ONCE UPON A TIME, before Blessèd Celestia harnessed the Sun and established the seasons, there was a great city at the top of the world. Built of ice and starlight, its elegant palace full of shimmering statues, it was home to a race of ponies whose splendor we are not given to understand. Clad in starlight and snowflakes, they lived a life of bliss. …
It was an enchanted age, that endless night. Between the star-shadows, the ponies danced with the stars, each other, to the tunes of the empyrean. And in the dances they smiled, for the stars were beautiful, they themselves were beautiful, and their immortal Empress was most beautiful of all.
— "The Lost Empire," Bull Finch's Age of Fable
Let us sing then, sing a tune,
Of Love's tears agleam like crystals, while the moon
Conceals a subtle darkness in a darker sky;
Let us sing, of halls of frozen snow
Half-melted by a glow
No unicorn alone could claim
Save she who stole auroras for her mane:
Though Harmony's rainbow
Echoes our refrain, ironic, sweet,
Let us listen to the stars instead, and meet
A lovesick fool, who found his sordid
Actions unrewarded.
In the halls the panicked ponies run
At their first glimpse of rising sun.
The blackened fog that wreathes the wasteland's outer tempests,
The numbing smoke that guards the wasteland's outer tempests,
Flowed out from horns to the sea of the sky
At the final command of my desperate empress,
Reclaiming subtle heart-light from harsh light of day
To stanch the melting in the flooded streets;
And when the distant flame began descending, spent,
The Empire cheered, assuming its defeat.
For a time, indeed, it appeared
That the blackened fog had routed solar glow
By curling like a cat around the hearth;
It appeared for a time, for a time,
That magic, shone from faire, could fairly show
Our worth in face of unfamiliar fire.
Seemed for a time our wisdom had secured
Eternity (or near enough) within our frozen spires.
Time for me and time for Her,
Time to serve in love and serve in Love
(and time yet for a hundred times thereof),
The taking slow of all we were.
In the halls the panicked ponies run
At their next glimpse of rising sun.
And in the light there came a time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
To hear the fright within Her prayer
That spurred me to descend the winding stair —
(Mares whispered: "What power dare he seek to master?")
The Empire grew in heart each faire, and yet the sun grew faster
There had to be a sacrifice to keep Her from disaster —
(Mares whispered: "How dare he treat the dark as master!")
Did I dare
Beseech the swirling night?
Within its void an empty need
For the body of a haughty unicorn to overwrite —
All at once I knew them, knew them all.
The alicorns of Flame, and Dream, and Heart,
Fated to control the world, though born a world apart;
I heard their songs collide, and saw Her spires fall,
The Empire melted by the sun's advance.
Did I dare take that chance?
I knew the Heart already, all in all —
Knew the power of Her love, Her touch —
Knew that she would look askance
At any intimation Love could fight and yet not win,
That Love's love could yet doubt Her wherewithal.
How then could I begin
To save Her, who I savored, when I had seen too much?
Did I dare take that chance?
And I knew the Empire already, knew it all —
Hearts small and craven, thousands laying low
from melting fire and savage Windigo.
They wouldn't do what must be done
To quench for good the unrelenting sun.
Hearts that, deaf to all but Love, would turn from dark's cold call.
Did I dare take the chains
Of night and bind them in?
Shall I sing, then, of Love's empress in tears,
Flinching from me, song stilled on Her lips,
As thousands by their screams bathed our land in black?
Not enough — not enough! — for yet it shone!
My reassurance fell upon a heart of stone.
I needed time enough to win Her back.
I sought out Dream, and struck by majesty,
Drawn by bashful whispers,
Once … twice … my muzzle kissed her,
And later, in our tired tangle, it spoke soft my plea.
Would she (whispered darkness-honeyed tongue)
Help overthrow the tyranny of Flame's cruel sun,
Before the Empire lost strength to resist her?
She asked a boon for boon; the dark (my muzzle) whispered, "Power enough."
Dream and dark, in my embrace, made love;
I felt within her spread the mark of pact complete.
We agreed to meet
In my palace to eclipse her sister.
Would it have been worth it, after all,
After losing Her love, gaining Her rule,
After loving loose, playing and then being played the fool,
Would it have been worth while,
Dream's darkening, Her hardening, and my denial,
If we had reconciled?
I hastened back into my frozen halls,
To share with Her the news of my alliance,
To tell Her, "My darkness, which you held in spite,
Has saved us all, yes, I have saved us all" —
In walls no longer ice, but gleaming stone,
A crystal throne was all that met my sight.
She was not there, after all;
She was not there at all.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth it anyhow,
To watch the sunrise shine on diamond streets,
To taste defeat,
To bow my head and learn to sing the scherzo song of Flame
When ascendant and alone she came?
Instead, I felt the shadows part
And yield to alicorns of Flame, and Dream, and Heart,
Love's crystals set upon their brows.
No! I reeled at this betrayal,
Picturing the half-truths of Her tale
— No, outright lies.
How could she seek our Empire's demise?
I gazed, beseeching, into each one's eyes.
Flame's song was strong, love firming her decision;
Heart's gaze ablaze in fresh desire,
Which hardened further every time I spoke;
And Dream — Dream! — Such cold fire,
A sister submitting to her sister's yoke.
(Bide thy time, her silent darkness whispered.)
Harmony's spectral light glistered,
And then, a frozen prison.
I grow old … I grow old …
Counting days of solar stranglehold.
Shall I plan another scheme? Do I dare to hatch a plot?
The long eclipse was all for naught:
The moon grew dark in visage when my Dream was caught.
I'm sure it was for me she fought.
But the skies approach conjunction. I feel it in my fog.
Voices of victory, vengeance, vie in dialogue.
Vast violence in vogue.
I bide my time … the darkness bides my shape …
Until the day the stars aid her escape.
Author's Note
The text of the epigraph (except for a few pony words) is a quotation from Ben Lehman's excellent tabletop RPG, Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at the Utmost North.
If this poem results in a game of pony Polaris being played, I will be able to die happy.
