Once upon a time….
there was a village called “Emberwoods”, hidden in the mountains, far in the Frozen North. In this village were living like 100 ponies, and they never communicated with anyone outside. They only went in the near woods for wood cutting.
They lived for over 500 years in peace and harmony and no one ever left the village.
But that soon will change.
This story is about a young and brave unicorn-filly called “Night Flame” whose eager to leave the boring village and discovering the world and experiencing adventures. Destiny smiled to him and he soon got a chance to do so.
“Hey, Night Flame! Wanna hang out or play something?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin. I didn’t realize someone was approaching me. Left to me now stands a filly whose name I forgot, clearly excited about finding me.
I layed in a shadow of a tree behind the towns inn, where usually only drunk ponies came and vomited, but that only at night. To my advantage, my fur is black like the night so nobody would see me in the night and this way I barely ever was disturbed. But it was early morning, so here can have the most peace possible dispite my black fur.
Or i had.
“No. I don’t like you and I don’t like your games. I thought i said that like 1000 times to you. Why are you still bothering me?”, I answered his question with obvious annoyance in my voice.
He looked, like he was soon about to cry like a baby. I didn’t care. I just closed my eyes again and only opened them to see him galloping away sobbing.
“Ahhh…..I love this peace.”, i said while stretching all four off me.
Suddenly i noticed under my eyelids, that it got darker. What i saw when I opened my eyes I couldn’t comprehend.
The sky was light blue seconds ago. Now there were dark grey clouds everywhere and bolts were jumping from one cloud to another.
Suddenly a very strong wind started and pushed me a millimetre back in the grass.
I was frightened. Like hell.
As fast as I could i stood up, and began running towards the towns central place.
The place was one hell of a mess. Houses burning, ponies wounded on the ground, mothers crying for their babies and one strange thing in the middle of this mess. It was a three-headed dog which looked like he could bite of a house and there would only be the lower half left.
Fear flooded me. My only thought left in my brain said: run.
But i wasn’t able to run because one of the heads turned towards me and gave me a very hungry look. I was frozen in place. I shook over my whole body. Whatever this thing is will eat me in the next moments.
But that should not happen. Suddenly somewhere far in the south was a horn blown and the head turned towards the noise. As fast i could see, the dog jumped over me and ran away to the south and out of the village.
I could still not move the next 5 minutes.
When i was able to move again i started to look for survivors. Luckily i found not only one, but nearly the whole village. I stepped to a mare sitting beside a barrel and asked here:
“What the hell was that?!”, I nearly shouted at her.
“Cerb……..us….”, the mare whispered.
“What? I cannot understand.”
“Cerber…….”
“Please stop being a crybaby and speak up!”
“It was Cerberus! The guardian of the Tartarus and he definitely shouldn’t show up here!”, she finally said.
“What the…..You mean THAT Tartarus where the evil creatures live? The place bad ponies go?! You can’t be serious.”, was all i could answer.
“Y...Ye..Yes.”, she whimpered.
Fuck. Whatever this means, its pretty bad.
I heard a voice behind me: “Night Flame, please come with me to the leader of the guards. He has something really important to tell you.” To me was speaking a little filly, nearly at the age for the first class of school.
“What? Did he tell you why?”, i asked.
“No. Just that it's really important and you shall show up there immediately.”, the young pony said in response.
With confusion in my eyes i trotted towards the house, where the guardians live in.
A mare standing in front of the door shouted as i came closer to the house: “Hurry up! Fast! The leader is about to die and has a message for you!” As soon I heard this i paced up my speed and rushed to the house, pushing the mare aside and running to the leader’s quarters.
He laid there, heavily panting and struggling to live.
“Midnight Shield, what happened? What was that and what do you need to tell me?”, i asked him without wasting any time.
“Calm ….. *cough* down, little one. One … *cough* … after another *cough. First, that was Cerberus the guardian of the Tartarus. He attacked our village and was in rage out of no reason. It seems like somepony or something made him mad, so he came here and destroying everything in his way. As soon as he arrived I fought with my guards against him but the battle was lost already. With one punch he wiped out 6 of my guards and gave my serious injuries. Immediately, i was carried away and only could watch as one after another died to his attacks.
Just a few moments ago, we received a letter from a so-called ‘Princess Celestia’.
Here, read it.”
He stretched one of his foreleg to a box beside his bed and pulled out a piece of paper. The seal at the bottom was already broken.
I took it and read out aloud.
“Dear inhabitants of Emberwoods,
you must leave your homes at once. Cerberus, the guardian of the Tartarus ran away and to the north. His eyes were full of anger, completely opposing it’s normal behavior. He must have been controlled or brain-washed. I know this sounds pretty unbelievable from a princess you never heard of, but you have to believe me. The moment it arrives in your city everything is lost. Everything will be destroyed and everypony will be dead. So please, look for the most important things in your life and take it with you and flee.
You only can fight against this dog with an army of 1000 ponies and as far as i know, your village only has about 100 inhabitants. If it’s possible send your smartest unicorn to Canterlot, a city to the south of you. According to a prophecy, when the dog runs wild, a young unicorn from the far north, smart enough to learn the lost magic that is needed to defeat it, will appear and save us all from the upcoming evil things, that we have to face.
Normally, i would have sent my most faithful student Twilight Sparkle, but she is on a visit in the Crystal Empire and we lost contact to her. With her, the most important Element of Harmony is missing, the Element of ‘Magic’. Please answer at once if you can spare your smartest unicorn for the sake of Equestria and the rest of the world.
Thankful, Princess Celestia.”
I looked up and found that the leader was dead.
