Sins of The Past

"Never before

Yet forever more

I am stuck in this hell

Have I tripped an' fell

Down some bastard rabbit hole?

I'll die here, a homeless soul.

A knell is heard in my ears

I've never been so trapped, in all my years," Mystic complained, punctuating each sentence with a stomp.

Celestia looked at him. The Sun princess was ragged -- strands of her usually glorious mane were sticking out at random intervals. Dark bags hung low beneath her eyes. It had been several days since Mystic had gotten transported back to Equestria with her little ponies, but yet, he had not stopped complaining. Sleep was a sweet relief dealt out in miserly doses. Once or twice, she had resorted to drugging him just to get him to be quiet for a while. He never slept, never ate, simply ... existed.

She made a mental note to discover why that was. Enigma should know, but it was getting harder and harder to contact the dead queen. The last time, Enigma had mentioned something about her heart but the transmission had cut out before she could explain herself.

"Are you even listening?

I'm not sure of your reasoning

But you ought to hear me

You might find something to set your mind free." Mystic glanced up, pausing his pity party for a moment.  Celestia sighed. As much as she would like to slap the irritating earth pony, he had a way of killing anything that even brushed against him.

From what she could tell, it was only skin-to-skin contact that did this, which eased her worries about him using, well, the same anything as anypony else. Still ...

She stood and looked down on Mystic.

"Please remain here. I will be back in a moment." Celestia trotted out, deep in thought. The moment the door slammed behind her, Mystic rose to his feet. If she thought that he was going to obey her, the country was in danger because their ruler was an idiot. She killed, albeit accidentally, his goddess, his beloved. She would be lucky if he didn't kill every stallion, mare, and foal as revenge.

He bucked the window, shattering it to pieces. The broken glass cut into his flesh, leaving bloody trails behind him as he fled.

"Luckily, that winged unicorn - what's her name? Nightfall? Dusk? No, Twilight. That's it. - is pretty good with the tracking. I can find the bastard twins before too long. Just got to convince her to come with me ..." Mystic galloped ahead. "Even if she don't come, --"

It was then that Mystic realized he wasn't rhyming anymore. He whooped with glee, renewed vigor in his sprint. He searched, his energy slowly burning itself off. Finally, he found the young princess in the gardens, recording the varieties of plants found there.

"Evening, ma'am," he said politely, bowing. Naturally, upon seeing the stallion's cuts, Twilight recoiled, her face contorted in a look of disgust. Looking around quickly, she ran. He shook his head and scratched at a cut. How hard could it be to track a pony who left fire in his wake, anyway? He perked his ears, listening for any sign of pursuit, before taking off into the darkness.

Elsewhere,

Ebony stopped for the night, his facade fading with the stroke of midnight. The pregnant moon swelled above his head, lighting the night almost as bright as day. A still pond called to him from the trees, a silver mirror in the midst of a sea of black.

He approached it, appreciating the cooling relief on his dry tongue. The pond rippled, growing evermore violent with each gulp he took. A tendril rose slowly from the clear waters, wrapping around his throat and dragging him down. Thrashing around, he fought to free himself from an enemy that he could not see. Eventually, the water won out and he passed out, bobbing gently against the surface.

A tall unicorn with a twisted horn scampered out of the bushes. His trap had worked! He dragged the human from the pond, casting a set of binding spells on him so that even if the man awoke, he wouldn't get free. The unicorn smiled, a happy daze seizing him. Iron Ire would be so proud. So proud.

Thunder looked around, his mouth stuffed full of sweetroll. Another box of the fluffy pastry tempted him from the closet, almost begging to be eaten. He swallowed, already greedy for more. He trotted to the closet gleefully and knocked the box off of the shelf. Celestia wouldn't mind if he ate one more ... or ten. Whichever. The box slid across the floor and out the door. He chased it, wondering slightly if the Sun princess was opposed to him eating all of her sweets.

The box continued down the hall, sharply turning into a dark room. Thunder stopped and stared at the darkness. Was it really worth going in there for a box of sweets? He gulped, stepping back into the well-lit kitchen. As he did this, he heard an exasperated sigh come from the room. A heavy-set pegasi stepped out, glaring at the diminutive unicorn.

Thunder screamed and skittered away, barely keeping traction under his panicky hooves. Sparks flew until suddenly, they didn't. The clock struck midnight and he lost his balance, no longer having a second set of feet to rely on. The skinny boy slid across the tiles of the floor, completely lost to his fear. He screamed again, summoning a set of the Lunar Guard.

Several minutes later, they had the pegasi subdued. Thunder scrambled to his feet and ran to go find Celestia. He was sleeping there tonight.

"Slow down, please. What, exactly, happened?" Celestia and Luna listened closely to Aimless Thunder's retelling of the night's events, struggling to keep up with his machine-gun-style speech.

"And then he just kinda came from the dark! He was going to hurt me! Why else would he steal my sweetrolls?" the blond cried, flailing his skinny arms around. "And that unicorn! It's a conspiracy! Against my sweets!" He sat down and crossed his arms across his chest, pouting at the princesses.

The unicorn in question rolled his eyes at this, snorting loudly.

"As if. We're --" He was cut off by the pegasi at his side, who slapped a hoof over his mouth. Celestia leaned in, a furious look working its way past her queenly mask.

"Continue. I'm quite interested in what you were saying," she said, venom edging her voice. She had been having a very difficult week, and it was beginning to take its toll. Not even her training could keep her anger suppressed much longer. She would send Twilight to put the Hajahacts in their place, she would get rid of the humans, and most of all, she would return peace to her courts. This, she promised to herself.