A New Era

A New Era

Story 7

Chapter 2: Memories

By: SleeplessScribe

Terrario had made a habit of going to the castle balcony each morning to observe the results of his new goal. Ponies of all races were shouting at him in anger, cursing him for what he was doing. To be quite honest, I felt the entire ordeal could have been avoided had our subjects pleaded with him and asked for him to return the land to its former state. Our brother was angry, and it wasn’t that far out of reason for him to be, but curses and shouts definitely would not help the situation.

Finally, Celestia and I decided to approach him directly. My sister was always more outspoken than I, so it was no surprise that she headed the confrontation. “Brother, why do you continue to curse our subjects? Haven’t you seen what’s become of your actions?”

He didn’t even turn to us when he spoke. “They brought this on themselves.”

“Terrario, please. At least tell us why you’re so angry.”

This time he decided to face us. “Why? Why? I worked for years to bring them a beautiful land to enjoy. I continue to work hard to maintain that beauty, not to mention the fact that I was the one bringing them great harvests so they wouldn’t starve! What do I get for it? They mistreat my land, they take for granted the gifts I’ve given them, and they scorn me for the few and far between small harvests I give so I can give the land time to rest! They are ungrateful, and I’m going to show them where they are without me!”

Just hearing this was too much to bear. I reached out to him, hoping that he wasn’t too far gone for our words to have some effect. “Brother, please, I know there’s a better way! Surely if you just return the land to its normal state, we can come up with a way to make your troubles known together.”

“I will be fine once I receive just a small thank you or sign of appreciation! You two are always met with warm smiles and friendly greetings, while I am only remembered as the one who failed to provide last year, or the prince that’s just tagging along!”

He slammed his hoof into the floor, and the ground began to shake. At least he had enough sense not to cause a massive earthquake, but it was still frightening. “These ponies know not how to treat nature. You can’t just cut down trees and pave over flowers! And these farmers, they call themselves experts, but they know nothing about how the land works. If I were to produce massive harvest after massive harvest, the soil would deplete itself so that not even I could bring life to it again!”

“Then why don’t you tell them that?”

This time, he swung and narrowly missed the hoof I was still holding out. “That’s the worst part! I have told them, and they got angrier still! We are not gods, but they expect me to be perfect! You know what… that’s exactly why you two are so beloved. Everypony expects the sun to rise in the morning and the moon to rise at night, and they get that! You meet their expectations, and they love you for it! Give a farmer one poor harvest, and you’re reduced to the social standing of trash!”

Celestia pressed my foreleg down, forcing me to bring my hoof back on the floor. “Brother, you know that’s not true. If you would only try to—”

“No!” Once again, he turned his back on us, looking down at the furious ponies that were still shouting beneath the balcony. “As far as I’m concerned, they will not see reason. I’m through being kind, and my patience is all but gone.”

“Terrario, we—”

“There is no Terrario.” As he spoke, we watched dark clouds form at his hooves and circle around him. “There is no beauty. There are no crops.” This darkness rose up, slowly engulfing him. Both my sister and I tried to cast spells on it, but it proved all for naught. “There is only death. There is only anger.” Finally, the darkness completely enveloped him. It did not take long to dissipate, but we were met with a horrid image.

The once vivid mane that so resembled flowing blades of grass had become an ugly image of brown and greys. His dark brown coat that had always reminded me of the fertile lands he had created turned dull and lifeless, and even the mighty tree that was once stamped on his flank was dead and leafless. He then turned around, and we saw the full extent of it. His teeth had become like razors, and his eyes were completely black, save for the bright red irises that glowed in them.

“There is only room for one ruler here. There is only… Decay.”

My sister drew back, lowering into a more aggressive stance that I was comfortable with. “Just what are you saying, Terrario?”

His eyes made his glare even more menacing. “I am Decay. Your brother is gone. He was never wanted, and I think I made myself clear. There is only room for one ruler in this kingdom, and that ruler shall be me.”

Watching him lash out at my sister with a blast of magic was one of the most horrifying things I’d ever been forced to witness. While she had managed to avoid it, she’d created quite a gap between herself and our brother, which prompted him to turn his attention to me.

“I’ll not fight you. I don’t care what’s happened, you are still my brother, and I refuse to raise my horn against you.”

“That’s too bad,” the more I watched, the more I began to question if this truly was my brother anymore, as he had no qualms about shooting at me as well, “because I’ll gladly raise mine!”

He jumped back and spread his wings, landing in the crowd and sending them all screaming. Celestia followed him, but it took me a few moments before I finally decided to do the same. We both learned just how poor of a choice that was. The minute I landed, the ground crumbled beneath us as stones were pelted our way. Even the aura of Terrario’s magic had become dull and grey.

It was clear we could no longer reason with him when he tried to literally bury us alive. We managed to fly out of the pit he had created, but not before we were both pelted with another magical blast.

“Luna… we have no choice. We have to stop him.”

I let out a small sigh, looking at the monster my brother had become. “…If we must.”

The amount of force we had to use went very well beyond what I would have been comfortable with. Then again, I would have preferred if we had never needed to fight at all, but at that point, it was unavoidable. Not only that, but the destruction that resulted merited an evacuation from Canterlot. Well, even then, the Everfree Forest used to be called Canterlot, and we renamed it after we relocated to the Canterlot our subjects knew today. Terrario fought us tooth and nail, and reducing him to the state we had pained me. It still pains me.

After what felt like hours of magic blasts, flames, and five or six earthquakes, our brother was finally felled. Or… so we thought. As we stood before his defeated form, his body began to glow. All around us, grass was dying, what few flowers there still were wilted rapidly, and even the nearby trees began to die incredibly quickly.

“I’ll not be defeated. This is my land… and I’ll not see it desecrated anymore!”

Before either of us could react, we were sent spiraling backwards by a massive bramble. The thorns added additional pain as well. However, the worst pain was the heartbreak. I’m sure my sister felt it just as much as I. Here was our brother, his anger taking him over to the point of changing his body, and attacking us with no remorse. It was a wonder he was able to move with so many gashes and burns, as well. Just looking at him made me sick.

That wasn’t the end of it, either. The bramble he had attacked us with split into many, holding us down as he stood before the castle. “Now you see the true power of nature. When I take back what I’ve given to the land, I gain more power than you could ever imagine. This land… is now in the grasp of Decay.”

He turned to us, but I saw a glimmer in his eye. For a fleeting moment, I saw just a little bit of emotion in those horrid eyes. “This castle is mine now. Don’t squander the chance I give to you.”

Our brother slammed the castles gates closed. Once he did, the brambles sank back into the ground, but we were prevented from returning to the castle by the massive stone golems that has risen up on all sides of it. We heard Decay’s voice echo through the sky, and I was brought to tears by it.

“You are not welcome here! If I see you again, it will be the end of you!”

Probably the thing that hurt the most wasn’t my cuts, or even his proclamation. It was the blood trail that led to the castle. A reminder that we had drawn the blood of our beloved brother, and that he had done the same to us. Trying to destroy his golems was a risky enough gamble, but my sister and I knew for sure we wouldn’t be getting back in once we saw the force field he had surrounded the castle with and the thorny vines he had wrapped it in.

I turned to Celestia, my sight blurred by the sea of tears that was fighting for release. “Sister… what do we do? Are we really just going to give up?”

My sister just sat there, looking up at the balcony he was standing on earlier. “We… we don’t have a choice. We can’t pull energy from the sun and moon, there’s no telling what would happen if the sky went dark and the air began to freeze everything…. We have to take Equestria back.”

“How? Terrario no longer has any regard for our subjects, so there are no lengths he will not go to in order to keep us out.”

She slowly shook her head, looking up at the still bright sky. “I believe there is a solution, but it’s rooted deep in ancient legend. We’ll have to pay an old friend a visit if we want to confirm whether or not this is a viable option.”

Apparently our goal was the headquarters for the Guild of Arcane Arts. I should have known he’d be the last to leave the city if he even chose to leave at all. As we approached the entrance to the massive building, the door swung open and revealed the pony I assumed my sister wished to speak with.

“I saw the whole thing from my window. The prince has gone off the deep end, he has.”

Celestia narrowed her gaze at the old Sirish stallion. There was no doubt in my mind she was just as much a blur of emotions as I, but her anger was showing more than it needed to. “Starswirl, we need your help.”

He began to scratch his greying chin. I don’t think even he could have foreseen his ginger fuzz growing into a grey jungle that could be considered a second mane. “Of course, but let’s go to my home. It’s fairly out of the way, and you’re a lot less likely to be spotted and killed.”

Why Sirish apparently enjoyed living in the woods so much, I’ll never know, but at least Starswirl’s fifteen million acre, five hundred story house was a decent ways away from Canterlot. Of course, that is a hyperbole. Why would anyone need that much space?

Starswirl closed the door behind us and opened every window in the place with one quick spell. “Before we talk about anything, you two need to rest. And no, you don’t have any options. I have powerful healing magic, but I’m still working on a spell that can rid ponies of fatigue.”

“We don’t have time for that, Starswirl!”

You know I had to commend the stallion’s ability to stay calm despite my sister raising her voice at him. “Well, you could, at the absolute least, sit down while we talk.”

“Fine.”

We were taken upstairs and into Starswirl’s enormous library. I would have bet money that he owned every single book ever written somewhere in here. He brought us two large cushions for us to sit on, though I had to lie down.

“Are you alright, Princess?”

All I could do was shake my head. “How would you feel if you got attacked and exiled from your home by your own brother?”

The stallion just shrugged and rubbed his chin again. “Eh, he’d let me back in the next morning. Probably just him throwing a drunken fit.”

Smart ass. “Put yourself in my position and then answer my question again.”

He raises his brows and nodded. “Oh, yeah, I’d feel like shit.”

“Um… Princess?”

I was suddenly jerked back into the real world upon hearing Nova’s voice. My sister stayed silent for a moment and just stared at him before actually replying. “Yes, Nova?”

“I understand that this is a pretty big story and all… but do we really need to know what happened at that point? I mean, now we know that your brother we never knew about was the first case of Nightmare Moon Syndrome, but why don’t we skip to the part that’s relevant? The reason everyone’s here?”

My sister opened her mouth, but I set my hoof against her. “If I may, sister? I… I want a chance to truly speak of this as well.”

After a nod from her, I addressed the young ones, recalling the “relevant” events again. However, a quick word from my sister cut me off.

“Luna, wait. I believe we’ve been standing around for far too long. I ask that you all be silent once again. I apologize if that’s a little disgruntling, but I swear on my honor as a princess that all questions will be answered when we reach a certain destination. Sister, if you would be so kind as to take them, I will retrieve our other necessities.”

Now I nodded, and my sister was off. I knew exactly what she meant, though I had to wonder how this venture would turn out. “Follow me, then. I’ll recount the important part along the way.”

With my mind as clear as I could get it, I formed the images in my head and translated them to words.

Now that the power was in our grasp, it was time to confront our brother once again. The king was gracious—and stubborn—enough to make us stay for a meal. He knew the gravity of the situation, but also knew the danger of traversing the desert without rest and refreshment. Once we had eaten, he supplied us with fresh water for the journey back to Equestria, as well as cloaks from his court wizard to keep us warm through the chilling night winds so we wouldn’t have to waste our own energy.

For a land dominated by pegasi, it was surprisingly hard to fly at night. In fact, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to live anywhere in the San Palomino desert. I mean, sure, the city was gorgeous, but the winds… if they didn’t sear the skin during the day, they chilled to the bone at night. I guess the ponies here were just used to it. Granted, they did have barriers in place to keep the wind out of the city, but how in the world could they stand in when they had to travel?

Regardless, both my sister and I were rendered flightless by the wind, but at least it wasn’t all that strong. I never realized how cold deserts actually got at night, and a small part of me felt a little guilty. After all, I was sovereign over the night.

The journey back to the castle took much longer than either of us would have liked. Just getting out of the desert took at least a day. Luckily the wind dies down once we crossed the border from the San Palomino and back into Equestria proper, and the modern day Everfree Forest was not that far away now that we could fly.

I guess our brother was counting on us returning. We could see those stone golems he had risen below us, but now we were also having wooden spikes hurled at us from the dead trees around the castle like turrets. I also noticed that there was a large tree behind the castle that still had leaves, and I soon learned why; it rose up and we were faced with a massive Treant when my sister and I touched down.

Celestia turned to me, I guess to make sure I still had what we needed. “Remember, Luna, this is no longer Terrario we’re fighting! We can’t let our emotions get in the way of taking back Equestria!”

All I could do was nod. I knew what we had to do, but that didn’t mean I wanted to, or that I was even ready, to do it. The huge tree monster’s lack of speed was easy to take advantage of, and eventually we tricked it into ripping the heads off the golems in an attempt to hit us. However, we weren’t done with it. With enough flying around, we had managed to make the Treant cut up most of the thorny vines that had been closing off our castle. However, just as the vines fell, the giant fell apart, his parts flying out in all directions. I managed to make it out unscathed, but I nearly screamed when I saw my sister fall to the ground with a sharpened branch sticking out between her left wing and shoulder blade.

“Celestia!” I rushed forward, but was cut off from my sister by a large stone barrier that rose out of the ground like a dolphin breaking the surface of the sea.

“It’s useless, sister.” There was no telling if he was just trying to mess with my head, or if he really was weak now, but Decay had not bothered to rid himself of his wounds. He did seem to have healed them, but the scars and burns from my sister and I’s spells still remained, as did the tatters in his feathers and the cracks in his royal attire.

The stallion approached me slowly, a menacing, bladed grin plastered across his muzzle. “Your defeat here was foreseen by the ancients. What was it they wrote? ‘The weak shall perish.’ It’s time for me to make that prophecy a reality.”

It was a wonder I hadn’t fallen to my knees yet. I knew my dearest brother was in there somewhere, and I just… I just couldn’t bring myself to act. My desire was to have my beloved brother back… and I tried everything I could to make that happen.

As I backed away from him, I tried in vain to reason with him again. “Brother, please… don’t do this anymore! You’ve made your point, so why can’t we all just be together again? Besides, you can’t do everything yourself!”

Decay snarled at me, lowering himself and quickening his pace. “What? Do you think I’m not powerful enough to manage night, day, and earth? All will know my power, and destroying you and Celestia will be the perfect example!”

Finally I lowered my head, unable to look at him. “So you truly want us dead, then?”

He stopped and raised his head back up. “Now you’re getting it. I said there was only room for one ruler, and I meant it. Now just stand there and accept your—” A loud scream interrupted him as he fell to the ground. Smoke rose from his back, as it did from my sister’s horn as well. She was still on the ground, and bleeding profusely, but she somehow managed to raise her voice at me.

“Luna, do not hesitate any longer! You have to use those Elements now!”

With a heavy heart, I slowly nodded and turned to the broken form before me. I opened my saddle bag and brought the six gems out of it. “I’m sorry it’s come to this, brother.”

The king told us that these artifacts had minds of their own, and I saw what he meant when they began to spin around me. A surge of power him me like a tidal wave, and I focused all this power onto my brother as he tried to get back on his hooves.

As soon as it hit him, the magic turned to sand and engulfed him in a flash of light. Black smoke spread out in five different directions from where his body had been, and again I used the Elements to make sure that they could never return to wherever Decay’s body now was.

Almost immediately, the trees around us began to sprout leaves again, and the grass was green once again. Even the spear that pierced my sister was reduced to splinters, but she still needed me to heal her. In time, Equestria returned to its normal, peaceful state. My sister and I maintained the earth quietly, allowing our subjects to believe that they were doing everything themselves, and all was as it was.

Of course, there was one less occupied room in our old castle from that day on. Even as we raised the new castle in the center of Equestria, I made sure a third bedroom was made, just in the hopes that I’d have my brother back one day.