What Was, What Will Be

by Lights Fury

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Spike, Other, Trixie, Adventure, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 5830

In a land long forgotten, there lies a kingdom in ruins. At it's heart lies a demon, in her own private hell. And beyond it's walls, in a swamp where dark things grow, a stallion begins a quest to save his soul.

In a land long forgotten, there lies a kingdom in ruins. At it's heart lies a demon, in her own private hell. And beyond it's walls, in a swamp where dark things grow, a stallion begins a quest to save his soul.
Now, venturing to land abandoned by the gods, he seeks a way to save himself and his people from a curse older than he can remember. But in the darkness, things wait for him, their own plans clicking into place.

Published 2014-07-11 07:00:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-07-17 18:07:02 UTC

Identity Crisis

Dust knew he was out of his league the instant he entered the swamp. He had told himself the likelihood of faltering at this step of the journey, despite being the first and easiest of the many that lay ahead, but saying such things even a thousand times is nowhere near being the same as actually faltering.

As his hoof crossed the shaded border between the dark swamp and the sunny, golden fields behind him, he could feel the resolve in his heart disappear into nothingness. The ground beneath his hoof squelched as he took another step forwards, this time draining him even further of his bravery. The darkness ahead seemed to repulse him, telling his insides to flee, as if it were he maw of some great beast which he stood at the edge of. With the warmth of the sun at his back, and the ice cold depths of the swamp looming beyond, every instinct told Dust to step back and never return. For a moment, he almost did just that. But a voice inside him reminded him why he was here, and a small portion of his previous resolve returned.

Trying not to shake, the grey pony entered the darkness. In a few moments, his hooves were covered in mud, and he had to be careful not to kick some up onto his cloak. With the light behind him, it soon became so dark that Dust could barely see and inch in front of him. A unicorn might have lit here horn then and there, but Dust hadn’t been born with such endowments. Nor had the creator given him wings, which would have made transportation in the moonlit sky a viable option. Instead, Dust reached into his satchel, and pulled out a small lamp and lit it. It’s orange light reached through the shadows, painting the gnarled trees around him with the color of flames and dancing shadows.

As Dust stared at them, he realized just how old they were. Their trunks were almost crocodilian in their appearance, with rough, hard bark and long, winding roots which seemed to form a web of hard wood. Their branches disappeared into the darkness above, but Dust could only imagine that they were just as long. He shuddered as he thought about what might live in their branches, and moved on.

As he continued on his path through the thickening trees, he began to notice some plant life on the ground. Small, blue flowers poked through the spaces between the roots of the trees, a strange beauty in the otherwise ugly setting. Dust’s eyes widened, however, as he recognized the pants as poison joke, a toxic plant he had run into once before. Dust steered clear of the patches of plants, his eyes flitting from one place to another as he went on.

Suddenly, his hoof sunk deep below the mud, pulling his body with it. Dust sank up to his shoulders in the pool of quicksand, his torch extinguishing as it hit the moist ground, plunging him into the darkness. Gasping for breath, Dust struggled to climb out, only to find that he sank further into the mud the more he struggled. Soon he was only neck high in the mud, gasping for breath as the pressure closed in on his chest.

Dust stopped struggling, and lay in the quicksand. Desperately, he called out for help, though he knew no one would hear him. He tried again, his words echoing through the dark. He waited, hoping that maybe someone would reply.

He was about to try calling out again when he heard something in the distance. He realized in astonishment it was the sound of footsteps, and called out again as loudly as he could for help. He heard the footsteps stop, and called out yet again.

“I’m over here!” he shouted, and waited for the sound of footsteps to return.

Instead, all Dust heard was silence. He tried again, and when he still heard silence, a new kind of dread filled him. It was if something was just standing there, listening to him, sizing him up. Too late, Dust realized what he called might not have been rescue, but something else entirely.

When the sound of footsteps returned, it was in the thundering form of something rushing towards him at immense speeds. Dust’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening, and in vain he began to struggle once more. The pounding of feet on the mud floor grew louder and louder, until it echoed in Dust’s head like his own heartbeat. Within moments, he could feel hot breath against his face, the pounding of feet replaced by the snapping of jaws. Gritting his teeth, Dust closed his eyes in the darkness, preparing for something darker still.

Suddenly there was shout, and the snapping of whatever beast stood before him stopped, replaced by whimpering and soft growls. Dust opened his eyes, and saw in the light of a torch what it was which was that was so close, and who had stopped it from eating him alive.

The creature in front of him was impossible large. In fact, when Dust first saw it, he thought it might just be another tree. But as he moved his eyes upwards, he saw signs that it was something else entirely. Its skin, while made of bark, bristled in some places like fur. The legs that supported the massive creature were made of twisting tree trunks, and yet moved as if made of flesh. And it’s head, which at first glance might have been mistaken for a misshapen old stump, now resembled the terrifying visage of a wolf, sporting green eyes and sharp, wooden teeth.

Dust stared, awestruck, until the creature felt his eyes on it and turned, snapping it’s jaws at him once more. There was another shout, and the beast resumed it’s whimpering, huddled stance. Dust turned his head as best he could in the mud, and looked at the figure who approached.

The pony before him was shrouded in a skin cloak, bound by tree fiber ropes. Most of her body was covered by it, save for her head, giving Dust a good impression of her overall appearance. Her fur was a startling white, like milk, as was her mane, which was cut short. Her eyes were a similar, milky color, save for the pupils, which contrasted with the rest of the body like dark holes in her face. Around her neck, the mare wore a small charm of some sort, a bone fang with acorns and feathers tied with it in a large, ugly clump. Dust could not see her hooves, as they were covered in mud, but he imagined that they were just as white.

The mare barked another word at the plant-wolf hybrid, sending it scurrying into the depths of the swamp. Turning to Dust, she produced a small rope, and tossed it to the edge of the pool, holding one end in her mouth.

“Can you grab on?” She asked between her teeth. Dust nodded, and with some effort was able to grip the end of the rope firmly in his mouth.

With a loud grunt, the white mare pulled back, her hooves sinking into the mud as she did so. Dust began to feel himself slide upwards, out of the mud, and he moved his legs to lend some effort to his escape.

After about a minute, Dust was out. Pulling his mud encrusted form onto the solid floor, he lay sprawled out, panting for air. The mare walked over to him, and helped him up.

“Who… who are you?” Dust asked between each wheezing breath.

The Mare didn’t answer. Rather, she turned away, beginning to walk into the darkness from which she had emerged. Stumbling after her, Dust tried to call out, but his words came out in an exhausted mess of sounds, with lungs too weak to form the proper words.

“hEY… wot a sc…” he gasped. The mare continued on, not giving him any sign that she had even heard him.

“Wac- gak – whur r yu…”

Dust stopped, realizing he would be wasting valuable energy trying to talk, and decided to follow his rescuer in silence.

For what seemed like forever, Dust followed the white mare, gasping and panting all the way. Many times he tripped over sharp branches and twigs, cutting and bruising himself, his vision too blurred from a lack of oxygen to see clearly. How he never managed to walk through a patch of poison joke was beyond him. In his mind, Dust had almost completely forgotten about why he had entered the swamp in the first place. All he could think about was the white blur in front of him, and the safety it would surely lead him too.

Eventually, a light appeared in the distance. Dust collapsed, too exhausted to continued, chunks of dry mud sliding off his sweat drenched fur. The mare turned now to look at him, and picked him up. Carrying him over to the light, she placed him down and reached into her cloak.

Dust felt something being pressed against his lips, and drank as a cool liquid entered his mouth. It was sweet and cold, and as he gulped it down between gasping breaths and coughs, his vision began to clear.

When he had stopped gasping, the mare tucked away the small, glass bottle clutched in her hoof. She stooped down to meet Dust, and spoke for the first in hours.

“I’m sorry I had to do that to you,” she said. Her voice was soft, and seemed to chime like bells in the night air. “But I had to make sure you were truly determined in your goals.”

Shaking, Dust got to his feet, and looked the mare in her eyes. He was fuming now, his exhaustion fueling anger at the mare.

“What… in Hades… are you… talking about?!” he said. “What goal? I’m just trying to survive right… oh god, my sides … now!’

“There’s only one reason anyone comes to this place anymore,” the mare said, a look of sincere regret flooding her eyes. Dust saw the look, and the flames in his heart dimmed a bit.

“And what, might I ask… would that be?”

The mare raised her eyebrows, clearly confused. She pointed to a behind her fire, and spoke.

“To see the seers, of course. Isn’t that all there is here anymore?”

Suddenly Dust’s reason for entering the swamp in the first place returned to him. His eyes widened, and he looked to the fire, where four old figures sat hunched over.

Dust turned to the mare, and asked the first thing that entered his mind.

“They’re… they’re the…”

“The seers?” the mare asked. “Yes, they are. They like to be called the Grand Priestesses of Ever free, though, or at least that’s what they want me to call them. I don’t like to disappoint so... never mind. You can go talk to them, if you want. They love new company. Just don’t mention the way they speak, and you should be fine.”

Dust hesitated for a moment, turning his gaze back and forth between the mare and the seers, before taking a deep breath and stepping towards the fire.

The four old seers sat around the fire, mumbling strange things to each other. Though he couldn’t make it out over the crackling of the fire, Dust swore it almost sounded like they were singing. As he grew closer, he could see they were all mares, like the one behind him. Unlike her, thought, they all bore dark, black stripes across their white coats, and were completely unadorned.

One of the mares turned to him, and beckoned him over with a hoof.

“Come, young one,” she said, “and share the fire. You need not fear us, nor our ire.”

“Dust halted for a second, startled by the mares’ choice of words. Had she just rhymed to him? He stared at the four seers awkwardly, before making his war to the fire and sitting between them.

“Good, good!” said the seer from before. “You’re not frightened by our speech. So few can listen, so few can we teach!”

“Quiet, Zoka,” said a squat, older seer at the other edge of the fire. Unlike the Zoka, who was young and lean, this seer was fat, and grey eyed from age.

Zoka rolled her eyes, and laughed.

“I do what I want,” she said, “and I always mean well. This child has a question, our duty is to tell. So tell, dear Zabza, what will he do, if none can speak, and the blame is on you?”

Zabza huffed, and leaned back in her place. Turning to Dust, she spoke again, this time to him.

“Tell me, child,” she asked, raising an eyebrow, “who might you be? We do not speak to strangers, especially not me.”

“Yes,” said a third seer, whose eyes were an emerald green. “Who are you? What is your name, what do you do?”

“What do you like,” said the fourth seer, whose hooves were a strange purple, “and what do you hate? Who was your father, who is your mate?”

All four seers spoke now simultaneously, their voices echoing through the trees in a haunting chorus.

“What is your worth, you who will die? You can’t cast spells, nor ca you fly? So what do you seek, and what will you do? But first of all who are you?”

Dust took a step back, trying to think. They wanted to know who he was, so why couldn’t he tell them? He tried to think of something, anything, to tell them, anything to tell himself who he was, but nothing came to mind. It was as if his identity had its core torn out.

Frantically, he stripped off his cloak, and glanced to his flank, hoping his cutie mark would help him. What he saw there frightened him beyond words. Where his cutie mark should have been, there was only a dark smudge, a twisting ink blot which shifted on his fur like blood in water. The fire seemed to roar as he did this, and in its depths he thought he saw the bones of someone else, another seer long since dead. Crying out in despair, Dust shouted the only thing he could.

“My name is DUST!” he shouted. “That’s my name! That’s who I am! I… I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ELSE!”

There was a moment of silence. The four seers looked gravely at Dust, their eyes focused on his flank, where the dark, twisting shadow clung to him like a parasite. Then, from the silence, Zabza began to chuckle, her voice growing louder until she was cackling into the night.

“Quite rich, quite rich!” she said, ignoring Zoka’s hateful stare. “We knew what you would say! No pony bares a mark anymore, not long since the Last Day!”

“What… what does that mean?” dust asked, his voice shaking with fear. Zoka turned to him, placing a warm hoof on his shoulder to comfort him.

“The curse,” she said. “You bare it like the rest. All ponies know this mark, they wear it like a vest. It strips them of their gift, their art, their flame. It drains them of their life, all but their name”

“That is why you’re here, no?” asked the green eyed seer. “To find a cure? A way to cleanse yourself, to make your soul pure.”

Dust felt something inside him light up when she said that, and he knew she was right. He nodded, stepped forward again into the light.

“Many have tried,” said the seer with the purple hooves, “to do what you desire. None have succeeded, consumed by her fire.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dust. “Is there actually a cure? Can I really fix this?”

“Yes,” said Zoka. “It can be done. In a kingdom long fallen, the curse can be undone. Where the sun once rose, and the moon once fell, a queen rules the damned, in her own private hell.”

“She did all this,” said Zabza, now grim. “Though not on her own. She has the cure, deep in her bones. Take it for yourself, then you’ll be free. Your race restored, your soul put to ease

Dust took another step into the light, ignoring the blackened bones at the center of the fire, and stared deep into Zoka’s eyes.

“Where – where is this kingdom?” he asked. “The one you say this queen lives in?”

Zoka took a deep breath, and pointed to the white mare, who sat by a small hut which Dust had not noticed before.

“She’ll show you the way,” Zoka said, “And send you there. That’s all I can say, lest…”

But before she could finish, Dust was already gone, walking over to the mare by the hut. Zoka sighed, and turned to her sisters.

“What would mother think,” she asked, “if she knew what we did?”

“She’d kiss us for our effort,” said Zabza replied, “and laugh at her kids.”

“Well, she’s dead now,” said the green eyed seer “Dead and gone.”

“Her body is ashes,” said the purple hooved mare, “but her light still shines on.”

With that, the seers focused back on the fire, mumbling away their chants, older than the trees that surrounded them, and sang songs their mother taught them long ago. And their eyes grew blank, and their minds began to wander, as they stared into the fire, and the black bones that lay there.

Metaphorically Speaking

Stepping away from the fire, where the four seers now sat singing again, Dust hurried over to the white mare. She was sitting by the hut, where Dust could only assume she and the seers lived, staring into the darkness and humming a little song.

The white mare stopped humming as she saw Dust approach, and got up to meet him.
“W- Well?” she asked timidly. “How did it go?”

“It was… strange, to say the least,” Dust replied, shrugging. “I got what I needed though, and that’s all that matters.”

“Oh… yes, they can be strange at times.” The white mare said. “But you get used to it after a while.”

Dust stared at the pony in front of him, and wondered what she would be doing with a group as strange as the seers.

“Um, I uh… I never asked what your name was,” he said, trying not to look into the mares’ blank, milky eyes, which seemed to stare right through him.

The mare shuffled a bit on her feet, feeling just as awkward as he did.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she muttered. “It’s… Flicker Flame…. Sorry if that sounds strange. It’s an old pony tradition to name us after our potential. Funny, I never really figured out what mine’s supposed to be.”

Dust was about to comment on what that was supposed to mean, but remembered why he was talking to Flicker in the first place.

“Zoka said you could show me the way to ‘the old kingdom,’ or something like that,” He said. “Do you know the way?”

The shy and small look on Flickers face vanished as he said that, a brief look of sadness flashing across her features before disappearing into the appearance of blank nothingness. She reached to a satchel on the side of her cloak, and pulled out a small leather scroll.

“I can’t show you the way myself,” she said, the words coming from her mouth like practiced lines, performed many times over. “But this will lead you to where you want to go. It’s a map of this swamp, and the kingdom on the other side. “

Flicker handed the scroll to Dust, who unrolled it in his hoofs. He was astounded to see that the map, which looked as if it had been forged by the finest of cartographers, showed a detailed diagram of the entire swamp, with various routes and pathways carefully drawn to show ways in, out, and around it. Furthermore, just as well drawn, was map of the vast expanse of land that lay beyond the swamp itself. Large cities were dotted and labelled, and huge plains and forests were marked between them, with roads listed in small writing on the parchment. Dust looked up at Flicker, holding out the map to her.

“I can’t take this,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll even come back from this journey, let alone have the chance to return this to you. This map is far too well-made to be wasted on somepony like me.”

“Oh, no no no,” said Flicker, smiling in reassurance. “We have many maps like it. My family has been serving here for a long time, more than enough to make more than one map like this. Please, I insist, take it and go on your way. I’d feel absolutely terrible if I didn’t help even a little bit.”

The way Flicker said that was so sincere that Dust couldn’t help but roll up the map and place it by his side. Smiling, he bowed to her, thanking her for her gift.

“I’ll be sure to return this too you if I make it,” he said. Flicker smiled, and nodded.

Bidding the white mare goodbye, Dust turned, and ventured back into the shadows of the forest. When he had disappeared into the dark, the light of his torch lost in the shadows of the trees, she returned to her seat, humming as she did so, staring into the darkness as dreams filled her head.

Dust wandered through the swamp, staring at the map he had been given while he did so. There was a road leading from the hut to the edge of the swamp, straight to where he needed to go. Staring at the ground, he realized that it was far less muddy than before. Kicking some of the dirt away, he was surprised to see cobblestones beneath his feet.

Dust realized in that moment that what he had thought was always a swamp may have once been a settlement of some sort, perhaps even a well-known town. He could only imagine how long ago it had been abandoned, as it seemed the cobblestones that made up the pathway he stood on were the only signs of it left. He shuddered to think of what became of its inhabitants, and would it may have been that made them abandon the place.

Dust continued to think on this as he made his way down the road, kicking up dirt at some points to make sure he was on the right path. If this place, which had once been a place populated by his kind, had been so consumed by the land, what would this “old kingdom” look like, if even its name had been consumed by time? Would it even still be there, or would it only be rubble, less than the cobbles he stood on now? And who, or what, would live there? Dust could only imagine what he might find, if anything at all.

Slowly, the trees that made up the swamp began to thin, and as the canopy above thinned with it, the first light of the morning broke through onto Dust’s face. He realized that an entire night must have passed since he entered the swamp, and picked up his pace as to not lose himself again. As the trees grew less and less closely together, the mud under his feet began to grow dry, until he was trotting along hard, dust earth.

Finally, he reached the edge of the swamp. As his body passed through the shadows and into the blinding light of day, forcing him to cover his eyes, he felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, like the darkness that consumed him moments before had spit him out into the light. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Dust took his hoof away from them, and immediately gasped as he saw what lay before him.

Green, sunny fields stretched before him, bathed in the orange light of the morning sun. Rolling hills and tall, knee high grass covered the land, sprinkled patches of flowers. The sun hung in the horizon like a halo of lights, magnificent and shinning with a brilliance Dust hadn’t seen anywhere else in his travels, as if something here had amplified its beauty a thousand times. And below its glowing form, at the edge of the massive fields, a huge city stood, basking in the sun’s light.

Dust stepped forwards, mouth hanging wide open. He had never seen a city before, his life being one of scattered villages and nomadic camps, and to stare on something so different, so monolithic in size and stature was almost too much for him to take in.

The walls of the city were massive, stretching thirty meters in height above the ground. Peaking over their tops, even larger spires of glistening marble reached up into the sky, glittering white in the sun. Their tops were gilded with precious metals, though worn and cracked, and set with rare gemstones of all kinds, gleaming in a rainbow of sparkling lights. The huge, purple dome of what he could only imagine was temple of some sort could be just barely seen between the spires, a gleaming golden image of the sun perched at its base. The walls and roofs of the buildings, however, were cracked and full of holes in some areas, as if blasted by the force of thousands of projectile objects. Some of the towers had even collapsed in certain portions, stoned hanging loose from their sides. Dust wondered what might have happened to damage such magnificent city.

The greatest sight, however, hung high above the city. Clinging to the side a small mountain that stood at its northern end, there hung a marble castle of immense size, its roofs gleaming even more brightly than those below. Its walls were ridden with cracks and blast marks, as if it had been besieged by some army, but unlike the city below, nothing had ever collapsed entirely. Still, there was a ghostly feeling about the place, like it was staring at everything below it with cold contempt.

Dust ventured towards the city, realizing the seers had been right when they called this place and old kingdom. Though he thought it would be just as ruinous as the swamp consumed town before, this place was certainly meant to last. As he came to the city gates, he stared at the huge craters and gashes in its surface, some large enough for him to stick his hoof in. He knew there would be no way getting in through them, and walked along the side of the wall, looking for a way in.

About a minute in, he found an area where the wall had collapsed. Iron balls as large as his own body rested in the stone rubble, and as he carefully stepped along the broken marble blocks, he couldn't help but wonder what could have thrown them so far.

Dust could feel the towers above him as he stepped into their shadows. He noticed now the many houses and mansions nestled between them, the many shops and studios there were tucked into each other. The cobbles under his feet were smooth, save for the occasional crater, at the center of which and iron ball always sat.

Dust wandered a bit, not really knowing where he was supposed to go. All the while, he could never shake the odd feeling that hung over him. In the swamp, he had felt as if a thousand eyes were watching him, monitoring his every move, but here it was the opposite. He was disturbed by the complete lack of life that he felt in this place, and the desolation that seemed to sit around every corner.

He was shocked when he thought he heard something echo down through the streets at him. It was a low, dull humming of sorts, like some one singing to themselves. Every few seconds or so, it was accompanied by the clicking of something hard hitting the pavement. Dust slowly creeped along the street, following the chose around the winding corners of the ruined city, all the while being sure not to make any noise himself.

Turning around one last corner, dust saw who was making the noise. A dull, brown stallion, about his own size, sat on the top of a large, worn down stairway leading to the upper levels of the city. A large, crooked horn protruded from his head, marking him as a unicorn. He was humming some song, though it never seemed to have any rhythm or pattern, and sounded more like agonized groaning. Every once and a while, he would pick up a broken, marble brick and throw it down the stairs, watching it bounce down the stairs, cracking into more pieces as he went.

The pony smiled, and suddenly turned his head to Dust.

“No need to hide,” he said in a long, dull drawl. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

He chuckled when he said that, his smile turning into a smirk. Dust stepped out from behind the corner, and stepped to the bottom of the staircase. When the brown stallion gestured for him to come closer. Dust simply stood where he was.

“Ah,” said the stallion, his smirk never leaving his face. “Your mommy taught you well, I see. Never trust a stranger…”

He put down the rock he was holding in his hoof, and stared at Dust for a while, his eyes scouring his body. When he caught sight of the dark, twisting blemish on his flank, his smirk grew wider into a mocking grin. And he chuckled once more.

“I see you and I aren’t all that different,” he said. “I too came to this city for the same reason as you. This little, eh, gift we both wish to return, we both bear it.”

He stood, and showed Dust his flank. There, too, was the dark blotch, twisting like Dust’s own. Dust took another step forwards, getting a better look at it as he did so.

“You… you have this curse too?” he asked. The brown unicorn nodded, his grin fading into a slight frown.

“Yes… I suppose I do,” he said. “But then again, everypony in this land has it. From your look, it doesn't quite seem like you know that, though. Do you come from somewhere where this little mark of ours isn't so common?”

Dust thought for a second, trying to think back, but nothing came to him. He tried harder, but only ended up with a headache. He stared in despair at the unicorn looking down at him, who was smirking again.

“I… I don’t remember,” Dust replied. “I don’t know why, but I don’t.”

“Oh my, you really are down in the dumps aren’t you?” the unicorn said. “Don’t fret, it’s quite common for those with this affliction to lose their memories. It does that to us, you know. Sucks up anything that could give us an identity and turns it into nothingness, leaving us as sad excuses for ponies. You’re lucky it hasn’t turned you into an empty shell yet, a mindless beast like it did with everyone in my hometown. They forgot everything, even how to speak and act like civilized beings. Now they’re just… well, I imagine they’ve eaten each other now, but when I left, they weren’t any better than rabid dogs!”

Dust’s eyes widened in fear, but he quickly shook his head and got himself together again.

“I won’t end up like that,” he said. “I’m going to fix this, and end it once and for all, by killing whatever did this to us.”

“That’s the spirit!” the unicorn said, jumping to his feet and running down to Dust. Before he could shove him way, the unicorn has wrapped his arms around his shoulder, embracing him.

“I said the same thing, too,” the unicorn whispered in Dust’s ear. “But like me, you’ll see it’s easier said than done. If your lucky, you’ll end up like me, stuck here forever and ever, wasting away into nothingness. If not, well...”

He pointed up the stairs, to the edge of the large dome Dust had seen earlier.

“If you’re really set on your course, though, I’d better give you some tips based on personal experience. Up there is the grand temple of the sun, where ponies from all across the land used to worship some fertility goddess of some sort. Now it acts as a home to different kind of religion all together. It’s the first place you’ll need to go in order to help you get into the castle above. The second would be the moon temple, but that’s far from here, and right now I’d worry about the matter at hand.”

Dust looked at the unicorn, which was still clasping him like an old friend.

“Inside both temples, you’ll find a key, or so I was told by my own predecessor. Get both keys, and you’ll be able to open up the castle, where I’m sure you’ll find a clue as to where that demon is.”

“Wait a minute,” Dust said, breaking away from the stallion. “I thought the Demon was in the center of the kingdom? That’s what the seers told me.”

“Yes, well, I imagine they were only talking metaphorically,” he replied. “I’ve heard Zebras are quite fond of that sort of thing. Now, they just as easily could have meant this place, as this city’s the geographical center of the kingdom, but I imagine they meant the most important place in the land when they said center. And considering this place hasn’t been important in thousands of years, we have no idea where that could be. So I’d suggest you take my word for it and look to the castle for clues as to where to go.”

Dust sighed. He realized now that this was going to be a longer journey than he had expected. He patted the unicorn on the shoulder, before heading up the stairs and towards the temple.

“Wait!” the unicorn cried behind him. Dust turned to see him pulling out a sword and handing it to him.

“You’ll need this,” he said. “You’ll really need it.”

Slowly, Dust took the sword, his eyes growing wide again as he wondered what the unicorn meant. He looked up to ask him what was waiting for him in the church, but was surprised to see that he was already back to his former position, humming away and throwing rocks into the distance.

Turning to the temple, Dust took a deep breath, and began to make his way upwards, gripping the sword tightly in his hoof and preparing for whatever was to come.