NOTE: This is officially my first attempt at a MLP fan fiction. Therefore I apologize if some of my writing skills seems a little amateur at the moment. But if there are things that I could improve on, please let me know in a civil manner and I will use your advice to the best of my abilities. Thanks a million!
HEARTS OF ELYSIUM
by SpiritArsenal
PROLOGUE
Floodgates
Once upon an age, long ago, when the world was new, the ways of harmony were but a way of life to be learned, and chaos presided over order.
The alicorns, ancient pillars of this world, were engaged in destructive conflict with one another for absolute dominion of the land. Sibling struck down their sibling, and neighbor shed the blood of their neighbor. All was like a world of eternal night when life began.
However, two sister goddesses lived in the center of fire and discord, walking in the paths of harmony, acting as a beacon of light and purity: Ether the Older, her mane brimming with white fire; and Fiona the Younger, her own mane a geyser of vibrant aurora.
When the war was raging, Fiona spent it looking out for her kin, while Ether looked out for her sister.
But one day, like lightning strikes the earth, tragedy struck the goddess Fiona as her children were slain by those of her own kind in an ambush.
Embittered by this unfortunate twist of fate, the goddess wished revenge upon the alicorns, and the dark magic in her heart overflowed into a spiraling malice.
Ether tried all she could to comfort her sister, but her heart had already sunk into a deep, pitch black abyss where she would remain.
As the war grew into a holocaust, the darkness in all of the alicorns' hearts spiraled into a cluster of dark magic. Fueled by death and despair, an evil aura centered into a heartless spirit. Spawned by greed and wrath, the uncontrolled alicorn magic collided with this evil soul. All that corrupts in this world, all that destroys, incarnated itself into a grotesque magical creature that had only one intention in mind: to watch the world burn. Out of the darkness in creation's souls, the Voice Emperor was born.
It came to Fiona, disguised as a handsome alicorn. Falling under the Emperor's spell, in her desperation and loneliness, she slept with it, and in doing so, surrendered her body.
Against her will, the Emperor magically seized control of her body, and with the goddess's power at its command, the Voice Emperor massacred all alicorns throughout the land, striking fear into creation's heart, which only made the Emperor stronger. The night only grew darker throughout the world.
But soon, the goddess Ether, her heart still in balance and pure, stood up against the heartless tyrant, hoping to free her sister. But Fiona's own heart was now weak, heavy. For Ether's beloved sister, it was far too late.
They engaged in a battle of magic, light against the darkness.
In the end, because Ether's spirit was pure and balanced, she overpowered the Voice Emperor's magic, and the spell over Fiona's mind was temporarily freed. But in taking down the Emperor, she had eliminated her sister.
Fiona asked for her sister's forgiveness and that she not blame herself for striking her down, as she was dead already when she first gave in to the Emperor.
But in her heart, Fiona was afraid to face eternity alone. So in her last request, she asked that with Ether's magic, she breathe in her sister's essence, that their souls become one, so they could be with each other for all time.
But unbeknownst to the sisters, the Voice Emperor's soul was still attached to Fiona, only its magic wiped out.
Ether accepted her sister's request, and with her magic, the soul of both Fiona and the Emperor became one with her own. Because the Emperor's essence corrupts, Ether's own heart became weary and heavy, a dysfunctional trinity of purity and discord.
The war died out, and many inhabitants of the land had perished. Ether then set out from what was once her home.
Seeking a sense of solace, she wandered the world alone for nearly five hundred years.
When on the first day of the five hundredth year after her sister's death, the sun rose into the blue sky.
Ether had arrived to the magical land of Equestria.
There, she met two of her own kind...
((((^))))
“Child...”
Weightless, I could feel the somber peace fade into me.
“Whose voice do you follow?”
Breathless, I felt like I could dive into the serenity of the quiet atmosphere.
“Has your heart dawned to the rain?”
Timeless, I could stretch out his arms and disperse myself into the unreal eternity, and just fly away from the essences of the world that I could just never hope to fathom.
“The windows of your soul are clear.”
My eyes opened, and like a thick unraveling curtain, they revealed to me the swift horizon of a green fertile earth, stretching out below me—or under me. Patches of green seemed to dash the beautiful canvas like precious gems, hiding from their seeker. The white jagged outbursts of the earth, which I could only assume were mountains, reached out to me, seeking, asking for the same bliss that I had encountered.
A calm wetness surprised my back, and soon enough, the air around me became the center of a ballet of rain, soaring upwards to the glorious ground. For a moment I thought, did that mean that the world was, in a way, heaven?
A warmth, indescribable, arrived to greet me. A winter white fire enveloped me, and every thought, every emotion, soared to the heavenly grounds like all those dancing raindrops.
I could have sworn for a moment that all that rain had been my own tears.
~ ~ * ~ ~
“Spike?”
A feminine voice filled my ears, the horizon of rain and earth now dissolving into a memory. The only thing that stood out now was the faint sliver of daylight peering through the cracks of my eyelids and the unpleasant crusty feeling of sleep in my eyes.
With a sigh, the voice punctured the silence again, “Go ahead.”
A hard splash of water collided with my face, but the effort only worked in making me flinch. Then, with some effort on my part, my eyes twitched slightly open. A lavender unicorn pony was standing over me, a half-irritated, half-amused expression slapped on her face. Another voice rang out to the left of me.
“Well, he's still half-asleep, but at least he's breathin'.”
An orange earth pony, a cowmare hat perched atop her head, stood over me to his left with a grin on her face. Another mare, yellow with a red mane and slightly smaller than the orange mare, stood next to her with a bucket in her mouth.
“Mornin' sugarcube,” the orange mare gleefully proclaimed.
I tried talking in my tired, hoarse voice.
“Hi, Applejack.”
To the bucketeer, “Hey, Apple Bloom.” Apple Bloom just grunted happily in response.
I looked over at the lavender mare, same sarcastic look on her face.
I opened his mouth to say something, but instead, my eyelids just drooped and shut closed again, and I continued snoring in a way that was part real and part faking it.
Applejack's voice piped up. “Apple Bloom?”
Apple Bloom giggle a little bit and trot off, and after thirty and a half seconds, returned. Twilight's commandeering voice spoke out once more.
“Spike, come on. Do I need to do CPR again?”
Okay, the joke was a little immature, but...
“Eh, that depends. Is Rarity here?”
SPLASH!
That did it. I bolted upright, flailing his arms around.
“Alright, alright!”
Twilight, the smile still stretched across her face, seemed to soak in her victory (no pun intended) and giggle a bit as I got myself up to my feet. Awake but still a bit groggy, I just stood there and gave a dark stare at Twilight as water continued to drip all over my face. She just smirked and returned the look.
“What? Who's the one who's been sleepwalking here?” she said amusingly.
I didn't say anything else, but just held my ground there, inches taller than my friend. I had just left my teenage years within the week, and for my age, I was rather short in scale. I had slimmed out, but for a young adult dragon, my height still left a lot to be desired.
Applejack stepped between us, her motherly manner keeping me and my inter-species sister from clobbering each other.
“Come on, honey. Let's get you cleaned up.” AJ turned and started towards her house, and it was then that I realized where I was. I glanced behind him to see the Apple family's bold red barn looming over me. Heh.
“Again, huh?” I said sheepishly.
“What?” Twilight, starting to follow Applejack, double took back at me.
“I gave you a scare again?”
At first, Twilight glared at me in a way that I knew she was telepathically muttering “yes,” but her face softened to that understanding smile that I was looking for, as I smiled back. Twilight strode up to me and put a hoof on my shoulder.
“Well luckily for you, I've gotten used to it.” I had been having this problem for the past few weeks now, sometimes wandering as far as the Everfree Forest. Twilight had to gather all of her friends to get me out those few times. No cockatrices, thankfully.
And all of those times, but only known to myself, they were accompanied by that same dream. I glanced up into the sky and pondered. It was rather peculiar. I mean, I had dreams before, no doubt. But none of those dreams could ever come close to the surreality of this one, and none of them had been occurring consecutively like that.
And that voice. Who—or what—was that? It was like each time I heard it, I was staring into something unworldly, and it stared back at me. I liked it there. I wanted to go back.
“Spike?” Twilight's voice snapped me out of my trance. “Are you alright?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah.” Twilight looked unconvinced, but gave me a warm smile nonetheless, and with a flip of her mane, began to make her way towards Applejack's house. I glanced back at the ocean blue sky one more time.
“Hey Twi?”
“Yes Spike?”
“Do you know if it was raining last night?”
The confused expression once again reclaimed Twilight's face, and she looked up at the sky.
“I doubt it. There's not a dark cloud anywhere up there, and it hasn't rained in over a month. Why?”
Not a cloud in the sky, I thought. Was it really all just a dream? A recurring sublime dream?
“Nothing.”
