I snapped awake to the sound of shouting. Dim lanterns hanging in the snowstorm. The sound of snow torn up by hooves. My senses were weak, my body begging for rest. I was ready, half buried in the snow and waiting for the ice to overtake me. I was tired, more than anything else I just felt tired. My body icy and unresponsive.
Numb was I, dying, waiting for the darkness to give way to the bright afterwards. But in the pale grey that swept over us, myself and those who died defending our land, there were lights.
The lanterns grew closer and closer, the smell of oil limply riding the howling wind. Ponies wrapped in fur, cloth, cotton bound warriors and healers all rushing to the aid of those that might survive.
But so many would never wake. So many had given their lives to fight back the bitter frost that came from the frozen north. The constant bitter cold threatening to tear Equestria asunder, threatening to tear the Crystal Empire asunder, threatening to tear me apart and toss me like ashes into the blizzard they carried with them.
Creatures that threatened ponies across the world, spawning from the ice and the bitter hearts of ponies too blinded by their greed and too dull to contemplate the impact their actions might have. But with the cold came change. A new king, a new empire. A colt named Sombra, a crystal spear, and a magic that could push back the ice and give us, the common, the masses, a way to fight back.
But this was a war, lives would be lost, and I am content to be the first to die for a cause I believe in.
"Pyrite!?" A familiarly brash voice cried out, "Pyrite show yourself!" A colt I'd helped raise. A stallion I'd been brother too. "Pyrite!?" Sombra stood over me, his body looming over my head as I laid on my back, his grey ears folded flat under his hoof. "Pyrite can you hear me!?"
"Aye...I'm here." I rattled, my lungs half full of blood. The stallion I'd raised, the pony I'd promised my life to simply stared. "...Oh this?" I lifted my foreleg, letting the red stained snow melt under the sea of blood dripping from my side. "It's fine...I'll be fine once it stops."
Sombra stared at me, whimpering like a hurt colt. "Pyrite you're going to be okay! We'll see the summer again I promise!" He flared up his horn, enveloping my side in a pale auburn and stitching together the gash torn by the razor sharp ice that once floated through the air. "We'll get you home, let you rest and you'll be fine!"
"Sombra stop...." I mumbled, trying to keep my dismembered lower half buried. "Sombra stop!"
"I can fix this!" He screamed, pulling at my coat and dragging me from my buried state. "I can--" I laid my head back, watching his mouth hang slack as my missing waist was shown. My back legs were lost, my flanks shredded like cabbage, all frozen now. There was no more blood loss, only a constant sting where I had lost my lower half. "...Pyrite...no."
I chuckled softly. "You had to push...I told you to leave me, but you had to push."
Sombra started sputtering, shaking violently before plopping down in the snow and resting his muzzle against my eye. "Pyrite no...please by The Mother survive!"
I sloppily brought my hoof to his head, caressing his scalp and trying to console him. "Sombra...they'll be another--"
"No...." He mumbled, nuzzling the side of my muzzle. "Pyrite please--"
"Tck tck tck, you'll be fine." I pressed him tight against my muzzle and let out a tired breath into his cheek. "I'm nothing...a soldier, expendable."
"Shut up!" Sombra screamed, wrapping his hooves around my chin and pulling my head back towards the rest of his body. I could feel warm speckles drip across my cheek as he pulled me tight, whispering softly into my ear. "I gave myself to you...if you're nothing...than I'm nothing!" He pulled tight, "A king doesn't share his bed with filth! A king doesn't court scum! You don't get to say you don't matter, because you bucking matter to me!"
I tried not to laugh, the boy's attachment heartbreaking. "Kings do as they wish...kings are no different, they grow attached, but with all things...one day they must end."
"Not today!" He shouted, pressing his hooves into my chest and lifting his head up. "You're my guard, you're not allowed to fall before I say kneel!"
I took a deep, blood laden cough. "Even the most- erhem- powerful, stalwart ponies will fail. But I...I fail with purpose."
"You're not a failure!" Sombra shrieked, "I don't give my life, my body, I don't let failures toy with my emotions! You're going to be fine! I promise to you, you will be fine! We will see the spring, and- and I will--"
"Sombra let go." I shouted, "...My cock is somewhere in the field...go and find it- let me die in peace!" I screamed, trying to push him away with petty insults and anger. "...You're just standing there like an idiot, run! These ponies need a leader, not some frozen grief stricken statue, now run!"
Sombra leaned his head against me hard, forcing my own off to the side. "Pyrite...please don't leave me...please stay with me."
I leaned my head back, my crown resting against Sombra's shoulder. "I'll never leave you, but you need to leave me. Let me go."
"Pyrite plea--"
"let me go!" I shouted, forcing him off me with my final bits of strength. "Let an old guard die in peace, not having to listen to the prattling of a sorry colt who's lost a toy!"
I let Sombra sob against my head, the fleeting contact as the darkness closed in was my final joy. But as I spotted the light, the faint wisp I'd been waiting for, Sombra loomed over me. "I'm sorry," he muttered, planting his lips against mine for only an instant before pulling back. "but I need you more than you can imagine."
From his cloak a single crystal levitated out. "Sombra no!" I screamed, trying to turn away."
Sombra pressed the crystal against my lips, forcing it past and down my throat. "I'm sorry...eat...." He mumbled, blood shot eyes pitiful and pleading. "Eat and we'll see the summer again."
I felt the jagged stone settle in my gut, the very organ threatening to slip out of my eviscerated backside. "This isn't--"
Before I could finish a bright light emanated from the snow that had settled on my barrel. Sombra's shaky smile faded into a soft frown. "Iron, steel, something suitable for a stallion of honor. Flesh and blood is simply not good enough."
I felt my world fade away, leaving me to watch as my life was taken into another pony's hooves. A pony obsessed, a pony with a childish notion of immortality and permanence. A child, a colt, a coward too afraid to rule on his own that he would take a life of somepony who earned a rest.
"Sombra...why?"
Author's Note
Sequel
