Chapters My Little Pony: Equestrian Redemption
“Desert.” The first thought that crossed his mind as he shuffled beneath the heaving rubble of “tomorrow”. From what he could remember, time itself changed in an instant, leaving no delay of seconds from the world he once knew. He could understand little of his situation, but the crushing tension between he and his stone protectors were reminder enough. Slowly, the colt pushed away from the desert’s toils, revealing the blazing hot fury of the Sun’s violent presence. He coughed, blocking the molten rays from his eyes as best as he could; a second cough arose, but with no surprise. With all he could recall, he was never alone during this royal endeavor.
“Where are we?” The second voice coughed between two gasps, “What happened?”
Still dazed from the impact, the colt shook his head, trying to stay sane after the changes of yesterday. He called to the second voice, “I don’t know . . . everything’s . . . different .”
The colt, unknowing of his nature, pressed his head against a large, coffin-like rock, rubbing it gently as a gust of sand dug deep into his frail skin.
“W-Where’s Twilight?” The young, reptilic voice called, pushing another mound of rocks, “She said we had to do something . . . important.”
“Important ?” The colt rubbed his chin for the moment; he did remember something requested of the princess, the princess whom he swore to protect. The colt scratched his head, but peered over at his friend. He didn’t know him forever, that was for certain, but he could tell he’d been with him for a while. The small dragon’s distinctive color pattern imprinted upon his mind like no other; he was one of a kind. The colt leaned back, closing his eyes as he resentfully accepted his new environment.
From what little the colt could remember, only his duties remained clear. His memories, for they were, remained mere blurs of past events. Simple shadows in front of a hazy backdrop. He took a deep breath, resting his eyes from the strains of snapping back and forth. He remembered traveling with two: the princess and his friend, the dragon who lay beside him now, Spike. They were all fleeing from something: a wave of light that consumed the land for those foolish to find themselves caught in it. Together, he and the other two ran from the light; his eyes scarred from leaving the destination’s safe-haven presence, but he couldn’t resist staring into the eyes of those frozen in fear. How their bodies burned bright like coals and melted to the mercy of no one; their eyes illuminated with the heat of magma; the last moments were always the worst. He remembered galloping relentlessly through a town, not far from where he lay now. The town was small and shady; a good place for refuge; but it wasn’t without its flaws. The flash of light readied close on their tails; Twilight was ahead, pushing her citizens aside as a wave of death overcame the masses, scorching their lives upon the pavement like an undying wildfire. With only seconds to spare, the unicorn tucked her two friends deep behind the rocks of a long-forgotten crevasse lining the borders of the Badlands. She took a step back; and with her eyes caught in the wave of chalky-white heat, she used her most powerful magic spell on herself, leaving her no choice but to be consumed by what she described to be, the “Destruction”.
The colt observed his surroundings, finding himself buried in the rubble of a fallen desert cliff. The wind that howled in his ears seemed almost imaginary. The ghosts of the past that haunted each galloping breeze, the steamy burn that stung the side of his cheek as his eyes rested upon that hollow horizon; where was he? Even the sun seemed to have given up on life. From its position far in the sky, a sense of sorrow overcame its hung body, limp and stagnant upon the tree that was the sky. Each deafening detail scared him, though he refused to admit it. He was too brave to admit fear.
Silhouettes danced upon the plain desert beach, bordering the sea of wails afar. The colt pulled himself together, having lost himself in the emptiness of the world around him. The vacancy was almost daunting. Everything happened so fast, nopony would’ve expected it; it was like the purity of an exposed child, gone in a blink and left without a trace. The colt glanced at his friend beside him.
“Are we the last ones left?” His voice trailed off in the end; he eyed the scaly companion.
“It . . . looks like it. . .” He scratched, sitting up from his bed of rocks. His green eyes scaled the massive mountains to the north and the horizons to the west; both friends searched for signs of life. Together, the two companions sat unwelcome by the shallow wasteland’s cold greetings of solitude. A cool breeze blew from the north, sending a chill down their spines. The colt brushed his hoof against a large stone resting upon his lap; it was a sculpture, cracked, but still durable despite all that’s happened. At first glance, there was nothing spectacular about nature’s paperweight; but with a spectacle, those small details grew larger and larger in comparison. The figure resembled what appeared to be the common form, a pony, but with battle-scarred features familiar only to those closest to the chosen. From every strand of hair to the number of gashes, they were all there; the colt whispered in the wind, spitting mumbles of astonishment that even he couldn’t make out. The stallion breathed heavily, startling the dragon.
“What? What is it?”
The stallion laughed with a vat of tears in his eyes; he cradled the statue like a newborn filly, “Thank goodness you’re okay.”
Rubbing a thick layer of moist dust from the surface of the statue’s face, the stallion peered deep into the eyes of his duty. The sculpture’s form could be matched by none, the lining on the hair was superb; there was none other who could match the work of Life herself. The details on the eyes expressed more power than ever before. Sculptors would die to capture such a face of terror as this piece had. The one eye, lined with a darkening shadow of blind fate; the wings, stripped like the rank of a dishonored officer; it was all too tremendous to me hoof-crafted. He wailed with joy,
“It’s Twilight! We’ve found her.”
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.
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.
My Little Pony: Equestrian Redemption
4. – 767 A.E.D.
“Everything is my fault. . . How could I have let this happen? ”
The representation of Death in Equestria: A predator known to many as a “stagnant walker”; a gloomy fate given to the clumsy or simply unfortunate. Ponies often laughed at the thought of “death” or “decease”; it was something unreal to them, something that was unexpected or frowned upon. There was never a warning for it, nor was there a “time limit” to its nature. As it was understood, the older a pony was, the more likely they were to slip over, breaking their vital composure and terminating their life in seconds. Of course, this was hardly a concern, for how often are mares in danger? It’s not a concern of the populous; at least, * wasn’t** a concern of the populous. One slip was all they needed; all they needed to end the course of a long-running legend. A mare-made destruction; a system failure with no restore; the burning of a village with no survivors. Death had a new face and he was more than eager to please those who gave it.*”
My Little Pony
Equestrian: Uprising
My Little Pony: Equestrian Redemption
Twilight Sparkle could see her thoughts fall into the void below her. All around her, she could see the mind space of a newborn: frail, vacant, and accepting to new idea.
“It was a last resort, perfectly justified,” She echoed, reaching out toward the darkness before her, “I had to do it; it was the only way to save my friends. Whatever left I have . . .”
From her point of view, the end of the world had come as quickly as the life had before it. One second, everypony is looking toward the sky in awe; the next, everypony is consumed by the wonders they observed before.
“Why would somepony do such a thing?” She shouted aloud, knowing none would hear her plea, “What were they thinking?”
To those seeking revenge, the mention of “they” was answer enough. Ponies had devolved from the state they knew before. They’ve become domesticated to the idea of violence and hatred; the peace they once knew had become more and more unapparent as each life-sucking day went by.
Twilight shuffled in the darkness, her memory shot from the spell; she checked each and every syllable consistently, making sure she hadn’t messed up from her quick withdraw. It was all very much possible for an advanced student of magic to fail the simplest of spells. Though she’d hate to admit it, Twilight wasn’t the perfect student many made her out to be. She remembered a time where her telepathy grip failed, dropping a heavy book atop the heads of one of her friends. This wasn't an ordinary spell, however. This was a spell that could only be performed with magic equal to that of the Elements of Harmony, a magical composure that once protected the beautiful land of Equestria. She was confident in her abilities, but an ever-growing doubt continued to haunt her waking moment.
“Still ,” She thought, holding on to her conscience as long as possible, “With what happened . . . there wasn’t a margin for error. Maybe I did do the spell right . . . maybe I will wake up . . . maybe they will find me. ”
