My Little Pony: Equestrian Redemption

“Would they remember?” Twilight shouted aloud, expecting no answer, “What was I thinking? I should’ve told them.”

A cloud of regret formed along the empty horizon. It emitted a soft orange glow, but its radiance was no match against the darkness; the light vanished within seconds, leaving nothing but a gray haze on a plain, black canvas. The gaseous form murmured in collective, shaking the suspended princess uncomfortably. It was the first voice she'd heard in what felt like months; she answered the call.

“H-Hello?” She shivered, holding her hooves close to her face; her face was cold. Cold like the frozen north, dead to those who have forgotten. No one knew her, she was certain of that. Within those moments of Equestrian’s blinding rage, she could see; she was alone.

“It doesn’t matter,” she sighed, looking down at her guilt-scarred hooves, “Who would want to talk to me? The failure of a student, a forgotten princess. . .”

Her head hung low as doubts clouded her mind in a thick blanket of inability. How she got to this state was unsure to her; she had questioned herself many times throughout the last few moments. Certainly, there were a few shards of sanity hidden behind that brigade of misconception; but to the hopeless princess, even the brightest spark of rescue would lull her desire for freedom.

The dark, mystic haze dissolved from the long-forgiving darkness of Twilight's void, leaving nothing but the same backdrop she soon came to accept.

“Did I really do it right? If I failed, what would happen? Would ponies even care? I'm a face in a history book.”

A tear, no bigger than the smallest pearl, fell from her face, dropping endlessly in the darkness below. There were no sounds other than her throbbing heart; she wept aloud, holding back nothing, for, there remained no reason to. All she wanted was attention; all she desired, was a little bit of love.

Spike dragged his feet along the sandy walk, moaning loudly as the sun's burning rays quickly rendered his defeat. He flailed his arms in the air dropping to the floor like a fly in a furnace.

“What are we doing?” He coughed, licking his lips in search of the tiniest bit of moisture, “This is going NOWHERE!”

The stallion, subtly chuckling, smirked, “You were the one who wanted to come along.”

He winked, shaking his back to reposition the towering statue. Spike rolled his eyes, waving a claw to the world around him.

“Look at where we are! This is the desert! There’s nothing here! We might as well have gone the wrong way!”

The colt sniffled a whiff of the dusty wind; he wiped his nose, “Yeah, it is a desert,” he pointed out, carrying a sarcastic tone in his voice, “but you forgot the canyon part.”

The fatigued, orange-coated stallion pointed toward a mouth-like rock formation over several sand mounds. All around him and the little dragon were towering cliffs, protecting the canyon from the outside world. The colt surveyed the area, “Y’see, that way leads us out; we're not going in the wrong direction.”

He chuckled, leaving the reptilian friend behind a few meters; Spike muttered to himself, something about the foggy clouds of dust, and continued pressing forward; the stallion continued to wear a pleasing grin on your face.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get used to it, alright?” Spike hid his hands behind his back, “I’ve got a reputation to keep.”

The zesty orange colt let out a roar of laughter; Spike held onto the statue as his friend laughed. The heavy stone shook uneasily from side to side; Spike let out a yelp, pressing all his weight on his right foot as support; his arms caught the statue just in time.

“Careful, will ya?”

“A reputation?!” The colt smiled, urging himself to hold his hysteria, “We’re wandering through a desert! Who's left to look down on you?”

Spike, himself, looked down, kicking his feet as the two marched along. A dagger of guilt carved deep into the bright stallion's young mind.

“Aww, don’t be like that!" He wrapped his hoof around his gloomy friend, “I don’t look down on you!”

“Then what was all that stuff back there? Y'know, the whole, ‘leaving me' situation. A-Am I still worth anything to you?”

The royal's smile slowly melted as he, too, looked to his sandy hooves below. A dark shadow cast over his face; his pace soon came to a halt.

“It's not that, I just . . . I. . .,” he stuttered, hoping to drop the conversation altogether, “I want to fix this.”

The hushing whisper of Equestria's stagnant evening blew through the colt's sand-coated mane. As tiny particles of sand blew through the valley, the soft whistling of the towering canyon walls echoed in the empty desert plains. The golden horizon's stagnant sun carved deep into the Wanders' memory; Spike shuffled his feet, placing a claw on the Carrier's flank. The stallion turned to Spike, tears beading his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he choked, “I . . .”

He trailed off, leaving room for an absent answer. Spike patted him on the shoulder, traveling further along the desert plain. The colt stood still, gazing over a large dune of sand. His head sank as the dragon traveled further and further away; the colt dragged his hooves in the dirt, leaving behind a trail of unwashed regrets and untamed tears.

Spike jogged ahead, keeping an eye on the canyon's mouth. His lips cracked into a smile as he ran; he panted loudly, trying to keep up with the cross between his moderate speed and the sky's unforgiving sun. The stallion, only behind his friend by a mere hair, broke into a brisk trot, keeping his balance as he walked. The uneven sands of the wasteland's barren times rattled Twilight as the stallion trotted ahead. The calming winds that blew seemed timeless and looped. Everything remained that same as he passed them; everything felt reused and out of breath. Looking down in the sands below his hooves, small fragments of, what used to be, life struggled to hold on. As they were, in their mutated state, scorpions, snakes, and other creatures convulsed in the dust, possibly carrying the same thoughts he and Spike had during their awakening. Bitter crabs and the wounded crawled beneath the stallion's hooves, traversing the canyon in search of mercy; he felt a bit uneasy.

Spike stopped to catch his breath as the largest dune towered over him.

“D-Do we really have to climb over that?” He chattered, holding back. The Follower nodded, balancing Twilight on his back.

“Come on, we don’t have much time to lose.”

“Speaking of which,” the little dragon yawned, “What time is it anyway?”

Spike stumbled forward; he yawned. With dark, heavily bags under his eyes, the stallion gazed into the never ending horizon. With the first few moments clouded by confusion, a bolt of lightning emerged from the storm, slowly spilling a very real concern. He opened his mouth to speak, but it wasn't until a few moments after that the Follower was able to reveal his observation.

“I-It's not moving. . .”

The celestial reminder hovered motionlessly over the orange sky. Its ever glowing radiance beating down against the raw-worked land. Checking his hooves, the colt shuffled in small mounds of heated glass. Spike picked up piece, dropping it immediately as it left small red indents upon his delicate hooves.

“What's going on?” The dragon scratched, tucking his ruby red hand into his stomach, trying to coax the pain into subsiding.

“Th-the sun . . . it's not moving. . .”

“What's happening?” Spike rose a hand over his face.

The colt stood in staring, expressionless. Thoughts of possibility fluttered his mind as he tried to solve the equation on his own. Cogs turned and joints clicked; a suspicion arose. With a shuttering lip, he muttered.

“The princesses . . .”

His knees locked, as he shook Spike, violently pointing toward the desert's gate, “We have to find Canterlot!”

Spike held a fearful expression, “Wha-? What for?”

The stallion glared at his comrade, adjusting himself to ready Twilight for the journey ahead, “We’ve gotta find Celestia; she's our only hope.”

Spike wasn’t convinced; he crossed his arms, "Celestia? Why would we find her there?"

The colt pointed in Canterlot's general direction, “I don't know, but if we don’t lower the sun, everypony's gonna die. That's something I can’t have on my consciousness.”

He took the first step forward, “Come on, we don’t have much time to lose!”

The two bolted from where they stood, leaving behind trails of deep hoofprints scattered upon each dune. Their eyes locked upon the mountainous gate, inching closer with each heaving breath. Spike followed behind, closely keeping an eye on Twi; the stallion set his sights on the fallen kingdom.