I am the greatest and most powerful unicorn that ever lived.
What is there to life, but finding that one talent you’re good at, and surpassing your own expectations? Everypony else’s expectations? I knew I was the most magnificent equine that ever lived. So where did it all go so wrong? Where did I go so wrong?
I wanted to be the best, and only me, so that I could have ponies lined up to witness my greatest feats. They couldn’t know better than me, for then they would stop coming. With each and every stop I had to do something better than the last so the next town was expecting me. Expecting something new, fantastic, unique.
All I can see for miles and miles are wastes. The soil, dry and broken. Grey with the volcanic ash that rained down for years. No plants could survive the intense heat, the dryness of the climate. The clouds all evaporated within a day. I never did see what became of the many cloud cities, but I can make an educated guess.
With no clouds came no rain. I remember growing up in school, we were taught that even in the worst case scenario, that being ponies couldn’t bring water to Cloudsdale, how water would still evaporate and go up into the atmosphere, where more clouds were made, then it rained. With all the water in Equestria gone, shouldn’t the clouds have come and rained? Or did they leave like everything else? Too sick to be around this dust ball.
Or was nature doomed to fall if we fell? Did we, ponies, do this not to ourselves, but the world? Controlling the climates, nature, seasons, rain, sleet, snow, tornadoes and hurricanes? Did we spoil nature so much that when we were turned into nothing but ash she just couldn’t go on? Or did she not even want to?
I was the greatest and most powerful unicorn that ever lived.
When I traveled, I loved nothing more than to see ponies' eyes brighten up at my spectacular tricks and stunts. I can’t remember many of the towns I had visited. None of them are left, only the ash left by the fires. Even the amulet that I wore for many of my final years is gone. The silver nothing but a still glowing glob, the red crystal cracked, and the chain still embedded into my skin.
I had hoped that maybe ponies would start to surface from the ash. That not all was lost, that there was still hope. I remember Princess Celestia sending her student, a Twibright or Sparkle Shine or something I can’t remember. She talked, pleaded, asked me to look into my heart and see what I really am. I can only guess she screamed like the rest of them. I don’t remember exactly, but when I awoke from peering into my own heart, all that was left was fire and ash.
I was the most powerful unicorn that ever lived.
When I would perform, it was something to marvel. The little colts and fillies would get to sit front row, always a policy of mine, so they could get the best view. Some parents looked to me with skepticism, but I’d brush it off with my finale. It never failed to even get them to gawk at my powerful abilities.
I can’t even remember the last time I performed for somepony. My crowds are nothing but the clumps of ash I form with my hooves and spit. What little water I do find I have to ration. The ash ponies are never appreciative for what I sacrifice for them. Then again, why would they? Had it not been for me they wouldn’t need to be ash ponies.
I’m almost sad that the world ended in the early dusk. The moon is quite beautiful, if ever you can see it through the thick dust bowls that are never ending. I recall being stuck in one for a week. Should I have been horrified that possibly some of the ash that stuck to my coat, that I inadvertently inhaled, licked off my lips, that some of it was possible all that was left of a pony?
I think those thoughts are cast aside in my mind, as a defensive reflex, trying to protect me from the horrors I created. But why? It’s just me, myself, and I. What do I have to protect myself from anymore? All the timberwolves are gone. All the parasprites are gone. The hydras, manticores, even the hostile plantlife like poison joke. All gone. So what do I have to protect myself from anymore?
I was the most powerful pony that ever lived.
What is the point in even calling myself a unicorn anymore? I’m just a mere pony, nothing more, nothing less. Anything that ever separated our races is gone. I’m the only one. Unicorn has no meaning here. It’s just pony. Even if my horn did work, even if it hadn’t cracked and could still put out a trickle of magic, it wouldn’t matter. I could have even been an alicorn, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. There is no race anymore. No other species. The zebras, gryphons, yaks. Nothing, all gone.
Why am I even a pony anymore? Do I even have a name? A thing to call myself other than a showmare? But what’s a showmare without her audience? What’s a unicorn without her magic? What’s a pony… without other ponies? What is my name, that no one else will ever speak it? My tongue is so dry most of the time I cannot even speak it.
Thinking only makes my head hurt, and yet that’s all I can do anymore. My voice has been silent for years. Does it even hold any of its femininity? Or is it crackly and hoarse? Sometimes I forget that I can even hear anything with the buffing winds the only sound. Only the occasional falling of rocks reminds me that I’m not deaf.
Early on, I used to scream a lot. Yelling for anypony, someone, something to respond. A hello, a hungry growl, anything. All I’d get is an echo. An echo of the past, my past. I’d have to use magic to make my voice do that on a stage, but not anymore.
I was the most powerful pony.
I’d been challenged by many other unicorns, even some pegasi, throughout my years. And like every time I’d show them up by one more step. I had the bucking wizard cape and hat. Soon everypony saw how powerful I was. I was great. I was powerful. I was…
Foolish.
A damn fool, that’s what I was. Why couldn’t I have seen it sooner? Been able to stop myself, think straight, and accepted that maybe I wasn’t all that great and powerful? But I couldn’t… I wouldn’t… not when my career was on the line. My image. My life. Without my magic, without my performances, I was nothing.
Just like right now.
Did I really even gain anything? Or did I lose it all? I thought on that question for a number of years, pricking the back of my mind when it wasn’t screaming, or thudding from lack of water. I had shown the world what I could do, what I was capable of. In the end, I got my wish, hadn’t I? I was the greatest and most powerful unicorn. The only unicorn. The only pony. The only… the only…
I was the pony.
The amulet made me more. Made me better than I could ever want. It made me mad with power. It made me… not me anymore. The Princess tried to free me. Tried to divert its wrath onto less harmful things. Come to think of it, she was always at my side near the end. The faint sounds of her shackles still haunt my nightmares. She always told me that I would be stopped. Defeated. Her student would stop me, and to just surrender then and there.
Her screams haunt me in my dreams and nightmares.
The amulet took away my self. I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Or was it I didn’t want to? I had it all. I had power, fame, fortune. Only, I didn’t have everypony’s attention. There were retaliators, rebels, revolutions to fight me. Free themselves from my great and powerfulness. They never would win. I remember a rainbow maned pegasus, vowing to stop me, just before I crushed her throat.
That put an end to all the naysayers.
I had it all. I had everything. So when that damnable purple unicorn showed up, wanting to free her teacher and stop me, I laughed. She couldn’t do anything better than I could. I was the greatest unicorn that ever lived. No pony could ever ignore my might.
And yet, as I cast my spell, she turned away.
“How dare you look away from your fate! It is a beautiful and exotic end, you must embrace it.”
She only said one word: “No.”
My magic died away. Nopony had ever told me they wouldn’t watch my spectacles. Even the ones ready to die, they still looked on in a mixture of horror and amazement.
I’d teleported in front of her, and she just closed her eyes. I burned her eyelids off, and she just looked away. I stuck needles into her eyes and turned them so she would stare at me, but her bored expression told me she wasn’t paying any attention.
So I did the next thing. I went into her mind and made her think she had to watch me. When I came out, she hadn’t changed, but asked me a question.
“What do you see inside yourself?”
I wish I could remember what I saw, but I know it was horrible. I’d changed, lost myself. Lost everything. I was angry, furious, that this mere unicorn would make me so upset. So distrusting of myself. So… alone…
That’s when it all went fuzzy, and I awoke to an endless fire and ash.
The amulet burned at my chest, before the silver links melted and it fell into the ash, cooling. The red crystal cracked. The chain still burned my flesh but I ignored it. It was my reminder of what I’d done. Even as my skin healed and began to grow over it, I still feel its pressure on me. The weight of that silver.
The weight of the entire world.
I was a pony.
Lost, wandering the wastes for too many days, months, years. I gave up trying to understand time. The moon never moved. I tried to follow the sun, but it seemed to never move its place. Were they maybe following me? Was I still attached to them, so in turn no matter where I went they would follow?
So lost was I in the pettiness of my life, that I allowed everything to die. Burn up, turn to ash, and float on the breeze. Why did I do it? Why did I have to sacrifice everything in order to stroke my ego. Is that what we do, as ponies? Is that why we find our special talent, and show it off?
If I could go back in time, I’d go to when I was a filly, when I got my cutie mark, and tell myself everything I would do wrong, and I still think I’d do it all over again. I wouldn’t change. I couldn’t change. Why would I want to? I had fans, admirers, lovers. I had it all, and for what? To watch the world burn and it all be for naught? Now, all that’s left is me. I’m just a pony, alone, tired, and on the brink of death. Without others, without life, without my name, I am nothing.
But in the end, I think I’ve known that all along.
I was nothing.
It just took me a while to realize it.
Author's Note
I wonder if I'm the first to do this... Oh well, enjoy! If ya see anything wrong, let me know.
