Sandstorm(s)

by Lyi

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Sad, Original Character, Tragedy
Length: 3671

When you find an old journal, you read it. When you read an old journal, you understand it. You understand that it represents your destiny.

This is the story of a colt, a colt who gets his cutie mark. But, I will warn you, this isn’t like any cutie mark tale. It’s HIS cutie mark tale.
Nopony else will know of this tale.
Nopony else will speak of this tale.
Nopony else can speak of this tale.
Nopony else exists to talk about it. I am not “nopony”: for I am the Wind.
The Eternal Breeze.
The Sand of Storms.
The Sandstorm.
And he is Sandstorm, Tempus-Sandstorm Statue.

This story has a dramatic reading! Follow TheDizzyDan for more dramatic readings.

The current cover art is by JazzyQ, and her DeviantArt can be found here.

The temporary cover image is done by the amazing PrinceCelestia who did this in about an hour. It can be found here.

Published 2015-02-15 23:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2015-02-15 23:00:01 UTC

The Journal

“Cool!  What is it?”

“I don’t know...I found it under my bed this morning.”

“You mean that thing, that you, like, call a bed.  It probably used to, like, belong to a beggar or something.”

“What the hay!  I live in an apartment, and the owner of it lived there before it was for rent.”

“Well, it must have been, like, an old apartment-unless you live on, like, the bad side of town.  Oops!  Did I say bad?  Well, I meant poor. Too bad you really do, like, live on the poor side of town.”

“Just ‘cause his parents have less of ‘n income than you do doesn’t mean anyth’ng.  He’s still m’ah friend.”

“It might not mean anything, but it sure, like, changes a lot of things.  A Canterlot Elite does not, like, associate herself with peasants like you.”

“Oh, and just because you are, like, his friends doesn’t mean that I’m, like, his friend.”

“You’re a mean filly, ya hear me!  Ya nothin’ but ah big bully!”

“Yeah!  Just go away!  Yeah, aren’t those Elite supposed to be nice to the townsponies?”

“Well, your friend there is, like, not saying anything.  Shouldn’t you, like, let him defend himself?”

“Ya go on and tell her off!”

“Yeah!  She doesn’t even deserve to be here with us!”

“Guys, just drop the topic, okay.  Do you want to see the book or not?”

“Umm...it’s not ah book.  It’s ah journal.  What day’s it for?”

“It says ‘May 19, 2030’.  Umm...what is the date today?”

“Today’s September 3, 2015.  Ah don’t get why anypony would want to write an entry for da future.”

"Yeah!  I don't get it, either.  It doesn't even look like an entry."

"Ah know!  And where is 'Elma's School for Manehattan Fillies'?  Ah’ve never heard dat name before."

“Whatever, smarty pants.  Just, like, read it already!”

“Yeah! Go on and read it!”

“Alright, here goes nothing.”

“I’m not here to spend, like, time with lower-class ponies like you, so bye-bye.”

“Hey!  Get ya’self back over here!  We aren’t done with ya yet!”

“Yeah!  Come back here, coward.”

“Hmpf! The time that you, like, get to call me coward is when you, like, catch me.”

“Hey!”

“Yeah! Hey!”

“Guys?  Umm...I guess I’m just going to read this myself, then.  I'll be in the tree house if you need me!”

May 19, 2030

In the Tree house beside Elma’s School for Manehattan Fillies

Dear Diary,

This is the first and last entry that I will ever make.  Whomever read this will probably not understand it...but try.  Try to understand it.  Why?  Because this is my story, and it can change both my destiny and my fate.

He was standing there.

His mouth wide was open, the muscles daring to emit a scream.  His vocal chords strung like dead mice along his throat.  His pupils widened, the width of a sewing needle through his eyes.  His long brown mane, tangled like string amongst thorns.  He smelt of dead sand and death-laden soil.  His curly tail coiled into a whip, so stiff and strong.  His legs were glaciers, frozen ice connected to his abdomen.  So cold and hard.  Frozen with fear.  And, thus, he was just standing there.  Unable to stretch his hamstrings or move his tendons, for fear struck harder than lightning; and fear burnt like fire; and fear froze like ice.  And ice was not my friend.

Ice made it hurt more.  It made me cold and frozen.  Ice burnt worse than fire and made pain twenty percent worse.

He was running away.

The fire of his fear burning through the ice-cold muscles.  His bones crunching like chips with every miserable step.  His head displayed in a similar fashion portraying the “Lord of the Flies”.  It was almost as if it was not connected to his body; simply staring as the scene unfolded.  His legs moved like an automaton, one-two-one-two.  His tendons seemed to reach a point of unbearable torture, daring to snap out of place.  The steps were colder than frozen pavement, and the roar of stiffened muscles seemed to echo down the fiery path.  But yet, he kept running.  He could have stopped this at that.  A simple twist at his eternal hourglass would have mended his aching muscles and failing bones.  He was the Master of Time.  He could have froze the atmosphere.  But he did not.  He simply kept running along the fire-ice covered yellow brick road.  Speed was my friend.

To be able to run away from my scorners, to be able to run from those who hated me.  To be able to send my Sands away in a simple breath.  Speed had let me accomplish many things.

He was screaming.

Perhaps it was the sudden realization of reality’s events that caused him to do so.  Perhaps it was simply because of shock or horror at the unfolding events.  Whatever conscious thought entered his head, his yell sounded out loud and clear.  It was a high-pitched shriek, his vocal chords straining and stretching and pulling onto the sound.  All of his feeling’s released into noise: the horror of the happenings, the anger at the truth, and meeting the face of death and torture.  His scream raised higher than all of the other cries of mercy towards my Sands.  His shrieks were tremors of an earthquake through my ear.  His pleas of mercy, however, never touched my eardrums.  And so he screamed louder; I heard his scream, but not what he was screaming.  Mercy was not my friend.

They did not give me mercy when they sent me away into my small corner of the world.  Mercy was not given to me when they teased me and cursed me with their magic.  Mercy was not given to me when they took away my unborn foal.  They killed both of us when they separated my soul from my body, and turned me into the Wind.  “I was too powerful”, “not controllable”, “too dangerous to keep around”.  They never gave me mercy.

He was crying.

The mare beside him had been devoured my Sands, into my Sands.  The grains of brown and brown had swirled around her, piercing her with horrifying pain.  They seeped into her bones and clamped themselves onto her mane and tail.  They soaked themselves into her muscles and fed on her like a parasite.  She was torn from limb to limb internally apart.  Then, with of gust of my Breeze, her body collapsed like a corpse, for she was now a corpse.  Her body was hollow and seemed like an abyss.  My Sand ate her soul in one giant bite, all of her hopes and dreams crunched up like dried cheese.  All that was left of her after I blew her body into Sand was the faded imprint of a cutie mark.  Pity.  She would have been a great engineer.  And so he cried.  He cried that I was killing them so mercilessly.  Using my Sands to turn them into one of my Sands.  Torturing them with unspeakable pain before releasing them to the beyond of life.  Pain was my friend.

Pain made me tougher, and taught me the life lessons that I was never taught in school.  It gave me energy to cry or to move when I thought that all was over.  It gave me a chance to prove myself...to myself.

He was lonely.

All of the other ponies were in horrifying pain, their bodies arching and tearing in horrifying ways.  Somehow, amongst the misery and gruesome horror, there was silence.  He was surrounded by screaming, shrieking ponies, mare and colts alike; but yet, it was silent for him.  The screams of the others buzzed like bees, and his own screams were like the fluttering wings of a butterfly.  Quiet, and annoying.  He felt very, very lonely indeed.  To be surrounded by many, but to be so alone: there is no worse torture.  Silence was not my friend, but loneliness was.

Silence made me quiet and didn’t let me speak.  Silence made me hold my tongue and took away all of my freedom.  It took away all of my life. But loneliness...loneliness was not a punishment.  Loneliness gave me a time to think and a time to understand my thoughts.  It gave me time to plot my plans to die: anything was better than this.

He was vengeful.

Vengeful...a desire to seek vengeance.  He wanted vengeance for all of the dying ponies, for all of the tortuous screams.  All that he wanted, was to have the bitter taste of revenge on his tongue.  He wanted to understand why I did all of this: why the world was turning into a giant...Sandstorm!  He wanted to know why my Sands were swirling beyond the expanse of the small, metropolis and into the country farmlands.  He wanted to know why I was tearing away the futures of the young fillies and colts that I was killing.  He wanted to avenge the deaths of all whom had died, and all whom were dying.  But yet, he knew that he would not succeed...because, if the four Princesses and the Elements of Harmony couldn’t stop my Sands or I, what chance did he have?  However, revenge was my best friend.

Was I not getting revenge for all the pain and seclusion that I faced for the past millennium?  The Princesses were adored, dragons were given compromise, the Tribes and Nations of the other races became allies.  Why was I ignored and placed away?...As if I had done no worse than threatening eternal night.  And even she had gotten a lesser punishment than I...A millennium is more than a mere thousand years.

He was selfish.

Gone were the moments crying and begging mercy for the dying.  Gone were the times when he sought out to revenge the fallen.  It seemed so long ago, but it was only a few seconds gone.  His small pea-sized brain sought out to piece together the puzzles of reality.  What was reality?  His eyeballs darted around and around in its socket, almost performing a painful dance.  His precious mind was warped by my power, and every inhale and exhale that he made felt like sand rubbing against his windpipe.  It was sand rubbing against his innards.  My Sands.  He screamed and cried and begged for mercy from this misery.  He begged for himself, and not for anypony else.  And, like last time, I turned a deaf ear to what he was saying.  All that he thought of was himself.  All that he cared for was what he had.  He writhed on the ground, like a scorched worm, drying in the sun.  And even the sun couldn’t stand up to me.  He begged me to take away the pain and the grotesque horror that was his body.  His bones and muscles contorting into ways that would make even a Wonderbolt aghast.  No pony else existed in his mind...he was on his own.  Too selfish.  Selfishness was my friend.

The selfish heart that I owned was what kept me alive all these years.  But it hurt.  A lot.  It hurt to leave the one that I loved.  It was painful to leave the world that I was borne into, lived in, and was patriotic to.  Selfishness tore my heart out when I lived to kill my foal.  Yet selfishness did one kind deed in my life: It killed both of us.  When my body was left, discarded and soulless, I died with my foal.

He was tempted.

My Sands hissed wonderful thoughts into his head.  Daring him to step into their world of adventure.  His ears twitched at their noise, he was barely connected to the outer universe;  his soul was slowly leaving his pathetic little body.  He was tempted to follow my Sands and to become one of them.  His mind worked around them, but couldn’t infer that my Sand were made up of dead souls.  “Bodies can die and decay, but souls cannot.”  But I can kill souls.  They are my Sands.  His eyes moved wildly, and his hooves twitched occasionally.  My Sands pulling at his tendons and playing around with his body like a dog and its chew toy.  And he was very chewy indead.  They lured him into their traps, and coerced his soul to come out.  They pleaded as if being one of my Sands was paradise.  Heaven in hell.  His once sharp focus was now long gone.  His eyes were glassy and his body was already starting to decay into a corpse.  His tail was swirling into my Sands-becoming one with my Sands.  To be so tempted to leave reality and to follow the brown specks into wonderland; when nopony truly knew what reality was anymore.  So many temptations.  Temptations were my nemesis and was my worst enemy.

Temptation forced me into hiding.  It was my curiosity-and it certainly killed the cat.  It laid sweet little treats onto the red brick road, straying me from the yellow one.  Temptations were what led me to this waste of a corner.  The world was a giant trash can.

He was dreaming.

Dreaming of all the things he could have done in life.  Become a colt, a father, lead a life, earn money raise his foals...he had wanted to all of that and more.  He dreamt of what he could have been: kind, wealthy, smart...or mean, poor, stupid.  Everything sounded better than having his soul eaten by my Sands.  Even dying seemed to be a better choice.  He was almost dead, now.  His legs had no more feeling within them.  His ears could barely hear a sound.  His eyes were clouded, like he had cataracts.  His heart beat faintly, almost silently.  All that he was proud of was turning into dust with a breath.  Everything that he had worked for in his short life was gone.  All that he achieved: trophies, awards, money, was lost in an instant.  What had he done wrong?  He dreamt of leaving this world peacefully and calmly, but it was painful and the world was in hectic chaos.  Even chaos was hectic.  He dreamt of his future child, young and innocent, being torn apart by my Sands.  He dreamt so much that he was almost, just almost, in a dream.  And dreams were neither my friend nor my fiend.

Dreams were my thoughts.  My thoughts were my reality.  And my reality was not my dream.  Dreams had disappointed me but gave me hope in dire times.  But, my whole life was a dire situation.  “She’s a monster!”  And so I am.  “She should die!” And so I did.  “She’s pregnant with a fool’s foal!”  I am.  But he was not a fool...I was.  Dreams gave me hope that I could live as an equal.  Dreams gave me hope that I was not a monster.  Dreams gave me hope that I could live...with my foal and my fool.  To dream on...is to hope on.  And hope is but an empty dream.

He was dead.

There was no “sonic rainboom”, no lasers or light.  He just died.  His muscles stopped uncontrollable twitching, and his mane seemed to burn onto the ground.  He was quiet, and so was his breathing.  His chest no longer heaved up and down.  His smile no longer looked like his fool of a grandfather’s.  And the same intense eyes that the fool owned, too, seemed as small and uncertain as his.  They slunk away into his eye sockets like how the cowardly fools had slunk away.  He body started to decay almost instantly, my Sands were parasites and he was the host.  His hooves no longer stood firmly on the ground.  All in all, he looked just like his fool of a grandpa.  Both dead.  Both stupid.  And both ignorant.  I have watched him for many years.  But something was different, something that proved his soul had been tampered with.  His body decayed and sunk into the earth; his soul was burnt by my Sands; and his cutie mark, the sign of his uniqueness and what determined him from my fool, was...was...not in the earth with his body.  His cutie mark remained...rooted to the ground and disconnected from the earth as a vestige to represent my handiwork.  He could have done great things: his cutie mark was an hourglass with sand pouring out of it.  He could have been a master of time itself.  But, he was now one of my Sands.

My name was Conscience Epicure, vastly meaning, soul eater.  My cutie mark had been circle with a triangle inside of it.  This represented the unending circle of life, and the three points of life: birth, life, and death.

http://manlyman95.deviantart.com/art/a-thing-514022020 *Also by PrinceCelestia*

Or, as I would say, it shows the “journey and cycle of the pony soul”.  My memory is pretty fuzzy, as I don’t have an official “body”.  But, I remember many key moments of my life.  I can still hear their educated cries of “That is impossible!  Souls cannot be eaten or conquered!”.  My abilities made myself more powerful than Princess Celestia herself!  I suppose that this worried the Princess; she was supposed to be the best.  However, it was the scientists, specifically Twilight Star and Night Shine, that decided to take away my powers and experiment on it.  While they tailed my every move and attempted to track me down, I fell in love with a “fool” and got engaged.  After spending many years on the run without being caught, I thought it to be safe if we got married at a Manhattan church.  As my memory fails from here, I infer that the scientists and Royal guards found me after we were married for about a year.  There was a skirmish, and he was killed.  The mob of scientists dragged me to their labs, unbeknownst of the child I was carrying and determined to perform some experiment on me to discover the source of my powers.  As I remember, something went wrong during the experiment and I was killed.  Or so they thought.  My body was simply separated from my soul.  Seeing that my powers were greatly enhanced without my body as a setback, they sent an appeal for banishment and exile to the Princess.  The case of Nightmare Moon was going on at the same time, so the Princess didn’t bother to read over whom she was exiling before she signed the document.  I was driven from my home into a small part of the universe that was undiscovered.  As I recall, it used to belong to Discord before he was turned into stone.  I have been left alone for too long, and the Princess has broken her vow of never killing an innocent.  Was my foal not considered an innocent?

He was one of the many that my Sands devoured.  I am writing this now, in hopes of preventing his death.  In hopes of preventing all of their deaths.  In hopes of preventing what I have done.  Why?  Because this is all that I ever wanted, and it feels so wrong.  So WRONG.  Somehow, within all of the chaos and terror, my friendships may have changed.

With a heavily weightless heart,

A mercifully merciless soul,

A quietly strong voice,

the Wind and her Sands

P.S.  If you believe this entry to be entirely false and unidentified, feel free to look outside the window.  May I, in my naïve and oblivious state, lead you to the truth.

His large, sandy brown eyes followed the log of wood to the window.  The makeshift red curtain was constantly shifting with the wind.  He walked over to it, grasping the flappy cloth with one hoof as he peered down at his friends.  Somehow, they had managed to turn a simple game of chase into an extremely complicated version of tag.  And it seemed that not all of them understood all of the rules.  Their quiet bickering followed the wind into his ears.  His friends: the country bumpkin, the tag-along-boy, and the socialite.  What was he?  The leader? The follower?  The lower-class pony?  The peasant?  The cool colt?  Or was he someone else?  Who was he, really?  Where did he belong?  When did he start existing here?  Why was he here?  All of those questions slowly seeped into his brain, as if they were asked by his heart rather than head.  A cool feeling swept across the tree house, and the curtain billowed in the breeze.

He felt so calm, so comfortable-as if he belonged in the wind and with the wind.  The musky smell of sand flowed with the wind, bringing him scents that made him feel like home.  It felt so unfamiliar, yet so comforting.  How could a little colt from the prosperous town of Manehatten have smelled this before?  How could the dirt-laden streets of poverty lane have felt like this before?  It was almost as if he had entered some other pony’s body, and was feeling perfectly comfortable with it.  Time almost seemed to slow down as he took a deep whiff of the nostalgic scent.  The grainy scent of dust, ash, and sand.  He peered outside the window again, hoping to catch another sniff of the wonderfully fulfilling scent. But, as he looked out, he not only saw the park that his friends were playing in, he also saw the treehouse, the school, and far-off playground.  It was almost as if his eyes had taken a split-second trip aboard the breeze, and took a split-second snapshot of the view.

He ripped his eyes away from the window, and sat back down in the corner.  Yet, no matter how hard he tried to forget what he just saw, certain highlights in the picture sparkled and called out to him.  The vast, green grass; its fresh and sharp scent that would bring any pony from death back to life.  The old schoolhouse, with its white frame and red paint theme.  Admittedly, it looked more like a barn from his view.  Its ancient windows that swayed softly to the wind by its hinges.  The door, softly creaking open and shut to the music that the wind played.  It was like exploring an old world in a new way, this time with scent rather than with sight.  The smell of old textbook pages and chalkboard dust surrounded his nose, and fumes of pencil lead signified how hard working the students of the school used to be.  Before the fire that killed three fillies.  Before five lawsuits were filed against the school.  Before the school shut down.  It was like learning lessons with scents of the past: the scent of smoke and fumes; the scent of freshly filed paper; the scent of hard wood pounding against clean nails.  It was magnificently brilliant.

It all ended with half a second, unfortunately.  But a feeling of wonder and amazement had left him standing in the tree house for over an hour.  Time had felt so insignificant.  Now, as he headed down the tree house to go home, he felt a tingle all around him.  He darted his eyes away from the ladder and gazed at the school.  The school that had burnt down just before his time.  It was still so vivid in his head, like a memory that he had gained just a few seconds ago.  Then, he looked down at his flank.  Something told him that something special had just happened-something amazing.  A tilted hourglass with sand spilling out from it danced on his flank.  He had gotten his cutie mark.  His cutie mark!  But, what did it mean?

A single grain of sand brushed against his nozzle.  The wind blew quietly against the trees.

The Eternal Breeze.

The Sand of Storms.

The Sandstorm.

His name was Sandstorm, Tempus-Sandstorm Statue.