That day everything was still. Quiet.
Around me, much of the adobe walls of the old mission had weathered, and the ceiling had fallen in a storm I believe two hundred years, seven months, and twenty two days prior to the day I tell you about. And I had been there for three hundred and eleven years.
Not that I kept count. That would’ve been crazy!
It crumbled in, covering the floor with flecks and chunks here and there. The stucco chipped and eroded. In a way, the walls looked like they were drooping; the whole place looked that way, actually. The stone floors grew coarse and turned into thin, grey gravel over time.
I opened my eyes. My feathers moved to cover the bright glare of the sky, and I took in all the little noises I had suddenly made, like the gravel crunching under me. Then it was quiet once more.
Although it was morning, it was so very hot. That’s because the mission was in the Badlands. It’s almost humorous; I’d wanted to see a dragon for hundreds of years but I had no luck.
My wings moved to cover my head, I rolled, and rose. I was sitting, my mouth was dry and tasted earthly, like of dusty rock. I hadn’t eaten anything for all that time.
The sun rose. I knew it would remain over me for the whole day until it reached the western wall, then my celling would turn from blue to glowing orange, until nightfall.
Time passed slowly there.
So. Slowly.
Everything looked tired.
So. Tired.
Strained.
I can’t explain of what. I think the place was, existentially, aware that it had served too long a purpose that it was never meant for: My imprisonment. It must’ve once been some effort by some equines to convert, perhaps, wild buffalo?
No. One. Else. Knew.
Not for hundreds of years.
*
I hadn’t said my name in a while.
How did it go again? Ouiii… Ounaaa… Ou... Definetly Ouiii, no. No. It had a ‘tl’ sound in it. I know my name. I don’t need to prove it.
I didn’t remember the last name I had learned. One neglects to think of those precious things when you have other things to worry about.
I hadn’t said anything for a while. I wanted to say something meaningful to someone. For a short while, around two years, I was apprehensive of my quiet condition. Speaking was weird since there was nothing to talk about, or to, until I realized that it didn’t matter, for I was by myself! So I kept mostly silent since.
*
No one alive had passed by the old mission. Actually that’s a lie. I'd seen some eagles and rows of ants pass around me, carrying leaves.
If I do get out, I will find where they are getting these bits of leaves from. The only vegetation around the mission was dry shrubs. At least it was a hundred years ago… Surely, jeje, they get them from beyond the circle.
Beyond the circle indeed. My circle.
The one I hadn’t been able to leave for three hundred years. I was trapped in it, bound like a rat. Although it didn’t kill me, it would never free me.
Five meters and eleven centimeters in diameter. Twenty-four meters squared. All for myself. I made sure to check, many, many, many times. I couldn’t leave that space. Sometimes I hallucinated it grew bigger, but it never did.
I sometimes poked the air above the circle’s outline, hoping that the magic didn’t work anymore, but it did. Everyday. I did so since day one, until the one hundred and thirteen thousand, six hundred and sixty-fifth day.
*
I liked it when it rained. I still do. It kept the dirt down and brought up the smell of humidity; I loved how it tickled my muzzle. I had time to think, obviously, and I found it beautiful, the rain.
And life and everything.
Then it stopped. My fur, scales, and feathers dried and it all become quiet after the droplets stopped. So quiet. And hot.
The smell reminded me I was alive. I would take deep breaths, although I really didn’t need to breathe. Some would argue I’m not alive since I can’t die naturally, but whomever thinks life is defined by death is terribly wrong. Life is defined by living.
It was quiet again then, that day. It hadn’t rained for… three months. Rainy season was about to start soon, and I couldn’t wait.
Sometimes I couldn’t believe it… once I tied sound to the motion that created it when the world was in chaos, but there I was. I'd stopped waiting for anything but rain.
Constantly I wondered if any equine, creature or spirit had passed nearby and said, ‘oh look, a ruin, I must keep going though.’
I was a thousand, two hundred, and sixteen years. I hadn’t the best spirit in my younger, my more foolish and vulnerable years. I wasn’t that bad as a young’un of just two hundred years or when I had just come off the tree. Literally, I was born at the Mother Tree, came out a fruit, beyond the Badlands.
You see, I’m the heir of the Nauatik clan, a family of Southron spirits - those who live south of the Badlands - that are known for being able to control what makes sense and doesn’t - and am the only one remaining from it. I adopted the form of ‘alebrije’ early on, a smaller breed of the Equestrian ‘draconequus’, since my form of a giant feathered canine with bleeding molars was frowned upon.
As you might’ve heard, draconequui cause mixed feelings amongst equines.
As for what I can do, as part of the Nauatik ‘Masters of Existing’, I can control sound and light, magnetism, gravity, a form of vacuum, and states of matter, and with that said, I can do nothing more. Except fly, for a bit.
So in my experience I've made sound and light solid or taken them away, made some things liquid, solid, or vapor, and made weird lightningy/flamey things, become misty and flowed into or around things, removed gravity or multiplied it, magnetized things that shouldn’t be magnetic, created sucking vacuums, and camouflaged anywhere - and all of this over a large area.
However, I can’t do things like transform into things (without an arduous and painful process), produce objects, chocolate rain, possessions, or hybrids. Nor can I teleport, which might be one of the reasons why no one ever considered such a trap for over-mighty Discord. My powers served me nothing there.
The only way out was to have another living thing take my place in the circle. A living thing must always be in the circle. The only way to erase it is for nothing alive to be within, but since I was already there that was impossible.
Before the thousand year mark on my life, by the way, I had heard of Discord but never became friends with him. We did meet once centuries later, after I assumed power over the Southron spirits, for he firmly wanted me to stay out of Equestria, but I think we appreciated each other as species buddies.
He was quite diplomatic… “No, no, no.”
So we struck a deal: I would stay off his land, and I would have everything south of the Badlands. You know, down until the middle part of the continent where all the ubbersouthern and super annoying, and loud, spirits were.
At the time though… - I feel so regretful of it, how was I so foolish? - I felt terribly unappreciated by the Southron spirits. Why wouldn’t I? They were weak, short minded, resentful, and self-righteous, they were like mobs, I wasn’t, I was the greater one! …Or so I thought.
But I wasn’t happy. I was angry. I was bitter. I wanted more.
I did have everything though. Followers, power, a homeland. But…
I.
Hated.
It.
Why?!
And I did what he did, that Discord. I crushed all of them, even those who did like me.
So, like Discord, equines capable of stopping me did, but unlike Discord I wasn’t frozen in stone. More like… jailed.
Some heroes of the ponies did it with the help of lesser spirits. I don’t know whom, but they defeated me for I was so sure of my abilities I didn’t bother fighting them seriously. Before I knew it they had dragged me to the Badlands. I was bound in my circle thereafter.
But I forgave them. A hundred years after. They were probably dead by then, but I did - to my credit.
I reached many epiphanies by the hundredth year, and so, you might understand, I had time to think about what I could’ve done differently, and what I wanted to do.
I should’ve appreciated my old friends more... Gah, they would've stayed with me! I should’ve been nicer to my followers more, like when they asked for things… What to start a cult?... No... No! They deserved that much. I wish I had… loved them… eugh that's gross. Love mortals? Oh shut up! That's not right... father loved his mortals... they loved him... Be loved back…. To have pilgrims travel to a mountain I’d call home and ask me to make their hearts happy in some way or another… It would’ve been different that way, and I’m sure I, me, would’ve been… happy. When I get out I’m going to be sure to never be too lonely, too bored, or to tired, and I’ll make sure that whomever my friends are won’t be either.
I reached this epiphany: Creatures are happy by doing good. Making others happy. Charity. Like when that robed mortal brought a golden statue of me to the Great Tree, I gave him a feather, and he left so happy - as I had promised him the world and all its riches. But I just gave him a feather.
Happiness is an endless cycle, like a halo. You must give, and keep giving - Happiness, appreciation, affection even, follows. And what one receives is much more real than spiritual pain, this, is called happiness.
I looked down to my paws. My left paw, canine, is furry and bluish. My right paw is also furry, but it’s that of a jaguar, yellow and spotted, with claws. With my right paw I touched the air above the outline.
Ah!
It’s a terribly intense pain, like rolling a joint, but throughout my limb. My wings quivered, I staggered back.
My left wings is blue and leathery with yellow dots, and my right wing is feathered, green and orange – I preen it constantly with the oils of my uropygial gland, so my feathers were shiny and still healthy then.
My left leg’s fur is white, I believe it’s a deep part, and my right leg is scaly and clawed and its smells odd, very lizardy. My tail is funny, it has parts of a dog’s tail, with long green feathers coming out the end.
My coat is light blue in general, but my equine head is white-coated.
Although it considered of bad luck where I come from, I’ll admit I have complete heterochromia in my irises. Right: murky red, left: light blue. I hear it’s very distracting.
If I hissed, you’d see my forked tongue is black, but worry not, I can’t get sick so it’s that way naturally, and I've come to decide that hissing is hideously rude and I won’t ever do it again.
My right horn never quite grew with me, so I covered it with feathers I allowed to grow a bit wild and long; I have an antler on the left, like that of a deer. As for my mane, it’s very normal, except is not composed of hair, but out of long feathers; the feathers are green, red, and blue.
You might not know this, but Discord - since we’re the same species- is particularly tall for a draconequus, or maybe just compared to me. Upright, I reach up to almost half of his equine neck at most.
As I’m at it, the mission was fairly lengthy, empty, echoey. I was in what I assume was the prayer room, as I said, ruined and empty, perhaps forty meters long, maybe twenty-some across.
I was at the end of it, facing the other end, the western wall, long ahead and unreachable. There was nothing beyond the wall, about dozen meters, behind me. I wonder what the mission was for, the paintings on the walls had shown a moon and stars before they faded.
There were no windows, although I believe there was a room to my right, where there were some blocked chamber doors, which might have led to the courtyard and stairs that led to the roof.
At the western wall there was another set of dilapidated chamber doors which were barricaded from the inside, my side, behind which a large square area led to the kitchen, some living quarters - all of which were barricaded to keep ponies out - and to the entrance, which I had crossed only once, coming in.
The entrance was a grand spectacle, it had twin bronze bells, if I can rely one my vision at the time - my eye had been injured -, which I hadn’t heard ring, nor had I heard collapse.
One of my wishes was to hear the bells ring.
*
I looked up at the sky. So blue with a shining sun, and so, I looked down. The circle’s line was as it was four-hundred years ago. With a stretch of my back, I lied down and played with a feather, very disposed of letting another day bleed away. Slowly.
Ta-ta-rum-tss-tss-ta-ra-ra
Suddenly, I heard something.
I heard something!
Something that tumbled, fell, and rolled around. It made my ears perk up. Curiously, I hadn’t heard anything but birds and the insects at night, plus some other things.
That clattering… Is it… something falling? Yes, like a pot! The kitchen! There is something in the kitchen!... Nonsense, there was nothing of value in this place even when I got here.
No scavengers ever came around, the kitchen I’m sure was still roofed but it had no food. I pulled my head up and waited for a couple of minutes.
Nothing.
And so I lied down again.
Was that the highlight of the day? Psh.
Thud! - Thud! - THUD! – Crack and split! – Creaaak…
Something was struck and struck again. My ears perked up. They palpitated with every hit. The noises came from the same direction, beyond the west portal.
Something - Someone? No, impossible! - is breaking and pushing something wooden… One of the barricades!
I shot up from how I was. My eyes were wide.
Not that that’s an impressive feat, the wood was hard as sturdy as tree bark covering hard dirt, but they were placed in a discouraging way. Barrels and beams and other heavy things covered the doors, maybe the slightest remnant of magic was still working. Someone would’ve to want to move them to do so.
Someone. Is getting through. A. barricade.
My.
Stomach.
Turned.
I felt.
My heartbeat.
In my ears.
CRAAAACK! - CRASH! - “Ay!”
I got on all fours immediately and as close to the door as the boundary permitted, leaving behind some feathers.
Something. Made. A noise… Someone… No… Someth… something! Had made a conscious noise, right after that falling sound. Something large and heavy fell. The stairs! And it startled a creature enough to make him or her squeal… It was sharp… feminine? A filly? No no no, my mind is running wild...
My heart did not start racing, but a hot vile-like feeling ran around it, and I felt a great dread, like something was crawling up my neck.
Like something poisonous.
It shocked me uncomfortably, like thinking I ate something I’m allergic to. Curiously, I am allergic to things - like apples, pears, and peaches, oh and almonds. Yuk. Makes me feel itchy where you know you can’t un-itch yourse- oh, right, the story.
Turunk- Turunk- Crunk- Cruuunk.
I heard scuffling, like someone was kicking and pushing things aside with great determination, even closer to the door.
No way… Something? Do I dare say someone yet? Not at all. Something is moving the barricade on the other side of the portal doors!
My heart then began racing. My upper body felt warm. I tensed. Each heart beat pupped horror. My fur shivered with every sound. Each fiber rose. The noises filled me with terror. Panic I hadn’t experienced in a while. My feathered wing’s feathers stood on end. And separated. I had chills on the other. I froze.
I was in denial, not because I couldn’t believe someone was near, actually in the mission, but I had little terrors that the descendants of those who locked me here, they’d be the only ones who’d know I was there, had come to finish my being once and for all.
I chuckled and shook my head.
Would they shoot me with an arrow? A magic bolt? Run me through with a sword? Pierce me with a spear? Jaja ja! I would yell before the arrow and make the sound shield me from it, and for the rest they would have to get into the circle to do it, in which case I would scurry out, since there would be more than one thing alive in…
These happy thoughts were an empty gesture however, since it wasn’t likely to happen.
So what is happening?
I. Was. Frozen in anticipation.
The noises stopped. I waited some more minutes in silence. Forcing myself not to think. Hoping that I’d hear a sound again. Lest my soul would’ve hit a new low. I realized, I began wanting to believe.
I waited. I growled, as if my stomach had told me it was hungry - or how I think that is like.
What could’ve he or she done?! Stopped for breakfast!? Decided any plunder is not worth the effort!? Likely he or she doesn’t know I’m here.
I took a deep breath.
I felt this soaring feeling in my core, like I’d finally be free. It was like what I imagine holding one’s own breath and gasping, wanting more air out of necessity, is like.
My anticipation began to frustrate me. I shook my body and stared intently at the chamber doors. Parts of wooden benches had been nailed to the wall, and more things were stacked against it, like more doors, wheels, chairs and beams, but a good kick would make all of it come off, rusty nails and all. It was far away, dusty, like a myth, the beginning of a play, wanting to learn a new gals name or -
Then it begun happening. Time seemed to slow.
Thump!... Thump!... Thump!... Thump!... Thump!...
Every feather.
I have.
Quivered with every thump.
Every hair.
Every scale.
Every heartbeat.
I could feel it throughout my neck.
TRRR-THUMP!
The wood rattled and coughed off a lot of dust.
Thump! - Thump! - Trrr - THUMP! Crululu...
The planks separated from the wall from the left side and tumbled off, and the doors opened for the first time in four hundred years. The left door came unattached from the top left and whomever was pushing made an extra effort to push it forward with a grunt.
Debris fell before the doors. A wheel rolled for a bit before falling. A chair tumbled for a short distance. A door fell flat with a loud clap. The barricade was no more.
My heart. was. Beating.
I lost my nerve. I couldn’t speak out. And I forced myself into the same color as what was behind me, as to disappear. I swallowed.
*
She came in slowly. Very slowly. Like a vision.
