Dark Ages

In the hired accommodation of Black Blitz, in Canterlot, had ignited a furious debate between Ragnarhog and Opal Splinter, who had managed to return to the castle and to be cured.

" Inept Squeeler !" shouted on Opal Splinter's face Ragnarhog , "Did you lose our best commercial and strategic asset, and have given it to those barbarians mindless yaks !"

" There were too many, Ragnarhog! W-we... we were taken aback !" Opal said, crying and sobbing, as she was comforted by the old Black Blitz.

"Oooh, if I had been there I would have given my life, rather than retreat!"

"But ... but they have bro... broken my wings..."

" My enemies have even broke me three ribs, and once I've fight with three arrows planted in the belly!"

Opal, now, were no longer listening anymore the Hog, she just wanted to be comforted by his old, best friend .
Ragnarhog went on with his talk of "victory or death", and told how his King would have banished or executed him, rather than let him live with such a failure on his shoulders.
Blitz, already sick of hearing that snorting whiny Hog, told him to shut up and leave.
Ragnarhog, then, began to ask what wanted to do that old, tired Pegasus to a hog as he, and then Blitz said something that is better not to tell the Terror of Phamine.

"You complain so much that I doubt you know how to make war, you kind of overgrow pork !"

Now, the damage was done.
Ragnarhog grabbed for neck, with his big hands, Blitz, and lifted him off the ground.
The giant Hog then took his hammer and began to breathe faster and faster, as his eyes became more bloodshot .
And then, with a loud grunt, he aimed a blow against Blitz.
Which missed him for a few centimeters.

" Don't tell me I cann't do war, old mummy ."

Ragnarhog, having said that, let go Blitz and, in turn, kicked Opal, which was next to them.
Golden Hoof came into the room and angrily asked, shouting, what had happened.
Ragnrhog approached with stomping steps to the earth pony, saying that there was nothing to care about.
Golden Hoof then gave a powerful header on the Hog's snout, breaking the nose of the latter .

"Now you're leaving, subspecies of bipedal sausage." said through clenched teeth and visibly irritated Golden Hoof at Ragnarhog, "Or the next shot I give you will be in a very painful place ."

"You... little misherble... augh !" said Ragnarhog sore, as he stood up and left.

Once out of the room, Golden hoof and Blitz went to see Opal, who was clutching her hooves to her waist, and said that it hurt a lot.
Perhaps that Hog had exaggerated with that kick.
Later, Ragnarhog was in his tent, outside the castle, to write a letter to his beloved King to inform him of the situation.
In the letter, he wrote of how silly it was the decision of Nova to send a novice general to command troops in a place so important, and just as miserable as she had been in failing.
In addition, he added a few lines in the language of the changeling of Phamine.
Once shipped with a magical flame ( now common thanks to Black Nova ), he waits for an answer, and meanwhile began to fix his nose.
Golden Hoof was a hard head, literally, but not enough to do serious damage.
This reminded at the Hog an comic old fact that happened years ago when, after a drunk, had tried to board more than once a shapely hog, and that had gave him a punch right there, on the snout.
At least from his point of view was comical.
Finally, the letter arrived.
There were written only a few lines.

"Soon, my loyal general. Rragash amdar ferok, Ragenohger. "

Read the letter, a guard called Ragnarhog on behalf of the queen, and the latter went quickly in the courtroom, leaving the letter there.
Under eyes that never should see it.

" Tell me, my queen ." said with a falsely friendly tone Ragnarhog to Nova.
" What do you want now ?" asked confused Nova, while reading a book.
" Well, you wanted me here, right ?"
" No ."
" ... what you mean with no ?"
" In addition to be fat, you're deaf too ? No !"
" But the guard... then... oh no. No no no !"

Ragnarhog started running to his tent, worried, while shoving and dropping down in his race various subjects, including the poor Ingenium Demens, who was just walking in the courtyard outside the castle.
Once entered his tent, his concern proved to be founded.
The King's letter was gone.
In that moment, the fury that unites all Hogs took over, and I let you imagine how the Hog had reduced his tent.

Camp of broken crystals, meanwhile, the infiltrator of the Harlequins Silent gave the letter to Ragnarhog Rarity, telling him it was very important.

" And this ? Ragash ... am..dar ... " began Rarity, while trying to read the letter," what language is, old yakking ? "
" I don't know," replied the infiltrator, " you are the expert in languages ."
"Yes, but this language... so barbaric and hard, for the Tartarus, I would never know it ."

After having shrugged and turning his eyes, the infiltrator went away, leaving Rarity with the letter.

" Well, maybe is some sort of Hog lang-"
" Uh, Miss Rarity ?" Said a diamond dog .
" Not now, Popo, son't you see I'm busy ?"
" I think that is-"
" Perhaps it is a contraction of the zebrican language ."
" Excuse me if-"
" No, it's certainly a coded message of the griffins! Vile traitors !"
" It's Changling, my lady ."

Rarity turned around, stunned and wide-eyed, toward the diamond dog, and then asked him how he could infer that it was the language of the changeling .
The big dog said that, many years ago, he met a changeling, and the latter often wrote in that language .
Then, Rarity asked if he could translate the letter, but the big dog replied that he knew nothing of changeling .
Then, she asked him to call three other diamond dogs and to make for her the luggage, because they would be left to go by the changelings of the Fictitious Locusts, in the far south of Equestria.
A place not so bad, of those times.

Meanwhile, somewhere above the clouds, Rainbow Dash was locked in his quarters, and had asked the guards to not enter and to don't let anybody in.
The reason for this, at least among the older members of the resistance, it was obvious.
That day was recurring a tragic anniversary.

"It's now hours that's she is in there." Said one of the guards to another, "What is she making, a nap?"
"Stop complaining, young one, and be more respectful." Said the other guard.
"Did I miss something?"
"Oh, for the patience of the Ancestor, from how you're here, you?"
"One month, I think."
"Then know this: when the boss closes his rooms and don't want to be disturbed, is not because she wants to be idle, and now shut up and stay alert ."

That said, they both resumed their seats.
In its rooms, Rainbow Dash was huddled in a corner, clutching to her chest a photo of her and Fluttershy, while on her face were dripped tears of sadness.
It had now been five years since her greatest friend had taken her own life, but the pain was still strong, and nothing would have been able to fill that wound .
Only Tank could make her feel a little better.

" Oh, Tank..." said sadly and sobbing Rainbow Dash, " why I... I haven't save her ? I would... I would have share everything with her... "

The tortoise stretched its green, wrinkled neck, and slowly rubbed its head on the cheek of the pegasus.
It was little, but he lifted her mood a little.
So, slowly, she got up, and went under the covers of her bed, that seemed too big for her, then felled asleep, and then began to dream.

The clouds were mysteriously black that day of many years ago.
Rainbow Dash asked Applejack to meet just outside the cottage of Fluttershy, to pick up her friend who hadn't been heard for days.
Once the two had get in front of the cottage, they started calling.

"Fluttershy, are you there ?" Applejack asked, out the door.
"Fluttershy !" Shouted Rainbow Dash.
"Maybe it's better knock, no ?" Asked Applejack.

When Rainbow Dash knocked on the door, it opened creaky.
Inside the cottage, was reign the silent.
There was not a bird to sing, nor a fly buzzing or a bear eating honey.
There was only emptiness.
The two mares couldn't worry about that, and they started searching everywhere, in every room and in every corner, but found none.
So, they tried in the bedroom of Fluttershy.
She wasn't in there, but at least there was her diary.
They jumped all over the part about the past, reading the last few pages, of five days before.

" Died. All the animals who came to visit me died as a result of crystallization.
I couldn't do anything except watch them sufferings and dying .
The last to leave was Angel. He has endured more than any other.
I gave him a last carrot, containing a powerful poison. He haven't even notice he died.
Now I'm going to bury him on the back, along with the other.
And then I'll go away from here.
From this place. "

Rainbow Dash began to rush on the back, ready to take away her friend, but didn't have the time to read the rest on the next page.

"I'm tired of seeing only suffering.
I know exactly what I will do.
This will be the last page of my diary.
Of my life ."

The scream of Rainbow Dash frightened Applejack, who ran on the back, already with tears in her eyes.
When she arrived, she couldn't stand up.
Rainbow Dash was crying and screaming at the hoofs of the body of Fluttershy, hanging from a branch and with the signs of decomposition.

And so, as it had begun, the nightmare ended.
Rainbow Dash had awakened in her bed, covered with sweat and tears, with Tank to observe her.
The mare took and hugged to the chest her beloved tortoise, and began to cry and unburden herself one more time.
And so she would did all day long.