The Three Souls

Chapter Eleven

Terra looked around the blackness, eyes adjusting again to it.

“We told you we’d be waiting for you,” the voice said again, the form appearing, appearing as smoke would from a fire, twisting up around him. The form remained as smoke, slithering around Terra’s body with terrifying presence, feeling more like a serpent then fumes of a fire.

“I remember. But you are only here to gloat, and you have no right to tr-” Terra started before the voice cut him off with cruel twisting laughter, filling the empty space with thousands of voice laughing at once, each different and distinct.

“Thou believe we are here to gloat at thou for thy having such a weak will and pathetic excuse of an existence. We do not gloat, for there is no honour in that. Though tempting it be,” the shrilled form said its once solid chest and head collapsing into smoke once more, only the dulled muddy brown eyes remaining.

“Then why are y-”

“Thou should know that thou dies, we die, and if we die, well... no true fun and adventure could be had,” the voice stated, sliding around Terra, cause the stallion to crane his neck around to follow the eyes.

“Then why wouldn’t you take over then and abscond from what was happening?”

The smoke stopped and slid back, eyes narrowing onto Terra’s face, locking into a grim stare, “To have let us out, darkness would have come.”

Terra’s frame felt a pressure on his chest, crushing onto him, “A darkness that thou would bring, and that would never let its hold release upon thou’s soul. Thou could never be allowed to repent for its damning influence it would bring.”

The pressure explodes as the smoke clenched tighter to his frame, strong enough that if it were real, his ribs would have shattered. His grunted as the slithering eyes turned up, the echoing laughter announcing its presence again to Terra, before falling silent once more.

The pressure was gone and he looked down, seeing the reflection of himself standing facing away from him.

“That is what thou would have unleashed. We would have been released, and we would have been glad, indeed.”

“You mean to say that you are a monster of pure darkness? My dark half or twin?” Terra questioned, hoof rubbing his ribs. The booming laughter appeared once more as the other Terra catapulted himself over into his face.

“A monster of Pure Darkness? Pish posh and lies is that. We are the really you. Terror Quake.”

“W-What?” Terra’s hooves leapt backwards from the other, only to feel no ground beneath them, making him tighten his stance to a little distance between the front and rear sets. The creature began to laugh at Terra’s terror, turning to smoke once more only the head remaining as it began to wrap around him, clenching him again.

“Drop and we take your soul, and body, and we will never let go.”

As the smoke dissipated and what solid floor began to break away, Terra’s mind raced with a way to escape the fall coming upon his little territory.

A flash of white light and Terra’s eyes shot open, seeing a pair of familiar faces in front of him. One one, pair of horns that didn’t match, while a long tuff of hair came from his chin, with one long fang extended out the right side of his mouth, as he grinned happily to the Terra’s confused expression.

Beside him, stood a different image then he had ever seen before, with glowing coat of hair, and a magikally flowing main that shifted through the colours of the dawn sky. The magenta eyes flared open, before beginning to well up with tears, soft sniffles coming from her nose.

“T-Terra... you’re awake!” she exclaimed throwing her hooves round him, crushing him with the power force that she had never had before.

“Where am I? Tia? Dis?” he inquired, eyes leaping between the two as Celestia sat back on her rump smiling and nodding, while Discord face of shifted as well, appearing in his eyes as well.

“What’s wrong? Why are you two crying?”

“We and you and...” Celestia began, trying to fight the gasps of air that she was taking in now.

“You were...” Discord started as well, unable to really finish what he wanted to say.

“He’s awake?” A sky blue mare exclaimed excitedly, pushing past the pair in front of her to get to Terra, her mane now soft fluffy clouds and rolled over her back. Storm suddenly gasped, throwing her forelegs around him and crushing even more so then Celestia did, making him cringe, “Terra I was so worried, please, oh please never do that again. Got it?”

“What... what happened?” he asked confused, only to see a dark navy blue mare appear and do the same, her face matted with tears and she sobbed happily, clinging to him. Luna, gasped weakly nuzzling her head against his body, held her grip firmly, the desire to never to let go of her older brother quite evident to him.

“Oh thank goodness and whatever else there is in this world,” a soft voice said from beyond the four, and Amor appeared, mane now flowing like Celestia’s, though of flowers and meadows. She smiled at him while beside her stood a stone face Alexander, hiding his emotional closeness to Terra.

“You okay?” he asked, no a hint of pity, though a pinch of pride. For pride for what Terra could only guess.

“I will be once I get told what happened,” he nodded, Luna now preventing him from getting up, though Storm removed herself from his body, worried.

“We really don’t know... Discord said you shielded him, and for an instant, when I awoke, I saw that your body was, well... weeping out blood, so I believed him at first,” Celestia began, “Then as I got to you, your eyes fluttered open for a brief moment, before closing again. I began to panic and tried waking everyone else, only to get Amor to wake up next. Before I knew what happened next, she started trying to heal you, only to find that the wounds weren’t healing to her magik.”

Terra listened intently, and as Celestia began to explain, he began to realize how dangerously close to death he had become. What was all the stranger was what had happened between the explosion and the moment he fluttered his eyes opened. Celestia had discovered that the world was filled with luscious life, of all great forms while also working on its own with no one to moderate it like they had done before Luna’s arrival. When the rest of the group she took flight flying to the old home they had built, only to find it deserted. And almost any other location she could think of that alicorns had been.

As she rambled on, she told him that she found Uncle Thanatos walking across a meadow with black cloaking him, surprised to see her. That’s when she told him.

“You didn’t pass out for a second. We blacked out for twelve hundred years.”

The statement was to the point, and the evident truth cause Terra to shiver with a new fear he never felt before. He was now scared out of his mind. The flashing instant, what he thought was a second, was really more than a thousand years. The news got worse. Their parent’s; with many of the other alicorns, left the world years after the disappearance of Terra and the others.

Terra’s chest began to heave, shaking his head at the news of their parents having left. Again. They had thought that their children had died; causing them too much grief to remain here where the three had created something beautiful. Only to be deadly.

Luna was still crying on Terra’s shoulder, making him pull her closer, tears rolling down his cheeks in anguish.

“They couldn’t bear to be here. They couldn’t bare the memory of us being lost to them, and they left to relieve the pain...” Discord said, standing up straight, looking away.

Terra shook his head now, not liking the news anymore. He began to shut them out of his world, holding onto Luna, tears streaming down. He could still hear them. Something about the forge and the few alicorns who remained were only there to keep the life of the world in check.

Then it all fell silent as they stopped talking, and most just reflected, Terra rubbing Luna’s head as he cried herself into a slumber. She must have been crying for a while cause Terra didn’t know how much time had now passed. Easily could have been an hour or a few minutes.

“So what do we do?” he finally asked, causing the other six members of the chamber to glance at him, “I mean... we’ve been missing for twelve hundred years or so right? So shouldn’t we, well do something about it?”

No response came from the group, most unsure if even to answer that question. Discords paw came to his chin, rubbing it slowly, while Celestia gave a defeated shrug. Alexander, the most forward of the group looked at the ground when Terra’s gaze fell on them. Amor and Athenus both shook their heads unknowing.

For the first time he had known his friends and family, they seemed so lost, and with that, defeated. Terra looked at Luna again, rubbing his hoof against another tear that formed, whipping it off her cheek. She sniffled and cuddled up to him, causing him to fain a weak smile.

How could he blame them? They were now coming back to a new time in their lives, no one around they could truly turn to for guidance or leadership. How could they really survive here on their own? What were they going to do?

Terra felt something nudge him from his right, turning his head to see Storm looking at him with a soft grin.

“We live,” she started, “And we make a world for ourselves that we can be proud of.”

At first, Terra didn’t understand what she meant, or by how she meant it. But the gears in his head began to turn slowly, and he started to form a thought.

“What if we,” he started looking at Discord with a grin, “used the Spirare Vita? I mean, we could create a world imaged in ourselves and our ideals right?” he suggested, and with that Alexander nodded suddenly flaring is wings out.

“With great spanning... um,” he started letting is wings drop a bit before returning with a firm thought to it, “civilisations that bowed to our whims!”

Amor smiled, “Or great creatures who roam where ever they please.”

“Great Flyers who rule the sky!” exclaimed Storm, and so rattled on the rest, starting to get more and more excited with the thought of making this world a place if life once more. As they grew louder Luna awoke, and was told the idea, who seemed to shy away from it at first, but began to nod slowly as they threw some ideas at her. Terra started to grin happily, proud at the thought that Storm had given him, hear ideas like Manticores (whatever that was) that Discord had suggested, while Celestia began to think of creatures wielding power of her magic, while Luna and Storm began to poke at the idea of flying creatures.

Everyone seemed to begin to get into it as Terra forced his body to stand up, allowing him to finally getting a good look at himself in twelve hundred years.

His mane flowed like Celestia’s did, though more like the Sandstone that he had formed a hund- a thousand and three hundred years ago. He was easily now full hoof and a half taller than Celestia, though she seemed to glow with radiance. On that Terra had also developed long and rather tall muddy socks around his lower legs, speckling up his legs like mud and dirt would. It must have been something to do with the breaking of the Element of Harmony, maybe cause the cave to become forgotten by the world outside, and even causing them to grow with the-

“I’m never going to get use to time...” he suddenly stated shaking his head softly, before twisting his head around to look over his stone wings, seeing they were damaged enough to cause some concern, but not enough to keep him from flying with them. His gaze moved down his back to so a large patch of dried blood, and a healed over wound from where it had come from, discolouring his coat of brown.

He reached up with one of his hooves and touched it softly, only to wince a little at it. Still hurt, which could mean it was still sensitive, even after all that time. It worried him immensely but he was going to have to ignore it for the most part, since everyone was starting to turn to a better mood.

He turned to his friends who had now all bunched together and looking at them with a grin, coughing softly to get their attention. Once they all looked at him, he nodded softly, “Let’s go make a world full of life.”

(HOLY SHAT ON A BRICK I'M POSTING A NEW CHAPTER AFTER A GOOD MONTH AND A HALF!

...

Anyway, sorry about delaying so much guys. I figured, hey, you guys deserve a new chapter, and I didn't think it was fair to you guys that I had to make you wait on the POSSIBILITY of me getting an editor. So, I figured why, lets get this back on the road, as I hope to do with EGK, though there will be some... well editing done to that title.

THANK YOU AGAIN for your Eternal patience and devotion.)