My Little Pony: Equestrian Redemption

She looked frightened, but that was at no surprise. She was the Twilight we all knew; but as she looked now, she could hardly be recognized. It was as if the princess we all once admired had vanished from our memories, lost to the wasteland’s everlasting storm. Her face, furiously determined to protect the ones she loved, carried sadness in the form of fractured notes. Her eyes, glazed from a thousand aching tears, peered out along the dusted horizon in vigorous search. Her hooves, curved gently to touch her chest, brought a wave of sympathy for her viewers. As a whole, it was still hard to believe this was the same Twilight Sparkle; her form was an impossible combination of lifeless composure and colorful desaturation. She had the potential to do the world greater things; but as she soared through the sky, it was she who cut herself down.

Spike examined his mentor closely, trying to relate the figure he saw now with the one he served for so long.

“She’s not the same, is she?”

The colt nodded, a shadow cast over his face; though he didn’t know the princess well, he held a clear image of her very close.

Spike ran a careful claw through a large gash just below where her left wing should’ve been. It was a lengthy cut and seemed to line her rib cage; it ran chills down their spines just looking at it; there were similar cuts where the bases of her wings should’ve extended from.

“It doesn’t look like she’s in any pain though,” Spike backed off, hiding his claws as though they’d been defiled. The colt nodded once more, looking carefully into her eyes. The soft expressions the statue made were subtle and only gave off minuscule hints of how she truly felt.

“She’s strong,” he mumbled, “stronger than any of us could’ve been.”

He pressed a hoof on her shoulder, caressing the stone mane as a ghastly howl of wind blew by. Spike kept his distance, drawing lines in the sand with a somber emotion.

“What do you think will happen?” The small dragon answered the wind’s call, “Are we going to make it?”

A softening silence populated the Wasteland in those few moments. For the numbered seconds of thought, the sounds of a pony’s heartbeat could be heard clearly for hundreds of miles away. The pounding of ears and even the thoughts of the mind itself could be audible to those who listened. The calming winds burned the ears of the stallion as a swelling rage ignited deep within his conscience. He knew of the predictions and what his job was; he wasn’t going to sit idly by as the world turns a blind eye.

“Why are we sitting here? This isn’t what I was entrusted with.”

The colt shook his head, taking a step toward the statue, leaning it against his back. Spike jumped, “Wha-What are you doing?”

“It’s not good enough,” He grunted, legs shaking under the pressure of the stone, “I don’t care if the nopony else does, I’m getting the job done.”

“B-But, she’s-!" Spike trailed off; he realized he was trying to interject a situation he didn’t truly understand. The stallion watched as the reptile stepped down from his objection, looking down in pitiful agony.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he glared, stomping his hoof as he broke sweat, taking a struggled step for all to see, “I’m getting her out of here; it’s my duty!”

His shouts echoed throughout the barren wasteland as he broke under the statue’s crushing weight. Falling to the sand, the stallion growled, refusing defeat. Spike stood, quietly standing by as he watched the stallion attempt to carry Twilight’s stone carcass; pitters of rain trailed from the tiny dragon.

“Hey,” he whispered, “I-it’s over, she’s not coming back.”

The colt continued growling, but soon came to discover a point of weakness in his logic. Although he served for many years under the rule of unicorns, the stallion himself knew nothing about magic. He tried looking into how it was performed, but each time he showed interest in the subject, he’d been told it was, “too advanced for pegasi” and that, “he’d be better off studying flight patterns”.

“The spell Twilight used is almost impossible to land,” Spike clenched his fist; his arm shook with trauma, “I-it’s n-n-not worth it.”

A bead of sweat rained from the colt’s miserable forehead; he lay on the sand, giving in to the statue’s weight. His stiff voice grunted in an undesirable tone.

“W-what are the odds?” The stallion shuttered, still shaking from the statue’s weight, “What are the odds she got it right?”

Spike wiped a tear from his face; he sniffled, “T-There’s almost no way she could’ve survived that . . .”

“What are the odds.”

Spike paused, holding up a finger, “One in a thousand, but even that may be too much.”

The stallion shuffled his hooves, shaking his head, “That’s good enough for me.”

Holding his head high, he managed to balance the figure onto his back. In the direction of the small town he remembered, the stallion took a step forward, shaking as the figure fixated her gaze toward the sky above. Nodding, the colt took another step, and another, breaking into a slow walk as his hooves imprinted upon the smooth sands for the first time. Spike trailed close behind, begging the insensible stallion to wait.

“Hold on! What are you doing? This is insane! You can’t go out there alone!”

“Well, I can’t stay here and going without her isn’t an option. It’s either you or me, Spike!”

“What do you mean? You’re not going to leave me, are you?”

The stallion came to a halt, turning his head to see the guilt-ridden dragon; he repeated his statement, “What would Twilight do?”

The purple reptile lowered his head to the sand before him. It was the thought that had been crossing his mind since he woke up; what would Twilight want? The sifting sands that blew between his knees made him weak; he shivered in the wind.

“She wouldn’t leave anypony behind,” He sighed, keeping his feet planted in the sand, “She would keep pushing forward; she would never give up.”

“She would want us to stick together; come on, we’re going to get out of this alive; Twilight is coming with us.”

The stallion continued his path toward the village, taking the stone princess along. Spike stayed behind in the sand for quite some time. A loomy expression shone from his face; he sighed, trudging his feet along in the sand as the burning sun gazed from above. Shadows danced along the dunes as the two walked in the fields of stolen memories and unhappy endings.