The return of an Archangel.
The return of an Archangel.
Death was just the beginning for me. I remembered an old minister once telling me otherwise. He always said that once you die your physical life is over; that it marks the start of your spiritual life with God. His meaning was simply stated that humans, with our finite knowledge of our world, believe that death will end all our life’s suffering and pains, as long as we lived a faithful life in our devotion to the Lord. My death, on the other hand, just caused me more pain that I get to feel again later. Most men only have to go through death once. For, I get to die at least twice, maybe more times. But I’ll never forget that venomous tooth of steel sliding into my body, the cries of the princess when she saw her best friend dying in her arms, and the last words she ever heard come from my mouth: the promise I’ll never be able to fulfill, “I hope you can find another who can give you what I can’t give now, a happy life with one who will take care of you. But I swear to you, I’ll be waiting for you in life everlasting; I’ll find you, I promise.”
Thinking on my life experiences, I began to feel tears welling up in my eyes. I was not going to cry though; what good would it do? I quickly took in my surroundings. It was similar to the Realm of the Twilit. There were dark structures surrounding me, all of them had the same architectural design as the castles of home. Some of the buildings were in shambles that made it look like it had been years since they were used. Others had pale light flowing from their windows like small streams of white water. The buildings seemed so familiar, yet so alien. I stood up from the spot where I lay. My hand went to the spot where the ghost of the blade that killed me still lingered. I felt no hole in my chest and no physical proof that I had ever been stabbed in the first place. The thought of not even having the hole as a reminder left me no strength left to keep from crying. I wept bitterly.
I felt the gaze of eyes as they lingered on me, as they watched me go through my pains loss of the life I regretted losing. The owners of these two sets of eyes never showed themselves while I wept. They stayed within the building before me watching from the window. I lost all my thoughts of my past after I heard them laugh. Pain was replaced with uncontrollable rage that I fought hard against to control. This rage of mine had almost killed me at other points, but now it was pointless. There were no creatures that seemed hostile in the area. My rage suppressed itself after a short time. I ventured to the nearest building with light spewing forth from the windows. The house was very large and was the only building left standing in this part of the area. Anticipating my arrival, the door swung open. Startled, I stepped through the threshold of the building with care, constantly watching my back as I proceeded through the hallway.
The large house’s interior reminded me of her majesty’s castle. There was a high arching ceiling in the foyer. A lone hallway was placed between two sets of marble staircases. Looking up the stairs, I saw that they lead to a small second landing, and then continued on in what seemed like an unending ascension. I strode down the hall seeing that a light was pouring through a door at the end of it.
There were many sculptures in the hall, mainly of unicorns and pegasi, but there were a few of men and angels. There were also many paintings of what looked like winged unicorns with runes that I couldn’t read under them on gold plaques. Continuing down the long hallway, I found a parlor that was unlocked and heavily furnished. The floor was covered in soft red carpet. A crystal chandelier was in the center of the ceiling, a gold chain tethering it to the four corners of the room so as to allow it to gradually dip down at a slight angle. Mahogany chairs coated in lacquer surrounded a hand hewn cherry table in the center of the room. Four of the mahogany chairs had no occupants, while two others had shady individuals in dark robes seated in them.
The shady characters, eyes following me as I walked into the room, finally spoke as I was not but a foot from the nearest chair.
“Oh, dear, he is nearly ten minutes early, brother,” said the first of the individuals.
“That’s a shame,” the other replied with a voice filled with laughter. “One would think that after a millennium of doing this, you might have been able to tell one the very second they would die and enter our humble house.”
Annoyance in his voice, the first of the pair retorted, “I have no control over when they die, and might I add, that an assassin came out of nowhere and changed the actual time of death, quickening it by almost an hour. This guy is just fortunate he died by the hand of the assassin, not the falling stone walls that were supposed to kill him.”
The two brothers sighed and turned their attention back at myself. They picked up a china cup filled with a slightly green fluid. I first thought it was tea, and grabbing one of the small porcelain cups, I took a sip. I spat the foul fluid out in disgust; it reminded me of all my life’s misery. Laughing, the brothers nodded toward each other, and then they spoke to me again.
“Oh, what appears to be the problem sir?” The insincerity in his voice was almost all I could handle, as if he were making a joke that could be understood only by those who were of his same level of comprehension.
“He seems to dislike the taste of Memories, Jotham.”
“I do suppose that seems very obvious.”
“Well, it would have helped to have known that that particular cup of memories contained all his life’s sorrow filled ones.”
Jotham laughed again. The sound sent a shiver up my spine; like a thousand tiny needles were pricking me. Gathering my courage, I finally tried to speak, but I stopped abruptly noticing a small shadow caged in the corner of the room. The cage, made similar to a basket, had a weaving pattern pleasing to my eyes. Patterns like the six-sided Star of David had been weaved into it, making windows so that the captive creature inside could peer out and see what happens outside of its wicker cage. The cage must have also had an enchantment on it, for the creature contained within could certainly have broken free if it were like any other wicker construct I’d seen.
The creature in the cage was like a small horse. Its head was larger than the head of most horses I’d ever seen before, and larger than most of the rest of its small body. A small horn protruded from the head, while wings sprouted from its sides. The pony had large eyes that seemed to pierce the soul. I pitied the pony; it looked pained, and tears flowed freely from her eyes.
I turned my attention back at my hosts. They had removed their hoods and had exposed their faces. Shattered dreams had the same facial features that the pony in the small cage had. The other brother was human in figure. My voice caught in my throat. Unable to speak; I pointed furiously back and forth between the small pony and the brothers.
Jotham stood up for the first time in this difficult encounter. He too resembled the pony in the cage. He was solid black from the tip of his horn to the bottom of his hooves. He had a mark on his flank that resembled a small six pointed star with a circle surrounding it. There were seven small circles inside the mark, each with a different color. They all appeared to be falling down into a swirling vortex. The wings were entirely different from the rest of his body. His wings alternated between the colors black and ivory.
He trotted over to the small cage, and a blue aura encompassed both his horn and the wicker prison. The cage vanished, like it had never existed in the first place. The small pony began to sit up on its hindquarters, and she stopped crying. I noticed that, unlike her older brother, her coat was ivory and that her wings alternated gold and silver. She looked over at me with sky-blue eyes that seemed to look through my physical form and into my spirit. I heard a voice that I instantly knew was her voice in my head.
“Your aura seems so similar to my oldest brother’s aura. Do you know if you have Immortal blood in your veins?”
“I haven’t a clue about what you speak about.” My reply was simple yet true. “Who are you?”
“My name is Ariel,” she said
Before she could “speak” anymore, the second brother, the one whose name was unknown to me, placed a hand on my shoulder. He motioned with a finger for me to follow him. Reluctantly, I followed him; thinking through the multiple different scenarios that could unfold.
My host led me down a long, cool passage. It was made of stone that was black and appeared to absorb the light from the lanterns on the walls. The lanterns before me were made of pure silver, shimmering bright as gold in the flames of the lamps. The lanterns began to flicker and threatened to extinguish their flames as a cool breeze blew down the hall. No heat seemed to emanate from these ghostly flames within. I peered into one of the flames and saw small creatures within, writhing back and forth, flames emitting from their bodies. I turned away, disgusted at the foul looking creature within and continued to venture down the hall.
The hall continued to a large courtyard. Stone statues of angels, more of the winged unicorns, and other various creatures lined pillars that supported a stone building on the eastern side of the yard. A small garden sat in the center. Weeping willows watered by a central fountain lined the western side of the courtyard’s walls. To the north was a tower that seemed to disappear in the clouds. I followed the man through the stone gateway that lead to the tower’s entrance.
The tower was made of white marble, its first floor chamber decorated the almost same as the parlor. Instead of the crystal chandelier that the parlor, it had a solid gold one with silver candles. The room smelled like cinnamon and some other unidentifiable spice, and made me thinks that I had been here once before because the smell was familiar. There was an oak door on the left side of the room. We opened the door and a cool breeze blew into the room, sending a chill down my spine.
As we climbed up the winding staircase, the temperature began to gradually rise. Uncovered braziers lined the hallway as we neared a solid oak door, coated with gold-leaf at the edges with silver runes having been placed in various configurations randomly on the door. The door was opened after a swift hand motion made by my host. We entered a room that seemed to be modeled after an observatory. There was a large brass telescope at the far eastern wall of the room. Multiple cauldrons lined the western wall of the enormous room; each one with a different molten fluid inside them. A small cabinet was also near the cauldrons. Shelf after shelf was filled with flasks filled with potions of various kinds; some flasks also had labels in the same mysterious runes that were on the door. The north wall had bookshelves aplenty. Books on magic were apparently stored everywhere on the various shelves. A few of the books actually had English titles. I recognized a book over some of the magic that I used when I was alive, Battle Magic: Volume 2- Ice Magics& Spectral Shields. I remembered the first time I had opened the book; I was enrolled in the Abram Magic Academy. I sighed; that life was lost to me, no need to be like a Specter or Shade, dwelling on the past is for ghosts.
Seeing that my host was waiting at a large Black Locust desk, I continued into the room’s center, He had three items on the polished surface of the wood; a silver goblet, a gold signet ring that matched mine perfectly, and an amulet. I found the amulet the most interesting object on the desk. The amulet had a golden outer casing with a gem separated into four different parts. The parts were separated by four separate chambers that then kept each individual part of the gem inside. A silver chain with small rubies placed upon each of the small interwoven silver loops added nice detail to the amulet’s chain. A small number of golden threads were woven into the silver chain, strengthening it further.
“I see that you are fond of the Amulet of Order,” replied my host, taking notice of my curiosity over the amulet. “That Amulet belonged to my Master, who left that in my possession when he left for Earth. He was a remarkable man; he trusted me more than most of his other servants, above even his own brother and sister.”
“What was he?” I asked the question quickly, noting a mysterious tone in the man’s voice.
“Well, my master was many things in his time as an Immortal; a Master, leader of the House of Din, a Mage without equal, and brother to Chaos and Destiny themselves. Most importantly, my master was Order itself.” The servant then let out a sigh of both relief and pain.
He then motioned to the cup. “That there is my master’s goblet that he would use for both divination and inspecting the events that happened in the three mortal planes. It is imbued with his power, the very water inside runs with his energies. The cup’s water has special properties. None move it; the enchantments on it keep any but the one who owns it from moving it. It has been on this exact same spot for over two hundred years. Feel free to try and pick it up; don’t feel bad if you can’t. You wouldn’t be the first.”
I ignored the man’s comment on the goblet, my full attention on the signet ring. I put my hand out to touch it; then drew my hand back as the servant was about to speak again; fearful that he might be rebuking me. Instead of a rebuke he told me that I could examine the ring.
The ring was an exact match to my own. There was a triangle in the center that was split into three more triangles. There were three words on the ring as well. All three were Hebrew words; Toqeph, Chokmaa, and Chazaq. They translated out to be Power, Wisdom, and Courage. The ring had all the same physical traits my ring had, like they were one and the same. As I inspected the ring further, I noted that engraved on the inside of the ring was the Hebrew name that I can proudly call my own, Yownathan; translated in English it is the name Jonathan. As I held the ring it began to pale, almost like ghost does after its source is found. Startled, I tried to set the ring back on the table. The ring disappeared right after I set it on the table; my own ring glowed lightly.
The servant looked at me saying nothing for a while. In the eerie silence, I could have heard a pen drop. I shifted back and forth on my feet as I waited for the old man before me to speak. He sat there, still looking at the ring on my finger; watching the glowing light emitted from its gold surface. I broke the silence.
“What does this mean?” I asked, motioning toward the ring.
“It means one of two things dear lad, you are either my master in the flesh or his heir.”The elderly servant laughed.
The man’s laughter died down, and then he started to walk over toward the cabinets on the western wall. He opened one with great care, the old doors creaking loudly. He came back with a small flask and a cordial. He sat back down at the large chair behind the desk and spoke again.
“This, my dear lad, is a test; a test to see if you’re my Immortal master. I do so hope you pass, but you are still my master nevertheless.”
He poured the contents of the cordial into the flask; he then added water from the goblet to the flask using a small pipette. He handed me the mixture.
“Drinking this will unlock your memories if you are my original master, though it does have a few side effects which are unique to each individual who consumes it.”
I eyed the contents of the now half-full beaker. I wanted to know more about this before I did something I would regret, but at the same time I wished to also know more about what this man was speaking about.
My mind went fuzzy for a moment. Without thinking I grabbed the contents of the flask. The liquid tasted like tea, tea with a hint of lemon and something else that I couldn’t identify. It tasted sweet yet it had a bitter aftertaste. I felt a strain on my mind, as if something were trying to take residence in my mind. Try as I might to fight it, I was unable to prevent the inevitable. It was as if something that had been locked away had suddenly been allowed to escape their bonds.
The forces that were at work in my mind were forming things in my head. A vortex of memories, thoughts, words, languages, and many other things were instantly unlocked and took their places in my mind. The room suddenly went from something foreign; to the study that I used so many times back when I was here, at my home. I was home. That was all I could think of. This room, my room of study, had remained almost untouched. I looked around the room admiring again the many things that I had left behind when I left to protect mankind. I saw my royal armor; in its cabinet on the southern wall, enchantments hiding it from the eyes of anyone but myself.
While I stood there, the man behind the desk had vanished. A lesser demon, most likely an imp, was in his place. Being able to see the truth in things again was marvelous. I could see servants of my own outside the tower, demons among them. But this old servant wasn’t one of mine. This demon was a servant of my oldest enemy and dearest friend, The Master.
Author's Note
I know that this first chapter has very little to do with Equestria. this is my first fanfic, not just here at FimFiction. Any for of criticism is welcome to it.
A unicorn stallion made his way to the barn. He had made this habit since he was a colt; to go to the barn after breakfast and go to the barn’s greenhouse. Behind him he levitated a large crate and a letter; the mail he had received later that morning. As he sets down the crate to open the barn door, the stallion hears a metallic clang issue forth from the crate. A smile creeps over his face as he hears the sound. The stallion unlocks the door and rushes into the barn and enters the barn’s greenhouse. Placing the crate next to his workbench, the stallion spoke to himself.
“Well Appleseed, this day just keeps getting more interesting by the minute.”
However, little did he know that on this particular day his life would be changed forever.
Life had its ups and downs for Appleseed. He was a unicorn, but he didn’t have any control over that though. He was born into one of the oldest Earth pony families in Equestria; the Apple family.He’s the older twin to Applejack, but just by a minute. Being the only unicorn in his household never seemed to cause be a problem. Moreover; Appleseed never had to deal with anypony putting him down or making fun of him for being who he was; everypony in both his family and the whole township was always kind to him. His world seemed perfect for a time; everypony he knew seemed to follow the simple rule that you are to treat others how you wish to be treated. Sadly; that changed after he went to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.
Thanks to Appleseed’s talent, the Apple family could afford to send him to the school. They thought that it would in turn be beneficial for him; letting him learn with other members of his kind. But the academy turned out to be the absolute worst place for him to have gone to.Granted he was very talented;he could grow a fully-grown apple tree from a seed in roughly one summer.
At the school, Appleseed found that most of his kind, at least the unicorns that he encountered there, were stuck-up; they only focused on themselves and their “wellbeing”. The young colt looked at life from a different perspective though. Those spoiled little colts and fillies that he had to call his peers had never really had to work a day of their lives. They complained about nearly everything just because they could. Thanks to his life on the Apple family farm, Appleseed knew the values of hard work.
To make matters worse for him, the other students found it fun to pick on ponies that weren’t from Canterlot. He found quickly that making friends with these spoiled rich brats was going to be challenging. Hard as it was though, Appleseed did manage to make one friend at the academy; Twilight Sparkle.
Their friendship came as a sudden surprise. At the beginning of the first semester, the pair would walk past one another, or more accurately, they didn’t know that the other existed. They both had every class together as well. Then, during second semester, when they were in a class directed by Celestia herself, the pair were teamed together and received the highest score in the class. Seeing the way the two worked together, Celestia allowed and encouraged teamwork in the school.
By the end of their schooling, the friendship had grown so close that many of the students admired the pair. But that didn’t last. On the final day, in which everypony had to show their special talent, Appleseed’s talent proved too dangerous for the group. The spell was only supposed to affect the target plant; a crystal sapling. The spell worked but actually affected all the plants in the city. The chaos unnerved the entire population of Canterlot, which refused to allow him to pass the exam for fear that he would join the Academy of Magic. But thanks to Twilight and Celestia, Appleseed graduated from the school. However, never saw Twilight for 5 long and grueling years.
Appleseed returned to Ponyville and reunited with the Apple family. He became the co-owner of the family business, partnered with his sister Applejack. Using his talents with plant-growth, Appleseed expanded the family farm’s variety of trees, allowing for harvests year round.
Appleseed sat on a bench in the barn’s greenhouse. There were various seeds from the many different apple trees from around the farm. Over the years, Appleseed found that this was his favorite place on the farm, mainly because it was where he created different hybrids of the many apple trees on the farm. He had tons of things to do later in the day. But, for the time being, he had a few letters to read, and a box to open. Most of the letters were junk mail, things like bills. But there was also a scroll in the mail today.
The scroll was extremely precious to him. It was from his old foalhoodfriend fromCelestia’s School for gifted Unicorns, Twilight Sparkle. Appleseed was overjoyed. This was the first letter he had received from Twilight in roughly five years. Her last letter she wrote was to explain that she was now studying as Celestia’s own student. Appleseed had sent her a letter back congratulating her and wishing her the best of luck; but received no letter back in those five years.
The scroll was also in the same material that Celestia and Luna used for scrolls, a parchment paper mad from a special plant grown only in the royal gardens. Beside the aroma that the parchment paper released, one could almost tell it just by looking at it that it was of great importance; scented letters were very rarely sent to anypony that wasn’t part of the royal family, a foreign dignitary or diplomat, or was a pony receiving a letter for a royal ceremony. This letter was one of those exceptions.
Appleseed opened the wax seal on the scroll and placed the seal in a small wooden box. Then he unrolled the scroll to read it. His eyes immediately noticed that Twilight’s penmanship had improved drastically over the years from the scribble he remembered. She now wrote in Blackletter script, its letters flowing across the paper in a river of gold and silver ink. The letter read;
Dear Appleseed,
Sorry that I have not written back to you in five years, I hope you will forgive me for that. I would like to tell you that I have had good luck with my studies on magic with Celestia. I have many more things to tell you, maybe through future letters. I would like you to know that I hope to speak to you face to face soon to make up for that. In hopes of continuing my studies, I will be moving to Ponyville soon. I hope to see you personally so that we can mend the rifts that have been caused by time.
I wish to arrive shortly after Thursday evening; hopefully this letter has been delivered before then. I will be taking residence in the library upon my arrival. Feel free to stop by if you ever have the chance.
Sincerely,
Twilight Sparkle.
P.s. Congratulations on becoming a guard in Ponyville, I hope your efforts will help make Ponyville safer during this increased time of hardship.
Appleseed finished reading the letter with a smile creeping onto his normally solemn face. His best friend was returning, he could finally see her again, and this time it’s at his hometown. He recalled the tour she gave him of Canterlot the back when they were at school, so he would return the favor. He thought about introducing Twilight to Applejack and the others first, but then thought better of it; she might get caught in a tsunami of apple family cuisine.
Appleseed turned his attention to the large wooden box in the left corner of the room. He was about to unlatch the crate when he shadow of another pony caught his eye. Looking up, Appleseed looked face to face with his twin sister; Applejack.
“Is everything alright sis?” Appleseed inquired, honestly hoping she wasn’t in a foul mood.
“Who’s the scroll from if ya don’t mind me asking?” Applejack asked, eyes glinting in the light of the morning sun.
“Hey, I asked you a question first! I expect an answer.”
“Well, if ya must know, Applebloom and I got in a fight this morning. I swear that that little filly is going to be the death of me! Did you know that the Crusaders were planning on taking a camping trip in the Everfree?”
“Yes, Applejack, I did in fact know about the group’s plans on taking a camping trip to the Everfree; I was intending on going with them.” Appleseed replied through a yawn.
A look of confusion that quickly turned to one of fury formed on Applejack’s face.
“What’s in the hay you’ve been chewin’? Haven’t ya heard about the increase in changeling attacks of late? What if you and the girls were attacked out there? What would you have done? You don’t know any combat spells, nor do ya have the physical strength to fight one off alone. What were you thinking?”
Appleseed sighed. Pulling open the latch he motioned for Applejack to walk over to the crate. Lifting the lid of the crate, Appleseed allowed his twin to peer into the box.
The box contained a set of royal guard armor designed for the unicorn guards. The gold of the armor glinted in the light of the room sending a cascade of golden light throughout the barn. Lying at the bottom of the crate was also a sword. Upon its hilt was an inscription along with a purple stone at the pommel. Aside from the inscription that adorned the hilt, there was also a vaguely familiar cutie mark. The mark was a purple star.
Appleseed sat in silence while his twin just stared. The minutes that passed by felt like an eternity of the pair. Clearing his throat, Appleseed spoke.
“I was going to tell you about this at supper tonight, but I guess you deserve to know. Three weeks ago the guard sent out letters to every town and city. They were recruiting stallions and mares alike to help in the protection of their hometown. I joined, as did most of the others who got the letter. We are to receive training next week from the captain of the guard himself. I hope you noticed that there are books in the house over combat magic. I had ordered them two weeks ago strait from Canterlot because I knew would need them if I was accepted into the guard. Between the work on the farm and my studies on combat magic I’ve been left with little time for rest at all. Stayed up til ‘bout three in the morning last night studying about magic that can only be used at night; Praise be to Luna for that full moon we had.”
Appleseed paused, seeing that Applejack sat on her hindquarters and was staring at the ground.
“Sis, I swear that I was going to tell you about this, I just didn’t know how to say it to you in a way that you would understand and accept. I hope you understand and will forgive me for the secrecy. We’re family and we should have no secrets this important kept from each other.”
Standing up, Appleseed walked over to his twin and lifted her muzzle to look her in the eyes. Applejack had tears welling at the sides of her eyes, which threatened to flow at any second.
“Sis, if you have tears that need to be shed, shed them.Holding the tears in it only make it harder; you’ll feel better and nopony will even know. Nopony but you and me, you got that? Just shedding a few tears won’t mean your weak Applejack. If that’s what you’re worried about then I’ll tell you here and now that that mentality is wrong; crying doesn’t show weakness; it is essentially emotion in a liquid state. It can be pain or it can be sorrow over the loss of someone dear to you. Most importantly; Tears can be that of joy; Joy over things that bring immense happiness that is unable to be expressed in any other way. Moreover holding back tears can lead to physical and emotional exhaustion. So Applejack, please don’t hold back your tears.”
Finished with what he had to say, Appleseed sat down beside his twin. Several minutes passed with no noticeable changes in Applejack’s state of sorrow. After about fifteen minutes Appleseed noticed a small puddle below the tip of Applejack’s muzzle.
She actually cried. Appleseed thought. This was not something that he had ever seen her do ever since their father and mother had passed away. He slowly placed his right foreleg around her back in an attempt to give her a hug. Almost immediately his sister leaned into his embrace. Leaning his head so that it was over hers, Appleseed remained with his sister for countless minutes after.
After what seemed like an eternity, Appleseed spoke to his sister.
“Sis, do you feel better now?”
The only reply he got was a nod of her head. While it lacked her voice, he was happy to receive any answer he got from Applejack.
“I have to prepare some things for tomorrow and I have to try the armor on. When you feel like coming out of the barn, I’ll try to help you with the Applebloom situation.” And with that said, Appleseed levitated the crate with the armor and left the room.
Author's Note
Ok, here it is. Secon chapter is done. I really could use an editor, but that is just a little hard during the school week.
Well hope you all enjoy reading it as mush as i did writing this second chapter. Chapter 3 hopefully be out some time in the next two week.
