.
"You are speaking to a King, after all,"
I wanted to clap back, yell some witty retort, and watch his reaction, But my mouth wouldn't move. It's as if Tirek told me to shut up and I now have no choice but to listen.
"Good, Let me start off by saying that it is wonderful to finally get this chance to speak," I heard footsteps walking up to where I was lying, something which again makes no sense seeing my current location.
"Last time we met, we got off on the wrong foot," I tried to turn my head to look at its direction, But everything felt heavy as if my bones were made of tungsten, too dense to move.
"..." I opened my mouth just a smidge, my mind blank for a brief second as white flashed behind my irises.
"Please do not try and use the little levity I am gifting you in a vain attempt to ridicule the situation, As you surely would have had I not stopped it," I turned my eyes to look at the source of the sound, Seeing the bastard that brought me here in the first place.
Wearing a white toga, skin red like raw meat, and a pair of horns bursting from the side of his head.
His lower body, which should have been that of a large Horse, was now a pair of human legs, the same red color as his skin.
His face was sunken and wrinkly, that of an aging old man, far behind his prime, yet still holding a few tricks up his sleeve.
It was similar to how Cosmos looked when I made her a human body when we dreamt, a mixture of her Animalistic form and a Human, but with how Tirek looked usually?
The man that stood before me appeared like the Devil himself, with the red skin and bull horns and everything.
"Enjoying this form? I believe speaking to you like this would have been more comfortable than a Centaur speaking to a Unicorn," Tirek said, the smirk on his face telling me what he thought of this appearance.
"..." I wanted to curse him, to tell him to let me go, to check up on Luna, to do anything!
But my body again did not respond, still laying on my back, spread eagle, on a circular stone platform under the heat of an invisible sun.
It was like I was a steak and this platform was a grill.
"Please stop thinking of food, I am trying to organize my words into a manner that a simpleton like you would understand," Tirek waved his hand in front of his face, the sky behind him changing to the movements of his hand as if he was a maestro and the world was his band. A sheet of clouds giving us some shade from the sun.
"..."
"You wish for me to get to the point? Very well, You'll forget this anyway," Tirek pointed at the ground with his hand, slowly lifted a finger, and then curled it into his palm.
A throne, Bronze in color with a Red Velvet cushion appeared beside him, The devil-looking man took his seat.
"From the moment I opened my eyes as a newborn Centaur, I could read," Tirek leaned his elbow on the armrest of his bronze throne, his cheek resting on his fist, "And I hated it,"
"By reading Destiny, I knew my place in the world, By reading Fate, I knew what my end would be, Everything there is to know was mine to read, From how our world was created, to the many different ways in which it could end, and I hated it, from the absolute deepest depths of my soul I hated it," Tirek said, his voice calm and soft, like a grandfather telling a story to his grandchildren, or at least something along those lines, I never had a grandfather so I wouldn't really know.
"Do you know how torturous it is, Knowing that no matter what you do, you will always end up in the situation you read about? Not even attempting to change the written script could save me, I still ended up as the first Prisoner of Tartarus, my Brother still betrayed me, and my fate is still the same.
Let me ask you, BLUEBLOOD, or do you prefer Blueblood now? If you knew how you would die, would you try and change it? Please, answer me honestly, I do not have time for all your childish antics,"
My body lurched forward as if resuscitated by invisible defibrillators, I felt my chest heave as I breathed in after releasing air I did not know I held.
"If I knew how I would die, would I change it?" I repeated the question, rubbing my neck with my right hand as I felt some semblance of control over my body.
"Well, That depends, Do I die of old age, or do I die young? Do I die happy or do I die broken? Do I die from an illness, or do I die from an injury? Do I die doing what I love, or do I die bitter and lonely? It really depends."
"Such a human answer," Tirek shook his head, "It depends, What a joke," Tirek closed his eyes as he leaned back in his Throne, probably thinking about what to do next.
I didn't wait, Balling my hands into fists, and with my body back under my control, I threw a punch at Tirek's face.
Only for my fist to pass through his head, through the throne he stood on, and then through the circular stone platform on the ground as I fell through a solid object like some sort of Poltergeist, reminding me of when Luna used the Poison Joke on me not too long ago.
"By your color, I would have guessed you to be Conquest, But your personality thus far has painted nothing but War," Tirek's voice echoed around me as I fell through solid matter.
"That is fine, It merely means that I am Conquest instead of War, Fate has not changed and Destiny remains the same, Famine and Death have not changed, and so my plan shall continue,"
"I apologize, Prince Blueblood Platinum, But your answer did not suffice for my curiosity, so let me give you a crumb, that you will yet forget once you awake from this little dream,"
"A Villain is fated to lose, the same way a Hero is fated to Win, I am a Villain, but you are not a Hero, My fate has been written in the words of Destiny since the moment I was born, but you, in the grand scheme of the story, are barely more than a footnote, a figure whose life is so innocuous you would have made no changes to fate should you have remained Prince Blueblood Platinum.
So cheer, Oh soul who changed the fate of the Platinum Heir, Oh Cheer, False Prince masquerading as the simple son, For your very existence can change Fate!"
"The question is, Would it be for better?
Or worse?"
"Just know this, Prince Platinum, should you stand in my way when the promised moment arrives,
I will make sure that you live long enough to watch me kill every single person you ever interacted with,
I will end this horrid existence that is my life, and I will not let anybody opposing me stand,
Pray, Blueblood Platinum, that when I reach the final hour, I shall be merciful enough to give you a quick end,
Pray, Snake of Lapis and Gold, Pray,"
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"Get on the ground!" When I opened my eyes, a pair of white fur pillows wrapped around my torso, as I stood watching Tirek get tackled to the ground by a pair of large Earth Ponies.
"Are you fine? Did he hurt you? Don't worry sweetie, everything is going to be okay, I'll make sure he never hurts you again," I heard Celestia say as the pillows that wrapped around me squeezed tighter, telling me that they were not, in fact pillows.
I blinked my eyes, trying to remember what happened since Tirek put his hand on my shoulder.
"What just happened?" I could only whisper, confusion on my face as I tried to remember a moment that likely never occurred.
And as I watched Tirek get dragged into a new cage, much more reinforced than his old one, I kept repeating that question to myself.
"What just happened?"