Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound steadily pervaded the silence. It was the only noise, aside from Cadence's low breathing, it itself now so soft it was barely audible. But it was a much welcome distraction from the otherwise insufferable stillness. The silence that lay draped across the caverns was so incredibly thick it pealed louder than any bell in her ears. It rang through her head -- through her entire sensibility -- until she could no longer bear it.
It was the sound that could drive a pony mad. The sound of nothing. As it was, the simple clatter of a pebble being disturbed from the dripping water became the shuffle of some of the long-deceased ponies -- the remains of the criminals tossed down into the caverns from the Canterlot of days gone by. It didn't take much for her mind to begin to picture their white bones gleaming in the darkness around her, or imagine the creak and groan of their joints and the chattering of their decaying teeth as they despairingly searched for retribution against their untimely ends just beyond the edge of her hearing.
Cadence stirred slightly, feeling the cold, hard crystallised surface slide under her coat. A fresh wave of iciness gnawed at her limbs as she did so -- for even though the cold had settled into and numbed her bones long ago, every time she moved it still woke it anew. It was a constant reminder of where she was, regardless if she chose to open her eyes or not.
This place was her perfect nightmare. For her, a pony who was a beacon of warmth and kindness, who spread love and joy wherever she was, to whoever was nearby... This cold, silent, empty prison, devoid of any life was an infinitely cruel place. Where laughter once was heard all around her, only silence remained. The friendly, grinning smiles of her loved ones were now nothing more than the cold gleam of crystal. There was no warmth; simply darkness.
The only smile she saw now was hers. Her own face, twisted and distorted by the changeling with expressions she would never convey -- disdain, scorn, jealousy...hatred. To see her own image laugh mockingly at her was a painful sight. She learned quickly to keep her eyes firmly rooted to the ground, away from her reflections in the walls. For the changeling queen would still return from time to time, simply to wallow in her prisoner's despair, and no matter how hard she pressed her hooves against her ears, she could not keep the sound of her cackling laughter out.
To think that the form she had first appeared in to Cadence had been such a innocuous, naive one...
She could remember that tiny little innocent filly standing on her bedroom balcony, her pleading eyes round and glimmering with tears in the moonlight.
"P-please help me..." She mewled pitifully. "I'm... so... hungry,"
Maybe it was her striking resemblance to the foal she used to sit when she was younger that tugged at her heart. More than likely the changeling had been simply playing on her keen empathy and sense of kindness -- what kind of pony would refuse a helpless foal?
Her trusting nature had been her downfall. She should have called for her guards the moment the diminutive filly had appeared outside her window -- but she didn't. She'd thought she could help the poor creature. By the time she had realised the foal's true nature, it had been far too late. That condescending sneer of the twisted creature slowly taking on her own form had been the last thing she'd seen as the changeling's green magic had enveloped her, pushing her downwards, screaming and kicking.
And now... now...
How long had she been there for? There was no passage of the sun or moon to mark the time. Just the silence punctuated by the occasional drip of water.
Was it already too late? Would the wedding bells in Canterlot already be chiming into the blissfully ignorant sky? It was an unsettling emptiness that gnawed at her belly whenever she considered it.
Sighing, her thoughts turned. Her imagination clung to those last few pieces of him: the feeling of his warm skin pressed against hers as he curled around her... his breath tousling her mane as he ran his snout through it... the way his vivid blue eyes lit up when he laughed, or the way his lips crinkled when he frowned... even his scent; that smell of salty sweat mixed with the fumes of armour polish that would linger about him after a long day's patrol. Would she ever experience that again?
But in an instant, those last few memories simply dissipated away into the darkness like ghostly tendrils, and the cold reality returned. Through half-lidded eyes, Cadence reached out towards the shambles of a pony that stared back at her from the sheeny surface of the crystallised walls. The mare in the reflection was no princess. Her mane was mangy and unkempt, once-glossy coat more brown than pink and stained with mud, and her face taut and sunken. She was more skeleton than royalty.
The cruellest part of this emptiness was there was no way he could know the truth about the Cadence who currently roamed the halls of Canterlot. He would be up there, holding her, being close to her, all the while thinking it was his Cadence he was snuggling up against, while she sat in the darkness.
Her hooves scraped against the ground as she pictured that smirking doppelganger slinking along the side of his flank. The sound pierced the dreary gloom, as her own emotions did within her, bubbling up to the surface with a renewed intensity.
Cadence's horn lit up with magic, the light flooding the dark cavern. With a clatter of hooves she pulled herself up off the ground, teeth clenched and eyes trained to a single spot on the wall.
A sudden scream burst from her lungs as a bolt of energy erupted from her horn. The cave was lit like the middle of a thunderstorm, the raw power of the alicorn exploding out in a single, uncontrolled blast. The booming thunder shook the very walls of the caves.
But just like a clap of lightning, the sudden explosion subsided.
Cadence crashed to her knees, sobbing.
And once her tears dried, silence once again enveloped her.
Aside from one sound:
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
