A Pre-Equestrian Tale - The Legend Of The Crimson Fields

**The Legend Of The Crimson Fields

A Pre-Equestrian Tale**

Prologue - A Fallen Warrior

Drip...

Drop...

Drip...

Drop...

Drip...

Drop...

It was a rhythm, steady and monotone.

The melody was smooth and silent like a whisper, barely audible.

One could even think it wasn´t there at all.

But not for me.

I heard it, loud and clear, a crashing cacophony, banging inside my head with the power of a bass drum, played by an overzealous foal. Distant clash and screams of pain, feral cries and shouts of victory and death, they all invaded my ears as well.

But nothing was so clear, nothing so profound and true as that never-ending torturous trickle hammering its way through my mind, sending me on a one-way road straight into madness.

Fighting it proved itself to be a sheer impossible task.

There was no resistance left, nothing to fight with or for.

Only the deep numbness of my inner self spoke to me, a bottomless pit seemingly unable to ever be filled again by something. It was so cold and dark, clutching every inch of my body with an icy fist, draining me of my last sanity.

Drip...

Drop...

Dri-Drip...

Drop-Drip...

Drip...

Drip-Drop...

I didn´t notice I cried, the tears joining the ever-present disturbing symphony of guilt. Maybe they tried to uplift it with their sorrow, wanting to add a layer of pity. And...was there a sliver of a plea in it? A plea for...forgiveness?

How imbecile!

There would never be enough sorrow, never enough remorse!

Never I would be able to atone!

After all, how many tears would be needed to neutralize the huge lake of liability I am drowning in? How many would it need to extinguish the red from it?

Splat!

I feel the splatters landing on my fur, soaking it. Each little drop weighed hundred tons at least.

They were so heavy.

And so cold...

I see a reflection in the sword below that just slipped my magical grip. Empty grass-green eyes of a unicorn stallion, who had slaughtered yet so many in his young life, stared back at me. The black pupils, mirror of his soul, were a dark pond filled with the eyes of all his victims. His coat was specked with many big spots of crimson blood, shrouding the long gone innocence of its once light blue nature. The heavy armor had lost its shimmer, it was just a lump of dull metal now.

The realization hit me like a dragon´s fist:

I was that stallion!

My hooves gave way, denied to carry me only one second more.

There was a giant splash when my body hit the ground. I didn´t mind. The bloody pool enveloped me, covered all of me. And I thanked it, thanked for hiding the sparkling icy blue.

I didn´t know what to do. Lying there seemed to be the only thing there was in the universe. Everything else was unimportant. Everything left, that was the endless emptiness inside my soul.

But when all remaining was emptiness, why do I still feel all these things?

The boiling anger...

The burning hate...

The consuming grief...

The torturing pain...

And that guilt? That heavy crashing guilt...

They overwhelmed me, ate away at me!

I didn´t know any better.

I just screamed, screamed like I never did before in my life.

It felt so freeing.

So relieving...

But still, it would never be enough.

I lost so many things...

My love...

My home...

My identity...

My best friend...

And now, my sanity it seems...

But...when I am a mad pony now, then why can I still remember all these things?

Why can I still feel?

Why can´t I simply forget?

Why do I still know how it all began, two years ago, back in that forest...