Equestrian Souls: Fires of War

EQUESTRIAN SOULS
Chapter thirteen: Ponyville
Written by TheCrimsonDM

I found myself walking through the ancient castle of green marble. I was in my dream world again. The castle around me was looking in better shape than before. It was less destroyed, things were beginning to look whole now. I wondered if that was a sign of my mind repairing itself.

I stumbled upon a new room in the castle, one that I had found interesting. Inside I found a round flat table with numerous indents on top of it. There were five lights on the table, glowing little orbs floating just above the surface of the table. One of them was an amber color, while the other four surrounding it were gold.

I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I knew exactly what this was. It was a representation of me and my closest friends. I was the amber colored light, while my friends were all the gold ones around me. I could make out the tiny face of each one of the lights as I looked deeper into the them. This table was a representation of my friends and who was close to me, although I had a feeling that this table had more to it then what I already knew.

I looked behind me and saw Dream Weaver standing there looking at me, she looked a little worried. I gave her a reassuring smile and said, “well I told him how I feel…kinda.”

She gave me an odd look prompting me to explain further, “I didn’t say it with words, I told him with actions. We…well you know, had a wonderful night.”

She stayed quiet for a moment as she tried to understand what I just implied. Dream Weaver then made a disgusted face and said, “ew, why did you tell me about ‘that’?”

I looked away feeling a little ashamed as I explained, “well you told me what I needed to do to calm my fears…so I just thought you would want to know that I…fixed it.”

Dream Weaver gave me a smile and said, “well I’m glad that you told him about your feelings, but please don’t give me details in the future. It’s kinda gross.”

I gave a little laugh at the adolescent pony, I then walked over to her and gave her a hug while saying, “I also had a rough day yesterday. I did something bad and learned about something else I did in the past. Something I’m not proud of.”

Dream Weaver looked up at me and asked nervously, “what happened?”

I looked away and said, “I had to kill a defenseless pony…if I didn’t Twilight would’ve been put in danger and I couldn’t let that happen. I also learned that I was the one who killed Princess Luna…I killed a princess.” It was odd how numb I felt to the idea of killing a princess, in fact I felt numb about having murdered the soldier pony.

Dream Weaver looked sad. She gave me a hug now and said, “life has become hard for ponies, sometimes the hard choices must be made. At least I can give you some solace by telling you that Luna doesn’t hate you for what you did. In fact she thanks you for stopping her from adding even more pain to this world already smothered in it.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“The same way that I know you can help fix things here, Light your story won’t be the one you think it is. Nor are you going to be the pony you think you will be. Your story will become darker as you fight, but you need to continue through the horrors. Only you can end the tragedy that is already beginning, King Silver is the reason that things are not exactly as they seem,” Dream Weaver explained.

I didn’t know what she meant by that, and I was going to ask more but my dream world was enveloped by a bright white light before I got the chance.

***

I woke up feeling physically exhausted, Dream Weavers last words repeated in my head. I didn’t know what kind of horrors I was going to face, but if I faced them with my friends I would surely survive. A sudden movement from under my pillow caused me to open my eyes and study my surroundings.

It wasn’t my pillow that had shifted, for my pillow was behind me. My head was resting on the strong and warm feathery chest of Storm Feather. I could feel his arm wrapped around me holding me tightly. I snuggled closer into his chest and took in his scent. He smelled heavenly, even through the smell of our late night deeds wafting in the air.

The sun was shining through my window reminding me that Twilight had rose the sun for us. I couldn’t break away from Storm Feather’s embrace, it was simply too hard to pull away from such a wonderful griffon like him. I looked up into his sleeping face, he looked so peaceful lying next to me. I couldn’t remember a time that I had been this happy. Storm Feather was my knight in shining, heavy, noisy armor.

I looked around the room and noticed that his robes had been laid down on a chair in the corner, his armor was not in here. So that meant his armor was probably in his own room. I wasn’t ready for everypony to know that I had been with Storm Feather the last night, and really hopped they wouldn’t find out yet.

I gave up on trying to worry about anything and simply stayed next to Storm Feather. He could hold me all day if he wanted to. I had no objection to the idea.

***

A couple of hours later we had managed to eat breakfast, pick up supplies, and gather our equipment in the short amount of time. We were ready to leave to Ponyville. We met outside with the two groups of Pegasi soldiers wearing golden armor. They were attached to two chariots and were going to fly us to Ponyville, after that we may need to hoof it. There were two pegasi per carriage.

Storm Feather and I shared one chariot, while my other three friend got onto the other one. The pegasi began galloping and then took flight. They were taking us to Ponyville and despite the fact that it took us nearly all day to walk here from Ashwood, it only took an hour to arrive in Ponyville. Pegasi flight was truly the best way to travel.

When we landed everypony got out and we were met by the White unicorn and his hunters. The white unicorn Archmage greeted us, “welcome to Ponyville, or what’s left of it.” he gave my group a serious look from underneath his red hooded robes and added, “only Light is allowed to follow me from here. My hunters will stay behind to watch over you.”

Rainfall gave a snort and said, “what you think we’re going to sneak around town while Light is doing whatever?”

The Archmage looked at her and said, “Yes.”

My group became a little more quiet, but just before I left them Strom Feather whispered to me, “if you need us, we will be here for you.”

I gave him a reassuring smile and then left them behind as the Archmage led me into the town.

***

About ten minutes of walking later he said, “I’m too take you to your old home, and any other location in Ponyville you want to visit. That is any location except for Twilight’s old castle.”

I looked at him and felt worried as I asked, “why is that?”

He didn’t’ look at me but he gave me his answer saying, “there are secrets there that you are not…ready for. Twilight has informed me that you will be told eventually, but that you need to finish your current journey before you can be trusted with this secret.”

I felt anger rising up inside of me, I didn’t know why he was telling me this. But knowing that you can’t know something is infuriating. I also found myself angry that Twilight couldn’t trust me with this, hadn’t I proven myself? Maybe not, I mean I don’t actually remember who I used to be so how could I be trusted yet.

I let out a sigh of resentment and accepted this for now. I decided to change the conversation. “So,” I began asking, “do you have a name other then Archmage? Or did your parents really name you that?”

That earned me a glare from the Archmage as he explained annoyed, “Archmage is a title, one that I pride myself for having. But if you must know my name, it’s Lamont. I cannot believe that you do not remember me.”

Amnesia sucked. I replied, “well sorry for not knowing who you are, I don’t remember much of anything. If I did things would’ve been easier.”

Lamont didn’t look at me but he said, “it’s fine, sometimes we have to make sacrifices in order to protect others. I guess yours was your memory.”

We continued walking for a little while longer around the edge of town until we reached the old single story house just down the road from the school house. This house looked a little small but was in almost perfect condition. Lamont stopped and looked at me saying, “well this is your home…I won’t follow you inside.”

I began walking nervously toward the front door and stopped as soon as I heard Lamont say, “be careful Light…I can’t promise what you will find in there but it could be…tragic. The loss of Ponyville was a tragedy back in the day, and I know that you never once came back to visit here in all the years you had to do so.”

I didn’t like the way he said that, it sounded like something was waiting for me in here. Something that could hurt me, physically or emotionally, maybe even both. I didn’t’ know what I would find but I feared it would be terrible. No matter what it was though, I needed to find the sword. Something told me that it was very important.

***

I walked inside and found myself standing in a living room/kitchen area. The kitchen was only separated by a wither high wooden wall that had several pots with dead plants sitting on top of. The kitchen was small with a small dinner table and four chairs sitting next to it. Something hit my heart with a sudden force, a deep emotional pain as I realized that the ponies who should be sitting in those chairs were most likely dead.

I looked away from the kitchen it hurt too much to look at it any further. I moved into the living room and was happy to see how well my old house had held up after three hundred years. It was possible that there was a magical spell keeping this place standing.

The living area had two sofa’s facing each other with a coffee table in between them. There were several book shelves against the wall, every book looked very old but still readable. Twilight may enjoy getting her hooves on some of these. I examined the books looking for anything to catch my interest and was surprised at the kinds of books I found.

There were soft core romance novels at the top, this didn’t strike me as being odd. The middle section of the shelves had various books about psychology, further down I found self help books. Most of them talking about cheering yourself up, or about how to keep a healthy relationship with your spouse. There was a section of books detailing monsters, myths, and some spooky stories. There were even a dozen or so books about geology here as well. The bottom section however had been lined with foal books, I could recall the story of each and every single foal book.

I decided to leave the living room and begin to search the other rooms of the house. I found an old washing room but it was empty. There was a bathroom, and a large bathtub. The stone floors of the bathroom room were lovely to look at. I also found the old storage room but the boxes inside were not what I was looking for, I could tell.

I stumbled upon the office space next and was intrigued. The small office room had an old wooden desk and a book shelf, along with a few filing cabinets. There were some documents on the desk. On closer inspection a lot of them were grade papers of various children. Half of them had been graded fairly well, the others were either left without grades on them or graded poorly.

I noticed a small portrait on the wall behind the desk and picked it up with my telekinesis and took a look at it. I saw a small school house with a bunch of unicorn fillies standing in front of it. Just behind them stood the happiest looking blue unicorn with a blue and silver stripped mane I had ever seen. There were tears in her eyes as she smiled. The mare was my mother and she looked so very happy in the picture. The portrait had a metal label that read, “Opening of Ponyville’s first school of magic, Trixie Lulamoon will guide these children to a brighter more magical future.”

My mom had been a teacher, I completely forgot about that…but now I could remember parts of it. She had been so happy as a teacher, all she ever wanted to do was make children happy and with Twilight Sparkle’s help she was able to open this school and teach young unicorns how to use magic. I couldn’t remember going to her school but then again I was apparently Twilight’s pupil so maybe I never went to Mom’s school.

I sat the portrait down on the desk and decided to leave the office room in peace. I still had two more rooms to explore. I didn’t want to spend too much time studying the past.

The next room I walked into was very dark, there was a black curtain drawn over the windows and I had to pull it to the side and let the sun light in to see properly. The room had a single twin sized bed in the corner, and a night stand next to it. There was a small book shelf with a lot of plastic figurines of ponies on it, along with a line of comics on the bottom shelf. I could only guess whose room this belonged too.

This was my old room. It looked like I lived here for all of my life. I looked around and found some interesting things on the desk. There were official reports, maps of Equestria, and a calendar that was filled with appointments. It looked like I had been busy every single day, although I had been using some kind of code for what the appointments were about. So I had no idea what I had been doing during this time.

There was a picture on the desk that was face down. I picked it up and sat on my rump hard as I looked at it. I knew the name of every single pony in the picture, and I knew how they were connected to me.

I saw a whole mess of ponies standing in front of a barn all of whom were smiling and happy. I was a little filly not even old enough to have a cutie mark yet. I was sitting in between my mom and her special somepony…essentially my other mother. While my mom was a blue unicorn my other mother was a gray earth pony mare with a purple mane, her name was Maud Pie. I saw my aunt Pinkie Pie standing behind me, along with Applejack who was also part of my family. There were a whole lot of other earth ponies standing in the picture, mom, and me were the only unicorns but we were still accepted and loved like any other member of the family.

Trixie and Maud…they were my parents, I couldn’t grasp my mind on how my birth worked out because they were both mares. Artificial insemination, adoption, or magic, all of those were strong possibilities.

I could remember some flashes of memories of them, like when Maud attempted to sing me to sleep one night when Trixie was out on business. Maud was always a horrible singer, she could only hit one monotone note, but her attempt was full of so much love that I fell asleep anyways.

The time when I tripped and scratched my knee, Trixie was freaking out and crying because I had gotten hurt, and she didn’t know what to do. Maud was there to bandage me up, and give us both a kiss. One for me because I was hurt and another for Trixie because she was scared.

I also remembered how they would simply cuddle on the couch for hours on end talking to one another. And when Trixie would tell both me and Maud a story to go to sleep to at night. Sometimes I would stay awake just a little longer then Maud did and feel victorious for staying up later then her.

Memories of dinners where Auntie Pinkie Pie would come and join, she did that almost every night. She was over for dinner so often that we always had food prepared for her, and a chair waiting for her to join us. I cried when Auntie Pinkie pie wasn’t there for dinner. She always had the craziest stories to tell.

The flashes of memories were all too fast, too sharp, and too fresh, and all of them were laced with emotional pain. I couldn’t fight it anymore, my family, my parents were both dead. I was the only one left out of any of us. My small family of four, Trixie, Maud, and Pinkie Pie were all gone. It’s been three hundred years there was no way that they could have survived.

I just sat and held the picture close to my chest while crying softly to myself. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t stop myself from crying. I couldn’t do anything but sit there sobbing. I wanted things to be fixed so badly, I just wanted to see my family again. But they were all gone. It took a half hour of crying but I finally got up and managed to force myself to walk into the last room in the house. My parent’s room.

***

The room was quiet and lonely. The bed was half nice and tucked in with a pillow setting right in place. The other half was messy with the pillow lying on the side. I looked at the bed and realized that Maud had been killed by the first wave of demons. Heartbroken and alone, Trixie must have not touched Maud’s side of the bed. Leaving it as a memory to the pony she loved more than the world.

I couldn’t remember how hard it had hit her, but I was thankful for that. I didn’t want to remember my mom being in such an emotional mess. They had loved each other so much that I could only imagine the feeling of loss…or maybe I understood it better than I thought I did.

I saw a small portrait on the nightstand next to the bed. A teenage me was standing in between Trixie and Maud, Pinkie Pie was looking over into the corner of the picture trying her best to get her face in it too. She succeeded with her face But I couldn’t see anymore of Pinkie Pie’s body and she looked kinda silly.

I carefully lifted the picture up and set it gently into my saddle bags. Even if I didn’t find a magical sword here, I at least had a picture of my family. One that I would keep forever.

I looked around the room and couldn’t see anything else in here. I turned to leave and that’s when I noticed something wrong with the wooden floor. There was a square shaped piece of wood that was cut separate from the rest of the floor. I carefully used my magic to lift it up and discovered a staircase leading into a basement of some kind. I didn’t even know we had a basement. I took in a deep breath and carefully began walking down the staircase into the basement.

***

I walked into the small little room underneath the house and was disappointed by how empty this room was. The only thing of interest in this room was the door leading to another part of our basement. I walked over to it and opened it with my magic. The next room was dark, and huge. I walked into it cautiously, something about this room just felt wrong.

The further I walked into the room, the darker it got, only my horn’s glow giving me light to see by. I quickly realized that this room was far bigger then should be possible. I looked behind myself and to my horror discovered that the door I had entered from was gone. I looked up, if there was a ceiling to this room it was so high up that I couldn’t see. This basement defied physical understanding.

A great blue light appeared from my far right and brightened up this gargantuan room. There was no ceiling, no walls, only a hard flat floor and numerous pillars of stone standing around. I walked towards the light instinctively trying to get away from the darkness all around me. I had no idea where I was, but it obviously wasn’t Ponyville, and I feared that I wasn’t even in Equestria anymore.

The blue light turned out to be a floating ball of blue fire, hanging in the air and illuminating all it could with its cold light. But even this giant flame, bigger than myself, was not enough to fight back the darkness all around me. The pillars around this area were made of completely square stone.

The sound of hooves clip clopping against the stone floor put me on edge. There was somepony here with me. That was when I saw the figure out of the shadow. A blue pony wearing a deep purple hooded cloak was approaching me. Her hood obscured her face but I could make out two red glowing eyes staring back at me. The purple cloak had gold stars across its design.

The pony then spoke with an arrogant mare’s voice. “How dare you intrude on our home. We are the great and powerful Guardian, and you shall be punished for breaking into our house and threatening the sanctity of this place. Prepare yourself, as you are about to face the most powerful guardian in all of Equestria.”

This Guardian, was strange, I didn’t think it was a pony. I could sense powerful magic at work inside of it, the kind that ponies should never be able to wield. The Guardian took one step forward and demanded, “state your name or die.”

I took a few steps back fearing whatever this creature could do to me. I spoke carefully saying, “I am Altar Light. I came here in search of something.”

The Guardian paused and looked almost frozen for a few seconds. It then began walking again and said, “That name is not familiar, you are an intruder and must parish in order to keep our family safe.”

Did she just say family? Unfortunately I wasn’t given time to think as her horn begun to glow. The only indication that the Guardian was a unicorn that I got, along with my only warning of what was about to happen.

A blue energy moved around the Guardian like water before expanding towards me at a rapid pace. I ran and dove behind one of the pillars just in time to avoid being hit by the spell. It splashed against the pillar causing pieces of stone to come flying off of it. I poked my head around the corner to get a good view at my opponent and saw three blue orbs flying towards me at a freighting speed.

I stayed behind the cover of the pillar and just as the orbs hit the pillar I ducked out and summoned forth a fireball. I saw the Guardian standing in the same position and volleyed the fireball towards her. She didn’t dodge as I expected she would, instead I watched as she covered herself in a blue energy. The fireball exploded against her but she didn’t flinch, it would seem the blue energy was protecting her.

I mentally reached for my hammer and charged towards her. I pulled my hammer out with my telekinesis and gave a mighty battle cry as I swung down at her. She rolled out of the way just as my hammer swung down. And as I was recovering from the missed attack she fired a blue energy orb at me hitting my side.

I screamed in pain as the orb burned through my armor and hit my flesh. She fired another one and I rolled forward and swung my hammer low at her legs. She was knocked over onto her belly from my attack. I stood up and swung my hammer low towards her head.

She rolled to the side just in time for me to miss and hit the ground. The stone cracked beneath the weight of my hammer. She stood up and summoned a wave of blue energy that rushed towards me. I couldn’t dodge this one as it hit me and sent my entire body flying into the air and sailing about twenty feet away. I landed on the ground on hard, my entire body felt like it had just been sun burned.

I stood up wincing at the pain and watched as she shot another set of blue energy orbs at me. I ran to the side towards a pillar and the orbs changed direction to follow me. I slid on my side just in time to duck underneath the orbs as they flew over me and into the pillar in front of me.

I stood and looked toward the Guardian who was further away from me then I had wanted. She fired another three blue orb spells at me, and so I returned the favor. I prepared my double fireball spell and felt a surge of new power inside of me. I unleashed three fireballs at the same time towards her. The fireballs and the energy orbs collided in the air and exploded with great force.

I charged forward through the explosion with my hammer in toe. I was going to win this fight no matter what. I had to win. I stopped dead in my tracks as I saw the Guardian charging up another spell. This time the air around her had began to crackle with blue lightning and a fierce wind blew around us. Whatever she was doing it was going to be huge, so I turned and fled.

I was too late though as my entire world exploded into blue light and I went flying into the air. Tumbling end over end until I smacked hard into the earth. My right side screamed in pain as I bounced a few feet into the air and then landed again. I laid there as my world began to fade into blackness. I could see the Guardian watching me though, she stood completely still as if trying to read the situation. I closed my eyes and felt my world fall away from me.