The Mariner's Revenge;The Fall of Jericho
Based off of The Mariner's Revenge Song by The Decemberists.
In the darkness, all that existed was emotion. I would know, I had lived in my own cloud of darkness for several years. Light and sound was there, but I would never really notice it. I was lost in my own hole, my own gloom nopony else could see. This pitch blackness was different, however. It was almost tangible, hanging around me like a huge blanket. It muffled all sound, it crushed down onto my shoulders with an unbearable weight. Yet, as I lay on the wet floor, I felt only calmness. A clear blue wave washing away all anger and fear, almost shaking away the clinging memory of my mother's death all those years ago. Almost shaking my grip on the need for revenge, too.
Revenge. It was inevitable. It had never crossed my mind to escape my responsibility, but I knew that even if I had tried I wouldn't have been able to do it. I breathed out, crisp memories flowing through my mind like a river. My father's happy face as he stepped onto the plane, sent out to war for the last time. My mother's sobs emitting from the bathroom, every night for a year. That man's face, suddenly part of my l--
"W-what happened?"
My train of thought was derailed by the voice. Shrill, afraid, it rang out through the area. Following the terrified whimpers, my hoof brushed against the body of another pony. A colt. Him. He shivered and shied away from my touch, but I grabbed him by the mane and brought his ear close to my mouth.
"Hello, Jericho." I whispered.
He didn't move an inch. I laughed a dry, humorless laugh into his ear. "Don't be afraid."
"Who are you?" He asked, voice weak and feeble and afraid.
"Well, it was quite a long time ago. You may not remember me; I was a child of three and you a lad of eighteen. But I remember you, and I will relate to you how our histories interweave"
♪ ♬ ♪ ♬ ♪ ♬
"Mama, who's he?" I stared up at you. You had a longer brown mane that fell to your chest, straight and brown like an oak tree. You never looked me in the eye.
"This is Jericho. He's my coltfriend, Joshua. He's very special to me." My mother, in all of her unending kindness and beauty, smiled at you. I treasured my mother's smiles, as they were very rare. You, however, took no note of her, and flicked your tail impatiently. I had bad feelings about you from the moment I had met you.
As time wore on you proved a debt-ridden drunken mess, leaving my mother a poor consumptive wretch.
The night you left us, my mother didn't cry. I thought it odd, I expected her to cry like she did when my father left for war and never came home. Another colt she loved, ripped away from her. It worried me, her lack of tears. I held her all night, we hugged close underneath our big patchwork blanket she had made from Father's old uniforms. Blue and green and grey and yellow mixed together. It made me think of the whole of Equestria, all the different kingdoms and lands. I wondered if maybe Father was still out exploring those lands.
The night you left us, you never really left. I was too young to understand, but you left us in huge debt. All of those bits wasted on beer and prostitutes. I could never understand the prostitutes bit, I mean, you had Mother for that sort of thing, didn't you? Never mind that, you left my mother and I in a bind. We barely had any money from the shitty job my mother had as a waitress for a two star restaurant, and all the money she did make went straight to bills and such. The only toy I had was a stuffed doll I name Fredrick. He was black with a white mane, and large, blue button eyes. I liked him because he had such rare colors for a pony, and it made him special.
Not too long after you left our home was taken away. We simply could not afford it, and the government whisked it out from underneath our hooves. That year, when Mother and I lived out on the streets, I think we both might have gone a bit batty.
On a beautiful day in spring my mother died. I was ten by then, I think. She held her hoof in mine as I bent over her on the park bench. It was very early in the morning, and she was too weak to move from the place she had slept in the night before. I tried my hardest to keep them back, but tears kept slipping down my muzzle and landing on her chest, leaving dark strains in her fur. Her voice was weak and scratchy, but I'll never forget her last words.
"Find him, bind him, tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters. Drag him to a hole until he wakes up, naked, clawing at the ceiling of his grave."
Fifteen long years later, I was hired by a priory. I cleaned and such, and they paid me well, but I made sure to never let my mind stray from revenge. It was what I lived on, the thought of one day see the life drain from your eyes.
One night I overheard the Prior exchanging words with a penitent whaler from the sea. The captain of his ship, who matched you toe to tip, was known for wanton cruelty.
I shipped to sea with a privateer the next day to find you, to kill you. The cool sea air felt good on my fur, blowing through my mane and cooling the hot sweat beading on my neck. I was excited and nervous as I sailed off into the ocean, smiling gently as the wind whispered softly into my ear;
"Find him, bind him, tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters. Drag him to a hole until he wakes up, naked, clawing at the ceiling of his grave. There is one thing I must say to you as you sail across the sea. Always, your mother will watch over you as you avenge this wicked deed."
Those words kept me going throughout the hardships at sea. I repeated them to myself at night, my heart aching for my lost mother. I saw her smiling face in my dreams, I heard the eerie sound of her sad singing in my ears at all times. She never left me, but I didn't mind. I liked having her around.
And then that fateful night, we had you in our sight after twenty months at sea. Your starboard flank abeam, I was getting my muskets clean, when came this rumbling from beneath. The ocean shook, the sky went black and the captain quailed. And before us grew the angry jaws of a giant whale.
It was an ocean of fear and panic, waves of terror crashing into me. It was horrible, and I only hoped my death would be quick, and you would die too.
♪ ♬ ♪ ♬ ♪ ♬
I grinned at him, feeling him quake in terror underneath my hooves. "Don't know how I survived, the crew all was chewed alive. I must have slipped between his teeth. But, oh! What providence! What divine intelligence! That you should survive as well as me."
Jericho's voice was weaker than before, barely more than a whisper. "What... what are you going to do to me?"
I laughed loud and long, throwing my head back. "Exactly what mother told me to do."
"It gives my heart great joy to see your eyes fill with fear. So lean in close and I will whisper the last words you'll hear..."
