Dust.
That was all she ever saw, all she ever smelled, all she ever tasted, and all she ever felt beneath her hooves.
Dust and ash.
She continued to wander the wasteland, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she would find a patch of grass, or an apple tree, or something, anything to eat.
She'd settle for a rock to make soup.
But even rocks were scarce these days. Besides, she doubted she could find any water not turned to cement, or at best completely undrinkable, by the ash.
The ash and dust.
As she trotted through the land she once called home, she began to think. It was one of the few comforts she had anymore. At first, she thought about what she wanted to think about. There was no real need to think about it, though. She always came back to the same thing.
How did this happen?
Sometimes, she thought she could remember, if she tried hard enough.
***
It had begun at the Summer Sun's Celebration, around five years ago, now. She used to live in Ponyville. Not large enough to be a city, but barely small enough to be a town, it had been a wonderful place to call home. Every pony in town had gathered to watch as their princess raised the sun, and not a soul in that crowd hadn't been excited. That was, until a shadow appeared on one of the balconies. On the very balcony everypony expected their princess to stand on, instead, a shadow moved into place, and formed a strange mare, one who shortly after claimed to be the mythical Nightmare Moon. Their resident cloud tender, a rainbow-maned mare who was brave to the last, though not nearly as fast as many other pegasi in her position, still raced as fast as she could to challenge the apparition, but was destroyed without a second thought.
That was the first time she ever saw somepony die. It wouldn't be the last.
The one who claimed to be Nightmare Moon said that the night would last forever, before disappearing into the Everfree Forest. For three petrifying days, ponies believed she had told the truth. However, on the fourth day, the sun rose into the sky once more, and with it came a battered, bruised, and weeping Princess Celestia, emerging from the dark of the Everfree. Nopony knew what happened in there, and nopony dared ask. All they knew was that the threat was over, and they could go back to their regular lives.
Until one year later, when a monster, which she had heard called a "draconequus" apparently broke free from some kind of prison. She had been told that Celestia had gone to challenge the beast, but in the ensuing battle, an explosion occurred, apparently destroying much of the Everfree Forest and a sizable farm on the outskirts of Ponyville. When the smoke cleared, no sign of the monster that called himself Discord, nor of Princess Celestia, could be found, and when the sun and moon began to hang in the sky side by side, ponies assumed the worst.
It was around this time that she and her parents decided to move to Canterlot. With the half day/half night sky ever-present, her parents thought the larger community with greater food stores might be the better choice for a home. They were wrong. Not long after they had finished unpacking, a whole army of bug-like creatures descended on the city, together with a larger, almost princess-like creature. She called herself Chrysalis, and, with Celestia gone, she assumed control of the kingdom nearly unopposed. She had heard rumor of a rebellion led by the former captain of the guard and the lesser-known Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, but she never found out what had happened to them. It didn't matter now, she supposed. They were gone, just like everypony, everything, in her empty little world.
Only a few months later, the war started. Some king from far away had decided to attack Canterlot, and the bug-ponies weren't willing to give it up easily. She was never really sure who they were fighting, though she heard whispers of "crystal ponies" and, at least once, a name that sounded like "Som-bra". She wasn't really sure, though, especially after she and her parents went back to Ponyville in an effort to avoid the conflict. The bug-ponies wouldn't have let them leave normally, but her daddy had told her that they were busy with the war, so they wouldn't notice one family leaving. At the time, she was just glad to leave. The bug-ponies made scary faces at her, and spread weird goop practically all over the city. Besides, she felt sad almost everywhere she went while they were in charge. It was kind of nice to go back to her old home. But it was pretty different, too.
The bug-ponies must have been there, because there was goop on a lot of the buildings, but none of them were in the streets, and ponies seemed at least a little happier than they had in Canterlot. She even made friends with a yellow pegasus who used to live just outside the forest. The pegasus didn't talk much, and seemed to be always thinking about something that made her sad, but she was very nice, and had been a good friend.
Of course, that was before the Everfree started growing back. She didn't understand what was happening, at first, but her mom was rushing her out of the house, and told her they were leaving town. She looked around as she was galloping away, and saw a large black vine tearing through their house. She wanted to go back and grab her things, but her mom wouldn't let her. Then she heard a scream, and saw one of the vines pulling her friend into the forest. She wanted to help, and tried to turn around, but her mom stopped her once again, this time with her daddy's help. She couldn't do anything to help her friend, and she still wondered if things might have been different if she had pushed past her parents and tried to help anyway. She doubted it, but maybe...
There were more vines after that, and they tore right through Ponyville. Not everyone got away from them. She hoped that, by some miracle, they were okay, but she knew, deep down, that they weren't. She and her parents had tried to run away again, leaving everything behind and searching for a place in the country, far away from their troubles. They found a dirty little rock farm along the old train tracks once, but the only one who lived there was a dull pink mare who kept screaming something about a boulder whenever they tried to get close, and then suddenly bursting into tears and sobbing about her family, who had apparently been on their way to do some trading when they were caught in one of the war's many skirmishes. They decided to leave her alone. "Nothing we can do." her daddy had said.
They had stopped near a nice wooded area, far from the Everfree Forest, Canterlot, and all the troubles she had seen until then. They built a house from scratch, and, though it wasn't pretty, it was safe, warm, and free. She had liked living there, rough though it was at times. But, even after everything, more trouble came after them. Some big, red, funny-looking creature came their way, and she still wasn't sure what he had wanted, but what he did, she would never forget. He had picked her and her mom up with some kind of magic, and then he must have used more magic, because they suddenly felt really tired, like every time they tried to move, they were pulling on a big chain of metal. But that wasn't the worst part for her. No, that was when her daddy tried to stop him from doing whatever he was doing. He had picked up her daddy, too, but when he was done doing whatever it was that he did, he didn't just drop him. Her daddy had been trying to build a shed, for them to keep extra stuff in if they needed it. The monstrous creature had thrown her daddy into the shed. Her mom had screamed, but the monster left. She and her mom couldn't help her daddy. That was the second time she saw somepony die.
Life after that was kind of a blur for her. She and her mom had tried to keep going, but they were both so sad, and neither of them seemed to be as good at farming as they used to be. They didn't know what to do, but that was about the time the unicorn came.
She was very dirty, and seemed generally tired, but she had a lovely purple coat and seemed to be friendly enough. She had been wandering, and wanted a place to stay for a while. She and mom hadn't seen any reason to refuse her, so they let her into their house, and she stayed for much longer than any of them had expected. They even told her about everything that had happened to them, and the unicorn had been very sympathetic and respectful. She told them her story, too. Her name was Twilight Sparkle, and she had once been considered as a candidate for Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, yet she had failed the entrance exam not once, but five different times. Even more disheartening for her was that, even at her age, she still didn't have a cutie mark, and had been wondering for years what her talent might be. She had been learning to sew from a friend in Manehattan for a while, but she didn't seem to be as good at that as her fashionista friend would have liked. Then, the war had started, and Manehattan was one of the first, and most important, battlegrounds. She had barely escaped alive, and her friend... well, she hadn't.
Twilight was nice, if a bit gloomy, and she had read a lot of books. When they told her about the red monster, she seemed to recognize it. Apparently there was an ancient legend she had read once about a creature named Tirek that sounded like what had attacked them, but none of them could be certain. Twilight was grateful that she had never encountered the monster during her travels, whatever it was.
They had lived happily for a while, or at least as happily as they could, with so much tragedy in all of their pasts. Twilight finally decided to stay with them indefinitely, and help in whatever ways she could. They could pick and grow a lot more food with her help, and Twilight once speculated that the monster had somehow stolen their earth pony magic. Her mom had almost yelled then. She didn't like bringing up the monster, no matter what.
Still, the three of them liked each other, and lived happily together for almost a year.
Finally, though, it happened.
She wondered what Twilight would have said the cause was.
"I would hypothesize that the meeting of three or more tremendous magical powers on a single battlefield could result in a huge dispersal of magical energy like that one."
Heh.
Yes. That sounded like her.
She wished Twilight were here. She wished her mom were here. She wished her daddy were here. But none of them were.
She still didn't know how exactly it happened.
One moment she, Twilight, and mom were outside, picking some flowers for lunch.
Then, there was a gigantic boom, like lightning striking right next to them. She looked up, and could see something huge moving towards them really, really fast.
Twilight's eyes glowed.
She was surrounded by purple light.
Then, whatever it was hit them, and she fell unconscious.
She woke up after that, and she didn't know where she was.
She was alone.
She was dirty.
She was hungry.
And nothing was around her but dust.
Dust and ash.
She had started walking, calling out, hoping that somepony would hear her, and come to help her.
No one did.
She stopped yelling, and kept walking, then trotting, then cantering, and finally breaking into a full gallop in an attempt to find someone.
There was no one.
She stopped running.
She looked around.
Nothing.
She had kept walking, then. Not to find companionship anymore, but just to find food. Or water. Or something that would help her survive.
She slept more and more often. More and more, she felt herself wishing she wouldn't wake up.
But she did. And she kept walking.
Once, she thought she saw something. A flash of white light, perhaps? Was that the sound of ponies talking?
No. It was her imagination. It had happened before. She sat her flank in the dirt, and she cried.
The filly continued to cry, her few remaining tears leaving tracks in the dirt and the ash on her face.
Then she laid down again, hoping for sleep.
Maybe this time, she wouldn't wake up.
Maybe this time, she would see her mom, and her daddy, and her yellow pegasus friend, and Twilight, and everyone.
Maybe.
Or maybe, like always, she would wake up, and keep walking through the ash.
The ash and the dust.
Author's Note
Hope you enjoyed the story! I think I'm more proud of this one than most of my previous ones. Let me know what you thought, and please, please, please, leave me any criticism you can think of in either comments or PMs. I don't have an editor for this, so it is extremely welcome. Thank you.
