Darkness Remains

The sound of the most celebratory of dance steps confused the pony who had recently stepped down from his bedroom, down the chocolate brown staircase to the ballroom. Ponies were dancing, socializing by the punch and spreading gossip all while Shining Armors confusion grew. In the corner of the ballroom he spotted his wife, waving him over. He was making his way towards her, hoping she could fill him in on the blanks. He stopped as he heard a faint laughter from above. He looked up to where the chandelier had a young pony, who's brown body was swinging in a pendular motion. What seized his glimpse was not the dancing ponies below nor the merrily laughing child above, but the mere horrifying fact that the chandelier's chain was breaking.

The pony's white legs went into leaping formation. Someone like him had mastered since many years past the art of swift decisiveness. He jumped all the way to the chandelier, grabbed the boy and the chandelier, trying to stop the over-sized lamp from crushing them both. The immense panic that abruptly arrived and abruptly ended turned into confusion and the entire party of dancers, servants and soldiers all looked at the two ponies who had both crashed into the table. "Are you safe lad?" The pony asked and when he received no response the eyes peered into the abyss of his fading sanity and teary-eyed he looked at what now was soon to be a corpse. His gaze trailed down the young colt's neck and saw a big piece of glass protruding from his throat as the kid choked on his own blood and the light fading from his eyes.

The pony cried but he did not notice the demonic gazes that crept through ballroom and suddenly he heard the sound of weapons being drawn. Rather than asking why the guards drew weapons he instead, for unknown reasons, said: "I did not do it. I tried my best!"

"Failure." The guards said.

"All you were – all you will ever be."

Shining armour ran as if death itself was behind him. He ultimately fell down on his hooves who ached due to the strain, his lungs craving more air as his panic rose. He panted a bit and looked around, no one was to be seen. Shining Armor walked with his head down and then he reflected quickly onto what he should do. The other ponies, would they chase him? Would they try to strike him down for what he, no, what they believed he did. He observed the environment.

He had a memory of being next to a road but it must have been an illusion, a faint part of his mind because the road had evaporated into the middle of a forest. That was when a drop of sweat turned down on his forehead and he heard a weak sound. Something resembling the strides of a hunter.

Shining Armor heard how the sound increased and synced with his heartbeats. The eyes turned from moss-covered stone but a fog appeared and grew denser.

Everything felt gloomy, dark, harsh and it was as if the world had suddenly grown teeth. Shining Armor readied himself for battle.

His vision fluctuated in directions and then he jumped up to see a beast of black sludge that looked like someone familiar yet unknown.

He struck the beast with his hindlegs and it backed a bit, stunned by the kick.

"Fiend of darkness!" Shining Armor shouted. "Leave me be!" He kicked it on the chin and it fell.

The beast did indeed back off but suddenly he got an arrow on his back. "There the murderer is!" Shining Armor heard as he fell on the ground, incapable of rising up due to the arrow inside his hip. "Burn him here!" One said.

A mass of ponies of all colours gathered with a demand for vengeance. This is incomprehensible. Shining Armor thought as he was being dragged away to the town. What on earth has happened with this place? Something, although he did not know what responded. This time though, the voice did only resonate in his mind.

All you were – all you will ever be.

When they arrived in the town Shining Armor had several bruises on his chest due to the dragging he had just been through.

There were a bunch of hanging nooses before the town's entrance. Shining Armor looked upon them and shuddered when he saw that the nooses were all occupied and the ponies who had been hanged had gotten  a sign that had engraved the name of the town.

"Pleasantry." Shining Armor said as he shook his head in despair-filled disbelief. The houses had melancholy brown rooftops and walls void of any colour or happiness, they also, occasionally, had blood smeared on them.

Villagers came outside, the ponies there were all grey, thin, or wielded other obvious signs of their misery. Two boys, one with orange skin and one with green looked rather sadly at the captain who's chin was still being scarred by the ground. "Papa, what has he done?" Asked the orange one to a father not visible for Shining Armor.

"Papa, why is he tied to a cart instead of being on the cart?" Asked the green one. A grand, grandiloquent man wearing a suit and a tie sat down next to them and explained.

"He had murdered a child. He deserves his fate."

"But he looks so innocent."

"But he is a failure." Once it was noted by the father that Shining Armor listened to them, he made himself tall and shouted: "How can you live knowing your crimes?! Why do we have to enact justice upon you?!". Before leading his children away from the scene.

Shining Armor looked down for the remainder of the painful dragging, ignoring the jeering of the crowd that smiled brighter and brighter the nearer he came to the guillotine.

Fortunately enough for Shining Armor there was first to be a trial. While he had the knowledge to understand that the chances of him being given anything even resembling mercy would be low, he still desired to take the chance while he could.

It did not help that the judge despised his very existence and what hurt even more was that his wife sat on a make-up throne behind the judge, growling like a beast anytime he looked in her direction. Once Shining Armor had been placed next to a guard, whom oddly enough looked like someone formerly of his service, the trial could begin. They presented no evidence and no one, neither Shining Armor's "defendant" nor his accuser who was a purple mare, or even his own wife, seemed to even debate whether or not Shining Armor had killed the boy. The very first line began with the defendant saying:

"It is clear and indisputable that Shining Armor had killed the boy Winderfeldt at the ball in the castle, which makes it rather clear that a sick individual is what I am appointed to attempt to give a rather lenient verdict. I will say that this pony's history is that of deceit, treachery and 'foul play', which is why he was in such a favourable position with princess Celestia. Which makes it hard to defend this monstrous, lowly filth at all." The crowd did first cheer on the "defendant" but merely after around 2 seconds it turned to manifestations of hatred towards Shining Armor.

Shining Armor felt an inner need, due to his affiliations with the guard and his background, to speak out against the injustice he was facing, but the threat of cutting of his tongue that his wife had threatened with when he tried to speak out of his turn had confirmed that it was better to wait for the moment he was allowed to speak.

The accuser took her opportunity to smear Shining Armor's name. She began by coughing a bit and preparing her sophisticated yet arrogant voice.

"I think we all appreciate the adage: Both love and hate runs in the family. As we have seen with Twilight Sparkle, being a social climber is the grand tactic of this bloodline." Shining Armor lowered his eyebrows in resent. "In fact, witnesses have reported Shining Armor trying to reason himself out of guilt for this crime by such a statement of arrogance as: 'I did not do it.'" The crowd burst into immense laughter.

"I could go on succeeding effortlessly to convince you of Shining Armours deceitful psychosis but the very guard next to him could say enough".

"Indeed." Shining Armor widened his eyes in surprise. He had known this guard somewhere from before.

"He bribed all from lieutenants to generals with the fortune he had been given at childhood. He successfully and with little mercy stabbed the ponies, who had instructed him in the arts of war, in the back while he could"

Shining Armor couldn’t take it. "I have done none of the sort! And what do you mean "fortune"? I never had a fortune growing up!"

The ones present ignored his statement as if it was the ravings of a mad-pony to be ignored. "He has stolen the glory from the people who tried to help him away from his psychological dilemma. His faulty world view is nothing but sadistic!" The crowd gasped.

"Now," the judge said. "I'll let the suspect attempt to defend himself." A massive booing heard and was repeated and the crowd would not be silent until.

Shining Armor leapt at the chance to talk freely and said: "Citizens – I give out this speech in the hopes that you'll understand me before I die, for I believe that no matter how indisputable my arguments might be; they'll demeaned, twisted or ignored. All that these ponies have openly declared against me are lies and nothing but." The crowd started booing.

"And so I wish to tell this crowd as well as this 'court' that I do not have any interests in refuting your lies as my refuations can be easily dismissed, but I will say that I stand innocent and I hope that this crowd, at least, understands that this is an abominable misuse of juridical practise."

The crowd booed and Shining Armor only glimpsed arrogantly at them in return, but his mood fell once more when he saw the scowl he received from Princess Cadence. He noted that the two boys looked at him rather sadly. The adults on the other hand did not. "Behead the cretin!" The judge shouted as the guard gripped the white captain. "That's enough of you." He said and then dragged Shining Armor towards the guillotine.

The guillotine was massive. It was impressive and frightening – no doubt that it was ominous as well. Shining Armor upon the very first glance of it immediately looked at the contraption with respect. Something that powerful that retained the pleas of thousands upon thousands of ponies deemed guilty. Shining Armor's head was placed in the opening. He looked at the people who smiled sadistically and then said: "I did everything I could." He closed his eyes hoping that at least there would be no pain. The blade fell, the blade neared his neck and for a fraction of a second a sound was heard and something shattered.

There was a gasp amongst the public. The two boys who had looked at Shining Armor suddenly burst the guillotine's prison, their horns ablaze, and Shining Armor immediately lifted his head. The guards tried to kill him but since they had distanced themselves they had to at first jump towards him and Shining Armor kicked them both to the said. The crowd booed and jeered, simultaneously yelling the noun "Failure"! but for some reason none of them attempted to help cease the escape attempt. Shining Armor and the two boys together jumped on the crowd, used their heads as leaping-aids and then they ran through the gate. The guards were after them but they successfully hid in the nearby woods.

"I owe you eternally boys." He said.

"You both deserve medallions." A little pause as the two boys panted in exhaustion. "What are your names?"

"Flaunder." The green one said.

"Skiptop." The orange one added.

"Why did you rescue me?"

The green one began: "You're innocent. 'Course we had to rescue ya!"

He said smilingly. "I knew Wilderfeldt." The orange one said. "He loved swinging way to much, its no other pony's fault but his own." The tone the orange one said the words with was sombre and shy.

"It's okay though!" The orange suddenly burst out in a mixture of happiness and gloom.

"We'll go back to papa and he'll understand!" Shining Armor looked on them with a serious look. Now it was his turn to be sombre.

"About going back...it is…"

"Flaunder! Skiptop!" Suddenly someone yelled.

"I miss you so much. Please come to me!"

"See?!" Skiptop shouted gladly while suddenly skipping as if his exhaustion had never existed.

"I told you! I told you!" Skiptop suddenly ran towards a more open area.

"We're here papa! Here next to the trees!"

"I am so glad to hear that." The sound became a little bit muffled, something was strange.

"I would like you both to come here now. Please do hurry."

Flaunder looked at Shining Armor and nodded his head.

"He sounds like that when has something in his mouth." Flaunder said.

Skiptop ran desperately towards his father and suddenly Shining Armor yelled:

"No! Skiptop don't!" In the distance the echo of someone being hit by a bludgeon and the crash against a tree was heard. Shining Armor ran. The father wielded a mace in his mouth, a mace that he had previously used to break rocks.

"Papa." Skiptop said sobbing and whimpering. He lied with his back leaning against a big tree.

"Papa – please."

"There is no other option." The father raised the mace again.

"All options are gone."

"No!" Shining Armor yelled as he leapt before Skiptop was about to be hit by the mace. Shining Armour now wounded on this side leapt again and pounced in anger on the father. The father was pinned to the ground. "You have turned my children to monsters!" He yelled crying with eyes almost bursting out of his eye-sockets.

"Fool!" Shining Armor yelled.

"How can you even try to murder your children?!"

"I would give them mercy!" The father shouted. "I would kill them so that they don't get hunted and impaled! So that they don't live their final moments in false hope!"

Shining Armor hit him on the face.

"Do you even know what family is?!"

"Family spares inevitable pain!" He screamed then he started to sob so that his lungs ached.

"Family takes the best opportunities!" Shining Armor looked at him in amazement, no, he did not look at him, he looked through him, trying to comprehend how a father could say such atrocities to his own offspring.

"Don't you understand?! We're all failures!"

Shining Armor hit him this time unconscious, while the word "failure" was ringing in his head. He had grown sick of that noun and instead went to the children and tried to look them in the eye and explain that life would never be the same.

After finding a good hiding spot they moved towards the only place where Shining Armor was certain they could be safe: Ponyville. After the incident at "Pleasantry" he had decided that it would not be a good idea to trust any other place. Upon further reflection, while trying to discover the quickest way to Ponyville he noticed that the area he was in did not feel familiar. He had not thought of it back then but it was so. He truly had no understanding where he was and why he had never heard of "Pleasantry" before.

He also asked himself which castle he had been present in. Besides Wilderfeldt who he was certain he had known from somewhere else, who were the people that danced? Why did they dance while he slept. He was intensely confused.

No matter, he thought. I should make sure we get to Ponyville so that they can be adopted by good parents. He told the children that it was time for a talk.

"I know a place called Ponyville, have you ever heard of it?" They both shook their heads.

"Where Twilight Sparkle lived?"

"Who's Twilight Sparkle." Flaunder asked. Skiptop remained paralysed while trying to think if he had ever heard that name before.

"I miss my father." Skiptop suddenly said. After some thought Shining Armor replied:

"Well, he definitely does not miss you." After the sentence Skiptop began crying and Shining Armor realised what a grave mistake that that was.

"Let's try to get ourselves ready for the journey. It will be long and tedious. Oh and Skiptop." Skiptop opened his eyes a bit.

"You're a great kid." Skiptop smiled while teary-eyed and then lied on the ground and curled himself to sleep away the sorrows.

The first hours of the promenade matched exactly Shining Armor's description. They were long and minutes felt like tens of minutes. Since Shining Armor was the only one with a military background it became no surprise that they were exhausted and at some points muttered curses for themselves.

Eventually Shining Armor and Flaunder got into a conversation while Skiptop slept. It was during the evening and Shining Armor was almost asleep but soon to become alert.

"A personal question if it is acceptable." Flaunder looked at him oddly.

"Can we speak serious?"

"Sure."

"Why are you not sad that father tried to kill your brother?" He thought for a long bit and then he said: "I am. I just don't cry."

"Why not?"

"Ever read the book Simonthra by Dusk Delcan?"

"No."

"Well, the plot's sort of like that Simonthra has a bud who uses cries like cheapshots. You know – like …"

"Manipulation?"

"That word."

"Dusk Delcan seems to be a pessimist." The odd look came again.

"Whiner." A little pause.

"To mask pain only let's it grow. It's better to be open about feelings. It can help so much revealing to people who you are." Flaunder leaned his head to the side.

"Do you understand?"

"A bit – I guess."

"It will all be fine in the morning. We'll continue our journey."

"Don't call it that it's like more like a chore. Homework!"

"Let's call it homework then." Flaunder let out a groan.

"Just being sarcastic."

"Speak understandish!"

"Just messin'." He smiled. Eventually Flaunder fell asleep and Shining Armor would too if it wasn't for that he heard the howling of beasts in the distance.

Shining Armor looked at them both sleeping gladly. With nearby sticks he tried to create a fire but to no avail. The howlings became louder and they turned slowly to growls. How many are they? He thought. How many?!

He looked around like panicked prey. Little did he know that his body language emitted weakness. Finally he took the very sticks he had tried to lit fires with and instead he sharpened them and stuck them into the ground. They worked as a bladed barricade and a trap. He then gathered his thoughts and looked around. His ears listened. The creatures had gone silent.

They're waiting somewhere in the dark. He thought while trying to compose a plan. He looked at the children again. They're waiting somewhere… he stepped on a twig and the twig snapped and gave out a sound that was there opus for now the clamps of the beasts hiding somewhere escalated into a primal stampede.

Two of the beasts tried to leap on him but he jumped and kicked both, simultaneously, on the ground. Skiptop suddenly opened his eyes and then he looked at the two unconscious, wooden and fanged beasts who turned out to be timberwolves of the size of Shining Armor. Skiptop turned the eyes towards Shining Armor, whom had been led away from them by the battle, and he screamed his lungs out.

Shining Armor kicked another timberwolf to the ground but then he heard the scream and quickly shifted his gaze. The other timberwolf jumped on the captain with teeth bared but Shining Armor blocked the bite with his right front leg. He felt a surge of pain searing him and the wolf saw a great opportunity to strike again. It did but Shining Armor turned around and rammed the wolf with his hind legs. Shining Armor was just about to run to Flaunder and Skiptop since both had awaken but two additional wolves jumped forth.

Flaunder looked at the scene and Skiptop did as well but then they both heard a growl and the shattering of a twig. Behind them were a wolf that growled ferociously as the mouth was drooling. "Jump!" Screamed Flaunder as well as Skiptop whom both sidestepped the leaping wolf. The wolf accidentally rammed his own head into the body of a massive tree and fell unconscious and then he said: "We have to run!" Flaunder said commandingly. "We have to run away and hide until it's safe."

"But Armor?" Skiptop exlaimed.

"He'll be safe. Run!"

Both Flaunder and Skiptop ran like madmen and wolves cut chase. They jumped up to a tree eventually where the wolves tried to jump up but failed. "We're safe." Flaunder said. It was a tree that was in no doubt short as the branch they were on were highest one. "Look Skiptop." They both saw suddenly a wolf more bulky and sturdy than the remainder. It had one eye but that one eye seemed to be of a demon.

Must fight on. Shining Armor thought, he lied on the ground trying desperately to rest but his mind wanted to force him to continue no matter how painful every single step was. Shining Armor had fended them all off but he did not know where Flaunder or Skiptop were. He raised himself from the ground and at the very next step he fell back on it again. His body blodied, bruised and scarred.

They must be safe. They must be safe! Shining Armor fell asleep as his body had succeeded for once ,but only once, over his will as exhaustion claimed him.

When he woke up sunlight gazed upon him and he heard a faint voice, the voice of someone he had once known. "Skiptop?" He said to himself. "Skiptop, you're safe!" He exclaimed gladly and ironically, much like Skiptop he became alleviated of all the pain he had gone through just at the sheer voice of someone he cared for, someone he owed his life to.

He neared the voice as it grew louder and louder. He suddenly ran like had once done when he was small and about to be given his favourite dinner. He got the rush of a young child, the rush of unimaginable joy.

"I'm coming Skiptop but where is …?!"

A sudden silence. He looked at a short tree that had only one branch that was not far above the ground but beneath the branch there was blood spread over the ground and on the foundation of the tree. Shining Armor looked upon this scene and then he said: "Skiptop?" The silence grew wider.

"Flaunder?" The silence remained the same. "Skiptop! Flaunder!" Only an echo. "Where are you?!" There was no response, there came no response and there would not ever be any response. Shining Armor thought of the sentence the father had said: "Family spares inevitable pain!" He looked down on the ground and collapsed and then cried and cried to the point where if anyone had seen his sorrow they would have believed he would have died from it.

When he recovered he searched for two beautiful flowers which he eventually found and he placed them at the tree. He stood once, bowed his head in the mournings of the loss but then he heard a voice.

"Failure – all you ever were – all you'll ever be." The same one-eyed wolf whom had peered into the eyes of the children came and with him came the remainder of his pack. They looked at him ferociously, grinned sadistically and then backed for the alpha's words.

"You can't protect your own." The Alpha pounced upon Shining Armor and the battle was quick for one bite of the neck was enough to wake Shining Armor making him scream his lungs out in the very bed he had fallen asleep in. He looked around and found himself in his crystalline bedchambers, his beautiful wife sleeping soundly beside him. In amazement and with tears of both joy and immense sorrow slowly drain from his eyes he opened the windows to see the home he had lived in for a while now and rejoiced to know that there was no bounty on his head. What truly frightened the captain is that in his mind the phrase still echoed. The sentence that radiated fear:

"You can't protect your own"

Shining Armor whirled around and found an unknown pony standing at the doorway, staring at Shining with demonic eyes.

Not thinking, nor daring to act, he called out: "GUARDS!"

He roused such commotion that he woke his wife from her slumber and had a dozen guards answering his call. The guard didn’t seem to notice the foreign pony as he charged straight through the intruder which dissolved into smoke upon contact and stormed to his prince's side. "My lord, what is the matter?"

Not answering at first he stared at the faint wisps of smoke which disappeared into nothingness. With ragged breath and sweat dripping down his forehead he commanded: "Search the castle, we have an intruder in our midst"

Not questioning for as much as a second, the guards saluted and stormed off to find the alleged intruder.

"Sweetie" Cadence called from behind. He did not turn around. "What is going on? Did you see the intruder"

He nodded.

"Who was it?"

He swallowed the lump in his throat and after some long and agonizing moments he finally answered. "King Sombra is back"