If You Don't Draw First

The long multicolor ever flowing mane of the sun goddess was the only thing that differed her from the white landscape, her golden horseshoes leaving soft traces on the snow as she moved through it. The cold wind caressed her fur, but it didn’t bother her at all.

Princess Celestia kept walking until, from the top of a small hill, her eyes met the shiny image of the Crystal Tower and at its base, the Crystal Kingdom appeared. A smile spread on her lips. However, in the blink of an eye, the peaceful image turned into one of despair, the Kingdom started to be surrounded by a black dome, the floor began to tremble as a beam of light fell over the city at the same time that the wind brought with it a roar that echoed in the distance. Finally, a huge explosion forced Celestia to cover her eyes, after that, the silence settled over the land. When she opened her eyes; the Crystal Kingdom was no more.

“A millennium has passed from that day… Sombra´s fall…”

Those were the only words that escaped her lips. What could this mean? She had no idea. It wasn´t the first time that something like this happened to her; when Nightmare Moon returned, she had dreamed about it for days, even months before, but now, Sombra was dead and the Kingdom has been restored, why did she had this vision? There was a message for sure, and she needed to found it.

Lost in her thoughts, Celestia noticed something moving in the distance, she came closer and to her surprise, it was a pony, in fact, a crystal mare. She was carrying something on her back, something that moved and cried. The mare stopped to take the small bulk on her hooves, Celestia tried to get a little closer to her, but stopped when a shadow passed above her. In awe, the princess saw a dragon landing just meters away from the mare; it was a juvenile brown dragon that still walked in two legs. When the mare saw him, she smiled and tried to say something, but a scream of pain escaped her mouth and she felt to the ground. The dragon ran and took her in his arms.

“I… I can´t go with you…” She said weakly, “please, you must… you must protect her… they must never find her”.

The mare gave her last breath; the dragon took the small bulk and discovered just a small part of it to look at the face of a sweet little filly that smiled at him. With eyes wide open, Celestia gave two steps towards them just before her body started to feel heavy, like if all her strength was gone, her head started to hurt and suddenly, she found herself face to face with the dragon. He grabbed her by the neck and looked at her with fury in his eyes. Celestia felt fear, it was impossible, this was just a dream, this must be a dream, yet, she was there feeling the claw digging into her skin.

“YOU WILL NEVER HURT HER!”

The dragon screamed, he opened his jaws and a blast of fire crashed into Celestia´s face. She closed her eyes and screamed in agony waiting for the pain that never came. She opened her eyes and found herself in the center of Ponyville, the town seemed to be abandoned and without a sign of life. Celestia blinked and her surroundings changed once more. She was now in the throne room in Canterlot Castle, the windows shattered into pieces, the curtains torn apart and the floor covered in blood stains. She walked to the window and with teary eyes, she saw Canterlot City being consumed by the flames.

“Make it stop… please, I can´t take it anymore”.

She whispered but her words were cut by what seemed to be steps behind her, Celestia turned around to find a shadowy figure almost as tall as her standing in front of her.

“Who… Who are you?”

There was no answer, the figure raised something metallic, there was a click, and the noise of a thunder came from it. The last thing Celestia saw was the letters “AD” burning like fire in the darkness.

***---***---***

"SISTER, SISTER, WAKE UP! WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

Said Princess Luna with a worried tone; she was holding Celestia in her hooves. The sun goddess screamed in terror and threw her arms around hers sister´s neck before she opened her eyes. In the moment she saw Luna holding her, a feeling of peace descended upon her.

"Luna..." She whispered.

Celestia let her fears fade away as her tears wet her sister's fur. What neither of them noted were the five little stains of blood on Celestia's neck.

***---***---***

"He's Zachary Comstock".

"He's Booker DeWitt".

"No... I'm both..."

They took him by the chest and put him under the waters of the river, he saw her face through the blurry stream as the pressure in his lungs started to grow. They kept him under the water, Booker understood what was happening, he needed to die to close the circle, to finally erase all his past, all his sins, and he accepted it. The pressure turned into pain, he tried to breath, but all that he got was water pouring into his body. He stared at Elizabeth for the last time before the darkness and silence took domain of his senses.

After some minutes, he noticed something.

"What's happening? Why I'm I still... thinking?"

Booker asked himself after realizing that somehow he was still conscious. He opened his eyes realizing that he was back at his apartment in New York, the sign in the door wiped away all doubt of it. He searched for something in the desk, then, his eyes fixed in the calendar, the date was October 8th, 1893.

"Is this... is this real?"

Before he could say something else, the cry of a baby took him by surprise, turning his gaze towards the corner of the room, he saw light coming out through the door frame, he kept silence until the cry was heard again. Standing up from the desk, Booker walked to the door, with trembling hand he held the door knob and slowly started to open it.

"Anna?"

He said as the light in the room washed over him blinding him, he put his hands over his eyes trying to see through it, however, the pressure in his chest returned and in the blink of an eye, he found himself being dragged by the force of the stream. Using all the strength in his body, Booker fought against the waters finally being able to take his head out of it and taking a deep breath. The shore was just meters away from him; he reached it and pulled himself out of the water lying there trying to recover his forces.

“Let´s see the facts; I´m still alive, the question is why?”

Booker said to the air, or this was just a bad joke, or his mind was playing tricks to him. He stood up looking at the surroundings. He was in what seemed to be a forest; there were no signs of the Vox Populi or of that religious shit from Columbia.

“Where the hell am I? I need to find a higher place; maybe that will help me to know my location”.

He took a quick look at himself; he was still suited in his clothes, his hand wrapped in a piece of fabric that he took away to discover that the wound caused by the knife in Battleship´s Bay wasn’t there, yet, the mark AD was in the back of his hand.

“Strange...”

He proceed to review his holster, on it, he found the hand cannon with six bullets inside the barrel.

“Well, is better than nothing”.

He thought and started to walk on straight line from the river. Some hours passed before he stopped to rest under a tree. More and more, he started to get into the idea that he wasn’t on Columbia anymore. In fact, after the destruction of the siphon nothing seemed to be in order for him. He understood that there were so many doors to parallel universes, so many constants and variables.

“What if this is just another universe? What if nothing ended at all? That could mean so many things right now”.

Slowly, he took the gun and looked at it.

“Maybe this is another opportunity… if I´m here, maybe there´s another Comstock… another Columbia… another Elizabeth… or maybe I should end things by myself right now…”

In that moment, through the shine of the weapon, something got his attention. Through the trees, he saw letters, so he decided to investigate. With the gun at point, he reached a clear spot in the forest were he found a wagon painted with flamboyant tones, there were some boxes outside of it containing fireworks and other stuff. He walked around the wagon and looked at the sign on one side of it

“The Great and Powerful Trixie, looks like someone has a big ego around here, maybe she can tell me what´s this place”.

Booker walked to the front of the wagon and knocked on the door.

“Excuse me, I think I´m lost and I need some help”.

There was no answer. He knocked once more.

“Hey, is somebody at home? My name is…”

He was about to grab the door knob when a scream came from the distance. Still in doubt, Booker kept silence until another scream was heard. His first instinct was the one of rush towards the point where the scream came, but he stopped.

“No, don´t do it, is not your problem, let the world take its course and walk away”.

He turned around, but.

“HELP!”

The third scream sounded closer, it was all the he needed.

“I´m going to regret this”.

As fast as his legs let him, he ran towards the source of the voice.

“Where are you? Say something”.

Booker called out to the owner of the voice, another scream came from the other side of some bushes. He stopped, took away the secure from the gun and jumped, but in the air something hit him. The impact send him to the floor, but he was able to grab whatever it was and rolled some meters before pinning it to the ground.

To his surprise, he was holding an animal, to be precise, a pony; but not a normal pony, this one had blue fur and was wearing a cape and a hat which fell to let him saw a horn on the base of the pony´s head barely hid by a silver colored mane.

“What the hell? A unicorn?”

Said Booker with a mix of awe and despair. What happened next blew his mind away. The unicorn screamed, Booker screamed, and they kept shouting at each other for a couple of minutes. He let the pony go and crawled away from it, he lift the gun and pointed towards it.

“D- Don´t move… or I´ll blow your head off”.

“MONSTER!” said the unicorn.

“What? No, you´re the monster, you´re a talking horse and not only that, you´re a goddamn unicorn.”

“First of all, I´m not a horse, I´m a pony, and how can you talk like that to the great and powerful Trixie? Show more respect monster”.

“You know what, screw this I´m… hold on, did you said Trixie? So the wagon back there is yours?”

“If you touched Trixie´s home you will regret it.”

“STOP TALKING LIKE THAT!”

Booker shouted and Trixie remain in silence. When she saw him standing up, she noted the difference of heights. Even with her horn she was just standing beyond his navel.

“I don´t know what kind of crazy world is this, but I can´t lose more time with you, there was someone in danger asking for help so…”

“The one asking for help was me, monster”.

“Oh really? If that´s true, prove it oh great and powerful being. What can be so dangerous that you can´t stand it by yourself?”

Trixie started to back away from him while pointing towards something. Booker turned around to find green lights in the foliage that surrounded them. A howl pierced his ears, the green lights turned to be eyes, eyes of creatures made of wood with a resemblance to wolves.

“All right Trixie, I believe you now, and you know what?”

The creatures growled at them.

“Run?” She asked.

“Sounds good to me”.

They started to run, the whole pack of timberwolves howled in unison and rushed behind them. The chase didn´t take too long, Booker and Trixie found themselves cornered against a wall of rocks. Soon, the creatures appeared in front of them ready to feast with their victims.

“I suppose our luck ends here Trixie.”

“Well monster… I mean, sir, can the great and…” Booker looked at her with annoyance. “Sorry. Before we die, can I know your name?”

Booker looked down at his hand, it was shining. With joy, he saw it starting to ignite, Trixie noted this too.

“The name´s Booker DeWitt, and we will not die here today”.