A thousand cries struggle in silence as the wind takes the breath away. A lake of ruby red covers gray stone as the spark there did lay. Our eyes had bore, our ears had heard, yet our mouths dare not speak for the wind had stolen our strength and fire, leaving us frail and weak. The sound of metal against stone crash in a symphony of cracks reverberating through the air. My horn glows a soft pink as I poise the pick axe above the rocks. In one fell swoop, the point pierces the rock and cracks begin to form. I brace myself for another blow and the large black crystal crumbles into smaller pieces. I let out a huff and set my axe down for just a moment, beads of sweat covering my forehead.
“No! Wait! I’m sorry!” I hear a female cry behind me. As if by instinct, I pick up the axe right away just as I hear the cringing crack of the whip and a shriek of pain from the mare. I swallow hard and pound the axe against the crystal once again. Her groans are quickly drowned out by the cracks of axes against crystals.
I steal a glance slightly to the side to find my neighboring worker. A young filly, thin and weak, struggles to pick up the adult axe and bring it down upon the rock. She has a blue, flat mane and a cream-colored coat. Only a few shards rest at her hooves, her total efforts amounting to a fraction that an adult would. I begin to lift a hoof toward her when I hear the crack of the whip in the distance behind me. My hoof retreats back to its former spot.
Then, I hear the rattling of crystal against crystal. A light orange stallion shoves a heap of crystals onto the filly’s pile. I recognize the stallion from my old neighborhood. He was the town’s pariah, always stealing food and clothes from street vendors. The spark in his eye represented his never-ending fountain of ideas, his disregard for everything that is the law. He was one of the last ones who’s color faded after he came into power. While everyone else had been long gone, he was still fighting it.
His own pile dwindled to half of what he had before, far behind what other stallions his age were producing. My eyes gaze upward at the darkening sky. The sun has already fallen, but its presence still makes itself known through the hues of violet across the horizon. Yet, it is getting harder and harder to see where my pick ax lands.
Suddenly, the whistle shrieks and I let my ax come down with a clang. Every other worker does the same and the united clang reverberates through the field of dark crystals. “Line up!” I hear a deep, raspy voice bark. Like clockwork, we turn and march away in a single file line.
I try to keep my focus on just the mane of the pony in front of me, but I manage to steal a glance here and there. I have marched through this gateway to the city square everyday for months and, yet, I can never get enough of what has changed.
Every fifty feet or so, a tower looms over the cracked path where unicorns scold down at us, the points of their arrows trained on our retreating backs, ready to let loose and find its target with the slightest falter.
Crumbling structures line the streets, bricks strewn all over the place. One such pile of rubble still has a single wall remaining with the sign, cracked and dusty, hanging on for dear life. I recognize the shape of the sign. It was the store I once went to, a long time ago. I search my memories for anything I can link to what that store once sold, why I recognized the sign. My mind was at a blank. I was so tired. My hooves ached, my muscles complained with every step. Yet, I keep moving. Because, no matter where you are in the line, you can always still hear the sound of stumbling hooves against the pavement and the soft sound of a bowstring being let loose.
At last, our line marches into the square. Here, every single worker surrounds the center, staring straight ahead into the open, dusty air. Each pony’s mane and coat is filthy, their stomaches caving in with their ribs jutting out. I am certainly no exception. More towers with more shooters surround the square like a pack of wolves surrounding their prey.
Images of what this place once looked like, what it once felt like, flashed into my memory like shooting stars. Where the ground once glistened, it is cracked. Where ponies once conversed, they await judgement of whether or not their work for that day was satisfactory, that decision meaning either another day of breathing, or to never see the sun rise again. In all honestly, I do not know which one is better.
A stallion parades around the circle of ponies with a parchment and quill. He is one of the king’s most trusted advisors. Yet, we only know him as the executioner. His eyes roll up and down each pony and correspond them to a number and decides whether their fruit of the day was worth the stale hay they feed them. He comes across me and barely gives me a glance before passing me by. I get to live another day.
Suddenly, he stops and my shoulders stiffen. What? Did they catch me looking around? No, his gaze is not directed at me. His gaze is directed at the little filly next to me. The massive stallion turns to face the little filly and whispers in a deathly tone “You. You did a fine job today, little one.” I hold my breath. I can practically feel the child shaking beside me. “I think a pony of your talents would be better suited transporting waste to the east field.” I feel a lump in my throat as soon as he hisses the word waste. We all know what waste means. We see the waste piled in wheelbarrows everyday carried by the strongest of ponies. Waste with limbs, manes, and each with a pair of lifeless, empty eyes. A shiver goes down my spine. No… not the filly. Not for something like that.
“Sir, let me go instead.” A strong voice shoots through the square like a sunbeam in the night. Even the wind seems to hold its icy breath.
“What?” the tall stallion hisses. He eyes the young, fiery young pony like he is sizing him up for slaughter.
“Please, sir, let me take on the job instead.” The older stallion looms over the younger one, a toothy grin creeping up on his face.
“And why would I do that?” I do not dare look in the general direction of the conflict.
“Because it is cruel to force a child to do something like that! Do you have no heart!?” I steal a glance and the fire in the pony’s eyes burns like it did so long ago. In that stare, I can almost see the whole kingdom as it once was. Warm. Alive. Like a fire. The tall one glares and makes a motion with his head. Two guards flank the pony. Before he has time to react, they grab hold of his forelegs and drag him to the center of the circle.
The young stallion fights. His bottom legs thrash against the pavement and his grunts in the stubble make it all the more painful to watch. The two guards throw him to the ground, directly in front of the pedestal that once held a beacon of our city. The tall stallion trots up behind him and takes a large, decorated battle axe from a nearby guard with his magic. The young pony struggles to get back up and coughs out his voice.
“Listen… Everypony! Do you want this to go on forever!? You can’t just let this insanity persist! You have to fight ba-!” The sound of metal against stone crash in a symphony of cracks reverberating through the air. I don’t blink. I don’t speak. All I can do is look away at the castle before the bloodshed. I catch a moving shadow in the window of the castle, but the glow of green was unmistakable. He was watching.
A thousand cries struggle in silence as the wind takes the breath away. A lake of ruby red covers gray stone as the spark there did lay. Our eyes had bore, our ears had heard, yet our mouths dare not speak for the wind had stolen our strength and fire, leaving us frail and weak.
This is Sombra’s Empire.
