THE WORST FEARS MEME

[discorderly]

The Worst Fears Meme

Seriously, didn't your mother ever teach you not to walk through ominous unmarked doors in ominous catacombs of ominous castles?

Or maybe you've just got a boggart in your cupboard, who knows. Regardless, you are now trapped within your own worst fears. Hopefully someone can go and get you out of them!

Comments

[terraburning]

Terra nods wearily.

"This is the point...where you reach out to me...and turn into a burnt corpse. Just like...all the others."

Terra is an expert at guilt hallucinations.

[mithrarin]

"Try it."

Dust flipped Ahrah forward into what ought to resemble a forehand grip on a human, then motioned her to make an attempt.

[terraburning]

Terra reaches out and touches Dust.

"See? Bones charred black, and the scent of...burnt...flesh..."

Wait what.

"...you didn't change."

[mithrarin]

"Wait... that was it? Just touching me?"

He'd been expecting something apocalyptic, something exploding and detonating, magical fire hurling left and right.

Seriously, that was it?

[terraburning]

"This isn't how it's supposed to go. You're supposed to be staring at me with hatred as your eyes boil! Just like those soldiers did!"

...someone's headed for even more of a nervous breakdown.

[mithrarin]

"What soldiers?" Dust looked around as if expecting to see them here and now. He'd lost complete track of where her issues began and ended at this point.

[terraburning]

"The ones Kefka made me kill! They're all around us!"

...no, Terra, those are actual guilt-fueled hallucinations.

[mithrarin]

"...made you kill?"

Yeah, setting aside the face that no one was around... what?

[terraburning]

"He...trapped me...inside my own mind...made me a puppet to his whims..."

[mithrarin]

"Someone made you do it?" Luckily, Dust doesn't get mad loudly, at least not very often. That quiet intensity promised absolutely no good to whoever mistreated her that way, but it wasn't a shout.

[terraburning]

Terra nods. Whatever is happening here, she's too emotionally exhausted to process it anymore.

"He used...the Slave Crown on me...and all I can remember is death."

[mithrarin]

"So you had no choice. It wasn't you. It was someone... using your body, maybe a little of your mind, but not your will. Not your soul."

That wasn't him trying to be reassuring, although that was coming. That was him defining terms.

[terraburning]

Another nod.

"Those who wear the Slave Crown...don't have wills...of their own."

[mithrarin]

Dust took a step closer to her. "Then it wasn't you that did it. Not your mind, not your choice, not your burden to bear!"

[terraburning]

"But...it is mine to remember."

A pause as she stares downward.

"The Slave Crown...damages your memory. All I...can...remember...is their deaths."

[mithrarin]

Dust lowered his hoof, bringing it to his chest. "And I remember every murder Cassius performed. Every single person he killed. Every atrocity he committed, I remember!

"...but I'm not Cassius. I may have his soul, but I am Dust. And the same goes for you. It wasn't you who did those things!"

[terraburning]

The tears running down Terra's muzzle are nearly invisible in the glow of her Esper form's fur - brief lines of shadow, at best.

"I know that!"

Her anguished wail is punctuated with a trio of Thundara bolts striking down as her power flares up again.

"But no one else cares! Banon praised me for it! All I ever wanted was to know how to make it right!"

[mithrarin]

"You don't want to make it right to them. You can't, because it wasn't you who did that! You can't apologize for what someone else did!"

The lightning didn't scare him. He'd been through worse. Not recently, but you never lost the knack.

"You need to find a way to make it right to yourself!"

[terraburning]

The flaming Ponyville of Terra's worst fears starts to slowly fade away around the pair.

"...how?"

[mithrarin]

"All you can do... is what you believe is right. You know that what happened wasn't your doing, but you don't believe that. You have to let it go, and live the life you choose to live, the life you want to live!"

[terraburning]

And with that, it's broken. Everything's...fine.

"Is it...alright that I don't...know, yet?"

[mithrarin]

"Yes." He knew that much for sure. "So long as you let it be fine, it's fine."