Author's Note

Props to Hailspider for pre-reading. Yes, I am doing a Fall of Equestria story, with a twist, of course. :P This chapter is intentionally short, just to set the stage for what lies ahead.

Prologue—Stampede And Reawakening

A swath of caribou bulls ran through snow-laden trenches, most of them heavily wounded and with their antlers nothing more than broken stumps that sat atop their heads. They staggered upright constantly, but some tripped and fell only to turn around with screams leaving their throats. Behind this stampede came another, one consisting of enraged and heavily-armed ponies that were lead by a quartet of alicorns, each one firing blasts of raw power from their horns that sent the bulls in the trenches flying up into the air like tossed flapjacks.

The ponies behind them mopped up any bull that managed to avoid the blasts of power, decapitating them one by one with sharpened blades wielded by skilled hands before swiftly moving on to the next closest caribou that they could manage to grab. Blood stained the snow in droves of puddles, none of which belonged to an equine. Weapons gleamed in crimson, armor glistened with reflected paling, terrified faces that formed on the caribou they pursued, wings whipped up small flurries of white dust as pegasi swooped low to strike another bull from above.

Each and every single face that belonged to a pony was morphed into an angry scowl, almost as though they were demon-possessed. Their eyes glinted with dancing sparks of anger, ones that died briefly when another bull fell down dead, only to renew when the piercing array of gazes shifted to the still-fleeing caribou up ahead.

"Equestria will not fall to evil! Equestria will not fall to cruelty! Equestria will not fall to deceit and trickery!" the ponies chanted in unison as they kept up with their caribou adversaries that were retreating. "Equestria will not be chained! Equestria will remain in Harmony!" they shouted as still more bulls fell to the monsoon of equines and to the raw magic they brought with them.

Ahead of the stampede, trying his best to outrun the impending doom that came ever-closer with each step he took, a single armored bull with grand antlers and black hair settled between them pushed on in spite of the cold. The air nipped at him persistently, his hooves became number and number with each crunch of snow, and his heart pounded with each movement as if it were going to burst from his ribcage at any second. His eyes were wide, and his ears were pinned back against his head, constantly ringing painfully as he heard another dozen or so bulls fall behind him with anguished cries cut short.

Yet as he pushed onward to escape one death, he met with another; the cold managed to bypass his armor and his fur, slowing his movements even more, though not by much. His legs shook constantly, always threatening to buckle, and with each minute and each cry of another slaughtered bull he struggled just to stay upright. He tripped over an errant rock that was barely concealed by snow and landed face-first in cold monochrome, and threw his hands into the chilled white to haul himself up to try running again.

He never got the chance to move so much as one centimeter as the hooves of the living bulls behind him repeatedly stomped into his backside while their owners rushed on, unaware that they'd just ran over one of their own in their panicked frenzy. His armor bent and dented with each step, his face buried deeper and deeper into blinding snow, and he heard ribs cracking and flesh squelching before pain flared throughout his body like white flames.

Then, as the last cloven hoof stomped upon his spine with enough force to break it before its owner left, silence fell. The sole armored caribou lay there in the snow, alive but helpless. His world went black as he heard snow crunching nearby, before he felt a single hand rest on the back of his neck, likely checking for a pulse. The last thing he heard was simple, but it burned itself into his thoughts like a branding iron to the thigh: "King Dainn has passed. His madness ends here."

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

Darkness encompassed him from all sides, gripping him like a vice, yet giving him ample space to move about as he wished. However, the armored caribou dared not move, remaining frozen as if afraid to shatter a delicate illusion of some sort. Voices echoed ceaselessly around him, coming and going so fast he was left unable to discern if they were male or female, let alone what they were saying.

A small part of him wanted to listen to the ever-present murmurings, but as soon as he strained his ears and tried tuning out most of the hubbub, the area around him instantly fell into silence. Then, from the blackness, a distorted voice echoed. "King Dainn has passed," it hissed. The remark caused the bull's eyes to narrow coldly.

"I did no such thing!" the lone caribou snapped, his voice more or less a sharp yell that made his ears start ringing all over again. He recoiled in response to the sudden pain, but did not lift his hands to cover his ears. "I have done noble deeds—I died honorably! I should be in Valhalla at this moment, fucking useless whores and dining with the First of the mighty Caribou Kings!"

"Hmph. I'd expected no less from a king who wished to immortalize himself through less than legitimate means," the echoing voice snapped back, before its unseen owner started to chuckle. "Perhaps… it is time to wake up, Your Majesty," it added in a mocking, though oddly soothing, tone of voice. Dainn stood stiff as a statue, the only thing moving being his lips as they pulled back into a small, firm frown.

Dainn opened his mouth to speak when a ghastly roar echoed in place of the voice, and for the first time he moved, his head darting this way and that in an attempt to pinpoint the source of the noise. Then he heard metal scraping shrilly against something, before he saw sparks flying from the corner of his eye.

A blade as long as he was tall rose up and came down onto him, but he backed off with a nimble hop. The accursed weapon floated in the air, not wielded by anything yet seemingly attacking out of some sort of will. Dainn smirked. His antlers started glowing in soft blue, and the aura grabbed the blade by the hilt, yet it wriggled free and tried slicing him again. He jumped away, the aura around his antlers intensifying into wisps of what looked like blue flames.

The caribou sent a blast of fire at the weapon, only for his eyes to widen as the blade slashed haphazardly, cleaving straight through the fires and dispelling them as though it were nothing. "Wh… a-a sword… that can…" he trailed off, pupils shrinking as the sword floated closer to him and rose up once again, this time well before he could react. As soon as it sliced into his head, he jumped with a scream as he felt his eyes snap open of their own accord.

He drew wheezing breaths in an attempt to gather his bearings before he managed to take in his rather ill-lit surroundings. He stood on a floor of hardwood, with a closed oaken door standing a few paces away. To one side, a rotting wooden desk stood, splintering away with age. To the other side, dilapidated bookshelves long since emptied were erected, the shelves themselves warping as if something constantly beared down onto them.

A soft pitter-patter of liquid reached his ears, dripping against something within this place like clockwork. Dainn turned around to find that there was a single window present, though his brow rose when he realized it was boarded off from the outside, and what little he could see of said outside was grey as slate. Then he turned to the floor to find nothing more than a single shredded cloth laid out, and stomped a hoof when doing that also gave him a view of his own goods. He realized he was naked, but pushed the thought aside when he turned to the window again.

"What manner of shoddy construction-ship is this?" Dainn scowled, eyes narrowing as if the window offended him in some way. "It's almost as if a lowly cow built this place with flaking, sub-par clay…" His ears twitched when he heard something like a low humming, and he whirled around again in an attempt to find the source of the sound in the dismal space. His antlers sparked to life with a field of blue, only to dissipate in seconds as the beginnings of another headache settled in immediately after.

His hand rose to rub his temples in an attempt to soothe the headache. "Well, isn't this wonderful?" he cursed under his breath. "Just delightful." He marched to the bookshelves, still grumbling about the situation he was in as he noticed that, between the shelves, rested a small hole as black as the abyss. The rim of this hole caved inward, indicating that something punched through it at some point. He stopped his rambling, straining his ears once more.

Only the soft pitter-patter answered him, though now it was more faint. Dainn's eyes moved up and down the shelves, and he sighed when nothing else turned up. He turned to the desk and stormed over to it, and scowled when an examination of the splintering surface came up empty. He noted it didn't have any drawers or doors or latches; it was just a singular hunk of rotting wood that was warped by years of neglect.

His eyes narrowed and his hand balled into a fist. He pulled his arm back before punching the piece of furniture several times, cracking it repeatedly and wincing as splinters stabbed into his fingers and knuckles, only stopping when one blow caused it to snap in two and the halves to topple onto themselves. The caribou breathed heavily, his fist flaring with pricks of pain. "I swear to the First Caribou King, I'll punch a hole—" he stopped when a shriek echoed from outside and instantly turned to the door.

Silence fell once more. Dainn scowled before he turned back to the now-permanently-ruined desk at his hooves. The scowl faded and he blinked when he saw a scrawling on the wall that was obscured by the desk.

"To achieve enlightenment and Valhalla's blessings,
one first has to admit to their sins."

"I should be in Valhalla by now…" Dainn grumbled, crossing his arms and ignoring the splinters in his hand. He turned away from the desk when something clattered behind him. Nothing caught his eye, except for the door which he then strode towards at a brisk pace. "No sense keeping myself in here any longer. This room is hardly worthy of my majestic presence." He reached out with his not-splintered hand and tried for the doorknob, which turned with a noisy creak. Dainn grinned and flung the door open, revealing a set of stairs going down that was blanketed in must and shadows.

He strode down with careful steps, his ears folding back as each step groaned under his weight. Whether they squeaked from age or disuse, he wasn't certain of, though it mattered not as they did their job in supporting him fairly well. In a minute or so, he found himself surrounded by worn bookshelves that were emptied, accompanied by peeling wallpaper, a table with a cracked horse head bust, and windows boarded off from the outside. There was a door between the windows, which he immediately rushed to before fumbling with a knob that didn't turn fully.

"I find a potential way out, and it's locked," Dainn seethed, his brow furrowing. "Can't my day get any worse?" He let go of the knob and turned his attention to the various shelves that spanned the entire room, before his gaze fell onto the table with the bust. He noticed something dangling from the muzzle of the wooden beast, and walked to it to further inspect the anomaly. His hand felt the object up and down, his eyes widening when he realized he felt a rather bulky satchel and a thin leather strap.

He immediately took it off of the bust and flung it around for a few seconds, hearing something jingling and crinkling within the bag. Dainn took the object and held it by the strap, his other hand reaching up to the satchel when it stung from the movement, reminding him that he still had yet to address the splinters perforating it. He mentally slapped himself for forgetting, and lifted his hand with teeth bared.

Painstakingly, and one by one, he carefully pulled the splinters out with his molars, using his lips to feel for more of the wooden bastards without further stabbing himself. There were many, some small and some large, but thankfully none big enough to leave permanent marks. With that done, and some blood flowing freely, he reached for the satchel again. He winced as his fingers connected with what felt like a flap, but he steeled himself with a firm reminder of, "It could be worse, Dainn. Suck it up."

He flipped it open and dug in with earnest, before pulling two objects out. One was small and crafted of metal, no larger than his middle finger, which he promptly returned to the bag. The other was balled up into a wad, which he then had to unravel like candy to see whether or not it was of value. In the darkness, he had to strain his eyes just to see various shapes and words marking places and such as soon as the damned thing was unrolled and flattened.

In the top left corner, three words stood out—words written in what looked to be runes. Dainn's pupils shrank as he studied them closely. "Ponyville tour map?" he asked, a brow raising up as the words left his mouth. His tone took on an increasing disbelieving note as he added, "I somehow landed in Equestrian territory? And it's written in… in caribou?"