Dice Master

"A life ruled by numbers carved in blocks is a life of danger, adventure... a life led by magic."

The sun burned. It was the only thought in the filly's young, tortured mind. The sun burned without mercy, without thought. It hurt, she repeated to herself in complete pain, it was scalding, boiling, burning, peeling away the skin and will to live with every passing second.

She could not say it. She did not know how to put it into words. She only knew it hurt. It harmed, destroyed. Like her home, like her family and friends. Colts and fillies, mares and stallions young and old, all dead, all rotting under fiery heat. Scorched buildings standing alone in great silence, abandoned and engulfed in flames long ago, days ago, eras for all it mattered.

The young filly whimpered where she lay, covered in dust, crying without shedding any tears. No water. Nothing left to cry with. Only dry squeals of pain from her soul leaving through her parched throat and swimming into a world that did not care for her or her trouble, her plight, her ultimate end.

It was Tartarus, she reflected, like the stories her mother told. Her mother, that lovable mare who wore her mane in a bun, always met strangers with a smile, and never let her enter the house with muddy hooves. That putrid carcass full of maggots, rotting away under the scalding sun in front of her ruined home.

Her father, brother... Everyone and anyone who had once been alive in her life. Dead and gone. Failed to help her, won't wake up.

The filly looked up at the sky, a deep blue with no clouds to offer any shelter. She caught a glimpse of the sun, a burning pyre millions of miles away...

"Princess... Help me, please! Mommy won't wake up, daddy is missing... Help me! Please! Put the sun down, it hurts! My eyes hurt so much... Please, pretty princess... Please..."

Her mouth contorted into a tortured grimace filled with pain. Her eyes clenched close, head shaking from side to side. Her mane a disheveled mess.

"No... Please, princess, help me... Don't be mean to me! I never did anything to you! Please!" Her pleas turned to screams. Her little body, frail and young, green as a sprout of summer grass, it was cracking under the pressure. Slowly, torturously, she realized.

"She doesn't care... the princess... she... doesn't care..."

Her gaze fell down to the sand, so hot it was, so painful. Still, everything brought her pain. The stench of corpses going to rot all around her, the once loving sun that united all ponies in harmony, even the faces of those she loved. Cold and devoid of life, lying in the dirt, where scorpions and maggots tore off their flesh and bathed in their blood.

Her leg hurt as well. A horrible throb pulsating from the shattered bone and crawling up the punctured flesh and leg. Blood loss had set the numbness in. For that she was grateful, but scared. A large pool of blood had formed around her, and she could no longer stay awake. She drifted. Dreams became her world. Black dreams where no sun, no faces, nothing could be seen or felt. Good dreams. Peaceful ones. Nothing good was there to be seen or felt, so why see or feel? It was better in the darkness, she knew. Nothing was better than pain.

Her squeals burst again. Beasts had set in, flies and mice, scorpions and maggots. They did not wait for the child to die. She wept and whimpered softly when awake, those fleeting moments when the only things in her world were pain. She dreamt of nothing, and waited to die.

Days could have passed, but it was merely an hour.

She felt life leaving her. She felt herself close to leaving the world. She would feel no more hurt, no more sadness... The black veils of the earth would give way to golden strands of a wondrous curtain guarding the path to marvelous places, where fillies played and not suffered, where moms were smiling and not screaming in silence, their faces frozen in a perpetual scowl of terror. It would be a place where hurt would be healed, and the protruding bone in her leg would be long past... Where knights and good princesses existed and helped small girls, where minotaur raiders and burning villages were just scary tales before campfire meals.

She closed her eyes just as the jackals approached. She felt cold despite the searing sun. She felt nothing but cold, sad, and scared. So very scared. So very alone. A weeping echo in the nothingness that was life, a faint ray of candlelight amid a sea of fire, strong winds pushing to extinguish her frail little glow.

She closed her little eyes. The world dissipating. She closed her little eyes. Existence fade to black. She shut herself off from pain as the beasts sniffed at her ruined leg, and everything was nice again, for the briefest of seconds, the sun was warm and not burning, the air was soft and not rasping... She did not hurt.

Then the fangs bit. Whatever strength was left in her was used to squeal, holler and howl in agony.

Vicious growls grew in strength around her... It was the end, long postponed.

And yet it was only the beginning.

A loud yelp erupted into the air, loud whimpering and crying from the jackal followed in a fluid stream of pain. The rest of the pack, six of them, all at once threw themselves against the new threat. A shadow threat.

The shadow, fast as could be, threw itself against them, flashing blade leaving its concealment from within its robes. Slashing and thrusting, tearing and cutting... Movements deft and certain cutting their way into the nearest beast.

The jackal under assault snapped its jaws shut around the blade, a glimmer of triumph overcoming the beast's features. Then it shrieked as the dagger was yanked back, the edges of the blade slashing the sides of the animal's mouth open. Blood flowed in torrents, half of the creature's tongue falling out of its mouth.

The jackal scampered away, out of its throat a gurgling noise bursting out, blood splattering wherever he turned. The jackal moved its head from side to side, pawed at the wounds on its face, and emitted such pitiful, agonized noises... The rest of his pack stood back. Their ears held low, their teeth bared. But they would not strike. They would not risk a battle they could not win easily.

The five remaining beasts scampered away from the filly, and tore into the carcasses around her, leaving their two fallen brethren to their demise. One of them, its neck slashed open, the other, its mouth ruined forever.

The shadow stood over the filly. Watching. Assessing.

From within its robes it produced a small pouch, its contents making small noise within it. The shadow opened the pouch and dumped its insides out onto the dirt, ten dice falling and rolling at gravity's mercy. They fell, rolled, and stopped. Kneeling, the shadow placed a hand on the filly, barely breathing as she was, blood flow lessening with every passing second.

"Red for luck..." It counted. Three red dice on the ground. "...four... nine... eleven..."

"Black for folly..." It's fingers a blur as they counted the numbers on the four black dice. "...six...ten...twelve..."

"White for destiny..." It stopped, eyeing the three white dice with thoughtful eyes. "...eight..."

"It would be bad luck for me to take you, little filly, and my destiny is not with you." He stood, eyeing the small pony with cold, hard eyes. "Eleven out of eighteen for luck, with twelve out of twenty-four for folly, and only eight out of eighteen in destiny. Not my path to be with you, and if I do otherwise it will bring me nothing good."

The shadow knelt down again and picked its dice, one by one letting them fall back into their pouch. It turned to face the filly one last time. She was barely breathing.

Without words, the shadow gently lifted her from the ground, her body lightweight, herself a plume. It slung her over its shoulder and began its long way home.

"Three dice for luck, four for folly, three for destiny... and six more dice we cannot see, but we can control. The three dice of wit, overcoming folly with luck and skill. Two dice of will, challenging destiny, forging our path... and one die of hope, for every last one, no matter how small, can change the course of the world."