The Long Darkby NeverEatTheLemonsAloneChaptersFloor One - LimbusFloor Two - LuxuriaFloor Three - GulaPrologueFloor One - LimbusWhen she awoke, it was dark. She was lying in a room of cold gray granite, the roof broken above her. Sunlight streamed in through the small hole that she had presumably fallen through. She shakily rose to her feet and tried to fly out, but cried out in pain instead. Both of her wings were broken. The fall must've damaged them. She preferred to not dwell on what had happened, and instead on finding a way out of these caves. She could be stuck down here for a long time with badly broken wings, and preferred to not starve. So instead of standing still, she moved on, finding a small tunnel that led out from her landing zone. For a long time, she wandered the dark caverns. They were totally, utterly pitch-black. A feeling of desolation and loneliness swept over her. Endless tunnels sprawled out before her, and she had no way of seeing, none at all. Occasionally she tripped over something in the darkness, though what it was, she couldn't see. Stone of some sort, cold and unyielding and carved into regular shapes, and that was all she could glean from her senses. The air was cold. Jeez, she thought, who knew there was a cave like this underneath Ponyville? I bet Twilight would love to explore this place. Each hoof she brought in contact with the ground sent a series of echoes murmuring around the tunnels and caverns, bouncing back to her many times, disorienting her and slowly frazzling her nerves. If anything, the constant echoes only reasserted how lonely she was. There was nopony here. She was, for the first time in a long time, truly, utterly, brutally alone. Being a pegasus only made everything worse. If she had been an earth pony, it likely would've been easier on her. She loved the sky, and more than that, she craved it. She missed it as though she were a tiny foal, separated from her mother. Not many in modern Equestria knew, least of all her, but pegasi actually need the sky to live. If they aren't touched by fresh air in long enough, they will begin to waste away. The same goes for earth ponies needing soil and stone, and unicorns and ambient magic. In exchange, they gain the magical energy required for flight, impossible strength, and active magic, respectively. It wasn't long until she was looking for something, anything, to keep her company. She held her breath more often than not, walking as quietly as she could, listening for any noise at all. She heard nothing except for her own faint, echoing hoofsteps and the blood pounding in her ears. The inky blackness all around her was unlit, and nothing she could do would let her see. With no other sound and no way to fill the empty hours as they dragged on by, she began to talk to herself. "Come on, girl," she murmured, "you've been through worse. After all that, are you going to let a cave beat you? Hay no, you're not! You're going to find a way out of this, just you wait and see!" The interminable time ticked on, endlessly rushing past her. Somehow, she never hungered or thirsted, though she felt as though she'd been wandering for days on end. The isolation was beginning to take its toll, and she began to laugh at things that weren't said, and to cry about things that had never happened. Visions appeared before her, hallucinations that flickered before her feverish eyes. Once, she even thought she saw an exit, and she ran at it, nearly breaking her snout on the stone cave walls. So it was fortunate, then, that she began to hear a noise. Not just any noise, actually: a voice. "God?" it whimpered, far away, "Where are you? Are you down here?" The pegasus gasped and dashed straight for the source of the voice. It evidently heard her too, because she heard hoofsteps drawing closer until she could feel the breath of another pony on her face. "Hello?" she softly spoke. "Are you trapped down here, too? Do you know where we are?" By the voice, the pony was definitely a stallion, and an older one at that. His voice was frail and weak. The pegasus shook her head, though she knew he couldn't see her. "I have no idea. I don't even know how I got here. I blacked out and woke up here. I guess I fell through the ground." "And I as well." spoke the stallion. There was a long period of silence in between them before the pegasus spoke. "What's your name?" "Teller," he responded, "Story Teller. No points for guessing what my job is," he chuckled briefly, "and you?" She opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue caught. "I...I don't know. I can't remember my name. I can remember everything else about my life. I can remember everything I've done, everypony I've met, everything I've saved, but for some reason, I can't remember my name." "Well," Teller mused, "I suppose if you hit your head hard enough in the fall, something of that sort could happen. I think you'll be okay, though. Any good magical doctor could fix that up." She nodded. "Who were you talking to earlier?" His tone carried confusion. "What? I didn't say a word before you showed up." "No, you totally did," she argued, "you mentioned someone named God or something like that." "My girl," Teller slowly replied, "I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about." Did I imagine all of that? she wondered, lifting her head up for a moment to gaze at where the ceiling presumably was, and when she turned back, all was silent. Teller was gone. A hole of despair carved itself into her stomach and she banged her hooves on the ground, crying out in frustration. "Yeah, well I don't need you either! Go away, Teller! See if I care!" She cared deeply. She had no idea how much longer she spent, wandering those caverns. Her fur and mane grew haggard, and she could feel her eyes drooping from exhaustion. "So...tired..." she mumbled, stumbling through yet another pitch-dark cave. "Just...going to.....go to.......sleep........." And so she laid down, and slept. Floor Two - LuxuriaAt last, she woke up, and could see again. Once she opened her eyes, she wished that it was not so. Stretching out endlessly before her was an enormous barren field of stone. No pits, no caves, no end in sight. Rain lashed it as gale-force winds blew the freezing precipitation about, buffeting her fur and soaking her near-instantly. She shivered as she felt her body grow cold. Off in the distance, she could hear pained howling, and as she strained her eyes through the tempest, she could see ponies trying their hardest to beat through it. They were having little luck, and she was having even less. The wind caught her wings and she felt them expand, the bones snapping even further as she screamed hoarsely. "Girl? Is that you?" It was a recognizable voice, and as the wind blew the other way and the pain abated slightly, she turned to see a familiar stallion. "Teller? H—What? Where are we?" Her voice trembled with pain, fear and confusion. "What's happening? I fell asleep in the caves and now I'm in this storm. What are we doing here? How did we get here?' Teller shook his head, where and pointed upwards with a single hoof. Peering into the maelstrom with her hawk-keen eyes, she could faintly see a black blotch in the world above her, above the clouds. "We fell," he responded. "After I finished speaking with you, you just vanished. I kept wandering past where I should've been asleep and finally, I came to a great pit. Underneath me was dim gray light. I wondered what it could've been, and so I jumped." She gaped at him, eyes bugging out. "But...you aren't a pegasus! How did you survive the fall?" He chuckled faintly and waved his hoof, then turned and walked off. "Perhaps I'll see you again, miss. I do hope you remember who you are eventually." She dashed after him as he disappeared into the endless driving ran. No matter how quickly she ran, though, he ran faster, and eventually outpaced her, vanishing into the torrent. At last she came to a stop. Beneath her was a great precipice, an enormous cliff that fell for many miles before her, before coming into contact with another of the endless stone plains. Sprawled out before her, the endless monotone horizon stretched on, and on the plain beneath her she saw ponies. Not brightly coloured ponies, no. Not the ponies she was used to. No, these ponies were barely even recognizable as such. The endless driving rain had stripped their coats of colour and lustre, rendering them into shambling gray and brown beasts, groaning in pain as they pushed their way through the rains. Occasionally, one fell, only to rise again and resume its endless struggle of stinging needles of water and constant hurricane winds. Glancing around, she noticed a crude, steep staircase carved into the stone nearby. Picking her way carefully over to it—with a broken pair of wings, slippery ground, and a massive cliff, one could never be too sure—she began to climb slowly down. It took days, and yet it felt like it took no time at all. Did time even pass here, in this non-life? She looked out at the exposed sky, seeing no variance at all from the past hours of grueling toil. Days wore on into weeks, and weeks wore on into months, and months wore on into years. Yet she never seemed to reach the end of the staircase. She never found a way down to the poor masses below. Because finally, as she turned around and took the first step back up, she found herself once more at the top of the cliff, looking down. She looked much different from the pony that had woken up in the pouring rain, as the interminable storm ground away at her sanity. Her eyes were bloodshot and wide, perpetually flicking back and forth. Her muscles occasionally spasmed. Worst of all, though, was how her mind was affected. Ponies are herd animals. They are not meant to live in eternal solitude, nor are they meant to live in endless rain. She was truly talking to herself now, having long, drawn-out conversations with the other pegasi surrounding her in her loneliness. She would talk until her throat ran dry, and then continue moving her mouth, not caring whether or not words came out. No matter how much of the stormwater she caught in her mouth, it never seemed to slake her endless thirst. At last, as she felt ready to give up, she felt a warm hoof on her back and Teller appeared beside her once more. "Having a rough time of it, huh, kid?" he asked sympathetically. She stared up at him nearly uncomprehendingly. He sighed. "It's painful to see you brought so low, miss. You seemed so lively before." She looked back up at him with half-dead eyes, her voice a barely-formed whisper. "The rain just...keeps going. It never stops. Why won't it stop? Why can't I make it stop?" Teller hesitated for a moment, then dropped his shoulders and sighed. "Look...alright. It might end up worse for you, but...if you really want to get out of here, you need to trust me." She gazed up at him, hoping against hope that she would finally find a way out of this neverending storm. "It's very simple. You know the big cliff?" The pegasus nodded, and Teller continued. "Good. Jump off of it." Without protest, she slunk off to the cliff and, not missing a beat, slung herself off of it. As she fell, she began to feel something important flickering into her mind. Something to do with...her. Her name. She strained to catch it, but just as it was within reach, she hit the ground and the entire world went mercifully black. Floor Three - GulaOnly after several minutes had passed did she realize that she was still falling. Opening her eyes, she saw that she had not splattered to the cold, wet stones at the base of the cliff. Instead, she was falling through an endless black void. The only reason she knew that she was falling was from her innate pegasus magic, still functioning, even now. There was no wind, nor drag, nor any other indication of falling. She was simply dropping through the world. And so it went. She fell, waiting for something to occur, and was disappointed as the falling continued. It stayed thus for a long, long time, until the blackness around her ceased being dark and became speckled with stars as a layer of thick gray clouds exploded into reality beneath her. Her mind began to panic and she reflexively flapped her wings, earning nothing but a groan of pain. She closed her eyes as she punched through the cloud layer and into cold rain. It was nothing like before, though; it was not windblown and stinging, burning her skin. No, while frigid, it was a gentle drizzle. The ground below drew into view and as she plummeted, she realized what it was a split second before she impacted, plunging deep into viscous brown mud. "Ugh," she muttered, "what is this?" She found it difficult to move, her lower body entirely subsumed by the sticky morass. It smelled of some vile, unnamed horror, and before too long, she wished fervently for some way to plug her nose. The mud was absolutely freezing; though calm and still, her entire body was wracked with spasmodic shivers. She slowly slogged her way along, moving if only to generate some semblance of warmth. "Glughhh..." A startled eep came from her mouth as the mud beside her sloughed to the side, revealing a pony. His eyes were dull and his gut distended, filled with, she was sure, nothing good. He gazed mournfully up at her. "So somepony new comes to Gluttony..." His face was split with a sincere, yet still mildly disturbing, smile. "I won't say I'm happy for you, but at least it'll be good to have some new company." She cocked her head to the side as he slowly raises himself up. "Follow me. I'll show you where not to go." He led her along, slogging through the freezing, vile mud. It wasn't the mud, the pegasus was quick to realize; no, the rain itself carried the disgusting stench. As she followed the stallion, the ground slowly sloped downwards until a great hole loomed in the ground before them. "I wouldn't advise going down there," he commented. "That's where the greedy go. Even if it's awful up here, at least it's relatively work-free." At his words, her stomach tied itself in a knot with foreboding. Seeming to not notice, he led her away from the pit, further towards a great three-headed shadow looming in the sky. "Girl, stay far away from that thing. It's Cerberus, the most gluttonous of us all. If you go near it, it'll eat you like you were no more than a toy." The shadow shifted slightly and a booming growl reverberated around the air. He winced and led her as fast as possible away from the shadow. "So," she asked him as they slogged, "what's your name?" He chuckled mirthlessly. "You are the first pony to ask me that in a very long time. Names aren't usually considered important in Gluttony. If you must know, though, I believe I was called Ciacco, a very long time ago." She pondered for a moment, rolling the odd word around with her tongue. "What kind of a name is Ciacco?" He waved off the question. "Oh, I come from Itaily. From the colours, I assume you're from mainland Equestria. Pay no attention." There was a squelching sound in the mud behind them and Ciacco froze, turning his head very slightly. "Don't move," he whispered as quietly as possible. A great worm emerged from the shifting mud, a strange shriek coming from its massive mouth. It swung its ponderous head side to side for a few moments before diving into the mud once more. All was silent except the pattering of the rain again. Ciacco let out a sigh of relief. "Those things will always terrify me, no matter how long I'm here. Anyway, that's about all I can help you with. You should go now." With that, he sighed and sank beneath the mud once more. "It was nice to walk again..." he mumbled as his was finally subsumed. Shaken, the pegasus looked around for a moment, bewildered. In the distance, she caught a stallion making his way towards her and gasped. "Teller!" she called. It was indeed Teller. As he drew closer, he smiled faintly at her. "You're looking better than the last time I saw you. How are you doing?" She shrugged. "At least I had someone to talk to. His name was Ciacco. He seemed like a decent enough guy, I guess." The stallion chuckled. "Oh, you met Ciacco? Lucky you. Not many see him nowadays. As for me, I last saw him quite a long time ago." The pegasus' ears perked up. "Wait, you've been here before?" Her eyes narrowed. "Come to think of it, you knew how to leave that wretched storm. Who are you, really?" He chuckled. "All I want is to help you. If you can keep going, you might actually make it out of here. You wouldn't be the first, though very close to it." As he turned to leave, the pegasus called after him. "I bet Story Teller isn't even your real name!" He laughed. "Sorry, but that's a secret. Maybe later, hmm?" With that, he sunk into the mud in a similar fashion to Ciacco, vanishing into the stinking goo. Her ears folded back and he thought about what he said. "Keep going, hmm?" she murmured to herself. Making her way to the center, she stared down into the pit. What had Ciacco said? The greedy went down into that pit? Well, she thought suddenly, I might as well. It's not like staying here will be any help. Then, taking a deep breath, she tipped over the edge and fell. Prologuethump-thump thump-thump thump-thump She was woken in the night by a throbbing, pulsing, thumping sound, like nothing she had ever heard before. thump-thump thump-thump thump-thump It came from the ground far below her, and she dove through her floor, spiraling down to the field that lay beneath her house, just east of Ponyville. thump-thump thump-thump thump-thump The sound was emanating from the ground beneath her hooves. The vibration rattled her bones. It was as though a great beast had come into being, and now its heartbeat was shaking the earth itself. thump-thump thump Then just like that, it stopped. Snorting in frustration and irritation at being woken up at such an unholy hour, she blasted off, soaring back up and into her house, soon falling asleep once more. Beneath her, the earth was still and silent. The following morning, she woke again, feeling much refreshed and writing off what had happened last night as a dream. Yawning briefly, she rose out of her bed and slowly trotted to the kitchen, quickly fixing herself a bite to eat. The advantage to living in a cloud home, she thought, is being able to chill food whenever you want. Oh, she knew any moderately powerful unicorn could do one better, keeping food in full stasis, but all the same, it brought a small iota of pride to her for being a pegasus. Once she had finished eating, she made her way to the door, eager to start the day. As she opened it, she noticed something. Huh, she wondered, where's that ticking sound coming from? It couldn't be her clock, she had tossed it a day and a half ago. So what was it? As she followed the sound, she noticed with some consternation that it was growing more and more rapid. Something seemed familiar about it, but she couldn't quite put it together. Then she realized, and dove desperately downwards. She almost made it, too, before there was an enormous explosion and a purple flash blotted out her vision entirely. She felt intense burning, then freezing, and then nothing. And then she fell.
Floor One - LimbusWhen she awoke, it was dark. She was lying in a room of cold gray granite, the roof broken above her. Sunlight streamed in through the small hole that she had presumably fallen through. She shakily rose to her feet and tried to fly out, but cried out in pain instead. Both of her wings were broken. The fall must've damaged them. She preferred to not dwell on what had happened, and instead on finding a way out of these caves. She could be stuck down here for a long time with badly broken wings, and preferred to not starve. So instead of standing still, she moved on, finding a small tunnel that led out from her landing zone. For a long time, she wandered the dark caverns. They were totally, utterly pitch-black. A feeling of desolation and loneliness swept over her. Endless tunnels sprawled out before her, and she had no way of seeing, none at all. Occasionally she tripped over something in the darkness, though what it was, she couldn't see. Stone of some sort, cold and unyielding and carved into regular shapes, and that was all she could glean from her senses. The air was cold. Jeez, she thought, who knew there was a cave like this underneath Ponyville? I bet Twilight would love to explore this place. Each hoof she brought in contact with the ground sent a series of echoes murmuring around the tunnels and caverns, bouncing back to her many times, disorienting her and slowly frazzling her nerves. If anything, the constant echoes only reasserted how lonely she was. There was nopony here. She was, for the first time in a long time, truly, utterly, brutally alone. Being a pegasus only made everything worse. If she had been an earth pony, it likely would've been easier on her. She loved the sky, and more than that, she craved it. She missed it as though she were a tiny foal, separated from her mother. Not many in modern Equestria knew, least of all her, but pegasi actually need the sky to live. If they aren't touched by fresh air in long enough, they will begin to waste away. The same goes for earth ponies needing soil and stone, and unicorns and ambient magic. In exchange, they gain the magical energy required for flight, impossible strength, and active magic, respectively. It wasn't long until she was looking for something, anything, to keep her company. She held her breath more often than not, walking as quietly as she could, listening for any noise at all. She heard nothing except for her own faint, echoing hoofsteps and the blood pounding in her ears. The inky blackness all around her was unlit, and nothing she could do would let her see. With no other sound and no way to fill the empty hours as they dragged on by, she began to talk to herself. "Come on, girl," she murmured, "you've been through worse. After all that, are you going to let a cave beat you? Hay no, you're not! You're going to find a way out of this, just you wait and see!" The interminable time ticked on, endlessly rushing past her. Somehow, she never hungered or thirsted, though she felt as though she'd been wandering for days on end. The isolation was beginning to take its toll, and she began to laugh at things that weren't said, and to cry about things that had never happened. Visions appeared before her, hallucinations that flickered before her feverish eyes. Once, she even thought she saw an exit, and she ran at it, nearly breaking her snout on the stone cave walls. So it was fortunate, then, that she began to hear a noise. Not just any noise, actually: a voice. "God?" it whimpered, far away, "Where are you? Are you down here?" The pegasus gasped and dashed straight for the source of the voice. It evidently heard her too, because she heard hoofsteps drawing closer until she could feel the breath of another pony on her face. "Hello?" she softly spoke. "Are you trapped down here, too? Do you know where we are?" By the voice, the pony was definitely a stallion, and an older one at that. His voice was frail and weak. The pegasus shook her head, though she knew he couldn't see her. "I have no idea. I don't even know how I got here. I blacked out and woke up here. I guess I fell through the ground." "And I as well." spoke the stallion. There was a long period of silence in between them before the pegasus spoke. "What's your name?" "Teller," he responded, "Story Teller. No points for guessing what my job is," he chuckled briefly, "and you?" She opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue caught. "I...I don't know. I can't remember my name. I can remember everything else about my life. I can remember everything I've done, everypony I've met, everything I've saved, but for some reason, I can't remember my name." "Well," Teller mused, "I suppose if you hit your head hard enough in the fall, something of that sort could happen. I think you'll be okay, though. Any good magical doctor could fix that up." She nodded. "Who were you talking to earlier?" His tone carried confusion. "What? I didn't say a word before you showed up." "No, you totally did," she argued, "you mentioned someone named God or something like that." "My girl," Teller slowly replied, "I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about." Did I imagine all of that? she wondered, lifting her head up for a moment to gaze at where the ceiling presumably was, and when she turned back, all was silent. Teller was gone. A hole of despair carved itself into her stomach and she banged her hooves on the ground, crying out in frustration. "Yeah, well I don't need you either! Go away, Teller! See if I care!" She cared deeply. She had no idea how much longer she spent, wandering those caverns. Her fur and mane grew haggard, and she could feel her eyes drooping from exhaustion. "So...tired..." she mumbled, stumbling through yet another pitch-dark cave. "Just...going to.....go to.......sleep........." And so she laid down, and slept.
Floor Two - LuxuriaAt last, she woke up, and could see again. Once she opened her eyes, she wished that it was not so. Stretching out endlessly before her was an enormous barren field of stone. No pits, no caves, no end in sight. Rain lashed it as gale-force winds blew the freezing precipitation about, buffeting her fur and soaking her near-instantly. She shivered as she felt her body grow cold. Off in the distance, she could hear pained howling, and as she strained her eyes through the tempest, she could see ponies trying their hardest to beat through it. They were having little luck, and she was having even less. The wind caught her wings and she felt them expand, the bones snapping even further as she screamed hoarsely. "Girl? Is that you?" It was a recognizable voice, and as the wind blew the other way and the pain abated slightly, she turned to see a familiar stallion. "Teller? H—What? Where are we?" Her voice trembled with pain, fear and confusion. "What's happening? I fell asleep in the caves and now I'm in this storm. What are we doing here? How did we get here?' Teller shook his head, where and pointed upwards with a single hoof. Peering into the maelstrom with her hawk-keen eyes, she could faintly see a black blotch in the world above her, above the clouds. "We fell," he responded. "After I finished speaking with you, you just vanished. I kept wandering past where I should've been asleep and finally, I came to a great pit. Underneath me was dim gray light. I wondered what it could've been, and so I jumped." She gaped at him, eyes bugging out. "But...you aren't a pegasus! How did you survive the fall?" He chuckled faintly and waved his hoof, then turned and walked off. "Perhaps I'll see you again, miss. I do hope you remember who you are eventually." She dashed after him as he disappeared into the endless driving ran. No matter how quickly she ran, though, he ran faster, and eventually outpaced her, vanishing into the torrent. At last she came to a stop. Beneath her was a great precipice, an enormous cliff that fell for many miles before her, before coming into contact with another of the endless stone plains. Sprawled out before her, the endless monotone horizon stretched on, and on the plain beneath her she saw ponies. Not brightly coloured ponies, no. Not the ponies she was used to. No, these ponies were barely even recognizable as such. The endless driving rain had stripped their coats of colour and lustre, rendering them into shambling gray and brown beasts, groaning in pain as they pushed their way through the rains. Occasionally, one fell, only to rise again and resume its endless struggle of stinging needles of water and constant hurricane winds. Glancing around, she noticed a crude, steep staircase carved into the stone nearby. Picking her way carefully over to it—with a broken pair of wings, slippery ground, and a massive cliff, one could never be too sure—she began to climb slowly down. It took days, and yet it felt like it took no time at all. Did time even pass here, in this non-life? She looked out at the exposed sky, seeing no variance at all from the past hours of grueling toil. Days wore on into weeks, and weeks wore on into months, and months wore on into years. Yet she never seemed to reach the end of the staircase. She never found a way down to the poor masses below. Because finally, as she turned around and took the first step back up, she found herself once more at the top of the cliff, looking down. She looked much different from the pony that had woken up in the pouring rain, as the interminable storm ground away at her sanity. Her eyes were bloodshot and wide, perpetually flicking back and forth. Her muscles occasionally spasmed. Worst of all, though, was how her mind was affected. Ponies are herd animals. They are not meant to live in eternal solitude, nor are they meant to live in endless rain. She was truly talking to herself now, having long, drawn-out conversations with the other pegasi surrounding her in her loneliness. She would talk until her throat ran dry, and then continue moving her mouth, not caring whether or not words came out. No matter how much of the stormwater she caught in her mouth, it never seemed to slake her endless thirst. At last, as she felt ready to give up, she felt a warm hoof on her back and Teller appeared beside her once more. "Having a rough time of it, huh, kid?" he asked sympathetically. She stared up at him nearly uncomprehendingly. He sighed. "It's painful to see you brought so low, miss. You seemed so lively before." She looked back up at him with half-dead eyes, her voice a barely-formed whisper. "The rain just...keeps going. It never stops. Why won't it stop? Why can't I make it stop?" Teller hesitated for a moment, then dropped his shoulders and sighed. "Look...alright. It might end up worse for you, but...if you really want to get out of here, you need to trust me." She gazed up at him, hoping against hope that she would finally find a way out of this neverending storm. "It's very simple. You know the big cliff?" The pegasus nodded, and Teller continued. "Good. Jump off of it." Without protest, she slunk off to the cliff and, not missing a beat, slung herself off of it. As she fell, she began to feel something important flickering into her mind. Something to do with...her. Her name. She strained to catch it, but just as it was within reach, she hit the ground and the entire world went mercifully black.
Floor Three - GulaOnly after several minutes had passed did she realize that she was still falling. Opening her eyes, she saw that she had not splattered to the cold, wet stones at the base of the cliff. Instead, she was falling through an endless black void. The only reason she knew that she was falling was from her innate pegasus magic, still functioning, even now. There was no wind, nor drag, nor any other indication of falling. She was simply dropping through the world. And so it went. She fell, waiting for something to occur, and was disappointed as the falling continued. It stayed thus for a long, long time, until the blackness around her ceased being dark and became speckled with stars as a layer of thick gray clouds exploded into reality beneath her. Her mind began to panic and she reflexively flapped her wings, earning nothing but a groan of pain. She closed her eyes as she punched through the cloud layer and into cold rain. It was nothing like before, though; it was not windblown and stinging, burning her skin. No, while frigid, it was a gentle drizzle. The ground below drew into view and as she plummeted, she realized what it was a split second before she impacted, plunging deep into viscous brown mud. "Ugh," she muttered, "what is this?" She found it difficult to move, her lower body entirely subsumed by the sticky morass. It smelled of some vile, unnamed horror, and before too long, she wished fervently for some way to plug her nose. The mud was absolutely freezing; though calm and still, her entire body was wracked with spasmodic shivers. She slowly slogged her way along, moving if only to generate some semblance of warmth. "Glughhh..." A startled eep came from her mouth as the mud beside her sloughed to the side, revealing a pony. His eyes were dull and his gut distended, filled with, she was sure, nothing good. He gazed mournfully up at her. "So somepony new comes to Gluttony..." His face was split with a sincere, yet still mildly disturbing, smile. "I won't say I'm happy for you, but at least it'll be good to have some new company." She cocked her head to the side as he slowly raises himself up. "Follow me. I'll show you where not to go." He led her along, slogging through the freezing, vile mud. It wasn't the mud, the pegasus was quick to realize; no, the rain itself carried the disgusting stench. As she followed the stallion, the ground slowly sloped downwards until a great hole loomed in the ground before them. "I wouldn't advise going down there," he commented. "That's where the greedy go. Even if it's awful up here, at least it's relatively work-free." At his words, her stomach tied itself in a knot with foreboding. Seeming to not notice, he led her away from the pit, further towards a great three-headed shadow looming in the sky. "Girl, stay far away from that thing. It's Cerberus, the most gluttonous of us all. If you go near it, it'll eat you like you were no more than a toy." The shadow shifted slightly and a booming growl reverberated around the air. He winced and led her as fast as possible away from the shadow. "So," she asked him as they slogged, "what's your name?" He chuckled mirthlessly. "You are the first pony to ask me that in a very long time. Names aren't usually considered important in Gluttony. If you must know, though, I believe I was called Ciacco, a very long time ago." She pondered for a moment, rolling the odd word around with her tongue. "What kind of a name is Ciacco?" He waved off the question. "Oh, I come from Itaily. From the colours, I assume you're from mainland Equestria. Pay no attention." There was a squelching sound in the mud behind them and Ciacco froze, turning his head very slightly. "Don't move," he whispered as quietly as possible. A great worm emerged from the shifting mud, a strange shriek coming from its massive mouth. It swung its ponderous head side to side for a few moments before diving into the mud once more. All was silent except the pattering of the rain again. Ciacco let out a sigh of relief. "Those things will always terrify me, no matter how long I'm here. Anyway, that's about all I can help you with. You should go now." With that, he sighed and sank beneath the mud once more. "It was nice to walk again..." he mumbled as his was finally subsumed. Shaken, the pegasus looked around for a moment, bewildered. In the distance, she caught a stallion making his way towards her and gasped. "Teller!" she called. It was indeed Teller. As he drew closer, he smiled faintly at her. "You're looking better than the last time I saw you. How are you doing?" She shrugged. "At least I had someone to talk to. His name was Ciacco. He seemed like a decent enough guy, I guess." The stallion chuckled. "Oh, you met Ciacco? Lucky you. Not many see him nowadays. As for me, I last saw him quite a long time ago." The pegasus' ears perked up. "Wait, you've been here before?" Her eyes narrowed. "Come to think of it, you knew how to leave that wretched storm. Who are you, really?" He chuckled. "All I want is to help you. If you can keep going, you might actually make it out of here. You wouldn't be the first, though very close to it." As he turned to leave, the pegasus called after him. "I bet Story Teller isn't even your real name!" He laughed. "Sorry, but that's a secret. Maybe later, hmm?" With that, he sunk into the mud in a similar fashion to Ciacco, vanishing into the stinking goo. Her ears folded back and he thought about what he said. "Keep going, hmm?" she murmured to herself. Making her way to the center, she stared down into the pit. What had Ciacco said? The greedy went down into that pit? Well, she thought suddenly, I might as well. It's not like staying here will be any help. Then, taking a deep breath, she tipped over the edge and fell.
Prologuethump-thump thump-thump thump-thump She was woken in the night by a throbbing, pulsing, thumping sound, like nothing she had ever heard before. thump-thump thump-thump thump-thump It came from the ground far below her, and she dove through her floor, spiraling down to the field that lay beneath her house, just east of Ponyville. thump-thump thump-thump thump-thump The sound was emanating from the ground beneath her hooves. The vibration rattled her bones. It was as though a great beast had come into being, and now its heartbeat was shaking the earth itself. thump-thump thump Then just like that, it stopped. Snorting in frustration and irritation at being woken up at such an unholy hour, she blasted off, soaring back up and into her house, soon falling asleep once more. Beneath her, the earth was still and silent. The following morning, she woke again, feeling much refreshed and writing off what had happened last night as a dream. Yawning briefly, she rose out of her bed and slowly trotted to the kitchen, quickly fixing herself a bite to eat. The advantage to living in a cloud home, she thought, is being able to chill food whenever you want. Oh, she knew any moderately powerful unicorn could do one better, keeping food in full stasis, but all the same, it brought a small iota of pride to her for being a pegasus. Once she had finished eating, she made her way to the door, eager to start the day. As she opened it, she noticed something. Huh, she wondered, where's that ticking sound coming from? It couldn't be her clock, she had tossed it a day and a half ago. So what was it? As she followed the sound, she noticed with some consternation that it was growing more and more rapid. Something seemed familiar about it, but she couldn't quite put it together. Then she realized, and dove desperately downwards. She almost made it, too, before there was an enormous explosion and a purple flash blotted out her vision entirely. She felt intense burning, then freezing, and then nothing. And then she fell.
