Luminescence

Luna's moon sat idly in the sky.  Millions of stars twinkled around it, dancing through in the night.  Wisps of cloud slowly drifted overhead, unattended by the Pegasus of Ponyville.  Mists hung on the town like a thin blanket.  The cool air was enough to chill anyone who stepped outside.  Then again, few ponies would be awake this time of night.  No one ever seemed to pay attention to the beauty of darkness.

The mist slowly parted around one pony, walking down the street. It was uneven and dirty, almost forgotten.  Few ponies lived in this part of town anymore.  It was too close to the Everfree, too close to the unknown.

His head was hung low, wings tucked in close.  His grey sweater flapped quietly in the breeze.  It was the same color as His coat.  His mane hung down, dampened by the thick mist.  Even with His jacket, He shivered as he walked.  The few houses that surrounded Him were small, their paint fading.  All the ponies that had been there to maintain them had long since left.  He lifted his head slightly, and looked back towards the town.  Even this far away, on one of the country roads leading outwards, the soft glow of candles in the library and other buildings could be seen.  He stopped for a moment.  The light, even from this far away, felt... warm.

He turned away and trudged on, head drooping towards the ground.  Even the night's mist couldn't catch the tear the fell from His eye.

At the end of the old, forgotten lane lay a house slightly better off than it's neighbors.  The shutters didn't droop, the paint was fresh, and the color scheme was only moderately gloomy.  It was alone.  So much better for it's inhabitant.  The door creaked as He opened it, the hinges unoiled for decades.  Papers hung from the walls, lay scattered across the floor, and blew about in the wind.  The broken windows did little to settle their flight.  He walked through the cacophony of paper without heeding it.  He climbed the broken stairs, jumping nimbly past the crumbled or unsteady parts.  Another creaky door opened, admitting Him into the bedroom.

A thin, dirty mattress lay in the corner.  It had shaggy, torn blankets piled about one end, where they had been thrown in  a fit of terror.  He slowly moved past it, coming to rest at an angled wooden desk.  Stacks of paper lay scattered about it, all blank.  Colorful inkwells sat on the most even part of the table.  He turned away, ashamed.

Across from him sat the only other piece of furniture in the room.  A large, moldy set of large drawers.  On top rested a small blade, with a folded piece of paper atop it.  The paper fluttered in the wind, but didn't blow away.  It was anchored, somehow.

He walked towards the piece, and unfolded it like He did every night.  Even as his legs itched and burned, he read the phrase that was seared into His mind through His own will: "Not tonight."  He folded the paper back up, and replaced it on top of his knife.  He paused, struggling within himself.

The door to His room blew back open, and He pulled away.  The floor creaked as He moved back towards the stairs.  He had removed the walls surrounding them long ago, and glided slowly down.  There was no reason for the stairs to be so long.  Long ago, He had thought that the house's builder had wanted a nice little trek in the morning to get to his breakfast.   Any such fantasies had passed a long time ago, and now the stairs were another simple nuisance.

As he reached the bottom, a piece of paper whipped into his face.  He blinked and looked at it, but it was blown away before he could fully see it.  He remembered it well enough.   A rainbow trail over a sunset, with a small mach cone forming around somepony near a mountain's range.  One of his first drawings of Rainbow Dash.  It was magnificent, beautiful, and could rival any of the pieces in even the most prestigious Canterlot galleries.  It blew back into the storm of papers, crumpled and ripped by wind, rain, and other art.  He stepped through it all, ignoring anything that came near him and crushing any pieces that lay underhoof.

The kitchen was as bare as the rest of the house, and just as forlorn.  The shelves drooped, and many of the cabinet doors were missing or broken. Empty bottles were scattered around the room, and all the bottles with liquid still in them had been pushed into a corner.  He grabbed one of those bottles, a half-empty glass of Applejack Daniel's.  It was empty almost too soon.  He turned back towards the mayhem of the living room.  Even with all the art fluttering in the wind, the pieces he had nailed to the wall were easily visible.  He looked to the left side.

Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash... All of the Element Bearers could be seen dozens of times.  The entire wall was covered with their portraits, doing everything.  Normal activities, acts of heroism, and a few less... displayable things.  He had painted them just as he had seen them.  He had followed them often, watching.  They had something that he wanted, something that he had been searching for, something that had destroyed him once... They had friendship.  They had life.

He looked towards the right wall.  There no color, no distinction between pieces.  The white faded into black, the black softened into grey, and the grey brightened to white.  Tendrils of darkness, notes of pain, images of suffering...  Everything that He knew how to express were drawn onto those portraits.  Some had characters, some where of himself, but most were simply shapes of emotion.  They all shared one common factor: darkness.

He turned back to the kitchen and reached for another bottle.  Gray Pegasus Vodka.  He picked it up, but didn't drink.  Instead, He turned back through the flurry of papers and closed the shutters.  The wind inside dwindled until the papers barely stirred.  He climbed back up the stairs, went into his room, and reached for the desk.  He pulled a feather from the underside of his wing, bit off part of the base, and began to sketch.  He would pause occasionally to drink, but he continued all through the night.

When the sun's first like slowly crept over the horizon, it found Him drawing in His bed, the covers drawn haphazardly over of him.  Tears stained some of the pieces, but He piled them all next to himself.  When He finally put down the makeshift quill, almost twenty drawings lay next to him.  He got back up, grabbed the pieces and the bottle, and jumped out the back window.  He landed next to a black, empty pit in the otherwise overgrown yard.  The papers were balled up and thrown in.  He took one last swig of vodka, then dumped the rest on the papers.

Slowly, the ashes drifted into the sunrise while He slept in the warmth of the fire.