Sympathy For The Devil
“Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.”
—Stephen King
~
The distant howls of Cerberus echoed through his eardrums. Bars forged and fortified from the strongest magic surrounded all sides of his tiny cage. He truly was the ultimate Hearth’s Warming Eve gift to the world—locked and sealed away forever.
Alone.
Lord Tirek looked down at himself. He was mere skin and bones now—a pitiful contrast to his prior power. Lacking even a tattered cloak to conceal his shame, he was unable to look away from his downfall.
Shivering, Lord Tirek closed his eyes and cast thoughts of weakness away. Vivid memories of his tremendous power ran rampant through his mind. How he had grabbed ponies by the tens and sucked them dry with one mighty gulp, their magic a vitalizing elixir... How the Captain of the Royal Guard hadn't had the faintest chance of resisting him... How three alicorns had lain powerless after he had finished with them.
Without a cloak, he took hold of those memories instead, wrapping them around himself.
There was no dagger beneath that ethereal cloak. Lord Tirek was weak, no matter how much he wished to believe he was strong.
Down here in Tartarus, there was no sun, no moon, no stars, no sky. There was no clock tower, pocket watch, or any other timekeeping device. The landscape was an endless void of black lit only by the single torch within his cell. The torch gave off enough light to allow his immortal eyes to see his withered form, but nothing else.
Scorpan—that pathetic, slimy excuse for a brother—had left him long before his rise to power. Now that he was defeated, Lord Tirek was certain that he wouldn't return. Lord Tirek clenched his jaws at the mere thought of the demon that he had once called family.
Discord—that traitorous, sniveling little snake—wouldn’t dare show his multi-faced hide around here either. Any use for him had been discarded by now. Discord, the spirit of Chaos itself, had given into the pithy promises of friendship.
No, in this darkness, there was no relief, no possibility of another.
There was just Lord Tirek in his prison, alone.
Alone. His eyes darted around the wasteland of his exile. I am all alone.
At first, those words seemed dangerous. Terrifying, even.
Only Lord Tirek would call these bars home. His prison was a special one, one that no other would ever suffer to experience. Never again would he see another face, another set of eyes. Never again would he hear words that came from anyone but himself, or hear any noise beyond the howls of Cerberus and his own mutterings.
And while Discord was able to weasel his way into reformation, Lord Tirek knew there was no such possibility for him. He would never escape. Those wretched alicorns would make sure of it.
Weak and withered, he could only wallow in his failure, in his amoral immorality, for decades and centuries and millennia and eons to come.
Good.
Redemption was for the weak, the spineless; Lord Tirek was neither. He had neither need nor desire for the bread crumbs of redemption.
He should have been afraid. He should have wept. He should have been outraged. He should have pounded on the bars of his cell, should have screamed to the empty blackness above and around him, should have rocked and rolled and thrashed until he collapsed from exhaustion.
Lord Tirek did none of that.
No, as he settled into his new home, Lord Tirek felt at peace.
Tranquil. Silent.
In the utmost concealed corner of Tartarus, Lord Tirek was all alone.
Ah, there was that word again. Alone.
Lord Tirek reached down on the formless ground and dug a trembling, wrinkled claw at it. A tendril of black smoke rose at his touch, rising from the floorless floor and dissipating into nothingness. Squinting through the billowing mist, he saw that the line he had created was now visible in the ghostly soil below.
There was one thing the ponies hadn’t taken from him.
Lord Tirek could write.
So he did.
With each stroke of his claws, another slithering column of black mist rose from the ground, lingered for a moment, then faded into the atmosphere. He noted that this soil had no texture to it, much like smoke. Unlike smoke, it was odorless. Thankfully, his tired, sunken eyes were not irritated by the act of writing.
Good.
Lord Tirek found himself almost smiling as he wrote the most beautiful words he had ever known:
LORD TIREK.
With a swipe of his palm, the ground swallowed up the words, leaving his canvas blank once again.
Lord Tirek’s slight smile widened. Those wretched equines had sought to seal him in eternal torment; they had forgotten the ground and his claws.
In a laughable irony, the Princess of Friendship—oh, that worthless word!—had been a friend to the great Lord Tirek by overlooking this.
His brilliant mind began to fill with infinite possibilities as his claws danced along the phantasmic canvas.
Without anyone to distract him, he would have no interruptions. Without a single creature to tremble before him, he would not need to waste his breath, nor his time—both of which were infinite, but finitely so.
Without the complications of another, for time and time eternal, Lord Tirek could not only write, but he could plan.
His fate now seemed as vast as the blanket of darkness around his cell. With only his words as a reflection, no one to distract him, and an infinite tablet lying at his hooves, escape not only seemed possible, but inevitable.
He was alone, and he could write, and that was all he needed.
Lord Tirek grinned.
~
Four equine heads held high. No. Placed on sticks. Displayed for all of the citizenry to see. Brandished proudly, like a banner of white, blue, pink, and purple before his royal palace. Their mouths would be agape, frozen in silent screams. Their eyes would be wide with fear, pleading for a mercy he would never consider. The citizens would see them and weep… Their tears would flood the streets...
And he would open his great, all-encompassing maw, and he would drink forth from their despair, as sweet and succulent as any other delicacy…
Lord Tirek licked his lips, his stomach growling.
His plan was slowly coming to fruition. As his claws danced across the ground, his escape drew closer to the forefront of his mind. If he could write, then he could dig. If he could dig, then he could tunnel. And if he could tunnel…
Pushing his claws deep into the mirage of soil, Lord Tirek tested his theory. He looked down to see his hands shadowed by the black mist. His fingers, wiggling and free, dared to push farther down.
His hands and fingers were on the same level as before. There was nowhere for them to go. Neither up nor down spoke of the possibility of escape.
In addition to that disheartening discovery was something else.
The mist cleared.
”NO ESCAPE,” the ground read, shining back up at him.
Lord Tirek squinted his tired eyes.
What?
He didn’t remember writing that.
Lord Tirek grimaced.
Brow furrowed, he swiped a palm across the ground.
Strange.
Lord Tirek started to write again.
~
Screams of the damned filling his ears. Cries of foals, mares, and stallions alike resounding to him, begging for his mercy. Salty tears running in rivers, mixing with the lakes of blood on the ground. Prayers to alicorns long devoured would be shouted at the top of desperate lungs. Their only answer would be the four heads—their eyes unblinking in abject terror, their jaws agape in frozen screams—staring down at their subjects…
He would be strong again, with nopony to stop him. Each and every pony would be drained of their last drops of magic until an empty Equestria of worthless flesh bowed down before him.
Then he would be alone again, but in a greater way.
To get there, he would just have to test the bars, test them with all his might…
Lord Tirek brought his claws up from the ground, not bothering to look at the words he had written. They were perfect, he knew, as was his plan.
If he could not tunnel out of his cage, perhaps the cage itself was the answer. Surely the bars would give again, as they had before. He had an eternity to find out.
Rubbing his fingers together, Lord Tirek took a deep breath, then placed his hands against the bars.
And squeezed.
And pushed.
He groaned in agony, feeling his last remaining muscle fibers tear with each strained effort. His small hindhooves clung to the ground, kicking up more blackened soil with each futile ministration. Sweat rolled down his face, his horns, his hair, until he could neither see nor breathe.
Panting, Lord Tirek paused for rest, then looked in the soil below, at what he had written:
”NO HOPE.”
His eyes widened.
Impossible!
He erased the letters below.
There must be a better way. There must be better words.
Coughing, Lord Tirek picked up his claws again.
~
Lord Tirek dug furiously at the ground.
Each letter that his claws formed kicked up a thousand chimneys’ worth of smoke. His eyes struggled to discern what was forming in the soil below. His hands began to burn with exertion. Yet, still he wrote, on and on again.
Whether this was his twentieth plan or his two-thousandth, Lord Tirek did not know. All he knew was that it was not enough. He had yet to find the key to his escape. The secret fluttered at the back of his mind, but he had yet to capture it and scratch it into being.
Lord Tirek didn’t even see what he was writing now. The air was too thick with the mist he had churned, with the darkness he had awakened through his slashed words. Still he continued to write, writing faster, faster, a mysterious urgency flowing through him.
This was the key to breaking out of his cell. This was the answer he had been seeking all along. If he could only calm down enough to read this, then everything else would fall into place.
Sweat formed on his brow. His muscles burned, his hands trembling. Lord Tirek panted, his tongue flopping out of his mouth as he fought to retain consciousness.
It was becoming too much. All his claws had become involved, digging desperately in response to the constant flow of darkness. He wasn’t even sure if he was forming letters now. Perhaps he was drawing pictures or symbols instead.
Nevertheless, Lord Tirek continued to write, compelled by some deep need within him to find the answer. The answer that would allow him to become strong again, free again, worshiped again.
Finally, as his claws started to bleed and redden the blackened ground, Lord Tirek felt his erratic scribbling slow.
Chest heaving, he let his masterful mind carve the last remnants of his plan into the soil. His thundering heart began to steady as the final letters were formed. His sore claws rose from the ground and came to rest in his lap.
Lord Tirek waited for the smoke to clear. How long had he been writing?
This last bout of frustration and desperation seemed beyond consolation. If there had been someone to stop him, he would have pushed them away. This was his creation. His alone. No other eyes were worthy of seeing this, his masterpiece…
Lord Tirek let loose his first sound during his imprisonment:
He gasped.
SCORPAN SCORPAN SCORPAN LORD TIREK LORD TIREK ABOVELAND BROTHER BROTHER BROTHER DISCORD DISCORD DISCORD LORD TIREK LORD TIREK LORD TIREK BROTHER SCORPAN BROTHER SCORPAN BROTHER BROTHER ABOVELAND…
The haphazard strokes continued through the entire floor of his cell, the words merging atop one another. None of them had anything to do with his plan at all! And why would he write the names of the two traitors?
Frustrated by his waste of energy, Lord Tirek rubbed his palm over the letters. They disappeared, falling away into the ghostly ground.
He did not need them.
Lord Tirek was alone.
It was best that way.
Letting loose a second sound—a low growl—Lord Tirek picked up his claws to write once more.
~
Lord Tirek’s hands were bleeding.
His claws had been completely filed down by his incessant writing. His fingers would soon become stubs once they, too, were utilized as the relentless instruments of his escape.
The plan still wasn’t good enough.
It was never good enough.
Lord Tirek was good at making noises now. Groans and growls emitted from his throat. Steam flowed from his nostrils, mixing with the constant torrent of black smoke billowing from the torn ground below.
No matter how much he wrote, the words were never enough. No matter how much he wrote, the words were always erasable.
They were never good, and they were never permanent.
If Scorpan were here, he would have been hysterical beyond belief. Tears would have leaked from his mischievous eyes as he looked upon his sibling scratching his claws to the quick, scraping his sore palms across the texture-less ground as he made another desperate attempt to—
Lord Tirek sat up straight, his claws dripping blood as he yanked them from the mess of a canvas.
With blank, hollow eyes, he looked down at what he had made:
FIFTYTWOANDTHIRTYWEEKS, NINEHUNDREDANDSEVENDAYS, SEVENANDFORTYEIGHTYEARS, SCORPAN ABOVELAND BROTHER MOTHER DISCORD ABOVELAND EQUESTRIA MIGHT AND MAGIC PONIES SCORPAN DISCORD NECKLACE POWER POWER POWER LORD TIREK LORD TIREK TIREK REDEEM TARTARUS REDEEM CEREBRUS GROWL AND PONYLAND HOWL FATHER SCORPAN DISCORD BROTHER FRIEND TIREK ALONE LORD TIREK IS ALONE…
Lord Tirek brought his palms down to the floor and swept again, erasing the traitorous words. Once they disappeared, he brought his bleeding claws up to his face. He watched in hypnotized silence as little rivers of red flowed down his palms and dripped on the ground.
The words that had formed from his claws were a fluke, a mistake, a mockery. Rage began to rise in his boiling blood.
Lord Tirek did not need anyone. Lord Tirek had no need for family, friendship, companionship, or love.
He just needed his plan.
Ignoring the agony in his hands, Lord Tirek began to write again.
~
Lord Tirek pounded the floor, the noise echoing throughout Tartarus.
Everything was wrong! Nothing was right! Everything was wrong and nothing was right!
The words all came out gibberish! Garbled fragments of what should have been! The plan was there! The plan was there! In his mind! But! He could not find them! The words! He could not find the words!
Lord Tirek threw his head back and screamed, bringing his hands to his face. His stubby fingers—their tips long ground down by the relentless, unceasing, unending writing—drew his eyelids down. His soulless pupils took hold of the terror on the ground.
Even as the smoke rose and filled his cell to the brim with its cloaking mist, even as his hindhooves stomped to erase what he had written, he knew, oh, Tartarus, he knew what he had written there, knew that the plan would never be created, knew that he was under a curse, knew that the alicorns had surely cursed him, cursed him to feel, to feel this, for what reason would he have written these words if they had not come from somewhere deep down within him?
Locked in his prison, Lord Tirek had everything he needed.
But his words spoke otherwise. Written in his blood were the names of the traitors, and the dead, and his enemies.
He had no need for these things. He had put these things behind him a long, long time ago.
Yet, there they were. There they were and there they would always be, no matter how much he erased them, no matter how much he tried to forget them, they would be there, they would be there and he would always know…
Lord Tirek pulled at his thinning hair, his wispy beard, his hollow eyes. While he pulled, he stomped at the formless floor, his hindhooves kicking up more of the smoke-not-smoke, determined to erase those words, those memories.
Friends! Family!
Lord Tirek was alone.
Mother! Father! Brother!
Lord Tirek was alone.
Scorpan! Discord! Scorpan!
Lord Tirek was alone, and he could write.
And that was enough, more than enough.
It was all he ever wanted, ever needed. It was his greatest dream to be free of everyone else. He had disposed of Discord as soon as he had outgrown his usefulness; he had rid himself of Scorpan when it became clear that he was weak; his own mother and father had stood in his way, but he had gotten rid of them, too.
He had no need for friendship, or family, or love.
He only needed power.
He only needed his plan.
Alone.
Lord Tirek was alone.
And that was the way it should be.
Lord Tirek continued to kick and stomp at the ground while he screamed, his stubby fingers bleeding as they pulled and tugged at his face and horns. Determined to rid himself of the words, of the lies, of the outright sabotage and curse, he would stop until the words flowed freely again, until the plan was laid, until everything was right again.
Lord Tirek screamed and screamed, his howls mixing with those of lone Cerberus, in an attempt to clear his mind of these false desires…
Eventually, Lord Tirek's howls came to an end as he collapsed upon the black, ethereal floor, alone as his first day in Tartarus drew to a close.
Author's Note
"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."
—Henry David Thoreau
