Brave

by Bright Keys

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Dark, Alternate Universe, Twilight Sparkle, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 4207

In a fallen Equestria, few ponies have tried to build civilization. One pony in particular, Tali, your average earth pony, fights to collect gems for an amulet in which he needs to purify.

In the fallen Equestria of now, all of the leaders of Equestria were randomly found dead in their homes, no cause, no signs. Soon afterwards, Equestria fell into anarchy, destroyed in the flame of war. Tali, a young earth pony, hopes to make things better. He collects supplies and trades them to help support his family composed of his grandfather, his mother, an older brother and a younger sister. To rebuild civilization, Tali must find all of the gems within the Alicorn Amulet and then proceed to purify the amulet so he may be able to rebuild what has been lost to the flame of war. Oh, and there's one more obstacle in his way. The Burned.

Description, filler, and edited by Dudodian
Constructive criticism is welcome and recommended.
I will be performing revisions on previous chapters. For the most part, they shall be small, a comma here, leaving out a period there, but in some places I might add a sentence or remove one.

Published 2014-07-29 01:20:03 UTC
Last updated 2014-09-05 03:47:06 UTC

Chapter 1

Two hundred years ago, the unthinkable happened. All potential rulers of Equestria were found dead in their homes, with no cause. At first, Equestria was invaded, looted and broken. Then the disasters started. Earthquakes wracked the surface, the seas boiled, settling into a deadly poison that ate through the hulls of ships. Now, the world is broken, the seas untravellable. The sun and moon, trapped in what has been called the Burning Eclipse.

Some cities progressed, free from limitations set in place by their now fallen governments to become vast metropoli of technological wonder. Some cities devolved, becoming primitive tribes, either ruled by themselves or in a fragile alliance with other tribes.

Soon, some ponies became forgetful and clumsy. They forgot how to speak, and their eyes reflected the Burning Eclipse with orange fire seeming to rim their pupils. They began to attack anything that got near, burning them and taking their magic for their own. I found myself in the unfortunate position of being attacked by what we call "Burned."

I was walking back to my town after my kingdoms Annual Trade, when I was ambushed by what seemed like a streak of fire. It tackled me to the ground, burning me and hitting me viciously. The entire time the fire burned across me, I felt another pain. It started weak at first, but it quickly grew and burned into a raging inferno inside me. I lay, bruised, burned, bleeding, and barely alive, unable to move. I lay, the two agonizing forces threatening to send me into oblivion, when suddenly, the pain burst out of me, and the Burned was very, very burned. It flew off me and landed a few yards away, already blackening as flames licked eagerly at its body.

It screamed in pain, trying to put out the fire to no avail. Whenever it patted one out, it reignited with more force than it had to begin with. Soon it was nothing more than ashes that were quickly blown away in the breeze. What just happened to me? These, “Burned,” would always take lives! Why weren't they able to take mine? I was still alive, and although I was in pain, I could find enough strength to stand.

While I stood, watching the pile blow away, I had a look at myself. Despite being cut, bruised, and burned before, I was fine now, healed by what was possibly the same mysterious force that had just saved my life. I picked up my bags, full of supplies from a neighboring village, and walked into my own town.

The original plan for the alliance between mine and several villages and towns was we all trade supplies in a central location that are then divvied to the representatives town. The trading works fine, but the moment I stepped into town, I was swarmed by my fellows, and within moments all the supplies were gone.

Our "kingdom" was small and weak, currently with its third king in its three years of existence. Our village was in worse shape, multiple buildings collapsed or burned. The paths out weren't very well kept, and yellow grass spread as far as they eye could see. It was a large contrast between the trading place, which was in a dense forest. There was some definite need for improvement, and we needed some help to do so. Who was there out there to help us though? Almost all hope was lost at this point.

I glanced over what I had left after I was swarmed. It wasn't much. A few loaves of bread, and something I got for myself. A small trinket that appeared to be a necklace of sorts at one time. I don't know why I got the battered piece of black metal, especially for the price of half my onions, it just seemed to call to me.

I took my haul home and put it on the table.

"How did the trading go?" My mother asked. Families tend to stay together these days.

"Fine." I said. My tone must've betrayed the true events, because she asked,

"Did something bad happen?"

I didn't see an point in lying, so I replied.

"I was attacked by a Burned."

The entire house, packed with my brother, my younger sister, and my grandfather went silent. Immediately as everyone stared at me in a state of shock. They looked at me, noticing no scars as they wondered in awe how I had survived. My grandfather started to scratch his beard. While everyone else was still in shock, my grandfather spoke up in a quiet, scratchy voice.

"You appear to be fine." He said

"I am. I don't know why, but I am." I replied.

“I’ll tell you why!” My grandfather replied. Knowing exactly what he was talking about, I quickly replied.

“Enough of this talk of change grandfather! The world has been this way for as long as any of us can remember!”

“The ancient stories reflect these events perfectly!”

“That’s all they are, stories. You really think that a mare was imprisoned on the moon for a thousand years? Do you really believe in six ponies with unparalleled magic?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Grandfather replied. “And I believe the story that we are speaking of.”

“You are a fool for doing so.” I replied.

“Tali!” Mother scolded, “don’t speak of your grandfather in such a way!”

I winced. Not at my mother’s words, but at the mention of my name. Tali means ‘rising hope’ in a foreign language, and I knew what was coming next.

“Hope will rise when the amulet is discovered!”

“My name has nothing to do with anything!” I replied.

"That's enough fighting!" Mother said, taking the bread from the table. Before I could react, the black piece of metal clattered onto the table, resulting in a triumphant grin from my grandfather.

"Now why would you use your own trade for such a beat up artifact?" He asked.

"It looks like it's seen a few things. Might have a story to tell. I was going to take it to the smithy, see if he could fix it so I could wear it." I replied. “In fact, I might just do that now.” With that, I took the battered piece of metal and walked out the door, clouds forming in the sky as I walked. When I neared the blacksmith, it began to rain. Rain is scarce in my village, and this was a downpour. I quickly made my way to the blacksmith’s house and knocked on his door. He opened the door and looked at me with a smile. He was a large pony who towered over me.

"What can I do for you today Tali?" He asked.

"I have a trinket I want you to try and fix." I said, taking the piece of black metal out and showing it to him.

"Yes. I can fix that. It might not be the full thing, but I can fix it." The blacksmith said, taking the trinket and walking in to the shop, beckoning me in as well.

"You know, I haven't seen rain like this before here." He said as he got to work taking the dents and folds out of the piece of metal. It was quickly looking like an amulet.

"I'm reminded of my brother." He said, still working on straightening the item out. "He also was a blacksmith, but one day, he changed. He met a rather unfortunate fate." When he said fate, thunder boomed far off in the distance. He hesitated for a moment. "I tell myself that he was Burned and if I didn't kill him then he would kill our families, and maybe the entire town. I had to put him down myself with my sword I created by this very forge. It was unfortunate that I had to kill my own brother, but it was for the best. Things could have easily gotten out of hand if I had not done it, and people could have been put at risk by his threat. To this day I still feel sorrow to his memory. It was unfortunate how he had to leave, but I loved him, and I feel it’s what he would have wanted. I still hold on to all the memories we used to share." After that depressing story, he stopped working on the amulet, and began rubbing it with a rag, polishing off the rust and adding a shine to the black metal.

When he handed it back, it looked drastically different. It depicted a unicorn's head down to the chest, and wings were spread off the sides. He added a black chain, so it could be worn, and four divots dotted the amulet, one on the lowest part of the amulet, two on the wings, and one where the eye would have been.

"Those divots are for gems. The specific cut and style is only attainable from fire rubies, highly magically sensitive gemstones prized by dragons, and not seen in over a hundred years." The blacksmith said

"Why does it have wings?" I asked

"It's called an alicorn. It's said that they possessed incredible power, enough to move the planets themselves." He replied. I'd heard plenty about alicorns from my grandfather, the town wise man. I thanked him for his work, and walked out of the shop with the promise of onions when I harvest them. Outside the rain was still pouring, and I can't deny, I felt something different on the wind, as if the very rain beckoned for the world to change.

Author's Note

Edits for this chapter:
Minor grammatical stuffs
Blacksmith is an earth pony, not a unicorn.

Chapter 2

I made my way back home, the unfamiliar smell of rain assaulting my nose. The sky was grey and I could see water collecting in a ditch that at one point had a bridge over it. We always dismissed it as some sort of ruin that we would never understand, a relic from days gone by, but now I could see that it was a river. A river that provided life to this town at one point. A point in time before I had to redirect water from a river much farther away to keep my small farm alive.

I walked back to my home after noticing this, many ponies staring at my new amulet, sometimes whispering to another they were walking with. Were they wanting the amulet for themselves or did they not like me wearing the amulet, or having the presence of it just being there? I continued home ignoring these notions. By the time I got home, a small crowd had gathered outside of my home. I hid nearby, wanting to see what was going on.

“Wise man! We seek your guidance!” A stallion said, knocking on my house’s front door.

“What do you want-?” My grandfather stopped mid sentence after poking his head out of the door, shocked by the crowd that had gathered.

“You call of worldly change, and we have seen the corrupted amulet!” The Stallion said, with a reaffirming cheer from the crowd.

“Your grandson was wearing it!” A mare shouted.

“I must consult the Old Knowledge.” Grandfather said, walking outside and heading to a derelict building that appeared to be a ruined tree that was known as the Place of Old Knowledge, because of its vast quantity of books. As he neared the door, a large crystal shot out of the ground, a purple unicorn mare’s face shimmering in the smooth surface.

“Only the bearer of the Amulet may enter!” She shouted with a voice that the entire town could hear.
I gulped. I knew that my grandfather knew where I was, because this had been a place he had hid in when he was a child.
“Get out here Tali!” He shouted, looking directly where I was hiding. I froze for a second. Why is he so good at locating where I’m at? I can’t hide from him! Slowly and reluctantly, I made my way out, practically feeling every eye in town watching me in awe, now completely distracted from what they were doing originally. I made my way to the Place of Old Knowledge, and the Mare in the Crystals smiled warmly.
“Bring this world to peace, Rising Hope.” She said. I was so caught off guard by both her smile and her knowing the meaning of my name, I hardly noticed the crystal descend back into the ground and the door swing open. The library seemed to spring to life when I walked in, candles lighting themselves and books flying from one shelf to another.
“There is much you need to know Rising Hope.” The mare said, this time appearing in some spectral form. I noticed that like the amulet, she too had wings. Many books found their way to a table in the center of the room, and I gulped. My grandfather had taught me many things, but there was one thing I could not grasp. No matter how hard I wanted to try, I couldn’t read. Sure, my grandfather had taught me a few things and maybe I could pick a word or two out, but it would take a lot of effort before I could even read a single page.

“By the time you see this, I will be long dead, an afterimage.” She said, placing a hoof on the stack of books. I hadn’t noticed before, but she seemed weak, as if she was sick. It was clear she hadn’t slept in days, maybe even weeks. “My death comes soon, and I need to set these books aside, for you.” She continued, and spectral forms of the books on the table flew up and onto the shelves, a purple field surrounding them for a few seconds. I stared down at the books, the strange glyphs that claimed to be words taunting me as I struggled to remember what my grandfather had attempted to teach me. “What is this?” I muttered to myself. I was struggling to even read the first little word. I should have been a lot more attentive when my grandfather was trying to teach me these things. I broke up the first few letters of the word and eventually found that the word said, “History.” I continued on in this manner. After a few minutes that felt like hours, I had deciphered the title of the first book, “History of the Alicorn Amulet.” All of the other books possessed similar titles pertaining to the “Alicorn Amulet”

“Essence of Magic, guide and protect.” I heard her say, walking over to a door that appeared to lead down to a cellar. I followed down the stairway, multiple stairs breaking as I stepped on them. The cellar was large, filled with more books and various relics. The spectre placed a small red gem on a table and turned to me. “You will bring this world to order. I can see you through the ages, and I can feel your destiny from here.” She said. I wondered if this was the same mare, because she seemed much weaker, even compared to before, and hoarseness began to show in her voice. “I leave this gem to you. It is the first that goes in the alicorn amulet. I also want you to have these.” She levitated two more books onto the table. “They are lessons that I learned in life, and I hope they serve you as well as they served me.” She sighed, and looked in my direction once more. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a well deserved rest." She walked up the stairs, and I heard a thud, as if something fell. The first book appeared to be a series of letters between a "Twilight Sparkle" and a "Celestia" it contained various depictions of day-to-day events, each having a lesson to them. The second looked like a journal between six ponies, Twilight Sparkle included. The journal portrayed a similar theme to the letter book. On the table next to the two dusty books was a small gemstone, only big enough to fit in the eye divot on the amulet. I fixed it into place, and in a flash the chain was changed to rectangular pieces of metal, as well as some of the things the blacksmith couldn’t fix were repaired.
I made my way out of the Place of Old Knowledge, putting the books in a bag that I found in the downstairs.

“What happened in there?” Grandfather asked when I left.

“The mare from the crystals spoke to me, and gave the first gem.” I said.

My grandfather smiled. “Well done, Tali. You must find the other gems. How many more gems are there to reclaim into the amulet?”

“Three,” I relayed back to him. “I don’t even know where to start. Do you have any ideas?”

“Not at all,” My grandfather replied. “Perhaps all those books you have there will have something to say.”

“Oh great, more reading,” I said. “I guess I’ll give it another shot.”

“Yes, you will need this skill on your journey. When I’m not here, you’ll want to use it to learn from the books. Here, let me go help you read some more. I’ll be inside.”

“Thanks grandpa,” I replied. I proceeded to make my way into the house when I felt a presence behind me. Another burned? I hoped not. I turned around, but before I could, something grabbed me by the shoulders. Struggling to get out of the grasp of the mysterious force, I writhed as I tried to work my way free, but I was carried into the air without my consent. I screamed, but nobody would have heard me as my words were carried away in the wind. My grandfather came back out of the house and looked up to find I was being carried away. He reached out his hoof as if to reach for me to grab on, but he was probably a hundred feet away. I continued to writhe around, but still to no avail. I quit doing this as I was just wasting energy. I didn’t know where I was going and where I would end up, so I sat, thinking about the amulet, about my family, about the purple mare I met today. What would be in store for me? I slowly just accepted there would be no getting out of this situation and just relaxed to enjoy the ride. At least I could get a view from the air. After all, it was more impressive than the ground. I eventually managed to fall asleep somehow, and I woke up in some strange place.

Author's Note

Thanks to Dudodian for the ending!

Chapter 3

“... This is the one who survived your Burned attack my liege. He also has a strange magic field surrounding him that we cannot identify.” The stranger’s voice seemed distant, as if far away.

“...This... equine is a threat to our supremacy.”

“Shall I execute him then?” Vaguely, I felt as if my head had been lifted, an unidentifiable cold item pressed against my neck.

"No." The other voice said, and I was dropped, which woke me up somewhat more.

"Was there any resistance in capturing this... interesting specimen?" The second voice asked.

"Yes. Two ponies rose to fight us. One was large, and swung a hammer, the other was some old fool who thought he was a unicorn." The blood in my veins turned to ice. There was only two ponies who matched that description who would defend me.

"And what of their fates?" The second asked.

"The large one has probably bled out by now, if their appearances reflect their medicine, and we took the elder's sight."

"I'll..." I forced out, trying to get up just to have something hit my back with enough force to pin me to the floor.

"You'll what puny pony? Fight through a hundred thousand highly trained soldiers who would like nothing more than to rip you apart?" The first voice said mockingly. I looked up and opened my eyes. I was lying on a red carpet that led up some stairs, where a griffon sat on a throne. The realization of where I was hit me like a cart of stone. I was in the griffon capital, far in the north. Far away from my village.

“What...” I tried to say, but my voice was weak and the thing pinning me to the ground was keeping me from breathing well enough to speak properly.

"Let our guest speak." The second voice said venomously, as if calling me his guest was difficult.

"As you wish my liege." The second voice said, and the thing pinning me down was lifted, air filling my lungs at last.

"Now that we're on more even terms, what would you like to say?" The second voice asked. I was too weak to stand, but I still was able to get a good look at the room I was in. It was large, with a marble floor, the red carpet leading up a series of steps to a throne, which a griffin sat upon, eyeing me carefully. Behind me was second gryphon, armed with a spear that I realized was the one keeping me down previously. After a few seconds of taking in my new surroundings, I spoke up.

"What do you want with me?" I asked.

"You have a very unique magical signature, even for a unicorn, which you are clearly not. We will find out what makes you unique so we can counter it and finally unite this world." I wanted to give him my own objective, seeing as it was practically the same, but I sensed a darkness. Something told me I should keep my intentions to myself.

“What do you want me to do with him my liege?” The gryphon behind me asked.

“Throw him in the prisons and add him to the list of subjects.” The griffon on the throne responded.

“It shall be done.” The other said, throwing me to my hooves and brandished his spear in my direction threateningly. He led me outside, where it was a large open area, covered in a white stone. Small groups of griffons were out training, some soaring through the sky and using weapons I’d never dreamed existed. Magical bows that fired seemingly invisible arrows that went straight through a target and stones that exploded when thrown. He continued to lead me into a building that went underground, and into a cell.

Surprisingly to me, he left the Amulet with me, and within moments I was left alone to contemplate my escape.

“Around your neck.” A voice said in a cell across from me, and a unicorn stepped out of the shadows. “Is that what I think it is?”
I remained silent.

“It’s okay. You can tell me.” She held out an amulet of her own, an orange disk with wavy spikes emanating from it. “I have my own.”

“What is that?” I asked, my curiosity captured by this mysterious emblem.

“To us it is called Cesan. It adorned the sky many years ago, and if you succeed, it will again.”

“And what have the gryphons put on your head?” I asked.

“What? You mean my horn?” She replied, to my surprise. I’d heard of ponies with horns, but I thought they were just stories. “It’s always been there.”

“You’re a unicorn?” I asked, amazed. “Can you really do magic?”

“Yes, I can, but the griffon’s machines interfere with it.” I had no clue what she was talking about. A few minutes passed, with nothing eventful happening. I had hoped I had gotten her off the subject of my quest, but eventually she piped up.

“I know about your quest.”

“Quite a bit more than I do I’d say.” I replied.

“If we can break out, I can get you to your next destination.”

“You know where I can find another gemstone?” I asked in surprise.

“My people have been guarding one for the past two hundred years.” She replied with hushed excitement.

“I don’t know if I can break us out, but if we get out of here, I will follow you.” I said. A few moments passed, the both of us thinking furiously of ways we could break out of our current predicament.

“You’re one of their “subjects” right?” She asked after a while.

“Yeah, why?” I reply

“Because if you’re an earth pony, and you’re one of their subjects, that means you’re very interesting, and that they’ll bump you up the list. Earth ponies are prized for their fabled strength, so you should easily be able to overpower the guard if you try.”

“And then what?” I asked, eager to hear more to this seemingly crazy scheme that would hopefully save our lives.

“We run like mad.”

Author's Note

I have returned to this story!
No editing this time, so if there's any errors, I would appreciate it if you would tell me.
Yes, another cliffhanger >:)